Experience-dependent representation of visual categories in parietal cortex

Categorization is a process by which the brain assigns meaning to sensory stimuli. Through experience, we learn to group stimuli into categories, such as 'chair', 'table' and 'vehicle', which are critical for rapidly and appropriately selecting behavioural responses. Although much is known about the neural representation of simple visual stimulus features (for example, orientation, direction and colour), relatively little is known about how the brain learns and encodes the meaning of stimuli. We trained monkeys to classify 360 degrees of visual motion directions into two discrete categories, and compared neuronal activity in the lateral intraparietal (LIP) and middle temporal (MT) areas, two interconnected brain regions known to be involved in visual motion processing. Here we show that neurons in LIP--an area known to be centrally involved in visuo-spatial attention, motor planning and decision-making-robustly reflect the category of motion direction as a result of learning. The activity of LIP neurons encoded directions of motion according to their category membership, and that encoding shifted after the monkeys were retrained to group the same stimuli into two new categories. In contrast, neurons in area MT were strongly direction selective but carried little, if any, explicit category information. This indicates that LIP might be an important nexus for the transformation of visual direction selectivity to more abstract representations that encode the behavioural relevance, or meaning, of stimuli.     

Long-lasting sensitization to a given colour after visual search

Visual attention enables an observer to select specific visual information for processing. In an ambiguous motion task in which a coloured grating can be perceived as moving in either of two opposite directions depending on the relative salience of two colours in the display, attending to one of the colours influences the direction in which the grating appears to move. Here, we use this secondary effect of attention in a motion task to measure the effect of attending to a specific colour in a search task. Observers performed a search task in which they searched for a target letter in a 4 x 4 coloured matrix. Each of the 16 squares within a matrix was assigned one of four colours, and observers knew that the target letter would appear on only one of these colours throughout the experiment. Observers performed the ambiguous motion task before and after the search task. Attending to a particular colour for a brief period in the search task profoundly influenced the perceived direction of motion. This effect lasted for up to one month and in some cases had to be reversed by practising searches for the complementary colour, indicating a much longer-persisting effect of attention than has been observed previously.     

基于属性相关分析的离群数据并行挖掘算法

针对高维海量数据集中的局部离群数据,利用并行计算和属性相关性分析思想,给出了一种离群数据并行挖掘算法。该算法首先由主节点分配属性相关分析任务,各个子节点并行查找数据集中的冗余属性,将其冗余属性传回主节点,并由主节点删除;其次,主节点分配搜索任务,各子节点采用微粒群算法,并行搜索局部离群子空间;再次,由主节点对局部离群子空间合并计算后,确定全局离群数据;最后,在MPICH2-1.0.3的并行计算环境下,采用恒星光谱数据作为数据集,实验结果验证了算法的正确性和有效性。     

Modulation of the motion aftereffect by selective attention

The motion aftereffect is a much studied and well documented phenomenon. After viewing a moving visual pattern for a period of time, the same pattern appears to drift in the opposite direction when it is stopped. Psychophysical experiments involving interocular transfer, dichoptic stimulation, and motion aftereffects contingent upon other visual parameters such as colour, orientation and texture, imply that the motion aftereffect is generated at the level of the visual cortex. It has been hypothesized that cortical neurons specialized for the detection of motion along a particular direction become 'fatigued' during the adaptation period so that the resting equilibrium subsequently shifts in the opposite direction to that of the adapting stimulus, giving rise to the sensation of the aftereffect. I have found that if observers are engaged in a separate discrimination task superimposed on a moving textured background, the subsequent motion aftereffect to the background is considerably reduced. It seems that motion aftereffects are susceptible to attentional mechanisms.     

A New Framework for Focused Web Crawling

Focused crawlers are important tools to support applications such as specialized Web portals, online searching, and Web search engines. A topic driven crawler chooses the best URLs and relevant pages to pursue during Web crawling. It is difficult to deal with irrelevant pages. This paper presents a novel focused crawler framework. In our focused crawler, we propose a method to overcome some of the limitations of dealing with the irrelevant pages. We also introduce the implementation of our focused crawler and present some important metrics and an evaluation function for ranking pages relevance. The experimental result shows that our crawler can obtain more ＂important＂ pages and has a high precision and recall value.     

Feature-based attention influences motion processing gain in macaque visual cortex.

Changes in neural responses based on spatial attention have been demonstrated in many areas of visual cortex, indicating that the neural correlate of attention is an enhanced response to stimuli at an attended location and reduced responses to stimuli elsewhere. Here we demonstrate non-spatial, feature-based attentional modulation of visual motion processing, and show that attention increases the gain of direction-selective neurons in visual cortical area MT without narrowing the direction-tuning curves. These findings place important constraints on the neural mechanisms of attention and we propose to unify the effects of spatial location, direction of motion and other features of the attended stimuli in a 'feature similarity gain model' of attention.     

基于强化学习的特征选择方法及材料学应用

随着大数据、人工智能以及高性能计算的快速发展, 数据驱动的新材料研发成为研究热点. 在对材料数据进行数据挖掘的过程中, 需要对特征集合进行预处理, 通过减少无关冗余特征, 不仅可以避免模型过拟合, 还能提高模型的可解释性. 基于此, 提出了一种基于强化学习的特征选择(feature selection based on reinforcement learning, FSRL) 算法, 将封装式特征选择抽象成机器学习模型和"环境"互动的过程, 并根据利益最大化准则将对应特征加入特征子集中. 同时, 为了提高模型的预测精度, 还提出一种基于符号变换的特征构造方法来生成新的特征. 最后, 将所提出方法应用到非晶合金材料的分类预测任务和铝基复合材料的回归任务中. 实验结果表明, FSRL 算法的分类准确率最高提升了 2.8%, 而在回归任务中, 基于特征构造的 FSRL 算法使得预测精度最高提升了 22.9%.     

The influence of visual motion on fast reaching movements to a stationary object

One of the most important functions of vision is to direct actions to objects. However, every time that vision is used to guide an action, retinal motion signals are produced by the movement of the eye and head as the person looks at the object or by the motion of other objects in the scene. To reach for the object accurately, the visuomotor system must separate information about the position of the stationary target from background retinal motion signals-a long-standing problem that is poorly understood. Here we show that the visuomotor system does not distinguish between these two information sources: when observers made fast reaching movements to a briefly presented stationary target, their hand shifted in a direction consistent with the motion of a distant and unrelated stimulus, a result contrary to most other findings. This can be seen early in the hand's trajectory (approximately 120 ms) and occurs continuously from programming of the movement through to its execution. The visuomotor system might make use of the motion signals arising from eye and head movements to update the positions of targets rapidly and redirect the hand to compensate for body movements.     

用刚体平面运动理论评定主轴误差运动

本文以刚体位移矩阵及坐标变换矩阵为工具,对回转敏感方向类及固定敏感方向类主轴运动作了数学描述,进而提出主抽误差运动评定的新方法及电算示例。文中还对一些目前国内外尚有争议的问题进行了讨论。     

韩国朱子学的研究现状与发展前景

朱子学不仅是主导韩国传统文化的中心思想，而且也是韩国思想史的核心思想，在传统文化中起重要作用的一种思想体系。但当代韩国朱子学未受到客观公正的评价。面对时代变化，将近代的历史不幸和错误皆归为朱子学的责任，并将当代社会改革的所有障碍推卸给了朱子学。有鉴于此，对韩国朱子学进行了集中分析和论证，经过冷静的反思、崭新的解释和重新评价，提示了未来社会的前途及方向。未来课题为朱子学的体系化、现代化、信息化，通过积极发展，能为克服和对付未来21世纪危机现象起到积极的作用。     

Respective roles of short-and long-range interactions in protein folding

A new method was presented to discuss the respective roles of short- and long-range interactions in protein folding. It‘s based on an off-lattice model, which is also being called as toy model. Simulated annealing algorithm was used to search its native conformation. When it is applied to analysis proteins lagt and laho, we find that helical segment catmot fold into native conformation without the influence of long-range interactions. That‘s to say that long-range interactions are the main determinants in protein folding.     

刚性转子系统的碰摩与油膜非线性动力学耦合

通过分岔图、Poincarè映射、轴心轨迹讨论了不同强度和不同方位碰摩与油膜的非线性动力学耦合特性.研究结果发现,当转子产生2倍周期分岔后,碰摩分岔具有2倍周期的特征,即分岔图包括两部分.在转子发生2倍周期分岔区域,随着碰摩强度增加,在远离90°和270°发生碰摩时出现高倍周期分岔、概周期或混沌,而在90°和270°附近仍保持倍周期特性.当转子响应为概周期或混沌运动时,在90°和270°附近区域碰摩产生n倍周期分岔.当碰摩强度较小时,90°附近碰摩的分岔倍数高于270°碰摩的分岔倍数;随碰摩强度增加,90°和270°附近区域碰摩都达到2倍周期;而远离这两个区域碰摩的倍周期分岔数量增加,甚至达到...     

基于注意力机制的U-Net脑脊液细胞分割

为解决脑脊液病理图像中部分细胞膜较为模糊，与图像背景难以区分的问题，采用了基于注意力机制的U-Net深度学习方法对脑脊液病理图像做全自动分割.在深度学习网络中加入注意力机制对细胞进行定位，抑制无关信息，提高语义的特征表达，提高对细胞整体分割的精确性.通过镜像、旋转等操作对数据集进行扩充预处理.采用VGG16预训练模型进行迁移学习，交叉熵与Dice损失相结合作为损失函数，分别在脑脊液临床图像与公开数据集2018 Data Science Bowl上进行验证；并与Otsu， PSPnet， Segnet， DeeplabV3+， U-Net进行对比，结果表明， 本文方法在各项指标上均优于其他分割方法.     

Interactions between working memory and selective attention

Event-related potential (ERP) was used to examine the interactions between working memory and se- lective attention. We combined two unrelated tasks, one requiring working memory and the other se- lective attention, which were performed by some undergraduates. The ERP results revealed that both congruent and incongruent stimuli in the selective attention task evoked an N400 component, reaching the peak point at around 500 ms. The N400 evoked by incongruent stimuli was more negative than that of congruent, which indicated the difference of semantic N400. Furthermore, working memory load had a significant influence on the N400 evoked by selective attention task in parietal region. And working memory load showed difference in the ERPs of working memory retrieval in central and parietal regions. The ERPs of probe under high working memory load were more positive from 350 to 550 ms post-stimulus; however, stimulus type of selective attention had no influence on working memory re- trieval. The present study shows that working memory does not play a major role in the selective at- tention, especially in ignoring distracter, but it influences the performance of the selective attention as the background. The congruency of target and distracter in the selective attention task does not influ- ence the working memory retrieval.     

A new perceptual illusion reveals mechanisms of sensory decoding

Perceptual illusions are usually thought to arise from the way sensory signals are encoded by the brain, and indeed are often used to infer the mechanisms of sensory encoding. But perceptual illusions might also result from the way the brain decodes sensory information, reflecting the strategies that optimize performance in particular tasks. In a fine discrimination task, the most accurate information comes from neurons tuned away from the discrimination boundary, and observers seem to use signals from these 'displaced' neurons to optimize their performance. We wondered whether using signals from these neurons might also bias perception. In a fine direction discrimination task using moving random-dot stimuli, we found that observers' perception of the direction of motion is indeed biased away from the boundary. This misperception can be accurately described by a decoding model that preferentially weights signals from neurons whose responses best discriminate those directions. In a coarse discrimination task, to which a different decoding rule applies, the same stimulus is not misperceived, suggesting that the illusion is a direct consequence of the decoding strategy that observers use to make fine perceptual judgments. The subjective experience of motion is therefore not mediated directly by the responses of sensory neurons, but is only developed after the responses of these neurons are decoded.     

A velocity dipole in the distribution of radio galaxies

The motion of our Galaxy through the Universe is reflected in a systematic shift in the temperature of the cosmic microwave background-because of the Doppler effect, the temperature of the background is about 0.1 per cent higher in the direction of motion, with a correspondingly lower temperature in the opposite direction. This effect is known as dipole anisotropy. If our standard cosmological model is correct, a related dipole effect should also be present as an enhancement in the surface density of distant galaxies in the direction of motion. The main obstacle to finding this signal is the uneven distribution of galaxies in the local supercluster, which drowns out the small cosmological signal. Here we report a detection of the expected cosmological dipole anisotropy in the distribution of galaxies. We use a survey of radio galaxies that are mainly located at cosmological distances, so the contamination from nearby clusters is small. When local radio galaxies are removed from the sample, the resulting dipole is in the same direction as the temperature anisotropy of the microwave background, and close to the expected amplitude. The result therefore confirms the standard cosmological interpretation of the microwave background.     

基于背景学习与方向预测的车辆图像跟踪

针对移动目标检测,提出了基于变化因子参考背景学习与方向预测算子的图像跟踪方法.以高速行驶车辆为目标建立变化因子,在此基础上进行视频图像参考背景的学习,并通过互相关匹配与坐标变换实现运动目标的定位及速度确定,结合方向预测算子对车辆行驶矢量进行预测,进而实现目标车辆的图像跟踪.跟踪实验及性能比较证明本方法可获得准确稳定的运动车辆跟踪结果,为运动目标的图像监控研究提供了新的思路.     

Unidirectional rotation in a mechanically interlocked molecular rotor

Molecular motor proteins are ubiquitous in nature and have inspired attempts to create artificial machines that mimic their ability to produce controlled motion on the molecular level. A recent example of an artificial molecular rotor is a molecule undergoing a unidirectional 120 degrees intramolecular rotation around a single bond; another is a molecule capable of repetitive unimolecular rotation driven by multiple and successive isomerization of its central double bond. Here we show that sequential and unidirectional rotation can also be induced in mechanically interlocked assemblies comprised of one or two small rings moving around one larger ring. The small rings in these [2]- and [3]catenanes move in discrete steps between different binding sites located on the larger ring, with the movement driven by light, heat or chemical stimuli that change the relative affinity of the small rings for the different binding sites. We find that the small ring in the [2]catenane moves with high positional integrity but without control over its direction of motion, while the two rings in the [3]catenane mutually block each other's movement to ensure an overall stimuli-induced unidirectional motion around the larger ring.     

内隐学习与英语专业学生写作能力的调查分析

内隐学习理论告诉我们,在一定的环境和条件下,人类可不自觉的自动获得某种复杂的技能。英语写作技能是一种复杂的综合技能,是各种语言技能中最难掌握的一门技能,为了写作而写作的外显学习方式往往枯燥而收效不佳,而间接的内隐的学习机制可能会有更佳的效果。对某高校英语专业二年级学生的内隐学习机制和相关因素调查分析表明多阅读英语读物,多朗读英语作品对提高英语写作能力有较大的作用,课堂学习态度以及对英语和英语写作的看法和英语写作能力之间没有明显的相关性,而视听英语节目和影片则和英语写作能力之间有某种程度上负相关,因此在写作教学中教师应该有意识的培养学生良好的阅读习惯,以促进学生英语写作能力的发展。     

Representation of a perceptual decision in developing oculomotor commands

Behaviour often depends on the ability to make categorical judgements about sensory information acquired over time. Such judgements require a comparison of the evidence favouring the alternatives, but how the brain forms these comparisons is unknown. Here we show that in a visual discrimination task, the accumulating balance of sensory evidence favouring one interpretation over another is evident in the neural circuits that generate the behavioural response. We trained monkeys to make a direction judgement about dynamic random-dot motions and to indicate their judgement with an eye movement to a visual target. We interrupted motion viewing with electrical microstimulation of the frontal eye field and analysed the resulting, evoked eye movements for evidence of ongoing activity associated with the oculomotor response. Evoked eye movements deviated in the direction of the monkey's judgement. The magnitude of the deviation depended on motion strength and viewing time. The oculomotor signals responsible for these deviations reflected the accumulated motion information that informed the monkey's choices on the discrimination task. Thus, for this task, decision formation and motor preparation appear to share a common level of neural organization.