Embodied perspective-taking indicated by selective disruption from aberrant self motion

Spatial perspective-taking that involves imagined changes in one’s spatial orientation is facilitated by vestibular stimulation inducing a congruent sensation of self-motion. We examined further the role of vestibular resources in perspective-taking by evaluating whether aberrant and conflicting vestibular stimulation impaired perspective-taking performance. Participants (N = 39) undertook either an “own body transformation” (OBT)task, requiring speeded spatial judgments made from the perspective of a schematic figure, or a control task requiring reconfiguration of spatial mappings from one’s own visuo-spatial perspective. These tasks were performed both without and with vestibular stimulation by whole-body Coriolis motion, according to a repeated measures design, balanced for order. Vestibular stimulation was found to impair performance during the first minute post stimulus relative to the stationary condition. This disruption was task-specific, affecting only the OBT task and not the control task, and dissipated by the second minute post-stimulus. Our experiment thus demonstrates selective temporary impairment of perspective-taking from aberrant vestibular stimulation, implying that uncompromised vestibular resources are necessary for efficient perspective-taking. This finding provides evidence for an embodied mechanism for perspective-taking whereby vestibular input contributes to multisensory processing underlying bodily and social cognition. Ultimately, this knowledge may contribute to the design of interventions that help patients suffering sudden vertigo adapt to the cognitive difficulties caused by aberrant vestibular stimulation

A Systematic Literature Review with Meta-Analyses of Within- and Between-Day Differences in Objectively Measured Physical Activity in School-Aged Children

Background: Targeting specific time periods of the day or week may enhance physical activity (PA) interventions in youth. The most prudent time segments to target are currently unclear.  Objectives: To systematically review the literature describing differences in young people’s objectively measured PA on weekdays vs. weekends, in school vs. out of school, weekends vs. out of school and lesson time vs. break time.  Methods: Electronic databases were searched for English-language, cross-sectional studies of school-aged children (4–18 years) reporting time-segment-specific accelerometer-measured PA from 01/1990 to 01/2013. We meta-analysed standardised mean differences (SMD) between time segments for mean accelerometer counts per minute (TPA) and minutes in moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA). SMD is reported in units of standard deviation; 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 represent small, moderate and large effects. Heterogeneity was explored using meta-regression (potential effect modifiers: age, sex and study setting).  Results: Of the 54 included studies, 37 were eligible for meta-analyses. Children were more active on weekdays than weekends [pooled SMD (95 % CI) TPA 0.14 (0.08; 0.20), MVPA 0.42 (0.35; 0.49)]. On school days, TPA was lower in school than out of school; however, marginally more MVPA was accumulated in school [TPA −0.24 (−0.40; −0.08), MVPA 0.17 (−0.03; 0.38)]. TPA was slightly lower on weekends than out of school on school days, but a greater absolute volume of MVPA was performed on weekends [TPA −0.10 (−0.19; −0.01), MVPA 1.02 (0.82; 1.23)]. Heterogeneity between studies was high (I2 73.3–96.3 %), with 20.3–53.1 % of variance between studies attributable to potential moderating factors.  Conclusions: School-aged children are more active on weekdays than weekend days. The outcome measure influences the conclusions for other comparisons. Findings support the tailoring of intervention strategies to specific time periods

A reexamination of information theory-based methods for DNA-binding site identification

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Searching for transcription factor binding sites in genome sequences is still an open problem in bioinformatics. Despite substantial progress, search methods based on information theory remain a standard in the field, even though the full validity of their underlying assumptions has only been tested in artificial settings. Here we use newly available data on transcription factors from different bacterial genomes to make a more thorough assessment of information theory-based search methods.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Our results reveal that conventional benchmarking against artificial sequence data leads frequently to overestimation of search efficiency. In addition, we find that sequence information by itself is often inadequate and therefore must be complemented by other cues, such as curvature, in real genomes. Furthermore, results on skewed genomes show that methods integrating skew information, such as <it>Relative Entropy</it>, are not effective because their assumptions may not hold in real genomes. The evidence suggests that binding sites tend to evolve towards genomic skew, rather than against it, and to maintain their information content through increased conservation. Based on these results, we identify several misconceptions on information theory as applied to binding sites, such as negative entropy, and we propose a revised paradigm to explain the observed results.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We conclude that, among information theory-based methods, the most unassuming search methods perform, on average, better than any other alternatives, since heuristic corrections to these methods are prone to fail when working on real data. A reexamination of information content in binding sites reveals that information content is a compound measure of search and binding affinity requirements, a fact that has important repercussions for our understanding of binding site evolution.</p

Search for invisible modes of nucleon decay in water with the SNO+ detector

This paper reports results from a search for nucleon decay through invisible modes, where no visible energy is directly deposited during the decay itself, during the initial water phase of SNO+. However, such decays within the oxygen nucleus would produce an excited daughter that would subsequently deexcite, often emitting detectable gamma rays. A search for such gamma rays yields limits of 2.5×1029  y at 90% Bayesian credibility level (with a prior uniform in rate) for the partial lifetime of the neutron, and 3.6×1029  y for the partial lifetime of the proton, the latter a 70% improvement on the previous limit from SNO. We also present partial lifetime limits for invisible dinucleon modes of 1.3×1028  y for nn, 2.6×1028  y for pn and 4.7×1028  y for pp, an improvement over existing limits by close to 3 orders of magnitude for the latter two

FCC-ee: The Lepton Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 2

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched, as an international collaboration hosted by CERN. This study covers a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee) and an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), which could, successively, be installed in the same 100 km tunnel. The scientific capabilities of the integrated FCC programme would serve the worldwide community throughout the 21st century. The FCC study also investigates an LHC energy upgrade, using FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the second volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the electron-positron collider FCC-ee. After summarizing the physics discovery opportunities, it presents the accelerator design, performance reach, a staged operation scenario, the underlying technologies, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, and an implementation plan. FCC-ee can be built with today’s technology. Most of the FCC-ee infrastructure could be reused for FCC-hh. Combining concepts from past and present lepton colliders and adding a few novel elements, the FCC-ee design promises outstandingly high luminosity. This will make the FCC-ee a unique precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles (Z, W and H bosons and the top quark), offering great direct and indirect sensitivity to new physics

HE-LHC: The High-Energy Large Hadron Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 4

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics (EPPSU), the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched as a world-wide international collaboration hosted by CERN. The FCC study covered an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee), the corresponding 100 km tunnel infrastructure, as well as the physics opportunities of these two colliders, and a high-energy LHC, based on FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the third volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the hadron collider FCC-hh. It summarizes the FCC-hh physics discovery opportunities, presents the FCC-hh accelerator design, performance reach, and staged operation plan, discusses the underlying technologies, the civil engineering and technical infrastructure, and also sketches a possible implementation. Combining ingredients from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the high-luminosity LHC upgrade and adding novel technologies and approaches, the FCC-hh design aims at significantly extending the energy frontier to 100 TeV. Its unprecedented centre-of-mass collision energy will make the FCC-hh a unique instrument to explore physics beyond the Standard Model, offering great direct sensitivity to new physics and discoveries