Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do Dogs Resemble Their Owners?

We examined whether the frequent casual reports of people resembling their pets are accurate by having observers attempt to match dogs with their owners. We further explored whether any ability of observers to make such matches is due to people selecting dogs who resemble them, in which case the resemblance should be greater for predictable purebreds than for nonpurebreds, or is due to convergence, in which case the resemblance should grow with duration of ownership. Forty-five dogs and their owners were photographed separately, and judges were shown one owner, that owner's dog, and one other dog, with the task of picking out the true match. The results were consistent with a selection account: Observers were able to match only purebred dogs with their owners, and there was no relation between the ability to pair a person with his or her pet and the time they had cohabited. The ability to match people and pets did not seem to rely on any simple trait matching (e.g., size or hairiness). The results suggest that when people pick a pet, they seek one that, at some level, resembles them, and when they get a purebred, they get what they want.
Comments on "How to quantify pump function of the heart".

In a recent paper by Elzinga and Westerhof (1979) the contribution of isolated cardiac muscle mechanics to the evaluation of ventricular performance was considered unrewarding and questionable. They proposed, instead, that ventricular performance be analyzed in terms of mean ventricular pressure and mean ventricular flow. Such an approach clearly distinguished changes in inotropism from changes in end-diastolic volume and showed a remarkable resemblance to roller pump mechanics. They finally proposed to solve the apparent differences between isolated muscle mechanics and ventricular performance by loading papillary muscles as if they were part of the ventricular wall. Many of the controversies in studies of isolated muscle mechanics and ventricular performance can indeed be ascribed to the nature of the loading, which is ejection for the ventricle and either isotonic or isometric contraction for the muscle strip. This view is not entirely new, however, since it was already suggested in this journal a few years ago by Abbott and Gordon (1975) when they proposed to impose inertial forces on papillary muscle strips. Moreover, the idea of a loading feedback principle has been expanded more recently to include vascular impedance (Paulus et al., 1976, 1979). When imposing these impedance loads on isolated muscle strips, the hypothetical sets of pressure and flow waves are similar to the pressure and flow waves that a ventricle creates when facing the same impedance. From these observations it is obvious that studies of papillary muscle reveal valid information on ventricular performance when it is loaded as a ventricular muscle and not as a striated muscle.
Adaptive self-organization of Bali’s ancient rice terraces

Significance In Bali, the cooperative management of rice terraces extends beyond villages to whole watersheds. To understand why, we created a model that explores how cooperation can propagate from pairs of individuals to extended groups, creating a resilient system of bottom-up management that both increases and equalizes harvests. Spatial patterns of collective crop management—observable in Google Earth—closely match the predictions of the model. The spatial patterning that emerges is nonuniform and scale-free. Although the model parameters here are tuned to Bali, similar mechanisms of emergent global control should be detectible in other anthropogenic landscapes using multispectral imagery. Recognizing this signature of emergent system-wide cooperation may help planners to avoid unproductive changes to successful bottom-up systems of environmental management. Spatial patterning often occurs in ecosystems as a result of a self-organizing process caused by feedback between organisms and the physical environment. Here, we show that the spatial patterns observable in centuries-old Balinese rice terraces are also created by feedback between farmers’ decisions and the ecology of the paddies, which triggers a transition from local to global-scale control of water shortages and rice pests. We propose an evolutionary game, based on local farmers’ decisions that predicts specific power laws in spatial patterning that are also seen in a multispectral image analysis of Balinese rice terraces. The model shows how feedbacks between human decisions and ecosystem processes can evolve toward an optimal state in which total harvests are maximized and the system approaches Pareto optimality. It helps explain how multiscale cooperation from the community to the watershed scale could persist for centuries, and why the disruption of this self-organizing system by the Green Revolution caused chaos in irrigation and devastating losses from pests. The model shows that adaptation in a coupled human–natural system can trigger self-organized criticality (SOC). In previous exogenously driven SOC models, adaptation plays no role, and no optimization occurs. In contrast, adaptive SOC is a self-organizing process where local adaptations drive the system toward local and global optima.
Acute diarrhea in Baltimore children attending an outpatient clinic

Acute diarrheal illnesses in Baltimore children younger than 2 years of age attending an outpatient clinic were studied during a 12-month period. One in five acute care visits made to the clinic by children younger than 2 years was for diarrhea, and 5% of diarrhea cases required hospitalization. With the use of comprehensive methodology, a potential etiologic agent was identified in the stool of 105 (43%) of the 246 episodes of diarrhea in cases and in 43 (28%) of the 155 controls. Viral pathogens were found in 26% of episodes, and bacterial pathogens were found in 14%. Only rotavirus, enteric adenovirus and Salmonella were significantly associated with diarrhea. Cases were more likely to have measures of socioeconomic deprivation, such as household crowding, low maternal educational level and low birth weight, when compared to controls. Racial differences in morbidity from diarrheal illnesses were observed but could be attributed to these specific sociodemographic factors. Despite the low mortality caused by infantile gastroenteritis in the United States, it remains an important public health problem. However, even with intensive investigation the etiologies remain largely unknown.
An update on Acanthamoeba keratitis: diagnosis, pathogenesis and treatment

Free-living amoebae of the genus Acanthamoeba are causal agents of a severe sight-threatening infection of the cornea known as Acanthamoeba keratitis. Moreover, the number of reported cases worldwide is increasing year after year, mostly in contact lens wearers, although cases have also been reported in non-contact lens wearers. Interestingly, Acanthamoeba keratitis has remained significant, despite our advances in antimicrobial chemotherapy and supportive care. In part, this is due to an incomplete understanding of the pathogenesis and pathophysiology of the disease, diagnostic delays and problems associated with chemotherapeutic interventions. In view of the devastating nature of this disease, here we present our current understanding of Acanthamoeba keratitis and molecular mechanisms associated with the disease, as well as virulence traits of Acanthamoeba that may be potential targets for improved diagnosis, therapeutic interventions and/or for the development of preventative measures. Novel molecular approaches such as proteomics, RNAi and a consensus in the diagnostic approaches for a suspected case of Acanthamoeba keratitis are proposed and reviewed based on data which have been compiled after years of working on this amoebic organism using many different techniques and listening to many experts in this field at conferences, workshops and international meetings. Altogether, this review may serve as the milestone for developing an effective solution for the prevention, control and treatment of Acanthamoeba infections.
Recombinogenic Conditions Influence Partner Choice in Spontaneous Mitotic Recombination

Mammalian common fragile sites are loci of frequent chromosome breakage and putative recombination hotspots. Here, we utilized Replication Slow Zones (RSZs), a budding yeast homolog of the mammalian common fragile sites, to examine recombination activities at these loci. We found that rates of URA3 inactivation of a hisG-URA3-hisG reporter at RSZ and non-RSZ loci were comparable under all conditions tested, including those that specifically promote chromosome breakage at RSZs (hydroxyurea [HU], mec1Δ sml1Δ, and high temperature), and those that suppress it (sml1Δ and rrm3Δ). These observations indicate that RSZs are not recombination hotspots and that chromosome fragility and recombination activity can be uncoupled. Results confirmed recombinogenic effects of HU, mec1Δ sml1Δ, and rrm3Δ and identified temperature as a regulator of mitotic recombination. We also found that these conditions altered the nature of recombination outcomes, leading to a significant increase in the frequency of URA3 inactivation via loss of heterozygosity (LOH), the type of genetic alteration involved in cancer development. Further analyses revealed that the increase was likely due to down regulation of intrachromatid and intersister (IC/IS) bias in mitotic recombination, and that RSZs exhibited greater sensitivity to HU dependent loss of IC/IS bias than non RSZ loci. These observations suggest that recombinogenic conditions contribute to genome rearrangements not only by increasing the overall recombination activity, but also by altering the nature of recombination outcomes by their effects on recombination partner choice. Similarly, fragile sites may contribute to cancer more frequently than non-fragile loci due their enhanced sensitivity to certain conditions that down-regulate the IC/IS bias rather than intrinsically higher rates of recombination.
Practices of Power and Abuse in Gay Male Relationships: An Exploratory Case Study of a Young, Isixhosa-Speaking Man in the Western Cape, South Africa

This article constitutes a single case study of snapshots of the life of a young, gay isiXhosa-speaking man, and his narrative on relationships. The case study is a part of a broader study exploring gay male relationships with a particular focus on the dynamics of control, power, and abuse. The broader literature on gay relationships, both internationally and locally, highlights the pervasiveness of heteropatriarchal stereotypical constructions in many gay relationships, believed to facilitate unequal power relations (as they do in heterosexual relationships), but also foregrounds a more ‘flexible’ approach to constructing masculinities and sexual roles among gay men. The article highlights the experience of performances of sexuality and relationship that mirror heterosexual traditional roles, with accompanying power inequalities, as well as a shift to alternative, more flexible and possibly more equitable relationships. It is also argued that homophobia, emerging in multiple sites and including internalised homophobia, plays a powerful role in the reproduction of inequality and abusive practices within gay male relationships. The article interrogates some of the local contexts of homophobia in contemporary South Africa and the way in which the participant's experiences, within and outside his relationships, reflect a corroding of self-confidence and sense of power. It also explores the challenges faced in constructing equitable intimate relationships within a society that still adheres to hegemonic practices of masculinity and heteronormative models of relation.
Musical Practice: Mother and child interactions during the first year of learning an instrument

Mother and child interviews were analysed for a group of 157 beginning instrumentalists aged 7-9 during the first year of their learning. The purpose was to study interactions in terms of the quantity and content of the children's practice, the mother's support and supervision of home practice, the relationship of previous exposure to learning an instrument and consistency of practice, and differences in expectations and practice habits of children who ceased instruction compared to those who continued learning. The children's mothers were able to make accurate assessments of how much support they would need to provide for their child even before instruction began. Mothers who reported that they were worried about practice before their child commenced lessons were more likely to have children who ceased instruction. Children who ceased learning typically had unrealistically high expectations about how much practice they would undertake even before commencing lessons. After they started, and the reality of learning set in, they also consistently undertook less practice than their peers who chose to continue. Implications for future research are discussed based on the results of the study.
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer People's Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System: Implications for Social Services

Previous literature has found historically marginalized groups report more negative perceptions of the criminal justice system and lower levels of procedural justice, which then influences their mental health and their willingness to report crimes. While previous research on procedural justice has focused mostly on racial and ethnic minority groups, it is hypothesized that lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) individuals would also report negative experiences of the criminal justice system. The current study utilized focus groups with 16 participants who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer (LGBQ), with ages ranging from 26 to 35 years (M = 30.5 years, SD = 3.5). Participants were asked open-ended questions about how they felt about various aspects of the criminal justice system (e.g., police officers, courts, legal processes, etc.). Through the consensual qualitative research (CQR) process, researchers identified five domains that influenced participants’ experiences of the criminal justice system: (a) gender presentation, (b) influences of intersectional identities, (c) systemic and political issues, (d) experiences of discrimination, and (e) help-seeking behaviors and the criminal justice system. Implications for social services are discussed.
Almost Global Robust Attitude Tracking for Spacecraft in Gravity with unknown Drag

In this paper, we treat the practical problem of tracking the attitude and angular velocity trajectory of a spacecraft in the presence of gravity and unknown drag moments with known bounds. Autonomous trajectory tracking is a practical problem for robotic spacecraft, besides autonomous aerial and ground vehicles. We assume that the trajectory to be tracked is known and smoothly varying with time. The approach used here achieves almost global stable trajectory tracking by using a globally defined dynamics model. This model includes moments on the vehicle created by a gravity potential and an atmospheric-drag type moment that vanishes when the vehicle’s angular velocity is zero. We assume that the angular velocity dependent drag coefficient is known only upto a scalar bound. The feedback control law is also globally defined. In the presence of the disturbance drag moment considered, this control law achieves almost ∗Assistant Professor, Mechanical Engineering, 2540 Dole Street, Holmes Hall 302, University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI 96822, AIAA member, aksanyal@hawaii.edu
Total Parenteral Nutrition in the Newborn: Energy Substrates and Plasma Total Fatty Acids

ABSTRACT: Carbohydrate and lipid intakes have both been found to modulate the metabolism of long-chain fatty acids. To define the respective infuence of these two energy substrates on plasma fatty acid concentrations, 32 studies were performed in 16 parenterally fed newborn infants (mean ± SEM, birth wt: 2.15 ± 0.1 kg, age: 10 ± 1 d). In a paired cross-over design, the infants received for a given level of energy (60 versus 80 kcal/kg/d) two 6-d isonitrogenous and isocaloric regimens constructed so that the level of fat intake, 1 or 3 g/kg/d varied inversely with that of glucose. Total plasma fatty acid levels did not reflect the composition of the emulsion and varied with energy substrates. Plasma levels of three fatty acids rose inversely to the lipid intake, during the high glucose regimen: 16:lw7, 20:3w9 biologic markers of essential fatty acid deficiency, and 20:3w6 a derivative of 18:2w6. Glucose intake could exert its influence on 20:3w9 and 20:3w6 via insulin, an activator of A6 desaturase. Both glucose and fat should be taken into account when evaluating plasma fatty acid profile.
Integral input-to-state stability of bilinear infinite-dimensional systems

We prove that uniform global asymptotic stability of bilinear infinite-dimensional control systems is equivalent to their integral input-to-state stability. Next we present a method for construction of iISS Lyapunov functions for such systems if the state space is a Hilbert space. Unique issues arising due to infinite-dimensionality are highlighted.
An XMM-Newton study of Hyper-Luminous Infrared Galaxies

Aims. Hyper-Luminous Infrared Galaxies (HLIRGs) are the most luminous persistent objects in the Universe. They exhibit extremely high star formation rates, and most of them seem to harbor an Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN). They are unique laboratories to investigate ultimate star formation, and its connection to super-massive black hole growth. X-ray studies of HLIRGs have the potential to unravel the AGN contribution to the bolometric output from these bright objects. Methods. We have selected a sample of 14 HLIRGs observed by XMM-Newton (type 1, type 2 AGN and starburst), 5 of which are candidates to be Compton-thick objects. This is the first time that a systematic study of this type of objects has been carried out in the X-ray spectral band. Their X-ray spectral properties have been correlated with their infrared luminosities, estimated by IRAS, ISO and sub-millimeter observations. Results. The X-ray spectra of HLIRGs present heterogeneous properties. All our X-ray detected HLIRGs (10) have AGN-dominated X-ray spectra. The hard X-ray luminosity of 8 of them is consistent with a pure AGN contribution, while in the remaining 2 sources, both an AGN and a starburst seem to contribute to the overall emission. We found soft excess emission in 5 sources. In one of them it is consistent with a pure starburst origin, while in the other 4 sources it is consistent with an AGN origin. The observed X-ray emission is systematically below that expected for a standard local QSO of the same IR luminosity, suggesting the possible presence of absorption in type 2 objects and/or a departure from a standard spectral energy distribution of QSO. The X-ray-to-IR-luminosity ratio is constant with redshift, indicating similar evolutions for the AGN and starburst component, and that their respective power sources could be physically related.
Mercury methylation in Sphagnum moss mats and its association with sulfate-reducing bacteria in an acidic Adirondack forest lake wetland.

Processes leading to the bioaccumulation of methylmercury (MeHg) in northern wetlands are largely unknown. We have studied various ecological niches within a remote, acidic forested lake ecosystem in the southwestern Adirondacks, NY, to discover that mats comprised of Sphagnum moss were a hot spot for mercury (Hg) and MeHg accumulation (190.5 and 18.6 ng g⁻¹ dw, respectively). Furthermore, significantly higher potential methylation rates were measured in Sphagnum mats as compared with other sites within Sunday Lake's ecosystem. Although MPN estimates showed a low biomass of sulfate-reducing bacteria (SRB), 2.8 × 10⁴ cells mL⁻¹ in mat samples, evidence consisting of (1) a twofold stimulation of potential methylation by the addition of sulfate, (2) a significant decrease in Hg methylation in the presence of the sulfate reduction inhibitor molybdate, and (3) presence of dsrAB-like genes in mat DNA extracts, suggested that SRB were involved in Hg methylation. Sequencing of dsrB genes indicated that novel SRB, incomplete oxidizers including Desulfobulbus spp. and Desulfovibrio spp. , and syntrophs dominated the sulfate-reducing guild in the Sphagnum moss mat. Sphagnum, a bryophyte dominating boreal peatlands, and its associated microbial communities appear to play an important role in the production and accumulation of MeHg in high-latitude ecosystems.
Defining and Measuring Employee Empowerment

The study had three objectives: to define employee empowerment, to develop a measure of the concept, and to examine the measure’s validity. A working definition was specified and a 140-item measure developed. The measure was administered to 698 employees of a high technology company located in the Midwest. Responses were factor analyzed and an 8-factor solution was identified as best representing the concepts underlying the responses. A validity study examined the ability of the 8 dimensions to differentiate among 28 workgroups, identified independently either as more empowered or as less empowered. Two dimensions, fairness of the recognition system and decisions about work processes, clearly contributed to discriminating between the two types of groups. A third dimension, clarity of company goals, was a somewhat less clear contributor. Reasons why some dimensions discriminated more from less empowered groups whereas others did not are discussed.
LTβR signaling in dendritic cells induces a type I IFN response that is required for optimal clonal expansion of CD8+ T cells

During an immune response, antigen-bearing dendritic cells (DCs) migrate to the local draining lymph node and present antigen to CD4+ helper T cells. Antigen-activated CD4+ T cells then up-regulate TNF superfamily members including CD40 ligand and lymphotoxin (LT)αβ. Although it is well-accepted that CD40 stimulation on DCs is required for DC licensing and cross-priming of CD8+ T-cell responses, it is likely that other signals are integrated into a comprehensive DC activation program. Here we show that a cognate interaction between LTαβ on CD4+ helper T cells and LTβ receptor on DCs results in unique signals that are necessary for optimal CD8+ T-cell expansion via a type I IFN-dependent mechanism. In contrast, CD40 signaling appears to be more critical for CD8+ T-cell IFNγ production. Therefore, different TNF family members provide integrative signals that shape the licensing potential of antigen-presenting DCs.
Face-from-Depth for Head Pose Estimation on Depth Images

Depth cameras allow to set up reliable solutions for people monitoring and behavior understanding, especially when unstable or poor illumination conditions make unusable common RGB sensors. Therefore, we propose a complete framework for the estimation of the head and shoulder pose based on depth images only. A head detection and localization module is also included, in order to develop a complete end-to-end system. The core element of the framework is a Convolutional Neural Network, called <italic>POSEidon<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^+$</tex-math><alternatives><mml:math><mml:msup><mml:mrow/><mml:mo>+</mml:mo></mml:msup></mml:math><inline-graphic xlink:href="borghi-ieq1-2885472.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula></italic>, that receives as input three types of images and provides the 3D angles of the pose as output. Moreover, a <italic>Face-from-Depth</italic> component based on a <italic>Deterministic Conditional GAN</italic> model is able to hallucinate a face from the corresponding depth image. We empirically demonstrate that this positively impacts the system performances. We test the proposed framework on two public datasets, namely <italic>Biwi Kinect Head Pose</italic> and <italic>ICT-3DHP</italic>, and on <italic>Pandora</italic>, a new challenging dataset mainly inspired by the automotive setup. Experimental results show that our method overcomes several recent state-of-art works based on both intensity and depth input data, running in real-time at more than 30 frames per second.