Hitting is male, giving is female. Automatic imitation and complementarity during action observation

Is somebody going to hurt us? We draw back. The present study investigates using behavioral measures the interplay between imitative and complementary actions activated while observing female/male hands performing different actions. Female and male participants were required to discriminate the gender of biologically and artificially colored hands that displayed both individual (grasping) and social (giving and punching) actions. Biological hands evoked automatic imitation, while hands of different gender activated complementary mechanisms. Furthermore, responses reflected gender stereotypes: giving actions were more associated to females, punching actions to males. Results have implications for studies on social stereotyping, and for research on action observation, showing that the mirror neuron system resonates in both an imitative and complementary fashion

Linear circuit models for on-chip quantum electrodynamics

We present equivalent circuits that model the interaction of microwave resonators and quantum systems. The circuit models are derived from a general interaction Hamiltonian. Quantitative agreement between the simulated resonator transmission frequency, qubit Lamb shift and experimental data will be shown. We demonstrate that simple circuit models, using only linear passive elements, can be very useful in understanding systems where a small quantum system is coupled to a classical microwave apparatus

Comparative analysis of resonant phonon THz quantum cascade lasers

We present a comparative analysis of a set of GaAs-based THz quantum cascade lasers, based on longitudinal-optical phonon scattering depopulation, by using an ensemble Monte Carlo simulation, including both carrier-carrier and carrier-phonon scattering. The simulation shows that the parasitic injection into the states below the upper laser level limits the injection efficiency and thus the device performance at the lasing threshold. Additional detrimental effects playing an important role are identified. The simulation results are in reasonable agreement with the experimental findings.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figure

Abstract, emotional and concrete concepts and the activation of mouth-hand effectors

According to embodied and grounded theories, concepts are grounded in sensorimotor systems. The majority of evidence supporting these views concerns concepts referring to objects or actions, while evidence on abstract concepts is more scarce. Explaining how abstract concepts such as ‘‘freedom’’ are represented would thus be pivotal for grounded theories. According to some recent proposals, abstract concepts are grounded in both sensorimotor and linguistic experience, thus they activate the mouth motor system more than concrete concepts. Two experiments are reported, aimed at verifying whether abstract, concrete and emotional words activate the mouth and the hand effectors. In both experiments participants performed first a lexical decision, then a recognition task. In Experiment 1 participants responded by pressing a button either with the mouth or with the hand, in Experiment 2 responses were given with the foot, while a button held either in the mouth or in the hand was used to respond to catch-trials. Abstract words were slower to process in both tasks (concreteness effect). Across the tasks and experiments, emotional concepts had instead a fluctuating pattern, different from those of both concrete and abstract concepts, suggesting that they cannot be considered as a subset of abstract concepts. The interaction between type of concept (abstract, concrete and emotional) and effector (mouth, hand) was not significant in the lexical decision task, likely because it emerged only with tasks implying a deeper processing level. It reached significance, instead, in the recognition tasks. In both experiments abstract concepts were facilitated in the mouth condition compared to the hand condition, supporting our main prediction. Emotional concepts instead had a more variable pattern. Overall, our findings indicate that various kinds of concepts differently activate the mouth and hand effectors, but they also suggest that concepts activate effectors in a flexible and task-dependent wa

A PERFORMANCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM AND MANAGEMENT ACCOUNTING IN THE SUPERMARKET CHAIN SECTOR: ANALYSIS IN AN ITALIAN COMPLEX BUSINESS ENTITY

The paper aims to analyse the way in which management accounting is organised within companies which have a strategic need to centralise some functions and decisions, while simultaneously decentralising others. These characteristics are found above all in the supermarket chain sector, where a pressing need to centralise logistical and purchasing functions goes hand-in-hand with the need to respond to demands arising from the individual outlets’ local requirements. In 2005, with a market share of almost 18%, Coop was Italy’s largest food retailing group. Coop’s distinctive organisational feature is that it consists of a total of 140 cooperatives, nine of them large-sized, grouped together in three district associations. The Adriatic District is the largest of these, accounting for about 40% of Coop’s total sales. The unique characteristic of this type of organisational model is the high degree of autonomy enjoyed by each individual cooperative, deriving from its independent corporate structure, with no particular ownership constraints. In spite of this, it may still be beneficial to centralise a number of corporate functions, in order to obtain full benefits from economies of scale with regard to specific management policies. However, if this centralisation is not carefully calculated, it runs the risk of not yielding its full potential in terms of results. The cooperatives in the Adriatic District have responded to these needs by establishing Centrale Adriatica, assigned the task of performing coordination, marketing and logistics functions. This has made it necessary to acquire management accounting tools capable of planning and controlling the decisions affecting the parameters which are governed at the centralised level, but the effects of which are inevitably felt by each individual cooperative. The definition of selling and purchase price policies, promotion and advertising, and logistics management, form the starting-point for systems for the centralised planning and control of the trading margins of the individual cooperatives. By this mechanism, the cooperatives themselves implement a system of delegation of powers which places management of the main factors for the achievement of their strategic and financial objectives in Centrale Adriatica’s hands. The cooperatives continue to handle the acquisition of data and their communication to Centrale Adriatica, together with the planning and control of all the activities performed within the individual outlets, which are still managed entirely by the specific cooperative concerned

Stream ambient noise, spectrum and propagation of sounds in the goby Padogobius martensii: Sound pressure and particle velocity

The most sensitive hearing and peak frequencies of courtship calls of the stream goby, Padogobius martensii, fall within a quiet window at around 100Hz in the ambient noise spectrum. Acoustic pressure was previously measured although Padogobius likely responds to particle motion. In this study a combination pressure (p) and particle velocity (u) detector was utilized to describe ambient noise of the habitat, the characteristics of the goby’s sounds and their attenuation with distance. The ambient noise (AN) spectrum is generally similar for p and u (including the quiet window at noisy locations), although the energy distribution of uspectrum is shifted up by 50–100Hz. The energy distribution of the goby’s sounds is similar for p and uspectra of the Tonal sound, whereas the pulse-train sound exhibits larger p–u differences. Transmission loss was high for sound p and u: energy decays 6–10dB∕10cm, and sound p∕u ratio does not change with distance from the source in the nearfield. The measurement of particle velocity of stream AN and P. martensiisounds indicates that this species is well adapted to communicate acoustically in a complex noisy shallow-water environment

Geologia dei Gessi di Brisighella e Rontana

L’area di Brisighella rappresenta un eccellente laboratorio naturale per comprendere la prima fase della crisi di salinità, lo straordinario evento geologico che nel Messiniano (Miocene superiore), tra 5.970.000 e 5.600.000 di anni fa, ha trasformato il bacino del Mediterraneo in una gigantesca salina inospitale per la maggior parte delle forme di vita. La crisi di salinità messiniana ha prodotto 16 strati di selenite della Vena del Gesso (Gessi Inferiori Primari) con cristalli lunghi fino a due metri che contengono fossilizzati al loro interno filamenti di cianobatteri. Appena terminata la deposizione del gesso l’area è stata coinvolta da importati eventi tettonici che hanno innescato enormi frane sottomarine provocando lo smembramento della formazione gessosa e la deposizione dei Gessi Inferiori Risedimentati. Abstract The Brisighella area is an excellent natural laboratory for understanding the first phase of the salinity crisis, the dramatic geological event that has turned the Mediterranean Sea into a giant salina inhospitable to most life forms during the Messinian (Upper Miocene), between 5.97 million and 5.6 million years ago. The Messinian salinity crisis has produced 16 layers of selenite Vena del Gesso (Primary Lower Gypsum) with crystals up to two meters tall containing fossilized filaments of cyanobacteria. As soon as the deposition of gypsum finished, the area has been affected by tectonic events that have triggered massive submarine landslides causing the dismantlement of the gypsum formation and the deposition of the Resedimented Lower Gypsum unit