More cat than cute? Interpretable Prediction of Adjective-Noun Pairs

The increasing availability of affect-rich multimedia resources has bolstered interest in understanding sentiment and emotions in and from visual content. Adjective-noun pairs (ANP) are a popular mid-level semantic construct for capturing affect via visually detectable concepts such as "cute dog" or "beautiful landscape". Current state-of-the-art methods approach ANP prediction by considering each of these compound concepts as individual tokens, ignoring the underlying relationships in ANPs. This work aims at disentangling the contributions of the `adjectives' and `nouns' in the visual prediction of ANPs. Two specialised classifiers, one trained for detecting adjectives and another for nouns, are fused to predict 553 different ANPs. The resulting ANP prediction model is more interpretable as it allows us to study contributions of the adjective and noun components. Source code and models are available at https://imatge-upc.github.io/affective-2017-musa2/ .Comment: Oral paper at ACM Multimedia 2017 Workshop on Multimodal Understanding of Social, Affective and Subjective Attributes (MUSA2

Soliton spiraling in optically-induced rotating Bessel lattices

We address soliton spiraling in optical lattices induced by multiple coherent Bessel beams and show that the dynamical nature of such lattices make them able to drag different soliton structures, setting them into rotation. The rotation rate can be controlled by varying the topological charges of lattice-inducing Bessel beams.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, to appear in Optics Letter

Neural mechanisms underlying catastrophic failure in human-machine interaction during aerial navigation

Objective. We investigated the neural correlates of workload buildup in a fine visuomotor task called the boundary avoidance task (BAT). The BAT has been known to induce naturally occurring failures of human-machine coupling in high performance aircraft that can potentially lead to a crash; these failures are termed pilot induced oscillations (PIOs). Approach. We recorded EEG and pupillometry data from human subjects engaged in a flight BAT simulated within a virtual 3D environment. Main results. We find that workload buildup in a BAT can be successfully decoded from oscillatory features in the electroencephalogram (EEG). Information in delta, theta, alpha, beta, and gamma spectral bands of the EEG all contribute to successful decoding, however gamma band activity with a lateralized somatosensory topography has the highest contribution, while theta band activity with a frontocentral topography has the most robust contribution in terms of real world usability. We show that the output of the spectral decoder can be used to predict PIO susceptibility. We also find that workload buildup in the task induces pupil dilation, the magnitude of which is significantly correlated with the magnitude of the decoded EEG signals. These results suggest that PIOs may result from the dysregulation of cortical networks such as the locus coeruleus (LC) anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) circuit. Significance. Our findings may generalize to similar control failures in other cases of tight man machine coupling where gains and latencies in the control system must be inferred and compensated for by the human operators. A closed-loop intervention using neurophysiological decoding of workload buildup that targets the LC ACC circuit may positively impact operator performance in such situations.Comment: Manuscript as initially submitted to Journal of Neural Engineering in March, 201

Yield strength of thin-film parylene-C

For the first time, the yield strength of thin-film parylene-c is measured from membrane load-deflection experiments and surface profile analysis. To do so, the onset pressure which causes plastic deformation of the membrane is first experimentally measured. Then a new 2-step displacement model, together with the energy minimization technique, is developed to convert the onset pressure to the yield strength on the pre-stressed parylene membrane under a uniform pressure loading. The results depict a Yield Strength of 59 MPa (or 0.012 of strain) for thin-film parylene-c in comparison to 55 MPa reported by parylene vendor (measured from large samples). To double check with the result, the balloon model is further used to compare with the stress value from our model at the center of parylene membranes and good agreements are obtained

The Modular design of a seismic buoy

Treball desenvolupat dins el marc del programa 'European Project Semester' i l'"International Design Project Semester".SARTI (Sistemas de Adquisición Remota y Tratamiento de la Información) are a research group based in Vilanova i la Geltru who are collaborating with an international team of four students for the European Project Semester 2016. The brief that has been assigned to the team is to redesign a seismic buoy, making it smaller, more compact, lightweight in order to allow for easy deployment. Seismic buoys are currently very large and consist of several different individual, but connected parts. Ocean Bottom Seismometers (OBS) are much smaller however, they do not allow for the real-time transmission of data. This was done by researching different buoys and they way that they are currently deployed. The team’s first design was evaluated and all of the advantages and disadvantages of the design was taken into account. This along with taking into account the drag coefficient enabled the team to create a design that was much improved and had more advantages. The team produced a compact design which solved many of the stated problems. However, more work by future teams will have to take place in order to finalise the finer details of this project

Nanometer gaps by feedback-controlled electromigration

Nanometer-sized gap (or nanogap) is one of the most fundamental devices in the nanotechnology field. Park et. al., first proposed the open-circuit electromigration method to fabricate nanogaps, but the process is only repeatable if Au film is thinner than 20 nm. To overcome these drawbacks, we develop the feedback-controlled electromigration process and find that not only repeatable nanogaps can be created in thicker film (up to 120 nm or thicker in our experiments), but superior gap size control and topology are obtained. Moreover, we develop two new approaches to make free-standing nanogaps. The tunneling current between the nanogap electrodes was used to demonstrate a sensitive pressure and/or temperature sensor. Finally, we also develop a simple thermal-expansion method to measure the gap size without needing delicate instrument

Resonance Induced Impedance Sensing of Human Blood Cells

A challenging problem in AC impedance sensing of particles (e.g., blood cells in plasma) with micro electrodes is that with the shrinking of electrode surface area the electrode double layer capacitance decreases. Combined with the parallel stray capacitance, the system impedance is dominated by these capacitive components. Hence the sensitivity for particle sensing decreases. In this paper, we propose a new approach to solve the problem. The idea is to use resonant sensing by connecting an external parallel inductor to the system. At the resonant frequency, the capacitive components in the system were nullified by the inductor, leaving the electrolyte and particle impedance to be a major component in the system impedance. We then successfully demonstrated this idea by sensing 5 mum polystyrene beads. More important, this technique was extended to sensing blood cells in diluted human whole blood and leukocyte rich plasma. The measured signal pulse height histogram matched well with known volume distribution of erythrocytes and leukocytes

Influence of Impulsivity-Reflexivity when Testing Dynamic Spatial Ability: Sex and g Differences

El trabajo analiza la posibilidad de que las diferencias en la ejecución de varones y mujeres en tareas espaciales dinámicas como el Spatial Orientation Dynamic Test-Revised (SODT-R Santacreu y Rubio, 1998), obtenidas en trabajos previos, se deban al estilo cognitivo (Reflexividad-Impulsividad) o al balance velocidad-exactitud; (Speed-Accuracy Trade-Off, SATO) que los participantes pongan en marcha. De deberse al estilo cognitivo serían independientes de la inteligencia mientras que si se deben al balance Velocidad-Exactitud pueden estar asociadas a la inteligencia. Se evaluó a 1652 participantes, 984 varones y 668 mujeres, de edades comprendidas entre 18 y 55 años. Además del SODT-R se administró el Test de Razonamiento Analítico, Secuencial e Inductivo (TRASI; Rubio y Santacreu, 2003) como medida de inteligencia general. Para el análisis de la Reflexividad-Impulsividad (R-I) y el balance velocidad-exactitud se utilizaron las puntuaciones de impulsividad (Zi) de Salkind y Wright (1977). Los resultados obtenidos indican que: a/ se pueden identificar cuatro grupos de ejecución: Rápidos-exactos, Lentos inexactos, Impulsivos y Reflexivos. Los dos primeros resuelven la tarea en función de una variable competencial y los dos últimos en función de una variable de personalidad; b/ las diferencias en la ejecución deben atribuirse al balance VE; c/ este balance es diferente según el sexo y el nivel de inteligencia.This work analyzes the possibility that the differences in the performance of men and women in dynamic spatial tasks such as the Spatial Orientation Dynamic Test-Revised (SODT-R; Santacreu & Rubio, 1998), obtained in previous works, are due to cognitive style (Reflexivity-Impulsivity) or to the speed-accuracy tradeoff (SATO) that the participants implement. If these differences are due to cognitive style, they would be independent of intelligence, whereas if they are due to SATO, they may be associated with intelligence. In this work, 1652 participants, 984 men and 668 women, ages between 18 and 55 years, were assessed. In addition to the SODT-R, the “Test de Razonamiento Analítico, Secuencial e Inductivo” (TRASI [Analytical, Sequential, and Inductive Reasoning Test]; Rubio & Santacreu, 2003) was administered as a measure of general intelligence. Impulsivity scores (Zi) of Salkind and Wright (1977) were used to analyze reflexivity-impulsivity and SATO. The results obtained indicate that (a) four performance groups can be identified: Fast-accurate, Slowinaccurate, Impulsive, and Reflexive. The first two groups solve the task as a function of a competence variable and the last two as a function of a personality variable; (b) performance differences should be attributed to SATO; (c) SATO differs depending on sex and intelligence level