Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of visuomotor coupling in the development of sensory processing in mouse visual cortex

The current prevailing understanding of sensory processing in cortical areas is largely based on the presentation framework proposes that neural activity form presentations of external stimulus. However, with recent advances in technologies of recording neuronal activity in awake behaving animals, it has been shown that the primary visual cortex (V1) is also strongly driven by self-movement, suggesting that the presentation framework of visual cortex function is incomplete. Particularly, a subset of neurons in V1 selectively respond to transient visuomotor mismatches, and it could be explained by the predictive coding framework which postulates V1 compares the predicted and received visual input and sense the difference between the two. Experience of normal visuomotor coupling has been shown to be crucial for the development of visual-guided behavior, therefore it is likely that the prediction of visual input depends on the experience of visuomotor coupling, which shapes the functional development of V1. In the present study, we use a virtual reality system and trained dark-reared mice with either normal or random visuomotor coupling, and recorded the neural activity in layer 2/3 neurons of V1. We show that mismatch responses in excitatory neurons were strongly dependent on visuomotor experience. By recording several different types of layer 2/3 interneurons in V1 and manipulating their activity with designer receptor exclusively activated by designer drugs (DREADDs) or optogenetics tools, we propose a circuit model showing that the mismatch response could be the result of a disinhibition mediated by local somatostatin (SST) interneurons. Mismatch responses in both groups of mice with different visuomotor training conditions merged together after they were transferred to normal rearing environment. These data demonstrate that neurons in layer 2/3 mouse V1 computes a difference between an excitatory motor-related input and an inhibitory visual input, where the balance between the two inputs is finely tuned by visuomotor experience.
Stocks as Lotteries: The Implications of Probability Weighting for Security Prices

We study the asset pricing implications of Tversky and Kahneman's (1992) cumulative prospect theory, with particular focus on its probability weighting component. Our main result, derived from a novel equilibrium with non-unique global optima, is that, in contrast to the prediction of a standard expected utility model, a security's own skewness can be priced: a positively skewed security can be "overpriced," and can earn a negative average excess return. Our results offer a unifying way of thinking about a number of seemingly unrelated financial phenomena, such as the low average return on IPOs, private equity, and distressed stocks; the diversification discount; the low valuation of certain equity stubs; the pricing of out-of-the-money options; and the lack of diversification in many household portfolios.
Effects of Linear-Polarized Near-Infrared Light Irradiation on Chronic Pain

In order to study the efficacy of linear-polarized near-infrared light irradiation (LPNIR) on relieving chronic pain in conjunction with nerve block (NB) or local block (LB), a 3-week prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled study was conducted to evaluate the pre- and post-therapy pain intensity. Visual analogue scales (VASs) were measured in all patients before and 6 months after therapy visiting the pain clinic during the period of August 2007 to January 2008. A total of 52 patients with either shoulder periarthritis or myofascial pain syndrome or lateral epicondylitis were randomly assigned into two groups by drawing lots. Patients in Group I were treated with NB or LB plus LPNIR; Group II patients, for their part, were treated with the same procedures as in Group I, but not using LPNIR. In both groups, the pain intensity (VAS score) decreased significantly immediately after therapy as compared to therapy. There was a significant difference between the test and control groups immediately after therapy (P < 0.05), while no effect 6 months later. No side effects were observed. It is concluded that LPNIR is an effective and safe modality to treat various chronic pains, which has synergic effects with NB or LB.
Low-Level Endotoxin Induces Potent Inflammatory Activation of Human Blood Vessels: Inhibition by Statins

Background—Low-level endotoxemia (ie, ≥50 pg/mL) in apparently healthy subjects was recently identified as a powerful, independent risk factor for atherosclerosis. Methods and Results—We treated human saphenous veins (HSVs) with low levels of endotoxin. Release of the proinflammatory chemokines interleukin-8 (IL-8) and monocyte chemoattractant protein-1 (MCP-1) was measured by ELISA. Superoxide was determined by using the fluorescent probe dihydroethidium (HE), and monocyte binding was assessed with calcein-labeled U-937 cells. Three- to 4-fold increases in MCP-1 and IL-8 release were observed at endotoxin concentrations of 100 pg/mL; these increases were inhibited by the 3-hydroxy-3-methylglutaryl coenzyme A reductase inhibitor atorvastatin. Studies in cultured endothelial cells suggest that the mechanism is related to inhibition of isoprenylation (ie, geranylgeranylation) rather than cholesterol formation. Endotoxin produced dose-dependent increases in HE fluorescence that were inhibited by the superoxide dismutase mimics Tiron and MnTBAP. Endotoxin potently induced U-937 cell binding to HSV; binding was inhibited by both Tiron and atorvastatin. Toll-like receptor-4 expression was detected in cultured HSV endothelial and smooth muscle cells and in intact HSV. Conclusions—Clinically relevant levels of endotoxin, as reported in ambulatory populations, have profound inflammatory effects on intact HSV. Inhibition of endotoxin-induced vascular inflammation might contribute to the beneficial effects of statins in treating atherosclerosis.
Site-diluted three-dimensional Ising model with long-range correlated disorder

We study two different versions of the site-diluted Ising model in three dimensions with long-range spatially correlated disorder by Monte Carlo means. We use finite-size scaling techniques to compute the critical exponents of these systems, taking into account the strong scaling-corrections. We find a $\nu$ value that is compatible with the analytical predictions.
Robust Stability Analysis for Stochastic Neural Networks With Time-Varying Delay

This brief investigates the problem of mean square exponential stability of uncertain stochastic delayed neural networks (DNNs) with time-varying delay. A novel Lyapunov functional is introduced with the idea of the discretized Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) method. Then, a new delay-dependent mean square exponential stability criterion is derived by applying the free-weighting matrix technique and by equivalently eliminating time-varying delay through the idea of convex combination. Numerical examples illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method and the improvement over some existing methods.
FIRST KECK NULLING OBSERVATIONS OF A YOUNG STELLAR OBJECT: PROBING THE CIRCUMSTELLAR ENVIRONMENT OF THE HERBIG Ae STAR MWC 325

We present the first N-band nulling plus K- and L-band V 2 observations of a young stellar object, MWC 325, taken with the 85 m baseline Keck Interferometer. The Keck nuller was designed for the study of faint dust signatures associated with debris disks, but it also has a unique capability for studying the temperature and density distribution of denser disks found around young stellar objects. Interferometric observations of MWC 325 at K, L, and N encompass a factor of five in spectral range and thus, especially when spectrally dispersed within each band, enable characterization of the structure of the inner disk regions where planets form. Fitting our observations with geometric models such as a uniform disk or a Gaussian disk show that the apparent size increases monotonically with wavelength in the 2–12 μm wavelength region, confirming the widely held assumption based on radiative transfer models, now with spatially resolved measurements over a broad wavelength range, that disks are extended with a temperature gradient. The effective size is a factor of about 1.4 and 2.2 larger in the L band and N band, respectively, compared to that in the K band. The existing interferometric measurements and the spectral energy distribution can be reproduced by a flat disk or a weakly shadowed nearly flat disk model, with only slight flaring in the outer regions of the disk, consisting of representative “sub-micron” (0.1 μm) and “micron” (2 μm) grains of a 50:50 ratio of silicate and graphite. This is in marked contrast to the disks previously found in other Herbig Ae/Be stars, suggesting a wide variety in the disk properties among Herbig Ae/Be stars.
Regulation of T cell receptor expression in immature CD4+CD8+ thymocytes by p56lck tyrosine kinase: basis for differential signaling by CD4 and CD8 in immature thymocytes expressing both coreceptor molecules

Signals transduced through the T cell antigen receptor (TCR) are modulated by the src family tyrosine kinase p56lck (lck), which associates in mature T cells with the coreceptor molecules CD4 and CD8. Here we describe a novel function of lck in immature CD4+CD8+ thymocytes, that of regulating TCR expression. Activation of lck in immature CD4+CD8+ thymocytes by intrathymic engagement of CD4 maintains low TCR expression by causing most TCR components to be retained and degraded within the endoplasmic reticulum. Importantly, activation of lck in immature CD4+CD8+ thymocytes results from engagement of surface CD4 molecules, but not surface CD8 molecules, despite the nearly fourfold greater surface expression of CD8 than CD4. The competence of CD4 to activate lck in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes relates to the fact that a relatively large fraction of surface CD4 molecules (25-50%) are associated with intracellular lck molecules, whereas only 2% of surface CD8 molecules are associated with lck. The amount of lck associated with CD4 in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes is diminished by chronic CD4 engagement in the thymus, as activated lck molecules subsequently dissociate from CD4. Indeed, the amount of lck associated with CD4 in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes is markedly increased in major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II- mice that lack the intrathymic ligand for CD4 and in which surface CD4 molecules are consequently not engaged. Thus, the present study demonstrates that (a) activation of lck in CD4+CD8+ thymocytes regulates distribution and expression of TCR components; (b) unlike CD4 molecules, CD8 molecules on CD4+CD8+ thymocytes cannot efficiently activate lck despite their significantly greater surface expression; and (c) the amount of lck associated with CD4 in the CD4+CD8+ thymocytes is inversely related to the extent of CD4 engagement by MHC class II molecules in the thymus.
Radicalising the marketing of higher education: learning from student-generated social media data

ABSTRACT The social media landscape creates opportunities for higher education institutions (HEIs) to amplify psychological engagement with students and to increase influence impressions by following student(s)-to-student(s) conversations and stories. Evidence of understanding how HEIs can utilise student-generated social media data for higher education marketing and branding purposes is underexplored. This paper adopts a netnographic research method to illustrate how social media artefacts, such as the ‘This Is Where I Study’ (TIWIS) Facebook page, created by students in the form of dialogues and content can be analysed by HEIs to listen, engage further and influence students’ impressions. TIWIS illustrates that students’ engagement with social media platforms such as Facebook is dynamic in nature. It comprises behavioural expressions (manifestations and actions such as likes and shares as well as opinion comments) and individuals’ experiences (subjective in nature stories and comments of personal experiences and views). Hence, netnographic analysis allows capturing actual behaviours via longitudinal ‘big data’ sets and supports HEIs in proactive branding. Analysis of social media data demonstrates the value of encouraging and making accessible authentic conversations in order to create student-centred content.
“ Is the Missing 1 Dollar in the Cheater ’ s Hand ? ” : The Cheater Detection Module as a Constraint within Insight Problem Solving

Previous studies (Cosmides, 1989; Gigernzer & Hug, 1992; Hasegawa & Hiraishi, 2000) have shown the Cheater Detection Module (CDM) to be an adaptive heuristic within social environments and that it can improve human reasoning in many social exchange contexts. The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of the CDM on problem solving. To that aim, the ’30-dollar room’ problem (Isaak & Just, 1992) is employed, which involves a social exchange context. Generally speaking, we use heuristics to efficiently solve normal problems. While heuristics can function effectively in practical contexts, they can also be obstacles to solving insight problems (Knoblich, 1999; Hiraki & Suzuki, 1997). We hypothesize that the CDM will make it difficult to find the correct answer for this insight problem. In order to investigate this hypothesis, we compare solution rates for the standard ’30-dollar room’ problem with isomorphic problems that do not involve ’social exchange’ contexts. The results indicate that the solution rates for the isomorphic problems were higher than for the standard version of the problem. The results are supportive of our hypothesis. There are two implications from the present findings. Firstly, the results indicate that there are situations in which the CDM has a negative influence. Secondly, there are cognitive constraints that emerge in adaptation to social environments.
Optimal Fuzzy-Immune-PID Controllers Design of PWM DC-DC Converters

Generally, the state-space averaged model, which is an approximate model, is employed to synthesize the PWM (pulse-width-modulated) DC-DC converters. Instead, an algorithm based on orthogonal-functions approach (OFA) only involving algebraic computation is proposed in this paper to precisely solve the discontinuous dynamic equations of the PWM DC-DC converters. On the other hand, to accommodate the load variation of a PWM DC-DC converter, a fuzzy-immune-PID controller by fusing the conventional PID controller, the fuzzy logic theory and the immune feedback law is considered as a self-adaptive controller in this paper. Based on the OFA, the optimal fuzzy-immune-PID controller design problem for a class of PWM DC-DC converters is transformed into a static-parameters optimization problem represented by algebraic equations. Then for the static optimization problem, the hybrid Taguchi-genetic algorithm (HTGA) is employed to find the optimal parameters of the fuzzy-immune-PID controllers for the PWM DC-DC converters under the criterion of minimizing an integral quadratic performance index. The proposed integrative method, which fuses the OFA and the HTGA, is non-differential, non-integral, straightforward, and well-adapted to computer implementation. The results show that the proposed method gives an effective way for synthesizing the optimal parameters of the fuzzy-immune-PID controllers of the PWM DC-DC converters.
Change in the Perceived Certainty of Punishment as an Inhibitor of Post-Juvenile Offending in Serious Delinquents: Deterrence at the Adult Transition

The purpose of this study was to determine whether growth in perceived certainty of punishment explained the right leg of the age–crime curve. Using longitudinal data from the Pathways to Desistance study (N = 1,354), it was determined that offense variety achieved its steepest decline between the ages of 17 and 18, and offense frequency displayed its steepest decline between the ages of 19 and 20. Further analysis revealed that perceived certainty of punishment predicted the variety and frequency of offending from the periods of steepest decline but not during periods of offense growth or less optimal decline. These results provide preliminary support for the presence of sensitive periods in emerging adulthood whereby increased perceived certainty may inhibit future offending.
Blood Quantum and Perceptions of Black-White Biracial Targets: The Black Ancestry Prototype Model of Affirmative Action

The present study examined the causal role of amount of Black ancestry in targets’ perceived fit with Black prototypes and perceivers’ categorization of biracial targets. Greater Black ancestry increased the likelihood that perceivers categorized biracial targets as Black and perceived targets as fitting Black prototypes (e.g., experiencing racial discrimination, possessing stereotypic traits). These results persisted, controlling for perceptions of phenotype that stem from ancestry information. Perceivers’ beliefs about how society would categorize the biracial targets predicted perceptions of discrimination, whereas perceivers’ beliefs about the targets’ self-categorization predicted trait perceptions. The results of this study support the Black ancestry prototype model of affirmative action, which reveals the downstream consequences of Black ancestry for the distribution of minority resources (e.g., affirmative action) to biracial targets.
Algebraic foundation and optimization for object based query languages

The Tarski algebra, an algebraic foundation for object-based query languages, is presented. While maintaining physical data independence, the Tarski algebra is shown to be both simple and powerful enough to express all reasonable queries. It is shown how queries expressed in a graph-oriented query language (based on the functional data model) can be translated into the Tarski algebra. The graphical representation of queries in combination with the Tarski algebra is shown to be a convenient mechanism for effective query optimization. <<ETX>>
Social Support Pairs Predict Daily Functioning Following Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury: An Exploratory Study

Aim: This exploratory study assessed (1) the associations between three major types of social support (perceived, actual and structural) and post-injury daily functioning and (2) the ability of subjective-objective social support dyads to predict rehabilitation outcome among traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) patients one-year post- discharge. Method: Using a prospective study design, 20 SCI patients of workforce age discharged from the Royal Talbot Rehabilitation Hospital, Melbourne, Australia during 2007 were assessed on a range of demographic, injury and social support variables. Post-injury daily functioning was assessed 12-months post-discharge. Results: Bivariate analyses revealed that the three major types of social support were associated with better post-injury daily functioning. Multivariate analyses revealed that the dyad of (subjective) perceived social support and (objective) community integration was the best predictor of successful rehabilitation outcome. For all three social support dyads, the subjective component contributed greater unique variance to the overall predictive ability of the model than did the accompanying objective component. Conclusions: Use of psychometrically sound scales that incorporate objective and subjective measures of social support may provide a more effective means of evaluating the contribution of social support to rehabilitation outcome, plus indicate whether desired social support levels satisfactorily match those received.
On The Uniqueness of Minimal Coupling in Higher-Spin Gauge Theory

We address the uniqueness of the minimal couplings between higher-spin fields and gravity. These couplings are cubic vertices built from gauge non-invariant connections that induce non-abelian deformations of the gauge algebra. We show that Fradkin-Vasiliev's cubic 2? s? s vertex, which contains up to 2s? 2 derivatives dressed by a cosmological constant ? , has a limit where: (i) ? 0; (ii) the spin-2 Weyl tensor scales non-uniformly with s; and (iii) all lower-derivative couplings are scaled away. For s = 3 the limit yields the unique non-abelian spin 2? 3? 3 vertex found recently by two of the authors, thereby proving the uniqueness of the corresponding FV vertex. We extend the analysis to s = 4 and a class of spin 1? s? s vertices. The non-universality of the flat limit high-lightens not only the problematic aspects of higher-spin interactions with ? = 0 but also the strongly coupled nature of the derivative expansion of the fully nonlinear higher-spin field equations with ? 0, wherein the standard minimal couplings mediated via the Lorentz connection are subleading at energy scales (|? |)1/2? E? Mp. Finally, combining our results with those obtained by Metsaev, we give the complete list of all the manifestly covariant cubic couplings of the form 1? s? s? and 2? s? s? , in Minkowski background.
Validation of a Chinese version of the physical activity enjoyment scale: Factorial validity, measurement equivalence, and predictive validity

The present study examined the psychometric properties, factorial validity, and measurement equivalence across gender and three education levels of a Chinese short version of physical activity enjoyment scale (S-PACESC). Participants (N = 4051) were fifth to 12th grade public school students recruited from eight different geographic areas of mainland Chinese. Confirmatory factor analysis supported the unidimensionality of S-PACESC with great model fit. In addition, the S-PACESC was equivalent between genders and across three education levels (i.e. elementary, middle, and high school) at both configural, full metric, and full scalar levels. The latent means comparison revealed that boys perceived significantly higher physical activity (PA) enjoyment and the PA enjoyment tends to decrease as adolescents continue to age. PA enjoyment measured by S-PACESC successfully predicted moderate to vigorous PA (MVPA) for both total and various sub-samples. The S-PACESC is a valid tool that can be used to measure PA enjoyment for Chinese students.