The importance of information localization in scene gist recognition.

People can recognize the meaning or gist of a scene from a single glance, and a few recent studies have begun to examine the sorts of information that contribute to scene gist recognition. The authors of the present study used visual masking coupled with image manipulations (randomizing phase while maintaining the Fourier amplitude spectrum; random image structure evolution [RISE]; J. Sadr & P. Sinha, 2004) to explore whether and when unlocalized Fourier amplitude information contributes to gist perception. In 4 experiments, the authors found that differences between scene categories in the Fourier amplitude spectrum are insufficient for gist recognition or gist masking. Whereas the global 1/f spatial frequency amplitude spectra of scenes plays a role in gist masking, local phase information is necessary for gist recognition and for the strongest gist masking. Moreover, the ability to recognize the gist of a target image was influenced by mask recognizability, suggesting that conceptual masking occurs even at the earliest stages of scene processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Superior vena cava syndrome after heart transplantation: percutaneous treatment of a complication of bicaval anastomoses

The aims of this study were to establish a working rabbit heart model of regional myocardial ischaemia in which electrophysiologic parameters and arrhythmogenesis could be correlated and to explore the mechanisms underlying the antiarrhythmic activity of lignocaine. Monophasic action-potential duration (MAPD90), effective refractory period (ERP), and conduction delay were measured at three ventricular sites in isolated hearts paced at 3.3 Hz. The hearts were treated before and throughout 30 min of ischaemia and 15 min of reperfusion with a vehicle or 20 microM lignocaine. In both groups, ischaemia produced a similar shortening in MAPD90. Lignocaine decreased ERP shortening during ischaemia from -56+/-4 to -32+/-6 ms. An ischaemia-induced increase in conduction delay was greater in the lignocaine than the control group (49+/-7 vs. 11+/-2 ms). Ischaemia-induced dispersion of repolarisation was reduced by lignocaine from 66+/-4 to 32+/-7 ms, and dispersion of refractoriness was decreased from 57+/-6 to 16+/-3 ms. Lignocaine decreased inducibility of ventricular fibrillation (VF) during ischaemia from 86 to 25%. We conclude that, in this model, the antiarrhythmic activity of lignocaine during regional ischaemia is associated with an increase in ischaemia-induced conduction delay and reduced dispersion of repolarisation and refractoriness.     

Semantic priming in schizophrenia: An examination of spreading activation using word pronunciation and multiple SOAs.

Semantic priming in word pronunciation was examined at 5 stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs) in 75 medicated and 25 unmedicated people with schizophrenia (SCZ) and in 10 depressed and 28 normal controls. At SOAs     

Intact recognition of facial emotion in Parkinson's disease.

Although the basal ganglia have been shown to be critical for the expression of emotion in prosody and facial expressions, it is unclear whether they are also critical for recognition of emotions. Selective pathology of parts of the basal ganglia is a hallmark of individuals with Parkinson's disease, and such patients have been examined in several studies of emotion. We examined 18 patients with Parkinson's disease (11 men, 7 women) and 13 age-, education-, gender ratio-, and IQ-matched normal controls on their ability to recognize emotions signaled by facial expressions. Parkinson's patients performed entirely normally on a quantitative task of recognizing emotional facial expressions. The findings do not support the notion that the sectors of basal ganglia that are dysfunctional in Parkinson's disease are essential for recognizing emotion in facial expressions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Isolation of single yeast cells by optical trapping

Individual yeast cells can be successfully isolated and recultured on plates with a new isolation method making use of optical trapping with infrared laser light. The cells can be selected on morphological criteria by high resolution microscopy. The isolation device is constructed from two coverslips separated by spacers, in which selected cells are transferred to a plastic capillary, using the optical trap. To test the procedure, selection experiments were done with a mixture of two Saccharomyces cerevisiae strains, distinguishable both in fluorescence microscopy and on agar plates. These experiments showed that only selected cells were isolated, and close to 100% of the isolated stationary-phase cells formed colonies on agar plates, indicating a high recovery. A lower recovery was obtained with exponential-phase cells, possibly because of a higher sensitivity to laser irradiation. Applications for this method may include the isolation of mutants with altered morphology and the isolation of subpopulations of yeast cultures, for their separate investigation or for the initiation of pure cultures.     

Finding a maximum matching in a permutation graph

We present anO(n log logn) time algorithm for finding a maximum matching in a permutation graph withn vertices, assuming that the input graph is represented by a permutation.     

Adaptive covariate acquisition for minimizing total cost of classification

Machine Learning - In some applications, acquiring covariates comes at a cost which is not negligible. For example in the medical domain, in order to classify whether a patient has diabetes or not,...     

A note on octonionic support vector regression

This note presents an analysis of the octonionic form of the division algebraic support vector regressor (SVR) first introduced by Shilton A detailed derivation of the dual form is given, and three conditions under which it is analogous to the quaternionic case are exhibited. It is shown that, in the general case of an octonionic-valued feature map, the usual "kernel trick" breaks down. The cause of this (and its interpretation) is discussed in some detail, along with potential ways of extending kernel methods to take advantage of the distinct features present in the general case. Finally, the octonionic SVR is applied to an example gait analysis problem, and its performance is compared to that of the least squares SVR, the Clifford SVR, and the multidimensional SVR.     

Leveraging 802.11n frame aggregation to enhance QoS and power consumption in Wi-Fi networks

The Wi-Fi technology, driven by its tremendous success, is expanding into a wide variety of devices and applications. However, many of these new devices, like handheld devices, pose new challenges in terms of QoS and energy efficiency. In order to address these challenges, in this paper we study how the novel MAC aggregation mechanisms developed in the 802.11n standard can be used to enhance the current 802.11 QoS and power saving protocols. Our contribution is twofold. First, we present a simulation study that illustrates the interactions between 802.11n and the current 802.11 QoS and power saving protocols. This study reveals that the 802.11n MAC aggregation mechanisms perform better when combined with the power save mode included in the original 802.11 standard than with the 802.11e U-APSD protocol. Second, we design CA-DFA, an algorithm that, using only information available at layer two, adapts the amount of 802.11n aggregation used by a Wi-Fi station according to the level of congestion in the network. A detailed performance evaluation demonstrates the benefits of CA-DFA in terms of QoS, energy efficiency and network capacity with respect to state of the art alternatives.