Inseparable color and form in mouse visual cortex described by random pooling from rods and cones

An image projected onto the retina is composed of local contrasts in color and brightness, both of which can aid in any visual perception task. Recent investigations of the mouse ventral retina demonstrate that rod and cone responses are combined to detect changes between UV and green light, thus providing a new model for color vision. An important question is how the spatial representations of both color and brightness contrast are transformed by downstream circuits. Its known that SF tuning of brightness contrast is sharpened at the level of mouse primary visual cortex, yet color contrast is untested. Here, we presented sinewave gratings that drive one of four axes of rod and cone contrast space, including brightness contrast (rod+cone) and color contrast (rod-cone). We find that V1 neurons are tuned to higher spatial frequencies of brightness contrast than color contrast, and are most responsive to color at the lowest spatial frequencies. These results are consistent with a model of single-opponency between rods and cones, but do not match its classic description. The data can instead be described by a simple model of convergent ON and OFF inputs to V1, which randomly pool discrete quantities of each photoreceptor class. Unlike classic depictions of single-opponency, this model requires minimal constraints on the circuit, accounts for our observed bandpass spatial frequency tuning of rod and cone isolating contrast, and is consistent with recent studies showing unselective pooling from photoreceptors in the retina.

Natural, Everyday Language Use Provides a Window into the Integrity of Older Adults’ Cognitive Functioning

Language use during structured clinical tasks predicts pathological cognitive aging. However, structured tasks reflect only a narrow band of potential communication contexts, which limits the ability to capture cognitive processes manifested in language use under more natural conditions (i.e., minimal constraints). The Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) makes it possible to sample language from the full ecology of individuals’ interactions. As interactions are cognitively complex, language use in everyday life might be especially sensitive to the integrity of higher-order cognitive processes, including executive functions (EF). Using the EAR and a standard EF battery, we show that EF, particularly working memory, is reflected in analytic (e.g. articles and prepositions), complex (e.g. longer words), and specific (e.g. more numbers) language. The EAR provides first evidence that the words used in daily life reflect the integrity of EF and that reliance on less complex language could reflect WM variability among cognitively healthy adults.

Dimensions of delegation

<p>Dimensões da delegação</p><p> </p><p>ABSTRACT</p><p>How can the nondelegation doctrine still exist when the Supreme Court over decades has approved so many pieces of legislation that contain unintelligible principles? The answer to this puzzle emerges from recognition that the intelligibility of any principle dictating the basis for lawmaking is but one characteristic defining that authority. The Court has acknowledged five other characteristics that, taken together with the principle articulating the basis for executive decision-making, constitute the full dimensionality of any grant of lawmaking authority and hold the key to a more coherent rendering of the Court’s application of the nondelegation doctrine. When understood in dimensional terms, the nondelegation doctrine remains alive, and is more manageable and coherent than alternatives recently suggested by Justice Gorsuch in his dissent in Gundy v. United States, even if the Court has almost never invoked the doctrine to strike down legislation authorizing lawmaking by executive officers. The Supreme Court’s infrequent use of the doctrine to invalidate legislation — even when these laws impose minimal constraints on executive decision-making — is not a function of judicial confusion or of the Court’s abandonment of the doctrine. It is instead a function of the doctrine itself being grounded in more than just an intelligible principle test — and of the fact that legislation only infrequently seeks to effectuate grants of authority that reach the extremes on all of the relevant dimensions of delegation.</p><p>RESUMO</p><p>Como a doutrina da não delegação ainda existe considerando que a Suprema Corte, ao longo de décadas, aprovou tantas leis que contêm princípios ininteligíveis? A resposta para esse quebra-cabeça surge do reconhecimento de que a inteligibilidade de qualquer princípio que dite a base para a legislação é apenas uma característica que define essa autoridade. O Tribunal reconheceu cinco outras características que, tomadas em conjunto com o princípio que articula a base da tomada de decisões executivas, constituem a dimensionalidade total de qualquer concessão de autoridade legislativa e mantêm a chave para uma interpretação mais coerente da aplicação da doutrina de não delegação pelo Tribunal. Quando entendida em termos dimensionais, a doutrina da não delegação permanece viva e é mais gerenciável e coerente do que as alternativas recentemente sugeridas pelo juiz Gorsuch, em sua dissidência em Gundy v. Estados Unidos, mesmo que o Tribunal quase nunca tenha invocado a doutrina para derrubar a legislação que autoriza a tomada de decisão pelos diretores executivos. O uso infrequente da doutrina da Suprema Corte para invalidar a legislação — mesmo quando essas leis impõem restrições mínimas à tomada de decisões executivas — não é uma função de confusão judicial ou do abandono da doutrina pela Corte. Em vez disso, é uma função da própria doutrina ser fundamentada em mais do que apenas um teste de princípio inteligível — e do fato de que a legislação raramente procura efetuar concessões de autoridade que atingem os extremos em todas as dimensões relevantes da delegação.</p>

Smart ECG Monitoring Through IoT

The emergence of internet of things allows the integration of health systems by enabling real-time monitoring with a low cost. Therefore, one of the essential targets in this work is the realization of a new smart real-time electrocardiogram remote monitoring system based on cloud networks. This health wireless system allows the acquisition of electrocardiogram signal with the temperature and acceleration measurement of the patient's body using the inertial measurement unit module sensor. A strong access schemes is employed to transfer the data from sensors to cloud environment by keeping the protection of e-health information. The second objective in this chapter is designing a flexible and stretchable health circuit basing on design considerations, aiming the combination of flexible, elastic, and rigid materials around minimal constraints and maximum mechanical dependability in the structures. The flexible fabrication part was inspired from the biocompatible process technology.

Inherent Constraints on Constituent Power

This article argues that recent attempts to domesticate the concept of constituent power by appeal to inherent liberal-democratic constraints on its exercise are untenable. The article first outlines the conceptual background and some of the underlying motivations for the inherent constraints thesis. It then critically examines two attempts to defend the inherent constraints thesis, by reference to liberal and democratic principles respectively. These attempts, I contend, rest on a conflation of strong and weak popular sovereignty and assumptions about political legitimacy that should be kept conceptually distinct from the theory of constituent power. Finally, the article argues that the inherent constraints thesis ultimately derives from a failure to attend to the ‘ideal’ or ‘central’ concept of the constitution. The conclusion to draw from these arguments is that while there may be some minimal constraints on constituent power, these will not be inherently liberal-democratic in nature.

A Reallocation Approach for Software Trustworthiness Based on Trustworthy Attributes

Software trustworthiness is an important research field in software engineering. In order to appropriately evaluate it, some different measurement approaches have been proposed, which have important guiding significance for improving software trustworthiness. Recently, we have investigated attributes-based approaches. That is, how to maximize trustworthy degree of some software satisfying a given threshold by adjusting every attribute value such that the cost is minimal, i.e., the sum of all attribute values is as small as possible. The work is helpful to improve the software quality under the same cost. This paper continues this work and considers a reallocation approach to dealing with the problem that the threshold and the minimal constraints of every attribute values dynamically increase. In this process, the costs of trustworthiness improvement should be ensured to be minimal. For this purpose, we firstly define a reallocation model by mathematical programming. Then we introduce the notion of growth function. Based on this, a polynomial reallocation algorithm is designed to solve the above reallocation model. Finally, we verify our work on spacecraft softwares and the results show that this work is valid.

Watching helical membrane proteins fold reveals a common N-to-C-terminal folding pathway

To understand membrane protein biogenesis, we need to explore folding within a bilayer context. Here, we describe a single-molecule force microscopy technique that monitors the folding of helical membrane proteins in vesicle and bicelle environments. After completely unfolding the protein at high force, we lower the force to initiate folding while transmembrane helices are aligned in a zigzag manner within the bilayer, thereby imposing minimal constraints on folding. We used the approach to characterize the folding pathways of the Escherichia coli rhomboid protease GlpG and the human β2-adrenergic receptor. Despite their evolutionary distance, both proteins fold in a strict N-to-C-terminal fashion, accruing structures in units of helical hairpins. These common features suggest that integral helical membrane proteins have evolved to maximize their fitness with cotranslational folding.

Removing the Influence of Network Effect on Local Position Solution

To investigate and remove the network effect to the national GNSS network the results obtained from three GNSS networks which are tied to ITRF2008 using minimal constraints were compared. The first network is the EUREF Permanent Network (EPN), the second is EPN subnetwork processed by WUT LAC (WUT), the third is exactly Ukraine reference network (URN). The position differences between these networks - EPN and URN (WUT and URN) can reach 9.1 (6.6) mm for X, 4 (3.8) mm for Y and 11.7 (12.2) mm for Z. To obtain consistent station positions and velocities without network effect two weekly solutions were combined. The results demonstrate that the network effect on the local solution (Ukraine reference network) can be eliminated. This approach is valid because the same data analysis strategy was applied during both network processing.