Overview of recent ALICE results

The ALICE experiment explores the properties of strongly interacting QCD matter at extremely high temperatures created in Pb-Pb collisions at LHC and provides further insight into small-system physics in (high-multiplicity) pp and p-Pb collisions. The ALICE collaboration presented 27 parallel talks, 50 posters, and 1 flash talk at Quark Matter 2015 and covered various topics including collective dynamics, correlations and fluctuations, heavy flavors, quarkonia, jets and high $p_{\rm T}$ hadrons, electromagnetic probes, small system physics, and the upgrade program. This paper highlights some of the selected results.Comment: 8 pages, 0 figures, Proceedings for ALICE overview plenary at XXV International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (Quark Matter 2015

The Feldstein-Horioka puzzle and law

In this paper, we introduce a proxy for the legal protection of investors, a dummy variable that indicates legal origins, into the Feldstein and Horioka (1980, Economic Journal 90) saving-investment regression. The estimations show that in the French-civil-law countries, which have the weakest investor protection, the domestic investment rates are generally less strongly correlated with the domestic saving rates. This implies that in countries with less investor protection, the capital resulting from an increase of domestic saving tends to flow to foreign countries with stronger investor protection, rather than into domestic investment.

Standard error and confidence interval for QALY weights

There are some problems with the standard errors of QALY weights proposed by Groot (2000, Journal of Health Economics 19). The standard errors show smaller values than those of Groot when we recalculate using his method. Moreover, we correct the derivation of his approximation and derive corrected values. Because mean and variance do not exist for a distribution of QALY weights, using standard errors for statistical inference may lead to problems even when an approximation is used. In this paper, we verify the statistical properties of Groot's standard errors by simulation. We find that the corrected standard errors hold the same properties as a normal distribution under specific conditions. In general, however, it would be appropriate to use our simulation method to obtain critical values or p-value.

Ghost hand: My hand is not mine

Synchronous visuo-tactile stimulation of the type in the rubber hand illusion (RHI)^1-3^ and in out of body experience (OBE)^4,5^ can induce the brain to incorporate external objects or images into a part or whole of body image. Whether in the context of RHI or OBE, since the participant passively receives visuo-tactile stimulations, body image appears only with the sense of ownership (SoO), not with the sense of agency (the registration that we are the initiators of our actions; SoA)^6,7^. Insofar as self-consciousness as a body image is a unity acting in its environments, body image has to be investigated in the relationship between SoO and SoA^8,9^. It requires an experimental condition in which SoO and SoA can be independently separated in an active condition. However, no experimental condition that is opposite to RHI and OBE in which a subject can feel SoA but not SoO has been proposed to date^10^. Here, we show that a person loses SoO for his own hand that he can freely move by his own will when he sees himself in a lateral view through a head mounted display. It was previously thought that SoO can be represented by synchronous inter-modal stimulations^10^, and that SoO appears to be complemented by SoA11. Our findings show that SoO can be lost under a synchronous visuo-proprioceptive condition while SoA can be maintained. SoO and SoA are two aspects of body representation, and similar dissociations have been proposed in various contexts, such as body image and body schema^12,13^, and 'Acting I' and 'Mine'^14^. Our result suggests that the two-centric-self consisting of SoA and SoO can enhance dynamically robust self-consciousness

Robot control with biological cells

At present there exists a large gap in size, performance, adaptability and robustness between natural and artificial information processors for performing coherent perception-action tasks under real-time constraints. Even the simplest organisms have an enviable capability of coping with an unknown dynamic environment. Robots, in contrast, are still clumsy if confronted with such complexity. This paper presents a bio-hybrid architecture developed for exploring an alternate approach to the control of autonomous robots. Circuits prepared from amoeboid plasmodia of the slime mold Physarum polycephalum are interfaced with an omnidirectional hexapod robot. Sensory signals from the macro-physical environment of the robot are transduced to cellular scale and processed using the unique micro-physical features of intracellular information processing. Conversely, the response form the cellular computation is amplified to yield a macroscopic output action in the environment mediated through the robot’s actuators

Computing Substrates and Life

Alive matter distinguishes itself from inanimate matter by actively maintaining a high degree of inhomogenous organisation. Information processing is quintessential to this capability. The present paper inquires into the degree to which the information processing aspect of living systems can be abstracted from the physical medium of its implementation. Information processing serving to sustain the complex organisation of a living system faces both the harsh reality of real-time requirements and severe constraints on energy and material that can be expended on the task. This issue is of interest for the potential scope of Artificial Life and its interaction with Synthetic Biology. It is pertinent also for information technology. With regard to the latter aspect, the use of a living cell in a robot control architecture is considered

Onset of J/ψJ/\psi Melting in Quark-Gluon Fluid at RHIC

A strong $J/\psi$ suppression in central Au+Au collisions has been observed by the PHENIX experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC). We develop a hydro+$J/\psi$ model in which hot quark-gluon matter is described by the full (3+1)-dimensional relativistic hydrodynamics and $J/\psi$ is treated as an impurity traversing through the matter. The experimental $J/\psi$ suppression pattern in mid-rapidity is reproduced well by the sequential melting of $\chi_{\rm c}$, $\psi'$, and $J/\psi$ in dynamically expanding fluid. The melting temperature of directly produced $J/\psi$ is well constrained by the participant-number dependence of the $J/\psi$ suppression and is found to be about $2.T_{\rm c}$ with $T_{\rm c}$ being the pseudo-critical temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Submitted to Phys. Rev. C. (Rapid Communication