Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Connectionist Models in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience : Critical Periods and the Paradox of Success

Connectionist models have made significant contributions to understanding developmental phenomena, mainly by providing novel computational accounts of behavioral emergence and change. What is the fate of such models given the increasing interest in and information about the biological bases of development? We consider this issue with respect to the classical idea of a critical period for acquiring language. The standard view is that neurobiological developments on a strict maturational timetable create limits on language learning capacity. Computational analysis suggests the opposite: that learning itself creates neurobiological conditions underlying the “closing” of the critical period. The critical period example suggests how connectionist models can continue to provide a necessary level of analysis intermediate between behavior and brain. Seidenberg & Zevin 3
Defect aware droplet routing technique in digital microfluidic biochip

Significant researches are going on droplet routing of digital microfluidic biochip (DMFB). Detection of failure and performing defect free routing is a new paradigm. This paper proposes a heuristic approach of droplet routing by evading the defective electrode regions. The proposed work tries to minimize multiple usage of same resource, thus by reducing the probability of defects, or routing failure due to residual traces of several droplets. All the droplets are routed in concurrent fashion, and repeated utilization of same electrode is avoided by assigning a variable to the electrodes, and updating the value in each iteration. Experimental studies show some notable results compared to some existing literature. It is also noticed that percentage degradation in electrode usage and latest arrival time due to defect aware routing is quite less and under a tolerable limit considering the importance of defect bypassing approach.
A Cross-Layer Vertical Handover between Mobile WiMAX and 3G Networks

Nowadays wireless packet data services are provided over wireless MAN (WMAN) with high data rate while 3G cellular networks provide wide-area coverage with low data rate. The interworking of mobile WiMAX and 3G networks is indispensably required to serve users who need both high-speed wireless access as well as wide-area connectivity. In this paper, we propose a cross-layer optimization of vertical handover between mobile WiMAX and 3G cellular networks. More specifically, L2 (layer 2) and L3 (layer 3) signaling messages for vertical handover are analyzed and reordered/combined to optimize the handover procedure. Extensive simulations using ns-2 exhibit the proposed scheme enhances the performance of vertical handover between mobile WiMAX and 3G networks: low handover latency, high TCP throughput, and low UDP packet loss ratio.
JAK1–STAT1–STAT3, a key pathway promoting proliferation and preventing premature differentiation of myoblasts

Skeletal muscle stem cell–derived myoblasts are mainly responsible for postnatal muscle growth and injury-induced muscle regeneration. However, the cellular signaling pathways controlling the proliferation and differentiation of myoblasts are not fully understood. We demonstrate that Janus kinase 1 (JAK1) is required for myoblast proliferation and that it also functions as a checkpoint to prevent myoblasts from premature differentiation. Deliberate knockdown of JAK1 in both primary and immortalized myoblasts induces precocious myogenic differentiation with a concomitant reduction in cell proliferation. This is caused, in part, by an accelerated induction of MyoD, myocyte enhancer–binding factor 2 (MEF2), p21Cip1, and p27Kip1, a faster down-regulation of Id1, and an increase in MEF2-dependent gene transcription. Downstream of JAK1, of all the signal transducer and activator of transcriptions (STATs) present in myoblasts, we find that only STAT1 knockdown promotes myogenic differentiation in both primary and immortalized myoblasts. Leukemia inhibitory factor stimulates myoblast proliferation and represses differentiation via JAK1–STAT1–STAT3. Thus, JAK1–STAT1–STAT3 constitutes a signaling pathway that promotes myoblast proliferation and prevents premature myoblast differentiation.
Conflict monitoring and detection in the bilingual brain

Bilinguals sometimes outperform monolinguals on tasks involving cognitive control – the regulation of mental activity when confronted with information-processing conflict – perhaps stemming from experience monitoring for and resolving conflict between languages. We test the hypothesis that bilingualism affects moment-to-moment cognitive-control recruitment by examining how trial history influences bilinguals’ and monolinguals’ behavioral performance and associated neural activity on a Stroop task. We assessed dynamic effects of preceding trial conflict on current trial performance to separate the ability to proactively detect conflict (performance on new instances of conflict) from the ability to reactively recruit cognitive control (performance on trials following conflict). Across two experiments, monolinguals’ – but not bilinguals’ – accuracy decreased after non-conflict trials, i.e., when detecting initial conflicts. Bilinguals exhibited greater conflict-detection activity in ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC/insula; BA 47) within a language-switching network, suggesting that they may monitor for information-conflict more proactively than monolinguals by recruiting brain regions involved in switching languages.
No-Reference PSNR Identification of MPEG Video Using Spectral Regression and Reduced Model Polynomial Networks

This letter proposes a no-reference MacroBlock (MB) level PSNR identification of compressed MPEG video. Features are extracted on MB basis from video bitstreams and reconstructed images. The identification problem is formalized using reduced model polynomial networks. The letter proposes a two-step identification solution in which supervised spectral regression is used to reduce the dimensionality of the feature vector prior to model estimation. Two identification scenarios are presented in the experimental results, namely, video sequence dependent and video sequence independent identification. Based on the various video sequences used in the experiments, it is shown that the average mean absolute difference between the actual and the identified PSNRs is 1 dB and 1.6 dB for the sequence dependent and sequence independent identification respectively.
A Pilot Study of Normobaric Oxygen Therapy in Acute Ischemic Stroke

Background and Purpose— Therapies that transiently prevent ischemic neuronal death can potentially extend therapeutic time windows for stroke thrombolysis. We conducted a pilot study to investigate the effects of high-flow oxygen in acute ischemic stroke. Methods— We randomized patients with acute stroke (<12 hours) and perfusion-diffusion “mismatch” on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to high-flow oxygen therapy via facemask for 8 hours (n=9) or room air (controls, n=7). Stroke scale scores and MRI scans were obtained at baseline, 4 hours, 24 hours, 1 week, and 3 months. Clinical deficits and MR abnormalities were compared between groups. Results— Stroke scale scores were similar at baseline, tended to improve at 4 hours (during therapy) and 1 week, and significantly improved at 24 hours in hyperoxia-treated patients. There was no significant difference at 3 months. Mean (±SD) relative diffusion MRI lesion volumes were significantly reduced in hyperoxia-treated patients at 4 hours (87.8±22% versus 149.1±41%; P=0.004) but not subsequent time points. The percentage of MRI voxels improving from baseline “ischemic” to 4-hour “non-ischemic” values tended to be higher in hyperoxia-treated patients. Cerebral blood volume and blood flow within ischemic regions improved with hyperoxia. These “during-therapy” benefits occurred without arterial recanalization. By 24 hours, MRI showed reperfusion and asymptomatic petechial hemorrhages in 50% of hyperoxia-treated patients versus 17% of controls (P=0.6). Conclusions— High-flow oxygen therapy is associated with a transient improvement of clinical deficits and MRI abnormalities in select patients with acute ischemic stroke. Further studies are warranted to investigate the safety and efficacy of hyperoxia as a stroke therapy.
The VVDS-VLA deep field. IV. Radio-optical properties

Aims. The availability of wide angle and deep surveys, both in the optical and the radio band, allows us to explore the evolution of radio sources with optical counterparts up to redshift z˜ 1.1 in an unbiased way using large numbers of radio sources and well defined control samples of radio-quiet objects. Methods: We use the 1.4 GHz VIMOS-VLA Deep Survey, the optical VIMOS-VLT Deep Survey and the CFHT Legacy Survey to compare the properties of radio-loud galaxies with respect to the whole population of optical galaxies. The availability of multiband photometry and high quality photometric redshifts allows us to derive rest-frame colors and radio luminosity functions to a limit of a B rest-frame magnitude of M_B=-20. We derive spectrophotometric types, following the classification of Zucca et al. (2006, A&A, 455, 879), in order to have a priori knowledge of the optical evolution of different galaxy classes. Results: Galaxy properties and luminosity functions are estimated up to z˜ 1 for radio-loud and radio-quiet early and late type galaxies. Radio-loud late type galaxies show significantly redder colors than radio-quiet objects of the same class and this is related to the presence of more dust in stronger star forming galaxies. We estimate the optical luminosity functions, stellar masses and star formation rate distributions for radio sources and compare them with those derived for a well defined control sample, finding that the probability of a galaxy to be a radio emitter significantly increases at high values of these parameters. Radio-loud early type galaxies exhibit luminosity evolution in their bivariate radio-optical luminosity function, due to evolution in the radio-optical ratio. The lack of evolution of the mass function of radio-loud early type galaxies means that no new AGN are formed at redshift z 0.7. This evolution is a direct effect of the strong optical evolution of this class and no significant change with redshift in the radio-optical ratio is required. With the knowledge of the radio-optical ratio and the optical and radio luminosity functions for late type galaxies, we show that it is possible to estimate the star formation history of the Universe up to redshift z˜ 1.5, using optical galaxies as tracers of the global radio emission.
Stochastic analysis of spatial and opportunistic aloha

Spatial Aloha is probably the simplest medium access protocol to be used in a large mobile ad hoc network: each station tosses a coin independently of everything else and accesses the channel if it gets heads. In a network where stations are randomly and homogeneously located in the Euclidean plane, there is a way to tune the bias of the coin so as to obtain the best possible compromise between spatial reuse and per transmitter throughput. This paper shows how to address this questions using stochastic geometry and more precisely Poisson shot noise field theory. The theory that is developed is fully computational and leads to new closed form expressions for various kinds of spatial averages (like e.g. outage, throughput or transport). It also allows one to derive general scaling laws that hold for general fading assumptions. We exemplify its flexibility by analyzing a natural variant of Spatial Aloha that we call Opportunistic Aloha and that consists in replacing the coin tossing by an evaluation of the quality of the channel of each station to its receiver and a selection of the stations with good channels (e.g. fading) conditions. We show how to adapt the general machinery to this variant and how to optimize and implement it. We show that when properly tuned, Opportunistic Aloha very significantly outperforms Spatial Aloha, with e.g. a mean throughput per unit area twice higher for Rayleigh fading scenarios with typical parameters.
Mixed Cutaneous Infection Caused by Mycobacterium szulgai and Mycobacterium intermedium in a Healthy Adult Female: A Rare Case Report

Nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTMs) are ubiquitous and are being increasingly reported as human opportunistic infection. Cutaneous infection caused by mixed NTM is extremely rare. We encountered the case of a 46-year-old female, who presented with multiple discharging sinuses over the lower anterior abdominal wall (over a previous appendectomy scar) for the past 2 years. Microscopy and culture of the pus discharge were done to isolate and identify the etiological agent. Finally, GenoType Mycobacterium CM/AS assay proved it to be a mixed infection caused by Mycobacterium szulgai and M. intermedium. The patient was advised a combination of rifampicin 600 mg once daily, ethambutol 600 mg once daily, and clarithromycin 500 mg twice daily to be taken along with periodic follow-up based upon clinical response as well as microbiological response. We emphasize that infections by NTM must be considered in the etiology of nonhealing wounds or sinuses, especially at postsurgical sites.
Statistical precoder design for spatial correlated MIMO channels in V-BLAST systems

The degradation in the bit error probability of V-BLAST system is often owing to its low diversity and error propagation in the receiver. But if channel state information is available at the transmitter, we always design precoder to optimize the transceiver, in order to improve the performance obviously. In this paper, we firstly overview the ideal precoder with perfect channel state information (CSI) at the transmitter. Then, given long term statistical channel information feedback and rank deficiency MIMO channel, we shall construct the statistical precoder based on the criterion of minimizing the pair-wise error probability bound. It is concluded that the optimum statistical precoder is selected as the domain eigenvectors of the transmit correlation matrix. Finally, from the simulation results, it is observed that statistical precoder could achieve significant precoding gain at the entire SNR region, and its bit error rate (BER) performance is even close to the ideal precoder in higher correlation channels.
Homo debitor: money and debt as power2 relation

ABSTRACT In this review article, I survey books by three authors, each of which address the issues of debt and personal indebtedness. The authors are: Greta Krippner; David Graeber; and Maurizio Lazzarato. They argue, and I agree, that whilst money is broadly beneficial, its use in a capitalist context increases personal indebtedness, subjugates the individual, and reduces freedom. I briefly outline their positions, each of which make important contributions. However – contrary to Krippner’s lack of normative commitment, Graeber’s suggestion that we need to forgive the debt and start again, or Lazzarato’s suggestion that we should to stop paying back debt and refuse to work – I suggest that we need to return to socialist principles, based on the premise that capitalism is no alternative.
How Interviewer Effects Differ in Real and Falsified Survey Data: Using Multilevel Analysis to Identify Interviewer Falsifications

In face-to-face interviews, interviewers can have an important positive influence on the quality of survey data, but they can also introduce interviewer effects. What is even more problematic is that interviewers may decide to falsify all or parts of interviews. The question that the present article seeks to answer is whether the interviewer effects found in falsified data are similar to those found in real data, or whether interviewer effects are larger and more diverse in falsified data and may thus be used as an indicator for data contamination by interviewer falsifications. To investigate this question, experimental data were used from controlled real interviews, interviews falsified by the same interviewers, and questionnaires completed by these interviewers themselves as respondents. Intraclass correlations and multilevel regression models were applied, and interviewer effects in the real survey data were compared with those in the falsified data. No evidence of interviewer effects was found in the real data. By contrast, interviewer effects were found in the falsified data. In particular, there was a significant association between the interviewers’ own responses and the falsified responses to the same questions in the questionnaire. Thus, to detect interviewer falsifications, I recommend that researchers should also get the interviewers to complete the questionnaire and check datasets or suspicious cases for interviewer effects.
Consequences of Family Literacy for Adults and Children: Some Preliminary Findings.

family literacy for adults and children: Some preliminary findings William W. Philliber Robert E. Spillman Rebecca E. King ■■it has become common to conceptualize literacy level as a family, instead of an individual, characteristic (Auerbach, 1989; Brizius & Foster, 1993; International Reading Association, 1992; Nuckolls, 1991; Weinstein-Shr, 1990). The concept is supported by research indicating the intergenerational pattern of low literacy levels. The recent U.S. National Adult Literacy Survey (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1993) found a linear relationship between the literacy of the individual and the education of the parent. The higher the education of the parent, the higher the literacy demonstrated by the individual. Using data from the Current Population Survey of the Bureau of Census, the U.S. National Center for Children in Poverty demonstrated the relationship between education and poverty (National Center for Children in Poverty, 1992). Children whose parents lacked a high school diploma were twice as likely to live in poverty than were children whose parents were high school graduates. They were seven and a half times more
Spatial Boundaries and the Local Context of Residential Segregation

Spatial boundaries are a defining feature of a city's social and spatial organization. Rivers, highways, and train tracks create excess distance between nearby locations and often mark social separation -- they become dividing lines that are well known to residents. Qualitative studies are rich with insight about the local significance of boundaries, but they have been largely ignored in the quantitative segregation literature. I advance existing scholarship by integrating spatial boundaries into the way we measure residential segregation for city populations. I introduce a new method that measures the proximity of residential locations and the reach of local environments around each location using road distance. This is more realistic than straight line ("as the crow flies") distance, because it captures the connectivity of roads and the distance imposed by physical boundaries. I measure segregation using the Divergence Index, which evaluates how surprising the composition of each local environment is given the overall population. I use this new approach to examine how spatial boundaries structure patterns of racial and ethnic residential segregation in U.S. cities. Results reveal the salience of city boundaries in structuring segregation patterns in Detroit, and how the presence of physical boundaries affects the composition of local environments in Manhattan. Further, the experience of segregation is highly unequal within cities such as St. Louis. Some residents live in completely segregated environments, while others live in areas that are a microcosm of the city's diverse population. This research bridges qualitative insight on the local experience of segregation and how we measure segregation for city populations. My emphasis on spatial boundaries and local context reframes our understanding of segregation, and offers deeper insight into even the most studied U.S. cities.
Stator-flux-oriented control of a doubly-fed induction machine with and without position encoder

The control of a doubly-fed induction machine (DFM) with and without the use of a rotor position encoder is examined. First, a stator flux linkage oriented control scheme for power and speed control with a position encoder, shows the high performance control capabilities of this control arrangement and serves as foundation for the sensorless scheme. The power-control method is then applied to a sensorless method, based on a previous control arrangement. This method is then extended to derive a sensorless speed-control mechanism for the DFM. All control schemes are implemented and performed on an experimental test system, comprising two 80C167 microcontrollers and a 2.25 kW wound rotor induction machine.
Effects of Creative Drama Method on Students’ Attitude towards Social Studies, Academic Achievement and Retention in Turkey

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of creative drama as a teaching method on academic achievement and retention in social studies, students’ attitude towards social studies of 4th grade. The research is designed according to quasiexperimental model. The research was conducted with 4th year students in a public school in Adana in Turkey. There are 42 students in experimental group and 39 in control group. Creative drama activities were used to develop social studies achievement and attitude of students as a treatment for the experimental group. The treatment consisted of 15 hours, 40 minutes sessions that equal a class hour in school and 3 hours a week. Control groups had been taught by classroom teachers as the way they do traditionally. Data collection tools are “Attitude Towards Social Studies Scale” developed by Gencel “Achievement Test” developed by the researchers. Data were processed by using covariance analysis. Findings indicated that creative drama method has a significant effect on social studies achievement and students’ attitude towards social studies but not a significant effect on retention of social studies knowledge
Are Auditory Hallucinations Related to the Brain's Resting State Activity? A 'Neurophenomenal Resting State Hypothesis'

While several hypotheses about the neural mechanisms underlying auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) have been suggested, the exact role of the recently highlighted intrinsic resting state activity of the brain remains unclear. Based on recent findings, we therefore developed what we call the 'resting state hypotheses' of AVH. Our hypothesis suggest that AVH may be traced back to abnormally elevated resting state activity in auditory cortex itself, abnormal modulation of the auditory cortex by anterior cortical midline regions as part of the default-mode network, and neural confusion between auditory cortical resting state changes and stimulus-induced activity. We discuss evidence in favour of our 'resting state hypothesis' and show its correspondence with phenomenal, i.e., subjective-experiential features as explored in phenomenological accounts. Therefore I speak of a 'neurophenomenal resting state hypothesis' of auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia.