Friction reduction and zero wear for 52100 bearing steel by high‐dose implantation of carbon

Ion implantation of carbon in the AISI 52100 bearing steel yields a distinct reduction in friction and wear. This improvement is strongly dependent on the implanted fluence. The coefficient of friction decreases from 0.6 to 0.2 for doses >1×1018 cm-2 (energy 100 keV) and a wear reduction to nearly ‘‘zero wear’’ was obtainable even under severe wear conditions. The counterpart (unimplanted AISI 52100 steel ball) shows a similar behavior, which demonstrates that the tribological system is totally changed. Mössbauer spectroscopy and x-ray diffraction revealed that hexagonal ¿-carbide is formed on implantation. On the other hand, Rutherford backscattering spectrometry shows that for high doses a large fraction of the implanted carbon is not contained in this carbide

A co-registration investigation of inter-word spacing and parafoveal preview: Eye movements and fixation-related potentials

Participants’ eye movements (EMs) and EEG signal were simultaneously recorded to examine foveal and parafoveal processing during sentence reading. All the words in the sentence were manipulated for inter-word spacing (intact spaces vs. spaces replaced by a random letter) and parafoveal preview (identical preview vs. random letter string preview). We observed disruption for unspaced text and invalid preview conditions in both EMs and fixation-related potentials (FRPs). Unspaced and invalid preview conditions received longer reading times than spaced and valid preview conditions. In addition, the FRP data showed that unspaced previews disrupted reading in earlier time windows of analysis, compared to string preview conditions. Moreover, the effect of parafoveal preview was greater for spaced relative to unspaced conditions, in both EMs and FRPs. These findings replicate well-established preview effects, provide novel insight into the neural correlates of reading with and without inter-word spacing and suggest that spatial selection precedes lexical processing

Direct gaze facilitates rapid orienting to faces: evidence from express saccades and saccadic potentials

Direct gaze is a crucial signal in human social communication, which is known to attract visual attention and modulate a wide range of behaviours. The present study investigated whether direct gaze facilitates rapid orienting to faces, which is important for adaptive on-line communication, and its neural correlates. Fifteen participants performed a rapid orienting task, in which they were instructed to saccade to peripherally presented buildings or faces containing direct or averted gaze as quickly as possible. Electroencephalographic recordings were made during the task. Shorter express saccade latencies were found for faces with direct gaze, compared to averted gaze or buildings, while no significant difference was found between faces with averted gaze and buildings. Furthermore, saccade-locked event-related potential (ERP) amplitudes in parieto-occipital areas discriminated faces with direct gaze from buildings and faces with averted gaze corroborating behavioural results. These results show that detection of direct gaze facilitates rapid orienting to faces

Covert Tracking: A Combined ERP and Fixational Eye Movement Study

Attention can be directed to particular spatial locations, or to objects that appear at anticipated points in time. While most work has focused on spatial or temporal attention in isolation, we investigated covert tracking of smoothly moving objects, which requires continuous coordination of both. We tested two propositions about the neural and cognitive basis of this operation: first that covert tracking is a right hemisphere function, and second that pre-motor components of the oculomotor system are responsible for driving covert spatial attention during tracking. We simultaneously recorded event related potentials (ERPs) and eye position while participants covertly tracked dots that moved leftward or rightward at 12 or 20°/s. ERPs were sensitive to the direction of target motion. Topographic development in the leftward motion was a mirror image of the rightward motion, suggesting that both hemispheres contribute equally to covert tracking. Small shifts in eye position were also lateralized according to the direction of target motion, implying covert activation of the oculomotor system. The data addresses two outstanding questions about the nature of visuospatial tracking. First, covert tracking is reliant upon a symmetrical frontoparietal attentional system, rather than being right lateralized. Second, this same system controls both pursuit eye movements and covert tracking

Occipital gamma activation during Vipassana meditation

Long-term Vipassana meditators sat in meditation vs. a control rest (mind-wandering) state for 21 min in a counterbalanced design with spontaneous EEG recorded. Meditation state dynamics were measured with spectral decomposition of the last 6 min of the eyes-closed silent meditation compared to control state. Meditation was associated with a decrease in frontal delta (1–4 Hz) power, especially pronounced in those participants not reporting drowsiness during meditation. Relative increase in frontal theta (4–8 Hz) power was observed during meditation, as well as significantly increased parieto-occipital gamma (35–45 Hz) power, but no other state effects were found for the theta (4–8 Hz), alpha (8–12 Hz), or beta (12–25 Hz) bands. Alpha power was sensitive to condition order, and more experienced meditators exhibited no tendency toward enhanced alpha during meditation relative to the control task. All participants tended to exhibit decreased alpha in association with reported drowsiness. Cross-experimental session occipital gamma power was the greatest in meditators with a daily practice of 10+ years, and the meditation-related gamma power increase was similarly the strongest in such advanced practitioners. The findings suggest that long-term Vipassana meditation contributes to increased occipital gamma power related to long-term meditational expertise and enhanced sensory awareness

Guidelines for management of ischaemic stroke and transient ischaemic attack 2008

This article represents the update of the European Stroke Initiative Recommendations for Stroke Management. These guidelines cover both ischaemic stroke and transient ischaemic attacks, which are now considered to be a single entity. The article covers referral and emergency management, Stroke Unit service, diagnostics, primary and secondary prevention, general stroke treatment, specific treatment including acute management, management of complications, and rehabilitation