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Visual Properties (visual + property)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Life Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Cleansing without compromise: the impact of cleansers on the skin barrier and the technology of mild cleansing

DERMATOLOGIC THERAPY, Issue 2004
K. P. Ananthapadmanabhan
ABSTRACT:, Cleanser technology has come a long way from merely cleansing to providing mildness and moisturizing benefits as well. It is known that harsh surfactants in cleansers can cause damage to skin proteins and lipids, leading to after-wash tightness, dryness, barrier damage, irritation, and even itch. In order for cleansers to provide skin-care benefits, they first must minimize surfactant damage to skin proteins and lipids. Secondly, they must deposit and deliver beneficial agents such as occlusives, skin lipids, and humectants under wash conditions to improve skin hydration, as well as mechanical and visual properties. While all surfactants tend to interact to some degree with lipids, their interaction with proteins can vary significantly, depending upon the nature of their functional head group. In vitro, ex vivo, and in vivo studies have shown that surfactants that cause significant skin irritation interact strongly with skin proteins. Based on this understanding, several surfactants and surfactant mixtures have been identified as "less irritating" mild surfactants because of their diminished interactions with skin proteins. Surfactants that interact minimally with both skin lipids and proteins are especially mild. Another factor that can aggravate surfactant-induced dryness and irritation is the pH of the cleanser. The present authors' recent studies demonstrate that high pH (pH 10) solutions, even in the absence of surfactants, can increase stratum corneum (SC) swelling and alter lipid rigidity, thereby suggesting that cleansers with neutral or acidic pH, close to SC-normal pH 5.5, may be potentially less damaging to the skin. Mildness enhancers and moisturizing agents such as lipids, occlusives, and humectants minimize damaging interactions between surfactants, and skin proteins and lipids, and thereby, reduce skin damage. In addition, these agents play an ameliorative role, replenishing the skin lipids lost during the wash period. The present review discusses the benefits of such agents and their respective roles in improving the overall health of the skin barrier. [source]

Learning large-scale spatial relationships in a maze and effects of MK-801 on retrieval in the rhesus monkey

DEVELOPMENTAL NEUROBIOLOGY, Issue 13 2007
Jian Hong Wang
Abstract Monkeys have strong abilities to remember the visual properties of potential food sources for survival in the nature. The present study demonstrated the first observations of rhesus monkeys learning to solve complex spatial mazes in which routes were guided by visual cues. Three monkeys were trained in a maze (6 m × 6 m) included of four different mazes. We recorded the cue and cup errors, latencies, and pathway for each trial. The data showed that monkeys learned the target place after three days in the first maze and spent a shorter time in learning the following mazes. The maze was an efficient method to measure the ability and proceeding of spatial memory in monkeys. Moreover, working memory can also be tested by using the maze. MK-801 at 0.02 mg/kg but not at 0.005 mg/kg impaired monkeys' retrieval of spatial memory after they learned all four mazes. The present maze may provide an efficient method to help bridging the gap in cognition between nonhuman primates and humans, and in particular to gain insight into human cognitive function and dysfunction. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Develop Neurobiol, 2007. [source]

A Defense of Puttenham's Arte of English Poesy

ENGLISH LITERARY RENAISSANCE, Issue 1 2009
Julian Lamb
Recent critical accounts of Puttenham's treatise have tended to focus on the political nature of its poetics, and have in turn read the text as an exercise in courtly dissembling, or in self-fashioning. My argument is that such readings misunderstand the pedagogical nature of Puttenham's text, which distinguishes it from Sidney's Defense of Poetry and Daniel's Defense of Rhyme (to which the Art has been compared unfavourably). In the first half of this article I provide a re-interpretation of Puttenham's conception of decorum, suggesting that it is not an inexplicable rule designed to keep poetry the property the courtly elite, but rather a appetite and an imperative motivating the writing of poetry. In the second half of the article I consider Puttenham's understanding of the nature of decorum in terms of the relationship between custom and the rule. I suggest that Puttenham conceptualises this relationship as one between the aural and visual properties of language; between the ear and the eye. [source]

Drifting grating stimulation reveals particular activation properties of visual neurons in the caudate nucleus

EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF NEUROSCIENCE, Issue 7 2008
Attila Nagy
Abstract The role of the caudate nucleus (CN) in motor control has been widely studied. Less attention has been paid to the dynamics of visual feedback in motor actions, which is a relevant function of the basal ganglia during the control of eye and body movements. We therefore set out to analyse the visual information processing of neurons in the feline CN. Extracellular single-unit recordings were performed in the CN, where the neuronal responses to drifting gratings of various spatial and temporal frequencies were recorded. The responses of the CN neurons were modulated by the temporal frequency of the grating. The CN units responded optimally to gratings of low spatial frequencies and exhibited low spatial resolution and fine spatial frequency tuning. By contrast, the CN neurons preferred high temporal frequencies, and exhibited high temporal resolution and fine temporal frequency tuning. The spatial and temporal visual properties of the CN neurons enable them to act as spatiotemporal filters. These properties are similar to those observed in certain feline extrageniculate visual structures, i.e. in the superior colliculus, the suprageniculate nucleus and the anterior ectosylvian cortex, but differ strongly from those of the primary visual cortex and the lateral geniculate nucleus. Accordingly, our results suggest a functional relationship of the CN to the extrageniculate tecto-thalamo-cortical system. This system of the mammalian brain may be involved in motion detection, especially in velocity analysis of moving objects, facilitating the detection of changes during the animal's movement. [source]