Strength of visual percept generated by famous faces perceived without awareness: effects of affective valence, response latency, and visual field

Participants who were unable to detect familiarity from masked 17 ms faces ([Stone and Valentine, 2004] and [Stone and Valentine, in press-b]) did report a vague, partial visual percept. Two experiments investigated the relative strength of the visual percept generated by famous and unfamiliar faces, using masked 17 ms exposure. Each trial presented simultaneously a famous and an unfamiliar face, one face in LVF and the other in RVF. In one task, participants responded according to which of the faces generated the stronger visual percept, and in the other task, they attempted an explicit familiarity decision. The relative strength of the visual percept of the famous face compared to the unfamiliar face was moderated by response latency and participants’ attitude towards the famous person. There was also an interaction of visual field with response latency, suggesting that the right hemisphere can generate a visual percept differentiating famous from unfamiliar faces more rapidly than the left hemisphere. Participants were at chance in the explicit familiarity decision, confirming the absence of awareness of facial familiarity.

The response of reworked aerosols to climate through estimation of inter-particle forces

This paper describes the first use of inter-particle force measurement in reworked aerosols to better understand the mechanics of dust deflation and its consequent ecological ramifications. Dust is likely to carry hydrocarbons and micro-organisms including human pathogens and cultured microbes and thereby is a threat to plants, animals and human. Present-day global aerosol emissions are substantially greater than in 1850; however, the projected influx rates are highly disputable. This uncertainty, in part, has roots in the lack of understanding of deflation mechanisms. A growing body of literature shows that whether carbon emission continues to increase, plant transpiration drops and soil water retention enhances, allowing more greenery to grow and less dust to flux. On the other hand, a small but important body of geochemistry literature shows that increasing emission and global temperature leads to extreme climates, decalcification of surface soils containing soluble carbonate polymorphs and hence a greater chance of deflation. The consistency of loosely packed reworked silt provides background data against which the resistance of dust’s bonding components (carbonates and water) can be compared. The use of macro-scale phenomenological approaches to measure dust consistency is trivial. Instead, consistency can be measured in terms of inter-particle stress state. This paper describes a semi-empirical parametrisation of the inter-particle cohesion forces in terms of the balance of contact-level forces at the instant of particle motion. We put forward the hypothesis that the loss of Ca2+-based pedogenic salts is responsible for much of the dust influx and surficial drying pays a less significant role.

Mehr Arbeitsplätze, weniger Lärm : Umbaumaßnahmen an der Bibliothek der Fachhochschule Hannover zur Schaffung zusätzlicher und besserer Nutzerarbeitsplätze

An der Bibliothek der Fachhochschule Hannover (FHH) ergab sich durch den Umzug eines Fachbereiches und die Auslagerung der entsprechenden Bestände die Chance, die defizitäre Situation bezüglich studentischer Arbeitsplätze zu verbessern. Das bisherige offene Konzept mit einem Nebeneinander von Medienaufstellung, Einzel- sowie Gruppenarbeitsplätzen hatte zu erheblichen Störungen der durchaus noch vorhandenen still lesenden Bibliotheksnutzern geführt. Die Zahl der Arbeitsplätze zu erhöhen und gleichzeitig die Arbeitsbedingungen hinsichtlich Akustik und Klimatisierung zu verbessern war deshalb vorrangiges Ziel eines studentischen Projektes des Studiengangs Innenarchitektur der FHH. Als Ergebnis entstand ein einheitliches Gesamtkonzept mit einer strikten Trennung der Funktionsbereiche und eine Vielzahl unterschiedlicher Einzelmaßnahmen (Nutzbare Atrien, Bibliothekslounge, Lernkabinen etc.). Nach der Entscheidung der Hochschulleitung, die Umbaumaßnahmen aus Studienbeiträgen zu finanzieren,wurde in Kooperation von Hochschule (Bibliotheksleitung, Liegenschaftsdezernat), Staatlichem Baumanagement, einem beauftragten freien Architekturbüro sowie einem Akustiker mit Planung und schrittweiser Realisierung der Umbaumaßnahmen begonnen. Im Vortrag werden das Konzept, der Planungsprozess sowie inzwischen (Stand: 5/2008) geplante und realisierte Baumaßnahmen anhand zahlreicher Illustrationen erläutert.

Estratégias de motivação na disciplina de economia numa escola secundária

Relatório da prática de ensino supervisionada, Mestrado em Ensino de Economia e Contabilidade, Universidade de Lisboa, 2011

E-portefólio na disciplina de TIC : uma experiência com alunos do 7º ano

Trabalho de projeto de mestrado, Ciências da Educação (Formação de Adultos), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2013

Acute Asthma Epidemics, Weather and Pollen in England, 1987-1994

Recent epidemics of acute asthma have caused speculation that, if their causes were known, early warnings might be feasible. In particular, some epidemics seemed to be associated with thunderstorms. We wondered what risk factors predicting epidemics could be identified. Daily asthma admissions counts during 1987-1994, for two age groups (0-14 yrs and > or = 15 yrs), were measured using the Hospital Episodes System (HES). Epidemics were defined as combinations of date, age group and English Regional Health Authority (RHA) with exceptionally high asthma admission counts compared to the predictions of a log-linear autoregression model. They were compared with control days 1 week before and afterwards, regarding seven meteorological variables and 5 day average pollen counts for four species. Fifty six asthma epidemics were identified. The mean density of sferics (lightning flashes), temperature and rainfall on epidemic days were greater than those on control days. High sferics densities were overrepresented in epidemics. Simultaneously high sferics and grass pollen further increased the probability of an epidemic, but only to 15% (95% confidence interval 2-45%). Two thirds of epidemics were not preceded by thunderstorms. Thunderstorms and high grass pollen levels precede asthma epidemics more often than expected by chance. However, most epidemics are not associated with thunderstorms or unusual weather conditions, and most thunderstorms, even following high grass pollen levels, do not precede epidemics. An early warning system based on the indicators examined here would, therefore, detect few epidemics and generate an unacceptably high rate of false alarms.

Kyotorphin derived peptides in the relationship between analgesia and alzheimer’s disease

Tese de doutoramento, Ciências Biomédicas (Bioquímica Médica), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Medicina, 2014

Do gesto á voz : um estudo de caso sobre a inclusão de estudantes surdos do ensino secundário recorrente noturno

Tese de doutoramento, Educação (Supervisão e Orientação da Prática Profissional), Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Psicologia, 2015

The First Government of Northern Ireland, Education Reform, and the Failure of Anti-populist Unionism, 1921–1925

This article examines education reform under the first government of Northern Ireland (1921–5). This embryonic period offered the Ulster Unionist leadership a chance to construct a more inclusive society, one that might diminish sectarian animosities, and thereby secure the fledgling state through cooperation rather than coercion. Such aspirations were severely tested by the ruling party’s need to secure the state against insurgency, and, more lastingly, to assuage the concerns of its historic constituency. The former led to a draconian security policy, the latter to a dependency on populist strategies and rhetoric. It is argued here, however, that this dependency was not absolute until July 1925. Before that, the Belfast government withstood growing pressure from populist agitators to reverse controversial aspects of its education reforms, only relenting when Protestant disaffection threatened the unity of the governing party and the existence of the state.

A Retrospective Claims Analysis of Medication Adherence and Persistence Among Patients Taking Antidepressants for the Treatment of Major Depressive Disorder (MDD)

Thesis (Master's)--University of Washington, 2015

The trade specialization of SANE: evidence from manufacturing industries

This paper studies the evolution of the foreign trade specialization in manufacturing sectors of South Africa, Algeria, Nigeria and Egypt. These four countries, the so-called SANE, have recently been viewed as Africa’s best chance of producing an economic bloc whose role for Africa might be comparable to that of the BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China for the world economy. Using data on trade flows since mid-1970s, the results show that the SANE group has experienced few changes in its trade structure, which is still based on low-technology and slow-growth world demand sectors. The degree of persistence in the specialization model is higher in the case of Algeria and Nigeria, where the dependence on products based on natural resources is stronger.

Economia social, pilar de um novo modelo de desenvolvimento económico sustentável

Dissertação apresentada ao Instituto Superior de Contabilidade para a obtenção do Grau de Mestre em Auditoria Orientada por Dr.ª Alcina Portugal Dias

Ontologies for reusing data cleaning knowledge

The emergence of new business models, namely, the establishment of partnerships between organizations, the chance that companies have of adding existing data on the web, especially in the semantic web, to their information, led to the emphasis on some problems existing in databases, particularly related to data quality. Poor data can result in loss of competitiveness of the organizations holding these data, and may even lead to their disappearance, since many of their decision-making processes are based on these data. For this reason, data cleaning is essential. Current approaches to solve these problems are closely linked to database schemas and specific domains. In order that data cleaning can be used in different repositories, it is necessary for computer systems to understand these data, i.e., an associated semantic is needed. The solution presented in this paper includes the use of ontologies: (i) for the specification of data cleaning operations and, (ii) as a way of solving the semantic heterogeneity problems of data stored in different sources. With data cleaning operations defined at a conceptual level and existing mappings between domain ontologies and an ontology that results from a database, they may be instantiated and proposed to the expert/specialist to be executed over that database, thus enabling their interoperability.

Coletores de distribuição e sua otimização hidráulica, aplicados a uma instalação de produção de água arrefecida em sistemas de AVAC ( Fórum Picoas)

Trabalho Final de Mestrado para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia Mecânica

Coordenação e fiscalização de obras na empresa Landway, S.A.

Relatório de Estágio para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Engenharia na Área de Especialização em Edificações