AN ECONOMIC ANALYSIS OF A CORN-SOYBEAN CROP ROTATION UNDER VARIOUS INPUT COMBINATIONS IN SOUTH CENTRAL TEXAS

Eight input combinations of commercial fertilizer, insecticides, and herbicides on a corn-soybean crop rotation in the Brazos River Bottom of Texas are evaluated. Input combinations which do not fully utilize all three inputs are consistently ranked higher by all criteria as the preferred input strategy for the corn-soybean rotation system. These results, which indicate limited input crop rotations that fall somewhere between the extremes of conventional agricultural production and organic agriculture, deserve further attention as a possible production alternative.corn, limited input, soybean, Crop Production/Industries,

Disambiguating the role of blood flow and global signal with partial information decomposition

Global signal (GS) is an ubiquitous construct in resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI), associated to nuisance, but containing by definition most of the neuronal signal. Global signal regression (GSR) effectively removes the impact of physiological noise and other artifacts, but at the same time it alters correlational patterns in unpredicted ways. Performing GSR taking into account the underlying physiology (mainly the blood arrival time) has been proven to be beneficial. From these observations we aimed to: 1) characterize the effect of GSR on network-level functional connectivity in a large dataset; 2) assess the complementary role of global signal and vessels; and 3) use the framework of partial information decomposition to further look into the joint dynamics of the global signal and vessels, and their respective influence on the dynamics of cortical areas. We observe that GSR affects intrinsic connectivity networks in the connectome in a non-uniform way. Furthermore, by estimating the predictive information of blood flow and the global signal using partial information decomposition, we observe that both signals are present in different amounts across intrinsic connectivity networks. Simulations showed that differences in blood arrival time can largely explain this phenomenon, while using hemodynamic and calcium mouse recordings we were able to confirm the presence of vascular effects, as calcium recordings lack hemodynamic information. With these results we confirm network-specific effects of GSR and the importance of taking blood flow into account for improving de-noising methods. Additionally, and beyond the mere issue of data denoising, we quantify the diverse and complementary effect of global and vessel BOLD signals on the dynamics of cortical areas

Mind over chatter: plastic up-regulation of the fMRI alertness network by EEG neurofeedback

EEG neurofeedback (NFB) is a brain-computer interface (BCI) approach used to shape brain oscillations by means of real-time feedback from the electroencephalogram (EEG), which is known to reflect neural activity across cortical networks. Although NFB is being evaluated as a novel tool for treating brain disorders, evidence is scarce on the mechanism of its impact on brain function. In this study with 34 healthy participants, we examined whether, during the performance of an attentional auditory oddball task, the functional connectivity strength of distinct fMRI networks would be plastically altered after a 30-min NFB session of alpha-band reduction (n=17) versus a sham-feedback condition (n=17). Our results reveal that compared to sham, NFB induced a specific increase of functional connectivity within the alertness/salience network (dorsal anterior and mid cingulate), which was detectable 30 minutes after termination of training. Crucially, these effects were significantly correlated with reduced mind-wandering 'on-task' and were coupled to NFB-mediated resting state reductions in the alpha-band (8-12 Hz). No such relationships were evident for the sham condition. Although group default-mode network (DMN) connectivity was not significantly altered following NFB, we observed a positive association between modulations of resting alpha amplitude and precuneal connectivity, both correlating positively with frequency of mind-wandering. Our findings demonstrate a temporally direct, plastic impact of NFB on large-scale brain functional networks, and provide promising neurobehavioral evidence supporting its use as a noninvasive tool to modulate brain function in health and disease

Block Coordinate Descent for Sparse NMF

Nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) has become a ubiquitous tool for data analysis. An important variant is the sparse NMF problem which arises when we explicitly require the learnt features to be sparse. A natural measure of sparsity is the L$_0$ norm, however its optimization is NP-hard. Mixed norms, such as L$_1$/L$_2$ measure, have been shown to model sparsity robustly, based on intuitive attributes that such measures need to satisfy. This is in contrast to computationally cheaper alternatives such as the plain L$_1$ norm. However, present algorithms designed for optimizing the mixed norm L$_1$/L$_2$ are slow and other formulations for sparse NMF have been proposed such as those based on L$_1$ and L$_0$ norms. Our proposed algorithm allows us to solve the mixed norm sparsity constraints while not sacrificing computation time. We present experimental evidence on real-world datasets that shows our new algorithm performs an order of magnitude faster compared to the current state-of-the-art solvers optimizing the mixed norm and is suitable for large-scale datasets

Pengaruh Rasio Perputaran Kas, Rasio Perputaran Piutang dan Rasio Perputaran Persediaanterhadap Tingkat Kebutuhan Modal Kerja Bersih Perusahaan (Studi Empiris terhadap Perusahaan Industri Primer dan Perusahaan Industri Sekunder yang Terdaftar di Bei

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk melihat pengaruh rasio perputaran kas, rasio perputaran piutang dan rasio perputaran persediaan terhadap tingkat kebutuhan modal kerja bersih Perusahaan industri primer dan Perusahaan industri sekunder. Populasi pada penelitian ini adalah Perusahaan industri yang terdaftar di BEI periode 2005-2010 dengan sampel penelitian yang terdiri dari 50 Perusahaan industri primer dan 250 Perusahaan industri sekunder yang akan diteliti secara terpisah. Jenis data yang digunakan pada penelitian ini adalah data sekunder, dengan menggunakan metode dokumentasi sebagai metode pengumpulan data. Variabel penelitian adalah variabel independen yang terdiri atas rasio perputaran kas, rasio perputaran piutang serta rasio perputaran persediaan dan variabel dependen yang terdiri atas tingkat kebutuhan modal kerja bersih. Teknik analisis data menggunakan SPSS statistik versi 17 melalui uji deskriptif data, uji normalitas dan uji regresi logistik. Hasil penelitian mengemukakan bahwa rasio perputaran kas, rasio perputaran piutang dan rasio perputaran persediaaan tidak berpengaruh terhadap tingkat kebutuhan modal kerja bersih pada Perusahaan industri primer dan Perusahaan industri sekunder yang terdaftar di BEI periode 2005-2010.Kata Kunci: Rasio Perputaran Kas, Rasio Perputaran Piutang, Rasio Perputaran Persediaan dan Tingkat Kebutuhan Modal Kerja Bersi

Aberrant activity in conceptual networks underlies N400 deficits and unusual thoughts in schizophrenia.

BackgroundThe N400 event-related potential (ERP) is triggered by meaningful stimuli that are incongruous, or unmatched, with their semantic context. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have identified brain regions activated by semantic incongruity, but their precise links to the N400 ERP are unclear. In schizophrenia (SZ), N400 amplitude reduction is thought to reflect overly broad associations in semantic networks, but the abnormalities in brain networks underlying deficient N400 remain unknown. We utilized joint independent component analysis (JICA) to link temporal patterns in ERPs to neuroanatomical patterns from fMRI and investigate relationships between N400 amplitude and neuroanatomical activation in SZ patients and healthy controls (HC).MethodsSZ patients (n = 24) and HC participants (n = 25) performed a picture-word matching task, in which words were either matched (APPLE→apple) by preceding pictures, or were unmatched by semantically related (in-category; IC, APPLE→lemon) or unrelated (out of category; OC, APPLE→cow) pictures, in separate ERP and fMRI sessions. A JICA "data fusion" analysis was conducted to identify the fMRI brain regions specifically associated with the ERP N400 component. SZ and HC loading weights were compared and correlations with clinical symptoms were assessed.ResultsJICA identified an ERP-fMRI "fused" component that captured the N400, with loading weights that were reduced in SZ. The JICA map for the IC condition showed peaks of activation in the cingulate, precuneus, bilateral temporal poles and cerebellum, whereas the JICA map from the OC condition was linked primarily to visual cortical activation and the left temporal pole. Among SZ patients, fMRI activity from the IC condition was inversely correlated with unusual thought content.ConclusionsThe neural networks associated with the N400 ERP response to semantic violations depends on conceptual relatedness. These findings are consistent with a distributed network underlying neural responses to semantic incongruity including unimodal visual areas as well as integrative, transmodal areas. Unusual thoughts in SZ may reflect impaired processing in transmodal hub regions such as the precuneus, leading to overly broad semantic associations

Pengaruh Kapasitas Sumber Daya Manusia, Pemanfaatan Teknologi Informasi, Sistem Pengendalian Intern Pemerintah Terhadap Nilai Informasi Pelaporan Keuangan Pemerintah Daerah (Studi Empiris Pada Satuan Perangkat Kerja Daerah Kabupaten Kampar)

The purpose of this study was to determine the influence of Human Resource Capacity, Utilization of Information Technology, and Government Internal Control System Against Financial Reporting Information Value (Empirical Study in SKPD KamparRegency). The location of object in this research is SKPD Kampar Regency. While the timing of this study was October 2015. The population in this study were all SKPD in Kampar Regency, which amounted 33 SKPD. The sampling used was purposive sampling. Data collection technique used by the author in this study consisted of field research and literature. Methods of analysis using multiple linear regression analysis. The results showed that Human Resources Capacity, Information Technology Utilization, and Government Internal Control System affect the value of Financial Reporting Information.Based onthe calculation,the valueof determination coefficient of0.440.This showsthat the variable Human Resources Capacity, Information TechnologyUtilization, Government Internal Control Systemgivesthe effect of44.00% of the value offinancial reporting information. The remains of66.00% influenced by other variablesthat are notincludedin this study