When danger lurks in the background: Attentional capture by animal fear-relevant distractors is specific and selectively enhanced by animal fear.

Across 2 experiments, a new experimental procedure was used to investigate attentional capture by animal fear-relevant stimuli. In Experiment 1 (N = 34), unselected participants were slower to detect a neutral target animal in the presence of a spider than a cockroach distractor and in the presence of a snake than a large lizard distractor. This result confirms that phylogenetically fear-relevant animals capture attention specifically and to a larger extent than do non-fear-relevant animals. In Experiment 2 (N = 86), detection of a neutral target animal was slowed more in the presence of a feared fear-relevant distractor (e.g., a snake for snake-fearful participants) than in presence of a not-feared fear-relevant distractor (e.g., a spider for snake-fearful participants). These results indicate preferential attentional capture that is specific to phylogenetically fear-relevant stimuli and is selectively enhanced in individuals who fear these animals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test Generation for Crosstalk-Induced Faults: Framework and Computational Results

Due to technology scaling and increasing clock frequency, problems due to noise effects lead to an increase in design/debugging efforts and a decrease in circuit performance. This paper addresses the problem of efficiently and accurately generating two-vector tests for crosstalk induced effects, such as pulses, signal speedup and slowdown, in digital combinational circuits. These noise effects can propagate through a circuit and create a logic error in a latch or at a primary output. We have developed a mixed-signal test generator, called XGEN, that incorporates classical static values as well as dynamic signals such as transitions and pulses, and timing information such as signal arrival times, rise/fall times, and gate delay. In this paper we first discuss the general framework of the test generation algorithm followed by computational results. Comparison of results with SPICE simulations confirms the accuracy of this approach.     

Water-saving strategies for irrigation agriculture in Saudi Arabia

Agriculture policy changes in Saudi Arabia are investigated by water footprint (WF) assessment. WF is calculated with the model SPARE:WATER for 3758 irrigated sites. The WF of agriculture areas (WF_area, km³ yr^?1) has decreased (–17%) since the year 2000 to 13.84 km³ yr^?1 (2011), which is mainly caused by the reduction of cropland by –33%. Nevertheless, water consumption per field has increased about 16%, which can be attributed to the cultivation of fodder crops (+12%). A scenario analysis revealed that a shifting cropping pattern towards less fodder crops reduces WF_area by –15%, and implementing improved irrigation technology leads to a combined reduction of up to 32%     

The reactivities towards the benzoyloxy radical of various isomers of fluorostilbene

Summary The rate constants at 60°C for the reactions of the benzoyloxy radical with methyl methacrylate, the E-isomers of 2-, 3- and 4-fluorostilbene and the Z-isomer of 4-fluorostilbene have relative values of 1, 41, 17, 18 and 14 respectively. These results were obtained from work involving analyses for the benzoate and phenyl end-groups in polymers of methyl methacrylate, prepared using benzoyl peroxide suitably labelled with carbon-14 and tritium using each of the fluorostilbenes in turn as an additive in a polymerization.     

Copolymerizations of various ring-fluorinated stilbenes with styrene

Summary The E-isomers of 2-, 3- and 4-fluorostilbene and 4,4-difluorostilbene and also the Z-isomers of 4-fluorostilbene have been examined as comonomers in the radical polymerization of styrene at 60°C. The low levels of incorporation of the fluoro-compounds have been measured by consideration of the 19F-NMR spectra of the copolymers, using fluorobenzene as an internal standard. The reactivities of the various fluorostilbenes towards the polystyrene radical are discussed and compared with those towards the benzoyloxy radical.     

Comparison of some 4- and 4,4′-substituted derivatives of stilbene for their reactivities towards the benzoyloxy radical

Summary 4-Fluoro- and 4,4-difluorostilbene are similar in their reactivities towards the benzoyloxy radical; a similar conclusion has been reached in respect of 4-chloro- with 4,4-dichlorostilbene and 4-phenyl-with 4,4-diphenylstilbene. These results have been obtained by consideration of the numbers of benzoate and phenyl end-groups in poly (methyl methacrylate) made using benzoyl peroxide in the presence of the appropriate derivative of stilbene.     

Effective visualization of complex vascular structures using a non-parametric vessel detection method

The effective visualization of vascular structures is critical for diagnosis, surgical planning as well as treatment evaluation. In recent work, we have developed an algorithm for vessel detection that examines the intensity profile around each voxel in an angiographic image and determines the likelihood that any given voxel belongs to a vessel; we term this the "vesselness coefficient" of the voxel. Our results show that our algorithm works particularly well for visualizing branch points in vessels. Compared to standard Hessian based techniques, which are fine-tuned to identify long cylindrical structures, our technique identifies branches and connections with other vessels. Using our computed vesselness coefficient, we explore a set of techniques for visualizing vasculature. Visualizing vessels is particularly challenging because not only is their position in space important for clinicians but it is also important to be able to resolve their spatial relationship. We applied visualization techniques that provide shape cues as well as depth cues to allow the viewer to differentiate between vessels that are closer from those that are farther. We use our computed vesselness coefficient to effectively visualize vasculature in both clinical neurovascular x-ray computed tomography based angiography images, as well as images from three different animal studies. We conducted a formal user evaluation of our visualization techniques with the help of radiologists, surgeons, and other expert users. Results indicate that experts preferred distance color blending and tone shading for conveying depth over standard visualization techniques.