Thermal conductivity and dielectric constant of silicate materials

Report on the thermal conductivity and dielectric constant of nonmetallic materials evaluates the mechanisms of heat transfer in evacuated silicate powders and establishes the complex dielectric constant of these materials. Experimental measurements and results are related to postulated lunar surface materials

Do sleep difficulties exacerbate deficits in sustained attention following traumatic brain injury?

Sustained attention has been shown to be vulnerable following traumatic brain injury (TBI). Sleep restriction and disturbances have been shown to negatively affect sustained attention. Sleep disorders are common but under-diagnosed after TBI. Thus, it seems possible that sleep disturbances may exacerbate neuropsychological deficits for a proportion of individuals who have sustained a TBI. The aim of this prospective study was to examine whether poor sleepers post-TBI had poorer sustained and general attentional functioning than good sleepers post-TBI. Retrospective subjective, prospective subjective, and objective measures were used to assess participants’ sleep. The results showed that the poor sleep group had significantly poorer sustained attention ability than the good sleep group. The differences on other measures of attention were not significant. This study supports the use of measures that capture specific components of attention rather than global measures of attention, and highlights the importance of assessing and treating sleep problems in brain injury rehabilitation

Thermal conductivity and dielectric constant of silicate materials, 1 April 1965 - 31 August 1966

Heat transfer, and dielectric constants measurements in evacuated silicate powder

'The risks of playing it safe': a prospective longitudinal study of response to reward in the adolescent offspring of depressed parents

BACKGROUND Alterations in reward processing may represent an early vulnerability factor for the development of depressive disorder. Depression in adults is associated with reward hyposensitivity and diminished reward seeking may also be a feature of depression in children and adolescents. We examined the role of reward responding in predicting depressive symptoms, functional impairment and new-onset depressive disorder over time in the adolescent offspring of depressed parents. In addition, we examined group differences in reward responding between currently depressed adolescents, psychiatric and healthy controls, and also cross-sectional associations between reward responding and measures of positive social/environmental functioning. Method We conducted a 1-year longitudinal study of adolescents at familial risk for depression (n = 197; age range 10-18 years). Reward responding and self-reported social/environmental functioning were assessed at baseline. Clinical interviews determined diagnostic status at baseline and at follow-up. Reports of depressive symptoms and functional impairment were also obtained. RESULTS Low reward seeking predicted depressive symptoms and new-onset depressive disorder at the 1-year follow-up in individuals free from depressive disorder at baseline, independently of baseline depressive symptoms. Reduced reward seeking also predicted functional impairment. Adolescents with current depressive disorder were less reward seeking (i.e. bet less at favourable odds) than adolescents free from psychopathology and those with externalizing disorders. Reward seeking showed positive associations with social and environmental functioning (extra-curricular activities, humour, friendships) and was negatively associated with anhedonia. There were no group differences in impulsivity, decision making or psychomotor slowing. CONCLUSIONS Reward seeking predicts depression severity and onset in adolescents at elevated risk of depression. Adaptive reward responses may be amenable to change through modification of existing preventive psychological interventions

Abnormal negative feedback processing in first episode schizophrenia: evidence from an oculomotor rule switching task

Background. Previous studies have shown that patients with schizophrenia are impaired on executive tasks, where positive and negative feedbacks are used to update task rules or switch attention. However, research to date using saccadic tasks has not revealed clear deficits in task switching in these patients. The present study used an oculomotor ‘ rule switching ’ task to investigate the use of negative feedback when switching between task rules in people with schizophrenia. Method. A total of 50 patients with first episode schizophrenia and 25 healthy controls performed a task in which the association between a centrally presented visual cue and the direction of a saccade could change from trial to trial. Rule changes were heralded by an unexpected negative feedback, indicating that the cue-response mapping had reversed. Results. Schizophrenia patients were found to make increased errors following a rule switch, but these were almost entirely the result of executing saccades away from the location at which the negative feedback had been presented on the preceding trial. This impairment in negative feedback processing was independent of IQ. Conclusions. The results not only confirm the existence of a basic deficit in stimulus–response rule switching in schizophrenia, but also suggest that this arises from aberrant processing of response outcomes, resulting in a failure to appropriately update rules. The findings are discussed in the context of neurological and pharmacological abnormalities in the conditions that may disrupt prediction error signalling in schizophrenia

Reionization Histories of Milky Way Mass Halos

We investigate the connection between the epoch of reionization and the present day universe, by examining the extended mass reionization histories of dark matter halos identified at z=0. We combine an N-body dark matter simulation of a 600 Mpc volume with a three-dimensional, seminumerical reionization model. This provides reionization redshifts for each particle, which can then be connected with the properties of their halos at the present time. We find that the vast majority of present-day halos with masses larger than ~ few x 10^11 Msun reionize earlier than the rest of the universe. We also find significant halo-to-halo diversity in mass reionization histories, and find that in realistic inhomogenous models, the material within a given halo is not expected to reionize at the same time. In particular, the scatter in reionization times within individual halos is typically larger than the scatter among halos. From our fiducial reionization model, we find that the typical 68% scatter in reionization times within halos is ~ 115 Myr for 10^(12 \pm 0.25) Msun halos, decreasing slightly to ~ 95 Myr for 10^(15 \pm 0.25) Msun halos. We find a mild correlation between reionization history and environment: halos with shorter reionization histories are typically in more clustered environments, with the strongest trend on a scale of ~ 20 Mpc. Material in Milky Way mass halos with short reionization histories is preferentially reionized in relatively large HII regions, implying reionization mostly by sources external to the progenitors of the present-day halo. We investigate the impact on our results of varying the reionization model parameters, which span a range of reionization scenarios with varying timing and morphology.Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, 1 table. Submitted to Ap

Research study on materials processing in space Skylab experiment M553 - sphere forming

A research program was conducted to study the solidification of metals in the form of small spheres both in the one gravity environment of the earth laboratory and the low gravity environment of KC-135 trajectory flights and the Skylab 1/2 mission. The program had three phases. The details of the results of this program are contained in interim reports prepared at the conclusion of each of the three phases. This final report is intended to summarize the efforts and results described in detail in each of these interim reports, with particular emphasis on the differences observed between the ground-based and Skylab flight specimens

Experiments to investigate particulate materials in reduced gravity fields

Study investigates agglomeration and macroscopic behavior in reduced gravity fields of particles of known properties by measuring and correlating thermal and acoustical properties of particulate materials. Experiment evaluations provide a basis for a particle behavior theory and measure bulk properties of particulate materials in reduced gravity

The Ultimate Halo Mass in a LCDM Universe

In the far future of an accelerating LCDM cosmology, the cosmic web of large-scale structure consists of a set of increasingly isolated halos in dynamical equilibrium. We examine the approach of collisionless dark matter to hydrostatic equilibrium using a large N-body simulation evolved to scale factor a = 100, well beyond the vacuum--matter equality epoch, a_eq ~ 0.75, and 53/h Gyr into the future for a concordance model universe (Omega_m ~ 0.3, Omega_Lambda ~ 0.7). The radial phase-space structure of halos -- characterized at a < a_eq by a pair of zero-velocity surfaces that bracket a dynamically active accretion region -- simplifies at a > 10 a_eq when these surfaces merge to create a single zero-velocity surface, clearly defining the halo outer boundary, rhalo, and its enclosed mass, mhalo. This boundary approaches a fixed physical size encompassing a mean interior density ~ 5 times the critical density, similar to the turnaround value in a classical Einstein-deSitter model. We relate mhalo to other scales currently used to define halo mass (m200, mvir, m180b) and find that m200 is approximately half of the total asymptotic cluster mass, while m180b follows the evolution of the inner zero velocity surface for a < 2 but becomes much larger than the total bound mass for a > 3. The radial density profile of all bound halo material is well fit by a truncated Hernquist profile. An NFW profile provides a somewhat better fit interior to r200 but is much too shallow in the range r200 < r < rhalo.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitted to MNRAS letter