Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Statistically Optimal Perception and Learning: from Behavior to Neural Representations

Human perception has recently been characterized as statistical inference based on noisy and ambiguous sensory inputs. Moreover, suitable neural representations of uncertainty have been identified that could underlie such probabilistic computations. In this review, we argue that learning an internal model of the sensory environment is another key aspect of the same statistical inference procedure and thus perception and learning need to be treated jointly. We review evidence for statistically optimal learning in humans and animals, and re-evaluate possible neural representations of uncertainty based on their potential to support statistically optimal learning. We propose that spontaneous activity can have a functional role in such representations leading to a new, sampling-based, framework of how the cortex represents information and uncertainty. Probabilistic perception, learning and representation of uncertainty: in need of a unifying approach One of the longstanding computational principles in neuro-science is that the nervous system of animals and humans is adapted to the statistical properties of the environment [1]. This principle is reflected across all organizational levels, ranging from the activity of single neurons to networks and behavior, and it has been identified as key to the survival of organisms [2]. Such adaptation takes place on at least two distinct behaviorally relevant time scales: on the time scale of immediate inferences, as a moment-by-moment processing of sensory input (perception), and on a longer time scale by learning from experience. Although statistically optimal perception and learning have most often been considered in isolation, here we promote them as two facets of the same underlying principle and treat them together under a unified approach. Although there is considerable behavioral evidence that humans and animals represent, infer and learn about the statistical properties of their environment efficiently [3], and there is also converging theoretical and neurophysiological work on potential neural mechanisms of statistically optimal perception [4], there is a notable lack of convergence from physiological and theoretical studies explaining whether and how statistically optimal learning might occur in the brain. Moreover, there is a missing link between perception and learning: there exists virtually no crosstalk between these two lines of research focusing on common principles and on a unified framework down to the level of neural implementation. With recent advances in understanding the bases of probabilistic coding and the accumulating evidence supporting probabilis-tic computations in the cortex, it is now possible to take a closer look at both the basis of probabilistic learning …
Loss of Atrx Sensitizes Cells to DNA Damaging Agents through p53-Mediated Death Pathways

Prevalent cell death in forebrain- and Sertoli cell-specific Atrx knockout mice suggest that Atrx is important for cell survival. However, conditional ablation in other tissues is not associated with increased death indicating that diverse cell types respond differently to the loss of this chromatin remodeling protein. Here, primary macrophages isolated from Atrx f/f mice were infected with adenovirus expressing Cre recombinase or β-galactosidase, and assayed for cell survival under different experimental conditions. Macrophages survive without Atrx but undergo rapid apoptosis upon lipopolysaccharide (LPS) activation suggesting that chromatin reorganization in response to external stimuli is compromised. Using this system we next tested the effect of different apoptotic stimuli on cell survival. We observed that survival of Atrx-null cells were similar to wild type cells in response to serum withdrawal, anti-Fas antibody, C2 ceramide or dexamethasone treatment but were more sensitive to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU). Cell survival could be rescued by re-introducing Atrx or by removal of p53 demonstrating the cell autonomous nature of the effect and its p53-dependence. Finally, we demonstrate that multiple primary cell types (myoblasts, embryonic fibroblasts and neurospheres) were sensitive to 5-FU, cisplatin, and UV light treatment. Together, our results suggest that cells lacking Atrx are more sensitive to DNA damaging agents and that this may result in enhanced death during development when cells are at their proliferative peak. Moreover, it identifies potential treatment options for cancers associated with ATRX mutations, including glioblastoma and pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors.
Dynamic Random Testing with Parameter Adjustment

In order to improve traditional Random Partition Testing (RPT) strategy, Dynamic Random Testing (DRT) strategy is proposed. By DRT, testing profile is dynamically updated according to the previous test case execution result. The effectiveness of DRT depends on parameter settings. In this paper, a strategy is presented for extending the DRT with parameter adjustment in order to guarantee that the optimized boundaries. Using this strategy, the parameters in DRT are adjusted based on testing history during testing process. Case studies are presented and analyzed to show the improvement of DRT.
Identification of macrophage external membrane proteins and their possible role in cell adhesion

Starch-activated mouse peritoneal macrophages (STpMAC) plated on plastic demonstrate the adhesive properties typical for activated pMAC: attaching as round cells and, within 15 min, spreading out with marginal membrane ruffles. These attached STpMAC were labeled by lactoperoxidase-catalysed 125I surface iodination, sodium dodecyl- sulfate-lysed, and the lysates electrophoresed on polyacrylamide gels which were examined by autoradiography. The STpMAC morphological phenotype correlates with the labeling of a particular protein (195,000, estimated mol wt). Normal pMAC (NpMAC), from unstimulated mice, do not spread and do not display the 195,000 band. Both pMAC band patterns, including the 195,000 band, are relatively resistant to trypsin digestion, as is pMAC adhesion itself trypsin-resistant. Neither class of pMAC exhibits fibronectin (Cell Adhesion Factor, LETS protein) which is a component in the adhesive matrix of cells forming trypsin-sensitive monolayers. When pMAC are tested against antifibronectin antibody, these cells do not give immunofluorescent staining. In summary, two functions in pMAC adhesion, enzyme resistance and the ability to spread, appear related to molecular properties distinctive for pMAC surface protein.
A new modification of Singular Value Decomposition using Independent Component Analysis with applications to MRS imaging quantification

A modification of Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) is proposed in this aiming at de-noising and finding more accurately the statistically independent spectra of metabolite sources in Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy (MRS) quantification. Although SVD is known in MRS applications and several efficient algorithms exist for estimating SVD summation terms in which the raw MRS data is analyzed, however, modifications of the main methodology incorporating techniques for calculating the assumed statistically independent spectra have not been employed so far. The goal of this paper is to present such a modification based on applying SVD on the MRS spectrogram. A methodology combining SVD on spectrogram followed by an iterated application of Independent Component Analysis (ICA) on the principle components ICA will also be tested. The methodologies are tested and results are discussed by conducting an experimental study based on synthetic MRS signals.
Ranking of Coordinate Terms and Hypernyms Using a Hypernym-Hyponym Dictionary

In this paper, methods for ranking coordinate terms and hypernyms of a given query according to their appropriateness are proposed. Although previous studies have proposed methods for discovering coordinate terms or hypernyms of a query, they focused on only discovering such terms and evaluating discovered terms based on a binary evaluation: appropriate or inappropriate. Unlike these studies, we rank coordinate terms and hypernyms of a query and evaluate the terms by considering their appropriateness. In the proposed method, a bipartite graph is created based on hypernyms of a query and hyponyms of each hypernym using a hypernym-hyponym dictionary. Subsequently, we apply a HITS-based algorithm to the bipartite graph and rank coordinate terms and hypernyms based on their appropriateness. The experimental results obtained using 50 queries demonstrate that our method could rank appropriate coordinate terms and hypernyms higher than other comparable methods.
Efficient Data Streaming Multiway Aggregation through Concurrent Algorithmic Designs and New Abstract Data Types

Data streaming relies on continuous queries to process unbounded streams of data in a real-time fashion. It is commonly demanding in computation capacity, given that the relevant applications involve very large volumes of data. Data structures act as articulation points and maintain the state of data streaming operators, potentially supporting high parallelism and balancing the work among them. Prompted by this fact, in this work we study and analyze parallelization needs of these articulation points, focusing on the problem of streaming multiway aggregation, where large data volumes are received from multiple input streams. The analysis of the parallelization needs, as well as of the use and limitations of existing aggregate designs and their data structures, leads us to identify needs for appropriate shared objects that can achieve low-latency and high-throughput multiway aggregation. We present the requirements of such objects as abstract data types and we provide efficient lock-free linearizable algorithmic implementations of them, along with new multiway aggregate algorithmic designs that leverage them, supporting both deterministic order-sensitive and order-insensitive aggregate functions. Furthermore, we point out future directions that open through these contributions. The article includes an extensive experimental study, based on a variety of continuous aggregation queries on two large datasets extracted from SoundCloud, a music social network, and from a Smart Grid network. In all the experiments, the proposed data structures and the enhanced aggregate operators improved the processing performance significantly, up to one order of magnitude, in terms of both throughput and latency, over the commonly used techniques based on queues.
A Ka-band substrate-integrated waveguide diplexer with wide frequency spread

A compact 20 GHz/30 GHz diplexer for satellite communication systems is presented. It consists of a T-junction and two bandpass filters implemented in substrate-integrated waveguide (SIW) technology. The 30 GHz filter relies on a standard design, whereas a wide stopband approach is used for the 20 GHz filter to suppress a parasitic passband at the upper frequency. The design procedure is explained and simulation as well as measurement results are presented. The complete diplexer is fabricated in a standard PCB process. The measurement results validate the approach.
Blood oxygenation level‐dependent (BOLD) functional MRI of visual stimulation in the rat retina at 11.7 T

Although optically based imaging techniques provide valuable functional and physiological information of the retina, they are mostly limited to the probing of the retinal surface and require an unobstructed light path. MRI, in contrast, could offer physiological and functional data without depth limitation. Blood oxygenation level‐dependent functional MRI (BOLD fMRI) of the thin rat retina is, however, challenging because of the need for high spatial resolution, and the potential presence of eye movement and susceptibility artifacts. This study reports a novel application of high‐resolution (111 × 111 × 1000 µm3) BOLD fMRI of visual stimulation in the anesthetized rat retina at 11.7 T. A high‐field MRI scanner was utilized to improve the signal‐to‐noise ratio, spatial resolution and BOLD sensitivity. Visual stimuli (8 Hz diffuse achromatic light) robustly increased BOLD responses in the retina [5.0 ± 0.8% from activated pixels and 3.1 ± 1.1% from the whole‐retina region of interest (mean ± SD), n = 12 trials on six rats, p < 0.05 compared with baseline]. Some activated pixels were detected surrounding the pupil and ciliary muscle because of accommodation reflex to visual stimuli, and were reduced with atropine and phenylephrine eye drops. BOLD fMRI scans without visual stimulations showed no significantly activated pixels (whole‐retina BOLD changes were 0.08 ± 0.34%, n = 6 trials on five rats, not statistically different from baseline, p > 0.05). BOLD fMRI of visual stimulation has the potential to provide clinically relevant data to probe hemodynamic neurovascular coupling and dysfunction of the retina with depth resolution. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Understanding Enterprise Architecture Management Design - An Empirical Analysis

Enterprise architecture management (EAM) is expected to provide business value by guiding the continuous development and transformation of an enterprise. Based on the approach we strive for constructing useful artifacts that guide the successful and situational design of EAM. In order to do so we argue for a thorough analysis of the design problem in advance. This is realized by a two-step survey conducted on EAM practices. The empirical analysis reveals eight determining design factors of EAM, a delineation of three different types of EAM design in the form of clusters as well as insight about the successfulness of the different types.
A method to find tissue-specific novel sites of selective adenosine deamination

Site-selective adenosine (A) to inosine (I) RNA editing by the ADAR enzymes has been found in a variety of metazoan from fly to human. Here we describe a method to detect novel site-selective A to I editing that can be used on various tissues as well as species. We have shown previously that there is a preference for ADAR2-binding to selectively edited sites over non-specific interactions with random sequences of double-stranded RNA. The method utilizes immunoprecipitation (IP) of intrinsic RNA–protein complexes to extract substrates subjected to site-selective editing in vivo, in combination with microarray analyses of the captured RNAs. We show that known single sites of A to I editing can be detected after IP using an antibody against the ADAR2 protein. The RNA substrates were verified by RT–PCR, RNase protection and microarray. Using this method it is possible to uniquely identify novel single sites of selective A to I editing.
LANAR A CTUATORS

In the process of motion magnetically levitated planar actuators, the magnetic flux through the coils been changed as the position changed, It produced inductive electromotive force which associated with the location and speed of coils. Induction electromotive force to produce induced current in the coils, which influence the stability of the actuators. This paper presents a analytical model of induction electromotive force in the coils of magnetically levitated a planar actuators, According to the analytical model it could predict control the compensation of drive currents in order to offset the induced current which produce by electromotive force, the stability of Magnetically levitated planar actuators have been improved. Finite element simulation had been used in this paper to approve the correct of the analytical model.
Complete Genome Sequence of a Potential Novel Bacillus sp. Strain, FJAT-18017, Isolated from a Potato Field

ABSTRACT Bacillus sp. strain FJAT-18017 was isolated from a potato field in Xinjiang, China. This paper is the first report, to our knowledge, to demonstrate the fully sequenced and completely annotated genome of Bacillus sp. FJAT-18017. The genome size is 5,265,521 bp. The average G+C content was 42.42%.
GENE GENEALOGIES REVEAL DIFFERENTIATION AT SEX PHEROMONE OLFACTORY RECEPTOR LOCI IN PHEROMONE STRAINS OF THE EUROPEAN CORN BORER, OSTRINIA NUBILALIS

Males of the E and Z strains of the European corn borer Ostrinia nubilalis (Lepidoptera: Crambidae) are attracted to different blends of the same pheromone components. The difference in male behavioral response is controlled by the sex‐linked locus Resp. The two types of males have identical neuroanatomy but their physiological specificity is reversed, suggesting that variation at the periphery results in behavioral change. Differences in the olfactory receptors (ORs) could explain the strain‐specific antennal response and blend preference. Gene genealogies can provide insights into the processes involved in speciation and allow delineation of genome regions that contribute to reproductive barriers. We used intronic DNA sequences from five OR‐encoding genes to investigate whether they exhibit fixed differences between strains and therefore might contribute to reproductive isolation. Although two genealogies revealed shared polymorphism, molecular polymorphism at three genes revealed nearly fixed differences between strains. These three OR genes map to the sex chromosome, but our data indicate that the distance between Resp and the ORs is >20 cM, making it unlikely that variation in pheromone‐sensitive OR genes is directly responsible for the difference in behavioral response. However, differences in male antennal response may have their origin in the selection of strain‐specific alleles.
Data‐Driven Learning: Taking the Computer Out of the Equation

Despite considerable research interest, data-driven learning (DDL) has not become part of mainstream teaching practice. It may be that technical aspects are too daunting for teachers and students, but there seems no reason why DDL in its early stages should not eliminate the computer from the equation by using prepared materials on paper – considerably easier for the novice learner to deal with. This paper reports on a simple experiment to see how lower-level learners cope with such paper-based corpus materials and a DDL approach compared to more traditional teaching materials and practices. Pre- and post-tests show both are effective compared to control items, with the DDL items showing the biggest improvement, and questionnaire responses are more favourable to the DDL activities.
Major eGovernment Projects in Health, Education and Transport in Victoria

This paper suggests that an understanding of eGovernment systems can be gained by examining them from the viewpoint of project management principles. The method adopted was to conduct a thematic analysis of documents describing six systems in the Australian state of Victoria. These projects were in Health, Education and Transport. Three were seen to be successful while three were not. The framework for the analysis was generated from a comparison of the general literature of project failure and the principles of two commonly used project management standards: PMBoK and PRINCE2. The comparison of successful and failed eGovernment projects within the same governmental departments enables conclusions to be drawn about the importance of stakeholder involvement and other project management principles.
Soccer players identification based on visual local features

Semantic detection and recognition of objects and events contained in a video stream has to be performed in order to provide content-based annotation and retrieval of videos. This annotation is done as a means to be able to reuse the video material at a later stage, e.g. to produce new TV programmes. A typical example is that of sports videos, where videos are annotated in order to reuse the video clips that show key highlights and players to produce short summaries for news and sports programmes. In order to select the most interesting actions among all the possibly detected highlights further analysis is required; i.e. the shots that contain a key action are typically followed by close-ups of the players that take part in the action. Therefore the automatic identification of these players would add considerable value both to the annotation and retrieval of the key highlights and key players of a sport event. The problem of detecting and recognizing faces in broadcast videos is a widely studied topic. However, in the case of soccer videos, and sports videos in general, the current techniques are not suitable for the task of face recognition, due to the high variations in pose, illumination, scale and occlusion that may happen in an uncontrolled environment. In this paper a method that copes with these problems, exploiting local features to describe a face, without requiring a precise localization of the distinguishing parts of a face, and the set of poses to describe a person and perform a more robust recognition, is presented. A similarity metric based on the number of matched interest points, able to cope with different face sizes, is also presented and experimentally validated.
EUROPEAN CULTURAL SPACE IN THE EUROPEAN CITIES OF CULTURE

ABSTRACT This article considers the role of European Union (EU) cultural policy within the process of Europeanization. It will trace the development of EU competence on cultural matters in general, and of the flagship programme ‘European City of Culture’ in particular. The latter will be observed both in its overall implementation and in the exceptional edition of 2000, when in order to celebrate the millennium nine cities shared the title, allegedly bringing the European reconfiguration of space into full light. This will show that the minutiae of cultural policy-making are never far removed from far-reaching discourses on European identity. How the gap is overcome, rhetorically and practically, provides the strategic vantage point for analyzing how the creation of a ‘European cultural space’ may be suggesting new ways to think of spatiality in its connection to culture and identity formation.
Hierarchical prediction errors in midbrain and septum during social learning

Abstract Social learning is fundamental to human interactions, yet its computational and physiological mechanisms are not well understood. One prominent open question concerns the role of neuromodulatory transmitters. We combined fMRI, computational modelling and genetics to address this question in two separate samples (N = 35, N = 47). Participants played a game requiring inference on an adviser’s intentions whose motivation to help or mislead changed over time. Our analyses suggest that hierarchically structured belief updates about current advice validity and the adviser’s trustworthiness, respectively, depend on different neuromodulatory systems. Low-level prediction errors (PEs) about advice accuracy not only activated regions known to support ‘theory of mind’, but also the dopaminergic midbrain. Furthermore, PE responses in ventral striatum were influenced by the Met/Val polymorphism of the Catechol-O-Methyltransferase (COMT) gene. By contrast, high-level PEs (‘expected uncertainty’) about the adviser’s fidelity activated the cholinergic septum. These findings, replicated in both samples, have important implications: They suggest that social learning rests on hierarchically related PEs encoded by midbrain and septum activity, respectively, in the same manner as other forms of learning under volatility. Furthermore, these hierarchical PEs may be broadcast by dopaminergic and cholinergic projections to induce plasticity specifically in cortical areas known to represent beliefs about others.