Microdosing psychedelics:Does it have an impact on emodiversity?

Background and aims Previous research has proposed that microdosing, i.e., the repeated use of sub-threshold doses of serotonergic hallucinogens, has an impact on mood by increasing emotional awareness. We propose that increased emotional awareness could translate into higher emodiversity, a balanced experience of emotions in which emotions are experienced with more similarity in intensity and duration. We examine the effect of microdosing, the day after, as well as the cumulative effect of microdosing on overall, positive and negative emodiversity. Methods We use data collected over a period of 28 days sampled between February to June 2020 from 18 users that already had an active practice of microdosing at the start of the data collection. We assessed emotional states using ESM methods, i.e., signal-contingent sampling with triggers sent 5 times a day. The working dataset has a number of 224 observations days. We used mixed effects models to test our hypotheses. Results When taking into account the level of average affect, we found that during microdosing days positive and overall emodiversity were significantly lower. No evidence was found for a mediating role of the level of average affect. Higher cumulative instances of microdosing were not related to any of the emodiversity indexes. Participants experienced more “awe, wonder, or amazement”, “ashamed, humiliated, or disgraced” as well as less “joyful, glad, or happy” emotions during microdosing days. Conclusion A microdosing practice may increase the centrality of certain emotions on microdosing days, resulting in a decrease in emotional diversity

Trend- und Komponentenanalyse der Profitrate für Deutschland von 1850 bis 1913

--

Hippocampal sclerosis affects fMR-adaptation of lyrics and melodies in songs

Songs constitute a natural combination of lyrics and melodies, but it is unclear whether and how these two song components are integrated during the emergence of a memory trace. Network theories of memory suggest a prominent role of the hippocampus, together with unimodal sensory areas, in the build-up of conjunctive representations. The present study tested the modulatory influence of the hippocampus on neural adaptation to songs in lateral temporal areas. Patients with unilateral hippocampal sclerosis and healthy matched controls were presented with blocks of short songs in which lyrics and/or melodies were varied or repeated in a crossed factorial design. Neural adaptation effects were taken as correlates of incidental emergent memory traces. We hypothesized that hippocampal lesions, particularly in the left hemisphere, would weaken adaptation effects, especially the integration of lyrics and melodies. Results revealed that lateral temporal lobe regions showed weaker adaptation to repeated lyrics as well as a reduced interaction of the adaptation effects for lyrics and melodies in patients with left hippocampal sclerosis. This suggests a deficient build-up of a sensory memory trace for lyrics and a reduced integration of lyrics with melodies, compared to healthy controls. Patients with right hippocampal sclerosis showed a similar profile of results although the effects did not reach significance in this population. We highlight the finding that the integrated representation of lyrics and melodies typically shown in healthy participants is likely tied to the integrity of the left medial temporal lobe. This novel finding provides the first neuroimaging evidence for the role of the hippocampus during repetitive exposure to lyrics and melodies and their integration into a song

A comparative study of different reaction models for turbulent methane/hydrogen/air combustion

Reaction modelling of methane/hydrogen combustion has two important aspects. First, such mixtures may be used in future in combustion devices like gas turbines and gas engines in the frame of the demand for efficient energy storage systems, where the amount of hydrogen in natural gas delivering systems may vary according to varying hydrogen production from renewable energies. Second, this can be an important aspect for safety, as such mixtures may occur in disastrous situations and calculations may allow the prediction of safety issues. Modelling of such mixed fuel combustion processes is non-trivial due to the involved preferential diffusion effects, coming from the different diffusivities of methane and hydrogen. In turbulent flame modelling, this topic is of special interest, as also thermo-diffusive instabilities and local influence of the local burning velocity near leading edges of the flame seem to be of importance even for highly turbulent flames. This numerical work deals therefore with a comparative study of five different turbulent combustion models - Bray-Moss-Libby, Linstedt-Vaos (LV), a modified version LV, Turbulent Flamespeed Closure, and Algebraic Flame Surface Wrinkling model - to the situation of turbulent methane/hydrogen/air flames. Validation is done with extensive experimental data obtained by a low swirl burner in the group by Cheng. Besides a basic case with pure methane/air, special emphasis is laid on flames with 40 to 100 % hydrogen content by volume. It is shown that for such methane/hydrogen fuel mixtures common reaction rate models are not sufficient where the fuel effects are included only via a laminar flame speed. Instead, a recently proposed reaction model with the incorporation of an effective Lewis number of the fuel mixture is found to work rather well. This is of both, practical as well as theoretical importance, as for the latter it confirms controversially discussed assumptions of the influence of preferential diffusion

Validation of a Generic Non-Swirled Multi-Fuel Burner for the Measurement of Flame Stability Limits for Research of Advanced Sustainable Aviation Fuels

Future aviation concepts should be both CO2-neutral and without other emissions. One approach to reaching both targets is based on sustainably produced synthetic liquid fuels, which may allow very clean, lean premixed prevaporized (LPP) combustion. For that, fuels are needed with much longer ignition delay times and a lower flashback propensity than current jet fuels. We describe an experimental setup to investigate the flashback stability of liquid fuels in a multi-fuel burner. In this work, the measurement procedure and the determination of the experimentally obtained accuracy are in focus with regard to prevaporized and preheated iso-propanol/air flames in an equivalence ratio range of 0.85 to 1.05 involving three preheating levels (573, 673, and 773 K). As the determination of the accurate unburnt gas temperature just ahead of the flame is of strong importance for flashback but not directly possible, a model is implemented to determine it from the measurable quantities. Even with this indirect method, and also regarding the hysteresis of the experimental preheating temperature, it is found that the relevant quantities, namely, measured temperatures, mass flows, and values derived from them, can be determined with accuracy in the range below 1.7%

Ultrasonic Study of Turbulent Water Flow

The propagation of ultrasonic waves through turbulent water flow has been Investigated experimentally. While passing the turbulent region the sound waves are modulated to some extent. The degree of modulation and the frequency spectra of the modulation are closely related to the properties of the flow. It seems to be possible to use this method for turbulence measurements in liquids, whereby the absence of a probe in the flow region and a possibility to differentiate between velocity and density fluctuations would be special advantages. A disadvantage can be the fact that Information is collected on the whole sound path