8,045 research outputs found
Facial emotion processing in schizophrenia : a non-specific neuropsychological deficit?
Original article can be found at : http://journals.cambridge.org/ Copyright Cambridge University PressBackground: Identification of facial emotions has been found to be impaired in schizophrenia but there are uncertainties about the neuropsychological specificity of the finding. Method: Twenty-two patients with schizophrenia and 20 healthy controls were given tests requiring identification of facial emotion, judgement of the intensity of emotional expressions without identification, familiar face recognition and the Benton Facial Recognition Test (BFRT). The schizophrenia patients were selected to be relatively intellectually preserved. Results: The patients with schizophrenia showed no deficit in identifying facial emotion, although they were slower than the controls. They were, however, impaired on judging the intensity of emotional expression without identification. They showed impairment in recognizing familiar faces but not on the BFRT. Conclusions: When steps are taken to reduce the effects of general intellectual impairment, there is no deficit in identifying facial emotions in schizophrenia. There may, however, be a deficit in judging emotional intensity. The impairment found in naming familiar faces is consistent with other evidence of semantic memory impairment in the disorder.Peer reviewe
A Census of Rotating Radio Transients at 150 MHz with the Irish LOFAR Station
Rotating radio transients (RRATs) are neutron stars that emit detectable
radio bursts sporadically. They are statistically distinct in the neutron star
population, in many observable properties, but by their nature are practically
difficult to study in depth. In this paper, we present the results from 1408 h
of observations of RRAT candidates using the Irish station of the Low Frequency
Array (LOFAR) at 150 MHz. As of October 2022, this census involved observing
113 sources, leading to 29 detections which were then followed up
systematically. Single-pulse emission was detected from 25 sources, and
periodic emission from 14 sources. 18 sources were found to have emission
behaviour that is not discussed in prior works using LOFAR instruments. Four
novel or modified source periods have been determined, ranging from 1.5-3.9 s,
and 8 new or updated phase-coherent pulsar timing ephemerides have been
produced using detected bursts. One unexpected single-pulse with a
clearly-Galactic dispersion measure was detected as a part of this work, but
has not been re-detected in follow-up observations. Observations are ongoing to
expand the number of observed sources and further characterise and improve
ephemerides for the detected sources. This census has demonstrated the
capability for international LOFAR stations to detect, monitor and characterise
a significant fraction of these unique sources.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS. 24 pages, 7 figures, 8 table
A nuclear localization signal targets tail-anchored membrane proteins to the inner nuclear envelope in plants
Protein targeting to the inner nuclear membrane (INM) is one of the least understood protein targeting pathways. INM proteins are important for chromatin organization, nuclear morphology and movement, and meiosis, and have been implicated in human diseases. In opisthokonts, one mechanism for INM targeting is transport factor-mediated trafficking, in which nuclear localization signals (NLSs) function in nuclear import of transmembrane proteins. To explore whether this pathway exists in plants, we fused the SV40 NLS to a plant ER tail-anchored protein and showed that the GFP-tagged fusion protein was significantly enriched at the nuclear envelope (NE) of leaf epidermal cells. Airyscan subdiffraction limited confocal microscopy showed that this protein displays a localization consistent with an INM protein. Nine different monopartite and bipartite NLSs from plants and opisthokonts, fused to a chimeric tail-anchored membrane protein, were all sufficient for NE enrichment, and both monopartite and bipartite NLSs were sufficient for trafficking to the INM. Tolerance for different linker lengths and protein conformations suggests that INM trafficking rules might differ from those in opisthokonts. The INM proteins developed here can be used to target new functionalities to the plant nuclear periphery
Survey study on energy use in UK homes during Covid-19
To contain the spread of Covid-19, governments across the world imposed partial or complete lockdowns. National energy demand decreased in periods of lockdowns; however, as people spent more time at home, residential energy use likely increased. This paper reports the results of a UK survey study (N = 1016 participants) about their energy-use practices during the first lockdown in March 2020. The results indicated that self-reported heating behaviours did not substantially change during lockdown. Regarding appliance use, in particular the duration of usage for televisions and computing equipment has increased and has spread more over the day. Being less able to manage financially was correlated with a greater usage of the smart meter in-home display and a greater attempt to save energy was positively correlated with greater usage of the in-home display, though correlations were small. In summary, the results indicate that home energy-use behaviours, in particular around heating, did not change as much as might have been expected, which might at least partly be explained by the comparatively warm weather during the first lockdown. Corroborating the survey findings with actual energy data is the next essential step to understand findings in more detail
Supercritical biharmonic equations with power-type nonlinearity
The biharmonic supercritical equation , where and
, is studied in the whole space as well as in a
modified form with as right-hand-side with an additional
eigenvalue parameter in the unit ball, in the latter case together
with Dirichlet boundary conditions. As for entire regular radial solutions we
prove oscillatory behaviour around the explicitly known radial {\it singular}
solution, provided , where
is a further critical exponent, which was introduced in a recent work by
Gazzola and the second author. The third author proved already that these
oscillations do not occur in the complementing case, where .
Concerning the Dirichlet problem we prove existence of at least one singular
solution with corresponding eigenvalue parameter. Moreover, for the extremal
solution in the bifurcation diagram for this nonlinear biharmonic eigenvalue
problem, we prove smoothness as long as
Searches for New Quarks and Leptons Produced in Z-Boson Decay
We have searched for events with new-particle topologies in 390 hadronic Z decays with the Mark II detector at the SLAC Linear Collider. We place 95%-confidence-level lower limits of 40.7 GeV/c^2 for the top-quark mass, 42.0 GeV/c^2 for the mass of a fourth-generation charge - 1/3 quark, and 41.3 GeV/c^2 for the mass of an unstable Dirac neutral lepton
Measurement of Z Decays into Lepton Pairs
We present measurements by the Mark II experiment of the ratios of the leptonic partial widths of the Z boson to the hadronic partial width. The results are Ī_(ee)/Ī_(had)=0.037_(-0.012^()+0.016),Ī_(ĀµĀµ)/Ī_(had)=0.053-_(0.015)^(+0.020), and Ī_(ĻĻ)/Ī_(had)=0.066_(-0.017)^(+0.021), in good agreement with the standard-model prediction of 0.048. From the average leptonic width result, Ī_(ll)/Ī_(had)=0.053_(-0.009)^(+0.010), we derive Ī_(had)=1.56_(-0.24)^(+0.28) GeV. We find for the vector coupling constants of the tau and muon v_Ļ^2=0.31Ā±0.31_(-0.30)^(+0.43) and v_Ī¼^2=0.05Ā±0.30_(-0.23)^(+0.34)
Equilibrium and out of equilibrium thermodynamics in supercooled liquids and glasses
We review the inherent structure thermodynamical formalism and the
formulation of an equation of state for liquids in equilibrium based on the
(volume) derivatives of the statistical properties of the potential energy
surface. We also show that, under the hypothesis that during aging the system
explores states associated to equilibrium configurations, it is possible to
generalize the proposed equation of state to out-of-equilibrium conditions. The
proposed formulation is based on the introduction of one additional parameter
which, in the chosen thermodynamic formalism, can be chosen as the local minima
where the slowly relaxing out-of-equilibrium liquid is trapped.Comment: 7 pages, 4 eps figure
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