900 research outputs found
Seeing motion and apparent motion
In apparent motion experiments, participants are presented with what is in fact a succession of two brief stationary stimuli at two different locations, but they report an impression of movement. Philosophers have recently debated whether apparent motion provides evidence in favour of a particular account of the nature of temporal experience. I argue that the existing discussion in this area is premised on a mistaken view of the phenomenology of apparent motion and, as a result, the space of possible philosophical positions has not yet been fully explored. In particular, I argue that the existence of apparent motion is compatible with an account of the nature of temporal experience that involves a version of direct realism. In doing so, I also argue against two other claims often made about apparent motion, viz. that apparent motion is the psychological phenomenon that underlies motion experience in the cinema, and that apparent motion is subjectively indistinguishable from real motion
Computing Storyline Visualizations with Few Block Crossings
Storyline visualizations show the structure of a story, by depicting the
interactions of the characters over time. Each character is represented by an
x-monotone curve from left to right, and a meeting is represented by having the
curves of the participating characters run close together for some time. There
have been various approaches to drawing storyline visualizations in an
automated way. In order to keep the visual complexity low, rather than
minimizing pairwise crossings of curves, we count block crossings, that is,
pairs of intersecting bundles of lines.
Partly inspired by the ILP-based approach of Gronemann et al. [GD 2016] for
minimizing the number of pairwise crossings, we model the problem as a
satisfiability problem (since the straightforward ILP formulation becomes more
complicated and harder to solve). Having restricted ourselves to a decision
problem, we can apply powerful SAT solvers to find optimal drawings in
reasonable time. We compare this SAT-based approach with two exact algorithms
for block crossing minimization, using both the benchmark instances of
Gronemann et al. and random instances. We show that the SAT approach is
suitable for real-world instances and identify cases where the other algorithms
are preferable.Comment: Appears in the Proceedings of the 25th International Symposium on
Graph Drawing and Network Visualization (GD 2017
Dipyridamole pretreatment plays no additive role to aspirin in prevention of the acute complications post coronary angioplasty
Effect of nitrogen-rich cell culture surfaces on type X collagen expression by bovine growth plate chondrocytes
Background: Recent evidence indicates that osteoarthritis (OA) may be a systemic disease since mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) from OA patients express type X collagen, a marker of late stage chondrocyte hypertrophy (associated with endochondral ossification). We recently showed that the expression of type X collagen was suppressed when MSCs from OA patients were cultured on nitrogen (N)-rich plasma polymer layers, which we call "PPE:N" (N-doped plasma-polymerized ethylene, containing up to 36 atomic percentage (at.%) of N.Methods: In the present study, we examined the expression of type X collagen in fetal bovine growth plate chondrocytes (containing hypertrophic chondrocytes) cultured on PPE:N. We also studied the effect of PPE: N on the expression of matrix molecules such as type II collagen and aggrecan, as well as on proteases (matrix metalloproteinase-13 (MMP-13) and molecules implicated in cell division (cyclin B2). Two other culture surfaces, "hydrophilic" polystyrene (PS, regular culture dishes) and nitrogen-containing cation polystyrene (Primaria (R)), were also investigated for comparison.Results: Results showed that type X collagen mRNA levels were suppressed when cultured for 4 days on PPE: N, suggesting that type X collagen is regulated similarly in hypertrophic chondrocytes and in human MSCs from OA patients. However, the levels of type X collagen mRNA almost returned to control value after 20 days in culture on these surfaces. Culture on the various surfaces had no significant effects on type II collagen, aggrecan, MMP-13, and cyclin B2 mRNA levels.Conclusion: Hypertrophy is diminished by culturing growth plate chondrocytes on nitrogen-rich surfaces, a mechanism that is beneficial for MSC chondrogenesis. Furthermore, one major advantage of such "intelligent surfaces" over recombinant growth factors for tissue engineering and cartilage repair is potentially large cost-saving
Generation of folk song melodies using Bayes transforms
The paper introduces the `Bayes transform', a mathematical procedure for putting data into a hierarchical representation. Applicable to any type of data, the procedure yields interesting results when applied to sequences. In this case, the representation obtained implicitly models the repetition hierarchy of the source. There are then natural applications to music. Derivation of Bayes transforms can be the means of determining the repetition hierarchy of note sequences (melodies) in an empirical and domain-general way. The paper investigates application of this approach to Folk Song, examining the results that can be obtained by treating such transforms as generative models
Suppression of Superconducting Critical Current Density by Small Flux Jumps in Thin Films
By doing magnetization measurements during magnetic field sweeps on thin
films of the new superconductor , it is found that in a low temperature
and low field region small flux jumps are taking place. This effect strongly
suppresses the central magnetization peak leading to reduced nominal
superconducting critical current density at low temperatures. A borderline for
this effect to occur is determined on the field-temperature (H-T) phase
diagram. It is suggested that the small size of the flux jumps in films is due
to the higher density of small defects and the relatively easy thermal
diffusion in thin films in comparison with bulk samples.Comment: 7 figures Phys. Rev. B accepted scheduled issue: 01 Feb 200
Pharmacists in Pharmacovigilance: Can Increased Diagnostic Opportunity in Community Settings Translate to Better Vigilance?
The pharmacy profession has undergone substantial change over the last two to three decades. Whilst medicine supply still remains a central function, pharmacistās roles and responsibilities have become more clinic and patient focused. In the community (primary care), pharmacists have become important providers of healthcare as Western healthcare policy advocates patient self-care. This has resulted in pharmacists taking on greater responsibility in managing minor illness and the delivery of public health interventions. These roles require pharmacists to more fully use their clinical skills, and often involve diagnosis and therapeutic management. Community pharmacists are now, more than ever before, in a position to identify, record and report medication safety incidents. However, current research suggests that diagnostic ability of community pharmacists is questionable and they infrequently report to local or national schemes. The aim of this paper is to highlight current practice and suggest ways in which community pharmacy can more fully contribute to patient safety
An extremely wide and very low-mass pair with common proper motion. Is it representative of a nearby halo stream?
(abridged) We describe the discovery of an extremely wide pair of low-mass
stars with a common large proper motion and discuss their possible membership
in a Galactic halo stream crossing the Solar neighbourhood. (...) The late-type
(M7) dwarf SSSPM J20034433 and the ultracool subdwarf SSSPM J19304311
(sdM7) sharing the same very large proper motion of about 860 mas/yr were found
in the same sky region with an angular separation of about 6\degr. From the
comparison with other high proper motion catalogues we have estimated the
probability of a chance alignment of the two new large proper motions to be
less than 0.3%. From the individually estimated spectroscopic distances of
about pc and pc, respectively for the M7 dwarf
and the sdM7 subdwarf, and in view of the accurate agreement in their large
proper motions we assume a common distance of about 50 pc and a projected
physical separation of about 5 pc. The mean heliocentric space velocity of the
pair km/s, based on the correctness of the
preliminary radial velocity measurement for only one of the components and on
the assumption of a common distance and velocity vector, is typical of the
Galactic halo population. The large separation and the different metallicities
of dwarfs and subdwarfs make a common formation scenario as a wide binary
(later disrupted) improbable, although there remains some uncertainty in the
spectroscopic classification scheme of ultracool dwarfs/subdwarfs so that a
dissolved binary origin cannot be fully ruled out yet. It seems more likely
that this wide pair is part of an old halo stream. (...)Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in Astronomy and
Astrophysic
Local threshold field for dendritic instability in superconducting MgB2 films
Using magneto-optical imaging the phenomenon of dendritic flux penetration in
superconducting films was studied. Flux dendrites were abruptly formed in a 300
nm thick film of MgB2 by applying a perpendicular magnetic field. Detailed
measurements of flux density distributions show that there exists a local
threshold field controlling the nucleation and termination of the dendritic
growth. At 4 K the local threshold field is close to 12 mT in this sample,
where the critical current density is 10^7 A/cm^2. The dendritic instability in
thin films is believed to be of thermo-magnetic origin, but the existence of a
local threshold field, and its small value are features that distinctly
contrast the thermo-magnetic instability (flux jumps) in bulk superconductors.Comment: 6 pages, 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.
Do we (seem to) perceive passage?
I examine some recent claims put forward by L. A. Paul, Barry Dainton and Simon Prosser, to the effect that perceptual experiences of movement and change involve an (apparent) experience of āpassageā, in the sense at issue in debates about the metaphysics of time. Paul, Dainton and Prosser all argue that this supposed feature of perceptual experience ā call it a phenomenology of passage ā is illusory, thereby defending the view that there is no such a thing as passage, conceived of as a feature of mind-independent reality. I suggest that in fact there is no such phenomenology of passage in the first place. There is, however, a specific structural aspect of the phenomenology of perceptual experiences of movement and change that can explain how one might mistakenly come to the belief that such experiences do involve a phenomenology of passage
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