Expertise and Intuition: A Tale of Three Theories

Several authors have hailed intuition as one of the defining features of expertise. In particular, while disagreeing on almost anything that touches on human cognition and artificial intelligence, Hubert Dreyfus and Herbert Simon agreed on this point. However, the highly influential theories of intuition they proposed differed in major ways, especially with respect to the role given to search and as to whether intuition is holistic or analytic. Both theories suffer from empirical weaknesses. In this paper, we show how, with some additions, a recent theory of expert memory (the template theory) offers a coherent and wide-ranging explanation of intuition in expert behaviour. It is shown that the theory accounts for the key features of intuition: it explains the rapid onset of intuition and its perceptual nature, provides mechanisms for learning, incorporates processes showing how perception is linked to action and emotion, and how experts capture the entirety of a situation. In doing so, the new theory addresses the issues problematic for Dreyfus’s and Simon’s theories. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Application of ergothioneine-rich extract from an edible mushroom Flammulina velutipes for melanosis prevention in shrimp,Penaeus monodon and Litopenaeus vannamei

This report investigated the melanosis-inhibiting properties of crude water soluble extract from the base and fruiting body waste of an edible mushroom (Flammulina velutipes) containing 9.13 ± 2.03 mg/mL 2-thiol-l-histidine-betaine (ergothioneine, ESH). Immersion of live full-grown black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) and Pacific white shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in a 0.5% w/v solution of mushroom extract for 1 h significantly decreased polyphenoloxidase (PPO) activity in shrimp hemolymph and expression of the prophenoloxidase (proPO) gene in hemocytes. Consequently, the development of melanosis in the treated shrimp during ice storage was prevented. Treatment with a 0.05% w/v solution of sodium sulfite and 4-hexyl-1,3-benzenediol had a similar effect. Enzyme assays showed that ESH is a non-competitive inhibitor. It is proposed that ESH possibly interacts directly with Cu²⁺ at the putative binding sites of PPO and proPO, based on copper-chelating activity analyses, thus preventing melanosis in the shrimp. This study indicated that application of ESH-rich F. velutipes mushroom extract from trimming waste is an effective natural alternative to synthetic melanosis-inhibiting agents to prevent postmortem melanosis in shrimp.     

Three-Phase Motors in Electric Rail Traction

Three primary approaches to electric rail traction are discussed. These are the direct current system, single-phase special frequency system, and three-phase systems.     

Letter position information and printed word perception: The relative-position priming constraint.

Six experiments apply the masked priming paradigm to investigate how letter position information is computed during printed word perception. Primes formed by a subset of the target's letters facilitated target recognition as long as the relative position of letters was respected across prime and target (e.g., "arict" vs. "acirt" as primes for the target "apricot"). Priming effects were not influenced by whether or not absolute, length-dependent position was respected (e.g., "a-ric-t" vs. "arict"/"ar-i-ct"). Position of overlap of relative-position primes (e.g., apric-apricot; ricot-apricot; arict-apricot) was found to have little influence on the size of priming effects, particularly in conditions (i.e., 33 ms prime durations) where there was no evidence for phonological priming. The results constrain possible schemes for letter position coding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kinetics of the liquid phase synthesis and hydrolysis of butyl lactate catalysed by cation exchange resin

Esterification of lactic acid with butanol catalysed by cation-exchange resin was carried out in a batch reactor in dioxane and toluene. The reaction rate was found to be first order with respect to catalyst and acid concentrations. The inhibiting effect of water and butanol has been evaluated. The rate data were correlated with a kinetic model based on inhibition by water and butanol.     

Malignant and benign breast tissue classification performance using a scatterer structure preclassifier

Benign and malignant breast tissue classification is examined for generalized-spectrum parameters computed from RF ultrasound data when a preclassification of subregions based on general scattering properties is performed. Results using a clinical database of 84 patients show statistically significant improvements (over 10% in receiver operation characteristic (ROC) areas) when only coherent scatterer subregions are used as compared to using all subregions within the region of interest.     

3-D modelling of cyclically loaded composite patch repair of a cracked plate

A three-dimensional finite element model is utilized to capture the effects of plasticity-induced crack closure (PICC) on an adhesively bonded patch repair of a cracked plate. To accurately capture the PICC process the choice of material model employed is of significant importance, therefore this paper considers a relatively new model, the Ellyin–Xia model. The paper shows that the PICC phenomenon is beneficial to the repair.     

MPC-Based Distributed Control for Intelligent Energy Management of AC Microgrids

Abstract

Power scheduling of distributed storage devices and renewable energy resources in microgrids is crucial for their reliable and optimal operation. Conventionally, the power scheduling problem is solved with a centralized energy management control, which has access to all the information from the overall system. This type of control has limitations related to computational burden, communication latencies, and missing information. Therefore, the primary objective of this paper is to propose a distributed energy management strategy, to reduce the operational cost of microgrids, and to enhance the computation time. The strategy is formulated based on the model predictive control method since it allows the control action in the current time-step to be optimized while taking into account the future time-steps. Outputs of the energy management system are the optimal power references generated for all energy resources based on the system’s demand, constraints, and objective functions. To illustrate the effectiveness of the distributed model predictive control, the proposed algorithm is validated through simulation, on a microgrid candidate via MATLAB/Simulink, and controller hardware-in-the-loop experiment on a LabVIEW platform using National Instruments control devices (myRIO). The results will show the computation time in the distributed IEM method is improved compared to centralized IEM. Additionally, the results will show the robustness of the distributed IEM in the plug and play scenario.     

基于FPGA的I/O控制器的设计和实现

对于计算机信息系统受到攻击基本上可以分为基于CPU和I/O控制器这两种。对于CPU的攻击已经被深入研究,各种成熟的对策也被广泛的应用。但是对于I/O控制器攻击的研究非常缺乏有效的保护机制。为了研究关于I/O控制器的攻击,使用FPGA可编程技术设计和实现了一款PCI Express总线的平台。平台能产生任意种类的关于PCI Express事务层的信息包,为研究各类I/O控制器的攻击提供了基础。     

Preparation and properties of active submicronic solids and new metastable phases obtained via a metal-organic precursor method

The mixing of constituent ions on an atomic scale accomplished in single phase metal-organic precursors facilitates the occurrence and completion of the reactions such as decomposition, oxidation and reduction at reduced temperatures and in shorter times. This has been particularly shown for the first series of transition metals and for the lanthanide elements for which simple, and mixed oxides or their oxide solid-solutions have been prepared via decomposition and treatment of their respective organic salt precursors. The method gives compounds with increased homogeneity, purity and reactivity and allows isolation of submicronic solids and sometimes of new metastable phases, which could not have been obtained by high-temperature reactions. The morphological and other application properties of these submicronic solids and of new metastable phases can be widely modified and regulated by varying the composition and treatment given to the metal-organic precursors.