3,068 research outputs found
Sequence learning under uncertainty in children: self-reflection vs. self-assertion
We know that stochastic feedback impairs children's associative stimulus-response (S-R) learning (Crone et al., 2004a; Eppinger et al., 2009), but the impact of stochastic feedback on sequence learning that involves deductive reasoning has not been not tested so far. In the current study, 8- to 11-year-old children (N = 171) learned a sequence of four left and right button presses, LLRR, RRLL, LRLR, RLRL, LRRL, and RLLR, which needed to be deduced from feedback because no directional cues were given. One group of children experienced consistent feedback only (deterministic feedback, 100% correct). In this condition, green feedback on the screen indicated that the children had been right when they were right, and red feedback indicated that the children had been wrong when they were wrong. Another group of children experienced inconsistent feedback (stochastic feedback, 85% correct, 15% false), where in some trials, green feedback on the screen could signal that children were right when in fact they were wrong, and red feedback could indicate that they were wrong when in fact they had been right. Independently of age, children's sequence learning in the stochastic condition was initially much lower than in the deterministic condition, but increased gradually and improved with practice. Responses toward positive vs. negative feedback varied with age. Children were increasingly able to understand that they could have been wrong when feedback indicated they were right (self-reflection), but they remained unable to understand that they could have been right when feedback indicated they were wrong (self-assertion)
Heavy-flavour production in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC, measured with the ALICE detector
We present the first results from the ALICE experiment on the nuclear
modification factors for heavy-flavour hadron production in Pb-Pb collisions at
sqrt{s_NN}=2.76 TeV. Using proton-proton and lead-lead collision samples at
sqrt{s}=7 TeV and sqrt{s_NN}=2.76 TeV, respectively, nuclear modification
factors R_AA(pt) were measured for D mesons at central rapidity (via displaced
decay vertex reconstruction), and for electrons and muons, at central and
forward rapidity, respectively.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, plenary talk at Quark Matter 2011, Annecy, Franc
Neutral Pions and Eta Mesons as Probes of the Hadronic Fireball in Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions around 1A GeV
Chemical and thermal freeze-out of the hadronic fireball formed in symmetric
collisions of light, intermediate-mass, and heavy nuclei at beam energies
between 0.8A GeV and 2.0A GeV are discussed in terms of an equilibrated,
isospin-symmetric ideal hadron gas with grand-canonical baryon-number
conservation. For each collision system the baryochemical potential mu_B and
the chemical freeze-out temperature T_c are deduced from the inclusive neutral
pion and eta yields which are augmented by interpolated data on deuteron
production. With increasing beam energy mu_B drops from 800 MeV to 650 MeV,
while T_c rises from 55 MeV to 90 MeV. For given beam energy mu_B grows with
system size, whereas T_c remains constant. The centrality dependence of the
freeze-out parameters is weak as exemplified by the system Au+Au at 0.8A GeV.
For the highest beam energies the fraction of nucleons excited to resonance
states reaches freeze-out values of nearly 15 %, suggesting resonance densities
close to normal nuclear density at maximum compression. In contrast to the
particle yields, which convey the status at chemical freeze-out, the shapes of
the related transverse-mass spectra do reflect thermal freeze-out. The observed
thermal freeze-out temperatures T_th are equal to or slightly lower than T_c,
indicative of nearly simultaneous chemical and thermal freeze-out.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figure
Stimulus-dependent maximum entropy models of neural population codes
Neural populations encode information about their stimulus in a collective
fashion, by joint activity patterns of spiking and silence. A full account of
this mapping from stimulus to neural activity is given by the conditional
probability distribution over neural codewords given the sensory input. To be
able to infer a model for this distribution from large-scale neural recordings,
we introduce a stimulus-dependent maximum entropy (SDME) model---a minimal
extension of the canonical linear-nonlinear model of a single neuron, to a
pairwise-coupled neural population. The model is able to capture the
single-cell response properties as well as the correlations in neural spiking
due to shared stimulus and due to effective neuron-to-neuron connections. Here
we show that in a population of 100 retinal ganglion cells in the salamander
retina responding to temporal white-noise stimuli, dependencies between cells
play an important encoding role. As a result, the SDME model gives a more
accurate account of single cell responses and in particular outperforms
uncoupled models in reproducing the distributions of codewords emitted in
response to a stimulus. We show how the SDME model, in conjunction with static
maximum entropy models of population vocabulary, can be used to estimate
information-theoretic quantities like surprise and information transmission in
a neural population.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure
Direct comparison of phase-space distributions of K- and K+ mesons in heavy-ion collisions at SIS energies - evidence for in-medium modifications of kaons ?
The ratio of K- to K+ meson yields has been measured in the systems RuRu at
1.69 A GeV, Ru+Zr at 1.69 A GeV, and Ni+Ni at 1.93 A GeV incident beam kinetic
energy. The yield ratio is observed to vary across the measured phase space.
Relativistic transport-model calculations indicate that the data are best
understood if in-medium modifications of the kaons are taken into account.Comment: 14 pages including 3 figure
Identification of baryon resonances in central heavy-ion collisions at energies between 1 and 2 AGeV
The mass distributions of baryon resonances populated in near-central
collisions of Au on Au and Ni on Ni are deduced by defolding the spectra
of charged pions by a method which does not depend on a specific resonance
shape. In addition the mass distributions of resonances are obtained from the
invariant masses of pairs. With both methods the deduced mass
distributions are shifted by an average value of -60 MeV/c relative to the
mass distribution of the free resonance, the distributions
descent almost exponentially towards mass values of 2000 MeV/c^2. The observed
differences between and pairs indicate a contribution
of isospin resonances. The attempt to consistently describe the
deduced mass distributions and the reconstructed kinetic energy spectra of the
resonances leads to new insights about the freeze out conditions, i.e. to
rather low temperatures and large expansion velocities.Comment: 30 pages, 13 figures, Latex using documentstyle[12pt,a4,epsfig], to
appear in Eur. Phys. J.
Interactions between Magnetic Nanowires and Living Cells : Uptake, Toxicity and Degradation
We report on the uptake, toxicity and degradation of magnetic nanowires by
NIH/3T3 mouse fibroblasts. Magnetic nanowires of diameters 200 nm and lengths
comprised between 1 {\mu}m and 40 {\mu}m are fabricated by controlled assembly
of iron oxide ({\gamma}-Fe2O3) nanoparticles. Using optical and electron
microscopy, we show that after 24 h incubation the wires are internalized by
the cells and located either in membrane-bound compartments or dispersed in the
cytosol. Using fluorescence microscopy, the membrane-bound compartments were
identified as late endosomal/lysosomal endosomes labeled with lysosomal
associated membrane protein (Lamp1). Toxicity assays evaluating the
mitochondrial activity, cell proliferation and production of reactive oxygen
species show that the wires do not display acute short-term (< 100 h) toxicity
towards the cells. Interestingly, the cells are able to degrade the wires and
to transform them into smaller aggregates, even in short time periods (days).
This degradation is likely to occur as a consequence of the internal structure
of the wires, which is that of a non-covalently bound aggregate. We anticipate
that this degradation should prevent long-term asbestos-like toxicity effects
related to high aspect ratio morphologies and that these wires represent a
promising class of nanomaterials for cell manipulation and microrheology.Comment: 21 pages 12 figure
Strange meson production in Al+Al collisions at 1.9A GeV
The production of K, K and (1020) mesons is studied in Al+Al
collisions at a beam energy of 1.9A GeV which is close or below the production
threshold in NN reactions. Inverse slopes, anisotropy parameters, and total
emission yields of K mesons are obtained. A comparison of the ratio of
kinetic energy distributions of K and K mesons to the HSD transport
model calculations suggests that the inclusion of the in-medium modifications
of kaon properties is necessary to reproduce the ratio. The inverse slope and
total yield of mesons are deduced. The contribution to K production
from meson decays is found to be [17 3 (stat) (syst)]
%. The results are in line with previous K and data obtained for
different colliding systems at similar incident beam energies.Comment: 16 pages, 11 figure
- …