Target Dimensions Research Articles

Comparisons Inform Me Who I Am: A General Comparative-Processing Model of Self-Perception

People’s self-concept contributes to their sense of identity over time. Yet self-perception is motivated and serves survival and thus does not reflect stable inner states or accurate biographical accounts. Research indicates that different types of comparison standards act as reference frames in evaluating attributes that constitute the self. However, the role of comparisons in self-perception has been underestimated, arguably because of lack of a guiding framework that takes into account relevant aspects of comparison processes and their interdependence. I propose a general comparative model of self-perception that consists of a basic comparison process involving the individual’s prior mental representation of the target dimension, the construal of the comparison standard, and the comparison outcome representing the posterior representation of the target dimension. The generated dimensional construal is then appraised with respect to one’s motives and controllability and goes on to shape emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses. Contextual and personal factors influence the comparison process. This model may be informative in better understanding comparison processes in people’s everyday lives and their role in shaping self-perception and in designing interventions to assist people overcome undesirable consequences of comparative behavior.

Cross-dimensional magnitude interaction is modulated by representational noise: evidence from space-time interaction.

Magnitudes along different dimensions (e.g., space and time) tend to interact with each other in perception, with some magnitude dimensions more susceptible to cross-dimensional interference than others. What causes such asymmetries in cross-dimensional magnitude interaction is being debated. The current study investigated whether the representational noise of magnitudes modulates the (a)symmetry in space-time interaction. In three experiments using different formats of length, we showed that dynamic unfilled lengths resulted in a higher representational noise than either static unfilled length or static filled length. Correspondingly, we observed that the time-on-space effect was larger for dynamic unfilled lengths than for static unfilled length or static filled length (and it did not differ between the latter two). Further correlational analyses showed that the susceptibility of a target dimension to the influence of a concurrent dimension increased as a function of participants' representational noise in the target dimension (e.g., the noisier length representations, the larger the time-on-spaceeffect). In all, our study showed that the representational noise of space and time modulates the way the two dimensions interact. These findings suggest that cross-dimensional magnitude interactions arise as a result of memory interference, with noisier magnitudes being more prone to being nudged by concurrent magnitudes in other dimensions. Such memory interference can be seen as a result of Bayesian inference with correlated priors between magnitude dimensions.

Sustainable Smart City—Opening a Black Box

Cities are becoming digital and are aiming to be sustainable. How they are combining the two is not always apparent from the outside. What we need is a look from inside. In recent years, cities have increasingly called themselves Smart City. This can mean different things, but generally includes a look towards new digital technologies and claim that a Smart City has various advantages for its citizens, roughly in line with the demands of sustainable development. A city can be seen as smart in a narrow sense, technology wise, sustainable or smart and sustainable. Current city rankings, which often evaluate and classify cities in terms of the target dimensions “smart” and “sustainable”, certify that some cities are both. In its most established academic definitions, the Smart City also serves both to improve the quality of life of its citizens and to promote sustainable development. Some cities have obviously managed to combine the two. The question that arises is as follows: What are the underlying processes towards a sustainable Smart City and are cities really using smart tools to make themselves sustainable in the sense of the 2015 United Nations Sustainability Goal 11? This question is to be answered by a method that has not yet been applied in research on cities and smart cities: the innovation biography. Based on evolutionary economics, the innovation biography approaches the process towards a Smart City as an innovation process. It will highlight which actors are involved, how knowledge is shared among them, what form citizen participation processes take and whether the use of digital and smart services within a Smart City leads to a more sustainable city. Such a process-oriented method should show, among other things, to what extent and when sustainability-relevant motives play a role and which actors and citizens are involved in the process at all.

Mutual influences between numerical and non-numerical quantities in comparison tasks.

Humans possess a numerical intuition that allows them to manipulate large non-symbolic quantities. This ability has been broadly assessed with the help of number comparison tasks involving simultaneously displayed arrays. Many authors pointed out that the manipulation (or the lack thereof) of non-numerical features deeply impacts performance in these tasks, but the specific nature of this influence is not clear. This study investigates the interaction between numerical and non-numerical quantity judgement tasks. Adult participants performed five distinct comparison tasks, each based on a target dimension: numerosity, total area, dot size, convex hull, and mean occupancy. We manipulated the relation between the target and the other dimensions to measure their respective influence on task performance. Results showed that total area and convex hull substantially affected numerosity comparisons. The number of dots conversely acted as an informative dimension when participants had to make a decision based on the total area or the convex hull. Our results illustrate that adults flexibly use non-target dimensions as visual cues to perform comparison judgements. Overall, this suggests that the influence found in numerical comparison tasks is explicit and deliberate rather than due to implicit visual integration processes.

Computational Reverse-Engineering Analysis of Scattering Experiments (CREASE) on Amphiphilic Block Polymer Solutions: Cylindrical and Fibrillar Assembly

In this paper, we extend a recently developed computational reverse-engineering analysis for scattering experiments (CREASE) approach to analyze cylindrical, fibrillar, and elliptical cylindrical structures assembled in amphiphilic block copolymer solutions. With CREASE, one can deduce information about assembled structures characterized via small-angle scattering without having to rely on fits using conventional analytical scattering models that may be approximate or inapplicable for the system at hand. With scattering intensity profiles and information about the polymer solution (e.g., molecular weight, composition, and sequence) provided to CREASE as an input, the output from CREASE includes the shape, morphology, dimensions, and molecular packing in the assembled polymer structures within the solution. CREASE is comprised of two steps: the first step involves a genetic algorithm (GA) to determine the shape and dimensions of the domains in the assembled structure and the second step uses molecular simulations to reconstruct chain conformations and monomer-level arrangements within the assembled structure. This paper builds on our recent work that was focused on spherical assembled structures and extends it to nonspherical assembled structures like cylinders, fibrils, and cylinders with elliptical cross sections. We validate the GA step within CREASE by taking input scattering intensity profiles from a variety of assembled shapes with known shapes and dimensions and by producing outputs that match those known shapes and target dimensions. To demonstrate its use in real situations where microscopy may hint at the potential shapes without the user knowing the dimensions with certainty, we apply CREASE with different potential assembled shapes and compare the structural dimensions of the results.

A Circular Tape Magnetic Circuit with an Elliptical Cross Section

A new class of magnetic circuits is presented, circular tape magnetic circuits with an elliptical cross section. They contain a rectangular part and two opposite half-circular parts. The parametric formula of the shaped cutting of the initial constant tape width is derived to obtain a sweep the winding of which on the mandrel allows making a circular magnetic circuit with an elliptical cross section of target dimensions. The tape is exposed to shape cutting and the magnetic circuit wound simultaneously in one device. The composite magnetic circuit design is considered that allows assembling magnetic circuits of varied size from standard ready-made components. The proposed class of magnetic circuits has a limit coil window filling coefficient equal to 1.

Getting familiar with Teaching Games for Understanding – A qualitative experiment with German and Swiss teachers

The professionalization of teachers is one central topic in both educational sciences and subject didactics. Within this debate pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has turned out to be a core component of professional competence. Consequently, PCK must be a primary task for teacher education. In Physical Education teaching games has been a conflicting issue in sport didactics for more than fifty years, especially considered from the perspective of game vs. skill orientation. In this case, the concept of TGfU has proved as an adequate and effective conception; thus, it can be assumed that this approach should be integrated into the education of PE teachers. This article deals with the issue of teaching TGfU to preservice teachers in Germany and Switzerland. We first deal with a framework for teacher education and its main target dimensions. Second, we present TGfU as a didactical conception for teaching sport games and its possibilities of implementing quality dimensions. Third, we present a study in which a qualitative experiment was conducted. It aimed at teaching the concept of TGfU to a variety of teachers over nine months. Some ideas and recommendations for teacher education round off the article.

Moving Target Refocusing With the FMCW SAR System MIRANDA-35

Inverse synthetic aperture radar is a commonly adopted technique for producing high-resolution images of moving targets. This article investigates the imaging capabilities of high-frequency and high-bandwidth systems by means of two distinct experiments. The deployed sensor is the Fraunhofer FHR MIRANDA-35, a millimeter-wave synthetic aperture radar airborne system, which transmits frequency-modulated continuous-wave signals at the Ka-band and is capable of achieving centimeter resolution. The performances are assessed by comparing the derived estimates (e.g., radial velocity and acceleration, and dimensions) with independent ground measurements. The resulting accuracy can be summarized as follows: the mean value of the percent error is 2.05% and 2.11% for radial velocity and acceleration, respectively, and 4.27% for the target dimensions.

Metric biases in body representation extend to objects

We typically misestimate the dimensions of our body e.g., we perceive our fingers as shorter, and our torso as more elongated, than they actually are. It stands to reason that those metric biases may also extend to objects that we interact with, to facilitate attunement with the environment. To explore this hypothesis, we compared the metric representations of seven objects and the subjects' own hand using the Line Length Judgment task, in six experiments involving 152 healthy subjects. We evaluated the size estimation errors made for each target (hand or previously observed objects) by asking subjects to compare the vertical or horizontal dimension of a specific target against the length of a vertical or horizontal line. As expected, we showed that the hand is misperceived in its dimensions. Interestingly, we found that metric biases are also present for daily-life objects, such as a mobile phone and a coffee mug, and are not affected by familiarity with the objects. In contrast, objects that are less likely to be manipulated, either because they are potentially harmful or disgusting, were differently represented. Furthermore, the propensity to interact with an object, rated by an independent sample of subjects, best predicted the pattern of metric biases associated with that object. Taken together, these findings support the hypothesis that biases affecting the hand representation extend to objects that elicit action-oriented behavior, highlighting the importance of studying the body as integrated and active in the environment.

An investigation of resurgence of reinforced behavioral variability in humans.

The present study examined resurgence of reinforced variability in college students, who completed a 3-phase computer-based variability task. In the first phase, baseline, points were delivered for drawing rectangles that sufficiently differed from previous rectangles in terms of a target dimension (size or location, counterbalanced) but were sufficiently similar in terms of the alternative dimension. In the second phase, alternative, points were only delivered for rectangles that were sufficiently different in terms of the alternative dimension, but repetitive in terms of the target dimension. In the third phase, extinction, no points were delivered. In baseline, participants made rectangles that were highly varied in terms of the target dimension and less varied in terms of the alternative dimension, and vice versa in the alternative phase. During extinction, levels of variability increased for the target dimension, providing evidence for resurgence of reinforced variability of a specific dimension of behavior. However, levels of variability also remained high for the alternative dimension, indicating that extinction-induced response variability may also have impacted the results. Although future research is needed to explore other explanations, the results of this study replicate prior research with pigeons and provide some support for the notion of variability as an operant.

Latent Semantic Scaling: A Semisupervised Text Analysis Technique for New Domains and Languages

ABSTRACT Many social scientists recognize that quantitative text analysis is a useful research methodology, but its application is still concentrated in documents written in European languages, especially English, and few sub-fields of political science, such as comparative politics and legislative studies. This seems to be due to the absence of flexible and cost-efficient methods that can be used to analyze documents in different domains and languages. Aiming to solve this problem, this paper proposes a semisupervised document scaling technique, called Latent Semantic Scaling (LSS), which can locate documents on various pre-defined dimensions. LSS achieves this by combining user-provided seed words and latent semantic analysis (word embedding). The article demonstrates its flexibility and efficiency in large-scale sentiment analysis of New York Times articles on the economy and Asahi Shimbun articles on politics. These examples show that LSS can produce results comparable to that of the Lexicoder Sentiment Dictionary (LSD) in both English and Japanese with only small sets of sentiment seed words. A new heuristic method that assists LSS users to choose a near-optimal number of singular values to obtain word vectors that best capture differences between documents on target dimensions is also presented.

Guideline for paste extrusion 3D printing of slump-free ferrite inductor cores

Ceramic paste extrusion 3D printing has the potential to fabricate novel designs of ferrite inductors which could lead to size reduction of power electronic devices. An important requirement of paste feedstock is the ability to retention its shape under gravity after it is printed. To reduce time and energy consumption of a 3D printing process, it is useful to know the minimum required yield stress of feedstock to retain its shape. Due to lack of reported models that link the minimum required yield stress of feedstock to the target dimension of the feedstock, we explored slumping models in concrete industry for deciding the dimension-dependent minimum yield stress of the ferrite feedstock for UV-assisted 3D printing ferrite inductors. In this study, yield stress of the feedstock was affected by UV-curing time during 3D printing. With the selected model and the characterized relationship between yield stress and UV-curing time, a guideline was developed that prescribes the shortest UV curing time per print-layer from target dimensions of a slump-free ferrite core. Feasibility of the guideline was tested on two common commercial ferrite core structures.

Kinerja Sosial Lembaga Perkreditan Desa

This research aims to measure the social performance of Village Credit Institutions (VCI). VCI performance is not only seen from financial performance, but the social performance has also need to be assessed. The social performance management is measured by four dimension using the Social Performance Indicators. These dimensions include 1) target and outreach, 2) products and services, 3) benefits for the members and 4) social responsibility. The population of this study includes 38 VCI with total asset above Rp100 billion (> Rp 100 M) as the census technique was applied, all VCI was taken as the sample. The results show that the social performance of large VCI in Bali is very weak on target and outreach dimension but is strong on social responsibility. The pro-poor method and the individuals targeting are the weakest social performance criteria. These institutions must also focus their programs on helping the poor people. This can be done by collaborating with other institutions located in the areas with high poverty rates

Identification and characterization of trammel net métiers: A case study from the southwestern Sicily (Central Mediterranean)

The high variability of trammel fisheries, due to a marked seasonality in target species and fishing activities needs to be investigated with high spatial and temporal resolution. The present study focuses on trammel net fishery in southwestern Sicily (central Mediterranean Sea) identifying and characterizing the main métiers in relation to some key aspects of the fishery such as the target species, composition of landings, main fishing grounds and time of the year. For this purpose, a multivariate statistical approach based on landings and effort data of the Mazara del Vallo southwestern Sicily, Italy) trammel fleet in the period 2009–2013 was applied. A total of 153 different landed species and four different trammel net métiers were identified. These métiers showed differences in target species (i.e. Sepia officinalis, Palinurus elephas, Mullus surmuletus and a mix of species), fishing season, fishing grounds and dimension of fishing vessels. The métiers identified were significantly different in terms of total average landing per unit of effort (LPUE) with métier 1 targeting M. surmuletus, showing the highest average LPUE (2047 (192 s.e.) g*(h)−1*103 m net) and métier 2 targeting S. officinalis, exhibiting the lowest value (1175 (119 s.e.) g*(h)−1*103 m net).The study provides new knowledge on the dynamics of trammel fisheries in southwestern Sicily also showing that the complex nature of this peculiar fishery should be taken into account in any future sampling program aimed at the monitoring and management of artisanal fisheries in this area and more in general in the Mediterranean Sea.

Field target dimensions of flow constrained by a transverse dam

Construction and operation of channel control structures in valley rivers require carrying out a comparative study of their operation during design operational periods. The goal of this work is to set target dimensions for flow deformed by the transverse blind dam in field conditions, on the dam № 30 in Amudarya river: the length of upstream and downstream vortex zones, boundaries between the core and intensive turbulent mixing zones, vortex zone boundaries, and their comparison with experimental data. Locations of the sections are set based on the possibility to accomplish the goal, in the headrace, where flow natural condition is maintained, in contraction zone, and within the borders of downstream vortex zone. Sections were fixed with landmarks and leveling instrument Vegal 24 was installed there. Zone boundaries and vortex lengths were set with the use of floats directly from the riverside of the use of boats. Design relationships obtained from the results of laboratory experiments were used to determine the length of upstream vortex zone, contraction area, downstream vortex zone, boundaries of hydraulically homogeneous zones, which were then compared with the field data. It was also set, that coefficients characterized flow spreading beyond the contracted section were equal to C 2 =0.186 and C 3 =0.545 as compared to 0.11 and 0.16 in the theory of turbulent jets. The length of vortex zones is shorter by 11.9% to 26.8%, which shows how much the distance between dams must be decreased in the system.

AN ESTIMATE OF 47Sc PHOTONUCLEAR YIELD IN A PRODUCTION TARGET

47Sc is considered as a promising beta-emitter for cancer immunotherapy. For its carrier-free production, the 48Ti(γ,p)47Sc reaction in the field of bremsstrahlung radiation of an electron accelerator can be used. On the basis of developed analytical model and a double-foil activation technique, the main characteristics of the photonuclear isotope production and optimal dimensions of a production target have been established. The measured photonuclear yield of 47Sc and dominant scandium admixtures in thin foils of natural titanium in the electron energy range of 35 to 95 MeV enabled to specify the available data on the cross-section of the48Ti(γ,p)47Sc reaction. Using those results, the gross and specific activity of 47Sc in the cylindrical titanium targets of optimal size were calculated by a simulation technique. The comparison of capacity of the photonuclear method of the 47Sc production with other techniques is carried out.

Generation of homogeneous 3D Gaussian noise with spherically symmetric covariance.

In this paper, an approach for 3D noise generation is presented. The proposed algorithm might be a useful tool for the generation of correlated phase screens. These phase screens can be used for the simulation and modeling of optical wave propagation through atmospheric turbulence. Arbitrary user-defined covariance functions between voxel pairs can be achieved. Correlated 3D noise is formed by superposition of multiple uncorrelated 3D Gaussian noise patterns. These uncorrelated input noise patterns are of different dimensions. They are upsampled to the same target dimensions by linear interpolation. Each input pattern then contributes to total covariance on different spatial scales. The covariances between different voxels are expressed analytically by propagation of error. For a subset of randomly chosen voxels in the entire voxel space, relative deviations between the analytical and user-defined covariances are calculated. A sum of squares of these relative deviations is then minimized by machine learning methods. The optimized parameters are the weighting factors of individual uncorrelated 3D noise patterns. Corresponding covariance functions are numerically evaluated for two current atmospheric turbulence spectra. The first one is the generalized modified atmospheric spectrum. The second one is the generalized modified von Karman spectrum. Based on these covariance functions, optimal superpositions are calculated. Finally, statistical properties of these patterns are validated by ensemble sample covariance analysis.

A Taxonomy of Techniques for SLO Failure Prediction in Software Systems

Failure prediction is an important aspect of self-aware computing systems. Therefore, a multitude of different approaches has been proposed in the literature over the past few years. In this work, we propose a taxonomy for organizing works focusing on the prediction of Service Level Objective (SLO) failures. Our taxonomy classifies related work along the dimensions of the prediction target (e.g., anomaly detection, performance prediction, or failure prediction), the time horizon (e.g., detection or prediction, online or offline application), and the applied modeling type (e.g., time series forecasting, machine learning, or queueing theory). The classification is derived based on a systematic mapping of relevant papers in the area. Additionally, we give an overview of different techniques in each sub-group and address remaining challenges in order to guide future research.

Event-based encoding of biological motion and location in visual working memory.

We make use of discrete yet meaningful events to orient ourselves to the dynamic environment. Among these events, biological motion, referring to the movements of animate entities, is one of the most biologically salient. We usually encounter biological motions of multiple human beings taking place simultaneously at distinct locations. How we encode biological motions into visual working memory (VWM) to form a coherent experience of the external world and guide our social behaviour remains unclear. This study for the first time addressed the VWM encoding mechanism of biological motions and their corresponding locations. We tested an event-based encoding hypothesis for biological motion and location: When one element of an event is required to be memorised, the irrelevant element of an event will also be extracted into VWM. We presented participants with three biological motions at different locations and required them to memorise only the biological motions or their locations while ignoring the other dimension. We examined the event-based encoding by probing a distracting effect: If the event-based encoding took place, the change of irrelevant dimension in the probe would lead to a significant distraction and impair the performance of detecting target dimension. We found significant distracting effects, which lasted for 3 s but vanished at 6 s, regardless of the target dimension (biological motions vs. locations, Experiment 1) and the exposure time of memory array (1 s vs. 3 s, Experiment 2). These results together support an event-based encoding mechanism during VWM encoding of biological motions and their corresponding locations.

Dynamic model‐based feature aided data association filter in target tracking

In this study, the authors consider the data association problem where the feature of a target is available. Most existing data association filters mainly use a statistical or simple model of the feature without explicitly considering the correlation between the target behaviour and feature characteristics. The inaccurate model of the feature could lead to divergence of the estimation error or the loss of a target in heavily cluttered and/or low signal-to-noise ratio environments. To address the problem, they first develop feature models (e.g. target dimensions) dependent on the target behaviour (i.e. the distance between the sensor and the target, and the aspect angle between the longitudinal axis of the target and the axis of sensor line of sight). Then they propose a data association filter which can facilitate the feature models dependent on the target kinematics to reduce the misassociations. The performance of the proposed feature models and data association filter are demonstrated with illustrative target tracking scenarios.