Neurocognitive control in dance perception and performance

Dance is a rich source of material for researchers interested in the integration of movement and cognition. The multiple aspects of embodied cognition involved in performing and perceiving dance have inspired scientists to use dance as a means for studying motor control, expertise, and action-perception links. The aim of this review is to present basic research on cognitive and neural processes implicated in the execution, expression, and observation of dance, and to bring into relief contemporary issues and open research questions. The review addresses six topics: 1) dancers’ exemplary motor control, in terms of postural control, equilibrium maintenance, and stabilization; 2) how dancers’ timing and on-line synchronization are influenced by attention demands and motor experience; 3) the critical roles played by sequence learning and memory; 4) how dancers make strategic use of visual and motor imagery; 5) the insights into the neural coupling between action and perception yielded through exploration of the brain architecture mediating dance observation; and 6) a neuroaesthetics perspective that sheds new light on the way audiences perceive and evaluate dance expression. Current and emerging issues are presented regarding future directions that will facilitate the ongoing dialogue between science and dance.

Reading aloud in high schools: students and teachers across the curriculum

Reading aloud is apparently an indispensible part of teaching. Nevertheless, little is known about reading aloud across the curriculum by students and teachers in high schools. Nor do we understand teachers’ attitudes towards issues such as error correction, rehearsal time, and selecting students to read. A survey of 360 teachers in England shows that, although they have little training in reading aloud, they are extremely confident. Reading aloud by students and teachers is strongly related, and serves to further understanding rather than administrative purposes or pupils’ enjoyment. Unexpectedly, Modern Language teachers express views that set them apart from other subjects.

Tracking performance evaluation on PETS 2015 Challenge datasets

This paper presents a quantitative evaluation of a tracking system on PETS 2015 Challenge datasets using well-established performance measures. Using the existing tools, the tracking system implements an end-to-end pipeline that include object detection, tracking and post- processing stages. The evaluation results are presented on the provided sequences of both ARENA and P5 datasets of PETS 2015 Challenge. The results show an encouraging performance of the tracker in terms of accuracy but a greater tendency of being prone to cardinality error and ID changes on both datasets. Moreover, the analysis show a better performance of the tracker on visible imagery than on thermal imagery.

The Golden Age returns: Virgil's fourth Eclogue in the political panegyric of the Italian courts

E. H. Gombrich and others have analysed the uses made of language and imagery from Virgil's famous fourth Eclogue in panegyrical writing by partisans of the Medici dynasty in Florence. This study examines the appropriation of the theme of the returning Golden Age and related motifs from the fourth Eclogue in other Italian courts during the same period, by supporters of the Visconti and Sforza of Milan, the Gonzaga of Mantua, Leonello d'Este and his successors in Ferrara, and the Bentivoglio of Bologna, among others. The deployment of this Virgilian material in political panegyric is seen to be a central element in the self-definition and self-promotion of dynastic rulers throughout the peninsula.

Data insertion in volcanic ash cloud forecasting

During the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in April and May 2010, the London Volcanic Ash  Advisory Centre demonstrated the importance of infrared (IR) satellite imagery for monitoring volcanic ash and validating the Met Office operational model, NAME. This model is used to forecast ash dispersion and forms much of the basis of the advice given to civil aviation. NAME requires a source term describing the properties of the eruption plume at the volcanic source. Elements of the source term are often highly uncertain and significant effort has therefore been invested into the use of satellite observations of ash clouds to constrain them. This paper presents a data insertion method, where satellite observations of downwind ash clouds are used to create effective ‘virtual sources’ far from the vent. Uncertainty in the model output is known to increase over the duration of a model run, as inaccuracies in the source term, meteorological data and the parameterizations of the   modelled processes accumulate. This new technique, where the dispersion model (DM) is ‘reinitialized’ part-­way through a run, could go some way to addressing this.

Observations of supercooling and frazil ice formation in the Laptev Sea coastal polynya

This paper examines a hydrographic response to the wind‐driven coastal polynya activity over the southeastern Laptev Sea shelf for April–May 2008, using a combination of Environmental Satellite (Envisat) advanced synthetic aperture radar (ASAR) and TerraSAR‐X satellite imagery, aerial photography, meteorological data, and SBE‐37 salinity‐temperature‐depth and acoustic Doppler current profiler land‐fast ice edgemoored instruments. When ASAR observed the strongest end‐of‐April polynya event with frazil ice formation, the moored instruments showed maximal acoustical scattering within the surface mixed layer, and the seawater temperatures were either at or 0.02°C below freezing. We also find evidence of the persistent horizontal temperature and salinity gradients across the fast ice edge to have the signature of geostrophic flow adjustment as predicted by polynya models.

The role of evaporating showers in the transfer of sting-jet momentum to the surface

The most damaging winds in a severe extratropical cyclone often occur just ahead of the evaporating ends of cloud filaments emanating from the so-called cloud head. These winds are associated with low-level jets (LLJs), sometimes occurring just above the boundary layer. The question then arises as to how the high momentum is transferred to the surface. An opportunity to address this question arose when the severe ‘St Jude's Day’ windstorm travelled across southern England on 28 October 2013. We have carried out a mesoanalysis of a network of 1 min resolution automatic weather stations and high-resolution Doppler radar scans from the sensitive S-band Chilbolton Advanced Meteorological Radar (CAMRa), along with satellite and radar network imagery and numerical weather prediction products. We show that, although the damaging winds occurred in a relatively dry region of the cyclone, there was evidence within the LLJ of abundant precipitation residues from shallow convective clouds that were evaporating in a localized region of descent. We find that pockets of high momentum were transported towards the surface by the few remaining actively precipitating convective clouds within the LLJ and also by precipitation-free convection in the boundary layer that was able to entrain evaporatively cooled air from the LLJ. The boundary-layer convection was organized in along-wind rolls separated by 500 to about 3000 m, the spacing varying according to the vertical extent of the convection. The spacing was greatest where the strongest winds penetrated to the surface. A run with a medium-resolution version of the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was able to reproduce the properties of the observed LLJ. It confirmed the LLJ to be a sting jet, which descended over the leading edge of a weaker cold-conveyor-belt jet.

Les dangers de la guerre. L'image du guerrier dans le Brut de La3amon

A study of the lexis and imagery of warfare in the early C13 English adaptation of Wace's Roman de Brut by the English poet La3amon. The narrator's stance is analysed the light of the poet's priestly identity, revealing an undercurrent of disapproval of the glorification of the warrior found in La3amon's sources, and moral concern for combatants engaged in 'unjust' wars of conquest.

Verification of the role of the low level jets in Amazon squall lines

In this study we present a climatology of the Amazon squall lines (ASLs), between the years 2000 and 2008, using satellite imagery and European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) reanalyses. The ASLs we are interested in are typically formed along the northern coast of Brazil and sometimes propagate for long distances inland. Results show that, on average, an ASL occurs every 2 days. ASLs are more frequent between April and June and less frequent between October and November. The years of 2005 and 2006 showed 25% more cases than the other years. This might be related to an increase of the Atlantic sea surface temperature. Of the total number of ASL cases, 54% propagated less than 170 km, 26% propagated between 170 and 400 km, and 20% propagated more than 400 km. We also studied the occurrence of low level jets (LLJs) associated with the coastal ASLs. Although LLJs are always present in the environment before the formation of the ASL and even on days without ASL cases, important differences were found, mainly related to the LLJ depths. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Cloud streets and land-water interactions in the Amazon

Cloud streets are common feature in the Amazon Basin. They form from the combination of the vertical trade wind stress and moist convection. Here, satellite imagery, data collected during the COBRA-PARA (Caxiuan Observations in the Biosphere, River and Atmosphere of Para) field campaign, and high resolution modeling are used to understand the streets` formation and behavior. The observations show that the streets have an aspect ratio of about 3.5 and they reach their maximum activity around 15:00 UTC when the wind shear is weaker, and the convective boundary layer reaches its maximum height. The simulations reveal that the cloud streets onset is caused by the local circulations and convection produced at the interfaces between forest and rivers of the Amazon. The satellite data and modeling show that the large rivers anchor the cloud streets producing a quasi-stationary horizontal pattern. The streets are associated with horizontal roll vortices parallel to the mean flow that organizes the turbulence causing advection of latent heat flux towards the upward branches. The streets have multiple warm plumes that promote a connection between the rolls. These spatial patterns allow fundamental insights on the interpretation of the Amazon exchanges between surface and atmosphere with important consequences for the climate change understanding.

Comparing species and measures of landscape structure as indicators of conservation importance

P>1. The use of indicators to identify areas of conservation importance has been challenged on several grounds, but nonetheless retains appeal as no more parsimonious approach exists. Among the many variants, two indicator strategies stand out: the use of indicator species and the use of metrics of landscape structure. While the first has been thoroughly studied, the same cannot be said about the latter. We aimed to contrast the relative efficacy of species-based and landscape-based indicators by: (i) comparing their ability to reflect changes in community integrity at regional and landscape spatial scales, (ii) assessing their sensitivity to changes in data resolution, and (iii) quantifying the degree to which indicators that are generated in one landscape or at one spatial scale can be transferred to additional landscapes or scales. 2. We used data from more than 7000 bird captures in 65 sites from six 10 000-ha landscapes with different proportions of forest cover in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Indicator species and landscape-based indicators were tested in terms of how effective they were in reflecting changes in community integrity, defined as deviations in bird community composition from control areas. 3. At the regional scale, indicator species provided more robust depictions of community integrity than landscape-based indicators. At the landscape scale, however, landscape-based indicators performed more effectively, more consistently and were also more transferable among landscapes. The effectiveness of high resolution landscape-based indicators was reduced by just 12% when these were used to explain patterns of community integrity in independent data sets. By contrast, the effectiveness of species-based indicators was reduced by 33%. 4. Synthesis and applications. The use of indicator species proved to be effective; however their results were variable and sensitive to changes in scale and resolution, and their application requires extensive and time-consuming field work. Landscape-based indicators were not only effective but were also much less context-dependent. The use of landscape-based indicators may allow the rapid identification of priority areas for conservation and restoration, and indicate which restoration strategies should be pursued, using remotely sensed imagery. We suggest that landscape-based indicators might often be a better, simpler, and cheaper strategy for informing decisions in conservation.

Palaeodrainage on Marajo Island, northern Brazil, in relation to Holocene relative sea-level dynamics

A large area in northeastern Marajo Island, northern Brazil, has been characterized geomorphologically, applying information acquired from Landsat imagery. This study was combined with detailed sedimentologic analysis of continuous cores, which provided a record of depositional settings developed in this area through the Holocene. The results revealed well-preserved, meandering to anastomosed drainage networks of wide palaeochannels that were superimposed by a narrower palaeochannel system. In both cases, the sedimentary record consists of sands, heterolithic deposits and muds, locally rich in plant debris. The strata are organized into fining upward successions that reach approximately 18 m thick in the wide channels and 4 m thick in the narrow channels. Sedimentary features suggestive of a coastal location for the wider palaeochannels and reworking of sediments by tidal currents include the prevalence of well to moderately sorted, rounded to sub-rounded, fine- to medium-grained sands displaying foreset packages separated by mud couplets, suggestive of tidal cycles. The data presented herein point to a rise in relative sea level reaching the Lake Arari area during the early to late/mid Holocene. This event was followed by a relative sea level drop. Tectonics seem to have contributed to an overall lowering in relative sea level in the study area since the mid-Holocene, which does not follow the same pattern recorded in other areas along the northern Brazilian coast.

Dynamic Changes in the Mental Rotation Network Revealed by Pattern Recognition Analysis of fMRI Data

We investigated the temporal dynamics and changes in connectivity in the mental rotation network through the application of spatio-temporal support vector machines (SVMs). The spatio-temporal SVM [Mourao-Miranda, J., Friston, K. J., et al. (2007). Dynamic discrimination analysis: A spatial-temporal SVM. Neuroimage, 36, 88-99] is a pattern recognition approach that is suitable for investigating dynamic changes in the brain network during a complex mental task. It does not require a model describing each component of the task and the precise shape of the BOLD impulse response. By defining a time window including a cognitive event, one can use spatio-temporal fMRI observations from two cognitive states to train the SVM. During the training, the SVM finds the discriminating pattern between the two states and produces a discriminating weight vector encompassing both voxels and time (i.e., spatio-temporal maps). We showed that by applying spatio-temporal SVM to an event-related mental rotation experiment, it is possible to discriminate between different degrees of angular disparity (0 degrees vs. 20 degrees, 0 degrees vs. 60 degrees, and 0 degrees vs. 100 degrees), and the discrimination accuracy is correlated with the difference in angular disparity between the conditions. For the comparison with highest accuracy (08 vs. 1008), we evaluated how the most discriminating areas (visual regions, parietal regions, supplementary, and premotor areas) change their behavior over time. The frontal premotor regions became highly discriminating earlier than the superior parietal cortex. There seems to be a parcellation of the parietal regions with an earlier discrimination of the inferior parietal lobe in the mental rotation in relation to the superior parietal. The SVM also identified a network of regions that had a decrease in BOLD responses during the 100 degrees condition in relation to the 0 degrees condition (posterior cingulate, frontal, and superior temporal gyrus). This network was also highly discriminating between the two conditions. In addition, we investigated changes in functional connectivity between the most discriminating areas identified by the spatio-temporal SVM. We observed an increase in functional connectivity between almost all areas activated during the 100 degrees condition (bilateral inferior and superior parietal lobe, bilateral premotor area, and SMA) but not between the areas that showed a decrease in BOLD response during the 100 degrees condition.

Oscar Wilde’s “The Happy Prince” : The Hidden Messages and the Debate on the Target Audience

Oscar Wilde’s fairytales have been read to children for more than a century. Nevertheless, since the time of their publication in 1888 and 1891, the target audience of The Happy Prince and Other Tales and A House of Pomegranates have been the concern of critics. Delving into the context behind the rich and colourful imagery, one can find implications of homosexuality, the Paterian aesthetic and religious connotations. According to Carol Tattersall, The Happy Prince and Other Tales successfully mislead the public that it is innocent of any intention to undermine established standards of living or writing. Tattersall’s argument is based on comparing the first collection to Wilde’s second, A House of Pomegranates, which was perceived as “offensive and immoral” (136). On the other hand, William Butler Yeats states in his introduction to The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde that overall the reviewers of The Happy Prince and Other Tales were hostile because of Wilde’s aesthetic views (ixxvi). But Yeats overlooks the fact that Wilde was very pleased and proud, dashing notes to friends and reviewers and signing copies to many people (Tattersall 129). In general, the reception of Wilde’s first collection was more positive than that of the second because it was milder and more subtle in its controversial themes.

Grafisk profilering som en del avvarumärkesarbetet

A strong brand can help a company to be easier to recognize and be remembered by their customers. Part of branding is to create a visual appearance which is called a graphic profile and contains information on for instance a logo, colours or typography.The objective of this thesis was to create a graphic profile for Stjørdal Tannhelsesenter that could serve as a base for a brand work in the future. It was important to analyze how the clinic wants to be perceived and how it is perceived today. The methods used to carry out this study were questionnaires, researches and a focus group.The work resulted in the generation of a graphic profile that included a new logo, colours, decorative elements, fonts, templates for stationery, business card / badge, imagery, and examples of some publications.According to the test which was made to examine the results of the project showed that I was successful and that the new design meets all the requests from the previous questionnaires.