What is going on around here? Intolerance of uncertainty predicts threat generalization

Attending to stimuli that share perceptual similarity to learned threats is an adaptive strategy. However, prolonged threat generalization to cues signalling safety is considered a core feature of pathological anxiety. One potential factor that may sustain over-generalization is sensitivity to future threat uncertainty. To assess the extent to which Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) predicts threat generalization, we recorded skin conductance in 54 healthy participants during an associative learning paradigm, where threat and safety cues varied in perceptual similarity. Lower IU was associated with stronger discrimination between threat and safety cues during acquisition and extinction. Higher IU, however, was associated with generalized responding to threat and safety cues during acquisition, and delayed discrimination between threat and safety cues during extinction. These results were specific to IU, over and above other measures of anxious disposition. These findings highlight: (1) a critical role of uncertainty-based mechanisms in threat generalization, and (2) IU as a potential risk factor for anxiety disorder development

Feel it in my bones: Composing multimodal experience through tissue conduction

We outline here the feasibility of coherently utilising tissue conduction for spatial audio and tactile input. Tissue conduction display-specific compositional concerns are discussed; it is hypothesised that the qualia available through this medium substantively differ from those for conventional artificial means of appealing to auditory spatial perception. The implications include that spatial music experienced in this manner constitutes a new kind of experience, and that the ground rules of composition are yet to be established. We refer to results from listening experiences with one hundred listeners in an unstructured attribute elicitation exercise, where prominent themes such as “strange”, “weird”, “positive”, “spatial” and “vibrations” emerged. We speculate on future directions aimed at taking maximal advantage of the principle of multimodal perception to broaden the informational bandwidth of the display system. Some implications for composition for hearing-impaired are elucidated.n/

Long-term associative learning predicts verbal short-term memory performance

Studies using tests such as digit span and nonword repetition have implicated short-term memory across a range of developmental domains. Such tests ostensibly assess specialized processes for the short-term manipulation and maintenance of information that are often argued to enable long-term learning. However, there is considerable evidence for an influence of long-term linguistic learning on performance in short-term memory tasks that brings into question the role of a specialized short-term memory system separate from long-term knowledge. Using natural language corpora, we show experimentally and computationally that performance on three widely used measures of short-term memory (digit span, nonword repetition, and sentence recall) can be predicted from simple associative learning operating on the linguistic environment to which a typical child may have been exposed. The findings support the broad view that short-term verbal memory performance reflects the application of long-term language knowledge to the experimental setting

Absolute Determination of Stress in Textured Materials

The continuum theory of elastic wave propagation in deformed, anisotropic solids is reviewed with emphasis on those features which might be used to distinguish between stress induced changes in ultrasonic velocity and changes due to material anisotropy, such as would be produced by preferred grain orientation in a polycrystalline metal As noted by previous authors, one such feature is the difference in velocity of two shear waves, whose directions of propagation and polarization have been interchanged. In particular, when these directions fall along the symmetry axes of a rolled plate (assuming orthorhombic symmetry) and these are also the directions of principal stress, then the theory predicts that ρ(V 12 2−V 21 2) = T1−T2 where ρ is the density, Vij is the velocity of a shear wave propagating along the i-axis and polarized along the j-axis, and Ti is a principal stress component. In addition to being independent of the degree of texture, this relationship has the advantage that no microstructurally dependent acoustoelastic coefficient is involved. The applicability of this prediction of continuum theory to heterogeneous engineering materials such as metal polycrystals is discussed using previously reported stress dependencies of ultrasonic velocities, and new experiments to answer some remaining questions are described. A possible configuration for using the effect to measure the value of a uniform stress in a plate of unknown texture is proposed

Choroidal metastases in testicular choriocarcinoma, successful treatment with chemo- and radiotherapy: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Choriocarcinoma is a very rare cause of ocular metastasis. Only 18 male patients have been reported on, 4 of whom survived, but with significant loss of vision.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 26-year-old Caucasian man, suffering from testicular choriocarcinoma with pulmonary, cerebral, renal, hepatic and osseous metastases, underwent left radical orchiectomy. While being treated with chemotherapy, he presented with loss of vision in the left eye. Ophthalmoscopy revealed bilateral non-pigmented, hemorrhagic choroidal tumours, compatible with secondary lesions. Continued chemotherapy and stereotactic radiotherapy of the skull and spine lead to full remission with excellent vision, after more than 4 years of follow up.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Testicular choriocarcinoma is an exceptional cause of choroidal metastasis, potentially asymptomatic and with specific clinical features. Radiotherapy can complement radical orchiectomy and chemotherapy, to achieve full remission and maintain good vision.</p

Measurements of integrated and differential cross sections for isolated photon pair production in pp collisions at √s=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A measurement of the production cross section for two isolated photons in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of √s=8 TeV is presented. The results are based on an integrated luminosity of 20.2 fb−1 recorded by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The measurement considers photons with pseudorapidities satisfying |ηγ|40GeV and EγT,2>30 GeV for the two leading photons ordered in transverse energy produced in the interaction. The background due to hadronic jets and electrons is subtracted using data-driven techniques. The fiducial cross sections are corrected for detector effects and measured differentially as a function of six kinematic observables. The measured cross section integrated within the fiducial volume is 16.8 ± 0.8  pb . The data are compared to fixed-order QCD calculations at next-to-leading-order and next-to-next-to-leading-order accuracy as well as next-to-leading-order computations including resummation of initial-state gluon radiation at next-to-next-to-leading logarithm or matched to a parton shower, with relative uncertainties varying from 5% to 20%

Search for supersymmetry in events with four or more leptons in √s =13 TeV pp collisions with ATLAS

Results from a search for supersymmetry in events with four or more charged leptons (electrons, muons and taus) are presented. The analysis uses a data sample corresponding to 36.1 fb −1 of proton-proton collisions delivered by the Large Hadron Collider at s √ =13 TeV and recorded by the ATLAS detector. Four-lepton signal regions with up to two hadronically decaying taus are designed to target a range of supersymmetric scenarios that can be either enriched in or depleted of events involving the production and decay of a Z boson. Data yields are consistent with Standard Model expectations and results are used to set upper limits on the event yields from processes beyond the Standard Model. Exclusion limits are set at the 95% confidence level in simplified models of General Gauge Mediated supersymmetry, where higgsino masses are excluded up to 295 GeV. In R -parity-violating simplified models with decays of the lightest supersymmetric particle to charged leptons, lower limits of 1.46 TeV, 1.06 TeV, and 2.25 TeV are placed on wino, slepton and gluino masses, respectively

Search for High-Mass Resonances Decaying to τν in pp Collisions at √s=13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector

A search for high-mass resonances decaying to τν using proton-proton collisions at √s=13 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider is presented. Only τ-lepton decays with hadrons in the final state are considered. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1. No statistically significant excess above the standard model expectation is observed; model-independent upper limits are set on the visible τν production cross section. Heavy W′ bosons with masses less than 3.7 TeV in the sequential standard model and masses less than 2.2–3.8 TeV depending on the coupling in the nonuniversal G(221) model are excluded at the 95% credibility level

Search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with tau leptons in √s=13 TeV collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for the direct production of charginos and neutralinos in final states with at least two hadronically decaying tau leptons is presented. The analysis uses a dataset of pp collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb−1, recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider at a centre-of-mass energy of 13TeV.Nosignificant deviation from the expected Standard Model background is observed. Limits are derived in scenarios of ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 pair production and of ˜χ±1 ˜χ02 and ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 production in simplified models where the neutralinos and charginos decay solely via intermediate left-handed staus and tau sneutrinos, and the mass of the ˜ τL state is set to be halfway between the masses of the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01. Chargino masses up to 630 GeV are excluded at 95% confidence level in the scenario of direct production of ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 for a massless ˜χ01. Common ˜χ±1 and ˜χ02 masses up to 760 GeV are excluded in the case of production of ˜χ±1 ˜χ02 and ˜χ+1 ˜χ−1 assuming a massless ˜χ01. Exclusion limits for additional benchmark scenarios with large and small mass-splitting between the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01 are also studied by varying the ˜ τL mass between the masses of the ˜χ±1 and the ˜χ01

Charged-particle distributions at low transverse momentum in √s=13 13 TeV pp interactions measured with the ATLAS detector at the LHC

Measurements of distributions of charged particles produced in proton–proton collisions with a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV are presented. The data were recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 151 μb −1 μb−1 . The particles are required to have a transverse momentum greater than 100 MeV and an absolute pseudorapidity less than 2.5. The charged-particle multiplicity, its dependence on transverse momentum and pseudorapidity and the dependence of the mean transverse momentum on multiplicity are measured in events containing at least two charged particles satisfying the above kinematic criteria. The results are corrected for detector effects and compared to the predictions from several Monte Carlo event generators