24,042 research outputs found
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The critical events for motor-sensory temporal recalibration
Determining if we, or another agent, were responsible for a sensory event can require an accurate sense of timing. Our sense of appropriate timing relationships must, however, be malleable as there is a variable delay between the physical timing of an event and when sensory signals concerning that event are encoded in the brain. One dramatic demonstration of such malleability involves having people repeatedly press a button thereby causing a beep. If a delay is inserted between button presses and beeps, when it is subsequently taken away beeps can seem to precede the button presses that caused them. For this to occur it is important that people feel they were responsible for instigating the beeps. In terms of their timing, as yet it is not clear what combination of events is important for motor-sensory temporal recalibration. Here, by introducing ballistic reaches of short or longer extent before a button press, we varied the delay between the intention to act and the sensory consequence of that action. This manipulation failed to modulate recalibration magnitude. By contrast, introducing a similarly lengthened delay between button presses and consequent beeps eliminated recalibration. Thus it would seem that the critical timing relationship for motor-sensory temporal recalibration is between tactile signals relating to the completion of an action and the subsequent auditory percept
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Spatial grouping resolves ambiguity to drive temporal recalibration.
Cross-modal temporal recalibration describes a shift in the point of subjective simultaneity (PSS) between 2 events following repeated exposure to asynchronous cross-modal inputs-the adaptors. Previous research suggested that audiovisual recalibration is insensitive to the spatial relationship between the adaptors. Here we show that audiovisual recalibration can be driven by cross-modal spatial grouping. Twelve participants adapted to alternating trains of lights and tones. Spatial position was manipulated, with alternating sequences of a light then a tone, or a tone then a light, presented on either side of fixation (e.g., left tone-left light-right tone-right light, etc.). As the events were evenly spaced in time, in the absence of spatial-based grouping it would be unclear if tones were leading or lagging lights. However, any grouping of spatially colocalized cross-modal events would result in an unambiguous sense of temporal order. We found that adapting to these stimuli caused the PSS between subsequent lights and tones to shift toward the temporal relationship implied by spatial-based grouping. These data therefore show that temporal recalibration is facilitated by spatial grouping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)
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Neural correlates of subjective timing precision and confidence
Humans perceptual judgments are imprecise, as repeated exposures to the same physical stimulation (e.g. audio-visual inputs separated by a constant temporal offset) can result in different decisions. Moreover, there can be marked individual differences – precise judges will repeatedly make the same decision about a given input, whereas imprecise judges will make different decisions. The causes are unclear. We examined this using audio-visual (AV) timing and confidence judgments, in conjunction with electroencephalography (EEG) and multivariate pattern classification analyses. One plausible cause of differences in timing precision is that it scales with variance in the dynamics of evoked brain activity. Another possibility is that equally reliable patterns of brain activity are evoked, but there are systematic differences that scale with precision. Trial-by-trial decoding of input timings from brain activity suggested precision differences may not result from variable dynamics. Instead, precision was associated with evoked responses that were exaggerated (more different from baseline) ~300 ms after initial physical stimulations. We suggest excitatory and inhibitory interactions within a winner-take-all neural code for AV timing might exaggerate responses, such that evoked response magnitudes post-stimulation scale with encoding success
Machine learning-guided directed evolution for protein engineering
Machine learning (ML)-guided directed evolution is a new paradigm for
biological design that enables optimization of complex functions. ML methods
use data to predict how sequence maps to function without requiring a detailed
model of the underlying physics or biological pathways. To demonstrate
ML-guided directed evolution, we introduce the steps required to build ML
sequence-function models and use them to guide engineering, making
recommendations at each stage. This review covers basic concepts relevant to
using ML for protein engineering as well as the current literature and
applications of this new engineering paradigm. ML methods accelerate directed
evolution by learning from information contained in all measured variants and
using that information to select sequences that are likely to be improved. We
then provide two case studies that demonstrate the ML-guided directed evolution
process. We also look to future opportunities where ML will enable discovery of
new protein functions and uncover the relationship between protein sequence and
function.Comment: Made significant revisions to focus on aspects most relevant to
applying machine learning to speed up directed evolutio
Optimization of the magnetic dynamo
In stars and planets, magnetic fields are believed to originate from the
motion of electrically conducting fluids in their interior, through a process
known as the dynamo mechanism. In this Letter, an optimization procedure is
used to simultaneously address two fundamental questions of dynamo theory:
"Which velocity field leads to the most magnetic energy growth?" and "How large
does the velocity need to be relative to magnetic diffusion?" In general, this
requires optimization over the full space of continuous solenoidal velocity
fields possible within the geometry. Here the case of a periodic box is
considered. Measuring the strength of the flow with the root-mean-square
amplitude, an optimal velocity field is shown to exist, but without limitation
on the strain rate, optimization is prone to divergence. Measuring the flow in
terms of its associated dissipation leads to the identification of a single
optimal at the critical magnetic Reynolds number necessary for a dynamo. This
magnetic Reynolds number is found to be only 15% higher than that necessary for
transient growth of the magnetic field.Comment: Optimal velocity field given approximate analytic form. 4 pages, 4
figure
Event-based simulation of interference with alternatingly blocked particle sources
We analyze the predictions of an event-based corpuscular model for
interference in the case of two-beam interference experiments in which the two
sources are alternatingly blocked. We show that such experiments may be used to
test specific predictions of the corpuscular model.Comment: FPP6 - Foundations of Probability and Physics 6, edited by A.
Khrennikov et al., AIP Conference Proceeding
Rocket- and aircraft-borne trace gas measurements in the winter polar stratosphere
In January and February 1987 stratospheric rocket- and aircraft-borne trace gas measurements were done in the North Polar region using ACIMS (Active Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry) and PACIMS (PAssive Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometry) instruments. The rocket was launched at ESRANGE (European Sounding Rocket Launching Range) (68 N, 21 E, Northern Sweden) and the twin-jet research aircraft operated by the DFVLR (Deutsche Forschungs- und Versuchs-anstalt fuer Luft- und Raumfahrt), and equipped with a mass spectrometer laboratory was stationed at Kiruna airport. Various stratospheric trace gases were measured including nitric acid, sulfuric acid, non-methane hydrocarbons (acetone, hydrogen cyanide, acetonitrile, methanol etc.), and ambient cluster ions. The experimental data is presented and possible implications for polar stratospheric ozone discussed
Engineered bidirectional communication mediates a consensus in a microbial biofilm consortium
Microbial consortia form when multiple species colocalize and communally generate a function that none is capable of alone. Consortia abound in nature, and their cooperative metabolic activities influence everything from biodiversity in the global food chain to human weight gain. Here, we present an engineered consortium in which the microbial members communicate with each other and exhibit a “consensus” gene expression response. Two colocalized populations of Escherichia coli converse bidirectionally by exchanging acyl-homoserine lactone signals. The consortium generates the gene-expression response if and only if both populations are present at sufficient cell densities. Because neither population can respond without the other's signal, this consensus function can be considered a logical AND gate in which the inputs are cell populations. The microbial consensus consortium operates in diverse growth modes, including in a biofilm, where it sustains its response for several days
Magnetic permeability of near-critical 3d abelian Higgs model and duality
The three-dimensional abelian Higgs model has been argued to be dual to a
scalar field theory with a global U(1) symmetry. We show that this duality,
together with the scaling and universality hypotheses, implies a scaling law
for the magnetic permeablity chi_m near the line of second order phase
transition: chi_m ~ t^nu, where t is the deviation from the critical line and
nu ~ 0.67 is a critical exponent of the O(2) universality class. We also show
that exactly on the critical lines, the dependence of magnetic induction on
external magnetic field is quadratic, with a proportionality coefficient
depending only on the gauge coupling. These predictions provide a way for
testing the duality conjecture on the lattice in the Coulomb phase and at the
phase transion.Comment: 11 pages; updated references and small changes, published versio
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