Using Ada: The deeper challenges

The Ada programming language and the associated Ada Programming Support Environment (APSE) and Ada Run Time Environment (ARTE) provide the potential for significant life-cycle cost reductions in computer software development and maintenance activities. The Ada programming language itself is standardized, trademarked, and controlled via formal validation procedures. Though compilers are not yet production-ready as most would desire, the technology for constructing them is sufficiently well known and understood that time and money should suffice to correct current deficiencies. The APSE and ARTE are, on the other hand, significantly newer issues within most software development and maintenance efforts. Currently, APSE and ARTE are highly dependent on differing implementer concepts, strategies, and market objectives. Complex and sophisticated mission-critical computing systems require the use of a complete Ada-based capability, not just the programming language itself; yet the range of APSE and ARTE features which must actually be utilized can vary significantly from one system to another. As a consequence, the need to understand, objectively evaluate, and select differing APSE and ARTE capabilities and features is critical to the effective use of Ada and the life-cycle efficiencies it is intended to promote. It is the selection, collection, and understanding of APSE and ARTE which provide the deeper challenges of using Ada for real-life mission-critical computing systems. Some of the current issues which must be clarified, often on a case-by-case basis, in order to successfully realize the full capabilities of Ada are discussed

Facial visualizations of women’s voices suggest a cross-modality preference for femininity

Women with higher-pitched voices and more feminine facial features are commonly judged as being more attractive than are women with lower-pitched voices and less feminine faces, possibly because both features are affected by (age-related) variations in endocrine status. These results are primarily derived from investigations of perceptions of variations in single-modality stimuli (i.e., faces or voices) in samples of young adult women. In the present study we sought to test whether male and female perceptions of women’s voices affect visual representations of facial femininity. Eighty men and women judged voice recordings of 10 young girls (11-15 years), 10 adult women (19-28 years) and 10 peri-/post-menopausal women (50-64 years) on age, attractiveness, and femininity. Another 80 men and women were asked to indicate the face they think each voice corresponded to using a video that gradually changed from a masculine looking male face into a feminine looking female face. Both male and female participants perceived voices of young girls and adult women to be significantly younger, more attractive and feminine than those of peri-/post-menopausal women. Hearing young girls’ and adult women’s voices resulted in both men and women selecting faces that differed markedly in apparent femininity from those associated with peri-/post-menopausal women’s voices. Voices of young girls had the strongest effect on visualizations of facial femininity. Our results suggest a cross-modal preference for women’s vocal and facial femininity, which depends on female age and is independent of the perceiver’s sex

Phase-sensitive transport at a normal metal-superconductor interface close to a Josephson junction

Phase- and voltage bias-sensitive quasiparticle transport at a double $NIS_1IS_2$ interface is considered. The barriers $I$ range from tunnel to transparent, and the intermediate region $S_1$ has a width comparable to the superconducting coherence length. A phase difference $\varphi$ is applied to the Josephson junction $S_1IS_2$. The normal and Andreev reflections at the $NIS_1$ interface become $\varphi$-sensitive, and transport is governed by interferences within the narrow $S_1$ region, both in the normal and anomalous channels. The subgap conductance is separately (energy $E$)- and (phase $\varphi$)- symmetric. Above the superconducting gap, the conductance is in general not symmetric even if $(E,\varphi)$ is changed in $(-E,-\varphi)$, but the symmetry is restored by averaging Fermi oscillations. The Tomasch oscillations are amplified by the phase difference. The subgap conductance exhibits a resonant structure at the energy of the Andreev bound states (ABS) of the $S_1IS_2$ junction, providing a side-spectroscopy of such states. Depending on the relative transparencies of the junctions, the resonance can increase or reduce the conductance, and it can even vanish for $\varphi=\pi$, featuring total reflection of quasiparticles at $NS_1$ by the ABS at $S_1S_2$.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figures, 1 tabl

A sex difference in the context-sensitivity of dominance perceptions

Although dominance perceptions are thought to be important for effective social interaction, their primary function is unclear. One possibility is that they simply function to identify individuals who are capable of inflicting substantial physical harm, so that the perceiver can respond to them in ways that maximize their own physical safety. Another possibility is that they are more specialized, functioning primarily to facilitate effective direct (i.e., violent) intrasexual competition for mates, particularly among men. Here we used a priming paradigm to investigate these two possibilities. Facial cues of dominance were more salient to women after they had been primed with images of angry men, a manipulation known to activate particularly strong self-protection motivations, than after they had been primed with images of angry women or smiling individuals of either sex. By contrast, dominance cues were more salient to men after they had been primed with images of women than when they had been primed with images of men (regardless of the emotional expressions displayed), a manipulation previously shown to alter men's impressions of the sex ratio of the local population. Thus, men's dominance perceptions appear to be specialized for effective direct competition for mates, while women's dominance perceptions may function to maximize their physical safety more generally. Together, our results suggest that men's and women's dominance perceptions show different patterns of context-sensitivity and, potentially, shed new light on the routes through which violence and intrasexual competition have shaped dominance perceptions

To serve patients is our greatest privilege

In his guest editorial, Dr. David Feinberg of UCLA Health System reminds us of the power of patient voice and the lessons we should be open to learning from those we serve every day. He offers, It is a blessing for us to work in an environment where we have the opportunity every day to touch someone’s life so deeply. We must never lose sight of that. It is our responsibility to not just treat our patients, but also to embrace them

Active Set Support Vector Regression

We present ASVR, a new active set strategy to solve a straightforward reformulation of the standard support vector regression problem. This new algorithm is based on the successful ASVM algorithm for classification problems, and consists of solving a finite number of linear equations with a typically large dimensionality equal to the number of points to be approximated. However, by making use of the Sherman-Morrison-Woodbury formula, a much smaller matrix of the order of the original input space is inverted at each step. The algorithm requires no specialized quadratic or linear programming code, but merely a linear equation solver which is publicly available. ASVR is extremely fast, produces comparable generalization error to other popular algorithms, and is available on the web for download

It’s the way he tells them (and who is listening):men’s dominance is positively correlated with their preference for jokes told by dominant-sounding men

While much research has explored humorous exchange in relation to mate choice, recent perspectives have emphasized the importance of humor for monitoring interest within social partnerships more generally. Indeed, given that similarity is thought to be important in the maintenance of social partnerships, we may expect humor appreciation to vary according to the degree of similarity between humor producers and recipients. In the current study we report evidence for such variation that is specific to men’s judgments of other men’s humor. Here we manipulated voice pitch in a set of ‘one-liner’ jokes to create low-pitched and high-pitched versions of men and women telling jokes. A composite measure of men’s own dominance was positively correlated with their preference for jokes told by other men with lowered voice pitch (a vocal cue to dominance). A follow-up study demonstrated that self-reported dominance was positively related to men’s choice of low-pitch men as friends when judging humorous audio clips but not when judging neutral control audio clips, suggesting that humor may be important in mediating the effect of dominance on friendship choice. These studies indicate systematic variation in humor appreciation related to friendship choices which may function to promote cohesion within male partnerships based on status

Ground State of 2D Quantum Gravity and Spectral Density of Random Matrices

We compute the exact spectral density of random matrices in the ground state of the quantum hamiltonian corresponding to the matrix model whose double scaling limit describes pure gravity in 2D. We show that the non-perturbative effects are very large and in certain cases dominate the semi-classical WKB contribution studied in the earlier literature. The physical observables in this model are the loop averages with respect to the spectral density. We compute their exact ground-state expectation values and show that they differ significantly from the values obtained in the WKB approximation. Unlike the alternative regularizations of the nonperturbative 2D quantum gravity, based on analytic continuation of the Painlev\'e transcendent, our solution shows no pathologies.Comment: 14 pages (LaTeX) + 4 postscript figures encoded through uufiles. PUPT-1354, TAUP-2013-9

Changes in salivary estradiol predict changes in women’s preferences for vocal masculinity

Although many studies have reported that women’s preferences for masculine physical characteristics in men change systematically during the menstrual cycle, the hormonal mechanisms underpinning these changes are currently poorly understood. Previous studies investigating the relationships between measured hormone levels and women’s masculinity preferences tested only judgments of men’s facial attractiveness. Results of these studies suggested that preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s faces were related to either women’s estradiol or testosterone levels. To investigate the hormonal correlates of within-woman variation in masculinity preferences further, here we measured 62 women’s salivary estradiol, progesterone, and testosterone levels and their preferences for masculine characteristics in men’s voices in five weekly test sessions. Multilevel modeling of these data showed that changes in salivary estradiol were the best predictor of changes in women’s preferences for vocal masculinity. These results complement other recent research implicating estradiol in women’s mate preferences, attention to courtship signals, sexual motivation, and sexual strategies, and are the first to link women’s voice preferences directly to measured hormone levels

Pre-equilibrium dileptons look thermal

The dilepton mass distribution from pre-equilibrium matter in ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions is indistinguishable from a thermally produced distribution.Comment: CERN-TH.6813/93, 3 pages (latex) plus 1 figure (uuencoded postscript file