1,720,964 research outputs found
Memory for sounds: novel technological solutions for the evaluation of mnestic skills
No full textWorking memory (WM) plays a crucial role in helping individuals to perform everyday
activities. The neural structures underlying this system continue to develop during infancy
and reach maturity only late in development. Despite useful insights into visual memory
mechanisms, audio-spatial memory has not been thoroughly investigated, especially in children and congenitally blind individuals.
The main scientific objective of this thesis was to increase knowledge of spatial WM and
imagery abilities in the auditory modality. We focused on how these skills change during
typical development and on the consequences of early visual deprivation. Our first hypothesis
was that the changes in WM functionality and spatial skills occurring in the early years of
life, influence the ability to remember and associate spatialized sounds or to explore and
learn acoustic spatial layouts. Since vision plays a crucial role in spatial cognition (ThinusBlanc and Gaunet, 1997), we expected blind individuals to encounter specific difficulties
when asked to process and manipulate spatial information retained in memory, as already
observed in the haptic modality (Cattaneo et al., 2008; Vecchi, 1998). Although some studies
demonstrated the superior performance of the blind in various verbal-memory tasks (Amedi
et al., 2003; Požár, 1982; Röder et al., 2001), very little is known on how they remember and
manipulate acoustic spatial information.
The investigation of auditory cognition often requires specially adapted hardware and software solutions rarely available on the market. For example, in the case of studying cognitive
functions that involve auditory spatial information, multiple acoustic spatial locations are
required, such as numerous speakers or dedicated virtual acoustics. Thus, to the aim of this
thesis, we took advantage of novel technological solutions developed explicitly for delivering
non-visual spatialized stimuli. We worked on the software development of a vertical array
of speakers (ARENA2D), an audio-tactile tablet (Audiobrush), and we designed a system
based on an acoustic virtual reality (VR) simulation. These novel solutions were used to
adapt validated clinical procedures (Corsi-Block test) and games (the card game Memory) to
the auditory domain, to be also performed by visually impaired individuals. Thanks to the
technologies developed in these years, we could investigate these topics and observed that
audio-spatial memory abilities are strongly affected by the developmental stage and the lack
of visual experience
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
The Sound of Scotoma: Audio Space Representation Reorganization in Individuals With Macular Degeneration
No full textBlindness is an ideal condition to study the role of visual input on the development of spatial representation, as studies have shown how audio space representation reorganizes in blindness. However, how spatial reorganization works is still unclear. A limitation of the study on blindness is that it is a “stable” system and it does not allow for studying the mechanisms that subtend the progress of this reorganization. To overcome this problem here we study, for the first time, audio spatial reorganization in 18 adults with macular degeneration (MD) for which the loss of vision due to scotoma is an ongoing progressive process. Our results show that the loss of vision produces immediate changes in the processing of spatial audio signals. In individuals with MD, the lateral sounds are “attracted” toward the central scotoma position resulting in a strong bias in the spatial auditory percept. This result suggests that the reorganization of audio space representation is a fast and plastic process occurring also later in life, after vision loss
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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