The most important predictors of fixation durations in reading are a word’s frequency of occurrence (as measured by counts in large corpora) and its predictability in context (as measured by cloze probability). Two recent eye-tracking studies investigated distributional effects of word frequency (Staub et al, 2010) and word predictability (Staub, 2011) separately. The present study investigates the distributions associated with these two variables when they are manipulated in the same experiment. When considering the overall means, frequency and predictability showed significant main effects (LF>HF; LP>HP), with no interaction. In addition, we found evidence supporting the previous distributional findings where frequency and predictability affect all fixations (causing a shift in the distribution), but frequency also has a special influence on the longest fixations. Interestingly, the model fits suggested that there was an interaction between the predictors in first fixation duration. However, this effect was not visible in the vincentiles (which are plots of the actual data) and it appeared to be conditional on four particular subjects. Since we did not find convincing evidence of an interaction in our distributional analysis, the present findings provide support for theories of fixation durations whereby frequency and predictability combine additively.

An avoidance response was conditioned to three stimuli presented in serial order. Following conditioning, each group of subjects received a different treatment procedure. The group I procedure involved distributed CS trials, contingent, non-anxious CS terminations, and individualized treatment durations. Group 2 subjects received massed CS trials, non-contingent CS terminations, and non-individualized treatment durations. Group 3 subjects experienced distributed CS trials, contingent non-anxious CS terminations, and non-individualized treatment durations. Individual izing treatment duration (termination contingent upon operational ized measure of anxiety dissipation) was found to significantly hasten the extinction of avoidance responses. Implications for the effective practice of implosive therapy were discussed. Yoked control methods were criticized for confounding the variable of individualization of the yoked variable.

The thesis introduces Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) to the field of financial durations. We begin by reviewing the findings about financial durations and models applied to analyze them. ANNs are then surveyed and one of the possible network architectures is selected for the forecasting. The selected ANN is a feed-forward network, with one hidden layer, a sigmoid activation function and a genetic algorithm for optimization. We use original and diurnally adjusted data for estimation and in contrast to other duration models, ANNs do not require data pre-processing. Therefore forecasts are estimated in one step without removing seasonalities for raw data. The estimates of the ANN are compared to estimates of the Autoregressive Conditional Duration (ACD) model, which serves as a benchmark for forecasting capabilities of the ANNs. The findings confirm that ANNs can be used to model durations with a similar accuracy as the ACD model. In the case of raw data the model slightly outperforms the ACD model, while the opposite is true for adjusted data, however the forecasting ability difference is not significant.

Submitted by Mariana Dornelles Vargas (marianadv) on 2015-03-20T19:47:22Z No. of bitstreams: 1 glifos_durantes.pdf: 3876414 bytes, checksum: 6b15583570b6640fe5ebfd53a1666bc7 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-20T19:47:22Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 glifos_durantes.pdf: 3876414 bytes, checksum: 6b15583570b6640fe5ebfd53a1666bc7 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-28 / Nenhuma / O presente estudo propõe-se a formular o conceito de glifos durantes na superfície audiovisual e avaliar o impacto da intervenção de elementos estáticos impressos sobre a imagem movente a partir do conceito de duração de Henri Bergson e de linha e superfície de Vilém Flusser. Valendo-se dos avanços provenientes do estudo das audiovisualidades na comunicação, é investigada, em diferentes experimentos audiovisuais, a duração agenciada por estes glifos. A pesquisa elege o móvel como lugar de investigação, tomando como princípios metodológicos a intuição, as cartografias, a desconstrução e as molduras, o que resulta em um procedimento de scanning, que intercala flaneuria e dissecação. No processo de invenção metodológica e aproximação do objeto, realiza-se uma pesquisa exploratória que flana através de experimentos pré-cinematográficos (Alegoria da Caverna, Fenaquitoscópio, Tavoletta di Bruneleschi) e de produtos audiovisuais (Anèmic Cinema, , Dans le Noir du Temps, O Livro de Cabeceira, Pierrot Le Fou, Pulp Fiction, The Life and Death of 9413). A abordagem metodológica propõe um procedimento, inspirado no movimento espiral experimentado pelo espectador quando colocado em contato com os glifos, que leva em conta as idas e vindas entre afecções e percepções, entre objetividade e subjetividade e entre atuais e virtuais. Por fim, procede-se com um estudo de caso, aplicando a metodologia do movimento espiral ao filme Dogville. Com isso, deseja-se contribuir com o estudo das audiovisualidades, propondo uma alternativa de operação metodológica que procura dar conta da complexidade dos objetos abordados por este campo. / This study aims to formulate the concept of during glyphs over the audiovisual surface and evaluate the impact of the intervention of static elements printed on the moving image, learning with the Henri Bergson ́s concept of duration and Vilém Flusser's concept of line and surface. Taking advantage of advances made by the study of audiovisualities, the research investigates the duration brokered by the glyphs over different audiovisual experiments. The research has choosen the movement as a place of research, taking as methodological principles intuition, cartography, deconstruction and the frames method, resulting in a scanning procedure, which merges flanêurie and dissection. In the process of methodological approach and invention of the subject, carried out an exploratory study that flyes through audiovisual experiences (The Allegory of the Cave, Fenaquitoscope, Tavoletta di Bruneleschi) and movies (Anèmic Cinèma, Dans le Noir du Temps, The Pillow Book, Pierrot Le Fou, Pulp Fiction, The Life and De ath of 9413). The methodological approach proposes a procedure inspired by the spiral motion experienced by the viewer when placed in contact with the glyphs, which takes into account the movement between affections and perceptions, between objectivity and subjectivity and between actual and virtual. Finally, proceed with a case study, applyi ng the methodology of the spiral motion to the Dogville movie. With it, this research aims to contribute to the study of audiovisualidades, proposing an alternative methodology that attempts to handle the complexity of the objects studied by this field.

This research develops and applies nonparametric estimation tools in two sectors of interest of financial econometrics: risk management and market microstructure. In the first part we address the problem of estimating conditional quantiles in financial and economic time series. Research in this field received great impulse since quantile based risk measures such as Value at Risk (VaR) have become essential tools to assess the riskiness of trading activities. The great amounts of data available in financial time series allows building nonparametric estimators that are not subject to the risk of specification error of parametric models. A wavelet based estimator is developed. With this approach, minimum regularity conditions of the underlying process are required. Moreover the specific choice of the wavelets in this work leads to the constructions of shape preserving estimators of probability functions. In other words, estimates of probability functions, both densities and cumulative distribution functions, are probability functions themselves. This method is compared with competing methods through simulations and applications to real data. In the second part we carry out a nonparametric analysis of financial durations, that is of the waiting times between particular financial events, such as trades, quote updates, volume accumulation, that happen in financial markets. These data display very peculiar stylized facts one has to take into account when attempting to model them. We make use of an existing algorithm to describe nonparametrically the dynamics of the process in terms of its lagged realizations and of a latent variable, its conditional mean. The estimation devices needed to effectively apply the algorithm to our dataset are presented in this part of the work.

No description available.

Codakia orbicularis est un mollusque bivalve appartenant à la famille des Lucinidae et établissant des symbioses avec des bactéries sulfo-oxydantes (symbiotes) au sein de ses branchies. Dans l’hypothèse où toute symbiose nécessite une régulation par des molécules de dialogue, une étude chimique exhaustive pourrait aboutir à la mise en évidence des métabolites impliqués. Le travail de ce manuscrit porte donc sur l'isolement de métabolites secondaires à partir des branchies de ce bivalve et sur l'évaluation de l'activité antibactérienne des molécules isolées. Douze composés ont été isolés des branchies de Codakia orbicularis et leurs structures ont été déterminées par les méthodes spectroscopiques usuelles. Parmi ces molécules, une seule est nouvelle et a été nommée orbicularisine. Elle présente un squelette indolone spirotetracyclique inédit. Parmi les molécules isolées, seules quatre d’entre elles présentent une activité antibactérienne à savoir le soufre S8, la 4-hydroxybenzaldéhyde et deux monoglycérolipides. L'orbicularisine est inactive contre un panel de lignées cellulaires cancéreuses et de kinases. Le nouveau squelette de l’orbicularisine pourrait permettre d'aboutir à une nouvelle famille de molécules par synthèse organique et ainsi d'accroître la diversité moléculaire autour de ce motif inédit. Il sera également intéressant de déterminer l'origine des molécules isolées (procaryote ou eucaryote), particulièrement pour l’orbicularisine, et leurs rôles dans le cadre de la symbiose. Les résultats chimiques obtenus sur C. orbicularis et sur les Lucinidae en général sont intéressants puisque les espèces côtières appartenant aux bivalves ont été peu exploitées en chimie jusqu’à ce jour. / Codakia orbicularis is a bivalve mollusk belonging to the family Lucinidae harboring sulfur-oxidizing bacterial endosymbionts within its gills. Considering that any symbiosis is most likely regulated by dialogue molecules, an exhaustive chemical study could lead to identify the involved metabolites. Thus, the aim of this thesis focuses on the isolation of secondary metabolites from the gills of this bivalve and the evaluation of the antibacterial activity of the isolated molecules. Twelve compounds were isolated from the gills of Codakia orbicularis and their structures were determined by usual spectroscopic methods. Among these molecules, only one presented a new structure and has been named orbicularisine. The latter presents an undescribed spirotetracyclic indolone skeleton. Regarding the biological activities, among the isolated molecules, only four of them identified as S8 sulfur, 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde and two monoglycerolipids presented an antibacterial activity. Orbicularisine was inactive against a panel of cell lines and kinase. The orbicularisine new skeleton is an interesting start for the synthesis of new family of molecules, thus enhancing its molecular diversity. It will be interesting to determine the origin of the isolated molecules (prokaryotic or eukaryotic), especially for the new orbicularisine, and their roles in the frame of the symbiosis. The chemical results obtained on C. orbicularis and on lucinids in general are interesting since the coastal species belonging to Bivalves have not been chemically explored.

We examined relations between eye movements (single-fixation durations) and RSVP-based event-related potentials (ERPs; N400’s) recorded during reading the same sentences in two independent experiments. Longer fixation durations correlated with larger N400 amplitudes. Word frequency and predictability of the fixated word as well as the predictability of the upcoming word accounted for this covariance in a path-analytic model. Moreover, larger N400 amplitudes entailed longer fixation durations on the next word, a relation accounted for by word frequency. This pattern offers a neurophysiological correlate for the lag-word frequency effect on fixation durations: Word processing is reliably expressed not only in fixation durations on currently fixated words, but also in those on subsequently fixated words.

Eye movements are a powerful tool to examine cognitive processes. However, in most paradigms little is known about the dynamics present in sequences of saccades and fixations. In particular, the control of fixation durations has been widely neglected in most tasks. As a notable exception, both spatial and temporal aspects of eye-movement control have been thoroughly investigated during reading. There, the scientific discourse was dominated by three controversies, (i), the role of oculomotor vs. cognitive processing on eye-movement control, (ii) the serial vs. parallel processing of words, and, (iii), the control of fixation durations. The main purpose of this thesis was to investigate eye movements in tasks that require sequences of fixations and saccades. While reading phenomena served as a starting point, we examined eye guidance in non-reading tasks with the aim to identify general principles of eye-movement control. In addition, the investigation of eye movements in non-reading tasks helped refine our knowledge about eye-movement control during reading. Our approach included the investigation of eye movements in non-reading experiments as well as the evaluation and development of computational models. I present three main results : First, oculomotor phenomena during reading can also be observed in non-reading tasks (Chapter 2 & 4). Oculomotor processes determine the fixation position within an object. The fixation position, in turn, modulates both the next saccade target and the current fixation duration. Second, predicitions of eye-movement models based on sequential attention shifts were falsified (Chapter 3). In fact, our results suggest that distributed processing of multiple objects forms the basis of eye-movement control. Third, fixation durations are under asymmetric control (Chapter 4). While increasing processing demands immediately prolong fixation durations, decreasing processing demands reduce fixation durations only with a temporal delay. We propose a computational model ICAT to account for asymmetric control. In this model, an autonomous timer initiates saccades after random time intervals independent of ongoing processing. However, processing demands that are higher than expected inhibit the execution of the next saccade and, thereby, prolong the current fixation. On the other hand, lower processing demands will not affect the duration before the next saccade is executed. Since the autonomous timer adjusts to expected processing demands from fixation to fixation, a decrease in processing demands may lead to a temporally delayed reduction of fixation durations. In an extended version of ICAT, we evaluated its performance while simulating both temporal and spatial aspects of eye-movement control. The eye-movement phenomena investigated in this thesis have now been observed in a number of different tasks, which suggests that they represent general principles of eye guidance. I propose that distributed processing of the visual input forms the basis of eye-movement control, while fixation durations are controlled by the principles outlined in ICAT. In addition, oculomotor control contributes considerably to the variability observed in eye movements. Interpretations for the relation between eye movements and cognition strongly benefit from a precise understanding of this interplay. / Blickbewegungen stellen ein wichtiges Instrument dar, um kognitive Prozesse zu untersuchen. In den meisten Paradigmen ist allerdings wenig über die Entstehung von Sakkaden und Fixationen bekannt. Insbesondere die Kontrolle der Fixationsdauern wurde häufig außer acht gelassen. Eine wesentliche Ausnahme stellt die Leseforschung dar, in der sowohl zeitlichliche als auch räumliche Aspekte der Blickbewegungssteuerung im Detail betrachtet wurden. Dabei war der wissenschaftliche Diskurs durch drei Kontroversen gekennzeichnet, die untersuchten, (i), welchen Einfluss okulomotorische bzw. kognitive Prozesse auf die Blicksteuerung haben, (ii), ob Worte seriell oder parallel verarbeitet werden und, (iii), wie Fixationsdauern kontrolliert werden. Die vorliegende Arbeit zielt im wesentlichen darauf ab, die Dynamik von Fixationssequenzen zu erforschen. Ausgehend von den Erkenntnissen beim Lesen untersuchten wir Blickbewegungen in Nichtlese-Aufgaben, mit dem Ziel allgemeine Prinzipien der Blicksteuerung zu identifizieren. Zusätzlich versuchten wir mit Hilfe dieser Aufgaben, Erkenntnisse über Prozesse beim Lesen zu vertiefen. Unser Vorgehen war sowohl von der Durchführung von Experimenten als auch der Entwicklung und Evaluation computationaler Modelle geprägt. Die Hauptbefunde zeigten: Erstens, okulomotorische Phänomene des Lesens lassen sich in Suchaufgaben ohne Wortmaterial replizieren (Kapitel 2 & 4). Dabei bestimmen okulomotorische Prozesse die Fixationsposition innerhalb eines Objektes. Diese wiederum beeinflusst das nächste Sakkadenziel sowie die Fixationsdauer. Zweitens, wesentliche Vorhersagen von Modellen, in denen Blickbewegungen von seriellen Aufmerksamkeitsverschiebungen abhängen, konnten falsifiziert werden (Kapitel 3). Stattdessen legen unsere Erkenntnisse nahe, dass die Blicksteuerung von der parallelen Verarbeitung mehrerer Objekte abhängt. Drittens, Fixationsdauern werden asymmetrisch kontrolliert (Kapitel 4). Während hohe Verarbeitungsanforderungen Fixationsdauern unmittelbar verlängern können, führen niedrige Verarbeitungsanforderungen nur zeitlich verzögert zu einer Reduktion. Wir schlagen ein computationales Modell ICAT vor, um asymmetrische Kontrolle zu erklären. Grundlage des Modells ist ein autonomer Zeitgeber, der unabhängig von der momentanen Verarbeitung nach zufälligen Zeitintervallen Sakkaden initiiert. Unerwartet hohe Verarbeitungsanforderungen können die Initiierung der nächsten Sakkade hinauszögern, während unerwartet niedrige Verarbeitungsanforderungen den Beginn der nächsten Sakkade nicht verändern. Der Zeitgeber passt sich allerdings von Fixation zu Fixation neuen Verarbeitungsanforderungen an, so dass es zu einer zeitlich verzögerten Reduktion der Fixationsdauern kommen kann. In einer erweiterten Version des Modells überprüfen wir die Kompatibilität ICATs mit einer realistischen räumlichen Blicksteuerung. Die Ähnlichkeit von Blickbewegungsphänomenen über Aufgaben hinweg legt nahe, dass sie auf allgemeinen Prinzipien basieren. Grundlage der Blicksteuerung ist die verteilte Verarbeitung des visuellen Inputs, während die Kontrolle der Fixationsdauer auf den Prinzipien von ICAT beruht. Darüber hinaus tragen okulomotorische Phänomene wesentlich zur Variabilität der Blicksteuerung bei. Ein Verständnis dieses Zusammenspiels hilft entscheidend den Zusammenhang von Blickbewegungen und Kognitionen besser zu verstehen.

Orientador: Michel Daoud Yacoub / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Engenharia Eletrica e de Computação / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-06T02:52:07Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fraidenraich_Gustavo_M.pdf: 1838522 bytes, checksum: 4099008fa7bbc89eb2642a891bd64509 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2006 / Resumo: Neste trabalho, uma nova distribuição de probabilidade amplamente geral, a distribuição a-?-?-µ, é proposta. Esta distribuição contempla como casos particulares várias outras distribuições conhecidas na literatura, tais como Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m, Hoyt, Weibull, a-? (Gamma Generalizada) ?-µ e ?-µ. Por conta de sua generalidade, todos os mais importantes ambientes de desvanecimento de curto prazo são modelados por esta distribuição. Além de prover a função densidade de probabilidade para o modelo a-?-?-µ, os momentos e a função cumulativa de probabilidade também são encontrados. Este modelo geral é então especializado para quatro casos particulares, para os quais distribuições mais simples, mas ainda gerais, são encontradas: a a-?-µ, a-?-µ, ?-? Simétrica e ?-? Assimétrica. Para esses casos, estimadores práticos baseados nos momentos são deduzidos. A aplicabilidade destes estimadores é verificada utilizando medidas de campo realizadas na Unicamp com um equipamento construído no laboratório Wisstek para este ?m. Em seguida, estatísticas de ordem superior, em particular a taxa de cruzamento de nível e a duração média de desvanecimento, são encontradas de forma exata para os ambientes Hoyt e Weibull em sistemas de diversidade com M ramos desbalanceados, não idênticos e independentes utilizando os combinadores por ganho igual e por razão máxima. Neste trabalho, o resultado geral é validado através de simulações e redução das expressões gerais para casos em que os resultados já são conhecidos. Além disso, para alguns destes casos particulares, as expressões gerais são simplificadas e reduzidas a fórmulas fechadas. Estendendo esse último campo de investigação e seguindo um pioneiro trabalho da literatura, o qual abordou o caso Rayleigh, a taxa de cruzamento de nível e a duração média de desvanecimento são obtidas para ambientes Hoyt com dois ramos correlacionados. Nesta investigação, reformula-se a metodologia da literatura e obtém-se um procedimento geral para a análise da taxa de cruzamento de nível e duração média de desvanecimento em ambientes com apenas um cluster, com aplicação direta aos canais Rice, Weibull, ?-? Simétrica e ?-? Assimétrica. Finalmente, este trabalho propõe, de forma precursora, uma distribuição para a fase do canal Nakagami-m. Ao contrário do que, convencionalmente e por simplicidade, se postulava, a distribuição de fase é não uniforme e dependente de m, o que torna o modelo compatível com aqueles aproximados por Nakagami-m, nomeadamente Hoyt e Rice / Abstract: In this work, a new, very general probability density function, the a-?-?-µ distribution, is proposed. This distribution comprises, as particular cases, several other well known distributions such as Rayleigh, Rice, Nakagami-m, Hoyt, Weibull, a-? (Generalized Gamma) ?-µ and ?-µ. Due to its generality, all of the most important short fading environments can be modeled by this distribution. Besides providing the probability density function for the a-?-?-µ model, the moments and the cumulative distribution function are also found. This general model is then specialized into four particular cases, for which new simpler, though still general, distributions, are found: the a-?-µ, a-?-µ, Symmetrical ?-?, and Asymmetrical ?-?. For these cases, practical moment-based estimators are derived. The applicability of these estimators is verified using field measurements obtained through an experiment conducted at the University of Campinas (Unicamp) with an equipment specially built for this end in the Wisstek laboratory. Higher order statistics, more specifically the level crossing rates and average fade durations, are then obtained in an exact form for the Hoyt and Weibull fading environments. The results are applicable to M unbalanced, non-identical, and independent channels using equal gain and maximal ratio combining techniques. The general results are thoroughly validated by means of simulation and also by reducing the general solution to some particular cases for which the solutions are known. Moreover, new closed form expressions are also achieved for some of these particular cases. Extending this field of investigation and following a pioneering work in the literature, which approached the Rayleigh case, the level crossing rate and average fade duration are obtained considering two correlated, unbalanced, and non-identical branches in a Hoyt fading environment. In this investigation, the methodology found in the literature is reformulated and generalized so as to comprise several other cases. The general procedure developed for this analysis can now be applied to other fading environment for which one cluster of mutipaths exists, i.e., Rice, Weibull, Symmetrical ?-?, and Asymmetrical ?-?. Finally, this work proposes, in a pioneering way, the phase distribution for the Nakagami-m channel. Contrary to what conventionally, and for simplicity, was usually postulated, the phase distribution is non-uniform and dependent on m, rendering this model compatible with those approximated by Nakagami-m, namely Hoyt and Rice / Mestrado / Telecomunicações e Telemática / Mestre em Engenharia Elétrica