Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Large-Scale Synchronized Activity during Vocal Deviance Detection in the Zebra Finch Auditory Forebrain

Auditory systems bias responses to sounds that are unexpected on the basis of recent stimulus history, a phenomenon that has been widely studied using sequences of unmodulated tones (mismatch negativity; stimulus-specific adaptation). Such a paradigm, however, does not directly reflect problems that neural systems normally solve for adaptive behavior. We recorded multiunit responses in the caudomedial auditory forebrain of anesthetized zebra finches (Taeniopygia guttata) at 32 sites simultaneously, to contact calls that recur probabilistically at a rate that is used in communication. Neurons in secondary, but not primary, auditory areas respond preferentially to calls when they are unexpected (deviant) compared with the same calls when they are expected (standard). This response bias is predominantly due to sites more often not responding to standard events than to deviant events. When two call stimuli alternate between standard and deviant roles, most sites exhibit a response bias to deviant events of both stimuli. This suggests that biases are not based on a use-dependent decrease in response strength but involve a more complex mechanism that is sensitive to auditory deviance per se. Furthermore, between many secondary sites, responses are tightly synchronized, a phenomenon that is driven by internal neuronal interactions rather than by the timing of stimulus acoustic features. We hypothesize that this deviance-sensitive, internally synchronized network of neurons is involved in the involuntary capturing of attention by unexpected and behaviorally potentially relevant events in natural auditory scenes.
A review of thinking and research about inclusive education policy, with suggestions for a new kind of inclusive thinking

A range of changes, in politics and economics internationally as well as in thought about learning and society, now make the time right for a re-think of inclusive education, a re-think that ceases to employ the constructs and cliches of the past in explaining students' difficulties at school. There exists new discourse on difference, which throws fresh light on the ways that students at school are disadvantaged—there is a new psychology of difference emerging from work in varied social scientific fields that gives insights into the mechanisms by which inequality, relative poverty and contrastive judgment construct difficulty and closure on learning. In this review, both a history and a hope, I argue that no time has been better for such understandings to make themselves realized in policy and practice.
'Incrementing' in Conversation. A Comparison of Practices in English, German and Japanese

This cross-linguistic study focuses on ways in which conversationalists speak beyond a point of possible turn completion in conversation, specifically on turn extensions which are grammatically dependent, backward-looking and extend the prior action. It argues that further distinctions can be made in terms of whether the extension is prosodically integrated with the prior unit, its host, (Non-add-on) or not, and in terms of whether it repairs some part of the host (Replacement) or not. Added-on, non-repairing extensions are further distinguished in terms of whether they are grammatically fitted to the end of the host (Glue-ons) or not (Insertables). A preliminary survey of TCU continuation in English, German and Japanese conversation reveals a number of significant differences with respect to frequency and range of extension type. English is at one extreme in preferring Glue-ons over Non-Add-ons and Insertables, whereas Japanese is at the other extreme in preferring Non-add-ons and Insertables over Glue-ons. German occupies an intermediary position but is on the whole more like Japanese. The preference for Glue-ons vs. Insertables appears to reflect a language's tendency towards syntactic left- vs. right headedness. In conclusion the study argues for a classification of 'increment' types which goes beyond the English-based Glue-on, attributes a central role to prosodic delivery and adopts a usage-based understanding of word order. Keywords: Increment; Turn-constructional unit (TCU); Post-possible completion; Free constituent; Transition relevance place (TRP); Same-turn self-repair; Right dislocation; German sentence brace; Japanese predicate finality; Zero anaphora; Syntactic headedness.
Longitudinal influence of perceptions of peer and parental factors on African American adolescent risk involvement

To explore the long-term contributions of perceived peer and parental influences on adolescent risk and protective behaviors (sexual involvement, condom use, and drug use), we assessed self-reported behaviors and perceptions of peer risk involvement and parental supervision and communication among 383 low-income, urban African Americans aged 9 to 15 years at baseline over a 4-year, period. Baseline perceptions of peer sexual involvement were significantly associated with youth sexual behavior at baseline and were predictive of sexual involvement through all 4 years of follow-up. Perceived parental monitoring was inversely correlated with sexual involvement ment through 3 years of follow-up. Perceptions of peer condom use were associated with increased levels of condom use at baseline and through 6 months of follow-up. Positive parental communication was correlated with increased condom use. Drug use was higher among youths who perceived peers or family members to be using drugs and was inversely correlated with increased parental monitoring and supervision. Stepwise regression revealed peer and parental influences for all three behaviors. Perceptions of both peer and parental behaviors influence long-term risk and protective behaviors of adolescents. Therefore, parents should be included in adolescent riskreduction intervention efforts. Inclusion of friends and/or changing youth perceptions of peer involvement may also be effective intervention strategies.
A New Etiology for Visual Impairment and Chronic Headache: The Tolosa-Hunt Syndrome may be Only One Manifestation of Venous Vasculitis

The Tolosa-Hunt syndrome is characterized by recurrent periods of painful ophthalmoplegia, dramatically ameliorated by steroid treatment. In half of the cases orbital phlebography shows characteristic changes. Ninety-six patients with orbital pain characteristic of the Tolosa-Hunt syndrome were submitted to orbital phlebography regardless of the existence of other symptoms. A pathologic phlebogram with changes typical of the Tolosa-Hunt syndrome was found in 50 patients. In 17 of these 50 patients the symptoms consisted of orbital pain only and no ophthalmoplegia. Twenty patients had pain and ipsilateral decrease of vision but no ophthalmoplegia, and 13 had painful ophthalmoplegia. Of 41 patients treated with steroid medication 39 responded dramatically with regard to the pain. Earlier findings indicate that the phlebographic changes are due to venous vasculitis, which thus may cause irreversible visual impairment but also chronic headache without ophthalmoplegia. It is concluded that the Tolosa-Hunt syndrome may be only one manifestation of a not uncommon disease.
Age at marriage and marital instability.

Numerous studies show that early marriage increases marital instability; more recent studies show that late marriages also appear to be less stable. This paper examines 3 alternatives: 1) how the effect of marital timing may be mediated by the adequacy of role performance 2) the availability of alternatives to the marital relationship and 3) external pressures on the married pair. Using a 1980 national sample of 1715 married people under age 55 the study compared the relationship of the dependent variable marital instability with the independent variable age at marriage and intervening variables--aspects of spouses performance troublesome behaviors of self and spouse perceived ability to manage in case of divorce barriers to divorce parent-spouse relations and sharing friends. Multiple classification analysis shows that marital instability is highest for those who marry early with those who marry late scoring somewhat lower. While role performance is the only explanation of the 3 considered that reaches significance it does not totally account for the association between marital timing and instability. The authors suggest that age at marriage influences early and late marriages in very different ways. In teenage marriages the role performance variable that best accounts for instability is lack of sexual exclusiveness. This perceived problem coincides with the peak in sexual interest especially among men hinting that this may have a biosocial origin. Perhaps individuals who limit their sexual partners to 1 when their interest in variety is high develop a pattern of acting out their impulses thoughout their lives. Interpreting the instability of late marriages is more difficult. Late marriers may be marrying people quite different from themselves because they have fewer choices. Late-marrying males also tended to marry women considerably younger and better educated than themselves. These background differences could be an important reason for marital instability.
The Xenopus laevis U2 gene distal sequence element (enhancer) is composed of four subdomains that can act independently and are partly functionally redundant

The sequences involved in enhancement of transcription of the Xenopus U2 small nuclear RNA gene by the distal sequence element (DSE) of its promoter were analyzed in detail by microinjection of mutant genes into Xenopus oocytes. The DSE was shown to be roughly 60 base pairs long. Within this region, four motifs were found to contribute to DSE function: an ATGCAAAT octamer sequence, an SpI binding site, and two additional motifs which, since they are related in sequence, may bind the same transcription factor. These motifs were named D2 (for DSE; U2). Both the octamer sequence and the SpI site bound nuclear factors in vitro, but no factor binding to the D2 motifs was detected. All four elements were independently capable of enhancing transcription of the U2 gene to some extent. Furthermore, when assayed under both competitive and noncompetitive conditions, the individual units of the DSE displayed functional redundancy.
Super-Resolution Without Explicit Subpixel Motion Estimation

The need for precise (subpixel accuracy) motion estimates in conventional super-resolution has limited its applicability to only video sequences with relatively simple motions such as global translational or affine displacements. In this paper, we introduce a novel framework for adaptive enhancement and spatiotemporal upscaling of videos containing complex activities without explicit need for accurate motion estimation. Our approach is based on multidimensional kernel regression, where each pixel in the video sequence is approximated with a 3-D local (Taylor) series, capturing the essential local behavior of its spatiotemporal neighborhood. The coefficients of this series are estimated by solving a local weighted least-squares problem, where the weights are a function of the 3-D space-time orientation in the neighborhood. As this framework is fundamentally based upon the comparison of neighboring pixels in both space and time, it implicitly contains information about the local motion of the pixels across time, therefore rendering unnecessary an explicit computation of motions of modest size. The proposed approach not only significantly widens the applicability of super-resolution methods to a broad variety of video sequences containing complex motions, but also yields improved overall performance. Using several examples, we illustrate that the developed algorithm has super-resolution capabilities that provide improved optical resolution in the output, while being able to work on general input video with essentially arbitrary motion.
Effect of topological dimension on rigidity of vehicle formations: Fundamental limitations of local feedback

We consider the role of topological dimension in problems of network consensus and vehicular formations where only local feedback is available. In particular, we consider the simple network topologies of regular lattices in 1, 2 and higher dimensions. Performance measures for consensus and formation problems are proposed that measure the deviation from average and rigidity or tightness of formations respectively. A common phenomenon appears where in dimensions 1 and 2, consensus is impossible in the presence of any amount of additive stochastic perturbations, and in the limit of large formations. In dimensions 3 and higher, consensus is indeed possible. We show that microscopic error measures that involve only neighboring sites do not suffer from this effect. This phenomenon reflects the fact that in dimensions 1 and 2, local stabilizing feedbacks can not suppress long spatial wavelength ¿meandering¿ motions. These effects are significantly more pronounced in vehicular problems than in consensus, and yet they are unrelated to string stability issues.
"Two" much of a good thing? Then let's pick one slot size and make it metric.

Today’s practitioners perceive that they have a choice between “two” nominal slot sizes: 0.018 in and 0.022 in. In reality, manufacturers do not provide discrete slot sizes but rather a spectrum of slot sizes that can vary anywhere from 0.0178 to 0.0237 in. 1-6 Several factors contribute to this variability: United States versus European tooling, different corporate criteria for tolerances, more favorable sliding mechanics for oversized slots, and lack of unified specification standards worldwide. Another key reason lies closer to home, however—the failure of practitioners to require the consolidation of practices from town to town, state to state, and nation to nation. In a profession where appointments, records, fees, societies, and fund-raisers are so organized, why do redundant degrees of freedom permeate the everyday practice of orthodontics? In particular, why can’t the profession settle on a single slot size and make it metric? Rubin 7 pleaded his case for standardization of the
Fast and Accurate Routing Demand Estimation for Efficient Routability-driven Placement

This paper presents a fast and accurate routing demand estimation called RUDY and its efficient integration in a force-directed quadratic placer to optimize placements for routability. RUDY is based on a rectangular uniform wire density per net and accurately models the routing demand of a circuit as determined by the wire distribution after final routing. Unlike published routing demand estimation, RUDY depends neither on a bin structure nor on a certain routing model to estimate the behavior of a router. Therefore RUDY is independent of the router. Our fast and robust force-directed quadratic placer is based on a generic demand-and-supply model and is guided by the routing demand estimation RUDY to optimize placements for routability. This yields a placer which simultaneously reduces the routing demand in congested regions and increases the routing supply there. Therefore our placer fully utilizes the potential to optimize the routability. This results in the best published routed wirelength of the IBMv2 benchmark suite until now. In detail, our approach outperforms mPL, ROOSTER, and APlace by 9%, 8%, and 5%, respectively. Compared by the CPU times, which ROOSTER needs to place this benchmark, our routability optimization placer is eight times faster
The problem of grammar teaching: a case study of the relationship between a teacher's beliefs and pedagogical practice

Through a case study of a first-language English teacher's approach to teaching writing, the significance of conceptual and affective beliefs about grammar for pedagogical practice is explored. The study explores a perceived dichotomy between grammar and creativity, examining a belief that attention to grammar is separate and secondary to the generation of ideas, the creation of meaning and to personal expression. It indicates that, in this case, these perceptions are related to formulaic approaches to the teaching of grammar for writing which separate content and form and reduce attention to grammar to a superficial level. Theoretically, the study provides evidence that beliefs play an important role in influencing pedagogy in contested areas of the curriculum. It demonstrates how affective and conceptual elements of belief can shape practice, particularly when external constraints on teaching are low. It argues that attempts to advance a rhetorical and contextualised approach to grammar, as evident in parts of the English National Curriculum, must therefore take into account the impact of teachers’ beliefs about grammar.
Elements for successful collaboration between K-8 school, community agency, and university partners: the lead peace partnership.

BACKGROUND Researchers, schools, and community organizations are increasingly interested in forming partnerships to improve health and learning outcomes for adolescents. School-based service learning programs with young adolescents have been shown to improve students' health and educational outcomes. Quality school-based service learning practice requires partnerships that are collaborative, mutually beneficial, and address community needs. This article examines core elements of a community-school-university partnership engaged in implementing and evaluating Lead Peace, a service learning program for urban middle school youth. METHODS The partnership was assessed through (1) semistructured group interviews with program facilitators at each school at the end of the 2006 to 2007 and 2007 to 2008 school years; (2) key informant interviews with school administrators; and (3) participant observations of partnership meetings. Qualitative analysis was conducted to identify common and emerging themes that contribute to the success of the Lead Peace partnership. RESULTS Ten themes were identified as keys to the success of the Lead Peace partnership: (1) communication; (2) shared decision making; (3) shared resources; (4) expertise and credibility; (5) sufficient time to develop and maintain relationships; (6) champions and patron saints; (7) being present; (8) flexibility; (9) a shared youth development orientation; and (10) recognition of other partners' priorities. CONCLUSIONS Partnerships that are essential to quality service learning practice require deliberate planning and ongoing attention. Elements of the successful Lead Peace partnership may be useful for other collaborators to consider.
Acquired Activated Protein C Resistance, Thrombophilia and Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes: A Study Performed in an Irish Cohort of Pregnant Women

The combination of thrombophilia and pregnancy increases the risk of thrombosis and the potential for adverse outcomes during pregnancy. The most significant common inherited risk factor for thrombophilia is activated protein C resistance (APCR), a poor anticoagulant response of APC in haemostasis, which is mainly caused by an inherited single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), factor V G1691A (FV Leiden) (FVL), referred as inherited APCR. Changes in the levels of coagulation factors: FV, FVIII, and FIX, and anticoagulant factors: protein S (PS) and protein C (PC) can alter APC function causing acquired APCR. Prothrombin G20210A and methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T are prothrombotic SNPs which in association with APCR can also increase the risk of thrombosis amongst Caucasians. In this study, a correlation between an acquired APCR phenotype and increased levels of factors V, VIII, and IX was demonstrated. Thrombophilic mutations amongst our acquired APCR pregnant women cohort are relatively common but do not appear to exert a severe undue adverse effect on pregnancy.
RCT of Working Memory Training in ADHD: Long-Term Near-Transfer Effects

Objective The aim of the study is to evaluate the long-term near-transfer effects of computerized working memory (WM) training on standard WM tasks in children with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Method Sixty-seven children aged 10–12 years in Vestfold/Telemark counties (Norway) diagnosed with F90.0 Hyperkinetic disorder (ICD-10) were randomly assigned to training or control group. The training group participated in a 25-day training program at school, while the control group received treatment-as-usual. Participants were tested one week before intervention, immediately after and eight months later. Based on a component analysis, six measures of WM were grouped into composites representing Visual, Auditory and Manipulation WM. Results The training group had significant long-term differential gains compared to the control group on all outcome measures. Performance gains for the training group were significantly higher in the visual domain than in the auditory domain. The differential gain in Manipulation WM persisted after controlling for an increase in simple storage capacity. Conclusion Systematic training resulted in a long-term positive gain in performance on similar tasks, indicating the viability of training interventions for children with ADHD. The results provide evidence for both domain-general and domain-specific models. Far-transfer effects were not investigated in this article. Trial Registration: Controlled-Trials.com ISRCTN19133620
Effects of Strategy Training and Incentives on Students’ Performance, Confidence, and Calibration

This study examined the effect of strategy instruction and incentives on performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy. Individuals (N = 107) in randomly assigned treatment groups received a multicomponent strategy instruction intervention, financial incentives for high performance, or both. The authors predicted that incentives would improve performance, while strategy instruction would improve performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy as a result of better monitoring and self-regulation of learning. The authors compared pre- and posttest items and 20 new posttest-only items. They found significant effects for strategy training on performance, confidence, and calibration accuracy, as well as the interaction between strategy training and time on calibration accuracy. Incentives improved performance and calibration accuracy, either directly, or through an interaction with strategy training. Implications for future research are discussed.
L-Arginine L-Glutamate Enhances Gastric Motor Function in Rats and Dogs and Improves Delayed Gastric Emptying in Dogs

Amino acids are not only constituents of proteins, but also have multiple physiologic functions. Recent findings have revealed that ingested amino acids either activate luminal receptors or are metabolized, causing physiologic reactions in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. We examined the effect of oral L-arginine L-glutamate (ArgGlu), a pharmaceutical amino acid salt used i.v. for the treatment of hyperammonemia, on gastric motor function in rats and dogs. Gastric emptying was determined using phenol red and 13C-breath test methods, whereas gastric relaxation was determined using the barostat method. ArgGlu (10–30 mg/kg, p.o.) dose-dependently promoted gastric emptying in rats. This effect was dependent on vagus nerve activation and comparable to that of the prokinetic mosapride. Intragastric ArgGlu (3–30 mg/kg intragastrically) also dose-dependently enhanced adaptive relaxation of rat stomachs, which was negated not by vagotomy of gastric branches, but by pretreatment with N omega-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester (20 mg/kg i.v.), a nitric oxide synthase inhibitor. Its relaxing effect on the stomach was also confirmed in dogs and was equally as efficacious as treatment with sumatriptan (1–3 mg/kg s.c.). ArgGlu (30 mg/kg p.o.) significantly reduced the half gastric emptying time in clonidine-induced delayed gastric emptying of solids in dogs, and its effect was comparable to that of cisapride (3 mg/kg p.o.). This study demonstrated that the pharmaceutical ingredient ArgGlu, currently used i.v. , enhanced gastric motor function when administered orally, suggesting that it could be a new oral medicine indicated for treatment of upper GI hypofunction or dysfunction like functional dyspepsia.