Design guidelines for audio presentation of graphs and tables

Audio can be used to make visualisations accessible to blind and visually impaired people. The MultiVis Project has carried out research into suitable methods for presenting graphs and tables to blind people through the use of both speech and non-speech audio. This paper presents guidelines extracted from this research. These guidelines will enable designers to implement visualisation systems for blind and visually impaired users, and will provide a framework for researchers wishing to investigate the audio presentation of more complex visualisations

Being observed caused physiological stress leading to poorer face recognition.

Being observed when completing physical and mental tasks alters how successful people are at completing them. This has been explained in terms of evaluation apprehension, drive theory, and due to the effects of stress caused by being observed. In three experiments, we explore how being observed affects participants' ability to recognise faces as it relates to the aforementioned theories - easier face recognition tasks should be completed with more success under observation relative to harder tasks. In Experiment 1, we found that being observed during the learning phase of an old/new recognition paradigm caused participants to be less accurate during the test phase than not being observed. Being observed at test did not affect accuracy. We replicated these findings in an line-up type task in Experiment 2. Finally, in Experiment 3, we assessed whether these effects were due to the difficulty of the task or due to the physiological stress being observed caused. We found that while observation caused physiological stress, it did not relate to accuracy. Moderately difficult tasks (upright unfamiliar face recognition and inverted familiar face recognition) were detrimentally affected by being observed, whereas easy (upright familiar face recognition) and difficult tasks (inverted unfamiliar face recognition) were unaffected by this manipulation. We explain these results in terms of the direct effects being observed has on task performance for moderately difficult tasks and discuss the implications of these results to cognitive psychological experimentation

An evolutionarily-unique heterodimeric voltage-gated cation channel found in aphids

We describe the identification in aphids of a unique heterodimeric voltage-gated sodium channel which has an atypical ion selectivity filter and, unusually for insect channels, is highly insensitive to tetrodotoxin. We demonstrate that this channel has most likely arisen by adaptation (gene fission or duplication) of an invertebrate ancestral mono(hetero)meric channel. This is the only identifiable voltage-gated sodium channel homologue in the aphid genome(s), and the channel’s novel selectivity filter motif (DENS instead of the usual DEKA found in other eukaryotes) may result in a loss of sodium selectivity, as indicated experimentally in mutagenised Drosophila channels

Effects of Diabetes and Insulin on α-amylase Messenger RNA Levels in Rat Parotid Glands

Previous studies have shown that amylase levels are reduced significantly in the pancreas and parotid gland of diabetic rats and that insulin reverses this effect and increases the secretory protein levels. In the pancreas, these changes in amylase protein levels are accompanied by parallel changes in amylase mRNA levels. In the present study, the effects of diabetes and subsequent insulin treatments on contents (per cell) of amylase protein and its mRNA in parotid glands were compared in rats rendered diabetic with an injection of a beta-cell toxin, streptozotocin (STZ). Both amylase protein and its mRNA contents were reduced significantly in diabetic rats, compared with control rats, and this reduction was reversed following insulin injections of diabetic rats. In insulin-injected diabetic rats, amylase protein contents increased before a detectable increase in amylase mRNA levels was seen. The mRNA contents of a non-secretory protein, actin, did not change during diabetogenesis or subsequent insulin treatments. The reductions in parotid contents of amylase and its mRNA in diabetic rats and the reversal of these changes by insulin are similar to those changes that occur in the pancreas under the same conditions. However, the magnitude of these changes in parotid glands was much smaller than in the pancreas, and the effect of insulin on amylase mRNA synthesis was not as immediate as in the latter gland.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/67977/2/10.1177_00220345900690081001.pd

Subduction initiation in the Scotia Sea region and opening of the Drake Passage: When and why?

During evolution of the South Sandwich subduction zone, which has consumed South American Plate oceanic lithosphere, somehow continental crust of both the South American and Antarctic plates have become incorporated into its upper plate. Continental fragments of both plates are currently separated by small oceanic basins in the upper plate above the South Sandwich subduction zone, in the Scotia Sea region, but how fragments of both continents became incorporated in the same upper plate remains enigmatic. Here we present an updated kinematic reconstruction of the Scotia Sea region using the latest published marine magnetic anomaly constraints, and place this in a South America-Africa-Antarctica plate circuit in which we take intracontinental deformation into account. We show that a change in marine magnetic anomaly orientation in the Weddell Sea requires that previously inferred initiation of subduction of South American oceanic crust of the northern Weddell Sea below the eastern margin of South Orkney Islands continental crust, then still attached to the Antarctic Peninsula, already occurred around 80 Ma. Subsequently, between ~71–50 Ma, we propose that the trench propagated northwards into South America by delamination of South American lithosphere: this resulted in the transfer of delaminated South American continental crust to the overriding plate of the South Sandwich subduction zone. We show that continental delamination may have been facilitated by absolute southward motion of South America that was resisted by South Sandwich slab dragging. Pre-drift extension preceding the oceanic Scotia Sea basins led around 50 Ma to opening of the Drake Passage, preconditioning the southern ocean for the Antarctic Circumpolar Current. This 50 Ma extension was concurrent with a strong change in absolute plate motion of the South American Plate that changed from S to WNW, leading to upper plate retreat relative to the more or less mantle stationary South Sandwich Trench that did not partake in the absolute plate motion change. While subduction continued, this mantle-stationary trench setting lasted until ~30 Ma, after which rollback started to contribute to back-arc extension. We find that roll-back and upper plate retreat have contributed more or less equally to the total amount of ~2000 km of extension accommodated in the Scotia Sea basins. We highlight that viewing tectonic motions in a context of absolute plate motion is key for identifying slab motion (e.g., rollback, trench-parallel slab dragging) and consequently mantle-forcing of geological processes

Reverse glacier motion during iceberg calving and the cause of glacial earthquakes

Nearly half of Greenland’s mass loss occurs through iceberg calving, but the physical mechanisms operating during calving are poorly known and in situ observations are sparse. We show that calving at Greenland’s Helheim Glacier causes a minutes-long reversal of the glacier’s horizontal flow and a downward deflection of its terminus. The reverse motion results from the horizontal force caused by iceberg capsize and acceleration away from the glacier front. The downward motion results from a hydrodynamic pressure drop behind the capsizing berg, which also causes an upward force on the solid Earth. These forces are the source of glacial earthquakes, globally detectable seismic events whose proper interpretation will allow remote sensing of calving processes occurring at increasing numbers of outlet glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica

The European Training Network ETUDE (Encompassing Training in fUnctional Disorders across Europe) : a new research and training program of the EURONET-SOMA network recruiting 15 early stage researchers

Contains fulltext : 232532.pdf (Publisher’s version ) (Open Access

Single Spin Asymmetry ANA_N in Polarized Proton-Proton Elastic Scattering at s=200\sqrt{s}=200 GeV

We report a high precision measurement of the transverse single spin asymmetry $A_N$ at the center of mass energy $\sqrt{s}=200$ GeV in elastic proton-proton scattering by the STAR experiment at RHIC. The $A_N$ was measured in the four-momentum transfer squared $t$ range $0.003 \leqslant |t| \leqslant 0.035$ \GeVcSq, the region of a significant interference between the electromagnetic and hadronic scattering amplitudes. The measured values of $A_N$ and its $t$-dependence are consistent with a vanishing hadronic spin-flip amplitude, thus providing strong constraints on the ratio of the single spin-flip to the non-flip amplitudes. Since the hadronic amplitude is dominated by the Pomeron amplitude at this $\sqrt{s}$, we conclude that this measurement addresses the question about the presence of a hadronic spin flip due to the Pomeron exchange in polarized proton-proton elastic scattering.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Evolution of the differential transverse momentum correlation function with centrality in Au+Au collisions at sNN=200\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200 GeV

We present first measurements of the evolution of the differential transverse momentum correlation function, {\it C}, with collision centrality in Au+Au interactions at $\sqrt{s_{NN}} = 200$ GeV. {\it C} exhibits a strong dependence on collision centrality that is qualitatively similar to that of number correlations previously reported. We use the observed longitudinal broadening of the near-side peak of {\it C} with increasing centrality to estimate the ratio of the shear viscosity to entropy density, $\eta/s$, of the matter formed in central Au+Au interactions. We obtain an upper limit estimate of $\eta/s$ that suggests that the produced medium has a small viscosity per unit entropy.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, STAR paper published in Phys. Lett.