Disrupting inferior frontal cortex activity alters affect decoding efficiency from clear but not from ambiguous affective speech

The evaluation of socio-affective sound information is accomplished by the primate neural auditory cortex in collaboration with limbic and inferior frontal brain nodes. For the latter, activity in inferior frontal cortex (IFC) is often observed during classification of voice sounds, especially if they carry affective information. Partly opposing views have been proposed, with IFC either coding cognitive processing challenges in case of sensory ambiguity or representing categorical object and affect information for clear vocalizations. Here, we presented clear and ambiguous affective speech to two groups of human participants during neuroimaging, while in one group we inhibited right IFC activity with transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) prior to brain scanning. Inhibition of IFC activity led to partly faster affective decisions, more accurate choice probabilities and reduced auditory cortical activity for clear affective speech, while fronto-limbic connectivity increased for clear vocalizations. This indicates that IFC inhibition might lead to a more intuitive and efficient processing of affect information in voices. Contrarily, normal IFC activity might represent a more deliberate form of affective sound processing (i.e., enforcing cognitive analysis) that flags categorial sound decisions with precaution (i.e., representation of categorial uncertainty). This would point to an intermediate functional property of the IFC between previously assumed mechanisms.

General Visual Ability as a Moderator in the Relationship RAN –Fluency in a Regular Orthography

Visual skills play a controversial role in the literacy process. The predictive part of RAN on fluency is known, especially in transparent spelling. In this research, we wanted to explore the influence of visual abilities on literacy for primary school students; for this purpose, we evaluated 209 students. We tested both the Reading and decoding efficiency, rapid naming, and visual abilities. The interaction of rapid naming (RAN) and visual ability (VA) significantly determined fluency. This association is discussed concerning other findings that have demonstrated the visuospatial abilities influence literacy.

Revealing nonlinear neural decoding by analyzing choices

Sensory data about most natural task-relevant variables are entangled with task-irrelevant nuisance variables. The neurons that encode these relevant signals typically constitute a nonlinear population code. Here we present a theoretical framework for quantifying how the brain uses or decodes its nonlinear information. Our theory obeys fundamental mathematical limitations on information content inherited from the sensory periphery, describing redundant codes when there are many more cortical neurons than primary sensory neurons. The theory predicts that if the brain uses its nonlinear population codes optimally, then more informative patterns should be more correlated with choices. More specifically, the theory predicts a simple, easily computed quantitative relationship between fluctuating neural activity and behavioral choices that reveals the decoding efficiency. This relationship holds for optimal feedforward networks of modest complexity, when experiments are performed under natural nuisance variation. We analyze recordings from primary visual cortex of monkeys discriminating the distribution from which oriented stimuli were drawn, and find these data are consistent with the hypothesis of near-optimal nonlinear decoding.

Introducing perforation when applying turbo codes

The problem of adapting the degree of redundancy introduced in the process of error-correcting coding to the changing characteristics of the data transmission channel is urgent. Turbo codes, used in a variety of digital communication systems, are capable of correcting multiple errors occurring in the data transmission channel. The article compares the decoding efficiency for various options for introducing perforation into the code sequence generated by the turbo code encoder. Based on the comparison results, recommendations were made on the most appropriate option for the introduction of perforation.

A Novel Decoding Method for the Erasure Codes

The erasure codes are widely used in the distributed storage with low redundancy compared to the replication method. However, the current research studies about the erasure codes mainly focus on the encoding methods, while there are few studies on the decoding methods. In this paper, a novel erasure decoding method is proposed; it is a general decoding method and can be used both over the multivariate finite field and the binary finite field. The decoding of the failures can be realized based on the transforming process of the decoding transformation matrix, and it is convenient to avoid the overburdened visiting problem by tiny modification of the method. The correctness of the method is proved by the theoretical analysis; the experiments about the comparison with the traditional methods show that the proposed method has better decoding efficiency and lower reconstruction bandwidth.

Performance and Time Improvement of LT Codes-based Cloud Storage

Outsourcing data on the cloud storage services has already attracted great attention due to prospect of rapid data growth and storing efficiencies for customers. The coding-based cloud storage approach can offer more reliable and faster solution with less storage space in comparison with replication-based cloud storage. LT codes as a famous member of rateless codes family can improve performance of storage systems utilizing good degree distributions. Since degree distribution plays key role in LT codes performance, recently introduced Poisson Robust Soliton Distribution (PRSD) and Combined Poisson Robust Soliton Distribution (CPRSD) motivate us to investigate LT codes-based cloud storage system. So, we exploit LT codes with new degree distributions in order to provide lower average degree and higher decoding efficiency, specifically when receiving fewer encoding symbols, comparing with popular degree distribution, Robust Soliton Distribution (RSD). In this paper, we show that proposed cloud storage outperforms traditional ones in terms of storage space and robustness encountering unavailability of encoding symbols, due to compatible properties of PRSD and CPRSD with cloud storage essence. Furthermore, modified decoding process based on required encoding symbols behavior is presented to reduce data retrieval time. Numerical results confirm improvement of cloud storage performance.

BCH Encoder and Decoder for Emerging Memories

In this paper, an encoder and decoder system is proposed using Bose-Chaudhuri-Hocquenghem (BCH) double-error-correcting and triple-error detecting (DEC-TED) with emerging memories of low power and high decoding efficiency. An adaptive error correction technique and an invalid transition inhibition technique is enforced to the decoder. This is to improve the decoding efficiency and reduce the power consumption and delay. The adaptive error correction gives high decoding efficiency and invalid transition technique reduce the power consumption issue in conventional BCH decoders. The DEC-TED BCH decoder combines these two techniques by using a specific Error Correcting Code Clock and Flip Flops. This technique provides an error correcting encoder and decoder solution for low power and high-performance application using emerging memories. The design simulated in Xilinx FPGA using ISE Design Suite 14.5.

Induction of protein aggregation and starvation response by tRNA modification defects

Posttranscriptional modifications of anticodon loops contribute to the decoding efficiency of tRNAs by supporting codon recognition and loop stability. Consistently, strong synthetic growth defects are observed in yeast strains simultaneously lacking distinct anticodon loop modifications. These phenotypes are accompanied by translational inefficiency of certain mRNAs and disturbed protein homeostasis resulting in accumulation of protein aggregates. Different combinations of anticodon loop modification defects were shown to affect distinct tRNAs but provoke common transcriptional changes that are reminiscent of the cellular response to nutrient starvation. Multiple mechanisms may be involved in mediating inadequate starvation response upon loss of critical tRNA modifications. Recent evidence suggests protein aggregate induction to represent one such trigger.

METAGRAMMATICAL MODEL AND METHOD OF DECODING THE VIDEOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION WITH PREFIX COMPRESSION CODES

In the article, a metagrammatic model and the local-frequency decoding method are proposed to solve the problem of decoding videographic information with prefix compression codes. The metagrammatic model is presented as a five – level stochastic metagrammatics that allows us to take into account the structural and statistical features of prefix coded data and use them to improve the decoding efficiency. It is shown that only regular Chomsky grammars can be used in the proposed stochastic metagrammatics. The model uses a combined metagrammatics scheme with matching rules such as “terminal – initial symbol” (TS) and “terminal – product label” (TP). It is shown that structuring the model in the form of stochastic metagrammatics can significantly reduce the total number of products in metagrammatics and simplify its modification when solving problems of decoding promising prefix compression codes. The features of the local-frequency method of decoding videographic information with prefix compression codes focused on this metagrammatic model are considered. To implement one of the main and time-consuming procedures of this method, related to the search in local code tables and translation of uneven prefix codes, a local-private procedure for searching code words is proposed. The features of the software implementation of the proposed method are considered. The results of experimental testing of the method on the example of real arrays of non-uniform prefix codes are presented.

Impact of Pus1 Pseudouridine Synthase on Specific Decoding Events in Saccharomyces cerevisiae

Pus1-dependent pseudouridylation occurs in many tRNAs and at multiple positions, yet the functional impact of this modification is incompletely understood. We analyzed the consequences of PUS1 deletion on the essential decoding of CAG (Gln) codons by tRNAGlnCUG in yeast. Synthetic lethality was observed upon combining the modification defect with destabilized variants of tRNAGlnCUG, pointing to a severe CAG-decoding defect of the hypomodified tRNA. In addition, we demonstrated that misreading of UAG stop codons by a tRNAGlnCUG variant is positively affected by Pus1. Genetic approaches further indicated that mildly elevated temperature decreases the decoding efficiency of CAG and UAG via destabilized tRNAGlnCAG variants. We also determined the misreading of CGC (Arg) codons by tRNAHisGUG, where the CGC decoder tRNAArgICG contains Pus1-dependent pseudouridine, but not the mistranslating tRNAHis. We found that the absence of Pus1 increased CGC misreading by tRNAHis, demonstrating a positive role of the modification in the competition against non-synonymous near-cognate tRNA. Part of the in vivo decoding defects and phenotypes in pus1 mutants and strains carrying destabilized tRNAGlnCAG were suppressible by additional deletion of the rapid tRNA decay (RTD)-relevant MET22, suggesting the involvement of RTD-mediated tRNA destabilization.