Effects of a traffic noise background on judgements of aircraft noise

A study was conducted in which subjects judged aircraft noises in the presence of road traffic background noise. Two different techniques for presenting the background noises were evaluated. For one technique, the background noise was continuous over the whole of a test session. For the other, the background noise was changed with each aircraft noise. A range of aircraft noise levels and traffic noise levels were presented to simulate typical indoor levels

Landau-Fermi liquid analysis of the 2D t-t' Hubbard model

We calculate the Landau interaction function f(k,k') for the two-dimensional t-t' Hubbard model on the square lattice using second and higher order perturbation theory. Within the Landau-Fermi liquid framework we discuss the behavior of spin and charge susceptibilities as function of the onsite interaction and band filling. In particular we analyze the role of elastic umklapp processes as driving force for the anisotropic reduction of the compressibility on parts of the Fermi surface.Comment: 10 pages, 16 figure

Current-driven vortex dynamics in untwinned superconducting single crystals

Current-driven vortex dynamics of type-II superconductors in the weak-pinning limit is investigated by quantitatively studying the current-dependent vortex dissipation of an untwinned YBa2Cu3O7 single crystal. For applied current densities (J) substantially larger than the critical current density (Jc), non-linear resistive peaks appear below the thermodynamic first-order vortex-lattice melting transition temperature (Tm), in contrast to the resistive hysteresis in the low-current limit (J < Jc). These resistive peaks are quantitatively analysed in terms of the current-driven coherent and plastic motion of vortex bundles in the vortex-solid phase, and the non-linear current - voltage characteristics are found to be consistent with the collective flux-creep model. The effects of high-density random point defects on the vortex dynamics are also investigated via proton irradiation of the same single crystal. Neither resistive hysteresis at low currents nor peak effects at high currents are found after the irradiation. Furthermore, the current-voltage characteristics within the instrumental resolution become completely ohmic over a wide range of currents and temperatures, despite theoretical predictions of much larger Jc-values for the given experimental variables. This finding suggests that the vortex-glass phase, a theoretically proposed low-temperature vortex state which is stabilized by point disorder and has a vanishing resistivity, may become unstable under applied currents significantly smaller than the theoretically predicted Jc. More investigation appears necessary in order to resolve this puzzling issue

The CITARS effort by the environmental research institute of Michigan

The objectives of the research task for crop identification technology assessment for remote sensing are outlined. Data gathered by the Landsat 1 multispectral scanner over the U.S. Corn Belt during 1973 is described, and procedures for recognition processing of the data is discussed in detail. The major crops of prime interest were corn and soybeans; they were recognized with different levels of accuracy throughout the growing season, but particularly during late August. Wheat was the major crop of interest in early June

Heterogeneous responses of dorsal root ganglion neurons in neuropathies induced by peripheral nerve trauma and the antiretroviral drug stavudine

© 2014 The Authors. European Journal of Pain published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of European Pain Federation - EFIC®. Funding sources E.K.B. was funded by a BBSRC PhD studentship. A.N., A.S.C.R. and T.P. were funded by a Wellcome Trust Strategic Award (London Pain Consortium; ref. 083259). A.S.C.R. and W.H. were funded by the Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking (Europain; grant agreement no. 115007). We thank Pfizer for providing stavudine. Conflicts of interest None declared. Funded by BBSRC PhD studentship Wellcome Trust Strategic Award. Grant Number: 083259 Innovative Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking. Grant Number: 115007Peer reviewedPublisher PD

A comparison of homonym meaning frequency estimates derived from movie and television subtitles, free association, and explicit ratings

First Online: 10 September 2018Most words are ambiguous, with interpretation dependent on context. Advancing theories of ambiguity resolution is important for any general theory of language processing, and for resolving inconsistencies in observed ambiguity effects across experimental tasks. Focusing on homonyms (words such as bank with unrelated meanings EDGE OF A RIVER vs. FINANCIAL INSTITUTION), the present work advances theories and methods for estimating the relative frequency of their meanings, a factor that shapes observed ambiguity effects. We develop a new method for estimating meaning frequency based on the meaning of a homonym evoked in lines of movie and television subtitles according to human raters. We also replicate and extend a measure of meaning frequency derived from the classification of free associates. We evaluate the internal consistency of these measures, compare them to published estimates based on explicit ratings of each meaning’s frequency, and compare each set of norms in predicting performance in lexical and semantic decision mega-studies. All measures have high internal consistency and show agreement, but each is also associated with unique variance, which may be explained by integrating cognitive theories of memory with the demands of different experimental methodologies. To derive frequency estimates, we collected manual classifications of 533 homonyms over 50,000 lines of subtitles, and of 357 homonyms across over 5000 homonym–associate pairs. This database—publicly available at: www.blairarmstrong.net/homonymnorms/—constitutes a novel resource for computational cognitive modeling and computational linguistics, and we offer suggestions around good practices for its use in training and testing models on labeled data