scholarly journals Exploring How White-Faced Sakis Control Digital Visual Enrichment Systems

Animals ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 557
Author(s):  
Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas ◽  
Vilma Kankaanpää
Keyword(s):  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Confounding Factors ◽  
Bell Curve ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Over Time

Computer-enabled screen systems containing visual elements have long been employed with captive primates for assessing preference, reactions and for husbandry reasons. These screen systems typically play visual enrichment to primates without them choosing to trigger the system and without their consent. Yet, what videos primates, especially monkeys, would prefer to watch of their own volition and how to design computers and methods that allow choice is an open question. In this study, we designed and tested, over several weeks, an enrichment system that facilitates white-faced saki monkeys to trigger different visual stimuli in their regular zoo habitat while automatically logging and recording their interaction. By analysing this data, we show that the sakis triggered underwater and worm videos over the forest, abstract art, and animal videos, and a control condition of no-stimuli. We also note that the sakis used the device significantly less when playing animal videos compared to other conditions. Yet, plotting the data over time revealed an engagement bell curve suggesting confounding factors of novelty and habituation. As such, it is unknown if the stimuli or device usage curve caused the changes in the sakis interactions over time. Looking at the sakis’ behaviours and working with zoo personnel, we noted that the stimuli conditions resulted in significantly decreasing the sakis’ scratching behaviour. For the research community, this study builds on methods that allow animals to control computers in a zoo environment highlighting problems in quantifying animal interactions with computer devices.

The Role of Myths in Japanese Calligraphy’s Interpretative Process

2021 ◽  
Vol 66 (4) ◽  
pp. 353-366
Author(s):  
Ioana-Ciliana Tudorică ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Japanese Studies

The Role of Myths in Japanese Calligraphy’s Interpretative Process. This article illustrates the role of myths in the interpretative process of calligraphic works. Being considerably different from Western calligraphy, Japanese calligraphy (shodō) may seem at times visually similar to abstract art. However, calligraphic works – and shodō as art – are rich in meaning and abundant of myths. Focusing on both linguistic and visual elements of calligraphy, the article depicts how myths can be identified in a calligraphic work and how they provide a better understanding of the particularities of shodō. In order to illustrate how myths uncover new layers of meaning, the article incorporates an analysis of a calligraphic work created by Rodica Frențiu, underlining the process of accessing the transcendent meaning. Keywords: shodō, Japanese calligraphy, calligraphy, cultural semiotics, Japanese studies, kanji, myth, Zen, Buddhism.

scholarly journals Detecting patterns of species diversification in the presence of both rate shifts and mass extinctions

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sacha Laurent ◽  
Marc Robinson-Rechavi ◽  
Nicolas Salamin
Keyword(s):  
Species Number ◽  
Mass Extinctions ◽  
Species Diversification ◽  
Open Question ◽  
Changes Over Time ◽  
Over Time

ABSTRACTRecent methodological advances are enabling better examination of speciation and extinction processes and patterns. A major open question is the origin of large discrepancies in species number between groups of the same age. Existing frameworks to model this diversity either focus on changes between lineages, neglecting global effects such as mass extinctions, or focus on changes over time which would affect all lineages. Yet it seems probable that both lineages differences and mass extinctions affect the same groups. Here we used simulations to test the performance of two widely used methods, under complex scenarios. We report good performances, although with a tendency to over-predict events when increasing the complexity of the scenario. Overall, we find that lineage shifts are better detected than mass extinctions. This work has significance for assessing the methods currently used for estimating changes in diversification using phylogenies and developing new tests.

scholarly journals Taste in Art—Exposure to Histological Stains Shapes Abstract Art Preferences

i-Perception ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 8 (5) ◽  
pp. 204166951773607 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonia M. Böthig ◽  
Gregor U. Hayn-Leichsenring
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Exposure Effect ◽  
Domain Independent

Exposure to art increases the appreciation of artworks. Here, we showed that this effect is domain independent. After viewing images of histological stains in a lecture, ratings increased for restricted subsets of abstract art images. In contrast, a lecture on art history generally enhanced ratings for all art images presented, while a lecture on town history without any visual stimuli did not increase the ratings. Therefore, we found a domain-independent exposure effect of images of histological stains to particular abstract paintings. This finding suggests that the ‘taste’ for abstract art is altered by visual impressions that are presented outside of an artistic context.

scholarly journals A Semi-Supervised Learning Approach for Tackling Twitter Spam Drift

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (02) ◽  
pp. 1950010 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niddal Imam ◽  
Biju Issac ◽  
Seibu Mary Jacob
Keyword(s):  
Machine Learning ◽  
Supervised Learning ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Machine Learning Techniques ◽  
Spam Detection ◽  
Learning Approach ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Detection Systems ◽  
Learning Techniques ◽  
Over Time

Twitter has changed the way people get information by allowing them to express their opinion and comments on the daily tweets. Unfortunately, due to the high popularity of Twitter, it has become very attractive to spammers. Unlike other types of spam, Twitter spam has become a serious issue in the last few years. The large number of users and the high amount of information being shared on Twitter play an important role in accelerating the spread of spam. In order to protect the users, Twitter and the research community have been developing different spam detection systems by applying different machine-learning techniques. However, a recent study showed that the current machine learning-based detection systems are not able to detect spam accurately because spam tweet characteristics vary over time. This issue is called “Twitter Spam Drift”. In this paper, a semi-supervised learning approach (SSLA) has been proposed to tackle this. The new approach uses the unlabeled data to learn the structure of the domain. Different experiments were performed on English and Arabic datasets to test and evaluate the proposed approach and the results show that the proposed SSLA can reduce the effect of Twitter spam drift and outperform the existing techniques.

scholarly journals A Bilingual Advantage? An Appeal for a Change in Perspective and Recommendations for Future Research

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (9) ◽  
pp. 95 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregory J. Poarch ◽  
Andrea Krott
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Confounding Factors ◽  
Pertinent Literature ◽  
Bilingual Advantage

The debate on possible cognitive advantages bilinguals have over monolinguals continues to occupy the research community. There is an ever-growing research body focusing on adjudicating whether there is, in fact, an effect of using two or more languages regularly on cognition. In this paper, we briefly review some of the more pertinent literature that has attempted to identify attenuating, modulating, and confounding factors in research comparing monolingual and bilingual populations, and we highlight issues that should be taken into account in future research to move forward as a research community. At the same time, we argue for a change in perspective concerning what is deemed an advantage and what is not and argue for more ecologically valid research that investigates real-life advantages.

Familiarity with images affects how dogs (Canis familiaris) process life-size video projections of humans

2018 ◽  
Vol 71 (6) ◽  
pp. 1457-1468
Author(s):  
Péter Pongrácz ◽  
András Péter ◽  
Ádám Miklósi
Keyword(s):  
Search Task ◽  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Target Object ◽  
Important Conclusion ◽  
Motion Cues ◽  
Visual Elements ◽  
Video Images ◽  
Object Search ◽  
Actual Content ◽  
Video Presentations

A central problem of behavioural studies providing artificial visual stimuli for non-human animals is to determine how subjects perceive and process these stimuli. Especially in the case of videos, it is important to ascertain that animals perceive the actual content of the images and are not just reacting to the motion cues in the presentation. In this study, we set out to investigate how dogs process life-sized videos. We aimed to find out whether dogs perceive the actual content of video images or whether they only react to the videos as a set of dynamic visual elements. For this purpose, dogs were presented with an object search task where a life-sized projected human was hiding a target object. The videos were either normally oriented or displayed upside down, and we analysed dogs’ reactions towards the projector screen after the video presentations, and their performance in the search task. Results indicated that in the case of the normally oriented videos, dogs spontaneously perceived the actual content of the images. However, the ‘Inverted’ videos were first processed as a set of unrelated visual elements, and only after some exposure to these videos did the dogs show signs of perceiving the unusual configuration of the depicted scene. Our most important conclusion was that dogs process the same type of artificial visual stimuli in different ways, depending on the familiarity of the depicted scene, and that the processing mode can change with exposure to unfamiliar stimuli.

scholarly journals Do happy faces really modulate liking for Jackson Pollock art and statistical fractal noise images?

Psihologija ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 219-237
Author(s):  
Katrin Mundloch ◽  
Marie Winterberg ◽  
Wanja Hemmerich ◽  
Philipp Holzwig ◽  
Anna Rupanova ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visual Stimuli ◽  
Image Features ◽  
Affective Priming ◽  
Abstract Art ◽  
Jackson Pollock ◽  
Visual Material ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Prime Condition ◽  
Fractal Noise

Flexas et al. (2013) demonstrated that happy faces increase preference for abstract art if seen in short succession. We could not replicate their findings. In our first experiment, we tested whether valence, saliency or arousal of facial primes can modulate liking of Jackson Pollock art crops. In the second experiment, the emphasis was on testing another type of abstract visual stimuli which possess similar low-level image features: statistical fractal noise images. Pollock crops were rated significantly higher when primed with happy faces in contrast to neutral faces, but not differently to the no-prime condition. Findings of our study suggest that affective priming with happy faces may be stimulus-specific and may have inadvertent effects on other abstract visual material.

scholarly journals Leaf-GP: An Open and Automated Software Application for Measuring Growth Phenotypes for Arabidopsis and Wheat

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ji Zhou ◽  
Christopher Applegate ◽  
Albor Dobon Alonso ◽  
Daniel Reynolds ◽  
Simon Orford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Computer Vision ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Growth Traits ◽  
Source Code ◽  
Research Community ◽  
Phenotypic Analysis ◽  
Software Application ◽  
Dynamic Growth ◽  
Scientific Libraries ◽  
Over Time

AbstractBackgroundPlants demonstrate dynamic growth phenotypes that are determined by genetic and environmental factors. Phenotypic analysis of growth features over time is a key approach to understand how plants interact with environmental change as well as respond to different treatments. Although the importance of measuring dynamic growth traits is widely recognised, available open software tools are limited in terms of batch processing of image datasets, multiple trait analysis, software usability and cross-referencing results between experiments, making automated phenotypic analysis problematic.ResultsHere, we present Leaf-GP (Growth Phenotypes), an easy-to-use and open software application that can be executed on different platforms. To facilitate diverse scientific user communities, we provide three versions of the software, including a graphic user interface (GUI) for personal computer (PC) users, a command-line interface for high-performance computer (HPC) users, and an interactive Jupyter Notebook (also known as the iPython Notebook) for computational biologists and computer scientists. The software is capable of extracting multiple growth traits automatically from large image datasets. We have utilised it in Arabidopsis thaliana and wheat (Triticum aestivum) growth studies at the Norwich Research Park (NRP, UK). By quantifying growth phenotypes over time, we are able to identify diverse plant growth patterns based on a variety of key growth-related phenotypes under varied experimental conditions.As Leaf-GP has been evaluated with noisy image series acquired by different imaging devices and still produced reliable biologically relevant outputs, we believe that our automated analysis workflow and customised computer vision based feature extraction algorithms can facilitate a broader plant research community for their growth and development studies. Furthermore, because we implemented Leaf-GP based on open Python-based computer vision, image analysis and machine learning libraries, our software can not only contribute to biological research, but also exhibit how to utilise existing open numeric and scientific libraries (including Scikit-image, OpenCV, SciPy and Scikit-learn) to build sound plant phenomics analytic solutions, efficiently and effectively.ConclusionsLeaf-GP is a comprehensive software application that provides three approaches to quantify multiple growth phenotypes from large image series. We demonstrate its usefulness and high accuracy based on two biological applications: (1) the quantification of growth traits for Arabidopsis genotypes under two temperature conditions; and (2) measuring wheat growth in the glasshouse over time. The software is easy-to-use and cross-platform, which can be executed on Mac OS, Windows and high-performance computing clusters (HPC), with open Python-based scientific libraries preinstalled. We share our modulated source code and executables (.exe for Windows; .app for Mac) together with this paper to serve the plant research community. The software, source code and experimental results are freely available at https://github.com/Crop-Phenomics-Group/Leaf-GP/releases.

Searching for Security, 1942–1947

Armed Guests ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 106-168
Author(s):  
Sebastian Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
The United States ◽  
Second World War ◽  
The Political ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Presence ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Second World ◽  
Over Time

In the uncertain security climate after the conclusion of the Second World War but before the intensification of the Cold War, the major factor that shaped US strategic planning was the impact of novel destructive technologies that radically increased the speed and scale of warfare. American planners responded by seeking to enlarge the defensive perimeter of the United States beyond its territory. How to realize this and what it meant in concrete terms, however, was an open question. Over time, the wartime allies worked out a variety of arrangements premised on different rationales in light of the political difficulties associated with a foreign peacetime military presence. Where US military presences were maintained, they were predicated on temporary conditions, and none were fated to become the kind of arrangements we are familiar with today. The discussion develops case studies of American interactions with Canada, Portugal, Britain, France, Iceland, and Saudi Arabia.

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