Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ERP Subsequent Memory Effects Differ between Inter-Item and Unitization Encoding Tasks

The “subsequent memory paradigm” is an analysis tool to identify brain activity elicited during episodic encoding that is associated with successful subsequent retrieval. Two commonly observed event-related potential “subsequent memory effects” (SMEs) are the parietal SME in the P300 time window and the frontal slow wave SME, but to date a clear characterization of the circumstances under which each SME is observed is missing. To test the hypothesis that the parietal SME occurs when aspects of an experience are unitized into a single item representation, while inter-item associative encoding is reflected in the frontal slow wave effect, participants were assigned to one of two conditions that emphasized one of the encoding types under otherwise matched study phases of a recognition memory experiment. Word pairs were presented either in the context of a definition that allowed to combine the word pairs into a new concept (unitization or item encoding) or together with a sentence frame (inter-item encoding). Performance on the recognition test did not differ between the groups. The parietal SME was only found in the definition group, supporting the idea that this SME occurs when the components of an association are integrated in a unitized item representation. An early prefrontal negativity also exhibited an SME only in this group, suggesting that the formation of novel units occurs through interactions of multiple brain areas. The frontal slow wave SME was pronounced in both groups and may thus reflect processes generally involved in encoding of associations. Our results provide evidence for a partial dissociation of the eliciting conditions of the two types of SMEs and therefore provide a tool for future studies to characterize the different types of episodic encoding.
Size effect on structural strength : a review

The article attempts a broad review of the problem of size effect or scaling of failure, which has recently come to the forefront of attention because of its importance for concrete and geotechnical engineering, geomechanics, arctic ice engineering, as well as for designing large load-bearing parts made of advanced ceramics and composites, e.g. for aircraft or ships. First, the main results of Weibull statistical theory of random strength are brie ̄y summarized, and its applicability and limitations described. In this theory as well as plasticity, elasticity with a strength limit, and linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM), the size effect is a simple power law, because no characteristic size or length is present. Attention is then focused on the deterministic size effect in quasibrittle materials which, because of the existence of a nonnegligible material length characterizing the size of the fracture process zone, represents the bridging between the simple power-law size effects of plasticity and of LEFM. The energetic theory of quasibrittle size effect in the bridging region is explained, and then a host of recent re®nements, extensions and rami®cations are discussed. Comments on other types of size effect, including that which might be associated with the fractal geometry of fracture, are also made. The historical development of the size-effect theories is outlined, and the recent trends of research are emphasized.
Software Quality, Killer Applications, and Network Effects: The Case of the U.S. Home Video Game Industry

This paper uses an extension of CES preferences to empirically derive a continuous game quality measure for the home video game industry (January 1995 to October 2007). Estimates based on the quality measure are more consistent with theory than estimates based on number of available games. Hardware market share elasticity is estimated to be 13.04% for killer applications and insignificant for non-killer applications. However, the indirect network effect is 2.75 times larger for non-killer applications than killer applications. Our results suggest indirect network effects on hardware market share may be overstated if differences between software qualities are not considered. Finally, higher proportions of killer applications are associated with successful entry and generational leadership even when competitors offer a larger selection of games.
What's Up? The Development of an Orientation Preference for Picture Books

The very strong, natural-seeming preference that adults and older children have for looking at pictures in their canonical orientation is not shared by very young children. In 3 studies with 18- to 30-month-old children, several different assessments were made of the degree to which the children behaved differentially to upright versus inverted picture books. The 18-month-olds in these studies did not exhibit a strong orientation preference: They usually (a) looked at a picture book that was handed to them upside down without reorienting it, (b) did not acknowledge or protest when an adult read to them while holding a book upside down, and (c) selected randomly between upright and inverted picture books. In addition, they were equally accurate at identifying depicted objects in upside-down and right-side-up pictures. In contrast, a group of 30-month-olds consistently preferred to interact with canonically oriented picture books. The 24-month-old participants generally behaved like the 18-month-olds, but gave more evidence of a preference. We suggest that these age differences in orientation preference may have to do with both conceptual and perceptual factors. The results, thus, contribute to the growing evidence that the development of pictorial competence is complex and multifaceted.
Parameter selection for region‐growing image segmentation algorithms using spatial autocorrelation

Region‐growing segmentation algorithms are useful for remote sensing image segmentation. These algorithms need the user to supply control parameters, which control the quality of the resulting segmentation. An objective function is proposed for selecting suitable parameters for region‐growing algorithms to ensure best quality results. It considers that a segmentation has two desirable properties: each of the resulting segments should be internally homogeneous and should be distinguishable from its neighbourhood. The measure combines a spatial autocorrelation indicator that detects separability between regions and a variance indicator that expresses the overall homogeneity of the regions.
Analysis of Perceived Security in B2C Electronic Commerce Website

Customer loyalty or repeat purchasing is critical for the survival and success of any store. By focusing on online stores, this study investigates the repeat purchase intention of experienced online buyers based on means-end chain theory and prospect theory. Buyer concern about website security is a critical issue when it comes to maximizing the potential for electronic commerce transactions. Because perceptions of inadequacy can be a major obstacle to online shopping, many researchers have studied both the antecedents and outcomes of website security. Yet, the measures of security used in these studies are problematic. Although information systems researchers and business practitioners have conceptualized security as a multidimensional concept, published empirical studies have measured perceived security as a unidimensional construct. Exclusion of the underlying dimensions likely prevents researchers fromfully assessing the impact of important dimensions of customers' perceptions of security. Here, we contribute to the methodological enhancement of this research stream by: (1) theoretically examining the nature and dimensionality of perceived security, and (2) developing and validating a multidimensional measure of this construct. The results from this study provide empirical justification for the conceptualization of perceived security as a formative second-order construct of perceived confidentiality, perceived availability, and perceived nonrepudiation.
Independent Component Analysis of Electroencephalographic Data

Because of the distance between the skull and brain and their different resistivities, electroencephalographic (EEG) data collected from any point on the human scalp includes activity generated within a large brain area. This spatial smearing of EEG data by volume conduction does not involve significant time delays, however, suggesting that the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) algorithm of Bell and Sejnowski [1] is suitable for performing blind source separation on EEG data. The ICA algorithm separates the problem of source identification from that of source localization. First results of applying the ICA algorithm to EEG and event-related potential (ERP) data collected during a sustained auditory detection task show: (1) ICA training is insensitive to different random seeds. (2) ICA may be used to segregate obvious artifactual EEG components (line and muscle noise, eye movements) from other sources. (3) ICA is capable of isolating overlapping EEG phenomena, including alpha and theta bursts and spatially-separable ERP components, to separate ICA channels. (4) Nonstationarities in EEG and behavioral state can be tracked using ICA via changes in the amount of residual correlation between ICA-filtered output channels.
Effect of RME and headgear treatment on the eruption of palatally displaced canines: a randomized clinical study.

OBJECTIVE To determine the effectiveness of orthodontic treatment finalized on the maintenance/improvement the upper arch perimeter to assist in the successful eruption of palatally displaced maxillary canines (PDCs). MATERIALS AND METHODS The randomized prospective design comprised 64 subjects with PDCs who were randomly assigned to one of three groups: cervical pull headgear (HG); rapid maxillary expansion and cervical pull headgear (RME/HG); or untreated control group (CG). Panoramic radiographs and lateral cephalograms were evaluated at the time of initial observation (T1) and after an average period of 18 months (T2). At T2 the success of canine eruption was evaluated. A superimposition study on lateral cephalograms was undertaken to evaluate the T1-T2 changes in the sagittal position of the upper molars in the three groups. RESULTS The prevalence of successful eruption was 85.7% in the RME/HG group and 82.3% in the HG group. Both these prevalence rates were significantly greater than the success rate in untreated control subjects (36%). The cephalometric superimposition study showed a significant mesial movement of the upper first molars in the CG compared with the HG and RME/HG groups. CONCLUSIONS The use of rapid maxillary expansion and headgear (or headgear alone) in PDC cases increases the success rate of eruption of the canine significantly (almost three times more than in untreated controls).
The Circadian Clock Gene Period1 Connects the Molecular Clock to Neural Activity in the Suprachiasmatic Nucleus

The neural activity patterns of suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) neurons are dynamically regulated throughout the circadian cycle with highest levels of spontaneous action potentials during the day. These rhythms in electrical activity are critical for the function of the circadian timing system and yet the mechanisms by which the molecular clockwork drives changes in the membrane are not well understood. In this study, we sought to examine how the clock gene Period1 (Per1) regulates the electrical activity in the mouse SCN by transiently and selectively decreasing levels of PER1 through use of an antisense oligodeoxynucleotide. We found that this treatment effectively reduced SCN neural activity. Direct current injection to restore the normal membrane potential partially, but not completely, returned firing rate to normal levels. The antisense treatment also reduced baseline [Ca2+]i levels as measured by Fura2 imaging technique. Whole cell patch clamp recording techniques were used to examine which specific potassium currents were altered by the treatment. These recordings revealed that the large conductance [Ca2+]i-activated potassium currents were reduced in antisense-treated neurons and that blocking this current mimicked the effects of the anti-sense on SCN firing rate. These results indicate that the circadian clock gene Per1 alters firing rate in SCN neurons and raise the possibility that the large conductance [Ca2+]i-activated channel is one of the targets.
Explicit formulas for the solutions of piecewise linear networks

A methodology is presented for obtaining explicit formulas for the solution of class-P piecewise linear (PL) networks and, inherently, for the linear complementary problem (LCP). The method uses the [. ] operator, which has been previously defined in the literature to extend the explicit PL model descriptions of Chua. An important consequence of the methodology is that it proves that class-P networks have explicit solutions.
Antagonistic effect of helpers on breeding male and female survival in a cooperatively breeding bird

1. Cooperatively breeding species are typically long lived and hence, according to theory, are expected to maximize their lifetime reproductive success through maximizing survival. Under these circumstances, the presence of helpers could be used to lighten the effort of current reproduction for parents to achieve higher survival. 2. In addition, individuals of different sexes and ages may follow different strategies, but whether male and female breeders and individuals of different ages benefit differently from the presence of helpers has often been overlooked. Moreover, only one study that investigated the relationship between parental survival and the presence of helpers used capture–mark–recapture analyses (CMR). These methods are important since they allow us to account for the non-detection of individuals that are alive in the population but not detected, and thus, the effects on survival and recapture probability to be disentangled. 3. Here, we used multi-event CMR methods to investigate whether the number of helpers was associated with an increase in survival probability for male and female breeders of different ages in the sociable weaver Philetairus socius. In this species, both sexes reduce their feeding rate in the presence of helpers. We therefore predicted that the presence of helpers should increase the breeders' survival in both sexes, especially early in life when individuals potentially have more future breeding opportunities. In addition, sociable weaver females reduce their investment in eggs in the presence of helpers, so we predicted a stronger effect of helpers on female than male survival. 4. As expected we found that females had a higher survival probability when breeding with more helpers. Unexpectedly, however, male survival probability decreased with increasing number of helpers. This antagonistic effect diminished as the breeders grew older. 5. These results illustrate the complexity of fitness costs and benefits underlying cooperative behaviours and how these may vary with the individuals' sex and age. They also highlight the need for further studies on the sex-specific effects of helpers on survival.
Using graph-based program characterization for predictive modeling

Using machine learning has proven effective at choosing the right set of optimizations for a particular program. For machine learning techniques to be most effective, compiler writers have to develop expressive means of characterizing the program being optimized. The current state-of-the-art techniques for characterizing programs include using a fixed-length feature vector of either source code features extracted during compile time or performance counters collected when running the program. For the problem of identifying optimizations to apply, models constructed using performance counter characterizations of a program have been shown to outperform models constructed using source code features. However, collecting performance counters requires running the program multiple times, and this "dynamic" method of characterizing programs can be specific to inputs of the program. It would be preferable to have a method of characterizing programs that is as expressive as performance counter features, but that is "static" like source code features and therefore does not require running the program. In this paper, we introduce a novel way of characterizing programs using a graph-based characterization, which uses the program's intermediate representation and an adapted learning algorithm to predict good optimization sequences. To evaluate different characterization techniques, we focus on loop-intensive programs and construct prediction models that drive polyhedral optimizations, such as auto-parallelism and various loop transformation. We show that our graph-based characterization technique outperforms three current state-of-the-art characterization techniques found in the literature. By using the sequences predicted to be the best by our graph-based model, we achieved up to 73% of the speedup achievable in our search space for a particular platform, whereas we could only achieve up to 59% by other state-of-the-art techniques we evaluated.
Rethinking digital media and political change

The role of new digital media in politics has often been discussed for individual countries and technologies, or at a general level. So far, there are few studies which compare countries and treat new media in the context of the media system as a whole, including traditional and new digital media. The main contribution of this article is to compare two countries at the extremes of the political spectrum and with quite different media systems, the United States and Sweden. It synthesizes what is known to date about digital media in these two cases, including about the uses of Twitter, Facebook and other new media. The article discusses the shortcomings of existing analyses of political communication and of how digital media work in a way that is different from traditional or mass media. The argument is that new media expand input from people into the political systems only at the margins, where they can circumvent established agenda setting and gatekeeping mechanisms. The article develops a framework for understanding digital media which highlights how they extend and diversify the public sphere, even as this sphere is monitored and managed, and still faces the constraint of the limited attention devoted to political issues.
Demand for Real Money Balances by the Business Sector: An Econometric Investigation

Monetary economics provides one of the important tools, that is monetary policy, to deal with the macroeconomic problems of the economy. It is concerned with the supply of money and the demand for money. It is often assumed that the money supply is exogenously determined by the authorities and the demand for real money is determined by the market. The demand for money is of crucial importance in the conduct of monetary policy. It helps to understand macroeconomic activities and to prescribe appropriate policy instruments to deal with macroeconomic problems. The effectiveness of the monetary policy, however, depends on the shape and stability of the estimated demand for money function. Empirical studies of the money demand in Pakistan concentrated on the estimation of aggregate money demand function by using conventional regression analysis. The main criticism against the aggregate models of the money demand is that these models lumped two different sectors of the economy, such as the household sector and the business sector. Further, it is argued that these two sectors have diversified behaviour. Their money demand behaviour is subject to different requirements. Sectoral money demand behaviour is thoroughly investigated in developed counties but a very thin literature on the estimation of money demand function by the business sector in developing countries is available, for example, Unger and Zilberfarb (1980) and Cameron and Qayyum (1994). Econometric methodology of these studies is mainly concerned with the estimation of two types of money demand functions such as long-run static and shortrun partial adjustment mechanism. However, the researchers employing the technique of cointegration in the empirical testing of money demand function have cast serious doubt on the results of these studies.
Too much or too little: neonatal ocular misalignment frequency can predict later abnormality

Background: 214 orthoptists’ infants have been followed for up to 15 years, relating neonatal misalignment (NMs) and first convergence onset to later childhood ocular abnormalities. NMs are shown in a companion paper to reflect the onset of first convergence, but if frequent or absent may predict a higher risk of refractive error and esodeviation. Methods: In a prospective postal survey, orthoptist mothers observed their own infants during the first months of life and regularly reported ocular behaviour and alignment, visual development, and any subsequent ocular abnormalities. Results: Later strabismus and refractive error were less common in infants who showed NMs occasionally compared with those who never or frequently did. There was a significant linear trend for fewer ocular abnormalities to be found in children with more frequent NMs (p<0.001). Hypermetropes were later to show first convergence than emmetropes or myopes (p = 0.006) Conclusions: NMs usually reflect an emerging and normally developing vergence system. This study suggests that delayed onset of convergence (and lack of NMs) is associated with later defects, especially hyperopia. Possible causal relations are discussed.
The rationale for HPV-related oropharyngeal cancer de-escalation treatment strategies

The treatment paradigms for head and neck squamous cell cancer (HNSCC) are changing due to the emergence of human papillomavirus-associated tumors (HPV-related), possessing distinct molecular profiles and responses to therapy. Retrospective studies have suggested that HPV-related HNSCCs are more frequently cured than those caused by tobacco. Current clinical trials focus on the reduction of treatment-related toxicity and the development of HPV-targeted therapies. New treatment strategies include: 1) dose reduction of radiotherapy, 2) the use of cetuximab instead of cisplatin for chemo-radiation 3) less invasive surgical options, i.e. trans-oral robotic surgery and trans-oral laser microlaryngoscopy, and 4) more specific treatment attempts, including immunotherapeutic strategies, thanks to increasing comprehension of the molecular background of HPV-related HNSCC. Whereas recently published data shed light on immune mechanisms, other studies have focused on specific vaccination against HPV-related HNSCC. A crucial problem is patient selection to the chosen bias. Truly HPV-related cancers (p16-positive and HPV DNA-positive) with biomarkers for good response to therapy could be included in randomized trials aiming for less severe and better tailored therapy.