Effects of Highlights on Gloss Perception

The perception of a glossy surface in a static monochromatic image can occur when a bright highlight is embedded in a compatible context of shading and a bounding contour. Some images naturally give rise to the impression that a surface has a uniform reflectance, characteristic of a shiny object, even though the highlight may only cover a small portion of the surface. Nonetheless, an observer may adopt an attitude of scrutiny in viewing a glossy surface, whereby the impression of gloss is partial and nonuniform at image regions outside of a higlight. Using a rating scale and small probe points to indicate image locations, differential perception of gloss within a single object is investigate in the present study. Observers' gloss ratings are not uniform across the surface, but decrease as a function of distance from highlight. When, by design, the distance from a highlight is uncoupled from the luminance value at corresponding probe points, the decrease in rated gloss correlates more with the distance than with the luminance change. Experiments also indicate that gloss ratings change as a function of estimated surface distance, rather than as a function of image distance. Surface continuity affects gloss ratings, suggesting that apprehension of 3D surface structure is crucial for gloss perception.Air Force Office of Scientific Research (F49620-98-1-0108), Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0409), National Science Foundation (IIS-97-20333); Office of Naval Research (N00014-95-1-0657, N00014-01-1-0624); Whitaker Foundation (RG-99-0186

Parents’ Observations Of Their Young Children’s Music Behaviors During Music Classes After Completing The Children’s Music Behavior Inventory

With the intent of understanding perceptions of early childhood music development, the purpose of this research was to examine parents’ observations of their young children during music classes after completing the Children’s Music Behavior Inventory (Valerio & Reynolds, 2015). My guiding research question was: How do knowledge of CMBI and viewing informal music class video recordings influence parents’ perceptions and understanding of their three-year-old children’s music behaviors and development during a two-month period? Participants included five parents of three-year-old children in the 3B classroom at Bright Horizons, a preschool located in Columbia, South Carolina. During the data collection process, I used homogeneous intensity sampling, participant observation, multiple observers, and multiple data sources to investigate how parents observed and reported their child’s music behaviors. The guiding prompts and data sources included Children’s Music Behavior Inventory (Valerio & Reynolds, 2015), individual audiorecorded interviews regarding CMBI, video-recorded music engagements, individual audio-recorded think-aloud interviews, and parent participant exit questionnaires. I transcribed and coded each data source and promoted internal validity and trustworthiness by using strategies discussed by Patton (2015), which include constant comparison, triangulation, member checks, and critical friend review. Emergent themes included the following: (a) parents first observed music behaviors and later, they observed subtle music behaviors, (b) parents observed social behaviors during the music engagement, (c) parents observed non-music learning through music engagement, (d) parents reported positive feelings, and (e) parents appreciated learning from CMBI, viewing video-recordings of their children in music engagements, and talking with me about their child’s music development. Results of this study underscore the importance of parents’ understanding and recognition of their child’s music behaviors and music development. Parent participants shared valuable social and behavioral information that helped me understand their child’s social behaviors, personality, and attitudes. The parents also reported that the completion of CMBI and the opportunity to watch video-recorded music engagement sessions increased their awareness and understandings of young children’s music behaviors. As parents increase their ability to recognize music behaviors by using tools such as CMBI, by observing music engagement sessions, or by conversing with an early childhood music development specialist, they may be more likely to encourage and support those music behaviors. The more parents understand about young children’s music behaviors, the more likely they may be to recognize and support those behaviors by developing techniques and seeking opportunities to understand and promote their young child’s music behaviors and music development

Closing the Loop: Integrating SNAPPS into an outpatient morning report to foster self-directed learning and encourage use of evidence based medicine

This resources describes a novel approach to outpatient morning report. This format encourages self-directed learning as well as teaches residents to use the clinical literature to ensure they were providing optimal patient care. Each resident daily chooses a clinical question from that day\u27s patient care, investigates and brings the answer back to the group during morning report. This resource includes a description of the integration and implementation of this format as well as the handout used by the residents. Since the implementation of our new morning report format, our residents have consistently read about their patients on a nightly basis. This serves to foster improved recall of key concepts when a similar case presents itself. Our morning report also provides a guaranteed follow-up opportunity for residents to share what they have learned, even if their preceptor is not in clinic the following day. We also feel it reinforces the importance of self-directed learning. Finally, it serves not only as a resource for residents to use but also can be used for Program Review purposes to provide tangible data that EBM is indeed occurring on a regular basis. We have received positive feedback from both residents and faculty members. Feedback solicited from residents included: They like being held accountable for the final step of the SNAPPS model. They feel these are professional habits that will need to be maintained throughout their medical careers. They appreciate the opportunity to learn not only from their own patients, but from their colleagues’ cases. They like how they are continually exposed to more novel resources, by hearing what other residents were using as sources. They noted that it offered a concise format for teaching. They think it is quick, specific, to the point and really high yield. They also value the opportunity to teach. They feel that they are more likely to retain information by having to teach it to someone. They enjoy the social learning and active discussions which are promoted by this new format. Feedback from attendings included: The new morning report exponentially increases the amount of learning points each resident is exposed to for topics pertinent to daily practice. This format empowers residents to become more comfortable with how to look up articles and critique them. They are now given more practical experience at generating specific clinical questions. AAMC MedEdPORTAL publication ID 9142. Link to origina

Idealized female beauty, social comparisons, and awareness intervention material

Previous research indicates that exposure to the idealized thin media standard of female beauty can contribute to body dissatisfaction, negative self-perception, depressed mood, and disordered eating. Importantly, studies have revealed that social comparison processes underlie this negative media effect: Women routinely compare themselves with the encountered mass-mediated thin ideals, which, in turn, elicits negative consequences. While there are a multitude of studies on this topic, little is known about how this negative effect can be counteracted. We tested whether watching an awareness intervention video highlighting the artificial nature of mass-mediated idealized female beauty reduces social comparison processes in a subsequent situation. As a replication of previous research, we found that exposure to the awareness intervention material reduced social comparison processes. Supplementary analysis revealed that this effect was mediated through a change in the ideal self: Watching the awareness material elicited a more realistic perception of the specific body that individuals ideally wanted to possess. This more realistic ideal-self standard, in turn, reduced social comparison processes

Idealized female beauty, social comparisons, and awareness intervention material

Previous research indicates that exposure to the idealized thin media standard of female beauty can contribute to body dissatisfaction, negative self-perception, depressed mood, and disordered eating. Importantly, studies have revealed that social comparison processes underlie this negative media effect: Women routinely compare themselves with the encountered mass-mediated thin ideals, which, in turn, elicits negative consequences. While there are a multitude of studies on this topic, little is known about how this negative effect can be counteracted. We tested whether watching an awareness intervention video highlighting the artificial nature of mass-mediated idealized female beauty reduces social comparison processes in a subsequent situation. As a replication of previous research, we found that exposure to the awareness intervention material reduced social comparison processes. Supplementary analysis revealed that this effect was mediated through a change in the ideal self: Watching the awareness material elicited a more realistic perception of the specific body that individuals ideally wanted to possess. This more realistic ideal-self standard, in turn, reduced social comparison processes

Acid and non-acid gastro-esophageal refluxes in children with chronic pulmonary diseases

SummaryObjectivesAcid gastro-esophageal reflux has been shown associated with chronic pulmonary diseases. The role of non-acid refluxes in these children is still unknown. Therefore we investigated the prevalence of acid and non-acid refluxes, and their association with desaturations, in children with chronic pulmonary symptoms.MethodsIn 25 children aged 6 months to 15 years with unexplained chronic cough, wheeze or sputum production, refluxes were assessed by 24h-multiple intra-esophageal impedance measurements, simultaneous pH metry and continuous recording of oxygen saturation.ResultspH in the proximal and distal esophagus as well as six impedance channels were evaluated in all subjects. A mean of 129.4 refluxes per day per patient was detected. Complete and technically usable readings of oxygen saturation were obtained in 14 children. In this group the subjects had a mean of 112.6 refluxes and 92.6 desaturations per day per patient. The symptom index and symptom sensitivity index for acid refluxes were 34.7% and 24.6%, respectively, for non-acid refluxes 3.0% and 66.7%, respectively.ConclusionsWe found a high prevalence of acid reflux and a very low number of non-acid refluxes in this population. The symptom index was negative for all types of reflux, whereas the symptom sensitivity index was positive for both acid and non-acid reflux. Our data support a relation between acid gastro-esophageal refluxes and chronic pulmonary symptoms; however, this study does not support a role of non-acid reflux in children with respiratory symptoms, which are not on antacid medication

Free cow traffic in automatic milking systems (AMS)

In Automatic Milking Systems (AMS), cows are kept in a free stall barn equipped with one or several milking units (MU). The cows’ activities in the system are called cow traffic. There are three types of cow traffic systems: guided, partly-guided and free. Free systems have no gates, allowing the cows access to the feeding and resting areas at any time. This study pre-sents the results of on-farm research on such free systems, especially with a view to produc-tion results, feeding and management routines, animal health, and housing. The underlying field work was undertaken on nine commercial dairy farms in Sweden and comprised of man-ager (farmer) interviews, own observations at the target-barns, and the acquisition of standard data that were collected and stored by the farms’ AMS software programmes. The data, cov-ering the system responses and interactions of 837 lactating cows in 15 MUs over a period of 30 days were subsequently processed by aid of the statistical pc-programme SAS and Micro-soft Excel. With each of the 15 investigated MUs shared by 40 to 65 cows, the milking frequency varied from 2.50 to 2.84 milkings per cow and day at intervals between 8.4 and 9.6 hours. While there was no relationship between milking frequency and annual milk yield or herd size, the latter clearly affected milking intervals in a positive fashion. The number of non-milking (ex-tra) visits to the MUs varied between 0.71 and 1.51 per day. When cows paid up to two extra visits and five visits in total to the MUs, milkings took place at shorter intervals and were more evenly distributed over the day. However, no additional positive development in milk-ing interval could be seen for more than two extra visits. There was a tendency for a signifi-cant negative correlation (p<0.09) between the number of extra visits per cow and her annual milk yield. There also was a significant negative correlation (p<0.001) between the number of extra visits per cow and her daily milk yield. The share of unsuccessful milkings varied widely, ranging from 1.94 to 12.19 % of all milkings (median 3.17 %). If there were specific times for fetching cows that were late for milking, cows with unsuccessful milkings were also fetched, even though the farmers were not aware of this. The feeding patterns applied on the participating farms were distinctly different from each other and ranged from 2 to 16 times per day. Whereas all nine farmers stated that the cows were fed roughage ad lib, only two actually had feed on the feeding table at all times. On four of the farms, the feeding table was empty every morning. In consequence milking activities were highest after morning feeding and low prior to feeding. Only 56 % of the farmers had an idea how much milk they were feeding for at the feeding table. There was a significant nega-tive correlation (p<0.023) between the maximum allowance of concentrate per cow and day in the MU and the annual milk yield per cow. There was a tendency for a positive correlation (p<0.093) between the maximum concentrate allowance in the MU and the number of extra visits, however without affecting the number of daily milkings. The fetching frequencies were quite low, compared to what has been observed in research studies. Free time in the MU had a large effect on the number of involuntary milkings (fetch-ings). For free time over 11 %, there were 2.1 % involuntary milkings, but for free time less than 11 % there were 5.0 % involuntary milkings. There was a significant positive correlation (p<0.036) between the proportion of involuntary milkings and herd size. The average fetching frequency for the farms with less than 55 cows per MU was 2.3 % (1.0 – 3.8 %) and for the farms with more than 60 cows it was 7.1 % (6.1 – 8.0 %). The average minimum interval for fetching was 13 hours, with variations from 10 to 20 hours. There was a negative correlation (not significant) between the fetching frequency and the minimum interval for fetching. When there were no specific times for fetching, the milking interval was more regular during the day, but somewhat longer than on farms with specific fetching routines. Cleaning of the MU had a strong effect on the number of milkings per hour, and there was a drop in milkings already some time before the actual cleaning. Usually there was a peak in milkings after cleaning. However, if the feeding table was empty prior to cleaning and feeding occurred shortly after cleaning, the peak was levelled off. There were considerable differences in the average milk flow rate, varying from 2.01 to 2.56 kg milk/minute (mean = 2.21). It turned out that herd size in terms of cows/MU was significantly positive correlated to the av-erage milk flow rate in the herd (p<0.013). There were great differences regarding the average bulk milk somatic cell count (BMCC). It varied between 140 000 and 275 000 cells/ml (average 206 000). There was no pattern ob-served, when studying health problems on the investigated farms. Investments in AMS were primarily motivated by the need to provide for more flexibility in daily farm management. Other reasons were the reduction of heavy work related to conventional milking and to be less dependent of extern employees. A technical interest was also mentioned for motivation. Alarms and on-call duty were not a problem for any of the interviewed farmers.I automatiska mjölkningssystem (AMS) hålls korna i ett lösdriftsstall, utrustad med en eller flera mjölkstationer (MS). Kornas aktiviteter i systemet kallas kotrafik. Det finns tre system för kotrafik: styrd, styrd med förselektering och fri. I fri kotrafik finns inga grindar och korna kan röra sig helt fritt mellan foder- och liggavdelningen när som helst på dygnet. Syftet med den här studien var att undersöka fri kotrafik med avseende på produktionsresultat, utfodrings- och skötselrutiner, djurhälsa och inhysning. Studien omfattade nio kommersiella mjölkgårdar i Sverige. Den bestod av intervjuer med lantbrukarna, observationer i AMS-stallen, samt nedladdning av data från gårdarnas managementprogram. De insamlade uppgifterna innehöll information om interaktioner för totalt 837 mjölkande kor i 15 MS under en 30-dagars period, behandlades sedan i statistikprogrammet SAS och Microsoft Excel. Var och en av de undersökta mjölkstationerna delades av mellan 40 och 65 kor och mjölkningsfrekvensen låg på 2,50 till 2,84 mjölkningar per ko och dag, samtidigt som mjölkningsintervallet varierade mellan 8,4 och 9,6 timmar. Det fanns inget samband mellan mjölkningsfrekvens och årsavkastning eller gruppstorlek (antal kor per MS), men den senare hade en gynnsam effekt på mjölkningsintervallet (större grupper hade ett kortare intervall). Även antalet avvisningar (extra besök) per ko och dag, som varierade mellan 0,71 och 1,51, hade en positiv effekt på mjölkningsintervallet. Upp till omkring två avvisningar och fem totala besök till MS per ko och dag blev mjölkningsintervallen kortare och jämnare, men vid fler avvisningar kunde ingen ytterligare positiv förändring i mjölkningsintervallet påvisas. Det fanns en tendens till en signifikant negativ korrelation (p<0,09) mellan antalet avvisningar och årsavkastningen per ko. Det fanns en signifikant negativ korrelation (p<0,001) mellan antalet avvisningar och dygnsavkastningen per ko. Variationen i andelen misslyckade mjölkningar var stor: 1,94 till 12,19 % av alla mjölkningar (median 3,17). Där specifika tider för hämtning av kor med långa mjölkningsintervall tillämpades hämtades också kor med misslyckade mjölkningar, även om ägaren inte var medveten om detta. Det fanns stora skillnader i antalet utfodringar mellan de undersökta gårdarna, från 2 till 16 gånger per dygn. Alla nio lantbrukare påstod att de utfodrade grovfoder ad lib, men endast två bekräftade att det alltid fanns foder på foderbordet dygnet runt. På fyra av gårdarna var foderbordet tomt varje morgon vilket resulterade i låg mjölkningsaktivitet innan morgonutfodringen och hög aktivitet efteråt. Endast 56 % av lantbrukarna visste hur mycket mjölk de utfodrade för vid foderbordet. Det fanns en signifikant negativ korrelation (p<0,023) mellan maxgivan kraftfoder i MS per ko och dag och årsavkastningen per ko. Det fanns en tendens till positiv korrelation (p<0,093) mellan maxgivan i MS och antalet avvisningar, men antalet mjölkningar per ko och dag påverkades inte av kraftfodergivan i MS. Hämtningsfrekvenserna var relativt låga jämförd med vad som visats i försök. Andelen fri tid i MS hade stor effekt på andelen ofrivilliga mjölkningar (hämtningar). Då det fanns över 11 % fri tid i MS var andelen ofrivilliga mjölkningar endast 2,1 %, men då den fria tiden var lägre än 11 % var andelen i stället 5,0 %. Det fanns en signifikant positiv korrelation (p<0,036) mellan andelen ofrivilliga mjölkningar och gruppstorleken. Den genomsnittliga hämtningsfrekvensen var 2,3 % (1,0 till 3,8 %) för gårdar med färre än 55 kor och 7,1 % (6,1 till 8,0 %) för gårdar med fler än 60 kor. Det minsta intervallet då kor hämtades till mjölkning var i genomsnitt 13 timmar, men varierade mellan 10 och 20 timmar. Det fanns en negativ korrelation (ej signifikant) mellan hämtningsfrekvensen och minimum intervallet för hämtning. När det inte fanns några specifika tider för hämtning var mjölkningsintervallet jämnt fördelat över dygnet, men något längre än på gårdar med specifika hämtningsrutiner. Diskning av MS hade en stark effekt på mjölkningsfrekvensen och antalet mjölkningar per timme minskade redan en stund innan själva diskningen började. Normalt fanns en tydlig topp i antalet mjölkningar efter diskning, men om foderbordet var tomt innan diskning och utfodring skedde kort tid efter, fanns ingen sådan topp. Det fanns stora skillnader i den genomsnittliga mjölkflödeshastigheten på gårdarna, med variationer från 2,01 till 2,56 kg mjölk per minut (medel 2,21). Det fanns en signifikant positiv korrelation (p<0,013) mellan antalet kor per MS och det genomsnittliga mjölkflödet i besättningen. Det fanns stora skillnader mellan de undersökta gårdarna med avseende på det genomsnittliga tankcelltalet. Det varierade mellan 140 000 och 275 000 celler per ml (medel 206 000).. Den främsta motivationen för att investera i AMS var den ökade flexibiliteten i det dagliga arbetet. Andra orsaker var att slippa det tunga mjölkningsarbetet i konventionell mjölkning och att bli mindre beroende av extern arbetskraft. Tekniskt intresse nämndes också som motivation. Larm och jourbehovet uppfattades inte som något problem bland de intervjuade lantbrukarna

Kinematics and excitation of the molecular hydrogen accretion disc in NGC 1275

We report the results of high spatial and spectral resolution integral-field spectroscopy of the central~3×3 arcsec2 of the active galaxy NGC 1275 (Perseus A), based on observations with the Near-infrared Integral Field Spectrograph (NIFS) and the ALTit