Terms Of Global Properties Research Articles

Global versus phonemic similarity: Evidence in support of multi-level representation

There is long-standing debate about the extent to which children cognitively represent words in terms of global properties or phonological segments, yet few studies have investigated how children's sensitivity to phonemic versus global similarity changes over time. The current study uses a mispronunciation-reconstruction task to measure both types of sensitivity within a cross-sectional (N = 90, aged 3;2 to 5;7) and longitudinal sample (N = 23, aged 3;2 to 5;1). The results show that children's sensitivity to phonemes increases over the first two years of school but does not reach adult levels. The findings indicate that global similarity relations remain important throughout development and support the idea of multi-level representation.

Performance of Language-Coordinated Collective Systems: A Study of Wine Recognition and Description.

Most of our perceptions of and engagements with the world are shaped by our immersion in social interactions, cultural traditions, tools and linguistic categories. In this study we experimentally investigate the impact of two types of language-based coordination on the recognition and description of complex sensory stimuli: that of red wine. Participants were asked to taste, remember and successively recognize samples of wines within a larger set in a two-by-two experimental design: (1) either individually or in pairs, and (2) with or without the support of a sommelier card—a cultural linguistic tool designed for wine description. Both effectiveness of recognition and the kinds of errors in the four conditions were analyzed. While our experimental manipulations did not impact recognition accuracy, bias-variance decomposition of error revealed non-trivial differences in how participants solved the task. Pairs generally displayed reduced bias and increased variance compared to individuals, however the variance dropped significantly when they used the sommelier card. The effect of sommelier card reducing the variance was observed only in pairs, individuals did not seem to benefit from the cultural linguistic tool. Analysis of descriptions generated with the aid of sommelier cards shows that pairs were more coherent and discriminative than individuals. The findings are discussed in terms of global properties and dynamics of collective systems when constrained by different types of cultural practices.

A simplified analysis of super building structures with setback

One-dimensional rod theory is very effective as a simplified analytical approach to large scale or complicated structures such as high-rise buildings, in preliminary design stages. It replaces an original structure by a one-dimensional rod which has an equivalent stiffness in terms of global properties. The mechanical behavior of structures composed of distinct constituents of different stiffness such as coupled walls with opening is significantly governed by the local variation of stiffness. Furthermore, in structures with setback the distribution of the longitudinal stress behaves remarkable nonlinear behavior in the transverse-wise. So, the author proposed the two-dimensional rod theory as an extended version of the rod theory which accounts for the two-dimensional local variation of structural stiffness; viz, variation in the transverse direction as well as longitudinal stiffness distribution. This paper proposes how to deal with the two-dimensional rod theory for structures with setback. Validity of the proposed theory is confirmed by comparison with numerical results of computational tools in the cases of static, free vibration and forced vibration problems for various structures. The transverse-wise nonlinear distribution of the longitudinal stress due to the existence of setback is clarified to originate from the long distance from setback.

Two-dimensional rod theory for approximate analysis of building structures

It has been known that one-dimensional rod theory is very effective as a simplified analytical approach to large scale or complicated structures such as high-rise buildings, in preliminary design stages. It replaces an original structure by a one-dimensional rod which has an equivalent stiffness in terms of global properties. If the structure is composed of distinct constituents of different stiffness such as coupled walls with opening, structural behavior is significantly governed by the local variation of stiffness. This paper proposes an extended version of the rod theory which accounts for the two-dimensional local variation of structural stiffness; viz, variation in the transverse direction as well as longitudinal stiffness distribution. The governing equation for the two-dimensional rod theory is formulated from Hamilton

Mesoscopic Structure Conditions the Emergence of Cooperation on Social Networks

BackgroundWe study the evolutionary Prisoner's Dilemma on two social networks substrates obtained from actual relational data.Methodology/Principal FindingsWe find very different cooperation levels on each of them that cannot be easily understood in terms of global statistical properties of both networks. We claim that the result can be understood at the mesoscopic scale, by studying the community structure of the networks. We explain the dependence of the cooperation level on the temptation parameter in terms of the internal structure of the communities and their interconnections. We then test our results on community-structured, specifically designed artificial networks, finding a good agreement with the observations in both real substrates.ConclusionOur results support the conclusion that studies of evolutionary games on model networks and their interpretation in terms of global properties may not be sufficient to study specific, real social systems. Further, the study allows us to define new quantitative parameters that summarize the mesoscopic structure of any network. In addition, the community perspective may be helpful to interpret the origin and behavior of existing networks as well as to design structures that show resilient cooperative behavior.

Self-reporting Biological Nano-systems To Study And Control Bio-molecular Mechanisms On The Single Molecule Level (BIOSCOPE)

Abstract in Undetermined Bearing in mind the potential and importance of enzymatic processes it is somewhat surprising that we are not yet able to fully exploit the possibilities that such processes offer. The main reason is that we do not know the mechanism on the molecular scale in terms of the interaction between the enzyme and the substrate or rather the assembly of substrate molecules (see Figure 1.). This is indeed an interfacial process on the molecular scale. Here we recall that the enzymes work at very low concentrations. Thus under relevant conditions the effect of this isolated enzyme molecule in terms of global properties, like interfacial tension, rheology and curvature, on the relatively large substrate interface is very limited or non-existing at all [1, 2]. It is well established that the local effects on the nanoscopic scale are very significant and understanding of their role in governing enzymatic processes is crucial for the progress of nano-science. Unfortunately, these local effects are not possible to be described and determined at the moment, since the relevant and required tools are not available. Current high-resolution methods, such as x-ray crystallography and NMR, have provided a vast array of structural detail for biological molecules [3,4], yet the output of these methods are limited by their static molecular view and ensemble averaging. Recent advances in optical imaging and biomechanical techniques have demonstrated that it is possible to make observations on the dynamic behaviour of single molecules, to determine mechanisms of action at the level of an individual molecule, and to explore heterogeneity among different molecules within a population. These studies have the potential to provide fundamentally new information about biological processes and are critical for a better understanding of molecular movement, dynamics, and function. Single molecule methods provide an alternative set of approaches that will lead to a more direct view of the action of molecules without the need to infer process or function from static structures. The conformational dynamics of biomolecules is crucial to their biological functions. Recent advances in room-temperature single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy allow for real-time observations of conformational motions of individual bio-molecules [5-7], in particular those on the nanometer scale through fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET)[7,8]. Single molecule photo-induced electron transfer allows probing the distance between a donor and acceptor (within a protein [9]) on the Angstrom scale. Structural information of individual proteins can also be obtained directly nowadays by using the surface enhanced resonance Raman scattering technique (SERRS) [10,11] (Less)

The Kinematics of 3 : 1 Merger Remnants and the Formation of Low‐Luminosity Elliptical Galaxies

We test the formation of low-luminosity elliptical galaxies through collisionless mergers of unequal-mass disk galaxies. The kinematic properties of a small survey of simulated merger end products with initial disk mass ratios of 3 : 1 are compared to a sample of seven low-luminosity galaxies by H.-W. Rix and coworkers that were chosen photometrically to be ellipticals. In this paper, we go beyond a comparison in terms of global properties (using one number to characterize a model or a galaxy, e.g., a4, ellipticity at some fixed radius, or central velocity dispersion) and examine the detailed kinematics as a function of galactocentric distance. The merger remnants are observed through a slit along the major and minor axes, using a pixel binning and slit width similar to the ones used during the spectroscopic observations. Inside each bin, we determine the line-of-sight velocity distributions and parameterize them with Gauss-Hermite functions. We compare the rotational support of the merger remnants, i.e., the ratio of the mean line-of-sight velocity v to the velocity dispersion σ along the major axis, the normalized rotation on the minor axis, and the major-axis Gauss-Hermite moments h3, to those of the galaxies. The N-body remnants are very flattened when viewed edge-on ( ~ 0.6) and should be inclined before making a fair comparison with the data set of H.-W. Rix and coworkers (which has ~ 0.3). When the merger remnants are appropriately inclined, their v/σ profiles rise slower than the ones: v/σmerger is in the range [0.1, 0.8] at 1Reff and [0.2, 1.6] at 2Reff, whereas v/σobserved spans the intervals [0.8, 2.0] at 1Reff and [1.4, 3.5] at 2Reff. Note that even when the remnants are viewed edge-on, the v/σ profiles do not match the observations. The detailed comparison of the observations with our set of purely collisionless 3 : 1 merger remnants shows that these objects and low-luminosity ellipticals do not have similar kinematic profiles. This suggests that this kind of dissipationless merger (or mergers with more even masses, e.g., mass ratios of 2 : 1 or 1 : 1) is not likely to be the dominant formation channel for low-luminosity elliptical galaxies.

Computer Simulation Studies of a Single Polyelectrolyte Chain in Poor Solvent

The conformational behavior of a single, intrinsically flexible, weakly charged polyelectrolyte chain in poor solvent is analyzed by extensive computer simulations combining Monte Carlo and molecular dynamics techniques. After determining the ϑ point for the charge-free case, we focus on the weak screening limit, corresponding to low salt concentration in the solution. We study the dependence on both the solvent strength, characterized by the relative deviation from the ϑ point, τ, and the fraction of charged monomers in the chain, which is effectively tuned by varying the Coulomb interaction parameter. The conformations are discussed in terms of global properties (such as the end-to-end distance, the inertia tensor components, etc.) and functions revealing more detailed information, such as the density distribution around the center of mass and the structure factor. For chains in the ϑ regime our data confirm the picture of a string of electrostatic blobs. For poorer solvents (up to τ = 0.4) we observe, upon increasing the intrachain Coulomb repulsion, a splitting of the spherical globule into a dumbbell-type structure, accompanied by a sharp increase in the chain's gyration radius. For sufficiently large τ, a further splitting is observed as well. Such a “necklace globule” (a sequence of transitions) had been predicted by Dobrynin, Rubinstein and Obukhov (Macromolecules 1996, 29, 2974), with a nontrivial scaling of the gyration radius with chain length and interaction parameters, which is confirmed by our data. By means of a scaling analysis, we argue that the transitions can be interpreted as thermodynamic first-order phase transformations, when taking the appropriate thermodynamic limit, which implies a scaling of the electrostatic coupling with inverse chain length.