Coordinated optimization of visual cortical maps (I) Symmetry-based analysis

In the primary visual cortex of primates and carnivores, functional architecture can be characterized by maps of various stimulus features such as orientation preference (OP), ocular dominance (OD), and spatial frequency. It is a long-standing question in theoretical neuroscience whether the observed maps should be interpreted as optima of a specific energy functional that summarizes the design principles of cortical functional architecture. A rigorous evaluation of this optimization hypothesis is particularly demanded by recent evidence that the functional architecture of OP columns precisely follows species invariant quantitative laws. Because it would be desirable to infer the form of such an optimization principle from the biological data, the optimization approach to explain cortical functional architecture raises the following questions: i) What are the genuine ground states of candidate energy functionals and how can they be calculated with precision and rigor? ii) How do differences in candidate optimization principles impact on the predicted map structure and conversely what can be learned about an hypothetical underlying optimization principle from observations on map structure? iii) Is there a way to analyze the coordinated organization of cortical maps predicted by optimization principles in general? To answer these questions we developed a general dynamical systems approach to the combined optimization of visual cortical maps of OP and another scalar feature such as OD or spatial frequency preference.Comment: 90 pages, 16 figure

Explosion Mechanisms of Core-Collapse Supernovae

Supernova theory, numerical and analytic, has made remarkable progress in the past decade. This progress was made possible by more sophisticated simulation tools, especially for neutrino transport, improved microphysics, and deeper insights into the role of hydrodynamic instabilities. Violent, large-scale nonradial mass motions are generic in supernova cores. The neutrino-heating mechanism, aided by nonradial flows, drives explosions, albeit low-energy ones, of ONeMg-core and some Fe-core progenitors. The characteristics of the neutrino emission from new-born neutron stars were revised, new features of the gravitational-wave signals were discovered, our notion of supernova nucleosynthesis was shattered, and our understanding of pulsar kicks and explosion asymmetries was significantly improved. But simulations also suggest that neutrino-powered explosions might not explain the most energetic supernovae and hypernovae, which seem to demand magnetorotational driving. Now that modeling is being advanced from two to three dimensions, more realism, new perspectives, and hopefully answers to long-standing questions are coming into reach.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures (29 eps files; high-quality versions can be obtained upon request); accepted by Annual Review of Nuclear and Particle Scienc

Coverage, Continuity and Visual Cortical Architecture

The primary visual cortex of many mammals contains a continuous representation of visual space, with a roughly repetitive aperiodic map of orientation preferences superimposed. It was recently found that orientation preference maps (OPMs) obey statistical laws which are apparently invariant among species widely separated in eutherian evolution. Here, we examine whether one of the most prominent models for the optimization of cortical maps, the elastic net (EN) model, can reproduce this common design. The EN model generates representations which optimally trade of stimulus space coverage and map continuity. While this model has been used in numerous studies, no analytical results about the precise layout of the predicted OPMs have been obtained so far. We present a mathematical approach to analytically calculate the cortical representations predicted by the EN model for the joint mapping of stimulus position and orientation. We find that in all previously studied regimes, predicted OPM layouts are perfectly periodic. An unbiased search through the EN parameter space identifies a novel regime of aperiodic OPMs with pinwheel densities lower than found in experiments. In an extreme limit, aperiodic OPMs quantitatively resembling experimental observations emerge. Stabilization of these layouts results from strong nonlocal interactions rather than from a coverage-continuity-compromise. Our results demonstrate that optimization models for stimulus representations dominated by nonlocal suppressive interactions are in principle capable of correctly predicting the common OPM design. They question that visual cortical feature representations can be explained by a coverage-continuity-compromise.Comment: 100 pages, including an Appendix, 21 + 7 figure

Skill-based differences in the impact of opponent exposure during anticipation: the role of context-environment dependency

Data availability statement: The raw data supporting the conclusions of this article will be made available by the authors, without undue reservation.Copyright © 2023 Gredin, Thomas, Broadbent, Fawver and Williams. Introduction: We examined skilled-based differences in the impact of exposure to an opponent with action tendencies that were either independent of, dependent on, or both independent of and dependent on evolving environmental information during anticipation. Methods: A video-based two-vs.-two soccer task was employed, where 14 expert and 14 novice soccer players had to predict an attacking opponent's imminent actions, before and after exposure to the preceding actions of the opponent. Results: Anticipation accuracy, number of responses congruent with the opponent's action tendencies, response confidence, and visual dwell time on the opponent in possession increased following opponent exposure, both in experts and novices. When compared to novices, experts demonstrated higher anticipation accuracy, more congruent responses, and greater response confidence. Novices performed at their best when the opponent exhibited action tendencies that were independent of the environment, whereas experts demonstrated their highest performance when the opponent had action tendencies that were both independent of and dependent on unfolding environmental information. Discussion: Our findings provide novel insights into the role of context-environment dependency and support the notion that experts are superior to novices in detecting and utilizing opponents' action tendencies and integrating this information with unfolding environmental information during anticipation

Non-malarial febrile illness: a systematic review of published aetiological studies and case reports from Africa, 1980-2015.

BACKGROUND: The availability of reliable point-of-care tests for malaria has heralded a paradigm shift in the management of febrile illnesses away from presumptive antimalarial therapy. In the absence of a definitive diagnosis, health care providers are more likely to prescribe empirical antimicrobials to those who test negative for malaria. To improve management and guide further test development, better understanding is needed of the true causative agents and their geographic variability. METHODS: A systematic review of published literature was undertaken to characterise the spectrum of pathogens causing non-malaria febrile illness in Africa (1980-2015). Literature searches were conducted in English and French languages in six databases: MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health (CABI), WHO Global Health Library, PASCAL, and Bulletin de la Société Française de Parasitologie (BDSP). Selection criteria included reporting on an infection or infections with a confirmed diagnosis, defined as pathogens detected in or cultured from samples from normally sterile sites, or serological evidence of current or past infection. A number of published articles (rather than incidence or prevalence) reporting a given pathogen were presented. RESULTS: A total of 16,523 records from 48 African countries were screened, of which 1065 (6.4%) met selection criteria. Bacterial infections were reported in 564 (53.0%) records, viral infections in 374 (35.1%), parasitic infections in 47 (4.4%), fungal infections in nine (0.8%), and 71 (6.7%) publications reported more than one pathogen group. Age range of the study population was not specified in 233 (21.9%) publications. Staphylococcus aureus (18.2%), non-typhoidal Salmonella (17.3%), and Escherichia coli (15.4%) were the commonly reported bacterial infections whereas Rift Valley fever virus (7.4%), yellow fever virus (7.0%), and Ebola virus (6.7%) were the most commonly reported viral infections. Dengue virus infection, previously not thought to be widespread in Africa, was reported in 54 (5.1%) of articles. CONCLUSIONS: This review summarises the published reports of non-malaria pathogens that may cause febrile illness in Africa. As the threat of antimicrobial resistance looms, knowledge of the distribution of infectious agents causing fever should facilitate priority setting in the development of new diagnostic tools and improved antimicrobial stewardship. TRIAL REGISTRATION: PROSPERO, CRD42016049281

On the suitability of resampling techniques for the class imbalance problem in credit scoring

In real-life credit scoring applications, the case in which the class of defaulters is under-represented in comparison with the class of non-defaulters is a very common situation, but it has still received little attention. The present paper investigates the suitability and performance of several resampling techniques when applied in conjunction with statistical and artificial intelligence prediction models over five real-world credit data sets, which have artificially been modified to derive different imbalance ratios (proportion of defaulters and non-defaulters examples). Experimental results demonstrate that the use of resampling methods consistently improves the performance given by the original imbalanced data. Besides, it is also important to note that in general, over-sampling techniques perform better than any under-sampling approach.This work has partially been supported by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science under grant TIN2009– 14205 and the Generalitat Valenciana under grant PROMETEO/2010/ 028

Potentials of Mean Force for Protein Structure Prediction Vindicated, Formalized and Generalized

Understanding protein structure is of crucial importance in science, medicine and biotechnology. For about two decades, knowledge based potentials based on pairwise distances -- so-called "potentials of mean force" (PMFs) -- have been center stage in the prediction and design of protein structure and the simulation of protein folding. However, the validity, scope and limitations of these potentials are still vigorously debated and disputed, and the optimal choice of the reference state -- a necessary component of these potentials -- is an unsolved problem. PMFs are loosely justified by analogy to the reversible work theorem in statistical physics, or by a statistical argument based on a likelihood function. Both justifications are insightful but leave many questions unanswered. Here, we show for the first time that PMFs can be seen as approximations to quantities that do have a rigorous probabilistic justification: they naturally arise when probability distributions over different features of proteins need to be combined. We call these quantities reference ratio distributions deriving from the application of the reference ratio method. This new view is not only of theoretical relevance, but leads to many insights that are of direct practical use: the reference state is uniquely defined and does not require external physical insights; the approach can be generalized beyond pairwise distances to arbitrary features of protein structure; and it becomes clear for which purposes the use of these quantities is justified. We illustrate these insights with two applications, involving the radius of gyration and hydrogen bonding. In the latter case, we also show how the reference ratio method can be iteratively applied to sculpt an energy funnel. Our results considerably increase the understanding and scope of energy functions derived from known biomolecular structures

The Dynamics of Health and Return Migration

In the final article in a six-part PLoS Medicine; series on Migration & Health, Anita Davies and colleagues from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) discuss the specific health risks and policy needs associated with return migratio

Spin dynamics of molecular nanomagnets fully unraveled by four-dimensional inelastic neutron scattering

Molecular nanomagnets are among the first examples of spin systems of finite size and have been test-beds for addressing a range of elusive but important phenomena in quantum dynamics. In fact, for short-enough timescales the spin wavefunctions evolve coherently according to the an appropriate cluster spin-Hamiltonian, whose structure can be tailored at the synthetic level to meet specific requirements. Unfortunately, to this point it has been impossible to determine the spin dynamics directly. If the molecule is sufficiently simple, the spin motion can be indirectly assessed by an approximate model Hamiltonian fitted to experimental measurements of various types. Here we show that recently-developed instrumentation yields the four-dimensional inelastic-neutron scattering function S(Q,E) in vast portions of reciprocal space and enables the spin dynamics to be determined with no need of any model Hamiltonian. We exploit the Cr8 antiferromagnetic ring as a benchmark to demonstrate the potential of this new approach. For the first time we extract a model-free picture of the quantum dynamics of a molecular nanomagnet. This allows us, for example, to examine how a quantum fluctuation propagates along the ring and to directly test the degree of validity of the N\'{e}el-vector-tunneling description of the spin dynamics

Volumetric plasma source development and characterization.

The development of plasma sources with densities and temperatures in the 10{sup 15}-10{sup 17} cm{sup -3} and 1-10eV ranges which are slowly varying over several hundreds of nanoseconds within several cubic centimeter volumes is of interest for applications such as intense electron beam focusing as part of the x-ray radiography program. In particular, theoretical work [1,2] suggests that replacing neutral gas in electron beam focusing cells with highly conductive, pre-ionized plasma increases the time-averaged e-beam intensity on target, resulting in brighter x-ray sources. This LDRD project was an attempt to generate such a plasma source from fine metal wires. A high voltage (20-60kV), high current (12-45kA) capacitive discharge was sent through a 100 {micro}m diameter aluminum wire forming a plasma. The plasma's expansion was measured in time and space using spectroscopic techniques. Lineshapes and intensities from various plasma species were used to determine electron and ion densities and temperatures. Electron densities from the mid-10{sup 15} to mid-10{sup 16} cm{sup -3} were generated with corresponding electron temperatures of between 1 and 10eV. These parameters were measured at distances of up to 1.85 cm from the wire surface at times in excess of 1 {micro}s from the initial wire breakdown event. In addition, a hydrocarbon plasma from surface contaminants on the wire was also measured. Control of these contaminants by judicious choice of wire material, size, and/or surface coating allows for the ability to generate plasmas with similar density and temperature to those given above, but with lower atomic masses