Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The emergence of metacognition: affect and uncertainty in animals

We assume that readers of this volume will by now have some familiarity with the sorts of paradigms that have been used to provide evidence of metacognition in non-human primates. In a common type of experiment (e.g. Smith et al. 2008 ), animals are trained to perform a primary task such as making a discrimination of some sort between categories (e.g. sparse versus dense) to achieve a favoured reward (either immediately, or after a delay; Couchman et al. 2010 ). After training, the animals are also provided with an ‘opt out’ response of some kind, which they tend to use in difficult cases where they are more likely to make (or have made) an incorrect judgement. Opting out generally either avoids the penalty that accompanies a mistaken answer (such as a timeout before there is another opportunity to obtain a reward), or guarantees a less-favoured reward. Such results are said to show that the animals are aware of their own uncertainty, especially since similar use of the opt-out response in humans is associated with self-attributions of uncertainty. We fully accept that this body of work, taken as a whole, cannot be explained in low-level associationist terms, as involving mere conditioned responses to stimuli. A great deal of careful experimentation has been done to demonstrate that this is not the case, and we are happy to embrace this conclusion (Beran et al. 2009 ; Couchman et al. 2010 ; Smith et al. 2010 ; Washburn et al. 2010 ). So it should be agreed that the animals have beliefs about the contingencies of the experiment and take executively-controlled decisions that depend on those beliefs (as well as having goals and other states like emotions, which some have been reluctant to attribute to animals; but see Panksepp 2005 ). However, to say that the animals’ behaviour is fully cognitive and executively controlled is not yet to say that it is meta cognitive, in the sense in which this term is employed throughout cognitive and developmental psychology. For metacognition is generally defined as ‘thinking about thinking’ (Flavell 1979 ; Dunlosky and Metcalfe 2009 ), and therefore as involving metarepresentation. Moreover, metarepresentation in turn is understood to require a representation that represents another representation, or a mental state whose content represents, and is about , another mental state. This definition of ‘metacognition’ accords with the standard model for classifying and characterizing metacognitive processes in humans (Nelson and Narens 1990 ; see Fig. 5. 1 ), in which a metalevel monitors, represents, and controls the processes of object-level cognitive systems. Since those who study metacognitive processes in animals often cite this model with approval (e.g. Smith et al. 2003 , 2006 ; Couchman et al. 2010 ), we assume that is it some version of this architecture, or some of its components, that the animals in question are claimed to possess when they are said to have metacognitive capacities. And it should be noted that an important aspect of the
Amino Acid Patterns around Disulfide Bonds

Disulfide bonds provide an inexhaustible source of information on molecular evolution and biological specificity. In this work, we described the amino acid composition around disulfide bonds in a set of disulfide-rich proteins using appropriate descriptors, based on ANOVA (for all twenty natural amino acids or classes of amino acids clustered according to their chemical similarities) and Scheffé (for the disulfide-rich proteins superfamilies) statistics. We found that weakly hydrophilic and aromatic amino acids are quite abundant in the regions around disulfide bonds, contrary to aliphatic and hydrophobic amino acids. The density distributions (as a function of the distance to the center of the disulfide bonds) for all defined entities presented an overall unimodal behavior: the densities are null at short distances, have maxima at intermediate distances and decrease for long distances. In the end, the amino acid environment around the disulfide bonds was found to be different for different superfamilies, allowing the clustering of proteins in a biologically relevant way, suggesting that this type of chemical information might be used as a tool to assess the relationship between very divergent sets of disulfide-rich proteins.
Performance evaluation of feature extraction techniques on natural image prior in visual image reconstruction

The functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is one among the non-invasive techniques used in cognitive neuroscience, to record the activity of the brain. The fMRI reveals the functional activity caused by the Blood Oxygenated Level Dependent (BOLD) signals in the brain. The visual image reconstruction allows to translate neural brain activity pattern into the visual image (stimulus) that has caused the corresponding brain activity. The stimulus may be graphical characters, face images, handwritten characters and natural images. The proposed technique aims to develop a novel framework for visual image reconstruction of natural images from fMRI. The exact reconstruction of natural images is challenging due to its complexity. The classification of image prior plays an important role in improving the accuracy of reconstruction. Since the image prior consists of multiple categories, like Gabor wavelet transform, Scale invariant feature transform (SIFT), Speeded Up Robust Features (SURF), Local Binary Pattern (LBP), Haar feature transform, Bag of Visual Words (BoVW) were tried on image prior. The extracted features are fed into the multiclass Support Vector Machine classifier followed by k-means clustering. An analysis on reconstruction done using different feature extraction techniques revealed that the Gabor feature extraction gave the highest accuracy in final results. The reconstruction of natural images was achieved with an accuracy of 80% till now. Also 70% accuracy was achieved in identifying the category and reconstructing the test stimulus from a real time test fMRI voxel responses. The proposed work focuses on developing an accurate, less complex and automatic software technique for visual image reconstruction of natural images.
Characterization of marginal zone B cell precursors

Selection of recently formed B cells into the follicular or marginal zone (MZ) compartments is proposed to occur by way of proliferative intermediates expressing high levels of CD21/35 and CD23. However, we show that CD21/35high CD23+ splenocytes are not enriched for proliferative cells, and do not contribute substantially to the generation of follicular B cells. Instead, ontogenic relationships, steady-state labeling kinetics, and adoptive transfer experiments suggest that CD21/35high CD23+ splenocytes serve primarily as precursors for MZ B cells, although their developmental potential seems to be broader and is influenced by environmental cues that are associated with lymphopenia. Furthermore, CD21/35high CD23+ splenocytes share several key functional characteristics with MZ B cells, including their capacity to trap T-independent antigen and a heightened proliferative response to LPS. These observations challenge previous models of peripheral B cell maturation, and suggest that MZ B cells develop by way of CD21/35high CD23+ intermediates.
Negotiating the powers : everyday religion in Ghanaian society

Engagement with religion has recently become an important issue to development theoreticians, donors and practitioners. It is recognised that religion plays a key role in shaping moral frameworks and social identities, but little attention is paid to how this is played out in everyday life: the focus remains on ‘faith communities’ and ‘faith-based organisations’ as unified bodies. This thesis uses ethnographic methods to examine how members of two churches in rural Ghana are influenced by and engage with religion. Rather than viewing religion simply as (potentially) instrumental to development, it seeks to approach it in its own right. It challenges the rigidity of categories such as ‘physical/spiritual’ and ‘religious/non-religious’, and the notion of ‘faith communities’ as discrete, unified entities with coherent religious cosmologies. Insights from witchcraft studies and medical anthropology indicate that spiritual discourses are drawn on to negotiate hybrid and continuously changing modernities, and people tend to act pragmatically, combining and moving between discourses rather than fully espousing a particular ideology. Residents of the village studied appear to inhabit a world of different but interconnecting powers, which they are both, to some extent, subject to and able to marshal. These include God, secondary deities, juju, witchcraft, family authorities, traditional leaders, biomedicine and churches. Relationships with both spirits and humans are ambivalent and each of these powers can bring both blessings and harm. Religious experience is fluid, eclectic and pragmatic as people continually enter and exit groups and marshal different powers simultaneously to protect themselves from harm and procure blessings. Approaches by the development world seeking to engage with religion and to take seriously local people’s interests and viewpoints should thus be wary of oversimplification according to traditional Western social science categories, and be underpinned by an understanding of how religious discourses are interpreted and enacted in people’s everyday lives.
The Social Nature of Leisure Involvement

The involvement construct has been used to explain a variety of leisure-related phenomena. While these efforts have made valuable contributions toward furthering the field's understanding of leisure behavior and involvement in particular, many of these investigations have been limited by the measures used to operationalize the construct. Most research that has incorporated the construct in their investigations has been quantitative and has employed one of several standardized scales. Unfortunately, the performance of these scales has been inconsistent and has possibly raised more questions relating to construct validity than they have addressed. Thus, the purpose of this investigation was to develop an understanding of leisure involvement from a naturalistic perspective using several ethnographic research methods. Data were collected from campers attending an agricultural fair in central Pennsylvania and was used to address the primary research question, “Why do campers annually return to participate in the Fair? ” and two sub-questions, “What is the focus of their involvement? ” and “How is their involvement maintained? ” Results indicated that the relationships informants shared with significant family and friends was the primary source of personal relevance and was identified as the most important element of their Fair experience. Additionally, the relationships and interactions with members of their immediate social worlds shaped what they perceived to be personally relevant. These results have implications for the way in which the construct is conceptualized and measured. Specifically, greater consideration of the social component of the leisure experience is warranted.
Production of rigid polyurethane foams and use thereof

The present invention discloses polyol formulations containing a polyester polyol having a functional of 2.5 to 4; an aromatic amine polyol and a polyether polyol having a functionality of 6 to 8. The polyol mixture are useful in making rigid polyurethane foams, especially foams for pour-in-place applications, where they give a good combination of low k-factor and short demold times.
Efficacy of desloratadine in intermittent allergic rhinitis: a GA2LEN study

Background: The Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) guidelines proposed a classification for allergic rhinitis based on the duration of symptoms (intermittent, persistent) rather than on the time of allergen exposure (seasonal, perennial). There is no placebo‐controlled, randomized clinical trial on intermittent allergic rhinitis (IAR) to date. Desloratadine (DL) is recommended for the first‐line treatment of seasonal and perennial allergic rhinitis.
Dynamic Changes in Interneuron Morphophysiological Properties Mark the Maturation of Hippocampal Network Activity

During early postnatal development, neuronal networks successively produce various forms of spontaneous patterned activity that provide key signals for circuit maturation. Initially, in both rodent hippocampus and neocortex, coordinated activity emerges in the form of synchronous plateau assemblies (SPAs) that are initiated by sparse groups of gap-junction-coupled oscillating neurons. Subsequently, SPAs are replaced by synapse-driven giant depolarizing potentials (GDPs). Whether these sequential changes in mechanistically distinct network activities correlate with modifications in single-cell properties is unknown. To determine this, we studied the morphophysiological fate of single SPA cells as a function of development. We focused on CA3 GABAergic interneurons, which are centrally involved in generating GDPs in the hippocampus. As the network matures, GABAergic neurons are engaged more in GDPs and less in SPAs. Using inducible genetic fate mapping, we show that the individual involvement of GABAergic neurons in SPAs is correlated to their temporal origin. In addition, we demonstrate that the SPA-to-GDP transition is paralleled by a remarkable maturation in the morphophysiological properties of GABAergic neurons. Compared with those involved in GDPs, interneurons participating in SPAs possess immature intrinsic properties, receive synaptic inputs spanning a wide amplitude range, and display large somata as well as membrane protrusions. Thus, a developmental switch in the morphophysiological properties of GABAergic interneurons as they progress from SPAs to GDPs marks the emergence of synapse-driven network oscillations.
Defects in Actin Dynamics Lead to an Autoinflammatory Condition through the Upregulation of CXCL5

Background Destrin (DSTN) is a member of the ADF/cofilin family of proteins and is an important regulator of actin dynamics. The primary function of destrin is to depolymerize filamentous actin into its monomeric form and promote filament severing. While progress has been made in understanding the biochemical functions of the ADF/cofilin proteins, the study of an animal model for cells deficient for DSTN provides an opportunity to investigate the physiological processes regulated by proper actin dynamics in vivo. A spontaneous mouse mutant, corneal disease 1(corn1), is deficient for DSTN, which causes epithelial hyperproliferation and neovascularization in the cornea. Dstncorn1 mice exhibit an actin dynamics defect in the cornea as evidenced by the formation of actin stress fibers in the epithelial cells. Previously, we observed a significant infiltration of leukocytes into the cornea of Dstncorn1 mice as well as the upregulation of proinflammatory molecules. In this study, we sought to characterize this inflammatory condition and explore the physiological mechanism through which a loss of Dstn function leads to inflammation. Methodology/Principal Findings Through immunofluorescent analyses, we observed a significant recruitment of neutrophils and macrophages to the Dstncorn1 cornea, demonstrating that the innate immune system is spontaneously activated in this mutant. The inflammatory chemokine, CXCL5, was ectopically expressed in the corneal epithelial cells of Dstncorn1 mice, and targeting of the receptor for this chemokine inhibited neutrophil recruitment. An inflammatory reaction was not observed in the cornea of allelic mutant strain, Dstncorn1-2J, which has a milder defect in actin dynamics in the corneal epithelial cells. Conclusions/Significance This study shows that severe defects in actin dynamics lead to an autoinflammatory condition that is mediated by the expression of CXC chemokines.
APPLICATION OF MULTI-OBJECTIVE CONTROLLER TO OPTIMAL TUNING OF PID PARAMETERS FOR DIFFERENT PROCESS SYSTEMS USING CUCKOO SEARCH ALGORITHM

A time domain performance criterion based on the multi-objective Pareto front solutions is proposed to tune the Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PID) controller parameters with the Cuckoo Search (CS) algorithm for different process systems: first order plus dead time (FOPDT) and high order dynamics. The proposed multi-objective cost function consists of conflicting objective functions including the overshoot, rise time, settling time and steady state error. In this paper, multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) is used for obtaining the Pareto optimal solutions of the conflicting objective functions. The weights in the proposed multi-objective cost function are calculated by way of nondominated solutions of the obtained Pareto fronts based on the four conflicting objective functions. Also, the optimal tuning parameters of the PID controller are obtained by minimizing the integral based objective functions commonly introduced in the literature using the CS algorithm. The obtained results show that the CS optimized approach based on the proposed objective cost function outperforms than that of the integral based objective functions with higher efficiency and better quality no matter whether the process systems are employed under unload or load conditions.
Multi-level virtual model of Aldebaran AP SoC

There are ongoing efforts to enable development and optimization of hardware and software simultaneously. It is believed that the most effective solution is a system-level virtualization based on a virtual model. This paper proposes a multi-level virtual model of our 32-bit RISC Aldebaran AP with support for several features that further enhances system development efficiency.
A self-healing technique for Java applications

Despite the best design practices and testing techniques, many faults exist and manifest themselves in deployed software. In this paper we propose a self-healing framework that aims to mask fault manifestations at runtime in Java applications by automatically applying workarounds. The framework integrates a checkpoint-recovery mechanism to restore a consistent state after the failure, and a mechanism to replace the Java code at runtime to apply the workaround.
On information exposure through named content

The proposed shift from host-centric to information-centric networking (ICN) has triggered extensive research in the area of content naming. Efforts have so far focused on the scalability and security properties that can make content objects routable and self-certifying. In this paper, we argue that the information that is exposed through explicitly naming content objects has been overlooked, although several operational and performance issues depend on the information that a name holds. We therefore revisit content naming design decisions taking into account information exposure and deployability of the ICN paradigm.
Enhanced Multi-resolution Peripheral Artery Tracking in CTA data

Peripheral arterial diseases are among the most important public health problems in developed countries. Blood vessel analysis on medical images, that is, extraction of the center lines and corresponding local cylinder radii, is the basis for diagnosis and treatment of these diseases. The proposed method employs an already existing peripheral artery tracking method in a multi-resolution fashion. The multi-resolution approach intends to improve the execution time, but in the same time preserves accuracy and high recall of the tracked vessel tree. The new approach also aims to improve tracking of very small vessel structures (capillaries). The obtained results show 40% improvement of execution time, preserving the accuracy measure and loosing 4% recall of tracked vessel tree, in comparison to an already existing single resolution vessel tracking framework. In addition, better capillary tracking performance of the proposed method is demonstrated.
Objective Assessment of Telesurgical Robot Systems: Telerobotic FLS

The Society of American Gastrointestinal Endoscopic Surgeons (SAGES) Fundamentals of Laparoscopic Surgery (FLS) program contains curriculum that includes both a cognitive and psychomotor skills. In this research the use of FLS Block Transfer task is used to evaluate the performance of surgeons' teleoperating the University of Washington Surgical robot. The use of the FLS Trainer Box and accessories kit provides a well-defined series of tasks that can be repeated by any researchers working in the field of surgical robotics so that systems can be evaluated using a common method.
Growth Characteristics of Rhizophagus clarus Strains and Their Effects on the Growth of Host Plants

Abstract Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are ubiquitous in the rhizosphere and form symbiotic relationships with most terrestrial plant roots. In this study, four strains of Rhizophagus clarus were cultured and variations in their growth characteristics owing to functional diversity and resultant effects on host plant were investigated. Growth characteristics of the studied R. clarus strains varied significantly, suggesting that AMF retain high genetic variability at the intraspecies level despite asexual lineage. Furthermore, host plant growth response to the R. clarus strains showed that genetic variability in AMF could cause significant differences in the growth of the host plant, which prefers particular genetic types of fungal strains. These results suggest that the intraspecific genetic diversity of AMF could be result of similar selective pressure and may be expressed at a functional level.
Enhancing privacy through caching in location-based services

Privacy protection is critical for Location-Based Services (LBSs). In most previous solutions, users query service data from the untrusted LBS server when needed, and discard the data immediately after use. However, the data can be cached and reused to answer future queries. This prevents some queries from being sent to the LBS server and thus improves privacy. Although a few previous works recognize the usefulness of caching for better privacy, they use caching in a pretty straightforward way, and do not show the quantitative relation between caching and privacy. In this paper, we propose a caching-based solution to protect location privacy in LBSs, and rigorously explore how much caching can be used to improve privacy. Specifically, we propose an entropy-based privacy metric which for the first time incorporates the effect of caching on privacy. Then we design two novel caching-aware dummy selection algorithms which enhance location privacy through maximizing both the privacy of the current query and the dummies' contribution to cache. Evaluations show that our algorithms provide much better privacy than previous caching-oblivious and caching-aware solutions.
Compensation of voltage sags with phase-jumps through DVR with minimum VA rating using PSO

Dynamic Voltage Restorer (DVR) restores the distribution system load voltage to a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage, when the source voltage has distortions, sag/swell and unbalances. DVR has to inject required amount of Volt-Amperes (VA) into the system in order to maintain a nominal balanced sinusoidal voltage at the load. A new control technique is applied to compensate the sag with phase jumps in the source voltages. Keeping the cost effectiveness of DVR, it is desirable to have a minimum VA rating of the DVR, for a given system without compromising compensation capability. Hence, a methodology has been proposed in this work to minimize VA rating of DVR. The optimal angle at which DVR voltage has to be injected in series to the line impedance so as to have minimum VA rating of DVR as well as the removal of phase jumps in the three-phases is computed by Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) technique. The present method was able to compensate voltage sags with phase jumps by keeping the DVR voltage and power ratings minimum, effectively. The proposed method has been validated through detailed simulation studies.