Polysemy in the mental lexicon: relatedness and frequency affect representational overlap

Meaning relatedness affects storage of ambiguous words in the mental lexicon: unrelated meanings(homonymy) are stored separately whereas related senses (polysemy) are stored as one large representational entry. We hypothesised that word frequency could have similar effects on storage, with low-frequency words having high representational overlap and high-frequency words having low representational overlap. Participants performed lexical decision or semantic categorisation to high- and low-frequency nouns with few and many senses. Results showed a three-way interaction between frequency, task type, and polysemy. Low-frequency words showed a polysemy advantage with lexical decision but a polysemy disadvantage with semantic categorisation, whereas high-frequency words showed the opposite pattern. These results confirmed our hypothesis that relatedness and word frequency have similar effects on storage of ambiguous words

Polysemy in the mental lexicon : Relatedness and frequency affect representational overlap.

Funding The reported research and the writing of this paper were sup-ported by a grant awarded by the Graduate School in the College of Life Sciences and Medicine in Aberdeen.Peer reviewedPostprin

Automated Behavioral Analysis Using Instance Segmentation

Animal behavior analysis plays a crucial role in various fields, such as life science and biomedical research. However, the scarcity of available data and the high cost associated with obtaining a large number of labeled datasets pose significant challenges. In this research, we propose a novel approach that leverages instance segmentation-based transfer learning to address these issues. By capitalizing on fine-tuning the classification head of the instance segmentation network, we enable the tracking of multiple animals and facilitate behavior analysis in laboratory-recorded videos. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our method, we conducted a series of experiments, revealing that our approach achieves exceptional performance levels, comparable to human capabilities, across a diverse range of animal behavior analysis tasks. Moreover, we emphasize the practicality of our solution, as it requires only a small number of labeled images for training. To facilitate the adoption and further development of our method, we have developed an open-source implementation named Annolid (An annotation and instance segmentation-based multiple animal tracking and behavior analysis package). The codebase is publicly available on GitHub at https://github.com/cplab/annolid. This resource serves as a valuable asset for researchers and practitioners interested in advancing animal behavior analysis through state-of-the-art techniques

State tomography of capacitively shunted phase qubits with high fidelity

We introduce a new design concept for superconducting quantum bits (qubits) in which we explicitly separate the capacitive element from the Josephson tunnel junction for improved qubit performance. The number of two-level systems (TLS) that couple to the qubit is thereby reduced by an order of magnitude and the measurement fidelity improves to 90%. This improved design enables the first demonstration of quantum state tomography with superconducting qubits using single shot measurements.Comment: submitted to PR

Transformed Dissipation in Superconducting Quantum Circuits

Superconducting quantum circuits must be designed carefully to avoid dissipation from coupling to external control circuitry. Here we introduce the concept of current transformation to quantify coupling to the environment. We test this theory with an experimentally-determined impedance transformation of $\sim 10^5$ and find quantitative agreement better than a factor of 2 between this transformation and the reduced lifetime of a phase qubit coupled to a tunable transformer. Higher-order corrections from quantum fluctuations are also calculated with this theory, but found not to limit the qubit lifetime. We also illustrate how this simple connection between current and impedance transformation can be used to rule out dissipation sources in experimental qubit systems.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Diabetic retinopathy in Tanzania: prevalence and risk factors at entry into a regional screening programme.

OBJECTIVE: The number of adults with diabetes in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is expected to almost double by 2035. This study investigated the prevalence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) and its risk factors at entry into a community-based screening programme. METHODS: All persons with diabetes screened for retinopathy at entry into a screening programme in Kilimanjaro Region, Tanzania between November 2010 and December 2014 were included. Fundus photographs were taken with a Topcon retinal camera following pupil dilation. Data were collected on BP, random blood sugar, duration of diabetes, BMI and visual acuity on entry. RESULTS: A total of 3187 persons were screened for DR. The prevalence of any DR was 27.9% (95%CI 26.4-29.5%) with background diabetic retinopathy (BDR), pre-proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PPDR) and proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR) having a prevalence of 19.1% (95% CI 17.7-20.4%), 6.0% (95%CI 5.2-6.8%) and 2.9% (95%CI 2.3-3.5%), respectively. Maculopathy was present in 16.1% (95%CI 14.8-17.4%) of participants. Multivariable logistic regression analysis for the presence of any DR found independent associations with duration of diabetes (P < 0.0001), systolic BP (P < 0.0001), random blood sugar (P < 0.0001) and attending a government hospital diabetic clinic (P = 0.0339). CONCLUSIONS: This study is the first to present data from a DR screening programme in SSA. The results will provide policymakers with data to aid planning of DR screening and treatment services in the African region. The study highlights the importance of managing comorbidities within DR screening programmes

The Arclight Ophthalmoscope: A Reliable Low-Cost Alternative to the Standard Direct Ophthalmoscope.

Background. The Arclight ophthalmoscope is a low-cost alternative to standard direct ophthalmoscopes. This study compared the Arclight ophthalmoscope with the Heine K180 direct ophthalmoscope to evaluate its reliability in assessing the vertical cup disc ratio (VCDR) and its ease of use (EOU). Methods. Eight medical students used both the Arclight and the Heine ophthalmoscopes to examine the optic disc in 9 subjects. An EOU score was provided after every examination (a higher score indicating that the ophthalmoscope is easier to use). A consultant ophthalmologist provided the reference standard VCDR. Results. 288 examinations were performed. The number of examinations that yielded an estimation of the VCDR was significantly higher for the Arclight ophthalmoscope (125/144, 85%) compared to the Heine ophthalmoscope (88/144, 61%) (p < 0.001). The mean difference from the reference standard VCDR was similar for both instruments, with a mean of -0.078 (95% CI: -0.10 to -0.056) for the Arclight and -0.072 (95% CI: -0.097 to -0.046) for Heine (p = 0.69). The overall EOU score was significantly higher for the Arclight ophthalmoscope (p < 0.001). Conclusion. The Arclight ophthalmoscope performs as well as, and is easier to use than, a standard direct ophthalmoscope, suggesting it is a reliable, low-cost alternative

Reduced phase error through optimized control of a superconducting qubit

Minimizing phase and other errors in experimental quantum gates allows higher fidelity quantum processing. To quantify and correct for phase errors in particular, we have developed a new experimental metrology --- amplified phase error (APE) pulses --- that amplifies and helps identify phase errors in general multi-level qubit architectures. In order to correct for both phase and amplitude errors specific to virtual transitions and leakage outside of the qubit manifold, we implement "half derivative" an experimental simplification of derivative reduction by adiabatic gate (DRAG) control theory. The phase errors are lowered by about a factor of five using this method to $\sim 1.6^{\circ}$ per gate, and can be tuned to zero. Leakage outside the qubit manifold, to the qubit $|2\rangle$ state, is also reduced to $\sim 10^{-4}$ for $20\%$ faster gates.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures with 2 page supplementa

Divergence in Dialogue

Copyright: 2014 Healey et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.This work was supported by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC; http://www.esrc.ac.uk/) through the DynDial project (Dynamics of Conversational Dialogue, RES-062-23-0962) and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC; http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/) through the RISER project (Robust Incremental Semantic Resources for Dialogue, EP/J010383/1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript