Effects of intensity and positional predictability of a visual stimulus on simple reaction time

The influence of visual stimuli intensity on manual reaction time (RT) was investigated under two different attentional settings: high (Experiment 1) and low (Experiment 2) stimulus location predictability. These two experiments were also run under both binocular and monocular viewing conditions. We observed that RT decreased as stimulus intensity increased. It also decreased as the viewing condition was changed from monocular to binocular as well as the location predictability shifted from low to high. A significant interaction was found between stimulus intensity and viewing condition, but no interaction was observed between neither of these factors and location predictability. These findings support the idea that the stimulus intensity effect arises from purely sensory, pre-attentive mechanisms rather than deriving from more efficient attentional capture. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

M-deformations of A-simple germs from R(n) to R(n+1)

All A-simple corank-1 germs from R(n) to R(n+1), where n not equal 4, have an M-deformation, that is a deformation in which the maximal numbers of isolated stable singular points are simultaneously present in the image.

Termination of diamond surfaces with hydrogen, oxygen and fluorine using a small, simple plasma gun

We have formed and characterized polycrystalline diamond films with surfaces having hydrogen terminations, oxygen terminations, or fluorine terminations, using a small, simple and novel plasma gun to bombard the diamond surface, formed by plasma assisted CVD in a prior step, with ions of the wanted terminating species. The potential differences between surface regions with different terminations were measured by Kelvin Force Microscopy (KFM). The highest potential occurred for oxygen termination regions and the lowest for fluorine. The potential difference between regions with oxygen terminations and hydrogen terminations was about 80 mV, and between regions with hydrogen terminations and fluorine terminations about 150 mV. Regions with different terminations were identified and imaged using the secondary electron signal provided by scanning electron microscopy (SEM). since this signal presents contrast for surfaces with different electrical properties. The wettability of the surfaces with different terminations was evaluated, measuring contact angles. The sample with oxygen termination was the most hydrophilic, with a contact angle of 75 degrees. hydrogen-terminated regions with 83 degrees, and fluorine regions 93 degrees, the most hydrophobic sample. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Tokamak magnetic field lines described by simple maps

The magnetic field line structure in a tokamak can be obtained by direct numerical integration of the field line equations. However, this is a lengthy procedure and the analysis of the solution may be very time-consuming. Otherwise we can use simple two-dimensional, area-preserving maps, obtained either by approximations of the magnetic field line equations, or from dynamical considerations. These maps can be quickly iterated, furnishing solutions that mirror the ones obtained from direct numerical integration, and which are useful when long-term studies of field line behavior are necessary (e.g. in diffusion calculations). In this work we focus on a set of simple tokamak maps for which these advantages are specially pronounced.

GLUON SATURATION AND THE FROISSART BOUND: A SIMPLE APPROACH

At very high energies we expect that the hadronic cross sections satisfy the Froissart bound, which is a well-established property of the strong interactions. In this energy regime we also expect the formation of the Color Glass Condensate, characterized by gluon saturation and a typical momentum scale: the saturation scale Q(s). In this paper we show that if a saturation window exists between the nonperturbative and perturbative regimes of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the total cross sections satisfy the Froissart bound. Furthermore, we show that our approach allows us to described the high energy experimental data on pp/p (p) over bar total cross sections.

The dynamics of cargo driven by molecular motors in the context of asymmetric simple exclusion processes

We consider the dynamics of cargo driven by a collection of interacting molecular motors in the context of ail asymmetric simple exclusion process (ASEP). The model is formulated to account for (i) excluded-volume interactions, (ii) the observed asymmetry of the stochastic movement of individual motors and (iii) interactions between motors and cargo. Items (i) and (ii) form the basis of ASEP models and have already been considered to study the behavior of motor density profile [A. Parmeggiani. T. Franosch, E. Frey, Phase Coexistence in driven one-dimensional transport, Phys. Rev. Lett. 90 (2003) 086601-1-086601-4]. Item (iii) is new. It is introduced here as an attempt to describe explicitly the dependence of cargo movement on the dynamics of motors in this context. The steady-state Solutions Of the model indicate that the system undergoes a phase transition of condensation type as the motor density varies. We study the consequences of this transition to the behavior of the average cargo velocity. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

SRTM resample with short distance-low nugget kriging

The shuttle radar topography mission (SRTM), was flow on the space shuttle Endeavour in February 2000, with the objective of acquiring a digital elevation model of all land between 60 degrees north latitude and 56 degrees south latitude, using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) techniques. The SRTM data are distributed at horizontal resolution of 1 arc-second (similar to 30m) for areas within the USA and at 3 arc-second (similar to 90m) resolution for the rest of the world. A resolution of 90m can be considered suitable for the small or medium-scale analysis, but it is too coarse for more detailed purposes. One alternative is to interpolate the SRTM data at a finer resolution; it will not increase the level of detail of the original digital elevation model (DEM), but it will lead to a surface where there is the coherence of angular properties (i.e. slope, aspect) between neighbouring pixels, which is an important characteristic when dealing with terrain analysis. This work intents to show how the proper adjustment of variogram and kriging parameters, namely the nugget effect and the maximum distance within which values are used in interpolation, can be set to achieve quality results on resampling SRTM data from 3"" to 1"". We present for a test area in western USA, which includes different adjustment schemes (changes in nugget effect value and in the interpolation radius) and comparisons with the original 1"" model of the area, with the national elevation dataset (NED) DEMs, and with other interpolation methods (splines and inverse distance weighted (IDW)). The basic concepts for using kriging to resample terrain data are: (i) working only with the immediate neighbourhood of the predicted point, due to the high spatial correlation of the topographic surface and omnidirectional behaviour of variogram in short distances; (ii) adding a very small random variation to the coordinates of the points prior to interpolation, to avoid punctual artifacts generated by predicted points with the same location than original data points and; (iii) using a small value of nugget effect, to avoid smoothing that can obliterate terrain features. Drainages derived from the surfaces interpolated by kriging and by splines have a good agreement with streams derived from the 1"" NED, with correct identification of watersheds, even though a few differences occur in the positions of some rivers in flat areas. Although the 1"" surfaces resampled by kriging and splines are very similar, we consider the results produced by kriging as superior, since the spline-interpolated surface still presented some noise and linear artifacts, which were removed by kriging.

A simple relation between the Leimkuhler curve and the mean residual life

In this paper, a simple relation between the Leimkuhler curve and the mean residual life is established. The result is illustrated with several models commonly used in informetrics, such as exponential, Pareto and lognormal. Finally, relationships with some other reliability concepts are also presented. (C) 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The smallest simple Moufang loop

We study the simple Moufang loop GLL(F(2)) and give a complete description of its lattice of subloops. (C) 2008 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Integral group ring of the Suzuki sporadic simple group

Using the Luthar-Passi method, we investigate the classical Zassenhaus conjecture for the normalized unit group of the integral group ring of the Suzuki sporadic simple group Suz. As a consequence, for this group we confirm the Kimmerle`s conjecture on prime graphs.

TAUT REPRESENTATIONS OF COMPACT SIMPLE LIE GROUPS

The concept of taut submanifold of Euclidean space is due to Carter and West, and can be traced back to the work of Chern and Lashof on immersions with minimal total absolute curvature and the subsequent reformulation of that work by Kuiper in terms of critical point theory. In this paper, we classify the reducible representations of compact simple Lie groups, all of whose orbits are tautly embedded in Euclidean space, with respect to Z(2)-coefficients.

Simple components of the center of FG/J(FG)

Let G be a finite group, F a field, FG the group ring of G over F, and J(FG) the Jacobson radical of FG. Using a result of Berman and Witt, we give a method to determine the structure of the center of FG/J(FG), provided that F satisfies a field theoretical condition.

Free groups in central simple algebras without Tits` theorem

Let R be a noncommutative central simple algebra, the center k of which is not absolutely algebraic, and consider units a,b of R such that {a,a(b)} freely generate a free group. It is shown that such b can be chosen from suitable Zariski dense open subsets of R, while the a can be chosen from a set of cardinality \k\ (which need not be open).

POLYNOMIAL IDENTITIES OF FINITE DIMENSIONAL SIMPLE ALGEBRAS

Let F be an algebraically closed field and let A and B be arbitrary finite dimensional simple algebras over F. We prove that A and B are isomorphic if and only if they satisfy the same identities.

Gas-Phase Nucleophilic and Elimination Reactions in Simple Alkyl Nitrates

There has been increasing interest in the gas-phase reactivity of alkyl nitrates because of their well-known applications as explosives and because of then role in atmospheric and in marine processes This manuscript describes an experimental study by FT-ICR techniques of the gas-phase reactions of OH(-) and F(-) with methyl and ethyl Innate For methyl nitrate, the main reaction channel is found to be an elimination process promoted by abstraction of an a proton from the methyl group. Nucleophilic displacement of nitrate anion through an S(N)2 process at the carbon center Is also found to he an important reaction channel with methyl nitrate In ethyl nitrate, Ruination of NO(3)(-) is greatly enhanced and this is attributed to the ease of an E2-type elimination process promoted by proton abstraction at the beta position of the ethyl group. Theoretical calculations at the MP2/6-311+G(3df,2p)//MP2/6-31+G(d) level of theory ale consistent with the relative importance of the reaction channels and suggest that these reactions proceed through a double well potential The calculations also predict that nucleophilic attack by OH(-) at the nitrogen center (Sn2@N) is energetically the rueful ad pathway but experiments with (18)OH(-) showed no evidence for this channel. Single-point calculations reveal a strong preference for approach to the emboli center and may explain the lack of reactivity at the nitrogen center. Calculations were also carried out or NH(2)(-) and SH(-) to establish the reactivity pattern to provide a better understanding of environmentally relevant nitrate esters.