The Growth and Properties of Guanylurea Hydrogen Phosphite Crystal

Crystallography Reports - Aqueous solutions of guanylurea hydrogen phosphite (GUHP) have been synthesized. The temperature dependence of equilibrium GUHP concentration in water was obtained. The...     

Random replicators with high-order interactions

We use tools of the equilibrium statistical mechanics of disordered systems to study analytically the statistical properties of an ecosystem composed of N species interacting via random mutual interactions, as well as via deterministic self-interactions of order p>/=2. We show that the main effect of increasing the order of the interactions among the species is to make the system less competitive, in the sense that the fraction of extinct species is greatly reduced. In addition, we find that for p>2 there is a threshold value which gives a lower bound to the concentration of the surviving species, preventing then the existence of rare species and, consequently, increasing the robustness of the ecosystem to external perturbations.     

Facility for preparation of gas mixture in muon catalyzed fusion experiments

A facility is described that allows safe handling of high tritium gas activity as dozens kilocuries in a regular laboratory environment. It is used to make and deliver into the target a mixture of specific isotopic composition with the contamination requirement of 10^-7 v.f. for Z>1 elements, and recover it upon completion of operation. With this facility, efforts have been accomplished to investigate into the muon catalyzed fusion on two targets – liquid tritium and high-pressure tritium types. Also, the operation range was 0.1–120 MPa for pressure and 20–800 K for temperature and the amount of tritium used was about 100 kCi. The facility showed reliability in operation without indications of radiation beyond the safety level. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Maturation of auditory temporal integration and inhibition assessed with event-related potentials (ERPs)

Background

We examined development of auditory temporal integration and inhibition by assessing electrophysiological responses to tone pairs separated by interstimulus intervals (ISIs) of 25, 50, 100, 200, 400, and 800 ms in 28 children aged 7 to 9 years, and 15 adults.

Results

In adults a distinct neural response was elicited to tones presented at ISIs of 25 ms or longer, whereas in children this was only seen in response to tones presented at ISIs above 100 ms. In adults, late N1 amplitude was larger for the second tone of the tone pair when separated by ISIs as short as 100 ms, consistent with the perceptual integration of successive stimuli within the temporal window of integration. In contrast, children showed enhanced negativity only when tone pairs were separated by ISIs of 200 ms. In children, the amplitude of the P1 component was attenuated at ISIs below 200 ms, consistent with a refractory process.

Conclusions

These results indicate that adults integrate sequential auditory information into smaller temporal segments than children. These results suggest that there are marked maturational changes from childhood to adulthood in the perceptual processes underpinning the grouping of incoming auditory sensory information, and that electrophysiological measures provide a sensitive, non-invasive method allowing further examination of these changes.