4,331 research outputs found
A view from above : changing seas, seabirds and food sources
In this review we summarize what is known about mechanisms by which climate change may be affecting the populations of seabirds around the UK. Breeding success and adult survival are the key factors affecting changes in seabird populations, and food intake is implicated as a major determinant of both. The diet of most UK seabird species is almost exclusively sandeels, small clupeoid fish or zooplankton and it is clear that the marine pelagic food web is the key ecological system determining food supply. Hence, we develop the review by first considering how climate changes may affect primary production, and then examine how this propagates through the food web to zooplankton and fish culminating in fluctuations in seabird numbers. A trend of increasing numbers of many seabird species since 1970, particularly puffins, guillemots and razorbills, appears to have been reversed since 2000. The proximate cause of the recent declines seems to be a succession of 5 years of low breeding success for a range of species due to a shortage of food, especially sandeels. However, the connection with climate change remains uncertain, though there are indications that declines in the productivity of sandeel populations may be linked in some complex way to warming sea temperatures. The main conclusion is that no part of the marine food web, including fisheries, can be considered in isolation when trying to understand and predict the consequences of climate change for seabirds. Impacts can be expected in all parts of the system, and all parts of the system are interconnected
Rash impulsiveness and negative mood, but not alexithymia or reward sensitivity, differentiate young to middle-aged chronic daily smokers from never-smokers
Temporal-Difference Learning to Assist Human Decision Making during the Control of an Artificial Limb
In this work we explore the use of reinforcement learning (RL) to help with
human decision making, combining state-of-the-art RL algorithms with an
application to prosthetics. Managing human-machine interaction is a problem of
considerable scope, and the simplification of human-robot interfaces is
especially important in the domains of biomedical technology and rehabilitation
medicine. For example, amputees who control artificial limbs are often required
to quickly switch between a number of control actions or modes of operation in
order to operate their devices. We suggest that by learning to anticipate
(predict) a user's behaviour, artificial limbs could take on an active role in
a human's control decisions so as to reduce the burden on their users.
Recently, we showed that RL in the form of general value functions (GVFs) could
be used to accurately detect a user's control intent prior to their explicit
control choices. In the present work, we explore the use of temporal-difference
learning and GVFs to predict when users will switch their control influence
between the different motor functions of a robot arm. Experiments were
performed using a multi-function robot arm that was controlled by muscle
signals from a user's body (similar to conventional artificial limb control).
Our approach was able to acquire and maintain forecasts about a user's
switching decisions in real time. It also provides an intuitive and reward-free
way for users to correct or reinforce the decisions made by the machine
learning system. We expect that when a system is certain enough about its
predictions, it can begin to take over switching decisions from the user to
streamline control and potentially decrease the time and effort needed to
complete tasks. This preliminary study therefore suggests a way to naturally
integrate human- and machine-based decision making systems.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, This version to appear at The 1st
Multidisciplinary Conference on Reinforcement Learning and Decision Making,
Princeton, NJ, USA, Oct. 25-27, 201
Baryon operators and spectroscopy in lattice QCD
The construction of the operators and correlators required to determine the
excited baryon spectrum is presented, with the aim of exploring the spatial and
spin structure of the states while minimizing the number of propagator
inversions. The method used to construct operators that transform irreducibly
under the symmetries of the lattice is detailed, and the properties of example
operators are studied using domain-wall fermion valence propagators computed on
MILC asqtad dynamical lattices.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Proceedings of Workshop on Lattice
Hadron Physics 2003, Cairns, Australia, July 22 - July 30, 200
Culture, Utility or Social Systems?:Explaining the Cross-National Ties of Emigrants from Borsa, Romania
Emigrants from BorĆa, Romania, display two quite distinct patterns of ties with their community of origin: migration to Italy is discernibly transnational, with a strong reliance on migrant networks; while migration to the UK is more individualistic, with emigrants shunning interaction with compatriots and retaining only weak ties to BorĆa. We argue that prevalent theories of cross-national ties fail adequately to explain this divergence. Instead, we draw on systems theory to explain the discrepancy in terms of divergent conditions for societal inclusion. In Italy, incorporation into parallel, unofficial structures of work, welfare and accommodation encouraged a reliance on cultural criteria for maintaining social ties. In the UK, migrants were obliged to integrate into state-sponsored systems, encouraging the relinquishing of ethnic ties in favour of more strategic networking to facilitate societal inclusion
Blood alcohol concentration is negatively associated with gambling money won on the Iowa gambling task in naturalistic settings after controlling for trait impulsivity and alcohol tolerance
Depression Moderates the Relationship between Trait Anxiety, Worry and Attentional Control in Melanoma Survivors
Cancer survivors commonly contend with concurrent cognitive difficulties such as problems with attention and concentration, and psychological distress, including anxiety and depression. However, the associations between attentional and emotional difficulties within the specific context of melanoma survivors remain relatively unexplored. Premised on attentional control theory, the current study employed a cross-sectional design to explore the interplay among trait anxiety (dispositional) and situational anxiety (cancer-related worry), depression and attentional control (ability to inhibit distractors and flexibly shift within and between tasks) in a sample of 187 melanoma survivors aged 18 to 58 years (Mage = 36.83 years, SDage = 5.44 years; 93% female). Data were analyzed using a moderated multiple regression, with anxiety, cancer worry and depression as predictors, and attentional control as the criterion variable. After statistically controlling for the variance of chemotherapy, we found that individuals with higher trait anxiety and higher cancer-related worry reported greater attentional control at low levels of depression, yet poorer attentional control at high depression, relative to individuals with low anxiety. Our findings suggest that anxiety and depression are differentially related to attentional control in melanoma survivors. The results provide a marker for clinicians addressing anxiety and depression in this population. Implications for primary healthcare are discussed.</p
Baryon Operators and Baryon Spectroscopy
The issues involved in a determination of the baryon resonance spectrum in
lattice QCD are discussed. The variational method is introduced and the need to
construct a sufficient basis of interpolating operators is emphasised. The
construction of baryon operators using group-theory techniques is outlined. We
find that the use both of quark-field smearing and link-field smearing in the
operators is essential firstly to reduce the coupling of operators to
high-frequency modes and secondly to reduce the gauge-field fluctuations in
correlators. We conclude with a status report of our current investigation of
baryon spectroscopy.Comment: Invited talk at Workshop on Computational Hadron Physics, Cyprus,
Sept. 14-17, 200
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