Objective Look Research Articles

Must smart objects look human? Study of the impact of anthropomorphism on the acceptance of companion robots

Smart products will play a central role in consumer living in years to come. Close to humans because of their “intelligence,” should they also look like humans? The aim of this research is to test the impact of anatomical anthropomorphism on the acceptance of an autonomous product, the companion robot, measured by its perceived usefulness, ease of use, and use intentions. Our results show that, unlike previous marketing research on traditional product anthropomorphism, the human appearance of a companion robot does not increase its acceptance by consumers. However, we show that a partially anthropomorphic appearance improves acceptance by people with practical experience of similar technology (the smartphone), while it reduces acceptance by other people. Our results also emphasize the difficulty of extending research on the impact of anthropomorphism on consumers. They also highlight the need to integrate appearance in acceptance models, and they show how experience with products similar to the new one influences the impact of appearance. Finally, we show the role of the categorization process in the impact of appearance.

Visual Performance of Non-Native Versus Native English Speakers on a Sideline Concussion Screen: An Objective Look at Eye Movement Recordings (P6.303)

Visual Performance of Non-Native Versus Native English Speakers on a Sideline Concussion Screen: An Objective Look at Eye Movement Recordings (P6.303)

Visual Performance of Non-Native Versus Native English Speakers on a Sideline Concussion Screen: An Objective Look at Eye Movement Recordings (I13.002)

Visual Performance of Non-Native Versus Native English Speakers on a Sideline Concussion Screen: An Objective Look at Eye Movement Recordings (I13.002)

How You Use It Matters

How does one know where to look for objects in scenes? Objects are seen in context daily, but also used for specific purposes. Here, we examined whether an object’s function can guide attention during visual search in scenes. In Experiment 1, participants studied either the function (function group) or features (feature group) of a set of invented objects. In a subsequent search, the function group located studied objects faster than novel (unstudied) objects, whereas the feature group did not. In Experiment 2, invented objects were positioned in locations that were either congruent or incongruent with the objects’ functions. Search for studied objects was faster for function-congruent locations and hampered for function-incongruent locations, relative to search for novel objects. These findings demonstrate that knowledge of object function can guide attention in scenes, and they have important implications for theories of visual cognition, cognitive neuroscience, and developmental and ecological psychology.

Improving People’s Lives: The Case for Hydraulic Fracturing

President's column There are two great truths tied to hydraulic fracturing. It has helped improve people’s lives by enabling the oil and gas industry to tap reserves that otherwise could not have been recovered. It has unleashed dramatic public opposition. I am disappointed to see public opposition to hydraulic fracturing, because I think, for the biggest part, it is unfounded. Hydraulic fracturing has become “fracking” in the common parlance. To too many people, “fracking” symbolizes all that is wrong with oil and gas companies and modern technology. It is certainly associated with all aspects of unconventional resource development, which depends on both horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing to be successful. It would be inaccurate to deny that there can be problems. But, an objective look reveals that its benefits far outweigh its potential risks. It is a safe, reliable technology that has proven highly beneficial to society and it is being improved continuously by operators and service companies. Many studies done by the US Environmental Protection Agency (2015) and others have found very small risks from the practice. Let us take a closer look. A Proven Technology Since the late 1940s, hydraulic fracturing technology has been used in more than 1 million US wells to safely produce oil and gas reserves that otherwise could not be recovered. While the principles of the process have not changed in decades, modern hydraulic fracturing relies on vastly improved technology and processes to ensure its continued contribution to a safe, environmentally responsible energy future. Why the Complaints? Detractors claim that we do not know enough about fracturing’s impacts and risks, despite decades of experience. Many who are critical of hydraulic fracturing are actually critical of unconventional well activity, oil and gas activity in general, and the use of fossil fuels. To them, hydraulic fracturing is a focal point for their broader objections. Critics of the process have claimed multiple problems with hydraulic fracturing, including: Earthquakes caused by hydraulic fracturing Pollution of groundwater with unknown chemicals Air pollution Surface spills Fugitive methane emissions Traffic and noise pollution Excess use of water resources

Medical Research in India: Time to Act

The country has more than 400 medical colleges. In the area of patient care, India is recognized as a leading country. It is time that we have an objective look into our contribution in medical research. The state of medical research in the majority of medical colleges has been far below the desired level. We need to take measures to improve the quality of medical research in India: Training in Research methodology, Physician - Scientist Interaction and Public and Industrial Investment.

Mid-level perceptual features distinguish objects of different real-world sizes.

Understanding how perceptual and conceptual representations are connected is a fundamental goal of cognitive science. Here, we focus on a broad conceptual distinction that constrains how we interact with objects--real-world size. Although there appear to be clear perceptual correlates for basic-level categories (apples look like other apples, oranges look like other oranges), the perceptual correlates of broader categorical distinctions are largely unexplored, i.e., do small objects look like other small objects? Because there are many kinds of small objects (e.g., cups, keys), there may be no reliable perceptual features that distinguish them from big objects (e.g., cars, tables). Contrary to this intuition, we demonstrated that big and small objects have reliable perceptual differences that can be extracted by early stages of visual processing. In a series of visual search studies, participants found target objects faster when the distractor objects differed in real-world size. These results held when we broadly sampled big and small objects, when we controlled for low-level features and image statistics, and when we reduced objects to texforms--unrecognizable textures that loosely preserve an object's form. However, this effect was absent when we used more basic textures. These results demonstrate that big and small objects have reliably different mid-level perceptual features, and suggest that early perceptual information about broad-category membership may influence downstream object perception, recognition, and categorization processes.

Ca Van Thinh – Celebrity of the South with his Southern folklore collection

Until this, there have been many papers evaluating the literary career of Ca Van Thinh but not comprehensive; therefore, this short paper tries to introduce an overview of the career survey of the Southern folklore by Ca Van Thinh. Hopefully, it will show an objective look with a more comprehensive view about Ca Van Thinh’s contribution to the preservation of culture and folklore in the Southern Vietnam.

Reviews and Resources:Career Options for Biomedical Scientists

Career Options for Biomedical Scientists presents a comprehensive look at a variety of academic and nonacademic career options in a thorough and objective manner that is sorely missing from many (if not most) Ph.D. training programs. Each chapter views a different career option systematically, starting with an introduction to the career path and then moving into a practical examination of that career, from descriptions of the typical types of jobs one might find to the skills and qualifications required for those jobs and the typical career progression one can expect to encounter. Finally, after a structured and objective look at each career, each chapter ends with a more personal story from somebody who has followed that career path.

An objective look at obtaining the plotting positions for QQ-plots

ABSTRACTChoosing the plotting positions for the QQ-plot has been a subject of much debate in the statistical and engineering literature. This paper looks at this problem objectively by considering three frameworks: distribution-theoretic; decision-theoretic; game-theoretic. In each framework, we derive the plotting positions and show that there are more than one legitimate solution depending on the practitioner’s objective. This work clarifies the choice of the plotting positions by allowing one to easily find the mathematical equivalent of their view and choose the corresponding solution. This work also discusses approximations to the plotting positions when no closed form is available.

Face Recognition in Complex Background: Developmental Network and Synapse Maintenance

As an important sub-field in computer vision and pattern recognition, face recognition has important theoretical and practical application. It is a very complicated problem which is often affected by variations in illumination condition, head pose, facial emotions, glasses, beards, and so on. 108 face images of 27 learned objects (appearances) from complex backgrounds in BioID face database are efficiently recognized with the developmental network (DN) - a biologically inspired framework with the emergent representation. But the DN has no adaptive receptive field for an object with a curved contour. Leaked-in background pixels can lead to problems when different objects look similar. This paper introduces another biologically inspired mechanism - synapse maintenance to achieve the object recognition. Synapse maintenance can automatically decide which synapse should be removed, kept or partial removed, thus it can weaken the complex background, strengthen the face features, reduce the bad influence of the complex background on the face recognition. Experimental results show that DN with the synapse maintenance can effectively recognize faces with complicated backgrounds and the recognition rate is over 95%.

Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters by Frye Gaillard (review)

Reviewed by: Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters by Frye Gaillard Mike Bunn Journey to the Wilderness: War, Memory, and a Southern Family’s Civil War Letters. By Frye Gaillard. Montgomery: NewSouth Books, 2015. 128 pp. Hardcover. ISBN 9781588383129. If there is any genre of book that seems to consistently fall short of its potential in American historiography, it is the published collection of Civil War letters. We seem to have thousands of these volumes floating [End Page 370] about, each loaded with buried nuggets of golden quotes surrounded by layers of tedious recounting of the monotony of camp life in bad grammar, all introduced by authors with rather formulaic overviews of the progression of the Civil War. While these books have their place as reference resources regardless of their eloquence and have certainly been invaluable to generations of historians in understanding the conflict through the eyes of the men who fought it, as narratives they usually leave much to be desired. Frye Gaillard’s provocative and refreshingly brief book, Journey to the Wilderness, happily rises above that stereotype. It is an enlightening and readable chronological story focusing on one family’s experience during and memory of one of our nation’s defining events. Gaillard’s success in weaving fragmented correspondence and memories together into a compelling narrative should come as no surprise, as he is currently Writer-in-Residence at the University of South Alabama and author of nearly two dozen acclaimed books, including Cradle of Freedom: Alabama and the Movement that Changed America (Tuscaloosa, 2004) and The Books That Mattered: A Reader’s Memoir (Montgomery, 2012). While this is his first foray into Civil War history specifically, he has a wealth of experience in writing about the cultural heritage of the South in general. He is ably assisted in the undertaking via a superb foreword by colleague Steven Trout, director of the Center for the Study of War and Memory at USA, which sets the tone for the book by asking how the grisly reality of the war could have so long been downplayed in place of more romantic remembrances. Gaillard features a carefully selected and closely edited batch of his family’s correspondence in the book which he combines with his own lucid commentary, providing both historical context and background on the way the experiences of the writers were collectively remembered by their descendants. In the letters he finds many of the usual expressions of initial optimism for the war as some sort of grand adventure fade into a grim determination to survive its horrors; evidence of both the thrill of participation in epoch–defining events and the drudgery of camp life; attempts to deal with separation from loved ones and heartrending loss; bitter racism; and even cowardice. While this is the Civil War we as historians are familiar with today, as Gaillard candidly observes, it is [End Page 371] not necessarily the Civil War he remembered hearing about as a child. Gaillard notes that his generation (he was born in 1946) was perhaps the last to be raised with stories of unequivocal southern gallantry during the affair but also the first to be forced to square that veneration with the glaring inequities in southern history forcefully brought to light by the Civil Rights movement. The experience of being caught in that cultural whiplash challenged his notions of what the South he grew up in and was taught to love and respect was all about, indeed by extension what he himself was all about, and prompted this objective look into what it was really like to live through the Civil War. The unusually compelling result both sheds light on the lives of otherwise largely forgotten individuals and, on a small scale, illuminates how southerners’ visceral connection with the war has often blurred the lines between history and regional identity. As Gaillard thoughtfully illustrates, that blend of past and present has been a powerful force in southern culture for a long time and continues to have meaning to us today. Journey to the Wilderness is an entertaining and insightful book that those interested in the Civil War and the broader...

Visual perception of surface wetness

We can visually recognize a variety of surface state. Just a quick look is sufficient to find the bath floor is dry, the road in front is slippery, the window glass is frosty, or the ornament is dusty. If a given surface state perception relies on the analysis of diagnostic image features, an effective strategy to reveal those features and the associated visual processing is to find a stimulus transformation that alters the apparent surface state. Here we report an image transformation that makes dry objects look wet. This wet filter consists of two operations: (1) Tone-remapping with an accelerating nonlinear function that renders the intensity histogram positively skewed: (2) color saturation enhancement. In an experimental test, we applied the wet filter to a variety of natural textures of the McGill Calibrated Colour Image Database. The results of a wetness rating experiment showed that the wet-filtered images were perceived as wetter than the original images. In addition, the perceived wetness depended on the variance of hue. The wet-filter was less effective for images with a small variance of hue. Optically, wetting a surface tends to increases the specular reflection. In addition, as the incoming light scatters repeatedly within the surface liquid layer, the light going out from the surface tends to be darker and more saturated. The effects of these optical changes can be simulated by the two wet-filter operations. However, positively skewed luminance histogram and high chromatic saturation may be caused by other factors - for instance, the visual scene may happen to include highly saturated glossy objects. This is presumably why hue variation matters. If the same image transformation simultaneously occurs in many different objects, the brain infers that the change likely has the same cause, such as water shower in the present case. Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2015. Language: en

Visual asymmetries for relative depth judgments in a three-dimensional space

Our ability to process information about an object’s location in depth varies along the horizontal and vertical axes. These variations reflect functional specialisation of the cerebral hemispheres as well as the ventral/dorsal visual streams for processing stimuli located in near and far space. Prior research has demonstrated visual field superiorities for processing near space in the lower and right hemispaces and for far space in the upper and left hemispaces. No research, however, has directly tested whether the functional specialisation of the visual fields actually makes objects look closer when presented in the lower or right visual fields. To measure biases in the perception of depth, we employed anaglyph stimuli where participants made closer/further judgments about the relative location of two spheres in a three-dimensional virtual space. We observed clear processing differences in this task where participants perceived the right and lower spheres to be closer and the left and upper spheres to be further away. Furthermore, no relationship between the horizontal and vertical dimensions was observed suggesting separate cognitive/neural mechanisms. Not only does this methodology clearly demonstrate differences in perceived depth across the visual field, it also opens up many possibilities for studying functional asymmetries in three-dimensional space.

Effects of search intent on eye-movement patterns in a change detection task

The goal of the present study was to examine whether intention type affects eye movement patterns in a change detection task In addition, we assessed whether the eye movement index could be used to identify human implicit intent. We attempted to generate three types of intent amongst the study participants, dividing them into one of three conditions; each condition received different information regarding an impending change to the visual stimuli. In the “navigational intent” condition, participants were asked to look for any interesting objects, and were not given any more information about the impending change. In the “low-specific intent” condition, participants were informed that a change would occur. In the “high-specific intent” condition, participants were told that a change would occur, and that an object would disappear. In addition to this main change detection task, participants also had to perform a primary task, in which they were required to name aloud the colors of objects in the pre-change scene. This allowed us to control for the visual searching process during the pre-change scene. The main results were as follows: firstly, the primary task successfully controlled for the visual search process during the pre-change scene, establishing that there were no differences in the patterns of eye movements across all three conditions despite differing intents. Secondly, we observed significantly different patterns of eye movement between the conditions in the post-change scene, suggesting that generating a specific intent for change detection yields a distinctive pattern of eye-movements. Finally, discriminant function analysis showed a reasonable classification rate for identifying a specific intent. Taken together, it was found that both participant intent and the specificity of information provided to the participants affect eye movements in a change detection task.

Informed Consent for Radiation Risk from CT Is Unjustified Based on the Current Scientific Evidence

HomeRadiologyVol. 275, No. 2 PreviousNext Reviews and CommentaryPerspectivesInformed Consent for Radiation Risk from CT Is Unjustified Based on the Current Scientific EvidenceH. Benjamin Harvey , James A. Brink, Donald P. FrushH. Benjamin Harvey , James A. Brink, Donald P. FrushAuthor AffiliationsFrom the Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, 175 Cambridge St, Suite 200, Boston, MA 02114 (H.B.H., J.A.B.); and Department of Radiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC (D.P.F.).Address correspondence to H.B.H. (e-mail: [email protected]).H. Benjamin Harvey James A. BrinkDonald P. FrushPublished Online:Apr 23 2015https://doi.org/10.1148/radiol.2015142859MoreSectionsFull textPDF ToolsImage ViewerAdd to favoritesCiteTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints ShareShare onFacebookTwitterLinked In AbstractWe contend that informed consent is unjustified based on an objective look at the currently available scientific evidence.

Blurry objectives threaten engagement and profitability

Purpose – Considers the limitations of traditional objective setting and looks at an alternative approach using a conversation around mutual expectations. Design/methodology/approach – Explains that a conversational approach requires parties to look at their purpose at work and the expectations of support they have of others at a deeper level. Findings – Examines deficiencies in traditional performance-management processes, including research about how clear employees are on what they are working toward. Proposes a new approach using the language of purpose and expectations to enhance the objective-setting process. Explains why purpose and expectations are so powerful. Examines why this conversation is so important and why it does not usually happen in a business environment. Practical implications – Considers that performance management works best when both parties are explicit and honest about their purpose at work and what support they need to achieve this purpose through structured conversation. Social implications – Advances the view that employees are more engaged when they are working toward a purpose more meaningful than simply receiving a pay check. Originality/value – Emphasizes that the attraction, development, management and retention of talented people are critical to the success of all organizations.

A new nomogram for prediction of outcome of pediatric shock-wave lithotripsy

Despite the fact that shock-wave lithotripsy (SWL) remains a very good treatment option for smaller stones, it is being challenged by endourologic treatment modalities, which offer similar or even higher success rates in a shorter time, with minimal morbidity and invasiveness. The present study aimed to bring a new and practical insight in order to predict the outcomes of pediatric SWL and to provide objective information about pediatric SWL outcomes. To design a nomogram for predicting the outcomes of pediatric shock-wave lithotripsy. The study was conducted with a retrospective design and included 402 renal units who underwent SWL between January 2009 and August 2013. Patients with known cystine stone disease and cystinuria, with internal or external urinary diversion, were excluded. Analysis was performed on 383 renal units. Postoperative imaging was performed by plain abdominal graphy and ultrasonography with 3-month intervals. Patients who were completely free of stones were considered to be a success and statistical analysis was done regardingly Multivariate analysis was conducted by logistic regression analysis and a nomogram was developed. The male/female distribution was 216/167, with a mean age of 48 ± 40 months and a mean stone size of 9 ± 3.5 mm. The overall stone-free rate was 70% (270/383) and efficacy quotient was 0.57. Mean follow-up was 11 ± 11 months (3-54 months). The number of shock waves and amplitude of energy were higher in failed cases. Multivariate analysis showed that gender, stone size, number of stones, age, location of the stone, and history of previous intervention were found to be the independent prognostic factors for assessing the stone clearance rates. A nomogram was developed using these parameters. In this nomogram, the points achieved from each parameter are summed and total points correspond to the risk of failure in percent. A previous nomogram study by Onal et al. showed that younger age (<5 years), smaller stone burden (<1 cm), absence of previous stone treatment history, single stone, pelvis or upper ureter location (in girls) were favorable prognostic factors for successful outcome. As being the first pediatric study, it had some shortcomings. The study included 381 patients within a time period of 16 years. The present study included a similar number of cases within a 4-year period, which may reflect more homogeneity of data collection. Another issue is concern about the practical use of that nomogram. It constitutes two pages, which is a limiting factor for daily use. From a statistical point of view, they performed 200 bootstrapings with the aim of internal validation, which is less than the ideal number of 1000 bootstrapings, which was performed in the present nomogram. The presented nomogram is more practical, in that the pre-operative factors can be placed on the nomogram, the points can be added up and the parents can be given the approximate percentage of predicted stone-free rate after a single session. The expected treatment modality shown to the parents and patients ought to be the least minimally invasive, have the highest success rate, the least complication rate, and show the efficacy in one procedure at a time within the shortest period. However, SWL does not completely meet these criteria. The results gained from the present critical analysis of SWL in children, which was based on a strict definition of success, showed that outcome after a single session is not that good. Therefore, defining the patients who will benefit the most became one of the main issues. A more objective and skeptical look at SWL data enabled a nomogram to be developed that brings a new and practical insight in order to predict the outcomes of pediatric SWL. In most of the pediatric stone cases, SWL is the first-line treatment option. However, it is wise to define the patients who will benefit the most. Therefore, nomograms can be useful for this purpose. The nomogram in the present study revealed that gender, stone size, number of stones, age, location of the stone, and history of previous intervention were found to be the independent prognostic factors for assessing the stone clearance rates. This nomogram can practically be used to inform the parents, and for proper patient selection for SWL.

Review of IT Offshore Outsourcing issues

This paper attempts to take an objective look at offshore outsourcing within the information technology (IT) industry. Background material is provided to establish a clear definition and context for the discussion. Basic benefits, risks, and trends are identified and domestic market impacts are explored.

Symmetric Proliferation: An Examination of the Fractal Geometry of Tumors

S ymmetric P roliferation : A n E xamination of the F ractal G eometry of T umors B S J Rachel Lew Sierpinski carpet model of plane fractals From flowers to faces, nature is abound with symmetry. Most natural objects tend to form according to patterns, a tendency which mathematicians readily exploit in order to create theoretical models of the world around us. The height of a cliff, for instance, is modeled by a one-dimensional line; a snake’s path through the sand is modeled across a two- dimensional surface; a block of ice is modeled as a mass extending into three dimensions. But what about objects in between dimensions? In fact, between the 1-D and the 2-D there exist objects known as fractals. These mathematical objects are infinitely self-similar, which means that upon magnification of a certain part of a fractal, one sees the figure of the overall fractal, and so on unto infinity. Self-symmetry “Picture, for example, water trickling through only the most loosely packed areas of soil in a pot; in the same way, the blood vessels of a tumor grow into the weakest areas of the tissue around it.” allows a fractal to have fractional dimensions because it is not purely linear--the border of a fractal cannot be traced--but this lack of boundedness also means that the fractal never encircles a defined area. Imagine a tree whose branches branch out infinitely, or a snowflake with six tips, each of which looks like the original snowflake, and so on and so forth. Clearly, in fractal models, as in all models of nature, there is a difference between the mathematical and the natural. Natural fractal objects are composed of discrete units and are not infinitely divisible--the fractal pattern must end somewhere, or else, for instance, one might find tiny branches at the cellular level of a tree branch. To correct for this quality, scientists define natural fractal objects as having statistical self-similarity, or when “the statistical properties of the pieces [of an object] are proportional to the statistical properties of the whole” (Grizzi et al., 2008). In the human body, statistically self-similar models are most commonly applied to branching structures in the lung and in networks of blood vessels. The latter application has had particular importance in medical studies of cancer, as there is evidence that understanding the fractal geometry of tumor vasculature may aid in identification and targeted treatment of cancers. Tumor vasculature can in fact be described by a fractal model, and is often distinguished from normal vasculature by either an abnormally high or abnormally low fractal dimension (Zook and Iftekharuddin, 2005). An object’s fractal dimension is a constant between the integers 1 and 2, and might be described as how ‘proliferative’ the object looks; i.e., an object with a higher fractal dimension looks more like an object with true area than like a curve. Baish and Jain observed that blood vessels in the tumors of mice had higher fractal dimensions than the mice’s normal arteries and veins, claiming that “the fractal dimension quantified the degree of randomness to the vascular distribution, a characteristic not easily captured by the vascular density” (Baish and Jain, 2000). Moreover, the researchers noted that tumor vessels tended to be more twisted than normal vessels, having “many smaller bends upon each larger bend” (Baish and Jain, 2000). They also found that the way tumor vessels grew and branched closely matched a type of statistical growth called invasive percolation. In invasive percolation, a substance moves through a medium which has varying degrees of strength, penetrating the weakest areas of the medium and thus branching out to form a network. Picture, for example, water trickling through only the most loosely packed areas of a pot of soil; in the same way, the blood vessels of a tumor grow into the weakest areas of the tissue around it. On the other hand, normal capillaries are traditionally modeled by the Krogh cylinder model, which assumes that the capillaries are straight, relatively spaced, and only reach a cylindrical volume of tissue immediately 18 • B erkeley S cientific J ournal • S ymmetry • F all 2015 • V olume 20 • I ssue 1