Ray and Wave Aberrations Revisited: A Huygens-Like Construction yields Exact Relations

The optical aberrations of a system can be described in terms of the wave aberrations, defined as the departure from the ideal spherical wavefront; or the ray aberrations, which are in turn the deviations from the paraxial ray intersection measured in the image plane. The classical connection between the two descriptions is an approximation, the error of which has, so far, not been quantified analytically. We derive exact analytical equations for computing the wavefront surface, the aberrated ray directions, and the transverse ray aberrations in terms of the wave aberrations (OPD) and the reference sphere. We introduce precise conditions for a function to be an OPD function, show that every such function has an associated wavefront, and study the error arising from the classical approximation. We establish strict conditions for the error to be small. We illustrate our results with numerical simulations. Our results show that large numerical apertures and high-frequency OPD functions yield larger approximation errors.Comment: 12 pages, 10 Figures, JOSA A, vol. 33, no.

A Bayesian Approach to Manifold Topology Reconstruction

In this paper, we investigate the problem of statistical reconstruction of piecewise linear manifold topology. Given a noisy, probably undersampled point cloud from a one- or two-manifold, the algorithm reconstructs an approximated most likely mesh in a Bayesian sense from which the sample might have been taken. We incorporate statistical priors on the object geometry to improve the reconstruction quality if additional knowledge about the class of original shapes is available. The priors can be formulated analytically or learned from example geometry with known manifold tessellation. The statistical objective function is approximated by a linear programming / integer programming problem, for which a globally optimal solution is found. We apply the algorithm to a set of 2D and 3D reconstruction examples, demon-strating that a statistics-based manifold reconstruction is feasible, and still yields plausible results in situations where sampling conditions are violated

Inclusive Classrooms

Inclusive classrooms are proven to be successful all over the world. Inclusive classrooms are when special education students are in general education classrooms all day long receiving the same educational instruction. Inclusive classrooms have a positive effect on not just special education students but the general education students as week. Inclusive classrooms have been proven to reduce bullying, increase acceptance of differences, increase academic success and improve overall school satisfaction. The problem being, inclusive classrooms aren’t generally practiced in the United States, even though they are proven to be effective. In order to make inclusive classrooms the standard instead of an option is to get all educators, school administrators, students and parents educated on what inclusive classrooms are. There is research from many countries and the United States that proves that inclusive classrooms are the best option for all students

Automatic Generation of Randomized Trial Sequences for Priming Experiments

In most psychological experiments, a randomized presentation of successive displays is crucial for the validity of the results. For some paradigms, this is not a trivial issue because trials are interdependent, e.g., priming paradigms. We present a software that automatically generates optimized trial sequences for (negative-) priming experiments. Our implementation is based on an optimization heuristic known as genetic algorithms that allows for an intuitive interpretation due to its similarity to natural evolution. The program features a graphical user interface that allows the user to generate trial sequences and to interactively improve them. The software is based on freely available software and is released under the GNU General Public License

Religious mobility and social contexts within neopentecostal mega-churches in Lima, Peru.

Peru of the 21st century is characterized by an atmosphere of progress and upward social mobility among its different social classes. An economy growing at a rate of approximately 8% annually is reflected in all of Peru but especially in the capital city of Lima. Greater Lima, with more than nine million inhabitants, represents approximately 30% of the Peruvian population and a multicultural mix of people from the country’s different provinces. Due to the existing centralism, Lima is the place where the Peruvian upper class live and the upwardly mobile migrate.Tesi

Sharing One Biographical Detail Elicits Priming between Famous Names: Empirical and Computational Approaches

In this paper three experiments and corresponding model simulations are reported that investigate the priming of famous name recognition in order to explore the structure of the part of the semantic system dealing with people. Consistent with empirical findings, novel computational simulations using Burton et al.’s interactive activation and competition model point to a conceptual distinction between how priming is initiated in single- and double-familiarity tasks, indicating that priming should be weaker or non-existent for the single-familiarity task. Experiment 1 demonstrates that, within a double-familiarity framework using famous names, categorical, and associative priming are reliable effects. Pushing the model to the limit, it predicts that pairs of celebrities who are neither associatively nor categorically related but who share single biographical features, both died in a car crash for example, should prime each other. Experiment 2 investigated this in a double-familiarity task but the effect was not observed. We therefore simulated and realized a pairwise learning task that was conceptually similar to the double-familiarity-decision task but allowed to strengthen the underlying connections. Priming based on a single biographical feature could be found both in simulations and the experiment. The effect was not due to visual or name similarity which were controlled for and participants did not report using the biographical links between the people to learn the pairs. The results are interpreted to lend further support to structural models of the memory for persons. Furthermore, the results are consistent with the idea that episodic features known about people are stored in semantic memory and are automatically activated when encountering that person

For-Profit Higher Education and CPA Exam Success Rates: Comparing For-Profit Institutions with Public (State) Institutions and Private Not-For-Profit Institutions of Higher Education

Public perceptions about the quality of business education received at commercial (for-profit) universities, relative to the quality of business education received at publicly supported state universities and private not-for-profit universities are mixed and somewhat controversial (Verschoor, 2011). Relatively little information exists concerning the quality of education received with a bachelor’s degree from a commercial university (U. S. Government Accountability Office, 2011). This research compares average CPA exam pass rates of graduates from three types of higher education institutions: for-profit universities, state sponsored public universities, and private not-for profit universities. Comparing average CPA exam pass rates of graduates of each type of university is one means to assess the quality of accounting education provided by each type of university. Our findings indicate the average CPA exam pass rates of candidates completing their accounting educations at commercial for-profit universities are strikingly lower than those of candidates completing their accounting educations at either publicly supported state schools or at private not-for-profit universities. In addition we find that a much lower fraction of graduates from commercial universities sit for the CPA exam compared to publicly supported state universities and private not-for-profit universities. Together these empirical data suggest if passing the CPA exam is a goal, then the educational path of commercial for-profit accounting education may not be optimal