Patterns of calcium-binding proteins support parallel and hierarchical organization of human auditory areas.

The human primary auditory cortex (AI) is surrounded by several other auditory areas, which can be identified by cyto-, myelo- and chemoarchitectonic criteria. We report here on the pattern of calcium-binding protein immunoreactivity within these areas. The supratemporal regions of four normal human brains (eight hemispheres) were processed histologically, and serial sections were stained for parvalbumin, calretinin or calbindin. Each calcium-binding protein yielded a specific pattern of labelling, which differed between auditory areas. In AI, defined as area TC [see C. von Economo and L. Horn (1930) Z. Ges. Neurol. Psychiatr.,130, 678-757], parvalbumin labelling was dark in layer IV; several parvalbumin-positive multipolar neurons were distributed in layers III and IV. Calbindin yielded dark labelling in layers I-III and V; it revealed numerous multipolar and pyramidal neurons in layers II and III. Calretinin labelling was lighter than that of parvalbumin or calbindin in AI; calretinin-positive bipolar and bitufted neurons were present in supragranular layers. In non-primary auditory areas, the intensity of labelling tended to become progressively lighter while moving away from AI, with qualitative differences between the cytoarchitectonically defined areas. In analogy to non-human primates, our results suggest differences in intrinsic organization between auditory areas that are compatible with parallel and hierarchical processing of auditory information.

Os Problemas Ambientais em Cabo Verde - Pol��ticas e Medidas de Protec����o Ambiental

A presente disserta����o teve como finalidade analisar os Problemas Ambientais em Cabo Verde, com destaque para as pol��ticas e medidas implementadas no per��odo que decorre de 1975 a 2010. Para tal, centrou-se no confronto de resultados de estudos que permitiram uma compara����o entre os Concelhos da Praia e de S��o Salvador do Mundo, localizados no sul e no centro da ilha de Santiago, respectivamente. Como ponto de partida, fez-se uma caracteriza����o clim��tica/ambiental do pa��s, salientando a sua fragilidade ambiental atrav��s de uma estreita liga����o entre as suas caracter��sticas naturais e o estado de ambiente para delinear a evolu����o das medidas pol��ticas e jur��dicas tomadas no sentido de combater ou minimizar os problemas existentes. Todo o trabalho emp��rico foi realizado nos concelhos acima referidos, com base nos inqu��ritos efectuados junto dos moradores, escolas, t��cnicos e pol��ticos que lidam com a problem��tica ambiental nesses Concelhos. Posteriormente, foi poss��vel analisar profundamente as principais causas da degrada����o ambiental nos dois Concelhos como a pobreza, a escassez de ��gua, o saneamento b��sico, o aumento da popula����o, o ��xodo rural e as constru����es clandestinas, estabelecendo uma correla����o entre estas e o desenvolvimento econ��mico-social e a qualidade de vida dos seus habitantes. Finalmente, exp��s-se o trabalho realizado e o que se perspectiva fazer para sua mitiga����o, privilegiando a vertente pedag��gica, destacando a import��ncia do envolvimento de grupos comunit��rios para prossecu����o de ac����es diversificadas de sensibiliza����o, de programa����o e da forma����o em paralelo com o refor��o de fiscaliza����o para melhor aplica����o de normas existentes.

The acquisition of pronouns by French children: A parallel study of production and comprehension

This study examines syntactic and morphological aspects of the production and comprehension of pronouns by 99 typically developing French-speaking children aged 3 years, 5 months to 6 years, 5 months. A fine structural analysis of subject, object, and reflexive clitics suggests that whereas the object clitic chain crosses the subject chain, the reflexive clitic chain is nested within it. We argue that this structural difference introduces differences in processing complexity, chain crossing being more complex than nesting. In support of this analysis, both production and comprehension experiments show that children have more difficulty with object than with reflexive clitics (with more omissions in production and more erroneous judgments in sentences involving Principle B in comprehension). Concerning the morphological aspect, French subject and object pronouns agree in gender with their referent. We report serious difficulties with pronoun gender both in production and comprehension in children around the age of 4 (with nearly 30% errors in production and chance level judgments in comprehension), which tend to disappear by age 6. The distribution of errors further suggests that the masculine gender is processed as the default value. These findings provide further insights into the relationship between comprehension and production in the acquisition process.

Restless bandits, linear programming relaxations and a primal-dual index heuristic

We develop a mathematical programming approach for the classicalPSPACE - hard restless bandit problem in stochastic optimization.We introduce a hierarchy of n (where n is the number of bandits)increasingly stronger linear programming relaxations, the lastof which is exact and corresponds to the (exponential size)formulation of the problem as a Markov decision chain, while theother relaxations provide bounds and are efficiently computed. Wealso propose a priority-index heuristic scheduling policy fromthe solution to the first-order relaxation, where the indices aredefined in terms of optimal dual variables. In this way wepropose a policy and a suboptimality guarantee. We report resultsof computational experiments that suggest that the proposedheuristic policy is nearly optimal. Moreover, the second-orderrelaxation is found to provide strong bounds on the optimalvalue.

Parallelizing remote sensing image geometric correction

Remote sensing spatial, spectral, and temporal resolutions of images, acquired over a reasonably sized image extent, result in imagery that can be processed to represent land cover over large areas with an amount of spatial detail that is very attractive for monitoring, management, and scienti c activities. With Moore's Law alive and well, more and more parallelism is introduced into all computing platforms, at all levels of integration and programming to achieve higher performance and energy e ciency. Being the geometric calibration process one of the most time consuming processes when using remote sensing images, the aim of this work is to accelerate this process by taking advantage of new computing architectures and technologies, specially focusing in exploiting computation over shared memory multi-threading hardware. A parallel implementation of the most time consuming process in the remote sensing geometric correction has been implemented using OpenMP directives. This work compares the performance of the original serial binary versus the parallelized implementation, using several multi-threaded modern CPU architectures, discussing about the approach to nd the optimum hardware for a cost-e ective execution.

Synapses on motoneuron dendrites in the brachial section of the frog spinal cord: a computer-aided electron microscopic study of cobalt-filled cells.

Cobalt-labelled motoneuron dendrites of the frog spinal cord at the level of the second spinal nerve were photographed in the electron microscope from long series of ultrathin sections. Three-dimensional computer reconstructions of 120 dendrite segments were analysed. The samples were taken from two locations: proximal to cell body and distal, as defined in a transverse plane of the spinal cord. The dendrites showed highly irregular outlines with many 1-2 microns-long 'thorns' (on average 8.5 thorns per 100 microns 2 of dendritic area). Taken together, the reconstructed dendrite segments from the proximal sites had a total length of about 250 microns; those from the distal locations, 180 microns. On all segments together there were 699 synapses. Nine percent of the synapses were on thorns, and many more close to their base on the dendritic shaft. The synapses were classified in four groups. One third of the synapses were asymmetric with spherical vesicles; one half were symmetric with spherical vesicles; and one tenth were symmetric with flattened vesicles. A fourth, small class of asymmetric synapses had dense-core vesicles. The area of the active zones was large for the asymmetric synapses (median value 0.20 microns 2), and small for the symmetric ones (median value 0.10 microns 2), and the difference was significant. On average, the areas of the active zones of the synapses on thin dendrites were larger than those of synapses on large calibre dendrites. About every 4 microns 2 of dendritic area received one contact. There was a significant difference between the areas of the active zones of the synapses at the two locations. Moreover, the number per unit dendritic length was correlated with dendrite calibre. On average, the active zones covered more than 4% of the dendritic area; this value for thin dendrites was about twice as large as that of large calibre dendrites. We suggest that the larger active zones and the larger synaptic coverage of the thin dendrites compensate for the longer electrotonic distance of these synapses from the soma.

Prevalence of left ventricular regional dysfunction in arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia: a tagged MRI study.

BACKGROUND: Although arrhythmogenic right ventricular dysplasia (ARVD) predominantly affects the right ventricle (RV), genetic/molecular and histological changes are biventricular. Regional left ventricular (LV) function has not been systematically studied in ARVD. METHODS AND RESULTS: The study population included 21 patients with suspected ARVD who underwent evaluation with MRI including tagging. Eleven healthy volunteers served as control subjects. Peak systolic regional circumferential strain (Ecc, %) was calculated by harmonic phase from tagged MRI based on the 16-segment model. Patients who met ARVD Task Force criteria were classified as definite ARVD, whereas patients with a positive family history who had 1 additional minor criterion and patients without a family history with 1 major or 2 minor criteria were classified as probable ARVD. Of the 21 ARVD subjects, 11 had definite ARVD and 10 had probable ARVD. Compared with control subjects, probable ARVD patients had similar RV ejection fraction (58.9+/-6.2% versus 53.5+/-7.6%, P=0.20), but definite ARVD patients had significantly reduced RV ejection fraction (58.9+/-6.2% versus 45.2+/-6.0%, P=0.001). LV ejection fraction was similar in all 3 groups. Compared with control subjects, peak systolic Ecc was significantly less negative in 6 of 16 (37.5%) segments in definite ARVD and 3 of 16 segments (18.7%) in probable ARVD (all P<0.05). CONCLUSIONS: ARVD is associated with regional LV dysfunction, which appears to parallel degree of RV dysfunction. Further large studies are needed to validate this finding and to better define implications of subclinical segmental LV dysfunction.

Relat��rio de Jogos de Marketing - Evolutec-Computer

A Evolutec-Computer �� uma empresa especializada em engenharia eletr��nica, que recebeu um financiamento de uma firma internacional de acionistas, que decidiu entrar no mercado de produ����o de microcomputador. Por conseguinte, foi criada uma nova divis��o de PC Marketing para prosseguir nesta oportunidade de neg��cio. A fim de iniciar essa divis��o, a Cooporate Headquarters forneceu o capital inicial (dinheiro do investimento). O montante concedido seria usado para abrir escrit��rios de vendas, design das marcas e realizar atividades de pesquisas R&D para as novas tecnologias. A nossa empresa recebeu 500.000 USD nos primeiros quatro semestres e 5.000.000 USD no quinto semestre, somando um total de 7.000.000 USD. A Evolutec-Computer ter�� o controlo da divis��o de PC para os pr��ximos dois anos (8 semestres/per��odos de decis��o). Dentro desse prazo, a Coorporate Headquarters espera ver a cria����o de uma divis��o autossuficiente. A equipa criada pela Evolutec ter�� que ser capaz de gerar proveito das opera����es e contribuir para o lucro da corpora����o como um todo. Dentro dos 8 semestres, espera-se obter lucro suficiente para cobrir os investimentos iniciais...The Evolutec-Computer is a company specialized in electronic engineering, which has received funding from an international firm shareholder, who decided to enter the PC production market. Therefore, a new PC Marketing Division was created to pursue this business opportunity. In order to start this division, the Corporate Headquarters provided the initial capital (investment money). The sum would be used to open sales offices, design brands and carry out R & D research activities for new technologies. Our company received $ 500,000 in the first four semesters and $ 5,000,000 in the fifth semester, for a total of $ 7,000,000. The Evolutec-Computer will control the PC division for the next two years (eight semesters/decision periods). Within that period, the Coorporate Headquarters hopes to see the creation of a selfsufficient division. The team set up by Evolutec will have to be able to generate profit from operations and contribute to the profit of the corporation as a whole. Within 8 semesters, is expected to make enough profit to cover the initial investment. The performance of our company will be measured by Headquarter through the Balanced Scorecard, which will be based on financial performance, effectiveness of the marketing plan, market performance, investments in the company's future and wealth creation.

Relat��rio Final Jogos-Simula����o De Marketing ��� Power Computer

This school in the course of Marketing Business Management and specifically Entrepr This school in the course of Marketing Business Management and specifically Entrepreneurship in the discipline of Simulation - Games Marketing year was accordingly for the creation of a company in the computer business in business online simulator called Marketplace, in order to put into practice all the theoretical knowledge acquired during all previous semesters. This platform we were confronted with decisions in eight quarters corresponding 4 every year , in order to encourage learning in a practical way, a virtual and dynamic environment. Every quarter acareados with well organized tasks taking as a reference point defined strategies such as market research analysis, branding , store management after its creation , development of the policy of the 4Ps , identifying opportunities , monitoring of finances and invest heavily . All quarters were subjected decisions and are then given the results , such as: market performance , financial performance, investments in the future , the "health" of the company 's marketing efficiency then analyzed by our company , teaching and also by competition Balanced Scorecard ie , semi-annual and cumulative . For the start of activities it was awarded the 1st year a total of 2,000,000, corresponding to 500,000 out of 4 first quarter , and 5,000,000 in the fifth quarter in a total of 7,000,000 . The capital invested was used to buy market research, opening sales offices , create brands , contract sales force , advertise products created and perform activity R & D in order to make a profit and become self- sufficient to guarantee the payment of principal invested to headquarters ( Corporate Headquarters ) .

Visuo-motor pathways in humans revealed by event-related fMRI.

Whether different brain networks are involved in generating unimanual responses to a simple visual stimulus presented in the ipsilateral versus contralateral hemifield remains a controversial issue. Visuo-motor routing was investigated with event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) using the Poffenberger reaction time task. A 2 hemifield x 2 response hand design generated the "crossed" and "uncrossed" conditions, describing the spatial relation between these factors. Both conditions, with responses executed by the left or right hand, showed a similar spatial pattern of activated areas, including striate and extrastriate areas bilaterally, SMA, and M1 contralateral to the responding hand. These results demonstrated that visual information is processed bilaterally in striate and extrastriate visual areas, even in the "uncrossed" condition. Additional analyses based on sorting data according to subjects' reaction times revealed differential crossed versus uncrossed activity only for the slowest trials, with response strength in infero-temporal cortices significantly correlating with crossed-uncrossed differences (CUD) in reaction times. Collectively, the data favor a parallel, distributed model of brain activation. The presence of interhemispheric interactions and its consequent bilateral activity is not determined by the crossed anatomic projections of the primary visual and motor pathways. Distinct visuo-motor networks need not be engaged to mediate behavioral responses for the crossed visual field/response hand condition. While anatomical connectivity heavily influences the spatial pattern of activated visuo-motor pathways, behavioral and functional parameters appear to also affect the strength and dynamics of responses within these pathways.

Computer Tips and Tricks Newsletter, October, 2005

Performance & Development Solutions (PDS) publishes a variety of newsletters that include some great information about our programs and services. Some of the topics you may find include: Upcoming Seminars Current events or news related to training Recognition of achievements How-to section

Regulador de llum controlat per ordinador

RESUM El llum electric ��s un tipus d���energia amb la que s���il���lumina tot el m��n i s���utilitza tant per a il���luminar la nit com per a disposar de llum addicional durant el dia. L���energia es pren directament de la xarxa de subministrament el��ctric i permet encendre tot tipus de focus i bombetes. Actualment la necessitat de controlar la intensitat lum��nica de focus ��s de gran utilitat i es poden veure exemples en escenaris de teatres, concerts musicals, dom��tica b��sica a vivendes, botigues, restaurants, etc. on s���incorporen aparells ��ptims per aquest control. Aspectes com la programaci�� d���encesa, apagat i intensitat desitjada de focus a una hora convinguda facilita el fet de fer-ho manualment i disposar de m��s temps propi. L���objectiu principal d���aquest treball ��s dissenyar i construir un regulador de llum controlat per ordinador capac de regular la intensitat lum��nica de 8 focus independentment l���un de l���altre. El control de regulaci�� s���efectua mitjancant un programa inform��tic compatible amb ordinadors que incorporin el sistema operatiu Windows i ��s programable en el temps permetent seleccionar la intensitat desitjada a diferents hores del dia seleccionat. Com a conclusions es pot destacar un estalvi energ��tic al regular la intensitat dels focus evitant aix�� la permanent connexio a una tensi�� m��xima de 230 VAC i la oportunitat de construir un regulador de llum amb els documents subministrats.

Desenvolupament d'un sistema de transfer��ncia de software per una placa entrenadora

El departament d���electr��nica i telecomunicacions de la Universitat de Vic ha dissenyat un conjunt de plaques entrenadores amb finalitat educativa. Perqu�� els alumnes puguin utilitzar aquestes plaques com a eina d���estudi, ��s necessari disposar d���un sistema de gravaci�� econ��mic i c��mode. La major part dels programadors, en aquest cas, no compleixen amb aquests requeriments. L���objectiu d���aquest projecte ��s dissenyar un sistema de programaci�� que utilitzi la comunicaci�� s��rie i que no requereixi d'un hardware ni software espec��fics. D���aquesta manera, obtenim una placa aut��noma i un programador gratu��t, de muntatge r��pid i simple d���utilitzar. El sistema de gravaci�� dissenyat s���ha dividit en tres blocs. Per una banda, un programa que anomenem ���programador��� encarregat de transferir codi de programa des de l���ordinador al microcontrolador de la placa entrenadora. Per altra banda, un programa anomenat ���bootloader���, situat al microcontrolador, permet rebre aquest codi de programa i emmagatzemar-lo a les direccions de mem��ria de programa corresponents. Com a tercer bloc, s���implementa un protocol de comunicaci�� i un sistema de control d���errors per tal d���assegurar una correcta comunicaci�� entre el ���programador��� i el ���bootloader���. Els objectius d���aquest projecte s���han complert i per les proves realitzades, el sistema de programaci�� ha funcionat correctament.

Disseny i implementaci�� d'una web administrable pel sector del carav��ning

Vivim en una era digital on cada vegada m��s les persones estem connectades a la xarxa, ja sigui a trav��s del m��bil, ordinadors o altres dispositius. Actualment internet ��s un gran aparador i des de fa temps, les empreses han vist en aquest una manera de treure���n profit. ��s per aix��, junt amb el seu baix cost, que fa que qualsevol empresa disposi del seu propi espai a la xarxa. D���aquestes idees sorgeix el projecte de fer la web per AutoSuministres Motor. La principal funci�� de la web es donar-se a con��ixer i ensenyar els seus productes, que en aquest cas, s��n autocaravanes i caravanes. Tot i aix��, la p��gina web contindr�� un espai de reportatges on l���usuari podr�� con��ixer m��s a fons un model concret d���autocaravana o caravana i on tamb�� podr�� demanar m��s informaci�� mitjan��ant un formulari de contacte. Per tant, la p��gina web ser�� totalment administrable perqu�� els comercials puguin introduir els vehicles corresponents i l���usuari final pugui consultarlos correctament d���una manera f��cil i senzilla. Per tal de dur a terme aquesta web s���ha tingut en compte utilitzar eines de programaci�� de distribuci�� lliure com ��s el llenguatge PHP, la base de dades MySQL i jQuery.