AN EXAMINATION OF CONCURRENT DISCRIMINATION LEARNING WITHIN INDIVIDUALS WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE

The main focus of this research is to further understand memory formation by examining the role of the basal ganglia in learning. Broadly, this study examines how the basal ganglia may play a role in a task that has been associated with declarative memory mechanisms, in this case the concurrent discrimination task (CDT). Specifically, we examine how performance is affected on the CDT when structures of the basal ganglia are compromised by recruiting individuals with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Past work examining the performance of individuals with PD on a CDT have had contradicting results and have proposed that participants may adopt different strategies that rely variously either on declarative or non-declarative strategy (Moody et. al., 2010). We aimed to reduce strategy differences by making changes in stimuli, increasing the number of stimuli significantly, increasing the number of learning blocks, and making all participants explicitly aware of the task structure and goals. By making the goals explicit, we predicted that we would engage a declarative mechanism in both PD and control individuals. To examine declarative memory formation we used the Remember Know task (RK). However, since used a significantly larger set size of stimuli we hypothesized that individuals with PD would perform significantly worse on the CDT than control individuals. The current study reveals that there are no significant differences in performance between individuals with PD and control participants on both the CDT and RK task. We attribute these results to design of our paradigm and stimuli which may have influenced individuals to engage in declarative strategies to perform the CDT reasonably well

The Effectiveness of Government Expenditures during Crisis: Evidence from Regional Government Spending in Japan 1990-2000

We use a rich dataset of regional government expenditures for Japan during the 1990-2000 period to estimate from within-prefecture variation the multiplier of government investment and government consumption expenditures. Our main finding is that government spending did not have multipliers effects that are on average larger than one. Government investment had a positive and significant effect on output that was quantitatively larger than the effect of government consumption expenditures. Government personnel expenditures and transfers to households had significant negative output effects while transfers to firms produced positive multiplier effects that were significantly larger than one. Our findings are consistent with macro model that emphasize the supplyside effects of fiscal policy during times of financial crisis.fiscal policy, fiscal multipliers

Unit circle MVDR beamformer

The array polynomial is the z-transform of the array weights for a narrowband planewave beamformer using a uniform linear array (ULA). Evaluating the array polynomial on the unit circle in the complex plane yields the beampattern. The locations of the polynomial zeros on the unit circle indicate the nulls of the beampattern. For planewave signals measured with a ULA, the locations of the ensemble MVDR polynomial zeros are constrained on the unit circle. However, sample matrix inversion (SMI) MVDR polynomial zeros generally do not fall on the unit circle. The proposed unit circle MVDR (UC MVDR) projects the zeros of the SMI MVDR polynomial radially on the unit circle. This satisfies the constraint on the zeros of ensemble MVDR polynomial. Numerical simulations show that the UC MVDR beamformer suppresses interferers better than the SMI MVDR and the diagonal loaded MVDR beamformer and also improves the white noise gain (WNG).Comment: Accepted to ICASSP 201

Factors influencing river discharge variability in the Himalayan mountain region: a case study of two catchments with contrasting geographical settings

This study examined variabilities in precipitation, temperature, river discharge and land use/land cover in two of the Ganges sub-catchments in the Himalayan mountains region of Nepal using historical data between 1970 and 2017. Urban land increased substantially in Bagmati catchment while snow/glacier cover decreased in the Marsyangdi catchment. Precipitation showed decreasing trend while minimum and maximum temperatures as well as diurnal temperature range were increasing. Consequently, river discharge in Bagmati catchment was decreasing but was increasing in Marsyangdi basin

Assessing Seasonal and Spatial Variability in the Hydrogeochemistry of Glacial Meltwater in Iceland

A detailed comparative geochemical characterization of three different types of Iceland glacial systems was conducted during June, August, and October, 2016. The study was carried out at a total of 11 outlet glacier rivers flowing from the icecaps Vatnajökull, Eyjafjallajökull, and Mýrdalsjökull. A total of 75 grab samples were collected (25 for each sampling period). The hydrogeochemical variations of Icelandic glacial meltwater are influenced by volcanic activity, temporal changes, and geographical location, which differed between the sampling sites within the glaciers and icecaps. Lower pH range, and comparatively higher and variable specific conductivity, SO4, S and F is linked to higher volcanic influences, including residuals from the 2010 eruption at Eyjafjallajökull (located above a tectonic plate boundary zone). High concentrations of Al and Fe were found at Kötlujökull and Kvíárjökull, both of which are close to active volcanic zones. Changes in hydrogeochemistry of the meltwater caused by volcanic activity may be used to forecast eruptions and jökulhlaups; however, given the variability of Icelandic meltwater chemistry, high-resolution monitoring should be done in order to determine a precursor threshold for an volcanic event, as the chemical composition of one jökulhlaup could be within normal range for a different glacier. TSS concentrations depicted high spatial and temporal variation as the highest and lowest values of TSS drained from the same glacier. Hydrogeochemical weathering is driven by Na-HCO3 and Ca-HCO3 dissolution. Concentrations of ions varied with respect to their geographic location, as specific conductivity increase distance downstream from glaciers, proglacial lagoons, and river reaches. Ca, Mg, K, Na, and HCO3 increased from 1984 to 2016 for Fjallsjökull, which may be from an increased weathering rate, due to temperature, CO2 increase, and increased erosion beneath glaciers under a changing climate. This study of hydrogeochemical variation in Icelandic glaciers complements the database of physical and chemical compositions of understudied glaciers. The hydrogeochemical variations of Icelandic glacial meltwater throughout a diverse sample of glaciers and their respective icecaps are related to internal and external factors, and their diversity indicates a much more complex set of processes underway at the different icecaps and their respective glaciers

Understanding the critical role of a wetland in maintaining the ecosystem: A case study

Beaver Valley Wetland in north-east Iowa was studied to determine its functionality in filtering incoming contaminants from the surrounding agricultural fields. The study was conducted from May through November of 2011. Altogether 78 water samples (from 13 sites), 84 soil samples (from 14 sites), and some sediment samples were collected for chemical analysis. Heavy metals in three different soil categories, such as surface, 6” deep, and sediments were found to be at or below the acceptable concentrations, indicating no immediate concern for metal toxicity in the wetland environment. The chemical tracers that were used to study the sub-surface flow regime could not confirm the hypothesized flow regime in the shallow sub-surface. The possible scenarios are as follows; (1) the tracers may have entered the sand lenses and became immobilized, (2) the tracers may have moved in a curved flow path deeper than the injection holes, and (3) the tracers may have been lost to deep infiltration. The analysis of water samples for various physical, chemical, and biological parameters focused on both spatial and temporal changes in water quality. The changes were significant during mid-summer compared to early and late summer. The probable causes for this could be the rainfall, algae growth and high organic load that were observed during the mid-summer. Most contaminants that were flushed from the surrounding areas into the wetland showed significant decrease in their concentrations going from the inlet to the outlet. High turbidity, high loads of TSS, and low DO were commonly observed at the inlet sites. The primary reason for the poor water quality condition at these sites was high organic loads and erodible agricultural soils in the surrounding areas. The wetland shows a much better quality of water at the outlet sites, indicating that the unit has been functioning well in filtering various contaminants. Considerably high DO levels (21.3 mg/L at site W7), low turbidity (2.5 NTU at site W9), and low TSS (1.5 mg/L at site W8) values clearly prove this observation. The wetland being in proximity to the agricultural fields, some of the chemical parameters like nitrate, phosphorus, and chloride are of major concern. Interestingly, none of the sites showed dissolved nitrate in the water and the chloride level was well below the levels of concern. Absence of nitrate in the water could mean that nitrogen was consumed by microorganisms to extract oxygen and decompose the organic matter. On the other hand, the wetland is showing evidence of reducing phosphorus in the system by removing them from the water column. In Water Quality Index (WQI) analysis, the system varied from “medium” to “good” categories. Out of 75 water samples, 25 (33%) showed “medium” WQI values (50-70) and 50 samples (67%) were “good” (70-90). From this short term study, it is concluded that the wetland has been performing well in filtering environmental contaminants. However, a long term water quality monitoring plan should be established to get a complete picture on the ecological functions of the wetland

Statelessness among women and children in Nepal

This paper will set out an argument for the need of a stronger constitutional and legal mechanism for institutionalizing the substantive equal citizenship rights of women in order to end the gendered nature of concept of nationality and citizenship right in Nepal

FAIR SHARING of CHANNEL RESOURCES in the COEXISTENCE of HETEROGENEOUS WIRELESS NETWORKS

Increasing spectrum resources in cellular networks are always needed to carry the exponential data traffic growth in wireless cellular networks. Limited spectrum resources in the licensed band have necessitated Long-Term Evolution (LTE) to explore available unlicensed spectrum where an incumbent WiFi system already exists. With the deployment of Licensed Assisted Access (LAA) that utilizes Listen Before Talk (LBT) for channel access in the unlicensed spectrum along with an incumbent WiFi, the coexistence of LAA and WiFi with acceptable fairness is a major challenge. In this work, we address the issues of licensed assisted access coexisting with incumbent WiFi in an unlicensed spectrum and provide solutions to dynamically tune system parameters of LAA stations to achieve maximum total throughput from the overall system taking into account fair allocation of throughput and airtime across different networks and stations. One major system parameter we study is the contention window size for back-off. Using the method of coupled Markov Chain, we show how an inherent trade-off between throughput and airtime fairness can be managed by adjusting the CW size of LAA. For single-channel, we show how coexistence with WiFi can be managed better with LAA-Cat3 than LAA-Cat4 when total throughput and fairness are to be taken into account. For multi-carrier sensing, we establish better coexistence by optimizing contention window sizes of each LAA station separately using an assignment technique based on a genetic algorithm. We extend our work into dual-carrier aggregation where some stations have the ability to combine two independent channels into a single aggregated channel to achieve higher performance. We show that in such a dual-carrier aggregation scenario, the distribution of stations (partition) over an individual and aggregated channel, and the system parameters (contention window size and load intensity) could be optimized to ensure fair allocation of resources without affecting the secondary channel too much