Using environmental engineering to increase hand hygiene compliance: a cross-over study protocol.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmidtke, Kelly Ann; Aujla, Navneet; Marshall, Tom; Hussain, Abid; Hodgkinson, Gerard P; Arheart, Kristopher; Marti, Joachim; Birnbach, David J; Vlaev, Ivo

2017-09-11

Compliance with hand hygiene recommendations in hospital is typically less than 50%. Such low compliance inevitably contributes to hospital-acquired infections that negatively affect patients' well-being and hospitals' finances. The design of the present study is predicated on the assumption that most people who fail to clean their hands are not doing so intentionally, they just forget. The present study will test whether psychological priming can be used to increase the number of people who clean their hands on entering a ward. Here, we present the protocol for this study. The study will use a randomised cross-over design. During the study, each of four wards will be observed during four conditions: olfactory prime, visual prime, both primes and neither prime. Each condition will be experienced for 42 days followed by a 7-day washout period (total duration of trial=189 days). We will record the number of people who enter each ward and whether they clean their hands during observation sessions, the amount of cleaning material used from the dispensers each week and the number of hospital-acquired infections that occur in each period. The outcomes will be compared using a regression analysis. Following the initial trail, the most effective priming condition will be rolled out for 3 months in all the wards. Research ethics approval was obtained from the South Central-Oxford C Research Ethics Committee (16/SC/0554), the Health Regulatory Authority and the sponsor. ISRCTN (15397624); Edge ID 86357. © Article author(s) (or their employer(s) unless otherwise stated in the text of the article) 2017. All rights reserved. No commercial use is permitted unless otherwise expressly granted.

The priming of priming: Evidence that the N400 reflects context-dependent post-retrieval word integration in working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Steinhauer, Karsten; Royle, Phaedra; Drury, John E; Fromont, Lauren A

2017-06-09

Which cognitive processes are reflected by the N400 in ERPs is still controversial. Various recent articles (Lau et al., 2008; Brouwer et al., 2012) have revived the idea that only lexical pre-activation processes (such as automatic spreading activation, ASA) are strongly supported, while post-lexical integrative processes are not. Challenging this view, the present ERP study replicates a behavioral study by McKoon and Ratcliff (1995) who demonstrated that a prime-target pair such as finger - hand shows stronger priming when a majority of other pairs in the list share the analogous semantic relationship (here: part-whole), even at short stimulus onset asynchronies (250ms). We created lists with four different types of semantic relationship (synonyms, part-whole, category-member, and opposites) and compared priming for pairs in a consistent list with those in an inconsistent list as well as unrelated items. Highly significant N400 reductions were found for both relatedness priming (unrelated vs. inconsistent) and relational priming (inconsistent vs. consistent). These data are taken as strong evidence that N400 priming effects are not exclusively carried by ASA-like mechanisms during lexical retrieval but also include post-lexical integration in working memory. We link the present findings to a neurocomputational model for relational reasoning (Knowlton et al., 2012) and to recent discussions of context-dependent conceptual activations (Yee and Thompson-Schill, 2016). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Masked priming effect reflects evidence accumulated by the prime.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

2010-01-01

In the same-different match task, masked priming is observed with the same responses but not different responses. Norris and Kinoshita's (2008) Bayesian reader account of masked priming explains this pattern based on the same principle as that explaining the absence of priming for nonwords in the lexical decision task. The pattern of priming follows from the way the model makes optimal decisions in the two tasks; priming does not depend on first activating the prime and then the target. An alternative explanation is in terms of a bias towards responding "same" that exactly counters the facilitatory effect of lexical access. The present study tested these two views by varying both the degree to which the prime predicts the response and the visibility of the prime. Unmasked primes produced effects expected from the view that priming is influenced by the degree to which the prime predicts the response. In contrast, with masked primes, the size of priming for the same response was completely unaffected by predictability. These results rule out response bias as an explanation of the absence of masked priming for different responses and, in turn, indicate that masked priming is not a consequence of automatic lexical access of the prime.

Abstract spatial concept priming dynamically influences real-world actions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah M Tower-Richardi

2012-09-01

Full Text Available Experienced regularities in our perceptions and actions play important roles in grounding abstract concepts such as social status, time, and emotion. Might we similarly ground abstract spatial concepts in more experienced-based domains? The present experiment explores this possibility by implicitly priming abstract spatial terms (north, south, east, west and then measuring participants’ hand movement trajectories while they respond to a body-referenced spatial target (up, down, left, right in a verbal (Exp. 1 or spatial (Exp. 2 format. Results from two experiments demonstrate temporally-dynamic and prime-biased movement trajectories when the primes are incongruent with the targets (e.g., north – left, west – up. That is, priming abstract coordinate directions influences subsequent actions in response to concrete target directions. These findings provide the first evidence that abstract concepts of world-centered coordinate axes are implicitly understood in the context of concrete body-referenced axes; critically, this abstract-concrete relationship manifests in motor movements, and may have implications for spatial memory organization.

Flexibility and torsional behaviour of rotary nickel-titanium PathFile, RaCe ISO 10, Scout RaCe and stainless steel K-File hand instruments.

Science.gov (United States)

Nakagawa, R K L; Alves, J L; Buono, V T L; Bahia, M G A

2014-03-01

To assess and compare the flexibility and torsional resistance of PathFile, RaCe ISO 10 and Scout RaCe instruments in relation to stainless steel K-File hand instruments. Rotary PathFile (sizes 13, 16 and 19; .02 taper), Race ISO 10 (size 10; 0.02, 0.04 and 0.06 tapers), Scout RaCe (sizes 10, 15 and 20; 0.02 taper) and hand K-File (sizes 10, 15 and 20; 0.02 taper) instruments were evaluated. Alloy chemical composition, phases present and transformation temperatures were determined for the NiTi instruments. For all instruments, diameters at each millimetre from the tip as well as cross-sectional areas at 3 mm from the tip were measured based on ANSI/ADA Specification No. 101 using image analysis software. Resistance to bending and torsional resistance were determined according to specification ISO 3630-1. Vickers microhardness measurements were also taken in all instruments to assess their strength. Data were analysed using analysis of variance (α = 0.05). The alloys used in the manufacture of the three types of NiTi instruments had approximately the same chemical composition, but the PathFile instruments had a higher Af transformation temperature and contained a small amount of B19' martensite. All instruments had diameter values within the standard tolerance. The bending and torsional resistance values were significantly increased relative to the instrument diameter and cross-sectional area. PathFile instruments were the most flexible and the least torque resistant, whilst the stainless steel instruments were the least flexible although they were more torque resistant than the NiTi instruments. © 2013 International Endodontic Journal. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

On P2 ⋄ Pn -supermagic labeling of edge corona product of cycle and path graph

Science.gov (United States)

Yulianto, R.; Martini, Titin S.

2018-04-01

A simple graph G = (V, E) admits a H-covering, where H is subgraph of G, if every edge in E belongs to a subgraph of G isomorphic to H. Graph G is H-magic if there is a total labeling f:V(G)\\cup E(G)\\to 1,2,\\ldots,|V(G)|+|E(G)|, such that each subgraph {H}{\\prime }=({V}{\\prime },{E}{\\prime }) of G isomorphic to H and satisfying f{({H}{\\prime })}=def{\\sum }\\upsilon \\in {V{\\prime }}f(\\upsilon )+{\\sum }e\\in {E{\\prime }}f(e)=m(f) where m(f) is a constant magic sum. Additionaly, G admits H-supermagic if f(V)=1,2,\\ldots,|V|. The edge corona {C}n \\diamond {P}n of Cn and Pn is defined as the graph obtained by taking one copy of Cn and n copies of Pn , and then joining two end-vertices of the i-th edge of Cn to every vertex in the i-th copy of Pn . This research aim is to find H-supermagic covering on an edge corona product of cycle and path graph {C}n \\diamond {P}n where H is {P}2 \\diamond {P}n. We use k-balanced multiset to solve our reserarch. Here, we find that an edge corona product of cycle and path graph {C}n \\diamond {P}n is {P}2 \\diamond {P}n supermagic for n > 3.

Transposed-Letter Priming Effects with Masked Subset Primes: A Re-Examination of the "Relative Position Priming Constraint"

Science.gov (United States)

Stinchcombe, Eric J.; Lupker, Stephen J.; Davis, Colin J.

2012-01-01

Three experiments are reported investigating the role of letter order in orthographic subset priming (e.g., "grdn"-GARDEN) using both the conventional masked priming technique as well as the sandwich priming technique in a lexical decision task. In all three experiments, subset primes produced priming with the effect being considerably…

Negative Stimulus-Response Compatibility Observed with a Briefly Displayed Image of a Hand

Science.gov (United States)

Vainio, Lari

2011-01-01

Manual responses can be primed by viewing an image of a hand. The left-right identity of the viewed hand reflexively facilitates responses of the hand that corresponds to the identity. Previous research also suggests that when the response activation is triggered by an arrow, which is backward-masked and presented briefly, the activation manifests…

Visit by the Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic

CERN Multimedia

CERN Bulletin

2012-01-01

The Prime Minister of the Slovak Republic, Iveta Radicova, visited CERN on 28 February, meeting with CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer and going down to the ALICE cavern.   Upon arrival, Prime Minister Radicova spent about half an hour discussing the Slovak Republic’s involvement in CERN with the DG, and was very interested in the physics results that the Organization is currently working on. After signing the official guest book in Building 500, the Prime Minister crossed the border into France to visit the ALICE experiment. Donning a helmet, she descended into the ALICE cavern to take a first-hand look at one of the two CERN experiments to which her country has contributed (ATLAS being the second). “We also showed her the read-out chambers for the Time Projection Chamber (TPC) and the electronics for the pixel detector that are on display in the ALICE exhibition area, as they were produced in the Slovak Republic,” says Karel Safarik, the Slovakian ALICE physicist w...

The Prime Numbers Hidden Symmetric Structure and its Relation to the Twin Prime Infinitude and an Improved Prime Number Theorem

CERN Document Server

Mikoss, I

2006-01-01

Due to the sieving process represented by a Secondary Sieving Map; during the generation of the prime numbers, geometric structures with definite symmetries are formed which become evident through their geometrical representations. The study of these structures allows the development of a constructive prime generating formula. This defines a mean prime density yielding a second order recursive and discrete prime producing formula and a second order differential equation whose solutions produce an improved Prime Number Theorem. Applying these results to twin prime pairs is possible to generate a Twin Prime Number Theorem and important conclusions about the infinitude of the twin primes.

Positroids Induced by Rational Dyck Paths

OpenAIRE

Gotti, Felix

2017-01-01

A rational Dyck path of type $(m,d)$ is an increasing unit-step lattice path from $(0,0)$ to $(m,d) \\in \\mathbb{Z}^2$ that never goes above the diagonal line $y = (d/m)x$. On the other hand, a positroid of rank $d$ on the ground set $[d+m]$ is a special type of matroid coming from the totally nonnegative Grassmannian. In this paper we describe how to naturally assign a rank $d$ positroid on the ground set $[d+m]$, which we name rational Dyck positroid, to each rational Dyck path of type $(m,d...

Quantum circuit dynamics via path integrals: Is there a classical action for discrete-time paths?

Science.gov (United States)

Penney, Mark D.; Enshan Koh, Dax; Spekkens, Robert W.

2017-07-01

It is straightforward to compute the transition amplitudes of a quantum circuit using the sum-over-paths methodology when the gates in the circuit are balanced, where a balanced gate is one for which all non-zero transition amplitudes are of equal magnitude. Here we consider the question of whether, for such circuits, the relative phases of different discrete-time paths through the configuration space can be defined in terms of a classical action, as they are for continuous-time paths. We show how to do so for certain kinds of quantum circuits, namely, Clifford circuits where the elementary systems are continuous-variable systems or discrete systems of odd-prime dimension. These types of circuit are distinguished by having phase-space representations that serve to define their classical counterparts. For discrete systems, the phase-space coordinates are also discrete variables. We show that for each gate in the generating set, one can associate a symplectomorphism on the phase-space and to each of these one can associate a generating function, defined on two copies of the configuration space. For discrete systems, the latter association is achieved using tools from algebraic geometry. Finally, we show that if the action functional for a discrete-time path through a sequence of gates is defined using the sum of the corresponding generating functions, then it yields the correct relative phases for the path-sum expression. These results are likely to be relevant for quantizing physical theories where time is fundamentally discrete, characterizing the classical limit of discrete-time quantum dynamics, and proving complexity results for quantum circuits.

Priming semantico e museografia / Semantic priming and museography

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Annalisa Banzi

2012-05-01

Full Text Available Il priming è una tipologia di memoria implicita che facilita l’apprendimento di stimoli di diversa natura (stimoli visivi, semantici, etc.. Un allestimento museale che adotti strumenti basati sul priming potrebbe aiutare il pubblico a selezionare i contenuti relativi agli oggetti esposti. In questo articolo viene descritta l’applicazione del priming semantico allo spazio museale. Questa operazione in prima battutta potrebbe essere letta come una mancanza di fiducia nelle capacità cognitive del visitatore nel discriminare il significato delle informazioni. In realtà è una forma di sostegno per aiutare il visitatore a sviluppare gradualmente una propria metodologia di approccio ai contenuti proposti nel museo. Grazie al priming, il pubblico riceve una serie di stimoli che possono aiutare a costituire la base delle proprie conoscenze in ambito storico-artistico ed essere il punto di partenza sul quale costruire un metodo critico.   Many psychological aspects such as motivation, emotion, and attention, affect human learning. Among these, priming triggers and tunes implicit memory processes. Hence the goal of this paper is to check whether semantic priming can be used as an effective tool to design a supportive museum environment where people can easily learn. Moreover, the resulting stronger and more persistent memories could encourage museum visitors to learn more and better, and to develop a method to “read” the artworks. After a brief overview of current models of semantic priming, practical and theoretical issues are considered and discussed.

Spatial auditory attention is modulated by tactile priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Menning, Hans; Ackermann, Hermann; Hertrich, Ingo; Mathiak, Klaus

2005-07-01

Previous studies have shown that cross-modal processing affects perception at a variety of neuronal levels. In this study, event-related brain responses were recorded via whole-head magnetoencephalography (MEG). Spatial auditory attention was directed via tactile pre-cues (primes) to one of four locations in the peripersonal space (left and right hand versus face). Auditory stimuli were white noise bursts, convoluted with head-related transfer functions, which ensured spatial perception of the four locations. Tactile primes (200-300 ms prior to acoustic onset) were applied randomly to one of these locations. Attentional load was controlled by three different visual distraction tasks. The auditory P50m (about 50 ms after stimulus onset) showed a significant "proximity" effect (larger responses to face stimulation as well as a "contralaterality" effect between side of stimulation and hemisphere). The tactile primes essentially reduced both the P50m and N100m components. However, facial tactile pre-stimulation yielded an enhanced ipsilateral N100m. These results show that earlier responses are mainly governed by exogenous stimulus properties whereas cross-sensory interaction is spatially selective at a later (endogenous) processing stage.

Smelly primes – when olfactory primes do or do not work

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Monique A Smeets

2014-02-01

Full Text Available In applied olfactory cognition the effects that olfactory stimulation can have on (human behavior are investigated. To enable an efficient application of olfactory stimuli a model of how they may lead to a change in behavior is proposed. To this end we use the concept of olfactory priming. Olfactory priming may prompt a special view on priming as the olfactory sense has some unique properties which make odors special types of primes. Examples of such properties are the ability of odors to influence our behavior outside of awareness, to lead to strong affective evaluations, to evoke specific memories, and to associate easily and quickly to other environmental stimuli. Opportunities and limitations for using odors as primes are related to these properties, and alternative explanations for reported findings are offered. Implications for olfactory semantic, construal, behavior and goal priming are given based on a brief overview of the priming literature from social psychology and from olfactory perception science. We end by formulating recommendations and ideas for a future research agenda and applications for olfactory priming.

A UV prime focus spectrograph for the CFHT

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Boulade, O.; Vigroux, L.

1986-03-01

The UV prime spectrograph at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope is the first instrument to be designed with an aspherized diffraction grating. This technique leads to all reflective Schmidt designs with a very small amount of optical surface on fast aperture ratio. A thin backside illuminated RCA CCD is now used as the detector. Since the detector is at the focus of an f/1 mounting, within the optical path, a minicryostat (5 cm x 5 cm x 3 cm) was designed to minimize the central obscuration. This paper describes this new instrument and its performances

Quantum circuit dynamics via path integrals: Is there a classical action for discrete-time paths?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Penney, Mark D; Koh, Dax Enshan; Spekkens, Robert W

2017-01-01

It is straightforward to compute the transition amplitudes of a quantum circuit using the sum-over-paths methodology when the gates in the circuit are balanced, where a balanced gate is one for which all non-zero transition amplitudes are of equal magnitude. Here we consider the question of whether, for such circuits, the relative phases of different discrete-time paths through the configuration space can be defined in terms of a classical action, as they are for continuous-time paths. We show how to do so for certain kinds of quantum circuits, namely, Clifford circuits where the elementary systems are continuous-variable systems or discrete systems of odd-prime dimension. These types of circuit are distinguished by having phase-space representations that serve to define their classical counterparts. For discrete systems, the phase-space coordinates are also discrete variables. We show that for each gate in the generating set, one can associate a symplectomorphism on the phase-space and to each of these one can associate a generating function, defined on two copies of the configuration space. For discrete systems, the latter association is achieved using tools from algebraic geometry. Finally, we show that if the action functional for a discrete-time path through a sequence of gates is defined using the sum of the corresponding generating functions, then it yields the correct relative phases for the path-sum expression. These results are likely to be relevant for quantizing physical theories where time is fundamentally discrete, characterizing the classical limit of discrete-time quantum dynamics, and proving complexity results for quantum circuits. (paper)

Stacking faults of {gamma}{prime}{prime} phase precipitated in a Ni-15Cr-8Fe-6Nb alloy; Ni-15Cr-8Fe-6Nb gokin ni sekishutsusuru {gamma}{prime}{prime} sonai no sekiso kekkan

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kusabiraki, K; Ikeuchi, S [Toyama University, Toyama (Japan). Faculty of Engineering

1995-09-01

The stacking faults of a metastable {gamma}{prime}{prime} phase precipitated in a nickel-base superalloy, a modified NCF 3 type alloy (X-750M) were investigated by transmission electron microscopy and X-ray diffraction method. The {gamma}{prime}{prime} precipitates are circular shaped plates at the early stage of aging and they become elliptic or irregular shaped plates at the latter stage of aging up to 1033K. Contrast which suggests the existence of stacking faults on {l_brace}112{r_brace}{sub {gamma}{prime}{prime}} planes can be seen in many of large {gamma}{prime}{prime} precipitates extracted from the specimens aged at 1033K. It is clear that the values of {gamma}{prime}{prime}/{gamma} lattice mismatch increase with increasing the aging time from the measurement of lattice constants of the {gamma} and the {gamma}{prime}{prime} phase. The formation of stacking faults on {l_brace}112{r_brace}{sub {gamma}{prime}{prime}} in the large {gamma}{prime}{prime} precipitates is due to the movement of an a/6 [111] partial dislocation introduced by {gamma}{prime}{prime} /{gamma} coherency strain. Since a part of stacking sequence has a similar crystal structure to that of a stable {delta} phase precipitates in {gamma} phase, the formation of stacking faults in the {gamma}{prime}{prime} precipitates is considered to be favorable for the stabilization of them. 14 refs., 10 figs., 1 tab.

1st Hands-on Science Science Fair

OpenAIRE

Costa, Manuel F. M.; Esteves. Z.

2017-01-01

In school learning of science through investigative hands-on experiments is in the core of the Hands-on Science Network vision. However informal and non-formal contexts may also provide valuable paths for implementing this strategy aiming a better e!ective science education. In May 2011, a "rst country wide “Hands-on Science’ Science Fair” was organized in Portugal with the participation of 131 students that presented 38 projects in all "elds of Science. In this communication we will pr...

Does culture influence what and how we think? Effects of priming individualism and collectivism.

Science.gov (United States)

Oyserman, Daphna; Lee, Spike W S

2008-03-01

Do differences in individualism and collectivism influence values, self-concept content, relational assumptions, and cognitive style? On the one hand, the cross-national literature provides an impressively consistent picture of the predicted systematic differences; on the other hand, the nature of the evidence is inconclusive. Cross-national evidence is insufficient to argue for a causal process, and comparative data cannot specify if effects are due to both individualism and collectivism, only individualism, only collectivism, or other factors (including other aspects of culture). To address these issues, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of the individualism and collectivism priming literature, with follow-up moderator analyses. Effect sizes were moderate for relationality and cognition, small for self-concept and values, robust across priming methods and dependent variables, and consistent in direction and size with cross-national effects. Results lend support to a situated model of culture in which cross-national differences are not static but dynamically consistent due to the chronic and moment-to-moment salience of individualism and collectivism. Examination of the unique effects of individualism and collectivism versus other cultural factors (e.g., honor, power) awaits the availability of research that primes these factors. (c) 2008 APA, all rights reserved.

Hand functioning in children with cerebral palsy

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carlyne eArnould

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Brain lesions may disturb hand functioning in children with cerebral palsy (CP, making it difficult or even impossible for them to perform several manual activities. Most conventional treatments for hand dysfunction in CP assume that reducing the hand dysfunctions will improve the capacity to manage activities (i.e., manual ability, MA. The aim of this study was to investigate the directional relationships (direct and indirect pathways through which hand skills influence MA in children with CP. A total of 136 children with CP (mean age: 10 years; range: 6–16 years; 35 quadriplegics, 24 diplegics, 77 hemiplegics were assessed. Six hand skills were measured on both hands: touch-pressure detection (Semmes-Weinstein aesthesiometer, stereognosis (Manual Form Perception Test, proprioception (passive mobilization of the metacarpophalangeal joints, grip strength (Jamar dynamometer, gross manual dexterity (Box and Block Test, and fine finger dexterity (Purdue Pegboard Test. MA was measured with the ABILHAND-Kids questionnaire. Correlation coefficients were used to determine the linear associations between observed variables. A path analysis of structural equation modeling was applied to test different models of causal relationships among the observed variables. Purely sensory impairments did seem not to play a significant role in the capacity to perform manual activities. According to path analysis, gross manual dexterity in both hands and stereognosis in the dominant hand were directly related to MA, whereas grip strength was indirectly related to MA through its relationship with gross manual dexterity. However, one-third of the variance in MA measures could not be explained by hand skills. It can be concluded that MA is not simply the integration of hand skills in daily activities and should be treated per se, supporting activity-based interventions.

Prime tight frames

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Lemvig, Jakob; Miller, Christopher; Okoudjou, Kasso A.

2014-01-01

to suggest effective analysis and synthesis computation strategies for such frames. Finally, we describe all prime frames constructed from the spectral tetris method, and, as a byproduct, we obtain a characterization of when the spectral tetris construction works for redundancies below two.......We introduce a class of finite tight frames called prime tight frames and prove some of their elementary properties. In particular, we show that any finite tight frame can be written as a union of prime tight frames. We then characterize all prime harmonic tight frames and use thischaracterization...

Complementary hand responses occur in both peri- and extrapersonal space

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Faber, T.W.; van Elk, M.; Jonas, K.J.

2016-01-01

Human beings have a strong tendency to imitate. Evidence from motor priming paradigms suggests that people automatically tend to imitate observed actions such as hand gestures by performing mirror-congruent movements (e.g., lifting one’s right finger upon observing a left finger movement; from a

Adults and children with high imagery show more pronounced perceptual priming effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Hatakeyama, T

1997-06-01

36 children in Grade 5 and 59 university students, all native speakers of Japanese, studied three types of priming stimuli in a mixed list: words written in hiragana (Japanese syllabary used in writing), words written in kanji (Chinese characters also used in writing), and pictures. They were then given a task involving completion of hiragana-word fragments: the task involved studied and nonstudied items. For both children and university students, words in hiragana produced the largest priming effects, that is, the words that had appeared in hiragana in the preceding study phase were generated more often in the test phase of word completion than the other two types of priming stimuli. This confirms that the perceptual priming effect depends much on data-driven processing. For both age groups, words in kanji produced nearly half the priming effects seen for hiragana-words. On the other hand, pictures had no priming effect for children but they had a similar effect to kanji-words for students. The discrepancy between kanji-words and pictures for children suggests that the former force the subject to read the words, which, possibly, activates the hiragana-words, while the latter do not necessarily force labelling the pictures. Among three kinds of imagery tests, the Verbalizer-Visualizer Questionnaire predicted priming scores for children and the Questionnaire upon Mental Imagery did so for students, but the Test of Visual Imagery Control did not predict the scores for either age group. This shows that children reporting habitual use of imagery and adults reporting vivid imagery have more pronounced perceptual priming effects. We conclude that the imagery ability based on self-judgments reflects real characteristics of the perceptual representation system of Tulving and Schacter (1990).

Non-cognate translation priming in masked priming lexical decision experiments: A meta-analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Yun; van Heuven, Walter J B

2017-06-01

The masked translation priming paradigm has been widely used in the last 25 years to investigate word processing in bilinguals. Motivated by studies reporting mixed findings, in particular for second language (L2) to first language (L1) translation priming, we conducted, for the first time in the literature, a meta-analysis of 64 masked priming lexical decision experiments across 24 studies to assess the effect sizes of L1-L2 and L2-L1 non-cognate translation priming effects in bilinguals. Our meta-analysis also investigated the influence of potential moderators of translation priming effects. The results provided clear evidence of significant translation priming effects for both directions, with L1-L2 translation priming significantly larger than L2-L1 translation priming (i.e., effect size of 0.86 vs. 0.31). The analyses also revealed that L1-L2 translation effect sizes were moderated by the interval between prime and target (ISI), whereas L2-L1 translation effect sizes were modulated by the number of items per cell. Theoretical and methodological implications of this meta-analysis are discussed and recommendations for future studies are provided.

Priming in concert: Assimilation and contrast with multiple affective and gender primes.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fockenberg, D.A.; Koole, S.L.; Semin, G.R.

2008-01-01

The present research investigated the influence of multiple sequential primes on social categorization processes. Study 1 examined an evaluative decision task in which targets were preceded and succeeded by two primes. As expected, the temporally closest forward primes had assimilative effects on

Visual target distance, but not visual cursor path length produces shifts in motor behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nike eWendker

2014-03-01

Full Text Available When using tools effects in body space and distant space often do not correspond. Findings so far demonstrated that in this case visual feedback has more impact on action control than proprioceptive feedback. The present study varies the dimensional overlap between visual and proprioceptive action effects and investigates its impact on aftereffects in motor responses. In two experiments participants perform linear hand movements on a covered digitizer tablet to produce ∩-shaped cursor trajectories on the display. The shape of hand motion and cursor motion (linear vs. curved is dissimilar and therefore does not overlap. In one condition the length of hand amplitude and visual target distance is similar and constant while the length of the cursor path is dissimilar and varies. In another condition the length of the hand amplitude varies while the lengths of visual target distance (similar or dissimilar and cursor path (dissimilar are constant. First, we found that aftereffects depended on the relation between hand path length and visual target distance, and not on the relation between hand and cursor path length. Second, increasing contextual interference did not reveal larger aftereffects. Finally, data exploration demonstrated a considerable benefit from gain repetitions across trials when compared to gain switches. In conclusion, dimensional overlap between visual and proprioceptive action effects modulates human information processing in visually controlled actions. However, adjustment of the internal model seems to occur very fast for this kind of simple linear transformation, so that the impact of prior visual feedback is fleeting.

The elimination of positive priming with increasing prime duration reflects a transition from perceptual fluency to disfluency rather than bias against primed words.

Science.gov (United States)

Potter, Kevin W; Donkin, Chris; Huber, David E

2018-03-01

With immediate repetition priming of forced choice perceptual identification, short prime durations produce positive priming (i.e., priming the target leads to higher accuracy, while priming the foil leads to lower accuracy). Many theories explain positive priming following short duration primes as reflecting increased perceptual fluency for the primed target (i.e., decreased identification latency). However, most studies only examine either accuracy or response times, rather than considering the joint constraints of response times and accuracy to properly address the role of decision biases and response caution. This is a critical oversight because several theories propose that the transition to negative priming following a long duration prime reflects a decision strategy to compensate for the effect of increased perceptual fluency. In contrast, the nROUSE model of Huber and O'Reilly (2003) explains this transition as reflecting perceptual habituation, and thus a change to perceptual disfluency. We confirmed this prediction by applying a sequential sampling model (the diffusion race model) to accuracy and response time distributions from a new single item same-different version of the priming task. In this way, we measured strategic biases and perceptual fluency in each condition for each subject. The nROUSE model was only applied to accuracy from the original forced-choice version of the priming task. This application of nROUSE produced separate predictions for each subject regarding the degree of fluency and disfluency in each condition, and these predictions were confirmed by the drift rate parameters (i.e., fluency) from the response time model in contrast to the threshold parameters (i.e., bias). Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On the Control of Single-Prime Negative Priming: The Effects of Practice and Time Course

Science.gov (United States)

Chao, Hsuan-Fu

2009-01-01

Single-prime negative priming refers to the phenomenon wherein repetition of a prime as the probe target results in delayed response. Sometimes this effect has been found to be contingent on participants' unawareness of the primes, and sometimes it has not. Further, sometimes this effect has been found to be eliminated when the prime could predict…

Subliminal semantic priming in speech.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jérôme Daltrozzo

Full Text Available Numerous studies have reported subliminal repetition and semantic priming in the visual modality. We transferred this paradigm to the auditory modality. Prime awareness was manipulated by a reduction of sound intensity level. Uncategorized prime words (according to a post-test were followed by semantically related, unrelated, or repeated target words (presented without intensity reduction and participants performed a lexical decision task (LDT. Participants with slower reaction times in the LDT showed semantic priming (faster reaction times for semantically related compared to unrelated targets and negative repetition priming (slower reaction times for repeated compared to semantically related targets. This is the first report of semantic priming in the auditory modality without conscious categorization of the prime.

Primes, Geometry and Condensed Matter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Al Rabeh R. H.

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Fascination with primes dates back to the Greeks and before. Primes are named by some "the elementary particles of arithmetic" as every nonprime integer is made of a unique set of primes. In this article we point to new connections between primes, geometry and physics which show that primes could be called "the elementary particles of physics" too. This study considers the problem of closely packing similar circles/spheres in 2D/3D space. This is in effect a discretization process of space and the allowable number in a pack is found to lead to some unexpected cases of prime configurations which is independent of the size of the constituents. We next suggest that a non-prime can be considered geometrically as a symmetric collection that is separable (factorable into similar parts- six is two threes or three twos for example. A collection that has no such symmetry is a prime. As a result, a physical prime aggregate is more difficult to split symmetrically resulting in an inherent stability. This "number/physical" stability idea applies to bigger collections made from smaller (prime units leading to larger stable prime structures in a limitless scaling up process. The distribution of primes among numbers can be understood better using the packing ideas described here and we further suggest that differing numbers (and values of distinct prime factors making a nonprime collection is an important factor in determining the probability and method of possible and subsequent disintegration. Disintegration is bound by energy conservation and is closely related to symmetry by Noether theorems. Thinking of condensed matter as the packing of identical elements, we examine plots of the masses of chemical elements of the periodic table, and also those of the elementary particles of physics, and show that prime packing rules seem to play a role in the make up of matter. The plots show convincingly that the growth of prime numbers and that of the masses of

Exploring the impact of visual and movement based priming on a motor intervention in the acute phase post-stroke in persons with severe hemiparesis of the upper extremity.

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Jigna; Qiu, Qinyin; Yarossi, Mathew; Merians, Alma; Massood, Supriya; Tunik, Eugene; Adamovich, Sergei; Fluet, Gerard

2017-07-01

Explore the potential benefits of using priming methods prior to an active hand task in the acute phase post-stroke in persons with severe upper extremity hemiparesis. Five individuals were trained using priming techniques including virtual reality (VR) based visual mirror feedback and contralaterally controlled passive movement strategies prior to training with an active pinch force modulation task. Clinical, kinetic, and neurophysiological measurements were taken pre and post the training period. Clinical measures were taken at six months post training. The two priming simulations and active training were well tolerated early after stroke. Priming effects were suggested by increased maximal pinch force immediately after visual and movement based priming. Despite having no clinically observable movement distally, the subjects were able to volitionally coordinate isometric force and muscle activity (EMG) in a pinch tracing task. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of force during the pinch trace task gradually decreased over the training period suggesting learning may have occurred. Changes in motor cortical neurophysiology were seen in the unaffected hemisphere using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) mapping. Significant improvements in motor recovery as measured by the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and the Upper Extremity Fugl Meyer Assessment (UEFMA) were demonstrated at six months post training by three of the five subjects. This study suggests that an early hand-based intervention using visual and movement based priming activities and a scaled motor task allows participation by persons without the motor control required for traditionally presented rehabilitation and testing. Implications for Rehabilitation Rehabilitation of individuals with severely paretic upper extremities after stroke is challenging due to limited movement capacity and few options for therapeutic training. Long-term functional recovery of the arm after stroke depends on early return

Cognate status and cross-script translation priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Voga, Madeleine; Grainger, Jonathan

2007-07-01

Greek-French bilinguals were tested in three masked priming experiments with Greek primes and French targets. Related primes were the translation equivalents of target words, morphologically related to targets, or phonologically related to targets. In Experiment 1, cognate translation equivalents (phonologically similar translations) showed facilitatory priming, relative to matched phonologically related primes, in conditions in which morphologically related primes showed no effect (50-msec prime exposure). Cross-language morphological priming emerged at longer prime exposure durations (66 msec), but cognate primes continued to generate more priming than did those in the morphological condition. In Experiments 2 and 3, the level of phonological overlap across translation equivalents was varied, and priming effects were measured against those for matched phonologically related primes and those in an unrelated prime condition. When measured against the unrelated baseline, cognate primes showed the typical advantage over noncognate primes. However, this cognate advantage disappeared when priming was measured against the phonologically related prime condition. The results are discussed in terms of how translation equivalents are represented in bilingual memory.

False memories and lexical decision: even twelve primes do not cause long-term semantic priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeelenberg, René; Pecher, Diane

2002-03-01

Semantic priming effects are usually obtained only if the prime is presented shortly before the target stimulus. Recent evidence obtained with the so-called false memory paradigm suggests, however, that in both explicit and implicit memory tasks semantic relations between words can result in long-lasting effects when multiple 'primes' are presented. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether these effects would generalize to lexical decision. In four experiments we showed that even as many as 12 primes do not cause long-term semantic priming. In all experiments, however, a repetition priming effect was obtained. The present results are consistent with a number of other results showing that semantic information plays a minimal role in long-term priming in visual word recognition.

Primes, Geometry and Condensed Matter

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Al Rabeh R. H.

2009-07-01

Full Text Available Fascination with primes dates back to the Greeks and before. Primes are named by some “the elementary particles of arithmetic” as every nonprime integer is made of a unique set of primes. In this article we point to new connections between primes, geometry and physics which show that primes could be called “the elementary particles of physics” too. This study considers the problem of closely packing similar circles / spheres in 2D / 3D space. This is in effect a discretization process of space and the allowable num- ber in a pack is found to lead to some unexpected cases of prime configurations which is independent of the size of the constituents. We next suggest that a non-prime can be considered geometrically as a symmetric collection that is separable (factorable into similar parts- six is two threes or three twos for example. A collection that has no such symmetry is a prime. As a result, a physical prime aggregate is more difficult to split symmetrically resulting in an inherent stability. This “number / physical” stability idea applies to bigger collections made from smaller (prime units leading to larger sta- ble prime structures in a limitless scaling up process. The distribution of primes among numbers can be understood better using the packing ideas described here and we further suggest that differing numbers (and values of distinct prime factors making a nonprime collection is an important factor in determining the probability and method of possible and subsequent disintegration. Disintegration is bound by energy conservation and is closely related to symmetry by Noether theorems. Thinking of condensed matter as the packing of identical elements, we examine plots of the masses of chemical elements of the periodic table, and also those of the elementary particles of physics, and show that prime packing rules seem to play a role in the make up of matter. The plots show con- vincingly that the growth of prime numbers and that

Sequential Stereotype Priming: A Meta-Analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kidder, Ciara K; White, Katherine R; Hinojos, Michelle R; Sandoval, Mayra; Crites, Stephen L

2017-08-01

Psychological interest in stereotype measurement has spanned nearly a century, with researchers adopting implicit measures in the 1980s to complement explicit measures. One of the most frequently used implicit measures of stereotypes is the sequential priming paradigm. The current meta-analysis examines stereotype priming, focusing specifically on this paradigm. To contribute to ongoing discussions regarding methodological rigor in social psychology, one primary goal was to identify methodological moderators of the stereotype priming effect-whether priming is due to a relation between the prime and target stimuli, the prime and target response, participant task, stereotype dimension, stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA), and stimuli type. Data from 39 studies yielded 87 individual effect sizes from 5,497 participants. Analyses revealed that stereotype priming is significantly moderated by the presence of prime-response relations, participant task, stereotype dimension, target stimulus type, SOA, and prime repetition. These results carry both practical and theoretical implications for future research on stereotype priming.

Glide path preparation in S-shaped canals with rotary pathfinding nickel-titanium instruments.

Science.gov (United States)

Ajuz, Natasha C C; Armada, Luciana; Gonçalves, Lucio S; Debelian, Gilberto; Siqueira, José F

2013-04-01

This study compared the incidence of deviation along S-shaped (double-curved) canals after glide path preparation with 2 nickel-titanium (NiTi) rotary pathfinding instruments and hand K-files. S-shaped canals from 60 training blocks were filled with ink, and preinstrumentation images were obtained by using a stereomicroscope. Glide path preparation was performed by an endodontist who used hand stainless steel K-files (up to size 20), rotary NiTi PathFile instruments (up to size 19), or rotary NiTi Scout RaCe instruments (up to size 20). Postinstrumentation images were taken by using exactly the same conditions as for the preinstrumentation images, and both pictures were superimposed. Differences along the S-shaped canal for the mesial and distal aspects were measured to evaluate the occurrence of deviation. Intragroup analysis showed that all instruments promoted some deviation in virtually all levels. Overall, regardless of the group, deviations were observed in the mesial wall at the canal terminus and at levels 4, 5, 6 and 7 mm and in the distal wall at levels 1, 2, and 3 mm. These levels corresponded to the inner walls of each curvature. Both rotary NiTi instruments performed significantly better than hand K-files at all levels (P instruments showed significantly better results than PathFiles at levels 0, 2, 3, 5, and 6 mm (P rotary NiTi instruments are suitable for adequate glide path preparation because they promoted less deviation from the original canal anatomy when compared with hand-operated instruments. Of the 2 rotary pathfinding instruments, Scout RaCe showed an overall significantly better performance. Copyright © 2013 American Association of Endodontists. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Unconscious Congruency Priming from Unpracticed Words Is Modulated by Prime-Target Semantic Relatedness

Science.gov (United States)

Ortells, Juan J.; Mari-Beffa, Paloma; Plaza-Ayllon, Vanesa

2013-01-01

Participants performed a 2-choice categorization task on visible word targets that were preceded by novel (unpracticed) prime words. The prime words were presented for 33 ms and followed either immediately (Experiments 1-3) or after a variable delay (Experiments 1 and 4) by a pattern mask. Both subjective and objective measures of prime visibility…

Leading, but not trailing, primes influence temporal order perception: further evidence for an attentional account of perceptual latency priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Scharlau, Ingrid

2002-11-01

Presenting a masked prime leading a target influences the perceived onset of the masking target (perceptual latency priming; Scharlau & Neumann, in press). This priming effect is explained by the asynchronous updating model (Neumann, 1982; Scharlau & Neumann, in press): The prime initiates attentional allocation toward its location, which renders a trailing target at the same place consciously available earlier. In three experiments, this perceptual latency priming by leading primes was examined jointly with the effects of trailing primes in order to compare the explanation of the asynchronous updating model with the onset-averaging and the P-center hypotheses. Experiment 1 showed that an attended, as well as an unattended, prime leads to perceptual latency priming. In addition, a large effect of trailing primes on the onset of a target was found. As Experiment 2 demonstrated, this effect is quite robust, although smaller than that of a leading prime. In Experiment 3, masked primes were used. Under these conditions, no influence of trailing primes could be found, whereas perceptual latency priming persisted. Thus, a nonattentional explanation for the effect of trailing primes seems likely.

Mechanisms of subliminal response priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Kiesel, Andrea; Kunde, Wilfried; Hoffmann, Joachim

2008-07-15

Subliminal response priming has been considered to operate on several stages, e.g. perceptual, central or motor stages might be affected. While primes' impact on target perception has been clearly demonstrated, semantic response priming recently has been thrown into doubt (e.g. Klinger, Burton, & Pitts, 2000). Finally, LRP studies have revealed that subliminal primes evoke motor processes. Yet, the premises for such prime-evoked motor activation are not settled. A transfer of priming to stimuli that have never been presented as targets appears particularly interesting because it suggests a level of processing that goes beyond a reactivation of previously acquired S-R links. Yet, such transfer has not always withstood empirical testing. To account for these contradictory results, we proposed a two-process model (Kunde, Kiesel, & Hoffmann, 2003): First, participants build up expectations regarding imperative stimuli for the required responses according to experience and/or instructions. Second, stimuli that match these "action triggers" directly activate the corresponding motor responses irrespective of their conscious identification. In line with these assumptions, recent studies revealed that non-target primes induce priming when they fit the current task intentions and when they are expected in the experimental setting.

Rhizosphere priming: a nutrient perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Feike Auke Dijkstra

2013-07-01

Full Text Available Rhizosphere priming is the change in decomposition of soil organic matter (SOM caused by root activity. Rhizosphere priming plays a crucial role in soil carbon (C dynamics and their response to global climate change. Rhizosphere priming may be affected by soil nutrient availability, but rhizosphere priming itself can also affect nutrient supply to plants. These interactive effects may be of particular relevance in understanding the sustained increase in plant growth and nutrient supply in response to a rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. We examined how these interactions were affected by elevated CO2 in two similar semiarid grassland field studies. We found that an increase in rhizosphere priming enhanced the release of nitrogen (N through decomposition of a larger fraction of SOM in one study, but not in the other. We postulate that rhizosphere priming may enhance N supply to plants in systems that are N limited, but that rhizosphere priming may not occur in systems that are phosphorus (P limited. Under P limitation, rhizodeposition may be used for mobilisation of P, rather than for decomposition of SOM. Therefore, with increasing atmospheric CO2 concentrations, rhizosphere priming may play a larger role in affecting C sequestration in N poor than in P poor soils.

Effect of priming on growth, biochemical parameters and mineral composition of different cultivars of coriander (Coriandrum sativum L. under salt stress

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ben Fredj Meriem

2014-08-01

Full Text Available At Higher Institute of Agriculture of Chott Mariem, Sousse, Tunisia, this study was conducted to evaluate the interactive effect of salinity and seed priming on coriander. The experiment was carried out in completely randomized design with three replications consisting of four coriander genotypes (Tunisian cv, Algerian cv, Syrian cv and Egyptian cv at two seed conditions (seed priming with 4 g/l NaCl for 12h or no seed priming. Results revealed that seed priming and salinity had significantly (p≤0.05 affected all the parameters under study. On the first hand, salinity stress had adversely affected growth, chlorophyll content, mineral composition (K+ and Ca2+ of coriander in all genotypes. Also, it activated Na+ accumulation and synthesis of proline, soluble sugars and proteins. However, seed priming with NaCl had diminished the negative impact of salt stress in all cultivars and primed plants showed better response to salinity compared to unprimed plants. Maximum values were recorded in tolerant cultivar which is Tunisian one whereas minimum values were noted in sensitive cultivar (Algerian cv.

Degree of handedness and priming: Further evidence for a distinction between production and identification priming mechanisms.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Donna J. LaVoie

2015-02-01

Full Text Available The distinction between implicit and explicit forms of memory retrieval is long-standing, and important to the extent it reveals how different neural architecture supports different aspects of memory function. Similarly, distinctions have been made between kinds of repetition priming, a form of implicit memory retrieval. This study focuses on the production-identification priming distinction, which delineates priming tasks involving verification of stimulus features as compared to priming tasks that require use of a cue to guide response retrieval. Studies investigating this dissociation in dementia or similar patient populations indicate that these forms of priming may differ in their neural bases. The current study looks at degree of handedness as a way of investigating inferred neural architecture supporting these two forms of priming. A growing body of research indicates that degree of handedness (consistent, or CH, versus inconsistent, or ICH is associated with greater interhemispheric interaction and functional access to right hemisphere processing in ICH, with superior performance seen in ICH on memory tasks reliant on this processing. Arguments about the theoretical mechanisms underlying identification and production forms of perceptual priming tasks suggest that performance on these tasks will differ as a function of degree of handedness. We tested this question in a group of CH and ICH young adults, who were asked to study lists of words prior to performing a production priming task (word stem completion, a perceptual word identification task, and a word stem cued recall task. While both handedness groups exhibited reliable priming across tasks, word stem completion priming was greater in ICH than CH participants, with identification priming not differing between groups. This dissociation supports the argument that production and identification forms of priming have different underlying neural bases.

Rapid response learning of brand logo priming: Evidence that brand priming is not dominated by rapid response learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Boehm, Stephan G; Smith, Ciaran; Muench, Niklas; Noble, Kirsty; Atherton, Catherine

2017-08-31

Repetition priming increases the accuracy and speed of responses to repeatedly processed stimuli. Repetition priming can result from two complementary sources: rapid response learning and facilitation within perceptual and conceptual networks. In conceptual classification tasks, rapid response learning dominates priming of object recognition, but it does not dominate priming of person recognition. This suggests that the relative engagement of network facilitation and rapid response learning depends on the stimulus domain. Here, we addressed the importance of the stimulus domain for rapid response learning by investigating priming in another domain, brands. In three experiments, participants performed conceptual decisions for brand logos. Strong priming was present, but it was not dominated by rapid response learning. These findings add further support to the importance of the stimulus domain for the relative importance of network facilitation and rapid response learning, and they indicate that brand priming is more similar to person recognition priming than object recognition priming, perhaps because priming of both brands and persons requires individuation.

A Collision-Free G2 Continuous Path-Smoothing Algorithm Using Quadratic Polynomial Interpolation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Seong-Ryong Chang

2014-12-01

Full Text Available Most path-planning algorithms are used to obtain a collision-free path without considering continuity. On the other hand, a continuous path is needed for stable movement. In this paper, the searched path was converted into a G2 continuous path using the modified quadratic polynomial and membership function interpolation algorithm. It is simple, unique and provides a good geometric interpretation. In addition, a collision-checking and improvement algorithm is proposed. The collision-checking algorithm can check the collisions of a smoothed path. If collisions are detected, the collision improvement algorithm modifies the collision path to a collision-free path. The collision improvement algorithm uses a geometric method. This method uses the perpendicular line between a collision position and the collision piecewise linear path. The sub-waypoint is added, and the QPMI algorithm is applied again. As a result, the collision-smoothed path is converted into a collision-free smooth path without changing the continuity.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially.

Science.gov (United States)

Kiefer, Markus; Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2017-04-01

Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end, we investigated the modulation of masked pictorial vs verbal priming by previously activated perceptual vs semantic task sets and assessed the electrophysiological correlates of priming using event-related potential (ERP) recordings. Behavioral and electrophysiological effects showed a differential modulation of pictorial and verbal subliminal priming by previously activated task sets: Pictorial priming was only observed during the perceptual but not during the semantic task set. Verbal priming, in contrast, was found when either task set was activated. Furthermore, only verbal priming was associated with a modulation of the N400 ERP component, an index of semantic processing, whereas a priming-related modulation of earlier ERPs, indexing visuo-motor S-R activation, was found for both picture and words. The results thus demonstrate that different neuro-cognitive processes contribute to unconscious evaluative priming depending on the stimulus format. © The Author (2016). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Alpha prime effect on mechanical properties and corrosion resistance of UR 52N+ duplex stainless steel

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fontes, Talita Filier

2009-01-01

Alpha prime phase leads to decreased corrosion resistance and mechanical properties losses of duplex stainless steels. In this work mechanical and electrochemical tests were performed in duplex stainless steel UR 52N+ aged at 475 degree C for various periods in order to determine the sensibility of these tests to alpha prime presence. Hardness tests showed a gradual increase in its values; on the other hand, impact tests revealed that the material aged for 12h losses about 80% of energy absorption capacity of the solution annealed sample. Notwithstanding cyclic polarization tests showed that significant changes are only noted for aging times greater than 96h. (author)

A Prime Example of the Maluma/Takete Effect? Testing for Sound Symbolic Priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Sidhu, David M; Pexman, Penny M

2017-09-01

Certain nonwords, like maluma and takete, are associated with roundness and sharpness, respectively. However, this has typically been demonstrated using explicit tasks. We investigated whether this association would be detectable using a more implicit measure-a sequential priming task. We began with a replication of the standard Maluma/Takete effect (Experiments 1a and 1b) before examining whether round and sharp nonword primes facilitated the categorization of congruent shapes (Experiment 2). We found modest evidence of a priming effect in response accuracy. We next examined whether nonword primes affected categorization of ambiguous shapes, using visual (Experiment 3) and auditory primes (Experiment 4). We found that ambiguous shapes were categorized as round (sharp) more often following the presentation of a round (sharp) nonword. This suggests that phonemes may activate related shape information which then affects the processing of shapes, and that this association emerges even when participants are not explicitly searching for it. Copyright © 2016 Cognitive Science Society, Inc.

Prime Slaughter

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Valente, Andrea; Marchetti, Emanuela

2011-01-01

of primality and factorization into playful interactions, addressed to primary and early secondary school children. Taking into account individual needs expressed by children regarding play, during a participatory design processes aimed at enhancing learning in museums, Prime Slaughter allows for multiple......Starting from the difficulty of creating playful representation of domain-specific abstract concepts, this study discusses the design of Prime Slaughter, a computer game aimed at facilitating individual sense-making of abstract mathematical concepts. Specifically the game proposes a transposition...

Mirror symmetric bimanual movement priming can increase corticomotor excitability and enhance motor learning.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Winston D Byblow

Full Text Available Repetitive mirror symmetric bilateral upper limb may be a suitable priming technique for upper limb rehabilitation after stroke. Here we demonstrate neurophysiological and behavioural after-effects in healthy participants after priming with 20 minutes of repetitive active-passive bimanual wrist flexion and extension in a mirror symmetric pattern with respect to the body midline (MIR compared to an control priming condition with alternating flexion-extension (ALT. Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS indicated that corticomotor excitability (CME of the passive hemisphere remained elevated compared to baseline for at least 30 minutes after MIR but not ALT, evidenced by an increase in the size of motor evoked potentials in ECR and FCR. Short and long-latency intracortical inhibition (SICI, LICI, short afferent inhibition (SAI and interhemispheric inhibition (IHI were also examined using pairs of stimuli. LICI differed between patterns, with less LICI after MIR compared with ALT, and an effect of pattern on IHI, with reduced IHI in passive FCR 15 minutes after MIR compared with ALT and baseline. There was no effect of pattern on SAI or FCR H-reflex. Similarly, SICI remained unchanged after 20 minutes of MIR. We then had participants complete a timed manual dexterity motor learning task with the passive hand during, immediately after, and 24 hours after MIR or control priming. The rate of task completion was faster with MIR priming compared to control conditions. Finally, ECR and FCR MEPs were examined within a pre-movement facilitation paradigm of wrist extension before and after MIR. ECR, but not FCR, MEPs were consistently facilitated before and after MIR, demonstrating no degradation of selective muscle activation. In summary, mirror symmetric active-passive bimanual movement increases CME and can enhance motor learning without degradation of muscle selectivity. These findings rationalise the use of mirror symmetric bimanual movement as a

Discovery: Prime Numbers

Science.gov (United States)

de Mestre, Neville

2008-01-01

Prime numbers are important as the building blocks for the set of all natural numbers, because prime factorisation is an important and useful property of all natural numbers. Students can discover them by using the method known as the Sieve of Eratosthenes, named after the Greek geographer and astronomer who lived from c. 276-194 BC. Eratosthenes…

Superficial Priming in Episodic Recognition

Science.gov (United States)

Dopkins, Stephen; Sargent, Jesse; Ngo, Catherine T.

2010-01-01

We explored the effect of superficial priming in episodic recognition and found it to be different from the effect of semantic priming in episodic recognition. Participants made recognition judgments to pairs of items, with each pair consisting of a prime item and a test item. Correct positive responses to the test item were impeded if the prime…

Syntactic priming in American Sign Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Hall, Matthew L; Ferreira, Victor S; Mayberry, Rachel I

2015-01-01

Psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing provide valuable opportunities to assess whether language phenomena, which are primarily studied in spoken language, are fundamentally shaped by peripheral biology. For example, we know that when given a choice between two syntactically permissible ways to express the same proposition, speakers tend to choose structures that were recently used, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. Here, we report two experiments testing syntactic priming of a noun phrase construction in American Sign Language (ASL). Experiment 1 shows that second language (L2) signers with normal hearing exhibit syntactic priming in ASL and that priming is stronger when the head noun is repeated between prime and target (the lexical boost effect). Experiment 2 shows that syntactic priming is equally strong among deaf native L1 signers, deaf late L1 learners, and hearing L2 signers. Experiment 2 also tested for, but did not find evidence of, phonological or semantic boosts to syntactic priming in ASL. These results show that despite the profound differences between spoken and signed languages in terms of how they are produced and perceived, the psychological representation of sentence structure (as assessed by syntactic priming) operates similarly in sign and speech.

Quad-rotor flight path energy optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Kemper, Edward

Quad-Rotor unmanned areal vehicles (UAVs) have been a popular area of research and development in the last decade, especially with the advent of affordable microcontrollers like the MSP 430 and the Raspberry Pi. Path-Energy Optimization is an area that is well developed for linear systems. In this thesis, this idea of path-energy optimization is extended to the nonlinear model of the Quad-rotor UAV. The classical optimization technique is adapted to the nonlinear model that is derived for the problem at hand, coming up with a set of partial differential equations and boundary value conditions to solve these equations. Then, different techniques to implement energy optimization algorithms are tested using simulations in Python. First, a purely nonlinear approach is used. This method is shown to be computationally intensive, with no practical solution available in a reasonable amount of time. Second, heuristic techniques to minimize the energy of the flight path are tested, using Ziegler-Nichols' proportional integral derivative (PID) controller tuning technique. Finally, a brute force look-up table based PID controller is used. Simulation results of the heuristic method show that both reliable control of the system and path-energy optimization are achieved in a reasonable amount of time.

Repetition Priming Magnitude Depends on Affirmative Prime Responses: A Test of Two Congruity Explanations.

Science.gov (United States)

Fiet, Paula; Sorensen, Linda; Mayne, Zachary; Corgiat, Damon; Woltz, Dan

2016-01-01

We conducted 2 experiments to evaluate the impact of positive prime responses on repetition priming effects while decoupling this impact from content congruity and specific evaluation operations. Our first experiment consisted of word-meaning comparison trials that required participants to evaluate synonyms or antonyms. A crossing of evaluation operation with semantic content allowed us to test the goal-content congruity hypothesis against the semantic congruity explanation for greater facilitation from positive response primes. Results suggested that operation-based priming is affected by goal-content congruity. A second experiment tested the observed effect of positive responses on repetition priming using mental rotation of irregular shapes, affording a test of the impact of congruity in evaluation goals and content in a nonverbal stimulus domain. Both experiments produced a pattern of results inconsistent with Schulman's (1974) semantic congruity account and instead implicated a different form of congruity that affects memory for prior operations rather than memory for semantic and episodic content.

Complex architecture of primes and natural numbers.

Science.gov (United States)

García-Pérez, Guillermo; Serrano, M Ángeles; Boguñá, Marián

2014-08-01

Natural numbers can be divided in two nonoverlapping infinite sets, primes and composites, with composites factorizing into primes. Despite their apparent simplicity, the elucidation of the architecture of natural numbers with primes as building blocks remains elusive. Here, we propose a new approach to decoding the architecture of natural numbers based on complex networks and stochastic processes theory. We introduce a parameter-free non-Markovian dynamical model that naturally generates random primes and their relation with composite numbers with remarkable accuracy. Our model satisfies the prime number theorem as an emerging property and a refined version of Cramér's conjecture about the statistics of gaps between consecutive primes that seems closer to reality than the original Cramér's version. Regarding composites, the model helps us to derive the prime factors counting function, giving the probability of distinct prime factors for any integer. Probabilistic models like ours can help to get deeper insights about primes and the complex architecture of natural numbers.

Evaluation of hand hygiene compliance and associated factors with a radio-frequency-identification-based real-time continuous automated monitoring system.

Science.gov (United States)

Dufour, J-C; Reynier, P; Boudjema, S; Soto Aladro, A; Giorgi, R; Brouqui, P

2017-04-01

Hand hygiene is a major means for preventing healthcare-associated infections. One critical point in understanding poor compliance is the lack of relevant markers used to monitor practices systematically. This study analysed hand hygiene compliance and associated factors with a radio-frequency-identification-based real-time continuous automated monitoring system in an infectious disease ward with 17 single bedrooms. Healthcare workers (HCWs) were tracked while performing routine care over 171 days. A multi-level multi-variate logistics model was used for data analysis. The main outcome measures were hand disinfection before entering the bedroom (outside use) and before entering the patient care zone, defined as the zone surrounding the patient's bed (inside/bedside use). Variables analysed included HCWs' characteristics and behaviour, patients, room layouts, path chains and duration of HCWs' paths. In total, 4629 paths with initial hand hygiene opportunities when entering the patient care zone were selected, of which 763 (16.5%), 285 (6.1%) and 3581 (77.4%) were associated with outside use, inside/bedside use and no use, respectively. Hand hygiene is caregiver-dependent. The shorter the duration of the HCW's path, the worse the bedside hand hygiene. Bedside hand hygiene is improved when one or two extra HCWs are present in the room. Hand hygiene compliance at the bedside, as analysed using the continuous monitoring system, depended upon the HCW's occupation and personal behaviour, number of HCWs, time spent in the room and (potentially) dispenser location. Meal tray distribution was a possible factor in the case of failure to disinfect hands. Copyright © 2017 The Healthcare Infection Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Z(prime) Phenomenology and the LHC

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rizzo, Thomas G.

2006-01-01

A brief pedagogical overview of the phenomenology of Z(prime) gauge bosons is ILC in determining Z(prime) properties is also discussed. and explore in detail how the LHC may discover and help elucidate the models, review the current constraints on the possible properties of a Z(prime) nature of these new particles. We provide an overview of the Z(prime) studies presented. Such particles can arise in various electroweak extensions of that have been performed by both ATLAS and CMS. The role of the the Standard Model (SM). We provide a quick survey of a number of Z(prime)

Transposed-letter priming of prelexical orthographic representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Norris, Dennis

2009-01-01

A prime generated by transposing two internal letters (e.g., jugde) produces strong priming of the original word (judge). In lexical decision, this transposed-letter (TL) priming effect is generally weak or absent for nonword targets; thus, it is unclear whether the origin of this effect is lexical or prelexical. The authors describe the Bayesian Reader theory of masked priming (D. Norris & S. Kinoshita, 2008), which explains why nonwords do not show priming in lexical decision but why they do in the cross-case same-different task. This analysis is followed by 3 experiments that show that priming in this task is not based on low-level perceptual similarity between the prime and target, or on phonology, to make the case that priming is based on prelexical orthographic representation. The authors then use this task to demonstrate equivalent TL priming effects for nonwords and words. The results are interpreted as the first reliable evidence based on the masked priming procedure that letter position is not coded absolutely within the prelexical, orthographic representation. The implications of the results for current letter position coding schemes are discussed.

Wrath of God: religious primes and punishment.

Science.gov (United States)

McKay, Ryan; Efferson, Charles; Whitehouse, Harvey; Fehr, Ernst

2011-06-22

Recent evidence indicates that priming participants with religious concepts promotes prosocial sharing behaviour. In the present study, we investigated whether religious priming also promotes the costly punishment of unfair behaviour. A total of 304 participants played a punishment game. Before the punishment stage began, participants were subliminally primed with religion primes, secular punishment primes or control primes. We found that religious primes strongly increased the costly punishment of unfair behaviours for a subset of our participants--those who had previously donated to a religious organization. We discuss two proximate mechanisms potentially underpinning this effect. The first is a 'supernatural watcher' mechanism, whereby religious participants punish unfair behaviours when primed because they sense that not doing so will enrage or disappoint an observing supernatural agent. The second is a 'behavioural priming' mechanism, whereby religious primes activate cultural norms pertaining to fairness and its enforcement and occasion behaviour consistent with those norms. We conclude that our results are consistent with dual inheritance proposals about religion and cooperation, whereby religions harness the byproducts of genetically inherited cognitive mechanisms in ways that enhance the survival prospects of their adherents.

Recognizing Plant Defense Priming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Martinez-Medina, Ainhoa; Flors, Victor; Heil, Martin; Mauch-Mani, Brigitte; Pieterse, Corné M J|info:eu-repo/dai/nl/113115113; Pozo, Maria J; Ton, Jurriaan; van Dam, Nicole M; Conrath, Uwe

2016-01-01

Defense priming conditions diverse plant species for the superinduction of defense, often resulting in enhanced pest and disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. Here, we propose a guideline that might assist the plant research community in a consistent assessment of defense priming in

Recognizing plant defense priming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Martinez-Medina, A.; Flors, V.; Heil, M.; Mauch-Mani, B.; Pieterse, C.M.J.; Pozo, M.J.; Ton, J.; Van Dam, N.M.; Conrath, U.

2016-01-01

Defense priming conditions diverse plant species for the superinduction of defense, often resulting in enhanced pest and disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. Here, we propose a guideline that might assist the plant research community in a consistent assessment of defense priming in

Syntactic priming in American Sign Language.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthew L Hall

Full Text Available Psycholinguistic studies of sign language processing provide valuable opportunities to assess whether language phenomena, which are primarily studied in spoken language, are fundamentally shaped by peripheral biology. For example, we know that when given a choice between two syntactically permissible ways to express the same proposition, speakers tend to choose structures that were recently used, a phenomenon known as syntactic priming. Here, we report two experiments testing syntactic priming of a noun phrase construction in American Sign Language (ASL. Experiment 1 shows that second language (L2 signers with normal hearing exhibit syntactic priming in ASL and that priming is stronger when the head noun is repeated between prime and target (the lexical boost effect. Experiment 2 shows that syntactic priming is equally strong among deaf native L1 signers, deaf late L1 learners, and hearing L2 signers. Experiment 2 also tested for, but did not find evidence of, phonological or semantic boosts to syntactic priming in ASL. These results show that despite the profound differences between spoken and signed languages in terms of how they are produced and perceived, the psychological representation of sentence structure (as assessed by syntactic priming operates similarly in sign and speech.

Multisensory Flavor Priming

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Dijksterhuis, Garmt Bernard

2016-01-01

with a taxonomy of different priming situations. In food-related applications of flavor, both bottom-up (sensory) as well as top-down (expectations) processes are at play. Most of the complex interactions that this leads to take place outside the awareness of the perceiving subject. A model is presented where...... many, past and current, aspects (sensory, surroundings, social, somatic, sentimental) of a (flavor) perception, together result in the perception of a flavor, its liking. or its choice. This model borrows on ideas from priming, situated/embodied cognition, and (food-related) perception.......Flavor is multisensory; several interacting sensory systems-taste, smell, and mouthfeel-together comprise "flavor," making it a cognitively constructed percept rather than a bottom-up sensory one. In this chapter, some of the complications this entails for flavor priming are introduced, along...

Design and implementation of a dexterous anthropomorphic robotic typing (DART) hand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thayer, Nicholas; Priya, Shashank

2011-01-01

This paper focuses on design and implementation of a biomimetic dexterous humanoid hand. Several design rules are proposed to retain human form and functionality in a robotic hand while overcoming the difficultly of actuation within a confined geometry. Size and weight have been optimized in order to achieve human-like performance with the prime objective of typing on a computer keyboard. Each finger has four joints and three degrees of freedom (DOF) while the thumb has an additional degree of freedom necessary for manipulating small objects. The hand consists of 16 servo motors dedicated to finger motion and three motors for wrist motion. A closed-loop kinematic control scheme utilizing the Denavit–Hartenberg convention for spatial joint positioning was implemented. Servo motors housed in the forearm act as an origin for wires to travel to their insertion points in the hand. The dexterity of the DART hand was measured by quantifying functionality and typing speed on a standard keyboard. The typing speed of a single DART hand was found to be 20 words min −1 . In comparison, the average human has a typing speed of 33 words min −1 with two hands

Qualification paths of adult educators in Sweden and Denmark

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Andersson, Per; Köpsén, Susanne; Larson, Anne

2013-01-01

fields of education and training. In this study, we analyse the qualification paths, or learning trajectories, of prospective adult educators in Sweden and Denmark. The analysis is based on narrative interviews with 29 students in training to become adult educators. The career paths of adult educators...... are often long and winding roads. Becoming an adult educator could be their primary desire, but it could also be their ‘Plan B’, a second choice. Individual motives and external demands interact in the professionalisation process. A shift in focus from teaching subject and methods to teaching context...... and the relation to the learners is part of the professional development. Finally, we argue that both academic studies and hands-on work in the adult education community are crucial parts of the adult educator’s qualification path....

Semantic priming, not repetition priming, is to blame for false hearing.

Science.gov (United States)

Rogers, Chad S

2017-08-01

Contextual and sensory information are combined in speech perception. Conflict between the two can lead to false hearing, defined as a high-confidence misidentification of a spoken word. Rogers, Jacoby, and Sommers (Psychology and Aging, 27(1), 33-45, 2012) found that older adults are more susceptible to false hearing than are young adults, using a combination of semantic priming and repetition priming to create context. In this study, the type of context (repetition vs. sematic priming) responsible for false hearing was examined. Older and young adult participants read and listened to a list of paired associates (e.g., ROW-BOAT) and were told to remember the pairs for a later memory test. Following the memory test, participants identified words masked in noise that were preceded by a cue word in the clear. Targets were semantically associated to the cue (e.g., ROW-BOAT), unrelated to the cue (e.g., JAW-PASS), or phonologically related to a semantic associate of the cue (e.g., ROW-GOAT). How often each cue word and its paired associate were presented prior to the memory test was manipulated (0, 3, or 5 times) to test effects of repetition priming. Results showed repetitions had no effect on rates of context-based listening or false hearing. However, repetition did significantly increase sensory information as a basis for metacognitive judgments in young and older adults. This pattern suggests that semantic priming dominates as the basis for false hearing and highlights context and sensory information operating as qualitatively different bases for listening and metacognition.

Modified Multi Prime RSA Cryptosystem

Science.gov (United States)

Ghazali Kamardan, M.; Aminudin, N.; Che-Him, Norziha; Sufahani, Suliadi; Khalid, Kamil; Roslan, Rozaini

2018-04-01

RSA [1] is one of the mostly used cryptosystem in securing data and information. Though, it has been recently discovered that RSA has some weaknesses and in advance technology, RSA is believed to be inefficient especially when it comes to decryption. Thus, a new algorithm called Multi prime RSA, an extended version of the standard RSA is studied. Then, a modification is made to the Multi prime RSA where another keys is shared secretly between the receiver and the sender to increase the securerity. As in RSA, the methodology used for modified Multi-prime RSA also consists of three phases; 1. Key Generation in which the secret and public keys are generated and published. In this phase, the secrecy is improved by adding more prime numbers and addition of secret keys. 2. Encryption of the message using the public and secret keys given. 3. Decryption of the secret message using the secret key generated. For the decryption phase, a method called Chinese Remainder Theorem is used which helps to fasten the computation. Since Multi prime RSA use more than two prime numbers, the algorithm is more efficient and secure when compared to the standard RSA. Furthermore, in modified Multi prime RSA another secret key is introduced to increase the obstacle to the attacker. Therefore, it is strongly believed that this new algorithm is better and can be an alternative to the RSA.

The pros and cons of masked priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Forster, K I

1998-03-01

Masked priming paradigms offer the promise of tapping automatic, strategy-free lexical processing, as evidenced by the lack of expectancy disconfirmation effects, and proportionality effects in semantic priming experiments. But several recent findings suggest the effects may be prelexical. These findings concern nonword priming effects in lexical decision and naming, the effects of mixed-case presentation on nonword priming, and the dependence of priming on the nature of the distractors in lexical decision, suggesting possible strategy effects. The theory underlying each of these effects is discussed, and alternative explanations are developed that do not preclude a lexical basis for masked priming effects.

Low level constraints on dynamic contour path integration.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sophie Hall

Full Text Available Contour integration is a fundamental visual process. The constraints on integrating discrete contour elements and the associated neural mechanisms have typically been investigated using static contour paths. However, in our dynamic natural environment objects and scenes vary over space and time. With the aim of investigating the parameters affecting spatiotemporal contour path integration, we measured human contrast detection performance of a briefly presented foveal target embedded in dynamic collinear stimulus sequences (comprising five short 'predictor' bars appearing consecutively towards the fovea, followed by the 'target' bar in four experiments. The data showed that participants' target detection performance was relatively unchanged when individual contour elements were separated by up to 2° spatial gap or 200 ms temporal gap. Randomising the luminance contrast or colour of the predictors, on the other hand, had similar detrimental effect on grouping dynamic contour path and subsequent target detection performance. Randomising the orientation of the predictors reduced target detection performance greater than introducing misalignment relative to the contour path. The results suggest that the visual system integrates dynamic path elements to bias target detection even when the continuity of path is disrupted in terms of spatial (2°, temporal (200 ms, colour (over 10 colours and luminance (-25% to 25% information. We discuss how the findings can be largely reconciled within the functioning of V1 horizontal connections.

Analytic central path, sensitivity analysis and parametric linear programming

NARCIS (Netherlands)

A.G. Holder; J.F. Sturm; S. Zhang (Shuzhong)

1998-01-01

textabstractIn this paper we consider properties of the central path and the analytic center of the optimal face in the context of parametric linear programming. We first show that if the right-hand side vector of a standard linear program is perturbed, then the analytic center of the optimal face

Priming Ability Emotional Intelligence

Science.gov (United States)

Schutte, Nicola S.; Malouff, John M.

2012-01-01

Two studies examined whether priming self-schemas relating to successful emotional competency results in better emotional intelligence performance. In the first study participants were randomly assigned to a successful emotional competency self-schema prime condition or a control condition and then completed an ability measure of emotional…

Virtual Hand Feedback Reduces Reaction Time in an Interactive Finger Reaching Task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johannes Brand

Full Text Available Computer interaction via visually guided hand or finger movements is a ubiquitous part of daily computer usage in work or gaming. Surprisingly, however, little is known about the performance effects of using virtual limb representations versus simpler cursors. In this study 26 healthy right-handed adults performed cued index finger flexion-extension movements towards an on-screen target while wearing a data glove. They received each of four different types of real-time visual feedback: a simple circular cursor, a point light pattern indicating finger joint positions, a cartoon hand and a fully shaded virtual hand. We found that participants initiated the movements faster when receiving feedback in the form of a hand than when receiving circular cursor or point light feedback. This overall difference was robust for three out of four hand versus circle pairwise comparisons. The faster movement initiation for hand feedback was accompanied by a larger movement amplitude and a larger movement error. We suggest that the observed effect may be related to priming of hand information during action perception and execution affecting motor planning and execution. The results may have applications in the use of body representations in virtual reality applications.

Psychotherapy augmentation through preconscious priming

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Francois eBorgeat

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Objective: To test the hypothesis that repeated preconscious (masked priming of personalized positive cognitions could augment cognitive change and facilitate achievement of patients’ goals following a therapy.Methods: Twenty social phobic patients (13 women completed a 36 weeks study beginning by 12 weeks of group behavioural therapy. After the therapy, they received 6 weeks of preconscious priming and 6 weeks of a control procedure in a randomized cross-over design. The Priming condition involved listening twice daily with a passive attitude to a recording of individualized formulations of appropriate cognitions and attitudes masked by music. The Control condition involved listening to an indistinguishable recording where the formulations had been replaced by random numbers. Changes in social cognitions were measured by the Social Interaction Self Statements Test (SISST.Results: Patients improved following therapy. The Priming procedure was associated with increased positive cognitions and decreased negative cognitions on the SISST while the Control procedure was not. The Priming procedure induced more cognitive change when applied immediately after the group therapy. Conclusion: An effect of priming was observed on social phobia related cognitions in the expected direction. This self administered addition to a therapy could be seen as an augmentation strategy.

Prime time news: the influence of primed positive and negative emotion on susceptibility to false memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Porter, Stephen; ten Brinke, Leanne; Riley, Sean N; Baker, Alysha

2014-01-01

We examined the relation between emotion and susceptibility to misinformation using a novel paradigm, the ambiguous stimuli affective priming (ASAP) paradigm. Participants (N = 88) viewed ambiguous neutral images primed either at encoding or retrieval to be interpreted as either highly positive or negative (or neutral/not primed). After viewing the images, they either were asked misleading or non-leading questions. Following a delay, memory accuracy for the original images was assessed. Results indicated that any emotional priming at encoding led to a higher susceptibility to misinformation relative to priming at recall. In particular, inducing a negative interpretation of the image at encoding led to an increased susceptibility of false memories for major misinformation (an entire object not actually present in the scene). In contrast, this pattern was reversed when priming was used at recall; a negative reinterpretation of the image decreased memory distortion relative to unprimed images. These findings suggest that, with precise experimental control, the experience of emotion at event encoding, in particular, is implicated in false memory susceptibility.

OPTICA: Our Path Together Initiating Cultural Access. Final Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Jackson, Susan, Comp.

This final report describes the activities and outcomes of OPTICA (Our Path Together Initiating Cultural Access) programs. For each program an information sheet indicates the goal, total participation, status of the goal, and activities of the program. Programs included: (1) Hands On: ASL Creative Story Telling, a program that used children's…

Space-Valence Priming with Subliminal and Supraliminal Words

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ulrich eAnsorge

2013-02-01

Full Text Available To date it is unclear whether (1 awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic processes influence affective semantics and whether (2 awareness-independent affective semantics influence non-evaluative semantic processing. In the current study, we investigated these questions with the help of subliminal (masked primes and visible targets in a space-valence across-category congruence effect. In line with (1, we found that subliminal space prime words influenced valence classification of supraliminal target words (Experiment 1: Classifications were faster with a congruent prime (e.g., the prime ‘up’ before the target ‘happy’ than with an incongruent prime (e.g., the prime ‘up’ before the target ‘sad’. In contrast to (2, no influence of subliminal valence primes on the classification of supraliminal space targets into up- and down-words was found (Experiment 2. Control conditions showed that standard masked response-priming effects were found with both subliminal prime types, and that an across-category congruence effect was also found with supraliminal valence primes and spatial target words. The final Experiment 3 confirmed that the across-category congruence effect indeed reflected priming of target categorization of a relevant meaning category. Together, the data jointly confirmed prediction (1 that awareness-independent non-evaluative semantic priming influences valence judgments.

A novel communication mechanism based on node potential multi-path routing

Science.gov (United States)

Bu, Youjun; Zhang, Chuanhao; Jiang, YiMing; Zhang, Zhen

2016-10-01

With the network scales rapidly and new network applications emerge frequently, bandwidth supply for today's Internet could not catch up with the rapid increasing requirements. Unfortunately, irrational using of network sources makes things worse. Actual network deploys single-next-hop optimization paths for data transmission, but such "best effort" model leads to the imbalance use of network resources and usually leads to local congestion. On the other hand Multi-path routing can use the aggregation bandwidth of multi paths efficiently and improve the robustness of network, security, load balancing and quality of service. As a result, multi-path has attracted much attention in the routing and switching research fields and many important ideas and solutions have been proposed. This paper focuses on implementing the parallel transmission of multi next-hop data, balancing the network traffic and reducing the congestion. It aimed at exploring the key technologies of the multi-path communication network, which could provide a feasible academic support for subsequent applications of multi-path communication networking. It proposed a novel multi-path algorithm based on node potential in the network. And the algorithm can fully use of the network link resource and effectively balance network link resource utilization.

Building Numbers from Primes

Science.gov (United States)

Burkhart, Jerry

2009-01-01

Prime numbers are often described as the "building blocks" of natural numbers. This article shows how the author and his students took this idea literally by using prime factorizations to build numbers with blocks. In this activity, students explore many concepts of number theory, including the relationship between greatest common factors and…

Recognizing Plant Defense Priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Martinez-Medina, Ainhoa; Flors, Victor; Heil, Martin; Mauch-Mani, Brigitte; Pieterse, Corné M J; Pozo, Maria J; Ton, Jurriaan; van Dam, Nicole M; Conrath, Uwe

2016-10-01

Defense priming conditions diverse plant species for the superinduction of defense, often resulting in enhanced pest and disease resistance and abiotic stress tolerance. Here, we propose a guideline that might assist the plant research community in a consistent assessment of defense priming in plants. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The structure factor of primes

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, G.; Martelli, F.; Torquato, S.

2018-03-01

Although the prime numbers are deterministic, they can be viewed, by some measures, as pseudo-random numbers. In this article, we numerically study the pair statistics of the primes using statistical-mechanical methods, particularly the structure factor S(k) in an interval M ≤slant p ≤slant M + L with M large, and L/M smaller than unity. We show that the structure factor of the prime-number configurations in such intervals exhibits well-defined Bragg-like peaks along with a small ‘diffuse’ contribution. This indicates that primes are appreciably more correlated and ordered than previously thought. Our numerical results definitively suggest an explicit formula for the locations and heights of the peaks. This formula predicts infinitely many peaks in any non-zero interval, similar to the behavior of quasicrystals. However, primes differ from quasicrystals in that the ratio between the location of any two predicted peaks is rational. We also show numerically that the diffuse part decays slowly as M and L increases. This suggests that the diffuse part vanishes in an appropriate infinite-system-size limit.

Exploring the impact of visual and movement based priming on a motor intervention in the acute phase post-stroke in persons with severe hemiparesis of the upper extremity

Science.gov (United States)

Patel, Jigna; Qiu, Qinyin; Yarossi, Mathew; Merians, Alma; Massood, Supriya; Tunik, Eugene; Adamovich, Sergei; Fluet, Gerard

2016-01-01

Purpose Explore the potential benefits of using priming methods prior to an active hand task in the acute phase post-stroke in persons with severe upper extremity hemiparesis. Methods Five individuals were trained using priming techniques including virtual reality (VR) based visual mirror feedback and contralaterally controlled passive movement strategies prior to training with an active pinch force modulation task. Clinical, kinetic, and neurophysiological measurements were taken pre and post the training period. Clinical measures were taken at six months post training. Results The two priming simulations and active training were well tolerated early after stroke. Priming effects were suggested by increased maximal pinch force immediately after visual and movement based priming. Despite having no clinically observable movement distally, the subjects were able to volitionally coordinate isometric force and muscle activity (EMG) in a pinch tracing task. The Root Mean Square Error (RMSE) of force during the pinch trace task gradually decreased over the training period suggesting learning may have occurred. Changes in motor cortical neurophysiology were seen in the unaffected hemisphere using Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) mapping. Significant improvements in motor recovery as measured by the Action Research Arm Test (ARAT) and the Upper Extremity Fugl Meyer Assessment (UEFMA) were demonstrated at six months post training by three of the five subjects. Conclusion This study suggests that an early hand-based intervention using visual and movement based priming activities and a scaled motor task allows participation by persons without the motor control required for traditionally presented rehabilitation and testing. PMID:27636200

PrimeFaces beginner's guide

CERN Document Server

Reddy, K Siva Prasad

2013-01-01

A guide for beginner's with step-by-step instructions and an easy-to-follow approach.PrimeFaces Beginners Guide is a simple and effective guide for beginners, wanting to learn and implement PrimeFaces in their JSF-based applications. Some basic JSF and jQuery skills are required before you start working through the book.

Kinetic Constrained Optimization of the Golf Swing Hub Path

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Steven M. Nesbit

2014-12-01

Full Text Available This study details an optimization of the golf swing, where the hand path and club angular trajectories are manipulated. The optimization goal was to maximize club head velocity at impact within the interaction kinetic limitations (force, torque, work, and power of the golfer as determined through the analysis of a typical swing using a two-dimensional dynamic model. The study was applied to four subjects with diverse swing capabilities and styles. It was determined that it is possible for all subjects to increase their club head velocity at impact within their respective kinetic limitations through combined modifications to their respective hand path and club angular trajectories. The manner of the modifications, the degree of velocity improvement, the amount of kinetic reduction, and the associated kinetic limitation quantities were subject dependent. By artificially minimizing selected kinetic inputs within the optimization algorithm, it was possible to identify swing trajectory characteristics that indicated relative kinetic weaknesses of a subject. Practical implications are offered based upon the findings of the study.

Semantic priming without association: a meta-analytic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Lucas, M

2000-12-01

A meta-analysis of 26 studies indicated that automatic semantic priming can occur without association. Priming did not vary substantially with differences in variables that affect automatic versus strategic processing, such as time spent processing the prime and target, relationship proportion, and task (except that average effects were smaller in the naming task). Although category coordinates were investigated in the majority of studies, synonyms, antonyms, and script relations also demonstrated priming; functional relations showed greater priming, and essential and perceptual relations showed less. The average effect size for semantic priming was smaller than that for associative priming, suggesting that there is an "associative boost" from adding an associative relationship to a semantic one. The implications of these findings for the modularity thesis and for models of semantic priming are discussed.

Priming methods in semantics and pragmatics.

Science.gov (United States)

Maldonado, Mora; Spector, Benjamin; Chemla, Emmanuel

2017-01-01

Structural priming is a powerful method to inform linguistic theories. We argue that this method extends nicely beyond syntax to theories of meaning. Priming, however, should still be seen as only one of the tools available for linguistic data collection. Specifically, because priming can occur at different, potentially conflicting levels, it cannot detect every aspect of linguistic representations.

Primed Physical Therapy Enhances Recovery of Upper Limb Function in Chronic Stroke Patients.

Science.gov (United States)

Ackerley, Suzanne J; Byblow, Winston D; Barber, P Alan; MacDonald, Hayley; McIntyre-Robinson, Andrew; Stinear, Cathy M

2016-05-01

Recovery of upper limb function is important for regaining independence after stroke. To test the effects of priming upper limb physical therapy with intermittent theta burst stimulation (iTBS), a form of noninvasive brain stimulation. Eighteen adults with first-ever chronic monohemispheric subcortical stroke participated in this randomized, controlled, triple-blinded trial. Intervention consisted of priming with real or sham iTBS to the ipsilesional primary motor cortex immediately before 45 minutes of upper limb physical therapy, daily for 10 days. Changes in upper limb function (Action Research Arm Test [ARAT]), upper limb impairment (Fugl-Meyer Scale), and corticomotor excitability, were assessed before, during, and immediately, 1 month and 3 months after the intervention. Functional magnetic resonance images were acquired before and at one month after the intervention. Improvements in ARAT were observed after the intervention period when therapy was primed with real iTBS, but not sham, and were maintained at 1 month. These improvements were not apparent halfway through the intervention, indicating a dose effect. Improvements in ARAT at 1 month were related to balancing of corticomotor excitability and an increase in ipsilesional premotor cortex activation during paretic hand grip. Two weeks of iTBS-primed therapy improves upper limb function at the chronic stage of stroke, for at least 1 month postintervention, whereas therapy alone may not be sufficient to alter function. This indicates a potential role for iTBS as an adjuvant to therapy delivered at the chronic stage. © The Author(s) 2015.

Discovering Euler Circuits and Paths through a Culturally Relevant Lesson

Science.gov (United States)

Robichaux, Rebecca R.; Rodrigue, Paulette R.

2006-01-01

This article describes a middle school discrete mathematics lesson that uses the context of catching crawfish to provide students with a hands-on experience related to Euler circuits and paths. The lesson promotes mathematical communication through the use of cooperative learning as well as connections between mathematics and the real world…

Structural priming, action planning, and grammar.

Science.gov (United States)

MacDonald, Maryellen C; Weiss, Daniel J

2017-01-01

Structural priming is poorly understood and cannot inform accounts of grammar for two reasons. First, those who view performance as grammar + processing will always be able to attribute psycholinguistic data to processing rather than grammar. Second, structural priming may be simply an example of hysteresis effects in general action planning. If so, then priming offers no special insight into grammar.

The priming of basic combinatory responses in MEG.

Science.gov (United States)

Blanco-Elorrieta, Esti; Ferreira, Victor S; Del Prato, Paul; Pylkkänen, Liina

2018-01-01

Priming has been a powerful tool for the study of human memory and especially the memory representations relevant for language. However, although it is well established that lexical access can be primed, we do not know exactly what types of computations can be primed above the word level. This work took a neurobiological approach and assessed the ways in which the complex representation of a minimal combinatory phrase, such as red boat, can be primed, as evidenced by the spatiotemporal profiles of magnetoencephalography (MEG) signals. Specifically, we built upon recent progress on the neural signatures of phrasal composition and tested whether the brain activities implicated for the basic combination of two words could be primed. In two experiments, MEG was recorded during a picture naming task where the prime trials were designed to replicate previously reported combinatory effects and the target trials to test whether those combinatory effects could be primed. The manipulation of the primes was successful in eliciting larger activity for adjective-noun combinations than single nouns in left anterior temporal and ventromedial prefrontal cortices, replicating prior MEG studies on parallel contrasts. Priming of similarly timed activity was observed during target trials in anterior temporal cortex, but only when the prime and target shared an adjective. No priming in temporal cortex was observed for single word repetition and two control tasks showed that the priming effect was not elicited if the prime pictures were simply viewed but not named. In sum, this work provides evidence that very basic combinatory operations can be primed, with the necessity for some lexical overlap between prime and target suggesting combinatory conceptual, as opposed to syntactic processing. Both our combinatory and priming effects were early, onsetting between 100 and 150ms after picture onset and thus are likely to reflect the very earliest planning stages of a combinatory message

Social priming increases nonverbal expressive behaviors in schizophrenia.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan Del-Monte

Full Text Available Semantic priming tasks are classically used to influence and implicitly promote target behaviors. Recently, several studies have demonstrated that prosocial semantic priming modulated feelings of social affiliation. The main aim of this study was to determine whether inducing feelings of social affiliation using priming tasks could modulate nonverbal social behaviors in schizophrenia. We used the Scrambled Sentence Task to prime schizophrenia patients according to three priming group conditions: pro-social, non-social or anti-social. Forty-five schizophrenia patients, diagnosed according to DSM-IV-TR, were randomly assigned to one of the three priming groups of 15 participants. We evaluated nonverbal social behaviors using the Motor-Affective subscale of the Motor-Affective-Social-Scale. Results showed that schizophrenia patients with pro-social priming had significantly more nonverbal behaviors than schizophrenia patients with anti-social and non-social priming conditions. Schizophrenia patient behaviors are affected by social priming. Our results have several clinical implications for the rehabilitation of social skills impairments frequently encountered among individuals with schizophrenia.

Optical coding theory with Prime

CERN Document Server

Kwong, Wing C

2013-01-01

Although several books cover the coding theory of wireless communications and the hardware technologies and coding techniques of optical CDMA, no book has been specifically dedicated to optical coding theory-until now. Written by renowned authorities in the field, Optical Coding Theory with Prime gathers together in one volume the fundamentals and developments of optical coding theory, with a focus on families of prime codes, supplemented with several families of non-prime codes. The book also explores potential applications to coding-based optical systems and networks. Learn How to Construct

Priming of antiherbivore defensive responses in plants

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Jinwon Kim; Gary W.Felton

2013-01-01

Defense priming is defined as increased readiness of defense induction.A growing body of literature indicates that plants (or intact parts of a plant) are primed in anticipation of impending environmental stresses,both biotic and abiotic,and upon the following stimulus,induce defenses more quickly and strongly.For instance,some plants previously exposed to herbivore-inducible plant volatiles (HIPVs) from neighboring plants under herbivore attack show faster or stronger defense activation and enhanced insect resistance when challenged with secondary insect feeding.Research on priming of antiherbivore defense has been limited to the HIPV-mediated mechanism until recently,but significant advances were made in the past three years,including non-HIPV-mediated defense priming,epigenetic modifications as the molecular mechanism of priming,and others.It is timely to consider the advances in research on defense priming in the plantinsect interactions.

Random reward priming is task-contingent: The robustness of the 1-trial reward priming effect

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Árni Gunnar Ásgeirsson

2014-04-01

Full Text Available Consistent financial reward of particular features influences the allocation of visual attention in many ways. More surprising are 1-trial reward priming effects on attention where reward schedules are random and reward on one trial influences attentional allocation on the next. Those findings are thought to reflect that rewarded features become more salient than unrewarded ones on the subsequent trial. Here we attempt to conceptually replicate this effect, testing its generalizability. In three versions of an analogous paradigm to the additional singleton paradigm involving singleton search for a Gabor patch of odd spatial frequency we found no evidence of reward priming, while we only partially replicate the reward priming in the exact original paradigm tested by Hickey and colleagues. The results cast doubt on the proposal that random reward enhances salience, suggested in the original papers, and highlight the need for a more nuanced account. In many other paradigms reward effects have been found to progress gradually, becoming stronger as they build up, and we argue that for robust reward priming, reward schedules need to be more consistent than in the original 1-trial reward priming paradigm.

Asymmetry in Dominant / Non-Dominant Hand Performance Differentiates Novices from Experts on an Arthroscopy Virtual Reality Serious Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Pedowitz, Robert; Nicandri, Gregg; Tuchschmid, Stefan

2016-01-01

Safe and effective arthroscopic surgery requires ambidextrous motor skills. The current study examined dominant versus non-dominant hand performance on a virtual reality serious game in a group of expert arthroscopic surgeons (n=15) compared to a group of orthopedic surgery residents (n=10). A virtual reality Tetris game was performed with the arthroscopic camera and arthroscope in one hand, using an arthroscopic grasping tool in the opposite hand to manipulate the virtual Tetris blocks onto the game grid. A second run was performed after swapping instruments between hands. The order of hand testing was randomized. There was no statistically significant difference in exercise time, grasper path length, or camera path length between the right and left hands of the expert surgeons. In contrast, there were statistically significant differences in all of these parameters between the two hands for the orthopedic surgery residents, with better performance when the grasping tool was used in the dominant hand. The findings of this study suggest that virtual reality games which incorporate progressive cognitive loading could be used to facilitate training, automation, and objective assessment of surgical motor skills.

Mechanisms of masked evaluative priming: task sets modulate behavioral and electrophysiological priming for picture and words differentially

OpenAIRE

Kiefer, Markus; Liegel, Nathalie; Zovko, Monika; Wentura, Dirk

2016-01-01

Research with the evaluative priming paradigm has shown that affective evaluation processes reliably influence cognition and behavior, even when triggered outside awareness. However, the precise mechanisms underlying such subliminal evaluative priming effects, response activation vs semantic processing, are matter of a debate. In this study, we determined the relative contribution of semantic processing and response activation to masked evaluative priming with pictures and words. To this end,...

Priming analogical reasoning with false memories.

Science.gov (United States)

Howe, Mark L; Garner, Sarah R; Threadgold, Emma; Ball, Linden J

2015-08-01

Like true memories, false memories are capable of priming answers to insight-based problems. Recent research has attempted to extend this paradigm to more advanced problem-solving tasks, including those involving verbal analogical reasoning. However, these experiments are constrained inasmuch as problem solutions could be generated via spreading activation mechanisms (much like false memories themselves) rather than using complex reasoning processes. In three experiments we examined false memory priming of complex analogical reasoning tasks in the absence of simple semantic associations. In Experiment 1, we demonstrated the robustness of false memory priming in analogical reasoning when backward associative strength among the problem terms was eliminated. In Experiments 2a and 2b, we extended these findings by demonstrating priming on newly created homonym analogies that can only be solved by inhibiting semantic associations within the analogy. Overall, the findings of the present experiments provide evidence that the efficacy of false memory priming extends to complex analogical reasoning problems.

Priming intelligent behavior: an elusive phenomenon.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David R Shanks

Full Text Available Can behavior be unconsciously primed via the activation of attitudes, stereotypes, or other concepts? A number of studies have suggested that such priming effects can occur, and a prominent illustration is the claim that individuals' accuracy in answering general knowledge questions can be influenced by activating intelligence-related concepts such as professor or soccer hooligan. In 9 experiments with 475 participants we employed the procedures used in these studies, as well as a number of variants of those procedures, in an attempt to obtain this intelligence priming effect. None of the experiments obtained the effect, although financial incentives did boost performance. A Bayesian analysis reveals considerable evidential support for the null hypothesis. The results conform to the pattern typically obtained in word priming experiments in which priming is very narrow in its generalization and unconscious (subliminal influences, if they occur at all, are extremely short-lived. We encourage others to explore the circumstances in which this phenomenon might be obtained.

Priming Intelligent Behavior: An Elusive Phenomenon

Science.gov (United States)

Shanks, David R.; Newell, Ben R.; Lee, Eun Hee; Balakrishnan, Divya; Ekelund, Lisa; Cenac, Zarus; Kavvadia, Fragkiski; Moore, Christopher

2013-01-01

Can behavior be unconsciously primed via the activation of attitudes, stereotypes, or other concepts? A number of studies have suggested that such priming effects can occur, and a prominent illustration is the claim that individuals' accuracy in answering general knowledge questions can be influenced by activating intelligence-related concepts such as professor or soccer hooligan. In 9 experiments with 475 participants we employed the procedures used in these studies, as well as a number of variants of those procedures, in an attempt to obtain this intelligence priming effect. None of the experiments obtained the effect, although financial incentives did boost performance. A Bayesian analysis reveals considerable evidential support for the null hypothesis. The results conform to the pattern typically obtained in word priming experiments in which priming is very narrow in its generalization and unconscious (subliminal) influences, if they occur at all, are extremely short-lived. We encourage others to explore the circumstances in which this phenomenon might be obtained. PMID:23637732

MPQS with three large primes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leyland, P.; Lenstra, A.K.; Dodson, B.; Muffett, A.; Wagstaff, S.; Fieker, C.; Kohel, D.R.

2002-01-01

We report the factorization of a 135-digit integer by the triple-large-prime variation of the multiple polynomial quadratic sieve. Previous workers [6][10] had suggested that using more than two large primes would be counterproductive, because of the greatly increased number of false reports from

Shifting evaluation windows : predictable forward primes with long SOAs eliminate the impact of backward primes.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Fockenberg, D. A. F.; Koole, S.L.; Lakens, D.; Semin, G.R.

2013-01-01

Recent work suggests that people evaluate target stimuli within short and flexible time periods called evaluation windows. Stimuli that briefly precede a target (forward primes) or briefly succeed a target (backward primes) are often included in the target's evaluation. In this article, the authors

Wheat seed enhancement by vitamin and hormonal priming

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khan, M.B.; Gurchani, M.A.; Hussain, M.

2011-01-01

Seed priming has proven beneficial in many important agricultural crops. The present study was conducted to explore the role (if any) of hormonal and vitamin seed priming to improve the germination, seedling emergence, early seedling establishment, electrolyte leakage and nutrients uptake in wheat seedlings. The wheat seeds were soaked for 48 hours in aerated solution of salicylic acid, ascorbic acid, kinetin and GA3 with 20 ppm concentration of each solution, whereas untreated seeds were taken as control. Seed priming with ascorbic acid resulted in maximum final germination and emergence percentage (FGP and FEP), radical and plumule length, root and shoot length, number of secondary roots, root shoot ratio, root dry weight, shoot dry weight and seedling dry weight compared to control (untreated seeds). Minimum mean germination and emergence time (MGT and MET) was recorded in seeds primed with kinetin and GA3. While in case of biochemical attributes, seedling potassium contents were decreased by hormonal seed priming while total soluble sugars were increased by salicylic acid and ascorbic acid seed priming. Hormonal seed priming had non-significant effect on phosphorus seedling contents. Untreated (Control) seeds showed maximum electrical conductivity at 0.5, 1, 2, 6, 12 and 24 h after inbibition than primed seeds against the minimum electrical conductivity that was recorded in seeds primed with salicylic acid and ascorbic acid. In conclusion, the wheat seeds primed with 20 ppm solution of ascorbic acid may be used for wheat seed invigoration. (author)

HAND OSTEOARTHROSIS: ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE AND AESTHETIC DISCOMFORT

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anastasia Viktorovna Sarapulova

2013-01-01

Full Text Available Osteoarthrosis (OA is one of the most common causes of hand pains, leading to lower quality of life (QL. In addition to pain and functional impairment, the patients' aesthetic dissatisfaction that cannot be now determined or measuredis of prime importanceObjective: to assess a number of QL aspects and to measure the level of aesthetic discomfort in patients with hand OA.Subjects and methods. Sixty women aged 45–75 years with hand OA were included. The number of painful and deformed joints was determined and functional impairments were evaluated using the AUSCAN questionnaire. The patients filled out the questionnaire to determine the level of dissatisfaction with the appearance of their hands; the Ellis stress test for irrational beliefs was carried out.Results. The patients with hand OA were found to have significant aesthetic discomfort comparable with level of joint pain. Deformity phobia in the future and external discomfort because of hand deformity were most pronounced; a wish for surgical correction was less pronounced. Comparison of the results obtained in different age groups determined the highest levels of anxiety and wish for surgical correction in younger women. The patients' aesthetic dissatisfaction was also influenced by employment and internet usage.Conclusion. Aesthetic discomfort is an important component of lower QL in patients with hand OA. Further investigation of this factor and elaboration of criteria for its estimation are needed.

Hard paths, soft paths or no paths? Cross-cultural perceptions of water solutions

Science.gov (United States)

Wutich, A.; White, A. C.; White, D. D.; Larson, K. L.; Brewis, A.; Roberts, C.

2014-01-01

In this study, we examine how development status and water scarcity shape people's perceptions of "hard path" and "soft path" water solutions. Based on ethnographic research conducted in four semi-rural/peri-urban sites (in Bolivia, Fiji, New Zealand, and the US), we use content analysis to conduct statistical and thematic comparisons of interview data. Our results indicate clear differences associated with development status and, to a lesser extent, water scarcity. People in the two less developed sites were more likely to suggest hard path solutions, less likely to suggest soft path solutions, and more likely to see no path to solutions than people in the more developed sites. Thematically, people in the two less developed sites envisioned solutions that involve small-scale water infrastructure and decentralized, community-based solutions, while people in the more developed sites envisioned solutions that involve large-scale infrastructure and centralized, regulatory water solutions. People in the two water-scarce sites were less likely to suggest soft path solutions and more likely to see no path to solutions (but no more likely to suggest hard path solutions) than people in the water-rich sites. Thematically, people in the two water-rich sites seemed to perceive a wider array of unrealized potential soft path solutions than those in the water-scarce sites. On balance, our findings are encouraging in that they indicate that people are receptive to soft path solutions in a range of sites, even those with limited financial or water resources. Our research points to the need for more studies that investigate the social feasibility of soft path water solutions, particularly in sites with significant financial and natural resource constraints.

Path coupling and aggregate path coupling

CERN Document Server

Kovchegov, Yevgeniy

2018-01-01

This book describes and characterizes an extension to the classical path coupling method applied to statistical mechanical models, referred to as aggregate path coupling. In conjunction with large deviations estimates, the aggregate path coupling method is used to prove rapid mixing of Glauber dynamics for a large class of statistical mechanical models, including models that exhibit discontinuous phase transitions which have traditionally been more difficult to analyze rigorously. The book shows how the parameter regions for rapid mixing for several classes of statistical mechanical models are derived using the aggregate path coupling method.

Lexical priming in Alzheimer's disease and aphasia.

Science.gov (United States)

Arroyo-Anlló, Eva Maria; Beauchamps, Mireille; Ingrand, Pierre; Neau, Jean Philippe; Gil, Roger

2013-01-01

Lexical priming was examined in patients with Alzheimer's disease and in aphasic patients. Control participants were divided into young and elderly [cf. Arroyo-Anlló et al.: Eur J Cogn Psychol 2004;16:535-553]. For lexical priming, a word-stem completion task was used. Normal elderly participants had lexical priming scores that were significantly lower than those of young individuals. Analysis of covariance with age and educational level as covariates showed that the control participants, aphasic and Alzheimer patients did not differ significantly on the lexical priming task. Our results suggest that performance in the lexical priming task diminishes with physiological aging, but is not significantly affected by mild or moderate Alzheimer's disease or by fluent or non-fluent aphasia. Copyright © 2013 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Path Creation, Path Dependence and Breaking Away from the Path

OpenAIRE

Wang, Jens; Hedman, Jonas; Tuunainen, Virpi Kristiina

2016-01-01

The explanation of how and why firms succeed or fail is a recurrent research challenge. This is particularly important in the context of technological innovations. We focus on the role of historical events and decisions in explaining such success and failure. Using a case study of Nokia, we develop and extend a multi-layer path dependence framework. We identify four layers of path dependence: technical, strategic and leadership, organizational, and external collaboration. We show how path dep...

The prime numbers and their distribution

CERN Document Server

Tenenbaum, Gerald

2000-01-01

One notable new direction this century in the study of primes has been the influx of ideas from probability. The goal of this book is to provide insights into the prime numbers and to describe how a sequence so tautly determined can incorporate such a striking amount of randomness. The book opens with some classic topics of number theory. It ends with a discussion of some of the outstanding conjectures in number theory. In between are an excellent chapter on the stochastic properties of primes and a walk through an elementary proof of the Prime Number Theorem. This book is suitable for anyone who has had a little number theory and some advanced calculus involving estimates. Its engaging style and invigorating point of view will make refreshing reading for advanced undergraduates through research mathematicians.

Semantic transparency affects morphological priming . . . eventually.

Science.gov (United States)

Heyer, Vera; Kornishova, Dana

2018-05-01

Semantic transparency has been in the focus of psycholinguistic research for decades, with the controversy about the time course of the application of morpho-semantic information during the processing of morphologically complex words not yet resolved. This study reports two masked priming studies with English - ness and Russian - ost' nominalisations, investigating how semantic transparency modulates native speakers' morphological priming effects at short and long stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs). In both languages, we found increased morphological priming for nominalisations at the transparent end of the scale (e.g. paleness - pale) in comparison to items at the opaque end of the scale (e.g. business - busy) but only at longer prime durations. The present findings are in line with models that posit an initial phase of morpho-orthographic (semantically blind) decomposition.

Continued Funding for Prime Development

Science.gov (United States)

2012-04-18

PHP language with the help of CMF Drupal-6. The standard modules of the Drupal core set are developed by third parties and obtained from the...repository drupal.org. Part of the modules was modified specifically for the PrIMe portal. The PrIMe portal uses MySQL for the database technology. It is

Prime implicants in dynamic reliability analysis

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tyrväinen, Tero

2016-01-01

This paper develops an improved definition of a prime implicant for the needs of dynamic reliability analysis. Reliability analyses often aim to identify minimal cut sets or prime implicants, which are minimal conditions that cause an undesired top event, such as a system's failure. Dynamic reliability analysis methods take the time-dependent behaviour of a system into account. This means that the state of a component can change in the analysed time frame and prime implicants can include the failure of a component at different time points. There can also be dynamic constraints on a component's behaviour. For example, a component can be non-repairable in the given time frame. If a non-repairable component needs to be failed at a certain time point to cause the top event, we consider that the condition that it is failed at the latest possible time point is minimal, and the condition in which it fails earlier non-minimal. The traditional definition of a prime implicant does not account for this type of time-related minimality. In this paper, a new definition is introduced and illustrated using a dynamic flowgraph methodology model. - Highlights: • A new definition of a prime implicant is developed for dynamic reliability analysis. • The new definition takes time-related minimality into account. • The new definition is needed in dynamic flowgraph methodology. • Results can be represented by a smaller number of prime implicants.

48 CFR 45.501 - Prime contractor alternate locations.

Science.gov (United States)

2010-10-01

... 48 Federal Acquisition Regulations System 1 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Prime contractor alternate... CONTRACT MANAGEMENT GOVERNMENT PROPERTY Support Government Property Administration 45.501 Prime contractor... administration from another contract administration office, for purposes of evaluating prime contractor...

Intra HLA-D/DR region recombinant detected by primed lymphocyte typing (PLT)

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jakobsen, B K; Kristensen, T; Lamm, L U

1983-01-01

lymphocyte typing (PLT) for HLA-D/DR region associated DP antigens. None of these studies gave evidence that the recombinations had occurred within the HLA region. Mixed leucocyte culture (MLC) tests within the families showed no detectable stimulation between the HLA identical siblings in two......The chromosome 6 markers, HLA-ABC, D, DR, MT, properdin factor Bf, and complement factors 2 (C2) and 5 (C4), were studied in three families, each of which included two HLA identical siblings, one or both of whom were known to be HLA-B: GLO recombinants. The families were also typed with primed...... to reactive reagents. One of these (GHx), reacted with a determinant which segregated within the GG family as if child G was a paternal recombinant between the HLA-D, DR, DP, and C4 loci, on the one hand, and on the other hand one or more loci governing other HLA-D/DR region controlled lymphocyte activating...

Event generators for {{\\eta }}/{{{\\eta }}}^{^{\\prime} } decays at BESIII

Science.gov (United States)

Qin, Nian; Zhang, Zhen-Yu; Fang, Shuang-Shi; Zhou, Xiang; Du, Lin-Lin; Qiao, Hao-Xue

2018-01-01

The light unflavoured meson {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime } decays are valuable for testing non-perturbative quantum chromodynamics and exploring new physics beyond the Standard Model. This paper describes a series of event generators, including {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{γ }}{{{l}}}+{{{l}}}-, {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{γ }}{{{π }}}+{{{π }}}-, {{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{ω }}{{{e}}}+{{{e}}}-, {{η }}\\to {{{π }}}+{{{π }}}-{{{π }}}0, {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{{π }}}0{{{π }}}0{{{π }}}0, {{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{η }}{{π }}{{π }} and {{{η }}}^{\\prime }\\to {{{π }}}+{{{π }}}-{{{π }}}+{{{π }}}-/{{{π }}}+{{{π }}}-{{{π }}}0{{{π }}}0, which have been developed for investigating {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime } decay dynamics. For most of these generators, their usability has been validated in BESIII analyses for determining the detection efficiency, and background studies. The consistency between data and Monte Carlo shows that these generators work well in the BESIII simulation, and will also be useful for ongoing BESIII analyses and other experiments for studying {{η }}/{{{η }}}^{\\prime } physics. Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (11205117, 11575133, 11675184), the China Scholarship Council (201506275156), the Wuhan University PhD Short-time Mobility Program 2016, the Joint Funds of the NSFC and Henan Province (U1504112)

The development of object function and manipulation knowledge: evidence from a semantic priming study

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cynthia Collette

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Object semantics include object function and manipulation knowledge. Function knowledge refers to the goal attainable by using an object (e.g. the function of a key is to open or close a door while manipulation knowledge refers to gestures one has to execute to use an object appropriately (e.g. a key is held between the thumb and the index, inserted into the door lock and then turned.To date, several studies have assessed function and manipulation knowledge in brain lesion patients as well as in healthy adult populations. In patients with left brain damage, a double dissociation between these two types of knowledge has been reported; on the other hand, behavioral studies in healthy adults show that function knowledge is processed faster than manipulation knowledge. Empirical evidence has shown that object interaction in children differs from that in adults, suggesting that the access to function and manipulation knowledge in children might also differ.To investigate the development of object function and manipulation knowledge, 51 typically developing 8-9-10 year-old children and 17 healthy young adults were tested on a naming task associated with a semantic priming paradigm (190-ms SOA; prime duration: 90 ms in which a series of line drawings of manipulable objects were used. Target objects could be preceded by three priming contexts: related (e.g. knife-scissors for function; key-screwdriver for manipulation, unrelated but visually similar (e.g. glasses-scissors; baseball bat-screwdriver, and purely unrelated (e.g. die-scissors; tissue-screwdriver.Results showed a different developmental pattern of function and manipulation priming effects. Function priming effects were not present in children and emerged only in adults, with faster naming responses for targets preceded by objects sharing the same function. In contrast, manipulation priming effects were already present in 8-year-olds with faster naming responses for targets preceded by objects

Heavy Right-Handed Neutrino Dark Matter and PeV Neutrinos at IceCube

Science.gov (United States)

Bhupal Dev, P. S.; Kazanas, D.; Mohapatra, R. N.; Teplitz, V. L.; Zhang, Yongchao

2016-01-01

We discuss a simple non-supersymmetric model based on the electroweak gauge group SU(2) (sub L) times SU(2) prime times U(1) (Sub B-L) where the lightest of the right-handed neutrinos, which are part of the leptonic doublet of SU(2) prime, play the role of a long-lived unstable dark matter with mass in the multi-Peta-electronvolt range. We use a resonant s-channel annihilation to obtain the correct thermal relic density and relax the unitarity bound on dark matter mass. In this model, there exists a 3-body dark matter decay mode producing tau leptons and neutrinos, which could be the source for the Peta-electronvolt cascade events observed in the IceCube experiment. The model can be tested with more precise flavor information of the highest-energy neutrino events in future data.

Comparison of Estimation Techniques for Vibro-Acoustic Transfer Path Analysis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paulo Eduardo França Padilha

2006-01-01

Full Text Available Vibro-acoustic Transfer Path Analysis (TPA is a tool to evaluate the contribution of different energy propagation paths between a source and a receiver, linked to each other by a number of connections. TPA is typically used to quantify and rank the relative importance of these paths in a given frequency band, determining the most significant one to the receiver. Basically, two quantities have to be determined for TPA: the operational forces at each transfer path and the Frequency Response Functions (FRF of these paths. The FRF are obtained either experimentally or analytically, and the influence of the mechanical impedance of the source can be taken into account or not. The operational forces can be directly obtained from measurements using force transducers or indirectly estimated from auxiliary response measurements. Two methods to obtain the operational forces indirectly – the Complex Stiffness Method (CSM and the Matrix Inversion Method (MIM – associated with two possible configurations to determine the FRF – including and excluding the source impedance – are presented and discussed in this paper. The effect of weak and strong coupling among the paths is also commented considering the techniques previously presented. The main conclusion is that, with the source removed, CSM gives more accurate results. On the other hand, with the source present, MIM is preferable. In the latter case, CSM should be used only if there is a high impedance mismatch between the source and the receiver. Both methods are not affected by a higher or lower degree of coupling among the transfer paths.

The frequency attenuation effect in identity and associative priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Nievas, Francisco

2010-05-01

Three lexical decision experiments were carried out, where the masked priming paradigm is used to study the role of the frequency attenuation effect (more priming in low-frequency target words than in high-frequency target words) in repetition and associative priming, manipulating Prime Duration (PD) and Stimulus Onset Asynchrony (SOA). A new concept was introduced, Minimum Time Threshold (MTT), this is, the minimum time interval of exposure to the masked word in order to become aware of it. Results support the notion that MTT is a key to the appearance of the frequency attenuation effect when enough word processing time is allowed. Results do not support the unified explanation of masked priming and long-term priming as proposed by Bodner and Masson (2001). Moreover, information feedback from the semantic level was not the reason for the frequency attenuation effect in repetition priming.

Hand-held and automated breast ultrasound

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bassett, L.W.; Gold, R.H.; Kimme-Smith, C.

1985-01-01

The book is a guide for physicians and technologists who use US as an adjunct to mammography; it carefully outlines the pros and cons of US of the breast and its role in the diagnosis of benign and malignant diseases. After an introduction that discusses the philosophy of breast US, the chapters cover the physics of US and instrumentation (both hand-held transducers as well as automated water path scanners), then proceed to a discussion of the normal breast. Sections on benign disorders, malignant lesions, and pitfalls of diagnosis are followed by quiz cases

Priming effects in Chinese character recognition for Chinese children with developmental dyslexia

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Yuliang Zou; Jing Wang; Hanrong Wu

2009-01-01

BACKGROUND:Dyslexic children exhibit reading ability unmatched to age,although they possess normal intelligence and are well educated.OBJECTIVE:To examine the performance of dyslexic children in Chinese characters visual recognition tasks and to investigate the relationship between priming effect in character recognition and dyslexia.DESIGN,TIME AND SETTING:A case-control study was performed at the Department of Children and Adolescent Health and Maternal Care,School of Public Health,Tongji Medical College,Huazhong University of Science and Technology between March and June 2007.PARTICIPANTS:A total of 75 primary school students in grades 3 and 5 were selected from two primary schools in Wuhan City,Hubei province,China,and were assigned to three groups.(1) Reading disability (RD,n=25);(2) chronological age (CA) group (n=25 normal readers that were intelligence quotient and age-matched to the RD group);(3) reading level (RL) group (n=25 normal readers that were intelligence quotient and RL-matched to the RD group).All children were right-handed and had normal or corrected-to-normal vision.METHODS:Recognition of target characters was performed in each child using a masked prime paradigm.Recognition speed and accuracy of graphic,phonological,and semantic characters were examined.Simultaneously,data,with respect to response time for each target character and error rate,were recorded to calculate facilitation values (unrelated RT-related RT).MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES:Response time,facilitation,and error rate in Chinese character recognition task were calculated.RESULTS:The baseline-adjusted facilitation of graphic,phonological,and semantic priming for dyslexic children was -0.010,-0.010,and 0.001,respectively.Dyslexic children displayed inhibition in graphic and phonological prime conditions.Facilitations under the three prime conditions were 0.026,0.026,and 0.022 for the CA group.In the RL group,results were 0.062,0.058,and 0.031 respectively.The differences of baseline

The effects of divided attention on auditory priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Mulligan, Neil W; Duke, Marquinn; Cooper, Angela W

2007-09-01

Traditional theorizing stresses the importance of attentional state during encoding for later memory, based primarily on research with explicit memory. Recent research has begun to investigate the role of attention in implicit memory but has focused almost exclusively on priming in the visual modality. The present experiments examined the effect of divided attention on auditory implicit memory, using auditory perceptual identification, word-stem completion and word-fragment completion. Participants heard study words under full attention conditions or while simultaneously carrying out a distractor task (the divided attention condition). In Experiment 1, a distractor task with low response frequency failed to disrupt later auditory priming (but diminished explicit memory as assessed with auditory recognition). In Experiment 2, a distractor task with greater response frequency disrupted priming on all three of the auditory priming tasks as well as the explicit test. These results imply that although auditory priming is less reliant on attention than explicit memory, it is still greatly affected by at least some divided-attention manipulations. These results are consistent with research using visual priming tasks and have relevance for hypotheses regarding attention and auditory priming.

Affective priming using facial expressions modulates liking for abstract art.

Science.gov (United States)

Flexas, Albert; Rosselló, Jaume; Christensen, Julia F; Nadal, Marcos; Olivera La Rosa, Antonio; Munar, Enric

2013-01-01

We examined the influence of affective priming on the appreciation of abstract artworks using an evaluative priming task. Facial primes (showing happiness, disgust or no emotion) were presented under brief (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA = 20 ms) and extended (SOA = 300 ms) conditions. Differences in aesthetic liking for abstract paintings depending on the emotion expressed in the preceding primes provided a measure of the priming effect. The results showed that, for the extended SOA, artworks were liked more when preceded by happiness primes and less when preceded by disgust primes. Facial expressions of happiness, though not of disgust, exerted similar effects in the brief SOA condition. Subjective measures and a forced-choice task revealed no evidence of prime awareness in the suboptimal condition. Our results are congruent with findings showing that the affective transfer elicited by priming biases evaluative judgments, extending previous research to the domain of aesthetic appreciation.

Affective priming using facial expressions modulates liking for abstract art.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Albert Flexas

Full Text Available We examined the influence of affective priming on the appreciation of abstract artworks using an evaluative priming task. Facial primes (showing happiness, disgust or no emotion were presented under brief (Stimulus Onset Asynchrony, SOA = 20 ms and extended (SOA = 300 ms conditions. Differences in aesthetic liking for abstract paintings depending on the emotion expressed in the preceding primes provided a measure of the priming effect. The results showed that, for the extended SOA, artworks were liked more when preceded by happiness primes and less when preceded by disgust primes. Facial expressions of happiness, though not of disgust, exerted similar effects in the brief SOA condition. Subjective measures and a forced-choice task revealed no evidence of prime awareness in the suboptimal condition. Our results are congruent with findings showing that the affective transfer elicited by priming biases evaluative judgments, extending previous research to the domain of aesthetic appreciation.

Object color affects identification and repetition priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Uttl, Bob; Graf, Peter; Santacruz, Pilar

2006-10-01

We investigated the influence of color on the identification of both non-studied and studied objects. Participants studied black and white and color photos of common objects and memory was assessed with an identification test. Consistent with our meta-analysis of prior research, we found that objects were easier to identify from color than from black and white photos. We also found substantial priming in all conditions, and study-to-test changes in an object's color reduced the magnitude of priming. Color-specific priming effects were large for color-complex objects, but minimal for color-simple objects. The pattern and magnitude of priming effects was not influenced either by the extent to which an object always appears in the same color (i.e., whether a color is symptomatic of an object) or by the object's origin (natural versus fabricated). We discuss the implications of our findings for theoretical accounts of object perception and repetition priming.

Australia's First Prime Ministerial Library: Past and Future

Science.gov (United States)

Carman-Brown, Lesley; Henderson, Kandy-Jane; Wallace, Lesley

2005-01-01

In creating Australia's first prime ministerial library, a new cultural institution was developed which blends professional practice from the fields of librarianship, education, archives, journalism and museums. The John Curtin Prime Ministerial Library honours the contribution of wartime prime minister John Curtin, works towards the advancement…

A computational approach to negative priming

Science.gov (United States)

Schrobsdorff, H.; Ihrke, M.; Kabisch, B.; Behrendt, J.; Hasselhorn, M.; Herrmann, J. Michael

2007-09-01

Priming is characterized by a sensitivity of reaction times to the sequence of stimuli in psychophysical experiments. The reduction of the reaction time observed in positive priming is well-known and experimentally understood (Scarborough et al., J. Exp. Psycholol: Hum. Percept. Perform., 3, pp. 1-17, 1977). Negative priming—the opposite effect—is experimentally less tangible (Fox, Psychonom. Bull. Rev., 2, pp. 145-173, 1995). The dependence on subtle parameter changes (such as response-stimulus interval) usually varies. The sensitivity of the negative priming effect bears great potential for applications in research in fields such as memory, selective attention, and ageing effects. We develop and analyse a computational realization, CISAM, of a recent psychological model for action decision making, the ISAM (Kabisch, PhD thesis, Friedrich-Schiller-Universitat, 2003), which is sensitive to priming conditions. With the dynamical systems approach of the CISAM, we show that a single adaptive threshold mechanism is sufficient to explain both positive and negative priming effects. This is achieved by comparing results obtained by the computational modelling with experimental data from our laboratory. The implementation provides a rich base from which testable predictions can be derived, e.g. with respect to hitherto untested stimulus combinations (e.g. single-object trials).

The effect of unimodal affective priming on dichotic emotion recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Voyer, Daniel; Myles, Daniel

2017-11-15

The present report concerns two experiments extending to unimodal priming the cross-modal priming effects observed with auditory emotions by Harding and Voyer [(2016). Laterality effects in cross-modal affective priming. Laterality: Asymmetries of Body, Brain and Cognition, 21, 585-605]. Experiment 1 used binaural targets to establish the presence of the priming effect and Experiment 2 used dichotically presented targets to examine auditory asymmetries. In Experiment 1, 82 university students completed a task in which binaural targets consisting of one of 4 English words inflected in one of 4 emotional tones were preceded by binaural primes consisting of one of 4 Mandarin words pronounced in the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) emotional tones. Trials where the prime emotion was congruent with the target emotion showed faster responses and higher accuracy in identifying the target emotion. In Experiment 2, 60 undergraduate students participated and the target was presented dichotically instead of binaurally. Primes congruent with the left ear produced a large left ear advantage, whereas right congruent primes produced a right ear advantage. These results indicate that unimodal priming produces stronger effects than those observed under cross-modal priming. The findings suggest that priming should likely be considered a strong top-down influence on laterality effects.

Path Dependency

OpenAIRE

Mark Setterfield

2015-01-01

Path dependency is defined, and three different specific concepts of path dependency – cumulative causation, lock in, and hysteresis – are analyzed. The relationships between path dependency and equilibrium, and path dependency and fundamental uncertainty are also discussed. Finally, a typology of dynamical systems is developed to clarify these relationships.

Stress priming in picture naming: an SOA study.

Science.gov (United States)

Schiller, Niels O; Fikkert, Paula; Levelt, Clara C

2004-01-01

This study investigates whether or not the representation of lexical stress information can be primed during speech production. In four experiments, we attempted to prime the stress position of bisyllabic target nouns (picture names) having initial and final stress with auditory prime words having either the same or different stress as the target (e.g., WORtel-MOtor vs. koSTUUM-MOtor; capital letters indicate stressed syllables in prime-target pairs). Furthermore, half of the prime words were semantically related, the other half unrelated. Overall, picture names were not produced faster when the prime word had the same stress as the target than when the prime had different stress, i.e., there was no stress-priming effect in any experiment. This result would not be expected if stress were stored in the lexicon. However, targets with initial stress were responded to faster than final-stress targets. The reason for this effect was neither the quality of the pictures nor frequency of occurrence or voice-key characteristics. We hypothesize here that this stress effect is a genuine encoding effect, i.e., words with stress on the second syllable take longer to be encoded because their stress pattern is irregular with respect to the lexical distribution of bisyllabic stress patterns, even though it can be regular with respect to metrical stress rules in Dutch. The results of the experiments are discussed in the framework of models of phonological encoding.

Specific and non-specific match effects in negative priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Labossière, Danielle I; Leboe-McGowan, Jason P

2018-01-01

The negative priming effect occurs when withholding a response to a stimulus impairs generation of subsequent responding to a same or a related stimulus. Our goal was to use the negative priming procedure to obtain insights about the memory representations generated by ignoring vs. attending/responding to a prime stimulus. Across three experiments we observed that ignoring a prime stimulus tends to generate higher identity-independent, non-specific repetition effects, owing to an overlap in the coarse perceptual form of a prime distractor and a probe target. By contrast, attended repetition effects generate predominantly identity-specific sources of facilitation. We use these findings to advocate for using laboratory phenomena to illustrate general principles that can be of practical use to non-specialists. In the case of the negative priming procedure, we propose that the procedure provides a useful means for investigating attention/memory interactions, even if the specific cause (or causes) of negative priming effects remain unresolved. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The impact of auditory white noise on semantic priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Angwin, Anthony J; Wilson, Wayne J; Copland, David A; Barry, Robert J; Myatt, Grace; Arnott, Wendy L

2018-04-10

It has been proposed that white noise can improve cognitive performance for some individuals, particularly those with lower attention, and that this effect may be mediated by dopaminergic circuitry. Given existing evidence that semantic priming is modulated by dopamine, this study investigated whether white noise can facilitate semantic priming. Seventy-eight adults completed an auditory semantic priming task with and without white noise, at either a short or long inter-stimulus interval (ISI). Measures of both direct and indirect semantic priming were examined. Analysis of the results revealed significant direct and indirect priming effects at each ISI in noise and silence, however noise significantly reduced the magnitude of indirect priming. Analyses of subgroups with higher versus lower attention revealed a reduction to indirect priming in noise relative to silence for participants with lower executive and orienting attention. These findings suggest that white noise focuses automatic spreading activation, which may be driven by modulation of dopaminergic circuitry. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A synergy-driven approach to a myoelectric hand.

Science.gov (United States)

Godfrey, S B; Ajoudani, A; Catalano, M; Grioli, G; Bicchi, A

2013-06-01

In this paper, we present the Pisa/IIT SoftHand with myoelectric control as a synergy-driven approach for a prosthetic hand. Commercially available myoelectric hands are more expensive, heavier, and less robust than their body-powered counterparts; however, they can offer greater freedom of motion and a more aesthetically pleasing appearance. The Pisa/IIT SoftHand is built on the motor control principle of synergies through which the immense complexity of the hand is simplified into distinct motor patterns. As the SoftHand grasps, it follows a synergistic path with built-in flexibility to allow grasping of a wide variety of objects with a single motor. Here we test, as a proof-of-concept, 4 myoelectric controllers: a standard controller in which the EMG signal is used only as a position reference, an impedance controller that determines both position and stiffness references from the EMG input, a standard controller with vibrotactile force feedback, and finally a combined vibrotactile-impedance (VI) controller. Four healthy subjects tested the control algorithms by grasping various objects. All controllers were sufficient for basic grasping, however the impedance and vibrotactile controllers reduced the physical and cognitive load on the user, while the combined VI mode was the easiest to use of the four. While these results need to be validated with amputees, they suggest a low-cost, robust hand employing hardware-based synergies is a viable alternative to traditional myoelectric prostheses.

G-CSF-primed BM for allogeneic SCT: revisited.

Science.gov (United States)

Pessach, I; Resnick, I; Shimoni, A; Nagler, A

2015-07-01

G-SCF-mobilized PBSC (GPB) grafts have a higher cell dose and somewhat more committed progenitor cells than steady-state BM (SBM), resulting in faster engraftment and faster immunological reconstitution. On the other hand, transplant related mortality (TRM), disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) are similar both for PB and for BM. In contrast to SBM, G-CSF-primed BM (GBM) grafts stimulate HSC proliferation, increasing cell dose and thus resulting in faster engraftment because of higher cell dose infused, or because of treatment with G-CSF. Furthermore, GBM may induce tolerance and functional modulations in donor hematopoiesis and immunity, further reducing GVHD incidence, which is already lower with SBM compared with GPB grafts. Overall, a growing body of clinical evidence suggests that GBM transplants may share the advantages of GPB transplantations, without the associated increased risk of GVHD, and might be an attractive graft source for allogeneic SCTs.

Bounded Gaps between Products of Special Primes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Ngai Chung

2014-03-01

Full Text Available In their breakthrough paper in 2006, Goldston, Graham, Pintz and Yıldırım proved several results about bounded gaps between products of two distinct primes. Frank Thorne expanded on this result, proving bounded gaps in the set of square-free numbers with r prime factors for any r ≥ 2, all of which are in a given set of primes. His results yield applications to the divisibility of class numbers and the triviality of ranks of elliptic curves. In this paper, we relax the condition on the number of prime factors and prove an analogous result using a modified approach. We then revisit Thorne’s applications and give a better bound in each case.

Negative Priming in Free Recall Reconsidered

Science.gov (United States)

Hanczakowski, Maciej; Beaman, C. Philip; Jones, Dylan M.

2016-01-01

Negative priming in free recall is the finding of impaired memory performance when previously ignored auditory distracters become targets of encoding and retrieval. This negative priming has been attributed to an aftereffect of deploying inhibitory mechanisms that serve to suppress auditory distraction and minimize interference with learning and…

Novel Word Lexicalization and the Prime Lexicality Effect

Science.gov (United States)

Qiao, Xiaomei; Forster, Kenneth I.

2013-01-01

This study investigates how newly learned words are integrated into the first-language lexicon using masked priming. Two lexical decision experiments are reported, with the aim of establishing whether newly learned words behave like real words in a masked form priming experiment. If they do, they should show a prime lexicality effect (PLE), in…

Identity negative priming: a phenomenon of perception, recognition or selection?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hecke Schrobsdorff

Full Text Available The present study addresses the problem whether negative priming (NP is due to information processing in perception, recognition or selection. We argue that most NP studies confound priming and perceptual similarity of prime-probe episodes and implement a color-switch paradigm in order to resolve the issue. In a series of three identity negative priming experiments with verbal naming response, we determined when NP and positive priming (PP occur during a trial. The first experiment assessed the impact of target color on priming effects. It consisted of two blocks, each with a different fixed target color. With respect to target color no differential priming effects were found. In Experiment 2 the target color was indicated by a cue for each trial. Here we resolved the confounding of perceptual similarity and priming condition. In trials with coinciding colors for prime and probe, we found priming effects similar to Experiment 1. However, trials with a target color switch showed such effects only in trials with role-reversal (distractor-to-target or target-to-distractor, whereas the positive priming (PP effect in the target-repetition trials disappeared. Finally, Experiment 3 split trial processing into two phases by presenting the trial-wise color cue only after the stimulus objects had been recognized. We found recognition in every priming condition to be faster than in control trials. We were hence led to the conclusion that PP is strongly affected by perception, in contrast to NP which emerges during selection, i.e., the two effects cannot be explained by a single mechanism.

Can False Memories Prime Problem Solutions?

Science.gov (United States)

Howe, Mark L.; Garner, Sarah R.; Dewhurst, Stephen A.; Ball, Linden J.

2010-01-01

Previous research has suggested that false memories can prime performance on related implicit and explicit memory tasks. The present research examined whether false memories can also be used to prime higher order cognitive processes, namely, insight-based problem solving. Participants were asked to solve a number of compound remote associate task…

Quivers of Bound Path Algebras and Bound Path Coalgebras

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dr. Intan Muchtadi

2010-09-01

Full Text Available bras and coalgebras can be represented as quiver (directed graph, and from quiver we can construct algebras and coalgebras called path algebras and path coalgebras. In this paper we show that the quiver of a bound path coalgebra (resp. algebra is the dual quiver of its bound path algebra (resp. coalgebra.

Fractional path planning and path tracking

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Melchior, P.; Jallouli-Khlif, R.; Metoui, B.

2011-01-01

This paper presents the main results of the application of fractional approach in path planning and path tracking. A new robust path planning design for mobile robot was studied in dynamic environment. The normalized attractive force applied to the robot is based on a fictitious fractional attractive potential. This method allows to obtain robust path planning despite robot mass variation. The danger level of each obstacles is characterized by the fractional order of the repulsive potential of the obstacles. Under these conditions, the robot dynamic behavior was studied by analyzing its X - Y path planning with dynamic target or dynamic obstacles. The case of simultaneously mobile obstacles and target is also considered. The influence of the robot mass variation is studied and the robustness analysis of the obtained path shows the robustness improvement due to the non integer order properties. Pre shaping approach is used to reduce system vibration in motion control. Desired systems inputs are altered so that the system finishes the requested move without residual vibration. This technique, developed by N.C. Singer and W.P.Seering, is used for flexible structure control, particularly in the aerospace field. In a previous work, this method was extended for explicit fractional derivative systems and applied to second generation CRONE control, the robustness was also studied. CRONE (the French acronym of C ommande Robuste d'Ordre Non Entier ) control system design is a frequency-domain based methodology using complex fractional integration.

Affective Priming in Major Depressive Disorder

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joelle eLeMoult

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Research on cognitive biases in depression has provided considerable evidence for the impact of emotion on cognition. Individuals with depression tend to preferentially process mood-congruent material and to show deficits in the processing of positive material leading to biases in attention, memory, and judgments. More research is needed, however, to fully understand which cognitive processes are affected. The current study further examines the impact of emotion on cognition using a priming design with facial expressions of emotion. Specifically, this study tested whether the presentation of facial expressions of emotion affects subsequent processing of affective material in participants with major depressive disorder (MDD and healthy controls (CTL. Facial expressions displaying happy, sad, angry, disgusted, or neutral expressions were presented as primes for 500ms, and participants’ speed to identify a subsequent target’s emotional expression was assessed. All participants displayed greater interference from emotional versus neutral primes, marked by slower response times to judge the emotion of the target face when it was preceded by an emotional prime. Importantly, the CTL group showed the strongest interference when happy emotional expressions served as primes whereas the MDD group failed to show this bias. These results add to a growing literature that shows that depression is associated with difficulties in the processing of positive material.

Instant PrimeFaces starter

CERN Document Server

Hlavats, Ian

2013-01-01

Get to grips with a new technology, understand what it is and what it can do for you, and then get to work with the most important features and tasks. Instant Primefaces Starter is a fast-paced, introductory guide designed to give you all the information you need to start using Primfaces, instantly.Instant PrimeFaces Starter is great for developers looking to get started quickly with PrimeFaces. It's assumed that you have some JSF experience already, as well as familiarity with other Java technologies such as CDI and JPA and an understanding of MVC principles, object-relational mapping (ORM),

Facial expression primes and implicit regulation of negative emotion.

Science.gov (United States)

Yoon, HeungSik; Kim, Shin Ah; Kim, Sang Hee

2015-06-17

An individual's responses to emotional information are influenced not only by the emotional quality of the information, but also by the context in which the information is presented. We hypothesized that facial expressions of happiness and anger would serve as primes to modulate subjective and neural responses to subsequently presented negative information. To test this hypothesis, we conducted a functional MRI study in which the brains of healthy adults were scanned while they performed an emotion-rating task. During the task, participants viewed a series of negative and neutral photos, one at a time; each photo was presented after a picture showing a face expressing a happy, angry, or neutral emotion. Brain imaging results showed that compared with neutral primes, happy facial primes increased activation during negative emotion in the dorsal anterior cingulated cortex and the right ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, which are typically implicated in conflict detection and implicit emotion control, respectively. Conversely, relative to neutral primes, angry primes activated the right middle temporal gyrus and the left supramarginal gyrus during the experience of negative emotion. Activity in the amygdala in response to negative emotion was marginally reduced after exposure to happy primes compared with angry primes. Relative to neutral primes, angry facial primes increased the subjectively experienced intensity of negative emotion. The current study results suggest that prior exposure to facial expressions of emotions modulates the subsequent experience of negative emotion by implicitly activating the emotion-regulation system.

Masked priming for the comparative evaluation of camouflage conspicuity.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunyé, Tad T; Eddy, Marianna D; Cain, Matthew S; Hepfinger, Lisa B; Rock, Kathryn

2017-07-01

Human observer test and evaluation of camouflage patterns is critical for understanding relative pattern conspicuity against a range of background scenes. However, very few validated methodologies exist for this purpose, and those that do carry several limitations. Five experiments examined whether masked priming with a dot probe could be used to reliably differentiate camouflage patterns. In each experiment, participants were primed with a camouflaged target appearing on the left or right of the screen, and then made a speeded response to a dot probe appearing on the same (congruent) or different (incongruent) side. Across experiments we parametrically varied prime duration between 35, 42, 49, 56, and 63 ms. Results demonstrated that as prime duration increased, a response time disadvantage for incongruent trials emerged with certain camouflage patterns. Interestingly, the most conspicuous patterns showed behavioral differences at a relatively brief (49 ms) prime duration, whereas behavioral differences were only found at longer prime durations for less conspicuous patterns; this overall results pattern matched that predicted by a visual salience model. Together, we demonstrate the viability of masked priming for the test and evaluation of camouflage patterns, and correlated outcomes for saliency models and primed object processing. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Long-term repetition priming with symmetrical polygons and words.

Science.gov (United States)

Kersteen-Tucker, Z

1991-01-01

In two different tasks, subjects were asked to make lexical decisions (word or nonword) and symmetry judgments (symmetrical or nonsymmetrical) about two-dimensional polygons. In both tasks, every stimulus was repeated at one of four lags (0, 1, 4, or 8 items interposed between the first and second stimulus presentations). This paradigm, known as repetition priming, revealed comparable short-term priming (Lag 0) and long-term priming (Lags 1, 4, and 8) both for symmetrical polygons and for words. A shorter term component (Lags 0 and 1) of priming was observed for nonwords, and only very short-term priming (Lag 0) was observed for nonsymmetrical polygons. These results indicate that response facilitation accruing from repeated exposure can be observed for stimuli that have no preexisting memory representations and suggest that perceptual factors contribute to repetition-priming effects.

Semantic Priming for Coordinate Distant Concepts in Alzheimer's Disease Patients

Science.gov (United States)

Perri, R.; Zannino, G. D.; Caltagirone, C.; Carlesimo, G. A.

2011-01-01

Semantic priming paradigms have been used to investigate semantic knowledge in patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). While priming effects produced by prime-target pairs with associative relatedness reflect processes at both lexical and semantic levels, priming effects produced by words that are semantically related but not associated should…

Syntactic Priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Nicol, Janet L.

1996-01-01

Reviews the syntactic priming task, a paradigm involving the presentation of a phrasal or clausal context, followed by the presentation of a target item for lexical decision or naming. Notes that response times are faster for targets syntactically congruent with the preceding context than for incongruent targets. Outlines how to administer this…

A prime a day keeps calories away: The effects of supraliminal priming on food consumption and the moderating role of gender and eating restraint.

Science.gov (United States)

Minas, Randall K; Poor, Morgan; Dennis, Alan R; Bartelt, Valerie L

2016-10-01

The link between intentions and action in weight control is weaker than previously thought, so recent research has called for further investigation of ways to improve weight control that bypass conscious intentions. Priming has been shown to have effects on individual behavior in a variety of contexts by influencing subconscious cognition. This paper investigates the effects of semantic priming using healthy body image, goal-oriented words on food consumption. The moderating role of both restrained eating and gender is investigated. 161 participants were involved in an experiment using a novel version of a scrambled sentence priming game. The outcome measure was the number of kilocalories consumed, examined using a between subjects ANCOVA with priming, gender, restrained eating index, self-reported BMI, and two interaction terms (primingxgender, and primingxrestrained eating index). There was no main effect of priming but there was an interaction of priming with gender. Females consumed significantly fewer kilocalories after being exposed to priming words related to a healthy body image (i.e. "slim", "fit,") compared to females receiving the neutral prime, with a medium effect size (d = 0.58). The body image prime did not significantly affect food intake for males, nor did it have a differential effect on restrained eaters. This study shows that priming can be an effective method for influencing females to reduce food intake, regardless of whether they are restrained or unrestrained eaters. Future studies could investigate whether different priming words related to a male's healthy body image goal (i.e. "buff," "muscles," etc.) would similarly reduce food intake for males. Copyright © 2016. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Euclidean Primes Have the Minimum Number of Primitive Roots

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Křížek, Michal; Somer, L.

2008-01-01

Roč. 12, č. 1 (2008), s. 121-127 ISSN 0972-5555 R&D Projects: GA AV ČR(CZ) IAA100190803 Institutional research plan: CEZ:AV0Z10190503 Keywords : Euclidean primes * Fermat primes * Sophie Germain primes Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics

Italy's Prime Minister visits CERN

CERN Multimedia

Stefania Pandolfi

2015-01-01

On Tuesday, 7 July 2015, the Prime Minister of the Italian Republic, Matteo Renzi, visited CERN. He was accompanied by a delegation that included Italy's Minister for Education, University and Research, Stefania Giannini.   From left to right: Fernando Ferroni, President of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN); Sergio Bertolucci, CERN Director for Research and Scientific Computing; Stefania Giannini, Italy's Minister of Education, University and Research; Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of the Italian Republic; Fabiola Gianotti, CERN Director-General Designate; Rolf Heuer, CERN Director-General.   The Prime Minister was welcomed by members of the CERN Management together with former CERN Director-General and Senator for Life of the Italian Republic, Carlo Rubbia. After a brief general introduction to CERN’s activities by Rolf Heuer, the Italian delegation visited LHC Point 1. After a tour of the ATLAS control room, they donned helmets to visit th...

Prime alternative algebras that are nearly commutative

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pchelintsev, S V

2004-01-01

We prove that by deforming the multiplication in a prime commutative alternative algebra using a C-operation we obtain a prime non-commutative alternative algebra. Under certain restrictions on non-commutative algebras this relation between algebras is reversible. Isotopes are special cases of deformations. We introduce and study a linear space generated by the Bruck C-operations. We prove that the Bruck space is generated by operations of rank 1 and 2 and that 'general' Bruck operations of rank 2 are independent in the following sense: a sum of n operations of rank 2 cannot be written as a linear combination of (n-1) operations of rank 2 and an arbitrary operation of rank 1. We describe infinite series of non-isomorphic prime non-commutative algebras of bounded degree that are deformations of a concrete prime commutative algebra

Syntactic Variance and Priming Effects in Translation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bangalore, Srinivas; Behrens, Bergljot; Carl, Michael

2016-01-01

The present work investigates the relationship between syntactic variation and priming in translation. It is based on the claim that languages share a common cognitive network of neural activity. When the source and target languages are solicited in a translation context, this shared network can...... lead to facilitation effects, so-called priming effects. We suggest that priming is a default setting in translation, a special case of language use where source and target languages are constantly co-activated. Such priming effects are not restricted to lexical elements, but do also occur...... on the syntactic level. We tested these hypotheses with translation data from the TPR database, more specifically for three language pairs (English-German, English-Danish, and English-Spanish). Our results show that response times are shorter when syntactic structures are shared. The model explains this through...

The Nature of Affective Priming in Music and Speech

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Goerlich, K.S.; Witteman, J.; Schiller, N.O.; Van Heuven, V.J.; Aleman, A.; Martens, S.

The phenomenon of affective priming has caught scientific interest for over 30 years, yet the nature of the affective priming effect remains elusive. This study investigated the underlying mechanism of cross-modal affective priming and the influence of affective incongruence in music and speech on

THE PATH TO JOB SATISFACTION. APPLYING THE THEORY OF PURPOSEFUL BEHAVIOR TO MILITARY CONDITIONS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johan ÖSTERBERG

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to examine the relationships between, on one hand, personality and performance orientation and, on the other, job satisfaction and turnover intentions, using Barrick’s et al. theory of purposeful behavior. Using a questionnaire, data about job satisfaction, performance orientation and turnover intentions were collected from 300 newly recruited Swedish soldiers. A path analysis gave partial, but not full support to the assumptions behind the theory of purposeful behavior model. No relationships were found between the personality traits of emotional stability and conscientiousness, nor to either performance orientation or directly to job satisfaction. On the other hand, performance orientation showed a consistent relationship to perceived levels of the job characteristics, which mediated the path between the person-related variables and the outcome variables. Performance orientation also showed a strong direct relationship to general job satisfaction, which, in turn, was strongly related to turnover intentions.

Improving Consumer Decisions: The Conscious Use of Primes as Performance Enhancers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Leonardo Nicolao

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Through this article we examine ways through which consumers can take advantage of marketers’ priming attempts and make better decisions. Specifically, we investigate what happens when individuals are made aware of primes that may potentially improve their performance. Using an Embedded Figures Test, we demonstrate that individuals can be consciously primed into an analytic thinking mindset and perform better when they believe that the prime will enhance performance. Individuals are able to successfully ignore the prime when they believe that the prime hinders performance. Utilizing both holistic and analytic primes and by alternating the valence of the prime’s potential outcome, we are able to disentangle the conscious effects of primes from demand effects. We discuss how these findings may lead to and suggest avenues for future research.

Persistent Structural Priming from Language Comprehension to Language Production

Science.gov (United States)

Bock, Kathryn; Dell, Gary S.; Chang, Franklin; Onishi, Kristine H.

2007-01-01

To examine the relationship between syntactic processes in language comprehension and language production, we compared structural persistence from sentence primes that speakers heard to persistence from primes that speakers produced. [Bock, J. K., & Griffin, Z. M. (2000). The persistence of structural priming: transient activation or implicit…

Effects of Religious Priming Concepts on Prosocial Behavior Towards Ingroup and Outgroup.

Science.gov (United States)

Batara, Jame Bryan L; Franco, Pamela S; Quiachon, Mequia Angelo M; Sembrero, Dianelle Rose M

2016-11-01

Several studies show that there is a connection between religion and prosociality (e.g., Saroglou, 2013). To investigate whether there is a causal relationship between these two variables, a growing number of scholars employed priming religious concepts and measure its influence on prosocial behavior (e.g., Pichon, Boccato, & Saroglou, 2007). In the recent development of religious priming, Ritter and Preston (2013) argued that different primes (agent prime, spiritual/abstract prime, and institutional prime) may also have varying influence on prosocial behavior specifically helping an ingroup or an outgroup target. With this in mind, a 2 (social categorization of the target of help) by 3 (agent prime, institutional prime, spiritual prime) experiment was conducted to directly investigate this hypothesis. Results suggest that priming religious concepts especially the spiritual prime can increase prosocial behaviors. However, no significant effect was found on the social categorization which implies that Filipino participants elicit prosocial behavior regardless of the social categorization (be it ingroup or outgroup) of the target of help. The present study's findings contribute to further the literature on religious priming and its influence on prosocial behavior.

Arithmetically Related Ideal Topologies and the Infinitude of Primes ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

algebra. Mathematics Subject Classification (1991): 11N80, 11N25, 11A41, 11T99, 13A15, 20M25 Keywords: x-ideal, topological semigroup, ideal topology, infinitude of primes, generalized primes and integers, distribution, integers, specified multiplicative constraints, primes, ideals, multiplicative ideal theory, semigroup

Feynman's path integrals and Bohm's particle paths

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tumulka, Roderich

2005-01-01

Both Bohmian mechanics, a version of quantum mechanics with trajectories, and Feynman's path integral formalism have something to do with particle paths in space and time. The question thus arises how the two ideas relate to each other. In short, the answer is, path integrals provide a re-formulation of Schroedinger's equation, which is half of the defining equations of Bohmian mechanics. I try to give a clear and concise description of the various aspects of the situation. (letters and comments)

The influence of speed and grade on wheelchair propulsion hand pattern.

Science.gov (United States)

Slowik, Jonathan S; Requejo, Philip S; Mulroy, Sara J; Neptune, Richard R

2015-11-01

The hand pattern used during manual wheelchair propulsion (i.e., full-cycle hand path) can provide insight into an individual's propulsion technique. However, previous analyses of hand patterns have been limited by their focus on a single propulsion condition and reliance on subjective qualitative characterization methods. The purpose of this study was to develop a set of objective quantitative parameters to characterize hand patterns and determine the influence of propulsion speed and grade of incline on the patterns preferred by manual wheelchair users. Kinematic and kinetic data were collected from 170 experienced manual wheelchair users on an ergometer during three conditions: level propulsion at their self-selected speed, level propulsion at their fastest comfortable speed and graded propulsion (8%) at their level self-selected speed. Hand patterns were quantified using a set of objective parameters, and differences across conditions were identified. Increased propulsion speed resulted in a shift away from under-rim hand patterns. Increased grade of incline resulted in the hand remaining near the handrim throughout the cycle. Manual wheelchair users change their hand pattern based on task-specific constraints and goals. Further work is needed to investigate how differences between hand patterns influence upper extremity demand and potentially lead to the development of overuse injuries and pain. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Religious Priming: A Meta-Analysis With a Focus on Prosociality.

Science.gov (United States)

Shariff, Azim F; Willard, Aiyana K; Andersen, Teresa; Norenzayan, Ara

2016-02-01

Priming has emerged as a valuable tool within the psychological study of religion, allowing for tests of religion's causal effect on a number of psychological outcomes, such as prosocial behavior. As the literature has grown, questions about the reliability and boundary conditions of religious priming have arisen. We use a combination of traditional effect-size analyses, p-curve analyses, and adjustments for publication bias to evaluate the robustness of four types of religious priming (Analyses 1-3), review the empirical evidence for religion's effect specifically on prosocial behavior (Analyses 4-5), and test whether religious-priming effects generalize to individuals who report little or no religiosity (Analyses 6-7). Results across 93 studies and 11,653 participants show that religious priming has robust effects across a variety of outcome measures-prosocial measures included. Religious priming does not, however, reliably affect non-religious participants-suggesting that priming depends on the cognitive activation of culturally transmitted religious beliefs. © 2015 by the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc.

Promoting Physical Activity through Priming the Content of Motivation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tom St Quinton

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Non-conscious processes are important in influencing the performance of a number of behaviors, such as physical activity. One way that such processes can be influenced is through priming. Despite this, approaches within health psychology have predominantly focused on reflective processes with a number of psychological theories dedicated to identifying the predictors of intention. In doing so, critical beliefs and thoughts are first identified and then altered within interventions. Such work has shown limited effectiveness, however, with a gap apparent between what one intends to do and what subsequently ensues. Although there have been attempts to bridge this gap, such as theoretical integration, recent efforts include priming implicit processes. The aim of this commentary is to demonstrate the potential effectiveness of priming non-conscious processes and to suggest that the content of motivation should also succumb to priming influences. This brief review suggests that priming one of the most influential conscious processes, that of self-efficacy, could demonstrate particular effectiveness in promoting physical activity. Thus, the main purpose of the article is to suggest that the content of implicit processes as well their more traditional conscious counterparts may provide useful intervention targets. To achieve this, the article will first introduce the role of non-conscious processes and behavioral priming. Following this, the more common reflective processes will be outlined as well as attempts at theoretical integration. Finally, the article will identify studies priming non-conscious processes and will then suggest priming self-efficacy.

Multi-Dimensional Path Queries

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bækgaard, Lars

1998-01-01

to create nested path structures. We present an SQL-like query language that is based on path expressions and we show how to use it to express multi-dimensional path queries that are suited for advanced data analysis in decision support environments like data warehousing environments......We present the path-relationship model that supports multi-dimensional data modeling and querying. A path-relationship database is composed of sets of paths and sets of relationships. A path is a sequence of related elements (atoms, paths, and sets of paths). A relationship is a binary path...

Method for priming and DNA sequencing

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Mugasimangalam, R.C.; Ulanovsky, L.E.

1997-12-01

A method is presented for improving the priming specificity of an oligonucleotide primer that is non-unique in a nucleic acid template which includes selecting a continuous stretch of several nucleotides in the template DNA where one of the four bases does not occur in the stretch. This also includes bringing the template DNA in contract with a non-unique primer partially or fully complimentary to the sequence immediately upstream of the selected sequence stretch. This results in polymerase-mediated differential extension of the primer in the presence of a subset of deoxyribonucleotide triphosphates that does not contain the base complementary to the base absent in the selected sequence stretch. These reactions occur at a temperature sufficiently low for allowing the extension of the non-unique primer. The method causes polymerase-mediated extension reactions in the presence of all four natural deoxyribonucleotide triphosphates or modifications. At this high temperature discrimination occurs against priming sites of the non-unique primer where the differential extension has not made the primer sufficiently stable to prime. However, the primer extended at the selected stretch is sufficiently stable to prime.

Auditory phonological priming in children and adults during word repetition

Science.gov (United States)

Cleary, Miranda; Schwartz, Richard G.

2004-05-01

Short-term auditory phonological priming effects involve changes in the speed with which words are processed by a listener as a function of recent exposure to other similar-sounding words. Activation of phonological/lexical representations appears to persist beyond the immediate offset of a word, influencing subsequent processing. Priming effects are commonly cited as demonstrating concurrent activation of word/phonological candidates during word identification. Phonological priming is controversial, the direction of effects (facilitating versus slowing) varying with the prime-target relationship. In adults, it has repeatedly been demonstrated, however, that hearing a prime word that rhymes with the following target word (ISI=50 ms) decreases the time necessary to initiate repetition of the target, relative to when the prime and target have no phonemic overlap. Activation of phonological representations in children has not typically been studied using this paradigm, auditory-word + picture-naming tasks being used instead. The present study employed an auditory phonological priming paradigm being developed for use with normal-hearing and hearing-impaired children. Initial results from normal-hearing adults replicate previous reports of faster naming times for targets following a rhyming prime word than for targets following a prime having no phonemes in common. Results from normal-hearing children will also be reported. [Work supported by NIH-NIDCD T32DC000039.

Polygonal-path approximations on the path spaces of quantum-mechanical systems: properties of the polygonal paths

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Exner, P.; Kolerov, G.I.

1981-01-01

Properties of the subset of polygonal paths in the Hilbert space H of paths referring to a d-dimensional quantum-mechanical system are examined. Using the reproduction kernel technique we prove that each element of H is approximated by polygonal paths uniformly with respect to the ''norm'' of time-interval partitions. This result will be applied in the second part of the present paper to prove consistency of the uniform polygonal-path extension of the Feynman maps [ru

Effects of Religious Priming Concepts on Prosocial Behavior Towards Ingroup and Outgroup

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jame Bryan L. Batara

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Several studies show that there is a connection between religion and prosociality (e.g., Saroglou, 2013. To investigate whether there is a causal relationship between these two variables, a growing number of scholars employed priming religious concepts and measure its influence on prosocial behavior (e.g., Pichon, Boccato, & Saroglou, 2007. In the recent development of religious priming, Ritter and Preston (2013 argued that different primes (agent prime, spiritual/abstract prime, and institutional prime may also have varying influence on prosocial behavior specifically helping an ingroup or an outgroup target. With this in mind, a 2 (social categorization of the target of help by 3 (agent prime, institutional prime, spiritual prime experiment was conducted to directly investigate this hypothesis. Results suggest that priming religious concepts especially the spiritual prime can increase prosocial behaviors. However, no significant effect was found on the social categorization which implies that Filipino participants elicit prosocial behavior regardless of the social categorization (be it ingroup or outgroup of the target of help. The present study’s findings contribute to further the literature on religious priming and its influence on prosocial behavior.

Stochastic resolution analysis of co-prime arrays in radar

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pribic, R; Coutiño Minguez, M.A.; Leus, G.J.T.

2016-01-01

Resolution from co-prime arrays and from a full ULA of the size equal to the virtual size of co-prime arrays is investigated. We take into account not only the resulting beam width but also the fact that fewer measurements are acquired by co-prime arrays. This fact is relevant in compressive

Associative priming in a masked perceptual identification task: evidence for automatic processes.

Science.gov (United States)

Pecher, Diane; Zeelenberg, René; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W

2002-10-01

Two experiments investigated the influence of automatic and strategic processes on associative priming effects in a perceptual identification task in which prime-target pairs are briefly presented and masked. In this paradigm, priming is defined as a higher percentage of correctly identified targets for related pairs than for unrelated pairs. In Experiment 1, priming was obtained for mediated word pairs. This mediated priming effect was affected neither by the presence of direct associations nor by the presentation time of the primes, indicating that automatic priming effects play a role in perceptual identification. Experiment 2 showed that the priming effect was not affected by the proportion (.90 vs. .10) of related pairs if primes were presented briefly to prevent their identification. However, a large proportion effect was found when primes were presented for 1000 ms so that they were clearly visible. These results indicate that priming in a masked perceptual identification task is the result of automatic processes and is not affected by strategies. The present paradigm provides a valuable alternative to more commonly used tasks such as lexical decision.

Minaturized disk bend tests of neutron-irradiated path A type alloys

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Lee, M.; Sohn, D.S.; Grant, N.J.; Harling, O.K.

1983-01-01

Path A Prime Candidate Alloy (PCA) has been rapidly solidified and consoliated by extrusion. Twenty percent CW samples, precision TEM disks, 3 phi x 0.254 mm, were irradiated in the mixed flux of the Oak Ridge HFIR reactor up to approx. 8.5 dpa (360 appm He) and approx. 34 dpa (3100 appm He) at 300, 400, 500 and 600 0 C. Similar samples of conventionally processed PCA were also irradiated for comparison. Mechanical properties were characterized using a minaturized disk bend test (MDBT) developed at MIT. These tests indicate major decreases in strength and ductility especially for the 500 and 600 0 C irradiations. No major differences were found between this first version of a rapidly solidified and extruded PCA type alloy and conventionally processed PCA

Suggestibility and negative priming: two replication studies.

Science.gov (United States)

David, Daniel; Brown, Richard J

2002-07-01

Research suggests that inhibiting the effect of irrelevant stimuli on subsequent thought and action (cognitive inhibition) may be an important component of suggestibility. Two small correlation studies were conducted to address the relationship between different aspects of suggestibility and individual differences in cognitive inhibition, operationalized as the degree of negative priming generated by to-be-ignored stimuli in a semantic categorization task. The first study found significant positive correlations between negative priming, hypnotic suggestibility, and creative imagination; a significant negative correlation was obtained between negative priming and interrogative suggestibility, demonstrating the discriminant validity of the study results. The second study replicated the correlation between negative priming and hypnotic suggestibility, using a different suggestibility measurement procedure that assessed subjective experience and hypnotic involuntariness as well as objective responses to suggestions. These studies support the notion that the ability to engage in cognitive inhibition may be an important component of hypnotic responsivity and maybe of other forms of suggestibility.

DNA polymerase preference determines PCR priming efficiency.

Science.gov (United States)

Pan, Wenjing; Byrne-Steele, Miranda; Wang, Chunlin; Lu, Stanley; Clemmons, Scott; Zahorchak, Robert J; Han, Jian

2014-01-30

Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is one of the most important developments in modern biotechnology. However, PCR is known to introduce biases, especially during multiplex reactions. Recent studies have implicated the DNA polymerase as the primary source of bias, particularly initiation of polymerization on the template strand. In our study, amplification from a synthetic library containing a 12 nucleotide random portion was used to provide an in-depth characterization of DNA polymerase priming bias. The synthetic library was amplified with three commercially available DNA polymerases using an anchored primer with a random 3' hexamer end. After normalization, the next generation sequencing (NGS) results of the amplified libraries were directly compared to the unamplified synthetic library. Here, high throughput sequencing was used to systematically demonstrate and characterize DNA polymerase priming bias. We demonstrate that certain sequence motifs are preferred over others as primers where the six nucleotide sequences at the 3' end of the primer, as well as the sequences four base pairs downstream of the priming site, may influence priming efficiencies. DNA polymerases in the same family from two different commercial vendors prefer similar motifs, while another commercially available enzyme from a different DNA polymerase family prefers different motifs. Furthermore, the preferred priming motifs are GC-rich. The DNA polymerase preference for certain sequence motifs was verified by amplification from single-primer templates. We incorporated the observed DNA polymerase preference into a primer-design program that guides the placement of the primer to an optimal location on the template. DNA polymerase priming bias was characterized using a synthetic library amplification system and NGS. The characterization of DNA polymerase priming bias was then utilized to guide the primer-design process and demonstrate varying amplification efficiencies among three commercially

Alcohol Primes, Expectancies, and the Working Self-Concept

Science.gov (United States)

Hicks, Joshua A.; Schlegel, Rebecca J.; Friedman, Ronald S.; McCarthy, Denis M.

2016-01-01

Previous research has shown that alcohol consumption can lead to momentary changes in the self-concept (e.g., Steele & Josephs, 1990). In two studies (n = 150), we examined whether the implicit activation of alcohol expectancies (i.e., sociability-related expectancies) would also lead to changes in self-perception. To test this idea, participants first completed a measure of sociability-related alcohol expectancies. In a subsequent laboratory session, participants were exposed to either alcohol-related primes (i.e., pictures or words associated with alcohol) or neutral primes. After the priming task, participants completed an ostensibly unrelated self-concept survey that contained words related to sociability (e.g., “outgoing”) and non-sociability related words (e.g., “clever”). For both studies, results revealed that sociability-related alcohol expectancies were positively associated with sociability-related self-concept ratings for participants exposed to alcohol primes, but not for participants exposed to the neutral primes. Implications for the role implicit self-concept activation may have on drinking behaviors are discussed. PMID:19769437

Visual Priming of Inverted and Rotated Objects

Science.gov (United States)

Knowlton, Barbara J.; McAuliffe, Sean P.; Coelho, Chase J.; Hummel, John E.

2009-01-01

Object images are identified more efficiently after prior exposure. Here, the authors investigated shape representations supporting object priming. The dependent measure in all experiments was the minimum exposure duration required to correctly identify an object image in a rapid serial visual presentation stream. Priming was defined as the change…

Priming in the Type I-F CRISPR-Cas system triggers strand-independent spacer acquisition, bi-directionally from the primed protospacer.

Science.gov (United States)

Richter, Corinna; Dy, Ron L; McKenzie, Rebecca E; Watson, Bridget N J; Taylor, Corinda; Chang, James T; McNeil, Matthew B; Staals, Raymond H J; Fineran, Peter C

2014-07-01

Clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR), in combination with CRISPR associated (cas) genes, constitute CRISPR-Cas bacterial adaptive immune systems. To generate immunity, these systems acquire short sequences of nucleic acids from foreign invaders and incorporate these into their CRISPR arrays as spacers. This adaptation process is the least characterized step in CRISPR-Cas immunity. Here, we used Pectobacterium atrosepticum to investigate adaptation in Type I-F CRISPR-Cas systems. Pre-existing spacers that matched plasmids stimulated hyperactive primed acquisition and resulted in the incorporation of up to nine new spacers across all three native CRISPR arrays. Endogenous expression of the cas genes was sufficient, yet required, for priming. The new spacers inhibited conjugation and transformation, and interference was enhanced with increasing numbers of new spacers. We analyzed ∼ 350 new spacers acquired in priming events and identified a 5'-protospacer-GG-3' protospacer adjacent motif. In contrast to priming in Type I-E systems, new spacers matched either plasmid strand and a biased distribution, including clustering near the primed protospacer, suggested a bi-directional translocation model for the Cas1:Cas2-3 adaptation machinery. Taken together these results indicate priming adaptation occurs in different CRISPR-Cas systems, that it can be highly active in wild-type strains and that the underlying mechanisms vary. © The Author(s) 2014. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Nucleic Acids Research.

[Neural correlates of priming in vision: evidence from neuropsychology and neuroimaging].

Science.gov (United States)

Kristjánsson, Arni

2005-04-01

When we look around us, we are overall more likely to notice objects that we have recently looked at; an effect known as priming. For example, when the color or shape of a visual search target is repeated, observers find the target faster than otherwise. Here I summarize recent research undertaken to uncover the temporary changes in brain activity that accompany these priming effects. In light of the fact that priming seems to have a large effect on how attention is allocated, we investigated priming effects in a visual search task on patients suffering from the neurological disorder "hemispatial neglect" in which patients typically fail to notice display items in one of their visual hemifields. Priming of target color was relatively normal for these patients, while priming of target location seemed to require awareness of the briefly presented visual search target. An experiment with functional magnetic resonance imaging of normal observers revealed that both color and location priming had a strong modulatory influence on attentional mechanisms of the frontal and parietal cortex. Color priming was also correlated with changes in activity in visual cortex as well as color processing areas in the temporal lobe. Location priming was correlated with changes in activity near the temporo- parietal junction and lateral inferior frontal cortex, areas that have been connected with attentional capture; which ties well with our finding of deficits of location priming for the neglect patients who indeed have lesions in the temporo-parietal junction. Overall, the results confirm the tight coupling of visual attention and priming in vision, and also that the visual areas of the brain show some modulation of activity as priming develops.

Natural gas prime movers: A prime income opportunity?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Katz, M.G.

1997-01-01

Although almost every factory, for example, uses compressed air to operate and control equipment--from power tools to packaging machinery--most air compressors are driven by electric motors. Similarly, although industry uses refrigeration for everything from freezing food to chilling warehouses to making chemicals and ice to operating skating rinks, natural gas powers only about 100 industrial refrigeration units in North America. But several factors are beginning to make natural gas more attractive as a prime mover. For one thing, the rising cost of electricity, with its demand or time-of-day and summer on-peak charges, has everyone looking for ways to cut their electric bills. At the same time, in the wake of deregulation of the nation's electric industry, customers can build on-site power plants that use natural gas to generate their own electricity, or have outside power suppliers or energy service companies (ESCOs) do it for them. Waste and exhaust heat, which can represent up to 60% of the total energy supplied from both engines and turbines, can be captured and used. Finally, growing concern over electric power outages has made natural gas more attractive for mission-critical operations, while new financing options let people buy and install natural gas prime movers more easily

The effects of the concreteness of differently valenced words on affective priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Zhao; Wang, Zhenhong

2013-07-01

This study aimed to determine whether affective priming is influenced by the concreteness of emotional words. To address this question, we conducted three experiments using lexical decision-priming task. In Experiment 1, positive-abstract (PA) and positive-concrete (PC) words were used as primes to examine the effect of the concreteness of positive words on affective priming, and in Experiment 2, negative-abstract (NA) and negative-concrete (NC) words were used as primes to examine the effect of the concreteness of negative words on affective priming. Results showed that participants responded faster to affectively congruent-abstract trails than incongruent-abstract trails in PA prime conditions, but for PC or negative word (NC and NA) prime conditions, there were no differences between the response times of congruent trails and incongruent trails. To examine the reliability of the priming effects observed in Experiments 1 and 2, we set up a neutral condition as a baseline in Experiment 3, through which we confirmed the difference in the affective priming effect between positive and negative primes in a concrete-abstract dimension. PA words were found to have the tendency to possess more emotional load and facilitate affective association between the prime and the target. The study finding suggests that aside from arousal and valence, the concreteness of positive words also has an impact on affective priming effect. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Oxygen transfer rate identifies priming compounds in parsley cells.

Science.gov (United States)

Schilling, Jana Viola; Schillheim, Britta; Mahr, Stefan; Reufer, Yannik; Sanjoyo, Sandi; Conrath, Uwe; Büchs, Jochen

2015-11-25

In modern agriculture, the call for an alternative crop protection strategy increases because of the desired reduction of fungicide and pesticide use and the continuously evolving resistance of pathogens and pests to agrochemicals. The direct activation of the plant immune system does not provide a promising plant protection measure because of high fitness costs. However, upon treatment with certain natural or synthetic compounds, plant cells can promote to a fitness cost-saving, primed state of enhanced defense. In the primed state, plants respond to biotic and abiotic stress with faster and stronger activation of defense, and this is often associated with immunity and abiotic stress tolerance. Until now, the identification of chemical compounds with priming-inducing activity (so-called plant activators) relied on tedious and invasive approaches, or required the late detection of secreted furanocoumarin phytoalexins in parsley cell cultures. Thus, simple, fast, straightforward, and noninvasive techniques for identifying priming-inducing compounds for plant protection are very welcome. This report demonstrates that a respiration activity-monitoring system (RAMOS) can identify compounds with defense priming-inducing activity in parsley cell suspension in culture. RAMOS relies on the quasi-continuous, noninvasive online determination of the oxygen transfer rate (OTR). Treatment of parsley culture cells with the known plant activator salicylic acid (SA), a natural plant defense signal, resulted in an OTR increase. Addition of the defense elicitor Pep13, a cell wall peptide of Phythophthora sojae, induced two distinctive OTR peaks that were higher in SA-primed cells than in unprimed cells upon Pep13 challenge. Both, the OTR increase after priming with SA and the Pep13 challenge were dose-dependent. Furthermore, there was a close correlation of a compound's activity to enhance the oxygen consumption in parsley cells and its capacity to prime Pep13-induced furanocoumarin

Measurement of Branching Fractions and Charge Asymmetries in B Meson Decays to eta(prime)K*, eta(prime)rho, and eta pi

CERN Document Server

Ford, W

2003-01-01

The present preliminary measurements of branching fractions and charge asymmetries for the B meson decays B -> eta(prime) K*, B -> eta(prime)rho, and B sup + -> eta(prime)pi sup +. The data were recorded with the BABAR detector at PEP-II and correspond to 89 x 10 sup 6 B(bar B) pairs produced in e sup + e sup - annihilation through the UPSILON(4S) resonance. They find the branching fractions BETA(B sup 0 -> eta K* sup 0) = (19.0 sub - sub 2 sub . sub 1 sup + sup 2 sup . sup 2 +- 1.3) x 10 sup - sup 6 , BETA(B sup + -> eta K* sup +) = (25.7 sub - sub 3 sub . sub 6 sup + sup 3 sup . sup 8 +- 1.8) x 10 sup - sup 6 with 90% confidence, and BETA(B sup + -> eta(prime)pi sup +) = (2.8 sub - sub 1 sub . sub 0 sup + sup 1 sup . sup 3 +- 0.3) x 10 sup - sup 6 ( eta(prime)K* sup 0) eta(prime)K* sup +) < 12 x 10 sup - sup 6. The time-integrated charge asymmetries are A sub c sub h (eta K* sup 0) = +0.03 +- 0.11 +- 0.02, A sub c sub h (eta K* sup +) = +0.15 +- 0.14 +- 0.02, and A sub c sub h (eta rho sup +) = +0.06 +-...

7 CFR 29.1166 - Primings (P Group).

Science.gov (United States)

2010-01-01

... 7 Agriculture 2 2010-01-01 2010-01-01 false Primings (P Group). 29.1166 Section 29.1166... REGULATIONS TOBACCO INSPECTION Standards Grades § 29.1166 Primings (P Group). This group consists of round-tipped leaves from the lowest portion of the stalk. Leaves of the P group ripen prematurely as a result...

Priming healthy eating. You can't prime all the people all of the time.

Science.gov (United States)

Forwood, Suzanna E; Ahern, Amy L; Hollands, Gareth J; Ng, Yin-Lam; Marteau, Theresa M

2015-06-01

In the context of a food purchasing environment filled with advertising and promotions, and an increased desire from policy makers to guide individuals toward choosing healthier foods, this study tests whether priming methods that use healthy food adverts to increase preference for healthier food generalize to a representative population. In two studies (Study 1 n = 143; Study 2 n = 764), participants were randomly allocated to a prime condition, where they viewed fruit and vegetable advertisements, or a control condition, with no advertisements. A subsequent forced choice task assessed preference between fruits and other sweet snacks. Additional measures included current hunger and thirst, dietary restraint, age, gender, education and self-reported weight and height. In Study 1, hunger reduced preferences for fruits (OR (95% CI) = 0.38 (0.26-0.56), p choice was unaffected by hunger or the prime. This study provides preliminary evidence that the effects of adverts on healthy eating choices depend on key individual traits (education level) and states (hunger), do not generalize to a broader population and have the potential to increase health inequalities arising from food choice. Copyright © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Priming healthy eating. You can't prime all the people all of the time☆

Science.gov (United States)

Forwood, Suzanna E.; Ahern, Amy L.; Hollands, Gareth J.; Ng, Yin-Lam; Marteau, Theresa M.

2015-01-01

Objective In the context of a food purchasing environment filled with advertising and promotions, and an increased desire from policy makers to guide individuals toward choosing healthier foods, this study tests whether priming methods that use healthy food adverts to increase preference for healthier food generalize to a representative population. MethodsIn two studies (Study 1 n = 143; Study 2 n = 764), participants were randomly allocated to a prime condition, where they viewed fruit and vegetable advertisements, or a control condition, with no advertisements. A subsequent forced choice task assessed preference between fruits and other sweet snacks. Additional measures included current hunger and thirst, dietary restraint, age, gender, education and self-reported weight and height. ResultsIn Study 1, hunger reduced preferences for fruits (OR (95% CI) = 0.38 (0.26–0.56), p choice was unaffected by hunger or the prime. ConclusionThis study provides preliminary evidence that the effects of adverts on healthy eating choices depend on key individual traits (education level) and states (hunger), do not generalize to a broader population and have the potential to increase health inequalities arising from food choice. PMID:25636234

Suggestion-Induced Modulation of Semantic Priming during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Science.gov (United States)

Ulrich, Martin; Kiefer, Markus; Bongartz, Walter; Grön, Georg; Hoenig, Klaus

2015-01-01

Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a primed visual lexical decision task, we investigated the neural and functional mechanisms underlying modulations of semantic word processing through hypnotic suggestions aimed at altering lexical processing of primes. The priming task was to discriminate between target words and pseudowords presented 200 ms after the prime word which was semantically related or unrelated to the target. In a counterbalanced study design, each participant performed the task once at normal wakefulness and once after the administration of hypnotic suggestions to perceive the prime as a meaningless symbol of a foreign language. Neural correlates of priming were defined as significantly lower activations upon semantically related compared to unrelated trials. We found significant suggestive treatment-induced reductions in neural priming, albeit irrespective of the degree of suggestibility. Neural priming was attenuated upon suggestive treatment compared with normal wakefulness in brain regions supporting automatic (fusiform gyrus) and controlled semantic processing (superior and middle temporal gyri, pre- and postcentral gyri, and supplementary motor area). Hence, suggestions reduced semantic word processing by conjointly dampening both automatic and strategic semantic processes. PMID:25923740

Suggestion-Induced Modulation of Semantic Priming during Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Martin Ulrich

Full Text Available Using functional magnetic resonance imaging during a primed visual lexical decision task, we investigated the neural and functional mechanisms underlying modulations of semantic word processing through hypnotic suggestions aimed at altering lexical processing of primes. The priming task was to discriminate between target words and pseudowords presented 200 ms after the prime word which was semantically related or unrelated to the target. In a counterbalanced study design, each participant performed the task once at normal wakefulness and once after the administration of hypnotic suggestions to perceive the prime as a meaningless symbol of a foreign language. Neural correlates of priming were defined as significantly lower activations upon semantically related compared to unrelated trials. We found significant suggestive treatment-induced reductions in neural priming, albeit irrespective of the degree of suggestibility. Neural priming was attenuated upon suggestive treatment compared with normal wakefulness in brain regions supporting automatic (fusiform gyrus and controlled semantic processing (superior and middle temporal gyri, pre- and postcentral gyri, and supplementary motor area. Hence, suggestions reduced semantic word processing by conjointly dampening both automatic and strategic semantic processes.

Filling in the Gaps: Priming and the Ethics of Pharmaceutical Advertising.

Science.gov (United States)

Biegler, Paul

2015-06-01

A prime is a cue that makes associated concepts, behaviors, and goals more psychologically accessible to people, influencing their responses in subsequent related environments. I build a case that Direct to Consumer Advertising of Prescription Pharmaceuticals (DTCA) operates as a prime that causes some viewers to prefer and pursue the advertised drug. Drawing on literature from social psychology I show that people subject to priming are mostly unaware of its influence and liable to misattribute the reasons for their primed actions. Misattribution typically includes heightened appraisals of the value of a primed goal. Consistent with this account, I argue that viewers primed by DTCA hold favorable, yet false beliefs about the safety and efficacy of the advertised drug. I further argue that, because those drug properties are material to viewers with the relevant illness, priming in DTCA can undermine the autonomy of their medicine choices. The threat to autonomy posed by priming in DTCA suggests it warrants attention from both regulators and the wider research community. It also adds further reason to be sceptical about the permissibility of this form of advertising.

Anterior medial prefrontal cortex implements social priming of mimicry.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Yin; Hamilton, Antonia F de C

2015-04-01

The neural and cognitive mechanisms by which primed constructs can impact on social behavior are poorly understood. In the present study, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to explore how scrambled sentence priming can impact on mimicry behavior. Sentences involving pro/antisocial events from a first/third-person point of view were presented in short blocks, followed by a reaction-time assessment of mimicry. Behavioral results showed that both prosociality and viewpoint impact on mimicry, and fMRI analysis showed this effect is implemented by anterior medial prefrontal cortex (amPFC). We suggest that social primes may subtly modulate processing in amPFC in a manner linked to the later behavior, and that this same region also implements the top-down control of mimicry responses. This priming may be linked to processing of self-schemas in amPFC. Our findings demonstrate how social priming can be studied with fMRI, and have important implications for our understanding of the underlying mechanisms of prime-to-behavior effects as well as for current theories in social psychology. © The Author (2014). Published by Oxford University Press. For Permissions, please email: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Pulled Motzkin paths

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Janse van Rensburg, E J

2010-01-01

In this paper the models of pulled Dyck paths in Janse van Rensburg (2010 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 215001) are generalized to pulled Motzkin path models. The generating functions of pulled Motzkin paths are determined in terms of series over trinomial coefficients and the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its endpoint (see Orlandini and Whittington (2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 5305-14)) is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the endpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh f))/(2sinh f) → f as f → ∞, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. In addition, the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its midpoint is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the midpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh (f/2))/sinh (f/2) → 2f as f → ∞, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. Formal combinatorial identities arising from pulled Motzkin path models are also presented. These identities are the generalization of combinatorial identities obtained in directed paths models to their natural trinomial counterparts.

Pulled Motzkin paths

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Janse van Rensburg, E J, E-mail: rensburg@yorku.c [Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3 (Canada)

2010-08-20

In this paper the models of pulled Dyck paths in Janse van Rensburg (2010 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 215001) are generalized to pulled Motzkin path models. The generating functions of pulled Motzkin paths are determined in terms of series over trinomial coefficients and the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its endpoint (see Orlandini and Whittington (2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 5305-14)) is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the endpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh f))/(2sinh f) {yields} f as f {yields} {infinity}, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. In addition, the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its midpoint is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the midpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh (f/2))/sinh (f/2) {yields} 2f as f {yields} {infinity}, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. Formal combinatorial identities arising from pulled Motzkin path models are also presented. These identities are the generalization of combinatorial identities obtained in directed paths models to their natural trinomial counterparts.

Pulled Motzkin paths

Science.gov (United States)

Janse van Rensburg, E. J.

2010-08-01

In this paper the models of pulled Dyck paths in Janse van Rensburg (2010 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 43 215001) are generalized to pulled Motzkin path models. The generating functions of pulled Motzkin paths are determined in terms of series over trinomial coefficients and the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its endpoint (see Orlandini and Whittington (2004 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 37 5305-14)) is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the endpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh f))/(2sinh f) → f as f → ∞, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. In addition, the elastic response of a Motzkin path pulled at its midpoint is shown to be R(f) = 0 for forces pushing the midpoint toward the adsorbing line and R(f) = f(1 + 2cosh (f/2))/sinh (f/2) → 2f as f → ∞, for forces pulling the path away from the X-axis. Formal combinatorial identities arising from pulled Motzkin path models are also presented. These identities are the generalization of combinatorial identities obtained in directed paths models to their natural trinomial counterparts.

Positional priming of pop-out is nested in visuospatial context.

Science.gov (United States)

Gokce, Ahu; Müller, Hermann J; Geyer, Thomas

2013-11-26

The present study investigated facilitatory and inhibitory positional priming using a variant of Maljkovic and Nakayama's (1996) priming of pop-out task. Here, the singleton target and the distractors could be presented in different visuospatial contexts-but identical screen locations-across trials, permitting positional priming based on individual locations to be disentangled from priming based on interitem configural relations. The results revealed both significant facilitatory priming, i.e., faster reaction times (RTs) to target presented at previous target relative to previously empty locations, and inhibitory priming, i.e., slower RTs to target at previous distractor relative to previously empty locations. However, both effects were contingent on repetitions versus changes of stimulus arrangement: While facilitation of target locations was dependent on the repetition of the exact item configuration (e.g., T-type followed by T-type stimulus arrangement), the inhibitory effect was more "tolerant," being influenced by repetitions versus changes of the item's visuospatial category (T-type followed by Z-type pattern; cf. Garner & Clement, 1963). The results suggest that facilitatory and inhibitory priming are distinct phenomena (Finke et al., 2009) and that both effects are sensitive to subtle information about the arrangement of the display items (Geyer, Zehetleitner, & Müller, 2010). The results are discussed with respect to the stage(s) of visual pop-out search that are influenced by positional priming.

An Investigation of the Differences and Similarities between Generated Small-World Networks for Right- and Left-Hand Motor Imageries.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Jiang; Li, Yuyao; Chen, Huafu; Ding, Jurong; Yuan, Zhen

2016-11-04

In this study, small-world network analysis was performed to identify the similarities and differences between functional brain networks for right- and left-hand motor imageries (MIs). First, Pearson correlation coefficients among the nodes within the functional brain networks from healthy subjects were calculated. Then, small-world network indicators, including the clustering coefficient, the average path length, the global efficiency, the local efficiency, the average node degree, and the small-world index, were generated for the functional brain networks during both right- and left-hand MIs. We identified large differences in the small-world network indicators between the functional networks during MI and in the random networks. More importantly, the functional brain networks underlying the right- and left-hand MIs exhibited similar small-world properties in terms of the clustering coefficient, the average path length, the global efficiency, and the local efficiency. By contrast, the right- and left-hand MI brain networks showed differences in small-world characteristics, including indicators such as the average node degree and the small-world index. Interestingly, our findings also suggested that the differences in the activity intensity and range, the average node degree, and the small-world index of brain networks between the right- and left-hand MIs were associated with the asymmetry of brain functions.

Almost Fixed-Point-Free Automorphisms of Prime Power Order

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

B.A.F. Wehrfritz

2016-06-01

Full Text Available We study the effect under various rank restrictions of a group having an automorphism of prime power order whose fixed-point set is also finite of prime power order for the same prime. Generally our conclusions are that the group has a soluble normal subgroup of bounded derived length. Not surprisingly the bound gets larger as the rank restrictions get weaker.

Seed priming improves salinity tolerance of wheat varieties

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jamal, Y.; Shafi, M.; Arif, M.

2011-01-01

To evaluate the response of wheat varieties to seed priming and salinity, an experiment was conducted in completely randomized design (CRD) with three replications at Institute of Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering (IBGE), KPK Agricultural University, Peshawar, Pakistan. The performance of 6 wheat varieties (Tatara-96, Ghaznavi-98, Fakhri Sarhad, Bakhtawar-92, Pirsabaq-2004 and Auqab-2000) at two seed conditions (primed with 30 mM NaCl and un primed) under four salinity levels (0, 40, 80 and 120 mM) was studied. Statistical analysis of the data revealed that salinity, seed priming and varieties had significantly (P= 0.05) affected shoot fresh weight plant/sup -1/ shoot dry weight plant/sup -1/, shoot Na/sup +/ contents (mg g/sup -1/ dry weight), shoot K/sup +/ contents (mg g/sup -1/ dry weight) and shoot K/sup +/Na/sup +/ ratio. Maximum shoot fresh weight plant/sup -1/ (7.71 g), shoot dry weight plant/sup -1/ (1.68 g), shoot K/sup +/ contents (1.39 mg g/sup -1/ dry weight) and shoot K/sup +/ Na/sup +/ratio (1.45) were recorded from Bakhtawar-92 as compared with other varieties. Highest shoot Na/sup +/ contents (1.43 mg g/sup -1/ dry weight) were recorded from Auqab-2000 when compared with other varieties. All parameters were enhanced with seed priming except shoot Na/sup +/ contents, which reduced significantly (p= 0.05) with seed priming. (author)

Behavioral Priming 2.0: Enter a Dynamical Systems Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Krpan, Dario

2017-01-01

On a daily basis, people are exposed to numerous stimuli, ranging from colors and smells to sounds and words, that could potentially activate different cognitive constructs and influence their actions. This type of influence on human behavior is referred to as priming. Roughly two decades ago, behavioral priming was hailed as one of the core forces that shape automatic behavior. However, failures to replicate some of the representative findings in this domain soon followed, which posed the following question: “How robust are behavioral priming effects, and to what extent are they actually important in shaping people's actions?” To shed a new light on this question, I revisit behavioral priming through the prism of a dynamical systems perspective (DSP). The DSP is a scientific paradigm that has been developed through a combined effort of many different academic disciplines, ranging from mathematics and physics to biology, economics, psychology, etc., and it deals with behavior of simple and complex systems over time. In the present paper, I use conceptual and methodological tools stemming from the DSP to propose circumstances under which behavioral priming effects are likely to occur. More precisely, I outline three possible types of the influence of priming on human behavior, to which I refer as emergence, readjustment, and attractor switch, and propose experimental designs to examine them. Finally, I discuss relevant implications for behavioral priming effects and their replications. PMID:28769846

Behavioral Priming 2.0: Enter a Dynamical Systems Perspective

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dario Krpan

2017-07-01

Full Text Available On a daily basis, people are exposed to numerous stimuli, ranging from colors and smells to sounds and words, that could potentially activate different cognitive constructs and influence their actions. This type of influence on human behavior is referred to as priming. Roughly two decades ago, behavioral priming was hailed as one of the core forces that shape automatic behavior. However, failures to replicate some of the representative findings in this domain soon followed, which posed the following question: “How robust are behavioral priming effects, and to what extent are they actually important in shaping people's actions?” To shed a new light on this question, I revisit behavioral priming through the prism of a dynamical systems perspective (DSP. The DSP is a scientific paradigm that has been developed through a combined effort of many different academic disciplines, ranging from mathematics and physics to biology, economics, psychology, etc., and it deals with behavior of simple and complex systems over time. In the present paper, I use conceptual and methodological tools stemming from the DSP to propose circumstances under which behavioral priming effects are likely to occur. More precisely, I outline three possible types of the influence of priming on human behavior, to which I refer as emergence, readjustment, and attractor switch, and propose experimental designs to examine them. Finally, I discuss relevant implications for behavioral priming effects and their replications.

An extracellular subtilase switch for immune priming in Arabidopsis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vicente Ramírez

Full Text Available In higher eukaryotes, induced resistance associates with acquisition of a priming state of the cells for a more effective activation of innate immunity; however, the nature of the components for mounting this type of immunological memory is not well known. We identified an extracellular subtilase from Arabidopsis, SBT3.3, the overexpression of which enhances innate immune responses while the loss of function compromises them. SBT3.3 expression initiates a durable autoinduction mechanism that promotes chromatin remodeling and activates a salicylic acid(SA-dependent mechanism of priming of defense genes for amplified response. Moreover, SBT3.3 expression-sensitized plants for enhanced expression of the OXI1 kinase gene and activation of MAP kinases following pathogen attack, providing additional clues for the regulation of immune priming by SBT3.3. Conversely, in sbt3.3 mutant plants pathogen-mediated induction of SA-related defense gene expression is drastically reduced and activation of MAP kinases inhibited. Moreover, chromatin remodeling of defense-related genes normally associated with activation of an immune priming response appear inhibited in sbt3.3 plants, further indicating the importance of the extracellular SBT3.3 subtilase in the establishment of immune priming. Our results also point to an epigenetic control in the regulation of plant immunity, since SBT3.3 is up-regulated and priming activated when epigenetic control is impeded. SBT3.3 represents a new regulator of primed immunity.

Semantic priming effects of synonyms, antonyms, frame, implication and verb-object categories

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elsa Skënderi-Rakipllari

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Semantic priming has been a major subject of interest for psycholinguists, whose aim is to discover how lexical memory is structured and organized. The facilitation process of word retrieval through semantic priming has long been studied. The present research is aimed to reveal which semantic category has the best priming effect. Through a lexical decision task experiment we compared the reaction times of masked primed pairs and unprimed pairs. In addition, we analyzed the reaction times and priming effect of connected semantic relations: antonymy, frame, synonymy, implication and verb-object. The data collected and interpreted unveiled that the mean reaction times of primed pairs were shorter than those of unprimed pairs. As to semantic priming, the most significantly primed pairs were those of implications and verb- objects, and not those of synonymy or antonymy as it might be expected.

Number theory an introduction via the density of primes

CERN Document Server

Fine, Benjamin

2016-01-01

Now in its second edition, this textbook provides an introduction and overview of number theory based on the density and properties of the prime numbers. This unique approach offers both a firm background in the standard material of number theory, as well as an overview of the entire discipline. All of the essential topics are covered, such as the fundamental theorem of arithmetic, theory of congruences, quadratic reciprocity, arithmetic functions, and the distribution of primes. New in this edition are coverage of p-adic numbers, Hensel's lemma, multiple zeta-values, and elliptic curve methods in primality testing. Key topics and features include: A solid introduction to analytic number theory, including full proofs of Dirichlet's Theorem and the Prime Number Theorem Concise treatment of algebraic number theory, including a complete presentation of primes, prime factorizations in algebraic number fields, and unique factorization of ideals Discussion of the AKS algorithm, which shows that primality testing is...

Spectral statistics and scattering resonances of complex primes arrays

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Ren; Pinheiro, Felipe A.; Dal Negro, Luca

2018-01-01

We introduce a class of aperiodic arrays of electric dipoles generated from the distribution of prime numbers in complex quadratic fields (Eisenstein and Gaussian primes) as well as quaternion primes (Hurwitz and Lifschitz primes), and study the nature of their scattering resonances using the vectorial Green's matrix method. In these systems we demonstrate several distinctive spectral properties, such as the absence of level repulsion in the strongly scattering regime, critical statistics of level spacings, and the existence of critical modes, which are extended fractal modes with long lifetimes not supported by either random or periodic systems. Moreover, we show that one can predict important physical properties, such as the existence spectral gaps, by analyzing the eigenvalue distribution of the Green's matrix of the arrays in the complex plane. Our results unveil the importance of aperiodic correlations in prime number arrays for the engineering of gapped photonic media that support far richer mode localization and spectral properties compared to usual periodic and random media.

Path Expressions

Science.gov (United States)

1975-06-01

Traditionally, synchronization of concurrent processes is coded in line by operations on semaphores or similar objects. Path expressions move the...discussion about a variety of synchronization primitives . An analysis of their relative power is found in [3]. Path expressions do not introduce yet...another synchronization primitive . A path expression relates to such primitives as a for- or while-statement of an ALGOL-like language relates to a JUMP

Attentional Control and the Relatedness Proportion Effect in Semantic Priming

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchison, Keith A.

2007-01-01

In 2 experiments, participants completed both an attentional control battery (OSPAN, antisaccade, and Stroop tasks) and a modified semantic priming task. The priming task measured relatedness proportion (RP) effects within subjects, with the color of the prime indicating the probability that the to-be-named target would be related. In Experiment…

Does pizza prime coin? Perceptual priming in lexical decision and pronunciation.

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pecher, D.; Zeelenberg, R.; Raaijmakers, J.G.W.

1998-01-01

In 6 experiments the authors investigated priming for perceptually related word pairs (i.e., words that refer to objects with the same shape such as pizza-coin), trying to replicate earlier findings by R. Schreuder et al (see record 1985-06198-001) while avoiding some of the methodological problems

Allograph priming is based on abstract letter identities: Evidence from Japanese kana.

Science.gov (United States)

Kinoshita, Sachiko; Schubert, Teresa; Verdonschot, Rinus G

2018-04-23

It is well-established that allographs like the uppercase and lowercase forms of the Roman alphabet (e.g., a and A) map onto the same "abstract letter identity," orthographic representations that are independent of the visual form. Consistent with this, in the allograph match task ("Are 'a' and 'A' the same letter?"), priming by a masked letter prime is equally robust for visually dissimilar prime-target pairs (e.g., d and D) and similar pairs (e.g., c and C). However, in principle this pattern of priming is also consistent with the possibility that allograph priming is purely phonological, based on the letter name. Because different allographic forms of the same letter, by definition, share a letter name, it is impossible to rule out this possibility a priori. In the present study, we investigated the influence of shared letter names by taking advantage of the fact that Japanese is written in two distinct writing systems, syllabic kana-that has two parallel forms, hiragana and katakana-and logographic kanji. Using the allograph match task, we tested whether a kanji prime with the same pronunciation as the target kana (e.g., - い, both pronounced /i/) produces the same amount of priming as a kana prime in the opposite kana form (e.g., イ- い). We found that the kana primes produced substantially greater priming than the phonologically identical kanji prime, which we take as evidence that allograph priming is based on abstract kana identity, not purely phonology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Influence of Individual and Group Priming on Medical Students

OpenAIRE

McGeown, Helen Rosemary

2009-01-01

This study investigated the impact of information on level of prototypicality of the ingroup ‘medical students’, comparing self-esteem effects for those primed as individuals with self-esteem effects for those primed as group members. Indication of prototypicality was given by false feedback on purported individual levels of empathy, an important group norm for medical students. As well as priming type having interactive effects with prototypicality information, it was hypothesized that initi...

Positions priming in briefly presented search arrays

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Asgeirsson, Arni Gunnar; Kristjánsson, Árni; Kyllingsbæk, Søren

2011-01-01

Repetition priming in visual search has been a topic of extensive research since Maljkovic & Nakayama [1994, Memory & Cognition, 22, 657-672] presented the first detailed studies of such effects. Their results showed large reductions in reaction times when target color was repeated on consecutive...... the targets are oddly colored alphanumeric characters. The effects arise at very low exposure durations and benefit accuracy at all exposure durations towards the subjects’ ceiling. We conclude that temporally constricted experimental conditions can add to our understanding priming in visual search...... pop-out search trials. Such repetition effects have since been generalized to a multitude of target attributes. Priming has primarily been investigated using self-terminating visual search paradigms, comparing differences in response times. Response accuracy has predominantly served as a control...

Emotion potentiates response activation and inhibition in masked priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Bocanegra, Bruno R; Zeelenberg, René

2012-01-01

Previous studies have shown that emotion can have 2-fold effects on perception. At the object-level, emotional stimuli benefit from a stimulus-specific boost in visual attention at the relative expense of competing stimuli. At the visual feature-level, recent findings indicate that emotion may inhibit the processing of small visual details and facilitate the processing of coarse visual features. In the present study, we investigated whether emotion can boost the activation and inhibition of automatic motor responses that are generated prior to overt perception. To investigate this, we tested whether an emotional cue affects covert motor responses in a masked priming task. We used a masked priming paradigm in which participants responded to target arrows that were preceded by invisible congruent or incongruent prime arrows. In the standard paradigm, participants react faster, and commit fewer errors responding to the directionality of target arrows, when they are preceded by congruent vs. incongruent masked prime arrows (positive congruency effect, PCE). However, as prime-target SOAs increase, this effect reverses (negative congruency effect, NCE). These findings have been explained as evidence for an initial activation and a subsequent inhibition of a partial response elicited by the masked prime arrow. Our results show that the presentation of fearful face cues, compared to neutral face cues, increased the size of both the PCE and NCE, despite the fact that the primes were invisible. This is the first demonstration that emotion prepares an individual's visuomotor system for automatic activation and inhibition of motor responses in the absence of visual awareness.

Zero-Slack, Noncritical Paths

Science.gov (United States)

Simons, Jacob V., Jr.

2017-01-01

The critical path method/program evaluation and review technique method of project scheduling is based on the importance of managing a project's critical path(s). Although a critical path is the longest path through a network, its location in large projects is facilitated by the computation of activity slack. However, logical fallacies in…

Prime Slaughter

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Valente, Andrea; Marchetti, Emanuela

2011-01-01

of primality and factorization into playful interactions, addressed to primary and early secondary school children. Taking into account individual needs expressed by children regarding play, during a participatory design processes aimed at enhancing learning in museums, Prime Slaughter allows for multiple...... forms of play and their integration. A simple working prototype has already been developed; it will be tested and re-designed through participatory workshops, involving a group of children in our target group....

Color coherent effects in (e,e{prime}N) and (e,e{prime}N,N(h)) processes at CEBAF

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Frankfurt, L.L.; Sargsyan, M.M. [Tel Aviv Univ. (Israel); Strikman, M.I. [Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park, PA (United States)]|[St. Petersburg Nuclear Physics Inst. (Russian Federation)

1994-04-01

The options for investigating color coherent effects and competing nuclear effects of nucleon-nucleon correlations in nuclei, nuclear shell effects in (e, e{prime}N) and (e, e{prime}NN(h)) reactions are considered. They argue that extension of CEBAF energies to reach Q{sup 2} = 10 GeV{sup 2} will allow systematical investigations of color coherent effects in nonperturbative regime of QCD and their interplay with nuclear effects.

Eye-hand coupling during closed-loop drawing: evidence of shared motor planning?

Science.gov (United States)

Reina, G Anthony; Schwartz, Andrew B

2003-04-01

Previous paradigms have used reaching movements to study coupling of eye-hand kinematics. In the present study, we investigated eye-hand kinematics as curved trajectories were drawn at normal speeds. Eye and hand movements were tracked as a monkey traced ellipses and circles with the hand in free space while viewing the hand's position on a computer monitor. The results demonstrate that the movement of the hand was smooth and obeyed the 2/3 power law. Eye position, however, was restricted to 2-3 clusters along the hand's trajectory and fixed approximately 80% of the time in one of these clusters. The eye remained stationary as the hand moved away from the fixation for up to 200 ms and saccaded ahead of the hand position to the next fixation along the trajectory. The movement from one fixation cluster to another consistently occurred just after the tangential hand velocity had reached a local minimum, but before the next segment of the hand's trajectory began. The next fixation point was close to an area of high curvature along the hand's trajectory even though the hand had not reached that point along the path. A visuo-motor illusion of hand movement demonstrated that the eye movement was influenced by hand movement and not simply by visual input. During the task, neural activity of pre-motor cortex (area F4) was recorded using extracellular electrodes and used to construct a population vector of the hand's trajectory. The results suggest that the saccade onset is correlated in time with maximum curvature in the population vector trajectory for the hand movement. We hypothesize that eye and arm movements may have common, or shared, information in forming their motor plans.

STEP--a System for Teaching Experimental Psychology using E-Prime.

Science.gov (United States)

MacWhinney, B; St James, J; Schunn, C; Li, P; Schneider, W

2001-05-01

Students in psychology need to learn to design and analyze their own experiments. However, software that allows students to build experiments on their own has been limited in a variety of ways. The shipping of the first full release of the E-Prime system later this year will open up a new opportunity for addressing this problem. Because E-Prime promises to become the standard for building experiments in psychology, it is now possible to construct a Web-based resource that uses E-Prime as the delivery engine for a wide variety of instructional materials. This new system, funded by the National Science Foundation, is called STEP (System for the Teaching of Experimental Psychology). The goal of the STEP Project is to provide instructional materials that will facilitate the use of E-Prime in various learning contexts. We are now compiling a large set of classic experiments implemented in E-Prime and available over the Internet from http://step.psy.cmu.edu. The Web site also distributes instructional materials for building courses in experimental psychology based on E-Prime.

Prime Minister of Pakistan visits CERN

CERN Multimedia

Anaïs Schaeffer

2016-01-01

On Saturday, 23 January 2016, CERN welcomed Mr Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Pakistan.   From left to right: Minister of Finance Mr Mohammad Ishaq Dar, Prime Minister of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, CERN Director-General Fabiola Gianotti and CMS national contact physicist Hafeez Hoorani. Mr Muhammad Nawaz Sharif arrived at Point 5 in Cessy, where he was welcomed onto French soil by the sous-préfet of Cessy, Stéphane Donnot, and, representing CERN, Director-General Fabiola Gianotti, Directors Eckhard Elsen and Charlotte Warakaulle, and Rüdiger Voss, the adviser for relations with Pakistan. It was the first visit by a head of government of Pakistan since the country became CERN's latest Associate Member State in July 2015. The Prime Minister then had the opportunity to visit the CMS underground experimental area accompanied by the CMS Spokesperson, Tiziano Camporesi, and the CMS collaboration’...

Comparison of Path Length and Ranges of Movement of the Center of Pressure and Reaction Time and Between Paired-Play and Solo-Play of a Virtual Reality Game.

Science.gov (United States)

Portnoy, Sigal; Hersch, Ayelet; Sofer, Tal; Tresser, Sarit

2017-06-01

To test whether paired-play will induce longer path length and ranges of movement of the center of pressure (COP), which reflects on balance performance and stability, compared to solo-play and to test the difference in the path length and ranges of movement of the COP while playing the virtual reality (VR) game with the dominant hand compared to playing it with the nondominant hand. In this cross-sectional study 20 children (age 6.1 ± 0.7 years old) played an arm movement controlled VR game alone and with a peer while each of them stood on a pressure measuring pad to track the path length and ranges of movement of the COP. The total COP path was significantly higher during the paired-play (median 295.8 cm) compared to the COP path during the solo-play (median 189.2 cm). No significant differences were found in the reaction time and the mediolateral and anterior-posterior COP ranges between solo-play and paired-play. No significant differences were found between the parameters extracted during paired-play with the dominant or nondominant hand. Our findings imply that the paired-play is advantageous compared to solo-play since it induces a greater movement for the child, during which, higher COP velocities are reached that may contribute to improving the balance control of the child. Apart from the positive social benefits of paired-play, this positive effect on the COP path length is a noteworthy added value in the clinical setting when treating children with balance disorder.

PrimeFaces blueprints

CERN Document Server

Jonna, Sudheer

2014-01-01

If you are a Java developer with experience of frontend UI development, and want to take the plunge to develop stunning UI applications with the most popular JSF framework, PrimeFaces, then this book is for you. For those with entrepreneurial aspirations, this book will provide valuable insights into how to utilize successful business models.

Neural correlates of cross-domain affective priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Qin; Li, Xiaohua; Gold, Brian T; Jiang, Yang

2010-05-06

The affective priming effect has mostly been studied using reaction time (RT) measures; however, the neural bases of affective priming are not well established. To understand the neural correlates of cross-domain emotional stimuli presented rapidly, we obtained event-related potential (ERP) measures during an affective priming task using short SOA (stimulus onset asynchrony) conditions. Two sets of 480 picture-word pairs were presented at SOAs of either 150ms or 250ms between prime and target stimuli. Participants decided whether the valence of each target word was pleasant or unpleasant. Behavioral results from both SOA conditions were consistent with previous reports of affective priming, with longer RTs for incongruent than congruent pairs at SOAs of 150ms (771 vs. 738ms) and 250ms (765 vs. 720ms). ERP results revealed that the N400 effect (associated with incongruent pairs in affective processing) occurred at anterior scalp regions at an SOA of 150ms, and this effect was only observed for negative target words across the scalp at an SOA of 250ms. In contrast, late positive potentials (LPPs) (associated with attentional resource allocation) occurred across the scalp at an SOA of 250ms. LPPs were only observed for positive target words at posterior parts of the brain at an SOA of 150ms. Our finding of ERP signatures at very short SOAs provides the first neural evidence that affective pictures can exert an automatic influence on the evaluation of affective target words. Copyright 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The set of prime numbers: Multiscale analysis and numeric accelerators

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Iovane, Gerardo

2009-01-01

In this work, we show that the prime numbers follow a multiscale distribution. Indeed they can be classified thanks to tree structures, which are expressed in terms of two maximal subsets of N and using multilayer selection rules, acting on these sets of prime candidates. Consequently, the prime numbers follow a specific deterministic rules. Indeed, a numeric accelerator for generating primes can be realized in terms of the above mentioned specific rules. From the comparison with the Fibonacci numbers a beautiful harmony comes in terms of the Golden Mean which is relevant to high energy physics and E-Infinity theory too.

Giving cognition a helping hand: the effect of congruent gestures on object name retrieval.

Science.gov (United States)

Pine, Karen J; Reeves, Lindsey; Howlett, Neil; Fletcher, Ben C

2013-02-01

The gestures that accompany speech are more than just arbitrary hand movements or communicative devices. They are simulated actions that can both prime and facilitate speech and cognition. This study measured participants' reaction times for naming degraded images of objects when simultaneously adopting a gesture that was either congruent with the target object, incongruent with it, and when not making any hand gesture. A within-subjects design was used, with participants (N= 122) naming 10 objects under each condition. Participants named the objects significantly faster when adopting a congruent gesture than when not gesturing at all. Adopting an incongruent gesture resulted in significantly slower naming times. The findings are discussed in the context of the intrapersonal cognitive and facilitatory effects of gestures and underline the relatedness between language, action, and cognition. © 2012 The British Psychological Society.

Hand hygiene: Back to the basics of infection control

Science.gov (United States)

Mathur, Purva

2011-01-01

Health care associated infections are drawing increasing attention from patients, insurers, governments and regulatory bodies. This is not only because of the magnitude of the problem in terms of the associated morbidity, mortality and cost of treatment, but also due to the growing recognition that most of these are preventable. The medical community is witnessing in tandem unprecedented advancements in the understanding of pathophysiology of infectious diseases and the global spread of multi-drug resistant infections in health care set-ups. These factors, compounded by the paucity of availability of new antimicrobials have necessitated a re-look into the role of basic practices of infection prevention in modern day health care. There is now undisputed evidence that strict adherence to hand hygiene reduces the risk of cross-transmission of infections. With “Clean Care is Safer Care” as a prime agenda of the global initiative of WHO on patient safety programmes, it is time for developing countries to formulate the much-needed policies for implementation of basic infection prevention practices in health care set-ups. This review focuses on one of the simplest, low cost but least accepted from infection prevention: hand hygiene. PMID:22199099

Ovation Prime Real-Time

Data.gov (United States)

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Department of Commerce — The Ovation Prime Real-Time (OPRT) product is a real-time forecast and nowcast model of auroral power and is an operational implementation of the work by Newell et...

Priming of disability and elderly stereotype in motor performance: similar or specific effects?

Science.gov (United States)

Ginsberg, Frederik; Rohmer, Odile; Louvet, Eva

2012-04-01

In three experimental studies, the effects of priming participants with the disability stereotype were investigated with respect to their subsequent motor performance. Also explored were effects of activating two similar stereotypes, persons with a disability and elderly people. In Study 1, participants were primed with the disability stereotype versus with a neutral prime, and then asked to perform on a motor coordination task. In Studies 2 and 3, a third condition was introduced: priming participants with the elderly stereotype. Results indicated that priming participants with the disability stereotype altered their motor performance: they showed decreased manual dexterity and performed slower than the non-primed participants. Priming with the elderly stereotype decreased only performance speed. These findings underline that prime-to-behavior effects may depend on activation of specific stereotype content.

Target Categorization with Primes that Vary in Both Congruency and Sense Modality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kathryn eWeatherford

2015-01-01

Full Text Available In two experiments we examined conceptual priming within and across sense modalities by varying the modality (picture and environmental sounds and the category congruency of prime-target pairs. Both experiments used a repetition priming paradigm, but Experiment 1 studied priming effects with a task that required a superordinate categorization response (man-made or natural, while Experiment 2 used a lower-level category response (musical instruments or animal: one that was more closely associated with the basic level of the semantic network. Results from Experiment 1 showed a strong effect of target modality and two distinct patterns of conceptual priming effects with picture and environmental sound targets. However, no priming advantage was found when congruent and incongruent primes were compared. Results from Experiment 2, found congruency effects that were specific to environmental sound targets when preceded by picture primes. The findings provide support for the intermodal event file and multisensory framework, and suggest that auditory and visual features about a single item in a conceptual category may be more tightly connected than two different items from the same category.

Path Creation, Path Dependence and Breaking Away from the Path: Re-Examining the Case of Nokia

OpenAIRE

Wang, Jens; Hedman, Jonas; Tuunainen, Virpi Kristiina

2016-01-01

The explanation of how and why firms succeed or fail is a recurrent research challenge. This is particularly important in the context of technological innovations. We focus on the role of historical events and decisions in explaining such success and failure. Using a case study of Nokia, we develop and extend a multi-layer path dependence framework. We identify four layers of path dependence: technical, strategic and leadership, organizational, and external collaboration. We show how path dep...

Methodologies for tracking learning paths in the Making a filmmaker research study of young Nordic filmmakers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Frølunde, Lisbeth; Lindstrand, Fredrik; Öhman-Gullberg, Lisa

The aim of this paper is twofold. On the one hand, to present an outline of the ongoing research study Making a filmmaker, which examines how young Nordic filmmakers create their own learning paths along formal and/or informal contexts. Our focus in this paper is especially directed towards issues...

Colorimetry and prime colours--a theorem.

Science.gov (United States)

Hornaes, Hans Petter; Wold, Jan Henrik; Farup, Ivar

2005-08-01

Human colour vision is the result of a complex process involving topics ranging from physics of light to perception. Whereas the diversity of light entering the eye in principle span an infinite-dimensional vector space in terms of the spectral power distributions, the space of human colour perceptions is three dimensional. One important consequence of this is that a variety of colours can be visually matched by a mixture of only three adequately chosen reference lights. It has been observed that there exists one particular set of monochromatic reference lights that, according to a certain definition, is optimal for producing colour matches. These reference lights are commonly denoted prime colours. In the present paper, we intend to rigorously show that the existence of prime colours is not particular to the human visual system as sometimes stated, but rather an algebraic consequence of the manner in which a kind of colorimetric functions called colour-matching functions are defined and transformed. The solution is based on maximisation of a determinant determining the gamut size of the colour space spanned by the prime colours. Cramer's rule for solving a set of linear equations is an essential part of the proof. By means of examples, it is shown that mathematically the optimal set of reference lights is not unique in general, and that the existence of a maximum determinant is not a necessary condition for the existence of prime colours.

Path-dependent functions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Khrapko, R.I.

1985-01-01

A uniform description of various path-dependent functions is presented with the help of expansion of the type of the Taylor series. So called ''path-integrals'' and ''path-tensor'' are introduced which are systems of many-component quantities whose values are defined for arbitrary paths in coordinated region of space in such a way that they contain a complete information on the path. These constructions are considered as elementary path-dependent functions and are used instead of power monomials in the usual Taylor series. Coefficients of such an expansion are interpreted as partial derivatives dependent on the order of the differentiations or else as nonstandard cavariant derivatives called two-point derivatives. Some examples of pathdependent functions are presented.Space curvature tensor is considered whose geometrica properties are determined by the (non-transitive) translator of parallel transport of a general type. Covariant operation leading to the ''extension'' of tensor fiels is pointed out

Making sense of the Sense Model: translation priming with Japanese-English bilinguals

OpenAIRE

Allen, David; Conklin, Kathy; Van Heuven, Walter J.B.

2015-01-01

Many studies have reported that first language (L1) translation primes speed responses to second language (L2) targets, whereas L2 translation primes generally do not speed up responses to L1 targets in lexical decision. According to the Sense Model (Finkbeiner, Forster, Nicol & Nakamura, 2004) this asymmetry is due to the proportion of senses activated by the prime. Because L2 primes activate only a subset of the L1 translations senses, priming is not observed. In this study we test the pred...

Withania somnifera Root Extract Enhances Chemotherapy through 'Priming'.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aine Brigette Henley

Full Text Available Withania somnifera extracts are known for their anti-cancerous, anti-inflammatory and antioxidative properties. One of their mechanisms of actions is to modulate mitochondrial function through increasing oxidative stress. Recently 'priming' has been suggested as a potential mechanism for enhancing cancer cell death. In this study we demonstrate that 'priming', in HT-29 colon cells, with W. somnifera root extract increased the potency of the chemotherapeutic agent cisplatin. We have also showed the W. somnifera root extract enhanced mitochondrial dysfunction and that the underlying mechanism of 'priming' was selectively through increased ROS. Moreover, we showed that this effect was not seen in non-cancerous cells.

CROSS-TOLERANCE MECHANISM INDUCTION IN MELON SEEDS BY PRIMING PRIOR DRYING

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean Marcel Sousa Lira

2015-04-01

Full Text Available The loss of benefits after re-drying is one of the drawbacks of the seed priming technique. Different types of stresses have been used before re-drying to preserve the priming benefits. This process may be seen as promoting cross tolerance to increase the defense mechanisms that prevent loss of viability in seeds primed after drying. We tested the effect of some stresses to induce cross-tolerance and different drying conditions with the aim of maintaining priming benefits in melon seeds. The seeds were primed in an aerated KNO3 solution (0.35M, -1.7MPa, 25 °C, in the dark for six days. The primed seeds were then submitted to slow drying, fast drying, cold shock + slow drying, cold shock + fast drying, heat shock + slow drying, heat shock + fast drying, PEG + slow drying, PEG + fast drying, ABA + slow drying, ABA + fast drying and no drying (planted directly after priming. We evaluated antioxidant enzyme activities (SOD, CAT and APX, germinability, mean time of germination (MTG and mean rate of germination (MRG. A completely randomized design was used with three repetitions of 50 seeds in each treatment. Data were analyzed by ANOVA and means were compared by the Scott-Knott test (p ≤ 0.05. ABA increased SOD activity after drying and CAT activity was reduced by priming. APX activity was not observed. The stress submission prior to re-drying improved the MRG and reduced MTG. Therefore, the induction of the cross-tolerance mechanism could be effective to maintain priming benefits in melon seeds.

Conscious, but not unconscious, logo priming of brands and related words.

Science.gov (United States)

Brintazzoli, Gigliola; Soetens, Eric; Deroost, Natacha; Van den Bussche, Eva

2012-06-01

This study assessed whether real-life stimulus material can elicit conscious and unconscious priming. A typical masked priming paradigm was used, with brand logo primes. We used a rigorous method to assess participants' awareness of the subliminal information. Our results show that shortly presented and masked brand logos (e.g., logo of McDonald's) have the power to prime their brand names (e.g., "McDonald's") and, remarkably, words associated to the brand (e.g., "hamburger"). However, this only occurred when the logos could be categorized clearly above the consciousness threshold. Once the primes were presented close to the consciousness threshold, no subliminal influences on behavior were observed. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On prime ideals and associated spectrum of BCK-algebras

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ahsan, J.; Thaheem, A.B.; Deeba, E.Y.

1989-07-01

In this paper we study prime ideals and define the spectrum of a bounded commutative BCK-algebra. We also obtain a characterization of minimal prime (lattice) ideals of these algebras. (author). 8 refs, 4 tabs

C3-dependent mechanism of microglial priming relevant to multiple sclerosis

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ramaglia, Valeria; Hughes, Timothy R.; Donev, Rossen M.; Ruseva, Marieta M.; Wu, Xiaobo; Huitinga, Inge; Baas, Frank; Neal, James W.; Morgan, B. Paul

2012-01-01

Microglial priming predisposes the brain to neurodegeneration and affects disease progression. The signal to switch from the quiescent to the primed state is unknown. We show that deleting the C3 convertase regulator complement receptor 1-related protein y (Crry) induces microglial priming. Mice

Inflammasome priming is similar for francisella species that differentially induce inflammasome activation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammed G Ghonime

Full Text Available Inflammasome activation is a two-step process where step one, priming, prepares the inflammasome for its subsequent activation, by step two. Classically step one can be induced by LPS priming followed by step two, high dose ATP. Furthermore, when IL-18 processing is used as the inflammasome readout, priming occurs before new protein synthesis. In this context, how intracellular pathogens such as Francisella activate the inflammasome is incompletely understood, particularly regarding the relative importance of priming versus activation steps. To better understand these events we compared Francisella strains that differ in virulence and ability to induce inflammasome activation for their relative effects on step one vs. step two. When using the rapid priming model, i.e., 30 min priming by live or heat killed Francisella strains (step 1, followed by ATP (step 2, we found no difference in IL-18 release, p20 caspase-1 release and ASC oligomerization between Francisella strains (F. novicida, F. holarctica -LVS and F. tularensis Schu S4. This priming is fast, independent of bacteria viability, internalization and phagosome escape, but requires TLR2-mediated ERK phosphorylation. In contrast to their efficient priming capacity, Francisella strains LVS and Schu S4 were impaired in inflammasome triggering compared to F. novicida. Thus, observed differences in inflammasome activation by F. novicida, LVS and Schu S4 depend not on differences in priming but rather on their propensity to trigger the primed inflammasome.

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories in the lab

OpenAIRE

Barzykowski, Krystian; Niedźwieńska, Agnieszka

2018-01-01

Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are recollections of personal past that frequently and spontaneously occur in daily life. Initial studies by Mace. Priming involuntary autobiographical memories. Showed that deliberately reminiscing about a certain lifetime period (e.g., high school) significantly increased the number of different IAMs from the same period in subsequent days, suggesting that priming may play a significant role in the retrieval of IAMs in everyday life. In the prese...

How visual working memory contents influence priming of visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Carlisle, Nancy B; Kristjánsson, Árni

2017-04-12

Recent evidence shows that when the contents of visual working memory overlap with targets and distractors in a pop-out search task, intertrial priming is inhibited (Kristjánsson, Sævarsson & Driver, Psychon Bull Rev 20(3):514-521, 2013, Experiment 2, Psychonomic Bulletin and Review). This may reflect an interesting interaction between implicit short-term memory-thought to underlie intertrial priming-and explicit visual working memory. Evidence from a non-pop-out search task suggests that it may specifically be holding distractors in visual working memory that disrupts intertrial priming (Cunningham & Egeth, Psychol Sci 27(4):476-485, 2016, Experiment 2, Psychological Science). We examined whether the inhibition of priming depends on whether feature values in visual working memory overlap with targets or distractors in the pop-out search, and we found that the inhibition of priming resulted from holding distractors in visual working memory. These results are consistent with separate mechanisms of target and distractor effects in intertrial priming, and support the notion that the impact of implicit short-term memory and explicit visual working memory can interact when each provides conflicting attentional signals.

A proof of the conjecture on the twin primes

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zuo-ling, Zhou [Department of Lingnan college, Sun Yat-sen University GuangZhou, GuangDong, 510275 (China)

2016-06-08

In this short note, we have proved the conjecture on twin primes using some thoughts of the set theory. Firstly, using the original sieve method and a new notation(concept)introduced by myself, the conjecture on twin primes is summed up as an elementary successive limit, afterwards we form a subsequence of positive integers,and using it,we prove that the successive limits are commutative and complete the proof of the conjecture on twin primes We also give a more straightforward proof of the conjecture.

Aggressive priming online: Facebook adverts can prime aggressive cognitions

OpenAIRE

Buchanan, Tom

2015-01-01

Through the process of priming, incidental stimuli in our environments can influence our thoughts, feelings and behavior. This may be true of incidental stimuli in online environments, such as adverts on websites. Two experiments (N=325, N=331) showed that the mere presence of advertisements with violent content on a simulated Facebook page induced higher levels of aggression-related cognition in comparison to non-violent adverts (d=0.56 , d=0.71). In a subsequent word recognition task, parti...

Effects of Glide Path on the Centering Ability and Preparation Time of Two Reciprocating Instruments

Science.gov (United States)

Coelho, Marcelo Santos; Fontana, Carlos Eduardo; Kato, Augusto Shoji; de Martin, Alexandre Sigrist; da Silveira Bueno, Carlos Eduardo

2016-01-01

Introduction: The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the effects of establishing glide path on the centering ability and preparation time of two single-file reciprocating systems in mesial root canals of mandibular molars. Methods and Materials: Sixty extracted mandibular molars with curvatures of 25-39 degrees and separate foramina for the mesiobuccal and mesiolingual canals, were divided into four groups (n=15); WaveOne+glide path; WaveOne; Reciproc+glide path and Reciproc. Non-patent canals were excluded and only one canal in each tooth was instrumented. A manual glide path was established in first and third groups with #10, 15 and 20 hand K-files. Preparation was performed with reciprocating in-and-out motion, with a 3-4 mm amplitude and slight apical pressure. Initial and final radiographs were taken to analyze the amount of dentin removed in the instrumented canals. The radiographs were superimposed with an image editing software and examined to assess discrepancies at 3-, 6- and 9-mm distances from the apex. The Kruskal-Wallis test was used for statistical analysis. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: Preparation in groups without glide paths was swifter than the other groups (P=0.001). However, no difference was observed regarding centering ability. Conclusion: Establishing a glide path increased the total instrumentation time for preparing curved canals with WaveOne and Reciproc instruments. Glide path had no influence on the centering ability of these systems. PMID:26843875

Seed Priming to Overcome Salinity Stress in Persian Cultivars of Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali SEPEHRI

2015-03-01

Full Text Available In order to investigate the effect of hydro-priming on seed germination with distilled water on germination of five Alfalfa cultivars under salinity stress, an experiment was conducted as a factorial experiment based on a completely randomized design with three replications. Seven levels of hydro-priming and salinity of NaCl including prime and non-salinity, prime and 50 mM salinity, prime and 100 mM salinity, prime and 150 mM salinity, prime and 200 mM salinity, prime and 250 mM salinity and without prime and salinity and five alfalfa varieties, including ‘Hamedani’, ‘Isfahani’, ‘Bami’, ‘Yazdi’ and ‘Ghareh Yonjeh’ were used. The results showed that the main effect of prime, salinity and cultivars and their interaction in all studied traits were significantly affected at the 5% probability level. Priming treatments in non-salinity of all cultivars were the highest. In all cultivars, final germination percentage, length and weight of radicle, plumule and seedling, germination rate and time, relative radicle elongation, vigor index and stress index, were significantly improved in response to priming in salinity levels of 50-200 mM, compared to control. Radicle produced higher length and weight than the plumule in hydro- priming and salinity treatments. ‘Hamedani’ cultivar in most of studied characteristics had a better response than others. The lowest response to salinity stress and priming was observed in ‘Yazdi’ cultivar.

Multi-targeted priming for genome-wide gene expression assays

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adomas Aleksandra B

2010-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Complementary approaches to assaying global gene expression are needed to assess gene expression in regions that are poorly assayed by current methodologies. A key component of nearly all gene expression assays is the reverse transcription of transcribed sequences that has traditionally been performed by priming the poly-A tails on many of the transcribed genes in eukaryotes with oligo-dT, or by priming RNA indiscriminately with random hexamers. We designed an algorithm to find common sequence motifs that were present within most protein-coding genes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and of Neurospora crassa, but that were not present within their ribosomal RNA or transfer RNA genes. We then experimentally tested whether degenerately priming these motifs with multi-targeted primers improved the accuracy and completeness of transcriptomic assays. Results We discovered two multi-targeted primers that would prime a preponderance of genes in the genomes of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and Neurospora crassa while avoiding priming ribosomal RNA or transfer RNA. Examining the response of Saccharomyces cerevisiae to nitrogen deficiency and profiling Neurospora crassa early sexual development, we demonstrated that using multi-targeted primers in reverse transcription led to superior performance of microarray profiling and next-generation RNA tag sequencing. Priming with multi-targeted primers in addition to oligo-dT resulted in higher sensitivity, a larger number of well-measured genes and greater power to detect differences in gene expression. Conclusions Our results provide the most complete and detailed expression profiles of the yeast nitrogen starvation response and N. crassa early sexual development to date. Furthermore, our multi-targeting priming methodology for genome-wide gene expression assays provides selective targeting of multiple sequences and counter-selection against undesirable sequences, facilitating a more complete and

Conceptual and non-conceptual repetition priming in category exemplar generation: Evidence from bilinguals.

Science.gov (United States)

Francis, Wendy S; Fernandez, Norma P; Bjork, Robert A

2010-10-01

One measure of conceptual implicit memory is repetition priming in the generation of exemplars from a semantic category, but does such priming transfer across languages? That is, do the overlapping conceptual representations for translation equivalents provide a sufficient basis for such priming? In Experiment 1 (N=96) participants carried out a deep encoding task, and priming between languages was statistically reliable, but attenuated, relative to within-language priming. Experiment 2 (N=96) replicated the findings of Experiment 1 and assessed the contributions of conceptual and non-conceptual processes using a levels-of-processing manipulation. Words that underwent shallow encoding exhibited within-language, but not between-language, priming. Priming in shallow conditions cannot therefore be explained by incidental activation of the concept. Instead, part of the within-language priming effect, even under deep-encoding conditions, is due to increased availability of language-specific lemmas or phonological word forms.

Physiological and biochemical mechanisms of seed priming-induced chilling tolerance in rice cultivars

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Saddam eHussain

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Rice belongs to tropical and subtropical environments and is extremely sensitive to chilling stress particularly during emergence and early stages of seedling development. Seed priming can be a good approach to enhance rice germination and stand establishment under chilling stress. The present study examined the role of different seed priming techniques viz., hydropriming, osmopriming, redox priming, chemical priming, and hormonal priming, in enhancing the chilling tolerance in rice. The most effective reagents and their pre-optimized concentrations based on preliminary experiments were used in this study. Two different rice cultivars were sown under chilling stress (18˚C and normal temperatures (28˚C in separate growth chambers. A non-primed control treatment was also maintained for comparison. Chilling stress caused erratic and delayed germination, poor seedling growth, reduced starch metabolism and lower respiration rate, while higher lipid peroxidation and hydrogen peroxide accumulation in rice seedlings of both cultivars. Nevertheless, all the seed priming treatments effectively alleviated the negative effects of chilling stress. In addition, seed priming treatments triggered the activities of superoxide dismutase, peroxidase, and catalase, and enhanced the accumulations of glutathione and free proline in rice seedlings, which suggests that these measures help prevent the rice seedlings from chilling induced oxidative stress. Chemical priming with selenium and hormonal priming with salicylic acid remained more effective treatments for both rice cultivars under chilling stress than all other priming treatments. The better performance and greater tolerance of primed rice seedlings was associated with enhanced starch metabolism, high respiration rate, lower lipid peroxidation, and strong antioxidative defense system under chilling stress.

On the last digits of consecutive primes

OpenAIRE

Holt, Fred B.

2016-01-01

Recently Oliver and Soundararajan made conjectures based on computational enumerations about the frequency of occurrence of pairs of last digits for consecutive primes. By studying Eratosthenes sieve, we have identified discrete dynamic systems that exactly model the populations of gaps across stages of Eratosthenes sieve. Our models provide some insight into the observed biases in the occurrences of last digits in consecutive primes, and the models suggest that the biases will ultimately be ...

A note on the countable union of prime submodules

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

M. R. Pournaki

2001-01-01

Full Text Available Let M be a finitely-generated module over a Noetherian ring R. Suppose is an ideal of R and let N=M and =Ann(M/N. If ⫅J(R, M is complete with respect to the -adic topology, {Pi}i≥1 is a countable family of prime submodules of M, and x∈M, then x+N⫅∪i≥1Pi implies that x+N⫅Pj for some i≥1. This extends a theorem of Sharp and Vámos concerning prime ideals to prime submodules.

Physiological quality and seed respiration of primed Jatropha curcas seeds

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Micheli Angelica Horbach

2017-11-01

Full Text Available ABSTRACT Seed deterioration is a natural and irreversible process. Nevertheless, seed priming with water and antioxidants can minimize oxidative damage in oilseeds, resulting in attenuation of seed deterioration. The objective of this assay was to evaluate seed priming on respiratory activity of Jatropha curcas submitted to accelerated aging. Seeds from two provenances (Janauba and Pedro J. Caballero were submitted to three priming treatments (control, immersion in deionized water, and with 750 µmol L-1 of ascorbic acid and treated for accelerated aging at 41 °C for 72 h. The results showed that the priming of J. curcas seeds promoted tolerance to accelerated aging. Primed seeds, with ascorbic acid from Janauba and deionized water from Pedro J. Caballero, resulted in a higher percentage of normal seedlings, and increased germination speed index and seed respiration. The decline of physiological quality of J. curcas seeds after accelerated aging is directly associated with a reduction in respiratory activity that is related to seed moisture content.

Priming patient safety: A middle-range theory of safety goal priming via safety culture communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Groves, Patricia S; Bunch, Jacinda L

2018-05-18

The aim of this paper is discussion of a new middle-range theory of patient safety goal priming via safety culture communication. Bedside nurses are key to safe care, but there is little theory about how organizations can influence nursing behavior through safety culture to improve patient safety outcomes. We theorize patient safety goal priming via safety culture communication may support organizations in this endeavor. According to this theory, hospital safety culture communication activates a previously held patient safety goal and increases the perceived value of actions nurses can take to achieve that goal. Nurses subsequently prioritize and are motivated to perform tasks and risk assessment related to achieving patient safety. These efforts continue until nurses mitigate or ameliorate identified risks and hazards during the patient care encounter. Critically, this process requires nurses to have a previously held safety goal associated with a repertoire of appropriate actions. This theory suggests undergraduate educators should foster an outcomes focus emphasizing the connections between nursing interventions and safety outcomes, hospitals should strategically structure patient safety primes into communicative activities, and organizations should support professional development including new skills and the latest evidence supporting nursing practice for patient safety. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The structure of semantic person memory: evidence from semantic priming in person recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Holger

2011-11-01

This paper reviews research on the structure of semantic person memory as examined with semantic priming. In this experimental paradigm, a familiarity decision on a target face or written name is usually faster when it is preceded by a related as compared to an unrelated prime. This effect has been shown to be relatively short lived and susceptible to interfering items. Moreover, semantic priming can cross stimulus domains, such that a written name can prime a target face and vice versa. However, it remains controversial whether representations of people are stored in associative networks based on co-occurrence, or in more abstract semantic categories. In line with prominent cognitive models of face recognition, which explain semantic priming by shared semantic information between prime and target, recent research demonstrated that priming could be obtained from purely categorically related, non-associated prime/target pairs. Although strategic processes, such as expectancy and retrospective matching likely contribute, there is also evidence for a non-strategic contribution to priming, presumably related to spreading activation. Finally, a semantic priming effect has been demonstrated in the N400 event-related potential (ERP) component, which may reflect facilitated access to semantic information. It is concluded that categorical relatedness is one organizing principle of semantic person memory. ©2011 The British Psychological Society.

Thioredoxin priming prolongs lung allograft survival by promoting immune tolerance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hanbo Hu

Full Text Available Tolerance to allograft antigen is the major challenge and final goal of transplant medicine. Our previous study demonstrated that thioredoxin-1 (Trx priming of donor lung significantly protected allogeneic lung graft. To determine whether Trx priming of donor lung inhibits allograft rejection, extends allograft survival and induces immune tolerance, orthotopic left lung transplantation was performed from Lewis to Sprague-Dawley rats without immunosuppression. Donor lungs were primed with Trx at 4°C for 4 hr prior to transplantation. After up to 37 days post-transplantation, allograft lung morphology, recipient T cell and humoral alloantigen-specific immune responses were examined. We found that Trx-primed lungs exhibited much reduced acute rejection and associated lung injuries resulting in loss of graft functional area at 5-37 days post-transplant in contrast to the control groups. CD4+ T cells from the recipients with Trx-primed grafts responded to the stimulation of dendritic cells (DCs of donor origin, in contrast to DCs from the third party, with significantly reduced proliferation. Consistent with above findings, we observed that CD4+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells in spleen cells from the recipients with Trx-primed grafts were significantly increased compared to controls, and CD4+ T cells from the recipients with Trx-primed grafts produced much higher levels of immunosuppressive cytokine, IL-10 when stimulated with allogeneic donor DCs. In addition, humoral immune tolerance was also induced as there was no significant increase levels of serum antibodies against donor antigens in Trx-lung recipients when re-challenged with allogeneic donor antigens. Our results demonstrate that one-time Trx-priming of donor lung grafts prior to transplantation significantly prolongs the survival of the grafts through inducing or promoting cellular and humoral alloantigen-specific immune tolerance, which might be associated with the induction of

Priming T-cell responses with recombinant measles vaccine vector in a heterologous prime-boost setting in non-human primates.

Science.gov (United States)

Bolton, Diane L; Santra, Sampa; Swett-Tapia, Cindy; Custers, Jerome; Song, Kaimei; Balachandran, Harikrishnan; Mach, Linh; Naim, Hussein; Kozlowski, Pamela A; Lifton, Michelle; Goudsmit, Jaap; Letvin, Norman; Roederer, Mario; Radošević, Katarina

2012-09-07

Licensed live attenuated virus vaccines capable of expressing transgenes from other pathogens have the potential to reduce the number of childhood immunizations by eliciting robust immunity to multiple pathogens simultaneously. Recombinant attenuated measles virus (rMV) derived from the Edmonston Zagreb vaccine strain was engineered to express simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) Gag protein for the purpose of evaluating the immunogenicity of rMV as a vaccine vector in rhesus macaques. rMV-Gag immunization alone elicited robust measles-specific humoral and cellular responses, but failed to elicit transgene (Gag)-specific immune responses, following aerosol or intratracheal/intramuscular delivery. However, when administered as a priming vaccine to a heterologous boost with recombinant adenovirus serotype 5 expressing the same transgene, rMV-Gag significantly enhanced Gag-specific T lymphocyte responses following rAd5 immunization. Gag-specific humoral responses were not enhanced, however, which may be due to either the transgene or the vector. Cellular response priming by rMV against the transgene was highly effective even when using a suboptimal dose of rAd5 for the boost. These data demonstrate feasibility of using rMV as a priming component of heterologous prime-boost vaccine regimens for pathogens requiring strong cellular responses. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Priming with Rocuronium to Accelerate the Onset Time of Cisatracurium During Intubation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shih-Pin Lin

2009-01-01

Conclusion: Priming with rocuronium or cisatracurium for 3 minutes significantly accelerated the onset of cisatracurium. Priming with rocuronium for 3 minutes improved the onset time of cisatracurium even more than priming with cisatracurium itself.

The role of selective attention in perceptual and affective priming

Science.gov (United States)

Stone, M.; Ladd, S. L.; Gabrieli, J. D.

2000-01-01

Two kinds of perceptual priming (word identification and word fragment completion), as well as preference priming (that may rely on special affective mechanisms) were examined after participants either read or named the colors of words and nonwords at study. Participants named the colors of words more slowly than the colors of nonwords, indicating that lexical processing of the words occurred at study. Nonetheless, priming on all three tests was lower after color naming than after reading, despite evidence of lexical processing during color naming shown by slower responses to words than to nonwords. These results indicate that selective attention to (rather than the mere processing of) letter string identity at study is important for subsequent repetition priming.

MinePath: Mining for Phenotype Differential Sub-paths in Molecular Pathways

Science.gov (United States)

Koumakis, Lefteris; Kartsaki, Evgenia; Chatzimina, Maria; Zervakis, Michalis; Vassou, Despoina; Marias, Kostas; Moustakis, Vassilis; Potamias, George

2016-01-01

Pathway analysis methodologies couple traditional gene expression analysis with knowledge encoded in established molecular pathway networks, offering a promising approach towards the biological interpretation of phenotype differentiating genes. Early pathway analysis methodologies, named as gene set analysis (GSA), view pathways just as plain lists of genes without taking into account either the underlying pathway network topology or the involved gene regulatory relations. These approaches, even if they achieve computational efficiency and simplicity, consider pathways that involve the same genes as equivalent in terms of their gene enrichment characteristics. Most recent pathway analysis approaches take into account the underlying gene regulatory relations by examining their consistency with gene expression profiles and computing a score for each profile. Even with this approach, assessing and scoring single-relations limits the ability to reveal key gene regulation mechanisms hidden in longer pathway sub-paths. We introduce MinePath, a pathway analysis methodology that addresses and overcomes the aforementioned problems. MinePath facilitates the decomposition of pathways into their constituent sub-paths. Decomposition leads to the transformation of single-relations to complex regulation sub-paths. Regulation sub-paths are then matched with gene expression sample profiles in order to evaluate their functional status and to assess phenotype differential power. Assessment of differential power supports the identification of the most discriminant profiles. In addition, MinePath assess the significance of the pathways as a whole, ranking them by their p-values. Comparison results with state-of-the-art pathway analysis systems are indicative for the soundness and reliability of the MinePath approach. In contrast with many pathway analysis tools, MinePath is a web-based system (www.minepath.org) offering dynamic and rich pathway visualization functionality, with the

Fall Colors, 2001-02: Prime Time Diversity Report.

Science.gov (United States)

Parker, McCrae A.; Miller, Patti; Espejo, Eileen; Grossman-Swenson, Sarah

Television is an integral part of American culture, and has the ability to play a major role in shaping belief systems, particularly for the youngest and most impressionable viewers. This study is the third annual study of diversity of characters in prime time television programming. The study examined the first two episodes of each prime time…

Sulforaphane Modifies Histone H3, Unpacks Chromatin, and Primes Defense.

Science.gov (United States)

Schillheim, Britta; Jansen, Irina; Baum, Stephani; Beesley, Alexander; Bolm, Carsten; Conrath, Uwe

2018-03-01

Modern crop production calls for agrochemicals that prime plants for enhanced defense. Reliable test systems for spotting priming-inducing chemistry, however, are rare. We developed an assay for the high-throughput search for compounds that prime microbial pattern-induced secretion of antimicrobial furanocoumarins (phytoalexins) in cultured parsley cells. The screen produced 1-isothiocyanato-4-methylsulfinylbutane (sulforaphane; SFN), a secondary metabolite in many crucifers, as a novel defense priming compound. While elucidating SFN's mode of action in defense priming, we found that in Arabidopsis ( Arabidopsis thaliana ) the isothiocyanate provokes covalent modification (K4me3, K9ac) of histone H3 in the promoter and promoter-proximal region of defense genes WRKY6 and PDF1 2 , but not PR1 SFN-triggered H3K4me3 and H3K9ac coincide with chromatin unpacking in the WRKY6 and PDF1 2 regulatory regions, primed WRKY6 expression, unprimed PDF1 2 activation, and reduced susceptibility to downy mildew disease ( Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis ). Because SFN also directly inhibits H arabidopsidis and other plant pathogens, the isothiocyanate is promising for the development of a plant protectant with a dual mode of action. © 2018 American Society of Plant Biologists. All Rights Reserved.

An Intersensory Interaction Account of Priming Effects-and Their Absence.

Science.gov (United States)

Klatzky, Roberta L; Creswell, J David

2014-01-01

Psychological researchers have found that exposures to stimuli (primes) can subsequently influence people's behavior by pathways that would seem to be quite remote. For example, people exposed to words associated with older adults may walk more slowly. Recently priming studies, particularly those showing dramatic effects on social behavior, have been under scrutiny because of the unreliability of empirical results. In this article, we shed light on the issue by describing a general model of intersensory interaction, in which two or more sources of information provide an estimate or "bid" on a property of the world, with the perceptual outcome being a weighted combination of the bids. When it is extended by adding bids that stem from memory or inference, the model identifies systematic factors that might undermine priming, including random variation in estimates, contextual influences on memory retrieval and inference, competition among information sources, and cognitive control. These factors are not only explanatory but are predictive of when priming effects can be expected. Our hope is that by promoting the understanding of underlying processes that may explain how primes can influence behavior, the bidding model and the general approach that it represents offer novel insights into the hotly debated area of priming research. © The Author(s) 2013.

Assessment of comparative skills between hand-assisted and straight laparoscopic colorectal training on an augmented reality simulator.

Science.gov (United States)

Leblanc, F; Delaney, C P; Neary, P C; Rose, J; Augestad, K M; Senagore, A J; Ellis, C N; Champagne, B J

2010-09-01

The aim of this study was to compare skills sets during a hand-assisted and straight laparoscopic colectomy on an augmented reality simulator. Twenty-nine surgeons, assigned randomly in 2 groups, performed laparoscopic sigmoid colectomies on a simulator: group A (n = 15) performed hand-assisted then straight procedures; group B (n = 14) performed straight then hand-assisted procedures. Groups were compared according to prior laparoscopic colorectal experience, performance (time, instrument path length, and instrument velocity changes), technical skills, and operative error. Prior laparoscopic colorectal experience was similar in both groups. Both groups had better performances with the hand-assisted approach, although technical skill scores were similar between approaches. The error rate was higher with the hand-assisted approach in group A, but similar between both approaches in group B. These data define the metrics of performance for hand-assisted and straight laparoscopic colectomy on an augmented reality simulator. The improved scores with the hand-assisted approach suggest that with this simulator a hand-assisted model may be technically easier to perform, although it is associated with increased intraoperative errors.

Brand priming effect on consumers’ financial risk taking behavior

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Danielle Mantovani

Full Text Available Abstract Taking the perspective of brand priming theory, this study proposes that brands associated with an audacious personality trait may influence consumers to be take more risks in making subsequent decisions. Two experiments, run in sport brands contexts, showed that individuals exposed to brands with high (vs. low audacity traits demonstrated a higher rate of risk taking in financial decisions. The studies also showed that this effect is moderated by individuals’ experience with the financial market. This moderation suggests that there was an activation of a goal not just semantic activation, but through the brand priming. This research provides insights into how today's consumers deal with brand priming effects in risky choice settings. From a managerial perspective, it can help managers to understand the likely effects of brand priming on behavior and better predict the probability of risk aversion or risk seeking outcomes.

Is Semantic Priming (Ir)rational? Insights from the Speeded Word Fragment Completion Task

Science.gov (United States)

Heyman, Tom; Hutchison, Keith A.; Storms, Gert

2016-01-01

Semantic priming, the phenomenon that a target is recognized faster if it is preceded by a semantically related prime, is a well-established effect. However, the mechanisms producing semantic priming are subject of debate. Several theories assume that the underlying processes are controllable and tuned to prime utility. In contrast, purely…

Affective priming of emotional pictures in parafoveal vision: left visual field advantage.

Science.gov (United States)

Calvo, Manuel G; Avero, Pedro

2008-03-01

This study investigated whether stimulus affective content can be extracted from visual scenes when these appear in parafoveal locations of the visual field and are foveally masked, and whether there is lateralization involved. Parafoveal prime pleasant or unpleasant scenes were presented for 150 msec 2.5 degrees away from fixation and were followed by a foveal probe scene that was either congruent or incongruent in emotional valence with the prime. Participants responded whether the probe was emotionally positive or negative. Affective priming was demonstrated by shorter response latencies for congruent than for incongruent prime-probe pairs. This effect occurred when the prime was presented in the left visual field at a 300-msec prime-probe stimulus onset asynchrony, even when the prime and the probe were different in physical appearance and semantic category. This result reveals that the affective significance of emotional stimuli can be assessed early through covert attention mechanisms, in the absence of overt eye fixations on the stimuli, and suggests that right-hemisphere dominance is involved.

Verbal priming and taste sensitivity make moral transgressions gross.

Science.gov (United States)

Herz, Rachel S

2014-02-01

The aims of the present study were to assess whether: (a) visceral and moral disgust share a common oral origin (taste); (b) moral transgressions that are also viscerally involving are evaluated accordingly as a function of individual differences in taste sensitivity; (c) verbal priming interacts with taste sensitivity to alter how disgust is experienced in moral transgressions; and (d) whether gender moderates these effects. Standard tests of disgust sensitivity, a questionnaire developed for this research assessing different types of moral transgressions (nonvisceral, implied-visceral, visceral) with the terms "angry" and "grossed-out," and a taste sensitivity test of 6-n-propylthiouracil (PROP) were administered to 102 participants. Results confirmed past findings that the more sensitive to PROP a participant was the more disgusted they were by visceral, but not moral, disgust elicitors. Importantly, the findings newly revealed that taste sensitivity had no bearing on evaluations of moral transgressions, regardless of their visceral nature, when "angry" was the emotion primed. However, when "grossed-out" was primed for evaluating moral violations, the more intense PROP tasted to a participant the more "grossed-out" they were by all transgressions. Women were generally more disgust sensitive and morally condemning than men, but disgust test, transgression type, and priming scale modulated these effects. The present findings support the proposition that moral and visceral disgust do not share a common oral origin, but show that linguistic priming can transform a moral transgression into a viscerally repulsive event and that susceptibility to this priming varies as a function of an individual's sensitivity to the origins of visceral disgust-bitter taste.

Interference factors regarding the path of insertion of rotational-path removable partial dentures.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Chan-Te; Liu, Fang-Chun; Luk, Kwing-Chi

2017-02-01

The aims of this study were to evaluate the effect of the location of the rotational center and the morphology of teeth resulting in interference with the rotational path of insertion and to estimate when an interference test should be performed. A total of 400 dental radiograms of maxillary and mandibular first and second molars (100 for each position) were selected. The radiograms were used to hand-sketch the outlines on tracing paper. Then, an interference test was simulated using calipers. Mesial long occlusal rest seats with three different lengths were designed. A curve-simulated rotational path was drawn on the tracing paper showing the outline of a molar. If the curve was intersected by the mesial outline, interference was occurred. A total of 1200 tests were performed. A significant number of interference cases (18.5%, N = 400) occurred when the rotational center was placed at the most distal margin of the occlusal surface. The interference was reduced (2.75%, N = 400) but still present at the distal fourth of the occlusal surface. At the distal one-third of the occlusal surface, interference did not occur (0%, N = 400). There was a significant difference between the results of the three rotational centers (p < 0.0001). The interference test was not required for a rotational center at the distal third to half of the occlusal surface. However, if the length of the long occlusal rest extends beyond the distal third, an interference test is recommended before final impression. Copyright © 2017 Chang Gung University. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Is semantic priming due to association strength or feature overlap? A microanalytic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Hutchison, Keith A

2003-12-01

In a recent meta-analysis, Lucas (2000) concluded that there is strong evidence of an overall pure semantic priming effect but no evidence of priming based purely on association. In the present review, I critically examine the individual studies claiming evidence of featural and associative relations in semantic memory. The most important conclusion is that automatic priming appears to be due to both association strength and feature overlap. Mediated associates provide the strongest evidence of automatic associative priming, whereas functional associates, synonyms, and antonyms instead support priming based on feature overlap. In contrast, automatic priming does not occur for category coordinates or perceptually similar items, at least when presented in the visual modality. The status of other relations, such as collocates, episodic relatives, and script relations, is unclear and requires further experimentation. Implications for current models of semantic representation and priming are discussed.

On the Prime Ideals of C [0, 1

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

It is well known that the set C[0, 1] of real-valuedcontinuous functions on the closed interval [0, 1]has a natural ring structure. Its maximal idealsare known to be points. Here we show thatalthough there exist prime ideals which are notmaximal, the zero set is again a singleton. In particular,each prime ideal is contained in a ...

The effects of alcohol expectancy priming on group bonding.

Science.gov (United States)

Moltisanti, Allison J; Below, Maureen C; Brandon, Karen O; Goldman, Mark S

2013-12-01

According to alcohol expectancy theory, drinking-related information is stored in memory and, when cue activated, influences alcohol-related behavior. Priming of alcohol cues and expectancies has been shown to elicit both drinking and nonconsumptive behavior associated with alcohol consumption, such as willingness to meet with a stranger and aggression. These social influence effects have been shown to be moderated by individual differences in alcohol expectancies. In the present study, we tested whether an alcohol prime would facilitate social group bonding even in the absence of consumption, and whether such group bonding would be moderated by individually held social expectancies. One hundred twenty undergraduates (75% female) completed an alcohol expectancy measure prior to participation. Participants were primed with either alcohol or neutral beverage words and completed a collaborative group activity followed by questionnaires measuring perceived group cohesion. Several interactions were found between condition and expectancy reflecting that those in the alcohol prime condition with higher social alcohol expectancies reported greater cohesion on task-related, but not emotion-related, group measures. These findings underscore the complexity of the impact of expectancy and social behavior on drinking: the priming of alcohol expectancies may activate aspects of pro-social behavior, which may influence drinking, which in turn may feedback to positively reinforce social expectancies.

Self-Construal Priming Modulates Self-Evaluation under Social Threat

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Tianyang Zhang

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Previous studies have shown that Westerners evaluate themselves in an especially flattering way when faced with a social-evaluative threat. The current study first investigated whether East Asians also have a similar pattern by recruiting Chinese participants and using social-evaluative threat manipulations in which participants perform self-evaluation tasks while adopting different social-evaluative feedbacks (Experiment 1. Then further examined whether the different response patterns can be modulated by different types of self-construal by using social-evaluative threat manipulations in conjunction with a self-construal priming task (Experiment 2. The results showed that, as opposed to Westerners' pattern, Chinese participants rated themselves as having significantly greater above-average effect only when faced with the nonthreatening feedback but not the social-evaluative threat. More importantly, we found that self-construal modulated the self-evaluation under social-evaluative threat: following independent self-construal priming, participants tended to show a greater above-average effect when faced with a social-evaluative threat. However, this pattern in conjunction with a social threat disappeared after participants received interdependent self-construal priming or neutral priming. These findings suggest that the effects of social-evaluative threat on self-evaluation are not culturally universal and is strongly modulated by self-construal priming.

Repetition-priming effect: a cognitive task for the definition of a clinical assessment

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Pagani

2014-04-01

Full Text Available This research aims to study how semantic priming words can influence behavioral measures (RTs, accuracy, to develop an experimental paradigm to differentiate visual neglect and hemianopia. 69 experimental subjects were involved in four experiments. In each experiment target words were preceded by word primes semantically related, neutral or unrelated to the target. The four experiments differed in terms of: number of prime, prime duration and distance between PC monitor and subject. In general, related primes should improve facilitatory effect in target recognition more than unrelated primes, reducing RTs and increasing response accuracy. After repeated ANOVA analysis applied to each experiment and paired comparisons, it is possible to point out that single related primes, shown for 150 ms, greatly improve response behavior in terms of RTs reduction. For future applications to the clinical field, we assume that neglect patients should be facilitated in these specific experimental conditions, due to implicit contralesional prime processing. On the contrary, hemianopics should nowise be facilitated, due to visual field deficit.

Secretory Vesicle Priming by CAPS Is Independent of Its SNARE-Binding MUN Domain

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cuc Quynh Nguyen Truong

2014-11-01

Full Text Available Priming of secretory vesicles is a prerequisite for their Ca2+-dependent fusion with the plasma membrane. The key vesicle priming proteins, Munc13s and CAPSs, are thought to mediate vesicle priming by regulating the conformation of the t-SNARE syntaxin, thereby facilitating SNARE complex assembly. Munc13s execute their priming function through their MUN domain. Given that the MUN domain of Ca2+-dependent activator protein for secretion (CAPS also binds syntaxin, it was assumed that CAPSs prime vesicles through the same mechanism as Munc13s. We studied naturally occurring splice variants of CAPS2 in CAPS1/CAPS2-deficient cells and found that CAPS2 primes vesicles independently of its MUN domain. Instead, the pleckstrin homology domain of CAPS2 seemingly is essential for its priming function. Our findings indicate a priming mode for secretory vesicles. This process apparently requires membrane phospholipids, does not involve the binding or direct conformational regulation of syntaxin by MUN domains of CAPSs, and is therefore not redundant with Munc13 action.

Multi-AGV path planning with double-path constraints by using an improved genetic algorithm.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zengliang Han

Full Text Available This paper investigates an improved genetic algorithm on multiple automated guided vehicle (multi-AGV path planning. The innovations embody in two aspects. First, three-exchange crossover heuristic operators are used to produce more optimal offsprings for getting more information than with the traditional two-exchange crossover heuristic operators in the improved genetic algorithm. Second, double-path constraints of both minimizing the total path distance of all AGVs and minimizing single path distances of each AGV are exerted, gaining the optimal shortest total path distance. The simulation results show that the total path distance of all AGVs and the longest single AGV path distance are shortened by using the improved genetic algorithm.

Behavioral priming: it's all in the mind, but whose mind?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stéphane Doyen

Full Text Available The perspective that behavior is often driven by unconscious determinants has become widespread in social psychology. Bargh, Chen, and Burrows' (1996 famous study, in which participants unwittingly exposed to the stereotype of age walked slower when exiting the laboratory, was instrumental in defining this perspective. Here, we present two experiments aimed at replicating the original study. Despite the use of automated timing methods and a larger sample, our first experiment failed to show priming. Our second experiment was aimed at manipulating the beliefs of the experimenters: Half were led to think that participants would walk slower when primed congruently, and the other half was led to expect the opposite. Strikingly, we obtained a walking speed effect, but only when experimenters believed participants would indeed walk slower. This suggests that both priming and experimenters' expectations are instrumental in explaining the walking speed effect. Further, debriefing was suggestive of awareness of the primes. We conclude that unconscious behavioral priming is real, while real, involves mechanisms different from those typically assumed to cause the effect.

The Influence of Working Memory Load on Semantic Priming

Science.gov (United States)

Heyman, Tom; Van Rensbergen, Bram; Storms, Gert; Hutchison, Keith A.; De Deyne, Simon

2015-01-01

The present research examines the nature of the different processes that have been proposed to underlie semantic priming. Specifically, it has been argued that priming arises as a result of "automatic target activation" and/or the use of strategies like prospective "expectancy generation" and "retrospective semantic…

76 FR 80907 - TRICARE Prime Urgent Care Demonstration Project

Science.gov (United States)

2011-12-27

... care including minor illness or injury for Active Duty Family Members enrolled in TRICARE Prime or.... Current data indicates that the ADFMs frequently need urgent care while traveling to new duty stations for... DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE Office of the Secretary TRICARE Prime Urgent Care Demonstration Project...

Homophonic and semantic priming of Japanese Kanji words: a time course study.

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Hsi-Chin; Yamauchi, Takashi; Tamaoka, Katsuo; Vaid, Jyotsna

2007-02-01

In an examination of the time course of activation of phonological and semantic information in processing kanji script, two lexical decision experiments were conducted with native readers of Japanese. Kanji targets were preceded at short (85-msec) and long (150-msec) intervals by homophonic, semantically related, or unrelated primes presented in kanji (Experiment 1) or by hiragana transcriptions of the kanji primes (Experiment 2). When primes were in kanji, semantic relatedness facilitated kanji target recognition at both intervals but homophonic relatedness did not. When primes were in hiragana, kanji target recognition was facilitated by homophonic relatedness at both intervals and by semantic relatedness only at the longer interval. The absence of homophonic priming of kanji targets by kanji primes challenges the universal phonology principle's claim that phonology is central to accessing meaning from print. The stimuli used in the present study may be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive.

Priming performance-related concerns induces task-related mind-wandering.

Science.gov (United States)

Jordano, Megan L; Touron, Dayna R

2017-10-01

Two experiments tested the hypothesis that priming of performance-related concerns would (1) increase the frequency of task-related mind-wandering (i.e., task-related interference; TRI) and (2) decrease task performance. In each experiment, sixty female participants completed an operation span task (OSPAN) containing thought content probes. The task was framed as a math task for those in a condition primed for math-related stereotype threat and as a memory task for those in a control condition. In both studies, women whose performance-related concerns were primed via stereotype threat reported more TRI than women in the control. The second experiment used a more challenging OSPAN task and stereotype primed women also had lower math accuracy than controls. These results support the "control failures×current concerns" framework of mind-wandering, which posits that the degree to which the environmental context triggers personal concerns influences both mind-wandering frequency and content. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Word Meaning Frequencies Affect Negative Compatibility Effects In Masked Priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Brocher, Andreas; Koenig, Jean-Pierre

2016-01-01

Negative compatibility effects (NCEs)-that is, slower responses to targets in related than unrelated prime-target pairs, have been observed in studies using stimulus-response (S-R) priming with stimuli like arrows and plus signs. Although there is no consensus on the underlying mechanism, explanations tend to locate NCEs within the motor-response system. A characteristic property of perceptuo-motor NCEs is a biphasic pattern of activation: A brief period in which very briefly presented (typically) masked primes facilitate processing of related targets is followed by a phase of target processing impairment. In this paper, we present data that suggest that NCEs are not restricted to S-R priming with low-level visual stimuli: The brief (50 ms), backward masked (250 ms) presentation of ambiguous words (bank) leads to slower responses than baseline to words related to the more frequent (rob) but not less frequent meaning (swim). Importantly, we found that slowed responses are preceded by a short phase of response facilitation, replicating the biphasic pattern reported for arrows and plus signs. The biphasic pattern of priming and the fact that the NCEs were found only for target words that are related to their prime word's more frequent meaning has strong implications for any theory of NCEs that locate these effects exclusively within the motor-response system.

Reading "glasses" will prime "vision," but reading a pair of "glasses" will not.

Science.gov (United States)

Neely, J H; VerWys, C A; Kahan, T A

1998-01-01

In a lexical decision task with two primes and a target, the target was preceded 300 msec by the second prime (P2) which in turn was preceded by a brief forward and backward masked first prime (P1). When P1 and P2 were unrelated, reaction times were faster when the target was related to P2 (e.g., wave SALT ... pepper) than when the target was unrelated to P2 (and P1--e.g., wave LOAN ... pepper). However, this semantic priming effect was reduced to statistically nonsignificant levels when P1 and P2 were repetitions of the same word. That is, priming did not occur for salt SALT ... pepper relative to loan LOAN ... pepper. This reduction in priming was observed whether P2 and the target were strongly or weakly related. These findings raise problems for current accounts of semantic priming.

Where perception meets memory: a review of repetition priming in visual search tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Kristjánsson, Arni; Campana, Gianluca

2010-01-01

What we have recently seen and attended to strongly influences how we subsequently allocate visual attention. A clear example is how repeated presentation of an object's features or location in visual search tasks facilitates subsequent detection or identification of that item, a phenomenon known as priming. Here, we review a large body of results from priming studies that suggest that a short-term implicit memory system guides our attention to recently viewed items. The nature of this memory system and the processing level at which visual priming occurs are still debated. Priming might be due to activity modulations of low-level areas coding simple stimulus characteristics or to higher level episodic memory representations of whole objects or visual scenes. Indeed, recent evidence indicates that only minor changes to the stimuli used in priming studies may alter the processing level at which priming occurs. We also review recent behavioral, neuropsychological, and neurophysiological evidence that indicates that the priming patterns are reflected in activity modulations at multiple sites along the visual pathways. We furthermore suggest that studies of priming in visual search may potentially shed important light on the nature of cortical visual representations. Our conclusion is that priming occurs at many different levels of the perceptual hierarchy, reflecting activity modulations ranging from lower to higher levels, depending on the stimulus, task, and context-in fact, the neural loci that are involved in the analysis of the stimuli for which priming effects are seen.

Integral transforms of the quantum mechanical path integral: Hit function and path-averaged potential

Science.gov (United States)

Edwards, James P.; Gerber, Urs; Schubert, Christian; Trejo, Maria Anabel; Weber, Axel

2018-04-01

We introduce two integral transforms of the quantum mechanical transition kernel that represent physical information about the path integral. These transforms can be interpreted as probability distributions on particle trajectories measuring respectively the relative contribution to the path integral from paths crossing a given spatial point (the hit function) and the likelihood of values of the line integral of the potential along a path in the ensemble (the path-averaged potential).

French Prime Minister tours CERN

CERN Multimedia

Anaïs Schaeffer

2012-01-01

On 30 July, Jean-Marc Ayrault, the Prime Minister of the French Republic, and Geneviève Fioraso, the Minister of Higher Education and Research, visited the Laboratory.   After being met by the Director-General at LHC Point 5, they visited the CMS control centre and experiment cavern, and got a glimpse of the LHC tunnel at Point 5. The visit ended with a round-table discussion with French and other international members of CERN’s scientific community. During the discussion, the Prime Minister reaffirmed that “support for fundamental research has to be maintained, and France must continue to invest in education, research and innovation.” He also paid tribute to CERN's role in international cooperation, which he qualified as “a fine example of science without borders.”

Goal-Directed Visual Attention Drives Health Goal Priming: An Eye-Tracking Experiment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Laan, van der Laura N.; Hooge, I.T.C.; Smeets, P.A.M.

2017-01-01

Objective: Several lab and field experiments have shown that goal priming interventions can be highly effective in promoting healthy food choices. Less is known, however, about the mechanisms by which goal priming affects food choice. This experiment tested the hypothesis that goal priming affects

Spacesuit Glove-Induced Hand Trauma and Analysis of Potentially Related Risk Variables

Science.gov (United States)

Charvat, Chacqueline M.; Norcross, Jason; Reid, Christopher R.; McFarland, Shane M.

2015-01-01

Injuries to the hands are common among astronauts who train for extravehicular activity (EVA). When the gloves are pressurized, they restrict movement and create pressure points during tasks, sometimes resulting in pain, muscle fatigue, abrasions, and occasionally more severe injuries such as onycholysis. Glove injuries, both anecdotal and recorded, have been reported during EVA training and flight persistently through NASA's history regardless of mission or glove model. Theories as to causation such as glove-hand fit are common but often lacking in supporting evidence. Previous statistical analysis has evaluated onycholysis in the context of crew anthropometry only. The purpose of this study was to analyze all injuries (as documented in the medical records) and available risk factor variables with the goal to determine engineering and operational controls that may reduce hand injuries due to the EVA glove in the future. A literature review and data mining study were conducted between 2012 and 2014. This study included 179 US NASA crew who trained or completed an EVA between 1981 and 2010 (crossing both Shuttle and ISS eras) and wore either the 4000 Series or Phase VI glove during Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU) spacesuit EVA training and flight. All injuries recorded in medical records were analyzed in their association to candidate risk factor variables. Those risk factor variables included demographic characteristics, hand anthropometry, glove fit characteristics, and training/EVA characteristics. Utilizing literature, medical records and anecdotal causation comments recorded in crewmember injury data, investigators were able to identify several risk factors associated with increased risk of glove related injuries. Prime among them were smaller hand anthropometry, duration of individual suited exposures, and improper glove-hand fit as calculated by the difference in the anthropometry middle finger length compared to the baseline EVA glove middle finger length.

The effects of associative and semantic priming in the lexical decision task.

Science.gov (United States)

Perea, Manuel; Rosa, Eva

2002-08-01

Four lexical decision experiments were conducted to examine under which conditions automatic semantic priming effects can be obtained. Experiments 1 and 2 analyzed associative/semantic effects at several very short stimulus-onset asynchronies (SOAs), whereas Experiments 3 and 4 used a single-presentation paradigm at two response-stimulus intervals (RSIs). Experiment 1 tested associatively related pairs from three semantic categories (synonyms, antonyms, and category coordinates). The results showed reliable associative priming effects at all SOAs. In addition, the correlation between associative strength and magnitude of priming was significant only at the shortest SOA (66 ms). When prime-target pairs were semantically but not associatively related (Experiment 2), reliable priming effects were obtained at SOAs of 83 ms and longer. Using the single-presentation paradigm with a short RSI (200 ms, Experiment 3), the priming effect was equal in size for associative + semantic and for semantic-only pairs (a 21-ms effect). When the RSI was set much longer (1,750 ms, Experiment 4), only the associative + semantic pairs showed a reliable priming effect (23 ms). The results are interpreted in the context of models of semantic memory.

Repetition priming with Japanese Kana scripts in word-fragment completion.

Science.gov (United States)

Komatsu, S; Naito, M

1992-03-01

Manipulating two types of Japanese Kana script, Katakana and Hiragana, we examined the effects of a script change between study and test on later word-fragment completion. Throughout three experiments, materials were composed of foreign loan nouns normally written in Katakana, but not in Hiragana, according to approved usage in Japanese. Experiment 1 demonstrated the reliable size of cross-script priming between Katakana and Hiragana. In Experiment 2, cross-modal priming was substantial when modality of presentation was changed from auditory to visual. In Experiment 3, generating a target word from its definition induced priming comparable in size to that in the prior reading condition. These results have been confirmed in the Hiragana test, as well as in the Katakana test, thereby suggesting that some conceptual and modality-independent processes may also mediate repetition priming.

Priming stimulation of basal but not lateral amygdala affects long-term potentiation in the rat dentate gyrus in vivo.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Z; Richter-Levin, G

2013-08-29

The amygdaloid complex, or amygdala, has been implicated in assigning emotional significance to sensory information and producing appropriate behavioral responses to external stimuli. The lateral and basal nuclei (lateral and basal amygdala), which are termed together as basolateral amygdala, play a critical role in emotional and motivational learning and memory. It has been established that the basolateral amygdala activation by behavioral manipulations or direct electrical stimulation can modulate hippocampal long-term potentiation (LTP), a putative cellular mechanism of memory. However, the specific functional role of each subnucleus in the modulation of hippocampal LTP has not been studied yet, even though studies have shown cytoarchitectural differences between the basal and lateral amygdala and differences in the connections of each one of them to other brain areas. In this study we have tested the effects of lateral or basal amygdala pre-stimulation on hippocampal dentate gyrus LTP, induced by theta burst stimulation of the perforant path, in anesthetized rats. We found that while priming stimulation of the lateral amygdala did not affect LTP of the dentate gyrus, priming stimulation of the basal amygdala enhanced the LTP response when the priming stimulation was relatively weak, but impaired it when it was relatively strong. These results show that the basal and lateral nuclei of the amygdala, which have been already shown to differ in their anatomy and connectivity, may also have different functional roles. These findings raise the possibility that the lateral and basal amygdala differentially modulate memory processes in the hippocampus under emotional and motivational situations. Copyright © 2013 IBRO. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Vault Safety and Inventory System users manual, PRIME 2350. Revision 1

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Downey, N.J.

1994-01-01

This revision is issued to request review of the attached document: VSIS User Manual, PRIME 2350, which provides user information for the operation of the VSIS (Vault Safety and Inventory System). It describes operational aspects of Prime 2350 minicomputer and vault data acquisition equipment. It also describes the User's Main Menu and menu functions, including REPORTS. Also, system procedures for the Prime 2350 minicomputer are covered

Vault Safety and Inventory System users manual, PRIME 2350. Revision 1

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Downey, N.J.

1994-12-14

This revision is issued to request review of the attached document: VSIS User Manual, PRIME 2350, which provides user information for the operation of the VSIS (Vault Safety and Inventory System). It describes operational aspects of Prime 2350 minicomputer and vault data acquisition equipment. It also describes the User`s Main Menu and menu functions, including REPORTS. Also, system procedures for the Prime 2350 minicomputer are covered.

Exploring Visuomotor Priming Following Biological and Non-Biological Stimuli

Science.gov (United States)

Gowen, E.; Bradshaw, C.; Galpin, A.; Lawrence, A.; Poliakoff, E.

2010-01-01

Observation of human actions influences the observer's own motor system, termed visuomotor priming, and is believed to be caused by automatic activation of mirror neurons. Evidence suggests that priming effects are larger for biological (human) as opposed to non-biological (object) stimuli and enhanced when viewing stimuli in mirror compared to…

Emotion-Specific Priming: Congruence Effects on Affect and Recognition across Negative Emotions.

Science.gov (United States)

Hansen, Christine H.; Shantz, Cynthia A.

1995-01-01

Demonstrated the emotion-specific priming effects of negatively valenced emotions (anger, sadness, and fear) in a divided attention task. Results indicated that a negative emotion displayed by a target that matched the emotion induced by a priming manipulation was significantly stronger than an incongruous priming manipulation and displayed…

Safety of primed repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and modified constraint-induced movement therapy in a randomized controlled trial in pediatric hemiparesis.

Science.gov (United States)

Gillick, Bernadette T; Krach, Linda E; Feyma, Tim; Rich, Tonya L; Moberg, Kelli; Menk, Jeremiah; Cassidy, Jessica; Kimberley, Teresa; Carey, James R

2015-04-01

To investigate the safety of combining a 6-Hz primed low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) intervention in the contralesional hemisphere with a modified constraint-induced movement therapy (mCIMT) program in children with congenital hemiparesis. Phase 1 randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled pretest/posttest trial. University academic facility and pediatric specialty hospital. Subjects (N = 19; age range, 8-17 y) with congenital hemiparesis caused by ischemic stroke or periventricular leukomalacia. No subject withdrew because of adverse events. All subjects included completed the study. Subjects were randomized to 1 of 2 groups: either real rTMS plus mCIMT (n = 10) or sham rTMS plus mCIMT (n = 9). Adverse events, physician assessment, ipsilateral hand function, stereognosis, cognitive function, subject report of symptoms assessment, and subject questionnaire. No major adverse events occurred. Minor adverse events were found in both groups. The most common events were headaches (real: 50%, sham: 89%; P = .14) and cast irritation (real: 30%, sham: 44%; P = .65). No differences between groups in secondary cognitive and unaffected hand motor measures were found. Primed rTMS can be used safely with mCIMT in congenital hemiparesis. We provide new information on the use of rTMS in combination with mCIMT in children. These findings could be useful in research and future clinical applications in advancing function in congenital hemiparesis. Copyright © 2015 American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Comparison of Prime Movers Suitable for USMC Expeditionary Power Sources

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Theiss, T J; Conklin, J. C.; Thomas, John F.; Armstrong, T. R.

2000-04-18

This report documents the results of the ORNL investigation into prime movers that would be desirable for the construction of a power system suitable for the United States Marine Corps (USMC) expeditionary forces under Operational Maneuvers From The Sea (OMFTS) doctrine. Discrete power levels of {approx}1, 5, 15, and 30 kW are considered. The only requirement is that the prime mover consumes diesel fuel. A brief description is given for the prime movers to describe their basic scientific foundations and relative advantages and disadvantages. A list of key attributes developed by ORNL has been weighted by the USMC to indicate the level of importance. A total of 14 different prime movers were scored by ORNL personnel in four size ranges (1,5, 15, & 30 kW) for their relative strength in each attribute area. The resulting weighted analysis was used to indicate which prime movers are likely to be suitable for USMC needs. No single engine or prime mover emerged as the clear-cut favorite but several engines scored as well or better than the diesel engine. At the higher load levels (15 & 30 kW), the results indicate that the open Brayton (gas turbine) is a relatively mature technology and likely a suitable choice to meet USMC needs. At the lower power levels, the situation is more difficult and the market alone is not likely to provide an optimum solution in the time frame desired (2010). Several prime movers should be considered for future developments and may be satisfactory; specifically, the Atkinson cycle, the open Brayton cycle (gas turbine), the 2-stroke diesel. The rotary diesel and the solid oxide fuel cell should be backup candidates. Of all these prime movers, the Atkinson cycle may well be the most suitable for this application but is an immature technology. Additional demonstrations of this engine will be conducted at ORNL. If this analysis is positive, then the performance of a generator set using this engine, the open Brayton and the 2-stroke diesel should

Towers of Function Fields over Non-prime Finite Fields

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bassa, Alp; Beelen, Peter; Garcia, Arnaldo

2015-01-01

Over all non-prime finite fields, we construct some recursive towers of function fields with many rational places. Thus we obtain a substantial improvement on all known lower bounds for Ihara’s quantity A(ℓ), for ℓ = pn with p prime and n > 3 odd. We relate the explicit equations to Drinfeld modu...

Independent priming of location and color in identification of briefly presented letters.

Science.gov (United States)

Ásgeirsson, Árni Gunnar; Kristjánsson, Árni; Bundesen, Claus

2014-01-01

Attention shifts are facilitated if the items to be attended remain the same across trials. Some researchers argue that this priming effect is perceptual, whereas others propose that priming is postperceptual, involving facilitated response selection. The experimental findings have not been consistent regarding the roles of variables such as task difficulty, response repetition, expectancies, and decision-making. Position priming, when repetition of a target position facilitates responses on a subsequent trial, is another source of disagreement among researchers. Experimental results have likewise been inconsistent as to whether position priming is dependent on the repetition of target features or has an independent effect on attention shifts. We attempted to isolate the perceptual components of priming by presenting brief (10-180 ms) search arrays to eight healthy observers. The task was to identify a color-singleton letter among distractors. All stimulus presentation contingencies were randomized, and responses were unspeeded, to avoid effects of observer expectation and postperceptual effects. Repeating target color and/or position strongly improved performance. The effects of color and position repetition were independent of one another and were stable across participants. The results argue for a strong perceptual component in priming, which biases selection toward recent target features and positions, showing that perceptual mechanisms are sufficient to produce priming in visual search and that such effects can be elicited with limited sensory evidence. The results are the first to demonstrate independent priming of color and position in the identification of briefly presented, postmasked stimuli.

Morphological changes of gamma prime precipitates in nickel-base superalloy single crystals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mackay, R.A.

1984-07-01

Changes in the morphology of the gamma prime precipitate were examined during tensile creep at temperatures between 927 and 1038 C in 001-oriented single crystals of a Ni-Al-Mo-Ta superalloy. In this alloy, which has a large negative misfit of -0.80%, the gamma prime particles link together during creep to form platelets, or rafts, which are aligned with their broad faces perpendicular to the applied tensile axis. The dimensions of the gamma and gamma prime phases were measured as directional coarsening developed in an attempt to trace the changing morphology under various stress levels. In addition, the effects of initial microstructure, as well as slight compositional variations, were related to raft development and creep properties. The results showed that directional coarsening of gamma prime began during primary creep, and under certain conditions, continued to develop after the onset of steady-state creep. The length of the rafts increased linearly with time up to a plateau region. The thickness of the rafts, however, remained equal to the initial gamma prime size at least up through the onset of tertiary creep this is a clear indication of the stability of the finely-spaced gamma-gamma prime lamellar structure. It was found that the single crystals with the finest gamma prime size exhibited the longest creep lives, because the resultant rafted structure had a larger number of gamma-gamma prime interfaces per unit volume of material

Changing the threshold-Signals and mechanisms of mast cell priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Halova, Ivana; Rönnberg, Elin; Draberova, Lubica; Vliagoftis, Harissios; Nilsson, Gunnar P; Draber, Petr

2018-03-01

Mast cells play a key role in allergy and other inflammatory diseases involving engagement of multivalent antigen with IgE bound to high-affinity IgE receptors (FcεRIs). Aggregation of FcεRIs on mast cells initiates a cascade of signaling events that eventually lead to degranulation, secretion of leukotrienes and prostaglandins, and cytokine and chemokine production contributing to the inflammatory response. Exposure to pro-inflammatory cytokines, chemokines, bacterial and viral products, as well as some other biological products and drugs, induces mast cell transition from the basal state into a primed one, which leads to enhanced response to IgE-antigen complexes. Mast cell priming changes the threshold for antigen-mediated activation by various mechanisms, depending on the priming agent used, which alone usually do not induce mast cell degranulation. In this review, we describe the priming processes induced in mast cells by various cytokines (stem cell factor, interleukins-4, -6 and -33), chemokines, other agents acting through G protein-coupled receptors (adenosine, prostaglandin E 2 , sphingosine-1-phosphate, and β-2-adrenergic receptor agonists), toll-like receptors, and various drugs affecting the cytoskeleton. We will review the current knowledge about the molecular mechanisms behind priming of mast cells leading to degranulation and cytokine production and discuss the biological effects of mast cell priming induced by several cytokines. © 2018 John Wiley & Sons A/S. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Attachment Security Balances Perspectives: Effects of Security Priming on Highly Optimistic and Pessimistic Explanatory Styles.

Science.gov (United States)

Deng, Yanhe; Yan, Mengge; Chen, Henry; Sun, Xin; Zhang, Peng; Zeng, Xianglong; Liu, Xiangping; Lye, Yue

2016-01-01

Highly optimistic explanatory style (HOES) and highly pessimistic explanatory style (HPES) are two maladaptive ways to explain the world and may have roots in attachment insecurity. The current study aims to explore the effects of security priming - activating supportive representations of attachment security - on ameliorating these maladaptive explanatory styles. 57 participants with HOES and 57 participants with HPES were randomized into security priming and control conditions. Their scores of overall optimistic attribution were measured before and after priming. Security priming had a moderating effect: the security primed HOES group exhibited lower optimistic attribution, while the security primed HPES group evinced higher scores of optimistic attribution. Furthermore, the security primed HOES group attributed positive outcomes more externally, while the security primed HPES group attributed successful results more internally. The results support the application of security priming interventions on maladaptive explanatory styles. Its potential mechanism and directions for future study are also discussed.

Does the presence of priming hinder subsequent recognition or recall performance?

Science.gov (United States)

Stark, Shauna M; Gordon, Barry; Stark, Craig E L

2008-02-01

Declarative and non-declarative memories are thought be supported by two distinct memory systems that are often posited not to interact. However, Wagner, Maril, and Schacter (2000a) reported that at the time priming was assessed, greater behavioural and neural priming was associated with lower levels of subsequent recognition memory, demonstrating an interaction between declarative and non-declarative memory. We examined this finding using a similar paradigm, in which participants made the same or different semantic word judgements following a short or long lag and subsequent memory test. We found a similar overall pattern of results, with greater behavioural priming associated with a decrease in recognition and recall performance. However, neither various within-participant nor various between-participant analyses revealed significant correlations between priming and subsequent memory performance. These data suggest that both lag and task have effects on priming and declarative memory performance, but that they are largely independent and occur in parallel.

Path-based Queries on Trajectory Data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Krogh, Benjamin Bjerre; Pelekis, Nikos; Theodoridis, Yannis

2014-01-01

In traffic research, management, and planning a number of path-based analyses are heavily used, e.g., for computing turn-times, evaluating green waves, or studying traffic flow. These analyses require retrieving the trajectories that follow the full path being analyzed. Existing path queries cannot...... sufficiently support such path-based analyses because they retrieve all trajectories that touch any edge in the path. In this paper, we define and formalize the strict path query. This is a novel query type tailored to support path-based analysis, where trajectories must follow all edges in the path...... a specific path by only retrieving data from the first and last edge in the path. To correctly answer strict path queries existing network-constrained trajectory indexes must retrieve data from all edges in the path. An extensive performance study of NETTRA using a very large real-world trajectory data set...

Self-construal priming affects speed of retrieval from short-term memory.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Justin A Macdonald

Full Text Available We investigated the effects of collective or individual self-construal priming on recall in a short-term memory (STM task. We primed participants to either their individual or their collective self-construals or a neutral control condition. Participants then completed a STM retrieval task using either random or patterned digit strings. Findings revealed that priming an individual self-construal resulted in faster retrieval of information from STM for both stimulus types. These results indicate that individual self-accessibility improves retrieval speed of digits from STM, regardless of set configuration. More broadly, the present findings extend prior research by adding further evidence of the effects of self-construal priming on cognitive information processing.

The influence of object relative size on priming and explicit memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Uttl, Bob; Graf, Peter; Siegenthaler, Amy L

2008-09-01

We investigated the effects of object relative size on priming and explicit memory for color photos of common objects. Participants were presented with color photos of pairs of objects displayed in either appropriate or inappropriate relative sizes. Implicit memory was assessed by speed of object size ratings whereas explicit memory was assessed by an old/new recognition test. Study-to-test changes in relative size reduced both priming and explicit memory and had large effects for objects displayed in large vs. small size at test. Our findings of substantial size-specific influences on priming with common objects under some but not other conditions are consistent with instance views of object perception and priming but inconsistent with structural description views.

Developmental differences in masked form priming are not driven by vocabulary growth.

Science.gov (United States)

Bhide, Adeetee; Schlaggar, Bradley L; Barnes, Kelly Anne

2014-01-01

As children develop into skilled readers, they are able to more quickly and accurately distinguish between words with similar visual forms (i.e., they develop precise lexical representations). The masked form priming lexical decision task is used to test the precision of lexical representations. In this paradigm, a prime (which differs by one letter from the target) is briefly flashed before the target is presented. Participants make a lexical decision to the target. Primes can facilitate reaction time by partially activating the lexical entry for the target. If a prime is unable to facilitate reaction time, it is assumed that participants have a precise orthographic representation of the target and thus the prime is not a close enough match to activate its lexical entry. Previous developmental work has shown that children and adults' lexical decision times are facilitated by form primes preceding words from small neighborhoods (i.e., very few words can be formed by changing one letter in the original word; low N words), but only children are facilitated by form primes preceding words from large neighborhoods (high N words). It has been hypothesized that written vocabulary growth drives the increase in the precision of the orthographic representations; children may not know all of the neighbors of the high N words, making the words effectively low N for them. We tested this hypothesis by (1) equating the effective orthographic neighborhood size of the targets for children and adults and (2) testing whether age or vocabulary size was a better predictor of the extent of form priming. We found priming differences even when controlling for effective neighborhood size. Furthermore, age was a better predictor of form priming effects than was vocabulary size. Our findings provide no support for the hypothesis that growth in written vocabulary size gives rise to more precise lexical representations. We propose that the development of spelling ability may be a more

Developmental differences in masked form priming are not driven by vocabulary growth.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Adeetee eBhide

2014-07-01

Full Text Available As children develop into skilled readers, they are able to more quickly and accurately distinguish between words with similar visual forms (i.e. they develop precise lexical representations. The masked form priming lexical decision task is used to test the precision of lexical representations. In this paradigm, a prime (which differs by one letter from the target is briefly flashed before the target is presented. Participants make a lexical decision to the target. Primes can facilitate reaction time by partially activating the lexical entry for the target. If a prime is unable to facilitate reaction time, it is assumed that participants have a precise orthographic representation of the target and thus the prime is not a close enough match to activate its lexical entry. Previous developmental work has shown that children and adults' lexical decision times are facilitated by form primes preceding words from small neighborhoods (i.e. very few words can be formed by changing one letter in the original word; low N words, but only children are facilitated by form primes preceding words from large neighborhoods (high N words. It has been hypothesized that written vocabulary growth drives the increase in the precision of the orthographic representations; children may not know all of the neighbors of the high N words, making the words effectively low N for them. We tested this hypothesis by 1 equating the effective orthographic neighborhood size of the targets for children and adults and 2 testing whether age or vocabulary size was a better predictor of the extent of form priming. We found priming differences even when controlling for effective neighborhood size. Furthermore, age was a better predictor of form priming effects than vocabulary size. Our findings provide no support for the hypothesis that growth in written vocabulary size gives rise to more precise lexical representations. We propose that the development of spelling ability may be a more

75 FR 43166 - Information Collection; Central Contractor Registration Requirements for Prime Grant Recipients

Science.gov (United States)

2010-07-23

...] Information Collection; Central Contractor Registration Requirements for Prime Grant Recipients AGENCY: Office... information collection requirement regarding Central Contractor Registration Requirements for Prime Grant... for the proper performance of functions of the Central Contractor Registration Requirements for Prime...

Prime time sexual harassment.

Science.gov (United States)

Grauerholz, E; King, A

1997-04-01

This study explores the explicit and implicit messages of sexual harassment that viewers receive when viewing prime-time television in the US. A content analysis of 48 hours of prime-time television reveals that sexual harassment on television is both highly visible and invisible. Sexual harassment is rendered visible simply by its prominence in these programs. Incidents involving quid-pro-quo harassment and environmental harassment occur with regularity on television. Furthermore, about 84% of the shows studied contained at least one incident of sexual harassment; yet these acts of sexual harassment remained largely invisible because none of the behaviors were labeled as sexual harassment. These incidents are presented in humorous ways, and victims are generally unharmed and very effective at ending the harassment. Although such programs may actually reflect the reality of many women's lives in terms of prevalence of sexual harassment, they perpetuate several myths about sexual harassment, such as that sexual harassment is not serious and that victims should be able to handle the situations themselves.

Priming semantic concepts affects the dynamics of aesthetic appreciation.

Science.gov (United States)

Faerber, Stella J; Leder, Helmut; Gerger, Gernot; Carbon, Claus-Christian

2010-10-01

Aesthetic appreciation (AA) plays an important role for purchase decisions, for the appreciation of art and even for the selection of potential mates. It is known that AA is highly reliable in single assessments, but over longer periods of time dynamic changes of AA may occur. We measured AA as a construct derived from the literature through attractiveness, arousal, interestingness, valence, boredom and innovativeness. By means of the semantic network theory we investigated how the priming of AA-relevant semantic concepts impacts the dynamics of AA of unfamiliar product designs (car interiors) that are known to be susceptible to triggering such effects. When participants were primed for innovativeness, strong dynamics were observed, especially when the priming involved additional AA-relevant dimensions. This underlines the relevance of priming of specific semantic networks not only for the cognitive processing of visual material in terms of selective perception or specific representation, but also for the affective-cognitive processing in terms of the dynamics of aesthetic processing. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Semantic context effects and priming in word association.

Science.gov (United States)

Zeelenberg, René; Pecher, Diane; Shiffrin, Richard M; Raaijmakers, Jeroen G W

2003-09-01

Two experiments investigated priming in word association, an implicit memory task. In the study phase of Experiment 1, semantically ambiguous target words were presented in sentences that biased their interpretation. The appropriate interpretation of the target was either congruent or incongruent with the cue presented in a subsequent word association task. Priming (i.e., a higher proportion of target responses relative to a nonstudied baseline) was obtained for the congruent condition, but not for the incongruent condition. In Experiment 2, study sentences emphasized particular meaning aspects of nonambiguous targets. The word association task showed a higher proportion of target responses for targets studied in the more congruent sentence context than for targets studied in the less congruent sentence context. These results indicate that priming in word association depends largely on the storage of information relating the cue and target.

Priming dose of phenylhydrazine protects against hemolytic and lethal effects of 2-butoxyethanol

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Palkar, Prajakta S.; Philip, Binu K.; Reddy, Ramesh N.; Mehendale, Harihara M.

2007-01-01

Protection against a high dose of a toxicant by prior exposure to another toxicant is called heteroprotection. Our objective was to establish a heteroprotection model in RBCs. Female Sprague Dawley rats treated with an LD90 dose of 2-butoxyethanol (BE, 1500 mg/kg in water, 5 ml/kg po) 14 days after priming with 0.9% NaCl suffered 90% mortality by 15 days, whereas all rats receiving the LD90 dose of BE 14 days after priming with phenylhydrazine (PHZ, 125 mg/kg in 0.9% NaCl, 3 ml/kg po) survived. Hematocrit decreased from normal 45% to 24% by day 3 after PHZ priming and improved thereafter. Increasing the time interval between the priming and LD90 dose to 21 days abolished the heteroprotection. RBCs obtained on days 7 and 14 after PHZ priming unlike those on day 21 were resilient to the hemotoxic metabolite of BE, butoxyacetic acid (BAA). Unaltered hepatic alcohol and aldehyde dehydrogenase activities upon PHZ priming suggested that bioactivation of BE to BAA was unaffected. Lower renal (6 and 12 h) and hepatic (12 h) BAA levels and 3 fold higher excretion of BAA in PHZ-primed rat urine suggested a protective role of toxicokinetics. Higher erythropoietin, reticulocytes, and resiliency of PHZ-primed rat RBCs indicated that newly formed RBCs are resilient to hemolytic BAA. The antioxidant levels in the PHZ-primed rat RBCs did not indicate a protective role in heteroprotection. In conclusion, the resistance of PHZ-primed rats against BE-induced hemotoxicity and lethality is mediated by a combination of altered toxicokinetics, robust erythropoiesis, and resiliency of new RBCs

Precision probes of a leptophobic Z{sup Prime} boson

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Buckley, Matthew R., E-mail: mbuckley@fnal.gov [Center for Particle Astrophysics, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Batavia, IL 60510 (United States); Ramsey-Musolf, Michael J. [Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706 (United States); Kellogg Radiation Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)

2012-06-06

Extensions of the Standard Model that contain leptophobic Z{sup Prime} gauge bosons are theoretically interesting but difficult to probe directly in high-energy hadron colliders. However, precision measurements of Standard Model neutral current processes can provide powerful indirect tests. We demonstrate that parity-violating deep inelastic scattering of polarized electrons off of deuterium offer a unique probe leptophobic Z{sup Prime} bosons with axial quark couplings and masses above 100 GeV. In addition to covering a wide range of previously uncharted parameter space, planned measurements of the deep inelastic parity-violating eD asymmetry would be capable of testing leptophobic Z{sup Prime} scenarios proposed to explain the CDF W plus dijet anomaly.

The impact of locus of control and priming on the endowment effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Ya-Chung

2011-10-01

This paper demonstrates the effects of different priming conditions on the endowment effect with respect to seller and buyer roles for individuals with different loci of control. Individuals with an external locus of control process information less rationally, and they are more susceptible to external influences. In addition, the literature reports that when individuals are making a purchasing decision, they tend to perceive the value of the product as being higher because of its utility aspect because decision makers search for reasons and arguments to justify their choices (Shafir 1993; Tversky & Griffin, 1991). Therefore, this study investigates the effects of different priming conditions (utilitarian priming vs. hedonic priming) on the endowment effect according to each type of locus of control (internal vs. external). The results showed that the endowment effect was larger when externals were exposed to utilitarian priming as opposed to hedonic priming. Finally, the implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are discussed. © 2011 The Author. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology © 2011 The Scandinavian Psychological Associations.

Accessing world knowledge: evidence from N400 and reaction time priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Chwilla, Dorothee J; Kolk, Herman H J

2005-12-01

How fast are we in accessing world knowledge? In two experiments, we tested for priming for word triplets that described a conceptual script (e.g., DIRECTOR-BRIBE-DISMISSAL) but were not associatively related and did not share a category relationship. Event-related brain potentials were used to track the time course at which script information becomes available. In Experiment 1, in which participants made lexical decisions, we found a facilitation for script-related relative to unrelated triplets, as indicated by (i) a decrease in both reaction time and errors, and (ii) an N400-like priming effect. In Experiment 2, we further explored the locus of script priming by increasing the contribution of meaning integration processes. The participants' task was to indicate whether the three words presented a plausible scenario. Again, an N400 script priming effect was obtained. Directing attention to script relations was effective in enhancing the N400 effect. The time course of the N400 effect was similar to that of the standard N400 effect to semantic relations. The present results show that script priming can be obtained in the visual modality, and that script information is immediately accessed and integrated with context. This supports the view that script information forms a central aspect of word meaning. The RT and N400 script priming effects reported in this article are problematic for most current semantic priming models, like spreading activation models, expectancy models, and task-specific semantic matching/integration models. They support a view in which there is no clear cutoff point between semantic knowledge and world knowledge.

Hand movement deviations in a visual search task with cross modal cuing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hürol Aslan

2007-01-01

Full Text Available The purpose of this study is to demonstrate the cross-modal effects of an auditory organization on a visual search task and to investigate the influence of the level of detail in instructions describing or hinting at the associations between auditory stimuli and the possible locations of a visual target. In addition to measuring the participants’ reaction times, we paid special attention to tracking the hand movements toward the target. According to the results, the auditory stimuli unassociated with the target locations slightly –but significantly- increased the deviation of the hand movement from the path leading to the target location. The increase in the deviation depended on the degree of association between auditory stimuli and target locations, albeit not on the level of detail in the instructions about the task.

Preparing to fight back: Generation and storage of priming compounds.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Victoria ePastor

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Immune-stimulated plants are able to respond more rapidly and adequately to various biotic stresses allowing them to efficiently combat an infection. During the priming phase, plant are stimulated in absence of a challenge, and can accumulate and store conjugates or precursors of molecules as well as other compounds that play a role in defense. These molecules can be released during the defensive phase following stress. These metabolites can also participate in the first stages of the stress perception. Here, we report the metabolic changes occuring in primed plants during the priming phase. β-aminobutyric acid (BABA causes a boost of the primary metabolism through the tricarboxylic acids (TCA such as citrate, fumarate, (S-malate and 2-oxoglutarate, and the potentiation of phenylpropanoid biosynthesis and the octodecanoic pathway. On the contrary, Pseudomonas syringae pv tomato (PstAvrRpt2 represses the same pathways. Both systems used to prime plants share some common signals like the changes in the synthesis of amino acids and the production of SA and its glycosides, as well as IAA. Interestingly, a product of the purine catabolism, xanthosine, was found to accumulate following both BABA- and PstAvrRpt2-treatement. The compounds that are strongly affected in this stage are called priming compounds, since their effect on the metabolism of the plant is to induce the production of primed compounds that will help to combat the stress. At the same time, additional identified metabolites suggest the possible defense pathways that plants are using to get ready for the battle.

Folded-light-path colloidal quantum dot solar cells.

KAUST Repository

Koleilat, Ghada I; Kramer, Illan J; Wong, Chris T O; Thon, Susanna M; Labelle, André J; Hoogland, Sjoerd; Sargent, Edward H

2013-01-01

Colloidal quantum dot photovoltaics combine low-cost solution processing with quantum size-effect tuning to match absorption to the solar spectrum. Rapid advances have led to certified solar power conversion efficiencies of over 7%. Nevertheless, these devices remain held back by a compromise in the choice of quantum dot film thickness, balancing on the one hand the need to maximize photon absorption, mandating a thicker film, and, on the other, the need for efficient carrier extraction, a consideration that limits film thickness. Here we report an architecture that breaks this compromise by folding the path of light propagating in the colloidal quantum dot solid. Using this method, we achieve a substantial increase in short-circuit current, ultimately leading to improved power conversion efficiency.

The influence of object relative size on priming and explicit memory.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bob Uttl

Full Text Available We investigated the effects of object relative size on priming and explicit memory for color photos of common objects. Participants were presented with color photos of pairs of objects displayed in either appropriate or inappropriate relative sizes. Implicit memory was assessed by speed of object size ratings whereas explicit memory was assessed by an old/new recognition test. Study-to-test changes in relative size reduced both priming and explicit memory and had large effects for objects displayed in large vs. small size at test. Our findings of substantial size-specific influences on priming with common objects under some but not other conditions are consistent with instance views of object perception and priming but inconsistent with structural description views.

Priming involuntary autobiographical memories in the lab.

Science.gov (United States)

Barzykowski, Krystian; Niedźwieńska, Agnieszka

2018-02-01

Involuntary autobiographical memories (IAMs) are recollections of personal past that frequently and spontaneously occur in daily life. Initial studies by Mace (2005) showed that deliberately reminiscing about a certain lifetime period (e.g., high school) significantly increased the number of different IAMs from the same period in subsequent days, suggesting that priming may play a significant role in the retrieval of IAMs in everyday life. In the present study, we used a modified experimental paradigm, originally used by Schlagman and Kvavilashvili (2008), to study IAMs under well-controlled laboratory conditions. Participants completed a monotonous vigilance task twice and reported the occurrence of any spontaneous thoughts that were later classed as IAMs or other thoughts. Priming was manipulated by having experimental participants reminiscing about high school period between the two vigilance tasks and control participants playing simple games. Results showed that participants in the experimental group reported IAMs relating to high school period more frequently during the second vigilance task than those in the control group. In the experimental group, the number of high school memories was marginally higher in the second vigilance task compared to the first vigilance task with the medium effect size, but this within subjects effect was not significant in the control group. Finally, priming also enhanced the retrieval of more remote IAMs in the experimental group compared to the control group. These results suggest that priming may play a significant role in the activation and recall of IAMs and open up interesting avenues for future research.

Lack of semantic priming effects in famous person recognition in Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Brambati, Simona M; Peters, Frédéric; Belleville, Sylvie; Joubert, Sven

2012-04-01

Growing evidence indicates that individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) manifest semantic deficits that are often more severe for items that are characterized by a unique semantic and lexical association, such as famous people and famous buildings, than common concepts, such as objects. However, it is still controversial whether the semantic deficits observed in MCI are determined by a degradation of semantic information or by a deficit in intentional access to semantic knowledge. Here we used a semantic priming task in order to assess the integrity of the semantic system without requiring explicit access to this system. This paradigm may provide new insights in clarifying the nature of the semantic deficits in MCI. We assessed the semantic and repetition priming effect in 13 individuals with MCI and 13 age-matched controls who engaged in a familiarity judgment task of famous names. In the semantic priming condition, the prime was the name of a member of the same occupation category as the target (Tom Cruise-Brad Pitt), while in the repetition priming condition the prime was the same name as the target (Charlie Chaplin-Charlie Chaplin). The results showed a defective priming effect in MCI in the semantic but not in the repetition priming condition. Specifically, when compared to controls, MCI patients did not show a facilitation effect in responding to the same occupation prime-target pairs, but they showed an equivalent facilitation effect when the target was the same name as the prime. The present results provide support to the hypothesis that the semantic impairments observed in MCI cannot be uniquely ascribed to a deficit in intentional access to semantic information. Instead, these findings point to the semantic nature of these deficits and, in particular, to a degraded representation of semantic information concerning famous people. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Srl. All rights reserved.

Path integration quantization

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

DeWitt-Morette, C.

1983-01-01

Much is expected of path integration as a quantization procedure. Much more is possible if one recognizes that path integration is at the crossroad of stochastic and differential calculus and uses the full power of both stochastic and differential calculus in setting up and computing path integrals. In contrast to differential calculus, stochastic calculus has only comparatively recently become an instrument of thought. It has nevertheless already been used in a variety of challenging problems, for instance in the quantization problem. The author presents some applications of the stochastic scheme. (Auth.)

Priming effects in boreal black spruce forest soils: quantitative evaluation and sensitivity analysis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhaosheng Fan

Full Text Available Laboratory studies show that introduction of fresh and easily decomposable organic carbon (OC into soil-water systems can stimulate the decomposition of soil OC (SOC via priming effects in temperate forests, shrublands, grasslands, and agro-ecosystems. However, priming effects are still not well understood in the field setting for temperate ecosystems and virtually nothing is known about priming effects (e.g., existence, frequency, and magnitude in boreal ecosystems. In this study, a coupled dissolved OC (DOC transport and microbial biomass dynamics model was developed to simultaneously simulate co-occurring hydrological, physical, and biological processes and their interactions in soil pore-water systems. The developed model was then used to examine the importance of priming effects in two black spruce forest soils, with and without underlying permafrost. Our simulations showed that priming effects were strongly controlled by the frequency and intensity of DOC input, with greater priming effects associated with greater DOC inputs. Sensitivity analyses indicated that priming effects were most sensitive to variations in the quality of SOC, followed by variations in microbial biomass dynamics (i.e., microbial death and maintenance respiration, highlighting the urgent need to better discern these key parameters in future experiments and to consider these dynamics in existing ecosystem models. Water movement carries DOC to deep soil layers that have high SOC stocks in boreal soils. Thus, greater priming effects were predicted for the site with favorable water movement than for the site with limited water flow, suggesting that priming effects might be accelerated for sites where permafrost degradation leads to the formation of dry thermokarst.

Priming effects in boreal black spruce forest soils: quantitative evaluation and sensitivity analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Fan, Zhaosheng; Jastrow, Julie D; Liang, Chao; Matamala, Roser; Miller, Raymond Michael

2013-01-01

Laboratory studies show that introduction of fresh and easily decomposable organic carbon (OC) into soil-water systems can stimulate the decomposition of soil OC (SOC) via priming effects in temperate forests, shrublands, grasslands, and agro-ecosystems. However, priming effects are still not well understood in the field setting for temperate ecosystems and virtually nothing is known about priming effects (e.g., existence, frequency, and magnitude) in boreal ecosystems. In this study, a coupled dissolved OC (DOC) transport and microbial biomass dynamics model was developed to simultaneously simulate co-occurring hydrological, physical, and biological processes and their interactions in soil pore-water systems. The developed model was then used to examine the importance of priming effects in two black spruce forest soils, with and without underlying permafrost. Our simulations showed that priming effects were strongly controlled by the frequency and intensity of DOC input, with greater priming effects associated with greater DOC inputs. Sensitivity analyses indicated that priming effects were most sensitive to variations in the quality of SOC, followed by variations in microbial biomass dynamics (i.e., microbial death and maintenance respiration), highlighting the urgent need to better discern these key parameters in future experiments and to consider these dynamics in existing ecosystem models. Water movement carries DOC to deep soil layers that have high SOC stocks in boreal soils. Thus, greater priming effects were predicted for the site with favorable water movement than for the site with limited water flow, suggesting that priming effects might be accelerated for sites where permafrost degradation leads to the formation of dry thermokarst.

Density of primes in l-th power residues

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

Given a prime number , a finite set of integers S={a1,…,am} and many -th roots of unity ril,i=1,…,m we study the distribution of primes in Q(l) such that the -th residue symbol of ai with respect to is ril, for all . We find out that this is related to the degree of the extension Q(a1l1,…,a1lm)/Q. We give an algorithm ...

Facial Features Can Induce Emotion: Evidence from Affective Priming Tasks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chia-Chen Wu

2011-05-01

Full Text Available Our previous study found that schematic faces with direct gazes, with mouths, with horizontal oval eyes, or without noses, tend to be perceived as in negative emotion. In this study we further explore these factors by the affective priming task. Faces were taking as prime, and positive or negative words were probe. The task was to judge the valence of the probe. If the faces could induce emotions, a target word with the same emotional valence should be judged faster than with opposite valence (the congruency effect. Experiment 1 used the most positive and negative rated faces in previous study as the primes. The positive faces were with vertical oval eyes and without mouth, while the negative faces were with horizontal eyes and with mouth. Results of 34 participants showed that those faces indeed elicited congruency effects. Experiment 2 manipulated gaze directions (N = 16. After the task the participants were asked to rate the prime faces. According to their rating, faces with direct gaze was perceive as positive, and elicited congruency effect with positive words in affective priming task. Our data thus support the conjecture that shape of eyes, the existence of mouths, and gaze directions could induces emotion.

Kinetic and metabolic studies on the priming effect of interferon in L cells

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rosztoczy, I.

1977-01-01

In cultures primed by interferon pretreatment before stimulation by polyriboinosinic-polyribocytidylic acid interferon was detected one hour earlier, its production followed an enhanced pattern and became resistant to actinomycin D 30 min sooner than in unprimed cultures. The kinetics of development of the primed state was found to be a time- and dose-dependent phenomenon. The continuous presence of interferon during the pretreatment period was not required for the development of the primed state. Actinomycin D at a concentration inhibitory for nuclear RNA synthesis did not influence the development of priming. Higher concentrations of the drug and long term α-amanitin or cycloheximide pretreatments, inhibitory for heterogeneous nuclear RNA synthesis, prevented the establishment of the primed state. (author)

Reassessment of primed constant-infusion tracer method to measure urea kinetics

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Jahoor, F.; Wolfe, R.R.

1987-01-01

The validity of the primed constant-infusion tracer technique to make short-term measurements of urea production rates (R/sub a/) in humans in a physiological steady state and during disruption of steady state was evaluated. Four subjects received a primed constant infusion (P/I = 560 min) of [ 13 C]urea for 8 h. A plateau in urea enrichment was reached after 2 h and maintained throughout. When [ 13 C]- and [ 18 O]urea were simultaneously infused into four subjects at P/I ratios of 560:1 and 360:1, respectively, both tracers reached plateau enrichment at the same time (2-4 h). The enrichment at plateau was a function of the infusion rate rather than the priming dose, and calculated urea R/sub a/ was the same with either prime. In five additional experiments the technique responded acutely to a physiological perturbation (alanine infusion) in a dose-dependent manner. The results confirm that this technique is appropriate for short-term measurements of urea R/sub a/, and the requirement for accuracy in estimating the priming dose is not impractically stringent

UniPrime2: a web service providing easier Universal Primer design.

Science.gov (United States)

Boutros, Robin; Stokes, Nicola; Bekaert, Michaël; Teeling, Emma C

2009-07-01

The UniPrime2 web server is a publicly available online resource which automatically designs large sets of universal primers when given a gene reference ID or Fasta sequence input by a user. UniPrime2 works by automatically retrieving and aligning homologous sequences from GenBank, identifying regions of conservation within the alignment, and generating suitable primers that can be used to amplify variable genomic regions. In essence, UniPrime2 is a suite of publicly available software packages (Blastn, T-Coffee, GramAlign, Primer3), which reduces the laborious process of primer design, by integrating these programs into a single software pipeline. Hence, UniPrime2 differs from previous primer design web services in that all steps are automated, linked, saved and phylogenetically delimited, only requiring a single user-defined gene reference ID or input sequence. We provide an overview of the web service and wet-laboratory validation of the primers generated. The system is freely accessible at: http://uniprime.batlab.eu. UniPrime2 is licenced under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Licence.

Modified Three-Dimensional Multicarrier Optical Prime Codes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rajesh Yadav

2016-01-01

Full Text Available We propose a mathematical model for novel three-dimensional multicarrier optical codes in terms of wavelength/time/space based on the prime sequence algorithm. The proposed model has been extensively simulated on MATLAB for prime numbers (P to analyze the performance of code in terms of autocorrelation and cross-correlation. The simulated outcome resembles the mathematical model and gives better results over other methods available in the literature as far as autocorrelation and cross-correlation are concerned. The proposed 3D optical codes are more efficient in terms of cardinality, improved security, and providing quality of services.

Integers without large prime factors in short intervals: Conditional ...

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

α > 0 the interval (X, X +. √. X(log X)1/2+o(1)] contains an integer having no prime factor exceeding Xα for all X sufficiently large. Keywords. Smooth numbers; Riemann zeta function. 1. Introduction. Suppose P (n) denotes the largest prime factor of an integer n > 1 and let us declare. P(1) = 1. Given a positive real number y, ...

Performance Comparison Between FEDERICA Hand and LARM Hand

OpenAIRE

Carbone, Giuseppe; Rossi, Cesare; Savino, Sergio

2015-01-01

This paper describes two robotic hands that have been\\ud developed at University Federico II of Naples and at the\\ud University of Cassino. FEDERICA Hand and LARM Hand\\ud are described in terms of design and operational features.\\ud In particular, careful attention is paid to the differences\\ud between the above-mentioned hands in terms of transmission\\ud systems. FEDERICA Hand uses tendons and pulleys\\ud to drive phalanxes, while LARM Hand uses cross four-bar\\ud linkages. Results of experime...

The functional unit of Japanese word naming: evidence from masked priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Verdonschot, Rinus G; Kiyama, Sachiko; Tamaoka, Katsuo; Kinoshita, Sachiko; Heij, Wido La; Schiller, Niels O

2011-11-01

Theories of language production generally describe the segment as the basic unit in phonological encoding (e.g., Dell, 1988; Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999). However, there is also evidence that such a unit might be language specific. Chen, Chen, and Dell (2002), for instance, found no effect of single segments when using a preparation paradigm. To shed more light on the functional unit of phonological encoding in Japanese, a language often described as being mora based, we report the results of 4 experiments using word reading tasks and masked priming. Experiment 1 demonstrated using Japanese kana script that primes, which overlapped in the whole mora with target words, sped up word reading latencies but not when just the onset overlapped. Experiments 2 and 3 investigated a possible role of script by using combinations of romaji (Romanized Japanese) and hiragana; again, facilitation effects were found only when the whole mora and not the onset segment overlapped. Experiment 4 distinguished mora priming from syllable priming and revealed that the mora priming effects obtained in the first 3 experiments are also obtained when a mora is part of a syllable. Again, no priming effect was found for single segments. Our findings suggest that the mora and not the segment (phoneme) is the basic functional phonological unit in Japanese language production planning.

Effects of dividing attention during encoding on perceptual priming of unfamiliar visual objects

Science.gov (United States)

Soldan, Anja; Mangels, Jennifer A.; Cooper, Lynn A.

2008-01-01

According to the distractor-selection hypothesis (Mulligan, 2003), dividing attention during encoding reduces perceptual priming when responses to non-critical (i.e., distractor) stimuli are selected frequently and simultaneously with critical stimulus encoding. Because direct support for this hypothesis comes exclusively from studies using familiar word stimuli, the present study tested whether the predictions of the distractor-selection hypothesis extend to perceptual priming of unfamiliar visual objects using the possible/impossible object-decision test. Consistent with the distractor-selection hypothesis, Experiments 1 and 2 found no reduction in priming when the non-critical stimuli were presented infrequently and non-synchronously with the critical target stimuli, even though explicit recognition memory was reduced. In Experiment 3, non-critical stimuli were presented frequently and simultaneously during encoding of critical stimuli; however, no decrement in priming was detected, even when encoding time was reduced. These results suggest that priming in the possible/impossible object-decision test is relatively immune to reductions in central attention and that not all aspects of the distractor-selection hypothesis generalize to priming of unfamiliar visual objects. Implications for theoretical models of object-decision priming are discussed. PMID:18821167

Attention and Implicit Memory: Priming-Induced Benefits and Costs Have Distinct Attentional Requirements

OpenAIRE

Keane, Margaret M.; Cruz, Matt E.; Verfaellie, Mieke

2015-01-01

Attention at encoding plays a critical and ubiquitous role in explicit memory performance, but its role in implicit memory performance (i.e., priming) is more variable: Some, but not all, priming effects are reduced by division of attention at encoding. A wealth of empirical and theoretical work has aimed to define the critical features of priming effects that do or do not require attention at encoding. This work, however, has focused exclusively on priming effects that are beneficial in natu...

Masked and unmasked priming effects as a function of semantic relatedness and associative strength.

Science.gov (United States)

Sánchez-Casas, Rosa; Ferré, Pilar; Demestre, Josep; García-Chico, Teófilo; García-Albea, José E

2012-11-01

The study presented in this paper aimed to investigate the pattern of semantic priming effects, under masked and unmasked conditions, in the lexical decision task, manipulating type of semantic relation and associative strength. Three different kinds of word relations were examined in two experiments: only-semantically related words [e.g., codo (elbow)-rodilla (knee)] and semantic/associative related words with strong [e.g., mesa (table)-silla (chair) and weak association strength [e.g., sapo (toad)-rana (frog)]. In Experiment 1 a masked priming procedure was used with a prime duration of 56 ms, and in Experiment 2, the prime was presented unmasked for 150 ms. The results showed that there were masked priming effects with strong associates, but no evidence of these effects was found with weak associates or only-semantic related word pairs. When the prime was presented unmasked, the three types of relations produced significant priming effects and they were not influenced by association strength.

Back to basics: hand hygiene and surgical hand antisepsis.

Science.gov (United States)

Spruce, Lisa

2013-11-01

Health care-associated infections (HAIs) are a significant issue in the United States and throughout the world, but following proper hand hygiene practices is the most effective and least expensive way to prevent HAIs. Hand hygiene is inexpensive and protects patients and health care personnel alike. The four general types of hand hygiene that should be performed in the perioperative environment are washing hands that are visibly soiled, hand hygiene using alcohol-based products, surgical hand scrubs, and surgical hand scrubs using an alcohol-based surgical hand rub product. Barriers to proper hand hygiene may include not thinking about it, forgetting, skin irritation, a lack of role models, or a lack of a safety culture. One strategy for improving hand hygiene practices is monitoring hand hygiene as part of a quality improvement project, but the most important aspect for perioperative team members is to set an example for other team members by following proper hand hygiene practices and reminding each other to perform hand hygiene. Copyright © 2013 AORN, Inc. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Conflict processing in the anterior cingulate cortex constrains response priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Pastötter, Bernhard; Hanslmayr, Simon; Bäuml, Karl-Heinz T

2010-05-01

A prominent function of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is to process conflict between competing response options. In this study, we investigated the role of conflict processing in a response-priming task in which manual responses were either validly or invalidly cued. Examining electrophysiological measurements of oscillatory brain activity on the source level, we found response priming to be related to a beta power decrease in the premotor cortex and conflict processing to be linked to a theta power increase in the ACC. In particular, correlation of oscillatory brain activities in the ACC and the premotor cortex showed that conflict processing reduces response priming by slowing response time in valid trials and lowering response errors in invalid trials. This relationship emerged on a between subjects level as well as within subjects, on a single trial level. These findings suggest that conflict processing in the ACC constrains the automatic priming process. 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On primes in Lucas sequences

Czech Academy of Sciences Publication Activity Database

Křížek, Michal; Somer, L.

2015-01-01

Roč. 53, č. 1 (2015), s. 2-23 ISSN 0015-0517 R&D Projects: GA ČR GA14-02067S Institutional support: RVO:67985840 Keywords : Lucas sequence * primes Subject RIV: BA - General Mathematics http://www.fq.math.ca/Abstracts/53-1/somer.pdf

Reparametrization in the path integral

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Storchak, S.N.

1983-01-01

The question of the invariance of a measure in the n-dimensional path integral under the path reparametrization is considered. The non-invariance of the measure through the jacobian is suggeste. After the path integral reparametrization the representatioq for the Green's function of the Hamilton operator in terms of the path integral with the classical Hamiltonian has been obtained

Unique Path Partitions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bessenrodt, Christine; Olsson, Jørn Børling; Sellers, James A.

2013-01-01

We give a complete classification of the unique path partitions and study congruence properties of the function which enumerates such partitions.......We give a complete classification of the unique path partitions and study congruence properties of the function which enumerates such partitions....

A yeast model for target-primed (non-LTR retrotransposition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Busby Jason N

2007-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Target-primed (non-LTR retrotransposons, such as the human L1 element, are mobile genetic elements found in many eukaryotic genomes. They are often present in large numbers and their retrotransposition can cause mutations and genomic rearrangements. Despite their importance, many aspects of their replication are not well understood. Results We have developed a yeast model system for studying target-primed retrotransposons. This system uses the Zorro3 element from Candida albicans. A cloned copy of Zorro3, tagged with a retrotransposition indicator gene, retrotransposes at a high frequency when introduced into an appropriate C. albicans host strain. Retrotransposed copies of the tagged element exhibit similar features to the native copies, indicating that the natural retrotransposition pathway is being used. Retrotransposition is dependent on the products of the tagged element's own genes and is highly temperature-regulated. The new assay permits the analysis of the effects of specific mutations introduced into the cloned element. Conclusion This Zorro3 retrotransposition assay system complements previously available target-primed retrotransposition assays. Due to the relative simplicity of the growth, manipulation and analysis of yeast cells, the system should advance our understanding of target-primed retrotransposition.

Understanding the relationship between repetition priming and mere exposure.

Science.gov (United States)

Butler, Laurie T; Berry, Dianne C

2004-11-01

Over the last two decades interest in implicit memory, most notably repetition priming, has grown considerably. During the same period, research has also focused on the mere exposure effect. Although the two areas have developed relatively independently, a number of studies has described the mere exposure effect as an example of implicit memory. Tacit in their comparisons is the assumption that the effect is more specifically a demonstration of repetition priming. Having noted that this assumption has attracted relatively little attention, this paper reviews current evidence and shows that it is by no means conclusive. Although some evidence is suggestive of a common underlying mechanism, even a modified repetition priming (perceptual fluency/attribution) framework cannot accommodate all of the differences between the two phenomena. Notwithstanding this, it seems likely that a version of this theoretical framework still offers the best hope of a comprehensive explanation for the mere exposure effect and its relationship to repetition priming. As such, the paper finishes by offering some initial guidance as to ways in which the perceptual fluency/attribution framework might be extended, as well as outlining important areas for future research.

Prime Numbers Comparison using Sieve of Eratosthenes and Sieve of Sundaram Algorithm

Science.gov (United States)

Abdullah, D.; Rahim, R.; Apdilah, D.; Efendi, S.; Tulus, T.; Suwilo, S.

2018-03-01

Prime numbers are numbers that have their appeal to researchers due to the complexity of these numbers, many algorithms that can be used to generate prime numbers ranging from simple to complex computations, Sieve of Eratosthenes and Sieve of Sundaram are two algorithm that can be used to generate Prime numbers of randomly generated or sequential numbered random numbers, testing in this study to find out which algorithm is better used for large primes in terms of time complexity, the test also assisted with applications designed using Java language with code optimization and Maximum memory usage so that the testing process can be simultaneously and the results obtained can be objective

Development paths of China's agricultural Pharmaceutical industry under Eco-agriculture background.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jinkai; Gong, Liutang; Ji, Xi; Zhang, Jin; Miao, Pei

2014-07-01

Using pesticides has double effects. On one hand, it contributes to pests control and regulates the growth of crops; On the other hand, it does harm to the environment. To develop ecological agriculture should not only emphasize the output level of agriculture to pursuit of economic efficiency, but also need to keep the ecological environment protected and focus on the social benefits during the development of the industry. As a large agricultural country in the world, China is vigorously promoting the development of ecological agriculture, which is bound to put forward to developing the pesticide industry and green ecological development requirements to promote the transformation and upgrading of agricultural pharmaceutical industry. This paper discusses the mechanism of pesticide pollution on the ecological environment and analyzes China's agricultural problems in the pharmaceutical industry. Then study on the development of Chinese green pesticides and try to find the proper paths of agricultural pharmaceutical to achieve industrial upgrading.

Flavor changing neutral currents and a Z Prime

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Valencia, German, E-mail: valencia@iastate.edu [Iowa State University (United States)

2013-03-15

We consider a non-universal Z Prime that affects primarily the third generation fermions as an example of new physics associated with the top-quark. We first discuss constraints on the mass and coupling strength of such a Z Prime . We then turn our attention to the flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC) present in the model. We discuss the experimental constraints and their implications. We propose an ansatz to understand the smallness of the FCNC in terms of the CKM matrix.

Design and validation of a morphing myoelectric hand posture controller based on principal component analysis of human grasping.

Science.gov (United States)

Segil, Jacob L; Weir, Richard F ff

2014-03-01

An ideal myoelectric prosthetic hand should have the ability to continuously morph between any posture like an anatomical hand. This paper describes the design and validation of a morphing myoelectric hand controller based on principal component analysis of human grasping. The controller commands continuously morphing hand postures including functional grasps using between two and four surface electromyography (EMG) electrodes pairs. Four unique maps were developed to transform the EMG control signals in the principal component domain. A preliminary validation experiment was performed by 10 nonamputee subjects to determine the map with highest performance. The subjects used the myoelectric controller to morph a virtual hand between functional grasps in a series of randomized trials. The number of joints controlled accurately was evaluated to characterize the performance of each map. Additional metrics were studied including completion rate, time to completion, and path efficiency. The highest performing map controlled over 13 out of 15 joints accurately.

Common-path low-coherence interferometry fiber-optic sensor guided microincision

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Kang; Kang, Jin U.

2011-09-01

We propose and demonstrate a common-path low-coherence interferometry (CP-LCI) fiber-optic sensor guided precise microincision. The method tracks the target surface and compensates the tool-to-surface relative motion with better than +/-5 μm resolution using a precision micromotor connected to the tool tip. A single-fiber distance probe integrated microdissector was used to perform an accurate 100 μm incision into the surface of an Intralipid phantom. The CP-LCI guided incision quality in terms of depth was evaluated afterwards using three-dimensional Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography imaging, which showed significant improvement of incision accuracy compared to free-hand-only operations.

The distribution of prime numbers and associated problems in number theory

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Nair, M.

1991-01-01

Some problems in number theory, namely the gaps between consecutive primes, the distribution of primes in arithmetic progressions, Brun-Titchmarsh theorem, Fermat's last theorem, The Thue equation, the gaps between square-free numbers are discussed

Priming in Episodic and Semantic Memory.

Science.gov (United States)

McKoon, Gail; Ratcliff, Roger

1979-01-01

Four experiments examined priming between newly learned paired associates through two procedures, lexical decision and item recognition. Results argue against a functional separation of the semantic and episodic memory systems. (Author/AM)

Structures of nitrato-(2-hydroxybenzaldehydo) (2,2 Prime -bipyridyl)copper and nitrato-(2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzaldehydo)(2,2 Prime -bipyridyl)copper

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chumakov, Yu. M. [Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Institute of Applied Physics (Moldova, Republic of); Paladi, L. G. [Moldova State University (Moldova, Republic of); Antosyak, B. Ya.; Simonov, Yu. A. [Academy of Sciences of Moldova, Institute of Applied Physics (Moldova, Republic of); Tsapkov, V. I., E-mail: vtsapkov@gmail.com [Moldova State University (Moldova, Republic of); Bocelli, G. [Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism (Italy); Gulea, A. P. [Moldova State University (Moldova, Republic of); Ginju, D. [Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iasi (Romania); Palomares-Sanchez, S. A. [Autonomous University of San Luis Potosi (Mexico)

2011-03-15

Nitrato-(2-hydroxy-5-nitrobenzaldehydo)(2,2 Prime -bipyridyl)copper (I) and nitrato-(2-hydroxybenzaldehydo)(2,2 Prime -bipyridyl)copper (II) were synthesized and characterized by X-ray diffraction. The coordination polyhedron of the central copper atom in complex I can be described as a distorted tetragonal pyramid whose base is formed by the phenol and carbonyl oxygen atoms of the monodeprotonated 2-hydroxy-5nitrobenzaldehyde molecule and the nitrogen atoms of the 2,2 Prime -bipyridyl ligand and whose apex is occupied by the oxygen atom of the nitrato group. In the crystal structure, complexes I are linked by the acido ligands and the NO{sub 2} groups of the aldehyde molecule into infinite chains. In complex II, the central copper atom is coordinated by 2-hydroxybenzaldehyde, 2,2 Prime -bipyridyl, and the nitrato group, resulting in the formation of centrosymmetric dimers. The coordination polyhedron of the central copper atom can be described as a bipyramid (4 + 1 + 1) with the same base as in complex I. The axial vertices of the bipyramid are occupied by the oxygen atom of the nitrato group and the bridging phenol oxygen atom of the adjacent complex related to the initial complex by a center of symmetry. In the crystal structure, complexes II are hydrogen bonded into infinite chains.

Stiff Hands

Science.gov (United States)

... All Topics A-Z Videos Infographics Symptom Picker Anatomy Bones Joints Muscles Nerves Vessels Tendons About Hand Surgery What is a Hand Surgeon? What is a Hand Therapist? Media Find a Hand Surgeon Home Anatomy Stiff Hands Email to a friend * required fields ...

Hand Infections

Science.gov (United States)

... All Topics A-Z Videos Infographics Symptom Picker Anatomy Bones Joints Muscles Nerves Vessels Tendons About Hand Surgery What is a Hand Surgeon? What is a Hand Therapist? Media Find a Hand Surgeon Home Anatomy Hand Infections Email to a friend * required fields ...

Seeing emotions in the eyes – Inverse priming effects induced by eyes expressing mental states

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Caroline eWagenbreth

2014-09-01

Full Text Available ObjectiveAutomatic emotional processing of faces and facial expressions gain more and more of relevance in terms of social communication. Among a variety of different primes, targets and tasks, whole face images and facial expressions have been used to affectively prime emotional responses. This study investigates whether emotional information provided solely in eye regions that display mental states can also trigger affective priming.MethodsSixteen subjects answered a lexical decision task (LDT coupled with an affective priming paradigm. Emotion-associated eye regions were extracted from photographs of faces and acted as primes, whereas targets were either words or pseudo-words. Participants had to decide whether the targets were real German words or generated pseudo-words. Primes and targets belonged to the emotional categories fear, disgust, happiness and neutral.ResultsA general valence effect for positive words was observed: Responses in the LDT were faster for target words of the emotional category happiness when compared to other categories. Importantly, pictures of emotional eye regions preceding the target words affected their subsequent classification. While we show a classical priming effect for neutral target words - with shorter RT for congruent compared to incongruent prime-target pairs- , we observed an inverse priming effect for fearful and happy target words - with shorter RT for incongruent compared to congruent prime-target pairs. These inverse priming effects were driven exclusively by specific prime-target pairs.ConclusionReduced facial emotional information is sufficient to induce automatic implicit emotional processing. The emotional-associated eye regions were processed with respect to their emotional valence and affected the performance on the LDT.

Can gender priming eliminate the effects of stereotype threat? The case of simple dynamic systems.

Science.gov (United States)

Lungwitz, Vivien; Sedlmeier, Peter; Schwarz, Marcus

2018-05-31

Mathematics and mental rotation are classic fields where it has been shown that priming women with their gender identity impedes performance. Whereas past research focused mainly on stereotype threat effects in women in a narrowly defined context, this study broadened the research focus: We primed 264 women and men equally with a male, a neutral, or a female prime before they had to solve a simple dynamic system task. As expected, female-primed women subsequently performed worst of all six groups. Solution rates were almost 14% higher for the women in the male-primed condition. Men performed better than women in all three priming conditions. However, this difference was reduced in the male-primed condition as women's performance had increased as anticipated. Unexpected was a decline in the male performance in the same condition. The study showed that gender priming had a significant effect on women in tasks involving simple dynamic systems. However, mathematical knowledge and area of occupation clearly were stronger predictors for both men and women. Priming alone cannot eliminate the effects of stereotype threat. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Comparing different kinds of words and word-word relations to test an habituation model of priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Rieth, Cory A; Huber, David E

2017-06-01

Huber and O'Reilly (2003) proposed that neural habituation exists to solve a temporal parsing problem, minimizing blending between one word and the next when words are visually presented in rapid succession. They developed a neural dynamics habituation model, explaining the finding that short duration primes produce positive priming whereas long duration primes produce negative repetition priming. The model contains three layers of processing, including a visual input layer, an orthographic layer, and a lexical-semantic layer. The predicted effect of prime duration depends both on this assumed representational hierarchy and the assumption that synaptic depression underlies habituation. The current study tested these assumptions by comparing different kinds of words (e.g., words versus non-words) and different kinds of word-word relations (e.g., associative versus repetition). For each experiment, the predictions of the original model were compared to an alternative model with different representational assumptions. Experiment 1 confirmed the prediction that non-words and inverted words require longer prime durations to eliminate positive repetition priming (i.e., a slower transition from positive to negative priming). Experiment 2 confirmed the prediction that associative priming increases and then decreases with increasing prime duration, but remains positive even with long duration primes. Experiment 3 replicated the effects of repetition and associative priming using a within-subjects design and combined these effects by examining target words that were expected to repeat (e.g., viewing the target word 'BACK' after the prime phrase 'back to'). These results support the originally assumed representational hierarchy and more generally the role of habituation in temporal parsing and priming. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Chemical Priming of Plants Against Multiple Abiotic Stresses: Mission Possible?

KAUST Repository

Savvides, Andreas

2015-12-15

Crop plants are subjected to multiple abiotic stresses during their lifespan that greatly reduce productivity and threaten global food security. Recent research suggests that plants can be primed by chemical compounds to better tolerate different abiotic stresses. Chemical priming is a promising field in plant stress physiology and crop stress management. We review here promising chemical agents such as sodium nitroprusside, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydrosulfide, melatonin, and polyamines that can potentially confer enhanced tolerance when plants are exposed to multiple abiotic stresses. The challenges and opportunities of chemical priming are addressed, with the aim to boost future research towards effective application in crop stress management.

Chemical Priming of Plants Against Multiple Abiotic Stresses: Mission Possible?

KAUST Repository

Savvides, Andreas; Ali, Shawkat; Tester, Mark A.; Fotopoulos, Vasileios

2015-01-01

Crop plants are subjected to multiple abiotic stresses during their lifespan that greatly reduce productivity and threaten global food security. Recent research suggests that plants can be primed by chemical compounds to better tolerate different abiotic stresses. Chemical priming is a promising field in plant stress physiology and crop stress management. We review here promising chemical agents such as sodium nitroprusside, hydrogen peroxide, sodium hydrosulfide, melatonin, and polyamines that can potentially confer enhanced tolerance when plants are exposed to multiple abiotic stresses. The challenges and opportunities of chemical priming are addressed, with the aim to boost future research towards effective application in crop stress management.

Repetition priming of face recognition in a serial choice reaction-time task.

Science.gov (United States)

Roberts, T; Bruce, V

1989-05-01

Marshall & Walker (1987) found that pictorial stimuli yield visual priming that is disrupted by an unpredictable visual event in the response-stimulus interval. They argue that visual stimuli are represented in memory in the form of distinct visual and object codes. Bruce & Young (1986) propose similar pictorial, structural and semantic codes which mediate the recognition of faces, yet repetition priming results obtained with faces as stimuli (Bruce & Valentine, 1985), and with objects (Warren & Morton, 1982) are quite different from those of Marshall & Walker (1987), in the sense that recognition is facilitated by pictures presented 20 minutes earlier. The experiment reported here used different views of familiar and unfamiliar faces as stimuli in a serial choice reaction-time task and found that, with identical pictures, repetition priming survives and intervening item requiring a response, with both familiar and unfamiliar faces. Furthermore, with familiar faces such priming was present even when the view of the prime was different from the target. The theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Unconscious and out of control: subliminal priming is insensitive to observer expectations.

Science.gov (United States)

Cressman, Erin K; Lam, Melanie Y; Franks, Ian M; Enns, James T; Chua, Romeo

2013-09-01

We asked whether the influence of an invisible prime on movement is dependent on conscious movement expectations. Participants reached to a central target, which triggered a directional prime-mask arrow sequence. Participants were instructed that the visible arrows (masks) would most often signal a movement modification in a specific (biased) direction. Kinematic analyses revealed that responses to the visible mask were influenced by participants' intentional bias, as movements were fastest when the more probable mask was displayed. In addition, responses were influenced by the invisible prime without regard to its relationship to the more probable mask. Analysis of the time of initial trajectory modifications revealed that both primes influenced responses in a similar manner after accounting for participants' bias. These results imply that invisible stimuli automatically activate their associated responses and that unconscious priming of the motor system is insensitive to the conscious expectations of the participant making the pointing movements. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Allee effect in the selection for prime-numbered cycles in periodical cicadas.

Science.gov (United States)

Tanaka, Yumi; Yoshimura, Jin; Simon, Chris; Cooley, John R; Tainaka, Kei-ichi

2009-06-02

Periodical cicadas are well known for their prime-numbered life cycles (17 and 13 years) and their mass periodical emergences. The origination and persistence of prime-numbered cycles are explained by the hybridization hypothesis on the basis of their lower likelihood of hybridization with other cycles. Recently, we showed by using an integer-based numerical model that prime-numbered cycles are indeed selected for among 10- to 20-year cycles. Here, we develop a real-number-based model to investigate the factors affecting the selection of prime-numbered cycles. We include an Allee effect in our model, such that a critical population size is set as an extinction threshold. We compare the real-number models with and without the Allee effect. The results show that in the presence of an Allee effect, prime-numbered life cycles are most likely to persist and to be selected under a wide range of extinction thresholds.

An adaptive-learning approach to affect regulation: strategic influences on evaluative priming.

Science.gov (United States)

Freytag, Peter; Bluemke, Matthias; Fiedler, Klaus

2011-04-01

An adaptive cognition approach to evaluative priming is not compatible with the view that the entire process is automatically determined by prime stimulus valence alone. In addition to the evaluative congruity of individual prime-target pairs, an adaptive regulation function should be sensitive to the base rates of positive and negative stimuli as well as to the perceived contingency between prime and target valence. The present study was particularly concerned with pseudocontingent inferences that offer a proxy for the assessment of contingencies from degraded or incomplete stimulus input. As expected, response latencies were shorter for the more prevalent target valence and for evaluatively congruent trials. However, crucially, the congruity effect was eliminated and overridden by pseudocontingencies inferred from the stimulus environment. These strategic inferences were further enhanced when the task called for the evaluation of both prime stimuli and target stimuli. © 2011 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Iterated Leavitt Path Algebras

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hazrat, R.

2009-11-01

Leavitt path algebras associate to directed graphs a Z-graded algebra and in their simplest form recover the Leavitt algebras L(1,k). In this note, we introduce iterated Leavitt path algebras associated to directed weighted graphs which have natural ± Z grading and in their simplest form recover the Leavitt algebras L(n,k). We also characterize Leavitt path algebras which are strongly graded. (author)

Path Dependence

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Madsen, Mogens Ove

Begrebet Path Dependence blev oprindelig udviklet inden for New Institutionel Economics af bl.a. David, Arthur og North. Begrebet har spredt sig vidt i samfundsvidenskaberne og undergået en udvikling. Dette paper propagerer for at der er sket så en så omfattende udvikling af begrebet, at man nu kan...... tale om 1. og 2. generation af Path Dependence begrebet. Den nyeste udvikling af begrebet har relevans for metodologi-diskusionerne i relation til Keynes...

Early exposures to ecogenomics: Effects of priming and website interactivity among adolescents

OpenAIRE

Bos, M.J.W.; Koolstra, C.M.; Willems, J.T.J.M.

2009-01-01

In the context of public introductions to emerging technologies, this study examined effects of priming and Web site interactivity on adolescents' attitude development and information processing. In a four (priming) by three (interactivity levels) experiment, participants (N = 273) were required to search for and process Web-based information about ecogenomics. Results showed that priming ecogenomics as biotechnology, ecology, economy, or science in general did not affect attitude development...

Independent and additive repetition priming of motion direction and color in visual search.

Science.gov (United States)

Kristjánsson, Arni

2009-03-01

Priming of visual search for Gabor patch stimuli, varying in color and local drift direction, was investigated. The task relevance of each feature varied between the different experimental conditions compared. When the target defining dimension was color, a large effect of color repetition was seen as well as a smaller effect of the repetition of motion direction. The opposite priming pattern was seen when motion direction defined the target--the effect of motion direction repetition was this time larger than for color repetition. Finally, when neither was task relevant, and the target defining dimension was the spatial frequency of the Gabor patch, priming was seen for repetition of both color and motion direction, but the effects were smaller than in the previous two conditions. These results show that features do not necessarily have to be task relevant for priming to occur. There is little interaction between priming following repetition of color and motion, these two features show independent and additive priming effects, most likely reflecting that the two features are processed at separate processing sites in the nervous system, consistent with previous findings from neuropsychology & neurophysiology. The implications of the findings for theoretical accounts of priming in visual search are discussed.

Concreteness of positive word contributions to affective priming: an ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Zhao; Wang, Zhenhong

2014-09-01

Recent behavioral data suggest that the concreteness of positive words modulates subsequent cognitive processing; however, the underlying physiological processes of this influence are not well understood. To explore this process, positive-abstract words or positive-concrete words were used as primes when participants performed a lexical decision task during the measurement of event-related potentials (ERPs). The behavioral data revealed a significant affective priming effect (i.e., incongruent>congruent) only for abstract word pairs. The N400 amplitude was larger for affectively incongruent pairs compared to affectively congruent pairs, independent of the prime concreteness. The amplitude of the late positive component (LPC) was modulated by prime concreteness. The processing of positive-abstract targets was facilitated by previous exposure to a congruent prime, as reflected by the reduced LPC, which has been thought to reflect attentional and memory processes. However, no differences in the LPC amplitude were found between congruent and incongruent-concrete pairs. These findings suggest that the influence of the concreteness of positive words mainly occurs during the decision-making processing and memory-related stages. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

About mutually unbiased bases in even and odd prime power dimensions

Science.gov (United States)

Durt, Thomas

2005-06-01

Mutually unbiased bases generalize the X, Y and Z qubit bases. They possess numerous applications in quantum information science. It is well known that in prime power dimensions N = pm (with p prime and m a positive integer), there exists a maximal set of N + 1 mutually unbiased bases. In the present paper, we derive an explicit expression for those bases, in terms of the (operations of the) associated finite field (Galois division ring) of N elements. This expression is shown to be equivalent to the expressions previously obtained by Ivanovic (1981 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 14 3241) in odd prime dimensions, and Wootters and Fields (1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363) in odd prime power dimensions. In even prime power dimensions, we derive a new explicit expression for the mutually unbiased bases. The new ingredients of our approach are, basically, the following: we provide a simple expression of the generalized Pauli group in terms of the additive characters of the field, and we derive an exact groupal composition law between the elements of the commuting subsets of the generalized Pauli group, renormalized by a well-chosen phase-factor.

About mutually unbiased bases in even and odd prime power dimensions

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Durt, Thomas

2005-01-01

Mutually unbiased bases generalize the X, Y and Z qubit bases. They possess numerous applications in quantum information science. It is well known that in prime power dimensions N = p m (with p prime and m a positive integer), there exists a maximal set of N + 1 mutually unbiased bases. In the present paper, we derive an explicit expression for those bases, in terms of the (operations of the) associated finite field (Galois division ring) of N elements. This expression is shown to be equivalent to the expressions previously obtained by Ivanovic (1981 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 14 3241) in odd prime dimensions, and Wootters and Fields (1989 Ann. Phys. 191 363) in odd prime power dimensions. In even prime power dimensions, we derive a new explicit expression for the mutually unbiased bases. The new ingredients of our approach are, basically, the following: we provide a simple expression of the generalized Pauli group in terms of the additive characters of the field, and we derive an exact groupal composition law between the elements of the commuting subsets of the generalized Pauli group, renormalized by a well-chosen phase-factor

Changing, priming, and acting on values: effects via motivational relations in a circular model.

Science.gov (United States)

Maio, Gregory R; Pakizeh, Ali; Cheung, Wing-Yee; Rees, Kerry J

2009-10-01

Circular models of values and goals suggest that some motivational aims are consistent with each other, some oppose each other, and others are orthogonal to each other. The present experiments tested this idea explicitly by examining how value confrontation and priming methods influence values and value-consistent behaviors throughout the entire value system. Experiment 1 revealed that change in 1 set of social values causes motivationally compatible values to increase in importance, whereas motivationally incompatible values decrease in importance and orthogonal values remain the same. Experiment 2 found that priming security values reduced the better-than-average effect, but priming stimulation values increased it. Similarly, Experiments 3 and 4 found that priming security values increased cleanliness and decreased curiosity behaviors, whereas priming self-direction values decreased cleanliness and increased curiosity behaviors. Experiment 5 found that priming achievement values increased success at puzzle completion and decreased helpfulness to an experimenter, whereas priming with benevolence values decreased success and increased helpfulness. These results highlight the importance of circular models describing motivational interconnections between values and personal goals. 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Any effects of social orientation priming on object-location memory are smaller than initially reported.

Science.gov (United States)

Drouin, Héloïse; Davidson, Patrick S R

2015-12-01

It has previously been reported that priming a collectivistic social orientation (compared with an individualistic one) boosts object-location memory (Kühnen & Oyserman, 2002; Oyserman, Sorensen, Reber, & Chen, 2009). We conducted 4 experiments to replicate this reported effect, using the same methods as in those initial reports. In Experiment 1 (n = 145), we found a hint of a priming effect on object-location memory, but also an unanticipated interaction between priming and gender. In Experiment 2 (n = 90), we included gender as a formal factor and doubled the "dosage" of the priming, yet did not see any priming effects on memory. In Experiment 3 (n = 101), we octupled the priming "dosage" and again saw no significant effects on memory. Finally, in Experiment 4 (n = 102), we performed an exact replication of the methods of the original reports and again found no priming effects on memory. Any effects of this type of social orientation priming on object-location memory appear to be smaller and/or less robust than initially thought. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Prime factorization using quantum annealing and computational algebraic geometry

Science.gov (United States)

Dridi, Raouf; Alghassi, Hedayat

2017-02-01

We investigate prime factorization from two perspectives: quantum annealing and computational algebraic geometry, specifically Gröbner bases. We present a novel autonomous algorithm which combines the two approaches and leads to the factorization of all bi-primes up to just over 200000, the largest number factored to date using a quantum processor. We also explain how Gröbner bases can be used to reduce the degree of Hamiltonians.

Prime factorization using quantum annealing and computational algebraic geometry

OpenAIRE

Dridi, Raouf; Alghassi, Hedayat

2017-01-01

We investigate prime factorization from two perspectives: quantum annealing and computational algebraic geometry, specifically Gr?bner bases. We present a novel autonomous algorithm which combines the two approaches and leads to the factorization of all bi-primes up to just over 200000, the largest number factored to date using a quantum processor. We also explain how Gr?bner bases can be used to reduce the degree of Hamiltonians.

Liver-primed memory T cells generated under noninflammatory conditions provide anti-infectious immunity.

Science.gov (United States)

Böttcher, Jan P; Schanz, Oliver; Wohlleber, Dirk; Abdullah, Zeinab; Debey-Pascher, Svenja; Staratschek-Jox, Andrea; Höchst, Bastian; Hegenbarth, Silke; Grell, Jessica; Limmer, Andreas; Atreya, Imke; Neurath, Markus F; Busch, Dirk H; Schmitt, Edgar; van Endert, Peter; Kolanus, Waldemar; Kurts, Christian; Schultze, Joachim L; Diehl, Linda; Knolle, Percy A

2013-03-28

Development of CD8(+) T cell (CTL) immunity or tolerance is linked to the conditions during T cell priming. Dendritic cells (DCs) matured during inflammation generate effector/memory T cells, whereas immature DCs cause T cell deletion/anergy. We identify a third outcome of T cell priming in absence of inflammation enabled by cross-presenting liver sinusoidal endothelial cells. Such priming generated memory T cells that were spared from deletion by immature DCs. Similar to central memory T cells, liver-primed T cells differentiated into effector CTLs upon antigen re-encounter on matured DCs even after prolonged absence of antigen. Their reactivation required combinatorial signaling through the TCR, CD28, and IL-12R and controlled bacterial and viral infections. Gene expression profiling identified liver-primed T cells as a distinct Neuropilin-1(+) memory population. Generation of liver-primed memory T cells may prevent pathogens that avoid DC maturation by innate immune escape from also escaping adaptive immunity through attrition of the T cell repertoire. Copyright © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Liver-Primed Memory T Cells Generated under Noninflammatory Conditions Provide Anti-infectious Immunity

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jan P. Böttcher

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Development of CD8+ T cell (CTL immunity or tolerance is linked to the conditions during T cell priming. Dendritic cells (DCs matured during inflammation generate effector/memory T cells, whereas immature DCs cause T cell deletion/anergy. We identify a third outcome of T cell priming in absence of inflammation enabled by cross-presenting liver sinusoidal endothelial cells. Such priming generated memory T cells that were spared from deletion by immature DCs. Similar to central memory T cells, liver-primed T cells differentiated into effector CTLs upon antigen re-encounter on matured DCs even after prolonged absence of antigen. Their reactivation required combinatorial signaling through the TCR, CD28, and IL-12R and controlled bacterial and viral infections. Gene expression profiling identified liver-primed T cells as a distinct Neuropilin-1+ memory population. Generation of liver-primed memory T cells may prevent pathogens that avoid DC maturation by innate immune escape from also escaping adaptive immunity through attrition of the T cell repertoire.

Control Capabilities of Myoelectric Robotic Prostheses by Hand Amputees: A Scientific Research and Market Overview.

Science.gov (United States)

Atzori, Manfredo; Müller, Henning

2015-01-01

Hand amputation can dramatically affect the capabilities of a person. Cortical reorganization occurs in the brain, but the motor and somatosensorial cortex can interact with the remnant muscles of the missing hand even many years after the amputation, leading to the possibility to restore the capabilities of hand amputees through myoelectric prostheses. Myoelectric hand prostheses with many degrees of freedom are commercially available and recent advances in rehabilitation robotics suggest that their natural control can be performed in real life. The first commercial products exploiting pattern recognition to recognize the movements have recently been released, however the most common control systems are still usually unnatural and must be learned through long training. Dexterous and naturally controlled robotic prostheses can become reality in the everyday life of amputees but the path still requires many steps. This mini-review aims to improve the situation by giving an overview of the advancements in the commercial and scientific domains in order to outline the current and future chances in this field and to foster the integration between market and scientific research.

Control Capabilities of Myoelectric Robotic Prostheses by Hand Amputees: A Scientific Research and Market Overview

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Manfredo eAtzori

2015-11-01

Full Text Available Hand amputation can dramatically affect the capabilities of a person. Cortical reorganization occurs in the brain, but the motor and somatosensorial cortex can interact with the remnant muscles of the missing hand even many years after the amputation, leading to the possibility to restore the capabilities of hand amputees through myoelectric prostheses. Myoelectric hand prostheses with many degrees of freedom are commercially available and recent advances in rehabilitation robotics suggest that their natural control can be performed in real life. The first commercial products exploiting pattern recognition to recognize the movements have recently been released, however the most common control systems are still usually unnatural and must be learned through long training. Dexterous and naturally controlled robotic prostheses can become reality in the everyday life of amputees but the path still requires many steps. This mini-review aims to improve the situation by giving an overview of the advancements in the commercial and scientific domains in order to outline the current and future chances in this field and to foster the integration between market and scientific research.

Determination of an optimal priming duration and concentration protocol for pepper seeds (Capsicum annuum L.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hassen ALOUI

2015-12-01

Full Text Available Seed priming is a simple pre-germination method to improve seed performance and to attenuate the effects of stress exposure. The objective of this study was to determinate an optimal priming protocol for three pepper cultivars (Capsicum annuum L.: ‘Beldi’, ‘Baklouti’ and ‘Anaheim Chili’. Seeds were primed with three solutions of NaCl, KCl and CaCl2 (0, 10, 20 and 50 mM for three different durations (12, 24 and 36h. Control seeds were soaked in distilled water for the same durations. After that, all seeds were kept to germinate in laboratory under normal light and controlled temperature. Results indicated that priming depends on concentration, duration and cultivar. The best combinations that we obtained were: KCl priming (10 mM, 36h for ‘Beldi’ cultivar, CaCl2 priming (10 mM, 36h for ‘Baklouti’ cultivar and finally NaCl priming (50 mM, 24h for ‘Anaheim Chili’ cultivar. Generally, priming had an effect on total germination percentage, mean germination time, germination index and the coefficient of velocity compared to control seeds. The beneficial effect of seed priming could be used for improving salt tolerance on germination and early seedling growth for pepper cultivar.

Self-construal priming selectively modulates the scope of visual attention

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhuozhuo eLiu

2015-09-01

Full Text Available Self-concept is one of the major factors to explain the cultural differences between East Asians and Westerners. In the field of visual attention, most studies have focused on the modulation of visual spatial-based attention, whereas possible influences of culture or self-concept on other types of visual attention remain largely unexplored. The present study investigated the possible modulation of visual feature-based attention by self-concept, using a within-group self-construal priming design. The experiment paradigm employed visual stimuli consisted of two intermixing random dot clouds presented in the focal visual field with red and green colors. After primed with an interdependent, independent or neutral self-construal, the participants were instructed to attend to one of the focally presented dot cloud and respond to occasional luminance decrement events of the attended dot cloud. The detection of the focal events was found to be significantly faster when exogenously cued by a peripheral dot cloud of either the same or different colors as the attended focal dot cloud (congruent / incongruent, compared to the uncued condition. More importantly, the self-construal priming took effect only on the reaction time (RT differences between the congruent and incongruent cued conditions: the participants responded much slower to incongruent cued events than congruent cued events under interdependent self-construal priming, while the RT difference was significantly smaller under independent self-construal priming. A closer look on the results suggests that the attention scope is selectively modulated by self-construal priming, and the modulation is mainly reflected by varying the degree of suppression on the processing of the incongruent contextual stimuli that do not share visual features with the focal object. Our findings provide new evidences that could possibly extend the current understanding on the cultural influence on visual attention.

The impact of depressed mood, working memory capacity, and priming on delay discounting.

Science.gov (United States)

Szuhany, Kristin L; MacKenzie, Danny; Otto, Michael W

2018-09-01

The impaired ability to delay rewards, delay discounting (DD), is associated with several problematic conditions in which impulsive decision-making derails long-term goals. Working memory (WM), the ability to actively store and manipulate information, is associated with DD. The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of cognitive priming on DD and to identify moderation of this effect dependent on degree of WM capacity (WMC) and depressed mood. A WM task (n-back) was used as a cognitive prime before assessment of DD (Monetary Choice Questionnaire) and was compared to a similar prime from an inhibition task in a factorial design in 183 community participants. All participants completed a DD task and assessment of depressive symptoms (Beck Depression Inventory-II). Priming effects were evaluated relative to WMC of participants. Higher WMC and lower depression scores were associated with greater relative preference for larger, delayed rewards. The effects of a WM prime were moderated by WMC; benefits of the prime were only evident for individuals with lower WMC. No effects were found for an alternative inhibition task. Limitations included depression scores mainly in subclinical range, use of hypothetical instead of real rewards in the DD task, and no examination of the time course of effects. This study provides support for the effectiveness of a brief WM prime in enhancing ability to delay rewards. Priming may be a useful adjunctive intervention for individuals with WM dysfunction or conditions in which impulsive decision-making may derail long-term goals. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Attention and implicit memory: priming-induced benefits and costs have distinct attentional requirements.

Science.gov (United States)

Keane, Margaret M; Cruz, Matt E; Verfaellie, Mieke

2015-02-01

Attention at encoding plays a critical and ubiquitous role in explicit memory performance, but its role in implicit memory performance (i.e., priming) is more variable: some, but not all, priming effects are reduced by division of attention at encoding. A wealth of empirical and theoretical work has aimed to define the critical features of priming effects that do or do not require attention at encoding. This work, however, has focused exclusively on priming effects that are beneficial in nature (wherein performance is enhanced by prior exposure to task stimuli), and has overlooked priming effects that are costly in nature (wherein performance is harmed by prior exposure to task stimuli). The present study takes up this question by examining the effect of divided attention on priming-induced costs and benefits in a speeded picture-naming task. Experiment 1 shows that the costs, but not the benefits, are eliminated by division of attention at encoding. Experiment 2 shows that the costs (as well as the benefits) in this task are intact in amnesic participants, demonstrating that the elimination of the cost in the divided attention condition in Experiment 1 was not an artifact of the reduced availability of explicit memory in that condition. We suggest that the differential role of attention in priming-induced performance costs and benefits is linked to differences in response competition associated with these effects. This interpretation situates the present findings within a theoretical framework that has been applied to a broad range of facilitatory priming effects.

Attention and Implicit Memory: Priming-Induced Benefits and Costs Have Distinct Attentional Requirements

Science.gov (United States)

Keane, Margaret M.; Cruz, Matt E.; Verfaellie, Mieke

2014-01-01

Attention at encoding plays a critical and ubiquitous role in explicit memory performance, but its role in implicit memory performance (i.e., priming) is more variable: Some, but not all, priming effects are reduced by division of attention at encoding. A wealth of empirical and theoretical work has aimed to define the critical features of priming effects that do or do not require attention at encoding. This work, however, has focused exclusively on priming effects that are beneficial in nature (wherein performance is enhanced by prior exposure to task stimuli), and has overlooked priming effects that are costly in nature (wherein performance is harmed by prior exposure to task stimuli). The present study takes up this question by examining the effect of divided attention on priming-induced costs and benefits in a speeded picture-naming task. Experiment 1 shows that the costs, but not the benefits, are eliminated by division of attention at encoding. Experiment 2 shows that the costs (as well as the benefits) in this task are intact in amnesic participants, demonstrating that the elimination of the cost in the divided attention condition in Experiment 1 was not an artifact of the reduced availability of explicit memory in that condition. We suggest that the differential role of attention in priming-induced performance costs and benefits is linked to differences in response competition associated with these effects. This interpretation situates the present findings within a theoretical framework that has been applied to a broad range of facilitatory priming effects. PMID:25257650

The role of direct parameter specification and attentional capture in near-threshold priming of motor reactions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Rob H. J. van der Lubbe

2006-01-01

Full Text Available The priming of motor responses can be induced by preceding visual stimuli that have been made invisible by metacontrast masking ('primes'. According to the concept of direct parameter specification (DPS;Neumann,1990, strong similarity between prime and target results in the processing operations that are to be applied to the target being also induced by the prime. As targets have to be attended to, this also implies that attention is captured by the location of a prime, thereby facilitating motor priming effects. This hypothetical effect may be viewed as a form of top-down attentional capture. In some subliminal priming experiments (e.g. Jaśkowski, Skalska, & Verleger, 2003, however, attentional capture may have been unrelated to target identity, as stimuli with unique features (singletons are known to induce bottom-up attentional capture. Three experiments were performed that largely confirmed the view that the result sof these earlier experiments were due to top-down attentional capture, in line with DPS. However, the priming effect was also evoked by a singleton irrelevant to the participants' task, although this effect was weaker than in case of strong similarity between prime and target. Priming effects remained when singletons were absent from one side of the visual field,suggesting that the presence of singletons is not a requirement for the observation of motor priming effects.

Shortest Paths and Vehicle Routing

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Petersen, Bjørn

This thesis presents how to parallelize a shortest path labeling algorithm. It is shown how to handle Chvátal-Gomory rank-1 cuts in a column generation context. A Branch-and-Cut algorithm is given for the Elementary Shortest Paths Problem with Capacity Constraint. A reformulation of the Vehicle...... Routing Problem based on partial paths is presented. Finally, a practical application of finding shortest paths in the telecommunication industry is shown....

[Dual insertion paths design characteristics and short-term clinical observation of rotational path removable partial dentures].

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jian; Jiang, Ting; Li, Sai; Chen, Wei

2013-02-18

To investigate design methods of dual insertion paths and observe a short-term clinic overview of rotational path removable partial dentures (RPDs). In the study, 40 patients with partial edentulous arches were included and divided into two groups. The patients in group one were restored with rotational path RPDs (10 Kennedy class III and 10 Kennedy class IV respectively). The patients in group two (20 patients), whose edentulous area was matched with the patients' in group one, were restored with the linear path RPDs. After surveying and simulative preparation on diagnostic casts, the basic laws of designing rotational path RPDs were summarized. The oral preparation was accurately performed under the guidance of indices made on diagnostic casts after simulative preparation. The 40 dentures were recalled two weeks and one year after the insertion. The evaluations of the clinic outcome, including retention, stability, mastication function, esthetics and wearing convenience, were marked out as good, acceptable, and poor. The comparison of the evaluation results was performed between the two groups. In the rotational path design for Kennedy class III or IV RPDs, the angles (α) of dual insertion paths should be designed within a scope, approximate 10°-15°.When the angle (α) became larger, the denture retention turned to be better, but accordingly the posterior abutments needed more preparation. In the clinical application, the first insertions of the 40 dentures were all favorably accomplished. When the rotational path RPDs were compared to linear path RPDs, the time consuming on first insertion had no statistical difference[(32±8) min and (33±8) min respectively, P>0.05]. Recalled two weeks and one year after the insertion, in the esthetics evaluation, 20 rotational path RPDs were all evaluated as "A", but only 7(two weeks after) and 6 (one year after) linear path RPDs were evaluated as "A"(P<0.05). There was no significant difference in other evaluation results

Prime Minister of Japan speaks at Kurchatov Institute

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

During his official visit to the Russian Federation, Mr. J. Koizumi, Prime Minister of Japan, was invited to speak on 11 January 2003 to the participants in the International Scientists Conference to commemorate the 100th birthday of Academician I.V. Kurchatov. When asked from people in the audience at the Kurchatov Institute, Prime Minister Koizumi confirmed that during his recent meeting with the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, at the Kremlin, they have discussed the construction of a fusion installation, which is the ITER Project

Individual Differences in Automatic Emotion Regulation Interact with Primed Emotion Regulation during an Anger Provocation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ping Hu

2017-04-01

Full Text Available The current study investigated the interactive effects of individual differences in automatic emotion regulation (AER and primed emotion regulation strategy on skin conductance level (SCL and heart rate during provoked anger. The study was a 2 × 2 [AER tendency (expression vs. control × priming (expression vs. control] between subject design. Participants were assigned to two groups according to their performance on an emotion regulation-IAT (differentiating automatic emotion control tendency and automatic emotion expression tendency. Then participants of the two groups were randomly assigned to two emotion regulation priming conditions (emotion control priming or emotion expression priming. Anger was provoked by blaming participants for slow performance during a subsequent backward subtraction task. In anger provocation, SCL of individuals with automatic emotion control tendencies in the control priming condition was lower than of those with automatic emotion control tendencies in the expression priming condition. However, SCL of individuals with automatic emotion expression tendencies did no differ in the automatic emotion control priming or the automatic emotion expression priming condition. Heart rate during anger provocation was higher in individuals with automatic emotion expression tendencies than in individuals with automatic emotion control tendencies regardless of priming condition. This pattern indicates an interactive effect of individual differences in AER and emotion regulation priming on SCL, which is an index of emotional arousal. Heart rate was only sensitive to the individual differences in AER, and did not reflect this interaction. This finding has implications for clinical studies of the use of emotion regulation strategy training suggesting that different practices are optimal for individuals who differ in AER tendencies.

Laser enrichment: a new path to proliferation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Casper, B.M.

1977-01-01

The use of lasers to obtain enriched uranium is an easier and cheaper method than methods currently in use. The immediate concern is that it could promote easy access to nuclear weapons by countries that do not presently have them. Mr. Casper feels that the U.S. government is working against itself; while the State Department is seeking to block one path to proliferation, ERDA laboratories are developing new technology that could open another. The proliferation implications have not been factored in a serious way into the decisions to proceed with this research. It is also clear that the United States does not now have a comprehensive policy that deals with all potentially important paths to proliferation, including laser enrichment. Mr. Casper states that there is still time to stop and consider whether laser enrichment should be developed, in light of its broader consequences. But this will not happen if the decisions are left exclusively in the hands of those promoting the technology, the author says. It is just this sort of situation that prompted the creation of several government institutions to provide independent assessments of new technologies. The Office of Technology Assessment, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency all have the authority to intervene. Laser enrichment provides a good test of these institutions and of the viability of the concept of technology assessment. The status, benefits and risks, and the policy needed on laser research are discussed

Path planning in changeable environments

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Nieuwenhuisen, D.

2007-01-01

This thesis addresses path planning in changeable environments. In contrast to traditional path planning that deals with static environments, in changeable environments objects are allowed to change their configurations over time. In many cases, path planning algorithms must facilitate quick

Uniting individual and collective concerns through design: Priming across the senses

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Cash, Philip; Holm-Hansen, Christopher; Olsen, Sebastian Borum

2017-01-01

that unite individual and collective concerns. Two studies are reported. In the first, abstract representations of the target behaviour are elicited and incorporated into subconscious priming stimuli for each of the major senses: sight, hearing, touch, and smell. These primes are then evaluated...

Comparison of classical reaction paths and tunneling paths studied with the semiclassical instanton theory.

Science.gov (United States)

Meisner, Jan; Markmeyer, Max N; Bohner, Matthias U; Kästner, Johannes

2017-08-30

Atom tunneling in the hydrogen atom transfer reaction of the 2,4,6-tri-tert-butylphenyl radical to 3,5-di-tert-butylneophyl, which has a short but strongly curved reaction path, was investigated using instanton theory. We found the tunneling path to deviate qualitatively from the classical intrinsic reaction coordinate, the steepest-descent path in mass-weighted Cartesian coordinates. To perform that comparison, we implemented a new variant of the predictor-corrector algorithm for the calculation of the intrinsic reaction coordinate. We used the reaction force analysis method as a means to decompose the reaction barrier into structural and electronic components. Due to the narrow energy barrier, atom tunneling is important in the abovementioned reaction, even above room temperature. Our calculated rate constants between 350 K and 100 K agree well with experimental values. We found a H/D kinetic isotope effect of almost 10 6 at 100 K. Tunneling dominates the protium transfer below 400 K and the deuterium transfer below 300 K. We compared the lengths of the tunneling path and the classical path for the hydrogen atom transfer in the reaction HCl + Cl and quantified the corner cutting in this reaction. At low temperature, the tunneling path is about 40% shorter than the classical path.

Priming effect in topsoil and subsoil induced by earthworm burrows

Science.gov (United States)

Thu, Duyen Hoang Thi

2017-04-01

Earthworms (Lumbricus terrestris L.) not only affect soil physics, but they also boost microbial activities and consequently important hotspots of microbial mediated carbon and C turnover through their burrowing activity. However, it is still unknown to which extend earthworms affect priming effect in top- and subsoil horizons. More labile C inputs in earthworm burrows were hypothesized to trigger higher priming of soil organic matter (SOM) decomposition compared to rhizosphere and bulk soil. Moreover, this effect was expected to be more pronounced in subsoil due to its greater C and nutrient limitation. To test these hypotheses, biopores and bulk soil were sampled from topsoil (0-30 cm) and two subsoil depths (45-75 and 75-105 cm). Additionally, rhizosphere samples were taken from the topsoil. Total organic C (Corg), total N (TN), total P (TP) and enzyme activities involved in C-, N-, and P-cycling (cellobiohydrolase, β-glucosidase, xylanase, chitinase, leucine aminopeptidase and phosphatase) were measured. Priming effects were calculated as the difference in SOM-derived CO2 from soil with or without 14C-labelled glucose addition. Enzyme activities in biopores were positively correlated with Corg, TN and TP, but in bulk soil this correlation was negative. The more frequent fresh and labile C inputs to biopores caused 4 to 20 time higher absolute priming of SOM turnover due to enzyme activities that were one order of magnitude higher than in bulk soil. In subsoil biopores, reduced labile C inputs and lower N availability stimulated priming twofold greater than in topsoil. In contrast, a positive priming effect in bulk soil was only detected at 75-105 cm depth. We conclude that earthworm burrows provide not only the linkage between top- and subsoil for C and nutrients, but strongly increase microbial activities and accelerate SOM turnover in subsoil, contributing to nutrient mobilization for roots and CO2 emission increase as a greenhouse gas. Additionally, the

Auger Prime the new stage of the Pierre Auger Observatory, using Universality

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Parra, Alejandra; Martínez, Oscar; Salazar, Humberto

2016-01-01

The Pierre Auger Observatory is currently in an update stage denominated AugerPrime. The Observatory will have scintillator detectors on top of each of the surface stations (WCD). The main goal of AugerPrime is to improve the studies on mass composition for ultra high energy cosmic rays, for this purpose AugerPrime will use Universality. The model will parameterize the signal in four principal components, the objective is an adequate discrimination of the muonic and electromagnetic components. We are interested in the discrimination of these two components using simulations. To do that, we are working with OfflineTrunk (the official software of the Collaboration). Our work is focused on the development of some modules for analysis and study of the signal from AugerPrime. (paper)

Extraversion and reward-related processing: probing incentive motivation in affective priming tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Robinson, Michael D; Moeller, Sara K; Ode, Scott

2010-10-01

Based on an incentive motivation theory of extraversion (Depue & Collins, 1999), it was hypothesized that extraverts (relative to introverts) would exhibit stronger positive priming effects in affective priming tasks, whether involving words or pictures. This hypothesis was systematically supported in four studies involving 229 undergraduates. In each of the four studies, and in a subsequent combined analysis, extraversion was positively predictive of positive affective priming effects, but was not predictive of negative affective priming effects. The results bridge an important gap in the literature between biological and trait models of incentive motivation and do so in a way that should be informative to subsequent efforts to understand the processing basis of extraversion as well as incentive motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).

Past Their Prime

OpenAIRE

Friedman, Rebecca E

2012-01-01

Past Their Prime is a half-hour documentary about Colo— the oldest living gorilla in captivity — on her 55th birthday, and her place in the world of geriatric zoo animal care.                It’s winter at the Columbus Zoo in Columbus, Ohio. In the ape house elderly visitors browse slowly, wrapped in down jackets. Children run from exhibit to exhibit, pointing at the animals they see and announcing each one to their grandparents. Behind the glass, Colo, the...

The Onset and Time Course of Semantic Priming during Rapid Recognition of Visual Words

Science.gov (United States)

Hoedemaker, Renske S.; Gordon, Peter C.

2016-01-01

In two experiments, we assessed the effects of response latency and task-induced goals on the onset and time course of semantic priming during rapid processing of visual words as revealed by ocular response tasks. In Experiment 1 (Ocular Lexical Decision Task), participants performed a lexical decision task using eye-movement responses on a sequence of four words. In Experiment 2, the same words were encoded for an episodic recognition memory task that did not require a meta-linguistic judgment. For both tasks, survival analyses showed that the earliest-observable effect (Divergence Point or DP) of semantic priming on target-word reading times occurred at approximately 260 ms, and ex-Gaussian distribution fits revealed that the magnitude of the priming effect increased as a function of response time. Together, these distributional effects of semantic priming suggest that the influence of the prime increases when target processing is more effortful. This effect does not require that the task include a metalinguistic judgment; manipulation of the task goals across experiments affected the overall response speed but not the location of the DP or the overall distributional pattern of the priming effect. These results are more readily explained as the result of a retrospective rather than a prospective priming mechanism and are consistent with compound-cue models of semantic priming. PMID:28230394

Developmental differences in masked form priming are not driven by vocabulary growth.

OpenAIRE

Adeetee eBhide; Bradley L Schlaggar; Kelly Anne Barnes

2014-01-01

As children develop into skilled readers, they are able to more quickly and accurately distinguish between words with similar visual forms (i.e., they develop precise lexical representations). The masked form priming lexical decision task is used to test the precision of lexical representations. In this paradigm, a prime (which differs by one letter from the target) is briefly flashed before the target is presented. Participants make a lexical decision to the target. Primes can facilitate rea...

Reirradiation in FFTF of swelling-resistant Path A alloys previously irradiated in HFIR

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Maziasz, P.J.

1985-01-01

Disks of Path A Prime Candidate Alloys (in several pretreatment conditions) and several heats of cold-worked (CW) type 316 and D9 type austenitic stainless steels have been irradiated in HFIR at 300, 500, and 600 0 C to fluences producing about 10 to 44 dpa and 450 to 3600 at. ppm He. These samples are being reirradiated in the Materials Open Test Assembly (MOTA) in FFTF at 500 and 600 0 C, together (side by side) with previously unirradiated disks of exactly the same materials, to greater than 100 dpa. These samples many of which have either very fine helium cluster or helium bubble distributions after HFIR irradiation, are intended to test the possibility and magnitude of a helium-induced extension of the initial low-swelling transient regime relative to the void swelling behavior normally found during FFTF irradiation. Further, these samples will reveal the microstructural stability or evolution differences that correlate with such helium effects. 17 references, 4 tables

EthoHand: A dexterous robotic hand with ball-joint thumb enables complex in-hand object manipulation

OpenAIRE

Konnaris, C; Gavriel, C; Thomik, AAC; Aldo Faisal, A

2016-01-01

Our dexterous hand is a fundmanetal human feature that distinguishes us from other animals by enabling us to go beyond grasping to support sophisticated in-hand object manipulation. Our aim was the design of a dexterous anthropomorphic robotic hand that matches the human hand's 24 degrees of freedom, under-actuated by seven motors. With the ability to replicate human hand movements in a naturalistic manner including in-hand object manipulation. Therefore, we focused on the development of a no...

Effect of Seed Priming on Germination Properties and Seedling Establishment of Cowpea (Vigna sinensis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hamdollah ESKANDARI

2011-11-01

Full Text Available Early emergence and stand establishment of cowpea are considered to be the most important yield-contributing factors in rainfed areas. Laboratory tests and afield experiment were conducted in RCB design in 2011 at a research farm in Ramhormoz, Iran, to evaluate the effects of hydropriming (8, 12 and 16 hours duration and halo priming (solutions of 1.5% KNO3 and 0.8% NaCl on seedling vigor and field establishment of cowpea. Analysis of variance of laboratory data showed that hydropriming significantly improved germination rate, seed vigor index, and seedling dry weights. However, germination percentage for seeds primed with KNO3 and non-primed seeds were statistically similar, but higher than those for NaCl priming. Overall, hydropriming treatment was comparatively superior in the laboratory tests. Invigoration of cowpea seeds by hydropriming and NaCl priming resulted in higher seedling emergence and establishment in the field, compared to control and seed priming with KNO3. Seedling emergence rate was also enhanced by priming seeds with water, suggesting that hydropriming is a simple, low cost and environmentally friendly technique for improving seed and seedling vigor of cowpea.

Alternative analysis: the prime numbers theory and an extension of the real numbers set

OpenAIRE

Sukhotin A.; Zvyagin M.

2016-01-01

Here we consider the theory of prime numbers at a new methodology. The theory of prime numbers is one of the most ancient mathematical branches. We found an estimate of the all prime numbers sum using the notions of infinite lager numbers and infinitely small numbers, farther we estimated the value of the maximal prime number. We proved that Hardy–Littlewood Hypothesis has the positive decision too. The infinite small numbers define a new methodology of the well–known function o(x) applicatio...

Hand-related physical function in rheumatic hand conditions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klokker, Louise; Terwee, Caroline B; Wæhrens, Eva Ejlersen

2016-01-01

as well as those items from the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF) item bank that are relevant to patients with rheumatic hand conditions. Selection will be based on consensus among reviewers. Content validity of selected items will be established......INTRODUCTION: There is no consensus about what constitutes the most appropriate patient-reported outcome measurement (PROM) instrument for measuring physical function in patients with rheumatic hand conditions. Existing instruments lack psychometric testing and vary in feasibility...... and their psychometric qualities. We aim to develop a PROM instrument to assess hand-related physical function in rheumatic hand conditions. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will perform a systematic search to identify existing PROMs to rheumatic hand conditions, and select items relevant for hand-related physical function...

Hand-related physical function in rheumatic hand conditions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Klokker, Louise; Terwee, Caroline; Wæhrens, Eva Elisabet Ejlersen

2016-01-01

INTRODUCTION: There is no consensus about what constitutes the most appropriate patient-reported outcome measurement (PROM) instrument for measuring physical function in patients with rheumatic hand conditions. Existing instruments lack psychometric testing and vary in feasibility...... and their psychometric qualities. We aim to develop a PROM instrument to assess hand-related physical function in rheumatic hand conditions. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: We will perform a systematic search to identify existing PROMs to rheumatic hand conditions, and select items relevant for hand-related physical function...... as well as those items from the Patient Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Physical Function (PF) item bank that are relevant to patients with rheumatic hand conditions. Selection will be based on consensus among reviewers. Content validity of selected items will be established...

Priming of microglia in a DNA-repair deficient model of accelerated aging.

Science.gov (United States)

Raj, Divya D A; Jaarsma, Dick; Holtman, Inge R; Olah, Marta; Ferreira, Filipa M; Schaafsma, Wandert; Brouwer, Nieske; Meijer, Michel M; de Waard, Monique C; van der Pluijm, Ingrid; Brandt, Renata; Kreft, Karim L; Laman, Jon D; de Haan, Gerald; Biber, Knut P H; Hoeijmakers, Jan H J; Eggen, Bart J L; Boddeke, Hendrikus W G M

2014-09-01

Aging is associated with reduced function, degenerative changes, and increased neuroinflammation of the central nervous system (CNS). Increasing evidence suggests that changes in microglia cells contribute to the age-related deterioration of the CNS. The most prominent age-related change of microglia is enhanced sensitivity to inflammatory stimuli, referred to as priming. It is unclear if priming is due to intrinsic microglia ageing or induced by the ageing neural environment. We have studied this in Ercc1 mutant mice, a DNA repair-deficient mouse model that displays features of accelerated aging in multiple tissues including the CNS. In Ercc1 mutant mice, microglia showed hallmark features of priming such as an exaggerated response to peripheral lipopolysaccharide exposure in terms of cytokine expression and phagocytosis. Specific targeting of the Ercc1 deletion to forebrain neurons resulted in a progressive priming response in microglia exemplified by phenotypic alterations. Summarizing, these data show that neuronal genotoxic stress is sufficient to switch microglia from a resting to a primed state. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effect of NaCl Priming on Seed Germination of Tunisian Fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L. Under Salinity Conditions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Souguir, Maher

2013-04-01

Full Text Available Salinity is one major problem of increasing production in crop growing areas throughout the world. The objective of this research was to evaluate the effect of NaCl priming on seed germination of Tunisian fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum L. under salinity conditions. Seeds of fenugreek were primed with NaCl (4g/l for 36 h in continuous 25°C. Experimental factors were included 2 priming treatments (NaCl and non-priming as control and five salinity solution (4,6,8,10 and 12 gl-1. Results showed that seed priming increased final germination percentage, germination speed and radicle length over the non-primed treatment. At the lowest levels of salinity, there were no notable differences between primed and non-primed seeds, but with increasing salinity levels, primed seeds showed the better performance than non-primed seeds. These results indicated that NaCl priming significantly improved seed performance under salinity conditions.

Prime-Minister of Malta visits CERN

CERN Multimedia

2008-01-01

The Prime-Minister of Malta, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, visited CERN and met Director-General, Robert Aymar, on 10 January. The Prime-Minister of Malta, Dr Lawrence Gonzi, and CERN Director-General, Robert Aymar, signed a cooperation agreement. Dr Gonzi was given guided tours of the CMS experiment at Point 5 in Cessy and of the LHC magnet test facility, in which his country was involved. One of the high points of the day was the signing of a cooperation agreement between CERN and the Government of the Republic of Malta, aimed at the development of scientific and technical collaboration. "I’m really enthusiastic about this agreement, which constitutes a first step towards real collaboration between the Maltese government and CERN," said Nicholas Sammut, a Maltese engineer at CERN who was present throughout the visit (on the right). See also the video.

DiversePathsJ: diverse shortest paths for bioimage analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Uhlmann, Virginie; Haubold, Carsten; Hamprecht, Fred A; Unser, Michael

2018-02-01

We introduce a formulation for the general task of finding diverse shortest paths between two end-points. Our approach is not linked to a specific biological problem and can be applied to a large variety of images thanks to its generic implementation as a user-friendly ImageJ/Fiji plugin. It relies on the introduction of additional layers in a Viterbi path graph, which requires slight modifications to the standard Viterbi algorithm rules. This layered graph construction allows for the specification of various constraints imposing diversity between solutions. The software allows obtaining a collection of diverse shortest paths under some user-defined constraints through a convenient and user-friendly interface. It can be used alone or be integrated into larger image analysis pipelines. http://bigwww.epfl.ch/algorithms/diversepathsj. michael.unser@epfl.ch or fred.hamprecht@iwr.uni-heidelberg.de. Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online. © The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press.

Ultrasound-guided procedures around the wrist and hand: How to do

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Orlandi, Davide; Corazza, Angelo; Silvestri, Enzo; Serafini, Giovanni; Savarino, Edoardo Vincenzo; Garlaschi, Giacomo; Mauri, Giovanni; Cimmino, Marco Amedeo; Sconfienza, Luca Maria

2014-01-01

Ultrasound has emerged as a low-cost, radiation-free and effective imaging technique to detect joint abnormalities and to guide percutaneous procedures. Being superficial, wrist and hand tendons and joints represent a good target to perform such procedures using ultrasound guidance. This kind of approach allows for a clear and real-time visualization of the needles during their whole path. In this setting, the knowledge of technical aspects and tips is essential to act in the most accurate way on target tissues that can be as small as a few millimetres. The aim of this review is to summarize the local treatments of inflammatory and degenerative disease described in literature (such as treatment of De Quervain's tenosynovitis, trigger finger, trapezio-metacarpal joint osteoarthritis, etc.), emphasizing precautions and tricks based on day-by-day experience that may help to improve the outcome of percutaneous ultrasound-guided procedures around the wrist and hand

Ultrasound-guided procedures around the wrist and hand: How to do

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Orlandi, Davide; Corazza, Angelo [Scuola di Specializzazione in Radiodiagnostica, Università degli Studi di Genova, Via L.B. Alberti 4, 16132 Genova (Italy); Silvestri, Enzo [Diagnostica per Immagini, Ospedale Evangelico Internazionale, Corso Solferino 29A, 16100 Genova (Italy); Serafini, Giovanni [Dipartimento di Diagnostica per Immagini, Ospedale Santa Corona, Via XXV Aprile 38, 17037 Pietra Ligure, Savona (Italy); Savarino, Edoardo Vincenzo [Dipartimento di Scienze Chirurgiche, Oncologiche e Gastroenterologiche, Università degli Studi di Padova, Via Giustiniani, Padova (Italy); Garlaschi, Giacomo [Dipartimento di Scienze per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Genova, Via L.B. Alberti 4, 16132 Genova (Italy); Mauri, Giovanni [Servizio di Radiologia, IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, Piazza Malan 2, San Donato Milanese, Milano (Italy); Cimmino, Marco Amedeo [Dipartimento di Medicina Interna, Università degli Studi di Genova, Via L.B. Alberti 4, 16132 Genova (Italy); Sconfienza, Luca Maria, E-mail: io@lucasconfienza.it [Servizio di Radiologia, IRCCS Policlinico San Donato, Piazza Malan 2, San Donato Milanese, Milano (Italy); Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Piazza Malan 2, San Donato Milanese, Milano (Italy)

2014-07-15

Ultrasound has emerged as a low-cost, radiation-free and effective imaging technique to detect joint abnormalities and to guide percutaneous procedures. Being superficial, wrist and hand tendons and joints represent a good target to perform such procedures using ultrasound guidance. This kind of approach allows for a clear and real-time visualization of the needles during their whole path. In this setting, the knowledge of technical aspects and tips is essential to act in the most accurate way on target tissues that can be as small as a few millimetres. The aim of this review is to summarize the local treatments of inflammatory and degenerative disease described in literature (such as treatment of De Quervain's tenosynovitis, trigger finger, trapezio-metacarpal joint osteoarthritis, etc.), emphasizing precautions and tricks based on day-by-day experience that may help to improve the outcome of percutaneous ultrasound-guided procedures around the wrist and hand.

DNA priming for seasonal influenza vaccine: a phase 1b double-blind randomized clinical trial.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Julie E Ledgerwood

Full Text Available The efficacy of current influenza vaccines is limited in vulnerable populations. DNA vaccines can be produced rapidly, and may offer a potential strategy to improve vaccine immunogenicity, indicated by studies with H5 influenza DNA vaccine prime followed by inactivated vaccine boost.Four sites enrolled healthy adults, randomized to receive 2011/12 seasonal influenza DNA vaccine prime (n=65 or phosphate buffered saline (PBS (n=66 administered intramuscularly with Biojector. All subjects received the 2012/13 seasonal inactivated influenza vaccine, trivalent (IIV3 36 weeks after the priming injection. Vaccine safety and tolerability was the primary objective and measurement of antibody response by hemagglutination inhibition (HAI was the secondary objective.The DNA vaccine prime-IIV3 boost regimen was safe and well tolerated. Significant differences in HAI responses between the DNA vaccine prime and the PBS prime groups were not detected in this study.While DNA priming significantly improved the response to a conventional monovalent H5 vaccine in a previous study, it was not effective in adults using seasonal influenza strains, possibly due to pre-existing immunity to the prime, unmatched prime and boost antigens, or the lengthy 36 week boost interval. Careful optimization of the DNA prime-IIV3 boost regimen as related to antigen matching, interval between vaccinations, and pre-existing immune responses to influenza is likely to be needed in further evaluations of this vaccine strategy. In particular, testing this concept in younger age groups with less prior exposure to seasonal influenza strains may be informative.ClinicalTrials.gov NCT01498718.

What would Batman eat?: priming children to make healthier fast food choices.

Science.gov (United States)

Wansink, B; Shimizu, M; Camps, G

2012-04-01

Fast food patronage is a frequent reality for many children and their parents. Although there are increasingly healthier alternatives for popular menu items (apple slices instead of French fries), they are infrequently selected. We investigated whether either of two priming tactics - the priming of a role model's food choices or the priming of healthy foods - could influence children to make healthier fast food choices. In the priming model condition, 22 children (ranging in age from 6 to 12 years) were presented with 12 photos of 6 admirable and 6 less admirable models and asked, 'Would this person order apple fries or French fries?' In the health prime condition, the same children were shown 12 photos of 6 healthy foods and 6 less healthy foods and asked to indicate if each food was healthy or unhealthy. When children were asked what various admirable people - such as Batman or Spiderman - would eat, 45% chose apple slices over French fries, which was higher than the health prime (P < 0.001) or the control condition (P < 0.001). Advising a parent to ask their child 'What would Batman (or another admired character or person) eat?' might be an easy step to take in what could be a healthier fast food world. © 2012 The Authors. Pediatric Obesity © 2012 International Association for the Study of Obesity.

The CCAT-prime Extreme Field-of-View Submillimeter Telescope on Cerro Chajnantor

Science.gov (United States)

Koopman, Brian; Bertoldi, Frank; Chapman, Scott; Fich, Michel; Giovanelli, Riccardo; Haynes, Martha P.; Herter, Terry L.; Murray, Norman W.; Niemack, Michael D.; Riechers, Dominik; Schilke, Peter; Stacey, Gordon J.; Stutzki, Juergen; CCAT-prime Collaboration

2017-01-01

CCAT-prime is a six meter aperture off-axis submillimeter telescope that we plan to build at 5600m elevation on Cerro Chajnantor in Chile. The CCAT-prime optics are based on a cross-Dragone design with high throughput and a wide field-of-view optimized to increase the mapping speed of next generation cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations. These characteristics make CCAT-prime an excellent platform for a wide range of next generation millimeter and submillimeter science goals, and a potential platform for CMB stage-IV measurements. Here we present the telescope design for CCAT-prime and review the science goals.Taking advantage of the high elevation site, the first generation instrument for CCAT-prime will measure seven different frequency bands from 350um to 3mm. These seven bands will enable precise measurements of the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effects (SZE) by separating contributions from CMB, thermal SZE, kinetic SZE, bright submm galaxies, and radio sources with a goal of extracting the peculiar velocities from a large number of galaxy clusters. Additional science priorities for CCAT-prime include: Galactic Ecology studies of the dynamic intersteller medium by mapping the fine structure lines [CI], [CII] and [NII] as well as high-excitation CO lines at the shortest wavelength bands; high redshift intensity mapping of [CII] emission from star-forming galaxies that likely dominates cosmic reionization at z~5-9 to probe the Epoch of Reionization; and next generation CMB polarization measurements to constrain inflation and cosmological models. The CCAT-prime facility will further our understanding of astrophysical processes from moments after the Big Bang to the present-day evolution of the Milky Way.

Observation of High Momentum {ital {eta}}{sup {prime}} Production in {ital B} Decays

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Browder, T.E.; Li, Y.; Rodriguez, J.L. [University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822 (United States); Bergfeld, T.; Eisenstein, B.I.; Ernst, J.; Gladding, G.E.; Gollin, G.D.; Hans, R.M.; Johnson, E.; Karliner, I.; Marsh, M.A.; Palmer, M.; Selen, M.; Thaler, J.J. [University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Illinois 61801 (United States); Edwards, K.W.; Edwards, K.W. [the Institute of Particle Physics, Montreal, Quebec (Canada); Bellerive, A.; Bellerive, A.; Janicek, R.; Janicek, R.; MacFarlane, D.B.; MacFarlane, D.B.; Patel, P.M.; Patel, P.M. [the Institute of Particle Physics, Montreal, Quebec (Canada); Sadoff, A.J. [Ithaca College, Ithaca, New York 14850 (United States); Ammar, R.; Baringer, P.; Bean, A.; Besson, D.; Coppage, D.; Darling, C.; Davis, R.; Kotov, S.; Kravchenko, I.; Kwak, N.; Zhou, L. [University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045 (United States); Anderson, S.; Kubota, Y.; Lee, S.J.; ONeill, J.J.; Poling, R.; Riehle, T.; Smith, A. [University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55455 (United States); Alam, M.S.; Athar, S.B.; Ling, Z.; Mahmood, A.H.; Timm, S.; Wappler, F. [State University of New York at Albany, Albany, New York 12222 (United States); Anastassov, A.; Duboscq, J.E.; Fujino, D.; Gan, K.K.; Hart, T.; Honscheid, K.; Kagan, H.; Kass, R.; Lee, J.; Spencer, M.B.; Sung, M.; Undrus, A.; Wolf, A.; Zoeller, M.M. [The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 43210 (United States); Nemati, B.; Richichi, S.J.; Ross, W.R.; Severini, H.; Skubic, P. [University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019 (United States); Bishai, M.; Fast, J.; Hinson, J.W.; Menon, N.; Miller, D.H.; Shibata, E.I.; Shipsey, I.P.; Yurko, M. [Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana 47907 (United States); Glenn, S.; Kwon, Y.; Lyon, A.L.; Roberts, S.; Thorndike, E.H. [University of Rochester, Rochester, New York 14627 (United States); Jessop, C.P.; Lingel, K.; Marsiske, H.; Perl, M.L.; Savinov, V.; Ugolini, D.; Zhou, X.; and others

1998-08-01

We report the first observation of B{r_arrow}{eta}{sup {prime}}X transitions with high momentum {eta}{sup {prime}} mesons. We observe 39.0{plus_minus}11.6 B decay events with 2.0{lt}p{sub {eta}{sup {prime}}}{lt}2.7 GeV/c , the high momentum region where background from b{r_arrow}c processes is suppressed. We discuss the physical interpretation of the signal, including the possibility that it is due to b{r_arrow}sg{sup {asterisk}} transitions. Given that interpretation, we find B(B{r_arrow}{eta}{sup {prime}}X{sub s} )=[6.2{plus_minus}1.6(stat){plus_minus} 1.3(syst){sup +0.0}{sub {minus}1.5} (bkg)]{times}10{sup {minus}4} for 2.0{lt}p{sub {eta}{sup {prime}}}{lt}2.7 GeV/c . {copyright} {ital 1998} {ital The American Physical Society }

Path integrals on curved manifolds

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Grosche, C.; Steiner, F.

1987-01-01

A general framework for treating path integrals on curved manifolds is presented. We also show how to perform general coordinate and space-time transformations in path integrals. The main result is that one has to subtract a quantum correction ΔV ∝ ℎ 2 from the classical Lagrangian L, i.e. the correct effective Lagrangian to be used in the path integral is L eff = L-ΔV. A general prescription for calculating the quantum correction ΔV is given. It is based on a canonical approach using Weyl-ordering and the Hamiltonian path integral defined by the midpoint prescription. The general framework is illustrated by several examples: The d-dimensional rotator, i.e. the motion on the sphere S d-1 , the path integral in d-dimensional polar coordinates, the exact treatment of the hydrogen atom in R 2 and R 3 by performing a Kustaanheimo-Stiefel transformation, the Langer transformation and the path integral for the Morse potential. (orig.)

Eigenstates and dynamics of Hooke's atom: Exact results and path integral simulations

Science.gov (United States)

Gholizadehkalkhoran, Hossein; Ruokosenmäki, Ilkka; Rantala, Tapio T.

2018-05-01

The system of two interacting electrons in one-dimensional harmonic potential or Hooke's atom is considered, again. On one hand, it appears as a model for quantum dots in a strong confinement regime, and on the other hand, it provides us with a hard test bench for new methods with the "space splitting" arising from the one-dimensional Coulomb potential. Here, we complete the numerous previous studies of the ground state of Hooke's atom by including the excited states and dynamics, not considered earlier. With the perturbation theory, we reach essentially exact eigenstate energies and wave functions for the strong confinement regime as novel results. We also consider external perturbation induced quantum dynamics in a simple separable case. Finally, we test our novel numerical approach based on real-time path integrals (RTPIs) in reproducing the above. The RTPI turns out to be a straightforward approach with exact account of electronic correlations for solving the eigenstates and dynamics without the conventional restrictions of electronic structure methods.

Response-Retrieval in Identity Negative Priming is Modulated by Temporal Discriminability

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Matthias eMittner

2014-06-01

Full Text Available Reaction times to previously ignored information are often delayed, a phenomenon referred to as negative priming (NP. Rothermund, Wentura & De Houwer (2005 proposed that negative priming is caused by the retrieval of incidental stimulus-response associations when consecutive displays share visual features but require different responses. In two experiments we examined whether the features (color, shape that reappear in consecutive displays, or their level of processing (early-perceptual, late-semantic moderate the likelihood that stimulus-response associations are retrieved. Using a perceptual matching task (experiment 1, negative priming occurred independently of whether responses were repeated or switched. Only when implementing a semantic-matching task (experiment 2, negative priming was determined by response-repetition as predicted by response-retrieval theory. The results can be explained in terms of a task-dependent temporal discrimination process (Milliken et al., 1998: Response-relevant features are encoded more strongly and/or are more likely to be retrieved than irrelevant features.

Motivational sensitivity of outcome-response priming: Experimental research and theoretical models.

Science.gov (United States)

Watson, Poppy; Wiers, Reinout W; Hommel, Bernhard; de Wit, Sanne

2018-02-21

Outcome-response (O-R) priming is at the core of various associative theories of human intentional action. This is a simple and parsimonious mechanism by which activation of outcome representations (e.g. thinking about the light coming on) leads to activation of the associated motor patterns required to achieve it (e.g. pushing the light switch). In the current manuscript, we review the evidence for such O-R associative links demonstrated by converging (yet until now, separate) strands of research. While there is a wealth of evidence that both the perceptual and motivational properties of an outcome can be encoded in the O-R association and mediate O-R priming, we critically examine the integration of these mechanisms and the conditions under which motivational factors constrain the sensory O-R priming effect. We discuss the clinical relevance of this O-R priming mechanism, whether it can satisfactorily account for human goal-directed behaviour, and the implications for theories of human action control.

A specific primed immune response in Drosophila is dependent on phagocytes.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Linh N Pham

2007-03-01

Full Text Available Drosophila melanogaster, like other invertebrates, relies solely on its innate immune response to fight invading microbes; by definition, innate immunity lacks adaptive characteristics. However, we show here that priming Drosophila with a sublethal dose of Streptococcus pneumoniae protects against an otherwise-lethal second challenge of S. pneumoniae. This protective effect exhibits coarse specificity for S. pneumoniae and persists for the life of the fly. Although not all microbial challenges induced this specific primed response, we find that a similar specific protection can be elicited by Beauveria bassiana, a natural fly pathogen. To characterize this primed response, we focused on S. pneumoniae-induced protection. The mechanism underlying this protective effect requires phagocytes and the Toll pathway. However, activation of the Toll pathway is not sufficient for priming-induced protection. This work contradicts the paradigm that insect immune responses cannot adapt and will promote the search for similar responses overlooked in organisms with an adaptive immune response.

Priming effects on PAH degradation and ecotoxicity during a phytoremediation experiment

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Joner, Erik J.; Hirmann, Doris; Szolar, Oliver H.J.; Todorovic, Dragana; Leyval, Corinne; Loibner, Andreas P.

2004-01-01

An experiment was conducted to distinguish priming effects from the effects of phytoremediation of a creosote-polluted soil. The concentration of 13 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and their combined soil toxicity (using four bioassays), was determined on recently excavated, homogenized soil and on such soil subjected to a time-course phytoremediation experiment with lucerne. The results showed a high priming effect, with minor positive and synergistic effects of planting and fertilization on PAH degradation rates. At the end of the experiment, PAH degradation reached 86% of the initial 519 mg PAHs kg -1 . Two of the four toxicity tests (bioluminescence inhibition and ostracod growth inhibition) corroborated the chemical data for residual PAHs, and indicated a significant reduction in soil toxicity. We conclude that priming effects can easily surpass treatment effects, and that an unintentional pre-incubation that ignores these effects can jeopardize the full quantitative assessment of in situ bioremediation of contaminated soil. - Priming effects during set-up of bioremediation laboratory experiments may largely surpass treatment effects

GST-PRIME: an algorithm for genome-wide primer design.

Science.gov (United States)

Leister, Dario; Varotto, Claudio

2007-01-01

The profiling of mRNA expression based on DNA arrays has become a powerful tool to study genome-wide transcription of genes in a number of organisms. GST-PRIME is a software package created to facilitate large-scale primer design for the amplification of probes to be immobilized on arrays for transcriptome analyses, even though it can be also applied in low-throughput approaches. GST-PRIME allows highly efficient, direct amplification of gene-sequence tags (GSTs) from genomic DNA (gDNA), starting from annotated genome or transcript sequences. GST-PRIME provides a customer-friendly platform for automatic primer design, and despite the relative simplicity of the algorithm, experimental tests in the model plant species Arabidopsis thaliana confirmed the reliability of the software. This chapter describes the algorithm used for primer design, its input and output files, and the installation of the standalone package and its use.

Welding Robot Collision-Free Path Optimization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuewu Wang

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Reasonable welding path has a significant impact on welding efficiency, and a collision-free path should be considered first in the process of welding robot path planning. The shortest path length is considered as an optimization objective, and obstacle avoidance is considered as the constraint condition in this paper. First, a grid method is used as a modeling method after the optimization objective is analyzed. For local collision-free path planning, an ant colony algorithm is selected as the search strategy. Then, to overcome the shortcomings of the ant colony algorithm, a secondary optimization is presented to improve the optimization performance. Finally, the particle swarm optimization algorithm is used to realize global path planning. Simulation results show that the desired welding path can be obtained based on the optimization strategy.

Can Faces Prime a Language?

Science.gov (United States)

Woumans, Evy; Martin, Clara D; Vanden Bulcke, Charlotte; Van Assche, Eva; Costa, Albert; Hartsuiker, Robert J; Duyck, Wouter

2015-09-01

Bilinguals have two languages that are activated in parallel. During speech production, one of these languages must be selected on the basis of some cue. The present study investigated whether the face of an interlocutor can serve as such a cue. Spanish-Catalan and Dutch-French bilinguals were first familiarized with certain faces, each of which was associated with only one language, during simulated Skype conversations. Afterward, these participants performed a language production task in which they generated words associated with the words produced by familiar and unfamiliar faces displayed on-screen. When responding to familiar faces, participants produced words faster if the faces were speaking the same language as in the previous Skype simulation than if the same faces were speaking a different language. Furthermore, this language priming effect disappeared when it became clear that the interlocutors were actually bilingual. These findings suggest that faces can prime a language, but their cuing effect disappears when it turns out that they are unreliable as language cues. © The Author(s) 2015.

What Makes a Prime Minister Great?: A Leadership Trait Analysis of the effectiveness of British Prime Ministers from 1902 to 2004

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samuel R. Rohrer

2014-10-01

Full Text Available What role do the Leadership Trait Analysis (LTA criteria projected by a British Prime Minister (PM have on the perceived effectiveness of their time in office? In this paper, the analysis of 20th-century British PMs utilized automated at-a-distance content analysis and the LTA coding system to determine the conceptual complexity, ability to control events, and need for power scores projected by PMs. The impact these traits had on the perceived effectiveness of the totality of the PMs’ tenure in office, as measured by the 2004 MORI/University of Leeds survey, was then examined via one-tailed ordinary least squares regression. This project provides evidence that British PMs who project traits associated with the LTA measure regarding strong power motivation are significantly viewed as more effective while in office. These findings provide more than a novel historical profile of British PMs. The relationship between effective leadership and LTA traits could be utilized by political campaigns, especially given the introduction of prime ministerial debates, to portray a prime ministerial candidate as more politically effective than his/her competition.

Priming within and across modalities: exploring the nature of rCBF increases and decreases.

Science.gov (United States)

Badgaiyan, R D; Schacter, D L; Alpert, N M

2001-02-01

Neuroimaging studies suggest that within-modality priming is associated with reduced regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) in the extrastriate area, whereas cross-modality priming is associated with increased rCBF in prefrontal cortex. To characterize the nature of rCBF changes in within- and cross-modality priming, we conducted two neuroimaging experiments using positron emission tomography (PET). In experiment 1, rCBF changes in within-modality auditory priming on a word stem completion task were observed under same- and different-voice conditions. Both conditions were associated with decreased rCBF in extrastriate cortex. In the different-voice condition there were additional rCBF changes in the middle temporal gyrus and prefrontal cortex. Results suggest that the extrastriate involvement in within-modality priming is sensitive to a change in sensory modality of target stimuli between study and test, but not to a change in the feature of a stimulus within the same modality. In experiment 2, we studied cross-modality priming on a visual stem completion test after encoding under full- and divided-attention conditions. Increased rCBF in the anterior prefrontal cortex was observed in the full- but not in the divided-attention condition. Because explicit retrieval is compromised after encoding under the divided-attention condition, prefrontal involvement in cross-modality priming indicates recruitment of an aspect of explicit retrieval mechanism. The aspect of explicit retrieval that is most likely to be involved in cross-modality priming is the familiarity effect. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.

Primed low-frequency repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation and constraint-induced movement therapy in pediatric hemiparesis: a randomized controlled trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Gillick, Bernadette T; Krach, Linda E; Feyma, Tim; Rich, Tonya L; Moberg, Kelli; Thomas, William; Cassidy, Jessica M; Menk, Jeremiah; Carey, James R

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to determine the feasibility and efficacy of five treatments of 6 Hz primed, low-frequency, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) combined with constraint-induced movement therapy (CIMT) to promote recovery of the paretic hand in children with congenital hemiparesis. Nineteen children with congenital hemiparesis aged between 8 and 17 years (10 males, nine females; mean age 10 years 10 months, SD 2 years 10 months; Manual Ability Classification Scale levels I-III) underwent five sessions of either real rTMS (n=10) or sham rTMS (n=9) alternated daily with CIMT. CIMT consisted of 13 days of continuous long-arm casting with five skin-check sessions. Each child received a total of 10 hours of one-to-one therapy. The primary outcome measure was the Assisting Hand Assessment (AHA) and the secondary outcome variables were the Canadian Occupational Performance Measure (COPM) and stereognosis. A Wilcoxon signed-rank sum test was used to analyze differences between pre- and post-test scores within the groups. Analysis of covariance was used to compute mean differences between groups adjusting for baseline. Fisher's exact test was used to compare individual change in AHA raw scores with the smallest detectable difference (SDD) of 4 points. All participants receiving treatment finished the study. Improvement in AHA differed significantly between groups (p=0.007). No significant differences in the secondary outcome measures were found. Eight out of 10 participants in the rTMS/CIMT group showed improvement greater than the SDD, but only two out of nine in the sham rTMS/CIMT group showed such improvement (p=0.023). No serious adverse events occurred. Primed, low-frequency rTMS combined with CIMT appears to be safe, feasible, and efficacious in pediatric hemiparesis. Larger clinical trials are now indicated. © 2013 Mac Keith Press.

Hamiltonian path integrals

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Prokhorov, L.V.

1982-01-01

The properties of path integrals associated with the allowance for nonstandard terms reflecting the operator nature of the canonical variables are considered. Rules for treating such terms (''equivalence rules'') are formulated. Problems with a boundary, the behavior of path integrals under canonical transformations, and the problem of quantization of dynamical systems with constraints are considered in the framework of the method

Spreading paths in partially observed social networks

Science.gov (United States)

Onnela, Jukka-Pekka; Christakis, Nicholas A.

2012-03-01

Understanding how and how far information, behaviors, or pathogens spread in social networks is an important problem, having implications for both predicting the size of epidemics, as well as for planning effective interventions. There are, however, two main challenges for inferring spreading paths in real-world networks. One is the practical difficulty of observing a dynamic process on a network, and the other is the typical constraint of only partially observing a network. Using static, structurally realistic social networks as platforms for simulations, we juxtapose three distinct paths: (1) the stochastic path taken by a simulated spreading process from source to target; (2) the topologically shortest path in the fully observed network, and hence the single most likely stochastic path, between the two nodes; and (3) the topologically shortest path in a partially observed network. In a sampled network, how closely does the partially observed shortest path (3) emulate the unobserved spreading path (1)? Although partial observation inflates the length of the shortest path, the stochastic nature of the spreading process also frequently derails the dynamic path from the shortest path. We find that the partially observed shortest path does not necessarily give an inflated estimate of the length of the process path; in fact, partial observation may, counterintuitively, make the path seem shorter than it actually is.

Spreading paths in partially observed social networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Onnela, Jukka-Pekka; Christakis, Nicholas A

2012-03-01

Understanding how and how far information, behaviors, or pathogens spread in social networks is an important problem, having implications for both predicting the size of epidemics, as well as for planning effective interventions. There are, however, two main challenges for inferring spreading paths in real-world networks. One is the practical difficulty of observing a dynamic process on a network, and the other is the typical constraint of only partially observing a network. Using static, structurally realistic social networks as platforms for simulations, we juxtapose three distinct paths: (1) the stochastic path taken by a simulated spreading process from source to target; (2) the topologically shortest path in the fully observed network, and hence the single most likely stochastic path, between the two nodes; and (3) the topologically shortest path in a partially observed network. In a sampled network, how closely does the partially observed shortest path (3) emulate the unobserved spreading path (1)? Although partial observation inflates the length of the shortest path, the stochastic nature of the spreading process also frequently derails the dynamic path from the shortest path. We find that the partially observed shortest path does not necessarily give an inflated estimate of the length of the process path; in fact, partial observation may, counterintuitively, make the path seem shorter than it actually is.

Cybersecurity Vulnerability Analysis of the PLC PRIME Standard

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Miguel Seijo Simó

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Security in critical infrastructures such as the power grid is of vital importance. The Smart Grid puts power grid classical security approach on the ropes, since it introduces cyberphysical systems where devices, communications, and information systems must be protected. PoweRline Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME is a Narrowband Power-Line Communications (NB-PLC protocol widely used in the last mile of Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI deployments, playing a key role in the Smart Grid. Therefore, this work aims to unveil the cybersecurity vulnerabilities present in PRIME standard, proposing solutions and validating and discussing the results obtained.

Controlling Attention through Action: Observing Actions Primes Action-Related Stimulus Dimensions

Science.gov (United States)

Fagioli, Sabrina; Ferlazzo, Fabio; Hommel, Bernhard

2007-01-01

Previous findings suggest that planning an action "backward-primes" perceptual dimension related to this action: planning a grasp facilitates the processing of visual size information, while planning a reach facilitates the processing of location information. Here we show that dimensional priming of perception through action occurs even in the…

Does retained-seed priming drive the evolution of serotiny in drylands? An assessment using the cactus Mammillaria hernandezii.

Science.gov (United States)

Santini, Bianca A; Martorell, Carlos

2013-02-01

Serotinous plants retain their seeds for a long time. In deserts, retained seeds undergo hydration-dehydration cycles and thus may become primed. Priming enhances germination and seedling vigor. We test the hypothesis that serotiny evolves because it provides a site protected from predators in which seeds can become primed. Rainfall-cued dispersal of primed seeds may enhance this effect. We tested this hypothesis with Mammillaria hernandezii through protein-content analyses; field and laboratory germination experiments with primed, unprimed, and retained seeds; and fitness estimations from demographic models. Hydration-dehydration cycles induced priming, enhancing germination. Artificial priming and retention in the parent plant for 1 yr induced similar changes in seed protein patterns, suggesting that priming occurs naturally while seeds are retained. Under field conditions, germination of seeds retained for 1 yr more than doubled that of seeds of the same cohort that were not primed or that remained buried for 1 yr. The first seeds to germinate died rapidly. Serotinous plants whose seeds underwent priming had higher fitness than those whose seeds were in the soil seed bank or that did not experience priming. Priming in soil seed banks may be costly because of high predation, so seed protection during priming is sufficient to promote the evolution of serotiny. Bet hedging contributes to this process. Rapid germination of primed seeds that respond to brief rainfall events is disadvantageous because such rainfall is insufficient for seedling survival. Serotinous species counteract this cost by cueing dispersal with heavy precipitation.

Notch signaling mediates granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor priming-induced transendothelial migration of human eosinophils.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, L Y; Wang, H; Xenakis, J J; Spencer, L A