Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Imaging a cognitive model of apraxia: The neural substrate of gesture‐specific cognitive processes

The present study aimed to ascertain the neuroanatomical basis of an influential neuropsychological model for upper limb apraxia [Rothi LJ, et al. The Neuropsychology of Action. 1997. Hove, UK: Psychology Press]. Regional cerebral blood flow was measured in healthy volunteers using H215O PET during performance of four tasks commonly used for testing upper limb apraxia, i.e., pantomime of familiar gestures on verbal command, imitation of familiar gestures, imitation of novel gestures, and an action‐semantic task that consisted in matching objects for functional use. We also re‐analysed data from a previous PET study in which we investigated the neural basis of the visual analysis of gestures. First, we found that two sets of discrete brain areas are predominantly engaged in the imitation of familiar and novel gestures, respectively. Segregated brain activation for novel gesture imitation concur with neuropsychological reports to support the hypothesis that knowledge about the organization of the human body mediates the transition from visual perception to motor execution when imitating novel gestures [Goldenberg Neuropsychologia 1995;33:63–72]. Second, conjunction analyses revealed distinctive neural bases for most of the gesture‐specific cognitive processes proposed in this cognitive model of upper limb apraxia. However, a functional analysis of brain imaging data suggested that one single memory store may be used for “to‐be‐perceived” and “to‐be‐produced” gestural representations, departing from Rothi et al.'s proposal. Based on the above considerations, we suggest and discuss a revised model for upper limb apraxia that might best account for both brain imaging findings and neuropsychological dissociations reported in the apraxia literature. Hum. Brain Mapp. 21:119–142, 2004. © 2004 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Enhancing a disparity map by color segmentation

Depth perception is a crucial but greedy task for most mobile robots to navigate in their environment and avoid obstacles. Generally, it does not need to be completed at permanent full precision but can be done in a coarse-to-fine strategy. In the present paper, a novel method is proposed to enhance a very sparse disparity map provided by a block matching strategy for example. To that purpose, the region and edge maps of the initial image are successively analyzed. The segmentation is achieved on the sole chrominance information to produce stable and homogeneous regions, closely related to the real boundaries of the objects. A particular attention is given to remove errors due to occlusions, by making the depth and region maps cooperate. In a second stage, the luminance variations are analyzed to fill up the depth map. Finally, the edge map computed on the luminance component is used to alleviate problems due to under-segmentation. The experiments show that the initial disparity map is successfully improved without any minimization process. A comparison is made regarding the segmentation method, whether it performs directly in the spatial domain region-growing or it jointly uses the color and space domains mean-shift. In addition, two luminance-chrominance color spaces are studied: L^* u^* v^* and ρ Φθ.
SecureCoin: A Robust Secure and Efficient Protocol for Anonymous Bitcoin Ecosystem

Bitcoin is the ﬁrst decentralized peer-to-peer electronic virtual asset and payment cryptocurrency, through which, users can transact digital currency directly, without the need for an intermediary (or authority), using a hashed version of cryptographic public keys, as pseudonyms called addresses. The Bitcoin ecosystem was supposed to be anonymous and untraceable. However, transactions from input to output addresses of the Bitcoin users are observed to be linkable, therefore, missing unlinkability as an important requirement of anonymity. Several protocols appeared to enhance Bitcoin users’ anonymity and to ensure unlinkability of input-output addresses, to make input and output addresses of transactions unlinkable to each other, and hence untraceable. In this paper, we spot several vulnerabilities in the most recently proposed protocols, then we propose SecureCoin as an eﬃcient protocol for anonymous and unlinkable Bitcoin transactions that covers these vulnerabilities in a robust and secure way and in full compatibility with the standard Bitcoin ecosystem. Our protocol provides better protection for the participating peers against malicious behavior of minority of the peers and protection against the most serious sabotage attack attempted by any number of saboteur peers. We analyze the security properties of our protocol and evaluate its eﬃciency. Finally, we compare the performance of our protocol with the recently proposed protocols and show that our protocol is computationally eﬃcient and requires less Bitcoin fees.
An Indian Outlook on Role Clarity, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, and Gender Relationship: Multiple Group Confirmatory Factor Analysis (MGCFA) Approach

This article investigates the empirical association between role clarity and organizational citizenship behavior and how this relation is moderated by gender. The data of 272 executives have been collected from management development programs conducted in various public and private Indian organizations. Chi-square difference test (Bonferroni method), latent mean approach, sub-group analyses, and multiple group confirmatory factor analysis have been used to analyze the responses. Results indicate that role clarity is positively related to all dimensions of organizational citizenship behavior. Out of five, four dimensions show signs of gender’s moderation; women scored higher in role clarity’s relation with altruism, courtesy, and conscientiousness and men showed higher role clarity–civic virtue relationship. Implications and future scope are also discussed.
Mindfulness Therapy and its Effects on Working Memory and Prospective Memory

Purpose: Mindfulness therapy is an increasingly popular practice that involves acute awareness of the present moment (Fletcher & Hayes, 2005). Recent research has also shown that practitioners show improvements in a range of cognitive skills (Mrazek, Franklin, Phillips, Baird, & Schooler, 2013). In particular, individuals in past literature have shown significant benefits in their working memory when practicing (Mrazek et al., 2013). Working memory is a cognitive ability that has also been correlated with an individual’s prospective memory during high stress situations (Jha, Stanley, Kiyonaga, Wong, & Gelfand, 2010). This raises the question; can mindfulness therapy impact both your working memory and prospective memory? Searching this can lead to potential benefits in aiding individuals with memory deficits. In particular, elders who suffer from dementia are more prone to prospective memory loss (Zimmermann & Meier, 2006). Therefore, if benefits of mindfulness therapy are supported in this study, further research could be performed for the elder population. Methods: Participants were 65 undergraduate students from the University of MichiganDearborn. The students were evaluated for their level of mindfulness practice by a survey followed by three computerized exams. All individuals received two lexical decision tasks in randomized order, followed by the automated operation span task. These tasks measured the individuals’ ability to briefly retain information (working memory capacity) as well as completing a future task (prospective memory). Results: Results from this study showed support for previous working memory research suggesting that mindfulness therapy has a significant correlation with higher working memory (Mrazek et al., 2013). The research also showed that regular engagement in mindfulness also results in notable changes in how we complete future intentions, prospective memory. In particular it was displayed that individuals who practice specifically meditation have an improved focal prospective memory and a reduced ability in nonfocal prospective memory. Conclusion: All individuals who practice mindfulness displayed a better working memory compared to those who do not. Individuals who explicitly practice meditation also have a change in their prospective memory. Those who practice meditation showed an improvement in their focal cues but a noteworthy impairment in their nonfocal cues. This suggests that those who practice meditation are so focused on the present that it impacts their ability to perform certain nonfocal future tasks. These findings are discussed in a larger framework of applications to individuals with declining cognitive abilities and/or high prospective memory demands. (e.g., medication adherence. MINDFULNESS THERAPY AND ITS EFFECTS ON MEMORY 1 Chapter
Designing Workflow Components for e-Science

In this paper we present a general domain for the analysis of workflows and workflow components based on the notion of a collection of Turing machines sharing a set of tapes. We show that computationally equivalent workflows can be evaluated in terms of two dimensions: data complexity and process complexity. We show that this approach allows for the evaluation of various workflow architectures. Using this formal framework we prove that maximal simplicity, generality and consistency are mutually exclusive. Simplicity of and generality of workflow components leads to complexity of data structures and computational processes. This is an issue that deserves more attention from designers and users of workflow communication protocols. We define a formal version of the General Workflow Design Problem and show that this problem is decidable in the case of a finite number of topologies. Thus, automatic composition of workflows is possible in limited domains. Decidability for an infinite number of topologies remains an open question. We show how our findings from the formal framework manifest themselves in real world e-Science workflow environments.
X-ray modelling of galaxy cluster gas and mass profiles

We present a parametric analysis of the intracluster medium and gravitating mass distribution of a statistical sample of 20 galaxy clusters using the phenomenological cluster model of Ascasibar and Diego. We describe an effective scheme for the estimation of errors on model parameters and derived quantities using bootstrap resampling. We find that the model provides a good description of the data in all cases and we quantify the mean fractional intrinsic scatter about the best-fitting density and temperature profiles, finding this to have median values across the sample of 2 and 5 per cent, respectively. In addition, we demonstrate good agreement between r 500 determined directly from the model and that estimated from a core-excluded global spectrum. We compare cool core and non-cool core clusters in terms of the logarithmic slopes of their gas density and temperature profiles and the distribution of model parameters and conclude that the two categories are clearly separable. In particular, we confirm the effectiveness of the logarithmic gradient of the gas density profile measured at 0.04r 500 in differentiating between the two types of cluster.
Superparticle Models with Tensorial Central Charges

A generalization of the Ferber–Shirafuji formulation of superparticle mechanics is considered. The generalized model describes the dynamics of a superparticle in a superspace extended by tensorial central charge coordinates and commuting twistor–like spinor variables. The D = 4 model contains a continuous real parameter a ≥ 0 and at a = 0 reduces to the SU(2,2|1) supertwistor Ferber–Shirafuji model, while at a = 1 one gets an OSp(1|8) supertwistor model of ref. [1] which describes BPS states with all but one unbroken target space supersymmetries. When 0 1 the supertwistor group becomes OSp(1,1|8). We quantize the model and find that its quantum spectrum consists of massless states of an arbitrary (half)integer helicity. The independent discrete central charge coordinate describes the helicity spectrum. We also outline the generalization of the a = 1 model to higher space–time dimensions and demonstrate that in D = 3,4,6 and 10, where the quantum states are massless, the extra degrees of freedom (with respect to those of the standard superparticle) parametrize compact manifolds. These compact manifolds can be associated with higher–dimensional helicity states. In particular, in D = 10 the additional “helicity” manifold is isomorphic to the sphere S 7 .
Series 15E-025 Aid for Trade and Global Growth

Aid for trade increases a recipient's public services, which lower its import and export transport costs. Formulating a two-country endogenous growth model, we obtain two main results. First, a permanent increase in the donor's aid/GDP ratio raises the steady-state growth rate as well as both countries' long-run fractions and cost shares of imported varieties if and only if it lowers the product of transport costs. Second, under a plausible condition, there exists a unique interior growth-maximizing aid/GDP ratio. These results are robust to alternative specifications for congestion and stock-flow nature of public goods.
Neural correlates of attentive selection for color or luminance in extrastriate area V4

Rhesus monkeys were trained on a conditional orientation discrimination task in order to assess whether attentive selection for a color or luminance stimulus feature would affect visual processing in extrastriate area V4. The task required monkeys to select a bar stimulus based on its color or luminance and then to discriminate the angular tilt of the selected stimulus. The majority of neurons (74%) were selectively activated when the color or luminance of the stimulus in the receptive field matched the color or luminance of the cue. The activity was attenuated when there was not a match between the stimulus and the cue. The differential activation was based on the presence or absence of the stimulus feature and was independent of spatial location. Across the population of V4 neurons, optimal stimuli that matched the selected color or luminance elicited about twice the activity as stimuli that did not match the selected feature. The feature-selective changes in activity were observed to develop beginning about 200 msec after the stimulus onset and were maintained over the remainder of the behavioral trial. In this task the activity of V4 neurons reflected a selection based on the cued feature and not simply the physical color or luminance of the receptive field stimulus. Under these conditions, the topographic representation of the neural activity in area V4 highlights the potential targets in the visual scene at the expense of background objects. These observations offer a physiological counterpart to psychophysical studies suggesting that stimuli can be preferentially selected in parallel across the visual field on the basis of a unique color or luminance feature
Shame Proneness, Shame Coping, and Functions of Nonsuicidal Self-Injury (NSSI) Among Emerging Adults

Shame proneness (i.e., experiencing shame in a trait-like manner) and internalizing shame coping styles (e.g., withdrawing/attacking one’s self when feeling shame) predict distress, psychopathology, and nonsuicidal self-injury (NSSI) among emerging adults. Parental invalidation is instrumental in the development of both maladaptive shame and NSSI. In this study, we proposed that shame proneness and internalized shame coping would link perceived parental invalidation and psychological distress to NSSI functions among emerging adults. A sample of 384 Australian emerging adults with a history of NSSI (M age = 20.7 years, SD = 2.25; 81.3% female, 61.2% Caucasian) completed online self-reports assessing the relevant constructs. Hypothesized indirect effects through shame proneness and internalized shame coping were supported when participants reported using NSSI for intrapersonal (e.g., self-punishment), but not interpersonal (e.g., signaling autonomy), functions. Findings advance theories on why some young people engage in NSSI and implicate perceived parental invalidation and shame as potential clinical targets for NSSI. warranting further research.
Developmental Patterns in Mesozoic Evolution of Mammal Ears

Complex structures with significant biological function can arise multiple times in evolution by common gene patterning and developmental pathways. The mammalian middle ear, with its significant hearing function, is such a complex structure and a key evolutionary innovation. Newly discovered fossils have now shown that the detachment of the ear from the jaw, an important transformation of the middle ear in early mammals, has major homoplasies; the morphogenesis of these homoplasies is also illuminated by new genetic studies of ear development in extant mammals. By extrapolating the developmental morphogenesis of genetic studies into the early mammal fossil record, evolution of the middle ear in early mammals provides an integrated case study of how development has impacted, mechanistically, the transformation of a major structural complex in evolution. 355 A nn u. R ev . E co l. E vo l. Sy st . 2 01 1. 42 :3 55 -3 80 . D ow nl oa de d fr om w w w . a nn ua lr ev ie w s. or g by U ni ve rs ity o f C hi ca go L ib ra ri es o n 02 /0 2/ 12 . F or p er so na l u se o nl y. ES42CH17-Luo ARI 27 September 2011 13:42
A novel histone exchange factor, protein phosphatase 2Cγ, mediates the exchange and dephosphorylation of H2A–H2B

In eukaryotic nuclei, DNA is wrapped around a protein octamer composed of the core histones H2A, H2B, H3, and H4, forming nucleosomes as the fundamental units of chromatin. The modification and deposition of specific histone variants play key roles in chromatin function. In this study, we established an in vitro system based on permeabilized cells that allows the assembly and exchange of histones in situ. H2A and H2B, each tagged with green fluorescent protein (GFP), are incorporated into euchromatin by exchange independently of DNA replication, and H3.1-GFP is assembled into replicated chromatin, as found in living cells. By purifying the cellular factors that assist in the incorporation of H2A–H2B, we identified protein phosphatase (PP) 2C γ subtype (PP2Cγ/PPM1G) as a histone chaperone that binds to and dephosphorylates H2A–H2B. The disruption of PP2Cγ in chicken DT40 cells increased the sensitivity to caffeine, a reagent that disturbs DNA replication and damage checkpoints, suggesting the involvement of PP2Cγ-mediated histone dephosphorylation and exchange in damage response or checkpoint recovery in higher eukaryotes.
Nurture thru Nature: Creating natural science identities in populations of disadvantaged children through community education partnership

ABSTRACT In this article we describe the development, implementation, and some of the early impacts of Nurture thru Nature (NtN), an American after-school and summer program designed to introduce elementary school students in disadvantaged, urban public schools to natural science and environmental education. The program, which began operations in 2010 as a collaboration of Rutgers University, Johnson & Johnson, and New Brunswick, New Jersey, public schools, was motivated by broad concerns over the achievement gap in science and mathematics that has long characterized student performance in the state's suburban and inner-city schools. We present results from a classical experiment conducted in four elementary schools which suggest that NtN does improve grades and knowledge of science and nature.
Factors Affecting Information Seeking and Evaluation in a Distributed Learning Environment

The purpose of this study was to identify and analyze the processes of seeking information online and evaluating this information. We hypothesized that individuals’ social network, in-out group categorization, and cultural proclivity would influence their online information-seeking behavior. Also, we tested whether individuals differentiated information values based on the information source. A total of 78 students from two universities in different geographical regions of Singapore participated in a collaborative information-seeking exercise using a computer-mediated collaborative system. The information-seeking data were analyzed with multivariate p* network analysis. The findings of this study showed that interpersonal social networks, in-out group distinctions, and individuals’ cultural proclivity significantly affected the information exchange process between different groups. However, it was found that individuals did not differentiate the values of information according to whether the source of the information was within their social network or school.
A Functional Classification Based Inter-VM Communication Mechanism with Multi-core Platform

With the resurgence of virtualization technologies and the development of multi-core technologies, the combination of the two becomes a trend. Therefore, inter-VM communication becomes a key part in how to improve the performance of virtual machines (VMs) basing on multi-core platform. In this paper, we first analyze the characteristics of multi-core tasks and the properties of virtual machine environment, and then classify processor cores into two categories basing on their different functions. According to the classification, we design an inter-VM communication mechanism with multi-core platform. It discards the traditional communication path between VMs which needs to via a trusted VM, sets up communication channels between virtual CPUs in different VMs and uses shared memory space to implement high-throughput communication of inter-VM. Experiment results have proved the efficiency of them.
Exploiting the diversity of user preferences for recommendation

Diversity as a quality dimension for Recommender Systems has been receiving increasing attention in the last few years. This has been paralleled by an intense strand of research on diversity in search tasks, and in fact converging views on diversity theories and techniques from Information Retrieval and Recommender Systems have been put forward in recent work. In this paper we research diversity not only as a target property for a recommender system, but as an element in the input data, within and between user behaviors, that a recommender system can leverage to enhance the quality of its output in terms of the balance between accuracy and diversity. We propose an adaptation of search result diversification methods to recommender systems based on query reformulation: we identify the diversity within user profiles and generate partial recommendations based on homogeneous subsets of user preferences (sub-profiles), which we combine later to produce a final recommendation. We report experiments on movie and music recommendation datasets showing that our approach improves indeed the quality of state-of-the-art recommenders, and is competitive against diversification methods that use explicitly item categories as the units for diversification. Our approach shows further advantages in cases where the high cardinality of the explicit category spaces can pose a problem in terms of computational cost.
Estimation of daytime surface fluxes of radiation and heat at Anand during 13-17 May 1997

In this paper an attempt has been made to estimate radiative fluxes of short wave, long wave as well as non-radiative fluxes such as sensible heat flux and the surface soil heat flux during daytime over a bare soil at a tropical station Anand (22°35'N, 72°55'E, 45.1 m asl), for the dry convective period 13-17 May 1997. The site-specific parameters such as attenuation coefficients, albedo, transmissivity, etc. are obtained with the help of observations during 2-11 May 1997. The results are compared with real time data. Comparison of estimated and observed radiative fluxes showed a good agreement. The root mean square error (rmse) is 3% for incoming solar radiation and 8% for net radiation. The sensible heat flux is in general underestimated. The surface soil heat flux values estimated by two different methods are fairly close to each other. The surface temperature estimated by Fourier's law for heat conduction shows good agreement with the observed values with rmse 5%.