Spatiotemporal consistency of neural responses to repeatedly presented video stimuli accounts for population preferences.

Population preferences for video advertisements vary across short video clips. What underlies these differences? Repeatedly watching a video clip may produce a consistent spatiotemporal pattern of neural activity that is dependent on the individual and the stimulus. Moreover, such consistency may be associated with the degree of engagement and memory of individual viewers. Since the population preferences are associated with the engagement and memory of the individual viewers, the consistency observed in a smaller group of viewers can be a predictor of population preferences. To test the hypothesis, we measured the degree of inter-trial consistency in participants' electroencephalographic (EEG) responses to repeatedly presented television commercials. We observed consistency in the neural activity patterns across repetitive views and found that the similarity in the spatiotemporal patterns of neural responses while viewing popular television commercials predicts population preferences obtained from a large audience. Moreover, a regression model that used two datasets, including two separate groups of participants viewing different stimulus sets, showed good predictive performance in a leave-one-out cross-validation. These findings suggest that universal spatiotemporal patterns in EEG responses can account for population-level human behaviours.

Emission rates of alpha particles from supports with different surface conditions in direct deposition sources.

Direct deposition is the only method that can be utilised for the standardisation of radioactive solutions because there is no deposition loss on a support. The present study investigated how much the roughness of the support influences the emission rate of alpha particles for direct deposition sources from the practical viewpoint of use of the method. A number of samples were prepared by evaporating a 0.1-ml aliquot of a dilute nitric acid aqueous solution that contained (241)Am on stainless steel supports with four different surface conditions; untreated supports were either polished (using metal abrasives available commercially) or not polished, and buffed supports (grid size of #400) were either polished or not polished. Alpha spectrometry of the samples revealed that the detection efficiency was significantly different between the non-polished and polished supports; the former was lower by 3 % than the latter for both the untreated and buffed supports. Microscopic observations clarified that the counting loss was attributed to irregular flaws or polishing lines on the non-polished supports, most of which were found to be in the order of submicron in depth and were diminished on the polished supports. One may usually assume that a direct deposition source offers no counting loss if its entire energy spectrum is seen above a low-energy discrimination limit of the spectrometer. However, this should be experimentally confirmed using a solution with known activity. It was difficult to identify the counting loss for the buffed supports without polishing because their energy spectra showed little degradation.

An imaging plate technique for evaluating energy attenuation in evaporated samples with different surface conditions.

In this paper, a new technique was proposed using an imaging plate (IP) as a useful tool for visually and quantitatively evaluating the attenuation of radiation energy on radiation sources. Samples were prepared by evaporating (241)Am solution on stainless steel disks with well-polished and non-polished surfaces. The samples were measured with an IP and then the obtained images were analysed based on two-dimensional photostimulated luminescence data. The images for the polished disks generally showed lower uniformity in the distribution than those for the non-polished disks. However, the detailed analysis of the images revealed a poor correlation between the source distribution and the attenuation of radiation energy for the disk samples, indicating that the non-uniformity of distribution was not a primary cause of the attenuation of radiation energy for the samples. The demonstration in this study showed a potential usefulness of the IP-based technique for evaluating self-absorption mechanisms, although the technique remains to be critically tested particularly using disk samples made by different preparation methods.

The study of activity median aerodynamic diameter using imaging plate technique for assessment of effective dose from radon and its decay products.

The indoor workplace environment was evaluated for exposure to radon and its decay products at two Universities in two metropolises of Japan. The mean radon concentrations in Nagoya University (NU) and Hokkaido University (HU) were 16.7 Bq m(-3) and 18.0 Bq m(-3), respectively. Activity median aerodynamic diameter (AMAD) of particles at NU ranged from 172 nm approximately 205 nm and at HU from 186 nm approximately 300 nm. Estimated effective doses for five usual sites of NU by ICRP approach was 0.15 mSvy(-1) approximately 0.76 mSvy(-1) and by UNSCEAR approach was 0.05 mSvy(-1) approximately 0.24 mSvy(-1). The effective dose for the same of HU by ICRP 66 approach was 0.16 mSvy(-1) approximately 0.79 mSvy(-1) and by UNSCEAR 2000 approach was 0.05 mSv y(-1) to 0.26 mSv y(-1). The two approaches differs on an average by a factor 2.3- approximately 4.7. The AMAD of obtained particle size distribution at NU has an average total deposition of 23% in human respiratory tract and 20% at HU.

A new digital autoradiographical method for identification of Pu particles using an imaging plate.

An autoradiographical method using an imaging plate (IP) was developed to identify rapidly the density of plutonium (Pu) particles on filter samples. Photostimulated luminescence (PSL) signals were obtained by exposing IPs to filter samples collecting Pu particles and naturally occurring radon decay products, respectively. Search and analysis of the alpha-induced PSL signals presented the time-dependent growth of PSL intensity from the Pu particles and the range of PSL intensities from radon decay products, making it possible to discriminate Pu particles from radon decay products using an empirical Pu-discrimination level, and then to quantify the Pu activities on a particle-by-particle basis. The method is useful for a fast screening of filter samples for Pu particles because it requires no special skills and tedious procedures during its use, gives a low discriminable activity for individual Pu particles with a relatively short exposure time, and allows us to measure a large number of filter samples at the same time.

Evaluation of aerosol sizing characteristic of an impactor using imaging plate technique.

The activity-size distribution of radon decay products are normally determined using two approaches: direct and indirect. The present study utilises the direct approach to evaluate sizing information of a low pressure cascade impactor using imaging plate (IP) technique for radon decay products. The experiment verified the use of the collection media as suggested by the manufacturer of impactor and proposed a few improvements toward sizing characteristics of impactor. The obtained relative activity-size distribution of radon decay products presents a sharp unimodal log-normal distribution of the particle characterised by activity median aerodynamic diameter (AMAD) of 268 nm and geometric standard deviation (sigma(g)) of 1.66. The obtained data with all the suggested improvements were evaluated by the data obtained from a scanning mobility particle sizer (SMPS, Model 3934, TSI Inc), as reference data. The verification lead to a derivative area ratio of 0.803 between the reference and experimental data.