Origins of the Isospin Violation of Dark Matter Interactions

Light dark matter (DM) with a large DM-nucleon spin-independent cross section and furthermore proper isospin violation (ISV) $f_n/f_p\approx-0.7$ may provide a way to understand the confusing DM direct detection results. Combing with the stringent astrophysical and collider constraints, we systematically investigate the origin of ISV first via general operator analyses and further via specifying three kinds of (single) mediators: A light $Z'$ from chiral $U(1)_X$, an approximate spectator Higgs doublet (It can explain the $W+jj$ anomaly simultaneously) and color triplets. In addition, although $Z'$ from an exotic $U(1)_X$ mixing with $U(1)_Y$ generating $f_n=0$, we can combine it with the conventional Higgs to achieve proper ISV. As a concrete example, we propose the $U(1)_X$ model where the $U(1)_X$ charged light sneutrino is the inelastic DM, which dominantly annihilates to light dark states such as $Z'$ with sub-GeV mass. This model can address the recent GoGeNT annual modulation consistent with other DM direct detection results and free of exclusions.Comment: References added and English greatly improve

The effects of sounds and food odour on crowd behaviours in urban public open spaces

Few studies have investigated the integrated effects of sound and odour on people with the purpose of improving the use of urban spaces. Therefore, this study aimed to provide further insight into such effects from the perspective of crowd behaviour. A covert behavioural observation experiment was conducted in a typical urban commercial pedestrian street, using the smell of a bakery as the odour source, while reproducing typical urban sound sources of music and fan sound (along with a condition where no sound was played) with and without odour. The present results show that for crowd path, in the no-odour condition, playing music significantly attracted the crowd, while fan sound tended to make the crowd path farther away from the sensory sources. With the bakery odour, individuals approached the sensory sources closer when playing the sound, whether it was music or fan sound. With regard to crowd speed, music significantly reduced it and the greater the proximity to the sound source, the slower the crowd speed. Fan sound increased the crowd speed, which was significantly higher in the presence rather than absence of bakery odour, and the average speed decreased gradually as proximity to the sensory sources increased. Finally, with regard to the duration time of the crowd, it increased with music and decreased with fan sound. The bakery odour also significantly increased the duration time. However, the interaction effect between sound and odour on crowd speed and duration time was not significant

Influence of distance from traffic sounds on physiological indicators and subjective evaluation

This study examined the influence of different distances of traffic noise and sea sounds on physiological indicators and subjective evaluation. Scene re-creations employed three types of distance: actual close sounds (close to the sound source recorded on site), actual distant sounds (distance attenuation recorded on site) and artificial distant sounds (reduction of the same decibel level across frequencies). Participants displayed higher heart rate, amplitude of the R-wave (ΔR), heart rate variability, respiration rate, and skin conductance level (SCL) when close to the sound source. Actual distance attenuation affected most subjective evaluation factors (except for Familiarity and Excitement). The ΔR, electroencephalography alpha reactivity, and electroencephalography beta reactivity with actual distant sounds were lower and SCL was higher, relative to those with artificial distant sounds. These findings provide a reference for governments and urban planners when working to improve quality of life in urban areas

The multisensory environmental evaluations of sound and odour in urban public open spaces

Few studies have focused on the multisensory perception of audio–olfactory interaction with the purpose of improving the use of urban spaces. This study conducted multisensory environmental evaluations in three urban open spaces in China with the aim of verifying the existence of audio–olfactory interaction in the urban environments and providing different perspectives for the improvement of urban environmental quality. A sensewalk approach was adopted in the study, and the main research contents were: the odour’s effects on sound source and sound environment evaluations, and the sound’s effects on odour source and odour environment evaluations. The results indicated that food odour improved acoustic comfort and sound congruency and reduced subjective loudness. Pollution odour worsened the assessment of traffic and lowered subjective loudness. Sound decreased the subjective intensity of odour and exacerbated its evaluation. Additionally, food odour enhanced the sound environment assessment of pedestrian streets, while pollution odour worsened it. Sound had a weak impact on odour environment evaluations. The masking effect between sound and odour showed that the presence of the latter decreased subjective loudness while increased sound diminished the subjective intensity of odour. Furthermore, odour’s influence on sound evaluations was greater than the influence of sound on odour evaluations. These findings have implications for the planning and design of a livable and comfortable urban environment through the perspective of sensory interaction

Physiological indicators and subjective restorativeness with audio-visual interactions in urban soundscapes

The present study aimed to identify the trends of changes in physiological indicators and subjective restorativeness in response to audio-visual interactions in the environment. Four scenarios types were presented using four different modalities (video-sound, image-sound, sound-only, and video-only; each modality was evaluated by independent groups of subjects). The physiological responses and subjective restoration of subjects were measured to assess the interactions between the audio-visual modalities. These data were also analysed to determine the physiological and subjective differences between dynamic and static visual presentations. We found that with visual modalities, the heart rate (HR), heart rate variability (HRV) calculated using the standard deviation of the NN intervals (SDNN[sbnd]HRV), high-frequency band in the HRV power spectrum (HF[sbnd]HRV), alpha reactivity on electroencephalography, and skin temperature (ST) decreased; however, the beta reactivity on EEG and skin conductance level (SCL) increased. With auditory modalities, the SDNN[sbnd]HRV, HF-HRV, ST, and respiration depth decreased; however, the respiration rate and SCL increased. Use of static images and sound to reproduce the natural environment evoked more physiological comfort and subjective restorativeness. These findings could provide physiological insights for the theory of the restorative environment

Amino-terminal cysteine residues of RGS16 are required for palmitoylation and modulation of G(i)- and G(q)-mediated signaling

RGS proteins (Regulators of G protein Signaling) are a recently discovered family of proteins that accelerate the GTPase activity of heterotrimeric G protein α subunits of the i, q, and 12 classes. The proteins share a homologous core domain but have divergent amino-terminal sequences that are the site of palmitoylation for RGS-GAIP and RGS4. We investigated the function of palmitoylation for RGS16, which shares conserved amino-terminal cysteines with RGS4 and RGS5. Mutation of cysteine residues at residues 2 and 12 blocked the incorporation of [3H]palmitate into RGS16 in metabolic labeling studies of transfected cells or into purified RGS proteins in a cell-free palmitoylation assay. The purified RGS16 proteins with the cysteine mutations were still able to act as GTPase-activating protein for Giα. Inhibition or a decrease in palmitoylation did not significantly change the amount of protein that was membrane-associated. However, palmitoylation-defective RGS16 mutants demonstrated impaired ability to inhibit both Gi- and Gq-linked signaling pathways when expressed in HEK293T cells. These findings suggest that the amino-terminal region of RGS16 may affect the affinity of these proteins for Gα subunits in vivo or that palmitoylation localizes the RGS protein in close proximity to Gα subunits on cellular membranes

CP violation in neutrino oscillation and leptogenesis

We study the correlation between CP violation in neutrino oscillations and leptogenesis in the framework with two heavy Majorana neutrinos and three light neutrinos. Among three unremovable CP phases, a heavy Majorana phase contributes to leptogenesis. We show how the heavy Majorana phase contributes to Jarlskog determinant $J$ as well as neutrinoless double $\beta$ decay by identifying a low energy CP violating phase which signals the CP violating phase for leptogenesis. For some specific cases of the Dirac mass term of neutrinos, a direct relation between lepton number asymmetry and $J$ is obtained. For the most general case of the framework, we study the effect on $J$ coming from the phases which are not related to leptogenesis, and also show how the correlation can be lost in the presence of those phases.Comment: 4 pages and 3 figure

CentralNet: a Multilayer Approach for Multimodal Fusion

This paper proposes a novel multimodal fusion approach, aiming to produce best possible decisions by integrating information coming from multiple media. While most of the past multimodal approaches either work by projecting the features of different modalities into the same space, or by coordinating the representations of each modality through the use of constraints, our approach borrows from both visions. More specifically, assuming each modality can be processed by a separated deep convolutional network, allowing to take decisions independently from each modality, we introduce a central network linking the modality specific networks. This central network not only provides a common feature embedding but also regularizes the modality specific networks through the use of multi-task learning. The proposed approach is validated on 4 different computer vision tasks on which it consistently improves the accuracy of existing multimodal fusion approaches

Nanoindentation Of Si Nanostructures: Buckling And Friction At Nanoscales

A nanoindentation system was employed to characterize mechanical properties of silicon nanolines (SiNLs), which were fabricated by an anisotropic wet etching (AWE) process. The SiNLs had the linewidth ranging from 24 nm to 90 nm, having smooth and vertical sidewalls and the aspect ratio (height/linewidth) from 7 to 18. During indentation, a buckling instability was observed at a critical load, followed by a displacement burst without a load increase, then a full recovery of displacement upon unloading. This phenomenon was explained by two bucking modes. It was also found that the difference in friction at the contact between the indenter and SiNLs directly affected buckling response of these nanolines. The friction coefficient was estimated to be in a range of 0.02 to 0.05. For experiments with large indentation displacements, irrecoverable indentation displacements were observed due to fracture of Si nanolines, with the strain to failure estimated to be from 3.8% to 9.7%. These observations indicated that the buckling behavior of SiNLs depended on the combined effects of load, line geometry, and the friction at contact. This study demonstrated a valuable approach to fabrication of well-defined Si nanoline structures and the application of the nanoindentation method for investigation of their mechanical properties at the nanoscale.Microelectronics Research Cente