1,580 research outputs found
Body Fat is Associated with Decreased Endocrine and Cognitive Resilience to Acute Emotional Stress
*Objective:* Cortisol is elevated both in individuals with increased emotional stress as well as with higher percentages of body fat. Cortisol is also known to affect cognitive performance, particularly spatial processing, selective attention, and working memory. We hypothesized that increased body fat might therefore be associated with decreased performance on a spatial processing task, in response to an acute real-world stressor. 

*Design:* We tested two separate samples of subjects undergoing their first (tandem) skydive. In the first sample (N=78), subjects were tested for salivary cortisol and state-anxiety (Spielberger State Anxiety Scale) during the plane's fifteen-minute ascent to altitude in immediate anticipation of the jump. In a second sample (N=20), subjects were tested for salivary cortisol, as well as cardiac variables (heart rate, autonomic regulation via heart rate variability) and performance on a cognitive task of spatial processing, selective attention, and working memory. 

*Results:* In response to the skydive, individuals with greater body fat percentages showed significantly increased reactivity for both cortisol (on both samples) and cognition, including decreased accuracy of our task of spatial processing, selective attention, and working memory. These cognitive effects were restricted to the stress response and were not found under baseline conditions. There were no body fat interactions with cardiac changes in response to the stressor, suggesting that the cognitive effects were specifically hormone-mediated rather than secondary to general activation of the autonomic nervous system. 

*Conclusions:* Our results indicate that, under real-world stress, increased body fat may be associated with endocrine stress-vulnerability, with consequences for deleterious cognitive performance
Water at an electrochemical interface - a simulation study
The results of molecular dynamics simulations of the properties of water in
an aqueous ionic solution close to an interface with a model metallic electrode
are described. In the simulations the electrode behaves as an ideally
polarizable hydrophilic metal, supporting image charge interactions with
charged species, and it is maintained at a constant electrical potential with
respect to the solution so that the model is a textbook representation of an
electrochemical interface through which no current is passing. We show how
water is strongly attracted to and ordered at the electrode surface. This
ordering is different to the structure that might be imagined from continuum
models of electrode interfaces. Further, this ordering significantly affects
the probability of ions reaching the surface. We describe the concomitant
motion and configurations of the water and ions as functions of the electrode
potential, and we analyze the length scales over which ionic atmospheres
fluctuate. The statistics of these fluctuations depend upon surface structure
and ionic strength. The fluctuations are large, sufficiently so that the mean
ionic atmosphere is a poor descriptor of the aqueous environment near a metal
surface. The importance of this finding for a description of electrochemical
reactions is examined by calculating, directly from the simulation, Marcus free
energy profiles for transfer of charge between the electrode and a redox
species in the solution and comparing the results with the predictions of
continuum theories. Significant departures from the electrochemical textbook
descriptions of the phenomenon are found and their physical origins are
characterized from the atomistic perspective of the simulations.Comment: 29 pages, 15 figure
Factors Influencing Physical Risk Taking in Rock Climbing
This study was designed to investigate factors influencing physical risk taking in the sport of rock climbing. Specifically, the relationships between physical risk taking, sensation seeking, spheres of control, and desirability of control were examined. One hundred five rock climbers from the United States completed a series of surveys measuring each of the above-mentioned psychological variables. As predicted, physical risk taking demonstrated significant positive relationships to both total sensation seeking and thrill/adventure seeking (TAS). The expected relationships between physical risk taking, personal control and desirability of control were not supported. As hypothesized, no substantive patterns were revealed between physical risk taking and interpersonal control or sociopolitical control. Finally, comparisons between high and low physical risk taking rock climbers revealed significant group differences for total sensation seeking, TAS, and disinhibition. The identification of predictors of physical risk taking is a key step toward identifying individuals likely to engage in high physical risk behavior, and under what circumstances they are likely to do so
On the Phenomenology of Hydrodynamic Shear Turbulence
The question of a purely hydrodynamic origin of turbulence in accretion disks
is reexamined, on the basis of a large body of experimental and numerical
evidence on various subcritical (i.e., linearly stable) hydrodynamic flows.
One of the main points of this paper is that the length scale and velocity
fluctuation amplitude which are characteristic of turbulent transport in these
flows scale like , where is the minimal Reynolds number for
the onset of fully developed turbulence. From this scaling, a simple
explanation of the dependence of with relative gap width in subcritical
Couette-Taylor flows is developed. It is also argued that flows in the shearing
sheet limit should be turbulent, and that the lack of turbulence in all such
simulations performed to date is most likely due to a lack of resolution, as a
consequence of the effect of the Coriolis force on the large scale fluctuations
of turbulent flows.
These results imply that accretion flows should be turbulent through
hydrodynamic processes. If this is the case, the Shakura-Sunyaev
parameter is constrained to lie in the range in accretion
disks, depending on unknown features of the mechanism which sustains
turbulence. Whether the hydrodynamic source of turbulence is more efficient
than the MHD one where present is an open question.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Ap
A network-based ranking system for American college football
American college football faces a conflict created by the desire to stage
national championship games between the best teams of a season when there is no
conventional playoff system to decide which those teams are. Instead, ranking
of teams is based on their record of wins and losses during the season, but
each team plays only a small fraction of eligible opponents, making the system
underdetermined or contradictory or both. It is an interesting challenge to
create a ranking system that at once is mathematically well-founded, gives
results in general accord with received wisdom concerning the relative
strengths of the teams, and is based upon intuitive principles, allowing it to
be accepted readily by fans and experts alike. Here we introduce a
one-parameter ranking method that satisfies all of these requirements and is
based on a network representation of college football schedules.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure
'The difference in determinants of Chlamydia trachomatis and Mycoplasma genitalium in a sample of young Australian women.'
BACKGROUND Differences in the determinants of Chlamydia trachomatis ('chlamydia') and Mycoplasma genitalium (MG) genital infection in women are not well understood. METHODS A cohort study of 16 to 25 year old Australian women recruited from primary health care clinics, aimed to determine chlamydia and MG prevalence and incidence. Vaginal swabs collected at recruitment were used to measure chlamydia and MG prevalence, organism-load and chlamydia-serovar a cross-sectional analysis undertaken on the baseline results is presented here. RESULTS Of 1116 participants, chlamydia prevalence was 4.9% (95% CI: 2.9, 7.0) (n = 55) and MG prevalence was 2.4% (95% CI: 1.5, 3.3) (n = 27). Differences in the determinants were found - chlamydia not MG, was associated with younger age [AOR:0.9 (95% CI: 0.8, 1.0)] and recent antibiotic use [AOR:0.4 (95% CI: 0.2, 1.0)], and MG not chlamydia was associated with symptoms [AOR:2.1 (95% CI: 1.1, 4.0)]. Having two or more partners in last 12 months was more strongly associated with chlamydia [AOR:6.4 (95% CI: 3.6, 11.3)] than MG [AOR:2.2 (95% CI: 1.0, 4.6)] but unprotected sex with three or more partners was less strongly associated with chlamydia [AOR:3.1 (95%CI: 1.0, 9.5)] than MG [AOR:16.6 (95%CI: 2.0, 138.0)]. Median organism load for MG was 100 times lower (5.7 Ă 104/swab) than chlamydia (5.6 Ă 10â¶/swab) (p < 0.01) and not associated with age or symptoms for chlamydia or MG. CONCLUSIONS These results demonstrate significant chlamydia and MG prevalence in Australian women, and suggest that the differences in strengths of association between numbers of sexual partners and unprotected sex and chlamydia and MG might be due to differences in the transmission dynamics between these infections.This project was funded by the Commonwealth of Australia, as part of a National Chlamydia Pilot program that is currently running to test the effectiveness of a number of models for chlamydia testing in Australia. This project will assist in developing possible recommendations for a National Chlamydia Program. The analysis of MG was funded by the National Health and Research Council (research grant number 509144)
Virasoro operators in the continuous basis of string field theory
In this work we derive two important tools for working in the \kappa basis of
string field theory. First we give an analytical expression for the finite part
of the spectral density \rho_{fin}. This expression is relevant when both
matter and ghost sectors are considered. Then we calculate the form of the
matter part of the Virasoro generators L_n in the \kappa basis, which construct
string field theory's derivation Q_{BRST}. We find that the Virasoro generators
are given by one dimensional delta functions with complex arguments.Comment: 16 page
Effects of Fermi energy, dot size and leads width on weak localization in chaotic quantum dots
Magnetotransport in chaotic quantum dots at low magnetic fields is
investigated by means of a tight binding Hamiltonian on L x L clusters of the
square lattice. Chaoticity is induced by introducing L bulk vacancies. The
dependence of weak localization on the Fermi energy, dot size and leads width
is investigated in detail and the results compared with those of previous
analyses, in particular with random matrix theory predictions. Our results
indicate that the dependence of the critical flux Phi_c on the square root of
the number of open modes, as predicted by random matrix theory, is obscured by
the strong energy dependence of the proportionality constant. Instead, the size
dependence of the critical flux predicted by Efetov and random matrix theory,
namely, Phi_c ~ sqrt{1/L}, is clearly illustrated by the present results. Our
numerical results do also show that the weak localization term significantly
decreases as the leads width W approaches L. However, calculations for W=L
indicate that the weak localization effect does not disappear as L increases.Comment: RevTeX, 8 postscript figures include
Triplet-Singlet Spin Relaxation via Nuclei in a Double Quantum Dot
The spin of a confined electron, when oriented originally in some direction,
will lose memory of that orientation after some time. Physical mechanisms
leading to this relaxation of spin memory typically involve either coupling of
the electron spin to its orbital motion or to nuclear spins. Relaxation of
confined electron spin has been previously measured only for Zeeman or exchange
split spin states, where spin-orbit effects dominate relaxation, while spin
flips due to nuclei have been observed in optical spectroscopy studies. Using
an isolated GaAs double quantum dot defined by electrostatic gates and direct
time domain measurements, we investigate in detail spin relaxation for
arbitrary splitting of spin states. Results demonstrate that electron spin
flips are dominated by nuclear interactions and are slowed by several orders of
magnitude when a magnetic field of a few millitesla is applied. These results
have significant implications for spin-based information processing
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