Integration of identity and emotion information in faces: fMRI evidence.

Separate neural systems have been implicated in the recognition of facial identity and emotional expression. A growing number of studies now provide evidence against this modular view by demonstrating that integration of identity and emotion information enhances face processing. Yet, the neural mechanisms that shape this integration remain largely unknown. We hypothesize that the presence of both personal and emotional expression target information triggers changes in functional connectivity between frontal and extrastriate areas in the brain. We report and discuss three important findings. First, the presence of target identity and emotional expression in the same face was associated with super capacity and violations of the independent processing of identity and expression cues. Second, activity in the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) was associated with the presence of redundant targets and changes in functional connectivity between a particular region of the right OFC (BA11/47) and bilateral visual brain regions (the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG)). Third, these changes in connectivity showed a strong link to behavioural measures of capacity processing. We suggest that the changes in functional connectivity between the right OFC and IOG reduce variability of BOLD responses in the IOG, enhancing integration of identity and emotional expression cues in faces

HST/NICMOS Paschen-alpha Survey of the Galactic Center: Overview

We have recently carried out the first wide-field hydrogen Paschen-alpha line imaging survey of the Galactic Center (GC), using the NICMOS instrument aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. The survey maps out a region of 2253 pc^2 around the central supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) in the 1.87 and 1.90 Micron narrow bands with a spatial resolution of 0.01 pc at a distance of 8 kpc. Here we present an overview of the observations, data reduction, preliminary results, and potential scientific implications, as well as a description of the rationale and design of the survey. We have produced mosaic maps of the Paschen-alpha line and continuum emission, giving an unprecedentedly high resolution and high sensitivity panoramic view of stars and photo-ionized gas in the nuclear environment of the Galaxy. We detect a significant number of previously undetected stars with Paschen-alpha in emission. They are most likely massive stars with strong winds, as confirmed by our initial follow-up spectroscopic observations. About half of the newly detected massive stars are found outside the known clusters (Arches, Quintuplet, and Central). Many previously known diffuse thermal features are now resolved into arrays of intriguingly fine linear filaments indicating a profound role of magnetic fields in sculpting the gas. The bright spiral-like Paschen-alpha emission around Sgr A* is seen to be well confined within the known dusty torus. In the directions roughly perpendicular to it, we further detect faint, diffuse Paschen-alpha emission features, which, like earlier radio images, suggest an outflow from the structure. In addition, we detect various compact Paschen-alpha nebulae, probably tracing the accretion and/or ejection of stars at various evolutionary stages.Comment: accepted for publication in MNRAS; a version of higher resolution images may be found at http://www.astro.umass.edu/~wqd/papers/hst/paper1.pd

Adiabatic orientation of rotating dipole molecules in an external field

The induced polarization of a beam of polar clusters or molecules passing through an electric or magnetic field region differs from the textbook Langevin-Debye susceptibility. This distinction, which is important for the interpretation of deflection and focusing experiments, arises because instead of acquiring thermal equilibrium in the field region, the beam ensemble typically enters the field adiabatically, i.e., with a previously fixed distribution of rotational states. We discuss the orientation of rigid symmetric-top systems with a body-fixed electric or magnetic dipole moment. The analytical expression for their "adiabatic-entry" orientation is elucidated and compared with exact numerical results for a range of parameters. The differences between the polarization of thermodynamic and "adiabatic-entry" ensembles, of prolate and oblate tops, and of symmetric-top and linear rotators are illustrated and identified.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure

Intermediate to low-mass stellar content of Westerlund 1

We have analysed near-infrared NTT/SofI observations of the starburst cluster Westerlund 1, which is among the most massive young clusters in the Milky Way. A comparison of colour-magnitude diagrams with theoretical main-sequence and pre-main sequence evolutionary tracks yields improved extinction and distance estimates of A_Ks = 1.13+-0.03 mag and d = 3.55+-0.17 kpc (DM = 12.75+-0.10 mag). The pre-main sequence population is best fit by a Palla & Stahler isochrone for an age of 3.2 Myr, while the main sequence population is in agreement with a cluster age of 3 to 5 Myr. An analysis of the structural parameters of the cluster yields that the half-mass radius of the cluster population increases towards lower mass, indicative of the presence of mass segregation. The cluster is clearly elongated with an eccentricity of 0.20 for stars with masses between 10 and 32 Msun, and 0.15 for stars with masses in the range 3 to 10 Msun. We derive the slope of the stellar mass function for stars with masses between 3.4 and 27 Msun. In an annulus with radii between 0.75 and 1.5 pc from the cluster centre, we obtain a slope of Gamma = -1.3. Closer in, the mass function of Westerlund 1 is shallower with Gamma = -0.6. The extrapolation of the mass function for stars with masses from 0.08 to 120 Msun yields an initial total stellar mass of ~52,000 Msun, and a present-day mass of 20,000 to 45,000 Msun (about 10 times the stellar mass of the Orion Nebula Cluster, and 2 to 4 times the mass of the NGC 3603 young cluster), indicating that Westerlund 1 is the most massive starburst cluster identified to date in the Milky Way.Comment: 15 pages, jpg figures, uses aa.cls and graphicx, accepted for publication in A&

Direct determination of the sign of the NO dipole moment.

We report a novel approach for determining the sign of permanent dipole moments, using nitric oxide [NO(v=0)] as an example. State-selected NO (j=|m|=|Ω=1/2) molecules are focused using a hexapole and oriented in a strong dc electric field. The angular distributions of ionic fragments resulting from extreme ultraviolet single-photon and multiphoton dissociative ionization at 400 and 800 nm are measured and indicate that the dipole moment is negative (corresponding to N-O+). The experiments thus rule out an error in the sign of the dipole of NO as the possible source of a remarkable discrepancy between previous theoretical and experimental work on orientation effects in bimolecular collisions involving oriented NO. © 2007 The American Physical Society

Extreme Cosmic-Ray-Dominated-Regions: a new paradigm for high star formation density events in the Universe

We examine in detail the recent proposal that extreme Cosmic-Ray-Dominated-Regions (CRDRs) characterize the ISM of galaxies during events of high-density star formation, fundamentally altering its initial conditions (Papadopoulos 2010). Solving the coupled chemical and thermal state equations for dense UV-shielded gas reveals that the large cosmic ray energy densities in such systems (U_{CR} (few)x(10^3-10^4) U_{CR,Gal}) will indeed raise the minimum temperature of this phase (where the initial conditions of star formation are set) from ~10K (as in the Milky Way) to (50-100)K. Moreover in such extreme CRDRs the gas temperature remains fully decoupled from that of the dust, with T_{kin} >> T_{dust}, even at high densities (n(H_2)~10^5--10^6 cm^{-3}), quite unlike CRDRs in the Milky Way where T_k T_{dust} when n(H_2) >= 10^5 cm^{-3}. These dramatically different star formation initial conditions will: a) boost the Jeans mass of UV-shielded gas regions by factors of ~10--100 with respect to those in quiescent or less extreme star forming systems, and b) "erase" the so-called inflection point of the effective equation of state (EOS) of molecular gas. Both these effects occur across the entire density range of typical molecular clouds, and may represent {\it a new paradigm for all high-density star formation in the Universe}, with cosmic rays as the key driving mechanism, operating efficiently even in the high dust extinction environments of extreme starbursts...Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, accepted with minor modifications for publication in the MNRAS (the follow-up paper to Papadopoulos 2010, ApJ, 720, 226