Dual Valence Research Articles

Microstructures, magnetic, and dielectric properties of Ba‐doped BiFeO3 nanoparticles synthesized via molten salt route

AbstractAs the paradigm of magnetoelectric multiferroic materials, BiFeO3 (BFO) has potential applications in spintronics, memory devices, sensors, and actuators. However, its large leakage current and small magnetism at room temperature restrict its practical applications. It is demonstrated that the substitutions of Bi by alkali earth elements at A‐site of BFO can significantly reduce the leakage current and enhance the remanent magnetization of BFO. In this work, Ba‐doped BFO nanoparticles Bi1‐xBaxFeO3 (x = 0, 0.05, 0.10, 0.15 and 0.20) were synthesized via molten salt route. X‐ray diffraction patterns revealed that with increasing the Ba‐doped content the formation of the impurity phase was depressed and the rhombohedral distortions of these nanoparticles were suppressed, as confirmed by Raman spectra. X‐ray photoelectron spectroscopy measurements reveal that the Fe element in the nanoparticles exists in the dual valence states of Fe3+ and Fe2+, and two kinds of oxygen atoms (lattice oxygen atoms and the adsorbed oxygen atoms) exist in the nanoparticles. With increasing the Ba‐doped content, the content ratios of Fe3+ to Fe2+ ions were generally increased, whereas the oxygen vacancy concentrations were decreased. The average particle sizes of the Ba‐doped BFO nanoparticles were decreased as compared with that of nondoped BFO nanoparticles. In contrast, the room temperature magnetization of the Ba‐doped BFO nanoparticles was greatly enhanced by Ba‐substitution, as confirmed by the M‐H loops. At room temperature, the remanent magnetization and coercive field of the Bi0.8Ba0.2FeO3 nanoparticles were 0.51 emu/g and 1130 Oe, respectively. Furthermore, the leakage current density was reduced by one order of magnitude at x = 0.2 and the dielectric properties are also improved by Ba‐substitution. The improvements on the remanent magnetization, leakage current density as well as dielectric properties of the Ba‐doped BFO nanoparticles make them promising candidates for spintronics and dielectric energy storages.

Synthesis, design and sensing applications of nanostructured ceria-based materials

Cerium-based materials possess redox properties due to the presence of dual valence states of Ce3+ and Ce4+. In the last few years, the scientific community has paid much attention to designing and synthesizing cerium-based materials through advantageous routes for widespread catalytic and sensing applications in many fields. Cerium materials have been synthesized in many different forms, shapes and sizes. The catalytic and sensing capabilities of cerium nanostructures are highly dependent on their morphologies and can be improved significantly by modifying the sizes and shapes of the nanostructures to develop sensing scaffolds with improved sensing performance. These nanostructures provide a basis for applications in many fields. From a literature survey (2010 to 2015), it can be concluded that the fundamental morphologies, ratios, and capping of cerium nanostructures (CeNSs) constructively affect their properties and applications. Designed sensors utilizing CeNSs exhibit outstanding stability, high selectivity and eminent reproducibility in relation to time and temperature. This review will provide a perspective insight on the future trends in the design of different morphologies of CeNSs and their promising applications.

Analysis of crystalline phases and integration modelling of charge quenching yields in hybrid lead halide perovskite solar cell materials

Organic inorganic metal halide perovskites (OIHPs) has emerged as promising photovoltaic materials the latest years. Many OIHPs, however, have complex material compositions with mixed cation and halide compositions, phase mixtures, as well as beneficial remains of PbI2 in the final solar cell materials where the complex material composition with dual conduction and valence band states and its effects on the performance remain unclear. Here, we report an approach to analyze the phase mixture, order-disorder phases and the emissive electronic states via a 4-state model of the photoluminescence yield. The approach is applied to scaffold layer perovskite materials with different mixed halide composition. The optical transitions and the full emission spectra are de-convoluted to quantify the band gaps and charge quenching yields in the OIHPs. An approach to extract the excited state coupling parameters within the 4-state model is also briefly given. The integration model is finally utilized in charge quenching yield analysis for the different materials and correlated with solar cell performance from MAPbI3 and MAPbI3−xClx in mesoporous TiO2 layers where inclusion of Cl improves crystal formation and is compared to alternative approaches using optimized solvents and anti-solvent methods. A band gap grading effect was found to be present for the scaffold MAPbI3 and increased for MAPbI3−xClx, beneficial for decreased hole concentration at the back contact and thus reducing back contact recombination.

The Post-Human Masquerade of Diseased Meat

If a prime cut of steak infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) underwent the talking cure, what may it have to say? Diary of a Steak, an experimental text by Booker Prize-nominated author Deborah Levy, ostensibly answers this absurd question, offering an anthropomorphizing performance of the voice of a piece of meat languishing in a supermarket freezer during the BSE crisis. Yet, playing upon the dual valence of the British slang term ‘mad cow’, the narrator concurrently positions herself in a lineage of patients canonized in historical accounts of feminized madness. Knotting together the voices of BSE-infected meat and the female hysteric, Diary of a Steak has been seen to construct a protesting agency on behalf of these two mad cows. This article argues that to attribute a didactic message to the text obscures the seductive danger of the narrator’s voice, which oscillates from human to animal while remaining simultaneously both. Instead, the article reads the narrator as an interspecies femme fatale, drawing out the animality of this feminine archetype to both stimulate and thwart the desire to penetrate her narrative. Diary of a Steak thus offers a textual performance of post-human masquerade, entwining the hermeneutically compelling bodies of BSE-meat and hysteric in a knot of danger and desire that evokes both the historical co-construction of animality, femininity and madness and the contradictory ideals governing industrialized meat.

Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel by Jesse Rosenthal

Reviewed by: Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel by Jesse Rosenthal Daniel Williams Jesse Rosenthal. Good Form: The Ethical Experience of the Victorian Novel. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2017. 256 pages. Jesse Rosenthal's brilliant book works from a disarmingly simple query—what does it mean for a novel to "feel right"?—to unfold an intricate account of how a forgotten branch of Victorian ethical philosophy has tacitly shaped our critical practices and canonical preferences, leaving a "moral stamp" (7) on those experiences of novel reading we might designate "morally neutral" (5). Good Form is not a defense of the ethically improving or sympathetically enhancing qualities of reading, nor an application of recent moral philosophy to Victorian novels. It is a formidably inventive, urbane, and compelling work of scholarship that marshals historical and philosophical insight alongside deft close analysis to reimagine key tenets of novel theory. The book's conceptual architecture, laid out in a crisp introduction and expansive first chapter, comprises two movements that could be labeled historical and genealogical. Rosenthal recovers "moral sense" theory or "intuitionism," a philosophical counter-tradition to utilitarianism that has roots in the work of Shaftesbury and Frances Hutcheson, was espoused in the nineteenth century by thinkers like William Whewell, and later influenced Henry Sidgwick. Positing "a faculty that allows us to perceive, or sense, the ethical quality of an action or state of affairs" (18), this theory broadly sides with intuition against induction, the internal and a priori over the external and empirical—although Rosenthal astutely observes that, in difference from utilitarianism's impersonal calculus, it often invokes "a tacit sense of community" (21). These claims are only roughly contextual: moral sense theory is on the same epistemic team as novels that evince "a pointed and explicit denunciation of the principle of utility" (17); like Victorian "moral conceptualizations of narrative form" (5), it concerns intuitive judgments. Alongside this historical recuperation runs a bolder genealogical argument. Victorian understandings of the compulsive experience of narrative—the "ability to engage a reader and mobilize expectation toward a certain state of affairs" (11)—still inflect our notions. When characterizing narrative's "nonrational draw" (14) through the "intuition that only comes with the experience of reading" (13), theorists like Georg Lukács, Roland Barthes, and Peter Brooks rely on figures of seeing, leading, or sensing that Rosenthal cannily traces back to Victorian images for "the seemingly physical nature of narrative experience" (14). In the dual valence of his pithy title, narratological assessments of "good form" as "what feels right" (13) thus disclose an "implicit morality" (11). Narrative's "felt necessity" (13) was, and so remains, one "means of describing the movement from what is to what ought to be" (2). "We cannot understand the formal principles of the novel that we have inherited from the nineteenth century," Rosenthal ventures, "without also understanding the moral principles that have come with them" (2). Moreover, the morality that hews to narrative in "the experience of anticipated, developing, formal satisfaction" (5) targets qualities distinct from [End Page 1356] novelistic ethics in more typical accounts. The former emerges in "diachronic narrative development"; the latter, aiming at sympathy or social awareness, relies on "synchronic description" (4). Here, an asymmetry that supports the argument might have been made more explicit. Rosenthal's examples of ethical readings of literature that contrast the intuitionist inheritance—he mentions pragmatism (Richard Rorty), virtue ethics (Martha Nussbaum), and the ethics of radical alterity (Emmanuel Levinas)—are not utilitarian. By the same token, the anti-utilitarian he instances to show how mechanisms of narrative intuition are deployed in philosophy (Bernard Williams) is not exactly an heir to Shaftesbury or Whewell. The "moral sense" is doubly buried now: its excavation requires the sort of resourceful, precise attention to form that Rosenthal's analyses everywhere display. Good Form's main work aligns these historical and genealogical, moral and formal claims, and the first chapter usefully sketches its method by examining the "shift away from sympathy to a more internally founded ethics" (24) in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mary Barton (1848) and Charles Dickens's Hard Times (1854)—examples of that firmly anti-utilitarian genre, the social problem novel. But Rosenthal also floats...

Structural, magnetic, magneto-transport properties, and electronic structure study of charge-ordered (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3

Structural, magnetic and magneto-transport properties of nanocrystalline (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 have been investigated along with their electronic structures. Temperature dependent magnetization measurement shows different magnetic phases in different temperature regions. (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 completely transforms into a ferromagnet below 50 K. The temperature dependent resistivity measurement of (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 system displays semiconducting behavior up to 45 K under zero magnetic field. Application of 1 T magnetic field enforces semiconductor to metal transition around 65 K during cooling and around 115 K during warming. This shows that (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 still behaves as itinerant ferromagnet under applied magnetic field. X-ray photoemission spectra of Mn2p and Mn3s core-level confirm dual valence states of Mn (Mn3+ and Mn4+), which is responsible for the magnetic behavior of the (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 system. High-resolution ultraviolet photoemission spectra near Fermi-edge confirms the presence of finite electronic states at Fermi-level, which explains the observed low-temperature metallic behavior of the (La0.4Pr0.6)0.65Ca0.35MnO3 system.

BCIs and disability: enhancement, environmental modification, and embodiment

:This paper explores the ways that BCIs can modify the environment as well as the individual, blur the boundaries between them, and thereby affect the physical functioning and social inclusion of people with disabilities. We begin by outlining the traditional distinction between two kinds of technology that serve people with disabilities: assistive devices and universal design. We then examine a spectrum of BCI applications, from prosthetic attachments to public infrastructure, with the potential to vastly improve the functioning of both disabled and nondisabled people, and to diminish the importance and salience of physical impairments. We suggest that these applications will erode the distinction between assistive devices and universal design as they blur the lines between individual and environmental modifications. Our optimism is tempered by concern for the impact that BCI technology may have on our embodied connection to the physical world and on people with intellectual disabilities. We find the latter concern more disturbing than the former, but speculate that both may be mitigated by the same technology that raises them. We conclude by suggesting that the complexities in appraising the impact of BCI technology on people with disabilities reflect their “dual valence”: the fact that the same uses of that technology have good and bad aspects.

The Deliberation Paradox and Administrative Law

Deliberation is a linchpin of administrative decision-making, and is a key basis for judicial deference to the agency’s interpretation of law. But deliberation has a dual valence in other areas of administrative law: it triggers the right to access to agency information in public meeting laws, but bars access in public records laws. This is the first Article to identify and explain what I call the Deliberation Paradox in administrative law. This longstanding but unexplored dichotomy has roots in common law history, separation of powers, the purposes of public access statutes, and assumptions about how the government works. But the development of deference doctrines since Chevron v. NRDC sets deliberation at cross-purposes, confusing agencies about what is publicly accessible and denying the public information about vast swaths of government decision-making. This Article contends that the Deliberation Paradox should be recognized and discarded in favor of an approach that grants deference only to deliberation that is publicly disclosed, with significant implications for judicial deference to agency interpretations of law and for inter-agency collaboration.

Attachment Patterns Trigger Differential Neural Signature of Emotional Processing in Adolescents

BackgroundResearch suggests that individuals with different attachment patterns process social information differently, especially in terms of facial emotion recognition. However, few studies have explored social information processes in adolescents. This study examined the behavioral and ERP correlates of emotional processing in adolescents with different attachment orientations (insecure attachment group and secure attachment group; IAG and SAG, respectively). This study also explored the association of these correlates to individual neuropsychological profiles.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe used a modified version of the dual valence task (DVT), in which participants classify stimuli (faces and words) according to emotional valence (positive or negative). Results showed that the IAG performed significantly worse than SAG on tests of executive function (EF attention, processing speed, visuospatial abilities and cognitive flexibility). In the behavioral DVT, the IAG presented lower performance and accuracy. The IAG also exhibited slower RTs for stimuli with negative valence. Compared to the SAG, the IAG showed a negative bias for faces; a larger P1 and attenuated N170 component over the right hemisphere was observed. A negative bias was also observed in the IAG for word stimuli, which was demonstrated by comparing the N170 amplitude of the IAG with the valence of the SAG. Finally, the amplitude of the N170 elicited by the facial stimuli correlated with EF in both groups (and negative valence with EF in the IAG).Conclusions/SignificanceOur results suggest that individuals with different attachment patterns process key emotional information and corresponding EF differently. This is evidenced by an early modulation of ERP components’ amplitudes, which are correlated with behavioral and neuropsychological effects. In brief, attachments patterns appear to impact multiple domains, such as emotional processing and EFs.

Luminescence of Eu-Doped Transparent LuPO4 Glass-Ceramics

Dual valence Eu-doped transparent glass-ceramics containing LuPO4 nanocrystals were fabricated by melt-quenching technique in air atmosphere. Their luminescent properties were systematically investigated by excitation, emission spectra, and decay lifetime measurements. The prominent Stark splitting, low forced electric-dipole 5D0–7F2 transition and long decay lifetimes of Eu3+ emission for glass-ceramics reveal the incorporation of Eu3+ into LuPO4 nanocrystals. The enhanced Eu2+ emission and reduction mechanism of Eu3+ to Eu2+ after crystallization are discussed briefly. Our results indicate that transparent LuPO4 glass-ceramics may find applications in photonics.

Neural processing of emotional facial and semantic expressions in euthymic bipolar disorder (BD) and its association with theory of mind (ToM).

BackgroundAdults with bipolar disorder (BD) have cognitive impairments that affect face processing and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether these deficits in euthymic BD have impaired brain markers of emotional processing.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe recruited twenty six participants, 13 controls subjects with an equal number of euthymic BD participants. We used an event-related potential (ERP) assessment of a dual valence task (DVT), in which faces (angry and happy), words (pleasant and unpleasant), and face-word simultaneous combinations are presented to test the effects of the stimulus type (face vs word) and valence (positive vs. negative). All participants received clinical, neuropsychological and social cognition evaluations. ERP analysis revealed that both groups showed N170 modulation of stimulus type effects (face > word). BD patients exhibited reduced and enhanced N170 to facial and semantic valence, respectively. The neural source estimation of N170 was a posterior section of the fusiform gyrus (FG), including the face fusiform area (FFA). Neural generators of N170 for faces (FG and FFA) were reduced in BD. In these patients, N170 modulation was associated with social cognition (theory of mind).Conclusions/SignificanceThis is the first report of euthymic BD exhibiting abnormal N170 emotional discrimination associated with theory of mind impairments.

P-181 - Abnormal neural processing of emotional facial and semantic expressions in adults with euthymic bipolar disorder and their relationships with clinical and social cognition profiles

Adults with bipolar disorder (BD) have cognitive impairments that affect face processing and social cognition. However, it remains unknown whether these deficits have basic emotional processing correlates. We recruited twenty six participants, 13 controls subjects with an equal number of euthymic BD participants. We used an event-related potential (ERP) assessment of a dual valence task (DVT), in which faces and words and face-word combinations are presented to test the effects of the stimulus type and valence (positive vs. negative). All participants received clinical, neuropsychological and social cognition evaluations. Both groups had behavioral accuracy, emotional modulation and interference effects on the DVT. ERP analysis revealed that both groups showed N170 modulation. BD patients exhibited reduced and enhanced N170 to facial and semantic valence, respectively. The neural source estimation of N170 was a posterior section of the fusiform gyrus (FG), including the face fusiform area (FFA). Neural generators of N170 for faces (FG and FFA) were reduced in BD. In these patients, N170 modulation was associated with clinical symptoms (mood and anxiety scores), neuropsychology (attention and working memory) and social cognition (theory of mind). This is the first report of euthymic BD exhibiting abnormal N170 emotional discrimination and abnormal fusiform activation associated with clinical profile, executive functions and theory of mind.

Luminescence Properties of Dual Valence Eu Doped Nano-crystalline BaF2 Embedded Glass-ceramics and Observation of Eu2+ → Eu3+ Energy Transfer

Europium doped glass-ceramics containing BaF(2) nano-crystals have been prepared by using the controlled crystallization of melt-quenched glasses. X-ray diffraction and transmission electron microscopy have confirmed the presence of cubic BaF(2) nano-crystalline phase in glass matrix in the ceramized samples. Incorporation of rare earth ions into the formed crystalline phase having low phonon energy of 346 cm(-1) has been demonstrated from the emission spectra of Eu(3+) ions showing the transitions from upper excitation states (5)D(J) (J = 1, 2, and 3) to ground states for the glass-ceramics samples. The presence of divalent europium ions in glass and glass-ceramics samples is confirmed from the dominant blue emission corresponding to its 5d-4f transition under an excitation of 300 nm. Increase in the reduction of trivalent europium (Eu(3+)) ions to divalent (Eu(2+)) with the extent of ceramization is explained by charge compensation model based on substitution defect mechanisms. Further, the phenomenon of energy transfer from Eu(2+) to Eu(3+) ion by radiative trapping or re-absorption is evidenced which increases with the degree of ceramization. For the first time, the reduction of Eu(3+) to Eu(2+) under normal air atmospheric condition has been observed in a BaF(2) containing oxyfluoride glass-ceramics system.

The cortical processing of facial emotional expression is associated with social cognition skills and executive functioning: A preliminary study

Several lines of experimental evidence support an association between facial processing and social cognition, but no direct link between cortical markers of facial processing and complex cognitive processes has been reported until now. In the current study, we tested the hypothesis that cortical electrophysiological markers for the processing of facial emotion are associated with individual differences in executive and social cognition skills. We tested for correlations between the amplitude of event-related potentials (N170) in a dual valence task and participants’ scores on three neuropsychological assessments (general neuropsychology, executive functioning, and social cognition). N170 was modulated by the stimulus type (face versus word) and the valence of faces (positive versus negative). The neural source of N170 was estimated to be the fusiform gyrus. Robust correlations were found between neuropsychological markers and measures of facial processing. Social cognition skills (as measured by three tests: the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test, the Faux Pas test, and the Iowa Gambling Task) correlated with cortical measures of emotional discrimination. Executive functioning ability also correlated with the cortical discrimination of complex emotional stimuli. Our findings suggest that the cortical processing of facial emotional expression is associated with social cognition skills.

Cortical deficits of emotional face processing in adults with ADHD: Its relation to social cognition and executive function

Although it has been shown that adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have impaired social cognition, no previous study has reported the brain correlates of face valence processing. This study looked for behavioral, neuropsychological, and electrophysiological markers of emotion processing for faces (N170) in adult ADHD compared to controls matched by age, gender, educational level, and handedness. We designed an event-related potential (ERP) study based on a dual valence task (DVT), in which faces and words were presented to test the effects of stimulus type (faces, words, or face-word stimuli) and valence (positive versus negative). Individual signatures of cognitive functioning in participants with ADHD and controls were assessed with a comprehensive neuropsychological evaluation, including executive functioning (EF) and theory of mind (ToM). Compared to controls, the adult ADHD group showed deficits in N170 emotion modulation for facial stimuli. These N170 impairments were observed in the absence of any deficit in facial structural processing, suggesting a specific ADHD impairment in early facial emotion modulation. The cortical current density mapping of N170 yielded a main neural source of N170 at posterior section of fusiform gyrus (maximum at left hemisphere for words and right hemisphere for faces and simultaneous stimuli). Neural generators of N170 (fusiform gyrus) were reduced in ADHD. In those patients, N170 emotion processing was associated with performance on an emotional inference ToM task, and N170 from simultaneous stimuli was associated with EF, especially working memory. This is the first report to reveal an adult ADHD-specific impairment in the cortical modulation of emotion for faces and an association between N170 cortical measures and ToM and EF.

Spectral reflectance properties of carbonaceous chondrites: 2. CM chondrites

We have examined the spectral reflectance properties and available modal mineralogies of 39 CM carbonaceous chondrites to determine their range of spectral variability and to diagnose their spectral features. We have also reviewed the published literature on CM mineralogy and subclassification, surveyed the published spectral literature and added new measurements of CM chondrites and relevant end members and mineral mixtures, and measured 11 parameters and searched pair-wise for correlations between all quantities. CM spectra are characterized by overall slopes that can range from modestly blue-sloped to red-sloped, with brighter spectra being generally more red-sloped. Spectral slopes, as measured by the 2.4:0.56 μm and 2.4 μm:visible region peak reflectance ratios, range from 0.90 to 2.32, and 0.81 to 2.24, respectively, with values <1 indicating blue-sloped spectra. Matrix-enriched CM spectra can be even more blue-sloped than bulk samples, with ratios as low as 0.85. There is no apparent correlation between spectral slope and grain size for CM chondrite spectra – both fine-grained powders and chips can exhibit blue-sloped spectra. Maximum reflectance across the 0.3–2.5 μm interval ranges from 2.9% to 20.0%, and from 2.8% to 14.0% at 0.56 μm. Matrix-enriched CM spectra can be darker than bulk samples, with maximum reflectance as low as 2.1%. CM spectra exhibit nearly ubiquitous absorption bands near 0.7, 0.9, and 1.1 μm, with depths up to 12%, and, less commonly, absorption bands in other wavelength regions (e.g., 0.4–0.5, 0.65, 2.2 μm). The depths of the 0.7, 0.9, and 1.1 μm absorption features vary largely in tandem, suggesting a single cause, specifically serpentine-group phyllosilicates. The generally high Fe content, high phyllosilicate abundance relative to mafic silicates, and dual Fe valence state in CM phyllosilicates, all suggest that the phyllosilicates will exhibit strong absorption bands in the 0.7 μm region (due to Fe 3+–Fe 2+ charge transfers), and the 0.9–1.2 μm region (due to Fe 2+ crystal field transitions), and generally dominate over mafic silicates. CM petrologic subtypes exhibit a positive correlation between degree of aqueous alteration and depth of the 0.7 μm absorption band. This is consistent with the decrease in fine-grained opaques that accompanies aqueous alteration. There is no consistent relationship between degree of aqueous alteration and evidence for a 0.65 μm region saponite-group phyllosilicate absorption band. Spectra of different subsamples of a single CM can show large variations in absolute reflectance and overall slope. This is probably due to petrologic variations that likely exist within a single CM chondrite, as duplicate spectra for a single subsample show much less spectral variability. When the full suite of available CM spectra is considered, few clear spectral–compositional trends emerge. This indicates that multiple compositional and physical factors affect absolute reflectance, absorption band depths, and absorption band wavelength positions. Asteroids with reflectance spectra that exhibit absorption features consistent with CM spectra (i.e., absorption bands near 0.7 and 0.9 μm) include members from multiple taxonomic groups. This suggests that on CM parent bodies, aqueous alteration resulted in the consistent production of serpentine-group phyllosilicates, however resulting absolute reflectances and spectral shapes seen in CM reflectance spectra are highly variable, accounting for the presence of phyllosilicate features in reflectance spectra of asteroids across diverse taxonomic groups.

Facial and semantic emotional interference: A pilot study on the behavioral and cortical responses to the dual valence association task

BackgroundIntegration of compatible or incompatible emotional valence and semantic information is an essential aspect of complex social interactions. A modified version of the Implicit Association Test (IAT) called Dual Valence Association Task (DVAT) was designed in order to measure conflict resolution processing from compatibility/incompatibly of semantic and facial valence. The DVAT involves two emotional valence evaluative tasks which elicits two forms of emotional compatible/incompatible associations (facial and semantic).MethodsBehavioural measures and Event Related Potentials were recorded while participants performed the DVAT.ResultsBehavioural data showed a robust effect that distinguished compatible/incompatible tasks. The effects of valence and contextual association (between facial and semantic stimuli) showed early discrimination in N170 of faces. The LPP component was modulated by the compatibility of the DVAT.ConclusionsResults suggest that DVAT is a robust paradigm for studying the emotional interference effect in the processing of simultaneous information from semantic and facial stimuli.

Jefferson’s “Laws of Nature”: Newtonian Influence and the Dual Valence of Jurisprudence and Science

Jefferson appears to have conceived of natural law rather differently from his predecessors - namely, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Richard Hooker, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, John Locke, and, among others, William Blackstone. This particular pedigree looked to divine decree or moral order to anchor natural law philosophy. But Jefferson’s various writings, most notably the Declaration and Notes on the State of Virginia, champion the thinking of a natural historian, a man who celebrated reason and scientific method, who extolled fact over fancy, material over the immaterial, observation over superstition, and experiment over divine revelation. They reveal, in other words, an Enlightenment homme du monde, a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge, able to discourse on any number of topics and to confront, as it were, his overseas counterparts, George Louis Leclerc and Comte de Buffon. Jefferson’s jurisprudence pivots on the dual valence of law and science. Jurisprudes have mostly ignored the sometime symbiotic relationship of law and science, just as they have downplayed or altogether ignored Jefferson’s unique contributions to legal philosophy. How does Jefferson’s natural philosophy conceptualize law? Science is all about studying objects and predicting their behaviors. If law is more than bills or statutes or glorified pieces of paper - if it is intangible but somehow immanent - how does one collect or observe it in nature? What is its ontology? Its epistemology? How do we discover it? How do we experiment with it? In what way is it, as Jefferson apparently believed, innate to humankind? This article will consider all of these questions while arguing for the inclusion of Jefferson into what I call the “natural law canon” of jurisprudence. I submit that Jefferson’s ideas about nature are tied to his ideas about reason and that his scientific approach to jurisprudence was not only innovative but nearly unprecedented. I have divided the article into two sections, the first dealing with Jefferson as a counteractive force to the positivist jurisprudence of Jeremy Bentham and John Austin, and the second dealing with such issues of materiality, reason, and experiment that make Jefferson’s jurisprudence truly distinctive. I am less concerned with tracing snippets of Jefferson’s writing back to Newton’s precise works or quotes than I am with demonstrating how Jefferson’s jurisprudence appropriates science, what makes that appropriation unique, and why that appropriation matters to a 21st century audience. These concerns alone should merit Jefferson’s inclusion in jurisprudence textbooks.

A novel method for preparing stoichiometric SnO2 thin films at low temperature

Tin oxide is a well known nonstoichiometric material with dual valency. The invariance of stoichiometry is very intriguing. As of today no report is available for preparing perfect stoichiometric tin oxide. Here we report a novel method to prepare stoichiometric tin oxide by modifying the known plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition technique using SnCl(4)-xH(2)O as precursor and O(2) as reactant gas at various temperatures from 300 to 800 degrees C. Tetragonal rutile structure of SnO(2) was found, grown along the [110] direction. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic measurement showed constant Sn/O ratio. Sn 3d and O 1s were found composed of only Sn(4+) (487.2 eV) and O-Sn(4+) (531.2 eV) with equal peak widths. Raman band intensity ( approximately 633 cm(-1)) was found increasing with temperature, indicating the morphological changes. Sheet resistance of approximately 0.5 kOmega/at 300 degrees C was measured that reduces to approximately 0.1 kOmega/at 600 degrees C. It is found that film stoichiometry remains unaltered, while the structural morphology changes significantly.

Electronic properties and stabilities of bulk and low-index surfaces of SnO in comparison withSnO2: A first-principles density functional approach with an empirical correction of van der Waals interactions

The electronic properties and stabilities of SnO and $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ bulk materials and their low-index surfaces are investigated by density functional theory. An empirical method has been adopted in this study to account for the van der Waals interactions among the Sn-O layers in the bulk and low-index surfaces of SnO. Compared with $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$, the structural and electronic properties of SnO bulk and its low-index surfaces present some unique features due to the dual valency of Sn. In SnO, the $s$ orbital of Sn has larger contributions than its $p$ and $d$ orbitals in the first valence band (VB) and the $p$ orbital of Sn has a larger contribution than its $s$ and $d$ orbitals in its conduction band (CB). In $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$, the $p$ and $d$ orbitals of Sn play an important role to form the upper part of the VB and its $s$ orbital dominates in forming the lower parts of the VB and the CB. In both oxides, the $s$ orbital of O forms the second VB with lower energy and its $p$ orbitals are involved in forming the first VB and the CB. The calculated bulk modulus and cohesive energy agree well with the experimental measurements. By constructing all possible symmetrical low-index surfaces of SnO and the (111) surface of $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$, our results reveal that the calculated surface energies of SnO stoichiometric surfaces are lower than that of the corresponding surfaces of $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ due to different bonding between Sn and O in these two oxides. The calculated stabilities of the low-index stoichiometric surfaces of SnO are in the order $(001)g(101)∕(011)\ensuremath{\ge}(010)∕(100)g(110)g(111)$ while the order in the case of $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ is $(110)g(010)∕(100)g(101)∕(011)g(001)g(111)$. The calculated relationships between surface free energies $[\ensuremath{\gamma}(p,T)]$ and oxygen chemical potentials $[{\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\mathrm{O}}(p,T)]$ indicate that the nonstoichiometric O-terminated (110) and (111) surfaces of SnO could be more stable than their corresponding stoichiometric ones when the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\mathrm{O}}(p,T)$ reaches its higher O-rich bound, and one Sn-terminated nonstoichiometric (111) surface of $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ could be more stable than its stoichiometric ones when the ${\ensuremath{\mu}}_{\mathrm{O}}(p,T)$ falls into its lower O-poor region. During surface formation from the bulk, the stable surface usually has small atom displacements. For both SnO and $\mathrm{Sn}{\mathrm{O}}_{2}$ the atoms on the (111) surface have larger relaxations than on their other low-index surfaces.