Eye-tracking as a proxy for coherence and complexity of texts

Reading is a complex cognitive process that involves primary oculomotor function and high-level activities like attention focus and language processing. When we read, our eyes move by primary physiological functions while responding to language-processing demands. In fact, the eyes perform discontinuous twofold movements, namely, successive long jumps (saccades) interposed by small steps (fixations) in which the gaze “scans” confined locations. It is only through the fixations that information is effectively captured for brain processing. Since individuals can express similar as well as entirely different opinions about a given text, it is therefore expected that the form, content and style of a text could induce different eye-movement patterns among people. A question that naturally arises is whether these individuals’ behaviours are correlated, so that eye-tracking while reading can be used as a proxy for text subjective properties. Here we perform a set of eye-tracking experiments with a group of individuals reading different types of texts, including children stories, random word generated texts and excerpts from literature work. In parallel, an extensive Internet survey was conducted for categorizing these texts in terms of their complexity and coherence, considering a large number of individuals selected according to different ages, gender and levels of education. The computational analysis of the fixation maps obtained from the gaze trajectories of the subjects for a given text reveals that the average “magnetization” of the fixation configurations correlates strongly with their complexity observed in the survey. Moreover, we perform a thermodynamic analysis using the Maximum-Entropy Model and find that coherent texts were closer to their corresponding “critical points” than non-coherent ones, as computed from the Pairwise Maximum-Entropy method, suggesting that different texts may induce distinct cohesive reading activities.

Designing magnetic superlattices that are composed of single domain nanomagnets

Background: The complex nature of the magnetic interactions between any number of nanosized elements of a magnetic superlattice can be described by the generic behavior that is presented here. The hysteresis characteristics of interacting elliptical nanomagnets are described by a quasi-static method that identifies the critical boundaries between magnetic phases. A full dynamical analysis is conducted in complement to this and the deviations from the quasi-static analysis are highlighted. Each phase is defined by the configuration of the magnetic moments of the chain of single domain nanomagnets and correspondingly the existence of parallel, anti-parallel and canting average magnetization states. Results: We give examples of the phase diagrams in terms of anisotropy and coupling strength for two, three and four magnetic layers. Each phase diagrams character is defined by the shape of the magnetic hysteresis profile for a system in an applied magnetic field. We present the analytical solutions that enable one to define the “phase” boundaries between the emergence of spin-flop, anti-parallel and parallel configurations. The shape of the hysteresis profile is a function of the coupling strength between the nanomagnets and examples are given of how it dictates a systems magnetic response. Many different paths between metastable states can exist and this can lead to instabilities and fluctuations in the magnetization. Conclusion: With these phase diagrams one can find the most stable magnetic configurations against perturbations so as to create magnetic devices. On the other hand, one may require a magnetic system that can easily be switched between phases, and so one can use the information herein to design superlattices of the required shape and character by choosing parameters close to the phase boundaries. This work will be useful when designing future spintronic devices, especially those manipulating the properties of CoFeB compounds.

IMPROVED MEAN-FIELD TRANSFER MATRIX MODEL FOR HYPERCUBIC ISING SYSTEMS

A mean-field method for Ising systems is introduced generalizing the reduced transfer matrix method introduced by Kaya and Arık. The important assumption of the method is that the neighboring spins of a central spin can be replaced by the average magnetization 〈σ〉 of the system. The approximation is same as the previously introduced method. However, the derivative of average magnetization with respect to external magnetic field is defined without further approximation. In addition, the previously introduced model is extended to all hypercubic lattices. The critical coupling strength Kc for hypercubic lattices is evaluated self-consistently. Obviously, this assumption leads to some significant deviation from the exact treatment. However, the model introduced here is an improvement on most self-consistent mean-field-type approximations.

CORRELATED REDUCED TRANSFER MATRIX APPROACH FOR ISING MODEL

In this paper we present a simple approximate transfer matrix method for 2D and 3D hyper cubic nearest neighbor Ising models with various coordination number z to calculate the corresponding critical coupling strengths Kc. The critical coupling strengths of the Ising ferromagnets are obtained quite accurately by simple improvements over the self-consistent correlated field (SCCF) approximation. The important physical effect included in this work is some of the fluctuation effects of the systems by the help of a reduced transfer matrix method. When used in combination with the accuracy of the average magnetization obtained from the SCCF approximation, this reduced transfer matrix method leads to estimate of Kc more accurate than those obtained from the Bethe–Peierls–Weiss approximation and also SCCF approximation. Therefore, we believe that the approach we refer to as the correlated reduced transfer matrix method is potentially very useful scheme for obtaining approximate values of the critical coupling strengths of the Ising models with a mathematically easy meaner.

Uniform excitations in magnetic nanoparticles

We present a short review of the magnetic excitations in nanoparticles below the superparamagnetic blocking temperature. In this temperature regime, the magnetic dynamics in nanoparticles is dominated by uniform excitations, and this leads to a linear temperature dependence of the magnetization and the magnetic hyperfine field, in contrast to the Bloch T 3/2 law in bulk materials. The temperature dependence of the average magnetization is conveniently studied by Mössbauer spectroscopy. The energy of the uniform excitations of magnetic nanoparticles can be studied by inelastic neutron scattering.

RANDOM FIELD DYNAMIC PHASE TRANSITION FOR THE SPIN-1 BLUME-CAPEL MODEL

We investigate within a mean-field approach the dynamics of the spin-1 Blume-Capel model with Glauber type kinetics under a random oscillating external magnetic field. It is found that the order parameter or the average magnetization is strongly affected by the introduction of the randomness into the system if the number of the realization of the system is low. For only one realization of the system, it is also observed that the increasing strength of the randomness causes more deviation on the noise free average magnetization curves. In addition, it is found that the strength of the deviation depends on the value of the initial condition m(0). Depending on the strength of the randomness, the system exhibits very confusing average magnetization behaviors. This situation occurs especially for regions of the parameter space where both noise free first and second order transitions coexist. On the other hand, for a large number of realizations of the system, the average magnetization curves are found to behave as in the noise-free cases. Consequently, we conclude that the proper order parameter in the presence of a noisy external field can be the average magnetization over the possible realization of the system.

ONE-DIMENSIONAL QUANTUM TRANSVERSE-FIELD ISING MODEL: A SEMICLASSICAL TRANSFER MATRIX APPROACH

In this work we present a semi-classical transfer matrix method to study one-dimensional modified quantum transverse-field Ising model. Both average magnetization per spin along the z-direction 〈σz〉 and along the x-direction 〈σx〉 are calculated in this picture. It is predicted that the t > 1 case is the corresponding effective ferromagnetic phase [Formula: see text] at sufficiently high Hz whereas t < 1 case is an effective paramagnetic phase [Formula: see text]. Consequently, it is concluded that t = Hz/K = 1, here Hz is the transverse field along the z-axis and K is the coupling strength, which corresponds to quantum ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phase transition. In other words, the same result of the sophisticated quantum field theoretical calculation is predicted unexpectedly in the naive semiclassical picture.