Ascribing understanding to ourselves and others.

We commonly attribute an understanding of language to others including very young infants, and, more controversially, to other animals and computers. Although we adults attribute or "ascribe" understanding to very young children, only in the late preschool years do the children themselves begin to ascribe understanding to themselves and others a competence that comes with learning the meaning of the word "understand." It is argued that ascription of understanding to others allows the creation of shared belief while self-ascription allows one to introspect on one's understanding: to know that one understands, to understand expressions that young children would simply reject as false, and to understand hypotheticals and counterfactuals.

Urolithiasis, Urinary Cancer, and Home Drinking Water Source in the United States Territory of Guam, 2006-2010.

We reviewed patient records with a first-listed diagnosis of urolithiasis-also known as urinary tract or kidney stone disease, nephrolithiasis-upon discharge from Guam's sole civilian hospital during 2006 to 2010 and urinary cancer mortality records from the Guam Cancer Registry for 1970 to 2009 to determine the source of municipal water supplied to the patients' residence. The objective was to investigate a possible relationship between the sources of municipal water supplied to Guam villages and the incidence of urolithiasis and urinary cancer. We analyzed hospital discharge diagnoses of urolithiasis or renal calculi by calculating the incidence of first-mentioned discharge for urolithiasis or renal calculi and comparing rates across demographic or geographic categories while adjusting by age, sex, and ethnicity/race.

Formaldehyde Levels in Traditional and Portable Classrooms: A Pilot Investigation.

The pilot study discussed in this article assessed formaldehyde levels in portable classrooms (PCs) and traditional classrooms the authors evaluated formaldehyde levels in day and overnight indoor air (TCs) and explored factors influencing indoor air quality (e.g., carbon dioxide, temperature, and relative humidity).

Preserved mid-fusiform activation for visual words in a patient with a visual word recognition impairment.

Previous functional imaging studies have highlighted the role of left ventral temporal cortex in processing written word forms. We explored activation and anatomical connectivity of this region in HE, a professional writer with alexia as a result of stroke affecting primarily white matter in the left inferior temporal lobe. We used a one-back visual recognition task and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging to elicit automatic activation to various orthographic and non-orthographic stimuli.

Thinking about representations: the case of opaque contexts.

To address the question of whether young children are differentially sensitive to referential opacity, an advanced Theory of Mind skill, we assessed 4-, 6-, and 8-year-olds on three types of opaque contexts: epistemic, quotational, and intentional. Children's performance improved as a function of age and varied significantly by opacity type. Performance was best for epistemic opacity (using the verb "know") and poorest for intentional opacity (using "mean to"), with quotational opacity (using "said") falling in-between.

Psychometric properties of an abbreviated instrument of the five-factor model.

Brief measures of the five-factor model (FFM) have been developed but none include an assessment of facets within each domain. The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of a simple, one-page, facet-level description of the FFM. Five data collections were completed to assess the reliability and the convergent and discriminant validity of the rating form with other measures of the FFM and to replicate correlations with measures of maladaptive personality functioning that have been obtained with more extensive measures.

Characteristics of adults dying with COPD.

Study Objective: To describe factors associated with COPD deaths in the United States.

Design: Cross-sectional survey.

Participants: A total of 12,803 decedents in the National Mortality Followback Survey, a nationally representative sample of US deaths in 1993.