Synergies between processing and memory in children's reading span.

Previous research has established the relevance of working memory for cognitive development. Yet the factors responsible for shaping performance in the complex span tasks used to assess working memory capacity are not fully understood. We report a study of reading span in 7- to 11-year old children that addresses several contemporary theoretical issues. We demonstrate that both the timing and the accuracy of recall are affected by the presence or absence of a semantic connection between the processing requirement and the memoranda. Evidence that there can be synergies between processing and memory argues against the view that complex span simply measures the competition between these activities. We also demonstrate a consistent relationship between the rate of completing processing operations (sentence reading) and recall accuracy. At the same time, the shape and strength of this function varies with the task configuration. Taken together, these results demonstrate the potential for reconstructive influences to shape working memory performance among children

Umbral Moonshine and the Niemeier Lattices

In this paper we relate umbral moonshine to the Niemeier lattices: the 23 even unimodular positive-definite lattices of rank 24 with non-trivial root systems. To each Niemeier lattice we attach a finite group by considering a naturally defined quotient of the lattice automorphism group, and for each conjugacy class of each of these groups we identify a vector-valued mock modular form whose components coincide with mock theta functions of Ramanujan in many cases. This leads to the umbral moonshine conjecture, stating that an infinite-dimensional module is assigned to each of the Niemeier lattices in such a way that the associated graded trace functions are mock modular forms of a distinguished nature. These constructions and conjectures extend those of our earlier paper, and in particular include the Mathieu moonshine observed by Eguchi-Ooguri-Tachikawa as a special case. Our analysis also highlights a correspondence between genus zero groups and Niemeier lattices. As a part of this relation we recognise the Coxeter numbers of Niemeier root systems with a type A component as exactly those levels for which the corresponding classical modular curve has genus zero.Comment: 181 pages including 95 pages of Appendices; journal version, minor typos corrected, Research in the Mathematical Sciences, 2014, vol.

Changes in coping behavior and the relationship to personality, health threat communication and illness perceptions from the diagnosis of diabetes: a 2-year prospective longitudinal study

Coping behavior is of critical importance in diabetes because of its impact upon self-care and hence eventual medical outcome. We examined how coping behavior and its relationship to personality, diabetes health threat communication (DHTC) and illness representations changes after diagnosis of diabetes. Newly diagnosed diabetic patients were assessed after diagnosis and at 6, 12 and 24 months using the DHTC, Illness Perceptions and Coping inventory questionnaires. Personality traits were assessed at baseline. Active coping, planning, positive reinterpretation and growth (PRG), seeking emotional and instrumental (social) support decreased over the 2 years from diagnosis while passive acceptance increased. Openness/intellect and conscientiousness traits were associated with active coping and seeking instrumental support. Openness/intellect also associated with planning and PRG. These relationships did not vary over time. Perceived threat and serious consequences were associated with active coping but the effect diminished over time. Illness coherence (understanding of diabetes), personal and treatment control were associated with active coping, planning and seeking instrumental support and did not change over time. The coping strategies most commonly employed by diabetic patients are adaptive. Coping behavior changes over the 2 years from diagnosis. Promoting better understanding of diabetes, perceptions of personal control and treatment effectiveness are more likely than perception of health threat to sustain adaptive problem focused coping behavior

Mathieu Moonshine and N=2 String Compactifications

There is a `Mathieu moonshine' relating the elliptic genus of K3 to the sporadic group M_{24}. Here, we give evidence that this moonshine extends to part of the web of dualities connecting heterotic strings compactified on K3 \times T^2 to type IIA strings compactified on Calabi-Yau threefolds. We demonstrate that dimensions of M_{24} representations govern the new supersymmetric index of the heterotic compactifications, and appear in the Gromov--Witten invariants of the dual Calabi-Yau threefolds, which are elliptic fibrations over the Hirzebruch surfaces F_n.Comment: 28 pages; v2: minor changes, published versio

Attractive Strings and Five-Branes, Skew-Holomorphic Jacobi Forms and Moonshine

We show that certain BPS counting functions for both fundamental strings and strings arising from fivebranes wrapping divisors in Calabi--Yau threefolds naturally give rise to skew-holomorphic Jacobi forms at rational and attractor points in the moduli space of string compactifications. For M5-branes wrapping divisors these are forms of weight negative one, and in the case of multiple M5-branes skew-holomorphic mock Jacobi forms arise. We further find that in simple examples these forms are related to skew-holomorphic (mock) Jacobi forms of weight two that play starring roles in moonshine. We discuss examples involving M5-branes on the complex projective plane, del Pezzo surfaces of degree one, and half-K3 surfaces. For del Pezzo surfaces of degree one and certain half-K3 surfaces we find a corresponding graded (virtual) module for the degree twelve Mathieu group. This suggests a more extensive relationship between Mathieu groups and complex surfaces, and a broader role for M5-branes in the theory of Jacobi forms and moonshine.Comment: 36 pages, LaTeX; minor typos corrected, footnote added at bottom of page 9 to accommodate JHEP editor's suggestio