37,538 research outputs found
Reasonableness, Murder, and Modern Science
Originally titled âIs It Murder in Tennessee to Kill a Chimpanzee,â this article argues in some detail that typical legal definitions of âmurderâ as involving the intentional killing of âa reasonable beingâ would require classifying the intentional killing of chimpanzees as murder
Large Perceptual Distortions Of Locomotor Action Space Occur In Ground-Based Coordinates: Angular Expansion And The Large-Scale Horizontal-Vertical Illusion
What is the natural reference frame for seeing large-scale spatial scenes in locomotor action space? Prior studies indicate an asymmetric angular expansion in perceived direction in large-scale environments: Angular elevation relative to the horizon is perceptually exaggerated by a factor of 1.5, whereas azimuthal direction is exaggerated by a factor of about 1.25. Here participants made angular and spatial judgments when upright or on their sides to dissociate egocentric from allocentric reference frames. In Experiment 1, it was found that body orientation did not affect the magnitude of the up-down exaggeration of direction, suggesting that the relevant orientation reference frame for this directional bias is allocentric rather than egocentric. In Experiment 2, the comparison of large-scale horizontal and vertical extents was somewhat affected by viewer orientation, but only to the extent necessitated by the classic (5%) horizontal-vertical illusion (HVI) that is known to be retinotopic. Large-scale vertical extents continued to appear much larger than horizontal ground extents when observers lay sideways. When the visual world was reoriented in Experiment 3, the bias remained tied to the ground-based allocentric reference frame. The allocentric HVI is quantitatively consistent with differential angular exaggerations previously measured for elevation and azimuth in locomotor space. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved
A GPU based real-time software correlation system for the Murchison Widefield Array prototype
Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) are inexpensive commodity hardware
that offer Tflop/s theoretical computing capacity. GPUs are well suited to many
compute-intensive tasks including digital signal processing.
We describe the implementation and performance of a GPU-based digital
correlator for radio astronomy. The correlator is implemented using the NVIDIA
CUDA development environment. We evaluate three design options on two
generations of NVIDIA hardware. The different designs utilize the internal
registers, shared memory and multiprocessors in different ways. We find that
optimal performance is achieved with the design that minimizes global memory
reads on recent generations of hardware.
The GPU-based correlator outperforms a single-threaded CPU equivalent by a
factor of 60 for a 32 antenna array, and runs on commodity PC hardware. The
extra compute capability provided by the GPU maximises the correlation
capability of a PC while retaining the fast development time associated with
using standard hardware, networking and programming languages. In this way, a
GPU-based correlation system represents a middle ground in design space between
high performance, custom built hardware and pure CPU-based software
correlation.
The correlator was deployed at the Murchison Widefield Array 32 antenna
prototype system where it ran in real-time for extended periods. We briefly
describe the data capture, streaming and correlation system for the prototype
array.Comment: 11 pages, to appear in PAS
Electrolytically regenerative hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell Patent
Electrolytically regenerative hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell
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Sex differences in emotional concordance.
Emotions involve response synchronization across experiential, physiological, and behavioral systems, referred to as concordance or coherence. Women are thought to be more emotionally aware and expressive than men and may therefore display stronger response concordance; however, research on this topic is scant. Using a random-order film-average design, we assessed concordance among experiential (arousal, valence), autonomic (electrodermal activity, heart rate, preejection period, respiratory sinus arrhythmia), respiratory (respiratory rate), and behavioral (corrugator and zygomatic electromyography) responses to 15 two-minute films varying in valence and arousal. We then calculated for each participant and pair of measures a within-subject correlation index using averages from the 15 films. Pronounced individual concordance of up to 0.9 was observed. Arousal-physiology and valence-behavior concordances were particularly pronounced. Women displayed higher concordance than men for almost all pairs of measures. Findings indicate stronger psychophysiological response coupling in women than men and provide novel insights into affective differences between the sexes
Densest local packing diversity. II. Application to three dimensions
The densest local packings of N three-dimensional identical nonoverlapping
spheres within a radius Rmin(N) of a fixed central sphere of the same size are
obtained for selected values of N up to N = 1054. In the predecessor to this
paper [A.B. Hopkins, F.H. Stillinger and S. Torquato, Phys. Rev. E 81 041305
(2010)], we described our method for finding the putative densest packings of N
spheres in d-dimensional Euclidean space Rd and presented those packings in R2
for values of N up to N = 348. We analyze the properties and characteristics of
the densest local packings in R3 and employ knowledge of the Rmin(N), using
methods applicable in any d, to construct both a realizability condition for
pair correlation functions of sphere packings and an upper bound on the maximal
density of infinite sphere packings. In R3, we find wide variability in the
densest local packings, including a multitude of packing symmetries such as
perfect tetrahedral and imperfect icosahedral symmetry. We compare the densest
local packings of N spheres near a central sphere to minimal-energy
configurations of N+1 points interacting with short-range repulsive and
long-range attractive pair potentials, e.g., 12-6 Lennard-Jones, and find that
they are in general completely different, a result that has possible
implications for nucleation theory. We also compare the densest local packings
to finite subsets of stacking variants of the densest infinite packings in R3
(the Barlow packings) and find that the densest local packings are almost
always most similar, as measured by a similarity metric, to the subsets of
Barlow packings with the smallest number of coordination shells measured about
a single central sphere, e.g., a subset of the FCC Barlow packing. We
additionally observe that the densest local packings are dominated by the
spheres arranged with centers at precisely distance Rmin(N) from the fixed
sphere's center.Comment: 45 pages, 18 figures, 2 table
A new behavioural model for performance evaluation of common mode chokes
A galvanically isolated three-phase AC/AC converter with a high-frequency AC-link has been analyzed from an EMC point of view. This is a special configuration because of a large number of switches, a high frequency transformer, and a fourwire output. The essential coupling paths are identified.
Corresponding suppression remedies are given. The results, before and after measures, have been presented to demonstrate the improvement in EMC.
Keywords: AC/AC converter; electromagnetic interference; galvanically isolate
Spherical codes, maximal local packing density, and the golden ratio
The densest local packing (DLP) problem in d-dimensional Euclidean space Rd
involves the placement of N nonoverlapping spheres of unit diameter near an
additional fixed unit-diameter sphere such that the greatest distance from the
center of the fixed sphere to the centers of any of the N surrounding spheres
is minimized. Solutions to the DLP problem are relevant to the realizability of
pair correlation functions for packings of nonoverlapping spheres and might
prove useful in improving upon the best known upper bounds on the maximum
packing fraction of sphere packings in dimensions greater than three. The
optimal spherical code problem in Rd involves the placement of the centers of N
nonoverlapping spheres of unit diameter onto the surface of a sphere of radius
R such that R is minimized. It is proved that in any dimension, all solutions
between unity and the golden ratio to the optimal spherical code problem for N
spheres are also solutions to the corresponding DLP problem. It follows that
for any packing of nonoverlapping spheres of unit diameter, a spherical region
of radius less than or equal to the golden ratio centered on an arbitrary
sphere center cannot enclose a number of sphere centers greater than one more
than the number that can be placed on the region's surface.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure. Accepted for publication in the Journal of
Mathematical Physic
Search for the Heliospheric Termination Shock (TS) and Heliosheath (HS)
Voyager 1 continues to measure the very distant Heliospheric Magnetic Field (HMF) beyond 95 AU at ~35 North latitude. The MAG instrument data covers more than a full 22 years solar magnetic cycle. The magnitude of the observed HMF is well described, on average, by Parker's Archimedean spiral structure if due account is made for time variations of the source field strength and solar wind velocity. The V1 magnetic field observations do not provide any evidence for a field increase associated with entry into a subsonic solar wind region, such as the heliosheath is expected to be, nor an exit from this regime. We see no evidence for crossing of the Termination Shock (TS) as has been reported at ~85 AU by the LECP instrument. Merged Interaction Regions are identified by an increased HMF and associated decreases in the flux of >70 MeV/nuc cosmic rays which are then followed by a flux recovery. This CR-B relationship has been identified in V1 data and studied since 1982 when V1 was at 11 AU. The variance of HMF, a direct measure of the energy**1/2 in the HMF fluctuations, shows no significant changes associated with the alleged TS crossings in 2002â2003. Thus, the absence of any HMF increase at the entry into the heliosheath appears not to be due to the onset of mesoscale turbulence as proposed by Fisk. The TS has yet to be directly observed in-situ by the V1 MAG experiment in data through 2003
The sound of the parasite. diagnosing mediastinal cysts with endoscopic ultrasound techniques
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