Short-term synaptic plasticity makes neurons sensitive to the distribution of presynaptic population firing rates

The ability to discriminate spikes that encode a particular stimulus from spikes produced by background activity is essential for reliable information processing in the brain. We describe how synaptic short-term plasticity (STP) modulates the output of presynaptic populations as a function of the distribution of the spiking activity and find a strong relationship between STP features and sparseness of the population code, which could solve the discrimination problem. Furthermore, we show that feedforward excitation followed by inhibition (FF-EI), combined with target-dependent STP, promote substantial increase in the signal gain even for considerable deviations from the optimal conditions, granting robustness to this mechanism. A simulated neuron driven by a spiking FF-EI network is reliably modulated as predicted by a rate analysis and inherits the ability to differentiate sparse signals from dense background activity changes of the same magnitude, even at very low signal-to-noise conditions. We propose that the STP-based distribution discrimination is likely a latent function in several regions such as the cerebellum and the hippocampus.

The Discrimination against Women Reflected in Novels Entrok, Maryam, And Pasung Jiwa by Okky Madasari

This research aimed to find out the discrimination against women in Indonesia, especially reflected in novels Entrok, Maryam, and Pasung Jiwa written by Okky Madasari. Over centuries, women in Indonesia had faced various forms of discrimination that happened because of the strong influence of patriarchal culture, norms, customs, and even religion. That viewpoint then caused men and women to have different roles, both biologically and socially. Women had roles to keep house, family, and children, meanwhile, men had roles to provide for living and protection to the family. The discrimination problem, especially for women, was still the most discussed topic due to the lack of public awareness about women’s roles in community life. This research was a descriptive qualitative research using feminism approach. The data in this research were in the forms of sentences, paragraphs, dialogues, and discourses that reflect discrimination against women. The data analysis technique used in this research was content analysis. The research result shows that there is discrimination towards women in the sectors of economic and social based on the utterances from these three novels by Okky Madasari.

Solving the discrimination problem by means of estimating the radar cross-section of a plasma sheath

The study deals with the problem of indicating a target as a decoy during radar tracking. We chose to investigate plasma-generating and heavy decoys moving along the atmospheric segments of their trajectories. We conducted simulations in the Fluent and ANSYS HFSS software packages. We suggest certain criteria for decoy discrimination and for making the decision to indicate the target as a decoy. We analysed whether it is possible to discriminate heavy and plasma-generating decoys during the atmospheric segment of their flight, using data obtained by X-ray radar stations