Low-level and high-level modulations of fixational saccades and high frequency oscillatory brain activity in a visual object classification task

Until recently induced gamma-band activity (GBA) was considered a neural marker of cortical object representation. However, induced GBA in the electroencephalogram (EEG) is susceptible to artifacts caused by miniature fixational saccades. Recent studies have demonstrated that fixational saccades also reflect high-level representational processes. Do high-level as opposed to low-level factors influence fixational saccades? What is the effect of these factors on artifact-free GBA? To investigate this, we conducted separate eye tracking and EEG experiments using identical designs. Participants classified line drawings as objects or non-objects. To introduce low-level differences, contours were defined along different directions in cardinal color space: S-cone-isolating, intermediate isoluminant, or a full-color stimulus, the latter containing an additional achromatic component. Prior to the classification task, object discrimination thresholds were measured and stimuli were scaled to matching suprathreshold levels for each participant. In both experiments, behavioral performance was best for full-color stimuli and worst for S-cone isolating stimuli. Saccade rates 200–700 ms after stimulus onset were modulated independently by low and high-level factors, being higher for full-color stimuli than for S-cone isolating stimuli and higher for objects. Low-amplitude evoked GBA and total GBA were observed in very few conditions, showing that paradigms with isoluminant stimuli may not be ideal for eliciting such responses. We conclude that cortical loops involved in the processing of objects are preferentially excited by stimuli that contain achromatic information. Their activation can lead to relatively early exploratory eye movements even for foveally-presented stimuli

Legionnaires\u27 Disease - A Prototype Tool to Identify At-Risk Hospital Rooms

Nosocomial diseases are diseases that originate within hospital or healthcare facilities. Those types of diseases pose significant risks to patients staying within hospital or healthcare facilities as patients are often elderly or already have compromised immune systems. Often, the diseases are airborne or waterborne and frequently spread through the building’s utility systems, such as the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, (HVAC), or water system. This report describes a proof of concept to identify parts of an HVAC system that may be affected by a contaminate, and which rooms within the building are at risk of spreading the contaminate. The implementation involved converting CAD data to file geodatabase feature classes which are in turn used to build a geometric network. Tracing analysis is then used to identify rooms and HVAC vents likely affected by a contaminate based on an input room. The tool developed for this project can both identify which rooms may be affected by a pollutant but also generate a list of rooms to sample when developing a preventative testing schedule

Blueprints

This thesis statement is a written defense and an articulation of my thesis work Blueprints. Blueprints is a series of 78” X 42” indigo pencil on white paper drawings of clothed contemporary women in interaction with geometric objects. In this thesis statement, the method used to arrive at this body of work, my processes and materials, my artistic influences and artistic background will be discussed. My conclusion will connect the thread of ideas that ultimately led to Blueprints

Generalizing repeating patterns: a study with children aged four

This paper presents part of a study that aimed to understand how the emergence of algebraic thinking takes place in a group of four-year-old children, as well as its relationship to the exploration of children‘s literature. To further deepen and guide this study the following research questions were formulated: (1) How can children's literature help preschoolers identify patterns?; (2) What strategies and thinking processes do children use to create, analyze and generalize repeating and growing patterns?; (3) What strategies do children use to identify the unit of repeat of a pattern? and (4) What factors influence the identification of patterns? The paper focuses only on the strategies and thinking processes that children use to create, analyze and generalize repeating patterns. The present study was developed with a group of 14 preschoolers in a private school in Lisbon, and it was carried out with all children. In order to develop the research, a qualitative research methodology under the interpretive paradigm was chosen, emphasizing meanings and processes. The researcher took the dual role of teacher-researcher, conducting the study with her own group and in her own natural environment. Participant observation and document analysis (audio and video recordings, photos and children productions) were used as data collection methods. Data collection took place from October 2013 to April 2014. The results of the study indicate that children master the concept of repeating patterns, and they are able to identify the unit of repeat, create and analyze various repeating patterns, evolving from simpler to more complex forms

Common variables of a good problem: contributions of inclusive design in and beyond academia

Publicado em "Human Systems Engineering and Design (IHSED 2023): Future Trends and Applications: proceedings of the 5th International Conference"Design education today faces the complexity of social challenges. Young designers often tend to dive straight into creating abstract drawings and developing conceptual discourses without addressing the core purpose of the design. This lack of a clear purpose can demotivate designers. Drawing upon the author's experience and inclusive design examples, this paper delves into the pedagogical significance of formulating a "good problem". By examining common variables found in the manipulation of everyday objects, including interactions with individuals with disabilities during academic exercises, students have discovered a wellspring of inspiration. The paper advocates for the pivotal role of inclusive design within academia and its potential to fuel innovation in tackling societal challenges. Moreover, it highlights the wide-ranging impact of design solutions born from demanding circumstances, offering benefits to diverse groups of people. By bridging the realms of academia and real-world application, this study seeks to nurture critical reflection and contribute to the enhancement of inclusive design processes.This paper was supported through the Multiannual Funding of the Landscape, Heritage and Territory Laboratory (Lab2PT), Ref. UID/04509/2020, financed by national funds (PIDDAC) through the FCT/MCTES

Recognizing Figure Labels in Patents

Scientific documents often contain significant information in figures. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awards thousands of patents each week, with each patent containing on the order of a dozen figures. The information conveyed by these figures typically include a drawing or diagram, a label, caption and reference text within the document. Yet associating the short bits of text to the figure is challenging when labels are embedded within the figure, as they typically are in patents. Using patents as a testbench, this paper highlights an open challenge in analyzing all of the information presented in scientific/technical documents - namely, there is a technological gap in recognizing characters embedded in drawings, which leads to difficulties in processing the text associated with scientific figures. We demonstrate that automatically reading the figure label in patent diagram figures is an open challenge, as we evaluate several state-of-the-art optical character recognition (OCR) methods on recent patents. Because the visual characteristics of drawings/diagrams are quite similar to that of text (high contrast, width of strokes, etc), separating the diagram from the text is challenging and leads to both (a) false detection of characters from pixels that are not text and (b) missed text that is critical for identifying the figure number. We develop a method for automatically reading the patent figure labels by first identifying the bounding box containing the label using a novel non-convex hull approach, and then demonstrate the success of OCR when the text is isolated from the diagram