7,508 research outputs found
Culture shapes how we look at faces
Background: Face processing, amongst many basic visual skills, is thought to be invariant across all humans. From as early as 1965, studies of eye movements have consistently revealed a systematic triangular sequence of fixations over the eyes and the mouth, suggesting that faces elicit a universal, biologically-determined information extraction pattern. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we monitored the eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers while they learned, recognized, and categorized by race Western Caucasian and East Asian faces. Western Caucasian observers reproduced a scattered triangular pattern of fixations for faces of both races and across tasks. Contrary to intuition, East Asian observers focused more on the central region of the face. Conclusions/Significance: These results demonstrate that face processing can no longer be considered as arising from a universal series of perceptual events. The strategy employed to extract visual information from faces differs across cultures
Thermodynamics of string black hole with hyperscaling violation
In this paper, we start with black brane and construct specific space-time
which violates hyperscaling. In order to obtain the string solution we apply
Null-Melvin-Twist and -reduction. By using the difference action method we
study thermodynamics of system to obtain Hawking-Page phase transition. In
order to have hyperscaling violation we need to consider
In that case the free energy is always negative and our solution is thermal
radiation without a black hole. Therefore we find that there is not any
Hawking-Page transition. Also, we discuss the stability of system and all
thermodynamical quantities.Comment: 12 pages. Accepted for publication in EPJ
Formulation and performance of variational integrators for rotating bodies
Variational integrators are obtained for two mechanical systems whose configuration spaces are, respectively, the rotation group and the unit sphere. In the first case, an integration algorithm is presented for Euler’s equations of the free rigid body, following the ideas of Marsden et al. (Nonlinearity 12:1647–1662, 1999). In the second example, a variational time integrator is formulated for the rigid dumbbell. Both methods are formulated directly on their nonlinear configuration spaces, without using Lagrange multipliers. They are one-step, second order methods which show exact conservation of a discrete angular momentum which is identified in each case. Numerical examples illustrate their properties and compare them with existing integrators of the literature
New families of interpolating type IIB backgrounds
We construct new families of interpolating two-parameter solutions of type
IIB supergravity. These correspond to D3-D5 systems on non-compact
six-dimensional manifolds which are T^2 fibrations over Eguchi-Hanson and
multi-center Taub-NUT spaces, respectively. One end of the interpolation
corresponds to a solution with only D5 branes and vanishing NS three-form flux.
A topology changing transition occurs at the other end, where the internal
space becomes a direct product of the four-dimensional surface and the
two-torus and the complexified NS-RR three-form flux becomes imaginary
self-dual. Depending on the choice of the connections on the torus fibre, the
interpolating family has either N=2 or N=1 supersymmetry. In the N=2 case it
can be shown that the solutions are regular.Comment: 20 page
Nernst branes from special geometry
We construct new black brane solutions in gauged
supergravity with a general cubic prepotential, which have entropy density
as and thus satisfy the Nernst Law. By using
the real formulation of special geometry, we are able to obtain analytical
solutions in closed form as functions of two parameters, the temperature
and the chemical potential . Our solutions interpolate between
hyperscaling violating Lifshitz geometries with at the
horizon and at infinity. In the zero temperature limit,
where the entropy density goes to zero, we recover the extremal Nernst branes
of Barisch et al, and the parameters of the near horizon geometry change to
.Comment: 37 pages. v2: numerical pre-factors of scalar fields q_A corrected in
Section 3. No changes to conclusions. References adde
On the nonequilibrium entropy of large and small systems
Thermodynamics makes definite predictions about the thermal behavior of
macroscopic systems in and out of equilibrium. Statistical mechanics aims to
derive this behavior from the dynamics and statistics of the atoms and
molecules making up these systems. A key element in this derivation is the
large number of microscopic degrees of freedom of macroscopic systems.
Therefore, the extension of thermodynamic concepts, such as entropy, to small
(nano) systems raises many questions. Here we shall reexamine various
definitions of entropy for nonequilibrium systems, large and small. These
include thermodynamic (hydrodynamic), Boltzmann, and Gibbs-Shannon entropies.
We shall argue that, despite its common use, the last is not an appropriate
physical entropy for such systems, either isolated or in contact with thermal
reservoirs: physical entropies should depend on the microstate of the system,
not on a subjective probability distribution. To square this point of view with
experimental results of Bechhoefer we shall argue that the Gibbs-Shannon
entropy of a nano particle in a thermal fluid should be interpreted as the
Boltzmann entropy of a dilute gas of Brownian particles in the fluid
Vacuum Ambiguity in de Sitter Space at Strong Coupling
It is well known that in the weak coupling regime, quantum field theories in
de Sitter space do not have a unique vacuum, but a class of vacua parametrized
by a complex parameter , i.e., the so-called -vacua. In this
article, using gauge/gravity duality, we calculate the symmetric two-point
function of strongly coupled supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory on
. We find that there is a class of de Sitter invariant vacua,
parametrized by a set of complex parameters .Comment: 17 pages in JHEP style, references adde
Exome sequencing followed by large-scale genotyping suggests a limited role for moderately rare risk factors of strong effect in schizophrenia.
Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder with strong heritability and marked heterogeneity in symptoms, course, and treatment response. There is strong interest in identifying genetic risk factors that can help to elucidate the pathophysiology and that might result in the development of improved treatments. Linkage and genome-wide association studies (GWASs) suggest that the genetic basis of schizophrenia is heterogeneous. However, it remains unclear whether the underlying genetic variants are mostly moderately rare and can be identified by the genotyping of variants observed in sequenced cases in large follow-up cohorts or whether they will typically be much rarer and therefore more effectively identified by gene-based methods that seek to combine candidate variants. Here, we consider 166 persons who have schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and who have had either their genomes or their exomes sequenced to high coverage. From these data, we selected 5,155 variants that were further evaluated in an independent cohort of 2,617 cases and 1,800 controls. No single variant showed a study-wide significant association in the initial or follow-up cohorts. However, we identified a number of case-specific variants, some of which might be real risk factors for schizophrenia, and these can be readily interrogated in other data sets. Our results indicate that schizophrenia risk is unlikely to be predominantly influenced by variants just outside the range detectable by GWASs. Rather, multiple rarer genetic variants must contribute substantially to the predisposition to schizophrenia, suggesting that both very large sample sizes and gene-based association tests will be required for securely identifying genetic risk factors. © 2012 The American Society of Human Genetics
On the General Analytical Solution of the Kinematic Cosserat Equations
Based on a Lie symmetry analysis, we construct a closed form solution to the
kinematic part of the (partial differential) Cosserat equations describing the
mechanical behavior of elastic rods. The solution depends on two arbitrary
analytical vector functions and is analytical everywhere except a certain
domain of the independent variables in which one of the arbitrary vector
functions satisfies a simple explicitly given algebraic relation. As our main
theoretical result, in addition to the construction of the solution, we proof
its generality. Based on this observation, a hybrid semi-analytical solver for
highly viscous two-way coupled fluid-rod problems is developed which allows for
the interactive high-fidelity simulations of flagellated microswimmers as a
result of a substantial reduction of the numerical stiffness.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
Heavy quark density in N=4 SYM: from hedgehog to Lifshitz spacetimes
We study the effect of an order N^2 density of heavy quarks in strongly
coupled N=4 SUSY Yang-Mills theory in the large N limit. This is achieved in
the type IIB supergravity dual by introducing a uniformly smeared density of
macroscopic string sources stretching to the boundary of AdS_5 x S^5. The
backreacted system exhibits a flow from an AdS_5 "hedgehog" geometry to a
scaling Lifshitz-like solution Lif_5 x S^5 with dynamical critical exponent
z=7, wherein the scaling symmetry is broken by a logarithmic running dilaton.
We find an exact black brane solution within the scaling regime which describes
the low temperature thermodynamics of the system.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, references adde
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