4,582 research outputs found
Depth, balancing, and limits of the Elo model
-Much work has been devoted to the computational complexity of games.
However, they are not necessarily relevant for estimating the complexity in
human terms. Therefore, human-centered measures have been proposed, e.g. the
depth. This paper discusses the depth of various games, extends it to a
continuous measure. We provide new depth results and present tool
(given-first-move, pie rule, size extension) for increasing it. We also use
these measures for analyzing games and opening moves in Y, NoGo, Killall Go,
and the effect of pie rules
Global quark polarization in non-central collisions
Partons produced in the early stage of non-central heavy-ion collisions can
develop a longitudinal fluid shear because of unequal local number densities of
participant target and projectile nucleons. Under such fluid shear, local
parton pairs with non-vanishing impact parameter have finite local relative
orbital angular momentum along the direction opposite to the reaction plane.
Such finite relative orbital angular momentum among locally interacting quark
pairs can lead to global quark polarization along the same direction due to
spin-orbital coupling. Local longitudinal fluid shear is estimated within both
Landau fireball and Bjorken scaling model of initial parton production. Quark
polarization through quark-quark scatterings with the exchange of a thermal
gluon is calculated beyond small-angle scattering approximation in a
quark-gluon plasma. The polarization is shown to have a non-monotonic
dependence on the local relative orbital angular momentum dictated by the
interplay between electric and magnetic interaction. It peaks at a value of
relative orbital angular momentum which scales with the magnetic mass of the
exchanged gluons. With the estimated small longitudinal fluid shear in
semi-peripheral collisions at the RHIC energy, the final quark
polarization is found to be small in the weak coupling limit.
Possible behavior of the quark polarization in the strong coupling limit and
implications on the experimental detection of such global quark polarization at
RHIC and LHC are also discussed.Comment: 28 pages,11 figure
Super-soft symmetry energy encountering non-Newtonian gravity in neutron stars
Considering the non-Newtonian gravity proposed in the grand unification
theories, we show that the stability and observed global properties of neutron
stars can not rule out the super-soft nuclear symmetry energies at
supra-saturation densities. The degree of possible violation of the
Inverse-Square-Law of gravity in neutron stars is estimated using an Equation
of State (EOS) of neutron-rich nuclear matter consistent with the available
terrestrial laboratory data.Comment: Version accepted by Physical Review Letter
RVSL: Robust Vehicle Similarity Learning in Real Hazy Scenes Based on Semi-supervised Learning
Recently, vehicle similarity learning, also called re-identification (ReID),
has attracted significant attention in computer vision. Several algorithms have
been developed and obtained considerable success. However, most existing
methods have unpleasant performance in the hazy scenario due to poor
visibility. Though some strategies are possible to resolve this problem, they
still have room to be improved due to the limited performance in real-world
scenarios and the lack of real-world clear ground truth. Thus, to resolve this
problem, inspired by CycleGAN, we construct a training paradigm called
\textbf{RVSL} which integrates ReID and domain transformation techniques. The
network is trained on semi-supervised fashion and does not require to employ
the ID labels and the corresponding clear ground truths to learn hazy vehicle
ReID mission in the real-world haze scenes. To further constrain the
unsupervised learning process effectively, several losses are developed.
Experimental results on synthetic and real-world datasets indicate that the
proposed method can achieve state-of-the-art performance on hazy vehicle ReID
problems. It is worth mentioning that although the proposed method is trained
without real-world label information, it can achieve competitive performance
compared to existing supervised methods trained on complete label information.Comment: Accepted by ECCV 202
Hot Interstellar Gas and Stellar Energy Feedback in the Antennae Galaxies
We have analyzed Chandra archival observations of the Antennae galaxies to
study the distribution and physical properties of its hot interstellar gas.
Eleven distinct diffuse X-ray emission regions are selected according to their
underlying interstellar structures and star formation activity. The X-ray
spectra of these regions are used to determine their thermal energy contents
and cooling timescales. Young star clusters in these regions are also
identified and their photometric measurements are compared to evolutionary
stellar population synthesis models to assess their masses and ages. The
cluster properties are then used to determine the stellar wind and supernova
energies injected into the ISM. Comparisons between the thermal energy in the
hot ISM and the expected stellar energy input show that young star clusters are
sufficient to power the X-ray-emitting gas in some, but not all, active star
formation regions. Super-star clusters, with masses >= 1x10^5 M_sol, heat the
ISM, but the yield of hot interstellar gas is not directly proportional to the
cluster mass. Finally, there exist diffuse X-ray emission regions which do not
show active star formation or massive young star clusters. These regions may be
powered by field stars or low-mass clusters formed within the last ~100 Myr.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, 8 tables, 2 appendices, to appear in the
Astrophysical Journal, April 20 issu
Anthropogenic sound exposure-induced stress in captive dolphins and implications for cetacean health
© The Author(s), 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Yang, W.-C., Chen, C.-F., Chuah, Y.-C., Zhuang, C.-R., Chen, I.-H., Mooney, T. A., Stott, J., Blanchard, M., Jen, I.-F., & Chou, L.-S. Anthropogenic sound exposure-induced stress in captive dolphins and implications for cetacean health. Frontiers in Marine Science, 8,(2021): 606736, https://doi.org/10.3389/fmars.2021.606736.Many cetaceans are exposed to increasing pressure caused by anthropogenic activities in their marine environment. Anthropogenic sound has been recognized as a possible stressor for cetaceans that may have impacts on health. However, the relationship between stress, hormones, and cytokines secretion in cetaceans is complex and not fully understood. Moreover, the effects of stress are often inconsistent because the character, intensity, and duration of the stressors are variable. For a better understanding of how anthropogenic sounds affect the psychophysiology of cetaceans, the present study compared the changes of cortisol concentration and cytokine gene transcriptions in blood samples and behaviors of captive bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) after sound exposures. The sound stimuli were 800 Hz pure-tone multiple impulsive sound for 30 min at three different sound levels (estimated mean received SPL: 0, 120, and 140 dB re 1 μPa) that likely cause no permanent and temporary hearing threshold shift in dolphins. Six cytokine genes (IL-2Rα, IL-4, IL-10, IL-12, TNF-α, and IFN-γ) were selected for analysis. Cortisol levels and IL-10 gene transcription increased and IFNγ/IL-10 ratio was lower after a 30-min high-level sound exposure, indicating the sound stimuli used in this study could be a stressor for cetaceans, although only minor behavior changes were observed. This study may shed light on the potential impact of pile driving-like sounds on the endocrine and immune systems in cetaceans and provide imperative information regarding sound exposure for free-ranging cetaceans.This work was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology in Taiwan (MOST 108-2313-B-002-021 and MOST 109-2628-B-002-028)
Broad Inhibition Sharpens Orientation Selectivity by Expanding Input Dynamic Range in Mouse Simple Cells
SummaryOrientation selectivity (OS) is an emergent property in the primary visual cortex (V1). How OS arises from synaptic circuits remains unsolved. Here, in vivo whole-cell recordings in the mouse V1 revealed that simple cells received broadly tuned excitation and even more broadly tuned inhibition. Excitation and inhibition shared a similar orientation preference and temporally overlapped substantially. Neuron modeling and dynamic-clamp recording further revealed that excitatory inputs alone would result in membrane potential responses with significantly attenuated selectivity, due to a saturating input-output function of the membrane filtering. Inhibition ameliorated the attenuation of excitatory selectivity by expanding the input dynamic range and caused additional sharpening of output responses beyond unselectively suppressing responses at all orientations. This “blur-sharpening” effect allows selectivity conveyed by excitatory inputs to be better expressed, which may be a general mechanism underlying the generation of feature-selective responses in the face of strong excitatory inputs that are weakly biased
The Antiinfective Effects of Velvet Antler of Formosan Sambar Deer (Cervus unicolor swinhoei) on Staphylococcus aureus-Infected Mice
We assayed the effects of velvet antler (VA) of Formosan sambar deer (Cervus unicolor swinhoei) and its extracts on the anti-infective activity against pathogenic Staphylococcus aureus in vitro and in vivo in this study. In vitro data indicated that the VA extracts stimulated the proliferation of resting splenocytes and macrophages in a dose-dependent manner up to the highest concentration used (150 μg mL−1). The production of proinflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-6, IL-12) by lipoteichoic acid was significantly suppressed after being cocultured with the VA extracts in a dose-dependent manner. Animal test in S. aureus-infected mice demonstrated that the numbers of bacteria determined in the kidneys and peritoneal lavage fluid of S. aureus-infected mice were significantly higher than those found in the same organs of mice pretreated with the VA samples. Moreover, the highly enhanced phagocytic activity of macrophages was further verified after in vitro treatment with the VA samples. The protective mechanisms of the VA samples might include an immune enhancer and an inflammatory cytokine suppressor
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