cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
POSITIVE BIAS OF COVID-19 MORTALITY IN MALES
Creators: name: SHANG Valerie
name: CHO Yeun
name: LIEW Kian Wah
name: ROBERTS Richard
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: COVID-19; ACE2 receptor expression;

description: Introduction: Globally, there were higher COVID-19 deaths in males than females although exact reasons remain unknown.
 The development of clinical complications which increase the risk of COVID-19 death is thought to be linked to the downregulation of membrane bound ACE2 receptor expression. Objectives: To produce gender-disaggregated data for Malaysia with considerations of age and comorbidity as risk factors. To hypothesize reasons for gender disparity in COVID-19 deaths with the pharmacological account of ACE2 receptor. Methodology: Ethics application was submitted as good practice and approved by the University of Nottingham Malaysia. Then, individual anonymised data were collected from the Malaysiakini Covid tracker. Finally, data from the two genders were compared and analysed using Relative Risk (RR) (no. of males / no. of females) and z-test analysis. Results: Median age of the Malaysian population is 29.8 years. In comparison, death due to COVID-19 peaked at 60-69 years. Therefore, advanced age is a risk factor to COVID-19 mortality irrespective of gender. Death incidences in males were consistently higher than females. z-test revealed that COVID-19 infection significantly increased the risk of death than the comorbidity alone (p<0.01). NB: 88% of patients had more than one comorbidity. RR represents Relative Risk. Discussion: Estrogen in females promotes membrane-bound ACE2 receptor expression and is linked to better innate immunity than males. Limited data linked ACE2 receptor expression to age although data show older individuals were more susceptible to death than younger patients with no evidence of gender disparity. Cardiovascular diseases and CKD reduce membrane-bound ACE2 availability due to heightened inflammatory response, thus COVID-19 infection could worsen the prognosis. Conclusion: Understanding the key risk factors to COVID-19 death and its link to membrane-bound ACE2 receptors availability supports a new therapeutic target, especially for severe COVID-19 infection.

description: This poster was submitted to the 14th National Conference for Clinical Research (NCCR) on August 18-20 2021. https://nccrconference.com.my/
Thresholdless Nanoscale Coaxial Lasers
Creators: name: Khajavikhan, M.
name: Simic, A.
name: Katz, M.
name: Lee, J. H.
name: Slutsky, B.
name: Mizrahi, A.
name: Lomakin, V.
name: Fainman, Y.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Optics (physics.optics)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The generation of coherent radiation in nanostructures has attracted considerable interest in recent years owing both to the quantum electrodynamical effects that emerge in small volumes, and to their potential for future applications. The progress towards exploring this size regime, however, has been hindered by the lack of a systematic approach to scaling down the mode as the structures shrink in size and by the high threshold power required for lasing in small cavities. Here we present a new family of metamaterial-like nano-cavities consisting of metallic coaxial nanostructures that solves both of these problems. The proposed nanoscale coaxial cavities can operate as thresholdless lasers, and their size is not restricted by the mode cut-off. Using these new nano-cavities we have succeeded to demonstrate for the first time thresholdless lasing in a broadband gain medium, and the smallest room temperature, continuous wave, telecom laser to date. The nanoscale coaxial cavities are the first systematic step towards unveiling the potentials of ultra small quantum electrodynamical objects in which atom-field interactions generate new functionalities.
description: 16 pages, 4 figures
Resilience of the quantum critical line in the Schmid transition
Creators: name: Paris, Nicolas
name: Giacomelli, Luca
name: Daviet, Romain
name: Ciuti, Cristiano
name: Dupuis, Nicolas
name: Mora, Christophe
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Strongly Correlated Electrons (cond-mat.str-el)
subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Schmid predicted that a single Josephson junction coupled to a resistive environment undergoes a quantum phase transition to an insulating phase when the shunt resistance $R$ exceeds the resistance quantum $h/(4 e^ 2)$. Recent measurements and theoretical studies have sparked a debate on whether the location of this transition depends on the ratio between the Josephson and the charging energies. We employ a combination of multiple innovative analytical and numerical techniques, never before explicitly applied to this problem, to decisively demonstrate that the transition line between superconducting and insulating behavior is indeed independent of this energy ratio. First, we apply field-theory renormalization group methods and find that the $β$ function vanishes along the critical line up to the third order in the Josephson energy. We then identify a simple fermionic model that precisely captures the low-energy physics on the critical line, regardless of the energy ratio. This conformally invariant fermionic model is verified by comparing the expected spectrum with exact diagonalization calculations of the resistively shunted Josephson junction, showing excellent agreement even for moderate system sizes. Importantly, this identification provides a rigorous non-perturbative proof that the transition line is maintained at $R=h/(4 e^ 2)$ for all ratios of Josephson to charging energies. The line is further resilient to other ultraviolet cutoffs such as the plasma frequency of the resistive environment. Finally, we implement an adiabatic approach to validate the duality at large Josephson energy.
description: 11+5 pages, 7+2 figures Published 14 February, 2025
Concepts of performance in post-occupancy evaluation post-probe: a literature review
Creators: name: Boissonneault, Alexandra
name: Peters, Terri
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Science Policy

description: Building performance is a widely held goal in the architecture, engineering and construction industries, driven by a shared pursuit of the triple bottom line. This research paper re-examined the term ‘performance’ and its characterization in post-occupancy evaluation (POE) literature using a semi-systematic review of 160 articles published since 2008. The review identified how performance parameters have been defined, what the dominant attributes of studies are and what metrics have been used to measure them. A thematic content analysis found that many new priorities had emerged in recent years, problematizing Preiser et al.’s 1988 construct of the concept. The main contribution of this paper is a new expanded definition of ‘performance’ in terms of three interrelated domains: building, people and organization, and the development of subcategories for more nuanced analysis. This definition builds on the building performance-people performance paradigm first established by the UK’s PROBE initiative and responds to several shifts in thinking the review results revealed, including a shift from deterministic thinking towards a more bidirectional understanding of the person-environment relationship. Results were further distilled into recommendations to be used by researchers, practitioners and policymakers to identify performance areas of interest and develop more adaptive, integrated approaches to POE work.
Breast Cancer Stage at the Time of Presentation: Clinicopathological Correlations
Creators: name: Alwan, Nada A. S.
name: Furat N. Tawfeeq
name: Maallah, Mina H.
name: Safana A. Sattar
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Breast cancer
stage
diagnosis
Iraq
clinicopathological findings

description: Background: Breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed malignancy and the second leading cause of mortality among women in Iraq forming 23% of cancer related deaths. The low survival from the disease is a direct consequence to the advanced stages at diagnoses. Aim: To document the composite stage of breast cancer among Iraqi patients at the time of diagnosis; correlating the observed findings with other clinical and pathological parameters at presentation. Patients and Methods: A retrospective study enrolling the clinical and pathological characteristics of 448 Iraqi female patients diagnosed with breast cancer. The composite stage of breast cancer was determined according to UICC TNM Classification System of Breast Cancer and the American Joint Committee on Cancer Staging. The studied parameters comprised age of the patient, stage of the disease, marital and educational status, history of lactation and hormonal intake (for a minimum period of 6 months), family history of breast or any other cancer, the effected breast side, hormone (Estrogen and Progesterone) receptor (ER, PR) and Her2 contents of the primary cancer. Statistical analysis was performed to correlate the recorded composite stages at diagnosis with the corresponding clinical and pathological data utilizing SPSS version 16.0 statistical program. Results: Out of 448 patients, four (0.9%) had ductal carcinoma in situ (Stage 0). Stages I, II and III were documented in 7.6%, 46.9% and 39.3% respectively; while only 5.4% presented in Stage IV. No correlation was elicited between the stage of breast cancer and the age of the patients or the history of lactation. A significant association was demonstrated with the marital and educational status, history of hormonal intake, contralateral breast involvement and familial cancer. The ER+PR+Her2+ (Triple Positive/Luminal B), ER-PR-Her2- (Triple Negative), ER+PR+Her2- (Luminal A) and ER-PR-Her2+ (Her2) subtypes were detected in 13.4%, 11.8%, 48.2% and 9.8% respectively. When correlating the composite stage with the corresponding breast cancer subtypes, categorized according to the immunohistochemical staining, the relationship was highly significant at p < 0.01. Conclusions and Recommendations: The regression in Stage IV breast cancer at the time of presentation among Iraqi patients represents one of the fruitful outputs of initiating the National Program for Early Detection of Breast Cancer. Further professional efforts, endorsed by practical policy decisions, are recommended to down stage breast cancer through promoting evidence based protocol guidelines and adopting comprehensive well designed diagnostic, screening and cancer control strategies.
On polyhedral approximations of polytopes for learning Bayes nets
Creators: name: Studeny, Milan
name: Haws, David
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Statistics Theory (math.ST)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: G.3
subject: 62H17

description: We review three vector encodings of Bayesian network structures. The first one has recently been applied by Jaakkola 2010, the other two use special integral vectors formerly introduced, called imsets [Studeny 2005, Studeny 2010]. The central topic is the comparison of outer polyhedral approximations of the corresponding polytopes. We show how to transform the inequalities suggested by Jaakkola et al. to the framework of imsets. The result of our comparison is the observation that the implicit polyhedral approximation of the standard imset polytope suggested in [Studeny 2011] gives a closer approximation than the (transformed) explicit polyhedral approximation from [Jaakkola 2010]. Finally, we confirm a conjecture from [Studeny 2011] that the above-mentioned implicit polyhedral approximation of the standard imset polytope is an LP relaxation of the polytope.
Impurity-induced quasiparticle interference in the parent compounds of iron-pnictide superconductors
Creators: name: Huang, Huaixiang
name: Gao, Yi
name: Zhang, Degang
name: Ting, C. S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Superconductivity (cond-mat.supr-con)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The impurity-induced quasiparticle interference(QPI) in the parent compounds of iron-pnictide superconductors is investigated based on a phenomenological two-orbital four-band model and T-matrix method. We find the QPI is sensitive to the value of the magnetic order which may vary from one compound to another. For small value of the magnetic order, the pattern of oscillation in the local density of states (LDOS) induced by the QPI exhibits two-dimensional characteristics, consistent with the standing wave state observed in the 1111 compound. For larger value of the magnetic order, the main feature of the spatial modulation of the LDOS is the existence of one-dimensional stripe structure which is in agreement with the nematic structure in the parent compound of the 122 system. In both cases the system shows $C_2$ symmetry and only in the larger magnetic order case, there exist in-gap bound states. The corresponding QPI in $q$-space is also presented. The patterns of modulation in the LDOS at nonzero energies are attributed to the interplay between the underlying band structure and Fermi surfaces.
description: 9 pages,12 figures
Crab Nebula gamma-ray flares as relativistic reconnection minijets
Creators: name: Clausen-Brown, Eric
name: Lyutikov, Maxim
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The unusually short durations, high luminosities, and high photon energies of the Crab Nebula gamma-ray flares require relativistic bulk motion of the emitting plasma. We explain the Crab flares as the result of randomly oriented relativistic "minijets" originating from reconnection events in a magnetically dominated plasma. We develop a statistical model of the emission from Doppler boosted reconnection minijets and find analytical expressions for the moments of the resulting nebula light curve (e.g. time average, variance, skewness). The light curve has a flat power spectrum that transitions at short timescales to a decreasing power-law of index 2. The flux distribution from minijets follows a decreasing power-law of index ~ 1, implying the average flux from flares is dominated by bright rare events. The predictions for the flares' statistics can be tested against forthcoming observations. We find the observed flare spectral energy distributions (SEDs) have several notable features: A hard power-law index of p ~< 1 for accelerated particles that is expected in various reconnection models, including some evidence of a pile-up near the radiation reaction limit. Also, the photon energy at which the SED peaks is higher than that implied by the synchrotron radiation reaction limit, indicating the flare emission regions' Doppler factors are ~> few. We conclude that magnetic reconnection can be an important, if not dominant, mechanism of particle acceleration within the nebula.
description: Accepted by MNRAS
Badly approximable systems of linear forms in absolute value
Creators: name: Hussain, Mumtaz
name: Kristensen, Simon
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Number Theory (math.NT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 11J83

description: In this paper we show that the set of mixed type badly approximable simultaneously small linear forms is of maximal dimension. As a consequence of this theorem we settle a conjecture of the first author.
description: 6 pages
Mean-field calculation of critical parameters and log-periodic characterization of an aperiodic-modulated model
Creators: name: Oliveira, T. P.
name: Branco, N. S.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We employ a mean-field approximation to study the Ising model with aperiodic modulation of its interactions in one spatial direction. Two different values for the exchange constant, $J_A$ and $J_B$, are present, according to the Fibonacci sequence. We calculated the pseudo-critical temperatures for finite systems and extrapolate them to the thermodynamic limit. We explicitly obtain the exponents $β$, $δ$, and $γ$ and, from the usual scaling relations for anisotropic models at the upper critical dimension (assumed to be 4 for the model we treat), we calculate $α$, $ν$, $ν_{//}$, $η$, and $η_{//}$. Within the framework of a renormalization-group approach, the Fibonacci sequence is a marginal one and we obtain exponents which depend on the ratio $r \equiv J_B/J_A$, as expected. But the scaling relation $γ= β(δ-1)$ is obeyed for all values of $r$ we studied. We characterize some thermodynamic functions as log-periodic functions of their arguments, as expected for aperiodic-modulated models, and obtain precise values for the exponents from this characterization.
description: 17 pages, including 9 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E
What are extremal Kerr Killing vectors up to?
Creators: name: Aman, Jan E.
name: Bengtsson, Ingemar
name: Runarsson, Helgi F.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In the extremal Kerr spacetime the horizon Killing vector field is null on a timelike hypersurface crossing the horizon at a fixed latitude, and spacelike on both sides of the horizon in the equatorial plane. We explain in some detail how this behaviour is consistent with the existence of timelike Killing vectors everywhere off the horizon, and how it arises in a limit from the Kerr spacetime where there is a similar hypersurface strictly outside the horizon.
description: 12 pages, 3 figures
Signal integration enhances the dynamic range in neuronal systems
Creators: name: Gollo, Leonardo L.
name: Mirasso, Claudio
name: Eguíluz, Víctor M.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)
subject: Disordered Systems and Neural Networks (cond-mat.dis-nn)
subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases (nlin.CG)
subject: Biological Physics (physics.bio-ph)
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The dynamic range measures the capacity of a system to discriminate the intensity of an external stimulus. Such an ability is fundamental for living beings to survive: to leverage resources and to avoid danger. Consequently, the larger is the dynamic range, the greater is the probability of survival. We investigate how the integration of different input signals affects the dynamic range, and in general the collective behavior of a network of excitable units. By means of numerical simulations and a mean-field approach, we explore the nonequilibrium phase transition in the presence of integration. We show that the firing rate in random and scale-free networks undergoes a discontinuous phase transition depending on both the integration time and the density of integrator units. Moreover, in the presence of external stimuli, we find that a system of excitable integrator units operating in a bistable regime largely enhances its dynamic range.
description: 5 pages, 4 figures
The actual performance of retrofitted residential apartments: post-occupancy evaluation study in Italy
Creators: name: Elsayed, Mohamed
name: Romagnoni, Piercarlo
name: Pelsmakers, Sofie
name: Castaño-Rosa, Raúl
name: Klammsteiner, Ulrich
Publisher: name: Taylor & Francis
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Space Science
subject: 59999 Environmental Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Earth and related environmental sciences
subject: 39999 Chemical Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Chemical sciences
subject: 69999 Biological Sciences not elsewhere classified
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: Science Policy

description: Housing retrofits are undertaken to reduce energy use and to improve ‘occupants’ indoor environmental conditions. Despite increased retrofitting of the Italian housing stock, there is a lack of data on their energy use and indoor environmental quality (IEQ). This paper fills this gap by a post-occupancy evaluation (POE) study of seven retrofitted apartments in northern Italy; a non-retrofitted case study was included as a comparison. The study aimed to understand aspects of IEQ and occupant satisfaction after energy-efficiency retrofits. A mixed-method approach encompassed occupant satisfaction surveys, energy bill comparisons, in-situ indoor air temperature, and relative humidity measurements. Results highlighted ‘occupants’ thermal comfort improvement and heating energy consumption reduction after retrofits. Furthermore, reported preferred indoor temperatures w within a broader range than the recommended Italian regulations and CIBSE guide A standard. However, some participants reported unintended consequences, including mould growth and noise from the mechanical ventilation system. This study shows the potential of POE to understand the actual performance of retrofitted residential buildings. However, the difficulties of conducting a POE in retrofitted existing residential buildings show the need of further research on how to effectively conduct POE in retrofitted residential buildings, including improved digital quality monitoring methods.
Exploring the Relationships between Yoga Practice, Affect and Attention Regulation, Health Outcomes and Program Adherence in Cancer Survivors
Creators: name: Mackenzie, Michael
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Physical
subject: Psychology--Behavioral
subject: yoga
subject: cancer
subject: exercise psychology
subject: affect
subject: Mindfulness
subject: Mental Health
subject: Quality of Life
subject: multilevel modelling

description: Yoga practice has been reported to lead to improvements in health-related quality of life (HRQL), psychological functioning, and symptom indices in cancer survivors. Yoga is defined in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali as a path towards, “stilling the fluctuations of the mind (YS I.2).” Importantly, meditative states experienced within yoga practice are correlated to neurophysiological systems that moderate both positive affect and internalised attention. Despite preliminary findings, little attention has been paid to the psychophysiological mechanisms by which benefits are accrued via yoga practice. The impetus for the present studies was to explore the mechanisms by which yoga practice stills the fluctuations of the mind in cancer survivors. Three studies examined: 1) the clinical significance of patient–reported outcomes in yoga interventions for cancer survivors; 2) longitudinal associations between yoga participation, affect, and mindfulness as predictors of mood, stress and HRQL outcomes in an ongoing community-based yoga program; 3) associations between valence, activation, attention, perceived exertion, cardiac activity, and participant descriptions of a single yoga session for cancer survivors. The clinical significance review confirmed yoga practice was related to clinically significant improvements in HRQL, psychological health, and symptom experience. Longitudinal findings suggest improvements in mood, stress and HRQL were related to affect and attention (mindfulness) regulation, but not previous yoga experience. Previous yoga experience, affect and mindfulness were related to yoga practice maintenance. Lab study findings suggest both affect and attention improved in a single yoga session and were related to cardiac activity. Participant descriptions confirmed these findings and further suggested regulation of attention via breath awareness elicited positive affective responses to yoga. This research develops current theory in yoga practice, affect and attention regulation by modelling processes and outcomes, resulting in a detailed exploration of yoga in cancer settings. Examining these proposed theoretically-based mechanisms for yoga’s salutary effects enables greater understanding not only of “if” yoga works, but also “how.” This knowledge can be used to develop innovative yoga interventions with the express aim of improving mental health and HRQL in cancer survivors.
CNO and F abundances in the barium star HD 123396
Creators: name: Alves-Brito, Alan
name: Karakas, Amanda
name: Yong, David
name: Meléndez, Jorge
name: Vásquez, Sergio
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: [Abridged] Barium stars are moderately rare, chemically peculiar objects, which are believed to be the result of the pollution of an otherwise normal star by material from an evolved companion on the asymptotic giant branch (AGB). We aim to derive carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, and fluorine abundances for the first time from the infrared spectra of the barium red giant star HD 123396 to quantitatively test AGB nucleosynthesis models for producing barium stars via mass accretion. High-resolution and high S/N infrared spectra were obtained using the Phoenix spectrograph mounted at the Gemini South telescope. The abundances were obtained through spectrum synthesis of individual atomic and molecular lines, using the MOOG stellar line analysis program, together with Kurucz's stellar atmosphere models. The analysis was classical, using 1D stellar models and spectral synthesis under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium. We confirm that HD 123396 is a metal-deficient barium star ([Fe/H] = -1.05), with A(C) = 7.88, A(N) = 6.65, A(O) = 7.93, and A(Na) = 5.28 on a logarithmic scale where A(H) = 12, leading to [(C+N)/Fe] ~ 0.5. The A(CNO) group, as well as the A(Na) abundances, is in excellent agreement with those previously derived for this star using high resolution optical data. We also found A(F) = 4.16, which implies [F/O] = 0.39, a value that is substantially higher than the F abundances measured in globular clusters of a similar metallicity, noting that there are no F measurements in field stars of comparable metallicity. The observed abundance pattern of the light elements (CNO, F and Na) recovered here as well as the heavy elements (s-process) studied elsewhere suggest that the surface composition of HD 123396 is well fitted by the predicted abundance pattern of a 1.5Msun AGB model star with Z = 0.001.
description: 8 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in A&A (language corrected)
Frequency-Controlled Diffusion Model for Versatile Text-Guided Image-to-Image Translation
Creators: name: Gao, Xiang
name: Xu, Zhengbo
name: Zhao, Junhan
name: Liu, Jiaying
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2024
Subjects: subject: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: Recently, large-scale text-to-image (T2I) diffusion models have emerged as a powerful tool for image-to-image translation (I2I), allowing open-domain image translation via user-provided text prompts. This paper proposes frequency-controlled diffusion model (FCDiffusion), an end-to-end diffusion-based framework that contributes a novel solution to text-guided I2I from a frequency-domain perspective. At the heart of our framework is a feature-space frequency-domain filtering module based on Discrete Cosine Transform, which filters the latent features of the source image in the DCT domain, yielding filtered image features bearing different DCT spectral bands as different control signals to the pre-trained Latent Diffusion Model. We reveal that control signals of different DCT spectral bands bridge the source image and the T2I generated image in different correlations (e.g., style, structure, layout, contour, etc.), and thus enable versatile I2I applications emphasizing different I2I correlations, including style-guided content creation, image semantic manipulation, image scene translation, and image style translation. Different from related approaches, FCDiffusion establishes a unified text-guided I2I framework suitable for diverse image translation tasks simply by switching among different frequency control branches at inference time. The effectiveness and superiority of our method for text-guided I2I are demonstrated with extensive experiments both qualitatively and quantitatively. Our project is publicly available at: https://xianggao1102.github.io/FCDiffusion/.
description: Proceedings of the 38th AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence (AAAI 2024)
Slow fluctuations in attentional control of sensory cortex
Creators: name: Kam, Julia Wing Yan
Publisher: name: University of British Columbia
Year: 2010

description: Top-down control of visual sensory cortex has long been tied to the orienting of visual spatial attention on a rapid, moment-to-moment basis. Here we examined whether sensory responses in visual cortex are also modulated by natural and comparatively slower fluctuations in whether or not one is paying attention to the task at hand. Participants performed a simple visual discrimination task at fixation as the event-related potentials (ERPs) to task-irrelevant probes in the upper visual periphery were recorded. At random intervals, participants were stopped and asked to report on their attentional state at the time of stoppage––either "on-task" or "off-task." ERPs to the probes immediately preceding these subjective reports were then examined as a function of whether attention was in an "on-task" vs. "off-task" state. We found that sensory-evoked responses to the probes were significantly attenuated during "off-task" relative to "on- task" states, as measured by the visual P1 ERP component. In two additional experiments we replicated this effect while (1) finding that "off-task" sensory attenuation extends to the auditory domain, as measured by the auditory N1 ERP component, and (2) eliminating state-dependent shifts in general arousal as a possible explanation for the effects. Collectively, our findings suggest that sensory gain control in cortex is yoked to the natural ebb and flow in how much attention we pay to the current task over time.
Enhanced GNSS Signal Tracking in Fading Environments Using Diversity Reception
Creators: name: SIddakatte, Ranjeeth Kumar
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2016
Subjects: subject: Engineering--Aerospace
subject: Engineering--Automotive
subject: Engineering--Electronics and Electrical
subject: GNSS
subject: Carrier phase
subject: frequency diversity
subject: spatial diversity
subject: Estimation

description: This research focuses on improving GNSS signal tracking performance in multipath fading environments through diversity combining. Despite the remarkable amount of research already reported in the literature, the concept of diversity combining at the correlator level to enhance tracking and measurement performance is not broadly discussed. To this end, two types of diversity combining, namely spatial and frequency diversity combining are investigated. The first phase of the research characterizes spatial diversity reception in harsh fading environments. The signal power, delay spread and Doppler spread characteristics of GNSS signals are investigated. As a consequence of exploiting the spatial diversity behavior, a closed-loop tracking architecture is proposed. The proposed method is tested on data collected in indoor static and urban kinematic scenarios. The carrier and code loop tracking errors between single antenna and dual antenna spatial diversity reception for different scenarios are compared. Results show improved performance in the latter case. In the second phase, the characteristics of frequency diversity reception with those of spatial diversity in a harsh fading environment are compared. The frequency diversity reception is characterized in terms of temporal C/N0 fluctuations, correlation coefficients and other metrics. The SNR enhancement obtained from frequency diversity combining is compared with that of spatial diversity combining. The correlation peak distortion reduction resulting from the two diversity combining methods is also investigated. By exploiting the frequency diversity behavior, the third phase proposes two closed-loop tracking approaches to enhance carrier and code tracking robustness in fading environments. The first approach is targeted to harsh fading environments. It performs carrier Doppler and code phase tracking using a dual-frequency diversity combined signal. The tracking and navigation solution performance evaluated in dense foliage and residential environments show reduced errors and improved continuity and availability of navigation solution. The second approach is targeted to moderate fading environments which achieves carrier phase tracking with PLLs using diversity combined signal. The proposed method is tested on data sets collected in static and kinematic scenarios in terms of reduction in carrier Doppler error and carrier phase cycle slips.
Eschner, Christina: Essen im antiken Judentum und Urchristentum. Diskurse zur sozialen Bedeutung von Tischgemeinschaft, Speiseverboten und Reinheitsvorschriften
Creators: name: Lüstraeten, Martin
Publisher: name: Theologische Revue
Year: 2020

description: Theologische Revue, Bd. 116 (2020): Dezember
Subdominant terms in the production of $c \bar c$ pairs in proton-proton collisions
Creators: name: Luszczak, Marta
name: Maciula, Rafal
name: Szczurek, Antoni
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: At high-energies the gluon-gluon fusion is the dominant mechanism of $c \bar c$ production. This process was calculated in the NLO collinear as well as in the k$_t$-factorization approaches in the past. We show that the present knowledge of gluon distributions does not allow to make a precise predictions for $c \bar c$ production at LHC, in particular at forward rapidities. In this paper we study production of $c \bar c$ pairs including several subleading mechanisms. This includes: $gg \to Q \bar Q$, $γg \to Q \bar Q$, $g γ\to Q \bar Q$, $γγ\to Q \bar Q$. In this context we use MRST-QED parton distributions which include photon as a parton in the proton as well as elastic photon distributions calculated in the equivalent photon approximation. We present distributions in the $c$ quark ($\bar c$ antiquark) rapidity and transverse momenta and compare them to the dominant gluon-gluon fusion contribution. We discuss also inclusive single and central diffractive processes using diffractive parton distribution found from the analysis of HERA diffractive data. As in the previous case we present distribution in $c$ ($\bar c$) rapidity and transverse momentum. Finally we present results for exclusive central diffractive mechanism discussed recently in the literature. We show corresponding differential distributions and compare them with corresponding distributions for single and central diffractive components.
description: 20 pages, 19 figures
Male Body Dissatisfaction: The Effect of Body Norm Information on Men's Current and Ideal Body Size Estimates
Creators: name: Hutchinson, Tanya Diane
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2016
Subjects: subject: Educational Psychology
subject: Education--Guidance and Counseling
subject: Psychology--Social
subject: Male Body Dissatisfaction
subject: Body Norms
subject: Current and Ideal Body Size

description: Research about male body image has become increasingly important as the prevalence of male body dissatisfaction (BD) has increased. In Western culture, the idealized male body is portrayed as muscular, lean, and tall. Descriptive body norms, or the “average” body shape and size, potentially influence the development of male BD. This research was a partial replication and extension of the research conducted by Mills, Jadd, and Key (2012), which examined the effect of body norms on men’s current and ideal body size estimates. In the current study, 155 males between the age of 18 and 24 years from the United States were recruited through Amazon.com’s Mechanical Turk and Prolific Academic. The results suggested that body norms do influence men’s current body size estimates, but not their ideal body size estimates, as men indicated a more muscular current body size following exposure to a more muscular body norm. This finding is surprising given that previous research indicated that body norms affected men’s ideal, but not their current, body size estimates. Specifically, men in a more muscular body norm condition had a more muscular ideal body size than in the less muscular body norm condition. Future researchers may want replicate the current study with a younger sample of males. Counselling psychologists need to be aware of male body image and body dissatisfaction and the unique impact that body norm information might have on male clients. Moreover, the findings of the current study suggest that men are potentially influenced by more muscular body norms. Therefore, counselling psychologists may want to challenge these muscular body norms with male clients and focus on functionality and health over muscularity.
Temperature evolution of spin accumulation detected electrically in a nondegenerated silicon channel
Creators: name: Ando, Y.
name: Kasahara, K.
name: Yamada, S.
name: Maeda, Y.
name: Masaki, K.
name: Hoshi, Y.
name: Sawano, K.
name: Miyao, M.
name: Hamaya, K.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics (cond-mat.mes-hall)
subject: Materials Science (cond-mat.mtrl-sci)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study temperature evolution of spin accumulation signals obtained by the three-terminal Hanle effect measurements in a nondegenerated silicon channel with a Schottky-tunnel-barrier contact. We find the clear difference in the temperature-dependent spin signals between spin-extraction and spin-injection conditions. In a spin-injection condition with a low bias current, the magnitude of spin signals can be enhanced despite the rise of temperature. For the interpretation of the temperature-dependent spin signals, it is important to consider the sensitivity of the spin detection at the Schottky-tunnel-barrier contact in addition to the spin diffusion in Si.
description: 5 pages, 4 figures
Selling Fish across the Strait: Taiwanese Aquaculture, Trade Governance, and Sustainability
Creators: name: Cheng, Siu Kei
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2017
Subjects: subject: Anthropology
subject: FOS: Sociology
subject: Anthropology--Cultural
subject: Fisheries and Aquaculture
subject: aquaculture
subject: Taiwan
subject: seafood
subject: cross-strait relationship
subject: Governance
subject: sustainability

description: This research examines how Taiwanese fish farmers have globalized their farmed seafood and pursued sustainable aquaculture since 1968, the year that Taiwan succeeded in artificially propagating tiger prawns (Penaeus monodon). My key question is whether and how the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA)—a bilateral free trade agreement signed by Taiwan and China in 2010—affects Taiwanese fish farmers. In this agreement, China made concessions by eliminating tariffs on the enlisted Taiwanese seafood products, focusing primarily on grouper (Ephinephelus) and milkfish (Chanos chanos). My analysis is based on an integrated approach that combines political ecology and governance. I argue that although the ECFA fuelled cross-strait economic cooperation between 2011 and 2015, exporting seafood to China was not the only strategy Taiwanese fish farmers used to respond to globalization and to pursue sustainable aquaculture. In fact, even before the ECFA was signed, Taiwanese fish farmers had enhanced their environmental management and food safety practices. They continuously developed new categories and marketed their seafood in diverse markets, including Taiwan’s domestic market. The ECFA had five significant impacts on Taiwanese aquaculture: First, Taiwanese fish farmers and business people could now use both normal and petty trade routes to export seafood to China, which they decided on by calculating their costs and benefits. Second, China’s policies and strategies, such as sponsoring a five-year milkfish trade contract in Taiwan and establishing a domestic anti-corruption policy, affected the export volume and farm-gate price of Taiwanese milkfish and grouper. Third, the Taiwanese government further strengthened its regulation of the seafood transport and food safety aspects of Taiwanese aquaculture. Fourth, Taiwanese fish farmers who sustained their businesses by selling seafood to the domestic market or other export markets were less influenced by the ECFA than other fish farmers who exported most of their products (such as grouper) to China between 2011 and 2015. Taiwanese fish farmers responded to the changing seafood trade policies and global food safety concerns by strengthening the existing markets, exploring new markets, selecting seafood species, processing the raw fish into other products, and developing more ecological farming practices.
Peri-Urban Land Tenure in Ghana (Accra): Case Study of Bortianor
Creators: name: Danso, Ephraim
Publisher: name: Graduate Studies
Year: 2013
Subjects: subject: Engineering
subject: Engineering

description: Ghana’s land tenure system, which comprises of a blend of customary and state tenure systems, is viewed as complex networks of interrelationships characterized by social, political and human activity. Land conflicts and tenure insecurity are notable, and mostly experienced in areas transitioning from rural to urban settings. Comaroff’s dialectical framework and a case study method involving in-depth interviews and documentations were used to examine the cause of lands problems and the evolving land tenure administration in Bortianor, a peri-urban area in Accra, Ghana. The study revealed that the interaction of customary and statutory tenure systems within weak state and the customary institutional and regulatory frameworks leads to high rate of tenure insecurity, particularly for the vulnerable members of the community. The case also provides insights into observable social change patterns, instructive for land tenure administration where customary tenure rules evolve in a rapidly changing environment.
Patterns in rational base number systems
Creators: name: Morgenbesser, Johannes F.
name: Steiner, Wolfgang
name: Thuswaldner, Jörg
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2012
Subjects: subject: Number Theory (math.NT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics

description: Number systems with a rational number $a/b > 1$ as base have gained interest in recent years. In particular, relations to Mahler's 3/2-problem as well as the Josephus problem have been established. In the present paper we show that the patterns of digits in the representations of positive integers in such a number system are uniformly distributed. We study the sum-of-digits function of number systems with rational base $a/b$ and use representations w.r.t. this base to construct normal numbers in base $a$ in the spirit of Champernowne. The main challenge in our proofs comes from the fact that the language of the representations of integers in these number systems is not context-free. The intricacy of this language makes it impossible to prove our results along classical lines. In particular, we use self-affine tiles that are defined in certain subrings of the adéle ring $\mathbb{A}_\mathbb{Q}$ and Fourier analysis in $\mathbb{A}_\mathbb{Q}$. With help of these tools we are able to reformulate our results as estimation problems for character sums.
Inhomogeneous shear flows in soft jammed materials with tunable attractive forces
Creators: name: Chaudhuri, Pinaki
name: Berthier, Ludovic
name: Bocquet, Lydéric
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We perform molecular dynamics simulations to characterize the occurrence of inhomogeneous shear flows in soft jammed materials. We use rough walls to impose a simple shear flow and study the athermal motion of jammed assemblies of soft particles, both for purely repulsive interactions and in the presence of an additional short-range attraction of varying strength. In steady state, pronounced flow inhomogeneities emerge for all systems when the shear rate becomes small. Deviations from linear flow are stronger in magnitude and become very long-lived when the strength of the attraction increases, but differ from permanent shear-bands. Flow inhomogeneities occur in a stress window bounded by the dynamic and static yield stress values. Attractive forces enhance the flow heterogeneities because they accelerate stress relaxation, thus effectively moving the system closer to the yield stress regime where inhomogeneities are most pronounced. The present scenario for understanding the effect of particle adhesion on shear localization, which is based on detailed molecular dynamics simulations with realistic particle interactions, differs qualitatively from previous qualitative explanations and ad-hoc theoretical modelling.
description: 12 pages, 12 figures
Two views of globular cluster stars in the Galactic halo
Creators: name: Martell, Sarah L.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2011
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In Martell & Grebel (2010) we reported the discovery in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II/SEGUE spectroscopic database of a small subset of halo red giants, 2.5%, with CN and CH band strengths indicative of globular-cluster-like carbon and nitrogen abundances. Because the formation of stars with unusual light-element abundances is thought to be restricted to high-density environments like globular clusters, this result has strong implications for both cluster formation processes and the assembly history of the Galactic halo. Here we discuss two efforts to expand upon that work.
description: 2 pages plus 1 figure, to appear in the proceedings of "Assembling the Puzzle of the Milky Way", Le Grand Bornand (Apr. 17-22, 2011)