Swedish CLARIN activities

Proceedings of the NODALIDA 2009 workshop Nordic Perspectives on the CLARIN Infrastructure of Language Resources. Editors: Rickard Domeij, Kimmo Koskenniemi, Steven Krauwer, Bente Maegaard, Eiríkur Rögnvaldsson and Koenraad de Smedt. NEALT Proceedings Series, Vol. 5 (2009), 1-5. © 2009 The editors and contributors. Published by Northern European Association for Language Technology (NEALT) http://omilia.uio.no/nealt . Electronically published at Tartu University Library (Estonia) http://hdl.handle.net/10062/9207

Delivering Sustained, Coordinated, and Integrated Observations of the Southern Ocean for Global Impact

The Southern Ocean is disproportionately important in its effect on the Earth system, impacting climatic, biogeochemical and ecological systems, which makes recent observed changes to this system cause for global concern. The enhanced understanding and improvements in predictive skill needed for understanding and projecting future states of the Southern Ocean require sustained observations. Over the last decade, the Southern Ocean Observing System (SOOS) has established networks for enhancing regional coordination and research community groups to advance development of observing system capabilities. These networks support delivery of the SOOS 20-year vision, which is to develop a circumpolar system that ensures time series of key variables, and deliver the greatest impact from data to all key end-users. Although the Southern Ocean remains one of the least-observed ocean regions, enhanced international coordination and advances in autonomous platforms have resulted in progress towards addressing the need for sustained observations of this region. Since 2009, the Southern Ocean community has deployed over 5700 observational platforms south of 40°S. Large-scale, multi-year or sustained, multidisciplinary efforts have been supported and are now delivering observations of essential variables at space and time scales that enable assessment of changes being observed in Southern Ocean systems. The improved observational coverage, however, is predominantly for the open ocean, encompasses the summer, consists of primarily physical oceanographic variables and covers surface to 2000 m. Significant gaps remain in observations of the ice-impacted ocean, the sea ice, depths more than 2000 m, the air-sea-ice interface, biogeochemical and biological variables, and for seasons other than summer. Addressing these data gaps in a sustained way requires parallel advances in coordination networks, cyberinfrastructure and data management tools, observational platform and sensor technology, platform interrogation and data-transmission technologies, modeling frameworks, and internationally agreed sampling requirements of key variables. This paper presents a community statement on the major scientific and observational progress of the last decade, and importantly, an assessment of key priorities for the coming decade, towards achieving the SOOS vision and delivering essential data to all end users

To be right or to be liked? : Correlates of preschoolers’ informational and normative conformity

Humans conform. That is, humans align their behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs with others to learn and adapt. When we are uncertain, naïve, or believe that others know better than us – we can conform for informational reasons and imitate behaviors or ideas observed from the majority of those around us. If the masses are doing something we can suppose that it likely is effective or right. Likewise, when we need to strengthen bonds with others, fear being ostracized, or simply wish to befriend other individuals, we can normatively conform and strategically imitate their behaviors or ideas to signal affiliation outwardly, while still privately retaining our original beliefs. Importantly, although conformity is intrinsic to all human cultures and age-groups, there is also notable inter-individual variability in conformity propensity: Some individuals tend to conform often while others conform very rarely. This applies to both adults and young children. In this thesis I have addressed the variability in children’s conformity by investigating both propensity and motivation using an individual differences perspective. The overarching aim was to identify psychological (personality traits) and psychosocial factors (parents’ personality and parental style), as well as other social behaviors (obedience and altruistic behavior) that can help to explain why some children conform more than others, and importantly, why they differ in their motivation to conform. Using an Asch-style paradigm to elicit public conformity in 3.5-year-olds using adult (Study I) and peer (Studies II and III) confederates, we established individuals’ conformity propensity over eight trials. Additionally, using an eye-tracking task during each trial, we measured what the participant privately held as true after publicly conforming. This measure allowed us to differentiate whether the conformity was informational (believing that the majority’s inaccurate testimony was correct) or normative (knowing that it was not, but conforming for social reasons).  The main findings reported in this thesis are (i) the personality trait extroversion has a U-shaped relationship with conformity propensity – low and high scores on this trait are predictive of more conformity to both adults (Study I) and peers (Study III); (ii) when children conform, high extroversion is predictive of doing so for a normative motivation and low extroversion for an informational (Studies I and III); (iii) children with higher conformity propensities are more likely to have displayed altruistic behavior but not obedience (Study II); and (iv) fathers’ authoritarian parental style is associated with their children’s conformity propensity (Study II)

The development of a drum machine using the Steinberg VST- specification : implementation of extracted timing behaviors from human drum performances

Five different drummers were asked to perform two short drumming performances to a reference tempo click delivered through headphones – one in 110bpm and one in 160bpm. These performances were analyzed for obvious and, both between the subjects common and individual, timing patterns and – behaviors. Amongst the most important discoveries unveiled were the phenomena which are referred to as drift, flutter and swing. Drift is the drummer’s own timekeeping variations to the reference click, flutter is every strikes individual deviation from the drift itself and swing is a tendency to displace unemphasised hi-hat strikes earlier in time. These behaviors were isolated from each other using various statistical means and described as performance rules, which in turn were translated into C++ code and implemented into a drum machine using the Steinberg VST specification. Parallel to the analysis of the drum performances a listening test was conducted where the participants were instructed to rank the drum performances in order of their own preference (tightness, credibility and musical feel). The results of the test showed that drummers with a higher amount of swing were more preferred. The implementation and design is described in general so that readers with little or no programming experiences can understand the main design and functionality of the drum machine. Further details in forms of code examples with explanations are also included which may require some acquaintance with programming in general. The drum machine has 10 different parameters which can be adjusted by the user: master gain, kick drum flutter, snare drum and tom’s flutter, kick drum’s offset to the hi-hat, snare and tom’s offset to the hi-hat, hi-hat and cymbals’ swing, maximum drift and drift speed. The sound samples that are used include kick drum, snare drum, two different toms, various hi-hat types, ride cymbal, two crash cymbals and a splash cymbal. The drum machine’s design and the sound samples’ style suggests that plug-in be used in the genres of rock, punk rock and various sub-groupings of metal. Finally an evaluative listening test was conducted to put the performance of the drum machine into context. The results show that the drum machine is significantly more preferred than the drummers’ original performances in 110bpm at 99% confidence level– and at 95% confidence level at 160bpm.Validerat; 20101217 (root

Rendering timbre variance and time deviance in MIDI-controlled contemporary drum performances

This essay is about the development of a drum machine that adds intentional and random errors in time using Normal Frequency Distribution. The drum samples triggered are randomized from a multi-sampled drum kit thus forcing a variation in timbre. It is not the aim of the drum machine to emulate human contemporary percussion performances in neither general nor any specific percussionists, but to circumvent the dullness of ordinary drum machines. The drum machine was developed in C++ as a set of VST-plug-ins using the Steinberg VST Software Development Kit. The drum machine itself consists of seven different plug-ins that can be used either independently or as a group in any VST host application.Validerat; 20101217 (root

Pupillometric screening of potential neonatal acetylcholine, dopamine, and melatonin dysregulations in neurodevelopmental disorders

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and ADHD are common neurodevelopmental disorders that benefit from early intervention but currently suffer from late detection and diagnosis: neurochemical dysregulations are extant already at birth but clinical phenotypes are not distinguishable until preschool age or later. The vast heterogeneity between subjects’ phenotypes relates to interaction between multiple unknown factors, making research on factor causality insurmountable. To unlock this situation we pose the hypothesis that atypical pupillary light responses from rods, cones, and the recently discovered ipRGC system reflect early acetylcholine, melatonin, and dopamine dysregulation that are sufficient but not necessary factors for developing ASD and/or ADHD disorders. Current technology allows non-invasive cost-efficient assessment already from the first postnatal month. The benefits of the current proposal are: identification of clinical subgroups based on cause rather than phenotypes; facilitation of research on other causal factors; neonatal prediction of later diagnoses; and guidance for targeted therapeutical intervention

Pupillometric screening of potential neonatal acetylcholine, dopamine, and melatonin dysregulations in neurodevelopmental disorders

Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) and ADHD are common neurodevelopmental disorders that benefit from early intervention but currently suffer from late detection and diagnosis: neurochemical dysregulations are extant already at birth but clinical phenotypes are not distinguishable until preschool age or later. The vast heterogeneity between subjects’ phenotypes relates to interaction between multiple unknown factors, making research on factor causality insurmountable. To unlock this situation we pose the hypothesis that atypical pupillary light responses from rods, cones, and the recently discovered ipRGC system reflect early acetylcholine, melatonin, and dopamine dysregulation that are sufficient but not necessary factors for developing ASD and/or ADHD disorders. Current technology allows non-invasive cost-efficient assessment already from the first postnatal month. The benefits of the current proposal are: identification of clinical subgroups based on cause rather than phenotypes; facilitation of research on other causal factors; neonatal prediction of later diagnoses; and guidance for targeted therapeutical intervention

Right-Wing Populism and Climate Change Denial : The Roles of Exclusionary and Anti-Egalitarian Preferences, Conservative Ideology, and Antiestablishment Attitudes

Populist right-wing politicians and voters tend to dismiss climate change. To investigate possible reasons for this, we tested correlations between climate change denial and variables linked to right-wing populism (Study 1: N = 1,587; Study 2: N = 909). The strongest predictor of climate change denial was an index capturing exclusionary and anti-egalitarian preferences (opposition to, e.g., multiculturalism and feminism), followed by traditional values (Study 1) and Social Dominance Orientation (Study 2). Populist antiestablishment attitudes correlated only weakly with climate change denial, and this correlation vanished when exclusionary and anti-egalitarian preferences were controlled for. Also, the effects of authoritarianism (Study 2) and (low) openness vanished in the full models. Climate change denial did not correlate with (low) agreeableness, which is a personality trait linked to populism. However, both antiestablishment attitudes and climate change denial correlated with pseudoscientific beliefs (e.g., anti-vaccination attitudes) (Study 1). To conclude, we did not find support for a notable linkage between climate change denial and populist antiestablishment attitudes. Thus, when addressing climate change denial, it could be more beneficial to focus on the ideological worldviews that are being protected by denial, such as endorsement of the existing societal power relations, than on the antiestablishment arguments used by some who deny

How Does Preschoolers’ Conformity Relate to Parental Style, Anonymous Sharing, and Obedience?

Children, just like adults, conform to peer testimony when making ostensibly easy decisions. Yet, some are more prone to conform than others and little is known about which factors contribute to this variability. In the current study, we aimed to investigate the reasons for individual differences in conformity by examining potential correlates of experimentally-elicited conformity in a sample of Swedish 3.5-year-olds (N  = 55; 56%girls). Specifically, we asked whether conformity was socialized by parents via their parental style and whether conformity is correlated with the behaviors of anonymous sharing or obedience, which might each share a common motivation with conformity. Our data showed that children’s conformity was associated with fathers’, but not mothers’, authoritarian parental style and with anonymous sharing, but not obedience. The findings lend support to the notions that authoritarian parental style encourages conformist behavior, and that conformity is correlated with anonymous sharing behavior

Itsy Bitsy Spider…: Infants React with Increased Arousal to Spiders and Snakes

Attention biases have been reported for ancestral threats like spiders and snakes in infants, children, and adults. However, it is currently unclear whether these stimuli induce increased physiological arousal in infants. Here, 6-month-old infants were presented with pictures of spiders and flowers (Study 1, within-subjects), or snakes and fish (Study 1, within-subjects; Study 2, between-subjects). Infants’ pupillary responses linked to activation of the noradrenergic system were measured. Infants reacted with increased pupillary dilation indicating arousal to spiders and snakes compared with flowers and fish. Results support the notion of an evolved preparedness for developing fear of these ancestral threats