Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mental imagery: In search of a theory

It is generally accepted that there is something special about reasoning by using mental images. The question of how it is special, however, has never been satisfactorily spelled out, despite more than thirty years of research in the post-behaviorist tradition. This article considers some of the general motivation for the assumption that entertaining mental images involves inspecting a picture-like object. It sets out a distinction between phenomena attributable to the nature of mind to what is called the cognitive architecture, and ones that are attributable to tacit knowledge used to simulate what would happen in a visual situation. With this distinction in mind, the paper then considers in detail the widely held assumption that in some important sense images are spatially displayed or are depictive, and that examining images uses the same mechanisms that are deployed in visual perception. I argue that the assumption of the spatial or depictive nature of images is only explanatory if taken literally, as a claim about how images are physically instantiated in the brain, and that the literal view fails for a number of empirical reasons – for example, because of the cognitive penetrability of the phenomena cited in its favor. Similarly, while it is arguably the case that imagery and vision involve some of the same mechanisms, this tells us very little about the nature of mental imagery and does not support claims about the pictorial nature of mental images. Finally, I consider whether recent neuroscience evidence clarifies the debate over the nature of mental images. I claim that when such questions as whether images are depictive or spatial are formulated more clearly, the evidence does not provide support for the picture-theory over a symbol-structure theory of mental imagery. Even if all the empirical claims were true, they do not warrant the conclusion that many people have drawn from them: that mental images are depictive or are displayed in some (possibly cortical) space. Such a conclusion is incompatible with what is known about how images function in thought. We are then left with the provisional counterintuitive conclusion that the available evidence does not support rejection of what I call the “null hypothesis”; namely, that reasoning with mental images involves the same form of representation and the same processes as that of reasoning in general, except that the content or subject matter of thoughts experienced as images includes information about how things would look.
Mixed Method Research and Brain Studies:Insights from Epistemology Based on theArgument of Social World versus NaturalWorld. Why not One World?

Lara is 25 years old and she manifests stuttering. Her case is presumably presented to a neurologist, psychologist and linguist. The neurologist represents the objectivism, the psychologist represents subjectivism and the experimental and clinical linguist represents constructionism. They are all seeking for knowledge with different beliefs for each one of them. The truth that each one is going to reach must have acceptable, efficient and effective justifications. Through this scenario, I intend to present the argument of the social and natural worlds—furthering the view that the two worlds exist together with different methods to uncover them!
Regulation of Tumor Suppressor p53 and HCT116 Cell Physiology by Histone Demethylase JMJD2D/KDM4D

JMJD2D, also known as KDM4D, is a histone demethylase that removes methyl moieties from lysine 9 on histone 3 and from lysine 26 on histone 1.4. Here, we demonstrate that JMJD2D forms a complex with the p53 tumor suppressor in vivo and interacts with the DNA binding domain of p53 in vitro. A luciferase reporter plasmid driven by the promoter of p21, a cell cycle inhibitor and prominent target gene of p53, was synergistically activated by p53 and JMJD2D, which was dependent on JMJD2D catalytic activity. Likewise, overexpression of JMJD2D induced p21 expression in U2OS osteosarcoma cells in the absence and presence of adriamycin, an agent that induces DNA damage. Furthermore, downregulation of JMJD2D inhibited cell proliferation in wild-type and even more so in p53−/− HCT116 colon cancer cells, suggesting that JMJD2D is a pro-proliferative molecule. JMJD2D depletion also induced more strongly apoptosis in p53−/− compared to wild-type HCT116 cells. Collectively, our results demonstrate that JMJD2D can stimulate cell proliferation and survival, suggesting that its inhibition may be helpful in the fight against cancer. Furthermore, our data imply that activation of p53 may represent a mechanism by which the pro-oncogenic functions of JMJD2D become dampened.
Dynamic invariance in the phonetic expression of syllable structure: a case study of Moroccan Arabic consonant clusters*

We asked whether invariant phonetic indices for syllable structure can be identified in a language where word-initial consonant clusters, regardless of their sonority profile, are claimed to be parsed heterosyllabically. Four speakers of Moroccan Arabic were recorded, using Electromagnetic Articulography. Pursuing previous work, we employed temporal diagnostics for syllable structure, consisting of static correspondences between any given phonological organisation and its presumed phonetic indices. We show that such correspondences offer only a partial understanding of the relation between syllabic organisation and continuous indices of that organisation. We analyse the failure of the diagnostics and put forth a new approach in which different phonological organisations prescribe different ways in which phonetic indices change as phonetic parameters are scaled. The main finding is that invariance is found in these patterns of change, rather than in static correspondences between phonological constructs and fixed values for their phonetic indices.
Modelling Social Segregation

This paper proposes a multilevel modelling approach to the analysis of social segregation in schools. Using data on free school meal eligibility it shows that the underlying variation between schools for the period 1994-1999 has increased. It also shows that the change is greater for selective than non-selective local education authorities (LEAs). It is suggested that the approach of this paper can be applied generally to the modelling of social segregation at institution level.
Equal Power Allocation scheme for cooperative diversity

In this paper, we present the Equal power allocation (EPA) algorithm for power allocation and partner selection under a given constraint of outage probability. The proposed algorithm is used for a cooperative diversity system using amplify-and-forward scheme. We represent the problem with a new formulation to find the minimum total required power satisfying the outage probability constraint. We also present a low complexity algorithm for selecting the partner node among all candidate partners. We develop the analytical model and evaluate the results for some typical cases to demonstrate that the performance of the EPA algorithm. It is shown that the proposed algorithm achieves almost the same performance as the previously published algorithms while reducing its implementation complexity.
A monopole homology for integral homology 3-spheres

To an integral homology 3-sphere Y, we assign a well-defined {\mathbb Z}-graded (monopole) homology MH*(Y, Ih(Q; h0)) whose construction in principle follows from the instanton Floer theory with the dependence of the spectral flow Ih(Q; h0), where Q is the unique U(1)-reducible monopole of the Seiberg-Witten equation on Y and h0 is a reference perturbation datum. The definition uses the moduli space of monopoles on Y \times {\mathbb R} introduced by Seiberg-Witten in studying smooth 4-manifolds. We show that the monopole homology MH*(Y, Ih(Q; h0)) is invariant among Riemannian metrics with same Ih(Q; h0). This provides a chamber-like structure for the monopole homology of integral homology 3-spheres. The assigned function MHSWF: \{Ih(Q; h0)\} \to \{MH*(Y, Ih(Q; h0))\} is a topological invariant (as Seiberg-Witten-Floer Theory).
Image denoising with block-matching and 3D filtering

We present a novel approach to still image denoising based on effective filtering in 3D transform domain by combining sliding-window transform processing with block-matching. We process blocks within the image in a sliding manner and utilize the block-matching concept by searching for blocks which are similar to the currently processed one. The matched blocks are stacked together to form a 3D array and due to the similarity between them, the data in the array exhibit high level of correlation. We exploit this correlation by applying a 3D decorrelating unitary transform and effectively attenuate the noise by shrinkage of the transform coefficients. The subsequent inverse 3D transform yields estimates of all matched blocks. After repeating this procedure for all image blocks in sliding manner, the final estimate is computed as weighed average of all overlapping blockestimates. A fast and efficient algorithm implementing the proposed approach is developed. The experimental results show that the proposed method delivers state-of-art denoising performance, both in terms of objective criteria and visual quality.
SMAD4 Gene Mutations Are Associated with Poor Prognosis in Pancreatic Cancer

Purpose: Recently, the majority of protein coding genes were sequenced in a collection of pancreatic cancers, providing an unprecedented opportunity to identify genetic markers of prognosis for patients with adenocarcinoma of the pancreas. Experimental Design: We previously sequenced more than 750 million base pairs of DNA from 23,219 transcripts in a series of 24 adenocarcinomas of the pancreas. In addition, 39 genes that were mutated in more than one of these 24 cancers were sequenced in a separate panel of 90 well-characterized adenocarcinomas of the pancreas. Of these 114 patients, 89 underwent pancreaticoduodenectomy, and the somatic mutations in these cancers were correlated with patient outcome. Results: When adjusted for age, lymph node status, margin status, and tumor size, SMAD4 gene inactivation was significantly associated with shorter overall survival (hazard ratio, 1.92; 95% confidence interval, 1.20-3.05; P = 0.006). Patients with SMAD4 gene inactivation survived a median of 11.5 months, compared with 14.2 months for patients without SMAD4 inactivation. By contrast, mutations in CDKN2A or TP53 or the presence of multiple (≥4) mutations or homozygous deletions among the 39 most frequently mutated genes were not associated with survival. Conclusions:SMAD4 gene inactivation is associated with poorer prognosis in patients with surgically resected adenocarcinoma of the pancreas.
Antibacterial Properties of Alkaloid Extracts from Callistemon citrinus and Vernonia adoensis against Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa

The development of new antibiotics from new chemical entities is becoming more and more expensive, time-consuming, and compounded by emerging strains that are drug resistant. Alkaloids are plant secondary metabolites which have been shown to have potent pharmacological activities. The effect of alkaloids from Callistemon citrinus and Vernonia adoensis leaves on bacterial growth and efflux pump activity was evaluated on Staphylococcus aureus and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. At a concentration of 1.67 mg/mL, the alkaloids inhibited bacterial growth with comparable effects to ampicillin, a standard antibiotic. The alkaloids from C. citrinus were the most potent against S. aureus with an MIC of 0.0025 mg/mL and MBC of 0.835 mg/mL. It was shown that effects on P. aeruginosa by both plant alkaloids were bacteriostatic. P. aeruginosa was most susceptible to drug efflux pump inhibition by C. citrinus alkaloids which caused an accumulation of Rhodamine 6G of 121% compared to the control. Thus, C. citrinus alkaloids showed antibacterial activity as well as inhibiting ATP-dependent transport of compounds across the cell membrane. These alkaloids may serve as potential courses of compounds that can act as lead compounds for the development of plant-based antibacterials and/or their adjunct compounds.
Periodontal Disease: Linking the Primary Inflammation to Bone Loss

Periodontal disease (PD), or periodontitis, is defined as a bacterially induced disease of the tooth-supporting (periodontal) tissues. It is characterized by inflammation and bone loss; therefore understanding how they are linked would help to address the most efficacious therapeutic approach. Bacterial infection is the primary etiology but is not sufficient to induce the disease initiation or progression. Indeed, bacteria-derived factors stimulate a local inflammatory reaction and activation of the innate immune system. The innate response involves the recognition of microbial components by host cells, and this event is mediated by toll-like receptors (TLRs) expressed by resident cells and leukocytes. Activation of these cells leads to the release of proinflammatory cytokines and recruitment of phagocytes and lymphocytes. Activation of T and B cells initiates the adaptive immunity with Th1 Th2 Th17 Treg response and antibodies production respectively. In this inflammatory scenario, cytokines involved in bone regulation and maintenance have considerable relevance because tissue destruction is believed to be the consequence of host inflammatory response to the bacterial challenge. In the present review, we summarize host factors including cell populations, cytokines, and mechanisms involved in the destruction of the supporting tissues of the tooth and discuss treatment perspectives based on this knowledge.
Comparison of Fungal Community in Black Pepper-Vanilla and Vanilla Monoculture Systems Associated with Vanilla Fusarium Wilt Disease

Long-term vanilla monocropping often results in the occurrence of vanilla Fusarium wilt disease, seriously affecting its production all over the world. In the present study, vanilla exhibited significantly less Fusarium wilt disease in the soil of a long-term continuously cropped black pepper orchard. The entire fungal communities of bulk and rhizosphere soils between the black pepper-vanilla system (i.e., vanilla cropped in the soil of a continuously cropped black pepper orchard) and vanilla monoculture system were compared through the deep pyrosequencing. The results showed that the black pepper-vanilla system revealed a significantly higher fungal diversity than the vanilla monoculture system in both bulk and rhizosphere soils. The UniFrac-weighted PCoA analysis revealed significant differences in bulk soil fungal community structures between the two cropping systems, and fungal community structures were seriously affected by the vanilla root system. In summary, the black pepper-vanilla system harbored a lower abundance of Fusarium oxysporum in the vanilla rhizosphere soil and increased the putatively plant-beneficial fungal groups such as Trichoderma and Penicillium genus, which could explain the healthy growth of vanilla in the soil of the long-term continuously cropped black pepper field. Thus, cropping vanilla in the soil of continuously cropped black pepper fields for maintaining the vanilla industry is executable and meaningful as an agro-ecological system.
Soft gamma repeaters and starforming galaxies

We propose that the best sites to search for SGRs outside the Local group are galaxies with active star formation. Different possibilities to observe SGR activity from these sites are discussed. In particular we searched for giant flares from M82, M83, NGC 253, and NGC 4945 in the BATSE data. We present a list of potential candidates, however, in our opinion no good candidates alike giant SGR flares were found. Still, hyperflares similar to the one of 27 December 2004 can be observed from larger distances. From the BATSE data we select 5 candidates coincident with the galaxies Arp 299 and NGC 3256 which have very high rate of starformation, and propose that they can be examples of hyperflares; but this result has low statistical significance.
A partial evaluator, and its use for compiling iterative statements in LISP

A partial evaluation program for LISP is described, and an application where it has been used. The partial evaluator performs a number of other, related operations such as opening of functions and certain optimizations on programs. The application is based on the fact that we can generate from an interpreter and a partial evaluator the same object code as a corresponding compiler should do. The paper will first formally describe the relationship between an interpreter and a compiler through partial evaluation. The partial evaluator system is then briefly described and finally an experiment is shown where an interpreter for the iterative statement in INTERLISP is partially evaluated.
Room Temperature Ammonia and Humidity Sensing Using Highly Ordered Nanoporous Alumina Films

Abstract: The effect of pore size and uniformity on the response of nanoporous alumina, formed on aluminum thick films through an anodization process, to ammonia and humidity at room temperature is reported. Pore sizes examined range from 13 nm to 48 nm, with pore size standard deviations ranging from 2.6 nm to 7.8 nm. The response of the material to ammonia and humidity is a strong function of pore size and operating frequency. At 5 kHz an alumina sensor with an average pore size of 13.6 nm, standard deviation 2.6 nm, exhibits a factor of two change in impedance magnitude as it is cycled between an ammonia and argon environment. At 5 kHz the same sensor exhibits a well-behaved change in impedance magnitude of 10 3 over 20% to 90% relative humidity. Cole-Cole plots of the 5 Hz to 13 MHz measured impedance spectra, modeled using equivalent circuits, are used to resolve the effects of adsorption and ion migration. Key words: Ammonia, Nanoporous, Impedance spectroscopy, Alumina, Humidity, Mesoporous.
Focus, Newness and Their Combination: Processing of Information Structure in Discourse

The relationship between focus and new information has been unclear despite being the subject of several information structure studies. Here, we report an eye-tracking experiment that explored the relationship between them in on-line discourse processing in Chinese reading. Focus was marked by the Chinese focus-particle “shi", which is equivalent to the cleft structure “it was… who…" in English. New information was defined as the target word that was not present in previous contexts. Our results show that, in the target region, focused information was processed more quickly than non-focused information, while new information was processed more slowly than given information. These results reveal differences in processing patterns between focus and newness, and suggest that they are different concepts that relate to different aspects of cognitive processing. In addition, the effect of new/given information occurred in the post-target region for the focus condition, but not for the non-focus condition, suggesting a complex relationship between focus and newness in the discourse integration stage.
Classification of imaginary movements using the magnitude-squared coherence feature extractor

This study investigates the use of the Magnitude - Squared Coherence (MSC) to extract features from three events: spontaneous electroencephalogram (EEG), EEG-based motor task, and EEG-based motor imagination. We extracted such characteristics by using the Delta band (0.1-2 Hz), Alpha band (8-13 Hz) and Beta band (14-30 Hz). Tasks were classified by using Hidden Markov Models (HMM) and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). From three healthy subjects, we recorded EEG with electrodes placed according to the international 10-20 and 10-10 systems. HMM observations and networks' inputs were obtained by the MSC calculated with 12 trials and the frequency range with higher MSC was adopted as a feature for classifiers. The hit rate in classification with HMM was 80%, 73% and 73% for subjects #1, #2 and #3, respectively. When we used MLP, the rates were 75%, 75% and 79%. These findings have shown we can extract features from brain activities related to different events by using coherence and that HMM and MLP are useful in the classification of imaginary movements.
Digital control approaches to mitigate the impact of loop competition in multiphase DC-DC converter

In multiphase synchronous buck converters, the parallel structure is used for the voltage and current sharing regulation loops to improve high bandwidth. Mismatch among the multiple regulation loops result in competition among voltage and current regulation loops, until one or more loops goes into saturation. Competition control approaches are designed to keep the loops from saturation and reach to a steady state operating point with all loops active adaptively. Such steady state operation can be reached adaptively even with load transients and environmental variations.
Experimental Demonstration of Quasi-resonant Absorption in Silicon Thin Films for Enhanced Solar Light Trapping

We experimentally demonstrate that the addition of partial lattice disorder to a thin-film microcrystalline silicon photonic crystal results in the controlled spectral broadening of its absorption peaks to form quasi resonances: increasing light trapping over a wide bandwidth while also reducing sensitivity to the angle of incident radiation. Accurate finite-difference time-domain simulations are used to design the active-layer photonic crystal so as to maximize the number of its absorption resonances over the broadband interval where microcrystalline silicon is weakly absorbing before lattice disorder augmented with fabrication-induced imperfections is applied to further boost performance. Such a design strategy may find practical use for increasing the efficiency of thin-film silicon photovoltaics.
Fuzzy Logic Approach to Edge Detection for Dental X-ray Image Segmentation

Fuzzy image processing is a powerful tool formulation of expert knowledge edge and the combination of imprecise information from different sources. The fuzzy technique is an operator in order to simulate at a mathematical level the compensatory behavior in process of decision making or subjective evaluation. Edge is a basic feature of image. The image edges include rich information that is very significant for obtaining the image characteristic by object recognition. Edge detection is the most commonly used technique in image processing. In this paper, the main aim is to study the theory of edge detection for dental x-ray image segmentation using fuzzy logic approach. Keywords— fuzzy logic, edge detection, dental x-ray image, image segmentation.
Online Collective Entity Resolution

Entity resolution is a critical component of data integration where the goal is to reconcile database references corresponding to the same real-world entities. Given the abundance of publicly available databases that have unresolved entities, we motivate the problem of quick and accurate resolution for answering queries over such 'unclean' databases. Since collective entity resolution approaches - where related references are resolved jointly - have been shown to be more accurate than independent attribute-based resolution, we focus on adapting collective resolution for answering queries. We propose a two-stage collective resolution strategy for processing queries. We then show how it can be performed on-the-fly by adaptively extracting and resolving those database references that are the most helpful for resolving the query. We validate our approach on two large real-world publication databases where we show the usefulness of collective resolution and at the same time demonstrate the need for adaptive strategies for query processing. We then show how the same queries. can be answered in real time using our adaptive approach while preserving the gains of collective resolution. This work extends work presented in (Bhattacharya, Licamele, & Getoor 2006).