Impaired recognition of social emotions following amygdala damage

Lesion, functional imaging, and single-unit studies in human and nonhuman animals have demonstrated a role for the amygdala in processing stimuli with emotional and social significance. We investigated the recognition of a wide variety of facial expressions, including basic emotions (e.g., happiness, anger) and social emotions (e.g., guilt, admiration, flirtatiousness). Prior findings with a standardized set of stimuli indicated that recognition of social emotions can be signaled by the eye region of the face and is disproportionately impaired in autism (Baron-Cohen, Wheelwright, & Jolliffe, 1997). To test the hypothesis that the recognition of social emotions depends on the amygdala, we administered the same stimuli to 30 subjects with unilateral amygdala damage (16 left, 14 right), 2 with bilateral amygdala damage, 47 brain-damaged controls, and 19 normal controls. Compared with controls, subjects with unilateral or bilateral amygdala damage were impaired when recognizing social emotions; moreover, they were more impaired in recognition of social emotions than in recognition of basic emotions, and, like previously described patients with autism, they were impaired also when asked to recognize social emotions from the eye region of the face alone. The findings suggest that the human amygdala is relatively specialized to process stimuli with complex social significance. The results also provide further support for the idea that some of the impairments in social cognition seen in patients with autism may result from dysfunction of the amygdala

Type II Supernovae: Model Light Curves and Standard Candle Relationships

A survey of Type II supernovae explosion models has been carried out to determine how their light curves and spectra vary with their mass, metallicity, and explosion energy. The presupernova models are taken from a recent survey of massive stellar evolution at solar metallicity supplemented by new calculations at subsolar metallicity. Explosions are simulated by the motion of a piston near the edge of the iron core and the resulting light curves and spectra are calculated using full multi-wavelength radiation transport. Formulae are developed that describe approximately how the model observables (light curve luminosity and duration) scale with the progenitor mass, explosion energy, and radioactive nucleosynthesis. Comparison with observational data shows that the explosion energy of typical supernovae (as measured by kinetic energy at infinity) varies by nearly an order of magnitude -- from 0.5 to 4.0 x 10^51 ergs, with a typical value of ~0.9 x 10^51 ergs. Despite the large variation, the models exhibit a tight relationship between luminosity and expansion velocity, similar to that previously employed empirically to make SNe IIP standardized candles. This relation is explained by the simple behavior of hydrogen recombination in the supernova envelope, but we find a sensitivity to progenitor metallicity and mass that could lead to systematic errors. Additional correlations between light curve luminosity, duration, and color might enable the use of SNe IIP to obtain distances accurate to ~20% using only photometric data.Comment: 12 pages, ApJ in pres

Formula SAE Power Distribution Controller

The Power Distribution Controller senior project aims to replace the current Power Distribution Module (PDM) on Cal Poly’s Formula SAE internal combustion vehicle with a more advanced, configurable, and reliable system. The Power Distribution Controller is a MOSFET based system that can be controlled through either controller area network or a parallel interface to distribute and control power from the vehicle’s battery to the several electrical devices on the car. The Power Distribution Controller also collects output voltage and current data, and communicates this data to the vehicle’s data logger. This will allow engineers to troubleshoot electrical problems on the car by looking through log files, and also detect possible sources of electrical failure before the devices fail. Finally, the Power Distribution Controller is highly configurable and adaptable to any surrounding electrical system by being updatable through firmware rather than hardware

A Platform Towards In Situ Stress/Strain Measurement in Lithium Ion Battery Electrodes

This thesis demonstrates the design, fabrication and testing of a platform for in situ stress/strain measurement in lithium ion battery electrodes. The platform - consisting of a Microelectromechanical System (MEMS) chip containing an electrochemical cavity and an optical sensing element, a custom electrochemical package and an experimental setup - was successfully developed. Silicon was used as an active electrode material, and a thin-film electrochemical stack was conceived and tested. Finally, multiple experiments showed correlation between the active material volume change inside the battery and a signal change in the optical sensing element. The experimental results, combined with the MEMS implementation of the sensing element provide a promising way to evaluate electrochemical reaction-induced stress monitoring in a simple and compact fashion, while experiments are carried out in situ

Traducción de diversos géneros textuales en la empresa del sector de servicios de auditoría y consultoría: estudio de caso

This case study identifies text genres and translation techniques of documents subject to translation in companies providing auditing and consulting services. To this end, documents translated therein are collected and classified based on their genre, and a representative sample is taken to analyze its typology and translation techniques. This paper, which may be of interest to students, teachers, and translators of specialized documents, particularly those belonging to the economic and financial areas, concludes that most texts translated in companies providing auditing and consulting services are expository and that oblique translation is frequently used -though direct and complementary translation techniques are also applied. El presente estudio de caso identifica el género textual y las técnicas de traducción de los documentos que se traducen en la empresa del sector de servicios de auditoría y consultoría. Para tal efecto, se recopilan documentos que se traducen allí y se clasifican con base en su género, y se selecciona una muestra representativa sobre la cual se analizan elementos tipológicos y técnicas o procedimientos de traducción. El trabajo, que puede ser de interés para estudiantes, docentes y traductores de documentos especializados, particularmente económicos y financieros, evidencia que los textos que se traducen en la empresa del sector de servicios de auditoría y consultoría suelen ser expositivos y que predominan los procedimientos de traducción oblicua, aunque no se dejan de lado los literales y complementarios

Management of Event History Data and Episode Splitting Using the AGIPEB-Dataset

During the AGIPEB-Project several event history analyses were implemented to find an-swers to the question to what extent fixed-term employment as well as other sociostructural or labour market variables influence transition-rates into partnership-stabilizing events. These events under consideration were: cohabitation, marriage, parenthood and homeownership. While we relied on cox regressions and exponential models in earlier studies, we went on to use piecewise-constant models in later phases of the project. In the present working paper we document the data management and the episode splitting process in praparation for our empirical analyses (for these analyses see the remaining working papers in the AGIPEB-series). For all our data management as well as episode splitting we used Stata IC, Version 14

The Bodily Movements of Liars

We measured the continuous bodily motion of participants as they lied to experimenters. These lies were spontaneous rather than elicited, and occurred for different motivations. In one situation, participants were given the opportunity to lie about their performance on a maths test in order to win money. In another, they witnessed one experimenter accidentally break a laptop. When asked what had happened, participants were motivated to lie and deny any knowledge. Across these situations, participants lied 61% of the time, allowing us to contrast the body movements of liars with truth tellers as they answered neutral and critical questions. Those who lied had significantly reduced bodily motion. In one case this motion appeared before the experimenter had even asked the critical question. We conclude that a person’s bodily dynamics can be indicative of their cognitive and effective states, even when they would rather conceal them

Spectral Consequences of Deviation from Spherical Composition Symmetry in Type Ia Supernovae

We investigate the prospects for constraining the maximum scale of clumping in composition that is consistent with observed Type Ia supernova flux spectra. Synthetic spectra generated without purely spherical composition symmetry indicate that gross asymmetries make prominent changes to absorption features. Motivated by this, we consider the case of a single unblended line forming in an atmosphere with perturbations of different scales and spatial distributions. Perturbations of about 1% of the area of the photodisk simply weaken the absorption feature by the same amount independent of the line of sight. Conversely, perturbations of about 10% of the area of the photodisk introduce variation in the absorption depth which does depend on the line of sight. Thus, 1% photodisk area perturbations may be consistent with observed profile homogeneity but 10% photodisk area perturbations can not. Based on this, we suggest that the absence of significant variation in the depths of Si II 6355 absorption features in normal Type Ia spectra near maximum light indicates that any composition perturbations in these events are quite small. This also constrains future three-dimensional explosion models to produce ejecta profiles with only small scale inhomogeneities.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figure