Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Subunit 2 Self and Identity Article 2 5-1-2011 Autobiographical Memory and Culture

Autobiographical memory encompasses memory for significant personal experiences and knowledge of the self and, consequently, is critical for personal identity and psychological wellbeing (Conway & Pleydell-Pearce, 2000; Pillemer, 1998). Although autobiographical memory, like many other cognitive faculties, has been traditionally viewed as an individual matter and a product of the mind or brain, research in the past two decades has revealed the central role of culture in human cognition and remembering. Recent theories of autobiographical memory have increasingly emphasized the constructive nature of memory in the cultural context, and empirical findings have further accentuated the influence of culture on autobiographical remembering (Nelson & Fivush, 2004; Wang & Brockmeier, 2002; Wang & Ross, 2007). Against this backdrop, my collaborators and I have conducted extensive studies to examine the effect of culture on autobiographical remembering through affecting information processing at the level of the individual and by shaping social practices of remembering between individuals. This suite of research further integrates developmental, cognitive, and sociocultural perspectives to examine the mechanisms responsible for the development of autobiographical memory. We have obtained critical evidence that two intrapersonal variables – self-construal and emotion knowledge – and one interpersonal variable – parentchild reminiscing – play important roles in driving the cultural differences in the content, structure, emergency, and general accessibility of autobiographical memory. In addition, we have conducted studies to investigate how these intrapersonal and interpersonal variables themselves are influenced by culture through early socialization practices and parental beliefs and goals. Together, these studies illustrate that autobiographical memory emerges and develops as both an individual expression and a cultural product (see diagram below for illustration). Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. This article is available in Online Readings in Psychology and Culture: http://scholarworks.gvsu. edu/orpc/vol5/iss2/2
A Bayesian approach to introducing anatomo-functional priors in the EEG/MEG inverse problem

We present a new approach to the recovering of dipole magnitudes in a distributed source model for magnetoencephalographic (MEG) and electroencephalographic (EEG) imaging. This method consists in introducing spatial and temporal a priori information as a cure to this ill-posed inverse problem. A nonlinear spatial regularization scheme allows the preservation of dipole moment discontinuities between some a priori noncorrelated sources, for instance, when considering dipoles located on both sides of a sulcus. Moreover, we introduce temporal smoothness constraints on dipole magnitude evolution at time scales smaller than those of cognitive processes. These priors are easily integrated into a Bayesian formalism, yielding a maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimator of brain electrical activity. Results from EEG simulations of our method are presented and compared with those of classical quadratic regularization and a now popular generalized minimum-norm technique called low-resolution electromagnetic tomography (LORETA).
Treatment of invasive candidiasis in the elderly: a review

Fungi are major causes of infections among immunocompromised or hospitalized patients with serious underlying diseases and comorbidities. Candida species remain the most important cause of opportunistic infections worldwide, affecting predominantly patients over 65 years old, while they are considered to be the fourth most common cause of nosocomial bloodstream infections. The rapidly growing elderly population has specific physiological characteristics, which makes it susceptible to colonization and subsequent infection due to Candida species. Comorbidities and multidrug use should be taken into account any time the therapeutic regimen is under consideration. Different classes of antifungal drugs are available for the treatment of invasive fungal infections but echinocandins, apart from their activity against resistant strains (Candida glabrata and Candida krusei), seem to be safe, with limited adverse events and minimal drug–drug interactions in comparison to the other regimens. Therefore, these agents are strongly recommended when dealing with elderly patients suffering from an invasive form of Candida infection.
Progressive design through staged evolution

Evolutionary robotics is a good method for the generation of controllers for autonomous robots. However, up to date, evolutionary methods do not achieve the generation of behaviors for complex robots with a fixed body structure composed of lots of sensors and actuators. For such cases, no satisfactory results exist due to the large search space that the evolutionary algorithm has to face. Furthermore, the bootstrap problem does not allow convergence on the first generations, preventing the generation of simple solutions with a minimum fitness value that could guide the evolutionary path towards the final solution. Solutions like incremental evolution try to overcome the problem, but they do not scale well in complex robots with lots of devices. The question is then, why natural evolution succeeded evolving complex animals, but evolutionary robotics does not. One answer to that question may be that, while natural evolution gradually evolved at the same time the animals body plan, their sensors and actuators, their nervous system, and even their environment, artificial evolution tries to evolve the nervous system for a robot with a fixed given body, sensors and actuators, within a fixed complex environment. Our proposal states that when, as it happens in most cases, none of the evolutionary constraints can be relaxed (those are, the robot body, the sensors and actuators, the behavior to implement or the environment), then the use of external knowledge to guide the evolutionary process should be mandatory. Evolutionary approaches try to avoid the use of such knowledge, also called bias, because it directs the evolutionary search towards specific places of the space, not allowing the algorithm to find its own solutions. In this paper, we advocate instead for the use of bias as an inevitable situation when the robot body, task and environment are complex and fixed. Based on this idea, we develop a modular architecture for evolutionary controllers based on neural networks, which allows the selective introduction of bias knowledge in the neural controller during the evolutionary process. The architecture allows the introduction of external knowledge on selected stages of the evolutionary process, affecting only selected parts of the controller that need to accommodate that information. The evolutionary controller is progressively designed in a series of stages, almost in a surgical way, independently of the complexity of the robot (in terms of number of sensors and actuators). This approach allows to avoid the bootstrap problem completely, and to obtain a completely distributed neural controller for the robot using only artificial evolution.
A Comparison of Deep HST Luminosity Functions of Four Globular CLusters

From deep color-magnitude arrays made from V and I images taken with the Hubble Space Telescope's WFPC2 camera we have determined luminosity functions (LFs) down to a level that corresponds to about 0.13 solar masses, for the low-metal-abundance globular clusters M15, M30, M92, and NGC 6397. Because of the similarity of the metallicities of these clusters, differences in their luminosity functions directly trace differences in their mass functions. The LFs of M15, M30, and M92 agree closely over the entire observed range, whereas that of NGC 6397 drops away sharply at the faintest magnitudes. We suggest that the deficiency of low-mass stars in NGC 6397 is due to tidal shocks, to ejection through internal relaxation, or to a combination of the two. With the presently available mass-luminosity relations, we find that even in M15, M30, and M92 the mass functions probably do not rise so fast as to make the low-mass end dominant.
Frasier syndrome is caused by defective alternative splicing of WT1 leading to an altered ratio of WT1 +/-KTS splice isoforms.

The Wilms' tumor gene WT1 plays a key role in genitourinary development and subsequent normal function. Homozygous mutations of WT1 can be found in approximately 15% of Wilms' tumors. Furthermore, somatic heterozygous loss of WT1 is known to lead to cryptorchidism and hypospadias in males. A much more severe phenotype is seen in patients with Denys-Drash syndrome which results from heterozygous dominant-negative mutations of the gene. Characteristic features are mesangial sclerosis with early kidney failure, varying degrees of gonadal dysgenesis and high risk of Wilms' tumors. Here we show that a related disease, Frasier syndrome, characterized by focal glomerular sclerosis, delayed kidney failure and complete gonadal dysgenesis, is probably caused by specific intronic point mutations of WT1 that preferentially affect a CpG dinucleotide. Disruption of alternative splicing at the exon 9 splice donor site prevents synthesis of the usually more abundant WT1 +KTS isoform from the mutant allele. In contrast to Denys-Drash syndrome, no mutant protein is produced. The splice mutation leads to an imbalance of WT1 isoforms in vivo , as detected by RT-PCR on streak gonadal tissue. Thus, WT1 isoforms must have quite different functions, and the pathology of Frasier syndrome suggests that especially gonadal development may be particularly sensitive to imbalance or relative underrepresentation of the WT1 +KTS isoform.
Utilizing multiple home links in mobile IPv6

This paper proposes an improved mechanism for keeping stable connections between mobile nodes and corresponding nodes in the mobile IPv6 protocol. The mobile IPv6 protocol enables mobile nodes to keep the reachability while they are moving freely in the Internet. Our new method has multiple home links instead of one single home link in the current specification of the mobile IPv6 protocol. The new method is based on our earlier idea of having multiple home agents. Multiple home agents can provide backups when a home agent is not working properly. However, all the home agents should reside on one single network segment according to the current specification of the mobile IPv6. This paper further extends our earlier idea of multiple home agents and proposes multiple home links. We have more stable connections by using multiple home links. This paper also shows a working example which illustrates the merit of multiple home links.
Carbon Finance Business Models of China Commercial Banks: Towards a Context of China Pilot Carbon Trading Scheme

Banking institutions play an important role in the field of carbon finance. The early carbon finance business models of China banks are based on the Clean Development Mechanism under Kyoto Protocol framework. Now China pilot carbon trading scheme provides opportunities for domestic commercial banks to reconstruct their carbon finance business models under the specific China context. This article put forward policy suggestions of developing carbon finance business models for domestic banks through series procedures including making judgment the types, discriminating the strategic focus, and analyzing the institutional environments of carbon finance business models.
Diet and impacts of brushtail possum populations across an invasion front in South Westland, New Zealand

Impact of the irruptive fluctuation in abundance of brushtail possum populations since their initial colonisation was investigated in the forests of South Westland, New Zealand. Possum abundance, fecundity, and diet, the condition of common possum-palatable tree species, and the abundance of common forest birds were measured at three sites occupied by possums for c. 10, 20, and 30 years. Possum densities were highest at the site where possums had been present for c. 20 years. Possum fecundity was higher at the site they had recently colonised than at the two sites where they had been present for c. 20-30 years. Diet of possums where they had recently colonised was dominated by highly preferred foods (72% of total diet), whereas these same foods contributed just 36% of total diet at the site where possums had been present for more than two decades. Canopy condition of common possum-preferred trees was scored progressively lower in areas with increasing length of possum occupation, especially at the site where the possum population had apparently declined from its maximum density. Native forest bird abundance also declined with increasing length of possum occupation. The implications of these results for management are discussed.
Seasonality, risk and return in daily COMEX gold and silver data 1982–2002

This study examines seasonality in the conditional and unconditional mean and variance of daily gold and silver contracts over the 1982–2002 periods. Using COMEX cash and futures data, we find that the evidence is weak for the mean but strong for the variance. There appears to be a negative Monday effect in both gold and silver, across cash and futures markets. Within a GARCH framework we find that the Monday seasonal does not disappear, indicating that it is not a risk-related artefact, the Monday dummy in the variance equations being significant also. No evidence of an ARCH-in-Mean effect is found.
The Political Costs of Tax Reform: A Canadian Perspective

HE Commonwealth government’s forthcoming proposals to reform Australia’s taxation system could well include the introduction of a goods and services tax (GST). This would be a broad-based consumption tax that may either be hidden in the price of goods or, as in Canada, added on explicitly at the point of sale. Political considerations are likely to play a major role in the choice of modifications to specific taxes. For example, voters may be concerned only with the total tax paid, along with the total amount of government services provided (and, possibly, associated changes in government debt if revenues and expenditures do not balance). In this case, tax reform that increases the efficiency of the tax system and is revenue-neutral, as the government of Canada claimed of its GST when it was introduced in 1991, 1 should not affect the government’s electoral chances. However, if voters do not treat all types of taxes as being indistinguishable, then there are different political costs associated with alternative types of taxes and these may differ substantially from the economic costs of these taxes. To the extent that different forms of taxes affect voters differently, governments may choose those tax instruments which have lower political costs rather than those that have lower economic costs. As noted by Hettich and Winer (1984), the politically optimal tax structure is one in which the marginal political cost, rather than the marginal economic cost, of raising an additional dollar of tax revenue is the same for all types of taxes. Different types of taxes might be expected to have different effects on voting behaviour, and hence on the political success of the incumbent party, for several reasons. For example, some taxes may be difficult to perceive because they are hidden in prices (excise taxes) or deducted at source (corporate taxes, resource rent taxes), so that the voters are unaware of the true size of the tax burden. Other taxes may be relatively small and paid only infrequently (licence fees), while others may
Multi-Break Rearrangements and Breakpoint Re-Uses: From Circular to Linear Genomes

Multi-break rearrangements break a genome into multiple fragments and further glue them together in a new order. While 2-break rearrangements represent standard reversals, fusions, fissions, and translocations, 3-break rearrangements represent a natural generalization of transpositions. Alekseyev and Pevzner (2007a, 2008a) studied multi-break rearrangements in circular genomes and further applied them to the analysis of chromosomal evolution in mammalian genomes. In this paper, we extend these results to the more difficult case of linear genomes. In particular, we give lower bounds for the rearrangement distance between linear genomes and for the breakpoint re-use rate as functions of the number and proportion of transpositions. We further use these results to analyze comparative genomic architecture of mammalian genomes.
Magnocellular and parvocellular visual pathways are both affected in a macaque monkey model of glaucoma.

PURPOSE Neurochemical changes in nerve cells were investigated in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and primary visual cortex of macaque monkeys with experimentally induced glaucoma. METHODS Glaucomatous damage was induced in one eye of experimental animals by elevation of intraocular pressure following laser burns to the trabecular meshwork. Staining for the metabolic marker cytochrome oxidase, as well as immunolabelling for the neuronal markers synaptophysin and neurofilament proteins, was conducted on sections of the LGN and primary visual cortex. RESULTS In the LGN, staining for cytochrome oxidase and immunolabelling for synaptophysin were reduced in the parvocellular and magnocellular layers that received input from the glaucomatous eye and neurofilament protein labelling was reduced in the parvocellular layers. Cytochrome oxidase staining demonstrated the presence of denervated ocular dominance columns in layer IVC of the primary visual cortex of experimental animals. CONCLUSIONS Pre- and post-synaptic neurochemical alterations in the magnocellular and parvocellular visual pathways of the brain are associated with experimentally induced glaucoma in macaque monkeys.
Supervised Multispectral Image Segmentation using Active Contours

Active contours have been widely used as image segmentation methods. The use of level set theory has provided more flexibility and convenience for the implementation of active contours. However, traditional active contour models have some limitations on the segmentation of complicated images whose sub-regions consist of multiple components. The segmentation of multispectral images is even a more difficult problem. We propose an advanced active contour model using the statistics of image intensity based on a multivariate mixture density model. The proposed active contour model shows a robust segmentation capability on the images that traditional segmentation methods cannot properly partition. Numerical experiments with synthetic and real images are presented.
Multipath in the middle(box)

Multipath TCP (MPTCP) is a major modification to TCP that enables a single transport connection to use multiple paths. Smartphones can benefit from MPTCP by using both WiFi and 3G/4G interfaces for their data-traffic, potentially improving the performance and allowing mobility through vertical handover. However, MPTCP requires a modification of the end hosts, thus suffers from the chicken-and-egg deployment problem. A global deployment of MPTCP is therefore expected to take years. To increase the incentives for clients and servers to upgrade their system, we propose MiMBox an efficient protocol converter that can translate MPTCP into TCP and vice versa to provide multipath benefits to early adopters of MPTCP. MiMBox is application agnostic and can be used transparently or explicitly. Moreover, a close attention was paid to the implementation's design to achieve good forwarding performance. MiMBox is implemented entirely in the Linux kernel so that it is able to more easily circumvent the bottlenecks of a user-space implementation. Measurements show that we always outperform user-space solutions and that the performance is close to plain IP packet forwarding.
Agile Requirements Definition for Software Improvement and Maintenance in Open Source Software Development

This paper describes the agile requirements definition processes performed in open source software development (OSSD) projects. These should be considered as a reliable and viable approach to requirements definition in the area of software engineering (SE) and co-operative work in general. In the beginning, some important aspects of the entire OSSD approach are introduced in order to enable an understanding of the subsequent description of the feedback-based requirements definition processes. Therefore, important characteristics of OSS and OSSD are explained and typical roles, processes and an overall lifecycle model of typical OSSD projects is introduced. This leads to the description of the agile requirements definition processes as they are part of the software improvement process in OSSD projects. Thus, the typical requirements contribution and review processes are introduced and a typical lifecycle of the produced requirements artifact is explained.
Spatiotemporal order out of noise

Natural systems are undeniably subject to random fluctuations, arising from either environmental variability or thermal effects. The consideration of those fluctuations supposes to deal with noisy quantities whose variance might at times be a sizable fraction of their mean levels. It is known that, under these conditions, noisy fluctuations can interact with the system’s nonlinearities to render counterintuitive behavior, in which an increase in the noise level produces a more regular behavior. In systems with spatial degrees of freedom, this regularity takes the form of spatiotemporal order. An overview is presented of the mechanisms through which noise induces, enhances, and sustains ordered behavior in passive and active nonlinear media, and different spatiotemporal phenomena are described resulting from these effects. The general theoretical framework used in the analysis of these effects is reviewed, encompassing the theory of stochastic partial differential equations and coupled sets of ordinary stochastic differential equations. Experimental observations of self-organized behavior arising out of noise are also described, and details on the numerical algorithms needed in the computer simulation of these problems are given.
Academic decision making model for higher education institutions using learning analytics

Through the processes set out by Learning Analytics, this paper describes a decision making model which supports the managers of higher education institutions at the moment of making academic decisions. In the analysis and requirements phase, the importance of creating and categorizing indicators is presented in detail, thereby facilitating the finding of hidden patterns in the educational information. Our work in this field includes the modelling and construction of software architecture in which the work of said indicators is included. Finally, the implementation of this new decision making support tool is shown as the result during a pilot test carried out in a Public University in Latin America.