Facilitatory effects of an auditory warning stimulus in a visual location identification task and a visual shape identification task

The occurrence of a weak auditory warning stimulus increases the speed of the response to a subsequent visual target stimulus that must be identified. This facilitatory effect has been attributed to the temporal expectancy automatically induced by the warning stimulus. It has not been determined whether this results from a modulation of the stimulus identification process, the response selection process or both. The present study examined these possibilities. A group of 12 young adults performed a reaction time location identification task and another group of 12 young adults performed a reaction time shape identification task. A visual target stimulus was presented 1850 to 2350 ms plus a fixed interval (50, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1600 ms, depending on the block) after the appearance of a fixation point, on its left or right side, above or below a virtual horizontal line passing through it. In half of the trials, a weak auditory warning stimulus (S1) appeared 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, or 1600 ms (according to the block) before the target stimulus (S2). Twelve trials were run for each condition. The S1 produced a facilitatory effect for the 200, 400, 800, and 1600 ms stimulus onset asynchronies (SOA) in the case of the side stimulus-response (S-R) corresponding condition, and for the 100 and 400 ms SOA in the case of the side S-R non-corresponding condition. Since these two conditions differ mainly by their response selection requirements, it is reasonable to conclude that automatic temporal expectancy influences the response selection process.

Influência da temperatura de armazenamento e do sistema de utilização do tanque de expansão sobre a qualidade microbiológica do leite cru / Influence of the temperature of storage and of the system of utilization of the tank of expansion about the microbiological quality of the raw milk

Objetivou-se com o presente estudo avaliar a influência da temperatura de armazenamento e do sistema de utilização do tanque de refrigeração sobre a qualidade microbiológica do leite cru. Foram analisadas 1.215 amostras quanto a contagem bacteriana total (CBT), através da metodologia de citometria de fluxo. Nas amostras abaixo de 4,0ºC , entre 4,1 e 7,0ºC e acima de 7,0ºC a CBT média foi 2.733.000 UFC / ml, 3.641.000 UFC / ml e 5.687.000 UFC / ml, respectivamente. A CBT média das amostras provenientes de tanques coletivos foi 5.536.000 UFC / ml e das colhidas em tanques individuais foi 2.604.000 UFC / ml, sendo significativamente diferente (p<0,05). Observou-se que 70,21 por cento das amostras analisadas apresentaram CBT abaixo de 1.000.000 de UFC / ml. A baixa qualidade microbiológica das amostras sugere predominantemente a ocorrência de falhas na higiene de ordenha.