494 research outputs found
Plato on Well-Being
Plato's dialogues use several terms for the concept of well-being, which concept plays a central ethical role as the ultimate goal for action and a central political role as the proper aim for states. But the dialogues also reveal sharp debate about what human well-being is. I argue that they endorse a Socratic conception of well-being as virtuous activity, by considering and rejecting several alternatives, including an ordinary conception that lists a variety of goods, a Protagorean conception that identifies one's well-being with what appears one to be one's well-being, and hedonistic conceptions
Theta and high-frequency activity mark spontaneous recall of episodic memories.
Humans possess the remarkable ability to search their memory, allowing specific past episodes to be re-experienced spontaneously. Here, we administered a free recall test to 114 neurosurgical patients and used intracranial theta and high-frequency activity (HFA) to identify the spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity underlying spontaneous episodic retrieval. We found that retrieval evolved in three electrophysiological stages composed of: (1) early theta oscillations in the right temporal cortex, (2) increased HFA in the left hemisphere including the medial temporal lobe (MTL), left inferior frontal gyrus, as well as the ventrolateral temporal cortex, and (3) motor/language activation during vocalization of the retrieved item. Of these responses, increased HFA in the left MTL predicted recall performance. These results suggest that spontaneous recall of verbal episodic memories involves a spatiotemporal pattern of spectral changes across the brain; however, high-frequency activity in the left MTL represents a final common pathway of episodic retrieval
Calibrating Convective properties of Solar-like Stars in the Kepler Field of View
Stellar models generally use simple parametrizations to treat convection. The
most widely used parametrization is the so-called "Mixing Length Theory" where
the convective eddy sizes are described using a single number, \alpha, the
mixing-length parameter. This is a free parameter, and the general practice is
to calibrate \alpha using the known properties of the Sun and apply that to all
stars. Using data from NASA's Kepler mission we show that using the
solar-calibrated \alpha is not always appropriate, and that in many cases it
would lead to estimates of initial helium abundances that are lower than the
primordial helium abundance. Kepler data allow us to calibrate \alpha for many
other stars and we show that for the sample of stars we have studied, the
mixing-length parameter is generally lower than the solar value. We studied the
correlation between \alpha and stellar properties, and we find that \alpha
increases with metallicity. We therefore conclude that results obtained by
fitting stellar models or by using population-synthesis models constructed with
solar values of \alpha are likely to have large systematic errors. Our results
also confirm theoretical expectations that the mixing-length parameter should
vary with stellar properties.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
The Changing Carbon Cycle in the Southern Ocean
Various human activities, including fossil fuel combustion and forest clearing, emit about eight petagrams (or billion tons) of carbon in the form of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. The global ocean absorbs about two petagrams of CO2, and about a half of that amount is absorbed by the Southern Ocean south of 30°S, thus slowing the rapid accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Partial pressure of CO2 (pCO2) is a measure of the chemical driving force for the CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. This paper discusses its space and time distribution over the Southern Ocean. The major sink zone for atmospheric CO2 is located in a latitude belt between 30°S and 50°S, where the biological utilization of CO2 and cooling of warm subtropical waters flowing southward produce low seawater pCO2. Strong winds in this zone also enhance the ocean's uptake. Although the source-sink conditions vary over a wide range through the seasons in the areas south of 50°S, this zone is a small sink on an annual average. Winter observations show that surface water pCO2 values in the source region for Antarctic Intermediate Water have increased at a rate faster than the atmospheric increase rate, suggesting that the ocean CO2 sink intensity has been weakening for several decades and has changed from a net sink to a net source since 2005. The results of ocean general circulation-biogeochemistry model studies are found to be consistent with the observations
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The changing carbon cycle in the Southern Ocean
Various human activities, including fossil fuel combustion and forest clearing, emit about eight petagrams (or billion tons) of carbon in the form of CO2 into the atmosphere annually. The global ocean absorbs about two petagrams of CO2, and about a half of that amount is absorbed by the Southern Ocean south of 30 S, thus slowing the rapid accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere. Partial pressure of CO, (pCO(2)) is a measure of the chemical driving force for the CO2 exchange between the ocean and the atmosphere. This paper discusses its space and time distribution over the Southern Ocean. The major sink zone for atmospheric CO2 is located in a latitude belt between 30 S and 50 S, where the biological utilization of CO2 and cooling of warm subtropical waters flowing southward produce low seawater pCO(2). Strong winds in this zone also enhance the ocean's uptake. Although the source-sink conditions vary over a wide range through the seasons in the areas south of 50 S, this zone is a small sink on an annual average. Winter observations show that surface water pCO(2) values in the source region for Antarctic Intermediate Water have increased at a rate faster than the atmospheric increase rate, suggesting that the ocean CO2 sink intensity has been weakening for several decades and has changed from a net sink to a net source since 2005. The results of ocean general circulation-biogeochemistry model studies are found to be consistent with the observations.This is the publisher’s final pdf. The published article is copyrighted by the Oceanography Society and can be found at: www.tos.org/.Keywords: Dioxide, exchange, Antarctic circumpolar current, Surface water
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler. VIII. A Fully Automated Catalog With Measured Completeness and Reliability Based on Data Release 25
We present the Kepler Object of Interest (KOI) catalog of transiting
exoplanets based on searching four years of Kepler time series photometry (Data
Release 25, Q1-Q17). The catalog contains 8054 KOIs of which 4034 are planet
candidates with periods between 0.25 and 632 days. Of these candidates, 219 are
new and include two in multi-planet systems (KOI-82.06 and KOI-2926.05), and
ten high-reliability, terrestrial-size, habitable zone candidates. This catalog
was created using a tool called the Robovetter which automatically vets the
DR25 Threshold Crossing Events (TCEs, Twicken et al. 2016). The Robovetter also
vetted simulated data sets and measured how well it was able to separate TCEs
caused by noise from those caused by low signal-to-noise transits. We discusses
the Robovetter and the metrics it uses to sort TCEs. For orbital periods less
than 100 days the Robovetter completeness (the fraction of simulated transits
that are determined to be planet candidates) across all observed stars is
greater than 85%. For the same period range, the catalog reliability (the
fraction of candidates that are not due to instrumental or stellar noise) is
greater than 98%. However, for low signal-to-noise candidates between 200 and
500 days around FGK dwarf stars, the Robovetter is 76.7% complete and the
catalog is 50.5% reliable. The KOI catalog, the transit fits and all of the
simulated data used to characterize this catalog are available at the NASA
Exoplanet Archive.Comment: 61 pages, 23 Figures, 9 Tables, Accepted to The Astrophysical Journal
Supplement Serie
Spongivory in the Wakatobi Marine National Park, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia
Sponges are functionally important coral reef fauna and there is strong evidence from the Caribbean that predation has important impacts on sponge-Assemblage dynamics; whether the same is true for Indo-Pacific sponges remains unknown. As a first step toward understanding the potential effects of spongivores on sponge diversity and abundance, we identified sponge predators at nine sites in Wakatobi Marine National Park, Indonesia, and conducted a short-Term caging experiment to examine the effects of excluding predators on noncryptic reef sponges at this location. Nudibranchs were the most abundant invertebrate spongivores, although their low densities are likely to limit their influence on sponges. Fish were the most abundant vertebrate spongivores with 16 species from six families observed feeding on sponges. Based on their abundance and our feeding observations, the fish with the greatest potential to influence sponge assemblages in Wakatobi Marine National Park were Zanclus cornutus, Chaetodon kleinii, Pygoplites diacanthus, and Pomacanthus sexstriatus. We did not detect an effect of excluding spongivores on noncryptic reef sponge abundance in our caging experiment, which may be due to these species having evolved chemical defenses against predators. Important areas for further research include the chemical ecology of Indo-Pacific sponges and whether spongivory currently restricts some species to cryptic or nonreef habitats
Planetary Candidates Observed by Kepler, III: Analysis of the First 16 Months of Data
New transiting planet candidates are identified in sixteen months (May 2009 -
September 2010) of data from the Kepler spacecraft. Nearly five thousand
periodic transit-like signals are vetted against astrophysical and instrumental
false positives yielding 1,091 viable new planet candidates, bringing the total
count up to over 2,300. Improved vetting metrics are employed, contributing to
higher catalog reliability. Most notable is the noise-weighted robust averaging
of multi-quarter photo-center offsets derived from difference image analysis
which identifies likely background eclipsing binaries. Twenty-two months of
photometry are used for the purpose of characterizing each of the new
candidates. Ephemerides (transit epoch, T_0, and orbital period, P) are
tabulated as well as the products of light curve modeling: reduced radius
(Rp/R*), reduced semi-major axis (d/R*), and impact parameter (b). The largest
fractional increases are seen for the smallest planet candidates (197% for
candidates smaller than 2Re compared to 52% for candidates larger than 2Re) and
those at longer orbital periods (123% for candidates outside of 50-day orbits
versus 85% for candidates inside of 50-day orbits). The gains are larger than
expected from increasing the observing window from thirteen months (Quarter 1--
Quarter 5) to sixteen months (Quarter 1 -- Quarter 6). This demonstrates the
benefit of continued development of pipeline analysis software. The fraction of
all host stars with multiple candidates has grown from 17% to 20%, and the
paucity of short-period giant planets in multiple systems is still evident. The
progression toward smaller planets at longer orbital periods with each new
catalog release suggests that Earth-size planets in the Habitable Zone are
forthcoming if, indeed, such planets are abundant.Comment: Submitted to ApJS. Machine-readable tables are available at
http://kepler.nasa.gov, http://archive.stsci.edu/kepler/results.html, and the
NASA Exoplanet Archiv
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