Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial Segregation of Different Modes of Movement Control in the Whisker Representation of Rat Primary Motor Cortex

What is mapped on the surface of the primary motor cortex (M1)? The classic somatotopic map holds true on the level of limb representations. However, on the small scale (at within-limb representations), neither somatotopy nor movement dynamics/kinematics seem to be organizational principles. We investigated the hypothesis that integrated into the body representation of M1 there may be separate representation of different modes of motor control, using different subcortical computations but sharing the same motor periphery. Using awake rats and long intracortical stimulation trains in M1 whisker representation (wM1) revealed that natural-like, rhythmic whisking (normally used for tactile exploration) can be evoked from a posteromedial subregion of wM1. Nonrhythmic whisker retraction, on the other hand, was evoked in an adjacent but more anterolaterally located region within wM1. Evoked whisker retraction was always accompanied by complex movements of the face, suggesting that the respective subregion is able to interact with other representations in specific behavioral contexts. Such associations were absent for evoked rhythmic whisking. The respective subregion rather seemed to activate a downstream central pattern generator, the oscillation frequency of which was dependent on the average evoked cortical activity. Nevertheless, joint stimulation of the two neighboring subregions demonstrated their potency to interact in a functionally useful way. Therefore, we suggest that the cause of cortical separation is the specific drive of subcortical structures needed to generate different types of movements rather than different behavioral contexts in which the movements are performed.
The Relationship Between Socio- Demographic and Illness-Related Variables with the Quality of Life Among Malaysian Adolescent with Thalassaemia: A Multi-Centre Study

Thalassaemia is a life-long illness that exists globally. The quality of life of adolescents with thalassaemia could differ based on the health policies of a specific region, existing level of socio-economic development and the illness related variables. This study examines the relationship between sociodemographic and disease-related variables with the quality of life among adolescents with thalassaemia involving multiple treatment centers spread throughout various locations in Malaysia. Participants included 218 adolescents (male=108; female 112) with mean age of 13.86 (SD=2.40). They completed the questionnaire consisting of demographic information, illness-related variables, and Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory 4.0 (PedsQL). The participants in this study was found to have higher total summary score (Mean = 69.64, SD = 14.03), psychosocial health (Mean = 70.23, SD = 14.91), emotional (Mean = 72.12, SD = 20.66), social (Mean = 79.82, SD = 17.37), and school (Mean = 58.69, SD = 16.77) functioning but with lower physical health (Mean = 68.50, SD = 17.22) as compared to previous study that was done in Kuala Lumpur. Findings also shows a significant positive correlation between level of education and frequency of hospitalization (r = .156, p < 0.05), frequency of transfusion (r = .152, p < 0.05), and physical health (r = .186, p < 0.01). An increase in the frequency of transfusion was found to significantly increase social functioning (r = .137, p < 0.05). Other significant correlations are discussed in addition to the quality of life experienced by patients with thalassaemia in different region of the world.
To Hell with Narrative: Inferno and Irony in Pasolini’s Salò

ABSTRACT This article examines Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma. While the film has received copious critical attention, most interpretations either focus on the physical and sexual violence depicted on screen or read the film as a simple metaphor for capitalist consumer culture. This article engages with Pasolini’s oft-neglected journalistic Scritti corsari (Corsair writings) to demonstrate the complex and often problematic nature of his critiques of capitalism, fully present in Salò as well. My reading of irony in Salò at once offers an understanding of the role of Pasolini’s citations of other texts in the film, explores his relationship to the work of Dante and of Ezra Pound, and examines how Pasolini anticipates certain strands of radical negativity in queer theory, particularly in the work of Lee Edelman.
Recent advances in understanding and managing Crohn’s disease

There is consensus that inflammatory bowel diseases (IBDs) are the result of “dysregulated” immune reactivity towards commensal microorganisms in the intestine. This gut microbiome is clearly altered in IBD, but its primary or secondary role is still debated. The focus has shifted from adaptive to innate immunity, with its multitude of receptor molecules (Toll-like and NOD receptors) and antibacterial effector molecules (defensins, cathelicidin, and others). The latter appear to be at least partly deficient at different intestinal locations. Host genetics also support the notion that microbe–host interaction at the mucosa is the prime site of pathogenesis. In contrast, even the latest therapeutic antibodies are directed against secondary targets like cytokines and integrins identified decades ago. These so-called “biologicals” have disappointing long-term results, with the majority of patients not achieving remission in the long run. A promising approach is the development of novel drugs like defensin-derived molecules that substitute for the missing endogenous antibacterials.
Approximate Solution of Urysohn Integral Equations Using the Adomian Decomposition Method

We apply Adomian decomposition method (ADM) for obtaining approximate series solution of Urysohn integral equations. The ADM provides a direct recursive scheme for solving such problems approximately. The approximations of the solution are obtained in the form of series with easily calculable components. Furthermore, we also discuss the convergence and error analysis of the ADM. Moreover, three numerical examples are included to demonstrate the accuracy and applicability of the method.
Finite-Time Consensus based Clock Synchronization by Discontinuous Control

Abstract In this paper we develop a decentralized discontinuous algorithm which guarantees the finite time synchronization of a network of clocks, which are modeled as continuous-time integrators and are subject to unknown-but-bounded time-varying disturbances. The proposed synchronization algorithm is asynchronous and consists in a randomly applied local interaction rule. After a finite transient time, the proposed algorithm provides the approximated synchronization of the network by attenuating the destabilizing effect of the disturbances. Lyapunov analysis is carried out to substantiate the suggested algorithm, and simulation results are illustrated throughout the paper.
Towards Automatic Band‐Limited Procedural Shaders

Procedural shaders are a vital part of modern rendering systems. Despite their prevalence, however, procedural shaders remain sensitive to aliasing any time they are sampled at a rate below the Nyquist limit. Antialiasing is typically achieved through numerical techniques like supersampling or precomputing integrals stored in mipmaps. This paper explores the problem of analytically computing a band‐limited version of a procedural shader as a continuous function of the sampling rate. There is currently no known way of analytically computing these integrals in general. We explore the conditions under which exact solutions are possible and develop several approximation strategies for when they are not. Compared to supersampling methods, our approach produces shaders that are less expensive to evaluate and closer to ground truth in many cases. Compared to mipmapping or precomputation, our approach produces shaders that support an arbitrary bandwidth parameter and require less storage. We evaluate our method on a range of spatially‐varying shader functions, automatically producing antialiased versions that have comparable error to 4×4 multisampling but can be over an order of magnitude faster. While not complete, our approach is a promising first step toward this challenging goal and indicates a number of interesting directions for future work.
Aging , probability weighting , and reference point ad a p ta tion : an experimental study

We examine generational differences in risk-taking behavior by means of a laboratory experiment with monetary incentives. We estimate the parameterized models in the framework of cumulative prospect theory and examine the risk aversion, probability weightings and reference point adaptation of elderly and young groups. The results of our experiment indicate that the elderly group is less sensitive to changes in probability and tends to underestimate large probabilities and overestimate small probabilities more strongly than does the young group. Furthermore, we find that the elderly update their reference point after gains and tend to derive their utility from gains and losses not from levels of wealth. In sum, we find that the elderly group’s behavior departs more from the traditional expected utility theory than does the young group’s behavior.
Ochre in the Middle Stone Age of Southern Africa: Ritualised Display or Hide Preservative?

Symbolic and utilitarian interpretations have been proposedfor red ochre use in the African Middle Stone Age, but these have rarely been developed. This paper reviews the hypotheses, recasts them in more explicit form and addresses the need for basic data for quantifying and describing ochre assemblages andfor synthesizing observations across a range of sites. Percentages of utilized material, by geological form and streak, from Late Pleistocene shelter sequences in southern Africa are used to investigate past selective preferences. Materials with saturated red streaks are disproportionately represented among utilized pieces, particularly among crayons. The findings are most consistent with use as pigment in a costly signalling strategy involving ritualized display. Theoretical and substantive grounds are given for inferring that the context for such display was probably collective ritual.
Self-esteem, Social Support, Personality and Psychological Well Being of Junior High School Student

Abstract : The aims of this study was to understand how the relationship between self-esteem, social support, extraversion personality, agreeableness personality, conscientiousness personality, neuroticism personality, openness personality, and psychological well-being of the public junior high school students in Malang city. This study was a non-experimental study with correlational design. Results of this research showed a variable that has a relationship with the psychological well-being is self-esteem, social support, personality agreeableness, neuroticism personality and conscientiousness personality. Accumulated seventh influence of independent variables equal to 61% of the variance of psychological well-being can be explained by three independent variables, and the rest as many as 39% are caused by other factors. Key Words : self-esteem, social support, psychological well-being, junior high school students Abstrak : Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui hubungan antara harga diri, dukungan sosial, kepribadian extraversion, kepribadian agreeableness, kepribadian conscientiousness, kepribadian neuroticism, kepribadian openness dan psychological well-being Siswa SMP Negeri Se-Kota Malang. Pendekatan yang digunakan adalah non-experimental research dengan jenis penelitian korelasional. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan variabel yang memiliki hubungan dengan psychological well-being adalah harga diri, dukungan sosial, kepribadian agreeableness, kepribadian neuroticism dan kepribadian conscientiousness. Akumulasi pengaruh ketujuh variabel independen sebesar 61% varian psychological well-being dapat dijelaskan ketiga variabel bebas, dan sisanya yaitu sebanyak 39 % disebabkan oleh faktor lain. Kata kunci : harga diri, dukungan sosial, kepribadian, psychological well-being, siswa SMP
Deviance or uniqueness, harmony or conformity? A cultural analysis.

Uniqueness has positive connotations of freedom and independence in American culture, whereas conformity has positive connotations of connectedness and harmony in East Asian culture. The present research examined how these cultural values and individual preferences for uniqueness and conformity influence each other. In Studies 1 and 2, East Asian and European American preferences for uniqueness were measured using abstract figures. In Study 3, the choice of pens by East Asians and European Americans was examined as a function of whether the pen appeared unique. In Study 4, Korean and American magazine ads were analyzed with a focus on themes of conformity and uniqueness. In all studies, East Asians preferred targets that represented conformity, whereas European Americans preferred targets that represented uniqueness. The results highlight the relationship between individual preference and the adoption and perpetuation of cultural values. If a person orders a decaffeinated cappuccino with nonfat milk in a cafe in San Francisco, he or she can feel good about having a preference that is not exactly regular. That person can feel right about being able to get the drink exactly the way he or she wants it and will be vindicated as the waiter brings the precise drink ordered without comment or question. In the United States, drinking a decaffeinated cappuccino with nonfat milk feels as good as drinking a regular cup of coffee, perhaps even better. The best taste is one's individualized taste, and being sure of one's own particular taste contributes to being an appropriate person in this cultural context. If a person orders the same drink—a decaffeinated cappuccino with nonfat milk—in a caf6 in Seoul, however, he or she may feel strange about being the only person who is getting this specialized beverage. That person will face others who are likely to be forming the impression that he or she is a person who does not get along with the group very well, and, moreover, that person will have to confront a waiter who may be annoyed at the request. Eventually, the person may even be humbled by the verdict that the cafe cannot make this idiosyncratic drink just for her. In this Korean cultural context, it does not feel right or good to drink a cup of decaffeinated cappuccino with nonfat milk. In Korea, the normal, regular, and traditional are usually the best tastes for the individual, and a
The Greek Debt Crisis and Albanian Return Migration

ABSTRACT Existing research on the relatively recent phenomenon of Albanian migrants returning to Albania is limited and focuses on the reasons for return, the characteristics of the return migrants, and on employment in general. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews with 25 returnees in Tirana, the study explores primarily, but not exclusively, the impact of the ongoing Greek debt crisis on the decision of Albanian migrants to return to Albania. More specifically, it analyses the reasons that motivated them to leave Greece; the barriers they faced while trying to reintegrate into Albanian society, which has undergone vast changes during the time of their absence; the way these barriers influence their future intentions; and, finally, the role of the Albanian government in their reintegration.
The self-report method.

If you want to know what Waldo is like, why 20041, the effectiveness of introspection not just ask him? Such is the commonsense (Wilson, 2002), the degree of automaticity logic behind the self-report method of person(Mills & Hogan, 1978; Paulhus & Levitt, ality assessment. It remains the field's most 1986), and the meaning of nonresponding commonly used mode of assessment-by far (Tourangeau, 2004). (see Robins, Tracy, & Sherman, Chapter 37, The goal of this chapter is more limited: to this volume). Despite its popularity and demprovide a brief guide to nonexpert researchers onstrated utility, the self-report method has interested in using the self-report method to asbeen a frequent target of criticism from sess personality. We begin by delineating three the early days of psychological assessment categories of self-reports. We then review the (Allport, 1927) right up to the present advantages and the disadvantages of the self(Dunning, Heath, & Suls, 2005). report method. Next, we examine the converThe psychological processes underlying an gence of self-reports with other methods of act of self-reporting are now understood to assessing personality. Finally, we provide a be exceedingly complex (e.g., Hogan & practical guide to choosing a self-report instruNicholson, 1988; Johnson, 2004; Schwarz, ment. 1999; Tourangeau, Rips, & Rasinksi, 2001). Examination of these processes requires burrowing deep into the affective and cognitive 'I). pes of Self-Reports substrates of personality. Among the challenging issues are the role of motives in selfVariants of the self-report method are numerperception (Robins & John, 1997), the apous and could be organized in a number of plicability of performative models (Johnson, ways. We restrict ourselves to cases in which re-
Migrant Background and Weight Gain in Early Infancy: Results from the German Study Sample of the IDEFICS Study

Objective To examine variations in infant weight gain between children of parents with and without migrant background and to investigate how these differences are explained by pre- and perinatal factors. Methods We used data on birth weight and weight at six months from well-child check-up books that were collected from a population-based German sample of children in the IDEFICS study (n = 1,287). We calculated unadjusted and adjusted means for weight z-scores at birth and six months later. We applied linear regression for change in weight z-score and we calculated odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (95% CI) for rapid weight gain by logistic regression, adjusted for biological, social and behavioural factors. Results Weight z-scores for migrants and Germans differed slightly at birth, but were markedly increased for Turkish and Eastern European infants at age six months. Turkish infants showed the highest change in weight z-score during the first 6 months (ß = 0.35; 95% CI 0.14–0.56) and an increased probability of rapid weight gain compared with German infants. Examination of the joint effect of migrant and socioeconomic status (SES) showed the greatest change in weight z-scores in Turkish infants from middle SES families (ß = 0.77; 95% CI 0.40–1.14) and infants of parents from Eastern European countries with high SES (ß = 0.72; 95% CI 0.13–1.32). Conclusions Our results support the hypothesis that migrant background is an independent risk factor for infant weight gain and suggest that the onset of health inequalities in overweight starts in early infancy.
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This experiment investigated the effect of signal modality on time perception in 5-and 8-year-old children as well as young adults using a duration bisection task in which auditory and visual signals were presented in the same test session and shared common anchor durations. Durations were judged shorter for visual than for auditory signals by all age groups. However, the magnitude of this modality difference was larger in the children than in the adults. Sensitivity to time was also observed to increase with age for both modalities. Taken together, these two observations suggest that the greater modality effect on duration judgments for the children, for whom attentional abilities are considered limited, is the result of visual signals requiring more attentional resources than are needed for the processing of auditory signals. Within the framework of the information-processing model of Scalar Timing Theory, these effects are consistent with a developmental difference in the operation of the " attentional switch " used to transfer pulses from the pacemaker into the accumulator. Specifically, although timing is more automatic for auditory than visual signals in both children and young adults, children have greater difficulty in keeping the switch in the closed state during the timing of visual signals.
Exosomal sorting of the viral oncoprotein LMP1 is restrained by TRAF2 association at signalling endosomes

The Epstein–Barr virus (EBV)-encoded oncoprotein latent membrane protein 1 (LMP1) constitutively activates nuclear factor κB (NFκB) from intracellular membranes to promote cell growth and survival. LMP1 associates with CD63 in intracellular membranes and is released via exosomes. Whether tumour necrosis factor (TNF) receptor-associated factors (TRAFs) mediate LMP1 NFκB signalling from endosomes and modulate exosomal sorting is unknown. In this article, we show that LMP1–TRAF2 signalling complexes accumulate at endosomes in a palmitoylation-dependent manner, thereby driving LMP1-dependent oncogenicity. Palmitoylation is a reversible post-translational modification and is considered to function as a membrane anchor for proteins. Mutagenesis studies showed that LMP1–TRAF2 trafficking to endosomes is dependent on one single cysteine residue (C78), a known palmitoylation site of LMP1. Notably, growth assays in soft agar revealed that oncogenic properties of the palmitoylation-deficient LMP1 mutant C78A were diminished compared to wild-type LMP1. Since LMP1 recruitment of TRAF2 and downstream NFκB signalling were not affected by a disturbance in palmitoylation, the specific localization of LMP1 at endosomal membranes appears crucial for its transforming potential. The importance of palmitoylation for trafficking to and signalling from endosomal membranes was not restricted to LMP1, as similar observations were made for the cellular oncoproteins Src and Fyn. Despite abundant LMP1–TRAF2 association at endosomal membranes TRAF2 could not be detected in exosomes by Western blotting or proteomics. Interestingly, point mutations that prevented TRAF binding strongly promoted the sorting and release of LMP1 via exosomes. These observations reveal that LMP1–TRAF2 complexes at endosomes support oncogenic NFκB activation and suggest that LMP1 dissociates from the activated signalling complexes upon sorting into intraluminal vesicles. We propose that “signalling endosomes” in EBV-infected tumour cells can fuse with the plasma membrane, explaining LMP1 release via exosomes.
An adaptive neural PID controller for torque control of hybrid electric vehicle

An adaptive neural PID controller for torque control of hybrid electric vehicle is presented in this paper. In this controller the PID gains are tuned automatically by the neural network in an on-line way. In addition, the relative learning algorithms of the neural PID controller are gived. At last, simulation and experiment results based on an application of the torque control system are provided. The experimental results are compared to those of a conventional PID controller, it can be observed that the error has been reduced significantly using the neural PID controller.