Tethered to the EHR: Primary Care Physician Workload Assessment Using EHR Event Log Data and Time-Motion Observations.

PubMed

Arndt, Brian G; Beasley, John W; Watkinson, Michelle D; Temte, Jonathan L; Tuan, Wen-Jan; Sinsky, Christine A; Gilchrist, Valerie J

2017-09-01

Primary care physicians spend nearly 2 hours on electronic health record (EHR) tasks per hour of direct patient care. Demand for non-face-to-face care, such as communication through a patient portal and administrative tasks, is increasing and contributing to burnout. The goal of this study was to assess time allocated by primary care physicians within the EHR as indicated by EHR user-event log data, both during clinic hours (defined as 8:00 am to 6:00 pm Monday through Friday) and outside clinic hours. We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 142 family medicine physicians in a single system in southern Wisconsin. All Epic (Epic Systems Corporation) EHR interactions were captured from "event logging" records over a 3-year period for both direct patient care and non-face-to-face activities, and were validated by direct observation. EHR events were assigned to 1 of 15 EHR task categories and allocated to either during or after clinic hours. Clinicians spent 355 minutes (5.9 hours) of an 11.4-hour workday in the EHR per weekday per 1.0 clinical full-time equivalent: 269 minutes (4.5 hours) during clinic hours and 86 minutes (1.4 hours) after clinic hours. Clerical and administrative tasks including documentation, order entry, billing and coding, and system security accounted for nearly one-half of the total EHR time (157 minutes, 44.2%). Inbox management accounted for another 85 minutes (23.7%). Primary care physicians spend more than one-half of their workday, nearly 6 hours, interacting with the EHR during and after clinic hours. EHR event logs can identify areas of EHR-related work that could be delegated, thus reducing workload, improving professional satisfaction, and decreasing burnout. Direct time-motion observations validated EHR-event log data as a reliable source of information regarding clinician time allocation. © 2017 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.

Air Current Applied to the Face Improves Exercise Performance in Patients with COPD.

PubMed

Marchetti, Nathaniel; Lammi, Matthew R; Travaline, John M; Ciccolella, David; Civic, Brian; Criner, Gerard J

2015-10-01

Improving dyspnea and exercise performance are goals of COPD therapy. We tested the hypothesis that air current applied to the face would lessen dyspnea and improve exercise performance in moderate-severe COPD patients. We recruited 10 COPD patients (5 men, age 62 ± 6 years, FEV1 0.93 ± 0.11 L (34 ± 3% predicted), TLC 107 ± 6%, RV 172 ± 18%) naïve to the study hypothesis. Each patient was randomized in a crossover fashion to lower extremity ergometry at constant submaximal workload with a 12-diameter fan directed at the patients face or exposed leg. Each patients' studies were separated by at least 1 week. Inspiratory capacity and Borg dyspnea score were measured every 2 min and at maximal exercise. Total exercise time was longer when the fan was directed to the face (14.3 ± 12 vs. 9.4 ± 7.6 min, face vs. leg, respectively, p = 0.03). Inspiratory capacity tended to be greater with the fan directed to the face (1.4 (0.6-3.25) vs. 1.26 (0.56-2.89) L, p = 0.06). There was a reduction in dynamic hyperinflation, as reflected by higher IRV area in the fan on face group (553 ± 562 a.u. vs. 328 ± 319 a.u., p = 0.047). There was a significant improvement in the Borg dyspnea score at maximal exercise (5.0 (0-10) vs. 6.5 (0-10), p = 0.03), despite exercising for 34 % longer with the fan directed to the face. Air current applied to the face improves exercise performance in COPD. Possible mechanisms include an alteration in breathing pattern that diminishes development of dynamic hyperinflation or to a change in perception of breathlessness.

Eyes only? Perceiving eye contact is neither sufficient nor necessary for attentional capture by face direction.

PubMed

Böckler, Anne; van der Wel, Robrecht P R D; Welsh, Timothy N

2015-09-01

Direct eye contact and motion onset both constitute powerful cues that capture attention. Recent research suggests that (social) gaze and (non-social) motion onset influence information processing in parallel, even when combined as sudden onset direct gaze cues (i.e., faces suddenly establishing eye contact). The present study investigated the role of eye visibility for attention capture by these sudden onset face cues. To this end, face direction was manipulated (away or towards onlooker) while faces had closed eyes (eliminating visibility of eyes, Experiment 1), wore sunglasses (eliminating visible eyes, but allowing for the expectation of eyes to be open, Experiment 2), and were inverted with visible eyes (disrupting the integration of eyes and faces, Experiment 3). Participants classified targets appearing on one of four faces. Initially, two faces were oriented towards participants and two faces were oriented away from participants. Simultaneous to target presentation, one averted face became directed and one directed face became averted. Attention capture by face direction (i.e., facilitation for faces directed towards participants) was absent when eyes were closed, but present when faces wore sunglasses. Sudden onset direct faces can, hence, induce attentional capture, even when lacking eye cues. Inverted faces, by contrast, did not elicit attentional capture. Thus, when eyes cannot be integrated into a holistic face representation they are not sufficient to capture attention. Overall, the results suggest that visibility of eyes is neither necessary nor sufficient for the sudden direct face effect. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The complex duration perception of emotional faces: effects of face direction.

PubMed

Kliegl, Katrin M; Limbrecht-Ecklundt, Kerstin; Dürr, Lea; Traue, Harald C; Huckauf, Anke

2015-01-01

The perceived duration of emotional face stimuli strongly depends on the expressed emotion. But, emotional faces also differ regarding a number of other features like gaze, face direction, or sex. Usually, these features have been controlled by only using pictures of female models with straight gaze and face direction. Doi and Shinohara (2009) reported that an overestimation of angry faces could only be found when the model's gaze was oriented toward the observer. We aimed at replicating this effect for face direction. Moreover, we explored the effect of face direction on the duration perception sad faces. Controlling for the sex of the face model and the participant, female and male participants rated the duration of neutral, angry, and sad face stimuli of both sexes photographed from different perspectives in a bisection task. In line with current findings, we report a significant overestimation of angry compared to neutral face stimuli that was modulated by face direction. Moreover, the perceived duration of sad face stimuli did not differ from that of neutral faces and was not influenced by face direction. Furthermore, we found that faces of the opposite sex appeared to last longer than those of the same sex. This outcome is discussed with regards to stimulus parameters like the induced arousal, social relevance, and an evolutionary context.

Imaging the eye fundus with real-time en-face spectral domain optical coherence tomography

PubMed Central

Bradu, Adrian; Podoleanu, Adrian Gh.

2014-01-01

Real-time display of processed en-face spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SD-OCT) images is important for diagnosis. However, due to many steps of data processing requirements, such as Fast Fourier transformation (FFT), data re-sampling, spectral shaping, apodization, zero padding, followed by software cut of the 3D volume acquired to produce an en-face slice, conventional high-speed SD-OCT cannot render an en-face OCT image in real time. Recently we demonstrated a Master/Slave (MS)-OCT method that is highly parallelizable, as it provides reflectivity values of points at depth within an A-scan in parallel. This allows direct production of en-face images. In addition, the MS-OCT method does not require data linearization, which further simplifies the processing. The computation in our previous paper was however time consuming. In this paper we present an optimized algorithm that can be used to provide en-face MS-OCT images much quicker. Using such an algorithm we demonstrate around 10 times faster production of sets of en-face OCT images than previously obtained as well as simultaneous real-time display of up to 4 en-face OCT images of 200 × 200 pixels2 from the fovea and the optic nerve of a volunteer. We also demonstrate 3D and B-scan OCT images obtained from sets of MS-OCT C-scans, i.e. with no FFT and no intermediate step of generation of A-scans. PMID:24761303

An Exploration of Challenges Facing Division III Athletic Directors

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Engbers, Jeffrey L.

2011-01-01

The purpose of this study was to establish a basic understanding of the challenges associated with directing athletic programs at NCAA Division III Institutions. Specifically, this study identified the frequency, intensity, and time allocated to common challenges facing the position of the NCAA Division III AD. The challenges were examined using…

Testing a potential alternative to traditional identification procedures: Reaction time-based concealed information test does not work for lineups with cooperative witnesses.

PubMed

Sauerland, Melanie; Wolfs, Andrea C F; Crans, Samantha; Verschuere, Bruno

2017-11-27

Direct eyewitness identification is widely used, but prone to error. We tested the validity of indirect eyewitness identification decisions using the reaction time-based concealed information test (CIT) for assessing cooperative eyewitnesses' face memory as an alternative to traditional lineup procedures. In a series of five experiments, a total of 401 mock eyewitnesses watched one of 11 different stimulus events that depicted a breach of law. Eyewitness identifications in the CIT were derived from longer reaction times as compared to well-matched foil faces not encountered before. Across the five experiments, the weighted mean effect size d was 0.14 (95% CI 0.08-0.19). The reaction time-based CIT seems unsuited for testing cooperative eyewitnesses' memory for faces. The careful matching of the faces required for a fair lineup or the lack of intent to deceive may have hampered the diagnosticity of the reaction time-based CIT.

A model of face selection in viewing video stories.

PubMed

Suda, Yuki; Kitazawa, Shigeru

2015-01-19

When typical adults watch TV programs, they show surprisingly stereo-typed gaze behaviours, as indicated by the almost simultaneous shifts of their gazes from one face to another. However, a standard saliency model based on low-level physical features alone failed to explain such typical gaze behaviours. To find rules that explain the typical gaze behaviours, we examined temporo-spatial gaze patterns in adults while they viewed video clips with human characters that were played with or without sound, and in the forward or reverse direction. We here show the following: 1) the "peak" face scanpath, which followed the face that attracted the largest number of views but ignored other objects in the scene, still retained the key features of actual scanpaths, 2) gaze behaviours remained unchanged whether the sound was provided or not, 3) the gaze behaviours were sensitive to time reversal, and 4) nearly 60% of the variance of gaze behaviours was explained by the face saliency that was defined as a function of its size, novelty, head movements, and mouth movements. These results suggest that humans share a face-oriented network that integrates several visual features of multiple faces, and directs our eyes to the most salient face at each moment.

In Your Face: Startle to Emotional Facial Expressions Depends on Face Direction.

PubMed

Åsli, Ole; Michalsen, Henriette; Øvervoll, Morten

2017-01-01

Although faces are often included in the broad category of emotional visual stimuli, the affective impact of different facial expressions is not well documented. The present experiment investigated startle electromyographic responses to pictures of neutral, happy, angry, and fearful facial expressions, with a frontal face direction (directed) and at a 45° angle to the left (averted). Results showed that emotional facial expressions interact with face direction to produce startle potentiation: Greater responses were found for angry expressions, compared with fear and neutrality, with directed faces. When faces were averted, fear and neutrality produced larger responses compared with anger and happiness. These results are in line with the notion that startle is potentiated to stimuli signaling threat. That is, a forward directed angry face may signal a threat toward the observer, and a fearful face directed to the side may signal a possible threat in the environment.

77 FR 70439 - Federal Open Market Committee Domestic Policy Directive of October 23-24, 2012

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-11-26

... face value of about $267 billion by the end of December 2012, and to sell or redeem Treasury securities with remaining maturities of approximately 3 years or less with a total face value of about $267... could affect the attainment over time of the Committee's objectives of maximum employment and price...

Direct Instruction and Music Literacy: One Approach to Augmenting the Diminishing?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lowe, Geoffrey; Belcher, Steven

2012-01-01

One of the many challenges facing music educators is diminishing class time in lower secondary school in the face of the increasingly crowded curriculum and the advent of arts "taster" courses. However, music educators are still expected to be able to produce musically literate students capable of completing high level music courses in…

Seeing Jesus in toast: Neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia

PubMed Central

Liu, Jiangang; Li, Jun; Feng, Lu; Li, Ling; Tian, Jie; Lee, Kang

2014-01-01

Face pareidolia is the illusory perception of non-existent faces. The present study, for the first time, contrasted behavioral and neural responses of face pareidolia with those of letter pareidolia to explore face-specific behavioral and neural responses during illusory face processing. Participants were shown pure-noise images but were led to believe that 50% of them contained either faces or letters; they reported seeing faces or letters illusorily 34% and 38% of the time, respectively. The right fusiform face area (rFFA) showed a specific response when participants “saw” faces as opposed to letters in the pure-noise images. Behavioral responses during face pareidolia produced a classification image that resembled a face, whereas those during letter pareidolia produced a classification image that was letter-like. Further, the extent to which such behavioral classification images resembled faces was directly related to the level of face-specific activations in the right FFA. This finding suggests that the right FFA plays a specific role not only in processing of real faces but also in illusory face perception, perhaps serving to facilitate the interaction between bottom-up information from the primary visual cortex and top-down signals from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Whole brain analyses revealed a network specialized in face pareidolia, including both the frontal and occipito-temporal regions. Our findings suggest that human face processing has a strong top-down component whereby sensory input with even the slightest suggestion of a face can result in the interpretation of a face. PMID:24583223

'PhysioDirect' telephone assessment and advice services for physiotherapy: protocol for a pragmatic randomised controlled trial

PubMed Central

Salisbury, Chris; Foster, Nadine E; Bishop, Annette; Calnan, Michael; Coast, Jo; Hall, Jeanette; Hay, Elaine; Hollinghurst, Sandra; Hopper, Cherida; Grove, Sean; Kaur, Surinder; Montgomery, Alan

2009-01-01

Background Providing timely access to physiotherapy has long been a problem for the National Health Service in the United Kingdom. In an attempt to improve access some physiotherapy services have introduced a new treatment pathway known as PhysioDirect. Physiotherapists offer initial assessment and advice by telephone, supported by computerised algorithms, and patients are sent written self-management and exercise advice by post. They are invited for face-to-face treatment only when necessary. Although several such services have been developed, there is no robust evidence regarding clinical and cost-effectiveness, nor the acceptability of PhysioDirect. Methods/Design This protocol describes a multi-centre pragmatic individually randomised trial, with nested qualitative research. The aim is to determine the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and acceptability of PhysioDirect compared with usual models of physiotherapy based on patients going onto a waiting list and receiving face-to-face care. PhysioDirect services will be established in four areas in England. Adult patients in these areas with musculoskeletal problems who refer themselves or are referred by a primary care practitioner for physiotherapy will be invited to participate in the trial. About 1875 consenting patients will be randomised in a 2:1 ratio to PhysioDirect or usual care. Data about outcome measures will be collected at baseline and 6 weeks and 6 months after randomisation. The primary outcome is clinical improvement at 6 months; secondary outcomes include cost, waiting times, time lost from work and usual activities, patient satisfaction and preference. The impact of PhysioDirect on patients in different age-groups and with different conditions will also be examined. Incremental cost-effectiveness will be assessed in terms of quality adjusted life years in relation to cost. Qualitative methods will be used to explore factors associated with the success or failure of the service, the acceptability of PhysioDirect to patients and staff, and ways in which the service could be improved. Discussion It is still relatively unusual to evaluate new forms of service delivery using randomised controlled trials. By combining rigorous trial methods with economic analysis of cost-effectiveness and qualitative research this study will provide robust evidence to inform decisions about the widespread introduction of PhysioDirect services. Trial registration Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN55666618 PMID:19650913

High Satisfaction and Low Distress in Breast Cancer Patients One Year after BRCA-Mutation Testing without Prior Face-to-Face Genetic Counseling.

PubMed

Sie, Aisha S; Spruijt, Liesbeth; van Zelst-Stams, Wendy A G; Mensenkamp, Arjen R; Ligtenberg, Marjolijn J L; Brunner, Han G; Prins, Judith B; Hoogerbrugge, Nicoline

2016-06-01

According to standard practice following referral to clinical genetics, most high risk breast cancer (BC) patients in many countries receive face-to-face genetic counseling prior to BRCA-mutation testing (DNA-intake). We evaluated a novel format by prospective study: replacing the intake consultation with telephone, written and digital information sent home. Face-to-face counseling then followed BRCA-mutation testing (DNA-direct). One year after BRCA-result disclosure, 108 participants returned long-term follow-up questionnaires, of whom 59 (55 %) had previously chosen DNA-direct (intervention) versus DNA-intake (standard practice i.e., control: 45 %). Questionnaires assessed satisfaction and psychological distress. All participants were satisfied and 85 % of DNA-direct participants would choose this procedure again; 10 % would prefer DNA-intake and 5 % were undecided. In repeated measurements ANOVA, general distress (GHQ-12, p = 0.01) and BC-specific distress (IES-bc, p = 0.03) were lower in DNA-direct than DNA-intake at all time measurements. Heredity-specific distress (IES-her) did not differ significantly between groups. Multivariate regression analyses showed that choice of procedure did not significantly contribute to either general or heredity-specific distress. BC-specific distress (after BC diagnosis) did contribute to both general and heredity-specific distress. This suggests that higher distress scores reflected BC experience, rather than the type of genetic diagnostic procedure. In conclusion, the large majority of BC patients that used DNA-direct reported high satisfaction without increased distress both in the short term, and 1 year after conclusion of genetic testing.

Gaze direction differentially affects avoidance tendencies to happy and angry faces in socially anxious individuals.

PubMed

Roelofs, Karin; Putman, Peter; Schouten, Sonja; Lange, Wolf-Gero; Volman, Inge; Rinck, Mike

2010-04-01

Increasing evidence indicates that eye gaze direction affects the processing of emotional faces in anxious individuals. However, the effects of eye gaze direction on the behavioral responses elicited by emotional faces, such as avoidance behavior, remain largely unexplored. We administered an Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT) in high (HSA) and low socially anxious (LSA) individuals. All participants responded to photographs of angry, happy and neutral faces (presented with direct and averted gaze), by either pushing a joystick away from them (avoidance) or pulling it towards them (approach). Compared to LSA, HSA were faster in avoiding than approaching angry faces. Most crucially, this avoidance tendency was only present when the perceived anger was directed towards the subject (direct gaze) and not when the gaze of the face-stimulus was averted. In contrast, HSA individuals tended to avoid happy faces irrespectively of gaze direction. Neutral faces elicited no approach-avoidance tendencies. Thus avoidance of angry faces in social anxiety as measured by AA-tasks reflects avoidance of subject-directed anger and not of negative stimuli in general. In addition, although both anger and joy are considered to reflect approach-related emotions, gaze direction did not affect HSA's avoidance of happy faces, suggesting differential mechanisms affecting responses to happy and angry faces in social anxiety. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Try to Look on the Bright Side: Children and Adults Can (Sometimes) Override Their Tendency to Prioritize Negative Faces

PubMed Central

Lagattuta, Kristin Hansen; Kramer, Hannah J.

2017-01-01

We used eye tracking to examine 4- to 10-year-olds’ and adults’ (N = 173) visual attention to negative (anger, fear, sadness, disgust) and neutral faces when paired with happy faces in 2 experimental conditions: free-viewing (“look at the faces”) and directed (“look only at the happy faces”). Regardless of instruction, all age groups more often looked first to negative versus positive faces (no age differences), suggesting that initial orienting is driven by bottom-up processes. In contrast, biases in more sustained attention—last looks and looking duration—varied by age and could be modified by top-down instruction. On the free-viewing task, all age groups exhibited a negativity bias which attenuated with age and remained stable across trials. When told to look only at happy faces (directed task), all age groups shifted to a positivity bias, with linear age-related improvements. This ability to implement the “look only at the happy faces” instruction, however, fatigued over time, with the decrement stronger for children. Controlling for age, individual differences in executive function (working memory and inhibitory control) had no relation to the free-viewing task; however, these variables explained substantial variance on the directed task, with children and adults higher in executive function showing better skill at looking last and looking longer at happy faces. Greater anxiety predicted more first looks to angry faces on the directed task. These findings advance theory and research on normative development and individual differences in the bias to prioritize negative information, including contributions of bottom-up salience and top-down control. PMID:28054815

A model of face selection in viewing video stories

PubMed Central

Suda, Yuki; Kitazawa, Shigeru

2015-01-01

When typical adults watch TV programs, they show surprisingly stereo-typed gaze behaviours, as indicated by the almost simultaneous shifts of their gazes from one face to another. However, a standard saliency model based on low-level physical features alone failed to explain such typical gaze behaviours. To find rules that explain the typical gaze behaviours, we examined temporo-spatial gaze patterns in adults while they viewed video clips with human characters that were played with or without sound, and in the forward or reverse direction. We here show the following: 1) the “peak” face scanpath, which followed the face that attracted the largest number of views but ignored other objects in the scene, still retained the key features of actual scanpaths, 2) gaze behaviours remained unchanged whether the sound was provided or not, 3) the gaze behaviours were sensitive to time reversal, and 4) nearly 60% of the variance of gaze behaviours was explained by the face saliency that was defined as a function of its size, novelty, head movements, and mouth movements. These results suggest that humans share a face-oriented network that integrates several visual features of multiple faces, and directs our eyes to the most salient face at each moment. PMID:25597621

Do Young Infants Prefer an Infant-Directed Face or a Happy Face?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Hojin I.; Johnson, Scott P.

2013-01-01

Infants' visual preference for infant-directed (ID) faces over adult-directed (AD) faces was examined in two experiments that introduced controls for emotion. Infants' eye movements were recorded as they viewed a series of side-by-side dynamic faces. When emotion was held constant, 6-month-old infants showed no preference for ID faces over AD…

Seductive eyes: attractiveness and direct gaze increase desire for associated objects.

PubMed

Strick, Madelijn; Holland, Rob W; van Knippenberg, Ad

2008-03-01

Recent research in neuroscience shows that observing attractive faces with direct gaze is more rewarding than observing attractive faces with averted gaze. On the basis of this research, it was hypothesized that object evaluations can be enhanced by associating them with attractive faces displaying direct gaze. In a conditioning paradigm, novel objects were associated with either attractive or unattractive female faces, either displaying direct or averted gaze. An affective priming task showed more positive automatic evaluations of objects that were paired with attractive faces with direct gaze than attractive faces with averted gaze and unattractive faces, irrespective of gaze direction. Participants' self-reported desire for the objects matched the affective priming data. The results are discussed against the background of recent findings on affective consequences of gaze cueing.

Seeing Jesus in toast: neural and behavioral correlates of face pareidolia.

PubMed

Liu, Jiangang; Li, Jun; Feng, Lu; Li, Ling; Tian, Jie; Lee, Kang

2014-04-01

Face pareidolia is the illusory perception of non-existent faces. The present study, for the first time, contrasted behavioral and neural responses of face pareidolia with those of letter pareidolia to explore face-specific behavioral and neural responses during illusory face processing. Participants were shown pure-noise images but were led to believe that 50% of them contained either faces or letters; they reported seeing faces or letters illusorily 34% and 38% of the time, respectively. The right fusiform face area (rFFA) showed a specific response when participants "saw" faces as opposed to letters in the pure-noise images. Behavioral responses during face pareidolia produced a classification image (CI) that resembled a face, whereas those during letter pareidolia produced a CI that was letter-like. Further, the extent to which such behavioral CIs resembled faces was directly related to the level of face-specific activations in the rFFA. This finding suggests that the rFFA plays a specific role not only in processing of real faces but also in illusory face perception, perhaps serving to facilitate the interaction between bottom-up information from the primary visual cortex and top-down signals from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Whole brain analyses revealed a network specialized in face pareidolia, including both the frontal and occipitotemporal regions. Our findings suggest that human face processing has a strong top-down component whereby sensory input with even the slightest suggestion of a face can result in the interpretation of a face. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Why Is 10 Past 10 the Default Setting for Clocks and Watches in Advertisements? A Psychological Experiment.

PubMed

Karim, Ahmed A; Lützenkirchen, Britta; Khedr, Eman; Khalil, Radwa

2017-01-01

Have you ever noticed that in watch advertisements the time is usually set at 10:10? The reasons and psychological effects of this default time setting are elusive. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that watches showing a time setting resembling a smiling face (10:10) would enhance emotional valence and intention to buy compared to a neutral time setting (11:30), whereas a time setting resembling a sad face (8:20) would have the opposite effect. Moreover, we investigated a possible interaction effect with the gender of the participants. In Experiment 2, we directly tested the hypotheses that watches set at 10:10 resemble a smiling face, whereas watches set at 8:20 resemble a sad face. The data of the first experiment reveal that watches set at 10:10 showed a significant positive effect on the emotion of the observer and the intention to buy. However, watches set at 8:20 did not show any effect on the emotion or the intention to buy. Moreover, watches set at 10:10 induced in women significantly stronger ratings of pleasure than in men. The data of the second experiment show that participants consistently perceive high resemblance between watches set at 10:10 and a smiling face as well as high resemblance between watches set at 8:20 and a sad face. This study provides for the first time empirical evidence for the notion that using watches with a time setting resembling a smiling face (like 10:10) can positively affect the emotional response of the observers and their evaluation of a seen watch, even though they are not aware of the fact that the shown time setting is inducing this effect. Practical implications of the observed findings and alternative explanations are discussed.

Why Is 10 Past 10 the Default Setting for Clocks and Watches in Advertisements? A Psychological Experiment

PubMed Central

Karim, Ahmed A.; Lützenkirchen, Britta; Khedr, Eman; Khalil, Radwa

2017-01-01

Have you ever noticed that in watch advertisements the time is usually set at 10:10? The reasons and psychological effects of this default time setting are elusive. In Experiment 1, we hypothesized that watches showing a time setting resembling a smiling face (10:10) would enhance emotional valence and intention to buy compared to a neutral time setting (11:30), whereas a time setting resembling a sad face (8:20) would have the opposite effect. Moreover, we investigated a possible interaction effect with the gender of the participants. In Experiment 2, we directly tested the hypotheses that watches set at 10:10 resemble a smiling face, whereas watches set at 8:20 resemble a sad face. The data of the first experiment reveal that watches set at 10:10 showed a significant positive effect on the emotion of the observer and the intention to buy. However, watches set at 8:20 did not show any effect on the emotion or the intention to buy. Moreover, watches set at 10:10 induced in women significantly stronger ratings of pleasure than in men. The data of the second experiment show that participants consistently perceive high resemblance between watches set at 10:10 and a smiling face as well as high resemblance between watches set at 8:20 and a sad face. This study provides for the first time empirical evidence for the notion that using watches with a time setting resembling a smiling face (like 10:10) can positively affect the emotional response of the observers and their evaluation of a seen watch, even though they are not aware of the fact that the shown time setting is inducing this effect. Practical implications of the observed findings and alternative explanations are discussed. PMID:28878709

Real time en face Fourier-domain optical coherence tomography with direct hardware frequency demodulation

PubMed Central

Biedermann, Benjamin R.; Wieser, Wolfgang; Eigenwillig, Christoph M.; Palte, Gesa; Adler, Desmond C.; Srinivasan, Vivek J.; Fujimoto, James G.; Huber, Robert

2009-01-01

We demonstrate en face swept source optical coherence tomography (ss-OCT) without requiring a Fourier transformation step. The electronic optical coherence tomography (OCT) interference signal from a k-space linear Fourier domain mode-locked laser is mixed with an adjustable local oscillator, yielding the analytic reflectance signal from one image depth for each frequency sweep of the laser. Furthermore, a method for arbitrarily shaping the spectral intensity profile of the laser is presented, without requiring the step of numerical apodization. In combination, these two techniques enable sampling of the in-phase and quadrature signal with a slow analog-to-digital converter and allow for real-time display of en face projections even for highest axial scan rates. Image data generated with this technique is compared to en face images extracted from a three-dimensional OCT data set. This technique can allow for real-time visualization of arbitrarily oriented en face planes for the purpose of alignment, registration, or operator-guided survey scans while simultaneously maintaining the full capability of high-speed volumetric ss-OCT functionality. PMID:18978919

The effect of face eccentricity on the perception of gaze direction.

PubMed

Todorović, Dejan

2009-01-01

The perception of a looker's gaze direction depends not only on iris eccentricity (the position of the looker's irises within the sclera) but also on the orientation of the lookers' head. One among several potential cues of head orientation is face eccentricity, the position of the inner features of the face (eyes, nose, mouth) within the head contour, as viewed by the observer. For natural faces this cue is confounded with many other head-orientation cues, but in schematic faces it can be studied in isolation. Salient novel illustrations of the effectiveness of face eccentricity are 'Necker faces', which involve equal iris eccentricities but multiple perceived gaze directions. In four experiments, iris and face eccentricity in schematic faces were manipulated, revealing strong and consistent effects of face eccentricity on perceived gaze direction, with different types of tasks. An additional experiment confirmed the 'Mona Lisa' effect with this type of stimuli. Face eccentricity most likely acted as a simple but robust cue of head turn. A simple computational account of combined effects of cues of eye and head turn on perceived gaze direction is presented, including a formal condition for the perception of direct gaze. An account of the 'Mona Lisa' effect is presented.

Absence of Sex-Contingent Gaze Direction Aftereffects Suggests a Limit to Contingencies in Face Aftereffects

PubMed Central

Kloth, Nadine; Rhodes, Gillian; Schweinberger, Stefan R.

2015-01-01

Face aftereffects (e.g., expression aftereffects) can be simultaneously induced in opposite directions for different face categories (e.g., male and female faces). Such aftereffects are typically interpreted as indicating that distinct neural populations code the categories on which adaptation is contingent, e.g., male and female faces. Moreover, they suggest that these distinct populations selectively respond to variations in the secondary stimulus dimension, e.g., emotional expression. However, contingent aftereffects have now been reported for so many different combinations of face characteristics, that one might question this interpretation. Instead, the selectivity might be generated during the adaptation procedure, for instance as a result of associative learning, and not indicate pre-existing response selectivity in the face perception system. To alleviate this concern, one would need to demonstrate some limit to contingent aftereffects. Here, we report a clear limit, showing that gaze direction aftereffects are not contingent on face sex. We tested 36 young Caucasian adults in a gaze adaptation paradigm. We initially established their ability to discriminate the gaze direction of male and female test faces in a pre-adaptation phase. Afterwards, half of the participants adapted to female faces looking left and male faces looking right, and half adapted to the reverse pairing. We established the effects of this adaptation on the perception of gaze direction in subsequently presented male and female test faces. We found that adaptation induced pronounced gaze direction aftereffects, i.e., participants were biased to perceive small gaze deviations to both the left and right as direct. Importantly, however, aftereffects were identical for male and female test faces, showing that the contingency of face sex and gaze direction participants experienced during the adaptation procedure had no effect. PMID:26648890

The fractal based analysis of human face and DNA variations during aging.

PubMed

Namazi, Hamidreza; Akrami, Amin; Hussaini, Jamal; Silva, Osmar N; Wong, Albert; Kulish, Vladimir V

2017-01-16

Human DNA is the main unit that shapes human characteristics and features such as behavior. Thus, it is expected that changes in DNA (DNA mutation) influence human characteristics and features. Face is one of the human features which is unique and also dependent on his gen. In this paper, for the first time we analyze the variations of human DNA and face simultaneously. We do this job by analyzing the fractal dimension of DNA walk and face during human aging. The results of this study show the human DNA and face get more complex by aging. These complexities are mapped on fractal exponents of DNA walk and human face. The method discussed in this paper can be further developed in order to investigate the direct influence of DNA mutation on the face variations during aging, and accordingly making a model between human face fractality and the complexity of DNA walk.

Left face matching bias: right hemisphere dominance or scanning habits?

PubMed

Megreya, Ahmed M; Havard, Catriona

2011-01-01

A large body of work report a leftward bias in face processing. However, it is not clear whether this leftward bias purely reflects the dominance of the right hemisphere or is influenced by scanning habits developed by reading directions. Here, we report two experiments examining how well native readers of right to left Arabic scripts (Egyptians) could match (for identity) a target face that appeared with a companion to a line-up of 10 faces. There was a significant advantage for matching faces that appeared on the left. However, Experiment 2 found that the magnitude of this left face matching bias was almost three times weaker than the magnitude of the leftward bias shown by native readers of left to right English scripts (British). Accordingly, we suggest that the right hemisphere dominance for face processing underlies the leftward face perception bias, but with the interaction of scanning habits.

Direct Gaze Modulates Face Recognition in Young Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Farroni, Teresa; Massaccesi, Stefano; Menon, Enrica; Johnson, Mark H.

2007-01-01

From birth, infants prefer to look at faces that engage them in direct eye contact. In adults, direct gaze is known to modulate the processing of faces, including the recognition of individuals. In the present study, we investigate whether direction of gaze has any effect on face recognition in four-month-old infants. Four-month infants were shown…

Determining the Molecular Growth Mechanisms of Protein Crystal Faces by Atomic Force Microscopy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Nadarajah, Arunan; Li, Huayu; Pusey, Marc L.

1999-01-01

A high resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) study had shown that the molecular packing on the tetragonal lysozyme (110) face corresponded to only one of two possible packing arrangements, suggesting that growth layers on this face were of bimolecular height. Theoretical analyses of the packing also indicated that growth of this face should proceed by the addition of growth units of at least tetramer size corresponding to the 43 helices in the crystal. In this study an AFM linescan technique was devised to measure the dimensions of individual growth units on protein crystal faces as they were being incorporated into the lattice. Images of individual growth events on the (110) face of tetragonal lysozyme crystals were observed, shown by jump discontinuities in the growth step in the linescan images as shown in the figure. The growth unit dimension in the scanned direction was obtained from these images. A large number of scans in two directions on the (110) face were performed and the distribution of lysozyme growth unit sizes were obtained. A variety of unit sizes corresponding to 43 helices, were shown to participate in the growth process, with the 43 tetramer being the minimum observed size. This technique represents a new application for AFM allowing time resolved studies of molecular process to be carried out.

Dog owners show experience-based viewing behaviour in judging dog face approachability.

PubMed

Gavin, Carla Jade; Houghton, Sarah; Guo, Kun

2017-01-01

Our prior visual experience plays a critical role in face perception. We show superior perceptual performance for differentiating conspecific (vs non-conspecific), own-race (vs other-race) and familiar (vs unfamiliar) faces. However, it remains unclear whether our experience with faces of other species would influence our gaze allocation for extracting salient facial information. In this eye-tracking study, we asked both dog owners and non-owners to judge the approachability of human, monkey and dog faces, and systematically compared their behavioural performance and gaze pattern associated with the task. Compared to non-owners, dog owners assessed dog faces with shorter time and fewer fixations, but gave higher approachability ratings. The gaze allocation within local facial features was also modulated by the ownership. The averaged proportion of the fixations and viewing time directed at the dog mouth region were significantly less for the dog owners, and more experienced dog owners tended to look more at the dog eyes, suggesting the adoption of a prior experience-based viewing behaviour for assessing dog approachability. No differences in behavioural performance and gaze pattern were observed between dog owners and non-owners when judging human and monkey faces, implying that the dog owner's experience-based gaze strategy for viewing dog faces was not transferable across faces of other species.

Relations of emotion-related temperamental characteristics to attentional biases and social functioning.

PubMed

Nozadi, Sara S; Spinrad, Tracy L; Johnson, Scott P; Eisenberg, Nancy

2018-06-01

The current study examined whether an important temperamental characteristic, effortful control (EC), moderates the associations between dispositional anger and sadness, attention biases, and social functioning in a group of preschool-aged children (N = 77). Preschoolers' attentional biases toward angry and sad facial expressions were assessed using eye-tracking, and we obtained teachers' reports of children's temperament and social functioning. Associations of dispositional anger and sadness with time looking at relevant negative emotional stimuli were moderated by children's EC, but relations between time looking at emotional faces and indicators of social functioning, for the most part, were direct and not moderated by EC. In particular, time looking at angry faces (and low EC) predicted high levels of aggressive behaviors, whereas longer time looking at sad faces (and high EC) predicted higher social competence. Finally, latency to detect angry faces predicted aggressive behavior under conditions of average and low levels of EC. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of differentiating between components of attention biases toward distinct negative emotions, and implications for attention training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

Transfer-Efficient Face Routing Using the Planar Graphs of Neighbors in High Density WSNs

PubMed Central

Kim, Sang-Ha

2017-01-01

Face routing has been adopted in wireless sensor networks (WSNs) where topological changes occur frequently or maintaining full network information is difficult. For message forwarding in networks, a planar graph is used to prevent looping, and because long edges are removed by planarization and the resulting planar graph is composed of short edges, and messages are forwarded along multiple nodes connected by them even though they can be forwarded directly. To solve this, face routing using information on all nodes within 2-hop range was adopted to forward messages directly to the farthest node within radio range. However, as the density of the nodes increases, network performance plunges because message transfer nodes receive and process increased node information. To deal with this problem, we propose a new face routing using the planar graphs of neighboring nodes to improve transfer efficiency. It forwards a message directly to the farthest neighbor and reduces loads and processing time by distributing network graph construction and planarization to the neighbors. It also decreases the amount of location information to be transmitted by sending information on the planar graph nodes rather than on all neighboring nodes. Simulation results show that it significantly improves transfer efficiency. PMID:29053623

ATTENTION BIAS OF ANXIOUS YOUTH DURING EXTENDED EXPOSURE OF EMOTIONAL FACE PAIRS: AN EYE-TRACKING STUDY

PubMed Central

Shechner, Tomer; Jarcho, Johanna M.; Britton, Jennifer C.; Leibenluft, Ellen; Pine, Daniel S.; Nelson, Eric E.

2012-01-01

Background Previous studies demonstrate that anxiety is characterized by biased attention toward threats, typically measured by differences in motor reaction time to threat and neutral cues. Using eye-tracking methodology, the current study measured attention biases in anxious and nonanxious youth, using unrestricted free viewing of angry, happy, and neutral faces. Methods Eighteen anxious and 15 nonanxious youth (8–17 years old) passively viewed angry-neutral and happy-neutral face pairs for 10 s while their eye movements were recorded. Results Anxious youth displayed a greater attention bias toward angry faces than nonanxious youth, and this bias occurred in the earliest phases of stimulus presentation. Specifically, anxious youth were more likely to direct their first fixation to angry faces, and they made faster fixations to angry than neutral faces. Conclusions Consistent with findings from earlier, reaction-time studies, the current study shows that anxious youth, like anxious adults, exhibit biased orienting to threat-related stimuli. This study adds to the existing literature by documenting that threat biases in eye-tracking patterns are manifest at initial attention orienting. PMID:22815254

A retrospective analysis of the effect of discussion in teleconference and face-to-face scientific peer-review panels

PubMed Central

Carpenter, Afton S; Sullivan, Joanne H; Deshmukh, Arati; Glisson, Scott R; Gallo, Stephen A

2015-01-01

Objective With the use of teleconferencing for grant peer-review panels increasing, further studies are necessary to determine the efficacy of the teleconference setting compared to the traditional onsite/face-to-face setting. The objective of this analysis was to examine the effects of discussion, namely changes in application scoring premeeting and postdiscussion, in these settings. We also investigated other parameters, including the magnitude of score shifts and application discussion time in face-to-face and teleconference review settings. Design The investigation involved a retrospective, quantitative analysis of premeeting and postdiscussion scores and discussion times for teleconference and face-to-face review panels. The analysis included 260 and 212 application score data points and 212 and 171 discussion time data points for the face-to-face and teleconference settings, respectively. Results The effect of discussion was found to be small, on average, in both settings. However, discussion was found to be important for at least 10% of applications, regardless of setting, with these applications moving over a potential funding line in either direction (fundable to unfundable or vice versa). Small differences were uncovered relating to the effect of discussion between settings, including a decrease in the magnitude of the effect in the teleconference panels as compared to face-to-face. Discussion time (despite teleconferences having shorter discussions) was observed to have little influence on the magnitude of the effect of discussion. Additionally, panel discussion was found to often result in a poorer score (as opposed to an improvement) when compared to reviewer premeeting scores. This was true regardless of setting or assigned reviewer type (primary or secondary reviewer). Conclusions Subtle differences were observed between settings, potentially due to reduced engagement in teleconferences. Overall, further research is required on the psychology of decision-making, team performance and persuasion to better elucidate the group dynamics of telephonic and virtual ad-hoc peer-review panels. PMID:26351194

Night-time pedestrian conspicuity: effects of clothing on drivers' eye movements.

PubMed

Wood, Joanne M; Tyrrell, Richard A; Lacherez, Philippe; Black, Alex A

2017-03-01

Drivers' responses and eye movements were assessed as they approached pedestrians at night in order to explore the relative conspicuity benefits of different configurations of retroreflective markings. Eye movements were recorded using an ASL Mobile Eye (Applied Science Technologies, www.asleyetracking.com) from 14 young licensed drivers (M = 24.1 ± 6.4 years) as they drove along a closed-road circuit at night. At two locations, pedestrians walked in place facing either towards or away from the road. Pedestrians wore black clothing with a standard retroreflective vest either alone or with additional retroreflective markers positioned in a configuration conveying biological motion (biomotion). Drivers responded when they recognised that a pedestrian was present and again when they identified the direction the pedestrian was facing. Drivers recognised pedestrians from a significantly greater distance (p < 0.05) when the pedestrian's clothing included the biomotion configuration (319.1 m) than when the biomotion markings were absent (184.5 m). Further, the drivers recognised the direction that the pedestrian faced from a longer distance when biomotion markings were present (215.4 m vs 95.6 m). Eye movement data suggested that the biomotion configuration attracted drivers' attention significantly sooner than the vest (time to first fixation: 1.1 vs 3.5 s), that drivers fixated on pedestrians wearing biomotion for significantly less time prior to responding (3.4 s vs 6.1 s), and the time to first recognise a pedestrian was approximately half that for biomotion compared to vest (6.4 vs 13.9 s). Adding biomotion reflectors to the vest facilitated earlier recognition of pedestrians and faster identification of the direction that the pedestrian faced. These findings confirm that the conspicuity advantages of biomotion configurations on pedestrians at night result in part from drivers fixating pedestrians earlier and more efficiently. © 2017 The Authors Ophthalmic & Physiological Optics © 2017 The College of Optometrists.

Implicit self-other discrimination affects the interplay between multisensory affordances of mental representations of faces.

PubMed

Zeugin, David; Arfa, Norhan; Notter, Michael; Murray, Micah M; Ionta, Silvio

2017-08-30

Face recognition is an apparently straightforward but, in fact, complex ability, encompassing the activation of at least visual and somatosensory representations. Understanding how identity shapes the interplay between these face-related affordances could clarify the mechanisms of self-other discrimination. To this aim, we exploited the so-called "face inversion effect" (FIE), a specific bias in the mental rotation of face images (of other people): with respect to inanimate objects, face images require longer time to be mentally rotated from the upside-down. Via the FIE, which suggests the activation of somatosensory mechanisms, we assessed identity-related changes in the interplay between visual and somatosensory affordances between self- and other-face representations. Methodologically, to avoid the potential interference of the somatosensory feedback associated with musculoskeletal movements, we introduced the tracking of gaze direction to record participants' response. Response times from twenty healthy participants showed the larger FIE for self- than other-faces, suggesting that the impact of somatosensory affordances on mental representation of faces varies according to identity. The present study lays the foundations of a quantifiable method to implicitly assess self-other discrimination, with possible translational benefits for early diagnosis of face processing disturbances (e.g. prosopagnosia), and for neurophysiological studies on self-other discrimination in ethological settings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The late positive potential indexes a role for emotion during learning of trust from eye-gaze cues

PubMed Central

Manssuer, Luis R.; Roberts, Mark V.; Tipper, Steven P.

2015-01-01

Gaze direction perception triggers rapid visuospatial orienting to the location observed by others. When this is congruent with the location of a target, reaction times are faster than when incongruent. Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies suggest that the non-joint attention induced by incongruent cues are experienced as more emotionally negative and this could relate to less favorable trust judgments of the faces when gaze-cues are contingent with identity. Here, we provide further support for these findings using time-resolved event-related potentials. In addition to replicating the effects of identity-contingent gaze-cues on reaction times and trust judgments, we discovered that the emotion-related late positive potential increased across blocks to incongruent compared to congruent faces before, during and after the gaze-cue, suggesting both learning and retrieval of emotion states associated with the face. We also discovered that the face-recognition-related N250 component appeared to localize to sources in anterior temporal areas. Our findings provide unique electrophysiological evidence for the role of emotion in learning trust from gaze-cues, suggesting that the retrieval of face evaluations during interaction may take around 1000 ms and that the N250 originates from anterior temporal face patches. PMID:25731599

Looking for myself: current multisensory input alters self-face recognition.

PubMed

Tsakiris, Manos

2008-01-01

How do I know the person I see in the mirror is really me? Is it because I know the person simply looks like me, or is it because the mirror reflection moves when I move, and I see it being touched when I feel touch myself? Studies of face-recognition suggest that visual recognition of stored visual features inform self-face recognition. In contrast, body-recognition studies conclude that multisensory integration is the main cue to selfhood. The present study investigates for the first time the specific contribution of current multisensory input for self-face recognition. Participants were stroked on their face while they were looking at a morphed face being touched in synchrony or asynchrony. Before and after the visuo-tactile stimulation participants performed a self-recognition task. The results show that multisensory signals have a significant effect on self-face recognition. Synchronous tactile stimulation while watching another person's face being similarly touched produced a bias in recognizing one's own face, in the direction of the other person included in the representation of one's own face. Multisensory integration can update cognitive representations of one's body, such as the sense of ownership. The present study extends this converging evidence by showing that the correlation of synchronous multisensory signals also updates the representation of one's face. The face is a key feature of our identity, but at the same time is a source of rich multisensory experiences used to maintain or update self-representations.

Face Age and Eye Gaze Influence Older Adults' Emotion Recognition.

PubMed

Campbell, Anna; Murray, Janice E; Atkinson, Lianne; Ruffman, Ted

2017-07-01

Eye gaze has been shown to influence emotion recognition. In addition, older adults (over 65 years) are not as influenced by gaze direction cues as young adults (18-30 years). Nevertheless, these differences might stem from the use of young to middle-aged faces in emotion recognition research because older adults have an attention bias toward old-age faces. Therefore, using older face stimuli might allow older adults to process gaze direction cues to influence emotion recognition. To investigate this idea, young and older adults completed an emotion recognition task with young and older face stimuli displaying direct and averted gaze, assessing labeling accuracy for angry, disgusted, fearful, happy, and sad faces. Direct gaze rather than averted gaze improved young adults' recognition of emotions in young and older faces, but for older adults this was true only for older faces. The current study highlights the impact of stimulus face age and gaze direction on emotion recognition in young and older adults. The use of young face stimuli with direct gaze in most research might contribute to age-related emotion recognition differences. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of The Gerontological Society of America. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Early Left Parietal Activity Elicited by Direct Gaze: A High-Density EEG Study

PubMed Central

Burra, Nicolas; Kerzel, Dirk; George, Nathalie

2016-01-01

Gaze is one of the most important cues for human communication and social interaction. In particular, gaze contact is the most primary form of social contact and it is thought to capture attention. A very early-differentiated brain response to direct versus averted gaze has been hypothesized. Here, we used high-density electroencephalography to test this hypothesis. Topographical analysis allowed us to uncover a very early topographic modulation (40–80 ms) of event-related responses to faces with direct as compared to averted gaze. This modulation was obtained only in the condition where intact broadband faces–as opposed to high-pass or low-pas filtered faces–were presented. Source estimation indicated that this early modulation involved the posterior parietal region, encompassing the left precuneus and inferior parietal lobule. This supports the idea that it reflected an early orienting response to direct versus averted gaze. Accordingly, in a follow-up behavioural experiment, we found faster response times to the direct gaze than to the averted gaze broadband faces. In addition, classical evoked potential analysis showed that the N170 peak amplitude was larger for averted gaze than for direct gaze. Taken together, these results suggest that direct gaze may be detected at a very early processing stage, involving a parallel route to the ventral occipito-temporal route of face perceptual analysis. PMID:27880776

Talking heads or talking eyes? Effects of head orientation and sudden onset gaze cues on attention capture.

PubMed

van der Wel, Robrecht P; Welsh, Timothy; Böckler, Anne

2018-01-01

The direction of gaze towards or away from an observer has immediate effects on attentional processing in the observer. Previous research indicates that faces with direct gaze are processed more efficiently than faces with averted gaze. We recently reported additional processing advantages for faces that suddenly adopt direct gaze (abruptly shift from averted to direct gaze) relative to static direct gaze (always in direct gaze), sudden averted gaze (abruptly shift from direct to averted gaze), and static averted gaze (always in averted gaze). Because changes in gaze orientation in previous study co-occurred with changes in head orientation, it was not clear if the effect is contingent on face or eye processing, or whether it requires both the eyes and the face to provide consistent information. The present study delineates the impact of head orientation, sudden onset motion cues, and gaze cues. Participants completed a target-detection task in which head position remained in a static averted or direct orientation while sudden onset motion and eye gaze cues were manipulated within each trial. The results indicate a sudden direct gaze advantage that resulted from the additive role of motion and gaze cues. Interestingly, the orientation of the face towards or away from the observer did not influence the sudden direct gaze effect, suggesting that eye gaze cues, not face orientation cues, are critical for the sudden direct gaze effect.

Detecting "Infant-Directedness" in Face and Voice

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Kim, Hojin I.; Johnson, Scott P.

2014-01-01

Five- and 3-month-old infants' perception of infant-directed (ID) faces and the role of speech in perceiving faces were examined. Infants' eye movements were recorded as they viewed a series of two side-by-side talking faces, one infant-directed and one adult-directed (AD), while listening to ID speech, AD speech, or in silence. Infants…

Opening Life's Gifts: Facing Death for a Second Time.

PubMed

Hold, Judith L; Blake, Barbara J; Byrne, Michelle; Varga, Michael

Prior to the development of effective antiretroviral therapy, persons diagnosed with HIV thought they were going to die. Now, long-term survivors are contemplating death again as they age and develop other chronic diseases. The purpose of our study was to understand the experiences of adults living with HIV for 20 or more years as they faced death for a second time. Hermeneutic phenomenology guided the research as participants shared their lived experience through storytelling. Each person's story was audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Transcript analysis occurred as data were collected. Three common themes from the narratives were identified: Making Choices, Transformation of Fear, and Meaning of Death. Positive and negative pathways influenced each participants' decision-making. Over time, fear of dying was transformed and energy was directed toward living. Even though the participants in this study were facing death again, they recognized it as a natural part of life. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Human sex differences in emotional processing of own-race and other-race faces.

PubMed

Ran, Guangming; Chen, Xu; Pan, Yangu

2014-06-18

There is evidence that women and men show differences in the perception of affective facial expressions. However, none of the previous studies directly investigated sex differences in emotional processing of own-race and other-race faces. The current study addressed this issue using high time resolution event-related potential techniques. In total, data from 25 participants (13 women and 12 men) were analyzed. It was found that women showed increased N170 amplitudes to negative White faces compared with negative Chinese faces over the right hemisphere electrodes. This result suggests that women show enhanced sensitivity to other-race faces showing negative emotions (fear or disgust), which may contribute toward evolution. However, the current data showed that men had increased N170 amplitudes to happy Chinese versus happy White faces over the left hemisphere electrodes, indicating that men show enhanced sensitivity to own-race faces showing positive emotions (happiness). In this respect, men might use past pleasant emotional experiences to boost recognition of own-race faces.

Discrimination of human and dog faces and inversion responses in domestic dogs (Canis familiaris).

PubMed

Racca, Anaïs; Amadei, Eleonora; Ligout, Séverine; Guo, Kun; Meints, Kerstin; Mills, Daniel

2010-05-01

Although domestic dogs can respond to many facial cues displayed by other dogs and humans, it remains unclear whether they can differentiate individual dogs or humans based on facial cues alone and, if so, whether they would demonstrate the face inversion effect, a behavioural hallmark commonly used in primates to differentiate face processing from object processing. In this study, we first established the applicability of the visual paired comparison (VPC or preferential looking) procedure for dogs using a simple object discrimination task with 2D pictures. The animals demonstrated a clear looking preference for novel objects when simultaneously presented with prior-exposed familiar objects. We then adopted this VPC procedure to assess their face discrimination and inversion responses. Dogs showed a deviation from random behaviour, indicating discrimination capability when inspecting upright dog faces, human faces and object images; but the pattern of viewing preference was dependent upon image category. They directed longer viewing time at novel (vs. familiar) human faces and objects, but not at dog faces, instead, a longer viewing time at familiar (vs. novel) dog faces was observed. No significant looking preference was detected for inverted images regardless of image category. Our results indicate that domestic dogs can use facial cues alone to differentiate individual dogs and humans and that they exhibit a non-specific inversion response. In addition, the discrimination response by dogs of human and dog faces appears to differ with the type of face involved.

Using computerized games to teach face recognition skills to children with autism spectrum disorder: the Let's Face It! program.

PubMed

Tanaka, James W; Wolf, Julie M; Klaiman, Cheryl; Koenig, Kathleen; Cockburn, Jeffrey; Herlihy, Lauren; Brown, Carla; Stahl, Sherin; Kaiser, Martha D; Schultz, Robert T

2010-08-01

An emerging body of evidence indicates that relative to typically developing children, children with autism are selectively impaired in their ability to recognize facial identity. A critical question is whether face recognition skills can be enhanced through a direct training intervention. In a randomized clinical trial, children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder were pre-screened with a battery of subtests (the Let's Face It! Skills battery) examining face and object processing abilities. Participants who were significantly impaired in their face processing abilities were assigned to either a treatment or a waitlist group. Children in the treatment group (N = 42) received 20 hours of face training with the Let's Face It! (LFI!) computer-based intervention. The LFI! program is comprised of seven interactive computer games that target the specific face impairments associated with autism, including the recognition of identity across image changes in expression, viewpoint and features, analytic and holistic face processing strategies and attention to information in the eye region. Time 1 and Time 2 performance for the treatment and waitlist groups was assessed with the Let's Face It! Skills battery. The main finding was that relative to the control group (N = 37), children in the face training group demonstrated reliable improvements in their analytic recognition of mouth features and holistic recognition of a face based on its eyes features. These results indicate that a relatively short-term intervention program can produce measurable improvements in the face recognition skills of children with autism. As a treatment for face processing deficits, the Let's Face It! program has advantages of being cost-free, adaptable to the specific learning needs of the individual child and suitable for home and school applications.

Determining the Molecular Growth Mechanisms of Protein Crystal faces by Atomic Force Microscopy

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Li, Huayu; Nadarajah, Arunan; Pusey, Marc L.

1998-01-01

A high resolution atomic force microscopy (AFM) study had shown that the molecular packing on the tetragonal lysozyme (110) face corresponded to only one of two possible packing arrangements, suggesting that growth layers on this face were of bimolecular height (Li et al., 1998). Theoretical analyses of the packing had also indicated that growth of this face should proceed by the addition of growth units of at least tetramer size corresponding to the 43 helices in the crystal. In this study an AFM linescan technique was devised to measure the dimensions of individual growth units on protein crystal faces. The growth process of tetragonal lysozyme crystals was slowed down by employing very low supersaturations. As a result images of individual growth events on the (110) face were observed, shown by jump discontinuities in the growth step in the linescan images. The growth unit dimension in the scanned direction was obtained by suitably averaging these images. A large number of scans in two directions on the (110) face were performed and the distribution of lysozyme aggregate sizes were obtained. A variety of growth units, all of which were 43 helical lysozyme aggregates, were shown to participate in the growth process with a 43 tetramer being the minimum observed size. This technique represents a new application for AFM allowing time resolved studies of molecular process to be carried out.

Temporal dynamics underlying the modulation of social status on social attention.

PubMed

Dalmaso, Mario; Galfano, Giovanni; Coricelli, Carol; Castelli, Luigi

2014-01-01

Fixating someone suddenly moving the eyes is known to trigger a corresponding shift of attention in the observer. This phenomenon, known as gaze-cueing effect, can be modulated as a function of the social status of the individual depicted in the cueing face. Here, in two experiments, we investigated the temporal dynamics underlying this modulation. To this end, a gaze-cueing paradigm was implemented in which centrally-placed faces depicting high- and low-status individuals suddenly shifted the eyes towards a location either spatially congruent or incongruent with that occupied by a subsequent target stimulus. Social status was manipulated by presenting fictive Curriculum Vitae before the experimental phase. In Experiment 1, in which two temporal intervals (50 ms vs. 900 ms) occurred between the direct-gaze face and the averted-gaze face onsets, a stronger gaze-cueing effect in response to high-status faces than low-status faces was observed, irrespective of the time participants were allowed for extracting social information. In Experiment 2, in which two temporal intervals (200 ms vs. 1000 ms) occurred between the averted-gaze face and target onset, a stronger gaze cueing for high-status faces was observed at the shorter interval only. Taken together, these results suggest that information regarding social status is extracted from faces rapidly (Experiment 1), and that the tendency to selectively attend to the locations gazed by high-status individuals may decay with time (Experiment 2).

Why are faces denser in the visual experiences of younger than older infants?

PubMed Central

Jayaraman, Swapnaa; Fausey, Caitlin M.; Smith, Linda B.

2017-01-01

Recent evidence from studies using head cameras suggests that the frequency of faces directly in front of infants declines over the first year and a half of life, a result that has implications for the development of and evolutionary constraints on face processing. Two experiments tested two opposing hypotheses about this observed age-related decline in the frequency of faces in infant views. By the People-input hypothesis, there are more faces in view for younger infants because people are more often physically in front of younger than older infants. This hypothesis predicts that not just faces but views of other body parts will decline with age. By the Face-input hypothesis, the decline is strictly about faces, not people or other body parts in general. Two experiments, one using a time-sampling method (84 infants 3 to 24 months in age) and the other analyses of head camera images (36 infants 1 to 24 months) provide strong support for the Face-input hypothesis. The results suggest developmental constraints on the environment that ensure faces are prevalent early in development. PMID:28026190

Recalibration of vocal affect by a dynamic face.

PubMed

Baart, Martijn; Vroomen, Jean

2018-04-25

Perception of vocal affect is influenced by the concurrent sight of an emotional face. We demonstrate that the sight of an emotional face also can induce recalibration of vocal affect. Participants were exposed to videos of a 'happy' or 'fearful' face in combination with a slightly incongruous sentence with ambiguous prosody. After this exposure, ambiguous test sentences were rated as more 'happy' when the exposure phase contained 'happy' instead of 'fearful' faces. This auditory shift likely reflects recalibration that is induced by error minimization of the inter-sensory discrepancy. In line with this view, when the prosody of the exposure sentence was non-ambiguous and congruent with the face (without audiovisual discrepancy), aftereffects went in the opposite direction, likely reflecting adaptation. Our results demonstrate, for the first time, that perception of vocal affect is flexible and can be recalibrated by slightly discrepant visual information.

Fabrication technology of Si face and m face on 4H-SiC (0001) epi-layer based on molten KOH etching

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lin, Wen-kui; Zeng, Chun-hong; Sun, Yu-hua; Zhang, Xuan; Li, Zhe; Yang, Tao-tao; Ju, Tao; Zhang, Bao-shun

2018-02-01

Additional scattering of electrons in the complex MOSFET channel caused by off-cut angle of (0001) 4H-SiC wafer, makes accurate crystal face acquisition much desired. Molten KOH was used to etch the circular grooves on the SiC wafer surface in muffle furnace, and hexagonal grooves with SiC crystal symmetry were obtained. Average etching rates at 500°C along <11-20> and <1-100> direction were about 4.826 um/min and 4.112 um/min, respectively,with a etching anisotropy ratio of 1.18. The m face was obtained by controlling the etching time and Si face was obtained by selfstopping effect. The method we developed in this paper has potential applications in the accurate crystal face acquisition of (0001) 4H-SiC epi-wafer, and the preparation of structures based on 4H-SiC.

Face Adaptation Effects: Reviewing the Impact of Adapting Information, Time, and Transfer

PubMed Central

Strobach, Tilo; Carbon, Claus-Christian

2013-01-01

The ability to adapt is essential to live and survive in an ever-changing environment such as the human ecosystem. Here we review the literature on adaptation effects of face stimuli to give an overview of existing findings in this area, highlight gaps in its research literature, initiate new directions in face adaptation research, and help to design future adaptation studies. Furthermore, this review should lead to better understanding of the processing characteristics as well as the mental representations of face-relevant information. The review systematizes studies at a behavioral level in respect of a framework which includes three dimensions representing the major characteristics of studies in this field of research. These dimensions comprise (1) the specificity of adapting face information, e.g., identity, gender, or age aspects of the material to be adapted to (2) aspects of timing (e.g., the sustainability of adaptation effects) and (3) transfer relations between face images presented during adaptation and adaptation tests (e.g., images of the same or different identities). The review concludes with options for how to combine findings across different dimensions to demonstrate the relevance of our framework for future studies. PMID:23760550

The Focus of Spatial Attention Determines the Number and Precision of Face Representations in Working Memory.

PubMed

Towler, John; Kelly, Maria; Eimer, Martin

2016-06-01

The capacity of visual working memory for faces is extremely limited, but the reasons for these limitations remain unknown. We employed event-related brain potential measures to demonstrate that individual faces have to be focally attended in order to be maintained in working memory, and that attention is allocated to only a single face at a time. When 2 faces have to be memorized simultaneously in a face identity-matching task, the focus of spatial attention during encoding predicts which of these faces can be successfully maintained in working memory and matched to a subsequent test face. We also show that memory representations of attended faces are maintained in a position-dependent fashion. These findings demonstrate that the limited capacity of face memory is directly linked to capacity limits of spatial attention during the encoding and maintenance of individual face representations. We suggest that the capacity and distribution of selective spatial attention is a dynamic resource that constrains the capacity and fidelity of working memory for faces. © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Effects of Facial Symmetry and Gaze Direction on Perception of Social Attributes: A Study in Experimental Art History.

PubMed

Folgerø, Per O; Hodne, Lasse; Johansson, Christer; Andresen, Alf E; Sætren, Lill C; Specht, Karsten; Skaar, Øystein O; Reber, Rolf

2016-01-01

This article explores the possibility of testing hypotheses about art production in the past by collecting data in the present. We call this enterprise "experimental art history". Why did medieval artists prefer to paint Christ with his face directed towards the beholder, while profane faces were noticeably more often painted in different degrees of profile? Is a preference for frontal faces motivated by deeper evolutionary and biological considerations? Head and gaze direction is a significant factor for detecting the intentions of others, and accurate detection of gaze direction depends on strong contrast between a dark iris and a bright sclera, a combination that is only found in humans among the primates. One uniquely human capacity is language acquisition, where the detection of shared or joint attention, for example through detection of gaze direction, contributes significantly to the ease of acquisition. The perceived face and gaze direction is also related to fundamental emotional reactions such as fear, aggression, empathy and sympathy. The fast-track modulator model presents a related fast and unconscious subcortical route that involves many central brain areas. Activity in this pathway mediates the affective valence of the stimulus. In particular, different sub-regions of the amygdala show specific activation as response to gaze direction, head orientation and the valence of facial expression. We present three experiments on the effects of face orientation and gaze direction on the judgments of social attributes. We observed that frontal faces with direct gaze were more highly associated with positive adjectives. Does this help to associate positive values to the Holy Face in a Western context? The formal result indicates that the Holy Face is perceived more positively than profiles with both direct and averted gaze. Two control studies, using a Brazilian and a Dutch database of photographs, showed a similar but weaker effect with a larger contrast between the gaze directions for profiles. Our findings indicate that many factors affect the impression of a face, and that eye contact in combination with face direction reinforce the general impression of portraits, rather than determine it.

Many intercity travelers face longer travel schedules

DOT National Transportation Integrated Search

2003-10-01

Since 1995, scheduled travel times for direct : intercity air, bus, and rail service without an en : route transfer have measurably lengthened in : most major-market city-pairs. : Long-haul rail city-pairs affected by service : changes and short-...

Visual Scan Paths and Recognition of Facial Identity in Autism Spectrum Disorder and Typical Development

PubMed Central

Wilson, C. Ellie; Palermo, Romina; Brock, Jon

2012-01-01

Background Previous research suggests that many individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have impaired facial identity recognition, and also exhibit abnormal visual scanning of faces. Here, two hypotheses accounting for an association between these observations were tested: i) better facial identity recognition is associated with increased gaze time on the Eye region; ii) better facial identity recognition is associated with increased eye-movements around the face. Methodology and Principal Findings Eye-movements of 11 children with ASD and 11 age-matched typically developing (TD) controls were recorded whilst they viewed a series of faces, and then completed a two alternative forced-choice recognition memory test for the faces. Scores on the memory task were standardized according to age. In both groups, there was no evidence of an association between the proportion of time spent looking at the Eye region of faces and age-standardized recognition performance, thus the first hypothesis was rejected. However, the ‘Dynamic Scanning Index’ – which was incremented each time the participant saccaded into and out of one of the core-feature interest areas – was strongly associated with age-standardized face recognition scores in both groups, even after controlling for various other potential predictors of performance. Conclusions and Significance In support of the second hypothesis, results suggested that increased saccading between core-features was associated with more accurate face recognition ability, both in typical development and ASD. Causal directions of this relationship remain undetermined. PMID:22666378

How Fast is Famous Face Recognition?

PubMed Central

Barragan-Jason, Gladys; Lachat, Fanny; Barbeau, Emmanuel J.

2012-01-01

The rapid recognition of familiar faces is crucial for social interactions. However the actual speed with which recognition can be achieved remains largely unknown as most studies have been carried out without any speed constraints. Different paradigms have been used, leading to conflicting results, and although many authors suggest that face recognition is fast, the speed of face recognition has not been directly compared to “fast” visual tasks. In this study, we sought to overcome these limitations. Subjects performed three tasks, a familiarity categorization task (famous faces among unknown faces), a superordinate categorization task (human faces among animal ones), and a gender categorization task. All tasks were performed under speed constraints. The results show that, despite the use of speed constraints, subjects were slow when they had to categorize famous faces: minimum reaction time was 467 ms, which is 180 ms more than during superordinate categorization and 160 ms more than in the gender condition. Our results are compatible with a hierarchy of face processing from the superordinate level to the familiarity level. The processes taking place between detection and recognition need to be investigated in detail. PMID:23162503

77 FR 13228 - Airworthiness Directives; BAE SYSTEMS (Operations) Limited Airplanes

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-03-06

... wing rear spar. This proposed AD would require a one-time detailed inspection for cracks, corrosion, and other defects of the rear face of the wing rear spar, and repair if necessary. We are proposing... above, this [EASA] AD requires a one- time [detailed] inspection [for cracks, corrosion, and other...

77 FR 36127 - Airworthiness Directives; BAE SYSTEMS (Operations) Limited Airplanes

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-18

... by reports of cracking found in the wing rear spar. This AD requires a one-time detailed inspection for cracks, corrosion, and other defects of the rear face of the wing rear spar, and repair if...] AD requires a one- time [detailed] inspection [for cracks, corrosion, and other defects] of the rear...

Evaluative Conditioning with Facial Stimuli in Dementia Patients.

PubMed

Blessing, Andreas; Zöllig, Jacqueline; Weierstall, Roland; Dammann, Gerhard; Martin, Mike

2013-01-01

We present results of a study investigating evaluative learning in dementia patients with a classic evaluative conditioning paradigm. Picture pairs of three unfamiliar faces with liked, disliked, or neutral faces, that were rated prior to the presentation, were presented 10 times each to a group of dementia patients (N = 15) and healthy controls (N = 14) in random order. Valence ratings of all faces were assessed before and after presentation. In contrast to controls, dementia patients changed their valence ratings of unfamiliar faces according to their pairing with either a liked or disliked face, although they were not able to explicitly assign the picture pairs after the presentation. Our finding suggests preserved evaluative conditioning in dementia patients. However, the result has to be considered preliminary, as it is unclear which factors prevented the predicted rating changes in the expected direction in the control group.

Numerical simulation of the stress distribution in a coal mine caused by a normal fault

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, Hongmei; Wu, Jiwen; Zhai, Xiaorong

2017-06-01

Luling coal mine was used for research using FLAC3D software to analyze the stress distribution characteristics of the two sides of a normal fault zone with two different working face models. The working faces were, respectively, on the hanging wall and the foot wall; the two directions of mining were directed to the fault. The stress distributions were different across the fault. The stress was concentrated and the influenced range of stress was gradually larger while the working face was located on the hanging wall. The fault zone played a negative effect to the stress transmission. Obviously, the fault prevented stress transmission, the stress concentrated on the fault zone and the hanging wall. In the second model, the stress on the two sides decreased at first, but then increased continuing to transmit to the hanging wall. The concentrated stress in the fault zone decreased and the stress transmission was obvious. Because of this, the result could be used to minimize roadway damage and lengthen the time available for coal mining by careful design of the roadway and working face.

Decoding Face Information in Time, Frequency and Space from Direct Intracranial Recordings of the Human Brain

PubMed Central

Oya, Hiroyuki; Howard, Matthew A.; Adolphs, Ralph

2008-01-01

Faces are processed by a neural system with distributed anatomical components, but the roles of these components remain unclear. A dominant theory of face perception postulates independent representations of invariant aspects of faces (e.g., identity) in ventral temporal cortex including the fusiform gyrus, and changeable aspects of faces (e.g., emotion) in lateral temporal cortex including the superior temporal sulcus. Here we recorded neuronal activity directly from the cortical surface in 9 neurosurgical subjects undergoing epilepsy monitoring while they viewed static and dynamic facial expressions. Applying novel decoding analyses to the power spectrogram of electrocorticograms (ECoG) from over 100 contacts in ventral and lateral temporal cortex, we found better representation of both invariant and changeable aspects of faces in ventral than lateral temporal cortex. Critical information for discriminating faces from geometric patterns was carried by power modulations between 50 to 150 Hz. For both static and dynamic face stimuli, we obtained a higher decoding performance in ventral than lateral temporal cortex. For discriminating fearful from happy expressions, critical information was carried by power modulation between 60–150 Hz and below 30 Hz, and again better decoded in ventral than lateral temporal cortex. Task-relevant attention improved decoding accuracy more than10% across a wide frequency range in ventral but not at all in lateral temporal cortex. Spatial searchlight decoding showed that decoding performance was highest around the middle fusiform gyrus. Finally, we found that the right hemisphere, in general, showed superior decoding to the left hemisphere. Taken together, our results challenge the dominant model for independent face representation of invariant and changeable aspects: information about both face attributes was better decoded from a single region in the middle fusiform gyrus. PMID:19065268

A retrospective analysis of the effect of discussion in teleconference and face-to-face scientific peer-review panels.

PubMed

Carpenter, Afton S; Sullivan, Joanne H; Deshmukh, Arati; Glisson, Scott R; Gallo, Stephen A

2015-09-08

With the use of teleconferencing for grant peer-review panels increasing, further studies are necessary to determine the efficacy of the teleconference setting compared to the traditional onsite/face-to-face setting. The objective of this analysis was to examine the effects of discussion, namely changes in application scoring premeeting and postdiscussion, in these settings. We also investigated other parameters, including the magnitude of score shifts and application discussion time in face-to-face and teleconference review settings. The investigation involved a retrospective, quantitative analysis of premeeting and postdiscussion scores and discussion times for teleconference and face-to-face review panels. The analysis included 260 and 212 application score data points and 212 and 171 discussion time data points for the face-to-face and teleconference settings, respectively. The effect of discussion was found to be small, on average, in both settings. However, discussion was found to be important for at least 10% of applications, regardless of setting, with these applications moving over a potential funding line in either direction (fundable to unfundable or vice versa). Small differences were uncovered relating to the effect of discussion between settings, including a decrease in the magnitude of the effect in the teleconference panels as compared to face-to-face. Discussion time (despite teleconferences having shorter discussions) was observed to have little influence on the magnitude of the effect of discussion. Additionally, panel discussion was found to often result in a poorer score (as opposed to an improvement) when compared to reviewer premeeting scores. This was true regardless of setting or assigned reviewer type (primary or secondary reviewer). Subtle differences were observed between settings, potentially due to reduced engagement in teleconferences. Overall, further research is required on the psychology of decision-making, team performance and persuasion to better elucidate the group dynamics of telephonic and virtual ad-hoc peer-review panels. Published by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited. For permission to use (where not already granted under a licence) please go to http://group.bmj.com/group/rights-licensing/permissions.

The impact of professional isolation on teleworker job performance and turnover intentions: does time spent teleworking, interacting face-to-face, or having access to communication-enhancing technology matter?

PubMed

Golden, Timothy D; Veiga, John F; Dino, Richard N

2008-11-01

Although the teleworking literature continues to raise concerns regarding the adverse consequences of professional isolation, researchers have not examined its impact on work outcomes. Consequently, the authors first examine professional isolation's direct impact on job performance and turnover intentions among teleworkers and then investigate the contingent role of 3 salient work-mode-related factors. Survey data from a matched sample of 261 professional-level teleworkers and their managers revealed that professional isolation negatively impacts job performance and, contrary to expectations, reduces turnover intentions. Moreover, professional isolation's impact on these work outcomes is increased by the amount of time spent teleworking, whereas more face-to-face interactions and access to communication-enhancing technology tend to decrease its impact. On the basis of these findings, an agenda for future research on professional isolation is offered that takes into account telework's growing popularity as a work modality.

2D DOST based local phase pattern for face recognition

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Moniruzzaman, Md.; Alam, Mohammad S.

2017-05-01

A new two dimensional (2-D) Discrete Orthogonal Stcokwell Transform (DOST) based Local Phase Pattern (LPP) technique has been proposed for efficient face recognition. The proposed technique uses 2-D DOST as preliminary preprocessing and local phase pattern to form robust feature signature which can effectively accommodate various 3D facial distortions and illumination variations. The S-transform, is an extension of the ideas of the continuous wavelet transform (CWT), is also known for its local spectral phase properties in time-frequency representation (TFR). It provides a frequency dependent resolution of the time-frequency space and absolutely referenced local phase information while maintaining a direct relationship with the Fourier spectrum which is unique in TFR. After utilizing 2-D Stransform as the preprocessing and build local phase pattern from extracted phase information yield fast and efficient technique for face recognition. The proposed technique shows better correlation discrimination compared to alternate pattern recognition techniques such as wavelet or Gabor based face recognition. The performance of the proposed method has been tested using the Yale and extended Yale facial database under different environments such as illumination variation and 3D changes in facial expressions. Test results show that the proposed technique yields better performance compared to alternate time-frequency representation (TFR) based face recognition techniques.

Multiview face detection based on position estimation over multicamera surveillance system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Huang, Ching-chun; Chou, Jay; Shiu, Jia-Hou; Wang, Sheng-Jyh

2012-02-01

In this paper, we propose a multi-view face detection system that locates head positions and indicates the direction of each face in 3-D space over a multi-camera surveillance system. To locate 3-D head positions, conventional methods relied on face detection in 2-D images and projected the face regions back to 3-D space for correspondence. However, the inevitable false face detection and rejection usually degrades the system performance. Instead, our system searches for the heads and face directions over the 3-D space using a sliding cube. Each searched 3-D cube is projected onto the 2-D camera views to determine the existence and direction of human faces. Moreover, a pre-process to estimate the locations of candidate targets is illustrated to speed-up the searching process over the 3-D space. In summary, our proposed method can efficiently fuse multi-camera information and suppress the ambiguity caused by detection errors. Our evaluation shows that the proposed approach can efficiently indicate the head position and face direction on real video sequences even under serious occlusion.

Abnormal social reward processing in autism as indexed by pupillary responses to happy faces

PubMed Central

2012-01-01

Background Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) typically show impaired eye contact during social interactions. From a young age, they look less at faces than typically developing (TD) children and tend to avoid direct gaze. However, the reason for this behavior remains controversial; ASD children might avoid eye contact because they perceive the eyes as aversive or because they do not find social engagement through mutual gaze rewarding. Methods We monitored pupillary diameter as a measure of autonomic response in children with ASD (n = 20, mean age = 12.4) and TD controls (n = 18, mean age = 13.7) while they looked at faces displaying different emotions. Each face displayed happy, fearful, angry or neutral emotions with the gaze either directed to or averted from the subjects. Results Overall, children with ASD and TD controls showed similar pupillary responses; however, they differed significantly in their sensitivity to gaze direction for happy faces. Specifically, pupillary diameter increased among TD children when viewing happy faces with direct gaze as compared to those with averted gaze, whereas children with ASD did not show such sensitivity to gaze direction. We found no group differences in fixation that could explain the differential pupillary responses. There was no effect of gaze direction on pupil diameter for negative affect or neutral faces among either the TD or ASD group. Conclusions We interpret the increased pupillary diameter to happy faces with direct gaze in TD children to reflect the intrinsic reward value of a smiling face looking directly at an individual. The lack of this effect in children with ASD is consistent with the hypothesis that individuals with ASD may have reduced sensitivity to the reward value of social stimuli. PMID:22958650

Who is the Usual Suspect? Evidence of a Selection Bias Toward Faces That Make Direct Eye Contact in a Lineup Task

PubMed Central

van Golde, Celine; Verstraten, Frans A. J.

2017-01-01

The speed and ease with which we recognize the faces of our friends and family members belies the difficulty we have recognizing less familiar individuals. Nonetheless, overconfidence in our ability to recognize faces has carried over into various aspects of our legal system; for instance, eyewitness identification serves a critical role in criminal proceedings. For this reason, understanding the perceptual and psychological processes that underlie false identification is of the utmost importance. Gaze direction is a salient social signal and direct eye contact, in particular, is thought to capture attention. Here, we tested the hypothesis that differences in gaze direction may influence difficult decisions in a lineup context. In a series of experiments, we show that when a group of faces differed in their gaze direction, the faces that were making eye contact with the participants were more likely to be misidentified. Interestingly, this bias disappeared when the faces are presented with their eyes closed. These findings open a critical conversation between social neuroscience and forensic psychology, and imply that direct eye contact may (wrongly) increase the perceived familiarity of a face. PMID:28203355

Attention bias modification and its impact on experimental pain outcomes: Comparison of training with words versus faces in pain.

PubMed

Sharpe, L; Johnson, A; Dear, B F

2015-10-01

The aim of this study was to compare the effectiveness of training participants' attention towards or away from painful faces versus pain-related words on pain outcomes on an acute experimental pain paradigm. Participants were randomized to receive either training towards or away from painful faces or words. Following training, participants completed the cold pressor task. The results confirm that attention bias modification produced the predicted changes in attentional biases. Clear training effects were observed for words and faces, such that attentional biases changed in the predicted direction on the stimuli presented during the training. However, for those trained on words, training effects also generalized to face stimuli. As predicted, those who received training away from painful stimuli took longer to report pain (higher pain threshold) during the cold pressor task, and this effect was more pronounced for those trained on words. Contrary to expectations, those trained on faces (regardless of training direction) reported less pain than those trained on words. There were no differences between the groups for pain tolerance (length of time participants were able to keep their arms in the cold pressor). These findings confirm that attentional biases are modifiable, and impact (in the expected manner) how quickly participants perceive pain. Further, exposure to painful faces resulted in additional benefits to the level of pain reported. However, we were unable to confirm that change in attentional biases was the mechanism of change. © 2014 European Pain Federation - EFIC®

Perceptions of Teaching Effectiveness of Part-Time and Full-Time Clinical Nursing Faculty of BSN Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

DeSantis, Kimberly L.

2012-01-01

The United States faces a critical shortage of full-time registered nurses, which is . directly affected by the shortage of nurse educators. Many schools of nursing are already seeing the impact as qualified program applicants are being turned away due to the lack of qualified educators available to teach them. The trend has become to employ…

Optical Pattern Recognition for Missile Guidance.

DTIC Science & Technology

1982-11-15

directed to novel pattern recognition algo- rithms (that allow pattern recognition and object classification in the face of various geometrical and...I wats EF5 = 50) p.j/t’ni 2 (for btith image pat tern recognitio itas a preproicessing oiperatiton. Ini devices). TIhe rt’ad light intensity (0.33t mW...electrodes on its large faces . This Priz light modulator and the motivation for its devel- SLM is known as the Prom (Pockels real-time optical opment. In Sec

A randomized controlled trial of four different regimes of biofeedback programme in the treatment of faecal incontinence.

PubMed

Young, C J; Zahid, A; Koh, C E; Young, J M; Byrne, C M; Solomon, M J; Rex, J; Candido, J

2018-04-01

Biofeedback is an established, effective and non-invasive treatment for faecal incontinence (FI). The aim was to compare the effectiveness of four different biofeedback treatment regimes. This was a randomized control trial of patients with FI, stratified into two groups (metropolitan and rural) and then randomized into two subgroups (groups 1 and 2 within metropolitan, groups 3 and 4 within rural) with varying face-to-face and telephone biofeedback components. All patients received standardized counselling and education, dietary modification and the use of anti-diarrhoeal medications. Group 1 received four monthly face-to-face biofeedback treatments, groups 2 and 3 received one face-to-face biofeedback followed by telephone biofeedback and group 4 received a one-off face-to-face biofeedback treatment. Primary outcomes were patient-assessed severity of FI and quality of life as assessed by the 36-item Short Form Health Survey and direct questioning of objectives. Secondary outcomes included St Mark's incontinence score, anxiety, depression and anorectal physiology measures (resting, squeeze pressures; isotonic, isometric fatigue times). Between 2006 and 2012, 351 patients were recruited. One patient died leaving 350 for analysis. 332 (95%) were women. Mean age was 60 (SD = 14). All groups had significant improvements in FI, quality of life, incontinence score and mental status (P < 0.001 each). There were no differences in improvements in FI between groups although patient satisfaction was less with reduced face-to-face contact. There were modest improvements in isotonic and isometric fatigue times suggesting improved sphincter endurance (both P < 0.001). Biofeedback is effective for FI. Although face-to-face and telephone biofeedback is not necessary to improve FI, it is important for patient satisfaction. Colorectal Disease © 2017 The Association of Coloproctology of Great Britain and Ireland.

Seductive Eyes: Attractiveness and Direct Gaze Increase Desire for Associated Objects

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Strick, Madelijn; Holland, Rob W.; van Knippenberg, Ad

2008-01-01

Recent research in neuroscience shows that observing attractive faces with direct gaze is more rewarding than observing attractive faces with averted gaze. On the basis of this research, it was hypothesized that object evaluations can be enhanced by associating them with attractive faces displaying direct gaze. In a conditioning paradigm, novel…

Time utilization and perceived psychosocial work environment among staff in Swedish primary care settings.

PubMed

Anskär, Eva; Lindberg, Malou; Falk, Magnus; Andersson, Agneta

2018-03-07

Over the past decades, reorganizations and structural changes in Swedish primary care have affected time utilization among health care professionals. Consequently, increases in administrative tasks have substantially reduced the time available for face-to-face consultations. This study examined how work-time was utilized and the association between work time utilization and the perceived psychosocial work environment in Swedish primary care settings. This descriptive, multicentre, cross-sectional study was performed in 2014-2015. Data collection began with questionnaire. In the first section, respondents were asked to estimate how their workload was distributed between patients (direct and indirect patient work) and other work tasks. The questionnaire also comprised the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire, which assessed the psychosocial work environment. Next a time study was conducted where the participants reported their work-time based on three main categories: direct patient-related work, indirect patient-related work, and other work tasks. Each main category had a number of subcategories. The participants recorded the time spent (minutes) on each work task per hour, every day, for two separate weeks. Eleven primary care centres located in southeast Sweden participated. All professionals were asked to participate (n = 441), including registered nurses, primary care physicians, care administrators, nurse assistants, and allied professionals. Response rates were 75% and 79% for the questionnaires and the time study, respectively. All health professionals allocated between 30.9% - 37.2% of their work-time to each main category: direct patient work, indirect patient work, and other work. All professionals estimated a higher proportion of time spent in direct patient work than they reported in the time study. Physicians scored highest on the psychosocial scales of quantitative demands, stress, and role conflicts. Among allied professionals, the proportion of work-time spent on administrative tasks was associated with more role conflicts. Younger staff perceived more adverse working conditions than older staff. This study indicated that Swedish primary care staff spent a limited proportion of their work time directly with patients. PCPs seemed to perceive their work environment in negative terms to a greater extent than other staff members. This study showed that work task allocations influenced the perceived psychosocial work environment.

Hemispheric specialization and the perception of emotion: evidence from right-handers and from inverted and non-inverted left-handers.

PubMed

Reuter-Lorenz, P A; Givis, R P; Moscovitch, M

1983-01-01

Right-handers and inverted and non-inverted left-handers viewed emotional expressions in one hemifield and, simultaneously, a neutral expression of the same poser in the other hemifield. Subjects were required to identify the side containing the affective face. Happy faces with open (i.e. salient) and closed mouth smiles and sad faces were used as stimuli. For right-handers and inverters reaction time was faster to right hemifield presentations for happy faces and to left hemifield presentations for sad faces. Non-inverters showed the reverse pattern. The saliency of the happy expressions had no effect on the magnitude and direction of asymmetry for any group. The data support the hypothesis of differential hemispheric specialization for positive and negative emotion and demonstrate opposite patterns of asymmetry in affect perception for inverted and non-inverted left-handers.

Holographic line field en-face OCT with digital adaptive optics in the retina in vivo.

PubMed

Ginner, Laurin; Schmoll, Tilman; Kumar, Abhishek; Salas, Matthias; Pricoupenko, Nastassia; Wurster, Lara M; Leitgeb, Rainer A

2018-02-01

We demonstrate a high-resolution line field en-face time domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) system using an off-axis holography configuration. Line field en-face OCT produces high speed en-face images at rates of up to 100 Hz. The high frame rate favors good phase stability across the lateral field-of-view which is indispensable for digital adaptive optics (DAO). Human retinal structures are acquired in-vivo with a broadband light source at 840 nm, and line rates of 10 kHz to 100 kHz. Structures of different retinal layers, such as photoreceptors, capillaries, and nerve fibers are visualized with high resolution of 2.8 µm and 5.5 µm in lateral directions. Subaperture based DAO is successfully applied to increase the visibility of cone-photoreceptors and nerve fibers. Furthermore, en-face Doppler OCT maps are generated based on calculating the differential phase shifts between recorded lines.

Neurons in the human amygdala encode face identity, but not gaze direction.

PubMed

Mormann, Florian; Niediek, Johannes; Tudusciuc, Oana; Quesada, Carlos M; Coenen, Volker A; Elger, Christian E; Adolphs, Ralph

2015-11-01

The amygdala is important for face processing, and direction of eye gaze is one of the most socially salient facial signals. Recording from over 200 neurons in the amygdala of neurosurgical patients, we found robust encoding of the identity of neutral-expression faces, but not of their direction of gaze. Processing of gaze direction may rely on a predominantly cortical network rather than the amygdala.

Health resource utilization and the economic burden of patients with wet age-related macular degeneration in Thailand

PubMed Central

Dilokthornsakul, Piyameth; Chaiyakunapruk, Nathorn; Ruamviboonsuk, Paisan; Ratanasukon, Mansing; Ausayakhun, Somsanguan; Tungsomeroengwong, Akrapope; Pokawattana, Nattapol; Chanatittarat, Chalakorn

2014-01-01

AIM To determine healthcare resource utilization and the economic burden associated with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in Thailand METHODS This study included patients diagnosed with wet AMD that were 60 years old or older, and had best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) measured at least two times during the follow-up period. We excluded patients having other eye diseases. Two separate sub-studies were conducted. The first sub-study was a retrospective cohort study; electronic medical charts were reviewed to estimate the direct medical costs. The second sub-study was a cross-sectional survey estimating the direct non-medical costs based on face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. For the first sub-study, direct medical costs, including the cost of drugs, laboratory, procedures, and other treatments were obtained. For the second sub-study, direct non-medical costs, e.g. transportation, food, accessories, home renovation, and caregiver costs, were obtained from face-to-face interviews with patients and/or caregivers. RESULTS For the first sub-study, sixty-four medical records were reviewed. The annual average number of medical visits was 11.1±6.0. The average direct medical costs were $3 604±4 530 per year. No statistically-significant differences of the average direct medical costs among the BCVA groups were detected (P=0.98). Drug costs accounted for 77% of total direct medical costs. For direct non-medical costs, 67 patients were included. Forty-eight patients (71.6%) required the accompaniment of a person during the out-patient visit. Seventeen patients (25.4%) required a caregiver at home. The average direct non-medical cost was $2 927±6 560 per year. There were no statistically-significant differences in the average costs among the BCVA groups (P=0.74). Care-giver cost accounted for 87% of direct non-medical costs. CONCLUSION Our study indicates that wet AMD is associated with a substantial economic burden, especially concerning drug and care-giver costs. PMID:24634881

Online decoding of object-based attention using real-time fMRI.

PubMed

Niazi, Adnan M; van den Broek, Philip L C; Klanke, Stefan; Barth, Markus; Poel, Mannes; Desain, Peter; van Gerven, Marcel A J

2014-01-01

Visual attention is used to selectively filter relevant information depending on current task demands and goals. Visual attention is called object-based attention when it is directed to coherent forms or objects in the visual field. This study used real-time functional magnetic resonance imaging for moment-to-moment decoding of attention to spatially overlapped objects belonging to two different object categories. First, a whole-brain classifier was trained on pictures of faces and places. Subjects then saw transparently overlapped pictures of a face and a place, and attended to only one of them while ignoring the other. The category of the attended object, face or place, was decoded on a scan-by-scan basis using the previously trained decoder. The decoder performed at 77.6% accuracy indicating that despite competing bottom-up sensory input, object-based visual attention biased neural patterns towards that of the attended object. Furthermore, a comparison between different classification approaches indicated that the representation of faces and places is distributed rather than focal. This implies that real-time decoding of object-based attention requires a multivariate decoding approach that can detect these distributed patterns of cortical activity. © 2013 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

3D printed facial laser scans for the production of localised radiotherapy treatment masks - A case study.

PubMed

Briggs, Matthew; Clements, Helen; Wynne, Neil; Rennie, Allan; Kellett, Darren

This study investigates the use of 3D printing for patients that require localised radiotherapy treatment to the face. The current process involves producing a lead mask in order to protect the healthy tissue from the effects of the radiotherapy. The mask is produced by applying a thermoplastic sheet to the patient's face and allowing to set hard. This can then be used as a mould to create a plaster impression of the patient's face. A sheet of lead is then hammered on to the plaster to create a bespoke fitted face mask. This process can be distressing for patients and can be problematic when the patient is required to remain motionless for a prolonged time while the thermoplastic sets. In this study, a 1:1 scale 3D print of a patient's face was generated using a laser scanner. The lead was hammered directly on to the surface of the 3D print in order to create a bespoke fitted treatment mask. This eliminated the thermoplastic moulding stage and significantly reduced the time needed for the patient to be in clinic. The higher definition impression of the the face resulted in a more accurate, better fitting treatment mask.

Derivation of simple rules for complex flow vector fields on the lower part of the human face for robot face design.

PubMed

Ishihara, Hisashi; Ota, Nobuyuki; Asada, Minoru

2017-11-27

It is quite difficult for android robots to replicate the numerous and various types of human facial expressions owing to limitations in terms of space, mechanisms, and materials. This situation could be improved with greater knowledge regarding these expressions and their deformation rules, i.e. by using the biomimetic approach. In a previous study, we investigated 16 facial deformation patterns and found that each facial point moves almost only in its own principal direction and different deformation patterns are created with different combinations of moving lengths. However, the replication errors caused by moving each control point of a face in only their principal direction were not evaluated for each deformation pattern at that time. Therefore, we calculated the replication errors in this study using the second principal component scores of the 16 sets of flow vectors at each point on the face. More than 60% of the errors were within 1 mm, and approximately 90% of them were within 3 mm. The average error was 1.1 mm. These results indicate that robots can replicate the 16 investigated facial expressions with errors within 3 mm and 1 mm for about 90% and 60% of the vectors, respectively, even if each point on the robot face moves in only its own principal direction. This finding seems promising for the development of robots capable of showing various facial expressions because significantly fewer types of movements than previously predicted are necessary.

Human brain structure predicts individual differences in preconscious evaluation of facial dominance and trustworthiness

PubMed Central

Kanai, Ryota; Bahrami, Bahador; Rees, Geraint

2015-01-01

Social cues conveyed by the human face, such as eye gaze direction, are evaluated even before they are consciously perceived. While there is substantial individual variability in such evaluation, its neural basis is unknown. Here we asked whether individual differences in preconscious evaluation of social face traits were associated with local variability in brain structure. Adult human participants (n = 36) monocularly viewed faces varying in dominance and trustworthiness, which were suppressed from awareness by a dynamic noise pattern shown to the other eye. The time taken for faces to emerge from suppression and become visible (t2e) was used as a measure of potency in competing for visual awareness. Both dominant and untrustworthy faces resulted in slower t2e than neutral faces, with substantial individual variability in these effects. Individual differences in t2e were correlated with gray matter volume in right insula for dominant faces, and with gray matter volume in medial prefrontal cortex, right temporoparietal junction and bilateral fusiform face area for untrustworthy faces. Thus, individual differences in preconscious social processing can be predicted from local brain structure, and separable correlates for facial dominance and untrustworthiness suggest distinct mechanisms of preconscious processing. PMID:25193945

National evaluation of strategies to reduce safety violations for working from heights in construction companies: results from a randomized controlled trial.

PubMed

van der Molen, Henk F; den Herder, Aalt; Warning, Jan; Frings-Dresen, Monique H W

2016-01-09

The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a face-to-face strategy and a direct mail strategy on safety violations while working from heights among construction companies compared to a control condition. Construction companies with workers at risk for fall injuries were eligible for this three-armed randomized controlled trial. In total, 27 cities were randomly assigned to intervention groups-where eligible companies were given either a face-to-face guidance strategy or a direct mailing strategy with access to internet facilities-or to a control group. The primary outcomes were the number and type of safety violations recorded by labor inspectors after three months. A process evaluation for both strategies was performed to determine reach, program implementation, satisfaction, knowledge and perceived safety behavior. A cost analysis was performed to establish the financial costs for each intervention strategy. Analyses were done by intention to treat. In total, 41% (n = 88) of the companies eligible for the face-to-face intervention participated and 73% (n = 69) for direct mail. Intervention materials were delivered to 69 % (face-to-face group) and 100 % (direct mail group); completion of intervention activities within companies was low. Satisfaction, increase in knowledge, and safety behavior did not differ between the intervention groups. Costs for personal advice were 28% higher than for direct mail. Ultimately, nine intervention companies were captured in the 288 worksite measurements performed by the labor inspectorate. No statistical differences in mean number of safety violations (1.8-2.4) or penalties (72%-100%) were found between the intervention and control groups based on all worksite inspections. No conclusions about the effect of face-to-face and direct mail strategies on safety violations could be drawn due to the limited number of intervention companies captured in the primary outcome measurements. The costs for a face-to-face strategy are higher compared with a direct mail strategy. No difference in awareness and attitude for safe working was found between employers and workers between both strategies. NTR 4298 on 29-Nov-2013.

Three-dimensional face pose detection and tracking using monocular videos: tool and application.

PubMed

Dornaika, Fadi; Raducanu, Bogdan

2009-08-01

Recently, we have proposed a real-time tracker that simultaneously tracks the 3-D head pose and facial actions in monocular video sequences that can be provided by low quality cameras. This paper has two main contributions. First, we propose an automatic 3-D face pose initialization scheme for the real-time tracker by adopting a 2-D face detector and an eigenface system. Second, we use the proposed methods-the initialization and tracking-for enhancing the human-machine interaction functionality of an AIBO robot. More precisely, we show how the orientation of the robot's camera (or any active vision system) can be controlled through the estimation of the user's head pose. Applications based on head-pose imitation such as telepresence, virtual reality, and video games can directly exploit the proposed techniques. Experiments on real videos confirm the robustness and usefulness of the proposed methods.

Sexual dimorphism of male face shape, partnership status and the temporal context of relationship sought modulate women's preferences for direct gaze.

PubMed

Conway, Claire A; Jones, Benedict C; DeBruine, Lisa M; Little, Anthony C

2010-02-01

Most previous studies of face preferences have investigated the physical cues that influence face preferences. Far fewer studies have investigated the effects of cues to the direction of others' social interest (i.e. gaze direction) on face preferences. Here we found that unpartnered women demonstrated stronger preferences for direct gaze (indicating social interest) from feminine male faces than from masculine male faces when judging men's attractiveness for long-term relationships, but not when judging men's attractiveness for short-term relationships. Moreover, unpartnered women's preferences for direct gaze from feminine men were stronger for long-term than short-term relationships, but there was no comparable effect for judgements of masculine men. No such effects were evident among women with romantic partners, potentially reflecting different motivations underlying partnered and unpartnered women's judgements of men's attractiveness. Collectively these findings (1) complement previous findings whereby women demonstrated stronger preferences for feminine men as long-term than short-term partners, (2) demonstrate context-sensitivity in the integration of physical and social cues in face preferences, and (3) suggest that gaze preferences may function, at least in part, to facilitate efficient allocation of mating effort.

76 FR 76162 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of November 1-2, 2011

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-12-06

... approximately 6 years to 30 years with a total face value of $400 billion, and to sell Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less with a total face value of $400 billion. The Committee also directs... face value of domestic securities at approximately $2.6 trillion. The Committee directs the Desk to...

Direct observation of crystal growth from solution using optical investigation of a growing crystal face

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lal, Ravindra

1994-01-01

The first technical report for the period 1 Jan. 1993 till 31 Dec. 1993 for the research entitled, 'Direct observation of crystal growth from solution using Optical Investigation of a growing crystal Face' is presented. The work on the project did not start till 1 June 1993 due to the non-availability of the required personnel. The progress of the work during the period 1 June 1993 till the end of 1993 is described. Significant progress was made for testing various optical diagnostic techniques for monitoring crystal solution. Some of the techniques that are being tested are: heterodyne detection technique, in which changes in phase are measured as a interferometric function of time/crystal growth; a conventional technique, in which a fringe brightness is measured as a function of crystal growth/time; and a Mach-Zehnder interferometric technique in which a fringe brightness is measured as a function of time to obtain information on concentration changes. During the second year it will be decided to incorporate the best interferometric technique along with the ellipsometric technique, to obtain real time in-situ growth rate measurements. A laboratory mock-up of the first two techniques were made and tested.

Neural correlates of facilitations in face learning by selective caricaturing of facial shape or reflectance.

PubMed

Itz, Marlena L; Schweinberger, Stefan R; Schulz, Claudia; Kaufmann, Jürgen M

2014-11-15

Spatially caricatured faces were recently shown to benefit face learning (Schulz et al., 2012a). Moreover, spatial information may be particularly important for encoding unfamiliar faces, but less so for recognizing familiar faces (Kaufmann et al., 2013). To directly test the possibility of a major role of reflectance information for the recognition of familiar faces, we compared effects of selective photorealistic caricaturing in either shape or reflectance on face learning and recognition. Participants learned 3D-photographed faces across different viewpoints, and different images were presented at learning and test. At test, performance benefits for both types of caricatures were modulated by familiarity: Benefits for learned faces were substantially larger for reflectance caricatures, whereas benefits for novel faces were numerically larger for shape caricatures. ERPs confirmed a consistent reduction of the occipitotemporal P200 (200-240 ms) by shape caricaturing, whereas the most prominent effect of reflectance caricaturing was seen in an enhanced posterior N250 (240-400 ms), a component that has been related to the activation of acquired face representations. Our results suggest that performance benefits for face learning caused by distinctive spatial versus reflectance information are mediated by different neural processes with different timing and support a prominent role of reflectance for the recognition of learned faces. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy in depressed primary care patients with co-occurring problematic alcohol use: effect of telephone-administered vs. face-to-face treatment-a secondary analysis.

PubMed

Kalapatapu, Raj K; Ho, Joyce; Cai, Xuan; Vinogradov, Sophia; Batki, Steven L; Mohr, David C

2014-01-01

This secondary analysis of a larger study compared adherence to telephone-administered cognitive-behavioral therapy (T-CBT) vs. face-to-face CBT and depression outcomes in depressed primary care patients with co-occurring problematic alcohol use. To our knowledge, T-CBT has never been directly compared to face-to-face CBT in such a sample of primary care patients. Participants were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to face-to-face CBT or T-CBT for depression. Participants receiving T-CBT (n = 50) and face-to-face CBT (n = 53) were compared at baseline, end of treatment (week 18), and three-month and six-month follow-ups. Face-to-face CBT and T-CBT groups did not significantly differ in age, sex, ethnicity, marital status, educational level, severity of depression, antidepressant use, and total score on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test. Face-to-face CBT and T-CBT groups were similar on all treatment adherence outcomes and depression outcomes at all time points. T-CBT and face-to-face CBT had similar treatment adherence and efficacy for the treatment of depression in depressed primary care patients with co-occurring problematic alcohol use. When targeting patients who might have difficulties in accessing care, primary care clinicians may consider both types of CBT delivery when treating depression in patients with co-occurring problematic alcohol use.

Is it safe? Talking to teens with HIV/AIDS about death and dying: a 3-month evaluation of Family Centered Advance Care (FACE) planning – anxiety, depression, quality of life

PubMed Central

Lyon, Maureen E; Garvie, Patricia A; Briggs, Linda; He, Jianping; Malow, Robert; D’Angelo, Lawrence J; McCarter, Robert

2010-01-01

Purpose To determine the safety of engaging HIV-positive (HIV+) adolescents in a Family Centered Advance Care (FACE) planning intervention. Patients and methods We conducted a 2-armed, randomized controlled clinical trial in 2 hospital-based outpatient clinics from 2006–2008 with HIV+ adolescents and their surrogates (n = 76). Three 60–90 minutes sessions were conducted weekly. FACE intervention groups received: Lyon FCACP Survey©, the Respecting Choices® interview, and completion of The Five Wishes©. The Healthy Living Control (HLC) received: Developmental History, Healthy Tips, Future Planning (vocational, school or vocational rehabilitation). Three-month post-intervention outcomes were: completion of advance directive (Five Wishes©); psychological adjustment (Beck Depression, Anxiety Inventories); quality of life (PedsQL™); and HIV symptoms (General Health Self-Assessment). Results Adolescents had a mean age, 16 years; 40% male; 92% African-American; 68% with perinatally acquired HIV, 29% had AIDS diagnosis. FACE participants completed advance directives more than controls, using time matched comparison (P < 0.001). Neither anxiety, nor depression, increased at clinically or statistically significant levels post-intervention. FACE adolescents maintained quality of life. FACE families perceived their adolescents as worsening in their school (P = 0.018) and emotional (P = 0.029) quality of life at 3 months, compared with controls. Conclusions Participating in advance care planning did not unduly distress HIV+ adolescents. PMID:22096382

Mechanisms that Underlie Co-variation of the Brain and Face

PubMed Central

Marcucio, Ralph S.; Young, Nathan M.; Hu, Diane; Hallgrimsson, Benedikt

2011-01-01

The effect of the brain on the morphology of the face has long been recognized in both evolutionary biology and clinical medicine. In this paper we describe factors that are active between development of the brain and face and how these might impact craniofacial variation. First, there is the physical influence of the brain, which contributes to overall growth and morphology of the face through direct structural interactions. Second, there is the molecular influence of the brain, which signals to facial tissues to establish signaling centers that regulate patterned growth. Importantly, subtle alterations to these physical or molecular interactions may contribute to both normal and abnormal variation. These interactions are therefore critical to our understanding of how a diversity of facial morphologies can be generated both within species and across evolutionary time. PMID:21381182

Postural Stability Margins as a Function of Support Surface Slopes.

PubMed

Dutt-Mazumder, Aviroop; Slobounov, Seymon M; Challis, John Henry; Newell, Karl Maxim

2016-01-01

This investigation examined the effects of slope of the surface of support (35°, 30°, 20°, 10° Facing(Toe) Down, 0° Flat and 10°, 20°, 25° Facing (Toe) Up) and postural orientation on the margins of postural stability in quiet standing of young adults. The findings showed that the center of pressure-CoP (displacement, area and length) had least motion at the baseline (0° Flat) platform condition that progressively increased as a function of platform angle in both facing up and down directions. The virtual time to collision (VTC) dynamics revealed that the spatio-temporal margins to the functional stability boundary were progressively smaller and the VTC time series also more regular (SampEn-Sample Entropy) as slope angle increased. Surface slope induces a restricted stability region with lower dimension VTC dynamics that is more constrained when postural orientation is facing down the slope. These findings provide further evidence that VTC acts as a control variable in standing posture that is influenced by the emergent dynamics of the individual-environment-task interaction.

Interactions among the effects of head orientation, emotional expression, and physical attractiveness on face preferences.

PubMed

Main, Julie C; DeBruine, Lisa M; Little, Anthony C; Jones, Benedict C

2010-01-01

Previous studies have shown that preferences for direct versus averted gaze are modulated by emotional expressions and physical attractiveness. For example, preferences for direct gaze are stronger when judging happy or physically attractive faces than when judging disgusted or physically unattractive faces. Here we show that preferences for front versus three-quarter views of faces, in which gaze direction was always congruent with head orientation, are also modulated by emotional expressions and physical attractiveness; participants demonstrated preferences for front views of faces over three-quarter views of faces when judging the attractiveness of happy, physically attractive individuals, but not when judging the attractiveness of relatively unattractive individuals or those with disgusted expressions. Moreover, further analyses indicated that these interactions did not simply reflect differential perceptions of the intensity of the emotional expressions shown in each condition. Collectively, these findings present novel evidence that the effect of the direction of the attention of others on attractiveness judgments is modulated by cues to the physical attractiveness and emotional state of the depicted individual, potentially reflecting psychological adaptations for efficient allocation of social effort. These data also present the first behavioural evidence that the effect of the direction of the attention of others on attractiveness judgments reflects viewer-referenced, rather than face-referenced, coding and/or processing of gaze direction.

Interactive effects between gaze direction and facial expression on attentional resources deployment: the task instruction and context matter

PubMed Central

Ricciardelli, Paola; Lugli, Luisa; Pellicano, Antonello; Iani, Cristina; Nicoletti, Roberto

2016-01-01

In three experiments, we tested whether the amount of attentional resources needed to process a face displaying neutral/angry/fearful facial expressions with direct or averted gaze depends on task instructions, and face presentation. To this end, we used a Rapid Serial Visual Presentation paradigm in which participants in Experiment 1 were first explicitly asked to discriminate whether the expression of a target face (T1) with direct or averted gaze was angry or neutral, and then to judge the orientation of a landscape (T2). Experiment 2 was identical to Experiment 1 except that participants had to discriminate the gender of the face of T1 and fearful faces were also presented randomly inter-mixed within each block of trials. Experiment 3 differed from Experiment 2 only because angry and fearful faces were never presented within the same block. The findings indicated that the presence of the attentional blink (AB) for face stimuli depends on specific combinations of gaze direction and emotional facial expressions and crucially revealed that the contextual factors (e.g., explicit instruction to process the facial expression and the presence of other emotional faces) can modify and even reverse the AB, suggesting a flexible and more contextualized deployment of attentional resources in face processing. PMID:26898473

A Comparative View of Face Perception

PubMed Central

Leopold, David A.; Rhodes, Gillian

2010-01-01

Face perception serves as the basis for much of human social exchange. Diverse information can be extracted about an individual from a single glance at their face, including their identity, emotional state, and direction of attention. Neuropsychological and fMRI experiments reveal a complex network of specialized areas in the human brain supporting these face-reading skills. Here we consider the evolutionary roots of human face perception by exploring the manner in which different animal species view and respond to faces. We focus on behavioral experiments collected from both primates and non-primates, assessing the types of information that animals are able to extract from the faces of their conspecifics, human experimenters, and natural predators. These experiments reveal that faces are an important category of visual stimuli for animals in all major vertebrate taxa, possibly reflecting the early emergence of neural specialization for faces in vertebrate evolution. At the same time, some aspects of facial perception are only evident in primates and a few other social mammals, and may therefore have evolved to suit the needs of complex social communication. Since the human brain likely utilizes both primitive and recently evolved neural specializations for the processing of faces, comparative studies may hold the key to understanding how these parallel circuits emerged during human evolution. PMID:20695655

A comparative view of face perception.

PubMed

Leopold, David A; Rhodes, Gillian

2010-08-01

Face perception serves as the basis for much of human social exchange. Diverse information can be extracted about an individual from a single glance at their face, including their identity, emotional state, and direction of attention. Neuropsychological and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) experiments reveal a complex network of specialized areas in the human brain supporting these face-reading skills. Here we consider the evolutionary roots of human face perception by exploring the manner in which different animal species view and respond to faces. We focus on behavioral experiments collected from both primates and nonprimates, assessing the types of information that animals are able to extract from the faces of their conspecifics, human experimenters, and natural predators. These experiments reveal that faces are an important category of visual stimuli for animals in all major vertebrate taxa, possibly reflecting the early emergence of neural specialization for faces in vertebrate evolution. At the same time, some aspects of facial perception are only evident in primates and a few other social mammals, and may therefore have evolved to suit the needs of complex social communication. Because the human brain likely utilizes both primitive and recently evolved neural specializations for the processing of faces, comparative studies may hold the key to understanding how these parallel circuits emerged during human evolution. 2010 APA, all rights reserved

Seeing direct and averted gaze activates the approach-avoidance motivational brain systems.

PubMed

Hietanen, Jari K; Leppänen, Jukka M; Peltola, Mikko J; Linna-Aho, Kati; Ruuhiala, Heidi J

2008-01-01

Gaze direction is known to be an important factor in regulating social interaction. Recent evidence suggests that direct and averted gaze can signal the sender's motivational tendencies of approach and avoidance, respectively. We aimed at determining whether seeing another person's direct vs. averted gaze has an influence on the observer's neural approach-avoidance responses. We also examined whether it would make a difference if the participants were looking at the face of a real person or a picture. Measurements of hemispheric asymmetry in the frontal electroencephalographic activity indicated that another person's direct gaze elicited a relative left-sided frontal EEG activation (indicative of a tendency to approach), whereas averted gaze activated right-sided asymmetry (indicative of avoidance). Skin conductance responses were larger to faces than to control objects and to direct relative to averted gaze, indicating that faces, in general, and faces with direct gaze, in particular, elicited more intense autonomic activation and strength of the motivational tendencies than did control stimuli. Gaze direction also influenced subjective ratings of emotional arousal and valence. However, all these effects were observed only when participants were facing a real person, not when looking at a picture of a face. This finding was suggested to be due to the motivational responses to gaze direction being activated in the context of enhanced self-awareness by the presence of another person. The present results, thus, provide direct evidence that eye contact and gaze aversion between two persons influence the neural mechanisms regulating basic motivational-emotional responses and differentially activate the motivational approach-avoidance brain systems.

Being BOLD: The neural dynamics of face perception.

PubMed

Gentile, Francesco; Ales, Justin; Rossion, Bruno

2017-01-01

According to a non-hierarchical view of human cortical face processing, selective responses to faces may emerge in a higher-order area of the hierarchy, in the lateral part of the middle fusiform gyrus (fusiform face area [FFA]) independently from face-selective responses in the lateral inferior occipital gyrus (occipital face area [OFA]), a lower order area. Here we provide a stringent test of this hypothesis by gradually revealing segmented face stimuli throughout strict linear descrambling of phase information [Ales et al., 2012]. Using a short sampling rate (500 ms) of fMRI acquisition and single subject statistical analysis, we show a face-selective responses emerging earlier, that is, at a lower level of structural (i.e., phase) information, in the FFA compared with the OFA. In both regions, a face detection response emerging at a lower level of structural information for upright than inverted faces, both in the FFA and OFA, in line with behavioral responses and with previous findings of delayed responses to inverted faces with direct recordings of neural activity were also reported. Overall, these results support the non-hierarchical view of human cortical face processing and open new perspectives for time-resolved analysis at the single subject level of fMRI data obtained during continuously evolving visual stimulation. Hum Brain Mapp 38:120-139, 2017. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Manifold decoding for neural representations of face viewpoint and gaze direction using magnetoencephalographic data.

PubMed

Kuo, Po-Chih; Chen, Yong-Sheng; Chen, Li-Fen

2018-05-01

The main challenge in decoding neural representations lies in linking neural activity to representational content or abstract concepts. The transformation from a neural-based to a low-dimensional representation may hold the key to encoding perceptual processes in the human brain. In this study, we developed a novel model by which to represent two changeable features of faces: face viewpoint and gaze direction. These features are embedded in spatiotemporal brain activity derived from magnetoencephalographic data. Our decoding results demonstrate that face viewpoint and gaze direction can be represented by manifold structures constructed from brain responses in the bilateral occipital face area and right superior temporal sulcus, respectively. Our results also show that the superposition of brain activity in the manifold space reveals the viewpoints of faces as well as directions of gazes as perceived by the subject. The proposed manifold representation model provides a novel opportunity to gain further insight into the processing of information in the human brain. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Direct Problem-Based Learning (DPBL): A Framework for Integrating Direct Instruction and Problem-Based Learning Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Winarno, Sri; Muthu, Kalaiarasi Sonai; Ling, Lew Sook

2018-01-01

Direct instruction approach has been widely used in higher education. Many studies revealed that direct instruction improved students' knowledge. The characteristics of direct instruction include the subject delivered through face-to-face interaction with the lecturers and materials that sequenced deliberately and taught explicitly. However,…

The effect of arousal and eye gaze direction on trust evaluations of stranger's faces: A potential pathway to paranoid thinking.

PubMed

Abbott, Jennie; Middlemiss, Megan; Bruce, Vicki; Smailes, David; Dudley, Robert

2018-09-01

When asked to evaluate faces of strangers, people with paranoia show a tendency to rate others as less trustworthy. The present study investigated the impact of arousal on this interpersonal bias, and whether this bias was specific to evaluations of trust or additionally affected other trait judgements. The study also examined the impact of eye gaze direction, as direct eye gaze has been shown to heighten arousal. In two experiments, non-clinical participants completed face rating tasks before and after either an arousal manipulation or control manipulation. Experiment one examined the effects of heightened arousal on judgements of trustworthiness. Experiment two examined the specificity of the bias, and the impact of gaze direction. Experiment one indicated that the arousal manipulation led to lower trustworthiness ratings. Experiment two showed that heightened arousal reduced trust evaluations of trustworthy faces, particularly trustworthy faces with averted gaze. The control group rated trustworthy faces with direct gaze as more trustworthy post-manipulation. There was some evidence that attractiveness ratings were affected similarly to the trust judgements, whereas judgements of intelligence were not affected by higher arousal. In both studies, participants reported low levels of arousal even after the manipulation and the use of a non-clinical sample limits the generalisability to clinical samples. There is a complex interplay between arousal, evaluations of trustworthiness and gaze direction. Heightened arousal influences judgements of trustworthiness, but within the context of face type and gaze direction. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Effect of partial covering of the visitor viewing area window on positioning and orientation of zoo orangutans: A preference test.

PubMed

Bloomfield, Rachel C; Gillespie, Graeme R; Kerswell, Keven J; Butler, Kym L; Hemsworth, Paul H

2015-01-01

The window of the visitor viewing area adjacent to an animal platform in an orangutan enclosure was altered to produce three viewing treatments in a randomized controlled experiment. These treatments were window uncovered, left side of the window covered or right side of the window covered. Observations were conducted on the orangutans present on the platform, and on their location (left or right side), and orientation (towards or away from the window) while on the platform. The partial covering of the window had little effect on the proportion of time orangutans spent on the viewing platform, or on the direction they faced when on the platform. When the orangutans were facing towards the window, and the right side was uncovered, irrespective of whether the left side was covered, they spent about three quarters of the time on the right side, suggesting a preference for the right side of the platform. However, when the right side was covered and the left side uncovered, the animals facing towards the window spent only about a quarter of the time on the right side, that is, they spent more time on the uncovered side. The results suggest that the orangutans have a preference to position themselves to face the window of the visitor viewing area. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Internal representations for face detection: an application of noise-based image classification to BOLD responses.

PubMed

Nestor, Adrian; Vettel, Jean M; Tarr, Michael J

2013-11-01

What basic visual structures underlie human face detection and how can we extract such structures directly from the amplitude of neural responses elicited by face processing? Here, we address these issues by investigating an extension of noise-based image classification to BOLD responses recorded in high-level visual areas. First, we assess the applicability of this classification method to such data and, second, we explore its results in connection with the neural processing of faces. To this end, we construct luminance templates from white noise fields based on the response of face-selective areas in the human ventral cortex. Using behaviorally and neurally-derived classification images, our results reveal a family of simple but robust image structures subserving face representation and detection. Thus, we confirm the role played by classical face selective regions in face detection and we help clarify the representational basis of this perceptual function. From a theory standpoint, our findings support the idea of simple but highly diagnostic neurally-coded features for face detection. At the same time, from a methodological perspective, our work demonstrates the ability of noise-based image classification in conjunction with fMRI to help uncover the structure of high-level perceptual representations. Copyright © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Eye Contact Facilitates Awareness of Faces during Interocular Suppression

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Stein, Timo; Senju, Atsushi; Peelen, Marius V.; Sterzer, Philipp

2011-01-01

Eye contact captures attention and receives prioritized visual processing. Here we asked whether eye contact might be processed outside conscious awareness. Faces with direct and averted gaze were rendered invisible using interocular suppression. In two experiments we found that faces with direct gaze overcame such suppression more rapidly than…

Neurophysiological Organization of the Middle Face Patch in Macaque Inferior Temporal Cortex

PubMed Central

Aparicio, Paul L.; Issa, Elias B.

2016-01-01

While early cortical visual areas contain fine scale spatial organization of neuronal properties, such as orientation preference, the spatial organization of higher-level visual areas is less well understood. The fMRI demonstration of face-preferring regions in human ventral cortex and monkey inferior temporal cortex (“face patches”) raises the question of how neural selectivity for faces is organized. Here, we targeted hundreds of spatially registered neural recordings to the largest fMRI-identified face-preferring region in monkeys, the middle face patch (MFP), and show that the MFP contains a graded enrichment of face-preferring neurons. At its center, as much as 93% of the sites we sampled responded twice as strongly to faces than to nonface objects. We estimate the maximum neurophysiological size of the MFP to be ∼6 mm in diameter, consistent with its previously reported size under fMRI. Importantly, face selectivity in the MFP varied strongly even between neighboring sites. Additionally, extremely face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be present inside the MFP than outside. These results provide the first direct quantification of the size and neural composition of the MFP by showing that the cortical tissue localized to the fMRI defined region consists of a very high fraction of face-preferring sites near its center, and a monotonic decrease in that fraction along any radial spatial axis. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The underlying organization of neurons that give rise to the large spatial regions of activity observed with fMRI is not well understood. Neurophysiological studies that have targeted the fMRI identified face patches in monkeys have provided evidence for both large-scale clustering and a heterogeneous spatial organization. Here we used a novel x-ray imaging system to spatially map the responses of hundreds of sites in and around the middle face patch. We observed that face-selective signal localized to the middle face patch was characterized by a gradual spatial enrichment. Furthermore, strongly face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be found inside the patch than outside of the patch. PMID:27810930

Neurophysiological Organization of the Middle Face Patch in Macaque Inferior Temporal Cortex.

PubMed

Aparicio, Paul L; Issa, Elias B; DiCarlo, James J

2016-12-14

While early cortical visual areas contain fine scale spatial organization of neuronal properties, such as orientation preference, the spatial organization of higher-level visual areas is less well understood. The fMRI demonstration of face-preferring regions in human ventral cortex and monkey inferior temporal cortex ("face patches") raises the question of how neural selectivity for faces is organized. Here, we targeted hundreds of spatially registered neural recordings to the largest fMRI-identified face-preferring region in monkeys, the middle face patch (MFP), and show that the MFP contains a graded enrichment of face-preferring neurons. At its center, as much as 93% of the sites we sampled responded twice as strongly to faces than to nonface objects. We estimate the maximum neurophysiological size of the MFP to be ∼6 mm in diameter, consistent with its previously reported size under fMRI. Importantly, face selectivity in the MFP varied strongly even between neighboring sites. Additionally, extremely face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be present inside the MFP than outside. These results provide the first direct quantification of the size and neural composition of the MFP by showing that the cortical tissue localized to the fMRI defined region consists of a very high fraction of face-preferring sites near its center, and a monotonic decrease in that fraction along any radial spatial axis. The underlying organization of neurons that give rise to the large spatial regions of activity observed with fMRI is not well understood. Neurophysiological studies that have targeted the fMRI identified face patches in monkeys have provided evidence for both large-scale clustering and a heterogeneous spatial organization. Here we used a novel x-ray imaging system to spatially map the responses of hundreds of sites in and around the middle face patch. We observed that face-selective signal localized to the middle face patch was characterized by a gradual spatial enrichment. Furthermore, strongly face-selective sites were ∼40 times more likely to be found inside the patch than outside of the patch. Copyright © 2016 the authors 0270-6474/16/3612729-17$15.00/0.

Development and application of network virtual instrument for emission spectrum of pulsed high-voltage direct current discharge

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gong, X.; Wu, Q.

2017-12-01

Network virtual instrument (VI) is a new development direction in current automated test. Based on LabVIEW, the software and hardware system of VI used for emission spectrum of pulsed high-voltage direct current (DC) discharge is developed and applied to investigate pulsed high-voltage DC discharge of nitrogen. By doing so, various functions are realized including real time collection of emission spectrum of nitrogen, monitoring operation state of instruments and real time analysis and processing of data. By using shared variables and DataSocket technology in LabVIEW, the network VI system based on field VI is established. The system can acquire the emission spectrum of nitrogen in the test site, monitor operation states of field instruments, realize real time face-to-face interchange of two sites, and analyze data in the far-end from the network terminal. By employing the network VI system, the staff in the two sites acquired the same emission spectrum of nitrogen and conducted the real time communication. By comparing with the previous results, it can be seen that the experimental data obtained by using the system are highly precise. This implies that the system shows reliable network stability and safety and satisfies the requirements for studying the emission spectrum of pulsed high-voltage discharge in high-precision fields or network terminals. The proposed architecture system is described and the target group gets the useful enlightenment in many fields including engineering remote users, specifically in control- and automation-related tasks.

John Furlong and the "University Project"

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Watson, David

2014-01-01

Like many senior teacher-educators and educational researchers, John Furlong has faced in several directions throughout his career, sometimes simultaneously. He has clearly not lost his enthusiasm for what happens in the classroom: he strongly appreciates those magical moments which can happen at any time, and which keep teachers going. He loves…

Housing Uncertainty and Childhood Impatience

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Anil, Bulent; Jordan, Jeffrey L.; Zahirovic-Herbert, Velma

2011-01-01

The study demonstrates a direct link between housing uncertainty and children's time preferences, or patience. We show that students who face housing uncertainties through mortgage foreclosures and eviction learn impatient behavior and are therefore at greater risk of making poor intertemporal choices such as dropping out of school. We find that…

77 FR 36143 - Airworthiness Directives; The Boeing Company Airplanes

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-06-18

... this AD within the compliance times specified, unless already done. (g) Repetitive Eddy Current High... the Federal Register on January 19, 2012 (77 FR 2664). That NPRM proposed to require repetitive eddy current high frequency (ETHF) inspections for cracks on the aft face on the left and right rib hinge...

Attention to eye contact in the West and East: autonomic responses and evaluative ratings.

PubMed

Akechi, Hironori; Senju, Atsushi; Uibo, Helen; Kikuchi, Yukiko; Hasegawa, Toshikazu; Hietanen, Jari K

2013-01-01

Eye contact has a fundamental role in human social interaction. The special appearance of the human eye (i.e., white sclera contrasted with a coloured iris) implies the importance of detecting another person's face through eye contact. Empirical studies have demonstrated that faces making eye contact are detected quickly and processed preferentially (i.e., the eye contact effect). Such sensitivity to eye contact seems to be innate and universal among humans; however, several studies suggest that cultural norms affect eye contact behaviours. For example, Japanese individuals exhibit less eye contact than do individuals from Western European or North American cultures. However, how culture modulates eye contact behaviour is unclear. The present study investigated cultural differences in autonomic correlates of attentional orienting (i.e., heart rate) and looking time. Additionally, we examined evaluative ratings of eye contact with another real person, displaying an emotionally neutral expression, between participants from Western European (Finnish) and East Asian (Japanese) cultures. Our results showed that eye contact elicited stronger heart rate deceleration responses (i.e., attentional orienting), shorter looking times, and higher ratings of subjective feelings of arousal as compared to averted gaze in both cultures. Instead, cultural differences in the eye contact effect were observed in various evaluative responses regarding the stimulus faces (e.g., facial emotion, approachability etc.). The rating results suggest that individuals from an East Asian culture perceive another's face as being angrier, unapproachable, and unpleasant when making eye contact as compared to individuals from a Western European culture. The rating results also revealed that gaze direction (direct vs. averted) could influence perceptions about another person's facial affect and disposition. These results suggest that cultural differences in eye contact behaviour emerge from differential display rules and cultural norms, as opposed to culture affecting eye contact behaviour directly at the physiological level.

A Direct Examination of the Effect of Intranasal Administration of Oxytocin on Approach-Avoidance Motor Responses to Emotional Stimuli

PubMed Central

Theodoridou, Angeliki; Penton-Voak, Ian S.; Rowe, Angela C.

2013-01-01

Oxytocin has been shown to promote a host of social behaviors in humans but the exact mechanisms by which it exerts its effects are unspecified. One prominent theory suggests that oxytocin increases approach and decreases avoidance to social stimuli. Another dominant theory posits that oxytocin increases the salience of social stimuli. Herein, we report a direct test of these hypotheses. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study we examined approach-avoidance motor responses to social and non-social emotional stimuli. One hundred and twenty participants self-administered either 24 IU oxytocin or placebo and moved a lever toward or away from pictures of faces depicting emotional expressions or from natural scenes appearing before them on a computer screen. Lever movements toward stimuli decreased and movements away increased stimuli size producing the illusion that stimuli moved away from or approached participants. Reaction time data were recorded. The task produced the effects that were anticipated on the basis of the approach-avoidance literature in relation to emotional stimuli, yet the anticipated speeded approach and slowed avoidance responses to emotional faces by the oxytocin group were not observed. Interestingly, the oxytocin treatment group was faster to approach and avoid faces depicting disgust relative to the placebo group, suggesting a salience of disgust for the former group. Results also showed that within the oxytocin group women's reaction times to all emotional faces were faster than those of men, suggesting sex specific effects of oxytocin. The present findings provide the first direct evidence that intranasal oxytocin administration does not enhance approach/avoidance to social stimuli and does not exert a stronger effect on social vs. non-social stimuli in the context of processing of emotional expressions and scenes. Instead, our data suggest that oxytocin administration increases the salience of certain social stimuli and point to a possible role for oxytocin in behavioral prophylaxis. PMID:23469148

Attention to Eye Contact in the West and East: Autonomic Responses and Evaluative Ratings

PubMed Central

Akechi, Hironori; Senju, Atsushi; Uibo, Helen; Kikuchi, Yukiko; Hasegawa, Toshikazu; Hietanen, Jari K.

2013-01-01

Eye contact has a fundamental role in human social interaction. The special appearance of the human eye (i.e., white sclera contrasted with a coloured iris) implies the importance of detecting another person's face through eye contact. Empirical studies have demonstrated that faces making eye contact are detected quickly and processed preferentially (i.e., the eye contact effect). Such sensitivity to eye contact seems to be innate and universal among humans; however, several studies suggest that cultural norms affect eye contact behaviours. For example, Japanese individuals exhibit less eye contact than do individuals from Western European or North American cultures. However, how culture modulates eye contact behaviour is unclear. The present study investigated cultural differences in autonomic correlates of attentional orienting (i.e., heart rate) and looking time. Additionally, we examined evaluative ratings of eye contact with another real person, displaying an emotionally neutral expression, between participants from Western European (Finnish) and East Asian (Japanese) cultures. Our results showed that eye contact elicited stronger heart rate deceleration responses (i.e., attentional orienting), shorter looking times, and higher ratings of subjective feelings of arousal as compared to averted gaze in both cultures. Instead, cultural differences in the eye contact effect were observed in various evaluative responses regarding the stimulus faces (e.g., facial emotion, approachability etc.). The rating results suggest that individuals from an East Asian culture perceive another's face as being angrier, unapproachable, and unpleasant when making eye contact as compared to individuals from a Western European culture. The rating results also revealed that gaze direction (direct vs. averted) could influence perceptions about another person's facial affect and disposition. These results suggest that cultural differences in eye contact behaviour emerge from differential display rules and cultural norms, as opposed to culture affecting eye contact behaviour directly at the physiological level. PMID:23516627

A direct examination of the effect of intranasal administration of oxytocin on approach-avoidance motor responses to emotional stimuli.

PubMed

Theodoridou, Angeliki; Penton-Voak, Ian S; Rowe, Angela C

2013-01-01

Oxytocin has been shown to promote a host of social behaviors in humans but the exact mechanisms by which it exerts its effects are unspecified. One prominent theory suggests that oxytocin increases approach and decreases avoidance to social stimuli. Another dominant theory posits that oxytocin increases the salience of social stimuli. Herein, we report a direct test of these hypotheses. In a double-blind, placebo-controlled study we examined approach-avoidance motor responses to social and non-social emotional stimuli. One hundred and twenty participants self-administered either 24 IU oxytocin or placebo and moved a lever toward or away from pictures of faces depicting emotional expressions or from natural scenes appearing before them on a computer screen. Lever movements toward stimuli decreased and movements away increased stimuli size producing the illusion that stimuli moved away from or approached participants. Reaction time data were recorded. The task produced the effects that were anticipated on the basis of the approach-avoidance literature in relation to emotional stimuli, yet the anticipated speeded approach and slowed avoidance responses to emotional faces by the oxytocin group were not observed. Interestingly, the oxytocin treatment group was faster to approach and avoid faces depicting disgust relative to the placebo group, suggesting a salience of disgust for the former group. Results also showed that within the oxytocin group women's reaction times to all emotional faces were faster than those of men, suggesting sex specific effects of oxytocin. The present findings provide the first direct evidence that intranasal oxytocin administration does not enhance approach/avoidance to social stimuli and does not exert a stronger effect on social vs. non-social stimuli in the context of processing of emotional expressions and scenes. Instead, our data suggest that oxytocin administration increases the salience of certain social stimuli and point to a possible role for oxytocin in behavioral prophylaxis.

Face Preferences for Infant- and Adult-Directed Speakers in Infants of Depressed and Nondepressed Mothers: Association with Infant Cognitive Development.

PubMed

Kaplan, Peter S; Asherin, Ryan M; Vogeli, Jo M; Fekri, Shiva M; Scheyer, Kathryn E; Everhart, Kevin D

2018-01-01

Face preferences for speakers of infant-directed and adult-directed speech (IDS and ADS) were investigated in 4- to 13.5-month-old infants of depressed and non-depressed mothers. Following 1-min of exposure to an ID or AD speaker (order counterbalanced), infants had an immediate paired-comparison test with a still, silent image of the familiarized versus a novel face. In the test phase, ID face preference ratios were significantly lower in infants of depressed than non-depressed mothers. Infants' ID face preference ratios, but not AD face preference ratios, correlated with their percentile scores on the cognitive ( Cog ) scale of the Bayley Scales of Infant & Toddler Development (3 rd Edition; BSID III), assessed concurrently. Regression analyses revealed that infant ID face preferences significantly predicted infant Cog percentiles even after demographic risk factors and maternal depression had been controlled. Infants may use IDS to select social partners who are likely to support and facilitate cognitive development.

Rim seal arrangement having pumping feature

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Lee, Ching-Pang; Myers, Caleb

A rim seal arrangement for a gas turbine engine includes a first seal face on a rotor component, and a second seal face on a stationary annular rim centered about a rotation axis of the rotor component. The second seal face is spaced from the first seal face along an axial direction to define a seal gap. The seal gap is located between a radially outer hot gas path and a radially inner rotor cavity. The first seal face has a plurality of circumferentially spaced depressions, each having a depth in an axial direction and extending along a radial extentmore » of the first seal face. The depressions influence flow in the seal gap such that during rotation of the rotor component, fluid in the seal gap is pumped in a radially outward direction to prevent ingestion of a gas path fluid from the hot gas path into the rotor cavity.« less

77 FR 2293 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of December 13, 2011

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-01-17

..., Treasury securities with remaining maturities of approximately 6 years to 30 years with a total face value... total face value of $400 billion. The Committee also directs the Desk to maintain its existing policies... mortgage-backed securities in order to maintain the total face value of domestic securities at...

Facilitation of face recognition through the retino-tectal pathway.

PubMed

Nakano, Tamami; Higashida, Noriko; Kitazawa, Shigeru

2013-08-01

Humans can shift their gazes faster to human faces than to non-face targets during a task in which they are required to choose between face and non-face targets. However, it remains unclear whether a direct projection from the retina to the superior colliculus is specifically involved in this facilitated recognition of faces. To address this question, we presented a pair of face and non-face pictures to participants modulated in greyscale (luminance-defined stimuli) in one condition and modulated in a blue-yellow scale (S-cone-isolating stimuli) in another. The information of the S-cone-isolating stimuli is conveyed through the retino-geniculate pathway rather than the retino-tectal pathway. For the luminance stimuli, the reaction time was shorter towards a face than towards a non-face target. The facilitatory effect while choosing a face disappeared with the S-cone stimuli. Moreover, fearful faces elicited a significantly larger facilitatory effect relative to neutral faces, when the face (with or without emotion) and non-face stimuli were presented in greyscale. The effect of emotional expressions disappeared with the S-cone stimuli. In contrast to the S-cone stimuli, the face facilitatory effect was still observed with negated stimuli that were prepared by reversing the polarity of the original colour pictures and looked as unusual as the S-cone stimuli but still contained luminance information. These results demonstrate that the face facilitatory effect requires the facial and emotional information defined by luminance, suggesting that the luminance information conveyed through the retino-tectal pathway is responsible for the faster recognition of human faces. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Online or face-to-face instruction? A qualitative study on the electrocardiogram course at the University of Ulm to examine why students choose a particular format.

PubMed

Keis, Oliver; Grab, Claudia; Schneider, Achim; Öchsner, Wolfgang

2017-11-09

Since the introduction of the e-learning electrocardiogram (ECG) course 'ECG Online' into the curriculum at the University of Ulm, a small but relatively constant number of students have decided not to participate in the online course but to attend the face-to-face course, although the content of both courses is identical. The present study examined why students prefer one format or the other. In a qualitative research approach, ten medical students were questioned in a guided interview. At the time of the survey the interviewees were enrolled in the 7th to 10th semesters. Among the respondents, 2 had participated only in the face-to-face ECG course, 4 only in the online version and 4 in both the face-to-face and the online course. Interestingly, the very factors associated with e-learning - and always praised as advantages of it - are viewed critically by the students. Thus, although the 24-h access to learning content was consistently evaluated positively, the unlimited availability (lack of expiry date) was not seen as conducive to learning. The lack of fixed time constraints and the attendant lack of pressure were important reasons why some of the students had discontinued the online course prematurely. A similar distinction was seen in the flexibility of location for e-learning, because the very obligation to be physically present on a particular day at a fixed time led to a higher degree of commitment to courses and a willingness to actually attend the course until the end. In addition, if the content has a high degree of perceived professional relevance face-to-face courses are preferred because they offer the possibility of direct interaction. Even though the small sample size limits the generalisability of the results, our findings indicate that when developing online courses students' needs could be better met if measures were included to strengthen extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and formats were favoured that enable students to have a minimum level of personal interaction with the lecturer.

Biracial and monoracial infant own-race face perception: an eye tracking study.

PubMed

Gaither, Sarah E; Pauker, Kristin; Johnson, Scott P

2012-11-01

We know that early experience plays a crucial role in the development of face processing, but we know little about how infants learn to distinguish faces from different races, especially for non-Caucasian populations. Moreover, it is unknown whether differential processing of different race faces observed in typically studied monoracial infants extends to biracial infants as well. Thus, we investigated 3-month-old Caucasian, Asian and biracial (Caucasian-Asian) infants' ability to distinguish Caucasian and Asian faces. Infants completed two within-subject, infant-controlled habituation sequences and test trials as an eye tracker recorded looking times and scanning patterns. Examination of individual differences revealed significant positive correlations between own-race novelty preference and scanning frequency between eye and mouth regions of own-race habituation stimuli for Caucasian and Asian infants, suggesting that facility in own-race face discrimination stems from active inspection of internal facial features in these groups. Biracial infants, however, showed the opposite effect: An 'own-race' novelty preference was associated with reduced scanning between eye and mouth regions of 'own-race' habituation stimuli, suggesting that biracial infants use a distinct approach to processing frequently encountered faces. Future directions for investigating face processing development in biracial populations are discussed. © 2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Biracial and Monoracial Infant Own-Race Face Perception: An Eye Tracking Study

PubMed Central

Gaither, Sarah E.; Pauker, Kristin; Johnson, Scott P.

2012-01-01

We know early experience plays a crucial role in the development of face processing, but we know little about how infants learn to distinguish faces from different races, especially for non-Caucasian populations. Moreover, it is unknown whether differential processing of different race faces observed in typically-studied monoracial infants extends to biracial infants as well. Thus, we investigated 3-month-old Caucasian, Asian and biracial (Caucasian-Asian) infants’ ability to distinguish Caucasian and Asian faces. Infants completed two within-subject, infant-controlled habituation sequences and test trials as an eye tracker recorded looking times and scanning patterns. Examination of individual differences revealed significant positive correlations between own-race novelty preference and scanning frequency between eye and mouth regions of own-race habituation stimuli for Caucasian and Asian infants, suggesting that facility in own-race face discrimination stems from active inspection of internal facial features in these groups. Biracial infants, however, showed the opposite effect: An “own-race” novelty preference was associated with reduced scanning between eye and mouth regions of “own-race” habituation stimuli, suggesting that biracial infants use a distinct approach to processing frequently encountered faces. Future directions for investigating face processing development in biracial populations are discussed. PMID:23106731

Fast periodic presentation of natural images reveals a robust face-selective electrophysiological response in the human brain.

PubMed

Rossion, Bruno; Torfs, Katrien; Jacques, Corentin; Liu-Shuang, Joan

2015-01-16

We designed a fast periodic visual stimulation approach to identify an objective signature of face categorization incorporating both visual discrimination (from nonface objects) and generalization (across widely variable face exemplars). Scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) data were recorded in 12 human observers viewing natural images of objects at a rapid frequency of 5.88 images/s for 60 s. Natural images of faces were interleaved every five stimuli, i.e., at 1.18 Hz (5.88/5). Face categorization was indexed by a high signal-to-noise ratio response, specifically at an oddball face stimulation frequency of 1.18 Hz and its harmonics. This face-selective periodic EEG response was highly significant for every participant, even for a single 60-s sequence, and was generally localized over the right occipitotemporal cortex. The periodicity constraint and the large selection of stimuli ensured that this selective response to natural face images was free of low-level visual confounds, as confirmed by the absence of any oddball response for phase-scrambled stimuli. Without any subtraction procedure, time-domain analysis revealed a sequence of differential face-selective EEG components between 120 and 400 ms after oddball face image onset, progressing from medial occipital (P1-faces) to occipitotemporal (N1-faces) and anterior temporal (P2-faces) regions. Overall, this fast periodic visual stimulation approach provides a direct signature of natural face categorization and opens an avenue for efficiently measuring categorization responses of complex visual stimuli in the human brain. © 2015 ARVO.

A pragmatic randomised controlled trial of the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of 'PhysioDirect' telephone assessment and advice services for physiotherapy.

PubMed

Salisbury, C; Foster, N E; Hopper, C; Bishop, A; Hollinghurst, S; Coast, J; Kaur, S; Pearson, J; Franchini, A; Hall, J; Grove, S; Calnan, M; Busby, J; Montgomery, A A

2013-01-01

As a result of long delays for physiotherapy for musculoskeletal problems, several areas in the UK have introduced PhysioDirect services in which patients telephone a physiotherapist for initial assessment and treatment advice. However, there is no robust evidence about the effectiveness, cost-effectiveness or acceptability to patients of PhysioDirect. To investigate whether or not PhysioDirect is equally as clinically effective as and more cost-effective than usual care for patients with musculoskeletal (MSK) problems in primary care. Pragmatic randomised controlled trial to assess equivalence, incorporating economic evaluation and nested qualitative research. Patients were randomised in 2 : 1 ratio to PhysioDirect or usual care using a remote automated allocation system at the level of the individual, stratifying by physiotherapy site and minimising by sex, age group and site of MSK problem. For the economic analysis, cost consequences included NHS and patient costs, and the cost of lost production. Cost-effectiveness analysis was carried out from the perspective of the NHS. Interviews were conducted with patients, physiotherapists and their managers. Four community physiotherapy services in England. Adults referred by general practitioners or self-referred for physiotherapy for a MSK problem. Patients allocated to PhysioDirect were invited to telephone a senior physiotherapist for initial assessment and advice using a computerised template, followed by face-to-face care when necessary. Patients allocated to usual care were put on to a waiting list for face-to-face care. Primary outcome was the Short Form questionnaire-36 items, version 2 (SF-36v2) Physical Component Score (PCS) at 6 months after randomisation. Secondary outcomes included other measures of health outcome [Measure Yourself Medical Outcomes Profile, European Quality of Life-5 Dimensions (EuroQol health utility measure, EQ-5D), global improvement, response to treatment], wait for treatment, time lost from work and usual activities, patient satisfaction. Data were collected by postal questionnaires at baseline, 6 weeks and 6 months, and from routine records by researchers blind to allocation. A total of 1506 patients were allocated to PhysioDirect and 743 to usual care. Patients allocated to PhysioDirect had a shorter wait for treatment than those allocated to usual care [median 7 days vs 34 days; arm-time ratio 0.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.29 to 0.35] and had fewer non-attended face-to-face appointments [incidence rate ratio 0.55 (95% CI 0.41 to 0.73)]. The primary outcome at 6 months' follow-up was equivalent between PhysioDirect and usual care [mean PCS 43.50 vs 44.18, adjusted difference in means -0.01 (95% CI -0.80 to 0.79)]. The secondary measures of health outcome all demonstrated equivalence at 6 months, with slightly greater improvement in the PhysioDirect arm at 6 weeks' follow-up. Patients were equally satisfied with access to care but slightly less satisfied overall with PhysioDirect compared with usual care. NHS costs (physiotherapy plus other relevant NHS costs) per patient were similar in the two arms [PhysioDirect £ 198.98 vs usual care £ 179.68, difference in means £ 19.30 (95% CI -£ 37.60 to £ 76.19)], while QALYs gained were also similar [difference in means 0.007 (95% CI -0.003 to 0.016)]. Incremental cost per QALY gained was £ 2889. The probability that PhysioDirect was cost-effective at a £ 20,000 willingness-to-pay threshold was 88%. These conclusions about cost-effectiveness were robust to sensitivity analyses. There was no evidence of difference between trial arms in cost to patients or value of lost production. No adverse events were detected. Providing physiotherapy via PhysioDirect is equally clinically effective compared with usual waiting list-based care, provides faster access to treatment, appears to be safe, and is broadly acceptable to patients. PhysioDirect is probably cost-effective compared with usual care.

Recruitment strategies at the Iowa site for parent/infant pairs in a longitudinal dental caries study.

PubMed

Daly, Jeanette M; Levy, Barcey T; Xu, Yinghui; Levy, Steven M; Fontana, Margherita

2016-06-01

Recruitment of parent/infant pairs can be more difficult and challenging than recruitment of adult subjects alone as the parent has to consider themselves along with the infant to be study participants. In order to determine which recruitment methods most effectively resulted in accrual of subjects, recruitment efforts at the University of Iowa were evaluated, one of three clinical sites involved in a longitudinal prospective study of dental caries. Enrollment goals were 300 parent/infant pairs within a year. Recruitment strategies included (1) a direct mailing to potential subjects who were University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics patients and potentially met inclusion criteria; (2) face-to-face recruitment visits at medical offices; (3) provision of recruitment materials to staff at off-campus agencies and medical offices serving low-income individuals; (4) a campus-wide mass e-mail; (5) recruitment materials to daycare centers and neighborhood centers; and (6) recruitment at a children's museum. From these recruitment efforts, 515 potential participants expressed interest and were screened for this study and 348 (68%) were enrolled during an 11-month time period. The face-to-face strategy had the highest recruitment rate of 25%, followed by direct individual mailings at 9% and follow-up telephone calls at 7%. For the face-to-face strategy, the contact at the children's museum was most successful compared to the other office settings. The lowest rate of recruitment of 0.09% was attained with the mass e-mail. However, in terms of actual numbers recruited, the mass e-mail remained an important modality since it yielded 21 recruits and was much less time-intensive. An intensive, multi-pronged recruitment strategy proved successful in meeting enrollment goals and resulted in finishing the enrollment prior to the projected study deadline. Effective recruitment approaches are imperative for a study's success and each recruitment strategy needs to be budgeted and planned for in a study. Investigators may need to adapt their approach to attain the needed number of subjects. Planning needs to include the numbers needed to be approached to attain your recruitment goal, how you will recruit, who will be responsible, and the costs and time commitment for various strategies. © The Author(s) 2016.

77 FR 31015 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of April 24-25, 2012

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-05-24

..., Treasury securities with remaining maturities of approximately 6 years to 30 years with a total face value... total face value of $400 billion. The Committee also directs the Desk to maintain its existing policies... mortgage-backed securities in order to maintain the total face value of domestic securities at...

Cost-analysis of teledentistry in residential aged care facilities.

PubMed

Mariño, Rodrigo; Tonmukayakul, Utsana; Manton, David; Stranieri, Andrew; Clarke, Ken

2016-09-01

The purpose of this research was to conduct a cost-analysis, from a public healthcare perspective, comparing the cost and benefits of face-to-face patient examination assessments conducted by a dentist at a residential aged care facility (RACF) situated in rural areas of the Australian state of Victoria, with two teledentistry approaches utilizing virtual oral examination. The costs associated with implementing and operating the teledentistry approach were identified and measured using 2014 prices in Australian dollars. Costs were measured as direct intervention costs and programme costs. A population of 100 RACF residents was used as a basis to estimate the cost of oral examination and treatment plan development for the traditional face-to-face model vs. two teledentistry models: an asynchronous review and treatment plan preparation; and real-time communication with a remotely located oral health professional. It was estimated that if 100 residents received an asynchronous oral health assessment and treatment plan, the net cost from a healthcare perspective would be AU$32.35 (AU$27.19-AU$38.49) per resident. The total cost of the conventional face-to-face examinations by a dentist would be AU$36.59 ($30.67-AU$42.98) per resident using realistic assumptions. Meanwhile, the total cost of real-time remote oral examination would be AU$41.28 (AU$34.30-AU$48.87) per resident. Teledental asynchronous patient assessments were the lowest cost service model. Access to oral health professionals is generally low in RACFs; however, the real-time consultation could potentially achieve better outcomes due to two-way communication between the nurse and a remote oral health professional via health promotion/disease prevention delivered in conjunction with the oral examination. © The Author(s) 2015.

Exploring Complex Social Phenomena with Computer Simulations

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Berson, Ilene R.; Berson, Michael J.

2007-01-01

In social studies classes, there is a longstanding interest in how societies evolve and change over time. However, as stories of the past unfold, it is often difficult to identify a direct link between causes and effects, so students are forced to accept at face value the interpretations of economists, political scientists, historians,…

Literary Genres in Poetic Texts from the Dead Sea Scrolls

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Pickut, William Douglas

2017-01-01

Among the texts of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there are four literary compositions that bear the superscriptional designations shir and mizmor. These designations correspond directly to superscriptional designations provided many times in both the now-canonical Psalter and the various witnesses to those texts unearthed at Qumran. On its face, this fact…

Methane emissions and airflow patterns on a longwall face: Potential influences from longwall gob permeability distributions on a bleederless longwall panel.

PubMed

Schatzel, S J; Krog, R B; Dougherty, H

2017-01-01

Longwall face ventilation is an important component of the overall coal mine ventilation system. Increased production rates due to higher-capacity mining equipment tend to also increase methane emission rates from the coal face, which must be diluted by the face ventilation. Increases in panel length, with some mines exceeding 6,100 m (20,000 ft), and panel width provide additional challenges to face ventilation designs. To assess the effectiveness of current face ventilation practices at a study site, a face monitoring study with continuous monitoring of methane concentrations and automated recording of longwall shearer activity was combined with a tracer gas test on a longwall face. The study was conducted at a U.S. longwall mine operating in a thick, bituminous coal seam and using a U-type, bleederless ventilation system. Multiple gob gas ventholes were located near the longwall face. These boreholes had some unusual design concepts, including a system of manifolds to modify borehole vacuum and flow and completion depths close to the horizon of the mined coalbed that enabled direct communication with the mine atmosphere. The mine operator also had the capacity to inject nitrogen into the longwall gob, which occurred during the monitoring study. The results show that emission rates on the longwall face showed a very limited increase in methane concentrations from headgate to tailgate despite the occurrence of methane delays during monitoring. Average face air velocities were 3.03 m/s (596 fpm) at shield 57 and 2.20 m/s (433 fpm) at shield 165. The time required for the sulfur hexafluoride (SF 6 ) peak to occur at each monitoring location has been interpreted as being representative of the movement of the tracer slug. The rate of movement of the slug was much slower in reaching the first monitoring location at shield 57 compared with the other face locations. This lower rate of movement, compared with the main face ventilation, is thought to be the product of a flow path within and behind the shields that is moving in the general direction of the headgate to the tailgate. Barometric pressure variations were pronounced over the course of the study and varied on a diurnal basis.

A retrospective look at replacing face-to-face embryology instruction with online lectures in a human anatomy course.

PubMed

Beale, Elmus G; Tarwater, Patrick M; Lee, Vaughan H

2014-01-01

Embryology is integrated into the Clinically Oriented Anatomy course at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center School of Medicine. Before 2008, the same instructor presented embryology in 13 face-to-face lectures distributed by organ systems throughout the course. For the 2008 and 2009 offerings of the course, a hybrid embryology instruction model with four face-to-face classes that supplemented online recorded lectures was used. One instructor delivered the lectures face-to-face in 2007 and by online videos in 2008-2009, while a second instructor provided the supplemental face-to-face classes in 2008-2009. The same embryology learning objectives and selected examination questions were used for each of the three years. This allowed direct comparison of learning outcomes, as measured by examination performance, for students receiving only face-to-face embryology instruction versus the hybrid approach. Comparison of the face-to-face lectures to the hybrid approach showed no difference in overall class performance on embryology questions that were used all three years. Moreover, there was no differential effect of the delivery method on the examination scores for bottom quartile students. Students completed an end-of-course survey to assess their opinions. They rated the two forms of delivery similarly on a six-point Likert scale and reported that face-to-face lectures have the advantage of allowing them to interact with the instructor, whereas online lectures could be paused, replayed, and viewed at any time. These experiences suggest the need for well-designed prospective studies to determine whether online lectures can be used to enhance the efficacy of embryology instruction. © 2013 American Association of Anatomists.

Automating Individualized Formative Feedback in Large Classes Based on a Directed Concept Graph

PubMed Central

Schaffer, Henry E.; Young, Karen R.; Ligon, Emily W.; Chapman, Diane D.

2017-01-01

Student learning outcomes within courses form the basis for course completion and time-to-graduation statistics, which are of great importance in education, particularly higher education. Budget pressures have led to large classes in which student-to-instructor interaction is very limited. Most of the current efforts to improve student progress in large classes, such as “learning analytics,” (LA) focus on the aspects of student behavior that are found in the logs of Learning Management Systems (LMS), for example, frequency of signing in, time spent on each page, and grades. These are important, but are distant from providing help to the student making insufficient progress in a course. We describe a computer analytical methodology which includes a dissection of the concepts in the course, expressed as a directed graph, that are applied to test questions, and uses performance on these questions to provide formative feedback to each student in any course format: face-to-face, blended, flipped, or online. Each student receives individualized assistance in a scalable and affordable manner. It works with any class delivery technology, textbook, and learning management system. PMID:28293202

Oxytocin Reduces Face Processing Time but Leaves Recognition Accuracy and Eye-Gaze Unaffected.

PubMed

Hubble, Kelly; Daughters, Katie; Manstead, Antony S R; Rees, Aled; Thapar, Anita; van Goozen, Stephanie H M

2017-01-01

Previous studies have found that oxytocin (OXT) can improve the recognition of emotional facial expressions; it has been proposed that this effect is mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces. Nevertheless, evidence in support of this claim is inconsistent, and few studies have directly tested the effect of oxytocin on emotion recognition via altered eye-gaze Methods: In a double-blind, within-subjects, randomized control experiment, 40 healthy male participants received 24 IU intranasal OXT and placebo in two identical experimental sessions separated by a 2-week interval. Visual attention to the eye-region was assessed on both occasions while participants completed a static facial emotion recognition task using medium intensity facial expressions. Although OXT had no effect on emotion recognition accuracy, recognition performance was improved because face processing was faster across emotions under the influence of OXT. This effect was marginally significant (p<.06). Consistent with a previous study using dynamic stimuli, OXT had no effect on eye-gaze patterns when viewing static emotional faces and this was not related to recognition accuracy or face processing time. These findings suggest that OXT-induced enhanced facial emotion recognition is not necessarily mediated by an increase in attention to the eye-region of faces, as previously assumed. We discuss several methodological issues which may explain discrepant findings and suggest the effect of OXT on visual attention may differ depending on task requirements. (JINS, 2017, 23, 23-33).

Directed forgetting: differential effects on typical and distinctive faces.

PubMed

Metzger, Mitchell M

2011-01-01

Directed forgetting (DF) occurs when stimuli presented during the study phase are followed by "forget" and "remember" cues. On a subsequent memory test, poor memory is observed for stimuli followed by the forget cues, compared to stimuli followed by the remember cues. Although DF is most commonly observed with verbal tasks, the present study extended intentional forgetting research for nonverbal stimuli and examined whether faces were susceptible to DF. Results confirmed that the presentation of a forget cue significantly reduced recognition for faces, as compared to faces followed by a remember cue. Additionally, a well-established finding in face recognition is that distinctive faces are better remembered than typical faces, and Experiment 2 assessed whether face appearance influenced the degree of DF. Results indicate that the DF effect observed in Experiment 1 was replicated in Experiment 2 and that the effect was more pronounced for those faces that were typical in appearance.

Experimental confirmation of a character-facing bias in literacy development.

PubMed

McIntosh, Robert D; Anderson, Eilidh L; Henderson, Rowena M

2018-06-01

When learning to write, children often mirror-reverse individual letters. For children learning to use the Latin alphabet, in a left-to-right writing culture, letters that appear to face left (such as J and Z) seem to be more prone to reversal than those that appear to face right (such as B and C). It has been proposed that, because most asymmetrical Latin letters face right, children statistically learn this general regularity and are subsequently biased to write any letter rightward. The evidence for this character-facing bias is circumstantial, however, because letter-facing direction is confounded with other factors that could affect error rates; for instance, J and Z are left-facing, but they are also infrequent. We report the first controlled experimental test of the character-facing bias. We taught 43 Scottish primary schoolchildren (aged 4.8-5.8 years) four artificial, letter-like characters, two of which were left-facing and two of which were right-facing. The characters were novel and so were not subject to prior exposure effects, and alternate groups of children were assigned to identical but mirror-reflected character sets. Children were three times more likely to mirror-write a novel character they had learned in a left-facing format than to mirror-write one they had learned in a right-facing format. This provides the first experimental confirmation of the character-facing bias in literacy development and suggests that implicit knowledge acquired from exposure to written language is readily generalized to novel letter-like forms. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Depth Structure from Asymmetric Shading Supports Face Discrimination

PubMed Central

Chen, Chien-Chung; Chen, Chin-Mei; Tyler, Christopher W.

2013-01-01

To examine the effect of illumination direction on the ability of observers to discriminate between faces, we manipulated the direction of illumination on scanned 3D face models. In order to dissociate the surface reflectance and illumination components of front-view face images, we introduce a symmetry algorithm that can separate the symmetric and asymmetric components of the face in both low and high spatial frequency bands. Based on this approach, hybrid faces stimuli were constructed with different combinations of symmetric and asymmetric spatial content. Discrimination results with these images showed that asymmetric illumination information biased face perception toward the structure of the shading component, while the symmetric illumination information had little, if any, effect. Measures of perceived depth showed that this property increased systematically with the asymmetric but not the symmetric low spatial frequency component. Together, these results suggest that (1) the asymmetric 3D shading information dramatically affects both the perceived facial information and the perceived depth of the facial structure; and (2) these effects both increase as the illumination direction is shifted to the side. Thus, our results support the hypothesis that face processing has a strong 3D component. PMID:23457484

Designing, implementing and evaluating an online problem-based learning (PBL) environment--a pilot study.

PubMed

Ng, Manwa L; Bridges, Susan; Law, Sam Po; Whitehill, Tara

2014-01-01

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been shown to be effective for promoting student competencies in self-directed and collaborative learning, critical thinking, self-reflection and tackling novel situations. However, the need for face-to-face interactions at the same place and time severely limits the potential of traditional PBL. The requirements of space and for meeting at a specific location at the same time create timetabling difficulties. Such limitations need to be tackled before all potentials of PBL learning can be realized. The present study aimed at designing and implementing an online PBL environment for undergraduate speech/language pathology students, and assessing the associated pedagogical effectiveness. A group of eight PBL students were randomly selected to participate in the study. They underwent 4 weeks of online PBL using Adobe Connect. Upon completion of the experiment, they were assessed via a self-reported questionnaire and quantitative comparison with traditional PBL students based on the same written assignment. The questionnaire revealed that all participating students enjoyed online PBL, without any perceived negative effects on learning. Online PBL unanimously saved the students travel time to and from school. Statistical analysis indicated no significant difference in assignment grades between the online and traditional PBL groups, indicating that online PBL learning appears to be similarly effective as traditional face-to-face PBL learning.

76 FR 67731 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of September 20 and 21, 2011

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-11-02

..., Treasury securities with remaining maturities of approximately 6 years to 30 years with a total face value... total face value of $400 billion. The Committee also directs the Desk to maintain its existing policy of...- backed securities in order to maintain the total face value of domestic securities at approximately $2.6...

Facial protection conferred by cycle safety helmets: use of digitized image processing to develop a new nondestructive test.

PubMed

Harrison, M; Shepherd, J P

1997-07-01

Cycle safety helmets are designed to prevent head injury. Although most commercially available helmets conform to one of several national and international standards, individual designs differ widely, particularly in relation to face coverage. A method was developed to assess the potential for the differing designs to protect the face from injury. A nonimpact test was assessed, using digitized image-processing software (Digithurst Ltd.) to measure the shadow cast by a helmet rim under a collimated plane light source onto the face of a mannequin headform. Twelve helmet designs available internationally were tested and ranked with respect to the direct protection conferred (area of the face directly covered by the helmet) and indirect protection (area of the face shaded). The three highest-ranking helmets for direct protection (Rosebank Stackhat, Asphalt Warrior, and Lazer Voyager) also ranked the highest for indirect protection. These helmets were more inferiorly extended and were of a more bulky construction. It was concluded that the dimensions of cycle helmets in relation to face coverage are crucial in influencing the extent to which facial protection is conferred. International test standards need urgent revision to ensure that face coverage is optimized. Lower-face protection could be achieved through incorporation of a lower-face bar to cycle helmets.

Face-to-face: Perceived personal relevance amplifies face processing.

PubMed

Bublatzky, Florian; Pittig, Andre; Schupp, Harald T; Alpers, Georg W

2017-05-01

The human face conveys emotional and social information, but it is not well understood how these two aspects influence face perception. In order to model a group situation, two faces displaying happy, neutral or angry expressions were presented. Importantly, faces were either facing the observer, or they were presented in profile view directed towards, or looking away from each other. In Experiment 1 (n = 64), face pairs were rated regarding perceived relevance, wish-to-interact, and displayed interactivity, as well as valence and arousal. All variables revealed main effects of facial expression (emotional > neutral), face orientation (facing observer > towards > away) and interactions showed that evaluation of emotional faces strongly varies with their orientation. Experiment 2 (n = 33) examined the temporal dynamics of perceptual-attentional processing of these face constellations with event-related potentials. Processing of emotional and neutral faces differed significantly in N170 amplitudes, early posterior negativity (EPN), and sustained positive potentials. Importantly, selective emotional face processing varied as a function of face orientation, indicating early emotion-specific (N170, EPN) and late threat-specific effects (LPP, sustained positivity). Taken together, perceived personal relevance to the observer-conveyed by facial expression and face direction-amplifies emotional face processing within triadic group situations. © The Author (2017). Published by Oxford University Press.

Culture, gaze and the neural processing of fear expressions

PubMed Central

Franklin, Robert G.; Rule, Nicholas O.; Freeman, Jonathan B.; Kveraga, Kestutis; Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Yoshikawa, Sakiko; Ambady, Nalini

2010-01-01

The direction of others’ eye gaze has important influences on how we perceive their emotional expressions. Here, we examined differences in neural activation to direct- versus averted-gaze fear faces as a function of culture of the participant (Japanese versus US Caucasian), culture of the stimulus face (Japanese versus US Caucasian), and the relation between the two. We employed a previously validated paradigm to examine differences in neural activation in response to rapidly presented direct- versus averted-fear expressions, finding clear evidence for a culturally determined role of gaze in the processing of fear. Greater neural responsivity was apparent to averted- versus direct-gaze fear in several regions related to face and emotion processing, including bilateral amygdalae, when posed on same-culture faces, whereas greater response to direct- versus averted-gaze fear was apparent in these same regions when posed on other-culture faces. We also found preliminary evidence for intercultural variation including differential responses across participants to Japanese versus US Caucasian stimuli, and to a lesser degree differences in how Japanese and US Caucasian participants responded to these stimuli. These findings reveal a meaningful role of culture in the processing of eye gaze and emotion, and highlight their interactive influences in neural processing. PMID:20019073

Illumination normalization of face image based on illuminant direction estimation and improved Retinex.

PubMed

Yi, Jizheng; Mao, Xia; Chen, Lijiang; Xue, Yuli; Rovetta, Alberto; Caleanu, Catalin-Daniel

2015-01-01

Illumination normalization of face image for face recognition and facial expression recognition is one of the most frequent and difficult problems in image processing. In order to obtain a face image with normal illumination, our method firstly divides the input face image into sixteen local regions and calculates the edge level percentage in each of them. Secondly, three local regions, which meet the requirements of lower complexity and larger average gray value, are selected to calculate the final illuminant direction according to the error function between the measured intensity and the calculated intensity, and the constraint function for an infinite light source model. After knowing the final illuminant direction of the input face image, the Retinex algorithm is improved from two aspects: (1) we optimize the surround function; (2) we intercept the values in both ends of histogram of face image, determine the range of gray levels, and stretch the range of gray levels into the dynamic range of display device. Finally, we achieve illumination normalization and get the final face image. Unlike previous illumination normalization approaches, the method proposed in this paper does not require any training step or any knowledge of 3D face and reflective surface model. The experimental results using extended Yale face database B and CMU-PIE show that our method achieves better normalization effect comparing with the existing techniques.

Dark matter self-interactions from a general spin-0 mediator

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Kahlhoefer, Felix; Schmidt-Hoberg, Kai; Wild, Sebastian, E-mail: felix.kahlhoefer@desy.de, E-mail: kai.schmidt-hoberg@desy.de, E-mail: sebastian.wild@desy.de

2017-08-01

Dark matter particles interacting via the exchange of very light spin-0 mediators can have large self-interaction rates and obtain their relic abundance from thermal freeze-out. At the same time, these models face strong bounds from direct and indirect probes of dark matter as well as a number of constraints on the properties of the mediator. We investigate whether these constraints can be consistent with having observable effects from dark matter self-interactions in astrophysical systems. For the case of a mediator with purely scalar couplings we point out the highly relevant impact of low-threshold direct detection experiments like CRESST-II, which essentiallymore » rule out the simplest realization of this model. These constraints can be significantly relaxed if the mediator has CP-violating couplings, but then the model faces strong constraints from CMB measurements, which can only be avoided in special regions of parameter space.« less

Experiences of older people following the introduction of consumer-directed care to home care packages: A qualitative descriptive study.

PubMed

Day, Jenny; Thorington Taylor, Ann C; Hunter, Sharyn; Summons, Peter; van der Riet, Pamela; Harris, Margaret; Maguire, Jane; Dilworth, Sophie; Jeong, Sarah; Bellchambers, Helen; Haydon, Gunilla; Higgins, Isabel

2018-06-12

To explore the experiences of older people receiving home care package (HCP) support following the introduction of consumer-directed care (CDC) by the Australian government on 1 July 2015. Thirty-one older people with existing HCP support from two service providers in regional New South Wales, Australia, participated in a face-to-face interview and/or a qualitative survey. Analysis revealed the theme of Choices: Preferences, constraints, balancing and choosing. Participants described choosing to live at home with HCP support; however, they were constrained by poor communication and information about service changes and options, personal budgets and access to future care. HCP services remained largely unchanged during transition to CDC. Many aspects of the initial implementation of CDC were challenging for older people. Clear, relevant and timely communication and information about CDC and its consequences for consumers appear to be needed to enhance CDC. © 2018 AJA Inc.

Technology-based interventions for weight management: current randomized controlled trial evidence and future directions

PubMed Central

Buscemi, Joanna; Hawkins, Misty A. W.; Wang, Monica L.; Breland, Jessica Y.; Ross, Kathryn M.; Kommu, Anupama

2018-01-01

Obesity is a prevalent health care issue associated with disability, premature morality, and high costs. Behavioral weight management interventions lead to clinically significant weight losses in overweight and obese individuals; however, many individuals are not able to participate in these face-to-face treatments due to limited access, cost, and/or time constraints. Technological advances such as widespread access to the Internet, increased use of smartphones, and newer behavioral self-monitoring tools have resulted in the development of a variety of eHealth weight management programs. In the present paper, a summary of the most current literature is provided along with potential solutions to methodological challenges (e.g., high attrition, minimal participant racial/ethnic diversity, heterogeneity of technology delivery modes). Dissemination and policy implications will be highlighted as future directions for the field of eHealth weight management. PMID:27783259

Bioprofiling of unknown antibiotics in herbal extracts: Development of a streamlined direct bioautography using Bacillus subtilis linked to mass spectrometry.

PubMed

Jamshidi-Aidji, Maryam; Morlock, Gertrud E

2015-11-13

Working in the field of profiling and identification of bioactive compounds in herbal extracts is faced with the challenge that common chromatographic methods do not directly link to bioactive compounds. Direct bioautography, the combination of TLC/HPTLC with bioassays, linked to structure elucidating techniques is demonstrated to overcome this challenge. The combination of TLC and Bacillus subtilis bioassay was already demonstrated to detect the antibiotics in samples. However, previous studies in this field were faced with some challenges, like being time-consuming, leading not to a homogenous plate background or being restricted to a non-acidic mobile phase. In this study, these aspects were investigated and a streamlined HPTLC-B. subtilis bioassay was developed that generated a homogenous plate background, which was crucial to yield a good baseline for biodensitometry. Two commonly used broths for B. subtilis and a self-designed medium were compared with regard to their capability of detection and baseline noise. The workflow developed allowed the use of acidic mobile phases for the first time. To prove this, 20 herbal extracts were screened for antimicrobial substances developed in parallel with an acidic mobile phase. The main antimicrobial substance in Salvia officinalis tincture detected was further characterized by microchemical reactions, Aliivibrio fischeri, β-glucosidase and acetylcholinesterase (bio)assays as well as mass spectrometry. Scientists looking for new herbal-based medicine may benefit from this time-saving and streamlined bioactivity profiling. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attentional processing of other's facial display of pain: an eye tracking study.

PubMed

Vervoort, Tine; Trost, Zina; Prkachin, Kenneth M; Mueller, Sven C

2013-06-01

The present study investigated the role of observer pain catastrophizing and personal pain experience as possible moderators of attention to varying levels of facial pain expression in others. Eye movements were recorded as a direct and continuous index of attention allocation in a sample of 35 undergraduate students while viewing slides presenting picture pairs consisting of a neutral face combined with either a low, moderate, or high expressive pain face. Initial orienting of attention was measured as latency and duration of first fixation to 1 of 2 target images (i.e., neutral face vs pain face). Attentional maintenance was measured by gaze duration. With respect to initial orienting to pain, findings indicated that participants reporting low catastrophizing directed their attention more quickly to pain faces than to neutral faces, with fixation becoming increasingly faster with increasing levels of facial pain expression. In comparison, participants reporting high levels of catastrophizing showed decreased tendency to initially orient to pain faces, fixating equally quickly on neutral and pain faces. Duration of the first fixation revealed no significant effects. With respect to attentional maintenance, participants reporting high catastrophizing and pain intensity demonstrated significantly longer gaze duration for all face types (neutral and pain expression), relative to low catastrophizing counterparts. Finally, independent of catastrophizing, higher reported pain intensity contributed to decreased attentional maintenance to pain faces vs neutral faces. Theoretical implications and further research directions are discussed. Copyright © 2013 International Association for the Study of Pain. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Examining the Early Evidence for Self-Directed Marriage and Relationship Education: A Meta-Analytic Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McAllister, Shelece; Duncan, Stephen F.; Hawkins, Alan J.

2012-01-01

This meta-analysis examines the efficacy of self-directed marriage and relationship education (MRE) programs on relationship quality and communication skills. Programs combining traditional face-to-face learning with self-directed elements are also examined, and traditional programs' effectiveness is included as a comparison point. Sixteen studies…

Combined Effects of Gaze and Orientation of Faces on Person Judgments in Social Situations

PubMed Central

Kaisler, Raphaela E.; Leder, Helmut

2017-01-01

In social situations, faces of others can vary simultaneously in gaze and orientation. How these variations affect different kinds of social judgments, such as attractiveness or trustworthiness, is only partly understood. Therefore, we studied how different gaze directions, head angles, but also levels of facial attractiveness affect perceived attractiveness and trustworthiness. We always presented pairs of faces – either two average attractive faces or a highly attractive together with a less attractive face. We also varied gaze and head angles showing faces in three different orientations, front, three-quarter and profile view. In Experiment 1 (N = 62), participants rated averted gaze in three-quarter views as more attractive than in front and profile views, and evaluated faces with direct gaze in front views as most trustworthy. Moreover, faces that were being looked at by another face were seen as more attractive. Independent of the head orientation or gaze direction, highly attractive faces were rated as more attractive and more trustworthy. In Experiment 2 (N = 54), we found that the three-quarter advantage vanished when the second face was blurred during judgments, which demonstrates the importance of the presence of another person-as in a triadic social situation-as well as the importance of their visible gaze. The findings emphasize that social evaluations such as trustworthiness are unaffected by the esthetic advantage of three-quarter views of two average attractive faces, and that the effect of a faces’ attractiveness is more powerful than the more subtle effects of gaze and orientations. PMID:28275364

NCLB Cases Face Hurdles in the Courts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hendrie, Caroline

2005-01-01

When cobbling together the landmark No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, Congress quietly tacked on an unusual provision that says the law does not require states or school districts "to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this act." Little noticed at the time and lifted directly from an earlier version of the law enacted…

Restructuring, Reallocation and Retrenchment at the Same Time: The Dutch Universities. AIR 1983 Annual Forum Paper.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Dijkman, Frank G.; Savenije, Bas S.

Conditions and management procedures used in Dutch universities are discussed. Attention is directed to: (1) the structure of higher education in the Netherlands -- especially the University of Utrecht, its administrative procedures, and decision-making process; (2) the nature of the problems the university faced and the ineffective way in which…

Teachers' Perceptions of Youth with Obesity in the Classroom

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Wilson, Shana M.; Smith, Aimee W.; Wildman, Beth G.

2015-01-01

Pediatric obesity is a widespread health concern and youth with obesity face teasing and ridicule, which can lead to academic difficulties (e.g., falling behind from missed class time). Teachers have a direct role in how children are treated by peers. We examined how teachers' views of children with obesity differ from their views of children with…

A New Breed of Volunteer Calls for a New Volunteer Culture

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

McKee, Thomas

2012-01-01

PTAs have always faced the challenge of competing for volunteer time. A PTA's primary volunteer base is made up of parents of public school children, and parents are being pulled in many directions, as their children are more engaged than ever in multiple extracurricular activities that may have their own specialized parent groups. Parents with…

30 CFR 75.1325 - Firing procedures.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

...) Shots shall be fired by a qualified person or a person working in the presence of and under the direction of a qualified person. (b) Only one face in a working place shall be blasted at a time, except... kerf and no more than a total of 20 shots connected in a single series are fired in the round. A permit...

30 CFR 75.1325 - Firing procedures.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

...) Shots shall be fired by a qualified person or a person working in the presence of and under the direction of a qualified person. (b) Only one face in a working place shall be blasted at a time, except... kerf and no more than a total of 20 shots connected in a single series are fired in the round. A permit...

30 CFR 75.1325 - Firing procedures.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

...) Shots shall be fired by a qualified person or a person working in the presence of and under the direction of a qualified person. (b) Only one face in a working place shall be blasted at a time, except... kerf and no more than a total of 20 shots connected in a single series are fired in the round. A permit...

30 CFR 75.1325 - Firing procedures.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

...) Shots shall be fired by a qualified person or a person working in the presence of and under the direction of a qualified person. (b) Only one face in a working place shall be blasted at a time, except... kerf and no more than a total of 20 shots connected in a single series are fired in the round. A permit...

30 CFR 75.1325 - Firing procedures.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

...) Shots shall be fired by a qualified person or a person working in the presence of and under the direction of a qualified person. (b) Only one face in a working place shall be blasted at a time, except... kerf and no more than a total of 20 shots connected in a single series are fired in the round. A permit...

Transforming Education through the Arts

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Caldwell, Brian; Vaughan, Tanya

2011-01-01

This timely book takes up the challenge of maintaining programs in the arts in the face of unrelenting pressure from two directions; the increasing focus on literacy and numeracy in schools, teamed with the cut-backs in public funding that often affect the arts most severely. Drawing on the wealth of evidence already available on the impact of the…

Universities and Colleges as Economic Drivers: Measuring Higher Education's Role in Economic Development. Critical Issues in Higher Education

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lane, Jason E., Ed.; Johnstone, D. Bruce, Ed.

2012-01-01

Local, state, and national economies are facing unprecedented levels of international competition. The current fiscal crisis has hampered the ability of many governments in the developed world to directly facilitate economic growth. At the same time, many governments in the developing world are investing significant new resources into local…

3D quantitative analysis of early decomposition changes of the human face.

PubMed

Caplova, Zuzana; Gibelli, Daniele Maria; Poppa, Pasquale; Cummaudo, Marco; Obertova, Zuzana; Sforza, Chiarella; Cattaneo, Cristina

2018-03-01

Decomposition of the human body and human face is influenced, among other things, by environmental conditions. The early decomposition changes that modify the appearance of the face may hamper the recognition and identification of the deceased. Quantitative assessment of those changes may provide important information for forensic identification. This report presents a pilot 3D quantitative approach of tracking early decomposition changes of a single cadaver in controlled environmental conditions by summarizing the change with weekly morphological descriptions. The root mean square (RMS) value was used to evaluate the changes of the face after death. The results showed a high correlation (r = 0.863) between the measured RMS and the time since death. RMS values of each scan are presented, as well as the average weekly RMS values. The quantification of decomposition changes could improve the accuracy of antemortem facial approximation and potentially could allow the direct comparisons of antemortem and postmortem 3D scans.

Human face processing is tuned to sexual age preferences

PubMed Central

Ponseti, J.; Granert, O.; van Eimeren, T.; Jansen, O.; Wolff, S.; Beier, K.; Deuschl, G.; Bosinski, H.; Siebner, H.

2014-01-01

Human faces can motivate nurturing behaviour or sexual behaviour when adults see a child or an adult face, respectively. This suggests that face processing is tuned to detecting age cues of sexual maturity to stimulate the appropriate reproductive behaviour: either caretaking or mating. In paedophilia, sexual attraction is directed to sexually immature children. Therefore, we hypothesized that brain networks that normally are tuned to mature faces of the preferred gender show an abnormal tuning to sexual immature faces in paedophilia. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test directly for the existence of a network which is tuned to face cues of sexual maturity. During fMRI, participants sexually attracted to either adults or children were exposed to various face images. In individuals attracted to adults, adult faces activated several brain regions significantly more than child faces. These brain regions comprised areas known to be implicated in face processing, and sexual processing, including occipital areas, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and, subcortically, the putamen and nucleus caudatus. The same regions were activated in paedophiles, but with a reversed preferential response pattern. PMID:24850896

Media use, face-to-face communication, media multitasking, and social well-being among 8- to 12-year-old girls.

PubMed

Pea, Roy; Nass, Clifford; Meheula, Lyn; Rance, Marcus; Kumar, Aman; Bamford, Holden; Nass, Matthew; Simha, Aneesh; Stillerman, Benjamin; Yang, Steven; Zhou, Michael

2012-03-01

An online survey of 3,461 North American girls ages 8-12 conducted in the summer of 2010 through Discovery Girls magazine examined the relationships between social well-being and young girls' media use--including video, video games, music listening, reading/homework, e-mailing/posting on social media sites, texting/instant messaging, and talking on phones/video chatting--and face-to-face communication. This study introduced both a more granular measure of media multitasking and a new comparative measure of media use versus time spent in face-to-face communication. Regression analyses indicated that negative social well-being was positively associated with levels of uses of media that are centrally about interpersonal interaction (e.g., phone, online communication) as well as uses of media that are not (e.g., video, music, and reading). Video use was particularly strongly associated with negative social well-being indicators. Media multitasking was also associated with negative social indicators. Conversely, face-to-face communication was strongly associated with positive social well-being. Cell phone ownership and having a television or computer in one's room had little direct association with children's socioemotional well-being. We hypothesize possible causes for these relationships, call for research designs to address causality, and outline possible implications of such findings for the social well-being of younger adolescents. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved.

A Walking Method for Non-Decomposition Intersection and Union of Arbitrary Polygons and Polyhedrons

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Graham, M.; Yao, J.

We present a method for computing the intersection and union of non- convex polyhedrons without decomposition in O(n log n) time, where n is the total number of faces of both polyhedrons. We include an accompanying Python package which addresses many of the practical issues associated with implementation and serves as a proof of concept. The key to the method is that by considering the edges of the original ob- jects and the intersections between faces as walking routes, we can e ciently nd the boundary of the intersection of arbitrary objects using directional walks, thus handling the concave casemore » in a natural manner. The method also easily extends to plane slicing and non-convex polyhedron unions, and both the polyhedron and its constituent faces may be non-convex.« less

The European Working Time Directive: a practical review for surgical trainees.

PubMed

Fitzgerald, J E F; Caesar, B C

2012-01-01

The European Working Time Directive (EWTD) 2003/88/EC is a Union Directive laying down minimum health and safety requirements for the organisation of working time. Originally primarily intended as labour law, its progressive introduction up to full implementation for doctors-in-training in August 2009 has substantially reduced duty-hours and caused widespread concern in surgery. Detrimental effects on the continuity of patient care, reduced availability of medical staff with associated rota difficulties, and the reduction in time for training junior doctors have been widely cited. Craft-specialities such as surgery and those providing an acute service have faced particular challenges. This review offers a practical guide for surgical trainees, explaining the European regulations in the context of current terms and conditions of doctor's employment in the UK. Information is provided on protecting training, opting-out, seeking remuneration for this, and ensuring doctors and patients are protected with appropriate medical indemnity cover in place. Copyright © 2012 Surgical Associates Ltd. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Stepped Care Versus Direct Face-to-Face Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder: A Randomized Effectiveness Trial.

PubMed

Nordgreen, Tine; Haug, Thomas; Öst, Lars-Göran; Andersson, Gerhard; Carlbring, Per; Kvale, Gerd; Tangen, Tone; Heiervang, Einar; Havik, Odd E

2016-03-01

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) stepped care model (psychoeducation, guided Internet treatment, and face-to-face CBT) compared with direct face-to-face (FtF) CBT. Patients with panic disorder or social anxiety disorder were randomized to either stepped care (n=85) or direct FtF CBT (n=88). Recovery was defined as meeting two of the following three criteria: loss of diagnosis, below cut-off for self-reported symptoms, and functional improvement. No significant differences in intention-to-treat recovery rates were identified between stepped care (40.0%) and direct FtF CBT (43.2%). The majority of the patients who recovered in the stepped care did so at the less therapist-demanding steps (26/34, 76.5%). Moderate to large within-groups effect sizes were identified at posttreatment and 1-year follow-up. The attrition rates were high: 41.2% in the stepped care condition and 27.3% in the direct FtF CBT condition. These findings indicate that the outcome of a stepped care model for anxiety disorders is comparable to that of direct FtF CBT. The rates of improvement at the two less therapist-demanding steps indicate that stepped care models might be useful for increasing patients' access to evidence-based psychological treatments for anxiety disorders. However, attrition in the stepped care condition was high, and research regarding the factors that can improve adherence should be prioritized. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Occupant Kinematics in Simulated Autonomous Driving Vehicle Collisions: Influence of Seating Position, Direction and Angle.

PubMed

Kitagawa, Yuichi; Hayashi, Shigeki; Yamada, Katsunori; Gotoh, Mitsuaki

2017-11-01

This two-part study analyzed occupant kinematics in simulated collisions of future automated driving vehicles in terms of seating configuration. In part one, a frontal collision was simulated with four occupants with the front seats reversed. The left front seat occupant was unbelted while the others were belted. In part two of the study, occupant restraint was examined in various seating configurations using a single seat model with a three-point seatbelt. The seat direction with respect to impact was considered as forward, rearward, and lateral facing in 45 degree increments. The effect of seat recline was also studied in the forward-facing and rear-facing cases by assuming three positions: driving position, resting position and relaxed position. Occupants were represented by human body finite element models. The results of part one showed that the front seat (rear-facing) occupants were restrained by the seatback, resulting in T1 forward displacement less than 100 mm; the rear seat occupants were restrained by the seatbelt resulting larger T1 forward displacement more than 500 mm. The results of the part two showed the directional dependence of occupant restraint. Greater T1 displacements were observed when the occupant faced lateral or front oblique. However, the seatbelt provided some restraint in all directions considered. The seatback generated contact force to the occupant when it was in the impact direction, including the lateral directions. The relaxed position allowed increased excursion compared to the driving position when the occupant faced rearward, but the magnitude of this increase was lower with lower impact speed.

Neural correlates of own- and other-race face recognition in children: A functional near-infrared spectroscopy study

PubMed Central

Ding, Xiao Pan; Fu, Genyue; Lee, Kang

2013-01-01

The present study used the functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) methodology to investigate the neural correlates of elementary school children’s own- and other-race face processing. An old-new paradigm was used to assess children’s recognition ability of own- and other-race faces. FNIRS data revealed that other-race faces elicited significantly greater [oxy-Hb] changes than own-race faces in the right middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus regions (BA9) and the left cuneus (BA18). With increased age, the [oxy-Hb] activity differences between own- and other-race faces, or the neural other-race effect (NORE), underwent significant changes in these two cortical areas: at younger ages, the neural response to the other-race faces was modestly greater than that to the own-race faces, but with increased age, the neural response to the own-race faces became increasingly greater than that to the other-race faces. Moreover, these areas had strong regional functional connectivity with a swath of the cortical regions in terms of the neural other-race effect that also changed with increased age. We also found significant and positive correlations between the behavioral other-race effect (reaction time) and the neural other-race effect in the right middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus regions (BA9). These results taken together suggest that children, like adults, devote different amounts of neural resources to processing own- and other-race faces, but the size and direction of the neural other-race effect and associated functional regional connectivity change with increased age. PMID:23891903

Neural correlates of own- and other-race face recognition in children: a functional near-infrared spectroscopy study.

PubMed

Ding, Xiao Pan; Fu, Genyue; Lee, Kang

2014-01-15

The present study used the functional Near-infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) methodology to investigate the neural correlates of elementary school children's own- and other-race face processing. An old-new paradigm was used to assess children's recognition ability of own- and other-race faces. FNIRS data revealed that other-race faces elicited significantly greater [oxy-Hb] changes than own-race faces in the right middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus regions (BA9) and the left cuneus (BA18). With increased age, the [oxy-Hb] activity differences between own- and other-race faces, or the neural other-race effect (NORE), underwent significant changes in these two cortical areas: at younger ages, the neural response to the other-race faces was modestly greater than that to the own-race faces, but with increased age, the neural response to the own-race faces became increasingly greater than that to the other-race faces. Moreover, these areas had strong regional functional connectivity with a swath of the cortical regions in terms of the neural other-race effect that also changed with increased age. We also found significant and positive correlations between the behavioral other-race effect (reaction time) and the neural other-race effect in the right middle frontal gyrus and inferior frontal gyrus regions (BA9). These results taken together suggest that children, like adults, devote different amounts of neural resources to processing own- and other-race faces, but the size and direction of the neural other-race effect and associated functional regional connectivity change with increased age. © 2013.

Social approach and avoidance behaviour for negative emotions is modulated by endogenous oxytocin and paranoia in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Brown, Elliot C; Tas, Cumhur; Kuzu, Duygu; Esen-Danaci, Aysen; Roelofs, Karin; Brüne, Martin

2014-11-30

Patients with schizophrenia suffer from dysfunctional social behaviour. Social approach and avoidance (AA) has been associated with motor responses, as the affective valence and gaze direction of facial stimuli can bias push and pull motor tendencies. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of endogenous oxytocin in social AA behaviour in schizophrenia. Basal plasma oxytocin levels were collected from 28 patients who were then given a joystick-based Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT). Reaction times were recorded and AAT effect scores calculated for responses to happy and angry faces, which either had direct or averted gaze. Individual differences in basal oxytocin had a significant relationship with AAT responses, and patients with higher levels of oxytocin tended to avoid angry faces more. Furthermore, greater avoidance of angry faces was correlated with more severe psychotic (positive and general) symptoms and greater paranoia. This suggests that the endogenous effects of oxytocin may be specific to the interpretation of negative threatening emotions in schizophrenia patients, and also provides evidence that psychotic symptoms and paranoia can impact on social AA behaviour by heightening threat avoidance. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Prolonged Interruption of Cognitive Control of Conflict Processing Over Human Faces by Task-Irrelevant Emotion Expression

PubMed Central

Kim, Jinyoung; Kang, Min-Suk; Cho, Yang Seok; Lee, Sang-Hun

2017-01-01

As documented by Darwin 150 years ago, emotion expressed in human faces readily draws our attention and promotes sympathetic emotional reactions. How do such reactions to the expression of emotion affect our goal-directed actions? Despite the substantial advance made in the neural mechanisms of both cognitive control and emotional processing, it is not yet known well how these two systems interact. Here, we studied how emotion expressed in human faces influences cognitive control of conflict processing, spatial selective attention and inhibitory control in particular, using the Eriksen flanker paradigm. In this task, participants viewed displays of a central target face flanked by peripheral faces and were asked to judge the gender of the target face; task-irrelevant emotion expressions were embedded in the target face, the flanking faces, or both. We also monitored how emotion expression affects gender judgment performance while varying the relative timing between the target and flanker faces. As previously reported, we found robust gender congruency effects, namely slower responses to the target faces whose gender was incongruent with that of the flanker faces, when the flankers preceded the target by 0.1 s. When the flankers further advanced the target by 0.3 s, however, the congruency effect vanished in most of the viewing conditions, except for when emotion was expressed only in the flanking faces or when congruent emotion was expressed in the target and flanking faces. These results suggest that emotional saliency can prolong a substantial degree of conflict by diverting bottom-up attention away from the target, and that inhibitory control on task-irrelevant information from flanking stimuli is deterred by the emotional congruency between target and flanking stimuli. PMID:28676780

Judging Normality and Attractiveness in Faces: Direct Evidence of a More Refined Representation for Own-Race, Young Adult Faces.

PubMed

Zhou, Xiaomei; Short, Lindsey A; Chan, Harmonie S J; Mondloch, Catherine J

2016-09-01

Young and older adults are more sensitive to deviations from normality in young than older adult faces, suggesting that the dimensions of face space are optimized for young adult faces. Here, we extend these findings to own-race faces and provide converging evidence using an attractiveness rating task. In Experiment 1, Caucasian and Chinese adults were shown own- and other-race face pairs; one member was undistorted and the other had compressed or expanded features. Participants indicated which member of each pair was more normal (a task that requires referencing a norm) and which was more expanded (a task that simply requires discrimination). Participants showed an own-race advantage in the normality task but not the discrimination task. In Experiment 2, participants rated the facial attractiveness of own- and other-race faces (Experiment 2a) or young and older adult faces (Experiment 2b). Between-rater variability in ratings of individual faces was higher for other-race and older adult faces; reduced consensus in attractiveness judgments reflects a less refined face space. Collectively, these results provide direct evidence that the dimensions of face space are optimized for own-race and young adult faces, which may underlie face race- and age-based deficits in recognition. © The Author(s) 2016.

Detecting frontal ablation processes from direct observations of submarine terminus morphology

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fried, M.; Carroll, D.; Catania, G. A.; Sutherland, D. A.; Stearns, L. A.; Bartholomaus, T. C.; Shroyer, E.; Nash, J. D.

2017-12-01

Tidewater glacier termini couple glacier and ocean systems. Subglacial discharge emerging from the terminus produces buoyant plumes that modulate submarine melting, calving, fjord circulation and, in turn, changes in ice dynamics from back-stress perturbations. However, the absence of critical observational data at the ice-ocean interface limits plume and, by extension, melt models from incorporating realistic submarine terminus face morphologies and assessing their impact on terminus behavior at tidewater glaciers. Here we present a comprehensive inventory and characterization of submarine terminus face shapes from a side-looking, multibeam echo sounding campaign across Kangerdlugssuaq Sermerssua glacier, central-west Greenland. We combine these observations with in-situ measurements of ocean stratification and remotely sensed subglacial discharge, terminus positions, ice velocity, and ice surface datasets to infer the spectrum of processes sculpting the submarine terminus face. Subglacial discharge outlet locations are confirmed through observations of sediment plumes, localized melt-driven undercutting of the terminus face, and bathymetry of the adjacent seafloor. From our analysis, we differentiate terminus morphologies resulting from submarine melt and calving and assess the contribution of each process to the net frontal ablation budget. Finally, we constrain a plume model using direct observations of the submarine terminus face and conduit geometry. Plume model simulations demonstrate that the majority of discharge outlets are fed by small discharge fluxes, suggestive of a distributed subglacial hydrologic system. Outlets with the largest, concentrated discharge fluxes are morphologically unique and strongly control seasonal terminus position. At these locations, we show that the spatiotemporal pattern of terminus retreat is well correlated with time periods when local melt rate exceeds ice velocity.

Impact of participant incentives and direct and snowball sampling on survey response rate in an ethnically diverse community: results from a pilot study of physical activity and the built environment.

PubMed

Perez, Daniel F; Nie, Jason X; Ardern, Chris I; Radhu, Natasha; Ritvo, Paul

2013-02-01

Community-wide efforts to encourage healthy behaviours must respond to the needs of existing neighbourhoods, especially those where low physical activity (PA) is associated with social, economic, and cultural challenges. This study reports on the effect of direct and snowball sampling strategies and financial incentive levels on the response rates of a built environment and PA survey in a predominately urban, low-SES new-immigrant community. Women residing in the Jane-Finch neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario were selected to participate by quasi-random sampling, yielding a response rate of 41.5%. The survey completion rate per contact attempt increased 2-fold when incentives were increased from $10 to $20 and a further threefold following the increase from $20 to $30. Snowball sampled respondents were older, less likely to have full-time employment, and had lower educational attainment than directly sampled participants. With appropriate incentives, face-to-face contact, and snowball sampling, survey-based research is feasible within a low-SES, high minority population.

Hierarchical Encoding of Social Cues in Primate Inferior Temporal Cortex

PubMed Central

Morin, Elyse L.; Hadj-Bouziane, Fadila; Stokes, Mark; Ungerleider, Leslie G.; Bell, Andrew H.

2015-01-01

Faces convey information about identity and emotional state, both of which are important for our social interactions. Models of face processing propose that changeable versus invariant aspects of a face, specifically facial expression/gaze direction versus facial identity, are coded by distinct neural pathways and yet neurophysiological data supporting this separation are incomplete. We recorded activity from neurons along the inferior bank of the superior temporal sulcus (STS), while monkeys viewed images of conspecific faces and non-face control stimuli. Eight monkey identities were used, each presented with 3 different facial expressions (neutral, fear grin, and threat). All facial expressions were displayed with both a direct and averted gaze. In the posterior STS, we found that about one-quarter of face-responsive neurons are sensitive to social cues, the majority of which being sensitive to only one of these cues. In contrast, in anterior STS, not only did the proportion of neurons sensitive to social cues increase, but so too did the proportion of neurons sensitive to conjunctions of identity with either gaze direction or expression. These data support a convergence of signals related to faces as one moves anteriorly along the inferior bank of the STS, which forms a fundamental part of the face-processing network. PMID:24836688

A Preliminary Investigation of Self-Directed Learning Activities in a Non-Formal Blended Learning Environment

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Schwier, Richard A.; Morrison, Dirk; Daniel, Ben K.

2009-01-01

This research considers how professional participants in a non-formal self-directed learning environment (NFSDL) made use of self-directed learning activities in a blended face-to-face and on line learning professional development course. The learning environment for the study was a professional development seminar on teaching in higher education…

The Influences of Face Inversion and Facial Expression on Sensitivity to Eye Contact in High-Functioning Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Vida, Mark D.; Maurer, Daphne; Calder, Andrew J.; Rhodes, Gillian; Walsh, Jennifer A.; Pachai, Matthew V.; Rutherford, M. D.

2013-01-01

We examined the influences of face inversion and facial expression on sensitivity to eye contact in high-functioning adults with and without an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Participants judged the direction of gaze of angry, fearful, and neutral faces. In the typical group only, the range of directions of gaze leading to the perception of eye…

Time course of implicit processing and explicit processing of emotional faces and emotional words.

PubMed

Frühholz, Sascha; Jellinghaus, Anne; Herrmann, Manfred

2011-05-01

Facial expressions are important emotional stimuli during social interactions. Symbolic emotional cues, such as affective words, also convey information regarding emotions that is relevant for social communication. Various studies have demonstrated fast decoding of emotions from words, as was shown for faces, whereas others report a rather delayed decoding of information about emotions from words. Here, we introduced an implicit (color naming) and explicit task (emotion judgment) with facial expressions and words, both containing information about emotions, to directly compare the time course of emotion processing using event-related potentials (ERP). The data show that only negative faces affected task performance, resulting in increased error rates compared to neutral faces. Presentation of emotional faces resulted in a modulation of the N170, the EPN and the LPP components and these modulations were found during both the explicit and implicit tasks. Emotional words only affected the EPN during the explicit task, but a task-independent effect on the LPP was revealed. Finally, emotional faces modulated source activity in the extrastriate cortex underlying the generation of the N170, EPN and LPP components. Emotional words led to a modulation of source activity corresponding to the EPN and LPP, but they also affected the N170 source on the right hemisphere. These data show that facial expressions affect earlier stages of emotion processing compared to emotional words, but the emotional value of words may have been detected at early stages of emotional processing in the visual cortex, as was indicated by the extrastriate source activity. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Probe shapes that measure time-averaged streamwise momentum and cross-stream turbulence intensity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Rossow, Vernon J. (Inventor)

1993-01-01

A method and apparatus for directly measuring the time-averaged streamwise momentum in a turbulent stream use a probe which has total head response which varies as the cosine-squared of the angle of incidence. The probe has a nose with a slight indentation on its front face for providing the desired response. The method of making the probe incorporates unique design features. Another probe may be positioned in a side-by-side relationship to the first probe to provide a direct measurement of the total pressure. The difference between the two pressures yields the sum of the squares of the cross-stream components of the turbulence level.

Category-Contingent Face Adaptation for Novel Colour Categories: Contingent Effects Are Seen Only after Social or Meaningful Labelling

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Little, Anthony C.; DeBruine, Lisa M.; Jones, Benedict C.

2011-01-01

A face appears normal when it approximates the average of a population. Consequently, exposure to faces biases perceptions of subsequently viewed faces such that faces similar to those recently seen are perceived as more normal. Simultaneously inducing such aftereffects in opposite directions for two groups of faces indicates somewhat discrete…

Beyond 'Inop': Logbook Communication Between Airline Mechanics and Pilots

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Munro, Pamela A.; Kanki, Barbara G.; Jordan, Kevin

2008-01-01

When mechanical discrepancies occur on aircraft, effective communication between pilots and mechanics can facilitate identification of the problem. A survey of pilots and mechanics was conducted to determine how often they were able to discuss discrepancies directly and to identify factors that influenced the detail they provided about discrepancies in the aircraft logbook. Logistical factors such as short turn times between flights and crew schedules appeared to present barriers to face-to-face meetings between pilots and mechanics. Guidelines for pilot logbook entries. Pilots reported receiving significantly less training on writing logbook entries and spent significantly less time making individual entries than mechanics. Mechanics indicated greater concern about the Federal Aviation Administration reading their entries than pilots. Mechanics indicated they had little opportunity to follow up with pilots to clarify a logbook entry once pilots departed the aircraft.

15. View of Tombigbee River Bridge facing same direction as ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

15. View of Tombigbee River Bridge facing same direction as in photograph no. MS-13-14 except this view is the underside of the bridge. - Tombigbee River Bridge, Spanning Tombigbee River at State Highway 182, Columbus, Lowndes County, MS

Adaptive neural control for a class of nonlinear time-varying delay systems with unknown hysteresis.

PubMed

Liu, Zhi; Lai, Guanyu; Zhang, Yun; Chen, Xin; Chen, Chun Lung Philip

2014-12-01

This paper investigates the fusion of unknown direction hysteresis model with adaptive neural control techniques in face of time-delayed continuous time nonlinear systems without strict-feedback form. Compared with previous works on the hysteresis phenomenon, the direction of the modified Bouc-Wen hysteresis model investigated in the literature is unknown. To reduce the computation burden in adaptation mechanism, an optimized adaptation method is successfully applied to the control design. Based on the Lyapunov-Krasovskii method, two neural-network-based adaptive control algorithms are constructed to guarantee that all the system states and adaptive parameters remain bounded, and the tracking error converges to an adjustable neighborhood of the origin. In final, some numerical examples are provided to validate the effectiveness of the proposed control methods.

The Role of Familiarity for Representations in Norm-Based Face Space

PubMed Central

Faerber, Stella J.; Kaufmann, Jürgen M.; Leder, Helmut; Martin, Eva Maria; Schweinberger, Stefan R.

2016-01-01

According to the norm-based version of the multidimensional face space model (nMDFS, Valentine, 1991), any given face and its corresponding anti-face (which deviates from the norm in exactly opposite direction as the original face) should be equidistant to a hypothetical prototype face (norm), such that by definition face and anti-face should bear the same level of perceived typicality. However, it has been argued that familiarity affects perceived typicality and that representations of familiar faces are qualitatively different (e.g., more robust and image-independent) from those for unfamiliar faces. Here we investigated the role of face familiarity for rated typicality, using two frequently used operationalisations of typicality (deviation-based: DEV), and distinctiveness (face in the crowd: FITC) for faces of celebrities and their corresponding anti-faces. We further assessed attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness ratings of the stimuli, which are potentially related to typicality. For unfamiliar faces and their corresponding anti-faces, in line with the predictions of the nMDFS, our results demonstrate comparable levels of perceived typicality (DEV). In contrast, familiar faces were perceived much less typical than their anti-faces. Furthermore, familiar faces were rated higher than their anti-faces in distinctiveness, attractiveness, likability and trustworthiness. These findings suggest that familiarity strongly affects the distribution of facial representations in norm-based face space. Overall, our study suggests (1) that familiarity needs to be considered in studies of mental representations of faces, and (2) that familiarity, general distance-to-norm and more specific vector directions in face space make different and interactive contributions to different types of facial evaluations. PMID:27168323

The Role of Familiarity for Representations in Norm-Based Face Space.

PubMed

Faerber, Stella J; Kaufmann, Jürgen M; Leder, Helmut; Martin, Eva Maria; Schweinberger, Stefan R

2016-01-01

According to the norm-based version of the multidimensional face space model (nMDFS, Valentine, 1991), any given face and its corresponding anti-face (which deviates from the norm in exactly opposite direction as the original face) should be equidistant to a hypothetical prototype face (norm), such that by definition face and anti-face should bear the same level of perceived typicality. However, it has been argued that familiarity affects perceived typicality and that representations of familiar faces are qualitatively different (e.g., more robust and image-independent) from those for unfamiliar faces. Here we investigated the role of face familiarity for rated typicality, using two frequently used operationalisations of typicality (deviation-based: DEV), and distinctiveness (face in the crowd: FITC) for faces of celebrities and their corresponding anti-faces. We further assessed attractiveness, likeability and trustworthiness ratings of the stimuli, which are potentially related to typicality. For unfamiliar faces and their corresponding anti-faces, in line with the predictions of the nMDFS, our results demonstrate comparable levels of perceived typicality (DEV). In contrast, familiar faces were perceived much less typical than their anti-faces. Furthermore, familiar faces were rated higher than their anti-faces in distinctiveness, attractiveness, likability and trustworthiness. These findings suggest that familiarity strongly affects the distribution of facial representations in norm-based face space. Overall, our study suggests (1) that familiarity needs to be considered in studies of mental representations of faces, and (2) that familiarity, general distance-to-norm and more specific vector directions in face space make different and interactive contributions to different types of facial evaluations.

DNA-testing for BRCA1/2 prior to genetic counselling in patients with breast cancer: design of an intervention study, DNA-direct.

PubMed

Sie, Aisha S; Spruijt, Liesbeth; van Zelst-Stams, Wendy A G; Mensenkamp, Arjen R; Ligtenberg, Marjolijn J; Brunner, Han G; Prins, Judith B; Hoogerbrugge, Nicoline

2012-05-08

Current practice for patients with breast cancer referred for genetic counseling, includes face-to-face consultations with a genetic counselor prior to and following DNA-testing. This is based on guidelines regarding Huntington's disease in anticipation of high psychosocial impact of DNA-testing for mutations in BRCA1/2 genes. The initial consultation covers generic information regarding hereditary breast cancer and the (im)possibilities of DNA-testing, prior to such testing. Patients with breast cancer may see this information as irrelevant or unnecessary because individual genetic advice depends on DNA-test results. Also, verbal information is not always remembered well by patients. A different format for this information prior to DNA-testing is possible: replacing initial face-to-face genetic counseling (DNA-intake procedure) by telephone, written and digital information sent to patients' homes (DNA-direct procedure). In this intervention study, 150 patients with breast cancer referred to the department of Clinical Genetics of the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre are given the choice between two procedures, DNA-direct (intervention group) or DNA-intake (usual care, control group). During a triage telephone call, patients are excluded if they have problems with Dutch text, family communication, or of psychological or psychiatric nature. Primary outcome measures are satisfaction and psychological distress. Secondary outcome measures are determinants for the participant's choice of procedure, waiting and processing times, and family characteristics. Data are collected by self-report questionnaires at baseline and following completion of genetic counseling. A minority of participants will receive an invitation for a 30 min semi-structured telephone interview, e.g. confirmed carriers of a BRCA1/2 mutation, and those who report problems with the procedure. This study compares current practice of an intake consultation (DNA-intake) to a home informational package of telephone, written and digital information (DNA-direct) prior to DNA-testing in patients with breast cancer. The aim is to determine whether DNA-direct is an acceptable procedure for BRCA1/2 testing, in order to provide customized care to patients with breast cancer, cutting down on the period of uncertainty during this diagnostic process.

Tunable pulsed narrow bandwidth light source

DOEpatents

Powers, Peter E.; Kulp, Thomas J.

2002-01-01

A tunable pulsed narrow bandwidth light source and a method of operating a light source are provided. The light source includes a pump laser, first and second non-linear optical crystals, a tunable filter, and light pulse directing optics. The method includes the steps of operating the pump laser to generate a pulsed pump beam characterized by a nanosecond pulse duration and arranging the light pulse directing optics so as to (i) split the pulsed pump beam into primary and secondary pump beams; (ii) direct the primary pump beam through an input face of the first non-linear optical crystal such that a primary output beam exits from an output face of the first non-linear optical crystal; (iii) direct the primary output beam through the tunable filter to generate a sculpted seed beam; and direct the sculpted seed beam and the secondary pump beam through an input face of the second non-linear optical crystal such that a secondary output beam characterized by at least one spectral bandwidth on the order of about 0.1 cm.sup.-1 and below exits from an output face of the second non-linear optical crystal.

49 CFR 236.774 - Movement, facing.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Movement, facing. 236.774 Section 236.774 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Movement, facing. The movement of a train over the points of a switch which face in a direction opposite to...

49 CFR 236.818 - Switch, facing point.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2010-10-01 2010-10-01 false Switch, facing point. 236.818 Section 236.818 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Switch, facing point. A switch, the points of which face traffic approaching in the direction for which...

49 CFR 236.818 - Switch, facing point.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2012-10-01 2012-10-01 false Switch, facing point. 236.818 Section 236.818 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Switch, facing point. A switch, the points of which face traffic approaching in the direction for which...

49 CFR 236.818 - Switch, facing point.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2013-10-01 2013-10-01 false Switch, facing point. 236.818 Section 236.818 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Switch, facing point. A switch, the points of which face traffic approaching in the direction for which...

49 CFR 236.818 - Switch, facing point.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2011-10-01 2011-10-01 false Switch, facing point. 236.818 Section 236.818 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Switch, facing point. A switch, the points of which face traffic approaching in the direction for which...

49 CFR 236.818 - Switch, facing point.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-10-01

... 49 Transportation 4 2014-10-01 2014-10-01 false Switch, facing point. 236.818 Section 236.818 Transportation Other Regulations Relating to Transportation (Continued) FEDERAL RAILROAD ADMINISTRATION... Switch, facing point. A switch, the points of which face traffic approaching in the direction for which...

Intramolecular trap formation and Förster energy transfer in the hexapyropheophorbide- a molecular system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Al-Omari, S.

2006-12-01

The photophysical properties of the hexapyropheophorbide- a (P6) compound were studied using both steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopy. It was found that neighboring pyropheophorbide- a (pyroPheo) molecules covalently linked to each other through carbon chains, which could stack. This structural property is the reason for the possibility of formation of two different types of energy traps, which could be resolved experimentally. One of them is formed via face-to-face stacking of two pyroPheo molecules with a direction of the transition dipole moments parallel to each other. The second type of energy trap gives the dominant contribution to the fluorescence signal at a registration wavelength having the oblique geometry or orthogonal direction of the transition dipole moments of the interacting pyroPheo molecules. In any case, the dipole-dipole Förster energy transfer between pyroPheo molecules caused a very fast and efficient delivery of the excitation to a trap. As a result, the fluorescence as well as the singlet oxygen quantum yields of P6 were reduced by four and three times, respectively, compared to those values of the reference bispyrophephorbide- a (P2) compound.

Human face processing is tuned to sexual age preferences.

PubMed

Ponseti, J; Granert, O; van Eimeren, T; Jansen, O; Wolff, S; Beier, K; Deuschl, G; Bosinski, H; Siebner, H

2014-05-01

Human faces can motivate nurturing behaviour or sexual behaviour when adults see a child or an adult face, respectively. This suggests that face processing is tuned to detecting age cues of sexual maturity to stimulate the appropriate reproductive behaviour: either caretaking or mating. In paedophilia, sexual attraction is directed to sexually immature children. Therefore, we hypothesized that brain networks that normally are tuned to mature faces of the preferred gender show an abnormal tuning to sexual immature faces in paedophilia. Here, we use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to test directly for the existence of a network which is tuned to face cues of sexual maturity. During fMRI, participants sexually attracted to either adults or children were exposed to various face images. In individuals attracted to adults, adult faces activated several brain regions significantly more than child faces. These brain regions comprised areas known to be implicated in face processing, and sexual processing, including occipital areas, the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex and, subcortically, the putamen and nucleus caudatus. The same regions were activated in paedophiles, but with a reversed preferential response pattern. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.

Japan’s Shift to a Proactive Defense Architecture: Challenges Faced by Industry, Government, and Society

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-06-01

DEW Directed-Energy Weapons DOD Department of Defense DPJ Democratic Party of Japan EM Electro-magnetic FMS Foreign Military Sales GSDF Ground...data.oecd.org/japan.htm. 75 Chris Matthews, “Forget Greece, Japan is the World’s Real Economic Time Bomb ,” Fortune, February 26, 2015, http...fortune.com/2015/02/26/japan-economic-time- bomb /. 25 to fund repair facilities, buy parts, or pay contractors? In terms of operating costs, will the JSDF

Reevaluating the Selectivity of Face-Processing Difficulties in Children and Adolescents with Autism

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Ewing, Louise; Pellicano, Elizabeth; Rhodes, Gillian

2013-01-01

There are few direct examinations of whether face-processing difficulties in autism are disproportionate to difficulties with other complex non-face stimuli. Here we examined discrimination ability and memory for faces, cars, and inverted faces in children and adolescents with and without autism. Results showed that, relative to typical children,…

Auditory to Visual Cross-Modal Adaptation for Emotion: Psychophysical and Neural Correlates.

PubMed

Wang, Xiaodong; Guo, Xiaotao; Chen, Lin; Liu, Yijun; Goldberg, Michael E; Xu, Hong

2017-02-01

Adaptation is fundamental in sensory processing and has been studied extensively within the same sensory modality. However, little is known about adaptation across sensory modalities, especially in the context of high-level processing, such as the perception of emotion. Previous studies have shown that prolonged exposure to a face exhibiting one emotion, such as happiness, leads to contrastive biases in the perception of subsequently presented faces toward the opposite emotion, such as sadness. Such work has shown the importance of adaptation in calibrating face perception based on prior visual exposure. In the present study, we showed for the first time that emotion-laden sounds, like laughter, adapt the visual perception of emotional faces, that is, subjects more frequently perceived faces as sad after listening to a happy sound. Furthermore, via electroencephalography recordings and event-related potential analysis, we showed that there was a neural correlate underlying the perceptual bias: There was an attenuated response occurring at ∼ 400 ms to happy test faces and a quickened response to sad test faces, after exposure to a happy sound. Our results provide the first direct evidence for a behavioral cross-modal adaptation effect on the perception of facial emotion, and its neural correlate. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For Permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Social appraisal influences recognition of emotions.

PubMed

Mumenthaler, Christian; Sander, David

2012-06-01

The notion of social appraisal emphasizes the importance of a social dimension in appraisal theories of emotion by proposing that the way an individual appraises an event is influenced by the way other individuals appraise and feel about the same event. This study directly tested this proposal by asking participants to recognize dynamic facial expressions of emotion (fear, happiness, or anger in Experiment 1; fear, happiness, anger, or neutral in Experiment 2) in a target face presented at the center of a screen while a contextual face, which appeared simultaneously in the periphery of the screen, expressed an emotion (fear, happiness, anger) or not (neutral) and either looked at the target face or not. We manipulated gaze direction to be able to distinguish between a mere contextual effect (gaze away from both the target face and the participant) and a specific social appraisal effect (gaze toward the target face). Results of both experiments provided evidence for a social appraisal effect in emotion recognition, which differed from the mere effect of contextual information: Whereas facial expressions were identical in both conditions, the direction of the gaze of the contextual face influenced emotion recognition. Social appraisal facilitated the recognition of anger, happiness, and fear when the contextual face expressed the same emotion. This facilitation was stronger than the mere contextual effect. Social appraisal also allowed better recognition of fear when the contextual face expressed anger and better recognition of anger when the contextual face expressed fear. 2012 APA, all rights reserved

Neural Codes for One's Own Position and Direction in a Real-World "Vista" Environment.

PubMed

Sulpizio, Valentina; Boccia, Maddalena; Guariglia, Cecilia; Galati, Gaspare

2018-01-01

Humans, like animals, rely on an accurate knowledge of one's spatial position and facing direction to keep orientated in the surrounding space. Although previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that scene-selective regions (the parahippocampal place area or PPA, the occipital place area or OPA and the retrosplenial complex or RSC), and the hippocampus (HC) are implicated in coding position and facing direction within small-(room-sized) and large-scale navigational environments, little is known about how these regions represent these spatial quantities in a large open-field environment. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans to explore the neural codes of these navigationally-relevant information while participants viewed images which varied for position and facing direction within a familiar, real-world circular square. We observed neural adaptation for repeated directions in the HC, even if no navigational task was required. Further, we found that the amount of knowledge of the environment interacts with the PPA selectivity in encoding positions: individuals who needed more time to memorize positions in the square during a preliminary training task showed less neural attenuation in this scene-selective region. We also observed adaptation effects, which reflect the real distances between consecutive positions, in scene-selective regions but not in the HC. When examining the multi-voxel patterns of activity we observed that scene-responsive regions and the HC encoded both spatial information and that the RSC classification accuracy for positions was higher in individuals scoring higher to a self-reported questionnaire of spatial abilities. Our findings provide new insight into how the human brain represents a real, large-scale "vista" space, demonstrating the presence of neural codes for position and direction in both scene-selective and hippocampal regions, and revealing the existence, in the former regions, of a map-like spatial representation reflecting real-world distance between consecutive positions.

Hierarchical Encoding of Social Cues in Primate Inferior Temporal Cortex.

PubMed

Morin, Elyse L; Hadj-Bouziane, Fadila; Stokes, Mark; Ungerleider, Leslie G; Bell, Andrew H

2015-09-01

Faces convey information about identity and emotional state, both of which are important for our social interactions. Models of face processing propose that changeable versus invariant aspects of a face, specifically facial expression/gaze direction versus facial identity, are coded by distinct neural pathways and yet neurophysiological data supporting this separation are incomplete. We recorded activity from neurons along the inferior bank of the superior temporal sulcus (STS), while monkeys viewed images of conspecific faces and non-face control stimuli. Eight monkey identities were used, each presented with 3 different facial expressions (neutral, fear grin, and threat). All facial expressions were displayed with both a direct and averted gaze. In the posterior STS, we found that about one-quarter of face-responsive neurons are sensitive to social cues, the majority of which being sensitive to only one of these cues. In contrast, in anterior STS, not only did the proportion of neurons sensitive to social cues increase, but so too did the proportion of neurons sensitive to conjunctions of identity with either gaze direction or expression. These data support a convergence of signals related to faces as one moves anteriorly along the inferior bank of the STS, which forms a fundamental part of the face-processing network. Published by Oxford University Press 2014. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.

Linking infant-directed speech and face preferences to language outcomes in infants at risk for autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Droucker, Danielle; Curtin, Suzanne; Vouloumanos, Athena

2013-04-01

In this study, the authors aimed to examine whether biases for infant-directed (ID) speech and faces differ between infant siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) (SIBS-A) and infant siblings of typically developing children (SIBS-TD), and whether speech and face biases predict language outcomes and risk group membership. Thirty-six infants were tested at ages 6, 8, 12, and 18 months. Infants heard 2 ID and 2 adult-directed (AD) speech passages paired with either a checkerboard or a face. The authors assessed expressive language at 12 and 18 months and general functioning at 12 months using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning (Mullen, 1995). Both infant groups preferred ID to AD speech and preferred faces to checkerboards. SIBS-TD demonstrated higher expressive language at 18 months than did SIBS-A, a finding that correlated with preferences for ID speech at 12 months. Although both groups looked longer to face stimuli than to the checkerboard, the magnitude of the preference was smaller in SIBS-A and predicted expressive vocabulary at 18 months in this group. Infants' preference for faces contributed to risk-group membership in a logistic regression analysis. Infants at heightened risk of ASD differ from typically developing infants in their preferences for ID speech and faces, which may underlie deficits in later language development and social communication.

A face-selective ventral occipito-temporal map of the human brain with intracerebral potentials

PubMed Central

Jonas, Jacques; Jacques, Corentin; Liu-Shuang, Joan; Brissart, Hélène; Colnat-Coulbois, Sophie; Maillard, Louis; Rossion, Bruno

2016-01-01

Human neuroimaging studies have identified a network of distinct face-selective regions in the ventral occipito-temporal cortex (VOTC), with a right hemispheric dominance. To date, there is no evidence for this hemispheric and regional specialization with direct measures of brain activity. To address this gap in knowledge, we recorded local neurophysiological activity from 1,678 contact electrodes implanted in the VOTC of a large group of epileptic patients (n = 28). They were presented with natural images of objects at a rapid fixed rate (six images per second: 6 Hz), with faces interleaved as every fifth stimulus (i.e., 1.2 Hz). High signal-to-noise ratio face-selective responses were objectively (i.e., exactly at the face stimulation frequency) identified and quantified throughout the whole VOTC. Face-selective responses were widely distributed across the whole VOTC, but also spatially clustered in specific regions. Among these regions, the lateral section of the right middle fusiform gyrus showed the largest face-selective response by far, offering, to our knowledge, the first supporting evidence of two decades of neuroimaging observations with direct neural measures. In addition, three distinct regions with a high proportion of face-selective responses were disclosed in the right ventral anterior temporal lobe, a region that is undersampled in neuroimaging because of magnetic susceptibility artifacts. A high proportion of contacts responding only to faces (i.e., “face-exclusive” responses) were found in these regions, suggesting that they contain populations of neurons involved in dedicated face-processing functions. Overall, these observations provide a comprehensive mapping of visual category selectivity in the whole human VOTC with direct neural measures. PMID:27354526

New steady-state quiescent high-confinement plasma in an experimental advanced superconducting tokamak.

PubMed

Hu, J S; Sun, Z; Guo, H Y; Li, J G; Wan, B N; Wang, H Q; Ding, S Y; Xu, G S; Liang, Y F; Mansfield, D K; Maingi, R; Zou, X L; Wang, L; Ren, J; Zuo, G Z; Zhang, L; Duan, Y M; Shi, T H; Hu, L Q

2015-02-06

A critical challenge facing the basic long-pulse high-confinement operation scenario (H mode) for ITER is to control a magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) instability, known as the edge localized mode (ELM), which leads to cyclical high peak heat and particle fluxes at the plasma facing components. A breakthrough is made in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in achieving a new steady-state H mode without the presence of ELMs for a duration exceeding hundreds of energy confinement times, by using a novel technique of continuous real-time injection of a lithium (Li) aerosol into the edge plasma. The steady-state ELM-free H mode is accompanied by a strong edge coherent MHD mode (ECM) at a frequency of 35-40 kHz with a poloidal wavelength of 10.2 cm in the ion diamagnetic drift direction, providing continuous heat and particle exhaust, thus preventing the transient heat deposition on plasma facing components and impurity accumulation in the confined plasma. It is truly remarkable that Li injection appears to promote the growth of the ECM, owing to the increase in Li concentration and hence collisionality at the edge, as predicted by GYRO simulations. This new steady-state ELM-free H-mode regime, enabled by real-time Li injection, may open a new avenue for next-step fusion development.

Anxiety and Sensitivity to Eye Gaze in Emotional Faces

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Holmes, Amanda; Richards, Anne; Green, Simon

2006-01-01

This paper reports three studies in which stronger orienting to perceived eye gaze direction was revealed when observers viewed faces showing fearful or angry, compared with happy or neutral, emotional expressions. Gaze-related spatial cueing effects to laterally presented fearful faces and centrally presented angry faces were also modulated by…

A novel fusion method of improved adaptive LTP and two-directional two-dimensional PCA for face feature extraction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Luo, Yuan; Wang, Bo-yu; Zhang, Yi; Zhao, Li-ming

2018-03-01

In this paper, under different illuminations and random noises, focusing on the local texture feature's defects of a face image that cannot be completely described because the threshold of local ternary pattern (LTP) cannot be calculated adaptively, a local three-value model of improved adaptive local ternary pattern (IALTP) is proposed. Firstly, the difference function between the center pixel and the neighborhood pixel weight is established to obtain the statistical characteristics of the central pixel and the neighborhood pixel. Secondly, the adaptively gradient descent iterative function is established to calculate the difference coefficient which is defined to be the threshold of the IALTP operator. Finally, the mean and standard deviation of the pixel weight of the local region are used as the coding mode of IALTP. In order to reflect the overall properties of the face and reduce the dimension of features, the two-directional two-dimensional PCA ((2D)2PCA) is adopted. The IALTP is used to extract local texture features of eyes and mouth area. After combining the global features and local features, the fusion features (IALTP+) are obtained. The experimental results on the Extended Yale B and AR standard face databases indicate that under different illuminations and random noises, the algorithm proposed in this paper is more robust than others, and the feature's dimension is smaller. The shortest running time reaches 0.329 6 s, and the highest recognition rate reaches 97.39%.

Layoffs and tradeoffs: production, quality, and safety demands under the threat of job loss.

PubMed

Probst, Tahira M

2002-07-01

Employees often face a conflict between production targets, quality assurance, and adherence to safety policies. In a time when layoffs are on the rise, it is important to understand the effects of employee job insecurity on these potentially competing demands. A laboratory experiment manipulated the threat of layoffs in a simulated organization and assessed its effect on employee productivity, product quality, and adherence to safety policies. Results suggest that student participants faced with the threat of layoffs were more productive, yet violated more safety rules and produced lower quality outputs, than participants in the control condition. Implications for organizations contemplating layoffs and directions for future research are discussed.

Kicking the digital dog: a longitudinal investigation of young adults' victimization and cyber-displaced aggression.

PubMed

Wright, Michelle F; Li, Yan

2012-09-01

Using the general strain theory as a theoretical framework, the present longitudinal study investigated both face-to-face and cyber victimization in relation to cyber-displaced aggression. Longitudinal data were collected from 130 (70 women) young adults who completed measures assessing their victimization (face-to-face and cyber), cyber aggression, and both face-to-face and cyber-displaced aggression. Findings indicated that victimization in both social contexts (face-to-face and cyber) contributed to cyber-displaced aggression 6 months later (Time 2), after controlling for gender, cyber aggression, face-to-face displaced aggression, and cyber-displaced aggression at Time 1. A significant two-way interaction revealed that Time 1 cyber victimization was more strongly related to Time 2 cyber-displaced aggression when young adults had higher levels of face-to-face victimization at Time 1. Implications of these findings are discussed as well as a call for more research investigating displaced aggression in the cyber context.

The rehabilitation of face recognition impairments: a critical review and future directions

PubMed Central

Bate, Sarah; Bennetts, Rachel J.

2014-01-01

While much research has investigated the neural and cognitive characteristics of face recognition impairments (prosopagnosia), much less work has examined their rehabilitation. In this paper, we present a critical analysis of the studies that have attempted to improve face-processing skills in acquired and developmental prosopagnosia, and place them in the context of the wider neurorehabilitation literature. First, we examine whether neuroplasticity within the typical face-processing system varies across the lifespan, in order to examine whether timing of intervention may be crucial. Second, we examine reports of interventions in acquired prosopagnosia, where training in compensatory strategies has had some success. Third, we examine reports of interventions in developmental prosopagnosia, where compensatory training in children and remedial training in adults have both been successful. However, the gains are somewhat limited—compensatory strategies have resulted in labored recognition techniques and limited generalization to untrained faces, and remedial techniques require longer periods of training and result in limited maintenance of gains. Critically, intervention suitability and outcome in both forms of the condition likely depends on a complex interaction of factors, including prosopagnosia severity, the precise functional locus of the impairment, and individual differences such as age. Finally, we discuss future directions in the rehabilitation of prosopagnosia, and the possibility of boosting the effects of cognitive training programmes by simultaneous administration of oxytocin or non-invasive brain stimulation. We conclude that future work using more systematic methods and larger participant groups is clearly required, and in the case of developmental prosopagnosia, there is an urgent need to develop early detection and remediation tools for children, in order to optimize intervention outcome. PMID:25100965

Investigation of directionally solidified InGaSb ternary alloys from Ga and Sb faces of GaSb(111) under prolonged microgravity at the International Space Station

PubMed Central

Nirmal Kumar, Velu; Arivanandhan, Mukannan; Rajesh, Govindasamy; Koyama, Tadanobu; Momose, Yoshimi; Sakata, Kaoruho; Ozawa, Tetsuo; Okano, Yasunori; Inatomi, Yuko; Hayakawa, Yasuhiro

2016-01-01

InGaSb ternary alloys were grown from GaSb (111)A and B faces (Ga and Sb faces) under microgravity conditions on board the International Space Station by a vertical gradient freezing method. The dissolution process of the Ga and Sb faces of GaSb and orientation-dependent growth properties of InGaSb were analysed. The dissolution of GaSb(111)B was greater than that of (111)A, which was found from the remaining undissolved seed and feed crystals. The higher dissolution of the Sb face was explained based on the number of atoms at that face, and its bonding with the next atomic layer. The growth interface shape was almost flat in both cases. The indium composition in both InGaSb samples was uniform in the radial direction and it gradually decreased along the growth direction because of segregation. The growth rate of InGaSb from GaSb (111)B was found to be higher than that of GaSb (111)A because of the higher dissolution of GaSb (111)B. PMID:28725736

Investigation of directionally solidified InGaSb ternary alloys from Ga and Sb faces of GaSb(111) under prolonged microgravity at the International Space Station.

PubMed

Nirmal Kumar, Velu; Arivanandhan, Mukannan; Rajesh, Govindasamy; Koyama, Tadanobu; Momose, Yoshimi; Sakata, Kaoruho; Ozawa, Tetsuo; Okano, Yasunori; Inatomi, Yuko; Hayakawa, Yasuhiro

2016-01-01

InGaSb ternary alloys were grown from GaSb (111)A and B faces (Ga and Sb faces) under microgravity conditions on board the International Space Station by a vertical gradient freezing method. The dissolution process of the Ga and Sb faces of GaSb and orientation-dependent growth properties of InGaSb were analysed. The dissolution of GaSb(111)B was greater than that of (111)A, which was found from the remaining undissolved seed and feed crystals. The higher dissolution of the Sb face was explained based on the number of atoms at that face, and its bonding with the next atomic layer. The growth interface shape was almost flat in both cases. The indium composition in both InGaSb samples was uniform in the radial direction and it gradually decreased along the growth direction because of segregation. The growth rate of InGaSb from GaSb (111)B was found to be higher than that of GaSb (111)A because of the higher dissolution of GaSb (111)B.

Dermatologic Features of Classic Movie Villains: The Face of Evil.

PubMed

Croley, Julie Amthor; Reese, Vail; Wagner, Richard F

2017-06-01

Dichotomous dermatologic depictions of heroes and villains in movies have been used since the silent film age. To evaluate the hero-villain skin dichotomy in film by (1) identifying dermatologic findings of the all-time top 10 American film villains, (2) comparing these dermatologic findings to the all-time top 10 American film heroes quantitatively and qualitatively, and (3) analyzing dermatologic portrayals of film villains in depth. In this cross-sectional study, dermatologic findings for film heroes and villains in mainstream media were identified and compared quantitatively using a χ2 test with α < .05, as well as qualitatively. The all-time top 10 American film villains and heroes were obtained from the American Film Institute 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains List. Primary outcomes include identification and frequencies of dermatologic findings of the top 10 film villains and of the top 10 film heroes. Six (60%) of the all-time top 10 American film villains have dermatologic findings, including cosmetically significant alopecia (30%), periorbital hyperpigmentation (30%), deep rhytides on the face (20%), multiple facial scars (20%), verruca vulgaris on the face (20%), and rhinophyma (10%). The top 10 villains have a higher incidence of significant dermatologic findings than the top 10 heroes (60% vs 0%; P = .03). Dermatologic findings of the all-time top 10 American villains are used in film to highlight the dichotomy of good and evil, which may foster a tendency toward prejudice in our society directed at those with skin disease.

Prediction of 3D chip formation in the facing cutting with lathe machine using FEM

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Prasetyo, Yudhi; Tauviqirrahman, Mohamad; Rusnaldy

2016-04-01

This paper presents the prediction of the chip formation at the machining process using a lathe machine in a more specific way focusing on facing cutting (face turning). The main purpose is to propose a new approach to predict the chip formation with the variation of the cutting directions i.e., the backward and forward direction. In addition, the interaction between stress analysis and chip formation on cutting process was also investigated. The simulations were conducted using three dimensional (3D) finite element method based on ABAQUS software with aluminum and high speed steel (HSS) as the workpiece and the tool materials, respectively. The simulation result showed that the chip resulted using a backward direction depicts a better formation than that using a conventional (forward) direction.

Judgments at Gaze Value: Gaze Cuing in Banner Advertisements, Its Effect on Attention Allocation and Product Judgments.

PubMed

Palcu, Johanna; Sudkamp, Jennifer; Florack, Arnd

2017-01-01

Banner advertising is a popular means of promoting products and brands online. Although banner advertisements are often designed to be particularly attention grabbing, they frequently go unnoticed. Applying an eye-tracking procedure, the present research aimed to (a) determine whether presenting human faces (static or animated) in banner advertisements is an adequate tool for capturing consumers' attention and thus overcoming the frequently observed phenomenon of banner blindness, (b) to examine whether the gaze of a featured face possesses the ability to direct consumers' attention toward specific elements (i.e., the product) in an advertisement, and (c) to establish whether the gaze direction of an advertised face influences consumers subsequent evaluation of the advertised product. We recorded participants' eye gaze while they viewed a fictional online shopping page displaying banner advertisements that featured either no human face or a human face that was either static or animated and involved different gaze directions (toward or away from the advertised product). Moreover, we asked participants to subsequently evaluate a set of products, one of which was the product previously featured in the banner advertisement. Results showed that, when advertisements included a human face, participants' attention was more attracted by and they looked longer at animated compared with static banner advertisements. Moreover, when a face gazed toward the product region, participants' likelihood of looking at the advertised product increased regardless of whether the face was animated or not. Most important, gaze direction influenced subsequent product evaluations; that is, consumers indicated a higher intention to buy a product when it was previously presented in a banner advertisement that featured a face that gazed toward the product. The results suggest that while animation in banner advertising constitutes a salient feature that captures consumers' visual attention, gaze cuing can be an effective tool for driving viewers' attention toward specific elements in the advertisement and even shaping consumers' intentions to purchase the advertised product.

Judgments at Gaze Value: Gaze Cuing in Banner Advertisements, Its Effect on Attention Allocation and Product Judgments

PubMed Central

Palcu, Johanna; Sudkamp, Jennifer; Florack, Arnd

2017-01-01

Banner advertising is a popular means of promoting products and brands online. Although banner advertisements are often designed to be particularly attention grabbing, they frequently go unnoticed. Applying an eye-tracking procedure, the present research aimed to (a) determine whether presenting human faces (static or animated) in banner advertisements is an adequate tool for capturing consumers’ attention and thus overcoming the frequently observed phenomenon of banner blindness, (b) to examine whether the gaze of a featured face possesses the ability to direct consumers’ attention toward specific elements (i.e., the product) in an advertisement, and (c) to establish whether the gaze direction of an advertised face influences consumers subsequent evaluation of the advertised product. We recorded participants’ eye gaze while they viewed a fictional online shopping page displaying banner advertisements that featured either no human face or a human face that was either static or animated and involved different gaze directions (toward or away from the advertised product). Moreover, we asked participants to subsequently evaluate a set of products, one of which was the product previously featured in the banner advertisement. Results showed that, when advertisements included a human face, participants’ attention was more attracted by and they looked longer at animated compared with static banner advertisements. Moreover, when a face gazed toward the product region, participants’ likelihood of looking at the advertised product increased regardless of whether the face was animated or not. Most important, gaze direction influenced subsequent product evaluations; that is, consumers indicated a higher intention to buy a product when it was previously presented in a banner advertisement that featured a face that gazed toward the product. The results suggest that while animation in banner advertising constitutes a salient feature that captures consumers’ visual attention, gaze cuing can be an effective tool for driving viewers’ attention toward specific elements in the advertisement and even shaping consumers’ intentions to purchase the advertised product. PMID:28626436

Anatomical connections of the functionally-defined “face patches” in the macaque monkey

PubMed Central

Saleem, Kadharbatcha S.

2017-01-01

The neural circuits underlying face recognition provide a model for understanding visual object representation, social cognition, and hierarchical information processing. A fundamental piece of information lacking to date is the detailed anatomical connections of the face patches. Here, we injected retrograde tracers into four different face patches (PL, ML, AL, AM) to characterize their anatomical connectivity. We found that the patches are strongly and specifically connected to each other, and individual patches receive inputs from extrastriate cortex, the medial temporal lobe, and three subcortical structures (the pulvinar, claustrum, and amygdala). Inputs from prefrontal cortex were surprisingly weak. Patches were densely interconnected to one another in both feedforward and feedback directions, inconsistent with a serial hierarchy. These results provide the first direct anatomical evidence that the face patches constitute a highly specialized system, and suggest that subcortical regions may play a vital role in routing face-related information to subsequent processing stages. PMID:27263973

"Just another pretty face": a multidimensional scaling approach to face attractiveness and variability.

PubMed

Potter, Timothy; Corneille, Olivier; Ruys, Kirsten I; Rhodes, Ginwan

2007-04-01

Findings on both attractiveness and memory for faces suggest that people should perceive more similarity among attractive than among unattractive faces. A multidimensional scaling approach was used to test this hypothesis in two studies. In Study 1, we derived a psychological face space from similarity ratings of attractive and unattractive Caucasian female faces. In Study 2, we derived a face space for attractive and unattractive male faces of Caucasians and non-Caucasians. Both studies confirm that attractive faces are indeed more tightly clustered than unattractive faces in people's psychological face spaces. These studies provide direct and original support for theoretical assumptions previously made in the face space and face memory literatures.

Perspectives on Psychological Science: Right Way/Wrong Way Symposium.

PubMed

Gunnar, Megan R

2017-07-01

In unpredictable times, it is perhaps even more important to contemplate the direction different fields of science are headed. In this article, I contemplate two directions of psychological science: the increasing integration of the study of psychology with other sciences and the concern of many sciences, including ours, with improving the reproducibility of our findings. Both of these are argued to be "right ways," but these directions also have challenges that, unless carefully addressed, could detract from our ability to move the science of psychology forward. I detail these challenges along with a consideration of how to chart our science through the unpredictable waters we face at this point in history.

Computational study of interfacial charge transfer complexes of 2-anthroic acid adsorbed on a titania nanocluster for direct injection solar cells

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Manzhos, Sergei; Kotsis, Konstantinos

2016-09-01

Adsorption and light absorption properties of interfacial charge transfer complexes of 2-anthroic acid and titania, promising for direct-injection solar cells, are studied ab initio. The formation of interfacial charge transfer bands is observed. The intensity of visible absorption is relatively low, highlighting a key challenge facing direct injection cells. We show that the popular strategy of using a lower level of theory for geometry optimization followed by single point calculations of adsorption or optical properties introduces significant errors which have been underappreciated: by up to 3 eV in adsorption energies, by up to 5 times in light absorption intensity.

Developmental changes in the primacy of facial cues for emotion recognition.

PubMed

Leitzke, Brian T; Pollak, Seth D

2016-04-01

There have been long-standing differences of opinion regarding the influence of the face relative to that of contextual information on how individuals process and judge facial expressions of emotion. However, developmental changes in how individuals use such information have remained largely unexplored and could be informative in attempting to reconcile these opposing views. The current study tested for age-related differences in how individuals prioritize viewing emotional faces versus contexts when making emotion judgments. To do so, we asked 4-, 8-, and 12-year-old children as well as college students to categorize facial expressions of emotion that were presented with scenes that were either congruent or incongruent with the facial displays. During this time, we recorded participants' gaze patterns via eye tracking. College students directed their visual attention primarily to the face, regardless of contextual information. Children, however, divided their attention between both the face and the context as sources of emotional information depending on the valence of the context. These findings reveal a developmental shift in how individuals process and integrate emotional cues. (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Cognitive Sciences

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

1997-01-01

Session MP4 includes short reports on: (1) Face Recognition in Microgravity: Is Gravity Direction Involved in the Inversion Effect?; (2) Motor Timing under Microgravity; (3) Perceived Self-Motion Assessed by Computer-Generated Animations: Complexity and Reliability; (4) Prolonged Weightlessness Reference Frames and Visual Symmetry Detection; (5) Mental Representation of Gravity During a Locomotor Task; and (6) Haptic Perception in Weightlessness: A Sense of Force or a Sense of Effort?

Japanese Women’s Perceptions of Intimate Partner Violence (IPV)

PubMed Central

Nagae, Miyoko; Dancy, Barbara L.

2013-01-01

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious problem in Japan. The purpose of this study was to describe IPV as perceived by Japanese adult females who were in a heterosexual marriage and lived with their spouses at the time of IPV. Using a cross-sectional retroactive qualitative description research design with individual face-to-face in-depth interviews, a purposive sample of 11 Japanese adult females from three urban areas in Japan was interviewed. All women reported that they and their husbands were born in Japan. At the time of the interview, the women had a mean age of 38 years whereas at the time of the IPV, their mean age was 28 years. Data was analyzed using the directed qualitative content analysis method. The results revealed that IPV occurred at the women’s homes primarily at night. All the women reported that they experienced physical and emotional abuse and 82% reported experiencing sexual abuse. Additionally, 64% reported that their parents-in-law emotionally abused them. Communication between these women and their husbands were characterized as unilateral with the husbands initiating and dominating the conversations with orders, lectures, and reprimands. The women identified that the cultural influences of the Japanese patriarchal system that reinforces male superiority and dominance and women inferiority were directly related to IPV. The implication is that health professionals need to actively advocate for effective legislation and policies to address IPV in Japan. PMID:19465572

Relationships between the quality of blended learning experience, self-regulated learning, and academic achievement of medical students: a path analysis.

PubMed

Kassab, Salah Eldin; Al-Shafei, Ahmad I; Salem, Abdel Halim; Otoom, Sameer

2015-01-01

This study examined the relationships between the different aspects of students' course experience, self-regulated learning, and academic achievement of medical students in a blended learning curriculum. Perceptions of medical students (n=171) from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain), on the blended learning experience were measured using the Student Course Experience Questionnaire (SCEQ), with an added e-Learning scale. In addition, self-regulated learning was measured using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Academic achievement was measured by the scores of the students at the end of the course. A path analysis was created to test the relationships between the different study variables. Path analysis indicated that the perceived quality of the face-to-face component of the blended experience directly affected the motivation of students. The SCEQ scale "quality of teaching" directly affected two aspects of motivation: control of learning and intrinsic goal orientation. Furthermore, appropriate course workload directly affected the self-efficacy of students. Moreover, the e-Learning scale directly affected students' peer learning and critical thinking but indirectly affected metacognitive regulation. The resource management regulation strategies, time and study environment, and effort regulation directly affected students' examination scores (17% of the variance explained). However, there were no significant direct relationships between the SCEQ scales and cognitive learning strategies or examination scores. The results of this study will have important implications for designing blended learning courses in medical schools.

Different brain activations between own- and other-race face categorization: an fMRI study using group independent component analysis

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Wei, Wenjuan; Liu, Jiangang; Dai, Ruwei; Feng, Lu; Li, Ling; Tian, Jie

2014-03-01

Previous behavioral research has proved that individuals process own- and other-race faces differently. One well-known effect is the other-race effect (ORE), which indicates that individuals categorize other-race faces more accurately and faster than own-race faces. The existed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies of the other-race effect mainly focused on the racial prejudice and the socio-affective differences towards own- and other-race face. In the present fMRI study, we adopted a race-categorization task to determine the activation level differences between categorizing own- and other-race faces. Thirty one Chinese participants who live in China with Chinese as the majority and who had no direct contact with Caucasian individual were recruited in the present study. We used the group independent component analysis (ICA), which is a method of blind source signal separation that has proven to be promising for analysis of fMRI data. We separated the entail data into 56 components which is estimated based on one subject using the Minimal Description Length (MDL) criteria. The components sorted based on the multiple linear regression temporal sorting criteria, and the fit regression parameters were used in performing statistical test to evaluate the task-relatedness of the components. The one way anova was performed to test the significance of the component time course in different conditions. Our result showed that the areas, which coordinates is similar to the right FFA coordinates that previous studies reported, were greater activated for own-race faces than other-race faces, while the precuneus showed greater activation for other-race faces than own-race faces.

Glued to Which Face? Attentional Priority Effect of Female Babyface and Male Mature Face

PubMed Central

Zheng, Wenwen; Luo, Ting; Hu, Chuan-Peng; Peng, Kaiping

2018-01-01

A more babyfaced individual is perceived as more child-like and this impression from babyface, as known as babyface effect, has an impact on social life among various age groups. In this study, the influence of babyfaces on visual selective attention was tested by cognitive task, demonstrating that the female babyface and male mature face would draw participants’ attention so that they take their eyes off more slowly. In Experiment 1, a detection task was applied to test the influence of babyfaces on visual selective attention. In this experiment, a babyface and a mature face with the same gender were presented simultaneously with a letter on one of them. The reaction time was shorter when the target letter was overlaid with a female babyface or male mature face, suggesting an attention capture effect. To explore how this competition influenced by attentional resources, we conducted Experiment 2 with a spatial cueing paradigm and controlled the attentional resources by cueing validity and inter-stimulus interval. In this task, the female babyface and male mature face prolonged responses to the spatially separated targets under the condition of an invalid and long interval pre-cue. This observation replicated the result of Experiment 1. This indicates that the female babyface and male mature face glued visual selective attention once attentional resources were directed to them. To further investigate the subliminal influence from a babyface, we used continuous flash suppression paradigm in Experiment 3. The results, again, showed the advantage of the female babyfaces and male mature faces: they broke the suppression faster than other faces. Our results provide primary evidence that the female babyfaces and male mature faces can reliably glue the visual selective attention, both supra- and sub-liminally. PMID:29559946

Glued to Which Face? Attentional Priority Effect of Female Babyface and Male Mature Face.

PubMed

Zheng, Wenwen; Luo, Ting; Hu, Chuan-Peng; Peng, Kaiping

2018-01-01

A more babyfaced individual is perceived as more child-like and this impression from babyface, as known as babyface effect, has an impact on social life among various age groups. In this study, the influence of babyfaces on visual selective attention was tested by cognitive task, demonstrating that the female babyface and male mature face would draw participants' attention so that they take their eyes off more slowly. In Experiment 1, a detection task was applied to test the influence of babyfaces on visual selective attention. In this experiment, a babyface and a mature face with the same gender were presented simultaneously with a letter on one of them. The reaction time was shorter when the target letter was overlaid with a female babyface or male mature face, suggesting an attention capture effect. To explore how this competition influenced by attentional resources, we conducted Experiment 2 with a spatial cueing paradigm and controlled the attentional resources by cueing validity and inter-stimulus interval. In this task, the female babyface and male mature face prolonged responses to the spatially separated targets under the condition of an invalid and long interval pre-cue. This observation replicated the result of Experiment 1. This indicates that the female babyface and male mature face glued visual selective attention once attentional resources were directed to them. To further investigate the subliminal influence from a babyface, we used continuous flash suppression paradigm in Experiment 3. The results, again, showed the advantage of the female babyfaces and male mature faces: they broke the suppression faster than other faces. Our results provide primary evidence that the female babyfaces and male mature faces can reliably glue the visual selective attention, both supra- and sub-liminally.

Current-direction dependence of the transport properties in single-crystalline face-centered-cubic cobalt films

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Xiao, X.; Liang, J. H.; Chen, B. L.

2015-07-28

Face-centered-cubic cobalt films are epitaxially grown on insulating LaAlO{sub 3}(001) substrates by molecular beam epitaxy. Transport measurements are conducted in different current directions relative to the crystal axes. We find that the temperature dependent anisotropic magnetoresistance ratio strongly depends on the current direction. However, the anomalous Hall effect shows isotropic behavior independent of the current direction. Our results demonstrate the interplay between the current direction and the crystalline lattice in single-crystalline ferromagnetic films. A phenomenological analysis is presented to interpret the experimental data.

Validity, Sensitivity, and Responsiveness of the 11-Face Faces Pain Scale to Postoperative Pain in Adult Orthopedic Surgery Patients.

PubMed

Van Giang, Nguyen; Chiu, Hsiao-Yean; Thai, Duong Hong; Kuo, Shu-Yu; Tsai, Pei-Shan

2015-10-01

Pain is common in patients after orthopedic surgery. The 11-face Faces Pain Scale has not been validated for use in adult patients with postoperative pain. To assess the validity of the 11-face Faces Pain Scale and its ability to detect responses to pain medications, and to determine whether the sensitivity of the 11-face Faces Pain Scale for detecting changes in pain intensity over time is associated with gender differences in adult postorthopedic surgery patients. The 11-face Faces Pain Scale was translated into Vietnamese using forward and back translation. Postoperative pain was assessed using an 11-point numerical rating scale and the 11-face Faces Pain Scale on the day of surgery, and before (Time 1) and every 30 minutes after (Times 2-5) the patients had taken pain medications on the first postoperative day. The 11-face Faces Pain Scale highly correlated with the numerical rating scale (r = 0.78, p < .001). When the scores from each follow-up test (Times 2-5) were compared with those from the baseline test (Time 1), the effect sizes were -0.70, -1.05, -1.20, and -1.31, and the standardized response means were -1.17, -1.59, -1.66, and -1.82, respectively. The mean change in pain intensity, but not gender-time interaction effect, over the five time points was significant (F = 182.03, p < .001). Our results support that the 11-face Faces Pain Scale is appropriate for measuring acute postoperative pain in adults. Copyright © 2015 American Society for Pain Management Nursing. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Fast support vector data descriptions for novelty detection.

PubMed

Liu, Yi-Hung; Liu, Yan-Chen; Chen, Yen-Jen

2010-08-01

Support vector data description (SVDD) has become a very attractive kernel method due to its good results in many novelty detection problems. However, the decision function of SVDD is expressed in terms of the kernel expansion, which results in a run-time complexity linear in the number of support vectors. For applications where fast real-time response is needed, how to speed up the decision function is crucial. This paper aims at dealing with the issue of reducing the testing time complexity of SVDD. A method called fast SVDD (F-SVDD) is proposed. Unlike the traditional methods which all try to compress a kernel expansion into one with fewer terms, the proposed F-SVDD directly finds the preimage of a feature vector, and then uses a simple relationship between this feature vector and the SVDD sphere center to re-express the center with a single vector. The decision function of F-SVDD contains only one kernel term, and thus the decision boundary of F-SVDD is only spherical in the original space. Hence, the run-time complexity of the F-SVDD decision function is no longer linear in the support vectors, but is a constant, no matter how large the training set size is. In this paper, we also propose a novel direct preimage-finding method, which is noniterative and involves no free parameters. The unique preimage can be obtained in real time by the proposed direct method without taking trial-and-error. For demonstration, several real-world data sets and a large-scale data set, the extended MIT face data set, are used in experiments. In addition, a practical industry example regarding liquid crystal display micro-defect inspection is also used to compare the applicability of SVDD and our proposed F-SVDD when faced with mass data input. The results are very encouraging.

Face processing regions are sensitive to distinct aspects of temporal sequence in facial dynamics.

PubMed

Reinl, Maren; Bartels, Andreas

2014-11-15

Facial movement conveys important information for social interactions, yet its neural processing is poorly understood. Computational models propose that shape- and temporal sequence sensitive mechanisms interact in processing dynamic faces. While face processing regions are known to respond to facial movement, their sensitivity to particular temporal sequences has barely been studied. Here we used fMRI to examine the sensitivity of human face-processing regions to two aspects of directionality in facial movement trajectories. We presented genuine movie recordings of increasing and decreasing fear expressions, each of which were played in natural or reversed frame order. This two-by-two factorial design matched low-level visual properties, static content and motion energy within each factor, emotion-direction (increasing or decreasing emotion) and timeline (natural versus artificial). The results showed sensitivity for emotion-direction in FFA, which was timeline-dependent as it only occurred within the natural frame order, and sensitivity to timeline in the STS, which was emotion-direction-dependent as it only occurred for decreased fear. The occipital face area (OFA) was sensitive to the factor timeline. These findings reveal interacting temporal sequence sensitive mechanisms that are responsive to both ecological meaning and to prototypical unfolding of facial dynamics. These mechanisms are temporally directional, provide socially relevant information regarding emotional state or naturalness of behavior, and agree with predictions from modeling and predictive coding theory. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The Foundations of Social Cognition: Studies on Face/Voice Integration in Newborn Infants

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Streri, Arlette; Coulon, Marion; Guellai, Bahia

2013-01-01

A series of studies on newborns' abilities for recognizing speaking faces has been performed in order to identify the fundamental cues of social cognition. We used audiovisual dynamic faces rather than photographs or patterns of faces. Direct eye gaze and speech addressed to newborns, in interactive situations, appear to be two good candidates for…

76 FR 76096 - Non-Face-to-Face Sale and Distribution of Tobacco Products and Advertising, Promotion, and...

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2011-12-06

... Advertising, Promotion, and Marketing of Tobacco Products; Extension of Comment Period AGENCY: Food and Drug... related to non-face-to- face sale and distribution of tobacco products; the advertising, promotion, and marketing of such products; and the advertising of tobacco products via the Internet, email, direct mail...

Can a Canine Companion Modify Cardiac Autonomic Reactivity and Tone in PTSD

DTIC Science & Technology

2017-01-01

happy expressions, each of which...Time Advantage for Emotive Scenes (msec) 0 200 400 600 800 1000 1200 Figure 2 Inspection Time Advantage for Emotive Faces (msec) Happy Faces...317k $317k $325k $325k Inspection Time Advantage for Emotive Faces (msec) Happy Faces Angry Faces No Canine Present Canine Present Fearful Faces -100 -50 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Cost analysis of conventional facial reconstruction procedures followed by face transplantation.

PubMed

Siemionow, M; Gatherwright, J; Djohan, R; Papay, F

2011-02-01

For the first time, this study analyzes the cost of multiple conventional reconstructions and face transplantation in a single patient. This patient is a 46-year-old female victim of a shotgun blast resulting in loss of multiple functional and aesthetic subunits. For over 5 years, she underwent multiple conventional reconstructions with suboptimal results. In December 2008, she became the recipient of the first U.S. face transplant. This has provided the unique opportunity to present the cost of 23 separate conventional reconstructive procedures and the first face transplant in the United States. The combined cost of conventional reconstructive procedures and the first U.S. face transplant was calculated to be $353 480 and $349 959, respectively. The combined cost posttransplant totaled $115 463. The direct cost pretransplant was $206 646, $232 893 peritransplant and $74 236 posttransplant. The two largest areas of cost utilization were surgical ($79 625; 38.5%) and nursing ($55 860; 27%), followed by anesthesia ($24 808; 12%) and pharmacy ($16 581; 8%). This study demonstrates that the cost of the first U.S. face transplant is similar to multiple conventional reconstructions. Although the cost of facial transplantation is considerable, the alleviation of psychological and physiological suffering, exceptional functional recovery and fulfillment of long-lasting hope for social reintegration may be priceless. ©2011 The Authors Journal compilation©2011 The American Society of Transplantation and the American Society of Transplant Surgeons.

Normative beliefs about aggression and cyber aggression among young adults: a longitudinal investigation.

PubMed

Wright, Michelle F; Li, Yan

2013-01-01

This longitudinal study examined normative beliefs about aggression (e.g., face-to-face, cyber) in relation to the engagement in cyber aggression 6 months later among 126 (69 women) young adults. Participants completed electronically administered measures assessing their normative beliefs, face-to-face and cyber aggression at Time 1, and cyber aggression 6 months later (Time 2). We found that men reported more cyber relational and verbal aggression when compared to women. After controlling for each other, Time 1 face-to-face relational aggression was positively related to Time 2 cyber relational aggression, whereas Time 1 face-to-face verbal aggression was positively related to Time 2 cyber verbal aggression. Normative beliefs regarding cyber aggression was positively related to both forms of cyber aggression 6 months later, after controlling for normative beliefs about face-to-face aggression. Furthermore, a significant two-way interaction between Time 1 cyber relational aggression and normative beliefs about cyber relational aggression was found. Follow-up analysis showed that Time 1 cyber relational aggression was more strongly related to Time 2 cyber relational aggression when young adults held higher normative beliefs about cyber relational aggression. A similar two-way interaction was found for cyber verbal aggression such that the association between Time 1 and Time 2 cyber verbal aggression was stronger at higher levels of normative beliefs about cyber verbal aggression. Results are discussed in terms of the social cognitive and behavioral mechanisms associated with the engagement of cyber aggression. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Selective attention towards painful faces among chronic pain patients: evidence from a modified version of the dot-probe.

PubMed

Khatibi, Ali; Dehghani, Mohsen; Sharpe, Louise; Asmundson, Gordon J G; Pouretemad, Hamidreza

2009-03-01

Evidence that patients with chronic pain selectively attend to pain-related stimuli presented in modified Stroop and dot-probe paradigms is mixed. The pain-related stimuli used in these studies have been primarily verbal in nature (i.e., words depicting themes of pain). The purpose of the present study was to determine whether patients with chronic pain, relative to healthy controls, show selective attention for pictures depicting painful faces. To do so, 170 patients with chronic pain and 40 age- and education-matched healthy control participants were tested using a dot-probe task in which painful, happy, and neutral facial expressions were presented. Selective attention was denoted using the mean reaction time and the bias index. Results indicated that, while both groups shifted attention away from happy faces (and towards neutral faces), only the control group shifted attention away from painful faces. Additional analyses were conducted on chronic pain participants after dividing them into groups on the basis of fear of pain/(re)injury. The results of these analyses revealed that while chronic pain patients with high and low levels of fear both shifted attention away from happy faces, those with low fear shifted attention away from painful faces, whereas those with high fear shifted attention towards painful faces. These results suggest that patients with chronic pain selectively attend to facial expressions of pain and, importantly, that the tendency to shift attention towards such stimuli is positively influenced by high fear of pain/(re)injury. Implications of the findings and future research directions are discussed.

Astronomy in the Service of Christianity

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

McCluskey, Stephen C.

Medieval European scholars drew on ancient traditions of astronomical knowledge to develop astronomical practices that served the needs of religious institutions by defining the sacred time and sacred space of religious ritual. Techniques employing the luni-solar calendar to determine the date of Easter, observations of the stars and Sun to determine the time of prayer, and orienting churches astronomically to face the symbolically important direction, east, were widely practiced. These varieties of religious astronomy were employed by persons of varying levels of education, working within a variety of contexts.

Expert and competent non-expert visual cues during simulated diagnosis in intensive care.

PubMed

McCormack, Clare; Wiggins, Mark W; Loveday, Thomas; Festa, Marino

2014-01-01

The aim of this study was to examine the information acquisition strategies of expert and competent non-expert intensive care physicians during two simulated diagnostic scenarios involving respiratory distress in an infant. Specifically, the information acquisition performance of six experts and 12 competent non-experts was examined using an eye-tracker during the initial 90 s of the assessment of the patient. The results indicated that, in comparison to competent non-experts, experts recorded longer mean fixations, irrespective of the scenario. When the dwell times were examined against specific areas of interest, the results revealed that competent non-experts recorded greater overall dwell times on the nurse, where experts recorded relatively greater dwell times on the head and face of the manikin. In the context of the scenarios, experts recorded differential dwell times, spending relatively more time on the head and face during the seizure scenario than during the coughing scenario. The differences evident between experts and competent non-experts were interpreted as evidence of the relative availability of task-specific cues or heuristics in memory that might direct the process of information acquisition amongst expert physicians. The implications are discussed for the training and assessment of diagnostic skills.

Perceived Animacy Influences the Processing of Human-Like Surface Features in the Fusiform Gyrus

PubMed Central

Shultz, Sarah; McCarthya, Gregory

2014-01-01

While decades of research have demonstrated that a region of the right fusiform gyrus (FG) responds selectively to faces, a second line of research suggests that the FG responds to a range of animacy cues, including biological motion and goal-directed actions, even in the absence of faces or other human-like surface features. These findings raise the question of whether the FG is indeed sensitive to faces or to the more abstract category of animate agents. The current study uses fMRI to examine whether the FG responds to all faces in a category-specific way or whether the FG is especially sensitive to the faces of animate agents. Animate agents are defined here as intentional agents with the capacity for rational goal-directed actions. Specifically, we examine how the FG responds to an entity that looks like an animate agent but that lacks the capacity for goal-directed, rational action. Region-of-interest analyses reveal that the FG activates more strongly to the animate compared with the inanimate entity, even though the surface features of both animate and inanimate entities were identical. These results suggest that the FG does not respond to all faces in a category-specific way, and is instead especially sensitive to whether an entity is animate. PMID:24905285

Driven to distraction: The nature and apparent purpose of interruptions in critical care and implications for HIT.

PubMed

Mamykina, Lena; Carter, Eileen J; Sheehan, Barbara; Stanley Hum, R; Twohig, Bridget C; Kaufman, David R

2017-05-01

To examine the apparent purpose of interruptions in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit and opportunities to reduce their burden with informatics solutions. In this prospective observational study, researchers shadowed clinicians in the unit for one hour at a time, recording all interruptions participating clinicians experienced or initiated, their starting time, duration, and a short description that could help to infer their apparent purpose. All captured interruptions were classified inductively on their source and apparent purpose and on the optimal representational media for fulfilling their apparent purpose. The researchers observed thirty-four one-hour sessions with clinicians in the unit, including 21 nurses and 13 residents and house physicians. The physicians were interrupted on average 11.9 times per hour and interrupted others 8.8 times per hour. Nurses were interrupted 8.6 times per hour and interrupted others 5.1 times per hour. The apparent purpose of interruptions included Information Seeking and Sharing (n=259, 46.3%), Directives and Requests (n=70, 12%), Shared Decision-Making (n=49, 8.8%), Direct Patient Care (n=36, 6.4%), Social (n=71, 12.7%), Device Alarms (n=28, 5%), and Non-Clinical (n=10, 1.8%); 6.6% were not classified due to insufficient description. Of all captured interruptions, 29.5% were classified as being better served with informational displays or computer-mediated communication. Deeper understanding of the purpose of interruptions in critical care can help to distinguish between interruptions that require face-to-face conversation and those that can be eliminated with informatics solutions. The proposed taxonomy of interruptions and representational analysis can be used to further advance the science of interruptions in clinical care. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Training for the future NHS: training junior doctors in the United Kingdom within the 48-hour European working time directive.

PubMed

Datta, Shreelatta T; Davies, Sally J

2014-01-01

Since August 2009, the National Health Service of the United Kingdom has faced the challenge of delivering training for junior doctors within a 48-hour working week, as stipulated by the European Working Time Directive and legislated in the UK by the Working Time Regulations 1998. Since that time, widespread concern has been expressed about the impact of restricted duty hours on the quality of postgraduate medical training in the UK, particularly in the "craft" specialties--that is, those disciplines in which trainees develop practical skills that are best learned through direct experience with patients. At the same time, specialist training in the UK has experienced considerable change since 2007 with the introduction of competency-based specialty curricula, workplace-based assessment, and the annual review of competency progression. The challenges presented by the reduction of duty hours include increased pressure on doctors-in-training to provide service during evening and overnight hours, reduced interaction with supervisors, and reduced opportunities for learning. This paper explores these challenges and proposes potential responses with respect to the reorganization of training and service provision.

Training for the future NHS: training junior doctors in the United Kingdom within the 48-hour European working time directive

PubMed Central

2014-01-01

Since August 2009, the National Health Service of the United Kingdom has faced the challenge of delivering training for junior doctors within a 48-hour working week, as stipulated by the European Working Time Directive and legislated in the UK by the Working Time Regulations 1998. Since that time, widespread concern has been expressed about the impact of restricted duty hours on the quality of postgraduate medical training in the UK, particularly in the “craft” specialties – that is, those disciplines in which trainees develop practical skills that are best learned through direct experience with patients. At the same time, specialist training in the UK has experienced considerable change since 2007 with the introduction of competency-based specialty curricula, workplace-based assessment, and the annual review of competency progression. The challenges presented by the reduction of duty hours include increased pressure on doctors-in-training to provide service during evening and overnight hours, reduced interaction with supervisors, and reduced opportunities for learning. This paper explores these challenges and proposes potential responses with respect to the reorganization of training and service provision. PMID:25560369

Latin America and the International Lending Organizations: The Ties that Bind.

DTIC Science & Technology

1980-07-23

necessary end Identify by block number) Argentina , Authoritarian Regimes, Brazil, Bureaucratic-Authoritar- 4 J ianism, Debt-Public and Private, Direct...domestic poli- cies to satisfy the requirements and gain the approval of the international financial community. Third, during times of financial crisis ...bility of debt service obligations constrain the options available to a government facing a debt crisis created by an absolute drop in export earnings or

Instructor Time Requirements to Develop and Teach Online Courses

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Freeman, Lee A.

2015-01-01

How much time does it take to teach an online course? Does teaching online take more or less time than teaching face-to-face? Instructors, department chairs, deans, and program administrators have long believed that teaching online is more time-consuming than teaching face-to-face. Many research studies and practitioner articles indicate…

Trap formation and energy transfer in the hexapyropheophorbide a - fullerene C 60 hexaadduct molecular system

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ermilov, E. A.; Hackbarth, St.; Al-Omari, S.; Helmreich, M.; Jux, N.; Hirsch, A.; Röder, B.

2005-06-01

The photophysical properties of the novel hexapyropheophorbide a - fullerene hexaadduct (FHP6) compound were studied using both steady-state and time-resolved spectroscopic methods. It was found that neighboring pyropheophorbide a (pyroPheo) molecules covalently linked to one fullerene moiety due to the length and high flexibility of carbon chains could stack with each other. This structural property is the reason for the possibility of formation of two different types of energy traps, which could be resolved experimentally. One of them is formed via face-to-face stacking of two pyroPheo molecules with parallel to each other direction of the transition dipole moments. The second type of energy trap gives the dominant contribution to the fluorescence signal at registration wavelengths having the oblique geometry or orthogonal direction of the transition dipole moments of the interacting pyroPheo molecules. In any case the dipole-dipole resonant Förster energy transfer between pyroPheo molecules coupled to one fullerene moiety caused a very fast and efficient delivery of the excitation to a trap. As result the fluorescence as well as the singlet oxygen quantum yields of FHP6 were reduced three and two times, respectively, compared to those values of the reference bis pyropheophorbide a - fullerene hexaadduct (FHP1) compound.

Recruitment of fish larvae and juveniles into two estuarine nursery areas with evidence of ebb tide use

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Pattrick, Paula; Strydom, Nadine

2014-08-01

Recruitment of larvae and early juveniles, against the ebb tide in the shallower, slower-flowing marginal areas of two permanently open estuaries in the Eastern Cape, South Africa was observed. To determine tidal, diel and seasonal variations of larval and juvenile fish recruitment, fyke nets were used during a 24-hour cycle over two years from December 2010 to October 2012. On either side of each estuary bank, two fyke nets with mouth openings facing opposite directions (i.e. one net facing the incoming or outgoing tide and the other facing the opposing direction) were used to sample fishes. The aims of this study were to determine if 1) on the flood tide, were the nets facing the incoming tide collecting more larvae and early juveniles recruiting into the estuarine nursery area, than the nets facing the opposing direction and 2) on the ebb tide, were the nets facing the sea, and hence the opposing direction of the outgoing ebb tide, collecting more fishes recruiting into the nursery against the ebb tide, than the nets facing the outgoing ebb tide? Larval and juvenile fish CPUE, species diversity and richness varied seasonally between estuarine systems and between diel and tidal conditions. Highest catches were recorded on the flood tide, which coincided with sunrise in the Swartkops Estuary. Greatest catches of larvae and early juveniles were observed during the ebb tide at night in the Sundays Estuary. On the ebb tide, higher catches of several dominant species and several commercially important fishery species, occurred in the fyke nets which faced the sea, indicating the early developmental stages of these fish species are not necessarily being lost from the nursery. These larvae and juveniles are actively swimming against the ebb tide in the shallower, slower-flowing marginal areas facilitating recruitment against ebb flow.

Agriculture and irrigation as potential drivers of urban heat island

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kumar, R.; Buzan, J. R.; Mishra, V.; Kumar, R.; Shindell, D. T.; Huber, M.

2017-12-01

More than half the population are urban dwellers and are most vulnerable to global environmental changes. Urban extents are more prone to intense heating as compared to the surroundings rural area. Presently about 33% of India's population lives in the urban area and is expected to rise steeply, so a better understanding of the phenomenon affecting the urban population is very much important. Urban Heat Island (UHI) is a well-known phenomenon which potentially affects energy consumption, spreading of diseases and mortality. In general, almost all (90%) of the major urban area of the country faces UHI at night time in the range (1-5 °C) while 60% of the regions face Urban Cool Island (UCI) in the range of -1 to 6 °C in day time. Our observations and simulations show that vegetation and irrigation in the surrounding non urban directly affects day time Urban Cool Island effects. This is due to the relative cooling by vegetation and irrigated lands in the vicinity of these urban regions. There is a contrasting variation in UHI/UCI intensities in different seasons and in different time of the day. Most of the urban regions face UHI effect in summers whereas this phenomenton reverses in winters. Daytime UCI is more prominent in the months of April and May due to minimum availability of moisture. We observed that apart from vegetation and irrigation, aerosol is also an important factor governing UHI phenomenon.

30 CFR 75.1507 - Emergency Response Plan; refuge alternatives.

Code of Federal Regulations, 2010 CFR

2010-07-01

... affirmative statement that the locations are— (i) Not within direct line of sight of the working face; and (ii... direct line of sight of the working face. (12) The maximum mine air temperature at each of the locations... 48 hours, the ERP shall detail advanced arrangements that have been made to assure that persons who...

30 CFR 75.524 - Electric face equipment; electric equipment used in return air outby the last open crosscut...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2011 CFR

2011-07-01

... the last open crosscut; maximum level of alternating or direct electric current between frames of equipment. The maximum level of alternating or direct electric current that exists between the frames of any... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2011-07-01 2011-07-01 false Electric face equipment; electric equipment...

30 CFR 75.524 - Electric face equipment; electric equipment used in return air outby the last open crosscut...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2014 CFR

2014-07-01

... the last open crosscut; maximum level of alternating or direct electric current between frames of equipment. The maximum level of alternating or direct electric current that exists between the frames of any... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2014-07-01 2014-07-01 false Electric face equipment; electric equipment...

30 CFR 75.524 - Electric face equipment; electric equipment used in return air outby the last open crosscut...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2013 CFR

2013-07-01

... the last open crosscut; maximum level of alternating or direct electric current between frames of equipment. The maximum level of alternating or direct electric current that exists between the frames of any... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2013-07-01 2013-07-01 false Electric face equipment; electric equipment...

30 CFR 75.524 - Electric face equipment; electric equipment used in return air outby the last open crosscut...

Code of Federal Regulations, 2012 CFR

2012-07-01

... the last open crosscut; maximum level of alternating or direct electric current between frames of equipment. The maximum level of alternating or direct electric current that exists between the frames of any... 30 Mineral Resources 1 2012-07-01 2012-07-01 false Electric face equipment; electric equipment...

Japanese women's perceptions of intimate partner violence (IPV).

PubMed

Nagae, Miyoko; Dancy, Barbara L

2010-04-01

Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a problem in Japan. The purpose is to describe IPV as perceived by a purposive sample of 11 Japanese adult females who were in a heterosexual marriage at the time of IPV. We used a cross-sectional, retroactive, qualitative description research design with individual, fact-to-face in depth interviews. At the time of the interview, the women had a mean age of 38 years and at the time of the IPV, a mean age of 28 years. Data were analyzed using the directed qualitative content analysis method. The results revealed that all women experienced physical and emotional abuse and 82% experienced sexual abuse. Communication between spouses was characterized as unilateral, with husbands initiating and dominating the conversation. The women identified the culture of the Japanese patriarchal system as directly influencing IPV. The implication is health professionals should actively advocate for effective legislation and policies to address IPV.

Impact of Emotion on Consciousness: Positive Stimuli Enhance Conscious Reportability

PubMed Central

Rømer Thomsen, Kristine; Lou, Hans C.; Joensson, Morten; Hyam, Jonathan A.; Holland, Peter; Parsons, Christine E.; Young, Katherine S.; Møller, Arne; Stein, Alan; Green, Alex L.; Kringelbach, Morten L.; Aziz, Tipu Z.

2011-01-01

Emotion and reward have been proposed to be closely linked to conscious experience, but empirical data are lacking. The anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) plays a central role in the hedonic dimension of conscious experience; thus potentially a key region in interactions between emotion and consciousness. Here we tested the impact of emotion on conscious experience, and directly investigated the role of the ACC. We used a masked paradigm that measures conscious reportability in terms of subjective confidence and objective accuracy in identifying the briefly presented stimulus in a forced-choice test. By manipulating the emotional valence (positive, neutral, negative) and the presentation time (16 ms, 32 ms, 80 ms) we measured the impact of these variables on conscious and subliminal (i.e. below threshold) processing. First, we tested normal participants using face and word stimuli. Results showed that participants were more confident and accurate when consciously seeing happy versus sad/neutral faces and words. When stimuli were presented subliminally, we found no effect of emotion. To investigate the neural basis of this impact of emotion, we recorded local field potentials (LFPs) directly in the ACC in a chronic pain patient. Behavioural findings were replicated: the patient was more confident and accurate when (consciously) seeing happy versus sad faces, while no effect was seen in subliminal trials. Mirroring behavioural findings, we found significant differences in the LFPs after around 500 ms (lasting 30 ms) in conscious trials between happy and sad faces, while no effect was found in subliminal trials. We thus demonstrate a striking impact of emotion on conscious experience, with positive emotional stimuli enhancing conscious reportability. In line with previous studies, the data indicate a key role of the ACC, but goes beyond earlier work by providing the first direct evidence of interaction between emotion and conscious experience in the human ACC. PMID:21494569

Geodetic analysis of disputed accurate qibla direction

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Saksono, Tono; Fulazzaky, Mohamad Ali; Sari, Zamah

2018-04-01

Muslims perform the prayers facing towards the correct qibla direction would be the only one of the practical issues in linking theoretical studies with practice. The concept of facing towards the Kaaba in Mecca during the prayers has long been the source of controversy among the muslim communities to not only in poor and developing countries but also in developed countries. The aims of this study were to analyse the geodetic azimuths of qibla calculated using three different models of the Earth. The use of ellipsoidal model of the Earth could be the best method for determining the accurate direction of Kaaba from anywhere on the Earth's surface. A muslim cannot direct himself towards the qibla correctly if he cannot see the Kaaba due to setting out process and certain motions during the prayer this can significantly shift the qibla direction from the actual position of the Kaaba. The requirement of muslim prayed facing towards the Kaaba is more as spiritual prerequisite rather than physical evidence.

The Development of Norm-Based Coding and Race-Specific Face Prototypes: An Examination of 5- and 8-Year-Olds' Face Space

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Short, Lindsey A.; Hatry, Alexandra J.; Mondloch, Catherine J.

2011-01-01

The current research investigated the organization of children's face space by examining whether 5- and 8-year-olds show race-contingent aftereffects. Participants read a storybook in which Caucasian and Chinese children's faces were distorted in opposite directions. Before and after adaptation, participants judged the normality/attractiveness of…

Post-Adoption Face-to-Face Contact with Birth Parents: Prospective Adopters' Views

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Turkington, Selina; Taylor, Brian J.

2009-01-01

The trend in adoption since the 1960s has been away from secrecy and towards greater openness; contact through an intermediary, and direct contact by letter, is now widely accepted. More controversial is the challenge of face-to-face contact with birth parents, and social workers involved in the decision-making process find themselves having to…

Helicopter flight investigation to determine the effects of a closed-circuit TV on performance of a precision sling-load handling task

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Dicarlo, D. J.; Kelley, H. L.; Spivey, D. L.

1974-01-01

Helicopter sling-load operations have been limited during hover and low-speed flight by the degree of precision achieved by the pilot/helicopter/sling-load combination. Previous attempts to improve precision have included stabilization of the load and helicopter and the addition of a pilot station directly facing the load. In these tests, use of a closed-circuit TV as a display that would permit sling-load delivery and placement by the forward-facing pilot was evaluated using a CH-54B helicopter. In all, three test cases were documented, which included the following: (1) forward-facing pilot using the TV display, (2) forward-facing pilot using verbal commands from a load-facing observer, and (3) aft-facing pilot using direct visual cues. The results indicate that a comparable level of performance was achieved for each test case; however, an increase in pilot workload was noted when the TV system was used.

Emotions in word and face processing: early and late cortical responses.

PubMed

Schacht, Annekathrin; Sommer, Werner

2009-04-01

Recent research suggests that emotion effects in word processing resemble those in other stimulus domains such as pictures or faces. The present study aims to provide more direct evidence for this notion by comparing emotion effects in word and face processing in a within-subject design. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded as participants made decisions on the lexicality of emotionally positive, negative, and neutral German verbs or pseudowords, and on the integrity of intact happy, angry, and neutral faces or slightly distorted faces. Relative to neutral and negative stimuli both positive verbs and happy faces elicited posterior ERP negativities that were indistinguishable in scalp distribution and resembled the early posterior negativities reported by others. Importantly, these ERP modulations appeared at very different latencies. Therefore, it appears that similar brain systems reflect the decoding of both biological and symbolic emotional signals of positive valence, differing mainly in the speed of meaning access, which is more direct and faster for facial expressions than for words.

Age synthesis and estimation via faces: a survey.

PubMed

Fu, Yun; Guo, Guodong; Huang, Thomas S

2010-11-01

Human age, as an important personal trait, can be directly inferred by distinct patterns emerging from the facial appearance. Derived from rapid advances in computer graphics and machine vision, computer-based age synthesis and estimation via faces have become particularly prevalent topics recently because of their explosively emerging real-world applications, such as forensic art, electronic customer relationship management, security control and surveillance monitoring, biometrics, entertainment, and cosmetology. Age synthesis is defined to rerender a face image aesthetically with natural aging and rejuvenating effects on the individual face. Age estimation is defined to label a face image automatically with the exact age (year) or the age group (year range) of the individual face. Because of their particularity and complexity, both problems are attractive yet challenging to computer-based application system designers. Large efforts from both academia and industry have been devoted in the last a few decades. In this paper, we survey the complete state-of-the-art techniques in the face image-based age synthesis and estimation topics. Existing models, popular algorithms, system performances, technical difficulties, popular face aging databases, evaluation protocols, and promising future directions are also provided with systematic discussions.

Self-motion improves head direction cell tuning

PubMed Central

Shinder, Michael E.

2014-01-01

Head direction (HD) cells respond when an animal faces a particular direction in the environment and form the basis for the animal's perceived directional heading. When an animal moves through its environment, accurate updating of the HD signal is required to reflect the current heading, but the cells still maintain a representation of HD even when the animal is motionless. This finding suggests that the HD system holds its current state in the absence of input, a view that we tested by rotating a head-restrained rat in the presence of a prominent visual landmark and then stopping it suddenly when facing the cell's preferred firing direction (PFD). Firing rates were unchanged for the first 100 ms, but then progressively decreased over the next 4 s and stabilized at ∼42% of their initial values. When the rat was stopped facing away from the PFD, there was no initial effect of braking, but the firing rate then increased steadily over 4 s and plateaued at ∼14% of its peak firing rate, substantially above initial background firing rates. In experiment 2, the rat was serially placed facing one of eight equidistant directions over 360° and held there for 30 s. Compared with the cell's peak firing rate during a passive rotation session, firing rates were reduced (51%) for in-PFD directions and increased (∼300%) from background levels for off-PFD directions, values comparable to those observed in the braking protocol. These differential HD cell responses demonstrate the importance of self-motion to the HD signal integrity. PMID:24671528

How visual timing and form information affect speech and non-speech processing.

PubMed

Kim, Jeesun; Davis, Chris

2014-10-01

Auditory speech processing is facilitated when the talker's face/head movements are seen. This effect is typically explained in terms of visual speech providing form and/or timing information. We determined the effect of both types of information on a speech/non-speech task (non-speech stimuli were spectrally rotated speech). All stimuli were presented paired with the talker's static or moving face. Two types of moving face stimuli were used: full-face versions (both spoken form and timing information available) and modified face versions (only timing information provided by peri-oral motion available). The results showed that the peri-oral timing information facilitated response time for speech and non-speech stimuli compared to a static face. An additional facilitatory effect was found for full-face versions compared to the timing condition; this effect only occurred for speech stimuli. We propose the timing effect was due to cross-modal phase resetting; the form effect to cross-modal priming. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The illusion of fame: how the nonfamous become famous.

PubMed

Landau, Joshua D; Leed, Stacey A

2012-01-01

This article reports 2 experiments in which nonfamous faces were paired with famous (e.g., Oprah Winfrey) or semifamous (e.g., Annika Sorenstam) faces during an initial orienting task. In Experiment 1, the orienting task directed participants to consider the relationship between the paired faces. In Experiment 2, participants considered distinctive qualities of the paired faces. Participants then judged the fame level of old and new nonfamous faces, semifamous faces, and famous faces. Pairing a nonfamous face with a famous face resulted in a higher fame rating than pairing a nonfamous face with a semifamous face. The fame attached to the famous people was misattributed to their nonfamous partners. We discuss this pattern of results in the context of current theoretical explanations of familiarity misattributions.

Space ultra-vacuum facility and method of operation

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Naumann, Robert J. (Inventor)

1988-01-01

A wake shield space processing facility (10) for maintaining ultra-high levels of vacuum is described. The wake shield (12) is a truncated hemispherical section having a convex side (14) and a concave side (24). Material samples (68) to be processed are located on the convex side of the shield, which faces in the wake direction in operation in orbit. Necessary processing fixtures (20) and (22) are also located on the convex side. Support equipment including power supplies (40, 42), CMG package (46) and electronic control package (44) are located on the convex side (24) of the shield facing the ram direction. Prior to operation in orbit the wake shield is oriented in reverse with the convex side facing the ram direction to provide cleaning by exposure to ambient atomic oxygen. The shield is then baked-out by being pointed directed at the sun to obtain heating for a suitable period.

Building metamemorial knowledge over time: insights from eye tracking about the bases of feeling-of-knowing and confidence judgments.

PubMed

Chua, Elizabeth F; Solinger, Lisa A

2015-01-01

Metamemory processes depend on different factors across the learning and memory time-scale. In the laboratory, subjects are often asked to make prospective feeling-of-knowing (FOK) judgments about target retrievability, or are asked to make retrospective confidence judgments (RCJs) about the retrieved target. We examined distinct and shared contributors to metamemory judgments, and how they were built over time. Eye movements were monitored during a face-scene associative memory task. At test, participants viewed a studied scene, then rated their FOK that they would remember the associated face. This was followed by a forced choice recognition test and RCJs. FOK judgments were less accurate than RCJ judgments, showing that the addition of mnemonic experience can increase metacognitive accuracy over time. However, there was also evidence that the given FOK rating influenced RCJs. Turning to eye movements, initial analyses showed that higher cue fluency was related to both higher FOKs and higher RCJs. However, further analyses revealed that the effects of the scene cue on RCJs were mediated by FOKs. Turning to the target, increased viewing time and faster viewing of the correct associate related to higher FOKs, consistent with the idea that target accessibility is a basis of FOKs. In contrast, the amount of viewing directed to the chosen face, regardless of whether it was correct, predicted higher RCJs, suggesting that choice experience is a significant contributor RCJs. We also examined covariates of the change in RCJ rating from the FOK rating, and showed that increased and faster viewing of the chosen face predicted raising one's confidence above one's FOK. Taken together these results suggest that metamemory judgments should not be thought of only as distinct subjective experiences, but complex processes that interact and evolve as new psychological bases for subjective experience become available.

Edge smoothing for real-time simulation of a polygon face object system as viewed by a moving observer

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Lotz, Robert W. (Inventor); Westerman, David J. (Inventor)

1980-01-01

The visual system within an aircraft flight simulation system receives flight data and terrain data which is formated into a buffer memory. The image data is forwarded to an image processor which translates the image data into face vertex vectors Vf, defining the position relationship between the vertices of each terrain object and the aircraft. The image processor then rotates, clips, and projects the image data into two-dimensional display vectors (Vd). A display generator receives the Vd faces, and other image data to provide analog inputs to CRT devices which provide the window displays for the simulated aircraft. The video signal to the CRT devices passes through an edge smoothing device which prolongs the rise time (and fall time) of the video data inversely as the slope of the edge being smoothed. An operational amplifier within the edge smoothing device has a plurality of independently selectable feedback capacitors each having a different value. The values of the capacitors form a series which doubles as a power of two. Each feedback capacitor has a fast switch responsive to the corresponding bit of a digital binary control word for selecting (1) or not selecting (0) that capacitor. The control word is determined by the slope of each edge. The resulting actual feedback capacitance for each edge is the sum of all the selected capacitors and is directly proportional to the value of the binary control word. The output rise time (or fall time) is a function of the feedback capacitance, and is controlled by the slope through the binary control word.

Mapping face categorization in the human ventral occipitotemporal cortex with direct neural intracranial recordings.

PubMed

Rossion, Bruno; Jacques, Corentin; Jonas, Jacques

2018-02-26

The neural basis of face categorization has been widely investigated with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), identifying a set of face-selective local regions in the ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOTC). However, indirect recording of neural activity with fMRI is associated with large fluctuations of signal across regions, often underestimating face-selective responses in the anterior VOTC. While direct recording of neural activity with subdural grids of electrodes (electrocorticography, ECoG) or depth electrodes (stereotactic electroencephalography, SEEG) offers a unique opportunity to fill this gap in knowledge, these studies rather reveal widely distributed face-selective responses. Moreover, intracranial recordings are complicated by interindividual variability in neuroanatomy, ambiguity in definition, and quantification of responses of interest, as well as limited access to sulci with ECoG. Here, we propose to combine SEEG in large samples of individuals with fast periodic visual stimulation to objectively define, quantify, and characterize face categorization across the whole VOTC. This approach reconciles the wide distribution of neural face categorization responses with their (right) hemispheric and regional specialization, and reveals several face-selective regions in anterior VOTC sulci. We outline the challenges of this research program to understand the neural basis of face categorization and high-level visual recognition in general. © 2018 New York Academy of Sciences.

For patients with terminal chronic illness, does more face-to-face time with a healthcare provider decrease aggressive end-of-life (EOL) care such as ICU admission, feeding tube placement, CPR, or intubation?

PubMed Central

Seaberg, Preston; Hamm, Robert M.; McCarthy, Laine H.

2016-01-01

Clinical Question For patients with terminal chronic illness, does more face-to-face time with a healthcare provider decrease aggressive end-of-life (EOL) care such as ICU admission, feeding tube placement, CPR, or intubation? Answer Inconclusive. Existing evidence does not provide a conclusive answer to this particular question. While multiple prospective, randomized, controlled trials demonstrate an association between increased patient-provider contact time and decreased aggressive EOL care, interventions in those studies contain multiple confounding elements that preclude isolation of the time factor from the other elements in the interventions. There is a need for research focusing on physician-patient communication time and EOL care. Level of Evidence for the Answer A Search Terms Terminal care, palliative care, terminal illness, communication, patient-provider relations, time factors, life support care, resuscitation orders, enteral nutrition Inclusion Criteria Systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and comparative studies published between 2008 and the current date comparing EOL care or EOL care preferences of patients who spend more face-to-face time with a healthcare provider to those of patients who spend less face-to-face time with a healthcare provider. Exclusion Criteria Studies that do not report the primary outcome of interest (EOL care or EOL care preferences) or that do not measure discussion time or provide interventions that include face-to-face discussion. PMID:25796765

A new data processing technique for Rayleigh-Taylor instability growth experiments

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Yuan, Yongteng; Tu, Shaoyong; Miao, Wenyong

Typical face-on experiments for Rayleigh-Taylor instability study involve the time-resolved radiography of an accelerated foil with line-of-sight of the radiography along the direction of motion. The usual method which derives perturbation amplitudes from the face-on images reverses the actual image transmission procedure, so the obtained results will have a large error in the case of large optical depth. In order to improve the accuracy of data processing, a new data processing technique has been developed to process the face-on images. This technique based on convolution theorem, refined solutions of optical depth can be achieved by solving equations. Furthermore, we discussmore » both techniques for image processing, including the influence of modulation transfer function of imaging system and the backlighter spatial profile. Besides, we use the two methods to the process the experimental results in Shenguang-II laser facility and the comparison shows that the new method effectively improve the accuracy of data processing.« less

Hormonal effects on women's facial masculinity preferences: the influence of pregnancy, post-partum, and hormonal contraceptive use.

PubMed

Cobey, Kelly D; Little, Anthony C; Roberts, S Craig

2015-01-01

Here, we investigate changes in women's facial masculinity preferences across pregnancy and the post-partum period. The majority of previous research demonstrating changes in women's masculinity preferences has examined the impact of hormonal variation across the female menstrual cycle. Hormonal changes experienced during pregnancy and the post-partum period, critical periods in women's reproductive life histories, are considerably more extreme than the variation that occurs across the menstrual cycle, suggesting that differences in preferences may also be displayed during these times. We find that women's preference for masculinity in men's faces, but not women's faces, decreases in the post-partum period relative to pregnancy. Furthermore, when compared to a sample of nulliparous control participants, post-partum participants showed different masculinity preferences compared with women who were using hormonal contraception, with the direction of this difference dependent upon the sex of the face assessed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

"Avoiding or approaching eyes"? Introversion/extraversion affects the gaze-cueing effect.

PubMed

Ponari, Marta; Trojano, Luigi; Grossi, Dario; Conson, Massimiliano

2013-08-01

We investigated whether the extra-/introversion personality dimension can influence processing of others' eye gaze direction and emotional facial expression during a target detection task. On the basis of previous evidence showing that self-reported trait anxiety can affect gaze-cueing with emotional faces, we also verified whether trait anxiety can modulate the influence of intro-/extraversion on behavioral performance. Fearful, happy, angry or neutral faces, with either direct or averted gaze, were presented before the target appeared in spatial locations congruent or incongruent with stimuli's eye gaze direction. Results showed a significant influence of intra-/extraversion dimension on gaze-cueing effect for angry, happy, and neutral faces with averted gaze. Introverts did not show the gaze congruency effect when viewing angry expressions, but did so with happy and neutral faces; extraverts showed the opposite pattern. Importantly, the influence of intro-/extraversion on gaze-cueing was not mediated by trait anxiety. These findings demonstrated that personality differences can shape processing of interactions between relevant social signals.

Ejection of a rear facing, golf cart passenger.

PubMed

Schau, Kyle; Masory, Oren

2013-10-01

The following report details the findings of a series of experiments and simulations performed on a commercially available, shuttle style golf cart during several maneuvers involving rapid accelerations of the vehicle. It is determined that the current set of passive restraints on these types of golf carts are not adequate in preventing ejection of a rear facing passenger during rapid accelerations in the forward and lateral directions. Experimental data and simulations show that a hip restraint must be a minimum of 13 in. above the seat in order to secure a rear facing passenger during sharp turns, compared to the current restraint height of 5 in. Furthermore, it is determined that a restraint directly in front of the rear facing passenger is necessary to prevent ejection. In addressing these issues, golf cart manufacturers could greatly reduce the likelihood of injury due to ejection of a rear facing, golf cart passenger. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Automated face detection for occurrence and occupancy estimation in chimpanzees.

PubMed

Crunchant, Anne-Sophie; Egerer, Monika; Loos, Alexander; Burghardt, Tilo; Zuberbühler, Klaus; Corogenes, Katherine; Leinert, Vera; Kulik, Lars; Kühl, Hjalmar S

2017-03-01

Surveying endangered species is necessary to evaluate conservation effectiveness. Camera trapping and biometric computer vision are recent technological advances. They have impacted on the methods applicable to field surveys and these methods have gained significant momentum over the last decade. Yet, most researchers inspect footage manually and few studies have used automated semantic processing of video trap data from the field. The particular aim of this study is to evaluate methods that incorporate automated face detection technology as an aid to estimate site use of two chimpanzee communities based on camera trapping. As a comparative baseline we employ traditional manual inspection of footage. Our analysis focuses specifically on the basic parameter of occurrence where we assess the performance and practical value of chimpanzee face detection software. We found that the semi-automated data processing required only 2-4% of the time compared to the purely manual analysis. This is a non-negligible increase in efficiency that is critical when assessing the feasibility of camera trap occupancy surveys. Our evaluations suggest that our methodology estimates the proportion of sites used relatively reliably. Chimpanzees are mostly detected when they are present and when videos are filmed in high-resolution: the highest recall rate was 77%, for a false alarm rate of 2.8% for videos containing only chimpanzee frontal face views. Certainly, our study is only a first step for transferring face detection software from the lab into field application. Our results are promising and indicate that the current limitation of detecting chimpanzees in camera trap footage due to lack of suitable face views can be easily overcome on the level of field data collection, that is, by the combined placement of multiple high-resolution cameras facing reverse directions. This will enable to routinely conduct chimpanzee occupancy surveys based on camera trapping and semi-automated processing of footage. Using semi-automated ape face detection technology for processing camera trap footage requires only 2-4% of the time compared to manual analysis and allows to estimate site use by chimpanzees relatively reliably. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Innovation in weight loss programs: a 3-dimensional virtual-world approach.

PubMed

Johnston, Jeanne D; Massey, Anne P; Devaneaux, Celeste A

2012-09-20

The rising trend in obesity calls for innovative weight loss programs. While behavioral-based face-to-face programs have proven to be the most effective, they are expensive and often inaccessible. Internet or Web-based weight loss programs have expanded reach but may lack qualities critical to weight loss and maintenance such as human interaction, social support, and engagement. In contrast to Web technologies, virtual reality technologies offer unique affordances as a behavioral intervention by directly supporting engagement and active learning. To explore the effectiveness of a virtual-world weight loss program relative to weight loss and behavior change. We collected data from overweight people (N = 54) participating in a face-to-face or a virtual-world weight loss program. Weight, body mass index (BMI), percentage weight change, and health behaviors (ie, weight loss self-efficacy, physical activity self-efficacy, self-reported physical activity, and fruit and vegetable consumption) were assessed before and after the 12-week program. Repeated measures analysis was used to detect differences between groups and across time. A total of 54 participants with a BMI of 32 (SD 6.05) kg/m(2)enrolled in the study, with a 13% dropout rate for each group (virtual world group: 5/38; face-to-face group: 3/24). Both groups lost a significant amount of weight (virtual world: 3.9 kg, P < .001; face-to-face: 2.8 kg, P = .002); however, no significant differences between groups were detected (P = .29). Compared with baseline, the virtual-world group lost an average of 4.2%, with 33% (11/33) of the participants losing a clinically significant (≥5%) amount of baseline weight. The face-to-face group lost an average of 3.0% of their baseline weight, with 29% (6/21) losing a clinically significant amount. We detected a significant group × time interaction for moderate (P = .006) and vigorous physical activity (P = .008), physical activity self-efficacy (P = .04), fruit and vegetable consumption (P = .007), and weight loss self-efficacy (P < .001). Post hoc paired t tests indicated significant improvements across all of the variables for the virtual-world group. Overall, these results offer positive early evidence that a virtual-world-based weight loss program can be as effective as a face-to-face one relative to biometric changes. In addition, our results suggest that a virtual world may be a more effective platform to influence meaningful behavioral changes and improve self-efficacy.

Innovation in Weight Loss Programs: A 3-Dimensional Virtual-World Approach

PubMed Central

Massey, Anne P; DeVaneaux, Celeste A

2012-01-01

Background The rising trend in obesity calls for innovative weight loss programs. While behavioral-based face-to-face programs have proven to be the most effective, they are expensive and often inaccessible. Internet or Web-based weight loss programs have expanded reach but may lack qualities critical to weight loss and maintenance such as human interaction, social support, and engagement. In contrast to Web technologies, virtual reality technologies offer unique affordances as a behavioral intervention by directly supporting engagement and active learning. Objective To explore the effectiveness of a virtual-world weight loss program relative to weight loss and behavior change. Methods We collected data from overweight people (N = 54) participating in a face-to-face or a virtual-world weight loss program. Weight, body mass index (BMI), percentage weight change, and health behaviors (ie, weight loss self-efficacy, physical activity self-efficacy, self-reported physical activity, and fruit and vegetable consumption) were assessed before and after the 12-week program. Repeated measures analysis was used to detect differences between groups and across time. Results A total of 54 participants with a BMI of 32 (SD 6.05) kg/m2 enrolled in the study, with a 13% dropout rate for each group (virtual world group: 5/38; face-to-face group: 3/24). Both groups lost a significant amount of weight (virtual world: 3.9 kg, P < .001; face-to-face: 2.8 kg, P = .002); however, no significant differences between groups were detected (P = .29). Compared with baseline, the virtual-world group lost an average of 4.2%, with 33% (11/33) of the participants losing a clinically significant (≥5%) amount of baseline weight. The face-to-face group lost an average of 3.0% of their baseline weight, with 29% (6/21) losing a clinically significant amount. We detected a significant group × time interaction for moderate (P = .006) and vigorous physical activity (P = .008), physical activity self-efficacy (P = .04), fruit and vegetable consumption (P = .007), and weight loss self-efficacy (P < .001). Post hoc paired t tests indicated significant improvements across all of the variables for the virtual-world group. Conclusions Overall, these results offer positive early evidence that a virtual-world-based weight loss program can be as effective as a face-to-face one relative to biometric changes. In addition, our results suggest that a virtual world may be a more effective platform to influence meaningful behavioral changes and improve self-efficacy. PMID:22995535

Identification and Classification of Facial Familiarity in Directed Lying: An ERP Study

PubMed Central

Sun, Delin; Chan, Chetwyn C. H.; Lee, Tatia M. C.

2012-01-01

Recognizing familiar faces is essential to social functioning, but little is known about how people identify human faces and classify them in terms of familiarity. Face identification involves discriminating familiar faces from unfamiliar faces, whereas face classification involves making an intentional decision to classify faces as “familiar” or “unfamiliar.” This study used a directed-lying task to explore the differentiation between identification and classification processes involved in the recognition of familiar faces. To explore this issue, the participants in this study were shown familiar and unfamiliar faces. They responded to these faces (i.e., as familiar or unfamiliar) in accordance with the instructions they were given (i.e., to lie or to tell the truth) while their EEG activity was recorded. Familiar faces (regardless of lying vs. truth) elicited significantly less negative-going N400f in the middle and right parietal and temporal regions than unfamiliar faces. Regardless of their actual familiarity, the faces that the participants classified as “familiar” elicited more negative-going N400f in the central and right temporal regions than those classified as “unfamiliar.” The P600 was related primarily with the facial identification process. Familiar faces (regardless of lying vs. truth) elicited more positive-going P600f in the middle parietal and middle occipital regions. The results suggest that N400f and P600f play different roles in the processes involved in facial recognition. The N400f appears to be associated with both the identification (judgment of familiarity) and classification of faces, while it is likely that the P600f is only associated with the identification process (recollection of facial information). Future studies should use different experimental paradigms to validate the generalizability of the results of this study. PMID:22363597

Own-race faces capture attention faster than other-race faces: evidence from response time and the N2pc.

PubMed

Zhou, Guomei; Cheng, Zhijie; Yue, Zhenzhu; Tredoux, Colin; He, Jibo; Wang, Ling

2015-01-01

Studies have shown that people are better at recognizing human faces from their own-race than from other-races, an effect often termed the Own-Race Advantage. The current study investigates whether there is an Own-Race Advantage in attention and its neural correlates. Participants were asked to search for a human face among animal faces. Experiment 1 showed a classic Own-Race Advantage in response time both for Chinese and Black South African participants. Using event-related potentials (ERPs), Experiment 2 showed a similar Own-Race Advantage in response time for both upright faces and inverted faces. Moreover, the latency of N2pc for own-race faces was earlier than that for other-race faces. These results suggested that own-race faces capture attention more efficiently than other-race faces.

Relationships between the quality of blended learning experience, self-regulated learning, and academic achievement of medical students: a path analysis

PubMed Central

Kassab, Salah Eldin; Al-Shafei, Ahmad I; Salem, Abdel Halim; Otoom, Sameer

2015-01-01

Purpose This study examined the relationships between the different aspects of students’ course experience, self-regulated learning, and academic achievement of medical students in a blended learning curriculum. Methods Perceptions of medical students (n=171) from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, Medical University of Bahrain (RCSI Bahrain), on the blended learning experience were measured using the Student Course Experience Questionnaire (SCEQ), with an added e-Learning scale. In addition, self-regulated learning was measured using the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ). Academic achievement was measured by the scores of the students at the end of the course. A path analysis was created to test the relationships between the different study variables. Results Path analysis indicated that the perceived quality of the face-to-face component of the blended experience directly affected the motivation of students. The SCEQ scale “quality of teaching” directly affected two aspects of motivation: control of learning and intrinsic goal orientation. Furthermore, appropriate course workload directly affected the self-efficacy of students. Moreover, the e-Learning scale directly affected students’ peer learning and critical thinking but indirectly affected metacognitive regulation. The resource management regulation strategies, time and study environment, and effort regulation directly affected students’ examination scores (17% of the variance explained). However, there were no significant direct relationships between the SCEQ scales and cognitive learning strategies or examination scores. Conclusion The results of this study will have important implications for designing blended learning courses in medical schools. PMID:25610011

Aberrant face and gaze habituation in fragile x syndrome.

PubMed

Bruno, Jennifer Lynn; Garrett, Amy S; Quintin, Eve-Marie; Mazaika, Paul K; Reiss, Allan L

2014-10-01

The authors sought to investigate neural system habituation to face and eye gaze in fragile X syndrome, a disorder characterized by eye-gaze aversion, among other social and cognitive deficits. Participants (ages 15-25 years) were 30 individuals with fragile X syndrome (females, N=14) and a comparison group of 25 individuals without fragile X syndrome (females, N=12) matched for general cognitive ability and autism symptoms. Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to assess brain activation during a gaze habituation task. Participants viewed repeated presentations of four unique faces with either direct or averted eye gaze and judged the direction of eye gaze. Four participants (males, N=4/4; fragile X syndrome, N=3) were excluded because of excessive head motion during fMRI scanning. Behavioral performance did not differ between the groups. Less neural habituation (and significant sensitization) in the fragile X syndrome group was found in the cingulate gyrus, fusiform gyrus, and frontal cortex in response to all faces (direct and averted gaze). Left fusiform habituation in female participants was directly correlated with higher, more typical levels of the fragile X mental retardation protein and inversely correlated with autism symptoms. There was no evidence for differential habituation to direct gaze compared with averted gaze within or between groups. Impaired habituation and accentuated sensitization in response to face/eye gaze was distributed across multiple levels of neural processing. These results could help inform interventions, such as desensitization therapy, which may help patients with fragile X syndrome modulate anxiety and arousal associated with eye gaze, thereby improving social functioning.

Teaching Time Investment: Does Online Really Take More Time than Face-to-Face?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Van de Vord, Rebecca; Pogue, Korolyn

2012-01-01

Enrollments in online programs are growing, increasing demand for online courses. The perception that teaching online takes more time than teaching face-to-face creates concerns related to faculty workload. To date, the research on teaching time does not provide a clear answer as to the accuracy of this perception. This study was designed to…

Virtual & Real Face to Face Teaching

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Teneqexhi, Romeo; Kuneshka, Loreta

2016-01-01

In traditional "face to face" lessons, during the time the teacher writes on a black or white board, the students are always behind the teacher. Sometimes, this happens even in the recorded lesson in videos. Most of the time during the lesson, the teacher shows to the students his back not his face. We do not think the term "face to…

Probing Anisotropic Surface Properties of Molybdenite by Direct Force Measurements.

PubMed

Lu, Zhenzhen; Liu, Qingxia; Xu, Zhenghe; Zeng, Hongbo

2015-10-27

Probing anisotropic surface properties of layer-type mineral is fundamentally important in understanding its surface charge and wettability for a variety of applications. In this study, the surface properties of the face and the edge surfaces of natural molybdenite (MoS2) were investigated by direct surface force measurements using atomic force microscope (AFM). The interaction forces between the AFM tip (Si3N4) and face or edge surface of molybdenite were measured in 10 mM NaCl solutions at various pHs. The force profiles were well-fitted with classical DLVO (Derjaguin-Landau-Verwey-Overbeek) theory to determine the surface potentials of the face and the edge surfaces of molybdenite. The surface potentials of both the face and edge surfaces become more negative with increasing pH. At neutral and alkaline conditions, the edge surface exhibits more negative surface potential than the face surface, which is possibly due to molybdate and hydromolybdate ions on the edge surface. The point of zero charge (PZC) of the edge surface was determined around pH 3 while PZC of the face surface was not observed in the range of pH 3-11. The interaction forces between octadecyltrichlorosilane-treated AFM tip (OTS-tip) and face or edge surface of molybdenite were also measured at various pHs to study the wettability of molybdenite surfaces. An attractive force between the OTS-tip and the face surface was detected. The force profiles were well-fitted by considering DLVO forces and additional hydrophobic force. Our results suggest the hydrophobic feature of the face surface of molybdenite. In contrast, no attractive force between the OTS-tip and the edge surface was detected. This is the first study in directly measuring surface charge and wettability of the pristine face and edge surfaces of molybdenite through surface force measurements.

HappyFace as a generic monitoring tool for HEP experiments

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Kawamura, Gen; Magradze, Erekle; Musheghyan, Haykuhi; Quadt, Arnulf; Rzehorz, Gerhard

2015-12-01

The importance of monitoring on HEP grid computing systems is growing due to a significant increase in their complexity. Computer scientists and administrators have been studying and building effective ways to gather information on and clarify a status of each local grid infrastructure. The HappyFace project aims at making the above-mentioned workflow possible. It aggregates, processes and stores the information and the status of different HEP monitoring resources into the common database of HappyFace. The system displays the information and the status through a single interface. However, this model of HappyFace relied on the monitoring resources which are always under development in the HEP experiments. Consequently, HappyFace needed to have direct access methods to the grid application and grid service layers in the different HEP grid systems. To cope with this issue, we use a reliable HEP software repository, the CernVM File System. We propose a new implementation and an architecture of HappyFace, the so-called grid-enabled HappyFace. It allows its basic framework to connect directly to the grid user applications and the grid collective services, without involving the monitoring resources in the HEP grid systems. This approach gives HappyFace several advantages: Portability, to provide an independent and generic monitoring system among the HEP grid systems. Eunctionality, to allow users to perform various diagnostic tools in the individual HEP grid systems and grid sites. Elexibility, to make HappyFace beneficial and open for the various distributed grid computing environments. Different grid-enabled modules, to connect to the Ganga job monitoring system and to check the performance of grid transfers among the grid sites, have been implemented. The new HappyFace system has been successfully integrated and now it displays the information and the status of both the monitoring resources and the direct access to the grid user applications and the grid collective services.

CALUTRON RECEIVER

DOEpatents

York, H.F.

1959-07-01

A receiver construction is presented for calutrons having two or more ion sources and an individual receiver unit for each source. Design requirements dictate that the face plate defining the receiver entrance slots be placed at an angle to the approaching beam, which means that ions striking the face plate are likely to be scattcred into the entrance slots of other receivers. According to the present invention, the face plate has a surface provided with parallel ridges so disposed that one side only of each ridge's exposed directly to the ion beam. The scattered ions are directed away from adjacent receivers by the ridges on the lace plate.

Lateralization of Visuospatial Attention across Face Regions Varies with Emotional Prosody

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Thompson, Laura A.; Malloy, Daniel M.; LeBlanc, Katya L.

2009-01-01

It is well-established that linguistic processing is primarily a left-hemisphere activity, while emotional prosody processing is lateralized to the right hemisphere. Does attention, directed at different regions of the talker's face, reflect this pattern of lateralization? We investigated visuospatial attention across a talker's face with a…

Infant viewing of social scenes is under genetic control and atypical in autism

PubMed Central

Constantino, John N.; Kennon-McGill, Stefanie; Weichselbaum, Claire; Marrus, Natasha; Haider, Alyzeh; Glowinski, Anne L.; Gillespie, Scott; Klaiman, Cheryl; Klin, Ami; Jones, Warren

2017-01-01

Long before infants reach, crawl, or walk, they explore the world by looking: they look to learn and to engage1, giving preferential attention to social stimuli including faces2, face-like stimuli3, and biological motion4. This capacity—social visual engagement—shapes typical infant development from birth5 and is pathognomonically impaired in children affected by autism6. Here we show that variation in viewing of social scenes—including levels of preferential attention and the timing, direction, and targeting of individual eye movements—is strongly influenced by genetic factors, with effects directly traceable to the active seeking of social information7. In a series of eye-tracking experiments conducted with 338 toddlers—including 166 epidemiologically-ascertained twins, 88 non-twins with autism, and 84 singleton controls—we find high monozygotic twin-twin concordance (0.91) and relatively low dizygotic concordance (0.35). Moreover, the measures that are most highly heritable, preferential attention to eye and mouth regions of the face, are also those that are differentially diminished in children with autism (Χ2=64.03, P<0.0001). These results—which implicate social visual engagement as a neurodevelopmental endophenotype—not only for autism, but for population-wide variation in social-information-seeking8—reveal a means of human biological niche construction, with phenotypic differences emerging from the interaction of individual genotypes with early life experience7. PMID:28700580

Content specificity of attentional bias to threat in post-traumatic stress disorder.

PubMed

Zinchenko, A; Al-Amin, M M; Alam, M M; Mahmud, W; Kabir, N; Reza, H M; Burne, T H J

2017-08-01

Attentional bias to affective information and reduced cognitive control may maintain the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and impair cognitive functioning. However, the role of content specificity of affective stimuli (e.g., trauma-related, emotional trauma-unrelated) in the observed attentional bias and cognitive control is less clear, as this has not been tested simultaneously before. Therefore, we examined the content specificity of attentional bias to threat in PTSD. PTSD participants (survivors of a multistory factory collapse, n=30) and matched controls (n=30) performed an Eriksen Flanker task. They identified the direction of a centrally presented target arrow, which was flanked by several task-irrelevant distractor arrows pointed to the same (congruent) or opposite direction (incongruent). Additionally, participants were presented with a picture of a face (neutral, emotional) or building (neutral=normal, emotional=collapsed multistory factory) as a task-irrelevant background image. We found that PTSD participants produced overall larger conflict effects and longer reaction times (RT) to emotional than to neutral stimuli relative to their healthy counterparts. Moreover, PTSD, but not healthy participants showed a stimulus specific dissociation in processing emotional stimuli. Emotional faces elicited longer RTs compared to neutral faces, while emotional buildings elicited faster responses, compared to neutral buildings. PTSD patients show a content-sensitive attentional bias to emotional information and impaired cognitive control. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Rationing in the emergency department: the good, the bad, and the unacceptable.

PubMed

Cross, E; Goodacre, S; O'Cathain, A; Arnold, J

2005-03-01

Waiting times in emergency departments (EDs) are an important government priority. Although substantial efforts are currently being made to reduce waiting times, little attention has been paid to the patients' view. We used qualitative methods to explore patients' perspectives on waiting times and other approaches to rationing and prioritisation. Face to face, in depth, qualitative interviews (n = 11) explored how patients valued waiting times for non-urgent ED care. The framework approach (identifying a thematic framework through repeated re-reading) was used to analyse transcripts. Interviewees found some forms of rationing and prioritisation acceptable. They expected rationing by delay, but required explanations or information on the reason for their wait. They valued prioritisation by triage (rationing by selection) and thought that this role could be expanded for the re-direction of non-urgent patients elsewhere (rationing by deflection). Interviewees were mainly unwilling or unable to engage in prioritisation of different types of patients, openly prioritising only those with obvious clinical need, and children. However, some interviewees were willing to ration implicitly, labelling some attenders as inappropriate, such as those causing a nuisance. Others felt it was unacceptable to blame "inappropriate" attenders, as their attendance may relate to lack of information or awareness of service use. Explicit rationing between services was not acceptable, although some believed there were more important priorities for NHS resources than ED waiting times. Interviewees disagreed with the hypothetical notion of paying to be seen more quickly in the ED (rationing by charging). Interviewees expected to wait and accepted the need for prioritisation, although they were reluctant to engage in judgements regarding prioritisation. They supported the re-direction of patients with certain non-urgent complaints. However, they perceived a need for more explanation and information about their wait, the system, and alternative services.

'Round-table' ethical debate: is a suicide note an authoritative 'living will'?

PubMed

Chalfin, D B; Crippen, D; Franklin, C; Kelly, D F; Kilcullen, J K; Streat, S; Truog, R D; Whetstine, L M

2001-01-01

Living wills are often considered by physicians who are faced with a dying patient. Although popular with the general public, they remain problems of authenticity and authority. It is difficult for the examining physician to know whether the patient understood the terms of the advance directive when they signed it, and whether they still consider it authoritative at the time that it is produced. Also, there is little consensus on what spectrum of instruments constitutes a binding advance directive in real life. Does a 'suicide note' constitute an authentic and authoritative 'living will'? Our panel of authorities considers this problem in a round-table discussion.

Exploration of Extended-Area Treatment Effects in FACE-2 Using Satellite Imagery.

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Meití, José G.; Woodley, William L.; Flueck, John A.

1984-01-01

The second phase of the Florida Area Cumulus Experiment (FACE-2) has been completed and an exploratory analysis has been conducted to investigate the possibility that cloud seeding may have affected the rainfall outside the intended target. Rainfall was estimated over a 3.5×105 km2 area centered on the target using geosynchronous, infrared satellite imagery and the Griffith-Woodley rain estimation technique. This technique was derived in South Florida by calibrating infrared images using raingage and radar observations to produce an empirical, diagnostic (a posteriori), satellite rain estimation technique. The satellite rain estimates for the extended area were adjusted based on comparisons of raingage and satellite rainfall estimates for the entire FACE target (1.3×104 km2). All daily rainfall estimates were composited in two ways: 1) in the original coordinate system and 2) in a relative coordinate system that rotates the research area as a function of wind direction. After compositing, seeding effects were sought as a function of space and time.The results show more rainfall (in the mean) on seed than no seed days both in and downwind of the target but lesser rainfall upwind. All differences (averaging 20% downwind and 10% upwind) are confined in space to within 200 km of the center of the FACE target and in time to the 8 h period after initial treatment. In addition, the positive correlation between untreated upwind rainfall and target rainfall is degraded on seed days, suggesting possible intermittent negative effects of seeding upwind. Although the development of these differences in space and time suggests that seeding may have been partially responsible for their generation, the results do not have strong inferential (P-value) support.

A Systems View of Mother-Infant Face-to-Face Communication

PubMed Central

Beebe, Beatrice; Messinger, Daniel; Bahrick, Lorraine E.; Margolis, Amy; Buck, Karen A.; Chen, Henian

2016-01-01

Principles of a dynamic, dyadic systems view of mother-infant face-to-face communication, which considers self- and interactive processes in relation to one another, were tested. We examined the process of interaction across time in a large, low-risk community sample, at infant age 4 months. Split-screen videotape was coded on a 1-s time base for communication modalities of attention, affect, orientation, touch and composite facial-visual engagement. Time-series approaches generated self- and interactive contingency estimates in each modality. Evidence supporting the following principles was obtained: (1) Significant moment-to-moment predictability within each partner (self-contingency) and between the partners (interactive contingency) characterizes mother-infant communication. (2) Interactive contingency is organized by a bi-directional, but asymmetrical, process: maternal contingent coordination with infant is higher than infant contingent coordination with mother. (3) Self-contingency organizes communication to a far greater extent than interactive contingency. (4) Self-and interactive contingency processes are not separate; each affects the other, in communication modalities of facial affect, facial-visual engagement, and orientation. Each person’s self-organization exists in a dynamic, homoeostatic (negative feedback) balance with the degree to which the person coordinates with the partner. For example, those individuals who are less facially stable are likely to coordinate more strongly with the partner’s facial affect; and vice-versa. Our findings support the concept that the dyad is a fundamental unit of analysis in the investigation of early interaction. Moreover, an individual’s self-contingency is influenced by the way the individual coordinates with the partner. Our results imply that it is not appropriate to conceptualize interactive processes without simultaneously accounting for dynamically inter-related self-organizing processes. PMID:26882118

The Navy of Brazil: An Emerging Power at Sea (Marinha do Brasil: Um Poder Emergente no Mar),

DTIC Science & Technology

1983-01-01

suggests directions for future development. He identifies the basic issues facing the Brazilian Navy: overdependence on foreign equipment, lack of funds...Department of Defense, any other US Government agency, or any agency of a foreign government. .I . I...industry, since he was a full-time faculty member of the Inter-American Defense College while he helped us launch the experiment of including foreign

"Look who's talking!" Gaze Patterns for Implicit and Explicit Audio-Visual Speech Synchrony Detection in Children With High-Functioning Autism.

PubMed

Grossman, Ruth B; Steinhart, Erin; Mitchell, Teresa; McIlvane, William

2015-06-01

Conversation requires integration of information from faces and voices to fully understand the speaker's message. To detect auditory-visual asynchrony of speech, listeners must integrate visual movements of the face, particularly the mouth, with auditory speech information. Individuals with autism spectrum disorder may be less successful at such multisensory integration, despite their demonstrated preference for looking at the mouth region of a speaker. We showed participants (individuals with and without high-functioning autism (HFA) aged 8-19) a split-screen video of two identical individuals speaking side by side. Only one of the speakers was in synchrony with the corresponding audio track and synchrony switched between the two speakers every few seconds. Participants were asked to watch the video without further instructions (implicit condition) or to specifically watch the in-synch speaker (explicit condition). We recorded which part of the screen and face their eyes targeted. Both groups looked at the in-synch video significantly more with explicit instructions. However, participants with HFA looked at the in-synch video less than typically developing (TD) peers and did not increase their gaze time as much as TD participants in the explicit task. Importantly, the HFA group looked significantly less at the mouth than their TD peers, and significantly more at non-face regions of the image. There were no between-group differences for eye-directed gaze. Overall, individuals with HFA spend less time looking at the crucially important mouth region of the face during auditory-visual speech integration, which is maladaptive gaze behavior for this type of task. © 2015 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Can we look past people's race? The effect of combining race and a non-racial group affiliation on holistic processing.

PubMed

Sadozai, Ayesha K; Kempen, Kate; Tredoux, Colin; Robbins, Rachel A

2018-03-01

Face memory is worse for races other than one's own, in part because other-race faces are less holistically processed. Both experiential factors and social factors have been suggested as reasons for this other-race effect. Direct measures of holistic processing for race and a non-racial category in faces have never been employed, making it difficult to establish how experience and group membership interact. This study is the first to directly explore holistic processing of own-race and other-race faces, also classed by a non-racial category (university affiliation). Using a crossover design, White undergraduates (in Australia) completed the part-whole task for White (American) and Black South African faces attributed to the University of Western Sydney (own) and University of Sydney (other). Black South African undergraduates completed the same task for White and Black South African faces attributed to the University of Cape Town (own) and Stellenbosch University (other). It was hypothesised that own-race faces would be processed more holistically than other-race faces and that own-university faces would be processed more holistically than other-university faces. Results showed a significant effect of race for White participants (White faces were matched more accurately than Black faces), and wholes were matched more accurately than parts, suggesting holistic processing, but only for White faces. No effect of university was found. Black South African participants, who have more experience with other-race faces, processed wholes better than parts irrespective of race and university category. Overall, results suggest that experiential factors of race outweigh any effects of a non-racial shared group membership. The quality of experience for the named populations, stimuli presentation, and degree of individuation are discussed.

Strategic targeting of advance care planning interventions: the Goldilocks phenomenon.

PubMed

Billings, J Andrew; Bernacki, Rachelle

2014-04-01

Strategically selecting patients for discussions and documentation about limiting life-sustaining treatments-choosing the right time along the end-of-life trajectory for such an intervention and identifying patients at high risk of facing end-of-life decisions-can have a profound impact on the value of advance care planning (ACP) efforts. Timing is important because the completion of an advance directive (AD) too far from or too close to the time of death can lead to end-of-life decisions that do not optimally reflect the patient's values, goals, and preferences: a poorly chosen target patient population that is unlikely to need an AD in the near future may lead to patients making unrealistic, hypothetical choices, while assessing preferences in the emergency department or hospital in the face of a calamity is notoriously inadequate. Because much of the currently studied ACP efforts have led to a disappointingly small proportion of patients eventually benefitting from an AD, careful targeting of the intervention should also improve the efficacy of such projects. A key to optimal timing and strategic selection of target patients for an ACP program is prognostication, and we briefly highlight prognostication tools and studies that may point us toward high-value AD interventions.

Attention to faces in social context in children with neurofibromatosis type 1.

PubMed

Lewis, Amelia K; Porter, Melanie A; Williams, Tracey A; Bzishvili, Samantha; North, Kathryn N; Payne, Jonathan M

2018-06-05

To examine visual attention to faces within social scenes in children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) and typically developing peers. Using eye-tracking technology we investigated the time taken to fixate on a face and the percentage of time spent attending to faces relative to the rest of the screen within social scenes in 24 children with NF1 (17 females, seven males; mean age 10y 4mo [SD 1y 9mo]). Results were compared with those of 24 age-matched typically developing controls (11 females, 13 males; mean age 10y 3mo [SD 2y]). There was no significant between-group differences in time taken to initially fixate on a face (p=0.617); however, children with NF1 spent less time attending to faces within scenes than controls (p=0.048). Decreased attention to faces was associated with elevated autism traits in children with NF1. Children with NF1 spend less time attending to faces than typically developing children when presented in social scenes. Our findings contribute to a growing body of literature suggesting that abnormal face processing is a key aspect of the social-cognitive phenotype of NF1 and appears to be related to autism spectrum disorder traits. Clinicians should consider the impact of reduced attention to faces when designing and implementing treatment programmes for social dysfunction in this population. Children with neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) demonstrated atypical gaze behaviour when attending to faces. NF1 gaze behaviour was characterized by normal initial fixation on faces but shorter face dwell time. Decreased attention to faces was associated with elevated autism traits in the sample with NF1. © 2018 Mac Keith Press.

Concurrent development of facial identity and expression discrimination.

PubMed

Dalrymple, Kirsten A; Visconti di Oleggio Castello, Matteo; Elison, Jed T; Gobbini, M Ida

2017-01-01

Facial identity and facial expression processing both appear to follow a protracted developmental trajectory, yet these trajectories have been studied independently and have not been directly compared. Here we investigated whether these processes develop at the same or different rates using matched identity and expression discrimination tasks. The Identity task begins with a target face that is a morph between two identities (Identity A/Identity B). After a brief delay, the target face is replaced by two choice faces: 100% Identity A and 100% Identity B. Children 5-12-years-old were asked to pick the choice face that is most similar to the target identity. The Expression task is matched in format and difficulty to the Identity task, except the targets are morphs between two expressions (Angry/Happy, or Disgust/Surprise). The same children were asked to pick the choice face with the expression that is most similar to the target expression. There were significant effects of age, with performance improving (becoming more accurate and faster) on both tasks with increasing age. Accuracy and reaction times were not significantly different across tasks and there was no significant Age x Task interaction. Thus, facial identity and facial expression discrimination appear to develop at a similar rate, with comparable improvement on both tasks from age five to twelve. Because our tasks are so closely matched in format and difficulty, they may prove useful for testing face identity and face expression processing in special populations, such as autism or prosopagnosia, where one of these abilities might be impaired.

An Investigation of the Relationship Between fMRI and ERP Source Localized Measurements of Brain Activity during Face Processing

PubMed Central

Richards, Todd; Webb, Sara Jane; Murias, Michael; Merkle, Kristen; Kleinhans, Natalia M.; Johnson, L. Clark; Poliakov, Andrew; Aylward, Elizabeth; Dawson, Geraldine

2013-01-01

Brain activity patterns during face processing have been extensively explored with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs). ERP source localization adds a spatial dimension to the ERP time series recordings, which allows for a more direct comparison and integration with fMRI findings. The goals for this study were (1) to compare the spatial descriptions of neuronal activity during face processing obtained with fMRI and ERP source localization using low-resolution electro-magnetic tomography (LORETA), and (2) to use the combined information from source localization and fMRI to explore how the temporal sequence of brain activity during face processing is summarized in fMRI activation maps. fMRI and high-density ERP data were acquired in separate sessions for 17 healthy adult males for a face and object processing task. LORETA statistical maps for the comparison of viewing faces and viewing houses were coregistered and compared to fMRI statistical maps for the same conditions. The spatial locations of face processing-sensitive activity measured by fMRI and LORETA were found to overlap in a number of areas including the bilateral fusiform gyri, the right superior, middle and inferior temporal gyri, and the bilateral precuneus. Both the fMRI and LORETA solutions additionally demon-strated activity in regions that did not overlap. fMRI and LORETA statistical maps of face processing-sensitive brain activity were found to converge spatially primarily at LORETA solution latencies that were within 18 ms of the N170 latency. The combination of data from these techniques suggested that electrical brain activity at the latency of the N170 is highly represented in fMRI statistical maps. PMID:19322649

Models of service delivery for cancer genetic risk assessment and counseling.

PubMed

Trepanier, Angela M; Allain, Dawn C

2014-04-01

Increasing awareness of and the potentially concomitant increasing demand for cancer genetic services is driving the need to explore more efficient models of service delivery. The aims of this study were to determine which service delivery models are most commonly used by genetic counselors, assess how often they are used, compare the efficiency of each model as well as impact on access to services, and investigate the perceived benefits and barriers of each. Full members of the NSGC Familial Cancer Special Interest Group who subscribe to its listserv were invited to participate in a web-based survey. Eligible respondents were asked which of ten defined service delivery models they use and specific questions related to aspects of model use. One-hundred ninety-two of the approximately 450 members of the listserv responded (42.7%); 177 (92.2%) had provided clinical service in the last year and were eligible to complete all sections of the survey. The four direct care models most commonly used were the (traditional) face-to-face pre- and post-test model (92.2%), the face-to-face pretest without face-to-face post-test model (86.5%), the post-test counseling only for complex results model (36.2%), and the post test counseling for all results model (18.3%). Those using the face-to-face pretest only, post-test all, and post-test complex models reported seeing more new patients than when they used the traditional model and these differences were statistically significantly. There were no significant differences in appointment wait times or distances traveled by patients when comparing use of the traditional model to the other three models. Respondents recognize that a benefit of using alternative service delivery models is increased access to services; however, some are concerned that this may affect quality of care.

Wheelchair Seating Assessment and Intervention: A Comparison Between Telerehabilitation and Face-to-Face Service

PubMed Central

Barlow, Ingrid G; Liu, Lili; Sekulic, Angela

2009-01-01

This study compared outcomes of wheelchair seating and positioning interventions provided by telerehabilitation (n=10) and face-to-face (n=20; 10 in each of two comparison groups, one urban and one rural). Comparison clients were matched to the telerehabilitation clients in age, diagnosis, and type of seating components received. Clients and referring therapists rated their satisfaction and identified if seating intervention goals were met. Clients recorded travel expenses incurred or saved, and all therapists recorded time spent providing service. Wait times and completion times were tracked. Clients seen by telerehabilitation had similar satisfaction ratings and were as likely to have their goals met as clients seen face-to-face; telerehabilitation clients saved travel costs. Rural referring therapists who used telerehabilitation spent more time in preparation and follow-up than the other groups. Clients assessed by telerehabilitation had shorter wait times for assessment than rural face-to-face clients, but their interventions took as long to complete. PMID:25945159

When anger dominates the mind: Increased motor corticospinal excitability in the face of threat

PubMed Central

Hortensius, Ruud

2016-01-01

Abstract Threat demands fast and adaptive reactions that are manifested at the physiological, behavioral, and phenomenological level and are responsive to the direction of threat and its severity for the individual. Here, we investigated the effects of threat directed toward or away from the observer on motor corticospinal excitability and explicit recognition. Sixteen healthy right‐handed volunteers completed a transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) task and a separate three‐alternative forced‐choice emotion recognition task. Single‐pulse TMS to the left primary motor cortex was applied to measure motor evoked potentials from the right abductor pollicis brevis in response to dynamic angry, fearful, and neutral bodily expressions with blurred faces directed toward or away from the observer. Results showed that motor corticospinal excitability increased independent of direction of anger compared with fear and neutral. In contrast, anger was better recognized when directed toward the observer compared with when directed away from the observer, while the opposite pattern was found for fear. The present results provide evidence for the differential effects of threat direction on explicit recognition and motor corticospinal excitability. In the face of threat, motor corticospinal excitability increases independently of the direction of anger, indicative of the importance of more automatic reactions to threat. PMID:27325519

A Developmental Decline in the Learning-Promoting Effects of Infant-Directed Speech for Infants of Mothers with Chronically Elevated Symptoms of Depression

PubMed Central

Kaplan, Peter S.; Danko, Christina M.; Kalinka, Christina J.; Cejka, Anna M.

2014-01-01

Infants of mothers who varied in symptoms of depression were tested at 4 and 12 months of age for their ability to associate a segment of an unfamiliar non-depressed mother’s infant-directed speech (IDS) with a face. At 4 months, all infants learned the voice-face association. At 12 months, despite the fact that none of the mothers were still clinically depressed, infants of mothers with chronically elevated self-reported depressive symptoms, and infants of mothers with elevated self-reported depressive symptoms at 4 months but not 12 months, on average did not learn the association. For infants of mothers diagnosed with depression in remission, learning at 12 months was negatively correlated with the postpartum duration of the mother’s depressive episode. At neither age did extent of pitch modulation in the IDS segments correlate with infant learning. However, learning scores at 12 months correlated significantly with concurrent maternal reports of infant receptive language development. The roles of the duration and timing of maternal depressive symptoms are discussed. PMID:22721737

Direct bonding of gallium nitride to silicon carbide: Physical, and electrical characterization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Lee, Jaeseob

The direct bonding method is applied to the GaN/SiC system, and the processing conditions for successful direct bonding are clarified. Direct bonding of GaN/SiC is achieved at 900°C. The direct bonding of GaN to Si-face SiC is very dependent on the choice of chemical treatments, but the bonding of GaN to C-face SiC is less dependent on surface preparation. If a native oxide is present when the bonded interface is prepared, the current through the interface is decreased, which is attributed to an energy barrier due to the presence of charged interface states. TEM images indicate 10nm spaced dislocations at the interface for the GaN/SiC (Si-face), and ˜6nm for the GaN/SiC (C-face), which form to accommodate the lattice mismatch (3.4%) and twist (1˜2°) and tilt misfit (0.2° for Si-face SiC and 3° for C-face SiC). In some regions (˜30%) an amorphous oxide layer forms at the interface, which is attributed to inadequate surface preparation prior to bonding. The strain of the GaN film with a Ga/C interface was ˜0.1%, tensile strain, and that of GaN with a Ga/Si interface was ˜0.2%, tensile strain. Our analysis indicates that the GaN/SiC thermal misfit dominates the strain of the GaN after bonding. The electrical characteristics of n-p GaN/SiC heterojunctions display diode ideality factors, saturation currents, energy barrier heights, and band offsets of 1.5 +/- 0.1, 10-13 A/cm 2, 0.75 +/- 0.10 eV, and DeltaEC = 0.87 +/- 0.10 eV for the Ga/Si interface and 1.2 +/- 0.1, 10 -16 A/cm2, 0.56 +/- 0.10 eV, and Delta EC = 0.46 +/- 0.10 eV for the Ga/C interface.

Withholding response to self-face is faster than to other-face.

PubMed

Zhu, Min; Hu, Yinying; Tang, Xiaochen; Luo, Junlong; Gao, Xiangping

2015-01-01

Self-face advantage refers to adults' response to self-face is faster than that to other-face. A stop-signal task was used to explore how self-face advantage interacted with response inhibition. The results showed that reaction times of self-face were faster than that of other-face not in the go task but in the stop response trials. The novelty of the finding was that self-face has shorter stop-signal reaction time compared to other-face in the successful inhibition trials. These results indicated the processing mechanism of self-face may be characterized by a strong response tendency and a corresponding strong inhibition control.

Medium Moderates the Message. How Users Adjust Their Communication Trajectories to Different Media in Collaborative Task Solving.

PubMed

Lisiecka, Karolina; Rychwalska, Agnieszka; Samson, Katarzyna; Łucznik, Klara; Ziembowicz, Michał; Szóstek, Agnieszka; Nowak, Andrzej

2016-01-01

Rapid development of information and communications technologies (ICT) has triggered profound changes in how people manage their social contacts in both informal and professional contexts. ICT mediated communication may seem limited in possibilities compared to face-to-face encounters, but research shows that puzzlingly often it can be just as effective and satisfactory. We posit that ICT users employ specific communication strategies adapted to particular communication channels, which results in a comparable effectiveness of communication. In order to maintain a satisfactory level of conversational intelligibility they calibrate the content of their messages to a given medium's richness and adjust the whole conversation trajectory so that every stage of the communication process runs fluently. In the current study, we compared complex task solving trajectories in chat, mobile phone and face-to-face dyadic conversations. Media conditions did not influence the quality of decision outcomes or users' perceptions of the interaction, but they had impact on the amount of time devoted to each of the identified phases of decision development. In face-to-face contacts the evaluation stage of the discussion dominated the conversation; in the texting condition the orientation-evaluation-control phases were evenly distributed; and the phone condition provided a midpoint between these two extremes. The results show that contemporary ICT users adjust their communication behavior to the limitations and opportunities of various media through the regulation of attention directed to each stage of the discussion so that as a whole the communication process remains effective.

Cutter-loader apparatus having overhung shearer drum

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Groger, H.; Harms, E.E.

1984-05-01

A longwall mining machine includes a drum cutter-loader and face conveyor wherein the drum cutter-loader is overhung and is supported by a support arm adjacent to the mine face. Nozzles direct high pressure liquid jets against the forward edge of the support arm to cut away the mining face and permit the face side support arm to advance as the mining machine advances. In one embodiment the nozzles are provided along an inclined cutting edge at the forward end of the support arm. Such nozzles may be fixed or oscillating. In an alternative embodiment the nozzles are provided in themore » cylindrical edge zone of the shearer drum and direct the high pressure fluid jets against the cutter edge at the forward end of the support arm.« less

Area utilization efficiency of a sloping heliostat system for solar concentration.

PubMed

Wei, L Y

1983-02-15

Area utilization efficiency (AUE) is formulated for a sloping heliostat system facing any direction. The effects of slope shading, incidence factor, sun shading, and tower blocking by the mirrors are all taken into account. Our results show that annually averaged AUEs calculated for heliostat systems (1) increase with tower height at low slope angles but less rapidly at high slopes, (2) increase monotonically with slope angle and saturate at large slopes for systems facing due south, (3) reach a maximum at a certain slope for systems facing other directions than due south, and (4) drop sharply at slopes greater than a certain value for systems facing due east or west due to slope shading effect. The results are useful for solar energy collection on nonflat terrains.

Developing a dashboard for benchmarking the productivity of a medication therapy management program.

PubMed

Umbreit, Audrey; Holm, Emily; Gander, Kelsey; Davis, Kelsie; Dittrich, Kristina; Jandl, Vanda; Odell, Laura; Sweeten, Perry

To describe a method for internal benchmarking of medication therapy management (MTM) pharmacist activities. Multisite MTM pharmacist practices within an integrated health care system. MTM pharmacists are located within primary care clinics and provide medication management through collaborative practice. MTM pharmacist activity is grouped into 3 categories: direct patient care, nonvisit patient care, and professional activities. MTM pharmacist activities were tracked with the use of the computer-based application Pharmacist Ambulatory Resource Management System (PhARMS) over a 12-month period to measure growth during a time of expansion. A total of 81% of MTM pharmacist time was recorded. A total of 1655.1 hours (41%) was nonvisit patient care, 1185.2 hours (29%) was direct patient care, and 1190.4 hours (30%) was professional activities. The number of patient visits per month increased during the study period. There were 1496 direct patient care encounters documented. Of those, 1051 (70.2%) were face-to-face visits, 257 (17.2%) were by telephone, and 188 (12.6%) were chart reviews. Nonvisit patient care and professional activities also increased during the period. PhARMS reported MTM pharmacist activities and captured nonvisit patient care work not tracked elsewhere. Internal benchmarking data proved to be useful for justifying increases in MTM pharmacist personnel resources. Reviewing data helped to identify best practices from high-performing sites. Limitations include potential for self-reporting bias and lack of patient outcomes data. Implementing PhARMS facilitated internal benchmarking of patient care and nonpatient care activities in a regional MTM program. Copyright © 2017 American Pharmacists Association®. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

A decade of letrozole: FACE

PubMed Central

2007-01-01

Third-generation nonsteroidal aromatase inhibitors (AIs), letrozole and anastrozole, are superior to tamoxifen as initial therapy for early breast cancer but have not been directly compared in a head-to-head adjuvant trial. Cumulative evidence suggests that AIs are not equivalent in terms of potency of estrogen suppression and that there may be differences in clinical efficacy. Thus, with no data from head-to-head comparisons of the AIs as adjuvant therapy yet available, the question of whether there are efficacy differences between the AIs remains. To help answer this question, the Femara versus Anastrozole Clinical Evaluation (FACE) is a phase IIIb open-label, randomized, multicenter trial designed to test whether letrozole or anastrozole has superior efficacy as adjuvant treatment of postmenopausal women with hormone receptor (HR)- and lymph node-positive breast cancer. Eligible patients (target accrual, N = 4,000) are randomized to receive either letrozole 2.5 mg or anastrozole 1 mg daily for up to 5 years. The primary objective is to compare disease-free survival at 5 years. Secondary end points include safety, overall survival, time to distant metastases, and time to contralateral breast cancer. The FACE trial will determine whether or not letrozole offers a greater clinical benefit to postmenopausal women with HR+ early breast cancer at increased risk of early recurrence compared with anastrozole. PMID:17912637

Multi-Directional Multi-Level Dual-Cross Patterns for Robust Face Recognition.

PubMed

Ding, Changxing; Choi, Jonghyun; Tao, Dacheng; Davis, Larry S

2016-03-01

To perform unconstrained face recognition robust to variations in illumination, pose and expression, this paper presents a new scheme to extract "Multi-Directional Multi-Level Dual-Cross Patterns" (MDML-DCPs) from face images. Specifically, the MDML-DCPs scheme exploits the first derivative of Gaussian operator to reduce the impact of differences in illumination and then computes the DCP feature at both the holistic and component levels. DCP is a novel face image descriptor inspired by the unique textural structure of human faces. It is computationally efficient and only doubles the cost of computing local binary patterns, yet is extremely robust to pose and expression variations. MDML-DCPs comprehensively yet efficiently encodes the invariant characteristics of a face image from multiple levels into patterns that are highly discriminative of inter-personal differences but robust to intra-personal variations. Experimental results on the FERET, CAS-PERL-R1, FRGC 2.0, and LFW databases indicate that DCP outperforms the state-of-the-art local descriptors (e.g., LBP, LTP, LPQ, POEM, tLBP, and LGXP) for both face identification and face verification tasks. More impressively, the best performance is achieved on the challenging LFW and FRGC 2.0 databases by deploying MDML-DCPs in a simple recognition scheme.

Eye-tracking the own-race bias in face recognition: revealing the perceptual and socio-cognitive mechanisms.

PubMed

Hills, Peter J; Pake, J Michael

2013-12-01

Own-race faces are recognised more accurately than other-race faces and may even be viewed differently as measured by an eye-tracker (Goldinger, Papesh, & He, 2009). Alternatively, observer race might direct eye-movements (Blais, Jack, Scheepers, Fiset, & Caldara, 2008). Observer differences in eye-movements are likely to be based on experience of the physiognomic characteristics that are differentially discriminating for Black and White faces. Two experiments are reported that employed standard old/new recognition paradigms in which Black and White observers viewed Black and White faces with their eye-movements recorded. Experiment 1 showed that there were observer race differences in terms of the features scanned but observers employed the same strategy across different types of faces. Experiment 2 demonstrated that other-race faces could be recognised more accurately if participants had their first fixation directed to more diagnostic features using fixation crosses. These results are entirely consistent with those presented by Blais et al. (2008) and with the perceptual interpretation that the own-race bias is due to inappropriate attention allocated to the facial features (Hills & Lewis, 2006, 2011). Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Magnetic response in cultures of Streptococcus mutans ATCC-27607.

PubMed

Adamkiewicz, V W; Bassous, C; Morency, D; Lorrain, P; Lepage, J L

1987-01-01

Streptococcus mutans ATCC-27607 produces exopolysaccharides that adhere to glass. In the normal geomagnetic field about 50% more polysaccharide adhere preferentially to glass surfaces facing North as compared to South facing surfaces. Reversal of the direction of the magnetic field by 180 degrees produces a similar reversal in the direction of the preferential accumulation. Reduction of the field by 90% abolishes the preferential accumulation.

Composite treatment of ceramic tile armor

DOEpatents

Hansen, James G. R. [Oak Ridge, TN; Frame, Barbara J [Oak Ridge, TN

2010-12-14

An improved ceramic tile armor has a core of boron nitride and a polymer matrix composite (PMC) facing of carbon fibers fused directly to the impact face of the tile. A polyethylene fiber composite backing and spall cover are preferred. The carbon fiber layers are cured directly onto the tile, not adhered using a separate adhesive so that they are integral with the tile, not a separate layer.

Composite treatment of ceramic tile armor

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Hansen, James G. R.; Frame, Barbara J

An improved ceramic tile armor has a core of boron nitride and a polymer matrix composite (PMC) facing of carbon fibers fused directly to the impact face of the tile. A polyethylene fiber composite backing and spall cover are preferred. The carbon fiber layers are cured directly onto the tile, not adhered using a separate adhesive so that they are integral with the tile, not a separate layer.

Accurate 3D point cloud comparison and volumetric change analysis of Terrestrial Laser Scan data in a hard rock coastal cliff environment

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Earlie, C. S.; Masselink, G.; Russell, P.; Shail, R.; Kingston, K.

2013-12-01

Our understanding of the evolution of hard rock coastlines is limited due to the episodic nature and ';slow' rate at which changes occur. High-resolution surveying techniques, such as Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS), have just begun to be adopted as a method of obtaining detailed point cloud data to monitor topographical changes over short periods of time (weeks to months). However, the difficulties involved in comparing consecutive point cloud data sets in a complex three-dimensional plane, such as occlusion due to surface roughness and positioning of data capture point as a result of a consistently changing environment (a beach profile), mean that comparing data sets can lead to errors in the region of 10 - 20 cm. Meshing techniques are often used for point cloud data analysis for simple surfaces, but in surfaces such as rocky cliff faces, this technique has been found to be ineffective. Recession rates of hard rock coastlines in the UK are typically determined using aerial photography or airborne LiDAR data, yet the detail of the important changes occurring to the cliff face and toe are missed using such techniques. In this study we apply an algorithm (M3C2 - Multiscale Model to Model Cloud Comparison), initially developed for analysing fluvial morphological change, that directly compares point to point cloud data using surface normals that are consistent with surface roughness and measure the change that occurs along the normal direction (Lague et al., 2013). The surfaces changes are analysed using a set of user defined scales based on surface roughness and registration error. Once the correct parameters are defined, the volumetric cliff face changes are calculated by integrating the mean distance between the point clouds. The analysis has been undertaken at two hard rock sites identified for their active erosion located on the UK's south west peninsular at Porthleven in south west Cornwall and Godrevy in north Cornwall. Alongside TLS point cloud data, in-situ measurements of the nearshore wave climate, using a pressure transducer, offshore wave climate from a directional wavebuoy, and rainfall records from nearby weather stations were collected. Combining beach elevation information from the georeferenced point clouds with a continuous time series of wave climate provides an indication of the variation in wave energy delivered to the cliff face. The rates of retreat were found to agree with the existing rates that are currently used in shoreline management. The additional geotechnical detail afforded by applying the M3C2 method to a hard rock environment provides not only a means of obtaining volumetric changes with confidence, but also a clear illustration of the locations of failure on the cliff face. Monthly cliff scans help to narrow down the timings of failure under energetic wave conditions or periods of heavy rainfall. Volumetric changes and sensitive regions to failure established using this method allows us to capture episodic changes to the cliff face at a high resolution (1 - 2 cm) that are otherwise missed using lower resolution techniques typically used for shoreline management, and to understand in greater detail the geotechnical behaviour of hard rock cliffs and determine rates of erosion with greater accuracy.

Who are you looking at? The influence of face gender on visual attention and memory for own- and other-race faces.

PubMed

Lovén, Johanna; Rehnman, Jenny; Wiens, Stefan; Lindholm, Torun; Peira, Nathalie; Herlitz, Agneta

2012-01-01

Previous research suggests that the own-race bias (ORB) in memory for faces is a result of other-race faces receiving less visual attention at encoding. As women typically display an own-gender bias in memory for faces and men do not, we investigated whether face gender and sex of viewer influenced visual attention and memory for own- and other-race faces, and if preferential viewing of own-race faces contributed to the ORB in memory. Participants viewed pairs of female or male own- and other-race faces while their viewing time was recorded. Afterwards, they completed a surprise memory test. We found that (1) other-race males received the initial focus of attention, (2) own-race faces were viewed longer than other-race faces over time, although the difference was larger for female faces, and (3) even though longer viewing time increased the probability of remembering a face, it did not explain the magnified ORB in memory for female faces. Importantly, these findings highlight that face gender moderates attentional responses to and memory for own- and other-race faces.

Macroscopic in vivo imaging of facial nerve regeneration in Thy1-GFP rats.

PubMed

Placheta, Eva; Wood, Matthew D; Lafontaine, Christine; Frey, Manfred; Gordon, Tessa; Borschel, Gregory H

2015-01-01

Facial nerve injury leads to severe functional and aesthetic deficits. The transgenic Thy1-GFP rat is a new model for facial nerve injury and reconstruction research that will help improve clinical outcomes through translational facial nerve injury research. To determine whether serial in vivo imaging of nerve regeneration in the transgenic rat model is possible, facial nerve regeneration was imaged under the main paradigms of facial nerve injury and reconstruction. Fifteen male Thy1-GFP rats, which express green fluorescent protein (GFP) in their neural structures, were divided into 3 groups in the laboratory: crush-injury, direct repair, and cross-face nerve grafting (30-mm graft length). The distal nerve stump or nerve graft was predegenerated for 2 weeks. The facial nerve of the transgenic rats was serially imaged at the time of operation and after 2, 4, and 8 weeks of regeneration. The imaging was performed under a GFP-MDS-96/BN excitation stand (BLS Ltd). Facial nerve injury. Optical fluorescence of regenerating facial nerve axons. Serial in vivo imaging of the regeneration of GFP-positive axons in the Thy1-GFP rat model is possible. All animals survived the short imaging procedures well, and nerve regeneration was followed over clinically relevant distances. The predegeneration of the distal nerve stump or the cross-face nerve graft was, however, necessary to image the regeneration front at early time points. Crush injury was not suitable to sufficiently predegenerate the nerve (and to allow for degradation of the GFP through Wallerian degeneration). After direct repair, axons regenerated over the coaptation site in between 2 and 4 weeks. The GFP-positive nerve fibers reached the distal end of the 30-mm-long cross-face nervegrafts after 4 to 8 weeks of regeneration. The time course of facial nerve regeneration was studied by serial in vivo imaging in the transgenic rat model. Nerve regeneration was followed over clinically relevant distances in a small number of experimental animals, as they were subsequently imaged at multiple time points. The Thy1-GFP rat model will help improve clinical outcomes of facial reanimation surgery through improving the knowledge of facial nerve regeneration after surgical procedures. NA.

Adapting qualitative research strategies to technology savvy adolescents.

PubMed

Mason, Deanna Marie; Ide, Bette

2014-05-01

To adapt research strategies involving adolescents in a grounded theory qualitative research study by conducting email rather than face-to-face interviews. Adolescent culture relies heavily on text-based communication and teens prefer interactions mediated through technology. Traditional qualitative research strategies need to be rethought when working with adolescents. Adapting interviewing strategies to electronic environments is timely and relevant for researching adolescents. Twenty three adolescents (aged 16-21) were interviewed by email. A letter of invitation was distributed. Potential participants emailed the researcher to convey interest in participating. If the inclusion criteria were met, email interviews were initiated. Participants controlled the interviews through their rate of response to interview questions. A grounded theory methodology was employed. Initial contact with participants reiterated confidentiality and the ability to withdraw from the study at any time. Interviews began with the collection of demographic information and a broad opening based on a semi-structured interview guide. All data were permissible, including text, photos, music, videos or outside media, for example YouTube. The participant was allowed to give direction to the interview after initial questions were posed. Email interviews continued until saturation was reached in the data. Participants were enthusiastic about email interviewing. Attrition did not occur. Email interviewing gave participants more control over the research, decreased power differentials between the adolescent and researcher, allowed the study to be adapted to cultural, linguistic and developmental needs, and maintained confidentiality. As participants said that email communication was slow and they preferred instant messaging, replication in faster-paced media is recommended. Repetition in face-to-face settings is warranted to evaluate how technology may have influenced the findings. Implications for practice/research Adolescents' use of the internet and their preference for textbased communication makes a compelling support for modifying traditional face-to-face qualitative investigations to reflect these changing contextual conditions.

Solvent selection for explaining the morphology of nitroguanidine crystal by molecular dynamics simulation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Song, Liang; Chen, Lizhen; Cao, Duanlin; Wang, Jianlong

2018-02-01

In this article, a method was performed to predict the morphology of needle-shaped crystals by analyzing the growth mechanisms for the various crystal faces. As an example, the crystal morphology of a nitroguanidine (NQ) was investigated via molecular dynamics simulations. The modified attachment energy (MEA) model was constructed by introducing surface chemistry terms and the relevant morphology of the habit crystal faces. The results indicate that the growth morphology of NQ in vacuum is dominated by {2 2 0}, {0 4 0}, {1 1 1}, {1 3 1} and {3 1 1} faces. The {2 2 0} and {0 4 0} faces are parallel to the elongation direction of the crystal, while the other faces are at the needle tips direction. The atoms or atomic groups exposed in crystal surface were used to analyze the relationship between structure and morphology. Compared to the surrounding faces, the needle tip faces have a large number of polar atoms or atomic groups. The needle tip faces have a high electronegativity on N, O atoms via molecular electrostatic potential (ESP) analysis. Furthermore, the protic solvent was used to reduce the attachment energy of the tip surfaces for achieving the purpose of inhibiting the growth of needle tips. Gamma-butyrolactone as the selected solvent inhibited effectively the growth of the needle tip faces. The predicted result is serviceable for the formation design.

Altered saccadic targets when processing facial expressions under different attentional and stimulus conditions.

PubMed

Boutsen, Frank A; Dvorak, Justin D; Pulusu, Vinay K; Ross, Elliott D

2017-04-01

Depending on a subject's attentional bias, robust changes in emotional perception occur when facial blends (different emotions expressed on upper/lower face) are presented tachistoscopically. If no instructions are given, subjects overwhelmingly identify the lower facial expression when blends are presented to either visual field. If asked to attend to the upper face, subjects overwhelmingly identify the upper facial expression in the left visual field but remain slightly biased to the lower facial expression in the right visual field. The current investigation sought to determine whether differences in initial saccadic targets could help explain the perceptual biases described above. Ten subjects were presented with full and blend facial expressions under different attentional conditions. No saccadic differences were found for left versus right visual field presentations or for full facial versus blend stimuli. When asked to identify the presented emotion, saccades were directed to the lower face. When asked to attend to the upper face, saccades were directed to the upper face. When asked to attend to the upper face and try to identify the emotion, saccades were directed to the upper face but to a lesser degree. Thus, saccadic behavior supports the concept that there are cognitive-attentional pre-attunements when subjects visually process facial expressions. However, these pre-attunements do not fully explain the perceptual superiority of the left visual field for identifying the upper facial expression when facial blends are presented tachistoscopically. Hence other perceptual factors must be in play, such as the phenomenon of virtual scanning. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Real-time teleophthalmology versus face-to-face consultation: A systematic review.

PubMed

Tan, Irene J; Dobson, Lucy P; Bartnik, Stephen; Muir, Josephine; Turner, Angus W

2017-08-01

Introduction Advances in imaging capabilities and the evolution of real-time teleophthalmology have the potential to provide increased coverage to areas with limited ophthalmology services. However, there is limited research assessing the diagnostic accuracy of face-to-face teleophthalmology consultation. This systematic review aims to determine if real-time teleophthalmology provides comparable accuracy to face-to-face consultation for the diagnosis of common eye health conditions. Methods A search of PubMed, Embase, Medline and Cochrane databases and manual citation review was conducted on 6 February and 7 April 2016. Included studies involved real-time telemedicine in the field of ophthalmology or optometry, and assessed diagnostic accuracy against gold-standard face-to-face consultation. The revised quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS-2) tool assessed risk of bias. Results Twelve studies were included, with participants ranging from four to 89 years old. A broad number of conditions were assessed and include corneal and retinal pathologies, strabismus, oculoplastics and post-operative review. Quality assessment identified a high or unclear risk of bias in patient selection (75%) due to an undisclosed recruitment processes. The index test showed high risk of bias in the included studies, due to the varied interpretation and conduct of real-time teleophthalmology methods. Reference standard risk was overall low (75%), as was the risk due to flow and timing (75%). Conclusion In terms of diagnostic accuracy, real-time teleophthalmology was considered superior to face-to-face consultation in one study and comparable in six studies. Store-and-forward image transmission coupled with real-time videoconferencing is a suitable alternative to overcome poor internet transmission speeds.

TIME CALIBRATED OSCILLOSCOPE SWEEP

DOEpatents

Owren, H.M.; Johnson, B.M.; Smith, V.L.

1958-04-22

The time calibrator of an electric signal displayed on an oscilloscope is described. In contrast to the conventional technique of using time-calibrated divisions on the face of the oscilloscope, this invention provides means for directly superimposing equal time spaced markers upon a signal displayed upon an oscilloscope. More explicitly, the present invention includes generally a generator for developing a linear saw-tooth voltage and a circuit for combining a high-frequency sinusoidal voltage of a suitable amplitude and frequency with the saw-tooth voltage to produce a resultant sweep deflection voltage having a wave shape which is substantially linear with respect to time between equal time spaced incremental plateau regions occurring once each cycle of the sinusoidal voltage. The foregoing sweep voltage when applied to the horizontal deflection plates in combination with a signal to be observed applied to the vertical deflection plates of a cathode ray oscilloscope produces an image on the viewing screen which is essentially a display of the signal to be observed with respect to time. Intensified spots, or certain other conspicuous indications corresponding to the equal time spaced plateau regions of said sweep voltage, appear superimposed upon said displayed signal, which indications are therefore suitable for direct time calibration purposes.

When Infants Lose Exclusive Maternal Attention: Is It Jealousy?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Hart, Sybil L.; Carrington, Heather A.; Tronick, E. Z.; Carroll, Sebrina R.

2004-01-01

To characterize infant reactions to jealousy evocation, 94 6-month-olds and their mothers were videotaped in an episode where the mothers directed positive attention toward a lifelike doll, and in 2 contrasting interactions: face-to-face play and a still-face perturbation. Cross-context comparisons of affects and behaviors revealed that jealousy…

Intact unconscious processing of eye contact in schizophrenia.

PubMed

Seymour, Kiley; Rhodes, Gillian; Stein, Timo; Langdon, Robyn

2016-03-01

The perception of eye gaze is crucial for social interaction, providing essential information about another person's goals, intentions, and focus of attention. People with schizophrenia suffer a wide range of social cognitive deficits, including abnormalities in eye gaze perception. For instance, patients have shown an increased bias to misjudge averted gaze as being directed toward them. In this study we probed early unconscious mechanisms of gaze processing in schizophrenia using a technique known as continuous flash suppression. Previous research using this technique to render faces with direct and averted gaze initially invisible reveals that direct eye contact gains privileged access to conscious awareness in healthy adults. We found that patients, as with healthy control subjects, showed the same effect: faces with direct eye gaze became visible significantly faster than faces with averted gaze. This suggests that early unconscious processing of eye gaze is intact in schizophrenia and implies that any misjudgments of gaze direction must manifest at a later conscious stage of gaze processing where deficits and/or biases in attributing mental states to gaze and/or beliefs about being watched may play a role.

Sex differences in adults' relative visual interest in female and male faces, toys, and play styles.

PubMed

Alexander, Gerianne M; Charles, Nora

2009-06-01

An individual's reproductive potential appears to influence response to attractive faces of the opposite sex. Otherwise, relatively little is known about the characteristics of the adult observer that may influence his or her affective evaluation of male and female faces. An untested hypothesis (based on the proposed role of attractive faces in mate selection) is that most women would show greater interest in male faces whereas most men would show greater interest in female faces. Further, evidence from individuals with preferences for same-sex sexual partners suggests that response to attractive male and female faces may be influenced by gender-linked play preferences. To test these hypotheses, visual attention directed to sex-linked stimuli (faces, toys, play styles) was measured in 39 men and 44 women using eye tracking technology. Consistent with our predictions, men directed greater visual attention to all male-typical stimuli and visual attention to male and female faces was associated with visual attention to gender conforming or nonconforming stimuli in a manner consistent with previous research on sexual orientation. In contrast, women showed a visual preference for female-typical toys, but no visual preference for male faces or female-typical play styles. These findings indicate that sex differences in visual processing extend beyond stimuli associated with adult sexual behavior. We speculate that sex differences in visual processing are a component of the expression of gender phenotypes across the lifespan that may reflect sex differences in the motivational properties of gender-linked stimuli.

Evidence for Working Memory Storage Operations in Perceptual Cortex

PubMed Central

Sreenivasan, Kartik K.; Gratton, Caterina; Vytlacil, Jason; D’Esposito, Mark

2014-01-01

Isolating the short-term storage component of working memory (WM) from the myriad of associated executive processes has been an enduring challenge. Recent efforts have identified patterns of activity in visual regions that contain information about items being held in WM. However, it remains unclear (i) whether these representations withstand intervening sensory input and (ii) how communication between multimodal association cortex and unimodal perceptual regions supporting WM representations is involved in WM storage. We present evidence that the features of a face held in WM are stored within face processing regions, that these representations persist across subsequent sensory input, and that information about the match between sensory input and memory representation is relayed forward from perceptual to prefrontal regions. Participants were presented with a series of probe faces and indicated whether each probe matched a Target face held in WM. We parametrically varied the feature similarity between probe and Target faces. Activity within face processing regions scaled linearly with the degree of feature similarity between the probe face and the features of the Target face, suggesting that the features of the Target face were stored in these regions. Furthermore, directed connectivity measures revealed that the direction of information flow that was optimal for performance was from sensory regions that stored the features of the Target face to dorsal prefrontal regions, supporting the notion that sensory input is compared to representations stored within perceptual regions and relayed forward. Together, these findings indicate that WM storage operations are carried out within perceptual cortex. PMID:24436009

Saccadic movement deficiencies in adults with ADHD tendencies.

PubMed

Lee, Yun-Jeong; Lee, Sangil; Chang, Munseon; Kwak, Ho-Wan

2015-12-01

The goal of the present study was to explore deficits in gaze detection and emotional value judgment during a saccadic eye movement task in adults with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) tendencies. Thirty-two participants, consisting of 16 ADHD tendencies and 16 controls, were recruited from a pool of 243 university students. Among the many problems in adults with ADHDs, our research focused on the deficits in the processing of nonverbal cues, such as gaze direction and the emotional value of others' faces. In Experiment 1, a cue display containing a face with emotional value and gaze direction was followed by a target display containing two faces located on the left and right side of the display. The participant's task was to make an anti-saccade opposite to the gaze direction if the cue face was not emotionally neutral. ADHD tendencies showed more overall errors than controls in making anti-saccades. Based on the hypothesis that the exposure duration of the cue display in Experiment 1 may have been too long, we presented the cue and target display simultaneously to prevent participants from preparing saccades in advance. Participants in Experiment 2 were asked to make either a pro-saccade or an anti-saccade depending on the emotional value of the central cue face. Interestingly, significant group differences were observed for errors of omission and commission. In addition, a significant three-way interaction among groups, cue emotion, and target gaze direction suggests that the emotional recognition and gaze control systems might somehow be interconnected. The result also shows that ADHDs are more easily distracted by a task-irrelevant gaze direction. Taken together, these results suggest that tasks requiring both response inhibition (anti-saccade) and gaze-emotion recognition might be useful in developing a diagnostic test for discriminating adults with ADHDs from healthy adults.

Real Time Seismic Prediction while Drilling

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Schilling, F. R.; Bohlen, T.; Edelmann, T.; Kassel, A.; Heim, A.; Gehring, M.; Lüth, S.; Giese, R.; Jaksch, K.; Rechlin, A.; Kopf, M.; Stahlmann, J.; Gattermann, J.; Bruns, B.

2009-12-01

Efficient and safe drilling is a prerequisite to enhance the mobility of people and goods, to improve the traffic as well as utility infrastructure of growing megacities, and to ensure the growing energy demand while building geothermal and in hydroelectric power plants. Construction within the underground is often building within the unknown. An enhanced risk potential for people and the underground building may arise if drilling enters fracture zones, karsts, brittle rocks, mixed solid and soft rocks, caves, or anthropogenic obstacles. Knowing about the material behavior ahead of the drilling allows reducing the risk during drilling and construction operation. In drilling operations direct observations from boreholes can be complemented with geophysical investigations. In this presentation we focus on “real time” seismic prediction while drilling which is seen as a prerequisite while using geophysical methods in modern drilling operations. In solid rocks P- and S-wave velocity, refraction and reflection as well as seismic wave attenuation can be used for the interpretation of structures ahead of the drilling. An Integrated Seismic Imaging System (ISIS) for exploration ahead of a construction is used, where a pneumatic hammer or a magnetostrictive vibration source generate repetitive signals behind the tunneling machine. Tube waves are generated which travel along the tunnel to the working face. There the tube waves are converted to mainly S- but also P-Waves which interact with the formation ahead of the heading face. The reflected or refracted waves travel back to the working front are converted back to tube waves and recorded using three-component geophones which are fit into the tips of anchor rods. In near real time, the ISIS software allows for an integrated 3D imaging and interpretation of the observed data, geological and geotechnical parameters. Fracture zones, heterogeneities, and variations in the rock properties can be revealed during the drilling operation. First experiments indicate that parts of the ISIS system can be used for smaller diameters e.g. in vertical drilling. In unconsolidated rocks S-waves are strongly attenuated. For the Sonic Softground Probing (SSP) system P-waves are used. A vibration-seismic correlation positioning system was developed. One transmitter and several receiver are placed within the cutting wheel. During drilling, a specially coded transmitter signal is sent directly from the cutterhead via the face support medium in the direction of tunneling. With this geometry, boulders can be detected 50 m ahead of the working face. Fracture zones and other discontinuities can be localized, and the physical properties of the upcoming rocks can be partly determined nearly in real time, while using sound velocity and attenuation as indicators. All evaluation is based on real time 3D velocity models which are determined during the drilling operation. Different technologies allow a seismic prediction while drilling in various rock types and geologies. Seismic prediction during vertical drilling will significantly profit from the lesson learned from state of the art tunneling systems.

Mining planer with pivotal tool holder

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Braun, E.; Braun, G.

1983-10-04

A planer assembly is disclosed for winning minerals from a mineral face comprising, a planer guide member, at least two planers slidably engaged on the guide member for movement in a travel direction along the face, a hinge interconnecting the two planers for transferring rotational moment applied to the planers and a planer tool holder mounted on each planer which carries a tool. The planer tool holder is positionable at an angle to make a cut of a selected depth with the depth increasing from planer to planer in a direction opposite the travel direction.

Observing Third-Party Attentional Relationships Affects Infants' Gaze Following: An Eye-Tracking Study

PubMed Central

Meng, Xianwei; Uto, Yusuke; Hashiya, Kazuhide

2017-01-01

Not only responding to direct social actions toward themselves, infants also pay attention to relevant information from third-party interactions. However, it is unclear whether and how infants recognize the structure of these interactions. The current study aimed to investigate how infants' observation of third-party attentional relationships influence their subsequent gaze following. Nine-month-old, 1-year-old, and 1.5-year-old infants (N = 72, 37 girls) observed video clips in which a female actor gazed at one of two toys after she and her partner either silently faced each other (face-to-face condition) or looked in opposite directions (back-to-back condition). An eye tracker was used to record the infants' looking behavior (e.g., looking time, looking frequency). The analyses revealed that younger infants followed the actor's gaze toward the target object in both conditions, but this was not the case for the 1.5-year-old infants in the back-to-back condition. Furthermore, we found that infants' gaze following could be negatively predicted by their expectation of the partner's response to the actor's head turn (i.e., they shift their gaze toward the partner immediately after they realize that the actor's head will turn). These findings suggested that the sensitivity to the difference in knowledge and attentional states in the second year of human life could be extended to third-party interactions, even without any direct involvement in the situation. Additionally, a spontaneous concern with the epistemic gap between self and other, as well as between others, develops by this age. These processes might be considered part of the fundamental basis for human communication. PMID:28149284

Typical visual search performance and atypical gaze behaviors in response to faces in Williams syndrome.

PubMed

Hirai, Masahiro; Muramatsu, Yukako; Mizuno, Seiji; Kurahashi, Naoko; Kurahashi, Hirokazu; Nakamura, Miho

2016-01-01

Evidence indicates that individuals with Williams syndrome (WS) exhibit atypical attentional characteristics when viewing faces. However, the dynamics of visual attention captured by faces remain unclear, especially when explicit attentional forces are present. To clarify this, we introduced a visual search paradigm and assessed how the relative strength of visual attention captured by a face and explicit attentional control changes as search progresses. Participants (WS and controls) searched for a target (butterfly) within an array of distractors, which sometimes contained an upright face. We analyzed reaction time and location of the first fixation-which reflect the attentional profile at the initial stage-and fixation durations. These features represent aspects of attention at later stages of visual search. The strength of visual attention captured by faces and explicit attentional control (toward the butterfly) was characterized by the frequency of first fixations on a face or butterfly and on the duration of face or butterfly fixations. Although reaction time was longer in all groups when faces were present, and visual attention was not dominated by faces in any group during the initial stages of the search, when faces were present, attention to faces dominated in the WS group during the later search stages. Furthermore, for the WS group, reaction time correlated with eye-movement measures at different stages of searching such that longer reaction times were associated with longer face-fixations, specifically at the initial stage of searching. Moreover, longer reaction times were associated with longer face-fixations at the later stages of searching, while shorter reaction times were associated with longer butterfly fixations. The relative strength of attention captured by faces in people with WS is not observed at the initial stage of searching but becomes dominant as the search progresses. Furthermore, although behavioral responses are associated with some aspects of eye movements, they are not as sensitive as eye-movement measurements themselves at detecting atypical attentional characteristics in people with WS.

The acceptability to patients of PhysioDirect telephone assessment and advice services; a qualitative interview study.

PubMed

Pearson, Jennifer; Richardson, Jane; Calnan, Michael; Salisbury, Chris; Foster, Nadine E

2016-03-28

In response to long waiting lists and problems with access to primary care physiotherapy, several Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) (now Clinical Commissioning Groups CCGs) developed physiotherapy-led telephone assessment and treatment services. The Medical Research Council (MRC) funded PhysioDirect trial was a randomised control trial (RCT) in four PCTs, with a total of 2252 patients that compared this approach with usual physiotherapy care. This nested qualitative study aimed to explore the acceptability of the PhysioDirect telephone assessment and advice service to patients with musculoskeletal conditions. We conducted 57 semi-structured interviews with adults from 4 PCTs who were referred from general practice to physiotherapy with musculoskeletal conditions and were participating in the PhysioDirect trial. The Framework method was used to analyse the qualitative data. The PhysioDirect service was largely viewed as acceptable although some saw it as a first step to subsequent face-to-face physiotherapy. Most participants found accessing the PhysioDirect service straightforward and smooth, and they valued the faster access to physiotherapy advice offered by the telephone service. Participants generally viewed both the PhysioDirect service and the physiotherapists providing the service as helpful. Participants' preferences and priorities for treatment defined the acceptable features of PhysioDirect but the acceptable features were traded off against less acceptable features. Some participants felt that the PhysioDirect service was impersonal and impaired the development of a good relationship with their physiotherapist, which made the service feel remote and less valuable. The PhysioDirect service was broadly acceptable to participants since it provided faster access to physiotherapy advice for their musculoskeletal conditions. Participants felt that it is best placed as one method of accessing physiotherapy services, in addition to, rather than as a replacement for, more traditional face-to-face physiotherapy assessment and treatment.

Gamblers seeking online help are active help-seekers: Time to support autonomy and competence.

PubMed

Rodda, S N; Dowling, N A; Lubman, D I

2018-06-05

Research investigating rates of help-seeking for problem gambling has traditionally focused on the uptake of face-to-face gambling services alone, despite the World Health Organisation defining help-seeking as any action or activity undertaken to improve or resolve emotional, psychological or behavioural problems. The primary aim of this study is to examine the full range of help-seeking options utilised by gamblers, and to determine whether administering a comprehensive list of help options yields higher help-seeking rates than a single item measure. A one-item and expanded 14-item help-seeking Questionnaire (the Help-Seeking Questionnaire; HSQ) were administered to 277 problem gamblers seeking help online. We found the 14-item HSQ yielded a significantly higher level of lifetime professional help-seeking (70%) compared to the one-item measure (22%). When we included self-directed activities, 93% of gamblers reported they had previously attempted at least one activity to reduce their gambling. Current measurement of help-seeking appears to underestimate the range of activities currently undertaken by gamblers to reduce their gambling. Surveys need to include the one-item HSQ (over the past 12 months have you sought professional help or advice (online, by phone, or in person), support from family or friends, or did something by yourself to limit or reduce your gambling?) or the three-item HSQ which measures engagement of face-to-face services (i.e., counselling, advice, groups), distance-based (i.e., anonymous telephone, online) and self-directed (i.e., activities not involving professional oversight) activities separately. The full 14-item screen can be administered when brief screens are positive to ensure accurate measurement of help-seeking. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Extending the surrogacy analogy: applying the advance directive model to biobanks.

PubMed

Solomon, Stephanie; Mongoven, Ann

2015-01-01

Biobank donors and biobank governance face a conceptual challenge akin to clinical patients and their designated surrogate decision-makers, the necessity of making decisions and policies now that must be implemented under future unknown circumstances. We propose that biobanks take advantage of this parallel to learn lessons from the historical trajectory of advance directives and develop models analogous to current 'best practice' advance directives such as Values Histories and TheFive Wishes. We suggest how such models could improve biobanks' engagement both with communities and with individual donors by being more honest about the limits of current disclosure and eliciting information to ensure the protection of donor interests more robustly through time than current 'informed consent' processes in biobanking. © 2014 S. Karger AG, Basel.

A Rapid Subcortical Amygdala Route for Faces Irrespective of Spatial Frequency and Emotion.

PubMed

McFadyen, Jessica; Mermillod, Martial; Mattingley, Jason B; Halász, Veronika; Garrido, Marta I

2017-04-05

There is significant controversy over the existence and function of a direct subcortical visual pathway to the amygdala. It is thought that this pathway rapidly transmits low spatial frequency information to the amygdala independently of the cortex, and yet the directionality of this function has never been determined. We used magnetoencephalography to measure neural activity while human participants discriminated the gender of neutral and fearful faces filtered for low or high spatial frequencies. We applied dynamic causal modeling to demonstrate that the most likely underlying neural network consisted of a pulvinar-amygdala connection that was uninfluenced by spatial frequency or emotion, and a cortical-amygdala connection that conveyed high spatial frequencies. Crucially, data-driven neural simulations revealed a clear temporal advantage of the subcortical connection over the cortical connection in influencing amygdala activity. Thus, our findings support the existence of a rapid subcortical pathway that is nonselective in terms of the spatial frequency or emotional content of faces. We propose that that the "coarseness" of the subcortical route may be better reframed as "generalized." SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT The human amygdala coordinates how we respond to biologically relevant stimuli, such as threat or reward. It has been postulated that the amygdala first receives visual input via a rapid subcortical route that conveys "coarse" information, namely, low spatial frequencies. For the first time, the present paper provides direction-specific evidence from computational modeling that the subcortical route plays a generalized role in visual processing by rapidly transmitting raw, unfiltered information directly to the amygdala. This calls into question a widely held assumption across human and animal research that fear responses are produced faster by low spatial frequencies. Our proposed mechanism suggests organisms quickly generate fear responses to a wide range of visual properties, heavily implicating future research on anxiety-prevention strategies. Copyright © 2017 the authors 0270-6474/17/373864-11$15.00/0.

Using skype as an alternative for residency selection interviews.

PubMed

Edje, Louito; Miller, Christine; Kiefer, Jacklyn; Oram, David

2013-09-01

Residency interviews can place significant time and financial burdens on applicants. To determine whether the use of Skype as a screening tool during interview season in a family medicine residency is cost-effective and time-efficient for the applicant and the residency program. We surveyed 2 groups of medical students during interviews for our family medicine program. Thirty-two students were interviewed via our face-to-face, traditional interview (TI) process, and 10 students, the second group, who did not meet the program's standard interview selection criteria for TI, underwent our Skype interview (SI) process. Using an unpaired t test, we found that the applicants' costs of an SI were significantly less than a TI, $566 (95% confidence interval [CI] $784-$349, P < .001). Direct cash savings plus indirect salary savings to the program were $5,864, with a time savings of 7 interview days. Three of the applicants who were participants in the SI limb of the study were in our final rank order list. For interviewing in family medicine residencies, use of Skype may be a cost-effective and time-efficient screening tool for both the applicant and the program. Alternate uses of SI may include the time-sensitive, postmatch Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program.

Using Skype as an Alternative for Residency Selection Interviews

PubMed Central

Edje, Louito; Miller, Christine; Kiefer, Jacklyn; Oram, David

2013-01-01

Background Residency interviews can place significant time and financial burdens on applicants. Objective To determine whether the use of Skype as a screening tool during interview season in a family medicine residency is cost-effective and time-efficient for the applicant and the residency program. Methods We surveyed 2 groups of medical students during interviews for our family medicine program. Thirty-two students were interviewed via our face-to-face, traditional interview (TI) process, and 10 students, the second group, who did not meet the program's standard interview selection criteria for TI, underwent our Skype interview (SI) process. Results Using an unpaired t test, we found that the applicants' costs of an SI were significantly less than a TI, $566 (95% confidence interval [CI] $784–$349, P < .001). Direct cash savings plus indirect salary savings to the program were $5,864, with a time savings of 7 interview days. Three of the applicants who were participants in the SI limb of the study were in our final rank order list. Conclusions For interviewing in family medicine residencies, use of Skype may be a cost-effective and time-efficient screening tool for both the applicant and the program. Alternate uses of SI may include the time-sensitive, postmatch Supplemental Offer and Acceptance Program. PMID:24404318

Phase Shift Interferometer and Growth Set Up to Step Pattern Formation During Growth From Solutions. Influence of the Oscillatory solution Flow on Stability

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Chernov, Alex A.; Booth, N. A.; Vekilov, P. G.; Murray, B. T.; McFadden, G. B.

2000-01-01

We have assembled an experimental setup based on Michelson interferometry with the growing crystal surface as one of the reflective surfaces. The crystallization part of the device allows optical monitoring of a face of a crystal growing at temperature stable within 0.05 C in a flow of solution of controlled direction and speed. The reference arm of the interferometer contains a liquid crystal element that allows controlled shifts of the phase of the interferograms. We employ an image-processing algorithm, which combines five images with a pi/2 phase difference between each pair of images. The images are transferred to a computer by a camera capable of capturing 60 frames per second. The device allows data collection on surface morphology and kinetics during the face layers growth over a relatively large area (approximately 4 sq. mm) in situ and in real time during growth. The estimated depth resolution of the phase shifting interferometry is approximately 50 Angstroms. The data will be analyzed in order to reveal and monitor step bunching during the growth process. The crystal chosen as a model for study in this work is KH2PO4 (KDP). This optically non-linear material is widely used in frequency doubling applications. There have been a number of studies of the kinetics of KDP crystallization that can serve as a benchmark for our investigations. However, so far, systematic quantitative characteristics of step interaction and bunching are missing. We intend to present our first quantitative results on the onset, initial stages and development of instabilities in moving step trains on vicinal crystal surfaces at varying supersaturation, flow rate, and flow direction. Behavior of a vicinal face growing from solution flowing normal to the steps and periodically changing its direction in time was considered theoretically. It was found that this oscillating flow reduces both stabilization and destabilization effects resulted from the unidirectional solution flow directed up the step stream and down the step stream. This reduction of stabilization and destabilization comes from effective mixing which entangles the phase shifts between the spatially periodic interface perturbation and the concentration wave induced by this perturbation. Numerical results and simplified mixing criterion will be discussed.

Turbomachine rotor with improved cooling

DOEpatents

Hultgren, Kent Goran; McLaurin, Leroy Dixon; Bertsch, Oran Leroy; Lowe, Perry Eugene

1998-01-01

A gas turbine rotor has an essentially closed loop cooling air scheme in which cooling air drawn from the compressor discharge air that is supplied to the combustion chamber is further compressed, cooled, and then directed to the aft end of the turbine rotor. Downstream seal rings attached to the downstream face of each rotor disc direct the cooling air over the downstream disc face, thereby cooling it, and then to cooling air passages formed in the rotating blades. Upstream seal rings attached to the upstream face of each disc direct the heated cooling air away from the blade root while keeping the disc thermally isolated from the heated cooling air. From each upstream seal ring, the heated cooling air flows through passages in the upstream discs and is then combined and returned to the combustion chamber from which it was drawn.

Turbomachine rotor with improved cooling

DOEpatents

Hultgren, K.G.; McLaurin, L.D.; Bertsch, O.L.; Lowe, P.E.

1998-05-26

A gas turbine rotor has an essentially closed loop cooling air scheme in which cooling air drawn from the compressor discharge air that is supplied to the combustion chamber is further compressed, cooled, and then directed to the aft end of the turbine rotor. Downstream seal rings attached to the downstream face of each rotor disc direct the cooling air over the downstream disc face, thereby cooling it, and then to cooling air passages formed in the rotating blades. Upstream seal rings attached to the upstream face of each disc direct the heated cooling air away from the blade root while keeping the disc thermally isolated from the heated cooling air. From each upstream seal ring, the heated cooling air flows through passages in the upstream discs and is then combined and returned to the combustion chamber from which it was drawn. 5 figs.

Face-selective crystal growth behavior of L-aspartic acid in the presence of L-asparagine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sato, Hiroyasu; Doki, Norihito; Yoshida, Saki; Yokota, Masaaki; Shimizu, Kenji

2016-02-01

The kinetic mechanism of L-asparagine (L-Asn) action on L-aspartic acid (L-Asp) crystal growth, namely the face-selective effect of L-Asn on the L-Asp crystal growth rate in each direction, was examined. In the a-axis direction, the effect of L-Asn on the L-Asp crystal growth rate was small. Enhancement and inhibition of L-Asp crystal growth, and interestingly the dissolution of the L-Asp crystal face, were observed in the b-axis direction, depending on the amount of L-Asn added. In the c-axis direction, the L-Asp crystal growth rate decreased with the increase in the amount of L-Asn added, and the experimental results were well fitted with a Langmuir adsorption isotherm. The study showed that there were crystal growth conditions where enhancement and inhibition, as well as inhibition and dissolution, coexisted in the presence of an additive with a structure similar to the growing crystal.

Noseleaf pit in Egyptian slit-faced bat as a doubly curved reflector

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhuang, Qiao; Wang, Xiao-Min; Li, Ming-Xuan; Mao, Jie; Wang, Fu-Xun

2012-02-01

Noseleaves in slit-faced bats have been hypothesized to affect the sonar beam. Using numerical methods, we show that the pit in the noseleaf of an Egyptian slit-faced bat has an effect on focusing the acoustic near field as well as shaping the radiation patterns and hence enhancing the directionality. The underlying physical mechanism suggested by the properties of the effect is that the pit acts as a doubly curved reflector. Thanks to the pit the beam shape is overall directional and more selectively widened at the high end of the biosonar frequency range to improve spatial coverage and detectability of targets.

Prosodic Modification and Vocal Adjustments in Mothers' Speech during Face-to-Face Interaction with Their Two- to Four-Month-Old Infants: A Double Video Study

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Braarud, Hanne Cecilie; Stormark, Kjell Morten

2008-01-01

The purpose of this study was to examine 32 mothers' sensitivity to social contingency during face-to-face interaction with their two- to four-month-old infants in a closed circuit TV set-up. Prosodic qualities and vocal sounds in mother's infant-directed (ID) speech during sequences of live interaction were compared to sequences where expressive…

CALUTRON RECEIVER

DOEpatents

Brunk, W.O.

1959-09-29

A description is given for an improved calutron receiver having a face plate lying at an angle to the direction of the entering ion beams but having an opening, the plane of which is substantially perpendicular to that of the entering ion beams. By so positioning the opening in the receiver, the effective area through which the desired material may enter the receiver is increased, and at the same time the effective area through which containattng material may enter the receiver is reduced.

Facing two faces: Defense activation varies as a function of personal relevance.

PubMed

Bublatzky, Florian; Alpers, Georg W

2017-04-01

It can be unsettling to be watched by a group of people, and when they express anger or hostility, this can prime defensive behavior. In contrast, when others smile at us, this may be comforting. This study tested to which degree the impact of facial expressions (happy, neutral, and angry) varies with the personal relevance of a social situation. Modelling a triadic situation, two faces looked either directly at the participant, faced each other, or they were back to back. Results confirmed that this variation constitutes a gradient of personal relevance (directed frontally > towards > away), as reflected by corresponding defensive startle modulation and autonomic nervous system activity. This gradient was particularly pronounced for angry faces and it was steeper in participants with higher levels of social anxiety. Thus, sender-recipient constellations modulate the processing of facial emotions in favor of adequate behavioral responding (e.g., avoidance) in group settings. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Eye contact perception in the West and East: a cross-cultural study.

PubMed

Uono, Shota; Hietanen, Jari K

2015-01-01

This study investigated whether eye contact perception differs in people with different cultural backgrounds. Finnish (European) and Japanese (East Asian) participants were asked to determine whether Finnish and Japanese neutral faces with various gaze directions were looking at them. Further, participants rated the face stimuli for emotion and other affect-related dimensions. The results indicated that Finnish viewers had a smaller bias toward judging slightly averted gazes as directed at them when judging Finnish rather than Japanese faces, while the bias of Japanese viewers did not differ between faces from their own and other cultural backgrounds. This may be explained by Westerners experiencing more eye contact in their daily life leading to larger visual experience of gaze perception generally, and to more accurate perception of eye contact with people from their own cultural background particularly. The results also revealed cultural differences in the perception of emotion from neutral faces that could also contribute to the bias in eye contact perception.

Characterization of a conformationally sensitive murine monoclonal antibody directed to the metal ion-dependent adhesion site face of integrin CD11b.

PubMed

Li, Rui; Haruta, Ikuko; Rieu, Philippe; Sugimori, Takashi; Xiong, Jian-Ping; Arnaout, M Amin

2002-02-01

Integrin binding to physiologic ligands requires divalent cations and an inside-out-driven switch of the integrin to a high-affinity state. Divalent cations at the metal ion-dependent adhesion site (MIDAS) face of the alpha subunit-derived A domain provide a direct bridge between ligands and the integrin, and it has been proposed that activation dependency is caused by reorientation of the surrounding residues relative to the metal ion, forming an optimal binding interface. To gain more insight into the functional significance of the protein movements on the MIDAS face, we raised and characterized a murine mAb 107 directed against the MIDAS face of the A domain from integrin CD11b. We find that mAb 107 behaves as a ligand mimic. It binds in a divalent-cation-dependent manner to solvent-exposed residues on the MIDAS face of CD11b, blocks interaction of 11bA or the holoreceptor with ligands, and inhibits spreading and phagocytosis by human neutrophils. However, in contrast to physiologic ligands, mAb 107 preferentially binds to the inactive low-affinity form of the integrin, suggesting that its antagonistic effects are exerted in part by stabilizing the receptor in the low-affinity state. These data support a functional relevance of the protein movements on the MIDAS face and suggest that stabilizing the A domain in the low-affinity state may have therapeutic benefit.

Thermal Imagery of Groundwater Seeps: Possibilities and Limitations.

PubMed

Mundy, Erin; Gleeson, Tom; Roberts, Mark; Baraer, Michel; McKenzie, Jeffrey M

2017-03-01

Quantifying groundwater flow at seepage faces is crucial because seepage faces influence the hydroecology and water budgets of watersheds, lakes, rivers and oceans, and because measuring groundwater fluxes directly in aquifers is extremely difficult. Seepage faces provide a direct and measurable groundwater flux but there is no existing method to quantitatively image groundwater processes at this boundary. Our objective is to determine the possibilities and limitations of thermal imagery in quantifying groundwater discharge from discrete seeps. We developed a conceptual model of temperature below discrete seeps, observed 20 seeps spectacularly exposed in three dimensions at an unused limestone quarry and conducted field experiments to examine the role of diurnal changes and rock face heterogeneity on thermal imagery. The conceptual model suggests that convective air-water heat exchange driven by temperature differences is the dominant heat transfer mechanism. Thermal imagery is effective at locating and characterizing the flux of groundwater seeps. Areas of active groundwater flow and ice growth can be identified from thermal images in the winter, and seepage rates can be differentiated in the summer. However, the application of thermal imagery is limited by diverse factors including technical issues of image acquisition, diurnal changes in radiation and temperature, and rock face heterogeneity. Groundwater discharge rates could not be directly quantified from thermal imagery using our observations but our conceptual model and experiments suggest that thermal imagery could quantify groundwater discharge when there are large temperature differences, simple cliff faces, non-freezing conditions, and no solar radiation. © 2016, National Ground Water Association.

An evaluation of the impact of biomass burning smoke aerosol particles on near surface temperature forecasts

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhang, J.; Reid, J. S.; Benedetti, A.; Christensen, M.; Marquis, J. W.

2016-12-01

Currently, with the improvements in aerosol forecast accuracies through aerosol data assimilation, the community is unavoidably facing a scientific question: is it worth the computational time to insert real-time aerosol analyses into numerical models for weather forecasts? In this study, by analyzing a significant biomass burning aerosol event that occurred in 2015 over the Northern part of the Central US, the impact of aerosol particles on near-surface temperature forecasts is evaluated. The aerosol direct surface cooling efficiency, which links surface temperature changes to aerosol loading, is derived from observational-based data for the first time. The potential of including real-time aerosol analyses into weather forecasting models for near surface temperature forecasts is also investigated.

Dissociation of face-selective cortical responses by attention.

PubMed

Furey, Maura L; Tanskanen, Topi; Beauchamp, Michael S; Avikainen, Sari; Uutela, Kimmo; Hari, Riitta; Haxby, James V

2006-01-24

We studied attentional modulation of cortical processing of faces and houses with functional MRI and magnetoencephalography (MEG). MEG detected an early, transient face-selective response. Directing attention to houses in "double-exposure" pictures of superimposed faces and houses strongly suppressed the characteristic, face-selective functional MRI response in the fusiform gyrus. By contrast, attention had no effect on the M170, the early, face-selective response detected with MEG. Late (>190 ms) category-related MEG responses elicited by faces and houses, however, were strongly modulated by attention. These results indicate that hemodynamic and electrophysiological measures of face-selective cortical processing complement each other. The hemodynamic signals reflect primarily late responses that can be modulated by feedback connections. By contrast, the early, face-specific M170 that was not modulated by attention likely reflects a rapid, feed-forward phase of face-selective processing.

Neural synchronization during face-to-face communication.

PubMed

Jiang, Jing; Dai, Bohan; Peng, Danling; Zhu, Chaozhe; Liu, Li; Lu, Chunming

2012-11-07

Although the human brain may have evolutionarily adapted to face-to-face communication, other modes of communication, e.g., telephone and e-mail, increasingly dominate our modern daily life. This study examined the neural difference between face-to-face communication and other types of communication by simultaneously measuring two brains using a hyperscanning approach. The results showed a significant increase in the neural synchronization in the left inferior frontal cortex during a face-to-face dialog between partners but none during a back-to-back dialog, a face-to-face monologue, or a back-to-back monologue. Moreover, the neural synchronization between partners during the face-to-face dialog resulted primarily from the direct interactions between the partners, including multimodal sensory information integration and turn-taking behavior. The communicating behavior during the face-to-face dialog could be predicted accurately based on the neural synchronization level. These results suggest that face-to-face communication, particularly dialog, has special neural features that other types of communication do not have and that the neural synchronization between partners may underlie successful face-to-face communication.

Real-time detection with AdaBoost-svm combination in various face orientation

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Fhonna, R. P.; Nasution, M. K. M.; Tulus

2018-03-01

Most of the research has used algorithm AdaBoost-SVM for face detection. However, to our knowledge so far there is no research has been facing detection on real-time data with various orientations using the combination of AdaBoost and Support Vector Machine (SVM). Characteristics of complex and diverse face variations and real-time data in various orientations, and with a very complex application will slow down the performance of the face detection system this becomes a challenge in this research. Face orientation performed on the detection system, that is 900, 450, 00, -450, and -900. This combination method is expected to be an effective and efficient solution in various face orientations. The results showed that the highest average detection rate is on the face detection oriented 00 and the lowest detection rate is in the face orientation 900.

Evaluating the impact of direct and indirect contact on the mental health stigma of pharmacy students.

PubMed

Nguyen, Elizabeth; Chen, Timothy F; O'Reilly, Claire L

2012-07-01

Contact with mental health consumers has shown to be a promising strategy to address mental health stigma, particularly in the context of pharmacy education. This research aimed to compare the effectiveness of a direct (face-to-face) contact intervention with an indirect (film based) contact intervention in reducing the mental health stigma of pharmacy students. A two-group, non-randomized, comparative study was conducted with third year pharmacy students (n = 198) allocated to the direct contact arm and fourth year pharmacy students (n = 278) allocated to the indirect contact arm. Baseline and immediate post-intervention data were collected using a validated 39 item survey instrument to assess the impact of the interventions on mental health stigma as well as attitudes towards providing mental health pharmaceutical services. Participants in the direct contact group showed a significant improvement in 37 out of 39 survey items and participants in the indirect contact group showed a significant improvement in 27 out of 39 items (P < 0.05). While direct contact had a stronger impact than indirect contact for 22 items (P < 0.05), for numerous key measures of mental health stigma the impact of the two contact interventions was equivalent. Both indirect and direct contact may positively impact mental health stigma. While the strength of the stigma-change process may be heightened by face-to-face interactions, the largely positive impact of indirect contact suggests that stigma reduction may depend less on the medium of contact but more on the transcendent messages contributed by the consumers facilitating the contact experience.

Why Are Faces Denser in the Visual Experiences of Younger than Older Infants?

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Jayaraman, Swapnaa; Fausey, Caitlin M.; Smith, Linda B.

2017-01-01

Recent evidence from studies using head cameras suggests that the frequency of faces directly in front of infants "declines" over the first year and a half of life, a result that has implications for the development of and evolutionary constraints on face processing. Two experiments tested 2 opposing hypotheses about this observed…

77 FR 22577 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of March 13, 2012

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-04-16

... with remaining maturities of approximately 6 years to 30 years with a total face value of $400 billion, and to sell Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less with a total face value... securities in order to maintain the total face value of domestic securities at approximately $2.6 trillion...

Adolescents' technology and face-to-face time use predict objective sleep outcomes.

PubMed

Tavernier, Royette; Heissel, Jennifer A; Sladek, Michael R; Grant, Kathryn E; Adam, Emma K

2017-08-01

The present study examined both within- and between-person associations between adolescents' time use (technology-based activities and face-to-face interactions with friends and family) and sleep behaviors. We also assessed whether age moderated associations between adolescents' time use with friends and family and sleep. Adolescents wore an actigraph monitor and completed brief evening surveys daily for 3 consecutive days. Adolescents (N=71; mean age=14.50 years old, SD=1.84; 43.7% female) were recruited from 3 public high schools in the Midwest. We assessed 8 technology-based activities (eg, texting, working on a computer), as well as time spent engaged in face-to-face interactions with friends and family, via questions on adolescents' evening surveys. Actigraph monitors assessed 3 sleep behaviors: sleep latency, sleep hours, and sleep efficiency. Hierarchical linear models indicated that texting and working on the computer were associated with shorter sleep, whereas time spent talking on the phone predicted longer sleep. Time spent with friends predicted shorter sleep latencies, while family time predicted longer sleep latencies. Age moderated the association between time spent with friends and sleep efficiency, as well as between family time and sleep efficiency. Specifically, longer time spent interacting with friends was associated with higher sleep efficiency but only among younger adolescents. Furthermore, longer family time was associated with higher sleep efficiency but only for older adolescents. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of regulating adolescents' technology use and improving opportunities for face-to-face interactions with friends, particularly for younger adolescents. Copyright © 2017 National Sleep Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Translation and articulation in biological motion perception.

PubMed

Masselink, Jana; Lappe, Markus

2015-08-01

Recent models of biological motion processing focus on the articulational aspect of human walking investigated by point-light figures walking in place. However, in real human walking, the change in the position of the limbs relative to each other (referred to as articulation) results in a change of body location in space over time (referred to as translation). In order to examine the role of this translational component on the perception of biological motion we designed three psychophysical experiments of facing (leftward/rightward) and articulation discrimination (forward/backward and leftward/rightward) of a point-light walker viewed from the side, varying translation direction (relative to articulation direction), the amount of local image motion, and trial duration. In a further set of a forward/backward and a leftward/rightward articulation task, we additionally tested the influence of translational speed, including catch trials without articulation. We found a perceptual bias in translation direction in all three discrimination tasks. In the case of facing discrimination the bias was limited to short stimulus presentation. Our results suggest an interaction of articulation analysis with the processing of translational motion leading to best articulation discrimination when translational direction and speed match articulation. Moreover, we conclude that the global motion of the center-of-mass of the dot pattern is more relevant to processing of translation than the local motion of the dots. Our findings highlight that translation is a relevant cue that should be integrated in models of human motion detection.

Partitioning Hydrologic and Biological Drivers of Discharge Loss in Arctic Headwater Streams

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Koch, J. C.; Carey, M.; O'Donnell, J. A.; Records, M. K.; Sjoberg, Y.; Zimmerman, C. E.

2017-12-01

The Arctic-Boreal transition (ABT) zone of Alaska is experiencing unprecedented warming, leading to permafrost thaw and vegetation change. Both of these processes are likely to affect streams and stream ecosystems, but there is little direct empirical evidence regarding the magnitude of these effects and their relative importance. To understand how permafrost thaw and vegetation are affecting streams at the ABT, we monitored 8 first-order streams that drain catchments varying in elevation, aspect, and vegetation cover. Data were obtained from meteorological stations, continuous stream discharge, seepage runs, and stream tracer experiments. Hydrograph analysis indicated that runoff ratios in south-facing catchments were lower than north-facing catchments and decreased over the season. Seepage runs indicated that south-facing catchments lost a large portion of water (up to 50% per km stream reach) in the late summer, while north-facing catchments were gaining water. All streams displayed diel variability in discharge, but with different daily and seasonal trends related to aspect and elevation. South-facing, forested catchment streams showed diel discharge timing consistent with cycles in evapotranspiration rates, while the signal in north-facing catchments and those dominated by tundra was more consistent with thermal controls on water viscosity and groundwater discharge to streams. Together, these signals indicate that the warmer, south-facing catchments are losing a large portion of water to a combination of infiltration and evapotranspiration. The seasonal trends are consistent with higher infiltration rates beneath south-facing streams as the ground thaws over the summer. The magnitude and seasonal dynamics of the diel signatures help separate biological (i.e. evapotranspiration) vs. physical controls (i.e. frozen ground hydrology) on stream-catchment interactions, which vary depending on aspect, elevation, and vegetation cover. Warming, and subsequent increases in infiltration and evapotranspiration rates may cause some south-facing streams to become ephemeral in the near future. This infiltration feeds aquifers and ultimately larger rivers, potentially explaining hydrograph shifts observed on the larger, river scale in permafrost environments.

Anterior medial prefrontal cortex exhibits activation during task preparation but deactivation during task execution.

PubMed

Koshino, Hideya; Minamoto, Takehiro; Ikeda, Takashi; Osaka, Mariko; Otsuka, Yuki; Osaka, Naoyuki

2011-01-01

The anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibits activation during some cognitive tasks, including episodic memory, reasoning, attention, multitasking, task sets, decision making, mentalizing, and processing of self-referenced information. However, the medial part of anterior PFC is part of the default mode network (DMN), which shows deactivation during various goal-directed cognitive tasks compared to a resting baseline. One possible factor for this pattern is that activity in the anterior medial PFC (MPFC) is affected by dynamic allocation of attentional resources depending on task demands. We investigated this possibility using an event related fMRI with a face working memory task. Sixteen students participated in a single fMRI session. They were asked to form a task set to remember the faces (Face memory condition) or to ignore them (No face memory condition), then they were given 6 seconds of preparation period before the onset of the face stimuli. During this 6-second period, four single digits were presented one at a time at the center of the display, and participants were asked to add them and to remember the final answer. When participants formed a task set to remember faces, the anterior MPFC exhibited activation during a task preparation period but deactivation during a task execution period within a single trial. The results suggest that the anterior MPFC plays a role in task set formation but is not involved in execution of the face working memory task. Therefore, when attentional resources are allocated to other brain regions during task execution, the anterior MPFC shows deactivation. The results suggest that activation and deactivation in the anterior MPFC are affected by dynamic allocation of processing resources across different phases of processing.

Segregation of face sensitive areas within the fusiform gyrus using global signal regression? A study on amygdala resting-state functional connectivity.

PubMed

Kruschwitz, Johann D; Meyer-Lindenberg, Andreas; Veer, Ilya M; Wackerhagen, Carolin; Erk, Susanne; Mohnke, Sebastian; Pöhland, Lydia; Haddad, Leila; Grimm, Oliver; Tost, Heike; Romanczuk-Seiferth, Nina; Heinz, Andreas; Walter, Martin; Walter, Henrik

2015-10-01

The application of global signal regression (GSR) to resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging data and its usefulness is a widely discussed topic. In this article, we report an observation of segregated distribution of amygdala resting-state functional connectivity (rs-FC) within the fusiform gyrus (FFG) as an effect of GSR in a multi-center-sample of 276 healthy subjects. Specifically, we observed that amygdala rs-FC was distributed within the FFG as distinct anterior versus posterior clusters delineated by positive versus negative rs-FC polarity when GSR was performed. To characterize this effect in more detail, post hoc analyses revealed the following: first, direct overlays of task-functional magnetic resonance imaging derived face sensitive areas and clusters of positive versus negative amygdala rs-FC showed that the positive amygdala rs-FC cluster corresponded best with the fusiform face area, whereas the occipital face area corresponded to the negative amygdala rs-FC cluster. Second, as expected from a hierarchical face perception model, these amygdala rs-FC defined clusters showed differential rs-FC with other regions of the visual stream. Third, dynamic connectivity analyses revealed that these amygdala rs-FC defined clusters also differed in their rs-FC variance across time to the amygdala. Furthermore, subsample analyses of three independent research sites confirmed reliability of the effect of GSR, as revealed by similar patterns of distinct amygdala rs-FC polarity within the FFG. In this article, we discuss the potential of GSR to segregate face sensitive areas within the FFG and furthermore discuss how our results may relate to the functional organization of the face-perception circuit. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Anterior Medial Prefrontal Cortex Exhibits Activation during Task Preparation but Deactivation during Task Execution

PubMed Central

Koshino, Hideya; Minamoto, Takehiro; Ikeda, Takashi; Osaka, Mariko; Otsuka, Yuki; Osaka, Naoyuki

2011-01-01

Background The anterior prefrontal cortex (PFC) exhibits activation during some cognitive tasks, including episodic memory, reasoning, attention, multitasking, task sets, decision making, mentalizing, and processing of self-referenced information. However, the medial part of anterior PFC is part of the default mode network (DMN), which shows deactivation during various goal-directed cognitive tasks compared to a resting baseline. One possible factor for this pattern is that activity in the anterior medial PFC (MPFC) is affected by dynamic allocation of attentional resources depending on task demands. We investigated this possibility using an event related fMRI with a face working memory task. Methodology/Principal Findings Sixteen students participated in a single fMRI session. They were asked to form a task set to remember the faces (Face memory condition) or to ignore them (No face memory condition), then they were given 6 seconds of preparation period before the onset of the face stimuli. During this 6-second period, four single digits were presented one at a time at the center of the display, and participants were asked to add them and to remember the final answer. When participants formed a task set to remember faces, the anterior MPFC exhibited activation during a task preparation period but deactivation during a task execution period within a single trial. Conclusions/Significance The results suggest that the anterior MPFC plays a role in task set formation but is not involved in execution of the face working memory task. Therefore, when attentional resources are allocated to other brain regions during task execution, the anterior MPFC shows deactivation. The results suggest that activation and deactivation in the anterior MPFC are affected by dynamic allocation of processing resources across different phases of processing. PMID:21829668

Nastic curvatures of wheat coleoptiles that develop in true microgravity

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Heathcote, D. G.; Chapman, D. K.; Brown, A. H.

1995-01-01

Dark-grown wheat coleoptiles developed strong curvatures within 5 h of being transferred in orbit from a 1 g centrifuge to microgravity during an experiment flown on the IML-1 shuttle mission. The curving tendency was strongest in seedlings that were immature, with coleoptiles shorter than 10 mm at the time of transfer. The curvature direction was non-random, and directed away from the caryopsis (the coleptile face adjacent to the caryopsis becoming convex). The curvatures were most marked in the basal third of the coleoptiles, contrasting with phototropic responses, which occur in the apical third. We interpret these curvatures as being nastic, and related to the curvatures commonly reported to occur during clinostat rotation treatments.

Directly measuring melt at a vertical face tidewater glacier: is it possible?

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Sutherland, D.; Amundson, J. M.; Duncan, D.; Jackson, R. H.; Kienholz, C.; Motyka, R. J.; Nash, J. D.

2017-12-01

Direct observations of melt on the underwater portion of tidewater glaciers have proved elusive, mostly due to the inherent dangers of making measurements next to a calving ice front. Additionally, the melting process itself is often masked by large ice speeds, variable calving across the glacier front, and enhanced melting due to rising subglacial discharge plumes. Here, we use repeat multibeam sonar images of LeConte Glacier to assess the possibility of measuring terminus melt in situ. LeConte Glacier is a fast-moving tidewater system in southeast Alaska with ice speeds of 25 m d-1 and previously estimated submarine melting that accounts for 50% of ice loss at the front. In August 2016, May 2017, and September 2017, we conducted intensive fieldwork at the 1.5 km long, 250 m deep glacier front, collecting dozens of repeat multibeam images of the underwater terminus. Combined with coincident time-lapse photography and surface radar measurements, we attempt to disentangle the ambient melt at the glacier face from ice motion and calving. We use a suite of oceanographic observations of the emerging subglacial discharge plume to separate portions of the glacier front that show evidence of enhanced melting versus portions outside of the affected plume areas. We find a complex, time-varying geometry, with regions of undercutting, overcutting, and large discharge channels. Measurements like these are critical to i) improving numerical model parameterizations of coupled glacier-ocean interactions and ii) developing a process-based understanding of how the literal ice-ocean boundary evolves in time and space.

Interactive Explanations: The Functional Role of Gestural and Bodily Action for Explaining and Learning Scientific Concepts in Face-to-Face Arrangements

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Scopelitis, Stephanie A.

2013-01-01

As human beings, we live "in", live "with", and live "through" our bodies. And because of this it is no wonder that our hands and bodies are in motion as we interact with others in our world. Hands and body move as we give directions to another, anticipate which way to turn the screwdriver, and direct our friend to…

[Challenge and opportunity of entry to WTO brings to scientific and technological periodical].

PubMed

Tian, Yun-Mei

2004-11-01

After our country enters WTO, confronted with the direct influence in big international market opening, editorial department will face fierce competition. Selecting the superior and eliminate the inferior will test every publishing house and every magazine directly. In order to improve the competition level, author has analyzed the current situation of China's periodical development, and then explored the scientific and technological periodical opportunity and challenge faced under the new situation.

Input-output characterization of an ultrasonic testing system by digital signal analysis

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Williams, J. H., Jr.; Lee, S. S.; Karagulle, H.

1986-01-01

Ultrasonic test system input-output characteristics were investigated by directly coupling the transmitting and receiving transducers face to face without a test specimen. Some of the fundamentals of digital signal processing were summarized. Input and output signals were digitized by using a digital oscilloscope, and the digitized data were processed in a microcomputer by using digital signal-processing techniques. The continuous-time test system was modeled as a discrete-time, linear, shift-invariant system. In estimating the unit-sample response and frequency response of the discrete-time system, it was necessary to use digital filtering to remove low-amplitude noise, which interfered with deconvolution calculations. A digital bandpass filter constructed with the assistance of a Blackman window and a rectangular time window were used. Approximations of the impulse response and the frequency response of the continuous-time test system were obtained by linearly interpolating the defining points of the unit-sample response and the frequency response of the discrete-time system. The test system behaved as a linear-phase bandpass filter in the frequency range 0.6 to 2.3 MHz. These frequencies were selected in accordance with the criterion that they were 6 dB below the maximum peak of the amplitude of the frequency response. The output of the system to various inputs was predicted and the results were compared with the corresponding measurements on the system.

Statistical Analysis of Online Eye and Face-tracking Applications in Marketing

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Liu, Xuan

Eye-tracking and face-tracking technology have been widely adopted to study viewers' attention and emotional response. In the dissertation, we apply these two technologies to investigate effective online contents that are designed to attract and direct attention and engage viewers emotional responses. In the first part of the dissertation, we conduct a series of experiments that use eye-tracking technology to explore how online models' facial cues affect users' attention on static e-commerce websites. The joint effects of two facial cues, gaze direction and facial expression on attention, are estimated by Bayesian ANOVA, allowing various distributional assumptions. We also consider the similarities and differences in the effects of facial cues among American and Chinese consumers. This study offers insights on how to attract and retain customers' attentions for advertisers that use static advertisement on various websites or ad networks. In the second part of the dissertation, we conduct a face-tracking study where we investigate the relation between experiment participants' emotional responseswhile watching comedy movie trailers and their watching intentions to the actual movies. Viewers' facial expressions are collected in real-time and converted to emo- tional responses with algorithms based on facial coding system. To analyze the data, we propose to use a joint modeling method that link viewers' longitudinal emotion measurements and their watching intentions. This research provides recommenda- tions to filmmakers on how to improve the effectiveness of movie trailers, and how to boost audiences' desire to watch the movies.

Characteristics of airborne dust in the return airways of the mechanized longwall face

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Gueyagueler, T.; Keskin, S.

1999-07-01

In this paper the results of a research study on the characterization of airborne dust in the return airway of the mechanized longwall face at Middle Anatolian Lignite Mine, OAL are presented. Dust, temperature, moisture and air velocity measurements are carried out in the return airways of the fully mechanized longwalls. Then the analyses of results on real-time concentration data, mass concentration data, effect of moisture, heat and air velocity on dust concentration are made. It has been found that amount of dust in return airway is directly related to the face activities and to the amount of settled dustmore » on the return airway. Moreover, the relationship between dust deposition rate and distance was studied. Another objective of this study is to determine the reliability of different dust samplers used in sampling. Comparison of results showed that for the lower dust concentration, there is not any significant differences between the measurements of samplers. But as the dust concentration exceeds 15 mg/m{sup 3}, the difference in measurements becomes significant.« less

The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 and U.S. hospital operations.

PubMed

Bazzoli, Gloria J; Lindrooth, Richard C; Hasnain-Wynia, Romana; Needleman, Jack

The Balanced Budget Act (BBA) of 1997 initiated several changes to Medicare payment policy in an effort to slow the growth of hospital Medicare payments and ensure the future of the Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Fund. Although subsequent federal legislation relaxed some original proposals, restored funds were limited and directed to specific types of hospitals. In addition, these Medicare policy changes came at a time when hospitals faced private sector payment constraints. This paper assesses the short-term effects of the BBA on operations of nonprofit hospitals in the United States and compares these effects to those observed in the early 1980s during implementation of the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS). We found that some operational changes instituted by hospitals facing financial pressures from the BBA were similar to those observed for hospitals that faced pressure from Medicare PPS, including efforts to contain Medicare cost growth, to expand outpatient service provision, and to contain hospital staffing. However, during PPS implementation hospitals experienced declining inpatient use and growing profit margins, whereas post-BBA hospitals experienced growing inpatient use and declining margins.

Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction.

PubMed

Ferrara, Lindsay; Hodge, Gabrielle

2018-01-01

Signers and speakers coordinate a broad range of intentionally expressive actions within the spatiotemporal context of their face-to-face interactions (Parmentier, 1994; Clark, 1996; Johnston, 1996; Kendon, 2004). Varied semiotic repertoires combine in different ways, the details of which are rooted in the interactions occurring in a specific time and place (Goodwin, 2000; Kusters et al., 2017). However, intense focus in linguistics on conventionalized symbolic form/meaning pairings (especially those which are arbitrary) has obscured the importance of other semiotics in face-to-face communication. A consequence is that the communicative practices resulting from diverse ways of being (e.g., deaf, hearing) are not easily united into a global theoretical framework. Here we promote a theory of language that accounts for how diverse humans coordinate their semiotic repertoires in face-to-face communication, bringing together evidence from anthropology, semiotics, gesture studies and linguistics. Our aim is to facilitate direct comparison of different communicative ecologies. We build on Clark's (1996) theory of language use as 'actioned' via three methods of signaling: describing, indicating, and depicting. Each method is fundamentally different to the other, and they can be used alone or in combination with others during the joint creation of multimodal 'composite utterances' (Enfield, 2009). We argue that a theory of language must be able to account for all three methods of signaling as they manifest within and across composite utterances. From this perspective, language-and not only language use-can be viewed as intentionally communicative action involving the specific range of semiotic resources available in situated human interactions.

Language as Description, Indication, and Depiction

PubMed Central

Ferrara, Lindsay; Hodge, Gabrielle

2018-01-01

Signers and speakers coordinate a broad range of intentionally expressive actions within the spatiotemporal context of their face-to-face interactions (Parmentier, 1994; Clark, 1996; Johnston, 1996; Kendon, 2004). Varied semiotic repertoires combine in different ways, the details of which are rooted in the interactions occurring in a specific time and place (Goodwin, 2000; Kusters et al., 2017). However, intense focus in linguistics on conventionalized symbolic form/meaning pairings (especially those which are arbitrary) has obscured the importance of other semiotics in face-to-face communication. A consequence is that the communicative practices resulting from diverse ways of being (e.g., deaf, hearing) are not easily united into a global theoretical framework. Here we promote a theory of language that accounts for how diverse humans coordinate their semiotic repertoires in face-to-face communication, bringing together evidence from anthropology, semiotics, gesture studies and linguistics. Our aim is to facilitate direct comparison of different communicative ecologies. We build on Clark’s (1996) theory of language use as ‘actioned’ via three methods of signaling: describing, indicating, and depicting. Each method is fundamentally different to the other, and they can be used alone or in combination with others during the joint creation of multimodal ‘composite utterances’ (Enfield, 2009). We argue that a theory of language must be able to account for all three methods of signaling as they manifest within and across composite utterances. From this perspective, language—and not only language use—can be viewed as intentionally communicative action involving the specific range of semiotic resources available in situated human interactions. PMID:29875712

Medium Moderates the Message. How Users Adjust Their Communication Trajectories to Different Media in Collaborative Task Solving

PubMed Central

Rychwalska, Agnieszka; Samson, Katarzyna; Łucznik, Klara; Ziembowicz, Michał; Szóstek, Agnieszka; Nowak, Andrzej

2016-01-01

Rapid development of information and communications technologies (ICT) has triggered profound changes in how people manage their social contacts in both informal and professional contexts. ICT mediated communication may seem limited in possibilities compared to face-to-face encounters, but research shows that puzzlingly often it can be just as effective and satisfactory. We posit that ICT users employ specific communication strategies adapted to particular communication channels, which results in a comparable effectiveness of communication. In order to maintain a satisfactory level of conversational intelligibility they calibrate the content of their messages to a given medium’s richness and adjust the whole conversation trajectory so that every stage of the communication process runs fluently. In the current study, we compared complex task solving trajectories in chat, mobile phone and face-to-face dyadic conversations. Media conditions did not influence the quality of decision outcomes or users’ perceptions of the interaction, but they had impact on the amount of time devoted to each of the identified phases of decision development. In face-to-face contacts the evaluation stage of the discussion dominated the conversation; in the texting condition the orientation-evaluation-control phases were evenly distributed; and the phone condition provided a midpoint between these two extremes. The results show that contemporary ICT users adjust their communication behavior to the limitations and opportunities of various media through the regulation of attention directed to each stage of the discussion so that as a whole the communication process remains effective. PMID:27337037

The differential effects of emotional salience on direct associative and relational memory during a nap.

PubMed

Alger, Sara E; Payne, Jessica D

2016-12-01

Relational memories are formed from shared components between directly learned memory associations, flexibly linking learned information to better inform future judgments. Sleep has been found to facilitate both direct associative and relational memories. However, the impact of incorporating emotionally salient information into learned material and the interaction of emotional salience and sleep in facilitating both types of memory is unknown. Participants encoded two sets of picture pairs, with either emotionally negative or neutral objects paired with neutral faces. The same objects were present in both sets, paired with two different faces across the sets. Baseline memory for these directly paired associates was tested immediately after encoding, followed by either a 90-min nap opportunity or wakefulness. Five hours after learning, a surprise test assessed relational memory, the indirect association between two faces paired with the same object during encoding, followed by a retest of direct associative memory. Overall, negative information was remembered better than neutral for directly learned pairs. A nap facilitated both preservation of direct associative memories and formation of relational memories, compared to remaining awake. Interestingly, however, this sleep benefit was observed specifically for neutral directly paired associates, while both neutral and negative relational associations benefitted from a nap. Finally, REM sleep played opposing roles in neutral direct and relational associative memory formation, with more REM sleep leading to forgetting of direct associations but promoting relational associations, suggesting that, while not benefitting memory consolidation for directly learned details, REM sleep may foster the memory reorganization needed for relational memory.

Mechanisms of face perception

PubMed Central

Tsao, Doris Y.

2009-01-01

Faces are among the most informative stimuli we ever perceive: Even a split-second glimpse of a person's face tells us their identity, sex, mood, age, race, and direction of attention. The specialness of face processing is acknowledged in the artificial vision community, where contests for face recognition algorithms abound. Neurological evidence strongly implicates a dedicated machinery for face processing in the human brain, to explain the double dissociability of face and object recognition deficits. Furthermore, it has recently become clear that macaques too have specialized neural machinery for processing faces. Here we propose a unifying hypothesis, deduced from computational, neurological, fMRI, and single-unit experiments: that what makes face processing special is that it is gated by an obligatory detection process. We will clarify this idea in concrete algorithmic terms, and show how it can explain a variety of phenomena associated with face processing. PMID:18558862

Face-to-Face and Online Networks: College Students' Experiences in a Weight-Loss Trial.

PubMed

Merchant, Gina; Weibel, Nadir; Pina, Laura; Griswold, William G; Fowler, James H; Ayala, Guadalupe X; Gallo, Linda C; Hollan, James; Patrick, Kevin

2017-01-01

This study aimed to understand how college students participating in a 2-year randomized controlled trial (Project SMART: Social and Mobile Approach to Reduce Weight; N = 404) engaged their social networks and used social and mobile technologies to try and lose weight. Participants in the present study (n = 20 treatment, n = 18 control) were approached after a measurement visit and administered semi-structured interviews. Interviews were analyzed using principles from grounded theory. Treatment group participants appreciated the timely support provided by the study and the integration of content across multiple technologies. Participants in both groups reported using non-study-designed apps to help them lose weight, and many participants knew one another outside of the study. Individuals talked about weight-loss goals with their friends face to face and felt accountable to follow through with their intentions. Although seeing others' success online motivated many, there was a range of perceived acceptability in talking about personal health-related information on social media. The findings from this qualitative study can inform intervention trials using social and mobile technologies to promote weight loss. For example, weight-loss trials should measure participants' use of direct-to-consumer technologies and interconnectivity so that treatment effects can be isolated and cross-contamination accounted for.

Psychological support needs of patients with head and neck cancer and their caregivers: A qualitative study.

PubMed

Richardson, Amy E; Morton, Randall; Broadbent, Elizabeth

2015-01-01

The aim of this study was to explore the psychological support needs of patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) and their caregivers. The appropriate timing, length, format and content of sessions were also investigated. Eighty-three patients with HNC and 73 of their caregivers completed questionnaires at diagnosis. Follow-up questionnaires were mailed to patients six months later. Free text-comments to open-ended questions in the questionnaires were analysed using an inductive thematic approach with coding and theme development directed by the content of responses. This was used to determine psychological support needs both at diagnosis and at six month follow-up. Patients described 'just being there', empathy, maintaining normality and practical support as helpful from family/friends. They desired information, honesty, positivity and empathy from clinical staff. Formal psychological support was desired by approximately 40% of patients and caregivers, particularly early after diagnosis and during treatment. Most participants desired face to face sessions, providing individualised information and coping strategies. The results of this study suggest that psychological interventions for patients with HNC and their caregivers should be delivered early after diagnosis in face to face sessions, presenting honest and factual information about the disease and coping strategies.

Parents face quantity-quality trade-offs between reproduction and investment in offspring in Iceland.

PubMed

Lynch, Robert Francis

2016-05-01

How to optimally allocate time, energy and investment in an effort to maximize one's reproductive success is a fundamental problem faced by all organisms. This effort is complicated when the production of each additional offspring dilutes the total resources available for parental investment. Although a quantity-quality trade-off between producing and investing in offspring has long been assumed in evolutionary biology, testing it directly in humans is difficult, partly owing to the long generation time of our species. Using data from an Icelandic genealogy (Íslendingabók) over two centuries, I address this issue and analyse the quantity-quality trade-off in humans. I demonstrate that the primary impact of parents on the fitness of their children is the result of resources and or investment, but not genes. This effect changes significantly across time, in response to environmental conditions. Overall, increasing reproduction has negative fitness consequences on offspring, such that each additional sibling reduces an individual's average lifespan and lifetime reproductive success. This analysis provides insights into the evolutionary conflict between producing and investing in children while also shedding light on some of the causes of the demographic transition.

77 FR 53201 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of July 31-August 1, 2012

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-08-31

... Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years with a total face value of about $267... of approximately 3 years or less with a total face value of about $267 billion. For the duration of... Market Account in agency mortgage-backed securities. These actions should maintain the total face value...

77 FR 42730 - Federal Open Market Committee; Domestic Policy Directive of June 19-20, 2012

Federal Register 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014

2012-07-20

..., Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years with a total face value of $400 billion, and to sell Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 3 years or less with a total face... purchase Treasury securities with remaining maturities of 6 years to 30 years with a total face value of...

Using Computerized Games to Teach Face Recognition Skills to Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder: The "Let's Face It!" Program

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Tanaka, James W.; Wolf, Julie M.; Klaiman, Cheryl; Koenig, Kathleen; Cockburn, Jeffrey; Herlihy, Lauren; Brown, Carla; Stahl, Sherin; Kaiser, Martha D.; Schultz, Robert T.

2010-01-01

Background: An emerging body of evidence indicates that relative to typically developing children, children with autism are selectively impaired in their ability to recognize facial identity. A critical question is whether face recognition skills can be enhanced through a direct training intervention. Methods: In a randomized clinical trial,…

Light Redirective Display Panel And A Method Of Making A Light Redirective Display Panel

DOEpatents

Veligdan, James T.

2005-07-26

An optical display panel which provides improved light intensity at a viewing angle by redirecting light emitting from the viewing screen, and a method of making a light redirective display panel, are disclosed. The panel includes an inlet face at one end for receiving light, and an outlet screen at an opposite end for displaying the light. The inlet face is defined at one end of a transparent body, which body may be formed by a plurality of waveguides, and the outlet screen is defined at an opposite end of the body. The screen includes light redirective elements at the outlet screen for re-directing light emitting from the outlet screen. The method includes stacking a plurality of glass sheets, with a layer of adhesive or epoxy between each sheet, curing the adhesive to form a stack, placing the stack against a saw and cutting the stack at two opposite ends to form a wedge-shaped panel having an inlet face and an outlet face, and forming at the outlet face a plurality of light redirective elements which direct light incident on the outlet face into a controlled light cone.

Light redirective display panel and a method of making a light redirective display panel

DOEpatents

Veligdan, James T.

2002-01-01

An optical display panel which provides improved light intensity at a viewing angle by redirecting light emitting from the viewing screen, and a method of making a light redirective display panel, are disclosed. The panel includes an inlet face at one end for receiving light, and an outlet screen at an opposite end for displaying the light. The inlet face is defined at one end of a transparent body, which body may be formed by a plurality of waveguides, and the outlet screen is defined at an opposite end of the body. The screen includes light redirective elements at the outlet screen for re-directing light emitting from the outlet screen. The method includes stacking a plurality of glass sheets, with a layer of adhesive or epoxy between each sheet, curing the adhesive to form a stack, placing the stack against a saw and cutting the stack at two opposite ends to form a wedge-shaped panel having an inlet face and an outlet face, and forming at the outlet face a plurality of light redirective elements which direct light incident on the outlet face into a controlled light cone.

AUTISTIC TRAITS INFLUENCE GAZE-ORIENTED ATTENTION TO HAPPY BUT NOT FEARFUL FACES

PubMed Central

Lassalle, Amandine; Itier, Roxane J.

2017-01-01

The relationship between autistic traits and gaze-oriented attention to fearful and happy faces was investigated at the behavioral and neuronal levels. Upright and inverted dynamic face stimuli were used in a gaze-cueing paradigm while ERPs were recorded. Participants responded faster to gazed-at than to non-gazed-at targets and this Gaze Orienting Effect (GOE) diminished with inversion, suggesting it relies on facial configuration. It was also larger for fearful than happy faces but only in participants with high Autism Quotient (AQ) scores. While the GOE to fearful faces was of similar magnitude regardless of AQ scores, a diminished GOE to happy faces was found in participants with high AQ scores. At the ERP level, a congruency effect on target-elicited P1 component reflected enhanced visual processing of gazed-at targets. In addition, cue-triggered early directing attention negativity and anterior directing attention negativity reflected, respectively, attention orienting and attention holding at gazed-at locations. These neural markers of spatial attention orienting were not modulated by emotion and were not found in participants with high AQ scores. Together these findings suggest that autistic traits influence attention orienting to gaze and its modulation by social emotions such as happiness. PMID:25222883

Effects of Peripheral Eccentricity and Head Orientation on Gaze Discrimination.

PubMed

Palanica, Adam; Itier, Roxane J

2014-01-01

Visual search tasks support a special role for direct gaze in human cognition, while classic gaze judgment tasks suggest the congruency between head orientation and gaze direction plays a central role in gaze perception. Moreover, whether gaze direction can be accurately discriminated in the periphery using covert attention is unknown. In the present study, individual faces in frontal and in deviated head orientations with a direct or an averted gaze were flashed for 150 ms across the visual field; participants focused on a centred fixation while judging the gaze direction. Gaze discrimination speed and accuracy varied with head orientation and eccentricity. The limit of accurate gaze discrimination was less than ±6° eccentricity. Response times suggested a processing facilitation for direct gaze in fovea, irrespective of head orientation, however, by ±3° eccentricity, head orientation started biasing gaze judgments, and this bias increased with eccentricity. Results also suggested a special processing of frontal heads with direct gaze in central vision, rather than a general congruency effect between eye and head cues. Thus, while both head and eye cues contribute to gaze discrimination, their role differs with eccentricity.

Emotion Unchained: Facial Expression Modulates Gaze Cueing under Cognitive Load.

PubMed

Pecchinenda, Anna; Petrucci, Manuel

2016-01-01

Direction of eye gaze cues spatial attention, and typically this cueing effect is not modulated by the expression of a face unless top-down processes are explicitly or implicitly involved. To investigate the role of cognitive control on gaze cueing by emotional faces, participants performed a gaze cueing task with happy, angry, or neutral faces under high (i.e., counting backward by 7) or low cognitive load (i.e., counting forward by 2). Results show that high cognitive load enhances gaze cueing effects for angry facial expressions. In addition, cognitive load reduces gaze cueing for neutral faces, whereas happy facial expressions and gaze affected object preferences regardless of load. This evidence clearly indicates a differential role of cognitive control in processing gaze direction and facial expression, suggesting that under typical conditions, when we shift attention based on social cues from another person, cognitive control processes are used to reduce interference from emotional information.

Emotion Unchained: Facial Expression Modulates Gaze Cueing under Cognitive Load

PubMed Central

Petrucci, Manuel

2016-01-01

Direction of eye gaze cues spatial attention, and typically this cueing effect is not modulated by the expression of a face unless top-down processes are explicitly or implicitly involved. To investigate the role of cognitive control on gaze cueing by emotional faces, participants performed a gaze cueing task with happy, angry, or neutral faces under high (i.e., counting backward by 7) or low cognitive load (i.e., counting forward by 2). Results show that high cognitive load enhances gaze cueing effects for angry facial expressions. In addition, cognitive load reduces gaze cueing for neutral faces, whereas happy facial expressions and gaze affected object preferences regardless of load. This evidence clearly indicates a differential role of cognitive control in processing gaze direction and facial expression, suggesting that under typical conditions, when we shift attention based on social cues from another person, cognitive control processes are used to reduce interference from emotional information. PMID:27959925

Illumination robust face recognition using spatial adaptive shadow compensation based on face intensity prior

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hsieh, Cheng-Ta; Huang, Kae-Horng; Lee, Chang-Hsing; Han, Chin-Chuan; Fan, Kuo-Chin

2017-12-01

Robust face recognition under illumination variations is an important and challenging task in a face recognition system, particularly for face recognition in the wild. In this paper, a face image preprocessing approach, called spatial adaptive shadow compensation (SASC), is proposed to eliminate shadows in the face image due to different lighting directions. First, spatial adaptive histogram equalization (SAHE), which uses face intensity prior model, is proposed to enhance the contrast of each local face region without generating visible noises in smooth face areas. Adaptive shadow compensation (ASC), which performs shadow compensation in each local image block, is then used to produce a wellcompensated face image appropriate for face feature extraction and recognition. Finally, null-space linear discriminant analysis (NLDA) is employed to extract discriminant features from SASC compensated images. Experiments performed on the Yale B, Yale B extended, and CMU PIE face databases have shown that the proposed SASC always yields the best face recognition accuracy. That is, SASC is more robust to face recognition under illumination variations than other shadow compensation approaches.

The many faces of research on face perception.

PubMed

Little, Anthony C; Jones, Benedict C; DeBruine, Lisa M

2011-06-12

Face perception is fundamental to human social interaction. Many different types of important information are visible in faces and the processes and mechanisms involved in extracting this information are complex and can be highly specialized. The importance of faces has long been recognized by a wide range of scientists. Importantly, the range of perspectives and techniques that this breadth has brought to face perception research has, in recent years, led to many important advances in our understanding of face processing. The articles in this issue on face perception each review a particular arena of interest in face perception, variously focusing on (i) the social aspects of face perception (attraction, recognition and emotion), (ii) the neural mechanisms underlying face perception (using brain scanning, patient data, direct stimulation of the brain, visual adaptation and single-cell recording), and (iii) comparative aspects of face perception (comparing adult human abilities with those of chimpanzees and children). Here, we introduce the central themes of the issue and present an overview of the articles.

A multi-view face recognition system based on cascade face detector and improved Dlib

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zhou, Hongjun; Chen, Pei; Shen, Wei

2018-03-01

In this research, we present a framework for multi-view face detect and recognition system based on cascade face detector and improved Dlib. This method is aimed to solve the problems of low efficiency and low accuracy in multi-view face recognition, to build a multi-view face recognition system, and to discover a suitable monitoring scheme. For face detection, the cascade face detector is used to extracted the Haar-like feature from the training samples, and Haar-like feature is used to train a cascade classifier by combining Adaboost algorithm. Next, for face recognition, we proposed an improved distance model based on Dlib to improve the accuracy of multiview face recognition. Furthermore, we applied this proposed method into recognizing face images taken from different viewing directions, including horizontal view, overlooks view, and looking-up view, and researched a suitable monitoring scheme. This method works well for multi-view face recognition, and it is also simulated and tested, showing satisfactory experimental results.

Unintentional Interpersonal Synchronization Represented as a Reciprocal Visuo-Postural Feedback System: A Multivariate Autoregressive Modeling Approach.

PubMed

Okazaki, Shuntaro; Hirotani, Masako; Koike, Takahiko; Bosch-Bayard, Jorge; Takahashi, Haruka K; Hashiguchi, Maho; Sadato, Norihiro

2015-01-01

People's behaviors synchronize. It is difficult, however, to determine whether synchronized behaviors occur in a mutual direction--two individuals influencing one another--or in one direction--one individual leading the other, and what the underlying mechanism for synchronization is. To answer these questions, we hypothesized a non-leader-follower postural sway synchronization, caused by a reciprocal visuo-postural feedback system operating on pairs of individuals, and tested that hypothesis both experimentally and via simulation. In the behavioral experiment, 22 participant pairs stood face to face either 20 or 70 cm away from each other wearing glasses with or without vision blocking lenses. The existence and direction of visual information exchanged between pairs of participants were systematically manipulated. The time series data for the postural sway of these pairs were recorded and analyzed with cross correlation and causality. Results of cross correlation showed that postural sway of paired participants was synchronized, with a shorter time lag when participant pairs could see one another's head motion than when one of the participants was blindfolded. In addition, there was less of a time lag in the observed synchronization when the distance between participant pairs was smaller. As for the causality analysis, noise contribution ratio (NCR), the measure of influence using a multivariate autoregressive model, was also computed to identify the degree to which one's postural sway is explained by that of the other's and how visual information (sighted vs. blindfolded) interacts with paired participants' postural sway. It was found that for synchronization to take place, it is crucial that paired participants be sighted and exert equal influence on one another by simultaneously exchanging visual information. Furthermore, a simulation for the proposed system with a wider range of visual input showed a pattern of results similar to the behavioral results.

Genetic correlations between wellbeing, depression and anxiety symptoms and behavioral responses to the emotional faces task in healthy twins.

PubMed

Routledge, Kylie M; Williams, Leanne M; Harris, Anthony W F; Schofield, Peter R; Clark, C Richard; Gatt, Justine M

2018-06-01

Currently there is a very limited understanding of how mental wellbeing versus anxiety and depression symptoms are associated with emotion processing behaviour. For the first time, we examined these associations using a behavioural emotion task of positive and negative facial expressions in 1668 healthy adult twins. Linear mixed model results suggested faster reaction times to happy facial expressions was associated with higher wellbeing scores, and slower reaction times with higher depression and anxiety scores. Multivariate twin modelling identified a significant genetic correlation between depression and anxiety symptoms and reaction time to happy facial expressions, in the absence of any significant correlations with wellbeing. We also found a significant negative phenotypic relationship between depression and anxiety symptoms and accuracy for identifying neutral emotions, although the genetic or environment correlations were not significant in the multivariate model. Overall, the phenotypic relationships between speed of identifying happy facial expressions and wellbeing on the one hand, versus depression and anxiety symptoms on the other, were in opposing directions. Twin modelling revealed a small common genetic correlation between response to happy faces and depression and anxiety symptoms alone, suggesting that wellbeing and depression and anxiety symptoms show largely independent relationships with emotion processing at the behavioral level. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Face-to-face: Perceived personal relevance amplifies face processing

PubMed Central

Pittig, Andre; Schupp, Harald T.; Alpers, Georg W.

2017-01-01

Abstract The human face conveys emotional and social information, but it is not well understood how these two aspects influence face perception. In order to model a group situation, two faces displaying happy, neutral or angry expressions were presented. Importantly, faces were either facing the observer, or they were presented in profile view directed towards, or looking away from each other. In Experiment 1 (n = 64), face pairs were rated regarding perceived relevance, wish-to-interact, and displayed interactivity, as well as valence and arousal. All variables revealed main effects of facial expression (emotional > neutral), face orientation (facing observer > towards > away) and interactions showed that evaluation of emotional faces strongly varies with their orientation. Experiment 2 (n = 33) examined the temporal dynamics of perceptual-attentional processing of these face constellations with event-related potentials. Processing of emotional and neutral faces differed significantly in N170 amplitudes, early posterior negativity (EPN), and sustained positive potentials. Importantly, selective emotional face processing varied as a function of face orientation, indicating early emotion-specific (N170, EPN) and late threat-specific effects (LPP, sustained positivity). Taken together, perceived personal relevance to the observer—conveyed by facial expression and face direction—amplifies emotional face processing within triadic group situations. PMID:28158672

Eye contact with neutral and smiling faces: effects on autonomic responses and frontal EEG asymmetry

PubMed Central

Pönkänen, Laura M.; Hietanen, Jari K.

2012-01-01

In our previous studies we have shown that seeing another person “live” with a direct vs. averted gaze results in enhanced skin conductance responses (SCRs) indicating autonomic arousal and in greater relative left-sided frontal activity in the electroencephalography (asymmetry in the alpha-band power), associated with approach motivation. In our studies, however, the stimulus persons had a neutral expression. In real-life social interaction, eye contact is often associated with a smile, which is another signal of the sender's approach-related motivation. A smile could, therefore, enhance the affective-motivational responses to eye contact. In the present study, we investigated whether the facial expression (neutral vs. social smile) would modulate autonomic arousal and frontal EEG alpha-band asymmetry to seeing a direct vs. an averted gaze in faces presented “live” through a liquid crystal (LC) shutter. The results showed that the SCRs were greater for the direct than the averted gaze and that the effect of gaze direction was more pronounced for a smiling than a neutral face. However, in this study, gaze direction and facial expression did not affect the frontal EEG asymmetry, although, for gaze direction, we found a marginally significant correlation between the degree of an overall bias for asymmetric frontal activity and the degree to which direct gaze elicited stronger left-sided frontal activity than did averted gaze. PMID:22586387

If You Build It, Will They Come? Patterns of Internet-Based and Face-To-Face Participation in a Parenting Program for Military Families

PubMed Central

Doty, Jennifer L; Rudi, Jessie H; Pinna, Keri L M; Hanson, Sheila K

2016-01-01

Background Some evidence suggests parents are drawn to media-based interventions over face-to-face interventions, but little is known about the factors associated with parents’ use of Internet-based or Internet-enhanced programs, especially among military families. Research is needed to understand characteristics of parents who may be most likely to use online components or attend face-to-face meetings in order to ensure maximum engagement. Objective In this study, we examined characteristics that predict various patterns of Internet use and face-to-face attendance in a parenting program designed for military families. Methods An ecological framework guided analysis of differences in patterns of Internet-based use and face-to-face attendance by parents’ demographic characteristics (gender, education, employment, and child age), incentives offered, and number of months the parent was deployed. We reported differences in the total number of online components completed over the 14 modules, total number of face-to-face sessions attended, and the use of different types of online components accessed (videos, downloadable handouts, mindfulness exercises, knowledge checks, and downloadable summaries). Then, we computed multinomial logistic regression accounting for nestedness (parents within families) to examine associations between demographic, programmatic, and military-related characteristics and patterns of engagement (use of online components and attendance at face-to-face sessions). Results Just over half (52.2%, 193/370) of the participants used the online components at least once, and the majority of participants (73.2%, 271/370) attended at least 1 face-to-face session. An examination of different patterns of participation revealed that compared with those who participated primarily in face-to-face sessions, parents who participated online but had little face-to-face participation were more likely to have received incentives than those who did not (95% CI 1.9-129.7). Among participants who had been deployed, those who had earned a 4-year degree (95% CI 1.0-2.2) and those who had been offered incentives to participate online (95% CI 2.1-58.6) were more likely to be highly engaged in online components and attend face-to-face compared with those who attended primarily face-to-face. However, those with a high number of months of deployment (95% CI 0.6-1.0) were less likely to be in the pattern of highly engaged in online components and face-to-face attendance. Compared with those who participated primarily face-to-face, deployed mothers were about 4 times more likely to engage in moderate online use with face-to-face attendance than deployed fathers (95% CI 1.21-11.83) and participate primarily online (95% CI 0.77-25.20). Conclusions Results imply that parents may be drawn to different delivery options of a parenting program (online components vs face-to-face sessions) depending on their education level, incentives to engage in online components, and their military-related experience. Results suggest potential directions for tailoring Internet-based interventions. PMID:27334833

If You Build It, Will They Come? Patterns of Internet-Based and Face-To-Face Participation in a Parenting Program for Military Families.

PubMed

Doty, Jennifer L; Rudi, Jessie H; Pinna, Keri L M; Hanson, Sheila K; Gewirtz, Abigail H

2016-06-22

Some evidence suggests parents are drawn to media-based interventions over face-to-face interventions, but little is known about the factors associated with parents' use of Internet-based or Internet-enhanced programs, especially among military families. Research is needed to understand characteristics of parents who may be most likely to use online components or attend face-to-face meetings in order to ensure maximum engagement. In this study, we examined characteristics that predict various patterns of Internet use and face-to-face attendance in a parenting program designed for military families. An ecological framework guided analysis of differences in patterns of Internet-based use and face-to-face attendance by parents' demographic characteristics (gender, education, employment, and child age), incentives offered, and number of months the parent was deployed. We reported differences in the total number of online components completed over the 14 modules, total number of face-to-face sessions attended, and the use of different types of online components accessed (videos, downloadable handouts, mindfulness exercises, knowledge checks, and downloadable summaries). Then, we computed multinomial logistic regression accounting for nestedness (parents within families) to examine associations between demographic, programmatic, and military-related characteristics and patterns of engagement (use of online components and attendance at face-to-face sessions). Just over half (52.2%, 193/370) of the participants used the online components at least once, and the majority of participants (73.2%, 271/370) attended at least 1 face-to-face session. An examination of different patterns of participation revealed that compared with those who participated primarily in face-to-face sessions, parents who participated online but had little face-to-face participation were more likely to have received incentives than those who did not (95% CI 1.9-129.7). Among participants who had been deployed, those who had earned a 4-year degree (95% CI 1.0-2.2) and those who had been offered incentives to participate online (95% CI 2.1-58.6) were more likely to be highly engaged in online components and attend face-to-face compared with those who attended primarily face-to-face. However, those with a high number of months of deployment (95% CI 0.6-1.0) were less likely to be in the pattern of highly engaged in online components and face-to-face attendance. Compared with those who participated primarily face-to-face, deployed mothers were about 4 times more likely to engage in moderate online use with face-to-face attendance than deployed fathers (95% CI 1.21-11.83) and participate primarily online (95% CI 0.77-25.20). Results imply that parents may be drawn to different delivery options of a parenting program (online components vs face-to-face sessions) depending on their education level, incentives to engage in online components, and their military-related experience. Results suggest potential directions for tailoring Internet-based interventions.

Gaze-cueing effect depends on facial expression of emotion in 9- to 12-month-old infants

PubMed Central

Niedźwiecka, Alicja; Tomalski, Przemysław

2015-01-01

Efficient processing of gaze direction and facial expression of emotion is crucial for early social and emotional development. Toward the end of the first year of life infants begin to pay more attention to negative expressions, but it remains unclear to what extent emotion expression is processed jointly with gaze direction at this age. This study sought to establish the interactions of gaze direction and emotion expression in visual orienting in 9- to 12-month-olds. In particular, we tested whether these interactions can be explained by the negativity bias hypothesis and the shared signal hypothesis. We measured saccadic latencies in response to peripheral targets in a gaze-cueing paradigm with happy, angry, and fearful female faces. In the Pilot Experiment three gaze directions were used (direct, congruent with target location, incongruent with target location). In the Main Experiment we sought to replicate the results of the Pilot experiment using a simpler design without the direct gaze condition. In both experiments we found a robust gaze-cueing effect for happy faces, i.e., facilitation of orienting toward the target in the gaze-cued location, compared with the gaze-incongruent location. We found more rapid orienting to targets cued by happy relative to angry and fearful faces. We did not find any gaze-cueing effect for angry or fearful faces. These results are not consistent with the shared signal hypothesis. While our results show differential processing of positive and negative emotions, they do not support a general negativity bias. On the contrary, they indicate that toward the age of 12 months infants show a positivity bias in gaze-cueing tasks. PMID:25713555

The Role of Face Familiarity in Eye Tracking of Faces by Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders

PubMed Central

Dawson, Geraldine; Webb, Sara; Murias, Michael; Munson, Jeffrey; Panagiotides, Heracles; Aylward, Elizabeth

2010-01-01

It has been shown that individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) demonstrate normal activation in the fusiform gyrus when viewing familiar, but not unfamiliar faces. The current study utilized eye tracking to investigate patterns of attention underlying familiar versus unfamiliar face processing in ASD. Eye movements of 18 typically developing participants and 17 individuals with ASD were recorded while passively viewing three face categories: unfamiliar non-repeating faces, a repeating highly familiar face, and a repeating previously unfamiliar face. Results suggest that individuals with ASD do not exhibit more normative gaze patterns when viewing familiar faces. A second task assessed facial recognition accuracy and response time for familiar and novel faces. The groups did not differ on accuracy or reaction times. PMID:18306030

Long-duration planar direct-drive hydrodynamics experiments on the NIF

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Casner, A.; Mailliet, C.; Khan, S. F.; Martinez, D.; Izumi, N.; Kalantar, D.; Di Nicola, P.; Di Nicola, J. M.; Le Bel, E.; Igumenshchev, I.; Tikhonchuk, V. T.; Remington, B. A.; Masse, L.; Smalyuk, V. A.

2018-01-01

The advent of high-power lasers facilities such as the National Ignition Facility (NIF) and the laser megajoule provide unique platforms to study the physics of turbulent mixing flows in high energy density plasmas. We report here on the commissioning of a novel planar direct-drive platform on the NIF, which allows the acceleration of targets during 30 ns. Planar plastic samples were directly irradiated by 300-450 kJ of UV laser light (351 nm) and a very good planarity of the laser drive is demonstrated. No detrimental effect of imprint is observed in the case of these thick plastic targets (300 μm), which is beneficial for future academic experiments requesting similar irradiation conditions. The long-duration direct-drive (DD) platform is thereafter harnessed to study the ablative Rayleigh-Taylor instability (RTI) in DD. The growth of two-dimensional pre-imposed perturbations is quantified through time-resolved face-on x-ray radiography and used as a benchmark for radiative hydrocode simulations. The ablative RTI is then quantified in its highly nonlinear stage starting from intentionally large 3D imprinted broadband modulations. Two generations of bubble mergers is observed for the first time in DD, as a result of the unprecedented long laser acceleration.

Fourier decomposition of spatial localization errors reveals an idiotropic dominance of an internal model of gravity.

PubMed

De Sá Teixeira, Nuno Alexandre

2014-12-01

Given its conspicuous nature, gravity has been acknowledged by several research lines as a prime factor in structuring the spatial perception of one's environment. One such line of enquiry has focused on errors in spatial localization aimed at the vanishing location of moving objects - it has been systematically reported that humans mislocalize spatial positions forward, in the direction of motion (representational momentum) and downward in the direction of gravity (representational gravity). Moreover, spatial localization errors were found to evolve dynamically with time in a pattern congruent with an anticipated trajectory (representational trajectory). The present study attempts to ascertain the degree to which vestibular information plays a role in these phenomena. Human observers performed a spatial localization task while tilted to varying degrees and referring to the vanishing locations of targets moving along several directions. A Fourier decomposition of the obtained spatial localization errors revealed that although spatial errors were increased "downward" mainly along the body's longitudinal axis (idiotropic dominance), the degree of misalignment between the latter and physical gravity modulated the time course of the localization responses. This pattern is surmised to reflect increased uncertainty about the internal model when faced with conflicting cues regarding the perceived "downward" direction.

Goats display audience-dependent human-directed gazing behaviour in a problem-solving task.

PubMed

Nawroth, Christian; Brett, Jemma M; McElligott, Alan G

2016-07-01

Domestication is an important factor driving changes in animal cognition and behaviour. In particular, the capacity of dogs to communicate in a referential and intentional way with humans is considered a key outcome of how domestication as a companion animal shaped the canid brain. However, the lack of comparison with other domestic animals makes general conclusions about how domestication has affected these important cognitive features difficult. We investigated human-directed behaviour in an 'unsolvable problem' task in a domestic, but non-companion species: goats. During the test, goats experienced a forward-facing or an away-facing person. They gazed towards the forward-facing person earlier and for longer and showed more gaze alternations and a lower latency until the first gaze alternation when the person was forward-facing. Our results provide strong evidence for audience-dependent human-directed visual orienting behaviour in a species that was domesticated primarily for production, and show similarities with the referential and intentional communicative behaviour exhibited by domestic companion animals such as dogs and horses. This indicates that domestication has a much broader impact on heterospecific communication than previously believed. © 2016 The Author(s).

The effect of inversion on face recognition in adults with autism spectrum disorder.

PubMed

Hedley, Darren; Brewer, Neil; Young, Robyn

2015-05-01

Face identity recognition has widely been shown to be impaired in individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). In this study we examined the influence of inversion on face recognition in 26 adults with ASD and 33 age and IQ matched controls. Participants completed a recognition test comprising upright and inverted faces. Participants with ASD performed worse than controls on the recognition task but did not show an advantage for inverted face recognition. Both groups directed more visual attention to the eye than the mouth region and gaze patterns were not found to be associated with recognition performance. These results provide evidence of a normal effect of inversion on face recognition in adults with ASD.

Anisotropy of electrical conductivity of the excavation damaged zone in the Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Nicollin, Florence; Gibert, Dominique; Lesparre, Nolwenn; Nussbaum, Christophe

2010-04-01

Electrical resistivity measurements were performed to characterize the anisotropy of electrical resistivity of the excavation damaged zone (EDZ) at the end-face of a gallery in the Opalinus clay of the Mont Terri Underground Rock Laboratory (URL). The data were acquired with a combination of square arrays in 18 zones on the gallery's face and in two series of four boreholes perpendicular to the face. Each data set is independently inverted using simulated annealing to recover the resistivity tensor. Both the stability and the non-uniqueness of the inverse problem are discussed with synthetic examples. The inversion of the data shows that the face is split in two domains separated by a tectonic fracture, with different resistivity values but with a common orientation. The direction of the maximum resistivity is found perpendicular to the bedding plane, and the direction of minimum resistivity is contained in the face's plane. These results show that the geo-electrical structure of the EDZ is controlled by a combination of effects due to tectonics, stratigraphy, and recent fracturing produced by the excavation of the gallery.

Arrangement for controlled engagement of the tools of a mining machine with a mine face

DOE Office of Scientific and Technical Information (OSTI.GOV)

Blumenthal, G.; Bollmann, A.

1981-07-28

An arrangement for controlled engagement of the tools of a coal planer, with a mine face comprises a scraper conveyor, provided on its front face directed toward the mine face with a guide rail guiding the coal planer for reciprocation along the mine face and a mechanism for tilting the conveyor and the coal planer about a substantially horizontal axis. The tilting mechanism is connected to the rear face of the conveyor and extends in its entirety rearwardly of the rear face of the latter. The tilting mechanism comprises a guide linkage pivotally connected at its front end to themore » rear face of the scraper conveyor while its rear end portion forms a housing for a fluid operated cylinder and piston unit, the piston rod of which is connected to a connecting rod guided by the guide linkage for movement in longitudinal direction and having an upwardly extending front section pivotally connected at its upper free end to the rear face of the scraper conveyor. The fluid operated cylinder-and-piston unit is thus considerably spaced from the scraper conveyor and the material transported thereby and especially coal dust raised during transport of the mined coal by the conveyor, whereby maintenance of the tilting unit is reduced. The guide linkage, the connecting rod and the tilting unit are all in close vicinity to the sole of the mine gallery to leave a considerable free space between the arrangement and the roof of the mine gallery.« less

Second-order relational face processing is applied to faces of different race and photographic contrast.

PubMed

Matheson, H E; Bilsbury, T G; McMullen, P A

2012-03-01

A large body of research suggests that faces are processed by a specialized mechanism within the human visual system. This specialized mechanism is made up of subprocesses (Maurer, LeGrand, & Mondloch, 2002). One subprocess, called second- order relational processing, analyzes the metric distances between face parts. Importantly, it is well established that other-race faces and contrast-reversed faces are associated with impaired performance on numerous face processing tasks. Here, we investigated the specificity of second-order relational processing by testing how this process is applied to faces of different race and photographic contrast. Participants completed a feature displacement discrimination task, directly measuring the sensitivity to second-order relations between face parts. Across three experiments we show that, despite absolute differences in sensitivity in some conditions, inversion impaired performance in all conditions. The presence of robust inversion effects for all faces suggests that second-order relational processing can be applied to faces of different race and photographic contrast.

Face-to-Face vs. Real-Time Clinical Education: No Significant Difference

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Mohammed, Y. Q.; Waddington, G.; Donnan, P.

2007-01-01

The main objective of this pilot research project was to determine whether the use of an internet broadband link to stream physiotherapy clinical education workshop proceedings in "real-time" is of equivalent educational value to the traditional face-to-face experience. This project looked at the benefits of using the above technology as…

Online versus Face-to-Face Training of Critical Time Intervention: A Matching Cluster Randomized Trial

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Olivet, Jeffrey; Zerger, Suzanne; Greene, R. Neil; Kenney, Rachael R.; Herman, Daniel B.

2016-01-01

This study examined the effectiveness of online education to providers who serve people experiencing homelessness, comparing online and face-to-face training of Critical Time Intervention (CTI), an evidence-based case management model. The authors recruited 184 staff from nineteen homeless service agencies to participate in one of two training…

Towards a Rhetoric of On-line Tutoring.

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Coogan, David

Electronic mail-based tutoring of undergraduate writing students upsets the temporal basis of the face-to-face paradigm for writing tutorials. Taking place in real time in a specified place, the face-to-face tutorial session has a beginning, middle and end. Further, the session must have a tangible point. By contrast, in on-line tutoring, time is…

Experimental research on coalbed gas drainage effect and economy of long directional borehole in roof

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Yang, Huiming; Hu, Liangping

2017-05-01

In order to study the coalbed gas drainage effect and economy of long directional roof borehole, 2 boreholes were laid out in Xinji No. 2 mine to analyze its gas drainage and investment costs comparing with high position roof borehole and high position roof roadway. The result indicates that the long directional roof borehole save investment by 44.8% and shorten the construction period by 30%, comparing with high position roof roadway for controlling gas in the working face. Investment slightly less and shorten the construction period by 47.5%, comparing with the roof high position borehole. Therefore, the method of the long directional roof borehole to drain coalbed gas in working face is the most cost-effective.

A Comparison of Recruitment Methods for an mHealth Intervention Targeting Mothers: Lessons from the Growing Healthy Program.

PubMed

Laws, Rachel A; Litterbach, Eloise-Kate V; Denney-Wilson, Elizabeth A; Russell, Catherine G; Taki, Sarah; Ong, Kok-Leong; Elliott, Rosalind M; Lymer, Sharyn J; Campbell, Karen J

2016-09-15

Mobile health (mHealth) programs hold great promise for increasing the reach of public health interventions. However, mHealth is a relatively new field of research, presenting unique challenges for researchers. A key challenge is understanding the relative effectiveness and cost of various methods of recruitment to mHealth programs. The objectives of this study were to (1) compare the effectiveness of various methods of recruitment to an mHealth intervention targeting healthy infant feeding practices, and (2) explore factors influencing practitioner referral to the intervention. The Growing healthy study used a quasi-experimental design with an mHealth intervention group and a concurrent nonrandomized comparison group. Eligibility criteria included: expectant parents (>30 weeks of gestation) or parents with an infant <3 months old, ability to read and understand English, own a mobile phone, ≥18 years old, and living in Australia. Recruitment to the mHealth program consisted of: (1) practitioner-led recruitment through Maternal and Child Health nurses, midwives, and nurses in general practice; (2) face-to-face recruitment by researchers; and (3) online recruitment. Participants' baseline surveys provided information regarding how participants heard about the study, and their sociodemographic details. Costs per participant recruited were calculated by taking into account direct advertising costs and researcher time/travel costs. Practitioner feedback relating to the recruitment process was obtained through a follow-up survey and qualitative interviews. A total of 300 participants were recruited to the mHealth intervention. The cost per participant recruited was lowest for online recruitment (AUD $14) and highest for practice nurse recruitment (AUD $586). Just over half of the intervention group (50.3%, 151/300) were recruited online over a 22-week period compared to practitioner recruitment (29.3%, 88/300 over 46 weeks) and face-to-face recruitment by researchers (7.3%, 22/300 over 18 weeks). No significant differences were observed in participant sociodemographic characteristics between recruitment methods, with the exception that practitioner/face-to-face recruitment resulted in a higher proportion of first-time parents (68% versus 48%, P=.002). Less than half of the practitioners surveyed reported referring to the program often or most of the time. Key barriers to practitioner referral included lack of time, difficulty remembering to refer, staff changes, lack of parental engagement, and practitioner difficulty in accessing the app. Online recruitment using parenting-related Facebook pages was the most cost effective and timely method of recruitment to an mHealth intervention targeting parents of young infants. Consideration needs to be given to addressing practitioner barriers to referral, to further explore if this can be a viable method of recruitment.

A Comparison of Recruitment Methods for an mHealth Intervention Targeting Mothers: Lessons from the Growing Healthy Program

PubMed Central

Litterbach, Eloise-Kate V; Denney-Wilson, Elizabeth A; Russell, Catherine G; Taki, Sarah; Ong, Kok-Leong; Elliott, Rosalind M; Lymer, Sharyn J; Campbell, Karen J

2016-01-01

Background Mobile health (mHealth) programs hold great promise for increasing the reach of public health interventions. However, mHealth is a relatively new field of research, presenting unique challenges for researchers. A key challenge is understanding the relative effectiveness and cost of various methods of recruitment to mHealth programs. Objective The objectives of this study were to (1) compare the effectiveness of various methods of recruitment to an mHealth intervention targeting healthy infant feeding practices, and (2) explore factors influencing practitioner referral to the intervention. Methods The Growing healthy study used a quasi-experimental design with an mHealth intervention group and a concurrent nonrandomized comparison group. Eligibility criteria included: expectant parents (>30 weeks of gestation) or parents with an infant <3 months old, ability to read and understand English, own a mobile phone, ≥18 years old, and living in Australia. Recruitment to the mHealth program consisted of: (1) practitioner-led recruitment through Maternal and Child Health nurses, midwives, and nurses in general practice; (2) face-to-face recruitment by researchers; and (3) online recruitment. Participants’ baseline surveys provided information regarding how participants heard about the study, and their sociodemographic details. Costs per participant recruited were calculated by taking into account direct advertising costs and researcher time/travel costs. Practitioner feedback relating to the recruitment process was obtained through a follow-up survey and qualitative interviews. Results A total of 300 participants were recruited to the mHealth intervention. The cost per participant recruited was lowest for online recruitment (AUD $14) and highest for practice nurse recruitment (AUD $586). Just over half of the intervention group (50.3%, 151/300) were recruited online over a 22-week period compared to practitioner recruitment (29.3%, 88/300 over 46 weeks) and face-to-face recruitment by researchers (7.3%, 22/300 over 18 weeks). No significant differences were observed in participant sociodemographic characteristics between recruitment methods, with the exception that practitioner/face-to-face recruitment resulted in a higher proportion of first-time parents (68% versus 48%, P=.002). Less than half of the practitioners surveyed reported referring to the program often or most of the time. Key barriers to practitioner referral included lack of time, difficulty remembering to refer, staff changes, lack of parental engagement, and practitioner difficulty in accessing the app. Conclusions Online recruitment using parenting-related Facebook pages was the most cost effective and timely method of recruitment to an mHealth intervention targeting parents of young infants. Consideration needs to be given to addressing practitioner barriers to referral, to further explore if this can be a viable method of recruitment. PMID:27634633

Advance Directives as Support of Autonomy for Persons with Dementia? A Pilot Study among Persons with Dementia and Their Informal Caregivers.

PubMed

Schmidhuber, Martina; Haeupler, Sandra; Marinova-Schmidt, Velislava; Frewer, Andreas; Kolominsky-Rabas, Peter L

2017-01-01

Advance directives could be an important instrument to support a person's will once he/she is not able to consent anymore - if composed competently. A survey was conducted to identify the level of knowledge concerning possibilities and limits of advance directives. The study was conducted as part of the Bavarian Dementia Survey (BayDem). Data were collected from January 2014 to December 2015 by structured face-to-face interviews. Study participants were persons with dementia and their informal caregivers ( n = 74). In total, 66% reported having written an advance directive. Concerning the participants' knowledge about possibilities and limitations of advance directives, a lack of knowledge was noted about the possibility to revoke an advance directive. Furthermore, 70% of informal caregivers and 56% of persons with dementia were not aware of the possibility to include dementia-specific terms in the advance directive. It is necessary to optimize structures for public information and education concerning the topic of advance directives for persons with dementia.

Effects of sound source location and direction on acoustic parameters in Japanese churches.

PubMed

Soeta, Yoshiharu; Ito, Ken; Shimokura, Ryota; Sato, Shin-ichi; Ohsawa, Tomohiro; Ando, Yoichi

2012-02-01

In 1965, the Catholic Church liturgy changed to allow priests to face the congregation. Whereas Church tradition, teaching, and participation have been much discussed with respect to priest orientation at Mass, the acoustical changes in this regard have not yet been examined scientifically. To discuss acoustic desired within churches, it is necessary to know the acoustical characteristics appropriate for each phase of the liturgy. In this study, acoustic measurements were taken at various source locations and directions using both old and new liturgies performed in Japanese churches. A directional loudspeaker was used as the source to provide vocal and organ acoustic fields, and impulse responses were measured. Various acoustical parameters such as reverberation time and early decay time were analyzed. The speech transmission index was higher for the new Catholic liturgy, suggesting that the change in liturgy has improved speech intelligibility. Moreover, the interaural cross-correlation coefficient and early lateral energy fraction were higher and lower, respectively, suggesting that the change in liturgy has made the apparent source width smaller. © 2012 Acoustical Society of America

Multiple Cues in Social Perception: The Time Course of Processing Race and Facial Expression

PubMed Central

Kubota, Jennifer T.; Ito, Tiffany A.

2007-01-01

The purpose of the present study was to examine the time course of race and expression processing to determine how these cues influence early perceptual as well as explicit categorization judgments. Despite their importance in social perception, little research has examined how social category information and emotional expression are processed over time. Moreover, although models of face processing suggest that the two cues should be processed independently, this has rarely been directly examined. Event-related brain potentials were recorded as participants made race and emotion categorization judgments of Black and White men posing either happy, angry, or neutral expressions. Our findings support that processing of race and emotion cues occur independently and in parallel, relatively early in processing. PMID:17940587

Financial and feasibility implications of the treatment of hepatitis C virus in Italy: scenarios and perspectives

PubMed Central

Croce, Davide; Bonfanti, Marzia; Restelli, Umberto

2016-01-01

Background Hepatitis C virus (HCV) affects an estimated number of people between 130 million and 210 million worldwide. In the next few years, the Italian National Health Service will face a growing trend of patients requiring HCV antiviral treatments. The aim of the analysis was to estimate the time horizon in which it would be possible to treat HCV-infected patients and the related direct medical costs (antiviral treatment and monitoring activities) from the Italian National Health Service point of view. Methodology In order to estimate the number of HCV-infected patients in Italy, we considered a top-down (considering published data) and a bottom-up approach. The number of years needed for treatment and related direct costs were estimated through the development of a static deterministic model. Results The estimated number of HCV-infected patients in Italy varies from 2.7 (estimated through a top-down approach) to 0.6 million (estimated through a bottom-up approach) and 0.3 million (measured through a bottom-up approach). Considering the last two scenarios and the use of interferon-free therapies for 50,000 patients per year, treatment for HCV-infected patients could be at a cost of €13.7 billion and €7.0 billion by 2030 and 2023, respectively. Conclusion The treatment for HCV-infected patients in Italy is a challenging target for the financial implications of patient care. HCV infection could be controlled or eliminated in a 10- to 15-year time horizon. The cost of treatment can hardly be dealt with using the traditional economic tools but should be faced through multiyear investments, as health benefits are expected in the long period. National Health Service stakeholders (industry, government, insurance, and also patients) will have to identify suitable financial instruments to face the new expenditure required. PMID:27540306

Self-pacing study of faces of different races: metacognitive control over study does not eliminate the cross-race recognition effect.

PubMed

Tullis, Jonathan G; Benjamin, Aaron S; Liu, Xiping

2014-08-01

People often recognize same-race faces better than other-race faces. This cross-race effect (CRE) has been proposed to arise in part because learners devote fewer cognitive resources to encode faces of social out-groups. In three experiments, we evaluated whether learners' other-race mnemonic deficits are due to "cognitive disregard" during study and whether this disregard is under metacognitive control. Learners studied each face either for as long as they wanted (the self-paced condition) or for the average time taken by a self-paced learner (the fixed-rate condition). Self-paced learners allocated equal amounts of study time to same-race and other-race faces, and having control over study time did not change the size of the CRE. In the second and third experiments, both self-paced and fixed-rate learners were given instructions to "individuate" other-race faces. Individuation instructions caused self-paced learners to allocate more study time to other-race faces, but this did not significantly reduce the size of the CRE, even for learners who reported extensive contact with other races. We propose that the differential processing that people apply to faces of different races and the subsequent other-race mnemonic deficit are not due to learners' strategic cognitive disregard of other-race faces.

Face-centred cubic to body-centred cubic phase transformation under [1 0 0] tensile loading

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Xie, Hongxian; Yu, Jiayun; Yu, Tao; Yin, Fuxing

2018-06-01

Molecular dynamics simulation was used to verify a speculation of the existence of a certain face-centred cubic (FCC) to body-centred cubic (BCC) phase transformation pathway. Four FCC metals, Ni, Cu, Au and Ag, were stretched along the [1 0 0] direction at various strain rates and temperatures. Under high strain rate and low temperature, and beyond the elastic limit, the bifurcation of the FCC phase occurred with sudden contraction along one lateral direction and expansion along the other lateral direction. When the lattice constant along the expansion direction converged with that of the stretched direction, the FCC phase transformed into an unstressed BCC phase. By reducing the strain rate or increasing the temperature, dislocation or 'momentum-induced melting' mechanisms began to control the plastic deformation of the FCC metals, respectively.

Benefits for Voice Learning Caused by Concurrent Faces Develop over Time.

PubMed

Zäske, Romi; Mühl, Constanze; Schweinberger, Stefan R

2015-01-01

Recognition of personally familiar voices benefits from the concurrent presentation of the corresponding speakers' faces. This effect of audiovisual integration is most pronounced for voices combined with dynamic articulating faces. However, it is unclear if learning unfamiliar voices also benefits from audiovisual face-voice integration or, alternatively, is hampered by attentional capture of faces, i.e., "face-overshadowing". In six study-test cycles we compared the recognition of newly-learned voices following unimodal voice learning vs. bimodal face-voice learning with either static (Exp. 1) or dynamic articulating faces (Exp. 2). Voice recognition accuracies significantly increased for bimodal learning across study-test cycles while remaining stable for unimodal learning, as reflected in numerical costs of bimodal relative to unimodal voice learning in the first two study-test cycles and benefits in the last two cycles. This was independent of whether faces were static images (Exp. 1) or dynamic videos (Exp. 2). In both experiments, slower reaction times to voices previously studied with faces compared to voices only may result from visual search for faces during memory retrieval. A general decrease of reaction times across study-test cycles suggests facilitated recognition with more speaker repetitions. Overall, our data suggest two simultaneous and opposing mechanisms during bimodal face-voice learning: while attentional capture of faces may initially impede voice learning, audiovisual integration may facilitate it thereafter.

Erasing the face after-effect.

PubMed

Kiani, Ghazaleh; Davies-Thompson, Jodie; Barton, Jason J S

2014-10-24

Perceptual after-effects decay over time at a rate that depends on several factors, such as the duration of adaptation and the duration of the test stimuli. Whether this decay is accelerated by exposure to other faces after adaptation is not known. Our goal was to determine if the appearance of other faces during a delay period after adaptation affected the face identity after-effect. In the first experiment we investigated whether, in the perception of ambiguous stimuli created by morphing between two faces, the repulsive after-effects from adaptation to one face were reduced by brief presentation of the second face in a delay period. We found no effect; however, this may have been confounded by a small attractive after-effect from the interference face. In the second experiment, the interference stimuli were faces unrelated to those used as adaptation stimuli, and we examined after-effects at three different delay periods. This showed a decline in after-effects as the time since adaptation increased, and an enhancement of this decline by the presentation of intervening faces. An exponential model estimated that the intervening faces caused an 85% reduction in the time constant of the after-effect decay. In conclusion, we confirm that face after-effects decline rapidly after adaptation and that exposure to other faces hastens the re-setting of the system. Crown Copyright © 2014. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Face Hallucination with Linear Regression Model in Semi-Orthogonal Multilinear PCA Method

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Asavaskulkiet, Krissada

2018-04-01

In this paper, we propose a new face hallucination technique, face images reconstruction in HSV color space with a semi-orthogonal multilinear principal component analysis method. This novel hallucination technique can perform directly from tensors via tensor-to-vector projection by imposing the orthogonality constraint in only one mode. In our experiments, we use facial images from FERET database to test our hallucination approach which is demonstrated by extensive experiments with high-quality hallucinated color faces. The experimental results assure clearly demonstrated that we can generate photorealistic color face images by using the SO-MPCA subspace with a linear regression model.

Happy faces are preferred regardless of familiarity--sad faces are preferred only when familiar.

PubMed

Liao, Hsin-I; Shimojo, Shinsuke; Yeh, Su-Ling

2013-06-01

Familiarity leads to preference (e.g., the mere exposure effect), yet it remains unknown whether it is objective familiarity, that is, repetitive exposure, or subjective familiarity that contributes to preference. In addition, it is unexplored whether and how different emotions influence familiarity-related preference. The authors investigated whether happy or sad faces are preferred or perceived as more familiar and whether this subjective familiarity judgment correlates with preference for different emotional faces. An emotional face--happy or sad--was paired with a neutral face, and participants rated the relative preference and familiarity of each of the paired faces. For preference judgment, happy faces were preferred and sad faces were less preferred, compared with neutral faces. For familiarity judgment, happy faces did not show any bias, but sad faces were perceived as less familiar than neutral faces. Item-by-item correlational analyses show preference for sad faces--but not happy faces--positively correlate with familiarity. These results suggest a direct link between positive emotion and preference, and argue at least partly against a common cause for familiarity and preference. Instead, facial expression of different emotional valence modulates the link between familiarity and preference.

Time Usage during Face-to-Face and Synchronous Distance Music Lessons

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Orman, Evelyn K.; Whitaker, Jennifer A.

2010-01-01

This study compared face-to-face and videoconference private music lessons of one saxophone and two tuba students. One value of this study is the magnitude of the data analysis. More than 28,800 frames of digital video and verbatim scripts of all lessons were analyzed for time spent engaged in sequential patterns of instruction, performance, focus…

Interdyad Differences in Early Mother-Infant Face-to-Face Communication: Real-Time Dynamics and Developmental Pathways

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Lavelli, Manuela; Fogel, Alan

2013-01-01

A microgenetic research design with a multiple case study method and a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses was used to investigate interdyad differences in real-time dynamics and developmental change processes in mother-infant face-to-face communication over the first 3 months of life. Weekly observations of 24 mother-infant dyads…

A Systems View of Mother-Infant Face-to-Face Communication

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Beebe, Beatrice; Messinger, Daniel; Bahrick, Lorraine E.; Margolis, Amy; Buck, Karen A.; Chen, Henian

2016-01-01

Principles of a dynamic, dyadic systems view of mother-infant face-to-face communication, which considers self- and interactive processes in relation to one another, were tested. The process of interaction across time in a large low-risk community sample at infant age 4 months was examined. Split-screen videotape was coded on a 1-s time base for…

Atomistic simulation of frictional anisotropy on quasicrystal approximant surfaces

DOE PAGES

Ye, Zhijiang; Martini, Ashlie; Thiel, Patricia; ...

2016-06-23

J. Y. Park et al. [Science 309, 1354 (2005)] have reported eight times greater atomic-scale friction in the periodic than in the quasiperiodic direction on the twofold face of a decagonal Al-Ni-Co quasicrystal. Here we present results of molecular-dynamics simulations intended to elucidate mechanisms behind this giant frictional anisotropy. Simulations of a bare atomic-force-microscope tip on several model substrates and under a variety of conditions failed to reproduce experimental results. On the other hand, including the experimental passivation of the tip with chains of hexadecane thiol, we reproduce qualitatively the experimental anisotropy in friction, finding evidence for entrainment of themore » organic chains in surface furrows parallel to the periodic direction.« less

Adaptive scallop height tool path generation for robot-based incremental sheet metal forming

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Seim, Patrick; Möllensiep, Dennis; Störkle, Denis Daniel; Thyssen, Lars; Kuhlenkötter, Bernd

2016-10-01

Incremental sheet metal forming is an emerging process for the production of individualized products or prototypes in low batch sizes and with short times to market. In these processes, the desired shape is produced by the incremental inward motion of the workpiece-independent forming tool in depth direction and its movement along the contour in lateral direction. Based on this shape production, the tool path generation is a key factor on e.g. the resulting geometric accuracy, the resulting surface quality, and the working time. This paper presents an innovative tool path generation based on a commercial milling CAM package considering the surface quality and working time. This approach offers the ability to define a specific scallop height as an indicator of the surface quality for specific faces of a component. Moreover, it decreases the required working time for the production of the entire component compared to the use of a commercial software package without this adaptive approach. Different forming experiments have been performed to verify the newly developed tool path generation. Mainly, this approach serves to solve the existing conflict of combining the working time and the surface quality within the process of incremental sheet metal forming.

Semiconductor laser having a non-absorbing passive region with beam guiding

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Botez, Dan (Inventor)

1986-01-01

A laser comprises a semiconductor body having a pair of end faces and including an active region comprising adjacent active and guide layers which is spaced a distance from the end face and a passive region comprising adjacent non-absorbing guide and mode control layers which extends between the active region and the end face. The combination of the guide and mode control layers provides a weak positive index waveguide in the lateral direction thereby providing lateral mode control in the passive region between the active region and the end face.

Dynamic Encoding of Face Information in the Human Fusiform Gyrus

PubMed Central

Ghuman, Avniel Singh; Brunet, Nicolas M.; Li, Yuanning; Konecky, Roma O.; Pyles, John A.; Walls, Shawn A.; Destefino, Vincent; Wang, Wei; Richardson, R. Mark

2014-01-01

Humans’ ability to rapidly and accurately detect, identify, and classify faces under variable conditions derives from a network of brain regions highly tuned to face information. The fusiform face area (FFA) is thought to be a computational hub for face processing, however temporal dynamics of face information processing in FFA remains unclear. Here we use multivariate pattern classification to decode the temporal dynamics of expression-invariant face information processing using electrodes placed directly upon FFA in humans. Early FFA activity (50-75 ms) contained information regarding whether participants were viewing a face. Activity between 200-500 ms contained expression-invariant information about which of 70 faces participants were viewing along with the individual differences in facial features and their configurations. Long-lasting (500+ ms) broadband gamma frequency activity predicted task performance. These results elucidate the dynamic computational role FFA plays in multiple face processing stages and indicate what information is used in performing these visual analyses. PMID:25482825

Dynamic encoding of face information in the human fusiform gyrus.

PubMed

Ghuman, Avniel Singh; Brunet, Nicolas M; Li, Yuanning; Konecky, Roma O; Pyles, John A; Walls, Shawn A; Destefino, Vincent; Wang, Wei; Richardson, R Mark

2014-12-08

Humans' ability to rapidly and accurately detect, identify and classify faces under variable conditions derives from a network of brain regions highly tuned to face information. The fusiform face area (FFA) is thought to be a computational hub for face processing; however, temporal dynamics of face information processing in FFA remains unclear. Here we use multivariate pattern classification to decode the temporal dynamics of expression-invariant face information processing using electrodes placed directly on FFA in humans. Early FFA activity (50-75 ms) contained information regarding whether participants were viewing a face. Activity between 200 and 500 ms contained expression-invariant information about which of 70 faces participants were viewing along with the individual differences in facial features and their configurations. Long-lasting (500+ms) broadband gamma frequency activity predicted task performance. These results elucidate the dynamic computational role FFA plays in multiple face processing stages and indicate what information is used in performing these visual analyses.

Structural Statics Analysis and Optimization Design of Regulating Device for Air Conveyer Outlet in Coal Mine

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Gong, Xiaoyan; Li, Ying; Zhang, Yongqiang

2018-06-01

In view of the enlargement of fully mechanized face excavation and long distance driving, gas emission and dust production increase greatly. However, the current ventilation device direction angle, caliber and front-back distance cannot change dynamically at any time, resulting in the serious accumulation in the dead zone. In this paper, a new device were proposed that can solve above problems. Finite element ANSYS software were used to simulate and optimize the structural safety of the control device' key components. The optimization results showed that the equivalent stress decreases by 49%; after the optimization of deformation and mass are 0.829mm and 0.548kg, which were 21% and 10% lower than before.The quality, safety, reliability and cost of the control device reach the expected standards perfectly, which can meet the requirements of safe ventilation and down-dusting of fully mechanized face.

Medicine, morality and health care social media.

PubMed

Timimi, Farris K

2012-08-02

Social media includes many different forms of technology including online forums, blogs, microblogs (i.e. Twitter), wikipedias, video blogs, social networks and podcasting. The use of social media has grown exponentially and time spent on social media sites now represents one in five minutes spent online. Concomitant with this online growth, there has been an inverse trajectory in direct face-to-face patient-provider moments, which continue to become scarcer across the spectrum of health care. In contrast to standard forms of engagement and education, social media has advantages to include profound reach, immediate availability, an archived presence and broad accessibility. Our opportunity as health care providers to partner with our patients has never been greater, yet all too often we allow risk averse fears to limit our ability to truly leverage our good content effectively to the online community. This risk averse behavior truly limits our capacity to effectively engage our patients where they are--online.

Process for coating an object with silicon carbide

NASA Technical Reports Server (NTRS)

Levin, Harry (Inventor)

1989-01-01

A process for coating a carbon or graphite object with silicon carbide by contacting it with silicon liquid and vapor over various lengths of contact time. In the process, a stream of silicon-containing precursor material in gaseous phase below the decomposition temperature of said gas and a co-reactant, carrier or diluent gas such as hydrogen is passed through a hole within a high emissivity, thin, insulating septum into a reaction chamber above the melting point of silicon. The thin septum has one face below the decomposition temperature of the gas and an opposite face exposed to the reaction chamber. The precursor gas is decomposed directly to silicon in the reaction chamber. A stream of any decomposition gas and any unreacted precursor gas from said reaction chamber is removed. The object within the reaction chamber is then contacted with silicon, and recovered after it has been coated with silicon carbide.

Time course of gamma-band oscillation associated with face processing in the inferior occipital gyrus and fusiform gyrus: A combined fMRI and MEG study.

PubMed

Uono, Shota; Sato, Wataru; Kochiyama, Takanori; Kubota, Yasutaka; Sawada, Reiko; Yoshimura, Sayaka; Toichi, Motomi

2017-04-01

Debate continues over whether the inferior occipital gyrus (IOG) or the fusiform gyrus (FG) represents the first stage of face processing and what role these brain regions play. We investigated this issue by combining functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) in normal adults. Participants passively observed upright and inverted faces and houses. First, we identified the IOG and FG as face-specific regions using fMRI. We applied beamforming source reconstruction and time-frequency analysis to MEG source signals to reveal the time course of gamma-band activations in these regions. The results revealed that the right IOG showed higher gamma-band activation in response to upright faces than to upright houses at 100 ms from the stimulus onset. Subsequently, the right FG showed greater gamma-band response to upright faces versus upright houses at around 170 ms. The gamma-band activation in the right IOG and right FG was larger in response to inverted faces than to upright faces at the later time window. These results suggest that (1) the gamma-band activities occurs rapidly first in the IOG and next in the FG and (2) the gamma-band activity in the right IOG at later time stages is involved in configuration processing for faces. Hum Brain Mapp 38:2067-2079, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Evaluation of sunlight-exposed pyrethroid-treated netting for the control of face fly and housefly (Diptera: Muscidae).

PubMed

Peck, George W; Ferguson, Holly J; LePage, Jane T; Hebert, Vincent R; O'Neal, Sally D; Walsh, Douglas B

2014-01-01

Face flies, Musca autumnalis De Geer (Diptera: Muscidae), and houseflies, Musca domestica L. (Diptera: Muscidae), have a significant impact on livestock and dairy production throughout North America. Pyrethroid insecticide efficacy can be affected by exposure to direct sunlight, and the rate of photodegradation is substrate and formulation dependent. Insecticide-treated netting (ITN) is finding new applications in crop and livestock production systems. A baseline study using long-duration no-choice assays has been carried out to gauge the effectiveness of ITN treated with β-cyfluthrin, λ-cyhalothrin and bifenthrin on face flies and houseflies. After 12 weeks in direct sunlight, ITN treated with β-cyfluthrin was still highly insecticidal to face flies and houseflies, producing 100% mortality in petri dish assays. However, sunlight reduced the insecticidal activity of λ-cyhalothrin, with 3% of face flies and 50% of houseflies surviving after exposure to ITN that had been deployed for 10 weeks. Insecticidal activity was greatly reduced on bifenthrin-treated netting, with 20% of face flies and 50% of houseflies surviving in assays with netting deployed for only 3 weeks. With careful choice of the pyrethroid applied, treated netting could be an important component of livestock integrated pest management programs focused on sustainable practices. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry.

Effects of Implied Motion and Facing Direction on Positional Preferences in Single-Object Pictures.

PubMed

Palmer, Stephen E; Langlois, Thomas A

2017-07-01

Palmer, Gardner, and Wickens studied aesthetic preferences for pictures of single objects and found a strong inward bias: Right-facing objects were preferred left-of-center and left-facing objects right-of-center. They found no effect of object motion (people and cars showed the same inward bias as chairs and teapots), but the objects were not depicted as moving. Here we measured analogous inward biases with objects depicted as moving with an implied direction and speed by having participants drag-and-drop target objects into the most aesthetically pleasing position. In Experiment 1, human figures were shown diving or falling while moving forward or backward. Aesthetic biases were evident for both inward-facing and inward-moving figures, but the motion-based bias dominated so strongly that backward divers or fallers were preferred moving inward but facing outward. Experiment 2 investigated implied speed effects using images of humans, horses, and cars moving at different speeds (e.g., standing, walking, trotting, and galloping horses). Inward motion or facing biases were again present, and differences in their magnitude due to speed were evident. Unexpectedly, faster moving objects were generally preferred closer to frame center than slower moving objects. These results are discussed in terms of the combined effects of prospective, future-oriented biases, and retrospective, past-oriented biases.

[Face recognition in patients with schizophrenia].

PubMed

Doi, Hirokazu; Shinohara, Kazuyuki

2012-07-01

It is well known that patients with schizophrenia show severe deficiencies in social communication skills. These deficiencies are believed to be partly derived from abnormalities in face recognition. However, the exact nature of these abnormalities exhibited by schizophrenic patients with respect to face recognition has yet to be clarified. In the present paper, we review the main findings on face recognition deficiencies in patients with schizophrenia, particularly focusing on abnormalities in the recognition of facial expression and gaze direction, which are the primary sources of information of others' mental states. The existing studies reveal that the abnormal recognition of facial expression and gaze direction in schizophrenic patients is attributable to impairments in both perceptual processing of visual stimuli, and cognitive-emotional responses to social information. Furthermore, schizophrenic patients show malfunctions in distributed neural regions, ranging from the fusiform gyrus recruited in the structural encoding of facial stimuli, to the amygdala which plays a primary role in the detection of the emotional significance of stimuli. These findings were obtained from research in patient groups with heterogeneous characteristics. Because previous studies have indicated that impairments in face recognition in schizophrenic patients might vary according to the types of symptoms, it is of primary importance to compare the nature of face recognition deficiencies and the impairments of underlying neural functions across sub-groups of patients.

5. SITE BUILDING 002 SCANNER BUILDING AT "A" ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

5. SITE BUILDING 002 - SCANNER BUILDING - AT "A" FACE (ON SOUTH SIDE) LOOKING DIRECTLY UP RADAR SYSTEM EMITTER/ANTENNA ARRAY FACE WITH 90MM STANDARD LENS. - Cape Cod Air Station, Technical Facility-Scanner Building & Power Plant, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Sandwich, Barnstable County, MA

Interactive Explanations: The Functional Role of Gestural and Bodily Action for Explaining and Learning Scientific Concepts in Face-to-Face Arrangements

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Scopelitis, Stephanie A.

As human beings, we live in, live with, and live through our bodies. And because of this it is no wonder that our hands and bodies are in motion as we interact with others in our world. Hands and body move as we give directions to another, anticipate which way to turn the screwdriver, and direct our friend to come sit next to us. Gestures, indeed, fill our everyday lives. The purpose of this study is to investigate the functional role of the body in the parts of our lives where we teach and learn with another. This project is an investigation into, what I call, "interactive explanations". I explore how the hands and body work toward the joint achievement of explanation and learning in face-to-face arrangements. The study aims to uncover how the body participates in teaching and learning in and across events as it slides between the multiple, interdependent roles of (1) a communicative entity, (2) a tool for thinking, and (3) a resource to shape interaction. Understanding gestures functional roles as flexible and diverse better explains how the body participates in teaching and learning interactions. The study further aims to show that these roles and functions are dynamic and changeable based on the interests, goals and contingencies of participants' changing roles and aims in interactions, and within and across events. I employed the methodology of comparative microanalysis of pairs of videotaped conversations in which, first, experts in STEM fields (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) explained concepts to non-experts, and second, these non-experts re-explained the concept to other non-experts. The principle finding is that people strategically, creatively and collaboratively employ the hands and body as vital and flexible resources for the joint achievement of explanation and understanding. Findings further show that gestures used to explain complex STEM concepts travel across time with the non-expert into re-explanations of the concept. My analysis demonstrates that gestures and the body are complex, multi-functional resources that work toward cognitive, communicative, and interactional achievement and, as such, are viable resources for teaching and learning in face-to-face interaction.

A new "virtual" patient pathway for the management of radial head and neck fractures.

PubMed

Jayaram, Prem R; Bhattacharyya, Rahul; Jenkins, Paul J; Anthony, Iain; Rymaszewski, Lech A

2014-03-01

Minimally displaced radial head and neck fractures are common and the outcome with conservative treatment is generally excellent. A new protocol was introduced to manage patients with these suspected fractures at a major urban hospital. Simple, undisplaced fractures without other associated injuries or instability were discharged with structured advice but no further face-to-face review. Patients with more complex injuries were reviewed at a "virtual clinic." The aim of this study was to examine the outcome of this process in terms of patient flow, satisfaction, reattendance, and reintervention. The 202 eligible patients, who presented during a 1-year period from October 2011 to October 2012, were identified retrospectively from a prospectively collected administrative database. Mason type III and IV fractures were excluded. A questionnaire was administered by mail or phone call to assess satisfaction with the process, information received, and function. Twenty (10%) patients required face-to-face review in a clinic, whereas 182 (90%) were managed with direct discharge; 155 patients responded to the survey (77%). The overall satisfaction rate was 96% in the suspected fracture group and 87% in the definite fracture group (P = .08). Satisfaction with the information provided was 95%. Two (1%) required late surgical intervention. In this study, patients with suspected Mason I or II fractures were managed with limited face-to-face follow-up with high satisfaction rates. The reintervention rate was extremely low. This process has significant benefits to patients, who have fewer hospital visits, and to orthopaedic departments, which have more time to devote to complex cases. Copyright © 2014 Journal of Shoulder and Elbow Surgery Board of Trustees. Published by Mosby, Inc. All rights reserved.

Realization of face-shear piezoelectric coefficient d36 in PZT ceramics via ferroelastic domain engineering

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Miao, Hongchen; Li, Faxin

2015-09-01

The piezoelectric face-shear ( d36 ) mode may be the most useful shear mode in piezoelectrics, while currently this mode can only exist in single crystals of specific point groups and cut directions. Theoretically, the d36 coefficient vanishes in piezoelectric ceramics because of its transversally isotropic symmetry. In this work, we modified the symmetry of poled PZT ceramics from transversally isotropic to orthogonal through ferroelastic domain switching by applying a high lateral stress along the "2" direction and holding the stress for several hours. After removing the compression, the piezoelectric coefficient d31 is found much larger than d32 . Then, by cutting the compressed sample along the Z x t ±45 ° direction, we realized d36 coefficients up to 206 pC/N , which is measured by using a modified d33 meter. The obtained large d36 coefficients in PZT ceramics could be very promising for face-shear mode resonators and shear horizontal wave generation in nondestructive testing.

Geostatistical analysis of ground-penetrating radar data: A means of describing spatial variation in the subsurface

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Rea, Jane; Knight, Rosemary

1998-03-01

We have investigated the use of ground-penetrating radar (GFR) as a means of characterizing the heterogeneity of the subsurface. Radar data were collected at several sites in southwestern British Columbia underlain by glaciodeltaic sediments. A cliff face study was conducted in which geostatistical analysis of a digitized photograph of the face and the radar image of the face showed excellent agreement in the maximum correlation direction and the correlation length determined from these two data sets. Other two-dimensional (2-D) sections of radar data were divided into sedimentary architectural elements on the basis of the distinct radar appearance of these sedimentary units. Examples of four sedimentary units were used to obtain semivariograms from the radar data and resulted in maximum correlation lengths between 0.5 and 4.8 m. A 3-D radar survey, collected over a package of gravel and sand foresets, was analyzed to determine the paleoflow direction; a correlation length of 4 m was found in that direction.

Infants' Temperament and Mothers', and Fathers' Depression Predict Infants' Attention to Objects Paired with Emotional Faces.

PubMed

Aktar, Evin; Mandell, Dorothy J; de Vente, Wieke; Majdandžić, Mirjana; Raijmakers, Maartje E J; Bögels, Susan M

2016-07-01

Between 10 and 14 months, infants gain the ability to learn about unfamiliar stimuli by observing others' emotional reactions to those stimuli, so called social referencing (SR). Joint processing of emotion and head/gaze direction is essential for SR. This study tested emotion and head/gaze direction effects on infants' attention via pupillometry in the period following the emergence of SR. Pupil responses of 14-to-17-month-old infants (N = 57) were measured during computerized presentations of unfamiliar objects alone, before-and-after being paired with emotional (happy, sad, fearful vs. neutral) faces gazing towards (vs. away) from objects. Additionally, the associations of infants' temperament, and parents' negative affect/depression/anxiety with infants' pupil responses were explored. Both mothers and fathers of participating infants completed questionnaires about their negative affect, depression and anxiety symptoms and their infants' negative temperament. Infants allocated more attention (larger pupils) to negative vs. neutral faces when the faces were presented alone, while they allocated less attention to objects paired with emotional vs. neutral faces independent of head/gaze direction. Sad (but not fearful) temperament predicted more attention to emotional faces. Infants' sad temperament moderated the associations of mothers' depression (but not anxiety) with infants' attention to objects. Maternal depression predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions in infants low in sad temperament, while it predicted less attention in infants high in sad temperament. Fathers' depression (but not anxiety) predicted more attention to objects paired with emotional expressions independent of infants' temperament. We conclude that infants' own temperamental dispositions for sadness, and their exposure to mothers' and fathers' depressed moods may influence infants' attention to emotion-object associations in social learning contexts.

Silence is golden: effect of encouragement in motivating the weak link in an online exercise video game.

PubMed

Irwin, Brandon C; Feltz, Deborah L; Kerr, Norbert L

2013-06-04

Despite the physical and mental health benefits, few adults meet US Department of Health and Human Services physical activity guidelines for exercise frequency, intensity, and duration. One strategy that may increase physical activity duration is exercising with an Internet partner (ie, someone who is virtually present, as in video chat). Internet partners help people overcome many barriers associated with face-to-face exercise groups (eg, time, coordinating schedules, social physique anxiety). Past research examining individual performance in groups suggests that an increase in effort occurs when performing a task conjunctively, ie, when a participant is (1) less capable than fellow group members, and (2) participants efforts are particularly indispensable for group success (ie, where the group's potential productivity is equal to the productivity of its least capable member). This boost in effort is more commonly known as the Köhler effect, named after the German psychologist who first observed the effect. While encouragement between group members is common practice in face-to-face group exercise, the effect of encouragement between partners exercising conjunctively across the Internet is unknown. To examine the impact of exercising alone, compared to exercising conjunctively with an Internet partner, both with and without encouragement, on exercise persistence (primary outcomes) and secondary psychosocial outcomes (self-efficacy, enjoyment, exercise intention). Participants were recruited online and face-to-face from the campus of Michigan State University. With the assistance of the experimenter, participants (n=115) played an exercise video game in a laboratory, performing a series of five abdominal plank exercises where they were asked to hold the plank for as long as possible (Time 1). They were then randomized to a condition (Individual, Partner-without-encouragement, or Partner-with-encouragement), where they performed the exercises again (Time 2). The impact of condition on the primary outcome measures and secondary outcome measures were evaluated using a 2 (Gender) x 3 (Condition) ANOVA on change scores (Time 2-Time 1). Those who exercised in online teams (n=80) exercised significantly longer (time=78.8s, P<.001) than those who worked individually (n=35). However, exercise duration was shorter when one's more capable partner gave verbal encouragement (n=55) than when s/he did not (n=25) (a mean difference of 31.14s). These increases in effort were not accompanied by altered task self-efficacy, enjoyment of the task, or intention to exercise in the future. Exercising conjunctively with an Internet partner can boost one's duration of exercise. However, encouragement from the stronger to the weaker member can mitigate these gains, especially if one perceives such comments being directed at someone other than themselves. To boost exercise duration, Internet-based physical activity interventions involving group interaction should make relative abilities of participants known and communication clear.

Online Versus Face-To-Face Training of Critical Time Intervention: A Matching Cluster Randomized Trial

PubMed Central

Olivet, Jeffrey; Zerger, Suzanne; Greene, R. Neil; Kenney, Rachael R.; Herman, Daniel B.

2017-01-01

This study examined the effectiveness of online education to providers who serve people experiencing homelessness, comparing online and face-to-face training of Critical Time Intervention (CTI), an evidence-based case management model. The authors recruited 184 staff from 19 homeless service agencies to participate in one of two training conditions: (a) Online Training + Community of Practice or (b) Face-to-Face Training + Telephone Consultation. Each group received 24 hours of instruction and support. Through baseline, follow-up, and nine-month post-training surveys, the authors examined satisfaction, knowledge gains, knowledge retention, and readiness to implement CTI. While satisfaction rates were higher among participants in the face-to-face group, the two training conditions produced comparable pre/post knowledge gains. Furthermore, both groups showed increased knowledge retention scores at nine-month follow up, with the online group scoring higher than the face-to-face group. PMID:28919668

Communication competence, social support, and depression among college students: a model of facebook and face-to-face support network influence.

PubMed

Wright, Kevin B; Rosenberg, Jenny; Egbert, Nicole; Ploeger, Nicole A; Bernard, Daniel R; King, Shawn

2013-01-01

This study examined the influence of the social networking site Facebook and face-to-face support networks on depression among (N = 361) college students. The authors used the Relational Health Communication Competence Model as a framework for examining the influence of communication competence on social support network satisfaction and depression. Moreover, they examined the influence of interpersonal and social integrative motives as exogenous variables. On the basis of previous work, the authors propose and test a theoretical model using structural equation modeling. The results indicated empirical support for the model, with interpersonal motives predicting increased face-to-face and computer-mediated competence, increased social support satisfaction with face-to-face and Facebook support, and lower depression scores. The implications of the findings for theory, key limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

Infants' response to the audible and visible properties of the human face: II. Discrimination of differences between singing and adult-directed speech.

PubMed

Lewkowicz, D J

1998-05-01

Human infants' responsiveness to the audible and visible features of human faces was studied by habituating them to a person speaking a prepared script in an adult-directed manner and then administering a series of separate test trials where a person could be seen, heard, or seen and heard singing. When habituated to a female person speaking in an adult-directed manner and tested with a singing female 4, 6, and 8-month-old infants responded to the audible, visible, and bimodal changes, whereas 3-month-old infants only responded to the visual and bimodal changes. In contrast, when habituated to a male person speaking in an adult-directed manner and tested with a singing female, all age groups discriminated all three types of changes. These findings demonstrate that infants are responsive to differences between low- and high-prosody content inherent in both the facial and vocal characteristics of the human face and that, whereas responsiveness to the visible and bimodal features associated with differences between adult-directed speech and singing is present as early as 3 months of age, responsiveness to the audible features emerges between 3 and 4 months of age depending on whether gender differences are present as well.

Real-time direct and diffraction X-ray imaging of irregular silicon wafer breakage.

PubMed

Rack, Alexander; Scheel, Mario; Danilewsky, Andreas N

2016-03-01

Fracture and breakage of single crystals, particularly of silicon wafers, are multi-scale problems: the crack tip starts propagating on an atomic scale with the breaking of chemical bonds, forms crack fronts through the crystal on the micrometre scale and ends macroscopically in catastrophic wafer shattering. Total wafer breakage is a severe problem for the semiconductor industry, not only during handling but also during temperature treatments, leading to million-dollar costs per annum in a device production line. Knowledge of the relevant dynamics governing perfect cleavage along the {111} or {110} faces, and of the deflection into higher indexed {hkl} faces of higher energy, is scarce due to the high velocity of the process. Imaging techniques are commonly limited to depicting only the state of a wafer before the crack and in the final state. This paper presents, for the first time, in situ high-speed crack propagation under thermal stress, imaged simultaneously in direct transmission and diffraction X-ray imaging. It shows how the propagating crack tip and the related strain field can be tracked in the phase-contrast and diffracted images, respectively. Movies with a time resolution of microseconds per frame reveal that the strain and crack tip do not propagate continuously or at a constant speed. Jumps in the crack tip position indicate pinning of the crack tip for about 1-2 ms followed by jumps faster than 2-6 m s(-1), leading to a macroscopically observed average velocity of 0.028-0.055 m s(-1). The presented results also give a proof of concept that the described X-ray technique is compatible with studying ultra-fast cracks up to the speed of sound.

Measuring direct and indirect costs of land retirement in an irrigated river basin: A budgeting regional multiplier approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Hamilton, Joel; Whittlesey, Norman K.; Robison, M. Henry; Willis, David

2002-08-01

This analysis addresses three important conceptual problems in the measurement of direct and indirect costs and benefits: (1) the distribution of impacts between a regional economy and the encompassing state economy; (2) the distinction between indirect impacts and indirect costs (IC), focusing on the dynamic time path unemployed resources follow to find alternative employment; and (3) the distinction among the affected firms' microeconomic categories of fixed and variable costs as they are used to compute regional direct and indirect costs. It uses empirical procedures that reconcile the usual measures of economic impact provided by input/output models with the estimates of economic costs and benefits required for analysis of welfare changes. The paper illustrates the relationships and magnitudes involved in the context of water policy issues facing the Pecos River Basin of New Mexico.

Surface Plasmon-Coupled Directional Enhanced Raman Scattering by Means of the Reverse Kretschmann Configuration.

PubMed

Huo, Si-Xin; Liu, Qian; Cao, Shuo-Hui; Cai, Wei-Peng; Meng, Ling-Yan; Xie, Kai-Xin; Zhai, Yan-Yun; Zong, Cheng; Yang, Zhi-Lin; Ren, Bin; Li, Yao-Qun

2015-06-04

Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) is a unique analytical technique that provides fingerprint spectra, yet facing the obstacle of low collection efficiency. In this study, we demonstrated a simple approach to measure surface plasmon-coupled directional enhanced Raman scattering by means of the reverse Kretschmann configuration (RK-SPCR). Highly directional and p-polarized Raman scattering of 4-aminothiophenol (4-ATP) was observed on a nanoparticle-on-film substrate at 46° through the prism coupler with a sharp angle distribution (full width at half-maximum of ∼3.3°). Because of the improved collection efficiency, the Raman scattering signal was enhanced 30-fold over the conventional SERS mode; this was consistent with finite-difference time-domain simulations. The effect of nanoparticles on the coupling efficiency of propagated surface plasmons was investigated. Possessing straightforward implementation and directional enhancement of Raman scattering, RK-SPCR is anticipated to simplify SERS instruments and to be broadly applicable to biochemical assays.

Similarities in human visual and declared measures of preference for opposite-sex faces.

PubMed

Griffey, Jack A F; Little, Anthony C

2014-01-01

Facial appearance in humans is associated with attraction and mate choice. Numerous studies have identified that adults display directional preferences for certain facial traits including symmetry, averageness, and sexually dimorphic traits. Typically, studies measuring human preference for these traits examine declared (e.g., choice or ratings of attractiveness) or visual preferences (e.g., looking time) of participants. However, the extent to which visual and declared preferences correspond remains relatively untested. In order to evaluate the relationship between these measures we examined visual and declared preferences displayed by men and women for opposite-sex faces manipulated across three dimensions (symmetry, averageness, and masculinity) and compared preferences from each method. Results indicated that participants displayed significant visual and declared preferences for symmetrical, average, and appropriately sexually dimorphic faces. We also found that declared and visual preferences correlated weakly but significantly. These data indicate that visual and declared preferences for manipulated facial stimuli produce similar directional preferences across participants and are also correlated with one another within participants. Both methods therefore may be considered appropriate to measure human preferences. However, while both methods appear likely to generate similar patterns of preference at the sample level, the weak nature of the correlation between visual and declared preferences in our data suggests some caution in assuming visual preferences are the same as declared preferences at the individual level. Because there are positive and negative factors in both methods for measuring preference, we suggest that a combined approach is most useful in outlining population level preferences for traits.

Planar microlens with front-face angle: design, fabrication, and characterization

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Al Hafiz, Md. Abdullah; Michael, Aron; Kwok, Chee-Yee

2016-07-01

This paper studies the effect of microlens front-face angle on the performance of an optical system consisting of a planar-graded refractive index (GRIN) lens pair facing each other separated by a free-space region. The planar silica microlens pairs are designed to facilitate low-loss optical signal propagation in the free-space region between the opposing optical waveguides. The planar lens is fabricated from a 38-μm-thick fluorine-doped silica layer on a silicon substrate. It has a parabolic refractive index profile in the vertical direction, which is achieved by controlled fluorine incorporation in the silica film to collimate the optical beam in the vertical direction. Horizontal beam collimation is achieved by incorporating a horizontal curvature at the front face of the lens defined by deep oxide etch. A generalized 3×3 ABCDGH transformation matrix method has been derived to compute the coupling efficiency of such microlens pairs to take front-face angles that may be present due to fabrication variations or limitations and possible input/output optical fiber offset/tilt into considerations. Pairs of such planar GRIN lens with various free-space propagation distances between them ranging from 75 to 2500 μm and with front-face angles of 1.5 deg, 2 deg, and 4 deg have been fabricated and characterized. Beam propagation method simulations have been carried out to substantiate the theoretical and experimental results. The results indicate that the optical loss is reasonably low up to 1.5 deg of front-face angles and increases significantly with further increase in the front-face angle. Analysis shows that for a given system with specific microlens front-face angle, the optical loss can be significantly reduced by properly compensating the vertical position of the input and output fibers.

How nursing staff spend their time on activities in a nursing home: an observational study.

PubMed

Munyisia, Esther Naliaka; Yu, Ping; Hailey, David

2011-09-01

This article is a report of a study to examine how nursing staff spend their time on activities in a nursing home. Few studies have investigated how nursing staff spend their time on activities in a nursing home. Such information is important for nurse managers in deciding on staff deployment, and for evaluating the effects of changes in nursing practice. A work sampling study with an observational component was undertaken in 2009 with nursing staff at a nursing home. A total of 430 activities were recorded for Registered Nurses, 331 for Endorsed Enrolled Nurses, 5276 for Personal Carers, and 501 for Recreational Activity Officers. Registered Nurses spent 48·4% of their time on communication and 18·1% on medication management. Endorsed Enrolled Nurses spent 37·7% on communication and 29·0% on documentation tasks. Communication was the most time-consuming activity for Recreational Activity Officers and Personal Carers, except that Personal Carers in a high care house spent more time on direct care duties. Hygiene duties and resident interaction were more frequently multitasked by the nursing staff in high care than in low care house. Nursing staff value their face-to-face interaction for successful care delivery. There is need, however, to investigate the effects of this form of communication on quality of care given to residents. Differences in multi-tasked activities between high care and low care houses should be considered when deploying staff in a nursing home. © 2011 Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

6. SITE BUILDING 002 SCANNER BUILDING AT "A" ...

Library of Congress Historic Buildings Survey, Historic Engineering Record, Historic Landscapes Survey

6. SITE BUILDING 002 - SCANNER BUILDING - AT "A" FACE (ON SOUTH SIDE) LOOKING DIRECTLY UP RADAR SYSTEM EMITTER/ANTENNA ARRAY FACE WITH 65MM WIDE ANGLE LENS. - Cape Cod Air Station, Technical Facility-Scanner Building & Power Plant, Massachusetts Military Reservation, Sandwich, Barnstable County, MA

A Tale of Transformation

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Gohn, David; Moore, John

2007-01-01

Underperforming institutions frequently face financial and enrollment challenges, and/or lack a sense of direction and momentum. There is no single or easy approach to turning things around and putting the institution on track to positive development. In 1983, Drury University in Springfield, Missouri, faced declining enrollments, a growing…

Self- or familiar-face recognition advantage? New insight using ambient images.

PubMed

Bortolon, Catherine; Lorieux, Siméon; Raffard, Stéphane

2018-06-01

Self-face recognition has been widely explored in the past few years. Nevertheless, the current literature relies on the use of standardized photographs which do not represent daily-life face recognition. Therefore, we aim for the first time to evaluate self-face processing in healthy individuals using natural/ambient images which contain variations in the environment and in the face itself. In total, 40 undergraduate and graduate students performed a forced delayed-matching task, including images of one's own face, friend, famous and unknown individuals. For both reaction time and accuracy, results showed that participants were faster and more accurate when matching different images of their own face compared to both famous and unfamiliar faces. Nevertheless, no significant differences were found between self-face and friend-face and between friend-face and famous-face. They were also faster and more accurate when matching friend and famous faces compared to unfamiliar faces. Our results suggest that faster and more accurate responses to self-face might be better explained by a familiarity effect - that is, (1) the result of frequent exposition to one's own image through mirror and photos, (2) a more robust mental representation of one's own face and (3) strong face recognition units as for other familiar faces.

A 61-million-person experiment in social influence and political mobilization

PubMed Central

Bond, Robert M.; Fariss, Christopher J.; Jones, Jason J.; Kramer, Adam D. I.; Marlow, Cameron; Settle, Jaime E.; Fowler, James H.

2013-01-01

Human behaviour is thought to spread through face-to-face social networks, but it is difficult to identify social influence effects in observational studies9–13, and it is unknown whether online social networks operate in the same way14–19. Here we report results from a randomized controlled trial of political mobilization messages delivered to 61 million Facebook users during the 2010 US congressional elections. The results show that the messages directly influenced political self-expression, information seeking and real-world voting behaviour of millions of people. Furthermore, the messages not only influenced the users who received them but also the users’ friends, and friends of friends. The effect of social transmission on real-world voting was greater than the direct effect of the messages themselves, and nearly all the transmission occurred between ‘close friends’ who were more likely to have a face-to-face relationship. These results suggest that strong ties are instrumental for spreading both online and real-world behaviour in human social networks. PMID:22972300

Tracking the ultrafast motion of a single molecule by femtosecond orbital imaging

PubMed Central

Yu, Ping; Repp, Jascha; Huber, Rupert

2017-01-01

Watching a single molecule move on its intrinsic time scale—one of the central goals of modern nanoscience—calls for measurements that combine ultrafast temporal resolution1–8 with atomic spatial resolution9–30. Steady-state experiments achieve the requisite spatial resolution, as illustrated by direct imaging of individual molecular orbitals using scanning tunnelling microscopy9–11 or the acquisition of tip-enhanced Raman and luminescence spectra with sub-molecular resolution27–29. But tracking the dynamics of a single molecule directly in the time domain faces the challenge that single-molecule excitations need to be confined to an ultrashort time window. A first step towards overcoming this challenge has combined scanning tunnelling microscopy with so-called ‘lightwave electronics”1–8, which uses the oscillating carrier wave of tailored light pulses to directly manipulate electronic motion on time scales faster even than that of a single cycle of light. Here we use such ultrafast terahertz scanning tunnelling microscopy to access a state-selective tunnelling regime, where the peak of a terahertz electric-field waveform transiently opens an otherwise forbidden tunnelling channel through a single molecular state and thereby removes a single electron from an individual pentacene molecule’s highest occupied molecular orbital within a time window shorter than one oscillation cycle of the terahertz wave. We exploit this effect to record ~100 fs snapshot images of the structure of the orbital involved, and to reveal through pump-probe measurements coherent molecular vibrations at terahertz frequencies directly in the time domain and with sub-angstrom spatial resolution. We anticipate that the combination of lightwave electronics1–8 and atomic resolution of our approach will open the door to controlling electronic motion inside individual molecules at optical clock rates. PMID:27830788

Does the perception of moving eyes trigger reflexive visual orienting in autism?

PubMed Central

Swettenham, John; Condie, Samantha; Campbell, Ruth; Milne, Elizabeth; Coleman, Mike

2003-01-01

Does movement of the eyes in one or another direction function as an automatic attentional cue to a location of interest? Two experiments explored the directional movement of the eyes in a full face for speed of detection of an aftercoming location target in young people with autism and in control participants. Our aim was to investigate whether a low-level perceptual impairment underlies the delay in gaze following characteristic of autism. The participants' task was to detect a target appearing on the left or right of the screen either 100 ms or 800 ms after a face cue appeared with eyes averting to the left or right. Despite instructions to ignore eye-movement in the face cue, people with autism and control adolescents were quicker to detect targets that had been preceded by an eye movement cue congruent with target location compared with targets preceded by an incongruent eye movement cue. The attention shifts are thought to be reflexive because the cue was to be ignored, and because the effect was found even when cue-target duration was short (100 ms). Because (experiment two) the effect persisted even when the face was inverted, it would seem that the direction of movement of eyes can provide a powerful (involuntary) cue to a location. PMID:12639330

Looking into the future: An inward bias in aesthetic experience driven only by gaze cues.

PubMed

Chen, Yi-Chia; Colombatto, Clara; Scholl, Brian J

2018-07-01

The inward bias is an especially powerful principle of aesthetic experience: In framed images (e.g. photographs), we prefer peripheral figures that face inward (vs. outward). Why does this bias exist? Since agents tend to act in the direction in which they are facing, one intriguing possibility is that the inward bias reflects a preference to view scenes from a perspective that will allow us to witness those predicted future actions. This account has been difficult to test with previous displays, in which facing direction is often confounded with either global shape profiles or the relative locations of salient features (since e.g. someone's face is generally more visually interesting than the back of their head). But here we demonstrate a robust inward bias in aesthetic judgment driven by a cue that is socially powerful but visually subtle: averted gaze. Subjects adjusted the positions of people in images to maximize the images' aesthetic appeal. People with direct gaze were not placed preferentially in particular regions, but people with averted gaze were reliably placed so that they appeared to be looking inward. This demonstrates that the inward bias can arise from visually subtle features, when those features signal how future events may unfold. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Comparison of different methods for gender estimation from face image of various poses

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Ishii, Yohei; Hongo, Hitoshi; Niwa, Yoshinori; Yamamoto, Kazuhiko

2003-04-01

Recently, gender estimation from face images has been studied for frontal facial images. However, it is difficult to obtain such facial images constantly in the case of application systems for security, surveillance and marketing research. In order to build such systems, a method is required to estimate gender from the image of various facial poses. In this paper, three different classifiers are compared in appearance-based gender estimation, which use four directional features (FDF). The classifiers are linear discriminant analysis (LDA), Support Vector Machines (SVMs) and Sparse Network of Winnows (SNoW). Face images used for experiments were obtained from 35 viewpoints. The direction of viewpoints varied +/-45 degrees horizontally, +/-30 degrees vertically at 15 degree intervals respectively. Although LDA showed the best performance for frontal facial images, SVM with Gaussian kernel was found the best performance (86.0%) for the facial images of 35 viewpoints. It is considered that SVM with Gaussian kernel is robust to changes in viewpoint when estimating gender from these results. Furthermore, the estimation rate was quite close to the average estimation rate at 35 viewpoints respectively. It is supposed that the methods are reasonable to estimate gender within the range of experimented viewpoints by learning face images from multiple directions by one class.

The time course from gender categorization to gender-stereotype activation.

PubMed

Zhang, Xiaobin; Li, Qiong; Sun, Shan; Zuo, Bin

2018-02-01

Social categorization is the foundation of stereotype activation, and the process from social categorization to stereotype activation is rapid. However, the time from social categorization to stereotype activation is unknown. This study involves a real-time measurement of the time course of gender-stereotype activation beginning with gender categorization using event-related potential technology with a face as the priming stimulus. We found that 195 ms after a face stimulus was presented, brain waves stimulated by male or female gender categorization showed a clear separation, with male faces stimulating larger N200 waves. In addition, 475 ms after a face stimulus appeared or 280 ms after the gendercategorization process occurred, gender-stereotype-consistent and gender-stereotype-inconsistent stimuli were distinct, with gender-stereotype-inconsistent stimuli inducing larger N400 waves. These results indicate that during gender-stereotype activation by face perception, gender categorization occurs approximately 195 ms after seeing a face stimulus and a gender stereotype is activated at approximately 475 ms.

Face-selective neurons maintain consistent visual responses across months

PubMed Central

McMahon, David B. T.; Jones, Adam P.; Bondar, Igor V.; Leopold, David A.

2014-01-01

Face perception in both humans and monkeys is thought to depend on neurons clustered in discrete, specialized brain regions. Because primates are frequently called upon to recognize and remember new individuals, the neuronal representation of faces in the brain might be expected to change over time. The functional properties of neurons in behaving animals are typically assessed over time periods ranging from minutes to hours, which amounts to a snapshot compared to a lifespan of a neuron. It therefore remains unclear how neuronal properties observed on a given day predict that same neuron's activity months or years later. Here we show that the macaque inferotemporal cortex contains face-selective cells that show virtually no change in their patterns of visual responses over time periods as long as one year. Using chronically implanted microwire electrodes guided by functional MRI targeting, we obtained distinct profiles of selectivity for face and nonface stimuli that served as fingerprints for individual neurons in the anterior fundus (AF) face patch within the superior temporal sulcus. Longitudinal tracking over a series of daily recording sessions revealed that face-selective neurons maintain consistent visual response profiles across months-long time spans despite the influence of ongoing daily experience. We propose that neurons in the AF face patch are specialized for aspects of face perception that demand stability as opposed to plasticity. PMID:24799679

Face-selective neurons maintain consistent visual responses across months.

PubMed

McMahon, David B T; Jones, Adam P; Bondar, Igor V; Leopold, David A

2014-06-03

Face perception in both humans and monkeys is thought to depend on neurons clustered in discrete, specialized brain regions. Because primates are frequently called upon to recognize and remember new individuals, the neuronal representation of faces in the brain might be expected to change over time. The functional properties of neurons in behaving animals are typically assessed over time periods ranging from minutes to hours, which amounts to a snapshot compared to a lifespan of a neuron. It therefore remains unclear how neuronal properties observed on a given day predict that same neuron's activity months or years later. Here we show that the macaque inferotemporal cortex contains face-selective cells that show virtually no change in their patterns of visual responses over time periods as long as one year. Using chronically implanted microwire electrodes guided by functional MRI targeting, we obtained distinct profiles of selectivity for face and nonface stimuli that served as fingerprints for individual neurons in the anterior fundus (AF) face patch within the superior temporal sulcus. Longitudinal tracking over a series of daily recording sessions revealed that face-selective neurons maintain consistent visual response profiles across months-long time spans despite the influence of ongoing daily experience. We propose that neurons in the AF face patch are specialized for aspects of face perception that demand stability as opposed to plasticity.

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Random-Profiles-Based 3D Face Recognition System

PubMed Central

Joongrock, Kim; Sunjin, Yu; Sangyoun, Lee

2014-01-01

In this paper, a noble nonintrusive three-dimensional (3D) face modeling system for random-profile-based 3D face recognition is presented. Although recent two-dimensional (2D) face recognition systems can achieve a reliable recognition rate under certain conditions, their performance is limited by internal and external changes, such as illumination and pose variation. To address these issues, 3D face recognition, which uses 3D face data, has recently received much attention. However, the performance of 3D face recognition highly depends on the precision of acquired 3D face data, while also requiring more computational power and storage capacity than 2D face recognition systems. In this paper, we present a developed nonintrusive 3D face modeling system composed of a stereo vision system and an invisible near-infrared line laser, which can be directly applied to profile-based 3D face recognition. We further propose a novel random-profile-based 3D face recognition method that is memory-efficient and pose-invariant. The experimental results demonstrate that the reconstructed 3D face data consists of more than 50 k 3D point clouds and a reliable recognition rate against pose variation. PMID:24691101

Self-esteem Modulates the P3 Component in Response to the Self-face Processing after Priming with Emotional Faces

PubMed Central

Guan, Lili; Zhao, Yufang; Wang, Yige; Chen, Yujie; Yang, Juan

2017-01-01

The self-face processing advantage (SPA) refers to the research finding that individuals generally recognize their own face faster than another’s face; self-face also elicits an enhanced P3 amplitude compared to another’s face. It has been suggested that social evaluation threats could weaken the SPA and that self-esteem could be regarded as a threat buffer. However, little research has directly investigated the neural evidence of how self-esteem modulates the social evaluation threat to the SPA. In the current event-related potential study, 27 healthy Chinese undergraduate students were primed with emotional faces (angry, happy, or neutral) and were asked to judge whether the target face (self, friend, and stranger) was familiar or unfamiliar. Electrophysiological results showed that after priming with emotional faces (angry and happy), self-face elicited similar P3 amplitudes to friend-face in individuals with low self-esteem, but not in individuals with high self-esteem. The results suggest that as low self-esteem raises fears of social rejection and exclusion, priming with emotional faces (angry and happy) can weaken the SPA in low self-esteem individuals but not in high self-esteem individuals. PMID:28868041

Recognition Memory for Realistic Synthetic Faces

PubMed Central

Yotsumoto, Yuko; Kahana, Michael J.; Wilson, Hugh R.; Sekuler, Robert

2006-01-01

A series of experiments examined short-term recognition memory for trios of briefly-presented, synthetic human faces derived from three real human faces. The stimuli were graded series of faces, which differed by varying known amounts from the face of the average female. Faces based on each of the three real faces were transformed so as to lie along orthogonal axes in a 3-D face space. Experiment 1 showed that the synthetic faces' perceptual similarity stucture strongly influenced recognition memory. Results were fit by NEMo, a noisy exemplar model of perceptual recognition memory. The fits revealed that recognition memory was influenced both by the similarity of the probe to series items, and by the similarities among the series items themselves. Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) showed that faces' perceptual representations largely preserved the 3-D space in which the face stimuli were arrayed. NEMo gave a better account of the results when similarity was defined as perceptual, MDS similarity rather than physical proximity of one face to another. Experiment 2 confirmed the importance of within-list homogeneity directly, without mediation of a model. We discuss the affinities and differences between visual memory for synthetic faces and memory for simpler stimuli. PMID:17948069

Self-esteem Modulates the P3 Component in Response to the Self-face Processing after Priming with Emotional Faces.

PubMed

Guan, Lili; Zhao, Yufang; Wang, Yige; Chen, Yujie; Yang, Juan

2017-01-01

The self-face processing advantage (SPA) refers to the research finding that individuals generally recognize their own face faster than another's face; self-face also elicits an enhanced P3 amplitude compared to another's face. It has been suggested that social evaluation threats could weaken the SPA and that self-esteem could be regarded as a threat buffer. However, little research has directly investigated the neural evidence of how self-esteem modulates the social evaluation threat to the SPA. In the current event-related potential study, 27 healthy Chinese undergraduate students were primed with emotional faces (angry, happy, or neutral) and were asked to judge whether the target face (self, friend, and stranger) was familiar or unfamiliar. Electrophysiological results showed that after priming with emotional faces (angry and happy), self-face elicited similar P3 amplitudes to friend-face in individuals with low self-esteem, but not in individuals with high self-esteem. The results suggest that as low self-esteem raises fears of social rejection and exclusion, priming with emotional faces (angry and happy) can weaken the SPA in low self-esteem individuals but not in high self-esteem individuals.

Face recognition using facial expression: a novel approach

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Singh, Deepak Kumar; Gupta, Priya; Tiwary, U. S.

2008-04-01

Facial expressions are undoubtedly the most effective nonverbal communication. The face has always been the equation of a person's identity. The face draws the demarcation line between identity and extinction. Each line on the face adds an attribute to the identity. These lines become prominent when we experience an emotion and these lines do not change completely with age. In this paper we have proposed a new technique for face recognition which focuses on the facial expressions of the subject to identify his face. This is a grey area on which not much light has been thrown earlier. According to earlier researches it is difficult to alter the natural expression. So our technique will be beneficial for identifying occluded or intentionally disguised faces. The test results of the experiments conducted prove that this technique will give a new direction in the field of face recognition. This technique will provide a strong base to the area of face recognition and will be used as the core method for critical defense security related issues.

ONRASIA Scientific Information Bulletin, Volume 18 Number 1, January - March 1993,

DTIC Science & Technology

1993-03-01

synthesized with half- mirrors to achieve this 3-D ers hope to be able to reflect time relationships in realization. This permits a 3-D visualization...field because the wires that stretch in all directions will of vision, so a mirror is placed in front of the become tangled. operator’s face at an...angle of 450 and the computer screen is prtjccted there. Thus the mirror hides the c. Joy Stick hands from view. "If we can recreate the trial-and-error

What's in a "face file"? Feature binding with facial identity, emotion, and gaze direction.

PubMed

Fitousi, Daniel

2017-07-01

A series of four experiments investigated the binding of facial (i.e., facial identity, emotion, and gaze direction) and non-facial (i.e., spatial location and response location) attributes. Evidence for the creation and retrieval of temporary memory face structures across perception and action has been adduced. These episodic structures-dubbed herein "face files"-consisted of both visuo-visuo and visuo-motor bindings. Feature binding was indicated by partial-repetition costs. That is repeating a combination of facial features or altering them altogether, led to faster responses than repeating or alternating only one of the features. Taken together, the results indicate that: (a) "face files" affect both action and perception mechanisms, (b) binding can take place with facial dimensions and is not restricted to low-level features (Hommel, Visual Cognition 5:183-216, 1998), and (c) the binding of facial and non-facial attributes is facilitated if the dimensions share common spatial or motor codes. The theoretical contributions of these results to "person construal" theories (Freeman, & Ambady, Psychological Science, 20(10), 1183-1188, 2011), as well as to face recognition models (Haxby, Hoffman, & Gobbini, Biological Psychiatry, 51(1), 59-67, 2000) are discussed.

Anodal transcranial direct current stimulation of right temporoparietal area inhibits self-recognition.

PubMed

Payne, Sophie; Tsakiris, Manos

2017-02-01

Self-other discrimination is a crucial mechanism for social cognition. Neuroimaging and neurostimulation research has pointed to the involvement of the right temporoparietal region in a variety of self-other discrimination tasks. Although repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation over the right temporoparietal area has been shown to disrupt self-other discrimination in face-recognition tasks, no research has investigated the effect of increasing the cortical excitability in this region on self-other face discrimination. Here we used transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) to investigate changes in self-other discrimination with a video-morphing task in which the participant's face morphed into, or out of, a familiar other's face. The task was performed before and after 20 min of tDCS targeting the right temporoparietal area (anodal, cathodal, or sham stimulation). Differences in task performance following stimulation were taken to indicate a change in self-other discrimination. Following anodal stimulation only, we observed a significant increase in the amount of self-face needed to distinguish between self and other. The findings are discussed in relation to the control of self and other representations and to domain-general theories of social cognition.

Effects of Peripheral Eccentricity and Head Orientation on Gaze Discrimination

PubMed Central

Palanica, Adam; Itier, Roxane J.

2017-01-01

Visual search tasks support a special role for direct gaze in human cognition, while classic gaze judgment tasks suggest the congruency between head orientation and gaze direction plays a central role in gaze perception. Moreover, whether gaze direction can be accurately discriminated in the periphery using covert attention is unknown. In the present study, individual faces in frontal and in deviated head orientations with a direct or an averted gaze were flashed for 150 ms across the visual field; participants focused on a centred fixation while judging the gaze direction. Gaze discrimination speed and accuracy varied with head orientation and eccentricity. The limit of accurate gaze discrimination was less than ±6° eccentricity. Response times suggested a processing facilitation for direct gaze in fovea, irrespective of head orientation, however, by ±3° eccentricity, head orientation started biasing gaze judgments, and this bias increased with eccentricity. Results also suggested a special processing of frontal heads with direct gaze in central vision, rather than a general congruency effect between eye and head cues. Thus, while both head and eye cues contribute to gaze discrimination, their role differs with eccentricity. PMID:28344501

The Two-Systems Account of Theory of Mind: Testing the Links to Social- Perceptual and Cognitive Abilities

PubMed Central

Meinhardt-Injac, Bozana; Daum, Moritz M.; Meinhardt, Günter; Persike, Malte

2018-01-01

According to the two-systems account of theory of mind (ToM), understanding mental states of others involves both fast social-perceptual processes, as well as slower, reflexive cognitive operations (Frith and Frith, 2008; Apperly and Butterfill, 2009). To test the respective roles of specific abilities in either of these processes we administered 15 experimental procedures to a large sample of 343 participants, testing ability in face recognition and holistic perception, language, and reasoning. ToM was measured by a set of tasks requiring ability to track and to infer complex emotional and mental states of others from faces, eyes, spoken language, and prosody. We used structural equation modeling to test the relative strengths of a social-perceptual (face processing related) and reflexive-cognitive (language and reasoning related) path in predicting ToM ability. The two paths accounted for 58% of ToM variance, thus validating a general two-systems framework. Testing specific predictor paths revealed language and face recognition as strong and significant predictors of ToM. For reasoning, there were neither direct nor mediated effects, albeit reasoning was strongly associated with language. Holistic face perception also failed to show a direct link with ToM ability, while there was a mediated effect via face recognition. These results highlight the respective roles of face recognition and language for the social brain, and contribute closer empirical specification of the general two-systems account. PMID:29445336

Fast and accurate face recognition based on image compression

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Zheng, Yufeng; Blasch, Erik

2017-05-01

Image compression is desired for many image-related applications especially for network-based applications with bandwidth and storage constraints. The face recognition community typical reports concentrate on the maximal compression rate that would not decrease the recognition accuracy. In general, the wavelet-based face recognition methods such as EBGM (elastic bunch graph matching) and FPB (face pattern byte) are of high performance but run slowly due to their high computation demands. The PCA (Principal Component Analysis) and LDA (Linear Discriminant Analysis) algorithms run fast but perform poorly in face recognition. In this paper, we propose a novel face recognition method based on standard image compression algorithm, which is termed as compression-based (CPB) face recognition. First, all gallery images are compressed by the selected compression algorithm. Second, a mixed image is formed with the probe and gallery images and then compressed. Third, a composite compression ratio (CCR) is computed with three compression ratios calculated from: probe, gallery and mixed images. Finally, the CCR values are compared and the largest CCR corresponds to the matched face. The time cost of each face matching is about the time of compressing the mixed face image. We tested the proposed CPB method on the "ASUMSS face database" (visible and thermal images) from 105 subjects. The face recognition accuracy with visible images is 94.76% when using JPEG compression. On the same face dataset, the accuracy of FPB algorithm was reported as 91.43%. The JPEG-compressionbased (JPEG-CPB) face recognition is standard and fast, which may be integrated into a real-time imaging device.

Neural correlates of own- and other-race face perception: spatial and temporal response differences.

PubMed

Natu, Vaidehi; Raboy, David; O'Toole, Alice J

2011-02-01

Humans show an "other-race effect" for face recognition, with more accurate recognition of own- versus other-race faces. We compared the neural representations of own- and other-race faces using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in combination with a multi-voxel pattern classifier. Neural activity was recorded while Asians and Caucasians viewed Asian and Caucasian faces. A pattern classifier, applied to voxels across a broad range of ventral temporal areas, discriminated the brain activity maps elicited in response to Asian versus Caucasian faces in the brains of both Asians and Caucasians. Classification was most accurate in the first few time points of the block and required the use of own-race faces in the localizer scan to select voxels for classifier input. Next, we examined differences in the time-course of neural responses to own- and other-race faces and found evidence for a temporal "other-race effect." Own-race faces elicited a larger neural response initially that attenuated rapidly. The response to other-race faces was weaker at first, but increased over time, ultimately surpassing the magnitude of the own-race response in the fusiform "face" area (FFA). A similar temporal response pattern held across a broad range of ventral temporal areas. The pattern-classification results indicate the early availability of categorical information about own- versus other-race face status in the spatial pattern of neural activity. The slower, more sustained, brain response to other-race faces may indicate the need to recruit additional neural resources to process other-race faces for identification. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Evaluating College Students' Evaluations of a Professor's Teaching Effectiveness across Time and Instruction Mode (Online vs. Face-to-Face) Using a Multilevel Growth Modeling Approach

ERIC Educational Resources Information Center

Carle, Adam C.

2009-01-01

Aims: Do college students' ratings of a professor's teaching effectiveness suggest that a professor's teaching improves with time? Does anything predict which instructors receive the highest ratings or improve the fastest? And, importantly, do the correlates of change differ across face-to-face and online courses? Methods: I used data from 10,392…

Face-capping μ3-BO in B6(BO)7-: boron oxide analogue of B6H7- with rhombic 4c-2e bonds.

PubMed

Guo, Jin-Chang; Lu, Hai-Gang; Zhai, Hua-Jin; Li, Si-Dian

2013-11-14

Using the first-principle approaches, we predict a B6(BO)7(-) cluster with a face-capping μ(3)-BO, which is the boron oxide analogue of closo-B6H7(-) with a face-capping μ(3)-H. Detailed topological analysis of electron density clearly reveals the existence of three rhombic 4c-2e bonds around the B/H apex in both C3v B6(BO)7(-) and C3v B6H7(-), which possesses similar electron densities at their bond and ring critical points. The adaptive natural density partitioning (AdNDP) analysis provides a direct and visual picture of the B-B-B-B/H 4c-2e bonds for the first time. Adiabatic and vertical electron detachment energies of the concerned monoanions are calculated to facilitate their future photoelectron spectroscopy measurements and characterizations. The presence of the B6(BO)7(-) and B6H7(-) clusters extends the BO/H isolobal analogy to the whole μ(n)-BO/H series (n = 1, 2, and 3) and enriches the chemistry of boronyl.

Post-fire regeneration in a Mediterranean pine forest with historically low fire frequency

NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

Buhk, Constanze; Götzenberger, Lars; Wesche, Karsten; Gómez, Pedro Sánchez; Hensen, Isabell

2006-11-01

Species of Mediterranean vegetation are known to regenerate directly after fire. The phenomenon of autosuccession (direct regeneration) has been found to be often combined with an increase of species richness during the first years after fire due to the high abundance of short-lived herbaceous plants facilitated by plentiful nutrients and light. The high degree of vegetation resilience, which is expressed in terms of autosuccession, has been explained by the selective pressure of fire in historic times. According to existing palaeoecological data, however, the Pinus halepensis forests in the Ricote Mountains (Province of Murcia, SE Spain) did not experience substantial fire impact before the presence of man nor are they especially fire-prone today. Therefore, we studied post-fire regeneration to find out if direct succession is present or if species from pre-fire vegetation are absent during the post-fire regeneration stages. Patterns of succession were deduced from observations made in sample plots on sites of a known regeneration age as well as in adjacent unburnt areas. The results of the vegetation analyses, including a Detrended Correspondence Analysis, indicate that Pinus halepensis forest regeneration after fire resembles autosuccession. As regards the presence of woody species, there is a high percentage similarity on north (83%) and south (70%) facing slopes during the first year after fire vs. reference areas which is due, for example, to direct regeneration of the resprouting Quercus coccifera or seeders like Pinus halepensis or Fumana laevipes. However, if herbaceous species are included in the comparison, the similarity on north-facing sites decreases (to 53%) with the presence of additional species, mainly ruderals like Anagallis arvensis or Reseda phyteuma, and even woody species on the burnt plots. This effect indicates "enhanced autosuccession", which was not found on south-facing sites where overall species richness was very high irrespective of the impact of fire. Locally we found limited regeneration of some species, for example Pinus halepensis at high altitudes (1000 m), even 22 years after fire. As we assume that historical fires did not play an important role in the area and direct succession is present nevertheless, our results support the theory that autosuccession is not a process restricted to fire-prone areas. Fire has been only one of several selective forces since human settlement that probably led to a set of species pre-adapted against recurrent disturbance.

On the facilitative effects of face motion on face recognition and its development

PubMed Central

Xiao, Naiqi G.; Perrotta, Steve; Quinn, Paul C.; Wang, Zhe; Sun, Yu-Hao P.; Lee, Kang

2014-01-01

For the past century, researchers have extensively studied human face processing and its development. These studies have advanced our understanding of not only face processing, but also visual processing in general. However, most of what we know about face processing was investigated using static face images as stimuli. Therefore, an important question arises: to what extent does our understanding of static face processing generalize to face processing in real-life contexts in which faces are mostly moving? The present article addresses this question by examining recent studies on moving face processing to uncover the influence of facial movements on face processing and its development. First, we describe evidence on the facilitative effects of facial movements on face recognition and two related theoretical hypotheses: the supplementary information hypothesis and the representation enhancement hypothesis. We then highlight several recent studies suggesting that facial movements optimize face processing by activating specific face processing strategies that accommodate to task requirements. Lastly, we review the influence of facial movements on the development of face processing in the first year of life. We focus on infants' sensitivity to facial movements and explore the facilitative effects of facial movements on infants' face recognition performance. We conclude by outlining several future directions to investigate moving face processing and emphasize the importance of including dynamic aspects of facial information to further understand face processing in real-life contexts. PMID:25009517

Smartphone based face recognition tool for the blind.

PubMed

Kramer, K M; Hedin, D S; Rolkosky, D J

2010-01-01

The inability to identify people during group meetings is a disadvantage for blind people in many professional and educational situations. To explore the efficacy of face recognition using smartphones in these settings, we have prototyped and tested a face recognition tool for blind users. The tool utilizes Smartphone technology in conjunction with a wireless network to provide audio feedback of the people in front of the blind user. Testing indicated that the face recognition technology can tolerate up to a 40 degree angle between the direction a person is looking and the camera's axis and a 96% success rate with no false positives. Future work will be done to further develop the technology for local face recognition on the smartphone in addition to remote server based face recognition.

Selective attention modulates early human evoked potentials during emotional face-voice processing.

PubMed

Ho, Hao Tam; Schröger, Erich; Kotz, Sonja A

2015-04-01

Recent findings on multisensory integration suggest that selective attention influences cross-sensory interactions from an early processing stage. Yet, in the field of emotional face-voice integration, the hypothesis prevails that facial and vocal emotional information interacts preattentively. Using ERPs, we investigated the influence of selective attention on the perception of congruent versus incongruent combinations of neutral and angry facial and vocal expressions. Attention was manipulated via four tasks that directed participants to (i) the facial expression, (ii) the vocal expression, (iii) the emotional congruence between the face and the voice, and (iv) the synchrony between lip movement and speech onset. Our results revealed early interactions between facial and vocal emotional expressions, manifested as modulations of the auditory N1 and P2 amplitude by incongruent emotional face-voice combinations. Although audiovisual emotional interactions within the N1 time window were affected by the attentional manipulations, interactions within the P2 modulation showed no such attentional influence. Thus, we propose that the N1 and P2 are functionally dissociated in terms of emotional face-voice processing and discuss evidence in support of the notion that the N1 is associated with cross-sensory prediction, whereas the P2 relates to the derivation of an emotional percept. Essentially, our findings put the integration of facial and vocal emotional expressions into a new perspective-one that regards the integration process as a composite of multiple, possibly independent subprocesses, some of which are susceptible to attentional modulation, whereas others may be influenced by additional factors.