The time course of plausibility effects on eye movements in reading: Evidence from noun-noun compounds.

Readers' eye movements were monitored as they read sentences containing noun-noun compounds that varied in frequency (e.g., elevator mechanic, mountain lion). The left constituent of the compound was either plausible or implausible as a head noun at the point at which it appeared, whereas the compound as a whole was always plausible. When the head noun analysis of the left constituent was implausible, reading times on this word were inflated, beginning with the first fixation. This finding is consistent with previous demonstrations of very rapid effects of plausibility on eye movements. Compound frequency did not modulate the plausibility effect, and all disruption was resolved by the time readers' eyes moved to the next word. These findings suggest (contra Kennison, 2005) that the parser initially analyzes a singular noun as a head instead of a modifier. In addition, the findings confirm that the very rapid effect of plausibility on eye movements is not due to strategic factors, because in the present experiment, unlike in previous demonstrations, this effect appeared in sentences that were globally plausible. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhanced user performance in an image gallery application with a mobile autostereoscopic touch display

In this study, we explored how stereoscopic depth affects performance and user experience in a mobile device with an autostereoscopic touch display. Participants conducted a visual search task with an image gallery application on three layouts with different depth ranges. The task completion times were recorded, and the participants were asked to rate their experiences. The results revealed that the image search times were facilitated by a mild depth effect and that too great a depth slowed search times and decreased user-experience ratings.     

Distributed information service architecture for overlapping multiaccess networks

Multimedia delivery in mobile multiaccess network environments has emerged as a key area within the future Internet research domain. When network heterogeneity is coupled with the proliferation of multiaccess capabilities in mobile handheld devices, one can expect many new avenues for developing novel services and applications. New mechanisms for audio/video delivery over multiaccess networks will define the next generation of major distribution technologies, but will require significantly more information to operate according to their best potential. In this paper we present and evaluate a distributed information service, which can enhance media delivery over such multiaccess networks. We describe the proposed information service, which is built upon the new distributed control and management framework (DCMF) and the mobility management triggering functionality (TRG). We use a testbed which includes 3G/HSPA, WLAN and WiMAX network accesses to evaluate our proposed architecture and present results that demonstrate its value in enhancing video delivery and minimizing service disruption in an involved scenario.     

Mobile crowdsensing with mobile agents

We introduce mobile agents for mobile crowdsensing. Crowdsensing campaigns are designed through different roles that are implemented as mobile agents. The role-based tasks of mobile agents include collecting data, analyzing data and sharing data in the campaign. Mobile agents execute and control the campaign autonomously as a multi-agent system and migrate in the opportunistic network of participants’ devices. Mobile agents take into account the available resources in the devices and match participants’ privacy requirements to the campaign requirements. Sharing of task results in real-time facilitates cooperation towards the campaign goal while maintaining a selected global measure, such as energy efficiency. We discuss current challenges in crowdsensing and propose mobile agent based solutions for campaign execution and monitoring, addressing data collection and participant-related issues. We present a software framework for mobile agents-based crowdsensing that is seamlessly integrated into the Web. A set of simulations are conducted to compare mobile agent-based campaigns with existing crowdsensing approaches. We implemented and evaluated a small-scale real-world mobile agent based campaign for pedestrian flock detection. The simulation and evaluation results show that mobile agent based campaigns produce comparable results with less energy consumption when the number of agents is relatively small and enables in-network data processing with sharing of data and task results with insignificant overhead.     

Recent developments in large‐area photomasks for display applications

One of the most critical areas in the manufacturing process for FPD panels or shadow masks for CRTs is lithography. Most existing lithography technologies require high‐quality large‐area photomasks. The requirements on these photomasks include positioning accuracy (registration) and repeatability (overlay), systematic image quality errors (“mura” or display quality), and resolution (minimum feature size). The general trend toward higher resolution and improved performance, e.g., for TFT desktop monitors, has put a strong focus on the specifications for large‐area‐display photomasks. This article intends to give an overview of the dominant issues for large‐area‐display photomasks, and illustrates differences compared with other applications. The article will also present state‐of‐the‐art methods and trends. In particular, the aspects of positioning accuracy over large areas and systematic image‐quality errors will be described. New qualitative and objective methods have been developed as means to capture systematic image‐quality errors. Results indicating that errors below 25 nm can be found early in the manufacturing process is presented, thus allowing inspection for visual effects before the actual display is completed. Positioning accuracy below 400 nm (3 sigma) over 720 × 560 mm have been achieved. These results will in the future be extended up toward 1 × 1 m for generation 4 in TFT‐LCD production.     

Temporal Kohonen Map and the Recurrent Self-Organizing Map: Analytical and Experimental Comparison

This paper compares two Self-Organizing Map (SOM) based models for temporal sequence processing (TSP) both analytically and experimentally. These models, Temporal Kohonen Map (TKM) and Recurrent Self-Organizing Map (RSOM), incorporate leaky integrator memory to preserve the temporal context of the input signals. The learning and the convergence properties of the TKM and RSOM are studied and we show analytically that the RSOM is a significant improvement over the TKM, because the RSOM allows simple derivation of a consistent learning rule. The results of the analysis are demonstrated with experiments.     

Application of evolutionary optimisers in data-based calibration of Activated Sludge Models

Modelling activated sludge systems has become an accepted practice in Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) design, teaching and research, and Activated Sludge Models (ASM) are by far the most widely used models for activated sludge systems. In most ASM applications, calibration is based on more or less ad-hoc and trial and error approaches. Calibration of the ASMs remains the weakest link in the overall process of modelling biological wastewater treatment. In this paper, a calibration approach is proposed where the need for expert knowledge and modeller effort is significantly reduced. The calibration approach combines identifiability analysis and evolutionary optimisers to automate the ASM calibration. Identifiability analysis is used to deal with poor identifiability of the model structures and evolutionary optimisers are used to identify the model parameters. The applied evolutionary optimisers are Genetic Algorithms and Differential Evolution. Performance of the evolutionary optimisers is compared with a previously proposed calibration approach based on Monte Carlo simulations. All methods were capable of calibrating the model when given enough computation time. However, some of the evolutionary optimisation methods had an advantage in terms of computation time against the Monte Carlo method.     

Weight initialization with reference patterns

The problem of weight initialization in multilayer perceptron networks is considered. A new computationally simple weight initialization method based on the usage of reference patterns is presented. A reference pattern is a vector which is used to represent data points that fall in its vicinity in the data space. On one hand, the proposed method aims to set the initial weight values to be such that inputs to network nodes are within the active region (in other words, nodes are not saturated). On the other hand, the goal is to distribute the discriminant functions formed by the hidden units evenly into the input space area where training data is located. The proposed method is tested with the widely used two-spirals classification benchmark problem and channel equalization problem where several alternatives for obtaining suitable reference patterns are investigated. Also, the effect of the initialization is studied when two commonly used cost functions are used in the training phase. These are the mean square error and relative entropy cost functions. A comparison with the conventional random initialization shows that significant improvement in convergence can be achieved with the proposed method. In addition, the computational cost of the initialization was found to be negligible compared with the cost of training.     

The association of distress and sleeping problems with physicians’ intentions to change profession: The moderating effect of job control.

The present study examined whether job control moderated the association between stress indicators (distress and sleeping problems) and intentions to change profession among 2,650 Finnish physicians. Ordinal logistic regression analysis was applied. The authors found that high levels of distress and sleeping problems were associated with higher levels of intentions to change profession, whereas high job control was associated with lower levels of intentions to change profession even after adjusting for the effects of gender, age, and employment sector. In addition, high job control was able to mitigate the positive association that distress and sleeping problems had with intentions to change profession. Our findings highlight the importance of offering more job control to physicians to prevent unnecessary physician turnover. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Correction to: Embrittlement Analysis of Σ5[210]/(-1-20) FeAl Grain Boundary in Presence of Defects: An Ab Initio Study

Metallurgical and Materials Transactions A -