676 research outputs found
The European Space Analogue Rock Collection (ESAR) at the OSUC-Orleans for in situ planetary missions
International audienceThe ESAR is a collection of well-characterised planetary analogue rocks and minerals that can be used for testing in situ instrumentation for planetary exploration. An online database of all relevant structural, compositional and geotechnics information is also available to the instrument teams and to aid data interpretation during missions
Caregivers’ perceived emotional and feeding responsiveness toward preschool children: Associations and paths of influence
Although there is a large body of research connecting emotion to eating behaviors, little is
known about the role of caregivers’ responses to children’s emotions in the context of child feeding.
The purpose of this study was to analyze the relation between caregivers’ emotional responsiveness
and feeding responsiveness. The mothers of 137 children between 2 and 6 years of age reported on
their responses to children’s negative emotions using the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions
Scale and on their feeding practices using the Comprehensive Feeding Practices Questionnaire. The
results showed that mothers’ supportive emotion responses (e.g., problem-focused, emotion-focused,
and expressive encouragement reactions) tend to be positively associated with responsive feeding
practices (e.g., encouraging, modelling, and teaching healthy food-related behaviors). Instead,
mothers’ unsupportive responses (e.g., distress, punitive and minimization reactions) tend to be
positively associated with nonresponsive feeding practices (e.g., food as reward or to regulate
emotions, and pressure to eat) and negatively associated with responsive feeding practices. Our
results suggest that emotional and feeding responsiveness may be intertwined and that differences
in parent’s emotional responsiveness may translate into differences in their feeding styles, setting the
stage for parents’ use of positive vs. negative feeding practices.Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCTinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The arithmetic of hyperelliptic curves
We summarise recent advances in techniques for solving Diophantine problems on hyperelliptic curves; in particular, those for finding the rank of the Jacobian, and the set of rational points on the curve
On Charge-3 Cyclic Monopoles
We determine the spectral curve of charge 3 BPS su(2) monopoles with C_3
cyclic symmetry. The symmetry means that the genus 4 spectral curve covers a
(Toda) spectral curve of genus 2. A well adapted homology basis is presented
enabling the theta functions and monopole data of the genus 4 curve to be given
in terms of genus 2 data. The Richelot correspondence, a generalization of the
arithmetic mean, is used to solve for this genus 2 curve. Results of other
approaches are compared.Comment: 34 pages, 16 figures. Revision: Abstract added and a few small
change
Thyroid cancer following nuclear tests in French Polynesia
BACKGROUND: Between 1966 and 1974, France conducted 41 atmospheric nuclear tests in Polynesia, but their potential health effects have not previously been investigated. METHODS: In a case-control study, we compared the radiation exposure of almost all the French Polynesians diagnosed with differentiated thyroid carcinoma between 1981 and 2003 (n = 229) to the exposure of 373 French Polynesian control individuals without cancer from the general population. Radiation exposures were estimated using measurements after the nuclear tests, age at time of each test, residential and dietary information. RESULTS: The average thyroid dose before 15 years of age was about 1.8 mGy, and 5% of the cases and 3% of the controls received a dose above 10 mGy. Despite this low level of dose, and after adjusting for ethnic group, level of education, body surface area, family history of thyroid cancer and number of pregnancies for women, we observed an increasing risk (P = 0.04) of thyroid cancer with increasing thyroid dose received before age of 15 years, which remained after excluding non-aggressive differentiated thyroid micro-carcinomas. This increase of risk per unit of thyroid radiation dose was higher (P = 0.03) in women who later experienced four or more pregnancies than among other women. CONCLUSION: The risk estimate is low, but is based on limited exposure data. The release of information on exposure, currently classified, would greatly improve the reliability of the risk estimation. British Journal of Cancer (2010) 103, 1115-1121. doi: 10.1038/sj.bjc.6605862 www.bjcancer.com Published online 31 August 2010 (c) 2010 Cancer Research U
Stability conditions and positivity of invariants of fibrations
We study three methods that prove the positivity of a natural numerical
invariant associated to parameter families of polarized varieties. All
these methods involve different stability conditions. In dimension 2 we prove
that there is a natural connection between them, related to a yet another
stability condition, the linear stability. Finally we make some speculations
and prove new results in higher dimension.Comment: Final version, to appear in the Springer volume dedicated to Klaus
Hulek on the occasion of his 60-th birthda
Factor Varieties and Symbolic Computation
We propose an algebraization of classical and non-classical logics, based on factor varieties and decomposition operators. In particular, we provide a new method for determining whether a propositional formula is a tautology or a contradiction. This method can be autom-atized by defining a term rewriting system that enjoys confluence and strong normalization. This also suggests an original notion of logical gate and circuit, where propositional variables becomes logical gates and logical operations are implemented by substitution. Concerning formulas with quantifiers, we present a simple algorithm based on factor varieties for reducing first-order classical logic to equational logic. We achieve a completeness result for first-order classical logic without requiring any additional structure
SU(2) WZW Theory at Higher Genera
We compute, by free field techniques, the scalar product of the SU(2)
Chern-Simons states on genus > 1 surfaces. The result is a finite-dimensional
integral over positions of ``screening charges'' and one complex modular
parameter. It uses an effective description of the CS states closely related to
the one worked out by Bertram. The scalar product formula allows to express the
higher genus partition functions of the WZW conformal field theory by
finite-dimensional integrals. It should provide the hermitian metric preserved
by the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov-Bernard connection describing the variations of
the CS states under the change of the complex structure of the surface.Comment: 44 pages, IHES/P/94/10, Latex fil
Computation of the Transient in Max-Plus Linear Systems via SMT-Solving
This paper proposes a new approach, grounded in Satisfiability Modulo
Theories (SMT), to study the transient of a Max-Plus Linear (MPL) system, that
is the number of steps leading to its periodic regime. Differently from
state-of-the-art techniques, our approach allows the analysis of periodic
behaviors for subsets of initial states, as well as the characterization of
sets of initial states exhibiting the same specific periodic behavior and
transient. Our experiments show that the proposed technique dramatically
outperforms state-of-the-art methods based on max-plus algebra computations for
systems of large dimensions.Comment: The paper consists of 22 pages (including references and Appendix).
It is accepted in FORMATS 2020 First revisio
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