Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Head Pose: Gaze-Direction Estimation in Multimodal Video

In this paper we present a convolutional neural network (CNN)-based model for human head pose estimation in low-resolution multi-modal RGB-D data. We pose the problem as one of classification of human gazing direction. We further fine-tune a regressor based on the learned deep classifier. Next we combine the two models (classification and regression) to estimate approximate regression confidence. We present state-of-the-art results in datasets that span the range of high-resolution human robot interaction (close up faces plus depth information) data to challenging low resolution outdoor surveillance data. We build upon our robust head-pose estimation and further introduce a new visual attention model to recover interaction with the environment . Using this probabilistic model, we show that many higher level scene understanding like human-human/scene interaction detection can be achieved. Our solution runs in real-time on commercial hardware.
Modeling Galatea : boosting self-efficacy to increase volunteering

The Galatea effect is a boost in performance caused by raising workers' self-expectations. Hypothesizing that self-efficacy is central to one's expectations for success and motivation to perform, we used vicarious experience and verbal persuasion to strengthen the self-efficacy of candidates and to increase the rate of volunteering for special-forces service.
NanoLuc Luciferase – A Multifunctional Tool for High Throughput Antibody Screening

Based on the recent development of NanoLuc luciferase (Nluc), a small (19 kDa), highly stable, ATP independent, bioluminescent protein, an extremely robust and ultra high sensitivity screening system has been developed whereby primary hits of therapeutic antibodies and antibody fragments could be characterized and quantified without purification. This system is very versatile allowing cellular and solid phase ELISA but also homogeneous BRET based screening assays, relative affinity determinations with competition ELISA and direct Western blotting. The new Nluc protein fusion represents a “swiss army knife solution” for today and future high throughput antibody drug screenings.
Bruxism in children with brain damage.

Ninety-one children with brain damage were examined with regard to the degree of dental wear in relation to the degree and symptom of brain damage. Abnormal wear was found in a statistically established greater frequency in the group of children most severely mentally retarded, while it was not found in children of normal intelligence. Of the children with most severe mental retardation, 8 were at a 6-month level of development and all of these had abnormal wear. The others had reached the one-year-old stage, at which it is likely that normal protective reflexes or the ability to sense pain in the parodontium begin to develop. Of 7 children with severe cerebral palsy, 4 showed abnormal wear and also belonged to the most severely mentally retarded group. The investigation shows that abnormal dental wear is more closely related to a low level of mental development than to the degree of severity of cerebral palsy. The absence of proprioception in the parodontium is discussed as a possible cause of bruxism.
Rapid and Simple Determination of Phthalates in Plastic Toys by a Thermal Desorption-GC/MS Method

A thermal desorption (TD)-GC/MS method was applied for the determination of phthalates in plastic children’s toys. The method, which does not need any cumbersome sample pretreatment such as solvent extraction, filtration and derivatization, has been proved to be useful not only as a sensitive analytical method to evaluate phthalate concentration in the toys, but also as a rapid and practical screening method to check whether the concentration exceeds the regulatory limit.
Comparative Study on Antioxidant Effects of Extracts from Rubus coreanus and Rubus occidentalis

This study compared the antioxidant effects of two kinds of black raspberry extract, obtained from fruits of Rubus coreanus and Rubus occidentalis, which can be found in Korea. The fruits of R. coreanus and R. occidentalis were each extracted with 0%, 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% ethanol (EtOH). Among the extracts of these two varieties, 50% EtOH extract of R. occidentalis showed the highest contents of total polyphenols (46.96±2.78 mg/g) and flavonoid compounds (11.77±0.81 mg/g). The 50% EtOH extract of R. occidentalis showed the highest antioxidant activity (84.77±0.97%) in terms of DPPH radical scavenging activity. On the contrary, 25% EtOH extract of R. occidentalis showed the best antioxidant activity (29.65±2.41%) in terms of ABTS radical scavenging activity. In the results of ferric reducing antioxidant power (FRAP) assay, 50% EtOH extract of R. occidentalis showed the highest antioxidant activity (0.49±0.02%). In the cytotoxicity test stimulated with H2O2, the extracts of 75% and 100% EtOH from R. occidentalis showed the highest cell viability (93.54±3.37% and 97.19±0.74%, respectively). According to our results, extracts of R. occidentalis showed higher antioxidant activities than extracts of R. coreanus. Especially, total polyphenol and flavonoid contents of R. occidentalis showed the highest significant correlation with FRAP by Pearson's correlation (P=0.005 and P=0.013, respectively).
World Englishes in international proficiency tests

The demographic dominance of non-native' speakers of English and the growing recognition of world Englishes (WE) call for critical examinations of varieties of English underpinning international proficiency tests. Expectedly, there has been an ongoing debate between those who argue for British and American norms and those who argue for all English norms including WE in international tests. While this welcome debate may develop awareness of WE issues among stakeholders, there has been little research on test-takers and their perspectives on the relevance of WE to high-stakes tests. This paper reports on data from an International English Language Testing System (IELTS) study to explore two questions: (1) How do IELTS test-takers perceive the relevance of WE to the test and why? (2) What are the implications of their perceptions for WE research? Analyses of quantitative and qualitative data show test-takers' mixed views and attitudes: While the majority of them supported WE in an abstract, ideological sense, they were against the inclusion of WE in the test for reasons related to maintaining standards, fairness, equality and test-taker interests. A critical discussion of the findings is undertaken to draw out implications for WE and WE researchers in the context of the dominance of English tests and their hegemonic discourses.
Gait Event Detection during Stair Walking Using a Rate Gyroscope

Gyroscopes have been proposed as sensors for ambulatory gait analysis and functional electrical stimulation systems. These applications often require detection of the initial contact (IC) of the foot with the floor and/or final contact or foot off (FO) from the floor during outdoor walking. Previous investigations have reported the use of a single gyroscope placed on the shank for detection of IC and FO on level ground and incline walking. This paper describes the evaluation of a gyroscope placed on the shank for determination of IC and FO in subjects ascending and descending a set of stairs. Performance was compared with a reference pressure measurement system. The absolute mean difference between the gyroscope and the reference was less than 45 ms for IC and better than 135 ms for FO for both activities. Detection success was over 93%. These results provide preliminary evidence supporting the use of a gyroscope for gait event detection when walking up and down stairs.
Robust Subspace Segmentation with Block-Diagonal Prior

The subspace segmentation problem is addressed in this paper by effectively constructing an exactly block-diagonal sample affinity matrix. The block-diagonal structure is heavily desired for accurate sample clustering but is rather difficult to obtain. Most current state-of-the-art subspace segmentation methods (such as SSC[4] and LRR[12]) resort to alternative structural priors (such as sparseness and low-rankness) to construct the affinity matrix. In this work, we directly pursue the block-diagonal structure by proposing a graph Laplacian constraint based formulation, and then develop an efficient stochastic subgradient algorithm for optimization. Moreover, two new subspace segmentation methods, the block-diagonal SSC and LRR, are devised in this work. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first research attempt to explicitly pursue such a block-diagonal structure. Extensive experiments on face clustering, motion segmentation and graph construction for semi-supervised learning clearly demonstrate the superiority of our novelly proposed subspace segmentation methods.
A Direct Evaluation of mono-Components by instantaneous Frequency

We present a new criterion based on instantaneous frequency (IF) to distinguish mono-components (MCs). We first notice that the "offset of local extremum" caused by low-frequency envelope is often significant on envelope extraction, which determines the calculation of IF for MCs. We estimate the upper and lower bounds of the offset for a general family of signals. Conducted by the offset estimation, we propose a direct and effective algorithm to calculate IF. Our algorithm, which is based on an empirical pursuit of knots and natural splines, provides an accurate estimation of the envelope and derives a well-behaved IF. A theoretical explanation for the good approximation of proposed envelope is also stated. Experiment results show the fast convergence of our algorithm, which leads to a reliable IF and local mean to provide a flexible criterion for MC classification. We emphasize that it is important to pursue a certain balance among different requirements to define MC depending on specific applications.
Validity of a Parent Report Instrument for Irish-speaking Toddlers

Previous research has demonstrated the validity of parent report as an assessment of early vocabulary and grammatical development across a range of languages.This study adapted a well-known tool, the MacArthur—Bates Communicative Development Inventories (MCDI), to Irish (ICDI), in order to measure vocabulary and grammatical development longitudinally across a sample of 21 children. Results from the parent checklists were validated against spontaneous language samples. Correlations demonstrated high concurrent validity for ICDI reported vocabulary with measures of lexical diversity derived from the spontaneous samples. In addition, ICDI measures of grammar also correlated highly with various indices of grammar from the spontaneous samples. Although both ICDI and spontaneous vocabulary measures were highly correlated, the ICDI checklist includes a broader range of language skills and so would seem to capture the range of language ability more comprehensively than direct observation. The findings have implications for developing parent report measures of early language development in highly inflected languages.
The interplay between managerialism and medical professionalism in hospital organisations from the doctors’ perspective: A comparison of two distinctive medical units

Abstract This in-depth qualitative research examines the interplay between medicine and management. It focuses on the reasons why doctors do not always implement administrative guidelines either uniformly or in their entirety, in a context that is expanding managerial supervision. More specifically, we investigated the extent to which managerialism is shaping doctors’ perceptions of their role as doctors and their perceived position towards hospital management. We follow a sociological perspective and analyse structural, contextual and individual dimensions, going back to Weber’s discussion of the meaning of action, in order to interpret how doctors act in two different medical units, one conventional and one cutting-edge. Our argument for analysing individual action in its specific context is that the differences within the medical profession give rise to distinct forms of professionalism and, with this approach, a more complex articulation between managerialism and professionalism can be brought to the debate on the health professions.
Role of SREBP-1 in the Development of Parasympathetic Dysfunction in the Hearts of Type 1 Diabetic Akita Mice

Rationale: Diabetic autonomic neuropathy (DAN), a major complication of diabetes mellitus, is characterized, in part, by impaired cardiac parasympathetic responsiveness. Parasympathetic stimulation of the heart involves activation of an acetylcholine-gated K+ current, IKAch, via a (GIRK1)2/(GIRK4)2 K+ channel. Sterol regulatory element binding protein-1 (SREBP-1) is a lipid-sensitive transcription factor. Objective: We describe a unique SREBP-1–dependent mechanism for insulin regulation of cardiac parasympathetic response in a mouse model for DAN. Methods and Results: Using implantable EKG transmitters, we demonstrated that compared with wild-type, Ins2Akita type I diabetic mice demonstrated a decrease in the negative chronotropic response to carbamylcholine characterized by a 2.4-fold decrease in the duration of bradycardia, a 52±8% decrease in atrial expression of GIRK1 (P<0.01), and a 31.3±2.1% decrease in SREBP-1 (P<0.05). Whole-cell patch-clamp studies of atrial myocytes from Akita mice exhibited a markedly decreased carbamylcholine stimulation of IKAch with a peak value of −181±31 pA/pF compared with −451±62 pA/pF (P<0.01) in cells from wild-type mice. Western blot analysis of extracts of Akita mice demonstrated that insulin treatment increased the expression of GIRK1, SREBP-1, and IKAch activity in atrial myocytes from these mice to levels in wild-type mice. Insulin treatment of cultured atrial myocytes stimulated GIRK1 expression 2.68±0.12-fold (P<0.01), which was reversed by overexpression of dominant negative SREBP-1. Finally, adenoviral expression of SREBP-1 in Akita atrial myocytes reversed the impaired IKAch to levels in cells from wild-type mice. Conclusions: These results support a unique molecular mechanism for insulin regulation of GIRK1 expression and parasympathetic response via SREBP-1, which might play a role in the pathogenesis of DAN in response to insulin deficiency in the diabetic heart.
BRAF Mutation in Colorectal Cancer: An Update

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is still one of the deadliest cancer-related diseases. About 10% of CRC patients are characterized by a mutation in the B-Raf proto-oncogene serine/threonine kinase (BRAF) gene resulting in a valine-to-glutamate change at the residue 600 (V600E). This mutation is also present in more than 60% of melanoma patients. BRAF inhibitors were developed and found to improve patient survival; however, most patients at the end of the track ultimately develop resistance to these inhibitors. Melanoma patients benefit from the combination of BRAF inhibitors with mitogen/extracellular signal-regulated kinase (MEK) inhibitors, among others. Unfortunately, colorectal patients do not respond much efficiently, which suggests different resistance mechanisms between the two cancer types. This review aims at shedding light on recent discoveries that improve our understanding of the BRAF mutation biology in CRC.
Modelling Interactions between Forest Pest Invasions and Human Decisions Regarding Firewood Transport Restrictions

The invasion of nonnative, wood-boring insects such as the Asian longhorned beetle (A. glabripennis) and the emerald ash borer (A. planipennis) is a serious ecological and economic threat to Canadian deciduous and mixed-wood forests. Humans act as a major vector for the spread of these pests via firewood transport, although existing models do not explicitly capture human decision-making regarding firewood transport. In this paper we present a two-patch coupled human-environment system model that includes social influence and long-distance firewood transport and examines potential strategies for mitigating pest spread. We found that increasing concern regarding infestations (f) significantly reduced infestation. Additionally it resulted in multiple thresholds at which the intensity of infestation in a patch was decreased. It was also found that a decrease in the cost of firewood purchased in the area where it is supposed to be burned (C l) resulted in an increased proportion of local-firewood strategists, and a 67% decrease in C l from $6.75 to $4.50 was sufficient to eliminate crosspatch infestation. These effects are synergistic: increasing concern through awareness and education campaigns acts together with reduced firewood costs, thereby reducing the required threshold of both awareness and economic incentives. Our results indicate that the best management strategy includes a combination of public education paired with firewood subsidization.
Intraflagellar Transport Gene Expression Associated with Short Cilia in Smoking and COPD

Smoking and COPD are associated with decreased mucociliary clearance, and healthy smokers have shorter cilia in the large airway than nonsmokers. We hypothesized that changes in cilia length are consistent throughout the airway, and we further hypothesized that smokers with COPD have shorter cilia than healthy smokers. Because intraflagellar transport (IFT) is the process by which cilia of normal length are produced and maintained, and alterations in IFT lead to short cilia in model organisms, we also hypothesized that smoking induces changes in the expression of IFT-related genes in the airway epithelium of smokers and smokers with COPD. To assess these hypotheses, airway epithelium was obtained via bronchoscopic brushing. Cilia length was assessed by measuring 100 cilia (10 cilia on each of 10 cells) per subject and Affymetrix microarrays were used to evaluate IFT gene expression in nonsmokers and healthy smokers in 2 independent data sets from large and small airway as well as in COPD smokers in a data set from the small airway. In the large and small airway epithelium, cilia were significantly shorter in healthy smokers than nonsmokers, and significantly shorter in COPD smokers than in both healthy smokers and nonsmokers. The gene expression data confirmed that a set of 8 IFT genes were down-regulated in smokers in both data sets; however, no differences were seen in COPD smokers compared to healthy smokers. These results support the concept that loss of cilia length contributes to defective mucociliary clearance in COPD, and that smoking-induced changes in expression of IFT genes may be one mechanism of abnormally short cilia in smokers. Strategies to normalize cilia length may be an important avenue for novel COPD therapies.
Rotating radiative‐convective equilibrium simulated by a cloud‐resolving model

The results of a series of cloud‐resolving radiative‐convective equilibrium (RCE) simulations are presented. The RCE simulations, used as an idealization for the mean tropical climate, are run for a wide range of prescribed sea‐surface temperatures (SSTs), from 21oC to 36oC, representing the range of past, present, and, possibly, future mean tropical SSTs. The RCE with constant Coriolis parameter f is contrasted with nonrotating RCE. The Coriolis parameter is artificially increased from typical values in the Tropics by about one order of magnitude to allow multiple tropical cyclones (TCs) to coexist in a relatively small 2300 × 2300 km2 domain with a 3 km horizontal grid spacing. Nonrotating RCE is also simulated, but using a substantially smaller, 384 × 384 km2 domain. Rotating RCE, which we nickname “TC World,” contains from 8 to 26 TCs with the average number of TCs monotonically decreasing with increasing SST. At the same time, the TCs' size, intensity, and per‐TC precipitation rate tend to increase in response to increasing SST. For example, the average per‐TC kinetic energy and precipitation rate tend to double for every 6oC SST increase. These results are consistent with scaling laws in which TC velocities and inner core diameters scale with the potential intensity and its ratio to the Coriolis parameter, respectively, while the separation between cyclone centers appears to scale with the deformation radius. It is also found that the outflow temperature of TC's, as defined as the height of the local maximum of the upper‐troposphere cloud fraction, remains relatively invariant with SST. The cold‐point tropopause height in TC World is found to be about 2 km higher than the corresponding height in nonrotating RCE.
Discussion of Socio‐scientific Issues: The role of science knowledge

This paper considers the relationship between science knowledge and the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of the social consequences of science. Through a study of over 200 school students aged 14–16 we show that the ability to engage in reasoned discussion of applications of gene technology is strongly influenced by the ability to recognize key issues, and that ability to recognize key issues requires some understanding of the relevant science. It is also influenced by the specificity of the context under discussion and personal experience. The requisite scientific knowledge base is relatively modest and can be effectively taught through brief teaching interventions that are well designed and contextualized. The implications for classroom practice are considered
New public spheres in Brazil: local democracy and deliberative politics

Brazilian cities have been the sites of significant experiments in participatory and deliberative governance. Participatory budgeting has to be singled out as one of the most important of these. After the landmark experience in Porto Alegre, participatory budgeting has been expanded to 170 Brazilian cities. Is the expansion of participatory budgeting equivalent to the expansion of the deliberative and distributive characteristics of the Porto Alegre experience? This article argues that the conditions that account for the emergence of participatory budgeting in Porto Alegre are unique to that city’s social or political characteristics. It focuses on the role of existing civil society associations in the emergence of participatory budgeting, as well as in its institutional format. It also shows that the presence of civic associations is linked to the deliberative and distributive results of participatory budgeting and that these conditions may not be present in other participatory budgeting experiences.
Abuse, Intimidation and Violence as Aspects of Managerial Control in Professional Soccer in Britain and Ireland

Using semi-structured tape-recorded interviews, this study focuses on the ways in which managers maintain control over players in professional soccer clubs. More specifically, the article focuses on the ways in which disciplinary codes are established by managers and the sanctions that are imposed on players for breaches of club discipline. The findings highlight the arbitrary character of these codes and the central part played by intimidation and abuse, both verbal and physical, as aspects of managerial control within clubs. We argue that these techniques of managerial control reflect the origins of professional soccer in late Victorian England, when professional players were the equivalent of industrial workers and, like industrial workers, were seen as requiring authoritarian regulation and control. This pattern of management has persisted in professional soccer long after it has been superseded in industrial relations more generally because, while many aspects of the management of soccer clubs have involved increasing professionalization and bureaucratization, the role of the manager has proved remarkably resistant to these processes. The authority of the team manager continues to be based on traditional forms of authoritarianism and this allows managers an unusually high degree of autonomy in defining their own role, while placing relatively few constraints on their authority in relation to players.