Positive emotion enhances conflict processing in preschoolers

The rapid detection and resolution of conflict between opposing action tendencies is crucial for our ability to engage in goal-directed behavior. Research in adults suggests that emotions can serve as a "relevance detector" that alarms attentional and sensory systems, thereby leading to more efficient conflict processing. In contrast, previous research in children has almost exclusively stressed the impeding influence of emotion on the attentional system, as suggested by the protracted development of performance in "hot" executive function tasks. Do preschool children show a facilitative effect of emotion on conflict processing? We addressed this question applying a modified version of a color flanker task that either involved or did not involve positive emotional stimuli in preschool children (N = 43, with preregistered Bayesian sequential design, aged 2.8-7.0 years). Our results show a robust conflict effect with higher error rates in incongruent compared to congruent trials. Crucially, conflict resolution was faster in emotional compared to neutral conditions. Furthermore, while efficient conflict processing increases with age, we find evidence against an age-related change in the influence of positive emotion on conflict processing. Taken together, these findings provide indication that positive emotion can trigger efficient control processes already from early on in life. In contrast to the predominant view in developmental psychology, this indicates that, depending on the role that emotion has in conflict processing, emotion may show a facilitative or impeding effect already in the preschool period

Children's syntax is supported by the maturation of BA44 at 4 years, but of the posterior STS at 3 years of age

Within the first years of life, children learn major aspects of their native language. However, the ability to process complex sentence structures, a core faculty in human language called syntax, emerges only slowly. A milestone in syntax acquisition is reached around the age of 4 years, when children learn a variety of syntactic concepts. Here, we ask which maturational changes in the child's brain underlie the emergence of syntactically complex sentence processing around this critical age. We relate markers of cortical brain maturation to 3- and 4-year-olds' sentence processing in contrast to other language abilities. Our results show that distinct cortical brain areas support sentence processing in the two age groups. Sentence production abilities at 3 years were associated with increased surface area in the most posterior part of the left superior temporal sulcus, whereas 4-year-olds showed an association with cortical thickness in the left posterior part of Broca's area, i.e. BA44. The present findings suggest that sentence processing abilities rely on the maturation of distinct cortical regions in 3- compared to 4-year-olds. The observed shift to more mature regions involved in processing syntactically complex sentences may underlie behavioral milestones in syntax acquisition at around 4 years

Lepton beam polarization at LEP

Results from studies on transverse polarization in LEP over the past two years are presented. A single beam transverse polarization level of 57% at 45 GeV was reached adopting strategies to compensate depolarizing effcts originating in the four experimental solenoids and from orbit pertubations. Beam Energy Calibration was performed by Resonant Depolarization during the 1993 LEP Run for Physics at three different energies centered around the Z peak. The uncertainty on the beam energy was reduced to about 1 MeV, thus improving the accuracy on the Z-resonance mass and width with respect to previous results. Successful results obtained at the end of the 1994 LEP Run on polarization with colliding beams are reported and future plans outlined

The energy calibration of LEP in the 1993 scan

This report summarizes the procedure for providing the absolute energy calibration of the LEP beams during the energy scan in 1993. The average beam energy around the LEP ring was measured in 25 calibrations with the resonant depolarization technique. The time variation of this average beam energy is well described by a model of the accelerator based on monitored quantities. The absolute calibration of the centre of mass energies of the off-peak points is determined with a precision of 2 parts in 10(5) resulting in a systematic error on the Z-mass of about 1.4 MeV and on the Z-width of about 1.5 MeV

Standalone vertex finding in the ATLAS muon spectrometer

A dedicated reconstruction algorithm to find decay vertices in the ATLAS muon spectrometer is presented. The algorithm searches the region just upstream of or inside the muon spectrometer volume for multi-particle vertices that originate from the decay of particles with long decay paths. The performance of the algorithm is evaluated using both a sample of simulated Higgs boson events, in which the Higgs boson decays to long-lived neutral particles that in turn decay to bbar b final states, and pp collision data at √s = 7 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector at the LHC during 2011

Measurements of Higgs boson production and couplings in diboson final states with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements are presented of production properties and couplings of the recently discovered Higgs boson using the decays into boson pairs, H →γ γ, H → Z Z∗ →4l and H →W W∗ →lνlν. The results are based on the complete pp collision data sample recorded by the ATLAS experiment at the CERN Large Hadron Collider at centre-of-mass energies of √s = 7 TeV and √s = 8 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of about 25 fb−1. Evidence for Higgs boson production through vector-boson fusion is reported. Results of combined fits probing Higgs boson couplings to fermions and bosons, as well as anomalous contributions to loop-induced production and decay modes, are presented. All measurements are consistent with expectations for the Standard Model Higgs boson

Measurement of the top quark pair cross section with ATLAS in pp collisions at √s=7 TeV using final states with an electron or a muon and a hadronically decaying τ lepton

A measurement of the cross section of top quark pair production in proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV is reported. The data sample used corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 2.05 fb -1. Events with an isolated electron or muon and a τ lepton decaying hadronically are used. In addition, a large missing transverse momentum and two or more energetic jets are required. At least one of the jets must be identified as originating from a b quark. The measured cross section, σtt-=186±13(stat.)±20(syst.)±7(lumi.) pb, is in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction