Chromosome analysis in polyploid human embryos

Cytogenetic investigations have been performed on 436 unfertilized or polyploid human oocytes after in-vitro fertilization at the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, University of Kiel. Thirty-two oocytes had more than two pronuclei 16-20 h after fertilization and were therefore potentially the precursors of polyploid embryos. The total number of fertilized oocytes was 667, and the frequency of tripronucleate ova was 4.8%. These tripronucleate eggs may develop normally up to birth but never lead to viable newborn children. Some of the resulting embryos displayed chromosomal mosaicism, where polyploid karyotypes and normal diploid cells occurred together. It is assumed that the survival rate of polyploid embryos depends upon the percentage of normal diploid cell

Hippocampal ripples initiate cortical dimensionality expansion for memory retrieval

How are past experiences reconstructed from memory? Learning is thought to compress external inputs into low-dimensional hippocampal representations, later expanded into high-dimensional cortical activity during recall. Hippocampal ripples, brief high-frequency bursts linked to retrieval, may initiate this expansion. Analysing intracranial EEG data from patients with pharmaco-resistant epilepsy during an episodic memory task, we found that cortical dimensionality increased following ripple events during correct, but not incorrect, retrieval. This expansion correlated with faster reaction times and reinstatement of the target association. Crucially, hippocampal theta and cortical gamma phase-amplitude coupling emerged after ripples but before cortical expansion, suggesting a mechanism for ripple-driven communication. Ripple events also marked the separation of task-relevant variables in cortical state space, revealing how hippocampal output reshapes the geometry of memory representations to support successful recall

Temporal dynamics and mechanisms of oscillatory pattern reinstatement in human episodic memory

A fundamental question in the investigation of episodic memory is how the human brain represents information from the past. This thesis introduces a new method that tracks content specific representations in rhythmic fluctuations of brain activity (i.e. brain oscillations). It is demonstrated that a frequency band centred at 8 Hz carries information about remembered stimulus content. This is shown in human electrophysiological recordings during episodic memory formation and retrieval. Strong and sustained power decreases consistently mark this 8 Hz frequency band; successful memory encoding and retrieval are associated with power decreases in low frequencies (<30 Hz) throughout this thesis and in numerous former studies. The presented results link power decreases to the reinstatement of oscillatory patterns in sensory specific areas for the first time and therefore implicate them in the representation of information. Finally, the temporal dynamics of recollection are investigated by tracking information from distinct sub-events in continuous episodic memories. In behavioural and neural data, memory replay is faster than perception and takes place in a forward direction. Herein, fragments of fine-grained temporal patterns are reinstated; yet, subjects can skip flexibly between sub-events. Leveraging oscillatory mechanisms to track information can therefore identify episodic memory replay as a dynamic process

Re-Organizing Cultural Values: Vers le Sud by Laurent Cantet

Cantet's movie “Vers le sud/ Heading South“ (2005) explores cultural stereotypes and values without being moralizing in a common sense. His drama deals with female sex tourism, political and social violence, power and money in such a way that people are tempted to judge the protagonists: Their desire for young black men is called “embarrassing“, they are seen as corrupting and as actors in a new kind of imperialism. In fact the images in the film organize characters in a certain kind of dualism which leads easily to these argumentations. But having a look at the cultural values that produce the disgust, we see that they are all open to question

Die Aktivisten der ersten Stunde: die Antifa 1945 in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone zwischen Besatzungsmacht und Exil-KPD

Die vorliegende Arbeit untersuchte die Antifa-Ausschüsse und Komitees, die sich unmittelbar vor und nach Kriegsende 1945 in der sowjetischen Besatzungszone gegründet hatten. Die Initatoren dieser Komitees, die sich, wie die Namensgebung verdeutlicht, vor allem vom Nationalsozialismus und Faschismus distanzieren wollten, orientierten sich dabei an entsprechende Propaganda, die ab 1943 vom Nationalkomitee "Freies Deutschland", das in der Sowjetunion gegründet worden war, verbreitet wurde

Large Language Models can Segment Narrative Events Similarly to Humans

Humans perceive discrete events such as "restaurant visits" and "train rides"in their continuous experience. One important prerequisite for studying humanevent perception is the ability of researchers to quantify when one event endsand another begins. Typically, this information is derived by aggregatingbehavioral annotations from several observers. Here we present an alternativecomputational approach where event boundaries are derived using a largelanguage model, GPT-3, instead of using human annotations. We demonstrate thatGPT-3 can segment continuous narrative text into events. GPT-3-annotated eventsare significantly correlated with human event annotations. Furthermore, theseGPT-derived annotations achieve a good approximation of the "consensus"solution (obtained by averaging across human annotations); the boundariesidentified by GPT-3 are closer to the consensus, on average, than boundariesidentified by individual human annotators. This finding suggests that GPT-3provides a feasible solution for automated event annotations, and itdemonstrates a further parallel between human cognition and prediction in largelanguage models. In the future, GPT-3 may thereby help to elucidate theprinciples underlying human event perception.<br

Speed of time-compressed forward replay flexibly changes in human episodic memory

Remembering information from continuous past episodes is a complex task. On the one hand, we must be able to recall events in a highly accurate way that often includes exact timing; on the other hand, we can ignore irrelevant details and skip to events of interest. We here track continuous episodes, consisting of different sub-events, as they are recalled from memory. In behavioral and MEG data, we show that memory replay is temporally compressed and proceeds in a forward direction. Neural replay is characterized by the reinstatement of temporal patterns from encoding. These fragments of activity reappear on a compressed timescale. Herein, the replay of sub-events takes longer than the transition from one sub-event to another. This identifies episodic memory replay as a dynamic process in which participants replay fragments of fine-grained temporal patterns and are able to skip flexibly across sub-events

Large language models can segment narrative events similarly to humans

Humans perceive discrete events such as "restaurant visits" and "train rides" in their continuous experience. One important prerequisite for studying human event perception is the ability of researchers to quantify when one event ends and another begins. Typically, this information is derived by aggregating behavioral annotations from several observers. Here we present an alternative computational approach where event boundaries are derived using a large language model, GPT-3, instead of using human annotations. We demonstrate that GPT-3 can segment continuous narrative text into events. GPT-3-annotated events are significantly correlated with human event annotations. Furthermore, these GPT-derived annotations achieve a good approximation of the "consensus" solution (obtained by averaging across human annotations); the boundaries identified by GPT-3 are closer to the consensus, on average, than boundaries identified by individual human annotators. This finding suggests that GPT-3 provides a feasible solution for automated event annotations, and it demonstrates a further parallel between human cognition and prediction in large language models. In the future, GPT-3 may thereby help to elucidate the principles underlying human event perception

Franklin Cascaes, a divulgação turística em Florianópolis e a invenção da "ilha da magia"

TCC(graduação). Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. CFH.HistóriaEste trabalho tem por objetivo pensar os aspectos da vida e obra de Franklin Cascaes e analisar como essa obra serviu para promoção turística de Florianópolis. Escolhemos dois acontecimentos para a compreensão deste processo: o XVI Congresso da Associação Brasileira dos Agentes de Viagens – ABAV, ocorrida em agosto de 1988, onde Florianópolis teve uma divulgação inspirado na obra de Cascaes; e a adaptação de textos de Cascaes para a televisão por intermédio da produção da minissérie intitulada Ilha das Bruxas, exibida em 1991. Os três capítulos presentes neste trabalho discorrerão sobre as transformações na recepção da obra e Franklin Cascaes. Sobre o desenvolvimento turístico da capital catarinense e sobre o modo como a obra de Cascaes e a cidade de Florianópolis foram abordadas na minissérie Ilha das Bruxas

The ordinary joys and sorrows of becoming an author

Die vorliegende Diplomarbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Betrachtung der Person des/der Autors/Autorin und der Autorenschaft im Allgemeinen und speziell mit ihrer Darstellung in der Populärkultur. Dabei bezieht sich der Autorenbegriff ausschließlich auf das Medium Text. Die Arbeit behandelt primär die derzeitige Tendenz wonach die Person des/der Autors/Autorin und sein/ihr Leben betont werden. Das heißt, sie beleuchtet den allgemeinen Trend den/die Autor/in hervorzuheben, was unter anderem auch besonders in der Produktion von biografischen Filmen Ausdruck findet. Es wird der Frage nachgegangen, wie Filmbiografien die Figur des/der Autors/Autorin darstellen. Anhand von zwei konkreten Filmbeispielen, Geliebte Jane von Julian Jarrold (Orig.: Becoming Jane) und Shakespeare in Love von John Madden, wird die Darstellung der Schriftstellerin Jane Austen sowie die des Bühnendichters William Shakespeare untersucht. Diese Filme werden insbesondere hinsichtlich der Annahme untersucht, dass Filmbiografien das Alltägliche und Gewöhnliche im Leben, und in der Person des/der Autors/Autorin hervorheben. Die Arbeit lässt sich in zwei Teile gliedern. Der erste Teil der Abhandlung beschäftigt sich ganz allgemein mit dem Autorenbegriff und Roland Barthes‘ grundsätzliche Theorien bezüglich der Rolle des Autors, die er in seinem Aufsatz mit dem Titel „Der Tod des Autors“ (1967; Orig.: La mort de l'auteur 1968) formuliert hat. Der zweite Teil baut auf diesen allgemeinen Überlegungen auf und befasst sich mit dem momentanen Trend, den Fokus auf die Person des/der Autors/Autorin zu legen. Neben der Beschreibung des Genres der Filmbiografie werden auch mögliche Gründe für die Hervorhebung des Autors besprochen. Darüber hinaus wird dieses Phänomen anhand der Beispiele des Rummels um Jane Austen und William Shakespeare beschrieben. Basierend auf der Annahme, dass biografische Filme die Aspekte des Alltäglichen, Vertrauten und Gewöhnlichen hervorheben, liegt der Schwerpunkt dieser Arbeit auf der Analyse derselben in der Darstellung der Personen und ihres Lebens. Die Analyse hat bestätigt, dass beide Filme die alltäglichen, gewöhnlichen und dem Zuseher vertrauten Aspekte bezüglich des Lebens und der Person des/der jeweiligen Autors/Autorin hervorheben. Diese Aspekte sind gekonnt mit der Darstellung des Lebens im 18. bzw. 16. Jahrhundert gekoppelt. Jane Austen und William Shakespeare, werden als bodenständige, junge Leute gezeigt, mit denen sich der Zuseher identifizieren kann. Diese außergewöhnlichen Schriftsteller werden also außerordentlich gewöhnlich dargestellt.As a result of the current hype about the author there has been a steady increase in the production of film biographies in recent years. The author that Roland Barthes had declared dead has been resurrected. It is suggested that the method applied in prioritizing the person behind the author in film is one that highlights the ordinary aspect about the author as star. Consequently, an extraordinary individual turns into someone ordinary and close to the audience. This study specifically addresses the question as to how biopics depict the ordinary aspects concerning an author’s life with the example of the screen biographies Becoming Jane and Shakespeare in Love