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The Man Who Mistook His Neuropsychologist For a Popstar: When Configural Processing Fails in Acquired Prosopagnosia
We report the case of an individual with acquired prosopagnosia who experiences extreme difficulties in recognizing familiar faces in everyday life despite excellent object recognition skills. Formal testing indicates that he is also severely impaired at remembering pre-experimentally unfamiliar faces and that he takes an extremely long time to identify famous faces and to match unfamiliar faces. Nevertheless, he performs as accurately and quickly as controls at identifying inverted familiar and unfamiliar faces and can recognize famous faces from their external features. He also performs as accurately as controls at recognizing famous faces when fracturing conceals the configural information in the face. He shows evidence of impaired global processing but normal local processing of Navon figures. This case appears to reflect the clearest example yet of an acquired prosopagnosic patient whose familiar face recognition deficit is caused by a severe configural processing deficit in the absence of any problems in featural processing. These preserved featural skills together with apparently intact visual imagery for faces allow him to identify a surprisingly large number of famous faces when unlimited time is available. The theoretical implications of this pattern of performance for understanding the nature of acquired prosopagnosia are discussed.DY, Avery Braun, Jacob Waite, and Nadine Wanke, Bruno Rossion, Thomas Busigny and the grant awarded by AJ by the Experimental Psychology Society (EPS
Eliminating Recursion from Monadic Datalog Programs on Trees
We study the problem of eliminating recursion from monadic datalog programs
on trees with an infinite set of labels. We show that the boundedness problem,
i.e., determining whether a datalog program is equivalent to some nonrecursive
one is undecidable but the decidability is regained if the descendant relation
is disallowed. Under similar restrictions we obtain decidability of the problem
of equivalence to a given nonrecursive program. We investigate the connection
between these two problems in more detail
Representing and Integrating Multiple Calendars
Whenever humans refer to time, they do so with respect to a
specific underlying calendar. So do most software applications.
However, most theoretical
models of time refer to time with respect to the integers (or reals).
Thus, there is a mismatch between the theory and the application of
temporal reasoning.
To lessen this gap, we propose a formal, theoretical definition of a
calendar and show how one may specify dates, time points, time
intervals, as well as sets of time points, in terms of constraints
with respect to a given calendar. Furthermore, when multiple
applications using different calendars wish to work together, there is
a need to integrate those calendars together into a single, unified
calendar. We show how this can be done.
(Also cross-referenced as UMIACS-TR-97-12
Faster Algorithms for Weighted Recursive State Machines
Pushdown systems (PDSs) and recursive state machines (RSMs), which are
linearly equivalent, are standard models for interprocedural analysis. Yet RSMs
are more convenient as they (a) explicitly model function calls and returns,
and (b) specify many natural parameters for algorithmic analysis, e.g., the
number of entries and exits. We consider a general framework where RSM
transitions are labeled from a semiring and path properties are algebraic with
semiring operations, which can model, e.g., interprocedural reachability and
dataflow analysis problems.
Our main contributions are new algorithms for several fundamental problems.
As compared to a direct translation of RSMs to PDSs and the best-known existing
bounds of PDSs, our analysis algorithm improves the complexity for
finite-height semirings (that subsumes reachability and standard dataflow
properties). We further consider the problem of extracting distance values from
the representation structures computed by our algorithm, and give efficient
algorithms that distinguish the complexity of a one-time preprocessing from the
complexity of each individual query. Another advantage of our algorithm is that
our improvements carry over to the concurrent setting, where we improve the
best-known complexity for the context-bounded analysis of concurrent RSMs.
Finally, we provide a prototype implementation that gives a significant
speed-up on several benchmarks from the SLAM/SDV project
Surface Grafting of Poly(L-glutamates). 2. Helix Orientation
In this paper the average helix orientation of surface-grafted poly(γ-benzyl L-glutamate) (PBLG), poly(γ-methyl L-glutamate) (PMLG), and poly(γ-methyl L-glutamate)-co-(γ-n-stearyl L-glutamate) (PMLGSLG 70/30) was investigated by means of FT-IR transmission spectroscopy. The theoretical relation between the average tilt angle (θ) and the absorption peak areas of three different backbone amide bands could be calculated because their transition dipole moment directions with respect to the helix axis were known. From the normalized absorptions, the average tilt angles of grafted helices of PBLG, PMLG, and PMLGSLG 70/30 were determined. The somewhat larger average angle of PMLG helices of 35 ± 5° with respect to the substrate compared to the value of 32 ± 5° of PBLG was due to the higher grafting density of PMLG. Because of the smaller helix diameter as a result of the smaller size of the methyl side group, more PMLG helices grew on the same surface area. Sterical hindrance and unfavorable polar interactions between unidirectional aligned helices forced the PMLG helices in a more upright arrangement. The even more perpendicular orientation of PMLGSLG 70/30 (48 ± 6°) could be the result of incorporation of mainly γ-methyl L-glutamate N-carboxyanhydride (MLG-NCA) monomers during the initiation step. Incorporation of the much larger γ-n-stearyl L-glutamate N-carboxyanhydride (SLG-NCA) monomers afterward lead to enlarged angles with respect to the substrate. Due to swelling, a pronounced change in helix orientation of grafted PMLGSLG 70/30 in n-hexadecane was observed, resulting in an almost perpendicular helix orientation.
A High-Resolution Single Nucleotide Polymorphism Genetic Map of the Mouse Genome
High-resolution genetic maps are required for mapping complex traits and for the study of recombination. We report the highest density genetic map yet created for any organism, except humans. Using more than 10,000 single nucleotide polymorphisms evenly spaced across the mouse genome, we have constructed genetic maps for both outbred and inbred mice, and separately for males and females. Recombination rates are highly correlated in outbred and inbred mice, but show relatively low correlation between males and females. Differences between male and female recombination maps and the sequence features associated with recombination are strikingly similar to those observed in humans. Genetic maps are available from http://gscan.well.ox.ac.uk/#genetic_map and as supporting information to this publication
Collective processes in relativistic plasma and their implications for gamma-ray burst afterglows
We consider the effects of collective plasma processes on synchrotron
emission from highly relativistic electrons. We find, in agreement with Sazonov
(1970), that strong effects are possible also in the absence of a
non-relativistic plasma component, due to the relativistic electrons (and
protons) themselves. In contrast with Sazonov, who infers strong effects only
in cases where the ratio of plasma frequency to cyclotron frequency is much
larger than the square of the characteristic electron Lorentz factor, nu_p/nu_B
>> gamma^2, we find strong effects also for 1 << nu_p/nu_B << gamma^2. The
modification of the spectrum is prominent at frequencies nu < nu_{R*} = nu_p
min[gamma, (nu_p/nu_B)^(1/2)], where nu_{R*} generalizes the Razin-Tsytovich
frequency, nu_R = gamma nu_p, to the regime nu_p/nu_B << gamma^2. Applying our
results to gamma-ray burst (GRB) plasmas, we predict a strong modification of
the radio spectrum on minute time scale following the GRB, at the onset of
fireball interaction with its surrounding medium, in cases where the ratio of
the energy carried by the relativistic electrons to the energy carried by the
magnetic field exceeds ~ 10^5. Plausible electron distribution functions may
lead to negative synchrotron reabsorption, i.e to coherent radio emission,
which is characterized by a low degree of circular polarization. Detection of
these effects would constrain the fraction of energy in the magnetic field,
which is currently poorly determined by observations, and, moreover, would
provide a novel handle on the properties of the environment into which the
fireball expands.Comment: 28 pages, 1 figure, submitted to Ap
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