julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
A Team Based Variant of CTL
2015-09-01

We introduce two variants of computation tree logic CTL based on team semantics: an asynchronous one and a synchronous one. For both variants we investigate the computational complexity of the satisfiability as well as the model checking problem. The satisfiability problem is shown to be EXPTIME-complete. Here it does not matter which of the two semantics are considered. For model checking we prove a PSPACE-completeness for the synchronous case, and show P-completeness for the asynchronous case. Furthermore we prove several interesting fundamental properties of both semantics.
Australia's Dust Bowl: Transnational Influences in Soil Conservation and the Spread of Ecological Thought
2015-09-01

During the period 1930–46, drought and wind erosion turned parts of the US and Australia into dust bowls. While the US events are well studied, historical research on similar processes in Australia is less abundant. The first part of the paper focusses on the transnational transfer of soil conservation policy and science from the US to Australia, claiming it stimulated the diffusion of an ecological conservationist's conscience within the wider Australian society. The dust storm years were therefore a key period for the evolution of ecological thought and environmental ethics in Australia. Taking the example of four key figures of Australia's conservation movement of the 1960s and later, the second part of the paper shows intellectual continuities between these precursors and the later conservation movement.
Metamers of the ventral stream revisited
2015-09-01

Peripheral vision has been characterised as a lossy representation: information present in the periphery is discarded to a greater degree than in the fovea. What information is lost and what is retained? Freeman and Simoncelli (2011) recently revived the concept of metamers (physically different stimuli that look the same) as a way to test this question. Metamerism is a useful criterion, but several details must be refined. First, their paper assessed metamerism using a task with a significant working memory component (ABX). We use a purely spatial discrimination task to probe perceptual encoding. Second, a strong test of any hypothesised representation is to what extent it is metameric for a real scene. Several subsequent studies have misunderstood this to be the result of the paper. Freeman and Simoncelli instead only compared synthetic stimuli to each other. Pairs of stimuli were synthesised from natural images such that they were physically different but equal under the model representation. The experiment then assessed the scaling factor (spatial pooling region as a function of retinal eccentricity) required to make these two synthesised images indiscriminable from one another, finding that these scaling factors approximated V2 receptive field sizes. We find that a smaller scale factor than V2 neurons is required to make the synthesised images metameric for natural scenes (which are also equal under the model). We further show that this varies over images and is modified by including the spatial context of the target patches. While this particular model therefore fails to capture some perceptually relevant information, we believe that testing specific models against the criteria that they should discard as much information as possible while remaining metameric is a useful way to understand perceptual representations psychophysically. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015
Robust Onboard Visual SLAM for Autonomous MAVs
2015-09-01

Abstract. This paper presents a visual simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) system consisting of a robust visual odometry and an efficient back-end with loop closure detection and pose-graph optimization. Robustness of the visual odometry is achieved by utilizing dual cameras pointing different directions with no overlap in their respective fields of view mounted on an micro aerial vehicle (MAV). The theory behind this dual-camera visual odometry can be easily ex-tended to applications with multiple cameras. The back-end of the SLAM system maintains a keyframe-based global map, which is used for loop closure detec-tion. An adaptive-window pose-graph optimization method is proposed to refine keyframe poses of the global map and thus correct pose drift that is inherent in the visual odometry. The position of each map point is then refined implicitly due to its relative representation to its source keyframe. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed visual SLAM algorithm for applications onboard MAVs in ex-periments with both autonomous and manual flights. The pose tracking results are compared with the ground truth data provided by an external tracking system. 1
The Model Checking Fingerprints of CTL Operators
2015-09-01

The aim of this study is to understand the inherent expressive power of CTL operators. We investigate the complexity of model checking for all CTL fragments with one CTL operator and arbitrary Boolean operators. This gives us a fingerprint of each CTL operator. The comparison between the fingerprints yields a hierarchy of the operators that mirrors their strength with respect to model checking.
Improving EEG-BCI analysis for low certainty subjects by using dictionary learning
2015-09-01

The diagnosis of patients with Disorders Of Consciousness represents a challenge in the clinical routine. Recently, Brain Computer Interfaces based in Electroencephalography (EEG-BCI) have been used to detect signs of consciousness in these patients. This approach allows to discover brain responses to command following. Nevertheless, a reliable BCI strategy must to be able to determine the commands with high levels of certainty. Current results reported in the literature evidence that about 25% of the subjects in which BCI is used may have low performances, near to the chance level, even in collaborating subjects. In this work, we propose a novel approach based on dictionary learning representations aimed to improve performance in low certainty subjects. We propose to introduce an intermediate representation scheme, based on sparse dictionaries, before feature selection step. Our main assumption is that by using these representations we can capture more efficiently the EEG signal structure for subjects responses. The results show that using the new representation the weighted average performance in command following outcome the previews proposed methods of 64.8% to 67.9%. Higher improvements in performance were obtained for low certainly subjects. Our results suggests that this approach may improve BCI-EEG performance in low certainly subjects.
Emily Dickinson’s “My life had stood a loaded gun” – An interdisciplinary analysis
2015-09-01

Abstract In this article we analyse Emily Dickinson’s poem “My life had stood a loaded gun” using a specific methodology that combines linguistic and literary theory. The first step is a textual analysis with the methods of compositional semantics. The second step is a literary analysis enriching the literal meaning with information about the wider context of the poem. The division of these two steps reflects the distinction between an objective interpretation of the text based solely on the rules of grammar and a subjective reading which draws on various external fields of reference. In combining both steps, we show why some interpretations of the poem are more plausible than others and how different lines of interpretation are related to each other. However, it is not our aim to provide one definite interpretation of the poem or to favour one reading over the others. Rather, we wish to show how Dickinson’s use of specific grammatical mechanisms leads to a number of interpretations which are more or less plausible. That is, we identify plausible interpretations on the basis of grammatical evidence, and we relate these to each other by pointing at instances in the poem where a divergence of interpretations is possible (cases of ambiguity, for example). This method is helpful for literary studies since formal linguistics helps produce a systematic and non-arbitrary analysis, and it is helpful for linguistic analysis since it uncovers which violations of grammar do or do not disturb the interpretative process, and which kind of structures need pragmatic enrichment.
Decision-related activity in V2 for a fine disparity discrimination task
2015-09-01

The stereoscopic depth of a target can be evaluated relative to the fixation plane (absolute disparity) or relative to a background (relative disparity). Fine disparity discrimination is thought to rely on relative disparity judgments (Prince et al., 2000). V2 neurons are the first in the visual processing hierarchy to show selectivity for relative disparity (Thomas et al., 2002), and have previously been found to have decision-related activity for coarse disparity discrimination tasks (Nienborg and Cumming, 2006, 2009). Here, we asked whether V2 neurons also show decision-related activity in a fine disparity discrimination task. We recorded extracellular single unit activity while two macaques performed fine disparity discrimination. The stimuli were random dot stereograms with a disparity defined central disk and a surrounding annulus. The animals had to discriminate whether the disk was protruding or receding relative to the surrounding annulus. The neurons discriminated the stimuli reliably although neuronal discrimination performance compared to that of the animals was lower on average (mean neurometric to psychometric threshold ratios: 2.61). These results suggest a perceptual role of V2 neurons for fine disparity discrimination. The V2 units also had decision-related activity, quantified as choice probabilities (mean=0.57, significantly different from 0.5 chance level, p< 0.01, n=63). Interestingly, neuronal selectivity for relative disparity was not correlated with decision-related activity (r=0.014, p=0.93). In a subset of units (n=28) we measured decision-related activity for the coarse and fine disparity discrimination task and found a significant correlation (r=0.4, p< 0.05). Choice probabilities have been shown to depend on the structure of interneuronal correlations (Shadlen et al. 1996, Gu et al. 2008). This could explain that choice probabilities in the fine task were independent of their selectivity for this task. The correlation of the choice probabilities between tasks suggests a surprisingly stable structure of interneuronal correlations between the two tasks. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015
Towards cognitive brain-computer interfaces for patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
2015-09-01

Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) often rely on low-level cognitive processes known to be impaired in late stages of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). We propose a BCI for ALS patients based on self-regulation of neuronal oscillations in the superior parietal lobule, which is less affected by ALS than motor and sensory cortices. We describe a case of self-regulation of band power in gamma range (55-85 Hz) based on feedback from the parietal cortex by an ALS patient, resulting in a mean offline two-class decoding accuracy of 79.2% across four sessions. Despite a good offline decoding accuracy, a source localisation analysis revealed that gamma-power modulation was not spatially localized, suggesting confounding by non-cortical artifacts. Theta-power in contrast, showed a strong localized response in the precuneus. As such, this may be an alternative possibility of using self-regulation of neuronal oscillations for cognitive BCI.
Comparison of Relevance Estimation Mechanisms for Cooperative Awareness Messages in VANETs
2015-09-01

Cooperative Awareness Messages (CAMs) regularly distribute state information about vehicles in Vehicular Ad-hoc Networks (VANETs). Hardware modules in series vehicles have limited processing capabilities so that only a subset of received CAMs can be processed which may be chosen by a relevance estimation mechanism (REM). In this work, we review several REMs that differ in complexity. We compare them using various approaches in different road scenarios. The results show that more complex REMs provide similar results in simple road scenarios but clearly improved results for demanding road scenarios.
[Lysosomal storage diseases: A brief summary].
2015-09-01

The pathologist may be the first to suspect LSD and this applies to LSDs that show storage histiocytes or one of a number of other LSDs in which only minor or absent storage is seen in histiocytes but marked storage phenomena are found in other cell systems. Some of the numerous, extremely heterogeneous LSDs may, however, be overlooked as detailed knowledge of the generally rare LSDs is the domain of LSD specialists. Clinicians, pathologists, geneticists and biochemists should cooperate in solving the diagnostic problems.
Dominance of reflectance over shape in facial identity processing is related to individual abilities
2015-09-01

For processing of facial identity, observers utilize visual information from both shape and reflectance. Recent evidence suggests an increasing importance of reflectance, at the expense of shape, with increasing face familiarity (Itz et al., 2014). Moreover, poor compared to good face recognizers were reported to disproportionately rely on shape when attempting to recognize learned faces (Kaufmann et al., 2013). In two experiments, we investigated the relative diagnosticity of shape and reflectance for matching of familiar and unfamiliar faces (Experiment 1) and identification of familiar and newly learned faces (Experiment 2). Within each familiarity condition, faces derived from a 3D camera system were morphed selectively in either shape or reflectance in steps of 20%, while holding the respective other dimension constant. Experiment 1 consisted of an identity matching task with unaltered S1 followed by morphed S2 stimuli. In Experiment 2 familiar and recently learned faces had to be identified from morphs. Individual scores from three tests were used to assess individual differences: the Bielefelder Famous Faces Test (BFFT), the Glasgow Face Matching Test (GFMT), and the Cambridge Face Memory Test (CFMT). Using multi-level model analyses, we examined probabilities of same versus different responses in Experiment 1, and probabilities of original identity vs. other/unknown identity responses in Experiment 2. Overall, our data revealed higher diagnosticity of reflectance compared to shape for both matching and identification, particularly for familiar faces. Moreover, compared to the respective average performance in each test, above-average BFFT (i.e. familiar face) performance was associated with higher utilization of reflectance, whereas both above-average CFMT and GFMT (i.e. unfamiliar face) performance coincided with higher utilization of shape. Our findings highlight the importance of reflectance information for face matching and identification, and indicate different underlying strategies with respect to familiar compared to unfamiliar face processing skills. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015
An Eye for Detail: Attentive States Modulate the Social Gaze-Cue Effect in Multiple Object Tracking
2015-09-01

Behavioral and electrophysiological studies on bistable images helped to trace the boundary between what perception owes to early visual processing, and what cognition adds to it. They demonstrated that passive sensory processing can be actively modulated in a top-down manner. For example, knowledge and intentional control has been shown to alternate percepts of the same stimulus. One reason for this phenomenon to occur is a change in the allocation of attention in the visual display. How does this affect a task whose successful completion already requires permanent re-allocation of attention? Here, we use the multiple-object tracking (MOT) paradigm to study influences of participants’ knowledge on stimulus behavior to demonstrate that top-down processes affect sensory visual processing of dynamic stimuli. In MOT tasks, participants track and identify a specified set of target objects that move among identical looking distractors. Using pairs of cartoon eyes as stimuli, we integrated a strong exogenous cue that works independently of top-down control. In an experimental series, participants either tracked without further knowledge or were asked to identify the four conditions they were informed about beforehand. The gaze-cue effect was either implemented by the objects constantly “staring” or randomly “flirting” with a single other object (either a target or a distractor). Results: (1) only with explicit explanations about the eyes’ behavior, perception shifts were observed (measured in how often participants marked the gaze-cued object), (2) even when observers failed to identify the eyes’ behavior, the impact of the gaze cue was still strong, and (3) it is not tracking experience per se that enhances the gaze-cue processing. These results not only show that cognitive processing modes determine visual perception in attention-demanding dynamic tasks, but also serve as an approach to explain existing, contradicting results of past research. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015
Canonical Viewpoints for Videos of Assembly Tasks
2015-09-01

Canonical-views for static objects are defined as preferred-views that provide richer spatial information and richer cognitive processing (Palmer, Rosch, & Chase, 1981; Blanz, Tarr, & Bülthoff, 1999; Ghose & Liu, 2013). For simple dynamic scenes consisting of three moving balls on a flat surface, canonical-views provide richer information about temporal changes in the spatial relationships (Garsoffky, Huff, & Schwan, 2007; Garsoffky, Schwan, & Huff, 2009). In this research we ask (1) if there is a single canonical-view for an entire movie depicting an assembly task, and (2) if the canonical-view depends on a specific assembly-step or action-type. The stimuli consisted of three complex assembly tasks taken from a technical construction toolkit. Each scenario was recorded from 5 different viewpoints, namely, self, opposite-to-self, left, right and top. The mean assembly time per scenario was 4 min and 14 sec. The actor in the video was right-handed. There were 66 assembly-steps with 7 action-types. Procedure: A pair of video clips showing the same step appeared successively at two different positions on the screen. After the first showing, the videos were played back in a loop until the participant responded. The task was to choose the “better-view” for learning the assembly-step. Data from 20 participants show that canonical-view varies to some extent from assembly-step to assembly-step. The self and the opposite-to-self views were most-preferred 74% of the time. Left and right views were least-preferred 76% of the time. That is, views along the median plane were rated as “better” for learning than frontal and top plane for every action-type. An “unambiguity measure” was calculated for each assembly-step as mean frequency of (most minus least) preferred-views. Higher unambiguity values mean that the best perspective is unambiguously preferred. The median views are unambiguously preferred over other views suggesting these are canonical-views of actions. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015
Novel approach for calculating motion feedback in teleoperation
2015-09-01

In this paper we present a method for calculating inertial motion feedback in a teleoperation setup. For this we make a distinction between vehicle-state feedback that depends on the physical motion of the remote vehicle, and task-related motion feedback that provides information about the teleoperation task. By providing motion feedback that is independent of vehicle motion we exploit the spatial decoupling between the operator and the controlled vehicle.
Feasability of flexible bronchoscopy under sedation without local anaesthesia of the pharynx
2015-09-01

<b>Background and objectives:</b> Local anaesthesia of the pharynx (LAP) is traditionally used for flexible bronchoscopy (FB). Nevertheless, its additional benefit to sedation concerning the reduction of cough and gagging is unclear. This prospective multicenter trial evaluated the feasibility of FB under sedation alone versus in combination with LAP and tested for non-inferiority. <b>Material and methods:</b> FB was performed in 72 consecutive patients either under sedation with propofol alone (33 patients 45.8%) or with additional oxybuprocaine 1% for LAP (39 patients, 54.2%). Assessment of patient characteristics (including sex, age, preexisting disease and smoking), periinterventional cardiorespiratory monitoring and sedation, and postinterventional coughing, (recorded with a microphone over 10 minutes as the primary objective) were conducted. <b>Results:</b> Demographic data (age, body mass index, preexisting lung disease and smoking history) were balanced between both groups. FB could be carried out in all patients as previously planned. Sedation dose, duration of the procedure and vital parameters did not differ between the groups. Within the first 10 minutes postintervention we observed a shorter cumulative coughing time of 51.4 s in the group without LAP compared to 79.7 s in the group receiving LAP. However, this difference was not significant (p = 0.46). In addition, there was no difference in complication rate and patient discomfort. <b>Conclusions:</b> FB under sedation without LAP can be adequately performed without disadvantages. Furthermore, it seems to be associated with less postinterventional coughing when compared to FB with additional LAP.
Lung function change and exacerbations in patients with COPD in the WISDOM study
2015-09-01

<b>Introduction:</b> The WISDOM study (NCT00975195) showed that in patients with severe to very severe COPD receiving tiotropium + salmeterol, risk of moderate or severe exacerbations was non-inferior in patients discontinuing inhaled corticosteroids (ICS) compared to those continuing ICS. However, patients in the ICS-withdrawal arm had a small reduction in trough FEV<sub>1</sub> (43 mL; p&lt;0.01). We analysed <i>post hoc</i> the relationship of the change in FEV<sub>1</sub> in both treatment arms to moderate or severe exacerbations. <b>Methods:</b> All patients were categorised into three groups according to the tertiles (33rd and 67th percentiles) of the change from baseline in trough FEV<sub>1</sub> after 1 year of treatment; decrease (&lt;-130 mL), medium change (≥-130 mL to &lt;20 mL) or increase (≥20 mL). The change groups were analysed using descriptive statistics. <b>Results:</b> The percentage of patients with moderate or severe on-treatment exacerbation was similar between the decrease and increase FEV<sub>1</sub> change groups, and ∼10% higher in the medium change group (Table). These findings were similar in the ICS and ICS-withdrawal arms. <b>Conclusions:</b> In the WISDOM study, no apparent relationship was observed between the magnitude of change in FEV<sub>1</sub> and exacerbations over 1 year of treatment in patients with severe to very severe COPD receiving tiotropium + salmeterol, with or without ICS therapy. <b>Funding:</b> Boehringer Ingelheim.