Apparent Transparency Research Articles

Sweat: A Memory of Waste

Sweat: A Memory of Waste

Patterning of micro-scale conductive networks using reel-to-reel flexographic printing

The flexographic printing process has been employed to print micro-scale conductive networks. These networks have been utilised to reduce the sheet resistance of a coated transparent conductive layer on a flexible substrate, while limiting the effect on the apparent transparency. The orientation and the width of the conductive tracks within the networks were varied to identify any effect on the resulting sheet resistance. The orientation was shown to a have minimal effect on the resulting sheet resistance. Track width affected the conductivity; thinner tracks resulted in networks with lower sheet resistance per area coverage. Conductive tracks within networks of 74.6 μm width and 0.74 μm height, resulting in a sheet resistance of 1.26 Ω/□ at 18.6% coverage have been achieved.

Critical listening research on reproduced sound in diffuse environments.

In critical listening rooms designed to monitor precisely small signal processing changes, what can be heard is influenced by the room’s modal response and the degree to which reflections are controlled by absorptive, reflective, and diffusive boundary surfaces. In exploring the problem of room acoustics affecting the results of such important listening activities, it is informative to explore the boundary conditions. For example, the acoustics industry utilizes absorption and reverberation chambers to explore related auditory phenomena. Recently, a diffusion chamber was created with broadband diffusion on walls and ceiling. Modal frequencies were also controlled with dedicated plate resonators effective down to 50 Hz. Impulse response measurements in this diffuse chamber revealed a dense reflection pattern 30 dB or more below the direct sound. The initial perception in this room was precise sonic images, a comfortable sense of ambiance and an apparent transparency to the subtleties of reproduced imagery that support decisions of sound engineers. Related experiments being carried out in other controlled listening rooms will be reviewed to place the current work in context.

Shoemaker’s moderate qualia realism and the transparency of qualia

Abstract Qualia realists hold that experience’s phenomenal character is a non-representational property of experience, what they call qualia. Representationalists hold that phenomenal character is a representational property of experience — there are no qualia (in this particular sense of the word). The transparency of qualia to introspection would seem to count as reason for rejecting qualia realism and favouring representationalism. Sydney Shoemaker defends a middle ground, call it moderate qualia realism, which seems to provide a response to the problem of transparency that in consistent with qualia realism. According to this view, while phenomenal character is a representational property of experience, it is determined by certain non-representational properties of experience, namely qualia. Shoemaker explains the apparent transparency of qualia by claiming that, while qualia are not directly introspectible, they are indirectly introspectible. I argue that neither Shoemaker’s moderate qualia realism nor his account of indirect introspection provide the qualia realist with a plausible solution to the problem of transparency.

中心・周辺視野における画像的奥行きの知覚

The present study aims to examine whether depth perception based on pictorial cues in the peripheral visual field is improved by compensating for the peripheral reduction of visual sensitivity. Figures that partially overlapped or had apparent transparency over a background figure were presented on a CRT monitor at the central-peripheral retinal regions of 2.5-10 degrees eccentricity under the two conditions of same size or size adjusted for the Cortical Magnification Scale (Virsu & Rovamo, 1979). In Experiment 1 the subjects could discriminate the depth relationship of two cortically magnified figures when these were presented within the retinal eccentricity of 10 degrees, even when solutions for the tasks were not dependent on a single visual attribute (brightness, shape). But discrimination in the peripheral visual field became difficult when the number of visual attributes of the stimuli increased (Experiment 2). We conclude that even for peripheral vision, depth perception based on pictorial cues is possible when cortically magnified stimuli are used. However, it should be further study whether or not the visual acuity is an only determinant for the difference between central and peripheral depth perception.

Structure−Property Relationships in Poly(ethylene glycol)−Protein Hydrogel Systems Made from Various Proteins

A series of poly(ethylene glycol)-protein hydrogels were synthesized with different proteins, and the resultant structures were characterized in terms of swelling behavior and mechanical, optical, and drug release properties. Irrespectively of the protein involved in polymerization with poly(ethylene glycol), all studied systems were found to be loosely cross-linked networks, where both polymer and protein are completely solvated, enabling as high as 96% water content. Changes in the apparent transparency of the hydrogels synthesized with different proteins were attributed to the ability of the protein component to self-associate via hydrophobic interactions. The polyelectrolyte nature of the protein component governs the pH responsiveness of the network, which manifested itself in a pH-dependent mechanism of swelling and drug release. It was demonstrated that there is great opportunity to modulate the final characteristics of the hydrogel system to fit the need of specific biomedical application.

Chromatic shadow compatibility and cone-excitation ratios

Logvinenko [Perception 31, 201 (2002)] asserts that Adelson's wall-of-blocks illusion [Science 262, 2042 (1993)], where identical gray-cube surface tops appear to differ in brightness, arises when the surfaces surrounding the cube tops are shadow compatible, creating a concomitant illusion of transparency. We replicated Logvinenko's main findings in the chromatic domain across three experiments in which observers match cube tops in hue, saturation, and brightness. A second set of stimuli adjusted cone-excitation ratios across the apparent transparency border [Proc. R. Soc. London 257, 115 (1994)], which enhanced lightness and brightness constancy but only when the stimuli varied in both chromaticity and intensity.

Neuronal synchrony does not correlate with motion coherence in cortical area MT.

Natural visual scenes are cluttered with multiple objects whose individual features must somehow be selectively linked (or 'bound') if perception is to coincide with reality. Recent neurophysiological evidence supports a 'binding-by-synchrony' hypothesis: neurons excited by features of the same object fire synchronously, while neurons excited by features of different objects do not. Moving plaid patterns offer a straightforward means to test this idea. By appropriate manipulations of apparent transparency, the component gratings of a plaid pattern can be seen as parts of a single coherently moving surface or as two non-coherently moving surfaces. We examined directional tuning and synchrony of area-MT neurons in awake, fixating primates in response to perceptually coherent and non-coherent plaid patterns. Here we show that directional tuning correlated highly with perceptual coherence, which is consistent with an earlier study. Although we found stimulus-dependent synchrony, coherent plaids elicited significantly less synchrony than did non-coherent plaids. Our data therefore do not support the binding-by-synchrony hypothesis as applied to this class of motion stimuli in area MT.

Mimesis, Materiality and The Shadow of Death

This essay questions the apparent stylistic transparency of the ‘licked’ Victorian painting and proposes a cascade of connections between material, formal and iconographical concerns. It also offers a model of a relationship between the corporeal persona of the artist and the physical art. This shows that the physical properties of the work correspond, on several levels, to a physical self–image of the artist. The first section looks at the way style problematizes issues of mortality raised by the subject matter of the work and links this to so–far unrecognized expressions of doubt and frailty set out in private journals and letters. The second section will show how these ‘flesh and blood’ concerns inform medico–moral discussions of technique, and, lastly, it will reveal how the integrity of the paint surface itself comes to represent the integrity of the artist’s body.

Calculating lightnesses in a single depth plane

The experiments in this paper demonstrate that ‘‘Early Vision’’ mechanisms can account for the appearance of three ‘‘Diamond Wall’’ demonstrations, without reliance on apparent illumination, transparency, apparent depth, and junctions. The first set (Section 2) demonstrates that simultaneous contrast and the Katz– Albers effect can explain the appearance of a Diamond Wall display. The second set (Section 3) reviews the ‘‘Straight Edge’’ experiments designed to show changes in lightnesses consistent with perceived illumination. These experiments showed that very-low-spatialfrequency sampling causes both these effects, and White’s effect. The third set (Section 4) applies complex Early Vision models to images associated with the ‘‘High Vision’’ lightness hypotheses. The argument is that flat displays, which are perceived as flat, require a quite complex visual mechanism just to account for the properties of flat lightnesses. Any experimental verification of the existence of High Vision lightness mechanisms should be tested first with realistic complex Early Vision models. The results show that Early Vision mechanisms can account for appearances in Diamond Wall experiments. If Early Vision mechanisms can explain these results, then these experiments cannot be used as evidence for the existence of High Vision mechanisms.

Lightness induction revisited.

Lightness induction is the classical visual phenomenon whereby the lightness of an object is shown to depend on its immediate surround. Despite the long history of its study, lightness induction has not yet been coherently and satisfactorily explained in all its variety. The two main theories that compete to explain it descend (i) from H von Helmholtz, who believed that lightness induction originates from some central mechanisms that take into account the whole viewing situation, with particular stress upon the apparent illumination of the object; and (ii) E Hering who argued in favour of more peripheral sensory mechanisms based on local luminance contrast. The balance between these theories has recently been shifted towards Helmholtz's position by E H Adelson who has provided additional evidence that lightness induction depends on perceptual interpretation and, particularly, on apparent transparency. I challenge Adelson's conclusions by introducing modified versions of his tile pattern that use luminance gradients. In the first of these new demonstrations there is a strong lightness induction even though no apparent transparency is experienced. In the second there is a clear impression of transparent strips, yet no lightness induction is present. And the third shows that breaking up the Adelson tile pattern, while it affects neither the impression of transparency nor the type of grey-level junctions, makes the lightness-induction effect vanish. This implies that Adelson's illusion can be accounted for by neither local contrast, nor the apparent transparency, nor the type of grey-level junctions. Presented here is an alternative look at lightness induction as a phenomenon of the pictorial (as contrasted to natural) vision, which rests on the lightness-shadow invariance, much as Gregory's 'inappropriate constancy scaling' theory of geometrical illusions rests on the apparent size-distance invariance.

The role of transparency in perceptual grouping and pattern recognition.

The shortest stimulus exposure time for which transparency can be seen was examined. In the first experiment, overlapping digits were presented for 120 ms and the luminance in the overlapping regions was varied. Subjects reported, in separate blocks of trials, either the apparent transparency of the digits or the identity of the digits. When the luminance was set so that one set of digits appeared to be seen through the other, recognition of the digits was high. When the luminance in the overlapping regions did not produce impressions of transparency, digit recognition was low. In the second experiment, digit identification at several stimulus durations was compared between stimuli that had luminance that was valid for transparency and stimuli that had invalid luminance. Performance was found to be higher in the valid luminance condition than in the invalid condition after as little as 60 ms exposure duration. This result suggests that the impression of transparency requires only relatively short exposure durations.

The identification of mantle reflections below Hungary from deep Seismic profiling

In the 1970's the “Eötvös Lorand” Geophysical Institute performed Seismic reflection deep sounding experiments with multiple coverage in several parts of the Pannonian Basin (Posgay. 1975). One of the most interesting results was that arrivals were received in the time range corresponding to the depth of the asthenosphere. They were interpreted as reflections (Posgay et al., 1981). Conspicuous arrivals from the time range of the asthenosphere (15–20 s) were also received along the Pannonian Geotraverse in 1987.In the majority of sections published in other countries, the upper mantle seems to be transparent. The present paper discusses investigations and preliminary results, which lead to the conclusion that this apparent transparency is due to the frequency range below 10 Hz being neglected in both signal generation and recording in most deep continental reflection surveys.The Seismogeological conditions of the Pannonian Basin are certainly favourable for reflection studies of the upper mantle. The correctness of the assumption that arrivals from the time range of the asthenosphere are primary reflections is subjected to further investigation and conclusions are made concerning the structure of the asthenosphere.

The pion-nucleus resonance and nuclear translucence

We point out that the apparent transparency recently seen in several low-energy pion interactions with nuclei can be related to pion-nucleus bound states. This feature arises from a pion-nucleus resonance: the positive energy analog of such a bound state. Experiments for the further investigation of this phenomenon are discussed.

Modal completion: critical variables in apparent transparency.

Conditions for perceptual modal completion are investigated using a stimulation pattern consisting of a figure moving behind a black opaque strip. This configuration leads, depending on conditions, either to the amodal Michotte tunnel effect, or to modal completion, ie the apparent transparency phenomenon. Four experiments are reported in which an attempt was made to define the critical variables of this latter effect. The results show that modal completion is not typically related to luminance interactions, ie to assimilation, but depends on the figural dominance of the filled-in object, this being determined by structural factors such as figure-ground relationship and stimulation change. The effect also depends strongly on the complexity of the spatiotemporal integration needed to maintain phenomenal identity of the object. No significant effect was found for the two other variables investigated, ie formal complexity of the figure and depth between the figure and the strip. The data are discussed in relation to those on moving visual phantoms.

Israel Potter : Melville's Anti-History

ISRAEL POTTER: MELVILLE'S ANTI-HISTORY Brian Rosenberg* For reasons easy enough to discover, Israel Potter: His Fifty Years of Exile is one of the most thoroughly overlooked full-length works by any major writer of the last two centuries. Herman Melville himself insisted that there would be "very little reflective writing" in Israel Potter , certainly "nothing weighty;"1 the simplicity of the plot and apparent transparency of its meaning seem to leave the enterprising critic little to do; and, most important, the text is highly derivative, drawing, as Melville concedes in his dedication, "almost as in a reprint" on Henry Trumbull 's earlier Life and Remarkable Adventures of Israel R. Potter. Generally critics have treated Israel Potter, Melville's only novel written expressly for serialized publication in a magazine, as a work written quickly and largely for profit after the popular disaster of Pierre, at best an improved version and at worst a mere reiteration of an earlier, obscure narrative. While Israel Potter clearly is among neither the most ambitious nor the most successfully realized of Melville's novels, it is nonetheless considerably more sophisticated and more typical of its mature author than is often imagined. The period of its composition, characterized by such works as Pierre, "Bartleby the Scrivener," and The Confidence Man, was for Melville a time of fairly consistent ironic commentary and formal experimentation during which everything written is—like the Confidence Man himself—more than it merely appears to be. So too is Israel Potter. Melville's elaborate insistence on the lack of artistic originality in the book, on its debased status as a mere "reprint," along with what Michael Kämmen describes as the "sarcastic" tone of the entire narrative ,2 should in truth suggest that yet another sleight-of-hand is being attempted. Israel Potter may begin by retelling Trumbull's anecdotal biography, but it ends, much more interestingly, by both assuming a place in and parodying one of the central traditions of nineteenth-century literature, the tradition of historical fiction, or more generally, imaginative history. Melville's novel about his country's rebellion against Britain is itself a wry rebellion against the confident, largely conservative beliefs of British historical literature. 'Brian Rosenberg is an Assistant Professor of English at Allegheny College. He has published articles in Studies in the Novel, South Atlantic Quarterly, Dickens Quarterly, and CEA Critic. He is currently working on books on Charles Dickens and Mary Lee Settle. 176Brian Rosenberg In the decade before Israel Potter was initially conceived in 1849, Charles Dickens published Barnaby Rudge, Thomas Carlyle Past and Present, Charlotte Bronte Shirley, and minor novelists like Harrison Ainsworth, G. P. R. James, and Bulwer Lytton a flood of mediocre historical romances; the years between the conception of the novel and its appearance in Putnam's Magazine in 1854 saw most notably the publication of William Thackeray's Henry Esmond and John Ruskin's Stones of Venice; in the subsequent ten years Dickens published A Tale of Two Cities, George Eliot Romola, Charles Reade the immensely popular Cloister and the Hearth. At no time before or since has the desire to recreate the past in imaginative literature of all kinds been more powerful or widespread. And, at least among the more important writers, this desire produced a collection of works remarkably consistent in vision, form, and purpose. George Eliot, defining in the 1870s what she calls "historic imagination," articulates in advanced but characteristic terms the conception of the ideal historical narrative: The exercise of a veracious imagination in historical picturing seems to be capable of a development that might help the judgement greatly with regard to present and future events. By veracious imagination , I mean the working out in detail of the various steps by which a political or social change was reached, using all extant evidence and supplying deficiencies by careful analogical creation. How triumphant opinions originally spread—how institutions arose—what were the conditions of great inventions, discoveries, or theoretic conceptions— what circumstances affecting individual lots are attendant on the decay of long-established systems,—all these grand elements of history require the illumination of special imaginative treatment.' The phrase "veracious imagination" and the union of...

The temporal factor in apparent transparency

The psychophysical measurements of apparent transparency in function of exposure time, by four observers using the magnitude estimation method, show a loss in intensity of the phenomenon at both ends of the scale (.150 sec and 12.8 sec). The results are briefly discussed in relation to data on the minimal duration and the extinction of some other perceptual structures.

Effects of direction and luminance of pattern on apparent transparency

Effects of direction and luminance of pattern on apparent transparency

Perceptual and cognitive factors in the apparent transparency phenomenon

Apparenté aux cas de remplissage figurai, le phénomène de transparence apparente se manifeste lorsque, dans certaines conditions spatiotemporelles, un objet est phénoménalement visible lorsqu'il passe derrière un écran opaque de surface homogène sous éclairement achromatique. La faible prégnance du phénomène observée chez les sujets «non avertis » et l'apparente nécessité d'une préparation de nature cognitive ont suscité cette série d'expériences dont l'objet principal est de déterminer l'influence respective de la centration perceptive, de l'information verbale et de la répétition des observations sur la fréquence des réponses mentionnant l'effet. En un premier temps, deux pré-expériences ont permis la mise au point d'une procédure de réponse répondant aux exigences d'une centration perceptive dont toute intervention cognitive de l'expérimentateur est absente. Les trois expériences menées ensuite mettent en évidence le rôle primordial de l'information verbale dans ce type de perception. En outre, l'expérience 3 montre la différence de prégnance entre ce phénomène et un cas de transparence physique comparable, et ce malgré l'intervention du langage dans la deuxième partie de cette expérience. Le manque de prégnance du phénomène est interprété en termes d'attention sélective et d'erreur de codage et de stockage du donné, ceux-ci opérant en faveur de l'effet Tunnel, nettement plus coërcitif et plus proche de l'expérience perceptive habituelle.

Effect of stripping channels on the elastic scattering of deuterons

The elastic 11 and 12.8 MeV d− 40Ca cross section is calculated with the explicit inclusion of one stripping channel under various simplifying assumptions. The presence of the stripping channel gives rise to an apparent transparency of the nucleus to the incident deuterons.