Concordia University

About: Concordia University is a education organization based out in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Control theory & Population. The organization has 13565 authors who have published 31084 publications receiving 783525 citations. The organization is also known as: Sir George Williams University & Loyola College, Montreal.

Taste Regimes and Market-Mediated Practice

Abstract: Taste has been conceptualized as a boundary-making mechanism, yet there is limited theory on how it enters into daily practice. In this article, the authors develop a practice-based framework of taste through qualitative and quantitative analysis of a popular home design blog, interviews with blog participants, and participant observation. First, a taste regime is defined as a discursively constructed normative system that orchestrates practice in an aesthetically oriented culture of consumption. Taste regimes are perpetuated by marketplace institutions such as magazines, websites, and transmedia brands. Second, the authors show how a taste regime regulates practice through continuous engagement. By integrating three dispersed practices—problematization, ritualization, and instrumentalization—a taste regime shapes preferences for objects, the doings performed with objects, and what meanings are associated with objects. This study demonstrates how aesthetics is linked to practical knowledge and becomes materialized through everyday consumption.

Optimizing the kernel in the empirical feature space

Abstract: In this paper, we present a method of kernel optimization by maximizing a measure of class separability in the empirical feature space, an Euclidean space in which the training data are embedded in such a way that the geometrical structure of the data in the feature space is preserved. Employing a data-dependent kernel, we derive an effective kernel optimization algorithm that maximizes the class separability of the data in the empirical feature space. It is shown that there exists a close relationship between the class separability measure introduced here and the alignment measure defined recently by Cristianini. Extensive simulations are carried out which show that the optimized kernel is more adaptive to the input data, and leads to a substantial, sometimes significant, improvement in the performance of various data classification algorithms.

Synchronous, Focally Modulated β-Band Oscillations Characterize Local Field Potential Activity in the Striatum of Awake Behaving Monkeys

Abstract: Synchronous oscillatory activity has been observed in a range of neural networks from invertebrate nervous systems to the human frontal cortex. In humans and other primates, sensorimotor regions of the neocortex exhibit synchronous oscillations in the β-frequency band (∼15-30 Hz), and these are also prominent in the cerebellum, a brainstem sensorimotor region. However, recordings in the basal ganglia have suggested that such β-band oscillations are not normally a primary feature of these structures. Instead, they become a dominant feature of neural activity in the basal ganglia in Parkinson's disease and in parkinsonian states induced by dopamine depletion in experimental animals. Here we demonstrate that when multiple electrodes are used to record local field potentials, 10-25 Hz oscillations can be readily detected in the striatum of normal macaque monkeys. These normally occurring oscillations are highly synchronous across large regions of the striatum. Furthermore, they are subject to dynamic modulation when monkeys perform a simple motor task to earn rewards. In the striatal region representing oculomotor activity, we found that small focal zones could pop in and out of synchrony as the monkeys made saccadic eye movements, suggesting that the broadly synchronous oscillatory activity interfaces with modular spatiotemporal patterns of task-related activity. We suggest that the background β-band oscillations in the striatum could help to focus action-selection network functions of cortico-basal ganglia circuits.