Learning from where ‘eye’ remotely look or point: impact on number line estimation error in adults.

In this paper we present an investigation into the use of visual cues during number line estimation, and their influence on cognitive processes for reducing number line estimation error. Participants completed a 0-1000 number line estimation task pre and post a brief intervention in which they observed static-visual or dynamicvisual cues (control, anchor, gaze cursor, mouse cursor) and also made estimation marks to test effective number-target estimation. Results indicated that a significant pre-test to post-test reduction in estimation error was present for dynamic visual cues of modelled eye-gaze and mouse-cursor. However, there was no significant performance difference between pre and post-test for the control or static anchor conditions. Findings are discussed in relation to the extent to which anchor points alone are meaningful in promoting successful segmentation of the number line, and whether dynamic cues promote the utility of these locations in reducing error through attentional guidance

Energy Efficiency Improvements in Dry Drilling with Optimised Diamond-Like Carbon Coating

We demonstrate enhancements of performance and energy efficiency of cutting tools by deposition of diamond-like carbon (DLC) coatings on machine parts. DLC was deposited on steel drill bits, using plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition (PECVD) with the acetylene precursor diluted with argon, to produce a surface with low friction and low wear rate. Drill bit performance in dry drilling of aluminium was quantified by analysis of power consumption and swarf flow. Optimised deposition conditions produced drill bits with greatly enhanced performance over uncoated drill bits, showing a 25% reduction in swarf clogging, a 36% reduction in power consumption and a greater than five-fold increase in lifetime. Surface analysis with scanning electron microscopy shows that DLC coated drills exhibit much lower aluminium build up on the trailing shank of the drill, enhancing the anti-adhering properties of the drill and reducing heat generation during operation, resulting in the observed improvements in efficiency. Variation of drilling efficiency with argon dilution of precursor is related to changes in the microstructure of the DLC coating

Optical Guidance System /OGS/ for rendezvous and docking Final report

Optical guidance system for Apollo rendezvous and dockin

Dogs recognize dog and human emotions

The perception of emotional expressions allows animals to evaluate the social intentions and motivations of each other. This usually takes place within species; however, in the case of domestic dogs, it might be advantageous to recognize the emotions of humans as well as other dogs. In this sense, the combination of visual and auditory cues to categorize others' emotions facilitates the information processing and indicates high-level cognitive representations. Using a cross-modal preferential looking paradigm, we presented dogs with either human or dog faces with different emotional valences (happy/playful versus angry/aggressive) paired with a single vocalization from the same individual with either a positive or negative valence or Brownian noise. Dogs looked significantly longer at the face whose expression was congruent to the valence of vocalization, for both conspecifics and heterospecifics, an ability previously known only in humans. These results demonstrate that dogs can extract and integrate bimodal sensory emotional information, and discriminate between positive and negative emotions from both humans and dogs

Atomic-scale surface demixing in a eutectic liquid BiSn alloy

Resonant x-ray reflectivity of the surface of the liquid phase of the Bi$_{43}$Sn$_{57}$ eutectic alloy reveals atomic-scale demixing extending over three near-surface atomic layers. Due to the absence of underlying atomic lattice which typically defines adsorption in crystalline alloys, studies of adsorption in liquid alloys provide unique insight on interatomic interactions at the surface. The observed composition modulation could be accounted for quantitatively by the Defay-Prigogine and Strohl-King multilayer extensions of the single-layer Gibbs model, revealing a near-surface domination of the attractive Bi-Sn interaction over the entropy.Comment: 4 pages (two-column), 3 figures, 1 table; Added a figure, updated references, discussion; accepted at Phys. Rev. Let

Optical limiting in solid-core photonic crystal fibers

Optical limiting in solid-core photonic crystal fibers filled with reverse-saturable absorbers has been observed. A sharp change in limiting threshold was found for materials in the fiber holes with refractive indices near n = 1.44

The HCV Synthesis Project: Scope, methodology, and preliminary results

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is hyper-endemic in injecting drug users. There is also excess HCV among non-injection drug users who smoke, snort, or sniff heroin, cocaine, crack, or methamphetamine.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>To summarize the research literature on HCV in drug users and identify gaps in knowledge, we conducted a synthesis of the relevant research carried out between 1989 and 2006. Using rigorous search methods, we identified and extracted data from published and unpublished reports of HCV among drug users. We designed a quality assurance system to ensure accuracy and consistency in all phases of the project. We also created a set of items to assess study design quality in each of the reports we included.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We identified 629 reports containing HCV prevalence rates, incidence rates and/or genotype distribution among injecting or non-injecting drug user populations published between January 1989 and December 2006. The majority of reports were from Western Europe (41%), North America (26%), Asia (11%) and Australia/New Zealand (10%). We also identified reports from Eastern Europe, South America, the Middle East, and the Caribbean. The number of publications reporting HCV rates in drug users increased dramatically between 1989 and 2006 to 27–52 reports per year after 1998.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The data collection and quality assurance phases of the HCV Synthesis Project have been completed. Recommendations for future research on HCV in drug users have come out of our data collection phase. Future research reports can enhance their contributions to our understanding of HCV etiology by clearly defining their drug user participants with respect to type of drug and route of administration. Further, the use of standard reporting methods for risk factors would enable data to be combined across a larger set of studies; this is especially important for HCV seroconversion studies which suffer from small sample sizes and low power to examine risk factors.</p

Transmission properties of nonlinear multimode waveguide arrays

Multimode capillary waveguide arrays containing reverse-saturable absorbers exhibit an enhancement of the nonlinear response. Experimental data are modeled by the effect of partial mode filling, influenced by fill fraction and capillary diameter

Near IR Nonlinear Optics of an Organic Supermolecule

Two-photon accessed excited state absorption is shown to be an important mechanism in the near-IR nonlinear response of an organic supermolecule. This mechanism also provides an enhanced nonlinear absorption in an optical waveguide configuration

Two-Photon Accessed Excited State Absorption in bis(terpyridyl Osmium)-(Porphinato)Zinc

Two-photon absorption properties of a (terpyridyl)osmium-(porphinato)zinc (OsPZnOs) are studied in bulk and waveguides. Integration of OsPZnOs (d\u3e1300GM) in waveguides showed enhanced nonlinear performance and potential for photonic applications