4,740 research outputs found
Dynamically orienting your own face facilitates the automatic attraction of attention
We report two experiments showing that dynamically orienting our own face facilitates the automatic attraction of attention. We had participants complete a cueing task where they had to judge the orientation of a lateralized target cued by a central face that dynamically changed its orientation. Experiment 1 showed a reliable cueing effect from both self- and friend-faces at a long stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), however, the self-faces exclusively generated a spatial cueing effect at a short SOA. In Experiment 2, event-related potential (ERP) data to the face cues showed larger amplitudes in the N1 component for self-faces relative to friend- and unfamiliar-faces. In contrast, the amplitude of the P3 component was reduced for self compared with friend- and unfamiliar-other cues. The size of the self-bias effect in N1 correlated with the strength of self-biases in P3. The results indicate that dynamic changes in the orientation of oneâs own face can provide a strong ecological cue for attention, enhancing sensory responses (N1) and reducing any subsequent uncertainty (P3) in decision-making
The effect of dietary n-3 HUFA levels and DHA/EPA ratios on growth, survival and osmotic stress tolerance of Chinese mitten crab <i>Eriocheir sinensis</i> larvae
The effect of varying levels of dietary n-3 highly unsaturated fatty acid (HUFA) and docosahexaenoic acid/eicosapentaenoic acid (DHA/EPA) ratios on growth, survival and osmotic stress tolerance of Eriocheir sinensis zoea larvae was studied in two separate experiments. In experiment I, larvae were fed rotifers and Artemia enriched with ICES emulsions with 0, 30 and 50% total n-3 HUFA levels but with the same DHA/EPA ratio of 0.6. In experiment II, larvae were fed different combinations of enriched rotifers and Artemia, in which, rotifers were enriched with emulsions containing 30% total n-3 HUFA, but different DHA/EPA ratio of 0.6, 2 and 4; while Artemia were enriched with the same emulsions, but DHA/EPA ratio of 0.6 and 4. In both experiments, un-enriched rotifers cultured on baker's yeast and newly-hatched Artemia nauplii were used as control diets. Larvae were fed rotifers at zoea 1 and zoea 2 stages; upon reaching zoea 3 stage, Artemia was introduced.Experiment I revealed no significant effect of prey enrichment on the survival of megalopa among treatments, but higher total n-3 HUFA levels significantly enhanced larval development (larval stage index, LSI) and resulted in higher individual dry body weight of megalopa. Furthermore higher dietary n-3 HUFA levels also resulted in better tolerance to salinity stress. Experiment II indicated that at the same total n-3 HUFA level, larvae continuously receiving a low dietary DHA/EPA ratio had significantly lower survival at the megalopa stage and inferior individual body weight at the megalopa stage, but no negative effect was observed on larval development (LSI). The ability to endure salinity stress of zoea 3, zoea 5 and megalopa fed diets with higher DHA/EPA ratio was also improved
Evolution of Solar Magnetic Field and Associated Multi-wavelength Phenomena: Flare events on 20 November 2003
We analyze H-alpha images, soft X-ray profiles, magnetograms, extreme
ultra-violet images and radio observations of two homologous flare events
(M1.4/1N and M9.6/2B) on 20 November 2003 in the active region NOAA 10501 and
study properties of reconnection between twisted filament systems, energy
release and associated launch of coronal mass ejections (CMEs). During both
events twisted filaments observed in H-alpha approached each other and
initiated the flare processes. However, the second event showed the formation
of cusp as the filaments interacted. The rotation of sunspots of opposite
polarities, inferred from magnetograms likely powered the twisted filaments and
injection of helicity. Along the current sheet between these two opposite
polarity sunspots, the shear was maximum, which could have caused the twist in
the filament. At the time of interaction between filaments, the reconnection
took place and flare emission in thermal and non-thermal energy ranges attained
the maximum. The radio signatures revealed the opening of field lines resulting
from reconnection. The H-alpha images and radio data provide the inflow speed
leading to reconnection and the scale size of particle acceleration region. The
first event produced a narrow and slow CME, whereas the later one was
associated with a fast full halo CME. The halo CME signatures observed between
Sun and Earth using white-light and scintillation images and in-situ
measurements indicated the magnetic energy utilized in the expansion and
propagation. The magnetic cloud signature at the Earth confirmed the flux rope
ejected at the time of filament interaction and reconnection.Comment: 22 pages, 16 figures, Accepted for the publication in Astrophysical
Journal (APJ
Quenched QCD with domain wall fermions
We report on simulations of quenched QCD using domain wall fermions, where we
focus on basic questions about the formalism and its ability to produce
expected low energy hadronic physics for light quarks. The work reported here
is on quenched lattices at and 5.85, using values
for the length of the fifth dimension between 10 and 48. We report results for
parameter choices which lead to the desired number of flavors, a study of
undamped modes in the extra dimension and hadron masses.Comment: Contribution to Lattice '98. Presented by R. Mawhinney. 3 pages, 3
figure
Dynamical QCD thermodynamics with domain wall fermions
We present results from numerical simulations of full, two flavor QCD
thermodynamics at N_t=4 with domain wall fermions. For the first time a
numerical simulation of the full QCD phase transition displays a low
temperature phase with spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking but intact flavor
symmetry and a high temperature phase with the full SU(2) x SU(2) chiral flavor
symmetry.Comment: LATTICE98(hightemp
Design Modifications for a Small, Affordable Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound Device
Depression is a prevalent and serious medical illness, and while there are antidepressant drugs to mitigate depressive symptoms, 10 - 30% of patients either do not respond or develop a tolerance to these medications. Literature supports that there is an interrelation between the inflammatory response and treatment-resistant depression. A promising method to tackle depressive symptoms is to block the inflammatory signaling pathway with vagus nerve stimulation (VNS), reducing pro-inflammatory cytokine levels. Although electrical VNS devices exist, they are invasive, expensive, and have side effects including voice alteration, dyspnea, and cough. Low intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) is a promising method that can stimulate a desired region noninvasively and without long term negative side effects. Nonetheless, the existing LIFU devices can be expensive, cumbersome, and large. The Center of Implantable Devices designed a prototype called the SonicNode that incorporates a transducer, matching network, and an amplifier into a 50 mm x 57 mm x 76 mm package. We modified the transducer head and created an intensity map of the focal region to demonstrate the improved performance of the device. The SonicNode and LIFU technology can be employed for long term, noninvasive treatment of a variety of neurological disorders
Dampening bullwhip effect of order-up-to inventory strategies via an optimal control method
In this paper, we consider the bullwhip effect problem of an Order-Up-To (OUT) inventory strategy for a supply chain system. We firstly establish a new discrete-time dynamical model which is suitable to describe the OUT inventory strategy. Then, we analyze the bullwhip effect for the dynamical model of the supply chain system. We thus transform the bullwhip effect's dampening problem to a discrete-time optimal control problem. By using the Pontryagin's maximum principle, we compute the corresponding optimal control and obtain the optimal manufacturer productivity of goods. Finally, we carry out numerical simulation experiments to show that the devised optimal control strategy is useful to dampen the bullwhip effect which always happens in the supply chain system
Plasma heating in the very early and decay phases of solar flares
In this paper we analyze the energy budgets of two single-loop solar flares
under the assumption that non-thermal electrons are the only source of plasma
heating during all phases of both events. The flares were observed by the
Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) and Geostationary
Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) on September 20, 2002 and March 17,
2002, respectively. For both investigated flares we derived the energy fluxes
contained in non-thermal electron beams from the RHESSI observational data
constrained by observed GOES light-curves. We showed that energy delivered by
non-thermal electrons was fully sufficient to fulfil the energy budgets of the
plasma during the pre-heating and impulsive phases of both flares as well as
during the decay phase of one of them. We concluded that in the case of the
investigated flares there was no need to use any additional ad-hoc heating
mechanisms other than heating by non-thermal electrons.Comment: 22 pages, 10 figures, The Astrophysical Journal (accepted, March
2011
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