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Fractionating negative and positive affectivity in handedness: Insights from the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of personality
The Annett Hand Preference Questionnaire (AHPQ), as modified by Briggs and Nebes [(1975). Patterns of hand preference in a student population. Cortex, 11(3), 230-238. doi: 10.1016/s0010-9452(75)80005-0 ], was administered to a sample of 177 participants alongside the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of Personality Questionnaire [RST-PQ; Corr, P. J., & Cooper, A. (2016). The Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory of Personality Questionnaire (RST-PQ): Development and validation. Psychological Assessment. doi: 10.1037/pas000 ], which measures two factors of defensive negative emotion, motivation and affectivity-the Behavioural Inhibition System (BIS) and the Fight-Flight-Freeze System (FFFS)-and one positive-approach dimension related to reward sensitivity, persistence and reactivity-the Behavioural Approach System. We sought to clarify the nature of negative, and positive, affectivity in relation to handedness. ANOVAs and multiple regression analyses converged on the following conclusions: left-handers were higher on the BIS, not the FFFS, than right-handers; in right-handers only, strength of hand preference was positively correlated with the FFFS, not the BIS. The original assessment method proposed by Annett was also used to assess handedness, but associations with RST-PQ factors were not found. These findings help us to clarify existing issues in the literature and raise new ones for future research
A numerical adaptation of SAW identities from the honeycomb to other 2D lattices
Recently, Duminil-Copin and Smirnov proved a long-standing conjecture by
Nienhuis that the connective constant of self-avoiding walks on the honeycomb
lattice is A key identity used in that proof depends on
the existence of a parafermionic observable for self-avoiding walks on the
honeycomb lattice. Despite the absence of a corresponding observable for SAW on
the square and triangular lattices, we show that in the limit of large
lattices, some of the consequences observed on the honeycomb lattice persist on
other lattices. This permits the accurate estimation, though not an exact
evaluation, of certain critical amplitudes, as well as critical points, for
these lattices. For the honeycomb lattice an exact amplitude for loops is
proved.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figures. Changes in v2: Improved numerical analysis,
giving greater precision. Explanation of why we observe what we do. Extra
reference
Disk Heating, Galactoseismology, and the Formation of Stellar Halos
Deep photometric surveys of the Milky Way have revealed diffuse structures
encircling our Galaxy far beyond the "classical" limits of the stellar disk.
This paper reviews results from our own and other observational programs, which
together suggest that, despite their extreme positions, the stars in these
structures were formed in our Galactic disk. Mounting evidence from recent
observations and simulations implies kinematic connections between several of
these distinct structures. This suggests the existence of collective disk
oscillations that can plausibly be traced all the way to asymmetries seen in
the stellar velocity distribution around the Sun. There are multiple
interesting implications of these findings: they promise new perspectives on
the process of disk heating, they provide direct evidence for a stellar halo
formation mechanism in addition to the accretion and disruption of satellite
galaxies, and, they motivate searches of current and near-future surveys to
trace these oscillations across the Galaxy. Such maps could be used as
dynamical diagnostics in the emerging field of "Galactoseismology", which
promises to model the history of interactions between the Milky Way and its
entourage of satellites, as well examine the density of our dark matter halo.
As sensitivity to very low surface brightness features around external galaxies
increases, many more examples of such disk oscillations will likely be
identified. Statistical samples of such features not only encode detailed
information about interaction rates and mergers, but also about long
sought-after dark matter halo densities and shapes. Models for the Milky Way's
own Galactoseismic history will therefore serve as a critical foundation for
studying the weak dynamical interactions of galaxies across the universe.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, accepted in for publication in a special edition
of the journal "Galaxies", reporting the proceedings of the conference "On
the Origin (and Evolution) of Baryonic Galaxy Halos", Puerto Ayora, Ecuador,
March 13-17 2017, Eds. Duncan A. Forbes and Ericson D. Lope
CATS: The Hubble Constant from Standardized TRGB and Type Ia Supernova Measurements
The Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB) provides a luminous standard candle
for constructing distance ladders to measure the Hubble constant. In practice
its measurements via edge-detection response (EDR) are complicated by the
apparent fuzziness of the tip and the multi-peak landscape of the EDR. As a
result, it can be difficult to replicate due to a case-by-case measurement
process. Previously we optimized an unsupervised algorithm, Comparative
Analysis of TRGBs (CATs), to minimize the variance among multiple halo fields
per host without reliance on individualized choices, achieving state-of-the-art
0.05 mag distance measures for optimal data. Further, we found an
empirical correlation at 5 confidence in the GHOSTS halo survey between
our measurements of the tip and their contrast ratios (ratio of stars 0.5 mag
just below and above the tip), useful for standardizing the apparent tips at
different host locations. Here, we apply this algorithm to an expanded sample
of SN Ia hosts to standardize these to multiple fields in the geometric anchor,
NGC 4258. In concert with the Pantheon SN Ia sample, this analysis produces
a (baseline) result of km/s/Mpc. The largest difference
in between this and similar studies employing the TRGB derives from
corrections for SN survey differences and local flows used in most recent SN Ia
compilations but which were absent in earlier studies. SN-related differences
total 2.0 km/s/Mpc. A smaller share, 1.4 km/s/Mpc, results from
the inhomogeneity of the TRGB calibration across the distance ladder. We employ
a grid of 108 variants around the optimal TRGB algorithm and find the median of
variants is km/s/Mpc with an additional uncertainty due to
algorithm choices of 0.83 km/s/Mpc. None of these TRGB variants result in
less than 71.6 km/s/Mpc.Comment: Submitted to ApJL, comments welcom
Exploring Halo Substructure with Giant Stars. XV. Discovery of a Connection between the Monoceros Ring and the Triangulum-Andromeda Overdensity?
Thanks to modern sky surveys, over twenty stellar streams and overdensity
structures have been discovered in the halo of the Milky Way. In this paper, we
present an analysis of spectroscopic observations of individual stars from one
such structure, "A13", first identified as an overdensity using the M giant
catalog from the Two Micron All-Sky Survey. Our spectroscopic observations show
that stars identified with A13 have a velocity dispersion of 40
, implying that it is a genuine coherent structure rather
than a chance super-position of random halo stars. From its position on the
sky, distance (15~kpc heliocentric), and kinematical properties, A13 is
likely to be an extension of another low Galactic latitude substructure -- the
Galactic Anticenter Stellar Structure (also known as the Monoceros Ring) --
towards smaller Galactic longitude and farther distance. Furthermore, the
kinematics of A13 also connect it with another structure in the southern
Galactic hemisphere -- the Triangulum-Andromeda overdensity. We discuss these
three connected structures within the context of a previously proposed scenario
that one or all of these features originate from the disk of the Milky Way.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
Extinction Maps Toward The Milky Way Bulge: Two-Dimensional And Three-Dimensional Tests With APOGEE
Galactic interstellar extinction maps are powerful and necessary tools for Milky Way structure and stellar population analyses, particularly toward the heavily reddened bulge and in the midplane. However, due to the difficulty of obtaining reliable extinction measures and distances for a large number of stars that are independent of these maps, tests of their accuracy and systematics have been limited. Our goal is to assess a variety of photometric stellar extinction estimates, including both two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps, using independent extinction measures based on a large spectroscopic sample of stars toward the Milky Way bulge. We employ stellar atmospheric parameters derived from high-resolution H-band Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) spectra, combined with theoretical stellar isochrones, to calculate line-of-sight extinction and distances for a sample of more than 2400 giants toward the Milky Way bulge. We compare these extinction values to those predicted by individual near-IR and near+mid-IR stellar colors, two-dimensional bulge extinction maps, and three-dimensional extinction maps. The long baseline, near+mid-IR stellar colors are, on average, the most accurate predictors of the APOGEE extinction estimates, and the two-dimensional and three-dimensional extinction maps derived from different stellar populations along different sightlines show varying degrees of reliability. We present the results of all of the comparisons and discuss reasons for the observed discrepancies. We also demonstrate how the particular stellar atmospheric models adopted can have a strong impact on this type of analysis, and discuss related caveats.NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship AST-1203017Physics Frontier Center/Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics (JINA) PHY 08-22648U.S. National Science FoundationAlfred P. Sloan FoundationParticipating InstitutionsU.S. Department of Energy Office of Science ANR-12-BS05-0015-01Astronom
Integrability as a consequence of discrete holomorphicity: the Z_N model
It has recently been established that imposing the condition of discrete
holomorphicity on a lattice parafermionic observable leads to the critical
Boltzmann weights in a number of lattice models. Remarkably, the solutions of
these linear equations also solve the Yang-Baxter equations. We extend this
analysis for the Z_N model by explicitly considering the condition of discrete
holomorphicity on two and three adjacent rhombi. For two rhombi this leads to a
quadratic equation in the Boltzmann weights and for three rhombi a cubic
equation. The two-rhombus equation implies the inversion relations. The
star-triangle relation follows from the three-rhombus equation. We also show
that these weights are self-dual as a consequence of discrete holomorphicity.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, some clarifications and a reference adde
The UT 7/8 February 2013 Sila-Nunam Mutual Event and Future Predictions
A superior mutual event of the Kuiper Belt binary system (79360) Sila-Nunam was observed over 15.47 h on UT 7/8 February 2013 by a coordinated effort at four different telescope facilities; it started approximately 1.5 h earlier than anticipated, the duration was approximately 9.5 h (about 10% longer than predicted), and was slightly less deep than predicted. It is the first full event observed for a comparably sized binary Kuiper Belt object. We provide predictions for future events refined by this and other partial mutual event observations obtained since the mutual event season began
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