Search results for "Looming"
showing 7 items of 7 documents
Luminance and contrast in visual perception of time to collision.
2013
AbstractMany animals avoid dark, approaching objects seen against a lighter background but show no or weaker reactions to stimuli with inverted contrast. We investigated whether human observers would respond differently to such stimuli in terms of estimated time-to-arrival. We varied luminances of an approaching, light or dark disk and a plain, grey background, and for several conditions, continuously adjusted calibrations so as to keep contrast and/or overall lightness constant. Since no effects were found, we conclude that humans are able to discard luminance and contrast for the task at hand. Generally, however, performance was affected by different, consecutive regimes of feedback: Init…
Predicting olive flowering phenology with phenoclimatic models
2018
In plants, day length and temperature are the major climatic factors that affect the transition from a phenological phase to the next one. Non-linear models, such as growing degree hours (GDH), have been successfully used to calculate thermal time required for spring bud burst in deciduous fruit trees. In this experiment, temperature records and blooming dates of olive trees in different years and for 10 different sites in the Italian territory were recorded. Olive booming time was correlated to the amount of (GDH) accumulated from the date of bud rest onset, calculated as the day when the maximum negative chilling units accumulation was reached (UTAH Model), to full bloom. The GDH model wa…
Dopo l'obsolescenza. Progetti per i viadotti ferroviari dismessi
2013
This article focuses on the increasing number of abandoned railways converted into new parkways, briefly investigating them trough the prism of obsolescence. Over the past forty years, the features matching with the average lifetime of infrastructural buildings have became of growing relevance dealing with contemporary policies in restructuring our territories. In the beginning of 21th century, facing the new challenges of the post-carbon era, cities of developed society are riddled with technical ruins, testaments to their recent productive past. Since the entanglement of transport infrastructure, industry and architecture highly represents important segments of 20th century urban tissues,…
Early bearing and vegetative growth of 153 Sicilian olive accessions
2018
In 2014, an olive germplasm collection was established in south-western Sicily, Italy. The collection included 153 Sicilian accessions and 3 international varieties (reference), each with 7 trees, spaced at 5×2 m and trained to hedgerow system. The aim of the trial was to study early growth and yield responses of the accessions to super-high planting density (SHD). Trunk cross sectional area, tree height, pruning weights, shoot positioning, blooming and fruit yield (kg tree-1) were measured in 2015 and 2016. Based on trunk growth and amount of prunings, the 153 accessions were separated into four categories of vigor as it follows: very high vigor (6 accessions), high vigor (13), medium vigo…
Use of phenoclimatic models to estimate the chill and heat requirements of four sweet cherry cultivars in Italy
2017
During their dormant period, fruit trees require a certain amount of relatively low temperatures to complete bud differentiation processes and regularly resume growth the following spring. Unsatisfied chilling needs can result in delayed foliation, severe yield and fruit quality losses. There is a need for a method to estimate accurately the chilling requirement of a cultivar. This is especially important in those areas where the potential of chill accumulation in winter is low and for those crops, such as sweet cherry, which generally have a high chilling requirement. Historical temperature records and blooming dates of four sweet cherry cultivars widely cultivated in Italy - 'Burlat', 'Sw…
Task Modifications in Walking Postpone Decline in Life-Space Mobility Among Community-Dwelling Older People: A 2-year Follow-up Study
2017
Background Task modification refers to performing a task differently than before. While task modification in walking may be a sign of looming walking difficulty, it may also be adaptive in and postpone the decline in life-space mobility. However, this has not been studied. This study examined whether changes in life-space mobility over a 2-year period differ between people who at baseline report no walking difficulty and no task modification, those who report no walking difficulty but task modification, and those who report walking difficulty. Methods Community-dwelling people aged 75–90 years were interviewed face-to-face at baseline (N = 848), and over phone one (n = 816) and two (n = 761…
Audiovisual Integration of Time-to-Contact Information for Approaching Objects.
2018
Previous studies of time-to-collision (TTC) judgments of approaching objects focused on effectiveness of visual TTC information in the optical expansion pattern (e.g., visual tau, disparity). Fewer studies examined effectiveness of auditory TTC information in the pattern of increasing intensity (auditory tau), or measured integration of auditory and visual TTC information. Here, participants judged TTC of an approaching object presented in the visual or auditory modality, or both concurrently. TTC information provided by the modalities was jittered slightly against each other, so that auditory and visual TTC were not perfectly correlated. A psychophysical reverse correlation approach was us…