MULTISENSORY CUE CONGRUENCY IN LANE CHANGE TEST

Nowadays, a driver interacts with multiple systems while driving. Multimodal in-vehicle technologies (e.g., Personal Navigation Devices) intend to facilitate multitasking while driving. Multimodality enables to reduce cognitive effort in information processing, but not always. The present study aims to investigate how/when auditory cues could improve driver responses to a visual target. We manipulated three dimensions (spatial, semantic, and temporal) of verbal and nonverbal cues to interact with visual spatial instructions. Multimodal displays were compared with unimodal (visual-only) displays to see whether they would facilitate or degrade a vehicle control task. Twenty-six drivers participated in the Auditory-Spatial Stroop experiment using a lane change test (LCT). The preceding auditory cues improved response time over the visual-only condition. When conflicting, spatial congruency has a stronger impact than semantic congruency. The effects on accuracy was minimal, but there was a trend of speed-accuracy trade-offs. Results are discussed with theoretical issues and future works

Endurance exercise accelerates myocardial tissue oxygenation recovery and reduces ischemia reperfusion injury in mice

Exercise training offers cardioprotection against ischemia and reperfusion (I/R) injury. However, few essential signals have been identified to underscore the protection from injury. In the present study, we hypothesized that exercise-induced acceleration of myocardial tissue oxygenation recovery contributes to this protection. C57BL/6 mice (4 weeks old) were trained on treadmills for 45 min/day at a treading rate of 15 m/min for 8 weeks. At the end of 8-week exercise training, mice underwent 30-min left anterior descending coronary artery occlusion followed by 60-min or 24-h reperfusion. Electron paramagnetic resonance oximetry was performed to measure myocardial tissue oxygenation. Western immunoblotting analyses, gene transfection, and myography were examined. The oximetry study demonstrated that exercise markedly shortened myocardial tissue oxygenation recovery time following reperfusion. Exercise training up-regulated Kir6.1 protein expression (a subunit of ATP-sensitive K(+)channel on vascular smooth muscle cells, VSMC sarc-K(ATP)) and protected the heart from I/R injury. In vivo gene transfer of dominant negative Kir6.1AAA prolonged the recovery time and enlarged infarct size. In addition, transfection of Kir6.1AAA increased the stiffness and reduced the relaxation capacity in the vasculature. Together, our study demonstrated that exercise training up-regulated Kir6.1, improved tissue oxygenation recovery, and protected the heart against I/R injury. This exercise-induced cardioprotective mechanism may provide a potential therapeutic intervention targeting VSMC sarc-K(ATP) channels and reperfusion recovery

Submarine groundwater discharge in Dongshan Bay, China: A master regulator of nutrients in spring and potential national significance of small bays

Despite over 90% of China’s coastal bays have an area less than 500 km2, the geochemical effects of SGD on those ecosystems are ambiguous. Based on mapping and time-series observations of Ra isotopes and nutrients, a case study of small bays (<500 km2), we revealed that submarine groundwater discharge (SGD) predominately regulated the distribution of nutrients and fueled algal growth in Dongshan Bay, China. On the bay-wide scale, the SGD rate was estimated to be 0.048 ± 0.022 m day−1 and contributed over 95% of the nutrients. At the time-series site where the bay-wide highest Ra activities in the bottom water marked an SGD hotspot with an average rate an order of magnitude greater, the maximum chlorophyll concentration co-occurred, suggesting that SGD may support the algal bloom. The ever-most significant positive correlations between 228Ra and nutrients throughout the water column (P< 0.01, R2 > 0.90 except for soluble reactive phosphorus in the surface) suggested the predominance of SGD in controlling nutrient distribution in the bay. Extrapolated to a national scale, the SGD-carried dissolved inorganic nitrogen flux in small bays was twice as much as those in large bays (>2,000 km2). Thus, the SGD-carried nutrients in small bays merit immediate attention in environmental monitoring and management

Challenges in QCD matter physics - The Compressed Baryonic Matter experiment at FAIR

Substantial experimental and theoretical efforts worldwide are devoted to explore the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter. At LHC and top RHIC energies, QCD matter is studied at very high temperatures and nearly vanishing net-baryon densities. There is evidence that a Quark-Gluon-Plasma (QGP) was created at experiments at RHIC and LHC. The transition from the QGP back to the hadron gas is found to be a smooth cross over. For larger net-baryon densities and lower temperatures, it is expected that the QCD phase diagram exhibits a rich structure, such as a first-order phase transition between hadronic and partonic matter which terminates in a critical point, or exotic phases like quarkyonic matter. The discovery of these landmarks would be a breakthrough in our understanding of the strong interaction and is therefore in the focus of various high-energy heavy-ion research programs. The Compressed Baryonic Matter (CBM) experiment at FAIR will play a unique role in the exploration of the QCD phase diagram in the region of high net-baryon densities, because it is designed to run at unprecedented interaction rates. High-rate operation is the key prerequisite for high-precision measurements of multi-differential observables and of rare diagnostic probes which are sensitive to the dense phase of the nuclear fireball. The goal of the CBM experiment at SIS100 (sqrt(s_NN) = 2.7 - 4.9 GeV) is to discover fundamental properties of QCD matter: the phase structure at large baryon-chemical potentials (mu_B > 500 MeV), effects of chiral symmetry, and the equation-of-state at high density as it is expected to occur in the core of neutron stars. In this article, we review the motivation for and the physics programme of CBM, including activities before the start of data taking in 2022, in the context of the worldwide efforts to explore high-density QCD matter.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures. Published in European Physical Journal

Multisensory Cue Congruency In The Lane Change Test

Drivers interact with a number of systems while driving. Taking advantage of multiple modalities can reduce the cognitive effort of information processing and facilitate multitasking. The present study aims to investigate how and when auditory cues improve driver responses to a visual target. We manipulated three dimensions (spatial, semantic, and temporal) of verbal and nonverbal cues to interact with visual spatial instructions. Multimodal displays were compared with unimodal (visual-only) displays to see whether they would facilitate or degrade a vehicle control task. Twenty-six drivers participated in the Auditory-Spatial Stroop experiment using a lane change test (LCT). The preceding auditory cues improved response time over the visual-only condition. When dimensions conflicted, spatial (location) congruency had a stronger impact than semantic (meaning) congruency. The effects on accuracy was minimal, but there was a trend of speed-accuracy trade-offs. Results are discussed along with theoretical issues and future works

Lyricon (Lyrics + Earcons) improves identification of auditory cues

Auditory researchers have developed various non-speech cues in designing auditory user interfaces. A preliminary study of “lyricons” (lyrics + earcons [1]) has provided a novel approach to devising auditory cues in electronic products, by combining the concurrent two layers of musical speech and earcons (short musical motives). An experiment on sound-function meaning mapping was conducted between earcons and lyricons. It demonstrated that lyricons significantly more enhanced the relevance between the sound and the meaning compared to earcons. Further analyses on error type and confusion matrix show that lyricons showed a higher identification rate and a shorter mapping time than earcons. Factors affecting auditory cue identification and application directions of lyricons are discussed

Design and evaluation of Lyricons (Lyrics + Earcons) for semantic and aesthetic improvements of auditory cues

Auditory researchers have developed various non-speech cues in designing auditory user interfaces. A preliminary study of “Lyricons” (lyrics + earcons) has provided a novel approach to devising auditory cues in electronic products, by combining the concurrent two layers of musical speech and earcons (short musical motives). The purpose of the present study is to introduce iterative design processes and to validate the effectiveness of lyricons compared to earcons, whether people can more intuitively grasp functions that lyricons imply than those of earcons. Results favor lyricons over earcons. Future work and practical application directions are also discussed

Design and Evaluation of Lyricons (Lyrics + Earcons) for Semantic and Aesthetic Improvements of Auditory Cues

Presented at the 20th International Conference on Auditory Display (ICAD2014), June 22-25, 2014, New York, NY.Auditory researchers have developed various non-speech cues in designing auditory user interfaces. A preliminary study of “Lyricons” (lyrics + earcons) has provided a novel approach to devising auditory cues in electronic products, by combining the concurrent two layers of musical speech and earcons (short musical motives). The purpose of the present study is to introduce iterative design processes and to validate the effectiveness of lyricons compared to earcons, whether people can more intuitively grasp functions that lyricons imply than those of earcons. Results favor lyricons over earcons. Future work and practical application directions are also discussed

Fuzzy investment portfolio selection models based on interval analysis approach

This paper employs fuzzy set theory to solve the unintuitive problem of the Markowitz mean-variance (MV) portfolio model and extend it to a fuzzy investment portfolio selection model. Our model establishes intervals for expected returns and risk preference, which can take into account investors' different investment appetite and thus can find the optimal resolution for each interval. In the empirical part, we test this model in Chinese stocks investment and find that this model can fulfill different kinds of investors' objectives. Finally, investment risk can be decreased when we add investment limit to each stock in the portfolio, which indicates our model is useful in practice

Development of Measuring Device for Diameter at Breast Height of Trees

Diameter at breast height (DBH) is the main metric for standing tree growth measurements. Developing fast and efficient measurement devices for measuring DBH is of great values in forest resource surveys. In this paper, we propose a new tree diameter measurement instrument developed using self-reset displacement sensor, which is equipped with a Personal Computer (PC) terminal to enable the measurement, transmission, storage, and analysis of tree diameters in one. The measurements showed an overall bias of 1.44% and an accuracy of 97.35% compared to the caliper, a conventional diameter measuring instrument. The overall bias was −0.52% compared to the diameter tape, and the measurement accuracy was 98.43%. Compared to the conventional devices, the proposed device is small and easy to carry, the measurement efficiency is significantly improved, and the measurement data can be directly derived for analysis. Compared with related electronic measuring instruments, this proposed device has the advantages of small volume, easy operation, large measurement range, and wider applicability