Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Edinburgh Explorer The cultural evolution of communication in a population of neural networks

Human language is learned, symbolic and exhibits syntactic structure, a set of properties which make it unique among naturally-occurring communication systems. How did human language come to be as it is? Language is culturally transmitted and cultural processes may have played a role in shaping language. However, it has been suggested that the cultural transmission of language is constrained by some language-speciﬁc innate endowment. The primary objective of the research outlined in this paper is to investigate how such an endowment would inﬂuence the acquisition of language and the dynamics of the repeated cultural transmission of language. To this end, a new connectionist model of the cultural evolution of communication is presented. In this model an individual’s innate endowment is considered to be a learning rule with an associated learning bias. The model allows manipulations to be made to this learning apparatus and the impact of such manipulations on the processes of language acquisition and language evolution to be explored. These investigations reveal that an innate endowment consisting of an ability to read the communicative intentions of others and a bias towards acquiring one-to-one mappings between meanings and signals results in the emergence, through purely cultural processes, of optimal communication. It has previously been suggested that humans possess just such an innate endowment. Properties of human language may therefore best be explained in terms of cultural evolution on an innate substrate.
Ideological leaning and praxis of housing co-operatives in South Africa: Matters arising

Social movements came about as a result of dissatisfaction felt by society from the status quo . They present their grievances through demonstrations, strikes, riots, occupation of land, boycott of business or by the development of social and economic alternatives such as self-help schemes or saving clubs. In South Africa, people join housing co-operatives because it takes a long time to wait for the Reconstruction Development Project (RDP) houses promised by the Government. The leaning of 5 housing co-operatives was examined within the context of ideology and praxis that are components of triad model. This was done through multi-case study whereby the chairpersons of the housing co-operatives were interviewed using structured interview format. Findings from the study indicated that all the housing co-operatives were not open and voluntary; also, the housing co-operatives were not administered the same way. In all, efforts were put in by the housing co-operatives in engendering the ideology of co-operatives on one hand and the government on the other hand in providing the necessary subsidy so that the gap in the housing deficit could be bridged since this fitted its policy on housing.
Supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber

A topical review of numerical and experimental studies of supercontinuum generation in photonic crystal fiber is presented over the full range of experimentally reported parameters, from the femtosecond to the continuous-wave regime. Results from numerical simulations are used to discuss the temporal and spectral characteristics of the supercontinuum, and to interpret the physics of the underlying spectral broadening processes. Particular attention is given to the case of supercontinuum generation seeded by femtosecond pulses in the anomalous group velocity dispersion regime of photonic crystal fiber, where the processes of soliton fission, stimulated Raman scattering, and dispersive wave generation are reviewed in detail. The corresponding intensity and phase stability properties of the supercontinuum spectra generated under different conditions are also discussed.
Evolving Small Neurocontrollers with Self-Organized Compact Encoding

This article presents a novel method for the evolution of artificial autonomous agents with small neurocontrollers. It is based on adaptive, self-organized compact genotypic encoding (SOCE) generating the phenotypic synaptic weights of the agent's neurocontroller. SOCE implements a parallel evolutionary search for neurocontroller solutions in a dynamically varying and reduced subspace of the original synaptic space. It leads to the emergence of compact successful neurocontrollers starting from large networks. The method can serve to estimate the network size needed to perform a given task, and to delineate the relative importance of the neurons composing the agent's controller network.
The art of tourism-driven development: economic and artistic well-being of artists in three Balinese communities

One route from coastal to inland Bali traverses three communities with different types of art, from mass-produced art for beachside tourists in Sanur, through the village of Mas, home to mask and wood carving workshops, to several high-end galleries and renowned museums in Ubud, known for painting. This comparative case study, based on our interviews with artists, museum directors, collectors, community activists and leaders, arts entrepreneurs, and civil servants, focuses on the economic and artistic well-being of artists in three communities. This well-being approach overcomes a preoccupation with ‘authenticity’ characteristic of older scholarship on tourism and the arts in Southeast Asia. We conclude that the impact of tourism-driven development on artists' well-being varies tremendously even within one region in Bali and that ‘slow’, purposeful arts tourism and forward-looking, hybrid approaches offer the most artistic and economic benefits to local artists. Examples, both positive and negative, provide lessons or strategies for other communities that have distinctive artistic heritages and increasing numbers of tourists.
A Comparison of Acute Kidney Injury Classifications in Patients With Severe Sepsis and Septic Shock

Introduction:Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a common and serious complication in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. AKI can be classified using the RIFLE (Risk, Injury, Failure, Loss and End-stage) and/or the Acute Kidney Injury Network (AKIN) criteria. The aim of this study was to determine which of the 2 systems better predicted 28-day mortality in patients with severe sepsis and septic shock. Methods:We retrospectively examined the medical records of all patients with severe sepsis and septic shock who were admitted to our medical intensive care unit (ICU) between January 2005 and December 2006 and compared the ability of the RIFLE and AKIN criteria to predict mortality. Results:Of the 326 patients admitted during the study period, 291 were included. AKI 48 and 72 hours after ICU admission was observed in 62.9% and 55.5% of patients, respectively, according to RIFLE criteria and in 65.6% and 59.2%, respectively, according to AKIN criteria. The overall 28-day mortality rate was 48.5%, and mortality was significantly associated with the severity of AKI, by both RIFLE and AKIN criteria. Both criteria had a similar ability to predict 28-day mortality 48 hours (0.65-69, P < 0.01) and 72 hours (0.66-70, P < 0.01) after ICU admission. Conclusions:The incidence of AKI in patients with sepsis and septic shock was slightly higher using AKIN than RIFLE criteria. However, using the AKIN criteria did not enhance the ability of AKI to predict 28-day mortality in such patients.
Markerless Human Motion Analysis in Gauss–Laguerre Transform Domain: An Application to Sit-To-Stand in Young and Elderly People

A markerless computer vision technique specifically designed to track natural elements on the human body surface is presented. The method implements the estimate of translation, rotation, and scaling by means of a maximum likelihood approach carried out in the Gauss-Laguerre transform domain. The approach is particularly suitable for human movement analysis in clinical contexts, where kinematics is at present performed by means of marker-based systems. Specific drawbacks of these latter systems, such as the burden of time for marker placement and the intrinsic intrusive nature, would be removed by the proposed method. Experimental results in terms of tracking performance are obtained by analyzing video sequences capturing the execution of the sit-to-stand task in two groups of young and elderly volunteers. The results are compared with clinical studies that used marker-based systems, and are particularly encouraging for a future extension of the approach to other motor tasks and to predict scores obtained from the physical performance batteries that are widely and regularly used by clinicians and physical therapists.
Sample Exclusion and Student Attrition Effects in the Longitudinal Study of Middle School Mathematics Performance

Achievement data from a longitudinally matched student cohort from a large school district in the southwestern United States were analyzed to investigate sample exclusion and student attrition effects on estimates of student, school, and district mathematics performance. Use of 2- and 3-level longitudinal growth models to estimate the growth trajectories of middle school students revealed that mathematics performance differed across 2 sample conditions. Relative to the achievement outcomes associated with a sample that included all students from the longitudinal cohort, district and school achievement were generally higher and student group performance more similar in the smaller, more advantaged student sample used for district accountability reporting. Further investigation of the school performance estimates showed that cross-sample changes in student achievement outcomes were closely related to the proportion of students from special student populations who were excluded from the district accountability sample. The achievement differences and the differential patterns of association demonstrated in this study suggest that conclusions drawn about district and school performance and relationships between student characteristics and student achievement outcomes may depend to some degree on which students are included in an analytic sample. Investigators seeking to take advantage of longitudinal designs in school effectiveness research are cautioned to closely examine their data for nonrandom student attrition and document the impact of sample exclusion and student attrition effects in the research and accountability reports that are produced from longitudinal data sets.
Visceral afferent hypersensitivity in irritable bowel syndrome—evaluation by cerebral evoked potential after rectal stimulation

OBJECTIVES:Gut hypersensitivity has been shown to be present in irritable bowel syndrome. The current study sought to determine the involvement or hypersensitivity of the gut afferents, objectively, by recording cerebral evoked potential after rectal stimulation.METHODS:In 13 patients with irritable bowel syndrome and nine healthy controls, rectal perception thresholds to electrical stimulation were measured, and cerebral evoked potentials were recorded from 2 cm behind vertex (Cz′) after rectal stimulation electrically (frequency 1 Hz, duration 0.5 ms) at an intensity 50% above perception threshold and with filter setting 1–250 Hz.RESULTS:Perception thresholds to rectal electrical stimuli in patients with irritable bowel syndrome were lower than controls (p < 0.05). Rectal stimulation led to recognizable and reproducible cerebral evoked potentials. P1, N1, P2 latencies in patients with irritable bowel syndrome were shorter than that in controls (p < 0.05). P1/N1 amplitude was greater in patients with irritable bowel syndrome than in controls (p < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS:The shorter latency and increased amplitude of cerebral evoked potential after rectal stimulation in patients with irritable bowel syndrome compared to controls provide objective evidence supporting visceral afferent hypersensitivity as the underlying mechanism in irritable bowel syndrome.
US Secure Hash Algorithm 1 (SHA1)

The purpose of this document is to make the SHA-1 (Secure Hash Algorithm 1) hash algorithm conveniently available to the Internet community. The United States of America has adopted the SHA-1 hash algorithm described herein as a Federal Information Processing Standard. Most of the text herein was taken by the authors from FIPS 180-1. Only the C code implementation is "original".
Distance measures for effective clustering of ARIMA time-series

Much environmental and socioeconomic time-series data can be adequately modeled using autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models. We call such time series "ARIMA time series". We propose the use of the linear predictive coding (LPC) cepstrum for clustering ARIMA time series, by using the Euclidean distance between the LPC cepstra of two time series as their dissimilarity measure. We demonstrate that LPC cepstral coefficients have the desired features for accurate clustering and efficient indexing of ARIMA time series. For example, just a few LPC cepstral coefficients are sufficient in order to discriminate between time series that are modeled by different ARIMA models. In fact, this approach requires fewer coefficients than traditional approaches, such as DFT (discrete Fourier transform) and DWT (discrete wavelet transform). The proposed distance measure can be used for measuring the similarity between different ARIMA models as well. We cluster ARIMA time series using the "partition around medoids" method with various similarity measures. We present experimental results demonstrating that, using the proposed measure, we achieve significantly better clusterings of ARIMA time series data as compared to clusterings obtained by using other traditional similarity measures, such as DFT, DWT, PCA (principal component analysis), etc. Experiments were performed both on simulated and real data.
Tail bounds for the height and width of a random tree with a given degree sequence

Fix a sequence c = (c1,…,cn) of non‐negative integers with sum n − 1. We say a rooted tree T has child sequence c if it is possible to order the nodes of T as v1,…,vn so that for each 1 ≤ i ≤ n, vi has exactly ci children. Let \documentclass{article}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{amsmath}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}${\mathcal T}$\end{document} be a plane tree drawn uniformly at random from among all plane trees with child sequence c. In this note we prove sub‐Gaussian tail bounds on the height (greatest depth of any node) and width (greatest number of nodes at any single depth) of \documentclass{article}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{amsmath}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}${\mathcal T}$\end{document}. These bounds are optimal up to the constant in the exponent when c satisfies \documentclass{article}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{amsmath}\pagestyle{empty}\begin{document}$\sum_{i=1}^n c_i^2=O(n)$\end{document}; the latter can be viewed as a “finite variance” condition for the child sequence. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Random Struct. Alg. , 2012
Evidence-Based Learning.

In spite of the empirically evident merits of innovative teaching/learning formats such as PBL, resistance is observed to implementing promising curricular innovations, or to changing the traditional medical curricula. Moreover, reforms have failed because of resistance to change. To solve these problems it is accepted worldwide that faculty have to find and apply innovative approaches and to manage change in medical education. The aim of this study is to conceptualize change in pedagogy. The hypotheses developed in this article are visualized by concept mapping. A path analysis (correlation study) is demonstrated investigating the relationship between instructional design and motivation to learn. This article is designed as a case study. Well-defined teaching/learning goals, learning by doing, feedback and social integration of the students are features of instructional design. They correlate positively (0.14-0.32) with students' experience of self-efficacy, which leads to intrinsic motivation to learn (.
An Integrated Energy Efficient Data Retrieval Protocol for Underwater Delay Tolerant Networks

In large-scale underwater sensor networks where sparsely deployed clusters of underwater nodes need to relay information back to the base station, end-to-end links may either not be available or feasible. In such cases, a retrieval device needs to travel into the underwater field to collect data from the nodes, resulting in a certain amount of delay until the data is available at the base station. In this paper, we propose an energy efficient protocol for such delay tolerant data retrieval applications. This protocol can be optimized to reduce retrieval time and energy consumption and is highly customizable to suit various network sizes and application requirements. It adopts efficient erasure codes (LT codes) and forward error correction codes (LDPC codes) to overcome the challenges in an underwater acoustic environment, such as large and variable propagation delay, low and narrow bandwidth and limited energy resources. This protocol also provides a modularized framework in which further improvements can be easily implemented.
Spaceflight induces changes in the synaptic circuitry of the postnatal developing neocortex.

The establishment of the adult pattern of neocortical circuitry depends on various intrinsic and extrinsic factors, whose modification during development can lead to alterations in cortical organization and function. We report the effect of 16 days of spaceflight [Neurolab mission; from postnatal day 14 (P14) to P30] on the neocortical representation of the hindlimb synaptic circuitry in rats. As a result, we show, for the first time, that development in microgravity leads to changes in the number and morphology of cortical synapses in a laminar-specific manner. In the layers II/III and Va, the synaptic cross-sectional lengths were significantly larger in flight animals than in ground control animals. Flight animals also showed significantly lower synaptic densities in layers II/III, IV and Va. The greatest difference was found in layer II/III, where there was a difference of 344 million synapses per mm(3) (15.6% decrease). Furthermore, after a 4 month period of re-adaptation to terrestrial gravity, some changes disappeared (i.e. the alterations were transient), while conversely, some new differences also appeared. For example, significant differences in synaptic density in layers II/III and Va after re-adaptation were no longer observed, whereas in layer IV the density of synapses increased notably in flight animals (a difference of 185 million synapses per mm(3) or 13.4%). In addition, all the changes observed only affected asymmetrical synapses, which are known to be excitatory. These results indicates that terrestrial gravity is a necessary environmental parameter for normal cortical synaptogenesis. These findings are fundamental in planning future long-term spaceflights.
An Inventory for the Measurement of Self-Actualization

IN recent years, Maslow (1954, 1962) has developed the idea of the self-actualizing person-a person who is more fully functioning and lives a more enriched life than does the average person. Rogers’ (1951, 1961) writings, as well as those of the author (1952, 1960) reflect the same idea, and all of these authors suggest that such a person might be seen as the end-product of the process of psychotherapy. In the past, diagnostic instruments have provided the therapist with an accurate estimate of the patient’s pathology and provided a negative approach to the therapeutic process rather than
Pulmonary Disease Potentially Associated with Nicoletella semolina in 3 Young Horses

A 10-month-old, 200-kg, Arabian filly presented to the University of Georgia Veterinary Teaching Hospital for evaluation of cough, nasal discharge, and fever of 24 hours duration. Before referral to UGA, the filly had never traveled off the farm. The filly was vaccinated against EEE/WEE viruses, EHV-1, EIV, WNV, tetanus, and Streptococcus equi subsp. equi at 8 months of age. Deworming with ivermectin was performed 1 week before presentation. Several horses on the farm had a suspected viral upper respiratory tract infection 2–3 weeks before the filly became ill. On examination, the filly was quiet, alert, and responsive. Heart rate was 60 beats per minute, respiratory rate was 20 breaths per minute, and rectal temperature was 101.3°F. There was bilateral mucopurulent nasal discharge and an intermittent spontaneous cough, and tracheal palpation elicited coughing. Pulmonary auscultation revealed normal lung sounds bilaterally at rest and during rebreathing examination. No other abnormalities were noted on physical examination. CBC was within reference range. Percutaneous transtracheal aspirate (TTA) yielded a grossly turbid fluid classified as septic, suppurative inflammation with nondegenerate neutrophils and rare intracellular bacterial rods. PCR for the R. equi virulence associated proteinA (vap-A) gene and 16S rRNA on the fluid was negative. Nasopharyngeal lavage was negative for S. equi subspecies equi by PCR. Nasal swabs were PCR negative for EHV-1 and EIV viruses, as was whole blood buffy coat EHV-1 PCR. Thoracic radiographs revealed a moderate caudoventral interstitial-alveolar pattern. Transthoracic ultrasonography revealed mild bilateral cranioventral pleural roughening. Initial treatment for presumptive bacterial bronchopneumonia consisted of broad-spectrum antimicrobial treatment with potassium penicillin G (22,000 U/kg IV q6 h) and gentamicin (6.6 mg/kg IV q 24 h), and antiinflammatory treatment with flunixin meglumine (0.25 mg/kg IV q8 h). Within 72 hours, the filly’s fever and nasal discharge resolved and her cough improved. Aerobic bacterial culture of TTA fluid yielded heavy growth of S. equi subsp. zooepidemicus and heavy growth of a slow-growing nonreactive nonfermenting gram-negative rod with colony morphology consistent with the recently characterized Pasteurellaceae organism Nicoletella semolina (Fig 1), both with broad sensitivity profiles. This organism was cultured on a chocolate-agar plate incubated in carbon dioxide and
Days and Nights on the Internet

For a growing cohort of Americans, Internet tools have become a significant conduit of social life and work life. The surveys of the Pew Internet & American Life Project in 2000 show that more than 52 million Americans went online each day, and there are significant differences in use between men and women, young and old, those of different races and ethnic groups, and those of different socioeconomic status. A user typology can be built around two variables: the length of time a person has used the Internet and the frequency with which he or she logs on from home. The authors contend that use of e-mail helps people build their social networks by extending and maintaining friend and family relationships.
Goat Paratuberculosis in Chile: First Isolation and Confirmation of Mycobacterium Avium Subspecies Paratuberculosis Infection in a Dairy Goat

In October 2004, 41 goats >2 years old from a Saanen dairy goat herd located in Purranque County, 10th Region, Chile, were sampled and tested for paratuberculosis. While collecting samples it was observed that several goats were thin and emaciated. One goat was sufficiently debilitated to warrant humane euthanasia. This animal was brought to the Veterinary School at the Universidad Austral de Chile for necropsy. The goat selected for necropsy was a 12-year-old doe. The animal showed classical clinical signs of caprine paratuberculosis: emaciation despite willingness to eat, dry and rough hair coat, and no evidence of diarrhea. Gross pathology and histopathology of the necropsied goat were consistent with paucibacillary paratuberculosis. Bacteriology, serology, and PCR confirmed the diagnosis. This is the first published report of goat paratuberculosis in Chile confirming a case of caprine paucibacillary paratuberculosis.