Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling Contrast Adaptation and Contextual Effects in Primary Visual Cortex

Orientation selective cortical neurons show contrast-invariant orientation tuning curves, contrast saturation and contrast adaptation. Additionally, their responses are modulated by oriented stimuli outside the classical receptive eld. We characterize the extent, to which these eeects can be caused by a recurrent network of simple neurons, and which properties are probably due to plasticity of geniculocortical synapses. For this we compare the predictions of a mean-eld-model based on cortical hypercolumns with those of a model that incorporates spiking neurons with detailed time-resolved synap-tic dynamics. We nd that in a mean-eld model contrast-invariant orientation tuning and contextual eeects can be generated by local and long-range intracortical circuitry respectively. However, they are incompatible with contrast-saturation and contrast-adaptation. Using a recurrent neu-ral network of excitatory spiking neurons with adapting synapses, we then show that within that model framework (i) contrast saturation can be explained by fast adaptation of the lateral or the aaerent synapses, (ii) phase advance with increasing contrast is due to fast adaptation of the aaerent synapses, and (iii) adaptation of the synaptic transmitter release probability of the geniculocortical synapses is a necessary and suucient mechanism for contrast adaptation. In summary, we suggest that recurrent lateral connections play a key role in orientation processing, while contrast processing is mainly a feed-forward phenomenon.
Estimated Small Open Economy Model with Frictional Unemployment

This paper investigates labour market dynamics in New Zealand by estimating a structural small open economy model enriched with standard search and matching frictions in the labour market. We show that the model fits the business cycle features of key macroeconomic variables reasonably well and provides an appealing monetary transmission mechanism. We then extend our analysis to examine the driving forces behind labour market variables. Our findings suggest that the bulk of variation in labour market variables is solely explained by disturbances pertaining to the labour market.
Predictor Variables for Marathon Race Time in Recreational Female Runners

Purpose We intended to determine predictor variables of anthropometry and training for marathon race time in recreational female runners in order to predict marathon race time for future novice female runners. Methods Anthropometric characteristics such as body mass, body height, body mass index, circumferences of limbs, thicknesses of skin-folds and body fat as well as training variables such as volume and speed in running training were related to marathon race time using bi- and multi-variate analysis in 29 female runners. Results The marathoners completed the marathon distance within 251 (26) min, running at a speed of 10.2 (1.1) km/h. Body mass (r=0.37), body mass index (r=0.46), the circumferences of thigh (r=0.51) and calf (r=0.41), the skin-fold thicknesses of front thigh (r=0.38) and of medial calf (r=0.40), the sum of eight skin-folds (r=0.44) and body fat percentage (r=0.41) were related to marathon race time. For the variables of training, maximal distance ran per week (r=− 0.38), number of running training sessions per week (r=− 0.46) and the speed of the training sessions (r= − 0.60) were related to marathon race time. In the multi-variate analysis, the circumference of calf (P=0.02) and the speed of the training sessions (P=0.0014) were related to marathon race time. Marathon race time might be partially (r 2=0.50) predicted by the following equation: Race time (min)=184.4 + 5.0 x (circumference calf, cm) –11.9 x (speed in running during training, km/h) for recreational female marathoners. Conclusions Variables of both anthropometry and training were related to marathon race time in recreational female marathoners and cannot be reduced to one single predictor variable. For practical applications, a low circumference of calf and a high running speed in training are associated with a fast marathon race time in recreational female runners.
On lexicographically shellable posets

Lexicographically shellable partially ordered sets are studied. A new recursive formulation of CL-shellability is introduced and exploited. It is shown that face lattices of convex polytopes, totally semimodular posets, posets of injective and normal words and lattices of bilinear forms are CL-shellable. Finally, it is shown that several common operations on graded posets preserve shellability and CL-shellability.
An Adaptive Bacterial Foraging Optimization Algorithm with Lifecycle and Social Learning

Bacterial Foraging Algorithm (BFO) is a recently proposed swarm intelligence algorithm inspired by the foraging and chemotactic phenomenon of bacteria. However, its optimization ability is not so good compared with other classic algorithms as it has several shortages. This paper presents an improved BFO Algorithm. In the new algorithm, a lifecycle model of bacteria is founded. The bacteria could split, die, or migrate dynamically in the foraging processes, and population size varies as the algorithm runs. Social learning is also introduced so that the bacteria will tumble towards better directions in the chemotactic steps. Besides, adaptive step lengths are employed in chemotaxis. The new algorithm is named BFOLS and it is tested on a set of benchmark functions with dimensions of 2 and 20. Canonical BFO, PSO, and GA algorithms are employed for comparison. Experiment results and statistic analysis show that the BFOLS algorithm offers significant improvements than original BFO algorithm. Particulary with dimension of 20, it has the best performance among the four algorithms.
Quantitative scanning evanescent microwave microscopy and its applications in characterization of functional materials libraries

This paper gives a comprehensive review on the advances in the field of scanning evanescent microwave microscopy, as a high-throughput characterization tool for electrical properties. Theoretical model analyses used for performing quantitative non-destructive characterization of various materials are presented. Examples of applications of the microwave microscopy to the rapid measurements of dielectric/ferroelectric libraries are given.
International perspective for a sound intergovernmental finance system in the Philippines

This paper describes briefly the different forms of equalization, principally focusing on the distinction between revenue equalization versus cost equalization. In addition, some international country case studies from Australia, Canada, Germany, and Switzerland are presented. Based on these country cases, suggestions are made as to how the Philippines can avoid pitfalls in the area of fiscal federalism and what lessons it can learn from other countries for the next 20 years. This will enable readers to decide how common or unique the Philippine experience is, and what achievements and failures can be observed in the Philippines in comparison with other developing countries.
The Impact of “Consumer Cringe” on Developing Regional Trade Blocks

Abstract The continuing development of regional trade blocs, such as COMESA (The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa), ECOWAS (The Economic Community of Western African States) and the resurgence of a new EAC (East African Co-operation), will depend significantly on consumer confidence in products from within the region. Ninety-six Commerce undergraduates from Tanzania estimated the preference patterns, among relevant home market segments, for a range of consumer goods produced in Tanzania, East Africa, and the West. For each comparison, the three goods were described as identical in terms of the “4 Ps” (Product, Promotion, Price, and Place). Tanzanian consumers were consistently reported to prefer Western foreign goods over equivalent regional imports, with home-produced goods faring least well of all. Such “consumer cringe” (which has also been identified in West Africa and South America) suggests that at least in terms of the East African Co-operation (EAC), regionally-produced goods can indeed be relatively attractive, provided a bias in favor of Western goods can be addressed by appropriate marketing initiatives.
Relations between Allied Forces and the population of Japan

[Very provisional, comments are welcome] We hope that these notes will enable us to get in touch with Japanese scholars; needless to say, this is an essential condition for the success of this project. Please, if you happen to know people who have a working interest in this kind of historiography do not hesitate to send them a copy of the present draft. (*) Okinawa is treated in a separate chapter not only because it was not part of Japan during the period under study, but also due to several other special features, e.g. the extreme paucity of sources for the period 1945-1952 or the fact that the period of study is extended until reversion to Japan in 1972. 3 Alle Menschen werden Brüder wo dein sanfter Fï ugel weilt. [All people become brothers under your tender wing. ] —Friedrich Schiller, Lied an die Freude [Ode to Joy] (1785) " Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention? " " Yes, to the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. " " The dog did nothing in the night-time. " " That was the curious incident, " remarked Sherlock Holmes. There is a strong family resemblance about the misdeeds, and if you have all the details of a thousand at your finger ends, it is odd if you can't unravel the thousand and first. Introduction There is an abundant literature about the occupation period in Japan but two questions of key importance have been largely ignored. • How were the occupation troops accepted and what was the frequency of the incidents between the Japanese population and the troops • What degree of autonomy did the Japanese government have with respect to General MacArthur's General Headquarters (GHQ)? On these two points the reading which still prevails nowadays is not much different from the picture that GHQ tried to impose and which can be summarized by saying that: • the troops were welcomed and there were few if any incidents • GHQ had only an advisory role and there was a friendly cooperation between the Military Government and the Japanese administration. With respect to the first point, we will see that the archive records which would be required in order to get a complete picture are not yet available, but that the evidence based on accessible sources does hardly support the notion of an occupation without incidents. …
Determinants of Default Ratios in the Segment of Loans to Households in Spain

In this paper we present the estimation results of a dynamic panel data model that explains the dynamic behaviour of default ratios in Spain for loans extended to the household sector. We estimate the models for two alternative definitions of default and for two different loan categories. The dataset consists of a panel of 50 provinces and covers the period 1984-2009. The results of the models show that the dynamic behaviour of the default ratios of loans extended to Spanish households can be reasonably well characterised with the lagged LHS variable, and the contemporaneous and the lagged values of credit growth, the unemployment rate and the interest debt burden. We find that the increase in the unemployment rate was the main driver of the sharp rise in default ratios between 2007 and 2009 in Spain and that the fall in interest rates since the end of 2008 contributed to moderating the upward path of default ratios in 2009. We also find that there is strong evidence of asymmetrical effects of unemployment ratios on default ratios, and differences between banks and savings banks in their sensitivity to the cycle
Altered vertebrobasilar flow in children: angiographic, MR, and MR angiographic findings.

PURPOSE To characterize the clinical, MR, MR angiographic, and conventional angiographic findings in vertebrobasilar disease in children. METHODS Eight children with posterior circulation ischemia and infarction had conventional spin-echo MR and MR angiography of the head and neck. Six patients had conventional angiography. RESULTS Six patients had alteration of vertebral or basilar artery flow void on spin-echo images. MR angiography showed all six cases of angiographically proved vertebrobasilar dissection or occlusion despite overestimating the extent of arterial abnormality in two patients. In two patients the intracranial peripheral branch cutoff shown at angiography was correctly predicted on screening MR angiography. CONCLUSION Posterior circulation infarction in children is usually secondary to traumatic injury to the vertebrobasilar circulation. MR and MR angiography noninvasively show vertebrobasilar flow disturbances and compare favorably with angiography in documenting dissection or occlusion of the vertebrobasilar circulation. MR angiography may obviate the need for invasive angiography in these children at diagnosis and during follow-up of anticoagulation therapy.
Toward a Comparative Developmental Ecology of Human Sleep

This exploratory comparative survey of the ecology of human sleep arises from a question posed by a pediatrician who studies mood disorders and sleep (Dahl, 1996; Dahl et al., 1996). In an attempt to gain insights into sleep regulation from ecological theory and research, he questioned what anthropologists know about sleep. The bald, if somewhat overstated, answer was: zero. Sleep, in its ubiquity, seeming nonsociality, apparent universality, and presumed biologically driven uniformity, has been overlooked as a background variable. Amazingly, it has not engaged a discipline dedicated to the study of human behavior, human diversity, and their cultural biological bases. A notable exception is the evolutionary-ethologically informed approach to the anthropological study of sleep pioneered by the work of McKenna and colleagues on sleep arrangements, infant state regulation, and risk for sudden infant death syndrome or SIDS (McKenna, 1991, 1992, 1996; Mosko, McKenna, Dickel, & Hunt, 1993). Harkness and Super have also documented cultural variation in infant sleep in relation to their studies of child care practices (Harkness & Super, 1996; Super, Harkness, van Tijen, van der Vlugt, Fintelman, & Kijksta, 1996), and scattered reports document sleep behavior (Ferreira de Souza Aguiar, Pereira da Sliva, & Margues, 1991).
Bats from Montserrat ( Lesser Antilles ) with Comments Concerning the Effects of Hurricane

— From August 1993 to August 1994, bats were surveyed on Montserrat, Lesser Antilles. Four years after this small volcanic island was struck by Hurricane Hugo (1989), there remains a 20-fold decrease in bat populations as compared to levels before Hugo. After the hurricane, composition of the community shifted from smaller frugivorous species to one of more omnivorous and larger frugivorous species. With the addition of a new record for Sturnira thomasi, voucher specimens from Montserrat exist for ten species of Chiroptera: Noctilio leporinus, Monophyllus plethodon, Sturnira tkomasi, Chiroderma improvisum, Artibeus jamaicensis, Ardops nichollsi, Brachyphylla cavernarum, Natalus stramineus, Tadarida brasiliensis, and Molos-
How dual is transnational identity? A debate on dual positioning of diaspora organizations

Within the social sciences, most studies of transnationalism take the approach that migrants experience a duality between place of origin and place of residence. In that kind of approach, transnationalism refers to a sense of in‐betweenness caused by this duality. The aim of this paper is to show how the activities of an Iranian diaspora organization in Southern California (NIPOC) may seem essentialist at first but can be considered transnational because they transcend the duality of the past/place of origin and the present/place of residence. Through an example of an Iranian festival that is the creation of diaspora, I intend to show how national identity is detached from its assumed link to the nation state or ‘the country of origin’ and placed within a newly created imaginary space of a nation within a nation.
Minimum Wage Effects on Employment and School Enrollment

We argue in this paper that the focus on employment effects in recent studies of minimum wages ignores an important interaction between schooling, employment, and the minimum wage. To study these linkages, we estimate a conditional logit model of employment and enrollment outcomes for teenagers using state-year observations for the period 1977 to 1989. The results show a negative influence of minimum wages on school enrollment and a positive effect on the proportion of teens neither employed nor in school. We further suggest that our results are consistent with substitution by employers of higher- for lower-skilled teenagers, with the displaced teens ending up both out of work and out of school.
NACO polarimetric differential imaging of TW Hya A sharp look at the closest T Tauri disk

We present high-contrast imaging data on the disk of the classical T Tauri star TW Hya. The images were obtained through the polarimetric differential imaging technique with the adaptive optics system NACO. Our commissioning data show the presence of polarized disk emission between 0.1 �� and 1.4 �� from the star. We derive the first Ks-band radial polarized intensity distribution. We show that the polarized intensity compares well to shorter wavelengths surface brightness observations and confirm the previously reported gradual slope change around 0.8 �� . These results show the potential of the new polarimetric differential imaging technique at 8 m-class telescopes to map the inner regions of protoplanetary disks.
Molecular Mapping of the Binding Site for a Blocker of Hyperpolarization-Activated, Cyclic Nucleotide-Modulated Pacemaker Channels

Hyperpolarization-activated, cyclic nucleotide-modulated (HCN) channels mediate rhythmic electrical activity of neural and cardiac pacemaker cells. Drugs that block these channels slow the beating rate of the heart and are used to treat angina. Here, we characterized the effect of the HCN channel blocker, ZD7288 [4-(N-ethyl-N-phenylamino)-1,2-dimethyl-6-(methylamino) pyrimidinium chloride] on HCN2 channels that were heterologously expressed in Xenopus oocytes. A site-directed mutagenesis approach was used to identify specific residues of the mouse HCN2 channel pore that interact with ZD7288. Two residues (Ala425 and Ile432) located in the S6 transmembrane domain were found to be the primary determinants for block of HCN2 channels by ZD7288. I432A mutant HCN2 channels were ∼100-fold less sensitive to block by ZD7288. Substitution of Ile432 with more hydrophobic residues (Phe, Leu, or Val) caused only modest shifts in the IC50 for the drug. HCN1 channels have a Val (Val390) in the equivalent position of Ile432 and are less sensitive to block by ZD7288. Accordingly, mutation of this Val390 to Ile in HCN1 increased the sensitivity of these channels to drug block. Mutation of Ala425 and Ile432 also attenuated the block of HCN2 by the more potent blocker cilobradine. An HCN2 homology model based on the bacterial KcsA K+ channel predicts that the phenyl ring of ZD7288 occupies a hydrophobic cavity formed by Ala425 and Ile432 and that the charged ring aligns with the axis of the inner pore closely corresponding to the localization of K+ ions observed in the KcsA crystal structure.
Grid cells show field-to-field variability and this explains the aperiodic response of inhibitory interneurons

Research on network mechanisms and coding properties of grid cells assume that the firing rate of a grid cell in each of its fields is the same. Furthermore, proposed network models predict spatial regularities in the firing of inhibitory interneurons that are inconsistent with experimental data. In this paper, by analyzing the response of grid cells recorded from rats during free navigation, we first show that there are strong variations in the mean firing rate of the fields of individual grid cells and thus show that the data is inconsistent with the theoretical models that predict similar peak magnitudes. We then build a two population excitatory-inhibitory network model in which sparse spatially selective input to the excitatory cells, presumed to arise from e.g. salient external stimuli, hippocampus or a combination of both, leads to the variability in the firing field amplitudes of grid cells. We show that, when combined with appropriate connectivity between the excitatory and inhibitory neurons, the variability in the firing field amplitudes of grid cells results in inhibitory neurons that do not exhibit regular spatial firing, consistent with experimental data. Finally, we show that even if the spatial positions of the fields are maintained, variations in the firing rates of the fields of grid cells are enough to cause remapping of hippocampal cells.
The durability of anchoring effects

Recent research suggests that judgmental anchoring is mediated by a selective increase in the accessibility of knowledge about the judgmental target. Anchoring thus constitutes one instance of the judgmental effects of increased knowledge accessibility. Such knowledge accessibility effects have repeatedly been demonstrated to be fairly durable, which suggests that the effects of judgmental anchoring may also persist over time. Consistent with this assumption, three experiments demonstrate that judgmental anchors influence judgment even if they were present one week before the critical judgment is made. In fact, the magnitude of anchoring was found to remain undiminished over this period of time. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Evaluation of methods for detection and identification of Mycobacterium species in patients suspected of having pulmonary tuberculosis

Tuberculosis control is a priority for the Ministry of Health policies in Brazil. In the present work, the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis by the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) was standardized, and the laboratory diagnosis of pulmonary tuberculosis was evaluated comparing baciloscopy, culture and PCR tests. The study was carried out with 117 sputum samples from different patients suspected of having pulmonary tuberculosis, for whom physicians had ordered a baciloscopy test. Baciloscopy was performed using the Ziehl-Neelsen method, and culture was performed by incubation of treated samples in Lowenstein-Jensen’s medium at 37°C for eight weeks. For PCR, DNA was amplified with a specific pair of primers to the M. tuberculosis complex, with a resulting product of 123 bp from the insertion element IS6110. Three (2.56%) samples presented a positive baciloscopy result and a positive PCR result (100% agreement), and nine (7.69%) presented Mycobacterium sp. growth in culture (P= 0.1384). Among six samples with positive results in culture, one was identified by PCR-RFLP as belonging to the M. tuberculosis complex and one was identified as a non-tuberculosis mycobacteria. Sensitivity and specificity of PCR compared to culture were 33.3% and 100%, respectively.