3,698 research outputs found
Critical Current Peaks at in Superconductors with Columnar Defects: Recrystalizing the Interstitial Glass
The role of commensurability and the interplay of correlated disorder and
interactions on vortex dynamics in the presence of columnar pins is studied via
molecular dynamics simulations. Simulations of dynamics reveal substantial
caging effects and a non-monotonic dependence of the critical current with
enhancements near integer values of the matching field and
in agreement with experiments on the cuprates. We find qualitative
differences in the phase diagram for small and large values of the matching
field.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures (3 color
Duration judgements in patients with schizophrenia
Background. The ability to encode time cues underlies many cognitive processes. In the light of schizophrenic patients' compromised cognitive abilities in a variety of domains, it is noteworthy that there are numerous reports of these patients displaying impaired timing abilities. However, the timing intervals that patients have been evaluated on in prior studies vary considerably in magnitude (e.g. 1 s, 1 min, 1 h etc.).
Method. In order to obviate differences in abilities in chronometric counting and place minimal demands on cognitive processing, we chose tasks that involve making judgements about brief durations of time (<1 s).
Results. On a temporal generalization task, patients were less accurate than controls at recognizing a standard duration. The performance of patients was also significantly different from controls on a temporal bisection task, in which participants categorized durations as short or long. Although time estimation may be closely intertwined with working memory, patients' working memory as measured by the digit span task did not correlate significantly with their performance on the duration judgement tasks. Moreover, lowered intelligence scores could not completely account for the findings.
Conclusions. We take these results to suggest that patients with schizophrenia are less accurate at estimating brief time periods. These deficits may reflect dysfunction of biopsychological timing processes
Assimilation of stratospheric and mesospheric temperatures from MLS and SABER into a global NWP model
International audienceThe forecast model and three-dimensional variational data assimilation components of the Navy Operational Global Atmospheric Prediction System (NOGAPS) have each been extended into the upper stratosphere and mesosphere to form an Advanced Level Physics High Altitude (ALPHA) version of NOGAPS extending to ~100 km. This NOGAPS-ALPHA NWP prototype is used to assimilate stratospheric and mesospheric temperature data from the Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) and the Sounding of the Atmosphere using Broadband Radiometry (SABER) instruments. A 60-day analysis period in January and February, 2006, was chosen that includes a well documented stratospheric sudden warming. SABER temperatures indicate that the SSW caused the polar winter stratopause at ~40 km to disappear, then reform at ~80 km altitude and slowly descend during February. The NOGAPS-ALPHA analysis reproduces this observed stratospheric and mesospheric temperature structure, as well as realistic evolution of zonal winds, residual velocities, and Eliassen-Palm fluxes that aid interpretation of the vertically deep circulation and eddy flux anomalies that developed in response to this wave-breaking event. The observation minus forecast (O-F) standard deviations for MLS and SABER are ~2 K in the mid-stratosphere and increase monotonically to about 6 K in the upper mesosphere. Increasing O-F standard deviations in the mesosphere are expected due to increasing instrument error and increasing geophysical variance at small spatial scales in the forecast model. In the mid/high latitude winter regions, 10-day forecast skill is improved throughout the upper stratosphere and mesosphere when the model is initialized using the high-altitude analysis based on assimilation of both SABER and MLS data
Ecological Effects of Fear: How Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity in Predation Risk Influences Mule Deer Access to Forage in a Sky‐Island System
Forage availability and predation risk interact to affect habitat use of ungulates across many biomes. Within sky‐island habitats of the Mojave Desert, increased availability of diverse forage and cover may provide ungulates with unique opportunities to extend nutrient uptake and/or to mitigate predation risk. We addressed whether habitat use and foraging patterns of female mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) responded to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), NDVI rate of change (green‐up), or the occurrence of cougars (Puma concolor). Female mule deer used available green‐up primarily in spring, although growing vegetation was available during other seasons. Mule deer and cougar shared similar habitat all year, and our models indicated cougars had a consistent, negative effect on mule deer access to growing vegetation, particularly in summer when cougar occurrence became concentrated at higher elevations. A seemingly late parturition date coincided with diminishing NDVI during the lactation period. Sky‐island populations, rarely studied, provide the opportunity to determine how mule deer respond to growing foliage along steep elevation and vegetation gradients when trapped with their predators and seasonally limited by aridity. Our findings indicate that fear of predation may restrict access to the forage resources found in sky islands
Mach's principle: Exact frame-dragging via gravitomagnetism in perturbed Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universes with
We show that the dragging of the axis directions of local inertial frames by
a weighted average of the energy currents in the universe is exact for all
linear perturbations of any Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe with K =
(+1, -1, 0) and of Einstein's static closed universe. This includes FRW
universes which are arbitrarily close to the Milne Universe, which is empty,
and to the de Sitter universe. Hence the postulate formulated by E. Mach about
the physical cause for the time-evolution of the axis directions of inertial
frames is shown to hold in cosmological General Relativity for linear
perturbations. The time-evolution of axis directions of local inertial frames
(relative to given local fiducial axes) is given experimentally by the
precession angular velocity of gyroscopes, which in turn is given by the
operational definition of the gravitomagnetic field. The gravitomagnetic field
is caused by cosmological energy currents via the momentum constraint. This
equation for cosmological gravitomagnetism is analogous to Ampere's law, but it
holds also for time-dependent situtations. In the solution for an open universe
the 1/r^2-force of Ampere is replaced by a Yukawa force which is of identical
form for FRW backgrounds with The scale of the exponential
cutoff is the H-dot radius, where H is the Hubble rate, and dot is the
derivative with respect to cosmic time. Analogous results hold for energy
currents in a closed FRW universe, K = +1, and in Einstein's closed static
universe.Comment: 23 pages, no figures. Final published version. Additional material in
Secs. I.A, I.J, III, V.H. Additional reference
Influence of oxygen ordering kinetics on Raman and optical response in YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.4}
Kinetics of the optical and Raman response in YBa_2Cu_3O_{6.4} were studied
during room temperature annealing following heat treatment. The superconducting
T_c, dc resistivity, and low-energy optical conductivity recover slowly,
implying a long relaxation time for the carrier density. Short relaxation times
are observed for the B_{1g} Raman scattering -- magnetic, continuum, and phonon
-- and the charge transfer band. Monte Carlo simulations suggest that these two
relaxation rates are related to two length scales corresponding to local oxygen
ordering (fast) and long chain and twin formation (slow).Comment: REVTeX, 3 pages + 4 PostScript (compressed) figure
The practices of apartheid as a war crime: a critical analysis
The human suffering caused by the political ideology of apartheid in South Africa during the Apartheid era (1948-1994) prompted worldwide condemnation and a variety of diplomatic and legal responses. Amongst these responses was the attempt to have apartheid recognised both as a crime against humanity in the 1973 Apartheid Convention as well as a war crime in Article 85(4)(c) of Additional Protocol I. This article examines the origins, nature and current status of the practices of apartheid as a war crime and its possible application to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Capaciousness of No: Affective Refusals as Literacy Practices
© 2020 The Authors. Reading Research Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc. on behalf of International Literacy Association The authors considered the capacious feeling that emerges from saying no to literacy practices, and the affective potential of saying no as a literacy practice. The authors highlight the affective possibilities of saying no to normative understandings of literacy, thinking with a series of vignettes in which children, young people, and teachers refused literacy practices in different ways. The authors use the term capacious to signal possibilities that are as yet unthought: a sense of broadening and opening out through enacting no. The authors examined how attention to affect ruptures humanist logics that inform normative approaches to literacy. Through attention to nonconscious, noncognitive, and transindividual bodily forces and capacities, affect deprivileges the human as the sole agent in an interaction, thus disrupting measurements of who counts as a literate subject and what counts as a literacy event. No is an affective moment. It can signal a pushback, an absence, or a silence. As a theoretical and methodological way of thinking/feeling with literacy, affect proposes problems rather than solutions, countering solution-focused research in which the resistance is to be overcome, co-opted, or solved. Affect operates as a crack or a chink, a tiny ripple, a barely perceivable gesture, that can persist and, in doing so, hold open the possibility for alternative futures
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