329 research outputs found
The more often you see an object, the easier it becomes to track it
Is it easier to track objects that you have seen repeatedly? We compared repeated blocks, where identities were the same from trial to trial, to unrepeated blocks, where identities varied. People were better in tracking objects that they saw repeatedly. We tested four hypotheses to explain this repetition benefit. First, perhaps the repeated condition benefits from consistent mapping of identities to target and distractor roles. However, the repetition benefit persisted even when both the repeated and the unrepeated conditions used consistent mapping. Second, repetition might improve the ability to recover targets that have been lost, or swapped with distractors. However, we observed a larger repetition benefit for color-color conjunctions, which do not benefit from such error recovery processes, than for unique features, which do. Furthermore, a repetition benefit was observed even in the absence of distractors. Third, perhaps repetition frees up resources by reducing memory load. However, increasing memory load by masking identities during the motion phase reduced the repetition benefit. The fourth hypothesis is that repetition facilitates identity tracking, which in turn improves location tracking. This hypothesis is consistent with all our results. Thus, our data suggest that identity and location tracking share a common resource
Neutrino mean free paths in spin-polarized neutron Fermi liquids
Neutrino mean free paths in magnetized neutron matter are calculated using
the Hartree-Fock approximation with effective Skyrme and Gogny forces in the
framework of the Landau Fermi Liquid Theory. It is shown that describing
nuclear interaction with Skyrme forces and for magnetic field strengths
, the neutrino mean free paths stay almost unchanged
at intermediate densities but they largely increase at high densities when they
are compared to the field-free case results. However the description with Gogny
forces differs from the previous and mean free paths stay almonst unchanged or
decrease at densities . This different behaviour can be explained
due to the combination of common mild variation of the Landau parameters with
both types of forces and the values of the nucleon effective mass and induced
magnetization of matter under presence of a strong magnetic field as described
with the two parametrizations of the nuclear interaction.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Hawking radiation of nonsingular black holes in two dimensions
In this letter we study the process of Hawking radiation of a black hole
assuming the existence of a limiting physical curvature scale. The particular
model is constructed using the Limiting Curvature Hypothesis (LCH) and in the
context of two-dimensional dilaton gravity. The black hole solution exhibits
properties of the standard Schwarzschild solution at large values of the radial
coordinate. However, near the center, the black hole is nonsingular and the
metric becomes that of de Sitter spacetime. The Hawking temperature is
calculated using the method of complex paths. We find that such black holes
radiate eternally and never completely evaporate. The final state is an
eternally radiating relic, near the fundamental scale, which should make a
viable dark matter candidate. We briefly comment on the black hole information
loss problem and the production of such black holes in collider experiments.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; minor revisions; references added; version to
appear in JHE
The Enhancon, Black Holes, and the Second Law
We revisit the physics of five-dimensional black holes constructed from D5-
and D1-branes and momentum modes in type IIB string theory compactified on K3.
Since these black holes incorporate D5-branes wrapped on K3, an enhancon locus
appears in the spacetime geometry. With a `small' number of D1-branes, the
entropy of a black hole is maximised by including precisely half as many
D5-branes as there are D1-branes in the black hole. Any attempts to introduce
more D5-branes, and so reduce the entropy, are thwarted by the appearance of
the enhancon locus above the horizon, which then prevents their approach. The
enhancon mechanism thereby acts to uphold the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
This result generalises: For each type of bound state object which can be made
of both types of brane, we show that a new type of enhancon exists at
successively smaller radii in the geometry, again acting to prevent any
reduction of the entropy just when needed. We briefly explore the appearance of
the enhancon in the black hole interior.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figures, latex, epsfig (v2: Fixed trivial typos.
Glucocorticoids prime the inflammatory response of human hippocampal cells through up-regulation of inflammatory pathways
Increased pro-inflammatory cytokines and an overactive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis have both been implicated in the pathogenesis of depression. However, these explanations appear contradictory because glucocorticoids are well recognised for their anti-inflammatory effects. Two hypotheses exist to resolve this paradox: the mediating presence of glucocorticoid receptor resistance, or the possibility that glucocorticoids can potentiate inflammatory processes in some circumstances. We sought to investigate these hypotheses in a cell model with significant relevance to depression: human hippocampal progenitor cells. We demonstrated that dexamethasone in vitro given for 24 hours and followed by a 24 hours rest interval before an immune challenge potentiates inflammatory effects in these neural cells, that is, increases the IL-6 protein secretion induced by stimulation with IL-1\u3b2 (10 ng/mL for 24 hours) by + 49% (P < 0.05) at a concentration of 100 nM and by + 70% (P < 0.01) for 1 \u3bcM. These effects are time- and dose-dependent and require activation of the glucocorticoid receptor. Gene expression microarray assays using Human Gene 2.1st Array Strips demonstrated that glucocorticoid treatment up-regulated several innate immune genes, including chemokines and Nod-like receptor, NLRP6; using transcription factor binding motifs we found limited evidence that glucocorticoid resistance was induced in the cells. Our data suggests a mechanism by which stress may prime the immune system for increased inflammation and suggests that stress and inflammation may be synergistic in the pathogenesis of depression
The abelian cosets of the Heisenberg group
In this paper we study the abelian cosets of the H(4) WZW model. They
coincide or are related to several interesting three-dimensional backgrounds
such as the Melvin model, the conical point-particle space-times and the null
orbifold. We perform a detailed CFT analysis of all the models and compute the
coset characters as well as some typical three-point couplings of coset
primaries.Comment: 26 pages; v2: minor typos corrected, also added section 3.3 and 4.3
with a few comments on a third class of geometries that have not been
discussed in v
Noncommutative Self-dual Gravity
Starting from a self-dual formulation of gravity, we obtain a noncommutative
theory of pure Einstein theory in four dimensions. In order to do that, we use
Seiberg-Witten map. It is shown that the noncommutative torsion constraint is
solved by the vanishing of commutative torsion. Finally, the noncommutative
corrections to the action are computed up to second order.Comment: 15+1 pages, LaTeX, no figure
Optical properties of pyrochlore oxide
We present optical conductivity spectra for
single crystal at different temperatures. Among reported pyrochlore ruthenates,
this compound exhibits metallic behavior in a wide temperature range and has
the least resistivity. At low frequencies, the optical spectra show typical
Drude responses, but with a knee feature around 1000 \cm. Above 20000 \cm, a
broad absorption feature is observed. Our analysis suggests that the low
frequency responses can be understood from two Drude components arising from
the partially filled Ru bands with different plasma frequencies and
scattering rates. The high frequency broad absorption may be contributed by two
interband transitions: from occupied Ru states to empty bands
and from the fully filled O 2p bands to unoccupied Ru states.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figure
Towards a Stringy Resolution of the Cosmological Singularity
We study cosmological solutions to the low-energy effective action of
heterotic string theory including possible leading order corrections
and a potential for the dilaton. We consider the possibility that including
such stringy corrections can resolve the initial cosmological singularity.
Since the exact form of these corrections is not known the higher-derivative
terms are constructed so that they vanish when the metric is de Sitter
spacetime. The constructed terms are compatible with known restrictions from
scattering amplitude and string worldsheet beta-function calculations. Analytic
and numerical techniques are used to construct a singularity-free cosmological
solution. At late times and low-curvatures the metric is asymptotically
Minkowski and the dilaton is frozen. In the high-curvature regime the universe
enters a de Sitter phase.Comment: 6 pages, 2 Figures; minor revisions; references added; REVTeX 4;
version to appear in Phys. Rev.
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