Model-based inversion of speckle interferometer fringe patterns

Micrometer-scale rigid-body translations are determined fromelectronic speckle interferometric fringe patterns. An iterativeminimum error procedure employs the relative fringe order of pickedpositions of fringe maxima and minima within a single interferogram tocalculate the displacement field directly. The method does notcalculate the displacement at a single point but relies on theassumption that the character, but not the magnitudes or directions, ofthe displacements over the viewing area of the interferogram isknown. That is, a model of the displacements exists. Onperfect, noise-free forward modeled fringe patterns calculated for an 8.0-mum displacement, the phase error is less than 2 x10(-6) fringe orders (1.3 x 10(-5) rad)and probably results only from numerical noise in the inversion. Onreal fringe patterns obtained in electronic speckle interferometricexperiments, mean phase errors are generally less than 5 x10(-5) fringe orders (3.2 x 10(-4)rad), suggesting that the technique is robust despite errorsresulting from speckle noise, lack of accuracy in positioning ofexperimental components, and image-distortion corrections.     

Errors in Seligman's "The effectiveness of psychotherapy: The Consumer Reports study."

Contends that there are 3 methodological errors and an inconsistency in M. E. P. Seligman's (see record 1996-13324-001) reanalysis of the 1995 Consumer Reports survey of the effectiveness of psychotherapy. These errors are directly relevant to the cost-effectiveness of psychotherapy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tactical combat movements: inter-individual variation in performance due to the effects of load carriage

An examination into the effects of carried military equipment on the performance of two tactical combat movement simulations was conducted. Nineteen Airfield Defence Guards performed a break contact (five 30-m sprints) and a fire and movement simulation (16 6-m bounds) in five load conditions (10–30 kg). Heavier loads significantly increased movement duration on the break contact (0.8%/kg load) and fire and movement (1.1%/kg). Performance deterioration was observed from the beginning to the end of the series of movements (bounds or sprints) with deterioration becoming significantly greater in heavier load conditions. Inter-individual variation between slower and faster participants showed a range in load effects; 0.6, 0.8%/kg for fast and 1.0, 1.4%/kg for slow (break contact, fire and movement, respectively). Velocity profiles revealed that the initial acceleration and peak velocity were the primary determinants of performance. As the duration of these tactical combat movements reflects periods of heightened vulnerability, these findings highlight important implications for commanders.

Practitioner Summary: Increasing amounts of carried military equipment impairs the performance of tactical combat movements. Examination of inter-individual variation in velocity profiles identified that the initial acceleration and the peak velocity achieved during sprints and bounds are key determinants of overall performance.     

Feasibility of estimating leaf water content using spectral indices from WorldView-3’s near-infrared and shortwave infrared bands

A recently-launched high-resolution commercial satellite, DigitalGlobe’s WorldView-3, has 8 bands in the shortwave infrared (SWIR) wavelength region, which may be capable of estimating canopy water content at 3.7-m spatial resolution. WorldView-3 also has 8 multispectral bands at 1.24-m resolution with two bands in the near-infrared (NIR). The relative spectral response functions for WorldView-3 were provided by DigitalGlobe, Inc., and band reflectances were determined for reflectance spectra of PROSPECT model simulations and leaf data from maize, trees, grasses, and broadleaf herbaceous eudicots. For laboratory measurements, the range of leaf water contents was extended by including drying leaves and leaf stacks of corn, soybean, oaks, and maples. Correlations between leaf water content and spectral indices from model simulations suggested that indices using SWIR band 1 (center wavelength 1210 nm) had low variability with respect to leaf water content, but also low sensitivity. Other indices using SWIR band 5 (2165 nm) had the highest sensitivity, but also had high variability caused by different values of the leaf structure parameter in PROSPECT. Indices using SWIR bands 2, 3 and 4 (1570, 1660, and 1730 nm, respectively) had high correlations and intermediate variability from the leaf structure parameter. Spectral indices calculated from the leaf data had the same overall patterns as the simulations for variation and sensitivity; however, indices using SWIR band 1 had low correlations, and the best correlations were from indices that used SWIR bands 2, 3 and 4. Spectral indices for maize, grasses, and herbaceous crops and weeds had similar responses to leaf water content; tree leaves had higher index values and saturated at lower leaf water contents. The specified width of NIR band 2 (860–1040 nm) overlaps the water absorption feature at 970 nm wavelength; however, the normalized difference of NIR band 1 and 2 was insensitive to water content because NIR band 2’s spectral response was most heavily weighted to wavelengths less than 930 nm. The high spatial resolution of the WorldView-3 SWIR data will help analyze how variation among plant species and functional groups affects spectral responses to differences in canopy water content.     

Development of a Cloud Trust Label: A Delphi Approach

The purpose of this research is to identify the potential information components of an online, real-time trust label, which is proposed as a communication mechanism to encourage trust in cloud service providers and cloud computing products. An online Delphi process was used with 28 cloud computing experts (including vendors, software providers, and legal and business representatives). The proposed label contains 81 information components, covering the cloud service provider (e.g. physical location, legal jurisdiction), the cloud service itself (e.g. data location, security, backup, certification), and a historical service-level summary (e.g. uptime data, support response times). The potential benefits of such a label to encourage trustworthiness perceptions and trust behaviors in the cloud computing environment are explored. Limitations of the study are highlighted, and further research studies are suggested to test the concept of the label and to refine the components of the label itself.     

Sparse coding on the spot: spontaneous retinal waves suffice for orientation selectivity

Ohshiro, Hussain, and Weliky (2011) recently showed that ferrets reared with exposure to flickering spot stimuli, in the absence of oriented visual experience, develop oriented receptive fields. They interpreted this as refutation of efficient coding models, which require oriented input in order to develop oriented receptive fields. Here we show that these data are compatible with the efficient coding hypothesis if the influence of spontaneous retinal waves is considered. We demonstrate that independent component analysis learns predominantly oriented receptive fields when trained on a mixture of spot stimuli and spontaneous retinal waves. Further, we show that the efficient coding hypothesis provides a compelling explanation for the contrast between the lack of receptive field changes seen in animals reared with spot stimuli and the significant cortical reorganisation observed in stripe-reared animals.     

High power pulsed lasers

Pulsed high power lasers can deliver sufficient energy on inertial fusion time scales (0.1–10 ns) to heat and compress DT fuel to fusion reaction conditions. Several laser systems have been examined for application to the fusion problem. Examples are Ndglass, CO₂, KrF, and I₂, etc. A great deal of developmental effort has been applied to the Ndglass laser and the CO₂ gas laser systems. These systems now deliver >10⁴ kJ and >20×10¹² W to inertial fusion targets. The Nova Ndglass laser is being constructed to provide >200 kJ and >200×10¹² W of 1 m radiation for fusion experimentation in the mid-1980s. For inertial fusion target gain, >100 times the laser input, it is expected that the laser must deliver 3–5 MJ of energy on the 10–20 ns time scale. This paper reviews the developments in laser technology and outlines approaches to construction of a 3–5 MJ driver.     

Global controllability of nonlinear systems in two dimensions

LetM be a connected real-analytic 2-dimensional manifold. Consider the system (t) = f(x(t)) + u(t)g(x(t)),x(0) =x ₀ M, wheref andg are real-analytic vector fields onM which are linearly independent at some point ofM, andu is a real-valued control. Sufficient conditions on the vector fieldsf andg are given so that the system is controllable fromx ₀. Suppose that every nontrivial integral curve ofg has a pointp wheref andg are linearly dependent,g(p) is nonzero, and that the Lie bracket [f,g] andg are linearly independent atp. Then the system is controllable (with the possible exception of a closed, nowhere dense set which is not reachable) from any pointx ₀ such that the vector space dimension of the Lie algebraL _A generated byf,g and successive Lie brackets is 2 atx ₀.Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation under NSF Grant MCS76-05267-A01 and by the Joint Services Electronics Program under ONR Contract 76-C-1136.     

The psychological development of orphanage-reared infants: interventions with outcomes (Tehran)

This paper describes five successive interventions in the rearing of infants at an orphanage in Tehran, with their outcomes. The outcomes were assessed longitudinally. The first of the successive groups, here called "waves", numbered 15. These Ss constitute the controls. The only intervention consisted of examining the infants every other week during the first year and every fourth week thereafter with the ordinal, sensorimotor scales of Uzgiris and Hunt. The audio-visual intervention intended for the second wave of 10 infants was tape-recorded mother talk and music under the control of the infants and mobiles that the infants could activate. This plan was never adequately implemented because of inadequate supervision. The third wave of 10 infants got extra untutored human care. The fourth wave of 20 infants got the kind of audio-visual intervention originally intended for the second wave plus access to responsive inanimate materials. For the fifth wave, numbering 11, the infant-caretaker ratio was reduced to two or three to one and the caretakers were taught the Badger program supplemented with procedures to foster vocal imitation and semantic mastery of body parts, clothing, toys, and other objects and events regularly encountered. The results show that each successive wave, excepting the second, achieved the top steps of nearly all seven of the ordinal scales at mean ages younger than the preceding wave, and the fifth wave surpassed even home-reared American children from predominantly professional families in achieving the top steps on five of the seven scales. The findings show that infants need not advance along all branches simultaneously and that the kinds of experience encountered determine the branch along which advancement occurs. A number of theoretical implications are examined. Especially important is the idea that a dependable educational psychology for infancy and early childhood calls for much more knowledge than we now have of the kinds of experience that advance development along each of the various branches.     

Overview of a Modal-Based Condition Assessment Procedure

Condition assessment is a term that is used to describe the process of characterizing the physical condition of constructed systems. This paper summarizes a condition assessment (CA) procedure based on a complete system of field-testing, finite element (FE) modeling, and load rating. Experimental techniques, including both modal testing and truckload testing, are used to collect measurements of the constructed systems. The basic mechanism and procedure of the FE modeling and calibration are presented. Different physical parameters of FE models are adjusted during the calibration process using both static and dynamic responses as criteria to achieve convergence between experimental measurements and analytical results using carefully developed objective functions. Finally, a bridge load rating is completed on the basis of the calibrated model. These developments are described and illustrated using a representative bridge as an example.