中国黄土高原洛川剖面 630 kyr 以来的孢粉记录

It is known that global climate changed from the early Tertiary “Green House” to the Quaternary “Ice House” of cyclic glacial-interglacial climatic changes. Since the middle Pleistocene, the climate cycles changed from 40 kyr to 100 kyr, and the amplitudes of climatic fluctuations increased significantly. Therefore, it is important to study the climate changes since the middle Pleistocene. The loess-paleosol sequence in China is considered as one of the most continuous continental records of the last 2.58 Ma. Paleoclimatic and environmental changes have been widely extracted through various climatic parameters. However, the history of paleovegetation on the Loess Plateau still remains unclear. Did an extensive broadleaf forest ever exist on the Loess Plateau? Pollen preserved in the loess and paleosol provides a direct record for vegetation and paleoenvironmental change on the Plateau. However, because it is difficult to extract sufficient pollen grains from loess, the pollen record since the middle Pleistocene especially in the central part of the Chinese Loess Plateau has not been well studied. So we preliminarily focus on the palynological records of the loess-paleosol sequence spanning the last 630 kyr at Luochuan and aim to understand the evolution of vegetation and climate change on the Chinese Loess Plateau. The main results and conclusions are as follows: 1. The palynological results show that the grassland has been a dominant vegetation in the Luochuan area since 630 kyr, even during the intervals of relatively warm and wet climatic conditions. 2. The pollen concentration of Luochuan section sharply decreases from the bottom of S1 to downward depth. This decrease can be attributed to depositional environment rather than climate change. In loess, not only oxidation, but also the PH of deposits and bacteria or fungi have been able to degrade sporopollenin. 3. The paleoclimatic condition during S4 stage, characterized with warmer condition during the early stage, was warmer and wetter than that during S5 in Luochuan area. Paleoclimate was warmer and wetter during the early stage of S5 and became colder and drier later. The special pedogenic features of S5-I can be attributed to a prolonged pedogenic duration rather than a warm-wet climate. 4. Evidence from pollen assemblage suggests that the Holocene vegetation has been affected by human impacts, especially after the Yangshao Culture. 5. The present steppe environment on the loess plateau is mainly due to natural conditions. Temperature, seasonal precipitation and soil structure are three important factors which control the vegetation type. 6. The vegetation on the loess plateau is characterized with zonal or azonal distribution. So local conditions should be taken into account when recover natural vegetation. Finally, the restoration and reconstruction of ecosystem on the loess plateau area should be focused on planting grassland rather than forests.

Millstone Hill电离层F层等效风场的气候学研究

Neutral winds and electric fields in the ionospheric F layer play important roles in the variations of the ionosphere, and also affect the thermospheric circulation via the close coupling between the ionosphere and the thermosphere. By now, the neutral winds and electric drifts are generally observed with ground-based Fabry-Perot interferometers (FPI) and incoherent scatter radars (ISR), rockets, and satellite-borne instrument. Based on the servo theory, the ionospheric equivalent winds, which include the information of both the neutral winds and electric fields, can be derived from these characteristic parameters observed by ionosondes. This indirect derivation has potential values in climatological researches and space weather forecast. With the data set of the incoherent scatter radar observations at Millstone Hill, USA, from 1976 to 2006, we statistically analyzed the climatological variations of the vertical component of the equivalent winds (VEWs) over Millstone Hill, which are derived from the ionospheric key parameters (the peak electron number density and peak height of the F2 layer, NmF2 and hmF2) on the basis of the servo theory, Liu's method, and measurements from the ion line-of-sight velocity as well. The main results of this analysis are summarized as follows: (1) The values of VEWs over Millstone Hill during nighttime are stronger than in the daytime, and the upward drift dominates most of the day. In 1993, Hagan found that the component of the neutral winds in the magnetic meridion in daytime is weaker than during nighttime under both solar maximum and minimum conditions; he also found that the equatorward winds dominate most of the day. Both results suggest that the thermosphere in Millstone Hill is modulated by the aurorally driven high-latitude circulation cell; that is, during geomagnetic quiet periods, the average auroral activity is strong enough to drive thermospheric circulation equatorward for most of the day at Millstone Hill. Moreover, since ion drag is the strongest during daytime when F region densities are enhanced by photoionization, the wind speeds are smaller during the daytime than in the nighttime. (2) There is equinoctial symmetry in VEWs at Millstone Hill. The amplitudes and phases of VEWs in spring are quite similar to those in autumn. In contrast, the nighttime upward drift in winter is weaker than in summer and the difference becomes more significant with increasing solar activity. This solstice asymmetry indicates that, the aurorally driven circulation in the northern hemisphere at Millstone Hill latitude is weaker in winter due to arctic darkness, because the subsolar point is in the southern hemisphere. (3) The comparison of the VEWs derived from three methods, i.e., the servo theory, Liu's method, and the ISR ion line-of-sight velocity measurements, indicates that the amplitudes and main phase tendencies of these VEWs accord well with each other during nighttime hours. However, the case in the daytime is relatively worse. This daytime discrepancy can be explained in terms of the effects of photochemical processes and the choices of the servo constants. A larger servo constant gives a stronger plasma drift in daytime. Therefore, this study tells how important to choose a suitable constant for deriving VEWs at Millstone Hill.

接收函数方法与中国及邻区上地幔间断面的研究

The receiver function method applied in researching the discontinuities in upper mantle was systematically studied in this paper. Using the theoretical receiver functions, the characteristics of P410S and P660S phases were analyzed, and the influencing factors for detection of these phases were discussed. The stability of receiver function was studied, and a new computational method of receiver function, RFSSMS (Receiver Function of Stack and Smooth of Multi seismic-records at a Single station), was put forward. We built initial reference velocity model for the media beneath each of 18 seismic stations respectively; then estimated the buried depths of 410-km and 660-km discontinuities(simply marked as '410' and '660') under the stations by using the arrive time differences of P410S and P660S with P. We developed a new receiver function inversion method -PGARFI (Peeling-Genetic Algorithm of Receiver Function Inversion), to obtain the whole crust and upper mantle velocity structure and the depths of discontinuities beneath a station. The major works and results could be summarized as follows: (1) By analysis of the theoretical receiver functions with different velocity models and different ray parameters, we obtain the knowledge: The amplitudes of P410S and P660S phases are decreasing with the increasing of epicentral distance A , and the arrival time differences of these phases with P are shorter as A is longer. The multiple refracted and/or reflected waves yielded on Moho and the discontinuities in the crust interfere the identification of P410S. If existing LVZ under the lithosphere, some multiple waves caused by LVZ will interfere the identification of P410S. The multiple waves produced by discontinuity lied near 120km depth will mix with P410s phase in some range of epicentral distance; and the multiple waves concerned with the discontinuity lied near 210km depth will interfere the identification of P660S. The epicentral distance for P4i0s identification is limited, the upper limit is 80° . The identification of P660S is not restricted by the epicenter distance obviously. The identification of P410S and P6gos in the theoretical receiver functions is interfered weakly from the seismic wave attenuation caused by the media absorption if the Q value in a reasonable range. (2) The stability of receiver function was studied by using synthetic seismograms with different kind of noise. The results show that on the condition of high signal-noise-ratio of seismic records, the high frequency background noise and the low frequency microseism noise do not influence the calculating result of receiver function. But the media "scattering noise" influence the stability of receiver function. When the scattering effect reach some level, the identification of P4iOs and P66os is difficult in single receiver function which is yielded from only one seismic record. We provided a new method to calculate receiver function, that is, with a group of earthquake records, stacking the R and Z components respectively in the frequency domain, and weighted smooth the stacked Z component, then compute the complex spectrum ratio of R to Z. This method can improve the stability of receiver function and protrude the P4i0s and P66os in the receiver function curves. (3) 263 receiver functions were provided from 1364 three component broadband seismograms recorded at 18 stations in China and adjacent areas for the tele-earthquakes. The observed arrival time differences of P410S and P660S with P were obtained in these receiver functions. The initial velocity model for every station was built according to the prior research results. The buried depths of '410' and '660' under a station were acquired by the way of adjusting the depths of these two discontinuities in the initial velocity model until the theoretical arrival time differences of P410S and P660S with P well conformed to the observed. The results show an obvious lateral heterogeneity of buried depths of ' 410' and (660' . The depth of '410' is shallower beneath BJI, XAN, LZH and ENH, but deeper under QIZ and CHTO, and the average is 403km . The average depth of '660' is 663km, deeper under MDJ and MAJO, but shallower under QIZ and HYB. (4) For inversing the whole crust and upper mantle velocity structure, a new inversion method -PGARFI (Peeling-Genetic Algorithm of Receiver Function Inversion) has- been developed here. The media beneath a station is divided into segments, then the velocity structure is inversed from receiver function from surface to deep successively. Using PGARFI, the multi reflection / refraction phases of shallower discontinuities are isolated from the first order refraction transform phase of deep discontinuity. The genetic algorithm with floating-point coding was used hi the inversion of every segment, and arithmetical crossover and non-uniform mutation technologies were employed in the genetic optimization. 10 independent inversions are completed for every segment, and 50 most excellent velocity models are selected according to the priority of fitness from all models produced in the inversion process. The final velocity structure of every segment is obtained from the weighted average of these 50 models. Before inversion, a wide range of velocity variation with depth and depth range of the main discontinuities are given according to priori knowledge. PGARFI was verified with numerical test and applied in the inversion of the velocity structure beneath HIA station down to 700km depth.

双聚焦偏移速度估计与可分表示叠前弹性反演

In exploration seismology, the geologic target of oil and gas reservoir in complex medium request the high accuracy image of the structure and lithology of the medium. So the study of the prestack image and the elastic inversion of seismic wave in the complex medium come to the leading edge. The seismic response measured at the surface carries two fundamental pieces of information: the propagation effects of the medium and the reflections from the different layer boundaries in the medium. The propagation represent the low-wavenumber component of the medium, it is so-called the trend or macro layering, whereas the reflections represent the high-wavenumber component of the medium, it is called the detailed or fine layering. The result of migration velocity analysis is the resolution of the low-wavenumber component of the medium, but the prestack elastic inversion provided the resolution of the high-wavvenumber component the medium. In the dissertation, the two aspects about the migration velocity estimation and the elastic inversion have been studied.Firstly, any migration velocity analysis methods must include two basic elements: the criterion that tell us how to know whether the model parameters are correct and the updating that tell us how to update the model parameters when they are incorrect, which are effected on the properties and efficiency of the velocity estimation method. In the dissertation, a migration velocity analysis method based on the CFP technology has been presented in which the strategy of the top-down layer stripping approach are adapted to avoid the difficult of the selecting reduce .The proposed method has a advantage that the travel time errors obtained from the DTS panel are defined directly in time which is the difference with the method based on common image gather in which the residual curvature measured in depth should be converted to travel time errors.In the proposed migration velocity analysis method, the four aspects have been improved as follow:? The new parameterization of velocity model is provided in which the boundaries of layers are interpolated with the cubic spline of the control location and the velocity with a layer may change along with lateral position but the value is calculated as a segmented linear function of the velocity of the lateral control points. The proposed parameterization is suitable to updating procedure.? The analytical formulas to represent the travel time errors and the model parameters updates in the t-p domain are derived under local lateral homogeneous. The velocity estimations are iteratively computed as parametric inversion. The zero differential time shift in the DTS panel for each layer show the convergence of the velocity estimation.? The method of building initial model using the priori information is provided to improve the efficiency of velocity analysis. In the proposed method, Picking interesting events in the stacked section to define the boundaries of the layers and the results of conventional velocity analysis are used to define the velocity value of the layers? An interactive integrate software environment with the migration velocity analysis and prestack migration is built.The proposed method is firstly used to the synthetic data. The results of velocity estimation show both properties and efficiency of the velocity estimation are very good.The proposed method is also used to the field data which is the marine data set. In this example, the prestack and poststack depth migration of the data are completed using the different velocity models built with different method. The comparison between them shows that the model from the proposed method is better and improves obviously the quality of migration.In terms of the theoretical method of expressing a multi-variable function by products of single-variable functions which is suggested by Song Jian (2001), the separable expression of one-way wave operator has been studied. A optimization approximation with separable expression of the one-way wave operator is presented which easily deal with the lateral change of velocity in space and wave number domain respectively and has good approach accuracy. A new prestack depth migration algorithm based on the optimization approximation separable expression is developed and used to testing the results of velocity estimation.Secondly, according to the theory of the seismic wave reflection and transmission, the change of the amplitude via the incident angle is related to the elasticity of medium in the subsurface two-side. In the conventional inversion with poststack datum, only the information of the reflection operator at the zero incident angles can be used. If the more robust resolutions are requested, the amplitudes of all incident angles should be used.A natural separable expression of the reflection/transmission operator is represented, which is the sum of the products of two group functions. One group function vary with phase space whereas other group function is related to elastic parameters of the medium and geological structure.By employing the natural separable expression of the reflection/transmission operator, the method of seismic wave modeling with the one-way wave equation is developed to model the primary reflected waves, it is adapt to a certain extent heterogeneous media and confirms the accuracy of AVA of the reflections when the incident angle is less than 45'. The computational efficiency of the scheme is greatly high.The natural separable expression of the reflection/transmission operator is also used to construct prestack elastic inversion algorithm. Being different from the AVO analysis and inversion in which the angle gathers formed during the prstack migration are used, the proposed algorithm construct a linear equations during the prestack migration by the separable expression of the reflection/transmission operator. The unknowns of the linear equations are related to the elasticity of the medium, so the resolutions of them provided the elastic information of the medium.The proposed method of inversion is the same as AVO inversion in , the difference between them is only the method processing the amplitude via the incident angle and computational domain.

情绪干扰下焦虑水平对执行抑制的影响机制——事件相关电位研究

Behavioral inhibition model suggests the generation of anxiety is related with over-inhibition. For knowing about anxiety better, we used event-related potential (ERP) technique to explore the underlying mechanism of executive inhibition under the emotional distracter in high and low trait-anxious groups. Firstly, we set up the Chinese affective picture system (CAPS) as the stimuli of subsequent experiments. Secondly, we screened the high and low trait-anxious participants using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. In the first ERP study, a modified oddball paradigm was used with the positive, neutral and negative pictures as novel stimuli and the potentials evoked by three types pictures were analyzed. In the second ERP study, the same paradigm with higher task load was employed to examine the interaction of anxious level and emotion. Main results as follows: 1. CAPS consisted of 852 pictures was assessed via three dimensionalities, valence, arousal and dominance. The standard deviation of scores on valence and dominance was more than the standard deviation of scores on dimension of arousal. Scatter plot showed that the score distributing on the dimension of valence and arousal was wide in CAPS. 2. In both high and low trait-anxiety groups, the amplitudes of N2 and P3 of negative pictures were greater and smaller respectively as compared with neutral and positive pictures, which suggested all participants no matter what anxious level required more inhibition processing to negative information than others. 3. With increasing of task load, the P3 amplitudes of negative pictures in high anxious group were reduced relative to neutral pictures. In addition, in high anxious group, the P3 amplitudes of positive pictures had the same changes as those of negative ones. Whereas, the reduced P3 of positive pictures were not observed in low anxious group. The results showed the high anxious participants employed the same inhibitory strategy to the positive distracter as the negative distracter, which possibly the over-inhibition processing was involved in this group. 4. Dipole source analysis found cingulate may be involved in executive inhibition processing. In sum, as for the inhibition, high and low anxious group both is sensitive to negative information. However, in the high load situation, due to the shortness of cognitive resources, the high anxious individual represents the general sensitivity to all emotional information. These results gave the electrophysiological evidence for over-inhibition in high trait-anxiety group.

社会冲突信息加工的事件相关电位研究

Processing of discrepant information is an important part in our everyday life. According to the social attributes of information, it can be categorized into two parts: social discrepancy and nonsocial discrepant information. The researches focused on nonsocial discrepancy are much mature than those of social discrepancy processing. This serial study employed three ERP experiments to explore the attributes of social discrepancy cognition. Experiment one compared the ERP differences between social and nonsocial discrepancy processing, experiment two adopted single stimulus paradigm to explore the negativity attention biases of social emotions, experiment three investigated the affective mechanism of emotions to social discrepancy information with cue-target paradigm, based on the experiment one and two. We invited healthy undergraduates to participate in our researches, in which social gender words and affective images were stimuli to explore the temporal sequences, activated modes and affective mechanisms of social discrepancy. The results were as below: 1. The differences of attention resource distributions between social and nonsocial information processing exhibited as early as 200 ms, since which P2 was evoked in both blocks. The larger P2 in nonsocial block represented the more attention to physical and nonsocial attributes of objects. N300/400 indicated the differences of evaluating systems in each block. The cognitive mechanisms of social and nonsocial tasks were specific, based on the fact: (1) the discrepancy evaluating system was activated earlier in nonsocial block than that of social block; (2) the social cognition performed right hemisphere advantage, but nonsocial task did not so. 2. Social emotions also could raise a negativity bias on attention. The latency of P2 evoked by social sad images was shorter than that of social happiness and neutral images. The latencies of P2 indicated that sad emotions attracted attention earlier, and possessed a processing advantage. The phenomenon that the larger N2 was evoked by social sadness showed that people was easily moved by sad emotions and sympathized the sadness. 3. Emotions affected social discrepancy processing. Positive affective mood magnified the discrepancy effect, based on the smaller latencies of difference N400 and larger amplitudes. Persons with happy mood synthesized social stereotypes to accelerate the social tasks. 4. Three experiments all showed the right hemisphere advantages of social cognition and social emotions, offered more proof in laterality hypothesis of social cognition. Above all, social cognition had essential distinctions with nonsocial cognition; they two had their own specific characteristics. The fact that social cognition was prone to be affected by different emotional mood made it more complex.

内源性注意与外源性注意神经机制的渐合假说

The relationship between exogenous attention and endogenous attention is still unclear. We conclude the result of previous studies and our experiments by proposing a convergence hypothesis. A lot of evidences from ERP and fMRI proved the distinction between exogenous and endogenous attention. The distinction is fit for the complicated surroundings. Some studies found that exogenous and endogenous attention activated some common brain areas but if there’s any common function in these areas was still unclear. Previous studies failed to disentangle the relationship between these two mechanisms in detail, and most of the previous studies compared these two mechanisms separately. We used the cue-target paradigm, controlled the SOA and the cue validity to separate endogenous and exogenous attention. We try to figure out the relationship between endogenous and exogenous attention. We found that, in the exogenous attention condition, the amplitude of the P1 component was larger and the amplitude of N1 was smaller than that in the invalid trials. In the endogenous attention condition, the amplitudes of the P1 and N1 components in valid trials were both larger than that in the invalid trials. The difference wave of endogenous and exogenous attentions showed that at the beginning of their process endogenous and exogenous attentions were separate and then the process was going to converge. The stimuli appear in the visual field will activate the “external trigger” in exogenous attention processing, and then the signal will be transferred to next stage, in the endogenous attention processing, when the observer want to attend, the “inner trigger” will be activated and the signal will be transfered. The difference between “external trigger” and “inner trigger” in endogenous and exogenous attention was significant, so the difference at the beginning of the process was significant. When the signal was transferred to the next processing stage, the difference between the endogenous and exogenous attention became diminished, and it was a convergence process. We used the cue-target paradigm, let the central cue and peripheral cue appear in one trial, try to investigate the relationship between endogenous and exogenous attention under different perceptual load conditions. The result from of difference wave showed that the relationship between the two attentions was consistent with the convergence hypothesis. We also found that under different perceptual load conditions, the relationship between endogenous and exogenous attention was different. The perceptual load has influence on the “external trigger” and “inner trigger”. A cue-target paradigm was used to investigate the relationship between attention, age and perceptual load, we found that the function of visual attention was decrease in the old group, they need more attentional resource when they face the issue. The aging effect has influence on the “external trigger” and “inner trigger”. The effects of age and perceptual load were much higher in exogenous attention condition.

汉语发展性阅读障碍儿童的视觉大细胞通路特点

Developmental dyslexia (DD) is a common kind of learning disorder, which affects 5-18% of people. It seems important to explore the deficit in visual magnocellular pathway in Chinese developmental dyslexia, for many researches demonstrated that one of the core deficits of Chinese developmental dyslexia was orthographic deficit which was associated with the deficit in visual magnocellular pathway. Two studies were done to detect the differences among Chinese developmental dyslexics, average readers of the same chronological age (CA controls) and average readers of the same reading level (RL controls) in reaction time, accuracy and visual mismatch negativity (vMMN) elicited by the moving gratings responded by visual magnocellular pathway. There were two grating-conditions which were low contrast/low spatial frequency condition and high contrast/high spatial frequency condition respectively. In ERP study, a modified “cross-modal delayed response” paradigm was used to elicit the vMMN. The results showed that the developmental dyslexics responded slower than CA controls, had more errors than RL controls, and had smaller amplitudes of vMMNs than the two controls in visual magnocellular pathway condition, but not in control condition. That is to say, Chinese developmental dyslexics had deficits in visual magnocellular pathway.

顿悟中的蔡格尼克效应：左右脑在解题失败与提示信息加工时的活动差异

Zeigarnik effect refers to the enhanced memory performance for unfinished tasks and studies on insight using hemi-visual field presentation technology also find that after failing to solve an problem, hints to the problem are more effective received and lead to insight experience when presented to the left-visual field (Right hemisphere) than presented to the right-visual field, especial when the hints appeared with a delay. Thus, it seems that right hemisphere may play an important role in preserving information of unsolved problems and processing related cues. To further examine the finding above, we introduce an Chinese character chunking task to investigate the brain activities during the stage of failure to resolve problems and of hint presentation using Event-Related Potentials (ERP) and functional MRI technology. Our FMRI results found that bilateral BA10 showed more activation when seeing hints for unsolved problems and we proposed that it may reflect the processes of information to failure problems, howerver, there was no hemispheric difference. The ERP results after the effort to the problems showed that unsolved problems elicited a more positive P150 over the right frontal cortex while solved problems demonstrated a left hemispheric advantage of P150. When hints present, P2 amplitudes of hints were modulated by the status of problem only in the right hemisphere but not in the left hemisphere. Our results confirmed the hypothesis that failure to solve problems would trigger the perseverance processes in right hemisphere, which would make right hemisphere more sensitive to related information of failure problems.

不同智力水平儿童的自我调控特点

Self-regulation has recently become an important topic in cognitive and developmental domain. According to previous theories and experimental studies, it is shown that self-regulation consist of both a personality (or social) aspect and a behavioral cognitive aspect of psychology. Self-regulation can be divided into self-regulation personality and self-regulation ability. In the present study researches have been carried out from two perspectives: child development and individual differences. We are eager to explore the characteristics of self-regulation in terms of human cognitive development. In the present study, we chose two groups of early adolescences one with high intelligence and the other with normal intelligence. In Study One Questionnaires were used to compare whether the highly intelligent group had had better self-regulation personality than the normal group. In Study Two experimental psychology tasks were used to compare whether highly intelligent children had had better self-regulation cognitive abilities than their normal peers. Finally, in Study Three we combined the results of Study One and Study Two to further explore the neural mechanisms for highly intelligent children with respect to their good self-regulation abilities. Some main results and conclusions are as follows: (1) Questionnaire results showed that highly intelligent children had better self-regulation personalities, and they got higher scores on the personalities related to self-regulation such as, self-reliance, stability, rule-consciousness. They also got higher scores on self-consciousness which meant that they could know their own self better than the normal children. (2) Among the three levels of cognitive difficulties in self-regulation abilities, the highly intelligent children had faster reaction speed than normal children in the primary self-regulation tasks. In the intermediate self-regulation tasks, highly intelligent children’s inhibition processing and executive processing were both better than their normal peers. In the advanced self-regulation tasks, highly intelligent children again had faster reaction speed and more reaction accuracy than their normal peers when facing with conflict and inconsistency experimental conditions,. Regression model’s results showed that primary and advanced self-regulation abilites had larger predictive power than intermediate self-regualation ability. (3) Our neural experiments showed that highly intelligent children had more efficient neural automatic processing ability than normal children. They also had better, faster and larger neural reaction to novel stimuli under pre-attentional condition which made good and firm neural basis for self-regualation. Highly intelligent children had more mature frontal lobe and pariental functions for inhibition processing and executive processing. P3 component in ERP was closely related to executive processing which mainly activated pariental function. There were two time-periods for inhibition processing—first it was the pariental function and later it was the coordination function of frontal and pariental lobes. While conflict control task had pariental N2 and frontal-pariental P3 neural sources, highly intelligent children had much smaller N2 and shorter P3 latency than normal children. Inconsistency conditions induced larger N2 than conditions without inconsistency, and conditions without inconsistency (or Conflict) induced higher P3 amplitudes than with Inconsistency (or Conflict) conditions. In conclusion, the healthy development of self-regulation was very important for children’s personality and cognition maturity, and self-regulation had its own specific characteristics in ways of presentation and ways of development. Better understanding of self-regulation can further help the exploration of the nature of human intelligence and consciousness.

Theory of Handwriting

Handwriting production is viewed as a constrained modulation of an underlying oscillatory process. Coupled oscillations in horizontal and vertical directions produce letter forms, and when superimposed on a rightward constant velocity horizontal sweep result in spatially separated letters. Modulation of the vertical oscillation is responsible for control of letter height, either through altering the frequency or altering the acceleration amplitude. Modulation of the horizontal oscillation is responsible for control of corner shape through altering phase or amplitude. The vertical velocity zero crossing in the velocity space diagram is important from the standpoint of control. Changing the horizontal velocity value at this zero crossing controls corner shape, and such changes can be effected through modifying the horizontal oscillation amplitude and phase. Changing the slope at this zero crossing controls writing slant; this slope depends on the horizontal and vertical velocity zero amplitudes and on the relative phase difference. Letter height modulation is also best applied at the vertical velocity zero crossing to preserve an even baseline. The corner shape and slant constraints completely determine the amplitude and phase relations between the two oscillations. Under these constraints interletter separation is not an independent parameter. This theory applies generally to a number of acceleration oscillation patterns such as sinusoidal, rectangular and trapezoidal oscillations. The oscillation theory also provides an explanation for how handwriting might degenerate with speed. An implementation of the theory in the context of the spring muscle model is developed. Here sinusoidal oscillations arise from a purely mechanical sources; orthogonal antagonistic spring pairs generate particular cycloids depending on the initial conditions. Modulating between cycloids can be achieved by changing the spring zero settings at the appropriate times. Frequency can be modulated either by shifting between coactivation and alternating activation of the antagonistic springs or by presuming variable spring constant springs. An acceleration and position measuring apparatus was developed for measurements of human handwriting. Measurements of human writing are consistent with the oscillation theory. It is shown that the minimum energy movement for the spring muscle is bang-coast-bang. For certain parameter values a singular arc solution can be shown to be minimizing. Experimental measurements however indicate that handwriting is not a minimum energy movement.

Charakterystyka topoklimatyczna fragmentu wybrzeża klifowego w rejonie Białej Góry (Woliński Park Narodowy)

The Meteorological Section at the scientific camp 2009–2010 conducted a series of meteorological measurements in the region of Biała Góra. The exploration area is located about 2 km east of Międzyzdroje, at the research station of the AMU Faculty of Geographical and Geological Sciences. Members of the section made measurements in the six selected points. The location of points had to reflect the specifics of the area (from the beach to the car park at the research station). The section focused on three basic measurements: air temperature (2009–2010), relative humidity (2009–2010) and atmospheric pressure (2009). This article aims to analyse a topoclimate section of cliff coast in the Wolin National Park. The compilation recognised the impact of various land surfaces, sea and altitude on the variability of air temperature and relative humidity. It notes the varied course of the daily meteorological elements analysed, which is directly related to the value of radiation balance dependent upon the intensity of direct solar radiation. In this article, particular emphasis is applied to the analysis of temperature amplitudes and humidity at different measuring points.

Dissipative Chaos in Semiconductor Superlattices

We consider the motion of ballistic electrons in a miniband of a semiconductor superlattice (SSL) under the influence of an external, time-periodic electric field. We use the semi-classical balance-equation approach which incorporates elastic and inelastic scattering (as dissipation) and the self-consistent field generated by the electron motion. The coupling of electrons in the miniband to the self-consistent field produces a cooperative nonlinear oscillatory mode which, when interacting with the oscillatory external field and the intrinsic Bloch-type oscillatory mode, can lead to complicated dynamics, including dissipative chaos. For a range of values of the dissipation parameters we determine the regions in the amplitude-frequency plane of the external field in which chaos can occur. Our results suggest that for terahertz external fields of the amplitudes achieved by present-day free electron lasers, chaos may be observable in SSLs. We clarify the nature of this novel nonlinear dynamics in the superlattice-external field system by exploring analogies to the Dicke model of an ensemble of two-level atoms coupled with a resonant cavity field and to Josephson junctions.

APPLICATION OF THE KHOKHLOV-ZABOLOTSKAYA-KUZNETSOV EQUATION TO MODELING HIGH-INTENSITY FOCUSED ULTRASOUND BEAMS

High-intensity focused ultrasound is a form of therapeutic ultrasound which uses high amplitude acoustic waves to heat and ablate tissue. HIFU employs acoustic amplitudes that are high enough that nonlinear propagation effects are important in the evolution of the sound field. A common model for HIFU beams is the Khokhlov-Zabolotskaya-Kuznetsov (KZK) equation which accounts for nonlinearity, diffraction, and absorption. The KZK equation models diffraction using the parabolic or paraxial approximation. Many HIFU sources have an aperture diameter similar to the focal length and the paraxial approximation may not be appropriate. Here, results obtained using the “Texas code,” a time-domain numerical solution to the KZK equation, were used to assess when the KZK equation can be employed. In a linear water case comparison with the O’Neil solution, the KZK equation accurately predicts the pressure field in the focal region. The KZK equation was also compared to simulations of the exact fluid dynamics equations (no paraxial approximation). The exact equations were solved using the Fourier-Continuation (FC) method to approximate derivatives in the equations. Results have been obtained for a focused HIFU source in tissue. For a low focusing gain transducer (focal length 50λ and radius 10λ), the KZK and FC models showed excellent agreement, however, as the source radius was increased to 30λ, discrepancies started to appear. Modeling was extended to the case of tissue with the appropriate power law using a relaxation model. The relaxation model resulted in a higher peak pressure and a shift in the location of the peak pressure, highlighting the importance of employing the correct attenuation model. Simulations from the code that were compared to experimental data in water showed good agreement through the focal plane.

On the Complexity of Quantum ACC

For any q > 1, let MOD_q be a quantum gate that determines if the number of 1's in the input is divisible by q. We show that for any q,t > 1, MOD_q is equivalent to MOD_t (up to constant depth). Based on the case q=2, Moore has shown that quantum analogs of AC^(0), ACC[q], and ACC, denoted QAC^(0)_wf, QACC[2], QACC respectively, define the same class of operators, leaving q > 2 as an open question. Our result resolves this question, implying that QAC^(0)_wf = QACC[q] = QACC for all q. We also prove the first upper bounds for QACC in terms of related language classes. We define classes of languages EQACC, NQACC (both for arbitrary complex amplitudes) and BQACC (for rational number amplitudes) and show that they are all contained in TC^(0). To do this, we show that a TC^(0) circuit can keep track of the amplitudes of the state resulting from the application of a QACC operator using a constant width polynomial size tensor sum. In order to accomplish this, we also show that TC^(0) can perform iterated addition and multiplication in certain field extensions.