2,754 research outputs found
Visual stimulation of saccades in magnetically tethered Drosophila
Flying fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, perform `body saccades', in which they change heading by about 90° in roughly 70 ms. In free flight, visual expansion can evoke saccades, and saccade-like turns are triggered by similar stimuli in tethered flies. However, because the fictive turns in rigidly tethered flies follow a much longer time course, the extent to which these two behaviors share a common neural basis is unknown. A key difference between tethered and free flight conditions is the presence of additional sensory cues in the latter, which might serve to modify the time course of the saccade motor program. To study the role of sensory feedback in saccades, we have developed a new preparation in which a fly is tethered to a fine steel pin that is aligned within a vertically oriented magnetic field, allowing it to rotate freely around its yaw axis. In this experimental paradigm, flies perform rapid turns averaging 35° in 80 ms, similar to the kinematics of free flight saccades. Our results indicate that tethered and free flight saccades share a common neural basis, but that the lack of appropriate feedback signals distorts the behavior performed by rigidly fixed flies. Using our new paradigm, we also investigated the features of visual stimuli that elicit saccades. Our data suggest that saccades are triggered when expanding objects reach a critical threshold size, but that their timing depends little on the precise time course of expansion. These results are consistent with expansion detection circuits studied in other insects, but do not exclude other models based on the integration of local movement detectors
On the formulation of functional theory for pairing with particle number restoration
The restoration of particle number within Energy Density Functional theory is
analyzed. It is shown that the standard method based on configuration mixing
leads to a functional of both the projected and non-projected densities. As an
alternative that might be advantageous for mass models, nuclear dynamics and
thermodynamics, we propose to formulate the functional in terms directly of the
one-body and two-body density matrices of the state with good particle number.
Our approach does not contain the pathologies recently observed when restoring
the particle number in an Energy Density Functional framework based on
transition density matrices and can eventually be applied with functionals
having arbitrary density dependencies.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Configuration mixing within the energy density functional formalism: pathologies and cures
Configuration mixing calculations performed in terms of the Skyrme/Gogny
Energy Density Functional (EDF) rely on extending the Single-Reference energy
functional into non-diagonal EDF kernels. The standard way to do so, based on
an analogy with the pure Hamiltonian case and the use of the generalized Wick
theorem, is responsible for the recently observed divergences and steps in
Multi-Reference calculations. We summarize here the minimal solution to this
problem recently proposed [Lacroix et al, arXiv:0809.2041] and applied with
success to particle number restoration[Bender et al, arXiv:0809.2045]. Such a
regularization method provides suitable corrections of pathologies for EDF
depending on integer powers of the density. The specific case of fractional
powers of the density[Duguet et al, arXiv:0809.2049] is also discussed.Comment: 5 pages, Proceedings of the French-Japanese Symposium, September
2008. To be published in Int. J. of Mod. Phys.
Comment on ``Structure of exotic nuclei and superheavy elements in a relativistic shell model''
A recent paper [M. Rashdan, Phys. Rev. C 63, 044303 (2001)] introduces the
new parameterization NL-RA1 of the relativistic mean-field model which is
claimed to give a better description of nuclear properties than earlier ones.
Using this model ^{298}114 is predicted to be a doubly-magic nucleus. As will
be shown in this comment these findings are to be doubted as they are obtained
with an unrealistic parameterization of the pairing interaction and neglecting
ground-state deformation.Comment: 2 pages REVTEX, 3 figures, submitted to comment section of Phys. Rev.
C. shortened and revised versio
Insertion Sort is O(n log n)
Traditional Insertion Sort runs in O(n^2) time because each insertion takes
O(n) time. When people run Insertion Sort in the physical world, they leave
gaps between items to accelerate insertions. Gaps help in computers as well.
This paper shows that Gapped Insertion Sort has insertion times of O(log n)
with high probability, yielding a total running time of O(n log n) with high
probability.Comment: 6 pages, Latex. In Proceedings of the Third International Conference
on Fun With Algorithms, FUN 200
Preachers, Politics and the Pulpit: The Influence of Church Structure on How Clergy Approach Political Topics and How Congregations Receive Their Messages
Inspired by the Catholic Church’s nationwide resistance to President Obama’s contraceptive mandate in the summer of 2012, this honors thesis paper attempts to discover a link between church polity (or church structure) and whether political messages are more or less likely to be preached by clergy from the pulpit and accepted by their congregants. Given that churches are places where attendees are exposed to political messages, this paper hypothesizes that structurally centralized Christian denominations are more likely to have preached on the contraceptive mandate than decentralized denominations. Accordingly, it is assumed that Catholics are more likely to have heard about the mandate than mainline Protestants and evangelical Protestants. Additionally, I suppose that clergy who oppose the mandate will be more likely to have addressed the mandate from the pulpit than those who support it. Finally, it is assumed that Catholics will be more likely to oppose the mandate than evangelical Protestants who are more likely to oppose the mandate than mainline Protestants. I gather primary data via semi-structured interviews with clergy from six select denominations with different church governance polities and theological views. Secondary data was obtained from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press’s February 2012 Political Survey concerning self-identified Christians’ views regarding the mandate. I find that church structure and views on the mandate had no bearing on whether Protestant pastors addressed it (though all Catholic priests did so) and that church attendance has little influence on how congregants view it
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