Although adaptation is a ubiquitous property of neurons in the early visual pathway, the functional consequences in the natural visual environment are unknown. In this issue of Neuron, Mante et al. show, through a comprehensive set of in vivo experiments in the visual thalamus, that the basic functional mechanisms of adaptation that have been well studied with artificial probes capture the neur...

The importance of requirements, which in practice often means natural language requirements, for a successful software project cannot be underestimated. Although requirement analysis has been traditionally reserved to the experience of professionals, there is no reason not to use various automatic techniques to the same end. In this paper we present Circe, a Web-based environment for aiding in ...

Thought sampling, the experience sampling method (ESM), and descriptive experience sampling are 3 methods of randomly sampling thinking in participants' natural environments. All use beepers that signal participants to report aspects of their experience and behavior at random intervals. Thought sampling and ESM are quantitative methods, and standard validation studies have demonstrated them to ...

We propose AGENT, the Awareness Game Environment for Natural Training, as a virtual environment in which serious games can be enacted. AGENT combines research on interactive storytelling, game design, turn-taking and social signal processing with a multi-modal UI in a modular fashion. Current work in progress will deliver a first demonstrable prototype within 2013.

This paper presents the results of a clinical, observational, descriptive study to quantify the use patterns of electronic cigarette users in their natural environment. Previously published work regarding puff topography has been widely indirect in nature, and qualitative rather than quantitative, with the exception of three studies conducted in a laboratory environment for limited amounts of t...

Previous studies suggested that individuals generally had high preferences for natural sounds. Natural sounds like water sounds and bird songs added to noises were determined to be able to improve the quality of acoustic environment. Although it has been revealed how different types of water sounds would affect the preferences for environment differently when adding to road traffic to noises, l...