Representation Of Episodes Research Articles

Transdermal delivery of iguratimod and colchicine ethosome by dissolving microneedle patch for the treatment of recurrent gout

This study introduces a novel approach of repetitive modeling to simulate the pathological process of recurrent gout attacks in humans. This methodology addresses the instability issues present in rat models of gout, providing a more accurate representation of the damage recurrent gout episodes inflict on human skeletal systems. A soluble nanoneedle system encapsulating colchicine and iguratimod ethosomal formulations was developed. This system aims to modulate inflammatory cytokines and inhibit osteoclast activity, thereby treating inflammatory pain and bone damage associated with recurrent gout. Additionally, a comprehensive evaluation of the microneedles' appearance, morphology, mechanical properties, and penetration capability confirmed their effectiveness in penetrating the stratum corneum. Dissolution tests and skin irritation assessments demonstrated that these microneedles dissolve rapidly without irritating the skin. In vitro permeation studies indicated that transdermal drug delivery via these microneedles is more efficient and incurs lower drug loss compared to traditional topical applications. In vivo pharmacodynamic assessments conducted in animal models revealed significant analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects when both types of microneedles were used together. Further analyses, including X-ray imaging, hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) staining, Safranin-O/fast green staining, tartrate-resistant acid phosphatase staining, and quantification of osteoclasts, confirmed the bone-protective effects of the microneedle combination. In conclusion, the findings of this research underscore the potential of this novel therapeutic approach for clinical application in the treatment of recurrent gout.

A Study on the Subtitle Translation of the “Empresses in the Palace” from Translation and Aesthetics

The “Empresses in the Palace,” a widely acclaimed Qing Dynasty drama, has won viewer’s love at home and abroad for its complex plot, rich characters, and profound cultural connotations. Its episodes “Buddhist Dancers” and “Ode to the Goddess of Luo” have long been famous for their unique style of lyrics and artistic achievements, coupled with a charm of the tune and melody, jumped into the public vision, almost familiar. From the perspective of translation and aesthetics, this paper probes into the aesthetic representation of episodes from both formal and non-formal systems. It aims to improve the quality of translation and enhance the appreciation of works.

Binding and Retrieval of Response Durations: Subtle Evidence for Episodic Processing of Continuous Movement Features.

Re-encountering a stimulus retrieves nominally relevant, categorical response features related to previous action decisions in response to this stimulus. Whether binding and retrieval extend to nominally irrelevant, metric features relating to an actual body movement is unknown, however. In two experiments, we thus tested whether repeating target or distractor stimuli across trials retrieves the irrelevant duration of spatial responses to these stimuli. We found subtle indication of such retrieval by task-relevant target stimuli, suggesting that binding and retrieval also operate on metric features of a motor response. In contrast, there was no sign of binding and retrieval of metric features for distractor stimuli. We discuss these observations regarding the representation of action episodes during action-related decision making and during actual movement initiation and control.

A multi-meteorological comparison for episodes of PM10 concentrations in the Berlin agglomeration area in Germany with the LOTOS-EUROS CTM

Particulate matter (PM) remains as one of the most relevant air-quality concerns in urban environments. The Berlin agglomeration area is still affected by exceedances of the daily limit value of the PM concentration, especially during wintertime PM episodes. In this study, we present test-case studies with the LOTOS-EUROS CTM to improve the representation of PM episodes in the Berlin agglomeration area. A variety of simulations were compared for two winter episodes characterized by cold stagnant conditions, using different meteorological input data (from the European Centre for Medium Weather Forecast (ECMWF) and the Consortium for Small-Scale Modelling-Climate Limited-area Modelling (COSMO-CLM)) and horizontal and vertical resolutions of the LOTOS-EUROS CTM. The LOTOS-EUROS CTM indicates too high mixing from the planetary boundary layer (PBL) to higher layers, leading to an underestimation of the PM mass concentration in the Berlin agglomeration. As major impact factor the mixing layer height (MLH) can be identified. Through applying the COSMO-CLM model the meteorological representation of the PBL and MLH can significantly be improved, whereas sensitivity studies only exhibit a small variation of the PBL meteorology and did not further improve the MLH. As the MLHs of both models are underestimated compared to observations and their derivation is questionable, we advise not to use this quantity any longer in CTMs. By contrast, applying a multi-level approach excluding the MLH, provides a considerable increase in the total PM mass concentration amount. The redistribution and increased nitrate and ammonium concentration can be mentioned as the main culprit. However, the best-fit simulations were obtained for the multi-level configuration fed by COSMO-CLM input data, additionally representing a more realistic urban increment.

Impact of a Multi‐Layer Snow Scheme on Near‐Surface Weather Forecasts

AbstractSnow cover properties have a large impact on the partitioning of surface energy fluxes and thereby on near‐surface weather parameters. Snow schemes of intermediate complexity have been widely used for hydrological and climate studies, whereas their impact on typical weather forecast time scales has received less attention. A new multilayer snow scheme is implemented in the European Centre for Medium‐range Weather Forecasts Integrated Forecasting System and its impact on snow and 2‐m temperature forecasts is evaluated. The new snow scheme is evaluated offline at well‐instrumented field sites and compared to the current single‐layer scheme. The new scheme largely improves the representation of snow depth for most of the sites considered, reducing the root‐mean‐square error averaged over all sites by more than 30%. The improvements are due to a better description of snow density in thick and cold snowpacks, but also due to an improved representation of sporadic melting episodes because of the inclusion of a thin top snow layer with a low thermal inertia. The evaluation of coupled 10‐day weather forecasts shows an improved representation of snow depth at all lead times, demonstrating a positive impact at the global scale. Regarding the impact on weather parameters, the multilayer snow scheme improves the simulated minimum 2‐m temperature, by decreasing the positive bias and improving the amplitude of the diurnal cycle over snow‐covered regions. However, the increased variability of the 2‐m temperature can have a detrimental impact in regions characterized by preexisting errors in the daily mean temperature, associated with errors in cloud processes or surface albedo.

“Quiero mudar en lloro amargo el canto”. Violencia, decoro y "varietas" en la primera parte de "La Araucana" (1569) de Alonso de Ercilla

My objective is to understand the treatment of violence in La Araucana, taking into account the different moral burdens that accompanies the representation of violent episodes, such as battles, duels and killings. From here, I review the concept of varietas linked to the classical tradition and the most important epic model for Alonso de Ercilla, Orlando furioso (1532) by Ludovico Ariosto. The body of the article consists of a detailed analysis of the application of varietas in canto VI of the first part of the poem (1569), particularly in its use of different styles to refer, in accordance with decorum, both heroic acts and ungodly and shameful acts in the battle of the slope of Andalican. The conclusions guide us towards the political objectives of Ercilla, framed in the justice that should prevail in the war of conquest, an aspect that links the poem with the genre of mirrors of princes. At this point, I address the critic controversy surrounding “lo escondido” (I, 4) and connect the aesthetic proposal of La Araucana with the personal ambitions of the young poet in his career as a counselor and diplomat of Felipe II.

Focused Representation of Successive Task Episodes in Frontal and Parietal Cortex.

Complex cognition is dynamic, with each stage of a task requiring new cognitive processes appropriately linked to stimulus or other content. To investigate control over successive task stages, we recorded neural activity in lateral frontal and parietal cortex as monkeys carried out a complex object selection task, with each trial separated into phases of visual selection and learning from feedback. To study capacity limitation, complexity was manipulated by varying the number of object targets to be learned in each problem. Different task phases were associated with quasi-independent patterns of activity and information coding, with no suggestion of sustained activity linked to a current target. Object and location coding were largely parallel in frontal and inferior parietal cortex, though frontal cortex showed somewhat stronger object representation at feedback, and more sustained location coding at choice. At both feedback and choice, coding precision diminished as task complexity increased, matching a decline in performance. We suggest that, across successive task steps, there is radical but capacity-limited reorganization of frontoparietal activity, selecting different cognitive operations linked to their current targets.

Content-based unsupervised segmentation of recurrent TV programs using grammatical inference

TV program segmentation raised as a major topic in the last decade for the task of high quality indexing of multimedia content. Earlier studies of TV program segmentation are either highly supervised (e.g., event detection) or too specific to a certain type of program (e.g., cluster-based methods), which is not practically usable for indexing tasks because of the lack of generality of programs types. In this paper, we address the problem of unsupervised TV program segmentation by leveraging grammatical inference, i.e., discovering a common structural model shared by a collection of episodes of a recurrent TV program by finding an optimal alignment of structural elements across episodes. Structural elements referring to a video segment with a particular syntactic meaning with respect to the video structure. The use of symbolic representation of structural elements makes grammatical inference feasible to be applied on TV program modeling, and makes TV program segmentation possible to rely on only minimal domain knowledge. The proposed approach is operated in two phases. The first phase aims at obtaining a symbolic representation of each episode, where the elements relevant to the structure are discovered based on recurrence mining. The second phase is that of grammatical inference from the symbolic representation of episodes. We investigate two inference techniques, one based on multiple sequence alignment and one relying on uniform resampling, to infer structural grammars for TV programs. A model of the structure is derived from the structural grammars and used to predict the structure of new episodes. Comparative evaluation on two grammar inference approaches demonstrates that the models obtained can reflect the structure of the program and predict the structure of unseen episodes, which is the main application of the proposed approach in industry, i.e., to assist librarians for segmentation tasks.

Mexican “History” in and as Theatre in the Classroom and Beyond

Since Rodolfo Usigli’s El gesticulador (1938), the theaters of Mexico City and elsewhere have served as a staging ground for the re-thinking and re-presentation of past episodes of Mexican history. Over the years, I have developed a course titled “Contemporary Mexican Theatre: Staging the Past,” in which graduate students and advanced undergraduates read and discuss plays that revive certain historical entities and episodes as part of this creative re-opening and critical inquiry into the past. The objective of the class is threefold: to instill an appreciation for theatre as a means of revis(it)ing history; to convey the important role that history has played in the formation of contemporary Mexican consciousness; and to familiarize students with theoretical approaches that range from Hayden White’s concept of metahistory to Hans-Thies Lehmann’s “postdramatic” theatre. The overall objective of the class is to create an awareness of the complexity of Mexican history, of the power of the written word, and of the power of theatre in particular as a means of setting the story straight, giving voice to the vanquished as well as the vanished, demanding the truth and an end to impunity, and ultimately avoiding the repetition of past errors.

Narrative Ethics

AbstractThis paper explores the relationships between philosophical ethics and literary narratives. The focus on virtues and vices in recent ethics has made narratives more integrally relevant to ethics. Some of the best literature displays moral (and immoral) character in richer ways than philosophy alone has resources to do, but philosophy brings to its description a schematic precision that narrative alone cannot supply. As traits of character, virtues differ from events like the actions, thoughts, emotions, and episodic desires that express the traits; traits are not episodes, but dispositions, and so require cumulative diachronic representation of such episodes. The paper illustrates this point particularly with respect to emotions. It ends with reflections on the constitutive narratives by which the grammar of the virtues of some moral traditions, such as Judaism and Christianity, is shaped.

Standardized representation, visualization and searchable repository of antiretroviral treatment-change episodes.

BackgroundTo identify the determinants of successful antiretroviral (ARV) therapy, researchers study the virological responses to treatment-change episodes (TCEs) accompanied by baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA levels, CD4+ T lymphocyte counts, and genotypic resistance data. Such studies, however, often differ in their inclusion and virological response criteria making direct comparisons of study results problematic. Moreover, the absence of a standard method for representing the data comprising a TCE makes it difficult to apply uniform criteria in the analysis of published studies of TCEs.ResultsTo facilitate data sharing for TCE analyses, we developed an XML (Extensible Markup Language) Schema that represents the temporal relationship between plasma HIV-1 RNA levels, CD4 counts and genotypic drug resistance data surrounding an ARV treatment change. To demonstrate the adaptability of the TCE XML Schema to different clinical environments, we collaborate with four clinics to create a public repository of about 1,500 TCEs. Despite the nascent state of this TCE XML Repository, we were able to perform an analysis that generated a novel hypothesis pertaining to the optimal use of second-line therapies in resource-limited settings. We also developed an online program (TCE Finder) for searching the TCE XML Repository and another program (TCE Viewer) for generating a graphical depiction of a TCE from a TCE XML Schema document.ConclusionsThe TCE Suite of applications – the XML Schema, Viewer, Finder, and Repository – addresses several major needs in the analysis of the predictors of virological response to ARV therapy. The TCE XML Schema and Viewer facilitate sharing data comprising a TCE. The TCE Repository, the only publicly available collection of TCEs, and the TCE Finder can be used for testing the predictive value of genotypic resistance interpretation systems and potentially for generating and testing novel hypotheses pertaining to the optimal use of salvage ARV therapy.

Natureza, sociedade e cultura: a Amazônia (re)inventada a partir de seus topônimos

Esta abordagem pauta-se na análise das toponímias decifrando o seu papel no processo de significação e percepção dos lugares. A forma como os indivíduos identificam-se e territorializam-se com os lugares na Amazônia, resulta dos processos de (re) ocupação influenciados por sujeitos ou “coisas”, valores religiosos (como os lugares com nomes advindos da fé católica e evangélica com representação de feições geográficas ou episódios bíblicos); interesses políticos (lugares com nome alusivos às de cidades portuguesas); e toponímias advindas dos aspectos naturais e culturais. Para Magalhães “cada nome é uma descrição do objeto que representa, porque cada silaba diz uma idéia” (1940 apud MELLO, 1967, p. 162). Logo, as toponímias amazônicas possuem uma pluralidade referente aos valores individuais.

Electroencephalographic analysis of manifestations of hidden forms of paroxysmal syndrome in the wakefulness-sleep cycle in rats

An electroencephalographic study of the brain activity in the wakefulness-sleep cycle was carried out on rats of Krushinskii-Molodkina line (KM) with hereditary predisposition to audiogenic convulsions and on Wistar rats that were insensitive to the convulsiogenic sound effect, but with epileptiform manifestations appearing on the background of cadmium intoxication and administration of kainic acid into the caudate nucleus head. There were revealed several EEG patterns whose presence was an indicator of formation of disorders of the CNS activity of the paroxysmal character in the animals. It has been established that in the phase of the rat rapid-wave sleep, a high representation of episodes with predominance of a-diapason EEG oscillations can be considered a specific non-paroxysmal abnormality due to the presence of convulsive syndrome in these animals. It was shown the long steady decrease of sensitivity of KM rats to the convulsiogenic sound effect, which appeared after multiple audiogenic generalized tonicoclonic convulsive attacks, correlated with a decrease of the degree of theta-diapason oscillations and with an increase of representation of alpha-diapason waves on EEG in the state of the animal quiet consciousness. A role of disintegration in activity of the ascending activating brain systems in the animal and human paroxysmal syndromes is discussed.

A Cloud-Base Quasi-Balance Constraint for Parameterized Convection: Application to the Kain–Fritsch Cumulus Scheme

Abstract A quasi balance with respect to parcel buoyancy at cloud base between destabilizing processes and convection is imposed as a constraint on convective cloud-base mass flux in a modified version of the Kain–Fritsch cumulus parameterization. Supporting evidence is presented for this treatment, showing a cloud-base quasi balance (CBQ) on a time scale of approximately 1–3 h in explicit simulations of deep convection over the U.S. Great Plains and over the tropical Pacific Ocean with the Naval Research Laboratory’s Coupled Ocean/Atmosphere Mesoscale Prediction System (COAMPS).1 With the exception of the smaller of two convective events in the Great Plains simulation, a CBQ is still observed upon restriction of the data analysis to instances where the available buoyant energy (ABE) exceeds a threshold value of 1000 J kg−1. This observation is consistent with the view that feedbacks between convection and cloud-base parcel buoyancy can control the rate of convection on shorter time scales than those associated with the elimination of buoyant energy and supports the addition of a CBQ constraint to the Kain–Fritsch mass-flux closure. Tests of the modified Kain–Fritsch scheme in single-column-model simulations based on the explicit three-dimensional simulations show a significant improvement in the representation of the main convective episodes, with a greater amount of convective rainfall. The performance of the scheme in COAMPS precipitation forecast experiments over the continental United States is also investigated. Improvements are obtained with the modified scheme in skill scores for middle to high rainfall rates.

Identification of network-level coding units for real-time representation of episodic experiences in the hippocampus

To examine the network-level organizing principles by which the brain achieves its real-time encoding of episodic information, we have developed a 96-channel array to simultaneously record the activity patterns of as many as 260 individual neurons in the mouse hippocampus during various startling episodes. We find that the mnemonic startling episodes triggered firing changes in a set of CA1 neurons in both startle-type and environment-dependent manners. Pattern classification methods reveal that these firing changes form distinct ensemble representations in a low-dimensional encoding subspace. Application of a sliding window technique further enabled us to reliably capture not only the temporal dynamics of real-time network encoding but also postevent processing of newly formed ensemble traces. Our analyses revealed that the network-encoding power is derived from a set of functional coding units, termed neural cliques, in the CA1 network. The individual neurons within neural cliques exhibit "collective cospiking" dynamics that allow the neural clique to overcome the response variability of its members and to achieve real-time encoding robustness. Conversion of activation patterns of these coding unit assemblies into a set of real-time digital codes permits concise and universal representation and categorization of discrete behavioral episodes across different individual brains.

On line extraction of temporal episodes from ICU high-frequency data: A visual support for signal interpretation

This paper presents a method to extract on line temporal episodes from high-frequency physiological parameters monitored in ICU, as a visual support for signal interpretation. Temporal episodes are expressions such as: "systolic blood pressure is steady at 120 mmHg from time t(0) until time t(1); it increases from 120 to 160 mmHg from time t(1) to time t(2) ...". Three words are used to describe the data evolution: {steady, increasing, decreasing}. The method deals with noisy data and missing values. It uses a segmentation algorithm that was developed previously and a classification of the segments into temporal patterns. The results obtained on simulated data are quite satisfactory. They show that the method is able to detect rapid variations as well as slow trends. Episodes extracted from real S(p)o(2) data recorded over a period of 44 h from 10 different adult patients are analysed. The visual representation of the temporal episodes is a powerful tool to help the physicians analyse in a glance the evolution in time of the variables monitored. It can help carer personnel to make quicker decisions in alarm situations.

Propagation of quasi-stable activation in a chain of recurrent neural networks

We consider a chain of feed-forward connected recurrent networks of leaky-integrate-and-fire neurons with membrane potential bistability. It is shown that lump neural activation, lasting for several seconds at each recurrent network, is gradually relayed along the chain. The time scale of the lump activation and its propagation along the chain agrees with that characterizing mental process. These results suggest that our model will provide possible neural mechanisms underlying mental representation of episodes.

Individual differences in the memory representation of emotional episodes: Exploring the cognitive processes in repression.

Individual differences in the memory representation of emotional episodes: Exploring the cognitive processes in repression.

Cognitive aspects of classical conditioning

Cognitive processes have been increasingly implicated in Pavlovian conditioning. Research in the past year has focused on questions of stimulus selection and the internal representation of events and the relations between them. Recent data support negative feedback models of selection that assume conditioning-dependent changes in processing of conditioned and unconditioned stimulus events, and suggest potential neural mechanisms that may underlie these processes. New models of conditioning propose a more detailed representation of individual conditioning episodes than traditionally assumed. The results of investigations into conditional discrimination learning imply a hierarchical organization of event representations, and illustrate the importance of conditioned modulatory processes as distinct from response elicitation.

Cultural Influences on the Perception of Interaction Episodes

Most of our interactions take place within the frame work of culture-specific c social episodes. The cognitive representations people have about such social encounters should thus reflect the salient characteristics of their surrounding culture. Subjects from two very different cultures, Hong Kong (Chinese) and Australia (Western), provided judgments about their implicit representation of 27 social episodes common in both environments, analyzed using an Individual Differences Multi-dimensional Scaling (INDSCAL) procedure. We found significant differences in the cognitive representation of episodes, which were strongly related to the dominant features of the two cultures (see Hofstede, 1980). In addition, individual demographic, personality, and attitudinal variables were also related to episode perceptions in a culture-specific pattern. These results are discussed in terms of the influence of culture on cognition.