Speed Is Associated With, But Does Not Cause, Polarization in the Moral Evaluation of Real-World Images

In human perceptual decision-making, the speed-accuracy tradeoff establishes a causal link between urgency and reduced accuracy. Less is known about how urgency affects the moral evaluation of visual images. Here, we asked participants to give ratings for a diverse set of real-world images on a continuous scale from -10 (“very immoral”) to +10 (“very moral”). We used a cueing procedure to inform the participants on a trial-by-trial basis whether they could make a Self-Paced (SP) evaluation or whether they had to perform a Time-Limited (TL) evaluation within 2 seconds. In the SP condition, fast responses were associated with more extreme evaluations. Compared to the SP condition, the responses in the TL condition were much faster, indicating that our urgency manipulation was successful. However, comparing the SP versus TL conditions, we found no significant differences in the moral evaluation of the real-world images. The data indicated that, while speed is associated with polarization, urgency does not cause participants to make more extreme evaluations. Instead, the correlation between speed and polarization likely reflects the ease of processing. Images that are obviously moral or immoral are categorized faster and given more extreme evaluations than images for which the moral interpretation is uncertain.

On the contribution of fast and slow responses to precipitation changes caused by aerosol perturbations

Changes in global-mean precipitation are strongly constrained by global radiative cooling, while regional rainfall changes are less constrained because energy can be transported. Absorbing and non-absorbing aerosols have different effects on both global-mean and regional precipitation, due to the distinct effects on energetics. This study analyses the precipitation responses to large perturbations in black carbon (BC) and sulfate (SUL) by examining the changes in atmospheric energy budget terms on global and regional scales, in terms of fast (independent of changes in sea surface temperature, SST) and slow responses (mediated by changes in SST). Changes in atmospheric radiative cooling/heating are further decomposed into contributions from clouds, aerosols, and clear–clean sky (without clouds or aerosols). Both cases show a decrease in global-mean precipitation, which is dominated by fast responses in the BC case and slow responses in the SUL case. The geographical patterns are distinct too. The intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), accompanied by tropical rainfall, shifts northward in the BC case, while it shifts southward in the SUL case. For both cases, energy transport terms from the slow response dominate the changes in tropical rainfall, which are associated with the northward (southward) shift of the Hadley cell in response to the enhanced southward (northward) cross-equatorial energy flux caused by increased BC (SUL) emission. The extra-tropical precipitation decreases in both cases. For the BC case, fast responses to increased atmospheric radiative heating contribute most to the reduced rainfall, in which absorbing aerosols directly heat the mid-troposphere, stabilise the column, and suppress precipitation. Unlike BC, non-absorbing aerosols decrease surface temperatures through slow processes, cool the whole atmospheric column, and reduce specific humidity, which leads to decreased radiative cooling from the clear–clean sky, which is consistent with the reduced rainfall. Examining the changes in large-scale circulation and local thermodynamics qualitatively explains the responses of precipitation to aerosol perturbations, whereas the energetic perspective provides a method to quantify their contributions.

Thinking Takes Time: Children Use Agents’ Response Times to Infer the Source, Quality, and Complexity of Their Knowledge

Limits on mental speed entail speed-accuracy tradeoffs for problem-solving, but memory and perception are accurate on much faster timescales. While response times drive inference across the behavioral sciences, they may also help laypeople interpret each others’ everyday behavior. We examined children’s (ages 5 to 10) use of agents’ response time to infer the source and quality of their knowledge. In each trial, children saw a pathfinding puzzle presented to an agent, who claimed to have solved it after either 3s or 20s. In Experiment 1 (n=135), children used agents’ response speed to distinguish between memory, perception, and novel inference. In Experiment 2 (n=135), children predicted that fast responses would be inaccurate, but were less skeptical of slow agents. In Experiment 3 (n=128), children inferred task complexity from agents’ speed. Our findings suggest that the simple intuition that thinking takes time may scaffold everyday social cognition.

Recent trends in summer atmospheric circulation in the North Atlantic/European region: is there a role for anthropogenic aerosols?

The variability of the westerly jet stream and storm track is crucial for summer weather and climate in the North Atlantic/European region. Observations for recent decades show notable trends in the summer jet from 1970s to 2010s, characterized by an equatorward migration over the North Atlantic accompanied by a poleward migration and weakening of the Mediterranean jet over Europe. These changes in atmospheric circulation were associated with more cyclonic storms traveling across the UK into northern Europe, and fewer over the Mediterranean, leading to wet summers in northern Europe and dry summers in southern Europe.In this study we investigate the potential drivers and processes that may have been responsible for the observed changes in summer atmospheric circulation, with a particular focus on the role of anthropogenic aerosols (AA). We conduct attribution experiments with an atmospheric general circulation model (AGCM) forced with observed changes in sea surface temperatures/sea ice extent (SST/SIE), greenhouse gas concentrations and AA precursor emissions. Comparison between the model results and observations strongly suggests that fast responses to AA changes were likely the primary driver of the observed poleward migration and weakening of the Mediterranean jet, with changes in SST/SIE playing a secondary role. The simulated response shows good agreement with the observed changes in both magnitude and vertical structure, which suggests that common mechanisms - involving aerosol-radiation and aerosol-cloud interactions - are responsible. By contrast, changes in the North Atlantic jet are influenced in the model experiments by changes in both Atlantic SST/SIE (which may themselves have been influenced by changes in AA) and fast responses to AA. In this case, however, there are significant differences between the model response and the observed changes; we argue these differences may be explained by biases in the model climatology.

Implementation of non-isolated three-port converter through augmented time response

<p><span lang="EN-US">The work is concerning a multi-port dc-dc converter with improved time response and steady state output. Here the converter carries bare amount of switches for managing the power with mono inductance. The inductance and along with that the switched capacitance are pre owned to bring large voltage gain. This paper put forwarded an appropriate controller for the closed loop monitored high-gain converter with three ports. Higher is that the conversion rate. This converter is also a good interface between DC-source and load that aims to progressing time response with FLC and PI controller in the closed loop system. The converter with the PI controller and FLC is look over and the fast responses are compared with time domain specifications. The simulation outcome indicates that the FLC based converter brings most excellent time domain response.</span></p>

Dynamic piezoelectric MEMS-based optical metasurfaces

Optical metasurfaces (OMSs) have shown unprecedented capabilities for versatile wavefront manipulations at the subwavelength scale. However, most well-established OMSs are static, featuring well-defined optical responses determined by OMS configurations set during their fabrication, whereas dynamic OMS configurations investigated so far often exhibit specific limitations and reduced reconfigurability. Here, by combining a thin-film piezoelectric microelectromechanical system (MEMS) with a gap-surface plasmon–based OMS, we develop an electrically driven dynamic MEMS-OMS platform that offers controllable phase and amplitude modulation of the reflected light by finely actuating the MEMS mirror. Using this platform, we demonstrate MEMS-OMS components for polarization-independent beam steering and two-dimensional (2D) focusing with high modulation efficiencies (~50%), broadband operation (~20% near the operating wavelength of 800 nanometers), and fast responses (<0.4 milliseconds). The developed MEMS-OMS platform offers flexible solutions for realizing complex dynamic 2D wavefront manipulations that could be used in reconfigurable and adaptive optical networks and systems.

90% yield production of polymer nano-memristor for in-memory computing

Polymer memristors with light weight and mechanical flexibility are preeminent candidates for low-power edge computing paradigms. However, the structural inhomogeneity of most polymers usually leads to random resistive switching characteristics, which lowers the production yield and reliability of nanoscale devices. In this contribution, we report that by adopting the two-dimensional conjugation strategy, a record high 90% production yield of polymer memristors has been achieved with miniaturization and low power potentials. By constructing coplanar macromolecules with 2D conjugated thiophene derivatives to enhance the π–π stacking and crystallinity of the thin film, homogeneous switching takes place across the entire polymer layer, with fast responses in 32 ns, D2D variation down to 3.16% ~ 8.29%, production yield approaching 90%, and scalability into 100 nm scale with tiny power consumption of ~ 10−15 J/bit. The polymer memristor array is capable of acting as both the arithmetic-logic element and multiply-accumulate accelerator for neuromorphic computing tasks.