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Abstract The cognitive-motivational concepts of curiosity and creativity are often viewed as intertwined. Yet, despite the intuitively strong linkage between these two concepts, the existing cognitive-behavioral evidence for a curiosity-creativity connection is not strong, and is nearly entirely based on self-report measures. Using a new lab-based Curiosity Q&A task we evaluate to what extent behaviorally manifested curiosity—as revealed in autonomous inquiry and exploration—is associated with creative performance. In a preregistered study (N = 179) we show that, as hypothesized, the novelty of the questions that participants generated during the Curiosity Q&A Task significantly positively correlated with the originality of their responses on a divergent-thinking task (the conceptually-based Alternative Uses Task). Additionally, the extent to which participants sought out information that was implicitly missing in the presented factual stimuli ("gap-related information foraging") positively correlated with performance on two predominantly convergent-thinking tasks (the Remote Associates Task and Analogy Completion). Question asking, topic-related information foraging, and creative performance correlated with trait-based "interest-type" curiosity oriented toward exploration and novelty, but not with "deprivation-type" curiosity focused on dispelling uncertainty or ignorance. Theoretically and practically, these results underscore the importance of continuing to develop interventions that foster both creative thinking and active autonomous inquiry.

La propia evolución de las tecnologías, en su desarrollo acelerado, ha propiciado el surgimiento de ataques cada vez más complejos a los sistemas de informacion. Los servidores web son la base sobre la que se sustentan diferentes procesos, además de interactuar directamente con el sistema operativo, razon por la cual se convierten en un objetivo atractivo para los ciberatacantes. El denominado servidor Nginx, de aplicación en la web, ha alcanzado una gran popularidad en los últimos años , lo que a su vez, lo ha convertido en un objetivo constante para la búsqueda de vulnerabilidades. Un análisis de servidores web populares de código abierto reveló importantes agujeros de seguridad, a pesar de los esfuerzos obvios de las comunidades de desarrolladores, generandose vulnerabilidades, no previstas, que impactan sobre sus usuarios cuando los mismos no son expertos en temas de seguridad. Para lograr una garantia adecuada en este campo es necesario aplicar medidas y configuraciones adicionales a las establecidas por defecto durante un despliegue inicial. Por ello el objetivo de esta investigación fue organizar y aplicar medidas para el fortalecimiento de la seguridad a través de los diferentes mecanismos de configuración para el servidor web Nginx. Estas medidas fueron introducidas en aplicaciones disponibles en Internet en el año 2018, siendo efectivas para garantizar la confidencialidad, integridad y disponibilidad de la información ante ataques, riesgos y amenazas de todo tipo, contribuyendo de este modo al proceso de informatización segura que se lleva a cabo en el país.

The cognitive-motivational concepts of curiosity and creativity are often viewed as intertwined. Yet, despite the intuitively strong linkage between these two concepts, the existing cognitive-behavioral evidence for a curiosity-creativity connection is not strong, and is nearly entirely based on self-report measures. Using a new lab-based Curiosity Q&A task we evaluate to what extent behaviorally manifested curiosity—as revealed in autonomous inquiry and exploration—is associated with creative performance. In a preregistered study (N = 179) we show that, as hypothesized, the novelty of the questions that participants generated during the Curiosity Q&A Task significantly positively correlated with the originality of their responses on a divergent-thinking task (the conceptually-based Alternative Uses Task). Additionally, the extent to which participants sought out information that was implicitly missing in the presented factual stimuli ("gap-related information foraging") positively correlated with performance on two predominantly convergent-thinking tasks (the Remote Associates Task and Analogy Completion). Question asking, topic-related information foraging, and creative performance correlated with trait-based "interest-type" curiosity oriented toward exploration and novelty, but not with "deprivation-type" curiosity focused on dispelling uncertainty or ignorance. Theoretically and practically, these results underscore the importance of continuing to develop interventions that foster both creative thinking and active autonomous inquiry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Assessment of cerebral blood flow (CBF) by SPECT could be important in the management of patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI) because changes in regional CBF can affect outcome by promoting edema formation and intracranial pressure elevation (with cerebral hyperemia), or by causing secondary ischemic injury including post-traumatic stroke. The purpose of this study was to establish an improved method for evaluating regional CBF changes after TBI in piglets. Methods: The focal effects of moderate traumatic brain injury (TBI) on cerebral blood flow (CBF) by SPECT cerebral blood perfusion (CBP) imaging in an animal model were investigated by parallelized statistical techniques. Regional CBF was measured by radioactive microspheres and by SPECT 2 hours after injury in sham-operated piglets versus those receiving severe TBI by fluidpercussion injury to the left parietal lobe. Qualitative SPECT CBP accuracy was assessed against reference radioactive microsphere regional CBF measurements by map reconstruction, registration and smoothing. Cerebral hypoperfusion in the test group was identified at the voxel level using statistical parametric mapping (SPM). Results: A significant area of hypoperfusion (P < 0.01) was found as a response to the TBI. Statistical mapping of the reference microsphere CBF data confirms a focal decrease found with SPECT and SPM. Conclusion: The suitability of SPM for application to the experimental model and ability to provide insight into CBF changes in response to traumatic injury was validated by the SPECT SPM result of a decrease in CBP at the left parietal region injury area of the test group. Further study and correlation of this characteristic lesion with long-term outcomes and auxiliary diagnostic modalities is critical to developing more effective critical care treatment guidelines and automated medical imaging processing techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The full-length extracellular domain (ECD) of protein tyrosine phosphatase δ (PTP-δ) functions as a ligand to promote cell adhesion and neurite outgrowth; this ECD contains three immunoglobulin (Ig) repeats and eight fibronectin type III (FN III) repeats. However, it is not known which regions of the ECD regulate its ligand functions. Therefore, we constructed and expressed a fusion protein of the PTP-δ ECD lacking FN III repeats 4–8, and tested this protein for neuronal adhesion and neurite-promoting ability. Compared to the full-length isoform, the truncated ECD was poorer at promoting adhesion, but a more potent promoter of neurite growth. The results suggest that distal FN III repeats of PTP-δ are important in adhesive functions, but dispensable for neurite outgrowth promotion. As the predominant isoform of PTP-δ during neural development (type D) also lacks distal FN III repeats, the functional properties we observe may be relevant to periods of axon extension, suggesting that splice variants of receptor PTPs play distinct roles in neural development. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]