11,705 research outputs found

    The Herschel SPIRE Fourier Transform Spectrometer Spectral Feature Finder II. Estimating Radial Velocity of SPIRE Spectral Observation Sources

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    The Herschel SPIRE FTS Spectral Feature Finder (FF) detects significant spectral features within SPIRE spectra and employs two routines, and external references, to estimate source radial velocity. The first routine is based on the identification of rotational CO emission, the second cross-correlates detected features with a line template containing most of the characteristic lines in typical far infra-red observations. In this paper, we outline and validate these routines, summarise the results as they pertain to the FF, and comment on how external references were incorporated.Comment: 12 pages, 16 figures, 1 table, accepted by MNRAS March 202

    Person-specific theory of mind in medial pFC

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    Although research on theory of mind has strongly implicated the dorsomedial pFC (incuding medial BA 8 and BA 9), the unique contributions of medial pFC (MPFC; corresponding to medial BA 10) to mentalizing remain uncertain. The extant literature has considered the possibility that these regions may be specialized for self-related cognition or for reasoning about close others, but evidence for both accounts has been inconclusive. We propose a novel theoretical framework: MPFC selectively implements "person-specific theories of mind" (ToMp) representing the unique, idiosyncratic traits or attributes of well-known individuals. To test this hypothesis, we used fMRI to assess MPFC responses in Democratic and Republican participants as they evaluated more or less subjectively well-known political figures. Consistent with the ToMp account, MPFC showed greater activity to subjectively well-known targets, irrespective of participants' reported feelings of closeness or similarity. MPFC also demonstrated greater activity on trials in which targets (whether politicians or oneself) were judged to be relatively idiosyncratic, making a generic theory of mind inapplicable. These results suggest that MPFC may supplement the generic theory of mind process, with which dorsomedial pFC has been associated, by contributing mentalizing capacities tuned to individuated representations of specific well-known others

    Tradition and Prudence in Locke's Exceptions to Toleration

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    Why did Locke exclude Catholics and atheists from toleration? Not, I contend, because he was trapped by his context, but because his prudential approach and practica ljudgments led him to traditiona ltexts. I make this argumentfirst by outlining the connections among prudential exceptionality, practical judgments, and traditional texts. I then describe important continuities betweenc onventional English understandings of the relationship between state and religion and Locke's writings on toleration, discuss Locke's conception of rights, and illustrate his use of prudential exceptions and distinctions. I conclude by arguing that Locke's problems are relevant to assessingc ontemporary liberal discussions of tolerationa nd the separation of state and religion that lean heavily on practical justification

    Formal change impact analyses for emulated control software

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    Processor emulators are a software tool for allowing legacy computer programs to be executed on a modern processor. In the past emulators have been used in trivial applications such as maintenance of video games. Now, however, processor emulation is being applied to safety-critical control systems, including military avionics. These applications demand utmost guarantees of correctness, but no verification techniques exist for proving that an emulated system preserves the original system’s functional and timing properties. Here we show how this can be done by combining concepts previously used for reasoning about real-time program compilation, coupled with an understanding of the new and old software architectures. In particular, we show how both the old and new systems can be given a common semantics, thus allowing their behaviours to be compared directly

    Disconfirmation modulates the neural correlates of the false consensus effect: A parametric modulation approach

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    The false consensus effect (FCE) - the tendency to (erroneously) project our attitudes and opinions onto others - is an enduring bias in social reasoning with important societal implications. In this fMRI investigation, we examine the neural correlates of within-subject variation in consensus bias on a variety of social and political issues. Bias demonstrated a strong association with activity in brain regions implicated in self-related cognition, mentalizing, and valuation. Importantly, however, recruitment of these regions predicted consensus bias only in the presence of social disconfirmation, in the form of feedback discrepant with participants' own attitudes. These results suggest that the psychological and neural mechanisms underlying the tendency to project attitudes onto others are crucially moderated by motivational factors, including the desire to affirm the normativity of one's own position. This research complements social psychological theorizing about the factors contributing to the FCE, and further emphasizes the role of motivated cognition in social reasoning

    Neural Correlates of the False Consensus Effect:Evidence for Motivated Projection and Regulatory Restraint

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    The false consensus effect (FCE), the tendency to project our attitudes and opinions on to others, is a pervasive bias in social reasoning with a range of ramifications for individuals and society. Research in social psychology has suggested that numerous factors (anchoring and adjustment, accessibility, motivated projection, etc.) may contribute to the FCE. In this study, we examine the neural correlates of the FCE and provide evidence that motivated projection plays a significant role. Activity in reward regions (ventromedial pFC and bilateral nucleus accumbens) during consensus estimation was positively associated with bias, whereas activity in right ventrolateral pFC (implicated in emotion regulation) was inversely associated with bias. Activity in reward and regulatory regions accounted for half of the total variation in consensus bias across participants (R2 = .503). This research complements models of the FCE in social psychology, providing a glimpse into the neural mechanisms underlying this important phenomenon

    PIV Measurements of the CEV Hot Abort Motor Plume for CFD Validation

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    NASA s next manned launch platform for missions to the moon and Mars are the Orion and Ares systems. Many critical aspects of the launch system performance are being verified using computational fluid dynamics (CFD) predictions. The Orion Launch Abort Vehicle (LAV) consists of a tower mounted tractor rocket tasked with carrying the Crew Module (CM) safely away from the launch vehicle in the event of a catastrophic failure during the vehicle s ascent. Some of the predictions involving the launch abort system flow fields produced conflicting results, which required further investigation through ground test experiments. Ground tests were performed to acquire data from a hot supersonic jet in cross-flow for the purpose of validating CFD turbulence modeling relevant to the Orion Launch Abort Vehicle (LAV). Both 2-component axial plane Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and 3-component cross-stream Stereo Particle Image Velocimetry (SPIV) measurements were obtained on a model of an Abort Motor (AM). Actual flight conditions could not be simulated on the ground, so the highest temperature and pressure conditions that could be safely used in the test facility (nozzle pressure ratio 28.5 and a nozzle temperature ratio of 3) were used for the validation tests. These conditions are significantly different from those of the flight vehicle, but were sufficiently high enough to begin addressing turbulence modeling issues that predicated the need for the validation tests

    High-throughput sequencing reveals a simple model of nucleosome energetics

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    We use nucleosome maps obtained by high-throughput sequencing to study sequence specificity of intrinsic histone-DNA interactions. In contrast with previous approaches, we employ an analogy between a classical one-dimensional fluid of finite-size particles in an arbitrary external potential and arrays of DNA-bound histone octamers. We derive an analytical solution to infer free energies of nucleosome formation directly from nucleosome occupancies measured in high-throughput experiments. The sequence-specific part of free energies is then captured by fitting them to a sum of energies assigned to individual nucleotide motifs. We have developed hierarchical models of increasing complexity and spatial resolution, establishing that nucleosome occupancies can be explained by systematic differences in mono- and dinucleotide content between nucleosomal and linker DNA sequences, with periodic dinucleotide distributions and longer sequence motifs playing a secondary role. Furthermore, similar sequence signatures are exhibited by control experiments in which genomic DNA is either sonicated or digested with micrococcal nuclease in the absence of nucleosomes, making it possible that current predictions based on high-throughput nucleosome positioning maps are biased by experimental artifacts.Comment: 36 pages, 13 figure
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