Love is . . . an abstract word: the influence of phonological and semantic factors on verbal short-term memory in Williams syndrome

It has been claimed that verbal short-term memory in Williams syndrome is characterised by an over-use of phonological coding alongside a reduced contribution of lexical semantics. We critically examine this hypothesis and present results from a memory span task comparing performance on concrete and abstract words, together with a replication of a span task using phonologically similar and phonologically dissimilar words. Fourteen participants with Williams syndrome were individually matched to two groups of typically developing children. The first control group was matched on digit span and the second on vocabulary level. Significant effects were found for both the semantic and the phonological variables in the WS group as well as in the control groups, with no interaction between experimental variable and group in either experiment. The results demonstrate that, despite claims to the contrary, children and adults with WS are able to access and make use of lexical semantics in a verbal short-term memory task in a manner comparable to typically developing individuals

Pore-scale mass and reactant transport in multiphase porous media flows

Reactive processes associated with multiphase flows play a significant role in mass transport in unsaturated porous media. For example, the effect of reactions on the solid matrix can affect the formation and stability of fingering instabilities associated with the invasion of a buoyant non-wetting fluid. In this study, we focus on the formation and stability of capillary channels of a buoyant non-wetting fluid (developed because of capillary instabilities) and their impact on the transport and distribution of a reactant in the porous medium. We use a combination of pore-scale numerical calculations based on a multiphase reactive lattice Boltzmann model (LBM) and scaling laws to quantify (i)the effect of dissolution on the preservation of capillary instabilities, (ii)the penetration depth of reaction beyond the dissolution/melting front, and (iii)the temporal and spatial distribution of dissolution/melting under different conditions (concentration of reactant in the non-wetting fluid, injection rate). Our results show that, even for tortuous non-wetting fluid channels, simple scaling laws assuming an axisymmetrical annular flow can explain (i)the exponential decay of reactant along capillary channels, (ii)the dependence of the penetration depth of reactant on a local Péclet number (using the non-wetting fluid velocity in the channel) and more qualitatively (iii)the importance of the melting/reaction efficiency on the stability of non-wetting fluid channels. Our numerical method allows us to study the feedbacks between the immiscible multiphase fluid flow and a dynamically evolving porous matrix (dissolution or melting) which is an essential component of reactive transport in porous medi

PENALIZED LIKELIHOOD AND BAYESIAN METHODS FOR SPARSE CONTINGENCY TABLES: AN ANALYSIS OF ALTERNATIVE SPLICING IN FULL-LENGTH cDNA LIBRARIES

We develop methods to perform model selection and parameter estimation in loglinear models for the analysis of sparse contingency tables to study the interaction of two or more factors. Typically, datasets arising from so-called full-length cDNA libraries, in the context of alternatively spliced genes, lead to such sparse contingency tables. Maximum Likelihood estimation of log-linear model coefficients fails to work because of zero cell entries. Therefore new methods are required to estimate the coefficients and to perform model selection. Our suggestions include computationally efficient penalization (Lasso-type) approaches as well as Bayesian methods using MCMC. We compare these procedures in a simulation study and we apply the proposed methods to full-length cDNA libraries, yielding valuable insight into the biological process of alternative splicing

Ultrafast photodoping and effective Fermi-Dirac distribution of the Dirac particles in Bi2Se3

We exploit time- and angle- resolved photoemission spectroscopy to determine the evolution of the out-of-equilibrium electronic structure of the topological insulator Bi2Se. The response of the Fermi-Dirac distribution to ultrashort IR laser pulses has been studied by modelling the dynamics of the hot electrons after optical excitation. We disentangle a large increase of the effective temperature T* from a shift of the chemical potential mu*, which is consequence of the ultrafast photodoping of the conduction band. The relaxation dynamics of T* and mu* are k-independent and these two quantities uniquely define the evolution of the excited charge population. We observe that the energy dependence of the non-equilibrium charge population is solely determined by the analytical form of the effective Fermi-Dirac distribution.Comment: 5 Pages, 3 Figure

Evidence of reduced surface electron-phonon scattering in the conduction band of Bi_{2}Se_{3} by non-equilibrium ARPES

The nature of the Dirac quasiparticles in topological insulators calls for a direct investigation of the electron-phonon scattering at the \emph{surface}. By comparing time-resolved ARPES measurements of the TI Bi_{2}Se_{3} with different probing depths we show that the relaxation dynamics of the electronic temperature of the conduction band is much slower at the surface than in the bulk. This observation suggests that surface phonons are less effective in cooling the electron gas in the conduction band.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Application of the multi distribution function lattice Boltzmann approach to thermal flows

Numerical methods able to model high Rayleigh (Ra) and high Prandtl (Pr) number thermal convection are important to study large-scale geophysical phenomena occuring in very viscous fluids such as magma chamber dynamics (104 < Pr < 107 and 107 < Ra < 1011). The important variable to quantify the thermal state of a convective fluid is a generalized dimensionless heat transfer coefficient (the Nusselt number) whose measure indicates the relative efficiency of the thermal convection. In this paper we test the ability of Multi-distribution Function approach (MDF) Thermal Lattice Boltzmann method to study the well-established scaling result for the Nusselt number (Nu ∝ Ra 1/3) in Rayleigh Bénard convection for 104 ≤ Ra ≤ 109 and 101 ≤ Pr ≤ 104. We explore its main drawbacks in the range of Pr and Ra number under investigation: (1) high computational time N c required for the algorithm to converge and (2) high spatial accuracy needed to resolve the thickness of thermal plumes and both thermal and velocity boundary layer. We try to decrease the computational demands of the method using a multiscale approach based on the implicit dependence of the Pr number on the relaxation time, the spatial and temporal resolution characteristic of the MDF thermal mode

The mechanics of shallow magma reservoir outgassing

Magma degassing fundamentally controls the Earth's volatile cycles. The large amount of gas expelled into the atmosphere during volcanic eruptions (i.e. volcanic outgassing) is the most obvious display of magmatic volatile release. However, owing to the large intrusive:extrusive ratio, and considering the paucity of volatiles left in intrusive rocks after final solidification, volcanic outgassing likely constitutes only a small fraction of the overall mass of magmatic volatiles released to the Earth's surface. Therefore, as most magmas stall on their way to the surface, outgassing of uneruptible, crystal-rich magma storage regions will play a dominant role in closing the balance of volatile element cycling between the mantle and the surface. We use a numerical approach to study the migration of a magmatic volatile phase (MVP) in crystal-rich magma bodies (“mush zones”) at the pore-scale. Our results suggest that buoyancy driven outgassing is efficient over crystal volume fractions between 0.4 and 0.7 (for mm-sized crystals). We parameterize our pore-scale results for MVP migration in a thermo-mechanical magma reservoir model to study outgassing under dynamical conditions where cooling controls the evolution of the proportion of crystal, gas and melt phases and to investigate the role of the reservoir size and the temperature-dependent visco-elastic response of the crust on outgassing efficiency. We find that buoyancy-driven outgassing allows for a maximum of 40-50% volatiles to leave the reservoir over the 0.4-0.7 crystal volume fractions, implying that a significant amount of outgassing must occur at high crystal content (>0.7) through veining and/or capillary fracturing

Ab-initio calculation of all-optical time-resolved calorimetry of nanosized systems: Evidence of nanosecond-decoupling of electron and phonon temperatures

The thermal dynamics induced by ultrashort laser pulses in nanoscale systems, i.e. all-optical time-resolved nanocalorimetry is theoretically investigated from 300 to 1.5 K. We report ab-initio calculations describing the temperature dependence of the electron-phonon interactions for Cu nanodisks supported on Si. The electrons and phonons temperatures are found to decouple on the ns time scale at 10 K, which is two orders of magnitude in excess with respect to that found for standard low-temperature transport experiments. By accounting for the physics behind our results we suggest an alternative route for overhauling the present knowledge of the electron-phonon decoupling mechanism in nanoscale systems by replacing the mK temperature requirements of conventional experiments with experiments in the time-domain.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Accepted on Physical Review B

A DECISION-THEORY APPROACH TO INTERPRETABLE SET ANALYSIS FOR HIGH-DIMENSIONAL DATA

A ubiquitous problem in igh-dimensional analysis is the identification of pre-defined sets that are enriched for features showing an association of interest. In this situation, inference is performed on sets, not individual features. We propose an approach which focuses on estimating the fraction of non-null features in a set. We search for unions of disjoint sets (atoms), using as the loss function a weighted average of the number of false and missed discoveries. We prove that the solution is equivalent to thresholding the atomic false discovery rate and that our approach results in a more interpretable set analysis