Manipulating Memory Associations Changes Decision-making Preferences in a Preconditioning Task

Memories of past experiences can guide our decisions. Thus, if memories are undermined or distorted, decision making should be affected. Nevertheless, little empirical research has been done to examine the role of memory in reinforcement decision-making . We hypothesized that if memories guide choices in a conditioning decision-making task, then manipulating these memories would result in a change of decision preferences to gain reward. We manipulated participants’ memories by providing false feedback that their memory associations were wrong before they made decisions that could lead them to win money . Participants’ memory ratings decreased significantly after receiving false feedback. More importantly, we found that false feedback led participants’ decision bias to disappear after their memory associations were undermined . Our results suggest that reinforcement decision-making can be altered by fasle feedback on memories . The results are discussed using memory mechanisms such as spreading activation theories

Effect of relative humidity on fruit set and seed set in pepper (Capsicum annuum L.).

During 1976, plants of the sweet-pepper variety Verbeterde Glas [Improved Glass] were placed in growth rooms at 55, 80 or 95% relative humidity, at the onset of flowering. The flowers were artificially pollinated until flower drop, and the plants were moved to the glasshouse for the fruit-ripening period. Fruit set was not influenced by relative humidity, but seed set increased with increasing humidity. Time from pollination to harvest was significantly shorter at 95% relative humidity. (Abstract retrieved from CAB Abstracts by CABI’s permission

Master plan : Greenport Shanghai Agropark

Greenport Shanghai is the innovative and ambitious exploration of how Chinese metropolitan agriculture will jump into the 21st century: circular, sustainable and profitable

Estimate of halo ellipticity as a function of radius with flexions

The cold dark matter theory predicts triaxial dark matter haloes. The radial distribution of halo ellipticity depends on baryonic processes and the nature of dark matter particles (collisionless or collisional). Here we show that we can use lensing flexion ratios to measure the halo ellipticity as a function of radius. We introduce a weight function and study the relationship between the first and second order statistics of flexion ratios, both of which can be used to reduce the bias in the estimate of ellipticity. we perform numerical tests for our method, and demonstrate that it can reduce the bias and determine the halo ellipticity as a function of radius. We also point out that the minimum mean flexion ratio can be used to trace the centres of galaxy clusters.Comment: 9 pages,9 figures, MNRAS accepte

Similarities between digits’ movements in grasping, touching and pushing

In order to find out whether the movements of single digits are controlled in a special way when grasping, we compared the movements of the digits when grasping an object with their movements in comparable single-digit tasks: pushing or lightly tapping the same object at the same place. The movements of the digits in grasping were very similar to the movements in the single-digit tasks. To determine to what extent the hand transport and grip formation in grasping emerges from a synchronised motion of individual digits, we combined movements of finger and thumb in the single-digit tasks to obtain hypothetical transport and grip components. We found a larger peak grip aperture earlier in the movement for the single-digit tasks. The timing of peak grip aperture depended in the same way on its size for all tasks. Furthermore, the deviations from a straight line of the transport component differed considerably between subjects, but were remarkably similar across tasks. These results support the idea that grasping should be regarded as consisting of moving the digits, rather than transporting the hand and shaping the grip

Reflected Shock Tunnel Noise Measurement by Focused Differential Interferometry

A series of experiments is conducted where a quantitative non-intrusive optical technique is used to investigate disturbances in the free-stream of T5, the free-piston driven reflected shock tunnel at Caltech. The optical technique, focused laser differential interferometry (FLDI), measures fluctuations in density. In the test matrix, reservoir enthalpy is varied while the reservoir pressure is held fixed. The results show the perturbations in density are not a strong function of the reservoir enthalpy. During one experiment, exceptional levels of noise were detected; this unique result is attributed to non-ideal operation of the shock tunnel. The data indicate that rms density fluctuations of less than 0.75% are achievable with attention to tunnel cleanliness. In addition, the spectral content of density fluctuation does not change throughout the test time