Performance of adiabatic melting as a method to pursue the lowest possible temperature in 3^3He and 3^3He-4^4He mixture at the 4^4He crystallization pressure

We studied a novel cooling method, in which $^3$He and $^4$He are mixed at the $^4$He crystallization pressure at temperatures below $0.5\,\mathrm{mK}$. We describe the experimental setup in detail, and present an analysis of its performance under varying isotope contents, temperatures, and operational modes. Further, we developed a computational model of the system, which was required to determine the lowest temperatures obtained, since our mechanical oscillator thermometers already became insensitive at the low end of the temperature range, extending down to $\left(90\pm20\right)\,\mathrm{\mu K\approx}\frac{T_{c}}{\left(29\pm5\right)}$ ($T_{c}$ of pure $^3$He). We did not observe any indication of superfluidity of the $^3$He component in the isotope mixture. The performance of the setup was limited by the background heat leak of the order of $30\,\mathrm{pW}$ at low melting rates, and by the heat leak caused by the flow of $^4$He in the superleak line at high melting rates up to $500\,\mathrm{\mu mol/s}$. The optimal mixing rate between $^3$He and $^4$He, with the heat leak taken into account, was found to be about $100..150\,\mathrm{\mu mol/s}$. We suggest improvements to the experimental design to reduce the ultimate achievable temperature further.Comment: 39 pages, 24 figure

Activation of the motivation-related ventral striatum during delusional experience

Delusion is the most characteristic symptom of psychosis, occurring in almost all first-episode psychosis patients. The motivational salience hypothesis suggests delusion to originate from the experience of abnormal motivational salience. Whether the motivation-related brain circuitries are activated during the actual delusional experience remains, however, unknown. We used a forced-choice answering tree at random intervals during functional magnetic resonance imaging to capture delusional and non-delusional spontaneous experiences in patients with first-episode psychosis (n = 31) or clinical high-risk state (n = 7). The motivation-related brain regions were identified by an automated meta-analysis of 149 studies. Thirteen first-episode patients reported both delusional and non-delusional spontaneous experiences. In these patients, delusional experiences were related to stronger activation of the ventral striatum in both hemispheres. This activation overlapped with the most strongly motivation-related brain regions. These findings provide an empirical link between the actual delusional experience and the motivational salience hypothesis. Further use and development of the present methods in localizing the neurobiological basis of the most characteristic symptoms may be useful in the search for etiopathogenic pathways that result in psychotic disorders.Peer reviewe

Navigation and Mapping in Forest Environment Using Sparse Point Clouds

Odometry during forest operations is demanding, involving limited field of vision (FOV), back-and-forth work cycle movements, and occasional close obstacles, which create problems for state-of-the-art systems. We propose a two-phase on-board process, where tree stem registration produces a sparse point cloud (PC) which is then used for simultaneous location and mapping (SLAM). A field test was carried out using a harvester with a laser scanner and a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) performing forest thinning over a 520 m strip route. Two SLAM methods are used: The proposed sparse SLAM (sSLAM) and a standard method, LeGO-LOAM (LLOAM). A generic SLAM post-processing method is presented, which improves the odometric accuracy with a small additional processing cost. The sSLAM method uses only tree stem centers, reducing the allocated memory to approximately 1% of the total PC size. Odometry and mapping comparisons between sSLAM and LLOAM are presented. Both methods show 85% agreement in registration within 15 m of the strip road and odometric accuracy of 0.5 m per 100 m. Accuracy is evaluated by comparing the harvester location derived through odometry to locations collected by a GNSS receiver mounted on the harvester.</p

Analytic atheism : A cross-culturally weak and fickle phenomenon?

Religious belief is a topic of longstanding interest to psychological science, but the psychology of religious disbelief is a relative newcomer. One prominently discussed model is analytic atheism, wherein cognitive reflection, as measured with the Cognitive Reflection Test, overrides religious intuitions and instruction. Consistent with this model, performance-based measures of cognitive reflection predict religious disbelief in WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, & Democratic) samples. However, the generality of analytic atheism remains unknown. Drawing on a large global sample (N = 3461) from 13 religiously, demographically, and culturally diverse societies, we find that analytic atheism as usually assessed is in fact quite fickle cross-culturally, appearing robustly only in aggregate analyses and in three individual countries. The results provide additional evidence for culture's effects on core beliefs.Peer reviewe

Intention Seekers: Conspiracist Ideation and Biased Attributions of Intentionality

Conspiracist beliefs are widespread and potentially hazardous. A growing body of research suggests that cognitive biases may play a role in endorsement of conspiracy theories. The current research examines the novel hypothesis that individuals who are biased towards inferring intentional explanations for ambiguous actions are more likely to endorse conspiracy theories, which portray events as the exclusive product of intentional agency. Study 1 replicated a previously observed relationship between conspiracist ideation and individual differences in anthropomorphisation. Studies 2 and 3 report a relationship between conspiracism and inferences of intentionality for imagined ambiguous events. Additionally, Study 3 again found conspiracist ideation to be predicted by individual differences in anthropomorphism. Contrary to expectations, however, the relationship was not mediated by the intentionality bias. The findings are discussed in terms of a domain-general intentionality bias making conspiracy theories appear particularly plausible. Alternative explanations are suggested for the association between conspiracism and anthropomorphism

Energy efficient opportunistic edge computing for the Internet of Things

Abstract Edge computing in Internet of Things enhances application execution by retrieving cloud resources to the close proximity of resource-constrained end devices at the edge and by enabling task offloading from these devices to the edge. In this paper, edge computing platforms are extended into the data producing end devices, including wireless sensor network nodes and smartphones, with mobile agents. Mobile agents operate, as a multi-agent system, on the opportunistic network of heterogeneous end devices. The benefits include autonomous, asynchronous and adaptive execution and relocation of application-specific computational tasks, while taking into account the local resource availability. In addition to the vertical edge connectivity, mobile agents enable horizontal sharing of information between these devices. Use cases are presented where mobile agents address challenges in current edge computing platforms. An edge application is evaluated where mobile agents as a multi-agent system process sensor data in a heterogeneous set of end devices, control the operation of the devices and share their tasks results in the system. The mobile agents operate atop a REST-compliant software agent framework that relies on embedded Web services for interoperability. A real-world evaluation and large-scale simulations show that energy consumption is reduced significantly, up to 60%, in the edge application execution