pinecone/core-2020-05-10-deduplication huggingface dataset:
Semantic hyperpriming in schizophrenic patients: increased facilitation or impaired inhibition in semantic association processing?

International audiencePrevious studies analyzing semantic priming in schizophrenic patients have reported conflicting results. In the present study, we explored semantic priming in a sample of schizophrenic patients with mild thought disorders. We wondered if distinct cognitive processes, such as facilitation and/or inhibition, underlie semantic hyperpriming and are variously impaired in schizophrenic patients. Using a lexical decision task, we evaluated semantic priming in 15 schizophrenic patients (DSM-IV) with mild thought disorders and 15 healthy controls matched for sex, age, and education level. The task was designed to divide semantic priming into two additive components, namely facilitation effect and inhibition effect. One-sample t-tests were performed to investigate differences in semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition within each group. ANOVAs were performed to compare the effects of semantic priming, facilitation, and inhibition between groups. Patients displayed greater semantic priming than controls (i.e., hyperpriming), but this was not due to increased facilitation in processing semantically related pairs. On the contrary, hyperpriming was the result of prolonged response time to process semantically unrelated pairs, corresponding to a requirement to inhibit unrelated information. We demonstrated semantic hyperpriming in stabilized schizophrenic patients with mild severity of symptoms. Thus, semantic hyperpriming may be an intrinsic feature of schizophrenia that is not related to the clinical state of patients. Semantic hyperpriming was due to an inhibition effect involved in processing semantically unrelated information not to increased facilitatory effect for related pairs
Seismic behaviour of the Dead Sea fault along Araba valley, Jordan

International audienceSUMMAR Y The Dead Sea fault zone is a major left-lateral strike-slip fault. South of the Dead Sea basin, the Wadi Araba fault extends over 160 km to the Gulf of Aqaba. The Dead Sea fault zone is known to have produced several relatively large historical earthquakes. However, the historical events are unequally distributed along the fault and only four events have been reported in the Araba valley over the last few thousands of years. Magnitudes estimated from the historical record are probably slightly smaller than that of the Mw ~ 7.3 earthquake that struck the Gulf of Aqaba in 1995. The fault cuts straight across Pleistocene to Holocene alluvium and shows morphologic evidence for essentially pure strike-slip motion. Regional seismic monitoring reveals little micro-seismicity along the fault except around the Dead Sea and Gulf of Aqaba, where the fault splays into complex pull-apart basin fault systems. We have investigated the fault zone at several sites selected from SPOT images and the study of aerial photography. At the site of the now destroyed Tilah Castle, a well-preserved wall, dated to be about 1200 yr BP (14C age on charcoal), is cut by the fault and offset by 2.2 m. Comparison with offset gullies at a nearby site 3 km to the north and at three other sites, respectively 25, 50 and 65 km to the south, reveals that this specific fault displacement is probably related to the last seismic event that ruptured that fault segment, possibly in AD 1458.Moreover, the offset gullies suggest a characteristic slip behaviour with recurring slip of about 1.5 m on average. Given the 4 ± 2 mm yr−1 slip rate derived for this fault segment, we infer that the fault should produce Mw 7 earthquakes along some segment in the Araba valley about every 200 years. The historical period, with only four well-documented large earthquakes in AD 1068, AD 1212, AD 1293 and AD 1458, thus appears to have been relatively quiescent, with a 20 per cent deficit of Mw 7 earthquakes. However, our data do not exclude the possibility of larger Mw 7.6 earthquakes or time clustering of earthquakes over longer timespans. An alternative seismic behaviour involves Mw 7.6 earthquakes about every 6000 years and Mw 7 earthquakes about every 250 years. The historical catalogue would then appear to be complete for Mw ~ 7 earthquakes
Simple signaling games of sexual selection (Grafen’s revisited)

International audienceWe investigate several versions of a simple game of sexual selection, to explore the role of secondary sexual characters (the "handicap paradox") with the tools of signaling theory. Our models admit closed form solutions. They are very much inspired by Grafen's (J Theor Biol 144:517-546, 1990a; J Theor Biol 144:473-516, 1990b) seminal companion papers. By merging and simplifying his two approaches, we identify a not so minor artifact in the seminal study. We propose an alternative model to start with Grafen's sexual selection theory, with several similarities with Getty (Anim Behav 56:127-130, 1998)
Radioscience simulations in General Relativity and in alternative theories of gravity

13 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. D, paper different from conference proceedings http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5927International audienceIn this paper, we focus on the possibility to test General Relativity in the Solar System with radioscience measurements. To this aim, we present a new software that simulates Range and Doppler signals directly from the space-time metric. This flexible approach allows one to perform simulations in General Relativity and in alternative metric theories of gravity. In a second step, a least-squares fit of the different initial conditions involved in the situation is performed in order to compare anomalous signals produced by a given alternative theory with the ones obtained in General Relativity. This software provides orders of magnitude and signatures stemming from hypothetical alternative theories of gravity on radioscience signals. As an application, we present some simulations done for the Cassini mission in Post-Einsteinian Gravity and in the context of MOND External Field Effect. We deduce constraints on the Post-Einsteinian parameters but find that the considered arc of the Cassini mission is not useful to constrain the MOND External Field Effect
Carboxylic acid sorption on synthetic clays in marine water: in vitro experiments and implications for organo-clay behaviour under marine conditions

International audienceIn order to investigate the role of clay minerals in organic matter preservation, the fixation of pure organic compounds on two synthetic low- and high-charge saponites was investigated in laboratory experiments simulating marine water conditions. The clays were exposed to four carboxylic acids: pentadecanoic, docosanoic, 5β-cholanic acid and ursolic, dissolved in treated natural sea water. Characterization of the resulting organo-clay association indicates that, under marine water column conditions, the organic fixation is only a sorption process, no intercalation being observed. The surface coverage, similar for the two clays (ca. 0.04 mg organic carbon m-2), demonstrates that the sorption is controlled by the surface properties of clays rather than their cation exchange capacity. The weaker sorption of docosanoic acid underlines the major role of the molecular properties, but the lack of selectivity among the three others does not corroborate the influence of molecular size on the sorption process. The general failure of a chemolysis treatment performed on the organo-clay associations demonstrates the high stability of these complexes. Results suggest that the bonding mechanisms are dominated by ligand exchange and not by hydrophobic effects, cation bridges or cation exchange. The minor extractible organic fraction consists of acid molecules connected to clay surfaces by van der Waals interactions. The high stability of the bonds formed in this environment, close to those observed from previous studies of marine sediments, could explain in part the organic matter preservation during transfer across marine water columns, especially metabolisable materials
P2P Storage Systems: Study of Different Placement Policies

International audienceIn a P2P storage system using erasure codes, a data block is en- coded in many redundancy fragments. These fragments are then sent to distinct peers of the network. In this work, we study the impact of different placement policies of these fragments on the performance of storage systems. Several practical factors (easier control, software reuse, latency) tend to favor data placement strategies that preserve some degree of locality. We compare three policies: two of them are local, in which the data are stored in logical neighbors, and the other one, global, in which the data are spread randomly in the whole sys- tem. We focus on the study of the probability to lose a data block and the bandwidth consumption to maintain such redundancy. We use simulations to show that, without resource constraints, the aver- age values are the same no matter which placement policy is used. However, the variations in the use of bandwidth are much more bursty under the local policies. When the bandwidth is limited, these bursty variations induce longer maintenance time and henceforth a higher risk of data loss. We then show that a suitable degree of locality could be introduced in order to combine the efficiency of the global policy with the practical advantages of a local placement. Additionally, we pro- pose a new external reconstruction strategy that greatly improves the performance of local placement strategies. Finally, we give analytical methods to estimate the mean time to the occurrence of data loss for the three policies
Adaptive Time-Space Algorithms for the Simulation of Multi-scale Reaction Waves

International audienceWe present a new resolution strategy for multi-scale reaction waves based on adaptive time operator splitting and space adaptive multiresolution, in the context of localized and stiff reaction fronts. The main goal is to perform computationally efficient simulations of the dynamics of multi-scale phenomena under study, considering large simulation domains with conventional computing resources. We aim at time-space accuracy control of the solution and splitting time steps purely dictated by the physics of the phenomenon and not by stability constraints associated with mesh size or source time scales. Numerical illustrations are provided for 2D and 3D combustion applications modeled by reaction-convection-diffusion equations
Thermoluminescence and sintering of high-purity α-alumina doped by Zr, Th and Ca

International audienceTwo parameters were studied upon the thermoluminescence (TL) properties and the sintering behaviour of α-alumina: the atmosphere during the heat treatment used to transform γ-Al2O3 into α-Al2O3 and the doping by Zr and Th. It appears that a reducing atmosphere tends to delay the sintering compared with the oxidising atmosphere until 1600°C. Above this temperature, the shrinkage starts again, which is attributed to a change in the mechanism of sintering of α-Al2O3. The concentration of point defects created through charge compensation as the tetravalent dopant integrates into the host material increases until the solubility's limit of the dopant in alumina is reached. Above this concentration, the peaks on the TL glow curves stabilize, and the specific area of the powders stabilizes at its higher value. As a consequence, the final densities obtained for α-Al2O3:Th and α-Al2O3:Zr are the best when the solubility's limit of the dopant in alumina is reached
Synthesizing Hardware from Dataflow Programs

International audienceThe MPEG Reconfigurable Video Coding working group is developing a new library-based process for building the reference codecs of future MPEG standards, which is based on dataflow and uses an actor language called Cal. The paper presents a code generator producing RTL targeting FPGAs for Cal, outlines its structure, and demonstrates its performance on an MPEG-4 Simple Profile decoder. The resulting implementation is smaller and faster than a comparable RTL reference design, and the second half of the paper discusses some of the reasons for this counter-intuitive result
Geomorphic and vegetation changes in a meandering dryland river regulated by alarge dam, Sauce Grande River, Argentina

International audienceThis paper investigates post-dam geomorphic and vegetation changes in the Sauce Grande River, a meandering dryland river impounded by a large water-conservation dam. As the dam impounds a river section with scarce influence of tributaries , sources for fresh water and sediment downstream are limited. Changes were inspected based on (i) analysis of historical photographs/imagery spanning pre-(1961) and post-dam (1981, 2004) channel conditions for two river segments located above and below the dam, and (ii) field survey of present channel conditions for a set of eight reference reaches along the river segments. Whilst the unregulated river exhibited active lateral migration with consequent adjustments of the channel shape and size, the river section below the dam was characterized by (i) marked planform stability (93 to 97%), and by (ii) vegetation encroachment leading to alternating yet localized contraction of the channel width (up to 30%). The present river displays a moribund, stable channel where (i) redistribution of sediment along the river course no longer occurs and (ii) channel forms constitute a remnant of a fluvial environment created before closing the dam, under conditions of higher energy. In addition to providing new information on the complex geomorphic response of dry-land rivers to impoundment, this paper represents the very first geomorphic assessment of the regulated Sauce Grande and therefore provides an important platform to underpin further research assessing the geomorphic state of this highly regulated dryland river
Effect of organic amendments on the mobility of trace elements in phytoremediated techno-soils: role of the humic substances

International audienceThe efficiency of aided phytostabilization using organic amendments such as ramial chipped wood (RCW) and composted sewage sludge (CSS) was studied on contaminated techno-soils, on nine experimental plots. The objective was to characterize the role of fulvic (FA) and humic acids (HA) on the mobilization of trace elements, specifically As, Cu, Mo, Pb and Zn. Results showed that the addition of CSS increased the total organic carbon and nitrogen content more than with RCW and as a result, the C/N ratio in the CSS soil was higher than in the RCW and non-amended (NE) soil, reflecting the high decomposition of soil organic matter in the CSS soil compared with the other soils. The RCW and CSS amendments increased the hydrogen index (HI) values and the oxygen index (OI) values compared with the NE soil, especially for the soil treated with CSS which contained more aliphatic than aromatic compounds. The addition of CSS to the techno-soil significantly increased the percentage of C org associated with the HA fractions compared with the RCW and NE soils. The soil amended with CSS showed the highest E 4/E 6 ratio and the lowest E 2/E 3 ratio of FA. Zn and As were more abundant in the FA fraction than in the HA fraction, whereas Pb, Cu and Mo were more associated to HA than to FA in the treated and untreated soils, which may explain the difference in their mobility and availability
Broadband stimulated Raman backscattering

International audienceBroadband amplification employing stimulated Raman backscattering is demonstrated. Using seed pulses with a bandwidth of about 200 nm, we study the amplification in a wide spectral range in a single laser shot. With chirped pump pulses and a Ne gas jet, we observed under optimized conditions, amplification in a range of about 80 nm, which is sufficient to support the amplification of sub-20 fs pulses. This broad amplification range is also in excellent agreement with PIC simulations. The conversion efficiency is at certain wavelengths as high as 1.2% and was measured to be better than 6×10 −3 on average
The adaptive dynamics of life histories: From fitness-returns to selection gradients and Pontryagin's maximum principle

Using a fitness-returns argument we derive an expression for the selection gradient for the age dependent allocation strategy in a common class of state variable based life-history models. By setting the selection gradient equal to zero as part of the calculation of the ESS-es for such models, we get a marginal value argument and through this recover the local version of Pontryagin's maximum principle. This fills in a minor gap in a recent paper by Parvinen, Heino and Dieckmann (2012; DOI10.1007/s00285-012-0549-2), who treated the calculation of the selection gradient and of the ESS-es as separate issues. As bonuses we (i) provide an extension of the framework of these authors that can handle also the more complicated evolutionary dynamics of the life histories that we consider, and (ii) derive also the full Pontryagin's maximum principle from a fitness-returns argument
Equivalent circuit of a reconfigurable triple-slot reflectarray cell

International audienceThis paper presents an equivalent model for a multiple-resonance reflectar-ray cell. It allows predicting the different phase-states of the cell from only a very few full-wave simulations. Demonstrations are first given for a passive cell where different geometrical parameters are varied. Then, the approach is generalized to a reconfigurable cell. Finally, a canonical reflectarray with a steered beam has been synthesized in order to illustrate the capabilities of the proposed equivalent circuit
Riboflavin-Responsive and -Non-responsive Mutations in FAD Synthase Cause Multiple Acyl-CoA Dehydrogenase and Combined Respiratory-Chain Deficiency

Multiple acyl-CoA dehydrogenase deficiencies (MADDs) are a heterogeneous group of metabolic disorders with combined respiratory-chain deficiency and a neuromuscular phenotype. Despite recent advances in understanding the genetic basis of MADD, a number of cases remain unexplained. Here, we report clinically relevant variants in FLAD1, which encodes FAD synthase (FADS), as the cause of MADD and respiratory-chain dysfunction in nine individuals recruited from metabolic centers in six countries. In most individuals, we identified biallelic frameshift variants in the molybdopterin binding (MPTb) domain, located upstream of the FADS domain. Inasmuch as FADS is essential for cellular supply of FAD cofactors, the finding of biallelic frameshift variants was unexpected. Using RNA sequencing analysis combined with protein mass spectrometry, we discovered FLAD1 isoforms, which only encode the FADS domain. The existence of these isoforms might explain why affected individuals with biallelic FLAD1 frameshift variants still harbor substantial FADS activity. Another group of individuals with a milder phenotype responsive to riboflavin were shown to have single amino acid changes in the FADS domain. When produced in E. coli, these mutant FADS proteins resulted in impaired but detectable FADS activity; for one of the variant proteins, the addition of FAD significantly improved protein stability, arguing for a chaperone-like action similar to what has been reported in other riboflavin-responsive inborn errors of metabolism. In conclusion, our studies identify FLAD1 variants as a cause of potentially treatable inborn errors of metabolism manifesting with MADD and shed light on the mechanisms by which FADS ensures cellular FAD homeostasis
Capture of the eyes by relevant and irrelevant onsets

During early visual processing the eyes can be captured by salient visual information in the environment. Whether a salient stimulus captures the eyes in a purely automatic, bottom-up fashion or whether capture is contingent on task demands is still under debate. In the first experiment, we manipulated the relevance of a salient onset distractor. The onset distractor could either be similar or dissimilar to the target. Error saccade latency distributions showed that early in time, oculomotor capture was driven purely bottom-up irrespective of distractor similarity. Later in time, top-down information became available resulting in contingent capture. In the second experiment, we manipulated the saliency information at the target location. A salient onset stimulus could be presented either at the target or at a non-target location. The latency distributions of error and correct saccades had a similar time-course as those observed in the first experiment. Initially, the distributions overlapped but later in time task-relevant information decelerated the oculomotor system. The present findings reveal the interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes in oculomotor behavior. We conclude that the task relevance of a salient event is not crucial for capture of the eyes to occur. Moreover, task-relevant information may integrate with saliency information to initiate saccades, but only later in time
Adventitial inversion technique without the aid of biologic glue or Teflon buttress for acute type A aortic dissection

Objective: This study was performed to evaluate the clinical usefulness of the adventitial inversion technique in acute type A aortic dissection, with special attention to the impact of this procedure on the postoperative status of false lumen evaluated by computed tomographic scan. Methods: From March 2001 to November 2004, 18 consecutive patients underwent emergent surgery for acute type A aortic dissection. Supracoronary graft replacement was performed in all the patients (ascending aorta/hemiarch replacement: 13/18 = 72%, total arch replacement: 5/18 = 28%). The adventitial inversion technique was used for both the proximal and the distal stump constructions of the dissected aortic wall without the aid of Teflon felt or biologic glue. Aortic regurgitation was treated with resuspension of the aortic commissures. Results: There were two hospital deaths and the overall hospital mortality rate was 11.1%. The mean postoperative blood loss was 635 ± 214 ml and no reexploration was required in any of the patients. Postoperative computed tomography showed closure of the false lumen in aortic root, aortic arch, and proximal descending thoracic aorta in all of the surviving patients. Postoperative echocardiography demonstrated no aortic regurgitation in any of the patients. Two patients died late postoperatively from unrelated causes to aortic dissection. The remaining 14 patients are doing well without a second-stage operation for aortic root or distal aortic lesions during the follow-up period of 7–51 months (mean: 28 ± 14 months). Conclusions: The adventitial inversion technique provides an excellent immediate hemostasis and facilitates thrombotic closure of the proximal and the distal false lumen in the treatment for acute type A aortic dissection