Blink Rate Variability during resting and reading sessions

It has been shown that blinks occur not only to moisturize eyes and as a defensive response to the environment, but are also caused by mental processes. In this paper, we investigate statistical characteristics of blinks and blink rate variability of 11 subjects. The subjects are presented with a reading/memorization session preceded and followed by a resting session. EEG signals were recorded during these sessions. The signals from the two front electrodes were then analyzed, and times of the blinks were detected. We discovered that compared to the resting sessions, reading session is characterized by a lower number of blinks. However, there was no significant difference in standard deviation in the blink rate variability. We also noticed that in terms of complexity measures, the blink rate variability is located somewhere in between white and pink noises, being closer to the white noise during reading. We also found that the average of inter-blink intervals increases during reading/memorization, thus longer inter-blink intervals could be associated with a mental workload

CHARACTERIZATION OF LONG PATHLENGTH CAPILLARY WAVEGUIDES FOR EVANESCENT FLUORESCENCE APPLICATIONS

The optical properties of a novel fused silica fiber-optic capillary waveguide (FOCap) for fluorescence spectroscopy were evaluated. Evanescent fluorescence from samples in the FOCap was measured by coupling the FOCap to a light source and a fluorescence spectrophotometer. The FOCap has negligible excitation light loss over long lengths (20 m or more) for a range of wavelengths. The evanescent fluorescence was linear up to at least 20 m for a solution in the core and up to at least 15 m for a fluorophore covalently attached to the inner surface. Evanescent fluorescence measurements in 50, 150, and 250 µm inner diameter FOCaps indicate that greater sensitivity is achieved with thinner-walled capillaries which have more internal reflections. FOCaps can be fined tuned for a desired sensitivity by manipulating their physical dimensions. The ability of the FOCap to function as an indirect chemical sensor for nitroaromatic compounds is demonstrated with a pyrene-labeled waveguide

On viability: climate change and the science of possible futures

Growing attention to the impacts of climate change around the world has been accompanied by the profusion of discourses about the lives, livelihoods, and geographies that are “viable” and those that are not in the time of climate change. These discourses of viability often invoke concrete physical limits and tipping points suggesting a transcendent natural order. Conversely, I demonstrate how viability is co-produced through political economic structures that exercise power at multiple scales in shaping the environment and understandings of how it is changing. I describe three dialectics of this co-production: epistemic/material (between ideas about viability and their biophysical and political economic conditions), epistemic/normative (between how the world is understood to be and ideas about how we should live in it), and inter-scalar (between geographic scales, where action at one scale shapes both ecologies and understandings of possible action at another). Each of these dialectics shapes the knowledge regimes that govern the ambiguous social and biophysical process of disappearance and foreclosure of livelihood possibilities in the time of climate change. I examine these discourses of viability through narratives of unviable agrarian livelihoods in coastal Bangladesh, as a lens through which to examine the dialectics of viability more broadly. I situate these discourses concretely in relation to an analysis of interdisciplinary social and natural scientific research on ecological and agrarian viability in coastal Bangladesh now and in the future. Across a broad interdisciplinary spectrum, I find that scientific attention to political economy shapes the politics of possibility. Finally, I demonstrate how discourses of viability limit alternative possible economic and ecological futures. I do this through a concrete examination of the co-production of viable agrarian futures within communities in coastal Bangladesh. These alternative visions indicate that the viability of agriculture is shaped by historical and ongoing decisions in the present about cultivation, water management, and development intervention

Badania motywacyjne Ernesta Dichtera : geneza, istota, aktualność

The article is an insight into motivational research from its beginning until present. The key point for the article is a book by Ernest Dichter The Strategy of Desire, published in The United States of America in 1960. The book itself has never been translated into Polish, therefore it remains (as well as the writer) hardly known to Polish readers. The article has been divided into two parts. The first one provides the reader with the biography of the author, his findings and his career as a market researcher. The second part of the article is focused on the assumptions of motivational research as an independent field of study, presenting Dichter's notion on the condition of human nature. It also gives account of Dichter's viewpoint on democracy, American morality and need for change towards society more optimistic in terms of their consumption habits as well as possibility of fulfillment and self realization. The article includes brief description of Dichter's method for identifying consumers needs. As such, it shows the role products play in everyday life. Based on The Strategy of Desire as the introduction to the semiotics of objects that surround us in our daily routine, Dichter gives an account of how he conducted research in search for the soul of things, i.e. the deepest emotional meaning people apply to products they buy and use. Eventually, the article is an opportunity for the reassumption of persuasion in the contemporary world, its place and the role it plays within the free market economy

All that is solid melts into the bay: anticipatory ruination and climate change adaptation

This paper explores the shaping of Bangladesh's southern coastal region, often framed as the most climate vulnerable place in the world, as a zone of climate crisis. As rising waters threaten communities inhabiting the low-lying coastal islands scattered across the deltaic plain, many within the government and donor community have identified shrimp aquaculture as a principal adaptation strategy. Shrimp aquaculture is integral to the dynamics of what I call anticipatory ruination, a discursive and material process of social and ecological destruction in anticipation of real or perceived threats. I elaborate anticipatory ruination as a process that both responds to and produces Bangladesh's climate crisis. I use this concept to explore not only the dynamics taking place in Bangladesh's delta region, but also the ways in which climate crisis is constituted more broadly