Motor action and emotional memory

Can simple motor actions affect how efficiently people retrieve emotional memories, and influence what they choose to remember? In Experiment 1, participants were prompted to retell autobiographical memories with either positive or negative valence, while moving marbles either upward or downward. They retrieved memories faster when the direction of movement was congruent with the valence of the memory (upward for positive, downward for negative memories). Given neutral-valence prompts in Experiment 2, participants retrieved more positive memories when instructed to move marbles up, and more negative memories when instructed to move them down, demonstrating a causal link from motion to emotion. Results suggest that positive and negative life experiences are implicitly associated with schematic representations of upward and downward motion, consistent with theories of metaphorical mental representation. Beyond influencing the efficiency of memory retrieval, the direction of irrelevant, repetitive motor actions can also partly determine the emotional content of the memories people retrieve: moving marbles upward (an ostensibly meaningless action) can cause people to think more positive thoughts

On the relation between adjacent inviscid cell type solutions to the rotating-disk equations

Over a large range of the axial coordinate a typical higher-branch solution of the rotating-disk equations consists of a chain of inviscid cells separated from each other by viscous interlayers. In this paper the leading-order relation between two adjacent cells will be established by matched asymptotic expansions for general values of the parameter appearing in the equations. It is found that the relation between the solutions in the two cells crucially depends on the behaviour of the tangential velocity in the viscous interlayer. The results of the theory are compared with accurate numerical solutions and good agreement is obtained

Structure and thermodynamics of colloid-polymer mixtures: a macromolecular approach

The change of the structure of concentrated colloidal suspensions upon addition of non-adsorbing polymer is studied within a two-component, Ornstein-Zernicke based liquid state approach. The polymers' conformational degrees of freedom are considered and excluded volume is enforced at the segment level. The polymer correlation hole, depletion layer, and excess chemical potentials are described in agreement with polymer physics theory in contrast to models treating the macromolecules as effective spheres. Known depletion attraction effects are recovered for low particle density, while at higher densities novel many-body effects emerge which become dominant for large polymers.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures; to be published in Europhys. Let

Age of second language acquisition affects nonverbal conflict processing in children : an fMRI study

Background: In their daily communication, bilinguals switch between two languages, a process that involves the selection of a target language and minimization of interference from a nontarget language. Previous studies have uncovered the neural structure in bilinguals and the activation patterns associated with performing verbal conflict tasks. One question that remains, however is whether this extra verbal switching affects brain function during nonverbal conflict tasks. Methods: In this study, we have used fMRI to investigate the impact of bilingualism in children performing two nonverbal tasks involving stimulus-stimulus and stimulus-response conflicts. Three groups of 8-11-year-old children - bilinguals from birth (2L1), second language learners (L2L), and a control group of monolinguals (1L1) - were scanned while performing a color Simon and a numerical Stroop task. Reaction times and accuracy were logged. Results: Compared to monolingual controls, bilingual children showed higher behavioral congruency effect of these tasks, which is matched by the recruitment of brain regions that are generally used in general cognitive control, language processing or to solve language conflict situations in bilinguals (caudate nucleus, posterior cingulate gyrus, STG, precuneus). Further, the activation of these areas was found to be higher in 2L1 compared to L2L. Conclusion: The coupling of longer reaction times to the recruitment of extra language-related brain areas supports the hypothesis that when dealing with language conflicts the specialization of bilinguals hampers the way they can process with nonverbal conflicts, at least at early stages in life

Phase behaviour of charged colloidal sphere dispersions with added polymer chains

We study the stability of mixtures of highly screened repulsive charged spheres and non-adsorbing ideal polymer chains in a common solvent using free volume theory. The effective interaction between charged colloids in an aqueous salt solution is described by a screened-Coulomb pair potential, which supplements the pure hard-sphere interaction. The ideal polymer chains are treated as spheres that are excluded from the colloids by a hard-core interaction, whereas the interaction between two ideal chains is set to zero. In addition, we investigate the phase behaviour of charged colloid-polymer mixtures in computer simulations, using the two-body (Asakura-Oosawa pair potential) approximation to the effective one-component Hamiltonian of the charged colloids. Both our results obtained from simulations and from free volume theory show similar trends. We find that the screened-Coulomb repulsion counteracts the effect of the effective polymer-mediated attraction. For mixtures of small polymers and relatively large charged colloidal spheres, the fluid-crystal transition shifts to significantly larger polymer concentrations with increasing range of the screened-Coulomb repulsion. For relatively large polymers, the effect of the screened-Coulomb repulsion is weaker. The resulting fluid-fluid binodal is only slightly shifted towards larger polymer concentrations upon increasing the range of the screened-Coulomb repulsion. In conclusion, our results show that the miscibility of dispersions containing charged colloids and neutral non-adsorbing polymers increases, upon increasing the range of the screened-Coulomb repulsion, or upon lowering the salt concentration, especially when the polymers are small compared to the colloids.Comment: 25 pages,13 figures, accepted for publication on J.Phys.:Condens. Matte

Estimates of daily oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide and methane emissions, and heat production for beef and dairy cattle using spot gas sampling

A simulation study was conducted to examine accuracy of estimating daily O2 consumption, CO2 and CH4 emissions, and heat production (HP) using a spot sampling technique and to determine optimal spot sampling frequency (FQ). Data were obtained from 3 experiments where daily O2 consumption, emissions of CO2 and CH4, and HP were measured using indirect calorimetry (respiration chamber or headbox system). Experiment 1 used 8 beef heifers (ad libitum feeding; gaseous exchanges measured every 30 min over 3 d in respiration chambers); Experiment 2 used 56 lactating Holstein-Friesian cows (restricted feeding; gaseous exchanges measured every 12 min over 3 d in respiration chambers); Experiment 3 used 12 lactating Jersey cows (ad libitum feeding; gaseous exchanges measured every hour for 1 d using headbox style chambers). Within experiment, averages of all measurements (FQALL) and averages of measurements selected at time points with 12, 8, 6, or 4 spot sampling FQ (i.e., sampling every 2, 3, 4, and 6 h in a 24-h cycle, respectively; FQ12, FQ8, FQ6, and FQ4, respectively) were compared. Within study a mixed model was used to compare gaseous exchanges and HP among FQALL, FQ12, FQ8, FQ6, and FQ4, and an interaction of dietary treatment by FQ was examined. A regression model was used to evaluate accuracy of spot sampling within study [i.e., FQALL (observed) vs. FQ12, FQ8, FQ6, or FQ4 (estimated)]. No interaction of diet by FQ was observed for any variables except for CH4 production in experiment 1. No FQ effect was observed for gaseous exchanges and HP except in experiment 2 where CO2 production was less (5,411 vs. 5,563 L/d) for FQ4 compared with FQALL, FQ12, and FQ8. A regression analysis between FQALL and each FQ within study showed that slopes and intercepts became farther from 1 and 0, respectively, for almost all variables as FQ decreased. Most variables for FQ12 and FQ8 had root mean square prediction error (RMSPE) less than 10% of the mean and concordance correlation coefficient (CCC) greater than 0.80, and RMSPE increased and CCC decreased as FQ decreased. When a regression analysis was conducted with combined data from the 3 experiments (mixed model with study as a random effect), results agreed with those from the analysis for the individual studies. Prediction errors increased and CCC decreased as FQ decreased. Generally, all the estimates from FQ12, FQ8, FQ6, and FQ4 had RMSPE less than 10% of the means and CCC greater than 0.90 except for FQ6 and FQ4 for O2 consumption and CH4 production. In conclusion, the spot sampling simulation with 3 indirect calorimetry experiments indicated that FQ of at least 8 samples (every 3 h in a 24-h cycle) was required to estimate daily O2 consumption, CO2 and CH4 production, and HP and to detect changes in those in response to dietary treatments. This sampling FQ may be considered when using techniques that measure spot gas exchanges such as the GreenFeed and face mask systems

Fluids of platelike particles near a hard wall

Fluids consisting of hard platelike particles near a hard wall are investigated using density functional theory. The density and orientational profiles as well as the surface tension and the excess coverage are determined and compared with those of a fluid of rodlike particles. Even for low densities slight orientational packing effects are found for the platelet fluid due to larger intermolecular interactions between platelets as compared with those between rods. A net depletion of platelets near the wall is exhibited by the excess coverage, whereas a change of sign of the excess coverage of hard-rod fluids is found upon increasing the bulk density.Comment: 6 pages, 9 figure

Formal change impact analyses for emulated control software

Processor emulators are a software tool for allowing legacy computer programs to be executed on a modern processor. In the past emulators have been used in trivial applications such as maintenance of video games. Now, however, processor emulation is being applied to safety-critical control systems, including military avionics. These applications demand utmost guarantees of correctness, but no verification techniques exist for proving that an emulated system preserves the original system’s functional and timing properties. Here we show how this can be done by combining concepts previously used for reasoning about real-time program compilation, coupled with an understanding of the new and old software architectures. In particular, we show how both the old and new systems can be given a common semantics, thus allowing their behaviours to be compared directly

Landslide mapping for susceptibility and hazard assessment: North York Moors, UK

The British Geological Survey (BGS) has developed a multi-stage methodology for landslide mapping by augmenting traditional mapping techniques with new geospatial technologies. This allows better characterisation and understanding of the country’s landslides: an essential requirement for landslide susceptibility modelling, risk assessment and resilient infrastructure planning. The BGS methodology has most recently been applied to the North York Moors National Park in northern England, UK: an area with steep slopes, landslide-prone lithologies and an exposed coastal section but few recorded landslide events. Over 550 landslides have now been identified and data on the characteristics and mechanisms of these have been used to inform hazard assessments and susceptibility modelling research including the National Landslide Database, the National Landslide Domains Map and the National Geohazard Assessment