Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Assessment of the Effects of 5-HT6 Receptor Antagonists in Rodent Models of Learning

Antagonists of serotonin 6 (5-HT6) receptors have been reported to enhance cognition in animal models of learning, although this finding has not been universal. We have assessed the therapeutic potential of the specific 5-HT6 receptor antagonists, Ro 04-6790 and SB-271046, in rodent models of cognitive function. Although mice express the 5-HT6 receptor and the function of this receptor has been investigated in mice, all reports of activity with 5-HT6 receptor antagonists have utilized rat models. In the present study, receptor binding revealed that the pharmacological properties of the mouse receptor are different from the rat and human receptor: Ro 04-6790 does not bind to the mouse 5-HT6 receptor, so all in vivo testing included in the present report was conducted in rats. We replicated previous reports that 5-HT6 receptor antagonists produce a stretching syndrome previously shown to be mediated through cholinergic mechanisms, but Ro 04-6790 and SB-271046 failed to attenuate scopolamine-induced deficits in a test of contextual fear conditioning. We also failed to replicate the significant effects reported previously in both an autoshaping task and in a version of the Morris water maze. The results of our experiments are not consistent with previous reports that suggested that 5HT6 antagonists might have therapeutic potential for cognitive disorders. In our experiments, reference 5-HT6 receptor antagonists failed to demonstrate any significant effects suggestive of utility as cognition enhancing agents. JPET #56002 4 The 5-HT6 receptor was first isolated from rat striatal mRNA in 1993. It is localized almost exclusively in the CNS, including areas important for learning and memory, such as the cerebral cortex and been associated with clinical disorders such as Alzheimer's, bipolar affective disorder, and schizophrenia (Tsai et al., 1999a; Tsai et al., 1999b; Vogt et al., 2000), all of which are characterized by at least some degree of cognitive deficit. The suggestion that 5-HT6 receptor antagonists may have therapeutic potential as novel treatments for cognitive deficits is supported by reports that they facilitate cholinergic and glutamatergic neurotransmission. Antagonists of 5-HT6 receptors produce a behavioral syndrome of yawning/stretching/chewing, which is characteristic of cholinergic agonists (Bourson et al., and they reduce the number of rotations produced in rats by cholinergic antagonists (Bourson et al., 1998). 5-HT6 receptor antagonists have also been shown to enhance extracellular levels of glutamate in the frontal cortex and hippocampus as revealed during microdialysis (Dawson et al., 2000; Dawson et al., 2001). In addition, there is suggestive evidence …
High Survival of Lasius niger during Summer Flooding in a European Grassland

Climate change is projected to increase the frequency of extreme events, such as flooding and droughts, which are anticipated to have negative effects on the biodiversity of primary producers and consequently the associated consumer communities. Here we assessed the effects of an extreme early summer flooding event in 2013 on ant colonies along an experimental gradient of plant species richness in a temperate grassland. We tested the effects of flood duration, plant species richness, plant cover, soil temperature, and soil porosity on ant occurrence and abundance. We found that the ant community was dominated by Lasius niger, whose presence and abundance after the flood was not significantly affected by any of the tested variables, including plant species richness. We found the same level of occupation by L. niger at the field site after the flood (surveyed in 2013) as before the flood (surveyed in 2006). Thus, there were no negative effects of the flood on the presence of L. niger in the plots. We can exclude recolonisation as a possible explanation of ant presence in the field site due to the short time period between the end of the flood and survey as well as to the absence of a spatial pattern in the occupancy data. Thus, the omnipresence of this dominant ant species 1 month after the flood indicates that the colonies were able to survive a 3-week summer flood. The observed ant species proved to be flood resistant despite experiencing such extreme climatic events very rarely.
The power of sound in L2 idiom learning

Corpus analyses of learners’ dictionaries of English idioms have revealed that 11% to 35% of English figurative idioms show either alliteration (miss the mark) or assonance (get this show on the road), depending on the type considered. Because English multiword combinations, particularly idiomatic expressions, present a huge challenge even to advanced learners, techniques for helping learners come to grips with this part of the lexicon should be welcomed. A quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate whether interword phonological similarity (specifically, alliteration and assonance) facilitates the delayed recall of the forms of common second language (L2) English figurative idioms which were not known at pretest. Twenty-six advanced-level EFL learners learned significantly more phonologically similar, or ‘sound-repeating’, idioms than phonologically dissimilar control idioms after a treatment designed to raise awareness of phonological similarity and to direct learners’ attention toward occurrences of it. Learners in a comparison group (n = 24), who experienced no awareness raising or attention direction, recalled more non-sound-repeating control idioms than sound-repeating ones. We conclude that the presence of sound-repetition in idioms makes the forms of those idioms relatively easy to recall, but only when learners experience appropriate awareness raising and attention direction. It appears that the techniques of awareness raising and attention direction did not hinder learning of the control idioms.
A Systolic Array Architecture for the Two DimensionalLeast Mean Square Adaptive Algorithm

Digital image processing is a computationally intensive eld and has long been a driving force in the development of parallel architectures. Adaptive ltering using two dimensional causal and non-causal lter windows has recently been used to perform various tasks such as image enhancement and clutter suppression. A systolic array structure is developed for the delayed two dimensional adative LMS algorithm which can be used for image enhancement and edge detection. The TDLMS is inherently non-systolic in nature with global feedback of the error. A formal algebra for systolic computations is used to convert the inherently non-systolic TDLMS algorithm to a systolic version. This systolic version includes delaying the feedback error, and is the two dimensional analogue of the one dimensional delayed LMS adaptive lter. Global communication and zero delay data transfer between modules is avoided by transforming the TDLMS dependency relations which are described by this systolic computation algebra. This transformation leads to a systolic architecture using a bank of one dimensional adpative LMS lters each of which is a linear systolic array. Computaional throughput requirements of typical realtime image processing applications are also described.
ACADEMIC PAPERS Discretionary unplanned buying in consumer society

This paper addresses a disjunction between consumer behaviour discourse about ‘impulse buying’ and the reality of shopper behaviour in contemporary marketing and retail environments, by revising the concept of unplanned buying. ‘Discretionary unplanned buying’ is distinguished from impulse buying and is argued to be part of the core meaning of a ‘consumer society’. Consumers buy goods and services with discretionary income intentionally, but without prior planning. It is suggested that such purchases account for a significant portion of the excitement and the ‘hedonic’ satisfaction that consumers receive from their consumption purchases, both in the present day and historically. Consumer experiences as well as the historical development of retail places and consumer society are considered. Copyright # 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
QCD IN THE INFRARED WITH EXACT ANGULAR INTEGRATIONS

In a previous paper we have shown that in quantum chromodynamics the gluon propagator vanishes in the infrared limit, while the ghost propagator is more singular than a simple pole. These results were obtained after angular averaging, but here we go beyond this approximation and perform an exact calculation of the angular integrals. The powers of the infrared behavior of the propagators are changed substantially. We nd the very intriguing result that the gluon propagator vanishes in the infrared exactly like p2, whilst the ghost propagator is exactly as singular as 1=p4. We also nd that the value of the infrared xed point of the QCD coupling is much decreased: it is now equal to 4=3. Following a recent study by von Smekal et al., 1 we analyzed in Ref. 2 the coupled Dyson{Schwinger equations for the gluon and ghost form factors F and G . T he approximations were twofold: rst the vertices were taken bare, and second angular averaging was introduced. Here we seek to remove the deciency of the angular averaging. On the one hand, the results might be regarded simply as quantitative adjustments to the calculations, on the other hand, they are far from negligible. The numerical value of the infrared xed point is reduced by a factor of almost three; and the nding that the gluon propagator has a simple zero, while the ghost propagator has double poles, might perhaps be deemed a qualitatively new result. As an improvement on the approximation used in Ref. 2, we now solve the coupled integral equations for the gluon and ghost propagators with an exact treatment of the angular integrals. Although the angular averaging, the so-called y-max approximation, a is good in the ultraviolet region where the form factors run logarithmically, we will see that it is a crude approximation in the infrared region where the form factors exhibit power behavior. The approximation apparently leads to a diculty in the ghost equation, as the asymmetry in the treatment of the gluon and ghost momenta in the loop gives an ambiguous result. In our previous study
Models for learning spatial interactions in natural images

Classification of various image components (pixels, regions and objects) in meaningful categories is a challenging task due to ambiguities inherent to visual data. Natural images exhibit strong contextual dependencies in the form of spatial interactions among components. For example, neighboring pixels tend to have similar class labels, and different parts of an object are related through geometric constraints. Going beyond these, different regions e.g., sky and water, or objects e.g., monitor and keyboard appear in restricted spatial configurations. Modeling these interactions is crucial to achieve good classification accuracy. In this thesis, we present discriminative field models that capture spatial interactions in images in a discriminative framework based on the concept of Conditional Random Fields proposed by Lafferty et al. The discriminative fields offer several advantages over the Markov Random Fields (MRFs) popularly used in computer vision. First, they allow to capture arbitrary dependencies in the observed data by relaxing the restrictive assumption of conditional independence generally made in MRFs for tractability. Second, the interaction in labels in discriminative fields is based on the observed data, instead of being fixed a priori as in MRFs. This is critical to incorporate different types of context in images within a single framework. Finally, the discriminative fields derive their classification power by exploiting probabilistic discriminative models instead of the generative models used in MRFs. Since the graphs induced by the discriminative fields may have arbitrary topology, exact maximum likelihood parameter learning may not be feasible. We present an approach which approximates the gradients of the likelihood with simple piecewise constant functions constructed using inference techniques. To exploit different levels of contextual information in images, a two-layer hierarchical formulation is also described. It encodes both short-range interactions (e.g., pixelwise label smoothing) as well as long-range interactions (e.g., relative configurations of objects or regions) in a tractable manner. The models proposed in this thesis are general enough to be applied to several challenging computer vision tasks such as contextual object detection, semantic scene segmentation, texture recognition, and image denoising seamlessly within a single framework.
Linguistic and Cognitive Abilities in Children with Specific Language Impairment as Compared to Children with High-Functioning Autism

ABSTRACT This study investigates the question as to whether and how the linguistic and other cognitive abilities of children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) differ from those of children with High-Functioning Autism (HFA). To this end, 27 Dutch-speaking elementary-school-age children with SLI, 27 age-matched children with HFA, and a control group of 27 age-matched Typically Developing (TD) children were experimentally tested on various components of grammar, pragmatics, and nonverbal cognition. Prima facie, the results suggest a resemblance between SLI and HFA in their lower-than-TD performance on pragmatics. However, the children with SLI perform significantly weaker than the TD children on grammar and several cognition tests, while the children with HFA do not. It is concluded that, despite their initial resemblance in terms of pragmatics, children with SLI have profoundly different profiles from children with HFA in terms of grammar and nonverbal cognition and can thus not be considered as instantiations of the same continuum, as proposed by Bishop (2010).
Gaussian densities and stability for some Ricci solitons

In this announcement, we exhibit the second variation of Perelman's $\lambda$ and $\nu$ functionals for the Ricci flow, and investigate the linear stability of examples. We also define the "central density" of a shrinking Ricci soliton and compute its values for certain examples in dimension 4. Using these tools, one can sometimes predict or limit the formation of singularities in the Ricci flow. In particular, we show that certain Einstein manifolds are unstable for the Ricci flow in the sense that generic perturbations acquire higher entropy and thus can never return near the original metric.
High-Mass Star Formation. III. The Functional Form of the Submillimeter Clump Mass Function

We investigate the mass function of cold, dusty clumps in 11 low- and high-mass star-forming regions. Using a homogeneous fitting technique, we analyze the shape of each region's clump mass function and examine the commonalities among them. We find that the submillimeter continuum clump mass function in low-mass star-forming regions is typically best fitted by a lognormal distribution, while that in high-mass star-forming regions is better fitted by a double power law. A single power-law clump mass distribution is ruled out in all cases. Fitting all of the regions with a double power law, we find that the mean power-law exponent at the high-mass end of each mass function is αhigh = -2.4 ± 0.1, consistent with the Salpeter result of α = -2.35. We find no region-to-region trend in αhigh with the mass scale of the clumps in a given region, as characterized by their median mass. Similarly, nonparametric tests show that the shape of the clump mass function does not change much from region to region, despite the obvious changes in the intrinsic mass scale. This result is consistent with the hypothesis that the clump mass distribution is determined by a highly stochastic process, such as turbulent fragmentation. It may also suggest that the data reduction and analysis techniques strongly affect the shape of the derived mass function.
Extraction of Peptidoglycan from L. paracasei subp. Paracasei X12 and Its Preliminary Mechanisms of Inducing Immunogenic Cell Death in HT-29 Cells

L. paracasei subp. paracasei X12 was previously isolated from a Chinese traditional fermented cheese with anticancer activities and probiotic potential. Herein, the integral peptidoglycan (X12-PG) was extracted by a modified trichloroacetic acid (TCA) method. X12-PG contained the four representative amino acids Asp, Glu, Ala and Lys, and displayed the similar lysozyme sensitivity, UV-visible scanning spectrum and molecular weight as the peptidoglycan standard. X12-PG could induce the production of apoptotic bodies observed by transmission electron microscopy (TEM). X12-PG could significantly induced the translocation of calreticulin (CRT) and the release of high mobility group box 1 protein (HMGB1), the two notable hallmarks of immunogenic cell death (ICD), with the endoplastic reticulum (ER) damaged and subsequently intracellular [Ca2+] elevated. Our findings implied that X12-PG could induce the ICD of HT-29 cells through targeting at the ER. The present results may enlighten the prospect of probiotics in the prevention of colon cancer.
Religious Topic: The Effectiveness of Learning Media Based on Powerpoint

Assalamah Pre-school & Kindergarten as one of the early childhood institution seeks to develop an innovative learning model by using interactive learning CD developed by the teachers. The aim of this study was to determine the validity of the media developed by teachers and to know how big the effectiveness of instructional media used in the learning activities. The method used in this research is to use an experimental method that is pretest-posttest control group design to compare the learning achievement of children before and after being treated by using powerpoint-based learning and compared between the experimental group and the control group. The results from this study show that the media are declared valid. It is based on the data obtained from experts validator and material validator. The media used in teaching with religious themes in Assalamah Pre-school & Kindergarten Ungaran are not only valid but also effective in the learning activities, it can be seen from the improvement in learning outcomes for students, especially in kindergarten level B. How to cite Hasjiandito, A. , Adiarti, W. & Wantoro. (2015). Religious Topic: The Effectiveness of Learning Media Based on Powerpoint. Indonesian Journal of Early Childhood Education Studies , 4(2), 111-115. doi:10.15294/ijeces.v4i2. 9465 DOI 10.15294/ijeces.v4i2. 9465
Understanding Changes in the Distribution of Household Incomes in New Zealand Between 1983-86 and 1995-98

This paper presents an analysis of changes in the distribution of gross household income and income inequality over the period 1983–1998. The analysis applies a semiparametric approach to study the effects of changes in the distribution of household types, and changes in National Superannuation (old age pension), household socio-demographic attributes and employment outcomes, and in the “economic returns” to such attributes and employment outcomes on the distribution of income, and uses kernel density methods to estimate these effects. This approach provides a visual appreciation of the shape of the income distribution, and is important in understanding how each of these factors affected different parts of the distribution over the period. We also estimate the effects of each of these factors on changes in various summary measures of inequality over the period. The results find that changes in household structure (particularly the declining proportion of two-parent families), attributes, and employment outcomes each contribute to the observed increase in inequality, while the changes in returns are estimated to reduce the level of inequality. Collectively these factors account for about 50 percent of the observed increase, depending on the measure of inequality used. The results confirm other research findings that the changes were concentrated during the late 1980s.
Action and Event Recognition with Fisher Vectors on a Compact Feature Set

Action recognition in uncontrolled video is an important and challenging computer vision problem. Recent progress in this area is due to new local features and models that capture spatio-temporal structure between local features, or human-object interactions. Instead of working towards more complex models, we focus on the low-level features and their encoding. We evaluate the use of Fisher vectors as an alternative to bag-of-word histograms to aggregate a small set of state-of-the-art low-level descriptors, in combination with linear classifiers. We present a large and varied set of evaluations, considering (i) classification of short actions in five datasets, (ii) localization of such actions in feature-length movies, and (iii) large-scale recognition of complex events. We find that for basic action recognition and localization MBH features alone are enough for state-of-the-art performance. For complex events we find that SIFT and MFCC features provide complementary cues. On all three problems we obtain state-of-the-art results, while using fewer features and less complex models.
Averaged Gabor Filter Features for Facial Expression Recognition

An efficient automatic facial expression recognition method is proposed. The method uses a set of characteristic features obtained by averaging the outputs from the Gabor filter bank with 5 frequencies and 8 different orientations, and then further reducing the dimensionality by the means of principal component analysis. The performance of the proposed system was compared with the full Gabor filter bank method. The classification tasks were performed using the K-Nearest neighbor (K-NN) classifier. The training and testing images were selected from the publicly available JAFFE database. The classification results show that the average Gabor filter (AGF) provides very high computational efficiency at the cost of a relatively small decrease in performance when compared to the full Gabor filter features.
Processes of taking a gap-filling test: comparison of skilled and less skilled EFL readers

The present study investigates how skilled and less skilled readers answered a gap-filling (or rational deletion cloze) test in order to examine whether such tests can measure text-level processing ability. Twelve Japanese EFL students (six skilled and six less skilled readers) completed a gap-filling test while thinking aloud about their test-taking processes. Their verbal protocols were categorized according to the classification of cloze item types developed by Bachman (1985). Results showed that both skilled and less skilled readers used text-level information more frequently than other types of information. The skilled readers, however, used text-level information more frequently than the less skilled readers. Qualitative analysis of the protocols revealed further differences in the use of different types of information between the groups. Although there were several cases where the items were answered correctly with local grammatical clues and extra-textual background knowledge, overall, the gap-filling test generated text-level processing and differentiated well between skilled and less skilled readers. The present study, therefore, supports the claim that a gap-filling test can be used as a test to measure higher order processing ability.