The Relationship between Trait Empathy and Memory Formation for Social vs. Non-Social Information

Background: To navigate successfully through their complex social environment, humans need both empathic and mnemonic skills. Little is known on how these two types of psychological abilities relate to each other in humans. Although initial clinical findings suggest a positive association, systematic investigations in healthy subject samples have not yet been performed. Differentiating cognitive and affective aspects of empathy, we assumed that cognitive empathy would be positively associated with general memory performance, while affective empathy, due to enhanced other-related emotional reactions, would be related to a relative memory advantage for information of social as compared to non-social relevance. Methods: We investigated in young healthy participants the relationship between dispositional cognitive and affective empathy, as measured by Davis’ Interpersonal Reactivity Index (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 44, 113–126, 1983), and memory formation for stimuli (numbers presented in a lottery choice task) that could be encoded in either a social (other-related) or a non-social (self-related) way within the task. Results: Cognitive empathy, specifically perspective taking, correlated with overall memory performance (regardless of encoding condition), while affective empathy, specifically empathic personal distress, predicted differential memory for socially vs. non-socially encoded information. Conclusion: Both cognitive and affective empathy are associated with memory formation, but in different ways, depending on the social nature of the memory content. These results open new and so far widely neglected avenues of psychological research on the relationship between social and cognitive skills.<br

Probing Convolutional Neural Networks for Event Reconstruction in {\gamma}-Ray Astronomy with Cherenkov Telescopes

A dramatic progress in the field of computer vision has been made in recent years by applying deep learning techniques. State-of-the-art performance in image recognition is thereby reached with Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). CNNs are a powerful class of artificial neural networks, characterized by requiring fewer connections and free parameters than traditional neural networks and exploiting spatial symmetries in the input data. Moreover, CNNs have the ability to automatically extract general characteristic features from data sets and create abstract data representations which can perform very robust predictions. This suggests that experiments using Cherenkov telescopes could harness these powerful machine learning algorithms to improve the analysis of particle-induced air-showers, where the properties of primary shower particles are reconstructed from shower images recorded by the telescopes. In this work, we present initial results of a CNN-based analysis for background rejection and shower reconstruction, utilizing simulation data from the H.E.S.S. experiment. We concentrate on supervised training methods and outline the influence of image sampling on the performance of the CNN-model predictions.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, Proceedings of the 35th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC 2017), Busan, Kore

Guilt-Specific Processing in the Prefrontal Cortex

Guilt is a central moral emotion due to its inherent link to norm violations, thereby affecting both individuals and society. Furthermore, the nature and specificity of guilt is still debated in psychology and philosophy, particularly with regard to the differential involvement of self-referential representations in guilt relative to shame. Here, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in healthy volunteers, we identified specific brain regions associated with guilt by comparison with the 2 most closely related emotions, shame and sadness. To induce high emotional intensity, we used an autobiographical memory paradigm where participants relived during fMRI scanning situations from their own past that were associated with strong feelings of guilt, shame, or sadness. Compared with the control emotions, guilt episodes specifically recruited a region of right orbitofrontal cortex, which was also highly correlated with individual propensity to experience guilt (Trait Guilt). Guilt-specific activity was also observed in the paracingulate dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, a critical "Theory of Mind” region, which overlapped with brain areas of self-referential processing identified in an independent task. These results provide new insights on the unique nature of guilt as a "self-conscious” moral emotion and the neural bases of antisocial disorders characterized by impaired guilt processin

Beautiful friendship: Social sharing of emotions improves subjective feelings and activates the neural reward circuitry

Humans have a strong tendency to affiliate with other people, especially in emotional situations. Here, we suggest that a critical mechanism underlying this tendency is that socially sharing emotional experiences is in itself perceived as hedonically positive and thereby contributes to the regulation of individual emotions. We investigated the effect of social sharing of emotions on subjective feelings and neural activity by having pairs of friends view emotional (negative and positive) and neutral pictures either alone or with the friend. While the two friends remained physically separated throughout the experiment—with one undergoing functional magnetic resonance imaging and the other performing the task in an adjacent room—they were made aware on a trial-by-trial basis whether they were seeing pictures simultaneously with their friend (shared) or alone (unshared). Ratings of subjective feelings were improved significantly when participants viewed emotional pictures together than alone, an effect that was accompanied by activity increase in ventral striatum and medial orbitofrontal cortex, two important components of the reward circuitry. Because these effects occurred without any communication or interaction between the friends, they point to an important proximate explanation for the basic human motivation to affiliate with others, particularly in emotional situation

Continuously expanding CAR NK-92 cells display selective cytotoxicity against B-cell leukemia and lymphoma

Background aims Natural killer (NK) cells can rapidly respond to transformed and stressed cells and represent an important effector cell type for adoptive immunotherapy. In addition to donor-derived primary NK cells, continuously expanding cytotoxic cell lines such as NK-92 are being developed for clinical applications. Methods To enhance their therapeutic utility for the treatment of B-cell malignancies, we engineered NK-92 cells by lentiviral gene transfer to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) that target CD19 and contain human CD3ζ (CAR 63.z), composite CD28-CD3ζ or CD137-CD3ζ signaling domains (CARs 63.28.z and 63.137.z). Results Exposure of CD19-positive targets to CAR NK-92 cells resulted in formation of conjugates between NK and cancer cells, NK-cell degranulation and selective cytotoxicity toward established B-cell leukemia and lymphoma cells. Likewise, the CAR NK cells displayed targeted cell killing of primary pre-B-ALL blasts that were resistant to parental NK-92. Although all three CAR NK-92 cell variants were functionally active, NK-92/63.137.z cells were less effective than NK-92/63.z and NK-92/63.28.z in cell killing and cytokine production, pointing to differential effects of the costimulatory CD28 and CD137 domains. In a Raji B-cell lymphoma model in NOD-SCID IL2R γnull mice, treatment with NK-92/63.z cells, but not parental NK-92 cells, inhibited disease progression, indicating that selective cytotoxicity was retained in vivo. Conclusions Our data demonstrate that it is feasible to generate CAR-engineered NK-92 cells with potent and selective antitumor activity. These cells may become clinically useful as a continuously expandable off-the-shelf cell therapeutic agent

Exact exchange-correlation potential for a time-dependent two electron system

We obtain an exact solution of the time-dependent Schroedinger equation for a two-electron system confined to a plane by an isotropic parabolic potential whose curvature is periodically modulated in time. From this solution we compute the exact time-dependent exchange correlation potential v_xc which enters the Kohn-Sham equation of time-dependent density functional theory. Our exact result provides a benchmark against which various approximate forms for v_xc can be compared. Finally v_xc is separated in an adiabatic and a pure dynamical part and it is shown that, for the particular system studied, the dynamical part is negligible.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Intersubband spin-density excitations in quantum wells with Rashba spin splitting

In inversion-asymmetric semiconductors, spin-orbit coupling induces a k-dependent spin splitting of valence and conduction bands, which is a well-known cause for spin decoherence in bulk and heterostructures. Manipulating nonequilibrium spin coherence in device applications thus requires understanding how valence and conduction band spin splitting affects carrier spin dynamics. This paper studies the relevance of this decoherence mechanism for collective intersubband spin-density excitations (SDEs) in quantum wells. A density-functional formalism for the linear spin-density matrix response is presented that describes SDEs in the conduction band of quantum wells with subbands that may be non-parabolic and spin-split due to bulk or structural inversion asymmetry (Rashba effect). As an example, we consider a 40 nm GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well, including Rashba spin splitting of the conduction subbands. We find a coupling and wavevector-dependent splitting of the longitudinal and transverse SDEs. However, decoherence of the SDEs is not determined by subband spin splitting, due to collective effects arising from dynamical exchange and correlation.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Energy Saving Potential of a Temperature Test Chamber by implementing a Heat-Pump

Energy savings become more and more important – also for the rather small industry sector of environmental simulation. So far the technical focus was mainly to realize challenging test cycles which are often gives as temperature profiles. The energy efficiency of the test devices are not specified by any standard. Nevertheless, especially test cycles with intermittent cooling and heating over a wide temperature range need a substantial electrical energy input. As state-of-the-art technology for cooling a vapor compression cycle and for heating an electrical heater is used. In this work a standard temperature test chamber with a specified temperature range from -75 °C to 180 °C using a cascade cooling system and an electric heater is investigated. As a first step the baseline chamber was investigated experimentally and the energy consumption quantified. In the next step the refrigeration cycle was modified with a heat pump capability as well as further cycle modification that indicated energy saving potential in preliminary studies. A comparison to the baseline chamber is carried and reveals substantial energy saving potential

Systematic study of the pp -> pp omega reaction

A systematic study of the production of omega-mesons in proton-proton-collisions was carried out in a kinematically complete experiment at three excess energies(epsilon= 92, 128, 173MeV). Both protons were detected using the large-acceptance COSY-TOF spectrometer at an external beam line at the Cooler Synchrotron COSY at Forschungszentrum J\"ulich. The total cross section, angular distributions of both omega-mesons and protons were measured and presented in various reference frames such as the overall CMS, helicity and Jackson frame. In addition, the orientation of the omega-spin and invariant mass spectra were determined. We observe omega-production to take place dominantly in Ss and Sp final states at epsilon = 92, 128 MeV and, additionally, in Sd at epsilon= 173 MeV. No obvious indication of resonant omega-production via N^*-resonances was found, as proton angular distributions are almost isotropic and invariant mass spectra are compatible with phase space distributions. A dominant role of ^3P_1 and ^1S_0 initial partial waves for omega-production was concluded from the orientation of the decay plane of the omega-meson. Although the Jackson angle distributions in the omega-p-Jackson frame are anisotropic we argue that this is not an indication of a resonance but rather a kinematical effect reflecting the anisotropy of the omega angular distribution. The helicity angle distribution in the omega-p-helicity frame shows an anisotropy which probably reflects effects of the omega angular momenta in the final state; this observable may be, in addition to the orientation of the omega decay plane, the most sensitive one to judge the validity of theoretical descriptions of the production process.Comment: 17 pages, 16 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ