57 research outputs found
Reports Of Conferences, Institutes, And Seminars
This quarter\u27s column offers coverage of multiple sessions from the 2016 Electronic Resources & Libraries (ER&L) Conference, held April 3–6, 2016, in Austin, Texas. Topics in serials acquisitions dominate the column, including reports on altmetrics, cost per use, demand-driven acquisitions, and scholarly communications and the use of subscriptions agents; ERMS, access, and knowledgebases are also featured
The antisaccade task as an index of sustained goal activation in working memory: modulation by nicotine
The antisaccade task provides a laboratory analogue of situations in which execution of the correct behavioural response requires the suppression of a more prepotent or habitual response. Errors (failures to inhibit a reflexive prosaccade towards a sudden onset target) are significantly increased in patients with damage to the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and patients with schizophrenia. Recent models of antisaccade performance suggest that errors are more likely to occur when the intention to initiate an antisaccade is insufficiently activated within working memory. Nicotine has been shown to enhance specific working memory processes in healthy adults. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We explored the effect of nicotine on antisaccade performance in a large sample (N = 44) of young adult smokers. Minimally abstinent participants attended two test sessions and were asked to smoke one of their own cigarettes between baseline and retest during one session only. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Nicotine reduced antisaccade errors and correct antisaccade latencies if delivered before optimum performance levels are achieved, suggesting that nicotine supports the activation of intentions in working memory during task performance. The implications of this research for current theoretical accounts of antisaccade performance, and for interpreting the increased rate of antisaccade errors found in some psychiatric patient groups are discussed
The Everchanging Pulsating White Dwarf GD358
We report 323 hours of nearly uninterrupted time series photometric
observations of the DBV star GD 358 acquired with the Whole Earth Telescope
(WET) during May 23rd to June 8th, 2000. We acquired more than 232 000
independent measurements. We also report on 48 hours of time-series photometric
observations in Aug 1996. We detected the non-radial g-modes consistent with
degree l=1 and radial order 8 to 20 and their linear combinations up to 6th
order.We also detect, for the first time, a high amplitude l=2 mode, with a
period of 796s. In the 2000 WET data, the largest amplitude modes are similar
to those detected with the WET observations of 1990 and 1994, but the highest
combination order previously detected was 4th order. At one point during the
1996 observations, most of the pulsation energy was transferred into the radial
order k=8 mode, which displayed a sinusoidal pulse shape in spite of the large
amplitude. The multiplet structure of the individual modes changes from year to
year, and during the 2000 observations only the k=9 mode displays clear normal
triplet structure. Even though the pulsation amplitudes change on timescales of
days and years, the eigenfrequencies remain essentially the same, showing the
stellar structure is not changing on any dynamical timescale.Comment: 34 pages, 14 figures, WET data, accepted to A&
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