Some Applications of Image Analysis to Materials Science

We have presented four applications of Image Analysis to material science. The first one is on a yarn composite SiC where we want to know the relative proportion of matrix, fibers, porosity and the size of the fibers. The results are used to estimate mechanical properties of the composite. The second one is to measure the residual porosity after a laser shock on powder metallurgy steel. The knowledge of the depth of the affected zone is necessary to optimise the laser treatment. The third one uses Fourier transformation to analyse plastic deformation on grains. Values are obtained from Fourier transform images. The last one is to make measurements of the length of cracks on fracture sample, to separate intergranular and transgranular character of a fracture surface

Polycentricity and metropolitan governance. A Swiss case study

The concept of ‘polycentric spatial development’, a central principle of the European Spatial Development Perspective, is closely linked to the concept of ‘sustainable urban development’. But ‘polycentricity’ has different significance at different spatial scales. Within a European context, polycentricity can refer to functional connectivity (supported by developments in ICT and transportation), between global “gateway” cities such as London, Paris and Frankfurt on the one hand, and the utilisation of global economic and knowledge flows coming into these cities for the benefit of other EU cities and regions on the other hand. At a finer geographical scale, ‚polycentricity’ refers to outward diffusion from major cities to smaller ones over a wide area, and focuses on the local linkages that arise from this process. POLYNET is a joint research program of eight European university institutes, funded by the EU program Interreg IIIB Northwestern Europe (NWE). The project is focusing attention on a new phenomenon as far as it refers to the polycentric ‘Mega-City-Region’ in NWE which in turn is characterised by connectivity in an ‘information’ or ‘network’ society. POLYNET examines functional relationships and information flows (material/transportation and virtual/ICT) associated with service sector business activity (banking, insurance, law, accounting, advertising, logistics, management and design consulting) within and between eight major Northwest European polycentric ‘Mega-City-Regions’: South East England; Delta Metropolis, Netherlands; Rhine-Main, Germany; Île-de-France; Dublin, Ireland; Northern Switzerland / Zurich; Rhine-Ruhr, Germany and Brussels, Belgium. The paper first presents the methodological and empirical approaches applied, secondly identifies the polycentric patterns of the European Metropolitan Region of Northern Switzerland / Zurich. A third section describes the analysis of connectivity and inter-relationship of the metropolitan region of Northern Switzerland with regard to other polycentric metropolitan regions. Section four presents an outlook on potential implications for sustainable management of the metropolitan region of Northern Switzerland.

Restoration of Isotropy for Spin Models

Using real-space renormalisation techniques we analyse the Ising model on a Sierpi\'nski gasket with anisotropic microscopic couplings, and observe a restoration of isotropy on macroscopic scales. In particular, via use of a decimation procedure directly on the fractal lattice, we calculate explicitly the exponential anisotropy decay coefficients near the isotropic regime for both ferromagnetic and antiferromagnetic systems. The results suggest the universality of the phenomenon in lattice field theories on fractals.Comment: 10 pages, RevTeX, 4 postscript figures, to appear in Phys. Lett.

Relocalisation de sources anciennes, textuelles et matérielles du XXe siècle : les « aires culturelles » de la vigne en Bourgogne en question

International audienceThis communication shows, from the André Lagrange’s archives, the relocation of the tools of the vineyard before the arrival of phylloxera. André Lagrange is an associate ethnologist at the “Musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires de Paris” (Paris Museum of Arts and People Traditions). These archives are kept at the “Archives Municipales de Beaune” (Beaune Municipal Archives). First, we shall speak about methodology.The archives are from the XXth century but they are similar to the ancient sources that the historians of the Middle Age or of the modern era deal with, taking in account that the data are not complete and that the wine growers witnesses of the practical experiences or users of those tools have died. So incomplete are the data of the ethnologist who has built that documental research up.With that relocation, some information collected on the field are discussed :- the scale of representation of the distribution of the tools of the pre-phylloxera vineyard,- the spheres of cultural influence built from André Lagrange’s maps with their technical, social or naturalist interpretation,- the relevance of those spheres of influence as tools of cultural and historical reflection in ethnology, in archaeology and in linguistics.Cette communication présente la relocalisation sous SIG des outils de la vigne pré-phylloxérique à partir du fonds d’archives d’André Lagrange, ethnologue associé au feu musée des Arts et Traditions Populaires de Paris, et conservées aux Archives Municipales de Beaune. Il sera d’abord question de méthodologie. Bien que datées du XXe siècle, ces sources sont en effet analogues aux sources anciennes dont traite l’historien du Moyen Âge ou de l’époque moderne, compte-tenu de leur incomplétude, de la disparition aussi bien des vignerons témoins des pratiques ou utilisateurs directs de ces outils que celle de l’ethnologue qui a constitué ce fonds de recherche.Avec cette relocalisation des informations de terrain recueillies, sont discutées :- l’échelle de représentation de cette répartition les outils de la vigne pré-phylloxérique ;- les « aires culturelles » déduites des cartes construites initialement par A. Lagrange avec leurs interprétations techniques, sociales ou naturalistes ;- la pertinence de ces aires comme outil de réflexions culturelles et historiques en ethnologie, en archéologie, et en linguistique

Grey matter volume correlates with virtual water maze task performance in boys with androgen excess

Major questions remain about the specific role of testosterone in human spatial navigation. We tested 10 boys (mean age 11.65 years) with an extremely rare disorder of androgen excess (Familial Male Precocious Puberty, FMPP) and 40 healthy boys (mean age 12.81 years) on a virtual version of the Morris Water Maze task. In addition, anatomical magnetic resonance images were collected for all patients and a subsample of the controls (n=21) after task completion. Behaviourally, no significant differences were found between both groups. However, in the MRI analyses, grey matter volume (GMV) was correlated with performance using voxel-based morphometry (VBM). Group differences in correlations of performance with GMV were apparent in medial regions of the prefrontal cortex as well as the middle occipital gyrus and the cuneus. By comparison, similar correlations for both groups were found in the inferior parietal lobule. These data provide novel insight into the relation between testosterone and brain development and suggest that morphological differences in a spatial navigation network covary with performance in spatial ability. Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of IBRO

Effect of attention control on sustained attention during induced anxiety

Anxiety has wide-reaching and complex effects on cognitive performance. Although it can intrude on cognition and interfere with performance, it can also facilitate information processing and behavioural responses. In a previous study, we showed that anxiety induced by threat of shock facilitates performance on the Sustained Attention to Response Task, a vigilance test, which probes response inhibition to infrequent nogo stimuli. The present study sought to identify factors that may have contributed to such improved performance, including on- and off-task thinking (assessed with thought probes) and individual differences in attention control, as measured with the Attention Control Scale. Replicating our prior finding, we showed that shock threat significantly reduced errors of commission on the nogo trials. However, we extended this finding in demonstrating that this effect was driven by subjects with low attention control. We therefore confirm that anxiety increases inhibitory control of prepotent responses-a mechanism which is adaptive under threat-and show that this effect is greater in those who rely more upon such prepotent responding, i.e., those with low attentional control

Simulating interactions with virtual characters for the treatment of social phobia

Virtual Reality (VR) has nowadays become a very useful tool for therapists in the treatment of phobias. Indeed, it allows the simulation of scenarios which are difficult to reproduce in real life. It also allows for a situation to be repeated as much as one wants. Moreover, it allows for a complete control over the situation. The simulation can be stopped if the patient cannot handle it. It can also be tweaked for gradual exposure. Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) has proven to be efficient in the context of phobias such as acrophobia or the fear of flying. Social phobia, however, are much harder to deal with. Indeed, as humans, we are experts in human representations and behaviors; it makes it much harder to obtain credible and immersive environments. In this thesis, we describe a set of tools and applications which we have developed to be used in VRET of social phobia and agoraphobia with crowds. We first describe how we create different scenarios for VRET of social phobia. We then expose the application we have developed which allows for elaborate interactions between a user and virtual characters. In particular, we have designed and implemented a software which allows for virtual characters to change behavior depending on the user's eye contact behavior. It allows them to seem interested when being looked at and distracted when not. We then describe the model we have implemented to simulate gaze attention behaviors for crowds of virtual characters. This consists of a method that automatically detects where and when each virtual character in a crowd should look. Secondly, it consists of a dedicated gaze Inverse Kinematics (IK) solver in order for the virtual characters to satisfy the constraints defined by the automatically detected points to be looked at. This allows for the characters to perform the looking motion in a natural and human like way. We then describe the architecture we have developed to combine the work we have done in the domain of social phobia and this model of attention behaviors for crowd characters. We thus use our model of looking behaviors to allow for crowd characters to look at each other. We also use eye-tracking and optical motion capture to determine where a user is looking in a CAVE environment. The virtual characters then respond by either looking at the user, looking at what the user is looking at, or looking at other characters in the crowd. We thus obtain an immersive and interactive environment for VRET in the domain of agoraphobia with crowds. The third part of this thesis describes various experiments we have conducted in order to validate our applications. Our first study consists of using VR in a head-mounted display (HMD) for the treatment of social phobia. In this study, we also use eye-tracking in order to analyze eye contact avoidance behaviors before and after therapy. We then discuss the use of eye-tracking as a tool to help assess and diagnose social phobia. Since eye contact avoidance behaviors are frequent in people suffering from such phobias, eye-tracking can certainly be a helpful tool. We describe an experiment in which we tested eye-tracking as a diagnosis and assessment tool on a phobic population and on a control group. We also describe an experiment to evaluate the potential of our proposed interaction loop in the context of social phobia. Finally, we describe the experiment we have conducted to evaluate our application in the context of agoraphobia with crowds

When Expectancies Are Violated: A Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Positive and negative expectancies drive behavioral and neurobiological placebo and nocebo effects, which in turn can have profound effects on patient improvement or worsening. However, expectations of events and outcomes are often not met in daily life and clinical practice. It is currently unknown how this affects placebo and nocebo effects. We have demonstrated that the violation of expectancies, such as when there is a discrepancy between what is expected and what is actually presented, reduces both placebo and nocebo effects while causing an extinction of placebo effects. The reduction of placebo and nocebo effects was paralleled by an activation of the left inferior parietal cortex, a brain region that redirects attention when discrepancies between sensory and cognitive events occur. Our findings highlight the importance of expectancy violation in shaping placebo and nocebo effects and open up new avenues for managing positive and negative expectations in clinical trials and practices

Anxiety makes time pass quicker while fear has no effect

People often say that during unpleasant events, e.g. traumatic incidents such as car accidents, time slows down (i.e. time is overestimated). However aversive events can elicit at least two dissociable subtypes of reactions: fear (transient and relating to an imminent event) and anxiety (diffuse and relating to an unpredictable event). We hypothesised that anxiety might have an opposite effect on time perception compared to fear. To test this we combined a robust anxiety manipulation (threat-of-shock) with a widely used timing task in which participants judged whether the duration of a stimulus was long or short. In line with our hypothesis, across three experiments (with varying stimulus timings and shock levels), participants significantly underestimated time under inducted anxiety, as indicated by a rightward shift of the psychophysical function (meta-analytic effect size: d = 0.68, 95% confidence interval: 0.42-0.94). In two further studies, we were unable to replicate previous findings that fear leads to time overestimation, after adapting our temporal cognition task, which suggests a dissociation between fear and anxiety on how they affect time perception. Our results suggest that experimentally inducing anxiety leads to underestimating the duration of temporal intervals, which might be a starting point in explaining different subjective experiences of disorders related to fear (e.g. post-traumatic stress disorder) and anxiety (e.g. generalised anxiety disorder)

Creation and sustainment of manufacturing technology roadmaps

Thesis (M.B.A.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sloan School of Management; and, (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering; in conjunction with the Leaders for Global Operations Program at MIT, 2012.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-78).Manufacturing technology roadmaps align manufacturing capability development to product development and the driving business need. Roadmaps allow an executable business strategy to be communicated to all levels of an organization reducing the time and resources required to bring new technology to market. This thesis examines the creation and sustainment of manufacturing technology roadmaps at Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems (SAS). It demonstrates how by using a stakeholder analysis and demonstrating a positive value proposition to all stakeholders agreement and adoption can be created across a large organization.by Louis S. Grillon.S.M.M.B.A