6,342 research outputs found
The Importance of Fallback Foods in Primate Ecology and Evolution
The role of fallback foods in shaping primate ranging, socioecology, and morphology has recently become a topic of particular interest to biological anthropologists. Although the use of fallback resources has been noted in the ecological and primatological literature for a number of decades, few attempts have been made to define fallback foods or to explore the utility of this concept for primate evolutionary biologists and ecologists. As a preface to this special issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology devoted to the topic of fallback foods in primate ecology and evolution, we discuss the development and use of the fallback concept and highlight its importance in primatology and paleoanthropology
Research on the Nature, Characteristics, and Causes of Accounting Errors: The Need For a Multi-method Approach
Knowledge of the occurrence and detection of errors in accounting populations is of great importance to auditors in assessing risks, evaluating the efficacy of statistical sampling methods, and planning effective and efficient audit procedures to address risks. A significant body of research exists that examines these issues. Prior studies have focused primarily on auditordetected errors. A basic assumption of these studies is that detected errors are an accurate reflection of all significant errors present. That is, there are not a substantial number of undetected errors, or that undetected errors share the same characteristics (e.g., error direction) as detected errors. However, little evidence exists regarding the accuracy of this assumption. Further, there has been little consideration of factors that may affect differences between detected and actual errors and the implications of these differences on research conclusions.
This paper presents a model of the variables involved in the error generation and error detection processes. Variables that have been explored in prior research are discussed along with those requiring further investigation. Finally, the paper identifies confounding variables to be controlled in future studies and makes suggestions for improving extant error study methods
Age-related sensitivity to task-related modulation of language-processing networks.
It is widely assumed that cognitive functions decline with age and that these decrements are associated with age-related changes in patterns of functional activity. However, these functional changes may be due to age-related increased responsiveness to task demands and not to other cognitive processes on which neural and behavioural responses rely, since many ageing studies use task paradigms that may not be orthogonal to the cognitive function being investigated. Here we test this hypothesis in adults aged 20-86 years by combining measures of language comprehension, functional connectivity and neural integrity to identify functional networks activated in two language experiments with varying task demands. In one, participants listened to spoken sentences without performing an overt task (the natural listening condition) while in the other they performed a task in response to the same sentences. Using task-based ICA of fMRI, we identified a left-lateralised frontotemporal network associated with syntactic analysis, which remained consistently activated regardless of task demands. In contrast, in the task condition only a separate set of components showed task-specific activity in Opercular, Frontoparietal, and bilateral PFC. Only the PFC showed age-related increases in activation which, furthermore, was strongly mediated by grey matter health. These results suggest that, contrary to prevailing views, age-related changes in cognitive activation may be due in part to differential responses to task-related processes.RCUK, OtherThis is the final published version of the article "Age-related sensitivity to task-Ârelated modulation of language-processing networks" published in Neuropsychologia here: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0028393214002802
Fourteen New Companions from the Keck & Lick Radial Velocity Survey Including Five Brown Dwarf Candidates
We present radial velocities for 14 stars on the California & Carnegie Planet
Search target list that reveal new companions. One star, HD 167665, was fit
with a definitive Keplerian orbit leading to a minimum mass for the companion
of 50.3 Mjup at a separation from its host of ~5.5 AU. Incomplete or limited
phase coverage for the remaining 13 stars prevents us from assigning to them
unique orbital parameters. Instead, we fit their radial velocities with
Keplerian orbits across a grid of fixed values for Msini and period, P, and use
the resulting reduced chi-square surface to place constraints on Msini, P, and
semimajor axis, a. This technique allowed us to restrict Msini below the brown
dwarf -- stellar mass boundary for an additional 4 companions (HD 150554, HD
8765, HD 72780, HD 74014). If the combined 5 companions are confirmed as brown
dwarfs, these results would comprise the first major catch of such objects from
our survey beyond ~3 AU.Comment: 29 pages, 14 figures, accepted to Ap
No increase in corticospinal excitability during motor simulation provides a platform to explore the neurophysiology of aphantasia
This scientific commentary refers to ‘Explicit and implicit motor simulations are impaired in individuals with aphantasia’, by Dupont  et al. (https://doi.org/10.1093/braincomms/fcae072) in Brain Communication
Chromospheric CaII Emission in Nearby F, G, K, and M stars
We present chromospheric CaII activity measurements, rotation periods and
ages for ~1200 F-, G-, K-, and M- type main-sequence stars from ~18,000
archival spectra taken at Keck and Lick Observatories as a part of the
California and Carnegie Planet Search Project. We have calibrated our
chromospheric S values against the Mount Wilson chromospheric activity data.
From these measurements we have calculated median activity levels and derived
R'HK, stellar ages, and rotation periods for 1228 stars, ~1000 of which have no
previously published S values. We also present precise time series of activity
measurements for these stars.Comment: 62 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Second (extremely long) table is
available at http://astro.berkeley.edu/~jtwright/CaIIdata/tab1.tex Accepted
by ApJ
Nondetection of the Neptune-Mass Planet Reported Around GJ 176
Endl et al. reported a Neptune-mass planet in a 10.24 day orbit around GJ 176. This planet has raised interest because of its low mass (Msin i = 24 M_(Earth)), correspondingly small velocity amplitude (K = 11.7 m s^(–1)), and because GJ 176 is an M star. We report 41 precise Doppler measurements of GJ 176 obtained with the Keck-HIRES spectrometer over a 10 year time span. These measurements show no evidence of the 10.24 day companion, at a threshold of 4 m s–1, a factor of 3 less than the amplitude reported by Endl et al. The Keck velocities are consistent with instrumental noise and stellar jitter. The existence of the planet is thus called into question
Microflare Heating of a Solar Active Region Observed with NuSTAR, Hinode/XRT, and SDO/AIA
NuSTAR is a highly sensitive focusing hard X-ray (HXR) telescope and has
observed several small microflares in its initial solar pointings. In this
paper, we present the first joint observation of a microflare with NuSTAR and
Hinode/XRT on 2015 April 29 at ~11:29 UT. This microflare shows heating of
material to several million Kelvin, observed in Soft X-rays (SXRs) with
Hinode/XRT, and was faintly visible in Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) with SDO/AIA.
For three of the four NuSTAR observations of this region (pre-, decay, and post
phases) the spectrum is well fitted by a single thermal model of 3.2-3.5 MK,
but the spectrum during the impulsive phase shows additional emission up to 10
MK, emission equivalent to A0.1 GOES class. We recover the differential
emission measure (DEM) using SDO/AIA, Hinode/XRT, and NuSTAR, giving
unprecedented coverage in temperature. We find the pre-flare DEM peaks at ~3 MK
and falls off sharply by 5 MK; but during the microflare's impulsive phase the
emission above 3 MK is brighter and extends to 10 MK, giving a heating rate of
about erg s. As the NuSTAR spectrum is purely
thermal we determined upper-limits on the possible non-thermal bremsstrahlung
emission. We find that for the accelerated electrons to be the source of the
heating requires a power-law spectrum of with a low energy
cut-off keV. In summary, this first NuSTAR microflare
strongly resembles much more powerful flares.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ. 14 pages with 12 figures and 1 tabl
Oscillation frequencies and mode lifetimes in alpha Centauri A
We analyse our recently-published velocity measurements of alpha Cen A
(Butler et al. 2004). After adjusting the weights on a night-by-night basis in
order to optimize the window function to minimize sidelobes, we extract 42
oscillation frequencies with l=0 to 3 and measure the large and small frequency
separations. We give fitted relations to these frequencies that can be compared
with theoretical models and conclude that the observed scatter about these fits
is due to the finite lifetimes of the oscillation modes. We estimate the mode
lifetimes to be 1-2 d, substantially shorter than in the Sun.Comment: Accepted by Ap
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