Normative values on various word characteristics were obtained for abstract, concrete, and emotion words in order to facilitate research on concreteness effects and on the similarities and differences among the three word types. A sample of 78 participants rated abstract, concrete, and emotion words on concreteness, context availability,and imagery scales, Wordassociations were also gathered for abstract, concrete, and emotion words. The data were used to investigate similarities and differences among these three word types on word attributes, association strengths, and number of associations. These normative data can be used to further research on concreteness effects, word type effects, and word recognition for abstract, concrete, and emotion words, A robust finding in the concreteness effects literature is that concrete words (e.g., desk, computer) are understood better than abstract words (e.g., liberty,freedom) (Schwanenflugei, Harnishfeger, & Stowe, 1988). The advantages for processing concrete words over abstract words have been referred to as concreteness effects and have been found in a variety of cognitive tasks, including paired associatelearning, translation, comprehension tests, lexical decision, and free recall (e.g., Day, 1977; de Groot, Dannenburg, & van Hell, 1994; Holmes & Langford, 1976; James, 1975; Paivio, 1971 Paivio, , 1986. These concreteness effects are commonly exp1ained by either a dual coding theory (Paivio, 1971(Paivio, , 1986 or a context avai1ability theory (Schwanenflugei, Akin, & Luh, 1992). According to the dual coding theory there are two functionally independent yet interconnected representationa1 systems: (1) verbal and (2) imaginal. The verbal system processes verbal information, whereas the imaginal system processes nonverbal information. These representations are differentially avai1ablein memory contingent on the concreteness ofthe words. Both concrete and abstract words are represented in the verbal system, but only concrete words are connected to the imagina1 system. Since the image provides an additional means through which concrete words can be stored and retrieved, concrete words are more 1ike1y to be recalled better than abstract words that lack representation in the imaginal system. The work reported here was funded by a Faculty Research Award from the University at Albany, State University ofNew York. The authors thank Peter Dixon, Janet van Hell, and an anonymous reviewer who provided helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier version of this paper. The authors also thank Noah Balanoff, Allyse Scher, and John Sears for their assistance with data collection and data entry. Correspondence should be addressed to J. Altarriba, Department of Psychology, SS 112, University of Albany, SUNY, Albany, NY 12222 (e-mail: ja087@csc.albany.edu).The context avai1ability hypothesis emphasizes the ease with which a context or circumstance can be recalled for a particular word (Kieras, 1978; Schwanenflugel et al., 1992; Schwanenflugel et al., 1988). The context availabilit...

While nanoparticles maximize the amount of chemotherapeutic drug in tumors relative to normal tissues, nanoparticle-based drugs are not accessible to the majority of cancer cells because nanoparticles display patchy, near-perivascular accumulation in tumors. To overcome the limitations of current drugs in their molecular or nanoparticle form, we developed a nanoparticle based on multi-component nanochains to deliver drug to the majority of cancer cells throughout a tumor while reducing off-target delivery. The nanoparticle is composed of three magnetic nanospheres and one doxorubicin-loaded liposome assembled in a 100-nm-long chain. These nanoparticles display prolonged blood circulation and significant intratumoral deposition in tumor models in rodents. Furthermore, the magnetic particles of the chains serve as a mechanical transducer to transfer radiofrequency energy to the drug-loaded liposome. The defects on the liposomal walls trigger the release of free drug capable of spreading throughout the entire tumor, which results in a wide-spread anticancer effect.

Are the concepts represented by emotion words different from abstract words in memory? We examined the distinct characteristics of emotion concepts in 3 separate experiments. The first demonstrated that emotion words are better recalled than both concrete and abstract words in a free recall task. In the second experiment, ratings of abstract, concrete, and emotion words were compared on concreteness, imageability, and context availability scales. Results revealed a difference between all 3 word types on each of the 3 scales. The third experiment investigated priming in a lexical decision task for homogeneous (abstract-abstract and emotion-emotion) and heterogeneous (abstract-emotion and emotion-abstract) associated word pairs. Priming occurred only for the homogeneous and heterogeneous abstract-emotion word pair conditions. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed in terms of the circumplex, hierarchical, and semantic activation models. The results are most consistent with the predictions of the semantic activation model.

Magnetic particle imaging (MPI) is an emerging imaging modality that allows the direct and quantitative mapping of iron oxide nanoparticles. In MPI, the development of tailored iron oxide nanoparticle tracers is paramount to achieving high sensitivity and good spatial resolution. To date, most MPI tracers being developed for potential clinical applications are based on spherical undoped magnetite nanoparticles. For the first time, we report on the systematic investigation of the effects of changes in chemical composition and shape anisotropy on the MPI performance of iron oxide nanoparticle tracers. We observed a 2-fold enhancement in MPI signal through selective doping of magnetite nanoparticles with zinc. Moreover, we demonstrated focused magnetic hyperthermia heating by adapting the field gradient used in MPI. By saturating the iron oxide nanoparticles outside of a field free region (FFR) with an external static field, we can selectively heat a target region in our test sample. By comparing zinc-doped magnetite cubic nanoparticles with undoped spherical nanoparticles, we could show a 5-fold improvement in the specific absorption rate (SAR) in magnetic hyperthermia while providing good MPI signal, thereby demonstrating the potential for high-performance focused hyperthermia therapy through an MPI-guided approach (hMPI).

Equal contribution (published at EMNLP 2018). We publicly release all our code, models, and data at: https://github.com/yicheng-w/CommonSenseMultiHopQA