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Exercise enhances motor skill learning by neurotransmitter switching in the adult midbrain.
Physical exercise promotes motor skill learning in normal individuals and those with neurological disorders but its mechanism of action is unclear. We find that one week of voluntary wheel running enhances the acquisition of motor skills in normal adult mice. One week of running also induces switching from ACh to GABA expression in neurons in the caudal pedunculopontine nucleus (cPPN). Consistent with regulation of motor skills, we show that the switching neurons make projections to the substantia nigra (SN), ventral tegmental area (VTA) and ventrolateral-ventromedial nuclei of the thalamus (VL-VM). Use of viral vectors to override transmitter switching blocks the beneficial effect of running on motor skill learning. We suggest that neurotransmitter switching provides the basis by which sustained running benefits motor skill learning, presenting a target for clinical treatment of movement disorders
Block-Structured Supermarket Models
Supermarket models are a class of parallel queueing networks with an adaptive
control scheme that play a key role in the study of resource management of,
such as, computer networks, manufacturing systems and transportation networks.
When the arrival processes are non-Poisson and the service times are
non-exponential, analysis of such a supermarket model is always limited,
interesting, and challenging.
This paper describes a supermarket model with non-Poisson inputs: Markovian
Arrival Processes (MAPs) and with non-exponential service times: Phase-type
(PH) distributions, and provides a generalized matrix-analytic method which is
first combined with the operator semigroup and the mean-field limit. When
discussing such a more general supermarket model, this paper makes some new
results and advances as follows: (1) Providing a detailed probability analysis
for setting up an infinite-dimensional system of differential vector equations
satisfied by the expected fraction vector, where "the invariance of environment
factors" is given as an important result. (2) Introducing the phase-type
structure to the operator semigroup and to the mean-field limit, and a
Lipschitz condition can be obtained by means of a unified matrix-differential
algorithm. (3) The matrix-analytic method is used to compute the fixed point
which leads to performance computation of this system. Finally, we use some
numerical examples to illustrate how the performance measures of this
supermarket model depend on the non-Poisson inputs and on the non-exponential
service times. Thus the results of this paper give new highlight on
understanding influence of non-Poisson inputs and of non-exponential service
times on performance measures of more general supermarket models.Comment: 65 pages; 7 figure
Pricing Limited Partnerships in the Secondary Market
This study investigates the pattern of prices for multiple partnerships sold in the secondary market. In the model, the partnership buyer prefers to purchase the units sequentially since sellers have varying desires to sell. The benefit of a sequential purchase strategy is partially offset by rational sellers who demand higher prices in earlier sales since the possibility of future sales reduces the sellers’ eagerness to sell in earlier rounds. If this strategic component is sufficiently large, a pattern of decreasing prices should be observed. Using a panel dataset comprised of 52,679 transactions from eighteen real estate limited partnerships, and after controlling for performance characteristics, the study finds that prices decrease over time, thus indicating a significant strategic component in this market.
A Matrix-Analytic Solution for Randomized Load Balancing Models with Phase-Type Service Times
In this paper, we provide a matrix-analytic solution for randomized load
balancing models (also known as \emph{supermarket models}) with phase-type (PH)
service times. Generalizing the service times to the phase-type distribution
makes the analysis of the supermarket models more difficult and challenging
than that of the exponential service time case which has been extensively
discussed in the literature. We first describe the supermarket model as a
system of differential vector equations, and provide a doubly exponential
solution to the fixed point of the system of differential vector equations.
Then we analyze the exponential convergence of the current location of the
supermarket model to its fixed point. Finally, we present numerical examples to
illustrate our approach and show its effectiveness in analyzing the randomized
load balancing schemes with non-exponential service requirements.Comment: 24 page
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