scholarly journals Stability of representational geometry across a wide range of fMRI activity levels

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Spencer A. Arbuckle ◽  
Atsushi Yokoi ◽  
J. Andrew Pruszynski ◽  
Jörn Diedrichsen

AbstractFine-grained activity patterns, as measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), are thought to reflect underlying neural representations. Multivariate analysis techniques, such as representational similarity analysis (RSA), can be used to test models of brain representation by quantifying the representational geometry (the collection of pair-wise dissimilarities between activity patterns). One important caveat, however, is that non-linearities in the coupling between neural activity and the fMRI signal may lead to significant distortions in the representational geometry estimated from fMRI activity patterns. Here we tested the stability of representational dissimilarity measures in primary sensory-motor (S1 and M1) and early visual regions (V1/V2) across a large range of activation levels. Subjects were visually cued with different letters to perform single finger presses with one of the 5 fingers at a rate of 0.3-2.6 Hz. For each stimulation frequency, we quantified the difference between the 5 activity patterns in M1, S1, and V1/V2. We found that the representational geometry remained stable, even though the average activity increased over a large dynamic range. These results indicate that the representational geometry of fMRI activity patterns can be reliably assessed, largely independent of the average activity in the region. This has important methodological implications for RSA and other multivariate analysis approaches that use the representational geometry to make inferences about brain representations.

2015 ◽  
Vol 29 (27) ◽  
pp. 1550188 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilya Grigorenko ◽  
Roman Ya. Kezerashvili

We study a system of spatially separated electrons and holes, assuming the carriers are confined to two parallel planes. The existence of the superfluid state of electron–hole pairs between two critical temperatures is predicted for such system in a case of electron–hole asymmetry caused by the difference in the carrier masses and their chemical potentials. The stability of the superfluid state is studied with respect to the changes of the asymmetry between electrons and holes. It is found that one type of the asymmetry can compensate another one, so the superfluid state is possible in a wide range of the asymmetry parameters when they satisfy a simple linear equation.


Author(s):  
Evgeniy M. Tarasov ◽  
Dmitry V. Zheleznov ◽  
Nicolay N. Vasin ◽  
Anna E. Tarasova

Introduction. The time interval systems for controlling train movement operated under the influence of significant industrial disturbances, interference from the electric current of traction rolling stocks, and significant climate changes that result in fluctuations of parameters of circuit elements. These factors lead to the appearance of internal disturbances. The fluctuations in a wide range of the conductivity of rail lines insulation are the main external disturbances leading to considerable changes of the informative parameter, the voltage at the output end of the rail line. At present, there are many methods for suppressing disturbances, which allow correcting fluctuations in the informative signal without deteriorating the quality of classification. The article deals with the problem of providing insensitivity of the output informative signal to the influence of disturbance by principles of coordinate compensation with a correcting link. Materials and Methods. To solve the problem, various methodologies of compensation for disturbances are considered in the paper; the method of coordinate compensation for disturbances at the input of a quadripole of rail lines is adopted as the main one. The equation of the transfer function of the correcting link is determined, assuming an indirect measurement of the input resistance of the rail line, which is a function of the conductivity of the insulation. Results. The article presents the results of the research of the invariant capabilities of the disturbance compensation principle. It is shown that disturbances compensation with a corrective link included at the input of a quadripole allows one to significantly reduce the dynamic range of the output informative signal change in each of the classes, i.e. classes have become more compact, and the quality of classification has become 5 times higher than in the absence of compensation of disturbances. Discussion and Conclusion. The results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method for the coordinate compensation of disturbances in rail lines with an open circuit in the absence of the possibility for organizing feedback, a variable circuit in each of the classes of states, and the impossibility of creating a physical additional channel for the transmission of the disturbance. Using the proposed method in the construction of modern classifiers will significantly improve the stability of the functioning of train control systems; eliminate errors of the first kind, leading to unproductive idle train, and errors of the second kind, leading to accidents and crashes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 393-408
Author(s):  
Xuan Zhang ◽  
Kevin Duh

Hyperparameter selection is a crucial part of building neural machine translation (NMT) systems across both academia and industry. Fine-grained adjustments to a model’s architecture or training recipe can mean the difference between a positive and negative research result or between a state-of-the-art and underperforming system. While recent literature has proposed methods for automatic hyperparameter optimization (HPO), there has been limited work on applying these methods to neural machine translation (NMT), due in part to the high costs associated with experiments that train large numbers of model variants. To facilitate research in this space, we introduce a lookup-based approach that uses a library of pre-trained models for fast, low cost HPO experimentation. Our contributions include (1) the release of a large collection of trained NMT models covering a wide range of hyperparameters, (2) the proposal of targeted metrics for evaluating HPO methods on NMT, and (3) a reproducible benchmark of several HPO methods against our model library, including novel graph-based and multiobjective methods.


2017 ◽  
Vol 54 (11) ◽  
pp. 1592-1600 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Hong ◽  
L.Z. Wang ◽  
Charles W.W. Ng ◽  
B. Yang

Many of the world reserves of fossil fuels are located at various water depths in fine-grained sediment under the seabed. The fine-grained sediment contains relatively large biogas bubbles, which has been posing challenges to the stability of offshore foundations supporting oil and gas platforms. Although fine-grained gassy soil was found to exhibit different undrained shear strengths (cu) by altering the initial pore pressure, ui (relevant to water depth), systematic studies concerning the effect of ui on undrained shear behaviours of the soil are still lacking. This study reports a series of undrained triaxial tests aiming to compare and investigate the responses of reconstituted fine-grained gassy soil with the same consolidation pressure ([Formula: see text]), but at a wide range of varying ui (0–1000 kPa). The shearing-induced excess pore pressure (Δu) in the gassy specimens highly depends on ui. It can be either smaller than that of the saturated specimen with the same [Formula: see text] (due to partial dissipation of Δu into relatively large bubbles at low ui) or larger than that of the saturated specimen (related to collapse of relatively small bubbles at high ui). Consequently, the presence of bubbles had beneficially increased cu at relatively low ui (ui/[Formula: see text] < 0.6), and vice versa. The critical stress ratio of the reconstituted fine-grained gassy soil, however, did not appear to be altered by ui.


2019 ◽  
Vol 50 (4) ◽  
pp. 693-702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christine Holyfield ◽  
Sydney Brooks ◽  
Allison Schluterman

Purpose Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) is an intervention approach that can promote communication and language in children with multiple disabilities who are beginning communicators. While a wide range of AAC technologies are available, little is known about the comparative effects of specific technology options. Given that engagement can be low for beginning communicators with multiple disabilities, the current study provides initial information about the comparative effects of 2 AAC technology options—high-tech visual scene displays (VSDs) and low-tech isolated picture symbols—on engagement. Method Three elementary-age beginning communicators with multiple disabilities participated. The study used a single-subject, alternating treatment design with each technology serving as a condition. Participants interacted with their school speech-language pathologists using each of the 2 technologies across 5 sessions in a block randomized order. Results According to visual analysis and nonoverlap of all pairs calculations, all 3 participants demonstrated more engagement with the high-tech VSDs than the low-tech isolated picture symbols as measured by their seconds of gaze toward each technology option. Despite the difference in engagement observed, there was no clear difference across the 2 conditions in engagement toward the communication partner or use of the AAC. Conclusions Clinicians can consider measuring engagement when evaluating AAC technology options for children with multiple disabilities and should consider evaluating high-tech VSDs as 1 technology option for them. Future research must explore the extent to which differences in engagement to particular AAC technologies result in differences in communication and language learning over time as might be expected.


1975 ◽  
Vol 34 (02) ◽  
pp. 426-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
J Kahan ◽  
I Nohén

SummaryIn 4 collaborative trials, involving a varying number of hospital laboratories in the Stockholm area, the coagulation activity of different test materials was estimated with the one-stage prothrombin tests routinely used in the laboratories, viz. Normotest, Simplastin-A and Thrombotest. The test materials included different batches of a lyophilized reference plasma, deep-frozen specimens of diluted and undiluted normal plasmas, and fresh and deep-frozen specimens from patients on long-term oral anticoagulant therapy.Although a close relationship was found between different methods, Simplastin-A gave consistently lower values than Normotest, the difference being proportional to the estimated activity. The discrepancy was of about the same magnitude on all the test materials, and was probably due to a divergence between the manufacturers’ procedures used to set “normal percentage activity”, as well as to a varying ratio of measured activity to plasma concentration. The extent of discrepancy may vary with the batch-to-batch variation of thromboplastin reagents.The close agreement between results obtained on different test materials suggests that the investigated reference plasma could be used to calibrate the examined thromboplastin reagents, and to compare the degree of hypocoagulability estimated by the examined PIVKA-insensitive thromboplastin reagents.The assigned coagulation activity of different batches of the reference plasma agreed closely with experimentally obtained values. The stability of supplied batches was satisfactory as judged from the reproducibility of repeated measurements. The variability of test procedures was approximately the same on different test materials.


2020 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-41
Author(s):  
VLADIMIR NIKONOV ◽  
◽  
ANTON ZOBOV ◽  

The construction and selection of a suitable bijective function, that is, substitution, is now becoming an important applied task, particularly for building block encryption systems. Many articles have suggested using different approaches to determining the quality of substitution, but most of them are highly computationally complex. The solution of this problem will significantly expand the range of methods for constructing and analyzing scheme in information protection systems. The purpose of research is to find easily measurable characteristics of substitutions, allowing to evaluate their quality, and also measures of the proximity of a particular substitutions to a random one, or its distance from it. For this purpose, several characteristics were proposed in this work: difference and polynomial, and their mathematical expectation was found, as well as variance for the difference characteristic. This allows us to make a conclusion about its quality by comparing the result of calculating the characteristic for a particular substitution with the calculated mathematical expectation. From a computational point of view, the thesises of the article are of exceptional interest due to the simplicity of the algorithm for quantifying the quality of bijective function substitutions. By its nature, the operation of calculating the difference characteristic carries out a simple summation of integer terms in a fixed and small range. Such an operation, both in the modern and in the prospective element base, is embedded in the logic of a wide range of functional elements, especially when implementing computational actions in the optical range, or on other carriers related to the field of nanotechnology.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tatiana Woller ◽  
Ambar Banerjee ◽  
Nitai Sylvetsky ◽  
Xavier Deraet ◽  
Frank De Proft ◽  
...  

<p>Expanded porphyrins provide a versatile route to molecular switching devices due to their ability to shift between several π-conjugation topologies encoding distinct properties. Taking into account its size and huge conformational flexibility, DFT remains the workhorse for modeling such extended macrocycles. Nevertheless, the stability of Hückel and Möbius conformers depends on a complex interplay of different factors, such as hydrogen bonding, p···p stacking, steric effects, ring strain and electron delocalization. As a consequence, the selection of an exchange-correlation functional for describing the energy profile of topological switches is very difficult. For these reasons, we have examined the performance of a variety of wavefunction methods and density functionals for describing the thermochemistry and kinetics of topology interconversions across a wide range of macrocycles. Especially for hexa- and heptaphyrins, the Möbius structures have a pronouncedly stronger degree of static correlation than the Hückel and figure-eight structures, and as a result the relative energies of singly-twisted structures are a challenging test for electronic structure methods. Comparison of limited orbital space full CI calculations with CCSD(T) calculations within the same active spaces shows that post-CCSD(T) correlation contributions to relative energies are very minor. At the same time, relative energies are weakly sensitive to further basis set expansion, as proven by the minor energy differences between MP2/cc-pVDZ and explicitly correlated MP2-F12/cc-pVDZ-F12 calculations. Hence, our CCSD(T) reference values are reasonably well-converged in both 1-particle and n-particle spaces. While conventional MP2 and MP3 yield very poor results, SCS-MP2 and particularly SOS-MP2 and SCS-MP3 agree to better than 1 kcal mol<sup>-1</sup> with the CCSD(T) relative energies. Regarding DFT methods, only M06-2X provides relative errors close to chemical accuracy with a RMSD of 1.2 kcal mol<sup>-1</sup>. While the original DSD-PBEP86 double hybrid performs fairly poorly for these extended p-systems, the errors drop down to 2 kcal mol<sup>-1</sup> for the revised revDSD-PBEP86-NL, again showing that same-spin MP2-like correlation has a detrimental impact on performance like the SOS-MP2 results. </p>


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Le Wang ◽  
Devon Jakob ◽  
Haomin Wang ◽  
Alexis Apostolos ◽  
Marcos M. Pires ◽  
...  

<div>Infrared chemical microscopy through mechanical probing of light-matter interactions by atomic force microscopy (AFM) bypasses the diffraction limit. One increasingly popular technique is photo-induced force microscopy (PiFM), which utilizes the mechanical heterodyne signal detection between cantilever mechanical resonant oscillations and the photo induced force from light-matter interaction. So far, photo induced force microscopy has been operated in only one heterodyne configuration. In this article, we generalize heterodyne configurations of photoinduced force microscopy by introducing two new schemes: harmonic heterodyne detection and sequential heterodyne detection. In harmonic heterodyne detection, the laser repetition rate matches integer fractions of the difference between the two mechanical resonant modes of the AFM cantilever. The high harmonic of the beating from the photothermal expansion mixes with the AFM cantilever oscillation to provide PiFM signal. In sequential heterodyne detection, the combination of the repetition rate of laser pulses and polarization modulation frequency matches the difference between two AFM mechanical modes, leading to detectable PiFM signals. These two generalized heterodyne configurations for photo induced force microscopy deliver new avenues for chemical imaging and broadband spectroscopy at ~10 nm spatial resolution. They are suitable for a wide range of heterogeneous materials across various disciplines: from structured polymer film, polaritonic boron nitride materials, to isolated bacterial peptidoglycan cell walls. The generalized heterodyne configurations introduce flexibility for the implementation of PiFM and related tapping mode AFM-IR, and provide possibilities for additional modulation channel in PiFM for targeted signal extraction with nanoscale spatial resolution.</div>


Author(s):  
Ю.И. Цой

Задача получения однородного состава ЛКМ сводится к правильному выбору пленкообразователей и соответствующих растворителей и, в случае необходимости, разбавителей и добавок. На основе положений теории растворимости была проведена оценка совместимости компонентов и стабильности таких систем. Критериями оценки были приняты параметры растворимости и термодинамического взаимодействия. Исследовали совместимость алкидных лаков с аминоформальдегидными смолами в бутаноле, и результаты этих исследований представлены в треугольной фазовой диаграмме. Для оценки совместимости смол по результатам расчета параметров термодинамического взаимодействия были построены спинодали для тройных систем. Как показывает анализ результатов проведенных исследований, даже при большой разности ?? = |?12 – ?13| = 0,2 наблюдается небольшая область несовместимости. С уменьшением разности ?? область несовместимости сужается. При ?23 > ?с область несовместимости расширяется как для ? = 0,2, так и для ?? = 0,1 и ?? = 0. Таким образом, для таких систем на совместимость компонентов, в первую очередь, влияет их взаимодействие между собой – чем оно больше, тем лучше они совместимы. Проведенные исследования показали, что парциальные параметры растворимости, учитывающие природу когезионных сил, более объективно характеризуют растворимость пленкообразующих смол в органических растворителях, чем их общий параметр растворимости. Растворимость пленкообразующих алкидных и этерифицированных аминоформальдегидных смол в органических растворителях обусловлена термодинамическим взаимодействием молекулярных сил различной природы. Стабильность смеси алкидной и этерифицированной аминоформальдегидной смолы в бутаноле обусловлена в большей степени термодинамическим взаимодействием молекулярных сил; при этом степень бутанолизации меламиноформальдегидной смолы оказывает наибольшее влияние на стабильность cистемы. Проведенные исследования по стабильности лакокрасочных смесей из различных пленкообразующих смол на основе рассмотренных критериев оценки могут быть использованы для совершенствования технологии защитно-декоративной отделки древесины. The problem of obtaining a homogeneous composition of the coatings is reduced to the proper selection of film-forming agents, and diluent and, if appropriate, diluents and additives. On the basis of the theory of solubility, we have carried out the assessment of the compatibility of the components and stability of such systems. The evaluation criteria were adopted the parameters of the solubility and thermodynamic interaction. Researched the compatibility with alkyd varnishes aminoformaldehyde resin in butanol, and the results of these studies are presented in the triangular phase diagram. To evaluate the compatibility of the resins according to the results of calculation of thermodynamic parameters of interaction were built spinodal for ternary systems. As the analysis of the results of the studies, even when the difference ??|?12 – ?13| = 0,2 there is a small area of incompatibility. With the decrease of the difference ? ? region incompatibility narrows. When ?23> ?с region incompatibility extends to ?? = 0,2, and for ?? = 0.1 and ?? = 0. Thus, for such systems, compatibility of components, primarily, affects their interaction with each other – the further away it is, the better they are compatible. Studies have shown that the partial solubility parameters, which take into account the nature of cohesive forces, more objectively characterize the solubility of film-forming resins in organic solvents than their total solubility parameter. The solubility and film-forming aminoformaldehyde esterified alkyd resins in organic solvents due to thermodynamic interaction of molecular forces of different nature. Тhe stability of the mixture and aminoformaldehyde esterified alkyd resin in butanol is generated largely by thermodynamic forces of molecular interaction; the degree of butanolate melamine-formaldehyde resin has the greatest effect on the stability of the system. Conducted research on the stability of the paint mixtures of various film-forming resins on the basis of the evaluation criteria can be used to improve the technology of protective and decorative wood finish.


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