Internet source evaluation: The role of implicit associations and psychophysiological self-regulation

This study focused on middle school students\u2019 source evaluation skills as a key component of digital literacy. Specifically, it examined the role of two unexplored individual factors that may affect the evaluation of sources providing information about the controversial topic of the health risks associated with the use of mobile phones. The factors were the implicit association of mobile phone with health or no health, and psychophysiological self-regulation as reflected in basal Heart Rate Variability (HRV). Seventy-two seventh graders read six webpages that provided contrasting information on the unsettled topic of the potential health risks related to the use of mobile phones. Then they were asked to rank-order the six websites along the dimension of reliability (source evaluation). Findings revealed that students were able to discriminate between the most and least reliable websites, justifying their ranking in light of different criteria. However, overall, they were little accurate in rank-ordering all six Internet sources. Both implicit associations and HRV correlated with source evaluation. The interaction between the two individual variables was a significant predictor of participants\u2019 performance in rank-ordering the websites for reliability. A slope analysis revealed that when students had an average psychophysiological self-regulation, the stronger their association of the mobile phone with health, the better their performance on source evaluation. Theoretical and educational significances of the study are discussed

Optimization on fresh outdoor air ratio of air conditioning system with stratum ventilation for both targeted indoor air quality and maximal energy saving

Stratum ventilation can energy efficiently provide good inhaled indoor air quality with a proper operation (e.g., fresh outdoor air ratio). However, the non-uniform CO2 distribution in a stratum-ventilated room challenges the provision of targeted indoor air quality. This study proposes an optimization on the fresh outdoor air ratio of stratum ventilation for both the targeted indoor air quality and maximal energy saving. A model of CO2 concentration in the breathing zone is developed by coupling CO2 removal efficiency in the breathing zone and mass conservation laws. With the developed model, the ventilation parameters corresponding to different fresh outdoor air ratios are quantified to achieve the targeted indoor air quality (i.e., targeted CO2 concentration in the breathing zone). Using the fresh outdoor air ratios and corresponding ventilation parameters as inputs, energy performance evaluations of the air conditioning system are conducted by building energy simulations. The fresh outdoor air ratio with the minimal energy consumption is determined as the optimal one. Experiments show that the mean absolute error of the developed model of CO2 concentration in the breathing zone is 1.9%. The effectiveness of the proposed optimization is demonstrated using TRNSYS that the energy consumption of the air conditioning system with stratum ventilation is reduced by 6.4% while achieving the targeted indoor air quality. The proposed optimization is also promising for other ventilation modes for targeted indoor air quality and improved energy efficiency

Observational evidence for stochastic biasing

We show that the galaxy density in the Las Campanas Redshift Survey (LCRS) cannot be perfectly correlated with the underlying mass distribution since various galaxy subpopulations are not perfectly correlated with each other, even taking shot noise into account. This rules out the hypothesis of simple linear biasing, and suggests that the recently proposed stochastic biasing framework is necessary for modeling actual data.Comment: 4 pages, with 2 figures included. Minor revisions to match accepted ApJL version. Links and color fig at http://www.sns.ias.edu/~max/r_frames.html or from [email protected]

Heat removal efficiency of stratum ventilation for air-side modulation

Stratum ventilation has significant thermal non-uniformity between the occupied and upper zones. Although the non-uniformity benefits indoor air quality and energy efficiency, it increases complexities and difficulties in the air-side modulation. In this study, a heat removal efficiency (HRE) model is first established and validated, and then used for the air-side modulation. The HRE model proposed is a function of supply air temperature, supply airflow rate and cooling load. The HRE model proposed has been proven to be applicable to stratum ventilation and displacement ventilation for different room geometries and air terminal configurations, with errors generally within ±5% and a mean absolute error less than 4% for thirty-three experimental cases and five simulated cases. Investigations into the air-side modulation with the proposed HRE model reveal that for both the typical stratum-ventilated classroom and office, the variable-air-volume system can serve a wider range of cooling load than the constant-air-volume system. The assumption of a constant HRE used in the conventional method could lead to errors in the room temperature prediction up to ±1.3 °C, thus the proposed HRE model is important to the air-side modulation for thermal comfort. An air-side modulation method is proposed based on the HRE model to maximize the HRE for improving energy efficiency while maintaining thermal comfort. Results show that the HRE model based air-side modulation can improve the energy efficiency of stratum ventilation up to 67.3%. The HRE model based air-side modulation is also promising for displacement ventilation

Observational Evidence for an Age Dependence of Halo Bias

We study the dependence of the cross-correlation between galaxies and galaxy groups on group properties. Confirming previous results, we find that the correlation strength is stronger for more massive groups, in good agreement with the expected mass dependence of halo bias. We also find, however, that for groups of the same mass, the correlation strength depends on the star formation rate (SFR) of the central galaxy: at fixed mass, the bias of galaxy groups decreases as the SFR of the central galaxy increases. We discuss these findings in light of the recent findings by Gao et al (2005) that halo bias depends on halo formation time, in that halos that assemble earlier are more strongly biased. We also discuss the implication for galaxy formation, and address a possible link to galaxy conformity, the observed correlation between the properties of satellite galaxies and those of their central galaxy.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ Letters. Figures 3 and 4 replaced. The bias dependence on the central galaxy luminosity is omitted due to its sensitivity to the mass mode

Accurate determination of the Lagrangian bias for the dark matter halos

We use a new method, the cross power spectrum between the linear density field and the halo number density field, to measure the Lagrangian bias for dark matter halos. The method has several important advantages over the conventional correlation function analysis. By applying this method to a set of high-resolution simulations of 256^3 particles, we have accurately determined the Lagrangian bias, over 4 magnitudes in halo mass, for four scale-free models with the index n=-0.5, -1.0, -1.5 and -2.0 and three typical CDM models. Our result for massive halos with $M \ge M_*$ ($M_*$ is a characteristic non-linear mass) is in very good agreement with the analytical formula of Mo & White for the Lagrangian bias, but the analytical formula significantly underestimates the Lagrangian clustering for the less massive halos $M < M_*. Our simulation result however can be satisfactorily described, with an accuracy better than 15%, by the fitting formula of Jing for Eulerian bias under the assumption that the Lagrangian clustering and the Eulerian clustering are related with a linear mapping. It implies that it is the failure of the Press-Schechter theories for describing the formation of small halos that leads to the inaccuracy of the Mo & White formula for the Eulerian bias. The non-linear mapping between the Lagrangian clustering and the Eulerian clustering, which was speculated as another possible cause for the inaccuracy of the Mo & White formula, must at most have a second-order effect. Our result indicates that the halo formation model adopted by the Press-Schechter theories must be improved.Comment: Minor changes; accepted for publication in ApJ (Letters) ; 11 pages with 2 figures include

An Analytical Approach to Inhomogeneous Structure Formation

We develop an analytical formalism that is suitable for studying inhomogeneous structure formation, by studying the joint statistics of dark matter halos forming at two points. Extending the Bond et al. (1991) derivation of the mass function of virialized halos, based on excursion sets, we derive an approximate analytical expression for the ``bivariate'' mass function of halos forming at two redshifts and separated by a fixed comoving Lagrangian distance. Our approach also leads to a self-consistent expression for the nonlinear biasing and correlation function of halos, generalizing a number of previous results including those by Kaiser (1984) and Mo & White (1996). We compare our approximate solutions to exact numerical results within the excursion-set framework and find them to be consistent to within 2% over a wide range of parameters. Our formalism can be used to study various feedback effects during galaxy formation analytically, as well as to simply construct observable quantities dependent on the spatial distribution of objects. A code that implements our method is publicly available at http://www.arcetri.astro.it/~evan/GeminiComment: 41 Pages, 11 figures, published in ApJ, 571, 585. Reference added, Figure 2 axis relabele

The cross-correlation between galaxies of different luminosities and Colors

We study the cross-correlation between galaxies of different luminosities and colors, using a sample selected from the SDSS Dr 4. Galaxies are divided into 6 samples according to luminosity, and each of these samples is divided into red and blue subsamples. Projected auto-correlation and cross-correlation is estimated for these subsample. At projected separations r_p > 1\mpch, all correlation functions are roughly parallel, although the correlation amplitude depends systematically on luminosity and color. On r_p < 1\mpch, the auto- and cross-correlation functions of red galaxies are significantly enhanced relative to the corresponding power laws obtained on larger scales. Such enhancement is absent for blue galaxies and in the cross-correlation between red and blue galaxies. We esimate the relative bias factor on scales r > 1\mpch for each subsample using its auto-correlation function and cross-correlation functions. The relative bias factors obtained from different methods are similar. For blue galaxies the luminosity-dependence of the relative bias is strong over the luminosity range probed (-23.0<M_r < -18.0),but for red galaxies the dependence is weaker and becomes insignificant for luminosities below L^*. To examine whether a significant stochastic/nonlinear component exists in the bias relation, we study the ratio R_ij= W_{ii}W_{jj}/W_{ij}^2, where W_{ij} is the projected correlation between subsample i and j. We find that the values of R_ij are all consistent with 1 for all-all, red-red and blue-blue samples, however significantly larger than 1 for red-blue samples. For faint red - faint blue samples the values of R_{ij} are as high as ~ 2 on small scales r_p < 1 \mpch and decrease with increasing r_p.Comment: 25 pages, 18 figures, Accepted for publication in Ap

Needle Tip Force Estimation using an OCT Fiber and a Fused convGRU-CNN Architecture

Needle insertion is common during minimally invasive interventions such as biopsy or brachytherapy. During soft tissue needle insertion, forces acting at the needle tip cause tissue deformation and needle deflection. Accurate needle tip force measurement provides information on needle-tissue interaction and helps detecting and compensating potential misplacement. For this purpose we introduce an image-based needle tip force estimation method using an optical fiber imaging the deformation of an epoxy layer below the needle tip over time. For calibration and force estimation, we introduce a novel deep learning-based fused convolutional GRU-CNN model which effectively exploits the spatio-temporal data structure. The needle is easy to manufacture and our model achieves a mean absolute error of 1.76 +- 1.5 mN with a cross-correlation coefficient of 0.9996, clearly outperforming other methods. We test needles with different materials to demonstrate that the approach can be adapted for different sensitivities and force ranges. Furthermore, we validate our approach in an ex-vivo prostate needle insertion scenario.Comment: Accepted for Publication at MICCAI 201

Spin-charge-lattice coupling near the metal-insulator transition in Ca3Ru2O7

We report x-ray scattering studies of the c-axis lattice parameter in Ca3Ru2O7 as a function of temperature and magnetic field. These structural studies complement published transport and magnetization data, and therefore elucidate the spin-charge-lattice coupling near the metal-insulator transition. Strong anisotropy of the structural change for field applied along orthogonal in-plane directions is observed. Competition between a spin-polarized phase that does not couple to the lattice, and an antiferromagnetic metallic phase, which does, gives rise to rich behavior for B $\parallel$ b.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.