5,324 research outputs found
What is embodiment? a psychometric approach
What is it like to have a body? The present study takes a psychometric approach to this question. We collected structured introspective reports of the rubber hand illusion, to systematically investigate the structure of bodily self-consciousness. Participants observed a rubber hand that was stroked either synchronously or asynchronously with their own hand and then made proprioceptive judgments of the location of their own hand and used Likert scales to rate their agreement or disagreement with 27 statements relating to their subjective experience of the illusion. Principal components analysis of this data revealed four major components of the experience across conditions, which we interpret as: embodiment of rubber hand, loss of own hand, movement, and affect. In the asynchronous condition, an additional fifth component, deafference, was found. Secondary analysis of the embodiment of runner hand component revealed three subcomponents in both conditions: ownership, location, and agency. The ownership and location components were independent significant predictors of proprioceptive biases induced by the illusion. These results suggest that psychometric tools may provide a rich method for studying the structure of conscious experience, and point the way towards an empirically rigorous phenomenology
Regulation of seed germination in the close Arabidopsis relative Lepidium sativum : a global tissue-specific transcript analysis
The completion of germination in Lepidium sativum and other endospermic seeds (e.g. Arabidopsis [Arabidopsis thaliana]) is regulated by two opposing forces, the growth potential of the radicle (RAD) and the resistance to this growth from the micropylar endosperm cap (CAP) surrounding it. We show by puncture force measurement that the CAP progressively weakens during germination, and we have conducted a time-course transcript analysis of RAD and CAP tissues throughout this process. We have also used specific inhibitors to investigate the importance of transcription, translation, and posttranslation levels of regulation of endosperm weakening in isolated CAPs. Although the impact of inhibiting translation is greater, both transcription and translation are required for the completion of endosperm weakening in the whole seed population. The majority of genes expressed during this process occur in both tissues, but where they are uniquely expressed, or significantly differentially expressed between tissues, this relates to the functions of the RAD as growing tissue and the CAP as a regulator of germination through weakening. More detailed analysis showed that putative orthologs of cell wall-remodeling genes are expressed in a complex manner during CAP weakening, suggesting distinct roles in the RAD and CAP. Expression patterns are also consistent with the CAP being a receptor for environmental signals influencing germination. Inhibitors of the aspartic, serine, and cysteine proteases reduced the number of isolated CAPs in which weakening developed, and inhibition of the 26S proteasome resulted in its complete cessation. This indicates that targeted protein degradation is a major control point for endosperm weakening
A new estimation of the recent tropospheric molecular hydrogen budget using atmospheric observations and variational inversion
This paper presents an analysis of the recent tropospheric molecular hydrogen (H2) budget with a particular focus on soil uptake and European surface emissions. A variational inversion scheme is combined with observations from the RAMCES and EUROHYDROS atmospheric networks, which include continuous measurements performed between mid-2006 and mid-2009. Net H2 surface flux, then deposition velocity and surface emissions and finally, deposition velocity, biomass burning, anthropogenic and N2 fixation-related emissions were simultaneously inverted in several scenarios. These scenarios have focused on the sensibility of the soil uptake value to different spatio-temporal distributions. The range of variations of these diverse inversion sets generate an estimate of the uncertainty for each term of the H2 budget. The net H2 flux per region (High Northern Hemisphere, Tropics and High Southern Hemisphere) varies between −8 and +8 Tg yr−1. The best inversion in terms of fit to the observations combines updated prior surface emissions and a soil deposition velocity map that is based on bottom-up and top-down estimations. Our estimate of global H2 soil uptake is −59±9 Tg yr−1. Forty per cent of this uptake is located in the High Northern Hemisphere and 55% is located in the Tropics. In terms of surface emissions, seasonality is mainly driven by biomass burning emissions. The inferred European anthropogenic emissions are consistent with independent H2 emissions estimated using a H2/CO mass ratio of 0.034 and CO emissions within the range of their respective uncertainties. Additional constraints, such as isotopic measurements would be needed to infer a more robust partition of H2 sources and sinks
Continuous and randomized defensive forecasting: unified view
Defensive forecasting is a method of transforming laws of probability (stated
in game-theoretic terms as strategies for Sceptic) into forecasting algorithms.
There are two known varieties of defensive forecasting: "continuous", in which
Sceptic's moves are assumed to depend on the forecasts in a (semi)continuous
manner and which produces deterministic forecasts, and "randomized", in which
the dependence of Sceptic's moves on the forecasts is arbitrary and
Forecaster's moves are allowed to be randomized. This note shows that the
randomized variety can be obtained from the continuous variety by smearing
Sceptic's moves to make them continuous.Comment: 10 pages. The new version: (1) relaxes the assumption that the
outcome space is finite, and now it is only assumed to be compact; (2) shows
that in the case where the outcome space is finite of cardinality C, the
randomized forecasts can be chosen concentrated on a finite set of
cardinality at most
A generalized risk approach to path inference based on hidden Markov models
Motivated by the unceasing interest in hidden Markov models (HMMs), this
paper re-examines hidden path inference in these models, using primarily a
risk-based framework. While the most common maximum a posteriori (MAP), or
Viterbi, path estimator and the minimum error, or Posterior Decoder (PD), have
long been around, other path estimators, or decoders, have been either only
hinted at or applied more recently and in dedicated applications generally
unfamiliar to the statistical learning community. Over a decade ago, however, a
family of algorithmically defined decoders aiming to hybridize the two standard
ones was proposed (Brushe et al., 1998). The present paper gives a careful
analysis of this hybridization approach, identifies several problems and issues
with it and other previously proposed approaches, and proposes practical
resolutions of those. Furthermore, simple modifications of the classical
criteria for hidden path recognition are shown to lead to a new class of
decoders. Dynamic programming algorithms to compute these decoders in the usual
forward-backward manner are presented. A particularly interesting subclass of
such estimators can be also viewed as hybrids of the MAP and PD estimators.
Similar to previously proposed MAP-PD hybrids, the new class is parameterized
by a small number of tunable parameters. Unlike their algorithmic predecessors,
the new risk-based decoders are more clearly interpretable, and, most
importantly, work "out of the box" in practice, which is demonstrated on some
real bioinformatics tasks and data. Some further generalizations and
applications are discussed in conclusion.Comment: Section 5: corrected denominators of the scaled beta variables (pp.
27-30), => corrections in claims 1, 3, Prop. 12, bottom of Table 1. Decoder
(49), Corol. 14 are generalized to handle 0 probabilities. Notation is more
closely aligned with (Bishop, 2006). Details are inserted in eqn-s (43); the
positivity assumption in Prop. 11 is explicit. Fixed typing errors in
equation (41), Example
The exact evaluation of the corner-to-corner resistance of an M x N resistor network: Asymptotic expansion
We study the corner-to-corner resistance of an M x N resistor network with
resistors r and s in the two spatial directions, and obtain an asymptotic
expansion of its exact expression for large M and N. For M = N, r = s =1, our
result is
R_{NxN} = (4/pi) log N + 0.077318 + 0.266070/N^2 - 0.534779/N^4 + O(1/N^6).Comment: 12 pages, re-arranged section
Tunneling Between Parallel Two-Dimensional Electron Gases
The tunneling between two parallel two-dimensional electron gases has been
investigated as a function of temperature , carrier density , and the
applied perpendicular magnetic field . In zero magnetic field the
equilibrium resonant lineshape is Lorentzian, reflecting the Lorentzian form of
the spectral functions within each layer. From the width of the tunneling
resonance the lifetime of the electrons within a 2DEG has been measured as a
function of and , giving information about the density dependence of the
electron-impurity scattering and the temperature dependence of the
electron-electron scattering. In a magnetic field there is a general
suppression of equilibrium tunneling for fields above T. A gap in the
tunneling density of states has been measured over a wide range of magnetic
fields and filling factors, and various theoretical predictions have been
examined. In a strong magnetic field, when there is only one partially filled
Landau level in each layer, the temperature dependence of the conductance
characteristics has been modeled with a double-Gaussian spectral density.Comment: LaTeX requires REVTeX macros. Eighteen pages. Fourteen postscript
figures are included. (All figures have been bitmapped to save space. The
original can be requested by email from [email protected]). Accepted for
publication in Phys. Rev.
Unconventional resistivity at the border of metallic antiferromagnetism in NiS2
We report low-temperature and high-pressure measurements of the electrical
resistivity \rho(T) of the antiferromagnetic compound NiS_2 in its
high-pressure metallic state. The form of \rho(T) suggests that metallic
antiferromagnetism in NiS_2 is quenched at a critical pressure p_c=76+-5 kbar.
Near p_c the temperature variation of \rho(T) is similar to that observed in
NiS_{2-x}Se_x near the critical composition x=1 where the Neel temperature
vanishes at ambient pressure. In both cases \rho(T) varies approximately as
T^{1.5} over a wide range below 100 K. However, on closer analysis the
resistivity exponent in NiS_2 exhibits an undulating variation with temperature
not seen in NiSSe (x=1). This difference in behaviour may be due to the effects
of spin-fluctuation scattering of charge carriers on cold and hot spots of the
Fermi surface in the presence of quenched disorder, which is higher in NiSSe
than in stoichiometric NiS_2.Comment: 7 page
Dynamical obstruction in a constrained system and its realization in lattices of superconducting devices
Hard constraints imposed in statistical mechanics models can lead to
interesting thermodynamical behaviors, but may at the same time raise
obstructions in the thoroughfare to thermal equilibration. Here we study a
variant of Baxter's 3-color model in which local interactions and defects are
included, and discuss its connection to triangular arrays of Josephson
junctions of superconductors and \textit{kagom\'e} networks of superconducting
wires. The model is equivalent to an Ising model in a hexagonal lattice with
the constraint that the magnetization of each hexagon is or 0. For
ferromagnetic interactions, we find that the system is critical for a range of
temperatures (critical line) that terminates when it undergoes an exotic first
order phase transition with a jump from a zero magnetization state into the
fully magnetized state at finite temperature. Dynamically, however, we find
that the system becomes frozen into domains. The domain walls are made of
perfectly straight segments, and domain growth appears frozen within the time
scales studied with Monte Carlo simulations. This dynamical obstruction has its
origin in the topology of the allowed reconfigurations in phase space, which
consist of updates of closed loops of spins. As a consequence of the dynamical
obstruction, there exists a dynamical temperature, lower than the (avoided)
static critical temperature, at which the system is seen to jump from a
``supercooled liquid'' to a ``polycrystalline'' phase. In contrast, for
antiferromagnetic interactions, we argue that the system orders for
infinitesimal coupling because of the constraint, and we observe no interesting
dynamical effects
Variational Characterisations of Separability and Entanglement of Formation
In this paper we develop a mathematical framework for the characterisation of
separability and entanglement of formation (EoF) of general bipartite states.
These characterisations are of the variational kind, meaning that separability
and EoF are given in terms of a function which is to be minimized over the
manifold of unitary matrices. A major benefit of such a characterisation is
that it directly leads to a numerical procedure for calculating EoF. We present
an efficient minimisation algorithm and an apply it to the bound entangled 3X3
Horodecki states; we show that their EoF is very low and that their distance to
the set of separable states is also very low. Within the same variational
framework we rephrase the results by Wootters (W. Wootters, Phys. Rev. Lett.
80, 2245 (1998)) on EoF for 2X2 states and present progress in generalising
these results to higher dimensional systems.Comment: 11 pages RevTeX, 4 figure
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