Face processing in adolescents with positive and negative threat bias

BackgroundIndividuals with anxiety disorders exhibit a ‘vigilance-avoidance’ pattern of attention to threatening stimuli when threatening and neutral stimuli are presented simultaneously, a phenomenon referred to as ‘threat bias’. Modifying threat bias through cognitive retraining during adolescence reduces symptoms of anxiety, and so elucidating neural mechanisms of threat bias during adolescence is of high importance. We explored neural mechanisms by testing whether threat bias in adolescents is associated with generalized or threat-specific differences in the neural processing of faces.MethodSubjects were categorized into those with (n = 25) and without (n = 27) threat avoidance based on a dot-probe task at average age 12.9 years. Threat avoidance in this cohort has previously been shown to index threat bias. Brain response to individually presented angry and neutral faces was assessed in a separate session using functional magnetic resonance imaging.ResultsAdolescents with threat avoidance exhibited lower activity for both angry and neutral faces relative to controls in several regions in the occipital, parietal, and temporal lobes involved in early visual and facial processing. Results generalized to happy, sad, and fearful faces. Adolescents with a prior history of depression and/or an anxiety disorder had lower activity for all faces in these same regions. A subset of results replicated in an independent dataset.ConclusionsThreat bias is associated with generalized, rather than threat-specific, differences in the neural processing of faces in adolescents. Findings may aid in the development of novel treatments for anxiety disorders that use attention training to modify threat bias.</jats:sec

Free field realization of SL(2) correlators for admissible representations, and hamiltonian reduction for correlators

Talk presented by J.L. Petersen at the 29th Symposium Ahrenshop, Buckow August 29-September 2, 1995. A presentation is given of the free field realization relevant to SL(2) WZW theories with a Hilbert space based on admissible representations. It is known that this implies the presence of two screening charges, one involving a fractional power of a free field. We develop the use of fractional calculus for treating in general such cases. We derive explicit integral representations of $N$-point conformal blocks. We show that they satisfy the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov equations and we prove how they are related to minimal conformal blocks via a formulation of hamiltonian reduction advocated by Furlan, Ganchev, Paunov and Petkova.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, article.sty, espcrc2.st

Career toolbox - the decision paper: A tool to facilitate decision-making

Guidelines for writing a decision paper are presented. The purpose of the decision paper is to present complex issues in an organized format; it is especially helpful when timeliness is important. The writing style and format of the decision paper are described. The format for a decision paper includes the issue or problem statement, relevant background material, options or alternatives, discussion, recommendation, coordination/endorsement, and record of decision

Use of Fly Ash as a Liming Material of Corn and Soybean Production on an Acidic Sandy Soil

Fly ash (FA) produced from subbituminous coal combustion can potentially serve as a lime material for crop production in acidic soils. A five-year study was conducted to determine if FA was an effective liming material in an acid sandy soil under corn and soybean grain production. Fly ash and pelletized lime (PL) were surface applied at rates ranging from 3,200 to 6,400 and 1,416 to 5,658 kg/ha (0.5 to 2 times the recommended rate) at two sites near Brunswick, NE, respectively. At Site A, lime source additions increased soil pH by 0.7 units and decreased soil exchangeable Al by 7.3 mg/kg to a depth of 20 cm. Lime applications resulted in pH increase during the first year (2004) at the 0 to 10-cm depth, and in 2007 at the 10 to 20-cm depth. At Site B, soil pH data suggested that one or more past lime applications may have occurred. Corn and soybean grain yields were not different during each year between the control and lime source treatments at both sites. This lack of difference was likely due to soluble Al concentrations not being great enough to affect grain yield. Fly ash did not negatively affect grain yields in this study. Boron concentration (400 mg/kg) in FA were likely too low to adversely affect yields. The FA applied at rates in this study, increased pH comparable to PL and is an appropriate liming material

The Impact of new Execution Venues on European Equity Markets’ Liquidity – The Case of Chi-X

With the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive in effect since November 2007, new trading venues have emerged in European equities trading, among them Chi-X. This paper analyzes the impact of this new market entrant on the home market as well as on consolidated liquidity of French blue chip equities, newly tradable on Chi-X. Our findings suggest that owing to this new competition the home market’s liquidity has enhanced. This is apparently due to the battle for order flow which results in narrower spreads and increased market depth. These results imply that overall liquidity in a virtually consolidated order book is in the French case higher than without the new competitor

Anti-de Sitter boundary in Poincare coordinates

We study the space-time boundary of a Poincare patch of Anti-de Sitter (AdS) space. We map the Poincare AdS boundary to the global coordinate chart and show why this boundary is not equivalent to the global AdS boundary. The Poincare AdS boundary is shown to contain points of the bulk of the entire AdS space. The Euclidean AdS space is also discussed. In this case one can define a semi-global chart that divides the AdS space in the same way as the corresponding Euclidean Poincare chart.Comment: In this revised version we add a discussion of the physical consequences of the choice of a coordinate system for AdS space. We changed figure 1 and added more references. Version to be published in Gen. Relat. Grav

The Conformal Willmore Functional: a Perturbative Approach

The conformal Willmore functional (which is conformal invariant in general Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$) is studied with a perturbative method: the Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction. Existence of critical points is shown in ambient manifolds $(\mathbb{R}^3, g_\epsilon)$ -where $g_\epsilon$ is a metric close and asymptotic to the euclidean one. With the same technique a non existence result is proved in general Riemannian manifolds $(M,g)$ of dimension three.Comment: 34 pages; Journal of Geometric Analysis, on line first 23 September 201

Baryon Binding Energy in Sakai-Sugimoto Model

The binding energy of baryon has been studied in the dual $AdS_5\times S^5$ string theory with a black hole interior. In this picture baryon is constructed of a $D_5$ brane vertex wrapping on $S^5$ and $N_c$ fundamental strings connected to it. Here, we calculate the baryon binding energy in Sakai-Sugimoto model with a $D_4/D_8/\bar{D_8}$ in which the supersymmetry is completely broken. Also we check the $T$ dependence of the baryon binding energy. We believe that this model represents an accurate description of baryons due to the existence of Chern-Simones coupling with the gauge field on the brane. We obtain an analytical expression for the baryon binding energy . In that case we plot the baryon binding energy in terms of radial coordinate. Then by using the binding energy diagram, we determine the stability range for baryon configuration. And also the position and energy of the stable equilibrium point is obtained by the corresponding diagram. Also we plot the baryon binding energy in terms of temperature and estimate a critical temperature in which the baryon would be dissociated.Comment: 14 pages, 1 fi

Health, financial and environmental impacts of unnecessary vitamin D testing: a triple bottom line assessment adapted for healthcare

To undertake an assessment of the health, financial and environmental impacts of a well-recognised example of low-value care; inappropriate vitamin D testing. Design Combination of systematic literature search, analysis of routinely collected healthcare data and environmental analysis. Setting Australian healthcare system. Participants Population of Australia. Outcome measures We took a sustainability approach, measuring the health, financial and environmental impacts of a specific healthcare activity. Unnecessary vitamin D testing rates were estimated from best available published literature; by definition, these provide no gain in health outcomes (in contrast to appropriate/necessary tests). Australian population-based test numbers and healthcare costs were obtained from Medicare for vitamin D pathology services. Carbon emissions in kg CO2e were estimated using data from our previous study of the carbon footprint of common pathology tests. We distinguished between tests ordered as the primary test and those ordered as an add-on to other tests, as many may be done in conjunction with other tests. We conducted base case (8% being the primary reason for the blood test) and sensitivity (12% primary test) analyses. Results There were a total of 4 457 657 Medicare-funded vitamin D tests in 2020, on average one test for every six Australians, an 11.8% increase from the mean 2018–2019 total. From our literature review, 76.5% of Australia’s vitamin D tests provide no net health benefit, equating to 3 410 108 unnecessary tests in 2020. Total costs of unnecessary tests to Medicare amounted to >$A87 000 000. The 2020 carbon footprint of unnecessary vitamin D tests was 28 576 kg (base case) and 42 012 kg (sensitivity) CO2e, equivalent to driving ~160 000–230 000 km in a standard passenger car. Conclusions Unnecessary vitamin D testing contributes to avoidable CO2e emissions and healthcare costs. While the footprint of this example is relatively small, the potential to realise environmental cobenefits by reducing low-value care more broadly is significant