Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Performance-based tests versus behavioral ratings in the assessment of executive functioning in preschoolers: associations with ADHD symptoms and reading achievement

The early assessment of the executive processes using ecologically valid instruments is essential for identifying deficits and planning actions to deal with possible adverse consequences. The present study has two different objectives. The first objective is to analyze the relationship between preschoolers’ performance on tests of Working Memory and Inhibition and parents’ and teachers’ ratings of these executive functions (EFs) using the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF). The second objective consists of studying the predictive value of the different EF measures (performance-based test and rating scales) on Inattention and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity behaviors and on indicators of word reading performance. The participants in the study were 209 children in the last year of preschool, their teachers and their families. Performance-based tests of Working Memory and Inhibition were administered, as well as word reading measures (accuracy and speed). The parents and teachers filled out rating scales of the EF and typical behaviors of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptomatology. Moderate correlation values were found between the different EF assessments procedures, although the results varied depending on the different domains. Metacognition Index from the BRIEF presented stronger correlations with verbal working memory tests than with inhibition tests. Both the rating scales and the performance-based tests were significant predictors of Inattention and Hyperactivity/Impulsivity behaviors and the reading achievement measures. However, the BRIEF explained a greater percentage of variance in the case of the ADHD symptomatology, while the performance-based tests explained reading achievement to a greater degree. The implications of the findings for research and clinical practice are discussed.
Experimental Investigations of Elastic Tail Propulsion At Low Reynolds Number

A simple way to generate propulsion at low Reynolds number is to periodically oscillate a passive flexible filament. Here we present a macroscopic experimental investigation of such a propulsive mechanism. A robotic swimmer is constructed and both tail shape and propulsive force are measured. Filament characteristics and actuation are varied, and the resulting data are quantitatively compared with existing linear and nonlinear theories.
Representations of Ebola and its victims in liberal American newspapers

Abstract Combining critical discourse analysis and the cognitive theory of metaphor, the study analyses hard news on Ebola from two American newspapers of a liberal political orientation, The New York Times and The New York Daily News, to investigate metaphoric representations of the disease and portrayals of its victims. It is revealed that both newspapers heavily rely on a single conceptual metaphor of EBOLA AS WAR, with only two alternative metaphors of EBOLA AS AN ANIMATE/HUMAN BEING and EBOLA AS A NATURAL CATASTROPHE employed. All three metaphoric themes assign the role of a culprit solely to the virus, which stands in contrast to non-metaphoric discursive allocations of blame for the situation in Africa, assigning responsibility mainly to man-made factors. African victims tend to be impersonalized and portrayed as voiceless and agentless, rarely occupying the role of a “fighter” in the military metaphoric representation of the disease, which runs counter to the findings of recent studies detecting a change towards a more positive image of Africa in the media. Both newspapers fail to represent infected ordinary Africans as sovereign agents, hindering readers from reflexively identifying with them.
Potential Climate Change Effects on the Habitat of Antarctic Krill in the Weddell Quadrant of the Southern Ocean

Antarctic krill is a cold water species, an increasingly important fishery resource and a major prey item for many fish, birds and mammals in the Southern Ocean. The fishery and the summer foraging sites of many of these predators are concentrated between 0° and 90°W. Parts of this quadrant have experienced recent localised sea surface warming of up to 0.2°C per decade, and projections suggest that further widespread warming of 0.27° to 1.08°C will occur by the late 21st century. We assessed the potential influence of this projected warming on Antarctic krill habitat with a statistical model that links growth to temperature and chlorophyll concentration. The results divide the quadrant into two zones: a band around the Antarctic Circumpolar Current in which habitat quality is particularly vulnerable to warming, and a southern area which is relatively insensitive. Our analysis suggests that the direct effects of warming could reduce the area of growth habitat by up to 20%. The reduction in growth habitat within the range of predators, such as Antarctic fur seals, that forage from breeding sites on South Georgia could be up to 55%, and the habitat’s ability to support Antarctic krill biomass production within this range could be reduced by up to 68%. Sensitivity analysis suggests that the effects of a 50% change in summer chlorophyll concentration could be more significant than the direct effects of warming. A reduction in primary production could lead to further habitat degradation but, even if chlorophyll increased by 50%, projected warming would still cause some degradation of the habitat accessible to predators. While there is considerable uncertainty in these projections, they suggest that future climate change could have a significant negative effect on Antarctic krill growth habitat and, consequently, on Southern Ocean biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Handling inverted temperature dependence in static timing analysis

In digital circuit design, it is typically assumed that cell delay increases with decreasing voltage and increasing temperature. This assumption is the basis of the cornering approach with cell libraries in static timing analysis (STA). However, this assumption breaks down at low supply voltages because cell delay can decrease with increasing temperature. This phenomenon is caused by a competition between mobility and threshold voltage to dominate cell delay. We refer to this phenomenon as the inverted temperature dependence (ITD). Due to ITD, it becomes very difficult to analytically determine the temperatures that maximize or minimize the delay of a cell or a path. As such, ITD has profound consequences for STA: (1) ITD essentially invalidates the approach of defining corners by independently varying voltage and temperature; (2) ITD makes it more difficult to find short paths, leading to difficulties in detecting hold time violations; and (3) the effect of ITD will worsen as supply voltages decrease and threshold voltage variations increase. This article analyzes the consequences of ITD in STA and proposes a proper handling of ITD in an industrial sign-off STA tool. To the best of our knowledge, this article is the first such work.
Improved Permeability Prediction Relations for Low Permeability Sands

This work addresses the problem of estimating Klinkenbergcorrected permeability from single-point, steady-state measurements on samples from low permeability sands. The "original" problem of predicting the corrected or "liquid equivalent" permeability (i.e., referred to as the Klinkenbergcorrected permeability) has been under investigation since the early 1940s — in particular, using the application of "gas
The Carina Nebula: A Laboratory for Feedback and Triggered Star Formation

The Carina Nebula (NGC 3372) is our richest nearby laboratory in which to study feedback through UV radiation and stellar winds from very massive stars during the formation of an OB association, at an early phase before SNe have disrupted the environment. This feedback is triggering new generations of star formation around the periphery of the nebula, while simultaneously evaporating the gas and dust reservoirs out of which young stars are trying to accrete. Carina is currently powered by UV radiation from 65 O-type stars and 3 WNH stars, but for most of its lifetime when its most massive star (Eta Car) was on the main-sequence, the Carina Nebula was powered by 70 O-type stars that produced an ionizing luminosity 150 times stronger than in Orion. At a distance of 2.3 kpc, Carina has the most extreme stellar populationwithin a few kpc of the Sun, and suffers little interstellar extinction. It is our best bridge between the detailed star-formation processes that can be studied in nearby regions like Orion, and much more extreme but also more distant regions like 30 Doradus. Existing observations have only begun to tap the tremendous potential of this region for understanding the importance of feedback in star formation; it will provide a reservoir of new discoveries for the next generation of large ground-based telescopes, space telescopes, and large submillimeter and radio arrays.
High-redshift quasars and the supermassive black hole mass budget: constraints on quasar formation models

We investigate the constraints on models of supermassive black hole (SMBH) and quasar formation obtainable from two recent observational developments: the discovery of luminous quasars at z ∼ 6, and estimates of the local mass density of SMBHs. If ∼90 per cent of this mass was accreted at redshifts z ≤ 3, as suggested by the observed quasar luminosity functions, these joint constraints pose a challenge for models, which must account for the observed luminous quasar population at z ∼ 6 within a very limited 'mass budget'. We investigate a class of models based within the hierarchical structure formation scenario, in which major mergers lead to black hole formation and fuelling, and the resulting quasars shine at their Eddington-limited rate until their fuel is exhausted. We show that the simplest such model, in which a constant fraction of the gas within the halo is accreted in each major merger, cannot satisfy both constraints simultaneously. When this model is normalized to reproduce the number density of luminous quasars at z ∼ 6, the mass budget is grossly exceeded owing to an overabundance of lower-mass SMBHs. We explore a range of modifications to the simple model designed to overcome this problem. We show that both constraints can be satisfied if the gas accretion fraction scales as a function of the halo virial velocity. Similar scalings have been proposed in order to reproduce the local M○-σ relation. Successful models can also be constructed by restricting the formation of seed black holes to redshifts above z crit ∼ 11.5 or to haloes above a velocity threshold υ crit ∼ 55 km s -1 , or assuming that only a fraction of major mergers result in formation of a seed SMBH. We also briefly discuss the issue of trying to assume a 'universal M○-σ relation' within the framework of simple Press-Schechter models, and further show that a fixed universal relation between SMBH mass and host halo mass is unlikely.
Turbo codes optimization using genetic algorithms

Turbo codes have been an important revolution in the digital communications world. Since their discovery, the coding community has been trying to understand, explain and improve turbo codes. The floor phenomenon is the parallel concatenated convolutional turbo codes main problem. In this paper, genetic algorithms are used to lower the free distance of such a code. Results in terms of bit error rate are compared to the other main methods.
Does the acanthocephalan parasite Polymorphus minutus modify the energy reserves and antitoxic defences of its intermediate host Gammarus roeseli?

SUMMARY In disturbed environments, infected organisms have to face both parasitic and chemical stresses. Although this situation is common, few studies have been devoted to the effects of infection on hosts' energy reserves and antitoxic defence capacities, while parasite survival depends on host survival. In this study, we tested the consequences of an infection by Polymorphus minutus on the energy reserves (protein, lipid and glycogen) and antioxidant defence capacities (reduced glutathione, γ-glutamylcysteine ligase activity) of Gammarus roeseli males and females, in the absence of chemical stress. Moreover, malondialdehyde concentration was used as a toxicity biomarker. The results revealed that in infected G. roeseli, whatever their gender and the sampling month, protein and lipid contents were lower, but glycogen contents were higher. This could be explained by the fact that the parasite diverts part of the host's energy for its own development. Moreover, glutathione concentrations and γ-glutamylcysteine ligase activity were both lower, which could lead to lower antitoxic defence in the host. These results suggest negative effects on individuals in the case of additional stress (e.g. pollutant exposure). In the absence of chemical stress, the lower malondialdehyde level in infected gammarids could imply a probable protective effect of the parasite.
The Role of School Level Protective Factors in Overcoming Cumulative Risk for Behavior Difficulties in Children with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities

The study investigated whether school-level protective factors could moderate the effects cumulative risk has upon behavior difficulties in children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). The sample comprised 4,288 children identified with SEND: 2,660 pupils within 248 primary schools, and 1,628 pupils within 57 secondary schools. Risk factors associated with increases in behavior difficulties over an 18-month period were summed to a cumulative risk score. Various school-level factors were added to multilevel models, with interaction terms computed between cumulative risk and these variables to assess their potential protective effects. The primary school model revealed a significant interaction between cumulative risk and school academic achievement in predicting behavior difficulties. Higher levels of achievement in primary schools help reduce behavior difficulties for children most at risk. The secondary school model evidenced a significant interaction between cumulative risk and school percentage of students eligible for free school meals (FSM). Lower proportions within a school of children eligible for FSM were associated with reductions in behavior difficulties for children at high levels of risk. Interventions aimed at improving school-level academic achievement and targeting high-risk students attending schools with large proportions of children eligible for FSM would be beneficial.
The Role of an Amygdalo-Nigrostriatal Pathway in Associative Learning

The present study examined the role of an amygdalo-nigrostriatal pathway in associative learning. An asymmetrical lesion model was used to test whether a circuit from the amygdala central nucleus to the dorsolateral striatum, via the substantia nigra, is critical for mediating conditioned orienting responses. Rats with an asymmetrical lesion, consisting of neurotoxic removal of central nucleus neurons in one hemisphere and depletion of the dopamine innervation of the dorsolateral striatum in the contralateral hemisphere, failed to acquire conditioned orienting responses. In contrast, the asymmetrical lesion had no effect on spontaneous orienting or learning another response directed to the source of the food unconditioned stimulus in the same task. A second experiment tested the effect of reversible inactivation of the dorsolateral striatum contralateral to a neurotoxic central nucleus lesion on acquisition of the conditioned orienting response. Although inactivation did not affect spontaneous orienting, rats failed to acquire the conditioned orienting response during sessions in which inactivation occurred. Immediately after the inactivation procedure was terminated, however, a significant increase in orienting to the conditioned stimulus was evident. These data support the interpretation that the dorsolateral striatum provides a route for the expression of the conditioned orienting response but is not essential for acquisition of this learned behavior.
The Concrete Distribution: A Continuous Relaxation of Discrete Random Variables

The reparameterization trick enables optimizing large scale stochastic computation graphs via gradient descent. The essence of the trick is to refactor each stochastic node into a differentiable function of its parameters and a random variable with fixed distribution. After refactoring, the gradients of the loss propagated by the chain rule through the graph are low variance unbiased estimators of the gradients of the expected loss. While many continuous random variables have such reparameterizations, discrete random variables lack useful reparameterizations due to the discontinuous nature of discrete states. In this work we introduce Concrete random variables---continuous relaxations of discrete random variables. The Concrete distribution is a new family of distributions with closed form densities and a simple reparameterization. Whenever a discrete stochastic node of a computation graph can be refactored into a one-hot bit representation that is treated continuously, Concrete stochastic nodes can be used with automatic differentiation to produce low-variance biased gradients of objectives (including objectives that depend on the log-probability of latent stochastic nodes) on the corresponding discrete graph. We demonstrate the effectiveness of Concrete relaxations on density estimation and structured prediction tasks using neural networks.
Influence of Corticospinal Tracts from Higher Order Motor Cortices on Recruitment Curve Properties in Stroke

Background: Recruitment curves (RCs) acquired using transcranial magnetic stimulation are commonly used in stroke to study physiologic functioning of corticospinal tracts (CST) from M1. However, it is unclear whether CSTs from higher motor cortices contribute as well. Objective: To explore whether integrity of CST from higher motor areas, besides M1, relates to CST functioning captured using RCs. Methods: RCs were acquired for a paretic hand muscle in patients with chronic stroke. Metrics describing gain and overall output of CST were collected. CST integrity was defined by diffusion tensor imaging. For CST emerging from M1 and higher motor areas, integrity (fractional anisotropy) was evaluated in the region of the posterior limb of the internal capsule, the length of CST and in the region of the stroke lesion. Results: We found that output and gain of RC was related to integrity along the length of CST emerging from higher motor cortices but not the M1. Conclusions: Our results suggest that RC parameters in chronic stroke infer function primarily of CST descending from the higher motor areas but not M1. RCs may thus serve as a simple, in-expensive means to assess re-mapping of alternate areas that is generally studied with resource-intensive neuroimaging in stroke.
Molecular Dynamics Simulation of the Allosteric Regulation of eIF4A Protein from the Open to Closed State, Induced by ATP and RNA Substrates

Background Eukaryotic initiation factor 4A (eIF4A) plays a key role in the process of protein translation initiation by facilitating the melting of the 5′ proximal secondary structure of eukaryotic mRNA for ribosomal subunit attachment. It was experimentally postulated that the closed conformation of the eIF4A protein bound by the ATP and RNA substrates is coupled to RNA duplex unwinding to promote protein translation initiation, rather than an open conformation in the absence of ATP and RNA substrates. However, the allosteric process of eIF4A from the open to closed state induced by the ATP and RNA substrates are not yet fully understood. Methodology In the present work, we constructed a series of diplex and ternary models of the eIF4A protein bound by the ATP and RNA substrates to carry out molecular dynamics simulations, free energy calculations and conformation analysis and explore the allosteric properties of eIF4A. Results The results showed that the eIF4A protein completes the conformational transition from the open to closed state via two allosteric processes of ATP binding followed by RNA and vice versa. Based on cooperative allosteric network analysis, the ATP binding to the eIF4A protein mainly caused the relative rotation of two domains, while the RNA binding caused the proximity of two domains via the migration of RNA bases in the presence of ATP. The cooperative binding of ATP and RNA for the eIF4A protein plays a key role in the allosteric transition.
A Kiefer–Wolfowitz comparison theorem for Wicksell’s problem

We extend the isotonic analysis for Wicksell’s problem to estimate a regression function, which is motivated by the problem of estimating dark matter distribution in astronomy. The main result is a version of the Kiefer–Wolfowitz theorem comparing the empirical distribution to its least concave majorant, but with a convergence rate n −1 log n faster than n −2/3 log n. The main result is useful in obtaining asymptotic distributions for estimators, such as isotonic and smooth estimators. 1. Introduction. Our starting point is Groeneboom and Jongbloed’s [5] analysis of Wicksell’s [12] “Corpuscle Problem,” in anatomy: Given crosssections of a large number of corpuscles of different sizes, the distribution of radii of corpuscles was to be estimated. Assuming corpuscles were spherical, the relation between the distribution of the corpuscle radii and the distribution of the observable circular sections was derived. Wicksell approximated the density of spherical radii by a step function and then used the distributional relationship between spherical radii and circular radii to estimate the distribution of spherical radii. Groeneboom and Jongbloed [5] showed how isotonic techniques can be used in Wicksell’s problem. They related the distribution of spherical radii to a nonincreasing function that can be estimated unbiasedly. The unbiased estimate was not monotone, however, and they showed how it can be improved by imposing the shape restriction. Here we extend the isotonic analysis to estimate a regression function. The extension is motivated by the problem of estimating the velocity dispersions in astronomy which, in turn, is motivated by the problem of estimating the distribution of dark matter, as explained in [11]. Let X = (X1,X2,X3) and V = (V1,V2,V3) denote the three-dimensional position and velocity of
Frameworks of analysis for the neural representation of animate objects and actions.

A variety of cell types exist in the temporal cortex providing high-level visual descriptions of bodies and their movements. We have investigated the sensitivity of such cells to different viewing conditions to determine the frame(s) of reference utilized in processing. The responses of the majority of cells in the upper bank of the superior temporal sulcus (areas TPO and PGa) found to be sensitive to static and dynamic information about the body were selective for one perspective view (e.g. right profile, reaching right or walking left). These cells can be considered to provide viewer-centred descriptions because they depend on the observer's vantage point. Viewer-centred descriptions could be used in guiding behaviour. They could also be used as an intermediate step for establishing view-independent responses of other cell types which responded to many or all perspective views selectively of the same object (e.g. head) or movement. These cells have the properties of object-centred descriptions, where the object viewed provides the frame of reference for describing the disposition of object parts and movements (e.g. head on top of shoulders, reaching across the body, walking forward 'following the nose'). For some cells in the lower bank of the superior temporal sulcus (area TEa) the responses to body movements were related to the object or goal of the movements (e.g. reaching for or walking towards a specific place). This goal-centred sensitivity to interaction allowed the cells to be selectively activated in situations where human subjects would attribute causal and intentional relationships.