Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Correlates of Episodic Retrieval Success

Episodic memory retrieval involves multiple component processes, including those that occur when information is correctly remembered (retrieval success). The present study employed rapid-presentation event-related functional MRI that allowed different trial types with short intertrial intervals to be sorted such that the hemodynamic response associated with retrieval success could be extracted. Specifically, in an old/new episodic recognition task, hit trials (correctly recognized old items) and correct rejection trials (correctly rejected new items) were directly compared. The comparison revealed a mostly left-lateralized set of brain regions. Differential activation was most robust in left lateral parietal cortex and medial parietal cortex. Additional regions of differential activation included left anterior prefrontal cortex at or near Brodmann area 10, anterior insula, thalamus, anterior cingulate cortex, frontal cortex along inferior frontal gyrus, premotor cortex, and presupplementary motor area. These results suggest that left frontal and parietal regions modulate activity based on the successful retrieval of information from episodic memory. We discuss these findings in the context of several recent investigations that provide converging results as well as prior studies that have failed to detect these changes.
Higher-order statistical steganalysis of palette images

In this paper, we describe a new higher-order steganalytic method called Pairs Analysis for detection of secret messages embedded in digital images. Although the approach is in principle applicable to many different steganographic methods as well as image formats, it is ideally suited to 8-bit images, such as GIF images, where message bits are embedded in LSBs of indices to an ordered palette. The EzStego algorithm with random message spread and optimized palette order is used as an embedding archetype on which we demonstrate Pairs Analysis and compare its performance with the chi-square attacks and our previously proposed RS steganalysis. Pairs Analysis enables more reliable and accurate message detection than previous methods. The method was tested on databases of GIF images of natural scenes, cartoons, and computer-generated images. The experiments indicate that the relative steganographic capacity of the EzStego algorithm with random message spread is less than 10% of the total image capacity (0.1 bits per pixel).
Underlying cardiomyopathy in patients with ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads.

BACKGROUND Ventricular fibrillation (VF) and sudden death (SD) may occur in patients with ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads. The mechanism of such events is unclear, so the aim of the present study was to assess whether there is an underlying morphological or pathological abnormality in these patients. METHODS AND RESULTS Fourteen consecutive patients (44+/-10 years old, all male) with ST-segment elevation of more than 2 mm in the right precordial leads underwent a cardiac evaluation, including right ventriculography and endomyocardial biopsy. The ST-segment changes after the administration of sodium-channel blockers were also evaluated. Two patients survived documented VF, 11 patients had chest pain or tightness, and another patient had a history of syncope. Only 1 patient had a family history of premature SD. The coronary angiograms were normal in all the patients. VF was induced in 5 patients (36%). Wall motion abnormalities of the right ventricle were detected in 4 patients (29%) and endomyocardial biopsy revealed features of cardiomyopathy in 7 patients (50%). In total, 9 (64%) of 14 patients exhibited wall motion abnormalities and/or pathologic findings. CONCLUSIONS Underlying cardiomyopathy was present in more than half of the present patients with ST-segment elevation in the right precordial leads.
Determinacy and learning stability of economic policy in asymmetric monetary union models

This thesis examines determinacy and E-stability of economic policy in monetary union models. Monetary policy takes the form of either a contemporaneous or a forecast based interest rate rule, while scal policy follows a contemporaneous government spending rule. In the absence of asymmetries, the results from the closed economy literature on learning are retained. However, when introducing asymmetries into monetary union frameworks, the determinacy and E-stability conditions for economic policy differ from both the closed and open economy cases. We nd that a monetary union with heterogeneous price rigidities is more likely to be determinate and E-stable. Speci cally, the Taylor principle, a key stability condition for the closed economy, is now relaxed. Furthermore, an interest rate rule that stabilizes the terms of trade in addition to output and in ation, is more likely to induce determinacy and local stability under RLS learning. If monetary policy is suf ciently aggressive in stabilizing the terms of trade, then determinacy and E-stability of the union economy can be achieved without direct stabilization of output and in ation. A scal policy rule that supports demand for domestic goods following a shock to competitiveness, can destabilize the union economy regardless of the interest rate rule employed by the union central bank. In this case, determinacy and E-stability conditions have to be simultaneously and independently met by both scal and monetary policy for the union economy to be stable. When scal pol-
Admission to hospital for bronchiolitis in England: trends over five decades, geographical variation and association with perinatal characteristics and subsequent asthma

Background Admission of infants to hospital with bronchiolitis consumes considerable healthcare resources each winter. We report an analysis of hospital admissions in England over five decades. Methods Data were analysed from the Hospital In-Patient Enquiry (HIPE, 1968–1985), Hospital Episode Statistics (HES, 1989–2011), Oxford Record Linkage Study (ORLS, 1963–2011) and Paediatric Intensive Care Audit Network (PICANet, 2003–2012). Cases were identified using International Classification of Diseases (ICD) codes in discharge records. Bronchiolitis was given a separate code in ICD9 (used in England from 1979). Geographical variation was analysed using Local Authority area boundaries. Maternal and perinatal risk factors associated with bronchiolitis and subsequent admissions for asthma were analysed using record-linkage. Results All-England HIPE and HES data recorded 468 138 episodes of admission for bronchiolitis in infants aged <1 year between 1979 and 2011. In 2011 the estimated annual hospital admission rate was 46.1 (95% CI 45.6 to 46.6) per 1000 infants aged <1 year. Between 2004 and 2011 the rates rose by an average of 1.8% per year in the all-England HES data, whereas admission rates to paediatric intensive care changed little (1.3 to 1.6 per 1000 infants aged <1 year). A fivefold geographical variation in hospital admission rates was observed. Young maternal age, low social class, low birth weight and maternal smoking were among factors associated with an increased risk of hospital admission with bronchiolitis. Conclusions Hospital admissions for infants with bronchiolitis have increased substantially in recent years. However, cases requiring intensive care have changed little since 2004.
The Anti-Inflammatory Effects of Matrix Metalloproteinase-3 on Irreversible Pulpitis of Mature Erupted Teeth

Matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs) are involved in extracellular matrix degradation and the modulation of cell behavior. These proteinases have also been implicated in tissue repair and regeneration. Our previous studies have demonstrated that MMP-3 elicits stimulatory effects on the proliferation and the migration of endothelial cells as well as anti-apoptotic effects on these cells in vitro. In addition, we found that MMP-3 enhanced the regeneration of lost pulp tissue in a rat incisor pulp injury model. However, continuously erupting rodent incisors exhibit significantly different pulp organization compared with mature erupted teeth. Therefore, we have further extended these studies using a canine irreversible pulpitis model to investigate the effects of MMP-3. In this study, the crowns of the canine mature premolars were removed and the pulp tissues were amputated. The amputated pulp tissues remained exposed for 24 or 72 hours to induce mild or severe irreversible pulpitis, respectively, followed by sealing of the cavities. In both models, the whole pulp tissues became necrotic by day 14. In this mild pulpitis model, the regeneration of pulp tissue with vasculature and nerves was observed until 14 days after sealing with MMP-3, followed by extracellular matrix formation in the regenerated pulp tissues until day 28. The treatment with MMP-3 resulted in a decrease in the number of macrophage and antigen-presenting cells and a significant inhibition of IL-6 expression on day 3. The inhibition of MMP-3 activity abolished these anti-inflammatory effects. Immunofluorescence staining demonstrated that MMP-3 was involved in the modification of serum-derived hyaluronan-associated proteins and hyaluronan (SHAP-HA) complexes possibly through the degradation of versican. These results demonstrate that MMP-3 can act as an anti-inflammatory agent and suggest that MMP-3 might represent a useful therapy for the treatment of mild irreversible pulpitis.
The designs of a scalable optical packet switching architecture

Abstract This paper proposes a new switching architecture to be used in all optical packet switching networks. The proposed switch is derived from an original 2 × ? 2 two‐stage multi‐buffer switched delay line based optical switching node, known as an M‐Quadro node. By incorporating bypass lines into the M‐Quadro architecture and employing a novel switch control strategy, the optical packet switching node can effectively resolve packet contentions, thus reducing the packet deflection probability substantially. Furthermore, we show that such architecture is scalable for a generic multiple stages optical packet switch with a larger number of input/output ports.
Information transmission and the predictability of stock returns: an agent-based approach

This paper addresses how information transmissions among traders affect the stock price formations, especially emerging the predictability of stock prices, in financial markets. An agent-based model, which is a simple extension of the traditional noisy rational equilibrium model for considering the information transmission process, is introduced to analyze the problem. The agent-based model, called the word of mouth model, provides a simple, but sufficiently versatile description of informational diffusion process and allows us to examine why the momentum of stock price emerges and is clearly observed in the small-sized stocks. This phenomenon is a stylized facts in financial markets but difficult to resolve by traditional models. We will see that the information transmission among traders may play an important role for emerging this type of the predictability. This study may be said to be a theoretical attempt to provide a rigorous examination of the under reaction hypothesis regarding informational shocks.
On the Design of Adaptive and Decentralized Load Balancing Algorithms with Load Estimation for Computational Grid Environments

In this paper, we address several issues that are imperative to grid environments such as handling resource heterogeneity and sharing, communication latency, job migration from one site to other, and load balancing. We address these issues by proposing two job migration algorithms, which are MELISA (modified ELISA) and LBA (load balancing on arrival). The algorithms differ in the way load balancing is carried out and is shown to be efficient in minimizing the response time on large and small-scale heterogeneous grid environments, respectively. MELISA, which is applicable to large-scale systems (that is, interGrid), is a modified version of ELISA in which we consider the job migration cost, resource heterogeneity, and network heterogeneity when load balancing is considered. The LBA algorithm, which is applicable to small-scale systems (that is, intraGrid), performs load balancing by estimating the expected finish time of a job on buddy processors on each job arrival. Both algorithms estimate system parameters such as the job arrival rate, CPU processing rate, and load on the processor and balance the load by migrating jobs to buddy processors by taking into account the job transfer cost, resource heterogeneity, and network heterogeneity. We quantify the performance of our algorithms using several influencing parameters such as the job size, data transfer rate, status exchange period, and migration limit, and we discuss the implications of the performance and choice of our approaches.
Antibiotic resistance and frequency of class 1 integrons among Pseudomonas aeruginosa, isolated from burn patients in Guilan, Iran

Background and Objectives Antibiotic resistance of Pseudomonas aeruginosa remains a major problem in burn patients. The main objective of this study was to determine the antibiotic resistance pattern and frequency of class 1 integrons among P. aeruginosa strains isolated from patients with burn wound infections in a new Burn Centre in Guilan, Iran. Materials and Methods The bacterial isolates were collected from 182 patients with burn wound infections and P. aeruginosa species were identified by standard bacteriological methods. The drug susceptibility test, using 11 antimicrobial agents, was performed for all the isolates via agar disk diffusion method. PCR was carried out for the detection of integrons. Results Out of a total of 182 hospitalized patients in the burn center assessed, 86 (47%) found to have P. aeruginosa in their isolates. Resistance rates to various antibiotics were as follows: cloxacillin (91.8%), cotrimoxazole (86%), cephazolin (83.7%), carbenicillin (74.4%), piperacillin (69.9%), ceftazidime (68.8%), ciprofloxacin (66.3%), tobramycin (58.2%), amikacin (48.8%) and gentamicin (37.2%), while the most effective antibiotic was imipenem with a resistance rate of 23.3%. Thirty nine (45.3%) isolates were detected as multi-drug resistant. The PCR results showed that 37 (43%) P. aeruginosa isolates and 27 (69.2%) multi-drug resistant strains harbored class 1 integrons. A significant correlation was obtained between the presence of integrons and resistance against imipenem, ceftazidime, piperacillin and ciprofloxacin (P <0.001). Conclusion Optimization of using antimicrobial agents and control of infection is recommended to prevent the increasing population of drug resistant organisms in the new burn centre setting in this study. Furthermore, the high frequency of class 1 integrons among multi-drug resistant strains might be responsible for dissemination of antibiotic resistance gene.
Five Indefinitely Repeated Games in the Laboratory

I experimentally test play in five indefinitely repeated games: a hawk-dove game, a game of chicken, a trust game, a coordination (stag-hunt) game, and a constant-sum game. I compare the different game histories that affect decision making in each of the games. I find that the common game history relevant to decision-making across all but the constant-sum game is consistent with the strategy tit-for-tat. keywords: experimental economics, repeated games, infinite games, social dilemmas, cooperation, coordination. JEL classification nos. C91, C73. Contact Information: Department of Economics, 855 Sherbrooke St. W. , McGill University, Montreal, QC, H3A 2T7, Canada, e-mail: jim.engle-warnick@mcgill.ca, tel. : (514) 398-1559; fax: (514) 398-4938. Acknowledgements: I thank Sara Constantino and Julie Héroux for research assistance. I thank the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, the Centre for Interuniversity Research and Analysis on Organizations (CIRANO) for funding, and the Bell University Laboratory in Electronic Commerce and Experimental Economy for use of the experimental laboratory.
The great financial crisis in Finland and Sweden: The nordic experience of financial liberalization

Contents: 1. Introduction Lars Jonung, Jaakko Kiander and Pentti Vartia PART I: THE CRISIS OF THE 1990s IN FINLAND AND SWEDEN 2. The Great Financial Crisis in Finland and Sweden: The Dynamics of Boom, Bust and Recovery 1985-2000 Lars Jonung, Jaakko Kiander and Pentti Vartia 3. Financial Crisis in Finland and Sweden: Similar But Not Quite the Same Peter Englund and Vesa Vihriala 4. The Crisis of the 1990s and Unemployment in Finland and Sweden Klas Fregert and Jaakko Pehkonen 5. How Costly was the Crisis in Finland and Sweden? Thomas Hagberg and Lars Jonung PART II: THE INTERNATIONAL CONTEXT 6. The Boom and Bust Cycle in Finland and Sweden in an International Perspective Lars Jonung, Ludger Schuknecht and Mika Tujula 7. The Boom and Bust Cycle in Norway Erling Steigum 8. How did Denmark Avoid a Banking Crisis? Claus Vastrup 9. The Nordic and Asian Crises: Common Causes, Different Outcomes? Ari Kokko and Kenji Suzuki PART III: LESSONS FROM THE NORDIC CRISES 10. Twelve Lessons from the Nordic Experience of Financial Liberalization Lars Jonung
Neurocognitive impairment in drug-free patients with major depressive disorder

Background Although neurocognitive impairment has been widely reported in major depressive disorder (MDD), confounding factors, such as the effects of psychotropic medication, have rarely been controlled for. Aims To examine neurocognitive function in medication-free patients with MDD and healthy controls. Method Forty-four patients meeting DSM–IV criteria for MDD, all psychotropic-medication-free for at least 6 weeks, and 44 demographically matched, healthy comparison subjects completed a comprehensive neurocognitive battery. Results Patients with depression were impaired significantly in a range of cognitive domains, including attention and executive function and visuospatial learning and memory, compared with controls. Motor and psychomotor functions were intact. Severity of depression correlated with learning and memory performance, but not executive function. Conclusions Pronounced neurocognitive impairment was found in this sample of young adult out-patients with MDD. This is not attributable to the confounding effects of psychotropic medication and could therefore provide an objective marker of brain dysfunction in depression.
The Economic Vote: How Political and Economic Institutions Condition Election Results

1. Introduction Part I. Describing the Economic Vote in Western Democracies: 2. Defining and measuring the economic vote 3. Patterns of retrospective economic voting in western democracies 4. Estimation, measurement, and specification Part II. A Contextual Theory of Rational Retrospective Economic Voting: Competency Signals: 5. Competency signals and rational retrospective economic voting 6. What do voters know about economic variation and its sources? 7. Political control of the economy Part III. A Contextual Theory of Rational Retrospective Economic Voting: Strategic Voting: 8. Responsibility, contention, and the economic vote 9. The distribution of responsibility and economic voting 10. The pattern of contention and the economic vote Part IV. Conclusion and Summary: 11. Conclusion.
THE IMPACT OF RACIAL DIVERSITY ON INNOVATION: THE MODERATING EFFECT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CONTEXT

Integrating three different explanations regarding the mixed effects of diversity, the current study used a sample of 297 large organizations to examine the joint effects of diversity, employee involvement, and decentralization on innovation. A significant three-way interaction showed that diversity and employee involvement jointly increase organizational innovation only when the organization also adopted a decentralized structure.
Increase in Fluorescence Intensity of 16S rRNA In Situ Hybridization in Natural Samples Treated with Chloramphenicol

Despite the numerous advantages of fluorescent in situ hybridization for the identification of single prokaryotic cells with 16S rRNA probes, use of the technique with natural samples, especially those from the marine environment, is still problematic. The low percentage of fluorescently labeled cells constitutes the primary problem for in situ hybridization of natural samples, probably due to low cellular rRNA content. This study represents an attempt to improve detection of marine prokaryotes by increasing cellular rRNA content without changing the species composition. Cells from three California coastal sites were treated with chloramphenicol, an inhibitor of protein synthesis and rRNA degradation, at 100 (mu)g/ml and then were probed with a "universal" 16S rRNA fluorescent probe and viewed by image-intensified video microscopy. Counts of fluorescent cells increased from ca. 75% for untreated samples to ca. 93 to 99% for chloramphenicol-treated samples, compared to counts produced by DAPI (4(prm1),6-diamidino-2-phenylindole) staining, after at least 45 min of exposure to the drug (these percentages include autofluorescent cells, which averaged 6%). This suggests that most cells in these samples were active. We hypothesize that the low fluorescent-cell counts previously reported were probably often due to the fluorescence intensity of labeled cells being below the detection level rather than to high levels of dead cells in marine environments. This method may aid in the characterization of bacterioplankton with fluorescent probes.
Moment-to-Moment Tracking of State Value in the Amygdala

As an organism interacts with the world, how good or bad things are at the moment, the value of the current state of the organism, is an important parameter that is likely to be encoded in the brain. As the environment changes and new stimuli appear, estimates of state value must be updated to support appropriate responses and learning. Indeed, many models of reinforcement learning posit representations of state value. We examined how the brain mediates this process by recording amygdala neural activity while monkeys performed a trace-conditioning task requiring fixation. The presentation of different stimuli induced state transitions; these stimuli included unconditioned stimuli (USs) (liquid rewards and aversive air puffs), newly learned reinforcement-predictive visual stimuli [conditioned stimuli (CSs)], and familiar stimuli long associated with reinforcement [fixation point (FP)]. The FP had a positive value to monkeys, because they chose to foveate it to initiate trials. Different populations of amygdala neurons tracked the positive or negative value of the current state, regardless of whether state transitions were caused by the FP, CSs, or USs. Positive value-coding neurons increased their firing during the fixation interval and fired more strongly after rewarded CSs and rewards than after punished CSs and air puffs. Negative value-coding neurons did the opposite, decreasing their firing during the fixation interval and firing more strongly after punished CSs and air puffs than after rewarded CSs and rewards. This representation of state value could underlie how the amygdala helps coordinate cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses depending on the value of one's state.
A non-uniform subband approach to speech-based cognitive load classification

Speech has recently been recognized as an attractive method for the measurement of cognitive load. Current speech-based cognitive load measurement systems utilize acoustic features derived from auditory-motivated frequency scales. This paper aims to investigate the distribution of speech information specific to cognitive load discrimination as a function of frequency. We found that this distribution is neither uniform nor very similar to the Mel auditory scale and based on our experiments, we propose a novel non-uniform filterbank for acoustic feature extraction to classify cognitive load. Experimental results showed that the use of the proposed filterbank provided a relative improvement of about 10%, compared with the classification accuracy of the traditional cognitive load classification system based on a Mel-scale filterbank.