Consumer buying motivations can be distinguished into three categories: functional, experiential, or symbolic motivations (Keller, 1993). Although prior neuroimaging studies have examined the neural substrates which enable these motivations, direct comparisons between these three types of consumer motivations have yet to be made. In the current study, we used 7 Tesla (7T) functional magnetic re...

A possible functional role of finger representations for the development of early numerical cognition has been the subject of recent debate; however, until now, only behavioral studies have directly supported this view. Working from recent models of number processing, we focused on the neural networks involved in numerical tasks and their relationship to the areas underlying finger representati...

HIGHLIGHTS We test whether symbolic number comparison is handled by an analog noisy system.Analog system model has systematic biases in describing symbolic number comparison.This suggests that symbolic and non-symbolic numbers are processed by different systems. Dominant numerical cognition models suppose that both symbolic and non-symbolic numbers are processed by the Analog Number System (ANS...

The neural foundations of arithmetic learning are not well understood. While behavioral studies have revealed relationships between symbolic number processing and individual differences in children's arithmetic performance, the neurocognitive mechanisms that bind symbolic number processing and arithmetic are unknown. The current fMRI study investigated the relationship between children's brain ...

We introduce an estimation of distribution algorithm (EDA) based on co-evolution of fitness maximizers and fitness predictors for improving the performance of evolutionary search when evaluations are prohibitively expensive. Fitness predictors are lightweight objects which, given an evolving individual, heuristically approximate the true fitness. The predictors are trained by their ability to c...

Based on user requirements investigations of typical groupware users, we have elaborated a rating model for collaborative message filtering. In this model, evaluating contributions has a direct effect to the organisational structure of virtual co-operative groups. The model fosters self-organisation and vitalization. The dynamic incentive mechanism mirrors real group dynamics to virtual communi...

We consider pseudodifferential operators that have non-smooth negative definite symbols and develop a corresponding symbolic calculus. Combining this symbolic calculus with the use of non-smooth symbols that are asymptotically constant in the co-variable we succeed in finding a parametrix for a certain pseudodifferential equation. This in turn allows us to show that some pseudodifferential oper...

Tools for performing automated analyses of data communication protocols are frequently based on symbolic execution algorithms that search the behavior of finite state machine models. The symbolic execution algorithms, however, are inherently restricted in the size of the models that they can handle. They work well for models that generate up to 100,000 system states. Beyond that the time and sp...