The perceived position of a moving object is reset by temporal, not spatial limits

When the internal texture of a Gabor patch drifts orthogonally to its physical path, its perceived motion deviates dramatically from its physical path. The local position shifts accumulate to such an extent that a 45 deg oblique physical path appears to be vertical. However, at some point, a limit is reached and the path resets back to its veridical location, whereupon a new accumulation starts, making the new perceived path segment appear parallel to the pre-reset segment, but offset horizontally from it. Here, we tested whether spontaneous resets of this motion-induced position shift depend on the time or the distance over which position errors accrue, or both. We introduced a temporal gap in the middle of the path that forced the illusory path to reset back to its veridical physical position. This gap-triggered reset allowed us to measure the magnitude of the illusory offset up to that point. We found that perceived offset was less than expected for the angle of illusory drift, indicating that spontaneous resets had occurred prior to the gap-induced reset. The position offset decreased when the pre-gap duration increased but approximately doubled when the path length doubled. This pattern of perceived offsets is best accounted for by spontaneous resets that occur randomly over time at a constant rate, independently of the distance traveled. Our results suggest a temporal, not spatial, limit for the accumulation of position errors that underlies this illusion.

Alginate/Fish Gelatin-Encapsulated Lactobacillus acidophilus: A Study on Viability and Technological Quality of Bread during Baking and Storage

In the present study, Lactobacillus acidophilus LA-5 was microencapsulated in sodium alginate, followed by fish gelatin coating (0.5, 1.5, and 3%). The survival of L. acidophilus in bread before and after encapsulation in alginate/fish gelatin during the baking and 7-day storage was investigated. Moreover, the effect of alginate/fish gelatin-encapsulated L. acidophilus on the technological properties of bread (hardness, staling rate, water content, oven spring, specific volume, and internal texture structure) was evaluated. Compared with control (free bacteria), encapsulated L. acidophilus in alginate/fish gelatin showed an increase in the viability of bread until 2.49 and 3.07 log CFU/g during baking and storage, respectively. Good viability of (106 CFU/g) for probiotic in encapsulated L. acidophilus in alginate/fish gelatin (1.5 and 3%, respectively) after 4-day storage was achieved. Fish gelatin as a second-layer carrier of the bacteria had a positive effect on improving the technical quality of bread. Furthermore, the staling rate of bread containing encapsulated L. acidophilus alginate/fish gelatin 0.5, 1.5, and 3% decreased by 19.5, 25.8, and 31.7%, respectively. Overall, the findings suggested encapsulation of L. acidophilus in alginate/fish gelatin capsule had great potential to improve probiotic bacteria’s survival during baking and storage and to serve as an effective bread enhancer.

Measuring the double-drift illusion with hand tracking

If a gabor pattern drifts in one direction while its internal texture drifts in the orthogonal direction, its perceived position deviates further and further away from its true path. We first evaluated the illusion using manual tracking. Participants followed the gabor with a stylus on a drawing tablet that coincided optically with the horizontal monitor surface. Their hand and the stylus were not visible during the tracking. The magnitude of the tracking illusion corresponded closely to previous perceptual and pointing measures indicating that manual tracking is a valid measure for the illusion. This allowed us to use it in a second experiment to capture the behavior of the illusion as it eventually degrades and breaks down in single trials. Specifically, the deviation of the gabor stops accumulating at some point and either stays at a fixed offset or resets toward the veridical position. To report the perceived trajectory of the gabor, participants drew it after the gabor was removed from the monitor. Resets were detected and analyzed and they suggest that there is a spatial limit beyond which the illusion saturates or resets.

Photorealistic reconstruction of visual texture from EEG signals

Recent advances in brain decoding have made it possible to classify image categories based on neural activity. Increasing numbers of studies have further attempted to reconstruct the image itself. However, because images of objects and scenes inherently involve spatial layout information, the reconstruction usually requires retinotopically organized neural data with high spatial resolution, such as fMRI signals. In contrast, spatial layout does not matter in the perception of 'texture', which is known to be represented as spatially global image statistics in the visual cortex. This property of 'texture' enables us to reconstruct the perceived image from EEG signals, which have a low spatial resolution. Here, we propose an MVAE-based approach for reconstructing texture images from visual evoked potentials measured from observers viewing natural textures such as the textures of various surfaces and object ensembles. This approach allowed us to reconstruct images that perceptually resemble the original textures with a photographic appearance. A subsequent analysis of the dynamic development of the internal texture representation in the VGG network showed that the reproductivity of texture rapidly improves at 200 ms latency in the lower layers but improves more gradually in the higher layers. The present approach can be used as a method for decoding the highly detailed 'impression' of sensory stimuli from brain activity.

Ultrasonic Image Diagnosis of Liver and Spleen Injury Based on a Double-Channel Convolutional Neural Network

Automatic and accurate diagnosis of liver and spleen injury in ultrasonic images is of great significance for the development of automatic clinical diagnosis. In order to realize more accurate ultrasonic image diagnosis of liver and spleen injury, an algorithm of ultrasonic image classification diagnosis of liver and spleen injury based on double-channel convolutional neural network was proposed. Firstly, the anisotropic diffusion denoising model is used to realize data preprocessing of ultrasonic images of the liver and spleen to improve the image quality of ultrasonic images. Secondly, the external edge of the lesion location was detected to obtain the characteristics of the external edge. Then, the rotation invariant local binary mode feature of the extracted image is taken as the inner texture feature of the image. Finally, the external edge feature and internal texture feature are used as two input channels of the convolutional neural network, respectively, to classify and identify ultrasonic images of liver and spleen injury. The experimental results show that the proposed method diagnoses liver and spleen injury more accurately.

Tribological Performance of Friction Pairs with Different Materials and Bi-Composite Surface Texture Configurations

Bi-composite surface texture configurations are proposed to study the friction performance of a mechanical seal under low speed. Three sets of comparative experiments were designed. They involved friction pairs with different pairing materials, single texture patterns, and bi-composite surface texture configurations. Tribological performances, such as friction coefficient, wear quantity, and surface topography, were measured. The research results showed that the average friction coefficient and surface temperature rise of the 3-C3 group (triangular texture in SSiC–conventional spiral groove in SSiC) were only 0.052 and 3.8 °C, respectively, which was the smallest friction coefficient and lowest temperature rise of all the test subjects. What’s more, the wear of M120D was mainly caused by the cutting effect of the texture edges, the adhesive wear of the non-textured areas, and the secondary wear caused by debris from the internal texture. It was indicated that the bi-composite patterns of spiral-triangle could produce a ‘synergistic effect’ by improving tribological performance and reaching lower friction in low-rotational-speed operation, which could provide a basis for designing a long-lasting and exceptionally reliable mechanical seal.

Carbon-Loaded Flexible Electrode Films for Li-O2 Cells: Preparation, Porosity, Homogeneity and Electrochemical Characterization

Porous (up to 70 vol. %) self-standing flexible carbon/polymer (Ketjen Black / PVdF-HFP) film electrodes are produced by leaching out a plasticizer-porogen agent (DBP = DiButyl Phtalate) from precursor films (80% ³ DBP w% ³ 40%). Textural analysis reveals that i) these films exhibit copious initial macroporosity, ii) extra open macro- and then meso-porosity are created along the leaching, iii) this leaching process impacts the internal films texture resulting in a partial closing of the pre-existing porosity, iv) only films with the lowest initial DBP contents (≤ 60 w%) are homogeneous in composition/porosity/texture. In Li/O₂ cells, the first discharge capacities of these films are compared to those calculated assuming a total filling of this porosity by electrochemically formed solid Li₂O₂ (2700 mAh.cm^-3 of pores). Up to 80 % of the maximum capacity can be reached (i.e. 80 % of the porosity filled by Li₂O₂), confirming the positive attributes of mixed interconnected macro/meso porosity. This is further emphasized by the very low capacities obtained with electrodes having similar porosity vol. % but totally different internal texture (GDL). These conclusions can be made despite a large discrepancy in the data, even for homogeneous films, due to reproducibility issues intrinsic to the system.

Carbon-Loaded Flexible Electrode Films for Li-O2 Cells: Preparation, Porosity, Homogeneity and Electrochemical Characterization

Porous (up to 70 vol. %) self-standing flexible carbon/polymer (Ketjen Black / PVdF-HFP) film electrodes are produced by leaching out a plasticizer-porogen agent (DBP = DiButyl Phtalate) from precursor films (80% ³ DBP w% ³ 40%). Textural analysis reveals that i) these films exhibit copious initial macroporosity, ii) extra open macro- and then meso-porosity are created along the leaching, iii) this leaching process impacts the internal films texture resulting in a partial closing of the pre-existing porosity, iv) only films with the lowest initial DBP contents (≤ 60 w%) are homogeneous in composition/porosity/texture. In Li/O₂ cells, the first discharge capacities of these films are compared to those calculated assuming a total filling of this porosity by electrochemically formed solid Li₂O₂ (2700 mAh.cm^-3 of pores). Up to 80 % of the maximum capacity can be reached (i.e. 80 % of the porosity filled by Li₂O₂), confirming the positive attributes of mixed interconnected macro/meso porosity. This is further emphasized by the very low capacities obtained with electrodes having similar porosity vol. % but totally different internal texture (GDL). These conclusions can be made despite a large discrepancy in the data, even for homogeneous films, due to reproducibility issues intrinsic to the system.

A Class-Independent Texture-Separation Method Based on a Pixel-Wise Binary Classification

Texture segmentation is a challenging problem in computer vision due to the subjective nature of textures, the variability in which they occur in images, their dependence on scale and illumination variation, and the lack of a precise definition in the literature. This paper proposes a method to segment textures through a binary pixel-wise classification, thereby without the need for a predefined number of textures classes. Using a convolutional neural network, with an encoder–decoder architecture, each pixel is classified as being inside an internal texture region or in a border between two different textures. The network is trained using the Prague Texture Segmentation Datagenerator and Benchmark and tested using the same dataset, besides the Brodatz textures dataset, and the Describable Texture Dataset. The method is also evaluated on the separation of regions in images from different applications, namely remote sensing images and H&E-stained tissue images. It is shown that the method has a good performance on different test sets, can precisely identify borders between texture regions and does not suffer from over-segmentation.

A Case Report of A Giant Parathyroid Adenoma Presenting with A Brown Tumor

Background: Giant parathyroid adenoma presenting with a brown tumor is considered extremely rare.Case Presentation: A 21-year-old woman presented to the clinic with persistent pain in her right knee. A radiographic examination showed an osteolytic lesion in her right tibia. Blood laboratory tests revealed that serum calcium and intact parathyroid hormone were increased significantly. Physical examination showed a 3-cm, firm, immovable lump in her neck. Ultrasonography of the patient’s neck revealed a 3.5-cm, well-circumscribed mass with a homogeneous internal texture. Computed tomography also showed a localized tumor with clear margins. The 99mTc-MIBI scintigraphy showed a hot spot in the right inferior gland. Based on these findings we judged that she had giant parathyroid adenoma presenting with a brown tumor. We ruled out the possibility of carcinoma based on image studies. We performed a parathyroidectomy via a small incision. The excised parathyroid gland weighed 10.3 g. The patient’s postoperative course was unremarkable. Conclusions: Giant parathyroid adenoma presenting with a brown tumor is extremely rare. Accordingly, the differentiation between giant adenoma and parathyroid carcinoma is crucial. However, we could rule out the possibility of carcinoma based on imaging studies, including ultrasonography and computed tomography. As a result, we performed successful parathyroidectomy with a small incision.