Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Revealing Critical Channels and Frequency Bands for EEG-based Emotion Recognition with Deep Belief Network

For EEG-based emotion recognition tasks, there are many irrelevant channel signals contained in multichannel EEG data, which may cause noise and degrade the performance of emotion recognition systems. In order to tackle this problem, we propose a novel deep belief network (DBN) based method for examining critical channels and frequency bands in this paper. First, we design an emotion experiment and collect EEG data while subjects are watching emotional film clips. Then we train DBN for recognizing three emotions (positive, neutral, and negative) with extracted differential entropy features as input and compare DBN with other shallow models such as KNN, LR, and SVM. The experiment results show that DBN achieves the best average accuracy of 86.08%. We further explore critical channels and frequency bands by examining the weight distribution learned by DBN, which is different from the existing work. We present four profiles with 4, 6, 9 and 12 channels, which achieve recognition accuracies of 82.88%, 85.03%, 84.02%, 86.65%, respectively, using SVM.
Comparison of surgically induced astigmatism in various incisions in manual small incision cataract surgery.

AIM To determine the surgically induced astigmatism (SIA) in Straight, Frown and Inverted V shape (Chevron) incisions in manual small incision cataract surgery (SICS). METHODS A prospective cross sectional study was done on a total of 75 patients aged 40y and above with senile cataract. The patients were randomly divided into three groups (25 each). Each group received a particular type of incision (Straight, Frown or Inverted V shape incisions). Manual SICS with intraocular lens (IOL) implantation was performed. The patients were compared 4wk post operatively for uncorrected visual acuity (UCVA), best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) and SIA. All calculations were performed using the SIA calculator version 2.1, a free software program. The study was analyzed using SPSS version 15.0 statistical analysis software. RESULTS The study found that 89.5% of patients in Straight incision group, 94.2% in Frown incision group and 95.7% in Inverted V group attained BCVA post-operatively in the range of 6/6 to 6/18. Mean SIA was minimum (-0.88±0.61D×90 degrees) with Inverted V incision which was statistically significant. CONCLUSION Inverted V (Chevron) incision gives minimal SIA.
Producing mobility through locality and visibility: Developing a transnational perspective on sports labour migration

To date, studies of sports labour migration have afforded little attention to analyses of how individual athletes relate to historical and macro- structural power relations and forces. In this article, we set out to develop a transnational perspective on sports labour migration, focusing particularly on migrants’ achievement and maintenance of mobility as a key constituting factor in migratory movements. We argue that athletic mobility is an on-going process, a commodity that must continuously be achieved. The article provides material from an on-going PhD project concerning migratory routes between African and Scandinavian women’s football, and focuses attention on a case study of Nigerian women footballers’ migration out of their country of origin and into Scandinavian football clubs. The article concludes that, despite the unequal power relations that shape the global trade in athletic talent, sports migrants assert agency and control over important aspects of transnational movement and mobility.
Fast Subspace Search via Grassmannian Based Hashing

The problem of efficiently deciding which of a database of models is most similar to a given input query arises throughout modern computer vision. Motivated by applications in recognition, image retrieval and optimization, there has been significant recent interest in the variant of this problem in which the database models are linear subspaces and the input is either a point or a subspace. Current approaches to this problem have poor scaling in high dimensions, and may not guarantee sub linear query complexity. We present a new approach to approximate nearest subspace search, based on a simple, new locality sensitive hash for subspaces. Our approach allows point-to-subspace query for a database of subspaces of arbitrary dimension d, in a time that depends sub linearly on the number of subspaces in the database. The query complexity of our algorithm is linear in the ambient dimension D, allowing it to be directly applied to high-dimensional imagery data. Numerical experiments on model problems in image repatching and automatic face recognition confirm the advantages of our algorithm in terms of both speed and accuracy.
A 1500‐year El Niño/Southern Oscillation and rainfall history for the Isthmus of Panama from speleothem calcite

Received 25 February 2004; revised 28 May 2004; accepted 6 August 2004; published 30 October 2004. (1) The effect of the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) on tropical rainfall variations of the past 2 millennia is largely unknown. High-resolution monsoon records are sparse, despite the role of ENSO in generating global hydrologic anomalies in modern climate. To investigate the relationship between ENSO and the Central American Monsoon, we generated a high-resolution (2.9 years/sample) oxygen-isotope monsoon rainfall record from a U/Th-dated stalagmite (180 B.C. to 1310 A.D.) from the Isthmus of Panama. We present evidence for a weakened monsoon during the ''High Medieval'' (1100-1200 A.D.) and the Classic Maya Collapse (750-950 A.D.). Rainfall decreased and was more variable after 550 A.D., and the period 900-1310 A.D. was drier than the preceding millennium. A weaker monsoon corresponds with increased El Nino variability, and our data display statistical variance in the ENSO band. We conclude that ENSO variation has forced isthmian rainfall and may have contributed to hemispheric climatic anomalies at this time. INDEX TERMS: 1040 Geochemistry: Isotopic composition/chemistry; 1620 Global Change: Climate dynamics (3309); 1854 Hydrology: Precipitation (3354); 3344 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Paleoclimatology; 3339 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Ocean/atmosphere interactions (0312, 4504); KEYWORDS: paleoclimate, El Nino/Southern Oscillation, speleothem, Medieval Climatic Anomaly, Intertropical Convergence Zone, Panama
Inherent Variation in Stable Isotope Values and Discrimination Factors in Two Life Stages of Green Turtles

We examine inherent variation in carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values of multiple soft tissues from a population of captive green turtles Chelonia mydas to determine the extent of isotopic variation due to individual differences in physiology. We compare the measured inherent variation in the captive population with the isotopic variation observed in a wild population of juvenile green turtles. Additionally, we measure diet-tissue discrimination factors to determine the offset that occurs between isotope values of the food source and four green turtle tissues. Tissue samples (epidermis, dermis, serum, and red blood cells) were collected from captive green turtles in two life stages (40 large juveniles and 30 adults) at the Cayman Turtle Farm, Grand Cayman, and analyzed for carbon and nitrogen stable isotopes. Multivariate normal models were fit to the isotope data, and the Bayesian Information Criterion was used for model selection. Inherent variation and discrimination factors differed among tissues and life stages. Inherent variation was found to make up a small portion of the isotopic variation measured in a wild population. Discrimination factors not only are tissue and life stage dependent but also appear to vary with diet and sea turtle species, thus highlighting the need for appropriate discrimination factors in dietary reconstructions and trophic-level estimations. Our measures of inherent variation will also be informative in field studies employing stable isotope analysis so that differences in diet or habitat are more accurately identified.
Growth of Myxococcus xanthus in Continuous-Flow-Cell Bioreactors as a Method for Studying Development

ABSTRACT Nutrient sensors and developmental timers are two classes of genes vital to the establishment of early development in the social soil bacterium Myxococcus xanthus. The products of these genes trigger and regulate the earliest events that drive the colony from a vegetative state to aggregates, which ultimately leads to the formation of fruiting bodies and the cellular differentiation of the individual cells. In order to more accurately identify the genes and pathways involved in the initiation of this multicellular developmental program in M. xanthus, we adapted a method of growing vegetative populations within a constant controllable environment by using flow cell bioreactors, or flow cells. By establishing an M. xanthus community within a flow cell, we are able to test developmental responses to changes in the environment with fewer concerns for effects due to nutrient depletion or bacterial waste production. This approach allows for greater sensitivity in investigating communal environmental responses, such as nutrient sensing. To demonstrate the versatility of our growth environment, we carried out time-lapse confocal laser scanning microscopy to visualize M. xanthus biofilm growth and fruiting body development, as well as fluorescence staining of exopolysaccharides deposited by biofilms. We also employed the flow cells in a nutrient titration to determine the minimum concentration required to sustain vegetative growth. Our data show that by using a flow cell, M. xanthus can be held in a vegetative growth state at low nutrient concentrations for long periods, and then, by slightly decreasing the nutrient concentration, cells can be allowed to initiate the developmental program.
Reference Trajectory Generation for Rehabilitation Robots: Complementary Limb Motion Estimation

For gait rehabilitation robots, an important question is how to ensure stable gait, while avoiding any interaction forces between robot and human in case the patient walks correctly. To achieve this, the definition of ldquocorrectrdquo gait needs to adapted both to the individual patient and to the situation. Recently, we proposed a method for online trajectory generation that can be applied for hemiparetic subjects. Desired states for one (disabled) leg are generated online based on the movements of the other (sound) leg. An instantaneous mapping between legs is performed by exploiting physiological interjoint couplings. This way, the patient generates the reference motion for the affected leg autonomously. The approach, called Complementary Limb Motion Estimation (CLME), is implemented on the LOPES gait rehabilitation robot and evaluated with healthy subjects in two different experiments. In a previously described study, subjects walk only with one leg, while the robot's other leg acts as a fake prosthesis, to simulate complete loss of function in one leg. This study showed that CLME ensures stable gait. In a second study, to be presented in this paper, healthy subjects walk with both their own legs to assess the interference with self-determined walking. Evaluation criteria are: Power delivered to the joints by the robot, electromyography (EMG) distortions, and kinematic distortions, all compared to zero torque control, which is the baseline of minimum achievable interference. Results indicate that interference of the robot is lower with CLME than with a fixed reference trajectory, mainly in terms of lowered exchanged power and less alteration of EMG. This implies that subjects can walk more naturally with CLME, and they are assisted less by the robot when it is not needed. Future studies with patients are yet to show whether these properties of CLME transfer to the clinical domain.
Conversion and Religious Habitus: The Experiences of Irish Women Converts to Islam in the Pre-Celtic Tiger Era

This article discusses the conversion narratives of Irish women and their reconstruction of the different stages of their lives before converting ultimately to Islam in Ireland of the 1980s. By looking at the converts' accounts of their past, in particular their emphasis on the role Catholicism had played in their upbringing, the article asserts that the image Irish women had of themselves and of life cannot be separated from the Catholic Church's understanding of women and their lives. Using Pierre Bourdieu's understanding of religious habitus to examine the women's lives before converting to Islam, the article illustrates the influence of the converts' former Catholic habitus on their particular approach to Islam, particularly the specific Salafi branch they have adopted. Unlike Olivier Roy who observes a characteristically Protestant approach among Salafi Muslims, Irish women converts display a Catholic approach to Salafism, thereby exemplifying that conversions do not necessarily entail a radical rupture from the past but often a continuation of existing beliefs and practices.
Effects of Fish and Plankton and Lake Temperature and Mixing Depth

A comparative study of small temperate lakes (<20 square kilometers) indicates that the mixing depth or epilimnion is directly related to light penetration measured as Secchi depth. Clearer lakes have deeper mixing depths. This relation is the result of greater penetration of incident solar radiation in lakes and enclosures with high water clarity. Data show that light penetration is largely a function of size distribution and biomass of algae as indicated by a relation between the index of plankton size distribution (slope) and Secchi depth. Larger or steeper slopes (indicative of communities dominated by small plankton) are associated with shallower Secchi depth. In lakes with high abundances of planktivorous fish, water clarity or light penetration is reduced because large zooplankton, which feed on small algae, are reduced by fish predation. The net effect is a shallower mixing depth, lower metalimnetic temperature and lower heat content in the water column. Consequently, the biomass and size distribution of plankton can change the thermal structure and heat content of small lakes by modifying light penetration.
Linear perfect secret key agreement

A linear scheme is proposed for multiterminal secret key agreement under a private finite linear source model with public discussion. With a wiretapper observing the public discussion and a subset of the source components, it attains the secrecy capacity perfectly and non-asymptotically with a finite block length. Upper bounds on the block length and public discussion rate are given.
A Consistent Loyalty Measure for Generalized Logit Models

Since the pioneering work of Guadagni and Little (1983), the most common method of accounting for household-level preference heterogeneity in the multinomial logit model has been the loyalty variable, an exponentially-weighted average of a household's past purchases. Although this approach has considerable intuitive appeal, it has not been provided with a rigorous statistical foundation. The present paper argues that loyalty variables, construed purely as cross-sectional measures of preference heterogeneity, should be constructed with reference to a particular model of choice behavior and assumptions regarding how marketing activity evolves over time. Beginning with a generalized form of the logit model consistent with both Jeuland's (1979) inertial choice framework and the Lightning Bolt model of Roy, Chintagunta and Haldar (1996), a loyalty measure is derived which is a consistent estimate of the household's underlying brand preferences; the proposed procedure is compared to other methods, including that of Guadagni and Little, using both simulated and actual household-level scanner panel purchase data. Relative to the derived loyalty measure, estimated choice models based upon these alternative measures t more poorly and, intriguingly, show an inability to account for data with a pronounced rst-order choice dependence. We argue that the proposed loyalty measure's superior performance owes to its derivation from a modelling framework capable of distinguishing the e ects of habit-persistence and brand loyalty.
The Influence of Achievement Goal Orientations and Task Concreteness on Situational Interest

This study investigated changes in elementary school students’ (n = 140) situational interest as a function of achievement goal orientation profiles and task characteristics. The authors repeatedly measured situational interest during a simulated science learning task in 2 task conditions that differed in the concreteness of the task elements. The authors identified 3 groups of students with different goal orientation profiles: success-, mastery-, and avoidance-oriented. Results of repeated-measures analysis of covariance showed that students with different profiles displayed different patterns of changes in situational interest in the 2 task conditions. The results confirmed the importance of acknowledging the interaction of student and task characteristics in the arousal and maintenance of situational interest across a learning task.
Microtubule Binding and Disruption and Induction of Premature Senescence by Disorazole C1

Disorazoles comprise a family of 29 macrocyclic polyketides isolated from the fermentation broth of the myxobacterium Sorangium cellulosum. The major fermentation product, disorazole A1, was found previously to irreversibly bind to tubulin and to have potent cytotoxic activity against tumor cells, possibly because of its highly electrophilic epoxide moiety. To test this hypothesis, we synthesized the epoxide-free disorazole C1 and found it retained potent antiproliferative activity against tumor cells, causing prominent G2/M phase arrest and inhibition of in vitro tubulin polymerization. Furthermore, disorazole C1 produced disorganized microtubules at interphase, misaligned chromosomes during mitosis, apoptosis, and premature senescence in the surviving cell populations. Using a tubulin polymerization assay, we found disorazole C1 inhibited purified bovine tubulin polymerization, with an IC50 of 11.8 ± 0.4 μM, and inhibited [3H]vinblastine binding noncompetitively, with a Ki of 4.5 ± 0.6 μM. We also found noncompetitive inhibition of [3H]dolastatin 10 binding by disorazole C1, with a Ki of 10.6 ± 1.5 μM, indicating that disorazole C1 bound tubulin uniquely among known antimitotic agents. Disorazole C1 could be a valuable chemical probe for studying the process of mitotic spindle disruption and its relationship to premature senescence.
Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Prevents Apoptosis and Preserves Contractile Function in Hypertrophied Infant Heart

Background— Cardiac hypertrophy is an adaptive response to increased workload that, if unrelieved, leads to heart failure. It has been reported that cardiomyocyte apoptosis contributes to failure, and that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) treatment of hypertrophied myocardium increases capillary density and improves myocardial perfusion. In this study we hypothesized that VEGF treatment reduces cardiomyocyte apoptosis and thereby preserves myocardial contractile function. Methods and Results— Newborn rabbits underwent aortic banding. At 4 and 6 weeks of age, hypertrophied animals were treated with intrapericardial administration of recombinant VEGF protein. Three groups of animals were investigated: age-matched controls (C), untreated hypertrophied (H), and VEGF-treated hypertrophied hearts (T). Cardiomyocyte apoptosis was determined by TUNEL staining and PARP cleavage (immunoblotting of nuclear extracts) and cardiac function by transthoracic echocardiography. Death attributable to severe heart failure occurred in 14 of 43 untreated and 2 of 29 VEGF-treated animals (P<0.01). TUNEL-positive cardiomyocyte nuclei (n/1000 nuclei) were significantly increased in untreated hearts at 5 weeks (H: 10±1.8 versus T: 3±0.7) and at 7 weeks (H: 13±3.6 versus T: 5±1.5; P<0.05). Increased apoptosis in untreated hypertrophy was also confirmed by the presence of PARP cleavage (H: 74±7 versus T: 41±4 arbitrary densitometry units; P<0.05). VEGF treatment preserved left ventricular mass, prevented dilation (T: 1.01±0.06 versus H: 0.77±0.07; P<0.05), and preserved contractility indices compared with untreated hearts. Conclusions— Lack of adaptive capillary growth impairs myocardial perfusion and substrate delivery in hypertrophying myocardium. VEGF treatment reduces myocardial apoptosis and prolongs survival in a model of severe progressive left ventricular hypertrophy. Promoting capillary growth with VEGF reduces apoptosis, preserves myocardial contractile function, and delays the onset of failure in pressure-loaded infant myocardium.
Tumor necrosis factor genetic polymorphisms and response to antiviral therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C

OBJECTIVE:Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is the major causal agent of non-A, non-B hepatitis and the leading indication for liver transplantation worldwide. The emerging field of immunogenetics has confirmed the significant role of heritability in host immune responses to infectious pathogens. Both the major and non-major histocompatibility complex genes are increasingly identified as candidate genes hypothesized to influence the susceptibility to, or the course of, a particular disease. We hypothesized that polymorphisms within the major histocompatibility complex class III region that encode for tumor necrosis factors (TNF)-α and TNF-β might be predictive of response to antiviral therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C.METHODS:A total of 155 subjects, including 110 HCV-seropositive individuals undergoing antiviral therapy and 45 ethnically similar HCV-negative controls, were studied. The HCV-positive patients had undergone antiviral treatment with either interferon monotherapy (n = 73) or in combination with ribavirin (n = 37) and were categorized as either nonresponders, sustained responders, or relapsers. Sixty (55%) patients had genotype 1 (1a or 1b). Genomic DNA was extracted, followed by polymerase chain reaction amplification and sequencing for two promoter TNF-α variants (at positions –238 and –308), as well as restriction fragment length analysis for four polymorphic loci within the TNF-β gene (NcoI, TNFc, aa13, aa26). RESULTS:Although there was a trend toward higher frequency of the A allele in the TNF 238 promoter among HCV-infected patients (12% vs 4%), there were no significant differences in the distribution of the genotypic polymorphisms between patients and controls. Patients with the TNF 238 A allele had higher pretreatment viral loads as compared with patients homozygous for the wild type allele (7.2 × 106 ± 4.2 × 106 copies/ml vs 3.8 × 106 ± 0.34 × 106 copies/ml, p = 0.03). However, there was no association between TNF genetic markers, including multiple haplotypic combinations, and response to therapy. In addition, there was no correlation with these polymorphic loci and histological severity of liver disease.CONCLUSIONS:Although previous work has suggested potential roles for TNF in the pathogenesis of HCV infection, we were unable to identify any link between TNF genetic polymorphisms and histological severity or response to antiviral therapy.