Capture of the gaze does not capture the mind

Sudden visual changes attract our gaze, and related eye movement control requires attentional resources. Attention is a limited resource that is also involved in working memory-for instance, memory encoding. As a consequence, theory suggests that gaze capture could impair the buildup of memory respresentations due to an attentional resource bottleneck. Here we developed an experimental design combining a serial memory task (verbal or spatial) and concurrent gaze capture by a distractor (of high or low similarity to the relevant item). The results cannot be explained by a general resource bottleneck. Specifically, we observed that capture by the low-similar distractor resulted in delayed and reduced saccade rates to relevant items in both memory tasks. However, while spatial memory performance decreased, verbal memory remained unaffected. In contrast, the high-similar distractor led to capture and memory loss for both tasks. Our results lend support to the view that gaze capture leads to activation of irrelevant representations in working memory that compete for selection at recall. Activation of irrelevant spatial representations distracts spatial recall, whereas activation of irrelevant verbal features impairs verbal memory performance

Sociocultural rationale for the innovative university: problems and contradictions

В статье рассматривается эволюция образовательных парадигм социального института «Университет» в классическом его проявлении и предпосылки разработки концепции неклассического университета нового типа. Описывается деятельность по реализации миссии и функций проекта «Университет 3.0» в некоторых учреждениях высшего образования Республики Беларусь. Авторы выделяют возникающие противоречия в отношении цели и задач проекта «Университет 3.0» и ценностного приоритета миссии университета как социального института. The paper examines the evolution of educational paradigms of the social institution «University» in its classical manifestation and the prerequisites for developing the concept of a non-classical university of a new type. The activities to implement the mission and functions of the «University 3.0» project in some institutions of higher education in the Republic of Belarus are described. The authors highlight the emerging contradictions in relation to the goal and objectives of the «University 3.0» project and the value priorities of the university's mission as a social institution

Trimethyl Bismuth Optical Properties for Particle Detection and the CaLIPSO Detector

International audienceTrimethyl bismuth (TMBi) is a "heavy" transparent and dielectric organometallic liquid. This paper focuses on the measurement of TMBi's optical properties relevant for particle detection. We measured the TMBi transmission curve and refraction index versus wavelength, as well as the light production yield and the timing performance on a small size cell

CaLIPSO: An Novel Detector Concept for PET Imaging

International audienceThe CaLIPSO project focuses on the development of an innovative energetic-photon detector. The detector uses a "heavy" organometallic liquid: the TriMethyl Bismuth (TMBi), 82% by weight of Bismuth. TMBi efficiently converts through the photo-electric effect photons of energies below 1 MeV. The ionisation signal and light produced in the liquid are both detected. Beyond the measurement of gamma photon energies, this detector will allow locating photon interactions in the detector in three dimensions down to 1 mm3 and a sub nanosecond timing accuracy. All these desirable properties can be obtained simultaneously with liquid TMBi detector

MOR-based uncertainty quantification in transcranial magnetic stimulation

Field computation for Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation requires the knowledge of the electrical conductivity profiles in the human head. Unfortunately, the conductivities of the different tissue types are not exactly known and vary from person to person. Consequently, the computation of the electric field in the human brain should incorporate the uncertainty in the conductivity values. In this paper, we compare a non-intrusive polynomial chaos expansion and a new intrusive parametric Model Order Reduction approach for the sensitivity analysis in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation computations. Our results show that compared to the non-intrusive method, the new intrusive method provides similar results but shows two orders of magnitude reduced computation time. We find monotonically decreasing errors for increasing state-space dimensions, indicating convergence of the new method. For the sensitivity analysis, both Sobol coefficients and sensitivity coefficients indicate that the uncertainty of the white matter conductivity has the largest influence on the uncertainty in the field computation, followed by gray matter and cerebrospinal fluid. Consequently, individual white matter conductivity values should be used in Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation field computations