On the emergence of deprivation-reducing behaviors: Subliminal priming of behavior representations turns deprivation into motivation

Building on recent research into the emergence of human motivation and goal pursuit in the absence of the conscious awareness of the source of this pursuit, the present article aimed to shed light on how states of deprivation (e.g., deprivation of fluid) actually produce the motivation and corresponding behavior that lifts the deprivation. Two studies established that when participants were relatively deprived of fluids, they experienced enhanced motivation to drink and consumed more fluid in an alleged tasting test, and these effects were more pronounced when the concept of drinking was rendered accessible by subliminal priming. These results suggest that specific motivational goal states and corresponding behaviors do not arise directly from deprivation per se, but that accessible goal-related cognitions play a role in this process. Implications for theory and research on deprivation and non-conscious goal pursuit are briefly discussed

The European project SUREBridge – A case study in Tuscany

The European project SUREBridge (Sustainable Refurbishment of Existing Bridges) is develop-ing a new concept for the refurbishment of road bridges. The proposed technique takes ad-vantage of the peculiarities of fibre-reinforced materials to perform upgrading, repair, and strengthening in an effective and efficient way in terms of resource consumption, waste produc-tion, construction time, and traffic disruption. The technique applies to bridges with reinforced concrete slab and longitudinal girders made of either reinforced concrete or steel. Longitudinal girders are strengthened by bonding carbon fibre-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminates to their bottom surfaces. Higher structural perfor-mances are achieved by pre-stressing the CFRP laminates. The existing concrete slab is not demolished, with savings in both construction time and waste production. Instead, tailor-made glass fibre-reinforced polymer (GFRP) panels are connected to the deck to increase its overall bending strength. Furthermore, GFRP panels enable the widening of the road section, if neces-sary to upgrade the bridge to increased traffic demand. This paper presents the application of the SUREBridge technique to a real bridge located in San Miniato, Tuscany, Italy. The designed intervention includes both the widening of the road section and the structural strengthening of the deck to comply with current traffic loads

How does fiction reading influence empathy? An experimental investigation on the role of emotional transportation

The current study investigated whether fiction experiences change empathy of the reader. Based on transportation theory, it was predicted that when people read fiction, and they are emotionally transported into the story, they become more empathic. Two experiments showed that empathy was influenced over a period of one week for people who read a fictional story, but only when they were emotionally transported into the story. No transportation led to lower empathy in both studies, while study 1 showed that high transportation led to higher empathy among fiction readers. These effects were not found for people in the control condition where people read non-fiction. The study showed that fiction influences empathy of the reader, but only under the condition of low or high emotional transportation into the story

Structural optimization of free form framed structures in early stages of design

p. 1078-1089The present paper proposes the application of topology optimisation software to generate topologically optimised building components in prestressed concrete, and the realisation of optimised shapes via large scale CNC-milling technology. Topology optimisation within architectural design holds a potential for simultaneously reducing material usage and evolving new structural morphologies that challenge the aesthetics of architectural appearance as well as the related production processes. To make topology optimisation useful to the architectural design process, possibilities of different modelling interpretations must be investigated in order to explore new ways of affecting optimisation results to meet both aesthetic requirements and structural constraints. The present paper purposes methods to imbed aesthetic assertions in the optimisation model to influence the evolving topologies in new directions while keeping initial constraints. As aesthetic values cannot reasonably be validated through numerical evaluation, only structural criteria and manufacturing constraints can be directly utilised as an objective for an algorithmic optimisation process. But as the optimisation process itself is a linear result of the optimisation algorithm, aesthetic reflections can be imbedded indirectly by evaluating initial optimisation output and applying adjustments to the model using the presented methods. The application of topology optimisation in architectural design allow for a convergence of engineering and architectural disciplines via a direct and concise dialogue between different approaches to optimisation configuration. Commercially available optimisation software solutions are targeted at the automotive-, aeronautic- and naval industries, and not yet specifically suited to meet demands of the building industry. The presented research proposes methods to model optimisation setup within existing software that meet building related optimisation issues, such as the inclusion of post-tensioning in an optimised concrete volume.Veltkamp, M. (2010). Structural optimization of free form framed structures in early stages of design. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/696

Muugle: A music retrieval experimentation framework

Recently many music information retrieval (MIR) methods have been developed; most of these employ a music representation and have a notion of musical similarity. However, there is still no user-centered framework that allows the comparison of their different MIR techniques. This paper describes Muugle (Musical Utrecht University Global Lookup Engine), which is such a framework. Currently it has four interfaces for query formulation and a piano-roll editor for query modification. These interfaces and the editor are the subject of a usability study described in this paper. Feature-extraction and matching algorithms are implemented as components which can be selected by the user after query formulation. The features of the query are compared with those of the music stored in the Muugle database. As a first instantiation the database was filled with two music collections, namely 815 ringtones, and 476.621 incipits of the RISM collection. Muugle employs the vantage indexing method to enable fast retrieval re

Muugle: A modular music information retrieval framework

Muugle (Musical Utrecht University Global Lookup Engine) is a modular framework that allows the comparison of different MIR techniques and usability studies. A system overview and a discussion of a pilot usability experiment are given. A demo version of the framework can be found o