Influence of diesel surrogates on the behavior of simplified spray models

Numerous experimental investigations make use of diesel surrogates to make the computational time reasonable. In the few studies where measured (surrogate and real diesel) and computed (surrogate only) results have been compared, the selection methodology for the surrogate constituent compounds and the measures taken to validate the chemical kinetic models are not discussed, and the range of operating conditions used is often small. Additionally, most simplified models use tuning variables to fit model results to measurements. This work makes the comparison between some frequently used diesel surrogates using a simple 1D vaporizing spray model, with the spray cone angle as the tuning parameter. Results show that liquid length and fuel fraction strongly depend on the physical properties of the used fuel for a fixed spray angle. These parameters are important for modeling auto-ignition and pollutant formation. The spray angle is varied till the spray length is the same for each surrogate. Results show important differences between other spray parameters such as local mixture fraction and axial velocity

Reply to: Atom gravimeters and the gravitational redshift

We stand by our result [H. Mueller et al., Nature 463, 926-929 (2010)]. The comment [P. Wolf et al., Nature 467, E1 (2010)] revisits an interesting issue that has been known for decades, the relationship between test of the universality of free fall and redshift experiments. However, it arrives at its conclusions by applying the laws of physics that are questioned by redshift experiments; this precludes the existence of measurable signals. Since this issue applies to all classical redshift tests as well as atom interferometry redshift tests, these experiments are equivalent in all aspects in question.Comment: Reply to P. Wolf et al., arXiv:1009.060

Initial fixation placement in face images is driven by top-down guidance

The eyes are often inspected first and for longer period during face exploration. To examine whether this saliency of the eye region at the early stage of face inspection is attributed to its local structure properties or to the knowledge of its essence in facial communication, in this study we investigated the pattern of eye movements produced by rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) as they free viewed images of monkey faces. Eye positions were recorded accurately using implanted eye coils, while images of original faces, faces with scrambled eyes, and scrambled faces except for the eyes were presented on a computer screen. The eye region in the scrambled faces attracted the same proportion of viewing time and fixations as it did in the original faces, even the scrambled eyes attracted substantial proportion of viewing time and fixations. Furthermore, the monkeys often made the first saccade towards to the location of the eyes regardless of image content. Our results suggest that the initial fixation placement in faces is driven predominantly by ‘top-down’ or internal factors, such as the prior knowledge of the location of “eyes” within the context of a face

New mutations at the imprinted Gnas cluster show gene dosage effects of Gsα in postnatal growth and implicate XLαs in bone and fat metabolism, but not in suckling

The imprinted Gnas cluster is involved in obesity, energy metabolism, feeding behavior, and viability. Relative contribution of paternally expressed proteins XLαs, XLN1, and ALEX or a double dose of maternally expressed Gsα to phenotype has not been established. In this study, we have generated two new mutants (Ex1A-T-CON and Ex1A-T) at the Gnas cluster. Paternal inheritance of Ex1A-T-CON leads to loss of imprinting of Gsα, resulting in preweaning growth retardation followed by catch-up growth. Paternal inheritance of Ex1A-T leads to loss of imprinting of Gsα and loss of expression of XLαs and XLN1. These mice have severe preweaning growth retardation and incomplete catch-up growth. They are fully viable probably because suckling is unimpaired, unlike mutants in which the expression of all the known paternally expressed Gnasxl proteins (XLαs, XLN1 and ALEX) is compromised. We suggest that loss of ALEX is most likely responsible for the suckling defects previously observed. In adults, paternal inheritance of Ex1A-T results in an increased metabolic rate and reductions in fat mass, leptin, and bone mineral density attributable to loss of XLαs. This is, to our knowledge, the first report describing a role for XLαs in bone metabolism. We propose that XLαs is involved in the regulation of bone and adipocyte metabolism

Cross modal perception of body size in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris)

While the perception of size-related acoustic variation in animal vocalisations is well documented, little attention has been given to how this information might be integrated with corresponding visual information. Using a cross-modal design, we tested the ability of domestic dogs to match growls resynthesised to be typical of either a large or a small dog to size- matched models. Subjects looked at the size-matched model significantly more often and for a significantly longer duration than at the incorrect model, showing that they have the ability to relate information about body size from the acoustic domain to the appropriate visual category. Our study suggests that the perceptual and cognitive mechanisms at the basis of size assessment in mammals have a multisensory nature, and calls for further investigations of the multimodal processing of size information across animal species

A combination of right ventricular hypertrabeculation/noncompaction and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy: a syndrome?

A combination of ARVC and RV NVM/HVM, which is extremely rare, to our knowledge, is never reported. RV NVM/HVM could be the cause and consequence of ARVC, or RV NVM/HVM and ARVC could be a consequence of a certain undetermined cause. It must be kept in mind, however, that the interaction of NVM/HVM and ARVC could be in part of pathophysiology mechanism of the combination even if as a consequence of an underlying genetic factor

Selective mutism due to a dog bite trauma in a 4-year-old girl: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>A child experiencing an event of threatening or catastrophic nature may experience considerable post-traumatic psychological distress. Dog bites present an important public health problem and are a frequent cause of physical trauma in children. Physicians who manage paediatric trauma may not be vigilant of the high risk of psychological stress in children exposed to a physical injury.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 4-year-old white girl of Greek origin, with a dog-bite related trauma was admitted to the University Hospital of Crete, Greece, for surgical repair and intravenous antibiotic therapy due to extensive lesions. Exposure to the traumatic event triggered the onset of an unusual psychological response, selective mutism and acute post-traumatic stress disorder.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>There is limited literature discussing the psychological effect of dog bites in children. Parents and physicians involved in pediatric physical trauma need to be more familiar with post-traumatic behavioral reactions. Awareness of the potential development of such reactions may result in early detection and effective management of children at risk.</p

From Demonstrations to Task-Space Specifications:Using Causal Analysis to Extract Rule Parameterization from Demonstrations

Learning models of user behaviour is an important problem that is broadly applicable across many application domains requiring human-robot interaction. In this work, we show that it is possible to learn generative models for distinct user behavioural types, extracted from human demonstrations, by enforcing clustering of preferred task solutions within the latent space. We use these models to differentiate between user types and to find cases with overlapping solutions. Moreover, we can alter an initially guessed solution to satisfy the preferences that constitute a particular user type by backpropagating through the learned differentiable models. An advantage of structuring generative models in this way is that we can extract causal relationships between symbols that might form part of the user's specification of the task, as manifested in the demonstrations. We further parameterize these specifications through constraint optimization in order to find a safety envelope under which motion planning can be performed. We show that the proposed method is capable of correctly distinguishing between three user types, who differ in degrees of cautiousness in their motion, while performing the task of moving objects with a kinesthetically driven robot in a tabletop environment. Our method successfully identifies the correct type, within the specified time, in 99% [97.8 - 99.8] of the cases, which outperforms an IRL baseline. We also show that our proposed method correctly changes a default trajectory to one satisfying a particular user specification even with unseen objects. The resulting trajectory is shown to be directly implementable on a PR2 humanoid robot completing the same task.Comment: arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1903.0126

Age-Related Attenuation of Dominant Hand Superiority

The decline of motor performance of the human hand-arm system with age is well-documented. While dominant hand performance is superior to that of the non-dominant hand in young individuals, little is known of possible age-related changes in hand dominance. We investigated age-related alterations of hand dominance in 20 to 90 year old subjects. All subjects were unambiguously right-handed according to the Edinburgh Handedness Inventory. In Experiment 1, motor performance for aiming, postural tremor, precision of arm-hand movement, speed of arm-hand movement, and wrist-finger speed tasks were tested. In Experiment 2, accelerometer-sensors were used to obtain objective records of hand use in everyday activities