Making Pictures, Writing about Pictures, Discussing Pictures and Lecture-Discussion as Teaching Methods in Art History

This article discusses making pictures, writing about pictures, discussing pictures, and lecture-discussion as methods of teaching art history in Finnish Upper Secondary Vocational Education and Training (Qualification in Visual Expression, Study Programmes in Visual and Media Art Photography). A total of 25 students majoring in Visual Expression participated in the research by studying art history using picture-based–visual and verbal–methods and reflecting on their learning experiences. This article introduces the concept of ‘contextual subject-related didactics,’ by which conceptions of contemporary art history, together with the objectives and aims of the curriculum, guide the choice of teaching methods. The article argues that various picture-based teaching methods intertwine reason and emotion, generating profound learning experiences in the field of art history, and developing knowledge of art history and the skills requires to act on the basis of such knowledge

A large Muon Electric Dipole Moment from Flavor?

We study the prospects and opportunities of a large muon electric dipole moment (EDM) of the order (10^{-24} - 10^{-22}) ecm. We investigate how natural such a value is within the general minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model with CP violation from lepton flavor violation in view of the experimental constraints. In models with hybrid gauge-gravity mediated supersymmetry breaking a large muon EDM is indicative for the structure of flavor breaking at the Planck scale, and points towards a high messenger scale.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures. v3: References and Eq 28 fixed; conclusions unchange

Stop as a next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle in constrained MSSM

So far the squarks have not been detected at the LHC indicating that they are heavier than a few hundred GeVs, if they exist. The lighter stop can be considerably lighter than the other squarks. We study the possibility that a supersymmetric partner of the top quark, stop, is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle in the constrained supersymmetric standard model. Various constraints, on top of the mass limits, are taken into an account, and the allowed parameter space for this scenario is determined. Observing stop which is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle at the LHC may be difficult.Comment: v2: A few references, a plot indicating used parameters, discussion about the role of parameters in determination of the stop NLSP, CCB minima and a comment about (g-2) added. Typos corrected. Version in PR

Varying chick mortality in an organochlorine-"strained" population of the nominate lesser black-backed gull Larus f. fuscus in the Baltic Sea

Severe reproductive failure has contributed to a drastic population decline of the nomi-nate Lesser Black-backed Gull (Larus fuscus fuscus) in its breeding grounds in the Gulf of Finland and the Bay of Bothnia. In intensive field studies in the central area of the Gulf of Finland, roughly 65–70 % of chicks died in their nest in the 1980s and 1990s due to innate diseases. In the 1990s, the fledging rate was only 0.02. The diseases consisted mainly of liver degeneration and various inflammations, and most chicks died of sepsis. The hepatic concentrations of legacy organochlorines (OC) in dead chicks were high, and they corre-lated with the proportion of dead chicks in a brood. During the 2000s, however, the occur-rence of diseased chicks in the Gulf of Finland decreased to 48%, which helped to achieve a fledging rate supposedly sustaining the population (0.52). At the same time, the trends in hepatic levels of certain legacy OCs in chicks decreased, especially the DDE, HCB, -HCH, and trans-nonachlor levels. In spite of skewed sampling (only dead chicks were available), our results indicate an enhancing health status among the present population, probably due to a less contaminated diet during the non-breeding period

Emergence of communities in weighted networks

Topology and weights are closely related in weighted complex networks and this is reflected in their modular structure. We present a simple network model where the weights are generated dynamically and they shape the developing topology. By tuning a model parameter governing the importance of weights, the resulting networks undergo a gradual structural transition from a module free topology to one with communities. The model also reproduces many features of large social networks, including the "weak links" property.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Eye contact with neutral and smiling faces: effects on autonomic responses and frontal EEG asymmetry

In our previous studies we have shown that seeing another person “live” with a direct vs. averted gaze results in enhanced skin conductance responses (SCRs) indicating autonomic arousal and in greater relative left-sided frontal activity in the electroencephalography (asymmetry in the alpha-band power), associated with approach motivation. In our studies, however, the stimulus persons had a neutral expression. In real-life social interaction, eye contact is often associated with a smile, which is another signal of the sender's approach-related motivation. A smile could, therefore, enhance the affective-motivational responses to eye contact. In the present study, we investigated whether the facial expression (neutral vs. social smile) would modulate autonomic arousal and frontal EEG alpha-band asymmetry to seeing a direct vs. an averted gaze in faces presented “live” through a liquid crystal (LC) shutter. The results showed that the SCRs were greater for the direct than the averted gaze and that the effect of gaze direction was more pronounced for a smiling than a neutral face. However, in this study, gaze direction and facial expression did not affect the frontal EEG asymmetry, although, for gaze direction, we found a marginally significant correlation between the degree of an overall bias for asymmetric frontal activity and the degree to which direct gaze elicited stronger left-sided frontal activity than did averted gaze

Shot Noise and Full Counting Statistics from Non-equilibrium Plasmons in Luttinger-Liquid Junctions

We consider a quantum wire double junction system with each wire segment described by a spinless Luttinger model, and study theoretically shot noise in this system in the sequential tunneling regime. We find that the non-equilibrium plasmonic excitations in the central wire segment give rise to qualitatively different behavior compared to the case with equilibrium plasmons. In particular, shot noise is greatly enhanced by them, and exceeds the Poisson limit. We show that the enhancement can be explained by the emergence of several current-carrying processes, and that the effect disappears if the channels effectively collapse to one due to, {\em e.g.}, fast plasmon relaxation processes.Comment: 9 pages; IOP Journal style; several changes in the tex

Nanomechanical mass measurement using nonlinear response of a graphene membrane

We propose a scheme to measure the mass of a single particle using the nonlinear response of a 2D nanoresonator with degenerate eigenmodes. Using numerical and analytical calculations, we show that by driving a square graphene nanoresonator into the nonlinear regime, simultaneous determination of the mass and position of an added particle is possible. Moreover, this scheme only requires measurements in a narrow frequency band near the fundamental resonance

The effect of aerobic exercise program on quality of life in schizophrenic patients

زمینه و هدف: اسکیزوفرنی یک بیماری مزمن است که می تواند باعث بروز مشکلات جسمی، سایکولوژیک و اجتماعی گردد. ورزش نقش با ارزشی در بازتوانی و مدیریت درمان این بیماران به خاطر اثرات مثبت ذهنی و فیزیکی آن دارد. لذا این مطالعه با هدف بررسی تاثیر برنامه ورزشی هوازی بر کیفیت زندگی بیماران اسکیزوفرنی انجام شد. روش بررسی: در پژوهش حاضر که یک مطالعه کارآزمایی بالینی است تعداد 46 بیمار 60-20 ساله مبتلا به اسکیزوفرنی انتخاب شدند و به طور تصادفی در دو گروه آزمون (23 نفر) و شاهد (23 نفر) قرار گرفتند. نمونه های گروه آزمون به صورت یک روز در میان و هر جلسه در مجموع 45 دقیقه در برنامه ورزشی طراحی شده شرکت نمودند. کیفیت زندگی بیماران هر دو گروه، در دو مرحله قبل از شروع برنامه ورزشی و همچنین پس از آن توسط پرسشنامه استاندارد کیفیت زندگی (Quality of Life Scale)، سنجیده شد و در دو گروه با استفاده از آزمون های آماری من ویتنی، ویلکاکسون، کروسکال والیس و ضریب همبستگی پیرسون مقایسه گردید. یافته ها: بر اساس یافته های پژوهش، میانگین سنی واحدهای مورد پژوهش 1/10±4/39 سال بود و 9/67 آنان را مردان تشکیل می‌دادند. میانگین طول مدت بیماری نمونه ها 2/4±9/12 سال بود و 6/53 آنان دارای علائم مثبت یا منفی بودند. بین دو گروه قبل از مداخله اختلاف معنی داری از نظر مشخصات دموگرافیک، علائم بیماری و ابعاد کیفیت زندگی مشاهده نشد. میانگین کل کیفیت زندگی پس از مداخله در گروه آزمون و شاهد به ترتیب 9/15±67 و 3/16±55 بود (05/0