Language control in regional dialect speakers – monolingual by name, bilingual by nature?

While research on bilingual language processing is sensitive to different usage contexts, monolinguals are still often treated as a homogeneous control group, despite frequently using multiple varieties that may require engagement of control mechanisms during lexical access. Adapting a language-switching task for speakers of (Scottish) Standard English and Orcadian Scots, we demonstrate switch cost asymmetries with longer naming latencies when switching back into Orcadian. This pattern, which is reminiscent of unbalanced bilinguals, suggests that Orcadian is the dominant variety of these participants - despite the fact they might be regarded as English monolinguals because of sociolinguistic factors. In conjunction with the observed mixing cost and cognate facilitation effect (indicative of proactive language control and parallel language activation, respectively), these findings show that ‘monolinguals’ need to be scrutinised for routine use of different varieties to gain a better understanding of whether and how mechanisms underlying their lexical access resemble those of bilinguals

Mindfulness enhances episodic memory performance: Evidence from a multimethod investigation

Training in mindfulness, classically described as a receptive attentiveness to present events and experiences, has been shown to improve attention and working memory. Both are key to long-term memory formation, and the present three-study series used multiple methods to examine whether mindfulness would enhance episodic memory, a key form of long-term memory. In Study 1 (N = 143), a self-reported state of mindful attention predicted better recognition performance in the Remember-Know (R-K) paradigm. In Study 2 (N = 93), very brief training in a focused attention form of mindfulness also produced better recognition memory performance on the R-K task relative to a randomized, well-matched active control condition. Study 3 (N = 57) extended these findings by showing that relative to randomized active and inactive control conditions the effect of very brief mindfulness training generalized to free-recall memory performance. This study also found evidence for mediation of the mindfulness training—episodic memory relation by intrinsic motivation. These findings indicate that mindful attention can beneficially impact motivation and episodic memory, with potential implications for educational and occupational performance

Novel Algorithms Reveal Streptococcal Transcriptomes and Clues about Undefined Genes

Bacteria–host interactions are dynamic processes, and understanding transcriptional responses that directly or indirectly regulate the expression of genes involved in initial infection stages would illuminate the molecular events that result in host colonization. We used oligonucleotide microarrays to monitor (in vitro) differential gene expression in group A streptococci during pharyngeal cell adherence, the first overt infection stage. We present neighbor clustering, a new computational method for further analyzing bacterial microarray data that combines two informative characteristics of bacterial genes that share common function or regulation: (1) similar gene expression profiles (i.e., co-expression); and (2) physical proximity of genes on the chromosome. This method identifies statistically significant clusters of co-expressed gene neighbors that potentially share common function or regulation by coupling statistically analyzed gene expression profiles with the chromosomal position of genes. We applied this method to our own data and to those of others, and we show that it identified a greater number of differentially expressed genes, facilitating the reconstruction of more multimeric proteins and complete metabolic pathways than would have been possible without its application. We assessed the biological significance of two identified genes by assaying deletion mutants for adherence in vitro and show that neighbor clustering indeed provides biologically relevant data. Neighbor clustering provides a more comprehensive view of the molecular responses of streptococci during pharyngeal cell adherence

Experimental conditions to suppress edge localised modes by magnetic perturbations in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak

Access conditions for full suppression of Edge Localised Modes (ELMs) by Magnetic Perturbations (MP) in low density high confinement mode (H-mode) plasmas are studied in the ASDEX Upgrade tokamak. The main empirical requirements for full ELM suppression in our experiments are: 1. The poloidal spectrum of the MP must be aligned for best plasma response from weakly stable kink-modes, which amplify the perturbation, 2. The plasma edge density must be below a critical value, $3.3 \times 10^{19}$~m$^{-3}$. The edge collisionality is in the range $\nu^*_i = 0.15-0.42$ (ions) and $\nu^*_e = 0.15-0.25$ (electrons). However, our data does not show that the edge collisionality is the critical parameter that governs access to ELM suppression. 3. The pedestal pressure must be kept sufficiently low to avoid destabilisation of small ELMs. This requirement implies a systematic reduction of pedestal pressure of typically 30\% compared to unmitigated ELMy H-mode in otherwise similar plasmas. 4. The edge safety factor $q_{95}$ lies within a certain window. Within the range probed so far, $q_{95}=3.5-4.2$, one such window, $q_{95}=3.57-3.95$ has been identified. Within the range of plasma rotation encountered so far, no apparent threshold of plasma rotation for ELM suppression is found. This includes cases with large cross field electron flow in the entire pedestal region, for which two-fluid MHD models predict that the resistive plasma response to the applied MP is shielded

A Streamline-Upwind Petrov-Galerkin Finite Element Scheme for Non-Ionized Hypersonic Flows in Thermochemical Nonequilibrium

Presentation topics include background and motivation; physical modeling including governing equations and thermochemistry; finite element formulation; results of inviscid thermal nonequilibrium chemically reacting flow and viscous thermal equilibrium chemical reacting flow; and near-term effort

ELM control with RMP: Plasma response models and the role of edge peeling response

Resonant magnetic perturbations (RMP) have extensively been demonstrated as a plausible technique for mitigating or suppressing large edge localized modes (ELMs). Associated with this is a substantial amount of theory and modelling efforts during recent years. Various models describing the plasma response to the RMP fields have been proposed in the literature, and are briefly reviewed in this work. Despite their simplicity, linear response models can provide alternative criteria, than the vacuum field based criteria, for guiding the choice of the coil configurations to achieve the best control of ELMs. The role of the edge peeling response to the RMP fields is illustrated as a key indicator for the ELM mitigation in low collisionality plasmas, in various tokamak devices

Effect of resonant magnetic perturbations on low collisionality discharges in MAST and a comparison with ASDEX Upgrade

Sustained ELM mitigation has been achieved on MAST and AUG using RMPs with a range of toroidal mode numbers over a wide region of low to medium collisionality discharges. The ELM energy loss and peak heat loads at the divertor targets have been reduced. The ELM mitigation phase is typically associated with a drop in plasma density and overall stored energy. In one particular scenario on MAST, by carefully adjusting the fuelling it has been possible to counteract the drop in density and to produce plasmas with mitigated ELMs, reduced peak divertor heat flux and with minimal degradation in pedestal height and confined energy. While the applied resonant magnetic perturbation field can be a good indicator for the onset of ELM mitigation on MAST and AUG there are some cases where this is not the case and which clearly emphasise the need to take into account the plasma response to the applied perturbations. The plasma response calculations show that the increase in ELM frequency is correlated with the size of the edge peeling-tearing like response of the plasma and the distortions of the plasma boundary in the X-point region.Comment: 31 pages, 28 figures. This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article submitted for publication in Nuclear Fusion. IoP Publishing Ltd is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from i

Engineering Specifications derived from Science Requirements

Advanced Mirror Technology Development (AMTD) is a multi-year effort to systematically mature to TRL-6 the critical technologies needed to produce 4-m or larger flight-qualified UVOIR mirrors by 2018 so that a viable mission can be considered by the 2020 Decadal Review. This technology must enable missions capable of both general astrophysics & ultra-high contrast observations of exoplanets. To accomplish our objective, we use a science-driven systems engineering approach. We mature technologies required to enable the highest priority science AND result in a high-performance low-cost low-risk system

Engineering Specification for Large-aperture UVO Space Telescopes Derived from Science Requirements

An advanced large aperture UV/optical UVO space telescope is required for the next generation of astrophysics and exoplanet science. The science requirements of proposed exoplanet and astrophysics missions were used to determine the encircled energy, point spread function stability and thermal environment requirements. These requirements then determine the optical wavefront specification for potential telescope assemblies which can fit inside current and planned launch vehicles. The optical wavefront specification becomes the top level of the error budget that is split into various sources that control the structural, thermal and optical design

Experimental validation of coil phase parametrisation on ASDEX Upgrade, and extension to ITER

It has been previously demonstrated in (Li et al 2016 Nuclear Fusion 56 126007) that the optimum upper/lower coil phase shift ∆Φopt for alignment of RMP coils for ELM mitigation depends sensitively on q95, and other equilibrium plasma parameters. Therefore, ∆Φopt is expected to vary widely during the current ramp of ITER plasmas, with negative implications for ELM mitigation during this period. A previously derived and numerically benchmarked parametrisation of the coil phase for optimal ELM mitigation on ASDEX Upgrade (Ryan et al 2017 Plas. Phys. Cont. Fus. 59 024005) is validated against experimental measurements of ∆Φopt, made by observing the changes to the ELM frequency as the coil phase is scanned. It is shown that the parametrisation may predict the optimal coil phase to within 32 degrees of the experimental measurement for n = 2 applied perturbations. It is explained that this agreement is sufficient to ensure that the ELM mitigation is not compromised by poor coil alignment. It is also found that the phase which maximises ELM mitigation is shifted from the phase which maximizes density pump-out, in contrast to theoretical expectations that ELM mitigation and density pump out have the same ∆Φul dependence. A time lag between the ELM frequency response and density response to the RMP is suggested as the cause. The method for numerically deriving the parametrisation is repeated for the ITER coil set, using the baseline scenario as a reference equilibrium, and the parametrisation coefficients given for future use in a feedback coil alignment system. The relative merits of square or sinusoidal toroidal current waveforms for ELM mitigation are briefly discussed