The Neural Structures Expressing Perceptual Hysteresis in Visual Letter Recognition

AbstractPerception can change nonlinearly with stimulus contrast, and perceptual threshold may depend on the direction of contrast change. Such hysteresis effects in neurometric functions provide a signature of perceptual awareness. We recorded brain activity with functional neuroimaging in observers exposed to gradual contrast changes of initially hidden visual stimuli. Lateral occipital, frontal, and parietal regions all displayed both transient activations and hysteresis that correlated with change and maintenance of a percept, respectively. Medial temporal activity did not follow perception but increased during hysteresis and showed transient deactivations during perceptual transitions. These findings identify a set of brain regions sensitive to visual awareness and suggest that medial temporal structures may provide backward signals that account for neural and, thereby, perceptual hysteresis

The evolution of RNAi as a defence against viruses and transposable elements

RNA interference (RNAi) is an important defence against viruses and transposable elements (TEs). RNAi not only protects against viruses by degrading viral RNA, but hosts and viruses can also use RNAi to manipulate each other's gene expression, and hosts can encode microRNAs that target viral sequences. In response, viruses have evolved a myriad of adaptations to suppress and evade RNAi. RNAi can also protect cells against TEs, both by degrading TE transcripts and by preventing TE expression through heterochromatin formation. The aim of our review is to summarize and evaluate the current data on the evolution of these RNAi defence mechanisms. To this end, we also extend a previous analysis of the evolution of genes of the RNAi pathways. Strikingly, we find that antiviral RNAi genes, anti-TE RNAi genes and viral suppressors of RNAi all evolve rapidly, suggestive of an evolutionary arms race between hosts and parasites. Over longer time scales, key RNAi genes are repeatedly duplicated or lost across the metazoan phylogeny, with important implications for RNAi as an immune defence

Characterization of Open-Cell Sponges via Magnetic Resonance and X-ray Tomography

The applications of polymeric sponges are varied, ranging from cleaning and filtration to medical applications. The specific properties of polymeric foams, such as pore size and connectivity, are dependent on their constituent materials and production methods. Nuclear magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and X-ray micro-computed tomography (mu CT) offer complementary information about the structure and properties of porous media. In this study, we employed MRI, in combination with mu CT, to characterize the structure of polymeric open-cell foam, and to determine how it changes upon compression, mu CT was used to identify the morphology of the pores within sponge plugs, extracted from polyurethane open-cell sponges. MRI T-2 relaxation maps and bulk T-2 relaxation times measurements were performed for 7 degrees dH water contained within the same polyurethane foams used for mu CT. Magnetic resonance and mu CT measurements were conducted on both uncompressed and 60% compressed sponge plugs. Compression was achieved using a graduated sample holder with plunger. A relationship between the average T-2 relaxation time and maximum opening was observed, where smaller maximum openings were found to have a shorter T-2 relaxation times. It was also found that upon compression, the average maximum opening of pores decreased. Average pore size ranges of 375-632 +/- 1 mu m, for uncompressed plugs, and 301-473 +/- 1 mu m, for compressed plugs, were observed. By determining maximum opening values and T-2 relaxation times, it was observed that the pore structure varies between sponges within the same production batch, as well as even with a single sponge

Protecting the conformal symmetry via bulk renormalization on Anti deSitter space

The problem of perturbative breakdown of conformal symmetry can be avoided, if a conformally covariant quantum field phi on d-dimensional Minkowski spacetime is viewed as the boundary limit of a quantum field Phi on d+1-dimensional anti-deSitter spacetime (AdS). We study the boundary limit in renormalized perturbation theory with polynomial interactions in AdS, and point out the differences as compared to renormalization directly on the boundary. In particular, provided the limit exists, there is no conformal anomaly. We compute explicitly the "fish diagram" on AdS_4 by differential renormalization, and calculate the anomalous dimension of the composite boundary field phi^2 with bulk interaction Phi^4.Comment: 40 page

The Impact of QCD and Light-Cone Quantum Mechanics on Nuclear Physics

We discuss a number of novel applications of Quantum Chromodynamics to nuclear structure and dynamics, such as the reduced amplitude formalism for exclusive nuclear amplitudes. We particularly emphasize the importance of light-cone Hamiltonian and Fock State methods as a tool for describing the wavefunctions of composite relativistic many-body systems and their interactions. We also show that the use of covariant kinematics leads to nontrivial corrections to the standard formulae for the axial, magnetic, and quadrupole moments of nucleons and nuclei.Comment: 25 pages, uuencoded postscript file---To obtain a hard copy of this paper, send e-mail to [email protected] and ask fo

Measurements of ψ(2S)\psi(2S) decays into Vector- Tensor final states

Decays of the $\psi(2S)$ into vector plus tensor meson final states have been studied with 14 million $\psi(2S)$ events collected with the BESII detector. Branching fractions of \psi(2S) \rt \omega f_{2}(1270), $\rho a_2(1320)$, $K^*(892)^0\bar{K}^*_2(1430)^0+c.c.$ and $\phi f_2^{\prime}(1525)$ are determined. They improve upon previous BESI results and confirm the violation of the "12%" rule for $\psi(2S)$ decays to VT channels with higher precision.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures and 2 table

Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities

A golden age for heavy quarkonium physics dawned a decade ago, initiated by the confluence of exciting advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and an explosion of related experimental activity. The early years of this period were chronicled in the Quarkonium Working Group (QWG) CERN Yellow Report (YR) in 2004, which presented a comprehensive review of the status of the field at that time and provided specific recommendations for further progress. However, the broad spectrum of subsequent breakthroughs, surprises, and continuing puzzles could only be partially anticipated. Since the release of the YR, the BESII program concluded only to give birth to BESIII; the $B$-factories and CLEO-c flourished; quarkonium production and polarization measurements at HERA and the Tevatron matured; and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC have opened a window on the deconfinement regime. All these experiments leave legacies of quality, precision, and unsolved mysteries for quarkonium physics, and therefore beg for continuing investigations. The plethora of newly-found quarkonium-like states unleashed a flood of theoretical investigations into new forms of matter such as quark-gluon hybrids, mesonic molecules, and tetraquarks. Measurements of the spectroscopy, decays, production, and in-medium behavior of c\bar{c}, b\bar{b}, and b\bar{c} bound states have been shown to validate some theoretical approaches to QCD and highlight lack of quantitative success for others. The intriguing details of quarkonium suppression in heavy-ion collisions that have emerged from RHIC have elevated the importance of separating hot- and cold-nuclear-matter effects in quark-gluon plasma studies. This review systematically addresses all these matters and concludes by prioritizing directions for ongoing and future efforts.Comment: 182 pages, 112 figures. Editors: N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, B. K. Heltsley, R. Vogt. Section Coordinators: G. T. Bodwin, E. Eichten, A. D. Frawley, A. B. Meyer, R. E. Mitchell, V. Papadimitriou, P. Petreczky, A. A. Petrov, P. Robbe, A. Vair

Is American Public Administration Detached From Historical Context?: On the Nature of Time and the Need to Understand It in Government and Its Study

The study of public administration pays little attention to history. Most publications are focused on current problems (the present) and desired solutions (the future) and are concerned mainly with organizational structure (a substantive issue) and output targets (an aggregative issue that involves measures of both individual performance and organizational productivity/services). There is much less consideration of how public administration (i.e., organization, policy, the study, etc.) unfolds over time. History, and so administrative history, is regarded as a “past” that can be recorded for its own sake but has little relevance to contemporary challenges. This view of history is the product of a diminished and anemic sense of time, resulting from organizing the past as a series of events that inexorably lead up to the present in a linear fashion. To improve the understanding of government’s role and position in society, public administration scholarship needs to reacquaint itself with the nature of time.Yeshttps://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/manuscript-submission-guideline