Bacterial existence is fraught with stresses, which bacteria counter at two levels, the specific and general stress responses (GSRs). The former is aimed at escaping the specific stress being experienced by the synthesis, for example, under starvation, of enzymes to better capture a scarce nutrient, and tends to be specific to a given stress. But in GSR, a common set of proteins is induced in o...

The key point of a paradigm initially proposed by Perruchet (Pavlov J Biol Sci 20:163-170, 1985) to dissociate conscious expectancies from automatic-link formation in classical conditioning settings is the use of a partial reinforcement schedule, in which the unconditioned stimulus (US) follows the conditioned stimulus (CS) only half of the time on average. Given (pseudo) randomization, the who...

Physiological measures were recorded during repeated psychophysiological detection of deception (PDD) tests to determine if reaction levels change with test repetition. Two groups of 22 healthy male subjects completed six peak of tension PDD tests on each of two test days. A minimum between test day interval of six days was maintained. The treatment group was programmed to respond deceptively t...

A famous result of Bayer and Diaconis [2] is that the Gilbert-Shannon-Reeds (GSR) model for the riffle shuffle of n cards mixes in 3 2 log2 n steps and that for 52 cards about 7 shuffles suffices to mix the deck. In this paper, we study variants of the GSR shuffle that have been proposed to model more realistically how people actually shuffle a deck of cards. The clumpy riffle shuffle and deale...

The GSR theorem generalizes the classical Rouché theorem of complex analysis, concerning the stability of the total multiplicity of “roots minus poles” for finitely meromorphic functions taking values in the space of Fredholm operators on a Hilbert space. This theorem has been a very useful tool in the stability analysis of nonlinear waves. Proofs based on logarithmic integrals are usually cons...

Measures of skin conductance during rest and during experiments testing habituation and conditioning of the skin conductance response were obtained from 42 10-year-old male children, of whom 12 were at risk for schizophrenia and 30 constituted low risk controls. While typical habituation curves for skin conductance response were obtained from both sets of offspring, no differences were found be...

The effects of stress (threat of shock) on GSR nonspecific responses were evaluated for Ss who differed in transitory anxiety as measured by the Affect Adjective Check List (AACL). 52 Ss were equally divided among 4 groups: Hi AACL Stress, Lo AACL Stress, Hi AACL Nonstress, and Lo AACL Nonstress. First, all Ss rested; then both Stress groups were threatened with shock, while both Nonstress grou...

An effort was made to corroborate earlier reports that the central nervous system rostral to a functionally complete transection of the human spinal cord remains responsive to noxious stimulation of sites below the level of the transection. Nine patients were studied who had sustained a functionally complete transection of the thoracic spinal cord between T5 and T11 spinal segments. Noxious ele...

The hypothesis was tested that an individual's perception of a stimulus as uncomfortable or painful is partially an inference from his own observation of his response to that stimulus. Ss were required to observe themselves cither escaping or enduring a series of electric shocks, all of the same physical intensity. As predicted, Ss rated the felt discomfort produced by the shocks to be greater ...

The blue-light photoreceptor YtvA activates the general stress response (GSR) of Bacillus subtilis by activating a large protein complex (the stressosome). We have constructed a model for the YtvA's photocycle, and derived an equation for the fraction of YtvA in the light-induced signaling state at a given light intensity. The model was verified experimentally in vitro on wild type YtvA and on ...