1,506 research outputs found
Bush-crickets with very special ears and songs - review of the East African Phaneropterinae genus Dioncomena Brunner von Wattenwyl, 1878, with notes on its biogeography and the description of new species
This study focuses on the genus Dioncomena and its acoustics, particularly the unique songs produced by male Dioncomena that consist of several distinct elements in a fixed sequence, culminating in a coda that typically elicits a response from a receptive female. We also examine the inflated pronotal lobes, which we term prebullae, that are prominently developed in some Dioncomena species but not in others. We discuss the role of prebullae in the context of acoustic communication in Dioncomena and other related Phaneropterini genera that have similar lateral pronotal lobes. We found that prebullae size is correlated with habitat distribution, with larger prebullae occurring in isolated species while aggregation-prone species have smaller or less pronounced prebullae.
We define three groups of Dioncomena based on altitude preferences, ecology, color patterns, and songs: the jagoi-, tanneri-, and ornata-groups. We describe the songs of several species, including newly identified species such as D. flavoviridis n. sp., D. magombera n. sp., D. ngurumontana n. sp., D. sanje n. sp., D. tanneri, D. versicolor n. sp., and D. zernyi. We also provide information on the nymphs, development time, and mating behavior of various species reared in the laboratory, shedding light on their phenology and adaptations to their habitats. Finally, we describe six new species and provide the first description of the female D. zernyi
Comparison of Horizontal, Vertical and Diagonal Smooth Pursuit Eye Movements in Normal Human Subjects
AbstractWe compared horizontal and vertical smooth pursuit eye movements in five healthy human subjects. When maintenance of pursuit was tested using predictable waveforms (sinusoidal or triangular target motion), the gain of horizontal pursuit was greater, in all subjects, than that of vertical pursuit; this was also the case for the horizontal and vertical components of diagonal and circular tracking. When initiation of pursuit was tested, four subjects tended to show larger eye accelerations for vertical as opposed to horizontal pursuit; this trend became a consistent finding during diagonal tracking. These findings support the view that different mechanisms govern the onset of smooth pursuit, and its subsequent maintenance when the target moves in a predictable waveform. Since the properties of these two aspects of pursuit differ for horizontal and vertical movements, our findings also point to separate control of horizontal and vertical pursuit. Copyright © 1996 Elsevier Science Ltd
Ab Initio Calculation of Relativistic Corrections to the Static Interquark potential I: SU(2) Gauge Theory
We test the capability of state-of-the-art lattice techniques for a precise
determination of relativistic corrections to the static interquark potential,
by use of SU(2) gauge theory. Emphasis is put on the short range structure of
the spin dependent potentials, with lattice resolution a ranging from a approx
0.04 fm (at beta=2.74) down to a approx 0.02 fm (at beta=2.96) on volumes of
32^4 and 48^4 lattice sites. We find a new short range Coulomb-like
contribution to the spin-orbit potential V_1'.Comment: 37 pages REVTeX with 20 encapsuled ps figure
Semiclassical Construction of Random Wave Functions for Confined Systems
We develop a statistical description of chaotic wavefunctions in closed
systems obeying arbitrary boundary conditions by combining a semiclassical
expression for the spatial two-point correlation function with a treatment of
eigenfunctions as Gaussian random fields. Thereby we generalize Berry's
isotropic random wave model by incorporating confinement effects through
classical paths reflected at the boundaries. Our approach allows to explicitly
calculate highly non-trivial statistics, such as intensity distributions, in
terms of usually few short orbits, depending on the energy window considered.
We compare with numerical quantum results for the Africa billiard and derive
non-isotropic random wave models for other prominent confinement geometries.Comment: To be submitted to Physical Review Letter
Complete O(v^2) corrections to the static interquark potential from SU(3) gauge theory
For the first time, we determine the complete spin- and momentum-dependent
order v^2 corrections to the static interquark potential from simulations of
QCD in the valence quark approximation at inverse lattice spacings of 2-3 GeV.
A new flavor dependent correction to the central potential is found. We report
a 1/r^2 contribution to the long range spin-orbit potential V_1'. The other
spin-dependent potentials turn out to be short ranged and can be well
understood by means of perturbation theory. The momentum-dependent potentials
qualitatively agree with minimal area law expectations. In view of spectrum
calculations, we discuss the matching of the effective nonrelativistic theory
to QCD as well as renormalization of lattice results. In a first survey of the
resulting bottomonia and charmonia spectra we reproduce the experimental levels
within average errors of 12.5 MeV and 22 MeV, respectively.Comment: 54 pages REVTeX with 24 encapsuled ps figure
Excitons in a Photosynthetic Light-Harvesting System: A Combined Molecular Dynamics/Quantum Chemistry and Polaron Model Study
The dynamics of pigment-pigment and pigment-protein interactions in
light-harvesting complexes is studied with a novel approach which combines
molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with quantum chemistry (QC) calculations.
The MD simulations of an LH-II complex, solvated and embedded in a lipid
bilayer at physiological conditions (with total system size of 87,055 atoms)
revealed a pathway of a water molecule into the B800 binding site, as well as
increased dimerization within the B850 BChl ring, as compared to the
dimerization found for the crystal structure. The fluctuations of pigment (B850
BChl) excitation energies, as a function of time, were determined via ab initio
QC calculations based on the geometries that emerged from the MD simulations.
From the results of these calculations we constructed a time-dependent
Hamiltonian of the B850 exciton system from which we determined the linear
absorption spectrum. Finally, a polaron model is introduced to describe quantum
mechanically both the excitonic and vibrational (phonon) degrees of freedom.
The exciton-phonon coupling that enters into the polaron model, and the
corresponding phonon spectral function are derived from the MD/QC simulations.
It is demonstrated that, in the framework of the polaron model, the absorption
spectrum of the B850 excitons can be calculated from the autocorrelation
function of the excitation energies of individual BChls, which is readily
available from the combined MD/QC simulations. The obtained result is in good
agreement with the experimentally measured absorption spectrum.Comment: REVTeX3.1, 23 pages, 13 (EPS) figures included. A high quality PDF
file of the paper is available at
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Publications/Papers/PDF/DAMJ2001/DAMJ2001.pd
Running Coupling and the Lambda-Parameter from SU(3) Lattice Simulations
We present new results on the static qq-potential from high statistics
simulations on 32^4 and smaller lattices, using the standard Wilson beta = 6.0,
6.4, and 6.8. Within our statistical errors we do not observe any finite size
effects affecting the potential values, on varying the spatial lattice extent
from 0.9fm up to 3.3fm. We are able to see and quantify the running of the
coupling from the Coulomb behaviour of the interquark force. From this we
extract the ratio \sqrt{sigma}/Lambda_L. We demonstrate that scaling violations
on the string tension can be considerably reduced by introducing effective
coupling schemes, which allow for a safe extrapolation of \Lambda_L to its
continuum value. Both methods yield consistent values for Lambda: Lambda_MSbar
= 0.558_{-0.007}^{+0.017}\sqrt{sigma} = 246_{-3}^{+7}MeV. At the highest energy
scale attainable to us we find alpha(5 GeV) = 0.150(3)Comment: 19 pages (LaTex), +6 pages with figures (Postscript, 432K), WUB
92--2
Alertness and visuospatial attention in clinical depression
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cognitive deficits are a substantial burden in clinical depression. The present study considered dysfunction in the right-hemispheric attention network in depression, examining alertness and visuospatial attention.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Three computerized visuospatial attention tests and an alertness test were administered to 16 depressive patients and 16 matched healthy controls.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Although no significant group effect was observed, alertness predicted reduced visuospatial performance in the left hemifield. Furthermore, sad mood showed a trend towards predicting left visual field omissions.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Decreased alertness may lead to lower left hemifield visuospatial attention; this mechanism may be responsible for a spatial bias to the right side in depression, even though treatment of depression and anxiety may reduce this cognitive deficit.</p
Weak temperature dependence of P (+) H A (-) recombination in mutant Rhodobacter sphaeroides reaction centers
International audienceIn contrast with findings on the wild-type Rhodobacter sphaeroides reaction center, biexponential P (+) H A (-) → PH A charge recombination is shown to be weakly dependent on temperature between 78 and 298 K in three variants with single amino acids exchanged in the vicinity of primary electron acceptors. These mutated reaction centers have diverse overall kinetics of charge recombination, spanning an average lifetime from ~2 to ~20 ns. Despite these differences a protein relaxation model applied previously to wild-type reaction centers was successfully used to relate the observed kinetics to the temporal evolution of the free energy level of the state P (+) H A (-) relative to P (+) B A (-) . We conclude that the observed variety in the kinetics of charge recombination, together with their weak temperature dependence, is caused by a combination of factors that are each affected to a different extent by the point mutations in a particular mutant complex. These are as follows: (1) the initial free energy gap between the states P (+) B A (-) and P (+) H A (-) , (2) the intrinsic rate of P (+) B A (-) → PB A charge recombination, and (3) the rate of protein relaxation in response to the appearance of the charge separated states. In the case of a mutant which displays rapid P (+) H A (-) recombination (ELL), most of this recombination occurs in an unrelaxed protein in which P (+) B A (-) and P (+) H A (-) are almost isoenergetic. In contrast, in a mutant in which P (+) H A (-) recombination is relatively slow (GML), most of the recombination occurs in a relaxed protein in which P (+) H A (-) is much lower in energy than P (+) H A (-) . The weak temperature dependence in the ELL reaction center and a YLH mutant was modeled in two ways: (1) by assuming that the initial P (+) B A (-) and P (+) H A (-) states in an unrelaxed protein are isoenergetic, whereas the final free energy gap between these states following the protein relaxation is large (~250 meV or more), independent of temperature and (2) by assuming that the initial and final free energy gaps between P (+) B A (-) and P (+) H A (-) are moderate and temperature dependent. In the case of the GML mutant, it was concluded that the free energy gap between P (+) B A (-) and P (+) H A (-) is large at all times
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