Future prediction with automatically extracted morphosemantic patterns

In the following paper, we investigated the usefulness of future reference sentence patterns in the prediction of the unfolding of future events. To obtain such patterns we first collected sentences that have any reference to the future from newspapers and Web news. Based on this collection, we developed a novel method for automatic extraction of frequent patterns from such sentences. The extracted patterns, consisting of multilayer semantic information and morphological information, were implemented in the formation of a general model of linguistically expressed future. To fully assess the performance of the proposed method we performed a number of evaluation experiments. In the first experiment, we evaluated the automatic extraction of future reference sentence patterns with the proposed extraction algorithm. In the second set of experiments, we estimated the effectiveness of those patterns and applied them to automatically classify sentences into future referring and other. The final model was then tested for performance in retrieving a new set of future reference sentences from a large news corpus. The obtained results confirmed that the proposed method outperformed state-of-the-art method in fully automatic retrieval of future reference sentences. Lastly, we applied the method in practice to confirm its usefulness in two tasks. The first is to support human readers in the everyday prediction of unfolding future events. In the second task, we developed a fully automatic prototype method for future prediction and tested its performance using the tasks included in the official Future Prediction Competence Test. The results indicate that the prototype system outperforms natural human foreseeing capability.     

Fatigue and alertness in the United States railroad industry part I: the nature of the problem

The railroad industry must actively manage employee fatigue and alertness problems to maintain an optimal level of operational safety and productivity. Given the necessity to operate nights and irregular hours, weekends and holidays under a wide range of physical conditions and service demands, we must explore every reasonable avenue to ensure employees are fit, alert, and well-rested. Effective fatigue management programs must address train crews, dispatchers, signalmen, track workers, and others – both operating and non-operating personnel. Work scheduling is a particular problem in on-call operations because of start-time variability, “call” predictability, and the common use of “shorter-than 24-h work/rest schedules”. Extensive night operations are incompatible with normal circadian rhythms. Staffing limitations often require extensive overtime and reduce the effectiveness of any work schedule. These and other institutional factors significantly contribute to employee sleep deficit and overall fatigue. Lack of alertness and reduced vigilance are related not only to sleep disruption and resulting sleep deficits, but also to cognitive workload, workload transition, the physical working environment, and the design of advanced control systems. Ongoing research into fatigue mitigation and alertness enhancement strategies and into advanced technologies such as Positive Train Control (PTC) can lead to improvements. These include better labor–management agreements, more effective fatigue-related educational programs, improved schedule regularity, and more practical and adaptable federal laws and regulations.     

The Organization of Justificatory Discourse in Interaction: A Comparison Within and Across Cultures

Previous scholarship has focused on inductive and deductive patterns as the two predominant modes of reasoning. In this paper, we argue that there are many ways that people from diverse cultures organize their justificatory reasoning in conversation with others and that these patterns are connected, in part, to cultural beliefs and values. We report on a study of people who identify themselves as being in one of four cultural groups: African Americans, Asian Americans, Asians, and European Americans. The types of organization they used in their conversations included deductive, inductive, abductive, and narrative patterns. Abduction occurred as often as induction and deduction across groups. Narratives were used equally by all of the groups, but they occurred less frequently than the other types. Asian Americans used inductive patterns more than other types, and Asians were most likely to reason deductively. These choices did not appear to have an effect on partners' judgments, although Asians received the lowest appropriateness ratings, and both Asians and Asian Americans were given the lowest effectiveness ratings.     

Autistic Patterns

Abstract

Over the last three decades, researchers have tried to identify the etiology of eating disorders. In examining the connections between different types of self-and-body dissatisfaction evident in eating disorders, the psychodynamic approach is the most feasible. Implicated are deficits of the self, unresolved problems in separation-individuation and self-definition, and the difficulty in expressing needcalled the “Black Hole.” The current article presents three case studies of anorexia, bulimia, and obesity and compares them through the ability to express neediness. Basic terms from the research of Tustin and others are used to explain the dynamics related to the capacity to express need, as exemplified in the different types of eating disorders.     

Patterns of mother–infant interaction from 3 to 12 months among dyads with substance abuse and psychiatric problems

The aim of this study was to investigate the development of mother–infant interaction patterns from 3 to 12 months among three groups of mother–baby pairs recruited during pregnancy: one group from residential substance abuse treatment (n = 28), a second group from psychiatric outpatient treatment (n = 22), and a third group from well-baby clinics (n = 30). The mother–infant interaction at 3 and 12 months was assessed by the Parent–Child Early Relational Assessment (PCERA), which consists of maternal, child and dyadic subscales (Clark, 2006). Linear mixed effects models were used to analyze group differences and the changes in mother–infant interaction from 3 to 12 months.At 3 months, pairwise comparisons showed that the group with psychiatric problems had significantly more difficulties in the mother–infant interaction than the two other groups. The group with substance abuse problems was not significantly different from the two other groups. At 12 months, the mother–infant pairs in the substance abuse group showed significantly more relational disturbances than the non-clinical pairs, as well as a poorer affective quality of interaction than the dyads in the group with psychiatric problems. Analysis of change from 3 to 12 months showed that difficulties in the interaction increased among the mother–baby pairs in the substance abuse group, while improvements were displayed in the two other groups. These results underline that mother–infant pairs at double risk due to maternal substance abuse and other non-optimal factors, are in need for long-term follow up in order to prevent the development of negative interactional patterns.     

Level of service of pedestrian facilities: Modelling human comfort perception in the evaluation of pedestrian behaviour patterns

The paper presents a new methodology for evaluating the quality of operation of pedestrian facilities: the methodology is based on the individual level of comfort perceived by each pedestrian that moves in the area.At each time instant, each pedestrian perceives a comfort level which is a function of the space they feel currently available and of his required space. The required space depends on the subject’s walking direction as well as on physical and psychological factors. The available space depends on the current positions of pedestrians. The proposed methodology quantifies the current discomfort due to pedestrian interactions as a continuous function of the interpersonal distances.The proposed methodology has been applied to empirical data. The experimental data are presented, discussed and compared with widely accepted level of service assessment methods.     

The Hopkins Verbal Learning Test: an in-depth analysis of recall patterns

One of the earliest signs of dementia is memory issues and verbal word lists, such as the Hopkins Verbal Learning Test (HVLT), are successfully used for screening. To gain insight in how memory is affected in dementia, and to further improve the efficacy of the HVLT, in-depth analysis of the recall patterns of dementia cases and controls was conducted. Dementia cases and controls were matched for factors that can affect performance, such as age, gender and education level. Word frequency, syllable length, and orthographic neighbourhood size did not differ in the Indonesian version of the HVLT, nor did these characteristics affect recall. However dementia cases showed consistent and poor recall across the three trials; with the worst recall for the “human shelter” category and best recall for the “animals” category. Dementia cases also showed impaired accessibility of all categories with reduced subsequent recall from accessed categories and reduced primacy and recency levels. Finally, dementia cases exhibited lower levels of re-remembering and recalling new words, and higher levels of immediate forgetting and never recalling words. It was concluded that utilising the extra information provided by the in-depth analyses of the recall patterns could be beneficial to improve dementia screening.     

Tunability of vortex-like patterns on 180o domain walls in ferroelectric PbTiO3

ABSTRACT

Vortices and antivortices are topological defects that could be exploited in high-density storage devices. Using first-principles calculations, we found vortex-like patterns around charged domain walls that are closely related to the tilt angles of charged 180° domain walls relative to the [100] direction. With decreasing tilt angle, the vortex-like patterns evolve from independent antivortices to vortex-antivortex pairs, and then to the inexistence of vortex or antivortex defects. These findings might promote to understand the atomic scale structures of 180° domain walls and open a new pathway to manipulating vortex structures to obtain novel properties.     

Resurgence of temporal patterns of responding

The resurgence of temporal patterns of key pecking by pigeons was investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1, positively accelerated and linear patterns of responding were established on one key under a discrete-trial multiple fixed-interval variable-interval schedule. Subsequently, only responses on a second key produced reinforcers according to a variable-interval schedule. When reinforcement on the second key was discontinued, positively accelerated and linear response patterns resurged on the first key, in the presence of the stimuli previously correlated with the fixed- and variable-interval schedules, respectively. In Experiment 2, resurgence was assessed after temporal patterns were directly reinforced. Initially, responding was reinforced if it approximated an algorithm-defined temporal pattern during trials. Subsequently, reinforcement depended on pausing during trials and, when it was discontinued, resurgence of previously reinforced patterns occurred for each pigeon and for 2 of 3 pigeons during a replication. The results of both experiments demonstrate the resurgence of temporally organized responding and replicate and extend previous findings on resurgence of discrete responses and spatial response sequences.     

The Adult Attachment Interview and psychoanalytic outcome studies

During the last two decades, the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) has attracted growing interest from psychoanalysts concerned with empirical research. The paper discusses the application of Crittenden's Dynamic-Maturational AAI method for assessing the outcome of psychoanalysis. The aim is to demonstrate, through a case presentation, how therapeutic change can be expressed in the AAI. The pre- and post-treatment interviews of one patient, having completed a four-times-a-week psychoanalysis, are presented. It is demonstrated that the detailed discourse analysis of the AAI, based on transcribed tape-recorded interviews, focuses subtle formal elements of language and speech reflecting dominant patterns of affect regulation and object relating. The AAI text analysis provides possibility for coding procedural memory as conveyed by the handling of the relationship to the interviewer, incorporating the dynamic relationship between researcher and subject and thus complying with a methodological prerequisite regarded by many psychoanalysts as necessary for capturing data that are relevant to psychoanalysis. On this background, the method emerges as promising for psychoanalytic outcome studies.