40,413 research outputs found
Volitional control of anticipatory ocular smooth pursuit after viewing, but not pursuing, a moving target: evidence for a re-afferent velocity store
Although human subjects cannot normally initiate smooth eye movements in the absence of a moving target, previous experiments have established that such movements can be evoked if the subject is required to pursue a regularly repeated, transient target motion stimulus. We sought to determine whether active pursuit was necessary to evoke such an anticipatory response or whether it could be induced after merely viewing the target motion. Subjects were presented with a succession of ramp target motion stimuli of identical velocity and alternating direction in the horizontal axis. In initial experiments, the target was exposed for only 120 ms as it passed through centre, with a constant interval between presentations. Ramp velocity was varied from +/- 9 to 45 degrees/s in one set of trials; the interval between ramp presentations was varied from 640 to 1920 ms in another. Subjects were instructed either to pursue the moving target from the first presentation or to hold fixation on another, stationary target during the first one, two or three presentations of the moving display. Without fixation, the first smooth movement was initiated with a mean latency of 95 ms after target onset, but with repeated presentations anticipatory smooth movements started to build up before target onset. In contrast, when the subjects fixated the stationary target for three presentations of the moving target, the first movement they made was already anticipatory and had a peak velocity that was significantly greater than that of the first response without prior fixation. The conditions of experiment 1 were repeated in experiment 3 with a longer duration of target exposure (480 ms), to allow higher eye velocities to build up. Again, after three prior fixations, the anticipatory velocity measured at 100 ms after target onset (when visual feedback would be expected to start) was not significantly different to that evoked after the subjects had made three active pursuit responses to the same target motion, reaching a mean of 20 degrees/s for a 50 degrees/s target movement. In a further experiment, we determined whether subjects could use stored information from prior active pursuit to generate anticipatory pursuit in darkness if there was a high expectancy that the target would reappear with identical velocity. Subjects made one predictive response immediately after target disappearance, but very little response thereafter until the time at which they expected the target to reappear, when they were again able to re-vitalize the anticipatory response before target appearance. The findings of these experiments provide evidence that information related to target velocity can be stored and used to generate future anticipatory responses even in the absence of eye movement. This suggests that information for storage is probably derived from a common pre-motor drive signal that is inhibited during fixation, rather than an efference copy of eye movement itself. Furthermore, a high level of expectancy of target appearance can facilitate the release of this stored information in darkness
Ferromagnetic resonance with a magnetic Josephson junction
We show experimentally and theoretically that there is a coupling via the
Aharonov-Bohm phase between the order parameter of a ferromagnet and a singlet,
s-wave, Josephson supercurrent. We have investigated the possibility of
measuring the dispersion of such spin waves by varying the magnetic field
applied in the plane of the junction and demonstrated the electromagnetic
nature of the coupling by the observation of magnetic resonance side-bands to
microwave induced Shapiro steps.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure
Contextual-based Image Inpainting: Infer, Match, and Translate
We study the task of image inpainting, which is to fill in the missing region
of an incomplete image with plausible contents. To this end, we propose a
learning-based approach to generate visually coherent completion given a
high-resolution image with missing components. In order to overcome the
difficulty to directly learn the distribution of high-dimensional image data,
we divide the task into inference and translation as two separate steps and
model each step with a deep neural network. We also use simple heuristics to
guide the propagation of local textures from the boundary to the hole. We show
that, by using such techniques, inpainting reduces to the problem of learning
two image-feature translation functions in much smaller space and hence easier
to train. We evaluate our method on several public datasets and show that we
generate results of better visual quality than previous state-of-the-art
methods.Comment: ECCV 2018 camera read
Homological Localisation of Model Categories
One of the most useful methods for studying the stable homotopy category is localising at some spectrum E. For an arbitrary stable model category we introduce a candidate
for the E–localisation of this model category. We study the properties of this new construction and relate it to some well–known categories
Bi-layer splitting in overdoped high cuprates
Recent angle-resolved photoemission data for overdoped Bi2212 are explained.
Of the peak-dip-hump structure, the peak corresponds the component
of a hole condensate which appears at . The fluctuating part of this same
condensate produces the hump. The bilayer splitting is large enough to produce
a bonding hole and an electron antibonding quasiparticle Fermi surface. Smaller
bilayer splittings observed in some experiments reflect the interaction of the
peak structure with quasiparticle states near, but not at, the Fermi surface.Comment: 4 pages with 2 figures - published versio
Photoionisation and Heating of a Supernova Driven, Turbulent, Interstellar Medium
The Diffuse Ionised Gas (DIG) in galaxies traces photoionisation feedback
from massive stars. Through three dimensional photoionisation simulations, we
study the propagation of ionising photons, photoionisation heating and the
resulting distribution of ionised and neutral gas within snapshots of
magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a supernova driven turbulent interstellar
medium. We also investigate the impact of non-photoionisation heating on
observed optical emission line ratios. Inclusion of a heating term which scales
less steeply with electron density than photoionisation is required to produce
diagnostic emission line ratios similar to those observed with the Wisconsin
H{\alpha} Mapper. Once such heating terms have been included, we are also able
to produce temperatures similar to those inferred from observations of the DIG,
with temperatures increasing to above 15000 K at heights |z| > 1 kpc. We find
that ionising photons travel through low density regions close to the midplane
of the simulations, while travelling through diffuse low density regions at
large heights. The majority of photons travel small distances (< 100pc);
however some travel kiloparsecs and ionise the DIG.Comment: 10 pages, 13 figures, accepted to MNRA
Health outcomes of children born to mothers with chronic kidney disease: a pilot study
This study aimed to study the health of children born to mothers with chronic kidney disease. Twenty-four children born to mothers with chronic kidney disease were compared with 39 matched control children born to healthy mothers without kidney disease. The well-being of each child was individually assessed in terms of physical health, neurodevelopment and psychological health. Families participating with renal disease were more likely to be from lower socio-economic backgrounds. Significantly fewer vaginal deliveries were reported for mothers with renal disease and their infants were more likely to experience neonatal morbidity. Study and control children were comparable for growth parameters and neurodevelopment as assessed by the Griffiths scales. There was no evidence of more stress amongst mothers with renal disease or of impaired bonding between mother and child when compared to controls. However, there was evidence of greater externalizing behavioral problems in the group of children born to mothers with renal disease. Engaging families in such studies is challenging. Nonetheless, families who participated appreciated being asked. The children were apparently healthy but there was evidence in this small study of significant antenatal and perinatal morbidity compared to controls. Future larger multi-center studies are required to confirm these early findings
The development of direct payments in the UK: implications for social justice
Direct payments have been heralded by the disability movement as an important means to
achieving independent living and hence greater social justice for disabled people through
enhanced recognition as well as financial redistribution. Drawing on data from the ESRC
funded project Disabled People and Direct Payments: A UK Comparative Perspective,
this paper presents an analysis of policy and official statistics on use of direct payments
across the UK. It is argued that the potential of direct payments has only partly been
realised as a result of very low and uneven uptake within and between different parts
of the UK. This is accounted for in part by resistance from some Labour-controlled local
authorities, which regard direct payments as a threat to public sector jobs. In addition,
access to direct payments has been uneven across impairment groups. However, from a
very low base there has been a rapid expansion in the use of direct payments over the
past three years. The extent to which direct payments are able to facilitate the ultimate
goal of independent living for disabled people requires careful monitoring
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