Pattern Distortion Research Articles

Deviancy Aversion and Social Norms.

We propose that deviancy aversion-people's domain-general discomfort toward the distortion of patterns (repeated forms or models)-contributes to the strength and prevalence of social norms in society. Five studies (N = 2,390) supported this hypothesis. In Study 1, individuals' deviancy aversion, for instance, their aversion toward broken patterns of simple geometric shapes, predicted negative affect toward norm violations (affect), greater self-reported norm following (behavior), and judging norms as more valuable (belief). Supporting generalizability, deviancy aversion additionally predicted greater conformity on accuracy-orientated estimation tasks (Study 2), adherence to physical distancing norms during COVID-19 (Study 3), and increased following of fairness norms (Study 4). Finally, experimentally heightening deviancy aversion increased participants' negative affect toward norm violations and self-reported norm behavior, but did not convincingly heighten belief-based norm judgments (Study 5). We conclude that a human sensitivity to pattern distortion functions as a low-level affective process that promotes and maintains social norms in society.

Obliterating rating distortions: role of rater disposition and rating context

PurposeRecent performance appraisal (PA) literature suggests that alongside cognitive biases, rating distortions may stem from rater disposition and PA context. The study investigated the role of social value orientation (rater disposition), PA purposes and rater accountability (PA context) toward rating distortions at both performance levels, i.e. good and poor.Design/methodology/approachThe authors designed an experimental study and elicited data from N = 110 undergraduate students about two video-taped performances of good and poor performers. In these videos, two managers conducted assessment interviews of two different employees for the job of a sales representative at an information technology organization. To ensure the validity of performance ratings, the authors invited 10 senior managers to provide benchmark ratings of the video-taped performances. While being placed in two separate groups, the study participants gave performance ratings on both the video-taped performances. The authors used repeated-measures analysis to analyze data.FindingsThe results revealed that rating distortions took place not because of rater social value orientation, but the PA context. Different rating distortion patterns emerged for different levels of ratees' performance.Originality/valueThis study’s findings furnish new insights for assessing rating distortions for poor as well as good performers. Moreover, the results support previous findings that for good performers, accountable raters are tempted toward accurate ratings and refrained from deflation. Similarly, for poor performers, accountable raters do not inflate ratings. The findings will open research avenues to examine the role of PA purposes in rating distortions for different performance levels.

Improved high-resolution EBSD analyses by correcting radial distortion of electron diffraction patterns

• An integrated DIC method is proposed to measure the radial optical distortion of electron diffraction cameras. • The method has a comparable accuracy with previous studies using chessboard samples. • Various high-resolution EBSD analyses benefit from the radial distortion corrections. Registering experimental and simulated electron diffraction patterns is increasingly used for advanced electron backscatter diffraction indexation (EBSD) analysis, yet the accuracy of registration is limited by several effects not accounted for in pattern simulation, such as the Kikuchi band (K-band) asymmetry, gray level reversal and (mainly radial) optical distortion. Radial distortion parameters have previously been measured with chessboard-type standard samples. Simulated patterns have been adopted to demonstrate the necessity of optical distortion removal in EBSD analyses. However there still lacks an efficient and precise radial distortion assessment and correction method. Here a simple radial distortion model, including barrel and pincushion distortions, is proposed to rectify the diffraction patterns during EBSD analyses. The correlation between experimental pattern and the simulated master pattern permits to index the diffraction pattern and assess the radial distortion simultaneously. The method is applied to three high-definition experimental electron diffraction datasets acquired with different cameras. The radial distortion parameter is identified with a relative uncertainty below 4%. The consideration of radial distortion improves the correlation between experimental and simulated patterns. Gray level profiles of the K-bands are analyzed to verify the correctness of image registration. The current method provides a fast, economic yet precise correction of the radial distortion for advanced EBSD analyses.

Novel Proximal Group ADMM for Placement Considering Fogging and Proximity Effects

Fogging and proximity effects (FPEs) are two major factors that cause inaccurate exposure and layout pattern distortions in e-beam lithography. In this article, we propose an analytical placement algorithm that considers both FPEs. We formulate the global placement problem as a separable minimization problem with linear constraints, where different objectives can be tackled one by one in an alternating fashion. Then, we propose a novel proximal group alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) to solve the separable minimization problem with two subproblems, where the first subproblem (associated with wirelength and density) is solved by the steepest descent method without line search, and the second one (associated with the FPEs) is handled by an analytical scheme. We prove the property of global convergence of the proximal group ADMM method. Finally, the FPEs-aware legalization and detailed placement are employed to legalize and improve the placement result. The experimental results show that our algorithm is effective and efficient for the addressed problem. Our algorithm achieved 5.7% smaller fogging variation, 6.8% lower proximity variation, and 5.4% lower runtime with a minor wirelength overhead compared with the state-of-the-art work.

Bending as Counterspeech

AbstractIn this paper, we identify and examine an overlooked strategy to counter bigoted speech on the spot. Such a strategy we call ‘bending’. To ‘bend’, in our sense, is to deliberately give a distorted response to a speaker’s harmful move – precisely, an ameliorative response, which may turn that move into a different, less harmful, contribution. To substantiate our proposal, we distinguish two ideas of uptake – interpretation and response – and argue for the general claim that a distorted response on the hearer’s part may end up transforming a speaker’s contribution. Patterns of distortion have been analyzed in the literature as unjustly undermining speakers’ agency and exacerbating oppression. Our analysis shows that, under certain circumstances, distortion can be employed to derail bigoted speech and thus serve the purposes of social justice. We close by discussing the virtues and limits of bending vis-à-vis a different, much-discussed, counterspeech strategy, i.e. ‘blocking’ (Langton 2018).

A Three-Camera Digital Image Correlation System For Full-Field 3D Shape and Motion Measurement

A cluster-approach-based three-camera digital image correlation (DIC) system is introduced for full-field 3D shape and motion measurement. In this system, three cameras are employed to measure the same specimen area at different viewing angles. Data points within the region of interest can be evaluated by arbitrary camera pairs as a stereo DIC system so that data points with the smallest 3D residuum are selected and mapped into one common coordinate system. Two stationary shape measurements and one out-of-plane motion measurement were carried out with the three-camera DIC system. Test results were analyzed based on the same image series, projection calibration, and correlation parameters, but compared using different camera combinations (i.e., three-camera and two-camera data). Three-camera test results show not only an improved surface coverage due to the additional camera viewing angle for uneven specimen surfaces, but also a smaller and more homogenous distributed measurement uncertainty compared to the two-camera test results. The selection of data points with the smallest 3D residuum evaluated from any arbitrary camera pairs enables a better tolerance of the three-camera DIC system against various measurement error sources such as limited depth of field, lens distortion, and speckle pattern distortion due to tilted camera viewing angles.

A Simple and Effective Approach for Scattering Suppression in Multiband Base Station Antennas

The high band pattern distortions in an 1810–2690 MHz frequency band, introduced due to low band radiators working in 690–960 MHz, are mitigated by a simple yet effective change to the low band-radiating elements. A novel horizontal and vertical radiating element is designed instead of a conventional slant polarized low band-radiating element to reduce the scattering. The slant polarization is achieved from the horizontal and vertical dipoles, using a 180° hybrid coupler. The vertical dipole length is optimized to improve the high band patterns. The experimental results verified that the proposed horizontal and vertical low band dipole result in the reduction of high band pattern distortions. The low band-radiating elements provide >12 dB return loss over the entire frequency band 690–960 MHz and provide comparable pattern performance to a conventional slant low band dipole.

Quantitative flow visualization by hidden grid background oriented schlieren

The paper introduces hidden grid background oriented schlieren for quantitative study and visualization of natural convection heat transfer. In this technique, the refractive index variation, induced by the temperature gradient, is encoded in the recorded signal phase through the distortion of a background pattern. The background (undistorted) pattern is implicit (or hidden) in the light source. Quantitative estimation of the phase map is obtained by windowed Fourier transform. This method offers localized processing of the signal using joint space-frequency representation. The performance of hidden grid background oriented schlieren is practically demonstrated by investigating natural convective flow, a demanding task due to its comparatively small heat transfer.

Task-modulated Sensitivity to Vocal Pitch in the Dorsal Premotor Cortex during Multitalker Speech Recognition.

It has long been known that listening to speech activates inferior frontal (pre-)motor regions in addition to a more dorsal premotor site (dPM). Recent work shows that dPM, located adjacent to laryngeal motor cortex, responds to low-level acoustic speech cues including vocal pitch, and the speech envelope, in addition to higher-level cues such as phoneme categories. An emerging hypothesis is that dPM is part of a general auditory-guided laryngeal control circuit that plays a role in producing speech and other voluntary auditory-vocal behaviors. We recently reported a study in which dPM responded to vocal pitch during a degraded speech recognition task, but only when speech was rated as unintelligible; dPM was more robustly modulated by the categorical difference between intelligible and unintelligible speech. Contrary to the general auditory-vocal hypothesis, this suggests intelligible speech is the primary driver of dPM. However, the same pattern of results was observed in pitch-sensitive auditory cortex. Crucially, vocal pitch was not relevant to the intelligibility judgment task, which may have facilitated processing of phonetic information at the expense of vocal pitch cues. The present fMRI study (n = 25) tests the hypothesis that, for a multitalker task that emphasizes pitch for talker segregation, left dPM and pitch-sensitive auditory regions will respond to vocal pitch regardless of overall speech intelligibility. This would suggest that pitch processing is indeed a primary concern of this circuit, apparent during perception only when the task demands it. Spectrotemporal modulation distortion was used to independently modulate vocal pitch and phonetic content in two-talker (male/female) utterances across two conditions (Competing, Unison), only one of which required pitch-based segregation (Competing). A Bayesian hierarchical drift-diffusion model was used to predict speech recognition performance from patterns of spectrotemporal distortion imposed on each trial. The model's drift rate parameter, a d'-like measure of performance, was strongly associated with vocal pitch for Competing but not Unison. Using a second Bayesian hierarchical model, we identified regions where behaviorally relevant acoustic features were related to fMRI activation in dPM. We regressed the hierarchical drift-diffusion model's posterior predictions of trial-wise drift rate, reflecting the relative presence or absence of behaviorally relevant acoustic features from trial to trial, against trial-wise activation amplitude. A significant positive association with overall drift rate, reflecting vocal pitch and phonetic cues related to overall intelligibility, was observed in left dPM and bilateral auditory cortex in both conditions. A significant positive association with "pitch-restricted" drift rate, reflecting only the relative presence or absence of behaviorally relevant pitch cues, regardless of the presence or absence of phonetic content (intelligibility), was observed in left dPM, but only in the Competing condition. Interestingly, the same effect was observed in bilateral auditory cortex but in both conditions. A post hoc mediation analysis ruled out the possibility that decision load was responsible for the observed pitch effects. These findings suggest that processing of vocal pitch is a primary concern of the auditory-cortex-dPM circuit, although during perception core pitch, processing is carried out by auditory cortex with a potential modulatory influence from dPM.

Accurate lattice parameters from 3D electron diffraction data. I. Optical distortions.

Determination of lattice parameters from 3D electron diffraction (3D ED) data measured in a transmission electron microscope is hampered by a number of effects that seriously limit the achievable accuracy. The distortion of the diffraction patterns by the optical elements of the microscope is often the most severe problem. A thorough analysis of a number of experimental datasets shows that, in addition to the well known distortions, namely barrel-pincushion, spiral and elliptical, an additional distortion, dubbed parabolic, may be observed in the data. In precession electron diffraction data, the parabolic distortion leads to excitation-error-dependent shift and splitting of reflections. All distortions except for the elliptical distortion can be determined together with lattice parameters from a single 3D ED data set. However, the parameters of the elliptical distortion cannot be determined uniquely due to correlations with the lattice parameters. They can be determined and corrected either by making use of the known Laue class of the crystal or by combining data from two or more crystals. The 3D ED data can yield lattice parameter ratios with an accuracy of about 0.1% and angles with an accuracy better than 0.03°.

A Wideband Noise Radar System Using a Phased Array with True Time Delay

Noise radar has become attractive owing to progress in hardware technology. Aside from the low probability of exploitation, the use of noise waveform is likely to grow due to its low interference features, especially in circumstances where multiple radars operate in the same band. In this study, we developed and tested a wideband noise radar for a ground-moving vehicle. It operates in the X-band with an instantaneous bandwidth of 1.5 GHz. The true time delay (TTD) was applied to correct the distortion of the beam pattern by the wide bandwidth, and the correlators were implemented by high-speed parallel processing using a field programmable gate array (FPGA). The outdoor experimental results were presented.

An Unsupervised Depth-Estimation Model for Monocular Images Based on Perceptual Image Error Assessment

In this paper, we propose a novel unsupervised learning-based model for estimating the depth of monocular images by integrating a simple ResNet-based auto-encoder and some special loss functions. We use only stereo images obtained from binocular cameras as training data without using depth ground-truth data. Our model basically outputs a disparity map that is necessary to warp an input image to an image corresponding to a different viewpoint. When the input image is warped using the output-disparity map, distortions of various patterns inevitably occur in the reconstructed image. During the training process, the occurrence frequency and size of these distortions gradually decrease, while the similarity between the reconstructed and target images increases, which proves that the accuracy of the predicted disparity maps also increases. Therefore, one of the important factors in this type of training is an efficient loss function that accurately measures how much the difference in quality between the reconstructed and target images is and guides the gap to be properly and quickly closed as the training progresses. In recent related studies, the photometric difference was calculated through simple methods such as L1 and L2 loss or by combining one of these with a traditional computer vision-based hand-coded image-quality assessment algorithm such as SSIM. However, these methods have limitations in modeling various patterns at the level of the human visual system. Therefore, the proposed model uses a pre-trained perceptual image-quality assessment model that effectively mimics human-perception mechanisms to measure the quality of distorted images as image-reconstruction loss. In order to highlight the performance of the proposed loss functions, a simple ResNet50-based network is adopted in our model. We trained our model using stereo images of the KITTI 2015 driving dataset to measure the pixel-level depth for 768 × 384 images. Despite the simplicity of the network structure, thanks to the effectiveness of the proposed image-reconstruction loss, our model outperformed other state-of-the-art studies that have been trained in unsupervised methods on a variety of evaluation indicators.

A Distortion Nullforming Precoder in Massive MIMO Systems With Nonlinear Hardware

In this letter, we propose a novel nullforming precoding scheme to cancel the distortion from multiple-input–multiple-output (MIMO) base stations with nonlinear hardware towards victims that operate either in the same or adjacent frequency bands. The proposed precoder is based first on the design of a nullforming scheme within the same band which steers nulls towards the direction of victims. Then, its power allocation is updated to achieve per-antenna constant envelope (CE) precoding without destructing the nullforming of the desired signal. It is shown analytically that in line-of-sight channels, single-user transmission, CE precoders have the property that the radiation pattern of nonlinear distortion has the same spatial characteristics as that of the in-band desired signal. As a result, the designed nulls are towards the desired directions for both in-band and out-of-band frequencies. Finally, numerical results corroborate the effectiveness of the proposed precoder.

Automated Method for Tracking Human Muscle Architecture on Ultrasound Scans during Dynamic Tasks.

Existing approaches for automated tracking of fascicle length (FL) and pennation angle (PA) rely on the presence of a single, user-defined fascicle (feature tracking) or on the presence of a specific intensity pattern (feature detection) across all the recorded ultrasound images. These prerequisites are seldom met during large dynamic muscle movements or for deeper muscles that are difficult to image. Deep-learning approaches are not affected by these issues, but their applicability is restricted by their need for large, manually analyzed training data sets. To address these limitations, the present study proposes a novel approach that tracks changes in FL and PA based on the distortion pattern within the fascicle band. The results indicated a satisfactory level of agreement between manual and automated measurements made with the proposed method. When compared against feature tracking and feature detection methods, the proposed method achieved the lowest average root mean squared error for FL and the second lowest for PA. The strength of the proposed approach is that the quantification process does not require a training data set and it can take place even when it is not possible to track a single fascicle or observe a specific intensity pattern on the ultrasound recording.

Simulation of urban land expansion in China at 30 m resolution through 2050 under shared socioeconomic pathways

ABSTRACT Rapid urbanization has profoundly impacted social and environmental systems. China is the world’s largest developing country. Projecting future urban expansion in China is critical to alleviate any adverse impacts and achieve sustainable development goals. However, the existing national-scale urban expansion simulations at low or medium resolutions produce significant distortions in urban spatial patterns, limiting the utility of future projections. High-resolution simulation of urban expansion is challenging on a large scale owing to high computational demands. In this study, we used a high-performance cellular automata model (Tensor-FLUS) to simulate the urban expansion of China from 2015 to 2050, at 30 m spatial resolution, under shared socioeconomic pathways. The high-resolution (30 m) urban expansion simulations preserve greater spatial details and avoid 34.07–37.60% underestimation of the urban area, compared with simulation at 1 km resolution. The environmental impact assessments revealed that future urban expansion mainly encroaches on cropland (88.00–88.29%), with a greater likelihood of occupying productive cropland, placing substantial pressure on food production. Although the proportion of occupied natural land is relatively small (11.32–11.60%), newly expanded urban areas will tend to consume woodland and grassland of high ecological value, leading to profound impacts on the ecosystem. In general, the produced high-resolution future simulations can reduce the uncertainty of environmental impact assessment at the national scale. Furthermore, it can provide consistent projection data for research at the provincial or metropolitan scales to support urban planning and local climate change mitigation.

Atmospheric turbulence forecasting using two-stage variational mode decomposition and autoregression towards free-space optical data-transmission link

Free space optical communication (FSOC) is a promising technology for satellite-to-earth communication systems, where vector beams, especially orbital angular momentum (OAM), can further increase the capacity of the optical link. However, atmospheric turbulence along the path can introduce intensity scintillation, wavefront aberrations and severe distortion of spatial patterns, leading to data degradation. Forecasting atmospheric turbulence allows for advanced scheduling of satellite-to-earth data transmission links, as well as the use of adaptive optics (AO) to compensate for turbulence effects and avoid data transmission link performance degradation. Therefore, atmospheric turbulence forecasting is critical for practical applications. In this work, we proposed a hybrid atmospheric turbulence forecasting model based on a two-stage variational mode decomposition (TsVMD) and autoregression model. The variational mode decomposition (VMD) algorithm is first used, to our best knowledge, to denoise the observed atmospheric turbulence dataset, and then is used again to decompose the datasets into several intrinsic mode functions (IMFs). Finally, the autoregression model is used to predict each IMF independently. And the predictions of each IMF are combined to obtain the final atmospheric turbulence predictions. Experiments employing the observed turbulence datasets and two additional methodologies were carried out to verify the performance of the proposed model. The experimental results show that the performance of the proposed model is much superior to that of the comparative methods.

Design of a sub-scale fan for a boundary layer ingestion test with by-pass flow

AbstractA design of a sub-scale Boundary Layer Ingestion (BLI) fan for a transonic test rig is presented. The fan is intended to be used in flow conditions with varying distortion patterns representative of a BLI application on an aircraft. The sub-scale fan design is based on a design study of a full-scale fan for a BLI demonstration project for a Fokker 100 aircraft. CFD results from the full-scale fan design and the ingested distortion pattern from CFD analyses of the whole aircraft are used as inputs for this study. The sub-scale fan is designed to have similar performance characteristics to the full-scale fan within the capabilities of the test facility. The available geometric rig envelope in the test facility necessitates a reduction in geometric scale and consideration of the operating conditions. Fan blades and vanes are re-designed for these conditions in order to mitigate the effects of the scaling. The effects of reduced size, increased relative tip clearance and thicknesses of the blades and vanes are evaluated as part of the step-by-step adaption of the design to the sub-scale conditions. Finally, the installation effects in the rig are simulated including important effects of the by-pass flow on the running characteristics and the need to control the effective fan nozzle area in order to cover the available fan operating range. The predicted operating behaviour of the fan as installed in the coming transonic test rig gives strong indication that the sub-scale fan tests will be successful.

The impacts of measurement errors on a dietary pattern analyses:a simulation study based on dietary data from the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort (CMEC) study

Measurement error is a significant challenge in nutritional epidemiology research. Compared with traditional, isolated-nutrient research, dietary-pattern studies provide a more comprehensive approach to chronic disease prevention and have become popular in recent years. However, few studies have examined the impacts of measurement errors on dietary pattern analyses. We investigated the impacts of measurement errors on the 2 most commonly used dietary pattern derivation methods: principal component factor analysis (PCFA) and K-means cluster analysis (KCA). We conducted a simulation study by taking the dietary data collected in the China Multi-Ethnic Cohort study as the "true values" and adding linear measurement errors for each food group to consider both systematic and random errors. We investigated the impacts of measurement errors from 2 aspects: distortion of the derived dietary patterns and estimated associations between the dietary patterns and disease. For both systematic and random errors, larger measurement errors caused more serious distortion of dietary patterns derived by PCFA and KCA, with consistency rates ranging from 67.5% to 100% and from 13.4% to 88.4%, respectively. In addition, for both systematic and random errors, larger measurement errors caused greater attenuation effects on the association coefficients. For a beneficial association (coefficient, -0.5), the estimated coefficients ranged from -0.287 to -0.450 and from -0.231 to -0.394 in the PCFA and KCA, respectively. For a harmful association (coefficient, 0.5), the estimated coefficients ranged from 0.295 to 0.449 and from -0.003 to 0.373 in the PCFA and KCA, respectively. Dietary patterns derived by PCFA with factor loadings of low discrepancies and dietary patterns derived by KCA with small cluster sample sizes are more vulnerable to measurement error. Measurement errors could distort dietary patterns and attenuate the dietary pattern-disease association. The stability of dietary patterns under measurement errors differs when using PCFA and KCA.

Cognitive Distortion While Attending Online Class: Study on Banjar College Student

Online learning has begun to take place in Indonesia since March 2020 simultaneously in all educational institutions due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 outbreak. Sudden changes make it difficult for students to process information and lead to various patterns of thinking errors which are known as cognitive distortions. This study aims to reveal the patterns of cognitive distortions that students have during the online lectures. The research design used is a phenomenological qualitative design. Analysis of cognitive distortions was collected through in-depth interviews and document studies to 8 Banjar ethnic students. The results of the study found that there were 3 cognitive distortions, namely: (1) catastrophizing; (2) all-or-nothing thinking; and (3) should statements. The effects of these cognitive distortions include feeling lazy, bored, afraid, uncomfortable, drowsy, shaking, and heart palpitations. In the context of student behavior, students also tend to neglect lectures, access social media, sleep, and go to hang out with friends. Further research is needed to explore student’s cognitive distortions in post-Covid-19 pandemic situation or with diverse populations.

STUDY OF THE INFLUENCE OF INTENSIFYING ADDITIVES ON LOW-TEMPERATURE SYNTHESIS OF SLAVSONITE AND CELZIAN IN THE CREATION OF RADIOTRANSPARENT CERAMIC MATERIALS

The studies carried out concern the development of structural radiotransparent ceramic materials based on the four-component system BaO–SrO–Al2O3–SiO2. Due to the widespread use of radar equipment at modern aviation facilities, the development of radiotransparent fairings for them is a rather important and urgent task.The purpose of the fairings is to protect the antenna devices of radar stations from environmental influences during flight. Based on this, the fairings must meet a complex set of requirements for aerodynamic, thermal, radio engineering and mechanical properties. These requirements at supersonic flight speeds of modern objects increase significantly, since the improvement of the aerodynamic shape, the increase in the mechanical strength and thermal stability of the fairings contradicts the interests of radio engineering, leading to a significant deterioration in their radiotransparency and to distortions of antenna directional patterns. The consequence is a decrease in the range of radar stations and serious deterioration in their accuracy characteristics.The aim of the research was to obtain, on the basis of the BaO–SrO–Al2O3–SiO2 system, crystalline phases of slavsonit and celsian at low temperatures and times of synthesis, by introducing sintering intensifiers with fluxing and modifying action.The influence of a number of additives on the intensification of the low-temperature synthesis of slavsonit and celsian is investigated. The positive effect of the eutectic additive of the SnO2–Li2O system on the preparation of a densely sintered ceramic material based on solid solutions of slavsonit and monoclinic celsian is shown. It has been established that, according to its dielectric properties, the obtained ceramic material can be classified as structural radio-transparent materials.