Failure to demonstrate short-cutting in a replication and extension of Tolman et al.'s spatial learning experiment with humans

Successful demonstrations of novel short-cut taking by animals, including humans, are open to interpretation in terms of learning that is not necessarily spatial. A classic example is that of Tolman, Ritchie, and Kalish (1946) who allowed rats to repeat a sequence of turns through the corridors of a maze to locate a food reward. When the entrance to the corridors was subsequently blocked and alternative corridors were made available, rats successfully selected the corridor leading most directly to the food location. However, the presence of a distinctive light above the goal, in both the training and testing phases, means that approach to the light as a beacon could have been the source of successful short-cutting. We report a replication of the experimental design of Tolman et al. with human participants who explored geometrically equivalent virtual environments. An experimental group, who followed the original procedure in the absence of any distinctive cues proximal to the goal, did not select the corridor which led most directly to the goal. A control group, who experienced a light above the goal during training and testing, were more likely to select a corridor which led in the direction of the goal. A second control group experienced the light above the goal during training, but in the test the location of this cue was shifted by 90° with respect to the start point of exploration. This latter group responded unsystematically in the test, neither selecting a corridor leading to the original goal location, nor one leading directly to the relocated light cue. The results do not support the hypothesis that travelling a multi-path route automatically leads to an integrated cognitive representation of that route. The data offer support for the importance of local cues which can serve as beacons to indicate the location of a goal

Characterisation of Kenana cattle at Um Banein, Sudan

Results of a study carried on the reproductive performance, herd management, weight & growth, milk production & mortality of Kenana cattle at Um Banein Livestock Research Station (Sudan)

SSIMS Molecular Selective Imaging: a new diagnostic tool to investigate metal passivators in scrapped transformers

In every high voltage grid, the replacement of assets is a slow but steady process that guarantees long-term reliability of the power distribution networks. The prioritisation of such interventions is based on complex rating criteria specifically designed to highlight potential issues of certain machines (or families of machines) in need of care. Given the tremendous costs of operations such as the replacement of a power transformer it is not surprising to observe constant efforts devoted to finding new and better monitoring and diagnostic tools. These are capable of delivering invaluable information about the conditions of a transformer, in service or after it is either failed or proactively scrapped, allowing a better comprehension of underlying chemical-physical phenomena occurring. Ideally, advanced monitoring and diagnostic tools should ultimately result in improved rating parameters to be applied in the evaluation of future interventions. This feasibility study evaluates the use of static secondary ion mass spectrometry (SSIMS) molecular selective imaging as a diagnostic tool for power transformer. SSIMS is herein demonstrated to be able to assess, without doubts, the presence and integrity of the passivation layer produced by Irgamet®39 on copper surfaces in laboratory tests. The technique has also been tested on real samples collected from one of the phases of a 400/275kV autotransformer proactively scrapped and proved to be applicable without significant sample preparation. The possibility of its use in the study of the distribution of Irgamet®39 across the windings is also demonstrated. Further development of SSIMS as a diagnostic tool would be significantly increasing the grade of detail at which scrapped/failed units could be inspected. A better understanding on how the operating conditions or the design of a transformer can affect the anticorrosion protection layer at the molecular level would open the way to significant ad hoc improvements of both operative guidelines and rating criteria for power transformers

ELM triggering conditions for the integrated modeling of H-mode plasmas

Recent advances in the integrated modeling of ELMy H-mode plasmas are presented. A model for the H-mode pedestal and for the triggering of ELMs predicts the height, width, and shape of the H-mode pedestal and the frequency and width of ELMs. Formation of the pedestal and the L-H transition is the direct result of ExB flow shear suppression of anomalous transport. The periodic ELM crashes are triggered by either the ballooning or peeling MHD instabilities. The BALOO, DCON, and ELITE ideal MHD stability codes are used to derive a new parametric expression for the peeling-ballooning threshold. The new dependence for the peeling-ballooning threshold is implemented in the ASTRA transport code. Results of integrated modeling of DIII-D like discharges are presented and compared with experimental observations. The results from the ideal MHD stability codes are compared with results from the resistive MHD stability code NIMROD.Comment: 12th International Congress on Plasma Physics, 25-29 October 2004, Nice (France

Assessing the Impact of Automatic vs. Controlled Rotations on Spatial Transfer with a Joystick and a Walking Interface in VR

Part 1: Long and Short PapersInternational audienceWe present a user study assessing spatial transfer in a 3D navigation task, with two different motor activities: a minimal (joystick) and an extensive motor activity (walking Interface), with rotations of the viewpoint either controlled by the user, or automatically managed by the system. The task consisted in learning a virtual path of a 3D model of a real city, with either one of these four conditions: Joystick / Treadmill Vs Manual Rotation / Automatic Rotation. We assessed spatial knowledge with six spatial restitution tasks. To assess the interfaces used, we analyzed also the interaction data acquired during the learning path. Our results show that the direct control of rotations has different effects, depending on the motor activity required by the input modality. The quality of spatial representation increases with the Treadmill when rotations are enabled. With the Joystick, controlling the rotations affect spatial representations. We discuss our findings in terms of cognitive, sensorimotor processes and human computer interaction issues

Three-dimensional general relativistic hydrodynamics II: long-term dynamics of single relativistic stars

This is the second in a series of papers on the construction and validation of a three-dimensional code for the solution of the coupled system of the Einstein equations and of the general relativistic hydrodynamic equations, and on the application of this code to problems in general relativistic astrophysics. In particular, we report on the accuracy of our code in the long-term dynamical evolution of relativistic stars and on some new physics results obtained in the process of code testing. The tests involve single non-rotating stars in stable equilibrium, non-rotating stars undergoing radial and quadrupolar oscillations, non-rotating stars on the unstable branch of the equilibrium configurations migrating to the stable branch, non-rotating stars undergoing gravitational collapse to a black hole, and rapidly rotating stars in stable equilibrium and undergoing quasi-radial oscillations. The numerical evolutions have been carried out in full general relativity using different types of polytropic equations of state using either the rest-mass density only, or the rest-mass density and the internal energy as independent variables. New variants of the spacetime evolution and new high resolution shock capturing (HRSC) treatments based on Riemann solvers and slope limiters have been implemented and the results compared with those obtained from previous methods. Finally, we have obtained the first eigenfrequencies of rotating stars in full general relativity and rapid rotation. A long standing problem, such frequencies have not been obtained by other methods. Overall, and to the best of our knowledge, the results presented in this paper represent the most accurate long-term three-dimensional evolutions of relativistic stars available to date.Comment: 19 pages, 17 figure

Professionalism, Golf Coaching and a Master of Science Degree: A commentary

As a point of reference I congratulate Simon Jenkins on tackling the issue of professionalism in coaching. As he points out coaching is not a profession, but this does not mean that coaching would not benefit from going through a professionalization process. As things stand I find that the stimulus article unpacks some critically important issues of professionalism, broadly within the context of golf coaching. However, I am not sure enough is made of understanding what professional (golf) coaching actually is nor how the development of a professional golf coach can be facilitated by a Master of Science Degree (M.Sc.). I will focus my commentary on these two issues

Dilepton production from p-p to Ca-Ca at the Bevalac

The DLS collaboration has recently completed a high statistics study of dilepton production at the Bevalac. In particular, we have measured dielectrons (e+e-) from p-p and p-d collisions to understand the basic dilepton production mechanisms in the energy range from 1.05 - 4.9 GeV. These data can be used to determine the basic processes which contribute to nucleon-nucleon dilepton production such as hadronic bremsstrahlung, vector meson processes, and hadronic Dalitz decay. The data show that a simple elastic bremsstrahlung calculation is insufficient to explain the data. Theoretical models are compared with the data. A new high statistics study of Ca-Ca at 1.05 A GeV has been made to study the collectivity of A-A collisions

Spatial updating in narratives.

Across two experiments we investigated spatial updating in environments encoded through narratives. In Experiment 1, in which participants were given visualization instructions to imagine the protagonist’s movement, they formed an initial representation during learning but did not update it during subsequent described movement. In Experiment 2, in which participants were instructed to physically move in space towards the directions of the described objects prior to testing, there was evidence for spatial updating. Overall, findings indicate that physical movement can cause participants to link a spatial representation of a remote environment to a sensorimotor framework and update the locations of remote objects while they move

Rift Valley Fever virus M and L genome segment detection : a comparison of field-deployable reverse transcription insulated isothermal PCR (RT-iiPCR) and laboratory-based multiplex reverse transcription real-time PCR

SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL : TABLE S1 (JCM00430-23-S0001.pdf). RVFV reference panel performance and reproducibility.Rift Valley Fever phlebovirus (RVFV) is a mosquito-borne zoonotic pathogen that causes major agricultural and public health problems in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. It is considered a potential agro-bioterrorism agent for which limited countermeasures are available. To address diagnostic needs, here we describe a rapid and sensitive molecular method immediately employable at sites of suspected outbreaks in animals that commonly precede outbreaks in humans. The strategy involves the concurrent detection of two of the three RVFV genome segments (large and medium) using reverse transcription insulated isothermal PCR (RT-iiPCR) performed on a portable, touch screen nucleic acid analyzer, POCKIT. The analytical sensitivity for both the RT-iiPCR and a laboratory-based L and M multiplex reverse transcription real-time PCR assay was estimated at approximately 0.1–3 copies/reaction using synthetic RNA or viral RNA. The diagnostic sensitivity and specificity of detection of RVFV on the POCKIT, determined using sera from sheep and cattle (n = 181) experimentally infected with two strains of RVFV (SA01 and Ken06), were 93.8% and 100% (kappa = 0.93), respectively. Testing of ruminant field sera (n = 193) in two locations in Africa demonstrated 100% diagnostic sensitivity and specificity. We conclude that the POCKIT dual-gene RVFV detection strategy can provide reliable, sensitive, and specific point-of-need viral RNA detection. Moreover, the field detection of RVFV in vectors or susceptible animal species can aid in the surveillance and epidemiological studies to better understand and control RVFV outbreaks.The US Department of Homeland Security, Center of Excellence for Emerging and Zoonotic Animal Diseases (CEEZAD); the National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility (NBAF) Transition Fund from the State of Kansas; the MCB and AMP Core of the Center on Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (CEZID) of the National Institutes of General Medical Sciences; the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University; and the Center of Advanced Host Defenses, Immunobiotics and Comparative Translational Medicine at Iowa State University.https://journals.asm.org/journal/jcmhj2024Production Animal StudiesVeterinary Tropical DiseasesSDG-03:Good heatlh and well-bein