Ambiguous Responses Research Articles

Encoding of Wind Direction by Central Neurons in Drosophila

Wind is a major navigational cue for insects, but how wind direction is decoded by central neurons in the insect brain is unknown. Here we find that walking flies combine signals from both antennae to orient to wind during olfactory search behavior. Movements of single antennae are ambiguous with respect to wind direction, but the difference between left and right antennal displacements yields a linear code for wind direction in azimuth. Second-order mechanosensory neurons share the ambiguous responses of a single antenna and receive input primarily from the ipsilateral antenna. Finally, we identify novel "wedge projection neurons" that integrate signals across the two antennae and receive input from at least three classes of second-order neurons to produce a more linear representation of wind direction. This study establishes how a feature of the sensory environment-wind direction-is decoded by neurons that compare information across two sensors.

Multi-Pedestrian Tracking Based on Improved Two Step Data Association

The multi-object tracking (MOT) algorithms based on tracking by detection framework are the state-of-the-art trackers in recent years. Association optimization and association affinity model are two key parts in MOT, which have attracted attention to build effective association model to overcome ambiguous detection responses. In this paper, we have proposed an online multi-pedestrian tracking algorithm that uses a two-step data association with the help of improved sparse based appearance affinity model and rank based motion affinity model. The association framework is constructed by fusing the trajectory dynamic information and confidence based two-step data associations. The missing frames of a tracklet are counted based on the sparse reconstruction error of a target. An incremental SVD and downdate SVD decomposition is devised to estimate the rank of the Hankel matrix in rank based motion model. The estimated result is fed back to compute the tracklets confidence during association optimization. Both those strategies are beneficial to eliminate ambiguous detection responses during association. By this association optimization strategy, the fragmented tracklets in online tracking are reduced in some extent. We evaluate our method on four public available challenging datasets. The experimental results, both qualitative and quantitative, demonstrate that the proposed tracking algorithm has a good tracking performance compared with several state-of-the-art multi-object trackers.

Hesitant Empathy: Sun Baoxuan's Diary and Approaches to Reading Fiction in Late Qing China

ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH DAY OF THE FIFTH MONTH OF 1903, SUN BAOXUAN—A SCHOLAR-OFFICIAL IN LATE QING DYNASTY CHINA—documented in his diary that he had acquired a copy of the periodical 新小說(Xin xiaoshuo;“he New Novel”), founded by Liang Qichao in 1902 to propagate translated fiction and new Chinese fiction. Immediately drawn to the stories and novels it carried, Sun soon concluded that Western fiction had the unique strength of imparting knowledge and expanding rational capacity: 「觀西人政治 小說，可以悟政治原理；觀科學小說，可以通種種格物原理；觀包 探小說，可以覘西國人情土俗及其居心之險詐詭變，有非我國所 能及者」 (“Political novels teach us principles of politics; scientific novels teach us theories of things; detective novels show us Western customs and treachery, which often surpass ours”; 690). Immersed in a culture where vernacular novels had been suppressed by official censorship and prejudice among the elites, Sun ardently embraced translated fiction. By contrast, vernacular Chinese novels, with few exceptions, seemed to him routinely 「陳腐」 (“decadent”), providing no more than 「排遣」 (“diversion and entertainment”; 677, 690) The perceived rationality of Western fiction gave him a sudden license to seriously engage with a genre that the literary culture in China continued to exclude well into the twentieth century. Sun's encounter with foreign fiction marked the early stage of a somewhat bumpy adventure. In later sections of the diary, Sun documents reading sentimental strains of translated fiction and the more ambiguous responses they incited in him.

The Writings

The Writings Bradley C. Gregory, Brent A. Strawn, Stephen D. Ryan, and Christopher T. Begg 773. [Wisdom Literature] O. Palmer Robertson, The Christ of Wisdom: A Redemptive-Historical Exploration of the Wisdom Books of the Old Testament (Phillipsburg, NJ: P&R Publishing, 2017). Pp. xxi + 407. Paper $19.99. ISBN 978-1-62995-291-8. R.'s book examines the OT wisdom literature redemptive-historically as both providing insight into the great questions of human life and as pointing toward Christ. The first chapter introduces readers to the terminology of wisdom, its background in the ANE, and its literary forms. Subsequent chapters discuss standard introductory topics as well as the contents of Proverbs, Job, Ecclesiastes, Lamentations, and Song of Songs. R. adopts traditional notions of authorship, arguing that Jeremiah wrote Lamentations and ascribing the other four books to the time of Solomon.—B.C.G. 774. Lance R. Hawley, Metaphor Competition in the Book of Job (JAJ Sup 26; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2018). Pp. 256. $113. ISBN 978-3-525-53135-8. H.'s monograph, originally a dissertation at the University of Wisconsin (advisor: Ron Troxel) furthers some ideas put forward by Carol Newsom in her The Book of Job: A Contest of Moral Imaginations (see OTA 27 [2004] #708) by investigating how the metaphors used by Job, his friends, and God compete in the book. In this way, H.'s study "seeks a way forward for understanding the nature of the Joban discourse by assessing the interlocutors' use of metaphor, examining their patterns of cognition as they depict their understanding of the world and Job's particular situation via metaphor" (p. 15). The first chapter, "The Book of Job as a Conceptual Network," introduces the study and the notion of the Book of Job as a network of signified concepts operating on both literary and cognitive discourse levels. This is followed by a second chapter dealing with method and theory: "Conceptual Metaphor Theory and the Joban Discourse." Chap. 3, "Speech Metaphors in the Joban Dialogue," treats a metaphorical target domain, i.e., that of speech (including a treatment of silence), while chap. 4, "Animal Metaphors in the Joban Discourse," takes up the metaphorical source domain of animals. Chap. 5, "Yahweh's Animal Images as a Response to Job," argues that the divine speeches are not metaphorical per se but that Yhwh's constant employment of animal imagery "removes the ground from Job's understanding of the world. One might suppose that this act of reframing necessarily sets off a chain reaction of conceptual reorganization in Job's brain, but his brief and ambiguous response to the divine speeches is insufficient evidence of this" (p. 209). A final chapter concludes the study ("Conclusion: Dynamics of Metaphor Coherence in the Joban Discourse") and summarizes H.'s results with regard to metaphorical coherence (perceptible or otherwise) and the three primary ways metaphor competition functions in Job: elaboration, extension, and questioning. A list of Works Cited and four indexes (ancient sources, authors, subjects, and conceptual metaphors) round out the volume.—B.A.S. 775. [Psalms] Christina Kumpmann, Schöpfen, Schlagen, Schützen: Eine semantische, thematische und theologische Untersuchung des Handelns Gottes in den Psalmen (BBB 177; Göttingen: V&R unipress/Bonn: Bonn University Press, 2016). Pp. 466 + 4 col. graphs. €75. ISBN 978-38471-0530-5. K.'s semantic, thematic, and theological study of the actions of God in the Book of Psalms is a revised version of her 2015 University of Bonn dissertation directed by Ulrich [End Page 248] Berges. In ten chapters K. analyzes the 1,767 psalmic verses in which God is the subject of a finite verb or participle. The textual basis of her study is the literal Elberfelder German translation of the Psalter checked against the Masoretic Text. The study is precisely focused and excludes consideration of stative or passive verbs and of the larger context of the psalm. With the aim of better understanding the portrayal of God in the Psalms K. treats in turn ten principal categories of divine action: verbs for doing or acting (handeln), creating (schöpfen), ruling (König sein/herrschen), acting powerfully or violently...

The Politics of Counter-Expertise on Aerial Spraying: Social Movements Denouncing Pesticide Risk Governance in the Philippines

ABSTRACTIn various places in the world, aerial spraying of pesticides has met with resistance from local communities potentially endangered by toxic pesticide drift. Social movements, and the counter-expertise that they mobilise, often trigger changes in state regulations of the practice. This article describes such struggles over risk regulation in the Philippines, where aerial spraying is common in large monoculture banana plantations. It has provoked local activism contesting the socio-economic power of landed and business elites and has challenged the government’s approach to managing pesticide risks. This article develops the argument that different types of counter-expertise must be recognised. The case shows that it can be difficult for movements to articulate these different types of counter-expertise. Furthermore, the weak state characteristics of the Philippine state has shaped the ambiguous responses of risk governance to multiple actors’ divergent knowledge claims. The result is a legal impasse in which civil society has successfully pushed the issue of aerial spraying onto the national political arena, but the state has as yet been unable to develop a comprehensive pesticide risk regulation independent of powerful business interests.

Adults’ perceptions of children’s referentially ambiguous responses

ABSTRACTThe present study examined adults’ (N = 295) interpretations of child witnesses’ referentially ambiguous “yes” and “no” responses to “Do You Know/Remember (DYK/R) if/whether” questions (e.g. “Do you know if it was blue?”). Participants were presented with transcripts from child sexual abuse cases modified based on question format (DYK/R vs. Direct) and child response type (Yes, No, I don’t know) in a between subjects design. We assessed whether adults recognized that children’s ambiguous responses were unclear, and if not, how they were interpreting children’s responses compared to the control (Direct) conditions. More specifically, we assessed whether adults interpreted children’s responses as answering the explicit (e.g. “No, I don’t remember”) or implicit (e.g. “No, it wasn’t blue”) question. Participants virtually never recognized ambiguous responses as unclear, and their interpretations were influenced by the attorney’s question and child’s response type. In sum, these results suggest that DYK/R questions often lead to misinterpretation, resulting in miscommunication.

The effect of expectation of acceptance on the interpretation of ambiguous responses to requests of assistance

The effect of expectation of acceptance on the interpretation of ambiguous responses to requests of assistance

Study of Converted-Wave Modeling: AVO Application for Shallow Gas Models

The application of converted-wave seismic method in hydrocarbon exploration has increased significantly. Since the conventional seismic ceases to provide an adequate result in complex geology area and it provides an ambiguous brightspot response. The main principle is that an incident P-wave produces reflected and converted P and SV wave when the downgoing P-wave impinges on an interface. Converted-wave seismic uses the multicomponent receiver that records both of vertical component and horizontal component. The vertical component is assumed to correspond to the compressional PP wave and the horizontal correspond to the PS converted-wave. In this research, a synthetic model with the shallow gas and the salt dome below are constructed. The purpose of this study is to analyze the brightspot due to the presence of shallow gas and its effect to the quality of PP and PS wave reflection below the gas zone. To achieve the goal, both vertical and horizontal seismic data processing are performed. In horizontal data processing, the best gamma function (Vp/Vs) value is estimated to produce the better and reliable image. The result shows that the brightspot response in conventional data doesn’t exist in converted-wave data and the imaging below the gas zone in converted-wave data is better than the conventional due to the attenuation and diffraction effect that caused by gas column. Processing is followed by AVO analysis to compare the AVO response of PP and PS data in characterizing gas reservoir. Both PP and PS AVO curve shows the consistency with synthetic AVO from well data. Gas reservoir is a class 1 AVO anomaly with positive intercept and negative gradient on PP data. However, PS AVO curve does not refer any anomaly. It is because S-wave is not sensitive to the existence of rock saturant.

Validating an emerging tool based on auditory scale for decoding users’ emotional desires

More and more businesses are realizing the vital role of emotions in heightening the attractiveness and adding value to products. Due to the perceptual differences between designers and users, it is a key challenge for designers to transfer a user’s emotional desires into technical and design specifications, particularly cultural differences that may lead to ambiguous responses. We conducted research on revealing intangible emotions via quantifiable method, in order to bridge the discrepancy between designers’ intentions and users’ decoding. An emerging non-verbal tool was proposed, auditory parameter method (AP), which considers a set of auditory stimuli as scale to assess the emotions elicited by products. The objective was to investigate and validate whether the AP method is resistant to interference in cross-cultural and inter-ethnic application. Comparative experiments were organized in parallel with both Chinese and French participants, considering conventional verbal assessment semantic differential method (SD) as control group. The statistical results indicated that the auditory scale of AP method has slight intercultural differences in perception and interpretation.

Swedish adaptation of the General Medical Council's multisource feedback questionnaires: a qualitative study.

Objectivesto explore potential users’ opinions of a translated and culturally adapted Swedish version of the General Medical Council's MultiSource Feedback Questionnaires. MethodsIn this qualitative study, we used content analysis on semi-structured interviews from 44 resident doctors, 29 medical colleagues and 28 patients to analyse their opinions of the Swedish adapted version, created through translation and expert review. Transcribed interview data concerning the informants’ general thoughts about the tool were coded manually by three independent coders into categories, compiled as themes, and exemplified by citations. Data regarding specific question wording and relevance were used as a basis for final questionnaire revision. ResultsThe informants valued the tool’s potential to provide essential feedback to support the development of residents' medical competences and communication skills. Resident doctors welcomed support in their self-reflection. Colleagues saw it as a valuable tool for assessment that needs to be used sensitively. Patients appreciated opportunities to communicate feedback. Ambiguous or irrelevant questions and response options were identified. Some colleague-related questions about specific skills and knowledge appeared ambiguous to residents. The final questionnaire revision - based on the expert review and the interview analysis - resulted in a number of changes: four questions were deleted, twelve were reformulated, and six were added. ConclusionsPotential users perceived the Swedish adapted version as a beneficial tool for residents in their professional development. Further research is needed to explore how this tool can influence doctors’ development when used in real-life settings.

Standard and Supremely Smart: Luxury and Women’s Service Uniforms in World War II

This article examines the conflicted messages and construction of identity associated with women in uniform during World War II. Uniforms are developed as a unifying equalizer for a body of individuals; dress as a symbol, the part standing for the whole. Women’s military dress from this period, however, subverted this aim due to the ambiguous governmental and societal response to the women’s services, and the recruits’ desire for femininity in their military lives.How women used their uniforms to gain access to luxuries that would have been previously unavailable to most of them, such as travel is also explored. These themes will be examined with the help of advertisements, original documents and oral histories.

(Invited) Ultrafast Spectroscopy of Free-Carrier like Dynamics in Heavily Doped Semiconducting Carbon Nanotubes

We have investigated the photophysical properties of heavily doped semiconducting single-wall carbon nanotubes (s-SWNTs) in the vis and NIR spectral range. Doping is here achieved either by electrochemical gating or by redox chemistry, using AuCl3 as oxidizing agent. Stationary and time-resolved absorption spectroscopy show that the dynamical behaviour of electrochemically- and redox-doped s-SWNT samples are identical, indicating that doping mechanisms and the character of charged states is the same for both doping processes. Spectroscopically, the heavily doped regime is defined by the disappearance of NIR trion and neutral exciton signatures. The remaining absorption band in heavily hole-doped (6,5) s-SWNTs is broad, flat and practically featureless over a very broad spectral range from about 1150 nm to 620 nm. It carries nearly all the oscillator strength of the first subband exciton of intrinsic s-SWNTs. The transient spectral response of this so-called H-band (for heavily doped) is surprisingly weak, suggesting that signal contributions from ground- and excited state absorption and from stimulated emission cancel out nearly perfectly. We discuss these findings also in the context of UV-IR measurements of the optical conductivity which shows an ambiguous response in the low THz regime.

Relationship of Coping Responses and Anxiety Symptoms in Hispanic Youth

Coping responses and acculturative stress in relation to anxiety have not yet been examined in the Hispanic youth population in the United States. The present study investigated this relationship using empirically supported coping models and validated measures. It was predicted that based on previous research, emotion-focused and maladaptive coping would be positively associated with anxiety, and problem-focused coping would be negatively related to anxiety symptoms. Participants from a community sample consisting of 288 Hispanic youth completed a measure to assess coping, including ambiguous situations and open-ended responses, along with self-report questionnaires to assess anxiety symptoms and acculturative stress. Two independent raters used empirically supported coping categories to code coping responses. Data were analyzed using chi-square analyses and multiple hierarchical regressions. Results showed that acculturative stress was significantly associated to anxiety. However, the results were not consistent with the hypotheses regarding the relationship of coping responses with anxiety in this sample of Hispanic youth. This study highlights the importance of conducting future research to examine culturally appropriate methods ethnically diverse children use to cope and how coping may be related to anxiety in Hispanic populations.

Punctuation in text messages may convey abruptness. Period

In contrast with face-to-face conversations, text messages lack extra-linguistic cues such as tone of voice and gestures. We explore the hypothesis that textisms, such as irregular punctuation, are used to fill this role. We extend the work of Gunraj, Drumm-Hewitt, Dashow, Upadhyay, and Klin (2016) who found that the inclusion of a period after a positive one-word response (e.g., yeah.) led readers to perceive the response as less sincere. In Experiment 1, we used longer text exchanges that were more naturalistic and replicated this finding. In Experiments 2 and 3, negative responses (e.g., nope) and ambiguous responses (e.g., maybe) were also perceived as more negative, or less enthusiastic, with a period. The period can serve a rhetorical, rather than a grammatical, function in text messages. More generally, textisms such as punctuation can convey the types of social and pragmatic information that are communicated with extra-linguistic cues in face-to-face conversations.

A Schumpeterian model of investment and innovation with labor market regulation

ABSTRACTTheoretical and empirical models provide ambiguous responses on the relationship between labor market regulation, innovation and investment. On the one hand, labor market regulation increases firms' adjustment costs and, ceteris paribus, decreases investment. But, on the other, it also stimulates firms to invest, innovate, increase productivity and profit in the long run. In this paper we present an endogenous growth model that describes the role of these opposite forces, and why a stricter labor market regulation may positively affect innovation and investment in the long run. Most of the theoretical and empirical results hold for Italy, Germany, France, and Spain.

Dedicated tool to assess the impact of a rhetorical task on human body temperature

IntroductionFunctional infrared thermal imaging is a method widely used in medicine, including analysis of the mechanisms related to the effect of emotions on physiological processes. The article shows how the body temperature may change during stress associated with performing a rhetorical task and proposes new parameters useful for dynamic thermal imaging measurements Materials and methods29 healthy male subjects were examined. They were given a rhetorical task that induced stress. Analysis and processing of collected body temperature data in a spatial resolution of 256×512pixels and a temperature resolution of 0.1°C enabled to show the dynamics of temperature changes. This analysis was preceded by dedicated image analysis and processing methods ResultsThe presented dedicated algorithm for image analysis and processing allows for fully automated, reproducible and quantitative assessment of temperature changes and time constants in a sequence of thermal images of the patient. When performing the rhetorical task, the temperature rose by 0.47±0.19°C in 72.41% of the subjects, including 20.69% in whom the temperature decreased by 0.49±0.14°C after 237±141s. For 20.69% of the subjects only a drop in temperature was registered. For the remaining 6.89% of the cases, no temperature changes were registered ConclusionsThe performance of the rhetorical task by the subjects causes body temperature changes. The ambiguous temperature response to the given stress factor indicates the complex mechanisms responsible for regulating stressful situations. Stress associated with the examination itself induces body temperature changes. These changes should always be taken into account in the analysis of infrared data.

Crude fucoidan content in two North Atlantic kelp species, Saccharina latissima and Laminaria digitata\u2014seasonal variation and impact of environmental factors

Fucoidans are sulphated fucose-rich polysaccharides predominantly found in the cell walls of brown algae. The bioactive properties of fucoidans attract increasing interest from the medico-pharmaceutical industries and may drive an increase in demand of brown algae biomass. In nature, the biochemical composition of brown algae displays a seasonal fluctuation driven by environmental factors and endogenous rhythms. To cultivate and harvest kelps with high yields of fucoidans, knowledge is needed on seasonal variation and impact of environmental conditions on the fucoidan content of brown algae. The relations between the fucoidan content and key environmental factors (irradiance, nutrient availability, salinity and exposure) were examined by sampling natural populations of the common North Atlantic kelps, Saccharina latissima and Laminaria digitata, over a full year at Hanstholm in the North Sea and Aarhus in the Kattegat. In addition, laboratory experiments were carried out isolating the effects of the single factors. The results demonstrated that (1) seasonal variation alters the fucoidan content by a factor of 2–2.6; (2) interspecific differences exist in the concentrations of crude fucoidan (% of dry matter): L. digitata (11%) > S. latissima (6%); and (3) the effects of single environmental factors were not consistent between species or between different conspecific populations. The ambiguous response to single environmental factors complicates prospective directions for manipulating an increased content of fucoidan in a cultivation scenario and emphasizes the need for knowledge on performance of local kelp ecotypes.

Poison frogs, defensive alkaloids, and sleepless mice: critique of a toxicity bioassay

In studies of defensive allomones, appropriate methods of presenting chemicals and measuring their deterrent effects on consumers are essential for understanding the contributions that chemicals make to the survivorship of potential prey. However, unnatural chemical presentations and/or ambiguous bioassay responses occasionally have left open questions on some allelochemical effects. This discussion critiques a toxicity bioassay of Neotropical poison frogs (Dendrobatidae), a group whose skins are known to possess a diverse array of bioactive alkaloids. The problematic bioassay entails injecting laboratory mice with the skin extracts of frogs and monitoring the time taken for mice to fall back to sleep to estimate extract toxicity, where longer latencies of sleep onset were claimed to reflect greater toxicity. Dendrobatids do not invasively deliver skin alkaloids to offenders, hence the method of injecting mice with skin extracts does not correspond to the frogs’ natural defense mechanisms. Neither does the injection of frog extracts permit gastrointestinal deactivation or clearance mechanisms that may reduce the bioavailability of toxins. Whether or not increased sleep latencies induced by injected skin extracts reflect toxicity, irritability or other effects, the ultimate protective value for frogs of prolonging the wakefulness of mice (or relevant predators) is unclear. Defensible bioassays entail both modes of chemical delivery consistent with those by which would-be predators normally encounter chemicals and quantified measures of responses by predators that detract from their success.

Elastin-like Polypeptide Linkers for Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy.

Single-molecule force spectroscopy (SMFS) is by now well established as a standard technique in biophysics and mechanobiology. In recent years, the technique has benefitted greatly from new approaches to bioconjugation of proteins to surfaces. Indeed, optimized immobilization strategies for biomolecules and refined purification schemes are being steadily adapted and improved, which in turn has enhanced data quality. In many previously reported SMFS studies, poly(ethylene glycol) (PEG) was used to anchor molecules of interest to surfaces and/or cantilever tips. The limitation, however, is that PEG exhibits a well-known trans-trans-gauche to all-trans transition, which results in marked deviation from standard polymer elasticity models such as the worm-like chain, particularly at elevated forces. As a result, the assignment of unfolding events to protein domains based on their corresponding amino acid chain lengths is significantly obscured. Here, we provide a solution to this problem by implementing unstructured elastin-like polypeptides as linkers to replace PEG. We investigate the suitability of tailored elastin-like polypeptides linkers and perform direct comparisons to PEG, focusing on attributes that are critical for single-molecule force experiments such as linker length, monodispersity, and bioorthogonal conjugation tags. Our results demonstrate that by avoiding the ambiguous elastic response of mixed PEG/peptide systems and instead building the molecular mechanical systems with only a single bond type with uniform elastic properties, we improve data quality and facilitate data analysis and interpretation in force spectroscopy experiments. The use of all-peptide linkers allows alternative approaches for precisely defining elastic properties of proteins linked to surfaces.

Pragmatic Failure and Referential Ambiguity when Attorneys Ask Child Witnesses "Do You Know/Remember" Questions.

"Do you know" and "Do you remember" (DYK/R) questions explicitly ask whether one knows or remembers some information while implicitly asking for that information. This study examined how 104 4- to 9-year-old children testifying in child sexual abuse cases responded to DYK/R wh- and yes/no questions. When asked DYK/R questions containing an implicit wh- question requesting information, children often provided unelaborated "Yes" responses. Attorneys' follow-up questions suggested that children usually misunderstood the pragmatics of the questions. When DYK/R questions contained an implicit yes/no question, unelaborated "Yes" or "No" responses could be responding to the explicit or the implicit questions resulting in referentially ambiguous responses. Children often provided referentially ambiguous responses and attorneys usually failed to disambiguate children's answers. Although pragmatic failure following DYK/R wh- questions decreased with age, the likelihood of referential ambiguity following DYK/R yes/no questions did not. The results highlight the risks of serious miscommunications caused by pragmatic misunderstanding and referential ambiguity when children testify.