The development of large-scale livestock facilities has become a controversial issue in many regions of the U.S. in recent years. In this research, rural-urban differences in familiarity and concern about large-scale livestock facilities among Ohioans is examined as well as the relationship of social distance from agriculture and trust in risk…

This paper develops a mathematical model for the nonselective harvesting of a prey-predator system in which both the prey and the predator obey the Gompertz law of growth and some prey avoid predation by hiding. The steady states of the system are determined, and the dynamical behaviour of both species is examined. The possibility of existence of…

Three pigeons were trained to discriminate among 5 mg/kg pentobarbital, 2 mg/kg amphetamine, a combination of these two drugs at these doses, and saline using a four-choice procedure (amphetamine--pentobarbital group). Three other pigeons were trained to discriminate among 5 mg/kg morphine, 2 mg/kg methamphetamine, a combination of these two drugs…

Pigeons' choosing between fixed-interval and random-interval schedules of reinforcement was investigated in three experiments using a discrete-trial procedure. In all three experiments, the random-interval schedule was generated by sampling a probability distribution at an interval (and in multiples of the interval) equal to that of the…

Our research addressed the question of whether sensitivity to relative reinforcer magnitude in concurrent chains depends on the distribution of reinforcer delays when the terminal-link schedules are equal. In Experiment 1, 12 pigeons responded in a two-component procedure. In both components, the initial links were concurrent variable-interval 40…

The present experiment investigated whether rats formed emergent, untrained stimulus relations in many-to-one matching-to-sample discriminations. In Phase 1, rats were trained to match two samples (triangle and horizontal stripes) to a common comparison (horizontal stripes) and two additional samples (circle or vertical stripes) to another…

Birds have an appealing beauty and a wonderful sense of adaptation to environment. A study was conducted to examine the adaptation patterns of birds in regard to the surroundings.

The effect of a visual warning signal (1.0-6.5s random foreperiod, FP) on the latency of voluntary (hand-grip) and reflexive (startle-eyeblink) reactions was investigated in Parkinson's disease (PD) patients and in young and aged control subjects. Equivalent FP effects on blink were observed across groups. By contrast, FP effects diverged for…

After rats were conditioned to prefer a flavor (CS+) paired with sucrose over another flavor (CS-) paired with saccharin, this conditioned flavor preference was extinguished by presenting the CS+ flavor without sucrose. These results were replicated in a second experiment in which spontaneous recovery of the extinguished flavor preference was…

Short term synaptic plasticity is a phenomenon which is commonly found in the central nervous system. It could contribute to functions of signal processing namely, temporal integration and coincidence detection by modulating the input synaptic strength. This dissertation has two parts. First, we study the effects of short term synaptic plasticity…

Radical behaviorism considers private events to be a part of ongoing observable behavior and to share the properties of public events. Although private events cannot be measured directly, their roles in overt action can be inferred from mathematical models that relate private responses to external stimuli and reinforcers according to the same…

More than 400 children with a physical and/or mental challenge visit the Curacao Dolphin Therapy and Research Center (CDTC) for dolphin-assisted therapy every year. Dolphin therapy appears to be the right approach for many children. With the help of these special and very social animals, it is easier to make contact with the children. It motivates…

How do capuchin monkeys learn to use stones to crack open nuts? Perception-action theory posits that individuals explore producing varying spatial and force relations among objects and surfaces, thereby learning about affordances of such relations and how to produce them. Such learning supports the discovery of tool use. We present longitudinal…

Analogies are an integral feature of scientific theories, like evolution. They are developed to support explanations, proposed on the basis of evidence collected from experimental studies, field studies, and other observational studies. They map a known source or process to an unknown or target with the goal of helping educators understand the…

A simple multiday laboratory exercise suitable for use in a high school or community college chemistry course or a biotechnology advanced placement biology course is described. In this experiment students gain experience in the use of column chromatography as a tool for the separation and characterization of biomolecules, thus expanding their…