Pycortex: an interactive surface visualizer for fMRI.

Surface visualizations of fMRI provide a comprehensive view of cortical activity. However, surface visualizations are difficult to generate and most common visualization techniques rely on unnecessary interpolation which limits the fidelity of the resulting maps. Furthermore, it is difficult to understand the relationship between flattened cortical surfaces and the underlying 3D anatomy using tools available currently. To address these problems we have developed pycortex, a Python toolbox for interactive surface mapping and visualization. Pycortex exploits the power of modern graphics cards to sample volumetric data on a per-pixel basis, allowing dense and accurate mapping of the voxel grid across the surface. Anatomical and functional information can be projected onto the cortical surface. The surface can be inflated and flattened interactively, aiding interpretation of the correspondence between the anatomical surface and the flattened cortical sheet. The output of pycortex can be viewed using WebGL, a technology compatible with modern web browsers. This allows complex fMRI surface maps to be distributed broadly online without requiring installation of complex software

Writing in your own voice: An intervention that reduces plagiarism and common writing problems in students' scientific writing.

In many of our courses, particularly laboratory courses, students are expected to engage in scientific writing. Despite various efforts by other courses and library resources, as instructors we are often faced with the frustration of student plagiarism and related writing problems. Here, we describe a simple Writing in Your Own Voice intervention designed to help students become more aware of different types of plagiarism and writing problems, avoid those problems, and practice writing in their own voice. In this article, we will introduce the types of plagiarism and writing problems commonly encountered in our molecular biology laboratory course, the intervention, and the results of our study. From the evaluation of 365 student reports, we found the intervention resulted in nearly 50% fewer instances of plagiarism and common writing problems. We also observed significantly fewer instances of severe plagiarism (e.g. several sentences copied from an external source). In addition, we find that the effects last for several weeks after the students complete the intervention assignment. This assignment is particularly easy to implement and can be a very useful tool for teaching students how to write in their own voices. © 2019 International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 47(5):589-598, 2019

H.E.S.S. observations of the Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way at a distance of approximately 48 kpc. Despite its distance it harbours several interesting targets for TeV gamma-ray observations. The composite supernova remnant N 157B/PSR J05367-6910 was discovered by H.E.S.S. being an emitter of very high energy (VHE) gamma-rays. It is the most distant pulsar wind nebula ever detected in VHE gamma-rays. Another very exciting target is SN 1987A, the remnant of the most recent supernova explosion that occurred in the neighbourhood of the Milky Way. Models for Cosmic Ray acceleration in this remnant predict gamma-ray emission at a level detectable by H.E.S.S. but this has not been detected so far. Fermi/LAT discovered diffuse high energy (HE) gamma-ray emission from the general direction of the massive star forming region 30 Doradus but no clear evidence for emission from either N 157B or SN 1987A has been published. The part of the LMC containing these objects has been observed regularly with the H.E.S.S. telescopes since 2003. With deep observations carried out in 2010 a very good exposure of this part of the sky has been obtained. The current status of the H.E.S.S. LMC observations is reported along with new results on N 157B and SN 1987A.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, proceedings of the 32nd Internatioal Cosmic Ray Conference, Beijing 201

Gamma-ray signatures of cosmic ray acceleration, propagation, and confinement in the era of CTA

Galactic cosmic rays are commonly believed to be accelerated at supernova remnants via diffusive shock acceleration. Despite the popularity of this idea, a conclusive proof for its validity is still missing. Gamma-ray astronomy provides us with a powerful tool to tackle this problem, because gamma rays are produced during cosmic ray interactions with the ambient gas. The detection of gamma rays from several supernova remnants is encouraging, but still does not constitute a proof of the scenario, the main problem being the difficulty in disentangling the hadronic and leptonic contributions to the emission. Once released by their sources, cosmic rays diffuse in the interstellar medium, and finally escape from the Galaxy. The diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galactic disk, as well as the gamma-ray emission detected from a few galaxies is largely due to the interactions of cosmic rays in the interstellar medium. On much larger scales, cosmic rays are also expected to permeate the intracluster medium, since they can be confined and accumulated within clusters of galaxies for cosmological times. Thus, the detection of gamma rays from clusters of galaxies, or even upper limits on their emission, will allow us to constrain the cosmic ray output of the sources they contain, such as normal galaxies, AGNs, and cosmological shocks. In this paper, we describe the impact that the Cherenkov Telescope Array, a future ground-based facility for very-high energy gamma-ray astronomy, is expected to have in this field of research.Comment: accepted to Astroparticle Physics, special issue on Physics with the Cherenkov Telescope Arra

Prediction of Monthly Discharge in Ungauged Catchments Under Agricultural Land Use in the Upper Ping Basin, Northern Thailand

The present paper describes a methodology proposed for surface runoff modelling in gauged and ungauged subcatchments of Northern Thailand. Gauged catchments are modelled using calibration against measured flow data, whereas streamflow in the ungauged subcatchments is simulated by a disaggregation procedure utilising measured streamflow data from a larger gauged catchment in which the ungauged subcatchment may be nested. The disaggregation technique is based on the assumption that the streamflow contribution from each subcatchment to the total catchment yield is proportional to a ratio of the catchment's area and its average slope. The Mae Chaem catchment in the Upper Ping River basin was selected as a case study for applying the approach. The model testing performed in two subcatchments, where the modelled streamflow was compared with the measured data, showed that the first pass approach algorithm provides the accuracy of 13-17% of the relative error for the monthly time step

Functional Subdomains within Human FFA

Cataloged from PDF version of article.The fusiform face area (FFA) is a well-studied human brain region that shows strong activation for faces. In functional MRI studies, FFA is often assumed to be a homogeneous collection of voxels with similar visual tuning. To test this assumption, we used natural movies and a quantitative voxelwise modeling and decoding framework to estimate category tuning profiles for individual voxels within FFA. We find that the responses in most FFA voxels are strongly enhanced by faces, as reported in previous studies. However, we also find that responses of individual voxels are selectively enhanced or suppressed by a wide variety of other categories and that these broader tuning profiles differ across FFA voxels. Cluster analysis of category tuning profiles across voxels reveals three spatially segregated functional subdomains within FFA. These subdomains differ primarily in their responses for nonface categories, such as animals, vehicles, and communication verbs. Furthermore, this segregation does not depend on the statistical threshold used to define FFA from responses to functional localizers. These results suggest that voxels within FFA represent more diverse information about object and action categories than generally assumed. © 2013 the authors

Highly charged ions in Penning traps, a new tool for resolving low lying isomeric states

The use of highly charged ions increases the precision and resolving power, in particular for short-lived species produced at on-line radio-isotope beam facilities, achievable with Penning trap mass spectrometers. This increase in resolving power provides a new and unique access to resolving low-lying long-lived ($T_{1/2} > 50$ ms) nuclear isomers. Recently, the $111.19(22)$ keV (determined from $\gamma$-ray spectroscopy) isomeric state in $^{78}$Rb has been resolved from the ground state, in a charge state of $q=8+$ with the TITAN Penning trap at the TRIUMF-ISAC facility. The excitation energy of the isomer was measured to be $108.7(6.4)$ keV above the ground state. The extracted masses for both the ground and isomeric states, and their difference, agree with the AME2003 and Nuclear Data Sheet values. This proof of principle measurement demonstrates the feasibility of using Penning trap mass spectrometers coupled to charge breeders to study nuclear isomers and opens a new route for isomer searches.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Pengaruh Hambatan Samping Terhadap Kinerja Pada Ruas Jalan Panjaitan (Kelenteng Ban Hing Kiong) Dengan Menggunakan Metode Mkji 1997

Jalan merupakan prasarana transportasi darat yang memegang peranan penting dalam sektor perhubungan darat, dalam kehidupan masyarakat modern dengan berkembangnya teknologi, pertumbuhan ekonomi dan jumlah penduduk mengakibatkan banyaknya aktivitas kegiatan yang dilakukan, sedangkan kapasitas dan kinerja jalan yang menampung arus kendaraan, semakin terbatas. Pada kondisi ini sering menimbulkan kemacetan. Kinerja arus lalu lintas di daerah komersial menjadi berkurang, karena disebabkan oleh berbagai faktor yang terjadi pada sisi jalan. Salah satu faktor yang menyebabkan hal tersebut adalah aktifitas pada sisi jalan atau hambatan samping berupa kendaraan keluar masuk, penyeberang jalan, dan kendaraan lambat. Jalan Panjaitan khususnya depan kelenteng Ban Hing Kiong dipilih sebagai lokasi penelitian karena pada ruas jalan ini sering terjadi kemacetan yang diakibatkan oleh tingginya aktifitas sisi jalan berupa banyaknya kendaraan yang berhenti yang menaikkan dan menurunkan penumpang, parkir di badan jalan, penyeberang jalan, kendaraan tidak bermotor, kendaraan yang keluar masuk sisi jalan, yang mempengaruhi arus lalu lintas, kecepatan, kapasitas. Penelitian dilakukan selama 4 hari, yaitu pada hari Senin, Rabu, Jumat, dan Sabtu. Pengambilan data secara langsung dilapangan, untuk volume lalu lintas, kecepatan kendaraan dan data hambatan samping dibagi per 15 menit. Selanjutnya dilakukan analisa data yang dibagi dalam dua bagian yaitu volume lalu lintas, kecepatan, dan kapasitas jalan menggunakan Manual Kapasitas Jalan Indonesia (MKJI) Tahun 1997. Sedangkan untuk pengaruh hambatan samping terhadap kecepatan arus lalu lintas, dianalisa menggunakan regresi berganda dengan bantuan Microsoft Excel dengan cara menghilangkan salah satu faktor hambatan samping untuk mengetahui seberapa besar kontribusi masing-masing faktor hambatan samping terhadap kinerja arus lalu lintas. Hasil penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa tingginya aktifitas sisi jalan atau hambatan samping cukup berpengaruh terhadap tingkat kinerja arus lalu lintas. Faktor hambatan samping yang sangat berpengaruh terhadap kecepatan arus lalu lintas adalah faktor kendaraan lambat 12.1 %, faktor penyeberang jalan 7.6 %, faktor kendaraan masuk dan keluar 5.5 %, faktor kendaraan berhenti 4.3 %, Selain itu diperoleh nilai kapasitas sebesar 1330.06 smp/jam, dengan derajat kejenuhan (DS) sebesar 0.986, Koefisien Determinasi (r) yang diperoleh dari hasil analisis yaitu sebesar 0.868, hal ini menunjukkan bahwa 86.8 % Perubahan variabel kendaraan keluar dan masuk penelitian, kendaraan berhenti, penyeberang jalan, dan kendaraan lambat secara bersama-sama mempengaruhi kecepatan arus lalu lintas