Statistical disclosure control when publishing on thematic maps

The spatial distribution of a variable, such as the energy consumption per company, is usually plotted by colouring regions of the study area according to an underlying table which is already protected from disclosing sensitive information. The result is often heavily influenced by the shape and size of the regions. In this paper, we are interested in producing a continuous plot of the variable directly from microdata and we protect it by adding random noise. We consider a simple attacker scenario and develop an appropriate sensitivity rule that can be used to determine the amount of noise needed to protect the plot from disclosing private information

Cultural Property Protection in the Context of Military Operations: The Case of Uruk, Iraq

This paper deals with the use of military or militarized experts for cultural property protection (CPP) during times of conflict. CPP activities generally take place within a juridical framework that gives obligations for all parties involved, primarily the 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, and attention is paid to various implications and challenges that occur when implementing military CPP obligations within this framework. To illustrate matters, the paper details a specific case study from the author’s own field experience in the safeguarding of the archaeological site of Uruk in Iraq. Aspects, including economic, legal, financial, and educational implications, are presented and these are especially relevant since they apply (to an extent) to other situations, such as the recent cultural disasters in Egypt, Libya, and Syria. The Uruk case study is used to suggest a number of key elements that are vital for the implementation of an effective CPP strategy in the context of military operations. Overall, the importance of international cooperation, training, and education, along with the assistance of civil reach-back capabilities, is emphasized. The paper argues that an effective way to protect Cultural Property during armed conflicts is through military channels and with military logistics and tools. To fulfil CPP in agreement with International Humanitarian Law (IHL) joint preparations in peacetime are necessary. The handover of military initiated CPP projects to civil authorities has to take place as soon as the situation permits. The paper concludes with a set of recommendations

Spared unconscious influences of spatial memory in diencephalic amnesia

Spatial memory is crucial to our daily lives and in part strongly depends on automatic, implicit memory processes. This study investigates the neurocognitive basis of conscious and unconscious influences of object–location memory in amnesic patients with Korsakoff’s syndrome (N = 23) and healthy controls (N = 18) using a process-dissociation procedure in a computerized spatial memory task. As expected, the patients performed substantially worse on the conscious memory measures but showed even slightly stronger effects of unconscious influences than the controls. Moreover, a delayed test administered after 1 week revealed a strong decline in conscious influences in the patients, while unconscious influences were not affected. The presented results suggest that conscious and unconscious influences of spatial memory can be clearly dissociated in Korsakoff’s syndrome

Domains of Chronic Stress, Lifestyle Factors, and Allostatic Load in Middle-Aged Mexican-American Women

Abstract available at publisher's website

Neural Correlates of Visual Motion Prediction

Predicting the trajectories of moving objects in our surroundings is important for many life scenarios, such as driving, walking, reaching, hunting and combat. We determined human subjects’ performance and task-related brain activity in a motion trajectory prediction task. The task required spatial and motion working memory as well as the ability to extrapolate motion information in time to predict future object locations. We showed that the neural circuits associated with motion prediction included frontal, parietal and insular cortex, as well as the thalamus and the visual cortex. Interestingly, deactivation of many of these regions seemed to be more closely related to task performance. The differential activity during motion prediction vs. direct observation was also correlated with task performance. The neural networks involved in our visual motion prediction task are significantly different from those that underlie visual motion memory and imagery. Our results set the stage for the examination of the effects of deficiencies in these networks, such as those caused by aging and mental disorders, on visual motion prediction and its consequences on mobility related daily activities

Synergistic activity of polarised osteoblasts inside condensations cause their differentiation

Condensation of pre-osteogenic, or pre-chondrogenic, cells is the first of a series of processes that initiate skeletal development. We present a validated, novel, three-dimensional agent-based model of in vitro intramembranous osteogenic condensation. The model, informed by system heterogeneity and relying on an interaction-reliant strategy, is shown to be sensitive to 'rules' capturing condensation growth and can be employed to track activity of individual cells to observe their macroscopic impact. It, therefore, makes available previously inaccessible data, offering new insights and providing a new context for exploring the emergence, as well as normal and abnormal development, of osteogenic structures. Of the several stages of condensation we investigate osteoblast 'burial' within the osteoid they deposit. The mechanisms underlying entrapment - required for osteoblasts to differentiate into osteocytes - remain a matter of conjecture with several hypotheses claiming to capture this important transition. Computational examination of this transition indicates that osteoblasts neither turn off nor slow down their matrix secreting genes - a widely held view; nor do they secrete matrix randomly. The model further reveals that osteoblasts display polarised behaviour to deposit osteoid. This is both an important addition to our understanding of condensation and an important validation of the model's utility

Measurement of the tt¯tt¯ production cross section in pp collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of four-top-quark production using proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 is presented. Events are selected if they contain a single lepton (electron or muon) or an opposite-sign lepton pair, in association with multiple jets. The events are categorised according to the number of jets and how likely these are to contain b-hadrons. A multivariate technique is then used to discriminate between signal and background events. The measured four-top-quark production cross section is found to be 26+17−15 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) significance of 1.9 (1.0) standard deviations over the background-only hypothesis. The result is combined with the previous measurement performed by the ATLAS Collaboration in the multilepton final state. The combined four-top-quark production cross section is measured to be 24+7−6 fb, with a corresponding observed (expected) signal significance of 4.7 (2.6) standard deviations over the background-only predictions. It is consistent within 2.0 standard deviations with the Standard Model expectation of 12.0 ± 2.4 fb

Measurements of Higgs bosons decaying to bottom quarks from vector boson fusion production with the ATLAS experiment at √=13TeV

The paper presents a measurement of the Standard Model Higgs Boson decaying to b-quark pairs in the vector boson fusion (VBF) production mode. A sample corresponding to 126 fb−1 of s√=13TeV proton–proton collision data, collected with the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, is analyzed utilizing an adversarial neural network for event classification. The signal strength, defined as the ratio of the measured signal yield to that predicted by the Standard Model for VBF Higgs production, is measured to be 0.95+0.38−0.36 , corresponding to an observed (expected) significance of 2.6 (2.8) standard deviations from the background only hypothesis. The results are additionally combined with an analysis of Higgs bosons decaying to b-quarks, produced via VBF in association with a photon

Measurements of W+W−+ ≥ 1 jet production cross-sections in pp collisions at s \sqrt{s} = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Fiducial and differential cross-section measurements of W+W− production in association with at least one hadronic jet are presented. These measurements are sensitive to the properties of electroweak-boson self-interactions and provide a test of perturbative quantum chromodynamics and the electroweak theory. The analysis is performed using proton-proton collision data collected at p s = 13TeV with the ATLAS experiment, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1. Events are selected with exactly one oppositely charged electron-muon pair and at least one hadronic jet with a transverse momentum of pT > 30 GeV and a pseudorapidity of |�| < 4.5. After subtracting the background contributions and correcting for detector effects, the jet-inclusive W+W−+ � 1 jet fiducial cross-section and W+W−+ jets differential cross-sections with respect to several kinematic variables are measured. These measurements include leptonic quantities, such as the lepton transverse momenta and the transverse mass of the W+W− system, as well as jet-related observables such as the leading jet transverse momentum and the jet multiplicity. Limits on anomalous triple-gauge-boson couplings are obtained in a phase space where interference between the Standard Model amplitude and the anomalous amplitude is enhanced

Determination of the parton distribution functions of the proton using diverse ATLAS data from pp collisions at √s = 7, 8 and 13 TeV

This paper presents an analysis at next-to-next-to-leading order in the theory of quantum chromodynamics for the determination of a new set of proton parton distribution functions using diverse measurements in pp collisions at \sqrt{s} = 7, 8 and 13 TeV, performed by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, together with deep inelastic scattering data from ep collisions at the HERA collider. The ATLAS data sets considered are differential cross-section measurements of inclusive W^{±} and Z/gamma^{*} boson production, W^{±} and Z boson production in association with jets, t\bar{t} production, inclusive jet production and direct photon production. In the analysis, particular attention is paid to the correlation of systematic uncertainties within and between the various ATLAS data sets and to the impact of model, theoretical and parameterisation uncertainties. The resulting set of parton distribution functions is called ATLASpdf21