Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
When Response Variability Increases Neural Network Robustness to Synaptic Noise

Cortical sensory neurons are known to be highly variable, in the sense that responses evoked by identical stimuli often change dramatically from trial to trial. The origin of this variability is uncertain, but it is usually interpreted as detrimental noise that reduces the computational accuracy of neural circuits. Here we investigate the possibility that such response variability might in fact be beneficial, because it may partially compensate for a decrease in accuracy due to stochastic changes in the synaptic strengths of a network. We study the interplay between two kinds of noise, response (or neuronal) noise and synaptic noise, by analyzing their joint influence on the accuracy of neural networks trained to perform various tasks. We find an interesting, generic interaction: when fluctuations in the synaptic connections are proportional to their strengths (multiplicative noise), a certain amount of response noise in the input neurons can significantly improve network performance, compared to the same network without response noise. Performance is enhanced because response noise and multiplicative synaptic noise are in some ways equivalent. So if the algorithm used to find the optimal synaptic weights can take into account the variability of the model neurons, it can also take into account the variability of the synapses. Thus, the connection patterns generated with response noise are typically more resistant to synaptic degradation than those obtained without response noise. As a consequence of this interplay, if multiplicative synaptic noise is present, it is better to have response noise in the network than not to have it. These results are demonstrated analytically for the most basic network consisting of two input neurons and one output neuron performing a simple classification task, but computer simulations show that the phenomenon persists in a wide range of architectures, including recurrent (attractor) networks and sensorimotor networks that perform coordinate transformations. The results suggest that response variability could play an important dynamic role in networks that continuously learn.
Flow and Playing Computer Mediated Games - Conceptualization and Methods for Data Collection

The purpose of this paper is to describe and argue in favor of a framework for a theoretically grounded research design, using a model of flow that differs from the ones used in existing research. This paper also argues in favor of a combination of data collection methods that should yield a broader set of data and has the potential to generate a deeper understanding of the users experience and of the flow concept itself. The rationale for doing further flow research is that existing research has had a focus on utilitarian tasks, while little or no research has been conducted on intrinsically motivated tasks e.g. playing computer mediated games.
Substance Use Versus Anxiety In Adolescents: Are Some Disorders More Spiritual Than Others?

Recent epidemiologic studies reveal that alcohol use and anxiety continue to be prevalent problems beginning in the adolescent years. This chapter presents a study that explores the specific associations between these two highly prevalent disorders and a protective factor shown in previous research to be robust in adolescents': spirituality. This investigation is especially germane to adolescents as prior studies have indicated that the protective qualities of spirituality may be more robust in adolescents than adults, suggesting a potential role of spirituality in onset of these disorders. Substance use was associated with relational spirituality -a sense of personal ongoing connection with the Creator. In contrast, anxiety was associated with the quality of interpersonal relationships within a religious community. The results of the study suggest that substance use might best be understood as primarily a spiritual disorder, while anxiety may be fundamentally a social disorder.Keywords:adolescent; alcohol use; anxiety; spiritual disorder
Energy Storage Sharing in Smart Grid: A Modified Auction-Based Approach

This paper studies the solution of joint energy storage (ES) ownership sharing between multiple shared facility controllers (SFCs) and those dwelling in a residential community. The main objective is to enable the residential units (RUs) to decide on the fraction of their ES capacity that they want to share with the SFCs of the community in order to assist them in storing electricity, e.g., for fulfilling the demand of various shared facilities. To this end, a modified auction-based mechanism is designed that captures the interaction between the SFCs and the RUs so as to determine the auction price and the allocation of ES shared by the RUs that governs the proposed joint ES ownership. The fraction of the capacity of the storage that each RU decides to put into the market to share with the SFCs and the auction price are determined by a noncooperative Stackelberg game formulated between the RUs and the auctioneer. It is shown that the proposed auction possesses the incentive compatibility and the individual rationality properties, which are leveraged via the unique Stackelberg equilibrium solution of the game. Numerical experiments are provided to confirm the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.
UWB passive beamforming for large antenna arrays

A passive technique is developed in this paper to achieve UWB beamforming using a 1 × N device able to code the waves received and transmitted by an antenna array, preventing the use of phase shifters, delay lines, or moving parts. The link between the array inter-element space and the beamforming performance is studied to show the possible application of this device for far-field high resolution beamforming, achieved in a passive way.
Modeling of H.264/AVC based video transmission distortion over wireless network

In this paper, an accurate model to predict the slice-level transmission distortion for H.264/AVC video streams is presented. Our model gives full consideration to many new features of the H.264/AVC standard, especially intra prediction as well as inter prediction, and can be used for content-aware scheduling and performance optimization. In order to reduce complexity, the extracted information of the compressed domain from the video streams is exploited, to estimate the transmission distortion for each 4×4 block. By adding these distortions of all the 4×4 blocks in a slice up, the transmission distortion of the slice is obtained. Since the total average concealment distortion of each slice is independent on packet loss, it is introduced in the model as a known value to modify the compressed domain based transmission distortion. Simulation results show that our model outperforms the existing ones with respect to the accuracy for H.264/AVC video streams.
A STUDY OF INTERNET ADDICTION AMONG STUDENTS OF SEKOLAH MENENGAH JENIS KEBANGSAAN PEI YUAN, KAMPAR

There are many studies about internet use and internet addiction and it is one of the things that influence our daily life. This study examines the internet addiction in secondary school. The sample consisted of 120 students in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan Jenis Pei Yuan Kampar, Perak. The study utilized an instrumental to measure the internet addiction; namely Internet Addiction Test (IAT). Demographic factors (age, gender and grade of level) were examined too. Data analysis included descriptive and inferential statistic (Chi-square and T-test). The result suggests that the level of internet addiction among SMJK Pei Yuan is moderate and tends to minimal. Moreover, there is a significant of gender difference in internet addiction, t (118) = 2.380, p = 0.019. However, there is no significant association between internet addiction among the lower and upper secondary students of SMJK Pei Yuan, Kampar, x 2 (1, n = 120) = 0.306. It is recommended that problem of internet addiction should be aware to prevent growing of internet addiction.
A method of illumination effect transfer between images using color transfer and gradient fusion

Illumination plays a crucial role to determine the quality of an image especially in photography. However, illumination alteration is quite difficult to achieve with existing image composition techniques. This paper proposes an unsupervised illumination-transfer approach for altering the illumination effects of an image by transferring illumination effects from another. Our approach consists of three phases. Phase-one layers the target image to three luminosity-variant layers by a series of pre-processing and alpha matting; meanwhile the source image is layered accordingly. Then the layers of the source image are recolored respectively by casting the colors from the corresponding layers of the target image. In phase-two, the recolored source image is edited to seamlessly transit at the boundaries between the layers using gradient fusion technique. Finally, phase-three recolors the fused source image again to produce a similar illuminating image with the target image. Our approach is tested on a number of different scenarios and the experimental results show that our method works well to transfer illumination effects between images.
Fast Algorithms for 3-D Simulation

One difficulty associated with computer simulation of micromachined devices is that the devices are typically geometrically complicated and innately three-dimensional. For this reason, attempts to exploit existing finite-element based tools for micromachined device simulation has proved difficult. Instead, micromachine device designers have been early adopters of the recently developed fast solvers for integral equations. In this paper the author will describe a little of the history of these methods, primarily to point the interested reader to the relevant literature.
Optimal private halfspace counting via discrepancy

A range counting problem is specified by a set P of size |P| = n of points in Rd, an integer weight xp associated to each point p ∈ P, and a range space R ⊆ 2P. Given a query range R ∈ R, the output is R(x) = ∑p ∈ Rxp. The average squared error of an algorithm A is 1/|R|∑R ∈ R((A(R, x) - R(x)))2. Range counting for different range spaces is a central problem in Computational Geometry. We study (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithms for range counting. Our main results are for the range space given by hyperplanes, that is, the halfspace counting problem. We present an (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithm for halfspace counting in d dimensions which is O(n1-1/d) approximate for average squared error. This contrasts with the Ω(n) lower bound established by the classical result of Dinur and Nissim on approximation for arbitrary subset counting queries. We also show a matching lower bound of Ω(n1-1/d) approximation for any (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithm for halfspace counting. Both bounds are obtained using discrepancy theory. For the lower bound, we use a modified discrepancy measure and bound approximation of (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithms for range counting queries in terms of this discrepancy. We also relate the modified discrepancy measure to classical combinatorial discrepancy, which allows us to exploit known discrepancy lower bounds. This approach also yields a lower bound of Ω((log n)d-1) for (ε, δ)-differentially private orthogonal range counting in d dimensions, the first known superconstant lower bound for this problem. For the upper bound, we use an approach inspired by partial coloring methods for proving discrepancy upper bounds, and obtain (ε, δ)-differentially private algorithms for range counting with polynomially bounded shatter function range spaces.
On the determination of dynamic errors for rise time measurement with an oscilloscope

The dynamic behavior of an oscilloscope is usually described by its bandwidth, which is not sufficient for well-founded error estimation for rise time measurement. Two rules of thumb have become most common that describe (a) a relation between bandwidth and rise time of an oscilloscope and (b) an estimation of the error resulting from the rise time limitation of the oscilloscope. Although it is well understood that these rules are approximations, no information on their accuracy and extent of validity appears in the literature. In this paper, we analyze these rules of thumb with their underlying assumptions and respect a more realistic model for oscilloscope behavior. We give accurate error estimates for a selection of typical input signals, show how well the rules perform for these signals and that, although the rules provide good upper bounds for the error, they can not be reliably used for error correction.
Named-Entity Recognition in Bengali

This paper describes two systems for Named Entity Recognition (NER) and performance of two systems has been compared. The first system is a rule-based one whereas the second one is statistical (based on CRF) in nature. The systems vary in some other aspects too, for example, the first system works on untagged data (not even POS tag is done) to identify NER whereas the second system makes use of a POS tagger and a chunker. The rules used by the first system are mined from the training data. The CRF-based classification does not require any explicit linguistic rules but it uses a gazetteer built from Wiki and other sources.
Cortical thickness in bipolar disorder: a systematic review

Bipolar disorder (BD) is a debilitating illness, the psychopathology of which is associated with aberrant structural and functional differences in the brain. Despite the many advances in psychiatric research, our understanding of the complex neurobiological underpinnings of BD remains incomplete. The aim of this review was to critically examine all available published magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) research reporting cortical thickness in BD with respect to a healthy population and/or other psychiatric samples.
Early experiences matter: a review of the effects of prenatal environment on offspring characteristics in poultry

Early life experiences can be important in determining offspring phenotypes and may influence interaction with the environment and hence health, welfare, and productivity. The prenatal environment of poultry can be divided into the pre-lay environment and the egg storage/incubation environment, both of which can affect offspring outcomes. The ability to separate maternal and egg/incubation effects makes birds well suited to this type of research. There are many factors, including feeding and nutrition, environmental conditions, husbandry practices, housing system, social environment, infectious environment, and maternal health status, that can influence both the health and performance and behavior and cognition of the offspring. There are some aspects of the environments that can be changed to produce beneficial effects in the offspring, like addition of certain additives to feed or short changes in incubation temperatures, while other aspects should be avoided to reduce negative effects, such as unpredictable feeding and lighting regimens. Measures of offspring characteristics may prove to be a useful method of assessing parent stock welfare if known stressors result in predictable offspring outcomes. This has the advantage of assessing the parent environment without interfering with the animals and possibly affecting their responses and could lead to improved welfare for the animals.
Parenting roles and knowledge in neonatal intensive care units: protocol of a mixed methods study

Introduction There is a strong focus on the translation of scientific knowledge into evidence-based practice when dealing with very preterm births. The aim is to standardise and rationalise healthcare. The incorporation of parents’ perspectives with respect to the organisation of care and technical interventions in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) is needed. This study aims to analyse the repertoire of meanings, knowledge and emotions actualised by the parents of very preterm infants hospitalised in NICUs in the decision process regarding parental care, treatment options and uses of information sources. Methods and analysis This is a mixed-methods, observational study. The methodological strategy will rely on: (1) Ethnographic observation, carried out in a level III NICU located in the North of Portugal, during 6 months; (2) NICU-based surveys of mothers and fathers of very preterm infants born between July 2013 and June 2014 and admitted at the seven public level III NICUs of the Northern Health Region of Portugal; (3) Single and couple semistructured interviews to a subsample of mothers and fathers of very preterm infants, 4 months after birth. Inferential statistics will be used to analyse the quantitative data and content analysis, with an iterative and reflexive process and will be implemented to assess qualitative data. Ethics and dissemination The study protocol was approved by the National Data Protection Commission and the Ethics Committee of all the hospitals involved. The current project will contribute to develop resources for enriched good medical practices in the context of neonatal services through integrating insights from social sciences, public health, epidemiology and ethics. The expected dissemination actions are effective tools in designing strategies that aim to develop family-centred care and to improve medical practices in the context of neonatal services.
Spatio-Temporal Topic Models for Check-in Data

Twitter, together with other online social networks, such as Facebook, and Gowalla have begun to collect hundreds of millions of check-ins. Check-in data captures the spatial and temporal information of user movements and interests. To model and analyze the spatio-temporal aspect of check-in data and discover temporal topics and regions, we propose two spatio-temporal topic models: Downstream Spatio-Temporal Topic Model (DSTTM) and Upstream Spatio-Temporal Topic Model (USTTM). Both models can discover temporal topics and regions. We use continuous time to model check-in data, rather than discretized time, avoiding the loss of information through discretization. In order to capture the property that user's interests and activity space will change over time, we propose the USTTM, where users have different region and topic distributions at different times. We conduct experiments on Twitter and Gowalla data sets. In our quantitative analysis, we evaluate the effectiveness of our models by the perplexity, the accuracy of POI recommendations, and user prediction, demonstrating that our models achieve better performance than the state-of-the-art models.
Fast echo‐shifted gradient‐recalled MRI: Combining a short repetition time with variable T2* weighting

The principles of a fast T2*‐sensitized MR imaging method (Moonen et al., Magn. Reson. Med. 26, 184 (1992)) are extended to further increase T2* sensitivity. It is shown that the period of T2*‐weighting can be lengthened by n TR‐periods by appropriate gradient schemes without RF refocusing resulting in progressively delayed gradient‐recalled echoes. This extension of the echo‐shifting concept thus introduces large flexibility in the choice of T2*‐weighting without changing total imaging time. The coherence pathway formalism is used to evaluate and describe the selection of the desired echo and the attenuation of unwanted coherences. The new techniques are demonstrated for tracking a bolus of susceptibility contrast agent in cat brain. Relative blood‐volume maps are derived with expected contrast between white and gray matter.
Sums of uncertainty: refinements go gradual

A long-standing shortcoming of statically typed functional languages is that type checking does not rule out pattern-matching failures (run-time match exceptions). Refinement types distinguish different values of datatypes; if a program annotated with refinements passes type checking, pattern-matching failures become impossible. Unfortunately, refinement is a monolithic property of a type, exacerbating the difficulty of adding refinement types to nontrivial programs. Gradual typing has explored how to incrementally move between static typing and dynamic typing. We develop a type system of gradual sums that combines refinement with imprecision. Then, we develop a bidirectional version of the type system, which rules out excessive imprecision, and give a type-directed translation to a target language with explicit casts. We prove that the static sublanguage cannot have match failures, that a well-typed program remains well-typed if its type annotations are made less precise, and that making annotations less precise causes target programs to fail later. Several of these results correspond to criteria for gradual typing given by Siek et al. (2015).
Registration of Airborne LiDAR Point Clouds by Matching the Linear Plane Features of Building Roof Facets

This paper presents a new approach for the registration of airborne LiDAR point clouds by finding and matching corresponding linear plane features. Linear plane features are a type of common feature in an urban area and are convenient for obtaining feature parameters from point clouds. Using such linear feature parameters, the 3D rigid body coordination transformation model is adopted to register the point clouds from different trajectories. The approach is composed of three steps. In the first step, an OpenStreetMap-aided method is applied to select simply-structured roof pairs as the corresponding roof facets for the registration. In the second step, the normal vectors of the selected roof facets are calculated and input into an over-determined observation system to estimate the registration parameters. In the third step, the registration is be carried out by using these parameters. A case dataset with a two trajectory point cloud was selected to verify the proposed method. To evaluate the accuracy of the point cloud after registration, 40 checkpoints were manually selected; the results of the evaluation show that the general accuracy is 0.96 m, which is approximately 1.6 times the point cloud resolution. Furthermore, two overlap zones were selected to measure the surface-difference between the two trajectories. According to the analysis results, the average surface-distance is approximately 0.045–0.129 m.
Global Ablation of the Mouse Rab11a Gene Impairs Early Embryogenesis and Matrix Metalloproteinase Secretion*

Background: The physiological role of Rab11a in mouse embryogenesis has not been fully studied. Results: Using a Rab11anull mouse allele, the transport of multiple membrane-associated and soluble cargos was analyzed in mouse blastocysts and MEFs. Conclusion: Rab11a ablation impairs mouse blastocyst development and the secretion of soluble matrix metalloproteinases. Significance: In vivo functions of Rab11a in mouse fetal development and soluble MMP secretion were uncovered. Rab11a has been conceived as a prominent regulatory component of the recycling endosome, which acts as a nexus in the endo- and exocytotic networks. The precise in vivo role of Rab11a in mouse embryonic development is unknown. We globally ablated Rab11a and examined the phenotypic and molecular outcomes in Rab11anull blastocysts and mouse embryonic fibroblasts. Using multiple trafficking assays and complementation analyses, we determined, among multiple important membrane-associated and soluble cargos, the critical contribution of Rab11a vesicular traffic to the secretion of multiple soluble MMPs. Rab11anull embryos were able to properly form normal blastocysts but died at peri-implantation stages. Our data suggest that Rab11a critically controls mouse blastocyst development and soluble matrix metalloproteinase secretion.
Complete Genome Sequence of a South Korean Isolate of Habenaria mosaic virus

ABSTRACT Habenaria mosaic virus (HaMV), a member of the genus Potyvirus in the family Potyviridae, was first discovered from Habenaria radiata in Japan. The complete genomic sequence of a South Korean isolate (PA1) of HaMV infecting Plantago asiatica L. was determined with high-throughput RNA sequencing.