All the colours of the rainbow.

Our perception of colour has always been a source of fascination, so it's little wonder that studies of the phenomenon date back hundreds of years. What, though, can modern scientists learn from medieval literature — and how do we go about it

Emulated retinal image capture (ERICA) to test, train and validate processing of retinal images

High resolution retinal imaging systems, such as adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopes (AOSLO), are increasingly being used for clinical research and fundamental studies in neuroscience. These systems offer unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution of retinal structures in vivo. However, a major challenge is the development of robust and automated methods for processing and analysing these images. We present ERICA (Emulated Retinal Image CApture), a simulation tool that generates realistic synthetic images of the human cone mosaic, mimicking images that would be captured by an AOSLO, with specified image quality and with corresponding ground-truth data. The simulation includes a self-organising mosaic of photoreceptors, the eye movements an observer might make during image capture, and data capture through a real system incorporating diffraction, residual optical aberrations and noise. The retinal photoreceptor mosaics generated by ERICA have a similar packing geometry to human retina, as determined by expert labelling of AOSLO images of real eyes. In the current implementation ERICA outputs convincingly realistic en face images of the cone photoreceptor mosaic but extensions to other imaging modalities and structures are also discussed. These images and associated ground-truth data can be used to develop, test and validate image processing and analysis algorithms or to train and validate machine learning approaches. The use of synthetic images has the advantage that neither access to an imaging system, nor to human participants is necessary for development

Modeling surface color discrimination under different lighting environments using image chromatic statistics and convolutional neural networks

We modeled discrimination thresholds for object colors under different lighting environments [J. Opt. Soc. Am. 35, B244 (2018)]. First, we built models based on chromatic statistics, testing 60 models in total. Second, we trained convolutional neural networks (CNNs), using 160,280 images labeled by either the ground-truth or human responses. No single chromatic statistics model was sufficient to describe human discrimination thresholds across conditions, while human-response-trained CNNs nearly perfectly predicted human thresholds. Guided by region-of-interest analysis of the network, we modified the chromatic statistics models to use only the lower regions of the objects, which substantially improved performance

All the colours of the rainbow

Our perception of colour has always been a source of fascination, so it's little wonder that studies of the phenomenon date back hundreds of years. What, though, can modern scientists learn from medieval literature — and how do we go about it

Cohabitation and the law: myths, money and the media

This chapter version has been deposited with the kind permission of Sage. The definitive version of this chapter was published by Sage in the 24th British Social Attitudes Report 2008, by Alison Park, John Curtice, Katarina Thomson, Miranda Phillips, Mark Johnson, Elizabeth Clery. ISBN: 9781412947749. Available at: http://www.uk.sagepub.com/books/Book231969The 2000 British Social Attitudes survey confirmed a growing social acceptance of heterosexual cohabitation as a partnering and parenting choice and identified strong public support for reform of cohabitation law. It also established the existence of a ‘common law marriage’ myth whereby the majority of the public, and cohabitants in particular, falsely believe that cohabiting couples who have lived together for some time have the same legal rights as married couples. Even among those cohabitants who were aware of their vulnerable legal position, it was found that very few had taken appropriate steps to gain or provide legal protection despite, as we found in subsequent research, often having good intentions to do so. These findings prompted widespread media interest and government concern. This led the Department for Constitutional Affairs (now the Ministry of Justice) to fund their 2004 Living Together Campaign, aimed at advising cohabitants about their legal rights and indicating practical steps they could take to gain marriage-like protection where possible. Subsequently, in 2005, with Scotland having already decided to reform the law relating to cohabiting couples (see Family Law (Scotland) Act 2006), the government decided to refer the issue of whether cohabitation law should be reformed to the Law Commission for England and Wales, a decision which sparked further media interest. The attention paid to cohabitation over the last few years makes it worth revisiting the subject, to see whether, and how, behaviour and attitudes are changing. So our first aim in this chapter is to examine the evolving prevalence and role of cohabitation as a relationship form in British society. Our second aim is to establish whether attitudes to cohabitation have changed, and whether legal knowledge and actions have increased following a period of sustained government and media focus. Finally, we consider public beliefs about cohabitants’ legal rights and financial practices. This latter issue is vital, as the courts may now take into account how cohabiting couples manage their money in deciding appropriate legal remedies on separation. Some of our key findings have already informed the deliberations of the Law Commission, due to report to Parliament in 2007, but this is the first full account of our research

Investigating Replication Protein A's Role in Telomere Maintenance in Arabidopsis thaliana

Replication protein A (RPA) and CST are two highly similar heterotrimeric telomere complexes involved in various aspects of DNA metabolism. RPA functions in genome-wide DNA metabolism (including DNA replication, repair and recombination) while CST has been shown to play a specific role in telomere protection and maintenance. Recent studies have implicated RPA in telomere maintenance. Two CST subunits, STN1 and TEN1, have been found to form a sub-complex independent of the CST complex. Given the high level of structural conservation between RPA and CST, I hypothesize that individual CST and RPA subunits form alternative complexes. The aim of this study is to test the hypothesis by determining if RPA and CST subunits associate with each other using an in vitro co-immunoprecipitation assay. Expression vectors have been constructed with RPA2A, RPA2B, RPA3A, RPA3B, STN1, and TEN1 and have been tested in rabbit reticulocyte lysate for protein expression. If association between CST and RPA subunits is found, further studies could investigate how and why the CST and RPA complexes work together to maintain telomeres and to promote aspects of genome stability. Another goal of this study is to construct fluorescent protein tagged RPA1B (GFP) and RPA1D (YFP) for use in subcellular localization studies in Arabidopsis thaliana