Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Perception of Bodily Expressions of Emotion and the Implications for Computing

Increasingly rapid technological developments in robotics, human-computer interaction (HCI), and the computer and video games industry have led to the development of quite sophisticated, intelligent robots and realistic, computer-generated characters. These robots and characters vary in their human-like qualities, from visual and behavioural replicas of humans, to androids, aliens or other beings that have some human characteristics, to creatures that have little in common with humans. The most common human-like qualities evidenced by these robots and characters are intelligence, looks, movements and language. Yet until very recently they were often not endowed with much in the way of emotions, and when they were they typically appeared emotionally underdeveloped, stilted, or false. For example, in James Cameron’s film Terminator 2, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays an emotionless but intelligent humanoid robot. The film character explains that it is equipped with a microchip based on connectionist neural-net architecture. He comes to understand the patterning of human emotional behaviour but, of course, he does not have feelings or emotions. This was also true of other animated or computer-generated characters in films. Even if the characters gave rise to highly emotional video game or film scenes, the users or audience were in agreement that the characters were emotionally impoverished or did not have emotions at all. In large part this was and still is a technological issue: advances made in endowing machines and computer-generated characters with realistic emotions have not kept pace with the rapid advances in endowing such machines and characters with realistic intelligence, looks, movements and language. Nonetheless, given that these robots and characters are designed to interact with humans, and that emotions are so central to successful social interactions, effective implementation of emotions in these robots and characters is vital. The latest developments in HCI include an area that is concerned with implementing emotions with mostly human-like characteristics into HCI technology. About 10 years ago, even a completely new field of computer science emerged that is based on such an attempt, namely “affective computing” (Picard, 1997). Since then, various attempts have been made either to implement emotions into machines or have machines that express emotional reactions. A close examination of these examples reveals two ways of implementing emotions and emotional reactions in HCI technology. First, emotions are seen as
What do Ads Buy? Daily Coverage of Listed Companies on the Italian Press

We match data on the daily newspaper coverage of a sample of Italian listed companies with Nielsen data on the monthly amount of advertising that a given company has purchased on a given newspaper. Controlling for newspaper and company fixed effects, we show that newspaper coverage of a given company is positively related with the amount of ads purchased on that newspaper by that company. We also find that coverage of a company is higher the day after a press release, but especially so on newspapers where more ads are purchased. This result on press releases is robust to controlling for ownership links between newspapers and companies, and –more generally- controlling for time invariant features of each company-newspaper pair, i. e. for (company × newspaper) fixed effects. Moreover, coverage is correlated with past day absolute return and trading volume, and this relationship appears to be steeper for those newspapers where more ads are purchased.
Skin denervation in vasculitic neuropathy.

BACKGROUND Skin denervation in vasculitic neuropathy has rarely been documented despite frequent manifestations of small-fiber neuropathy including reduced sensitivity and neuropathic pain. Recently, skin biopsy has been established as a new approach to diagnose small-fiber sensory neuropathy. OBJECTIVES To investigate the pathologic features of cutaneous nerves and to evaluate inflammatory vasculopathy in the skin of patients with vasculitis. DESIGN Case series. SETTING National Taiwan University Hospital, Taipei. Patients Six patients with vasculitic neuropathy. INTERVENTIONS Patients had 3-mm punch biopsy specimens taken from the distal part of the leg (without active vasculitic lesions) and a sural nerve biopsy specimen was taken in addition to detailed neurologic examinations, laboratory investigations, and nerve conduction studies. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Results of nerve conduction studies, epidermal nerve fiber density studies, and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS All 6 patients had combined large- and small-nerve-fiber involvement on the neurologic examinations. Nerve conduction studies showed a pattern of axonal neuropathy or mononeuropathy multiplex. Epidermal nerve fiber densities were significantly reduced in the skin of all patients, consistent with concomitant small-fiber neuropathies. Perivascular infiltration by T cells and macrophages was demonstrated by immunohistochemistry. All patients experienced neurologic improvement in muscle strength and alleviation of sensory symptoms after immunotherapy with corticosteroids, plasma exchange, or cyclophosphamide. CONCLUSIONS Small-diameter sensory nerves are affected in vasculitis in addition to the well-known effect of vasculitis on large-diameter nerves. Significant inflammatory vasculopathy is present in the skin despite the absence of clinically active vasculitic lesions.
Diversity of ENSO Events Unified by Convective Threshold Sea Surface Temperature: A Nonlinear ENSO Index

We show that the well‐known failure of any single index to capture the diversity and extremes of El Niño‐Southern Oscillation (ENSO) results from the inability of existing indices to uniquely characterize the average longitude of deep convection in the Walker Circulation. We present a simple sea surface temperature (SST)‐based index of this longitude that compactly characterizes the different spatial patterns, or flavors of observed and projected ENSO events. It recovers the familiar global responses of temperature, precipitation, and tropical cyclones to ENSO and identifies historical extreme El Niño events. Despite its simplicity, the new longitude index describes the nonlinear relationship between the first two principal components of SST, and unlike previous indices, accounts for background SST changes associated with the seasonal cycle and climate change. The index reveals that extreme El Niño, El Niño Modoki, and La Niña events are projected to become more frequent in the future at the expense of neutral ENSO conditions.
ERCC1 intron 1 was associated with breast cancer risk

Introduction There are numerous studies addressing associations of polymorphisms in DNA repair genes and cancer risks because accurate and efficient DNA repair is crucial to genomic integrity and fidelity. ERCC1 is important in DNA nucleotide excision repair. Material and methods We genotyped constitutive variants of ERCC1 in approximately 300 adults with breast adenocarcinoma and 126 controls of Iranian women. In total, 426 Iranian sporadic breast cancer affected women compared to the control group were studied by PCR-RFLP for ERCC1 variant. Results The genotype ERCC1 TT has the highest frequency in both groups (36.6 in patients and 8.5 in controls). The genotype ERCC1 was the most important risk factor in our population [GG/AA odds ratio: 0.692, 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.4-1.199, p = 0.188; GG/AG odds ratio: 3.333, 95% CI: 1.917-5.795, p = 0.001; AA/AG odds ratio: 0.208, 95% CI: 0.124-0.348, p = 0.342]. Conclusions Our patients was associated with breast cancer risk.
Clinical manifestation and sensitization of allergic children from Malaysia

Background An epidemiological rise of allergic diseases in developing countries raises new challenges. Currently a paucity of data exists describing allergy symptomology and sensitization to common food and aeroallergens in young children from developing countries. Objective To compare changes in symptomology, food allergen sensitization and aeroallergen sensitization in a cross-sectional study of children <2 years and 2-10 years. Methods A total of 192 allergic children (aged <2 years, 35 children; aged 2-10 years, 157 children) underwent specific IgE (>0.35 kU/L) to common food (egg white, cow's milk, cod fish, wheat, peanut, soya, peanut, and shrimp) and house dust mites (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus and Blomia tropicalis). Results In children <2 years, atopic dermatitis (65.7%) was the most common symptom whereas in children 2-10 years it was rhinoconjunctivitis (74.5%). Higher sensitization rate to eggs (p < 0.01) and cow's milk (p = 0.044) was seen in <2 years group when compared to the 2-10 years group, but no significant differences for shrimp (p = 0.29), wheat (p = 0.23) and soya (p = 0.057). Interestingly, sensitization to peanut (p = 0.012) and fish (p = 0.035) was significantly decreased in the 2-10 years group. Sensitization to house dust mites (p < 0.01) dramatically increased in the older children. Conclusion Our study supports concept of atopic march from a developing country like Malaysia.
Report on the XML mining track at INEX 2005 and INEX 2006: categorization and clustering of XML documents

This article is a report concerning the two years of the XML Mining track at INEX (2005 and 2006). We focus here on the classification and clustering of XML documents. We detail these two tasks and the corpus used for this challenge and then present a summary of the different methods proposed by the participants. We last compare the results obtained during the two years of the track.
α-Ketoglutaric Semialdehyde Dehydrogenase Isozymes Involved in Metabolic Pathways of D-Glucarate, D-Galactarate, and Hydroxy-L-proline

Azospirillum brasilense possesses an alternative pathway of l-arabinose metabolism in which α-ketoglutaric semialdehyde (αKGSA) dehydrogenase (KGSADH) is involved in the last step, the conversion of αKGSA to α-ketoglutarate. In the preceding studies, we identified a set of metabolic genes of the l-arabinose pathway including the KGSADH gene (Watanabe, S., Kodaki, T., and Makino, K. (2006) J. Biol. Chem. 281, 2612-2623; Watanabe, S. , Kodaki, T. , and Makino, K. (2006) J. Biol. Chem. 281, 28876-28888; Watanabe, S. , Shimada, N. , Tajima, K. , Kodaki, T. , and Makino, K. (2006) J. Biol. Chem. 281, 33521-33536). Here, we describe that A. brasilense possesses two different KGSADH isozymes from l-arabinose-related enzyme (KGSADH-I); that is, d-glucarate/d-galactarate-inducible KGSADH-II and hydroxy-l-proline-inducible KGSADH-III. They were purified homogeneously from A. brasilense cells grown on d-galactarate or hydroxy-l-proline, respectively. When compared with KGSADH-I, amino acid sequences of KGSADH-II and KGSADH-III were significantly similar but not totally identical. Physiological characterization using recombinant enzymes revealed that KGSADH-II and KGSADH-III showed similar high substrate specificity for αKGSA and different coenzyme specificity; that is, NAD+-dependent KGSADH-II and NADP+-dependent KGSADH-III. In the phylogenetic tree of the aldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) superfamily, KGSADH-II and KGSADH-III were poorly related to the known ALDH subclasses including KGSADH-I. On the other hand, ALDH-like ycbD protein involved in d-glucarate/d-galactarate operon from Bacillus subtilis is closely related to the methylmalonyl semialdehyde dehydrogenase subclass but not A. brasilense KGSADH isozymes. To estimate the correct function, the corresponding gene was expressed, purified, and characterized. Kinetic analysis revealed the physiological role as NADP+-dependent KGSADH. We conclude that three different types of KGSADH appeared in the bacterial evolutional stage convergently. Furthermore, even the same pathway such as l-arabinose and d-glucarate/d-galactarate metabolism also evolved by the independent involvement of KGSADH.
Fluorescence-enhanced optical tomography in small volume: Telegrapher and Diffusion models

Small animal fluorescence-enhanced optical tomography has possibility for restruc- turing drug discovery and preclinical investigation of drug candidates. However, accurate modeling of photon propagation in small animals is critical to quantitatively obtain accurate tomographic images. The diffusion approximation is commonly used for biomedical optical diagnostic techniques in turbid large media where absorption is low compared to scattering system. Unfortunately, this approximation has significant limitations to accurately predict radiative transport in turbid small media and also in a media where absorption is high compared to scattering systems. A radiative transport equation (RTE) is best suited for photon propagation in human tissues. However, such models are quite expensive computationally. To alleviate the problems of the high computational cost of RTE and inadequacies of the diffusion equation in a small volume, we use telegrapher equation (TE) in the frequency domain for fluorescence-enhanced optical tomography problems. The telegrapher equation can accurately and efficiently predict ballistic as well as diffusion-limited transport regimes which could simultaneously exist in small animals. The accuracy of telegrapher- based model is tested by comparing with the diffusion-based model using stimulated data in a small volume. This work demonstrates the use of the telegrapher-based model in small animal optical tomography problems.
Characterization of the H1t Promoter: Role of Conserved Histone 1 AC and TG Elements and Dominance of the Cap-Proximal Silencer1

Abstract H1t is a testis-specific variant histone 1 gene transcribed in pachytene spermatocytes. As part of a program to understand its transcriptional control, we have investigated the effect of the cap-proximal, GC-rich silencer element in the context of various lengths of upstream sequence. By transient transfection of NIH 3T3 cells, we showed that a targeted mutation in the silencer has a large (>10-fold) effect on reporter gene expression, regardless of the length of upstream sequence present. No other discrete silencing activity was observed in the upstream region extending to nucleotide −1842. Similarly, when the silencer mutation was introduced into the natural gene, H1t expression was readily detected in permanently transfected cells by both RNase protection and Western blot analysis, regardless of the extent of 5′ or 3′ flanking genomic DNA. In constructs with the mutated silencer, we showed interdependence of the characteristic H1 AC and TG box regulatory elements. Promoter up-regulation occurred only when both were intact, and possibly identical binding factors were demonstrated for each by electrophoretic mobility shift assays. In view of its precisely regulated but limited expression, it is interesting that H1t retains all the promoter elements known to activate standard H1 genes, including the TG/AC unit, SP1 site, and CCAAT element. Their presence emphasizes the apparent dominance of the silencer element in most cells.
Automatically organizing digital photographs using time and content

We present similarity-based methods to cluster digital photos by time and image content. This approach is general, unsupervised, and makes minimal assumptions regarding the structure or statistics of the photo collection. We describe versions of the algorithm using temporal similarity with and without content-based similarity, and compare the algorithms with existing techniques, measured against ground-truth clusters created by humans.
The Detrimental Impact of Maladaptive Personality on Public Mental Health: A Challenge for Psychiatric Practice

Experts in personality psychology and personality disorders have long emphasized the pervasive and persistent detrimental impact of maladaptive personality traits on mental health and functioning. However, in routine psychiatric practice, maladaptive personality is readily ignored and personality traits are seldom incorporated into clinical guidelines. The aim of this narrative review is to outline how pervasively personality influences public mental health and how personality thereby challenges common psychiatric practice. A comprehensive search and synthesis of the scientific literature demonstrates that maladaptive personality traits and personality disorders, in particular high neuroticism and negative affectivity, first, are risk factors for divorce, unemployment, and disability pensioning; second, relate to the prevalence, incidence, and co-occurrence of common mental disorders; third, impair functioning, symptom remission, and recovery in co-occurring common mental disorders; and fourth, predispose to treatment resistance, non-response and poor treatment outcome. In conclusion, maladaptive personality is not only involved in the development and course of mental disorders but also predisposes to chronicity and re-occurrence of psychopathology and reduces the efficacy of psychiatric treatments. The pernicious impact of maladaptive personality on mental health and functioning demands that careful assessment and thorough consideration of personality should be compulsory in psychiatric practice.
Vitamin A Inhibits Development of Dextran Sulfate Sodium-Induced Colitis and Colon Cancer in a Mouse Model

Vitamin A is essential to mucosal immunity and cell differentiation. The fact that lack of it might involve chronic inflammation and increased risk of cancer has been reported. Little is known about the mechanism of vitamin A deficiency in the development of colitis and its influence on development of colorectal cancer. To determine the influence of vitamin A deficiency on colitis and colorectal cancer development, an experimental study using a colitis mouse model was performed. Dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) colitis was induced in vitamin A-deficient and vitamin A-supplemented mice. Further, colorectal carcinoma was induced by a combination of azoxymethane preinjection and DSS colitis. Results were compared between the two groups mainly by immunohistochemical analysis. Colitis was more severe and recovery from colitis was slower in vitamin A-deficient mice than in vitamin A-supplemented mice. Compared with vitamin A-supplemented mice, vitamin A-deficient mice had decreases in colonic subepithelial myofibroblasts and the ratio of mucosal IgA+/IgG+ cells, increases in CD11c+ dendritic cells, and a higher rate of development of colorectal carcinoma with colitis following azoxymethane. Vitamin A lipid droplets in subepithelial myofibroblasts were decreased in vitamin A-deficient mice, suggesting alterations in colonic crypt niche function. Thus, vitamin A inhibited colitis and the development of colorectal cancer.
A comparison of clustering methods for writer identification and verification

An effective method for writer identification and verification is based on assuming that each writer acts as a stochastic generator of ink-trace fragments, or graphemes. The probability distribution of these simple shapes in a given handwriting sample is characteristic for the writer and is computed using a common codebook of graphemes obtained by clustering. In previous studies we used contours to encode the graphemes, in the current paper we explore a complementary shape representation using normalized bitmaps. The most important aim of the current work is to compare three different clustering methods for generating the grapheme codebook: k-means Kohonen SOM 1D and 2D. Large scale computational experiments show that the proposed method is robust to the underlying shape representation used (whether contours or normalized bitmaps), to the size of codebook used (stable performance for sizes from 10/sup 2/ to 2.5 /spl times/ 10/sup 3/) and to the clustering method used to generate the codebook (essentially the same performance was obtained for all three clustering methods).
Evaluating Faces on Trustworthiness

People routinely make various trait judgments from facial appearance, and such judgments affect important social outcomes. These judgments are highly correlated with each other, reflecting the fact that valence evaluation permeates trait judgments from faces. Trustworthiness judgments best approximate this evaluation, consistent with evidence about the involvement of the amygdala in the implicit evaluation of face trustworthiness. Based on computer modeling and behavioral experiments, I argue that face evaluation is an extension of functionally adaptive systems for understanding the communicative meaning of emotional expressions. Specifically, in the absence of diagnostic emotional cues, trustworthiness judgments are an attempt to infer behavioral intentions signaling approach/avoidance behaviors. Correspondingly, these judgments are derived from facial features that resemble emotional expressions signaling such behaviors: happiness and anger for the positive and negative ends of the trustworthiness continuum, respectively. The emotion overgeneralization hypothesis can explain highly efficient but not necessarily accurate trait judgments from faces, a pattern that appears puzzling from an evolutionary point of view and also generates novel predictions about brain responses to faces. Specifically, this hypothesis predicts a nonlinear response in the amygdala to face trustworthiness, confirmed in functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies, and dissociations between processing of facial identity and face evaluation, confirmed in studies with developmental prosopagnosics. I conclude with some methodological implications for the study of face evaluation, focusing on the advantages of formally modeling representation of faces on social dimensions.
Extended Mapping Local Binary Pattern Operator for Texture Classification

In this paper, an Extended Mapping Local Binary Pattern (EMLBP) method is proposed that is used for texture feature extraction. In this method, by extending nonuniform patterns a new mapping technique is suggested that extracts more discriminative features from textures. This new mapping is tested for some LBP operators such as CLBP, LBP, and LTP to improve the classification rate of them. The proposed approach is used for coding nonuniform patterns into more than one feature. The proposed method is rotation invariant and has all the positive points of previous approaches. By concatenating and joining two or more histograms significant improvement can be made for rotation invariant texture classification. The implementation of proposed mapping on Outex, UIUC and CUReT datasets shows that proposed method can improve the rate of classifications. Furthermore, the introduced mapping can increase the performance of any rotation invariant LBP, especially for large neighborhood. The most accurate result of the proposed technique has been obtained for CLBP. It is higher than that of some state-of-the-art LBP versions such as multiresolution CLBP and CLBC, DLBP, VZ_MR8, VZ_Joint, LTP, and LBPV.
Human face structure correlates with professional baseball performance: insights from professional Japanese baseball players

In our daily lives, we use faces as a major source of information about other people. Recent work has begun to highlight how one's facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is linked to a number of behaviours (e.g. deception, aggression and financial performance in firms). fWHR has also been linked to several factors that may be beneficial for sport (e.g. achievement drive, winning mentality and aggression). Despite this, few studies have examined the relationship between fWHR and sports performance, and these have focused on Caucasian sportsmen. Here, we investigated the relationship between fWHR and baseball performance in professional Japanese baseball players. We show that fWHR is positively related with home run performance across two consecutive seasons. The findings provide the first evidence linking fWHR to baseball performance and linking fWHR to behavioural outcomes in Asian participants.