The Influence of Surface Detail on Object Identification in Alzheimer's Patients and Healthy Participants

Image format (Laws, Adlington, Gale, Moreno-Martínez, & Sartori, 2007), ceiling effects in controls (Fung et al., 2001; Laws et al., 2005; Moreno-Martínez, & Laws, 2007; 2008), and nuisance variables (Funnell & De Mornay Davis, 1996; Funnell & Sheridan, 1992; Stewart, Parkin & Hunkin, 1992) all influence the emergence of category specific deficits in Alzheimer‟s dementia (AD). Thus, the predominant use of line drawings of familiar, everyday items in category specific research is problematic. Moreover, this does not allow researchers to explore the extent to which format may influence object recognition. As such, the initial concern of this thesis was the development of a new corpus of 147 colour images of graded naming difficulty, the Hatfield Image Test (HIT; Adlington, Laws, & Gale, 2009), and the collection of relevant normative data including ratings of: age of acquisition, colour diagnosticity, familiarity, name agreement, visual complexity, and word frequency. Furthermore, greyscale and line-drawn versions of the HIT corpus were developed (and again, the associated normative data obtained), to permit research into the influence of image format on the emergence of category specific effects in patients with AD, and in healthy controls. Using the HIT, several studies were conducted including: (i) a normative investigation of the effects of category and image format on naming accuracy and latencies in healthy controls; (ii) an exploration of the effects of image format (using the HIT images presented in colour, greyscale, and line-drawn formats) and category on the naming performance of AD patients, and age-matched controls performing below ceiling; (iii) a longitudinal investigation comparing AD patient performance to that of age-matched controls, on a range of semantic tasks (naming, sorting, word-picture matching), using colour, greyscale, and line-drawn versions of the HIT; (iv) a comparison of naming in AD patients and age-matched controls on the HIT and the (colour, greyscale and line-drawn) images from the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) corpus; and (v) a meta-analysis to explore category specific naming in AD using the Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980) versus other corpora. Taken together, the results of these investigations showed first, that image format interacts with category. For both AD patients and controls, colour is more important for the recognition of living things, with a significant nonliving advantage emerging for the line-drawn images, but not the colour images. Controls benefitted more from additional surface information than AD patients, which chapter 6 shows results from low-level visual cortical impairment in AD. For controls, format was also more important for the recognition of low familiarity, low frequency items. In addition, the findings show that adequate control data affects the emergence of category specific deficits in AD. Specifically, based on within-group comparison chapters 6, 7, and 8 revealed a significant living deficit in AD patients. However, when compared to controls performing below ceiling, as demonstrated in chapters 7 and 8, this deficit was only significant for the line drawings, showing that the performance observed in AD patients is simply an exaggeration of the norm

Synthetic applications of the Shapiro reaction

Imperial Users onl

Whose voices? The fate of Luigi Nono’s 'Voci destroying muros'

Luigi Nono's Voci destroying muros for female voices and small orchestra was performed for the first and only time at the Holland Festival in 1970. A setting of texts by female prisoners and factory workers, it marks a sharp stylistic departure from Nono's political music of the 1960s by virtue of its audible quotations of revolutionary songs, its readily intelligible text setting, and especially its retention of the diatonic structure of the song on which the piece is based, the communist “Internationale.” Nono's decision, following the premiere, to withdraw the work from his catalogue suggests that he came to regard it as transgressing an important boundary in his engagement with “current reality.” I examine the work and its withdrawal in the context of discourses within the Italian left in the 1960s that accused the intellectuals of the Partito Comunista Italiano of unhelpfully mediating the class struggle. Nono's contentious reading of Antonio Gramsci, offered as justification for his avant-garde compositional style, certainly provided fuel for this critique. But Voci destroying muros suggests receptivity on the part of the composer—albeit only momentary—to achieving a more direct representation of the voices of the dispossessed

Analytical and Presentation Medium Considerations in Treatment Acceptability Research

The purpose of this two-part thesis was to develop a method for analyzing the treatment acceptability (TA) of brief behavioral interventions for common aberrant behaviors and to assess the influence of presentation medium on TA scores. Mothers of young children viewed video vignettes and read scripts depicting an aberrant behavior (i.e., non-compliance, aggression) and a common behavioral intervention (i.e., differential attention, positive reinforcement via token economy, bribery, response cost, time-out, and spanking). Their responses to a variety of TA questions including the Treatment Evaluation Inventory – Short Form (TEI-SF; Kelley, Heffer, Gresham, & Elliot, 1989) were analysed individually and as a group. The results indicated that TA was greater for punishment-based interventions than in previous research, that presentation medium impacted TA scores, and that TA data is best analysed at the individual level to ensure variations are not lost through aggregation

Politics and the popular in British Music Theatre of the Vietnam era

British music theatre works of the 1960s and early 1970s largely avoided direct engagement with contemporary political topics. Intriguing in this light is Michael Hall’s recent proposition that Brecht’s music theatre set the terms for younger British composers’ experiments with the genre. Brecht proved a complicated model, however, because of composers’ anxieties about music’s capability to convey socio-political messages, and their reluctance to accord popular music a progressive function. The entanglement of Vietnam war activism and rock music forms the backdrop for analyses of two works that do address Vietnam directly – George Newson’s Arena and Anthony Gilbert’s The Scene-Machine (both 1971) – both of which also pass pointed comment on different popular music traditions. Both works highlight the difficulty in emulating Brecht’s model in an era when the concept of ‘the political’ was being significantly redefined, and the cultural gap between activist cadres and the wider population was unprecedentedly visible

Making a medieval stained glass window: An archaeometric study of technology and production

Medieval stained glass windows are relatively untapped sources of information about medieval technology and production, because the architectural context prohibits sampling glass for chemical analysis. This research focuses on the comprehensive study of York Minster’s Great East Window (1405-1408) through chemical analysis, investigating glass-making technology and provenance, glass-painting craft organisation, and development of a methodology using the in situ technique, handheld/portable x-ray fluorescence (pXRF). This research also drew on historical documentation, art historical information, and analysis by EPMA-WDS, LA-ICP-MS, and TIMS. Poor surface conditions make characterisation of most elements difficult. Through comparing pXRF with other techniques, five quantifiable elements were identified (Cu, Zn, Rb, Sr and Zr). These were used successfully to distinguish glass recipes and batches/sheets of glass, and potentially they may be used to provenance glass (see below). An attachment was designed to mitigate the interference of lead cames, which hold the glass pieces together, enabling high-precision in situ analysis. Elemental analysis revealed two groups, one consistent with glass produced in Staffordshire and the other with glass produced in the Rhenish region. A longer-term relationship between York Minster and the Staffordshire glass-making industry was discussed. Results suggest medieval glass-makers were capable of greater control over colour generation and glass composition than previously recognised. Synthesis of legacy data proved a useful provenance tool, prompting reinterpretation of previous observations that English windows underwent a compositional change at the end of the fourteenth century. Instead of changes in glass-making technology, it appears glass-making production shifted towards the Rhine. This study is the first to apply the concept of the “batch” to study craft organisation in medieval glass-painting workshops. Batches were identified chemically, and their distribution across the window studied. This yielded insights into the window’s production, including identification of cellular-style production. Glass painted by John Thornton, the master glass-painter, is identified/suggested