In this work, we examined the executive functions of the hippocampus at the behavioral level as a so-called behavioral separation in adult rats. We studied an impact of day-to-day alternation versus sequential learning (and the order of learning) of two spatial tasks (Morris Water Maze and Active Allothetic Place Avoidance) testing different hippocampal functions (experiment 1), or an impact of sequential versus alternating learning of one task (Active Allothetic Place Avoidance) in two different rooms (experiment 2), on performance. We found out that rats are able to learn both tasks as well as to discriminate between the two contexts regardless of the order or alternating of learning. Because such executive functions are impaired in human patients suffering from schizophrenia, we used this procedure also in the rat model of schizophrenia induced by acute intraperitoneal application of dizocilpine (MK-801), glutamate NMDA receptors antagonist, in the dose of 0.08 mg/kg. We failed to selectively disrupt the behavioral separation, however, we observed general learning deficit and hyperlocomotion regardless of the alternation in the Active Allothetic Place Avoidance task in these rats. The cognitive impairments in connection with learning after such low dose of MK-801 in this task have not yet been...

Due to the persisting lack of reliable animal models of cognitive impairment with good translational validity, researches strive to discover new ways and tools to replicate symptoms of human neurodegenerative diseases in rodents. Recently, biperiden, an M1- selective muscarinic antagonist, has been proposed as a potential tool for generating fast screening models of mnemonic deficits such as seen in patients with Alzheimer's disease. Being highly selective for the M1 receptor, a predominant type of muscarinic acetylcholine receptors in the brain involved in cognitive processes, it has been speculated to possibly only influence cognition without causing sensorimotor side effects. Studies assessing the usability of this drug reported conflicting results. We have decided to expand the experimental data and evaluate biperiden's validity in several variants of the Morris water maze. The results of this study showed no significant effect of biperiden on cognitive flexibility, tested by reversal learning. In delayed-matching-to-position paradigm, which tests assesses working memory, we found a difference in performance between the two experimental groups; however, it cannot be unequivocally attributed to a memory impairment. No effects were observed in visible platform task, confirming a lack of...

The Semantic web was created for the conceptualization of data available on the Internet. Through formalized representations that are determined for data sharing and reusing, its vision should be achieved. One of the main aims of the Semantic web is to achieve answers to a searched question which demonstrates high exactness and relevance. The controversy and polysemy of the term "Semantic web" lets us consider the question: "What is the limit of involving semantic aspects provided on Semantic web?" Is it not only the amount of determinations of specific standards that are connected with data itself? The main aim of this thesis is to compare the use of the terminology appearing on the Semantic web in semantic metadiscourse with traditional academic semiotic approaches appearing from pragmatism of Ch. S. Peirce, Ch. W. Morris, and H. P. Grice. The main thesis aim is to clarify the function of semantic web, basically its function and its conception, by comparation academic's semiotics' approaches of pragmaticism Ch. S. Peirce and pragmatism H.P. Grice to help with mapping the problematic area which is connected with using terms such as "meaning," and "understanding," and to explore and make less confused the possibilities of the function of the Semantic web.

Idén till mitt examensarbete började växa fram förra året när jag studerade ett utbytesår i den amerikanska västkuststaden Seattle. Staden växer och förtätas just nu i en rask takt och de flesta nya byggnader uppförs i en komplex kontext av befintliga byggnader och relationer. De flesta tilläggen skapar idag stora kontraster i stadsbilden. Syftet med mitt examensarbete har varit att utforska hur man för en befintlig byggnad från dåtid till nutid och att skapa en meningsfull dialog mellan gammalt och nytt. Jag har sett det befintliga som en källa till inspiration och kunskap och mitt förslag består av tillägg som både förstärker de rumsliga kvalitéerna i det befintliga och förlänga atmosfären in i det nya. / The idea for my thesis began to emerge last year when I was studying as an exchange student in the US, in west coast city Seattle. The city is currently growing and densifying in a rapid pace and most of the new buildings are being built in existing environments. The vast majority is creating big contrasts in the city environment. The aim of my thesis project has been to carry an existing building from the past into the present and to create a meaningful dialogue between old and new. I have seen the existing as a source of inspiration and knowledge, and my proposal consists of interventions that aim to both strengthen the spatial qualities of the existing, and to extend the atmosphere into my proposed extension. My work also aims to add new ways of experiencing the existing building, to create a new, stronger ensemble of spaces.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

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Animal models of Alzheimer's disease display cognitive insufficiencies which mimic human symptoms and occur at a given age or post-treatment time. Animals are typically tested using canonical behavioral tests, lasting minutes and taking place mostly in the non-active period of the daily cycle. Animals are exposed to certain amounts of manipulation-induced stress. Our work represents a validation study for the rat behavioral system IntelliCage. The tested individuals live freely in a group and their behavior is monitored continuously. It is however possible to set up individual tests for each animal or a group of animals. The rats are not subject to human manipulation and hence the results are not affected by manipulation-induced stress. We tested early cognitive impairment in the transgenic rat model TgF344-AD at 6 - 8 months of age. Further, we tested two most common protocols of the streptozotocin model, i.e. single dose of intracerebroventricular 3 mg/kg streptozotocin and double dose 48 hrs apart. Results were compared with the canonical Morris Water Maze (MWM) test. In the MWM test, transgenic animals did not differ from controls in any of the studied parameters. The streptozotocin model displayed a deficit only in the double dose group. However in the IntelliCage, transgenic animals displayed...

Rats were administered nicotine (0.3 mg/kg) for 11 consecutive days before and after an electrolytic medial frontal cortex lesion. Behavioral testing was arranged so that the rats were tested on the RAM 1 day after drug administration followed by behavioral testing on the MWT 19 days after drug treatment, or tested on the MWT 1 day after drug administration followed by testing on the RAM4 days after drug treatment. Results of MWT testing showed that regardless of the drug/behavioral testing interval, lesioned rats given nicotine demonstrated enhancement relative to saline-treated animals. Results of RAM testing showed that nicotine improved performance in non-lesioned rats compared to non-lesioned rats given saline. Four days after drug administration, nicotine improved performance in lesioned rats to levels of non-lesioned rats regardless of drug treatment. A second experiment was implemented to determine if the previous training on the MWT affected performance on the RAM.

This thesis examines the persuasiveness of anti-smoking television advertisements aimed at teens and produced by Philip Morris's Youth Smoking Prevention Program and the American Legacy Foundation's truth campaign. The advertisements are analyzed rhetorically using Kenneth Burke's dramatistic approach, supplemented by theory related to persuasive advertising, characteristics of at-risk adolescents, persuasive attack, and persuasive defense (apologia). The analysis indicates that strong central themes present in both the Philip Morris and truth campaigns act as a means of rhetorical persuasion, but are not necessarily rhetoric designed to persuade adolescents not to smoke cigarettes. The truth campaign advertisements contain both strengths and weaknesses. The weakness of the truth ads is related to an over-reliance on allegory-type scenarios meant to communicate anti-smoking sentiments and the theme of manipulation. Truth ads that contain clearer messages conveyed by appealing central characters are a more effective means of communicating not only an anti-smoking ideology, but also the theme of adolescent empowerment. This thesis's analysis more alarmingly indicates that the Philip Morris ads are in no way an effective means of smoking prevention. The Philip Morris campaign acts as a persuasive defense with the intended purpose of image repair and may encourage adolescents to think of Philip Morris and their tobacco products in a positive light. Conclusions suggest that due to the vast impact of media the glorifies smoking and other self-injurious behaviors; infrequent appearance of pro-social media appeals; insidious coercive tactics of the tobacco industry; possible limitations in determining the effectiveness of pro-social media appeals due to adolescent self-perception (or third person effect variables); and lack of attention paid to more vulnerable or at-risk youth, the real need may not be better pro-social media campaigns, but rather media literacy campaigns. In doing so, youth may become empowered, critical thinkers able to make life choices based on personal preference and the desire for self-fulfillment, instead of being coerced into a belief system induced by the bombardment of media.

The nineteenth-century American building world assembled an unprecedented armature of professional knowledge. This dissertation reconstructs that armature by sampling from the profusion of technical and institutional documents that helped architects, engineers, and builders reckon with the enigmatic abstractions of liberal and industrial capitalism— along with the regimes of labor, infrastructure, and resource management they introduced. Typically ignored by architectural historians, these documents form a valuable archive of cultural texts and evidential indices. As a system of knowledge, they tether design to a series of political-economic conflicts. Revolutionary Philadelphia carpenters and reactionary Anglican specifiers alike found in printed numbers sources of authority and claims on temporal power. Postbellum architect-engineers like John C. Trautwine and Frank Kidder used pocketbooks to transfuse the logics of locomotives and lumber mills into the core of architectural practice. Through a professional sleight of hand, institution-builders like Richard Upjohn and Richard Morris Hunt distanced themselves from the appearance of calculation while depending upon it ever more, encrypting it in drawings, institutional scripts, and legal precedent. In their work with architect H.H. Richardson, general contractors James and Orlando W. Norcross most fully realized the potentials of this system, synthesizing technical literature, industrial capital, and a proprietary mythos of materials to achieve the apotheosis of American architecture. I plumb this obscure world of literate builders and architect-engineers to map such architecture as an expanded field of infrastructural practice, arguing that industrial modernity was perhaps best glimpsed not in an iron frame but in a carefully-sourced palette of quarry-faced sandstone.