30,393 research outputs found
Perceptions of human attractiveness comprising face and voice cues
In human mate choice, sexually dimorphic faces and voices comprise hormone-mediated cues that purportedly develop as an indicator of mate quality or the ability to compete with same-sex rivals. If preferences for faces communicate the same biologically relevant information as do voices, then ratings of these cues should correlate. Sixty participants (30 male and 30 female) rated a series of opposite-sex faces, voices, and faces together with voices for attractiveness in a repeated measures computer-based experiment. The effects of face and voice attractiveness on face-voice compound stimuli were analyzed using a multilevel model. Faces contributed proportionally more than voices to ratings of face-voice compound attractiveness. Faces and voices positively and independently contributed to the attractiveness of male compound stimuli although there was no significant correlation between their rated attractiveness. A positive interaction and correlation between attractiveness was shown for faces and voices in relation to the attractiveness of female compound stimuli. Rather than providing a better estimate of a single characteristic, male faces and voices may instead communicate independent information that, in turn, provides a female with a better assessment of overall mate quality. Conversely, female faces and voices together provide males with a more accurate assessment of a single dimension of mate quality
Nonlocal Optics of Plasmonic Nanowire Metamaterials
We present an analytical description of the nonlocal optical response of
plasmonic nanowire metamaterials that enable negative refraction, subwavelength
light manipulation, and emission lifetime engineering. We show that dispersion
of optical waves propagating in nanowire media results from coupling of
transverse and longitudinal electromagnetic modes supported by the composite
and derive the nonlocal effective medium approximation for this dispersion. We
derive the profiles of electric field across the unit cell, and use these
expressions to solve the long-standing problem of additional boundary
conditions in calculations of transmission and reflection of waves by nonlocal
nanowire media. We verify our analytical results with numerical solutions of
Maxwell's equations and discuss generalization of the developed formalism to
other uniaxial metamaterials
Comparative analysis of rigidity across protein families
We present a comparative study in which 'pebble game' rigidity analysis is applied to multiple protein crystal structures, for each of six different protein families. We find that the main-chain rigidity of a protein structure at a given hydrogen bond energy cutoff is quite sensitive to small structural variations, and conclude that the hydrogen bond constraints in rigidity analysis should be chosen so as to form and test specific hypotheses about the rigidity of a particular protein. Our comparative approach highlights two different characteristic patterns ('sudden' or 'gradual') for protein rigidity loss as constraints are removed, in line with recent results on the rigidity transitions of glassy networks
A Corpus-Based, Pilot Study of Lexical Stress Variation in American English
Phonological free variation describes the phenomenon of there being more than one pronunciation for a word without any change in meaning (e.g. because, schedule, vehicle). The term also applies to words that exhibit different stress patterns (e.g. academic, resources, comparable) with no change in meaning or grammatical category. A corpus-based analysis of free variation is a useful tool for testing the validity of surveys of speakers' pronunciation preferences for certain variants. The current paper presents the results of a corpus-based pilot study of American English, in an attempt to replicate Mompéan's 2009 study of British English
Rigidity analysis of HIV-1 protease
We present a rigidity analysis on a large number of X-ray crystal structures
of the enzyme HIV-1 protease using the 'pebble game' algorithm of the software
FIRST. We find that although the rigidity profile remains similar across a
comprehensive set of high resolution structures, the profile changes
significantly in the presence of an inhibitor. Our study shows that the action
of the inhibitors is to restrict the flexibility of the beta-hairpin flaps
which allow access to the active site. The results are discussed in the context
of full molecular dynamics simulations as well as data from NMR experiments.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Conference proceedings for CMMP conference 2010
which was held at the University of Warwic
Inclusion of unsteady aerodynamics in longitudinal parameter estimation from flight data
A simple vortex system, used to model unsteady aerodynamic effects into the rigid body longitudinal equations of motion of an aircraft, is described. The equations are used in the development of a parameter extraction algorithm. Use of the two parameter-estimation modes, one including and the other omitting unsteady aerodynamic modeling, is discussed as a means of estimating some acceleration derivatives. Computer generated data and flight data, used to demonstrate the use of the parameter-extraction algorithm are studied
A magnetically rotated electric arc air heater employing a strong magnetic field and copper electrodes
Magnetically rotated electric arc air heater using strong magnetic field and copper electrode
Comparison of electric dipole moments and the Large Hadron Collider for probing CP violation in triple boson vertices
CP violation from physics beyond the Standard Model may reside in triple
boson vertices of the electroweak theory. We review the effective theory
description and discuss how CP violating contributions to these vertices might
be discerned by electric dipole moments (EDM) or diboson production at the
Large Hadron Collider (LHC). Despite triple boson CP violating interactions
entering EDMs only at the two-loop level, we find that EDM experiments are
generally more powerful than the diboson processes. To give example to these
general considerations we perform the comparison between EDMs and collider
observables within supersymmetric theories that have heavy sfermions, such that
substantive EDMs at the one-loop level are disallowed. EDMs generally remain
more powerful probes, and next-generation EDM experiments may surpass even the
most optimistic assumptions for LHC sensitivities.Comment: 26 pages, 14 figures, published version with more argument
Survey of vector-like fermion extensions of the Standard Model and their phenomenological implications
With the renewed interest in vector-like fermion extensions of the Standard
Model, we present here a study of multiple vector-like theories and their
phenomenological implications. Our focus is mostly on minimal flavor conserving
theories that couple the vector-like fermions to the SM gauge fields and mix
only weakly with SM fermions so as to avoid flavor problems. We present
calculations for precision electroweak and vector-like state decays, which are
needed to investigate compatibility with currently known data. We investigate
the impact of vector-like fermions on Higgs boson production and decay,
including loop contributions, in a wide variety of vector-like extensions and
their parameter spaces.Comment: 43 pages, 17 figures; v2: text modified to improve readability,
references added, journal versio
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