Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modulation of Arm Reaching Movements during Processing of Arm/Hand-Related Action Verbs with and without Emotional Connotation

The theory of embodied language states that language comprehension relies on an internal reenactment of the sensorimotor experience associated with the processed word or sentence. Most evidence in support of this hypothesis had been collected using linguistic material without any emotional connotation. For instance, it had been shown that processing of arm-related verbs, but not of those leg-related verbs, affects the planning and execution of reaching movements; however, at present it is unknown whether this effect is further modulated by verbs evoking an emotional experience. Showing such a modulation might shed light on a very debated issue, i.e. the way in which the emotional meaning of a word is processed. To this end, we assessed whether processing arm/hand-related verbs describing actions with negative connotations (e.g. to stab) affects reaching movements differently from arm/hand-related verbs describing actions with neutral connotation (e.g. to comb). We exploited a go/no-go paradigm in which healthy participants were required to perform arm-reaching movements toward a target when verbs expressing emotional hand actions, neutral hand actions or foot actions were shown, and to refrain from moving when no-effector-related verbs were presented. Reaction times and percentages of errors increased when the verb involved the same effector as used to give the response. However, we also found that the size of this interference decreased when the arm/hand-related verbs had a negative emotional connotation. Crucially, we show that such modulation only occurred when the verb semantics had to be retrieved. These results suggest that the comprehension of negatively valenced verbs might require the simultaneous reenactment of the neural circuitry associated with the processing of the emotion evoked by their meaning and of the neural circuitry associated with their motor features.
Bargaining power of quota allocation in national brand and store brand competition

We consider a supply chain in which there exist one national brand manufacturer and one retailer. Due to spatial consideration, the retailer is only allowed to sell the products under both brands up to a fixed quota. Thus, the quota allocation becomes an important issue for both brands which motivates our research. In this work, we investigate how the bargaining power in the supply chain affects the pricing decisions of both brands. We analyze two models: in the first model, the powerful manufacturer determines the quota allocation before all the pricing decisions have been made whereas in the second, the retailer can fully control the power of allocation. Our results show that in the first model the manufacturer can fully use the allocation as a tool to induce the discretionary retailer to adopt her preferred strategy. In the second model, however, same conclusions may not be observed. Furthermore, the equilibrium strategies of the supply chain in both models may be identical, particularly when the degree of substitutability is low.
New conjectures and results for small cycles of the discrete logarithm

Brizolis asked the question: does every prime p have a pair (g,h) such that h is a fixed point for the discrete logarithm with base g? The first author previously extended this question to ask about not only fixed points but also two-cycles, and gave heuristics (building on work of Zhang, Cobeli, Zaharescu, Campbell, and Pomerance) for estimating the number of such pairs given certain conditions on $g$ and $h$. In this paper we give a summary of conjectures and results which follow from these heuristics, building again on the aforementioned work. We also make some new conjectures and prove some average versions of the results.
Feasibility of 3-Dimensional Sampling Perfection With Application Optimized Contrast Sequence in the Evaluation of Patients With Hydrocephalus

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness and additive value of T2W 3-dimensional sampling perfection with application optimized contrast (3D-SPACE) with variant flip-angle mode in imaging of all types of hydrocephalus. Our secondary objective was to assess the reliability of 3D-SPACE sequence and correspondence of the results with phase-contrast magnetic resonance imaging (PC-MRI)–based data. Materials and Methods Forty-one patients with hydrocephalus have undergone 3-T MRI. T2W 3D-SPACE sequence has been obtained in addition to routine hydrocephalus protocol. Cerebrospinal fluid circulation, presence/type/etiology of hydrocephalus, obstruction level scores, and diagnostic levels of confidence were evaluated separately by 2 radiologists. In the first session, routine sequences with PC-MRI were evaluated, and in another session, only 3D-SPACE and 3-dimensional magnetization prepared rapid acquisition gradient echo sequences were evaluated. Results obtained in these sessions were compared with each other and those obtained in consensus session. Results Agreement values were very good for both 3D-SPACE and PC-MRI sequences (P < 0.001 for all). Also, the correlation of more experienced reader’s 3D-SPACE–based scores and consensus-based scores was perfect (&kgr; = 1, P < 0.001). The mean value of PC-MRI–based confidence scores were lower than those obtained in 3D-SPACE and consensus sessions. Conclusions T2W 3D-SPACE sequence provides morphologic cerebrospinal fluid flow data. It is a noninvasive technique providing extensive multiplanar reformatted images with a lower specific absorption rate. These advantages over PC-MRI make 3D-SPACE sequence a promising tool in management of patients with hydrocephalus.
Analysis of potentially predictive factors of efficacy of adjunct extended-release quetiapine fumarate in patients with major depressive disorder

Identification of predictors of treatment response in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD) may facilitate improved disease management. Data were pooled from two 6-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled studies of extended-release quetiapine (quetiapine XR; 150 or 300 mg/day) as adjunct to ongoing antidepressant therapy. Effects of psychiatric history and baseline demographic and disease characteristics on efficacy outcomes (Week 6 Montgomery Åsberg Depression Rating Scale [MADRS] total score reduction) were evaluated in population subgroups (quetiapine XR both doses pooled, n = 616; placebo, n = 303). Baseline Clinical Global Impressions-Severity (CGI-S) score and previous depressive episodes on Week 6 MADRS total score change, and baseline MADRS individual item scores on Week 6 change in CGI-Improvement score, were also evaluated. No major differences between responders and non-responders to quetiapine XR were observed for patient characteristics or demographic and disease characteristics. No suggestion of a predictive association was found between baseline CGI-S score, number of depressive episodes, and baseline MADRS item scores and efficacy outcomes. These analyses showed no major differences between responders and non-responders, and no predictive association between the parameters assessed and efficacy outcomes for adjunct quetiapine XR in patients with MDD and an inadequate response to prior antidepressant therapy.
Compensated mel frequency cepstrum coefficients

The high concentration of energy in the low frequency range observed for most speech spectra is considered a nuisance because it makes less relevant the energy of the signal at middle and high frequencies in many speech analysis algorithms. This problem is often partially solved by filtering the input signal with a single-zero high pass filter. This technique, known as pre-emphasis, is not used in some speech recognition systems because it can increase the noise energy at high frequencies, which in some cases degrades the system's performance. A new algorithm, to avoid the ill effects of pre-emphasis, is presented in this paper. It is shown that this approach can increase the recognition rate.
Computational Modeling of Chord Fingering for String Instruments

Fingering is a cognitive process that maps each note on a music score to a fingered position on some instrument. This paper presents a computational model for the fingering process with string instruments, based on a constraint satisfaction approach. The model is implemented in a computer program, which has been tested in an experiment in comparison with three human experts. The results have confirmed the predictions based on a set of constraints that encode the bio-mechanical aspects of the performer’s hand in its interaction with the musical instrument.
Evidence for Positive Selection in Ser/Thr Protein Kinases (STKs) Genes of Trichodesmium erythraeum

Ser/Thr protein kinases, members of signal transduction systems, play important roles in responses to the environmental changes and intra-cellular signals. In comparison with extensive literature describing the function, comprehensive evolutionary analyses of STK gene family are rare. In this study, we employed a maximum likelihood method to detect evidence of positive selection on STKs. Several site-models in the PAML package were used and identified 17 positive selected sites. Sites mostly likely undergoing positive selection were found in the additional domain suggesting these sites may play a major role in their functional divergence. We postulate that STK domain and additional domain have different evolutionary patterns. The sites identified to be under positive selection would provide targets for further structural and functional analyses.
Synchronization Aware Conflict Resolution for Runtime Monitoring Using Transactional Memory

There has been significant research on performing runtime monitoring of programs using dynamic binary translation (DBT) techniques for a variety of purposes including program profiling, debugging, and security. However, such software monitoring frameworks currently handle only sequential programs efficiently. When handling multithreaded programs, such tools often encounter racing problems and require serialization of threads for correctness. The races arise when application data and corresponding meta data stored in DBT tools are updated concurrently. To address this problem, transactional memory (TM) was recently proposed to enforce atomicity of updating of application data and their corresponding meta data. However, enclosing legacy synchronization operations within transactions can cause livelocks, and thus degrade performance. In this paper, we consider common forms of synchronizations and show how they can give rise to livelocks when TM is used to enable runtime monitoring. In order to avoid such livelocks, we implement a detector to dynamically detect synchronizations and use this information in performing conflict resolution. Our experiments show that our synchronization aware strategy can efficiently avoid livelocks for the SPLASH-2 benchmarks.
Stochastic Preplanned Restoration Algorithms

The ability of overcoming service interruptions, i.e., resilience, has always been an irremissible requirement for communication networks. Resilient schemes can either reserve in advance network spare resources (protection schemes ) or found them upon failure occurrence (restoration schemes ). While fixed protection schemes have been extensively used thus far in the telephone industry, the envisioned dynamic Optical Layer (OL) and the lack of flexibility proper of protection schemes are driving network designer to resort to restoration schemes. By dynamically looking for backup paths of spare wavelengths upon failure occurrence, restoration schemes have the potential to yield efficient and flexible resource reservation. However restoration schemes, generally, present long failure recovery time (i.e., the time required to restore the disrupted connections). This is mainly due to the heavy signaling that originates upon failure occurrence. In high capacity WDM networks, the presence of many connections concurrently seeking restoration exacerbates the above problem as, in existing restoration schemes, coordination among restoration attempts may further slow down the process completion. To exploit the flexibility of restoration schemes and decrease their failure recovery time and resource contention, the authors propose a class of fast and efficient path restoration schemes called Stochastic Preplanned Restoration (SPR) schemes. In the SPR schemes each active connection is associated with an agent resident at the connection master node. Communication between agents is not allowed. This permits to reduce the coordination required during the failure recovery process. Distinct restoration paths are precomputed at the connection master node at the time the connection is set up. Upon failure of the connection working path, one of the preplanned paths is randomly selected as restoration path depending on specific probabilities calculated by the connection agent. The proposed schemes require limited signaling upon failure occurrence as coordination among the agents involved in the restoration process is not required. Therefore, the schemes are fast and scalable in terms of number of network nodes, link or fiber capacity, and number of connections. Yet, presented results show that the SPR schemes may considerably decrease the blocking probability of the restoration attempts when compared to other distributed restoration schemes, such as alternate routing, and perform closely to centralized schemes based on ILP solutions.
Monocular vision based robot self-localization

In this paper, we propose a position tracking method for robot self-localization with monocular vision. The robot is able to locate itself relying solely on its onboard monocular camera, and the localization result will not be affected by odometer error caused by wheel slippage. Our approach uses the Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) for feature detection and matching over consecutive frames to compute the fundamental matrix from epipolar geometry. Robust outlier elimination technique and iterative computation are combined to improve the robustness and accuracy of the estimation result of fundamental matrix. The motion parameters, including rotation matrix and displacement direction vector, are calculated with the fundamental matrix and the pre-calibrated intrinsic parameters. A recursive displacement computation algorithm is applied to solve the displacement length for position tracking. Experiments carried out in an indoor environment demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach.
Calcium Oxalate Crystals in Eucalypt Ectomycorrhizae: Morphochemical Characterization

Ectomycorrhizal fungi are ubiquitous in forest ecosystems, benefitting plants principally by increasing the uptake of water and nutrients such as calcium from the soil. Previous work has demonstrated accumulation of crystallites in eucalypt ectomycorrhizas, but detailed morphological and chemical characterization of these crystals has not been performed. In this work, cross sections of acetic acid-treated and cleared ectomycorrhizal fragments were visualized by polarized light microscopy to evaluate the location of crystals within cortical root cells. Ectomycorrhizal sections were also observed by scanning electron microscopy (SEM) coupled with energy dispersive x-ray (EDS) microprobe analysis. The predominant forms of crystals were crystal sand (granules) and concretions. Calcium, carbon and oxygen were detected by EDS as constituent elements and similar elemental profiles were observed between both crystal morphologies. All analyzed crystalline structures were characterized as calcium oxalate crystals. This is the first report of the stoichiometry and morphology of crystals occurring in eucalypt ectomycorrhizas in tropical soils. The data corroborates the role of ectomycorrhizae in the uptake and accumulation of calcium in the form of calcium oxalate crystals in hybrid eucalypt plants.
On the dressing method for Dunajski anti-self-duality equation

AbstractA dressing scheme applicable to Dunajski equation is developed.Simple example of constructing solutions in terms of implicit functionsis considered. Dunajski equation hierarchy is described, its Lax-Satoform is presented. Dunajsky equation hierarchy is characterised byconservation of three-dimensional volume form, in which a spectralvariable is taken into account. Some reductions of Dunajsky equationhierarchy, including waterbag-type reduction, are studied. 1 Dunajski equation Dunajski equation [1] is a representative of the class integrable sytems aris-ing in the context of complex relativity [2]-[6]. It is closely connected tothe selebrated Pleban´ski heavenly equations [2] and in some sense general-izes them. It describes anti-self-dual null-Ka¨hler structures. In [1] it wasshown that all null-Ka¨hler metrics (signature (2,2)) locally admit a canonicalPleban´ski formg = dwdx+dzdy −Θ xx dz 2 −Θ yy dw 2 +2Θ xy dwdz. (1)The conformal anti-self-duality (ASD) condition leads to Dunajski equationΘ
Saccadic Compression of Rectangle and Kanizsa Figures: Now You See It, Now You Don't

Background Observers misperceive the location of points within a scene as compressed towards the goal of a saccade. However, recent studies suggest that saccadic compression does not occur for discrete elements such as dots when they are perceived as unified objects like a rectangle. Methodology/Principal Findings We investigated the magnitude of horizontal vs. vertical compression for Kanizsa figure (a collection of discrete elements unified into single perceptual objects by illusory contours) and control rectangle figures. Participants were presented with Kanizsa and control figures and had to decide whether the horizontal or vertical length of stimulus was longer using the two-alternative force choice method. Our findings show that large but not small Kanizsa figures are perceived as compressed, that such compression is large in the horizontal dimension and small or nil in the vertical dimension. In contrast to recent findings, we found no saccadic compression for control rectangles. Conclusions Our data suggest that compression of Kanizsa figure has been overestimated in previous research due to methodological artifacts, and highlight the importance of studying perceptual phenomena by multiple methods.
Household Decision Behavior: The Impact of Husbands' and Wives' Sex Role Orientation

This study examines the impact of sex role orientation on the outcome of a family home purchase decision. A relatively strong relationship is found between sex role orientation (SRO) and the degree of household influence, preference agreement, mode of conflict resolution, and decision outcome. Finally, it is found that household decision behavior is better explained in the context of a theoretical network of systemic household relationships rather than through a series of bivariate family relationships.
General and Specific Goal Orientations as Correlates of Adult Student Degree Completion: Lessons from the Community College of the Air Force

This research examined degree completion through the lens of Snyder's hope theory (Snyder, 2000) in an effort to expand the research on student retention from Tinto's sociological theory to a theory that focuses on the psychological orientations that might help explain student success. The study focused on a sample of 443 master sergeants enrolled in associate of applied science degrees offered by the Community College of the Air Force, a non-traditional, non-transfer, regionally accredited community college. The results of the logistic regression analysis revealed hope, as one component of overall goal orientation, to be a statistically significant predictor of degree attainment. Specific goal orientation, defined and measured as the strength of desire for earning this particular degree, was particularly important to degree completion for this sample.
An all-solid-state optical range camera for 3 D real-time imaging with sub-centimeter depth resolution ( SwissRangerTM )

A new miniaturized camera system that is capable of 3-dimensional imaging in real-time is presented. The compact imaging device is able to entirely capture its environment in all three spatial dimensions. It reliably and simultaneously delivers intensity data as well as range information on the objects and persons in the scene. The depth measurement is based on the time-of-flight (TOF) principle. A custom solid-state image sensor allows the parallel measurement of the phase, offset and amplitude of a radio frequency (RF) modulated light field that is emitted by the system and reflected back by the camera surroundings without requiring any mechanical scanning parts. In this paper, the theoretical background of the implemented TOF principle is presented, together with the technological requirements and detailed practical implementation issues of such a distance measuring system. Furthermore, the schematic overview of the complete 3D-camera system is provided. The experimental test results are presented and discussed. The present camera system can achieve sub-centimeter depth resolution for a wide range of operating conditions. A miniaturized version of such a 3D-solid-state camera, the SwissRanger 2, is presented as an example, illustrating the possibility of manufacturing compact, robust and cost effective ranging camera products for 3D imaging in real-time.
Flow-Based Algorithms for Local Graph Clustering

Given a subset S of vertices of an undirected graph G, the cut-improvement problem asks us to find a subset S that is similar to A but has smaller conductance. A very elegant algorithm for this problem has been given by Andersen and Lang [AL08] and requires solving a small number of single-commodity maximum flow computations over the whole graph G. In this paper, we introduce LocalImprove, the first cut-improvement algorithm that is local, i.e. that runs in time dependent on the size of the input set A rather than on the size of the entire graph. Moreover, LocalImprove achieves this local behaviour while essentially matching the same theoretical guarantee as the global algorithm of Andersen and Lang. The main application of LocalImprove is to the design of better local-graph-partitioning algorithms. All previously known local algorithms for graph partitioning are random-walk based and can only guarantee an output conductance of O(\sqrt{OPT}) when the target set has conductance OPT \in [0,1]. Very recently, Zhu, Lattanzi and Mirrokni [ZLM13] improved this to O(OPT / \sqrt{CONN}) where the internal connectivity parameter CONN \in [0,1] is defined as the reciprocal of the mixing time of the random walk over the graph induced by the target set. In this work, we show how to use LocalImprove to obtain a constant approximation O(OPT) as long as CONN/OPT = Omega(1). This yields the first flow-based algorithm. Moreover, its performance strictly outperforms the ones based on random walks and surprisingly matches that of the best known global algorithm, which is SDP-based, in this parameter regime [MMV12]. Finally, our results show that spectral methods are not the only viable approach to the construction of local graph partitioning algorithm and open door to the study of algorithms with even better approximation and locality guarantees.
Intraclass Identifiable Region Detection M in L u 1 , a )

In this paper, we propose a novel method for comparing the shape of similar objects. From the viewpoint of linear algebra, we turn this identifiable region detection problem into a low-rank submatrices searching process, and solve it with biclustering. Comparing with traditional cluster analysis, our method looks for structural information on both object index and local shape dimensions, which leads to more detailed local comparison results. The proposed method is evaluated with real world data with satisfactory results, which verifies the effectiveness of our method.