Their pain is not our pain: brain and autonomic correlates of empathic resonance with the pain of same and different race individuals.

Recent advances in social neuroscience research have unveiled the neurophysiological correlates of race and intergroup processing. However, little is known about the neural mechanisms underlying intergroup empathy. Combining event-related fMRI with measurements of pupil dilation as an index of autonomic reactivity, we explored how race and group membership affect empathy-related responses. White and Black subjects were presented with video clips depicting white, black, and unfamiliar violet-skinned hands being either painfully penetrated by a syringe or being touched by a Q-tip. Both hemodynamic activity within areas known to be involved in the processing of first and third-person emotional experiences of pain, i.e., bilateral anterior insula, and autonomic reactivity were greater for the pain experienced by own-race compared to that of other-race and violet models. Interestingly, greater implicit racial bias predicted increased activity within the left anterior insula during the observation of own-race pain relative to other-race pain. Our findings highlight the close link between group-based segregation and empathic processing. Moreover, they demonstrate the relative influence of culturally acquired implicit attitudes and perceived similarity/familiarity with the target in shaping emotional responses to others' physical pain

From time-series to complex networks: Application to the cerebrovascular flow patterns in atrial fibrillation

A network-based approach is presented to investigate the cerebrovascular flow patterns during atrial fibrillation (AF) with respect to normal sinus rhythm (NSR). AF, the most common cardiac arrhythmia with faster and irregular beating, has been recently and independently associated with the increased risk of dementia. However, the underlying hemodynamic mechanisms relating the two pathologies remain mainly undetermined so far; thus the contribution of modeling and refined statistical tools is valuable. Pressure and flow rate temporal series in NSR and AF are here evaluated along representative cerebral sites (from carotid arteries to capillary brain circulation), exploiting reliable artificially built signals recently obtained from an in silico approach. The complex network analysis evidences, in a synthetic and original way, a dramatic signal variation towards the distal/capillary cerebral regions during AF, which has no counterpart in NSR conditions. At the large artery level, networks obtained from both AF and NSR hemodynamic signals exhibit elongated and chained features, which are typical of pseudo-periodic series. These aspects are almost completely lost towards the microcirculation during AF, where the networks are topologically more circular and present random-like characteristics. As a consequence, all the physiological phenomena at microcerebral level ruled by periodicity - such as regular perfusion, mean pressure per beat, and average nutrient supply at cellular level - can be strongly compromised, since the AF hemodynamic signals assume irregular behaviour and random-like features. Through a powerful approach which is complementary to the classical statistical tools, the present findings further strengthen the potential link between AF hemodynamic and cognitive decline.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

ATLAS RPC Quality Assurance results at INFN Lecce

The main results of the quality assurance tests performed on the Resistive Plate Chamber used by the ATLAS experiment at LHC as muon trigger chambers are reported and discussed. Since July 2004, about 270 RPC units has been certified at INFN Lecce site and delivered to CERN, for being integrated in the final muon station of the ATLAS barrel region. We show the key RPC characteristics which qualify the performance of this detector technology as muon trigger chamber in the harsh LHC enviroments. These are dark current, chamber efficiency, noise rate, gas volume tomography, and gas leakage.Comment: Comments: 6 pages, 1 table, 9 figures Proceedings of XXV Physics in Collision-Prague, Czech Republic, 6-9 July 200

The effects of body exposure on self-body image and esthetic appreciation in anorexia nervosa.

Repeated exposures to thin-idealized body shapes may alter women's perceptions of what normal (e.g., accepted) and ideal (e.g., desired) bodies in a cultural environment look like. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether exposure to thin and round body shapes may change the subsequent esthetic appreciation of others' bodies and the perceptual and cognitive-affective dimensions of self-body image in patients suffering from anorexia nervosa (AN). Thirteen AN patients and 13 matched healthy controls were exposed to pictures of either thin or round unfamiliar body models and, before and after exposure, they were required to either express liking judgments about round and slim figures of unfamiliar bodies (esthetic task) or to adjust distorted pictures of their own body to their perceptual (How do you see yourself?), affective (How do you feel yourself?), metacognitive (How do others see you?) and ideal (How would you like to look like?) body image (self-body adjustment task). Brief exposures to round models increased liking judgments of round figures in both groups. However, only in AN patients, exposure to round models induced an increase in thin figures liking, which positively correlated with their preoccupation with dieting. Furthermore, exposure to round bodies in AN patients, but not in controls, increased the distortion for the perceptual body image and decreased the size of the ideal one. No differences between the two groups were obtained after adaptation to thin models. Our results suggest that AN patients' perception of their own and others' body is more easily malleable by exposure to round figures as compared to controls. Crucially, this mechanism may strongly contribute to the development and maintenance of self-body image disturbances

ATLAS RPC Cosmic Ray Teststand at INFN Lecce

We describe the design and functionality of the cosmic ray teststand built at INFN Lecce for ATLAS RPC quality control assurance.Comment: XXIV Physics in Collisions Conference (PIC04), Boston, USA, June 2004, 3 pages, LaTex, 2 eps figures. MONP0

Severe asthma features in children: A case-control online survey

Background: Very few studies have explored the distinguishing features of severe asthma in childhood in Europe, and only one study was conducted in Southern Europe. The aim of this study was to provide a detailed characterization of children with severe asthma treated in specialized pediatric asthma centers across Italy. Methods: We conducted a web-based data collection of family, environmental, clinical and laboratory characteristics of 41 patients aged 6-17 years with severe asthma, defined according to the recent guidelines of the European Respiratory Society and the American Thoracic Society, and 78 age-matched peers with non-severe persistent asthma. The patients have been enrolled from 16 hospital-based pediatric pulmonology and allergy centers in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy. Logistic regression analysis assessed the relationship between patients' characteristics and severe asthma or non-severe persistent asthma. Results: Features independently and significantly associated with severe asthma included lifetime sensitization to food allergens [Odds ratio (OR), 4.73; 95 % Confidence Interval (CI), 1.21-18.53; p = 0.03], lifetime hospitalization for asthma (OR, 3.71; 95 % CI, 1.11-12.33; p = 0.03), emergency-department visits for asthma during the past year (OR = 11.98; 95 % CI, 2.70-53.11; p = 0.001), and symptoms triggered by physical activity (OR = 12.78; 95 % CI, 2.66-61.40; p = 0.001). Quality-of-life score was worse in patients with severe asthma than in subjects with non-severe persistent asthma (5.9 versus 6.6, p = 0.005). Self-perception of wellbeing was compromised in more than 40 % of patients in both groups. Children with severe asthma had lower spirometric z scores than non-severe asthmatic peers (all p < 0.001), although 56 % of them had a normal forced expiratory volume in 1 s. No differences were found between the two groups for parental education, home environment, patients' comorbidities, adherence to therapy, exhaled nitric oxide values, and serum eosinophils and IgE . Conclusions: As expected, children with severe asthma had more severe clinical course and worse lung function than peers with non-severe persistent asthma. Unlike previous reports, we found greater sensitization to food allergens and similar environmental and personal characteristics in patients with severe asthma compared to those with non-severe persistent asthma. Psychological aspects are compromised in a large number of cases and deserve further investigation

The importance of perceptual experience in the esthetic appreciation of the body.

Several studies suggest that sociocultural models conveying extreme thinness as the widespread ideal of beauty exert an important influence on the perceptual and emotional representation of body image. The psychological mechanisms underlying such environmental influences, however, are unclear. Here, we utilized a perceptual adaptation paradigm to investigate how perceptual experience modulates body esthetic appreciation. We found that the liking judgments of round bodies increased or decreased after brief exposure to round or thin bodies, respectively. No change occurred in the liking judgments of thin bodies. The results suggest that perceptual experience may shape our esthetic appreciation to favor more familiar round body figures. Importantly, individuals with more deficits in interoceptive awareness were less prone to increase their liking ratings of round bodies after exposure, suggesting a specific risk factor for the susceptibility to the influence of the extreme thin vs. round body ideals of beauty portrayed by the media

Inclusive search for same-sign dilepton signatures in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

An inclusive search is presented for new physics in events with two isolated leptons (e or mu) having the same electric charge. The data are selected from events collected from p p collisions at root s = 7 TeV by the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb(-1). The spectra in dilepton invariant mass, missing transverse momentum and jet multiplicity are presented and compared to Standard Model predictions. In this event sample, no evidence is found for contributions beyond those of the Standard Model. Limits are set on the cross-section in a fiducial region for new sources of same-sign high-mass dilepton events in the ee, e mu and mu mu channels. Four models predicting same-sign dilepton signals are constrained: two descriptions of Majorana neutrinos, a cascade topology similar to supersymmetry or universal extra dimensions, and fourth generation d-type quarks. Assuming a new physics scale of 1 TeV, Majorana neutrinos produced by an effective operator V with masses below 460 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level. A lower limit of 290 GeV is set at 95% confidence level on the mass of fourth generation d-type quarks

Measurement of the top quark-pair production cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at \sqrt{s}=7\TeV

A measurement of the production cross-section for top quark pairs(\ttbar) in $pp$ collisions at \sqrt{s}=7 \TeV is presented using data recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. Events are selected in two different topologies: single lepton (electron $e$ or muon $\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least four jets, and dilepton ($ee$, $\mu\mu$ or $e\mu$) with large missing transverse energy and at least two jets. In a data sample of 2.9 pb-1, 37 candidate events are observed in the single-lepton topology and 9 events in the dilepton topology. The corresponding expected backgrounds from non-\ttbar Standard Model processes are estimated using data-driven methods and determined to be $12.2 \pm 3.9$ events and $2.5 \pm 0.6$ events, respectively. The kinematic properties of the selected events are consistent with SM \ttbar production. The inclusive top quark pair production cross-section is measured to be \sigmattbar=145 \pm 31 ^{+42}_{-27} pb where the first uncertainty is statistical and the second systematic. The measurement agrees with perturbative QCD calculations.Comment: 30 pages plus author list (50 pages total), 9 figures, 11 tables, CERN-PH number and final journal adde