Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sensory flow shaped by active sensing: sensorimotor strategies in electric fish

Summary Goal-directed behavior in most cases is composed of a sequential order of elementary motor patterns shaped by sensorimotor contingencies. The sensory information acquired thus is structured in both space and time. Here we review the role of motion during the generation of sensory flow focusing on how animals actively shape information by behavioral strategies. We use the well-studied examples of vision in insects and echolocation in bats to describe commonalities of sensory-related behavioral strategies across sensory systems, and evaluate what is currently known about comparable active sensing strategies in electroreception of electric fish. In this sensory system the sensors are dispersed across the animal's body and the carrier source emitting energy used for sensing, the electric organ, is moved while the animal moves. Thus ego-motions strongly influence sensory dynamics. We present, for the first time, data of electric flow during natural probing behavior in Gnathonemus petersii (Mormyridae), which provide evidence for this influence. These data reveal a complex interdependency between the physical input to the receptors and the animal's movements, posture and objects in its environment. Although research on spatiotemporal dynamics in electrolocation is still in its infancy, the emerging field of dynamical sensory systems analysis in electric fish is a promising approach to the study of the link between movement and acquisition of sensory information.
Feature-adaptive motion tracking of ultrasound image sequences using a deformable mesh

By exploiting the correlation of ultrasound speckle patterns that result from scattering by underlying tissue elements, two-dimensional tissue motion theoretically can be recovered by tracking the apparent movement of the associated speckle patterns. Speckle tracking, however, is an ill-posed inverse problem because of temporal decorrelation of the speckle patterns and the inherent low signal-to-noise ratio of medical ultrasonic images. This paper investigates the use of an adaptive deformable mesh for nonrigid tissue motion recovery from ultrasound images. The nodes connecting the mesh elements are allocated adaptively to stable speckle patterns that are less susceptible to temporal decorrelation. The authors use the approach of finite clement analysis in manipulating the irregular mesh elements. A novel deformable block matching algorithm, making use of a Lagrange element for higher-order description of local motion, is proposed to estimate a nonrigid motion vector at each node. In order to ensure that the motion estimates are admissible to a physically plausible solution, the nodal displacements are regularized by minimizing the strain energy associated with the mesh deformations. Experiments based on ultrasound images of a tissue mimicking phantom and a muscle undergoing contraction, and on computer simulations, have shown that the proposed algorithm can successfully track nonrigid displacement fields.
Response of human natural killer (NK) cells to NK cell stimulatory factor (NKSF): cytolytic activity and proliferation of NK cells are differentially regulated by NKSF

Natural killer cell stimulatory factor (NKSF) is a 70-kD heterodimeric cytokine that was initially isolated from conditioned medium of human B lymphoblastoid cell lines. The effects of recombinant NKSF on the function of human peripheral blood NK cells were examined. NKSF directly augmented the cytolytic activity of freshly isolated NK cells. Both CD56dim and CD56bright NK cells demonstrated enhanced cytotoxicity after brief exposure to NKSF. In contrast, highly purified T lymphocytes did not exhibit major histocompatibility complex- unrestricted cytotoxicity after short-term culture with NKSF. Like interleukin 2 (IL-2), NKSF augmented the lysis of NK-sensitive, NK- resistant, and antibody-coated targets. Both NKSF and IL-2 induced marked upregulation of several NK cell adhesion molecules known to participate in cytolysis, including CD2, CD11a, and CD54. However, NKSF activates NK cells through a pathway distinct from that of IL-2, since the presence of anti-IL-2 receptor (anti-IL-2R) antibodies or IL-4 did not inhibit the effects of NKSF. NKSF by itself induced very little proliferation of resting NK cells. NK cells preactivated in vitro with IL-2 demonstrated enhanced proliferation to NKSF, but the degree of proliferation was always inferior to that induced by IL-2 alone. Moreover, NKSF strongly inhibited IL-2-induced proliferation of either resting or preactivated NK cells. This inhibition was not the result of decreased IL-2R expression, because NKSF-activated NK cells expressed higher levels of both IL-2Rs p75 and p55. Furthermore, NKSF did not inhibit the proliferation of mitogen-activated T cells, indicating a selective effect on NK cell proliferation. Human NK cells expanded in vivo by prolonged continuous infusions of IL-2 remained fully responsive to NKSF. Picomolar concentrations of NKSF were as effective as nanomolar concentrations of IL-2 in augmenting the cytolytic activity of NK cells expanded in vivo by IL-2. NKSF may play an important role in the regulation of human NK cell function, and its possible use as a therapeutic cytokine deserves further investigation.
The effects of time-spatial flexibility and new working conditions on employees’ work–life balance: the Dutch case

Part-time work, flexible working hours, and home-based teleworking are HR instruments which are used to facilitate reconciliation of work and family life. It can be questioned, however, whether these arrangements really enhance work–life balance. This paper examines whether time-spatial flexibility reduces negative work–home interference, and if so, whether this also holds true for the category of ‘New Employees’ working under so-called ‘New Working Conditions’ which are characterised by professional job autonomy, team working by project, management by objectives, and strict deadlines. Employing survey data collected in 2003 among 807 Dutch employees, it is concluded that time-spatial flexibility does affect the work–life balance of workers positively, also under New Working Conditions. Generally, employees holding a smaller part-time job (12–24 contractual working hours per week) experienced a better work–life balance. In particular, female workers gained from more control over the temporal location of their work. Home-based teleworkers and employees holding larger part-time jobs (25–35 hours per week) did not experience a better work–life balance. In the concluding section, the results of the study are discussed in the context of contemporary Dutch labour market developments.
Hierarchical object recognition inspired by primate brain mechanisms

Within the framework of a functional model of areas of the primate brain involved in visuomotor behaviors, we present a schema for object recognition based on a hierarchical process. Neuroscience hypotheses regarding the connectivity and mutual projection between cortical areas are validated through the implementation of the model on a real robot. Multimodal integration including visual processing and object weight estimation allows to obtain high recognition performances.
Bank Mergers and Diversification: Implications for Competition Policy

This paper analyses competition and mergers among risk averse banks. We show that the correlation between the shocks to the demand for loans and the shocks to the supply of deposits induces a strategic interdependence between the two sides of the market. We characterise the role of diversification as a motive for bank mergers and analyse the consequences of mergers on loan and deposit rates. When the value of diversification is sufficiently strong, bank mergers generate an increase in the welfare of borrowers and depositors. If depositors have more correlated shocks than borrowers, bank mergers are relatively worse for depositors than for borrowers.
Religiosity and consumer behavior of older adults: A study of subcultural influences in Malaysia

Although differences in consumption patterns across countries are often inferred to be the result of different cultural values and religious orientations, they raise issues of validity because of the many country-specific factors that may affect behavior. Furthermore, the effects of religiosity are confounded with those of variables that are associated with religiosity such as age. This paper examines the effects of religiosity on well-being and changes in consumer preferences of 645 adults age 50 and older living in different regions of Malaysia who were surveyed via personal interviews. The results confirm the positive effects of religiosity on well-being but show differences across the three main ethnic subcultures of Malaysia (Malays, Indians, and Chinese), and they provide little support for the hypotheses that the consistency of consumer brand and store preferences is influenced by religious values. It is suggested that the relationship between religiosity and consumer behaviors warrants additional research, focusing also on variables that relate to religiosity, method of analysis, and on mechanisms that link religiosity to consumer behaviors. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
18 Antibacterial Agents from Lignicolous Macrofungi

Since ancient times, the mushrooms have been prized as food as well as source for drugs, giving rise to an increasing interest today ("functional food"). Number of macrofungi is of a medicinal importance and represents an unlimited source of secondary metabolites of high medicinal value while a large number of biologically active molecules are identified in many species of macrofungi throughout the world (Wasser & Weis, 1999; Kitzberger et al., 2007; Barros et al., 2007; Turkoglu et al., 2007; Kim et al., 2008; 2007; Wasser, 2011). In addition, of importance is the amount of produced substances namely, they must be simple for the manufacturing (industrial synthesis) or there must be enough raw material for extraction of active molecules. Such molecules, if chemical groups responsible for biological activity are known, should serve as basic compounds for the synthesis of new molecules.
Behavioral simulation of biological neuron systems in SystemC

The investigation of neuron structures is an incredibly difficult and complex task that yields relatively low rewards in terms of information from biological forms (either animals or tissue). The structures and connectivity of even the simplest invertebrates are almost impossible to establish with standard laboratory techniques. Recent work has shown how a simplified behavioural approach to modeling neurons can allow "virtual" experiments to be carried out that map the behaviour of a simulated structure onto a hypothetical biological one, with correlation of behaviour rather than underlying connectivity. The problems with such approaches are twofold. The first is the difficulty of simulating realistic aggregates efficiently, and the second is making sense of the results. In This work we describe a method of modeling neuron aggregates using SystemC (a language developed for hardware design), and also a design interface to enable structures and connection maps to be developed, with simulations carried out leading to animated visualization of the results.
Infant predictors of preschool and adult IQ: A study of infant twins and their parents.

The aim of this article is twofold. First, the usefulness of the midparent-midtwin design as a proxy for a longitudinal study was assessed. This design should prove effective in determining which of a nmber of infant measures are predictive of later IQ and thus are likely candidates for infant intelligence measures. Second, a true longitudinal study was conducted to examine the predictability of our infants measures in chidhood. Intelligence measures of the twins at ages 1, 2, and 3 years were collected. In this way, we could determine whether the infant variables that predicted midparent IQ help us as predictors of infants' IQ scores.
A comfortable relationship: a patient-derived dimension of ongoing care.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES Continuity of care is considered essential to primary care and improves health outcomes. However, it is unclear whether patients and physicians define this concept similarly. This study examined how patients perceive a continuity relationship, from its development through its consequences. METHODS This was a qualitative study using grounded theory methodology. Researchers selected and interviewed a purposeful sample of 14 primary care patients. Audiotapes of the interviews were transcribed and analyzed using open, axial, and selective coding schemes. RESULTS Although the majority of patients were not familiar with the phrase continuity of care, all patients in the study identified comfort with their doctor as important to establishing and maintaining an ongoing relationship. Comfort with a physician was developed in several ways. Patients described their level of comfort with a physician as influencing making and keeping appointments, the likelihood that they would discuss concerns about sensitive issues, their perception that medical problems were resolved faster, and their trust in the physician's treatment plan. CONCLUSIONS For patients, comfort appears to be an important dimension of the physician-patient continuity relationship. Primary care physicians and researchers should further explore how to use patient comfort as an element of care.
Vicarious traumatisation in telephone counsellors: internal and external influences

ABSTRACT The present study investigated vicarious traumatisation among telephone counsellors. In particular, the influence of coping style, supervision, and personal trauma history on vicarious traumatisation was examined. A total of 62 telephone counsellors from trauma related fields completed a series of self-report measures. Generally, levels of traumatisation (i.e. PTSD symptoms and disruptions in beliefs) were low. Nonetheless, five (8.2%) participants had total scores indicating ‘high average’ to ‘very high’ levels of disruption in beliefs. Also, 15 (25.9%) respondents reported that they experienced at least one PTSD symptom. As expected, non-productive coping was related to disruptions in cognitive beliefs, while dealing with the problem was not. In addition, having a strong supervisory working alliance was associated with lower levels of disruption in beliefs. Contrary to expectations, there were no significant predictors of PTSD symptoms despite a positive correlation with personal trauma history. In conclusion, vicarious traumatisation is of concern for telephone counsellors. Efforts to address its impact should focus on developing effective coping styles and enhancing the quality of supervision.
Evaluating the influence of life‐history characteristics on genetic structure: a comparison of small mammals inhabiting complex agricultural landscapes

Abstract Conversion of formerly continuous native habitats into highly fragmented landscapes can lead to numerous negative demographic and genetic impacts on native taxa that ultimately reduce population viability. In response to concerns over biodiversity loss, numerous investigators have proposed that traits such as body size and ecological specialization influence the sensitivity of species to habitat fragmentation. In this study, we examined how differences in body size and ecological specialization of two rodents (eastern chipmunk; Tamias striatus and white‐footed mouse; Peromyscus leucopus) impact their genetic connectivity within the highly fragmented landscape of the Upper Wabash River Basin (UWB), Indiana, and evaluated whether landscape configuration and complexity influenced patterns of genetic structure similarly between these two species. The more specialized chipmunk exhibited dramatically more genetic structure across the UWB than white‐footed mice, with genetic differentiation being correlated with geographic distance, configuration of intervening habitats, and complexity of forested habitats within sampling sites. In contrast, the generalist white‐footed mouse resembled a panmictic population across the UWB, and no landscape factors were found to influence gene flow. Despite the extensive previous work in abundance and occupancy within the UWB, no landscape factor that influenced occupancy or abundance was correlated with genetic differentiation in either species. The difference in predictors of occupancy, abundance, and gene flow suggests that species‐specific responses to fragmentation are scale dependent.
Language disorders in the brain: Distinguishing aphasia forms with recurrent networks

This paper attempts to identify certain neurobiological constraints of natural language processing and exam­ ines the behavior of recurrent networks for the task of classifying aphasic subjects. The specific question posed here is : Can we train a neural network to dis­ tinguish between Broca aphasics, Wernicke aphasics and a control group of normal subjects on the basis of syntactic knowledge? This approach could aid dia­ gnosis/classification of potential language disorders in the brain and it also addresses computational modeling of language acquisition.
Robotic goalie with 3 ms reaction time at 4% CPU load using event-based dynamic vision sensor

Conventional vision-based robotic systems that must operate quickly require high video frame rates and consequently high computational costs. Visual response latencies are lower-bound by the frame period, e.g., 20 ms for 50 Hz frame rate. This paper shows how an asynchronous neuromorphic dynamic vision sensor (DVS) silicon retina is used to build a fast self-calibrating robotic goalie, which offers high update rates and low latency at low CPU load. Independent and asynchronous per pixel illumination change events from the DVS signify moving objects and are used in software to track multiple balls. Motor actions to block the most “threatening” ball are based on measured ball positions and velocities. The goalie also sees its single-axis goalie arm and calibrates the motor output map during idle periods so that it can plan open-loop arm movements to desired visual locations. Blocking capability is about 80% for balls shot from 1 m from the goal even with the fastest-shots, and approaches 100% accuracy when the ball does not beat the limits of the servo motor to move the arm to the necessary position in time. Running with standard USB buses under a standard preemptive multitasking operating system (Windows), the goalie robot achieves median update rates of 550 Hz, with latencies of 2.2 ± 2 ms from ball movement to motor command at a peak CPU load of less than 4%. Practical observations and measurements of USB device latency are provided1.
Melody Matching Directly From Audio

In this paper we explore a technique for content-based music retrieval using a continuous pitch contour derived from a recording of the audio query instead of a quantization of the query into discrete notes. Our system determines the pitch for each unit of time in the query and then uses a time-warping algorithm to match this string of pitches against songs in a database of MIDI files. This technique, while much slower at matching, is usually far more accurate than techniques based on discrete notes. It would be an ideal technique to use to provide the final ranking of candidate results produced by a faster but lest robust matching algorithm.
Sadness as perceived by Indonesian male and female adolescents

Adolescence is a transition phase filled with doubt and instability. During these transitions, some obstacles are often perceived as more intense and frequently cause adolescents to feel sad. This study was aimed to identify how male and female adolescents perceived sadness. A total number of 461 students, 273 females and 188 males, all of whom were high school students in Yogyakarta, completed an open-ended questionnaire, developed by Kim and Park (2006). The data was categorized, open-coded, axial-coded, and later cross-tabulated. Results demonstrated that females perceive negative moments as a life-lesson (30.4%), self reflection (13.9%), disruption (13.6%), life’s obstacles (8.1%), motivation (6.6%), memorable moments (6.6%), and lastly as a spiritual-lesson (2.6%). While males view sadness as a life lesson (22.9%), disruption (15.4%), self-reflection (11.2%), motivation (9.6%), memorable moments (5.9%), life’s obstacles (5.3%), and lastly as a spiritual lesson (3.2%). This result was later divided into two types of perception, the positive approach, containing life lesson, self-reflection, motivation, and spiritual lesson, and the negative approach, which are sadness as disruption, memorable moments, and life’s obstacles. This study concludes that both Indonesian male and female adolescent mainly took a positive perception on sadness as a life lesson, with only 27% of them viewing it as negative.
Sequential Liver and Bone Marrow Transplantation for Treatment of Erythropoietic Protoporphyria

Erythropoietic protoporphyria is a disorder of heme synthesis in which deficient ferrochelatase activity leads to excess production and biliary excretion of protoporphyrin. The main clinical features, photosensitivity and hepatobiliary disease that may progress to liver failure, are caused by the toxicity of protoporphyrin. Liver transplantation has been used to treat liver failure in erythropoietic protoporphyria, but excess production of protoporphyrin by the bone marrow continues causing recurrence of liver disease in the majority of patients. This is the first report of successful sequential liver and bone marrow transplantation in a patient with liver failure as a result of erythropoietic protoporphyria. This combination corrected the severe phenotype, resolving the severe photosensitivity and halting erythropoietic protoporphyria associated liver graft injury. Splenectomy seemed to facilitate the successful bone marrow transplant.
Unstructured N Terminus of the RNA Polymerase II Subunit Rpb4 Contributes to the Interaction of Rpb4·Rpb7 Subcomplex with the Core RNA Polymerase II of Saccharomyces cerevisiae*

Two subunits of eukaryotic RNA polymerase II, Rpb7 and Rpb4, form a subcomplex that has counterparts in RNA polymerases I and III. Although a medium resolution structure has been solved for the 12-subunit RNA polymerase II, the relative contributions of the contact regions between the subcomplex and the core polymerase and the consequences of disrupting them have not been studied in detail. We have identified mutations in the N-terminal ribonucleoprotein-like domain of Saccharomyces cerevisiae Rpb7 that affect its role in certain stress responses, such as growth at high temperature and sporulation. These mutations increase the dependence of Rpb7 on Rpb4 for interaction with the rest of the polymerase. Complementation analysis and RNA polymerase pulldown assays reveal that the Rpb4·Rbp7 subcomplex associates with the rest of the core RNA polymerase II through two crucial interaction points: one at the N-terminal ribonucleoprotein-like domain of Rpb7 and the other at the partially ordered N-terminal region of Rpb4. These findings are in agreement with the crystal structure of the 12-subunit polymerase. We show here that the weak interaction predicted for the N-terminal region of Rpb4 with Rpb2 in the crystal structure actually plays a significant role in interaction of the subcomplex with the core in vivo. Our mutant analysis also suggests that Rpb7 plays an essential role in the cell through its ability to interact with the rest of the polymerase.