People spontaneously segment continuous streams of experience into events. Some models of event comprehension propose that segmentation is triggered by spikes in prediction error, but evidence directly measuring prediction errors during ongoing comprehension is lacking. Here, we measured prediction continuously using eye-tracking. One hundred college-aged participants watched movies of everyday activity while their eyes were tracked and gaze location was used to predict the future location of the actor’s hands. Gaze location predicted hand location up to nine seconds into the future. Gaze-based prediction error (lower prediction accuracy) was compared with outputs from a computational model of event comprehension; gaze-based prediction error correlated better with model error than model uncertainty. Gaze-based prediction error was correlated with behavioral event segmentation, as predicted by the theoretical models. These results suggest that predictive looking gives a valid assay of online prediction error, and that prediction error is associated with event segmentation.

People spontaneously segment an observed everyday activity into discrete, meaningful events, but segmentation can be modified by task goals. Asking young adults to attend to event segmentation while watching movies of everyday actions improved their memory up to 1 month later (Flores et al., 2017). Does attending to event segmentation improve memory across the lifespan? Participants between the ages of 20 and 79 watched movies of actors performing everyday activities while intentionally encoding them for a recall and a recognition memory test 1 week (Experiment 1) or 1 month (Experiment 2) later. In addition to intentionally encoding the movies, half of the participants segmented the movies into fine-grained events. Young adults who segmented recalled more words in their recall responses than those who intentionally encoded 1 week and 1 month later. Middle-aged adults benefited from the intervention after a 1-week delay but not after a 1-month delay. Older adults over the age of 70 did not benefit from attending to segmentation. Of those who segmented, young and older adults showed similar agreement about the locations of event boundaries. Together, the results suggest that older adults are less able, compared to young adults, to maintain or retrieve well-encoded event memories after a delay. In addition, individual differences in segmentation agreement predicted memory up to 1 month later, regardless of age. These results suggest a practical and easy-to-implement intervention for improving recall of everyday events in young and middle-aged adults that is ineffective in older adults. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Foreign correspondents are uniquely positioned to increase the global plurality of views, understand a complex world of global risk, and create a more cosmopolitan media. In order to better equip foreign correspondents for their postings, innovative approaches are needed. With this aim, a new journalism research practice, called the Frame Reflection Interview (FRI), was developed. The FRI allows correspondents, in a short period of time, to gain an in-depth understanding of social contexts of the target country. The FRI process is based on translating the theory and methodology of frame reflection from the practice of policy design to the practice of journalism. This article reports on the results of a pilot trial of this method where a correspondent, about to be posted to Jakarta, accessed members of the Indonesian diaspora in Sydney before her departure. The results of the pilot were measured via content analysis of stories completed by the journalist during the early months of her posting, and by qualitative interviews with the journalist. The results of this research show the potential for FRIs to improve foreign correspondence, especially in postcolonial contexts.

AAE is described as exhibiting negative concord, similar to other varieties of English, in which negation licenses c-commanded n-words as well as Negative Polarity Items (NPIs). Crucially, these are thought to be licensed only when the noun phrase they modify is indefinite. Here, our object of study is an under-described phenomenon in AAE: under certain discourse conditions, AAE licenses no before a definite noun phrase (as in “You don't know nothin’ bout no Kendrick Lamar”). We argue that this phenomenon should not be situated in the syntax (as a previously unattested definite n-word), but rather in pragmatics, as speakers “demote” definite NPs to indefinite as part of a discourse strategy of signaling disagreement with, and rejection of, listener assumptions. This has implications for existing analyses of AAE negation, and for cross-dialect comprehension, camouflage constructions, and linguistic ideologies and discrimination. We also revisit existing canonical examples of AAE negation in light of this new analysis (eg., “it ain't no cat can't get in no coop” in Labov 1972).

To study complex human activity and how it is perceived and remembered, it is valuable to have large-scale, well-characterized stimuli that are representative of such activity. We present the Multi-angle Extended Three-dimensional Activities (META) stimulus set, a structured and highly instrumented set of extended event sequences performed in naturalistic settings. Performances were captured with two color cameras and a Kinect v2 camera with color and depth sensors, allowing the extraction of three-dimensional skeletal joint positions. We tracked the positions and identities of objects for all chapters using a mixture of manual coding and an automated tracking pipeline, and hand-annotated the timings of high-level actions. We also performed an online experiment to collect normative event boundaries for all chapters at a coarse and fine grain of segmentation, which allowed us to quantify event durations and agreement across participants. We share these materials publicly to advance new discoveries in the study of complex naturalistic activity.

Magnetorheological Finishing (MRF) is a well-established process for precision optical finishing. The primary benefits of MRF are its determinism, ability to finish complex surface shapes and good removal rate. Higher removal rates can be desirable to reduce cycle times or increase the amount of material removal. Cases include but are not limited to aspherization, harder materials, correcting higher error amplitudes, polishing very large aperture optics, and subsurface damage removal. Novel developments have been made with the fluid nozzle, magnetic field, and wheel geometry to increase the removal rate. Custom nozzle shapes are used to create a very wide MRF ribbon resulting in a much wider removal function (spot). The increase in ribbon width requires the use of higher volumetric flow rates. The magnetic field must be shaped to ensure that the field passes through this wider ribbon. Radius of curvature of the MRF wheel parallel to the axis of rotation is increased to achieve a wider spot. Results show an order of magnitude increase in volumetric removal rate due to a much wider and longer spot. Spot width increases of 3x, and spot length increases of 2x, as compared to a traditional MRF spot, were achieved. Polishing shape corrections were conducted with these spots which resulted in convergence rates over 80%. This development allows MRF to be used in applications previously limited by cycle time

In this paper we present an improved method for correcting mixer imbalance in wireless systems using Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM). Mixer imbalance causes a nonlinear distortion to complex baseband signals. We start by introducing several mathematical models for mixer imbalance in the time domain. Then we select the most appropriate one of the time domain models and use it to develop a frequency domain model. We show that when observed in the frequency domain, mixer imbalance causes intersubcarrier interference as well as interference between the in phase and quadrature components of each individual subcarrier. Our improved method of correcting for these effects takes advantage of symmetries in the interference parameters. These symmetries allow for better estimation of the interference which in turn allows for better recovery of the transmitted symbols. We show that for a given set of mixer imbalance parameters there is a minimum SNR at which imbalance correction will improve symbol recovery. The exact value for the threshold SNR depends on the imbalance parameter estimation method used. The method proposed here lowers that threshold SNR at which improved symbol recovery begins compared to a previously proposed method. Error Vector Magnitude (EVM) and Symbol Error Rate (SER) are the metrics we used to evaluate our proposed method.

OBJECTIVES:To evaluate the potential of the automated titre score (TS) as an alternative method to continuous flow analysis (CFA) for the prediction of the nature of anti-D in pregnancy.BACKGROUND:The 2016 revised British Society for Haematology (BSH) antenatal guidelines recommended a measurement of anti-D concentration by CFA to ensure the detection of potential immune anti-D. Due to high referral costs and resource pressures, uptake has been challenging for hospital laboratories. Serious Hazards of transfusion (SHOT) data have previously shown that this has contributed to missed antenatal follow ups for women with immune anti-D and neonates affected by haemolytic disease of the fetus/newborn.METHODS/MATERIALS:In this multicentre comparative study, samples referred for CFA quantification were also tested by an ORTHO VISION automated anti-D indirect antiglobulin test (IAT) serial dilution and then converted to TS. CFA results and history of anti-D prophylaxis were used to categorise samples as passive or immune, with the aim of determining a potential TS cut-off for CFA referral of at risk patients.RESULTS:Five UK National Health Service (NHS) trusts generated a total of 196 anti-D TS results, of which 128 were classified as passive and 68 as immune. Diagnostic testing of CFA and TS values indicated a TS cut-off of 35 to assist in distinguishing the nature of anti-D. Using this cut-off, 175 (89%) results were correctly assigned into the passive or immune range, giving a specificity of 92.19% and a negative predictive value of 91.47%.CONCLUSION:TS in conjunction with clinical and anti-D prophylaxis history can be used as a viable and cost-effective alternative to CFA in a hospital laboratory setting.

There are common clinical scenarios in chronic heart disease where no randomized controlled data exist to guide management, and it is likely that well-designed observational studies will have to be used to inform clinical practice. Showing the clinical applicability of this type of study design, using record linkage of population electronic health records, we have provided key observational evidence that use of renin–angiotensin-system (RAS) blockers is associated with better outcomes in patients with aortic stenosis and that metformin could be used safely as an antiglycemic drug in patients with diabetes and heart failure. Each of these pieces of underpinning research has made a major contribution to relevant international clinical practice guidelines, helped the Food and Drug Administration in their decision making and changed prescribing practice.

An energy-efficient (1.02 pJ/b) and high-speed (20.83 Gb/s/wire, 417 Gb/s/mm) link for ultra-short reach (USR) applications (up to 6-dB channel loss at the Nyquist frequency of 12.5 GHz) is presented. Correlated non-return to zero (CNRZ) signaling with low sensitivity to inter-symbol interference (ISI) has been developed to improve the link budget. In addition to high pin efficiency (5b6w: 5 bits over 6 wires), the proposed signaling method provides very good resistance against common-mode and crosstalk noise sources, allowing for dense routing. A very wide-band (1.3 GHz) jitter tracking mechanism has been employed to reduce the sensitivity of the system to random and deterministic jitter and relax design constraints on transmitter. A slicer with low kick-back noise and a circuit topology well matched to the continuous-time linear equalizer (CTLE) has been designed to provide both high input sensitivity and Process, supply Voltage, and Temperature (PVT) variations tolerance. The link operates with more than 22-ps (42.5% UI) eye opening at BER = 1E-15. Calibration loops are running in background for quadrature mismatch error correction, clock and data alignment (CDA), and offset removal.

Over the last 50 years, a great deal of sociolinguistic research has focused on phonetic/phonological variables in African American Language (AAL), with postvocalic r-lessness often treated as one of the canonical features of AAL. Using data from the Corpus of Regional African American Language (CORAAL), Support Vector Machines (SVMs) were used to assess how vowel-like or /r/-like postvocalic /r/tokens are in CORAAL. The decision value, an output from the SVM, is used to examine postvocalic /r/-lessness in terms of social class and gender. Findings indicate that this r-lessness shows no statistically significant differences for gender in CORAAL but does pattern significantly differently across social class groups. This methodology gives continuous values for a feature that scholars know is gradient, giving researchers a tool to approach postvocalic r-lessness in a more time efficient and replicable manner, while also providing insight into the distribution of a classic sociolinguistic feature in Washington, D.C., AAL.

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is developing a class of previously undescribed function words, facilitated by the semantic generalization of the word nigga. The authors demonstrate that nigga is unspecified for race, gender, or humanness. They argue that there are multiple n-words, fulfilling different grammatical and social functions. Using a variety of sources, they show that there are new pronouns in AAVE based on nigga-moreover, they pattern with pronouns, not imposters, with respect to binding, agreement and theta-role assignment. Vocatives and honorics are also explored. The article concludes with a discussion of the origin of these forms and their relevance both to linguistic controversy and to societal controversy around the taboo word and the stigmatized dialect.

The determinism of the MRF optical polishing process relies on a well-characterized and stable removal rate during polishing runs. The workpiece immersion depth into the MR fluid is a main contributor to the removal rate. During polishing, the CNC machine platform attempts to maintain a consistent immersion depth throughout the toolpath to keep the removal rate constant. Polishing aspheric parts with either significant wedge or unaccounted for aspheric shape can result in unpredicted removal rate errors due to a change in plunge depth. By accounting for the figure error expected from the change in plunge depth in the hitmap, the removal error resulting from high amounts of wedge and aspheric departure can be mitigated. This process allows MRF to figure correct highly wedged parts and to reduce MRF iterations on challenging aspheric parts.

A salient feature of millimeter-wave (mmW) wireless systems is their large bandwidths. A direct consequence is that radio frequency (RF) non-idealities, such as phase noise, I-Q imbalance, and non-ideal frequency response of bandpass filters, become more pronounced compared to existing systems operating below 6 GHz. However, investigations of the impact of such nonidealities and techniques for their compensation are limited. In this paper, the problem of I-Q mismatch is investigated, motivated by the authors' recent work on mmW prototype design and development. First, a model for the non-ideal system is developed by modeling the in-phase (I) and quadrature (Q) passband channels separately, rather than the common complex baseband representation. The resulting channel matrix reveals the structure of interference introduced across I-Q channels and frequencies. Second, a new approach is developed for estimating the non-ideal channel using the new model. Third, a linear receiver architecture is developed to compensate for the interference caused by the I-Q mismatch. Finally, the performance of the new proposed system is compared to a baseline conventional system which ignores I-Q mismatch. The results indicate significant loss in performance even for modest values of I -Q mismatch parameters. In particular, the baseline system exhibits a saturation of output signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio (SINR) regardless of the input SNR. The new proposed system does not suffer from such saturation and its SINR can be increased indefinitely by increasing the input SNR. The analytical results are validated with experimental evaluation on a 28 GHz mmW wireless testbed.

Millimeter-wave (mmW) wireless is a promising technology for meeting the Gigabit rate and millisecond latency requirements of emerging applications. This promise fundamentally rests on the large (GHz) bandwidths and high-gain/high-dimensional beamforming possible at mmW frequencies. While multi-beam multiple input multiple output (MIMO) operation is necessary for achieving spatial multiplexing, existing systems are limited to mechanically pointed horn antennas and single-beam phased arrays of moderate sizes. In this paper, we report the development of a new testbed architecture for multi-beam MIMO communication and sensing at mmW frequencies. The testbed uses a novel lens array for multi-beamforming and data multiplexing. The paper provides a brief overview of the underlying beamspace MIMO framework, and presents initial measurement results to illustrate three key testbed functionalities: directional communication through the lens array; multiuser commmunication; and analysis of the measurement data, including channel measurements.

Optical system designers are well-versed in optimizing the performance of a system. The impact of the optical and optomechanical assembly, however, poses a significant challenge to attaining the modelled performance in practice. The system engineers are tasked with designing tooling, fixtures and procedures that minimize such impacts, employing well known modeling and analysis techniques. Despite these efforts the resulting system performance often exhibits errors that can be directly related to the assembly process. In the face of lost system performance, the optical designer can compensate with more stringent component and alignment specifications. Alternatively, at the risk of a more complex design, she can consider active compensation, or the addition of compensation components. Yet another path is correcting the components after assembly to regain the original optical performance. MRF is well known for its ability to produce state of the art optical components, lenses, mirrors, etc. In this paper we will explore and demonstrate its application to correcting errors induced by various assembly techniques by reviewing several examples, their respective challenges and the results of the post assembly corrections.

An examination of the mental health issues affecting war veterans and how mental health nurses can support former service men and women

Surfaces are commonly specified with peak to valley (PV) and root-mean-square (rms) requirements for surface form and roughness, describing surface quality with a few simple numbers. These specs ignore lateral feature sizes between form and roughness (so-called mid-spatial frequencies, or MSFs), however, making them inadequate for many modern optics fabricated with advanced technologies. Specifications sensitive to the lateral feature size, such as such as slope or power-spectral density (PSD), are increasingly employed to fill this void. Having a detailed view of the surface error as a function of lateral feature size can drive fabrication decisions. For example, a large aperture tool tends to correct small features well but performs less well on large features; while subaperture tools tend to do the opposite.Therefore after each fabrication step we want to know how the surface features at different lateral sizes evolved, so that we can optimize the choice of the next fabrication step. A spec like PSD often doesn't inform the fabricator whether it's failing because of a localized error (such as edge roll), continuous texture, or an artifact of metrology or computation. So while it may indicate the need for additional fabrication steps, it is not ideal for guiding specifically which fabrication step ought to be undertaken next. We have developed analyses to help determine what surface characteristics are failing spec, and thus optimize the next fabrication step. Finally, we demonstrate an example of how we have applied these techniques to fabricate parts with demanding slope and MSF specifications.