The effect of aging and rhythmic temporal structure during encoding on recognition memory: an EEG Study

Aging deficits in memory have long been established in the literature, however, little has been done to investigate how environmental factors can be used to ameliorate age related declines in memory functioning. Recent research in recognition memory suggests that increased temporal expectancy during encoding can benefit recognition memory at retrieval in a younger adult sample. The current study aimed to investigate whether the benefit to recognition memory, and associated neural processes, observed in young adults is also evident in normal aging. Unfortunately, due to national restrictions affecting data collection, no older participants were able to be tested. As such, the current project resolved to provide a proof of concept to inform an investigation of the originally intended scope. Ten young participants (M age = 23.5; SD = 2.22) were exposed to pictures of everyday objects in 3 rhythmic and 3 arrhythmic encoding blocks, after which they performed a recognition memory test containing previously studied and new objects. A clear trend suggesting better memory following rhythmic encoding was observed, but no significant difference between conditions emerged. Furthermore, analysis of relevant ERP components uncovered no old/new effect in relation to the LPC or the LFE. Conversely, the FN400 displayed an old/new effect. Thus, the temporal manipulation did not result in significant differences in recognition, but it should be noted that the study is underpowered. However, participants did display a good ability to discriminate stimuli, and in addition RT differences between correct and incorrect recognition judgements and an FN400 old/new effect suggest that the paradigm is effective and sensitive to processing differences between conditions. Recognition could be detected by the FN400 in the present experiment. However, trends in recognition ability between temporal structures suggest that an insufficient sample size is likely to have caused the lacking significant temporal effects. As such, the paradigm is appropriate for extension including a larger sample size and the planned comparison of age groups

Environmental conditions during early life accelerate the rate of senescence in a short-lived passerine bird

Environmental conditions experienced in early life may shape subsequent phenotypic traits including life history. We investigated how predation risk caused by domestic cats (Felis silvestris catus) and local breeding density affected patterns of reproductive and survival senescence in Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica) breeding semicolonially in Denmark. We recorded the abundance of cats and the number of breeding pairs at 39 breeding sites during 24 years and related these to age-specific survival rate and reproductive senescence to test predictions of the life history theory of senescence. We found evidence for actuarial senescence for the first time in this species. Survival rate increased until reaching a plateau in midlife and then decreased later. We also found that survival rate was higher for males than females. Local breeding density or predation risk did not affect survival as predicted by theory. Barn Swallows with short lives did not invest more in reproduction in early life, inconsistent with expectations for trade-offs between reproduction and survival as theory suggests. However, we found that the rate of reproductive decline during senescence was steeper for individuals exposed to intense competition, and predation pressure accelerated the rate of reproductive senescence, but only in sites with many breeding pairs. These latter results are in accordance with one of the predictions suggested by the life history theory of aging. These results emphasize the importance of considering intraspecific competition and interspecific interactions such as predation when analyzing reproductive and actuarial senescence

New search strategy for high z intervening absorbers: GRB021004, a pilot study

We present near-infrared narrow- and broad-band imaging of the field of GRB021004, performed with ISAAC on the UT1 of the ESO Very Large Telescope. The narrow-band filters were chosen to match prominent emission lines at the redshift of the absorption-line systems found against the early-time afterglow of GRB021004: [OIII] at z=1.38 and Halpha at z=1.60, respectively. For the z=1.38 system we find an emission-line source at an impact parameter of 16", which is somewhat larger than the typical impact parameters of a sample of MgII absorbers at redshifts around unity. Assuming that this tentative redshift-identification is correct, the star formation rate of the galaxy is 13 +- 2 Msun/year. Our study reaches star-formation rate limits (5 sigma) of 5.7 Msun/year at z=1.38, and 7.7 Msun/year at z=1.60. These limits correspond to a depth of roughly 0.13 L*. Any galaxy counterpart of the absorbers nearer to the line of sight either has to be fainter than this limit or not be an emission-line source.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted for publication in A&A letter

Energy and angular momentum of general 4-dimensional stationary axi-symmetric spacetime in teleparallel geometry

We derive an exact general axi-symmetric solution of the coupled gravitational and electromagnetic fields in the tetrad theory of gravitation. The solution is characterized by four parameters $M$ (mass), $Q$ (charge), $a$ (rotation) and $L$ (NUT). We then, calculate the total exterior energy using the energy-momentum complex given by M{\o}ller in the framework of Weitzenb$\ddot{o}$ck geometry. We show that the energy contained in a sphere is shared by its interior as well as exterior. We also calculate the components of the spatial momentum to evaluate the angular momentum distribution. We show that the only non-vanishing components of the angular momentum is in the Z direction.Comment: Latex. Will appear in IJMP

Kerr-Newman Solution and Energy in Teleparallel Equivalent of Einstein Theory

An exact charged axially symmetric solution of the coupled gravitational and electromagnetic fields in the teleparallel equivalent of Einstein theory is derived. It is characterized by three parameters ``$$the gravitational mass $M$, the charge parameter $Q$ and the rotation parameter $a$" and its associated metric gives Kerr-Newman spacetime. The parallel vector field and the electromagnetic vector potential are axially symmetric. We then, calculate the total energy using the gravitational energy-momentum. The energy is found to be shared by its interior as well as exterior. Switching off the charge parameter we find that no energy is shared by the exterior of the Kerr-Newman black hole.Comment: 11 pages, Latex. Will appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Consensus report on 25 years of searches for damped Lyα\alpha galaxies in emission: Confirming their metallicity-luminosity relation at z≳2z \gtrsim 2

Starting from a summary of detection statistics of our recent X-shooter campaign, we review the major surveys, both space and ground based, for emission counterparts of high-redshift damped Ly$\alpha$ absorbers (DLAs) carried out since the first detection 25 years ago. We show that the detection rates of all surveys are precisely reproduced by a simple model in which the metallicity and luminosity of the galaxy associated to the DLA follow a relation of the form, ${\rm M_{UV}} = -5 \times \left(\,[{\rm M/H}] + 0.3\, \right) - 20.8$, and the DLA cross-section follows a relation of the form $\sigma_{DLA} \propto L^{0.8}$. Specifically, our spectroscopic campaign consists of 11 DLAs preselected based on their equivalent width of SiII $\lambda1526$ to have a metallicity higher than [Si/H] > -1. The targets have been observed with the X-shooter spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope to search for emission lines around the quasars. We observe a high detection rate of 64% (7/11), significantly higher than the typical $\sim$10% for random, HI-selected DLA samples. We use the aforementioned model, to simulate the results of our survey together with a range of previous surveys: spectral stacking, direct imaging (using the `double DLA' technique), long-slit spectroscopy, and integral field spectroscopy. Based on our model results, we are able to reconcile all results. Some tension is observed between model and data when looking at predictions of Ly$\alpha$ emission for individual targets. However, the object to object variations are most likely a result of the significant scatter in the underlying scaling relations as well as uncertainties in the amount of dust which affects the emission.Comment: 25 pages (7 of which in appendix), accepted for publication in MNRA

On the sizes of z>2 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbing Galaxies

Recently, the number of detected galaxy counterparts of z > 2 Damped Lyman-alpha Absorbers in QSO spectra has increased substantially so that we today have a sample of 10 detections. M{\o}ller et al. in 2004 made the prediction, based on a hint of a luminosity-metallicity relation for DLAs, that HI size should increase with increasing metallicity. In this paper we investigate the distribution of impact parameter and metallicity that would result from the correlation between galaxy size and metallicity. We compare our observations with simulated data sets given the relation of size and metallicity. The observed sample presented here supports the metallicity-size prediction: The present sample of DLA galaxies is consistent with the model distribution. Our data also show a strong relation between impact parameter and column density of HI. We furthermore compare the observations with several numerical simulations and demonstrate that the observations support a scenario where the relation between size and metallicity is driven by feedback mechanisms controlling the star-formation efficiency and outflow of enriched gas.Comment: Accepted for publishing in MNRAS lette

Measuring the effective phonon density of states of a quantum dot

We employ detuning-dependent decay-rate measurements of a quantum dot in a photonic-crystal cavity to study the influence of phonon dephasing in a solid-state quantum-electrodynamics experiment. The experimental data agree with a microscopic non-Markovian model accounting for dephasing from longitudinal acoustic phonons, and identifies the reason for the hitherto unexplained difference between non-resonant cavity feeding in different nanocavities. From the comparison between experiment and theory we extract the effective phonon density of states experienced by the quantum dot. This quantity determines all phonon dephasing properties of the system and is found to be described well by a theory of bulk phonons.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, submitte