Differential Effects of Emotional Information on Interference Task Performance Across the Life Span

While functioning in multiple domains declines with age, emotional regulation appears to remain preserved in older adults. The Emotion Inhibition (Emotional Stroop) Test requires participants to name the ink color in which neutrally and emotionally valenced words are printed. It was employed in the current investigation as a measure of affective regulation in the context of an interference task in relation to age. Results demonstrated that while participants ranging from 20 to 50 years of age performed significantly worse on the emotion Stroop Inhibition relative to the neutral Stroop Inhibition condition, subjects over 60 years of age displayed the converse of this pattern, performing better on the emotion than the neutral condition, suggesting that they are less affected by the emotional impact of the positive and negative words used in the former condition. This pattern of age-related change in the ability to manage emotion may be related to blunting of affective signaling in limbic structures or, at the psychological level, focusing on emotional regulation

Magnetoluminescence

Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Blazars, Gamma Ray Bursts and Magnetars all contain regions where the electromagnetic energy density greatly exceeds the plasma energy density. These sources exhibit dramatic flaring activity where the electromagnetic energy distributed over large volumes, appears to be converted efficiently into high energy particles and gamma-rays. We call this general process magnetoluminescence. Global requirements on the underlying, extreme particle acceleration processes are described and the likely importance of relativistic beaming in enhancing the observed radiation from a flare is emphasized. Recent research on fluid descriptions of unstable electromagnetic configurations are summarized and progress on the associated kinetic simulations that are needed to account for the acceleration and radiation is discussed. Future observational, simulation and experimental opportunities are briefly summarized.Comment: To appear in "Jets and Winds in Pulsar Wind Nebulae, Gamma-ray Bursts and Blazars: Physics of Extreme Energy Release" of the Space Science Reviews serie

A Helicity-Based Method to Infer the CME Magnetic Field Magnitude in Sun and Geospace: Generalization and Extension to Sun-Like and M-Dwarf Stars and Implications for Exoplanet Habitability

Patsourakos et al. (Astrophys. J. 817, 14, 2016) and Patsourakos and Georgoulis (Astron. Astrophys. 595, A121, 2016) introduced a method to infer the axial magnetic field in flux-rope coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the solar corona and farther away in the interplanetary medium. The method, based on the conservation principle of magnetic helicity, uses the relative magnetic helicity of the solar source region as input estimates, along with the radius and length of the corresponding CME flux rope. The method was initially applied to cylindrical force-free flux ropes, with encouraging results. We hereby extend our framework along two distinct lines. First, we generalize our formalism to several possible flux-rope configurations (linear and nonlinear force-free, non-force-free, spheromak, and torus) to investigate the dependence of the resulting CME axial magnetic field on input parameters and the employed flux-rope configuration. Second, we generalize our framework to both Sun-like and active M-dwarf stars hosting superflares. In a qualitative sense, we find that Earth may not experience severe atmosphere-eroding magnetospheric compression even for eruptive solar superflares with energies ~ 10^4 times higher than those of the largest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) X-class flares currently observed. In addition, the two recently discovered exoplanets with the highest Earth-similarity index, Kepler 438b and Proxima b, seem to lie in the prohibitive zone of atmospheric erosion due to interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs), except when they possess planetary magnetic fields that are much higher than that of Earth.Comment: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2017SoPh..292...89

A historical perspective on the discovery of statins

Cholesterol is essential for the functioning of all human organs, but it is nevertheless the cause of coronary heart disease. Over the course of nearly a century of investigation, scientists have developed several lines of evidence that establish the causal connection between blood cholesterol, atherosclerosis, and coronary heart disease. Building on that knowledge, scientists and the pharmaceutical industry have successfully developed a remarkably effective class of drugs—the statins—that lower cholesterol levels in blood and reduce the frequency of heart attacks

Pulsars as Fantastic Objects and Probes

Pulsars are fantastic objects, which show the extreme states of matters and plasma physics not understood yet. Pulsars can be used as probes for the detection of interstellar medium and even the gravitational waves. Here I review the basic facts of pulsars which should attract students to choose pulsar studies as their future projects.Comment: Invited Lecture on the "First Kodai-Trieste Workshop on Plasma Astrophysics", Kodaikanal Obs, India. Aug.27-Sept.7th, 2007. In: "Turbulence, Dynamos, Accretion Disks, Pulsars and Collective Plasma Processes". Get a copy from: http://www.springerlink.com/content/978-1-4020-8867-

An Observational Overview of Solar Flares

We present an overview of solar flares and associated phenomena, drawing upon a wide range of observational data primarily from the RHESSI era. Following an introductory discussion and overview of the status of observational capabilities, the article is split into topical sections which deal with different areas of flare phenomena (footpoints and ribbons, coronal sources, relationship to coronal mass ejections) and their interconnections. We also discuss flare soft X-ray spectroscopy and the energetics of the process. The emphasis is to describe the observations from multiple points of view, while bearing in mind the models that link them to each other and to theory. The present theoretical and observational understanding of solar flares is far from complete, so we conclude with a brief discussion of models, and a list of missing but important observations.Comment: This is an article for a monograph on the physics of solar flares, inspired by RHESSI observations. The individual articles are to appear in Space Science Reviews (2011

Search for long-lived doubly charged Higgs bosons in p(p)over-bar collisions at root s=1.96 TeV

We present a search for long-lived doubly charged Higgs bosons (H+/-+/-), with signatures of high ionization energy loss and muonlike penetration. We use 292 pb(-1) of data collected in p (p) over bar collisions at root s=1.96 TeV by the CDF II detector at the Fermilab Tevatron. Observing no evidence of long-lived doubly charged particle production, we exclude H-L(+/-+/-) and H-R(+/-+/-) bosons with masses below 133 GeV/c(2) and 109 GeV/c(2), respectively. In the degenerate case we exclude H+/-+/- mass below 146 GeV/c(2). All limits are quoted at the 95% confidence level

Measurement of the W+W- Production Cross Section in ppbar Collisions at sqrt(s)=1.96 TeV using Dilepton Events

We present a measurement of the W+W- production cross section using 184/pb of ppbar collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV collected with the Collider Detector at Fermilab. Using the dilepton decay channel W+W- -> l+l-vvbar, where the charged leptons can be either electrons or muons, we find 17 candidate events compared to an expected background of 5.0+2.2-0.8 events. The resulting W+W- production cross section measurement of sigma(ppbar -> W+W-) = 14.6 +5.8 -5.1 (stat) +1.8 -3.0 (syst) +-0.9 (lum) pb agrees well with the Standard Model expectation.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables. To be submitted to Physical Review Letter