Adaptive Synaptogenesis Constructs Neural Codes That Benefit Discrimination

Intelligent organisms face a variety of tasks requiring the acquisition of expertise within a specific domain, including the ability to discriminate between a large number of similar patterns. From an energy-efficiency perspective, effective discrimination requires a prudent allocation of neural resources with more frequent patterns and their variants being represented with greater precision. In this work, we demonstrate a biologically plausible means of constructing a single-layer neural network that adaptively (i.e., without supervision) meets this criterion. Specifically, the adaptive algorithm includes synaptogenesis, synaptic shedding, and bi-directional synaptic weight modification to produce a network with outputs (i.e. neural codes) that represent input patterns proportional to the frequency of related patterns. In addition to pattern frequency, the correlational structure of the input environment also affects allocation of neural resources. The combined synaptic modification mechanisms provide an explanation of neuron allocation in the case of self-taught experts

Dynamic Masking Rate Schedules for MLM Pretraining

Most works on transformers trained with the Masked Language Modeling (MLM) objective use the original BERT model's fixed masking rate of 15%. Our work instead dynamically schedules the masking ratio throughout training. We found that linearly decreasing the masking rate from 30% to 15% over the course of pretraining improves average GLUE accuracy by 0.46% in BERT-base, compared to a standard 15% fixed rate. Further analyses demonstrate that the gains from scheduling come from being exposed to both high and low masking rate regimes. Our results demonstrate that masking rate scheduling is a simple way to improve the quality of masked language models and achieve up to a 1.89x speedup in pretraining

Special Student Project: Developments under the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977

The Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act of 1977 (SMCRA) is one of the most significant enactments ever to affect the coal mining industry. In pervasive fashion, it is intended to control virtually every environmental aspect of surface mining as well as all surface effects of underground coal mining. The responsibility for establishing a regulatory program to refine and implement the Act is vested in the United States Department of the Interior. However, as individual regulatory plans are submitted by the states and approved by the Secretary of the Interior, the Act provides for an assumption by the states of primary regulatory authority over mining activities conducted within their borders. As of mid-1980, no state except Texas had assumed primary regulatory authority. Proposed amendments to the SMCRA, changes and uncertainties in the model regulatory program as promulgated by the Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement (OSM), and challenges to OSM\u27s authority to regulate certain aspects of coal mining have all contributed to the delay in the states\u27 assumption of primary regulatory authority. This Project is intended to note the significant changes and challenges to the SMCRA and to the regulations promulgated thereunder over the period beginning with the issuance of the permanent regulatory program until the present time

Development of a new diabetes medication self-efficacy scale and its association with both reported problems in using diabetes medications and self-reported adherence

Background: Although there are several different general diabetes self-efficacy scales, there is a need to develop a self-efficacy scale that providers can use to assess patient’s self-efficacy regarding medication use. The purpose of this study was to: 1) develop a new diabetes medication self-efficacy scale and 2) examine how diabetes medication self-efficacy is associated with patient-reported problems in using diabetes medications and self-reported adherence. Patients and methods: Adult English-speaking patients with type 2 diabetes were recruited from a family medicine clinic and a pharmacy in Eastern North Carolina, USA. The patients were eligible if they reported being nonadherent to their diabetes medicines on a visual analog scale. Multivariable regression was used to examine the relationship between self-efficacy and the number of reported diabetes medication problems and adherence. Results: The diabetes medication self-efficacy scale had strong reliability (Cronbach’s alpha =0.86). Among a sample (N=51) of mostly African-American female patients, diabetes medication problems were common (6.1±3.1) and a greater number of diabetes medications were associated with lower medication adherence (odds ratio: 0.35; 95% confidence interval: 0.13, 0.89). Higher medication self-efficacy was significantly related to medication adherence (odds ratio: 1.17; 95% confidence interval: 1.05, 1.30) and inversely related to the number of self-reported medication problems (β=-0.13; P=0.006). Conclusion: Higher diabetes medication self-efficacy was associated with fewer patient- reported medication problems and better medication adherence. Assessing medication-specific self-efficacy may help to identify medication-related problems that providers can help the patients address, potentially improving adherence and patient outcomes. Keywords: diabetes, adherence, self-efficacy, literac

Extreme right-wing voting in Western Europe

In this study we explain extreme right-wing voting behaviour in the countries of the European Union and Norway from a micro and macro perspective. Using a multidisciplinary multilevel approach, we take into account individual-level social background characteristics and public opinion alongside country characteristics and characteristics of extreme right-wing parties themselves. By making use of large-scale survey data (N = 49,801) together with country-level statistics and expert survey data, we are able to explain extreme right-wing voting behaviour from this multilevel perspective. Our results show that cross-national differences in support of extreme right-wing parties are particularly due to differences in public opinion on immigration and democracy, the number of non-Western residents in a country and, above all, to party characteristics of the extreme right-wing parties themselves

Paid and unpaid labor in nonprofit organizations: Does the substitution effect exist?

In nonprofit organizations (NPOs) volunteers often work alongside paid workers. Such a coproduction setting can lead to tension between the two worker groups. This paper examines for the first time if and how volunteers in uence the separation of paid employees, and thus it contributes to the debate over whether volunteers can substitute paid workers. Using Austrian data on an organizational level we find a significant impact of volunteers on the separations of paid workers in NPOs facing increased competition. These findings support the assumption that a partial substitution effect exists between paid workers and volunteers

The intrafamilial transmission of rheumatoid arthritis--VI : Association of rheumatoid arthritis with several types of status inconsistency

This study examines the relationship of 2 focal variables, rheumatoid arthritis and self-esteem, to several types of status inconsistency: that of the parents, of the respondents themselves, and of the respondents' marriage. The RA cases came both from a national interview sample and a university arthritis clinic. Ths subjects without RA were part of a cluster which included the spouse of the RA, the RA's sib and his (her) spouse, a cousin of the RA, and an unrelated individual. The data were collected in the course of three structured interviews: The major findings were as follows: 1. (1) Women with RA are more likely to come from families where the parents' marriage is status discrepant and the father is incongruent on education vs. occupation.2. (2) Men with RA are somewhat less likely to come from such status inconsistent families, while the frequency of men with PU was unrelated to parental inconsistency.3. (3) Both men and women from status inconsistent families report lower self-esteem when describing themselves as adults.4. (4) Several forms of status incongruence of the respondents themselves bore no relationship to RA in women and to RA or PU in men.5. (5) Status incongruent men whose education was `inappropriately' high in relation to their occupation or to their perceived social class (PSC) were particularly low on self-esteem, while congruent men were generally the highest.6. (6) Status incongruent women had the lowest self-esteem if their education exceeded their perceived social class, but highest self-esteem if their social class exceeded their education while congruent women were intermediate but closer to the latter group.7. (7) Marriages where both spouses were healthy were less likely to be status discrepant than those marriages where one or the other of the spouses had RA.8. (8) Wives in status discrepant marriages were more likely to have low self-esteem and more depression than wives where little or no discrepancy existed. The associations for the husbands were in the same direction but not significant.9. (9) Status discrepant marriages were higher on marital hostility.10. (10) Healthy husbands who were themselves status incongruent were more likely to have wives with RA than healthy husbands who were status congruent. Such wives had also lower self-esteem.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/32909/1/0000289.pd