How visual cues to speech rate influence speech perception

Spoken words are highly variable and therefore listeners interpret speech sounds relative to the surrounding acoustic context, such as the speech rate of a preceding sentence. For instance, a vowel midway between short /ɑ/ and long /a:/ in Dutch is perceived as short /ɑ/ in the context of preceding slow speech, but as long /a:/ if preceded by a fast context. Despite the well-established influence of visual articulatory cues on speech comprehension, it remains unclear whether visual cues to speech rate also influence subsequent spoken word recognition. In two ‘Go Fish’-like experiments, participants were presented with audio-only (auditory speech + fixation cross), visual-only (mute videos of talking head), and audiovisual (speech + videos) context sentences, followed by ambiguous target words containing vowels midway between short /ɑ/ and long /a:/. In Experiment 1, target words were always presented auditorily, without visual articulatory cues. Although the audio-only and audiovisual contexts induced a rate effect (i.e., more long /a:/ responses after fast contexts), the visual-only condition did not. When, in Experiment 2, target words were presented audiovisually, rate effects were observed in all three conditions, including visual-only. This suggests that visual cues to speech rate in a context sentence influence the perception of following visual target cues (e.g., duration of lip aperture), which at an audiovisual integration stage bias participants’ target categorization responses. These findings contribute to a better understanding of how what we see influences what we hear

Análise de dados altimétricos obtidos por carta topográfica SRTM, Aster GDEM e Topodata para a região do município de Canela, RS.

Modelos digitais de superfície terrestre são utilizados para realizar diversas análises relacionadas à modelagem ambiental. Analisar diferentes recursos disponíveis, como SRTM, ASTER GDEM e TOPODATA, faz-se necessário, uma vez que esses dados são obtidos e disponibilizados gratuitamente. Como forma de identificar os melhores recursos, este estudo obteve os resultados e os erros gerados pela manipulação dos modelos digitais de elevação (MDE) do Município de Canela, no Rio Grande do Sul, obtidos por comparação de carta topográfica 1:50.000 com dados do SRTM, ASTER GDEM e TOPODATA, a fim de avaliar a confiabilidade dos dados e determinar sua discrepância. Para a análise da região do Município de Canela, concluímos que os dados SRTM apresentaram menor variação do erro em comparação com ASTER GDEM e TOPODATA, considerando como referência dados altimétricos na escala 1:50.000

The Density of Aqueous Solutions of Copper Sulfate and Sulfuric Acid.

n/

Observations of the Crab Nebula with H.E.S.S. Phase II

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) phase I instrument was an array of four $100\,\mathrm{m}^2$ mirror area Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) that has very successfully mapped the sky at photon energies above $\sim 100\,$GeV. Recently, a $600\,\mathrm{m}^2$ telescope was added to the centre of the existing array, which can be operated either in standalone mode or jointly with the four smaller telescopes. The large telescope lowers the energy threshold for gamma-ray observations to several tens of GeV, making the array sensitive at energies where the Fermi-LAT instrument runs out of statistics. At the same time, the new telescope makes the H.E.S.S. phase II instrument. This is the first hybrid IACT array, as it operates telescopes of different size (and hence different trigger rates) and different field of view. In this contribution we present results of H.E.S.S. phase II observations of the Crab Nebula, compare them to earlier observations, and evaluate the performance of the new instrument with Monte Carlo simulations.Comment: In Proceedings of the 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2015), The Hague, The Netherland

Proposta de organização e visualização de grande quantidade de imagens orbitais através de web services.

The organization of satellite imagery seeks to facilitate the presentation and manipulation of spatial information in projects of Land Management's Strategic area from Embrapa Satellite Monitoring, enabling integration between mapped data and interoperability of image data and mapped regions. As a way to standardize this organization, we followed the recommendations of national and international bodies that deal with the standardization of geographic metadata, specifically satellite images. To view this integration, a webmapping interface was created. A webmapping must be prepared to meet the needs of relationship between user and product. In this paper we propose a standardized structure for storage and maintenance of images obtained by satellite sensors aiming its availability on the web through web map services, examples of interoperability. The non-interoperability prevents sharing of information and computing resources. The visualization of web map services takes place through a webmapping that benefits from the organization structure of satellite images proposed in this paper. The hierarchical organization proposed research assistance of satellite images. As they are entered into the database, now new images will be organized in a logical structure, without affecting the search for listings older images. The webmapping allows a direct link between the metadata and geospatial data visualization. Combining web services based on Geographic Information Systems (GIS) in conjunction with the Flex technology allows the creation of Rich Internet Applications (RIA) giving the user more possibilities of interaction via the Web

Dynamic Many-Body Theory. II. Dynamics of Strongly Correlated Fermi Fluids

We develop a systematic theory of multi-particle excitations in strongly interacting Fermi systems. Our work is the generalization of the time-honored work by Jackson, Feenberg, and Campbell for bosons, that provides, in its most advanced implementation, quantitative predictions for the dynamic structure function in the whole experimentally accessible energy/momentum regime. Our view is that the same physical effects -- namely fluctuations of the wave function at an atomic length scale -- are responsible for the correct energetics of the excitations in both Bose and Fermi fluids. Besides a comprehensive derivation of the fermion version of the theory and discussion of the approximations made, we present results for homogeneous He-3 and electrons in three dimensions. We find indeed a significant lowering of the zero sound mode in He-3 and a broadening of the collective mode due to the coupling to particle-hole excitations in good agreement with experiments. The most visible effect in electronic systems is the appearance of a ``double-plasmon'' excitation.Comment: submitted to Phys. Rev.