Visual attributes of subliminal priming images impact conscious perception of facial expressions

We investigated, in young healthy participants, how the affective content of subliminally presented priming images and their specific visual attributes impacted conscious perception of facial expressions. The priming images were broadly categorized as aggressive, pleasant, or neutral and further subcategorized by the presence of a face and by the centricity (egocentric or allocentric vantage-point) of the image content. Participants responded to the emotion portrayed in a pixelated target-face by indicating via key-press if the expression was angry or neutral. Response time to the neutral target face was significantly slower when preceded by face primes, compared to non-face primes (p < 0.05, Bonferroni corrected). In contrast, faster RTs were observed when angry target faces were preceded by face compared to non-face primes. In addition, participants’ performance was worse when a priming image contained an egocentric face compared to when it contained either an allocentric face or an egocentric non-face. The results suggest a significant impact of the visual features of the priming image on conscious perception of face expression.Published versio

Covariant Hamiltonian boundary term: Reference and quasi-local quantities

The Hamiltonian for dynamic geometry generates the evolution of a spatial region along a vector field. It includes a boundary term which determines both the value of the Hamiltonian and the boundary conditions. The value gives the quasi-local quantities: energy-momentum, angular-momentum and center-of-mass. The boundary term depends not only on the dynamical variables but also on their reference values; the latter determine the ground state (having vanishing quasi-local quantities). For our preferred boundary term for Einstein's GR we propose 4D isometric matching and extremizing the energy to determine the reference metric and connection values.Comment: 6 pages, contribution to the Proceedings of the Second LeCosPA Symposium "Everything about Gravity", Taipei, 14-18 Dec., 201

On Holographic Dual of the Dyonic Reissner-Nordstr\"om Black Hole

It is shown that the hidden conformal symmetry, namely $SO(2,2) \sim SL(2,R)_L \times SL(2,R)_R$ symmetry, of the non-extremal dyonic Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole can be probed by a charged massless scalar field at low frequencies. The existence of such hidden conformal symmetry suggests that the field theory holographically dual to the 4D Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole indeed should be a 2D CFT. Although the associated AdS$_3$ structure does not explicitly appear in the near horizon geometry, the primary parameters of the dual CFT$_2$ can be exactly obtained without the necessity of embedding the 4D Reissner-Nordstr\"om black hole into 5D spacetime. The duality is further supported by comparing the absorption cross sections and real-time correlators obtained from both the CFT and the gravity sides.Comment: 18 pages, no figure, typos correcte

Twofold Hidden Conformal Symmetries of the Kerr-Newman Black Hole

In this paper, we suggest that there are two different individual 2D CFTs holographically dual to the Kerr-Newman black hole, coming from the corresponding two possible limits --- the Kerr/CFT and Reissner-Nordstr\"om/CFT correspondences, namely there exist the Kerr-Newman/CFTs dualities. A probe scalar field at low frequencies turns out can exhibit two different 2D conformal symmetries (named by $J$- and $Q$-pictures, respectively) in its equation of motion when the associated parameters are suitably specified. These twofold dualities are supported by the matchings of entropies, absorption cross sections and real time correlators computed from both the gravity and the CFT sides. Our results lead to a fascinating "microscopic no hair conjecture" --- for each macroscopic hair parameter, in additional to the mass of a black hole in the Einstein-Maxwell theory, there should exist an associated holographic CFT$_2$ description.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure, typos correcte

A comparative study on the mineralogy, chemical speciation, and combustion behavior of toxic elements of coal beneficiation products

The huge demand for high-quality coal in China has resulted in increased generation of preparation plant wastes of various properties. A series of beneficiation products collected from a preparation plant were characterized to understand their petrographic and mineralogical characteristics, as well as thermochemical and trace element behavior during combustion. The minerals in the Luling preparation plant wastes from Huaibei coalfield mainly included kaolinite and quartz, with minor calcite, ankerite, pyrite, illite, chalcopyrite, albite, K-feldspar, anatase/rutile, and iron-oxide minerals. Massive clay lumps of terrigenous origin, cleat-infilling carbonate, and pyrite of epigenetic origin were prone to be enriched in the middlings and coal gangue. Minor or trace heavy minerals also reported to the preparation plant wastes. The contents of low-density density vitrinite and liptinite were enhanced in the clean coal, while inertinite-maceral group were enriched in the middlings. The modes of occurrences of toxic elements differed between raw coal and the waste products; and their transformation behavior during heavy medium separation is largely controlled by clay minerals (V, Cr, Co, Sb, and Pb), carbonate minerals (Co and Pb), sulfide minerals (As, Cu, Ni, Cd, and Zn) and organic matters (V, Cr, Se, and Cu). Three groups were classified based on the volatile ratio (Vr) of toxic elements. Group 1 includes the highly volatile element Se with Vr &gt; 85%; Group 2 contained elements As, Pb, Zn, Cd and Sb, with the Vr in the range of 20&ndash;85% and V, Cr, Co, Ni and Cu with Vr less than 20% were placed into Group 3. Thermal reactivity of coal inferred from the combustion profiles could be significantly improved after coal beneficiation, whereas the increased inorganic components probably inhibited the thermal chemical reaction of wastes.<br style="line-height: normal; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-size-adjust: auto;" /