1,716 research outputs found
Good eats, bad intentions?:Reputational costs of organic consumption
Previous research has shown that people tend to perceive organic consumers as more moral and higher status than conventional consumers. We propose that organic consumption might have reputational costs as well. Drawing from research on do-gooder derogation, virtue signaling, and cynicism, we suggest that people might see organic consumption as driven not only by altruistic but also by selfish – specifically, impression management – motives. In Study 1, participants rated organic (vs. conventional) consumers as having stronger altruistic concerns (for the environment, animal welfare, and social justice), as well as stronger impression management motives: organic (vs. conventional) consumers were seen as trying to appear more moral and high-status than they actually were. In Study 2, we separately assessed participants' perception of organic (vs. conventional) consumers’ actual (vs. signaled) levels of morality and status. Organic consumers were perceived as trying to appear as more moral (but not more high-status) than they actually were, whereas conventional consumers were perceived as being honest in the impressions they tried to make. These results demonstrate that organic consumption might have not only positive, but also negative, reputational consequences
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Milagro Version 2 An Implicit Monte Carlo Code for Thermal Radiative Transfer: Capabilities, Development, and Usage
We have released Version 2 of Milagro, an object-oriented, C++ code that performs radiative transfer using Fleck and Cummings' Implicit Monte Carlo method. Milagro, a part of the Jayenne program, is a stand-alone driver code used as a methods research vehicle and to verify its underlying classes. These underlying classes are used to construct Implicit Monte Carlo packages for external customers. Milagro-2 represents a design overhaul that allows better parallelism and extensibility. New features in Milagro-2 include verified momentum deposition, restart capability, graphics capability, exact energy conservation, and improved load balancing and parallel efficiency. A users' guide also describes how to configure, make, and run Milagro2
SPIRE—a software tool for bicontinuous phase recognition: application for plastid cubic membranes
Bicontinuous membranes in cell organelles epitomize nature’s ability to create complex functional nanostructures. Like their synthetic counterparts, these membranes are characterized by continuous membrane sheets draped onto topologically complex saddle-shaped surfaces with a periodic network-like structure. Their structure sizes, (around 50–500 nm), and fluid nature make transmission electron microscopy (TEM) the analysis method of choice to decipher their nanostructural features. Here we present a tool, Surface Projection Image Recognition Environment (SPIRE), to identify bicontinuous structures from TEM sections through interactive identification by comparison to mathematical “nodal surface” models. The prolamellar body (PLB) of plant etioplasts is a bicontinuous membrane structure with a key physiological role in chloroplast biogenesis. However, the determination of its spatial structural features has been held back by the lack of tools enabling the identification and quantitative analysis of symmetric membrane conformations. Using our SPIRE tool, we achieved a robust identification of the bicontinuous diamond surface as the dominant PLB geometry in angiosperm etioplasts in contrast to earlier long-standing assertions in the literature. Our data also provide insights into membrane storage capacities of PLBs with different volume proportions and hint at the limited role of a plastid ribosome localization directly inside the PLB grid for its proper functioning. This represents an important step in understanding their as yet elusive structure–function relationship
On the Two Species Asymmetric Exclusion Process with Semi-Permeable Boundaries
We investigate the structure of the nonequilibrium stationary state (NESS) of
a system of first and second class particles, as well as vacancies (holes), on
L sites of a one-dimensional lattice in contact with first class particle
reservoirs at the boundary sites; these particles can enter at site 1, when it
is vacant, with rate alpha, and exit from site L with rate beta. Second class
particles can neither enter nor leave the system, so the boundaries are
semi-permeable. The internal dynamics are described by the usual totally
asymmetric exclusion process (TASEP) with second class particles. An exact
solution of the NESS was found by Arita. Here we describe two consequences of
the fact that the flux of second class particles is zero. First, there exist
(pinned and unpinned) fat shocks which determine the general structure of the
phase diagram and of the local measures; the latter describe the microscopic
structure of the system at different macroscopic points (in the limit L going
to infinity in terms of superpositions of extremal measures of the infinite
system. Second, the distribution of second class particles is given by an
equilibrium ensemble in fixed volume, or equivalently but more simply by a
pressure ensemble, in which the pair potential between neighboring particles
grows logarithmically with distance. We also point out an unexpected feature in
the microscopic structure of the NESS for finite L: if there are n second class
particles in the system then the distribution of first class particles
(respectively holes) on the first (respectively last) n sites is exchangeable.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures. Changed title and introduction for clarity,
added reference
Analytical Approach to the One-Dimensional Disordered Exclusion Process with Open Boundaries and Random Sequential Dynamics
A one dimensional disordered particle hopping rate asymmetric exclusion
process (ASEP) with open boundaries and a random sequential dynamics is studied
analytically. Combining the exact results of the steady states in the pure case
with a perturbative mean field-like approach the broken particle-hole symmetry
is highlighted and the phase diagram is studied in the parameter space
, where and represent respectively the
injection rate and the extraction rate of particles. The model displays, as in
the pure case, high-density, low-density and maximum-current phases. All
critical lines are determined analytically showing that the high-density
low-density first order phase transition occurs at . We show
that the maximum-current phase extends its stability region as the disorder is
increased and the usual -decay of the density profile in this
phase is universal. Assuming that some exact results for the disordered model
on a ring hold for a system with open boundaries, we derive some analytical
results for platoon phase transition within the low-density phase and we give
an analytical expression of its corresponding critical injection rate
. As it was observed numerically, we show that the quenched
disorder induces a cusp in the current-density relation at maximum flow in a
certain region of parameter space and determine the analytical expression of
its slope. The results of numerical simulations we develop agree with the
analytical ones.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures. to appear in J. Stat. Phy
Phase diagram of the ABC model on an interval
The three species asymmetric ABC model was initially defined on a ring by
Evans, Kafri, Koduvely, and Mukamel, and the weakly asymmetric version was
later studied by Clincy, Derrida, and Evans. Here the latter model is studied
on a one-dimensional lattice of N sites with closed (zero flux) boundaries. In
this geometry the local particle conserving dynamics satisfies detailed balance
with respect to a canonical Gibbs measure with long range asymmetric pair
interactions. This generalizes results for the ring case, where detailed
balance holds, and in fact the steady state measure is known only for the case
of equal densities of the different species: in the latter case the stationary
states of the system on a ring and on an interval are the same. We prove that
in the N to infinity limit the scaled density profiles are given by (pieces of)
the periodic trajectory of a particle moving in a quartic confining potential.
We further prove uniqueness of the profiles, i.e., the existence of a single
phase, in all regions of the parameter space (of average densities and
temperature) except at low temperature with all densities equal; in this case a
continuum of phases, differing by translation, coexist. The results for the
equal density case apply also to the system on the ring, and there extend
results of Clincy et al.Comment: 52 pages, AMS-LaTeX, 8 figures from 10 eps figure files. Revision:
minor changes in response to referee reports; paper to appear in J. Stat.
Phy
Fourth generation effects in rare exclusive B -> K^* l^+ l^- decay
Influence of the fourth generation, if ever exists, on the experimentally
measurable quantities such as invariant dilepton mass distribution, lepton
forward-backward asymmetry, and the ratio (Gamma_L/Gamma_T) of the decay widths
when K* meson is longitudinally and transversally polarized, is studied. Using
the experimental results on the branching ratios for the (B -> X_s) gamma and
semileptonic (B -> X_c l nu) decays, the two possible solutions of the 4x4
Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa factor (V_{t's} V_{t^'b}) are obtained as a function
of the t'-quark mass. It is observed that the results for the above-mentioned
physical quantities are essentially different from the standard model
predictions only for one solution of the CKM factor. In this case the
above-mentioned physical quantities can serve as efficient tools in search of
the fourth generation. The other solution yields almost identical results with
the SM.Comment: 19 pages, 10 postscripted figures, LaTeX formatte
Exclusive Queueing Process with Discrete Time
In a recent study [C Arita, Phys. Rev. E 80, 051119 (2009)], an extension of
the M/M/1 queueing process with the excluded-volume effect as in the totally
asymmetric simple exclusion process (TASEP) was introduced. In this paper, we
consider its discrete-time version. The update scheme we take is the parallel
one. A stationary-state solution is obtained in a slightly arranged matrix
product form of the discrete-time open TASEP with the parallel update. We find
the phase diagram for the existence of the stationary state. The critical line
which separates the parameter space into the regions with and without the
stationary state can be written in terms of the stationary current of the open
TASEP. We calculate the average length of the system and the average number of
particles
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