A connectionist account of asymmetric category learning in early infancy.

Young infants show unexplained asymmetries in the exclusivity of categories formed on the basis of visually presented stimuli. A connectionist model is described that shows similar exclusivity asymmetries when categorizing the same stimuli presented to infants. The asymmetries can be explained in terms of an associative learning mechanism, distributed internal representations, and the statistics of the feature distributions in the stimuli. The model was used to explore the robustness of this asymmetry. The model predicts that the asymmetry will persist when a category is acquired in the presence of mixed category exemplars. An experiment with 3–4-month-olds showed that asymmetric exclusivity persisted in the presence of mixed-exemplar familiarization, thereby confirming the model's prediction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Thermoelastic Stress Analysis of a GRP Tee Joint

A detailed study of the stresses that are developed in a glass reinforced plastic (GRP) tee joint under service loads is described. The joints are fabricated by laminating a boundary angle over a radiused fillet on either side of the ‘tee’. Full-field stress characterisation data is provided by a thermoelastic analysis of the tee joint. Calibration procedures that allow the thermoelastic data to be compared with the results of a finite element analysis are detailed. The results of the thermoelastic analysis are compared with values obtained from the finite element analysis. The applicability of thermoelastic analysis as a validation tool for finite element models of composite materials is assessed.     

Learning to recognize talkers from natural, sinewave, and reversed speech samples.

In 5 experiments, the authors investigated how listeners learn to recognize unfamiliar talkers and how experience with specific utterances generalizes to novel instances. Listeners were trained over several days to identify 10 talkers from natural, sinewave, or reversed speech sentences. The sinewave signals preserved phonetic and some suprasegmental properties while eliminating natural vocal quality. In contrast, the reversed speech signals preserved vocal quality while distorting temporally based phonetic properties. The training results indicate that listeners learned to identify talkers even from acoustic signals lacking natural vocal quality. Generalization performance varied across the different signals and depended on the salience of phonetic information. The results suggest similarities in the phonetic attributes underlying talker recognition and phonetic perception. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cricket-based robots

This article describes the development of an autonomous hybrid microrobot that uses legs for propulsion and support of the rear half of the body and a pair of wheels for support of the front half. McKibben artificial muscles actuate the legs, and compressed air is generated by an onboard power plant. Control is also onboard in the form of a PIC microcontroller, from Microchip Technology Inc., that controls the actuators through four three-way valves that are each made up of a pair of microelectromechanical system devices. Its motion resembles that of a cricket.     

Towards a hydrodynamic modelling framework appropriate for applications in urban flood assessment and mitigation using heterogeneous computing

We present a new hydrodynamic modelling framework capable of fully exploiting modern graphics and central processing units (GPUs and CPUs) from any of the mainstream vendors, to be used in the design and assessment of sustainable drainage systems. A finite-volume Godunov-type scheme is combined with the HLLC Riemann solver to create a robust numerical model which correctly addresses wetting and drying and transient flow conditions, and is suitable for application to a wide range of flood simulations. The software is tested with a three day flood event in Carlisle during 2005, at resolutions from 25 m to 2 m. Run-times are significantly reduced without compromising numerical accuracy. Excellent agreement is found between the simulation results and a comprehensive post-event survey. Changes in sensitivity to Manning's n are examined at different resolutions, with changes to the floodplain found to have little influence at 2 m resolution.     

New anionic surface‐active agent derived from wool proteins for hair treatment

An anionic surface‐active agent derived from wool proteins was developed as an alternative to the anionic surfactants extensively used in shampoo formulations. The physicochemical properties of this new surface‐active agent prepared form wool proteins and its application for human hair treatments were studied. This new product could be considered a new mild anionic surface‐active agent, as evidenced by the results found by the evaluation of its physicochemical properties. The new wool anionic surface‐active agent was shown to be very substantive to hair, coating the fiber surface, giving rise to a significant improvement in the mechanical properties of the hair fibers, and providing a certain damage‐prevention effect on the hair. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Appl Polym Sci, 2010