Size-Dependent Nascent Sea Spray Aerosol Bounce Fractions and Estimated Viscosity: The Role of Divalent Cation Enrichment, Surface Tension, and the Kelvin Effect.

Viscosity, or the "thickness," of aerosols plays a key role in atmospheric processes like ice formation, water absorption, and heterogeneous kinetics. However, the viscosity of sea spray aerosols (SSA) has not been widely studied. This research explored the relationship between particle size and viscosity of authentic SSA particles through particle bounce, atomic force microscopy analysis, and predictive viscosity modeling from molecular composition.

Toward monitoring submarine glacier melt using hydroacoustics: The role of timescale in the signal of bubble release.

Submarine glacier melt plays a key role in determining glacier stability and driving glacier mass loss. However, quantifying submarine melt remains challenging due to occupational hazards near glacier termini. One method that has been proposed as a low-cost long-term option for remote sensing, though remains unproven, is to use the sounds of glacier ice bubbles to study submarine melt from afar.

A deep learning method for reflective boundary estimation.

Environment estimation is a challenging task in reverberant settings such as the underwater and indoor acoustic domains. The locations of reflective boundaries, for example, can be estimated using acoustic echoes and leveraged for subsequent, more accurate localization and mapping. Current boundary estimation methods are constrained to high signal-to-noise ratios or are customized to specific environments.

Sources of richness and ineffability for phenomenally conscious states.

Conscious states-state that there is something it is like to be in-seem both rich or full of detail and ineffable or hard to fully describe or recall. The problem of ineffability, in particular, is a longstanding issue in philosophy that partly motivates the explanatory gap: the belief that consciousness cannot be reduced to underlying physical processes. Here, we provide an information theoretic dynamical systems perspective on the richness and ineffability of consciousness.

Depth-dependence of the underwater noise emission from melting glacier ice.

Submarine-melting of ice at the glacier-ocean interface accounts for a large portion of the ice-loss at tidewater glaciers and produces sound via bubble-release. The sound production is dominant in the sub-surface region near the glacier-ocean interface. This depth-dependence of the sound is studied by melting ice blocks in a glacial bay at various depths up to 20 m and recording their acoustics over a large frequency range.

Analysis of sound pressure levels generated by nozzle-emitted large bubbles.

The sound radiated by newly formed bubbles can be used to determine their properties. However, details of the fluid dynamics driving the acoustic emission remain unclear. A neck-collapsing model has been proposed to explain the sound generation at bubble pinch-off.

Machines That Feel and Think: The Role of Affective Feelings and Mental Action in (Artificial) General Intelligence.

What role do affective feelings (feelings/emotions/moods) play in adaptive behaviour? What are the implications of this for understanding and developing artificial general intelligence? Leading theoretical models of brain function are beginning to shed light on these questions. While artificial agents have excelled within narrowly circumscribed and specialised domains, domain-general intelligence has remained an elusive goal in artificial intelligence research. By contrast, humans and nonhuman animals are characterised by a capacity for flexible behaviour and general intelligence.

Model-data comparison of sound propagation in a glacierized fjord with a simulated brash ice surface.

Glacier ice loss impacts sound propagation within Arctic fjords. Regular calving events contribute to a collection of floating ice fragments, known as brash ice, at the ocean surface that obstruct the natural and anthropogenic acoustic signals, yet are difficult to characterize. Transmission loss measurements using a maximum length sequence (m-sequence) signal were conducted in September 2017 near Hansbreen glacier in Hornsund Fjord, Svalbard with dense brash ice present at the water surface.

Consciousness in active inference: Deep self-models, other minds, and the challenge of psychedelic-induced ego-dissolution.

Predictive processing approaches to brain function are increasingly delivering promise for illuminating the computational underpinnings of a wide range of phenomenological states. It remains unclear, however, whether predictive processing is equipped to accommodate a theory of consciousness itself. Furthermore, objectors have argued that without specification of the core computational mechanisms of consciousness, predictive processing is unable to inform the attribution of consciousness to other non-human (biological and artificial) systems.

Losing Ourselves: Active Inference, Depersonalization, and Meditation.

Disruptions in the ordinary sense of selfhood underpin both pathological and "enlightened" states of consciousness. People suffering from depersonalization can experience the loss of a sense of self as devastating, often accompanied by intense feelings of alienation, fear, and hopelessness. However, for meditative contemplatives from various traditions, "selfless" experiences are highly sought after, being associated with enduring peace and joy.

Wilding the predictive brain.

The Predictive Processing (PP) framework casts the brain as a probabilistic prediction engine that continually generates predictions of the causal structure of the world in order to construct for itself, from the top down, incoming sensory signals. Conceiving of the brain in this way has yielded incredible explanatory power, offering what many believe to be our first glimpse at a unified theory of the mind. In this paper, the picture of the mind brought into view by predictive processing theories is shown to be embodied, deeply affective and nicely poised for cognitive extension.

The role of jet and film drops in controlling the mixing state of submicron sea spray aerosol particles.

The oceans represent a significant global source of atmospheric aerosols. Sea spray aerosol (SSA) particles comprise sea salts and organic species in varying proportions. In addition to size, the overall composition of SSA particles determines how effectively they can form cloud droplets and ice crystals.

Morphological and chemical changes of aerosolized E. coli treated with a dielectric barrier discharge.

This study presents the morphological and chemical modification of the cell structure of aerosolized Escherichia coli treated with a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD). Exposure to DBD results in severe oxidation of the bacteria, leading to the formation of hydroxyl groups and carbonyl groups and a significant reduction in amine functionalities and phosphate groups. Near edge x-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) measurements confirm the presence of additional oxide bonds upon DBD treatment, suggesting oxidation of the outer layer of the cell wall.

Sea spray aerosol as a unique source of ice nucleating particles.

Ice nucleating particles (INPs) are vital for ice initiation in, and precipitation from, mixed-phase clouds. A source of INPs from oceans within sea spray aerosol (SSA) emissions has been suggested in previous studies but remained unconfirmed. Here, we show that INPs are emitted using real wave breaking in a laboratory flume to produce SSA.

Bubble stimulation efficiency of dinoflagellate bioluminescence.

Dinoflagellate bioluminescence, a common source of bioluminescence in coastal waters, is stimulated by flow agitation. Although bubbles are anecdotally known to be stimulatory, the process has never been experimentally investigated. This study quantified the flash response of the bioluminescent dinoflagellate Lingulodinium polyedrum to stimulation by bubbles rising through still seawater.

Close To You? How Parent-Adult Child Contact Is Influenced by Family Patterns.

Objectives: Intergenerational contacts occur in the context of other family relationships. We examine how in-person contacts among parents and all adult children affect each other, focusing on proximity and other predictors to assess whether and how visiting is correlated across adult children.

Methods: We use a modeling approach derived from an adaptation of multilevel models to provide a convenient mechanism by which to write child-specific equations, each with its own set of predictors, and wherein one child's attribute values can be attached to other children's records.

Changes in persistent organic pollutant levels from adolescence to young adulthood.

Elimination rates and their corresponding half-lives are conceptually important and intuitively accessible pharmacokinetic measures of toxicant elimination, but regression-based estimates are biased proportional to the degree of continuing (background) exposure. We propose an alternative estimator, the censored normal regression model, which uses all observations, but treats individuals whose initial level failed to exceed their follow-up level as censored observations to weight the regression estimates from those that declined between blood draws. In this manner, we derive the intrinsic elimination rate, the elimination rate free from ongoing exposure, as a parameter in a regression with an unobserved, latent dependent variable.