פרסומים

This study assesses the variability of shear-wave (VS) profile determinations for a suite of methods at six industrial sites. The methods include active, consisting of multi-channel analysis of surface waves (MASW), as well as passive, consisting of refraction microtremor (ReMi), and extended spatial autocorrelation (ESAC). The purpose is to ascertain the effect of the higher level of ambient noise on the results from the different methods, as only a few of these many methods are commonly used for site characterization. The measured dispersion curves are in fair agreement with one another. The average coefficient of variation (CoV; the percentage ratio of the standard deviation to the mean) for the dispersion curves varied from 2.5% to 12.6%. In contrast, over the VS-depth domain, the average shear-wave velocity profiles to a depth z (VS,Z) vary from 11.6% to 16.5% between the various methods at the different sites. This indicates that the variance among the individual methods can lead to significant misinterpretation of the shallow subsurface, while the average VS,Z is much more robust. This reaffirms its use (mainly as VS,30) in building codes and within ground motion prediction equations (GMPEs). At all six sites, because of inversion processes, the variability within each method ranges from 4% up to 14%. There is no correlation between the test type and the CoV. Our study focused on surface-wave measurements in noisy industrial environments, where the signals processed are typically complex. Despite this complexity, our results suggest that such tests are also applicable to industrial zones, where the noisy environment constitutes an energy source.

Although a great deal of literature has been dedicated to the mutual links between emotion and the selective attention component of executive control, there is very little data regarding the links between emotion and the inhibitory component of executive control. In the current study we employed an emotional stop-signal task in order to examine whether emotion modulates and is modulated by inhibitory control. Results replicated previous findings showing reduced inhibitory control [longer stop-signal reaction time (SSRT)] following negative, compared to neutral pictures. Most importantly, results show decreased emotional interference following stop-signal trials. These results show that the inhibitory control component of executive control can serve to decrease emotional effects. We suggest that inhibitory control and emotion have a two-way connection in which emotion disrupts inhibitory control and activation of inhibitory control disrupts emotion

Performance of the Stroop task reflects two conflictsinformational (between the incongruent word and ink colour) and task (between relevant colour naming and irrelevant word reading). This is supported by findings showing that the anterior cingulate cortex is more activated by congruent and incongruent stimuli than by nonword neutral stimuli. Previously, researchers demonstrated behavioural evidence for task conflicta reverse facilitation effect under a reduced task conflict control condition. The boundary conditions of this Stroop reverse facilitation effect are not yet clear. The current study aimed to investigate whether task conflict arises, and task control is needed, whenever there are two possible tasks, even if the irrelevant task cannot mislead one to give erroneous responses (i.e., stimuli do not contain an informational conflict). To this end, in both experiments no incongruent stimuli were presented. In Experiment 1, participants conducted a Stroop task with a high proport

Performance on the Stroop task reflects two types of conflict-informational (between the incongruent word and font color) and task (between the contextually relevant color-naming task and the irrelevant, but automatic, word-reading task). According to the dual mechanisms of control theory (DMC; Braver, 2012), variability in Stroop performance can result from variability in the deployment of a proactive task-demand control mechanism. Previous research has shown that when proactive control (PC) is diminished, both increased Stroop interference and a reversed Stroop facilitation (RF) are observed. Although the current DMC model accounts for the former effect, it does not predict the observed RF, which is considered to be behavioral evidence for task conflict in the Stroop task. Here we expanded the DMC model to account for Stroop RF. Assuming that a concurrent working memory (WM) task reduces PC, we predicted both increased interference and an RF. Nineteen participants performed a standa

Task control is an executive control mechanism that facilitates goal-directed task selection by suppressing irrelevant automatic "stimulus-driven" behaviors. In the current study, we test the hypothesis that less efficient task control in individuals diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is associated with OCD symptoms, and specifically, with the inability to inhibit unwanted behaviors in OCD. Thirty-five healthy controls, 30 participants with OCD, and 26 participants with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) completed the object-interference (01) task to measure task control, the stop-signal task to measure response inhibition, and the arrow-flanker task to evaluate executive abilities not contingent upon task control. OCD patients, but not GAD patients or healthy controls, exhibited impaired performance on the OI task. The deficit in task control, but not in response inhibition, correlated with OCD symptom severity. We suggest that reduced task control may be one of the n