Evaluation Responsibility and Leadership in the Face of Failing Democracies

Science.gov (United States)

McKegg, Kate

2013-01-01

In a world faced with unprecedented rising levels of inequality and injustice, is there a responsibility for our evaluation organizations to take on a leadership role in promoting inclusive, evaluative dialog and deliberation about the state of our democracies in relation to key democratic principles and ideals? In this forum, I question whether…

Eyewitness Memory in Face-to-Face and Immersive Avatar-to-Avatar Contexts

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Donna A. Taylor

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Technological advances offer possibilities for innovation in the way eyewitness testimony is elicited. Typically, this occurs face-to-face. We investigated whether a virtual environment, where interviewer and eyewitness communicate as avatars, might confer advantages by attenuating the social and situational demands of a face-to-face interview, releasing more cognitive resources for invoking episodic retrieval mode. In conditions of intentional encoding, eyewitnesses were interviewed 48 h later, either face-to-face or in a virtual environment (N = 38. Participants in the virtual environment significantly outperformed those interviewed face-to-face on all episodic performance measures – improved correct reporting reduced errors, and increased accuracy. Participants reported finding it easier to admit not remembering event information to the avatar, and finding the avatar easier to talk to. These novel findings, and our pattern of retrieval results indicates the potential of avatar-to-avatar communication in virtual environments, and provide impetus for further research investigating eyewitness cognition in contemporary retrieval contexts.

Eyewitness Memory in Face-to-Face and Immersive Avatar-to-Avatar Contexts.

Science.gov (United States)

Taylor, Donna A; Dando, Coral J

2018-01-01

Technological advances offer possibilities for innovation in the way eyewitness testimony is elicited. Typically, this occurs face-to-face. We investigated whether a virtual environment, where interviewer and eyewitness communicate as avatars, might confer advantages by attenuating the social and situational demands of a face-to-face interview, releasing more cognitive resources for invoking episodic retrieval mode. In conditions of intentional encoding, eyewitnesses were interviewed 48 h later, either face-to-face or in a virtual environment ( N = 38). Participants in the virtual environment significantly outperformed those interviewed face-to-face on all episodic performance measures - improved correct reporting reduced errors, and increased accuracy. Participants reported finding it easier to admit not remembering event information to the avatar, and finding the avatar easier to talk to. These novel findings, and our pattern of retrieval results indicates the potential of avatar-to-avatar communication in virtual environments, and provide impetus for further research investigating eyewitness cognition in contemporary retrieval contexts.

Managing electrical demand through difficult periods: California's experience with demand response

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wikler, G.; Ghosh, D.Ph.D.

2010-01-01

This paper provides a brief overview of California's electricity situation and the relevance of Demand Response (DR) in addressing some of the challenges faced by the State's electricity system. It then discusses California's experience with DR, market rules that influence what role DR plays and attempts to integrate wholesale-retail level program offerings in the State, and some of the key drivers that are likely to enhance the role of DR. Lastly, the paper identifies some of the key challenges facing implementers of DR programs and discusses how many of those challenges could potentially be overcome. (authors)

Passive and motivated perception of emotional faces: qualitative and quantitative changes in the face processing network.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Laurie R Skelly

Full Text Available Emotionally expressive faces are processed by a distributed network of interacting sub-cortical and cortical brain regions. The components of this network have been identified and described in large part by the stimulus properties to which they are sensitive, but as face processing research matures interest has broadened to also probe dynamic interactions between these regions and top-down influences such as task demand and context. While some research has tested the robustness of affective face processing by restricting available attentional resources, it is not known whether face network processing can be augmented by increased motivation to attend to affective face stimuli. Short videos of people expressing emotions were presented to healthy participants during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Motivation to attend to the videos was manipulated by providing an incentive for improved recall performance. During the motivated condition, there was greater coherence among nodes of the face processing network, more widespread correlation between signal intensity and performance, and selective signal increases in a task-relevant subset of face processing regions, including the posterior superior temporal sulcus and right amygdala. In addition, an unexpected task-related laterality effect was seen in the amygdala. These findings provide strong evidence that motivation augments co-activity among nodes of the face processing network and the impact of neural activity on performance. These within-subject effects highlight the necessity to consider motivation when interpreting neural function in special populations, and to further explore the effect of task demands on face processing in healthy brains.

Improving rice production sustainability by reducing water demand and greenhouse gas emissions with biodegradable films

Science.gov (United States)

Yao, Zhisheng; Zheng, Xunhua; Liu, Chunyan; Lin, Shan; Zuo, Qiang; Butterbach-Bahl, Klaus

2017-01-01

In China, rice production is facing unprecedented challenges, including the increasing demand, looming water crisis and on-going climate change. Thus, producing more rice at lower environmental cost is required for future development, i.e., the use of less water and the production of fewer greenhouse gas (GHG) per unit of rice. Ground cover rice production systems (GCRPSs) could potentially address these concerns, although no studies have systematically and simultaneously evaluated the benefits of GCRPS regarding yields and considering water use and GHG emissions. This study reports the results of a 2-year study comparing conventional paddy and various GCRPS practices. Relative to conventional paddy, GCRPSs had greater rice yields and nitrogen use efficiencies (8.5% and 70%, respectively), required less irrigation (-64%) and resulted in less total CH4 and N2O emissions (-54%). On average, annual emission factors of N2O were 1.67% and 2.00% for conventional paddy and GCRPS, respectively. A cost-benefit analysis considering yields, GHG emissions, water demand and labor and mulching costs indicated GCRPSs are an environmentally and economically profitable technology. Furthermore, substituting the polyethylene film with a biodegradable film resulted in comparable benefits of yield and climate. Overall, GCRPSs, particularly with biodegradable films, provide a promising solution for farmers to secure or even increase yields while reducing the environmental footprint.

Effectiveness of integrating case studies in online and face-to-face instruction of pathophysiology: a comparative study.

Science.gov (United States)

Saleh, Suha M; Asi, Yara M; Hamed, Kastro M

2013-06-01

Due to growing demand from students and facilitated by innovations in educational technology, institutions of higher learning are increasingly offering online courses. Subjects in the hard sciences, such as pathophysiology, have traditionally been taught in the face-to-face format, but growing demand for preclinical science courses has compelled educators to incorporate online components into their classes to promote comprehension. Learning tools such as case studies are being integrated into such courses to aid in student interaction, engagement, and critical thinking skills. Careful assessment of pedagogical techniques is essential; hence, this study aimed to evaluate and compare student perceptions of the use of case studies in face-to-face and fully online pathophysiology classes. A series of case studies was incorporated into the curriculum of a pathophysiology class for both class modes (online and face to face). At the end of the semester, students filled out a survey assessing the effectiveness of the case studies. Both groups offered positive responses about the incorporation of case studies in the curriculum of the pathophysiology class. This study supports the argument that with proper use of innovative teaching tools, such as case studies, online pathophysiology classes can foster a sense of community and interaction that is typically only seen with face-to-face classes, based on student responses. Students also indicated that regardless of class teaching modality, use of case studies facilitates student learning and comprehension as well as prepares them for their future careers in health fields.

Informal sector labour demand: Evidence from Zimbabwe's urban ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Siphambe H (Prof)

during the country's economic structural adjustment programme (ESAP) and the ... The study of informal labour demand is important for Zimbabwe which faces .... is assumed to be identically and independently distributed, that is, ..... The labour demand equation's low Chi-square statistic (1.91) and its probability value of.

Measuring the financial impact of demand response for electricity retailers

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Feuerriegel, Stefan; Neumann, Dirk

2014-01-01

Due to the integration of intermittent resources of power generation such as wind and solar, the amount of supplied electricity will exhibit unprecedented fluctuations. Electricity retailers can partially meet the challenge of matching demand and volatile supply by shifting power demand according to the fluctuating supply side. The necessary technology infrastructure such as Advanced Metering Infrastructures for this so-called Demand Response (DR) has advanced. However, little is known about the economic dimension and further effort is strongly needed to realistically quantify the financial impact. To succeed in this goal, we derive an optimization problem that minimizes procurement costs of an electricity retailer in order to control Demand Response usage. The evaluation with historic data shows that cost volatility can be reduced by 7.74%; peak costs drop by 14.35%; and expenditures of retailers can be significantly decreased by 3.52%. - Highlights: • Ex post simulation to quantify financial impacts of demand response. • Effects of Demand Response are simulated based on real-world data. • Procurement costs of an average electricity retailer decrease by 3.4%. • Retailers can cut hourly peak expenditures by 12.1%. • Cost volatility is reduced by 12.2%

Crucial market demands and company competencies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Jensen, Bjarne; Stacey, Julia

1999-01-01

More and more, it is acknowledged that a company's success depends on it being capable of complying with the market's demands and wishes. It is, however, not always obvious, how the individual company will be able to meet the market's demands. A recent MAPP study has investigated this topic...... and identified a number of central market demands, which Danish food companies are faced with. Moreover, the study has identified which competencies are required to meet these demands and have also looked at howsuccessful companies structure some of these competencies. The study takes its point of departure...... in a literature review of MAPP's research. Results show that there are 27 central market demands, retail and consumer demands that Danish companies ought to be able to live up to. The study has also identified which competencies food companies must possess to be able to meet market's demands. Results from three...

Leadership and innovation in the public sector: studying the organizational, team and individual level

NARCIS (Netherlands)

S.J. Dorsman (Stephan)

2017-01-01

markdownabstractPublic sector organizations throughout the world are facing unprecedented challenges. Given these challenges and demands, fostering innovation could obviously be a very useful strategy for public organizations. As proposed by scholars, increased innovativeness is of key importance

Solution-processable ambipolar diketopyrrolopyrrole-selenophene polymer with unprecedentedly high hole and electron mobilities.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Junghoon; Han, A-Reum; Kim, Jonggi; Kim, Yiho; Oh, Joon Hak; Yang, Changduk

2012-12-26

There is a fast-growing demand for polymer-based ambipolar thin-film transistors (TFTs), in which both n-type and p-type transistor operations are realized in a single layer, while maintaining simplicity in processing. Research progress toward this end is essentially fueled by molecular engineering of the conjugated backbones of the polymers and the development of process architectures for device fabrication, which has recently led to hole and electron mobilities of more than 1.0 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1). However, ambipolar polymers with even higher performance are still required. By taking into account both the conjugated backbone and side chains of the polymer component, we have developed a dithienyl-diketopyrrolopyrrole (TDPP) and selenophene containing polymer with hybrid siloxane-solubilizing groups (PTDPPSe-Si). A synergistic combination of rational polymer backbone design, side-chain dynamics, and solution processing affords an enormous boost in ambipolar TFT performance, resulting in unprecedentedly high hole and electron mobilities of 3.97 and 2.20 cm(2) V(-1) s(-1), respectively.

Exhaustion and Emotional Demands in China:A Large-Scale Investigation across Occupations

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

Kelly Z.Peng

2017-01-01

As the Chinese economy moves toward a market-based model,employees are likely to face more emotional demands and exhaustion at work.However,there are some unique aspects to the emotional demands of work in the Chinese cultural context.We investigate emotional demands and exhaustion in China with a large-scale sample across the six major occupations identified by the Holland classification system.Results show that incumbents of social and enterprising jobs face higher emotional demands.Unexpectedly,exhaustion differs significantly between conventional and other types of jobs.Building on the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) model,job crafting and the cultural context,we propose that the nonlinear relationship of emotional demands and exhaustion exists only when emotional intelligence is low.Our study may inform practitioners and policy makers in Chinese enterprises about emotional demands and exhaustion for various occupations and the importance of selection and training programs in emotional intelligence.

Probabilistic Quantification of Potentially Flexible Residential Demand

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kouzelis, Konstantinos; Mendaza, Iker Diaz de Cerio; Bak-Jensen, Birgitte

2014-01-01

The balancing of power systems with high penetration of renewable energy is a serious challenge to be faced in the near future. One of the possible solutions, recently capturing a lot of attention, is demand response. Demand response can only be achieved by power consumers holding loads which allow...... them to modify their normal power consumption pattern, namely flexible consumers. However flexibility, despite being constantly mentioned, is usually not properly defined and even rarer quantified. This manuscript introduces a methodology to identify and quantify potentially flexible demand...

Demand Forecasting in the Smart Grid Paradigm: Features and Challenges

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Khodayar, Mohammad E.; Wu, Hongyu

2015-07-01

Demand forecasting faces challenges that include a large volume of data, increasing number of factors that affect the demand profile, uncertainties in the generation profile of the distributed and renewable generation resources and lack of historical data. A hierarchical demand forecasting framework can incorporate the new technologies, customer behaviors and preferences, and environmental factors.

Building Change Readiness Practices for Information Technology Support Staff

Science.gov (United States)

Perkins, Dianna Joseph

2014-01-01

With the turbulent economic conditions of the healthcare market, organizational leaders are faced with significant factors driving unprecedented change. Healthcare organizations are challenged with reimbursement reductions, high costs, modification of government regulations, and demanding healthcare consumers. Survival for healthcare organizations…

Demand Uncertainty: Exporting Delays and Exporting Failures

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nguyen, Daniel Xuyen

2012-01-01

This paper presents a model of trade that explains why firms wait to export and why many exporters fail. Firms face uncertain demands that are only realized after the firm enters the destination. The model retools the timing of the resolution of uncertainty found in models with heterogeneity...... of firm productivity. This retooling addresses several shortcomings. First, the imperfect correlation of demands reconciles the sales variation observed in and across destinations. Second, since demands for the firm's output are correlated across destinations, a firm can use previously realized demands...... to forecast unknown demands in untested destinations. The option to forecast demands causes firms to delay exporting in order to gather more information about foreign demand. Third, since uncertainty is resolved after entry, many firms enter a destination and then exit after learning that they cannot profit...

California Workforce: California Faces a Skills Gap

Science.gov (United States)

Public Policy Institute of California, 2011

2011-01-01

California's education system is not keeping up with the changing demands of the state's economy--soon, California will face a shortage of skilled workers. Projections to 2025 suggest that the economy will continue to need more and more highly educated workers, but that the state will not be able to meet that demand. If current trends persist,…

Very low resolution face recognition problem.

Science.gov (United States)

Zou, Wilman W W; Yuen, Pong C

2012-01-01

This paper addresses the very low resolution (VLR) problem in face recognition in which the resolution of the face image to be recognized is lower than 16 × 16. With the increasing demand of surveillance camera-based applications, the VLR problem happens in many face application systems. Existing face recognition algorithms are not able to give satisfactory performance on the VLR face image. While face super-resolution (SR) methods can be employed to enhance the resolution of the images, the existing learning-based face SR methods do not perform well on such a VLR face image. To overcome this problem, this paper proposes a novel approach to learn the relationship between the high-resolution image space and the VLR image space for face SR. Based on this new approach, two constraints, namely, new data and discriminative constraints, are designed for good visuality and face recognition applications under the VLR problem, respectively. Experimental results show that the proposed SR algorithm based on relationship learning outperforms the existing algorithms in public face databases.

Demand and choice probability generating functions for perturbed consumers

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Fosgerau, Mogens; McFadden, Daniel; Bierlaire, Michel

2011-01-01

This paper considers demand systems for utility-maximizing consumers equipped with additive linearly perturbed utility of the form U(x)+m⋅x and faced with general budget constraints x 2 B. Given compact budget sets, the paper provides necessary as well as sufficient conditions for a demand genera...

Mobile Web - Strategy for Enterprise Success

OpenAIRE

Maan, Jitendra

2012-01-01

Today, enterprises are faced with increased global competition in an environment where customers are demanding faster delivery, better service and also want to gain significant and immediate business value by increasing productivity and reducing operational cost. Spurred by unprecedented customer demand, each Industry cluster has developed its own source of comparative advantage. Even within a single organization, the business value chain is geographically fragmented. Such diversification and...

Perceiving Age and Gender in Unfamiliar Faces: An fMRI Study on Face Categorization

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Holger; Kloth, Nadine; Gullmar, Daniel; Reichenbach, Jurgen R.; Schweinberger, Stefan R.

2012-01-01

Efficient processing of unfamiliar faces typically involves their categorization (e.g., into old vs. young or male vs. female). However, age and gender categorization may pose different perceptual demands. In the present study, we employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare the activity evoked during age vs. gender…

Sex differences in face gender recognition: an event-related potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Sun, Yueting; Gao, Xiaochao; Han, Shihui

2010-04-23

Multiple level neurocognitive processes are involved in face processing in humans. The present study examined whether the early face processing such as structural encoding is modulated by task demands that manipulate attention to perceptual or social features of faces and such an effect, if any, is different between men and women. Event-related brain potentials were recorded from male and female adults while they identified a low-level perceptual feature of faces (i.e., face orientation) and a high-level social feature of faces (i.e., gender). We found that task demands that required the processing of face orientations or face gender resulted in modulations of both the early occipital/temporal negativity (N170) and the late central/parietal positivity (P3). The N170 amplitude was smaller in the gender relative to the orientation identification task whereas the P3 amplitude was larger in the gender identification task relative to the orientation identification task. In addition, these effects were much stronger in women than in men. Our findings suggest that attention to social information in faces such as gender modulates both the early encoding of facial structures and late evaluative process of faces to a greater degree in women than in men.

In your face: Transcendence in embodied interaction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shaun eGallagher

2014-07-01

Full Text Available In cognitive psychology, studies concerning the face tend to focus on questions about face recognition, theory of mind and empathy. Questions about the face, however, also fit into a very different set of issues that are central to ethics. Based especially on the work of Levinas, philosophers have come to see that reference to the face of another person can anchor conceptions of moral responsibility and ethical demand. Levinas points to a certain irreducibility and transcendence implicit in the face of the other. In this paper I argue that the notion of transcendence involved in this kind of analysis can be given a naturalistic interpretation by drawing on recent interactive approaches to social cognition found in developmental psychology, phenomenology, and the study of autism.

Consumer demands: Major problems facing industry in a consumer-driven society.

Science.gov (United States)

Harrington, G

1994-01-01

Demand is driven by conventional market forces over much of the world among consumers with strong positive attitudes to meat as a nutritious, tasty and premium food; price in relation to income, availability, quality (including leanness) and relevance to life-style remain the dominant forces operating. But in the developed world, there are emerging concerns about how meat is produced, which are likely to have negative effects on demand, particularly that of the current younger generation, and which may well begin to affect Government policies towards the meat industry. The industry needs to establish strong information and education programmes, but also to examine its procedures to provide greater consumer assurance about practises and controls. Also the scientists and technologists serving the industry need to help it move towards sustainable lower input, less environmentally damaging systems, less reliance on drugs, stimulants and additives, sensitive exploitation of the new genetics and with more consideration for the animals involved. Copyright © 1993. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

The supply and demand outlook for energy in the Asia-Pacific region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fridley, D.

1993-01-01

It is reported that years of strong economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region have resulted in unprecedented increases in energy demand in the region, particularly for oil and gas. The supply of oil and gas to the region will become more problematic as the decade progresses. Already 50% dependent on imported oil, this figure will rise to nearly 65% by 2000. Because high rates of domestic oil demand growth among traditional petroleum exporters -Indonesia, China and Malaysia - will absorb exportable surpluses, the region will find itself dependent on the Middle East for at least 90% of its imported oil needs by 2000. Currently linked to oil, LNG prices cannot justify the investments needed to bring new greenfield projects on line. With demand expected to exceed 67 million tonnes (Mt) in 2000 and 100 Mt in 2010, over 50 Mt of new capacity will be needed; satisfying this demand will necessitate a new pricing structure for LNG, raising the price substantially above the relative price of crude oil. 1 ref., 5 figs, 2 tabs

Embedded face recognition using cascaded structures

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Zuo, F.

2006-01-01

During the past few years, there is an increasing demand for smart devices in consumer electronics. These smart devices should be capable of consciously sensing their surroundings and adapting their services according to their environments. Face recognition provides a natural visual interface for

Model for Assembly Line Re-Balancing Considering Additional Capacity and Outsourcing to Face Demand Fluctuations

Science.gov (United States)

Samadhi, TMAA; Sumihartati, Atin

2016-02-01

The most critical stage in a garment industry is sewing process, because generally, it consists of a number of operations and a large number of sewing machines for each operation. Therefore, it requires a balancing method that can assign task to work station with balance workloads. Many studies on assembly line balancing assume a new assembly line, but in reality, due to demand fluctuation and demand increased a re-balancing is needed. To cope with those fluctuating demand changes, additional capacity can be carried out by investing in spare sewing machine and paying for sewing service through outsourcing. This study develops an assembly line balancing (ALB) model on existing line to cope with fluctuating demand change. Capacity redesign is decided if the fluctuation demand exceeds the available capacity through a combination of making investment on new machines and outsourcing while considering for minimizing the cost of idle capacity in the future. The objective of the model is to minimize the total cost of the line assembly that consists of operating costs, machine cost, adding capacity cost, losses cost due to idle capacity and outsourcing costs. The model develop is based on an integer programming model. The model is tested for a set of data of one year demand with the existing number of sewing machines of 41 units. The result shows that additional maximum capacity up to 76 units of machine required when there is an increase of 60% of the average demand, at the equal cost parameters..

Imported episodic rabies increases patient demand for and physician delivery of antirabies prophylaxis.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zélie Lardon

Full Text Available BACKGROUND: Imported cases threaten rabies reemergence in rabies-free areas. During 2000-2005, five dog and one human rabies cases were imported into France, a rabies-free country since 2001. The Summer 2004 event led to unprecedented media warnings by the French Public Health Director. We investigated medical practice evolution following the official elimination of rabies in 2001; impact of subsequent episodic rabies importations and national newspaper coverage on demand for and delivery of antirabies prophylaxis; regular transmission of epidemiological developments within the French Antirabies Medical Center (ARMC network; and ARMC discussions on indications of rabies post-exposure prophylaxis (RPEP. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Annual data collected by the National Reference Center for Rabies NRCR (1989-2006 and the exhaustive database (2000-2005 of 56 ARMC were analyzed. Weekly numbers of patients consulting at ARMC and their RPEP- and antirabies-immunoglobulin (ARIG prescription rates were determined. Autoregressive integrated moving-average modeling and regression with autocorrelated errors were applied to examine how 2000-2005 episodic rabies events and their related national newspaper coverage affected demand for and delivery of RPEP. A slight, continuous decline of rabies-dedicated public health facility attendance was observed from 2000 to 2004. Then, during the Summer 2004 event, patient consultations and RPEP and ARIG prescriptions increased by 84%, 19.7% and 43.4%, respectively. Moreover, elevated medical resource use persisted in 2005, despite communication efforts, without any secondary human or animal case. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings demonstrated appropriate responsiveness to reemerging rabies cases and effective newspaper reporting, as no secondary case occurred. However, the ensuing demand on medical resources had immediate and long-lasting effects on rabies-related public health resources and expenses. Henceforth, when

DataBase on Demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Aparicio, R Gaspar; Gomez, D; Wojcik, D; Coz, I Coterillo

2012-01-01

At CERN a number of key database applications are running on user-managed MySQL database services. The database on demand project was born out of an idea to provide the CERN user community with an environment to develop and run database services outside of the actual centralised Oracle based database services. The Database on Demand (DBoD) empowers the user to perform certain actions that had been traditionally done by database administrators, DBA's, providing an enterprise platform for database applications. It also allows the CERN user community to run different database engines, e.g. presently open community version of MySQL and single instance Oracle database server. This article describes a technology approach to face this challenge, a service level agreement, the SLA that the project provides, and an evolution of possible scenarios.

A SIMD-VLIW Smart Camera Architecture for Real-Time Face Recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kleihorst, R.P.; Broers, H.A.T.; Abbo, A.A.; Ebrahimmalek, H.; Fatemi, H.; Corporaal, H.; Jonker, P.P.

2003-01-01

There is a rapidly growing demand for using smart cameras for various applications in surveillance and identification. Although having a small form-factor, most of these applications demand huge processing performance for real-time processing. Face recognition is one of those applications. In this

Following the time course of face gender and expression processing: a task-dependent ERP study.

Science.gov (United States)

Valdés-Conroy, Berenice; Aguado, Luis; Fernández-Cahill, María; Romero-Ferreiro, Verónica; Diéguez-Risco, Teresa

2014-05-01

The effects of task demands and the interaction between gender and expression in face perception were studied using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants performed three different tasks with male and female faces that were emotionally inexpressive or that showed happy or angry expressions. In two of the tasks (gender and expression categorization) facial properties were task-relevant while in a third task (symbol discrimination) facial information was irrelevant. Effects of expression were observed on the visual P100 component under all task conditions, suggesting the operation of an automatic process that is not influenced by task demands. The earliest interaction between expression and gender was observed later in the face-sensitive N170 component. This component showed differential modulations by specific combinations of gender and expression (e.g., angry male vs. angry female faces). Main effects of expression and task were observed in a later occipito-temporal component peaking around 230 ms post-stimulus onset (EPN or early posterior negativity). Less positive amplitudes in the presence of angry faces and during performance of the gender and expression tasks were observed. Finally, task demands also modulated a positive component peaking around 400 ms (LPC, or late positive complex) that showed enhanced amplitude for the gender task. The pattern of results obtained here adds new evidence about the sequence of operations involved in face processing and the interaction of facial properties (gender and expression) in response to different task demands. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Uranium resources, production and demand in South Africa

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Brynard, H J; Ainslie, L C [Atomic Energy Corporation of South Africa Ltd., Pretoria (South Africa)

1990-06-01

This paper provides a review of the historical development of the South African uranium market and the current status of uranium exploration, resources and production. A prognosticated view of possible future demand for uranium in South Africa is attempted, taking cognisance of the finite nature of the country's coal resources and estimated world uranium demand. Although well endowed with uranium resources, South Africa could face a shortage of this commodity in the next century, should the predicted electricity growth materials. (author)

Uranium resources, production and demand in South Africa

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Brynard, H.J.; Ainslie, L.C.

1990-01-01

This paper provides a review of the historical development of the South African uranium market and the current status of uranium exploration, resources and production. A prognosticated view of possible future demand for uranium in South Africa is attempted, taking cognisance of the finite nature of the country's coal resources and estimated world uranium demand. Although well endowed with uranium resources, South Africa could face a shortage of this commodity in the next century, should the predicted electricity growth materials. (author)

Unprecedented emergency in Southern Africa.

Science.gov (United States)

1999-03-01

Despite knowledge of better prevention strategies, AIDS continues to be an unprecedented emergency in southern Africa. Statistics show that in 1998, 1.4 million people between the ages of 15 and 49 in the 9 countries of southern Africa were infected, with nearly three-quarters of a million of these new infections occurring in South Africa. In addition, some 2 million people died of AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa in 1998 and millions of new infections are occurring every year. Factors such as the loneliness suffered by migrant laborers, the wars and armed conflicts in Rwanda, and the stigma of shame, silence, and denial associated with AIDS all generate fertile conditions for the spread of HIV in southern Africa. Overcoming silence and denial, and bringing AIDS out into the open, has been considered by some countries in southern Africa. In Botswana and South Africa, appeals for greater awareness and openness by the top leadership have been coupled with a decision to set up government funding and AIDS. The challenge now will be to translate these into effective prevention and care programs.

Technological reason and power policy faced with conflicting demands

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Edwin, K.; Krenz, G.

1985-01-01

Every country is faced with the fundamental task of ensuring long-term energy supply in an optimal manner. Electrical energy is of particular importance owing to its universal uses. But decision-making in the field of power policy is difficult and involves uncertainties because such decisions will have long-term effects due to the long service life of power projects. Decision-making is also difficult because of the large amounts of capital involved in power projects, so that any mistake may cause irreparable damage to the national economy. This article is an attempt to find the fundamental relationships governing the assessment of projects in terms of power policy and to demonstrate the application of appropriate methods of analysis, using as an example the vital question which source of primary energy should best be used for electricity production in Austria. (Auth.)

Life on the line: Job demands, perceived co-worker support for safety, and hazardous work events.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Nick; Chmiel, Nik; Hershcovis, M Sandy; Walls, Melanie

2010-10-01

The present study of 334 United Kingdom trackside workers tested an interaction hypothesis. We hypothesized, drawing on the job demands-resources framework, that perceived support for safety (from senior managers, supervisors, and coworkers) as job resources would weaken the relationship between higher job demands and more frequent hazardous work events. Consistent with social impact theory, we predicted that perceived coworker support for safety would be particularly influential when trackside workers faced higher job demands. Moderated multiple regression showed that, of all three sources of perceived support for safety, perceived coworker support for safety was most important for keeping employees safe in the face of high job demands. © 2010 APA, all rights reserved.

Religious Diversity and Freedom of Conscience in the Arabic Countries Facing Globalization and Migration

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Raoudha Elguédri

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Muslim societies are facing the new challenges of cultural and religious diversity. They are experiencing migratory phenomena, or because they are countries of immigration (such as in the Persian Gulf monarchies and emirates or countries that are becoming a new destination of migrants (such as Morocco and other North African nations. These challenges are increasingly urgent due to the effects of other globalization vectors such as new communication technologies that cross all boundaries and foster unprecedented conversions. The purpose of this contribution is limited to the religious aspect of the new forms of diversification faced by Muslim countries. The goal is to analyze to what extent this process biases traditional ways of managing religious diversity.

Meeting increased demand.

Science.gov (United States)

Blair, Andrew

2004-07-01

New Zealand is a little country with a little economy but with a population that's rapidly aging. New Zealand's population is only 4.3 million people. It's GDP is only $US58.6 billion (2002). New Zealand's expenditure on health as a percentage of GDP is not out of line with that of other countries. As a nation we have been increasing expenditure on health over recent years. In 1990 we spent 7% of GDP on health. In 1995 that increased to 7.65% and is now 8.3%. However, in per capita terms our expenditure on health does not compare so well with like countries. The size of New Zealand's economy is restricting what our country spends on health. Health is already the second highest demand on the New Zealand tax dollar. The tolerance of New Zealanders would be challenged if a Government attempted to increase taxes further to meet the growing demands for expenditure on health, but at the same time the population's expectations are increasing. This is the challenging situation we face today. What lies ahead? Like all industrialized countries New Zealand is facing an aging population. The population below age 40 is decreasing, but it is increasing significantly over that age. 16% of the population is currently aged over 60. By 2051 this proportion will almost double to just over 31%. Coupled with the aging population is increased awareness and expectations, as access to options for treatment and technology becomes readily accessible to the population through such media as the internet. The extent of the impact of the aging population can be clearly represented by focusing on one specialty such as orthopaedics. The New Zealand Orthopaecic Association undertook a study in July 2003 which concluded (among other things) that as a result of the projected aging of the population, over the next 50 years: Musculo-skeletal operations will increase by over 30%. The number of hip replacements will nearly double. The incidence of osteoporosis will increase by a massive 201%. The number

ROBUSTNESS OF A FACE-RECOGNITION TECHNIQUE BASED ON SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINES

OpenAIRE

Prashanth Harshangi; Koshy George

2010-01-01

The ever-increasing requirements of security concerns have placed a greater demand for face recognition surveillance systems. However, most current face recognition techniques are not quite robust with respect to factors such as variable illumination, facial expression and detail, and noise in images. In this paper, we demonstrate that face recognition using support vector machines are sufficiently robust to different kinds of noise, does not require image pre-processing, and can be used with...

Employers' Perceptions of Graduate Competencies and Future Trends in Higher Vocational Education in China

Science.gov (United States)

Velde, Christine

2009-01-01

The Chinese economy is now a major driver of growth in the world economy. As a consequence, significant reforms were introduced which impacted on its educational systems. China is facing unprecedented pressure to produce skilled individuals to meet the demands of this rapid growth. China is in the unique position of operating in a dual system,…

Hunger strikers: historical perspectives from the emergency management of refugee camp asylum seekers.

Science.gov (United States)

Burkle, Frederick M; Chan, Jimmy T S; Yeung, Richard D S

2013-12-01

The treatment of hunger strikers is always contentious, chaotic and complex. The management is particularly difficult for health professionals as it raises unprecedented clinical, ethical, moral, humanitarian, and legal questions. There are never any easy answers. The current situation of prisoners from the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars currently at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center in Cuba demands unprecedented transparency, accountability and multilevel coordination to ensure that the rights of the strikers are properly met. There are scant references available in the scientific literature on the emergency management of these tragedies. This historical perspective documents the complex issues faced by emergency physicians in Hong Kong surrounding refugee camp asylum seekers from Vietnam in 1994 and is offered as a useful adjunct in understanding the complex issues faced by emergency health providers and managers.

Optimal Ordering and Pricing Policies for Seasonal Products: Impacts of Demand Uncertainty and Capital Constraint

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jinzhao Shi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available With a stochastic price-dependent market demand, this paper investigates how demand uncertainty and capital constraint affect retailer’s integrated ordering and pricing policies towards seasonal products. The retailer with capital constraint is normalized to be with zero capital endowment while it can be financed by an external bank. The problems are studied under a low and high demand uncertainty scenario, respectively. Results show that when demand uncertainty level is relatively low, the retailer faced with demand uncertainty always sets a lower price than the riskless one, while its order quantity may be smaller or larger than the riskless retailer’s which depends on the level of market size. When adding a capital constraint, the retailer will strictly prefer a higher price but smaller quantity policy. However, in a high demand uncertainty scenario, the impacts are more intricate. The retailer faced with demand uncertainty will always order a larger quantity than the riskless one if demand uncertainty level is high enough (above a critical value, while the capital-constrained retailer is likely to set a lower price than the well-funded one when demand uncertainty level falls within a specific interval. Therefore, it can be further concluded that the impact of capital constraint on the retailer’s pricing decision can be influenced by different demand uncertainty levels.

5-HT7 Receptor Antagonists with an Unprecedented Selectivity Profile.

Science.gov (United States)

Ates, Ali; Burssens, Pierre; Lorthioir, Olivier; Lo Brutto, Patrick; Dehon, Gwenael; Keyaerts, Jean; Coloretti, Francis; Lallemand, Bénédicte; Verbois, Valérie; Gillard, Michel; Vermeiren, Céline

2018-04-23

Selective leads: In this study, we generated a new series of serotonin 5-HT 7 receptor antagonists. Their synthesis, structure-activity relationships, and selectivity profiles are reported. This series includes 5-HT 7 antagonists with unprecedented high selectivity for the 5-HT 7 receptor, setting the stage for lead optimization of drugs acting on a range of neurological targets. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Electric demand and the antinuclear movement

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Studness, C.M.

1984-01-01

The author feels that, with electric demand growth of 4.5 to 5% per year expected, it will be only a matter of time before stepping-up the stream of utility capacity additions becomes an important issue. If demand grows 4.5% per year instead of 2.8% as projected by NERC, demand will be 10% higher and peak reserve margins about 12 percentage points lower than envisioned by the NERC projections after five years. By 1988 or 1989, little or no excess capacity will remain, and the utilities will be faced with adding twice as much capacity annually as now planned to avoid service deterioration. As questions about the adequacy of current utility capacity plans and concerns about service quality move toward center stage, the antinuclear movement should find it increasingly difficult to garner the broad support it now enjoys. Capacity represented by any uncompleted nuclear plants will appear increasingly beneficial, and those who do not have strong antinuclear sentiments should become increasingly hesitant about lending support to the movement. Accordingly, electric demand growth in due course can be expected to drain marginal supporters from the antinuclear movement and thereby erode the movement's vitality

Trading the Economic Value of Unsatisfied Municipal Water Demand

Science.gov (United States)

Telfah, Dua'a. B.; Minciardi, Riccardo; Roth, Giorgio

2018-06-01

Modelling and optimization techniques for water resources allocation are proposed to identify the economic value of the unsatisfied municipal water demand against demands emerging from other sectors. While this is always an important step in integrated water resource management perspective, it became crucial for water scarce Countries. In fact, since the competition for the resource is high, they are in crucial need to trade values which will help them in satisfying their policies and needs. In this framework, hydro-economic, social equity and environmental constraints need to be satisfied. In the present study, a hydro-economic decision model based on optimization schemes has been developed for water resources allocation, that enable the evaluation of the economic cost of a deficiency in fulfilling the municipal demand. Moreover, the model enables efficient water resources management, satisfying the demand and proposing additional water resources options. The formulated model is designed to maximize the demand satisfaction and minimize water production cost subject to system priorities, preferences and constraints. The demand priorities are defined based on the effect of demand dissatisfaction, while hydrogeological and physical characteristics of the resources are embedded as constraints in the optimization problem. The application to the City of Amman is presented. Amman is the Capital City of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a Country located in the south-eastern area of the Mediterranean, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. The main challenge for Jordan, that threat the development and prosperity of all sectors, is the extreme water scarcity. In fact, Jordan is classified as semi-arid to arid region with limited financial resources and unprecedented population growth. While the easy solution directly goes to the simple but expensive approach to cover the demand, case study results show that the proposed model plays a major role in providing directions to

Trading the Economic Value of Unsatisfied Municipal Water Demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

D. B. Telfah

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Modelling and optimization techniques for water resources allocation are proposed to identify the economic value of the unsatisfied municipal water demand against demands emerging from other sectors. While this is always an important step in integrated water resource management perspective, it became crucial for water scarce Countries. In fact, since the competition for the resource is high, they are in crucial need to trade values which will help them in satisfying their policies and needs. In this framework, hydro-economic, social equity and environmental constraints need to be satisfied. In the present study, a hydro-economic decision model based on optimization schemes has been developed for water resources allocation, that enable the evaluation of the economic cost of a deficiency in fulfilling the municipal demand. Moreover, the model enables efficient water resources management, satisfying the demand and proposing additional water resources options. The formulated model is designed to maximize the demand satisfaction and minimize water production cost subject to system priorities, preferences and constraints. The demand priorities are defined based on the effect of demand dissatisfaction, while hydrogeological and physical characteristics of the resources are embedded as constraints in the optimization problem. The application to the City of Amman is presented. Amman is the Capital City of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, a Country located in the south-eastern area of the Mediterranean, on the East Bank of the Jordan River. The main challenge for Jordan, that threat the development and prosperity of all sectors, is the extreme water scarcity. In fact, Jordan is classified as semi-arid to arid region with limited financial resources and unprecedented population growth. While the easy solution directly goes to the simple but expensive approach to cover the demand, case study results show that the proposed model plays a major role in

Promotion COPERNIC Energy and Society the interrogations on the world demand evolution; Promotion COPERNIC Energie et Societe les interrogations sur l'evolution de la demande mondiale

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2001-12-15

In the framework of a prospective reflexion emergence on the energy demand, this document presents an analysis of the prospective approach and of recent studies: challenges, interests, limits, validity of the models and hypothesis and results relevance. With this analysis, the authors aim to identify the main interrogations bond to the world energy demand evolution. They then analyse these interrogations in the framework of a sectoral approach (agriculture, industry, transports, residential) in order to detail the demand and to forecast the evolution. Facing the consumption attitudes, they also suggest some new action avenues to favor a sustainable growth. (A.L.B.)

Opportunities for Demand Response in California Agricultural Irrigation: A Scoping Study

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Marks, Gary [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Wilcox, Edmund [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Olsen, Daniel [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Goli, Sasank [Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

2013-01-02

California agricultural irrigation consumes more than ten billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and has significant potential for contributing to a reduction of stress on the grid through demand response, permanent load shifting, and energy efficiency measures. To understand this potential, a scoping study was initiated for the purpose of determining the associated opportunities, potential, and adoption challenges in California agricultural irrigation. The primary research for this study was conducted in two ways. First, data was gathered and parsed from published sources that shed light on where the best opportunities for load shifting and demand response lie within the agricultural irrigation sector. Secondly, a small limited survey was conducted as informal face-to-face interviews with several different California growers to get an idea of their ability and willingness to participate in permanent load shifting and/or demand response programs. Analysis of the data obtained from published sources and the survey reveal demand response and permanent load shifting opportunities by growing region, irrigation source, irrigation method, grower size, and utility coverage. The study examines some solutions for demand response and permanent load shifting in agricultural irrigation, which include adequate irrigation system capacity, automatic controls, variable frequency drives, and the contribution from energy efficiency measures. The study further examines the potential and challenges for grower acceptance of demand response and permanent load shifting in California agricultural irrigation. As part of the examination, the study considers to what extent permanent load shifting, which is already somewhat accepted within the agricultural sector, mitigates the need or benefit of demand response for agricultural irrigation. Recommendations for further study include studies on how to gain grower acceptance of demand response as well as other related studies such as

The own-age face recognition bias is task dependent.

Science.gov (United States)

Proietti, Valentina; Macchi Cassia, Viola; Mondloch, Catherine J

2015-08-01

The own-age bias (OAB) in face recognition (more accurate recognition of own-age than other-age faces) is robust among young adults but not older adults. We investigated the OAB under two different task conditions. In Experiment 1 young and older adults (who reported more recent experience with own than other-age faces) completed a match-to-sample task with young and older adult faces; only young adults showed an OAB. In Experiment 2 young and older adults completed an identity detection task in which we manipulated the identity strength of target and distracter identities by morphing each face with an average face in 20% steps. Accuracy increased with identity strength and facial age influenced older adults' (but not younger adults') strategy, but there was no evidence of an OAB. Collectively, these results suggest that the OAB depends on task demands and may be absent when searching for one identity. © 2014 The British Psychological Society.

Inventory control for a perishable product with non-stationary demand and service level constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pauls-Worm, K.G.J.; Hendrix, E.M.T.; Haijema, R.; Vorst, van der J.G.A.J.

2013-01-01

We study the practical production planning problem of a food producer facing a non-stationary erratic demand for a perishable product with a fixed life time. In meeting the uncertain demand, the food producer uses a FIFO issuing policy. The food producer aims at meeting a certain service level at

Uranium. Resources, production and demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

1997-01-01

The events characterising the world uranium market in the last several years illustrate the persistent uncertainly faced by uranium producers and consumers worldwide. With world nuclear capacity expanding and uranium production satisfying only about 60 per cent of demand, uranium stockpiles continue to be depleted at a high rate. The uncertainty related to the remaining levels of world uranium stockpiles and to the amount of surplus defence material that will be entering the market makes it difficult to determine when a closer balance between uranium supply and demand will be reached. Information in this report provides insights into changes expected in uranium supply and demand until well into the next century. The 'Red Book', jointly prepared by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency, is the foremost reference on uranium. This world report is based on official information from 59 countries and includes compilations of statistics on resources, exploration, production and demand as of 1 January 1997. It provides substantial new information from all of the major uranium producing centres in Africa, Australia, Eastern Europe, North America and the New Independent States, including the first-ever official reports on uranium production in Estonia, Mongolia, the Russian Federation and Uzbekistan. It also contains an international expert analysis of industry statistics and worldwide projections of nuclear energy growth, uranium requirements and uranium supply

Promotion COPERNIC Energy and Society the interrogations on the world demand evolution; Promotion COPERNIC Energie et Societe les interrogations sur l'evolution de la demande mondiale

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

NONE

2001-12-15

In the framework of a prospective reflexion emergence on the energy demand, this document presents an analysis of the prospective approach and of recent studies: challenges, interests, limits, validity of the models and hypothesis and results relevance. With this analysis, the authors aim to identify the main interrogations bond to the world energy demand evolution. They then analyse these interrogations in the framework of a sectoral approach (agriculture, industry, transports, residential) in order to detail the demand and to forecast the evolution. Facing the consumption attitudes, they also suggest some new action avenues to favor a sustainable growth. (A.L.B.)

The Challenges Facing Catholic Education in France Today

Science.gov (United States)

Moog, François

2016-01-01

The effects of secularisation on society demand a rethinking of the identity and mission of Catholic schools in France. In 2013, the French bishops published a new directory which offers new approaches, described here, based on the three challenges facing Catholic education in France: linking social responsibility and evangelisation, setting up…

Railing for safety: job demands, job control, and safety citizenship role definition.

Science.gov (United States)

Turner, Nick; Chmiel, Nik; Walls, Melanie

2005-10-01

This study investigated job demands and job control as predictors of safety citizenship role definition, that is, employees' role orientation toward improving workplace safety. Data from a survey of 334 trackside workers were framed in the context of R. A. Karasek's (1979) job demands-control model. High job demands were negatively related to safety citizenship role definition, whereas high job control was positively related to this construct. Safety citizenship role definition of employees with high job control was buffered from the influence of high job demands, unlike that of employees with low job control, for whom high job demands were related to lower levels of the construct. Employees facing both high job demands and low job control were less likely than other employees to view improving safety as part of their role orientation. Copyright (c) 2005 APA, all rights reserved.

China's refiners face massive overhaul, expansion to meet demand growth, new crude slate

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1994-01-01

China's refining industry has embarked on a massive overhaul and expansion to accommodate soaring domestic growth in refined products demand. Currently that growth in demand is being met by increasing imports of refined products, in recent years attaining triple digit growth rates and squeezing direly needed foreign exchange. The focus is on adding refining capacity of about 1.4 million b/d to the current capacity of about 3.2 million b/d by 2000. Priority for increasing capacity is being given to expanding existing refineries and participating in foreign joint venture grassroots refineries along China's booming coastal regions as well as hiking output. A major challenge for China's refineries is that country's reentry into the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), recently signed in Morocco by more than 100 nations. The accompanying reduction of tariffs on imported refined products will make it more difficult for China's marginal refineries to compete in the domestic market. The paper discusses imports and exports, LPG outlook, refining capacity, revamps needed, third party processing, China's first joint venture refinery, industry plans, and GATT challenges

An MILP approximation for ordering perishable products with non-stationary demand and service level constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pauls-Worm, K.G.J.; Hendrix, E.M.T.; Haijema, R.; Vorst, van der J.G.A.J.

2014-01-01

We study the practical production planning problem of a food producer facing a non-stationary erratic demand for a perishable product with a fixed life time. In meeting the uncertain demand, the food producer uses a FIFO issuing policy. The food producer aims at meeting a certain service level at

Stepped Care Versus Direct Face-to-Face Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Social Anxiety Disorder and Panic Disorder: A Randomized Effectiveness Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Nordgreen, Tine; Haug, Thomas; Öst, Lars-Göran; Andersson, Gerhard; Carlbring, Per; Kvale, Gerd; Tangen, Tone; Heiervang, Einar; Havik, Odd E

2016-03-01

The aim of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) stepped care model (psychoeducation, guided Internet treatment, and face-to-face CBT) compared with direct face-to-face (FtF) CBT. Patients with panic disorder or social anxiety disorder were randomized to either stepped care (n=85) or direct FtF CBT (n=88). Recovery was defined as meeting two of the following three criteria: loss of diagnosis, below cut-off for self-reported symptoms, and functional improvement. No significant differences in intention-to-treat recovery rates were identified between stepped care (40.0%) and direct FtF CBT (43.2%). The majority of the patients who recovered in the stepped care did so at the less therapist-demanding steps (26/34, 76.5%). Moderate to large within-groups effect sizes were identified at posttreatment and 1-year follow-up. The attrition rates were high: 41.2% in the stepped care condition and 27.3% in the direct FtF CBT condition. These findings indicate that the outcome of a stepped care model for anxiety disorders is comparable to that of direct FtF CBT. The rates of improvement at the two less therapist-demanding steps indicate that stepped care models might be useful for increasing patients' access to evidence-based psychological treatments for anxiety disorders. However, attrition in the stepped care condition was high, and research regarding the factors that can improve adherence should be prioritized. Copyright © 2015. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Influence of India’s transformation on residential energy demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bhattacharyya, Subhes C.

2015-01-01

Highlights: • The middle income group emerges as the dominant segment by 2030. • Commercial residential energy demand increases 3–4 folds compared to 2010. • Electricity and LPG demand grows above 6% per year in the reference scenario. • India faces the potential of displacing the domination of biomass by 2030. - Abstract: India’s recent macro-economic and structural changes are transforming the economy and bringing significant changes to energy demand behaviour. Life-style and consumption behaviour are evolving rapidly due to accelerated economic growth in recent times. The population structure is changing, thereby offering the country with the potential to reap the population dividend. The country is also urbanising rapidly, and the fast-growing middle class segment of the population is fuelling consumerism by mimicking international life-styles. These changes are likely to have significant implications for energy demand in the future, particularly in the residential sector. Using the end-use approach of demand analysis, this paper analyses how residential energy demand is likely to evolve as a consequence of India’s transformation and finds that by 2030, India’s commercial energy demand in the residential sector can quadruple in the high scenario compared to the demand in 2010. Demand for modern fuels like electricity and liquefied petroleum gas is likely to grow at a faster rate. However, there is a window of opportunity to better manage the evolution of residential demand in India through energy efficiency improvement

Decoding task-based attentional modulation during face categorization.

Science.gov (United States)

Chiu, Yu-Chin; Esterman, Michael; Han, Yuefeng; Rosen, Heather; Yantis, Steven

2011-05-01

Attention is a neurocognitive mechanism that selects task-relevant sensory or mnemonic information to achieve current behavioral goals. Attentional modulation of cortical activity has been observed when attention is directed to specific locations, features, or objects. However, little is known about how high-level categorization task set modulates perceptual representations. In the current study, observers categorized faces by gender (male vs. female) or race (Asian vs. White). Each face was perceptually ambiguous in both dimensions, such that categorization of one dimension demanded selective attention to task-relevant information within the face. We used multivoxel pattern classification to show that task-specific modulations evoke reliably distinct spatial patterns of activity within three face-selective cortical regions (right fusiform face area and bilateral occipital face areas). This result suggests that patterns of activity in these regions reflect not only stimulus-specific (i.e., faces vs. houses) responses but also task-specific (i.e., race vs. gender) attentional modulation. Furthermore, exploratory whole-brain multivoxel pattern classification (using a searchlight procedure) revealed a network of dorsal fronto-parietal regions (left middle frontal gyrus and left inferior and superior parietal lobule) that also exhibit distinct patterns for the two task sets, suggesting that these regions may represent abstract goals during high-level categorization tasks.

A Simple Framework for Face Photo-Sketch Synthesis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xuewei Li

2012-01-01

Full Text Available This paper proposes a simple framework for face photo-sketch synthesis. We first describe the shadow details on faces and extract the prominent facial feature by two-scale decomposition using bilateral filtering. Then, we enhance the hair and some unapparent facial feature regions by combining the edge map and hair color similarity map. Finally, we obtain the face photo sketch by adding the results of the two processes. Compared with current methods, the proposed framework demands non feature localization, training or iteration process, creating vivid hair in sketch synthesis, and process arbitrary lighting conditions of input images, especially for complex self-shadows. And more importantly, it can be easily expanded to natural scene. The effectiveness of the presented framework is evaluated on a variety of databases.

Production control and supplier selection under demand disruptions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Xianzhe Chen

2010-12-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates the effects of demand disruptions on production control and supplier selection in a three-echelon supply chain system. The customer demand is modeled as a jump-diffusion process in a continuous-time setting. A two-number production-inventory policy is implemented in the production control model for the manufacturer. The objective is to minimize the long-term average total cost consisting of backlog cost, holding cost, switching cost, and ordering cost. The simulated annealing method is applied to search the optimal critical switching values. Furthermore, an improved analytical hierarchy process (AHP is proposed to select the best supplier, based on quantitative factors such as the optimal long-term total cost obtained through the simulated annealing method under demand disruptions and qualitative factors such as quality and service. Numerical studies are conducted to demonstrate the effects of demand disruptions in the face of various risk scenarios. Managerial insights from simulation results are provided as well. Our approaches can be implemented as the “stress test” for companies in front of various supply chain disruption scenarios.

Satisfying the demand for financial information in public traded companies

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Holm, Claus

A public traded company which wishes to comply with IAS standards and stock exchange requirements for full public disclosure of relevant information faces a major communication task. The Investor Relation policy of such a company has to satisfy a demand for financial information which seems...... line focus to the disclosure of cash flow surrogates like EBITA and EBITDA. Overall, the findings suggest a communication strategy intended to satisfy the demand from the professional analysts. However, the shear number of different key figures and financial ratios identified in the study suggest...

Enhancing Mathematics Learning Through Peer Assessment Using Mobile Tablet Based Solutions

OpenAIRE

Isabwe, Ghislain Maurice Norbert

2013-01-01

Doktorgradsavhandling i informasjons- og kommunikasjonsteknologi, Universitetet i Agder, Grimstad, 2013 Higher education is facing unprecedented challenges with an increasing demand for high quality education, driven by tougher global competition. Student numbers are fast growing at most universities, whereas the sources of funding are not proportionally increasing. Subsequently, the teaching staff’s workload gets higher and higher hence putting the quality standards at risk. A...

Managerial accounting in the telecommunications sector: a view from Europe (Editorial)

OpenAIRE

Major, M.

2013-01-01

Unprecedented changes have occurred in the European telecommunications industry in the last 15 years. Broadly those changes have followed transformations in the international telecommunications market. Technological innovation, growing customer demand, and pressures from the European Union and the World Trade Organization for deregulation, have been the main forces for change. When companies were faced with the prospect of competition being introduced into the EU telecommunications market, mo...

Promotion COPERNIC Energy and Society the interrogations on the world demand evolution

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2001-12-01

In the framework of a prospective reflexion emergence on the energy demand, this document presents an analysis of the prospective approach and of recent studies: challenges, interests, limits, validity of the models and hypothesis and results relevance. With this analysis, the authors aim to identify the main interrogations bond to the world energy demand evolution. They then analyse these interrogations in the framework of a sectoral approach (agriculture, industry, transports, residential) in order to detail the demand and to forecast the evolution. Facing the consumption attitudes, they also suggest some new action avenues to favor a sustainable growth. (A.L.B.)

Invariant Face recognition Using Infrared Images

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zahran, E.G.

2012-01-01

Over the past few decades, face recognition has become a rapidly growing research topic due to the increasing demands in many applications of our daily life such as airport surveillance, personal identification in law enforcement, surveillance systems, information safety, securing financial transactions, and computer security. The objective of this thesis is to develop a face recognition system capable of recognizing persons with a high recognition capability, low processing time, and under different illumination conditions, and different facial expressions. The thesis presents a study for the performance of the face recognition system using two techniques; the Principal Component Analysis (PCA), and the Zernike Moments (ZM). The performance of the recognition system is evaluated according to several aspects including the recognition rate, and the processing time. Face recognition systems that use visual images are sensitive to variations in the lighting conditions and facial expressions. The performance of these systems may be degraded under poor illumination conditions or for subjects of various skin colors. Several solutions have been proposed to overcome these limitations. One of these solutions is to work in the Infrared (IR) spectrum. IR images have been suggested as an alternative source of information for detection and recognition of faces, when there is little or no control over lighting conditions. This arises from the fact that these images are formed due to thermal emissions from skin, which is an intrinsic property because these emissions depend on the distribution of blood vessels under the skin. On the other hand IR face recognition systems still have limitations with temperature variations and recognition of persons wearing eye glasses. In this thesis we will fuse IR images with visible images to enhance the performance of face recognition systems. Images are fused using the wavelet transform. Simulation results show that the fusion of visible and

Model collaboration for improved assessment of biomass supply, demand and impacts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wicke, B.; et al, .

2014-01-01

Existing assessments of biomass supply and demand and their impacts face various types of limitations and uncertainties, partly due to the type of tools and methods applied (e.g., partial representation of sectors, lack of geographical details, and aggregated representation of technologies

Using System Dynamics to Explore the Water Supply and Demand Dilemmas of a Small South African Municipality

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Clifford Holmes, J.K.; Slinger, J.H.; Musango, J.K.; Brent, A.C.; Palmer, C.G.

2014-01-01

This paper explores the challenges faced by small municipalities in providing water services in a developing-world context of increasing urban demand. The paper uses a case study of the Sundays River Valley Municipality (SRVM) in South Africa. The municipality faces multiple dilemmas in reconciling

WIPP startup: Overcoming unprecedented challenges

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hunt, Arlen E.

1992-01-01

Since its authorization by the U.S. Congress in Public Law 96-164, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant Program has achieved significant progress. Subsequent to a Record of Decision based on the October 1980 Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS), the scientific and engineering challenge of constructing a 100-acre mined repository to demonstrate the safe and environmentally sound disposal of defense program generated transuranic waste became reality. Since initial conception, however, a complex program has evolved. Demonstration of compliance with the requirements of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) disposal Standards defined in 10 CFR 191, Subpart B (yet to be repromulgated), became prerequisites to a disposal decision. On June 13, 1990, based on a supplement to the 1980 FEIS, the decision was made to redefine the program to include a formal test phase. This decision required an addendum to the Final Safety Analysis Report to assure commitment to safety considerations, an intensive operational readiness review effort, and the need for a No-Migration Determination for the Environmental Protection Agency. In addition to meeting the technical challenges, the need to satisfy a broad spectrum of oversight groups (some directly funded by the Department of Energy) was required. With the decision making process publicly displayed on the Secretary of Energy's Decision Plan, the unprecedented challenges of the WIPP Program were painstakingly met, one by one, in an accountable and visible manner. (author)

Four year-olds use norm-based coding for face identity.

Science.gov (United States)

Jeffery, Linda; Read, Ainsley; Rhodes, Gillian

2013-05-01

Norm-based coding, in which faces are coded as deviations from an average face, is an efficient way of coding visual patterns that share a common structure and must be distinguished by subtle variations that define individuals. Adults and school-aged children use norm-based coding for face identity but it is not yet known if pre-school aged children also use norm-based coding. We reasoned that the transition to school could be critical in developing a norm-based system because school places new demands on children's face identification skills and substantially increases experience with faces. Consistent with this view, face identification performance improves steeply between ages 4 and 7. We used face identity aftereffects to test whether norm-based coding emerges between these ages. We found that 4 year-old children, like adults, showed larger face identity aftereffects for adaptors far from the average than for adaptors closer to the average, consistent with use of norm-based coding. We conclude that experience prior to age 4 is sufficient to develop a norm-based face-space and that failure to use norm-based coding cannot explain 4 year-old children's poor face identification skills. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The Monolingual Lusoga Dictionary Faced with Demands from a New User Category

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Minah Nabirye

2011-10-01

Full Text Available

ABSTRACT: In this article, a case is presented of an existing dictionary that is aimed at users with a minimum of primary 7 education, now faced with demands from users in primary 1–3. The reason for this demand is the result of the fact that Lusoga is currently being implemented as a medium of instruction in Uganda, in an environment where there is hardly any literature to serve the intended purpose. A review of the existing literature in and on Lusoga shows that the monolingual Lusoga dictionary — Eiwanika ly'Olusoga (WSG — is the only reference work with essential information, in Lusoga, that can initiate the teaching of Lusoga at the elementary level. Although the information in the WSG may fit the purpose at hand, that information is mainly presented as a summary, with statements of conclusions only. Explanations to ease its access to the new user are thus missing. Findings from a pilot study conducted by the National Curriculum Development Centre on the implementation of the teaching of Lusoga reveal that the new user is not only the primary 1–3 pupil, but also the teacher who will need to instruct that pupil. Since children's literature requires additional consideration beyond what can be presently availed, and since the WSG was actually compiled for an advanced user, the focus is shifted from the primary 1–3 pupil to the primary teacher. For that teacher, it is suggested to compile an additional Guide, expanding on the various extra-matter texts and especially the Language Portrait found in the WSG. This is done on the assumption that once the information is expanded and re-represented, a teacher will be able to combine the information in the Guide with that in the WSG, in order to make a Lusoga syllabus from which to draft Lusoga lessons. Although the ideal would of course be to be able to produce fully-fledged customised primers from scratch, this article's main argument is that in the absence of both human and financial

Revisiting the earliest electrophysiological correlate of familiar face recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Huang, Wanyi; Wu, Xia; Hu, Liping; Wang, Lei; Ding, Yulong; Qu, Zhe

2017-10-01

The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to reinvestigate the earliest face familiarity effect (FFE: ERP differences between familiar and unfamiliar faces) that genuinely reflects cognitive processes underlying recognition of familiar faces in long-term memory. To trigger relatively early FFEs, participants were required to categorize upright and inverted famous faces and unknown faces in a task that placed high demand on face recognition. More importantly, to determine whether an observed FFE was linked to on-line face recognition, systematical investigation about the relationship between the FFE and behavioral performance of face recognition was conducted. The results showed significant FFEs on P1, N170, N250, and P300 waves. The FFEs on occipital P1 and N170 (faces, and were not correlated with any behavioral measure (accuracy, response time) or modulated by learning, indicating that they might merely reflect low-level visual differences between face sets. In contrast, the later FFEs on occipito-temporal N250 (~230ms) and centro-parietal P300 (~350ms) showed consistent polarities for upright and inverted faces. The N250 FFE was individually correlated with recognition speed for upright faces, and could be obtained for inverted faces through learning. The P300 FFE was also related to behavior in many aspects. These findings provide novel evidence supporting that cognitive discrimination of familiar and unfamiliar faces starts no less than 200ms after stimulus onset, and the familiarity effect on N250 may be the first electrophysiological correlate underlying recognition of familiar faces in long-term memory. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Estimating U.S. residential demand for fuelwood in the presence of selectivity

Science.gov (United States)

Daly, Ryan Michael

Residential energy consumers have options for home heating. With many applications, appliances, and fuel types, fuelwood used for heating faces stiff competition in modern society from other fuels. This study estimates demand for domestic fuelwood. It also examines whether evidence of bias exists from residential homes choosing to use fuelwood. The use of OLS as an estimator will yield biased results if such selectivity exists. Selectivity is addressed with a Heckman (1979) two-step procedure; bias in fuelwood demand estimation using OLS is reduced. Non-wood energy prices and income are major determinants of fuelwood demand. Geographical regions and urbanization confirm results from prior studies.

The energy supply and demand outlook in the Asia-Pacific region

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fesharaki, Fereidun; Yamaguchi, Nancy

1992-01-01

The 1980s witnessed spectacular growth rates in the Asia-Pacific region, the rising economic power of Japan, an unprecedented opening of China's economy, the emergence of the ''Four Tigers'' or the ''Little Dragons'' (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong), a rapid growth of exports from the region - in short, remarkable economic success and an increase in entrepreneurialism and the free-market philosophy. Even the United States, which historically has been Atlantic-oriented, sat up and took notice. While the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption is not necessarily one-to-one, energy is a required input for economic activity and trade. Energy demand growth in the Asia-Pacific region has been accordingly rapid. At this point in history, oil and economic growth are so interrelated that changes in one invariably have major repercussions on the other. During the coming decade, continued economic growth is foreseen for the Asia-Pacific region, coupled with the fastest rate of oil demand growth of any region on Earth. Pressure will come to bear on the regional oil and gas markets, since demand growth will take place concurrently with a decline in the availability of local, low-sulphur crudes. The region will become even more dependent on imports of Middle Eastern crude, which will result in a higher-sulphur crude slate. Moreover, we anticipate that the existing and planned refinery complexes will lack the capacity and the flexibility to fully satisfy product demand. The consequence will be a higher level of refined product imports. (author)

The energy supply and demand outlook in the Asia-Pacific region

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Fesharaki, Fereidun; Yamaguchi, Nancy (East-West Centre, Honolulu, Hawaii (US))

The 1980s witnessed spectacular growth rates in the Asia-Pacific region, the rising economic power of Japan, an unprecedented opening of China's economy, the emergence of the ''Four Tigers'' or the ''Little Dragons'' (Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong), a rapid growth of exports from the region - in short, remarkable economic success and an increase in entrepreneurialism and the free-market philosophy. Even the United States, which historically has been Atlantic-oriented, sat up and took notice. While the relationship between economic growth and energy consumption is not necessarily one-to-one, energy is a required input for economic activity and trade. Energy demand growth in the Asia-Pacific region has been accordingly rapid. At this point in history, oil and economic growth are so interrelated that changes in one invariably have major repercussions on the other. During the coming decade, continued economic growth is foreseen for the Asia-Pacific region, coupled with the fastest rate of oil demand growth of any region on Earth. Pressure will come to bear on the regional oil and gas markets, since demand growth will take place concurrently with a decline in the availability of local, low-sulphur crudes. The region will become even more dependent on imports of Middle Eastern crude, which will result in a higher-sulphur crude slate. Moreover, we anticipate that the existing and planned refinery complexes will lack the capacity and the flexibility to fully satisfy product demand. The consequence will be a higher level of refined product imports. (author).

Face-gender discrimination is possible in the near-absence of attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Reddy, Leila; Wilken, Patrick; Koch, Christof

2004-03-02

The attentional cost associated with the visual discrimination of the gender of a face was investigated. Participants performed a face-gender discrimination task either alone (single-task) or concurrently (dual-task) with a known attentional demanding task (5-letter T/L discrimination). Overall performance on face-gender discrimination suffered remarkably little under the dual-task condition compared to the single-task condition. Similar results were obtained in experiments that controlled for potential training effects or the use of low-level cues in this discrimination task. Our results provide further evidence against the notion that only low-level representations can be accessed outside the focus of attention.

Source Reconstruction of Brain Potentials Using Bayesian Model Averaging to Analyze Face Intra-Domain vs. Face-Occupation Cross-Domain Processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Olivares, Ela I; Lage-Castellanos, Agustín; Bobes, María A; Iglesias, Jaime

2018-01-01

We investigated the neural correlates of the access to and retrieval of face structure information in contrast to those concerning the access to and retrieval of person-related verbal information, triggered by faces. We experimentally induced stimulus familiarity via a systematic learning procedure including faces with and without associated verbal information. Then, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs) in both intra-domain (face-feature) and cross-domain (face-occupation) matching tasks while N400-like responses were elicited by incorrect eyes-eyebrows completions and occupations, respectively. A novel Bayesian source reconstruction approach plus conjunction analysis of group effects revealed that in both cases the generated N170s were of similar amplitude but had different neural origin. Thus, whereas the N170 of faces was associated predominantly to right fusiform and occipital regions (the so-called "Fusiform Face Area", "FFA" and "Occipital Face Area", "OFA", respectively), the N170 of occupations was associated to a bilateral very posterior activity, suggestive of basic perceptual processes. Importantly, the right-sided perceptual P200 and the face-related N250 were evoked exclusively in the intra-domain task, with sources in OFA and extensively in the fusiform region, respectively. Regarding later latencies, the intra-domain N400 seemed to be generated in right posterior brain regions encompassing mainly OFA and, to some extent, the FFA, likely reflecting neural operations triggered by structural incongruities. In turn, the cross-domain N400 was related to more anterior left-sided fusiform and temporal inferior sources, paralleling those described previously for the classic verbal N400. These results support the existence of differentiated neural streams for face structure and person-related verbal processing triggered by faces, which can be activated differentially according to specific task demands.

Source Reconstruction of Brain Potentials Using Bayesian Model Averaging to Analyze Face Intra-Domain vs. Face-Occupation Cross-Domain Processing

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ela I. Olivares

2018-03-01

Full Text Available We investigated the neural correlates of the access to and retrieval of face structure information in contrast to those concerning the access to and retrieval of person-related verbal information, triggered by faces. We experimentally induced stimulus familiarity via a systematic learning procedure including faces with and without associated verbal information. Then, we recorded event-related potentials (ERPs in both intra-domain (face-feature and cross-domain (face-occupation matching tasks while N400-like responses were elicited by incorrect eyes-eyebrows completions and occupations, respectively. A novel Bayesian source reconstruction approach plus conjunction analysis of group effects revealed that in both cases the generated N170s were of similar amplitude but had different neural origin. Thus, whereas the N170 of faces was associated predominantly to right fusiform and occipital regions (the so-called “Fusiform Face Area”, “FFA” and “Occipital Face Area”, “OFA”, respectively, the N170 of occupations was associated to a bilateral very posterior activity, suggestive of basic perceptual processes. Importantly, the right-sided perceptual P200 and the face-related N250 were evoked exclusively in the intra-domain task, with sources in OFA and extensively in the fusiform region, respectively. Regarding later latencies, the intra-domain N400 seemed to be generated in right posterior brain regions encompassing mainly OFA and, to some extent, the FFA, likely reflecting neural operations triggered by structural incongruities. In turn, the cross-domain N400 was related to more anterior left-sided fusiform and temporal inferior sources, paralleling those described previously for the classic verbal N400. These results support the existence of differentiated neural streams for face structure and person-related verbal processing triggered by faces, which can be activated differentially according to specific task demands.

Model collaboration for the improved assessment of biomass supply, demand, and impacts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wicke, Birka; van der Hilst, Floortje; Daioglou, Vasileios; Banse, Martin; Beringer, Tim; Gerssen - Gondelach, Sarah; Heijnen, Sanne; Karssenberg, Derek; Laborde, David; Lippe, Melvin; van Meijl, Hans; Nassar, André; Powell, Jeff; Prins, Anne Gerdien; Rose, Steve N K; Smeets, Edward M W; Stehfest, Elke; Tyner, Wallace E.; Verstegen, Judith A.; Valin, Hugo; van Vuuren, Detlef P.; Yeh, Sonia; Faaij, André P C

Existing assessments of biomass supply and demand and their impacts face various types of limitations and uncertainties, partly due to the type of tools and methods applied (e.g., partial representation of sectors, lack of geographical details, and aggregated representation of technologies

Model collaboration for the improved assessment of biomass supply, demand, and impacts

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wicke, B.; Hilst, van der F.; Daioglou, V.; Banse, M.; Beringer, T.; Gerssen-Gondelach, S.; Heijnen, S.; Karssenberg, D.; Laborde, D.; Lippe, M.; Meijl, van H.; Nassar, A.; Powell, J.P.; Prins, A.G.; Rose, S.N.K.; Smeets, E.M.W.; Stehfest, E.; Tyner, W.E.; Verstegen, J.A.; Valin, H.; Vuuren, van D.P.; Yeh, S.; Faaij, A.P.C.

2015-01-01

Existing assessments of biomass supply and demand and their impacts face various types of limitations and uncertainties, partly due to the type of tools and methods applied (e.g., partial representation of sectors, lack of geographical details, and aggregated representation of technologies

Telephone versus face-to-face administration of the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, for diagnosis of psychotic disorders.

Science.gov (United States)

Hajebi, Ahmad; Motevalian, Abbas; Amin-Esmaeili, Masoumeh; Hefazi, Mitra; Radgoodarzi, Reza; Rahimi-Movaghar, Afarin; Sharifi, Vandad

2012-07-01

The current study aims to compare telephone vs face-to-face administration of the version of Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, (SCID) for diagnosis of "any psychotic disorder" in a clinical population in Iran. The sample consisted of 72 subjects from 2 psychiatric outpatient services in Tehran, Iran. The subjects were interviewed using face-to-face SCID for the purpose of diagnosing psychotic disorders. A second independent telephone SCID was administered to the entire sample within 5 to 10 days, and the lifetime and 12-month diagnoses were compared. The positive likelihood ratio of telephone-administered SCID for diagnosis of "any lifetime psychotic disorder" was 5.1 when compared with the face-to-face SCID. The value for the primary psychotic disorders in the past 12 months was lower (2.3). The data indicate that telephone administration of the SCID is an acceptable method to differentiate between subjects with lifetime psychotic disorders and those who have had no psychotic disorders and provides a less resource-demanding alternative to face-to-face assessments. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

On the relation between face and object recognition in developmental prosopagnosia

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gerlach, Christian; Klargaard, Solja K.; Starrfelt, Randi

2016-01-01

There is an ongoing debate about whether face recognition and object recognition constitute separate domains. Clarification of this issue can have important theoretical implications as face recognition is often used as a prime example of domain-specificity in mind and brain. An important source...... of input to this debate comes from studies of individuals with developmental prosopagnosia, suggesting that face recognition can be selectively impaired. We put the selectivity hypothesis to test by assessing the performance of 10 individuals with developmental prosopagnosia on demanding tests of visual...... object processing involving both regular and degraded drawings. None of the individuals exhibited a clear dissociation between face and object recognition, and as a group they were significantly more affected by degradation of objects than control participants. Importantly, we also find positive...

The neuropsychology of face perception: beyond simple dissociations and functional selectivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Atkinson, Anthony P; Adolphs, Ralph

2011-06-12

Face processing relies on a distributed, patchy network of cortical regions in the temporal and frontal lobes that respond disproportionately to face stimuli, other cortical regions that are not even primarily visual (such as somatosensory cortex), and subcortical structures such as the amygdala. Higher-level face perception abilities, such as judging identity, emotion and trustworthiness, appear to rely on an intact face-processing network that includes the occipital face area (OFA), whereas lower-level face categorization abilities, such as discriminating faces from objects, can be achieved without OFA, perhaps via the direct connections to the fusiform face area (FFA) from several extrastriate cortical areas. Some lesion, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) findings argue against a strict feed-forward hierarchical model of face perception, in which the OFA is the principal and common source of input for other visual and non-visual cortical regions involved in face perception, including the FFA, face-selective superior temporal sulcus and somatosensory cortex. Instead, these findings point to a more interactive model in which higher-level face perception abilities depend on the interplay between several functionally and anatomically distinct neural regions. Furthermore, the nature of these interactions may depend on the particular demands of the task. We review the lesion and TMS literature on this topic and highlight the dynamic and distributed nature of face processing.

Modeling of Electricity Demand for Azerbaijan: Time-Varying Coefficient Cointegration Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jeyhun I. Mikayilov

2017-11-01

Full Text Available Recent literature has shown that electricity demand elasticities may not be constant over time and this has investigated using time-varying estimation methods. As accurate modeling of electricity demand is very important in Azerbaijan, which is a transitional country facing significant change in its economic outlook, we analyze whether the response of electricity demand to income and price is varying over time in this economy. We employed the Time-Varying Coefficient cointegration approach, a cutting-edge time-varying estimation method. We find evidence that income elasticity demonstrates sizeable variation for the period of investigation ranging from 0.48% to 0.56%. The study has some useful policy implications related to the income and price aspects of the electricity consumption in Azerbaijan.

Uranium resources and supply - demand to 2030

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Vance, R.

2010-01-01

Recent fluctuations in the market price for uranium have resulted in more activity in this sector over the past few years than in the preceding 20 years. Amidst this background, uranium demand is increasing. Construction of nuclear reactors is proceeding in some countries, ambitious expansion plans have been announced in others and the development of nuclear power programs to meet electricity demand and minimize greenhouse emissions in a cost effective manner is under consideration in many others. This paper reviews projections of nuclear growth and uranium demand and assesses the challenges faced by the uranium mining sector in meeting rising demand. Since the mid-1960 s, an international expert committee (the 'Uranium Group') formed by the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Atomic Energy Agency has published biennially comprehensive updates on global uranium resources, production and demand (the 'Red Book'). The most recent in this series, based on 2007 data and published in June 2008, includes a supply/demand projection to 2030. However, much has changed since the data were collected for this projection and an assessment of these changes and their impact on uranium production is included in this presentation. It is concluded that world identified uranium resources (5.45 million t U recoverable at costs up to US$130/kg U, or US$50/lb U 3 O 8 ) are adequate to meet projected future high case nuclear power requirements. However, recent financial market turmoil and lower uranium prices, the opaque nature of the uranium market itself, increased regulatory requirements, a scarcity of the required specialized labour and the fluctuating costs of raw materials makes the process of turning uranium resources in the ground into yellowcake in the can increasingly more challenging, particularly for new entrants. Considerable investment and expertise will be required to bring about the substantial increase in mine production required to meet future demand

Demand management implementation in Southeast Asia

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Tanaboriboon, Y.

1995-12-31

The need to apply transportation system management, to developing countries is urgent. Attempts to alleviate severe traffic congestion in their metropolises have so far failed to provide adequate solutions. The countries are faced with many difficulties because of the lack of sufficient financial resources together with their complex internal administrative and political problems. They are incapable of providing sufficient road space to cope with the escalating demand in private automobiles. This has led to excessive delays in urban traveling, environmental pollution problems, decline of road-based public transit services and deterioration of the quality of life in these metropolises. Demand management, in use for decades in the Western world, has also been recognized in Singapore`s famous area licensing scheme (ALS) making other Southeast Asian Metropolises aware of its advantages as an alternative in solving their chaotic traffic problems. However, realization is far different from implementation and still many metropolises are not able to apply the technique. Singapore and Thailand, two leaders among many other Southeast Asian regions in economics, tourism, trade and industry handle their problems far differently, especially the traffic congestion problem. While a number of demand management schemes have been implemented successfully in Singapore since 1975, Bangkok is still struggling to implement such measures to alleviate severe traffic congestion problems. This article intends to high light the successful practices and unsuccessful attempts of demand management techniques applied in Singapore and Bangkok.

Face identity recognition in autism spectrum disorders: a review of behavioral studies.

Science.gov (United States)

Weigelt, Sarah; Koldewyn, Kami; Kanwisher, Nancy

2012-03-01

Face recognition--the ability to recognize a person from their facial appearance--is essential for normal social interaction. Face recognition deficits have been implicated in the most common disorder of social interaction: autism. Here we ask: is face identity recognition in fact impaired in people with autism? Reviewing behavioral studies we find no strong evidence for a qualitative difference in how facial identity is processed between those with and without autism: markers of typical face identity recognition, such as the face inversion effect, seem to be present in people with autism. However, quantitatively--i.e., how well facial identity is remembered or discriminated--people with autism perform worse than typical individuals. This impairment is particularly clear in face memory and in face perception tasks in which a delay intervenes between sample and test, and less so in tasks with no memory demand. Although some evidence suggests that this deficit may be specific to faces, further evidence on this question is necessary. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Familiar face + novel face = familiar face? Representational bias in the perception of morphed faces in chimpanzees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yoshi-Taka Matsuda

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Highly social animals possess a well-developed ability to distinguish the faces of familiar from novel conspecifics to induce distinct behaviors for maintaining society. However, the behaviors of animals when they encounter ambiguous faces of familiar yet novel conspecifics, e.g., strangers with faces resembling known individuals, have not been well characterised. Using a morphing technique and preferential-looking paradigm, we address this question via the chimpanzee’s facial–recognition abilities. We presented eight subjects with three types of stimuli: (1 familiar faces, (2 novel faces and (3 intermediate morphed faces that were 50% familiar and 50% novel faces of conspecifics. We found that chimpanzees spent more time looking at novel faces and scanned novel faces more extensively than familiar or intermediate faces. Interestingly, chimpanzees looked at intermediate faces in a manner similar to familiar faces with regards to the fixation duration, fixation count, and saccade length for facial scanning, even though the participant was encountering the intermediate faces for the first time. We excluded the possibility that subjects merely detected and avoided traces of morphing in the intermediate faces. These findings suggest a bias for a feeling-of-familiarity that chimpanzees perceive familiarity with an intermediate face by detecting traces of a known individual, as 50% alternation is sufficient to perceive familiarity.

Finding and Improving the Key-Frames of Long Video Sequences for Face Recognition

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nasrollahi, Kamal; Moeslund, Thomas B.

2010-01-01

Face recognition systems are very sensitive to the quality and resolution of their input face images. This makes such systems unreliable when working with long surveillance video sequences without employing some selection and enhancement algorithms. On the other hand, processing all the frames...... of such video sequences by any enhancement or even face recognition algorithm is demanding. Thus, there is a need for a mechanism to summarize the input video sequence to a set of key-frames and then applying an enhancement algorithm to this subset. This paper presents a system doing exactly this. The system...... uses face quality assessment to select the key-frames and a hybrid super-resolution to enhance the face image quality. The suggested system that employs a linear associator face recognizer to evaluate the enhanced results has been tested on real surveillance video sequences and the experimental results...

Population ageing and healthcare demand: The case of Slovenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Vrhovec, Jure; Tajnikar, Maks

2016-11-01

The aim of this paper is to explore the consequences of demographic ageing on healthcare demand in Slovenia for primary care, secondary care, hospital day-care treatments, and hospitalisations. In the paper, we develop a model for making projections of the total number of treatments using the age-group projection method with the scenario approach. The model allows the number of treatments to be observed with respect to medical services, age groups and main disease groups. The results are presented for the cross-section years 2015, 2025 and 2035. The smallest increase in the number of treatments occurs in primary care, a larger one for secondary care, and the largest for hospital day-care services and hospitalisations (up to 29.9%). The structure of demand will also change. Demand for healthcare services for children and infants will decrease while demand for diseases associated with older age groups will increase, particularly for diseases of the circulatory system, eye and adnexa, and diseases of the blood and blood-forming organs. The results presented in this paper can help improve understanding of similar processes in other countries for total healthcare demand and for changes in the structure of demand. The results show that the healthcare system in Slovenia will face a major additional burden in the next 20 years. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Supply chain network downsizing with product line pruning using a new demand substitution

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Ashayeri, J.; Ma, N.; Sotirov, R.

2015-01-01

This paper presents an optimization model for downsizing a multi-product supply chain facing bankruptcy risk, where multi-functional production facilities are shared for producing a group of substitutable products. In order to determine the potential demand after discontinuation of certain product

The changing face of the English National Health Service: new providers, markets and morality.

Science.gov (United States)

Frith, Lucy

2016-09-01

One significant change in the English National Health Service (NHS) has been the introduction of market mechanisms. This review will explore the following questions: should we have markets in healthcare? What is the underlying philosophy of introducing more market mechanisms into the NHS? What are the effects of this and does it change the NHS beyond anything Bevan might have imagined in 1948? The review will use empirical studies, philosophical literature, bioethics discussion, policy and NHS documents. The NHS is facing unprecedented challenges at the beginning of the 21st century, with funding levels not meeting the increase in demand. The extent and appropriate role for market mechanisms in the NHS is hotly debated. It will be argued that we are moving towards a more market-based NHS and the possible effects of this will be discussed. Rarely are the policy changes in the NHS evidence based in any meaningful way and they are often driven by ideological considerations rather than clear evidence. There needs to be a greater reliance on evidence of what works and a continuing commitment to healthcare as a societal good. There needs to be a discussion of what the NHS should be-a funder and provider, a funder or a partial funder? How the balance of power between regulators, different types of provider, commissioners and ultimately patients will play out in this changing environment are also areas for future study. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Neural synchronization during face-to-face communication.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Jing; Dai, Bohan; Peng, Danling; Zhu, Chaozhe; Liu, Li; Lu, Chunming

2012-11-07

Although the human brain may have evolutionarily adapted to face-to-face communication, other modes of communication, e.g., telephone and e-mail, increasingly dominate our modern daily life. This study examined the neural difference between face-to-face communication and other types of communication by simultaneously measuring two brains using a hyperscanning approach. The results showed a significant increase in the neural synchronization in the left inferior frontal cortex during a face-to-face dialog between partners but none during a back-to-back dialog, a face-to-face monologue, or a back-to-back monologue. Moreover, the neural synchronization between partners during the face-to-face dialog resulted primarily from the direct interactions between the partners, including multimodal sensory information integration and turn-taking behavior. The communicating behavior during the face-to-face dialog could be predicted accurately based on the neural synchronization level. These results suggest that face-to-face communication, particularly dialog, has special neural features that other types of communication do not have and that the neural synchronization between partners may underlie successful face-to-face communication.

Strategic Management Planning of Soybean Store Hadijanto Trisno with the Purpose of Developing Business and Facing Competition

OpenAIRE

Tedjalaksana, Retta Margaretta; Aldianto, Leo

2013-01-01

Every development demand a change, include in business world. Small businesses that are still using traditional management system face a challenge to maintaining the business continuity and facing competition in this modern era. Soybean Store Hadijanto Trisno, a hereditary business is facing some issues in running the business, which are company doesn't have functional division, lack of workers and transport during peak hours, and no database system. Those business issues are explored throu...

The Performance of LBP and NSVC Combination Applied to Face Classification

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mohammed Ngadi

2016-01-01

Full Text Available The growing demand in the field of security led to the development of interesting approaches in face classification. These works are interested since their beginning in extracting the invariant features of the face to build a single model easily identifiable by classification algorithms. Our goal in this article is to develop more efficient practical methods for face detection. We present a new fast and accurate approach based on local binary patterns (LBP for the extraction of the features that is combined with the new classifier Neighboring Support Vector Classifier (NSVC for classification. The experimental results on different natural images show that the proposed method can get very good results at a very short detection time. The best precision obtained by LBP-NSVC exceeds 99%.

The oil industry in Latin America: changing demand patterns and deregulation

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Thaler, Harald.

1997-02-01

The Oil Industry in Latin America: changing demand patterns and deregulation analyses the common problems faced by countries in the region in modernising and developing their oil sectors, despite the great variation in domestic natural resources between them. It highlights areas of potential, as well as clearly indicating risks and possible bureaucratic and political problems. (author)

Identity Issues and Challenges Faced by Russian Immigrants in New Zealand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Elena Maydell

2009-08-01

Full Text Available Among the processes cosmopolitan societies undergo at the present moment, is the unprecedented increase in mass migration across cultures. What challenges are faced by both immigrants, who have to settle in novel socio-cultural environments, and by the host populations accepting them? The current qualitative study investigates the nature of identity construction among Russian-speaking immigrants in New Zealand, applying thematic analysis for the interpretation of the data collected via 23 in-depth interviews. Among the most common themes articulated by the participants was the feeling of identity loss. A taken-for-granted sense of identity, brought by the participants from their culture of origin, was not validated by their new society of residence, mostly due to the lack of appropriate cultural resources. The participants were faced with a challenge of re-constructing their old identity, or constructing a new one, utilising the available resources in the community around them. At the same time, there was a sub-group for whom this challenge brought the realisation that the nature of their identity is cosmopolitan, rather than located within any particular culture or geographical space.

Decoding of faces and face components in face-sensitive human visual cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

David F Nichols

2010-07-01

Full Text Available A great challenge to the field of visual neuroscience is to understand how faces are encoded and represented within the human brain. Here we show evidence from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI for spatially distributed processing of the whole face and its components in face-sensitive human visual cortex. We used multi-class linear pattern classifiers constructed with a leave-one-scan-out verification procedure to discriminate brain activation patterns elicited by whole faces, the internal features alone, and the external head outline alone. Furthermore, our results suggest that whole faces are represented disproportionately in the fusiform cortex (FFA whereas the building blocks of faces are represented disproportionately in occipitotemporal cortex (OFA. Faces and face components may therefore be organized with functional clustering within both the FFA and OFA, but with specialization for face components in the OFA and the whole face in the FFA.

Demand forecasting for automotive sector in Malaysia by system dynamics approach

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Zulkepli, Jafri; Abidin, Norhaslinda Zainal; Fong, Chan Hwa

2015-01-01

In general, Proton as an automotive company needs to forecast future demand of the car to assist in decision making related to capacity expansion planning. One of the forecasting approaches that based on judgemental or subjective factors is normally used to forecast the demand. As a result, demand could be overstock that eventually will increase the operation cost; or the company will face understock, which resulted losing their customers. Due to automotive industry is very challenging process because of high level of complexity and uncertainty involved in the system, an accurate tool to forecast the future of automotive demand from the modelling perspective is required. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to forecast the demand of automotive Proton car industry in Malaysia using system dynamics approach. Two types of intervention namely optimistic and pessimistic experiments scenarios have been tested to determine the capacity expansion that can prevent the company from overstocking. Finding from this study highlighted that the management needs to expand their production for optimistic scenario, whilst pessimistic give results that would otherwise. Finally, this study could help Proton Edar Sdn. Bhd (PESB) to manage the long-term capacity planning in order to meet the future demand of the Proton cars

Demand forecasting for automotive sector in Malaysia by system dynamics approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Zulkepli, Jafri, E-mail: zhjafri@uum.edu.my; Abidin, Norhaslinda Zainal, E-mail: nhaslinda@uum.edu.my [School of Quantitative Sciences, Universiti Utara Malaysia, Sintok, Kedah (Malaysia); Fong, Chan Hwa, E-mail: hfchan7623@yahoo.com [SWM Environment Sdn. Bhd.Level 17, Menara LGB, Taman Tun Dr. Ismail Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

2015-12-11

In general, Proton as an automotive company needs to forecast future demand of the car to assist in decision making related to capacity expansion planning. One of the forecasting approaches that based on judgemental or subjective factors is normally used to forecast the demand. As a result, demand could be overstock that eventually will increase the operation cost; or the company will face understock, which resulted losing their customers. Due to automotive industry is very challenging process because of high level of complexity and uncertainty involved in the system, an accurate tool to forecast the future of automotive demand from the modelling perspective is required. Hence, the main objective of this paper is to forecast the demand of automotive Proton car industry in Malaysia using system dynamics approach. Two types of intervention namely optimistic and pessimistic experiments scenarios have been tested to determine the capacity expansion that can prevent the company from overstocking. Finding from this study highlighted that the management needs to expand their production for optimistic scenario, whilst pessimistic give results that would otherwise. Finally, this study could help Proton Edar Sdn. Bhd (PESB) to manage the long-term capacity planning in order to meet the future demand of the Proton cars.

Face Detection for Augmented Reality Application Using Boosting-based Techniques

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Youssef Hbali

2016-12-01

Full Text Available Augmented reality has gained an increasing research interest over the few last years. Customers requirements have become more intense and more demanding, the need of the different industries to re-adapt their products and enhance them by recent advances in the computer vision and more intelligence has become a necessary. In this work we present a marker-less augmented reality application that can be used and expanded in the e-commerce industry. We take benefit of the well known boosting techniques to train and evaluate different face detectors using the multi-block local binary features. The work purpose is to select the more relevant training parameters in order to maximize the classification accuracy. Using the resulted face detector, the position of the face will serve as a marker in the proposed augmented reality.

Famous face recognition, face matching, and extraversion.

Science.gov (United States)

Lander, Karen; Poyarekar, Siddhi

2015-01-01

It has been previously established that extraverts who are skilled at interpersonal interaction perform significantly better than introverts on a face-specific recognition memory task. In our experiment we further investigate the relationship between extraversion and face recognition, focusing on famous face recognition and face matching. Results indicate that more extraverted individuals perform significantly better on an upright famous face recognition task and show significantly larger face inversion effects. However, our results did not find an effect of extraversion on face matching or inverted famous face recognition.

Facing unprecedented drying of the Central Andes? Precipitation variability over the period AD 1000–2100

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Neukom, Raphael; Salzmann, Nadine; Huggel, Christian; Rohrer, Mario; Calanca, Pierluigi; Acuña, Delia; Christie, Duncan A; Morales, Mariano S

2015-01-01

��2100 in the RCP8.5 scenario. Even under the strong reduction of greenhouse gas emissions projected by the RCP2.6 scenario, the Central Andes will experience a reduction in precipitation outside pre-industrial natural variability. This is of concern for the Central Andes, because society and economy are highly vulnerable to changes in the hydrological cycle and already have to face decreases in fresh water availability caused by glacier retreat. (letter)

Safety stock placement in supply chains with demand forecast updates

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Youssef Boulaksil

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Supply chains are exposed to many types of risks and it may not be obvious where to keep safety stocks in the supply chain to hedge against those risks, while maintaining a high customer service level. In this paper, we develop an approach to determine the safety stock levels in supply chain systems that face demand uncertainty. We model customer demand following the Martingale Model of Forecast Evolution (MMFE. An extensive body of literature discusses the safety stock placement problem in supply chains, but most studies assume independent and identically distributed demand. Our approach is based on a simulation study in which mathematical models are solved in a rolling horizon setting. It allows determining the safety stock levels at each stage of the supply chain. Based on a numerical study, we find that a big portion of the safety stocks should be placed downstream in the supply chain to achieve a high customer service level.

Current economic downturn and supply chain : The significance of demand and inventory smoothing

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Cannella, S.; Ashayeri, J.; Miranda, P.A.; Bruccoleri, M.

2014-01-01

The aim of this article is to analyse and quantify the effects of demand and inventory smoothing into supply-chain performance, facing the extreme volatility and impetuous alteration of the market produced by the current economic recession. To do so, we model a traditional serial three-stage supply

Face-to-Face Activities in Blended Learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kjærgaard, Annemette

While blended learning combines online and face-to-face teaching, research on blended learning has primarily focused on the role of technology and the opportunities it creates for engaging students. Less focus has been put on face-to-face activities in blended learning. This paper argues...... that it is not only the online activities in blended learning that provide new opportunities for rethinking pedagogy in higher education, it is also imperative to reconsider the face-to-face activities when part of the learning is provided online. Based on a review of blended learning in business and management...... education, we identify what forms of teaching and learning are suggested to take place face-to-face when other activities are moved online. We draw from the Community of Inquiry framework to analyze how face-to-face activities contribute to a blended learning pedagogy and discuss the implications...

Comparing Costs of Telephone versus Face-to-Face Extended Care Programs for the Management of Obesity in Rural Settings

Science.gov (United States)

Radcliff, Tiffany A.; Bobroff, Linda B.; Lutes, Lesley D.; Durning, Patricia E.; Daniels, Michael J.; Limacher, Marian C.; Janicke, David M.; Martin, A. Daniel; Perri, Michael G.

2012-01-01

control ($226 per participant) programs. While the net weight lost after the 12-month maintenance program was higher for the face-to-face and telephone programs compared to the control group, the average cost per expected kilogram of weight lost was higher for the face-to-face program ($47/kg) compared to the other two programs (approximately $33/kg for telephone and control). Conclusions Both the scale of operations and local demand for programs are important considerations in selecting a delivery format for lifestyle maintenance. In this study, the telephone format had a lower cost, but similar outcomes compared to the face-to-face format. PMID:22818246

A demand/supply and price outlook for electricity in Ontario

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dalton, J.

2004-01-01

This paper examined electricity pricing issues for both the immediate future as well as over the long term. The near term outlook resources for the summer of 2004 were reviewed. Intermediate critical supply and demand issues were projected with consideration given to the return of the Pickering A plant and coal phase out. In the long term, it was considered that pricing and demand would reflect conservation issues and demand side response, as well as the timing of Requests For Proposals (RFPs) and the phase out of coal-fired capacity. The impact of the coal phase-out in Ontario was examined, with particular reference to timing and market structure implications. Potential conservation impacts were presented and projected Ontario supply/demand balances were evaluated. The challenges facing the new market structure include pricing dynamics and a reliance on RFPs. The significance of specifying diversity objectives was also discussed. It was concluded that the Ontario Ministry of Energy should play a role in establishing targets for conservation, renewable energy and the overall supply of electricity. Rigorous analysis is necessary before specifying targets in terms of hydroelectric and nuclear generation as opposed to non-fossil generation. tabs., figs

Research on cutting vibration characteristics of face-milling involute gear

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chengzhe JIN

2017-10-01

Full Text Available Traditional machining methods, such as gear hobbing, gear shaping and gear milling, etc, are commonly used for cutting machining of gear tooth profile, which cannot meet huge machining demand of gears to a certain extent. This article proposes to utilize a face-milling machining method in involute gear machining, which can be used to reduce production cost effectively. Cutting vibration generated during cutting machining has a direct effect on the machining accuracy and machined surface quality of workpiece. Therefore, it is desiderated to perform in-depth research regarding this issue. ADAMS software was used to establish a rigid-flexible coupling virtual prototyping model of face-milling gear milling system and a cutting vibration system model. Cutting vibration analysis was performed for face-milling gear by adopting quick sine frequency sweep method, so that the frequency response characteristics of workpiece in three directions X, Y and Z and space were acquired. The research results will provide reference and theoretical foundation for actual application of face-milling gear machining technology.

A Composite Contract for Coordinating a Supply Chain with Price and Effort Dependent Stochastic Demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yu-Shuang Liu

2016-01-01

Full Text Available As the demand is more sensitive to price and sales effort, this paper investigates the issue of channel coordination for a supply chain with one manufacturer and one retailer facing price and effort dependent stochastic demand. A composite contract based on the quantity-restricted returns and target sales rebate can achieve coordination in this setting. Two main problems are addressed: (1 how to coordinate the decentralized supply chain; (2 how to determine the optimal sales effort level, pricing, and inventory decisions under the additive demand case. Numerical examples are presented to verify the effectiveness of combined contract in supply chain coordination and highlight model sensitivities to parametric changes.

Face recognition system and method using face pattern words and face pattern bytes

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yufeng

2014-12-23

The present invention provides a novel system and method for identifying individuals and for face recognition utilizing facial features for face identification. The system and method of the invention comprise creating facial features or face patterns called face pattern words and face pattern bytes for face identification. The invention also provides for pattern recognitions for identification other than face recognition. The invention further provides a means for identifying individuals based on visible and/or thermal images of those individuals by utilizing computer software implemented by instructions on a computer or computer system and a computer readable medium containing instructions on a computer system for face recognition and identification.

Symmetry Breaking in Photonic Crystals: On-Demand Dispersion from Flatband to Dirac Cones.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, H S; Dubois, F; Deschamps, T; Cueff, S; Pardon, A; Leclercq, J-L; Seassal, C; Letartre, X; Viktorovitch, P

2018-02-09

We demonstrate that symmetry breaking opens a new degree of freedom to tailor energy-momentum dispersion in photonic crystals. Using a general theoretical framework in two illustrative practical structures, we show that breaking symmetry enables an on-demand tuning of the local density of states of the same photonic band from zero (Dirac cone dispersion) to infinity (flatband dispersion), as well as any constant density over an adjustable spectral range. As a proof of concept, we demonstrate experimentally the transformation of the very same photonic band from a conventional quadratic shape to a Dirac dispersion, a flatband dispersion, and a multivalley one. This transition is achieved by finely tuning the vertical symmetry breaking of the photonic structures. Our results provide an unprecedented degree of freedom for optical dispersion engineering in planar integrated photonic devices.

Meteorological features associated with unprecedented precipitation over India during 1st week of March 2015

Science.gov (United States)

Kumar, Naresh; Mohapatra, M.; Jaswal, A. K.

2017-07-01

Unprecedented precipitation along with heavy falls occurred over many parts of India from 28th February to 2nd March 2015. Many of the stations of northwest and central India received an all time high 24 hr cumulative precipitation of March during this period. Even the national capital, New Delhi, broke all the previous historical 24 hr rainfall records of the last 100 years to the rainfall record in March 2015. Due to this event, huge loss to agricultural and horticultural crops occurred in several parts of India. In the present study, an attempt is made to understand the various meteorological features associated with this unprecedented precipitation event over India. It occurred due to the presence of an intense western disturbance (WD) over Afghanistan and neighbouring areas in the form of north-south oriented deep trough in westerlies in middle and upper tropospheric levels with its southern end deep in the Arabian Sea, which pumped huge moisture feed over Indian region. Also, there was a jet stream with core wind speed up to 160 knots that generated high positive divergence at upper tropospheric level over Indian region; along with this there was high magnitude of negative vertical velocity and velocity convergence were there at middle tropospheric level. It caused intense upward motion and forced lower levels air to rise and strengthen the lower levels cyclonic circulations (CCs)/Lows. Moreover, the induced CCs/Lows at lower tropospheric levels associated with WD were more towards south of its normal position. Additionally, there was wind confluence over central parts of India due to westerlies in association with WD and easterlies from anticyclone over north Bay of Bengal. Thus, intense WD along with wind confluence between westerlies and easterlies caused unprecedented precipitation over India during the 1st week of March 2015.

Virtual & Real Face to Face Teaching

Science.gov (United States)

Teneqexhi, Romeo; Kuneshka, Loreta

2016-01-01

In traditional "face to face" lessons, during the time the teacher writes on a black or white board, the students are always behind the teacher. Sometimes, this happens even in the recorded lesson in videos. Most of the time during the lesson, the teacher shows to the students his back not his face. We do not think the term "face to…

Recent unprecedented tree-ring growth in bristlecone pine at the highest elevations and possible causes

Science.gov (United States)

Salzer, Matthew W.; Hughes, Malcolm K.; Bunn, Andrew G.; Kipfmueller, Kurt F.

2009-01-01

Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva) at 3 sites in western North America near the upper elevation limit of tree growth showed ring growth in the second half of the 20th century that was greater than during any other 50-year period in the last 3,700 years. The accelerated growth is suggestive of an environmental change unprecedented in millennia. The high growth is not overestimated because of standardization techniques, and it is unlikely that it is a result of a change in tree growth form or that it is predominantly caused by CO2 fertilization. The growth surge has occurred only in a limited elevational band within ≈150 m of upper treeline, regardless of treeline elevation. Both an independent proxy record of temperature and high-elevation meteorological temperature data are positively and significantly correlated with upper-treeline ring width both before and during the high-growth interval. Increasing temperature at high elevations is likely a prominent factor in the modern unprecedented level of growth for Pinus longaeva at these sites. PMID:19918054

A methodology for enhancing implementation science proposals: comparison of face-to-face versus virtual workshops.

Science.gov (United States)

Marriott, Brigid R; Rodriguez, Allison L; Landes, Sara J; Lewis, Cara C; Comtois, Katherine A

2016-05-06

With the current funding climate and need for advancements in implementation science, there is a growing demand for grantsmanship workshops to increase the quality and rigor of proposals. A group-based implementation science-focused grantsmanship workshop, the Implementation Development Workshop (IDW), is one methodology to address this need. This manuscript provides an overview of the IDW structure, format, and findings regarding its utility. The IDW methodology allows researchers to vet projects in the proposal stage in a structured format with a facilitator and two types of expert participants: presenters and attendees. The presenter uses a one-page handout and verbal presentation to present their proposal and questions. The facilitator elicits feedback from attendees using a format designed to maximize the number of unique points made. After each IDW, participants completed an anonymous survey assessing perceptions of the IDW. Presenters completed a funding survey measuring grant submission and funding success. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a subset of participants who participated in both delivery formats. Mixed method analyses were performed to evaluate the effectiveness and acceptability of the IDW and compare the delivery formats. Of those who participated in an IDW (N = 72), 40 participated in face-to-face only, 16 in virtual only, and 16 in both formats. Thirty-eight (face-to-face n = 12, 35 % response rate; virtual n = 26, 66.7 % response rate) responded to the surveys and seven (15.3 % response rate), who had attended both formats, completed an interview. Of 36 total presenters, 17 (face-to-face n = 12, 42.9 % response rate; virtual n = 5, 62.9 % response rate) responded to the funding survey. Mixed method analyses indicated that the IDW was effective for collaboration and growth, effective for enhancing success in obtaining grants, and acceptable. A third (35.3 %) of presenters ultimately received funding for their proposal, and more than

Survey of projected growth and problems facing air transportation, 1975 - 1985

Science.gov (United States)

Williams, L. J.; Wilson, A.

1975-01-01

Results are presented of a survey conducted to determine the current opinion of people working in air transportation demand forecasting on the future of air transportation over the next ten years. In particular, the survey included questions on future demand growth, load factor, fuel prices, introduction date for the next new aircraft, the priorities of problems facing air transportation, and the probability of a substantial change in air transportation regulation. The survey participants included: airlines, manufacturers, universities, government agencies, and other organizations (financial institutions, private research companies, etc.). The results are shown for the average responses within the organization represented as well as the overall averages.

Reading faces and Facing words

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Robotham, Julia Emma; Lindegaard, Martin Weis; Delfi, Tzvetelina Shentova

unilateral lesions, we found no patient with a selective deficit in either reading or face processing. Rather, the patients showing a deficit in processing either words or faces were also impaired with the other category. One patient performed within the normal range on all tasks. In addition, all patients......It has long been argued that perceptual processing of faces and words is largely independent, highly specialised and strongly lateralised. Studies of patients with either pure alexia or prosopagnosia have strongly contributed to this view. The aim of our study was to investigate how visual...... perception of faces and words is affected by unilateral posterior stroke. Two patients with lesions in their dominant hemisphere and two with lesions in their non-dominant hemisphere were tested on sensitive tests of face and word perception during the stable phase of recovery. Despite all patients having...

Face Attention Network: An Effective Face Detector for the Occluded Faces

OpenAIRE

Wang, Jianfeng; Yuan, Ye; Yu, Gang

2017-01-01

The performance of face detection has been largely improved with the development of convolutional neural network. However, the occlusion issue due to mask and sunglasses, is still a challenging problem. The improvement on the recall of these occluded cases usually brings the risk of high false positives. In this paper, we present a novel face detector called Face Attention Network (FAN), which can significantly improve the recall of the face detection problem in the occluded case without comp...

Demand side management—A simulation of household behavior under variable prices

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gottwalt, Sebastian; Ketter, Wolfgang; Block, Carsten; Collins, John; Weinhardt, Christof

2011-01-01

Within the next years, consumer households will be increasingly equipped with smart metering and intelligent appliances. These technologies are the basis for households to better monitor electricity consumption and to actively control loads in private homes. Demand side management (DSM) can be adopted to private households. We present a simulation model that generates household load profiles under flat tariffs and simulates changes in these profiles when households are equipped with smart appliances and face time-based electricity prices. We investigate the impact of smart appliances and variable prices on electricity bills of a household. We show that for households the savings from equipping them with smart appliances are moderate compared to the required investment. This finding is quite robust with respect to variation of tariff price spreads and to different types of appliance utilization patterns. Finally, our results indicate that electric utilities may face new demand peaks when day-ahead hourly prices are applied. However, a considerable amount of residential load is available for shifting, which is interesting for the utilities to balance demand and supply. - Highlights: ► Our model generates residential load profiles that are based on real world data. ► We simulate changes in load profiles when smart appliances and time-of-use tariffs are applied. ► The economic incentive for households to invest in smart appliances is low. ► Time-of-use tariffs create new, even higher peaks. ► Electric utilities have a large amount of the hourly load available for shifting.

Household Water Demand in Andorra: Impact of Individual Metering and Seasonality

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Arnaud Reynaud

2018-03-01

Full Text Available Despite the large literature focused on residential water use, our knowledge of the impact of individual metering on household water consumption remains limited. Our work aims to fill this gap by providing the first estimate of the residential water demand function in the Principality of Andorra, where collective and individual metering coexists. Using a panel dataset covering the years 2006 to 2015, we propose estimating a domestic water demand function for the municipality of Andorra La Vella (the capital of Andorra. Our estimates reveal a price elasticity of the residential water demand equal to –0.7. Facing a price increase of 10 percent, households will react in the short run by reducing their water consumption by 7 percent. Interestingly, the price elasticity is found to be significantly different in single-family units compared to multi-family units. This may suggest a significant impact of individual metering on domestic water consumption in Andorra.

How Well Do Computer-Generated Faces Tap Face Expertise?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kate Crookes

Full Text Available The use of computer-generated (CG stimuli in face processing research is proliferating due to the ease with which faces can be generated, standardised and manipulated. However there has been surprisingly little research into whether CG faces are processed in the same way as photographs of real faces. The present study assessed how well CG faces tap face identity expertise by investigating whether two indicators of face expertise are reduced for CG faces when compared to face photographs. These indicators were accuracy for identification of own-race faces and the other-race effect (ORE-the well-established finding that own-race faces are recognised more accurately than other-race faces. In Experiment 1 Caucasian and Asian participants completed a recognition memory task for own- and other-race real and CG faces. Overall accuracy for own-race faces was dramatically reduced for CG compared to real faces and the ORE was significantly and substantially attenuated for CG faces. Experiment 2 investigated perceptual discrimination for own- and other-race real and CG faces with Caucasian and Asian participants. Here again, accuracy for own-race faces was significantly reduced for CG compared to real faces. However the ORE was not affected by format. Together these results signal that CG faces of the type tested here do not fully tap face expertise. Technological advancement may, in the future, produce CG faces that are equivalent to real photographs. Until then caution is advised when interpreting results obtained using CG faces.

Face-iris multimodal biometric scheme based on feature level fusion

Science.gov (United States)

Huo, Guang; Liu, Yuanning; Zhu, Xiaodong; Dong, Hongxing; He, Fei

2015-11-01

Unlike score level fusion, feature level fusion demands all the features extracted from unimodal traits with high distinguishability, as well as homogeneity and compatibility, which is difficult to achieve. Therefore, most multimodal biometric research focuses on score level fusion, whereas few investigate feature level fusion. We propose a face-iris recognition method based on feature level fusion. We build a special two-dimensional-Gabor filter bank to extract local texture features from face and iris images, and then transform them by histogram statistics into an energy-orientation variance histogram feature with lower dimensions and higher distinguishability. Finally, through a fusion-recognition strategy based on principal components analysis and support vector machine (FRSPS), feature level fusion and one-to-n identification are accomplished. The experimental results demonstrate that this method can not only effectively extract face and iris features but also provide higher recognition accuracy. Compared with some state-of-the-art fusion methods, the proposed method has a significant performance advantage.

Demand for inputs in silkworm production: the case of Turkey

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Osman Orkan Özer

Full Text Available ABSTRACT The objective of this study was to calculate the price, cross, and Morishima Technical Substitution elasticities for the costs of manpower, supply of mulberry leaves, transportation, heating, and material, all of which play pivotal roles for producers in sericulture. A survey was conducted by face-to-face interviews with 207 farmers within the scope of the study. At the analysis phase of the study, the share equity translog cost model was used. The response of the producers to the production input prices were calculated as inelastic. The strictest demand for an input belongs to mulberry leaves (-0.051 and the highest elasticity for transportation costs (-0.314. Sericulture dependents on workforce and mulberry leaves and this activity in Turkey is a labor-dense type of production.

Former Soviet refineries face modernization, restructuring

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Anon.

1993-01-01

A massive modernization and restructuring program is under way in the refining sector of Russia and other former Soviet republics. Economic reforms and resulting economic dislocation following the collapse of the Soviet Union has left refineries in the region grappling with a steep decline and changes in product demand. At the same time, rising oil prices and an aging, dilapidated infrastructure promise a massive shakeout. Even as many refineries in the former Soviet Union (FSU) face possible closure because they are running at a fraction of capacity, a host of revamps, expansions, and grass roots refineries are planned or under way. The paper discusses plans

Neural synchronization during face-to-face communication

OpenAIRE

Jiang, J.; Dai, B.; Peng, D.; Zhu, C.; Liu, L.; Lu, C.

2012-01-01

Although the human brain may have evolutionarily adapted to face-to-face communication, other modes of communication, e.g., telephone and e-mail, increasingly dominate our modern daily life. This study examined the neural difference between face-to-face communication and other types of communication by simultaneously measuring two brains using a hyperscanning approach. The results showed a significant increase in the neural synchronization in the left inferior frontal cortex during a face-to-...

Meeting residential space heating demand with wind-generated electricity

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hughes, Larry

2010-01-01

Worldwide, many electricity suppliers are faced with the challenge of trying to integrate intermittent renewables, notably wind, into their energy mix to meet the needs of those services that require a continuous supply of electricity. Solutions to intermittency include the use of rapid-response backup generation and chemical or mechanical storage of electricity. Meanwhile, in many jurisdictions with lengthy heating seasons, finding secure and preferably environmentally benign supplies of energy for space heating is also becoming a significant challenge because of volatile energy markets. Most, if not all, electricity suppliers treat these twin challenges as separate issues: supply (integrating intermittent renewables) and demand (electric space heating). However, if space heating demand can be met from an intermittent supply of electricity, then both of these issues can be addressed simultaneously. One such approach is to use off-the-shelf electric thermal storage systems. This paper examines the potential of this approach by applying the output from a 5.15 MW wind farm to the residential heating demands of detached households in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island. The paper shows that for the heating season considered, up to 500 households could have over 95 percent of their space heating demand met from the wind farm in question. The benefits as well as the limitations of the approach are discussed in detail. (author)

The changing face of hemostasis testing in modern laboratories: consolidation, automation, and beyond.

Science.gov (United States)

Lippi, Giuseppe; Plebani, Mario; Favaloro, Emmanuel J

2015-04-01

The reality of laboratory diagnostics as a whole, and hemostasis testing in particular, is evolving under new paradigms of efficiency. The driving forces of health care and laboratory diagnostics in the third millennium are mainly represented by macro- and microeconomics. In a world with limited resources, shattered by an unprecedented economic crisis, laboratory diagnostics is undergoing a substantial reorganization, with emergence of new models under the imperative of terms, such as bedside testing, consolidation, and networking. The paradigms under which these changes are being developed include a variety of environment, preanalytical, technological, professional, and health-care aspects. The maintenance of continued quality is indeed the major challenge to be faced in the foreseeable future. In fact, some challenges prepotently emerge during a consolidation process, which basically involve delayed testing, centrifugation, transportation, and stability of the specimens, as well as the potential mismatch of sample matrix. This article is aimed to provide an overview of the current economic scenario of laboratory diagnostics and discuss the changing face of hemostasis testing in modern laboratories, providing a synthetic overview about potential drawbacks of actualized solutions. Thieme Medical Publishers 333 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001, USA.

Manufacturing technology development for vacuum vessel and plasma facing components

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Laitinen, Arttu; Liimatainen, Jari; Hallila, Pentti

2005-01-01

Vacuum vessel and plasma facing components of the ITER construction including shield modules and primary first wall panels have great impact on the production costs and reliability of the installation. From the manufacturing technology point of view, accuracy of shape, properties of the various austenitic stainless steel/austenitic stainless steel interfaces or CuCrZr/austenitic stainless steel interfaces as well as those of the base materials are crucial for technical reliability of the construction. The current approach in plasma facing components has been utilisation of solid-HIP technology and solid-powder-HIP technology. Due to the large size of especially shield modules shape, control of the internal cavities and cooling channels is extremely demanding. This requires strict control of the raw materials and manufacturing parameters

Health Professionals Facing Burnout: What Do We Know about Nursing Managers?

Science.gov (United States)

Heeb, Jean-Luc; Haberey-Knuessi, Véronique

2014-01-01

Objective. To address the degree of burnout in nursing managers in hospitals of Western Switzerland, including comparison with medical managers, and its relationship with personal, work-related, and organizational characteristics. Methods. Statistical analysis of the scores of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey from 257 nursing managers who answered a standardized electronic questionnaire. Results. Nursing managers showed a low degree of burnout, which was similar to that of medical managers. Most of them had a low level of emotional exhaustion and a low level of depersonalization, while personal accomplishment was contrasted. Only 2.3% had a high degree of burnout. These findings challenge the hypothesis of high stress being associated with high burnout, as nursing managers can be supposed to have a highly demanding job due to their intermediary position within the hospital hierarchy. Variations of burnout by personal, work-related, and organizational characteristics mainly concerned emotional exhaustion. Conclusion. Though nursing managers face a highly demanding job, they may benefit from resources (including coping strategies and empowerment) which help counterbalance job stress. Unequal distribution of resources may play a central role when facing burnout.

Health Professionals Facing Burnout: What Do We Know about Nursing Managers?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean-Luc Heeb

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Objective. To address the degree of burnout in nursing managers in hospitals of Western Switzerland, including comparison with medical managers, and its relationship with personal, work-related, and organizational characteristics. Methods. Statistical analysis of the scores of the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Human Services Survey from 257 nursing managers who answered a standardized electronic questionnaire. Results. Nursing managers showed a low degree of burnout, which was similar to that of medical managers. Most of them had a low level of emotional exhaustion and a low level of depersonalization, while personal accomplishment was contrasted. Only 2.3% had a high degree of burnout. These findings challenge the hypothesis of high stress being associated with high burnout, as nursing managers can be supposed to have a highly demanding job due to their intermediary position within the hospital hierarchy. Variations of burnout by personal, work-related, and organizational characteristics mainly concerned emotional exhaustion. Conclusion. Though nursing managers face a highly demanding job, they may benefit from resources (including coping strategies and empowerment which help counterbalance job stress. Unequal distribution of resources may play a central role when facing burnout.

Facing aggression: cues differ for female versus male faces.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shawn N Geniole

Full Text Available The facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio, is a sexually dimorphic metric associated with actual aggression in men and with observers' judgements of aggression in male faces. Here, we sought to determine if observers' judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio in female faces. In three studies, participants rated photographs of female and male faces on aggression, femininity, masculinity, attractiveness, and nurturing. In Studies 1 and 2, for female and male faces, judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio even when other cues in the face related to masculinity were controlled statistically. Nevertheless, correlations between the face ratio and judgements of aggression were smaller for female than for male faces (F(1,36 = 7.43, p = 0.01. In Study 1, there was no significant relationship between judgements of femininity and of aggression in female faces. In Study 2, the association between judgements of masculinity and aggression was weaker in female faces than for male faces in Study 1. The weaker association in female faces may be because aggression and masculinity are stereotypically male traits. Thus, in Study 3, observers rated faces on nurturing (a stereotypically female trait and on femininity. Judgements of nurturing were associated with femininity (positively and masculinity (negatively ratings in both female and male faces. In summary, the perception of aggression differs in female versus male faces. The sex difference was not simply because aggression is a gendered construct; the relationships between masculinity/femininity and nurturing were similar for male and female faces even though nurturing is also a gendered construct. Masculinity and femininity ratings are not associated with aggression ratings nor with the face ratio for female faces. In contrast, all four variables are highly inter-correlated in male faces, likely because these cues in male faces serve as "honest signals".

Facing aggression: cues differ for female versus male faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Geniole, Shawn N; Keyes, Amanda E; Mondloch, Catherine J; Carré, Justin M; McCormick, Cheryl M

2012-01-01

The facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio), is a sexually dimorphic metric associated with actual aggression in men and with observers' judgements of aggression in male faces. Here, we sought to determine if observers' judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio in female faces. In three studies, participants rated photographs of female and male faces on aggression, femininity, masculinity, attractiveness, and nurturing. In Studies 1 and 2, for female and male faces, judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio even when other cues in the face related to masculinity were controlled statistically. Nevertheless, correlations between the face ratio and judgements of aggression were smaller for female than for male faces (F(1,36) = 7.43, p = 0.01). In Study 1, there was no significant relationship between judgements of femininity and of aggression in female faces. In Study 2, the association between judgements of masculinity and aggression was weaker in female faces than for male faces in Study 1. The weaker association in female faces may be because aggression and masculinity are stereotypically male traits. Thus, in Study 3, observers rated faces on nurturing (a stereotypically female trait) and on femininity. Judgements of nurturing were associated with femininity (positively) and masculinity (negatively) ratings in both female and male faces. In summary, the perception of aggression differs in female versus male faces. The sex difference was not simply because aggression is a gendered construct; the relationships between masculinity/femininity and nurturing were similar for male and female faces even though nurturing is also a gendered construct. Masculinity and femininity ratings are not associated with aggression ratings nor with the face ratio for female faces. In contrast, all four variables are highly inter-correlated in male faces, likely because these cues in male faces serve as "honest signals".

Facing Aggression: Cues Differ for Female versus Male Faces

Science.gov (United States)

Geniole, Shawn N.; Keyes, Amanda E.; Mondloch, Catherine J.; Carré, Justin M.; McCormick, Cheryl M.

2012-01-01

The facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio), is a sexually dimorphic metric associated with actual aggression in men and with observers' judgements of aggression in male faces. Here, we sought to determine if observers' judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio in female faces. In three studies, participants rated photographs of female and male faces on aggression, femininity, masculinity, attractiveness, and nurturing. In Studies 1 and 2, for female and male faces, judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio even when other cues in the face related to masculinity were controlled statistically. Nevertheless, correlations between the face ratio and judgements of aggression were smaller for female than for male faces (F1,36 = 7.43, p = 0.01). In Study 1, there was no significant relationship between judgements of femininity and of aggression in female faces. In Study 2, the association between judgements of masculinity and aggression was weaker in female faces than for male faces in Study 1. The weaker association in female faces may be because aggression and masculinity are stereotypically male traits. Thus, in Study 3, observers rated faces on nurturing (a stereotypically female trait) and on femininity. Judgements of nurturing were associated with femininity (positively) and masculinity (negatively) ratings in both female and male faces. In summary, the perception of aggression differs in female versus male faces. The sex difference was not simply because aggression is a gendered construct; the relationships between masculinity/femininity and nurturing were similar for male and female faces even though nurturing is also a gendered construct. Masculinity and femininity ratings are not associated with aggression ratings nor with the face ratio for female faces. In contrast, all four variables are highly inter-correlated in male faces, likely because these cues in male faces serve as “honest signals”. PMID:22276184

The Rejuvenation of Cartography in ICT Era

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

GUO Renzhong

2017-10-01

Full Text Available With the impetus of ICT, cartography faces the unprecedented challenges. The paper discusses the problems and changes of cartography facing the digital technology, analyzes the constraints of traditional cartography that are mainly delimited by 2D physical paper map. Diverseness of modern cartography shows various map products, and the paper illustrates the digital freedom in information space of modern cartography from eight aspects, including physical reality VS virtual reality, paper map VS digital map, superficial visualization VS inner visualization and so on. Modern cartography encounters the new development opportunities and fresh demands in digital era, and it's necessary to extend the framework of cartography and to assimilate newly sprouted things to promote the rejuvenation of cartography.

Electricity supply industry modelling for multiple objectives under demand growth uncertainty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Heinrich, G.; Basson, L.; Howells, M.; Petrie, J.

2007-01-01

Appropriate energy-environment-economic (E3) modelling provides key information for policy makers in the electricity supply industry (ESI) faced with navigating a sustainable development path. Key challenges include engaging with stakeholder values and preferences, and exploring trade-offs between competing objectives in the face of underlying uncertainty. As a case study we represent the South African ESI using a partial equilibrium E3 modelling approach, and extend the approach to include multiple objectives under selected future uncertainties. This extension is achieved by assigning cost penalties to non-cost attributes to force the model's least-cost objective function to better satisfy non-cost criteria. This paper incorporates aspects of flexibility to demand growth uncertainty into each future expansion alternative by introducing stochastic programming with recourse into the model. Technology lead times are taken into account by the inclusion of a decision node along the time horizon where aspects of real options theory are considered within the planning process. Hedging in the recourse programming is automatically translated from being purely financial, to include the other attributes that the cost penalties represent. From a retrospective analysis of the cost penalties, the correct market signals, can be derived to meet policy goal, with due regard to demand uncertainty. (author)

Error analysis for creating 3D face templates based on cylindrical quad-tree structure

Science.gov (United States)

Gutfeter, Weronika

2015-09-01

Development of new biometric algorithms is parallel to advances in technology of sensing devices. Some of the limitations of the current face recognition systems may be eliminated by integrating 3D sensors into these systems. Depth sensing devices can capture a spatial structure of the face in addition to the texture and color. This kind of data is yet usually very voluminous and requires large amount of computer resources for being processed (face scans obtained with typical depth cameras contain more than 150 000 points per face). That is why defining efficient data structures for processing spatial images is crucial for further development of 3D face recognition methods. The concept described in this work fulfills the aforementioned demands. Modification of the quad-tree structure was chosen because it can be easily transformed into less dimensional data structures and maintains spatial relations between data points. We are able to interpret data stored in the tree as a pyramid of features which allow us to analyze face images using coarse-to-fine strategy, often exploited in biometric recognition systems.

The incident of repetitive demands resolution in consumer affairs: empirical analysis of legal feasibility

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lucas do Monte Silva

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Faced with the scenario of massification of lawsuits, this article intends to analyze the main arguments and questionings of the demands related to moral damage and health plans, on Santa Catarina’s Court of Justice, in order to analyze the possible application of the incident of repetitive demands resolution of the new Civil Procedure Code. To do so, it will be done, first, an analysis of the current context of the Brazilian judiciary, presenting the context of repetitive demands and massification of contracts and introductory aspects of the incident of repetitive demands resolution. Then it will made be a judicial empirical analysis, quantitative and qualitative, through a case study of Santa Catarina Courts of Justice, conducting an empirical study of cross descriptive analysis of the demands related to the issue highlighted above, in order to demonstrate an 'argumentative radiography’ of the judgments of that Court. The results confirmed the possibility of applying IRDR in repetitive demands relating to subjects of this study, with due legal caution, taking into account the high number of “issues of fact” that involve lawsuits that have, among their claims, compensation for moral damages.

Knowledge and Perception about Clinical Research Shapes Behavior: Face to Face Survey in Korean General Public.

Science.gov (United States)

Choi, Yun Jung; Beck, Sung-Ho; Kang, Woon Yong; Yoo, Soyoung; Kim, Seong-Yoon; Lee, Ji Sung; Burt, Tal; Kim, Tae Won

2016-05-01

Considering general public as potential patients, identifying factors that hinder public participation poses great importance, especially in a research environment where demands for clinical trial participants outpace the supply. Hence, the aim of this study was to evaluate knowledge and perception about clinical research in general public. A total of 400 Seoul residents with no previous experience of clinical trial participation were selected, as representative of population in Seoul in terms of age and sex. To minimize selection bias, every fifth passer-by was invited to interview, and if in a cluster, person on the very right side was asked. To ensure the uniform use of survey, written instructions have been added to the questionnaire. Followed by pilot test in 40 subjects, the survey was administered face-to-face in December 2014. To investigate how perception shapes behavior, we compared perception scores in those who expressed willingness to participate and those who did not. Remarkably higher percentage of responders stated that they have heard of clinical research, and knew someone who participated (both, P perceptions and lack of knowledge will be effective in enhancing public engaged in clinical research.

[Care and optimal management of the face- and neck-lift patients].

Science.gov (United States)

Delay, E

2017-10-01

Surgical and case management for patients demanding a face- and neck-lift are very important. The purpose of this paper is to help the plastic surgeons with information and recommendations useful for the best medical care of patients requiring a face- and neck-lift. The first consultation is the most important contact with the patient. The preoperative discussion helps to define patient demands and to evaluate eventual contraindications for surgery. The clinical exam and patient requirements are useful in the construction of the therapeutic proposition. This proposition is then confronted with patients' expectations and demands. The confrontation between the surgical proposition and patients' expectations allows to evaluate if it is appropriate, or not, to operate. At the end of the first consultation, the patient receives the information sheets of the French Plastic Surgery Society (SOFCPRE) according to the proposed surgical treatment. The second consultation makes it possible to verify the pertinence of the surgical act, to reiterate the preoperative recommendations, to confirm that the information given to the patient was well understood and to obtain the written consent from the patient. The written consent should include the fact that the patient received the information sheets of the SOFCPRE, that they were read and understood, and that the surgeon has transmitted the necessary information in order for the patient to take an informed and free decision to pursue with the surgery. The follow-up after surgery is as important as the surgery itself. In some cases, cosmetic gestures can be performed in the following months to obtain the best results possible and the highest satisfaction. The face- and neck-lift is an "adventure" for the patients and the postoperative difficulties should not be underestimated. However, the caring and professional support of the plastic surgeon and the support of someone of the patients' entourage can help the patient overcome this

The moderating role of decision authority and coworker- and supervisor support on the impact of job demands in nursing homes: A cross-sectional study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Willemse, B.M.; de Jonge, J.; Smit, D.; Depla, M.F.I.A.; Pot, A.M.

2012-01-01

Background: Healthcare workers in nursing homes are faced with high job demands that can have a detrimental impact on job-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction. Job resources may have a buffering role on this relationship. The Demand-Control-Support (DCS) Model offers a theoretical framework to

Dynamic pricing for demand response considering market price uncertainty

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ghazvini, Mohammad Ali Fotouhi; Soares, Joao; Morais, Hugo

2017-01-01

Retail energy providers (REPs) can employ different strategies such as offering demand response (DR) programs, participating in bilateral contracts, and employing self-generation distributed generation (DG) units to avoid financial losses in the volatile electricity markets. In this paper......, the problem of setting dynamic retail sales price by a REP is addressed with a robust optimization technique. In the proposed model, the REP offers price-based DR programs while it faces uncertainties in the wholesale market price. The main contribution of this paper is using a robust optimization approach...

Modelling the Effects of Teacher Demand Factors on Teacher Understaffing in Public Secondary Schools in Kenya

Science.gov (United States)

Wamukuru, David Kuria

2016-01-01

The secondary school teacher labour market faces many challenges including, escalating teacher wage bill, teacher shortages that occur alongside teacher surpluses, inadequate teacher distribution and inefficient teacher utilization. There is the need therefore to understand the effects of the factors determining demand for secondary school…

Reading in developmental prosopagnosia: Evidence for a dissociation between word and face recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Starrfelt, Randi; Klargaard, Solja K; Petersen, Anders; Gerlach, Christian

2018-02-01

Recent models suggest that face and word recognition may rely on overlapping cognitive processes and neural regions. In support of this notion, face recognition deficits have been demonstrated in developmental dyslexia. Here we test whether the opposite association can also be found, that is, impaired reading in developmental prosopagnosia. We tested 10 adults with developmental prosopagnosia and 20 matched controls. All participants completed the Cambridge Face Memory Test, the Cambridge Face Perception test and a Face recognition questionnaire used to quantify everyday face recognition experience. Reading was measured in four experimental tasks, testing different levels of letter, word, and text reading: (a) single word reading with words of varying length,(b) vocal response times in single letter and short word naming, (c) recognition of single letters and short words at brief exposure durations (targeting the word superiority effect), and d) text reading. Participants with developmental prosopagnosia performed strikingly similar to controls across the four reading tasks. Formal analysis revealed a significant dissociation between word and face recognition, as the difference in performance with faces and words was significantly greater for participants with developmental prosopagnosia than for controls. Adult developmental prosopagnosics read as quickly and fluently as controls, while they are seemingly unable to learn efficient strategies for recognizing faces. We suggest that this is due to the differing demands that face and word recognition put on the perceptual system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

How did rehabilitation professionals act when faced with the Great East Japan earthquake and disaster? Descriptive epidemiology of disability and an interim report of the relief activities of the ten Rehabilitation-Related Organizations.

OpenAIRE

Liu, Meigen; Kohzuki, Masahiro; Hamamura, Akinori; Ishikawa, Makoto; Saitoh, Masami; Kurihara, Masaki; Handa, Kazuto; Nakamura, Haruki; Fukaura, Junichi; Kimura, Ryuji; Ito, Takao; Matsuzaka, Nobuou

2012-01-01

Objective: Inter-organizational coordination is important for rehabilitation disaster relief. The 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Disaster was unprecedented, being geographically widespread and multifaceted. Faced with the crisis, rehabilitation professionals established the 10 Rehabilitation- Related Organizations of Rehabilitation Support Service (10-RRO). The objectives of this paper are to provide descriptive epidemiology and assess the activities of 10- RRO. Design: Descriptive. Met...

Unprecedented Proline-Based Heterogeneous Organocatalyst for Selective Production of Vanillin

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Farveh Saberi

2018-04-01

Full Text Available An organocatalytic system based on an unprecedented proline analogue and iron oxide magnetic nanoparticles (Prn/Fe2O3@SiO2 was designed and employed in vanillin production from isoeugenol and vanillyl alcohol. Full characterization of the obtained catalyst revealed the successful functionalization of the nanoparticle surface with the organic moieties. The activity of the magnetic bifunctional material was compared with its proton-unexchanged counterpart. Interestingly, the oxidation of isoeugenol resulted in being highly dependent on the acidic functionalities of the organocatalyst. Nonetheless, the catalytic performance of the proton-unexchanged catalyst suggested that the acidic and basic sites of the Prn/Fe2O3@SiO2 exhibited a synergic effect, giving rise to higher conversion and selectivity. The presence of bifunctional groups in the proline analogue, together with the magnetic properties of the iron oxide nanoparticles, could lead to high efficiency, versatility, recoverability, and reusability.

Stability and Change in the Exposure to Demands and Control: Results of the Longitudinal SMASH Study

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lange, A. de; Taris, T.; Kompier, M.; Houtman, I.L.D.; Bongers, P.M.

2001-01-01

In 1979 Robert Karasek introduced the job demand-contol (DC model). Through its simplicity and applicability this model has gained “substantial face value” in the theory and practice of occupational health psychology and epidemiology. According to the DC model a psychosocial work environment can be

Coordinating a Supply Chain with Price and Advertisement Dependent Stochastic Demand

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Liying; Wang, Yong; Yan, Xiaoming

2013-01-01

This paper investigates pricing and ordering as well as advertising coordination issues in a single-manufacturer single-retailer supply chain, where the manufacturer sells a newsvendor-type product through the retailer who faces a stochastic demand depending on both retail price and advertising expenditure. Under the assumption that the market demand has a multiplicative functional form, the Stackelberg and cooperative game models are developed, and the closed form solution to each model is provided as well. Comparisons and insights are presented. We show that a properly designed revenue-cost-sharing contract can achieve supply chain coordination and lead to a Pareto improving win-win situation for channel members. We also discuss the allocation of the extra joint profit according to individual supply chain members' risk preferences and negotiating powers. PMID:24453832

Coordinating a Supply Chain with Price and Advertisement Dependent Stochastic Demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Liying Li

2013-01-01

Full Text Available This paper investigates pricing and ordering as well as advertising coordination issues in a single-manufacturer single-retailer supply chain, where the manufacturer sells a newsvendor-type product through the retailer who faces a stochastic demand depending on both retail price and advertising expenditure. Under the assumption that the market demand has a multiplicative functional form, the Stackelberg and cooperative game models are developed, and the closed form solution to each model is provided as well. Comparisons and insights are presented. We show that a properly designed revenue-cost-sharing contract can achieve supply chain coordination and lead to a Pareto improving win-win situation for channel members. We also discuss the allocation of the extra joint profit according to individual supply chain members’ risk preferences and negotiating powers.

Coordinating a supply chain with price and advertisement dependent stochastic demand.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Liying; Wang, Yong; Yan, Xiaoming

2013-01-01

This paper investigates pricing and ordering as well as advertising coordination issues in a single-manufacturer single-retailer supply chain, where the manufacturer sells a newsvendor-type product through the retailer who faces a stochastic demand depending on both retail price and advertising expenditure. Under the assumption that the market demand has a multiplicative functional form, the Stackelberg and cooperative game models are developed, and the closed form solution to each model is provided as well. Comparisons and insights are presented. We show that a properly designed revenue-cost-sharing contract can achieve supply chain coordination and lead to a Pareto improving win-win situation for channel members. We also discuss the allocation of the extra joint profit according to individual supply chain members' risk preferences and negotiating powers.

Successful decoding of famous faces in the fusiform face area.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Vadim Axelrod

Full Text Available What are the neural mechanisms of face recognition? It is believed that the network of face-selective areas, which spans the occipital, temporal, and frontal cortices, is important in face recognition. A number of previous studies indeed reported that face identity could be discriminated based on patterns of multivoxel activity in the fusiform face area and the anterior temporal lobe. However, given the difficulty in localizing the face-selective area in the anterior temporal lobe, its role in face recognition is still unknown. Furthermore, previous studies limited their analysis to occipito-temporal regions without testing identity decoding in more anterior face-selective regions, such as the amygdala and prefrontal cortex. In the current high-resolution functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging study, we systematically examined the decoding of the identity of famous faces in the temporo-frontal network of face-selective and adjacent non-face-selective regions. A special focus has been put on the face-area in the anterior temporal lobe, which was reliably localized using an optimized scanning protocol. We found that face-identity could be discriminated above chance level only in the fusiform face area. Our results corroborate the role of the fusiform face area in face recognition. Future studies are needed to further explore the role of the more recently discovered anterior face-selective areas in face recognition.

Optimal Dynamic Pricing of Inventories with Stochastic Demand over Finite Horizons

OpenAIRE

Guillermo Gallego; Garrett van Ryzin

1994-01-01

In many industries, managers face the problem of selling a given stock of items by a deadline. We investigate the problem of dynamically pricing such inventories when demand is price sensitive and stochastic and the firm's objective is to maximize expected revenues. Examples that fit this framework include retailers selling fashion and seasonal goods and the travel and leisure industry, which markets space such as seats on airline flights, cabins on vacation cruises, and rooms in hotels that ...

High Demand, Core Geosciences, and Meeting the Challenges through Online Approaches

Science.gov (United States)

Keane, Christopher; Leahy, P. Patrick; Houlton, Heather; Wilson, Carolyn

2014-05-01

As the geosciences has evolved over the last several decades, so too has undergraduate geoscience education, both from a standpoint of curriculum and educational experience. In the United States, we have been experiencing very strong growth in enrollments in geoscience, as well as employment demand for the last 7 years. That growth has been largely fueled by all aspects of the energy boom in the US, both from the energy production side and the environmental management side. Interestingly the portfolio of experiences and knowledge required are strongly congruent as evidenced from results of the American Geosciences Institute's National Geoscience Exit Survey. Likewise, the demand for new geoscientists in the US is outstripping even the nearly unprecedented growth in enrollments and degrees, which is calling into question the geosciences' inability to effectively reach into the largest growing segments of the U.S. College population - underrepresented minorities. We will also examine the results of the AGI Survey on Geoscience Online Learning and examine how the results of that survey are rectified with Peter Smith's "Middle Third" theory on "wasted talent" because of spatial, economic, and social dislocation. In particular, the geosciences are late to the online learning game in the United States and most faculty engaged in such activities are "lone wolves" in their department operating with little knowledge of the support structures that exist in such development. Yet the most cited barriers for faculty not engaging actively in online learning is the assertion that laboratory and field experiences will be lost and thus fight engaging in this medium. However, the survey shows that faculty are discovering novel approaches to address these issues, many of which have great application to enabling geoscience programs in the United States to meet the expanding demand for geoscience degrees.

Real Time Face Quality Assessment for Face Log Generation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Kamal, Nasrollahi; Moeslund, Thomas B.

2009-01-01

Summarizing a long surveillance video to just a few best quality face images of each subject, a face-log, is of great importance in surveillance systems. Face quality assessment is the back-bone for face log generation and improving the quality assessment makes the face logs more reliable....... Developing a real time face quality assessment system using the most important facial features and employing it for face logs generation are the concerns of this paper. Extensive tests using four databases are carried out to validate the usability of the system....

Balancing food security and water demand for freshwater ecosystems

Science.gov (United States)

Pastor, Amandine; Palazzo, Amanda; Havlik, Petr; Obersteiner, Michael; Biemans, Hester; Wada, Yoshihide; Kabat, Pavel; Ludwig, Fulco

2017-04-01

Water is not an infinite resource and demand from irrigation, household and industry is constantly increasing. This study focused on including global water availability including environmental flow requirements with water withdrawal from irrigation and other sectors at a monthly time-step in the GLOBIOM model. This model allows re-adjustment of land-use allocation, crop management, consumption and international trade. The GLOBIOM model induces an endogenous change in water price depending on water supply and demand. In this study, the focus was on how the inclusion of water resources affects land-use and, in particular, how global change will influence repartition of irrigated and rainfed lands at global scale. We used the climate change scenario including a radiative forcing of 8.5 W/m2 (RCP8.5), the socio-economic scenario (SSP2: middle-of-road), and the environmental flow method based on monthly flow allocation (the Variable Monthly Flow method) with high and low restrictions. Irrigation withdrawals were adjusted to a monthly time-step to account for biophysical water limitations at finer time resolution. Our results show that irrigated land might decrease up to 40% on average depending on the choice of EFR restrictions. Several areas were identified as future hot-spots of water stress such as the Mediterranean and Middle-East regions. Other countries were identified to be in safe position in terms of water stress such as North-European countries. Re-allocation of rainfed and irrigated land might be useful information for land-use planners and water managers at an international level to decide on appropriate legislations on climate change mitigation/adaptation when exposure and sensitivity to climate change is high and/or on adaptation measures to face increasing water demand. For example, some countries are likely to adopt measures to increase their water use efficiencies (irrigation system, soil and water conservation practices) to face water shortages, while

Modelling inter-supply chain competition with resource limitation and demand disruption

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Zhaobo; Teng, Chunxian; Zhang, Ding; Sun, Jiayi

2016-05-01

This paper proposes a comprehensive model for studying supply chain versus supply chain competition with resource limitation and demand disruption. We assume that there are supply chains with heterogeneous supply network structures that compete at multiple demand markets. Each supply chain is comprised of internal and external firms. The internal firms are coordinated in production and distribution and share some common but limited resources within the supply chain, whereas the external firms are independent and do not share the internal resources. The supply chain managers strive to develop optimal strategies in terms of production level and resource allocation in maximising their profit while facing competition at the end market. The Cournot-Nash equilibrium of this inter-supply chain competition is formulated as a variational inequality problem. We further study the case when there is demand disruption in the plan-execution phase. In such a case, the managers need to revise their planned strategy in order to maximise their profit with the new demand under disruption and minimise the cost of change. We present a bi-criteria decision-making model for supply chain managers and develop the optimal conditions in equilibrium, which again can be formulated by another variational inequality problem. Numerical examples are presented for illustrative purpose.

Unprecedented climate events: Historical changes, aspirational targets, and national commitments

Science.gov (United States)

Diffenbaugh, Noah S.; Singh, Deepti; Mankin, Justin S.

2018-01-01

The United Nations Paris Agreement creates a specific need to compare consequences of cumulative emissions for pledged national commitments and aspirational targets of 1.5° to 2°C global warming. We find that humans have already increased the probability of historically unprecedented hot, warm, wet, and dry extremes, including over 50 to 90% of North America, Europe, and East Asia. Emissions consistent with national commitments are likely to cause substantial and widespread additional increases, including more than fivefold for warmest night over ~50% of Europe and >25% of East Asia and more than threefold for wettest days over >35% of North America, Europe, and East Asia. In contrast, meeting aspirational targets to keep global warming below 2°C reduces the area experiencing more than threefold increases to 90% of North America, Europe, East Asia, and much of the tropics—still exhibit sizable increases in the probability of record-setting hot, wet, and/or dry events. PMID:29457133

The Effect of Violations of the Constant Demand Assumption on the Defense Logistic Agency Requirements Model

Science.gov (United States)

1994-09-01

Chapter V. jt= : Problem Recognitio and St I. The problem was presented and outlined in detail in Chapter I but will be briefly restated here to...variables facilitate discussion on total variable cost and the service level generated by an ECQ system faced with lumpy demand. 60 Averafg li

Unprecedented NES non-antagonistic inhibitor for nuclear export of Rev from Sida cordifolia.

Science.gov (United States)

Tamura, Satoru; Kaneko, Masafumi; Shiomi, Atsushi; Yang, Guang-Ming; Yamaura, Toshiaki; Murakami, Nobutoshi

2010-03-15

Bioassay-guided separation from the MeOH extract of the South American medicinal plant Sida cordifolia resulted in isolation of (10E,12Z)-9-hydroxyoctadeca-10,12-dienoic acid (1) as an unprecedented NES non-antagonistic inhibitor for nuclear export of Rev. This mechanism of action was established by competitive experiment by the biotinylated probe derived from leptomycin B, the known NES antagonistic inhibitor. Additionally, structure-activity relationship analysis by use of the synthesized analogs clarified cooperation of several functionalities in the Rev-export inhibitory activity of 1. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Layoffs and tradeoffs: production, quality, and safety demands under the threat of job loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Probst, Tahira M

2002-07-01

Employees often face a conflict between production targets, quality assurance, and adherence to safety policies. In a time when layoffs are on the rise, it is important to understand the effects of employee job insecurity on these potentially competing demands. A laboratory experiment manipulated the threat of layoffs in a simulated organization and assessed its effect on employee productivity, product quality, and adherence to safety policies. Results suggest that student participants faced with the threat of layoffs were more productive, yet violated more safety rules and produced lower quality outputs, than participants in the control condition. Implications for organizations contemplating layoffs and directions for future research are discussed.

Cross-modal face recognition using multi-matcher face scores

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yufeng; Blasch, Erik

2015-05-01

The performance of face recognition can be improved using information fusion of multimodal images and/or multiple algorithms. When multimodal face images are available, cross-modal recognition is meaningful for security and surveillance applications. For example, a probe face is a thermal image (especially at nighttime), while only visible face images are available in the gallery database. Matching a thermal probe face onto the visible gallery faces requires crossmodal matching approaches. A few such studies were implemented in facial feature space with medium recognition performance. In this paper, we propose a cross-modal recognition approach, where multimodal faces are cross-matched in feature space and the recognition performance is enhanced with stereo fusion at image, feature and/or score level. In the proposed scenario, there are two cameras for stereo imaging, two face imagers (visible and thermal images) in each camera, and three recognition algorithms (circular Gaussian filter, face pattern byte, linear discriminant analysis). A score vector is formed with three cross-matched face scores from the aforementioned three algorithms. A classifier (e.g., k-nearest neighbor, support vector machine, binomial logical regression [BLR]) is trained then tested with the score vectors by using 10-fold cross validations. The proposed approach was validated with a multispectral stereo face dataset from 105 subjects. Our experiments show very promising results: ACR (accuracy rate) = 97.84%, FAR (false accept rate) = 0.84% when cross-matching the fused thermal faces onto the fused visible faces by using three face scores and the BLR classifier.

Meta-analytic review of the development of face discrimination in infancy: Face race, face gender, infant age, and methodology moderate face discrimination.

Science.gov (United States)

Sugden, Nicole A; Marquis, Alexandra R

2017-11-01

Infants show facility for discriminating between individual faces within hours of birth. Over the first year of life, infants' face discrimination shows continued improvement with familiar face types, such as own-race faces, but not with unfamiliar face types, like other-race faces. The goal of this meta-analytic review is to provide an effect size for infants' face discrimination ability overall, with own-race faces, and with other-race faces within the first year of life, how this differs with age, and how it is influenced by task methodology. Inclusion criteria were (a) infant participants aged 0 to 12 months, (b) completing a human own- or other-race face discrimination task, (c) with discrimination being determined by infant looking. Our analysis included 30 works (165 samples, 1,926 participants participated in 2,623 tasks). The effect size for infants' face discrimination was small, 6.53% greater than chance (i.e., equal looking to the novel and familiar). There was a significant difference in discrimination by race, overall (own-race, 8.18%; other-race, 3.18%) and between ages (own-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 7.32%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 9.17%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 7.68%; other-race: 0- to 4.5-month-olds, 6.12%; 5- to 7.5-month-olds, 3.70%; and 8- to 12-month-olds, 2.79%). Multilevel linear (mixed-effects) models were used to predict face discrimination; infants' capacity to discriminate faces is sensitive to face characteristics including race, gender, and emotion as well as the methods used, including task timing, coding method, and visual angle. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Demand estimation of bus as a public transport based on gravity model

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Asmael Noor

2018-01-01

Full Text Available Bus as a public transport is a suitable service to meet the travel demand between any two zones. Baghdad faced with severe traffic problems along with the development in city size and economy. Passengers have to wait lots of time during commutation to work because of the serious traffic jams. In the last years, rate of car ownership has increased as income levels have gone up and cars have become a preferable mode of transport. Bus, as the only public mode of transport available, is suffering from inconvenience, slowness, and inflexibility. A big emphasis must be given to the public transport system because it introduces an active utilization of limited resources, energy and land. This study determines the demand of public routes for buses using boarding / alighting values to generate a model and assign these demand values to the bus network. Five public routes were selected to collect the required data. Ride check and Point check survey was conducted for each selected route. The results of this study were public demand assigned to the selected bus routes, dwell time, load factor and headway. It is observed that R1 and R3 have the heaviest travel demand; they need special study to improve bus performance and make better transit. The model developed with only limited data available to predict travel demand will assist transportation planners and related agencies in decision making.

Voicing on Virtual and Face to Face Discussion

Science.gov (United States)

Yamat, Hamidah

2013-01-01

This paper presents and discusses findings of a study conducted on pre-service teachers' experiences in virtual and face to face discussions. Technology has brought learning nowadays beyond the classroom context or time zone. The learning context and process no longer rely solely on face to face communications in the presence of a teacher.…

Facing Aggression: Cues Differ for Female versus Male Faces

OpenAIRE

Geniole, Shawn N.; Keyes, Amanda E.; Mondloch, Catherine J.; Carr?, Justin M.; McCormick, Cheryl M.

2012-01-01

The facial width-to-height ratio (face ratio), is a sexually dimorphic metric associated with actual aggression in men and with observers' judgements of aggression in male faces. Here, we sought to determine if observers' judgements of aggression were associated with the face ratio in female faces. In three studies, participants rated photographs of female and male faces on aggression, femininity, masculinity, attractiveness, and nurturing. In Studies 1 and 2, for female and male faces, judge...

Buzz: Face-to-Face Contact and the Urban Economy

OpenAIRE

Michael Storper; Anthony J. Venables

2003-01-01

This paper argues that existing models of urban concentrations are incomplete unless grounded in the most fundamental aspect of proximity; face-to-face contact. Face-to-face contact has four main features; it is an efficient communication technology; it can help solve incentive problems; it can facilitate socialization and learning; and it provides psychological motivation. We discuss each of these features in turn, and develop formal economic models of two of them. Face-to-face is particular...

Social anxiety under load: the effects of perceptual load in processing emotional faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Soares, Sandra C; Rocha, Marta; Neiva, Tiago; Rodrigues, Paulo; Silva, Carlos F

2015-01-01

Previous studies in the social anxiety arena have shown an impaired attentional control system, similar to that found in trait anxiety. However, the effect of task demands on social anxiety in socially threatening stimuli, such as angry faces, remains unseen. In the present study, 54 university students scoring high and low in the Social Interaction and Performance Anxiety and Avoidance Scale (SIPAAS) questionnaire, participated in a target letter discrimination task while task-irrelevant face stimuli (angry, disgust, happy, and neutral) were simultaneously presented. The results showed that high (compared to low) socially anxious individuals were more prone to distraction by task-irrelevant stimuli, particularly under high perceptual load conditions. More importantly, for such individuals, the accuracy proportions for angry faces significantly differed between the low and high perceptual load conditions, which is discussed in light of current evolutionary models of social anxiety.

Aggregated Demand Modelling Including Distributed Generation, Storage and Demand Response

OpenAIRE

Marzooghi, Hesamoddin; Hill, David J.; Verbic, Gregor

2014-01-01

It is anticipated that penetration of renewable energy sources (RESs) in power systems will increase further in the next decades mainly due to environmental issues. In the long term of several decades, which we refer to in terms of the future grid (FG), balancing between supply and demand will become dependent on demand actions including demand response (DR) and energy storage. So far, FG feasibility studies have not considered these new demand-side developments for modelling future demand. I...

European cinema: face to face with Hollywood

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Elsaesser, T.

2005-01-01

In the face of renewed competition from Hollywood since the early 1980s and the challenges posed to Europe's national cinemas by the fall of the Wall in 1989, independent filmmaking in Europe has begun to re-invent itself. European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood re-assesses the different

The evolution of gerontology and geriatrics in an era of a politics of aging.

Science.gov (United States)

Torres-Gil, Fernando M

2017-01-01

The fields of gerontology and geriatrics are facing unprecedented changes, pressures, and opportunities. The 21st century requires that we utilize contemporary approaches to modernizing these disciplines for new populations, new cohorts and new social, economic and political demands. This article draws on the authors professional, academic, and public policy experiences to suggest initiatives and paradigms that can set a road map to both change the last centuries' notions of longevity and social supports to one that accounts for technology, varied cohorts, a public/private sector divide, and the nexus of aging and diversity.

Interfering with memory for faces: The cost of doing two things at once.

Science.gov (United States)

Wammes, Jeffrey D; Fernandes, Myra A

2016-01-01

We inferred the processes critical for episodic retrieval of faces by measuring susceptibility to memory interference from different distracting tasks. Experiment 1 examined recognition of studied faces under full attention (FA) or each of two divided attention (DA) conditions requiring concurrent decisions to auditorily presented letters. Memory was disrupted in both DA relative to FA conditions, a result contrary to a material-specific account of interference effects. Experiment 2 investigated whether the magnitude of interference depended on competition between concurrent tasks for common processing resources. Studied faces were presented either upright (configurally processed) or inverted (featurally processed). Recognition was completed under FA, or DA with one of two face-based distracting tasks requiring either featural or configural processing. We found an interaction: memory for upright faces was lower under DA when the distracting task required configural than featural processing, while the reverse was true for memory of inverted faces. Across experiments, the magnitude of memory interference was similar (a 19% or 20% decline from FA) regardless of whether the materials in the distracting task overlapped with the to-be-remembered information. Importantly, interference was significantly larger (42%) when the processing demands of the distracting and target retrieval task overlapped, suggesting a processing-specific account of memory interference.

Strategies of enterprises facing european natural gas market

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chevalier, J.M.

1992-01-01

The growing demand for natural gas in Europe is taking place within a gradual process of deregulation aiming to achieve a single energy market. Gas industry's traditional structure and behaviour are facing new forms of competition. Gas producers might be willing to capture a greater share of downstream profits while large users are interested in securing their supply at the cheapest cost. In addition, new comers could appear at all stages of the industry, that are becoming contestable markets. Challengers and defenders will probably induce important changes in industry's present structure. 11 refs., 1 fig., 3 tabs

The Caledonian face test: A new test of face discrimination.

Science.gov (United States)

Logan, Andrew J; Wilkinson, Frances; Wilson, Hugh R; Gordon, Gael E; Loffler, Gunter

2016-02-01

This study aimed to develop a clinical test of face perception which is applicable to a wide range of patients and can capture normal variability. The Caledonian face test utilises synthetic faces which combine simplicity with sufficient realism to permit individual identification. Face discrimination thresholds (i.e. minimum difference between faces required for accurate discrimination) were determined in an "odd-one-out" task. The difference between faces was controlled by an adaptive QUEST procedure. A broad range of face discrimination sensitivity was determined from a group (N=52) of young adults (mean 5.75%; SD 1.18; range 3.33-8.84%). The test is fast (3-4 min), repeatable (test-re-test r(2)=0.795) and demonstrates a significant inversion effect. The potential to identify impairments of face discrimination was evaluated by testing LM who reported a lifelong difficulty with face perception. While LM's impairment for two established face tests was close to the criterion for significance (Z-scores of -2.20 and -2.27) for the Caledonian face test, her Z-score was -7.26, implying a more than threefold higher sensitivity. The new face test provides a quantifiable and repeatable assessment of face discrimination ability. The enhanced sensitivity suggests that the Caledonian face test may be capable of detecting more subtle impairments of face perception than available tests. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Face-Lift Satisfaction Using the FACE-Q.

Science.gov (United States)

Sinno, Sammy; Schwitzer, Jonathan; Anzai, Lavinia; Thorne, Charles H

2015-08-01

Face lifting is one of the most common operative procedures for facial aging and perhaps the procedure most synonymous with plastic surgery in the minds of the lay public, but no verifiable documentation of patient satisfaction exists in the literature. This study is the first to examine face-lift outcomes and patient satisfaction using a validated questionnaire. One hundred five patients undergoing a face lift performed by the senior author (C.H.T.) using a high, extended-superficial musculoaponeurotic system with submental platysma approximation technique were asked to complete anonymously the FACE-Q by e-mail. FACE-Q scores were assessed for each domain (range, 0 to 100), with higher scores indicating greater satisfaction with appearance or superior quality of life. Fifty-three patients completed the FACE-Q (50.5 percent response rate). Patients demonstrated high satisfaction with facial appearance (mean ± SD, 80.7 ± 22.3), and quality of life, including social confidence (90.4 ± 16.6), psychological well-being (92.8 ± 14.3), and early life impact (92.2 ± 16.4). Patients also reported extremely high satisfaction with their decision to undergo face lifting (90.5 ± 15.9). On average, patients felt they appeared 6.9 years younger than their actual age. Patients were most satisfied with the appearance of their nasolabial folds (86.2 ± 18.5), cheeks (86.1 ± 25.4), and lower face/jawline (86.0 ± 20.6), compared with their necks (78.1 ± 25.6) and area under the chin (67.9 ± 32.3). Patients who responded in this study were extremely satisfied with their decision to undergo face lifting and the outcomes and quality of life following the procedure.

A Face Inversion Effect without a Face

Science.gov (United States)

Brandman, Talia; Yovel, Galit

2012-01-01

Numerous studies have attributed the face inversion effect (FIE) to configural processing of internal facial features in upright but not inverted faces. Recent findings suggest that face mechanisms can be activated by faceless stimuli presented in the context of a body. Here we asked whether faceless stimuli with or without body context may induce…

Modelling Commodity Demands and Labour Supply with m-Demands

OpenAIRE

Browning, Martin

1999-01-01

In the empirical modelling of demands and labour supply we often lack data on a full set of goods. The usual response is to invoke separability assumptions. Here we present an alternative based on modelling demands as a function of prices and the quantity of a reference good rather than total expenditure. We term such demands m-demands. The advantage of this approach is that we make maximum use of the data to hand without invoking implausible separability assumptions. In the theory section qu...

Series 'Facing Radiation'. 2 Facing radiation is facing residents

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hanzawa, Takahiro

2013-01-01

The series is to report how general people, who are not at all radiological experts, have faced and understood the problems and tasks of radiation given by the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant Accident (Mar. 2011). The section 2 is reported by an officer of Date City, which localizes at 60 km northern west of the Plant, borders on Iitate Village of Fukushima prefecture, and is indicated as the important area of contamination search (IACS), which the reporter has been conducted for as responsible personnel. In July 2011, the ambient dose was as high as 3.0-3.5 mc-Sv/h and the tentative storage place of contaminated materials was decided by own initiative of residents of a small community, from which the real decontamination started in the City. The target dose after decontamination was defined to be 1.0 mc-Sv/h: however, 28/32 IACS municipalities in the prefecture had not defined the target although they had worked for 2 years after the Accident for their areas exceeding the standard 0.23 mc-Sv/h. At the moment of decontamination of the reporter's own house, he noticed that resident's concerns had directed toward its work itself, not toward the target dose, and wondered if these figures had obstructed to correctly face the radiation. At present that about 2.5 years have passed since the Accident, all of Date citizens have personal accumulated glass dosimeters for seeing the effective external dose and it seems that their dose will not exceed 1 mSv/y if the ambient dose estimated is 0.3-5 mc-Sv/h. Media run to popularity not to face radiation, experts tend to hesitate to face media and residents, and radiation dose will be hardly reduced to zero, despite that correct understanding of radiation is a shorter way for residents' own ease: facing radiation is facing residents. (T.T.)

The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) Project: Providing Standard and On-Demand SAR products for Hazard Science and Hazard Response

Science.gov (United States)

Owen, S. E.; Hua, H.; Rosen, P. A.; Agram, P. S.; Webb, F.; Simons, M.; Yun, S. H.; Sacco, G. F.; Liu, Z.; Fielding, E. J.; Lundgren, P.; Moore, A. W.

2017-12-01

A new era of geodetic imaging arrived with the launch of the ESA Sentinel-1A/B satellites in 2014 and 2016, and with the 2016 confirmation of the NISAR mission, planned for launch in 2021. These missions assure high quality, freely and openly distributed regularly sampled SAR data into the indefinite future. These unprecedented data sets are a watershed for solid earth sciences as we progress towards the goal of ubiquitous InSAR measurements. We now face the challenge of how to best address the massive volumes of data and intensive processing requirements. Should scientists individually process the same data independently themselves? Should a centralized service provider create standard products that all can use? Are there other approaches to accelerate science that are cost effective and efficient? The Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis (ARIA) project, a joint venture co-sponsored by California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and by NASA through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), is focused on rapidly generating higher level geodetic imaging products and placing them in the hands of the solid earth science and local, national, and international natural hazard communities by providing science product generation, exploration, and delivery capabilities at an operational level. However, there are challenges in defining the optimal InSAR data products for the solid earth science community. In this presentation, we will present our experience with InSAR users, our lessons learned the advantages of on demand and standard products, and our proposal for the most effective path forward.

Perceiving age and gender in unfamiliar faces: brain potential evidence for implicit and explicit person categorization.

Science.gov (United States)

Wiese, Holger; Schweinberger, Stefan R; Neumann, Markus F

2008-11-01

We used repetition priming to investigate implicit and explicit processes of unfamiliar face categorization. During prime and test phases, participants categorized unfamiliar faces according to either age or gender. Faces presented at test were either new or primed in a task-congruent (same task during priming and test) or incongruent (different tasks) condition. During age categorization, reaction times revealed significant priming for both priming conditions, and event-related potentials yielded an increased N170 over the left hemisphere as a result of priming. During gender categorization, congruent faces elicited priming and a latency decrease in the right N170. Accordingly, information about age is extracted irrespective of processing demands, and priming facilitates the extraction of feature information reflected in the left N170 effect. By contrast, priming of gender categorization may depend on whether the task at initial presentation requires configural processing.

An Economic Evalution of Demand-side Energy Storage Systems by using a Multi-agent based Electricity Market

Science.gov (United States)

Furusawa, Ken; Sugihara, Hideharu; Tsuji, Kiichiro

Opened wholesale electric power market in April 2005, deregulation of electric power industry in Japan has faced a new competitive environment. In the new environment, Independent Power Producer (: IPP), Power Producer and Supplier (: PPS), Load Service Entity (: LSE) and electric utility can trade electric energy through both bilateral contracts and single-price auction at the electricity market. In general, the market clearing price (: MCP) is largely changed by amount of total load demand in the market. The influence may cause price spike, and consequently the volatility of MCP will make LSEs and their customers to face a risk of revenue and cost. DSM is attracted as a means of load leveling, and has effect on decreasing MCP at peak load period. Introducing Energy Storage systems (: ES) is one of DSM in order to change demand profile at customer-side. In case that customers decrease their own demand at jumped MCP, a bidding strategy of generating companies may be changed their strategy. As a result, MCP is changed through such complex mechanism. In this paper the authors evaluate MCP by multi-agent. It is considered that customer-side ES has an effect on MCP fluctuation. Through numerical examples, this paper evaluates the influence on MCP by controlling customer-side ES corresponding to variation of MCP.

R and D options for demand side management in Japanese electric utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, Takahiko

1996-01-01

Japanese electric demand has been steadily increasing in accordance with the economic growth. However, Japanese electric utilities are facing several problems; increasing construction cost of power facilities, siting constraints and the environmental issue of greenhouse gas emissions. To overcome these problems, electric utilities have been promoting demand-side-management (DSM) activities as well as supplier-side measures, with some presently being carried out through promoting energy conservation technologies and introducing electric tariff options of specific contracts for residential/commercial and industrial consumers. Japanese electric utilities have been carrying out R and D for the future, in particular, energy storage and heat storage which contribute to the improvement of load factor. In this paper, I would like to outline the R and D options for DSM in Japan. (author)

Face time: educating face transplant candidates.

Science.gov (United States)

Lamparello, Brooke M; Bueno, Ericka M; Diaz-Siso, Jesus Rodrigo; Sisk, Geoffroy C; Pomahac, Bohdan

2013-01-01

Face transplantation is the innovative application of microsurgery and immunology to restore appearance and function to those with severe facial disfigurements. Our group aims to establish a multidisciplinary education program that can facilitate informed consent and build a strong knowledge base in patients to enhance adherence to medication regimes, recovery, and quality of life. We analyzed handbooks from our institution's solid organ transplant programs to identify topics applicable to face transplant patients. The team identified unique features of face transplantation that warrant comprehensive patient education. We created a 181-page handbook to provide subjects interested in pursuing transplantation with a written source of information on the process and team members and to address concerns they may have. While the handbook covers a wide range of topics, it is easy to understand and visually appealing. Face transplantation has many unique aspects that must be relayed to the patients pursuing this novel therapy. Since candidates lack third-party support groups and programs, the transplant team must provide an extensive educational component to enhance this complex process. As face transplantation continues to develop, programs must create sound education programs that address patients' needs and concerns to facilitate optimal care.

Home Network Technologies and Automating Demand Response

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

McParland, Charles

2009-12-01

Over the past several years, interest in large-scale control of peak energy demand and total consumption has increased. While motivated by a number of factors, this interest has primarily been spurred on the demand side by the increasing cost of energy and, on the supply side by the limited ability of utilities to build sufficient electricity generation capacity to meet unrestrained future demand. To address peak electricity use Demand Response (DR) systems are being proposed to motivate reductions in electricity use through the use of price incentives. DR systems are also be design to shift or curtail energy demand at critical times when the generation, transmission, and distribution systems (i.e. the 'grid') are threatened with instabilities. To be effectively deployed on a large-scale, these proposed DR systems need to be automated. Automation will require robust and efficient data communications infrastructures across geographically dispersed markets. The present availability of widespread Internet connectivity and inexpensive, reliable computing hardware combined with the growing confidence in the capabilities of distributed, application-level communications protocols suggests that now is the time for designing and deploying practical systems. Centralized computer systems that are capable of providing continuous signals to automate customers reduction of power demand, are known as Demand Response Automation Servers (DRAS). The deployment of prototype DRAS systems has already begun - with most initial deployments targeting large commercial and industrial (C & I) customers. An examination of the current overall energy consumption by economic sector shows that the C & I market is responsible for roughly half of all energy consumption in the US. On a per customer basis, large C & I customers clearly have the most to offer - and to gain - by participating in DR programs to reduce peak demand. And, by concentrating on a small number of relatively

Seeing the Talker's Face Improves Free Recall of Speech for Young Adults With Normal Hearing but Not Older Adults With Hearing Loss.

Science.gov (United States)

Rudner, Mary; Mishra, Sushmit; Stenfelt, Stefan; Lunner, Thomas; Rönnberg, Jerker

2016-06-01

Seeing the talker's face improves speech understanding in noise, possibly releasing resources for cognitive processing. We investigated whether it improves free recall of spoken two-digit numbers. Twenty younger adults with normal hearing and 24 older adults with hearing loss listened to and subsequently recalled lists of 13 two-digit numbers, with alternating male and female talkers. Lists were presented in quiet as well as in stationary and speech-like noise at a signal-to-noise ratio giving approximately 90% intelligibility. Amplification compensated for loss of audibility. Seeing the talker's face improved free recall performance for the younger but not the older group. Poorer performance in background noise was contingent on individual differences in working memory capacity. The effect of seeing the talker's face did not differ in quiet and noise. We have argued that the absence of an effect of seeing the talker's face for older adults with hearing loss may be due to modulation of audiovisual integration mechanisms caused by an interaction between task demands and participant characteristics. In particular, we suggest that executive task demands and interindividual executive skills may play a key role in determining the benefit of seeing the talker's face during a speech-based cognitive task.

Social Anxiety Under Load: The Effects of Perceptual Load in Processing Emotional Faces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Cristina Soares

2015-04-01

Full Text Available Previous studies in the social anxiety arena have shown an impaired attentional control system, similar to that found in trait anxiety. However, the effect of task demands on social anxiety in socially threatening stimuli, such as angry faces, remains unseen. In the present study, fifty-four university students scoring high and low in the Social Interaction and Performance Anxiety and Avoidance Scale (SIPAAS questionnaire, participated in a target letter discrimination task while task-irrelevant face stimuli (angry, disgust, happy, and neutral were simultaneously presented. The results showed that high (compared to low socially anxious individuals were more prone to distraction by task-irrelevant stimuli, particularly under high perceptual load conditions. More importantly, for such individuals, the accuracy proportions for angry faces significantly differed between the low and high perceptual load conditions, which is discussed in light of current evolutionary models of social anxiety.

Geo-economy of world energy supply and demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gauthier, Jean-Michel

2009-01-01

For over 50 years now, the global primary energy demand structure has been based on fossil fuels for more than 80%. In 25 years, our energy needs will still be covered by an over 80% fossil energy mix according to the reference scenario of most energy agencies. Over this period of time, the economics of energy will be radically altered as a result of a long term sustained global demand of energy and a growing constraint on some hydrocarbon production, conventional oil in particular. The oil production profile on currently operated oil fields, essentially in the OECD, will further decline or require significantly increasing investments. Non conventional oil sources are already proving to be even more capital-intensive. In the face of dwindling reserves in the old OECD hydrocarbon basins, the only resource-rich region in the world with low extraction costs and available swing supply capacities is the Middle East. Tomorrow's oil industry and markets will therefore represent a risk concentrated around a single region in the world, whilst the global gas industry will face a risk concentrated around two regions in the world, including Russia and the Middle East. Massive investments in energy infrastructures will be necessary to bring gas from these two sources to the remote markets in Asia, Europe or the US. The era of cheap energy is definitely gone. Far from being an obsolete fuel, coal is and will remain the most abundant, competitive and favoured source of energy for power generation across the world. CO_2 emissions from coal use are coal's only handicap. The vision of our energy future is in front of us: the environment will be filthy, energy will be costly and geopolitical tensions between producers and consumers will be strong

Modeling and forecasting of electrical power demands for capacity planning

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Al-Shobaki, S.; Mohsen, M.

2007-01-01

Jordan imports oil from neighboring countries for use in power production. As such, the cost of electricity production is high compared to oil producing countries. It is anticipated that Jordan will face major challenges in trying to meet the growing energy and electricity demands while also developing the energy sector in a way that reduces any adverse impacts on the economy, the environment and social life. This paper described the development of forecasting models to predict future generation and sales loads of electrical power in Jordan. Two models that could be used for the prediction of electrical energy demand in Amman, Jordan were developed and validated. An analysis of the data was also presented. The first model was based on the levels of energy generated by the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) and the other was based on the levels of energy sold by the company in the same area. The models were compared and the percent error was presented. Energy demand was also forecasted across the next 60 months for both models. Results were then compared with the output of the in-house forecast model used by NEPCO to predict the levels of generated energy needed across the 60 months time period. It was concluded that the NEPCO model predicted energy demand higher than the validated generated data model by an average of 5.25 per cent. 8 refs., 5 tabs., 15 figs

Modeling and forecasting of electrical power demands for capacity planning

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Al-Shobaki, S. [Hashemite Univ., Zarka (Jordan). Dept. of Industrial Engineering; Mohsen, M. [Hashemite Univ., Zarka (Jordan). Dept. of Mechanical Engineering

2007-07-01

Jordan imports oil from neighboring countries for use in power production. As such, the cost of electricity production is high compared to oil producing countries. It is anticipated that Jordan will face major challenges in trying to meet the growing energy and electricity demands while also developing the energy sector in a way that reduces any adverse impacts on the economy, the environment and social life. This paper described the development of forecasting models to predict future generation and sales loads of electrical power in Jordan. Two models that could be used for the prediction of electrical energy demand in Amman, Jordan were developed and validated. An analysis of the data was also presented. The first model was based on the levels of energy generated by the National Electric Power Company (NEPCO) and the other was based on the levels of energy sold by the company in the same area. The models were compared and the percent error was presented. Energy demand was also forecasted across the next 60 months for both models. Results were then compared with the output of the in-house forecast model used by NEPCO to predict the levels of generated energy needed across the 60 months time period. It was concluded that the NEPCO model predicted energy demand higher than the validated generated data model by an average of 5.25 per cent. 8 refs., 5 tabs., 15 figs.

Hierarchical prediction of industrial water demand based on refined Laspeyres decomposition analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Shang, Yizi; Lu, Shibao; Gong, Jiaguo; Shang, Ling; Li, Xiaofei; Wei, Yongping; Shi, Hongwang

2017-12-01

A recent study decomposed the changes in industrial water use into three hierarchies (output, technology, and structure) using a refined Laspeyres decomposition model, and found monotonous and exclusive trends in the output and technology hierarchies. Based on that research, this study proposes a hierarchical prediction approach to forecast future industrial water demand. Three water demand scenarios (high, medium, and low) were then established based on potential future industrial structural adjustments, and used to predict water demand for the structural hierarchy. The predictive results of this approach were compared with results from a grey prediction model (GPM (1, 1)). The comparison shows that the results of the two approaches were basically identical, differing by less than 10%. Taking Tianjin, China, as a case, and using data from 2003-2012, this study predicts that industrial water demand will continuously increase, reaching 580 million m 3 , 776.4 million m 3 , and approximately 1.09 billion m 3 by the years 2015, 2020 and 2025 respectively. It is concluded that Tianjin will soon face another water crisis if no immediate measures are taken. This study recommends that Tianjin adjust its industrial structure with water savings as the main objective, and actively seek new sources of water to increase its supply.

From face processing to face recognition: Comparing three different processing levels.

Science.gov (United States)

Besson, G; Barragan-Jason, G; Thorpe, S J; Fabre-Thorpe, M; Puma, S; Ceccaldi, M; Barbeau, E J

2017-01-01

Verifying that a face is from a target person (e.g. finding someone in the crowd) is a critical ability of the human face processing system. Yet how fast this can be performed is unknown. The 'entry-level shift due to expertise' hypothesis suggests that - since humans are face experts - processing faces should be as fast - or even faster - at the individual than at superordinate levels. In contrast, the 'superordinate advantage' hypothesis suggests that faces are processed from coarse to fine, so that the opposite pattern should be observed. To clarify this debate, three different face processing levels were compared: (1) a superordinate face categorization level (i.e. detecting human faces among animal faces), (2) a face familiarity level (i.e. recognizing famous faces among unfamiliar ones) and (3) verifying that a face is from a target person, our condition of interest. The minimal speed at which faces can be categorized (∼260ms) or recognized as familiar (∼360ms) has largely been documented in previous studies, and thus provides boundaries to compare our condition of interest to. Twenty-seven participants were included. The recent Speed and Accuracy Boosting procedure paradigm (SAB) was used since it constrains participants to use their fastest strategy. Stimuli were presented either upright or inverted. Results revealed that verifying that a face is from a target person (minimal RT at ∼260ms) was remarkably fast but longer than the face categorization level (∼240ms) and was more sensitive to face inversion. In contrast, it was much faster than recognizing a face as familiar (∼380ms), a level severely affected by face inversion. Face recognition corresponding to finding a specific person in a crowd thus appears achievable in only a quarter of a second. In favor of the 'superordinate advantage' hypothesis or coarse-to-fine account of the face visual hierarchy, these results suggest a graded engagement of the face processing system across processing

Rhodomollins A and B, two Diterpenoids with an Unprecedented Backbone from the Fruits of Rhododendron molle

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yong; Liu, Yun-Bao; Yan, Hui-Min; Liu, Yang-Lan; Li, Yu-Huan; Lv, Hai-Ning; Ma, Shuang-Gang; Qu, Jing; Yu, Shi-Shan

2016-11-01

Two new grayanoids, rhodomollin A (1) and rhodomollin B (2), possessing an unprecedented D-homo grayanane carbon skeleton, were isolated from the fruits of Rhododendron molle. The structures of 1 and 2 were fully characterized using a combination of spectroscopic analyses and X-ray crystallography. Rhodomollin B (2) exhibited modest activity against influenza virus A/95-359, with an IC50 value of 19.24 μM.

Bayesian Face Recognition and Perceptual Narrowing in Face-Space

Science.gov (United States)

Balas, Benjamin

2012-01-01

During the first year of life, infants' face recognition abilities are subject to "perceptual narrowing", the end result of which is that observers lose the ability to distinguish previously discriminable faces (e.g. other-race faces) from one another. Perceptual narrowing has been reported for faces of different species and different races, in…

Two-stage stochastic programming model for the regional-scale electricity planning under demand uncertainty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Huang, Yun-Hsun; Wu, Jung-Hua; Hsu, Yu-Ju

2016-01-01

Traditional electricity supply planning models regard the electricity demand as a deterministic parameter and require the total power output to satisfy the aggregate electricity demand. But in today's world, the electric system planners are facing tremendously complex environments full of uncertainties, where electricity demand is a key source of uncertainty. In addition, electricity demand patterns are considerably different for different regions. This paper developed a multi-region optimization model based on two-stage stochastic programming framework to incorporate the demand uncertainty. Furthermore, the decision tree method and Monte Carlo simulation approach are integrated into the model to simplify electricity demands in the form of nodes and determine the values and probabilities. The proposed model was successfully applied to a real case study (i.e. Taiwan's electricity sector) to show its applicability. Detail simulation results were presented and compared with those generated by a deterministic model. Finally, the long-term electricity development roadmap at a regional level could be provided on the basis of our simulation results. - Highlights: • A multi-region, two-stage stochastic programming model has been developed. • The decision tree and Monte Carlo simulation are integrated into the framework. • Taiwan's electricity sector is used to illustrate the applicability of the model. • The results under deterministic and stochastic cases are shown for comparison. • Optimal portfolios of regional generation technologies can be identified.

Does seeing an Asian face make speech sound more accented?

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Yi; Samuel, Arthur G

2017-08-01

Prior studies have reported that seeing an Asian face makes American English sound more accented. The current study investigates whether this effect is perceptual, or if it instead occurs at a later decision stage. We first replicated the finding that showing static Asian and Caucasian faces can shift people's reports about the accentedness of speech accompanying the pictures. When we changed the static pictures to dubbed videos, reducing the demand characteristics, the shift in reported accentedness largely disappeared. By including unambiguous items along with the original ambiguous items, we introduced a contrast bias and actually reversed the shift, with the Asian-face videos yielding lower judgments of accentedness than the Caucasian-face videos. By changing to a mixed rather than blocked design, so that the ethnicity of the videos varied from trial to trial, we eliminated the difference in accentedness rating. Finally, we tested participants' perception of accented speech using the selective adaptation paradigm. After establishing that an auditory-only accented adaptor shifted the perception of how accented test words are, we found that no such adaptation effect occurred when the adapting sounds relied on visual information (Asian vs. Caucasian videos) to influence the accentedness of an ambiguous auditory adaptor. Collectively, the results demonstrate that visual information can affect the interpretation, but not the perception, of accented speech.

Attention to internal face features in unfamiliar face matching.

Science.gov (United States)

Fletcher, Kingsley I; Butavicius, Marcus A; Lee, Michael D

2008-08-01

Accurate matching of unfamiliar faces is vital in security and forensic applications, yet previous research has suggested that humans often perform poorly when matching unfamiliar faces. Hairstyle and facial hair can strongly influence unfamiliar face matching but are potentially unreliable cues. This study investigated whether increased attention to the more stable internal face features of eyes, nose, and mouth was associated with more accurate face-matching performance. Forty-three first-year psychology students decided whether two simultaneously presented faces were of the same person or not. The faces were displayed for either 2 or 6 seconds, and had either similar or dissimilar hairstyles. The level of attention to internal features was measured by the proportion of fixation time spent on the internal face features and the sensitivity of discrimination to changes in external feature similarity. Increased attention to internal features was associated with increased discrimination in the 2-second display-time condition, but no significant relationship was found in the 6-second condition. Individual differences in eye-movements were highly stable across the experimental conditions.

Face recognition : implementation of face recognition on AMIGO

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Geelen, M.J.A.J.; Molengraft, van de M.J.G.; Elfring, J.

2011-01-01

In this (traineeship)report two possible methods of face recognition were presented. The first method describes how to detect and recognize faces by using the SURF algorithm. This algorithm finally was not used for recognizing faces, with the reason that the Eigenface algorithm was an already tested

Universities between Traditional Forces and Modern Demands: The Role of Imprinting on the Missions of German Universities

Science.gov (United States)

Oertel, Simon; Söll, Matthias

2017-01-01

Universities find themselves faced with the conflicting institutional demands of being cathedrals of learning and research as well as introducing managerial and corporate-like structures. Despite many studies in higher education research that focus on how this situation affects the mission of universities, the role of imprinting has not received…

The complex duration perception of emotional faces: Effects of face direction

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katrin Martina Kliegl

2015-03-01

Full Text Available The perceived duration of emotional face stimuli strongly depends on the expressed emotion. But, emotional faces also differ regarding a number of other features like gaze, face direction, or sex. Usually, these features have been controlled by only using pictures of female models with straight gaze and face direction. Doi and Shinohara (2009 reported that an overestimation of angry faces could only be found when the model’s gaze was oriented towards the observer. We aimed at replicating this effect for face direction. Moreover, we explored the effect of face direction on the duration perception sad faces. Controlling for the sex of the face model and the participant, female and male participants rated the duration of neutral, angry and sad face stimuli of both sexes photographed from different perspectives in a bisection task. In line with current findings, we report a significant overestimation of angry compared to neutral face stimuli that was modulated by face direction. Moreover, the perceived duration of sad face stimuli did not differ from that of neutral faces and was not influenced by face direction. Furthermore, we found that faces of the opposite sex appeared to last longer than those of the same sex. This outcome is discussed with regards to stimulus parameters like the induced arousal, social relevance and an evolutionary context.

Demand of natural gas; methodology for their projection

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Unidad de Planeacion Minero Energetica, UPME

1999-01-01

The objective of integrated energetic planning process, is to propose political that assure the full supply of energy in the country, at competitive costs and with a rational use of the resources. Of there that it requires the periodic analysis of the information on the sectors of energy supplies and demand and on their interrelation with the economic, social and environmental environment. Among the variables that should stay upgraded during the planning process, it stands out the energy demand. The fact of to evaluate and to project demands goes to predict the consumer's of energy low uncertain conditions future behavior that it can affect the prospective results, so much in the short term as in the long term. One of the alternatives to face the uncertainty has more than enough future events it consists on building scenarios in those that values different from the variables that are considered with more incidences in the projected results participate. In the case of the energy, the variables that, generally, they are considered determinant, are the economic growth, the prices variation, the technological developments, the substitution among energy, the change of patterns of the population's consumption and the rational use of the energy. The application of the methodology of scenarios allows to settle down, for this case, bands of projection of the energy demand, in global form or for each energy type, specify in each sector and for each use. Once it is had the projection band, it is possible to determine the half growth of long term. The energy planning should respond in immediate form to the scenario changes, through the revision of the state projections. A frequent error, typical of the old sub-sector planning, consists on maintaining, in an irrational way, established growth percentages, when they intend new scenarios of economic growth

A causal relationship between face-patch activity and face-detection behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Sadagopan, Srivatsun; Zarco, Wilbert; Freiwald, Winrich A

2017-04-04

The primate brain contains distinct areas densely populated by face-selective neurons. One of these, face-patch ML, contains neurons selective for contrast relationships between face parts. Such contrast-relationships can serve as powerful heuristics for face detection. However, it is unknown whether neurons with such selectivity actually support face-detection behavior. Here, we devised a naturalistic face-detection task and combined it with fMRI-guided pharmacological inactivation of ML to test whether ML is of critical importance for real-world face detection. We found that inactivation of ML impairs face detection. The effect was anatomically specific, as inactivation of areas outside ML did not affect face detection, and it was categorically specific, as inactivation of ML impaired face detection while sparing body and object detection. These results establish that ML function is crucial for detection of faces in natural scenes, performing a critical first step on which other face processing operations can build.

A new method for face detection in colour images for emotional bio-robots

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

HAPESHI; Kevin

2010-01-01

Emotional bio-robots have become a hot research topic in last two decades. Though there have been some progress in research, design and development of various emotional bio-robots, few of them can be used in practical applications. The study of emotional bio-robots demands multi-disciplinary co-operation. It involves computer science, artificial intelligence, 3D computation, engineering system modelling, analysis and simulation, bionics engineering, automatic control, image processing and pattern recognition etc. Among them, face detection belongs to image processing and pattern recognition. An emotional robot must have the ability to recognize various objects, particularly, it is very important for a bio-robot to be able to recognize human faces from an image. In this paper, a face detection method is proposed for identifying any human faces in colour images using human skin model and eye detection method. Firstly, this method can be used to detect skin regions from the input colour image after normalizing its luminance. Then, all face candidates are identified using an eye detection method. Comparing with existing algorithms, this method only relies on the colour and geometrical data of human face rather than using training datasets. From experimental results, it is shown that this method is effective and fast and it can be applied to the development of an emotional bio-robot with further improvements of its speed and accuracy.

Future changes driving dietetics workforce supply and demand: future scan 2012-2022.

Science.gov (United States)

Rhea, Marsha; Bettles, Craig

2012-03-01

The dietetics profession faces many workforce challenges and opportunities to ensure that registered dietitians (RDs) and dietetic technicians, registered (DTRs) are at the forefront of health and nutrition. The profession must prepare for new public priorities, changes in population, and the restructuring of how people learn and work, as well as new advances in science and technology. In September 2010, the Dietetics Workforce Demand Task Force, in consultation with a panel of thought leaders, identified 10 change drivers that affect dietetics workforce supply and demand. This future scan report provides an overview of eight of these drivers. Two change drivers-health care reform and population risk factors/nutrition initiatives-are addressed in separate technical articles. A change matrix has been included at the end of this executive summary. The matrix contains a summary of each change driver and its expected impact and is designed to present the drivers in the context of a larger, dynamic system of change in the dietetics profession. The impact of any of these change drivers individually and collectively in a dynamic system is uncertain. The outcome of any change driver is also uncertain. The dietetics profession faces many choices within each change driver to meet the workforce challenges and seize the opportunities for leadership and growth. Copyright © 2012 Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Alternative face models for 3D face registration

Science.gov (United States)

Salah, Albert Ali; Alyüz, Neşe; Akarun, Lale

2007-01-01

3D has become an important modality for face biometrics. The accuracy of a 3D face recognition system depends on a correct registration that aligns the facial surfaces and makes a comparison possible. The best results obtained so far use a one-to-all registration approach, which means each new facial surface is registered to all faces in the gallery, at a great computational cost. We explore the approach of registering the new facial surface to an average face model (AFM), which automatically establishes correspondence to the pre-registered gallery faces. Going one step further, we propose that using a couple of well-selected AFMs can trade-off computation time with accuracy. Drawing on cognitive justifications, we propose to employ category-specific alternative average face models for registration, which is shown to increase the accuracy of the subsequent recognition. We inspect thin-plate spline (TPS) and iterative closest point (ICP) based registration schemes under realistic assumptions on manual or automatic landmark detection prior to registration. We evaluate several approaches for the coarse initialization of ICP. We propose a new algorithm for constructing an AFM, and show that it works better than a recent approach. Finally, we perform simulations with multiple AFMs that correspond to different clusters in the face shape space and compare these with gender and morphology based groupings. We report our results on the FRGC 3D face database.

Non-invasive brain stimulation targeting the right fusiform gyrus selectively increases working memory for faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Brunyé, Tad T; Moran, Joseph M; Holmes, Amanda; Mahoney, Caroline R; Taylor, Holly A

2017-04-01

The human extrastriate cortex contains a region critically involved in face detection and memory, the right fusiform gyrus. The present study evaluated whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targeting this anatomical region would selectively influence memory for faces versus non-face objects (houses). Anodal tDCS targeted the right fusiform gyrus (Brodmann's Area 37), with the anode at electrode site PO10, and cathode at FP2. Two stimulation conditions were compared in a repeated-measures design: 0.5mA versus 1.5mA intensity; a separate control group received no stimulation. Participants completed a working memory task for face and house stimuli, varying in memory load from 1 to 4 items. Individual differences measures assessed trait-based differences in facial recognition skills. Results showed 1.5mA intensity stimulation (versus 0.5mA and control) increased performance at high memory loads, but only with faces. Lower overall working memory capacity predicted a positive impact of tDCS. Results provide support for the notion of functional specialization of the right fusiform regions for maintaining face (but not non-face object) stimuli in working memory, and further suggest that low intensity electrical stimulation of this region may enhance demanding face working memory performance particularly in those with relatively poor baseline working memory skills. Published by Elsevier Inc.

Withholding response to self-face is faster than to other-face.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhu, Min; Hu, Yinying; Tang, Xiaochen; Luo, Junlong; Gao, Xiangping

2015-01-01

Self-face advantage refers to adults' response to self-face is faster than that to other-face. A stop-signal task was used to explore how self-face advantage interacted with response inhibition. The results showed that reaction times of self-face were faster than that of other-face not in the go task but in the stop response trials. The novelty of the finding was that self-face has shorter stop-signal reaction time compared to other-face in the successful inhibition trials. These results indicated the processing mechanism of self-face may be characterized by a strong response tendency and a corresponding strong inhibition control.

Force Structure. DOD Needs to Integrate Data into Its Force Identification Process and Examine Options to Meet Requirements for High-Demand Support Forces

National Research Council Canada - National Science Library

2006-01-01

...) will continue to meet its requirements using an all-volunteer force. The Army, in particular, has faced continuing demand for large numbers of forces, especially for forces with support skills...

Multi-Decadal Global Cooling and Unprecedented Ozone Loss Following a Regional Nuclear Conflict

Science.gov (United States)

Mills, M. J.; Toon, O. B.; Lee-Taylor, J. M.; Robock, A.

2014-12-01

We present the first study of the global impacts of a regional nuclear war with an Earth system model including atmospheric chemistry, ocean dynamics, and interactive sea-ice and land models (Mills et al., 2014). A limited, regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan in which each side detonates 50 15-kt weapons could produce about 5 Tg of black carbon. This would self-loft to the stratosphere, where it would spread globally, producing a sudden drop in surface temperatures and intense heating of the stratosphere. Using the Community Earth System Model with the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (CESM1(WACCM)), we calculate an e-folding time of 8.7 years for stratospheric black carbon, compared to 4-6.5 years for previous studies (figure panel a). Our calculations show that global ozone losses of 20-50% over populated areas, levels unprecedented in human history, would accompany the coldest average surface temperatures in the last 1000 years (figure panel c). We calculate summer enhancements in UV indices of 30-80% over Mid-Latitudes, suggesting widespread damage to human health, agriculture, and terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Killing frosts would reduce growing seasons by 10-40 days per year for 5 years. Surface temperatures would be reduced for more than 25 years, due to thermal inertia and albedo effects in the ocean and expanded sea ice. The combined cooling and enhanced UV would put significant pressures on global food supplies and could trigger a global nuclear famine. Knowledge of the impacts of 100 small nuclear weapons should motivate the elimination of the more than 17,000 nuclear weapons that exist today. Mills, M. J., O. B. Toon, J. Lee-Taylor, and A. Robock (2014), Multidecadal global cooling and unprecedented ozone loss following a regional nuclear conflict, Earth's Future, 2(4), 161-176, doi:10.1002/2013EF000205.

The effects of varying contextual demands on age-related positive gaze preferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Noh, Soo Rim; Isaacowitz, Derek M

2015-06-01

Despite many studies on the age-related positivity effect and its role in visual attention, discrepancies remain regarding whether full attention is required for age-related differences to emerge. The present study took a new approach to this question by varying the contextual demands of emotion processing. This was done by adding perceptual distractions, such as visual and auditory noise, that could disrupt attentional control. Younger and older participants viewed pairs of happy-neutral and fearful-neutral faces while their eye movements were recorded. Facial stimuli were shown either without noise, embedded in a background of visual noise (low, medium, or high), or with simultaneous auditory babble. Older adults showed positive gaze preferences, looking toward happy faces and away from fearful faces; however, their gaze preferences tended to be influenced by the level of visual noise. Specifically, the tendency to look away from fearful faces was not present in conditions with low and medium levels of visual noise but was present when there were high levels of visual noise. It is important to note, however, that in the high-visual-noise condition, external cues were present to facilitate the processing of emotional information. In addition, older adults' positive gaze preferences disappeared or were reduced when they first viewed emotional faces within a distracting context. The current results indicate that positive gaze preferences may be less likely to occur in distracting contexts that disrupt control of visual attention. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved.

About-face on face recognition ability and holistic processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Richler, Jennifer J; Floyd, R Jackie; Gauthier, Isabel

2015-01-01

Previous work found a small but significant relationship between holistic processing measured with the composite task and face recognition ability measured by the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT; Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006). Surprisingly, recent work using a different measure of holistic processing (Vanderbilt Holistic Face Processing Test [VHPT-F]; Richler, Floyd, & Gauthier, 2014) and a larger sample found no evidence for such a relationship. In Experiment 1 we replicate this unexpected result, finding no relationship between holistic processing (VHPT-F) and face recognition ability (CFMT). A key difference between the VHPT-F and other holistic processing measures is that unique face parts are used on each trial in the VHPT-F, unlike in other tasks where a small set of face parts repeat across the experiment. In Experiment 2, we test the hypothesis that correlations between the CFMT and holistic processing tasks are driven by stimulus repetition that allows for learning during the composite task. Consistent with our predictions, CFMT performance was correlated with holistic processing in the composite task when a small set of face parts repeated over trials, but not when face parts did not repeat. A meta-analysis confirms that relationships between the CFMT and holistic processing depend on stimulus repetition. These results raise important questions about what is being measured by the CFMT, and challenge current assumptions about why faces are processed holistically.

Unprecedented Carbonato Intermediates in Cyclic Carbonate Synthesis Catalysed by Bimetallic Aluminium(Salen) Complexes.

Science.gov (United States)

Castro-Osma, José A; North, Michael; Offermans, Willem K; Leitner, Walter; Müller, Thomas E

2016-04-21

The mechanism by which [Al(salen)]2 O complexes catalyse the synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and carbon dioxide in the absence of a halide cocatalyst has been investigated. Density functional theory (DFT) studies, mass spectrometry and (1) H NMR, (13) C NMR and infrared spectroscopies provide evidence for the formation of an unprecedented carbonato bridged bimetallic aluminium complex which is shown to be a key intermediate for the halide-free synthesis of cyclic carbonates from epoxides and carbon dioxide. Deuterated and enantiomerically-pure epoxides were used to study the reaction pathway. Based on the experimental and theoretical results, a catalytic cycle is proposed. © 2016 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Sustainable Energy Production - Facing up to our Common Challenges

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bondevik, Kjell Magne

1998-01-01

With this presentation the Norwegian Prime Minister opened the conference, the Offshore Northern Seas Conference, an important meeting place for the oil and gas industry. Today, sustainable development, the environment and human rights are vital issues that politicians and the petroleum industry have included on their agendas. The end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s mark the beginning of a new era in terms of de regulated markets and a growing concern about the Earth's capacity to sustain a growing population and the present production and consumption patterns. This shift in political and economic practices has promoted far-reaching institutional changes and a rapid spread of capital, information and skills and an unprecedented integration of the world economy. Energy demand over the next 25 years will depend on fossil fuels, but renewable energy will become increasingly more important. The environmental issues discussed are (1) the local impact of production, distribution and use of fossil fuels, (2) the limited availability of fossil fuels and (3) the impact of the emission of greenhouse gases. The Prime Minister then discusses issues of human rights in sustainable development

Sustainable Energy Production - Facing up to our Common Challenge

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Bondevik, Kjell Magne [Prime Minister (Norway)

1998-12-31

With this presentation the Norwegian Prime Minister opened the conference, the Offshore Northern Seas Conference, an important meeting place for the oil and gas industry. Today, sustainable development, the environment and human rights are vital issues that politicians and the petroleum industry have included on their agendas. The end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s mark the beginning of a new era in terms of de regulated markets and a growing concern about the Earth`s capacity to sustain a growing population and the present production and consumption patterns. This shift in political and economic practices has promoted far-reaching institutional changes and a rapid spread of capital, information and skills and an unprecedented integration of the world economy. Energy demand over the next 25 years will depend on fossil fuels, but renewable energy will become increasingly more important. The environmental issues discussed are (1) the local impact of production, distribution and use of fossil fuels, (2) the limited availability of fossil fuels and (3) the impact of the emission of greenhouse gases. The Prime Minister then discusses issues of human rights in sustainable development

Faces in places: humans and machines make similar face detection errors.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernard Marius 't Hart

Full Text Available The human visual system seems to be particularly efficient at detecting faces. This efficiency sometimes comes at the cost of wrongfully seeing faces in arbitrary patterns, including famous examples such as a rock configuration on Mars or a toast's roast patterns. In machine vision, face detection has made considerable progress and has become a standard feature of many digital cameras. The arguably most wide-spread algorithm for such applications ("Viola-Jones" algorithm achieves high detection rates at high computational efficiency. To what extent do the patterns that the algorithm mistakenly classifies as faces also fool humans? We selected three kinds of stimuli from real-life, first-person perspective movies based on the algorithm's output: correct detections ("real faces", false positives ("illusory faces" and correctly rejected locations ("non faces". Observers were shown pairs of these for 20 ms and had to direct their gaze to the location of the face. We found that illusory faces were mistaken for faces more frequently than non faces. In addition, rotation of the real face yielded more errors, while rotation of the illusory face yielded fewer errors. Using colored stimuli increases overall performance, but does not change the pattern of results. When replacing the eye movement by a manual response, however, the preference for illusory faces over non faces disappeared. Taken together, our data show that humans make similar face-detection errors as the Viola-Jones algorithm, when directing their gaze to briefly presented stimuli. In particular, the relative spatial arrangement of oriented filters seems of relevance. This suggests that efficient face detection in humans is likely to be pre-attentive and based on rather simple features as those encoded in the early visual system.

Face-to-face or face-to-screen? Undergraduates' opinions and test performance in classroom vs. online learning

Science.gov (United States)

Kemp, Nenagh; Grieve, Rachel

2014-01-01

As electronic communication becomes increasingly common, and as students juggle study, work, and family life, many universities are offering their students more flexible learning opportunities. Classes once delivered face-to-face are often replaced by online activities and discussions. However, there is little research comparing students' experience and learning in these two modalities. The aim of this study was to compare undergraduates' preference for, and academic performance on, class material and assessment presented online vs. in traditional classrooms. Psychology students (N = 67) at an Australian university completed written exercises, a class discussion, and a written test on two academic topics. The activities for one topic were conducted face-to-face, and the other online, with topics counterbalanced across two groups. The results showed that students preferred to complete activities face-to-face rather than online, but there was no significant difference in their test performance in the two modalities. In their written responses, students expressed a strong preference for class discussions to be conducted face-to-face, reporting that they felt more engaged, and received more immediate feedback, than in online discussion. A follow-up study with a separate group (N = 37) confirmed that although students appreciated the convenience of completing written activities online in their own time, they also strongly preferred to discuss course content with peers in the classroom rather than online. It is concluded that online and face-to-face activities can lead to similar levels of academic performance, but that students would rather do written activities online but engage in discussion in person. Course developers could aim to structure classes so that students can benefit from both the flexibility of online learning, and the greater engagement experienced in face-to-face discussion. PMID:25429276

Face-to-face or face-to-screen? Undergraduates' opinions and test performance in classroom vs. online learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Kemp, Nenagh; Grieve, Rachel

2014-01-01

As electronic communication becomes increasingly common, and as students juggle study, work, and family life, many universities are offering their students more flexible learning opportunities. Classes once delivered face-to-face are often replaced by online activities and discussions. However, there is little research comparing students' experience and learning in these two modalities. The aim of this study was to compare undergraduates' preference for, and academic performance on, class material and assessment presented online vs. in traditional classrooms. Psychology students (N = 67) at an Australian university completed written exercises, a class discussion, and a written test on two academic topics. The activities for one topic were conducted face-to-face, and the other online, with topics counterbalanced across two groups. The results showed that students preferred to complete activities face-to-face rather than online, but there was no significant difference in their test performance in the two modalities. In their written responses, students expressed a strong preference for class discussions to be conducted face-to-face, reporting that they felt more engaged, and received more immediate feedback, than in online discussion. A follow-up study with a separate group (N = 37) confirmed that although students appreciated the convenience of completing written activities online in their own time, they also strongly preferred to discuss course content with peers in the classroom rather than online. It is concluded that online and face-to-face activities can lead to similar levels of academic performance, but that students would rather do written activities online but engage in discussion in person. Course developers could aim to structure classes so that students can benefit from both the flexibility of online learning, and the greater engagement experienced in face-to-face discussion.

ASAS-SN Discovery of an Unprecedented >1.5 Magnitude Optical Flare from QSO B0346-279

Science.gov (United States)

Vallely, P.; Stanek, K. Z.; Kochanek, C. S.; Shields, J. V.; Thompson, T. A.; Shappee, B. J.; Holoien, T. W.-S.; Prieto, J. L.; Bersier, D.; Dong, Subo; Bose, S.; Chen, Ping; Stritzinger, M.

2018-02-01

During the ongoing All Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae (ASAS-SN, Shappee et al. 2014), using data from the quadruple 14-cm "Brutus" telescope in Haleakala, Hawaii, the quadruple 14-cm "Leavitt" telescope in Fort Davis, Texas, the quadruple 14-cm "Payne-Gaposchkin" telescope in Sutherland, South Africa, and the quadruple 14-cm "Cassius" and "Paczynski" telescopes in Cerro Tololo, Chile, we have discovered an unprecedented optical brightening of QSO B0346-279 (z 0.9874).

An analysis of at-home demand for ice cream in the United States.

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, C G; Blayney, D P; Yen, S T; Cooper, J

2009-12-01

Ice cream has been manufactured commercially in the United States since the middle of the 19th century. Ice cream and frozen dessert products comprise an important and relatively stable component of the United States dairy industry. As with many other dairy products, ice cream is differentiated in several dimensions. A censored translog demand system model was employed to analyze purchases of 3 ice cream product categories. The objective of this study was to determine the effect that changes in retail prices and consumer income have on at-home ice cream consumption. The analysis was based on Nielsen 2005 home scan retail data and used marital status, age, race, education, female employment status, and location in the estimations of aggregate demand elasticities. Results revealed that price and consumer income were the main determinants of demand for ice cream products. Calculated own-price elasticities indicated relatively elastic responses by consumers for all categories except for compensated bulk ice cream. All expenditure elasticities were inelastic except for bulk ice cream, and most of the ice cream categories were substitutes. Ongoing efforts to examine consumer demand for these products will assist milk producers, dairy processors and manufacturers, and dairy marketers as they face changing consumer responses to food and diet issues.

Effectiveness of link prediction for face-to-face behavioral networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Tsugawa, Sho; Ohsaki, Hiroyuki

2013-01-01

Research on link prediction for social networks has been actively pursued. In link prediction for a given social network obtained from time-windowed observation, new link formation in the network is predicted from the topology of the obtained network. In contrast, recent advances in sensing technology have made it possible to obtain face-to-face behavioral networks, which are social networks representing face-to-face interactions among people. However, the effectiveness of link prediction techniques for face-to-face behavioral networks has not yet been explored in depth. To clarify this point, here we investigate the accuracy of conventional link prediction techniques for networks obtained from the history of face-to-face interactions among participants at an academic conference. Our findings were (1) that conventional link prediction techniques predict new link formation with a precision of 0.30-0.45 and a recall of 0.10-0.20, (2) that prolonged observation of social networks often degrades the prediction accuracy, (3) that the proposed decaying weight method leads to higher prediction accuracy than can be achieved by observing all records of communication and simply using them unmodified, and (4) that the prediction accuracy for face-to-face behavioral networks is relatively high compared to that for non-social networks, but not as high as for other types of social networks.

Impacts of Climate Change on Energy Consumption and Peak Demand in Buildings: A Detailed Regional Approach

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Dirks, James A.; Gorrissen, Willy J.; Hathaway, John E.; Skorski, Daniel C.; Scott, Michael J.; Pulsipher, Trenton C.; Huang, Maoyi; Liu, Ying; Rice, Jennie S.

2015-01-01

This paper presents the results of numerous commercial and residential building simulations, with the purpose of examining the impact of climate change on peak and annual building energy consumption over the portion of the Eastern Interconnection (EIC) located in the United States. The climate change scenario considered (IPCC A2 scenario as downscaled from the CASCaDE data set) has changes in mean climate characteristics as well as changes in the frequency and duration of intense weather events. This investigation examines building energy demand for three annual periods representative of climate trends in the CASCaDE data set at the beginning, middle, and end of the century--2004, 2052, and 2089. Simulations were performed using the Building ENergy Demand (BEND) model which is a detailed simulation platform built around EnergyPlus. BEND was developed in collaboration with the Platform for Regional Integrated Modeling and Analysis (PRIMA), a modeling framework designed to simulate the complex interactions among climate, energy, water, and land at decision-relevant spatial scales. Over 26,000 building configurations of different types, sizes, vintages, and, characteristics which represent the population of buildings within the EIC, are modeled across the 3 EIC time zones using the future climate from 100 locations within the target region, resulting in nearly 180,000 spatially relevant simulated demand profiles for each of the 3 years. In this study, the building stock characteristics are held constant based on the 2005 building stock in order to isolate and present results that highlight the impact of the climate signal on commercial and residential energy demand. Results of this analysis compare well with other analyses at their finest level of specificity. This approach, however, provides a heretofore unprecedented level of specificity across multiple spectrums including spatial, temporal, and building characteristics. This capability enables the ability to

Toward 2000 - potential changes facing the North American gas industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Baron, R.L.; Godec, M.L.

1997-01-01

Rapid changes in U.S. gas market developments and key factors that are likely to change future market outlook were reviewed. Currently, the biggest challenges facing the North American gas industry are deregulation in the electric power industry, technological advances, Canadian exports, environmental considerations, and new sources of natural gas from Mexico and Sable Island. Forces driving the natural gas demand include technological advances, growth in gas demand by electric utilities, and expansion of pipeline capacity. Uncertainties and threats to natural gas use include the rising cost of environmental compliance, the continued use of coal for power generation, and the Alliance Pipeline development. Technological advances such as 3-D seismic, horizontal drilling, improved completion techniques, longer-life bits, improved control systems, and reduced project cycle time, have been credited for producers now finding more gas reserves per well drilled than a decade ago. Present estimates of technically recoverable gas resources in North America run to about 2,500 trillion cubic feet

Asian oil demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Fesharaki, F.

2005-01-01

This conference presentation examined global oil market development and the role of Asian demand. It discussed plateau change versus cyclical movement in the global oil market; supply and demand issues of OPEC and non-OPEC oil; if high oil prices reduce demand; and the Asian oil picture in the global context. Asian oil demand has accounted for about 50 per cent of the global incremental oil market growth. The presentation provided data charts in graphical format on global and Asia-Pacific incremental oil demand from 1990-2005; Asia oil demand growth for selected nations; real GDP growth in selected Asian countries; and, Asia-Pacific oil production and net import requirements. It also included charts in petroleum product demand for Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Other data charts included key indicators for China's petroleum sector; China crude production and net oil import requirements; China's imports and the share of the Middle East; China's oil exports and imports; China's crude imports by source for 2004; China's imports of main oil products for 2004; India's refining capacity; India's product balance for net-imports and net-exports; and India's trade pattern of oil products. tabs., figs

Face to Face or E-Learning in Turkish EFL Context

Science.gov (United States)

Solak, Ekrem; Cakir, Recep

2014-01-01

This purpose of this study was to understand e-learners and face to face learners' views towards learning English through e-learning in vocational higher school context and to determine the role of academic achievement and gender in e-learning and face to face learning. This study was conducted at a state-run university in 2012-2013 academic year…

The construction FACE database - Codifying the NIOSH FACE reports.

Science.gov (United States)

Dong, Xiuwen Sue; Largay, Julie A; Wang, Xuanwen; Cain, Chris Trahan; Romano, Nancy

2017-09-01

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has published reports detailing the results of investigations on selected work-related fatalities through the Fatality Assessment and Control Evaluation (FACE) program since 1982. Information from construction-related FACE reports was coded into the Construction FACE Database (CFD). Use of the CFD was illustrated by analyzing major CFD variables. A total of 768 construction fatalities were included in the CFD. Information on decedents, safety training, use of PPE, and FACE recommendations were coded. Analysis shows that one in five decedents in the CFD died within the first two months on the job; 75% and 43% of reports recommended having safety training or installing protection equipment, respectively. Comprehensive research using FACE reports may improve understanding of work-related fatalities and provide much-needed information on injury prevention. The CFD allows researchers to analyze the FACE reports quantitatively and efficiently. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd and National Safety Council. All rights reserved.

Effects of utility demand-side management programs on uncertainty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Hirst, E.

1994-01-01

Electric utilities face a variety of uncertainties that complicate their long-term resource planning. These uncertainties include future economic and load growths, fuel prices, environmental and economic regulations, performance of existing power plants, cost and availability of purchased power, and the costs and performance of new demand and supply resources. As utilities increasingly turn to demand-side management (DSM) programs to provide resources, it becomes more important to analyze the interactions between these programs and the uncertainties facing utilities. This paper uses a dynamic planning model to quantify the uncertainty effects of supply-only vs DSM + supply resource portfolios. The analysis considers four sets of uncertainties: economic growth, fuel prices, the costs to build new power plants, and the costs to operate DSM programs. The two types of portfolios are tested against these four sets of uncertainties for the period 1990 to 2010. Sensitivity, scenario, and worst-case analysis methods are used. The sensitivity analyses show that the DSM + supply resource portfolio is less sensitive to unanticipated changes in economic growth, fuel prices, and power-plant construction costs than is the supply-only portfolio. The supply-only resource mix is better only with respect to uncertainties about the costs of DSM programs. The base-case analysis shows that including DSM programs in the utility's resource portfolio reduces the net present value of revenue requirements (NPV-RR) by 490 million dollars. The scenario-analysis results show an additional 30 million dollars (6%) in benefits associated with reduction in these uncertainties. In the worst-case analysis, the DSM + supply portfolio again reduces the cost penalty associated with guessing wrong for both cases, when the utility plans for high needs and learns it has low needs and vice versa. 20 refs

Elektronická komunikace vs. komunikace face to face

OpenAIRE

Pipková, Zuzana

2009-01-01

This thesis deals with new forms of communication particularly electronic ones. The main goal is to distinguish electronic communication from face to face communication in a way that differs from traditional media theories. By using examples of the most important medium in electronic communication, Internet, it is shown that nowadays we have such forms of electronic communication that surpass the traditional classification of oral/written communication, immediate/mediate communication, face t...

The Online and Face-to-Face Counseling Attitudes Scales: A Validation Study

Science.gov (United States)

Rochlen, Aaron B.; Beretvas, S. Natasha; Zack, Jason S.

2004-01-01

This article reports on the development of measures of attitudes toward online and face-to-face counseling. Overall, participants expressed more favorable evaluations of face-to-face counseling than of online counseling. Significant correlations were found between online and face-to-face counseling with traditional help-seeking attitudes, comfort…

Facebook and MySpace: complement or substitute for face-to-face interaction?

Science.gov (United States)

Kujath, Carlyne L

2011-01-01

Previous studies have claimed that social-networking sites are used as a substitute for face-to-face interaction, resulting in deteriorating relationship quality and decreased intimacy among its users. The present study hypothesized that this type of communication is not a substitute for face-to-face interaction; rather, that it is an extension of communication with face-to-face partners. A survey was administered to examine the use of Facebook and MySpace in this regard among 183 college students. The study confirmed that Facebook and MySpace do act as an extension of face-to-face interaction, but that some users do tend to rely on Facebook and MySpace for interpersonal communication more than face-to-face interaction.

Do high job demands increase intrinsic motivation or fatigue or both? The role of job control and job social support

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Yperen, N.W.; Hagedoorn, M.

2003-01-01

Examined whether job control and job social support reduce signs of fatigue and enhance intrinsic motivation among employees facing high job demands. 555 nurses (mean age 35.5 yrs) working at specialized units for patients with different levels of mental deficiency completed surveys regarding: (1)

Encouraging Participation in Face-to-Face Lectures: The Index Card Technique

Science.gov (United States)

Daws, Laura Beth

2018-01-01

Courses: This activity will work in any face-to-face communication lecture course. Objectives: By the end of the semester in a face-to-face lecture class, every student will have engaged in verbal discussion.

The supply and demand for pollution control: Evidence from wastewater treatment

Science.gov (United States)

McConnell, V.D.; Schwarz, G.E.

1992-01-01

This paper analyzes the determination of pollution control from wastewater treatment plants as an economic decision facing local or regional regulators. Pollution control is measured by plant design effluent concentration levels and is fully endogenous in a supply- and-demand model of treatment choice. On the supply side, plant costs are a function of the design treatment level of the plant, and on the demand side, treatment level is a function of both the costs of control and the regional or regulatory preferences for control. We find evidence that the economic model of effluent choice by local regulators has a good deal of explanatory power. We find evidence that wastewater treatment plant removal of biological oxygen demand (BOD) is sensitive to many local factors including the size of the treatment plant, the flow rate of the receiving water, the population density of the surrounding area, regional growth, state sensitivity to environmental issues, state income, and the extent to which the damages from pollution fall on other states. We find strong evidence that regulators are sensitive to capital costs in determining the design level of BOD effluent reduction at a plant. Thus, proposed reductions in federal subsidies for wastewater treatment plant construction are likely to have significant adverse effects on water quality. ?? 1992.

Deconstructing Demand: The Anthropogenic and Climatic Drivers of Urban Water Consumption.

Science.gov (United States)

Hemati, Azadeh; Rippy, Megan A; Grant, Stanley B; Davis, Kristen; Feldman, David

2016-12-06

Cities in drought prone regions of the world such as South East Australia are faced with escalating water scarcity and security challenges. Here we use 72 years of urban water consumption data from Melbourne, Australia, a city that recently overcame a 12 year "Millennium Drought", to evaluate (1) the relative importance of climatic and anthropogenic drivers of urban water demand (using wavelet-based approaches) and (2) the relative contribution of various water saving strategies to demand reduction during the Millennium Drought. Our analysis points to conservation as a dominant driver of urban water savings (69%), followed by nonrevenue water reduction (e.g., reduced meter error and leaks in the potable distribution system; 29%), and potable substitution with alternative sources like rain or recycled water (3%). Per-capita consumption exhibited both climatic and anthropogenic signatures, with rainfall and temperature explaining approximately 55% of the variance. Anthropogenic controls were also strong (up to 45% variance explained). These controls were nonstationary and frequency-specific, with conservation measures like outdoor water restrictions impacting seasonal water use and technological innovation/changing social norms impacting lower frequency (baseline) use. The above-noted nonstationarity implies that wavelets, which do not assume stationarity, show promise for use in future predictive models of demand.

Early (N170) activation of face-specific cortex by face-like objects

Science.gov (United States)

Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Kveraga, Kestutis; Naik, Paulami; Ahlfors, Seppo P.

2009-01-01

The tendency to perceive faces in random patterns exhibiting configural properties of faces is an example of pareidolia. Perception of ‘real’ faces has been associated with a cortical response signal arising at about 170ms after stimulus onset; but what happens when non-face objects are perceived as faces? Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we found that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoked an early (165ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas common objects did not evoke such activation. An earlier peak at 130 ms was also seen for images of real faces only. Our findings suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late re-interpretation cognitive phenomenon. PMID:19218867

Face-to-Face Interference in Typical and Atypical Development

Science.gov (United States)

Riby, Deborah M.; Doherty-Sneddon, Gwyneth; Whittle, Lisa

2012-01-01

Visual communication cues facilitate interpersonal communication. It is important that we look at faces to retrieve and subsequently process such cues. It is also important that we sometimes look away from faces as they increase cognitive load that may interfere with online processing. Indeed, when typically developing individuals hold face gaze…

Social anxiety under load: the effects of perceptual load in processing emotional faces

OpenAIRE

Soares, Sandra C.; Rocha, Marta; Neiva, Tiago; Rodrigues, Paulo; Silva, Carlos F.

2015-01-01

Previous studies in the social anxiety arena have shown an impaired attentional control system, similar to that found in trait anxiety. However, the effect of task demands on social anxiety in socially threatening stimuli, such as angry faces, remains unseen. In the present study, 54 university students scoring high and low in the Social Interaction and Performance Anxiety and Avoidance Scale (SIPAAS) questionnaire, participated in a target letter discrimination task while task-irrelevant fac...

Optimal Order Strategy in Uncertain Demands with Free Shipping Option

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Qing-Chun Meng

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Free shipping with conditions has become one of the most effective marketing tools; more and more companies especially e-business companies prefer to offer free shipping to buyers whenever their orders exceed the minimum quantity specified by them. But in practice, the demands of buyers are uncertain, which are affected by weather, season, and many other factors. Firstly, we model the centralization ordering problem of retailers who face stochastic demands when suppliers offer free shipping, in which limited distributional information such as known mean, support, and some deviation measures of the random data is needed only. Then, based on the linear decision rule mainly for stochastic programming, we analyze the optimal order strategies of retailers and discuss the approximate solution. Further, we present the core allocation between all retailers via dual and cooperative game theory. The existence of core shows that each retailer is pleased to cooperate with others in the centralization problem. Finally, a numerical example is implemented to discuss how uncertain data and parameters affect the optimal solution.

Redesigning photosynthesis to sustainably meet global food and bioenergy demand

Science.gov (United States)

Ort, Donald R.; Merchant, Sabeeha S.; Alric, Jean; Barkan, Alice; Blankenship, Robert E.; Bock, Ralph; Croce, Roberta; Hanson, Maureen R.; Hibberd, Julian M.; Long, Stephen P.; Moore, Thomas A.; Moroney, James; Niyogi, Krishna K.; Parry, Martin A. J.; Peralta-Yahya, Pamela P.; Prince, Roger C.; Redding, Kevin E.; Spalding, Martin H.; van Wijk, Klaas J.; Vermaas, Wim F. J.; von Caemmerer, Susanne; Weber, Andreas P. M.; Yeates, Todd O.; Yuan, Joshua S.; Zhu, Xin Guang

2015-01-01

The world’s crop productivity is stagnating whereas population growth, rising affluence, and mandates for biofuels put increasing demands on agriculture. Meanwhile, demand for increasing cropland competes with equally crucial global sustainability and environmental protection needs. Addressing this looming agricultural crisis will be one of our greatest scientific challenges in the coming decades, and success will require substantial improvements at many levels. We assert that increasing the efficiency and productivity of photosynthesis in crop plants will be essential if this grand challenge is to be met. Here, we explore an array of prospective redesigns of plant systems at various scales, all aimed at increasing crop yields through improved photosynthetic efficiency and performance. Prospects range from straightforward alterations, already supported by preliminary evidence of feasibility, to substantial redesigns that are currently only conceptual, but that may be enabled by new developments in synthetic biology. Although some proposed redesigns are certain to face obstacles that will require alternate routes, the efforts should lead to new discoveries and technical advances with important impacts on the global problem of crop productivity and bioenergy production. PMID:26124102

OPEC Middle East plans for rising world demand amid uncertainty

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ismail, I.A.H.

1996-01-01

The Middle Eastern members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries must plan for huge increases in oil production capacity yet wonder whether markets for the new output will develop as expected. With worldwide oil consumption rising and non-OPEC output likely to reach its resource limits soon, OPEC member countries face major gains in demand for their crude oil. To meet the demand growth, those with untapped resources will have to invest heavily in production capacity. Most OPEC members with such resources are in the Middle East. But financing the capacity investments remains a challenge. Some OPEC members have opened up to foreign equity participation in production projects, and others may eventually do so as financial pressures grow. That means additions to the opportunities now available to international companies in the Middle East. Uncertainties, however, hamper planning and worry OPEC. Chief among them are taxation and environmental policies of consuming-nation governments. This paper reviews these concerns and provides data on production, pricing, capital investment histories and revenues

Copper(I)-Catalyzed Asymmetric Desymmetrization through Inverse-Electron-Demand aza-Diels-Alder Reaction: Efficient Access to Tetrahydropyridazines Bearing a Unique α-Chiral Silane Moiety.

Science.gov (United States)

Wei, Liang; Zhou, Yu; Song, Zhi-Min; Tao, Hai-Yan; Lin, Zhenyang; Wang, Chun-Jiang

2017-04-11

An unprecedented copper(I)-catalyzed asymmetric desymmetrization of 5-silylcyclopentadienes with in situ formed azoalkene was realized through an inverse-electron-demand aza-Diels-Alder reaction (IEDDA) pathway, in which 5-silylcyclopentadienes served as efficient enophiles. This new protocol provides a facile access to the biologically important heterocyclic tetrahydropyridazines containing a unique α-chiral silane motif and three adjoining stereogenic centers in generally good yield (up to 92 %) with exclusive regioselectivity, high diastereoselectivity (>20:1 diastereomeric ratio), and excellent enantioselectivity (up to 98 % enantiomeric excess). DFT calculations and control experiments further confirmed the proposed reaction mechanism. © 2017 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Faces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Mortensen, Kristine Køhler; Brotherton, Chloe

2018-01-01

for the face the be put into action. Based on an ethnographic study of Danish teenagers’ use of SnapChat we demonstrate how the face is used as a central medium for interaction with peers. Through the analysis of visual SnapChat messages we investigate how SnapChat requires the sender to put an ‘ugly’ face...... already secured their popular status on the heterosexual marketplace in the broad context of the school. Thus SnapChat functions both as a challenge to beauty norms of ‘flawless faces’ and as a reinscription of these same norms by further manifesting the exclusive status of the popular girl...

A specialized face-processing model inspired by the organization of monkey face patches explains several face-specific phenomena observed in humans.

Science.gov (United States)

Farzmahdi, Amirhossein; Rajaei, Karim; Ghodrati, Masoud; Ebrahimpour, Reza; Khaligh-Razavi, Seyed-Mahdi

2016-04-26

Converging reports indicate that face images are processed through specialized neural networks in the brain -i.e. face patches in monkeys and the fusiform face area (FFA) in humans. These studies were designed to find out how faces are processed in visual system compared to other objects. Yet, the underlying mechanism of face processing is not completely revealed. Here, we show that a hierarchical computational model, inspired by electrophysiological evidence on face processing in primates, is able to generate representational properties similar to those observed in monkey face patches (posterior, middle and anterior patches). Since the most important goal of sensory neuroscience is linking the neural responses with behavioral outputs, we test whether the proposed model, which is designed to account for neural responses in monkey face patches, is also able to predict well-documented behavioral face phenomena observed in humans. We show that the proposed model satisfies several cognitive face effects such as: composite face effect and the idea of canonical face views. Our model provides insights about the underlying computations that transfer visual information from posterior to anterior face patches.

Demand-side management: The perspective of a combination utility

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Packard, C.P.

1993-01-01

During the 1980's, Baltimore Gas ampersand Electric (BG ampersand E) met part of the rapid growth in demand for electricity in its service territory by implementing cost-effective demand-side management (DSM) programs--specifically, peak shaving and load shifting strategies. BG ampersand E's focus in the 1990's has been expanded to include all DSM options with an increasing emphasis on those which promote overall 1 energy efficiency or strategic conservation. This change in focus is being driven by Federal legislation, state regulatory requirements and the perceived potential benefits for both the customer and the Company. Current activities related to DSM include involvement in a Collaborative Process to design cost-effective electric and gas conservation programs for all customer classes--low-income, residential, commercial and industrial. Program design consists of four steps: (1) data gathering and technology assessment; (2) development of program concepts; (3) detailed program design and (4) monitoring and evaluation. Significant reductions in the projected peaks as well as in sales in future years are the anticipated results of our efforts. As a combination utility, unique opportunities and challenges face BG ampersand E: fuel switching, eligibility of non-full requirements customers, and energy options for customers

Early (M170) activation of face-specific cortex by face-like objects.

Science.gov (United States)

Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Kveraga, Kestutis; Naik, Paulami; Ahlfors, Seppo P

2009-03-04

The tendency to perceive faces in random patterns exhibiting configural properties of faces is an example of pareidolia. Perception of 'real' faces has been associated with a cortical response signal arising at approximately 170 ms after stimulus onset, but what happens when nonface objects are perceived as faces? Using magnetoencephalography, we found that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoked an early (165 ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar to that evoked by faces, whereas common objects did not evoke such activation. An earlier peak at 130 ms was also seen for images of real faces only. Our findings suggest that face perception evoked by face-like objects is a relatively early process, and not a late reinterpretation cognitive phenomenon.

R and D options for demand side management in Japanese electric utilities

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yamamoto, T.

1995-01-01

Japanese electric utilities are facing several problems: increasing construction cost of power facilities, siting constraints and the environmental issue of greenhouse gas emissions. To overcome these problems, electric utilities have been promoting demand-side-management (DSM) activities as well as supplier-side measures, with some presently being carried out through promoting energy conservation technologies and introducing tariff options for residential/commercial and industrial consumers. R and D works have been carried out on various fields such as energy storage and heat storage which contribute to the improvement of the load factor. 5 figs., 2 tabs

Collaborative Random Faces-Guided Encoders for Pose-Invariant Face Representation Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Shao, Ming; Zhang, Yizhe; Fu, Yun

2018-04-01

Learning discriminant face representation for pose-invariant face recognition has been identified as a critical issue in visual learning systems. The challenge lies in the drastic changes of facial appearances between the test face and the registered face. To that end, we propose a high-level feature learning framework called "collaborative random faces (RFs)-guided encoders" toward this problem. The contributions of this paper are three fold. First, we propose a novel supervised autoencoder that is able to capture the high-level identity feature despite of pose variations. Second, we enrich the identity features by replacing the target values of conventional autoencoders with random signals (RFs in this paper), which are unique for each subject under different poses. Third, we further improve the performance of the framework by incorporating deep convolutional neural network facial descriptors and linking discriminative identity features from different RFs for the augmented identity features. Finally, we conduct face identification experiments on Multi-PIE database, and face verification experiments on labeled faces in the wild and YouTube Face databases, where face recognition rate and verification accuracy with Receiver Operating Characteristic curves are rendered. In addition, discussions of model parameters and connections with the existing methods are provided. These experiments demonstrate that our learning system works fairly well on handling pose variations.

Striving for balance between family and work demands among Iranian nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Lagerström, Monica; Josephson, Malin; Arsalani, Narges; Fallahi-Khoshknab, Masoud

2010-04-01

The study reported here explored Iranian nurses' experience of managing work and family roles. Grounded theory method guided the data collection and data analysis from both individual and focus group interviews. Five categories emerged: family role, working conditions, seeking support, perceiving dissatisfaction, and perceiving threats to health. The core concept that emerged was striving for balance between family and work demands. In the work-family role the Iranian nurses faced significant pressures, and they mostly relied on their own capabilities to create balance, often neglecting their own needs. This resulted in perceived dissatisfaction and health threats.

Configuration perception and face memory, and face context effects in developmental prosopagnosia.

Science.gov (United States)

Huis in 't Veld, Elisabeth; Van den Stock, Jan; de Gelder, Beatrice

2012-01-01

This study addresses two central and controversial issues in developmental prosopagnosia (DP), configuration- versus feature-based face processing and the influence of affective information from either facial or bodily expressions on face recognition. A sample of 10 DPs and 10 controls were tested with a previously developed face and object recognition and memory battery (Facial Expressive Action Stimulus Test, FEAST), a task measuring the influence of emotional faces and bodies on face identity matching (Face-Body Compound task), and an emotionally expressive face memory task (Emotional Face Memory task, FaMe-E). We show that DPs were impaired in upright, but not inverted, face matching but they performed at the level of controls on part-to-whole matching. Second, DPs showed impaired memory for both neutral and emotional faces and scored within the normal range on the Face-Body Compound task. Third, configural perception but not feature-based processing was significantly associated with memory performance. Taken together the results indicate that DPs have a deficit in configural processing at the perception stage that may underlie the memory impairment.

The Face-to-Face Light Detection Paradigm: A New Methodology for Investigating Visuospatial Attention Across Different Face Regions in Live Face-to-Face Communication Settings.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Laura A; Malloy, Daniel M; Cone, John M; Hendrickson, David L

2010-01-01

We introduce a novel paradigm for studying the cognitive processes used by listeners within interactive settings. This paradigm places the talker and the listener in the same physical space, creating opportunities for investigations of attention and comprehension processes taking place during interactive discourse situations. An experiment was conducted to compare results from previous research using videotaped stimuli to those obtained within the live face-to-face task paradigm. A headworn apparatus is used to briefly display LEDs on the talker's face in four locations as the talker communicates with the participant. In addition to the primary task of comprehending speeches, participants make a secondary task light detection response. In the present experiment, the talker gave non-emotionally-expressive speeches that were used in past research with videotaped stimuli. Signal detection analysis was employed to determine which areas of the face received the greatest focus of attention. Results replicate previous findings using videotaped methods.

The most critical issues facing managers in South Africa today

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. Maritz

2002-12-01

Full Text Available South African managers today find themselves squeezed between juxtapositions, such as international competition and simultaneous skill development programmes to combat illiteracy. A second example is high unemployment and the concurrent shortage of IT specialists. Affirmative action has led to troublesome labour relations. HIV/AIDS has an enormous impact on business and must be managed. South African managers need to change their managerial approaches to cope with the increasing demands of this country. Managers must be aware of the realities facing them and know how to turn them into potential growth opportunities for their organisations and South Africa as a country.

Big Data Analytics for Demand Response: Clustering Over Space and Time

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Chelmis, Charalampos [Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States); Kolte, Jahanvi [Nirma Univ., Gujarat (India); Prasanna, Viktor K. [Univ. of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)

2015-10-29

The pervasive deployment of advanced sensing infrastructure in Cyber-Physical systems, such as the Smart Grid, has resulted in an unprecedented data explosion. Such data exhibit both large volumes and high velocity characteristics, two of the three pillars of Big Data, and have a time-series notion as datasets in this context typically consist of successive measurements made over a time interval. Time-series data can be valuable for data mining and analytics tasks such as identifying the “right” customers among a diverse population, to target for Demand Response programs. However, time series are challenging to mine due to their high dimensionality. In this paper, we motivate this problem using a real application from the smart grid domain. We explore novel representations of time-series data for BigData analytics, and propose a clustering technique for determining natural segmentation of customers and identification of temporal consumption patterns. Our method is generizable to large-scale, real-world scenarios, without making any assumptions about the data. We evaluate our technique using real datasets from smart meters, totaling ~ 18,200,000 data points, and show the efficacy of our technique in efficiency detecting the number of optimal number of clusters.

Mental and physical health-related functioning mediates between psychological job demands and sickness absence among nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Roelen, Corné; van Rhenen, Willem; Schaufeli, Wilmar; van der Klink, Jac; Magerøy, Nils; Moen, Bente; Bjorvatn, Bjørn; Pallesen, Ståle

2014-08-01

To investigate whether health-related functioning mediates the effect of psychological job demands on sickness absence in nurses. Nurses face high job demands that can have adverse health effects resulting in sickness absence. Prospective cohort study with 1-year follow-up. Data for 2964 Norwegian nurses were collected in the period 2008-2010. At baseline, psychological job demands were measured with the Demand-Control-Support Questionnaire. Health-related functioning was assessed by the Mental Composite Score and the Physical Composite Score of the SF-12 Health Survey (2nd version). Sickness absence (no = 0, yes = 1) was self-reported at 1-year follow-up. Interaction and mediation analyses were conducted stratified by tenure (6 years) as a registered nurse. A total of 2180 nurses (74%) with complete data were eligible for analysis. A significant three-way interaction between job demands, control and support was found in newly licensed nurses (tenure sickness absence at 1-year follow-up. This association was substantially weakened when Mental Composite Score and Physical Composite Score were introduced as mediator variables, indicating a partial mediation effect that was particularly pronounced in newly licensed nurses. Psychological job demands did not modify the effect of health-related functioning on sickness absence. Both mental and physical health-related functioning mediated between psychological job demands and sickness absence. Nurse managers should pay attention to health-related functioning, because poor health-related functioning may predict sickness absence, especially in newly licensed nurses. © 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Using online learning in a traditional face-to-face environment.

Science.gov (United States)

Kozlowski, Dawn

2002-01-01

A model for designing online learning was developed and implemented in a Registered Nurse-to-Bachelor of Science in Nursing course using online and face-to-face methodologies. The combination of online and face-to-face learning modalities may help the student who is a novice Internet explorer or seasoned Web navigator by offering technological support as well as providing constant in-person feedback regarding course requirements. The face-to-face component facilitates a sense of community and peer support that sometimes is lacking in an entirely online course. During the 2 semesters this model was used, students expressed satisfaction with having the course facilitator/professor physically available for consultation and advisement. Evaluation of this online/on-site course is ongoing and uses computer-administered qualitative questionnaires, a facilitator-moderated focus group, and Likert-type course evaluations.

PERFECT DEMAND ILLUSION

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alexander Yu. Sulimov

2015-01-01

Full Text Available The article is devoted to technique «Perfect demand illusion», which allows to strengthen the competitive advantageof retailers. Also in the paper spells out the golden rules of visual merchandising.The definition of the method «Demand illusion», formulated the conditions of its functioning, and is determined by the mainhypothesis of the existence of this method.Furthermore, given the definition of the «Perfect demand illusion», and describes its additional conditions. Also spells out the advantages of the «Perfect demandillusion», before the «Demand illusion».

Electricity demand in Kazakhstan

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Atakhanova, Zauresh; Howie, Peter

2007-01-01

Properties of electricity demand in transition economies have not been sufficiently well researched mostly due to data limitations. However, information on the properties of electricity demand is necessary for policy makers to evaluate effects of price changes on different consumers and obtain demand forecasts for capacity planning. This study estimates Kazakhstan's aggregate demand for electricity as well as electricity demand in the industrial, service, and residential sectors using regional data. Firstly, our results show that price elasticity of demand in all sectors is low. This fact suggests that there is considerable room for price increases necessary to finance generation and distribution system upgrading. Secondly, we find that income elasticity of demand in the aggregate and all sectoral models is less than unity. Of the three sectors, electricity demand in the residential sector has the lowest income elasticity. This result indicates that policy initiatives to secure affordability of electricity consumption to lower income residential consumers may be required. Finally, our forecast shows that electricity demand may grow at either 3% or 5% per year depending on rates of economic growth and government policy regarding price increases and promotion of efficiency. We find that planned supply increases would be sufficient to cover growing demand only if real electricity prices start to increase toward long-run cost-recovery levels and policy measures are implemented to maintain the current high growth of electricity efficiency

Looking at My Own Face: Visual Processing Strategies in Self–Other Face Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anya Chakraborty

2018-02-01

Full Text Available We live in an age of ‘selfies.’ Yet, how we look at our own faces has seldom been systematically investigated. In this study we test if the visual processing of the highly familiar self-face is different from other faces, using psychophysics and eye-tracking. This paradigm also enabled us to test the association between the psychophysical properties of self-face representation and visual processing strategies involved in self-face recognition. Thirty-three adults performed a self-face recognition task from a series of self-other face morphs with simultaneous eye-tracking. Participants were found to look longer at the lower part of the face for self-face compared to other-face. Participants with a more distinct self-face representation, as indexed by a steeper slope of the psychometric response curve for self-face recognition, were found to look longer at upper part of the faces identified as ‘self’ vs. those identified as ‘other’. This result indicates that self-face representation can influence where we look when we process our own vs. others’ faces. We also investigated the association of autism-related traits with self-face processing metrics since autism has previously been associated with atypical self-processing. The study did not find any self-face specific association with autistic traits, suggesting that autism-related features may be related to self-processing in a domain specific manner.

Nuclear fuel cycles : description, demand and supply estimates

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gadallah, A.A.; Abou Zahra, A.A.; Hammad, F.H.

1985-01-01

This report deals with various nuclear fuel cycles description as well as the world demand and supply estimates of materials and services. Estimates of world nuclear fuel cycle requirements: nuclear fuel, heavy water and other fuel cycle services as well as the availability and production capabilities of these requirements, are discussed for several reactor fuel cycle strategies, different operating and under construction fuel cycle facilities in some industrialized and developed countries are surveyed. Various uncertainties and bottlenecks which are recently facing the development of some fuel cycle components are also discussed, as well as various proposals concerning fuel cycle back-end concepts. finally, the nuclear fuel cycles activities in some developing countries are reviewed with emphasis on the egyptian plans to introduce nuclear power in the country. 11 fig., 16 tab

Use of social media to encourage face to face communication

OpenAIRE

Čufer, Matija; Knežević, Anja

2017-01-01

Face-to-face communication is of key importance for successful socialization of a person into a society. Social media makes a good complement to such form of communication. Parents and pedagogical workers must be aware of children not replacing face-to-face communication for communication through the social media in the process of education and growing up. Young people nevertheless frequently communicate through the social media. For this reason, we tried to extract positive features of those...

Faces in the Mist: Illusory Face and Letter Detection

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Cory A. Rieth

2011-06-01

Full Text Available We report three behavioral experiments on the spatial characteristics evoking illusory face and letter detection. False detections made to pure noise images were analyzed using a modified reverse correlation method in which hundreds of observers rated a modest number of noise images (480 during a single session. This method was originally developed for brain imaging research, and has been used in a number of fMRI publications, but this is the first report of the behavioral classification images. In Experiment 1 illusory face detection occurred in response to scattered dark patches throughout the images, with a bias to the left visual field. This occurred despite the use of a fixation cross and expectations that faces would be centered. In contrast, illusory letter detection (Experiment 2 occurred in response to centrally positioned dark patches. Experiment 3 included an oval in all displays to spatially constrain illusory face detection. With the addition of this oval the classification image revealed an eyes/nose/mouth pattern. These results suggest that face detection is triggered by a minimal face-like pattern even when these features are not centered in visual focus.

Process and domain specificity in regions engaged for face processing: an fMRI study of perceptual differentiation.

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Heather R; Zhu, Xun; Bhatt, Ramesh S; Clark, Jonathan D; Joseph, Jane E

2012-12-01

The degree to which face-specific brain regions are specialized for different kinds of perceptual processing is debated. This study parametrically varied demands on featural, first-order configural, or second-order configural processing of faces and houses in a perceptual matching task to determine the extent to which the process of perceptual differentiation was selective for faces regardless of processing type (domain-specific account), specialized for specific types of perceptual processing regardless of category (process-specific account), engaged in category-optimized processing (i.e., configural face processing or featural house processing), or reflected generalized perceptual differentiation (i.e., differentiation that crosses category and processing type boundaries). ROIs were identified in a separate localizer run or with a similarity regressor in the face-matching runs. The predominant principle accounting for fMRI signal modulation in most regions was generalized perceptual differentiation. Nearly all regions showed perceptual differentiation for both faces and houses for more than one processing type, even if the region was identified as face-preferential in the localizer run. Consistent with process specificity, some regions showed perceptual differentiation for first-order processing of faces and houses (right fusiform face area and occipito-temporal cortex and right lateral occipital complex), but not for featural or second-order processing. Somewhat consistent with domain specificity, the right inferior frontal gyrus showed perceptual differentiation only for faces in the featural matching task. The present findings demonstrate that the majority of regions involved in perceptual differentiation of faces are also involved in differentiation of other visually homogenous categories.

Process- and Domain-Specificity in Regions Engaged for Face Processing: An fMRI Study of Perceptual Differentiation

Science.gov (United States)

Collins, Heather R.; Zhu, Xun; Bhatt, Ramesh S.; Clark, Jonathan D.; Joseph, Jane E.

2015-01-01

The degree to which face-specific brain regions are specialized for different kinds of perceptual processing is debated. The present study parametrically varied demands on featural, first-order configural or second-order configural processing of faces and houses in a perceptual matching task to determine the extent to which the process of perceptual differentiation was selective for faces regardless of processing type (domain-specific account), specialized for specific types of perceptual processing regardless of category (process-specific account), engaged in category-optimized processing (i.e., configural face processing or featural house processing) or reflected generalized perceptual differentiation (i.e. differentiation that crosses category and processing type boundaries). Regions of interest were identified in a separate localizer run or with a similarity regressor in the face-matching runs. The predominant principle accounting for fMRI signal modulation in most regions was generalized perceptual differentiation. Nearly all regions showed perceptual differentiation for both faces and houses for more than one processing type, even if the region was identified as face-preferential in the localizer run. Consistent with process-specificity, some regions showed perceptual differentiation for first-order processing of faces and houses (right fusiform face area and occipito-temporal cortex, and right lateral occipital complex), but not for featural or second-order processing. Somewhat consistent with domain-specificity, the right inferior frontal gyrus showed perceptual differentiation only for faces in the featural matching task. The present findings demonstrate that the majority of regions involved in perceptual differentiation of faces are also involved in differentiation of other visually homogenous categories. PMID:22849402

The new challenges of energy operators. To bring strategic answers to market changes and to unprecedented competitive threats

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2016-02-01

Because of regulatory and technological changes, energy operators have to reconsider their business model, i.e. to identify their tomorrow's key activities and skills, and to keep control of the value chain as a multitude of new and various operators try to be present on the production sector and on the distribution sector. In order to give an insight on these issues, this study proposes three reports and a video. While the video proposes an original presentation of the main conclusions of this study, the first document is an executive synthesis which outlines and discusses some important issues: regulatory and technological changes submit energy operators to an unprecedented competitive and strategic paradigm; an efficient management of transition requires a profession-based approach and renewed strategic assets; energy operators must take the risk of 'uberisation' of their profession into account in order to better respond. The second document is an analysis report which addresses the upheavals of the energy operator environment (regulatory changes, technological upheavals, focus on the new energy deal), and the main strategic challenges faced by energy operators (redesign of the energy model, projection on non-core activities, acquisition of new strategic assets). It also proposes a discussion on the reconfiguration of the energy value chain (an upstream disruption of the value chain, a risk of reversal of the whole value chain). The third document proposes presentations of the evolution of key figures of energy markets in France (electricity, gas, renewable energy, turnovers of specialised actors in gas production and distribution and of the electricity sectors), a presentation of the sector economic structure and competitive landscape (sites, personnel, market shares, market key figures, main operators, electric power producers, gas providers, and renewable plant operators), and an overview of main events (asset management strategy

Interference among the Processing of Facial Emotion, Face Race, and Face Gender

OpenAIRE

Li, Yongna; Tse, Chi-Shing

2016-01-01

People are able to simultaneously process multiple dimensions of facial properties. Facial processing models are based on the processing of facial properties. This paper examined the processing of facial emotion, face race and face gender using categorization tasks. The same set of Chinese, White and Black faces, each posing a neutral, happy or angry expression, was used in three experiments. Facial emotion interfered with face race in all the tasks. The interaction of face race and face gend...

Early (N170) activation of face-specific cortex by face-like objects

OpenAIRE

Hadjikhani, Nouchine; Kveraga, Kestutis; Naik, Paulami; Ahlfors, Seppo P.

2009-01-01

The tendency to perceive faces in random patterns exhibiting configural properties of faces is an example of pareidolia. Perception of ‘real’ faces has been associated with a cortical response signal arising at about 170ms after stimulus onset; but what happens when non-face objects are perceived as faces? Using magnetoencephalography (MEG), we found that objects incidentally perceived as faces evoked an early (165ms) activation in the ventral fusiform cortex, at a time and location similar t...

Electricity demand forecasting techniques

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Gnanalingam, K.

1994-01-01

Electricity demand forecasting plays an important role in power generation. The two areas of data that have to be forecasted in a power system are peak demand which determines the capacity (MW) of the plant required and annual energy demand (GWH). Methods used in electricity demand forecasting include time trend analysis and econometric methods. In forecasting, identification of manpower demand, identification of key planning factors, decision on planning horizon, differentiation between prediction and projection (i.e. development of different scenarios) and choosing from different forecasting techniques are important

Assessing Students Perceptions on Intensive Face to Face in Open ...

African Journals Online (AJOL)

Therefore, this study assessed students‟ perception on Intensive Face to Face sessions. The study specifically aimed at identifying students‟ perception on quality of interaction between tutors and students and between students on the other hand. It also explored the nature of challenges students meet in attending face to ...

Developmental Changes in Mother-Infant Face-to-Face Communication: Birth to 3 Months.

Science.gov (United States)

Lavelli, Manuela; Fogel, Alan

2002-01-01

Investigated development of face-to-face communication in infants between 1 and 14 weeks old and their mothers. Found a curvilinear development of early face-to-face communication, with increases occurring between weeks 4 and 9. When placed on a sofa, infants' face-to-face communication was longer than when they were held. Girls spent a longer…

Neonatal face-to-face interactions promote later social behaviour in infant rhesus monkeys

Science.gov (United States)

Dettmer, Amanda M.; Kaburu, Stefano S. K.; Simpson, Elizabeth A.; Paukner, Annika; Sclafani, Valentina; Byers, Kristen L.; Murphy, Ashley M.; Miller, Michelle; Marquez, Neal; Miller, Grace M.; Suomi, Stephen J.; Ferrari, Pier F.

2016-01-01

In primates, including humans, mothers engage in face-to-face interactions with their infants, with frequencies varying both within and across species. However, the impact of this variation in face-to-face interactions on infant social development is unclear. Here we report that infant monkeys (Macaca mulatta) who engaged in more neonatal face-to-face interactions with mothers have increased social interactions at 2 and 5 months. In a controlled experiment, we show that this effect is not due to physical contact alone: monkeys randomly assigned to receive additional neonatal face-to-face interactions (mutual gaze and intermittent lip-smacking) with human caregivers display increased social interest at 2 months, compared with monkeys who received only additional handling. These studies suggest that face-to-face interactions from birth promote young primate social interest and competency. PMID:27300086

N250r and N400 ERP correlates of immediate famous face repetition are independent of perceptual load.

Science.gov (United States)

Neumann, Markus F; Schweinberger, Stefan R

2008-11-06

It is a matter of considerable debate whether attention to initial stimulus presentations is required for repetition-related neural modulations to occur. Recently, it has been assumed that faces are particularly hard to ignore, and can capture attention in a reflexive manner. In line with this idea, electrophysiological evidence for long-term repetition effects of unattended famous faces has been reported. The present study investigated influences of attention to prime faces on short-term repetition effects in event-related potentials (ERPs). We manipulated attention to short (200 ms) prime presentations (S1) of task-irrelevant famous faces according to Lavie's Perceptual Load Theory. Participants attended to letter strings superimposed on face images, and identified target letters "X" vs. "N" embedded in strings of either 6 different (high load) or 6 identical (low load) letters. Letter identification was followed by probe presentations (S2), which were either repetitions of S1 faces, new famous faces, or infrequent butterflies, to which participants responded. Our ERP data revealed repetition effects in terms of an N250r at occipito-temporal regions, suggesting priming of face identification processes, and in terms of an N400 at the vertex, suggesting semantic priming. Crucially, the magnitude of these effects was unaffected by perceptual load at S1 presentation. This indicates that task-irrelevant face processing is remarkably preserved even in a demanding letter detection task, supporting recent notions of face-specific attentional resources.

Emergency response network design for hazardous materials transportation with uncertain demand

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kamran Shahanaghi

2012-10-01

Full Text Available Transportation of hazardous materials play an essential role on keeping a friendly environment. Every day, a substantial amount of hazardous materials (hazmats, such as flammable liquids and poisonous gases, need to be transferred prior to consumption or disposal. Such transportation may result in unsuitable events for people and environment. Emergency response network is designed for this reason where specialist responding teams resolve any issue as quickly as possible. This study proposes a new multi-objective model to locate emergency response centers for transporting the hazardous materials. Since many real-world applications are faced with uncertainty in input parameters, the proposed model of this paper also assumes that reference and demand to such centre is subject to uncertainty, where demand is fuzzy random. The resulted problem formulation is modelled as nonlinear non-convex mixed integer programming and we used NSGAII method to solve the resulted problem. The performance of the proposed model is examined with several examples using various probability distribution and they are compared with the performance of other existing method.

Forecasting telecommunication new service demand by analogy method and combined forecast

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Feng-Jenq

2005-01-01

Full Text Available In the modeling forecast field, we are usually faced with the more difficult problems of forecasting market demand for a new service or product. A new service or product is defined as that there is absence of historical data in this new market. We hardly use models to execute the forecasting work directly. In the Taiwan telecommunication industry, after liberalization in 1996, there are many new services opened continually. For optimal investment, it is necessary that the operators, who have been granted the concessions and licenses, forecast this new service within their planning process. Though there are some methods to solve or avoid this predicament, in this paper, we will propose one forecasting procedure that integrates the concept of analogy method and the idea of combined forecast to generate new service forecast. In view of the above, the first half of this paper describes the procedure of analogy method and the approach of combined forecast, and the second half provides the case of forecasting low-tier phone demand in Taiwan to illustrate this procedure's feasibility.

Demand response in energy markets

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Skytte, K.; Birk Mortensen, J.

2004-11-01

Improving the ability of energy demand to respond to wholesale prices during critical periods of the spot market can reduce the total costs of reliably meeting demand, and the level and volatility of the prices. This fact has lead to a growing interest in the short-run demand response. There has especially been a growing interest in the electricity market where peak-load periods with high spot prices and occasional local blackouts have recently been seen. Market concentration at the supply side can result in even higher peak-load prices. Demand response by shifting demand from peak to base-load periods can counteract the market power in the peak-load. However, demand response has so far been modest since the current short-term price elasticity seems to be small. This is also the case for related markets, for example, green certificates where the demand is determined as a percentage of the power demand, or for heat and natural gas markets. This raises a number of interesting research issues: 1) Demand response in different energy markets, 2) Estimation of price elasticity and flexibility, 3) Stimulation of demand response, 4) Regulation, policy and modelling aspects, 5) Demand response and market power at the supply side, 6) Energy security of supply, 7) Demand response in forward, spot, ancillary service, balance and capacity markets, 8) Demand response in deviated markets, e.g., emission, futures, and green certificate markets, 9) Value of increased demand response, 10) Flexible households. (BA)

History of demand side management and classification of demand response control schemes

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Lampropoulos, I.; Kling, W.L.; Ribeiro, P.F.; Berg, van den J.

2013-01-01

The scope of this paper is to provide a review on the topic of demand side management. A historical overview provides a critical insight to applied cases, while the discovery of new evidence calls for reconsideration of the design of demand response control schemes. The developments at the demand

Interference among the Processing of Facial Emotion, Face Race, and Face Gender

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yongna; Tse, Chi-Shing

2016-01-01

People can process multiple dimensions of facial properties simultaneously. Facial processing models are based on the processing of facial properties. The current study examined the processing of facial emotion, face race, and face gender using categorization tasks. The same set of Chinese, White and Black faces, each posing a neutral, happy or angry expression, was used in three experiments. Facial emotion interacted with face race in all the tasks. The interaction of face race and face gender was found in the race and gender categorization tasks, whereas the interaction of facial emotion and face gender was significant in the emotion and gender categorization tasks. These results provided evidence for a symmetric interaction between variant facial properties (emotion) and invariant facial properties (race and gender). PMID:27840621

Interference among the Processing of Facial Emotion, Face Race, and Face Gender.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Yongna; Tse, Chi-Shing

2016-01-01

People can process multiple dimensions of facial properties simultaneously. Facial processing models are based on the processing of facial properties. The current study examined the processing of facial emotion, face race, and face gender using categorization tasks. The same set of Chinese, White and Black faces, each posing a neutral, happy or angry expression, was used in three experiments. Facial emotion interacted with face race in all the tasks. The interaction of face race and face gender was found in the race and gender categorization tasks, whereas the interaction of facial emotion and face gender was significant in the emotion and gender categorization tasks. These results provided evidence for a symmetric interaction between variant facial properties (emotion) and invariant facial properties (race and gender).

Problems the chemical industry of Japan faces and future prospects

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Ishida, Shin' ichi

1989-01-01

Industry proceeds for the fiscal 1988 are expected to increase remarkably as they did in the previous year with 4.9% increase in revenue and 18.8% increase in profit (ordinary profit) from the previous year. The conditions of material industry are especially favorable and chemical industry is also expected to prosper as it did in the previous year. Problems this prospering chemical industry is facing are introduced in this report. Firstly, it is necessary to improve productivity by adopting more information and promoting factory automation in order to strengthen competition. The future of chemical industry depends on the introduction of information. Secondly, as demands of users are becoming more diversified, and cycles of products shorter, shortening of development terms is essential. It is necessary, therefore, to predict the demands of users in advance and seek after custom products. Thirdly, selection of product bases is required; it might be necessary to consider producing some product items abroad. Moreover, it is desirable to increase investments in investigation and pursue creativity putting much stress on basic investigations. 2 figs., 11 tabs.

Quantitative work demands, emotional demands, and cognitive stress symptoms in surgery nurses.

Science.gov (United States)

Elfering, Achim; Grebner, Simone; Leitner, Monika; Hirschmüller, Anja; Kubosch, Eva Johanna; Baur, Heiner

2017-06-01

In surgery, cognitive stress symptoms, including problems in concentrating, deciding, memorising, and reflecting are risks to patient safety. Recent evidence points to social stressors as antecedents of cognitive stress symptoms in surgery personnel. The current study tests whether cognitive stress symptoms are positively associated with emotional abuse, emotional- and task-related demands and resources in surgery work. Forty-eight surgery nurses from two hospitals filled out the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire in its German version. Task-related and emotional demands were positively related to cognitive stress symptoms. In a stepwise, multiple, linear regression of cognitive stress symptoms on task-related and emotional demands, emotional abuse and emotional demands were unique predictors (p emotional abuse, emotional demands, and, therefore, communication and cooperation team climate in surgery personnel.

Interpersonal similarity between body movements in face-to-face communication in daily life.

Science.gov (United States)

Higo, Naoki; Ogawa, Ken-ichiro; Minemura, Juichi; Xu, Bujie; Nozawa, Takayuki; Ogata, Taiki; Ara, Koji; Yano, Kazuo; Miyake, Yoshihiro

2014-01-01

Individuals are embedded in social networks in which they communicate with others in their daily lives. Because smooth face-to-face communication is the key to maintaining these networks, measuring the smoothness of such communication is an important issue. One indicator of smoothness is the similarity of the body movements of the two individuals concerned. A typical example noted in experimental environments is the interpersonal synchronization of body movements such as nods and gestures during smooth face-to-face communication. It should therefore be possible to estimate quantitatively the smoothness of face-to-face communication in social networks through measurement of the synchronization of body movements. However, this is difficult because social networks, which differ from disciplined experimental environments, are open environments for the face-to-face communication between two individuals. In such open environments, their body movements become complicated by various external factors and may follow unstable and nonuniform patterns. Nevertheless, we consider there to be some interaction during face-to-face communication that leads to the interpersonal synchronization of body movements, which can be seen through the interpersonal similarity of body movements. The present study aims to clarify such interaction in terms of body movements during daily face-to-face communication in real organizations of more than 100 people. We analyzed data on the frequency of body movement for each individual during face-to-face communication, as measured by a wearable sensor, and evaluated the degree of interpersonal similarity of body movements between two individuals as their frequency difference. Furthermore, we generated uncorrelated data by resampling the data gathered and compared these two data sets statistically to distinguish the effects of actual face-to-face communication from those of the activities accompanying the communication. Our results confirm an

Interpersonal similarity between body movements in face-to-face communication in daily life.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naoki Higo

Full Text Available Individuals are embedded in social networks in which they communicate with others in their daily lives. Because smooth face-to-face communication is the key to maintaining these networks, measuring the smoothness of such communication is an important issue. One indicator of smoothness is the similarity of the body movements of the two individuals concerned. A typical example noted in experimental environments is the interpersonal synchronization of body movements such as nods and gestures during smooth face-to-face communication. It should therefore be possible to estimate quantitatively the smoothness of face-to-face communication in social networks through measurement of the synchronization of body movements. However, this is difficult because social networks, which differ from disciplined experimental environments, are open environments for the face-to-face communication between two individuals. In such open environments, their body movements become complicated by various external factors and may follow unstable and nonuniform patterns. Nevertheless, we consider there to be some interaction during face-to-face communication that leads to the interpersonal synchronization of body movements, which can be seen through the interpersonal similarity of body movements. The present study aims to clarify such interaction in terms of body movements during daily face-to-face communication in real organizations of more than 100 people. We analyzed data on the frequency of body movement for each individual during face-to-face communication, as measured by a wearable sensor, and evaluated the degree of interpersonal similarity of body movements between two individuals as their frequency difference. Furthermore, we generated uncorrelated data by resampling the data gathered and compared these two data sets statistically to distinguish the effects of actual face-to-face communication from those of the activities accompanying the communication. Our results

Health Professionals Facing Suicidal Patients: What Are Their Clinical Practices?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Inês Rothes

2018-06-01

Full Text Available Clinical work with suicidal people is a demanding area. Little is known about health professionals’ practices when faced with suicidal patients. The aims of this study were to: (1 describe the practices most likely to be adopted by professionals facing a suicidal patient and (2 analyze the differences according to professional characteristics (group, specific training on suicide, and experience with suicidal patients. A self-report questionnaire that was developed for this study was filled out by 239 participants. Participants were psychologists, psychiatrists, and general practitioners who work in different contexts: hospitals, public health centres, schools or colleges, and community centres. Principal components analysis, analyses of variance, and t-tests were used. Four components were identified: (1 Comprehensive risk assessment; (2 protocols, psychotherapy and connectedness; (3 multidisciplinary clinical approach; and, (4 family, explaining a total of variance of 44%. Positive associations between suicide-related variables (training and experience and practices were found. In general, health professionals’ practices are evidence-based, however a relevant percentage of professionals can benefit from training and improve their practices.

The individual face to face with public health: a conflict of interests or a conflict of conditions?

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Janusz Sytnik-Czetwertyński

2016-02-01

Abstract The freedom of man and the freedom of the citizen are two entirely different domains. By nature, man is created for freedom, yet he does not possess the ability to effectively provide himself with a feeling of security. Man is therefore forced to negotiate, and in exchange for the abandonment of certain rights to freedom, receives a guarantee of relative peace. In order to enforce its obligations, the state is sometimes forced, in the name of the public good, to pacify the intentions of the individual and enforce pro-social actions. The issue discussed here is therefore reduced to the following: is the domain of public health one of those which should remain under the complete, or merely partial, control of the state (such as defence for instance, or should it remain open to the rights and demands of citizens?   The conclusion seems to be the following: the public health perspective is a social one and there is therefore little room for a wide-ranging dialogue with the individual. On the other hand, the system cannot close itself entirely to the reactions of society, since it is supposed to serve people and not its own ideals. It must possess the capacity to not lose sight of people and their problems, so often defying any prognoses and expectations, within the process of enacting public health policy.     Key words: face to face, public health.

Description of the global petroleum supply and demand outlook updated for the 1993 edition of the GRI baseline projection of US energy supply and demand, December 1992

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Dreyfus, D.A.; Koklauner, A.B.

1992-12-01

Strategic planning of the research and development program carried out by Gas Research Institute (GRI) is supported by an annual GRI baseline projection of U.S. energy supply and demand. Because petroleum products compete in a wide variety of energy uses, oil prices serve as a market clearing force for the entire energy system. A significant portion of the U.S. petroleum supply is imported, and the price of crude oil to U.S. refiners is determined by the international oil trade. Any projection of the U.S. energy situation, therefore, requires the evaluation of the global oil market and the impact of oil price changes on the supply/demand balances of market participants. The 1992 edition of the projection completed in August 1991 assumed that in the aftermath of the war in the Middle East the fundamentals of oil trade would reassert their influence. This did indeed occur and with astonishing speed. In the face of this outlook, GRI has revised its 1993 oil price track downward

Road infrastructure and demand induction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Nielsen, Thomas Alexander Sick; Hovgesen, Henrik Harder; Lahrmann, Harry

2006-01-01

a long screenline is used to measure the development in aggregate demand in selected corridors. The paper analyses demand induction by establishing time series of aggregate demand that is compared with the national traffic index. Significant trend breaks in the association between aggregate demand...... in the corridors and the national index, following the opening of motorways or bridges, indicates demand induction by infrastructure expansion in a number of instances. Lack of significant trend breaks following opening year is found in peripheral areas where major population centres are missing. This indicates...... the necessity of some latent demand within suitable travel range for new infrastructure elements to produce significant amounts of induced demand. Estimates of demand induction as a percentage of the realised demand five years after opening are between 10% and 67% for new motorway sections depending...

Tolerance to spatial-relational transformations in unfamiliar faces: A further challenge to a configural processing account of identity recognition.

Science.gov (United States)

Lorenzino, Martina; Caminati, Martina; Caudek, Corrado

2018-05-25

One of the most important questions in face perception research is to understand what information is extracted from a face in order to recognize its identity. Recognition of facial identity has been attributed to a special sensitivity to "configural" information. However, recent studies have challenged the configural account by showing that participants are poor in discriminating variations of metric distances among facial features, especially for familiar as opposed to unfamiliar faces, whereas a configural account predicts the opposite. We aimed to extend these previous results by examining classes of unfamiliar faces with which we have different levels of expertise. We hypothesized an inverse relation between sensitivity to configural information and expertise with a given class of faces, but only for neutral expressions. By first matching perceptual discriminability, we measured tolerance to subtle configural transformations with same-race (SR) versus other-race (OR) faces, and with upright versus upside-down faces. Consistently with our predictions, we found a lower sensitivity to at-threshold configural changes for SR compared to OR faces. We also found that, for our stimuli, the face inversion effect disappeared for neutral but not for emotional faces - a result that can also be attributed to a lower sensitivity to configural transformations for faces presented in a more familiar orientation. The present findings question a purely configural account of face processing and suggest that the role of spatial-relational information in face processing varies according to the functional demands of the task and to the characteristics of the stimuli. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Estimating Natural Recharge in a Desert Environment Facing Increasing Ground-Water Demands

Science.gov (United States)

Nishikawa, T.; Izbicki, J. A.; Hevesi, J. A.; Martin, P.

2004-12-01

Ground water historically has been the sole source of water supply for the community of Joshua Tree in the Joshua Tree ground-water subbasin of the Morongo ground-water basin in the southern Mojave Desert. Joshua Basin Water District (JBWD) supplies water to the community from the underlying Joshua Tree ground-water subbasin, and ground-water withdrawals averaging about 960 acre-ft/yr have resulted in as much as 35 ft of drawdown. As growth continues in the desert, ground-water resources may need to be supplemented using imported water. To help meet future demands, JBWD plans to construct production wells in the adjacent Copper Mountain ground-water subbasin. To manage the ground-water resources and to identify future mitigating measures, a thorough understanding of the ground-water system is needed. To this end, field and numerical techniques were applied to determine the distribution and quantity of natural recharge. Field techniques included the installation of instrumented boreholes in selected washes and at a nearby control site. Numerical techniques included the use of a distributed-parameter watershed model and a ground-water flow model. The results from the field techniques indicated that as much as 70 acre-ft/yr of water infiltrated downward through the two principal washes during the study period (2001-3). The results from the watershed model indicated that the average annual recharge in the ground-water subbasins is about 160 acre-ft/yr. The results from the calibrated ground-water flow model indicated that the average annual recharge for the same area is about 125 acre-ft/yr. Although the field and numerical techniques were applied to different scales (local vs. large), all indicate that natural recharge in the Joshua Tree area is very limited; therefore, careful management of the limited ground-water resources is needed. Moreover, the calibrated model can now be used to estimate the effects of different water-management strategies on the ground

Characteristics of problem drinkers in e-therapy versus face-to-face treatment.

Science.gov (United States)

Postel, Marloes G; de Haan, Hein A; Ter Huurne, Elke D; Becker, Eni S; de Jong, Cor A J

2011-11-01

The availability of online treatment programs offers the potential to reach more problem drinkers. This study compared the client populations of an e-therapy program (asynchronous client-therapist communication via the Internet) and a face-to-face treatment program. To determine whether e-therapy and face-to-face groups differed from each other and changed over time. We compared the baseline characteristics of four naturalistic groups (N = 4593): two e-therapy groups (2005-2006 and 2008-2009) and two consecutive series of ambulant face-to-face clients admitted for treatment as usual. The characteristics we were interested in were gender, age, education level, working situation, and earlier treatment for drinking problems. The results showed that the baseline characteristics of e-therapy and face-to-face clients differed by gender, education level, work situation, prior alcohol treatment, and age. We also found that both e-therapy groups differed over time by gender, work situation, and prior alcohol treatment. The e-therapy program successfully attracted clients who were different from those who were represented in regular face-to-face alcohol treatment services. This indicates that e-therapy decreases the barriers to treatment facilities and enhances the accessibility. However, the e-therapy population changed over time. Although the e-therapy program still reached an important new group of clients in 2008-2009, this group showed more overlap with the traditional face-to-face group of clients probably as a result of improved acceptance of e-therapy in the general population. Although e-therapy seems to be better accepted in the general population, anonymous treatment seems necessary to reach a broader range of problem drinkers.

THE CHALLENGES POLITICAL LEADERSHIP FACES IN THE MODERN WORLD

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

T. N. Samsonova

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Political leadership is a concept central to understanding political processes and outcomes, yet its definition is elusive. The study of political leadership has a long history. Many disciplines have contributed to this study, including history, philosophy, political theory, psychology etc. Leadership is a process in which leaders and followers interact dynamically in a particular situation or context. Leaders must be able to connect with followers to understand their mood and their initiative. There are essential and operational differences between a leader and a manager. Managerial effectiveness is related to an emphasis on rationality and organizational structure. Leadership effectiveness is linked to symbols and culture. The interactive nature of leader-followers-situation can help us better understand the changing nature of the leaderfollower relationship and the increasingly greater complexity of situations leaders and followers face in contemporary world. Good leadership makes a difference, and it can be enhanced through greater awareness of the important factors influencing the leadership process. The changes we are facing in today’s world demand a new breed of political leaders, new forms and mechanisms of leader-follower interaction that provide effective leadership. 

Improving Posthospital Discharge Telephone Reach Rates Through Prehospital Discharge Face-to-Face Meetings.

Science.gov (United States)

Vergara, Franz H; Sheridan, Daniel J; Sullivan, Nancy J; Budhathoki, Chakra

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a face-to-face meeting with patients by a telephonic case manager prehospital discharge would result in increased telephone follow-up (TFU) reach rates posthospital discharge. Acute care adult medicine inpatient units. A quasiexperimental design was utilized. Two adult inpatient medicine units were selected as the intervention and comparison groups. The framework of the study is the transitions theory. A convenience sampling technique was used, whereby 88 eligible patients on the intervention unit received face-to-face meetings prehospital discharge whereas 123 patients on the comparison unit received standard care (no face-to-face meetings). Cross-tabulation and chi-square tests were employed to examine the association of face-to-face meeting intervention and TFU reach rates. Implementing brief (face-to-face meetings by a telephonic case manager prehospital discharge resulted in a TFU reach rate of 87% on the intervention unit, whereas the comparison unit only had a 58% TFU reach rate (p communication with more patients posthospital discharge. A brief prehospital discharge face-to-face meeting with patients assisted them to understand the reasons for a posthospital discharge telephone call, identified the best times to call using accurate telephone numbers, and taught patients how best to prepare for the call. In addition, by meeting patients face-to-face, the telephonic case manager was no longer an unknown person on the telephone asking them questions about their medical condition. These factors combined may have significantly helped to increase TFU reach rates.

The development of demand elasticity model for demand response in the retail market environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Babar, M.; Nguyen, P.H.; Kamphuis, I.G.

2015-01-01

In the context of liberalized energy market, increase in distributed generation, storage and demand response has expanded the price elasticity of demand, thus causing the addition of uncertainty to the supply-demand chain of power system. In order to cope with the challenges of demand uncertainty

Gaze Cueing by Pareidolia Faces

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kohske Takahashi

2013-12-01

Full Text Available Visual images that are not faces are sometimes perceived as faces (the pareidolia phenomenon. While the pareidolia phenomenon provides people with a strong impression that a face is present, it is unclear how deeply pareidolia faces are processed as faces. In the present study, we examined whether a shift in spatial attention would be produced by gaze cueing of face-like objects. A robust cueing effect was observed when the face-like objects were perceived as faces. The magnitude of the cueing effect was comparable between the face-like objects and a cartoon face. However, the cueing effect was eliminated when the observer did not perceive the objects as faces. These results demonstrated that pareidolia faces do more than give the impression of the presence of faces; indeed, they trigger an additional face-specific attentional process.

Gaze cueing by pareidolia faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Takahashi, Kohske; Watanabe, Katsumi

2013-01-01

Visual images that are not faces are sometimes perceived as faces (the pareidolia phenomenon). While the pareidolia phenomenon provides people with a strong impression that a face is present, it is unclear how deeply pareidolia faces are processed as faces. In the present study, we examined whether a shift in spatial attention would be produced by gaze cueing of face-like objects. A robust cueing effect was observed when the face-like objects were perceived as faces. The magnitude of the cueing effect was comparable between the face-like objects and a cartoon face. However, the cueing effect was eliminated when the observer did not perceive the objects as faces. These results demonstrated that pareidolia faces do more than give the impression of the presence of faces; indeed, they trigger an additional face-specific attentional process.

Illumination robust face recognition using spatial adaptive shadow compensation based on face intensity prior

Science.gov (United States)

Hsieh, Cheng-Ta; Huang, Kae-Horng; Lee, Chang-Hsing; Han, Chin-Chuan; Fan, Kuo-Chin

2017-12-01

Robust face recognition under illumination variations is an important and challenging task in a face recognition system, particularly for face recognition in the wild. In this paper, a face image preprocessing approach, called spatial adaptive shadow compensation (SASC), is proposed to eliminate shadows in the face image due to different lighting directions. First, spatial adaptive histogram equalization (SAHE), which uses face intensity prior model, is proposed to enhance the contrast of each local face region without generating visible noises in smooth face areas. Adaptive shadow compensation (ASC), which performs shadow compensation in each local image block, is then used to produce a wellcompensated face image appropriate for face feature extraction and recognition. Finally, null-space linear discriminant analysis (NLDA) is employed to extract discriminant features from SASC compensated images. Experiments performed on the Yale B, Yale B extended, and CMU PIE face databases have shown that the proposed SASC always yields the best face recognition accuracy. That is, SASC is more robust to face recognition under illumination variations than other shadow compensation approaches.

Face ethnicity and measurement reliability affect face recognition performance in developmental prosopagnosia: evidence from the Cambridge Face Memory Test-Australian.

Science.gov (United States)

McKone, Elinor; Hall, Ashleigh; Pidcock, Madeleine; Palermo, Romina; Wilkinson, Ross B; Rivolta, Davide; Yovel, Galit; Davis, Joshua M; O'Connor, Kirsty B

2011-03-01

The Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT, Duchaine & Nakayama, 2006) provides a validated format for testing novel face learning and has been a crucial instrument in the diagnosis of developmental prosopagnosia. Yet, some individuals who report everyday face recognition symptoms consistent with prosopagnosia, and are impaired on famous face tasks, perform normally on the CFMT. Possible reasons include measurement error, CFMT assessment of memory only at short delays, and a face set whose ethnicity is matched to only some Caucasian groups. We develop the "CFMT-Australian" (CFMT-Aus), which complements the CFMT-original by using ethnicity better matched to a different European subpopulation. Results confirm reliability (.88) and validity (convergent, divergent using cars, inversion effects). We show that face ethnicity within a race has subtle but clear effects on face processing even in normal participants (includes cross-over interaction for face ethnicity by perceiver country of origin in distinctiveness ratings). We show that CFMT-Aus clarifies diagnosis of prosopagnosia in 6 previously ambiguous cases. In 3 cases, this appears due to the better ethnic match to prosopagnosics. We also show that face memory at short (<3-min), 20-min, and 24-hr delays taps overlapping processes in normal participants. There is some suggestion that a form of prosopagnosia may exist that is long delay only and/or reflects failure to benefit from face repetition. © 2011 Psychology Press, an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business

Function and Content of Maternal Demands: Developmental Significance of Early Demands for Competent Action.

Science.gov (United States)

Kuczynski, Leon; Kochanska, Grazyna

1995-01-01

Examined mothers' demands during mothers' interactions with their 1.5- to 3.5-year olds. Mothers with authoritative child-rearing attitudes emphasized proactive, competence-oriented demands and avoided regulatory control. Maternal demands for competent action predicted fewer behavior problems in their children at age five; maternal demands focused…

Neonatal face-to-face interactions promote later social behaviour in infant rhesus monkeys

OpenAIRE

Dettmer, Amanda M.; Kaburu, Stefano S. K.; Simpson, Elizabeth A.; Paukner, Annika; Sclafani, Valentina; Byers, Kristen L.; Murphy, Ashley M.; Miller, Michelle; Marquez, Neal; Miller, Grace M.; Suomi, Stephen J.; Ferrari, Pier F.

2016-01-01

In primates, including humans, mothers engage in face-to-face interactions with their infants, with frequencies varying both within and across species. However, the impact of this variation in face-to-face interactions on infant social development is unclear. Here we report that infant monkeys (Macaca mulatta) who engaged in more neonatal face-to-face interactions with mothers have increased social interactions at 2 and 5 months. In a controlled experiment, we show that this effect is not due...

On-Demand Telemetry

Data.gov (United States)

National Aeronautics and Space Administration — AFRC has previously investigated the use of Network Based Telemetry. We will be building on that research to enable On-Demand Telemetry. On-Demand Telemetry is a way...

Money Demand in Latvia

OpenAIRE

Ivars Tillers

2004-01-01

The econometric analysis of the demand for broad money in Latvia suggests a stable relationship of money demand. The analysis of parameter exogeneity indicates that the equilibrium adjustment is driven solely by the changes in the amount of money. The demand for money in Latvia is characterised by relatively high income elasticity typical for the economy in a monetary expansion phase. Due to stability, close fit of the money demand function and rapid equilibrium adjustment, broad money aggreg...

Quantified Faces

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sørensen, Mette-Marie Zacher

2016-01-01

artist Marnix de Nijs' Physiognomic Scrutinizer is an interactive installation whereby the viewer's face is scanned and identified with historical figures. The American artist Zach Blas' project Fag Face Mask consists of three-dimensional portraits that blend biometric facial data from 30 gay men's faces...... and critically examine bias in surveillance technologies, as well as scientific investigations, regarding the stereotyping mode of the human gaze. The American artist Heather Dewey-Hagborg creates three-dimensional portraits of persons she has “identified” from their garbage. Her project from 2013 entitled...

About Face

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... Basics PTSD Treatment What is AboutFace? Resources for Professionals Get Help Home Watch Videos by Topic Videos ... Basics PTSD Treatment What is AboutFace? Resources for Professionals Get Help PTSD We've been there. After ...

About Face

Medline Plus

Full Text Available ... Treatment What is AboutFace? Resources for Professionals Get Help Home Watch Videos by Topic Videos by Type ... Treatment What is AboutFace? Resources for Professionals Get Help PTSD We've been there. After a traumatic ...

Demand Side Management in an Integrated Electricity Market: What are the Impacts on Generation and Environmental Concerns?

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bergaentzle, Claire; Clastres, Cedric

2013-05-01

Smart Grid technology appears necessary to succeed in activating the demand through demand side management (DSM) programs. This would in turn improve energy efficiency and achieve environmental targets through controlled consumption. The many pilot projects led worldwide involving smart grids technology, brought quantitative evaluations of DSM measures on electricity load. Efficient DSM instruments must be fine-tuned to respond to very specific issues arising from the generation mix, the integration of intermittent energies or the level of outage risks faced during peak period. Efficient DSM strategies are illustrated through a model involving five countries that carry these different features and under the assumptions of isolated and fully interconnected markets. This paper aims at bringing recommendations regarding the instruments that should be implemented to maximize the benefits of smart grids technology and demand response. Finally, it tends to emphasis the issue of homogenized energy efficiency policies, critical in the building of internal energy markets such as the one the European Union is envisioning. (authors)

Editing faces in videos

OpenAIRE

Amberg, Brian

2011-01-01

Editing faces in movies is of interest in the special effects industry. We aim at producing effects such as the addition of accessories interacting correctly with the face or replacing the face of a stuntman with the face of the main actor. The system introduced in this thesis is based on a 3D generative face model. Using a 3D model makes it possible to edit the face in the semantic space of pose, expression, and identity instead of pixel space, and due to its 3D nature allows...

Medial temporal lobe contributions to short-term memory for faces

Science.gov (United States)

Race, Elizabeth; LaRocque, Karen F.; Keane, Margaret M.; Verfaellie, Mieke

2015-01-01

The role of the medial temporal lobes (MTL) in short-term memory (STM) remains a matter of debate. While imaging studies commonly show hippocampal activation during short-delay memory tasks, evidence from amnesic patients with MTL lesions is mixed. It has been argued that apparent STM impairments in amnesia may reflect long-term memory (LTM) contributions to performance. We challenge this conclusion by demonstrating that MTL amnesic patients show impaired delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) for faces in a task that meets both a traditional delay-based and a recently proposed distractor-based criterion for classification as a STM task. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that our face DMS task meets the proposed distractor-based criterion for STM classification, in that extensive processing of delay-period distractor stimuli disrupts performance of healthy individuals. In Experiment 2, MTL amnesic patients with lesions extending into anterior subhippocampal cortex, but not patients with lesions limited to the hippocampus, show impaired performance on this task without distraction at delays as short as 8s, within temporal range of delay-based STM classification, in the context of intact perceptual matching performance. Experiment 3 provides support for the hypothesis that STM for faces relies on configural processing by showing that the extent to which healthy participants’ performance is disrupted by interference depends on the configural demands of the distractor task. Together, these findings are consistent with the notion that the amnesic impairment in STM for faces reflects a deficit in configural processing associated with subhippocampal cortices and provide novel evidence that the MTL supports cognition beyond the LTM domain. PMID:23937185

Medial temporal lobe contributions to short-term memory for faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Race, Elizabeth; LaRocque, Karen F; Keane, Margaret M; Verfaellie, Mieke

2013-11-01

The role of the medial temporal lobes (MTL) in short-term memory (STM) remains a matter of debate. Whereas imaging studies commonly show hippocampal activation during short-delay memory tasks, evidence from amnesic patients with MTL lesions is mixed. It has been argued that apparent STM impairments in amnesia may reflect long-term memory (LTM) contributions to performance. We challenge this conclusion by demonstrating that MTL amnesic patients show impaired delayed matching-to-sample (DMS) for faces in a task that meets both a traditional delay-based and a recently proposed distractor-based criterion for classification as an STM task. In Experiment 1, we demonstrate that our face DMS task meets the proposed distractor-based criterion for STM classification, in that extensive processing of delay-period distractor stimuli disrupts performance of healthy individuals. In Experiment 2, MTL amnesic patients with lesions extending into anterior subhippocampal cortex, but not patients with lesions limited to the hippocampus, show impaired performance on this task without distraction at delays as short as 8 s, within temporal range of delay-based STM classification, in the context of intact perceptual matching performance. Experiment 3 provides support for the hypothesis that STM for faces relies on configural processing by showing that the extent to which healthy participants' performance is disrupted by interference depends on the configural demands of the distractor task. Together, these findings are consistent with the notion that the amnesic impairment in STM for faces reflects a deficit in configural processing associated with subhippocampal cortices and provide novel evidence that the MTL supports cognition beyond the LTM domain. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

Trade-off between light availability and soil fertility determine refugial conditions for the relict light-demanding species in lowland forests

Science.gov (United States)

Kiedrzyński, Marcin; Kurowski, Józef Krzysztof; Kiedrzyńska, Edyta

2017-11-01

Identifying potential refugial habitats in the face of rapid environmental change is a challenge faced by scientists and nature conservation managers. Relict populations and refugial habitats are the model objects in those studies. Based on the example of Actaea europaea from Central Poland, we analyse the habitat factors influencing relict populations of continental, light-demanding species in lowland forests and examine which habitats of studied species corresponding most closely to ancient vegetation. Our results indicate that the current refugial habitats of Actaea europaea include not only communities which are very similar to ancient open forest but also forests with a closed canopy. Although the populations are influenced by nitrogen and light availability, the co-occurrence of these two factors in forest communities is limited by dense canopy formation by hornbeam and beech trees on fertile soils and in more humid conditions. Our findings indicate that the future survival of relict, light-demanding communities in lowland forests requires low-intensity disturbances to be performed in tree-stands, according to techniques, which imitate traditional forests management.

Evidence for view-invariant face recognition units in unfamiliar face learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Etchells, David B; Brooks, Joseph L; Johnston, Robert A

2017-05-01

Many models of face recognition incorporate the idea of a face recognition unit (FRU), an abstracted representation formed from each experience of a face which aids recognition under novel viewing conditions. Some previous studies have failed to find evidence of this FRU representation. Here, we report three experiments which investigated this theoretical construct by modifying the face learning procedure from that in previous work. During learning, one or two views of previously unfamiliar faces were shown to participants in a serial matching task. Later, participants attempted to recognize both seen and novel views of the learned faces (recognition phase). Experiment 1 tested participants' recognition of a novel view, a day after learning. Experiment 2 was identical, but tested participants on the same day as learning. Experiment 3 repeated Experiment 1, but tested participants on a novel view that was outside the rotation of those views learned. Results revealed a significant advantage, across all experiments, for recognizing a novel view when two views had been learned compared to single view learning. The observed view invariance supports the notion that an FRU representation is established during multi-view face learning under particular learning conditions.

Happy faces are preferred regardless of familiarity--sad faces are preferred only when familiar.

Science.gov (United States)

Liao, Hsin-I; Shimojo, Shinsuke; Yeh, Su-Ling

2013-06-01

Familiarity leads to preference (e.g., the mere exposure effect), yet it remains unknown whether it is objective familiarity, that is, repetitive exposure, or subjective familiarity that contributes to preference. In addition, it is unexplored whether and how different emotions influence familiarity-related preference. The authors investigated whether happy or sad faces are preferred or perceived as more familiar and whether this subjective familiarity judgment correlates with preference for different emotional faces. An emotional face--happy or sad--was paired with a neutral face, and participants rated the relative preference and familiarity of each of the paired faces. For preference judgment, happy faces were preferred and sad faces were less preferred, compared with neutral faces. For familiarity judgment, happy faces did not show any bias, but sad faces were perceived as less familiar than neutral faces. Item-by-item correlational analyses show preference for sad faces--but not happy faces--positively correlate with familiarity. These results suggest a direct link between positive emotion and preference, and argue at least partly against a common cause for familiarity and preference. Instead, facial expression of different emotional valence modulates the link between familiarity and preference.

Australia's Unprecedented Future Temperature Extremes Under Paris Limits to Warming

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Sophie C.; King, Andrew D.; Mitchell, Daniel M.

2017-10-01

Record-breaking temperatures can detrimentally impact ecosystems, infrastructure, and human health. Previous studies show that climate change has influenced some observed extremes, which are expected to become more frequent under enhanced future warming. Understanding the magnitude, as a well as frequency, of such future extremes is critical for limiting detrimental impacts. We focus on temperature changes in Australian regions, including over a major coral reef-building area, and assess the potential magnitude of future extreme temperatures under Paris Agreement global warming targets (1.5°C and 2°C). Under these limits to global mean warming, we determine a set of projected high-magnitude unprecedented Australian temperature extremes. These include extremes unexpected based on observational temperatures, including current record-breaking events. For example, while the difference in global-average warming during the hottest Australian summer and the 2°C Paris target is 1.1°C, extremes of 2.4°C above the observed summer record are simulated. This example represents a more than doubling of the magnitude of extremes, compared with global mean change, and such temperatures are unexpected based on the observed record alone. Projected extremes do not necessarily scale linearly with mean global warming, and this effect demonstrates the significant potential benefits of limiting warming to 1.5°C, compared to 2°C or warmer.

Coordinating a Supply Chain with a Loss-Averse Retailer and Effort Dependent Demand

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Liying

2014-01-01

This study investigates the channel coordination issue of a supply chain with a risk-neutral manufacturer and a loss-averse retailer facing stochastic demand that is sensitive to sales effort. Under the loss-averse newsvendor setting, a distribution-free gain/loss-sharing-and-buyback (GLB) contract has been shown to be able to coordinate the supply chain. However, we find that a GLB contract remains ineffective in managing the supply chain when retailer sales efforts influence the demand. To effectively coordinate the channel, we propose to combine a GLB contract with sales rebate and penalty (SRP) contract. In addition, we discover a special class of gain/loss contracts that can coordinate the supply chain and arbitrarily allocate the expected supply chain profit between the manufacturer and the retailer. We then analyze the effect of loss aversion on the retailer's decision-making behavior and supply chain performance. Finally, we perform a numerical study to illustrate the findings and gain additional insights. PMID:25197696

Coordinating a supply chain with a loss-averse retailer and effort dependent demand.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Liying; Wang, Yong

2014-01-01

This study investigates the channel coordination issue of a supply chain with a risk-neutral manufacturer and a loss-averse retailer facing stochastic demand that is sensitive to sales effort. Under the loss-averse newsvendor setting, a distribution-free gain/loss-sharing-and-buyback (GLB) contract has been shown to be able to coordinate the supply chain. However, we find that a GLB contract remains ineffective in managing the supply chain when retailer sales efforts influence the demand. To effectively coordinate the channel, we propose to combine a GLB contract with sales rebate and penalty (SRP) contract. In addition, we discover a special class of gain/loss contracts that can coordinate the supply chain and arbitrarily allocate the expected supply chain profit between the manufacturer and the retailer. We then analyze the effect of loss aversion on the retailer's decision-making behavior and supply chain performance. Finally, we perform a numerical study to illustrate the findings and gain additional insights.

Loads as a Resource: Frequency Responsive Demand

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kalsi, Karanjit [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Williams, Tess L. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Marinovici, Laurentiu D. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Elizondo, Marcelo A. [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States); Lian, Jianming [Pacific Northwest National Lab. (PNNL), Richland, WA (United States)

2015-11-30

Demand-side frequency control can complement traditional generator controls to maintain the stability of large electric systems in the face of rising uncertainty and variability associated with renewable energy resources. This report presents a hierarchical frequency-based load control strategy that uses a supervisor to flexibly adjust control gains that a population of end-use loads respond to in a decentralized manner to help meet the NERC BAL-003-1 frequency response standard at both the area level and interconnection level. The load model is calibrated and used to model populations of frequency-responsive water heaters in a PowerWorld simulation of the U.S. Western Interconnection (WECC). The proposed design is implemented and demonstrated on physical water heaters in a laboratory setting. A significant fraction of the required frequency response in the WECC could be supplied by electric water heaters alone at penetration levels of less than 15%, while contributing to NERC requirements at the interconnection and area levels.

Deriving local demand for stumpage from estimates of regional supply and demand.

Science.gov (United States)

Kent P. Connaughton; Gerard A. Majerus; David H. Jackson

1989-01-01

The local (Forest-level or local-area) demand for stumpage can be derived from estimates of regional supply and demand. The derivation of local demand is justified when the local timber economy is similar to the regional timber economy; a simple regression of local on nonlocal prices can be used as an empirical test of similarity between local and regional economies....

Face inversion increases attractiveness.

Science.gov (United States)

Leder, Helmut; Goller, Juergen; Forster, Michael; Schlageter, Lena; Paul, Matthew A

2017-07-01

Assessing facial attractiveness is a ubiquitous, inherent, and hard-wired phenomenon in everyday interactions. As such, it has highly adapted to the default way that faces are typically processed: viewing faces in upright orientation. By inverting faces, we can disrupt this default mode, and study how facial attractiveness is assessed. Faces, rotated at 90 (tilting to either side) and 180°, were rated on attractiveness and distinctiveness scales. For both orientations, we found that faces were rated more attractive and less distinctive than upright faces. Importantly, these effects were more pronounced for faces rated low in upright orientation, and smaller for highly attractive faces. In other words, the less attractive a face was, the more it gained in attractiveness by inversion or rotation. Based on these findings, we argue that facial attractiveness assessments might not rely on the presence of attractive facial characteristics, but on the absence of distinctive, unattractive characteristics. These unattractive characteristics are potentially weighed against an individual, attractive prototype in assessing facial attractiveness. Copyright © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Measuring External Face Appearance for Face Classification

OpenAIRE

Masip, David; Lapedriza, Agata; Vitria, Jordi

2007-01-01

In this chapter we introduce the importance of the external features in face classification problems, and propose a methodology to extract the external features obtaining an aligned feature set. The extracted features can be used as input to any standard pattern recognition classifier, as the classic feature extraction approaches dealing with internal face regions in the literature. The resulting scheme follows a top-down segmentation approach to deal with the diversity inherent to the extern...

Elaboration of the Charge Constructions of Explosives for the Structure of Facing Stone

Science.gov (United States)

Khomeriki, Sergo; Mataradze, Edgar; Chikhradze, Nikoloz; Losaberidze, Marine; Khomeriki, Davit; Shatberashvili, Grigol

2017-12-01

Increased demand for high-strength facing material caused the enhancement of the volume of explosives use in modern technologies of blocks production. The volume of broken rocks and crushing quality depends on the rock characteristics and on the properties of the explosive, in particular on its brisance and serviceability. Therefore, the correct selection of the explosive for the specific massif is of a considerable practical importance. For efficient mining of facing materials by explosion method the solving of such problems as determination of the method of blasthole drilling as well as of the regime and charge values, selection of the explosive, blastholes distribution in the face and their order is necessary. This paper focuses on technical solutions for conservation of rock natural structure in the blocks of facing material, mined by the use of the explosives. It has been established that the efficient solving of mentioned problem is attained by reducing of shock pulse duration. In such conditions the rigidity of crystalline lattice increases in high pressure area. As a result, the hazard if crack formation in structural unites and the increases of natural cracks are excluded. Short-time action of explosion pulse is possible only by linear charges of the explosives, characterized by high detonation velocity which detonate by the velocity of 7-7.5 km/sec and are characterized by very small critical diameter.

Remote versus face-to-face check-ups for asthma.

Science.gov (United States)

Kew, Kayleigh M; Cates, Christopher J

2016-04-18

Asthma remains a significant cause of avoidable morbidity and mortality. Regular check-ups with a healthcare professional are essential to monitor symptoms and adjust medication.Health services worldwide are considering telephone and internet technologies as a way to manage the rising number of people with asthma and other long-term health conditions. This may serve to improve health and reduce the burden on emergency and inpatient services. Remote check-ups may represent an unobtrusive and efficient way of maintaining contact with patients, but it is uncertain whether conducting check-ups in this way is effective or whether it may have unexpected negative consequences. To assess the safety and efficacy of conducting asthma check-ups remotely versus usual face-to-face consultations. We identified trials from the Cochrane Airways Review Group Specialised Register (CAGR) up to 24 November 2015. We also searched www.clinicaltrials.gov, the World Health Organization (WHO) trials portal, reference lists of other reviews and contacted trial authors for additional information. We included parallel randomised controlled trials (RCTs) of adults or children with asthma that compared remote check-ups conducted using any form of technology versus standard face-to-face consultations. We excluded studies that used automated telehealth interventions that did not include personalised contact with a health professional. We included studies reported as full-text articles, as abstracts only and unpublished data. Two review authors screened the literature search results and independently extracted risk of bias and numerical data. We resolved any disagreements by consensus, and we contacted study authors for missing information.We analysed dichotomous data as odds ratios (ORs) using study participants as the unit of analysis, and continuous data as mean differences using the random-effects models. We rated all outcomes using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and

Web-Based vs. Face-to-Face MBA Classes: A Comparative Assessment Study

Science.gov (United States)

Brownstein, Barry; Brownstein, Deborah; Gerlowski, Daniel A.

2008-01-01

The challenges of online learning include ensuring that the learning outcomes are at least as robust as in the face-to-face sections of the same course. At the University of Baltimore, both online sections and face-to-face sections of core MBA courses are offered. Once admitted to the MBA, students are free to enroll in any combination of…

Cognitive task demands, self-control demands and the mental well-being of office workers.

Science.gov (United States)

Bridger, Robert S; Brasher, Kate

2011-09-01

The cognitive task demands of office workers and the self-control demands of their work roles were measured in a sample of 196 employees in two different office layouts using a self-report questionnaire, which was circulated electronically. Multiple linear regression analysis revealed that both factors were associated with mental well-being, but not with physical well-being, while controlling for exposure to psychosocial stressors. The interaction between cognitive task demands and self-control demands had the strongest association with mental well-being, suggesting that the deleterious effect of one was greater when the other was present. An exploratory analysis revealed that the association was stronger for employees working in a large open-plan office than for those working in smaller offices with more privacy. Frustration of work goals was the cognitive task demand having the strongest negative impact on mental well-being. Methodological limitations and scale psychometrics (particularly the use of the NASA Task Load Index) are discussed. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE: Modern office work has high mental demands and low physical demands and there is a need to design offices to prevent adverse psychological reactions. It is shown that cognitive task demands interact with self-control demands to degrade mental well-being. The association was stronger in an open-plan office.

The red face: art, history and medical representations.

Science.gov (United States)

Cribier, B

2011-11-01

For millennia, a red face has been a handicap in social relations, mainly because of the associated bias against alcoholics. The color red is also the color of emotion, betrayal of the person who blushes. Since the color red is one of the main characteristics of rosacea, it contributes to the bad reputation this disorder has, which is therefore the subject of a pressing therapeutic demand, principally in women. Nineteenth-century French novelists such as Balzac and later Proust, admirably described blotchy, red, or sanguine faces, which always announced a difficult, violent temperament, or was simply the mark of the laboring class. The color red remains ambivalent today, on the one hand denoting blood and life and on the other suffering, shame, and death. The history of dermatology shows that the semiology of rosacea was very well described in the earliest reports, notably those written in the Middle Ages. The term "acne rosacea" appeared in Bateman's writings, who made it a clinical form of acne. This confusion lasted throughout the nineteenth century. It was not until Hebra in Austria and Darier in France that the differential diagnosis was clearly made between acne and rosacea. A "couperosis" previously referred to the entire range of the disease, particularly the papules and pustules, and it was not until the twentieth century that the current meaning of rosacea progressively gained ground: this term today designates facial telangiectasia, whether or not it is associated with a characteristic redness. Rosacea is a conspicuous disease, since the lesions involve the central portion of the face.Among the many manifestations of rosacea, redness is the most characteristic [1]. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.

Recognition of face and non-face stimuli in autistic spectrum disorder.

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Arkush, Leo; Smith-Collins, Adam P R; Fiorentini, Chiara; Skuse, David H

2013-12-01

The ability to remember faces is critical for the development of social competence. From childhood to adulthood, we acquire a high level of expertise in the recognition of facial images, and neural processes become dedicated to sustaining competence. Many people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have poor face recognition memory; changes in hairstyle or other non-facial features in an otherwise familiar person affect their recollection skills. The observation implies that they may not use the configuration of the inner face to achieve memory competence, but bolster performance in other ways. We aimed to test this hypothesis by comparing the performance of a group of high-functioning unmedicated adolescents with ASD and a matched control group on a "surprise" face recognition memory task. We compared their memory for unfamiliar faces with their memory for images of houses. To evaluate the role that is played by peripheral cues in assisting recognition memory, we cropped both sets of pictures, retaining only the most salient central features. ASD adolescents had poorer recognition memory for faces than typical controls, but their recognition memory for houses was unimpaired. Cropping images of faces did not disproportionately influence their recall accuracy, relative to controls. House recognition skills (cropped and uncropped) were similar in both groups. In the ASD group only, performance on both sets of task was closely correlated, implying that memory for faces and other complex pictorial stimuli is achieved by domain-general (non-dedicated) cognitive mechanisms. Adolescents with ASD apparently do not use domain-specialized processing of inner facial cues to support face recognition memory. © 2013 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Unprecedented Integral-Free Debye Temperature Formulas: Sample Applications to Heat Capacities of ZnSe and ZnTe

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

R. Pässler

2017-01-01

Full Text Available Detailed analytical and numerical analyses are performed for combinations of several complementary sets of measured heat capacities, for ZnSe and ZnTe, from the liquid-helium region up to 600 K. The isochoric (harmonic parts of heat capacities, CVh(T, are described within the frame of a properly devised four-oscillator hybrid model. Additional anharmonicity-related terms are included for comprehensive numerical fittings of the isobaric heat capacities, Cp(T. The contributions of Debye and non-Debye type due to the low-energy acoustical phonon sections are represented here for the first time by unprecedented, integral-free formulas. Indications for weak electronic contributions to the cryogenic heat capacities are found for both materials. A novel analytical framework has been constructed for high-accuracy evaluations of Debye function integrals via a couple of integral-free formulas, consisting of Debye’s conventional low-temperature series expansion in combination with an unprecedented high-temperature series representation for reciprocal values of the Debye function. The zero-temperature limits of Debye temperatures have been detected from published low-temperature Cp(T data sets to be significantly lower than previously estimated, namely, 270 (±3 K for ZnSe and 220 (±2 K for ZnTe. The high-temperature limits of the “true” (harmonic lattice Debye temperatures are found to be 317 K for ZnSe and 262 K for ZnTe.

Estimation of demand function on natural gas and study of demand analysis

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Kim, Y.D. [Korea Energy Economics Institute, Euiwang (Korea, Republic of)

1998-04-01

Demand Function is estimated with several methods about the demand on natural gas, and analyzed per usage. Since the demand on natural gas, which has big share of heating use, has a close relationship with temperature, the inter-season trend of price and income elasticity is estimated considering temperature and economic formation. Per usage response of natural gas demand on the changes of price and income is also estimated. It was estimated that the response of gas demand on the changes of price and income occurs by the change of number of users in long term. In case of the response of unit consumption, only industrial use shows long-term response to price. Since gas price barely responds to the change of exchange rate, it seems to express the price-making mechanism that does not reflect timely the import condition such as exchange rate, etc. 16 refs., 12 figs., 13 tabs.

Faces with Light Makeup Are Better Recognized than Faces with Heavy Makeup.

Science.gov (United States)

Tagai, Keiko; Ohtaka, Hitomi; Nittono, Hiroshi

2016-01-01

Many women wear facial makeup to accentuate their appeal and attractiveness. Makeup may vary from natural (light) to glamorous (heavy), depending of the context of interpersonal situations, an emphasis on femininity, and current societal makeup trends. This study examined how light makeup and heavy makeup influenced attractiveness ratings and facial recognition. In a rating task, 38 Japanese women assigned attractiveness ratings to 36 Japanese female faces with no makeup, light makeup, and heavy makeup (12 each). In a subsequent recognition task, the participants were presented with 36 old and 36 new faces. Results indicated that attractiveness was rated highest for the light makeup faces and lowest for the no makeup faces. In contrast, recognition performance was higher for the no makeup and light make up faces than for the heavy makeup faces. Faces with heavy makeup produced a higher rate of false recognition than did other faces, possibly because heavy makeup creates an impression of the style of makeup itself, rather than the individual wearing the makeup. The present study suggests that light makeup is preferable to heavy makeup in that light makeup does not interfere with individual recognition and gives beholders positive impressions.

Faces with light makeup are better recognized than faces with heavy makeup

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Keiko eTagai

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Many women wear facial makeup to accentuate their appeal and attractiveness. Makeup may vary from natural (light to glamorous (heavy, depending of the context of interpersonal situations, an emphasis on femininity, and current societal makeup trends. This study examined how light makeup and heavy makeup influenced attractiveness ratings and facial recognition. In a rating task, 38 Japanese women assigned attractiveness ratings to 36 Japanese female faces with no makeup, light makeup, and heavy makeup (12 each. In a subsequent recognition task, the participants were presented with 36 old and 36 new faces. Results indicated that attractiveness was rated highest for the light makeup faces and lowest for the no makeup faces. In contrast, recognition performance was higher for the no makeup and light make up faces than for the heavy makeup faces. Faces with heavy makeup produced a higher rate of false recognition than did other faces, possibly because heavy makeup creates an impression of the style of makeup itself, rather than the individual wearing the makeup. The present study suggests that light makeup is preferable to heavy makeup in that light makeup does not interfere with individual recognition and gives beholders positive impressions.

Visual search of Mooney faces

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Jessica Emeline Goold

2016-02-01

Full Text Available Faces spontaneously capture attention. However, which special attributes of a face underlie this effect are unclear. To address this question, we investigate how gist information, specific visual properties and differing amounts of experience with faces affect the time required to detect a face. Three visual search experiments were conducted investigating the rapidness of human observers to detect Mooney face images. Mooney images are two-toned, ambiguous images. They were used in order to have stimuli that maintain gist information but limit low-level image properties. Results from the experiments show: 1 although upright Mooney faces were searched inefficiently, they were detected more rapidly than inverted Mooney face targets, demonstrating the important role of gist information in guiding attention towards a face. 2 Several specific Mooney face identities were searched efficiently while others were not, suggesting the involvement of specific visual properties in face detection. 3 By providing participants with unambiguous gray-scale versions of the Mooney face targets prior to the visual search task, the targets were detected significantly more efficiently, suggesting that prior experience with Mooney faces improves the ability to extract gist information for rapid face detection. However, a week of training with Mooney face categorization did not lead to even more efficient visual search of Mooney face targets. In summary, these results reveal that specific local image properties cannot account for how faces capture attention. On the other hand, gist information alone cannot account for how faces capture attention either. Prior experience facilitates the effect of gist on visual search of faces, making faces a special object category for guiding attention.

Lost in Translation: Adapting a Face-to-Face Course Into an Online Learning Experience.

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Kenzig, Melissa J

2015-09-01

Online education has grown dramatically over the past decade. Instructors who teach face-to-face courses are being called on to adapt their courses to the online environment. Many instructors do not have sufficient training to be able to effectively move courses to an online format. This commentary discusses the growth of online learning, common challenges faced by instructors adapting courses from face-to-face to online, and best practices for translating face-to-face courses into online learning opportunities. © 2015 Society for Public Health Education.

Neural correlates of memory encoding and recognition for own-race and other-race faces in an associative-memory task.

Science.gov (United States)

Herzmann, Grit; Minor, Greta; Adkins, Makenzie

2017-01-15

The ability to recognize faces of family members, friends, and acquaintances plays an important role in our daily interactions. The other-race effect is the reduced ability to recognize other-race faces as compared to own-race faces. Previous studies showed different patterns of event-related potentials (ERPs) associated with recollection and familiarity during memory encoding (i.e., Dm) and recognition (i.e., parietal old/new effect) for own-race and other-race faces in a subjective-recollection task (remember-know judgments). The present study investigated the same neural correlates of the other-race effect in an associative-memory task, in which Caucasian and East Asian participants learned and recognized own-race and other-race faces along with background colors. Participants made more false alarms for other-race faces indicating lower memory performance. During the study phase, subsequently recognized other-race faces (with and without correct background information) elicited more positive mean amplitudes than own-race faces, suggesting increased neural activation during encoding of other-race faces. During the test phase, recollection-related old/new effects dissociated between own-race and other-race faces. Old/new effects were significant only for own-race but not for other-race faces, indicating that recognition only of own-race faces was supported by recollection and led to more detailed memory retrieval. Most of these results replicated previous studies that used a subjective-recollection task. Our study also showed that the increased demand on memory encoding during an associative-memory task led to Dm patterns that indicated similarly deep memory encoding for own-race and other-race faces. Copyright © 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The activation of visual face memory and explicit face recognition are delayed in developmental prosopagnosia.

Science.gov (United States)

Parketny, Joanna; Towler, John; Eimer, Martin

2015-08-01

Individuals with developmental prosopagnosia (DP) are strongly impaired in recognizing faces, but the causes of this deficit are not well understood. We employed event-related brain potentials (ERPs) to study the time-course of neural processes involved in the recognition of previously unfamiliar faces in DPs and in age-matched control participants with normal face recognition abilities. Faces of different individuals were presented sequentially in one of three possible views, and participants had to detect a specific Target Face ("Joe"). EEG was recorded during task performance to Target Faces, Nontarget Faces, or the participants' Own Face (which had to be ignored). The N250 component was measured as a marker of the match between a seen face and a stored representation in visual face memory. The subsequent P600f was measured as an index of attentional processes associated with the conscious awareness and recognition of a particular face. Target Faces elicited reliable N250 and P600f in the DP group, but both of these components emerged later in DPs than in control participants. This shows that the activation of visual face memory for previously unknown learned faces and the subsequent attentional processing and conscious recognition of these faces are delayed in DP. N250 and P600f components to Own Faces did not differ between the two groups, indicating that the processing of long-term familiar faces is less affected in DP. However, P600f components to Own Faces were absent in two participants with DP who failed to recognize their Own Face during the experiment. These results provide new evidence that face recognition deficits in DP may be linked to a delayed activation of visual face memory and explicit identity recognition mechanisms. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

An exploration into pedagogic frailty: Transitioning from face-to-face to online

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Irina Niculescu

2017-09-01

Full Text Available Pedagogic frailty and concept mapping can simultaneously encourage personal and organisational change by supporting critical reflection and resilience. These ideas are nascent within higher education institutions and currently, at the University of Surrey, are only developed through face-to-face sessions. This revealed the need for a scalable intervention which engages academics with the discourse on introspective and professional development practices. In response, we have created the design for a blended programme of online foundation for concept mapping leading to face-to-face workshops to explore the pedagogic frailty model. This paper will discuss some significant challenges arising from transitioning self-reflective practices from face-to-face to online spaces. In the process, we will consider ways in which learning design can take the learner context into account.

Gaze Cueing by Pareidolia Faces

OpenAIRE

Kohske Takahashi; Katsumi Watanabe

2013-01-01

Visual images that are not faces are sometimes perceived as faces (the pareidolia phenomenon). While the pareidolia phenomenon provides people with a strong impression that a face is present, it is unclear how deeply pareidolia faces are processed as faces. In the present study, we examined whether a shift in spatial attention would be produced by gaze cueing of face-like objects. A robust cueing effect was observed when the face-like objects were perceived as faces. The magnitude of the cuei...

Crossing the “Uncanny Valley”: adaptation to cartoon faces can influence perception of human faces

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Haiwen; Russell, Richard; Nakayama, Ken; Livingstone, Margaret

2013-01-01

Adaptation can shift what individuals identify to be a prototypical or attractive face. Past work suggests that low-level shape adaptation can affect high-level face processing but is position dependent. Adaptation to distorted images of faces can also affect face processing but only within sub-categories of faces, such as gender, age, and race/ethnicity. This study assesses whether there is a representation of face that is specific to faces (as opposed to all shapes) but general to all kinds of faces (as opposed to subcategories) by testing whether adaptation to one type of face can affect perception of another. Participants were shown cartoon videos containing faces with abnormally large eyes. Using animated videos allowed us to simulate naturalistic exposure and avoid positional shape adaptation. Results suggest that adaptation to cartoon faces with large eyes shifts preferences for human faces toward larger eyes, supporting the existence of general face representations. PMID:20465173

Access to unusual polycyclic spiro-enones from 2,2'-bis(allyloxy)-1,1'-binaphthyls using Grubbs' catalysts: an unprecedented one-pot RCM/Claisen sequence.

Science.gov (United States)

Piedra, Estefanía; Francos, Javier; Nebra, Noel; Suárez, Francisco J; Díez, Josefina; Cadierno, Victorio

2011-07-21

Treatment of 2,2'-bis(allyloxy)-1,1'-binaphthyls with the first-generation Grubbs' carbene under MW-irradiation results in the formation of new polycyclic spiro-enones through an unprecedented RCM/Claisen sequence.

An analytical approach to activating demand elasticity with a demand response mechanism

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Clastres, Cedric; Khalfallah, Haikel

2015-01-01

The aim of this work is to demonstrate analytically the conditions under which activating the elasticity of consumer demand could benefit social welfare. We have developed an analytical equilibrium model to quantify the effect of deploying demand response on social welfare and energy trade. The novelty of this research is that it demonstrates the existence of an optimal area for the price signal in which demand response enhances social welfare. This optimal area is negatively correlated to the degree of competitiveness of generation technologies and the market size of the system. In particular, it should be noted that the value of un-served energy or energy reduction which the producers could lose from such a demand response scheme would limit its effectiveness. This constraint is even greater if energy trade between countries is limited. Finally, we have demonstrated scope for more aggressive demand response, when only considering the impact in terms of consumer surplus. (authors)

A multi-view face recognition system based on cascade face detector and improved Dlib

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Hongjun; Chen, Pei; Shen, Wei

2018-03-01

In this research, we present a framework for multi-view face detect and recognition system based on cascade face detector and improved Dlib. This method is aimed to solve the problems of low efficiency and low accuracy in multi-view face recognition, to build a multi-view face recognition system, and to discover a suitable monitoring scheme. For face detection, the cascade face detector is used to extracted the Haar-like feature from the training samples, and Haar-like feature is used to train a cascade classifier by combining Adaboost algorithm. Next, for face recognition, we proposed an improved distance model based on Dlib to improve the accuracy of multiview face recognition. Furthermore, we applied this proposed method into recognizing face images taken from different viewing directions, including horizontal view, overlooks view, and looking-up view, and researched a suitable monitoring scheme. This method works well for multi-view face recognition, and it is also simulated and tested, showing satisfactory experimental results.

Effects on automatic attention due to exposure to pictures of emotional faces while performing Chinese word judgment tasks.

Science.gov (United States)

Junhong, Huang; Renlai, Zhou; Senqi, Hu

2013-01-01

Two experiments were conducted to investigate the automatic processing of emotional facial expressions while performing low or high demand cognitive tasks under unattended conditions. In Experiment 1, 35 subjects performed low (judging the structure of Chinese words) and high (judging the tone of Chinese words) cognitive load tasks while exposed to unattended pictures of fearful, neutral, or happy faces. The results revealed that the reaction time was slower and the performance accuracy was higher while performing the low cognitive load task than while performing the high cognitive load task. Exposure to fearful faces resulted in significantly longer reaction times and lower accuracy than exposure to neutral faces on the low cognitive load task. In Experiment 2, 26 subjects performed the same word judgment tasks and their brain event-related potentials (ERPs) were measured for a period of 800 ms after the onset of the task stimulus. The amplitudes of the early component of ERP around 176 ms (P2) elicited by unattended fearful faces over frontal-central-parietal recording sites was significantly larger than those elicited by unattended neutral faces while performing the word structure judgment task. Together, the findings of the two experiments indicated that unattended fearful faces captured significantly more attention resources than unattended neutral faces on a low cognitive load task, but not on a high cognitive load task. It was concluded that fearful faces could automatically capture attention if residues of attention resources were available under the unattended condition.

Stochastic risk-constrained short-term scheduling of industrial cogeneration systems in the presence of demand response programs

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Alipour, Manijeh; Mohammadi-Ivatloo, Behnam; Zare, Kazem

2014-01-01

Highlights: • Short-term self-scheduling problem of customers with CHP units is conducted. • Power demand and pool prices are forecasted using ARIMA models. • Risk management problem is conducted by implementing CVaR methodology. • The demand response program is implemented in self-scheduling problem of CHP units. • Non-convex feasible operation region in different types of CHP units is modeled. - Abstract: This paper presents a stochastic programming framework for solving the scheduling problem faced by an industrial customer with cogeneration facilities, conventional power production system, and heat only units. The power and heat demands of the customer are supplied considering demand response (DR) programs. In the proposed DR program, the responsive load can vary in different time intervals. In the paper, the heat-power dual dependency characteristic in different types of CHP units is taken into account. In addition, a heat buffer tank, with the ability of heat storage, has been incorporated in the proposed framework. The impact of the market and load uncertainties on the scheduling problem is characterized through a stochastic programming formulation. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) technique is used to generate the electricity price and the customer demand scenarios. The daily and weekly seasonalities of demand and market prices are taken into account in the scenario generation procedure. The conditional value-at-risk (CVaR) methodology is implemented in order to limit the risk of expected profit due to market price and load forecast volatilities

The Use of Computer-Mediated Communication To Enhance Subsequent Face-to-Face Discussions.

Science.gov (United States)

Dietz-Uhler, Beth; Bishop-Clark, Cathy

2001-01-01

Describes a study of undergraduate students that assessed the effects of synchronous (Internet chat) and asynchronous (Internet discussion board) computer-mediated communication on subsequent face-to-face discussions. Results showed that face-to-face discussions preceded by computer-mediated communication were perceived to be more enjoyable.…

Adjudicating between face-coding models with individual-face fMRI responses.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Johan D Carlin

2017-07-01

Full Text Available The perceptual representation of individual faces is often explained with reference to a norm-based face space. In such spaces, individuals are encoded as vectors where identity is primarily conveyed by direction and distinctiveness by eccentricity. Here we measured human fMRI responses and psychophysical similarity judgments of individual face exemplars, which were generated as realistic 3D animations using a computer-graphics model. We developed and evaluated multiple neurobiologically plausible computational models, each of which predicts a representational distance matrix and a regional-mean activation profile for 24 face stimuli. In the fusiform face area, a face-space coding model with sigmoidal ramp tuning provided a better account of the data than one based on exemplar tuning. However, an image-processing model with weighted banks of Gabor filters performed similarly. Accounting for the data required the inclusion of a measurement-level population averaging mechanism that approximates how fMRI voxels locally average distinct neuronal tunings. Our study demonstrates the importance of comparing multiple models and of modeling the measurement process in computational neuroimaging.

Potential Demand of Relatively New and Emerging Marine Ecotourism in Kei Islands

Science.gov (United States)

Dewa Ayu Raka Susanti, Ida I.; Teniwut, Wellem A.; Kahfi, Syahibul; M. K Teniwut, Roberto; Picaulima, Simon; Hungan, Marselus; Rahantoknam, Meyske; Hasyim, Cawalinya; Rahakbauw, Siska D.; Renjaan, M. R.; Ngabalin, Anna M.; Ngangun, Tati A.; Pentury, Frischila; Betaubun, Kamilius D.; Ngamel, A. K.; Ohoiwutun, Elisabeth C.

2017-10-01

One of the main resources for the economic development of coastal are marine ecotourism. Although for developing country such as Indonesia and especially for an area that located far from a big city like Kei Islands in Maluku, development of marine ecotourism might face a greater challenge than any other places. Considering the potential for multiplier effect on economic of a coastal community, the purpose of this research was to analyze and measure the economic value of new, raw and emerging marine ecotourism spot and determine the demand based on domestic tourist perspective. We pick five new and emerging marine ecotourism spots in this area as case study and used purposive sampling technique to target potential domestic tourist who have visited those five marine ecotourism spots and measure their preference and measure their demand potential by used willingness to revisit (WTR) and logistic regression for analyze the data, this research conducted in Kei Islands, Indonesia. This result can provide broad and comprehensive perspective on developing marine ecotourism in a mildly isolated coastal area like Kei Islands and place similar.

Demanding Dynamics - Demand articulation of intermediary organisations in emerging pharmaceutical innovations

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boon, W.P.C.

2008-01-01

User involvement in emerging technological fields is carried by so-called demand articulation processes. These demand articulation processes are interactive learning processes in which stakeholders try to address what they perceive as important characteristics of, and to unravel preferences for an

Assessment of efficacy and safety of a fractionated bipolar radiofrequency device for the treatment of lower face wrinkles and laxity.

Science.gov (United States)

Jiang, Yueqi; Zhang, Xuting; Lu, Zhong; Gold, Michael H

2018-04-18

Skin aging, as a natural course, is a gradual process. It can be classified as either intrinsic or photo-aging. In recent years, as the attention to lower face wrinkles and laxity has raised significantly, the demands to facial rejuvenation also increased, along with a variety of technologies coming into being. Fractional bipolar RF as a novel means of rejuvenation has been used in clinical practice, but questions remain in terms of its efficacy and safety. Considering a large population in our country and huge demands for skin tightening, we did this research to evaluate the efficacy and safety of fractional bipolar radiofrequency.

Ad libitum or demand/semi-demand feeding versus scheduled interval feeding for preterm infants.

Science.gov (United States)

McCormick, Felicia M; Tosh, Karen; McGuire, William

2010-02-17

Scheduled interval feeding of prescribed enteral volumes is current standard practice for preterm infants. However, feeding preterm infants in response to their hunger and satiation cues (ad libitum or demand/semi demand) rather than at scheduled intervals might help in the establishment of independent oral feeding, increase nutrient intake and growth rates, and allow earlier hospital discharge. To assess the effect of a policy of feeding preterm infants on an ad libitum or demand/semi-demand basis versus feeding prescribed volumes at scheduled intervals on growth rates and the time to hospital discharge. We used the standard search strategy of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group. This included searches of the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL, The Cochrane Library, Issue 4, 2009), MEDLINE (1966 to Oct 2009), EMBASE (1980 to Oct 2009), CINAHL (1982 to Oct 2009), conference proceedings, and previous reviews. Randomised or quasi-randomised controlled trials (including cluster randomised trials) that compared a policy of feeding preterm infants on an ad libitum or demand/semi-demand basis versus feeding at scheduled intervals. We used the standard methods of the Cochrane Neonatal Review Group with separate evaluation of trial quality and data extraction by two review authors. We found eight randomised controlled trials that compared ad libitum or demand/semi-demand regimens with scheduled interval regimes in preterm infants in the transition phase from intragastric tube to oral feeding. The trials were generally small and of variable methodological quality. The duration of the intervention and the duration of data collection and follow-up in most of the trials was not likely to have allowed detection of measurable effects on growth. Three trials reported that feeding preterm infants using an ad libitum or demand/semi-demand feeding regimen allowed earlier discharge from hospital (by about two to four days) but other trials did not confirm this

Facing mixed emotions: Analytic and holistic perception of facial emotion expressions engages separate brain networks.

Science.gov (United States)

Meaux, Emilie; Vuilleumier, Patrik

2016-11-01

The ability to decode facial emotions is of primary importance for human social interactions; yet, it is still debated how we analyze faces to determine their expression. Here we compared the processing of emotional face expressions through holistic integration and/or local analysis of visual features, and determined which brain systems mediate these distinct processes. Behavioral, physiological, and brain responses to happy and angry faces were assessed by presenting congruent global configurations of expressions (e.g., happy top+happy bottom), incongruent composite configurations (e.g., angry top+happy bottom), and isolated features (e.g. happy top only). Top and bottom parts were always from the same individual. Twenty-six healthy volunteers were scanned using fMRI while they classified the expression in either the top or the bottom face part but ignored information in the other non-target part. Results indicate that the recognition of happy and anger expressions is neither strictly holistic nor analytic Both routes were involved, but with a different role for analytic and holistic information depending on the emotion type, and different weights of local features between happy and anger expressions. Dissociable neural pathways were engaged depending on emotional face configurations. In particular, regions within the face processing network differed in their sensitivity to holistic expression information, which predominantly activated fusiform, inferior occipital areas and amygdala when internal features were congruent (i.e. template matching), whereas more local analysis of independent features preferentially engaged STS and prefrontal areas (IFG/OFC) in the context of full face configurations, but early visual areas and pulvinar when seen in isolated parts. Collectively, these findings suggest that facial emotion recognition recruits separate, but interactive dorsal and ventral routes within the face processing networks, whose engagement may be shaped by

Face recognition accuracy of forensic examiners, superrecognizers, and face recognition algorithms.

Science.gov (United States)

Phillips, P Jonathon; Yates, Amy N; Hu, Ying; Hahn, Carina A; Noyes, Eilidh; Jackson, Kelsey; Cavazos, Jacqueline G; Jeckeln, Géraldine; Ranjan, Rajeev; Sankaranarayanan, Swami; Chen, Jun-Cheng; Castillo, Carlos D; Chellappa, Rama; White, David; O'Toole, Alice J

2018-05-29

Achieving the upper limits of face identification accuracy in forensic applications can minimize errors that have profound social and personal consequences. Although forensic examiners identify faces in these applications, systematic tests of their accuracy are rare. How can we achieve the most accurate face identification: using people and/or machines working alone or in collaboration? In a comprehensive comparison of face identification by humans and computers, we found that forensic facial examiners, facial reviewers, and superrecognizers were more accurate than fingerprint examiners and students on a challenging face identification test. Individual performance on the test varied widely. On the same test, four deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs), developed between 2015 and 2017, identified faces within the range of human accuracy. Accuracy of the algorithms increased steadily over time, with the most recent DCNN scoring above the median of the forensic facial examiners. Using crowd-sourcing methods, we fused the judgments of multiple forensic facial examiners by averaging their rating-based identity judgments. Accuracy was substantially better for fused judgments than for individuals working alone. Fusion also served to stabilize performance, boosting the scores of lower-performing individuals and decreasing variability. Single forensic facial examiners fused with the best algorithm were more accurate than the combination of two examiners. Therefore, collaboration among humans and between humans and machines offers tangible benefits to face identification accuracy in important applications. These results offer an evidence-based roadmap for achieving the most accurate face identification possible. Copyright © 2018 the Author(s). Published by PNAS.

The impact of health information technology and e-health on the future demand for physician services.

Science.gov (United States)

Weiner, Jonathan P; Yeh, Susan; Blumenthal, David

2013-11-01

Arguably, few factors will change the future face of the American health care workforce as widely and dramatically as health information technology (IT) and electronic health (e-health) applications. We explore how such applications designed for providers and patients will affect the future demand for physicians. We performed what we believe to be the most comprehensive review of the literature to date, including previously published systematic reviews and relevant individual studies. We estimate that if health IT were fully implemented in 30 percent of community-based physicians' offices, the demand for physicians would be reduced by about 4-9 percent. Delegation of care to nurse practitioners and physician assistants supported by health IT could reduce the future demand for physicians by 4-7 percent. Similarly, IT-supported delegation from specialist physicians to generalists could reduce the demand for specialists by 2-5 percent. The use of health IT could also help address regional shortages of physicians by potentially enabling 12 percent of care to be delivered remotely or asynchronously. These estimated impacts could more than double if comprehensive health IT systems were adopted by 70 percent of US ambulatory care delivery settings. Future predictions of physician supply adequacy should take these likely changes into account.

Face-blind for other-race faces: Individual differences in other-race recognition impairments.

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Lulu; Crookes, Kate; Dawel, Amy; Pidcock, Madeleine; Hall, Ashleigh; McKone, Elinor

2017-01-01

We report the existence of a previously undescribed group of people, namely individuals who are so poor at recognition of other-race faces that they meet criteria for clinical-level impairment (i.e., they are "face-blind" for other-race faces). Testing 550 participants, and using the well-validated Cambridge Face Memory Test for diagnosing face blindness, results show the rate of other-race face blindness to be nontrivial, specifically 8.1% of Caucasians and Asians raised in majority own-race countries. Results also show risk factors for other-race face blindness to include: a lack of interracial contact; and being at the lower end of the normal range of general face recognition ability (i.e., even for own-race faces); but not applying less individuating effort to other-race than own-race faces. Findings provide a potential resolution of contradictory evidence concerning the importance of the other-race effect (ORE), by explaining how it is possible for the mean ORE to be modest in size (suggesting a genuine but minor problem), and simultaneously for individuals to suffer major functional consequences in the real world (e.g., eyewitness misidentification of other-race offenders leading to wrongful imprisonment). Findings imply that, in legal settings, evaluating an eyewitness's chance of having made an other-race misidentification requires information about the underlying face recognition abilities of the individual witness. Additionally, analogy with prosopagnosia (inability to recognize even own-race faces) suggests everyday social interactions with other-race people, such as those between colleagues in the workplace, will be seriously impacted by the ORE in some people. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Proceedings of the Chinese-American symposium on energy markets and the future of energy demand

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Meyers, S. (ed.)

1988-11-01

The Symposium was organized by the Energy Research Institute of the State Economic Commission of China, and the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and Johns Hopkins University from the United States. It was held at the Johns Hopkins University Nanjing Center in late June 1988. It was attended by about 15 Chinese and an equal number of US experts on various topics related to energy demand and supply. Each presenter is one of the best observers of the energy situation in their field. A Chinese and US speaker presented papers on each topic. In all, about 30 papers were presented over a period of two and one half days. Each paper was translated into English and Chinese. The Chinese papers provide an excellent overview of the emerging energy demand and supply situation in China and the obstacles the Chinese planners face in managing the expected increase in demand for energy. These are matched by papers that discuss the energy situation in the US and worldwide, and the implications of the changes in the world energy situation on both countries. The papers in Part 1 provide historical background and discuss future directions. The papers in Part 2 focus on the historical development of energy planning and policy in each country and the methodologies and tools used for projecting energy demand and supply. The papers in Part 3 examine the pattern of energy demand, the forces driving demand, and opportunities for energy conservation in each of the major sectors in China and the US. The papers in Part 4 deal with the outlook for global and Pacific region energy markets and the development of the oil and natural gas sector in China.

Dissociation between face perception and face memory in adults, but not children, with developmental prosopagnosia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kirsten A. Dalrymple

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Cognitive models propose that face recognition is accomplished through a series of discrete stages, including perceptual representation of facial structure, and encoding and retrieval of facial information. This implies that impaired face recognition can result from failures of face perception, face memory, or both. Studies of acquired prosopagnosia, autism spectrum disorders, and the development of normal face recognition support the idea that face perception and face memory are distinct processes, yet this distinction has received little attention in developmental prosopagnosia (DP. To address this issue, we tested the face perception and face memory of children and adults with DP. By definition, face memory is impaired in DP, so memory deficits were present in all participants. However, we found that all children, but only half of the adults had impaired face perception. Thus, results from adults indicate that face perception and face memory are dissociable, while the results from children provide no evidence for this division. Importantly, our findings raise the possibility that DP is qualitatively different in childhood versus adulthood. We discuss theoretical explanations for this developmental pattern and conclude that longitudinal studies are necessary to better understand the developmental trajectory of face perception and face memory deficits in DP.

Dissociation between face perception and face memory in adults, but not children, with developmental prosopagnosia.

Science.gov (United States)

Dalrymple, Kirsten A; Garrido, Lúcia; Duchaine, Brad

2014-10-01

Cognitive models propose that face recognition is accomplished through a series of discrete stages, including perceptual representation of facial structure, and encoding and retrieval of facial information. This implies that impaired face recognition can result from failures of face perception, face memory, or both. Studies of acquired prosopagnosia, autism spectrum disorders, and the development of normal face recognition support the idea that face perception and face memory are distinct processes, yet this distinction has received little attention in developmental prosopagnosia (DP). To address this issue, we tested the face perception and face memory of children and adults with DP. By definition, face memory is impaired in DP, so memory deficits were present in all participants. However, we found that all children, but only half of the adults had impaired face perception. Thus, results from adults indicate that face perception and face memory are dissociable, while the results from children provide no evidence for this division. Importantly, our findings raise the possibility that DP is qualitatively different in childhood versus adulthood. We discuss theoretical explanations for this developmental pattern and conclude that longitudinal studies are necessary to better understand the developmental trajectory of face perception and face memory deficits in DP. Copyright © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.. All rights reserved.

Orienting to face expression during encoding improves men's recognition of own gender faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Fulton, Erika K; Bulluck, Megan; Hertzog, Christopher

2015-10-01

It is unclear why women have superior episodic memory of faces, but the benefit may be partially the result of women engaging in superior processing of facial expressions. Therefore, we hypothesized that orienting instructions to attend to facial expression at encoding would significantly improve men's memory of faces and possibly reduce gender differences. We directed 203 college students (122 women) to study 120 faces under instructions to orient to either the person's gender or their emotional expression. They later took a recognition test of these faces by either judging whether they had previously studied the same person or that person with the exact same expression; the latter test evaluated recollection of specific facial details. Orienting to facial expressions during encoding significantly improved men's recognition of own-gender faces and eliminated the advantage that women had for male faces under gender orienting instructions. Although gender differences in spontaneous strategy use when orienting to faces cannot fully account for gender differences in face recognition, orienting men to facial expression during encoding is one way to significantly improve their episodic memory for male faces. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Do international flights promote FDI? : the role of face-to-face communication

OpenAIRE

Tanaka, Kiyoyasu

2016-01-01

Air transportation facilitates face-to-face interactions across borders for the spatial expansion of manufacturing production. I investigate the impact of international flights on FDI entry by Japanese firms. I find that FDI entry significantly increases with the weekly frequency of flights from Japan, and the positive impact increases with a proxy for an intensity of face-to-face communication between the parent firm and foreign affiliate. The results are robust to estimation methods, additi...

Managing the demands of the preregistration mental health nursing programme: The views of students with mental health conditions.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramluggun, Pras; Lacy, Mary; Cadle, Martha; Anjoyeb, Mahmood

2018-05-30

An increasing number of students with a pre-existing mental health condition are enrolling on preregistration mental health nursing programmes. The challenges faced by these students in managing the demands of the programme have not been fully explored. Mental health and well-being is an integral part of providing a healthy university in which students can flourish. The purpose of the study was to explore how students with an underlying mental health issue manage the demands of the mental health nursing programme. The outcomes of the study are aimed at informing inclusive teaching and learning and current student support provision. Ethics approval was given. Students from two universities in South East England who met the criterion of having a pre-existing mental health condition when enrolling on the mental health preregistration nursing programme were invited to take part. Nine students took part in the study. Using an interpretative descriptive design, 1:1 face-to-face, audio-taped, semistructured interviews were undertaken. The data were analysed using a framework approach, and this revealed four main themes: timing of disclosure; managing lived experience in learning environments; students' coping mechanisms, and experience of support. Recommendations for practice was that approved education institutes (AEIs) should ensure they have a robust, inclusive practice by implementing strategies to develop these students' resilience, and enhance their learning and the current support provisions. This will ensure the barriers to disclosing their mental health conditions are recognized and minimized to enable these students to fully contribute to their own learning and teaching experience. © 2018 Australian College of Mental Health Nurses Inc.

Doctor-patient communication: a comparison between telemedicine consultation and face-to-face consultation.

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Xiao; Sawada, Yoshie; Takizawa, Takako; Sato, Hiroko; Sato, Mahito; Sakamoto, Hironosuke; Utsugi, Toshihiro; Sato, Kunio; Sumino, Hiroyuki; Okamura, Shinichi; Sakamaki, Tetsuo

2007-01-01

The objective of this study was to compare doctor-patient communications in clinical consultations via telemedicine technology to doctor-patient communications in face-to-face clinical consultations. Five doctors who had been practicing internal medicine for 8 to 18 years, and twenty patients were enrolled in this study; neither doctors nor patients had previous experience of telemedicine. The patients received both a telemedicine consultation and a face-to-face consultation. Three measures--video observation, medical record volume, and participants' satisfaction--were used for the assessment. It was found that the time spent on the telemedicine consultation was substantially longer than the time spent on the face-to-face consultation. No statistically significant differences were found in the number of either closed or open-ended questions asked by doctors between both types of consultation. Empathy-utterances, praise-utterances, and facilitation-utterances were, however, seen less in the telemedicine consultations than in the face-to-face consultations. The volume of the medical records was statistically smaller in the telemedicine consultations than in the face-to-face consultations. Patients were satisfied with the telemedicine consultation, but doctors were dissatisfied with it and felt hampered by the communication barriers. This study suggests that new training programs are needed for doctors to develop improved communication skills and the ability to express empathy in telemedicine consultations.

Constructing Consistent Multiscale Scenarios by Transdisciplinary Processes: the Case of Mountain Regions Facing Global Change

OpenAIRE

Fridolin Simon. Brand; Roman Seidl; Quang Bao. Le; Julia Maria. Brändle; Roland Werner. Scholz

2013-01-01

Alpine regions in Europe, in particular, face demanding local challenges, e.g., the decline in the agriculture and timber industries, and are also prone to global changes, such as in climate, with potentially severe impacts on tourism. We focus on the Visp region in the Upper Valais, Switzerland, and ask how the process of stakeholder involvement in research practice can contribute to a better understanding of the specific challenges and future development of mountainous regions under global ...

A New World for Museum Marketing? Facing the Old Dilemmas while Challenging New Market Opportunities

OpenAIRE

Tanja Komarac

2014-01-01

Museums are part of a wider cultural and entertainment environment, which is ruled by highly demanding visitors who seek immersive experiences (edutainment) and time-saving arrangement. This has encouraged and, in some opinions, forced museums to turn their focus from collections to visitors. In addition, museums have faced competition and new technologies in the form of virtual museums and virtual reality. This has emphasized the need to accept marketing as a survival tool and to make it int...

A hybrid optical switch architecture to integrate IP into optical networks to provide flexible and intelligent bandwidth on demand for cloud computing

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Wei; Hall, Trevor J.

2013-12-01

The Internet is entering an era of cloud computing to provide more cost effective, eco-friendly and reliable services to consumer and business users. As a consequence, the nature of the Internet traffic has been fundamentally transformed from a pure packet-based pattern to today's predominantly flow-based pattern. Cloud computing has also brought about an unprecedented growth in the Internet traffic. In this paper, a hybrid optical switch architecture is presented to deal with the flow-based Internet traffic, aiming to offer flexible and intelligent bandwidth on demand to improve fiber capacity utilization. The hybrid optical switch is capable of integrating IP into optical networks for cloud-based traffic with predictable performance, for which the delay performance of the electronic module in the hybrid optical switch architecture is evaluated through simulation.

Does dynamic information about the speaker's face contribute to semantic speech processing? ERP evidence.

Science.gov (United States)

Hernández-Gutiérrez, David; Abdel Rahman, Rasha; Martín-Loeches, Manuel; Muñoz, Francisco; Schacht, Annekathrin; Sommer, Werner

2018-07-01

Face-to-face interactions characterize communication in social contexts. These situations are typically multimodal, requiring the integration of linguistic auditory input with facial information from the speaker. In particular, eye gaze and visual speech provide the listener with social and linguistic information, respectively. Despite the importance of this context for an ecological study of language, research on audiovisual integration has mainly focused on the phonological level, leaving aside effects on semantic comprehension. Here we used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate the influence of facial dynamic information on semantic processing of connected speech. Participants were presented with either a video or a still picture of the speaker, concomitant to auditory sentences. Along three experiments, we manipulated the presence or absence of the speaker's dynamic facial features (mouth and eyes) and compared the amplitudes of the semantic N400 elicited by unexpected words. Contrary to our predictions, the N400 was not modulated by dynamic facial information; therefore, semantic processing seems to be unaffected by the speaker's gaze and visual speech. Even though, during the processing of expected words, dynamic faces elicited a long-lasting late posterior positivity compared to the static condition. This effect was significantly reduced when the mouth of the speaker was covered. Our findings may indicate an increase of attentional processing to richer communicative contexts. The present findings also demonstrate that in natural communicative face-to-face encounters, perceiving the face of a speaker in motion provides supplementary information that is taken into account by the listener, especially when auditory comprehension is non-demanding. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The time course of face processing: startle eyeblink response modulation by face gender and expression.

Science.gov (United States)

Duval, Elizabeth R; Lovelace, Christopher T; Aarant, Justin; Filion, Diane L

2013-12-01

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of both facial expression and face gender on startle eyeblink response patterns at varying lead intervals (300, 800, and 3500ms) indicative of attentional and emotional processes. We aimed to determine whether responses to affective faces map onto the Defense Cascade Model (Lang et al., 1997) to better understand the stages of processing during affective face viewing. At 300ms, there was an interaction between face expression and face gender with female happy and neutral faces and male angry faces producing inhibited startle. At 3500ms, there was a trend for facilitated startle during angry compared to neutral faces. These findings suggest that affective expressions are perceived differently in male and female faces, especially at short lead intervals. Future studies investigating face processing should take both face gender and expression into account. © 2013.

Demand-Side Flexibility for Energy Transitions: Ensuring the Competitive Development of Demand Response Options

OpenAIRE

Nursimulu, Anjali; Florin, Marie-Valentine; Vuille, François

2015-01-01

This report provides an overview of the current debates about demand response development, focusing primarily on Europe, with some comparisons to the United States. ‘Demand response’ includes strategies that involve end-use customers adapting or altering their electricity demand in response to grid conditions or market prices. It is viewed as a multi-purpose power-system resource that enhances the energy system’s capacity to cope with increasing demand, rising costs of conventional transmissi...

Brain Activity Related to the Judgment of Face-Likeness: Correlation between EEG and Face-Like Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yuji Nihei

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Faces represent important information for social communication, because social information, such as face-color, expression, and gender, is obtained from faces. Therefore, individuals' tend to find faces unconsciously, even in objects. Why is face-likeness perceived in non-face objects? Previous event-related potential (ERP studies showed that the P1 component (early visual processing, the N170 component (face detection, and the N250 component (personal detection reflect the neural processing of faces. Inverted faces were reported to enhance the amplitude and delay the latency of P1 and N170. To investigate face-likeness processing in the brain, we explored the face-related components of the ERP through a face-like evaluation task using natural faces, cars, insects, and Arcimboldo paintings presented upright or inverted. We found a significant correlation between the inversion effect index and face-like scores in P1 in both hemispheres and in N170 in the right hemisphere. These results suggest that judgment of face-likeness occurs in a relatively early stage of face processing.

Brain Activity Related to the Judgment of Face-Likeness: Correlation between EEG and Face-Like Evaluation.

Science.gov (United States)

Nihei, Yuji; Minami, Tetsuto; Nakauchi, Shigeki

2018-01-01

Faces represent important information for social communication, because social information, such as face-color, expression, and gender, is obtained from faces. Therefore, individuals' tend to find faces unconsciously, even in objects. Why is face-likeness perceived in non-face objects? Previous event-related potential (ERP) studies showed that the P1 component (early visual processing), the N170 component (face detection), and the N250 component (personal detection) reflect the neural processing of faces. Inverted faces were reported to enhance the amplitude and delay the latency of P1 and N170. To investigate face-likeness processing in the brain, we explored the face-related components of the ERP through a face-like evaluation task using natural faces, cars, insects, and Arcimboldo paintings presented upright or inverted. We found a significant correlation between the inversion effect index and face-like scores in P1 in both hemispheres and in N170 in the right hemisphere. These results suggest that judgment of face-likeness occurs in a relatively early stage of face processing.

A Comparison of Online and Face-to-Face Approaches to Teaching Introduction to American Government

Science.gov (United States)

Bolsen, Toby; Evans, Michael; Fleming, Anna McCaghren

2016-01-01

This article reports results from a large study comparing four different approaches to teaching Introduction to American Government: (1) traditional, a paper textbook with 100% face-to-face lecture-style teaching; (2) breakout, a paper textbook with 50% face-to-face lecture-style teaching and 50% face-to-face small-group breakout discussion…

Attention Capture by Faces

Science.gov (United States)

Langton, Stephen R. H.; Law, Anna S.; Burton, A. Mike; Schweinberger, Stefan R.

2008-01-01

We report three experiments that investigate whether faces are capable of capturing attention when in competition with other non-face objects. In Experiment 1a participants took longer to decide that an array of objects contained a butterfly target when a face appeared as one of the distracting items than when the face did not appear in the array.…

Real-time teleophthalmology versus face-to-face consultation: A systematic review.

Science.gov (United States)

Tan, Irene J; Dobson, Lucy P; Bartnik, Stephen; Muir, Josephine; Turner, Angus W

2017-08-01

Introduction Advances in imaging capabilities and the evolution of real-time teleophthalmology have the potential to provide increased coverage to areas with limited ophthalmology services. However, there is limited research assessing the diagnostic accuracy of face-to-face teleophthalmology consultation. This systematic review aims to determine if real-time teleophthalmology provides comparable accuracy to face-to-face consultation for the diagnosis of common eye health conditions. Methods A search of PubMed, Embase, Medline and Cochrane databases and manual citation review was conducted on 6 February and 7 April 2016. Included studies involved real-time telemedicine in the field of ophthalmology or optometry, and assessed diagnostic accuracy against gold-standard face-to-face consultation. The revised quality assessment of diagnostic accuracy studies (QUADAS-2) tool assessed risk of bias. Results Twelve studies were included, with participants ranging from four to 89 years old. A broad number of conditions were assessed and include corneal and retinal pathologies, strabismus, oculoplastics and post-operative review. Quality assessment identified a high or unclear risk of bias in patient selection (75%) due to an undisclosed recruitment processes. The index test showed high risk of bias in the included studies, due to the varied interpretation and conduct of real-time teleophthalmology methods. Reference standard risk was overall low (75%), as was the risk due to flow and timing (75%). Conclusion In terms of diagnostic accuracy, real-time teleophthalmology was considered superior to face-to-face consultation in one study and comparable in six studies. Store-and-forward image transmission coupled with real-time videoconferencing is a suitable alternative to overcome poor internet transmission speeds.

Comparing face-to-face, synchronous, and asynchronous learning: postgraduate dental resident preferences.

Science.gov (United States)

Kunin, Marc; Julliard, Kell N; Rodriguez, Tobias E

2014-06-01

The Department of Dental Medicine of Lutheran Medical Center has developed an asynchronous online curriculum consisting of prerecorded PowerPoint presentations with audio explanations. The focus of this study was to evaluate if the new asynchronous format satisfied the educational needs of the residents compared to traditional lecture (face-to-face) and synchronous (distance learning) formats. Lectures were delivered to 219 dental residents employing face-to-face and synchronous formats, as well as the new asynchronous format; 169 (77 percent) participated in the study. Outcomes were assessed with pretests, posttests, and individual lecture surveys. Results found the residents preferred face-to-face and asynchronous formats to the synchronous format in terms of effectiveness and clarity of presentations. This preference was directly related to the residents' perception of how well the technology worked in each format. The residents also rated the quality of student-instructor and student-student interactions in the synchronous and asynchronous formats significantly higher after taking the lecture series than they did before taking it. However, they rated the face-to-face format as significantly more conducive to student-instructor and student-student interaction. While the study found technology had a major impact on the efficacy of this curricular model, the results suggest that the asynchronous format can be an effective way to teach a postgraduate course.

Medical tourism and its impact on the US health care system.

Science.gov (United States)

Forgione, Dana A; Smith, Pamela C

2007-01-01

The health care industry within the United States continues to face unprecedented increases in costs, along with the task of providing care to an estimated 46 million uninsured or underinsured patients. These patients, along with both insurers and employers, are seeking to reduce the costs of treatment through international outsourcing of medical and surgical care. Knows as medical tourism, this trend is on the rise, and the US health care system has not fully internalized the effects this will have on its economic structure and policies. The demand for low-cost health care services is driving patients to seek treatment on a globally competitive basis, while balancing important quality of care issues. In this article, we outline some of the issues facing legislators, health care policy makers, providers, and health service researchers regarding the impact of medical tourism on the US health care system.

On energy demand

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Haefele, W.

1977-01-01

Since the energy crisis, a number of energy plans have been proposed, and almost all of these envisage some kind of energy demand adaptations or conservation measures, hoping thus to escape the anticipated problems of energy supply. However, there seems to be no clear explanation of the basis on which our foreseeable future energy problems could be eased. And in fact, a first attempt at a more exact definition of energy demand and its interaction with other objectives, such as economic ones, shows that it is a highly complex concept which we still hardly understand. The article explains in some detail why it is so difficult to understand energy demand

Effects of task demands on the early neural processing of fearful and happy facial expressions.

Science.gov (United States)

Itier, Roxane J; Neath-Tavares, Karly N

2017-05-15

Task demands shape how we process environmental stimuli but their impact on the early neural processing of facial expressions remains unclear. In a within-subject design, ERPs were recorded to the same fearful, happy and neutral facial expressions presented during a gender discrimination, an explicit emotion discrimination and an oddball detection tasks, the most studied tasks in the field. Using an eye tracker, fixation on the face nose was enforced using a gaze-contingent presentation. Task demands modulated amplitudes from 200 to 350ms at occipito-temporal sites spanning the EPN component. Amplitudes were more negative for fearful than neutral expressions starting on N170 from 150 to 350ms, with a temporo-occipital distribution, whereas no clear effect of happy expressions was seen. Task and emotion effects never interacted in any time window or for the ERP components analyzed (P1, N170, EPN). Thus, whether emotion is explicitly discriminated or irrelevant for the task at hand, neural correlates of fearful and happy facial expressions seem immune to these task demands during the first 350ms of visual processing. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Non-egalitarian allocations among preschool peers in a face-to-face bargaining task.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Alicia P Melis

Full Text Available In face-to-face bargaining tasks human adults almost always agree on an equal split of resources. This is due to mutually recognized fairness and equality norms. Early developmental studies on sharing and equality norms found that egalitarian allocations of resources are not common before children are 5 or 6 years old. However, recent studies have shown that in some face-to face collaborative situations, or when recipients express their desires, children at much younger ages choose equal allocations. We investigated the ability of 3.5 and 5-year-olds to negotiate face-to-face, whether to collaborate to obtain an equal or an unequal distribution of rewards. We hypothesized that the face-to-face interaction and interdependency between partners would facilitate egalitarian outcomes at both ages. In the first experiment we found that 5-year-olds were more egalitarian than 3.5-year-olds, but neither of the age classes shared equally. In the second experiment, in which we increased the magnitude of the inequality, we found that children at both ages mostly agreed on the unequal distribution. These results show that communication and face-to-face interactions are not sufficient to guarantee equal allocations at 3-5 years of age. These results add to previous findings suggesting that in the context of non-collaboratively produced resources it is only after 5 years of age that children use equality norms to allocate resources.

Structural encoding processes contribute to individual differences in face and object cognition: Inferences from psychometric test performance and event-related brain potentials.

Science.gov (United States)

Nowparast Rostami, Hadiseh; Sommer, Werner; Zhou, Changsong; Wilhelm, Oliver; Hildebrandt, Andrea

2017-10-01

The enhanced N1 component in event-related potentials (ERP) to face stimuli, termed N170, is considered to indicate the structural encoding of faces. Previously, individual differences in the latency of the N170 have been related to face and object cognition abilities. By orthogonally manipulating content domain (faces vs objects) and task demands (easy/speed vs difficult/accuracy) in both psychometric and EEG tasks, we investigated the uniqueness of the processes underlying face cognition as compared with object cognition and the extent to which the N1/N170 component can explain individual differences in face and object cognition abilities. Data were recorded from N = 198 healthy young adults. Structural equation modeling (SEM) confirmed that the accuracies of face perception (FP) and memory are specific abilities above general object cognition; in contrast, the speed of face processing was not differentiable from the speed of object cognition. Although there was considerable domain-general variance in the N170 shared with the N1, there was significant face-specific variance in the N170. The brain-behavior relationship showed that faster face-specific processes for structural encoding of faces are associated with higher accuracy in both perceiving and memorizing faces. Moreover, in difficult task conditions, qualitatively different processes are additionally needed for recognizing face and object stimuli as compared with easy tasks. The difficulty-dependent variance components in the N170 amplitude were related with both face and object memory (OM) performance. We discuss implications for understanding individual differences in face cognition. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Essays on economic development, energy demand, and the environment

Science.gov (United States)

Medlock, Kenneth Barry, III

2000-10-01

The rapid expansion of industry at the outset of economic development and the subsequent growth of the transportation and residential and commercial sectors dictate both the rate at which energy demand increases and the composition of primary fuel sources used to meet secondary requirements. Each of these factors each has an impact on the pollution problems that nations may face. Growth in consumer wealth, however, appears to eventually lead to a shift in priorities. In particular, the importance of the environment begins to take precedent over the acquisition of goods. Accordingly, cleaner energy alternatives are sought out. The approach taken here is to determine the energy profile of an average nation, and apply those results to a model of economic growth. Dematerialization of production and saturation of consumer bundles results in declining rates of growth of energy demand in broadly defined end-use sectors. The effects of technological change in fossil fuel efficiency, fossil fuel recovery, and 'backstop' energy resources on economic growth and the emissions of carbon dioxide are then analyzed. A central planner is assumed to optimize the consumption of goods and services subject to capital and resource constraints. Slight perturbations in the parameters are used to determine their local elasticities with respect to different endogenous variables, and give an indication of the effects of changes in the various assumptions.

Highlights from a Literature Review Prepared for the Face to Face Research Project

Science.gov (United States)

National Literacy Trust, 2010

2010-01-01

Between March 2009 and March 2011, Talk To Your Baby has been engaged in a research project, under the title of Face to Face, to identify key messages for parents and carers in relation to communicating with babies and young children, and has examined the most effective ways to promote these messages to parents and carers. The Face to Face project…

Advanced Continuous Flow Platform for On-Demand Pharmaceutical Manufacturing.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ping; Weeranoppanant, Nopphon; Thomas, Dale A; Tahara, Kohei; Stelzer, Torsten; Russell, Mary Grace; O'Mahony, Marcus; Myerson, Allan S; Lin, Hongkun; Kelly, Liam P; Jensen, Klavs F; Jamison, Timothy F; Dai, Chunhui; Cui, Yuqing; Briggs, Naomi; Beingessner, Rachel L; Adamo, Andrea

2018-02-21

As a demonstration of an alternative to the challenges faced with batch pharmaceutical manufacturing including the large production footprint and lengthy time-scale, we previously reported a refrigerator-sized continuous flow system for the on-demand production of essential medicines. Building on this technology, herein we report a second-generation, reconfigurable and 25 % smaller (by volume) continuous flow pharmaceutical manufacturing platform featuring advances in reaction and purification equipment. Consisting of two compact [0.7 (L)×0.5 (D)×1.3 m (H)] stand-alone units for synthesis and purification/formulation processes, the capabilities of this automated system are demonstrated with the synthesis of nicardipine hydrochloride and the production of concentrated liquid doses of ciprofloxacin hydrochloride, neostigmine methylsulfate and rufinamide that meet US Pharmacopeia standards. © 2018 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim.

Aspergilones A and B, two benzylazaphilones with an unprecedented carbon skeleton from the gorgonian-derived fungus Aspergillus sp.

KAUST Repository

Shao, Chang Lun; Wang, Chang Yun; Wei, Mei Yan; Gu, Yu Cheng; She, Zhi Gang; Qian, Pei Yuan; Lin, Yong Cheng

2011-01-01

Two novel benzylazaphilone derivatives with an unprecedented carbon skeleton, aspergilone A (1), and its symmetrical dimer with a unique methylene bridge, aspergilone B (2), have been isolated from the culture broth of a marine-derived fungus Aspergillus sp. from a gorgonian Dichotella gemmacea. Their structures and relative stereochemistries of 1 and 2 were elucidated using a combination of NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography. Compound 1 not only exhibited in vitro selective cytotoxicity but also showed potent antifouling activity. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Face to Face

OpenAIRE

Robert Leckey

2013-01-01

This paper uses Queer theory, specifically literature on Bowers v. Hardwick, to analyze debates over legislation proposed in Quebec regarding covered faces. Queer theory sheds light on legal responses to the veil. Parliamentary debates in Quebec reconstitute the polity, notably as secular and united. The paper highlights the contradictory and unstable character of four binaries: legislative text versus social practice, act versus status, majority versus minority, and knowable versus unknowabl...

The neural code for face orientation in the human fusiform face area.

Science.gov (United States)

Ramírez, Fernando M; Cichy, Radoslaw M; Allefeld, Carsten; Haynes, John-Dylan

2014-09-03

Humans recognize faces and objects with high speed and accuracy regardless of their orientation. Recent studies have proposed that orientation invariance in face recognition involves an intermediate representation where neural responses are similar for mirror-symmetric views. Here, we used fMRI, multivariate pattern analysis, and computational modeling to investigate the neural encoding of faces and vehicles at different rotational angles. Corroborating previous studies, we demonstrate a representation of face orientation in the fusiform face-selective area (FFA). We go beyond these studies by showing that this representation is category-selective and tolerant to retinal translation. Critically, by controlling for low-level confounds, we found the representation of orientation in FFA to be compatible with a linear angle code. Aspects of mirror-symmetric coding cannot be ruled out when FFA mean activity levels are considered as a dimension of coding. Finally, we used a parametric family of computational models, involving a biased sampling of view-tuned neuronal clusters, to compare different face angle encoding models. The best fitting model exhibited a predominance of neuronal clusters tuned to frontal views of faces. In sum, our findings suggest a category-selective and monotonic code of face orientation in the human FFA, in line with primate electrophysiology studies that observed mirror-symmetric tuning of neural responses at higher stages of the visual system, beyond the putative homolog of human FFA. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/3412155-13$15.00/0.

At face value : categorization goals modulate vigilance for angry faces

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Van Dillen, L.F.; Lakens, D.; Bos, van den K.

2010-01-01

The present research demonstrates that the attention bias to angry faces is modulated by how people categorize these faces. Since facial expressions contain psychologically meaningful information for social categorizations (i.e., gender, personality) but not for non-social categorizations (i.e.,

Initial test results of the Omron face cue entry system at the University of Missouri-Rolla Reactor

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Tokuhiro, Akira T.; Vaughn, Brian J.

2004-01-01

The University of Missouri-Rolla Reactor facility is testing, in collaboration with Omron Transaction Systems, Inc., the Omron Face Cue facial recognition system for access control to its restricted area. The installation of this system is the first of its kind at a security-relevant facility in the U.S. and within the research reactor community. The Face Cue is an on-demand device based on facial recognition and storage technology. The image processing methodology is as follows: (1) facial position detection, (2) background elimination, (3) facial features discrimination via application of a wavelet transform. The extracted facial feature values are compared to the data archived in its database and access is provided upon meeting the authorization criteria. The current test phase consisted of assessing the functionality of the Face Cue during daily use and in terms of its robustness (flexibility) as a function of the following physical parameters: (1) subject's distance away from the Face Cue, (2) ambient lighting conditions, (3) subject's facial orientation, (4) subject's facial expression and (5) peripheral facial features/modifications. The system has operated at nearly 100% reliability during several test intervals with approximately 7,000 entry attempts to date. (author)

Learning discriminant face descriptor.

Science.gov (United States)

Lei, Zhen; Pietikäinen, Matti; Li, Stan Z

2014-02-01

Local feature descriptor is an important module for face recognition and those like Gabor and local binary patterns (LBP) have proven effective face descriptors. Traditionally, the form of such local descriptors is predefined in a handcrafted way. In this paper, we propose a method to learn a discriminant face descriptor (DFD) in a data-driven way. The idea is to learn the most discriminant local features that minimize the difference of the features between images of the same person and maximize that between images from different people. In particular, we propose to enhance the discriminative ability of face representation in three aspects. First, the discriminant image filters are learned. Second, the optimal neighborhood sampling strategy is soft determined. Third, the dominant patterns are statistically constructed. Discriminative learning is incorporated to extract effective and robust features. We further apply the proposed method to the heterogeneous (cross-modality) face recognition problem and learn DFD in a coupled way (coupled DFD or C-DFD) to reduce the gap between features of heterogeneous face images to improve the performance of this challenging problem. Extensive experiments on FERET, CAS-PEAL-R1, LFW, and HFB face databases validate the effectiveness of the proposed DFD learning on both homogeneous and heterogeneous face recognition problems. The DFD improves POEM and LQP by about 4.5 percent on LFW database and the C-DFD enhances the heterogeneous face recognition performance of LBP by over 25 percent.

Cyber- and Face-to-Face Bullying: Who Crosses Over?

Science.gov (United States)

Shin, Hwayeon Helene; Braithwaite, Valerie; Ahmed, Eliza

2016-01-01

A total of 3956 children aged 12-13 years who completed the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC Wave 5) were studied about their experiences of traditional face-to-face bullying and cyberbullying in the last month. In terms of prevalence, sixty percent of the sample had been involved in traditional bullying as the victim and/or the…

InterFace: A software package for face image warping, averaging, and principal components analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Kramer, Robin S S; Jenkins, Rob; Burton, A Mike

2017-12-01

We describe InterFace, a software package for research in face recognition. The package supports image warping, reshaping, averaging of multiple face images, and morphing between faces. It also supports principal components analysis (PCA) of face images, along with tools for exploring the "face space" produced by PCA. The package uses a simple graphical user interface, allowing users to perform these sophisticated image manipulations without any need for programming knowledge. The program is available for download in the form of an app, which requires that users also have access to the (freely available) MATLAB Runtime environment.

Pit Latrine Emptying Behavior and Demand for Sanitation Services in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Marion W. Jenkins

2015-02-01

Full Text Available Pit latrines are the main form of sanitation in unplanned areas in many rapidly growing developing cities. Understanding demand for pit latrine fecal sludge management (FSM services in these communities is important for designing demand-responsive sanitation services and policies to improve public health. We examine latrine emptying knowledge, attitudes, behavior, trends and rates of safe/unsafe emptying, and measure demand for a new hygienic latrine emptying service in unplanned communities in Dar Es Salaam (Dar, Tanzania, using data from a cross-sectional survey at 662 residential properties in 35 unplanned sub-wards across Dar, where 97% had pit latrines. A picture emerges of expensive and poor FSM service options for latrine owners, resulting in widespread fecal sludge exposure that is likely to increase unless addressed. Households delay emptying as long as possible, use full pits beyond what is safe, face high costs even for unhygienic emptying, and resort to unsafe practices like ‘flooding out’. We measured strong interest in and willingness to pay (WTP for the new pit emptying service at 96% of residences; 57% were WTP ≥U.S. $17 to remove ≥200 L of sludge. Emerging policy recommendations for safe FSM in unplanned urban communities in Dar and elsewhere are discussed.

Spatial Location in Brief, Free-Viewing Face Encoding Modulates Contextual Face Recognition

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fatima M. Felisberti

2013-08-01

Full Text Available The effect of the spatial location of faces in the visual field during brief, free-viewing encoding in subsequent face recognition is not known. This study addressed this question by tagging three groups of faces with cheating, cooperating or neutral behaviours and presenting them for encoding in two visual hemifields (upper vs. lower or left vs. right. Participants then had to indicate if a centrally presented face had been seen before or not. Head and eye movements were free in all phases. Findings showed that the overall recognition of cooperators was significantly better than cheaters, and it was better for faces encoded in the upper hemifield than in the lower hemifield, both in terms of a higher d' and faster reaction time (RT. The d' for any given behaviour in the left and right hemifields was similar. The RT in the left hemifield did not vary with tagged behaviour, whereas the RT in the right hemifield was longer for cheaters than for cooperators. The results showed that memory biases in contextual face recognition were modulated by the spatial location of briefly encoded faces and are discussed in terms of scanning reading habits, top-left bias in lighting preference and peripersonal space.

Face shape and face identity processing in behavioral variant fronto-temporal dementia: A specific deficit for familiarity and name recognition of famous faces.

Science.gov (United States)

De Winter, François-Laurent; Timmers, Dorien; de Gelder, Beatrice; Van Orshoven, Marc; Vieren, Marleen; Bouckaert, Miriam; Cypers, Gert; Caekebeke, Jo; Van de Vliet, Laura; Goffin, Karolien; Van Laere, Koen; Sunaert, Stefan; Vandenberghe, Rik; Vandenbulcke, Mathieu; Van den Stock, Jan

2016-01-01

Deficits in face processing have been described in the behavioral variant of fronto-temporal dementia (bvFTD), primarily regarding the recognition of facial expressions. Less is known about face shape and face identity processing. Here we used a hierarchical strategy targeting face shape and face identity recognition in bvFTD and matched healthy controls. Participants performed 3 psychophysical experiments targeting face shape detection (Experiment 1), unfamiliar face identity matching (Experiment 2), familiarity categorization and famous face-name matching (Experiment 3). The results revealed group differences only in Experiment 3, with a deficit in the bvFTD group for both familiarity categorization and famous face-name matching. Voxel-based morphometry regression analyses in the bvFTD group revealed an association between grey matter volume of the left ventral anterior temporal lobe and familiarity recognition, while face-name matching correlated with grey matter volume of the bilateral ventral anterior temporal lobes. Subsequently, we quantified familiarity-specific and name-specific recognition deficits as the sum of the celebrities of which respectively only the name or only the familiarity was accurately recognized. Both indices were associated with grey matter volume of the bilateral anterior temporal cortices. These findings extent previous results by documenting the involvement of the left anterior temporal lobe (ATL) in familiarity detection and the right ATL in name recognition deficits in fronto-temporal lobar degeneration.

Factors defining face-to-face interruptions in the office environment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Matysiak, A.J.; Markopoulos, P.

2006-01-01

This paper presents an on-going investigation on interruptions in the office caused by face-to-face interactions between knowledge workers. The study aims to identify opportunities for interactive solutions that will support both, the interrupters and the interrupted. The study involves contextual

The Ocean Observatories Initiative: Unprecedented access to real-time data streaming from the Cabled Array through OOI Cyberinfrastructure

Science.gov (United States)

Knuth, F.; Vardaro, M.; Belabbassi, L.; Smith, M. J.; Garzio, L. M.; Crowley, M. F.; Kerfoot, J.; Kawka, O. E.

2016-02-01

The National Science Foundation's Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI), is a broad-scale, multidisciplinary facility that will transform oceanographic research by providing users with unprecedented access to long-term datasets from a variety of deployed physical, chemical, biological, and geological sensors. The Cabled Array component of the OOI, installed and operated by the University of Washington, is located on the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off the coast of Oregon. It is a unique network of >100 cabled instruments and instrumented moorings transmitting data to shore in real-time via fiber optic technology. Instruments now installed include HD video and digital still cameras, mass spectrometers, a resistivity-temperature probe inside the orifice of a high-temperature hydrothermal vent, upward-looking ADCP's, pH and pC02 sensors, Horizontal Electrometer Pressure Inverted Echosounders and many others. Here, we present the technical aspects of data streaming from the Cabled Array through the OOI Cyberinfrastructure. We illustrate the types of instruments and data products available, data volume and density, processing levels and algorithms used, data delivery methods, file formats and access methods through the graphical user interface. Our goal is to facilitate the use and access to these unprecedented, co-registered oceanographic datasets. We encourage researchers to collaborate through the use of these simultaneous, interdisciplinary measurements, in the exploration of short-lived events (tectonic, volcanic, biological, severe storms), as well as long-term trends in ocean systems (circulation patterns, climate change, ocean acidity, ecosystem shifts).

Shared or separate mechanisms for self-face and other-face processing? Evidence from adaptation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Brendan eRooney

2012-03-01

Full Text Available Evidence that self-face recognition is dissociable from general face recognition hasimportant implications both for models of social cognition and for our understanding offace recognition. In two studies, we examine how adaptation affects the perception ofpersonally familiar faces, and we use a visual adaptation paradigm to investigatewhether the neural mechanisms underlying the recognition of one’s own and other facesare shared or separate. In Study 1 we show that the representation of personally familiarfaces is rapidly updated by visual experience with unfamiliar faces, so that theperception of one’s own face and a friend’s face is altered by a brief period ofadaptation to distorted unfamiliar faces. In Study 2, participants adapted to images oftheir own and a friend’s face distorted in opposite directions; the contingent aftereffectswe observe are indicative of separate neural populations, but we suggest that thesereflect coding of facial identity rather than of the categories ‘self’ and ‘other’.

Introducing a demand-based electricity distribution tariff in the residential sector: Demand response and customer perception

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Bartusch, Cajsa; Wallin, Fredrik; Odlare, Monica; Vassileva, Iana; Wester, Lars

2011-01-01

Increased demand response is essential to fully exploit the Swedish power system, which in turn is an absolute prerequisite for meeting political goals related to energy efficiency and climate change. Demand response programs are, nonetheless, still exceptional in the residential sector of the Swedish electricity market, one contributory factor being lack of knowledge about the extent of the potential gains. In light of these circumstances, this empirical study set out with the intention of estimating the scope of households' response to, and assessing customers' perception of, a demand-based time-of-use electricity distribution tariff. The results show that households as a whole have a fairly high opinion of the demand-based tariff and act on its intrinsic price signals by decreasing peak demand in peak periods and shifting electricity use from peak to off-peak periods. - Highlights: → Households are sympathetic to demand-based tariffs, seeing as they relate to environmental issues. → Households adjust their electricity use to the price signals of demand-based tariffs. → Demand-based tariffs lead to a shift in electricity use from peak to off-peak hours. → Demand-based tariffs lead to a decrease in maximum demand in peak periods. → Magnitude of these effects increases over time.

Price elasticity matrix of demand in power system considering demand response programs

Science.gov (United States)

Qu, Xinyao; Hui, Hongxun; Yang, Shengchun; Li, Yaping; Ding, Yi

2018-02-01

The increasing renewable energy power generations have brought more intermittency and volatility to the electric power system. Demand-side resources can improve the consumption of renewable energy by demand response (DR), which becomes one of the important means to improve the reliability of power system. In price-based DR, the sensitivity analysis of customer’s power demand to the changing electricity prices is pivotal for setting reasonable prices and forecasting loads of power system. This paper studies the price elasticity matrix of demand (PEMD). An improved PEMD model is proposed based on elasticity effect weight, which can unify the rigid loads and flexible loads. Moreover, the structure of PEMD, which is decided by price policies and load types, and the calculation method of PEMD are also proposed. Several cases are studied to prove the effectiveness of this method.

Market architecture and power demand management

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Rious, Vincent; Roques, Fabien

2014-12-01

Demand response is a cornerstone problem in electricity markets considering climate change constraint. Most liberalized electricity markets have a poor track record at developing demand response. In Europe, different models are considered for demand response, from a development under a regulated regime to a development under competitive perspectives. In this paper, focusing on demand response for mid-size and small consumers, we investigate which types of market signals should be sent to demand response aggregators to see demand response emerge as a competitive activity. Using data from the French power system over eight years, we compare the possible market design options to allow demand response to develop. Our simulations demonstrate that with the current market rules, demand response is not a profitable activity in the French electricity industry. Introducing a capacity remuneration could bring additional revenues to demand response aggregators if the power system has no over-capacity

Musculoskeletal disorders among preschool teachers: analyzing the relationships among relational demands, work meaning, and intention to leave the job.

Science.gov (United States)

Converso, Daniela; Viotti, Sara; Sottimano, Ilaria; Cascio, Vincenza; Guidetti, Gloria

2018-05-22

Based on the conservation of resource (COR) theory by Hobfoll, the aim of the present study was to test whether the relationships among relational demands, work meaning, and intention to leave vary as a function of the presence of musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). The study was cross-sectional and non-randomized. Analyses were carried out on a dataset consisting of 429 preschool teachers, who filled out a self-report questionnaire. Of them, 238 reported a MSD diagnosis and 191 were free form MSDs. As expected, among those who reported MSDs, relational demands were significantly associated to intention to leave, and this relationship was mediated by work meaning; moreover, among those free from MSDs, no significant paths among the three variables were found. In general, results showed that suffering from MSDs impairs workers' ability to face to relational demands, thus activating a spiral that encompasses diminished work meaning and intention to leave. Practical implications of results will be discussed in the paper.

Technology policy in the face of the environment catastrophe

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krupp, H.

1990-01-01

Some 70 experts from science, industry and politics discussed in December 1989 in a seminar of the WE Heraeus Foundation the 'Options and priorities of future research and technology policy'. In the face of looming global climate changes and other environmental problems, the main subject was an ecologically oriented research and technology policy which safeguards the future on a long-term basis. This policy has to fulfil the following criteria: - wide time horizon (100 years), - world solidarity (North/South countries), - if possible small risks for the population, - welfare instead of economic growth. The proceedings contain lectures and discussions, giving a representative survey of the international state of research and technology policy and, illustrated by concrete examples, drawing up future demands on this policy. (orig./HSCH) With 28 figs [de

Identifying Pathways toward Sustainable Electricity Supply and Demand Using an Integrated Resource Strategic Planning Model for Saudi Arabia

Science.gov (United States)

Alabbas, Nabeel H.

Despite holding 16% of proved oil reserves in the world, Saudi Arabia might be on an unsustainable path to become a net oil importer by the 2030s. Decades of domestic energy subsidies accompanied by a high population growth rate have encouraged inefficient production and high domestic consumption of fossil fuel energy, which has resulted in environmental degradation, and significant social and economic consequences. In addition, the government's dependence on oil as a main source of revenue (89%) to finance its development programs cannot be sustained due to oil's exhaustible nature and rapidly increasing domestic consumption. The electricity and water sectors consume more energy than other sectors. The literature review revealed that electricity use in Saudi Arabia is following an unsustainable path (7-8% annual growth over the last decade). The water sector is another major energy consumer due to an unprecedented demand for water in the Kingdom (18% of world's total desalinated water output with per capita consumption is twice the world average). Multiple entities have been involved in fragmented planning activities on the supply-side as well as to a certain extent on the demand-side; moreover, comprehensive integrated resource strategic plans have been lacking at the national level. This dissertation established an integrated resource strategic planning (IRSP) model for Saudi Arabia's electricity and water sectors. The IRSP can clearly determine the Kingdom's future vision of its utility sector, including goals, policies, programs, and an execution timetable, taking into consideration economic, environmental and social benefits. Also, a weather-based hybrid end-use econometric demand forecasting model was developed to project electricity demand until 2040. The analytical economic efficiency and technical assessments reveal that Saudi Arabia can supply almost 75% of its electricity from renewable energy sources with a significant achievable potential for saving

Analysis of water supply and demand in high mountain cities of Bolivia under growing population and changing climate

Science.gov (United States)

Kinouchi, T.; Mendoza, J.; Asaoka, Y.; Fuchs, P.

2017-12-01

Water resources in La Paz and El Alto, high mountain capital cities of Bolivia, strongly depend on the surface and subsurface runoff from partially glacierized catchments located in the Cordillera Real, Andes. Due to growing population and changing climate, the balance between water supply from the source catchments and demand for drinking, agriculture, industry and hydropower has become precarious in recent years as evidenced by a serious drought during the 2015-2016 El Nino event. To predict the long-term availability of water resources under changing climate, we developed a semi-distributed glacio-hydrological model that considers various runoff pathways from partially glacierized high-altitude catchments. Two GCM projections (MRI-AGCM and INGV-ECHAM4) were used for the prediction with bias corrected by reanalysis data (ERA-INTERIM) and downscaled to target areas using data monitored at several weather stations. The model was applied to three catchments from which current water resources are supplied and eight additional catchments that will be potentially effective in compensating reduced runoff from the current water resource areas. For predicting the future water demand, a cohort-component method was used for the projection of size and composition of population change, considering natural and social change (birth, death and transfer). As a result, total population is expected to increase from 1.6 million in 2012 to 2.0 million in 2036. The water demand was predicted for given unit water consumption, non-revenue water rate (NWR), and sectorial percentage of water consumption for domestic, industrial and commercial purposes. The results of hydrological simulations and the analysis of water demand indicated that water supply and demand are barely balanced in recent years, while the total runoff from current water resource areas will continue to decrease and unprecedented water shortage is likely to occur since around 2020 toward the middle of 21st century even

MobileFaceNets: Efficient CNNs for Accurate Real-time Face Verification on Mobile Devices

OpenAIRE

Chen, Sheng; Liu, Yang; Gao, Xiang; Han, Zhen

2018-01-01

In this paper, we proposed a class of extremely efficient CNN models, MobileFaceNets, which use less than 1 million parameters and are specifically tailored for high-accuracy real-time face verification on mobile and embedded devices. We first make a simple analysis on the weakness of common mobile networks for face verification. The weakness has been well overcome by our specifically designed MobileFaceNets. Under the same experimental conditions, our MobileFaceNets achieve significantly sup...

Weathering The Storm – Icelandic Municipalities’ Handling of an Unprecedented Economic Crisis

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Magnús Árni Skjöld MAGNÚSSON

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Within a few days in October 2008, following serious turmoil on financial markets worldwide, some 85% of the Icelandic banking sector collapsed, together with the Icelandic currency, the króna. Almost all the rest followed early in 2009. The Icelandic stock market took a nosedive. The Republic of Iceland had entered the worst economic crisis of its history. Icelandic municipalities, which had taken on an increasing burden of running the welfare state, were hard hit financially, without the ability of the state to help out. In fact, some of the post-crisis actions of the state, under IMF direction, were difficult for the municipalities. It did not make things easier that the crisis had been precluded by an unprecedented period of growth, encouraging the municipalities to borrow in international markets and invest in infrastructure that turned out to be superfluous in the post-crisis period. This paper will look at the reactions of the Icelandic municipalities to the crisis, the political implications of it, where they are now and if there are lessons that can be learned from the difficult years in the last decade.

Matching faces with emotional expressions

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wenfeng eChen

2011-08-01

Full Text Available There is some evidence that faces with a happy expression are recognized better than faces with other expressions. However, little is known about whether this happy face advantage also applies to perceptual face matching, and whether similar differences exist among other expressions. Using a sequential matching paradigm, we systematically compared the effects of seven basic facial expressions on identity recognition. Identity matching was quickest when a pair of faces had an identical happy/sad/neutral expression, poorer when they had a fearful/surprise/angry expression, and poorest when they had a disgust expression. Faces with a happy/sad/fear/surprise expression were matched faster than those with an anger/disgust expression when the second face in a pair had a neutral expression. These results demonstrate that effects of facial expression on identity recognition are not limited to happy faces when a learned face is immediately tested. The results suggest different influences of expression in perceptual matching and long-term recognition memory.

The Kent Face Matching Test.

Science.gov (United States)

Fysh, Matthew C; Bindemann, Markus

2018-05-01

This study presents the Kent Face Matching Test (KFMT), which comprises 200 same-identity and 20 different-identity pairs of unfamiliar faces. Each face pair consists of a photograph from a student ID card and a high-quality portrait that was taken at least three months later. The test is designed to complement existing resources for face-matching research, by providing a more ecologically valid stimulus set that captures the natural variability that can arise in a person's appearance over time. Two experiments are presented to demonstrate that the KFMT provides a challenging measure of face matching but correlates with established tests. Experiment 1 compares a short version of this test with the optimized Glasgow Face Matching Test (GFMT). In Experiment 2, a longer version of the KFMT, with infrequent identity mismatches, is correlated with performance on the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT) and the Cambridge Face Perception Test (CFPT). The KFMT is freely available for use in face-matching research. © 2017 The British Psychological Society.

Examination of program exposure across intervention delivery modes: face-to-face versus internet

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Mummery W Kerry

2007-03-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background There has been increasing interest in the ability of the internet to produce behaviour change. The focus of this study was to describe program exposure across three intervention groups from a randomised trial (RT comparing traditional face-to-face, internet-mediated (combined internet plus face-to-face, and internet-only program delivery. Methods Baseline and immediately post-intervention survey data, and exposure rates from participants that commenced the RT were included (n = 192. Exposure was defined as either face-to-face attendance, website usage, or a combination of both for the internet-mediated group. Characteristics of participants who were exposed to at least 75% of the program material were explored. Descriptive analysis and logistical regression were used to examine differences between groups for program exposure. Results All groups showed decrease in program exposure over time. Differences were also observed (χ2 = 10.37, p Conclusion These results suggest that the internet groups were as effective as the face-to-face delivery mode in engaging participants in the program material. However, different delivery methods may be more useful to different sub-populations. It is important to explore which target groups that internet-based programs are best suited, in order to increase their impact.

Electronic and face-to-face communication in maintaining social relationships

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Tillema, T.; Dijst, M.J.; Schwanen, T.

2007-01-01

Although the spectacular spread of wired and wireless communication technologies such as the Internet and mobile phone have been discussed extensively in the academic literature, knowledge of the interactions among face-to-face (F2F) and electronic communication modes and their implications for

Energy conservation using face detection

Science.gov (United States)

Deotale, Nilesh T.; Kalbande, Dhananjay R.; Mishra, Akassh A.

2011-10-01

Computerized Face Detection, is concerned with the difficult task of converting a video signal of a person to written text. It has several applications like face recognition, simultaneous multiple face processing, biometrics, security, video surveillance, human computer interface, image database management, digital cameras use face detection for autofocus, selecting regions of interest in photo slideshows that use a pan-and-scale and The Present Paper deals with energy conservation using face detection. Automating the process to a computer requires the use of various image processing techniques. There are various methods that can be used for Face Detection such as Contour tracking methods, Template matching, Controlled background, Model based, Motion based and color based. Basically, the video of the subject are converted into images are further selected manually for processing. However, several factors like poor illumination, movement of face, viewpoint-dependent Physical appearance, Acquisition geometry, Imaging conditions, Compression artifacts makes Face detection difficult. This paper reports an algorithm for conservation of energy using face detection for various devices. The present paper suggests Energy Conservation can be done by Detecting the Face and reducing the brightness of complete image and then adjusting the brightness of the particular area of an image where the face is located using histogram equalization.

Academic training lectures | The outlook for energy supply and demand | 14 - 16 September

CERN Multimedia

2015-01-01

Please note that the next series of Academic Training Lectures will take place on the 14, 15 and 16 September. The lectures will be given by by Chris Llewellyn Smith (Director of Energy Research, University of Oxford, President of SESAME Council). The Outlook for Energy Supply and Demand (1/3) on Monday, 14 September from 11.00 a.m. to 12.00 p.m. https://indico.cern.ch/event/388334/ Can Future Energy Needs be Met Sustainably? (2/3) on Tuesday, 15 September from 4.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.  (CERN Colloquium) https://indico.cern.ch/event/388335/ The Outlook for Energy Supply and Demand (3/3) on Wednesday, 16 September from 11.00 a.m to 12.00 p.m. https://indico.cern.ch/event/388336/ at CERN, Main Auditorium, in Building 500-1-001. Description: These lectures will review the challenges facing energy policy, the outlook for different sources of primary energy (fossil and renewable), how energy is used, and prospects for improved energy efficiency. A colloquium ‘Can Future Energy Needs be Met ...

Job demands-resources model

OpenAIRE

Bakker, Arnold; Demerouti, Eva

2013-01-01

markdownabstract* The question of what causes job stress and what motivates people has received a lot of research attention during the past five decades. In this paper, we discuss Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory, which represents an extension of the Job Demands-Resources model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007; Demerouti, Bakker, Nachreiner, & Schaufeli, 2001) and is inspired by job design and job stress theories. JD-R theory explains how job demands and resources have unique and multiplicative e...

FaceIt: face recognition from static and live video for law enforcement

Science.gov (United States)

Atick, Joseph J.; Griffin, Paul M.; Redlich, A. N.

1997-01-01

Recent advances in image and pattern recognition technology- -especially face recognition--are leading to the development of a new generation of information systems of great value to the law enforcement community. With these systems it is now possible to pool and manage vast amounts of biometric intelligence such as face and finger print records and conduct computerized searches on them. We review one of the enabling technologies underlying these systems: the FaceIt face recognition engine; and discuss three applications that illustrate its benefits as a problem-solving technology and an efficient and cost effective investigative tool.

Social cognition in autism: Face tuning.

Science.gov (United States)

Pavlova, Marina A; Guerreschi, Michele; Tagliavento, Lucia; Gitti, Filippo; Sokolov, Alexander N; Fallgatter, Andreas J; Fazzi, Elisa

2017-05-26

Faces convey valuable information for social cognition, effective interpersonal interaction, and non-verbal communication. Face perception is believed to be atypical in autism, but the origin of this deficit is controversial. Dominant featural face encoding is suggested to be responsible for face tuning scarcity. Here we used a recently developed Face-n-Food paradigm for studying face tuning in individuals with autistic spectrum disorders (ASD). The key benefit of these images is that single components do not explicitly trigger face processing. In a spontaneous recognition task, adolescents with autism and typically developing matched controls were presented with a set of Face-n-Food images in different degree resembling a face (slightly bordering on the Giuseppe Arcimboldo style). The set of images was shown in a predetermined order from the least to most resembling a face. Thresholds for recognition of the Face-n-Food images as a face in ASD individuals were substantially higher than in typically developing controls: they did not report seeing a face on the images, which controls easily recognized as a face, and gave overall fewer face responses. This outcome not only lends support to atypical face tuning, but provides novel insights into the origin of face encoding deficits in autism.

Is sustainable development attainable? Challenges facing forestry and the forest products industry

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Wrist, P.E.

1991-01-01

The challenges that face the forest industry in achieving sustainable development are reviewed. Sustainable development is not the same as sustained yield forest management. While sustained yield limits harvesting to an estimate of a forest's incremental annual growth, it is a policy which neither takes into account how improved forest management practices can increase future growth rates nor gives guidance on how multiple uses for the forest resource can be made compatible with periodic harvesting of that resource. Forests, in addition to meeting demands for timber production, must also meet demands for watershed management, recreation, preservation of wildlife and genetic diversity, moderation of climates, carbon sequestration, and land reclamation. Information is lacking from which to develop improved forest management programs that take these demands into account. Questions remain about such matters as the role of plantations in sustainable forestry and the maintenance of natural diversity. Some recent research being undertaken to generate better information for future forestry decision making is outlined, including work on gene pool maintenance, the interdependence of forest ecology and climate, the symbiotic role of mycorrhiza, forest fertilization, and the interdependence of sustainable forestry and sustainable fisheries. In the forest products industry, engineered wood products have been developed that meet tight specifications and require less raw material, and process changes have been introduced that greatly reduce pollutants from pulp manufacture

Energy supply and demand in California

Science.gov (United States)

Griffith, E. D.

1978-01-01

The author expresses his views on future energy demand on the west coast of the United States and how that energy demand translates into demand for major fuels. He identifies the major uncertainties in determining what future demands may be. The major supply options that are available to meet projected demands and the policy implications that flow from these options are discussed.

Instituting organizational learning for quality improvement through strategic planning nominal group processes.

Science.gov (United States)

White, D B

2000-01-01

Healthcare managers are faced with unprecedented challenges as characterized by managed care constraints, downsizing, increased client needs, and a society demanding more responsive services. Managers must initiate change for quality, efficiency, and survival. This article provides information and strategies for (a) assessing the change readiness of an organization, (b) conducting an organizational diagnosis, (c) instituting a team culture, (d) developing a change strategy, (e) integrating the strategy with a quality improvement process, and (f) identifying the leadership skills to implement organization renewal. Nominal group processes, namely, SWOT and the Search Conference, are described, and case examples are provided. The implementation strategies have been used successfully in a variety of milieus; practical advice for success is described in detail.

DemandStat

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

2003-01-01

DemandStat is an accurate and up-to-date international statistics database dedicated to energy demand, with an unrivaled level of details for powerful market analysis. It provides detailed consumption statistics (30 sectors) on all energies, detailed 2003 data and historical annual data since 1970, frequent data revision and update (2 updates options), 150 data sources gathered and expertized, all data on a single database Consistent and homogeneous statistics, in line with all major data providers (IEA, Eurostat, ADB, OLADE, etc), no ruptures in time-series with easy request building and data analysis and reactive support from data experts. (A.L.B.)

76 FR 41032 - Medicaid Program; Face-to-Face Requirements for Home Health Services; Policy Changes and...

Science.gov (United States)

2011-07-12

... documentation must also describe how the health status of the recipient at the time of the face-to-face... [CMS 2348-P] RIN 0938-AQ36 Medicaid Program; Face-to-Face Requirements for Home Health Services; Policy... document the existence of a face-to-face encounter (including through the use of telehealth) with the...

Dynamic modelling of water demand, water availability and adaptation strategies for power plants to global change

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Koch, Hagen; Voegele, Stefan

2009-01-01

According to the latest IPCC reports, the frequency of hot and dry periods will increase in many regions of the world in the future. For power plant operators, the increasing possibility of water shortages is an important challenge that they have to face. Shortages of electricity due to water shortages could have an influence on industries as well as on private households. Climate change impact analyses must analyse the climate effects on power plants and possible adaptation strategies for the power generation sector. Power plants have lifetimes of several decades. Their water demand changes with climate parameters in the short- and medium-term. In the long-term, the water demand will change as old units are phased out and new generating units appear in their place. In this paper, we describe the integration of functions for the calculation of the water demand of power plants into a water resources management model. Also included are both short-term reactive and long-term planned adaptation. This integration allows us to simulate the interconnection between the water demand of power plants and water resources management, i.e. water availability. Economic evaluation functions for water shortages are also integrated into the water resources management model. This coupled model enables us to analyse scenarios of socio-economic and climate change, as well as the effects of water management actions. (author)

Gender differences in BOLD activation to face photographs and video vignettes.

Science.gov (United States)

Fine, Jodene Goldenring; Semrud-Clikeman, Margaret; Zhu, David C

2009-07-19

Few neuroimaging studies have reported gender differences in response to human emotions, and those that have examined such differences have utilized face photographs. This study presented not only human face photographs of positive and negative emotions, but also video vignettes of positive and negative social human interactions in an attempt to provide a more ecologically appropriate stimuli paradigm. Ten male and 10 female healthy right-handed young adults were shown positive and negative affective social human faces and video vignettes to elicit gender differences in social/emotional perception. Conservative ROI (region of interest) analysis indicated greater male than female activation to positive affective photos in the anterior cingulate, medial frontal gyrus, superior frontal gyrus and superior temporal gyrus, all in the right hemisphere. No significant ROI gender differences were observed to negative affective photos. Male greater than female activation was seen in ROIs of the left posterior cingulate and the right inferior temporal gyrus to positive social videos. Male greater than female activation occurred in only the left middle temporal ROI for negative social videos. Consistent with previous findings, males were more lateralized than females. Although more activation was observed overall to video compared to photo conditions, males and females appear to process social video stimuli more similarly to one another than they do for photos. This study is a step forward in understanding the social brain with more ecologically valid stimuli that more closely approximates the demands of real-time social and affective processing.

Facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in children with neurofibromatosis type 1.

Science.gov (United States)

Lewis, Amelia K; Porter, Melanie A; Williams, Tracey A; Bzishvili, Samantha; North, Kathryn N; Payne, Jonathan M

2017-05-01

This study aimed to investigate face scan paths and face perception abilities in children with Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1) and how these might relate to emotion recognition abilities in this population. The authors investigated facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in 29 children with NF1 compared to 29 chronological age-matched typically developing controls. Correlations between facial emotion recognition, face scan paths, and face perception in children with NF1 were examined. Children with NF1 displayed significantly poorer recognition of fearful expressions compared to controls, as well as a nonsignificant trend toward poorer recognition of anger. Although there was no significant difference between groups in time spent viewing individual core facial features (eyes, nose, mouth, and nonfeature regions), children with NF1 spent significantly less time than controls viewing the face as a whole. Children with NF1 also displayed significantly poorer face perception abilities than typically developing controls. Facial emotion recognition deficits were not significantly associated with aberrant face scan paths or face perception abilities in the NF1 group. These results suggest that impairments in the perception, identification, and interpretation of information from faces are important aspects of the social-cognitive phenotype of NF1. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2017 APA, all rights reserved).

Adaptation improves face trustworthiness discrimination

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bruce D Keefe

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Adaptation to facial characteristics, such as gender and viewpoint, has been shown to both bias our perception of faces and improve facial discrimination. In this study, we examined whether adapting to two levels of face trustworthiness improved sensitivity around the adapted level. Facial trustworthiness was manipulated by morphing between trustworthy and untrustworthy prototypes, each generated by morphing eight trustworthy and eight untrustworthy faces respectively. In the first experiment, just-noticeable differences (JNDs were calculated for an untrustworthy face after participants adapted to an untrustworthy face, a trustworthy face, or did not adapt. In the second experiment, the three conditions were identical, except that JNDs were calculated for a trustworthy face. In the third experiment we examined whether adapting to an untrustworthy male face improved discrimination to an untrustworthy female face. In all experiments, participants completed a two-interval forced-choice adaptive staircase procedure, in which they judged which face was more untrustworthy. JNDs were derived from a psychometric function fitted to the data. Adaptation improved sensitivity to faces conveying the same level of trustworthiness when compared to no adaptation. When adapting to and discriminating around a different level of face trustworthiness there was no improvement in sensitivity and JNDs were equivalent to those in the no adaptation condition. The improvement in sensitivity was found to occur even when adapting to a face with different gender and identity. These results suggest that adaptation to facial trustworthiness can selectively enhance mechanisms underlying the coding of facial trustworthiness to improve perceptual sensitivity. These findings have implications for the role of our visual experience in the decisions we make about the trustworthiness of other individuals.

Face Prediction Model for an Automatic Age-invariant Face Recognition System

OpenAIRE

Yadav, Poonam

2015-01-01

07.11.14 KB. Emailed author re copyright. Author says that copyright is retained by author. Ok to add to spiral Automated face recognition and identi cation softwares are becoming part of our daily life; it nds its abode not only with Facebooks auto photo tagging, Apples iPhoto, Googles Picasa, Microsofts Kinect, but also in Homeland Security Departments dedicated biometric face detection systems. Most of these automatic face identification systems fail where the e ects of aging come into...

Side-View Face Recognition

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Santemiz, P.; Spreeuwers, Lieuwe Jan; Veldhuis, Raymond N.J.

2010-01-01

Side-view face recognition is a challenging problem with many applications. Especially in real-life scenarios where the environment is uncontrolled, coping with pose variations up to side-view positions is an important task for face recognition. In this paper we discuss the use of side view face

Friends with Faces: How Social Networks Can Enhance Face Recognition and Vice Versa

Science.gov (United States)

Mavridis, Nikolaos; Kazmi, Wajahat; Toulis, Panos

The "friendship" relation, a social relation among individuals, is one of the primary relations modeled in some of the world's largest online social networking sites, such as "FaceBook." On the other hand, the "co-occurrence" relation, as a relation among faces appearing in pictures, is one that is easily detectable using modern face detection techniques. These two relations, though appearing in different realms (social vs. visual sensory), have a strong correlation: faces that co-occur in photos often belong to individuals who are friends. Using real-world data gathered from "Facebook," which were gathered as part of the "FaceBots" project, the world's first physical face-recognizing and conversing robot that can utilize and publish information on "Facebook" was established. We present here methods as well as results for utilizing this correlation in both directions. Both algorithms for utilizing knowledge of the social context for faster and better face recognition are given, as well as algorithms for estimating the friendship network of a number of individuals given photos containing their faces. The results are quite encouraging. In the primary example, doubling of the recognition accuracy as well as a sixfold improvement in speed is demonstrated. Various improvements, interesting statistics, as well as an empirical investigation leading to predictions of scalability to much bigger data sets are discussed.

Guided Online or Face-to-Face Cognitive Behavioral Treatment for Insomnia: A Randomized Wait-List Controlled Trial.

Science.gov (United States)

Lancee, Jaap; van Straten, Annemieke; Morina, Nexhmedin; Kaldo, Viktor; Kamphuis, Jan H

2016-01-01

To compare the efficacy of guided online and individual face-to-face cognitive behavioral treatment for insomnia (CBT-I) to a wait-list condition. A randomized controlled trial comparing three conditions: guided online; face-to-face; wait-list. Posttest measurements were administered to all conditions, along with 3- and 6-mo follow-up assessments to the online and face-to-face conditions. Ninety media-recruited participants meeting the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5) criteria for insomnia were randomly allocated to either guided online CBT-I (n = 30), individual face-to-face CBT-I (n = 30), or wait-list (n = 30). At post-assessment, the online (Cohen d = 1.2) and face-to-face (Cohen d = 2.3) intervention groups showed significantly larger treatment effects than the wait-list group on insomnia severity (insomnia severity index). Large treatment effects were also found for the sleep diary estimates (except for total sleep time), and anxiety and depression measures (for depression only in the face-to-face condition). Face-to-face treatment yielded a statistically larger treatment effect (Cohen d = 0.9) on insomnia severity than the online condition at all time points. In addition, a moderate differential effect size favoring face-to-face treatment emerged at the 3- and 6-mo follow-up on all sleep diary estimates. Face-to-face treatment further outperformed online treatment on depression and anxiety outcomes. These data show superior performance of face-to-face treatment relative to online treatment. Yet, our results also suggest that online treatment may offer a potentially cost-effective alternative to and complement face-to-face treatment. Clinicaltrials.gov, NCT01955850. A commentary on this article appears in this issue on page 13. © 2016 Associated Professional Sleep Societies, LLC.

Estimates of future demand for uranium and nuclear fuel cycle services

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Krymm, R; Woite, G [International Atomic Energy Agency, Division of Nuclear Power and Reactors, Economic Studies Section, Vienna (Austria)

1976-07-01

As a review of forecasts made over the last few years amply demonstrates, projections of nuclear power capacity on a country, regional or world basis are subject to uncertainties. It summarizes the evolution of estimates made in the recent past, should provide a sobering reminder of the advisability of relying on ranges rather than on single figures. Although they are derived from a relatively narrow range of assumptions for nuclear power capacity, the alternative estimates of demands for uranium and nuclear-fuel-cycle services differ by about 50%. If plausible variations in breeder penetration, load factors, tails assays and fuel performance were taken into account, a ratio of 2 between maximum and minimum possible demands for the 2000 could easily be approached. Thus, for instance, a 15% (instead of 5%) breeder penetration by the year 2000 would decrease annual natural uranium demand by about 10%, a drop of load factor from 0.7 to 0.6 would drop the demand by another 10%, a decrease in tail assay from 0.25% to 0.2% would drop the demand by 8%. These momentous uncertainties, characteristic of medium- and long-term demand projections, offer a sharp contrast to the inflexibility of short-term requirements. Once a nuclear plant is ordered, the demand for the fuel services required for its core and for its replacement loadings is practically fixed (subject to minor trade-offs) and it can only be delayed in time by accepting exceedingly heavy additional costs. The demand for uranium can be characterized as being uncertain in the future and inelastic in the present. It faces sources of supply which, with the exception of fabrication and conversion facilities, are characterized by long planning times, lengthy prospecting and construction times, and above all by heavy capital investments. This combination offers an almost ideal framework for instability and wild price fluctuations if consumers and suppliers operate independently seeking temporary guidance in their

Estimates of future demand for uranium and nuclear fuel cycle services

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Krymm, R.; Woite, G.

1976-01-01

As a review of forecasts made over the last few years amply demonstrates, projections of nuclear power capacity on a country, regional or world basis are subject to uncertainties. It summarizes the evolution of estimates made in the recent past, should provide a sobering reminder of the advisability of relying on ranges rather than on single figures. Although they are derived from a relatively narrow range of assumptions for nuclear power capacity, the alternative estimates of demands for uranium and nuclear-fuel-cycle services differ by about 50%. If plausible variations in breeder penetration, load factors, tails assays and fuel performance were taken into account, a ratio of 2 between maximum and minimum possible demands for the 2000 could easily be approached. Thus, for instance, a 15% (instead of 5%) breeder penetration by the year 2000 would decrease annual natural uranium demand by about 10%, a drop of load factor from 0.7 to 0.6 would drop the demand by another 10%, a decrease in tail assay from 0.25% to 0.2% would drop the demand by 8%. These momentous uncertainties, characteristic of medium- and long-term demand projections, offer a sharp contrast to the inflexibility of short-term requirements. Once a nuclear plant is ordered, the demand for the fuel services required for its core and for its replacement loadings is practically fixed (subject to minor trade-offs) and it can only be delayed in time by accepting exceedingly heavy additional costs. The demand for uranium can be characterized as being uncertain in the future and inelastic in the present. It faces sources of supply which, with the exception of fabrication and conversion facilities, are characterized by long planning times, lengthy prospecting and construction times, and above all by heavy capital investments. This combination offers an almost ideal framework for instability and wild price fluctuations if consumers and suppliers operate independently seeking temporary guidance in their

Face learning and the emergence of view-independent face recognition: an event-related brain potential study.

Science.gov (United States)

Zimmermann, Friederike G S; Eimer, Martin

2013-06-01

Recognizing unfamiliar faces is more difficult than familiar face recognition, and this has been attributed to qualitative differences in the processing of familiar and unfamiliar faces. Familiar faces are assumed to be represented by view-independent codes, whereas unfamiliar face recognition depends mainly on view-dependent low-level pictorial representations. We employed an electrophysiological marker of visual face recognition processes in order to track the emergence of view-independence during the learning of previously unfamiliar faces. Two face images showing either the same or two different individuals in the same or two different views were presented in rapid succession, and participants had to perform an identity-matching task. On trials where both faces showed the same view, repeating the face of the same individual triggered an N250r component at occipito-temporal electrodes, reflecting the rapid activation of visual face memory. A reliable N250r component was also observed on view-change trials. Crucially, this view-independence emerged as a result of face learning. In the first half of the experiment, N250r components were present only on view-repetition trials but were absent on view-change trials, demonstrating that matching unfamiliar faces was initially based on strictly view-dependent codes. In the second half, the N250r was triggered not only on view-repetition trials but also on view-change trials, indicating that face recognition had now become more view-independent. This transition may be due to the acquisition of abstract structural codes of individual faces during face learning, but could also reflect the formation of associative links between sets of view-specific pictorial representations of individual faces. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Demands Set Upon Modern Cartographic Visualization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stanislav Frangeš

2007-05-01

Full Text Available Scientific cartography has the task to develop and research new methods of cartographic visualization. General demands are set upon modern cartographic visualization, which encompasses digital cartography and computer graphics: legibility, clearness, accuracy, plainness and aesthetics. In this paper, it is explained in detail what demands should be met in order to satisfy the general demands set. In order to satisfy the demand of legibility, one should respect conditions of minimal sizes, appropriate graphical density and better differentiation of known features. Demand of clearness needs to be met by fulfilling conditions of simplicity, contrasting quality and layer arrangement of cartographic representation. Accuracy, as the demand on cartographic visualization, can be divided into positioning accuracy and accuracy signs. For fulfilling the demand of plainness, the conditions of symbolism, traditionalism and hierarchic organization should be met. Demand of aesthetics will be met if the conditions of beauty and harmony are fulfilled.

Natural gas facing the new energy disorders: opportunities and constraints of a waited economic growth

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Valais, M.

1991-01-01

This paper studies natural gas industry facing the new disorders on energy markets. Energy world-wide demand growth is the strong point of natural gas development. Natural gas supply is based on abundant resources, well geographically distributed, but more expensive. This paper describes international trade growth and economic constraints, the impact of economic growth reduction, Gulf crisis and USSR or East Europe disorders on natural gas market. In the last part, the influence of environmental policy, regulations and ecological anxiety are briefly approached. 1 fig., 3 tabs

Comparing Face Detection and Recognition Techniques

OpenAIRE

Korra, Jyothi

2016-01-01

This paper implements and compares different techniques for face detection and recognition. One is find where the face is located in the images that is face detection and second is face recognition that is identifying the person. We study three techniques in this paper: Face detection using self organizing map (SOM), Face recognition by projection and nearest neighbor and Face recognition using SVM.

North American oil demand outlook

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Stewart, M.B.

1995-01-01

An understanding of the relationship of economic growth and potential petroleum product demand is needed to forecast the potential for North American oil demand growth as well as knowledge of world supply and price. The bullish expectations for economic growth in the US and Canada auger well for North American refiners and marketeers. The growth in world economic output forecast, however, means a larger oil demand and an increase in OPEC's pricing power. Such price increases could depress North American oil demand growth. (author)

Dynamic inventory rationing strategies for inventory systems with two demand classes, Poisson demand and backordering

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Teunter, Ruud H.; Haneveld, Willem K. Klein

2008-01-01

We study inventory systems with two demand classes (critical and non-critical), Poisson demand and backordering. We analyze dynamic rationing strategies where the number of items reserved for critical demand depends on the remaining time until the next order arrives. Different from results in the

Discrimination between smiling faces: Human observers vs. automated face analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Del Líbano, Mario; Calvo, Manuel G; Fernández-Martín, Andrés; Recio, Guillermo

2018-05-11

This study investigated (a) how prototypical happy faces (with happy eyes and a smile) can be discriminated from blended expressions with a smile but non-happy eyes, depending on type and intensity of the eye expression; and (b) how smile discrimination differs for human perceivers versus automated face analysis, depending on affective valence and morphological facial features. Human observers categorized faces as happy or non-happy, or rated their valence. Automated analysis (FACET software) computed seven expressions (including joy/happiness) and 20 facial action units (AUs). Physical properties (low-level image statistics and visual saliency) of the face stimuli were controlled. Results revealed, first, that some blended expressions (especially, with angry eyes) had lower discrimination thresholds (i.e., they were identified as "non-happy" at lower non-happy eye intensities) than others (especially, with neutral eyes). Second, discrimination sensitivity was better for human perceivers than for automated FACET analysis. As an additional finding, affective valence predicted human discrimination performance, whereas morphological AUs predicted FACET discrimination. FACET can be a valid tool for categorizing prototypical expressions, but is currently more limited than human observers for discrimination of blended expressions. Configural processing facilitates detection of in/congruence(s) across regions, and thus detection of non-genuine smiling faces (due to non-happy eyes). Copyright © 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Demand for long acting contraceptive methods and associated factors among family planning service users, Northwest Ethiopia: a health facility based cross sectional study.

Science.gov (United States)

Yalew, Saleamlak Adbaru; Zeleke, Berihun Megabiaw; Teferra, Alemayehu Shimeka

2015-02-04

Demand for long acting contraceptive methods is one of the key factors for total fertility rate and reproductive health issues. Increased demand for these methods can decline fertility rate through spacing and limiting family size in turn improving maternal and family health and socioeconomic development of a country. The aim of this study was to assess demand for long acting contraceptives and associated factors among family planning users in Debre-Tabor Town, Northwest Ethiopia. Facility based cross-sectional study was conducted from July to August 2013. Data was collected on 487 current family planning users through face to face interview using structured questionnaire. Study participants were selected by systematic sampling method. Data were entered in to Epi Info and analyzed by using SPSS version 20. Bi-variable and multi-variable regression analyses were done to identify factors associated with demand for long acting contraceptive methods. Odds ratio with 95% CI was used to assess the association between the independent variables and demand for long acting family planning methods. The study showed that, demand for long acting contraceptives was 17%. Only 9.2% of the women were using long acting contraceptive methods (met need). About 7.8% of women were using short acting methods while they actually want to use long acting methods (unmet need). Demand for LACMs was positively associated 3 with being a daily labour (AOR = 3.87, 95% CI = [1.06, 14.20]), being a student (AOR = 2.64, 95% CI = [1.27, 5.47]), no future birth intensions (AOR = 2.17, 95% CI = [1.12, 4.23]), having five or more children (AOR = 1.67, 95% CI = [1.58, 4.83]), deciding together with husbands for using the methods (AOR = 2.73, 95% CI = [1.40, 5.32]) and often having discussion with husband (AOR = 3.89, 95% CI = [1.98, 7.65]). Clients treated poorly by the health care providers during taking the services was negatively associated with demand for LACMs (AOR = 0.42, 95% CI = [0.24, 0

Pay for load demand - electricity pricing with load demand component