Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Biologically Inspired Visuo-Motor Control Model based on a Deflationary Interpretation of Mirror Neurons

We propose a new deflationary interpretation for the functional role of mirror neurons discovered by Rizzolatti and colleagues into the macaque’s F5 motor area. Several functional interpretations of the mirror activity have been proposed, emphasizing their role in action understanding and representing, language evolution, or mind-reading abilities. However, according to the interpretation presented here, full understanding of agent goals and intentional action are related to mirror neuron activity only insofar as the process of understanding an intentional action necessarily involves the capability of assigning a “structural description” to the action. In particular, we argue that mirror activity is involved in both recognizing action structural features and associating these features to motor commands. Our functional interpretation includes an anticipatory mechanism, enabling one to verify whether the actual, suitably coded visual input, matches an expected visual input computed on the basis of a motor command sequence. This mechanism is involved in both action recognition and action execution control. We believe that this mirror neuron model could fit biological data better than the Oztop and Arbib model. Starting from this interpretation, we propose a biologically inspired visuo-motor control model merging basic elements of the Oztop and Arbib model with an expected perception mechanism. This model has been formalized within an algorithmic stance however actual implementation is in progress.
Does CD40 Ligation Induce B Cell Negative Selection?1

Binding of CD154 to its receptor, CD40, provides costimulation for mature B cell activation and differentiation in response to Ag receptor signals. In mice, early B cell precursors express CD40, but its function at this stage is unknown. We examined the effects of CD40 ligation during B cell ontogeny in transgenic mice constitutively expressing CD154 on B cells (κEP-CD154). Precursors beyond pro-B cells were absent in adult bone marrow but were increased in the fetal liver. Newborn κEP-CD154 mice had largely increased numbers of peripheral B cells, which were CD154+, and that 36 h after birth expressed high surface levels of CD23 and MHC class II, resembling activated mature B cells. Nevertheless, κEP-CD154 mice were hypogammaglobulinemic, indicating that the expanded population of apparently activated B cells was nonfunctional. Further analysis revealed that soon after birth, κEP-CD154 mice-derived B cells became CD5+/Fas+, after which progressively decreased in the periphery in a CD154-CD40-dependent manner. These results indicate that CD40 ligation during B cell ontogeny induces negative selection characterized by either hyporesponsiveness or an arrest in maturation depending on the time of analysis and the anatomic site studied.
Exploring new horizons in evolutionary design of robots

This introduction paper to the 2009 IROS workshop “Exploring new horizons in Evolutionary Design of Robots” considers the field of Evolutionary Robotics (ER) from the perspective of its potential users: roboticists. The core hypothesis motivating this field of research will be discussed, as well as the potential use of ER in a robot design process. Three main aspects of ER will be presented: (a) ER as an automatic parameter tuning procedure, which is the most mature application and is used to solve real robotics problem, (b) evolutionary-aided design, which may benefit the designer as an efficient tool to build robotic systems and (c) automatic synthesis, which corresponds to the automatic design of a mechatronic device. Critical issues will also be presented as well as current trends and pespectives in ER.
Multimodal optimizations: can legacy systems defeat them?

This paper describes several results obtained during the implementation and evaluation of a speech complemented interface to a vehicle monitoring system. A speech complemented interface is one wherein the operations at the interface (keyboard and mouse, for instance) are complemented by operator speech not directly processed by the computer. Such systems from an interface perspective have 'low brow' multimodal characteristics. Typical domains include vehicle tracking applications (taxis, buses, freight) where operators frequently use speech to confirm displayed vehicle properties with a driver.
Genome-wide expression profiling of the retinoschisin-deficient retina in early postnatal mouse development.

PURPOSE The Rs1h knockout mouse displays retinal features typical for X-linked juvenile retinoschisis (RS). Consequently, this mouse line represents an excellent model to study early molecular events in RS. METHODS Whole genome expression profiling using DNA-microarrays was performed on total RNA extracts from retinoschisin-deficient and wild-type murine retinas from postnatal days 7, 9, 11, and 14. Quantitative real-time RT-PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis of additional time points facilitated the refinement of the temporal expression profile of differentially regulated transcripts. Differential protein expression was confirmed by Western blot analysis. RESULTS Based on biostatistic and knowledge-based DNA-microarray analyses we have identified differentially regulated retinal genes in early postnatal stages of the Rs1h-deficient mouse defining key molecular pathways including adhesion, cytoskeleton, vesicular trafficking, and immune response. A significant upregulation of Egr1 at P11 and several microglia/glia-related transcripts starting at P11 with a peak at P14 were identified in the diseased retina. The results provided evidence that macrophage/microglia activation precedes apoptotic photoreceptor cell death. Finally, the role of Egr1 in the pathogenesis of Rs1h-deficiency was investigated, and the results indicated that activation of the MAPK Erk1/2 pathway occurs as early as P7. Analyses of Rs1h(-/Y)/Egr1(-/-) double-knockout mice suggest that Egr1 upregulation is not a prerequisite for macrophage/microglia activation or apoptosis. CONCLUSIONS The findings imply that microglia/glia activation may be triggering events in the photoreceptor degeneration of retinoschisin-deficient mice. Furthermore, the data point to a role of Erk1/2-Egr1 pathway activation in RS pathogenesis.
On the opacity change required to compensate for the revised solar composition

Context. Recent revisions of the determination of the solar composition have resulted in solar models in marked disagreement with helioseismic inferences. Aims. The effect of the inferred composition change on the models is largely caused by the change in opacity. Thus, we wish to determine an intrinsic opacity change that would compensate for the revision to the composition. Methods. By comparing models computed with the old and revised compositions we determine the required opacity change. Models are computed with the opacity modified in this manner and used as reference in helioseismic inversions to determine the difference between the solar and model sound speed. Results. An opacity increase ranging between around 30 per cent close to the base of the convection zone and a few percent in the solar core leads to a sound-speed profile, for the revised composition, that is essentially indistinguishable from the original solar model. As a function of the logarithm of temperature this is well represented by a simple cubic fit. The physical realism of such a change remains debatable, however.
Electronic Communications of the EASST Volume X ( 2011 ) Proceedings of the Workshops der wissenschaftlichen Konferenz Kommunikation in verteilten Systemen 2011 ( WowKiVS 2011 ) GPMN-Edit : High-level and Goal-oriented Workflow Modeling

Workflow modeling and tools for designing and editing workflows is an important part of business process automation. One of the challenges of workflow design has been the gap between business users and technical users. While technical users require detailed and formal models for execution, the focus for business users generally consists of more abstract and business-related aspects of the workflow such as the purpose of the workflow and business goals it derives from the business process. One approach aiming to address this gap are goal-oriented workflows which explicitly represent the business goals as part of the workflow semantic. This paper presents an approach and a tool called GPMN-Edit for modeling such goaloriented workflows using the Goal-oriented Process Modeling Notation (GPMN). Furthermore, GPMN-Edit allows users to mask specific details of the workflow they consider irrelevant for the task at hand while still being able to continue changing the workflow.
OPTICS on Text Data : Experiments and Test Results

Clustering, particularly text clustering, in data mining has been attracting a lot of attention of late. There have been conventional techniques like K-means, which involve parameters that can’t be easily estimated. With the emergence of density-based clustering algorithms which have significant advantages, a lot of attention has been devoted to them. OPTICS [1] is the latest and most sophisticated technique in this direction, and has been shown to be considerably tolerant to value changes in parameters. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study on the applicability of OPTICS on text data. We perform a variety of experiments towards this end using various feature selection techniques (which,as we show, assume greater significance in the context of density based clustering), quantify our results by way of explanations and list conclusions.
Growth Theory and Philosophy of Science - a Comparison of Neo-classical and Evolutionary Perspectives

Research on economic growth has experienced remarkable progress the last decade. The neo-classical perspective has benefited from development of new mathematical methods and new approaches to market structure, economics of scale and spillover-effects. At the same time evolutionary theories on economic development have appeared, partly competing but also complementary to neo-classical theorising. In this paper it is argued that the neo-classical perspective and evolutionary economics are not distinct paradigms in the sense of Thomas Kuhn. The notion of research programmes in the sense of Imre Lakatos seems more appropriate for comparative discussions of the two traditions. Evolutionary and neo-classical economics are somewhat overlapping and to some extent complementary, and leads to questioning whether the notion of research programmes is appropriate in economics. The interaction between the two traditions paves the way for regarding the evolutionary perspective as a part of a transformation in economics in general, also characterising the neo-classical tradition. 1. Introduction Klette (1989) provides a comparing survey of neo-classical theories of economic growth, the New-Austrian research programme and evolutionary economics from a philosophy of science-perspective. Klette's conclusions were pessimistic. The dominating neo-classical programme, at least as regards growth theory, was stagnating, striving with lack of explanatory power. The New-Austrian programme was dying out because of few new contributions. The evolutionary programme was deemed too new to undergo evaluation, but an unclear scientific core and unclear heuristics within the research programme, made Klette seem pessimistic also towards evolutionary economics. Not so now. Research on technological change and economic growth has experienced a renaissance. This applies especially within the neo-classical tradition where the emergence of endogenous growth models has triggered new interest and large amounts of research efforts. The evolutionary perspective has proved a promising strategy and numerous important contributions have emerged. Most important however, from the point of view taken in this paper, evolutionary lines of thought have become more accepted as a valuable tool of analysis also in traditional economics. The pessimism expressed in Klette (1989) was due to the difficulties of formal treatment of technological change in economic growth models. Schumpeter (1934 and
Toxicogenomics to Improve Comprehension of the Mechanisms Underlying Responses of In Vitro and In Vivo Systems to Nanomaterials: A Review

Engineered nanomaterials are commonly defined as materials with at least one dimension of 100 nanometers or less. Such materials typically possess nanostructure-dependent properties (e.g., chemical, mechanical, electrical, optical, magnetic, biological), which make them desiderable for commercial or medical application. However, these same properties may potentially lead to nanostructure-dependent biological activity that differs from and is not directly predicted by the bulk properties of the constitutive chemicals and compounds. Nanoparticles and nanomaterials can be on the same scale of living cells components, including proteins, nucleic acids, lipids and cellular organelles. When considering nanoparticles it must be asked how man-made nanostructures can interact with or influence biological systems. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are an example of carbon-based nanomaterial, which has won a huge spreading in nanotechnology. The incorporation of CNTs in living systems has raised many concerns because of their hydrophobicity and tendency to aggregate and accumulate into cells, organs, and tissues with dangerous effects. Applications of toxicogenomics to both investigative and predictive toxicology will contribute to the in-depth investigation of molecular mechanisms or the mode of nanomaterials action that is achieved by using conventional toxicological approaches. Parallel toxicogenomic technologies will promote a valuable platform for the development of biomarkers, in order to predict possible nanomaterial’s toxicity. The potential of characteristic gene expression profiles (“fingerprint”) of exposure or toxicological response to nanoparticles will be discussed in the review to enhance comprehension of the molecular mechanism of in vivo and in vitro system exposed to nanomaterials.
A Needs Analysis on the Web-based EPSS with Instructional theory (IT) Embedded: An Additional Tool for Teacher Professional Development

XDue to the rapid change of advanced computer technology and prompt delivery of information, teachers feel the increasing need of professional development to support and improve their performance, though they are often loaded with various duties and responsibilities. The purpose of the study is to introduce teachers Electronic Performance Support System (EPSS), an online professional development tool, which can keep them updated and provide them with the latest resources and immdeidate support. Four teachers in a senior high school in the US were interviewed and their classes were observed. Four themes emerged from the data: (1) teaching, (2) support, (3) methods of instruction, and (4) EPSS. The findings reveal that professional development is a necessary on-going activity for not only beginning but also experienced teachers. Based on the participants' needs, they suggested various features to be embedded into the EPSS system.
Test pattern generation for power supply droop faults

In deep sub-micron VLSI chips, when several transistors in physical proximity switch simultaneously, a substantial power supply drop, known as droop, may occur because of concurrent load on a via of the power grid. As a result of lower supply voltage, transistors may slow down. Such timing faults are termed as droop faults. Modeling of droop faults and understanding their effects on the functionality and timing behavior of the circuit are yet to be fully understood. In this paper, a new model for droop faults is proposed. A simple ATPG-based procedure for stuck-at faults has been adapted to test droop faults. For validation of the methodology in combinational circuits, a set of appropriate clusters of gates is selected to cover potential droop-prone regions in a circuit. Experimental results on ISCAS-85 benchmark circuits reveal that a very high droop fault coverage can be obtained by a short sequence of test vectors.
Response of Spatial Patterns of Denitrifying Bacteria Communities to Water Properties in the Stream Inlets at Dianchi Lake, China

Streams are an important sink for anthropogenic N owing to their hydrological connections with terrestrial systems, but main factors influencing the community structure and abundance of denitrifiers in stream water remain unclear. To elucidate the potential impact of varying water properties of different streams on denitrifiers, the abundance and community of three denitrifying genes coding for nitrite (nirK, nirS) and nitrous oxide (nosZ) reductase were investigated in 11 streams inlets at the north part of Dianchi Lake. The DGGE results showed the significant pairwise differences in community structure of nirK, nirS, and nosZ genes among different streams. The results of redundancy analysis (RDA) confirmed that nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations, pH, and temperature in waters were the main environmental factors leading to a significant alteration in the community structure of denitrifiers among different streams. The denitrifying community size was assessed by quantitative PCR (qPCR) of the nirS, nirK, and nosZ genes. The abundance of nirK, nirS, and nosZ was positively associated with concentrations of total N (TN) and PO4 3− (p < 0.001). The difference in spatial patterns between nirK and nirS community diversity, in combination with the spatial distribution of the nirS/nirK ratio, indicated the occurrence of habitat selection for these two types of denitrifiers in the different streams. The results indicated that the varying of N species and PO4 3− together with pH and temperature would be the main factors shaping the community structure of denitrifiers. Meanwhile, the levels of N in water, together with PO4 3−, tend to affect the abundance of denitrifiers.
How Principals Use a New Accountability System to Promote Change in Teacher Practices: Evidence From Italy

Purpose: In Italy, only recently education policy makers have introduced a requirement for schools to implement the processes of self-evaluation, strategic planning and results’ reporting. In this article, we aim to explore how the new leadership approach of school principals in the context of the introduction of the new accountability system is affecting the practices of teachers. Research Method: Using quantitative data from an empirical study focused on the primary and secondary schools involved in a ministerial pilot project “School Evaluation and Development,” (VALES), we employ multilevel structural equation modelling to test the relationships among principal leadership, school capacity building (represented by the variables such as teacher self-efficacy, instructional leadership of teachers, collaborative culture and supportive learning climate) and change in teachers’ professional practices as well as teaching methods. Findings: A positive indirect relationship between principal leadership and change in teachers’ practices and methods is shown. The indirect effects are mainly a result of increased teachers’ instructional leadership. Implications: The research suggests that principals have a central role in building organizational capacity for school improvement by using self-evaluation and improvement processes. Moreover, the sharing of leadership with teachers appears to be crucial in promoting change in teaching and teacher commitment to improving professional practices. Results of this study draw attention to the following aspects: the importance of promoting principals’ leadership for learning development, adoption of a balanced approach to principals’ performance evaluation, and fostering the distribution of leadership in schools.
Susceptibility of isolated rabbit hearts with various left ventricular mass to short ischemic periods

Increased left ventricular (LV) mass leads to higher sensitivity of heart to ischemic injury. This study was focused on comparison of susceptibility of rabbit hearts with different LV mass to short period of ischemia and its modification in consequence of repetition of short ischemic periods. Although higher count of arrhythmias was observed in hearts with higher LV mass during the first ischemia, decrease of total number of arrhythmias and their later onset during repeated ischemic periods were more pronounced in these hearts in comparison with hearts with low LV mass.
Teacher Effects on Social and Behavioral Skills in Early Elementary School

Although many recognize that social and behavioral skills play an important role in educational stratification, no studies have attempted to estimate teachers’ effects on these outcomes. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort (ECLS-K), the authors estimate teacher effects on social and behavioral skills as well as on academic achievement. Teacher effects on social and behavioral skill development are sizeable, and are somewhat larger than teacher effects on academic development. Because—as is shown here—social and behavioral skills have a positive effect on the growth of academic skills in the early elementary grades, the teachers who are good at enhancing social and behavioral skills provide an additional indirect boost to academic skills in addition to their direct teaching of academic skills. Like previous studies, the authors find that observable characteristics of teachers and the instructional approaches utilized in their classrooms are weak predictors of teacher effects. However, the present results suggest that the teachers who produce better than average academic results are not always the same teachers who excel in enhancing social and behavioral skills.
Gill morphology of the mangrove killifish (Kryptolebias marmoratus) is plastic and changes in response to terrestrial air exposure

Amphibious mangrove killifish, Kryptolebias marmoratus (formerly Rivulus marmoratus), are frequently exposed to aerial conditions in their natural environment. We tested the hypothesis that gill structure is plastic and that metabolic rate is maintained in response to air exposure. During air exposure, when gills are no longer functional, we predicted that gill surface area would decrease. In the first experiment, K. marmoratus were exposed to either water (control) or air for 1 h, 1 day, 1 week, or 1 week followed by a return to water for 1 week (recovery). Scanning electron micrographs (SEM) and light micrographs of gill sections were taken, and morphometric analyses of lamellar width, lamellar length and interlamellar cell mass (ILCM) height were performed. Following 1 week of air exposure, SEM indicated that there was a decrease in lamellar surface area. Morphometric analysis of light micrographs revealed that there were significant changes in the height of the ILCM, but there were no significant differences in lamellae width and length between any of the treatments. Following 1 week of recovery in water, the ILCM regressed and gill lamellae were similar to control fish, indicating that the morphological changes were reversible. In the second experiment, V̇CO2 was measured in fish continuously over a 5-day period in air and compared with previous measurements of oxygen uptake (V̇O2) in water. V̇CO2 varied between 6 and 10 μmol g–1 h–1 and was significantly higher on days 3, 4 and 5 relative to days 1 and 2. In contrast to V̇O2 in water, V̇CO2 in air showed no diurnal rhythm over a 24 h period. These findings indicate that K. marmoratus remodel their gill structures in response to air exposure and that these changes are completely reversible. Furthermore, over a similar time frame, changes in V̇CO2 indicate that metabolic rate is maintained at a rate comparable to that of fish in water, underlying the remarkable ability of K. marmoratus to thrive in both aquatic and terrestrial habitats.