Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural Bases of Cognitive ERPs: More than Phase Reset

Up to now, two conflicting theories have tried to explain the genesis of averaged event-related potentials (ERPs): Whereas one hypothesis claims that ERPs originate from an event-related activation of neural assemblies distinct from background dynamics, the other hypothesis states that ERPs are produced by phase resetting of ongoing oscillatory activity. So far, this question has only been addressed for early ERP components. Late ERP components, however, are generally thought to represent superimposed activities of several anatomically distinct brain areas. Thus, the question of which mechanism underlies the genesis of late ERP components cannot be easily answered based on scalp recordings. In contrast, two well-investigated late ERP components recorded invasively from within the human medial temporal lobe (MTL) in epilepsy patients, the so-called MTL-P300 and the anterior MTL-N400 (AMTL-N400), are based on single source activity. Hence, we investigated whether the MTL-P300 and the AMTL-N400 are based on an event-related activity increase, a phase reset of ongoing oscillatory activity or both. ERPs were recorded from the hippocampus and rhinal cortex in subjects performing a visual oddball paradigm and a visual word recognition paradigm. With wavelet techniques, stimulus-related phase-locking and power changes were analyzed in a frequency range covering 2 to 48 Hz. We found that the MTLP300 is accompanied by both phase reset and power increase and that both effects overlap partly in time. In contrast, the AMTL-N400 is initially associated with phase locking without power increase and only later during the course of the AMTL-N400 we observed an additional power increase. In conclusion, both aspects, event-related activation of neural assemblies and phase resetting of ongoing activity seem to be involved in the generation of late ERP components as recorded in cognitive tasks. Therefore, separate analysis of event-related power and phase-locking changes might reveal specific insights into the mechanisms underlying different cognitive functions.
Mindfulness and Performance: The Future of Mindfulness and Performance across Disciplines

Mindfulness, as commonly practiced, refers to a type of awareness that is both tolerant of and interested in the many experiences – both habitual and novel – that make up the human condition. Such awareness allows one to see how past choices influence current and future experiences. In this volume of chapters, we have shared the benefits of mindfulness in the pragmatic, secular realm of performance. With the increasing pressure on performers and the aligned emotional challenges – from significant fears, to harsh self-judgment, to boredom – we believe strengthening our research base and continuing to create clear mindfulness-based pathways supported by solid empirical, evidence-based interventions is essential. In this quest, we must also create nuanced interventions to meet the needs of a range of performers, from the novice to professional – from dancers, singers, athletes, as well as coaches, mindfully oriented clinicians, mindfulness coaches, and sport psychology practitioners – and in such tailored interventions address the many unique demands of performance. Mindfulness promotes a particular type of presence – a presence that is intentionally aware of and interested in what is occurring moment to moment. Contrary to mainstream assumptions, mindfulness does not necessarily include a quiet, stress-free experience. In fact, mindfulness includes the full spectrum of human experience, from intense fear and anxiety to moments of joy. Mindfulness includes the ability and willingness to engage in the present moment, whether it is fascinating, joyful, or riddled with physical, emotional, or social pain. The high value of being mindful in the performance realm is retaining the ability to focus on task-relevant cues – to concentrate – and to interact mostly wisely moment to moment with one's environment. When performing with mindfulness, one is able to tolerate distractions, such as fear, threat, or boredom such that the given distraction does not derail the performer from being present to opportunities (internal and external) for optimal performance. A Brief Definition of Mindfulness: Buddhist and Langerian Mindfulness Attributed to the pioneering work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, the dominant approach to mindfulness in North America within the clinical setting, both medical and psychological, has its roots in Buddhism. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as, “Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4).
Building an advanced dense classifier

Classification of items (i.e. students, genes, etc.) on data sources provided by various software systems represents an important task that needs to be performed for many reasons related to the business goals of the system. This paper presents several approaches that need to be taken into consideration by a data analysis system designer who aims to obtain an advanced classifier that implements several extra functionalities. The engine presented in this paper is preliminary tested on real data obtained from Tesys on-line educational environment in an attempt to determine the most suitable tutors for currently existing students. Our goal is to build a Decision Tree classifier that accommodates data. This new data structure extends the functionality of a Decision Tree and is called DenseJ48. This new classifier implements efficiently several extra functionalities besides the core ones that may be used when dealing with data.
VirtCFT: A Transparent VM-Level Fault-Tolerant System for Virtual Clusters

A virtual cluster consists of a multitude of virtual machines and software components that are doomed to fail eventually. In many environments, such failures can result in unanticipated, potentially devastating failure behavior and in service unavailability. The ability of failover is essential to the virtual cluster’s availability, reliability, and manageability. Most of the existing methods have several common disadvantages: requiring modifications to the target processes or their OSes, which is usually error prone and sometimes impractical; only targeting at taking checkpoints of processes, not whole entire OS images, which limits the areas to be applied. In this paper we present VirtCFT, an innovative and practical system of fault tolerance for virtual cluster. VirtCFT is a system-level, coordinated distributed checkpointing fault tolerant system. It coordinates the distributed VMs to periodically reach the globally consistent state and take the checkpoint of the whole virtual cluster including states of CPU, memory, disk of each VM as well as the network communications. When faults occur, VirtCFT will automatically recover the entire virtual cluster to the correct state within a few seconds and keep it running. Superior to all the existing fault tolerance mechanisms, VirtCFT provides a simpler and totally transparent fault tolerant platform that allows existing, unmodified software and operating system (version unawareness) to be protected from the failure of the physical machine on which it runs. We have implemented this system based on the Xen virtualization platform. Our experiments with real-world benchmarks demonstrate the effectiveness and correctness of VirtCFT.
Evaluation of compression methods for digital map images

Digital maps can be stored and distributed electronically using compressed raster image formats. In this paper, we evaluate the most suitable compression methods for storing digital map images. We apply the latest compression standards for binary images (G4, JBIG2), and the standards for computer graphics with limited number of color tones (GIF, PING). Experimental results are given for two sets of clean noiseless map images generated from digital map database, and for one set of noisy images.
Compiler-Supported Portable, Fault-Tolerant File-I/O

Igor Lyubashevskiy and Volker Strumpen Laboratory for Computer Science Massachusetts Institute of Technology figorlord,strumpeng@supertech.lcs. mit.edu Abstract—The ftIO-system provides portable and faulttolerant file-I/O by enhancing the functionality of the ANSI C file system without changing its application programmer interface and without depending on system-specific implementations of the standard file operations. TheftIO-system is an extension of theporch compiler and its runtime system. The porch compiler automatically generates code to save bookkeeping information aboutftIO ’s transactional file operations in portable checkpoints. These portable checkpoints can be recovered on a binary incompatible architecture. We developed a new algorithm for supporting transactional file operations in ftIO. Rather than using the wellknown two-phase commit protocol, this algorithm uses only a single bit of information and an atomicrenamefile operation to guarantee fault tolerance. In this paper, we describe our new ftIO algorithm, discuss design choices for ftIO, and provide experimental data of our ftIO prototype.
Three Approaches to Educational Stratification and their Implications in the Anthropology of Education

This paper aims to review the English-published literature which is engaged in exploring the ways in which schooling may function to reproduce the existing social inequality. In so doing, this paper critically examines three main approaches-correspondence, resistance, and cultural capital-to educational differentiation and then refers to empirical studies concerning the academic achievement gap between African and European American students and the differential development of higher education in the United States. As such this paper suggests that neither structural nor cultural approach is good enough to understand the effect of schooling on social reproduction if we draw on only one or the other. Instead, it proposes that educational anthropologists should be able to analyze the mechanisms through which class identities as well as the social gap in educational achievement and attainment are created.
Ranking the Importance of Nodes of Complex Networks by the Equivalence Classes Approach

AbstractIdentifying the importance of nodes of complex networks is of interest to theresearch of Social Networks, Biological Networks etc. Current researchershave proposed several measures or algorithms, such as betweenness, PageR-ank andHITS etc., to identify the node importance. However, these measuresare based on diﬀerent aspects of properties of nodes, and often conﬂict withthe others. A reasonable, fair standard is needed for evaluating and compar-ing these algorithms. This paper develops a framework as the standard forranking the importance of nodes. Four intuitive rules are suggested to mea-sure the node importance, and the equivalence classes approach is employedto resolve the conﬂicts and aggregate the results of the rules. To quantita-tively compare the algorithms, the performance indicators are also proposedbased on a similarity measure. Three widely used real-world networks areused as the test-beds. The experimental results illustrate the feasibility ofthis framework and show that both algorithms, PageRank and HITS, per-form well with bias when dealing with the tested networks. Furthermore, thispaper uses the proposed approach to analyze the structure of the Internet,and draws out the kernel of the Internet with dense links.Keywords: Equivalence Classes, Node Importance, DominanceRelationship, Complex Network, Similarity Measure
Anisotropic Sampling of Planar and Two-Manifold Domains for Texture Generation and Glyph Distribution

We present a new method for the generation of anisotropic sample distributions on planar and two-manifold domains. Most previous work that is concerned with aperiodic point distributions is designed for isotropically shaped samples. Methods focusing on anisotropic sample distributions are rare, and either they are restricted to planar domains, are highly sensitive to the choice of parameters, or they are computationally expensive. In this paper, we present a time-efficient approach for the generation of anisotropic sample distributions that only depends on intuitive design parameters for planar and two-manifold domains. We employ an anisotropic triangulation that serves as basis for the creation of an initial sample distribution as well as for a gravitational-centered relaxation. Furthermore, we present an approach for interactive rendering of anisotropic Voronoi cells as base element for texture generation. It represents a novel and flexible visualization approach to depict metric tensor fields that can be derived from general tensor fields as well as scalar or vector fields.
Understanding the hypoxic niche of multiple myeloma: therapeutic implications and contributions of mouse models

Multiple myeloma (MM) is the second most common hematological malignancy and is characterized by the clonal expansion of plasma cells in the bone marrow. Recently, hypoxia has received increased interest in the context of MM, in both basic and translational research. In this review, we describe the discovery of the hypoxic niche in MM and how it can be targeted therapeutically. We also discuss mouse models that closely mimic human MM, highlighting those that allow preclinical research into new therapies that exploit the hypoxic niche in MM.
Common candidate gene variants are associated with QT interval duration in the general population

Objectives. QT interval prolongation is associated with increased risk of sudden cardiac death at the population level. As 30–40% of the QT‐interval variability is heritable, we tested the association of common LQTS and NOS1AP gene variants with QT interval in a Finnish population‐based sample.
Involvement of cGMP in Nociceptive Processing by and Sensitization of Spinothalamic Neurons in Primates

Central sensitization of spinothalamic tract (STT) neurons in anesthetized monkeys after intradermal injection of capsaicin depends in part on disinhibition. Protein kinase C is suggested to participate in this process. The present study shows that the nitric oxide-cGMP (NO-cGMP) signal transduction system also contributes to sensitization of wide dynamic range (WDR) STT neurons located in the deep dorsal horn. The NO-cGMP system was activated by microdialysis administration into the dorsal horn of 8-bromo-cGMP, an analog of cGMP. Sensitization of STT cells by 8-bromo-cGMP increased the responses of deep WDR STT cells to both weak and strong mechanical stimulation of the skin and simultaneously attenuated the inhibition of the same neurons produced by stimulation in the periaqueductal gray (PAG). In contrast, WDR STT cells in the superficial dorsal horn and high-threshold (HT) STT cells in superficial or deep layers showed reduced responses to mechanical stimulation of the skin after infusion of 8-bromo-cGMP, and PAG inhibition of these neurons was unaffected. Sensitization of STT cells and the attenuation of PAG inhibition induced by intradermal injection of capsaicin were prevented by preteatment of the dorsal horn with a guanylate cyclase inhibitor, 1 H-[1,2,4]oxadiazolo[4,3-a]quinoxalin-1–one. The results support the hypothesis that activation of the NO-cGMP signal transduction system contributes to the sensitization of WDR STT neurons in the deep dorsal horn and helps explain why intradermal capsaicin injections often fail to sensitize superficial and HT STT cells. The results also support the idea that sensitization of STT cells is produced in part by disinhibition.
A novel uncalibrated human hand tracking based on transition model

In this paper we deal with the tracking problem of human hand. The algorithm consists of two steps: At first the move part is detected and recognized with a advanced DOF model; then the curve tracking analysis is applied to get the key features with more details. The camera based on computer vision has the potential to provide much more natural, non-contact tracking. Although move part such as arms has a more faster speed, it can also been located exactly. With the semantic breakpoints extracted, some active part in a complex background can be location at any time in a test period.
Domains of the cucumber mosaic virus 2b silencing suppressor protein affecting inhibition of salicylic acid-induced resistance and priming of salicylic acid accumulation during infection

The cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) 2b silencing suppressor protein allows the virus to overcome resistance to replication and local movement in inoculated leaves of plants treated with salicylic acid (SA), a resistance-inducing plant hormone. In Arabidopsis thaliana plants systemically infected with CMV, the 2b protein also primes the induction of SA biosynthesis during this compatible interaction. We found that CMV infection of susceptible tobacco (Nicotiana tabacum) also induced SA accumulation. Utilization of mutant 2b proteins expressed during infection of tobacco showed that the N- and C-terminal domains, which had previously been implicated in regulation of symptom induction, were both required for subversion of SA-induced resistance, while all mutants tested except those affecting the putative phosphorylation domain had lost the ability to prime SA accumulation and expression of the SA-induced marker gene PR-1.
Efficient mining method for retrieving sequential patterns over online data streams

With the usefulness of data mining in various fields of information science, various mining methods have been proposed in previous research. Recently, in these fields, data has taken the form of continuous data streams rather than finite stored data sets. In this paper, a mining method of sequential patterns over an online sequence data stream is proposed, which is useful for retrieving embedded knowledge in the data stream. The proposed method can minimize memory usage of the mining process while an error is allowed in its mining result, and supports flexible trade-off between memory usage and mining accuracy. However, the error is minimized by an accurate estimation method for the count of a sequence, which considers the ordering information of items. The proposed method can catch a recent change in a sequence data stream in a short time, by a decaying mechanism gracefully discarding old information that may be no longer useful.
Cystatin A, a Potential Common Link for Mutant Myocilin Causative Glaucoma

Myocilin (MYOC) is a 504 aa secreted glycoprotein induced by stress factors in the trabecular meshwork tissue of the eye, where it was discovered. Mutations in MYOC are linked to glaucoma. The glaucoma phenotype of each of the different MYOC mutation varies, but all of them cause elevated intraocular pressure (IOP). In cells, forty percent of wild-type MYOC is cleaved by calpain II, a cysteine protease. This proteolytic process is inhibited by MYOC mutants. In this study, we investigated the molecular mechanisms by which MYOC mutants cause glaucoma. We constructed adenoviral vectors with variants Q368X, R342K, D380N, K423E, and overexpressed them in human trabecular meshwork cells. We analyzed expression profiles with Affymetrix U133Plus2 GeneChips using wild-type and null viruses as controls. Analysis of trabecular meshwork relevant mechanisms showed that the unfolded protein response (UPR) was the most affected. Search for individual candidate genes revealed that genes that have been historically connected to trabecular meshwork physiology and pathology were altered by the MYOC mutants. Some of those had known MYOC associations (MMP1, PDIA4, CALR, SFPR1) while others did not (EDN1, MGP, IGF1, TAC1). Some, were top-changed in only one mutant (LOXL1, CYP1B1, FBN1), others followed a mutant group pattern. Some of the genes were new (RAB39B, STC1, CXCL12, CSTA). In particular, one selected gene, the cysteine protease inhibitor cystatin A (CSTA), was commonly induced by all mutants and not by the wild-type. Subsequent functional analysis of the selected gene showed that CSTA was able to reduce wild-type MYOC cleavage in primary trabecular meshwork cells while an inactive mutated CSTA was not. These findings provide a new molecular understanding of the mechanisms of MYOC-causative glaucoma and reveal CSTA, a serum biomarker for cancer, as a potential biomarker and drug for the treatment of MYOC-induced glaucoma.
Quorum Sensing in Escherichia coli Is Signaled by AI-2/LsrR: Effects on Small RNA and Biofilm Architecture

ABSTRACT The regulatory network for the uptake of Escherichia coli autoinducer 2 (AI-2) is comprised of a transporter complex, LsrABCD; its repressor, LsrR; and a cognate signal kinase, LsrK. This network is an integral part of the AI-2 quorum-sensing (QS) system. Because LsrR and LsrK directly regulate AI-2 uptake, we hypothesized that they might play a wider role in regulating other QS-related cellular functions. In this study, we characterized physiological changes due to the genomic deletion of lsrR and lsrK. We discovered that many genes were coregulated by lsrK and lsrR but in a distinctly different manner than that for the lsr operon (where LsrR serves as a repressor that is derepressed by the binding of phospho-AI-2 to the LsrR protein). An extended model for AI-2 signaling that is consistent with all current data on AI-2, LuxS, and the LuxS regulon is proposed. Additionally, we found that both the quantity and architecture of biofilms were regulated by this distinct mechanism, as lsrK and lsrR knockouts behaved identically. Similar biofilm architectures probably resulted from the concerted response of a set of genes including flu and wza, the expression of which is influenced by lsrRK. We also found for the first time that the generation of several small RNAs (including DsrA, which was previously linked to QS systems in Vibrio harveyi) was affected by LsrR. Our results suggest that AI-2 is indeed a QS signal in E. coli, especially when it acts through the transcriptional regulator LsrR.
Statistical Properties of Social Group Evolution

Until the recent past, social network research was based on questionnaire data, reaching typically a few dozen individuals (Granovetter, 1992; Wasserman, 1994; White, 1976). The main advantage of this approach is that it can provide very detailed information concerning the ties between people: what sort of acquaintance is it based on, how intense is the relation, whether it is mutual or not, what is the emotional background behind the connection, etc. However, a major drawback is that the size of the sample that can be generated this way is very limited, and as long as it is based solely on the opinion of the surveyed people, the strength of the ties remains subjective. A major shift in paradigm begun to take place in this field around the millennium, when large datasets describing various social relations between people have become available for research (Barabási, 2003; Mendes & Dorogovtsev, 2003; Watts & Strogatz, 1998). Due to the rapid deABSTRACT