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Emotion and Creativity: Hacking into Cognitive Appraisal Processes to Augment Creative Ideation
Creativity thrives when people experience positive emotions. How to design an interactive system that can effectively make use of this potential is, however, still an unanswered question. In this paper, we propose one approach to this problem that relies on hacking into the cognitive appraisal processes that form part of positive emotions. To demonstrate our approach we have conceived, made, and evaluated a novel interactive system that influences an individual’s appraisals of their own idea generation processes by providing real-time and believable feedback about the originality of their ideas. The system can be used to manipulate this feedback to make the user’s ideas appear more or less original. This has enabled us to test experimentally the hypothesis that providing more positive feedback, rather than neutral, or more negative feedback than the user is expecting, causes more positive emotion, which in turn causes more creativity during idea generation. The findings demonstrate that an interactive system can be designed to use the function of cognitive appraisal processes in positive emotion to help people to get more out of their own creative capabilities
Renormalization group and nonequilibrium action in stochastic field theory
We investigate the renormalization group approach to nonequilibrium field
theory. We show that it is possible to derive nontrivial renormalization group
flow from iterative coarse graining of a closed-time-path action. This
renormalization group is different from the usual in quantum field theory
textbooks, in that it describes nontrivial noise and dissipation. We work out a
specific example where the variation of the closed-time-path action leads to
the so-called Kardar-Parisi-Zhang equation, and show that the renormalization
group obtained by coarse graining this action, agrees with the dynamical
renormalization group derived by directly coarse graining the equations of
motion.Comment: 33 pages, 3 figures included in the text. Revised; one reference
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ThermoElectric Transport Properties of a Chain of Quantum Dots with Self-Consistent Reservoirs
We introduce a model for charge and heat transport based on the
Landauer-Buttiker scattering approach. The system consists of a chain of
quantum dots, each of them being coupled to a particle reservoir. Additionally,
the left and right ends of the chain are coupled to two particle reservoirs.
All these reservoirs are independent and can be described by any of the
standard physical distributions: Maxwell-Boltzmann, Fermi-Dirac and
Bose-Einstein. In the linear response regime, and under some assumptions, we
first describe the general transport properties of the system. Then we impose
the self-consistency condition, i.e. we fix the boundary values (T_L,\mu_L) and
(T_R,mu_R), and adjust the parameters (T_i,mu_i), for i = 1,...,N, so that the
net average electric and heat currents into all the intermediate reservoirs
vanish. This condition leads to expressions for the temperature and chemical
potential profiles along the system, which turn out to be independent of the
distribution describing the reservoirs. We also determine the average electric
and heat currents flowing through the system and present some numerical
results, using random matrix theory, showing that these currents are typically
governed by Ohm and Fourier laws.Comment: Minor changes (45 pages
The use of Complementary and Alternative Medicine in pregnancy: Data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)
Objectives - To report the frequency of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) use by a population of pregnant women in the UK.
Design - Four postal self-completion questionnaires completed at 8, 12, 18 and 32 weeks’ gestation provided the source of CAMs used. Questions asked for written descriptions about the use of any treatments, pills, medicines, ointments, homeopathic medicines, herbal medicines, supplements, drinks and herbal teas.
Setting - An observational, population-based, cohort study of parents and children of 14,541 pregnant women residing within the former county of Avon in south-west England. Data was available for 14,115 women.
Results - Over a quarter (26.7%; n = 3774) of women had used a CAM at least once in pregnancy, the use rising from 6% in the 1st trimester to 12.4% in the 2nd to 26.3% in the 3rd. Herbal teas were the most commonly reported CAM at any time in pregnancy (17.7%; n = 2499) followed by homeopathic medicine (14.4%; n = 2038) and then herbal medicine (5.8%; n = 813). The most commonly used herbal product was chamomile used by 14.6% of women, the most commonly used homeopathic product was Arnica used by 3.1% of women. Other CAMs (osteopathy, aromatherapy, acupuncture/acupressure, Chinese herbal medicine, chiropractic, cranial sacral therapy, hypnosis, non-specific massage and reflexology) accounted for less than 1% of users.
Conclusions - CAM use in pregnancy, where a wide range of CAMs has been assessed, has not been widely reported. Studies that have been conducted report varying results to this study (26.7%) by between 13.3% and 87% of pregnant women. Survey results will be affected by a number of factors namely the inclusion/exclusion of vitamins and minerals, the timing of data collection, the country of source, the number of women surveyed, and the different selection criteria of either recruiting women to the study or of categorising and identifying a CAM treatment or product
Diabetic gastroparesis: Therapeutic options
Gastroparesis is a condition characterized by delayed gastric emptying and the most common known underlying cause is diabetes mellitus. Symptoms include nausea, vomiting, abdominal fullness, and early satiety, which impact to varying degrees on the patient’s quality of life. Symptoms and deficits do not necessarily relate to each other, hence despite significant abnormalities in gastric emptying, some individuals have only minimal symptoms and, conversely, severe symptoms do not always relate to measures of gastric emptying. Prokinetic agents such as metoclopramide, domperidone, and erythromycin enhance gastric motility and have remained the mainstay of treatment for several decades, despite unwanted side effects and numerous drug interactions. Mechanical therapies such as endoscopic pyloric botulinum toxin injection, gastric electrical stimulation, and gastrostomy or jejunostomy are used in intractable diabetic gastroparesis (DG), refractory to prokinetic therapies. Mitemcinal and TZP-101 are novel investigational motilin receptor and ghrelin agonists, respectively, and show promise in the treatment of DG. The aim of this review is to provide an update on prokinetic and mechanical therapies in the treatment of DG
EuFeAs under high pressure: an antiferromagnetic bulk superconductor
We report the ac magnetic susceptibility and resistivity
measurements of EuFeAs under high pressure . By observing nearly
100% superconducting shielding and zero resistivity at = 28 kbar, we
establish that -induced superconductivity occurs at ~30 K in
EuFeAs. shows an anomalous nearly linear temperature dependence
from room temperature down to at the same . indicates that
an antiferromagnetic order of Eu moments with ~20 K persists
in the superconducting phase. The temperature dependence of the upper critical
field is also determined.Comment: To appear in J. Phys. Soc. Jpn., Vol. 78 No.
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