Black and White as Valence Cues

Replication efforts involving large samples are recommended in helping to determine the reliability of an effect. This approach was taken for a study from Meier, Robinson, and Clore (2004) , one of the first papers in social cognition guided by conceptual metaphor theory, which reported that evaluations were faster when word valence metaphorically matched (e.g., a word with a negative meaning in black) rather than mismatched (e.g., a word with a negative meaning in white) font color. The present investigation was a direct large-scale replication attempt involving 980 participants who completed an experiment using web-based software and were diverse in terms of race, age, and geographical location. Words with a positive meaning were evaluated faster when font color was white rather than black and words with a negative meaning were evaluated faster when font color was black rather than white, replicating the main results of Meier et al. (2004) . </jats:p

Direct Shader Sampling in Painterly Rendering for Animation

We present a technique for generating stroke parameters in particlebased painterly rendering algorithms that guarantees temporal coherence in animation through directly sampling shaders. To determine the appropriate color for a brush stroke, techniques like [Meier 1996] render the scene into reference pictures using traditional techniques. This reference picture is then queried by applying the camera transform to the particle’s position. This transform will not always map to the correct pixel which can lead to noticeable temporal discontinuities when there is a significant color difference between two neighboring pixels. When a stroke particle lies on the edge of an object, the brush stroke will sometimes flicker between the two neighboring colors. Previously, as described in [Meier 1996], scenes would be broken up into different layers, and image processing effects were applied to reference pictures to ensure that the right color is sampled. Our method requires no post processing effects to ensure temporal coherence around these edge cases

Adults can be trained to acquire synesthetic experiences

Synesthesia is a condition where presentation of one perceptual class consistently evokes additional experiences in different perceptual categories. Synesthesia is widely considered a congenital condition, although an alternative view is that it is underpinned by repeated exposure to combined perceptual features at key developmental stages. Here we explore the potential for repeated associative learning to shape and engender synesthetic experiences. Non-synesthetic adult participants engaged in an extensive training regime that involved adaptive memory and reading tasks, designed to reinforce 13 specific letter-color associations. Following training, subjects exhibited a range of standard behavioral and physiological markers for grapheme-color synesthesia; crucially, most also described perceiving color experiences for achromatic letters, inside and outside the lab, where such experiences are usually considered the hallmark of genuine synesthetes. Collectively our results are consistent with developmental accounts of synesthesia and illuminate a previously unsuspected potential for new learning to shape perceptual experience, even in adulthood

Photoionization cross sections of rovibrational levels of the B^1Σ^+_u state of H_2

We report theoretical cross sections for direct photoionization of specific rovibrational levels of the B ^1Σ^+_u electronic state of H_2. The calculated cross sections differ considerably from values recently determined by resonant enhanced multiphoton ionization (REMPI) studies. In an attempt to understand the disagreement, we analyze in detail the REMPI dynamics and find that the multiphoton ionization probability is extremely sensitive to the spatial and temporal profiles of the laser pulses. Accurate characterization of laser profiles and their jitter is therefore necessary for a comparison between theory and experiment

General Relativistic Simulations of Jet Formation in a Rapidly Rotating Black Hole Magnetosphere

To investigate the formation mechanism of relativistic jets in active galactic nuclei and micro-quasars, we have developed a new general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic code in Kerr geometry. Here we report on the first numerical simulation of jet formation in a rapidly-rotating (a=0.95) Kerr black hole magnetosphere. We study cases in which the Keplerian accretion disk is both co-rotating and counter-rotating with respect to the black hole rotation. In the co-rotating disk case, our results are almost the same as those in Schwarzschild black hole cases: a gas pressure-driven jet is formed by a shock in the disk, and a weaker magnetically-driven jet is also generated outside the gas pressure-driven jet. On the other hand, in the counter-rotating disk case, a new powerful magnetically-driven jet is formed inside the gas pressure-driven jet. The newly found magnetically-driven jet in the latter case is accelerated by a strong magnetic field created by frame dragging in the ergosphere. Through this process, the magnetic field extracts the energy of the black hole rotation.Comment: Co-rotating and counter-rotating disks; 8 pages; submitted to ApJ letter

Representative Bureaucracy, Ethnicity, and Public Schools: Examining the Link Between Representation and Performance

Demographic changes in the United States have led to challenges for public organizations that are tasked to serve shifting target populations. Many arguments exist for including greater numbers of ethnic minorities among an organization's personnel, under the guise that greater ethnic representation will result in greater competitiveness in the market or effectiveness in governance. This paper tests this proposition empirically, using data from the public education policy setting. Results show that representativeness along ethnic lines leads to gains for the organization as a whole, but some segments of the target population appear to respond more positively to representativeness than others. Working Paper 06-1

Phylogenomic study of Burkholderia glathei-like organisms, proposal of 13 novel Burkholderia species and emended descriptions of Burkholderia sordidicola, Burkholderia zhejiangensis, and Burkholderia grimmiae

Partial gyrB gene sequence analysis of 17 isolates from human and environmental sources revealed 13 clusters of strains and identified them as Burkholderia glathei Glade (BGC) bacteria. The taxonomic status of these clusters was examined by whole-genome sequence analysis, determination of the G+C content, whole-cell fatty acid analysis and biochemical characterization. The whole-genome sequence-based phylogeny was assessed using the Genome Blast Distance Phylogeny (GBDP) method and an extended multilocus sequence analysis (MLSA) approach. The results demonstrated that these 17 BGC isolates represented 13 novel Burkholderia species that could be distinguished by both genotypic and phenotypic characteristics. BGC strains exhibited a broad metabolic versatility and developed beneficial, symbiotic, and pathogenic interactions with different hosts. Our data also confirmed that there is no phylogenetic subdivision in the genus Burkholderia that distinguishes beneficial from pathogenic strains. We therefore propose to formally classify the 13 novel BGC Burkholderia species as Burkholderia arvi sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29317(T) = CCUG 68412(T)), Burkholderia hypogeia sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29322(T) = CCUG 68407(T)), Burkholderia ptereochthonis sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29326(T) = CCUG 68403(T)), Burkholderia glebae sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29325(T) = CCUG 68404(T)), Burkholderia pedi sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29323(T) = CCUG 68406(T)), Burkholderia arationis sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29324(T) = CCUG 68405(T)), Burkholderia fortuita sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29320(T) = CCUG 68409(T)), Burkholderia temeraria sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29319(T) = CCUG 68410(T)), Burkholderia calidae sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29321(T) = CCUG 68408(T)), Burkholderia concitans sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29315(T) = CCUG 68414(T)), Burkholderia turbans sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29316(T) = CCUG 68413(T)), Burkholderia catudaia sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29318(T) = CCUG 68411(T)) and Burkholderia peredens sp. nov. (type strain LMG 29314(T) = CCUG 68415(T)). Furthermore, we present emended descriptions of the species Burkholderia sordidicola, Burkholderia zhejlangensis and Burkholderia grimmiae. The GenBank/EMBUDDBJ accession numbers for the 16S rRNA and gyrB gene sequences determined in this study are LT158612-LT158624 and LT158625-LT1158641, respectively