julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
Eye Movements Support Processing Spatial Configurations in Visual Working Memory
2020-10-20

[Background] Previous research has shown that object locations are less memorized individually but rather dependent on the global spatial configuration consisting of all objects. Therefore, visual working memory performance is enhanced when the global configuration is shown at retrieval compared to a single object only. It is assumed that eye movements moderate this process. However, there are contrary findings whether eye movements support or attenuate configurational effects and with the present set of experiments, we investigated to what extent the significance of spatial configurations in visual working memory depends on eye movements. [Methods] Participants encoded the locations of grey objects and performed a location change detection task for one object probed at retrieval. This object was displaced in half of the trials. Participants were always shown a global configuration in the beginning of the trial. After a delay period, either the spatial configuration or a single object was shown at retrieval. We manipulated whether participants were allowed to make eye movements. There were different conditions in which participants either were allowed to move their eyes normally or they had to fixate the center of the spatial configuration. [Results] The presentation of the spatial configuration supported the detection of location changes. Importantly, configuration effects were attenuated with enforced fixation, both with a whole trial fixation and with a respective phase fixation. [Conclusion] Our findings provide evidence for the memory advantage of spatial configurations and indicate that eye movements support processing spatial configurations in visual working memory. Future investigations should further evaluate these findings in relation to configurational effects in visual working memory and transsaccadic memory.
Time for a change: time-dependent impact of progress indicators on performance in a challenging task-interleaving scenario
2020-10-20

Task interleaving becomes particularly challenging when it requires accurate time estimation, which can result in a sub-optimal task-interleaving strategy. In the current study, we focus on the role of time-indicating visual information in its impact on task performance. To do so, visual stimuli indicating process progress were applied in a dual task-interleaving scenario with the unequal importance of each task. Implicit visual task progress indicators were provided with varying time-lead before an optimal task-switch moment in time. During the experiment, each participant interleaved two tasks with the ultimate goal to maximize the total score over each sixty-seconds trial. The relative importance of tasks was set through an asymmetric penalty function expressed by a score. The task-interleaving scenario was implemented in an interactive dynamic virtual environment. The mean visit time in the lower-penalty task, as well as the total performance over each trial, were compared among implicit progress indicators of varying time-leads. A significant effect of stimulus time-lead was found on the mean duration of the visit of the lower-penalty task, as well as on the total score. Therefore, subjects optimize a task-interleaving strategy by exploiting additional temporal information in an asymmetric-penalty task-interleaving scenario. Furthermore, exploitation efficiency is time-lead dependent. Thus, the current study serves as a tool for evaluation of the time-dependent properties of information processing for task-optimization in behavioral scenarios.
Individual differences in visual attention: a short, reliable, open source, and multilingual test of multiple object tracking in PsychoPy
2020-10-20

Individual differences in attentional abilities provide an interesting approach in studying visual attention as well as the relation of attention to other psychometric measures. However, recent research has demonstrated that many tasks from experimental research are not suitable for individual differences research as they fail to capture these differences reliably. Here, we provide a test for individual differences in visual attention which relies on the multiple object tracking task (MOT) which captures the efficiency of attentional deployment. Within the task, the participants have to maintain a set of targets (among identical distractors) across a brief interval of object motion. Importantly, this test was explicitly designed and tested for reliability under conditions that match those of most laboratory research (restricted sample of students, approximately n = 50). Test-retest reliability estimates revealed a high accordance in individual performances between two consecutive runs of the test (distinct sets of trials). For the full test (i.e. 15 min), we observed a reliability of r = .91. Nonetheless, reliability also remained high for shorter versions of the test (12 min: r = .87; 9 min: r = .83, 6 min: r = .81). In fact, even the shortest version of the test (i.e. 3 min) still revealed a reliability estimate of r = .69. The test is free to use and runs fully under open source software. In order to facilitate the application of the test, we have translated it into 16 common languages (Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish). Given the high reliability estimates, we hope that this MOT test supports researchers whose field of study requires capturing individual difference in visual attention.
Is a Derived Caton-Deschamps Index for Arthroplasty a Reliable and Valid Measure of Patella Height?
2020-10-20

Measuring patella height has been a hot topic since decades.Multiple radiological indices exist for native knees and arthroplasty.A concise concept of patella height analysis is needed for daily practice and scientific research.
Visual working memory content influences correspondence processes [Research data and description]
2020-10-20

These are the research data for the three experiments described in the journal article "Visual working memory content influences correspondence processes" by Elisabeth Hein, Madeleine Y. Stepper, Andrew Hollingworth and Cathleen M. Moore. 1. Raw data for Experiment 1 (simple color memory task) and description of data 2. Raw data for Experiment 2 (complex color memory task) and description of data 3. Raw data for Experiment 3 (size memory task with color being incidental) and description of data
Brain Computer Interface Treatment for Motor Rehabilitation of Upper Extremity of Stroke Patients—A Feasibility Study
2020-10-21

The BCI treatment used here was effective in promoting long lasting functional improvements in the upper extremity in stroke survivors with severe, moderate and mild impairment. This functional improvement can be explained by improved neuroplasticity in the central nervous system.
Google Trends Data and COVID‐19 in Europe: Correlations and model enhancement are European wide
2020-10-21

The current COVID-19 pandemic offers a unique opportunity to examine the utility of Internet search data in disease modelling across multiple countries. Most such studies typically examine trends within only a single country, with few going beyond describing the relationship between search data patterns and disease occurrence. Google Trends data (GTD) indicating the volume of Internet searching on 'coronavirus' were obtained for a range of European countries along with corresponding incident case numbers. Significant positive correlations between GTD with incident case numbers occurred across European countries, with the strongest correlations being obtained using contemporaneous data for most countries. GTD was then integrated into a distributed lag model; this improved model quality for both the increasing and decreasing epidemic phases. These results show the utility of Internet search data in disease modelling, with possible implications for cross country analysis.
On the compressive nature of turbulence driven by ionizing feedback in the pillars of the Carina Nebula
2020-10-21

ABSTRACT The ionizing radiation of massive stars sculpts the surrounding neutral gas into pillar-like structures. Direct signatures of star formation through outflows and jets are observed in these structures, typically at their tips. Recent numerical simulations have suggested that this star formation could potentially be triggered by photoionizing radiation, driving compressive modes of turbulence in the pillars. In this study, we use recent high-resolution ALMA observations of 12CO, 13CO, and C18O, J = 2 − 1 emission to test this hypothesis for pillars in the Carina Nebula. We analyse column density and intensity-weighted velocity maps, and subtract any large-scale bulk motions in the plane of the sky to isolate the turbulent motions. We then reconstruct the dominant turbulence driving mode in the pillars, by computing the turbulence driving parameter b, characterized by the relation between the standard deviation of the density contrast (with gas density ρ and its average ρ0) and the turbulent Mach number . We find values of b ∼ 0.7–1.0 for most of the pillars, suggesting that predominantly compressive modes of turbulence are driven in the pillars by the ionizing radiation from nearby massive stars. We find that this range of b values can produce star formation rates in the pillars that are a factor ∼3 greater than with b ∼ 0.5, a typical average value of b for spiral-arm molecular clouds. Our results provide further evidence for the potential triggering of star formation in pillars through compressive turbulent motions.
Unmet Supportive Care Needs Among Women With Breast and Gynecological Cancer: Relevance of Attachment Anxiety and Psychological Distress
2020-10-21

Our findings highlight attachment anxiety as a risk factor for the development of unmet supportive care needs and potentially impaired psychological adjustment to cancer. Further studies are needed to elucidate the interactions between attachment styles, distress and supportive care needs among cancer patients.
The Enigmatic Role of Serum & Glucocorticoid Inducible Kinase 1 in the Endometrium
2020-10-21

The serum- and glucocorticoid-inducible kinase 1 (SGK1) is subject to genetic up-regulation by diverse stimulators including glucocorticoids, mineralocorticoids, dehydration, ischemia, radiation and hyperosmotic shock. To become active, the expressed kinase requires phosphorylation, which is accomplished by PI3K/PDK1 and mTOR dependent signaling. SGK1 enhances the expression/activity of various transport proteins including Na<sup>+</sup>/K<sup>+</sup>-ATPase as well as ion-, glucose-, and amino acid- carriers in the plasma membrane. SGK1 can further up-regulate diverse ion channels, such as Na<sup>+</sup>-, Ca<sup>2+</sup>-, K<sup>+</sup>- and Cl<sup>-</sup> channels. SGK1 regulates expression/activity of a wide variety of transcription factors (such as FKHRL1/Foxo3a, β-catenin, NFκB and p53). SGK1 thus contributes to the regulation of transport, glycolysis, angiogenesis, cell survival, immune regulation, cell migration, tissue fibrosis and tissue calcification. In this review we summarized the current findings that SGK1 plays a crucial function in the regulation of endometrial function. Specifically, it plays a dual role in the regulation of endometrial receptivity necessary for implantation and, subsequently in pregnancy maintenance. Furthermore, fetal programming of blood pressure regulation requires maternal SGK1. Underlying mechanisms are, however, still ill-defined and there is a substantial need for additional information to fully understand the role of SGK1 in the orchestration of embryo implantation, embryo survival and fetal programming.
Mitsonobu reaction of cannabidiol. Synthesis of water-soluble cannabidiol derivatives
2020-10-21

Mitsunobu reactions of cannabidiol (CBD) as the acid component and primary alcohols, for example benzyl, allyl, propargyl and methyl glycolate as the alcohol component gave the corresponding bis-alkylated CBD derivatives which were also obtained by alkylating CBD with the corresponding alkyl bromides.Alkylation of CBD with methyl bromoacetate followed by saponification of the two ester moieties and neutralization of the di-carboxylic acid afforded a water-soluble CBD bis-acetate bis-potassium salt.
Balancing cognitive and environmental constraints when deciding to switch tasks: Exploring self-reported task-selection strategies in self-organised multitasking
2020-10-21

We investigated how people balance cognitive constraints (switch costs) against environmental constraints (stimulus availabilities) to optimise their voluntary task switching performance and explored individual differences in their switching behaviour. Specifically, in a self-organised task-switching environment, the stimulus needed for a task repetition was delayed by a stimulus-onset asynchrony (SOA) that increased with each consecutive repetition until a task switch reset the SOA. As predicted, participants switched tasks when the SOA in task switches approximately matched their individual switch costs and thus they optimised local task performance. Interestingly, self-reports (confirmed by behavioural switching patterns) revealed two individual strategies: some participants ( N = 34) indicated to guide their task selection behaviour based on preplanned task sequences over several trials, whereas others ( N = 42) indicated to primarily decide on a trial-by-trial basis whether to switch or to repeat tasks. Exploration of switching behaviour based on the two strategy groups revealed additional insights into how people achieved adaptive task selection behaviour in this task environment. Overall, the present findings suggest that individuals select tasks with the aim of improving task performance when dealing with multiple task requirements, but they differ in their preferred individual task selection strategies.
Morphological Computation Increases From Lower- to Higher-Level of Biological Motor Control Hierarchy
2020-10-21

Voluntary movements, like point-to-point or oscillatory human arm movements, are generated by the interaction of several structures. High-level neuronal circuits in the brain are responsible for planning and initiating a movement. Spinal circuits incorporate proprioceptive feedback to compensate for deviations from the desired movement. Muscle biochemistry and contraction dynamics generate movement driving forces and provide an immediate physical response to external forces, like a low-level decentralized controller. A simple central neuronal command like "initiate a movement" then recruits all these biological structures and processes leading to complex behavior, e.g., generate a stable oscillatory movement in resonance with an external spring-mass system. It has been discussed that the spinal feedback circuits, the biochemical processes, and the biomechanical muscle dynamics contribute to the movement generation, and, thus, take over some parts of the movement generation and stabilization which would otherwise have to be performed by the high-level controller. This contribution is termed morphological computation and can be quantified with information entropy-based approaches. However, it is unknown whether morphological computation actually differs between these different hierarchical levels of the control system. To investigate this, we simulated point-to-point and oscillatory human arm movements with a neuro-musculoskeletal model. We then quantify morphological computation on the different hierarchy levels. The results show that morphological computation is highest for the most central (highest) level of the modeled control hierarchy, where the movement initiation and timing are encoded. Furthermore, they show that the lowest neuronal control layer, the muscle stimulation input, exploits the morphological computation of the biochemical and biophysical muscle characteristics to generate smooth dynamic movements. This study provides evidence that the system's design in the mechanical as well as in the neurological structure can take over important contributions to control, which would otherwise need to be performed by the higher control levels.
Stability of a quasi-local positive mass theorem for graphical hypersurfaces of Euclidean space
2020-10-21

We present a quasi-local version of the stability of the positive mass theorem. We work with the Brown–York quasi-local mass as it possesses positivity and rigidity properties, and therefore the stability of this rigidity statement can be studied. Specifically, we ask if the Brown–York mass of the boundary of some compact manifold is close to zero, must the manifold be close to a Euclidean domain in some sense? Here we consider a class of compact <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="n"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">n</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>-manifolds with boundary that can be realized as graphs in <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="double-struck upper R Superscript n plus 1"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msup> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi mathvariant="double-struck">R</mml:mi> </mml:mrow> <mml:mrow class="MJX-TeXAtom-ORD"> <mml:mi>n</mml:mi> <mml:mo>+</mml:mo> <mml:mn>1</mml:mn> </mml:mrow> </mml:msup> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">\\mathbb {R}^{n+1}</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>, and establish the following. If the Brown–York mass of the boundary of such a compact manifold is small, then the manifold is close to a Euclidean hyperplane with respect to the Federer–Fleming flat distance.
Rayleigh analysis and dielectric dispersion in polycrystalline 0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3–0.5Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 ferroelectric thin films by domain-wall pinning element modeling
2020-10-21

We use impedance spectroscopy to investigate the dielectric response in polycrystalline, lead-free 0.5(Ba0.7Ca0.3)TiO3–0.5Ba(Zr0.2Ti0.8)O3 (BCZT) ferroelectric thin films as a function of amplitude E0 and frequency f of an applied ac electric field. Impedance spectra from f=10 Hz to 1 MHz were collected at different E0 on polycrystalline BCZT capacitor stacks, grown by pulsed laser deposition on platinized Si substrates and covered with Au electrodes. Deconvolution of the spectra is achieved by fitting the measured impedance to the impedance of an equivalent-circuit model of the capacitor stacks, including a recently proposed domain-wall pinning element ZDW. From an extended data analysis, we quantify the coupling strength between dielectric nonlinearity and frequency dispersion in the BCZT thin films, and we obtain a schematic diagram of the different domain-wall-motion regimes. Our results indicate that the presence of grain boundaries in BCZT reduces the coupling strength and suppresses the motion of internal domain-wall segments and also the irreversible center-of-mass motion of the domain walls.
Research Priorities for Rare Neurological Diseases: A Representative View of Patient Representatives and Health Care Professionals From the European Reference Network for Rare Neurological Diseases
2020-10-21

Abstract Background: Patient involvement in research increases the impact of research and the likelihood of adoption in clinical practice. A first step is to know which research themes are important for patients. We distributed a survey on research priorities to ERN-RND members, both patient representatives and health care professionals, asking them to prioritize five research themes for rare neurological diseases on a scale ranging from 1 (most important) to 5 (least important). A follow-up e-mail interview was conducted with patient representatives and professionals to assess potential reasons for differences in opinions between these two groups. Results: In total, 156 responses were analysed: 61 from professionals and 95 from patient representatives. They covered all ERN-RND disease groups and came from 20 different EU countries. Almost half of the respondents considered ‘Developing therapies and preventive strategies’ the most important research theme. In particular, patient representatives prioritized this theme more often than professionals, while professionals prioritized ‘Disease mechanisms and models’. Patient representatives indicated that therapies and prevention were of the utmost importance to them, because their lives are often heavily impacted by the disease and their main goal is to relief the burden of disease. Professionals indicated that investigating disease mechanisms will lead to more knowledge and is indispensable for finding new treatments. Conclusions: Patients and professionals have different opinions on which research theme should have priority. A qualitative follow-up shows that they respect each others’ view points. Different stakeholders involved in research should be aware of their differences in research theme priority. Explaining these differences to each other leads to more understanding, and could improve patient engagement in research.
Land-use intensity alters networks between biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services
2020-10-22

Significance Ecosystem services derive from ecosystem functions and rely on complex interactions among a diversity of organisms. By understanding the relationships between biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and the services humans receive from nature, we can anticipate how changes in land use will affect ecosystems and human wellbeing. We show that increasing land-use intensity homogenizes the synergies between three organizational levels of the ecosystem, namely, biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services. Increasing land-use intensity changes keystone components, which are important for the functioning of the ecosystem, and alters the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity, ecosystem functions, and services. Our approach provides a comprehensive view of ecosystem functioning and can identify the key ecosystem attributes to monitor in order to prevent critical shifts in ecosystems.
Shifts in broadband power and alpha peak frequency observed during long-term isolation
2020-10-22

Abstract Prolonged periods of social isolation and spatial confinement do not only represent an issue that needs to be faced by a few astronauts during space missions, but can affect all of us as recently shown during pandemic situations. The fundamental question, how the brain adapts to periods of sensory deprivation and re-adapts to normality, has only received little attention. Here, we use eyes closed and eyes open resting-state electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings to investigate how neural activity is altered during 120 days of isolation in a spatially confined, space-analogue environment. After disentangling oscillatory patterns from 1/f activity, we show that isolation leads to a reduction in broadband power and a flattening of the 1/f spectral slope. Beyond that, we observed a reduction in alpha peak frequency during isolation, but did not find strong evidence for isolation-induced changes that are of oscillatory nature. Critically, all effects reversed upon release from isolation. These findings suggest that isolation and concomitant sensory deprivation lead to an enhanced cortical deactivation which might be explained by a reduction in the mean neuronal population firing rate.