Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Cholinergic and GABAergic afferents to the olfactory bulb in the rat with special emphasis on the projection neurons in the nucleus of the horizontal limb of the diagonal band

We have examined the location of cholinergic and GABAergic neurons that project to the rat main olfactory bulb by combining choline acetyltransferase (ChAT) and glutamic acid decarboxylase (GAD) immunohistochemistry with retrograde fluorescent tracing. Since many of the projection neurons are located in subcortical basal forebrain structures, where the delineation of individual regions is difficult, particular care was taken to localize projection neurons with respect to such landmarks as the ventral pallidum (identified on the basis of GAD immunoreactivity), the diagonal band, and medial forebrain bundle. In addition, sections with fluorescent tracers or immunofluorescence were counterstained for Nissl substance in order to correlate tracer or immunopositive neurons with the cytoarchitecture of the basal forebrain.
Culture and the Darwinian Renaissance in the social sciences and humanities

Abstract A “Darwinian Renaissance” in the social sciences and humanities cannot occur until evolutionary theory can successfully explain rapid and cumulative cultural change. Here I review empirical evidence that much of human behaviour is culturally determined, emphasising the need to incorporate culture into evolutionary analyses of human behaviour. I also review theoretical work which shows that culture is genetically adaptive, belying any simplistic gene-culture dichotomy. Finally, I show how recent work analysing culture as an evolutionary system is beginning to answer the kinds of questions that are of interest to social scientists and humanities scholars. These include phylogenetic reconstructions of the historical relationships between languages, manuscripts, social customs and artifacts, and experimental simulations of the microevolutionary processes underlying patterns of cultural macroevolution.
Assessment of dermal irritation and acute toxicity potential of extracts from Synadenium glaucescens on healthy rabbits, Wistar albino rats and albino mice.

Aim: This study was conceived for the purpose of evaluating dermal toxicity potentials of extracts from S. glaucescens which is known for many traditional application in human and animals including healing wounds, boils, HIV, worms and application on the swollen lymph nodes of cattle suffering from east coast fever (ECF). This followed the scanty availability of information regarding Original Research Article Nyigo et al.; EJMP, 10(4): 1-11, 2015; Article no.EJMP. 20763 2 dermal toxicity of this and many other plants in Tanzania despite the growing practice of utilizing plant products and extracts respectively to control and treat ectoparasites, and skin disorders. Materials and Methods: The dried plant materials were subjected to sequential solvent extraction using organic and aqueous solvents. All test animals were obtained from Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), Tanzania. Thus, irritation, and acute dermal toxicity tests were respectively conducted in healthy rabbits and albino rats using the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) guidelines. Albino mice were used to test skin sensitization using method developed by Sailstad. Results and Discussion: Irritation indices ranged from 3.2 and 0.05, thus according to Draize these are considered as mild and moderate irritants since none of them could reach PII of 5. On the other hand, findings from acute dermal toxicity tests showed no any overt signs of toxicity after two weeks of treatment. Similarly the extracts did not produce any sensitization reaction based on the mouse ear diameter taken by vernier calipers. Conclusion: Findings from this study have shown that, extracts from dried plant of S. glaucescens exhibit neither sensitization nor acute dermal toxicity effects except for mild to moderate irritancy. The findings therefore suggests that extracts from dried plant parts of S. glaucescens under the short term use of different extracts from dried leaves and root barks applied on skin of animals do not cause any adverse effects both externally and internally.
Brotherly love II: A developmental perspective on liking, love, and closeness in the fraternal dyad

This research examined the nature of closeness, liking, and love among 59 dyads of full biological, nontwin adult brothers and the correlations of these variables with age. Five dimensions of relational development were measured and used in stepwise regressions to determine what predicted closeness, liking, and love in these fraternal dyads. It was expected that love would be predicted by expressive relational qualities, such as self-disclosure, whereas closeness and liking would be predicted by more instrumental qualities, such as commitment or interdependence. These predictions were generally supported. Moreover, liking and love were shown to remain relatively constant over time, whereas closeness decreased as brothers grew older. Comparisons with other male-male relationships were also made, and implications for the research and therapeutic setting are offered.
Ivector-based Acoustic Data Selection

This paper presents a data selection approach where spoken utterances are selected in a sequential fashion from a large outof-domain data set to match the utterance distribution of an indomain data set. We propose to represent each utterance by its iVector [1], a low dimensional vector indicating the coordinate of that utterance in a subspace acoustic model. We show that the distribution of iVectors can characterize a data set and enables distinguishing subsets of utterances from different domains. Last, we present experimental speech recognition results based on a system trained on a data set constructed by the proposed algorithm and a comparison with random data selection.
Developmental readiness: Accelerating leader development.

The development of leaders is a stated goal of most organizations, yet a validated framework and theory for leader development does not yet fully exist, nor is there a method for determining who is developmentally ready to engage in leader development. The authors of this article provide a framework for examining how one can accelerate leader development. They propose that leader developers first focus on assessing and then building the developmental readiness of individual leaders, as well as the developmental readiness of the organization as prerequisite steps for accelerating positive leader development. They identify and discuss 5 specific constructs comprising their initial modeling of developmental readiness (i.e., learning goal orientation, developmental efficacy, self-concept clarity, self-complexity, and metacognitive ability), as well as suggest methods for assessing and developing these 5 components.
Changes in Locus of Control as a Function of Value Modification

In terms of balance theory formulations, and on the basis of previous findings with the IE scale, it was hypothesized that Externals would show an increase in the importance of certain values after being made aware of inconsistencies already existing within the value system (Rokeach effect) significantly more than Internals. Further, it was hypothesized that Internals would change in the opposite direction, though to a lesser degree. The hypotheses were not supported, but instead it was found that those subjects who showed the Rokeach effect also showed a change in their IE score, becoming more External, and that those subjects who changed in the opposite direction became more Internal. The implications of this finding for the Internal-External locus of control construct are discussed.
Improving Robustness of Convolutional Networks Through Sleep-Like Replay

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) are a foun-dational model architecture utilized to perform a wide variety of visual tasks. On image classification tasks CNNs achieve high performance, however model accuracy degrades quickly when inputs are perturbed by distortions such as additive noise or blurring. This drop in performance partly arises from incorrect detection of local features by convolutional layers. In this work, we develop a neuroscience-inspired unsupervised Sleep Replay Consolidation (SRC) algorithm for improving convolutional fil-ter's robustness to perturbations. We demonstrate that sleep-based optimization improves the quality of convolutional layers by the selective modification of spatial gradients across filters. We further show that, compared to other approaches such as fine-tuning, a single sleep phase improves robustness across different types of distortions in a data efficient manner.
The phonetic motivation for phonological stop assibilation

This article examines the motivation for phonological stop assibilations, e.g. /t/ is realized as [ts], [s] or [t∫] before /i/, from the phonetic perspective. Hall & Hamann (2006) posit the following two implications: (a) Assibilation cannot be triggered by /i/ unless it is also triggered by by /j/, and (b) voiced stops cannot undergo assibilations unless voiceless ones do. In the following study we present the results of two acoustic experiments with native speakers of German and Polish which support implications (a) and (b). In our experiments we measured the friction phase after the /t d/ release before the onset of the following high front vocoid for four speakers of German and Polish. We found that the friction phase of /tj/ was significantly longer than that of /ti/, and that the friction phase of /t/ in the assibilation context is significantly longer than that of /d/. Furthermore, we unexpectedly found that the friction phase of /tj/ is significantly longer than that of /di/. An additional finding not related to the topic of the present study was that the Polish voiceless stops of the four speakers tested showed aspiration, in contrast to phonetic descriptions of these sounds as unaspirated.
Encoding Semantic Resources in Syntactic Structures for Passage Reranking

In this paper, we propose to use semantic knowledge from Wikipedia and largescale structured knowledge datasets available as Linked Open Data (LOD) for the answer passage reranking task. We represent question and candidate answer passages with pairs of shallow syntactic/semantic trees, whose constituents are connected using LOD. The trees are processed by SVMs and tree kernels, which can automatically exploit tree fragments. The experiments with our SVM rank algorithm on the TREC Question Answering (QA) corpus show that the added relational information highly improves over the state of the art, e.g., about 15.4% of relative improvement in P@1.
When Prophecy Fails

In 1954 Leon Festinger, a brilliant young experimental social psychologist in the process of inventing a new theory of human behavior - the theory of cognitive dissonance - and two of his colleagues, Henry Riecken and Stanley Schachter, infiltrated a cult who believed the end of the world was only months away. How would these people feel when their prophecy remained unfulfilled? Would they admit the error of their prediction, or would they, as Festinger predicted, readjust their reality to make sense of the new circumstances? Not only is When Prophecy Fails of great historical importance as the first test of a powerful theory, but it is also a surprisingly touching account of what happens to ordinary people under extraordinary circumstances.
Multispectral Image Feature Points

This paper presents a novel feature point descriptor for the multispectral image case Far-Infrared and Visible Spectrum images. It allows matching interest points on images of the same scene but acquired in different spectral bands. Initially, points of interest are detected on both images through a SIFT-like based scale space representation. Then, these points are characterized using an Edge Oriented Histogram (EOH) descriptor. Finally, points of interest from multispectral images are matched by finding nearest couples using the information from the descriptor. The provided experimental results and comparisons with similar methods show both the validity of the proposed approach as well as the improvements it offers with respect to the current state-of-the-art.
From Scattered Data to Ideological Education: Economics, Statistics and the State in Ghana, 1948-1966

This thesis analyses the contribution of economics and statistics in the transformation of Ghana from colonial dependency to socialist one-party state. The narrative begins in 1948, extending through the years of decolonization, and ends in 1966, when the first postcolonial government led by Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown by a military coup d’etat. Drawing on insights from political economy, the history of economics and the sociology of science, the study is constructed as a series of microhistories of public institutions, social scientists, statistical enquiries and development plans. In the period under consideration economics and statistics underwent a radical transformation in their political use. This transformation is epitomised by the two extremes mentioned in the title: the ‘scattered data’ of 1950s household budget surveys were expression of the limited will and capacity of the colonial state to exercise control over different areas of the country. In contrast, the 1960s dream of a monolithic one-party state led the political rulers to use Marxist-Leninist political economy as a cornerstone of the ideological education aiming at creating the ideal citizen of the socialist regime. Based on research in British and Ghanaian archives, the study claims that economists and statisticians provided important cognitive tools to imagine competing alternatives to the postcolonial nation state, finding its most extreme version in the attempt to fashion a new type of economics supporting Nkrumah’s dream of a Pan-African political and economic union. At a more general level, the thesis provides a step towards a deeper incorporation of Sub-Saharan Africa in the history of economics and statistics, by depicting it not simply as an importer of ideas and scientific practices, but as a site in which the interaction of local and foreign political and scientific visions turned economics and statistics into powerful tools of social engineering. These tools created new spaces for political support and dissent, and shifted the boundaries between the possible and the utopian.
Utility-Optimal Resource Management and Allocation Algorithm for Energy Harvesting Cognitive Radio Sensor Networks

In this paper, we study resource management and allocation for energy harvesting cognitive radio sensor networks (EHCRSNs). In these networks, energy harvesting supplies the network with a continual source of energy to facilitate the self-sustainability of the power-limited sensors. Furthermore, cognitive radio enables access to the underutilized licensed spectrum to mitigate the spectrum-scarcity problem in the unlicensed band. We develop an aggregate network utility optimization framework for the design of an online energy management, spectrum management, and resource allocation algorithm based on Lyapunov optimization. The framework captures three stochastic processes: energy harvesting dynamics, inaccuracy of channel occupancy information, and channel fading. However, a priori knowledge of any of these processes statistics is not required. Based on the framework, we propose an online algorithm to achieve two major goals: first, balancing sensors' energy consumption and energy harvesting while stabilizing their data and energy queues; second, optimizing the utilization of the licensed spectrum while maintaining a tolerable collision rate between the licensed subscriber and unlicensed sensors. The performance analysis shows that the proposed algorithm achieves a close-to-optimal aggregate network utility while guaranteeing bounded data and energy queue occupancy. The extensive simulations are conducted to verify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and the impact of various network parameters on its performance.
Experimental essays on incentive contracts and obedience

First and foremost, I want to thank my main supervisor Prof. Daniel Zizzo, for his invaluable advice, and continuous support throughout my PhD. I would also like to thank my second supervisor Dr. Anders Poulsen for his insightful comments and advice. I am grateful to my friend and fellow PhD student Fabio Galeotti, for his encouragement, comments and support. A special thanks needs to go to Dr. Axel Sonntag and Dr. Kei Tsutsui for their help and advice and to Melanie Parravano and Ailko Van Der Veen for assisting me running numerous sessions. I would also like to thank all my fellow PhD students, for all the interesting and amusing discussions we have had. Lastly, I owe my thanks to my family and friends for their encouragement, patience and understanding. The financial support from the School of Economics and the CBESS is gratefully acknowledged.
Teachers’ expectations as a factor influencing African-American students’ academic achievement and classroom behavior

Teachers’ expectations for African-American students and the role of students’ race in teachers’ expectations is the focus of this report. Several studies have indicated that teacher expectations not only influence African-American students’ academic achievement, but also their classroom behavior. Studies have also suggested that low teacher expectations are a result of a combination of various factors such as teacher-student race, low socioeconomic background and cultural differences. Low expectations based on incorrect information may lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. This report also sheds light on ways in which school counselors could contribute in changing and sustaining teacher expectations and promoting culture-relevant teaching strategies.
Activation of the estrogen-signaling pathway by p21(WAF1/CIP1) in estrogen receptor-negative breast cancer cells.

BACKGROUND Estrogen stimulates the proliferation of cells in normal mammary glands and most estrogen receptor (ER)-positive mammary carcinomas by binding to the ER and promoting the transcription of ER-responsive genes. In cells with functional ERs, estrogen mediates the transition of cells from the G(1) to S phase of the cell cycle. Several cell cycle regulatory proteins have been implicated in the ER-signaling pathway involved in estrogen-mediated growth stimulation and antiestrogen-mediated growth arrest. We sought to determine whether p21, a cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor, is a component of this pathway and, if so, whether it can mediate estrogen's action in ER-negative breast cancer cells. METHODS We overexpressed p21 with a tetracycline-inducible system in ER-negative, p21-negative breast cancer cells. Activity of the ER-signaling pathway was monitored in transient transfection assays by using constructs in which the ER promoter or the estrogen-response element (ERE) controls Luciferase expression. The growth-modulating effects of estradiol and antiestrogens on p21-overexpressing clones were assessed. All P: values are from two-sided tests. RESULTS A strong positive association was found between the expression of p21 and ER in nine breast cancer cell lines and in tumor samples from 60 patients with breast cancer (P:<. 001). Overexpression of p21 in a p21-negative, ER-negative cell line induced both the ER and ERE promoters in an estrogen-responsive manner. Last, stable p21 clones that also lack the expression of wild-type ER were responsive to the growth-inhibitory effects of ICI 182,780, a potent antiestrogen, and the growth-stimulatory effects of 17beta-estradiol. CONCLUSION The ability of p21 to mediate the activation of the estrogen-signaling pathway in ER-negative tumor cells suggests that p21 plays a novel role in this pathway, a finding that also has important clinical implications.
Invasive Serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis in Québec, Canada, 2003 to 2010: Persistence of the ST-269 Clone Since It First Emerged in 2003

ABSTRACT In the era after the introduction of the meningococcal serogroup C conjugate vaccine, from 1 January 2003 to 31 December 2010, serogroup B meningococci were the major cause of invasive meningococcal disease in the province of Québec, Canada, being responsible for 72% of all meningococcal disease cases. Of the 334 invasive serogroup B Neisseria meningitidis strains analyzed, 53.9% belonged to the ST-269 clonal complex (CC). Since it first emerged in 2003, the percentage of invasive serogroup B isolates that belonged to the ST-269 CC had increased from 35% in 2003 to 76% in 2010. Among the 180 meningococci in the ST-269 CC, 91.7% belonged to a single ST (ST-269). The most common PorA genotypes identified in the ST-269 CC were (i) VR1 19-1, VR2 15-11, VR3 36 (84%) and (ii) VR1 18-7, VR2 9, VR3 35-1 (9%). Cases of invasive disease due to the ST-269 CC were commonly found in those aged 11 to 19 years (30.5%) and 20 to 40 years (25.5%). Meningococci of the ST-269 CC were uncommon in other Canadian provinces. In contrast to the ST-269 CC, invasive serogroup B meningococci that belonged to the ST-41/44 CC were much more diverse genetically. However, one ST (ST-571), which is uncommon in the United States, accounted for 35% of all cases due to this CC. The current finding suggests that the ST-269 clone may indeed represent an emerging hypervirulent clone of meningococci.
Lessons Learned from the Real-World Deployment of a Connected Vehicle Testbed

The connected vehicle (CV) system promises unprecedented safety, mobility, environmental, economic, and social benefits, which can be unlocked using the enormous amount of data shared between vehicles and infrastructure (e.g., traffic signals, centers). Real-world CV deployments, including pilot deployments, help solve technical issues and observe potential benefits, both of which support the broader adoption of the CV system. This study focused on the Clemson University Connected Vehicle Testbed (CU-CVT) with the goal of sharing the lessons learned from the CU-CVT deployment. The motivation of this study was to enhance early CV deployments with the objective of depicting the lessons learned from the CU-CVT testbed, which includes unique features to support multiple CV applications running simultaneously. The lessons learned in the CU-CVT testbed are described at three different levels: (i) the development of system architecture and prototyping in a controlled environment, (ii) the deployment of the CU-CVT testbed, and (iii) the validation of the CV application experiments in the CU-CVT. Field experiments with CV applications validated the functionalities needed for running multiple diverse CV applications simultaneously using heterogeneous wireless networking, and meeting real-time and non-real-time application requirements. The unique deployment experiences, related to heterogeneous wireless networks, real-time data aggregation, data dissemination and processing using a broker system, and data archiving with big data management tools, gained from the CU-CVT testbed, could be used to advance CV research and guide public and private agencies for the deployment of CVs in the real world.