Investigating how perception of time left in life effects information processing and goal orientated behaviours in older adults: using socioemotional selectivity theory

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Socioemotional Selectivity Theory (SST) is an emerging theory of lifespan development, implicating adaptive motivational processes with ageing. SST maintains that age is inherently linked with future time perspective (FTP). It argues that when people perceive time in life as expansive, typically in youth, individuals tend to prepare for the future, investing time and energy in Future and Knowledge-oriented goals. Increasingly with age FTP is more limited, consequently individuals prioritise Present and Emotion -oriented goals, aimed at mood regulation.This study has three aims. The first is to test the key tenets of SST within a single study; examining motivational shifts associated with FTP and ageing, within the framework of two bipolar dimensions (Present-Future and Knowledge-Emotion). The second aim is to develop and introduce the use of vignettes as a novel means to test SST assumptions. The final aim is to engage a culturally diverse sample in order to test the key assumptions and validity of SST across two cultures, Anglo British and Asian British.METHOD: Participants included 64 healthy older people, aged between 60 to 89 years. Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Geriatric Depression Scale (GDS-15) were used to screen for cognitive impairment and depression. Participants aged 60-74 (n = 41) were allocated to the "young old" (Y/O) group and 75 years and above (n = 23) were assigned to the "old old" (O/O) group. Cultural differences were looked at between the Asian British (n - 30) and Anglo British (n = 34) participants. The eight goal-oriented vignettes, four Present-Future and four Emotion-Knowledge, were constructed and examined within a small pilot study, prior to their implementation within the main study. Perception of time left in life was assessed using Carstensen and Lang's (1996) Future Time Perspective Scale (FTPS) and an estimation of time left (ETL).Results and Conclusion: The study found that the Y/O group exhibited a more expansive FTP and a significant bias for Future and Knowledge goal-oriented information within the vignettes. Conversely, O/O participants reported a more constrained FTP and favoured Present and Emotion goal-oriented information. These associations were evident in both cultural groups suggesting that the assumptions of SST are robust and valid across cultures.FTP was found to be significantly associated with the Present-Future and KnowledgeEmotion goal-oriented dimensions, even when the effect of age was controlled for. This supports SST's assumption that perception of time, rather than age is the key modulator for individual's goal orientation. Overall, SST assumptions were shown to be robust and valid across both cultural groups. Some differences did emerge between cultures, as age appeared to be less predictive of an individuals' FTP within Asian British relative to Anglo British group. Results also indicated that FTP may be a better predictor of the Knowledge to Emotion motivational shift within the Asian British, rather than the Anglo British sample. The strength and patterns of associations within the study suggests that the vignettes are a suitable methodological approach for testing SST assumptions

Dual Gate Black Phosphorous Photodetectors Using a Polymer Electrolyte for Integrated Photonics and Optoelectronics Applications

Les photodétecteurs occupent une place prépondérante dans un nombre important de dispositifs. Ceux-ci sont utilisés dans plusieurs pour les communications optiques, la détection d'images, la vision nocturne, l’inspection alimentaire, l’imagerie médicale, etc. La conception de détecteurs infrarouges requiert l’utilisation de matériaux autre que le silicium démontrant une haute efficacité, détectivité et un temps de réponse rapide. Ceux-ci sont typiquement couteux et difficiles à intégrés avec des substrats flexibles ou des circuits photoniques et optoélectroniques conventionnels. Dans cette thèse, nous présentons un photodétecteur à base de phosphore noir avec une architecture à double grille basé sur sur un électrolyte polymère solide pour des applications en photonique intégrée et en optoélectronique. La combinaison de la grille électrolytique et du photodétecteur BP conventionnel permet un contrôle efficace du transport électrique et de la modulation de la densité de porteurs dans le canal BP. Les détecteurs à double grille fabriqués avec cette approche améliorent le rapport ON / OFF de 50 fois par rapport à l’architecture conventionnelle. Ceux-ci présentent également du courant de drain avec la configuration de contact source-drain orthogonale. Finalement, l’électrolyte polymère protège les flocons de BP de l'oxydation de surface et présentent des caractéristiques électriques stables dans les conditions ambiantes. Nous obtenons une modulation du photocourant par un facteur de 4 pour des puissances incidentes variant de 0.5 mW à 5 mW. Dans cette gamme de puissance, une modulation du photocourant par un facteur de 2 est obtenu en variant la tension de grille supérieure (variée de 3V à -3V) à une longueur d'onde de 808 nm. À plus faible puissance, le photodétecteur donne une modulation de photocourant largement supérieure à l’architecture conventionnelle: environ 16 fois avec une tension de grille d'électrolyte ajustée de -2 V à 2 V par rapport au dispositif à grille inférieure qui est d'environ 2.5 fois avec une tension de grille variant de -10 V 10 V dans le proche infrarouge. Des sensibilités de centaines de mA / W sont obtenues pour les photodétecteurs BP dans les régimes visible et proche-infrarouge.----------Abstract Visible and infrared photodetectors have become important in a multitude of present-day devices that find emerging applications in several fields: optical communications, image sensing, night vision, food monitoring and medical imaging etc. However, photodetection beyond the visible region of spectrum requires investigating unconventional materials and designs that deliver superior performance in terms of photocurrent/responsivity, detectivity and response speed, that also allow ultra-low weight, low-cost, flexible and easy integration with the photonic and optoelectronic circuits. In this thesis, we report on a dual-gate black phosphorous photodetector based on solid polymer electrolyte for integrated photonics and optoelectronic applications. The combination of polymer electrolyte gate with the conventional back-gate black phosphorous (BP) photodetector allows for efficient control of electrical transport and carrier-density modulation in the BP channel. Our dual-gate field effect transistors provide a 50-fold enhancement in the drain currents that lead to high ON/OFF ratio as compared to the conventional SiO2 bottom gating. The BP FETs with polymer electrolyte film also protect BP flake from surface oxidation and show stable electrical characteristics under ambient conditions. The polymer electrolyte-based FETs also show an enhancement in the drain current with the orthogonal source-drain contact configuration. Photocurrent modulation by a factor of four by incident powers (varied from 0.5 to 5 mW) at a wavelength of 808 nm. At these modest powers, a factor of two modulation in the photocurrent is achieved by varying the top-gate voltage (from 3 V to -3 V). At lower powers, the dual-gate polymer electrolyte based BP photodetector shows a photocurrent a substantial enhancement of the photocurrent by 16 when the electrolyte gate voltage tuned from -2 V to 2 V as compared to the bottom gate device which is 2.5 times, when the gate voltage varied from -10 V to 10 V. Responsivities of the order of hundreds of mA/W are obtained for the BP photodetectors in both visible and NIR regimes

A New Spatial Approach for Efficient Transformation of Equality - Generalized TSP to TSP

The Equality - Generalized Travelling Salesman Problem (E-GTSP) asks to find a Hamiltonian cycle visiting each group exactly once, where each group represents a type of visiting node. This can represent a range of combinatorial optimization problem of NP-hard type like planning, logistics, etc. Its solution requires transformation of E-GTSP to TSP before solving it using a given TSP solver. This paper presents 5 different search-algorithms for optimal transformation which considers spatial spread of nodes of each group. Algorithms are tested over 15 cities with different street-network’s fractal-dimension for 5 instances of group-counts each. It’s observed that the R-Search algorithm, which selects nodes from each group depending upon their radial separation with respect to the start-end point, is the optimal search criterion among all other algorithms with a mean length error of 8.8%. This study will help developers and researchers to answer complex routing problems from a spatial perspective

Volume Introduction Letter

This Conference Proceedings is a collection of outstanding papers and posters submitted to the Academic Program of the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G), 14th to 19th August 2017 in Boston, U.S.A

バングラデシュ ２ヒンシュ ノ コムギ ノ セイチョウ、 シュウリョウ オヨビ ハ ノ ガス コウカン ソクド ニ タイスル オゾン ト エンガイ ノ タンドク オヨビ フクゴウ エイキョウ ニ カンスル ジッケンテキ ケンキュウ

博士（農学)東京農工大

State-non-state relationship within the context of decentralization: understandings of school-level actors in Gopalpur sub-district, Bangladesh

The focus of this study is to understand how policies to decentralize governance have affected the primary education sector in Bangladesh with specific reference to non-state schools. Decentralizing education has emerged as an important strategic tool to reform and enhance education quality globally. The study analyzes the relationship between the state and non-state primary education providers in the context of education reforms delivered via decentralization. The investigation used a qualitative case study approach with respondents residing and working in Gopalpur, a small township 125 km away from the capital of Bangladesh, Dhaka. Three categories of school-level actors were interviewed - School Management Committee (SMC) members, head teachers and teachers within two types of schools: Registered Non-Government Primary Schools (RNGPS) and Quomi madrassas. A primary focus of the study is to explore what the basic comprehension of the respondents regarding concepts and the implications of decentralization. The findings indicate that most of the school-level actors interviewed in the Gopalpur area were in fact familiar with the concepts of decentralization and related to it as an act of transfer of power and participatory education processes. The study further revealed that most of the RNGPS respondents supported policy guidelines and directives from the state, which is based on deconcentration, while the Quomi madrassas preferred delegated space. The research also explored the operational relationship between state and non-state providers in terms of two specific aspects. The first aspect was the relationship between state and non-state providers in three specific areas: the SMCs, monitoring activities and the training of education personnel with a focus on teachers. The other aspect involves the extent of trust and respect displayed from the center towards the school-level actors. The SMCs apparently do not feel motivated to be proactive in schools‘ affairs due to limited scope as dictated by the state and lack of authority to hold the school administrations accountable for their actions. However, Quomi Madrassa Management Committees (MMC) is very involved and act as effective mediators on behalf of the community as well as madrassas. In regards to monitoring and training inputs, the state‘s centralized system does not produce far-reaching enough results according to the RNGPS respondents. This study also investigated the mindset of officials belonging to the DPE (Directorate of Primary Education) and MOPME (Ministry of Primary & Mass Education) towards the school-level actors, which are characterized by lack of mutual trust and respect. This study reveals that given the diverse nature of non-state providers, each category of non-state providers has its own historical origins and its own understanding and approaches towards the state. The study also shows that SMCs, monitoring and training sub-systems within the governance play an important role in defining operational relationship between the state and non-state providers. The findings and analyses included herein contribute to the current policy discourse on decentralizing education in Bangladesh within the context of non-state providers and their relationship in operational terms with the state. It adds to more informed and participatory policy formulation and planning processes. Along this process, it serves to inform policy makers, school-level actors and researchers about the value of collective ownership of the policy discourse through meaningful dialogue

Autism Spectrum Disorder Detection Based on Wavelet Transform of BOLD fMRI Signals using Pre-trained Convolution Neural Network

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a mental disorder and the main problem in ASD treatment has no definite cure, and one possible option is to control its symptoms. Conventional ASD assessment using questionnaires may not be accurate and required evaluation of trained experts. Several attempts to use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) as an assisting tool combined with a classifier have been reported for ASD detection. Still, researchers barely reach an accuracy of 70% for replicated models with independent datasets. Most of the ASD studies have used functional connectivity and structural measurements and ignored the temporal dynamics features of fMRI data analysis. This study aims to present several convolutional neural networks as tools for ASD detection based on temporal dynamic features classification and improve the ASD prediction results. The sample size is 82 subjects (41 ASD and 41 normal cases) collected from three different sites of Autism Brain Imaging Data Exchange (ABIDE). The default mode network (DMN) regions are selected for blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signals extraction. The extracted BOLD signals' time-frequency components are converted to scalogram images and used as input for pre-trained convolutional neural networks for feature extraction such as GoogLenet, DenseNet201, ResNet18, and ResNet101. The extracted features are trained using two classifiers: support vector machine (SVM) and K-nearest neighbours (KNN). The best prediction results are 85.9% accuracy achieved by extracted the features from DenseNet201 network and classified these features by KNN classifier. Comparison with previous studies, has indicated the good  potential of the proposed model for diagnosis of  ASD cases. From another perspective, the presented method can be applied for analysis of rs-fMRI data on other type of brain disorders

An Active Learning Computer-Based Teaching Tool for Enhancing Students’ Learning and Visualization Skills in Electromagnetics

Electromagnetic theoretical concepts, which are represented mathematically, are usually challenging to grasp by students. In this study, we explore an interactive technology-based teaching tool to develop further students’ mastery of electromagnetic concepts through learning development and visualization of electromagnetic problems. This visualization of the problems will help students analyse, evaluate, and draw conclusions of the impact of electromagnetic-related problems in real-life. The simulation tool in this study is based on a MATLAB toolbox package, in which partial-differential equations (PDE) solver is the core engine. In this paper, we will also provide a step-by-step guide on the use of such an interactive computer-aided tool so that it can be a great self-guide tool for beginners in the field of physics and a first-level introductory course in electromagnetism. This study will focus mainly on one classical electrostatic problem that is a challenge to students to visualize, analyze and evaluate. Based on students feedback by the end of the course, 80% of students' population are more comfortablewith the introduced interactive learning tool.