Trinocular Stereo: A Real-Time Algorithm and its Evaluation

In telepresence applications each user is immersed in a rendered 3D-world composed from representations transmitted from remote sites. The challenge is to compute dense range data at high frame rates, since participants cannot easily communicate if the processing cycle or network latencies are long. Moreover, errors in new stereoscopic views of the remote 3D-world should be hardly perceptible. To achieve the required speed and accuracy, we use trinocular stereo, a matching algorithm based on the sum of modified normalized cross-correlations, and subpixel disparity interpolation. To increase speed we use Intel IPL functions in the pre-processing steps of background subtraction and image rectification as well as a four-processor parallelization. To evaluate our system we have developed a test-bed which provides a set of registered dense ground-truth laser data and image data from multiple views.     

Textual case-based reasoning for spam filtering: a comparison of feature-based and feature-free approaches

Spam filtering is a text classification task to which Case-Based Reasoning (CBR) has been successfully applied. We describe the ECUE system, which classifies emails using a feature-based form of textual CBR. Then, we describe an alternative way to compute the distances between cases in a feature-free fashion, using a distance measure based on text compression. This distance measure has the advantages of having no set-up costs and being resilient to concept drift. We report an empirical comparison, which shows the feature-free approach to be more accurate than the feature-based system. These results are fairly robust over different compression algorithms in that we find that the accuracy when using a Lempel-Ziv compressor (GZip) is approximately the same as when using a statistical compressor (PPM). We note, however, that the feature-free systems take much longer to classify emails than the feature-based system. Improvements in the classification time of both kinds of systems can be obtained by applying case base editing algorithms, which aim to remove noisy and redundant cases from a case base while maintaining, or even improving, generalisation accuracy. We report empirical results using the Competence-Based Editing (CBE) technique. We show that CBE removes more cases when we use the distance measure based on text compression (without significant changes in generalisation accuracy) than it does when we use the feature-based approach.     

Prolonged rewarding stimulation of the rat medial forebrain bundle: Neurochemical and behavioral consequences.

Extracellular dopamine levels were measured in the rat nucleus accumbens by means of in vivo microdialysis. Delivery of rewarding medial forebrain bundle stimulation at a low rate (5 trains/min) produced a sustained elevation of dopamine levels, regardless of whether train onset was predictable. When the rate of train delivery was increased to 40 trains/min, dopamine levels rose rapidly during the first 40 min but then declined toward the baseline range. The rewarding impact of the stimulation was reduced following prior delivery of stimulation at the high, but not the low, rate. These results support the idea that dopamine tone plays an enabling role in brain stimulation reward and is elevated similarly by predictable and unpredictable stimulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effective Communication in Requirements Elicitation: A Comparison of Methodologies

The elicitation or communication of user requirements comprises an early and critical but highly error-prone stage in system development. Socially oriented methodologies provide more support for user involvement in design than the rigidity of more traditional methods, facilitating the degree of user–designer communication and the ‘capture’ of requirements. A more emergent and collaborative view of requirements elicitation and communication is required to encompass the user, contextual and organisational factors. From this accompanying literature in communication issues in requirements elicitation, a four-dimensional framework is outlined and used to appraise comparatively four different methodologies seeking to promote a closer working relationship between users and designers. The facilitation of communication between users and designers is subject to discussion of the ways in which communicative activities can be ‘optimised’ for successful requirements gathering, by making recommendations based on the four dimensions to provide fruitful considerations for system designers.     

The feasibility and outcome of clinic plus Internet delivery of cognitive-behavior therapy for childhood anxiety.

Seventy-two clinically anxious children, aged 7 to 14 years, were randomly allocated to clinic-based, cognitive-behavior therapy, the same treatment partially delivered via the Internet, or a wait-list control (WL). Children in the clinic and clinic-plus-Internet conditions showed significantly greater reductions in anxiety from pre- to posttreatment and were more likely to be free of their anxiety diagnoses, compared with the WL group. Improvements were maintained at 12-month follow-up for both therapy conditions, with minimal difference in outcomes between interventions. The Internet treatment content was highly acceptable to families, with minimal dropout and a high level of therapy compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison between the Fick method and indirect calorimetry for determining oxygen consumption in patients with fulminant hepatic failure

OBJECTIVE: To compare the Fick method of determining oxygen consumption (VO2) with a gas exchange method in a group of patients in whom the cardiac output and mixed venous oxygen saturation values were consistently high. DESIGN: A prospective, observational study. SETTING: A ten-bed intensive therapy unit at a university teaching hospital. PATIENTS: Seventeen patients suffering from fulminant hepatic failure who required ventilatory support and invasive hemodynamic monitoring. All patients were sedated and paralyzed throughout the study period. INTERVENTIONS: None. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: VO2 was determined simultaneously by indirect calorimetry and by the Fick method five or six times in each patient over a 5-hr period after resuscitation with fluids and, if clinically indicated, norepinephrine infusion. The agreement between the methods was poor (limits of agreement +19 to -101 mL/min/m2) and the Fick method consistently underestimated gas exchange measurements (mean bias 41 mL/min/m2). The bias varied widely, both between and within individual patients. The reproducibility of the Fick-derived VO2 was worse than the indirect calorimetry measurements, indicating that the dispersion of data attributable to measurement error was greater with the Fick method. CONCLUSIONS: Under clinical conditions, the agreement between Fick calculations and indirect calorimetry measurements of VO2 in hyperdynamic patients with fulminant hepatic failure was extremely poor. The reproducibility of Fick calculations was less than the reproducibility derived by gas exchange measurements because of the large measurement errors that may occur with the Fick method when the cardiac output is large and the arterial-venous oxygen content difference is small. Fick calculations systematically underestimate gas exchange measurements. The Fick method is inaccurate and unreliable when an estimation of VO2 is required in patients with this hemodynamic pattern.     

Microstructure and domain configurations in ferroelectric PbTiO3 and Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 thin fims

Ferroelectric domain configurations in PbTiO₃ and Pb(Zr_xT_1−x)O₃ (PZT, x = 0.3 or 0.5) thin films have been studied by transmission electron microscopy. The PbTiOg and PZT thin films have been deposited by the ionized cluster beam technique and radio frequency sputtering, respectively. The grain size in these thin films is typically less than 0.5 μm. Lamellar 90°-domain features have been observed in both PbTiO₃ and PZT (30/70) samples. The domain walls correspond to the {011} twin boundaries. La-doping and Ca-modification are shown to affect the microstructure of the PZT films. No clear domain feature occurs in the PZT thin film that has composition near the morphotropic phase boundary. The effects of grain sizes are briefly discussed.     

Digit pipelined arithmetic on fine-grain array processors

In this paper, we present a novel scheme for performing fixed-point arithmetic efficiently on fine-grain, massively parallel, programmable architectures including both custom and FPGA-based systems. We achieve anO(n) speedup, wheren is the operand precision, over the bit-serial methods of existing fine-grain systems such as the DAP, the MPP and the CM2, within the constraints of regular, near neighbor communication and only a small amount of on-chip memory. This is possible by means of digit pipelined algorithms which avoid broadcast and which operate in a fully systolic manner by pipelining at the digit level. A base 4, signed-digit, fully redundant number system and on-line techniques are used to limit carry propagation and minimize communication costs. p ]Although our algorithms are digit-serial, we are able to match the performance of the bit-parallel methods, while retaining low communication complexity. Reconfigurable hardware systems built using field programmable gate arrays (FPGA's) can share in the speed benefits of these algorithms. By using the organization of logic blocks suggested in this paper, problems of placement and routing that exist in such systems can be avoided. Since the algorithms are amenable to pipelining, very high throughput can be obtained.     

Addiction to altruism? Opponent-process theory and habitual blood donation.

Explores the possibility that one of undoubtedly several interacting motives behind commitment to regular blood donation is the development of an affective "addiction" to the behavior, based on initial anxiety, through the mechanisms postulated by opponent-process theory. Pre- and post-donation responses to 1,846 blood donation experiences were subjected to correlational and regression analyses. Support was found for the relevance of opponent-process theory to the development of positive affective responses to donation. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stability of interests and the predictive and concurrent validity of the 1981 Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory for college majors.

116 of the 162 Occupational scales of the 1981 revision of the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory (SCII) were constructed with new criterion samples. This study (a) assessed the concurrent and predictive validity of the revised SCII and explored its usefulness for predicting college majors (Exp I) and (b) examined the differential effect of stable and unstable interests during college on the validity of the SCII (Exp II). Data were analyzed for 354 females and 261 males who completed the SCII as college freshmen; 81% were still enrolled in school at the time of this study. Results indicate that the revised SCII can be used to predict college majors, having concurrent and predictive validity comparable to previous forms of the SCII. It was slightly more predictive for females than for males. Findings also show that the majority of Ss had stable interests during their college careers. The revised SCII was significantly more predictive of college majors for Ss who were satisfied with their majors or who had stable interests than it was for those who were dissatisfied or had unstable interests. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)