Outlining the Orientation Toward Socially Relevant Issues in Competitive R&D Funding Instruments

While project-based funding in public R&D investments has grown in importance in all European countries over the last two decades, there is widespread concern among decision-makers about the actual orientation of project funding instruments to promote societal well-being. The capability of public R&D investment to improve the quality of citizens' lives implies the pursuit of “relevant” social objectives related to existing or emerging problems affecting individuals’ lives and society. Particularly, when referring to project-funded research, the question of “relevance” in research objectives recalls the never-ending debate over how to translate policymakers’ request for producing value from public investments in research activities into “usable results”. The manuscript explores, using recent data collected at European level on public R&D funding, the portfolio of research project funding policy instruments of various public research funding organizations (RFOs) in order to shed light on how and to what extent it is oriented to address socially relevant issues. The authors examine the characterization of the single project funding instruments, which are intended to incorporate the motivations and targeted goals of public action, and the RFOs that manage them. They specifically assume that the actual orientation of funding instruments, beyond the declared objectives, is influenced by some features related to their implementation operated by the RFOs, such as the importance given to specific evaluation criteria and the composition of the evaluation panels in the selection process of the funding beneficiaries.

Orienting and locating ocean-bottom seismometers from ship noise analysis

Summary Breakthroughs in understanding the structure and dynamics of our planet will strongly depend upon instrumenting deep oceans. Progress has been made these last decades in ocean-bottom seismic observations, but ocean-bottom seismometer (OBS) temporary deployments are still challenging and face set-up limitations. Launched from oceanographic vessels, OBSs fall freely and may slightly drift laterally, dragged by currents. Therefore, their actual orientation and location on the landing sites are hard to assess precisely. Numerous techniques have been developed to retrieve this key information, but most of them are costly, time-consuming or inaccurate. In this work, we show how ship noise can be used as an acoustic source of opportunity to retrieve both the orientation and the location of OBSs on the ocean floor. To retrieve the OBS orientation, we developed a first method based on a combination of seismic and pressure data through the use of the acoustic intensity. This latter can be used to quantify the OBS orientation from the ship noise direction of arrival (DOA), which can then be compared with known ship trajectories obtained from the automatic identification system (AIS). To accurately relocate OBSs, we also developed a second method based on the hydrophone data which computes distances of acoustical sources by measuring time differences of arrival (TDOA) between direct and reverberated phases. The OBS location is then retrieved by fitting measured ship distances with known ship trajectories. In this study, a full network of OBSs deployed in the SW Indian Ocean was reoriented and a test station was relocated. We demonstrate that our new methods may quantify the OBS orientation with an accuracy of about one degree, and its location with an accuracy of a few tens of metres, depending on the number of ships used in the analysis.

Toward Holographic-Guided Surgery

The implementation of augmented reality (AR) in image-guided surgery (IGS) can improve surgical interventions by presenting the image data directly on the patient at the correct position and in the actual orientation. This approach can resolve the switching focus problem, which occurs in conventional IGS systems when the surgeon has to look away from the operation field to consult the image data on a 2-dimensional screen. The Microsoft HoloLens, a head-mounted AR display, was combined with an optical navigation system to create an AR-based IGS system. Experiments were performed on a phantom model to determine the accuracy of the complete system and to evaluate the effect of adding AR. The results demonstrated a mean Euclidean distance of 2.3 mm with a maximum error of 3.5 mm for the complete system. Adding AR visualization to a conventional system increased the mean error by 1.6 mm. The introduction of AR in IGS was promising. The presented system provided a solution for the switching focus problem and created a more intuitive guidance system. With a further reduction in the error and more research to optimize the visualization, many surgical applications could benefit from the advantages of AR guidance.

Post-decision biases reveal a self-consistency principle in perceptual inference

Making a categorical judgment can systematically bias our subsequent perception of the world. We show that these biases are well explained by a self-consistent Bayesian observer whose perceptual inference process is causally conditioned on the preceding choice. We quantitatively validated the model and its key assumptions with a targeted set of three psychophysical experiments, focusing on a task sequence where subjects first had to make a categorical orientation judgment before estimating the actual orientation of a visual stimulus. Subjects exhibited a high degree of consistency between categorical judgment and estimate, which is difficult to reconcile with alternative models in the face of late, memory related noise. The observed bias patterns resemble the well-known changes in subjective preferences associated with cognitive dissonance, which suggests that the brain’s inference processes may be governed by a universal self-consistency constraint that avoids entertaining ‘dissonant’ interpretations of the evidence.

Shifting Practices of Academia as an Entrepreneurial Organization in Indonesia The Case of ATMI Polytechnic Cikarang

The study examines how the polytechnic—as a knowledge producing organization in the Indonesian science system—produces and exchanges know- ledge with other organizations in Indonesia. The study is situated in organizational sociology. The term “knowledge” in this chapter refers to tacit knowledge produced by knowledge-based workers in the polytechnic field. It discusses the production-based education method as well as entrepreneurial and academic organization. Empirically, it demonstrates the organizational change process heading towards the market and how collaboration between polytechnics and industry is achieved. By using reflexive ethnography, the chapter shows how practice at ATMI Polytechnic Cikarang Indonesia is changing, with the actual orientation of work shifting to an entrepreneurial organization.

A Yield Criterion Based on Mean Shear Stress

This work investigates the relation between shear stress and plastic yield considering that a crystal can only deform in a limited set of directions. The shear stress in arbitrary directions is mapped for some cases showing relevant differences. Yield loci based on mean shear stress are constructed. The Tresca yield criterion can be improved by averaging the shear stress over directions near the direction of maximum shear stress. Yield criteria based on averaging over crystallographic direction show a clear influence of the actual orientation of these direction, notably in case of few crystallographic directions. The general finding is that the higher the isotropy of a material, the lower the plane strain factor. The shape of the yield loci is comparable to those derived by the Hershey criterion with exponents lower than 3.

Description of the ‘stargazer mysid’ Mysidopsis zsilaveczi sp. nov. (Mysida, Mysidae, Leptomysinae) from the Cape Peninsula, South Africa

Mysidopsis zsilaveczi sp. nov. shows colour patterns on the eye that mislead the observer in thinking that the eyes are facing upwards, largely irrespective of their actual orientation, and have resulted in local divers naming these animals ‘stargazer mysids’. To date, only males of the new species could be sampled. Within the species-rich genus Mysidopsis G. O. Sars, 1864 the males of M. zsilaveczi are characterized, besides their unique colour patterns, by a subdivided antennal scale; by a small, mid-dorsal protuberance on the carapace; by endopods of all pleopods having a large, expanded, plate-like exite on the basal segment; by the comparatively large, two-segmented endopod of pleopod 1; by uropodal endopods that extend well beyond the telson; and by having a linguiform telson with spines all along its lateral margins. The new species also shows diverse, very small, lobe-like structures on basis and dactylus of thoracic endopods 3-8. Closely similar structures were for the first time also found in Mediterranean material of M. angusta G. O. Sars, 1864 and M. gibbosa G. O. Sars, 1864. This new species raises the number of southern African Mysidopsis species to nine, confirming the coastal waters of this subcontinent as being one of the major hotspots of diversity in this genus. An updated key to the Mysidopsis species from southern Africa (Namibia plus South Africa) is provided.

Letter Posting and Orientation Matching: Two Equivalent Tasks in Action and Perception?

The finding that in a patient with visual form agnosia (DF), the performance level varies in a visuomotor letter-posting task and a perceptual orientation matching task was considered as part of the evidence for the perception–action model (Milner and Goodale, 1995). In this study we examined an alternative interpretation of these findings. We specifically tested whether orientation matching and letter posting can be accomplished using different strategies. Sixteen neurologically intact participants were asked to either put cards of different sizes through a target slot of a certain orientation or to simply indicate the slot's orientation. Letter-posting was performed in three different conditions varying the amount of visual feedback available. Results show that some participants apply a strategy of obstacle-avoidance in the posting task. That is, they oriented the card such that the safety margin between the edges of the target and the card was increased. This tendency became stronger with increasing card size. In contrast, in the orientation matching task, the end-orientation of the card was unaffected by its size and closer to the slot's actual orientation. The findings suggest that posting and matching can be solved using different visuo-spatial information. The perception–action dissociation reported for these tasks in DF might therefore simply indicate a difficulty in computing visual orientation, an ability that is needed for successful orientation matching but not for posting.

The average three-dimensional target strength of fish by spheroid model for sonar surveys

Tang, Y., Nishimori, Y., and Furusawa, M. 2009. The average three-dimensional target strength of fish by spheroid model for sonar surveys. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 66: 1176–1183. When surveying fish schools by sonar, the fish are insonified from various directions. Because the fish target strength (TS) has three-dimensional directivity, according to its orientation relative to the sonar beam, the TS must be appropriately averaged. By connecting the geometries of the sonar beam and the fish body, the relationship between the apparent orientation of fish, as viewed by the sonar, and the actual orientation in space is derived. Using this relationship, equations for calculating the three-dimensional-averaged TS (<TS>3D) are presented. A prolate-spheroid, modal-series, scattering model is then used to determine the characteristics of <TS>3D against various parameters, such as fish attitudes, fish length, sonar frequency, and method of beam scanning. The model is evaluated with two boundary conditions at the spheroid surface: a gas-fluid boundary relevant to fish with a swimbladder, and a fluid-fluid boundary relevant to fish without a swimbladder. The results reveal that <TS>3D varies greatly with the horizontal aspect (yaw angle), but only slightly with the vertical aspect (pitch angle) of the fish. The difference in <TS>3D between the side-on aspect and the end-on (head or tail) aspect increases with the ratio of the fish length to the acoustic wavelength.

An Investigation Into the Accuracy of the Vector Method by Comparison With ECP Measurements

In an attempt to investigate the accuracy of the vector method for crystal texture analysis, a comparison has been made between the inversion result of the pole figure made by X-ray studies using the VM and the inversion result of the pole figure made by ECP. A comparison has been made between the inversion by the pole figure generated by direct measurement of orientations by ECP and the actual orientation distribution (measured by ECP) displayed in the same mode. The materials studied were recrystallized Fe–3% Si and Fe–50% Ni. The main findings were:• In the mean intensities of each individual Box, the inversion results of pole figures made from orientations determined by ECP were in good agreement with the inversion from (100) pole figures made by X-ray or actual orientation distribution (made by ECP) displayed in the same mode as the vector method.• For Fe–3% Si, quite a good agreement was obtained between the results inverted from X-ray pole figure and the direct measurement by ECP for the intensity distribution of minor texture component along ζ angle. It was concluded from these investigations that the inversion of the pole figure by the vector method is accurate enough for most practical purposes.