30,909 research outputs found
Giving subjects the eye and showing them the finger: socio-biological cues and saccade generation in the anti-saccade task.
Pointing with the eyes or the finger occurs frequently in social interaction to indicate
direction of attention and one's intentions. Research with a voluntary saccade task (where saccade
direction is instructed by the colour of a fixation point) suggested that gaze cues automatically
activate the oculomotor system, but non-biological cues, like arrows, do not. However, other work
has failed to support the claim that gaze cues are special. In the current research we introduced
biological and non-biological cues into the anti-saccade task, using a range of stimulus onset
asynchronies (SOAs). The anti-saccade task recruits both top ^ down and bottom^ up attentional
mechanisms, as occurs in naturalistic saccadic behaviour. In experiment 1 gaze, but not arrows,
facilitated saccadic reaction times (SRTs) in the opposite direction to the cues over all SOAs,
whereas in experiment 2 directional word cues had no effect on saccades. In experiment 3 finger
pointing cues caused reduced SRTs in the opposite direction to the cues at short SOAs. These
findings suggest that biological cues automatically recruit the oculomotor system whereas non-
biological cues do not. Furthermore, the anti-saccade task set appears to facilitate saccadic responses in the opposite direction to the cues
Effect of neck cut position on time to collapse in halal slaughtered cattle without stunning
This study examined the effect of neck cut position on the time to physical collapse in upright restrained halal slaughtered cattle (n = 644). Time to collapse was used as an indirect indicator of the early stages of onset of unconsciousness. Cattle were slaughtered with either a conventional low (LNC) (n = 561) or a high neck cut (HNC) (n = 83). Mean time to final collapse was higher in the LNC compared to HNC group (18.9 ± 1.1 s and 13.5 ± 1.3 s respectively (P 20 s to final collapse had larger false aneurysms. In summary, the HNC reduced the mean time to final collapse and the frequency of animals that took longer than 20 s to collapse
The magnetic fields of forming solar-like stars
Magnetic fields play a crucial role at all stages of the formation of low
mass stars and planetary systems. In the final stages, in particular, they
control the kinematics of in-falling gas from circumstellar discs, and the
launching and collimation of spectacular outflows. The magnetic coupling with
the disc is thought to influence the rotational evolution of the star, while
magnetised stellar winds control the braking of more evolved stars and may
influence the migration of planets. Magnetic reconnection events trigger
energetic flares which irradiate circumstellar discs with high energy particles
that influence the disc chemistry and set the initial conditions for planet
formation. However, it is only in the past few years that the current
generation of optical spectropolarimeters have allowed the magnetic fields of
forming solar-like stars to be probed in unprecedented detail. In order to do
justice to the recent extensive observational programs new theoretical models
are being developed that incorporate magnetic fields with an observed degree of
complexity. In this review we draw together disparate results from the
classical electromagnetism, molecular physics/chemistry, and the geophysics
literature, and demonstrate how they can be adapted to construct models of the
large scale magnetospheres of stars and planets. We conclude by examining how
the incorporation of multipolar magnetic fields into new theoretical models
will drive future progress in the field through the elucidation of several
observational conundrums.Comment: 55 pages, review article accepted for publication in Reports on
Progress in Physics. Astro-ph version includes additional appendice
Equation-free implementation of statistical moment closures
We present a general numerical scheme for the practical implementation of
statistical moment closures suitable for modeling complex, large-scale,
nonlinear systems. Building on recently developed equation-free methods, this
approach numerically integrates the closure dynamics, the equations of which
may not even be available in closed form. Although closure dynamics introduce
statistical assumptions of unknown validity, they can have significant
computational advantages as they typically have fewer degrees of freedom and
may be much less stiff than the original detailed model. The closure method can
in principle be applied to a wide class of nonlinear problems, including
strongly-coupled systems (either deterministic or stochastic) for which there
may be no scale separation. We demonstrate the equation-free approach for
implementing entropy-based Eyink-Levermore closures on a nonlinear stochastic
partial differential equation.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure
A new measurement of the cosmic ray energy spectrum between 3 x 10 to the 15th power eV and 3 x 10 to the 16th power eV
A new Cerenkov photon density spectrum measurement is reported. The derivation of the primary cosmic ray energy spectrum for energies from 3x10 to the 15th power eV to 3x10 to the 16th power eV are presented
In situ ozone data for evaluation of the laser absorption spectrometer ozone remote sensor: 1979 southeastern Virginia urban plume study summer field program
Ozone data from the 1979 Southeastern Virginia Urban Study (SEV-UPS) field program are presented. The SEV-UPS was conducted for evaluation of an ozone remote sensor, the Laser Absorption Spectrometer. During the measurement program, remote-sensor evaluation was in two areas; (1) determination of the remote sensor's accuracy, repeatability, and operational characteristics, and (2) demonstration of the application of remotely sensed ozone data in air-quality studies. Data from six experiments designed to provide in situ ozone data for evaluation of the sensor in area 1, above, are presented. Experiments consisted of overflights of a test area with the remote sensor aircraft while in situ measurements with a second aircraft and selected surface stations provided correlative ozone data within the viewing area of the remote sensor
In situ correlative measurements for the ultraviolet differential absorption lidar and the high spectral resolution lidar air quality remote sensors: 1980 PEPE/NEROS program
In situ correlative measurements were obtained with a NASA aircraft in support of two NASA airborne remote sensors participating in the Environmental Protection Agency's 1980persistent elevated pollution episode (PEPE) and Northeast regional oxidant study (NEROS) field program in order to provide data for evaluating the capability of two remote sensors for measuring mixing layer height, and ozone and aerosol concentrations in the troposphere during the 1980 PEPE/NEROS program. The in situ aircraft was instrumented to measure temperature, dewpoint temperature, ozone concentrations, and light scattering coefficient. In situ measurements for ten correlative missions are given and discussed. Each data set is presented in graphical and tabular format aircraft flight plans are included
Source-Channel Diversity for Parallel Channels
We consider transmitting a source across a pair of independent, non-ergodic
channels with random states (e.g., slow fading channels) so as to minimize the
average distortion. The general problem is unsolved. Hence, we focus on
comparing two commonly used source and channel encoding systems which
correspond to exploiting diversity either at the physical layer through
parallel channel coding or at the application layer through multiple
description source coding.
For on-off channel models, source coding diversity offers better performance.
For channels with a continuous range of reception quality, we show the reverse
is true. Specifically, we introduce a new figure of merit called the distortion
exponent which measures how fast the average distortion decays with SNR. For
continuous-state models such as additive white Gaussian noise channels with
multiplicative Rayleigh fading, optimal channel coding diversity at the
physical layer is more efficient than source coding diversity at the
application layer in that the former achieves a better distortion exponent.
Finally, we consider a third decoding architecture: multiple description
encoding with a joint source-channel decoding. We show that this architecture
achieves the same distortion exponent as systems with optimal channel coding
diversity for continuous-state channels, and maintains the the advantages of
multiple description systems for on-off channels. Thus, the multiple
description system with joint decoding achieves the best performance, from
among the three architectures considered, on both continuous-state and on-off
channels.Comment: 48 pages, 14 figure
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