A novel airport extraction model based on saliency region detection for high spatial resolution remote sensing images

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Lv, Wen; Zhang, Libao; Zhu, Yongchun

2017-06-01

The airport is one of the most crucial traffic facilities in military and civil fields. Automatic airport extraction in high spatial resolution remote sensing images has many applications such as regional planning and military reconnaissance. Traditional airport extraction strategies usually base on prior knowledge and locate the airport target by template matching and classification, which will cause high computation complexity and large costs of computing resources for high spatial resolution remote sensing images. In this paper, we propose a novel automatic airport extraction model based on saliency region detection, airport runway extraction and adaptive threshold segmentation. In saliency region detection, we choose frequency-tuned (FT) model for computing airport saliency using low level features of color and luminance that is easy and fast to implement and can provide full-resolution saliency maps. In airport runway extraction, Hough transform is adopted to count the number of parallel line segments. In adaptive threshold segmentation, the Otsu threshold segmentation algorithm is proposed to obtain more accurate airport regions. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms existing saliency analysis models and shows good performance in the extraction of the airport.

Shallow and deep convolutional networks for saliency prediction

OpenAIRE

Pan, Junting; Sayrol Clols, Elisa; Giró Nieto, Xavier; McGuinness, Kevin; O'Connor, Noel

2016-01-01

The prediction of salient areas in images has been traditionally addressed with hand-crafted features based on neuroscience principles. This paper, however, addresses the problem with a completely data-driven approach by training a convolutional neural network (convnet). The learning process is formulated as a minimization of a loss function that measures the Euclidean distance of the predicted saliency map with the provided ground truth. The recent publication of large datasets of saliency p...

Saliency Detection via Absorbing Markov Chain With Learnt Transition Probability.

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Lihe Zhang; Jianwu Ai; Bowen Jiang; Huchuan Lu; Xiukui Li

2018-02-01

In this paper, we propose a bottom-up saliency model based on absorbing Markov chain (AMC). First, a sparsely connected graph is constructed to capture the local context information of each node. All image boundary nodes and other nodes are, respectively, treated as the absorbing nodes and transient nodes in the absorbing Markov chain. Then, the expected number of times from each transient node to all other transient nodes can be used to represent the saliency value of this node. The absorbed time depends on the weights on the path and their spatial coordinates, which are completely encoded in the transition probability matrix. Considering the importance of this matrix, we adopt different hierarchies of deep features extracted from fully convolutional networks and learn a transition probability matrix, which is called learnt transition probability matrix. Although the performance is significantly promoted, salient objects are not uniformly highlighted very well. To solve this problem, an angular embedding technique is investigated to refine the saliency results. Based on pairwise local orderings, which are produced by the saliency maps of AMC and boundary maps, we rearrange the global orderings (saliency value) of all nodes. Extensive experiments demonstrate that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods on six publicly available benchmark data sets.

Saliency Changes Appearance

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Kerzel, Dirk; Schönhammer, Josef; Burra, Nicolas; Born, Sabine; Souto, David

2011-01-01

Numerous studies have suggested that the deployment of attention is linked to saliency. In contrast, very little is known about how salient objects are perceived. To probe the perception of salient elements, observers compared two horizontally aligned stimuli in an array of eight elements. One of them was salient because of its orientation or direction of motion. We observed that the perceived luminance contrast or color saturation of the salient element increased: the salient stimulus looked even more salient. We explored the possibility that changes in appearance were caused by attention. We chose an event-related potential indexing attentional selection, the N2pc, to answer this question. The absence of an N2pc to the salient object provides preliminary evidence against involuntary attentional capture by the salient element. We suggest that signals from a master saliency map flow back into individual feature maps. These signals boost the perceived feature contrast of salient objects, even on perceptual dimensions different from the one that initially defined saliency. PMID:22162760

A speeded-up saliency region-based contrast detection method for small targets

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Li, Zhengjie; Zhang, Haiying; Bai, Jiaojiao; Zhou, Zhongjun; Zheng, Huihuang

2018-04-01

To cope with the rapid development of the real applications for infrared small targets, the researchers have tried their best to pursue more robust detection methods. At present, the contrast measure-based method has become a promising research branch. Following the framework, in this paper, a speeded-up contrast measure scheme is proposed based on the saliency detection and density clustering. First, the saliency region is segmented by saliency detection method, and then, the Multi-scale contrast calculation is carried out on it instead of traversing the whole image. Second, the target with a certain "integrity" property in spatial is exploited to distinguish the target from the isolated noises by density clustering. Finally, the targets are detected by a self-adaptation threshold. Compared with time-consuming MPCM (Multiscale Patch Contrast Map), the time cost of the speeded-up version is within a few seconds. Additional, due to the use of "clustering segmentation", the false alarm caused by heavy noises can be restrained to a lower level. The experiments show that our method has a satisfied FASR (False alarm suppression ratio) and real-time performance compared with the state-of-art algorithms no matter in cloudy sky or sea-sky background.

An Anomaly Detector Based on Multi-aperture Mapping for Hyperspectral Data

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LI Min

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Considering the correlationship of spectral content between anomaly and clutter background, inaccurate selection of background pixels induced estimation error of background model. In order to solve the above problems, a multi-aperture mapping based anomaly detector was proposed in this paper. Firstly, differing from background model which focused on feature extraction of background, multi-aperture mapping of hyperspectral data characterized the feature of whole hyperspectral data. According to constructed basis set of multi-aperture mapping, anomaly salience index of every test pixel was proposed to measure the relative statistic difference. Secondly, in order to analysis the moderate salience anomaly precisely, membership value was constructed to identify anomaly salience of test pixels continuously based on fuzzy logical theory. At same time, weighted iterative estimation of multi-aperture mapping was expected to converge adaptively with membership value as weight. Thirdly, classical defuzzification was proposed to fuse different detection results. Hyperspectral data was used in the experiments, and the robustness and sensitivity to anomaly with lower silence of proposed detector were tested.

Salience and attention in surprisal-based accounts of language processing

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Alessandra eZarcone

2016-06-01

Full Text Available The notion of salience has been singled out as the explanatory factor for a diverse range oflinguistic phenomena. In particular, perceptual salience (e.g. visual salience of objects in the world,acoustic prominence of linguistic sounds and semantic-pragmatic salience (e.g. prominence ofrecently mentioned or topical referents have been shown to influence language comprehensionand production. A different line of research has sought to account for behavioral correlates ofcognitive load during comprehension as well as for certain patterns in language usage usinginformation-theoretic notions, such as surprisal. Surprisal and salience both affect languageprocessing at different levels, but the relationship between the two has not been adequatelyelucidated, and the question of whether salience can be reduced to surprisal / predictability isstill open. Our review identifies two main challenges in addressing this question: terminologicalinconsistency and lack of integration between high and low levels of representations in salience-based accounts and surprisal-based accounts. We capitalise upon work in visual cognition inorder to orient ourselves in surveying the different facets of the notion of salience in linguisticsand their relation with models of surprisal. We find that work on salience highlights aspects oflinguistic communication that models of surprisal tend to overlook, namely the role of attentionand relevance to current goals, and we argue that the Predictive Coding framework provides aunified view which can account for the role played by attention and predictability at different levelsof processing and which can clarify the interplay between low and high levels of processes andbetween predictability-driven expectation and attention-driven focus.

Salience and Attention in Surprisal-Based Accounts of Language Processing.

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Zarcone, Alessandra; van Schijndel, Marten; Vogels, Jorrig; Demberg, Vera

2016-01-01

The notion of salience has been singled out as the explanatory factor for a diverse range of linguistic phenomena. In particular, perceptual salience (e.g., visual salience of objects in the world, acoustic prominence of linguistic sounds) and semantic-pragmatic salience (e.g., prominence of recently mentioned or topical referents) have been shown to influence language comprehension and production. A different line of research has sought to account for behavioral correlates of cognitive load during comprehension as well as for certain patterns in language usage using information-theoretic notions, such as surprisal. Surprisal and salience both affect language processing at different levels, but the relationship between the two has not been adequately elucidated, and the question of whether salience can be reduced to surprisal / predictability is still open. Our review identifies two main challenges in addressing this question: terminological inconsistency and lack of integration between high and low levels of representations in salience-based accounts and surprisal-based accounts. We capitalize upon work in visual cognition in order to orient ourselves in surveying the different facets of the notion of salience in linguistics and their relation with models of surprisal. We find that work on salience highlights aspects of linguistic communication that models of surprisal tend to overlook, namely the role of attention and relevance to current goals, and we argue that the Predictive Coding framework provides a unified view which can account for the role played by attention and predictability at different levels of processing and which can clarify the interplay between low and high levels of processes and between predictability-driven expectation and attention-driven focus.

Salience and Attention in Surprisal-Based Accounts of Language Processing

Science.gov (United States)

Zarcone, Alessandra; van Schijndel, Marten; Vogels, Jorrig; Demberg, Vera

2016-01-01

The notion of salience has been singled out as the explanatory factor for a diverse range of linguistic phenomena. In particular, perceptual salience (e.g., visual salience of objects in the world, acoustic prominence of linguistic sounds) and semantic-pragmatic salience (e.g., prominence of recently mentioned or topical referents) have been shown to influence language comprehension and production. A different line of research has sought to account for behavioral correlates of cognitive load during comprehension as well as for certain patterns in language usage using information-theoretic notions, such as surprisal. Surprisal and salience both affect language processing at different levels, but the relationship between the two has not been adequately elucidated, and the question of whether salience can be reduced to surprisal / predictability is still open. Our review identifies two main challenges in addressing this question: terminological inconsistency and lack of integration between high and low levels of representations in salience-based accounts and surprisal-based accounts. We capitalize upon work in visual cognition in order to orient ourselves in surveying the different facets of the notion of salience in linguistics and their relation with models of surprisal. We find that work on salience highlights aspects of linguistic communication that models of surprisal tend to overlook, namely the role of attention and relevance to current goals, and we argue that the Predictive Coding framework provides a unified view which can account for the role played by attention and predictability at different levels of processing and which can clarify the interplay between low and high levels of processes and between predictability-driven expectation and attention-driven focus. PMID:27375525

Image resizing using saliency strength map and seam carving for white blood cell analysis

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Nam JaeYeal

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background A new image-resizing method using seam carving and a Saliency Strength Map (SSM is proposed to preserve important contents, such as white blood cells included in blood cell images. Methods To apply seam carving to cell images, a SSM is initially generated using a visual attention model and the structural properties of white blood cells are then used to create an energy map for seam carving. As a result, the energy map maximizes the energies of the white blood cells, while minimizing the energies of the red blood cells and background. Thus, the use of a SSM allows the proposed method to reduce the image size efficiently, while preserving the important white blood cells. Results Experimental results using the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio and ROD (Ratio of Distortion of blood cell images confirm that the proposed method is able to produce better resizing results than conventional methods, as the seam carving is performed based on an SSM and energy map. Conclusions For further improvement, a faster medical image resizing method is currently being investigated to reduce the computation time, while maintaining the same image quality.

Image resizing using saliency strength map and seam carving for white blood cell analysis.

Science.gov (United States)

Ko, ByoungChul; Kim, SeongHoon; Nam, JaeYeal

2010-09-20

A new image-resizing method using seam carving and a Saliency Strength Map (SSM) is proposed to preserve important contents, such as white blood cells included in blood cell images. To apply seam carving to cell images, a SSM is initially generated using a visual attention model and the structural properties of white blood cells are then used to create an energy map for seam carving. As a result, the energy map maximizes the energies of the white blood cells, while minimizing the energies of the red blood cells and background. Thus, the use of a SSM allows the proposed method to reduce the image size efficiently, while preserving the important white blood cells. Experimental results using the PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio) and ROD (Ratio of Distortion) of blood cell images confirm that the proposed method is able to produce better resizing results than conventional methods, as the seam carving is performed based on an SSM and energy map. For further improvement, a faster medical image resizing method is currently being investigated to reduce the computation time, while maintaining the same image quality.

An Improved Saliency Detection Approach for Flying Apsaras in the Dunhuang Grotto Murals, China

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Zhong Chen

2015-01-01

Full Text Available Saliency can be described as the ability of an item to be detected from its background in any particular scene, and it aims to estimate the probable location of the salient objects. Due to the salient map that computed by local contrast features can extract and highlight the edge parts including painting lines of Flying Apsaras, in this paper, we proposed an improved approach based on a frequency-tuned method for visual saliency detection of Flying Apsaras in the Dunhuang Grotto Murals, China. This improved saliency detection approach comprises three important steps: (1 image color and gray channel decomposition; (2 gray feature value computation and color channel convolution; (3 visual saliency definition based on normalization of previous visual saliency and spatial attention function. Unlike existing approaches that rely on many complex image features, this proposed approach only used local contrast and spatial attention information to simulate human’s visual attention stimuli. This improved approach resulted in a much more efficient salient map in the aspect of computing performance. Furthermore, experimental results on the dataset of Flying Apsaras in the Dunhuang Grotto Murals showed that the proposed visual saliency detection approach is very effective when compared with five other state-of-the-art approaches.

On the distribution of saliency.

Science.gov (United States)

Berengolts, Alexander; Lindenbaum, Michael

2006-12-01

Detecting salient structures is a basic task in perceptual organization. Saliency algorithms typically mark edge-points with some saliency measure, which grows with the length and smoothness of the curve on which these edge-points lie. Here, we propose a modified saliency estimation mechanism that is based on probabilistically specified grouping cues and on curve length distributions. In this framework, the Shashua and Ullman saliency mechanism may be interpreted as a process for detecting the curve with maximal expected length. Generalized types of saliency naturally follow. We propose several specific generalizations (e.g., gray-level-based saliency) and rigorously derive the limitations on generalized saliency types. We then carry out a probabilistic analysis of expected length saliencies. Using ergodicity and asymptotic analysis, we derive the saliency distributions associated with the main curves and with the rest of the image. We then extend this analysis to finite-length curves. Using the derived distributions, we derive the optimal threshold on the saliency for discriminating between figure and background and bound the saliency-based figure-from-ground performance.

Visual Saliency Prediction and Evaluation across Different Perceptual Tasks.

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Shafin Rahman

Full Text Available Saliency maps produced by different algorithms are often evaluated by comparing output to fixated image locations appearing in human eye tracking data. There are challenges in evaluation based on fixation data due to bias in the data. Properties of eye movement patterns that are independent of image content may limit the validity of evaluation results, including spatial bias in fixation data. To address this problem, we present modeling and evaluation results for data derived from different perceptual tasks related to the concept of saliency. We also present a novel approach to benchmarking to deal with some of the challenges posed by spatial bias. The results presented establish the value of alternatives to fixation data to drive improvement and development of models. We also demonstrate an approach to approximate the output of alternative perceptual tasks based on computational saliency and/or eye gaze data. As a whole, this work presents novel benchmarking results and methods, establishes a new performance baseline for perceptual tasks that provide an alternative window into visual saliency, and demonstrates the capacity for saliency to serve in approximating human behaviour for one visual task given data from another.

Infrared Small Moving Target Detection via Saliency Histogram and Geometrical Invariability

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Minjie Wan

2017-06-01

Full Text Available In order to detect both bright and dark small moving targets effectively in infrared (IR video sequences, a saliency histogram and geometrical invariability based method is presented in this paper. First, a saliency map that roughly highlights the salient regions of the original image is obtained by tuning its amplitude spectrum in the frequency domain. Then, a saliency histogram is constructed by means of averaging the accumulated saliency value of each gray level in the map, through which bins corresponding to bright target and dark target are assigned with large values in the histogram. Next, single-frame detection of candidate targets is accomplished by a binarized segmentation using an adaptive threshold, and their centroid coordinates with sub-pixel accuracy are calculated through a connected components labeling method as well as a gray-weighted criterion. Finally, considering the motion characteristics in consecutive frames, an inter-frame false alarm suppression method based on geometrical invariability is developed to improve the precision rate further. Quantitative analyses demonstrate the detecting precision of this proposed approach can be up to 97% and Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC curves further verify our method outperforms other state-of-the-arts methods in both detection rate and false alarm rate.

Saliency U-Net: A regional saliency map-driven hybrid deep learning network for anomaly segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Karargyros, Alex; Syeda-Mahmood, Tanveer

2018-02-01

Deep learning networks are gaining popularity in many medical image analysis tasks due to their generalized ability to automatically extract relevant features from raw images. However, this can make the learning problem unnecessarily harder requiring network architectures of high complexity. In case of anomaly detection, in particular, there is often sufficient regional difference between the anomaly and the surrounding parenchyma that could be easily highlighted through bottom-up saliency operators. In this paper we propose a new hybrid deep learning network using a combination of raw image and such regional maps to more accurately learn the anomalies using simpler network architectures. Specifically, we modify a deep learning network called U-Net using both the raw and pre-segmented images as input to produce joint encoding (contraction) and expansion paths (decoding) in the U-Net. We present results of successfully delineating subdural and epidural hematomas in brain CT imaging and liver hemangioma in abdominal CT images using such network.

Robust online tracking via adaptive samples selection with saliency detection

Science.gov (United States)

Yan, Jia; Chen, Xi; Zhu, QiuPing

2013-12-01

Online tracking has shown to be successful in tracking of previously unknown objects. However, there are two important factors which lead to drift problem of online tracking, the one is how to select the exact labeled samples even when the target locations are inaccurate, and the other is how to handle the confusors which have similar features with the target. In this article, we propose a robust online tracking algorithm with adaptive samples selection based on saliency detection to overcome the drift problem. To deal with the problem of degrading the classifiers using mis-aligned samples, we introduce the saliency detection method to our tracking problem. Saliency maps and the strong classifiers are combined to extract the most correct positive samples. Our approach employs a simple yet saliency detection algorithm based on image spectral residual analysis. Furthermore, instead of using the random patches as the negative samples, we propose a reasonable selection criterion, in which both the saliency confidence and similarity are considered with the benefits that confusors in the surrounding background are incorporated into the classifiers update process before the drift occurs. The tracking task is formulated as a binary classification via online boosting framework. Experiment results in several challenging video sequences demonstrate the accuracy and stability of our tracker.

Gaze distribution analysis and saliency prediction across age groups.

Science.gov (United States)

Krishna, Onkar; Helo, Andrea; Rämä, Pia; Aizawa, Kiyoharu

2018-01-01

Knowledge of the human visual system helps to develop better computational models of visual attention. State-of-the-art models have been developed to mimic the visual attention system of young adults that, however, largely ignore the variations that occur with age. In this paper, we investigated how visual scene processing changes with age and we propose an age-adapted framework that helps to develop a computational model that can predict saliency across different age groups. Our analysis uncovers how the explorativeness of an observer varies with age, how well saliency maps of an age group agree with fixation points of observers from the same or different age groups, and how age influences the center bias tendency. We analyzed the eye movement behavior of 82 observers belonging to four age groups while they explored visual scenes. Explorative- ness was quantified in terms of the entropy of a saliency map, and area under the curve (AUC) metrics was used to quantify the agreement analysis and the center bias tendency. Analysis results were used to develop age adapted saliency models. Our results suggest that the proposed age-adapted saliency model outperforms existing saliency models in predicting the regions of interest across age groups.

Saliency image of feature building for image quality assessment

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Ju, Xinuo; Sun, Jiyin; Wang, Peng

2011-11-01

The purpose and method of image quality assessment are quite different for automatic target recognition (ATR) and traditional application. Local invariant feature detectors, mainly including corner detectors, blob detectors and region detectors etc., are widely applied for ATR. A saliency model of feature was proposed to evaluate feasibility of ATR in this paper. The first step consisted of computing the first-order derivatives on horizontal orientation and vertical orientation, and computing DoG maps in different scales respectively. Next, saliency images of feature were built based auto-correlation matrix in different scale. Then, saliency images of feature of different scales amalgamated. Experiment were performed on a large test set, including infrared images and optical images, and the result showed that the salient regions computed by this model were consistent with real feature regions computed by mostly local invariant feature extraction algorithms.

A Depth Map Generation Algorithm Based on Saliency Detection for 2D to 3D Conversion

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Yizhong; Hu, Xionglou; Wu, Nengju; Wang, Pengfei; Xu, Dong; Rong, Shen

2017-09-01

In recent years, 3D movies attract people's attention more and more because of their immersive stereoscopic experience. However, 3D movies is still insufficient, so estimating depth information for 2D to 3D conversion from a video is more and more important. In this paper, we present a novel algorithm to estimate depth information from a video via scene classification algorithm. In order to obtain perceptually reliable depth information for viewers, the algorithm classifies them into three categories: landscape type, close-up type, linear perspective type firstly. Then we employ a specific algorithm to divide the landscape type image into many blocks, and assign depth value by similar relative height cue with the image. As to the close-up type image, a saliency-based method is adopted to enhance the foreground in the image and the method combine it with the global depth gradient to generate final depth map. By vanishing line detection, the calculated vanishing point which is regarded as the farthest point to the viewer is assigned with deepest depth value. According to the distance between the other points and the vanishing point, the entire image is assigned with corresponding depth value. Finally, depth image-based rendering is employed to generate stereoscopic virtual views after bilateral filter. Experiments show that the proposed algorithm can achieve realistic 3D effects and yield satisfactory results, while the perception scores of anaglyph images lie between 6.8 and 7.8.

Landmark Detection in Orbital Images Using Salience Histograms

Science.gov (United States)

Wagstaff, Kiri L.; Panetta, Julian; Schorghofer, Norbert; Greeley, Ronald; PendletonHoffer, Mary; bunte, Melissa

2010-01-01

NASA's planetary missions have collected, and continue to collect, massive volumes of orbital imagery. The volume is such that it is difficult to manually review all of the data and determine its significance. As a result, images are indexed and searchable by location and date but generally not by their content. A new automated method analyzes images and identifies "landmarks," or visually salient features such as gullies, craters, dust devil tracks, and the like. This technique uses a statistical measure of salience derived from information theory, so it is not associated with any specific landmark type. It identifies regions that are unusual or that stand out from their surroundings, so the resulting landmarks are context-sensitive areas that can be used to recognize the same area when it is encountered again. A machine learning classifier is used to identify the type of each discovered landmark. Using a specified window size, an intensity histogram is computed for each such window within the larger image (sliding the window across the image). Next, a salience map is computed that specifies, for each pixel, the salience of the window centered at that pixel. The salience map is thresholded to identify landmark contours (polygons) using the upper quartile of salience values. Descriptive attributes are extracted for each landmark polygon: size, perimeter, mean intensity, standard deviation of intensity, and shape features derived from an ellipse fit.

Saliency mapping in the optic tectum and its relationship to habituation

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Arkadeb eDutta

2014-01-01

Full Text Available Habituation of the orienting response has long served as a model system for studying fundamental psychological phenomena such as learning, attention, decisions and surprise. In this article, we review an emerging hypothesis that the evolutionary role of the superior colliculus (SC in mammals or its homologue in birds, the optic tectum (OT, is to select the most salient target and send this information to the appropriate brain regions to control the body and brain orienting responses. Recent studies have begun to reveal mechanisms of how saliency is computed in the OT/SC, demonstrating a striking similarity between mammals and birds. The saliency of a target can be determined by how different it is from the surrounding objects, by how different it is from its history (that is habituation and by how relevant it is for the task at hand. Here, we will first review evidence, mostly from primates and barn owls, that all three types of saliency computations are linked in the OT/SC. We will then focus more on neural adaptation in the OT and its possible link to temporal saliency and habituation.

Two-stage sparse coding of region covariance via Log-Euclidean kernels to detect saliency.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ying-Ying; Yang, Cai; Zhang, Ping

2017-05-01

In this paper, we present a novel bottom-up saliency detection algorithm from the perspective of covariance matrices on a Riemannian manifold. Each superpixel is described by a region covariance matrix on Riemannian Manifolds. We carry out a two-stage sparse coding scheme via Log-Euclidean kernels to extract salient objects efficiently. In the first stage, given background dictionary on image borders, sparse coding of each region covariance via Log-Euclidean kernels is performed. The reconstruction error on the background dictionary is regarded as the initial saliency of each superpixel. In the second stage, an improvement of the initial result is achieved by calculating reconstruction errors of the superpixels on foreground dictionary, which is extracted from the first stage saliency map. The sparse coding in the second stage is similar to the first stage, but is able to effectively highlight the salient objects uniformly from the background. Finally, three post-processing methods-highlight-inhibition function, context-based saliency weighting, and the graph cut-are adopted to further refine the saliency map. Experiments on four public benchmark datasets show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of precision, recall and mean absolute error, and demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed method. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Fabric defect detection based on visual saliency using deep feature and low-rank recovery

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhoufeng; Wang, Baorui; Li, Chunlei; Li, Bicao; Dong, Yan

2018-04-01

Fabric defect detection plays an important role in improving the quality of fabric product. In this paper, a novel fabric defect detection method based on visual saliency using deep feature and low-rank recovery was proposed. First, unsupervised training is carried out by the initial network parameters based on MNIST large datasets. The supervised fine-tuning of fabric image library based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) is implemented, and then more accurate deep neural network model is generated. Second, the fabric images are uniformly divided into the image block with the same size, then we extract their multi-layer deep features using the trained deep network. Thereafter, all the extracted features are concentrated into a feature matrix. Third, low-rank matrix recovery is adopted to divide the feature matrix into the low-rank matrix which indicates the background and the sparse matrix which indicates the salient defect. In the end, the iterative optimal threshold segmentation algorithm is utilized to segment the saliency maps generated by the sparse matrix to locate the fabric defect area. Experimental results demonstrate that the feature extracted by CNN is more suitable for characterizing the fabric texture than the traditional LBP, HOG and other hand-crafted features extraction method, and the proposed method can accurately detect the defect regions of various fabric defects, even for the image with complex texture.

Saliency predicts change detection in pictures of natural scenes.

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Wright, Michael J

2005-01-01

It has been proposed that the visual system encodes the salience of objects in the visual field in an explicit two-dimensional map that guides visual selective attention. Experiments were conducted to determine whether salience measurements applied to regions of pictures of outdoor scenes could predict the detection of changes in those regions. To obtain a quantitative measure of change detection, observers located changes in pairs of colour pictures presented across an interstimulus interval (ISI). Salience measurements were then obtained from different observers for image change regions using three independent methods, and all were positively correlated with change detection. Factor analysis extracted a single saliency factor that accounted for 62% of the variance contained in the four measures. Finally, estimates of the magnitude of the image change in each picture pair were obtained, using nine separate visual filters representing low-level vision features (luminance, colour, spatial frequency, orientation, edge density). None of the feature outputs was significantly associated with change detection or saliency. On the other hand it was shown that high-level (structural) properties of the changed region were related to saliency and to change detection: objects were more salient than shadows and more detectable when changed.

Multi-scale image segmentation method with visual saliency constraints and its application

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Yan; Yu, Jie; Sun, Kaimin

2018-03-01

Object-based image analysis method has many advantages over pixel-based methods, so it is one of the current research hotspots. It is very important to get the image objects by multi-scale image segmentation in order to carry out object-based image analysis. The current popular image segmentation methods mainly share the bottom-up segmentation principle, which is simple to realize and the object boundaries obtained are accurate. However, the macro statistical characteristics of the image areas are difficult to be taken into account, and fragmented segmentation (or over-segmentation) results are difficult to avoid. In addition, when it comes to information extraction, target recognition and other applications, image targets are not equally important, i.e., some specific targets or target groups with particular features worth more attention than the others. To avoid the problem of over-segmentation and highlight the targets of interest, this paper proposes a multi-scale image segmentation method with visually saliency graph constraints. Visual saliency theory and the typical feature extraction method are adopted to obtain the visual saliency information, especially the macroscopic information to be analyzed. The visual saliency information is used as a distribution map of homogeneity weight, where each pixel is given a weight. This weight acts as one of the merging constraints in the multi- scale image segmentation. As a result, pixels that macroscopically belong to the same object but are locally different can be more likely assigned to one same object. In addition, due to the constraint of visual saliency model, the constraint ability over local-macroscopic characteristics can be well controlled during the segmentation process based on different objects. These controls will improve the completeness of visually saliency areas in the segmentation results while diluting the controlling effect for non- saliency background areas. Experiments show that this method works

Reprint of "Two-stage sparse coding of region covariance via Log-Euclidean kernels to detect saliency".

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Ying-Ying; Yang, Cai; Zhang, Ping

2017-08-01

In this paper, we present a novel bottom-up saliency detection algorithm from the perspective of covariance matrices on a Riemannian manifold. Each superpixel is described by a region covariance matrix on Riemannian Manifolds. We carry out a two-stage sparse coding scheme via Log-Euclidean kernels to extract salient objects efficiently. In the first stage, given background dictionary on image borders, sparse coding of each region covariance via Log-Euclidean kernels is performed. The reconstruction error on the background dictionary is regarded as the initial saliency of each superpixel. In the second stage, an improvement of the initial result is achieved by calculating reconstruction errors of the superpixels on foreground dictionary, which is extracted from the first stage saliency map. The sparse coding in the second stage is similar to the first stage, but is able to effectively highlight the salient objects uniformly from the background. Finally, three post-processing methods-highlight-inhibition function, context-based saliency weighting, and the graph cut-are adopted to further refine the saliency map. Experiments on four public benchmark datasets show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of precision, recall and mean absolute error, and demonstrate the robustness and efficiency of the proposed method. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Salience of the lambs: a test of the saliency map hypothesis with pictures of emotive objects.

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Humphrey, Katherine; Underwood, Geoffrey; Lambert, Tony

2012-01-25

Humans have an ability to rapidly detect emotive stimuli. However, many emotional objects in a scene are also highly visually salient, which raises the question of how dependent the effects of emotionality are on visual saliency and whether the presence of an emotional object changes the power of a more visually salient object in attracting attention. Participants were shown a set of positive, negative, and neutral pictures and completed recall and recognition memory tests. Eye movement data revealed that visual saliency does influence eye movements, but the effect is reliably reduced when an emotional object is present. Pictures containing negative objects were recognized more accurately and recalled in greater detail, and participants fixated more on negative objects than positive or neutral ones. Initial fixations were more likely to be on emotional objects than more visually salient neutral ones, suggesting that the processing of emotional features occurs at a very early stage of perception.

The theory-based influence of map features on risk beliefs: self-reports of what is seen and understood for maps depicting an environmental health hazard.

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Severtson, Dolores J; Vatovec, Christine

2012-08-01

Theory-based research is needed to understand how maps of environmental health risk information influence risk beliefs and protective behavior. Using theoretical concepts from multiple fields of study including visual cognition, semiotics, health behavior, and learning and memory supports a comprehensive assessment of this influence. The authors report results from 13 cognitive interviews that provide theory-based insights into how visual features influenced what participants saw and the meaning of what they saw as they viewed 3 formats of water test results for private wells (choropleth map, dot map, and a table). The unit of perception, color, proximity to hazards, geographic distribution, and visual salience had substantial influences on what participants saw and their resulting risk beliefs. These influences are explained by theoretical factors that shape what is seen, properties of features that shape cognition (preattentive, symbolic, visual salience), information processing (top-down and bottom-up), and the strength of concrete compared with abstract information. Personal relevance guided top-down attention to proximal and larger hazards that shaped stronger risk beliefs. Meaning was more local for small perceptual units and global for large units. Three aspects of color were important: preattentive "incremental risk" meaning of sequential shading, symbolic safety meaning of stoplight colors, and visual salience that drew attention. The lack of imagery, geographic information, and color diminished interest in table information. Numeracy and prior beliefs influenced comprehension for some participants. Results guided the creation of an integrated conceptual framework for application to future studies. Ethics should guide the selection of map features that support appropriate communication goals.

Fixation and saliency during search of natural scenes: the case of visual agnosia.

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Foulsham, Tom; Barton, Jason J S; Kingstone, Alan; Dewhurst, Richard; Underwood, Geoffrey

2009-07-01

Models of eye movement control in natural scenes often distinguish between stimulus-driven processes (which guide the eyes to visually salient regions) and those based on task and object knowledge (which depend on expectations or identification of objects and scene gist). In the present investigation, the eye movements of a patient with visual agnosia were recorded while she searched for objects within photographs of natural scenes and compared to those made by students and age-matched controls. Agnosia is assumed to disrupt the top-down knowledge available in this task, and so may increase the reliance on bottom-up cues. The patient's deficit in object recognition was seen in poor search performance and inefficient scanning. The low-level saliency of target objects had an effect on responses in visual agnosia, and the most salient region in the scene was more likely to be fixated by the patient than by controls. An analysis of model-predicted saliency at fixation locations indicated a closer match between fixations and low-level saliency in agnosia than in controls. These findings are discussed in relation to saliency-map models and the balance between high and low-level factors in eye guidance.

Perceptual salience affects the contents of working memory during free-recollection of objects from natural scenes

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Tiziana ePedale

2015-02-01

Full Text Available One of the most important issues in the study of cognition is to understand which are the factors determining internal representation of the external world. Previous literature has started to highlight the impact of low-level sensory features (indexed by saliency-maps in driving attention selection, hence increasing the probability for objects presented in complex and natural scenes to be successfully encoded into working memory(WM and then correctly remembered. Here we asked whether the probability of retrieving high-saliency objects modulates the overall contents of WM, by decreasing the probability of retrieving other, lower-saliency objects. We presented pictures of natural scenes for 4 secs. After a retention period of 8 secs, we asked participants to verbally report as many objects/details as possible of the previous scenes. We then computed how many times the objects located at either the peak of maximal or minimal saliency in the scene (as indexed by a saliency-map; Itti et al., 1998 were recollected by participants. Results showed that maximal-saliency objects were recollected more often and earlier in the stream of successfully reported items than minimal-saliency objects. This indicates that bottom-up sensory salience increases the recollection probability and facilitates the access to memory representation at retrieval, respectively. Moreover, recollection of the maximal- (but not the minimal- saliency objects predicted the overall amount of successfully recollected objects: The higher the probability of having successfully reported the most-salient object in the scene, the lower the amount of recollected objects. These findings highlight that bottom-up sensory saliency modulates the current contents of WM during recollection of objects from natural scenes, most likely by reducing available resources to encode and then retrieve other (lower saliency objects.

The time course of color- and luminance-based salience effects.

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Isabel C Dombrowe

2010-11-01

Full Text Available Salient objects in the visual field attract our attention. Recent work in the orientation domain has shown that the effects of the relative salience of two singleton elements on covert visual attention disappear over time. The present study aims to investigate how salience derived from color and luminance differences affects covert selection. In two experiments, observers indicated the location of a probe which was presented at different stimulus-onset-asynchronies after the presentation of a singleton display containing a homogeneous array of oriented lines and two distinct color singletons (Experiment 1 or luminance singletons (Experiment 2. The results show that relative singleton salience from luminance and color differences, just as from orientation differences, affects covert visual attention in a brief time span after stimulus onset. The mere presence of an object, however, can affect covert attention for a longer time span regardless of salience.

Visual assessment of BIPV retrofit design proposals for selected historical buildings using the saliency map method

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Ran Xu

2015-06-01

Full Text Available With the increasing awareness of energy efficiency, many old buildings have to undergo a massive facade energy retrofit. How to predict the visual impact which solar installations on the aesthetic cultural value of these buildings has been a heated debate in Switzerland (and throughout the world. The usual evaluation method to describe the visual impact of BIPV is based on semantic and qualitative descriptors, and strongly dependent on personal preferences. The evaluation scale is therefore relative, flexible and imprecise. This paper proposes a new method to accurately measure the visual impact which BIPV installations have on a historical building by using the saliency map method. By imitating working principles of the human eye, it is measured how much the BIPV design proposals differ from the original building facade in the aspect of attracting human visual attention. The result is directly presented in a quantitative manner, and can be used to compare the fitness of different BIPV design proposals. The measuring process is numeric, objective and more precise.  

Saliency-aware food image segmentation for personal dietary assessment using a wearable computer

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Chen, Hsin-Chen; Jia, Wenyan; Li, Yuecheng; Sun, Mingui; Sun, Xin; Li, Zhaoxin; Fernstrom, John D; Burke, Lora E; Baranowski, Thomas

2015-01-01

Image-based dietary assessment has recently received much attention in the community of obesity research. In this assessment, foods in digital pictures are specified, and their portion sizes (volumes) are estimated. Although manual processing is currently the most utilized method, image processing holds much promise since it may eventually lead to automatic dietary assessment. In this paper we study the problem of segmenting food objects from images. This segmentation is difficult because of various food types, shapes and colors, different decorating patterns on food containers, and occlusions of food and non-food objects. We propose a novel method based on a saliency-aware active contour model (ACM) for automatic food segmentation from images acquired by a wearable camera. An integrated saliency estimation approach based on food location priors and visual attention features is designed to produce a salient map of possible food regions in the input image. Next, a geometric contour primitive is generated and fitted to the salient map by means of multi-resolution optimization with respect to a set of affine and elastic transformation parameters. The food regions are then extracted after contour fitting. Our experiments using 60 food images showed that the proposed method achieved significantly higher accuracy in food segmentation when compared to conventional segmentation methods. (paper)

Saliency-aware food image segmentation for personal dietary assessment using a wearable computer

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Hsin-Chen; Jia, Wenyan; Sun, Xin; Li, Zhaoxin; Li, Yuecheng; Fernstrom, John D.; Burke, Lora E.; Baranowski, Thomas; Sun, Mingui

2015-02-01

Image-based dietary assessment has recently received much attention in the community of obesity research. In this assessment, foods in digital pictures are specified, and their portion sizes (volumes) are estimated. Although manual processing is currently the most utilized method, image processing holds much promise since it may eventually lead to automatic dietary assessment. In this paper we study the problem of segmenting food objects from images. This segmentation is difficult because of various food types, shapes and colors, different decorating patterns on food containers, and occlusions of food and non-food objects. We propose a novel method based on a saliency-aware active contour model (ACM) for automatic food segmentation from images acquired by a wearable camera. An integrated saliency estimation approach based on food location priors and visual attention features is designed to produce a salient map of possible food regions in the input image. Next, a geometric contour primitive is generated and fitted to the salient map by means of multi-resolution optimization with respect to a set of affine and elastic transformation parameters. The food regions are then extracted after contour fitting. Our experiments using 60 food images showed that the proposed method achieved significantly higher accuracy in food segmentation when compared to conventional segmentation methods.

Assessing the construct validity of aberrant salience

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Kristin Schmidt

2009-12-01

Full Text Available We sought to validate the psychometric properties of a recently developed paradigm that aims to measure salience attribution processes proposed to contribute to positive psychotic symptoms, the Salience Attribution Test (SAT. The “aberrant salience” measure from the SAT showed good face validity in previous results, with elevated scores both in high-schizotypy individuals, and in patients with schizophrenia suffering from delusions. Exploring the construct validity of salience attribution variables derived from the SAT is important, since other factors, including latent inhibition/learned irrelevance, attention, probabilistic reward learning, sensitivity to probability, general cognitive ability and working memory could influence these measures. Fifty healthy participants completed schizotypy scales, the SAT, a learned irrelevance task, and a number of other cognitive tasks tapping into potentially confounding processes. Behavioural measures of interest from each task were entered into a principal components analysis, which yielded a five-factor structure accounting for ~75% percent of the variance in behaviour. Implicit aberrant salience was found to load onto its own factor, which was associated with elevated “Introvertive Anhedonia” schizotypy, replicating our previous finding. Learned irrelevance loaded onto a separate factor, which also included implicit adaptive salience, but was not associated with schizotypy. Explicit adaptive and aberrant salience, along with a measure of probabilistic learning, loaded onto a further factor, though this also did not correlate with schizotypy. These results suggest that the measures of learned irrelevance and implicit adaptive salience might be based on similar underlying processes, which are dissociable both from implicit aberrant salience and explicit measures of salience.

Associative Learning Through Acquired Salience.

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Treviño, Mario

2015-01-01

Most associative learning studies describe the salience of stimuli as a fixed learning-rate parameter. Presumptive saliency signals, however, have also been linked to motivational and attentional processes. An interesting possibility, therefore, is that discriminative stimuli could also acquire salience as they become powerful predictors of outcomes. To explore this idea, we first characterized and extracted the learning curves from mice trained with discriminative images offering varying degrees of structural similarity. Next, we fitted a linear model of associative learning coupled to a series of mathematical representations for stimulus salience. We found that the best prediction, from the set of tested models, was one in which the visual salience depended on stimulus similarity and a non-linear function of the associative strength. Therefore, these analytic results support the idea that the net salience of a stimulus depends both on the items' effective salience and the motivational state of the subject that learns about it. Moreover, this dual salience model can explain why learning about a stimulus not only depends on the effective salience during acquisition but also on the specific learning trajectory that was used to reach this state. Our mathematical description could be instrumental for understanding aberrant salience acquisition under stressful situations and in neuropsychiatric disorders like schizophrenia, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and addiction.

Prediction of visual saliency in video with deep CNNs

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Chaabouni, Souad; Benois-Pineau, Jenny; Hadar, Ofer

2016-09-01

Prediction of visual saliency in images and video is a highly researched topic. Target applications include Quality assessment of multimedia services in mobile context, video compression techniques, recognition of objects in video streams, etc. In the framework of mobile and egocentric perspectives, visual saliency models cannot be founded only on bottom-up features, as suggested by feature integration theory. The central bias hypothesis, is not respected neither. In this case, the top-down component of human visual attention becomes prevalent. Visual saliency can be predicted on the basis of seen data. Deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) have proven to be a powerful tool for prediction of salient areas in stills. In our work we also focus on sensitivity of human visual system to residual motion in a video. A Deep CNN architecture is designed, where we incorporate input primary maps as color values of pixels and magnitude of local residual motion. Complementary contrast maps allow for a slight increase of accuracy compared to the use of color and residual motion only. The experiments show that the choice of the input features for the Deep CNN depends on visual task:for th eintersts in dynamic content, the 4K model with residual motion is more efficient, and for object recognition in egocentric video the pure spatial input is more appropriate.

Discriminative region extraction and feature selection based on the combination of SURF and saliency

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Deng, Li; Wang, Chunhong; Rao, Changhui

2011-08-01

The objective of this paper is to provide a possible optimization on salient region algorithm, which is extensively used in recognizing and learning object categories. Salient region algorithm owns the superiority of intra-class tolerance, global score of features and automatically prominent scale selection under certain range. However, the major limitation behaves on performance, and that is what we attempt to improve. By reducing the number of pixels involved in saliency calculation, it can be accelerated. We use interest points detected by fast-Hessian, the detector of SURF, as the candidate feature for saliency operation, rather than the whole set in image. This implementation is thereby called Saliency based Optimization over SURF (SOSU for short). Experiment shows that bringing in of such a fast detector significantly speeds up the algorithm. Meanwhile, Robustness of intra-class diversity ensures object recognition accuracy.

Night-Time Vehicle Detection Algorithm Based on Visual Saliency and Deep Learning

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Yingfeng Cai

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Night vision systems get more and more attention in the field of automotive active safety field. In this area, a number of researchers have proposed far-infrared sensor based night-time vehicle detection algorithm. However, existing algorithms have low performance in some indicators such as the detection rate and processing time. To solve this problem, we propose a far-infrared image vehicle detection algorithm based on visual saliency and deep learning. Firstly, most of the nonvehicle pixels will be removed with visual saliency computation. Then, vehicle candidate will be generated by using prior information such as camera parameters and vehicle size. Finally, classifier trained with deep belief networks will be applied to verify the candidates generated in last step. The proposed algorithm is tested in around 6000 images and achieves detection rate of 92.3% and processing time of 25 Hz which is better than existing methods.

Object recognition with hierarchical discriminant saliency networks.

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Han, Sunhyoung; Vasconcelos, Nuno

2014-01-01

computer vision literatures. This demonstrates benefits for all the functional enhancements of the HDSN, the class tuning inherent to discriminant saliency, and saliency layers based on templates of increasing target selectivity and invariance. Altogether, these experiments suggest that there are non-trivial benefits in integrating attention and recognition.

Superiority Of Graph-Based Visual Saliency GVS Over Other Image Segmentation Methods

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Umu Lamboi

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Although inherently tedious the segmentation of images and the evaluation of segmented images are critical in computer vision processes. One of the main challenges in image segmentation evaluation arises from the basic conflict between generality and objectivity. For general segmentation purposes the lack of well-defined ground-truth and segmentation accuracy limits the evaluation of specific applications. Subjectivity is the most common method of evaluation of segmentation quality where segmented images are visually compared. This is daunting task however limits the scope of segmentation evaluation to a few predetermined sets of images. As an alternative supervised evaluation compares segmented images against manually-segmented or pre-processed benchmark images. Not only good evaluation methods allow for different comparisons but also for integration with target recognition systems for adaptive selection of appropriate segmentation granularity with improved recognition accuracy. Most of the current segmentation methods still lack satisfactory measures of effectiveness. Thus this study proposed a supervised framework which uses visual saliency detection to quantitatively evaluate image segmentation quality. The new benchmark evaluator uses Graph-based Visual Saliency GVS to compare boundary outputs for manually segmented images. Using the Berkeley Segmentation Database the proposed algorithm was tested against 4 other quantitative evaluation methods Probabilistic Rand Index PRI Variation of Information VOI Global Consistency Error GSE and Boundary Detection Error BDE. Based on the results the GVS approach outperformed any of the other 4 independent standard methods in terms of visual saliency detection of images.

Saliency of social comparison dimensions

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Kuyper, H.

2007-01-01

The present article discusses a theory of the saliency of social comparison dimensions and presents the results of an experiment about the effects of two different experimental situations on the saliency of exterior, task-related and socio-emotional dimensions. Saliency was operationalized with a

SALIENCY-GUIDED CHANGE DETECTION OF REMOTELY SENSED IMAGES USING RANDOM FOREST

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W. Feng

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Studies based on object-based image analysis (OBIA representing the paradigm shift in change detection (CD have achieved remarkable progress in the last decade. Their aim has been developing more intelligent interpretation analysis methods in the future. The prediction effect and performance stability of random forest (RF, as a new kind of machine learning algorithm, are better than many single predictors and integrated forecasting method. In this paper, we present a novel CD approach for high-resolution remote sensing images, which incorporates visual saliency and RF. First, highly homogeneous and compact image super-pixels are generated using super-pixel segmentation, and the optimal segmentation result is obtained through image superimposition and principal component analysis (PCA. Second, saliency detection is used to guide the search of interest regions in the initial difference image obtained via the improved robust change vector analysis (RCVA algorithm. The salient regions within the difference image that correspond to the binarized saliency map are extracted, and the regions are subject to the fuzzy c-means (FCM clustering to obtain the pixel-level pre-classification result, which can be used as a prerequisite for superpixel-based analysis. Third, on the basis of the optimal segmentation and pixel-level pre-classification results, different super-pixel change possibilities are calculated. Furthermore, the changed and unchanged super-pixels that serve as the training samples are automatically selected. The spectral features and Gabor features of each super-pixel are extracted. Finally, superpixel-based CD is implemented by applying RF based on these samples. Experimental results on Ziyuan 3 (ZY3 multi-spectral images show that the proposed method outperforms the compared methods in the accuracy of CD, and also confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Saliency-Guided Change Detection of Remotely Sensed Images Using Random Forest

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Feng, W.; Sui, H.; Chen, X.

2018-04-01

Studies based on object-based image analysis (OBIA) representing the paradigm shift in change detection (CD) have achieved remarkable progress in the last decade. Their aim has been developing more intelligent interpretation analysis methods in the future. The prediction effect and performance stability of random forest (RF), as a new kind of machine learning algorithm, are better than many single predictors and integrated forecasting method. In this paper, we present a novel CD approach for high-resolution remote sensing images, which incorporates visual saliency and RF. First, highly homogeneous and compact image super-pixels are generated using super-pixel segmentation, and the optimal segmentation result is obtained through image superimposition and principal component analysis (PCA). Second, saliency detection is used to guide the search of interest regions in the initial difference image obtained via the improved robust change vector analysis (RCVA) algorithm. The salient regions within the difference image that correspond to the binarized saliency map are extracted, and the regions are subject to the fuzzy c-means (FCM) clustering to obtain the pixel-level pre-classification result, which can be used as a prerequisite for superpixel-based analysis. Third, on the basis of the optimal segmentation and pixel-level pre-classification results, different super-pixel change possibilities are calculated. Furthermore, the changed and unchanged super-pixels that serve as the training samples are automatically selected. The spectral features and Gabor features of each super-pixel are extracted. Finally, superpixel-based CD is implemented by applying RF based on these samples. Experimental results on Ziyuan 3 (ZY3) multi-spectral images show that the proposed method outperforms the compared methods in the accuracy of CD, and also confirm the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Global contrast based salient region detection

KAUST Repository

Cheng, Ming-Ming

2011-08-25

Reliable estimation of visual saliency allows appropriate processing of images without prior knowledge of their contents, and thus remains an important step in many computer vision tasks including image segmentation, object recognition, and adaptive compression. We propose a regional contrast based saliency extraction algorithm, which simultaneously evaluates global contrast differences and spatial coherence. The proposed algorithm is simple, efficient, and yields full resolution saliency maps. Our algorithm consistently outperformed existing saliency detection methods, yielding higher precision and better recall rates, when evaluated using one of the largest publicly available data sets. We also demonstrate how the extracted saliency map can be used to create high quality segmentation masks for subsequent image processing.

Global contrast based salient region detection

KAUST Repository

Cheng, Ming-Ming; Zhang, Guo-Xin; Mitra, Niloy J.; Huang, Xiaolei; Hu, Shi-Min

2011-01-01

Reliable estimation of visual saliency allows appropriate processing of images without prior knowledge of their contents, and thus remains an important step in many computer vision tasks including image segmentation, object recognition, and adaptive compression. We propose a regional contrast based saliency extraction algorithm, which simultaneously evaluates global contrast differences and spatial coherence. The proposed algorithm is simple, efficient, and yields full resolution saliency maps. Our algorithm consistently outperformed existing saliency detection methods, yielding higher precision and better recall rates, when evaluated using one of the largest publicly available data sets. We also demonstrate how the extracted saliency map can be used to create high quality segmentation masks for subsequent image processing.

The effect of visual salience on memory-based choices.

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Pooresmaeili, Arezoo; Bach, Dominik R; Dolan, Raymond J

2014-02-01

Deciding whether a stimulus is the "same" or "different" from a previous presented one involves integrating among the incoming sensory information, working memory, and perceptual decision making. Visual selective attention plays a crucial role in selecting the relevant information that informs a subsequent course of action. Previous studies have mainly investigated the role of visual attention during the encoding phase of working memory tasks. In this study, we investigate whether manipulation of bottom-up attention by changing stimulus visual salience impacts on later stages of memory-based decisions. In two experiments, we asked subjects to identify whether a stimulus had either the same or a different feature to that of a memorized sample. We manipulated visual salience of the test stimuli by varying a task-irrelevant feature contrast. Subjects chose a visually salient item more often when they looked for matching features and less often so when they looked for a nonmatch. This pattern of results indicates that salient items are more likely to be identified as a match. We interpret the findings in terms of capacity limitations at a comparison stage where a visually salient item is more likely to exhaust resources leading it to be prematurely parsed as a match.

Binaural beat salience

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Grose, John H.; Buss, Emily; Hall, Joseph W.

2012-01-01

Previous studies of binaural beats have noted individual variability and response lability, but little attention has been paid to the salience of the binaural beat percept. The purpose of this study was to gauge the strength of the binaural beat percept by matching its salience to that of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and to then compare rate discrimination for the two types of fluctuation. Rate discrimination was measured for standard rates of 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz – all in the 500-Hz carrier region. Twelve normal-hearing adults participated in this study. The results indicated that discrimination acuity for binaural beats is similar to that for SAM tones whose depths of modulation have been adjusted to provide equivalent modulation salience. The matched-salience SAM tones had relatively shallow depths of modulation, suggesting that the perceptual strength of binaural beats is relatively weak, although all listeners perceived them. The Weber fraction for detection of an increase in binaural beat rate is roughly constant across beat rates, at least for rates above 4 Hz, as is rate discrimination for SAM tones. PMID:22326292

Manipulation, salience, and nudges.

Science.gov (United States)

Noggle, Robert

2018-03-01

Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler recommend helping people make better decisions by employing 'nudges', which they define as noncoercive methods of influencing choice for the better. Not surprisingly, healthcare practitioners and public policy professionals have become interested in whether nudges might be a promising method of improving health-related behaviors without resorting to heavy-handed methods such as coercion, deception, or government regulation. Many nudges seem unobjectionable as they merely improve the quality and quantity available for the decision-maker. However, other nudges influence decision-making in ways that do not involve providing more and better information. Nudges of this sort raise concerns about manipulation. This paper will focus on noninformational nudges that operate by changing the salience of various options. It will survey two approaches to understanding manipulation, one which sees manipulation as a kind of pressure, and one that sees it as a kind of trickery. On the pressure view, salience nudges do not appear to be manipulative. However, on the trickery view (which the author favors), salience nudges will be manipulative if they increase the salience so that it is disproportionate to that fact's true relevance and importance for the decision at hand. By contrast, salience nudges will not be manipulative if they merely highlight some fact that is true and important for the decision at hand. The paper concludes by providing examples of both manipulative and nonmanipulative salience nudges. © 2017 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Affective salience can reverse the effects of stimulus-driven salience on eye movements in complex scenes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yaqing eNiu

2012-09-01

Full Text Available In natural vision both stimulus features and cognitive/affective factors influence an observer's attention. However, the relationship between stimulus-driven (bottom-up and cognitive/affective (top-down factors remains controversial: Can affective salience counteract strong visual stimulus signals and shift attention allocation irrespective of bottom-up features? Is there any difference between negative and positive scenes in terms of their influence on attention deployment? Here we examined the impact of affective factors on eye movement behavior, to understand the competition between visual stimulus-driven salience and affective salience and how they affect gaze allocation in complex scene viewing. Building on our previous research, we compared predictions generated by a visual salience model with measures indexing participant-identified emotionally meaningful regions of each image. To examine how eye movement behaviour differs for negative, positive, and neutral scenes, we examined the influence of affective salience in capturing attention according to emotional valence. Taken together, our results show that affective salience can override stimulus-driven salience and overall emotional valence can determine attention allocation in complex scenes. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that cognitive/affective factors play a dominant role in active gaze control.

Finding the Secret of Image Saliency in the Frequency Domain.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Jia; Duan, Ling-Yu; Chen, Xiaowu; Huang, Tiejun; Tian, Yonghong

2015-12-01

There are two sides to every story of visual saliency modeling in the frequency domain. On the one hand, image saliency can be effectively estimated by applying simple operations to the frequency spectrum. On the other hand, it is still unclear which part of the frequency spectrum contributes the most to popping-out targets and suppressing distractors. Toward this end, this paper tentatively explores the secret of image saliency in the frequency domain. From the results obtained in several qualitative and quantitative experiments, we find that the secret of visual saliency may mainly hide in the phases of intermediate frequencies. To explain this finding, we reinterpret the concept of discrete Fourier transform from the perspective of template-based contrast computation and thus develop several principles for designing the saliency detector in the frequency domain. Following these principles, we propose a novel approach to design the saliency detector under the assistance of prior knowledge obtained through both unsupervised and supervised learning processes. Experimental results on a public image benchmark show that the learned saliency detector outperforms 18 state-of-the-art approaches in predicting human fixations.

Binaural beat salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Grose, John H; Buss, Emily; Hall, Joseph W

2012-03-01

Previous studies of binaural beats have noted individual variability and response lability, but little attention has been paid to the salience of the binaural beat percept. The purpose of this study was to gauge the strength of the binaural beat percept by matching its salience to that of sinusoidal amplitude modulation (SAM), and to then compare rate discrimination for the two types of fluctuation. Rate discrimination was measured for standard rates of 4, 8, 16, and 32 Hz - all in the 500-Hz carrier region. Twelve normal-hearing adults participated in this study. The results indicated that discrimination acuity for binaural beats is similar to that for SAM tones whose depths of modulation have been adjusted to provide equivalent modulation salience. The matched-salience SAM tones had relatively shallow depths of modulation, suggesting that the perceptual strength of binaural beats is relatively weak, although all listeners perceived them. The Weber fraction for detection of an increase in binaural beat rate is roughly constant across beat rates, at least for rates above 4 Hz, as is rate discrimination for SAM tones. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Thinking about the Weather: How Display Salience and Knowledge Affect Performance in a Graphic Inference Task

Science.gov (United States)

Hegarty, Mary; Canham, Matt S.; Fabrikant, Sara I.

2010-01-01

Three experiments examined how bottom-up and top-down processes interact when people view and make inferences from complex visual displays (weather maps). Bottom-up effects of display design were investigated by manipulating the relative visual salience of task-relevant and task-irrelevant information across different maps. Top-down effects of…

Generating description with multi-feature fusion and saliency maps of image

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Lisha; Ding, Yuxuan; Tian, Chunna; Yuan, Bo

2018-04-01

Generating description for an image can be regard as visual understanding. It is across artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing and many other areas. In this paper, we present a model that generates description for images based on RNN (recurrent neural network) with object attention and multi-feature of images. The deep recurrent neural networks have excellent performance in machine translation, so we use it to generate natural sentence description for images. The proposed method uses single CNN (convolution neural network) that is trained on ImageNet to extract image features. But we think it can not adequately contain the content in images, it may only focus on the object area of image. So we add scene information to image feature using CNN which is trained on Places205. Experiments show that model with multi-feature extracted by two CNNs perform better than which with a single feature. In addition, we make saliency weights on images to emphasize the salient objects in images. We evaluate our model on MSCOCO based on public metrics, and the results show that our model performs better than several state-of-the-art methods.

Preference for Well-Balanced Saliency in Details Cropped from Photographs

Science.gov (United States)

Abeln, Jonas; Fresz, Leonie; Amirshahi, Seyed Ali; McManus, I. Chris; Koch, Michael; Kreysa, Helene; Redies, Christoph

2016-01-01

Photographic cropping is the act of selecting part of a photograph to enhance its aesthetic appearance or visual impact. It is common practice with both professional (expert) and amateur (non-expert) photographers. In a psychometric study, McManus et al. (2011b) showed that participants cropped photographs confidently and reliably. Experts tended to select details from a wider range of positions than non-experts, but other croppers did not generally prefer details that were selected by experts. It remained unclear, however, on what grounds participants selected particular details from a photograph while avoiding other details. One of the factors contributing to cropping decision may be visual saliency. Indeed, various saliency-based computer algorithms are available for the automatic cropping of photographs. However, careful experimental studies on the relation between saliency and cropping are lacking to date. In the present study, we re-analyzed the data from the studies by McManus et al. (2011a,b), focusing on statistical image properties. We calculated saliency-based measures for details selected and details avoided during cropping. As expected, we found that selected details contain regions of higher saliency than avoided details on average. Moreover, the saliency center-of-mass was closer to the geometrical center in selected details than in avoided details. Results were confirmed in an eye tracking study with the same dataset of images. Interestingly, the observed regularities in cropping behavior were less pronounced for experts than for non-experts. In summary, our results suggest that, during cropping, participants tend to select salient regions and place them in an image composition that is well-balanced with respect to the distribution of saliency. Our study contributes to the knowledge of perceptual bottom-up features that are germane to aesthetic decisions in photography and their variability in non-experts and experts. PMID:26793086

Explaining Gender-Based Language Use: Effects of Gender Identity Salience on References to Emotion and Tentative Language in Intra- and Intergroup Contexts

Science.gov (United States)

Palomares, Nicholas A.

2008-01-01

An experiment tested hypotheses derived from self-categorization theory's explanation for gender-based language use. Under high or low conditions of gender salience, men and women sent e-mail to an ostensible male or female recipient yielding either an intra- or an intergroup setting. Gender salience was manipulated so that the stereotypically…

Saliency detection by conditional generative adversarial network

Science.gov (United States)

Cai, Xiaoxu; Yu, Hui

2018-04-01

Detecting salient objects in images has been a fundamental problem in computer vision. In recent years, deep learning has shown its impressive performance in dealing with many kinds of vision tasks. In this paper, we propose a new method to detect salient objects by using Conditional Generative Adversarial Network (GAN). This type of network not only learns the mapping from RGB images to salient regions, but also learns a loss function for training the mapping. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that Conditional GAN has been used in salient object detection. We evaluate our saliency detection method on 2 large publicly available datasets with pixel accurate annotations. The experimental results have shown the significant and consistent improvements over the state-of-the-art method on a challenging dataset, and the testing speed is much faster.

A parallel spatiotemporal saliency and discriminative online learning method for visual target tracking in aerial videos.

Science.gov (United States)

Aghamohammadi, Amirhossein; Ang, Mei Choo; A Sundararajan, Elankovan; Weng, Ng Kok; Mogharrebi, Marzieh; Banihashem, Seyed Yashar

2018-01-01

Visual tracking in aerial videos is a challenging task in computer vision and remote sensing technologies due to appearance variation difficulties. Appearance variations are caused by camera and target motion, low resolution noisy images, scale changes, and pose variations. Various approaches have been proposed to deal with appearance variation difficulties in aerial videos, and amongst these methods, the spatiotemporal saliency detection approach reported promising results in the context of moving target detection. However, it is not accurate for moving target detection when visual tracking is performed under appearance variations. In this study, a visual tracking method is proposed based on spatiotemporal saliency and discriminative online learning methods to deal with appearance variations difficulties. Temporal saliency is used to represent moving target regions, and it was extracted based on the frame difference with Sauvola local adaptive thresholding algorithms. The spatial saliency is used to represent the target appearance details in candidate moving regions. SLIC superpixel segmentation, color, and moment features can be used to compute feature uniqueness and spatial compactness of saliency measurements to detect spatial saliency. It is a time consuming process, which prompted the development of a parallel algorithm to optimize and distribute the saliency detection processes that are loaded into the multi-processors. Spatiotemporal saliency is then obtained by combining the temporal and spatial saliencies to represent moving targets. Finally, a discriminative online learning algorithm was applied to generate a sample model based on spatiotemporal saliency. This sample model is then incrementally updated to detect the target in appearance variation conditions. Experiments conducted on the VIVID dataset demonstrated that the proposed visual tracking method is effective and is computationally efficient compared to state-of-the-art methods.

Fast and robust generation of feature maps for region-based visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Aziz, Muhammad Zaheer; Mertsching, Bärbel

2008-05-01

Visual attention is one of the important phenomena in biological vision which can be followed to achieve more efficiency, intelligence, and robustness in artificial vision systems. This paper investigates a region-based approach that performs pixel clustering prior to the processes of attention in contrast to late clustering as done by contemporary methods. The foundation steps of feature map construction for the region-based attention model are proposed here. The color contrast map is generated based upon the extended findings from the color theory, the symmetry map is constructed using a novel scanning-based method, and a new algorithm is proposed to compute a size contrast map as a formal feature channel. Eccentricity and orientation are computed using the moments of obtained regions and then saliency is evaluated using the rarity criteria. The efficient design of the proposed algorithms allows incorporating five feature channels while maintaining a processing rate of multiple frames per second. Another salient advantage over the existing techniques is the reusability of the salient regions in the high-level machine vision procedures due to preservation of their shapes and precise locations. The results indicate that the proposed model has the potential to efficiently integrate the phenomenon of attention into the main stream of machine vision and systems with restricted computing resources such as mobile robots can benefit from its advantages.

RT-based memory detection : Item saliency effects in the single-probe and the multiple-probe protocol

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Verschuere, B.; Kleinberg, B.; Theocharidou, K.

RT-based memory detection may provide an efficient means to assess recognition of concealed information. There is, however, considerable heterogeneity in detection rates, and we explored two potential moderators: item saliency and test protocol. Participants tried to conceal low salient (e.g.,

Simultaneous modeling of visual saliency and value computation improves predictions of economic choice.

Science.gov (United States)

Towal, R Blythe; Mormann, Milica; Koch, Christof

2013-10-01

Many decisions we make require visually identifying and evaluating numerous alternatives quickly. These usually vary in reward, or value, and in low-level visual properties, such as saliency. Both saliency and value influence the final decision. In particular, saliency affects fixation locations and durations, which are predictive of choices. However, it is unknown how saliency propagates to the final decision. Moreover, the relative influence of saliency and value is unclear. Here we address these questions with an integrated model that combines a perceptual decision process about where and when to look with an economic decision process about what to choose. The perceptual decision process is modeled as a drift-diffusion model (DDM) process for each alternative. Using psychophysical data from a multiple-alternative, forced-choice task, in which subjects have to pick one food item from a crowded display via eye movements, we test four models where each DDM process is driven by (i) saliency or (ii) value alone or (iii) an additive or (iv) a multiplicative combination of both. We find that models including both saliency and value weighted in a one-third to two-thirds ratio (saliency-to-value) significantly outperform models based on either quantity alone. These eye fixation patterns modulate an economic decision process, also described as a DDM process driven by value. Our combined model quantitatively explains fixation patterns and choices with similar or better accuracy than previous models, suggesting that visual saliency has a smaller, but significant, influence than value and that saliency affects choices indirectly through perceptual decisions that modulate economic decisions.

A parallel spatiotemporal saliency and discriminative online learning method for visual target tracking in aerial videos

Science.gov (United States)

2018-01-01

Visual tracking in aerial videos is a challenging task in computer vision and remote sensing technologies due to appearance variation difficulties. Appearance variations are caused by camera and target motion, low resolution noisy images, scale changes, and pose variations. Various approaches have been proposed to deal with appearance variation difficulties in aerial videos, and amongst these methods, the spatiotemporal saliency detection approach reported promising results in the context of moving target detection. However, it is not accurate for moving target detection when visual tracking is performed under appearance variations. In this study, a visual tracking method is proposed based on spatiotemporal saliency and discriminative online learning methods to deal with appearance variations difficulties. Temporal saliency is used to represent moving target regions, and it was extracted based on the frame difference with Sauvola local adaptive thresholding algorithms. The spatial saliency is used to represent the target appearance details in candidate moving regions. SLIC superpixel segmentation, color, and moment features can be used to compute feature uniqueness and spatial compactness of saliency measurements to detect spatial saliency. It is a time consuming process, which prompted the development of a parallel algorithm to optimize and distribute the saliency detection processes that are loaded into the multi-processors. Spatiotemporal saliency is then obtained by combining the temporal and spatial saliencies to represent moving targets. Finally, a discriminative online learning algorithm was applied to generate a sample model based on spatiotemporal saliency. This sample model is then incrementally updated to detect the target in appearance variation conditions. Experiments conducted on the VIVID dataset demonstrated that the proposed visual tracking method is effective and is computationally efficient compared to state-of-the-art methods. PMID:29438421

Salience Effects in the North-West of England

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Jansen

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The question of how we can define salience, what properties it includes and how we can quantify it have been discussed widely over the past thirty years but we still have more questions than answers about this phenomenon, e. g. not only how salience arises, but also how we can define it. However, despite the lack of a clear definition, salience is often taken into account as an explanatory factor in language change. The scientific discourse on salience has in most cases revolved around phonetic features, while hardly any variables on other linguistic levels have been investigated in terms of their salience. Hence, one goal of this paper is to argue for an expanded view of salience in the sociolinguistic context. This article investigates the variation and change of two groups of variables in Carlisle, an urban speech community in the north west of England. I analyse the variable (th and in particular the replacement of /θ/ with [f] which is widely known as th-fronting. The use of three discourse markers is also examined. Both groups of features will then be discussed in the light of sociolinguistic salience.

The social perceptual salience effect.

Science.gov (United States)

Inderbitzin, Martin P; Betella, Alberto; Lanatá, Antonio; Scilingo, Enzo P; Bernardet, Ulysses; Verschure, Paul F M J

2013-02-01

Affective processes appraise the salience of external stimuli preparing the agent for action. So far, the relationship between stimuli, affect, and action has been mainly studied in highly controlled laboratory conditions. In order to find the generalization of this relationship to social interaction, we assess the influence of the salience of social stimuli on human interaction. We constructed reality ball game in a mixed reality space where pairs of people collaborated in order to compete with an opposing team. We coupled the players with team members with varying social salience by using both physical and virtual representations of remote players (i.e., avatars). We observe that, irrespective of the team composition, winners and losers display significantly different inter- and intrateam spatial behaviors. We show that subjects regulate their interpersonal distance to both virtual and physical team members in similar ways, but in proportion to the vividness of the stimulus. As an independent validation of this social salience effect, we show that this behavioral effect is also displayed in physiological correlates of arousal. In addition, we found a strong correlation between performance, physiology, and the subjective reports of the subjects. Our results show that proxemics is consistent with affective responses, confirming the existence of a social salience effect. This provides further support for the so-called law of apparent reality, and it generalizes it to the social realm, where it can be used to design more efficient social artifacts. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2013 APA, all rights reserved.

An efficient visual saliency detection model based on Ripplet transform

Indian Academy of Sciences (India)

A Diana Andrushia

human visual attention models is still not well investigated. ... Ripplet transform; visual saliency model; Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC); .... proposed method has the same resolution as that of an input ... regions are obtained, which are independent of their sizes. ..... impact than those far away from the attention.

Saliency of color image derivatives: a comparison between computational models and human perception

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Vazquez, E.; Gevers, T.; Lucassen, M.; van de Weijer, J.; Baldrich, R.

2010-01-01

In this paper, computational methods are proposed to compute color edge saliency based on the information content of color edges. The computational methods are evaluated on bottom-up saliency in a psychophysical experiment, and on a more complex task of salient object detection in real-world images.

Improving Saliency Models by Predicting Human Fixation Patches

KAUST Repository

Dubey, Rachit

2015-04-16

There is growing interest in studying the Human Visual System (HVS) to supplement and improve the performance of computer vision tasks. A major challenge for current visual saliency models is predicting saliency in cluttered scenes (i.e. high false positive rate). In this paper, we propose a fixation patch detector that predicts image patches that contain human fixations with high probability. Our proposed model detects sparse fixation patches with an accuracy of 84 % and eliminates non-fixation patches with an accuracy of 84 % demonstrating that low-level image features can indeed be used to short-list and identify human fixation patches. We then show how these detected fixation patches can be used as saliency priors for popular saliency models, thus, reducing false positives while maintaining true positives. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed approach allows state-of-the-art saliency methods to achieve better prediction performance on benchmark datasets.

Improving Saliency Models by Predicting Human Fixation Patches

KAUST Repository

Dubey, Rachit; Dave, Akshat; Ghanem, Bernard

2015-01-01

There is growing interest in studying the Human Visual System (HVS) to supplement and improve the performance of computer vision tasks. A major challenge for current visual saliency models is predicting saliency in cluttered scenes (i.e. high false positive rate). In this paper, we propose a fixation patch detector that predicts image patches that contain human fixations with high probability. Our proposed model detects sparse fixation patches with an accuracy of 84 % and eliminates non-fixation patches with an accuracy of 84 % demonstrating that low-level image features can indeed be used to short-list and identify human fixation patches. We then show how these detected fixation patches can be used as saliency priors for popular saliency models, thus, reducing false positives while maintaining true positives. Extensive experimental results show that our proposed approach allows state-of-the-art saliency methods to achieve better prediction performance on benchmark datasets.

A Sea-Sky Line Detection Method for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Based on Gradient Saliency.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Bo; Su, Yumin; Wan, Lei

2016-04-15

Special features in real marine environments such as cloud clutter, sea glint and weather conditions always result in various kinds of interference in optical images, which make it very difficult for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) to detect the sea-sky line (SSL) accurately. To solve this problem a saliency-based SSL detection method is proposed. Through the computation of gradient saliency the line features of SSL are enhanced effectively, while other interference factors are relatively suppressed, and line support regions are obtained by a region growing method on gradient orientation. The SSL identification is achieved according to region contrast, line segment length and orientation features, and optimal state estimation of SSL detection is implemented by introducing a cubature Kalman filter (CKF). In the end, the proposed method is tested on a benchmark dataset from the "XL" USV in a real marine environment, and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is significantly superior to other state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy rate and real-time performance, and its accuracy and stability are effectively improved by the CKF.

Small Vocabulary with Saliency Matching for Video Copy Detection

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ren, Huamin; Moeslund, Thomas B.; Tang, Sheng

2013-01-01

The importance of copy detection has led to a substantial amount of research in recent years, among which Bag of visual Words (BoW) plays an important role due to its ability to effectively handling occlusion and some minor transformations. One crucial issue in BoW approaches is the size of vocab......The importance of copy detection has led to a substantial amount of research in recent years, among which Bag of visual Words (BoW) plays an important role due to its ability to effectively handling occlusion and some minor transformations. One crucial issue in BoW approaches is the size...... matching algorithm based on salient visual words selection. More specifically, the variation of visual words across a given video are represented as trajectories and those containing locally asymptotically stable points are selected as salient visual words. Then we attempt to measure the similarity of two...... videos through saliency matching merely based on the selected salient visual words to remove false positives. Our experiments show that a small codebook with saliency matching is quite competitive in video copy detection. With the incorporation of the proposed saliency matching, the precision can...

Two-dimensional hidden semantic information model for target saliency detection and eyetracking identification

Science.gov (United States)

Wan, Weibing; Yuan, Lingfeng; Zhao, Qunfei; Fang, Tao

2018-01-01

Saliency detection has been applied to the target acquisition case. This paper proposes a two-dimensional hidden Markov model (2D-HMM) that exploits the hidden semantic information of an image to detect its salient regions. A spatial pyramid histogram of oriented gradient descriptors is used to extract features. After encoding the image by a learned dictionary, the 2D-Viterbi algorithm is applied to infer the saliency map. This model can predict fixation of the targets and further creates robust and effective depictions of the targets' change in posture and viewpoint. To validate the model with a human visual search mechanism, two eyetrack experiments are employed to train our model directly from eye movement data. The results show that our model achieves better performance than visual attention. Moreover, it indicates the plausibility of utilizing visual track data to identify targets.

Salience and Strategy Choice in 2 × 2 Games

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jonathan W. Leland

2015-10-01

Full Text Available We present a model of boundedly rational play in single-shot 2 × 2 games. Players choose strategies based on the perceived salience of their own payoffs and, if own-payoff salience is uninformative, on the perceived salience of their opponent’s payoffs. When own payoffs are salient, the model’s predictions correspond to those of Level-1 players in a cognitive hierarchy model. When it is the other player’s payoffs that are salient, the predictions of the model correspond to those of traditional game theory. The model provides unique predictions for the entire class of 2 × 2 games. It identifies games where a Nash equilibrium will always occur, ones where it will never occur, and ones where it will occur only for certain payoff values. It also predicts the outcome of games for which there are no pure Nash equilibria. Experimental results supporting these predictions are presented.

Object recognition with hierarchical discriminant saliency networks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sunhyoung eHan

2014-09-01

Full Text Available The benefits of integrating attention and object recognition are investigated. While attention is frequently modeled as pre-processor for recognition, we investigate the hypothesis that attention is an intrinsic component of recognition and vice-versa. This hypothesis is tested with a recognitionmodel, the hierarchical discriminant saliency network (HDSN, whose layers are top-down saliency detectors, tuned for a visual class according to the principles of discriminant saliency. The HDSN has two possible implementations. In a biologically plausible implementation, all layers comply with the standard neurophysiological model of visual cortex, with sub-layers of simple and complex units that implement a combination of filtering, divisive normalization, pooling, and non-linearities. In a neuralnetwork implementation, all layers are convolutional and implement acombination of filtering, rectification, and pooling. The rectificationis performed with a parametric extension of the now popular rectified linearunits (ReLUs, whose parameters can be tuned for the detection of targetobject classes. This enables a number of functional enhancementsover neural network models that lack a connection to saliency, including optimal feature denoising mechanisms for recognition, modulation ofsaliency responses by the discriminant power of the underlying features,and the ability to detect both feature presence and absence.In either implementation, each layer has a precise statistical interpretation, and all parameters are tuned by statistical learning. Each saliency detection layer learns more discriminant saliency templates than its predecessors and higher layers have larger pooling fields. This enables the HDSN to simultaneously achieve high selectivity totarget object classes and invariance. The resulting performance demonstrates benefits for all the functional enhancements of the HDSN.

Novelty enhances visual salience independently of reward in the parietal lobe.

Science.gov (United States)

Foley, Nicholas C; Jangraw, David C; Peck, Christopher; Gottlieb, Jacqueline

2014-06-04

Novelty modulates sensory and reward processes, but it remains unknown how these effects interact, i.e., how the visual effects of novelty are related to its motivational effects. A widespread hypothesis, based on findings that novelty activates reward-related structures, is that all the effects of novelty are explained in terms of reward. According to this idea, a novel stimulus is by default assigned high reward value and hence high salience, but this salience rapidly decreases if the stimulus signals a negative outcome. Here we show that, contrary to this idea, novelty affects visual salience in the monkey lateral intraparietal area (LIP) in ways that are independent of expected reward. Monkeys viewed peripheral visual cues that were novel or familiar (received few or many exposures) and predicted whether the trial will have a positive or a negative outcome--i.e., end in a reward or a lack of reward. We used a saccade-based assay to detect whether the cues automatically attracted or repelled attention from their visual field location. We show that salience--measured in saccades and LIP responses--was enhanced by both novelty and positive reward associations, but these factors were dissociable and habituated on different timescales. The monkeys rapidly recognized that a novel stimulus signaled a negative outcome (and withheld anticipatory licking within the first few presentations), but the salience of that stimulus remained high for multiple subsequent presentations. Therefore, novelty can provide an intrinsic bonus for attention that extends beyond the first presentation and is independent of physical rewards. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/347947-11$15.00/0.

The role of ethnic school segregation for adolescents’ religious salience

OpenAIRE

Van der Bracht, Koen; D'hondt, Fanny; Van Houtte, Mieke; Van de Putte, Bart; Stevens, Peter

2016-01-01

Public concerns over the possible effects of school segregation on immigrant and ethnic majority religiosity have been on the rise over the last few years. In this paper we focus on (1) the association between ethnic school composition and religious salience, (2) intergenerational differences in religious salience and (3) the role of ethnic school composition for intergenerational differences in religious salience. We perform analyses on religious salience, one five-point Likert scale item me...

The dimensional salience solution to the expectancy-value muddle: an extension.

Science.gov (United States)

Newton, Joshua D; Newton, Fiona J; Ewing, Michael T

2014-01-01

The theory of reasoned action (TRA) specifies a set of expectancy-value, belief-based frameworks that underpin attitude (behavioural beliefs × outcome evaluations) and subjective norm (normative beliefs × motivation to comply). Unfortunately, the most common method for analysing these frameworks generates statistically uninterpretable findings, resulting in what has been termed the 'expectancy-value muddle'. Recently, however, a dimensional salience approach was found to resolve this muddle for the belief-based framework underpinning attitude. An online survey of 262 participants was therefore conducted to determine whether the dimensional salience approach could also be applied to the belief-based framework underpinning subjective norm. Results revealed that motivations to comply were greater for salient, as opposed to non-salient, social referents. The belief-based framework underpinning subjective norm was therefore represented by evaluating normative belief ratings for salient social referents. This modified framework was found to predict subjective norm, although predictions were greater when participants were forced to select five salient social referents rather than being free to select any number of social referents. These findings validate the use of the dimensional salience approach for examining the belief-based frameworks underpinning subjective norm. As such, this approach provides a complete solution to addressing the expectancy-value muddle in the TRA.

Computationally determining the salience of decision points for real-time wayfinding support

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Makoto Takemiya

2012-06-01

Full Text Available This study introduces the concept of computational salience to explain the discriminatory efficacy of decision points, which in turn may have applications to providing real-time assistance to users of navigational aids. This research compared algorithms for calculating the computational salience of decision points and validated the results via three methods: high-salience decision points were used to classify wayfinders; salience scores were used to weight a conditional probabilistic scoring function for real-time wayfinder performance classification; and salience scores were correlated with wayfinding-performance metrics. As an exploratory step to linking computational and cognitive salience, a photograph-recognition experiment was conducted. Results reveal a distinction between algorithms useful for determining computational and cognitive saliences. For computational salience, information about the structural integration of decision points is effective, while information about the probability of decision-point traversal shows promise for determining cognitive salience. Limitations from only using structural information and motivations for future work that include non-structural information are elicited.

Wind turbine extraction from high spatial resolution remote sensing images based on saliency detection

Science.gov (United States)

Chen, Jingbo; Yue, Anzhi; Wang, Chengyi; Huang, Qingqing; Chen, Jiansheng; Meng, Yu; He, Dongxu

2018-01-01

The wind turbine is a device that converts the wind's kinetic energy into electrical power. Accurate and automatic extraction of wind turbine is instructive for government departments to plan wind power plant projects. A hybrid and practical framework based on saliency detection for wind turbine extraction, using Google Earth image at spatial resolution of 1 m, is proposed. It can be viewed as a two-phase procedure: coarsely detection and fine extraction. In the first stage, we introduced a frequency-tuned saliency detection approach for initially detecting the area of interest of the wind turbines. This method exploited features of color and luminance, was simple to implement, and was computationally efficient. Taking into account the complexity of remote sensing images, in the second stage, we proposed a fast method for fine-tuning results in frequency domain and then extracted wind turbines from these salient objects by removing the irrelevant salient areas according to the special properties of the wind turbines. Experiments demonstrated that our approach consistently obtains higher precision and better recall rates. Our method was also compared with other techniques from the literature and proves that it is more applicable and robust.

A Sea-Sky Line Detection Method for Unmanned Surface Vehicles Based on Gradient Saliency

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bo Wang

2016-04-01

Full Text Available Special features in real marine environments such as cloud clutter, sea glint and weather conditions always result in various kinds of interference in optical images, which make it very difficult for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs to detect the sea-sky line (SSL accurately. To solve this problem a saliency-based SSL detection method is proposed. Through the computation of gradient saliency the line features of SSL are enhanced effectively, while other interference factors are relatively suppressed, and line support regions are obtained by a region growing method on gradient orientation. The SSL identification is achieved according to region contrast, line segment length and orientation features, and optimal state estimation of SSL detection is implemented by introducing a cubature Kalman filter (CKF. In the end, the proposed method is tested on a benchmark dataset from the “XL” USV in a real marine environment, and the experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is significantly superior to other state-of-the-art methods in terms of accuracy rate and real-time performance, and its accuracy and stability are effectively improved by the CKF.

Gender differences in the incentive salience of adult and infant faces.

Science.gov (United States)

Hahn, Amanda C; Xiao, Dengke; Sprengelmeyer, Reiner; Perrett, David I

2013-01-01

Facial appearance can motivate behaviour and elicit activation of brain circuits putatively involved in reward. Gender differences have been observed for motivation to view beauty in adult faces--heterosexual women are motivated by beauty in general, while heterosexual men are motivated to view opposite-sex beauty alone. Although gender differences have been observed in sensitivity to infant cuteness, infant faces appear to hold equal incentive salience among men and women. In the present study, we investigated the incentive salience of attractiveness and cuteness in adult and infant faces, respectively. We predicted that, given alternative viewing options, gender differences would emerge for motivation to view infant faces. Heterosexual participants completed a "pay-per-view" key-press task, which allowed them to control stimulus duration. Gender differences were found such that infants held greater incentive salience among women, although both sexes differentiated infant faces based on cuteness. Among adult faces, men exerted more effort than women to view opposite-sex faces. These findings suggest that, contrary to previous reports, gender differences do exist in the incentive salience of infant faces as well as opposite-sex faces.

Spatio-Temporal Saliency Perception via Hypercomplex Frequency Spectral Contrast

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhiqiang Tian

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Salient object perception is the process of sensing the salient information from the spatio-temporal visual scenes, which is a rapid pre-attention mechanism for the target location in a visual smart sensor. In recent decades, many successful models of visual saliency perception have been proposed to simulate the pre-attention behavior. Since most of the methods usually need some ad hoc parameters or high-cost preprocessing, they are difficult to rapidly detect salient object or be implemented by computing parallelism in a smart sensor. In this paper, we propose a novel spatio-temporal saliency perception method based on spatio-temporal hypercomplex spectral contrast (HSC. Firstly, the proposed HSC algorithm represent the features in the HSV (hue, saturation and value color space and features of motion by a hypercomplex number. Secondly, the spatio-temporal salient objects are efficiently detected by hypercomplex Fourier spectral contrast in parallel. Finally, our saliency perception model also incorporates with the non-uniform sampling, which is a common phenomenon of human vision that directs visual attention to the logarithmic center of the image/video in natural scenes. The experimental results on the public saliency perception datasets demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared to eleven state-of-the-art approaches. In addition, we extend the proposed model to moving object extraction in dynamic scenes, and the proposed algorithm is superior to the traditional algorithms.

Gender Identity Salience and Perceived Vulnerability to Breast Cancer

NARCIS (Netherlands)

S.T.L.R. Sweldens (Steven); S. Puntoni (Stefano); N.T. Tavassoli (Nader)

2008-01-01

textabstractContrary to predictions based on cognitive accessibility, heightened gender identity salience resulted in lower perceived vulnerability and reduced donation behavior to identity-specific risks (e.g., breast cancer). No such effect was manifest with identity-neutral risks. Establishing

Culturally divergent responses to mortality salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Ma-Kellams, Christine; Blascovich, Jim

2011-08-01

Two experiments compared the effects of death thoughts, or mortality salience, on European and Asian Americans. Research on terror management theory has demonstrated that in Western cultural groups, individuals typically employ self-protective strategies in the face of death-related thoughts. Given fundamental East-West differences in self-construal (i.e., the independent vs. interdependent self), we predicted that members of Eastern cultural groups would affirm other people, rather than defend and affirm the self, after encountering conditions of mortality salience. We primed European Americans and Asian Americans with either a death or a control prime and examined the effect of this manipulation on attitudes about a person who violates cultural norms (Study 1) and on attributions about the plight of an innocent victim (Study 2). Mortality salience promoted culturally divergent responses, leading European Americans to defend the self and Asian Americans to defend other people.

Discrimination learning with variable stimulus 'salience'

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Treviño Mario

2011-08-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In nature, sensory stimuli are organized in heterogeneous combinations. Salient items from these combinations 'stand-out' from their surroundings and determine what and how we learn. Yet, the relationship between varying stimulus salience and discrimination learning remains unclear. Presentation of the hypothesis A rigorous formulation of the problem of discrimination learning should account for varying salience effects. We hypothesize that structural variations in the environment where the conditioned stimulus (CS is embedded will be a significant determinant of learning rate and retention level. Testing the hypothesis Using numerical simulations, we show how a modified version of the Rescorla-Wagner model, an influential theory of associative learning, predicts relevant interactions between varying salience and discrimination learning. Implications of the hypothesis If supported by empirical data, our model will help to interpret critical experiments addressing the relations between attention, discrimination and learning.

Untangling Linguistic Salience

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Boswijk, Vincent; Coler, Matt; Loerts, Hanneke; Hilton, Nanna

2018-01-01

The concept of linguistic salience is broadly used within sociolinguistics to account for processes as diverse as language change (Kerswill & Williams, 2002) and language acquisition (Ellis, 2016) in that salient forms are e.g. more likely to undergo change, or are often acquired earlier than other

An Integrated Tone Mapping for High Dynamic Range Image Visualization

Science.gov (United States)

Liang, Lei; Pan, Jeng-Shyang; Zhuang, Yongjun

2018-01-01

There are two type tone mapping operators for high dynamic range (HDR) image visualization. HDR image mapped by perceptual operators have strong sense of reality, but will lose local details. Empirical operators can maximize local detail information of HDR image, but realism is not strong. A common tone mapping operator suitable for all applications is not available. This paper proposes a novel integrated tone mapping framework which can achieve conversion between empirical operators and perceptual operators. In this framework, the empirical operator is rendered based on improved saliency map, which simulates the visual attention mechanism of the human eye to the natural scene. The results of objective evaluation prove the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

Measuring and modeling salience with the theory of visual attention.

Science.gov (United States)

Krüger, Alexander; Tünnermann, Jan; Scharlau, Ingrid

2017-08-01

For almost three decades, the theory of visual attention (TVA) has been successful in mathematically describing and explaining a wide variety of phenomena in visual selection and recognition with high quantitative precision. Interestingly, the influence of feature contrast on attention has been included in TVA only recently, although it has been extensively studied outside the TVA framework. The present approach further develops this extension of TVA's scope by measuring and modeling salience. An empirical measure of salience is achieved by linking different (orientation and luminance) contrasts to a TVA parameter. In the modeling part, the function relating feature contrasts to salience is described mathematically and tested against alternatives by Bayesian model comparison. This model comparison reveals that the power function is an appropriate model of salience growth in the dimensions of orientation and luminance contrast. Furthermore, if contrasts from the two dimensions are combined, salience adds up additively.

Aberrant salience, self-concept clarity, and interview-rated psychotic-like experiences.

Science.gov (United States)

Cicero, David C; Docherty, Anna R; Becker, Theresa M; Martin, Elizabeth A; Kerns, John G

2015-02-01

Many social-cognitive models of psychotic-like symptoms posit a role for self-concept and aberrant salience. Previous work has shown that the interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity is associated with self-reported psychotic-like experiences. In the current research with two structured interviews, the interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity was found to be associated with interview-rated psychotic-like experiences. The interaction was associated with psychotic-like experiences composite scores, delusional ideation, grandiosity, and perceptual anomalies. In all cases, self-concept clarity was negatively associated with psychotic-like experiences at high levels of aberrant salience, but unassociated with psychotic-like experiences at low levels of aberrant salience. The interaction was specific to positive psychotic-like experiences and not present for negative or disorganized ratings. The interaction was not mediated by self-esteem levels. These results provide further evidence that aberrant salience and self-concept clarity play an important role in the generation of psychotic-like experiences.

Diversification of visual media retrieval results using saliency detection

Science.gov (United States)

Muratov, Oleg; Boato, Giulia; De Natale, Franesco G. B.

2013-03-01

Diversification of retrieval results allows for better and faster search. Recently there has been proposed different methods for diversification of image retrieval results mainly utilizing text information and techniques imported from natural language processing domain. However, images contain visual information that is impossible to describe in text and the use of visual features is inevitable. Visual saliency is information about the main object of an image implicitly included by humans while creating visual content. For this reason it is naturally to exploit this information for the task of diversification of the content. In this work we study whether visual saliency can be used for the task of diversification and propose a method for re-ranking image retrieval results using saliency. The evaluation has shown that the use of saliency information results in higher diversity of retrieval results.

Quantifying individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Meyer, Paul J; Lovic, Vedran; Saunders, Benjamin T; Yager, Lindsay M; Flagel, Shelly B; Morrow, Jonathan D; Robinson, Terry E

2012-01-01

If reward-associated cues acquire the properties of incentive stimuli they can come to powerfully control behavior, and potentially promote maladaptive behavior. Pavlovian incentive stimuli are defined as stimuli that have three fundamental properties: they are attractive, they are themselves desired, and they can spur instrumental actions. We have found, however, that there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which animals attribute Pavlovian incentive motivational properties ("incentive salience") to reward cues. The purpose of this paper was to develop criteria for identifying and classifying individuals based on their propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of rats (N = 1,878) subjected to a classic Pavlovian conditioning procedure. We then used the propensity of animals to approach a cue predictive of reward (one index of the extent to which the cue was attributed with incentive salience), to characterize two behavioral phenotypes in this population: animals that approached the cue ("sign-trackers") vs. others that approached the location of reward delivery ("goal-trackers"). This variation in Pavlovian approach behavior predicted other behavioral indices of the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Thus, the procedures reported here should be useful for making comparisons across studies and for assessing individual variation in incentive salience attribution in small samples of the population, or even for classifying single animals.

Morality salience increases adherence to salient norms and values

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Gailliot, M.T.; Stillman, T.F.; Schmeichel, B.J.; Maner, J.K.; Plant, E.A.

2008-01-01

Four studies indicate that mortality salience increases adherence to social norms and values, but only when cultural norms and values are salient. In Study 1, mortality salience coupled with a reminder about cultural values of egalitarianism reduced prejudice toward Blacks among non-Black

Saliency Detection and Deep Learning-Based Wildfire Identification in UAV Imagery.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhao, Yi; Ma, Jiale; Li, Xiaohui; Zhang, Jie

2018-02-27

An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) equipped with global positioning systems (GPS) can provide direct georeferenced imagery, mapping an area with high resolution. So far, the major difficulty in wildfire image classification is the lack of unified identification marks, the fire features of color, shape, texture (smoke, flame, or both) and background can vary significantly from one scene to another. Deep learning (e.g., DCNN for Deep Convolutional Neural Network) is very effective in high-level feature learning, however, a substantial amount of training images dataset is obligatory in optimizing its weights value and coefficients. In this work, we proposed a new saliency detection algorithm for fast location and segmentation of core fire area in aerial images. As the proposed method can effectively avoid feature loss caused by direct resizing; it is used in data augmentation and formation of a standard fire image dataset 'UAV_Fire'. A 15-layered self-learning DCNN architecture named 'Fire_Net' is then presented as a self-learning fire feature exactor and classifier. We evaluated different architectures and several key parameters (drop out ratio, batch size, etc.) of the DCNN model regarding its validation accuracy. The proposed architecture outperformed previous methods by achieving an overall accuracy of 98%. Furthermore, 'Fire_Net' guarantied an average processing speed of 41.5 ms per image for real-time wildfire inspection. To demonstrate its practical utility, Fire_Net is tested on 40 sampled images in wildfire news reports and all of them have been accurately identified.

Collinear masking effect in visual search is independent of perceptual salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Jingling, Li; Lu, Yi-Hui; Cheng, Miao; Tseng, Chia-Huei

2017-07-01

Searching for a target in a salient region should be easier than looking for one in a nonsalient region. However, we previously discovered a contradictory phenomenon in which a local target in a salient structure was more difficult to find than one in the background. The salient structure was constructed of orientation singletons aligned to each other to form a collinear structure. In the present study, we undertake to determine whether such a masking effect was a result of salience competition between a global structure and the local target. In the first 3 experiments, we increased the salience value of the local target with the hope of adding to its competitive advantage and eventually eliminating the masking effect; nevertheless, the masking effect persisted. In an additional 2 experiments, we reduced salience of the global collinear structure by altering the orientation of the background bars and the masking effect still emerged. Our salience manipulations were validated by a controlled condition in which the global structure was grouped noncollinearly. In this case, local target salience increase (e.g., onset) or global distractor salience reduction (e.g., randomized flanking orientations) effectively removed the facilitation effect of the noncollinear structure. Our data suggest that salience competition is unlikely to explain the collinear masking effect, and other mechanisms such as contour integration, border formation, or the crowding effect may be prospective candidates for further investigation.

Work-family conflict, work- and family-role salience, and women's well-being.

Science.gov (United States)

Noor, Noraini M

2004-08-01

The author considered both the direct effect and the moderator effect of role salience in the stress-strain relationship. In contrast to previous studies that have examined the effects of salience on well-being within specific social roles, the present study focused on the work-family interface. From a sample of 147 employed English women with children, the present results of the regression analyses showed that both effects are possible, depending on the outcome measures used. The author observed a direct effect of role salience in the prediction of job satisfaction; work salience was positively related to job satisfaction, over and above the main-effect terms of work-interfering-with-family (WIF) conflict and family-interfering-with-work (FIW) conflict. In contrast, the author found a moderator effect of role salience and conflict for symptoms of psychological distress. However, contrary to predictions, the author found that work salience exacerbated the negative impact of WIF conflict, rather than FIW conflict, on well-being. The author discussed these results in relation to the literature on work-family conflict, role salience, and the issue of stress-strain specificity.

SDL: Saliency-Based Dictionary Learning Framework for Image Similarity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sarkar, Rituparna; Acton, Scott T

2018-02-01

In image classification, obtaining adequate data to learn a robust classifier has often proven to be difficult in several scenarios. Classification of histological tissue images for health care analysis is a notable application in this context due to the necessity of surgery, biopsy or autopsy. To adequately exploit limited training data in classification, we propose a saliency guided dictionary learning method and subsequently an image similarity technique for histo-pathological image classification. Salient object detection from images aids in the identification of discriminative image features. We leverage the saliency values for the local image regions to learn a dictionary and respective sparse codes for an image, such that the more salient features are reconstructed with smaller error. The dictionary learned from an image gives a compact representation of the image itself and is capable of representing images with similar content, with comparable sparse codes. We employ this idea to design a similarity measure between a pair of images, where local image features of one image, are encoded with the dictionary learned from the other and vice versa. To effectively utilize the learned dictionary, we take into account the contribution of each dictionary atom in the sparse codes to generate a global image representation for image comparison. The efficacy of the proposed method was evaluated using three tissue data sets that consist of mammalian kidney, lung and spleen tissue, breast cancer, and colon cancer tissue images. From the experiments, we observe that our methods outperform the state of the art with an increase of 14.2% in the average classification accuracy over all data sets.

Search-free license plate localization based on saliency and local variance estimation

Science.gov (United States)

Safaei, Amin; Tang, H. L.; Sanei, S.

2015-02-01

In recent years, the performance and accuracy of automatic license plate number recognition (ALPR) systems have greatly improved, however the increasing number of applications for such systems have made ALPR research more challenging than ever. The inherent computational complexity of search dependent algorithms remains a major problem for current ALPR systems. This paper proposes a novel search-free method of localization based on the estimation of saliency and local variance. Gabor functions are then used to validate the choice of candidate license plate. The algorithm was applied to three image datasets with different levels of complexity and the results compared with a number of benchmark methods, particularly in terms of speed. The proposed method outperforms the state of the art methods and can be used for real time applications.

Leukocyte Image Segmentation Using Novel Saliency Detection Based on Positive Feedback of Visual Perception

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chen Pan

2018-01-01

Full Text Available This paper presents a novel method for salient object detection in nature image by simulating microsaccades in fixational eye movements. Due to a nucleated cell usually stained that is salient obviously, the proposed method is suitable to segment nucleated cell. Firstly, the existing fixation prediction method is utilized to produce an initial fixation area. Followed EPELM (ensemble of polyharmonic extreme learning machine is trained on-line by the pixels sampling from the fixation and nonfixation area. Then the model of EPELM could be used to classify image pixels to form new binary fixation area. Depending upon the updated fixation area, the procedure of “pixel sampling-learning-classification” could be performed iteratively. If the previous binary fixation area and the latter one were similar enough in iteration, it indicates that the perception is saturated and the loop should be terminated. The binary output in iteration could be regarded as a kind of visual stimulation. So the multiple outputs of visual stimuli can be accumulated to form a new saliency map. Experiments on three image databases show the validity of our method. It can segment nucleated cells successfully in different imaging conditions.

Quantifying individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Paul J Meyer

Full Text Available If reward-associated cues acquire the properties of incentive stimuli they can come to powerfully control behavior, and potentially promote maladaptive behavior. Pavlovian incentive stimuli are defined as stimuli that have three fundamental properties: they are attractive, they are themselves desired, and they can spur instrumental actions. We have found, however, that there is considerable individual variation in the extent to which animals attribute Pavlovian incentive motivational properties ("incentive salience" to reward cues. The purpose of this paper was to develop criteria for identifying and classifying individuals based on their propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. To do this, we conducted a meta-analysis of a large sample of rats (N = 1,878 subjected to a classic Pavlovian conditioning procedure. We then used the propensity of animals to approach a cue predictive of reward (one index of the extent to which the cue was attributed with incentive salience, to characterize two behavioral phenotypes in this population: animals that approached the cue ("sign-trackers" vs. others that approached the location of reward delivery ("goal-trackers". This variation in Pavlovian approach behavior predicted other behavioral indices of the propensity to attribute incentive salience to reward cues. Thus, the procedures reported here should be useful for making comparisons across studies and for assessing individual variation in incentive salience attribution in small samples of the population, or even for classifying single animals.

Does conspicuity enhance distraction? Saliency and eye landing position when searching for objects.

Science.gov (United States)

Foulsham, Tom; Underwood, Geoffrey

2009-06-01

While visual saliency may sometimes capture attention, the guidance of eye movements in search is often dominated by knowledge of the target. How is the search for an object influenced by the saliency of an adjacent distractor? Participants searched for a target amongst an array of objects, with distractor saliency having an effect on response time and on the speed at which targets were found. Saliency did not predict the order in which objects in target-absent trials were fixated. The within-target landing position was distributed around a modal position close to the centre of the object. Saliency did not affect this position, the latency of the initial saccade, or the likelihood of the distractor being fixated, suggesting that saliency affects the allocation of covert attention and not just eye movements.

Mortality salience increases personal relevance of the norm of reciprocity.

Science.gov (United States)

Schindler, Simon; Reinhard, Marc-André; Stahlberg, Dagmar

2012-10-01

Research on terror management theory found evidence that people under mortality salience strive to live up to salient cultural norms and values, like egalitarianism, pacifism, or helpfulness. A basic, strongly internalized norm in most human societies is the norm of reciprocity: people should support those who supported them (i.e., positive reciprocity), and people should injure those who injured them (i.e., negative reciprocity), respectively. In an experiment (N = 98; 47 women, 51 men), mortality salience overall significantly increased personal relevance of the norm of reciprocity (M = 4.45, SD = 0.65) compared to a control condition (M = 4.19, SD = 0.59). Specifically, under mortality salience there was higher motivation to punish those who treated them unfavourably (negative norm of reciprocity). Unexpectedly, relevance of the norm of positive reciprocity remained unaffected by mortality salience. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Cortical Surround Interactions and Perceptual Salience via Natural Scene Statistics.

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Ruben Coen-Cagli

Full Text Available Spatial context in images induces perceptual phenomena associated with salience and modulates the responses of neurons in primary visual cortex (V1. However, the computational and ecological principles underlying contextual effects are incompletely understood. We introduce a model of natural images that includes grouping and segmentation of neighboring features based on their joint statistics, and we interpret the firing rates of V1 neurons as performing optimal recognition in this model. We show that this leads to a substantial generalization of divisive normalization, a computation that is ubiquitous in many neural areas and systems. A main novelty in our model is that the influence of the context on a target stimulus is determined by their degree of statistical dependence. We optimized the parameters of the model on natural image patches, and then simulated neural and perceptual responses on stimuli used in classical experiments. The model reproduces some rich and complex response patterns observed in V1, such as the contrast dependence, orientation tuning and spatial asymmetry of surround suppression, while also allowing for surround facilitation under conditions of weak stimulation. It also mimics the perceptual salience produced by simple displays, and leads to readily testable predictions. Our results provide a principled account of orientation-based contextual modulation in early vision and its sensitivity to the homogeneity and spatial arrangement of inputs, and lends statistical support to the theory that V1 computes visual salience.

Approach Motivation as Incentive Salience: Perceptual Sources of Evidence in Relation to Positive Word Primes

OpenAIRE

Ode, Scott; Winters, Patricia L.; Robinson, Michael D.

2011-01-01

Four experiments (total N = 391) examined predictions derived from a biologically-based incentive salience theory of approach motivation. In all experiments, judgments indicative of enhanced perceptual salience were exaggerated in the context of positive, relative to neutral or negative, stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, positive words were judged to be of a larger size (Experiment 1) and led individuals to judge subsequently presented neutral objects as larger in size (Experiment 2). In Exper...

Categorisation salience and ingroup bias: the buffering role of a multicultural ideology.

Science.gov (United States)

Costa-Lopes, Rui; Pereira, Cícero Roberto; Judd, Charles M

2014-12-01

The current work sought to test the moderating role of a multicultural ideology on the relationship between categorisation salience and ingroup bias. Accordingly, in one experimental study, we manipulated categorisation salience and the accessibility of a multicultural ideology, and measured intergroup attitudes. Results show that categorisation salience only leads to ingroup bias when a multiculturalism (MC) ideology is not made salient. Thus, MC ideology attenuates the negative effects of categorisation salience on ingroup bias. These results pertain to social psychology in general showing that the cognitive processes should be construed within the framework of ideological contexts. © 2014 International Union of Psychological Science.

Objective correlates of pitch salience using pupillometry

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Bianchi, Federica; Santurette, Sébastien; Wendt, Dorothea

2014-01-01

the frequency region and F 0 , were considered. Pupil size was measured for each condition, while the subjects’ task was to detect the deviants by pressing a response button. The expected trend was that pupil size would increase with decreasing salience. Results for musically trained listeners showed...... the expected trend, whereby pupil size significantly increased with decreasing salience of the stimuli. Non-musically trained listeners showed, however, a smaller pupil size for the least salient condition as compared to a medium salient condition, probably due to a too demanding task...

Saliency Detection and Deep Learning-Based Wildfire Identification in UAV Imagery

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Yi Zhao

2018-02-01

Full Text Available An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV equipped with global positioning systems (GPS can provide direct georeferenced imagery, mapping an area with high resolution. So far, the major difficulty in wildfire image classification is the lack of unified identification marks, the fire features of color, shape, texture (smoke, flame, or both and background can vary significantly from one scene to another. Deep learning (e.g., DCNN for Deep Convolutional Neural Network is very effective in high-level feature learning, however, a substantial amount of training images dataset is obligatory in optimizing its weights value and coefficients. In this work, we proposed a new saliency detection algorithm for fast location and segmentation of core fire area in aerial images. As the proposed method can effectively avoid feature loss caused by direct resizing; it is used in data augmentation and formation of a standard fire image dataset ‘UAV_Fire’. A 15-layered self-learning DCNN architecture named ‘Fire_Net’ is then presented as a self-learning fire feature exactor and classifier. We evaluated different architectures and several key parameters (drop out ratio, batch size, etc. of the DCNN model regarding its validation accuracy. The proposed architecture outperformed previous methods by achieving an overall accuracy of 98%. Furthermore, ‘Fire_Net’ guarantied an average processing speed of 41.5 ms per image for real-time wildfire inspection. To demonstrate its practical utility, Fire_Net is tested on 40 sampled images in wildfire news reports and all of them have been accurately identified.

The role of ethnic identity, self-concept, and aberrant salience in psychotic-like experiences.

Science.gov (United States)

Cicero, David C; Cohn, Jonathan R

2018-01-01

Social-cognitive models of psychosis suggest that aberrant salience and self-concept clarity are related to the development and maintenance of psychoticlike experiences (PLEs). People with high aberrant salience but low self-concept clarity tend to have the highest levels of PLEs. Ethnic identity may also be related to PLEs. The current research aimed to (a) replicate the interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity in their association with PLEs in an ethnically diverse sample, (b) examine whether ethnic identity and aberrant salience interact in their association with PLEs, and (c) determine if self-concept clarity and ethnic identity independently interact with aberrant salience in their association with PLEs. An ethnically diverse group of undergraduates (n = 663) completed self-report measures of aberrant salience, self-concept clarity, ethnic identity, and PLEs. There was an interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity such that people with high levels of aberrant salience and low levels of self-concept clarity had the highest levels of PLEs. Similarly, there was an interaction between aberrant salience and ethnic identity such that people with high aberrant salience but low ethnic identity had the highest PLEs. These interactions independently contributed to explaining variance in PLEs. This interaction was present for the Exploration but not Commitment subscales of ethnic identity. These results suggest that, in addition to low self-concept clarity, low ethnic identity may be a risk factor for the development of psychosis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).

The Motivational Salience of Faces Is Related to Both Their Valence and Dominance.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongyi; Hahn, Amanda C; DeBruine, Lisa M; Jones, Benedict C

2016-01-01

Both behavioral and neural measures of the motivational salience of faces are positively correlated with their physical attractiveness. Whether physical characteristics other than attractiveness contribute to the motivational salience of faces is not known, however. Research with male macaques recently showed that more dominant macaques' faces hold greater motivational salience. Here we investigated whether dominance also contributes to the motivational salience of faces in human participants. Principal component analysis of third-party ratings of faces for multiple traits revealed two orthogonal components. The first component ("valence") was highly correlated with rated trustworthiness and attractiveness. The second component ("dominance") was highly correlated with rated dominance and aggressiveness. Importantly, both components were positively and independently related to the motivational salience of faces, as assessed from responses on a standard key-press task. These results show that at least two dissociable components underpin the motivational salience of faces in humans and present new evidence for similarities in how humans and non-human primates respond to facial cues of dominance.

Fast cat-eye effect target recognition based on saliency extraction

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Li, Li; Ren, Jianlin; Wang, Xingbin

2015-09-01

Background complexity is a main reason that results in false detection in cat-eye target recognition. Human vision has selective attention property which can help search the salient target from complex unknown scenes quickly and precisely. In the paper, we propose a novel cat-eye effect target recognition method named Multi-channel Saliency Processing before Fusion (MSPF). This method combines traditional cat-eye target recognition with the selective characters of visual attention. Furthermore, parallel processing enables it to achieve fast recognition. Experimental results show that the proposed method performs better in accuracy, robustness and speed compared to other methods.

Influence of Personality Traits in Self-Evaluative Salience, Motivational Salience and Self-Consciousness of Appearance

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José Carlos da Silva Mendes

2016-12-01

Full Text Available AimThe aim of this study was to understand the possible influence of personality traits on the importance and significance of perception of body image and self-awareness of appearance in individuals.Method214 online recruited subjects between the ages of 17 and 64 years answered to a socio-demographic questionnaire, the Portuguese version of the instruments NEO-FFI (NEO-Five Factor Inventory, ASI-R (The Appearance Schemas Inventory – Revised and DAS-24 (Derriford Appearance Scale – short.ResultsIt was found that age, Neuroticism and Agreeableness dimensions significantly influence an individual's investment in body image and self-awareness of appearance. Sexual orientations differed with regard to Self-Evaluative Salience and Self-Consciousness of Appearance.ConclusionThe performed analysis showed that neuroticism and agreeableness are related to Self-Evaluative Salience and Self-Consciousness of Appearance.

The Role of Aberrant Salience and Self-Concept Clarity in Psychotic-Like Experiences

Science.gov (United States)

Cicero, David C.; Becker, Theresa M.; Martin, Elizabeth A.; Docherty, Anna R.; Kerns, John G.

2013-01-01

Most theories of psychotic-like experiences posit the involvement of social-cognitive mechanisms. The current research examined the relations between psychotic-like experiences and two social-cognitive mechanisms, high aberrant salience and low self-concept clarity. In particular, we examined whether aberrant salience, or the incorrect assignment of importance to neutral stimuli, and low self-concept clarity interacted to predict psychotic-like experiences. The current research included three large samples (n = 667, 724, 744) of participants and over-sampled for increased schizotypal personality traits. In all three studies, an interaction between aberrant salience and self-concept clarity was found such that participants with high aberrant salience and low self-concept clarity had the highest levels of psychotic-like experiences. In addition, aberrant salience and self-concept clarity interacted to predict a supplemental measure of delusions in Study 2. In Study 3, in contrast to low self-concept clarity, neuroticism did not interact with aberrant salience to predict psychotic-like experiences, suggesting that the relation between low self-concept clarity and psychosis may not be due to neuroticism. Additionally, aberrant salience and self-concept clarity did not interact to predict to other schizotypal personality disorder criteria, social anhedonia or trait paranoia, which suggests the interaction is specific to psychotic-like experiences. Overall, our results are consistent with several social-cognitive models of psychosis suggesting that aberrant salience and self-concept clarity might be important mechanisms in the occurrence of psychotic-like symptoms. PMID:22452775

Parietal cortex integrates contextual and saliency signals during the encoding of natural scenes in working memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Santangelo, Valerio; Di Francesco, Simona Arianna; Mastroberardino, Serena; Macaluso, Emiliano

2015-12-01

The Brief presentation of a complex scene entails that only a few objects can be selected, processed indepth, and stored in memory. Both low-level sensory salience and high-level context-related factors (e.g., the conceptual match/mismatch between objects and scene context) contribute to this selection process, but how the interplay between these factors affects memory encoding is largely unexplored. Here, during fMRI we presented participants with pictures of everyday scenes. After a short retention interval, participants judged the position of a target object extracted from the initial scene. The target object could be either congruent or incongruent with the context of the scene, and could be located in a region of the image with maximal or minimal salience. Behaviourally, we found a reduced impact of saliency on visuospatial working memory performance when the target was out-of-context. Encoding-related fMRI results showed that context-congruent targets activated dorsoparietal regions, while context-incongruent targets de-activated the ventroparietal cortex. Saliency modulated activity both in dorsal and ventral regions, with larger context-related effects for salient targets. These findings demonstrate the joint contribution of knowledge-based and saliency-driven attention for memory encoding, highlighting a dissociation between dorsal and ventral parietal regions. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Aberrant Salience Inventory: A New Measure of Psychosis Proneness

Science.gov (United States)

Cicero, David C.; Kerns, John G.; McCarthy, Denis M.

2010-01-01

Aberrant salience is the unusual or incorrect assignment of salience, significance, or importance to otherwise innocuous stimuli and has been hypothesized to be important for psychosis and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia. Despite the importance of this concept in psychosis research, no questionnaire measures are available to assess…

Salience Is Only Briefly Represented: Evidence from Probe-Detection Performance

Science.gov (United States)

Donk, Mieke; Soesman, Leroy

2010-01-01

Salient objects in the visual field tend to capture attention. The present study aimed to examine the time-course of salience effects using a probe-detection task. Eight experiments investigated how the salience of different orientation singletons affected probe reaction time as a function of stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between the…

The Penefit of Salience: Salient Accented, but Not Unaccented Words Reveal Accent Adaptation Effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Grohe, Ann-Kathrin; Weber, Andrea

2016-01-01

In two eye-tracking experiments, the effects of salience in accent training and speech accentedness on spoken-word recognition were investigated. Salience was expected to increase a stimulus' prominence and therefore promote learning. A training-test paradigm was used on native German participants utilizing an artificial German accent. Salience was elicited by two different criteria: production and listening training as a subjective criterion and accented (Experiment 1) and canonical test words (Experiment 2) as an objective criterion. During training in Experiment 1, participants either read single German words out loud and deliberately devoiced initial voiced stop consonants (e.g., Balken-"beam" pronounced as (*) Palken), or they listened to pre-recorded words with the same accent. In a subsequent eye-tracking experiment, looks to auditorily presented target words with the accent were analyzed. Participants from both training conditions fixated accented target words more often than a control group without training. Training was identical in Experiment 2, but during test, canonical German words that overlapped in onset with the accented words from training were presented as target words (e.g., Palme-"palm tree" overlapped in onset with the training word (*) Palken) rather than accented words. This time, no training effect was observed; recognition of canonical word forms was not affected by having learned the accent. Therefore, accent learning was only visible when the accented test tokens in Experiment 1, which were not included in the test of Experiment 2, possessed sufficient salience based on the objective criterion "accent." These effects were not modified by the subjective criterion of salience from the training modality.

Prospective memory failures in aviation: effects of cue salience, workload, and individual differences.

Science.gov (United States)

Van Benthem, Kathleen D; Herdman, Chris M; Tolton, Rani G; LeFevre, Jo-Anne

2015-04-01

Prospective memory allows people to complete intended tasks in the future. Prospective memory failures, such as pilots forgetting to inform pattern traffic of their locations, can have fatal consequences. The present research examined the impact of system factors (memory cue salience and workload) and individual differences (pilot age, cognitive health, and expertise) on prospective memory for communication tasks in the cockpit. Pilots (N = 101) flew a Cessna 172 simulator at a non-towered aerodrome while maintaining communication with traffic and attending to flight parameters. Memory cue salience (the prominence of cues that signal an intended action) and workload were manipulated. Prospective memory was measured as radio call completion rates. Pilots' prospective memory was adversely affected by low-salience cues and high workload. An interaction of cue salience, pilots' age, and cognitive health reflected the effects of system and individual difference factors on prospective memory failures. For example, younger pilots with low levels of cognitive health completed 78% of the radio calls associated with low-salience memory cues, whereas older pilots with low cognitive health scores completed just 61% of similar radio calls. Our findings suggest that technologies designed to signal intended future tasks should target those tasks with inherently low-salience memory cues. In addition, increasing the salience of memory cues is most likely to benefit pilots with lower levels of cognitive health in high-workload conditions.

Ecological origins of object salience: reward, uncertainty, aversiveness and novelty

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Ali Ghazizadeh

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Among many objects around us, some of them are more salient than others (i.e., attract our attention automatically. Some objects may be inherently salient (e.g., brighter, but others may become salient by virtue of their ecological relevance through experience. However, the importance of ecological experience in guiding attention has not been studied systematically. To address this question, we let subjects (macaque monkeys view a large number of complex objects (>300, each experienced repeatedly (>5 days with rewarding, aversive or no outcome association (mere-perceptual exposure. Test of salience was done on separate days using free viewing with no outcome. We found that gaze was biased among the objects from the outset, affecting saccades to objects or fixations within objects. When the outcome was rewarding, gaze preference was stronger (i.e. positive for objects with larger or equal but uncertain rewards. The effects of aversive outcomes were variable. Gaze preference was positive for some outcome associations (e.g. airpuff, but negative for others (e.g. time-out, possibly due to differences in threat levels. Finally, novel objects attracted gaze, but mere perceptual exposure of objects reduced their salience (learned negative salience. Our results show that, in primates, object salience is strongly influenced by previous ecological experience and is supported by a large memory capacity. Owing to such learned salience, the capacity to rapidly choose important objects can grow during the entire life to promote biological fitness.

The electrophysiological correlate of saliency: evidence from a figure-detection task.

Science.gov (United States)

Straube, Sirko; Fahle, Manfred

2010-01-11

Although figure-ground segregation in a natural environment usually relies on multiple cues, we experience a coherent figure without usually noticing the individual single cues. It is still unclear how various cues interact to achieve this unified percept and whether this interaction depends on task demands. Studies investigating the effect of cue combination on the human EEG are still lacking. In the present study, we combined psychophysics, ERP and time-frequency analysis to investigate the interaction of orientation and spatial frequency as visual cues in a figure detection task. The figure was embedded in a matrix of Gabor elements, and we systematically varied figure saliency by changing the underlying cue configuration. We found a strong correlation between the posterior P2 amplitude and the perceived saliency of the figure: the P2 amplitude decreased with increasing saliency. Analogously, the power of the theta-band decreased for more salient figures. At longer latencies, the posterior P3 component was modulated in amplitude and latency, possibly reflecting increased decision confidence at higher saliencies. In conclusion, when the cue composition (e.g. one or two cues) or cue strength is changed in a figure detection task, first differences in the electrophysiological response reflect the perceived saliency and not directly the underlying cue configuration.

University-Affiliated Alcohol Marketing Enhances the Incentive Salience of Alcohol Cues.

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Bartholow, Bruce D; Loersch, Chris; Ito, Tiffany A; Levsen, Meredith P; Volpert-Esmond, Hannah I; Fleming, Kimberly A; Bolls, Paul; Carter, Brooke K

2018-01-01

We tested whether affiliating beer brands with universities enhances the incentive salience of those brands for underage drinkers. In Study 1, 128 undergraduates viewed beer cues while event-related potentials (ERPs) were recorded. Results showed that beer cues paired with in-group backgrounds (logos for students' universities) evoked an enhanced P3 ERP component, a neural index of incentive salience. This effect varied according to students' levels of identification with their university, and the amplitude of the P3 response prospectively predicted alcohol use over 1 month. In Study 2 ( N = 104), we used a naturalistic advertisement exposure to experimentally create in-group brand associations and found that this manipulation caused an increase in the incentive salience of the beer brand. These data provide the first evidence that marketing beer via affiliating it with students' universities enhances the incentive salience of the brand for underage students and that this effect has implications for their alcohol involvement.

Motivational salience signal in the basal forebrain is coupled with faster and more precise decision speed.

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Avila, Irene; Lin, Shih-Chieh

2014-03-01

The survival of animals depends critically on prioritizing responses to motivationally salient stimuli. While it is generally believed that motivational salience increases decision speed, the quantitative relationship between motivational salience and decision speed, measured by reaction time (RT), remains unclear. Here we show that the neural correlate of motivational salience in the basal forebrain (BF), defined independently of RT, is coupled with faster and also more precise decision speed. In rats performing a reward-biased simple RT task, motivational salience was encoded by BF bursting response that occurred before RT. We found that faster RTs were tightly coupled with stronger BF motivational salience signals. Furthermore, the fraction of RT variability reflecting the contribution of intrinsic noise in the decision-making process was actively suppressed in faster RT distributions with stronger BF motivational salience signals. Artificially augmenting the BF motivational salience signal via electrical stimulation led to faster and more precise RTs and supports a causal relationship. Together, these results not only describe for the first time, to our knowledge, the quantitative relationship between motivational salience and faster decision speed, they also reveal the quantitative coupling relationship between motivational salience and more precise RT. Our results further establish the existence of an early and previously unrecognized step in the decision-making process that determines both the RT speed and variability of the entire decision-making process and suggest that this novel decision step is dictated largely by the BF motivational salience signal. Finally, our study raises the hypothesis that the dysregulation of decision speed in conditions such as depression, schizophrenia, and cognitive aging may result from the functional impairment of the motivational salience signal encoded by the poorly understood noncholinergic BF neurons.

Attentional Push: Augmenting Salience with Shared Attention Modeling

OpenAIRE

Gorji, Siavash; Clark, James J.

2016-01-01

We present a novel visual attention tracking technique based on Shared Attention modeling. Our proposed method models the viewer as a participant in the activity occurring in the scene. We go beyond image salience and instead of only computing the power of an image region to pull attention to it, we also consider the strength with which other regions of the image push attention to the region in question. We use the term Attentional Push to refer to the power of image regions to direct and man...

Salience network dynamics underlying successful resistance of temptation

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Nomi, Jason S; Calhoun, Vince D; Stelzel, Christine; Paschke, Lena M; Gaschler, Robert; Goschke, Thomas; Walter, Henrik; Uddin, Lucina Q

2017-01-01

Abstract Self-control and the ability to resist temptation are critical for successful completion of long-term goals. Contemporary models in cognitive neuroscience emphasize the primary role of prefrontal cognitive control networks in aligning behavior with such goals. Here, we use gaze pattern analysis and dynamic functional connectivity fMRI data to explore how individual differences in the ability to resist temptation are related to intrinsic brain dynamics of the cognitive control and salience networks. Behaviorally, individuals exhibit greater gaze distance from target location (e.g. higher distractibility) during presentation of tempting erotic images compared with neutral images. Individuals whose intrinsic dynamic functional connectivity patterns gravitate toward configurations in which salience detection systems are less strongly coupled with visual systems resist tempting distractors more effectively. The ability to resist tempting distractors was not significantly related to intrinsic dynamics of the cognitive control network. These results suggest that susceptibility to temptation is governed in part by individual differences in salience network dynamics and provide novel evidence for involvement of brain systems outside canonical cognitive control networks in contributing to individual differences in self-control. PMID:29048582

A Residential Area Extraction Method for High Resolution Remote Sensing Imagery by Using Visual Saliency and Perceptual Organization

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

CHEN Yixiang

2017-12-01

Full Text Available Inspired by human visual cognitive mechanism,a method of residential area extraction from high-resolution remote sensing images was proposed based on visual saliency and perceptual organization. Firstly,the data field theory of cognitive physics was introduced to model the visual saliency and the candidate residential areas were produced by adaptive thresholding. Then,the exact residential areas were obtained and refined by perceptual organization based on the high-frequency features of multi-scale wavelet transform. Finally,the validity of the proposed method was verified by experiments conducted on ZY-3 and Quickbird image data sets.

Image classification using multiscale information fusion based on saliency driven nonlinear diffusion filtering.

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Hu, Weiming; Hu, Ruiguang; Xie, Nianhua; Ling, Haibin; Maybank, Stephen

2014-04-01

In this paper, we propose saliency driven image multiscale nonlinear diffusion filtering. The resulting scale space in general preserves or even enhances semantically important structures such as edges, lines, or flow-like structures in the foreground, and inhibits and smoothes clutter in the background. The image is classified using multiscale information fusion based on the original image, the image at the final scale at which the diffusion process converges, and the image at a midscale. Our algorithm emphasizes the foreground features, which are important for image classification. The background image regions, whether considered as contexts of the foreground or noise to the foreground, can be globally handled by fusing information from different scales. Experimental tests of the effectiveness of the multiscale space for the image classification are conducted on the following publicly available datasets: 1) the PASCAL 2005 dataset; 2) the Oxford 102 flowers dataset; and 3) the Oxford 17 flowers dataset, with high classification rates.

Women's hormone levels modulate the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Hongyi; Hahn, Amanda C; Fisher, Claire I; DeBruine, Lisa M; Jones, Benedict C

2014-12-01

The physical attractiveness of faces is positively correlated with both behavioral and neural measures of their motivational salience. Although previous work suggests that hormone levels modulate women's perceptions of others' facial attractiveness, studies have not yet investigated whether hormone levels also modulate the motivational salience of facial characteristics. To address this issue, we investigated the relationships between within-subject changes in women's salivary hormone levels (estradiol, progesterone, testosterone, and estradiol-to-progesterone ratio) and within-subject changes in the motivational salience of attractiveness and sexual dimorphism in male and female faces. The motivational salience of physically attractive faces in general and feminine female faces, but not masculine male faces, was greater in test sessions where women had high testosterone levels. Additionally, the reward value of sexually dimorphic faces in general and attractive female faces, but not attractive male faces, was greater in test sessions where women had high estradiol-to-progesterone ratios. These results provide the first evidence that the motivational salience of facial attractiveness and sexual dimorphism is modulated by within-woman changes in hormone levels. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Trends in the salience of data collected in a multi user virtual environment: An exploratory study

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Tutwiler, M. Shane

In this study, by exploring patterns in the degree of physical salience of the data the students collected, I investigated the relationship between the level of students' tendency to frame explanations in terms of complex patterns and evidence of how they attend to and select data in support of their developing understandings of causal relationships. I accomplished this by analyzing longitudinal data collected as part of a larger study of 143 7th grade students (clustered within 36 teams, 5 teachers, and 2 schools in the same Northeastern school district) as they navigated and collected data in an ecosystems-based multi-user virtual environment curriculum known as the EcoMUVE Pond module (Metcalf, Kamarainen, Tutwiler, Grotzer, Dede, 2011) . Using individual growth modeling (Singer & Willett, 2003) I found no direct link between student pre-intervention tendency to offer explanations containing complex causal components and patterns of physical salience-driven data collection (average physical salience level, number of low physical salience data points collected, and proportion of low physical salience data points collected), though prior science content knowledge did affect the initial status and rate of change of outcomes in the average physical salience level and proportion of low physical salience data collected over time. The findings of this study suggest two issues for consideration about the use of MUVEs to study student data collection behaviors in complex spaces. Firstly, the structure of the curriculum in which the MUVE is embedded might have a direct effect on what types of data students choose to collect. This undercuts our ability to make inferences about student-driven decisions to collect specific types of data, and suggests that a more open-ended curricular model might be better suited to this type of inquiry. Secondly, differences between teachers' choices in how to facilitate the units likely contribute to the variance in student data collection

Voting based object boundary reconstruction

Science.gov (United States)

Tian, Qi; Zhang, Like; Ma, Jingsheng

2005-07-01

A voting-based object boundary reconstruction approach is proposed in this paper. Morphological technique was adopted in many applications for video object extraction to reconstruct the missing pixels. However, when the missing areas become large, the morphological processing cannot bring us good results. Recently, Tensor voting has attracted people"s attention, and it can be used for boundary estimation on curves or irregular trajectories. However, the complexity of saliency tensor creation limits its applications in real-time systems. An alternative approach based on tensor voting is introduced in this paper. Rather than creating saliency tensors, we use a "2-pass" method for orientation estimation. For the first pass, Sobel d*etector is applied on a coarse boundary image to get the gradient map. In the second pass, each pixel puts decreasing weights based on its gradient information, and the direction with maximum weights sum is selected as the correct orientation of the pixel. After the orientation map is obtained, pixels begin linking edges or intersections along their direction. The approach is applied to various video surveillance clips under different conditions, and the experimental results demonstrate significant improvement on the final extracted objects accuracy.

An object-based visual attention model for robotic applications.

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Yu, Yuanlong; Mann, George K I; Gosine, Raymond G

2010-10-01

By extending integrated competition hypothesis, this paper presents an object-based visual attention model, which selects one object of interest using low-dimensional features, resulting that visual perception starts from a fast attentional selection procedure. The proposed attention model involves seven modules: learning of object representations stored in a long-term memory (LTM), preattentive processing, top-down biasing, bottom-up competition, mediation between top-down and bottom-up ways, generation of saliency maps, and perceptual completion processing. It works in two phases: learning phase and attending phase. In the learning phase, the corresponding object representation is trained statistically when one object is attended. A dual-coding object representation consisting of local and global codings is proposed. Intensity, color, and orientation features are used to build the local coding, and a contour feature is employed to constitute the global coding. In the attending phase, the model preattentively segments the visual field into discrete proto-objects using Gestalt rules at first. If a task-specific object is given, the model recalls the corresponding representation from LTM and deduces the task-relevant feature(s) to evaluate top-down biases. The mediation between automatic bottom-up competition and conscious top-down biasing is then performed to yield a location-based saliency map. By combination of location-based saliency within each proto-object, the proto-object-based saliency is evaluated. The most salient proto-object is selected for attention, and it is finally put into the perceptual completion processing module to yield a complete object region. This model has been applied into distinct tasks of robots: detection of task-specific stationary and moving objects. Experimental results under different conditions are shown to validate this model.

The habenula governs the attribution of incentive salience to reward predictive cues

Science.gov (United States)

Danna, Carey L.; Shepard, Paul D.; Elmer, Greg I.

2013-01-01

The attribution of incentive salience to reward associated cues is critical for motivation and the pursuit of rewards. Disruptions in the integrity of the neural systems controlling these processes can lead to avolition and anhedonia, symptoms that cross the diagnostic boundaries of many neuropsychiatric illnesses. Here, we consider whether the habenula (Hb), a region recently demonstrated to encode negatively valenced events, also modulates the attribution of incentive salience to a neutral cue predicting a food reward. The Pavlovian autoshaping paradigm was used in the rat as an investigative tool to dissociate Pavlovian learning processes imparting strictly predictive value from learning that attributes incentive motivational value. Electrolytic lesions of the fasciculus retroflexus (fr), the sole pathway through which descending Hb efferents are conveyed, significantly increased incentive salience as measured by conditioned approaches to a cue light predictive of reward. Conversely, generation of a fictive Hb signal via fr stimulation during CS+ presentation significantly decreased the incentive salience of the predictive cue. Neither manipulation altered the reward predictive value of the cue as measured by conditioned approach to the food. Our results provide new evidence supporting a significant role for the Hb in governing the attribution of incentive motivational salience to reward predictive cues and further imply that pathological changes in Hb activity could contribute to the aberrant pursuit of debilitating goals or avolition and depression-like symptoms. PMID:24368898

The habenula governs the attribution of incentive salience to reward predictive cues.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Carey L. Danna

2013-12-01

Full Text Available The attribution of incentive salience to reward associated cues is critical for motivation and the pursuit of rewards. Disruptions in the integrity of the neural systems controlling these processes can lead to avolition and anhedonia, symptoms that cross the diagnostic boundaries of many neuropsychiatric illnesses. Here, we consider whether the habenula (Hb, a region recently demonstrated to encode negatively valenced events, also modulates the attribution of incentive salience to a neutral cue predicting a food reward. The Pavlovian autoshaping paradigm was used in the rat as an investigative tool to dissociate Pavlovian learning processes imparting strictly predictive value from learning that attributes incentive motivational value. Electrolytic lesions of the fasciculus retroflexus (fr, the sole pathway through which descending Hb efferents are conveyed, significantly increased incentive salience as measured by conditioned approaches to a cue light predictive of reward. Conversely, generation of a fictive Hb signal via fr stimulation during CS+ presentation significantly decreased the incentive salience of the predictive cue. Neither manipulation altered the reward predictive value of the cue as measured by conditioned approach to the food. Our results provide new evidence supporting a significant role for the Hb in governing the attribution of incentive motivational salience to reward predictive cues and further imply that pathological changes in Hb activity could contribute to the aberrant pursuit of debilitating goals or avolition and depression-like symptoms.

Inherent Difference in Saliency for Generators with Different PM Materials

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sandra Eriksson

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The inherent differences between salient and nonsalient electrical machines are evaluated for two permanent magnet generators with different configurations. The neodymium based (NdFeB permanent magnets (PMs in a generator are substituted with ferrite magnets and the characteristics of the NdFeB generator and the ferrite generator are compared through FEM simulations. The NdFeB generator is a nonsalient generator, whereas the ferrite machine is a salient-pole generator, with small saliency. The two generators have almost identical properties at rated load operation. However, at overload the behaviour differs between the two generators. The salient-pole, ferrite generator has lower maximum torque than the NdFeB generator and a larger voltage drop at high current. It is concluded that, for applications where overload capability is important, saliency must be considered and the generator design adapted according to the behaviour at overload operation. Furthermore, if the maximum torque is the design criteria, additional PM mass will be required for the salient-pole machine.

Hopelessly mortal: The role of mortality salience, immortality and trait self-esteem in personal hope.

Science.gov (United States)

Wisman, Arnaud; Heflick, Nathan A

2016-08-01

Do people lose hope when thinking about death? Based on Terror Management Theory, we predicted that thoughts of death (i.e., mortality salience) would reduce personal hope for people low, but not high, in self-esteem, and that this reduction in hope would be ameliorated by promises of immortality. In Studies 1 and 2, mortality salience reduced personal hope for people low in self-esteem, but not for people high in self-esteem. In Study 3, mortality salience reduced hope for people low in self-esteem when they read an argument that there is no afterlife, but not when they read "evidence" supporting life after death. In Study 4, this effect was replicated with an essay affirming scientific medical advances that promise immortality. Together, these findings uniquely demonstrate that thoughts of mortality interact with trait self-esteem to cause changes in personal hope, and that literal immortality beliefs can aid psychological adjustment when thinking about death. Implications for understanding personal hope, trait self-esteem, afterlife beliefs and terror management are discussed.

Salience and Default Mode Network Coupling Predicts Cognition in Aging and Parkinson's Disease.

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Putcha, Deepti; Ross, Robert S; Cronin-Golomb, Alice; Janes, Amy C; Stern, Chantal E

2016-02-01

Cognitive impairment is common in Parkinson's disease (PD). Three neurocognitive networks support efficient cognition: the salience network, the default mode network, and the central executive network. The salience network is thought to switch between activating and deactivating the default mode and central executive networks. Anti-correlated interactions between the salience and default mode networks in particular are necessary for efficient cognition. Our previous work demonstrated altered functional coupling between the neurocognitive networks in non-demented individuals with PD compared to age-matched control participants. Here, we aim to identify associations between cognition and functional coupling between these neurocognitive networks in the same group of participants. We investigated the extent to which intrinsic functional coupling among these neurocognitive networks is related to cognitive performance across three neuropsychological domains: executive functioning, psychomotor speed, and verbal memory. Twenty-four non-demented individuals with mild to moderate PD and 20 control participants were scanned at rest and evaluated on three neuropsychological domains. PD participants were impaired on tests from all three domains compared to control participants. Our imaging results demonstrated that successful cognition across healthy aging and Parkinson's disease participants was related to anti-correlated coupling between the salience and default mode networks. Individuals with poorer performance scores across groups demonstrated more positive salience network/default-mode network coupling. Successful cognition relies on healthy coupling between the salience and default mode networks, which may become dysfunctional in PD. These results can help inform non-pharmacological interventions (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation) targeting these specific networks before they become vulnerable in early stages of Parkinson's disease.

Enacting Effective Climate Policy Advice: Institutional Strategies to Foster Saliency, Credibility and Legitimacy

Science.gov (United States)

Bauer, Anja; Pregernig, Michael; Reinecke, Sabine

2016-01-01

This article asks how scientific advisory institutions (SAIs) in climate policy strive towards effectiveness. Our analysis is grounded on the assumption that effectiveness is not passively experienced but is deliberately enacted by SAIs. We draw on a widely used set of criteria, namely saliency, credibility and legitimacy (SCL). Based on an…

Perceiving and Confronting Sexism: The Causal Role of Gender Identity Salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Katie; Dovidio, John F

2017-03-01

Although many researchers have explored the relations among gender identification, discriminatory attributions, and intentions to challenge discrimination, few have examined the causal impact of gender identity salience on women's actual responses to a sexist encounter. In the current study, we addressed this question by experimentally manipulating the salience of gender identity and assessing its impact on women's decision to confront a sexist comment in a simulated online interaction. Female participants ( N = 114) were randomly assigned to complete a short measure of either personal or collective self-esteem, which was designed to increase the salience of personal versus gender identity. They were then given the opportunity to confront a male interaction partner who expressed sexist views. Compared to those who were primed to focus on their personal identity, participants who were primed to focus on their gender identity perceived the interaction partner's remarks as more sexist and were more likely to engage in confrontation. By highlighting the powerful role of subtle contextual cues in shaping women's perceptions of, and responses to, sexism, our findings have important implications for the understanding of gender identity salience as an antecedent of prejudice confrontation. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index.

Stakeholder Salience in ERP Projects

OpenAIRE

Salhotra, Eashan

2014-01-01

The aim of this study is to examine stakeholder involvement in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) System project that involves implementation and improvement of the implemented system. The study targets stakeholders, their classification, and their degree of importance during different phases of an ERP project life cycle, i.e. planning, implementation, stabilisation and improvement. The study shows that stakeholder involvement and their salience vary along the ERP project life cycle a...

A new method for calibrating perceptual salience across dimensions in infants: the case of color vs. luminance.

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Kaldy, Zsuzsa; Blaser, Erik A; Leslie, Alan M

2006-09-01

We report a new method for calibrating differences in perceptual salience across feature dimensions, in infants. The problem of inter-dimensional salience arises in many areas of infant studies, but a general method for addressing the problem has not previously been described. Our method is based on a preferential looking paradigm, adapted to determine the relative salience of two stimuli. We report here on the case of stimuli differing in color and luminance, though the method has wider potential. We were able to determine on a psychophysical curve the point at which a color contrast was equally salient to infants as a given luminance contrast. We then used these calibrated, 'iso-salient' stimuli in an object memory study. Results showed that 6.5-month-old infants noticed a color, but not a luminance, change while tracking an occluded object. Our method should have numerous applications in the study of bottom-up effects on infant attention and visual working memory.

USGS Topo Base Map from The National Map

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The USGS Topographic Base Map from The National Map. This tile cached web map service combines the most current data services (Boundaries, Names, Transportation,...

Place identity and place scale: the impact of place salience.

OpenAIRE

Bernardo, Fátima; Palma-Oliveira, José-Manuel

2013-01-01

Research about place, place identity and attachment supports the idea that bonds with places may differ depending on the place scale. Based on the view that identity is context-dependent, this paper brings to the table the impact of manipulating the salience of place on the intensity of place identity and place attachment reported. A study was designed to examine place identity and place attachment in two groups of residents (permanent and temporary) at three different scales (nei...

"Always in My Face": An Exploration of Social Class Consciousness, Salience, and Values

Science.gov (United States)

Martin, Georgianna L.

2015-01-01

This qualitative study explores social class consciousness, salience, and values of White, low-income, first-generation college students. Overall, participants minimized the salience of social class as an aspect of their identity with many of them expressing that they did not want their social class to define them. Although participants largely…

Diffusion Based Photon Mapping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schjøth, Lars; Fogh Olsen, Ole; Sporring, Jon

2007-01-01

. To address this problem we introduce a novel photon mapping algorithm based on nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. Our algorithm adapts according to the structure of the photon map such that smoothing occurs along edges and structures and not across. In this way we preserve the important illumination features......, while eliminating noise. We call our method diffusion based photon mapping....

Diffusion Based Photon Mapping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schjøth, Lars; Olsen, Ole Fogh; Sporring, Jon

2006-01-01

. To address this problem we introduce a novel photon mapping algorithm based on nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. Our algorithm adapts according to the structure of the photon map such that smoothing occurs along edges and structures and not across. In this way we preserve the important illumination features......, while eliminating noise. We call our method diffusion based photon mapping....

ERP evidence on the interaction between information structure and emotional salience of words.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Lin; Bastiaansen, Marcel; Yang, Yufang; Hagoort, Peter

2013-06-01

Both emotional words and words focused by information structure can capture attention. This study examined the interplay between emotional salience and information structure in modulating attentional resources in the service of integrating emotional words into sentence context. Event-related potentials (ERPs) to affectively negative, neutral, and positive words, which were either focused or nonfocused in question-answer pairs, were evaluated during sentence comprehension. The results revealed an early negative effect (90-200 ms), a P2 effect, as well as an effect in the N400 time window, for both emotional salience and information structure. Moreover, an interaction between emotional salience and information structure occurred within the N400 time window over right posterior electrodes, showing that information structure influences the semantic integration only for neutral words, but not for emotional words. This might reflect the fact that the linguistic salience of emotional words can override the effect of information structure on the integration of words into context. The interaction provides evidence for attention-emotion interactions at a later stage of processing. In addition, the absence of interaction in the early time window suggests that the processing of emotional information is highly automatic and independent of context. The results suggest independent attention capture systems of emotional salience and information structure at the early stage but an interaction between them at a later stage, during the semantic integration of words.

Debiasing the disposition effect by reducing the saliency of information about a stock's purchase price.

Science.gov (United States)

Frydman, Cary; Rangel, Antonio

2014-11-01

The disposition effect refers to the empirical fact that investors have a higher propensity to sell risky assets with capital gains compared to risky assets with capital losses, and it has been associated with low trading performance. We use a stock trading laboratory experiment to investigate if it is possible to reduce subjects' tendency to exhibit a disposition effect by making information about a stock's purchase price, and thus about capital gains and losses, less salient. We compare two experimental conditions: a high-saliency condition in which the purchase price of a stock is prominently displayed by the trading software, and a low-saliency condition in which it is not displayed at all. We find that individuals exhibit a disposition effect in the high-saliency condition, and that the effect is 25% smaller in the low-saliency condition. This suggests that it is possible to debias the disposition effect by reducing the saliency with which information about a stock's purchase price is displayed on financial statements and online trading platforms.

Perceiving and Confronting Sexism: The Causal Role of Gender Identity Salience

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Katie; Dovidio, John F.

2017-01-01

Although many researchers have explored the relations among gender identification, discriminatory attributions, and intentions to challenge discrimination, few have examined the causal impact of gender identity salience on women’s actual responses to a sexist encounter. In the current study, we addressed this question by experimentally manipulating the salience of gender identity and assessing its impact on women’s decision to confront a sexist comment in a simulated online interaction. Female participants (N = 114) were randomly assigned to complete a short measure of either personal or collective self-esteem, which was designed to increase the salience of personal versus gender identity. They were then given the opportunity to confront a male interaction partner who expressed sexist views. Compared to those who were primed to focus on their personal identity, participants who were primed to focus on their gender identity perceived the interaction partner’s remarks as more sexist and were more likely to engage in confrontation. By highlighting the powerful role of subtle contextual cues in shaping women’s perceptions of, and responses to, sexism, our findings have important implications for the understanding of gender identity salience as an antecedent of prejudice confrontation. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ’s website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index. PMID:29051685

Basal forebrain motivational salience signal enhances cortical processing and decision speed

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sylvina M Raver

2015-10-01

Full Text Available The basal forebrain (BF contains major projections to the cerebral cortex, and plays a well-documented role in arousal, attention, decision-making, and in modulating cortical activity. BF neuronal degeneration is an early event in Alzheimer’s disease and dementias, and occurs in normal cognitive aging. While the BF is best known for its population of cortically projecting cholinergic neurons, the region is anatomically and neurochemically diverse, and also contains prominent populations of non-cholinergic projection neurons. In recent years, increasing attention has been dedicated to these non-cholinergic BF neurons in order to better understand how non-cholinergic BF circuits control cortical processing and behavioral performance. In this review, we focus on a unique population of putative non-cholinergic BF neurons that encodes the motivational salience of stimuli with a robust ensemble bursting response. We review recent studies that describe the specific physiological and functional characteristics of these BF salience-encoding neurons in behaving animals. These studies support the unifying hypothesis whereby BF salience-encoding neurons act as a gain modulation mechanism of the decision-making process to enhance cortical processing of behaviorally relevant stimuli, and thereby facilitate faster and more precise behavioral responses. This function of BF salience-encoding neurons represents a critical component in determining which incoming stimuli warrant an animal’s attention, and is therefore a fundamental and early requirement of behavioral flexibility.

Characterizing the effects of feature salience and top-down attention in the early visual system.

Science.gov (United States)

Poltoratski, Sonia; Ling, Sam; McCormack, Devin; Tong, Frank

2017-07-01

The visual system employs a sophisticated balance of attentional mechanisms: salient stimuli are prioritized for visual processing, yet observers can also ignore such stimuli when their goals require directing attention elsewhere. A powerful determinant of visual salience is local feature contrast: if a local region differs from its immediate surround along one or more feature dimensions, it will appear more salient. We used high-resolution functional MRI (fMRI) at 7T to characterize the modulatory effects of bottom-up salience and top-down voluntary attention within multiple sites along the early visual pathway, including visual areas V1-V4 and the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN). Observers viewed arrays of spatially distributed gratings, where one of the gratings immediately to the left or right of fixation differed from all other items in orientation or motion direction, making it salient. To investigate the effects of directed attention, observers were cued to attend to the grating to the left or right of fixation, which was either salient or nonsalient. Results revealed reliable additive effects of top-down attention and stimulus-driven salience throughout visual areas V1-hV4. In comparison, the LGN exhibited significant attentional enhancement but was not reliably modulated by orientation- or motion-defined salience. Our findings indicate that top-down effects of spatial attention can influence visual processing at the earliest possible site along the visual pathway, including the LGN, whereas the processing of orientation- and motion-driven salience primarily involves feature-selective interactions that take place in early cortical visual areas. NEW & NOTEWORTHY While spatial attention allows for specific, goal-driven enhancement of stimuli, salient items outside of the current focus of attention must also be prioritized. We used 7T fMRI to compare salience and spatial attentional enhancement along the early visual hierarchy. We report additive effects of

An efficient depth map preprocessing method based on structure-aided domain transform smoothing for 3D view generation.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Wei Liu

Full Text Available Depth image-based rendering (DIBR, which is used to render virtual views with a color image and the corresponding depth map, is one of the key techniques in the 2D to 3D conversion process. Due to the absence of knowledge about the 3D structure of a scene and its corresponding texture, DIBR in the 2D to 3D conversion process, inevitably leads to holes in the resulting 3D image as a result of newly-exposed areas. In this paper, we proposed a structure-aided depth map preprocessing framework in the transformed domain, which is inspired by recently proposed domain transform for its low complexity and high efficiency. Firstly, our framework integrates hybrid constraints including scene structure, edge consistency and visual saliency information in the transformed domain to improve the performance of depth map preprocess in an implicit way. Then, adaptive smooth localization is cooperated and realized in the proposed framework to further reduce over-smoothness and enhance optimization in the non-hole regions. Different from the other similar methods, the proposed method can simultaneously achieve the effects of hole filling, edge correction and local smoothing for typical depth maps in a united framework. Thanks to these advantages, it can yield visually satisfactory results with less computational complexity for high quality 2D to 3D conversion. Numerical experimental results demonstrate the excellent performances of the proposed method.

The habenula governs the attribution of incentive salience to reward predictive cues

OpenAIRE

Danna, Carey L.; Shepard, Paul D.; Elmer, Greg I.

2013-01-01

The attribution of incentive salience to reward associated cues is critical for motivation and the pursuit of rewards. Disruptions in the integrity of the neural systems controlling these processes can lead to avolition and anhedonia, symptoms that cross the diagnostic boundaries of many neuropsychiatric illnesses. Here, we consider whether the habenula (Hb), a region recently demonstrated to encode negatively valenced events, also modulates the attribution of incentive salience to a neutral...

Individual differences in the attribution of incentive salience to reward-related cues: Implications for addiction.

Science.gov (United States)

Flagel, Shelly B; Akil, Huda; Robinson, Terry E

2009-01-01

Drugs of abuse acquire different degrees of control over thoughts and actions based not only on the effects of drugs themselves, but also on predispositions of the individual. Those individuals who become addicted are unable to shift their thoughts and actions away from drugs and drug-associated stimuli. Thus in addicts, exposure to places or things (cues) that has been previously associated with drug-taking often instigates renewed drug-taking. We and others have postulated that drug-associated cues acquire the ability to maintain and instigate drug-taking behavior in part because they acquire incentive motivational properties through Pavlovian (stimulus-stimulus) learning. In the case of compulsive behavioral disorders, including addiction, such cues may be attributed with pathological incentive value ("incentive salience"). For this reason, we have recently begun to explore individual differences in the tendency to attribute incentive salience to cues that predict rewards. When discrete cues are associated with the non-contingent delivery of food or drug rewards some animals come to quickly approach and engage the cue even if it is located at a distance from where the reward will be delivered. In these animals the reward-predictive cue itself becomes attractive, eliciting approach towards it, presumably because it is attributed with incentive salience. Animals that develop this type of conditional response are called "sign-trackers". Other animals, "goal-trackers", do not approach the reward-predictive cue, but upon cue presentation they immediately go to the location where food will be delivered (the "goal"). For goal-trackers the reward-predictive cue is not attractive, presumably because it is not attributed with incentive salience. We review here preliminary data suggesting that these individual differences in the tendency to attribute incentive salience to cues predictive of reward may confer vulnerability or resistance to compulsive behavioral disorders

Referent Salience Affects Second Language Article Use

Science.gov (United States)

Trenkic, Danijela; Pongpairoj, Nattama

2013-01-01

The effect of referent salience on second language (L2) article production in real time was explored. Thai (-articles) and French (+articles) learners of English described dynamic events involving two referents, one visually cued to be more salient at the point of utterance formulation. Definiteness marking was made communicatively redundant with…

When death is not a problem: Regulating implicit negative affect under mortality salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Lüdecke, Christina; Baumann, Nicola

2015-12-01

Terror management theory assumes that death arouses existential anxiety in humans which is suppressed in focal attention. Whereas most studies provide indirect evidence for negative affect under mortality salience by showing cultural worldview defenses and self-esteem strivings, there is only little direct evidence for implicit negative affect under mortality salience. In the present study, we assume that this implicit affective reaction towards death depends on people's ability to self-regulate negative affect as assessed by the personality dimension of action versus state orientation. Consistent with our expectations, action-oriented participants judged artificial words to express less negative affect under mortality salience compared to control conditions whereas state-oriented participants showed the reversed pattern. © 2015 Scandinavian Psychological Associations and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

From prediction error to incentive salience: mesolimbic computation of reward motivation

Science.gov (United States)

Berridge, Kent C.

2011-01-01

Reward contains separable psychological components of learning, incentive motivation and pleasure. Most computational models have focused only on the learning component of reward, but the motivational component is equally important in reward circuitry, and even more directly controls behavior. Modeling the motivational component requires recognition of additional control factors besides learning. Here I will discuss how mesocorticolimbic mechanisms generate the motivation component of incentive salience. Incentive salience takes Pavlovian learning and memory as one input and as an equally important input takes neurobiological state factors (e.g., drug states, appetite states, satiety states) that can vary independently of learning. Neurobiological state changes can produce unlearned fluctuations or even reversals in the ability of a previously-learned reward cue to trigger motivation. Such fluctuations in cue-triggered motivation can dramatically depart from all previously learned values about the associated reward outcome. Thus a consequence of the difference between incentive salience and learning can be to decouple cue-triggered motivation of the moment from previously learned values of how good the associated reward has been in the past. Another consequence can be to produce irrationally strong motivation urges that are not justified by any memories of previous reward values (and without distorting associative predictions of future reward value). Such irrationally strong motivation may be especially problematic in addiction. To comprehend these phenomena, future models of mesocorticolimbic reward function should address the neurobiological state factors that participate to control generation of incentive salience. PMID:22487042

Detecting wood surface defects with fusion algorithm of visual saliency and local threshold segmentation

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xuejuan; Wu, Shuhang; Liu, Yunpeng

2018-04-01

This paper presents a new method for wood defect detection. It can solve the over-segmentation problem existing in local threshold segmentation methods. This method effectively takes advantages of visual saliency and local threshold segmentation. Firstly, defect areas are coarsely located by using spectral residual method to calculate global visual saliency of them. Then, the threshold segmentation of maximum inter-class variance method is adopted for positioning and segmenting the wood surface defects precisely around the coarse located areas. Lastly, we use mathematical morphology to process the binary images after segmentation, which reduces the noise and small false objects. Experiments on test images of insect hole, dead knot and sound knot show that the method we proposed obtains ideal segmentation results and is superior to the existing segmentation methods based on edge detection, OSTU and threshold segmentation.

Electrophysiological correlates of figure-ground segregation directly reflect perceptual saliency.

Science.gov (United States)

Straube, Sirko; Grimsen, Cathleen; Fahle, Manfred

2010-03-05

In a figure identification task, we investigated the influence of different visual cue configurations (spatial frequency, orientation or a combination of both) on the human EEG. Combining psychophysics with ERP and time-frequency analysis, we show that the neural response at about 200ms reflects perceptual saliency rather than physical cue contrast. Increasing saliency caused (i) a negative shift of the posterior P2 coinciding with a power decrease in the posterior theta-band and (ii) an amplitude and latency increase of the posterior P3. We demonstrate that visual cues interact for a percept that is non-linearly related to the physical figure-ground properties.

Approach Motivation as Incentive Salience: Perceptual Sources of Evidence in Relation to Positive Word Primes

Science.gov (United States)

Ode, Scott; Winters, Patricia L.; Robinson, Michael D.

2012-01-01

Four experiments (total N = 391) examined predictions derived from a biologically-based incentive salience theory of approach motivation. In all experiments, judgments indicative of enhanced perceptual salience were exaggerated in the context of positive, relative to neutral or negative, stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, positive words were judged to be of a larger size (Experiment 1) and led individuals to judge subsequently presented neutral objects as larger in size (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, similar effects were observed in a mock subliminal presentation paradigm. In Experiment 4, positive word primes were perceived to have been presented for a longer duration of time, again relative to both neutral and negative word primes. Results are discussed in relation to theories of approach motivation, affective priming, and the motivation-perception interface. PMID:21875189

Attention in natural scenes: Affective-motivational factors guide gaze independently of visual salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Schomaker, Judith; Walper, Daniel; Wittmann, Bianca C; Einhäuser, Wolfgang

2017-04-01

In addition to low-level stimulus characteristics and current goals, our previous experience with stimuli can also guide attentional deployment. It remains unclear, however, if such effects act independently or whether they interact in guiding attention. In the current study, we presented natural scenes including every-day objects that differed in affective-motivational impact. In the first free-viewing experiment, we presented visually-matched triads of scenes in which one critical object was replaced that varied mainly in terms of motivational value, but also in terms of valence and arousal, as confirmed by ratings by a large set of observers. Treating motivation as a categorical factor, we found that it affected gaze. A linear-effect model showed that arousal, valence, and motivation predicted fixations above and beyond visual characteristics, like object size, eccentricity, or visual salience. In a second experiment, we experimentally investigated whether the effects of emotion and motivation could be modulated by visual salience. In a medium-salience condition, we presented the same unmodified scenes as in the first experiment. In a high-salience condition, we retained the saturation of the critical object in the scene, and decreased the saturation of the background, and in a low-salience condition, we desaturated the critical object while retaining the original saturation of the background. We found that highly salient objects guided gaze, but still found additional additive effects of arousal, valence and motivation, confirming that higher-level factors can also guide attention, as measured by fixations towards objects in natural scenes. Copyright © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Neuroimaging Impaired Response Inhibition and Salience Attribution in Human Drug Addiction: A Systematic Review.

Science.gov (United States)

Zilverstand, Anna; Huang, Anna S; Alia-Klein, Nelly; Goldstein, Rita Z

2018-06-06

The impaired response inhibition and salience attribution (iRISA) model proposes that impaired response inhibition and salience attribution underlie drug seeking and taking. To update this model, we systematically reviewed 105 task-related neuroimaging studies (n > 15/group) published since 2010. Results demonstrate specific impairments within six large-scale brain networks (reward, habit, salience, executive, memory, and self-directed networks) during drug cue exposure, decision making, inhibitory control, and social-emotional processing. Addicted individuals demonstrated increased recruitment of these networks during drug-related processing but a blunted response during non-drug-related processing, with the same networks also being implicated during resting state. Associations with real-life drug use, relapse, therapeutic interventions, and the relevance to initiation of drug use during adolescence support the clinical relevance of the results. Whereas the salience and executive networks showed impairments throughout the addiction cycle, the reward network was dysregulated at later stages of abuse. Effects were similar in alcohol, cannabis, and stimulant addiction. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From prediction error to incentive salience: mesolimbic computation of reward motivation.

Science.gov (United States)

Berridge, Kent C

2012-04-01

Reward contains separable psychological components of learning, incentive motivation and pleasure. Most computational models have focused only on the learning component of reward, but the motivational component is equally important in reward circuitry, and even more directly controls behavior. Modeling the motivational component requires recognition of additional control factors besides learning. Here I discuss how mesocorticolimbic mechanisms generate the motivation component of incentive salience. Incentive salience takes Pavlovian learning and memory as one input and as an equally important input takes neurobiological state factors (e.g. drug states, appetite states, satiety states) that can vary independently of learning. Neurobiological state changes can produce unlearned fluctuations or even reversals in the ability of a previously learned reward cue to trigger motivation. Such fluctuations in cue-triggered motivation can dramatically depart from all previously learned values about the associated reward outcome. Thus, one consequence of the difference between incentive salience and learning can be to decouple cue-triggered motivation of the moment from previously learned values of how good the associated reward has been in the past. Another consequence can be to produce irrationally strong motivation urges that are not justified by any memories of previous reward values (and without distorting associative predictions of future reward value). Such irrationally strong motivation may be especially problematic in addiction. To understand these phenomena, future models of mesocorticolimbic reward function should address the neurobiological state factors that participate to control generation of incentive salience. © 2012 The Author. European Journal of Neuroscience © 2012 Federation of European Neuroscience Societies and Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Advert saliency distracts children's visual attention during task-oriented internet use

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Nils eHolmberg

2014-02-01

Full Text Available The general research question of the present study was to assess the impact of visually salient online adverts on children's task-oriented internet use. In order to answer this question, an experimental study was constructed in which 9-year-old and 12-year-old Swedish children were asked to solve a number of tasks while interacting with a mockup website. In each trial, web adverts in several saliency conditions were presented. By both measuring children's task accuracy, as well as the visual processing involved in solving these tasks, this study allows us to infer how two types of visual saliency affect children's attentional behavior, and whether such behavioral effects also impacts their task performance. Analyses show that low-level visual features and task relevance in online adverts have different effects on performance measures and process measures respectively. Whereas task performance is stable with regard to several advert saliency conditions, a marked effect is seen on children's gaze behavior. On the other hand, task performance is shown to be more sensitive to individual differences such as age, gender and level of gaze control. The results provide evidence about cognitive and behavioral distraction effects in children's task-oriented internet use caused by visual saliency in online adverts. The experiment suggests that children to some extent are able to compensate for behavioral effects caused by distracting visual stimuli when solving prospective memory tasks. Suggestions are given for further research into the interdiciplinary area between media research and cognitive science.

Salience Assignment for Multiple-Instance Data and Its Application to Crop Yield Prediction

Science.gov (United States)

Wagstaff, Kiri L.; Lane, Terran

2010-01-01

An algorithm was developed to generate crop yield predictions from orbital remote sensing observations, by analyzing thousands of pixels per county and the associated historical crop yield data for those counties. The algorithm determines which pixels contain which crop. Since each known yield value is associated with thousands of individual pixels, this is a multiple instance learning problem. Because individual crop growth is related to the resulting yield, this relationship has been leveraged to identify pixels that are individually related to corn, wheat, cotton, and soybean yield. Those that have the strongest relationship to a given crop s yield values are most likely to contain fields with that crop. Remote sensing time series data (a new observation every 8 days) was examined for each pixel, which contains information for that pixel s growth curve, peak greenness, and other relevant features. An alternating-projection (AP) technique was used to first estimate the "salience" of each pixel, with respect to the given target (crop yield), and then those estimates were used to build a regression model that relates input data (remote sensing observations) to the target. This is achieved by constructing an exemplar for each crop in each county that is a weighted average of all the pixels within the county; the pixels are weighted according to the salience values. The new regression model estimate then informs the next estimate of the salience values. By iterating between these two steps, the algorithm converges to a stable estimate of both the salience of each pixel and the regression model. The salience values indicate which pixels are most relevant to each crop under consideration.

Cue-Elicited Increases in Incentive Salience for Marijuana: Craving, Demand, and Attentional Bias

Science.gov (United States)

Metrik, Jane; Aston, Elizabeth R.; Kahler, Christopher W.; Rohsenow, Damaris J.; McGeary, John E.; Knopik, Valerie S.; MacKillop, James

2016-01-01

Background Incentive salience is a multidimensional construct that includes craving, drug value relative to other reinforcers, and implicit motivation such as attentional bias to drug cues. Laboratory cue reactivity (CR) paradigms have been used to evaluate marijuana incentive salience with measures of craving, but not with behavioral economic measures of marijuana demand or implicit attentional processing tasks. Methods This within-subjects study used a new CR paradigm to examine multiple dimensions of marijuana’s incentive salience and to compare CR-induced increases in craving and demand. Frequent marijuana users (N=93, 34% female) underwent exposure to neutral cues then to lit marijuana cigarettes. Craving, marijuana demand via a marijuana purchase task, and heart rate were assessed after each cue set. A modified Stroop task with cannabis and control words was completed after the marijuana cues as a measure of attentional bias. Results Relative to neutral cues, marijuana cues significantly increased subjective craving and demand indices of intensity (i.e., drug consumed at $0) and Omax (i.e., peak drug expenditure). Elasticity significantly decreased following marijuana cues, reflecting sustained purchase despite price increases. Craving was correlated with demand indices (r’s: 0.23–0.30). Marijuana users displayed significant attentional bias for cannabis-related words after marijuana cues. Cue-elicited increases in intensity were associated with greater attentional bias for marijuana words. Conclusions Greater incentive salience indexed by subjective, behavioral economic, and implicit measures was observed after marijuana versus neutral cues, supporting multidimensional assessment. The study highlights the utility of a behavioral economic approach in detecting cue-elicited changes in marijuana incentive salience. PMID:27515723

Inflammatory modulation of exercise salience: using hormesis to return to a healthy lifestyle

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bell Jimmy D

2010-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Most of the human population in the western world has access to unlimited calories and leads an increasingly sedentary lifestyle. The propensity to undertake voluntary exercise or indulge in spontaneous physical exercise, which might be termed "exercise salience", is drawing increased scientific attention. Despite its genetic aspects, this complex behaviour is clearly modulated by the environment and influenced by physiological states. Inflammation is often overlooked as one of these conditions even though it is known to induce a state of reduced mobility. Chronic subclinical inflammation is associated with the metabolic syndrome; a largely lifestyle-induced disease which can lead to decreased exercise salience. The result is a vicious cycle that increases oxidative stress and reduces metabolic flexibility and perpetuates the disease state. In contrast, hormetic stimuli can induce an anti-inflammatory phenotype, thereby enhancing exercise salience, leading to greater biological fitness and improved functional longevity. One general consequence of hormesis is upregulation of mitochondrial function and resistance to oxidative stress. Examples of hormetic factors include calorie restriction, extreme environmental temperatures, physical activity and polyphenols. The hormetic modulation of inflammation, and thus, exercise salience, may help to explain the highly heterogeneous expression of voluntary exercise behaviour and therefore body composition phenotypes of humans living in similar obesogenic environments.

Debiasing the disposition effect by reducing the saliency of information about a stock’s purchase priceα

Science.gov (United States)

Rangel, Antonio

2015-01-01

The disposition effect refers to the empirical fact that investors have a higher propensity to sell risky assets with capital gains compared to risky assets with capital losses, and it has been associated with low trading performance. We use a stock trading laboratory experiment to investigate if it is possible to reduce subjects’ tendency to exhibit a disposition effect by making information about a stock’s purchase price, and thus about capital gains and losses, less salient. We compare two experimental conditions: a high-saliency condition in which the purchase price of a stock is prominently displayed by the trading software, and a low-saliency condition in which it is not displayed at all. We find that individuals exhibit a disposition effect in the high-saliency condition, and that the effect is 25% smaller in the low-saliency condition. This suggests that it is possible to debias the disposition effect by reducing the saliency with which information about a stock’s purchase price is displayed on financial statements and online trading platforms. PMID:25774069

Discounting input from older adults: the role of age salience on partner age effects in the social contagion of memory.

Science.gov (United States)

Meade, Michelle L; McNabb, Jaimie C; Lindeman, Meghan I H; Smith, Jessi L

2017-05-01

Three experiments examined the impact of partner age on the magnitude of socially suggested false memories. Young participants recalled household scenes in collaboration with an implied young or older adult partner who intentionally recalled false items. In Experiment 1, participants were presented with only the age of their partner (low age-salience context); in Experiment 2, participants were presented with the age of their partner along with a photograph and biographical information about their partner (high age-salience context); in Experiment 3, age salience was varied within the same experiment. Across experiments, participants in both the low age-salience and high age-salience contexts incorporated their partners' misleading suggestions into their own subsequent recall and recognition reports, thus demonstrating social contagion with implied partners. Importantly, the effect of partner age differed across conditions. Participants in the high age-salience context were less likely to incorporate misleading suggestions from older adult partners than from young adult partners, but participants in the low age-salience context were equally likely to incorporate suggestions from young and older adult partners. Participants discount the memory of older adult partners only when age is highly salient.

Approach motivation as incentive salience: perceptual sources of evidence in relation to positive word primes.

Science.gov (United States)

Ode, Scott; Winters, Patricia L; Robinson, Michael D

2012-02-01

Four experiments (total N = 391) examined predictions derived from a biologically based incentive salience theory of approach motivation. In all experiments, judgments indicative of enhanced perceptual salience were exaggerated in the context of positive, relative to neutral or negative, stimuli. In Experiments 1 and 2, positive words were judged to be of a larger size (Experiment 1) and led individuals to judge subsequently presented neutral objects as larger in size (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, similar effects were observed in a mock subliminal presentation paradigm. In Experiment 4, positive word primes were perceived to have been presented for a longer duration of time, again relative to both neutral and negative word primes. Results are discussed in relation to theories of approach motivation, affective priming, and the motivation-perception interface. PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved

Dimensionally Specific Capture of Attention: Implications for Saliency Computation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Katherine E. Burnett

2018-02-01

Full Text Available Observers automatically orient to a sudden change in the environment. This is demonstrated experimentally using exogenous cues, which prioritize the analysis of subsequent targets appearing nearby. This effect has been attributed to the computation of saliency, obtained by combining features specific signals, which then feed back to drive attention to the salient location. An alternative possibility is that cueing directly effects target-evoked sensory responses in a feed-forward manner. We examined the effects of luminance and equiluminant color cues in a dual task paradigm, which required both a motion and a color discrimination. Equiluminant color cues improved color discrimination more than luminance cues, but luminance cues improved motion discrimination more than equiluminant color cues. This suggests that the effects of exogenous cues are dimensionally specific and may not depend entirely on the computation of a dimension general saliency signal.

Functional network connectivity underlying food processing: disturbed salience and visual processing in overweight and obese adults.

Science.gov (United States)

Kullmann, Stephanie; Pape, Anna-Antonia; Heni, Martin; Ketterer, Caroline; Schick, Fritz; Häring, Hans-Ulrich; Fritsche, Andreas; Preissl, Hubert; Veit, Ralf

2013-05-01

In order to adequately explore the neurobiological basis of eating behavior of humans and their changes with body weight, interactions between brain areas or networks need to be investigated. In the current functional magnetic resonance imaging study, we examined the modulating effects of stimulus category (food vs. nonfood), caloric content of food, and body weight on the time course and functional connectivity of 5 brain networks by means of independent component analysis in healthy lean and overweight/obese adults. These functional networks included motor sensory, default-mode, extrastriate visual, temporal visual association, and salience networks. We found an extensive modulation elicited by food stimuli in the 2 visual and salience networks, with a dissociable pattern in the time course and functional connectivity between lean and overweight/obese subjects. Specifically, only in lean subjects, the temporal visual association network was modulated by the stimulus category and the salience network by caloric content, whereas overweight and obese subjects showed a generalized augmented response in the salience network. Furthermore, overweight/obese subjects showed changes in functional connectivity in networks important for object recognition, motivational salience, and executive control. These alterations could potentially lead to top-down deficiencies driving the overconsumption of food in the obese population.

Of wealth and death: materialism, mortality salience, and consumption behavior.

Science.gov (United States)

Kasser, T; Sheldon, K M

2000-07-01

Theoretical work suggests that feelings of insecurity produce materialistic behavior, but most empirical evidence is correlational in nature. We therefore experimentally activated feelings of insecurity by having some subjects write short essays about death (mortality-salience condition). In Study 1, subjects in the mortality-salience condition, compared with subjects who wrote about a neutral topic, had higher financial expectations for themselves 15 years in the future, in terms of both their overall worth and the amount they would be spending on pleasurable items such as clothing and entertainment. Study 2 extended these findings by demonstrating that subjects exposed to death became more greedy and consumed more resources in a forest-management game. Results are discussed with regard to humanistic and terror-management theories of materialism.

Decision salience signals in posterior cingulate cortex

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Sarah eHeilbronner

2011-04-01

Full Text Available Despite its phylogenetic antiquity and clinical importance, the posterior cingulate cortex (CGp remains an enigmatic nexus of attention, memory, motivation, and decision making. Here we show that CGp neurons track decision salience—the degree to which an option differs from a standard—but not the subjective value of a decision. To do this, we recorded the spiking activity of CGp neurons in monkeys choosing between options varying in reward-related risk, delay to reward, and social outcomes, each of which varied in level of decision salience. Firing rates were higher when monkeys chose the risky option, consistent with their risk-seeking preferences, but were also higher when monkeys chose the delayed and social options, contradicting their preferences. Thus, across decision contexts, neuronal activity was uncorrelated with how much monkeys valued a given option, as inferred from choice. Instead, neuronal activity signaled the deviation of the chosen option from the standard, independently of how it differed. The observed decision salience signals suggest a role for CGp in the flexible allocation of neural resources to motivationally significant information, akin to the role of attention in selective processing of sensory inputs.

BaseMap

Data.gov (United States)

California Natural Resource Agency — The goal of this project is to provide a convenient base map that can be used as a starting point for CA projects. It's simple, but designed to work at a number of...

Change detection for synthetic aperture radar images based on pattern and intensity distinctiveness analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Xiao; Gao, Feng; Dong, Junyu; Qi, Qiang

2018-04-01

Synthetic aperture radar (SAR) image is independent on atmospheric conditions, and it is the ideal image source for change detection. Existing methods directly analysis all the regions in the speckle noise contaminated difference image. The performance of these methods is easily affected by small noisy regions. In this paper, we proposed a novel change detection framework for saliency-guided change detection based on pattern and intensity distinctiveness analysis. The saliency analysis step can remove small noisy regions, and therefore makes the proposed method more robust to the speckle noise. In the proposed method, the log-ratio operator is first utilized to obtain a difference image (DI). Then, the saliency detection method based on pattern and intensity distinctiveness analysis is utilized to obtain the changed region candidates. Finally, principal component analysis and k-means clustering are employed to analysis pixels in the changed region candidates. Thus, the final change map can be obtained by classifying these pixels into changed or unchanged class. The experiment results on two real SAR images datasets have demonstrated the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Salience and conflict of work and family roles among employed men and women.

Science.gov (United States)

Knežević, Irena; Gregov, Ljiljana; Šimunić, Ana

2016-06-01

The aim of this research was to determine the salience of work and family roles and to study the connection between role salience and the interference of different types of roles among working men and women. Self-assessment measurement scales were applied. The research involved 206 participants; 103 employed married couples from different regions of Croatia. The results show that roles closely connected to family are considered the most salient. However, men are mostly dedicated behaviourally to the role of a worker. Women dedicate more time and energy to the roles of a spouse, a parent, and a family member whereas men are more oriented towards the leisurite role. The highest level of conflict was perceived when it comes to work disturbing leisure. Gender differences appeared only for work-to-marriage conflict, with men reporting higher conflict than women. The research found proof of only some low correlations between the salience of different types of roles and work-family conflict.

CrowdMapping: A Crowdsourcing-Based Terminology Mapping Method for Medical Data Standardization.

Science.gov (United States)

Mao, Huajian; Chi, Chenyang; Huang, Boyu; Meng, Haibin; Yu, Jinghui; Zhao, Dongsheng

2017-01-01

Standardized terminology is the prerequisite of data exchange in analysis of clinical processes. However, data from different electronic health record systems are based on idiosyncratic terminology systems, especially when the data is from different hospitals and healthcare organizations. Terminology standardization is necessary for the medical data analysis. We propose a crowdsourcing-based terminology mapping method, CrowdMapping, to standardize the terminology in medical data. CrowdMapping uses a confidential model to determine how terminologies are mapped to a standard system, like ICD-10. The model uses mappings from different health care organizations and evaluates the diversity of the mapping to determine a more sophisticated mapping rule. Further, the CrowdMapping model enables users to rate the mapping result and interact with the model evaluation. CrowdMapping is a work-in-progress system, we present initial results mapping terminologies.

Vision-based mapping with cooperative robots

Science.gov (United States)

Little, James J.; Jennings, Cullen; Murray, Don

1998-10-01

Two stereo-vision-based mobile robots navigate and autonomously explore their environment safely while building occupancy grid maps of the environment. The robots maintain position estimates within a global coordinate frame using landmark recognition. This allows them to build a common map by sharing position information and stereo data. Stereo vision processing and map updates are done at 3 Hz and the robots move at speeds of 200 cm/s. Cooperative mapping is achieved through autonomous exploration of unstructured and dynamic environments. The map is constructed conservatively, so as to be useful for collision-free path planning. Each robot maintains a separate copy of a shared map, and then posts updates to the common map when it returns to observe a landmark at home base. Issues include synchronization, mutual localization, navigation, exploration, registration of maps, merging repeated views (fusion), centralized vs decentralized maps.

European wet deposition maps based on measurements

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Leeuwen EP van; Erisman JW; Draaijers GPJ; Potma CJM; Pul WAJ van; LLO

1995-01-01

To date, wet deposition maps on a European scale have been based on long-range transport model results. For most components wet deposition maps based on measurements are only available on national scales. Wet deposition maps of acidifying components and base cations based on measurements are needed

Diffusion Based Photon Mapping

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Schjøth, Lars; Sporring, Jon; Fogh Olsen, Ole

2008-01-01

. To address this problem, we introduce a photon mapping algorithm based on nonlinear anisotropic diffusion. Our algorithm adapts according to the structure of the photon map such that smoothing occurs along edges and structures and not across. In this way, we preserve important illumination features, while...

Role salience of dual-career women managers

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anthony V Naidoo

2002-10-01

Full Text Available This study examines and contrasts the level of role participation, commitment and value expectation that dual career women invest in contending work and family roles. While the 162 married women managers were found to participate significantly more in the work role, they indicated greater commitment to and value expectation from the home and family role. A significant positive correlation between the commitment to the work role and commitment to the home and family role suggests that dual-career women may experience work and home as complimentary rather than conflicting roles. For dual-career women, work salience and career salience were found to be moderately correlated. Opsomming In hierdie studie word die vlakke van rol-deelname, rol-toegewydheid en rol-waardeverwagting wat dubbelloopbaan vroue onderskeidelik in die werk-en familierol investeer, gekonstrasteer. Terwyl dit geblyk het dat 162 getroude vroulike bestuurders beduidend meer deelneem in die werkrol, het hulle hoër toegewydheid en waardeverwagtings teenoor die huis-en-familie rol getoon. ‘n Beduidende positiewe korrelasie is gevind tussen toegewydheid tot die werksrol en toegewydheid tot die huis-en-familierol. Hierdie bevinding suggereer dat dubbelloopbaan vroue hulle werk en familie-rolle as komplimenterend eerder as konflikterend ervaar. Dit het verder geblyk dat werkrolbelangrikheid en loopbaanbelangrikheid matig gekorreleer is.

Salience in Second Language Acquisition:Physical form, learner attention, and instructional focus

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Myrna C Cintrón-Valentín

2016-08-01

Full Text Available We consider the role of physical form, prior experience, and form focused instruction (FFI in adult language learning. (1 When presented with competing cues to interpretation, learners are more likely to attend to physically more salient cues in the input. (2 Learned attention is an associative learning phenomenon where prior-learned cues block those that are experienced later. (3 The low salience of morphosyntactic cues can be overcome by FFI, which leads learners to attend cues which might otherwise be ignored. Experiment 1 used eye-tracking to investigate how language background influences learners’ attention to morphological cues, as well as the attentional processes whereby different types of FFI overcome low cue salience, learned attention and blocking. Chinese native speakers (no L1 verb-tense morphology viewed Latin utterances combining lexical and morphological cues to temporality under control conditions (CC and three types of explicit FFI: grammar instruction (VG, verb salience with textual enhancement (VS, and verb pretraining (VP, and their use of these cues was assessed in a comprehension test. CC participants were significantly more sensitive to the adverbs than verb morphology. Instructed participants showed greater sensitivity to the verbs. These results reveal attentional processes whereby learners’ prior linguistic experience can shape their attention toward cues in the input, and whereby FFI helps learners overcome the long-term blocking of verb-tense morphology. Experiment 2 examined the role of modality of input presentation – aural or visual – in L1 English learners’ attentional focus on morphological cues and the effectiveness of different FFI manipulations. CC participants showed greater sensitivity toward the adverb cue. FFI was effective in increasing attention to verb-tense morphology, however, the processing of morphological cues was considerably more difficult under aural presentation. From visual exposure

Tax Salience, Voting, and Deliberation

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Sausgruber, Rupert; Tyran, Jean-Robert

Tax incentives can be more or less salient, i.e. noticeable or cognitively easy to process. Our hypothesis is that taxes on consumers are more salient to consumers than equivalent taxes on sellers because consumers underestimate the extent of tax shifting in the market. We show that tax salience...... biases consumers' voting on tax regimes, and that experience is an effective de-biasing mechanism in the experimental laboratory. Pre-vote deliberation makes initially held opinions more extreme rather than correct and does not eliminate the bias in the typical committee. Yet, if voters can discuss...... their experience with the tax regimes they are less likely to be biased....

An experimental field study of weight salience and food choice.

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Incollingo Rodriguez, Angela C; Finch, Laura E; Buss, Julia; Guardino, Christine M; Tomiyama, A Janet

2015-06-01

Laboratory research has found that individuals will consume more calories and make unhealthy food choices when in the presence of an overweight individual, sometimes even regardless of what that individual is eating. This study expanded these laboratory paradigms to the field to examine how weight salience influences eating in the real world. More specifically, we tested the threshold of the effect of weight salience of food choice to see if a more subtle weight cue (e.g., images) would be sufficient to affect food choice. Attendees (N = 262) at Obesity Week 2013, a weight-salient environment, viewed slideshows containing an image of an overweight individual, an image of a thin individual, or no image (text only), and then selected from complimentary snacks. Results of ordinal logistic regression analysis showed that participants who viewed the image of the overweight individual had higher odds of selecting the higher calorie snack compared to those who viewed the image of the thin individual (OR = 1.77, 95% CI = [1.04, 3.04]), or no image (OR = 2.42, 95% CI = [1.29, 4.54]). Perceiver BMI category did not moderate the influence of image on food choice, as these results occurred regardless of participant BMI. These findings suggest that in the context of societal weight salience, weight-related cues alone may promote unhealthy eating in the general public. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Salience of the Nuclear Threat: Operationalization through Spontaneous Concern.

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Mayton, Daniel M., II

An indirect/nonreactive technique of assessing spontaneous concern should be used to examine the salience of the threat of nuclear war. Direct/reactive techniques may produce inconsistent results and inadvertently enhance a false consensus. The procedures for the administration, scoring, and interpretation of a spontaneous concern measure along…

Is the enhancement of memory due to reward driven by value or salience?

Science.gov (United States)

Madan, Christopher R; Spetch, Marcia L

2012-02-01

Past research using two levels of reward has shown that the higher-value items are remembered better than lower-value items and this enhancement is assumed to be driven by an effect of reward value. In the present study, multiple levels of reward were used to test the influence of reward salience on memory. Using a value-learning procedure, words were associated with reward values, and then memory for these words was later tested with free recall. Critically, multiple reward levels were used, allowing us to test two specific hypotheses whereby rewards can influence memory: (a) higher value items are remembered better than lower value items (reward value hypothesis), and (b) highest and lowest value items are remembered best and intermediate-value items are remembered worst (following a U-shaped relationship between value and memory; reward salience hypothesis). In two experiments we observed a U-shaped relationship between reward value and memory, supporting the notion that memory is enhanced due to reward salience, and not purely through reward value. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Environmental cue saliency influences the vividness of a remote spatial memory in rats.

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Lopez, Joëlle; de Vasconcelos, Anne Pereira; Cassel, Jean-Christophe

2008-07-01

The Morris water maze is frequently used to evaluate the acquisition and retrieval of spatial memories. Few experiments, however, have investigated the effects of environmental cue saliency on the strength or persistence of such memories after a short vs. long post-acquisition interval. Using a Morris water maze, we therefore tested in rats the effect of the saliency of distal cues on the vividness of a recent (5 days) vs. remote (25 days) memory. Rats trained in a cue-enriched vs. a cue-impoverished context showed a better overall level of performance during acquisition. Furthermore, the probe trials revealed that the rats trained and tested in the cue-impoverished context (1) spent less time in the target quadrant at the 25-day delay, and (2) swam shorter distances in the target area, with fewer crossings at both 5- and 25-day delays, as compared to their counterparts trained and tested in the cue-enriched context. Thus, the memory trace formed in the cue-enriched context shows better resistance to time, suggesting an implication of cue saliency in the vividness of a spatial memory.

The Effects of Dimensional Salience, Pretraining Task, and Developmental Level Upon Bidimensional Processing in a Matching Task.

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Katsuyama, Ronald M.; Reid, Amy

Purposes of this study are to determine the effects of (1) preassessed dimensional salience upon performance in a bi-dimensional matching task, and (2) pretraining conditions expected to facilitate bi-dimensional processing. An additional aim was to elucidate a model of development involving changing salience hierarchies by comparing the effects…

Explaining the salience of anti-elitism and reducing political corruption for political parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey data

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Polk, J.; Rovny, J.; Bakker, R.; Edwards, E.; Hooghe, L.; Jolly, S.; Koedam, J.; Kostelka, F.; Marks, G.; Schumacher, G.; Steenbergen, M.; Vachudova, M.; Zilovic, M.

2017-01-01

This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party positioning across Europe. It demonstrates that while anti-corruption salience is primarily related to the (regional) context in which a party operates, anti-elite salience is primarily a function of party

Resolving the theory of planned behaviour's 'expectancy-value muddle' using dimensional salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Newton, Joshua D; Ewing, Michael T; Burney, Sue; Hay, Margaret

2012-01-01

The theory of planned behaviour is one of the most widely used models of decision-making in the health literature. Unfortunately, the primary method for assessing the theory's belief-based expectancy-value models results in statistically uninterpretable findings, giving rise to what has become known as the 'expectancy-value muddle'. Moreover, existing methods for resolving this muddle are associated with various conceptual or practical limitations. This study addresses these issues by identifying and evaluating a parsimonious method for resolving the expectancy-value muddle. Three hundred and nine Australian residents aged 18-24 years rated the expectancy and value of 18 beliefs about posthumous organ donation. Participants also nominated their five most salient beliefs using a dimensional salience approach. Salient beliefs were perceived as being more likely to eventuate than non-salient beliefs, indicating that salient beliefs could be used to signify the expectancy component. The expectancy-value term was therefore represented by summing the value ratings of salient beliefs, an approach that predicted attitude (adjusted R2 = 0.21) and intention (adjusted R2 = 0.21). These findings suggest that the dimensional salience approach is a useful method for overcoming the expectancy-value muddle in applied research settings.

Measurable realistic image-based 3D mapping

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Liu, W.; Wang, J.; Wang, J. J.; Ding, W.; Almagbile, A.

2011-12-01

Maps with 3D visual models are becoming a remarkable feature of 3D map services. High-resolution image data is obtained for the construction of 3D visualized models.The3D map not only provides the capabilities of 3D measurements and knowledge mining, but also provides the virtual experienceof places of interest, such as demonstrated in the Google Earth. Applications of 3D maps are expanding into the areas of architecture, property management, and urban environment monitoring. However, the reconstruction of high quality 3D models is time consuming, and requires robust hardware and powerful software to handle the enormous amount of data. This is especially for automatic implementation of 3D models and the representation of complicated surfacesthat still need improvements with in the visualisation techniques. The shortcoming of 3D model-based maps is the limitation of detailed coverage since a user can only view and measure objects that are already modelled in the virtual environment. This paper proposes and demonstrates a 3D map concept that is realistic and image-based, that enables geometric measurements and geo-location services. Additionally, image-based 3D maps provide more detailed information of the real world than 3D model-based maps. The image-based 3D maps use geo-referenced stereo images or panoramic images. The geometric relationships between objects in the images can be resolved from the geometric model of stereo images. The panoramic function makes 3D maps more interactive with users but also creates an interesting immersive circumstance. Actually, unmeasurable image-based 3D maps already exist, such as Google street view, but only provide virtual experiences in terms of photos. The topographic and terrain attributes, such as shapes and heights though are omitted. This paper also discusses the potential for using a low cost land Mobile Mapping System (MMS) to implement realistic image 3D mapping, and evaluates the positioning accuracy that a measureable

Decision Utility, Incentive Salience, and Cue-Triggered "Wanting"

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Berridge, Kent C; Aldridge, J Wayne

2009-01-01

This chapter examines brain mechanisms of reward utility operating at particular decision moments in life-moments such as when one encounters an image, sound, scent, or other cue associated in the past with a particular reward or perhaps just when one vividly imagines that cue. Such a cue can often trigger a sudden motivational urge to pursue its reward and sometimes a decision to do so. Drawing on a utility taxonomy that distinguishes among subtypes of reward utility-predicted utility, decision utility, experienced utility, and remembered utility-it is shown how cue-triggered cravings, such as an addict's surrender to relapse, can hang on special transformations by brain mesolimbic systems of one utility subtype, namely, decision utility. The chapter focuses on a particular form of decision utility called incentive salience, a type of "wanting" for rewards that is amplified by brain mesolimbic systems. Sudden peaks of intensity of incentive salience, caused by neurobiological mechanisms, can elevate the decision utility of a particular reward at the moment its cue occurs. An understanding of what happens at such moments leads to a better understanding of the mechanisms at work in decision making in general.

Materialism moderates the impact of mortality salience on impulsive tendencies toward luxury brands.

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Audrin, Catherine; Cheval, Boris; Chanal, Julien

2018-02-01

Luxury goods have been shown to help individuals coping with death-related anxiety. However, the extent to which the symbolic value allocated to possessions (i.e., materialism) moderates this effect is still unclear. Here, we investigated the impact of materialism on impulsive approach tendencies toward luxury clothing brands in a context of mortality salience. Results showed that the impact of mortality salience was moderated by materialism with lower impulsive approach tendencies toward luxury clothing brands observed in non-materialistic participants. These findings highlight how materialism values may impact luxury consumption through impulsive pathways in a situation of death-related anxiety.

Ebola salience, death-thought accessibility, and worldview defense: A terror management theory perspective.

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Arrowood, Robert B; Cox, Cathy R; Kersten, Michael; Routledge, Clay; Shelton, Jill Talley; Hood, Ralph W

2017-10-01

According to terror management theory, individuals defend their cultural beliefs following mortality salience. The current research examined whether naturally occurring instances of death (i.e., Ebola) correspond to results found in laboratory studies. The results of two experiments demonstrated that participants experienced a greater accessibility of death-related thoughts in response to an Ebola prime during a regional outbreak. Study 2 also showed that increased mortality awareness following an Ebola manipulation was associated with greater worldview defense (i.e., religious fundamentalism). Together, these results suggest that reminders of death in the form of a disease threat operate similarly to a mortality salience manipulation.

Uncertainty, God, and scrupulosity: Uncertainty salience and priming God concepts interact to cause greater fears of sin.

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Fergus, Thomas A; Rowatt, Wade C

2015-03-01

Difficulties tolerating uncertainty are considered central to scrupulosity, a moral/religious presentation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). We examined whether uncertainty salience (i.e., exposure to a state of uncertainty) caused fears of sin and fears of God, as well as whether priming God concepts affected the impact of uncertainty salience on those fears. An internet sample of community adults (N = 120) who endorsed holding a belief in God or a higher power were randomly assigned to an experimental manipulation of (1) salience (uncertainty or insecurity) and (2) prime (God concepts or neutral). As predicted, participants who received the uncertainty salience and God concept priming reported the greatest fears of sin. There were no mean-level differences in the other conditions. The effect was not attributable to religiosity and the manipulations did not cause negative affect. We used a nonclinical sample recruited from the internet. These results support cognitive-behavioral models suggesting that religious uncertainty is important to scrupulosity. Implications of these results for future research are discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Altered intrinsic organisation of brain networks implicated in attentional processes in adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a resting-state study of attention, default mode and salience network connectivity.

Science.gov (United States)

Sidlauskaite, Justina; Sonuga-Barke, Edmund; Roeyers, Herbert; Wiersema, Jan R

2016-06-01

Deficits in task-related attentional engagement in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) have been hypothesised to be due to altered interrelationships between attention, default mode and salience networks. We examined the intrinsic connectivity during rest within and between these networks. Six-minute resting-state scans were obtained. Using a network-based approach, connectivity within and between the dorsal and ventral attention, the default mode and the salience networks was compared between the ADHD and control group. The ADHD group displayed hyperconnectivity between the two attention networks and within the default mode and ventral attention network. The salience network was hypoconnected to the dorsal attention network. There were trends towards hyperconnectivity within the dorsal attention network and between the salience and ventral attention network in ADHD. Connectivity within and between other networks was unrelated to ADHD. Our findings highlight the altered connectivity within and between attention networks, and between them and the salience network in ADHD. One hypothesis to be tested in future studies is that individuals with ADHD are affected by an imbalance between ventral and dorsal attention systems with the former playing a dominant role during task engagement, making individuals with ADHD highly susceptible to distraction by salient task-irrelevant stimuli.

Rules infants look by: Testing the assumption of transitivity in visual salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Kibbe, Melissa M; Kaldy, Zsuzsa; Blaser, Erik

2018-01-01

What drives infants' attention in complex visual scenes? Early models of infant attention suggested that the degree to which different visual features were detectable determines their attentional priority. Here, we tested this by asking whether two targets - defined by different features, but each equally salient when evaluated independently - would drive attention equally when pitted head-to-head. In Experiment 1, we presented 6-month-old infants with an array of gabor patches in which a target region varied either in color or spatial frequency from the background. Using a forced-choice preferential-looking method, we measured how readily infants fixated the target as its featural difference from the background was parametrically increased. Then, in Experiment 2, we used these psychometric preference functions to choose values for color and spatial frequency targets that were equally salient (preferred), and pitted them against each other within the same display. We reasoned that, if salience is transitive, then the stimuli should be iso-salient and infants should therefore show no systematic preference for either stimulus. On the contrary, we found that infants consistently preferred the color-defined stimulus. This suggests that computing visual salience in more complex scenes needs to include factors above and beyond local salience values.

USGS Imagery Only Base Map Service from The National Map

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — USGS Imagery Only is a tile cache base map of orthoimagery in The National Map visible to the 1:18,000 scale. Orthoimagery data are typically high resolution images...

Mortality Salience, System Justification, and Candidate Evaluations in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joanna Sterling

Full Text Available Experiments conducted during the 2004 and 2008 U.S. presidential elections suggested that mortality salience primes increased support for President George W. Bush and Senator John McCain, respectively. Some interpreted these results as reflecting "conservative shift" following exposure to threat, whereas others emphasized preferences for "charismatic" leadership following exposure to death primes. To assess both hypotheses in the context of a new election cycle featuring a liberal incumbent who was considered to be charismatic, we conducted four experiments shortly before the 2012 election involving President Barack Obama and Governor Mitt Romney. Contrary to earlier studies, there was little evidence that mortality salience, either by itself or in interaction with political orientation, affected overall candidate ratings or voting intentions. However, a significant interaction between mortality salience and system justification in some studies indicated a more circumscribed effect. The failure to "replicate" previous results in the context of this election may be attributable to disagreement among participants as to which of the candidates better represented the societal status quo.

Rare, but obviously there: effects of target frequency and salience on visual search accuracy.

Science.gov (United States)

Biggs, Adam T; Adamo, Stephen H; Mitroff, Stephen R

2014-10-01

Accuracy can be extremely important for many visual search tasks. However, numerous factors work to undermine successful search. Several negative influences on search have been well studied, yet one potentially influential factor has gone almost entirely unexplored-namely, how is search performance affected by the likelihood that a specific target might appear? A recent study demonstrated that when specific targets appear infrequently (i.e., once in every thousand trials) they were, on average, not often found. Even so, some infrequently appearing targets were actually found quite often, suggesting that the targets' frequency is not the only factor at play. Here, we investigated whether salience (i.e., the extent to which an item stands out during search) could explain why some infrequent targets are easily found whereas others are almost never found. Using the mobile application Airport Scanner, we assessed how individual target frequency and salience interacted in a visual search task that included a wide array of targets and millions of trials. Target frequency and salience were both significant predictors of search accuracy, although target frequency explained more of the accuracy variance. Further, when examining only the rarest target items (those that appeared on less than 0.15% of all trials), there was a significant relationship between salience and accuracy such that less salient items were less likely to be found. Beyond implications for search theory, these data suggest significant vulnerability for real-world searches that involve targets that are both infrequent and hard-to-spot. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Salient Region Detection via Feature Combination and Discriminative Classifier

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Deming Kong

2015-01-01

Full Text Available We introduce a novel approach to detect salient regions of an image via feature combination and discriminative classifier. Our method, which is based on hierarchical image abstraction, uses the logistic regression approach to map the regional feature vector to a saliency score. Four saliency cues are used in our approach, including color contrast in a global context, center-boundary priors, spatially compact color distribution, and objectness, which is as an atomic feature of segmented region in the image. By mapping a four-dimensional regional feature to fifteen-dimensional feature vector, we can linearly separate the salient regions from the clustered background by finding an optimal linear combination of feature coefficients in the fifteen-dimensional feature space and finally fuse the saliency maps across multiple levels. Furthermore, we introduce the weighted salient image center into our saliency analysis task. Extensive experiments on two large benchmark datasets show that the proposed approach achieves the best performance over several state-of-the-art approaches.

Social interactions and the salience of social identity

OpenAIRE

McLeish, Kendra N.; Oxoby, Robert J.

2008-01-01

In this paper, we explore the effect of identity salience on behavior in a simple social interaction. Specifically, we compare behavior in a ultimatum game across three treatments: priming subjects with a shared identity, priming subjects with an identity distinct from those with whom they will interact, and priming subjects with no particular identity. We find that subjects are most cooperative in the identity-priming treatment and least cooperative in the distinctiveness-priming treatment. ...

Perception of temporal order during the attentional blink: Using stimulus salience to modulate prior entry.

Science.gov (United States)

Lagroix, Hayley E P; Patten, James W; Di Lollo, Vincent; Spalek, Thomas M

2016-05-01

When multiple targets are presented in rapid sequence, observers frequently confuse the order in which they were presented. The probability of order reversals is known to vary throughout the period of the attentional blink (AB), which refers to impairment in the perception of the second of two targets when it is presented within approximately 500 ms from the first. Our objective was to examine the principle of prior entry (in which perception of temporal order is said to be affected by the relative latency at which each target is processed) as a determinant of the perception of temporal order throughout the AB. In two experiments, three letter targets (T1, T2, T3) were inserted in a stream of digit distractors, with T3 always presented directly after T2. The T1-T2 lag was varied to assess the perception of T2-T3 temporal order throughout the period of the AB. Processing latency was manipulated by means of salience. In Experiment 1, salience of T2 and T3 was manipulated exogenously by coloring the salient target red with all other stimuli being green. In Experiment 2, salience was modulated endogenously by manipulating which of the two targets matched the contents of working memory. Consistent with the principle of prior entry, perception of temporal order in both experiments was enhanced throughout the period of the AB when T2 was salient, and impaired when T3 was salient. Simulations based on the Episodic Simultaneous Type, Serial Token (eSTST) model that incorporates prior-entry, matched the empirical results.

Reward salience and risk aversion underlie differential ACC activity in substance dependence.

Science.gov (United States)

Alexander, William H; Fukunaga, Rena; Finn, Peter; Brown, Joshua W

2015-01-01

The medial prefrontal cortex, especially the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), has long been implicated in cognitive control and error processing. Although the association between ACC and behavior has been established, it is less clear how ACC contributes to dysfunctional behavior such as substance dependence. Evidence from neuroimaging studies investigating ACC function in substance users is mixed, with some studies showing disengagement of ACC in substance dependent individuals (SDs), while others show increased ACC activity related to substance use. In this study, we investigate ACC function in SDs and healthy individuals performing a change signal task for monetary rewards. Using a priori predictions derived from a recent computational model of ACC, we find that ACC activity differs between SDs and controls in factors related to reward salience and risk aversion between SDs and healthy individuals. Quantitative fits of a computational model to fMRI data reveal significant differences in best fit parameters for reward salience and risk preferences. Specifically, the ACC in SDs shows greater risk aversion, defined as concavity in the utility function, and greater attention to rewards relative to reward omission. Furthermore, across participants risk aversion and reward salience are positively correlated. The results clarify the role that ACC plays in both the reduced sensitivity to omitted rewards and greater reward valuation in SDs. Clinical implications of applying computational modeling in psychiatry are also discussed.

Estimating the Relative Sociolinguistic Salience of Segmental Variables in a Dialect Boundary Zone

Science.gov (United States)

Llamas, Carmen; Watt, Dominic; MacFarlane, Andrew E.

2016-01-01

One way of evaluating the salience of a linguistic feature is by assessing the extent to which listeners associate the feature with a social category such as a particular socioeconomic class, gender, or nationality. Such ‘top–down’ associations will inevitably differ somewhat from listener to listener, as a linguistic feature – the pronunciation of a vowel or consonant, for instance – can evoke multiple social category associations, depending upon the dialect in which the feature is embedded and the context in which it is heard. In a given speech community it is reasonable to expect, as a consequence of the salience of the linguistic form in question, a certain level of intersubjective agreement on social category associations. Two metrics we can use to quantify the salience of a linguistic feature are (a) the speed with which the association is made, and (b) the degree to which members of a speech community appear to share the association. Through the use of a new technique, designed as an adaptation of the Implicit Association Test, this paper examines levels of agreement among 40 informants from the Scottish/English border region with respect to the associations they make between four key phonetic variables and the social categories of ‘Scotland’ and ‘England.’ Our findings reveal that the participants exhibit differential agreement patterns across the set of phonetic variables, and that listeners’ responses vary in line with whether participants are members of the Scottish or the English listener groups. These results demonstrate the importance of community-level agreement with respect to the associations that listeners make between social categories and linguistic forms, and as a means of ranking the forms’ relative salience. PMID:27574511

The salience network and human personality: Integrity of white matter tracts within anterior and posterior salience network relates to the self-directedness character trait.

Science.gov (United States)

Prillwitz, Conrad; Rüber, Theodor; Reuter, Martin; Montag, Christian; Weber, Bernd; Elger, Christian E; Markett, Sebastian

2018-04-28

A prevailing topic in personality neuroscience is the question how personality traits are reflected in the brain. Functional and structural networks have been examined by functional and structural magnetic resonance imaging, however, the structural correlates of functionally defined networks have not been investigated in a personality context. By using the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI) and Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI), the present study assesses in a sample of 116 healthy participants how personality traits proposed in the framework of the biopsychosocial theory on personality relate to white matter pathways delineated by functional network imaging. We show that the character trait self-directedness relates to the overall microstructural integrity of white matter tracts constituting the salience network as indicated by DTI-derived measures. Self-directedness has been proposed as the executive control component of personality and describes the tendency to stay focused on the attainment of long-term goals. The present finding corroborates the view of the salience network as an executive control network that serves maintenance of rules and task-sets to guide ongoing behavior. Copyright © 2018. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Prospective memory function and cue salience in mild cognitive impairment: Findings from the Sydney Memory and Ageing Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Thompson, Claire L; Henry, Julie D; Rendell, Peter G; Withall, Adrienne; Kochan, Nicole A; Sachdev, Perminder; Brodaty, Henry

2017-12-01

Prospective memory (PM) is crucial to the maintenance of functional independence in late adulthood and is consistently impaired in mild cognitive impairment (MCI). There remains a need for brief but valid measures of this construct that can be used as part of a comprehensive clinical assessment of cognition. Since the distinctiveness of PM cues is argued to determine the degree of strategic, controlled demands of PM paradigms, two variants of a brief measure were developed, one of which presented low-salience and the other high-salience PM cues. A large cohort of older adults with normal cognition or MCI was assessed with one of the two variants of our brief, novel measure of PM. Participants were asked to remember to execute PM tasks where the target cue was either high or low in salience, while concurrently engaged in an ongoing task of olfactory assessment. The task was able to discriminate between groups of participants with MCI or no cognitive impairment, albeit with a small effect size. The high-salience cue improved performance on the PM task; however, there was no interaction of cue salience with group. These results suggest that the temporal reliability and construct validity of very brief measures of the type used in this study need further exploration to determine their potential to provide meaningful insights into PM function. This measure may have utility as a brief screening tool, with identified deficits being followed up with a more comprehensive PM assessment.

The impact of age, ongoing task difficulty, and cue salience on preschoolers' prospective memory performance: the role of executive function.

Science.gov (United States)

Mahy, Caitlin E V; Moses, Louis J; Kliegel, Matthias

2014-11-01

The current study examined the impact of age, ongoing task (OT) difficulty, and cue salience on 4- and 5-year-old children's prospective memory (PM) and also explored the relation between individual differences in executive function (working memory, inhibition, and shifting) and PM. OT difficulty and cue salience are predicted to affect the detection of PM cues based on the multiprocess framework, yet neither has been thoroughly investigated in young children. OT difficulty was manipulated by requiring children to sort cards according to the size of pictured items (easy) or by opposite size (difficult), and cue salience was manipulated by placing a red border around half of the target cues (salient) and no border around the other cues (non-salient). The 5-year-olds outperformed the 4-year-olds on the PM task, and salient PM cues resulted in better PM cues compared with non-salient cues. There was no main effect of OT difficulty, and the interaction between cue salience and OT difficulty was not significant. However, a planned comparison revealed that the combination of non-salient cues and a difficult OT resulted in significantly worse PM performance than that in all of the other conditions. Inhibition accounted for significant variance in PM performance for non-salient cues and for marginally significant variance for salient cues. Furthermore, individual differences in inhibition fully mediated the effect of age on PM performance. Results are discussed in the context of the multiprocess framework and with reference to preschoolers' difficulty with the executive demands of dividing attention between the OT and PM task. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Effects of signal salience and noise on performance and stress in an abbreviated vigil

Science.gov (United States)

Helton, William Stokely

Vigilance or sustained attention tasks traditionally require observers to detect predetermined signals that occur unpredictably over periods of 30 min to several hours (Warm, 1984). These tasks are taxing and have been useful in revealing the effects of stress agents, such as infectious disease and drugs, on human performance (Alluisi, 1969; Damos & Parker, 1994; Warm, 1993). However, their long duration has been an inconvenience. Recently, Temple and his associates (Temple et al., 2000) developed an abbreviated 12-min vigilance task that duplicates many of the findings with longer duration vigils. The present study was designed to explore further the similarity of the abbreviated task to long-duration vigils by investigating the effects of signal salience and jet-aircraft engine noise on performance, operator stress, and coping strategies. Forty-eight observers (24 males and 24 females) were assigned at random to each of four conditions resulting from the factorial combination of signal salience (high and low contrast signals) and background noise (quiet and jet-aircraft noise). As is the case with long-duration vigils (Warm, 1993), signal detection in the abbreviated task was poorer for low salience than for high salience signals. In addition, stress scores, as indexed by the Dundee Stress State Questionnaire (Matthews, Joiner, Gilliland, Campbell, & Falconer, 1999), were elevated in the low as compared to the high salience condition. Unlike longer vigils, however, (Becker, Warm, Dember, & Hancock, 1996), signal detection in the abbreviated task was superior in the presence of aircraft noise than in quiet. Noise also attenuated the stress of the vigil, a result that is counter to previous findings regarding the effects of noise in a variety of other scenarios (Clark, 1984). Examination of observers' coping responses, as assessed by the Coping Inventory for Task Situations (Matthews & Campbell, 1998), indicated that problem-focused coping was the overwhelming

Stress Sensitivity, Aberrant Salience, and Threat Anticipation in Early Psychosis: An Experience Sampling Study

Science.gov (United States)

Reininghaus, Ulrich; Kempton, Matthew J.; Valmaggia, Lucia; Craig, Tom K. J.; Garety, Philippa; Onyejiaka, Adanna; Gayer-Anderson, Charlotte; So, Suzanne H.; Hubbard, Kathryn; Beards, Stephanie; Dazzan, Paola; Pariante, Carmine; Mondelli, Valeria; Fisher, Helen L.; Mills, John G.; Viechtbauer, Wolfgang; McGuire, Philip; van Os, Jim; Murray, Robin M.; Wykes, Til; Myin-Germeys, Inez; Morgan, Craig

2016-01-01

While contemporary models of psychosis have proposed a number of putative psychological mechanisms, how these impact on individuals to increase intensity of psychotic experiences in real life, outside the research laboratory, remains unclear. We aimed to investigate whether elevated stress sensitivity, experiences of aberrant novelty and salience, and enhanced anticipation of threat contribute to the development of psychotic experiences in daily life. We used the experience sampling method (ESM) to assess stress, negative affect, aberrant salience, threat anticipation, and psychotic experiences in 51 individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP), 46 individuals with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) for psychosis, and 53 controls with no personal or family history of psychosis. Linear mixed models were used to account for the multilevel structure of ESM data. In all 3 groups, elevated stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and enhanced threat anticipation were associated with an increased intensity of psychotic experiences. However, elevated sensitivity to minor stressful events (χ2 = 6.3, P = 0.044), activities (χ2 = 6.7, P = 0.036), and areas (χ2 = 9.4, P = 0.009) and enhanced threat anticipation (χ2 = 9.3, P = 0.009) were associated with more intense psychotic experiences in FEP individuals than controls. Sensitivity to outsider status (χ2 = 5.7, P = 0.058) and aberrantly salient experiences (χ2 = 12.3, P = 0.002) were more strongly associated with psychotic experiences in ARMS individuals than controls. Our findings suggest that stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and threat anticipation are important psychological processes in the development of psychotic experiences in daily life in the early stages of the disorder. PMID:26834027

Effects of social identity salience on motivational orientation and conflict strategies in intergenerational conflict.

Science.gov (United States)

Ho, Henry C Y; Yeung, Dannii Y

2017-06-01

With the upsurge of older adults still working, the labour force is becoming increasingly diverse in age. Age diversity in an organisation can increase the likelihood of intergenerational conflict. The present study aims to integrate the dual concern model and social identity theory to explain the underlying mechanisms of intergenerational conflict by examining the effects of social identity salience on motivational orientation and conflict strategies. A 2 (subgroup identity salience: low vs. high younger/older group membership) × 2 (superordinate identity salience: low vs. high organisational group membership) factorial design with a structured questionnaire on motivational orientation and conflict strategies in relation to a hypothetical work conflict scenario was implemented among 220 postgraduate university students in Hong Kong. Results revealed that subgroup and superordinate identities had a combined influence on conflict strategies but not in motivational orientation. Subgroup and superordinate identification promoted integrating and compromising strategies, superordinate identification promoted obliging strategy, subgroup identification promoted dominating strategy and no identification promoted avoiding strategy. Age did not moderate these relationships. This study contributes to the development of the integrated model of conflict. © 2017 International Union of Psychological Science.

Fixations on objects in natural scenes: dissociating importance from salience

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bernard Marius e’t Hart

2013-07-01

Full Text Available The relation of selective attention to understanding of natural scenes has been subject to intense behavioral research and computational modeling, and gaze is often used as a proxy for such attention. The probability of an image region to be fixated typically correlates with its contrast. However, this relation does not imply a causal role of contrast. Rather, contrast may relate to an object’s importance for a scene, which in turn drives attention. Here we operationalize importance by the probability that an observer names the object as characteristic for a scene. We modify luminance contrast of either a frequently named (common/important or a rarely named (rare/unimportant object, track the observers’ eye movements during scene viewing and ask them to provide keywords describing the scene immediately after.When no object is modified relative to the background, important objects draw more fixations than unimportant ones. Increases of contrast make an object more likely to be fixated, irrespective of whether it was important for the original scene, while decreases in contrast have little effect on fixations. Any contrast modification makes originally unimportant objects more important for the scene. Finally, important objects are fixated more centrally than unimportant objects, irrespective of contrast.Our data suggest a dissociation between object importance (relevance for the scene and salience (relevance for attention. If an object obeys natural scene statistics, important objects are also salient. However, when natural scene statistics are violated, importance and salience are differentially affected. Object salience is modulated by the expectation about object properties (e.g., formed by context or gist, and importance by the violation of such expectations. In addition, the dependence of fixated locations within an object on the object’s importance suggests an analogy to the effects of word frequency on landing positions in reading.

A Lithology Based Map Unit Schema For Onegeology Regional Geologic Map Integration

Science.gov (United States)

Moosdorf, N.; Richard, S. M.

2012-12-01

A system of lithogenetic categories for a global lithological map (GLiM, http://www.ifbm.zmaw.de/index.php?id=6460&L=3) has been compiled based on analysis of lithology/genesis categories for regional geologic maps for the entire globe. The scheme is presented for discussion and comment. Analysis of units on a variety of regional geologic maps indicates that units are defined based on assemblages of rock types, as well as their genetic type. In this compilation of continental geology, outcropping surface materials are dominantly sediment/sedimentary rock; major subdivisions of the sedimentary category include clastic sediment, carbonate sedimentary rocks, clastic sedimentary rocks, mixed carbonate and clastic sedimentary rock, colluvium and residuum. Significant areas of mixed igneous and metamorphic rock are also present. A system of global categories to characterize the lithology of regional geologic units is important for Earth System models of matter fluxes to soils, ecosystems, rivers and oceans, and for regional analysis of Earth surface processes at global scale. Because different applications of the classification scheme will focus on different lithologic constituents in mixed units, an ontology-type representation of the scheme that assigns properties to the units in an analyzable manner will be pursued. The OneGeology project is promoting deployment of geologic map services at million scale for all nations. Although initial efforts are commonly simple scanned map WMS services, the intention is to move towards data-based map services that categorize map units with standard vocabularies to allow use of a common map legend for better visual integration of the maps (e.g. see OneGeology Europe, http://onegeology-europe.brgm.fr/ geoportal/ viewer.jsp). Current categorization of regional units with a single lithology from the CGI SimpleLithology (http://resource.geosciml.org/201202/ Vocab2012html/ SimpleLithology201012.html) vocabulary poorly captures the

Mortality Salience and Morality: Thinking about Death Makes People Less Utilitarian

Science.gov (United States)

Tremoliere, Bastien; De Neys, Wim; Bonnefon, Jean-Francois

2012-01-01

According to the dual-process model of moral judgment, utilitarian responses to moral conflict draw on limited cognitive resources. Terror Management Theory, in parallel, postulates that mortality salience mobilizes these resources to suppress thoughts of death out of focal attention. Consequently, we predicted that individuals under mortality…

Career salience and work outcomes: A comparison of managerial and clerical employees

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

G. J. Lock

1997-06-01

Full Text Available The present research aimed to assess the relationships between career salience and job satisfaction, organisational commitment, and psychological well-being. In addition, the variations within these relationships between management and clerical employees were explored. Self report data was collected from 86 accounting employees at the headoffice of a large retail company in Johannesburg. Pearson product-moment correlations, t-tests and z-transformations were computed. The results indicated that there is a significant positive relationship between career salience and both job satisfaction and organisational commitment. These results were found to differ according to hierarchical level. The variable psychological well-being only yielded significant associations with career salience for the managerial group. Opsomming Die navorsing neem die verband tussen loopbaanmarkantheid en werksbevrediging, toewyding aan die organisasie, en psigologiese welstand in oënskou. Verskille in hierdie verhoudings tussen bestuur en klerklike personeel word vervolgens ondersoek. Selfrapporteringsdata is ingesamel van 86 boekhouers by die hoofkantoor van 'n vooraanstaande kleinhandelaar in Johannesburg. Pearson produk-moment korrelasies, t-toetse en z-transformasies is bereken. Die resultate het aangedui dat daar 'n beduidende positiewe verband is tussen loopbaanmarkantheid, aan die een kant, en sowel werksbevrediging as toewyding aan die organisasie aan die ander kant. Daar is verder gevind dat resultaat bemvloed word deur die hierargiese vlak waarop mense werk. Psigologiese welstand het byvoorbeeld net in die geval van bestuurders 'n beduidende korrelasie met loopbaanmarkantheid getoon.

Obesity is marked by distinct functional connectivity in brain networks involved in food reward and salience.

Science.gov (United States)

Wijngaarden, M A; Veer, I M; Rombouts, S A R B; van Buchem, M A; Willems van Dijk, K; Pijl, H; van der Grond, J

2015-01-01

We hypothesized that brain circuits involved in reward and salience respond differently to fasting in obese versus lean individuals. We compared functional connectivity networks related to food reward and saliency after an overnight fast (baseline) and after a prolonged fast of 48 h in lean versus obese subjects. We included 13 obese (2 males, 11 females, BMI 35.4 ± 1.2 kg/m(2), age 31 ± 3 years) and 11 lean subjects (2 males, 9 females, BMI 23.2 ± 0.5 kg/m(2), age 28 ± 3 years). Resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging scans were made after an overnight fast (baseline) and after a prolonged 48 h fast. Functional connectivity of the amygdala, hypothalamus and posterior cingulate cortex (default-mode) networks was assessed using seed-based correlations. At baseline, we found a stronger connectivity between hypothalamus and left insula in the obese subjects. This effect diminished upon the prolonged fast. After prolonged fasting, connectivity of the hypothalamus with the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) increased in lean subjects and decreased in obese subjects. Amygdala connectivity with the ventromedial prefrontal cortex was stronger in lean subjects at baseline, which did not change upon the prolonged fast. No differences in posterior cingulate cortex connectivity were observed. In conclusion, obesity is marked by alterations in functional connectivity networks involved in food reward and salience. Prolonged fasting differentially affected hypothalamic connections with the dACC and the insula between obese and lean subjects. Our data support the idea that food reward and nutrient deprivation are differently perceived and/or processed in obesity. Copyright © 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Attentional Bias Predicts Increased Reward Salience and Risk Taking in Bipolar Disorder.

Science.gov (United States)

Mason, Liam; Trujillo-Barreto, Nelson J; Bentall, Richard P; El-Deredy, Wael

2016-02-15

There is amassing evidence that risky decision-making in bipolar disorder is related to reward-based differences in frontostriatal regions. However, the roles of early attentional and later cognitive processes remain unclear, limiting theoretical understanding and development of targeted interventions. Twenty euthymic bipolar disorder and 19 matched control participants played a Roulette task in which they won and lost money. Event-related potentials and source analysis were used to quantify predominantly sensory-attentional (N1), motivational salience (feedback-related negativities [FRN]), and cognitive appraisal (P300) stages of processing. We predicted that the bipolar disorder group would show increased N1, consistent with increased attentional orienting, and reduced FRN, consistent with a bias to perceive outcomes more favorably. As predicted, the bipolar disorder group showed increased N1 and reduced FRN but no differences in P300. N1 amplitude was additionally associated with real-life risk taking, and N1 source activity was reduced in visual cortex but increased activity in precuneus, frontopolar, and premotor cortex, compared to those of controls. These findings demonstrate an early attentional bias to reward that potentially drives risk taking by priming approach behavior and elevating reward salience in the frontostriatal pathway. Although later cognitive appraisals of these inputs may be relatively intact in remission, interventions targeting attention orienting may also be effective in long-term reduction of relapse. Copyright © 2016 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Anticipated Work-Family Conflict: Effects of Role Salience and Self-Efficacy

Science.gov (United States)

Cinamon, Rachel Gali

2010-01-01

The current study investigated how male and female university students' self-efficacy and their role salience contributed to the variance in their anticipated work-family conflict (WFC). Participants comprised 387 unmarried students (mean age 24 years). Cluster analysis yielded four profiles of participants who differed in their attributions of…

ParticipACTION: A mass media campaign targeting parents of inactive children; knowledge, saliency, and trialing behaviours

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Gauvin Lise

2009-12-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background In late 2007, Canada's ParticipACTION national physical activity mass media campaign was re-launched, with an initial campaign targeting parents of elementary school-aged children. The campaign informed them about the risks of physical inactivity for children and youth. The purpose of this study was to assess campaign awareness and understanding following the campaign, and to identify whether exposure to this campaign was likely associated with behaviour change. Methods A convenience sample of 1,500 adults was recruited though an existing panel (n = 60,000 of Canadian adults to participate in online surveys. Initial campaign exposure included "prompted" and "unprompted" recall of specific physical activity messages from the 2007 ParticipACTION campaign, knowledge of the benefits of PA, saliency, and initial trial behaviours to help their children become more active. Results One quarter of respondents showed unprompted recall of specific message content from the ParticipACTION campaign, and prompted recall was 57%. Message recall and understanding was associated with knowledge about physical activity, and that in turn was related to high saliency. Saliency was associated with each of the physical activity-related trial behaviours asked. Conclusion Campaign awareness and understanding was high following this ParticipACTION campaign, and was associated with intermediate campaign outcomes, including saliency and trial behaviours. This is relevant to campaign evaluations, as it suggests that an initial focus on influencing awareness and understanding is likely to lead to more substantial change in campaign endpoints.

Individual differences in frequency and saliency of speech-accompanying gestures: the role of cognitive abilities and empathy.

Science.gov (United States)

Chu, Mingyuan; Meyer, Antje; Foulkes, Lucy; Kita, Sotaro

2014-04-01

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals' cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication. We examined 3 types of gestures: representational gestures, conduit gestures, and palm-revealing gestures. Higher frequency of representational gestures was related to poorer visual and spatial working memory, spatial transformation ability, and conceptualization ability; higher frequency of conduit gestures was related to poorer visual working memory, conceptualization ability, and higher levels of empathy; and higher frequency of palm-revealing gestures was related to higher levels of empathy. The saliency of all gestures was positively related to level of empathy. These results demonstrate that cognitive abilities and empathy levels are related to individual differences in gesture frequency and saliency.

USGS Imagery Topo Large-scale Base Map Service from The National Map

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — The USGS Imagery Topo Large service from The National Map (TNM) is a dynamic topographic base map service that combines the best available data (Boundaries,...

Stress Sensitivity, Aberrant Salience, and Threat Anticipation in Early Psychosis: An Experience Sampling Study.

Science.gov (United States)

Reininghaus, Ulrich; Kempton, Matthew J; Valmaggia, Lucia; Craig, Tom K J; Garety, Philippa; Onyejiaka, Adanna; Gayer-Anderson, Charlotte; So, Suzanne H; Hubbard, Kathryn; Beards, Stephanie; Dazzan, Paola; Pariante, Carmine; Mondelli, Valeria; Fisher, Helen L; Mills, John G; Viechtbauer, Wolfgang; McGuire, Philip; van Os, Jim; Murray, Robin M; Wykes, Til; Myin-Germeys, Inez; Morgan, Craig

2016-05-01

While contemporary models of psychosis have proposed a number of putative psychological mechanisms, how these impact on individuals to increase intensity of psychotic experiences in real life, outside the research laboratory, remains unclear. We aimed to investigate whether elevated stress sensitivity, experiences of aberrant novelty and salience, and enhanced anticipation of threat contribute to the development of psychotic experiences in daily life. We used the experience sampling method (ESM) to assess stress, negative affect, aberrant salience, threat anticipation, and psychotic experiences in 51 individuals with first-episode psychosis (FEP), 46 individuals with an at-risk mental state (ARMS) for psychosis, and 53 controls with no personal or family history of psychosis. Linear mixed models were used to account for the multilevel structure of ESM data. In all 3 groups, elevated stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and enhanced threat anticipation were associated with an increased intensity of psychotic experiences. However, elevated sensitivity to minor stressful events (χ(2)= 6.3,P= 0.044), activities (χ(2)= 6.7,P= 0.036), and areas (χ(2)= 9.4,P= 0.009) and enhanced threat anticipation (χ(2)= 9.3,P= 0.009) were associated with more intense psychotic experiences in FEP individuals than controls. Sensitivity to outsider status (χ(2)= 5.7,P= 0.058) and aberrantly salient experiences (χ(2)= 12.3,P= 0.002) were more strongly associated with psychotic experiences in ARMS individuals than controls. Our findings suggest that stress sensitivity, aberrant salience, and threat anticipation are important psychological processes in the development of psychotic experiences in daily life in the early stages of the disorder. © The Author 2016. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Maryland Psychiatric Research Center.

ActionMap: A web-based software that automates loci assignments to framework maps.

Science.gov (United States)

Albini, Guillaume; Falque, Matthieu; Joets, Johann

2003-07-01

Genetic linkage computation may be a repetitive and time consuming task, especially when numerous loci are assigned to a framework map. We thus developed ActionMap, a web-based software that automates genetic mapping on a fixed framework map without adding the new markers to the map. Using this tool, hundreds of loci may be automatically assigned to the framework in a single process. ActionMap was initially developed to map numerous ESTs with a small plant mapping population and is limited to inbred lines and backcrosses. ActionMap is highly configurable and consists of Perl and PHP scripts that automate command steps for the MapMaker program. A set of web forms were designed for data import and mapping settings. Results of automatic mapping can be displayed as tables or drawings of maps and may be exported. The user may create personal access-restricted projects to store raw data, settings and mapping results. All data may be edited, updated or deleted. ActionMap may be used either online or downloaded for free (http://moulon.inra.fr/~bioinfo/).

Explaining the salience of anti-elitism and reducing political corruption for political parties in Europe with the 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey data

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Jonathan Polk

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This article addresses the variation of anti-corruption and anti-elite salience in party positioning across Europe. It demonstrates that while anti-corruption salience is primarily related to the (regional context in which a party operates, anti-elite salience is primarily a function of party ideology. Extreme left and extreme conservative (TAN parties are significantly more likely to emphasize anti-elite views. Through its use of the new 2014 Chapel Hill Expert Survey wave, this article also introduces the dataset.

Benefit salience and consumers' selective attention to product features

OpenAIRE

Ratneshwar, S; Warlop, Luk; Mick, DG; Seeger, G

1997-01-01

Although attention is a key construct in models of marketing communication and consumer choice, its selective nature has rarely been examined in common time-pressured conditions. We focus on the role of benefit salience, that is, the readiness with which particular benefits are brought to mind by consumers in relation to a given product category. Study I demonstrated that when product feature information was presented rapidly, individuals for whom the benefit of personalised customer service ...

Existential neuroscience: effects of mortality salience on the neurocognitive processing of attractive opposite-sex faces

Science.gov (United States)

Silveira, Sarita; Graupmann, Verena; Agthe, Maria; Gutyrchik, Evgeny; Blautzik, Janusch; Demirçapa, Idil; Berndt, Andrea; Pöppel, Ernst; Frey, Dieter; Reiser, Maximilian

2014-01-01

Being reminded of the inherently finite nature of human existence has been demonstrated to elicit strivings for sexual reproduction and the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships. Recently, it has been proposed that the perception of potential mating partners is influenced by mortality salience. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we investigated the neurocognitive processing of attractive opposite-sex faces after priming with death-related words for heterosexual men and women. Significant modulations of behavioral and neural responses were found when participants were requested to decide whether they would like to meet the presented person. Men were more in favor of meeting attractive women after being primed with death-related words compared to a no-prime condition. Increased neural activation could be found under mortality salience in the left anterior insula and the adjacent lateral prefrontal cortex (lPFC) for both men and women. As previously suggested, we believe that the lPFC activation reflects an approach-motivated defense mechanism to overcome concerns that are induced by being reminded of death and dying. Our results provide insight on a neurocognitive level that approach motivation in general, and mating motivation in particular is modulated by mortality salience. PMID:24078106

Perspectives on the Salience and Magnitude of Dam Impacts for Hydro Development Scenarios in China

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Desiree Tullos

2010-06-01

Survey results indicate differences in the perceived salience and magnitude of impacts across both expert groups and dam scenarios. Furthermore, surveys indicate that stakeholder perceptions changed as the information provided regarding dam impacts became more specific, suggesting that stakeholder evaluation may be influenced by quality of information. Finally, qualitative comments from the survey reflect some of the challenges of interdisciplinary dam assessment, including cross-disciplinary cooperation, data standardisation and weighting, and the distribution and potential mitigation of impacts. Given the complexity of data and perceptions around dam impacts, decision-support tools that integrate the objective magnitude and perceived salience of impacts are required urgently.

Overspecification of colour, pattern, and size: Salience, absoluteness, and consistency

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Sammie eTarenskeen

2015-11-01

Full Text Available The rates of overspecification of colour, pattern, and size are compared, to investigate how salience and absoluteness contribute to the production of overspecification. Colour and pattern are absolute attributes, whereas size is relative and less salient. Additionally, a tendency towards consistent responses is assessed. Using a within-participants design, we find similar rates of colour and pattern overspecification, which are both higher than the rate of size overspecification. Using a between-participants design, however, we find similar rates of pattern and size overspecification, which are both lower than the rate of colour overspecification. This indicates that although many speakers are more likely to include colour than pattern (probably because colour is more salient, they may also treat pattern like colour due to a tendency towards consistency. We find no increase in size overspecification when the salience of size is increased, suggesting that speakers are more likely to include absolute than relative attributes. However, we do find an increase in size overspecification when mentioning the attributes is triggered, which again shows that speakers tend refer in a consistent manner, and that there are circumstances in which even size overspecification is frequently produced.

Isolating the Incentive Salience of Reward-Associated Stimuli: Value, Choice, and Persistence

Science.gov (United States)

Beckmann, Joshua S.; Chow, Jonathan J.

2015-01-01

Sign- and goal-tracking are differentially associated with drug abuse-related behavior. Recently, it has been hypothesized that sign- and goal-tracking behavior are mediated by different neurobehavioral valuation systems, including differential incentive salience attribution. Herein, we used different conditioned stimuli to preferentially elicit…

Morphological and functional abnormalities of salience network in the early-stage of paranoid schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Pu, Weidan; Li, Li; Zhang, Huiran; Ouyang, Xuan; Liu, Haihong; Zhao, Jingping; Li, Lingjiang; Xue, Zhimin; Xu, Ke; Tang, Haibo; Shan, Baoci; Liu, Zhening; Wang, Fei

2012-10-01

A salience network (SN), mainly composed of the anterior insula (AI) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), has been suggested to play an important role in salience attribution which has been proposed as central to the pathology of paranoid schizophrenia. The role of this SN in the pathophysiology of paranoid schizophrenia, however, still remains unclear. In the present study, voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional connectivity analyses were combined to identify morphological and functional abnormalities in the proposed SN in the early-stage of paranoid schizophrenia (ESPS). Voxel-based morphometry and resting-state functional connectivity analyses were applied to 90 ESPS patients and 90 age- and sex-matched healthy controls (HC). Correlation analyses were performed to examine the relationships between various clinical variables and both gray matter morphology and functional connectivity within the SN in ESPS. Compared to the HC group, the ESPS group showed significantly reduced gray matter volume (GMV) in both bilateral AI and ACC. Moreover, significantly reduced functional connectivity within the SN sub-networks was identified in the ESPS group. These convergent morphological and functional deficits in SN were significantly associated with hallucinations. Additionally, illness duration correlated with reduced GMV in the left AI in ESPS. In conclusion, these findings provide convergent evidence for the morphological and functional abnormalities of the SN in ESPS. Moreover, the association of illness duration with the reduced GMV in the left AI suggests that the SN and the AI, in particular, may manifest progressive morphological changes that are especially important in the emergence of ESPS. Copyright © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The evolution of mapping habitat for northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina): A comparison of photo-interpreted, Landsat-based, and lidar-based habitat maps

Science.gov (United States)

Ackers, Steven H.; Davis, Raymond J.; Olsen, K.; Dugger, Catherine

2015-01-01

Wildlife habitat mapping has evolved at a rapid pace over the last few decades. Beginning with simple, often subjective, hand-drawn maps, habitat mapping now involves complex species distribution models (SDMs) using mapped predictor variables derived from remotely sensed data. For species that inhabit large geographic areas, remote sensing technology is often essential for producing range wide maps. Habitat monitoring for northern spotted owls (Strix occidentalis caurina), whose geographic covers about 23 million ha, is based on SDMs that use Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery to create forest vegetation data layers using gradient nearest neighbor (GNN) methods. Vegetation data layers derived from GNN are modeled relationships between forest inventory plot data, climate and topographic data, and the spectral signatures acquired by the satellite. When used as predictor variables for SDMs, there is some transference of the GNN modeling error to the final habitat map.Recent increases in the use of light detection and ranging (lidar) data, coupled with the need to produce spatially accurate and detailed forest vegetation maps have spurred interest in its use for SDMs and habitat mapping. Instead of modeling predictor variables from remotely sensed spectral data, lidar provides direct measurements of vegetation height for use in SDMs. We expect a SDM habitat map produced from directly measured predictor variables to be more accurate than one produced from modeled predictors.We used maximum entropy (Maxent) SDM modeling software to compare predictive performance and estimates of habitat area between Landsat-based and lidar-based northern spotted owl SDMs and habitat maps. We explored the differences and similarities between these maps, and to a pre-existing aerial photo-interpreted habitat map produced by local wildlife biologists. The lidar-based map had the highest predictive performance based on 10 bootstrapped replicate models (AUC = 0.809 ± 0.011), but the

PCR-Based EST Mapping in Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

J. PERRY GUSTAFSON

2009-04-01

Full Text Available Mapping expressed sequence tags (ESTs to hexaploid wheat is aimed to reveal the structure and function of the hexaploid wheat genome. Sixty eight ESTs representing 26 genes were mapped into all seven homologous chromosome groups of wheat (Triticum aestivum L using a polymerase chain reaction technique. The majority of the ESTs were mapped to homologous chromosome group 2, and the least were mapped to homologous chromosome group 6. Comparative analysis between the EST map from this study and the EST map based on RFLPs showed 14 genes that have been mapped by both approaches were mapped to the same arm of the same homologous chromosome, which indicated that using PCR-based ESTs was a reliable approach in mapping ESTs in hexaploid wheat.

USGS Topo Base Map Service from The National Map

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U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — USGS Topo is a topographic tile cache base map that combines the most current data (Boundaries, Names, Transportation, Elevation, Hydrography, Land Cover, and other...

A novel no-reference objective stereoscopic video quality assessment method based on visual saliency analysis

Science.gov (United States)

Yang, Xinyan; Zhao, Wei; Ye, Long; Zhang, Qin

2017-07-01

This paper proposes a no-reference objective stereoscopic video quality assessment method with the motivation that making the effect of objective experiments close to that of subjective way. We believe that the image regions with different visual salient degree should not have the same weights when designing an assessment metric. Therefore, we firstly use GBVS algorithm to each frame pairs and separate both the left and right viewing images into the regions with strong, general and week saliency. Besides, local feature information like blockiness, zero-crossing and depth are extracted and combined with a mathematical model to calculate a quality assessment score. Regions with different salient degree are assigned with different weights in the mathematical model. Experiment results demonstrate the superiority of our method compared with the existed state-of-the-art no-reference objective Stereoscopic video quality assessment methods.

User Experience Design in Professional Map-Based Geo-Portals

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Bastian Zimmer

2013-10-01

Full Text Available We have recently been witnessing the growing establishment of map-centered web-based geo-portals on national, regional and local levels. However, a particular issue with these geo-portals is that each instance has been implemented in different ways in terms of design, usability, functionality, interaction possibilities, map size and symbologies. In this paper, we try to tackle these shortcomings by analyzing and formalizing the requirements for map-based geo-portals in a user experience based approach. First, we propose a holistic definition the term of a “geo-portal”. Then, we present our approach to user experience design for map-based geo-portals by defining the functional requirements of a geo-portal, by analyzing previous geo-portal developments, by distilling the results of our empirical user study to perform practically-oriented user requirements, and finally by establishing a set of user experience design guidelines for the creation of map-based geo-portals. These design guidelines have been extracted for each of the main components of a geo-portal, i.e., the map, the search dialogue, the presentation of the search results, symbologies, and other aspects. These guidelines shall constitute the basis for future geo-portal developments to achieve standardization in the user-experience design of map-based geo-portals.

ERP evidence on the interaction between information structure and emotional salience of words

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Wang, L.; Bastiaansen, M.C.M.; Yang, Y.; Hagoort, P.

2013-01-01

Both emotional words and words focused by information structure can capture attention. This study examined the interplay between emotional salience and information structure in modulating attentional resources in the service of integrating emotional words into sentence context. Event-related

Managerial Cognitive Moral Development and the Firm's Owners' Salience: Empirical Evidence

Science.gov (United States)

Martynov, Aleksey; Logachev, Sergey

2016-01-01

In this paper, we study the agency relationship between the firm's owners and managers. We apply the theory of Cognitive Moral Development (CMD) to answer the question: What factors affect salience of the interests of the firm's owners to the managers? Using a sample of Russian managers, we found that higher levels of CMD weaken the relationship…

Object-based Landslide Mapping: Examples, Challenges and Opportunities

Science.gov (United States)

Hölbling, Daniel; Eisank, Clemens; Friedl, Barbara; Chang, Kang-Tsung; Tsai, Tsai-Tsung; Birkefeldt Møller Pedersen, Gro; Betts, Harley; Cigna, Francesca; Chiang, Shou-Hao; Aubrey Robson, Benjamin; Bianchini, Silvia; Füreder, Petra; Albrecht, Florian; Spiekermann, Raphael; Weinke, Elisabeth; Blaschke, Thomas; Phillips, Chris

2016-04-01

Over the last decade, object-based image analysis (OBIA) has been increasingly used for mapping landslides that occur after triggering events such as heavy rainfall. The increasing availability and quality of Earth Observation (EO) data in terms of temporal, spatial and spectral resolution allows for comprehensive mapping of landslides at multiple scales. Most often very high resolution (VHR) or high resolution (HR) optical satellite images are used in combination with a digital elevation model (DEM) and its products such as slope and curvature. Semi-automated object-based mapping makes use of various characteristics of image objects that are derived through segmentation. OBIA enables numerous spectral, spatial, contextual and textural image object properties to be applied during an analysis. This is especially useful when mapping complex natural features such as landslides and constitutes an advantage over pixel-based image analysis. However, several drawbacks in the process of object-based landslide mapping have not been overcome yet. The developed classification routines are often rather complex and limited regarding their transferability across areas and sensors. There is still more research needed to further improve present approaches and to fully exploit the capabilities of OBIA for landslide mapping. In this study several examples of object-based landslide mapping from various geographical regions with different characteristics are presented. Examples from the Austrian and Italian Alps are shown, whereby one challenge lies in the detection of small-scale landslides on steep slopes while preventing the classification of false positives with similar spectral properties (construction areas, utilized land, etc.). Further examples feature landslides mapped in Iceland, where the differentiation of landslides from other landscape-altering processes in a highly dynamic volcanic landscape poses a very distinct challenge, and in Norway, which is exposed to multiple

A regularized, model-based approach to phase-based conductivity mapping using MRI.

Science.gov (United States)

Ropella, Kathleen M; Noll, Douglas C

2017-11-01

To develop a novel regularized, model-based approach to phase-based conductivity mapping that uses structural information to improve the accuracy of conductivity maps. The inverse of the three-dimensional Laplacian operator is used to model the relationship between measured phase maps and the object conductivity in a penalized weighted least-squares optimization problem. Spatial masks based on structural information are incorporated into the problem to preserve data near boundaries. The proposed Inverse Laplacian method was compared against a restricted Gaussian filter in simulation, phantom, and human experiments. The Inverse Laplacian method resulted in lower reconstruction bias and error due to noise in simulations than the Gaussian filter. The Inverse Laplacian method also produced conductivity maps closer to the measured values in a phantom and with reduced noise in the human brain, as compared to the Gaussian filter. The Inverse Laplacian method calculates conductivity maps with less noise and more accurate values near boundaries. Improving the accuracy of conductivity maps is integral for advancing the applications of conductivity mapping. Magn Reson Med 78:2011-2021, 2017. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine. © 2016 International Society for Magnetic Resonance in Medicine.

Terror management theory and self-esteem revisited: the roles of implicit and explicit self-esteem in mortality salience effects.

Science.gov (United States)

Schmeichel, Brandon J; Gailliot, Matthew T; Filardo, Emily-Ana; McGregor, Ian; Gitter, Seth; Baumeister, Roy F

2009-05-01

Three studies tested the roles of implicit and/or explicit self-esteem in reactions to mortality salience. In Study 1, writing about death versus a control topic increased worldview defense among participants low in implicit self-esteem but not among those high in implicit self-esteem. In Study 2, a manipulation to boost implicit self-esteem reduced the effect of mortality salience on worldview defense. In Study 3, mortality salience increased the endorsement of positive personality descriptions but only among participants with the combination of low implicit and high explicit self-esteem. These findings indicate that high implicit self-esteem confers resilience against the psychological threat of death, and therefore the findings provide direct support for a fundamental tenet of terror management theory regarding the anxiety-buffering role of self-esteem. Copyright (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Map-based mobile services design, interaction and usability

CERN Document Server

Meng, Liqiu; Winter, Stephan; Popovich, Vasily

2008-01-01

This book reports the newest research and technical achievements on the following theme blocks: Design of mobile map services and its constraints; Typology and usability of mobile map services; Visualization solutions on small displays for time-critical tasks; Mobile map users; Interaction and adaptation in mobile environments; and Applications of map-based mobile services.

The Effects of Music Salience on the Gait Performance of Young Adults.

Science.gov (United States)

de Bruin, Natalie; Kempster, Cody; Doucette, Angelica; Doan, Jon B; Hu, Bin; Brown, Lesley A

2015-01-01

The presence of a rhythmic beat in the form of a metronome tone or beat-accentuated original music can modulate gait performance; however, it has yet to be determined whether gait modulation can be achieved using commercially available music. The current study investigated the effects of commercially available music on the walking of healthy young adults. Specific aims were (a) to determine whether commercially available music can be used to influence gait (i.e., gait velocity, stride length, cadence, stride time variability), (b) to establish the effect of music salience on gait (i.e., gait velocity, stride length, cadence, stride time variability), and (c) to examine whether music tempi differentially effected gait (i.e., gait velocity, stride length, cadence, stride time variability). Twenty-five participants walked the length of an unobstructed walkway while listening to music. Music selections differed with respect to the salience or the tempo of the music. The genre of music and artists were self-selected by participants. Listening to music while walking was an enjoyable activity that influenced gait. Specifically, salient music selections increased measures of cadence, velocity, and stride length; in contrast, gait was unaltered by the presence of non-salient music. Music tempo did not differentially affect gait performance (gait velocity, stride length, cadence, stride time variability) in these participants. Gait performance was differentially influenced by music salience. These results have implications for clinicians considering the use of commercially available music as an alternative to the traditional rhythmic auditory cues used in rehabilitation programs. © the American Music Therapy Association 2015. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

Overspecification of colour, pattern, and size: Salience, absoluteness, and consistency

OpenAIRE

Sammie eTarenskeen; Mirjam eBroersma; Mirjam eBroersma; Bart eGeurts

2015-01-01

The rates of overspecification of colour, pattern, and size are compared, to investigate how salience and absoluteness contribute to the production of overspecification. Colour and pattern are absolute attributes, whereas size is relative and less salient. Additionally, a tendency towards consistent responses is assessed. Using a within-participants design, we find similar rates of colour and pattern overspecification, which are both higher than the rate of size overspecification. Using a bet...

Overspecification of color, pattern, and size: salience, absoluteness, and consistency

OpenAIRE

Tarenskeen, S.L.; Broersma, M.; Geurts, B.

2015-01-01

The rates of overspecification of color, pattern, and size are compared, to investigate how salience and absoluteness contribute to the production of overspecification. Color and pattern are absolute and salient attributes, whereas size is relative and less salient. Additionally, a tendency toward consistent responses is assessed. Using a within-participants design, we find similar rates of color and pattern overspecification, which are both higher than the rate of size overspecification. Usi...

Where do neurologists look when viewing brain CT images? An eye-tracking study involving stroke cases.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hideyuki Matsumoto

Full Text Available The aim of this study was to investigate where neurologists look when they view brain computed tomography (CT images and to evaluate how they deploy their visual attention by comparing their gaze distribution with saliency maps. Brain CT images showing cerebrovascular accidents were presented to 12 neurologists and 12 control subjects. The subjects' ocular fixation positions were recorded using an eye-tracking device (Eyelink 1000. Heat maps were created based on the eye-fixation patterns of each group and compared between the two groups. The heat maps revealed that the areas on which control subjects frequently fixated often coincided with areas identified as outstanding in saliency maps, while the areas on which neurologists frequently fixated often did not. Dwell time in regions of interest (ROI was likewise compared between the two groups, revealing that, although dwell time on large lesions was not different between the two groups, dwell time in clinically important areas with low salience was longer in neurologists than in controls. Therefore it appears that neurologists intentionally scan clinically important areas when reading brain CT images showing cerebrovascular accidents. Both neurologists and control subjects used the "bottom-up salience" form of visual attention, although the neurologists more effectively used the "top-down instruction" form.

Contour Detection for UAV-Based Cadastral Mapping

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Sophie Crommelinck

2017-02-01

Full Text Available Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs provide a flexible and low-cost solution for the acquisition of high-resolution data. The potential of high-resolution UAV imagery to create and update cadastral maps is being increasingly investigated. Existing procedures generally involve substantial fieldwork and many manual processes. Arguably, multiple parts of UAV-based cadastral mapping workflows could be automated. Specifically, as many cadastral boundaries coincide with visible boundaries, they could be extracted automatically using image analysis methods. This study investigates the transferability of gPb contour detection, a state-of-the-art computer vision method, to remotely sensed UAV images and UAV-based cadastral mapping. Results show that the approach is transferable to UAV data and automated cadastral mapping: object contours are comprehensively detected at completeness and correctness rates of up to 80%. The detection quality is optimal when the entire scene is covered with one orthoimage, due to the global optimization of gPb contour detection. However, a balance between high completeness and correctness is hard to achieve, so a combination with area-based segmentation and further object knowledge is proposed. The localization quality exhibits the usual dependency on ground resolution. The approach has the potential to accelerate the process of general boundary delineation during the creation and updating of cadastral maps.

WAQF ACCOUNTABILITY FROM THE STAKEHOLDER SALIENCE THEORY: A CASE STUDY

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Hidayatul Ihsan

2016-08-01

Full Text Available This study aims to address the issue of accountability in a waqf institution. Specifically, the focus of this study is to shed more light on how the mutawalli (waqf trustee discharges accountability in managing waqf. In so doing, an interpretive case study in one Indonesian waqf institution, that is, Dompet Dhuafa (DD, was undertaken. The data were obtained through semi-structured interviews. Other sources of data collection techniques employed along with the interviews include observations and document reviews. Furthermore, this study uses the accountability mechanisms as the conceptual lens. The accountability mechanisms consist of disclosure statements and reports, performance assessment, participation, self-regulation and social auditing. In addition to the accountability mechanims, the stakeholder salience theory is also used to understand how the mutawalli shows accountability to multiple stakeholders. The findings of this study reveal that although DD recognizes the salient nature of its stakeholders, it does not prevent the mutawalli from showing accountability to all stakeholders. The mutawalli is of the view that accountability is not limited to accounting and reporting. Moreover, the mutawalli believes that showing accountability to different groups of stakeholder requires different mechanisms of accountability. As such, this study concludes that DD’s commitment to accountability is proven through its effort to deal with stakeholder salience.

Agroforestry suitability analysis based upon nutrient availability mapping: a GIS based suitability mapping

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Firoz Ahmad

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Agroforestry has drawn the attention of researchers due to its capacity to reduce the poverty and land degradation, improve food security and mitigate the climate change. However, the progress in promoting agroforestry is held back due to the lack of reliable data sets and appropriate tools to accurately map and to have an adequate decision making system for agroforestry modules. Agroforestry suitability being one special form of land suitability is very pertinent to study in the current times when there is tremendous pressure on the land as it is a limited commodity. The study aims for applying the geo-spatial tools towards visualizing various soil and environmental data to reveal the trends and interrelationships and to achieve a nutrient availability and agroforestry suitability map. Using weight matrix and ranks, individual maps were developed in ArcGIS 10.1 platform to generate nutrient availability map, which was later used to develop agroforestry suitability map. Watersheds were delineated using DEM in some part of the study area and were evaluated for prioritizing it and agroforestry suitability of the watersheds were also done as per the schematic flowchart. Agroforestry suitability regions were delineated based upon the weight and ranks by integrated mapping. The total open area was identified 42.4% out of which 21.6% area was found to have high suitability towards agroforestry. Within the watersheds, 22 village points were generated for creating buffers, which were further evaluated showing its proximity to high suitable agroforestry sites thus generating tremendous opportunity to the villagers to carry out agroforestry projects locally. This research shows the capability of remote sensing in studying agroforestry practices and in estimating the prominent factors for its optimal productivity. The ongoing agroforestry projects can be potentially diverted in the areas of high suitability as an extension. The use of ancillary data in GIS

Political mobilization of Dutch Muslims : religious identity salience, goal framing and normative constraints

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Phalet, Karen; Baysu, Gülseli

2010-01-01

This article addresses the question of when and for what purpose Muslims will act collectively in the political arena. The impact of religious identity salience, goal framing, and normative constraints on political mobilization was examined in two Muslim communities with different group positions in

Dying to remember, remembering to survive: mortality salience and survival processing.

Science.gov (United States)

Burns, Daniel J; Hart, Joshua; Kramer, Melanie E; Burns, Amy D

2014-01-01

Processing items for their relevance to survival improves recall for those items relative to numerous other deep processing encoding techniques. Perhaps related, placing individuals in a mortality salient state has also been shown to enhance retention of items encoded after the morality salience manipulation (e.g., in a pleasantness rating task), a phenomenon we dubbed the "dying-to-remember" (DTR) effect. The experiments reported here further explored the effect and tested the possibility that the DTR effect is related to survival processing. Experiment 1 replicated the effect using different encoding tasks, demonstrating that the effect is not dependent on the pleasantness task. In Experiment 2 the DTR effect was associated with increases in item-specific processing, not relational processing, according to several indices. Experiment 3 replicated the main results of Experiment 2, and tested the effects of mortality salience and survival processing within the same experiment. The DTR effect and its associated difference in item-specific processing were completely eliminated when the encoding task required survival processing. These results are consistent with the interpretation that the mechanisms responsible for survival processing and DTR effects are overlapping.

Glucose modulates food-related salience coding of midbrain neurons in humans.

Science.gov (United States)

Ulrich, Martin; Endres, Felix; Kölle, Markus; Adolph, Oliver; Widenhorn-Müller, Katharina; Grön, Georg

2016-12-01

Although early rat studies demonstrated that administration of glucose diminishes dopaminergic midbrain activity, evidence in humans has been lacking so far. In the present functional magnetic resonance imaging study, glucose was intravenously infused in healthy human male participants while seeing images depicting low-caloric food (LC), high-caloric food (HC), and non-food (NF) during a food/NF discrimination task. Analysis of brain activation focused on the ventral tegmental area (VTA) as the origin of the mesolimbic system involved in salience coding. Under unmodulated fasting baseline conditions, VTA activation was greater during HC compared with LC food cues. Subsequent to infusion of glucose, this difference in VTA activation as a function of caloric load leveled off and even reversed. In a control group not receiving glucose, VTA activation during HC relative to LC cues remained stable throughout the course of the experiment. Similar treatment-specific patterns of brain activation were observed for the hypothalamus. The present findings show for the first time in humans that glucose infusion modulates salience coding mediated by the VTA. Hum Brain Mapp 37:4376-4384, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Approach of simultaneous localization and mapping based on local maps for robot

Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (English)

CHEN Bai-fan; CAI Zi-xing; HU De-wen

2006-01-01

An extended Kalman filter approach of simultaneous localization and mapping(SLAM) was proposed based on local maps.A local frame of reference was established periodically at the position of the robot, and then the observations of the robot and landmarks were fused into the global frame of reference. Because of the independence of the local map, the approach does not cumulate the estimate and calculation errors which are produced by SLAM using Kalman filter directly. At the same time, it reduces the computational complexity. This method is proven correct and feasible in simulation experiments.

SiNC: Saliency-injected neural codes for representation and efficient retrieval of medical radiographs.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jamil Ahmad

Full Text Available Medical image collections contain a wealth of information which can assist radiologists and medical experts in diagnosis and disease detection for making well-informed decisions. However, this objective can only be realized if efficient access is provided to semantically relevant cases from the ever-growing medical image repositories. In this paper, we present an efficient method for representing medical images by incorporating visual saliency and deep features obtained from a fine-tuned convolutional neural network (CNN pre-trained on natural images. Saliency detector is employed to automatically identify regions of interest like tumors, fractures, and calcified spots in images prior to feature extraction. Neuronal activation features termed as neural codes from different CNN layers are comprehensively studied to identify most appropriate features for representing radiographs. This study revealed that neural codes from the last fully connected layer of the fine-tuned CNN are found to be the most suitable for representing medical images. The neural codes extracted from the entire image and salient part of the image are fused to obtain the saliency-injected neural codes (SiNC descriptor which is used for indexing and retrieval. Finally, locality sensitive hashing techniques are applied on the SiNC descriptor to acquire short binary codes for allowing efficient retrieval in large scale image collections. Comprehensive experimental evaluations on the radiology images dataset reveal that the proposed framework achieves high retrieval accuracy and efficiency for scalable image retrieval applications and compares favorably with existing approaches.

Particle filter based MAP state estimation: A comparison

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Saha, S.; Boers, Y.; Driessen, J.N.; Mandal, Pranab K.; Bagchi, Arunabha

2009-01-01

MAP estimation is a good alternative to MMSE for certain applications involving nonlinear non Gaussian systems. Recently a new particle filter based MAP estimator has been derived. This new method extracts the MAP directly from the output of a running particle filter. In the recent past, a Viterbi

USGS Imagery Topo Base Map Service from The National Map

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — USGS Imagery Topo is a topographic tile cache base map with orthoimagery as a backdrop, and combines the most current data (Boundaries, Names, Transportation,...

Reward positivity: Reward prediction error or salience prediction error?

Science.gov (United States)

Heydari, Sepideh; Holroyd, Clay B

2016-08-01

The reward positivity is a component of the human ERP elicited by feedback stimuli in trial-and-error learning and guessing tasks. A prominent theory holds that the reward positivity reflects a reward prediction error signal that is sensitive to outcome valence, being larger for unexpected positive events relative to unexpected negative events (Holroyd & Coles, 2002). Although the theory has found substantial empirical support, most of these studies have utilized either monetary or performance feedback to test the hypothesis. However, in apparent contradiction to the theory, a recent study found that unexpected physical punishments also elicit the reward positivity (Talmi, Atkinson, & El-Deredy, 2013). The authors of this report argued that the reward positivity reflects a salience prediction error rather than a reward prediction error. To investigate this finding further, in the present study participants navigated a virtual T maze and received feedback on each trial under two conditions. In a reward condition, the feedback indicated that they would either receive a monetary reward or not and in a punishment condition the feedback indicated that they would receive a small shock or not. We found that the feedback stimuli elicited a typical reward positivity in the reward condition and an apparently delayed reward positivity in the punishment condition. Importantly, this signal was more positive to the stimuli that predicted the omission of a possible punishment relative to stimuli that predicted a forthcoming punishment, which is inconsistent with the salience hypothesis. © 2016 Society for Psychophysiological Research.

Typography and color: effects of salience and fluency on conscious recollective experience.

Science.gov (United States)

Wehr, Thomas; Wippich, Werner

2004-12-01

Within one experiment the central assumptions of the distinctiveness/fluency account of recollective experience were tested and contrasted with predictions of processing theory. To manipulate perceptual salience, the typography of words was varied. Effects of conceptual salience were induced by a variation of word color. In the study phase participants generated different word or object images according to presented words. To manipulate perceptual and conceptual fluency one test group underwent a priming procedure in the test phase, consisting of a recognition test, whereby some primes were identical to the target words typographically or by color and others were not. Additionally, all participants were asked to make judgments of recollective experience (remember, know, guess) after the old/new decisions. The results of the data analyses confirm the distinctiveness/fluency account. Words written in an unusual typography or color were judged significantly more often as "remembered" than normal words. The priming procedure uncovered some effects of fluency on reaction times: old/new decisions took less time if prime and target words were perceptually or conceptually identical.

Autonomy, Affiliation, and Ability: Relative Salience of Factors that Influence Online Learner Motivation and Learning Outcomes

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kuan-Chung Chen

2010-03-01

Full Text Available Autonomy, affiliation, and ability appear as main factors that influence online learners‟ motivation and learning outcomes, however, the relative salience of these three factors remains unclear in the online learning literature. Drawing on Deci and Ryan‟s self-determination theory, this study sought to bridge this gap by investigating the relative salience of perceived autonomy, affiliation, and ability on learner motivation and learning outcomes in two special education online programs (N = 262. This study found that the most salient predictor varied from categories of motivation and learning outcomes, and the number of significant predictors increased by participants‟ level of motivation/self-determination. Results of this study provide implications for online learner support.

Vision-based topological map building and localisation using persistent features

CSIR Research Space (South Africa)

Sabatta, DG

2008-11-01

Full Text Available stream_source_info Sabatta_2008.pdf.txt stream_content_type text/plain stream_size 32284 Content-Encoding UTF-8 stream_name Sabatta_2008.pdf.txt Content-Type text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Vision-based Topological Map... of topological mapping was introduced into the field of robotics following studies of human cogni- tive mapping undertaken by Kuipers [8]. Since then, much progress has been made in the field of vision-based topologi- cal mapping. Topological mapping lends...

Hyperspectral Data for Mangrove Species Mapping: A Comparison of Pixel-Based and Object-Based Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Muhammad Kamal

2011-10-01

Full Text Available Visual image interpretation and digital image classification have been used to map and monitor mangrove extent and composition for decades. The presence of a high-spatial resolution hyperspectral sensor can potentially improve our ability to differentiate mangrove species. However, little research has explored the use of pixel-based and object-based approaches on high-spatial hyperspectral datasets for this purpose. This study assessed the ability of CASI-2 data for mangrove species mapping using pixel-based and object-based approaches at the mouth of the Brisbane River area, southeast Queensland, Australia. Three mapping techniques used in this study: spectral angle mapper (SAM and linear spectral unmixing (LSU for the pixel-based approaches, and multi-scale segmentation for the object-based image analysis (OBIA. The endmembers for the pixel-based approach were collected based on existing vegetation community map. Nine targeted classes were mapped in the study area from each approach, including three mangrove species: Avicennia marina, Rhizophora stylosa, and Ceriops australis. The mapping results showed that SAM produced accurate class polygons with only few unclassified pixels (overall accuracy 69%, Kappa 0.57, the LSU resulted in a patchy polygon pattern with many unclassified pixels (overall accuracy 56%, Kappa 0.41, and the object-based mapping produced the most accurate results (overall accuracy 76%, Kappa 0.67. Our results demonstrated that the object-based approach, which combined a rule-based and nearest-neighbor classification method, was the best classifier to map mangrove species and its adjacent environments.

Effects of norm referent salience on young people's dietary orientation.

Science.gov (United States)

Tarrant, Mark; Khan, Sammyh S; Qin, Qi

2015-02-01

We examined the effects of making salient different norm referents on young people's dietary orientation. Participants were exposed to a referent who was either of similar age to themselves or older before reporting their normative beliefs, attitudes and intentions concerning dietary behavior. As predicted, exposure to the older referent was associated with stronger perceptions that eating five portions of fruit and vegetables each day was normative. Compared to those exposed to the same-age referent, participants exposed to the older referent reported more positive attitudes towards eating "five-a-day" and stronger intentions to do so over the coming week. Referent salience was also associated with a behavioral outcome, with those participants exposed to the older referent more likely to take a piece of fruit upon completion of the study (OR: 4.97, 95% CI: 1.39-17.82). The implications of these findings for norms-based interventions for changing dietary behavior are discussed. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Individual variation in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to a food cue: influence of sex.

Science.gov (United States)

Pitchers, Kyle K; Flagel, Shelly B; O'Donnell, Elizabeth G; Woods, Leah C Solberg; Sarter, Martin; Robinson, Terry E

2015-02-01

There is considerable individual variation in the propensity of animals to attribute incentive salience to discrete reward cues, but to date most of this research has been conducted in male rats. The purpose of this study was to determine whether sex influences the propensity to attribute incentive salience to a food cue, using rats from two different outbred strains (Sprague-Dawley [SD] and Heterogeneous Stock [HS]). The motivational value of a food cue was assessed in two ways: (i) by the ability of the cue to elicit approach toward it and (ii) by its ability to act as a conditioned reinforcer. We found that female SD rats acquired Pavlovian conditioned approach behavior slightly faster than males, but no sex difference was detected in HS rats, and neither strain showed a sex difference in asymptotic performance of approach behavior. Moreover, female approach behavior did not differ across estrous cycle. Compared to males, females made more active responses during the test for conditioned reinforcement, although they made more inactive responses as well. We conclude that although there are small sex differences in performance on these tasks, these are probably not due to a notable sex difference in the propensity to attribute incentive salience to a food cue. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

USGS Hill Shade Base Map Service from The National Map

Data.gov (United States)

U.S. Geological Survey, Department of the Interior — USGS Hill Shade (or Shaded Relief) is a tile cache base map created from the National Elevation Dataset (NED), a seamless dataset of best available raster elevation...

Global trends in satellite-based emergency mapping

Science.gov (United States)

Voigt, Stefan; Giulio-Tonolo, Fabio; Lyons, Josh; Kučera, Jan; Jones, Brenda; Schneiderhan, Tobias; Platzeck, Gabriel; Kaku, Kazuya; Hazarika, Manzul Kumar; Czaran, Lorant; Li, Suju; Pedersen, Wendi; James, Godstime Kadiri; Proy, Catherine; Muthike, Denis Macharia; Bequignon, Jerome; Guha-Sapir, Debarati

2016-01-01

Over the past 15 years, scientists and disaster responders have increasingly used satellite-based Earth observations for global rapid assessment of disaster situations. We review global trends in satellite rapid response and emergency mapping from 2000 to 2014, analyzing more than 1000 incidents in which satellite monitoring was used for assessing major disaster situations. We provide a synthesis of spatial patterns and temporal trends in global satellite emergency mapping efforts and show that satellite-based emergency mapping is most intensively deployed in Asia and Europe and follows well the geographic, physical, and temporal distributions of global natural disasters. We present an outlook on the future use of Earth observation technology for disaster response and mitigation by putting past and current developments into context and perspective.

BEE FORAGE MAPPING BASED ON MULTISPECTRAL IMAGES LANDSAT

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A. Moskalenko

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Possibilities of bee forage identification and mapping based on multispectral images have been shown in the research. Spectral brightness of bee forage has been determined with the use of satellite images. The effectiveness of some methods of image classification for mapping of bee forage is shown. Keywords: bee forage, mapping, multispectral images, image classification.

Modeling, Designing, and Implementing an Avatar-based Interactive Map

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Stefan Andrei

2016-03-01

Full Text Available Designing interactive maps has always been a challenge due to the geographical complexity of the earth’s landscape and the difficulty of resolving details to a high resolution. In the past decade or so, one of the most impressive map-based software application, the Global Positioning System (GPS, has probably the highest level of interaction with the user. This article describes an innovative technique for designing an avatar-based virtual interactive map for the Lamar University Campus, which will entail the buildings’ exterior as well as their interiors. Many universities provide 2D or 3D maps and even interactive maps. However, these maps do not provide a complete interaction with the user. To the best of our knowledge, this project is the first avatar-based interaction game that allows 100% interaction with the user. This work provides tremendous help to the freshman students and visitors of Lamar University. As an important marketing tool, the main objective is to get better visibility of the campus worldwide and to increase the number of students attending Lamar University.

A Synthetic Fusion Rule for Salient Region Detection under the Framework of DS-Evidence Theory

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Naeem Ayoub

2018-05-01

Full Text Available Saliency detection is one of the most valuable research topics in computer vision. It focuses on the detection of the most significant objects/regions in images and reduces the computational time cost of getting the desired information from salient regions. Local saliency detection or common pattern discovery schemes were actively used by the researchers to overcome the saliency detection problems. In this paper, we propose a bottom-up saliency fusion method by taking into consideration the importance of the DS-Evidence (Dempster–Shafer (DS theory. Firstly, we calculate saliency maps from different algorithms based on the pixels-level, patches-level and region-level methods. Secondly, we fuse the pixels based on the foreground and background information under the framework of DS-Evidence theory (evidence theory allows one to combine evidence from different sources and arrive at a degree of belief that takes into account all the available evidence. The development inclination of image saliency detection through DS-Evidence theory gives us better results for saliency prediction. Experiments are conducted on the publicly available four different datasets (MSRA, ECSSD, DUT-OMRON and PASCAL-S. Our saliency detection method performs well and shows prominent results as compared to the state-of-the-art algorithms.

Gender Norm Salience Across Middle Schools: Contextual Variations in Associations Between Gender Typicality and Socioemotional Distress.

Science.gov (United States)

Smith, Danielle Sayre; Schacter, Hannah L; Enders, Craig; Juvonen, Jaana

2018-05-01

Youth who feel they do not fit with gender norms frequently experience peer victimization and socioemotional distress. To gauge differences between schools, the current study examined the longitudinal effects of school-level gender norm salience-a within-school association between gender typicality and peer victimization-on socioemotional distress across 26 ethnically diverse middle schools (n boys  = 2607; n girls  = 2805). Boys (but not girls) reporting lower gender typicality experienced more loneliness and social anxiety in schools with more salient gender norms, even when accounting for both individual and school level victimization. Greater gender norm salience also predicted increased depressed mood among boys regardless of gender typicality. These findings suggest particular sensitivity among boys to environments in which low gender typicality is sanctioned.

Individual Differences in the Attribution of Incentive Salience to a Pavlovian Alcohol Cue

Science.gov (United States)

Villaruel, Franz R.; Chaudhri, Nadia

2016-01-01

Individual differences exist in the attribution of incentive salience to conditioned stimuli associated with food. Here, we investigated whether individual differences also manifested with a Pavlovian alcohol conditioned stimulus (CS). We compiled data from five experiments that used a Pavlovian autoshaping paradigm and tests of conditioned reinforcement. In all experiments, male, Long-Evans rats with unrestricted access to food and water were acclimated to 15% ethanol. Next, rats received Pavlovian autoshaping training, in which a 10 s presentation of a retractable lever served as the CS and 0.2 mL of 15% ethanol served as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Finally, rats underwent conditioned reinforcement tests in which nose-pokes to an active aperture led to brief presentations of the lever-CS, but nose-pokes to an inactive aperture had no consequence. Rats were categorized as sign-trackers, goal-trackers and intermediates based on a response bias score that reflected their tendencies to sign-track or goal-track at different times during training. We found that distinct groups of rats either consistently interacted with the lever-CS (“sign-trackers”) or routinely approached the port during the lever-CS (“goal-trackers”) across a majority of the training sessions. However, some individuals (“shifted sign-trackers”) with an early tendency to goal-track later shifted to comparable asymptotic levels of sign-tracking as the group identified as sign-trackers. The lever-CS functioned as a conditioned reinforcer for sign-trackers and shifted sign-trackers, but not for goal-trackers. These results provide evidence of robust individual differences in the extent to which a Pavlovian alcohol cue gains incentive salience and functions as a conditioned reinforcer. PMID:28082877

Individual Differences in the Attribution of Incentive Salience to a Pavlovian Alcohol Cue.

Science.gov (United States)

Villaruel, Franz R; Chaudhri, Nadia

2016-01-01

Individual differences exist in the attribution of incentive salience to conditioned stimuli associated with food. Here, we investigated whether individual differences also manifested with a Pavlovian alcohol conditioned stimulus (CS). We compiled data from five experiments that used a Pavlovian autoshaping paradigm and tests of conditioned reinforcement. In all experiments, male, Long-Evans rats with unrestricted access to food and water were acclimated to 15% ethanol. Next, rats received Pavlovian autoshaping training, in which a 10 s presentation of a retractable lever served as the CS and 0.2 mL of 15% ethanol served as the unconditioned stimulus (US). Finally, rats underwent conditioned reinforcement tests in which nose-pokes to an active aperture led to brief presentations of the lever-CS, but nose-pokes to an inactive aperture had no consequence. Rats were categorized as sign-trackers, goal-trackers and intermediates based on a response bias score that reflected their tendencies to sign-track or goal-track at different times during training. We found that distinct groups of rats either consistently interacted with the lever-CS ("sign-trackers") or routinely approached the port during the lever-CS ("goal-trackers") across a majority of the training sessions. However, some individuals ("shifted sign-trackers") with an early tendency to goal-track later shifted to comparable asymptotic levels of sign-tracking as the group identified as sign-trackers. The lever-CS functioned as a conditioned reinforcer for sign-trackers and shifted sign-trackers, but not for goal-trackers. These results provide evidence of robust individual differences in the extent to which a Pavlovian alcohol cue gains incentive salience and functions as a conditioned reinforcer.

Salience Effects: L2 Sentence Production as a Window on L1 Speech Planning

Science.gov (United States)

Antón-Méndez, Inés; Gerfen, Chip; Ramos, Miguel

2016-01-01

Salience influences grammatical structure during production in a language-dependent manner because different languages afford different options to satisfy preferences. During production, speakers may always try to satisfy all syntactic encoding preferences (e.g., salient entities to be mentioned early, themes to be assigned the syntactic function…

Impact of emotional salience on episodic memory in attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder: a functional magnetic resonance imaging study.

Science.gov (United States)

Krauel, Kerstin; Duzel, Emrah; Hinrichs, Hermann; Santel, Stephanie; Rellum, Thomas; Baving, Lioba

2007-06-15

Patients with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) show episodic memory deficits especially in complex memory tasks. We investigated the neural correlates of memory formation in ADHD and their modulation by stimulus salience. We recorded event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging during an episodic memory paradigm with neutral and emotional pictures in 12 male ADHD subjects and 12 healthy adolescents. Emotional salience did significantly augment memory performance in ADHD patients. Successful encoding of neutral pictures was associated with activation of the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) in healthy adolescents but with activation of the superior parietal lobe (SPL) and precuneus in ADHD patients. Successful encoding of emotional pictures was associated with prefrontal and inferior temporal cortex activation in both groups. Healthy adolescents, moreover, showed deactivation in the inferior parietal lobe. From a pathophysiological point of view, the most striking functional differences between healthy adolescents and ADHD patients were in the ACC and SPL. We suggest that increased SPL activation in ADHD reflected attentional compensation for low ACC activation during the encoding of neutral pictures. The higher salience of emotional stimuli, in contrast, regulated the interplay between ACC and SPL in conjunction with improving memory to the level of healthy adolescents.

BAC-end sequence-based SNPs and Bin mapping for rapid integration of physical and genetic maps in apple.

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Yuepeng; Chagné, David; Gasic, Ksenija; Rikkerink, Erik H A; Beever, Jonathan E; Gardiner, Susan E; Korban, Schuyler S

2009-03-01

A genome-wide BAC physical map of the apple, Malus x domestica Borkh., has been recently developed. Here, we report on integrating the physical and genetic maps of the apple using a SNP-based approach in conjunction with bin mapping. Briefly, BAC clones located at ends of BAC contigs were selected, and sequenced at both ends. The BAC end sequences (BESs) were used to identify candidate SNPs. Subsequently, these candidate SNPs were genetically mapped using a bin mapping strategy for the purpose of mapping the physical onto the genetic map. Using this approach, 52 (23%) out of 228 BESs tested were successfully exploited to develop SNPs. These SNPs anchored 51 contigs, spanning approximately 37 Mb in cumulative physical length, onto 14 linkage groups. The reliability of the integration of the physical and genetic maps using this SNP-based strategy is described, and the results confirm the feasibility of this approach to construct an integrated physical and genetic maps for apple.

The Relation of Theory and Analysis in Explanations of Belief Salience: Conditioning, Displacement, and Constructivist Accounts

Science.gov (United States)

Delia, Jesse G.; O'Keefe, Daniel J.

1977-01-01

Advocates according a central role to context-relevant beliefs in the operation of attitudinal saliency through contrasting Delia et al's cognitive-constructivist analysis with Cronen and Conville's operant conditioning and aggression displacement accounts. (Author)

Environmental manipulations alter age differences in attribution of incentive salience to reward-paired cues.

Science.gov (United States)

Anderson, Rachel I; Bush, Peter C; Spear, Linda P

2013-11-15

Cues repeatedly paired with rewards often themselves become imbued with enhanced motivational value, or incentive salience. During Pavlovian conditioned approach procedures, a cue repeatedly preceding reward delivery often elicits conditioned responses at either the reward delivery location ("goal-tracking") or the cue itself ("sign-tracking"). Sign-tracking behavior is thought to reflect the individual differences in attribution of incentive salience to reward-paired cues that may contribute to addiction vulnerability. Adolescent rats typically demonstrate less sign-tracking behavior than adult rats, a surprising finding given that adolescence is hypothesized to be a time of heightened addiction vulnerability. Given evidence that adult sign-tracking behavior can be influenced by environmental conditions, the present study compared the effects of isolate housing and food deprivation on expression of sign-tacking and goal-tracking behavior in adolescent and adult male rats across eight days of a Pavlovian conditioned approach procedure. Pair-housed adults exhibited more sign-tracking behavior than pair-housed adolescents; however, this age difference was not apparent in isolate-housed subjects. Adolescents often appeared more sensitive than adults to both food restriction- and isolate housing-induced changes in behavior, with food restriction promoting an increase in sign-tracking among isolate-housed adolescents and an increase in goal-tracking among pair-housed adolescents. For adults, food restriction resulted in a modest increase in overall expression of both sign- and goal-tracking behavior. To the extent that sign-tracking behavior reflects attribution of incentive salience to reward-paired cues, results from the present study provide evidence that reactivity to rewards during adolescence is strongly related to the nature of the surrounding environment. Copyright © 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Strategies for haplotype-based association mapping in complex pedigreed populations

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Boleckova, J; Christensen, Ole Fredslund; Sørensen, Peter

2012-01-01

In association mapping, haplotype-based methods are generally regarded to provide higher power and increased precision than methods based on single markers. For haplotype-based association mapping most studies use a fixed haplotype effect in the model. However, an increase in haplotype length inc...

Hash function based on piecewise nonlinear chaotic map

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Akhavan, A.; Samsudin, A.; Akhshani, A.

2009-01-01

Chaos-based cryptography appeared recently in the early 1990s as an original application of nonlinear dynamics in the chaotic regime. In this paper, an algorithm for one-way hash function construction based on piecewise nonlinear chaotic map with a variant probability parameter is proposed. Also the proposed algorithm is an attempt to present a new chaotic hash function based on multithreaded programming. In this chaotic scheme, the message is connected to the chaotic map using probability parameter and other parameters of chaotic map such as control parameter and initial condition, so that the generated hash value is highly sensitive to the message. Simulation results indicate that the proposed algorithm presented several interesting features, such as high flexibility, good statistical properties, high key sensitivity and message sensitivity. These properties make the scheme a suitable choice for practical applications.

State Base Map for GIS – New Digital Topographic Map of the Republic of Macedonia

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zlatko Srbinoski

2009-12-01

Full Text Available The basic aim of the National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI built in accordance with INSPIRE directive is to standardize spatial data infrastructure on national level. In that direction, topographic maps are a basic platform for acquiring spatial data within geoinformation systems and one of the most important  segments of NSDI. This paper presents methodology of establishing the new digital topographic map of the Republic of Macedonia titled “State Base Map for GIS in Macedonia”. This paper analyzes geometrical accuracy of new digital topographic maps. Production of the new digital topographic map has been the most important cartographic project in the Republic of Macedonia since it became independent.

A fast image encryption algorithm based on chaotic map

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Wenhao; Sun, Kehui; Zhu, Congxu

2016-09-01

Derived from Sine map and iterative chaotic map with infinite collapse (ICMIC), a new two-dimensional Sine ICMIC modulation map (2D-SIMM) is proposed based on a close-loop modulation coupling (CMC) model, and its chaotic performance is analyzed by means of phase diagram, Lyapunov exponent spectrum and complexity. It shows that this map has good ergodicity, hyperchaotic behavior, large maximum Lyapunov exponent and high complexity. Based on this map, a fast image encryption algorithm is proposed. In this algorithm, the confusion and diffusion processes are combined for one stage. Chaotic shift transform (CST) is proposed to efficiently change the image pixel positions, and the row and column substitutions are applied to scramble the pixel values simultaneously. The simulation and analysis results show that this algorithm has high security, low time complexity, and the abilities of resisting statistical analysis, differential, brute-force, known-plaintext and chosen-plaintext attacks.

Where's Wally: the influence of visual salience on referring expression generation.

Science.gov (United States)

Clarke, Alasdair D F; Elsner, Micha; Rohde, Hannah

2013-01-01

REFERRING EXPRESSION GENERATION (REG) PRESENTS THE CONVERSE PROBLEM TO VISUAL SEARCH: given a scene and a specified target, how does one generate a description which would allow somebody else to quickly and accurately locate the target?Previous work in psycholinguistics and natural language processing has failed to find an important and integrated role for vision in this task. That previous work, which relies largely on simple scenes, tends to treat vision as a pre-process for extracting feature categories that are relevant to disambiguation. However, the visual search literature suggests that some descriptions are better than others at enabling listeners to search efficiently within complex stimuli. This paper presents a study testing whether participants are sensitive to visual features that allow them to compose such "good" descriptions. Our results show that visual properties (salience, clutter, area, and distance) influence REG for targets embedded in images from the Where's Wally? books. Referring expressions for large targets are shorter than those for smaller targets, and expressions about targets in highly cluttered scenes use more words. We also find that participants are more likely to mention non-target landmarks that are large, salient, and in close proximity to the target. These findings identify a key role for visual salience in language production decisions and highlight the importance of scene complexity for REG.

Water stress, water salience, and the implications for water supply planning

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia, M. E.; Islam, S.

2017-12-01

Effectively addressing the water supply challenges posed by urbanization and climate change requires a holistic understanding of the water supply system, including the impact of human behavior on system dynamics. Decision makers have limits to available information and information processing capacity, and their attention is not equally distributed among risks. The salience of a given risk is higher when increased attention is directed to it and though perceived risk may increase, real risk does not change. Relevant to water supply planning is how and when water stress results in an increased salience of water risks. This work takes a socio-hydrological approach to develop a water supply planning model that includes water consumption as an endogenous variable, in the context of Las Vegas, NV. To understand the benefits and limitations of this approach, this model is compared to a traditional planning model that uses water consumption scenarios. Both models are applied to project system reliability and water stress under four streamflow and demographic scenarios, and to assess supply side responses to changing conditions. The endogenous demand model enables the identification of feedback between both supply and demand management decisions on future water consumption and system performance. This model, while specific to the Las Vegas case, demonstrates a prototypical modeling framework capable of examining water-supply demand interactions by incorporating water stress driven conservation.

Determining the saliency of feature measurements obtained from images of sedimentary organic matter for use in its classification

Science.gov (United States)

Weller, Andrew F.; Harris, Anthony J.; Ware, J. Andrew; Jarvis, Paul S.

2006-11-01

The classification of sedimentary organic matter (OM) images can be improved by determining the saliency of image analysis (IA) features measured from them. Knowing the saliency of IA feature measurements means that only the most significant discriminating features need be used in the classification process. This is an important consideration for classification techniques such as artificial neural networks (ANNs), where too many features can lead to the 'curse of dimensionality'. The classification scheme adopted in this work is a hybrid of morphologically and texturally descriptive features from previous manual classification schemes. Some of these descriptive features are assigned to IA features, along with several others built into the IA software (Halcon) to ensure that a valid cross-section is available. After an image is captured and segmented, a total of 194 features are measured for each particle. To reduce this number to a more manageable magnitude, the SPSS AnswerTree Exhaustive CHAID (χ 2 automatic interaction detector) classification tree algorithm is used to establish each measurement's saliency as a classification discriminator. In the case of continuous data as used here, the F-test is used as opposed to the published algorithm. The F-test checks various statistical hypotheses about the variance of groups of IA feature measurements obtained from the particles to be classified. The aim is to reduce the number of features required to perform the classification without reducing its accuracy. In the best-case scenario, 194 inputs are reduced to 8, with a subsequent multi-layer back-propagation ANN recognition rate of 98.65%. This paper demonstrates the ability of the algorithm to reduce noise, help overcome the curse of dimensionality, and facilitate an understanding of the saliency of IA features as discriminators for sedimentary OM classification.

Map-based model of the cardiac action potential

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Pavlov, Evgeny A.; Osipov, Grigory V.; Chan, C.K.; Suykens, Johan A.K.

2011-01-01

A simple computationally efficient model which is capable of replicating the basic features of cardiac cell action potential is proposed. The model is a four-dimensional map and demonstrates good correspondence with real cardiac cells. Various regimes of cardiac activity, which can be reproduced by the proposed model, are shown. Bifurcation mechanisms of these regimes transitions are explained using phase space analysis. The dynamics of 1D and 2D lattices of coupled maps which model the behavior of electrically connected cells is discussed in the context of synchronization theory. -- Highlights: → Recent experimental-data based models are complicated for analysis and simulation. → The simplified map-based model of the cardiac cell is constructed. → The model is capable for replication of different types of cardiac activity. → The spatio-temporal dynamics of ensembles of coupled maps are investigated. → Received data are analyzed in context of biophysical processes in the myocardium.

Map-based model of the cardiac action potential

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Pavlov, Evgeny A., E-mail: genie.pavlov@gmail.com [Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Nizhny Novgorod State University, 23, Gagarin Avenue, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Federation); Osipov, Grigory V. [Department of Computational Mathematics and Cybernetics, Nizhny Novgorod State University, 23, Gagarin Avenue, 603950 Nizhny Novgorod (Russian Federation); Chan, C.K. [Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica, 128 Sec. 2, Academia Road, Nankang, Taipei 115, Taiwan (China); Suykens, Johan A.K. [K.U. Leuven, ESAT-SCD/SISTA, Kasteelpark Arenberg 10, B-3001 Leuven (Heverlee) (Belgium)

2011-07-25

A simple computationally efficient model which is capable of replicating the basic features of cardiac cell action potential is proposed. The model is a four-dimensional map and demonstrates good correspondence with real cardiac cells. Various regimes of cardiac activity, which can be reproduced by the proposed model, are shown. Bifurcation mechanisms of these regimes transitions are explained using phase space analysis. The dynamics of 1D and 2D lattices of coupled maps which model the behavior of electrically connected cells is discussed in the context of synchronization theory. -- Highlights: → Recent experimental-data based models are complicated for analysis and simulation. → The simplified map-based model of the cardiac cell is constructed. → The model is capable for replication of different types of cardiac activity. → The spatio-temporal dynamics of ensembles of coupled maps are investigated. → Received data are analyzed in context of biophysical processes in the myocardium.

Evolutionary Trends and the Salience Bias (with Apologies to Oil Tankers, Karl Marx, and Others).

Science.gov (United States)

McShea, Daniel W.

1994-01-01

Examines evolutionary trends, specifically trends in size, complexity, and fitness. Notes that documentation of these trends consists of either long lists of cases, or descriptions of a small number of salient cases. Proposes the use of random samples to avoid this "saliency bias." (SR)

A third-generation microsatellite-based linkage map of the honey bee, Apis mellifera, and its comparison with the sequence-based physical map.

Science.gov (United States)

Solignac, Michel; Mougel, Florence; Vautrin, Dominique; Monnerot, Monique; Cornuet, Jean-Marie

2007-01-01

The honey bee is a key model for social behavior and this feature led to the selection of the species for genome sequencing. A genetic map is a necessary companion to the sequence. In addition, because there was originally no physical map for the honey bee genome project, a meiotic map was the only resource for organizing the sequence assembly on the chromosomes. We present the genetic (meiotic) map here and describe the main features that emerged from comparison with the sequence-based physical map. The genetic map of the honey bee is saturated and the chromosomes are oriented from the centromeric to the telomeric regions. The map is based on 2,008 markers and is about 40 Morgans (M) long, resulting in a marker density of one every 2.05 centiMorgans (cM). For the 186 megabases (Mb) of the genome mapped and assembled, this corresponds to a very high average recombination rate of 22.04 cM/Mb. Honey bee meiosis shows a relatively homogeneous recombination rate along and across chromosomes, as well as within and between individuals. Interference is higher than inferred from the Kosambi function of distance. In addition, numerous recombination hotspots are dispersed over the genome. The very large genetic length of the honey bee genome, its small physical size and an almost complete genome sequence with a relatively low number of genes suggest a very promising future for association mapping in the honey bee, particularly as the existence of haploid males allows easy bulk segregant analysis.

The effects of a concept map-based support tool on simulation-based inquiry learning

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Hagemans, M.G.; van der Meij, Hans; de Jong, Anthonius J.M.

2013-01-01

Students often need support to optimize their learning in inquiry learning environments. In 2 studies, we investigated the effects of adding concept-map-based support to a simulation-based inquiry environment on kinematics. The concept map displayed the main domain concepts and their relations,

Broadband illusion optical devices based on conformal mappings

Science.gov (United States)

Xiong, Zhan; Xu, Lin; Xu, Ya-Dong; Chen, Huan-Yang

2017-10-01

In this paper, we propose a simple method of illusion optics based on conformal mappings. By carefully developing designs with specific conformal mappings, one can make an object look like another with a significantly different shape. In addition, the illusion optical devices can work in a broadband of frequencies.

Differing levels of gender salience in preschool classrooms: effects on children's gender attitudes and intergroup bias.

Science.gov (United States)

Hilliard, Lacey J; Liben, Lynn S

2010-01-01

Developmental intergroup theory posits that when environments make social-group membership salient, children will be particularly likely to apply categorization processes to social groups, thereby increasing stereotypes and prejudices. To test the predicted impact of environmental gender salience, 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 57) completed gender attitude, intergroup bias, and personal preference measures at the beginning and end of a 2-week period during which teachers either did or did not make gender salient. Observations of peer play were also made at both times. After 2 weeks, children in the high- (but not low-) salience condition showed significantly increased gender stereotypes, less positive ratings of other-sex peers, and decreased play with other-sex peers. Children's own activity and occupational preferences, however, remained unaffected. © 2010 The Authors. Child Development © 2010 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.

The Effect of Mortality Salience and Type of Life on Personality Evaluation

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Fernando Gordillo

2017-05-01

Full Text Available Mortality salience, or awareness of the inevitability of one’s own death, generates a state of anxiety that triggers a defense mechanism for the control of thinking that affects different human activities and psychological processes. This study aims to analyze the effect of mortality salience on the formation of impressions. The sample comprised 135 women who made inferences about a woman’s personality from information about her life (type of life, LT: positive, negative, provided through five words, all positive or negative, that appeared surrounding a photograph, together with a sixth word that indicated whether she was “dead” or “alive” at the time (mortality manipulation, MM: dead, alive. The results pointed to a more negative assessment of life (Dead M - Alive M = -1.16, SE = .236, p < .001, emotional stability (Dead M - Alive M = -1.13, SE = .431, p = .010, and responsibility (Dead M - Alive M = -1.14, SE = .423, p = .008 only when the participants had access to negative information about the person assessed, and she was known to be dead. We discuss the results within the framework of Terror Management Theory, and analyze the different effects that the manipulation of mortality has on the formation of impressions depending on the type of information available.

Computational assessment of visual search strategies in volumetric medical images.

Science.gov (United States)

Wen, Gezheng; Aizenman, Avigael; Drew, Trafton; Wolfe, Jeremy M; Haygood, Tamara Miner; Markey, Mia K

2016-01-01

When searching through volumetric images [e.g., computed tomography (CT)], radiologists appear to use two different search strategies: "drilling" (restrict eye movements to a small region of the image while quickly scrolling through slices), or "scanning" (search over large areas at a given depth before moving on to the next slice). To computationally identify the type of image information that is used in these two strategies, 23 naïve observers were instructed with either "drilling" or "scanning" when searching for target T's in 20 volumes of faux lung CTs. We computed saliency maps using both classical two-dimensional (2-D) saliency, and a three-dimensional (3-D) dynamic saliency that captures the characteristics of scrolling through slices. Comparing observers' gaze distributions with the saliency maps showed that search strategy alters the type of saliency that attracts fixations. Drillers' fixations aligned better with dynamic saliency and scanners with 2-D saliency. The computed saliency was greater for detected targets than for missed targets. Similar results were observed in data from 19 radiologists who searched five stacks of clinical chest CTs for lung nodules. Dynamic saliency may be superior to the 2-D saliency for detecting targets embedded in volumetric images, and thus "drilling" may be more efficient than "scanning."

Evidence inhibition responds reactively to the salience of distracting information during focused attention.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Natalie Wyatt

Full Text Available Along with target amplification, distractor inhibition is regarded as a major contributor to selective attention. Some theories suggest that the strength of inhibitory processing is proportional to the salience of the distractor (i.e., inhibition reacts to the distractor intensity. Other theories suggest that the strength of inhibitory processing does not depend on the salience of the distractor (i.e., inhibition does not react to the distractor intensity. The present study aimed to elucidate the relationship between the intensity of a distractor and its subsequent inhibition during focused attention. A flanker task with a variable distractor-target stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA was used to measure both distractor interference and distractor inhibition. We manipulated the intensity of the distractor in two separate ways, by varying its distance from the target (Experiment 1 and by varying its brightness (Experiment 2. The results indicate that more intense distractors were associated with both increased interference and stronger distractor inhibition. The latter outcome provides novel support for the reactive inhibition hypothesis, which posits that inhibition reacts to the strength of distractor input, such that more salient distractors elicit stronger inhibition.

Stereo Vision Guiding for the Autonomous Landing of Fixed-Wing UAVs: A Saliency-Inspired Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Zhaowei Ma

2016-03-01

Full Text Available It is an important criterion for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs to land on the runway safely. This paper concentrates on stereo vision localization of a fixed-wing UAV's autonomous landing within global navigation satellite system (GNSS denied environments. A ground stereo vision guidance system imitating the human visual system (HVS is presented for the autonomous landing of fixed-wing UAVs. A saliency-inspired algorithm is presented and developed to detect flying UAV targets in captured sequential images. Furthermore, an extended Kalman filter (EKF based state estimation is employed to reduce localization errors caused by measurement errors of object detection and pan-tilt unit (PTU attitudes. Finally, stereo-vision-dataset-based experiments are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed visual detection method and error correction algorithm. The compared results between the visual guidance approach and differential GPS-based approach indicate that the stereo vision system and detection method can achieve the better guiding effect.

Power and death: Mortality salience increases power seeking while feeling powerful reduces death anxiety.

Science.gov (United States)

Belmi, Peter; Pfeffer, Jeffrey

2016-05-01

According to Terror Management Theory, people respond to reminders of mortality by seeking psychological security and bolstering their self-esteem. Because previous research suggests that having power can provide individuals a sense of security and self-worth, we hypothesize that mortality salience leads to an increased motivation to acquire power, especially among men. Study 1 found that men (but not women) who wrote about their death reported more interest in acquiring power. Study 2A and Study 2B demonstrated that when primed with reminders of death, men (but not women) reported behaving more dominantly during the subsequent week, while both men and women reported behaving more prosocially during that week. Thus, mortality salience prompts people to respond in ways that help them manage their death anxiety but in ways consistent with normative gender expectations. Furthermore, Studies 3-5 showed that feeling powerful reduces anxiety when mortality is salient. Specifically, we found that when primed to feel more powerful, both men and women experienced less mortality anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

On the relationship between optical variability, visual saliency, and eye fixations: a computational approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Garcia-Diaz, Antón; Leborán, Víctor; Fdez-Vidal, Xosé R; Pardo, Xosé M

2012-06-12

A hierarchical definition of optical variability is proposed that links physical magnitudes to visual saliency and yields a more reductionist interpretation than previous approaches. This definition is shown to be grounded on the classical efficient coding hypothesis. Moreover, we propose that a major goal of contextual adaptation mechanisms is to ensure the invariance of the behavior that the contribution of an image point to optical variability elicits in the visual system. This hypothesis and the necessary assumptions are tested through the comparison with human fixations and state-of-the-art approaches to saliency in three open access eye-tracking datasets, including one devoted to images with faces, as well as in a novel experiment using hyperspectral representations of surface reflectance. The results on faces yield a significant reduction of the potential strength of semantic influences compared to previous works. The results on hyperspectral images support the assumptions to estimate optical variability. As well, the proposed approach explains quantitative results related to a visual illusion observed for images of corners, which does not involve eye movements.

One-dimensional map-based neuron model: A logistic modification

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Mesbah, Samineh; Moghtadaei, Motahareh; Hashemi Golpayegani, Mohammad Reza; Towhidkhah, Farzad

2014-01-01

A one-dimensional map is proposed for modeling some of the neuronal activities, including different spiking and bursting behaviors. The model is obtained by applying some modifications on the well-known Logistic map and is named the Modified and Confined Logistic (MCL) model. Map-based neuron models are known as phenomenological models and recently, they are widely applied in modeling tasks due to their computational efficacy. Most of discrete map-based models involve two variables representing the slow-fast prototype. There are also some one-dimensional maps, which can replicate some of the neuronal activities. However, the existence of four bifurcation parameters in the MCL model gives rise to reproduction of spiking behavior with control over the frequency of the spikes, and imitation of chaotic and regular bursting responses concurrently. It is also shown that the proposed model has the potential to reproduce more realistic bursting activity by adding a second variable. Moreover the MCL model is able to replicate considerable number of experimentally observed neuronal responses introduced in Izhikevich (2004) [23]. Some analytical and numerical analyses of the MCL model dynamics are presented to explain the emersion of complex dynamics from this one-dimensional map

Construction of microsatellite-based linkage map and mapping of nectarilessness and hairiness genes in Gossypium tomentosum.

Science.gov (United States)

Hou, Meiying; Cai, Caiping; Zhang, Shuwen; Guo, Wangzhen; Zhang, Tianzhen; Zhou, Baoliang

2013-12-01

Gossypium tomentosum, a wild tetraploid cotton species with AD genomes, possesses genes conferring strong fibers and high heat tolerance. To effectively transfer these genes into Gossypium hirsutum, an entire microsatellite (simple sequence repeat, SSR)-based genetic map was constructed using the interspecific cross of G. hirsutum x G. tomentosum (HT). We detected 1800 loci from 1347 pairs of polymorphic primers. Of these, 1204 loci were grouped into 35 linkage groups at LOD ≥ 4. The map covers 3320.8 cM, with a mean density of 2.76 cM per locus. We detected 420 common loci (186 in the At subgenome and 234 in Dt) between the HT map and the map of TM-1 (G. hirsutum) and Hai 7124 (G. barbadense; HB map). The linkage groups were assigned chromosome numbers based on location of common loci and the HB map as reference. A comparison of common markers revealed that no significant chromosomal rearrangement exist between G. tomentosum and G. barbadense. Interestingly, however, we detected numerous (33.7%) segregation loci deviating from 3:1 ratio (P constructed in this study will be useful for further genetic studies on cotton breeding, including mapping loci controlling quantitative traits associated with fiber quality, stress tolerance and developing chromosome segment specific introgression lines from G. tomentosum into G. hirsutum using marker-assisted selection.

In search of salience: phenomenological analysis of moral distress.

Science.gov (United States)

Manara, Duilio F; Villa, Giulia; Moranda, Dina

2014-07-01

The nurse's moral competences in the management of situations which present ethical implications are less investigated in literature than other ethical problems related to clinical nursing. Phenomenology affirms that emotional warmth is the first fundamental attitude as well as the premise of any ethical reasoning. Nevertheless, it is not clear how and when this could be confirmed in situations where the effect of emotions on the nurse's decisional process is undiscovered. To explore the processes through which situations of moral distress are determined for the nurses involved in nursing situations, a phenomenological-hermeneutic analysis of a nurse's report of an experience lived by her as a moral distress situation has been conducted. Nursing emerges as a relational doctrine that requires the nurse to have different degrees of personal involvement, the integration between logical-formal thinking and narrative thinking, the perception of the salience of the given situation also through the interpretation and management of one's own emotions, and the capacity to undergo a process of co-construction of shared meanings that the others might consider adequate for the resolution of her problem. Moral action requires the nurse to think constantly about the important things that are happening in a nursing situation. Commitment towards practical situations is directed to training in order to promote the nurse's reflective ability towards finding salience in nursing situations, but it is also directed to the management of nursing assistance and human resources for the initial impact that this reflexive ability has on patients' and their families' lives and on their need to be heard and assisted. The only case analysed does not allow generalizations. Further research is needed to investigate how feelings generated by emotional acceptance influence ethical decision making and moral distress in nursing situations. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

The Effects of a Concept Map-Based Support Tool on Simulation-Based Inquiry Learning

Science.gov (United States)

Hagemans, Mieke G.; van der Meij, Hans; de Jong, Ton

2013-01-01

Students often need support to optimize their learning in inquiry learning environments. In 2 studies, we investigated the effects of adding concept-map-based support to a simulation-based inquiry environment on kinematics. The concept map displayed the main domain concepts and their relations, while dynamic color coding of the concepts displayed…

Feature selection based on SVM significance maps for classification of dementia

NARCIS (Netherlands)

E.E. Bron (Esther); M. Smits (Marion); J.C. van Swieten (John); W.J. Niessen (Wiro); S. Klein (Stefan)

2014-01-01

textabstractSupport vector machine significance maps (SVM p-maps) previously showed clusters of significantly different voxels in dementiarelated brain regions. We propose a novel feature selection method for classification of dementia based on these p-maps. In our approach, the SVM p-maps are

Hemispheric Asymmetries in Processing L1 and L2 Idioms: Effects of Salience and Context

Science.gov (United States)

Cieslicka, Anna B.; Heredia, Roberto R.

2011-01-01

This study investigates the contribution of the left and right hemispheres to the comprehension of bilingual figurative language and the joint effects of salience and context on the differential cerebral involvement in idiom processing. The divided visual field and the lexical decision priming paradigms were employed to examine the activation of…

Identification with and Saliency of Violent Media Models: A Comparison between Canadian and American Subjects.

Science.gov (United States)

Gutenko, Gregory

A study examined the responses of Canadian and American subjects in their approval of, and attraction to, specific television and film characters exhibiting aggressive behavior, and in their evaluation of the realism and saliency of the characters and situations observed. Subjects, undergraduate students at the University of Windsor in Windsor,…

Defensive or Existential Religious Orientations and Mortality Salience Hypothesis: Using Conservatism as a Dependent Measure

Science.gov (United States)

Koca-Atabey, Mujde; Oner-Ozkan, Bengi

2011-01-01

The study examined the relationship between the defensive versus existential religious orientation and mortality salience hypothesis in a country where the predominant type of religion is Islam. It was predicted that the mortality reactions of participants would not differ in accordance with their religious orientations within a Muslim sample. The…

Interactions of the Salience Network and Its Subsystems with the Default-Mode and the Central-Executive Networks in Normal Aging and Mild Cognitive Impairment.

Science.gov (United States)

Chand, Ganesh B; Wu, Junjie; Hajjar, Ihab; Qiu, Deqiang

2017-09-01

Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) investigations suggest that the intrinsically organized large-scale networks and the interaction between them might be crucial for cognitive activities. A triple network model, which consists of the default-mode network, salience network, and central-executive network, has been recently used to understand the connectivity patterns of the cognitively normal brains versus the brains with disorders. This model suggests that the salience network dynamically controls the default-mode and central-executive networks in healthy young individuals. However, the patterns of interactions have remained largely unknown in healthy aging or those with cognitive decline. In this study, we assess the patterns of interactions between the three networks using dynamical causal modeling in resting state fMRI data and compare them between subjects with normal cognition and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). In healthy elderly subjects, our analysis showed that the salience network, especially its dorsal subnetwork, modulates the interaction between the default-mode network and the central-executive network (Mann-Whitney U test; p control correlated significantly with lower overall cognitive performance measured by Montreal Cognitive Assessment (r = 0.295; p control, especially the dorsal salience network, over other networks provides a neuronal basis for cognitive decline and may be a candidate neuroimaging biomarker of cognitive impairment.

Hyperbolic mapping of complex networks based on community information

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Zuxi; Li, Qingguang; Jin, Fengdong; Xiong, Wei; Wu, Yao

2016-08-01

To improve the hyperbolic mapping methods both in terms of accuracy and running time, a novel mapping method called Community and Hyperbolic Mapping (CHM) is proposed based on community information in this paper. Firstly, an index called Community Intimacy (CI) is presented to measure the adjacency relationship between the communities, based on which a community ordering algorithm is introduced. According to the proposed Community-Sector hypothesis, which supposes that most nodes of one community gather in a same sector in hyperbolic space, CHM maps the ordered communities into hyperbolic space, and then the angular coordinates of nodes are randomly initialized within the sector that they belong to. Therefore, all the network nodes are so far mapped to hyperbolic space, and then the initialized angular coordinates can be optimized by employing the information of all nodes, which can greatly improve the algorithm precision. By applying the proposed dual-layer angle sampling method in the optimization procedure, CHM reduces the time complexity to O(n2) . The experiments show that our algorithm outperforms the state-of-the-art methods.

The effect of gender salience on self-definition and evaluation of others

OpenAIRE

Sakata, Kiriko; Kurokawa, Masaru

1992-01-01

This study investigated the effects of gender membership salience on individuals' selfdefinition, self-concept, evaluation of others, and selection of people as their group members. They were assigned to one of two discussion topics which consisted of two males and two females; 'the reason why women cannot be promoted to be a manager' or 'improvement of the Orientation Camp'. Gender were more salient in the former topic, and less salient in the latter topic. According to social identity theor...

A Probabilistic Feature Map-Based Localization System Using a Monocular Camera

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Hyungjin Kim

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Image-based localization is one of the most widely researched localization techniques in the robotics and computer vision communities. As enormous image data sets are provided through the Internet, many studies on estimating a location with a pre-built image-based 3D map have been conducted. Most research groups use numerous image data sets that contain sufficient features. In contrast, this paper focuses on image-based localization in the case of insufficient images and features. A more accurate localization method is proposed based on a probabilistic map using 3D-to-2D matching correspondences between a map and a query image. The probabilistic feature map is generated in advance by probabilistic modeling of the sensor system as well as the uncertainties of camera poses. Using the conventional PnP algorithm, an initial camera pose is estimated on the probabilistic feature map. The proposed algorithm is optimized from the initial pose by minimizing Mahalanobis distance errors between features from the query image and the map to improve accuracy. To verify that the localization accuracy is improved, the proposed algorithm is compared with the conventional algorithm in a simulation and realenvironments

A Probabilistic Feature Map-Based Localization System Using a Monocular Camera.

Science.gov (United States)

Kim, Hyungjin; Lee, Donghwa; Oh, Taekjun; Choi, Hyun-Taek; Myung, Hyun

2015-08-31

Image-based localization is one of the most widely researched localization techniques in the robotics and computer vision communities. As enormous image data sets are provided through the Internet, many studies on estimating a location with a pre-built image-based 3D map have been conducted. Most research groups use numerous image data sets that contain sufficient features. In contrast, this paper focuses on image-based localization in the case of insufficient images and features. A more accurate localization method is proposed based on a probabilistic map using 3D-to-2D matching correspondences between a map and a query image. The probabilistic feature map is generated in advance by probabilistic modeling of the sensor system as well as the uncertainties of camera poses. Using the conventional PnP algorithm, an initial camera pose is estimated on the probabilistic feature map. The proposed algorithm is optimized from the initial pose by minimizing Mahalanobis distance errors between features from the query image and the map to improve accuracy. To verify that the localization accuracy is improved, the proposed algorithm is compared with the conventional algorithm in a simulation and realenvironments.

Name-Based Address Mapping for Virtual Private Networks

Science.gov (United States)

Surányi, Péter; Shinjo, Yasushi; Kato, Kazuhiko

IPv4 private addresses are commonly used in local area networks (LANs). With the increasing popularity of virtual private networks (VPNs), it has become common that a user connects to multiple LANs at the same time. However, private address ranges for LANs frequently overlap. In such cases, existing systems do not allow the user to access the resources on all LANs at the same time. In this paper, we propose name-based address mapping for VPNs, a novel method that allows connecting to hosts through multiple VPNs at the same time, even when the address ranges of the VPNs overlap. In name-based address mapping, rather than using the IP addresses used on the LANs (the real addresses), we assign a unique virtual address to each remote host based on its domain name. The local host uses the virtual addresses to communicate with remote hosts. We have implemented name-based address mapping for layer 3 OpenVPN connections on Linux and measured its performance. The communication overhead of our system is less than 1.5% for throughput and less than 0.2ms for each name resolution.

When are stockpiled products consumed faster? A convenience-salience framework of postpurchase consumption incidence and quantity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chandon, P.; Wansink, B.

2002-01-01

When people stockpile products, how do they decide when and how much they will consume? To answer this question, the authors develop a framework that shows how the salience and convenience of products influence postpurchase consumption incidence and quantity. Multiple research methods¿including

Resting-state functional connectivity abnormalities in limbic and salience networks in social anxiety disorder without comorbidity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pannekoek, J. Nienke; Veer, Ilya M.; van Tol, Marie-Jose; van der Werff, Steven J. A.; Demenescu, Liliana R.; Aleman, Andre; Veltman, Dick J.; Zitman, Frans G.; Rombouts, Serge A. R. B.; van der Wee, Nic J. A.

The neurobiology of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is not yet fully understood. Structural and functional neuroimaging studies in SAD have identified abnormalities in various brain areas, particularly the amygdala and elements of the salience network. This study is the first to examine resting-state

Resting-state functional connectivity abnormalities in limbic and salience networks in social anxiety disorder without comorbidity

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Pannekoek, J.N.; Veer, I.M.; van Tol, M.J.; van der Werff, S.J.A.; Demenescu, L.R.; Aleman, A.; Veltman, D.J.; Zitman, F. G.; Rombouts, S.A.R.B.; van der Wee, N.J.A.

2013-01-01

The neurobiology of social anxiety disorder (SAD) is not yet fully understood. Structural and functional neuroimaging studies in SAD have identified abnormalities in various brain areas, particularly the amygdala and elements of the salience network. This study is the first to examine resting-state

Lack of Efficacy of a Salience Nudge for Substituting Selection of Lower-Calorie for Higher-Calorie Milk in the Work Place

OpenAIRE

Wilson, Amy L.; Bogomolova, Svetlana; Buckley, Jonathan D.

2015-01-01

Obesity is a major burden on healthcare systems. Simple, cost effective interventions that encourage healthier behaviours are required. The present study evaluated the efficacy of a salience nudge for promoting a change in milk selection from full-cream to low-fat (lower calorie) in the kitchen of a university-based research institute that provided full-cream and low-fat milk free of charge. Milk selection was recorded for 12 weeks (baseline). A sign with the message “Pick me! I am low calor...

CloudAligner: A fast and full-featured MapReduce based tool for sequence mapping

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Shi Weisong

2011-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Research in genetics has developed rapidly recently due to the aid of next generation sequencing (NGS. However, massively-parallel NGS produces enormous amounts of data, which leads to storage, compatibility, scalability, and performance issues. The Cloud Computing and MapReduce framework, which utilizes hundreds or thousands of shared computers to map sequencing reads quickly and efficiently to reference genome sequences, appears to be a very promising solution for these issues. Consequently, it has been adopted by many organizations recently, and the initial results are very promising. However, since these are only initial steps toward this trend, the developed software does not provide adequate primary functions like bisulfite, pair-end mapping, etc., in on-site software such as RMAP or BS Seeker. In addition, existing MapReduce-based applications were not designed to process the long reads produced by the most recent second-generation and third-generation NGS instruments and, therefore, are inefficient. Last, it is difficult for a majority of biologists untrained in programming skills to use these tools because most were developed on Linux with a command line interface. Results To urge the trend of using Cloud technologies in genomics and prepare for advances in second- and third-generation DNA sequencing, we have built a Hadoop MapReduce-based application, CloudAligner, which achieves higher performance, covers most primary features, is more accurate, and has a user-friendly interface. It was also designed to be able to deal with long sequences. The performance gain of CloudAligner over Cloud-based counterparts (35 to 80% mainly comes from the omission of the reduce phase. In comparison to local-based approaches, the performance gain of CloudAligner is from the partition and parallel processing of the huge reference genome as well as the reads. The source code of CloudAligner is available at http

CloudAligner: A fast and full-featured MapReduce based tool for sequence mapping.

Science.gov (United States)

Nguyen, Tung; Shi, Weisong; Ruden, Douglas

2011-06-06

Research in genetics has developed rapidly recently due to the aid of next generation sequencing (NGS). However, massively-parallel NGS produces enormous amounts of data, which leads to storage, compatibility, scalability, and performance issues. The Cloud Computing and MapReduce framework, which utilizes hundreds or thousands of shared computers to map sequencing reads quickly and efficiently to reference genome sequences, appears to be a very promising solution for these issues. Consequently, it has been adopted by many organizations recently, and the initial results are very promising. However, since these are only initial steps toward this trend, the developed software does not provide adequate primary functions like bisulfite, pair-end mapping, etc., in on-site software such as RMAP or BS Seeker. In addition, existing MapReduce-based applications were not designed to process the long reads produced by the most recent second-generation and third-generation NGS instruments and, therefore, are inefficient. Last, it is difficult for a majority of biologists untrained in programming skills to use these tools because most were developed on Linux with a command line interface. To urge the trend of using Cloud technologies in genomics and prepare for advances in second- and third-generation DNA sequencing, we have built a Hadoop MapReduce-based application, CloudAligner, which achieves higher performance, covers most primary features, is more accurate, and has a user-friendly interface. It was also designed to be able to deal with long sequences. The performance gain of CloudAligner over Cloud-based counterparts (35 to 80%) mainly comes from the omission of the reduce phase. In comparison to local-based approaches, the performance gain of CloudAligner is from the partition and parallel processing of the huge reference genome as well as the reads. The source code of CloudAligner is available at http://cloudaligner.sourceforge.net/ and its web version is at http

Machine-based mapping of innovation portfolios

NARCIS (Netherlands)

de Visser, Matthias; Miao, Shengfa; Englebienne, Gwenn; Sools, Anna Maria; Visscher, Klaasjan

2017-01-01

Machine learning techniques show a great promise for improving innovation portfolio management. In this paper we experiment with different methods to classify innovation projects of a high-tech firm as either explorative or exploitative, and compare the results with a manual, theory-based mapping of

Individual Differences in Frequency and Saliency of Speech-Accompanying Gestures: The Role of Cognitive Abilities and Empathy

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Chu, M.; Meyer, A.S.; Foulkes, L.; Kita, S.

2014-01-01

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to

Where’s Wally: The influence of visual salience on referring expression generation

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Alasdair Daniel Francis Clarke

2013-06-01

Full Text Available Referring expression generation (REG presents the converse problem to visualsearch: Given a scene and a specified target, how does one generate adescription which would allow somebody else to quickly and accurately locatethe target? Previous work in psycholinguistics and natural language processingthat has addressed this question identifies only a limited role for vision inthis task. That previous work, which relies largely on simple scenes, tends totreat vision as a pre-process for extracting feature categories that arerelevant to disambiguation. However, the visual search literature suggeststhat some descriptions are better than others at enabling listeners to searchefficiently within complex stimuli. This paper presents the results of a studytesting whether speakers are sensitive to visual features that allow them tocompose such `good' descriptions. Our results show that visual properties(salience, clutter, area, and distance influence REG for targets embedded inimages from the *Where's Wally?* books, which are an order of magnitudemore complex than traditional stimuli. Referring expressions for large salienttargets are shorter than those for smaller and less salient targets, and targets within highly cluttered scenes are described using more words.We also find that speakers are more likely to mention non-target landmarks thatare large, salient, and in close proximity to the target. These findingsidentfy a key role for visual salience in language production decisions and highlight the importance of scene complexity for REG.

An image-space parallel convolution filtering algorithm based on shadow map

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Hua; Yang, Huamin; Zhao, Jianping

2017-07-01

Shadow mapping is commonly used in real-time rendering. In this paper, we presented an accurate and efficient method of soft shadows generation from planar area lights. First this method generated a depth map from light's view, and analyzed the depth-discontinuities areas as well as shadow boundaries. Then these areas were described as binary values in the texture map called binary light-visibility map, and a parallel convolution filtering algorithm based on GPU was enforced to smooth out the boundaries with a box filter. Experiments show that our algorithm is an effective shadow map based method that produces perceptually accurate soft shadows in real time with more details of shadow boundaries compared with the previous works.

The salience network in the apathy of late-life depression.

Science.gov (United States)

Yuen, Genevieve S; Gunning-Dixon, Faith M; Hoptman, Matthew J; AbdelMalak, Bassem; McGovern, Amanda R; Seirup, Joanna K; Alexopoulos, George S

2014-11-01

Apathy is prevalent in late-life depression and predicts poor response to antidepressants, chronicity of depression, disability, and greater burden to caregivers. However, little is known about its neurobiology. Salience processing provides motivational context to stimuli. The aim of this study was to examine the salience network (SN) resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) pattern in elderly depressed subjects with and without apathy. Resting-state functional MRI data were collected from 16 non-demented, non-MCI, elderly depressed subjects and 10 normal elderly subjects who were psychotropic-free for at least 2 weeks. The depressed group included 7 elderly, depressed subjects with high comorbid apathy and 9 with low apathy. We analyzed the rsFC patterns of the right anterior insular cortex (rAI), a primary node of the SN. Relative to non-apathetic depressed elderly, depressed elderly subjects with high apathy had decreased rsFC of the rAI to dorsal anterior cingulate and to subcortical/limbic components of the SN. Depressed elderly subjects with high apathy also exhibited increased rsFC of the rAI to right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and right posterior cingulate cortex when compared to non-apathetic depressed elderly. Elderly depressed subjects with high apathy display decreased intrinsic rsFC of the SN and an altered pattern of SN rsFC to the right DLPFC node of the central executive network when compared to elderly non-apathetic depressed and normal, elderly subjects. These results suggest a unique biological signature of the apathy of late-life depression and may implicate a role for the rAI and SN in motivated behavior. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Sex-dependent impact of early-life stress and adult immobilization in the attribution of incentive salience in rats.

Science.gov (United States)

Fuentes, Silvia; Carrasco, Javier; Hatto, Abigail; Navarro, Juan; Armario, Antonio; Monsonet, Manel; Ortiz, Jordi; Nadal, Roser

2018-01-01

Early life stress (ELS) induces long-term effects in later functioning and interacts with further exposure to other stressors in adulthood to shape our responsiveness to reward-related cues. The attribution of incentive salience to food-related cues may be modulated by previous and current exposures to stressors in a sex-dependent manner. We hypothesized from human data that exposure to a traumatic (severe) adult stressor will decrease the attribution of incentive salience to reward-associated cues, especially in females, because these effects are modulated by previous ELS. To study these factors in Long-Evans rats, we used as an ELS model of restriction of nesting material and concurrently evaluated maternal care. In adulthood, the offspring of both sexes were exposed to acute immobilization (IMO), and several days after, a Pavlovian conditioning procedure was used to assess the incentive salience of food-related cues. Some rats developed more attraction to the cue predictive of reward (sign-tracking) and others were attracted to the location of the reward itself, the food-magazine (goal-tracking). Several dopaminergic markers were evaluated by in situ hybridization. The results showed that ELS increased maternal care and decreased body weight gain (only in females). Regarding incentive salience, in absolute control animals, females presented slightly greater sign-tracking behavior than males. Non-ELS male rats exposed to IMO showed a bias towards goal-tracking, whereas in females, IMO produced a bias towards sign-tracking. Animals of both sexes not exposed to IMO displayed an intermediate phenotype. ELS in IMO-treated females was able to reduce sign-tracking and decrease tyrosine hydroxylase expression in the ventral tegmental area and dopamine D1 receptor expression in the accumbens shell. Although the predicted greater decrease in females in sign-tracking after IMO exposure was not corroborated by the data, the results highlight the idea that sex is an

Sex-dependent impact of early-life stress and adult immobilization in the attribution of incentive salience in rats.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Silvia Fuentes

Full Text Available Early life stress (ELS induces long-term effects in later functioning and interacts with further exposure to other stressors in adulthood to shape our responsiveness to reward-related cues. The attribution of incentive salience to food-related cues may be modulated by previous and current exposures to stressors in a sex-dependent manner. We hypothesized from human data that exposure to a traumatic (severe adult stressor will decrease the attribution of incentive salience to reward-associated cues, especially in females, because these effects are modulated by previous ELS. To study these factors in Long-Evans rats, we used as an ELS model of restriction of nesting material and concurrently evaluated maternal care. In adulthood, the offspring of both sexes were exposed to acute immobilization (IMO, and several days after, a Pavlovian conditioning procedure was used to assess the incentive salience of food-related cues. Some rats developed more attraction to the cue predictive of reward (sign-tracking and others were attracted to the location of the reward itself, the food-magazine (goal-tracking. Several dopaminergic markers were evaluated by in situ hybridization. The results showed that ELS increased maternal care and decreased body weight gain (only in females. Regarding incentive salience, in absolute control animals, females presented slightly greater sign-tracking behavior than males. Non-ELS male rats exposed to IMO showed a bias towards goal-tracking, whereas in females, IMO produced a bias towards sign-tracking. Animals of both sexes not exposed to IMO displayed an intermediate phenotype. ELS in IMO-treated females was able to reduce sign-tracking and decrease tyrosine hydroxylase expression in the ventral tegmental area and dopamine D1 receptor expression in the accumbens shell. Although the predicted greater decrease in females in sign-tracking after IMO exposure was not corroborated by the data, the results highlight the idea that sex

Anomaly detection in heterogeneous media via saliency analysis of propagating wavefields

Science.gov (United States)

Druce, Jeffrey M.; Haupt, Jarvis D.; Gonella, Stefano

2014-03-01

This work investigates the problem of anomaly detection by means of an agnostic inference strategy based on the concepts of spatial saliency and data sparsity. Specifically, it addresses the implementation and experimental validation aspects of a salient feature extraction methodology that was recently proposed for laser-based diagnostics and leverages the wavefield spatial reconstruction capability offered by scanning laser vibrometers. The methodology consists of two steps. The first is a spatiotemporal windowing strategy designed to partition the structural domain in small sub-domains and replicate impinging wave conditions at each location. The second is the construction of a low-rank-plus-outlier model of the regional data set using principal component analysis. Regions are labeled salient when their behavior does not belong to a common low-dimensional subspace that successfully describes the typical behavior of the anomaly-free portion of the surrounding medium. The most at­ tractive feature of this method is that it requires virtually no knowledge of the structural and material properties of the medium. This property makes it a powerful diagnostic tool for the inspection of media with pronounced heterogeneity or with unknown or unreliable material property distributions, e.g., as a result of severe material degradation over large portions of their domain.

Airport object extraction based on visual attention mechanism and parallel line detection

Science.gov (United States)

Lv, Jing; Lv, Wen; Zhang, Libao

2017-10-01

Target extraction is one of the important aspects in remote sensing image analysis and processing, which has wide applications in images compression, target tracking, target recognition and change detection. Among different targets, airport has attracted more and more attention due to its significance in military and civilian. In this paper, we propose a novel and reliable airport object extraction model combining visual attention mechanism and parallel line detection algorithm. First, a novel saliency analysis model for remote sensing images with airport region is proposed to complete statistical saliency feature analysis. The proposed model can precisely extract the most salient region and preferably suppress the background interference. Then, the prior geometric knowledge is analyzed and airport runways contained two parallel lines with similar length are detected efficiently. Finally, we use the improved Otsu threshold segmentation method to segment and extract the airport regions from the salient map of remote sensing images. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed model outperforms existing saliency analysis models and shows good performance in the detection of the airport.

Differing Levels of Gender Salience in Preschool Classrooms: Effects on Children's Gender Attitudes and Intergroup Bias

Science.gov (United States)

Hilliard, Lacey J.; Liben, Lynn S.

2010-01-01

Developmental intergroup theory posits that when environments make social-group membership salient, children will be particularly likely to apply categorization processes to social groups, thereby increasing stereotypes and prejudices. To test the predicted impact of environmental gender salience, 3- to 5-year-old children (N = 57) completed…

Change Blindness in Pigeons (Columba livia: the Effects of Change Salience and Timing

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Walter Troy Herbranson

2015-08-01

Full Text Available Change blindness is a well-established phenomenon in humans, in which plainly visible changes in the environment go unnoticed. Recently a parallel change blindness phenomenon has been demonstrated in pigeons. The reported experiment follows up on this finding by investigating whether change salience affects change blindness in pigeons the same way it affects change blindness in humans. Birds viewed alternating displays of randomly generated lines back-projected onto three response keys, with one or more line features on a single key differing between consecutive displays. Change salience was manipulated by varying the number of line features that changed on the critical response key. Results indicated that change blindness is reduced if a change is made more salient, and this matches previous human results. Furthermore, accuracy patterns indicate that pigeons’ effective search area expanded over the course of a trial to encompass a larger portion of the stimulus environment. Thus, the data indicate two important aspects of temporal cognition. First, the timing of a change has a profound influence on whether or not that change will be perceived. Second, pigeons appear to engage in a serial search for changes, in which additional time is required to search additional locations.

Aberrant Resting-State Functional Connectivity in the Salience Network of Adolescent Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.

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Laura Anne Wortinger

Full Text Available Neural network investigations are currently absent in adolescent chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS. In this study, we examine whether the core intrinsic connectivity networks (ICNs are altered in adolescent CFS patients. Eighteen adolescent patients with CFS and 18 aged matched healthy adolescent control subjects underwent resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rfMRI. Data was analyzed using dual-regression independent components analysis, which is a data-driven approach for the identification of independent brain networks. Intrinsic connectivity was evaluated in the default mode network (DMN, salience network (SN, and central executive network (CEN. Associations between network characteristics and symptoms of CFS were also explored. Adolescent CFS patients displayed a significant decrease in SN functional connectivity to the right posterior insula compared to healthy comparison participants, which was related to fatigue symptoms. Additionally, there was an association between pain intensity and SN functional connectivity to the left middle insula and caudate that differed between adolescent patients and healthy comparison participants. Our findings of insula dysfunction and its association with fatigue severity and pain intensity in adolescent CFS demonstrate an aberration of the salience network which might play a role in CFS pathophysiology.

Race Salience and Essentialist Thinking in Racial Stereotype Development

Science.gov (United States)

Pauker, Kristin; Ambady, Nalini; Apfelbaum, Evan P.

2010-01-01

The authors explored the emergence and antecedents of racial stereotyping in 89 children ages 3–10 years. Children completed a number of matching and sorting tasks, including a measure designed to assess their knowledge and application of both positive and negative in-group and out-group stereotypes. Results indicate that children start to apply stereotypes to the out-group starting around 6 years of age. Controlling for a number of factors, two predictors contributed significantly towards uniquely explaining the use of these stereotypes: race salience (i.e., seeing and organizing by race) and essentialist thinking (i.e., believing that race cannot change). These results provide insight into how and when real-world interventions aimed at altering the acquisition of racial stereotypes may be implemented. PMID:21077865

Electron dose map inversion based on several algorithms

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Li Gui; Zheng Huaqing; Wu Yican; Fds Team

2010-01-01

The reconstruction to the electron dose map in radiation therapy was investigated by constructing the inversion model of electron dose map with different algorithms. The inversion model of electron dose map based on nonlinear programming was used, and this model was applied the penetration dose map to invert the total space one. The realization of this inversion model was by several inversion algorithms. The test results with seven samples show that except the NMinimize algorithm, which worked for just one sample, with great error,though,all the inversion algorithms could be realized to our inversion model rapidly and accurately. The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm, having the greatest accuracy and speed, could be considered as the first choice in electron dose map inversion.Further tests show that more error would be created when the data close to the electron range was used (tail error). The tail error might be caused by the approximation of mean energy spectra, and this should be considered to improve the method. The time-saving and accurate algorithms could be used to achieve real-time dose map inversion. By selecting the best inversion algorithm, the clinical need in real-time dose verification can be satisfied. (authors)

An Effective NoSQL-Based Vector Map Tile Management Approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lin Wan

2016-11-01

Full Text Available Within a digital map service environment, the rapid growth of Spatial Big-Data is driving new requirements for effective mechanisms for massive online vector map tile processing. The emergence of Not Only SQL (NoSQL databases has resulted in a new data storage and management model for scalable spatial data deployments and fast tracking. They better suit the scenario of high-volume, low-latency network map services than traditional standalone high-performance computer (HPC or relational databases. In this paper, we propose a flexible storage framework that provides feasible methods for tiled map data parallel clipping and retrieval operations within a distributed NoSQL database environment. We illustrate the parallel vector tile generation and querying algorithms with the MapReduce programming model. Three different processing approaches, including local caching, distributed file storage, and the NoSQL-based method, are compared by analyzing the concurrent load and calculation time. An online geological vector tile map service prototype was developed to embed our processing framework in the China Geological Survey Information Grid. Experimental results show that our NoSQL-based parallel tile management framework can support applications that process huge volumes of vector tile data and improve performance of the tiled map service.

Chaotic maps-based password-authenticated key agreement using smart cards

Science.gov (United States)

Guo, Cheng; Chang, Chin-Chen

2013-06-01

Password-based authenticated key agreement using smart cards has been widely and intensively researched. Inspired by the semi-group property of Chebyshev maps and key agreement protocols based on chaotic maps, we proposed a novel chaotic maps-based password-authenticated key agreement protocol with smart cards. In our protocol, we avoid modular exponential computing or scalar multiplication on elliptic curve used in traditional authenticated key agreement protocols using smart cards. Our analysis shows that our protocol has comprehensive characteristics and can withstand attacks, including the insider attack, replay attack, and others, satisfying essential security requirements. Performance analysis shows that our protocol can refrain from consuming modular exponential computing and scalar multiplication on an elliptic curve. The computational cost of our protocol compared with related protocols is acceptable.

The attribution of incentive salience to Pavlovian alcohol cues: a shift from goal-tracking to sign-tracking.

Science.gov (United States)

Srey, Chandra S; Maddux, Jean-Marie N; Chaudhri, Nadia

2015-01-01

Environmental stimuli that are reliably paired with alcohol may acquire incentive salience, a property that can operate in the use and abuse of alcohol. Here we investigated the incentive salience of Pavlovian alcohol cues using a preclinical animal model. Male, Long-Evans rats (Harlan) with unrestricted access to food and water were acclimated to drinking 15% ethanol (v/v) in their home-cages. Rats then received Pavlovian autoshaping training in which the 10 s presentation of a retractable lever served as the conditioned stimulus (CS) and 15% ethanol served as the unconditioned stimulus (US) (0.2 ml/CS; 12 CS presentations/session; 27 sessions). Next, in an operant test of conditioned reinforcement, nose pokes into an active aperture delivered presentations of the lever-CS, whereas nose pokes into an inactive aperture had no consequences. Across initial autoshaping sessions, goal-tracking behavior, as measured by entries into the fluid port where ethanol was delivered, developed rapidly. However, with extended training goal-tracking diminished, and sign-tracking responses, as measured by lever-CS activations, emerged. Control rats that received explicitly unpaired CS and US presentations did not show goal-tracking or sign-tracking responses. In the test for conditioned reinforcement, rats with CS-US pairings during autoshaping training made more active relative to inactive nose pokes, whereas rats in the unpaired control group did not. Moreover, active nose pokes were positively correlated with sign-tracking behavior during autoshaping. Extended training may produce a shift in the learned properties of Pavlovian alcohol cues, such that after initially predicting alcohol availability they acquire robust incentive salience.

The interaction between acoustic salience and language experience in developmental speech perception: evidence from nasal place discrimination.

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Narayan, Chandan R; Werker, Janet F; Beddor, Patrice Speeter

2010-05-01

Previous research suggests that infant speech perception reorganizes in the first year: young infants discriminate both native and non-native phonetic contrasts, but by 10-12 months difficult non-native contrasts are less discriminable whereas performance improves on native contrasts. In the current study, four experiments tested the hypothesis that, in addition to the influence of native language experience, acoustic salience also affects the perceptual reorganization that takes place in infancy. Using a visual habituation paradigm, two nasal place distinctions that differ in relative acoustic salience, acoustically robust labial-alveolar [ma]-[na] and acoustically less salient alveolar-velar [na]-[ enga], were presented to infants in a cross-language design. English-learning infants at 6-8 and 10-12 months showed discrimination of the native and acoustically robust [ma]-[na] (Experiment 1), but not the non-native (in initial position) and acoustically less salient [na]-[ enga] (Experiment 2). Very young (4-5-month-old) English-learning infants tested on the same native and non-native contrasts also showed discrimination of only the [ma]-[na] distinction (Experiment 3). Filipino-learning infants, whose ambient language includes the syllable-initial alveolar (/n/)-velar (/ eng/) contrast, showed discrimination of native [na]-[ enga] at 10-12 months, but not at 6-8 months (Experiment 4). These results support the hypothesis that acoustic salience affects speech perception in infancy, with native language experience facilitating discrimination of an acoustically similar phonetic distinction [na]-[ enga]. We discuss the implications of this developmental profile for a comprehensive theory of speech perception in infancy.

Longitudinal Relations between Ethnic/Racial Identity Process and Content: Exploration, Commitment, and Salience among Diverse Adolescents

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Wang, Yijie; Douglass, Sara; Yip, Tiffany

2017-01-01

The present study bridges the process and content perspectives of ethnic/racial identity (ERI) by examining the longitudinal links between identity process (i.e., exploration, commitment) and a component of identity content, salience. Data were drawn from a 4-wave longitudinal study of 405 ethnically/racially diverse adolescents (63% female) from…

Role Salience, Social Support, and Work-Family Conflict among Jewish and Arab Female Teachers in Israel

Science.gov (United States)

Cinamon, Rachel Gali

2009-01-01

Conceptualizing career development in a cultural and contextual framework, this study examined within-gender differences in role salience and work-family conflict (WFC) among 101 Jewish and 99 Arab female teachers (aged 23-64 years) from central Israel. The contribution of social support to women's conflict was also examined. Results highlighted…

Generalized double-humped logistic map-based medical image encryption

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Samar M. Ismail

2018-03-01

Full Text Available This paper presents the design of the generalized Double Humped (DH logistic map, used for pseudo-random number key generation (PRNG. The generalized parameter added to the map provides more control on the map chaotic range. A new special map with a zooming effect of the bifurcation diagram is obtained by manipulating the generalization parameter value. The dynamic behavior of the generalized map is analyzed, including the study of the fixed points and stability ranges, Lyapunov exponent, and the complete bifurcation diagram. The option of designing any specific map is made possible through changing the general parameter increasing the randomness and controllability of the map. An image encryption algorithm is introduced based on pseudo-random sequence generation using the proposed generalized DH map offering secure communication transfer of medical MRI and X-ray images. Security analyses are carried out to consolidate system efficiency including: key sensitivity and key-space analyses, histogram analysis, correlation coefficients, MAE, NPCR and UACI calculations. System robustness against noise attacks has been proved along with the NIST test ensuring the system efficiency. A comparison between the proposed system with respect to previous works is presented.

Design of an image encryption scheme based on a multiple chaotic map

Science.gov (United States)

Tong, Xiao-Jun

2013-07-01

In order to solve the problem that chaos is degenerated in limited computer precision and Cat map is the small key space, this paper presents a chaotic map based on topological conjugacy and the chaotic characteristics are proved by Devaney definition. In order to produce a large key space, a Cat map named block Cat map is also designed for permutation process based on multiple-dimensional chaotic maps. The image encryption algorithm is based on permutation-substitution, and each key is controlled by different chaotic maps. The entropy analysis, differential analysis, weak-keys analysis, statistical analysis, cipher random analysis, and cipher sensibility analysis depending on key and plaintext are introduced to test the security of the new image encryption scheme. Through the comparison to the proposed scheme with AES, DES and Logistic encryption methods, we come to the conclusion that the image encryption method solves the problem of low precision of one dimensional chaotic function and has higher speed and higher security.

Creating soil moisture maps based on radar satellite imagery

Science.gov (United States)

Hnatushenko, Volodymyr; Garkusha, Igor; Vasyliev, Volodymyr

2017-10-01

The presented work is related to a study of mapping soil moisture basing on radar data from Sentinel-1 and a test of adequacy of the models constructed on the basis of data obtained from alternative sources. Radar signals are reflected from the ground differently, depending on its properties. In radar images obtained, for example, in the C band of the electromagnetic spectrum, soils saturated with moisture usually appear in dark tones. Although, at first glance, the problem of constructing moisture maps basing on radar data seems intuitively clear, its implementation on the basis of the Sentinel-1 data on an industrial scale and in the public domain is not yet available. In the process of mapping, for verification of the results, measurements of soil moisture obtained from logs of the network of climate stations NOAA US Climate Reference Network (USCRN) were used. This network covers almost the entire territory of the United States. The passive microwave radiometers of Aqua and SMAP satellites data are used for comparing processing. In addition, other supplementary cartographic materials were used, such as maps of soil types and ready moisture maps. The paper presents a comparison of the effect of the use of certain methods of roughening the quality of radar data on the result of mapping moisture. Regression models were constructed showing dependence of backscatter coefficient values Sigma0 for calibrated radar data of different spatial resolution obtained at different times on soil moisture values. The obtained soil moisture maps of the territories of research, as well as the conceptual solutions about automation of operations of constructing such digital maps, are presented. The comparative assessment of the time required for processing a given set of radar scenes with the developed tools and with the ESA SNAP product was carried out.

Salient Region Detection by Fusing Foreground and Background Cues Extracted from Single Image

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Qiangqiang Zhou

2016-01-01

Full Text Available Saliency detection is an important preprocessing step in many application fields such as computer vision, robotics, and graphics to reduce computational cost by focusing on significant positions and neglecting the nonsignificant in the scene. Different from most previous methods which mainly utilize the contrast of low-level features, various feature maps are fused in a simple linear weighting form. In this paper, we propose a novel salient object detection algorithm which takes both background and foreground cues into consideration and integrate a bottom-up coarse salient regions extraction and a top-down background measure via boundary labels propagation into a unified optimization framework to acquire a refined saliency detection result. Wherein the coarse saliency map is also fused by three components, the first is local contrast map which is in more accordance with the psychological law, the second is global frequency prior map, and the third is global color distribution map. During the formation of background map, first we construct an affinity matrix and select some nodes which lie on border as labels to represent the background and then carry out a propagation to generate the regional background map. The evaluation of the proposed model has been implemented on four datasets. As demonstrated in the experiments, our proposed method outperforms most existing saliency detection models with a robust performance.

Mapping specific soil functions based on digital soil property maps

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Pásztor, László; Fodor, Nándor; Farkas-Iványi, Kinga; Szabó, József; Bakacsi, Zsófia; Koós, Sándor

2016-04-01

Quantification of soil functions and services is a great challenge in itself even if the spatial relevance is supposed to be identified and regionalized. Proxies and indicators are widely used in ecosystem service mapping. Soil services could also be approximated by elementary soil features. One solution is the association of soil types with services as basic principle. Soil property maps however provide quantified spatial information, which could be utilized more versatilely for the spatial inference of soil functions and services. In the frame of the activities referred as "Digital, Optimized, Soil Related Maps and Information in Hungary" (DOSoReMI.hu) numerous soil property maps have been compiled so far with proper DSM techniques partly according to GSM.net specifications, partly by slightly or more strictly changing some of its predefined parameters (depth intervals, pixel size, property etc.). The elaborated maps have been further utilized, since even DOSoReMI.hu was intended to take steps toward the regionalization of higher level soil information (secondary properties, functions, services). In the meantime the recently started AGRAGIS project requested spatial soil related information in order to estimate agri-environmental related impacts of climate change and support the associated vulnerability assessment. One of the most vulnerable services of soils in the context of climate change is their provisioning service. In our work it was approximated by productivity, which was estimated by a sequential scenario based crop modelling. It took into consideration long term (50 years) time series of both measured and predicted climatic parameters as well as accounted for the potential differences in agricultural practice and crop production. The flexible parametrization and multiple results of modelling was then applied for the spatial assessment of sensitivity, vulnerability, exposure and adaptive capacity of soils in the context of the forecasted changes in

Generalized logistic map and its application in chaos based cryptography

Science.gov (United States)

Lawnik, M.

2017-12-01

The logistic map is commonly used in, for example, chaos based cryptography. However, its properties do not render a safe construction of encryption algorithms. Thus, the scope of the paper is a proposal of generalization of the logistic map by means of a wellrecognized family of chaotic maps. In the next step, an analysis of Lyapunov exponent and the distribution of the iterative variable are studied. The obtained results confirm that the analyzed model can safely and effectively replace a classic logistic map for applications involving chaotic cryptography.

Spectrally based mapping of riverbed composition

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Legleiter, Carl; Stegman, Tobin K.; Overstreet, Brandon T.

2016-01-01

Remote sensing methods provide an efficient means of characterizing fluvial systems. This study evaluated the potential to map riverbed composition based on in situ and/or remote measurements of reflectance. Field spectra and substrate photos from the Snake River, Wyoming, USA, were used to identify different sediment facies and degrees of algal development and to quantify their optical characteristics. We hypothesized that accounting for the effects of depth and water column attenuation to isolate the reflectance of the streambed would enhance distinctions among bottom types and facilitate substrate classification. A bottom reflectance retrieval algorithm adapted from coastal research yielded realistic spectra for the 450 to 700 nm range; but bottom reflectance-based substrate classifications, generated using a random forest technique, were no more accurate than classifications derived from above-water field spectra. Additional hypothesis testing indicated that a combination of reflectance magnitude (brightness) and indices of spectral shape provided the most accurate riverbed classifications. Convolving field spectra to the response functions of a multispectral satellite and a hyperspectral imaging system did not reduce classification accuracies, implying that high spectral resolution was not essential. Supervised classifications of algal density produced from hyperspectral data and an inferred bottom reflectance image were not highly accurate, but unsupervised classification of the bottom reflectance image revealed distinct spectrally based clusters, suggesting that such an image could provide additional river information. We attribute the failure of bottom reflectance retrieval to yield more reliable substrate maps to a latent correlation between depth and bottom type. Accounting for the effects of depth might have eliminated a key distinction among substrates and thus reduced discriminatory power. Although further, more systematic study across a broader

A consensus linkage map of lentil based on DArT markers from three RIL mapping populations.

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Duygu Ates

Full Text Available Lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medikus is a diploid (2n = 2x = 14, self-pollinating grain legume with a haploid genome size of about 4 Gbp and is grown throughout the world with current annual production of 4.9 million tonnes.A consensus map of lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medikus was constructed using three different lentils recombinant inbred line (RIL populations, including "CDC Redberry" x "ILL7502" (LR8, "ILL8006" x "CDC Milestone" (LR11 and "PI320937" x "Eston" (LR39.The lentil consensus map was composed of 9,793 DArT markers, covered a total of 977.47 cM with an average distance of 0.10 cM between adjacent markers and constructed 7 linkage groups representing 7 chromosomes of the lentil genome. The consensus map had no gap larger than 12.67 cM and only 5 gaps were found to be between 12.67 cM and 6.0 cM (on LG3 and LG4. The localization of the SNP markers on the lentil consensus map were in general consistent with their localization on the three individual genetic linkage maps and the lentil consensus map has longer map length, higher marker density and shorter average distance between the adjacent markers compared to the component linkage maps.This high-density consensus map could provide insight into the lentil genome. The consensus map could also help to construct a physical map using a Bacterial Artificial Chromosome library and map based cloning studies. Sequence information of DArT may help localization of orientation scaffolds from Next Generation Sequencing data.

A consensus linkage map of lentil based on DArT markers from three RIL mapping populations.

Science.gov (United States)

Ates, Duygu; Aldemir, Secil; Alsaleh, Ahmad; Erdogmus, Semih; Nemli, Seda; Kahriman, Abdullah; Ozkan, Hakan; Vandenberg, Albert; Tanyolac, Bahattin

2018-01-01

Lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medikus) is a diploid (2n = 2x = 14), self-pollinating grain legume with a haploid genome size of about 4 Gbp and is grown throughout the world with current annual production of 4.9 million tonnes. A consensus map of lentil (Lens culinaris ssp. culinaris Medikus) was constructed using three different lentils recombinant inbred line (RIL) populations, including "CDC Redberry" x "ILL7502" (LR8), "ILL8006" x "CDC Milestone" (LR11) and "PI320937" x "Eston" (LR39). The lentil consensus map was composed of 9,793 DArT markers, covered a total of 977.47 cM with an average distance of 0.10 cM between adjacent markers and constructed 7 linkage groups representing 7 chromosomes of the lentil genome. The consensus map had no gap larger than 12.67 cM and only 5 gaps were found to be between 12.67 cM and 6.0 cM (on LG3 and LG4). The localization of the SNP markers on the lentil consensus map were in general consistent with their localization on the three individual genetic linkage maps and the lentil consensus map has longer map length, higher marker density and shorter average distance between the adjacent markers compared to the component linkage maps. This high-density consensus map could provide insight into the lentil genome. The consensus map could also help to construct a physical map using a Bacterial Artificial Chromosome library and map based cloning studies. Sequence information of DArT may help localization of orientation scaffolds from Next Generation Sequencing data.

Sensor fusion-based map building for mobile robot exploration

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Ribo, M.

2000-01-01

To carry out exploration tasks in unknown or partially unknown environments, a mobile robot needs to acquire and maintain models of its environment. In doing so, several sensors of same nature and/or heterogeneous sensor configurations may be used by the robot to achieve reliable performances. However, this in turn poses the problem of sensor fusion-based map building: How to interpret, combine and integrate sensory information in order to build a proper representation of the environment. Specifically, the goal of this thesis is to probe integration algorithms for Occupancy Grid (OG) based map building using odometry, ultrasonic rangefinders, and stereo vision. Three different uncertainty calculi are presented here which are used for sensor fusion-based map building purposes. They are based on probability theory, Dempster-Shafer theory of evidence, and fuzzy set theory. Besides, two different sensor models are depicted which are used to translate sensing data into range information. Experimental examples of OGs built from real data recorded by two robots in office-like environment are presented. They show the feasibility of the proposed approach for building both sonar and visual based OGs. A comparison among the presented uncertainty calculi is performed in a sonar-based framework. Finally, the fusion of both sonar and visual information based of the fuzzy set theory is depicted. (author)

A BAC/BIBAC-based physical map of chickpea, Cicer arietinum L

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Abbo Shahal

2010-09-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Chickpea (Cicer arietinum L. is the third most important pulse crop worldwide. Despite its importance, relatively little is known about its genome. The availability of a genome-wide physical map allows rapid fine mapping of QTL, development of high-density genome maps, and sequencing of the entire genome. However, no such a physical map has been developed in chickpea. Results We present a genome-wide, BAC/BIBAC-based physical map of chickpea developed by fingerprint analysis. Four chickpea BAC and BIBAC libraries, two of which were constructed in this study, were used. A total of 67,584 clones were fingerprinted, and 64,211 (~11.7 × of the fingerprints validated and used in the physical map assembly. The physical map consists of 1,945 BAC/BIBAC contigs, with each containing an average of 28.3 clones and having an average physical length of 559 kb. The contigs collectively span approximately 1,088 Mb. By using the physical map, we identified the BAC/BIBAC contigs containing or closely linked to QTL4.1 for resistance to Didymella rabiei (RDR and QTL8 for days to first flower (DTF, thus further verifying the physical map and confirming its utility in fine mapping and cloning of QTL. Conclusion The physical map represents the first genome-wide, BAC/BIBAC-based physical map of chickpea. This map, along with other genomic resources previously developed in the species and the genome sequences of related species (soybean, Medicago and Lotus, will provide a foundation necessary for many areas of advanced genomics research in chickpea and other legume species. The inclusion of transformation-ready BIBACs in the map greatly facilitates its utility in functional analysis of the legume genomes.

Managing mapping data using commercial data base management software.

Science.gov (United States)

Elassal, A.A.

1985-01-01

Electronic computers are involved in almost every aspect of the map making process. This involvement has become so thorough that it is practically impossible to find a recently developed process or device in the mapping field which does not employ digital processing in some form or another. This trend, which has been evolving over two decades, is accelerated by the significant improvements in capility, reliability, and cost-effectiveness of electronic devices. Computerized mapping processes and devices share a common need for machine readable data. Integrating groups of these components into automated mapping systems requires careful planning for data flow amongst them. Exploring the utility of commercial data base management software to assist in this task is the subject of this paper. -Author

Integrating collaborative concept mapping in case based learning

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Alfredo Tifi

2013-03-01

Full Text Available Different significance of collaborative concept mapping and collaborative argumentation in Case Based Learning are discussed and compared in the different perspectives of answering focus questions, of fostering reflective thinking skills and in managing uncertainty in problem solving in a scaffolded environment. Marked differences are pointed out between the way concepts are used in constructing concept maps and the way meanings are adopted in case based learning through guided argumentation activities. Shared concept maps should be given different scopes, as for example a as an advance organizer in preparing a background system of concepts that will undergo transformation while accompanying the inquiry activities on case studies or problems; b together with narratives, to enhance awareness of the situated epistemologies that are being entailed in choosing certain concepts during more complex case studies, and c after-learning construction of a holistic vision of the whole domain by means of the most inclusive concepts, while scaffoldedcollaborative writing of narratives and arguments in describing-treating cases could better serve as a source of situated-inspired tools to create-refine meanings for particular concepts.

Influence of Perceptual Saliency Hierarchy on Learning of Language Structures: An Artificial Language Learning Experiment.

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Gong, Tao; Lam, Yau W; Shuai, Lan

2016-01-01

Psychological experiments have revealed that in normal visual perception of humans, color cues are more salient than shape cues, which are more salient than textural patterns. We carried out an artificial language learning experiment to study whether such perceptual saliency hierarchy (color > shape > texture) influences the learning of orders regulating adjectives of involved visual features in a manner either congruent (expressing a salient feature in a salient part of the form) or incongruent (expressing a salient feature in a less salient part of the form) with that hierarchy. Results showed that within a few rounds of learning participants could learn the compositional segments encoding the visual features and the order between them, generalize the learned knowledge to unseen instances with the same or different orders, and show learning biases for orders that are congruent with the perceptual saliency hierarchy. Although the learning performances for both the biased and unbiased orders became similar given more learning trials, our study confirms that this type of individual perceptual constraint could contribute to the structural configuration of language, and points out that such constraint, as well as other factors, could collectively affect the structural diversity in languages.

Multiple reward-cue contingencies favor expectancy over uncertainty in shaping the reward-cue attentional salience.

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De Tommaso, Matteo; Mastropasqua, Tommaso; Turatto, Massimo

2018-01-25

Reward-predicting cues attract attention because of their motivational value. A debated question regards the conditions under which the cue's attentional salience is governed more by reward expectancy rather than by reward uncertainty. To help shedding light on this relevant issue, here, we manipulated expectancy and uncertainty using three levels of reward-cue contingency, so that, for example, a high level of reward expectancy (p = .8) was compared with the highest level of reward uncertainty (p = .5). In Experiment 1, the best reward-cue during conditioning was preferentially attended in a subsequent visual search task. This result was replicated in Experiment 2, in which the cues were matched in terms of response history. In Experiment 3, we implemented a hybrid procedure consisting of two phases: an omission contingency procedure during conditioning, followed by a visual search task as in the previous experiments. Crucially, during both phases, the reward-cues were never task relevant. Results confirmed that, when multiple reward-cue contingencies are explored by a human observer, expectancy is the major factor controlling both the attentional and the oculomotor salience of the reward-cue.

Influence of Perceptual Saliency Hierarchy on Learning of Language Structures: An Artificial Language Learning Experiment

Science.gov (United States)

Gong, Tao; Lam, Yau W.; Shuai, Lan

2016-01-01

Psychological experiments have revealed that in normal visual perception of humans, color cues are more salient than shape cues, which are more salient than textural patterns. We carried out an artificial language learning experiment to study whether such perceptual saliency hierarchy (color > shape > texture) influences the learning of orders regulating adjectives of involved visual features in a manner either congruent (expressing a salient feature in a salient part of the form) or incongruent (expressing a salient feature in a less salient part of the form) with that hierarchy. Results showed that within a few rounds of learning participants could learn the compositional segments encoding the visual features and the order between them, generalize the learned knowledge to unseen instances with the same or different orders, and show learning biases for orders that are congruent with the perceptual saliency hierarchy. Although the learning performances for both the biased and unbiased orders became similar given more learning trials, our study confirms that this type of individual perceptual constraint could contribute to the structural configuration of language, and points out that such constraint, as well as other factors, could collectively affect the structural diversity in languages. PMID:28066281

GIS-based interactive tool to map the advent of world conquerors

Science.gov (United States)

Lakkaraju, Mahesh

The objective of this thesis is to show the scale and extent of some of the greatest empires the world has ever seen. This is a hybrid project between the GIS based interactive tool and the web-based JavaScript tool. This approach lets the students learn effectively about the emperors themselves while understanding how long and far their empires spread. In the GIS based tool, a map is displayed with various points on it, and when a user clicks on one point, the relevant information of what happened at that particular place is displayed. Apart from this information, users can also select the interactive animation button and can walk through a set of battles in chronological order. As mentioned, this uses Java as the main programming language, and MOJO (Map Objects Java Objects) provided by ESRI. MOJO is very effective as its GIS related features can be included in the application itself. This app. is a simple tool and has been developed for university or high school level students. D3.js is an interactive animation and visualization platform built on the Javascript framework. Though HTML5, CSS3, Javascript and SVG animations can be used to derive custom animations, this tool can help bring out results with less effort and more ease of use. Hence, it has become the most sought after visualization tool for multiple applications. D3.js has provided a map-based visualization feature so that we can easily display text-based data in a map-based interface. To draw the map and the points on it, D3.js uses data rendered in TOPO JSON format. The latitudes and longitudes can be provided, which are interpolated into the Map svg. One of the main advantages of doing it this way is that more information is retained when we use a visual medium.

The attribution of incentive salience to Pavlovian alcohol cues: a shift from goal-tracking to sign-tracking

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Chandra S. Srey

2015-03-01

Full Text Available Environmental stimuli that are reliably paired with alcohol may acquire incentive salience, a property that can operate in the use and abuse of alcohol. Here we investigated the incentive salience of Pavlovian alcohol cues using a preclinical animal model. Male, Long-Evans rats (Harlan with unrestricted access to food and water were acclimated to drinking 15% ethanol (v/v in their home-cages. Rats then received Pavlovian autoshaping training in which the 10 second presentation of a retractable lever served as the conditioned stimulus (CS and 15% ethanol served as the unconditioned stimulus (US (0.2 ml/CS; 12 CS presentations/session; 27 sessions. Next, in an operant test of conditioned reinforcement, nose pokes into an active aperture delivered presentations of the lever-CS, whereas nose pokes into an inactive aperture had no consequences. Across initial autoshaping sessions, goal-tracking behavior, as measured by entries into the fluid port where ethanol was delivered, developed rapidly. However, with extended training goal-tracking diminished, and sign-tracking responses, as measured by lever-CS activations, emerged. Control rats that received explicitly unpaired CS and US presentations did not show goal-tracking or sign-tracking responses. In the test for conditioned reinforcement, rats with CS-US pairings during autoshaping training made more active relative to inactive nose pokes, whereas rats in the unpaired control group did not. Moreover, active nose pokes were positively correlated with sign-tracking behavior during autoshaping. Extended training may produce a shift in the learned properties of Pavlovian alcohol cues, such that after initially predicting alcohol availability they acquire robust incentive salience.

Method for Stereo Mapping Based on Objectarx and Pipeline Technology

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, F.; Chen, T.; Lin, Z.; Yang, Y.

2012-07-01

Stereo mapping is an important way to acquire 4D production. Based on the development of the stereo mapping and the characteristics of ObjectARX and pipeline technology, a new stereo mapping scheme which can realize the interaction between the AutoCAD and digital photogrammetry system is offered by ObjectARX and pipeline technology. An experiment is made in order to make sure the feasibility with the example of the software MAP-AT (Modern Aerial Photogrammetry Automatic Triangulation), the experimental results show that this scheme is feasible and it has very important meaning for the realization of the acquisition and edit integration.

The ETLMR MapReduce-Based ETL Framework

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Xiufeng, Liu; Thomsen, Christian; Pedersen, Torben Bach

2011-01-01

This paper presents ETLMR, a parallel Extract--Transform--Load (ETL) programming framework based on MapReduce. It has built-in support for high-level ETL-specific constructs including star schemas, snowflake schemas, and slowly changing dimensions (SCDs). ETLMR gives both high programming...

Living with a concealable stigmatized identity: the impact of anticipated stigma, centrality, salience, and cultural stigma on psychological distress and health.

Science.gov (United States)

Quinn, Diane M; Chaudoir, Stephenie R

2009-10-01

The current research provides a framework for understanding how concealable stigmatized identities impact people's psychological well-being and health. The authors hypothesize that increased anticipated stigma, greater centrality of the stigmatized identity to the self, increased salience of the identity, and possession of a stigma that is more strongly culturally devalued all predict heightened psychological distress. In Study 1, the hypotheses were supported with a sample of 300 participants who possessed 13 different concealable stigmatized identities. Analyses comparing people with an associative stigma to those with a personal stigma showed that people with an associative stigma report less distress and that this difference is fully mediated by decreased anticipated stigma, centrality, and salience. Study 2 sought to replicate the findings of Study 1 with a sample of 235 participants possessing concealable stigmatized identities and to extend the model to predicting health outcomes. Structural equation modeling showed that anticipated stigma and cultural stigma were directly related to self-reported health outcomes. Discussion centers on understanding the implications of intraindividual processes (anticipated stigma, identity centrality, and identity salience) and an external process (cultural devaluation of stigmatized identities) for mental and physical health among people living with a concealable stigmatized identity. 2009 APA, all rights reserved.

Topographical Hill Shading Map Production Based Tianditu (map World)

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, C.; Zha, Z.; Tang, D.; Yang, J.

2018-04-01

TIANDITU (Map World) is the public version of National Platform for Common Geospatial Information Service, and the terrain service is an important channel for users on the platform. With the development of TIANDITU, topographical hill shading map production for providing and updating global terrain map on line becomes necessary for the characters of strong intuition, three-dimensional sense and aesthetic effect. As such, the terrain service of TIANDITU focuses on displaying the different scales of topographical data globally. And this paper mainly aims to research the method of topographical hill shading map production globally using DEM (Digital Elevation Model) data between the displaying scales about 1 : 140,000,000 to 1 : 4,000,000, corresponded the display level from 2 to 7 on TIANDITU website.

Initial uncertainty in Pavlovian reward prediction persistently elevates incentive salience and extends sign-tracking to normally unattractive cues.

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Robinson, Mike J F; Anselme, Patrick; Fischer, Adam M; Berridge, Kent C

2014-06-01

Uncertainty is a component of many gambling games and may play a role in incentive motivation and cue attraction. Uncertainty can increase the attractiveness for predictors of reward in the Pavlovian procedure of autoshaping, visible as enhanced sign-tracking (or approach and nibbles) by rats of a metal lever whose sudden appearance acts as a conditioned stimulus (CS+) to predict sucrose pellets as an unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Here we examined how reward uncertainty might enhance incentive salience as sign-tracking both in intensity and by broadening the range of attractive CS+s. We also examined whether initially induced uncertainty enhancements of CS+ attraction can endure beyond uncertainty itself, and persist even when Pavlovian prediction becomes 100% certain. Our results show that uncertainty can broaden incentive salience attribution to make CS cues attractive that would otherwise not be (either because they are too distal from reward or too risky to normally attract sign-tracking). In addition, uncertainty enhancement of CS+ incentive salience, once induced by initial exposure, persisted even when Pavlovian CS-UCS correlations later rose toward 100% certainty in prediction. Persistence suggests an enduring incentive motivation enhancement potentially relevant to gambling, which in some ways resembles incentive-sensitization. Higher motivation to uncertain CS+s leads to more potent attraction to these cues when they predict the delivery of uncertain rewards. In humans, those cues might possibly include the sights and sounds associated with gambling, which contribute a major component of the play immersion experienced by problematic gamblers. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Decisive Visual Saliency and Consumers' In-store Decisions

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Clement, Jesper; Aastrup, Jesper; Forsberg, Signe Charlotte

2015-01-01

This paper focuses on consumers' in-store visual tactics and decision-making. It has been argued that many consumers shop by routine or by simple rules and justification techniques when they purchase daily commodities. It has also been argued that they make a majority of decisions in the shop......, and that they are affected by the visual stimuli in the store. The objective for this paper is to investigate the visual saliency from two factors: 1) in-store signage and 2) placement of products. This is done by a triangulation method where we utilize data from an eye-track study and sales data from grocery stores....... The first study takes place in laboratory settings with a simulated purchase situation, and the second research design builds on manipulated in-store settings and data from real purchases. We found optimal placement of two comparable goods (branded good and private label) to increase visual attention...

The Roles of Feature-Specific Task Set and Bottom-Up Salience in Attentional Capture: An ERP Study

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Eimer, Martin; Kiss, Monika; Press, Clare; Sauter, Disa

2009-01-01

We investigated the roles of top-down task set and bottom-up stimulus salience for feature-specific attentional capture. Spatially nonpredictive cues preceded search arrays that included a color-defined target. For target-color singleton cues, behavioral spatial cueing effects were accompanied by cue-induced N2pc components, indicative of…

Pseudo-random bit generator based on Chebyshev map

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Stoyanov, B. P.

2013-10-01

In this paper, we study a pseudo-random bit generator based on two Chebyshev polynomial maps. The novel derivative algorithm shows perfect statistical properties established by number of statistical tests.

Planimetric Features Generalization for the Production of Small-Scale Map by Using Base Maps and the Existing Algorithms

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M. Modiri

2014-10-01

Full Text Available Cartographic maps are representations of the Earth upon a flat surface in the smaller scale than it’s true. Large scale maps cover relatively small regions in great detail and small scale maps cover large regions such as nations, continents and the whole globe. Logical connection between the features and scale map must be maintained by changing the scale and it is important to recognize that even the most accurate maps sacrifice a certain amount of accuracy in scale to deliver a greater visual usefulness to its user. Cartographic generalization, or map generalization, is the method whereby information is selected and represented on a map in a way that adapts to the scale of the display medium of the map, not necessarily preserving all intricate geographical or other cartographic details. Due to the problems facing small-scale map production process and the need to spend time and money for surveying, today’s generalization is used as executive approach. The software is proposed in this paper that converted various data and information to certain Data Model. This software can produce generalization map according to base map using the existing algorithm. Planimetric generalization algorithms and roles are described in this article. Finally small-scale maps with 1:100,000, 1:250,000 and 1:500,000 scale are produced automatically and they are shown at the end.

Generation of a BAC-based physical map of the melon genome

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Puigdomènech Pere

2010-05-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Cucumis melo (melon belongs to the Cucurbitaceae family, whose economic importance among horticulture crops is second only to Solanaceae. Melon has high intra-specific genetic variation, morphologic diversity and a small genome size (450 Mb, which make this species suitable for a great variety of molecular and genetic studies that can lead to the development of tools for breeding varieties of the species. A number of genetic and genomic resources have already been developed, such as several genetic maps and BAC genomic libraries. These tools are essential for the construction of a physical map, a valuable resource for map-based cloning, comparative genomics and assembly of whole genome sequencing data. However, no physical map of any Cucurbitaceae has yet been developed. A project has recently been started to sequence the complete melon genome following a whole-genome shotgun strategy, which makes use of massive sequencing data. A BAC-based melon physical map will be a useful tool to help assemble and refine the draft genome data that is being produced. Results A melon physical map was constructed using a 5.7 × BAC library and a genetic map previously developed in our laboratories. High-information-content fingerprinting (HICF was carried out on 23,040 BAC clones, digesting with five restriction enzymes and SNaPshot labeling, followed by contig assembly with FPC software. The physical map has 1,355 contigs and 441 singletons, with an estimated physical length of 407 Mb (0.9 × coverage of the genome and the longest contig being 3.2 Mb. The anchoring of 845 BAC clones to 178 genetic markers (100 RFLPs, 76 SNPs and 2 SSRs also allowed the genetic positioning of 183 physical map contigs/singletons, representing 55 Mb (12% of the melon genome, to individual chromosomal loci. The melon FPC database is available for download at http://melonomics.upv.es/static/files/public/physical_map/. Conclusions Here we report the construction

Abnormal Functional Connectivity Between Default and Salience Networks in Pediatric Bipolar Disorder.

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Lopez-Larson, Melissa P; Shah, Lubdha M; Weeks, Howard R; King, Jace B; Mallik, Atul K; Yurgelun-Todd, Deborah A; Anderson, Jeffrey S

2017-01-01

Pediatric bipolar disorder (PBD) (occurring prior to 18 years of age) is a developmental brain disorder that is among the most severe and disabling psychiatric conditions affecting youth. Despite increasing evidence that brain connectivity is atypical in adults with bipolar disorder, it is not clear how brain connectivity may be altered in youths with PBD. This cross-sectional resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging study included 80 participants recruited over 4 years: 32 youths with PBD, currently euthymic (13 males; 15.1 years old), and 48 healthy control (HC) subjects (27 males; 14.5 years old). Functional connectivity between eight major intrinsic connectivity networks, along with connectivity measurements between 333 brain regions, was compared between PBD and HC subjects. Additionally, connectivity differences were evaluated between PBD and HC samples in negatively correlated connections, as defined by 839 subjects of the Human Connectome Project dataset. We found increased inter- but not intranetwork functional connectivity in PBD between the default mode and salience networks (p = .0017). Throughout the brain, atypical connections showed failure to develop anticorrelation with age during adolescence in PBD but not HC samples among connections that exhibit negative correlation in adulthood. Youths with PBD demonstrate reduced anticorrelation between default mode and salience networks. Further evaluation of the interaction between these networks is needed in development and with other mood states such as depression and mania to clarify if this atypical connectivity is a PBD trait biomarker. Copyright © 2016 Society of Biological Psychiatry. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

New segmentation-based tone mapping algorithm for high dynamic range image

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Duan, Weiwei; Guo, Huinan; Zhou, Zuofeng; Huang, Huimin; Cao, Jianzhong

2017-07-01

The traditional tone mapping algorithm for the display of high dynamic range (HDR) image has the drawback of losing the impression of brightness, contrast and color information. To overcome this phenomenon, we propose a new tone mapping algorithm based on dividing the image into different exposure regions in this paper. Firstly, the over-exposure region is determined using the Local Binary Pattern information of HDR image. Then, based on the peak and average gray of the histogram, the under-exposure and normal-exposure region of HDR image are selected separately. Finally, the different exposure regions are mapped by differentiated tone mapping methods to get the final result. The experiment results show that the proposed algorithm achieve the better performance both in visual quality and objective contrast criterion than other algorithms.

Mapping visual cortex in monkeys and humans using surface-based atlases

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Van Essen, D. C.; Lewis, J. W.; Drury, H. A.; Hadjikhani, N.; Tootell, R. B.; Bakircioglu, M.; Miller, M. I.

2001-01-01

We have used surface-based atlases of the cerebral cortex to analyze the functional organization of visual cortex in humans and macaque monkeys. The macaque atlas contains multiple partitioning schemes for visual cortex, including a probabilistic atlas of visual areas derived from a recent architectonic study, plus summary schemes that reflect a combination of physiological and anatomical evidence. The human atlas includes a probabilistic map of eight topographically organized visual areas recently mapped using functional MRI. To facilitate comparisons between species, we used surface-based warping to bring functional and geographic landmarks on the macaque map into register with corresponding landmarks on the human map. The results suggest that extrastriate visual cortex outside the known topographically organized areas is dramatically expanded in human compared to macaque cortex, particularly in the parietal lobe.

Tissue-based map of the human proteome

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Uhlén, Mathias; Fagerberg, Linn; Hallström, Björn M.

2015-01-01

Resolving the molecular details of proteome variation in the different tissues and organs of the human body will greatly increase our knowledge of human biology and disease. Here, we present a map of the human tissue proteome based on an integrated omics approach that involves quantitative transc...

Dipole-magnet field models based on a conformal map

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P. L. Walstrom

2012-10-01

Full Text Available In general, generation of charged-particle transfer maps for conventional iron-pole-piece dipole magnets to third and higher order requires a model for the midplane field profile and its transverse derivatives (soft-edge model to high order and numerical integration of map coefficients. An exact treatment of the problem for a particular magnet requires use of measured magnetic data. However, in initial design of beam transport systems, users of charged-particle optics codes generally rely on magnet models built into the codes. Indeed, if maps to third order are adequate for the problem, an approximate analytic field model together with numerical map coefficient integration can capture the important features of the transfer map. The model described in this paper is based on the fact that, except at very large distances from the magnet, the magnetic field for parallel pole-face magnets with constant pole gap height and wide pole faces is basically two dimensional (2D. The field for all space outside of the pole pieces is given by a single (complex analytic expression and includes a parameter that controls the rate of falloff of the fringe field. Since the field function is analytic in the complex plane outside of the pole pieces, it satisfies two basic requirements of a field model for higher-order map codes: it is infinitely differentiable at the midplane and also a solution of the Laplace equation. It is apparently the only simple model available that combines an exponential approach to the central field with an inverse cubic falloff of field at large distances from the magnet in a single expression. The model is not intended for detailed fitting of magnetic field data, but for use in numerical map-generating codes for studying the effect of extended fringe fields on higher-order transfer maps. It is based on conformally mapping the area between the pole pieces to the upper half plane, and placing current filaments on the pole faces. An

Machine learning-based dual-energy CT parametric mapping.

Science.gov (United States)

Su, Kuan-Hao; Kuo, Jung-Wen; Jordan, David W; Van Hedent, Steven; Klahr, Paul; Wei, Zhouping; Al Helo, Rose; Liang, Fan; Qian, Pengjiang; Pereira, Gisele C; Rassouli, Negin; Gilkeson, Robert C; Traughber, Bryan J; Cheng, Chee-Wai; Muzic, Raymond F

2018-05-22

The aim is to develop and evaluate machine learning methods for generating quantitative parametric maps of effective atomic number (Z_eff), relative electron density (ρ_e), mean excitation energy (I_x), and relative stopping power (RSP) from clinical dual-energy CT data. The maps could be used for material identification and radiation dose calculation. Machine learning methods of historical centroid (HC), random forest (RF), and artificial neural networks (ANN) were used to learn the relationship between dual-energy CT input data and ideal output parametric maps calculated for phantoms from the known compositions of 13 tissue substitutes. After training and model selection steps, the machine learning predictors were used to generate parametric maps from independent phantom and patient input data. Precision and accuracy were evaluated using the ideal maps. This process was repeated for a range of exposure doses, and performance was compared to that of the clinically-used dual-energy, physics-based method which served as the reference. The machine learning methods generated more accurate and precise parametric maps than those obtained using the reference method. Their performance advantage was particularly evident when using data from the lowest exposure, one-fifth of a typical clinical abdomen CT acquisition. The RF method achieved the greatest accuracy. In comparison, the ANN method was only 1% less accurate but had much better computational efficiency than RF, being able to produce parametric maps in 15 seconds. Machine learning methods outperformed the reference method in terms of accuracy and noise tolerance when generating parametric maps, encouraging further exploration of the techniques. Among the methods we evaluated, ANN is the most suitable for clinical use due to its combination of accuracy, excellent low-noise performance, and computational efficiency. . © 2018 Institute of Physics and Engineering in

Stochastic Wheel-Slip Compensation Based Robot Localization and Mapping

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SIDHARTHAN, R. K.

2016-05-01

Full Text Available Wheel slip compensation is vital for building accurate and reliable dead reckoning based robot localization and mapping algorithms. This investigation presents stochastic slip compensation scheme for robot localization and mapping. Main idea of the slip compensation technique is to use wheel-slip data obtained from experiments to model the variations in slip velocity as Gaussian distributions. This leads to a family of models that are switched depending on the input command. To obtain the wheel-slip measurements, experiments are conducted on a wheeled mobile robot and the measurements thus obtained are used to build the Gaussian models. Then the localization and mapping algorithm is tested on an experimental terrain and a new metric called the map spread factor is used to evaluate the ability of the slip compensation technique. Our results clearly indicate that the proposed methodology improves the accuracy by 72.55% for rotation and 66.67% for translation motion as against an uncompensated mapping system. The proposed compensation technique eliminates the need for extro receptive sensors for slip compensation, complex feature extraction and association algorithms. As a result, we obtain a simple slip compensation scheme for localization and mapping.

A Game Map Complexity Measure Based on Hamming Distance

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Li, Yan; Su, Pan; Li, Wenliang

With the booming of PC game market, Game AI has attracted more and more researches. The interesting and difficulty of a game are relative with the map used in game scenarios. Besides, the path-finding efficiency in a game is also impacted by the complexity of the used map. In this paper, a novel complexity measure based on Hamming distance, called the Hamming complexity, is introduced. This measure is able to estimate the complexity of binary tileworld. We experimentally demonstrated that Hamming complexity is highly relative with the efficiency of A* algorithm, and therefore it is a useful reference to the designer when developing a game map.

Affordance-based individuation of junctions in Open Street Map

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Simon Scheider

2012-06-01

Full Text Available We propose an algorithm that can be used to identify automatically the subset of street segments of a road network map that corresponds to a junction. The main idea is to use turn-compliant locomotion affordances, i.e., restricted patterns of supported movement, in order to specify junctions independently of their data representation, and in order to motivate tractable individuation and classification strategies. We argue that common approaches based solely on geometry or topology of the street segment graph are useful but insufficient proxies. They miss certain turn restrictions essential to junctions. From a computational viewpoint, the main challenge of affordance-based individuation of junctions lies in its complex recursive definition. In this paper, we show how Open Street Map data can be interpreted into locomotion affordances, and how the recursive junction definition can be translated into a deterministic algorithm. We evaluate this algorithm by applying it to small map excerpts in order to delineate the contained junctions.

Fourier-Mellin moment-based intertwining map for image encryption

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Kaur, Manjit; Kumar, Vijay

2018-03-01

In this paper, a robust image encryption technique that utilizes Fourier-Mellin moments and intertwining logistic map is proposed. Fourier-Mellin moment-based intertwining logistic map has been designed to overcome the issue of low sensitivity of an input image. Multi-objective Non-Dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm (NSGA-II) based on Reinforcement Learning (MNSGA-RL) has been used to optimize the required parameters of intertwining logistic map. Fourier-Mellin moments are used to make the secret keys more secure. Thereafter, permutation and diffusion operations are carried out on input image using secret keys. The performance of proposed image encryption technique has been evaluated on five well-known benchmark images and also compared with seven well-known existing encryption techniques. The experimental results reveal that the proposed technique outperforms others in terms of entropy, correlation analysis, a unified average changing intensity and the number of changing pixel rate. The simulation results reveal that the proposed technique provides high level of security and robustness against various types of attacks.

Dataflow-Based Mapping of Computer Vision Algorithms onto FPGAs

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Ivan Corretjer

2007-01-01

Full Text Available We develop a design methodology for mapping computer vision algorithms onto an FPGA through the use of coarse-grain reconfigurable dataflow graphs as a representation to guide the designer. We first describe a new dataflow modeling technique called homogeneous parameterized dataflow (HPDF, which effectively captures the structure of an important class of computer vision applications. This form of dynamic dataflow takes advantage of the property that in a large number of image processing applications, data production and consumption rates can vary, but are equal across dataflow graph edges for any particular application iteration. After motivating and defining the HPDF model of computation, we develop an HPDF-based design methodology that offers useful properties in terms of verifying correctness and exposing performance-enhancing transformations; we discuss and address various challenges in efficiently mapping an HPDF-based application representation into target-specific HDL code; and we present experimental results pertaining to the mapping of a gesture recognition application onto the Xilinx Virtex II FPGA.

a Mapping Method of Slam Based on Look up Table

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Wang, Z.; Li, J.; Wang, A.; Wang, J.

2017-09-01

In the last years several V-SLAM(Visual Simultaneous Localization and Mapping) approaches have appeared showing impressive reconstructions of the world. However these maps are built with far more than the required information. This limitation comes from the whole process of each key-frame. In this paper we present for the first time a mapping method based on the LOOK UP TABLE(LUT) for visual SLAM that can improve the mapping effectively. As this method relies on extracting features in each cell divided from image, it can get the pose of camera that is more representative of the whole key-frame. The tracking direction of key-frames is obtained by counting the number of parallax directions of feature points. LUT stored all mapping needs the number of cell corresponding to the tracking direction which can reduce the redundant information in the key-frame, and is more efficient to mapping. The result shows that a better map with less noise is build using less than one-third of the time. We believe that the capacity of LUT efficiently building maps makes it a good choice for the community to investigate in the scene reconstruction problems.

Usability evaluation of cloud-based mapping tools for the display of very large datasets

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Stotz, Nicole Marie

The elasticity and on-demand nature of cloud services have made it easier to create web maps. Users only need access to a web browser and the Internet to utilize cloud based web maps, eliminating the need for specialized software. To encourage a wide variety of users, a map must be well designed; usability is a very important concept in designing a web map. Fusion Tables, a new product from Google, is one example of newer cloud-based distributed GIS services. It allows for easy spatial data manipulation and visualization, within the Google Maps framework. ESRI has also introduced a cloud based version of their software, called ArcGIS Online, built on Amazon's EC2 cloud. Utilizing a user-centered design framework, two prototype maps were created with data from the San Diego East County Economic Development Council. One map was built on Fusion Tables, and another on ESRI's ArcGIS Online. A usability analysis was conducted and used to compare both map prototypes in term so of design and functionality. Load tests were also ran, and performance metrics gathered on both map prototypes. The usability analysis was taken by 25 geography students, and consisted of time based tasks and questions on map design and functionality. Survey participants completed the time based tasks for the Fusion Tables map prototype quicker than those of the ArcGIS Online map prototype. While response was generally positive towards the design and functionality of both prototypes, overall the Fusion Tables map prototype was preferred. For the load tests, the data set was broken into 22 groups for a total of 44 tests. While the Fusion Tables map prototype performed more efficiently than the ArcGIS Online prototype, differences are almost unnoticeable. A SWOT analysis was conducted for each prototype. The results from this research point to the Fusion Tables map prototype. A redesign of this prototype would incorporate design suggestions from the usability survey, while some functionality would

Impulsive Internet Game Play Is Associated With Increased Functional Connectivity Between the Default Mode and Salience Networks in Depressed Patients With Short Allele of Serotonin Transporter Gene

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Ji Sun Hong

2018-04-01

Full Text Available Problematic Internet game play is often accompanied by major depressive disorder (MDD. Depression seems to be closely related to altered functional connectivity (FC within (and between the default mode network (DMN and salience network. In addition, serotonergic neurotransmission may regulate the symptoms of depression, including impulsivity, potentially by modulating the DMN. We hypothesized that altered connectivity between the DMN and salience network could mediate an association between the 5HTTLPR genotype and impulsivity in patients with depression. A total of 54 participants with problematic Internet game play and MDD completed the research protocol. We genotyped for 5HTTLPR and assessed the DMN FC using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The severity of Internet game play, depressive symptoms, anxiety, attention and impulsivity, and behavioral inhibition and activation were assessed using the Young Internet Addiction Scale (YIAS, Beck Depressive Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI, Korean Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder scale, and the Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Scales (BIS-BAS, respectively. The SS allele was associated with increased FC within the DMN, including the middle prefrontal cortex (MPFC to the posterior cingulate cortex, and within the salience network, including the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG to the right rostral prefrontal cortex (RPFC, right anterior insular (AInsular to right SMG, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC to left RPFC, and left AInsular to right RPFC, and between the DMN and salience network, including the MPFC to the ACC. In addition, the FC from the MPFC to ACC positively correlated with the BIS and YIAS scores in the SS allele group. The SS allele of 5HTTLPR might modulate the FC within and between the DMN and salience network, which may ultimately be a risk factor for impulsive Internet game play in patients with MDD.

Impulsive Internet Game Play Is Associated With Increased Functional Connectivity Between the Default Mode and Salience Networks in Depressed Patients With Short Allele of Serotonin Transporter Gene.

Science.gov (United States)

Hong, Ji Sun; Kim, Sun Mi; Bae, Sujin; Han, Doug Hyun

2018-01-01

Problematic Internet game play is often accompanied by major depressive disorder (MDD). Depression seems to be closely related to altered functional connectivity (FC) within (and between) the default mode network (DMN) and salience network. In addition, serotonergic neurotransmission may regulate the symptoms of depression, including impulsivity, potentially by modulating the DMN. We hypothesized that altered connectivity between the DMN and salience network could mediate an association between the 5HTTLPR genotype and impulsivity in patients with depression. A total of 54 participants with problematic Internet game play and MDD completed the research protocol. We genotyped for 5HTTLPR and assessed the DMN FC using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging. The severity of Internet game play, depressive symptoms, anxiety, attention and impulsivity, and behavioral inhibition and activation were assessed using the Young Internet Addiction Scale (YIAS), Beck Depressive Inventory, Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI), Korean Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder scale, and the Behavioral Inhibition and Activation Scales (BIS-BAS), respectively. The SS allele was associated with increased FC within the DMN, including the middle prefrontal cortex (MPFC) to the posterior cingulate cortex, and within the salience network, including the right supramarginal gyrus (SMG) to the right rostral prefrontal cortex (RPFC), right anterior insular (AInsular) to right SMG, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) to left RPFC, and left AInsular to right RPFC, and between the DMN and salience network, including the MPFC to the ACC. In addition, the FC from the MPFC to ACC positively correlated with the BIS and YIAS scores in the SS allele group. The SS allele of 5HTTLPR might modulate the FC within and between the DMN and salience network, which may ultimately be a risk factor for impulsive Internet game play in patients with MDD.

Wide-Baseline Stereo-Based Obstacle Mapping for Unmanned Surface Vehicles

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Mou, Xiaozheng; Wang, Han

2018-01-01

This paper proposes a wide-baseline stereo-based static obstacle mapping approach for unmanned surface vehicles (USVs). The proposed approach eliminates the complicated calibration work and the bulky rig in our previous binocular stereo system, and raises the ranging ability from 500 to 1000 m with a even larger baseline obtained from the motion of USVs. Integrating a monocular camera with GPS and compass information in this proposed system, the world locations of the detected static obstacles are reconstructed while the USV is traveling, and an obstacle map is then built. To achieve more accurate and robust performance, multiple pairs of frames are leveraged to synthesize the final reconstruction results in a weighting model. Experimental results based on our own dataset demonstrate the high efficiency of our system. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to address the task of wide-baseline stereo-based obstacle mapping in a maritime environment. PMID:29617293

AlignerBoost: A Generalized Software Toolkit for Boosting Next-Gen Sequencing Mapping Accuracy Using a Bayesian-Based Mapping Quality Framework.

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Qi Zheng

2016-10-01

Full Text Available Accurate mapping of next-generation sequencing (NGS reads to reference genomes is crucial for almost all NGS applications and downstream analyses. Various repetitive elements in human and other higher eukaryotic genomes contribute in large part to ambiguously (non-uniquely mapped reads. Most available NGS aligners attempt to address this by either removing all non-uniquely mapping reads, or reporting one random or "best" hit based on simple heuristics. Accurate estimation of the mapping quality of NGS reads is therefore critical albeit completely lacking at present. Here we developed a generalized software toolkit "AlignerBoost", which utilizes a Bayesian-based framework to accurately estimate mapping quality of ambiguously mapped NGS reads. We tested AlignerBoost with both simulated and real DNA-seq and RNA-seq datasets at various thresholds. In most cases, but especially for reads falling within repetitive regions, AlignerBoost dramatically increases the mapping precision of modern NGS aligners without significantly compromising the sensitivity even without mapping quality filters. When using higher mapping quality cutoffs, AlignerBoost achieves a much lower false mapping rate while exhibiting comparable or higher sensitivity compared to the aligner default modes, therefore significantly boosting the detection power of NGS aligners even using extreme thresholds. AlignerBoost is also SNP-aware, and higher quality alignments can be achieved if provided with known SNPs. AlignerBoost's algorithm is computationally efficient, and can process one million alignments within 30 seconds on a typical desktop computer. AlignerBoost is implemented as a uniform Java application and is freely available at https://github.com/Grice-Lab/AlignerBoost.

AlignerBoost: A Generalized Software Toolkit for Boosting Next-Gen Sequencing Mapping Accuracy Using a Bayesian-Based Mapping Quality Framework.

Science.gov (United States)

Zheng, Qi; Grice, Elizabeth A

2016-10-01

Accurate mapping of next-generation sequencing (NGS) reads to reference genomes is crucial for almost all NGS applications and downstream analyses. Various repetitive elements in human and other higher eukaryotic genomes contribute in large part to ambiguously (non-uniquely) mapped reads. Most available NGS aligners attempt to address this by either removing all non-uniquely mapping reads, or reporting one random or "best" hit based on simple heuristics. Accurate estimation of the mapping quality of NGS reads is therefore critical albeit completely lacking at present. Here we developed a generalized software toolkit "AlignerBoost", which utilizes a Bayesian-based framework to accurately estimate mapping quality of ambiguously mapped NGS reads. We tested AlignerBoost with both simulated and real DNA-seq and RNA-seq datasets at various thresholds. In most cases, but especially for reads falling within repetitive regions, AlignerBoost dramatically increases the mapping precision of modern NGS aligners without significantly compromising the sensitivity even without mapping quality filters. When using higher mapping quality cutoffs, AlignerBoost achieves a much lower false mapping rate while exhibiting comparable or higher sensitivity compared to the aligner default modes, therefore significantly boosting the detection power of NGS aligners even using extreme thresholds. AlignerBoost is also SNP-aware, and higher quality alignments can be achieved if provided with known SNPs. AlignerBoost's algorithm is computationally efficient, and can process one million alignments within 30 seconds on a typical desktop computer. AlignerBoost is implemented as a uniform Java application and is freely available at https://github.com/Grice-Lab/AlignerBoost.

A recognition method research based on the heart sound texture map

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Huizhong Cheng

2016-06-01

Full Text Available In order to improve the Heart Sound recognition rate and reduce the recognition time, in this paper, we introduces a new method for Heart Sound pattern recognition by using Heart Sound Texture Map. Based on the Heart Sound model, we give the Heart Sound time-frequency diagram and the Heart Sound Texture Map definition, we study the structure of the Heart Sound Window Function principle and realization method, and then discusses how to use the Heart Sound Window Function and the Short-time Fourier Transform to obtain two-dimensional Heart Sound time-frequency diagram, propose corner correlation recognition algorithm based on the Heart Sound Texture Map according to the characteristics of Heart Sound. The simulation results show that the Heart Sound Window Function compared with the traditional window function makes the first (S1 and the second (S2 Heart Sound texture clearer. And the corner correlation recognition algorithm based on the Heart Sound Texture Map can significantly improve the recognition rate and reduce the expense, which is an effective Heart Sound recognition method.

Maternal Immune Activation During the Third Trimester Is Associated with Neonatal Functional Connectivity of the Salience Network and Fetal to Toddler Behavior.

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Spann, Marisa N; Monk, Catherine; Scheinost, Dustin; Peterson, Bradley S

2018-03-14

Prenatal maternal immune activation (MIA) is associated with altered brain development and risk of psychiatric disorders in offspring. Translational human studies of MIA are few in number. Alterations of the salience network have been implicated in the pathogenesis of the same psychiatric disorders associated with MIA. If MIA is pathogenic, then associated abnormalities in the salience network should be detectable in neonates immediately after birth. We tested the hypothesis that third trimester MIA of adolescent women who are at risk for high stress and inflammation is associated with the strength of functional connectivity in the salience network of their neonate. Thirty-six women underwent blood draws to measure interleukin-6 (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP) and electrocardiograms to measure fetal heart rate variability (FHRV) at 34-37 weeks gestation. Resting-state imaging data were acquired in the infants at 40-44 weeks postmenstrual age (PMA). Functional connectivity was measured from seeds placed in the anterior cingulate cortex and insula. Measures of cognitive development were obtained at 14 months PMA using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development-Third Edition (BSID-III). Both sexes were studied. Regions in which the strength of the salience network correlated with maternal IL-6 or CRP levels included the medial prefrontal cortex, temporoparietal junction, and basal ganglia. Maternal CRP level correlated inversely with FHRV acquired at the same gestational age. Maternal CRP and IL-6 levels correlated positively with measures of cognitive development on the BSID-III. These results suggest that MIA is associated with short- and long-term influences on offspring brain and behavior. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Preclinical studies in rodents and nonhuman primates and epidemiological studies in humans suggest that maternal immune activation (MIA) alters the development of brain circuitry and associated behaviors, placing offspring at risk for

Color encryption scheme based on adapted quantum logistic map

Science.gov (United States)

Zaghloul, Alaa; Zhang, Tiejun; Amin, Mohamed; Abd El-Latif, Ahmed A.

2014-04-01

This paper presents a new color image encryption scheme based on quantum chaotic system. In this scheme, a new encryption scheme is accomplished by generating an intermediate chaotic key stream with the help of quantum chaotic logistic map. Then, each pixel is encrypted by the cipher value of the previous pixel and the adapted quantum logistic map. The results show that the proposed scheme has adequate security for the confidentiality of color images.

The influence of idiomatic salience during the comprehension of ambiguous idioms by patients with schizophrenia.

Science.gov (United States)

Iakimova, Galina; Passerieux, Christine; Denhière, Guy; Laurent, Jean-Paul; Vistoli, Damien; Vilain, Jeanne; Hardy-Baylé, Marie-Christine

2010-05-15

This study investigates whether figurative comprehension in schizophrenia is influenced by the salience of idiomatic meaning, and whether it is affected by clinical and demographic factors and IQ. Twenty-seven schizophrenic patients and 25 healthy participants performed a semantic relatedness judgement task which required the comprehension of idioms with two plausible meanings (literal and figurative). The study also used literal expressions. The figurative meaning of the idioms was less salient (ILS), more salient (IFS), or equally salient (IES) compared to the literal meaning. The results showed "a salience effect" (i.e., all participants understood the salient meanings better than the less salient meanings). There was also a "figurativeness effect" (i.e., healthy individuals understood the figurative meaning of IES better than the literal meaning but not schizophrenic patients). In patients, their thought disorder influenced the figurative comprehension of IFS. The verbal IQ influenced the figurative comprehension of ILS. The thought disorder, the verbal IQ, and the educational level influenced the figurative comprehension of IES. The patients' clinically evaluated concretism was associated with a reduced figurative comprehension of IFS and IES evaluated at a cognitive level. The results are discussed in relation to cognitive mechanisms which underscore figurative comprehension in schizophrenia. Copyright 2010 Elsevier Ireland Ltd. All rights reserved.

Transmitting the sum of all fears: Iranian nuclear threat salience among offspring of Holocaust survivors.

Science.gov (United States)

Shrira, Amit

2015-07-01

Many Israelis are preoccupied with the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran, frequently associating it with the danger of annihilation that existed during the Holocaust. The current article examined whether offspring of Holocaust survivors (OHS) are especially preoccupied and sensitive to the Iranian threat, and whether this susceptibility is a part of their increased general image of actual and potential threats, defined as the hostile world scenario (HWS). Study 1 (N = 106) showed that relative to comparisons, OHS reported more preoccupation with the Iranian nuclear threat. Moreover, the positive relationship between the salience of the Iranian threat and symptoms of anxiety was stronger among OHS. Study 2 (N = 450) replicated these findings, while focusing on the Iranian nuclear threat salience and symptoms of psychological distress. It further showed that OHS reported more negative engagement with the HWS (i.e., feeling that surrounding threats decrease one's sense of competence), which in turn mediated their increased preoccupation with the Iranian threat. The results suggest that intergenerational transmission of the Holocaust trauma includes heightened preoccupation with and sensitivity to potential threats of annihilation, and that the specific preoccupation with threats of annihilation reflects a part of a more general preoccupation with surrounding threats. (c) 2015 APA, all rights reserved).

Incentive salience attribution under reward uncertainty: A Pavlovian model.

Science.gov (United States)

Anselme, Patrick

2015-02-01

There is a vast literature on the behavioural effects of partial reinforcement in Pavlovian conditioning. Compared with animals receiving continuous reinforcement, partially rewarded animals typically show (a) a slower development of the conditioned response (CR) early in training and (b) a higher asymptotic level of the CR later in training. This phenomenon is known as the partial reinforcement acquisition effect (PRAE). Learning models of Pavlovian conditioning fail to account for it. In accordance with the incentive salience hypothesis, it is here argued that incentive motivation (or 'wanting') plays a more direct role in controlling behaviour than does learning, and reward uncertainty is shown to have an excitatory effect on incentive motivation. The psychological origin of that effect is discussed and a computational model integrating this new interpretation is developed. Many features of CRs under partial reinforcement emerge from this model. Copyright © 2014 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Understanding the Impact of Lottery Incentives on Web Survey Participation and Response Quality: A Leverage-Salience Theory Perspective

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Chan; Lonn, Steven; Teasley, Stephanie D.

2017-01-01

Cumulative evidence is mixed regarding the effect of lottery incentives on survey participation; little is known about why this strategy sometimes works and other times fails. We examined two factors that can influence the effectiveness of lottery incentives as suggested by leverage-salience theory: emphasis of survey attributes in invitations and…

Risk-based fault detection using Self-Organizing Map

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Yu, Hongyang; Khan, Faisal; Garaniya, Vikram

2015-01-01

The complexity of modern systems is increasing rapidly and the dominating relationships among system variables have become highly non-linear. This results in difficulty in the identification of a system's operating states. In turn, this difficulty affects the sensitivity of fault detection and imposes a challenge on ensuring the safety of operation. In recent years, Self-Organizing Maps has gained popularity in system monitoring as a robust non-linear dimensionality reduction tool. Self-Organizing Map is able to capture non-linear variations of the system. Therefore, it is sensitive to the change of a system's states leading to early detection of fault. In this paper, a new approach based on Self-Organizing Map is proposed to detect and assess the risk of fault. In addition, probabilistic analysis is applied to characterize the risk of fault into different levels according to the hazard potential to enable a refined monitoring of the system. The proposed approach is applied on two experimental systems. The results from both systems have shown high sensitivity of the proposed approach in detecting and identifying the root cause of faults. The refined monitoring facilitates the determination of the risk of fault and early deployment of remedial actions and safety measures to minimize the potential impact of fault. - Highlights: • A new approach based on Self-Organizing Map is proposed to detect faults. • Integration of fault detection with risk assessment methodology. • Fault risk characterization into different levels to enable focused system monitoring

Constructing a Soil Class Map of Denmark based on the FAO Legend Using Digital Techniques

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Adhikari, Kabindra; Minasny, Budiman; Greve, Mette Balslev

2014-01-01

Soil mapping in Denmark has a long history and a series of soil maps based on conventional mapping approaches have been produced. In this study, a national soil map of Denmark was constructed based on the FAO–Unesco Revised Legend 1990 using digital soil mapping techniques, existing soil profile......) confirmed that the output is reliable and can be used in various soil and environmental studies without major difficulties. This study also verified the importance of GlobalSoilMap products and a priori pedological information that improved prediction performance and quality of the new FAO soil map...

An Economic Model of Mortality Salience in Personal Financial Decision Making: Applications to Annuities, Life Insurance, Charitable Gifts, Estate Planning, Conspicuous Consumption, and Healthcare

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Russell N James III

2016-12-01

Full Text Available The study of personal mortality salience and the denial of death have a long history in psychology leading to the modern field of Terror Management Theory. However, a simple consumer utility function predicts many of the outcomes identified in experimental research in this field. Further, this economic approach explains a range of otherwise unexpected financial decision-making behaviors in areas as diverse as annuities, life insurance, charitable gifts and bequests, intra-family gifts and bequests, conspicuous consumption, and healthcare. With its relevance to such a wide range of personal financial decisions, understanding the impact of mortality salience can be particularly useful to advisors in related fields.

Map based localization to assist commercial fleet operations.

Science.gov (United States)

2014-08-01

This report outlines key recent contributions to the state of the art in lane detection, lane departure warning, : and map-based sensor fusion algorithms. These key studies are used as a basis for a discussion about the : limitations of systems that ...

An Educational Data Mining Approach to Concept Map Construction for Web based Learning

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Anal ACHARYA

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This aim of this article is to study the use of Educational Data Mining (EDM techniques in constructing concept maps for organizing knowledge in web based learning systems whereby studying their synergistic effects in enhancing learning. This article first provides a tutorial based introduction to EDM. The applicability of web based learning systems in enhancing the efficiency of EDM techniques in real time environment is investigated. Web based learning systems often use a tool for organizing knowledge. This article explores the use of one such tool called concept map for this purpose. The pioneering works by various researchers who proposed web based learning systems in personalized and collaborative environment in this arena are next presented. A set of parameters are proposed based on which personalized and collaborative learning applications may be generalized and their performances compared. It is found that personalized learning environment uses EDM techniques more exhaustively compared to collaborative learning for concept map construction in web based environment. This article can be used as a starting point for freshers who would like to use EDM techniques for concept map construction for web based learning purposes.

A novel algorithm for image encryption based on mixture of chaotic maps

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Behnia, S.; Akhshani, A.; Mahmodi, H.; Akhavan, A.

2008-01-01

Chaos-based encryption appeared recently in the early 1990s as an original application of nonlinear dynamics in the chaotic regime. In this paper, an implementation of digital image encryption scheme based on the mixture of chaotic systems is reported. The chaotic cryptography technique used in this paper is a symmetric key cryptography. In this algorithm, a typical coupled map was mixed with a one-dimensional chaotic map and used for high degree security image encryption while its speed is acceptable. The proposed algorithm is described in detail, along with its security analysis and implementation. The experimental results based on mixture of chaotic maps approves the effectiveness of the proposed method and the implementation of the algorithm. This mixture application of chaotic maps shows advantages of large key space and high-level security. The ciphertext generated by this method is the same size as the plaintext and is suitable for practical use in the secure transmission of confidential information over the Internet

Area–Oriented Technology Mapping for LUT–Based Logic Blocks

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kubica Marcin

2017-03-01

Full Text Available One of the main aspects of logic synthesis dedicated to FPGA is the problem of technology mapping, which is directly associated with the logic decomposition technique. This paper focuses on using configurable properties of CLBs in the process of logic decomposition and technology mapping. A novel theory and a set of efficient techniques for logic decomposition based on a BDD are proposed. The paper shows that logic optimization can be efficiently carried out by using multiple decomposition. The essence of the proposed synthesis method is multiple cutting of a BDD. A new diagram form called an SMTBDD is proposed. Moreover, techniques that allow finding the best technology mapping oriented to configurability of CLBs are presented. In the experimental section, the presented method (MultiDec is compared with academic and commercial tools. The experimental results show that the proposed technology mapping strategy leads to good results in terms of the number of CLBs.

Mapping population-based structural connectomes.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhang, Zhengwu; Descoteaux, Maxime; Zhang, Jingwen; Girard, Gabriel; Chamberland, Maxime; Dunson, David; Srivastava, Anuj; Zhu, Hongtu

2018-05-15

Advances in understanding the structural connectomes of human brain require improved approaches for the construction, comparison and integration of high-dimensional whole-brain tractography data from a large number of individuals. This article develops a population-based structural connectome (PSC) mapping framework to address these challenges. PSC simultaneously characterizes a large number of white matter bundles within and across different subjects by registering different subjects' brains based on coarse cortical parcellations, compressing the bundles of each connection, and extracting novel connection weights. A robust tractography algorithm and streamline post-processing techniques, including dilation of gray matter regions, streamline cutting, and outlier streamline removal are applied to improve the robustness of the extracted structural connectomes. The developed PSC framework can be used to reproducibly extract binary networks, weighted networks and streamline-based brain connectomes. We apply the PSC to Human Connectome Project data to illustrate its application in characterizing normal variations and heritability of structural connectomes in healthy subjects. Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Topographical memory for newly-learned maps is differentially affected by route-based versus landmark-based learning

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Beatty, Erin L.; Muller-Gass, Alexandra; Wojtarowicz, Dorothy

2018-01-01

on their ability to distinguish previously studied 'old' maps from completely unfamiliar 'new' maps under conditions of high and low working memory load in the functional MRI scanner. Viewing old versus new maps was associated with relatively greater activation in a distributed set of regions including bilateral...... inferior temporal gyrus - an important region for recognizing visual objects. Critically, whereas the performance of participants who had followed a route-based strategy dropped to chance level under high working memory load, participants who had followed a landmark-based strategy performed at above chance...... levels under both high and low working memory load - reflected by relatively greater activation in the left inferior parietal lobule (i.e. rostral part of the supramarginal gyrus known as area PFt). Our findings suggest that landmark-based learning may buffer against the effects of working memory load...

Integrating pipeline data management application and Google maps dataset on web based GIS application unsing open source technology Sharp Map and Open Layers

Energy Technology Data Exchange (ETDEWEB)

Wisianto, Arie; Sania, Hidayatus [PT PERTAMINA GAS, Bontang (Indonesia); Gumilar, Oki [PT PERTAMINA GAS, Jakarta (Indonesia)

2010-07-01

PT Pertamina Gas operates 3 pipe segments carrying natural gas from producers to PT Pupuk Kaltim in the Kalimantan area. The company wants to build a pipeline data management system consisting of pipeline facilities, inspections and risk assessments which would run on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) platforms. The aim of this paper is to present the integration of the pipeline data management system with GIS. A web based GIS application is developed using the combination of Google maps datasets with local spatial datasets. In addition, Open Layers is used to integrate pipeline data model and Google Map dataset into a single map display on Sharp Map. The GIS based pipeline data management system developed herein constitutes a low cost, powerful and efficient web based GIS solution.

Domain XML semantic integration based on extraction rules and ontology mapping

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Huayu LI

2016-08-01

Full Text Available A plenty of XML documents exist in petroleum engineering field, but traditional XML integration solution can’t provide semantic query, which leads to low data use efficiency. In light of WeXML(oil&gas well XML data semantic integration and query requirement, this paper proposes a semantic integration method based on extraction rules and ontology mapping. The method firstly defines a series of extraction rules with which elements and properties of WeXML Schema are mapped to classes and properties in WeOWL ontology, respectively; secondly, an algorithm is used to transform WeXML documents into WeOWL instances. Because WeOWL provides limited semantics, ontology mappings between two ontologies are then built to explain class and property of global ontology with terms of WeOWL, and semantic query based on global domain concepts model is provided. By constructing a WeXML data semantic integration prototype system, the proposed transformational rule, the transfer algorithm and the mapping rule are tested.

CLOUD-BASED PLATFORM FOR CREATING AND SHARING WEB MAPS

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Jean Pierre Gatera

2014-01-01

Full Text Available The rise of cloud computing is one the most important thing happening in information technology today. While many things are moving into the cloud, this trend has also reached the Geographic Information System (GIS world. For the users of GIS technology, the cloud opens new possibilities for sharing web maps, applications and spatial data. The goal of this presentation/demo is to demonstrate ArcGIS Online which is a cloud-based collaborative platform that allows to easily and quickly create interactive web maps that you can share with anyone. With ready-to-use content, apps, and templates you can produce web maps right away. And no matter what you use - desktops, browsers, smartphones, or tablets - you always have access to your content.

Comparison of model reference and map based control method for vehicle stability enhancement

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Baek, S.; Son, M.; Song, J.; Boo, K.; Kim, H.

2012-01-01

A map based controller method to improve a vehicle lateral stability is proposed in this study and compared with the conventional method, a model referenced controller. A model referenced controller to determine compensated yaw moment uses the sliding mode method, but the proposed map based

Gradient-based reliability maps for ACM-based segmentation of hippocampus.

Science.gov (United States)

Zarpalas, Dimitrios; Gkontra, Polyxeni; Daras, Petros; Maglaveras, Nicos

2014-04-01

Automatic segmentation of deep brain structures, such as the hippocampus (HC), in MR images has attracted considerable scientific attention due to the widespread use of MRI and to the principal role of some structures in various mental disorders. In this literature, there exists a substantial amount of work relying on deformable models incorporating prior knowledge about structures' anatomy and shape information. However, shape priors capture global shape characteristics and thus fail to model boundaries of varying properties; HC boundaries present rich, poor, and missing gradient regions. On top of that, shape prior knowledge is blended with image information in the evolution process, through global weighting of the two terms, again neglecting the spatially varying boundary properties, causing segmentation faults. An innovative method is hereby presented that aims to achieve highly accurate HC segmentation in MR images, based on the modeling of boundary properties at each anatomical location and the inclusion of appropriate image information for each of those, within an active contour model framework. Hence, blending of image information and prior knowledge is based on a local weighting map, which mixes gradient information, regional and whole brain statistical information with a multi-atlas-based spatial distribution map of the structure's labels. Experimental results on three different datasets demonstrate the efficacy and accuracy of the proposed method.

A shared, flexible neural map architecture reflects capacity limits in both visual short-term memory and enumeration.

Science.gov (United States)

Knops, André; Piazza, Manuela; Sengupta, Rakesh; Eger, Evelyn; Melcher, David

2014-07-23

Human cognition is characterized by severe capacity limits: we can accurately track, enumerate, or hold in mind only a small number of items at a time. It remains debated whether capacity limitations across tasks are determined by a common system. Here we measure brain activation of adult subjects performing either a visual short-term memory (vSTM) task consisting of holding in mind precise information about the orientation and position of a variable number of items, or an enumeration task consisting of assessing the number of items in those sets. We show that task-specific capacity limits (three to four items in enumeration and two to three in vSTM) are neurally reflected in the activity of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC): an identical set of voxels in this region, commonly activated during the two tasks, changed its overall response profile reflecting task-specific capacity limitations. These results, replicated in a second experiment, were further supported by multivariate pattern analysis in which we could decode the number of items presented over a larger range during enumeration than during vSTM. Finally, we simulated our results with a computational model of PPC using a saliency map architecture in which the level of mutual inhibition between nodes gives rise to capacity limitations and reflects the task-dependent precision with which objects need to be encoded (high precision for vSTM, lower precision for enumeration). Together, our work supports the existence of a common, flexible system underlying capacity limits across tasks in PPC that may take the form of a saliency map. Copyright © 2014 the authors 0270-6474/14/349857-10$15.00/0.

Social Salience Discriminates Learnability of Contextual Cues in an Artificial Language.

Science.gov (United States)

Rácz, Péter; Hay, Jennifer B; Pierrehumbert, Janet B

2017-01-01

We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whether learning contextual meanings depends on the social salience of the context, whether our players interpret these contexts generally, and whether the learned meaning is generalized to new words. Our results show that adults are capable of learning contextual meaning if the context is socially salient, coherent, and interpretable. Once a contextual meaning is recognized, it is readily generalized to related forms and contexts.

Communicating soil carbon science to farmers: Incorporating credibility, salience and legitimacy

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Ingram, Julie; Mills, Jane; Dibari, Camilla

2016-01-01

A key narrative within climate change science is that conserving and improving soil carbon through agricultural practices can contribute to agricultural productivity and is a promising option for mitigating carbon loss through sequestration. This paper examines the potential disconnect between...... science and practice in the context of communicating information about soil carbon management. It focuses on the information producing process and on stakeholder (adviser, farmer representative, policy maker etc) assessment of the attributes credibility, salience and legitimacy. In doing this it draws...... on results from consultations with stakeholders in the SmartSOIL project which aimed to provide decision support guidelines about practices that optimise carbon mitigation and crop productivity. An iterative methodology, used to engage stakeholders in developing, testing and validating a range of decision...

Smartphones Based Mobile Mapping Systems

Science.gov (United States)

Al-Hamad, A.; El-Sheimy, N.

2014-06-01

The past 20 years have witnessed an explosive growth in the demand for geo-spatial data. This demand has numerous sources and takes many forms; however, the net effect is an ever-increasing thirst for data that is more accurate, has higher density, is produced more rapidly, and is acquired less expensively. For mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) projects, this has been achieved through the major development of Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS). MMS integrate various navigation and remote sensing technologies which allow mapping from moving platforms (e.g. cars, airplanes, boats, etc.) to obtain the 3D coordinates of the points of interest. Such systems obtain accuracies that are suitable for all but the most demanding mapping and engineering applications. However, this accuracy doesn't come cheaply. As a consequence of the platform and navigation and mapping technologies used, even an "inexpensive" system costs well over 200 000 USD. Today's mobile phones are getting ever more sophisticated. Phone makers are determined to reduce the gap between computers and mobile phones. Smartphones, in addition to becoming status symbols, are increasingly being equipped with extended Global Positioning System (GPS) capabilities, Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS) inertial sensors, extremely powerful computing power and very high resolution cameras. Using all of these components, smartphones have the potential to replace the traditional land MMS and portable GPS/GIS equipment. This paper introduces an innovative application of smartphones as a very low cost portable MMS for mapping and GIS applications.

Current trends in satellite based emergency mapping - the need for harmonisation

Science.gov (United States)

Voigt, Stefan

2013-04-01

During the past years, the availability and use of satellite image data to support disaster management and humanitarian relief organisations has largely increased. The automation and data processing techniques are greatly improving as well as the capacity in accessing and processing satellite imagery in getting better globally. More and more global activities via the internet and through global organisations like the United Nations or the International Charter Space and Major Disaster engage in the topic, while at the same time, more and more national or local centres engage rapid mapping operations and activities. In order to make even more effective use of this very positive increase of capacity, for the sake of operational provision of analysis results, for fast validation of satellite derived damage assessments, for better cooperation in the joint inter agency generation of rapid mapping products and for general scientific use, rapid mapping results in general need to be better harmonized, if not even standardized. In this presentation, experiences from various years of rapid mapping gained by the DLR Center for satellite based Crisis Information (ZKI) within the context of the national activities, the International Charter Space and Major Disasters, GMES/Copernicus etc. are reported. Furthermore, an overview on how automation, quality assurance and optimization can be achieved through standard operation procedures within a rapid mapping workflow is given. Building on this long term rapid mapping experience, and building on the DLR initiative to set in pace an "International Working Group on Satellite Based Emergency Mapping" current trends in rapid mapping are discussed and thoughts on how the sharing of rapid mapping information can be optimized by harmonizing analysis results and data structures are presented. Such an harmonization of analysis procedures, nomenclatures and representations of data as well as meta data are the basis to better cooperate within

Weakly supervised semantic segmentation using fore-background priors

Science.gov (United States)

Han, Zheng; Xiao, Zhitao; Yu, Mingjun

2017-07-01

Weakly-supervised semantic segmentation is a challenge in the field of computer vision. Most previous works utilize the labels of the whole training set and thereby need the construction of a relationship graph about image labels, thus result in expensive computation. In this study, we tackle this problem from a different perspective. We proposed a novel semantic segmentation algorithm based on background priors, which avoids the construction of a huge graph in whole training dataset. Specifically, a random forest classifier is obtained using weakly supervised training data .Then semantic texton forest (STF) feature is extracted from image superpixels. Finally, a CRF based optimization algorithm is proposed. The unary potential of CRF derived from the outputting probability of random forest classifier and the robust saliency map as background prior. Experiments on the MSRC21 dataset show that the new algorithm outperforms some previous influential weakly-supervised segmentation algorithms. Furthermore, the use of efficient decision forests classifier and parallel computing of saliency map significantly accelerates the implementation.

Object detection from images obtained through underwater turbulence medium

Science.gov (United States)

Furhad, Md. Hasan; Tahtali, Murat; Lambert, Andrew

2017-09-01

Imaging through underwater experiences severe distortions due to random fluctuations of temperature and salinity in water, which produces underwater turbulence through diffraction limited blur. Lights reflecting from objects perturb and attenuate contrast, making the recognition of objects of interest difficult. Thus, the information available for detecting underwater objects of interest becomes a challenging task as they have inherent confusion among the background, foreground and other image properties. In this paper, a saliency-based approach is proposed to detect the objects acquired through an underwater turbulent medium. This approach has drawn attention among a wide range of computer vision applications, such as image retrieval, artificial intelligence, neuro-imaging and object detection. The image is first processed through a deblurring filter. Next, a saliency technique is used on the image for object detection. In this step, a saliency map that highlights the target regions is generated and then a graph-based model is proposed to extract these target regions for object detection.

Balanced Civilization Map Generation based on Open Data

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Barros, Gabriella; Togelius, Julian

2015-01-01

This work investigates how to incorporate real-world data into game content so that the content is playable and enjoyable while not misrepresenting the data. We propose a method for generating balanced Civilization maps based on Open Data, describing how to acquire, transform and integrate...

Color Doppler Ultrasonography-Targeted Perforator Mapping and Angiosome-Based Flap Reconstruction

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Gunnarsson, Gudjon Leifur; Tei, Troels; Thomsen, Jørn Bo

2016-01-01

Knowledge about perforators and angiosomes has inspired new and innovative flap designs for reconstruction of defects throughout the body. The purpose of this article is to share our experience using color Doppler ultrasonography (CDU)-targeted perforator mapping and angiosome-based flap reconstr......Knowledge about perforators and angiosomes has inspired new and innovative flap designs for reconstruction of defects throughout the body. The purpose of this article is to share our experience using color Doppler ultrasonography (CDU)-targeted perforator mapping and angiosome-based flap...

Improved chaotic maps-based password-authenticated key agreement using smart cards

Science.gov (United States)

Lin, Han-Yu

2015-02-01

Elaborating on the security of password-based authenticated key agreement, in this paper, the author cryptanalyzes a chaotic maps-based password-authenticated key agreement proposed by Guo and Chang recently. Specifically, their protocol could not achieve strong user anonymity due to a fixed parameter and a malicious adversary is able to derive the shared session key by manipulating the property of Chebyshev chaotic maps. Additionally, the author also presents an improved scheme to eliminate the above weaknesses and still maintain the efficiency.

Rule-based Test Generation with Mind Maps

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Dimitry Polivaev

2012-02-01

Full Text Available This paper introduces basic concepts of rule based test generation with mind maps, and reports experiences learned from industrial application of this technique in the domain of smart card testing by Giesecke & Devrient GmbH over the last years. It describes the formalization of test selection criteria used by our test generator, our test generation architecture and test generation framework.

A novel image encryption algorithm based on a 3D chaotic map

Science.gov (United States)

Kanso, A.; Ghebleh, M.

2012-07-01

Recently [Solak E, Çokal C, Yildiz OT Biyikoǧlu T. Cryptanalysis of Fridrich's chaotic image encryption. Int J Bifur Chaos 2010;20:1405-1413] cryptanalyzed the chaotic image encryption algorithm of [Fridrich J. Symmetric ciphers based on two-dimensional chaotic maps. Int J Bifur Chaos 1998;8(6):1259-1284], which was considered a benchmark for measuring security of many image encryption algorithms. This attack can also be applied to other encryption algorithms that have a structure similar to Fridrich's algorithm, such as that of [Chen G, Mao Y, Chui, C. A symmetric image encryption scheme based on 3D chaotic cat maps. Chaos Soliton Fract 2004;21:749-761]. In this paper, we suggest a novel image encryption algorithm based on a three dimensional (3D) chaotic map that can defeat the aforementioned attack among other existing attacks. The design of the proposed algorithm is simple and efficient, and based on three phases which provide the necessary properties for a secure image encryption algorithm including the confusion and diffusion properties. In phase I, the image pixels are shuffled according to a search rule based on the 3D chaotic map. In phases II and III, 3D chaotic maps are used to scramble shuffled pixels through mixing and masking rules, respectively. Simulation results show that the suggested algorithm satisfies the required performance tests such as high level security, large key space and acceptable encryption speed. These characteristics make it a suitable candidate for use in cryptographic applications.

Horror Image Recognition Based on Context-Aware Multi-Instance Learning.

Science.gov (United States)

Li, Bing; Xiong, Weihua; Wu, Ou; Hu, Weiming; Maybank, Stephen; Yan, Shuicheng

2015-12-01

Horror content sharing on the Web is a growing phenomenon that can interfere with our daily life and affect the mental health of those involved. As an important form of expression, horror images have their own characteristics that can evoke extreme emotions. In this paper, we present a novel context-aware multi-instance learning (CMIL) algorithm for horror image recognition. The CMIL algorithm identifies horror images and picks out the regions that cause the sensation of horror in these horror images. It obtains contextual cues among adjacent regions in an image using a random walk on a contextual graph. Borrowing the strength of the fuzzy support vector machine (FSVM), we define a heuristic optimization procedure based on the FSVM to search for the optimal classifier for the CMIL. To improve the initialization of the CMIL, we propose a novel visual saliency model based on the tensor analysis. The average saliency value of each segmented region is set as its initial fuzzy membership in the CMIL. The advantage of the tensor-based visual saliency model is that it not only adaptively selects features, but also dynamically determines fusion weights for saliency value combination from different feature subspaces. The effectiveness of the proposed CMIL model is demonstrated by its use in horror image recognition on two large-scale image sets collected from the Internet.

Gender-typical responses to sexual and emotional infidelity as a function of mortality salience induced self-esteem striving.

Science.gov (United States)

Goldenberg, Jamie L; Landau, Mark J; Pyszczynski, Tom; Cox, Cathy R; Greenberg, Jeff; Solomon, Sheldon; Dunnam, Heather

2003-12-01

The authors propose that gender-differentiated patterns of jealousy in response to sexual and emotional infidelity are engendered by the differential impact of each event on self-esteem for men and women. Study 1 demonstrated that men derive relatively more self-esteem from their sex lives, whereas women's self-esteem is more contingent on romantic commitment. Based on terror management theory, it is predicted that if gender-differentiated responses to infidelity are motivated by gender-specific contingencies for self-esteem, they should be intensified following reminders of mortality. In Study 2, mortality salience (MS) increased distress in response to sexual infidelity for men and emotional infidelity for women. Study 3 demonstrated that following MS, men who place high value on sex in romantic relationships exhibited greater distress in response to sexual infidelity, but low-ex-value men's distress was attenuated. The authors discuss the implications for evolutionary and self-esteem-based accounts of jealousy as well as possible integration of these perspectives.

An extended anchored linkage map and virtual mapping for the american mink genome based on homology to human and dog

DEFF Research Database (Denmark)

Anistoroaei, Razvan Marian; Ansari, S.; Farid, A.

2009-01-01

hybridization (FISH) and/or by means of human/dog/mink comparative homology. The average interval between markers is 8.5 cM and the linkage groups collectively span 1340 cM. In addition, 217 and 275 mink microsatellites have been placed on human and dog genomes, respectively. In conjunction with the existing...... comparative human/dog/mink data, these assignments represent useful virtual maps for the American mink genome. Comparison of the current human/dog assembled sequential map with the existing Zoo-FISH-based human/dog/mink maps helped to refine the human/dog/mink comparative map. Furthermore, comparison...... of the human and dog genome assemblies revealed a number of large synteny blocks, some of which are corroborated by data from the mink linkage map....

[MapDraw: a microsoft excel macro for drawing genetic linkage maps based on given genetic linkage data].

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Ren-Hu; Meng, Jin-Ling

2003-05-01

MAPMAKER is one of the most widely used computer software package for constructing genetic linkage maps.However, the PC version, MAPMAKER 3.0 for PC, could not draw the genetic linkage maps that its Macintosh version, MAPMAKER 3.0 for Macintosh,was able to do. Especially in recent years, Macintosh computer is much less popular than PC. Most of the geneticists use PC to analyze their genetic linkage data. So a new computer software to draw the same genetic linkage maps on PC as the MAPMAKER for Macintosh to do on Macintosh has been crying for. Microsoft Excel,one component of Microsoft Office package, is one of the most popular software in laboratory data processing. Microsoft Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) is one of the most powerful functions of Microsoft Excel. Using this program language, we can take creative control of Excel, including genetic linkage map construction, automatic data processing and more. In this paper, a Microsoft Excel macro called MapDraw is constructed to draw genetic linkage maps on PC computer based on given genetic linkage data. Use this software,you can freely construct beautiful genetic linkage map in Excel and freely edit and copy it to Word or other application. This software is just an Excel format file. You can freely copy it from ftp://211.69.140.177 or ftp://brassica.hzau.edu.cn and the source code can be found in Excel's Visual Basic Editor.

Hash function based on chaotic map lattices.

Science.gov (United States)

Wang, Shihong; Hu, Gang

2007-06-01

A new hash function system, based on coupled chaotic map dynamics, is suggested. By combining floating point computation of chaos and some simple algebraic operations, the system reaches very high bit confusion and diffusion rates, and this enables the system to have desired statistical properties and strong collision resistance. The chaos-based hash function has its advantages for high security and fast performance, and it serves as one of the most highly competitive candidates for practical applications of hash function for software realization and secure information communications in computer networks.

Smartphones Based Mobile Mapping Systems

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

A. Al-Hamad

2014-06-01

Full Text Available The past 20 years have witnessed an explosive growth in the demand for geo-spatial data. This demand has numerous sources and takes many forms; however, the net effect is an ever-increasing thirst for data that is more accurate, has higher density, is produced more rapidly, and is acquired less expensively. For mapping and Geographic Information Systems (GIS projects, this has been achieved through the major development of Mobile Mapping Systems (MMS. MMS integrate various navigation and remote sensing technologies which allow mapping from moving platforms (e.g. cars, airplanes, boats, etc. to obtain the 3D coordinates of the points of interest. Such systems obtain accuracies that are suitable for all but the most demanding mapping and engineering applications. However, this accuracy doesn't come cheaply. As a consequence of the platform and navigation and mapping technologies used, even an "inexpensive" system costs well over 200 000 USD. Today's mobile phones are getting ever more sophisticated. Phone makers are determined to reduce the gap between computers and mobile phones. Smartphones, in addition to becoming status symbols, are increasingly being equipped with extended Global Positioning System (GPS capabilities, Micro Electro Mechanical System (MEMS inertial sensors, extremely powerful computing power and very high resolution cameras. Using all of these components, smartphones have the potential to replace the traditional land MMS and portable GPS/GIS equipment. This paper introduces an innovative application of smartphones as a very low cost portable MMS for mapping and GIS applications.

Agent-based mapping of credit risk for sustainable microfinance.

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Joung-Hun Lee

Full Text Available By drawing analogies with independent research areas, we propose an unorthodox framework for mapping microfinance credit risk--a major obstacle to the sustainability of lenders outreaching to the poor. Specifically, using the elements of network theory, we constructed an agent-based model that obeys the stylized rules of microfinance industry. We found that in a deteriorating economic environment confounded with adverse selection, a form of latent moral hazard may cause a regime shift from a high to a low loan payment probability. An after-the-fact recovery, when possible, required the economic environment to improve beyond that which led to the shift in the first place. These findings suggest a small set of measurable quantities for mapping microfinance credit risk and, consequently, for balancing the requirements to reasonably price loans and to operate on a fully self-financed basis. We illustrate how the proposed mapping works using a 10-year monthly data set from one of the best-known microfinance representatives, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Finally, we discuss an entirely new perspective for managing microfinance credit risk based on enticing spontaneous cooperation by building social capital.

Agent-based mapping of credit risk for sustainable microfinance.

Science.gov (United States)

Lee, Joung-Hun; Jusup, Marko; Podobnik, Boris; Iwasa, Yoh

2015-01-01

By drawing analogies with independent research areas, we propose an unorthodox framework for mapping microfinance credit risk--a major obstacle to the sustainability of lenders outreaching to the poor. Specifically, using the elements of network theory, we constructed an agent-based model that obeys the stylized rules of microfinance industry. We found that in a deteriorating economic environment confounded with adverse selection, a form of latent moral hazard may cause a regime shift from a high to a low loan payment probability. An after-the-fact recovery, when possible, required the economic environment to improve beyond that which led to the shift in the first place. These findings suggest a small set of measurable quantities for mapping microfinance credit risk and, consequently, for balancing the requirements to reasonably price loans and to operate on a fully self-financed basis. We illustrate how the proposed mapping works using a 10-year monthly data set from one of the best-known microfinance representatives, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh. Finally, we discuss an entirely new perspective for managing microfinance credit risk based on enticing spontaneous cooperation by building social capital.

Individual differences in frequency and saliency of speech-accompanying gestures : the role of cognitive abilities and empathy

OpenAIRE

Chu, Mingyuan; Meyer, Antje; Foulkes, Lucy; Kita, Sotaro

2014-01-01

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication. We examined 3 types of gestures: representational gestures, conduit gestures, and palm-revealing gestures. ...

A Saliency Guided Semi-Supervised Building Change Detection Method for High Resolution Remote Sensing Images

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Bin Hou

2016-08-01

Full Text Available Characterizations of up to date information of the Earth’s surface are an important application providing insights to urban planning, resources monitoring and environmental studies. A large number of change detection (CD methods have been developed to solve them by utilizing remote sensing (RS images. The advent of high resolution (HR remote sensing images further provides challenges to traditional CD methods and opportunities to object-based CD methods. While several kinds of geospatial objects are recognized, this manuscript mainly focuses on buildings. Specifically, we propose a novel automatic approach combining pixel-based strategies with object-based ones for detecting building changes with HR remote sensing images. A multiresolution contextual morphological transformation called extended morphological attribute profiles (EMAPs allows the extraction of geometrical features related to the structures within the scene at different scales. Pixel-based post-classification is executed on EMAPs using hierarchical fuzzy clustering. Subsequently, the hierarchical fuzzy frequency vector histograms are formed based on the image-objects acquired by simple linear iterative clustering (SLIC segmentation. Then, saliency and morphological building index (MBI extracted on difference images are used to generate a pseudo training set. Ultimately, object-based semi-supervised classification is implemented on this training set by applying random forest (RF. Most of the important changes are detected by the proposed method in our experiments. This study was checked for effectiveness using visual evaluation and numerical evaluation.

Method for mapping population-based case-control studies: an application using generalized additive models

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Aschengrau Ann

2006-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background Mapping spatial distributions of disease occurrence and risk can serve as a useful tool for identifying exposures of public health concern. Disease registry data are often mapped by town or county of diagnosis and contain limited data on covariates. These maps often possess poor spatial resolution, the potential for spatial confounding, and the inability to consider latency. Population-based case-control studies can provide detailed information on residential history and covariates. Results Generalized additive models (GAMs provide a useful framework for mapping point-based epidemiologic data. Smoothing on location while controlling for covariates produces adjusted maps. We generate maps of odds ratios using the entire study area as a reference. We smooth using a locally weighted regression smoother (loess, a method that combines the advantages of nearest neighbor and kernel methods. We choose an optimal degree of smoothing by minimizing Akaike's Information Criterion. We use a deviance-based test to assess the overall importance of location in the model and pointwise permutation tests to locate regions of significantly increased or decreased risk. The method is illustrated with synthetic data and data from a population-based case-control study, using S-Plus and ArcView software. Conclusion Our goal is to develop practical methods for mapping population-based case-control and cohort studies. The method described here performs well for our synthetic data, reproducing important features of the data and adequately controlling the covariate. When applied to the population-based case-control data set, the method suggests spatial confounding and identifies statistically significant areas of increased and decreased odds ratios.

Mapping Partners Master Drug Dictionary to RxNorm using an NLP-based approach.

Science.gov (United States)

Zhou, Li; Plasek, Joseph M; Mahoney, Lisa M; Chang, Frank Y; DiMaggio, Dana; Rocha, Roberto A

2012-08-01

To develop an automated method based on natural language processing (NLP) to facilitate the creation and maintenance of a mapping between RxNorm and a local medication terminology for interoperability and meaningful use purposes. We mapped 5961 terms from Partners Master Drug Dictionary (MDD) and 99 of the top prescribed medications to RxNorm. The mapping was conducted at both term and concept levels using an NLP tool, called MTERMS, followed by a manual review conducted by domain experts who created a gold standard mapping. The gold standard was used to assess the overall mapping between MDD and RxNorm and evaluate the performance of MTERMS. Overall, 74.7% of MDD terms and 82.8% of the top 99 terms had an exact semantic match to RxNorm. Compared to the gold standard, MTERMS achieved a precision of 99.8% and a recall of 73.9% when mapping all MDD terms, and a precision of 100% and a recall of 72.6% when mapping the top prescribed medications. The challenges and gaps in mapping MDD to RxNorm are mainly due to unique user or application requirements for representing drug concepts and the different modeling approaches inherent in the two terminologies. An automated approach based on NLP followed by human expert review is an efficient and feasible way for conducting dynamic mapping. Copyright © 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Rapid learning of minimally different words in five- to six-year-old children : Effects of acoustic salience and hearing impairment

NARCIS (Netherlands)

Giezen, M.R.; Escudero, P.; Baker, A.E.

This study investigates the role of acoustic salience and hearing impairment in learning phonologically minimal pairs. Picture-matching and object-matching tasks were used to investigate the learning of consonant and vowel minimal pairs in five- to six-year-old deaf children with a cochlear implant

USGS "Did You Feel It?" internet-based macroseismic intensity maps

Science.gov (United States)

Wald, D.J.; Quitoriano, V.; Worden, B.; Hopper, M.; Dewey, J.W.

2011-01-01

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) "Did You Feel It?" (DYFI) system is an automated approach for rapidly collecting macroseismic intensity data from Internet users' shaking and damage reports and generating intensity maps immediately following earthquakes; it has been operating for over a decade (1999-2011). DYFI-based intensity maps made rapidly available through the DYFI system fundamentally depart from more traditional maps made available in the past. The maps are made more quickly, provide more complete coverage and higher resolution, provide for citizen input and interaction, and allow data collection at rates and quantities never before considered. These aspects of Internet data collection, in turn, allow for data analyses, graphics, and ways to communicate with the public, opportunities not possible with traditional data-collection approaches. Yet web-based contributions also pose considerable challenges, as discussed herein. After a decade of operational experience with the DYFI system and users, we document refinements to the processing and algorithmic procedures since DYFI was first conceived. We also describe a number of automatic post-processing tools, operations, applications, and research directions, all of which utilize the extensive DYFI intensity datasets now gathered in near-real time. DYFI can be found online at the website http://earthquake.usgs.gov/dyfi/. ?? 2011 by the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia.

Subpixel Mapping of Hyperspectral Image Based on Linear Subpixel Feature Detection and Object Optimization

Science.gov (United States)

Liu, Zhaoxin; Zhao, Liaoying; Li, Xiaorun; Chen, Shuhan

2018-04-01

Owing to the limitation of spatial resolution of the imaging sensor and the variability of ground surfaces, mixed pixels are widesperead in hyperspectral imagery. The traditional subpixel mapping algorithms treat all mixed pixels as boundary-mixed pixels while ignoring the existence of linear subpixels. To solve this question, this paper proposed a new subpixel mapping method based on linear subpixel feature detection and object optimization. Firstly, the fraction value of each class is obtained by spectral unmixing. Secondly, the linear subpixel features are pre-determined based on the hyperspectral characteristics and the linear subpixel feature; the remaining mixed pixels are detected based on maximum linearization index analysis. The classes of linear subpixels are determined by using template matching method. Finally, the whole subpixel mapping results are iteratively optimized by binary particle swarm optimization algorithm. The performance of the proposed subpixel mapping method is evaluated via experiments based on simulated and real hyperspectral data sets. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can improve the accuracy of subpixel mapping.

Priming states of mind can affect disclosure of threatening self-information: Effects of self-affirmation, mortality salience, and attachment orientations.

Science.gov (United States)

Davis, Deborah; Soref, Assaf; Villalobos, J Guillermo; Mikulincer, Mario

2016-08-01

Interviewers often face respondents reluctant to disclose sensitive, embarrassing or potentially damaging information. We explored effects of priming 5 states of mind on willingness to disclose: including 2 expected to facilitate disclosure (self-affirmation, attachment security), and 3 expected to inhibit disclosure (self-disaffirmation, attachment insecurity, mortality salience). Israeli Jewish participants completed a survey including a manipulation of 1 of these states of mind, followed by questions concerning hostile thoughts and behaviors toward the Israeli Arab outgroup, past minor criminal behaviors, and socially undesirable traits and behaviors. Self-affirmation led to more disclosures of all undesirable behaviors than neutral priming, whereas self-disaffirmation led to less disclosures. Mortality salience led to fewer disclosures of socially undesirable and criminal behaviors compared to neutral priming, but more disclosures of hostile thoughts and behaviors toward Israeli Arabs. Security priming facilitated disclosure of hostile attitudes toward Israeli Arabs. However, neither security nor insecurity priming had any other significant effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).

Cloud-based computation for accelerating vegetation mapping and change detection at regional to national scales

Science.gov (United States)

Matthew J. Gregory; Zhiqiang Yang; David M. Bell; Warren B. Cohen; Sean Healey; Janet L. Ohmann; Heather M. Roberts

2015-01-01

Mapping vegetation and landscape change at fine spatial scales is needed to inform natural resource and conservation planning, but such maps are expensive and time-consuming to produce. For Landsat-based methodologies, mapping efforts are hampered by the daunting task of manipulating multivariate data for millions to billions of pixels. The advent of cloud-based...

Pemanfaatan Google Maps Api Untuk Visualisasi Data Base Transceiver Station

OpenAIRE

Rani, Septia

2016-01-01

This paper discusses the use of the Google Maps API to perform data visualization for Base Transceiver Station (BTS) data. BTS are typically used by telecommunications companies to facilitate wireless communication between communication devices with the network operator. Each BTS has important information such as it's location, it's transaction traffic, as well as information about revenue. With the implementation of BTS data visualization using the Google Maps API, key information owned by e...

PEMANFAATAN GOOGLE MAPS API UNTUK VISUALISASI DATA BASE TRANSCEIVER STATION

OpenAIRE

Rani, Septia

2016-01-01

This paper discusses the use of the Google Maps API to perform data visualization for Base Transceiver Station (BTS) data. BTS are typically used by telecommunications companies to facilitate wireless communication between communication devices with the network operator. Each BTS has important information such as it’s location, it’s transaction traffic, as well as information about revenue. With the implementation of BTS data visualization using the Google Maps API, key information owned by e...

A novel block cryptosystem based on iterating a chaotic map

International Nuclear Information System (INIS)

Xiang Tao; Liao Xiaofeng; Tang Guoping; Chen Yong; Wong, Kwok-wo

2006-01-01

A block cryptographic scheme based on iterating a chaotic map is proposed. With random binary sequences generated from the real-valued chaotic map, the plaintext block is permuted by a key-dependent shift approach and then encrypted by the classical chaotic masking technique. Simulation results show that performance and security of the proposed cryptographic scheme are better than those of existing algorithms. Advantages and security of our scheme are also discussed in detail

Pemanfaatan Google Maps Api Untuk Visualisasi Data Base Transceiver Station

OpenAIRE

Rani, Septia

2016-01-01

This paper discusses the use of the Google Maps API to perform data visualization for Base Transceiver Station (BTS) data. BTS are typically used by telecommunications companies to facilitate wireless communication between communication devices with the network operator. Each BTS has important information such as it’s location, it’s transaction traffic, as well as information about revenue. With the implementation of BTS data visualization using the Google Maps API, key information owned by e...

The first generation of a BAC-based physical map of Brassica rapa

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Lee Soo

2008-06-01

Full Text Available Abstract Background The genus Brassica includes the most extensively cultivated vegetable crops worldwide. Investigation of the Brassica genome presents excellent challenges to study plant genome evolution and divergence of gene function associated with polyploidy and genome hybridization. A physical map of the B. rapa genome is a fundamental tool for analysis of Brassica "A" genome structure. Integration of a physical map with an existing genetic map by linking genetic markers and BAC clones in the sequencing pipeline provides a crucial resource for the ongoing genome sequencing effort and assembly of whole genome sequences. Results A genome-wide physical map of the B. rapa genome was constructed by the capillary electrophoresis-based fingerprinting of 67,468 Bacterial Artificial Chromosome (BAC clones using the five restriction enzyme SNaPshot technique. The clones were assembled into contigs by means of FPC v8.5.3. After contig validation and manual editing, the resulting contig assembly consists of 1,428 contigs and is estimated to span 717 Mb in physical length. This map provides 242 anchored contigs on 10 linkage groups to be served as seed points from which to continue bidirectional chromosome extension for genome sequencing. Conclusion The map reported here is the first physical map for Brassica "A" genome based on the High Information Content Fingerprinting (HICF technique. This physical map will serve as a fundamental genomic resource for accelerating genome sequencing, assembly of BAC sequences, and comparative genomics between Brassica genomes. The current build of the B. rapa physical map is available at the B. rapa Genome Project website for the user community.

Map-IT! A Web-Based GIS Tool for Watershed Science Education.

Science.gov (United States)

Curtis, David H.; Hewes, Christopher M.; Lossau, Matthew J.

This paper describes the development of a prototypic, Web-accessible GIS solution for K-12 science education and citizen-based watershed monitoring. The server side consists of ArcView IMS running on an NT workstation. The client is built around MapCafe. The client interface, which runs through a standard Web browser, supports standard MapCafe…

Groundwater potentiality mapping using geoelectrical-based aquifer hydraulic parameters: A GIS-based multi-criteria decision analysis modeling approach

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Kehinde Anthony Mogaji Hwee San Lim

2017-01-01

Full Text Available This study conducted a robust analysis on acquired 2D resistivity imaging data and borehole pumping test records to optimize groundwater potentiality mapping in Perak province, Malaysia using derived aquifer hydraulic properties. The transverse resistance (TR parameter was determined from the interpreted 2D resistivity imaging data by applying the Dar-Zarrouk parameter equation. Linear regression and GIS techniques were used to regress the estimated values for TR parameters with the aquifer transmissivity values extracted from the geospatially produced BPT records-based aquifer transmissivity map to develop the aquifer transmissivity parameter predictive (ATPP model. The reliability evaluated ATPP model using the Theil inequality coefficient measurement approach was used to establish geoelectrical-based hydraulic parameters (GHP modeling equations for the modeling of transmissivity (Tr, hydraulic conductivity (K, storativity (St, and hydraulic diffusivity (D properties. The applied GHP modeling equation results to the delineated aquifer media was used to produce aquifer potential conditioning factor maps for Tr, K, St, and D. The maps were modeled to develop an aquifer potential mapping index (APMI model via applying the multi-criteria decision analysis-analytic hierarchy process principle. The area groundwater reservoir productivity potential model map produced based on the processed APMI model estimates in the GIS environment was found to be 71% accurate. This study establishes a good alternative approach to determine aquifer hydraulic parameters even in areas where pumping test information is unavailable using a cost effective geophysical data. The produced map can be explored for hydrological decision making.

Application of terrestrial laser scanning to the development and updating of the base map

Directory of Open Access Journals (Sweden)

Klapa Przemysław

2017-06-01