Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Article Complex Dynamics of V1 Population Responses Explained by a Simple Gain-control Model

SUMMARY To understand sensory encoding and decoding, it is essential to characterize the dynamics of population responses in sensory cortical areas. Using voltage-sensitive dye imaging in awake, fixating monkeys, we obtained complete quantitative measurements of the spatiotemporal dynamics of V1 responses over the entire region activated by small, briefly presented stimuli. The responses exhibit several complex properties: they begin to rise approximately simultaneously over the entire active region, but reach their peak more rapidly at the center. However, at stimulus offset the responses fall simultaneously and at the same rate at all locations. Although response onset depends on stimulus contrast, both the peak spatial profile and the offset dynamics are independent of contrast. We show that these results are consistent with a simple population gain-control model that generalizes earlier single-neuron contrast gain-control models. This model provides valuable insight and is likely to be applicable to other brain areas.
Spatiotemporal pattern of action potential firing in developing inner hair cells of the mouse cochlea

Significance Sensory inner hair cells (IHCs) of the cochlea, the organ of hearing, fire action potentials during development. This presensory activity likely drives refinement of the ascending auditory pathway. Our study shows that the IHCs fire spontaneous bursts of action potentials, which tend to occur at a regular time interval and have a similar length toward the end of the first postnatal week. The spiking behavior does not depend on ATP but, rather, is modulated by the α9α10 nicotinic receptor, which is expressed by the developing IHCs. The firing pattern of the IHCs may therefore convey a temporal signature of the cochlear development to the higher auditory centers. Inner hair cells (IHCs) are the primary transducer for sound encoding in the cochlea. In contrast to the graded receptor potential of adult IHCs, immature hair cells fire spontaneous calcium action potentials during the first postnatal week. This spiking activity has been proposed to shape the tonotopic map along the ascending auditory pathway. Using perforated patch-clamp recordings, we show that developing IHCs fire spontaneous bursts of action potentials and that this pattern is indistinguishable along the basoapical gradient of the developing cochlea. In both apical and basal IHCs, the spiking behavior undergoes developmental changes, where the bursts of action potential tend to occur at a regular time interval and have a similar length toward the end of the first postnatal week. Although disruption of purinergic signaling does not interfere with the action potential firing pattern, pharmacological ablation of the α9α10 nicotinic receptor elicits an increase in the discharge rate. We therefore suggest that in addition to carrying place information to the ascending auditory nuclei, the IHCs firing pattern controlled by the α9α10 receptor conveys a temporal signature of the cochlear development.
Factorial structure of the New Ecological Paradigm scale in two French samples

The principal objective of this research is to test the factorial structure of the New Ecological Paradigm scale on a population of men and women residing in France. The tested model is a second-order factorial model. This factorial structure is evaluated on two separate samples to test the stability of the solution (a first sample of 253 participants, diversified in terms of age and socioprofessional category, and a second sample of 266 students). The results confirm the existence of a second-order factorial structure in which environmental beliefs, measured based on 13 items taken from the New Ecological Paradigm scale, would constitute a homogeneous system of beliefs supported in five distinct dimensions.
Making a fragile public : A talk-centered study of citizenship and power

Understanding how citizens create contexts for open-ended political conversation in everyday life is an important task for social research. The lack of theoretical attention to political conversation in the current renaissance of studies of civil society and the public sphere precludes a thoroughly social understanding of civic life. Participant-observation in U.S. recreational, volunteer, and activist groups shows how the very act of speaking itself comes to mean different things in different civic contexts. It shows dramatic contextual shills-the more public the context, the less public-spirited the discourse. Institutions encouraged groups to avoid public, political conversation. One group challenged the dominant etiquette for citizenship; the others considered talking politics out of place almost everywhere. The ways groups relate to public speech itself are themselves meaningful; the concept of civic practices highlights how groups develop not just the power to make a particular political program public, but the power to make the public itself
Optical Character Recognition of Non-flat Small Documents Using Android: A Case Study

Optical Character Recognition (OCR) using Android has been received a great attention. In all these efforts a flat document is selected for OCRing and non-flat documents are ignored. Labels mounted on cylindrical surfaces such as wine bottle, pill box, cans, etc, are examples of non-flat documents. The goal of this research effort is to perform optical character recognition on a non-flat document. To be more specific, we investigate OCRing of a cylindrical pill box label. Two pictures of the label are needed for the OCRing. The methodology was applied on 30 synthesized non-flat labels and on average, the system was able to accurately recognize 92.4% of the characters.
Improving adjustable autonomy strategies for time-critical domains

As agents begin to perform complex tasks alongside humans as collaborative teammates, it becomes crucial that the resulting human-multiagent teams adapt to time-critical domains. In such domains, adjustable autonomy has proven useful by allowing for a dynamic transfer of control of decision making between human and agents. However, existing adjustable autonomy algorithms commonly discretize time, which not only results in high algorithm runtimes but also translates into inaccurate transfer of control policies. In addition, existing techniques fail to address decision making inconsistencies often encountered in human multiagent decision making. To address these limitations, we present novel approach for Resolving Inconsistencies in Adjustable Autonomy in Continuous Time (RIAACT) that makes three contributions: First, we apply continuous time planning paradigm to adjustable autonomy, resulting in high-accuracy transfer of control policies. Second, our new adjustable autonomy framework both models and plans for the resolving of inconsistencies between human and agent decisions. Third, we introduce a new model, Interruptible Action Time-dependent Markov Decision Problem (IA-TMDP), which allows for actions to be interrupted at any point in continuous time. We show how to solve IA-TMDPs efficiently and leverage them to plan for the resolving of inconsistencies in RIAACT. Furthermore, these contributions have been realized and evaluated in a complex disaster response simulation system.
Rituals of personal experience in television news interviews

Interviewing as part of broadcast news includes a wide range of practices that go beyond calling public figures to account in ways that have received so much attention and analysis in the research literature. This article examines a major strand of news interviewing which it identifies as ‘experiential’ and argues, on the basis of close discourse analysis of interviews drawn from coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2005 London bombings, that the focus on personal experience and emotion in them is managed in ways quite distinct from accountability interviewing. Indeed, the apparently formulaic quality of the verbal performance in these interviews gives shape to experience in a fashion close to ritual but demands a quite different kind of alignment from the audience than that implicated by accountability interviewing.
Can counselling/psychotherapy be helpful in reducing barriers to learning for the person with specific learning difficulties?

This paper explores the relative helpfulness of counselling/psychotherapy to individuals experiencing specific learning difficulties, as a means of reducing barriers to learning by allowing the individual to return to learning from experience. Highlighting earlier studies which indicate the positive impact of psychological therapy on educational attainment and inhibiting factors such as stress, this research investigates the experience of counselling from the perspective of the person with specific learning disabilities. Using Empirical Phenomenological Research, the study explores their understandings of the circumstances and factors by which therapy is found to be helpful or unhelpful, seeking to contribute to debate on whether psychological interventions that are ‘specialist’ in orientation are potentially more helpful than ‘generalist’ therapeutic approaches. The findings point both to the potential value of psychological therapies for persons with special educational needs as a complement to other interventions and also to the importance of considering the experiences of the client in addition to diagnostic assessments.
A Test of a Proposed Method for Estimating Validity of a Multivariate Composite Predictor: Extending the Job Component Validity Model

In this study, a proposed extension to the job component validity model from the Position Analysis Questionnaire was tested. Job component validity, a form of synthetic validation, allows researchers to select useful predictors and to estimate the criterion-related validity of tests based on conducting a job analysis which includes the Position Analysis Questionnaire. Morris and colleagues described a method for estimating the multiple correlation of a test battery assembled via job component validity estimates. In the current study, job component validity estimates, derived from the multiple correlation procedure proposed by Morris, et al., were compared to unit-weighted validity estimates obtained in a criterion-related validity study of six job progressions. The multivariate job component validity estimates were comparable to unit-weighted validity coefficients obtained using supervisory ratings as criteria. Multivariate job component validity estimates were conservative compared to corrected unit-weighted validity coefficients.
Japanese lung cancer research trends and performance in Science Citation Index.

OBJECTIVE This study was undertaken to explore a bibliometric approach to quantitatively assess current research trends in lung cancer in Japan, using the related literature in the Science Citation Index (SCI) database from 1991 to 2008. MATERIALS AND METHODS Articles were analyzed by the scientific output and research performances of individuals, institutes, and collaborative countries with Japan. Distribution of words in the article title, author keywords, and KeyWords Plus in different periods was applied to evaluate research trends by the frequency of keywords used. RESULTS Keyword analysis indicated that there has been a strategy to connect molecular biology with clinical practice. Researchers in Japan have published high impact articles related to non-small cell and small cell lung cancer. CONCLUSION Finally, this study highlights the topics in lung cancer research that are becoming popular in Japan.
Reflected self-appraisals: Strength and structure of the relation of teacher, peer, and parent ratings to children's self-perceived competencies.

The authors obtained teacher, parent, peer, and self-ratings of social acceptance, academic competence, athletic competence, physical appearance, and behavioral conduct on 463 3rd-and 434 6th-grade girls and boys. Multivariate estimates of the relation between self- and others' reports were substantially larger than have previously been found with univariate tests. Interbattery factor analyses revealed evidence of domain specificity; that is, others' appraisals in 1 domain tended to be most strongly related to self-appraisals in the same domain. Analyses also revealed evidence of cross-domain relations; others' appraisals in 1 domain were sometimes related to self-appraisals in different domains. The strength and structure of these relations varied with children's gender, children's grade level, and informant type. The complexity of the relation between self- and others' evaluations has implications for future tests of the reflected self-appraisal process and for school-based programs for enhancing children's self-concepts.
The framing effect and skin conductance responses

Individuals often rely on simple heuristics when they face complex choice situations under uncertainty. Traditionally, it has been proposed that cognitive processes are the main driver to evaluate different choice options and to finally reach a decision. Growing evidence, however, highlights a strong interrelation between judgment and decision-making (JDM) on the one hand, and emotional processes on the other hand. This also seems to apply to judgmental heuristics, i.e., decision processes that are typically considered to be fast and intuitive. In this study, participants are exposed to different probabilities of receiving an unpleasant electric shock. Information about electric shock probabilities is either positively or negatively framed. Integrated skin conductance responses (ISCRs) while waiting for electric shock realization are used as an indicator for participants' emotional arousal. This measure is compared to objective probabilities. I find evidence for a relation between emotional body reactions measured by ISCRs and the framing effect. Under negative frames, participants show significantly higher ISCRs while waiting for an electric shock to be delivered than under positive frames. This result might contribute to a better understanding of the psychological processes underlying JDM. Further studies are necessary to reveal the causality underlying this finding, i.e., whether emotional processes influence JDM or vice versa.
Using Intelligent Search Techniques to Play the Game Khet

This paper describes the analysis of the game Khet and the implementation of a game engine. Both the state-space complexity and the game-tree complexity of Khet are given. They turn out to be of the same order as those of chess. Based on these results, search techniques are selected that can be used to create an AI player which can play Khet as good as possible. These search techniques are improved to make them run more efficiently, so they can search more extensively and, thus, play stronger. From the experiments that are performed, we can conclude that Khet can best be played by the alphabeta search algorithm, enhanced by a transposition table, killer moves, and Qn-limited search, a variation on quiescence search. These three enhancements yield a significant improvement of the strength of the AI player. Using these search techniques we are able to create a computer program which can play Khet at a strong amateur level.
Quantizer Nonoverload Criteria in Sigma–Delta Modulators

A simple method to guarantee absolute stability in multibit sigma-delta modulators (SDMs) is to ensure that the quantizer never overloads. This applies to any SDM. Derivation of the requirements for nonoverload have previously been shown for different types of modulators; the sigma-delta or output-feedback modulator with rounding quantizer as well as the error-feedback modulator using truncation. Here, these nonoverload requirements will be clarified and a unified formulation is presented that is not limited with regard to modulator topology or quantizer function
Towards a carbon-negative sustainable bio-based economy

The bio-based economy relies on sustainable, plant-derived resources for fuels, chemicals, materials, food and feed rather than on the evanescent usage of fossil resources. The cornerstone of this economy is the biorefinery, in which renewable resources are intelligently converted to a plethora of products, maximizing the valorization of the feedstocks. Innovation is a prerequisite to move a fossil-based economy toward sustainable alternatives, and the viability of the bio-based economy depends on the integration between plant (green) and industrial (white) biotechnology. Green biotechnology deals with primary production through the improvement of biomass crops, while white biotechnology deals with the conversion of biomass into products and energy. Waste streams are minimized during these processes or partly converted to biogas, which can be used to power the processing pipeline. The sustainability of this economy is guaranteed by a third technology pillar that uses thermochemical conversion to valorize waste streams and fix residual carbon as biochar in the soil, hence creating a carbon-negative cycle. These three different multidisciplinary pillars interact through the value chain of the bio-based economy.
The role of prior language context on bilingual spoken word processing: Evidence from the visual world task*

We investigated whether speaking in one language affects cross- and within-language activation when subsequently switching to a task performed in the same or different language. English–French bilinguals (L1 English, n = 29; L1 French, n = 28) were randomly assigned to a prior language context condition consisting of a spontaneous production task in English (the no-switch group) or in French (the switch group). Participants then performed an English spoken language comprehension task using the visual world method. The key result was that the switch group showed less evidence of cross-language competition than the no-switch group, consistent with the notion of an active inhibition of a prior language in the switch group. These data suggest that proficient bilinguals can globally suppress a non-target language, whether it is L1 or L2, though doing so requires cognitive resources that may be diverted from other demands, such as controlling within-language competition.
A Non Overlapping Camera Network : Calibration and Application Towards Lane Departure Warning

In this paper, we present a new multi camera approach toLane DepartureWarning (LDW). First, a perspective removaltransformation is applied to the camera captured images toconvert them into bird’s-eye view images. Then, the positionof the two cameras relative to a reference point is accuratelydetermined using a new calibration technique. Lane detectionis performed on the front and rear camera images who resultsare combined using data fusion. Finally, LDW is implementedby determining the distance between the vehicle andadjacent lane boundaries. The proposed system was tested onreal world driving videos and shows good results when comparedto ground truth.
Point: There is capillary recruitment in active skeletal muscle during exercise.

#### Focus. The key issue here is whether resting skeletal muscle is fully perfused. We will make the case that it is not, and thus there exists a reserve of unperfused capillaries (capillary reserve) that are recruited to carry flow not only by muscle contraction, but also by insulin. #### Our
Eliciting Narrative Through the In-Depth Interview

A central feature of the fear of crime debate is the fear-risk paradox: the finding that those least at risk, namely, elderly women, are most fearful, and vice versa. This article argues that this paradox can be resolved theoretically by placing an anxious, defended subject rather than a rational, risk-avoiding one at the center of the debate, and explores some of the methodological implications of so doing, especially the importance of eliciting narratives. This methodological position, appropriately adapted for this study's rather different purposes, derives from the biographical-interpretive method first developed in Germany for the collection of life stories of Jewish survivors of the concentration camps. The authors outline the principles of this approach and the importance of eliciting concrete stories in a nondirective way in pursuit of the respondent's "gestalt," and then put this to work in attempting to operationalize their theoretical position into appropriate interview schedules. Specifically, the authors contrast the results of pilot interview schedules conducted in traditional question-and-answer format, in which "why" ques tions loom large, with those obtained by a schedule based on eliciting narratives from respondents, demonstrating both what the former misses and the latter (unconsciously) reveals. The authors also show how they use the same narrative-based principles in their follow-up interviews.
The effect of transdermal estradiol or oral conjugated oestrogen and fenretinide versus placebo on haemostasis and cardiovascular risk biomarkers in a randomized breast cancer chemoprevention trial

Background: We have previously reported the favourable effect of transdermal estradiol (E2), relative to oral conjugated equine oestrogen (CEE), on ultrasensitive C-reactive protein after 12 months of treatment in a retinoid-placebo controlled two-by-two randomized breast cancer prevention trial (Decensi A et al (2002) Circulation 106 10 1224–8). Here, we investigate the changes in lipids and clotting profile in patients of the same trial. Methods and results: Recent post-menopausal women were randomised to either oral CEE 0.625 mg/day and placebo (n = 55), CEE and fenretinide 200 mg/day (n = 56), transdermal E2 50 mg/day and placebo (n = 59) or E2 and fenretinide 200 mg/day (n = 56). Sequential medroxyprogesterone acetate 10 mg/day was given in each group. After 12 months, there was a statistically significant effect of the route of administration of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) on fibrinogen levels; the median percentage change being −5.7% with CEE and −1.1% with E2 (p = 0.012). Total cholesterol decreased in all arms (p < 0.0001). HDL-C decreased significantly with transdermal E2 (p = 0.006) compared to oral CEE and with fenretinide relative to placebo (p<0.001). Triglycerides exhibited an opposite modulation in the HRT route, with a 21.4% median increase with oral CEE and an 8.6% reduction with transdermal E2 (p < 0.0001). Antithrombin-III showed a 4% borderline significant reduction in the fenretinide arm relative to placebo, irrespective of the HRT administration route (p = 0.055). Conclusions: Our data indicate that transdermal E2 may be preferable to oral CEE based on its safer cardiovascular risk profile. Fenretinide modified some cardiovascular risk biomarkers and confirmed a safer profile compared to other retinoids.
Interleaved Constrained Codes With Markers Correcting Bursts of Insertions or Deletions

We present the construction of interleaving arrays for correcting clusters as well as diffuse bursts of insertion or deletion errors in constrained data. In this construction, a constrained information sequence is systematically encoded by computing a small number of parity checks and inserting markers such that the resulting code word is also constrained. Insertions and deletions lead to a shift between successive markers, which can thus be detected and recovered using the parity checks. In this letter, as an example, the scheme is developed for Manchester-encoded information sequences.