206 research outputs found
fMRI evidence of ‘mirror’ responses to geometric shapes
Mirror neurons may be a genetic adaptation for social interaction [1]. Alternatively, the associative hypothesis [2], [3] proposes that the development of mirror neurons is driven by sensorimotor learning, and that, given suitable experience, mirror neurons will respond to any stimulus. This hypothesis was tested using fMRI adaptation to index populations of cells with mirror properties. After sensorimotor training, where geometric shapes were paired with hand actions, BOLD response was measured while human participants experienced runs of events in which shape observation alternated with action execution or observation. Adaptation from shapes to action execution, and critically, observation, occurred in ventral premotor cortex (PMv) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL). Adaptation from shapes to execution indicates that neuronal populations responding to the shapes had motor properties, while adaptation to observation demonstrates that these populations had mirror properties. These results indicate that sensorimotor training induced populations of cells with mirror properties in PMv and IPL to respond to the observation of arbitrary shapes. They suggest that the mirror system has not been shaped by evolution to respond in a mirror fashion to biological actions; instead, its development is mediated by stimulus-general processes of learning within a system adapted for visuomotor control
Ice supersaturations exceeding 100% at the cold tropical tropopause: implications for cirrus formation and dehydration
International audienceRecent in situ measurements at tropical tropopause temperatures as low as 187 K indicate supersaturations with respect to ice exceeding 100% with little or no ice present. In contrast, models used to simulate cloud formation near the tropopause assume a supersaturation threshold for ice nucleation of about 65% based on laboratory measurements of sulfate aerosol freezing. The high supersaturations reported here, along with cloud simulations assuming a plausible range of temperature histories in the sampled air mass, indicate that the vast majority of aerosols in the air sampled on this flight must have had supersaturation thresholds for ice nucleation exceeding 100% (i.e. near liquid water saturation at these temperatures). Possible explanations for this high threshold are that (1) the expressions used for calculating vapor pressure over supercooled water at low temperatures give values at least 20% too low, (2) most of the available aerosols had a composition that makes them much more resistant to ice nucleation than aerosols used in laboratory experiments, and (3) organic films on the aerosol surfaces reduce their accommodation coefficient for uptake of water, resulting in aerosols with more concentrated solutions when moderate-rapid cooling occurs and correspondingly inhibited homogeneous freezing. Simulations of in situ cloud formation in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) throughout the tropics indicate that if these decreased accommodation coefficients and resulting high thresholds for ice nucleation prevailed throughout the tropics, then the calculated occurrence frequency and areal coverage of TTL cirrus would be significantly suppressed. However, the simulations also show that even if in situ TTL cirrus form only over a very small fraction of the tropics in the western Pacific, enough air passes through them due to rapid horizontal transport such that they can still effectively freeze-dry air entering the stratosphere
Punctuated bursts in human male demography inferred from 1,244 worldwide Y-chromosome sequences
We report the sequences of 1,244 human Y chromosomes randomly ascertained from 26 worldwide populations by the 1000 Genomes Project. We discovered more than 65,000 variants, including single-nucleotide variants, multiple-nucleotide variants, insertions and deletions, short tandem repeats, and copy number variants. Of these, copy number variants contribute the greatest predicted functional impact. We constructed a calibrated phylogenetic tree on the basis of binary single-nucleotide variants and projected the more complex variants onto it, estimating the number of mutations for each class. Our phylogeny shows bursts of extreme expansion in male numbers that have occurred independently among each of the five continental superpopulations examined, at times of known migrations and technological innovations
Ice supersaturations exceeding 100% at the cold tropical tropopause: implications for cirrus formation and dehydration
International audienceRecent in situ measurements at tropical tropopause temperatures as low as 187 K indicate supersaturations with respect to ice exceeding 100% with little or no ice present. In contrast, models used to simulate cloud formation near the tropopause assume a supersaturation threshold for ice nucleation of about 65% based on laboratory measurements of aqueous aerosol freezing. The high supersaturations reported here, along with cloud simulations assuming a plausible range of temperature histories in the sampled air mass, indicate that the vast majority of aerosols in the air sampled on this flight must have had supersaturation thresholds for ice nucleation exceeding 100% (i.e. near liquid water saturation at these temperatures). Possible explanations for this high threshold are that (1) the expressions used for calculating vapor pressure over supercooled water at low temperatures give values are at least 20% too low, (2) organic films on the aerosol surfaces reduce their accommodation coefficient for uptake of water, resulting in aerosols with more concentrated solutions when moderate-rapid cooling occurs and correspondingly inhibited homogeneous freezing, and (3) if surface freezing dominates, organic coatings may increase the surface energy of the ice embryo/vapor interface resulting in suppressed ice nucleation. Simulations of in situ cloud formation in the tropical tropopause layer (TTL) throughout the tropics indicate that if decreased accommodation coefficients and resulting high thresholds for ice nucleation prevailed throughout the tropics, then the calculated occurrence frequency and areal coverage of TTL cirrus would be significantly suppressed. However, the simulations also show that even if in situ TTL cirrus form only over a very small fraction of the tropics in the western Pacific, enough air passes through them due to rapid horizontal transport such that they can still effectively freeze-dry air entering the stratosphere. The TTL cirrus simulations show that even if very large supersaturations are required for ice nucleation, these large supersaturations should occur very rarely
The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) Spectrographs
We describe the design and performance of the near-infrared (1.51--1.70
micron), fiber-fed, multi-object (300 fibers), high resolution (R =
lambda/delta lambda ~ 22,500) spectrograph built for the Apache Point
Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE). APOGEE is a survey of ~
10^5 red giant stars that systematically sampled all Milky Way populations
(bulge, disk, and halo) to study the Galaxy's chemical and kinematical history.
It was part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) from 2011 -- 2014
using the 2.5 m Sloan Foundation Telescope at Apache Point Observatory, New
Mexico. The APOGEE-2 survey is now using the spectrograph as part of SDSS-IV,
as well as a second spectrograph, a close copy of the first, operating at the
2.5 m du Pont Telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. Although several
fiber-fed, multi-object, high resolution spectrographs have been built for
visual wavelength spectroscopy, the APOGEE spectrograph is one of the first
such instruments built for observations in the near-infrared. The instrument's
successful development was enabled by several key innovations, including a
"gang connector" to allow simultaneous connections of 300 fibers; hermetically
sealed feedthroughs to allow fibers to pass through the cryostat wall
continuously; the first cryogenically deployed mosaic volume phase holographic
grating; and a large refractive camera that includes mono-crystalline silicon
and fused silica elements with diameters as large as ~ 400 mm. This paper
contains a comprehensive description of all aspects of the instrument including
the fiber system, optics and opto-mechanics, detector arrays, mechanics and
cryogenics, instrument control, calibration system, optical performance and
stability, lessons learned, and design changes for the second instrument.Comment: 81 pages, 67 figures, PASP, accepte
A habituation account of change detection in same/different judgments
We investigated the basis of change detection in a short-term priming task. In two experiments, participants were asked to indicate whether or not a target word was the same as a previously presented cue. Data from an experiment measuring magnetoencephalography failed to find different patterns for “same” and “different” responses, consistent with the claim that both arise from a common neural source, with response magnitude defining the difference between immediate novelty versus familiarity. In a behavioral experiment, we tested and confirmed the predictions of a habituation account of these judgments by comparing conditions in which the target, the cue, or neither was primed by its presentation in the previous trial. As predicted, cue-primed trials had faster response times, and target-primed trials had slower response times relative to the neither-primed baseline. These results were obtained irrespective of response repetition and stimulus–response contingencies. The behavioral and brain activity data support the view that detection of change drives performance in these tasks and that the underlying mechanism is neuronal habituation
Permafrost nitrous oxide emissions observed on a landscape scale using the airborne eddy-covariance method
The microbial by-product nitrous oxide (N2O), a potent greenhouse gas and ozone
depleting substance, has conventionally been assumed to have minimal
emissions in permafrost regions. This assumption has been questioned by
recent in situ studies which have demonstrated that some geologic features in
permafrost may, in fact, have elevated emissions comparable to those of
tropical soils. However, these recent studies, along with every known in situ
study focused on permafrost N2O fluxes, have used chambers to examine
small areas (<50 m2). In late August 2013, we used the airborne
eddy-covariance technique to make in situ N2O flux measurements over
the North Slope of Alaska from a low-flying aircraft spanning a much larger
area: around 310 km2. We observed large variability of N2O
fluxes with many areas exhibiting negligible emissions. Still, the daily mean
averaged over our flight campaign was 3.8
(2.2–4.7) mg N2O m−2 d−1 with the 90 % confidence
interval shown in parentheses. If these measurements are representative of
the whole month, then the permafrost areas we observed emitted a total of
around 0.04–0.09 g m−2 for August, which is comparable to what is
typically assumed to be the upper limit of yearly emissions for these
regions.</p
The Ninth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Spectroscopic Data from the SDSS-III Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey III (SDSS-III) presents the first spectroscopic
data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). This ninth data
release (DR9) of the SDSS project includes 535,995 new galaxy spectra (median
z=0.52), 102,100 new quasar spectra (median z=2.32), and 90,897 new stellar
spectra, along with the data presented in previous data releases. These spectra
were obtained with the new BOSS spectrograph and were taken between 2009
December and 2011 July. In addition, the stellar parameters pipeline, which
determines radial velocities, surface temperatures, surface gravities, and
metallicities of stars, has been updated and refined with improvements in
temperature estimates for stars with T_eff<5000 K and in metallicity estimates
for stars with [Fe/H]>-0.5. DR9 includes new stellar parameters for all stars
presented in DR8, including stars from SDSS-I and II, as well as those observed
as part of the SDSS-III Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Exploration-2 (SEGUE-2).
The astrometry error introduced in the DR8 imaging catalogs has been
corrected in the DR9 data products. The next data release for SDSS-III will be
in Summer 2013, which will present the first data from the Apache Point
Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment (APOGEE) along with another year of
data from BOSS, followed by the final SDSS-III data release in December 2014.Comment: 9 figures; 2 tables. Submitted to ApJS. DR9 is available at
http://www.sdss3.org/dr
The Eighth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: First Data from SDSS-III
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) started a new phase in August 2008, with
new instrumentation and new surveys focused on Galactic structure and chemical
evolution, measurements of the baryon oscillation feature in the clustering of
galaxies and the quasar Ly alpha forest, and a radial velocity search for
planets around ~8000 stars. This paper describes the first data release of
SDSS-III (and the eighth counting from the beginning of the SDSS). The release
includes five-band imaging of roughly 5200 deg^2 in the Southern Galactic Cap,
bringing the total footprint of the SDSS imaging to 14,555 deg^2, or over a
third of the Celestial Sphere. All the imaging data have been reprocessed with
an improved sky-subtraction algorithm and a final, self-consistent photometric
recalibration and flat-field determination. This release also includes all data
from the second phase of the Sloan Extension for Galactic Understanding and
Evolution (SEGUE-2), consisting of spectroscopy of approximately 118,000 stars
at both high and low Galactic latitudes. All the more than half a million
stellar spectra obtained with the SDSS spectrograph have been reprocessed
through an improved stellar parameters pipeline, which has better determination
of metallicity for high metallicity stars.Comment: Astrophysical Journal Supplements, in press (minor updates from
submitted version
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