6,050 research outputs found
Mach Bands: How Many Models are Possible? Recent Experiemental Findings and Modeling Attempts
Mach bands are illusory bright and dark bands seen where a luminance plateau meets a ramp, as in half-shadows or penumbras. A tremendous amount of work has been devoted to studying the psychophysics and the potential underlying neural circuitry concerning this phenomenon. A number of theoretical models have also been proposed, originating in the seminal studies of Mach himself. The present article reviews the main experimental findings after 1965 and the main recent theories of early vision that have attempted to discount for the effect. It is shown that the different theories share working principles and can be grouped in three clsses: a) feature-based; b) rule-based; and c) filling-in. In order to evaluate individual proposals it is necessary to consider them in the larger picture of visual science and to determine how they contribute to the understanding of vision in general.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-92-J-0334); Office of Naval Research (N00014-J-4100); COPPE/UFRJ, Brazi
Behavioral Sequence Analysis Reveals a Novel Role for Ă2* Nicotinic Receptors in Exploration
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) are widely expressed throughout the
central nervous system and modulate neuronal function in most mammalian brain
structures. The contribution of defined nAChR subunits to a specific behavior is
thus difficult to assess. Mice deleted for Ă2-containing nAChRs
(Ă2â/â) have been shown to be hyperactive in an
open-field paradigm, without determining the origin of this hyperactivity. We
here develop a quantitative description of mouse behavior in the open field
based upon first order Markov and variable length Markov chain analysis focusing
on the time-organized sequence that behaviors are composed of. This description
reveals that this hyperactivity is the consequence of the absence of specific
inactive states or âstopsâ. These stops are associated with
a scanning of the environment in wild-type mice (WT), and they affect the way
that animals organize their sequence of behaviors when compared with stops
without scanning. They characterize a specific âdecision
momentâ that is reduced in Ă2â/â mutant
mice, suggesting an important role of Ă2-nAChRs in the strategy used
by animals to explore an environment and collect information in order to
organize their behavior. This integrated analysis of the displacement of an
animal in a simple environment offers new insights, specifically into the
contribution of nAChRs to higher brain functions and more generally into the
principles that organize sequences of behaviors in animals
A Spatial Analysis of Obesity and Its Associations with the Built and Natural Environment, Physical Inactivity, and Socioeconomic and Demographic Conditions in the United States of America
Obesity has strong genetic determinants but the genetic composition of the population does not change rapidly. Thus in this study, the major changes in non-genetic factors such as the development of obesogenic environments and shifting socioeconomic status and lifestyle of individuals are hypothesized to increase the risk of obesity. As the prevalence of obesity continue to increase worldwide with substantial attention in the US, a clearer understanding of how spatial associations between obesity and confounding factors are interrelated is crucial to better tackle the issue of obesity. This study employs the âglobalâ and âlocalâ Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) methods including the Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regression and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) to investigate obesity and its spatial associations with environmental, behavioral, socioeconomic, sociodemographic, and population based dynamics at the county level. The results from this study have generated empirically-based and useful insights for the 3,105 counties and county-equivalents across the 48 contiguous states, also known as the continental US. A major contribution of this study is exploring obesity and its confounding associations with various factors not only spatially but also temporally for the first time, revealing the temporal changes from 2004 to 2007 and to 2010. By utilizing the ESDA methods, a consistent answer obtained significantly indicates that positive spatial associations exist between obesity and physical inactivity (PIA), poverty, and population-weighted distance (PWD) to parks. Conversely, negative spatial associations exist between obesity and ratio of jobs to employed residents (JER) and population density. Another major contribution of this study is examining and revealing geographic variability in the association between obesity rates and various explanatory variables both nationwide and regionally at the county level for the entire US. By utilizing the GWR, a significant spatial nonstationarity is identified. This finding suggests that the strength of associations between obesity and each of the explanatory variables vary depending on the spatial location. It is also revealed that the confounding variables PIA, high educational attainment, African-American population, and poverty are identified as the top four variables by having relatively stronger effects in explaining obesity rates at the county level both nationwide and regionally
A Data Model for Exploration of Temporal Virtual Reality Geographic Information Systems
Geographic information systems deal with the exploration, analysis, and presentation of geo-referenced data. Virtual reality is a type of human-computer interface that comes close to the way people perceive information in the real world. Thus, virtual reality environments become the natural paradigm for extending and enhancing the presentational and exploratory capability of GIs applications in both the spatial and temporal domains. The main motivation of this thesis is the lack of a framework that properly supports the exploration of geographic information in a multi-dimensional and multi-sensorial environment (i.e., temporal virtual reality geographic information systems). This thesis introduces a model for virtual exploration of animations. Virtual exploration of animations is a framework composed of abstract data types and a user interface that allow non-expert users to control, manipulate, analyze, and present objects\u27 behaviors in a virtual-reality environment. In the model for virtual exploration of animations, the manipulation of the dynamic environment is accomplished through a set of operations performed over abstractions that represent temporal characteristics of actions. An important feature of the model is that the temporal information is treated as first-class entities and not as a mere attribute of action\u27s representations. Therefore, entities of the temporal model have their own built-in functionality and are able to represent complex temporal structures. In an environment designed for the manipulation of the temporal characteristics of actions, the knowledge of relationships among objects\u27 behaviors plays a significant role in the model. This information comes from the knowledge base of the application domain and is represented in the model through constraints among entities of the temporal model. Such constraints vary from simply relating the end points of two intervals to a complex mechanism that takes into account all relations between sequences of intervals of cyclic behaviors. The fact that the exploration of the information takes place in a virtual reality environment imposes new requirements on the animation model. This thesis introduces a new classification of objects in a VR environment and describes the associated semantics of each element in the taxonomy. These semantics are used to direct the way an object interacts with an observer and with other objects in the environment
VLTI observations of the dust geometry around R Coronae Borealis stars
We are investigating the formation and evolution of dust around the
hydrogen-deficient supergiants known as R Coronae Borealis (RCB) stars. We aim
to determine the connection between the probable merger past of these stars and
their current dust-production activities. We carried out high-angular
resolution interferometric observations of three RCB stars, namely RY Sgr, V
CrA, and V854 Cen with the mid-IR interferometer, MIDI on the VLTI, using two
telescope pairs. The baselines ranged from 30 to 60 m, allowing us to probe the
dusty environment at very small spatial scales (~ 50 mas or 400 stellar radii).
The observations of the RCB star dust environments were interpreted using both
geometrical models and one-dimensional radiative transfer codes. From our
analysis we find that asymmetric circumstellar material is apparent in RY Sgr,
may also exist in V CrA, and is possible for V854 Cen. Overall, we find that
our observations are consistent with dust forming in clumps ejected randomly
around the RCB star so that over time they create a spherically symmetric
distribution of dust. However, we conclude that the determination of whether
there is a preferred plane of dust ejection must wait until a time series of
observations are obtained.Comment: Accepted for publication in MNRAS; 14 pages, 10 figures, 6 table
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