12,486 research outputs found
Emotion word processing: does mood make a difference?
Visual emotion word processing has been in the focus of recent psycholinguistic research. In general, emotion words provoke differential responses in comparison to neutral words. However, words are typically processed within a context rather than in isolation. For instance, how does one's inner emotional state influence the comprehension of emotion words? To address this question, the current study examined lexical decision responses to emotionally positive, negative, and neutral words as a function of induced mood as well as their word frequency. Mood was manipulated by exposing participants to different types of music. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three conditions—no music, positive music, and negative music. Participants' moods were assessed during the experiment to confirm the mood induction manipulation. Reaction time results confirmed prior demonstrations of an interaction between a word's emotionality and its frequency. Results also showed a significant interaction between participant mood and word emotionality. However, the pattern of results was not consistent with mood-congruency effects. Although positive and negative mood facilitated responses overall in comparison to the control group, neither positive nor negative mood appeared to additionally facilitate responses to mood-congruent words. Instead, the pattern of findings seemed to be the consequence of attentional effects arising from induced mood. Positive mood broadens attention to a global level, eliminating the category distinction of positive-negative valence but leaving the high-low arousal dimension intact. In contrast, negative mood narrows attention to a local level, enhancing within-category distinctions, in particular, for negative words, resulting in less effective facilitation
A stigmergy-based analysis of city hotspots to discover trends and anomalies in urban transportation usage
A key aspect of a sustainable urban transportation system is the
effectiveness of transportation policies. To be effective, a policy has to
consider a broad range of elements, such as pollution emission, traffic flow,
and human mobility. Due to the complexity and variability of these elements in
the urban area, to produce effective policies remains a very challenging task.
With the introduction of the smart city paradigm, a widely available amount of
data can be generated in the urban spaces. Such data can be a fundamental
source of knowledge to improve policies because they can reflect the
sustainability issues underlying the city. In this context, we propose an
approach to exploit urban positioning data based on stigmergy, a bio-inspired
mechanism providing scalar and temporal aggregation of samples. By employing
stigmergy, samples in proximity with each other are aggregated into a
functional structure called trail. The trail summarizes relevant dynamics in
data and allows matching them, providing a measure of their similarity.
Moreover, this mechanism can be specialized to unfold specific dynamics.
Specifically, we identify high-density urban areas (i.e hotspots), analyze
their activity over time, and unfold anomalies. Moreover, by matching activity
patterns, a continuous measure of the dissimilarity with respect to the typical
activity pattern is provided. This measure can be used by policy makers to
evaluate the effect of policies and change them dynamically. As a case study,
we analyze taxi trip data gathered in Manhattan from 2013 to 2015.Comment: Preprin
Lithium abundances in globular cluster giants: NGC 6218 (M12) and NGC 5904 (M5)
Convergent lines of evidence suggest that globular clusters host multiple
stellar populations. It appears that they experience at least two episodes of
star formation whereby a fraction of first-generation stars contribute astrated
ejecta to form the second generation(s). To identify the polluting progenitors
we require distinguishing chemical signatures such as that provided by lithium.
Theoretical models predict that lithium can be synthesised in AGB stars,
whereas no net Li production is expected from other candidates. It has been
shown that in order to reproduce the abundance pattern found in M4, Li
production must occur within the polluters, favouring the AGB scenario. Here we
present Li and Al abundances for a large sample of RGB stars in M12 and M5.
These clusters have a very similar metallicity, whilst demonstrating
differences in several cluster properties. Our results indicate that the
first-generation and second-generation stars share the same Li content in M12;
we recover an abundance pattern similar to that observed in M4. In M5 we find a
higher degree of complexity and a simple dilution model fails in reproducing
the majority of the stellar population. In both clusters we require Li
production across the different stellar generations, but production seems to
have occurred to different extents. We suggest that such a difference might be
related to the cluster mass with the Li production being more efficient in
less-massive clusters. This is the first time a statistically significant
correlation between the Li spread within a GC and its luminosity has been
demonstrated. Finally, although Li-producing polluters are required to account
for the observed pattern, other mechanisms, such as MS depletion, might have
played a role in contributing to the Li internal variation, though at
relatively low level.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal. 15 pages, 14
figure
Stigmergy-based modeling to discover urban activity patterns from positioning data
Positioning data offer a remarkable source of information to analyze crowds
urban dynamics. However, discovering urban activity patterns from the emergent
behavior of crowds involves complex system modeling. An alternative approach is
to adopt computational techniques belonging to the emergent paradigm, which
enables self-organization of data and allows adaptive analysis. Specifically,
our approach is based on stigmergy. By using stigmergy each sample position is
associated with a digital pheromone deposit, which progressively evaporates and
aggregates with other deposits according to their spatiotemporal proximity.
Based on this principle, we exploit positioning data to identify high density
areas (hotspots) and characterize their activity over time. This
characterization allows the comparison of dynamics occurring in different days,
providing a similarity measure exploitable by clustering techniques. Thus, we
cluster days according to their activity behavior, discovering unexpected urban
activity patterns. As a case study, we analyze taxi traces in New York City
during 2015
Dual Band Electrodes in Generator-Collector Mode: Simultaneous Measurement of Two Species
A computational model for the simulation of a double band collector-generator
experiment is applied to the situation where two electrochemical reactions
occur concurrently. It is shown that chronoamperometric measurements can be
used to take advantage of differences in diffusion coefficients to measure the
concentrations of both electroactive species simultaneously, by measuring the
time at which the collection efficiency reaches a specific value. The
separation of the electrodes is shown to not affect the sensitivity of the
method (in terms of percentage changes in the measured time to reach the
specified collection efficiency), but wider gaps can provide a greater range of
(larger) absolute values of this characteristic time. It is also shown that
measuring the time taken to reach smaller collection efficiencies can allow for
the detection of smaller amounts of whichever species diffuses faster. The case
of a system containing both ascorbic acid and opamine in water is used to
exemplify the method, and it is shown that mole fractions of ascorbic acid
between 0.055 and 0.96 can, in principle, be accurately measured.Comment: 34 pages, 8 figure
One-pot near-ambient temperature syntheses of aryl(difluoroenol) derivatives from trifluoroethanol
Difluoroalkenylzinc reagents prepared from 1-(2’-methoxy-ethoxymethoxy)-2,2,2-trifluoroethane and 1-(N,N-diethylcarbamoyloxy)-2,2,2-trifluoroethane at ice bath temperatures, underwent Negishi coupling with a range of aryl halides in a convenient one pot procedure. While significant differences between the enol acetal and carbamate reagents were revealed, the Negishi protocol compared very favourably with alternative coupling procedures in terms of overall yields from trifluoroethanol
On the serendipitous discovery of a Li-rich giant in the globular cluster NGC 362
We have serendipitously identified the first lithium-rich giant star located
close to the red giant branch bump in a globular cluster. Through
intermediate-resolution FLAMES spectra we derived a lithium abundance of
A(Li)=2.55 (assuming local thermodynamical equilibrium), which is extremely
high considering the star's evolutionary stage. Kinematic and photometric
analysis confirm the object as a member of the globular cluster NGC 362. This
is the fourth Li-rich giant discovered in a globular cluster but the only one
known to exist at a luminosity close to the bump magnitude. The three previous
detections are clearly more evolved, located close to, or beyond the tip of
their red giant branch. Our observations are able to discard the accretion of
planets/brown dwarfs, as well as an enhanced mass-loss mechanism as a formation
channel for this rare object. Whilst the star sits just above the cluster bump
luminosity, its temperature places it towards the blue side of the giant branch
in the colour-magnitude diagram. We require further dedicated observations to
unambiguously identify the star as a red giant: we are currently unable to
confirm whether Li production has occurred at the bump of the luminosity
function or if the star is on the pre zero-age horizontal branch. The latter
scenario provides the opportunity for the star to have synthesised Li rapidly
during the core helium flash or gradually during its red giant branch ascent
via some extra mixing process.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letter
Observational evidence for a different IMF in the early Galaxy
The unexpected high incidence of carbon-enhanced, s-process enriched
unevolved stars amongst extremely metal-poor stars in the halo provides a
significant constraint on the Initial Mass Function (IMF) in the early Galaxy.
We argue that these objects are evidence for the past existence of a large
population of intermediate-mass stars, and conclude that the IMF in the early
Galaxy was different from the present, and shifted toward higher masses.Comment: 14 pages, 1 color figure, accepted for publication on Ap
Phase retrieval by hyperplanes
We show that a scalable frame does phase retrieval if and only if the
hyperplanes of its orthogonal complements do phase retrieval. We then show this
result fails in general by giving an example of a frame for which
does phase retrieval but its induced hyperplanes fail phase retrieval.
Moreover, we show that such frames always exist in for any
dimension . We also give an example of a frame in which fails
phase retrieval but its perps do phase retrieval. We will also see that a
family of hyperplanes doing phase retrieval in must contain at
least hyperplanes. Finally, we provide an example of six hyperplanes in
which do phase retrieval
Carbon and Strontium Abundances of Metal-Poor Stars
We present carbon and strontium abundances for 100 metal-poor stars measured
from R7000 spectra obtained with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager
at the Keck Observatory. Using spectral synthesis of the G-band region, we have
derived carbon abundances for stars ranging from [Fe/H] to
[Fe/H]. The formal errors are dex in [C/Fe]. The strontium
abundance in these stars was measured using spectral synthesis of the resonance
line at 4215 {\AA}. Using these two abundance measurments along with the barium
abundances from our previous study of these stars, we show it is possible to
identify neutron-capture-rich stars with our spectra. We find, as in other
studies, a large scatter in [C/Fe] below [Fe/H]. Of the stars with
[Fe/H], 94% can be classified as carbon-rich metal-poor stars. The Sr
and Ba abundances show that three of the carbon-rich stars are
neutron-capture-rich, while two have normal Ba and Sr. This fraction of carbon
enhanced stars is consistent with other studies that include this metallicity
range.Comment: ApJ, Accepte
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