Search

Greater relative right (versus left) frontal cortical activation to emotional faces as measured with alpha power in the electroencephalogram (EEG), has been considered a promising neural marker of increased vulnerability to psychopathology and emotional disorders. We set out to explore multichannel fNIRS as a tool to investigate infants' frontal asymmetry responses (hypothesizing greater right versus left frontal cortex activation) to emotional faces as influenced by maternal anxiety and depression symptoms during the postnatal period. We also explored activation differences in fronto-temporal regions associated with facial emotion processing. Ninety-one typically developing 5- and 7-month-old infants were shown photographs of women portraying happy, fearful and angry expressions. Hemodynamic brain responses were analyzed over two frontopolar and seven bilateral cortical regions subdivided into frontal, temporal and parietal areas, defined by age-appropriate MRI templates. Infants of mothers reporting higher negative affect had greater oxyhemoglobin (oxyHb) activation across all emotions over the left inferior frontal gyrus, a region implicated in emotional communication. Follow-up analyses indicated that associations were driven by maternal depression, but not anxiety symptoms. Overall, we found no support for greater right versus left frontal cortex activation in association with maternal negative affect. Findings point to the potential utility of fNIRS as a method for identifying altered neural substrates associated with exposure to maternal depression in infancy.

Internal components of the ITER Tokamak are replaced and transferred to the Hot Cell by remote handling equipment. These components include port plugs, cryopumps, divertor cassettes, blanket modules, etc. They are brought to the refurbishment area of the ITER Hot Cell Building for cleaning and maintenance, using remote handling techniques. The ITER refurbishment area will be unique in the world, when considering combination of size, quantity of complex component to refurbish in presence of radiation, activated dust and tritium. The refurbishment process to integrate covers a number of workstations to perform specific remote operations fully covered by a mast on crane system. This paper describes the integration of the Refurbishment Area, explaining the functions, the methodology followed, some illustrations of trade-off and safety improvements.

In this first part, we justify the use of a simple nonlinear set of ordinary integral differential equation to study the onset of global and regional power oscillations due to neutron-thermo-hydraulic coupling and possible malfunctions of the automatic control system of a boiling water reactor. This approach is framed in the construction of a new nodal-modal reduced order model of the core. Symmetry considerations are applied in the derivation of analytical formulae for direct and cross reactivities, including thermo-hydraulic and automatic control terms. Local bifurcations from the steady state of the reactor are studied from an analytical point of view, using both prompt-jump and effective life time approximation. Both thermal–hydraulic and automatic control system feedbacks are included. Asymptotic methods are used in the derivation of closed form analytical formulae of the stability boundaries in the space of reactor parameters as well as for amplitudes and frequencies of global and regional power oscillations. Besides analytical formulae for limit cycle oscillations are obtained.

We investigate the perturbative regime of the Minimal Supersymmetric Con- formal Technicolor and show that it allows for a stable vacuum correctly breaking the electroweak symmetry. We nd that the particle spectrum is richer than the MSSM one since it features several new particles stemming out from the new N = 4 sector of the theory. The parameter space of the new theory is reduced imposing naturalness of the cou- plings and soft supersymmetry breaking masses, perturbativity of the model at the EW scale as well as phenomenological constraints. By studying the RGEs at two loops we nd that the Yukawa couplings of the heavy fermionic states

This study investigates commuter and driver exposure to aerosol particles in buses and trams in Helsinki, Finland. Particle number and PM(2.5) concentrations were determined in the cabin and the driver's compartment. In addition, the

This article describes and analyzes sleep-wake schedules and nap times in multiage infant-toddler groups through three case studies based on ethnographic research conducted in two Finnish day care centers. The study asks how day care centers and homes in collaboration can protect children’s biological sleep-wake rhythms and the physiological effectiveness of sleep. Data were derived through participant-observation in the groups, taped interviews with staff and parents, and sleep diaries kept by the parents. Findings show some of the complex interactions among family daily patterns, day care patterns, and sleep disturbances in very young children. The findings further show that major differences exist in day care practices regarding the quality of sleep and its physiological effectiveness. These differences are related to three issues: (1) whether the timing of naps in the multiage group is simultaneous or staggered in an age-appropriate and individually appropriate manner; (2) how efficiently the home/day care personnel communicate with one another; and (3) what is the awareness level of the day care staff about the significance of the sleep environment. The article further discusses the team aspect of protective practices, differences between caregivers and their differences in organizing work, as well as implications for further research and for caregiver training.

Using a modified version of Nagumo's equation, a single variable model for an electrode-fiber system is constructed. A form factor is defined for each electrode-fiber system. An analytical modal approach is developed and the stability and bifurcations of the system are studied, using Haken's slaving principle. The Lapicque-Hill and Weiss formulas are derived. Some experimental observations, as anodic block and the time constant dependence on the electrode radius are explained.

We propose extensions to the continuous-time random walk (CTRW) framework so far mainly developed within the econophysics community. Using numerical methods, we extend the CTRW framework with more general marginal distributions than previously proposed. There are two main findings in this respect: First, modeling the returns with a Student-t distribution gives at least as good price distribution predictions as the other previously proposed distributions in this framework. Second, a mixed-Weibull waiting time distribution fits exceptionally well to our three-week long Nasdaq OMX data. When combined with standard financial econometric GARCH and ACD models and intraday seasonality filtering procedures new to the CTRW framework, our models deliver realistic intraday Value-at-Risk and Expected Shortfall predictions. Compared to the basic CTRW model, the total average performance improvement is typically around 70 percent. The effect of filtering out memory in waiting times is particularly noticeable: around 50 percent of the total performance improvement. Overall, our extensions and filtering methods make the CTRW framework a useful tool for intraday risk management (trading), especially at high frequencies of less than a minute or so.

In this paper a low complexity procedure for precedence analysis and cycle detection in DFGs, representing abstract architectures during the high level synthesis process, is presented. The proposed approach aims to reduce the computational overhead required to take topological constraints into consideration during the scheduling process.

In this paper, we present preliminary results for complexity evaluation of alternative architectures. These results — mainly related to architectural synthesis — start from the definition of the formalism, based on Data Flow Graph (DFG), adopted for higher level synthesis of alternative complex architectures. Analysis and manipulation of the DFG allows, in fact, to synthesize a set of alternative architectural solutions. To optimize the procedures related to alternative architectural synthesis, two classes of DFGs has been defined: general DFGs and iterative DFGs. For these two classes solutions are proposed for node synthesis, interconnections synthesis, and node activation synthesis.

This paper concerns computation of discrete Fourier transforms by means of dedicated array processors implemented as VLSI or WSI devices. Primary goal of this work is application of self-reconfiguration Algorithms to Fourier Transform architectures, as required for installation of the processing system on satellites. After describing some approaches to computation of Fourier Transform, as well as some algorithms for reconfiguration of array processors, a comparison among some self-reconfiguring architectures is presented.

This paper reviews the applicability of the workstation concept to the tasks undertaken by quantitative social scientists and provides an outline of the software to be found on such a workstation.

Different layout strategies for butterfly networks, that is for networks performing the Fast Fourier Transform, are presented in the paper. Criteria for layout construction are derived from the ones proposed for flow graph-based circuits. Evaluation of complexity is given in terms of recurrence equations expressing the area required by the different layouts.