Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Novel Phonology- and Radical-Coded Chinese Sign Language Recognition Framework Using Accelerometer and Surface Electromyography Sensors

Sign language recognition (SLR) is an important communication tool between the deaf and the external world. It is highly necessary to develop a worldwide continuous and large-vocabulary-scale SLR system for practical usage. In this paper, we propose a novel phonology- and radical-coded Chinese SLR framework to demonstrate the feasibility of continuous SLR using accelerometer (ACC) and surface electromyography (sEMG) sensors. The continuous Chinese characters, consisting of coded sign gestures, are first segmented into active segments using EMG signals by means of moving average algorithm. Then, features of each component are extracted from both ACC and sEMG signals of active segments (i.e., palm orientation represented by the mean and variance of ACC signals, hand movement represented by the fixed-point ACC sequence, and hand shape represented by both the mean absolute value (MAV) and autoregressive model coefficients (ARs)). Afterwards, palm orientation is first classified, distinguishing “Palm Downward” sign gestures from “Palm Inward” ones. Only the “Palm Inward” gestures are sent for further hand movement and hand shape recognition by dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm and hidden Markov models (HMM) respectively. Finally, component recognition results are integrated to identify one certain coded gesture. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed SLR framework with a vocabulary scale of 223 characters can achieve an averaged recognition accuracy of 96.01% ± 0.83% for coded gesture recognition tasks and 92.73% ± 1.47% for character recognition tasks. Besides, it demonstrats that sEMG signals are rather consistent for a given hand shape independent of hand movements. Hence, the number of training samples will not be significantly increased when the vocabulary scale increases, since not only the number of the completely new proposed coded gestures is constant and limited, but also the transition movement which connects successive signs needs no training samples to model even though the same coded gesture performed in different characters. This work opens up a possible new way to realize a practical Chinese SLR system.
Biomimetic phantom for cardiac diffusion MRI

Diffusion magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is increasingly used to characterize cardiac tissue microstructure, necessitating the use of physiologically relevant phantoms for methods development. Existing phantoms are generally simplistic and mostly simulate diffusion in the brain. Thus, there is a need for phantoms mimicking diffusion in cardiac tissue.
Protection from cerebral air emboli with perfluorocarbons in rabbits.

Cerebral air emboli have been implicated in the transient neurological deficits seen in patients after cardiovascular surgery. Since perfluorocarbon emulsions such as FC-43 have greater solubilities for gases compared to plasma, it was decided to investigate their potential in providing protection against transient ischemia produced by such emboli. Forty rabbits were divided into three groups of ten, twenty, and ten. They were anesthetized with acepromazine and ketamine and were given an infusion of either hetastarch or FC-43, 10 ml/kg i.v. In Group I, which received a bolus air injection into the internal carotid artery, survival rates were: 2/5 for the hetastarch group and 5/5 for the FC-43 group (p less than .05). In Group 2, which received an air infusion until the EEG was flat bilaterally, 3/10 hetastarch-treated rabbits survived while 10/10 FC-43-treated rabbits survived for 24 hours (p = .035). In Group 3, analysis of blood viscosity and osmolality over a four hour period following either hetastarch or FC-43 infusion resulted in no significant differences between the two treatments but a significant decrease in both variables after 30 minutes which returned to baseline values at 60 minutes. The results of the study demonstrate a protective effect from cerebral air emboli delivered into the internal carotid artery as either a bolus or slow infusion in rabbits pretreated with a perfluorocarbon emulsion in terms of survivability and recovery from transient neurological deficits.
The university is not your home: lived experiences of a Black woman in academia

Entering academia as the youngest academic in my department, I encountered my blackness in ways that mirrored my days as a university student. Joining a university department with few Black1 academics was psychologically scarring. One of those scars had been constantly wondering whether my employment had been to fulfil demographic obligations or rightfully based on merit and suitability for the job. This evoked a recollection of past experiences: my experiences as a Black student in classes with very few Black bodies to engage with and/or look up to. The burden of constantly needing to prove my worth and intellectual capability became an artificial barrier to belonging in those spaces. Reflecting on transformation in South African Institutions of Higher Education, I utilise an autoethnographic method to reveal my experiences of (un)belonging and exclusions in academia as a way of revealing the psychological cost of being a ‘body out of place’.
A framework for integrating directed and undirected annotations to build explanatory models of cis-eQTL data

A longstanding goal of regulatory genetics is to understand how variants in genome sequences lead to changes in gene expression. Here we present a method named Bayesian Annotation Guided eQTL Analysis (BAGEA), a variational Bayes framework to model cis-eQTLs using directed and undirected genomic annotations. In a use case, we integrated directed genomic annotations with eQTL summary statistics from tissues of various origins. This analysis revealed epigenetic marks that are relevant for gene expression in different tissues and cell types. We estimated the predictive power of the models that were fitted based on directed genomic annotations. This analysis showed that, depending on the underlying eQTL data used, the directed genomic annotations could predict up to 1.5% of the variance observed in the expression of genes with top nominal eQTL association p-values < 10−7. For genes with estimated effect sizes in the top 25% quantile, up to 5% of the expression variance could be predicted. Based on our results, we recommend the use of BAGEA for the analysis of cis-eQTL data to reveal annotations relevant to expression biology.
In vivo Sarcomere Lengths and Sarcomere Elongations Are Not Uniform across an Intact Muscle

Sarcomere lengths have been a crucial outcome measure for understanding and explaining basic muscle properties and muscle function. Sarcomere lengths for a given muscle are typically measured at a single spot, often in the mid-belly of the muscle, and at a given muscle length. It is then assumed implicitly that the sarcomere length measured at this single spot represents the sarcomere lengths at other locations within the muscle, and force-length, force-velocity, and power-velocity properties of muscles are often implied based on these single sarcomere length measurements. Although, intuitively appealing, this assumption is yet to be supported by systematic evidence. The objective of this study was to measure sarcomere lengths at defined locations along and across an intact muscle, at different muscle lengths. Using second harmonic generation (SHG) imaging technique, sarcomere patterns in passive mouse tibialis anterior (TA) were imaged in a non-contact manner at five selected locations (“proximal,” “distal,” “middle,” “medial,” and “lateral” TA sites) and at three different lengths encompassing the anatomical range of motion of the TA. We showed that sarcomere lengths varied substantially within small regions of the muscle and also for different sites across the entire TA. Also, sarcomere elongations with muscle lengthening were non-uniform across the muscle, with the highest sarcomere stretches occurring near the myotendinous junction. We conclude that muscle mechanics derived from sarcomere length measured from a small region of a muscle may not well-represent the sarcomere length and associated functional properties of the entire muscle.
Cognitive therapy for people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders not taking antipsychotic medication

Citation for published version: Morrison, A, Turkington, D, Pyle, M, Spencer, H, Brabban, A, Dunn, G, Christodoulides, T, Dudley, R, Chapman, N, Callcott, P, Grace, T, Lumley, V, Drage, L, Tully, S, Irving, K, Cummings, A, Byrne, R, Davies, L & Hutton, P 2014, 'Cognitive therapy for people with schizophrenia spectrum disorders not taking antipsychotic medication: a single-blind randomised controlled trial' The Lancet, vol 383, no. 9926, pp. 1395 1403. , 10.1016/S0140-6736(13)62246-1
In Vivo Characterization of a Novel γ-Secretase Inhibitor SCH 697466 in Rodents and Investigation of Strategies for Managing Notch-Related Side Effects

Substantial evidence implicates β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides in the etiology of Alzheimer's disease (AD). Aβ is produced by the proteolytic cleavage of the amyloid precursor protein by β- and γ-secretase suggesting that γ-secretase inhibition may provide therapeutic benefit for AD. Although many γ-secretase inhibitors have been shown to be potent at lowering Aβ, some have also been shown to have side effects following repeated administration. All of these side effects can be attributed to altered Notch signaling, another γ-secretase substrate. Here we describe the in vivo characterization of the novel γ-secretase inhibitor SCH 697466 in rodents. Although SCH 697466 was effective at lowering Aβ, Notch-related side effects in the intestine and thymus were observed following subchronic administration at doses that provided sustained and complete lowering of Aβ. However, additional studies revealed that both partial but sustained lowering of Aβand complete but less sustained lowering of Aβ were successful approaches for managing Notch-related side effects. Further, changes in several Notch-related biomarkers paralleled the side effect observations. Taken together, these studies demonstrated that, by carefully varying the extent and duration of Aβ lowering by γ-secretase inhibitors, it is possible to obtain robust and sustained lowering of Aβ without evidence of Notch-related side effects.
Extending Matching Rules with Conditions

Matching dependencies (mds) have recently been proposed [10] in order to make dependencies tolerant to various information representations, and proved [13] useful in data quality applications such as record matching. Instead of strict identification function in traditional dependency syntax (e.g., functional dependencies), mds specify dependencies based on similarity matching quality. However, in practice, mds may still be too strict and only hold in a subset of tuples in a relation. Thereby, we study conditioning mds in a subset of tuples, called conditional matching dependencies (cmds), which bind matching dependencies only in a certain part of a table. Compared to mds, cmds have more expressive power that enable them satisfy wider application needs. In this paper, we study several important theoretical and practical issues of cmds, including inferring cmds, the irreducible cmds with less redundancy, the discovery of cmds from data, and so on. Through an extensive experimental evaluation in real data sets, we demonstrate the efficiency of proposed cmds discovery algorithms.
Virion Structure of Baboon Reovirus, a Fusogenic Orthoreovirus That Lacks an Adhesion Fiber

ABSTRACT Baboon reovirus (BRV) is a member of the fusogenic subgroup of orthoreoviruses. Unlike most other members of its genus, BRV lacks S-segment coding sequences for the outer fiber protein that binds to cell surface receptors. It shares this lack with aquareoviruses, which constitute a related genus and are also fusogenic. We used electron cryomicroscopy and three-dimensional image reconstruction to determine the BRV virion structure at 9.0-Å resolution. The results show that BRV lacks a protruding fiber at its icosahedral 5-fold axes or elsewhere. The results also show that BRV is like nonfusogenic mammalian and fusogenic avian orthoreoviruses in having 150 copies of the core clamp protein, not 120 as in aquareoviruses. On the other hand, there are no hub-and-spoke complexes attributable to the outer shell protein in the P2 and P3 solvent channels of BRV, which makes BRV like fusogenic avian orthoreoviruses and aquareoviruses but unlike nonfusogenic mammalian orthoreoviruses. The outermost “flap” domains of the BRV core turret protein appear capable of conformational variability within the virion, a trait previously unseen among other ortho- and aquareoviruses. New cDNA sequence determinations for the BRV L1 and M2 genome segments, encoding the core turret and outer shell proteins, were helpful for interpreting the structural features of those proteins. Based on these findings, we conclude that the evolution of ortho- and aquareoviruses has included a series of discrete gains or losses of particular components, several of which cross taxonomic boundaries. Gain or loss of adhesion fibers is one of several common themes in double-stranded RNA virus evolution.
Differential Mechanisms of Neuroprotection by 17 β-Estradiol in Apoptotic versus Necrotic Neurodegeneration

The major goal of this study was to compare mechanisms of the neuroprotective potential of 17 β-estradiol in two models for oxidative stress-independent apoptotic neuronal cell death with that in necrotic neuronal cell death in primary neuronal cultures derived from rat hippocampus, septum, or cortex. Neuronal apoptosis was induced either by staurosporine or ethylcholine aziridinium (AF64A), as models for necrotic cell death glutamate exposure or oxygen–glucose deprivation (OGD) were applied. Long-term (20 hr) pretreatment (0.1 μm 17 β-estradiol) was neuroprotective in apoptotic neuronal cell death induced by AF64A (40 μm) only in hippocampal and septal neuronal cultures and not in cortical cultures. The neuroprotective effect was blocked by the estrogen antagonists ICI 182,780 and tamoxifen and the phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3-K) inhibitor LY294002. In glutamate and OGD-induced neuronal damage, long-term pretreatment was not effective. In contrast, short-term (1 hr) pretreatment with 17 β-estradiol in the dose range of 0.5–1.0 μm significantly reduced the release of lactate dehydrogenase and improved morphology of cortical cultures exposed to glutamate or OGD but was not effective in the AF64A model. Staurosporine-induced apoptosis was not prevented by either long- or short-term pretreatment. The strong expression of the estrogen receptor-α and the modulation of Bcl proteins by 17 β-estradiol in hippocampal and septal but not in cortical cultures indicates that the prevention of apoptotic, but not of necrotic, neuronal cell death by 17 β-estradiol possibly depends on the induction of Bcl proteins and the density of estrogen receptor-α.
Oral versus Long-Acting Injectable Antipsychotics in the Treatment of Schizophrenia and Special Populations at Risk for Treatment Nonadherence: A Systematic Review

Long-acting injectable antipsychotics (LAIs) should offer better efficacy and tolerability, compared to oral antipsychotics due to improved adherence and more stable pharmacokinetics. However, data on LAIs has been mixed, with some studies finding that they are more effective and tolerable than oral antipsychotics, and others finding the contrary. One possibility for the disparate results may be that some studies administered different antipsychotics in the oral and injectable form. The present systematic review examined the efficacy and tolerability of LAIs versus their oral equivalents in randomized and naturalistic studies. In addition, it examined the impact of LAIs on special populations such as patients with first-episode psychosis, substance use disorders, and a history of violence or on involuntary outpatient commitment. Randomized studies suggest that not all LAIs are the same; for example, long-acting risperidone may be associated with equal or less side effects than oral risperidone, whereas fluphenazine decanoate and enanthate may be associated with equal or more side effects than oral fluphenazine. They also suggest that LAIs reduce risk of relapse versus oral antipsychotics in schizophrenia outpatients when combined with quality psychosocial interventions. For their part, naturalistic studies point to a larger magnitude of benefit for LAIs, relative to their oral equivalents particularly among first-episode patients.
Combined face and gait recognition using alpha matte preprocessing

This paper presents advances on the Human ID Gait Challenge. Our method is based on combining an improved gait recognition method with an adapted low resolution face recognition method. For this, we experiment with a new automated segmentation technique based on alpha-matting. This allows better construction of feature images used for gait recognition. The same segmentation is also used as a basis for finding and recognizing low-resolution facial profile images in the same database. Both, gait and face recognition methods show results comparable to the state of the art. Next, the two approaches are fused (which to our knowledge, has not yet been done for the Human ID Gait Challenge). With this fusion gain, we show significant performance improvement. Moreover, we reach the highest recognition rates and the largest absolute number of correct detections to date.
It Takes Two to Tango: Defining an Essential Second Active Site in Pyridoxal 5′-Phosphate Synthase

The prevalent de novo biosynthetic pathway of vitamin B6 involves only two enzymes (Pdx1 and Pdx2) that form an ornate multisubunit complex functioning as a glutamine amidotransferase. The synthase subunit, Pdx1, utilizes ribose 5-phosphate and glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, as well as ammonia derived from the glutaminase activity of Pdx2 to directly form the cofactor vitamer, pyridoxal 5′-phosphate. Given the fact that a single enzyme performs the majority of the chemistry behind this reaction, a complicated mechanism is anticipated. Recently, the individual steps along the reaction co-ordinate are beginning to be unraveled. In particular, the binding of the pentose substrate and the first steps of the reaction have been elucidated but it is not known if the latter part of the chemistry, involving the triose sugar, takes place in the same or a disparate site. Here, we demonstrate through the use of enzyme assays, enzyme kinetics, and mutagenesis studies that indeed a second site is involved in binding the triose sugar and moreover, is the location of the final vitamin product, pyridoxal 5′-phosphate. Furthermore, we show that product release is triggered by the presence of a PLP-dependent enzyme. Finally, we provide evidence that a single arginine residue of the C terminus of Pdx1 is responsible for coordinating co-operativity in this elaborate protein machinery.
Neuropsychological and neuroimaging changes in preclinical Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a common, devastating form of dementia. With the advent of promising symptomatic treatment, the importance of recognizing AD at its very earliest stages has increased. We review the extant neuropsychological and neuroimaging literature on preclinical AD, focusing on longitudinal studies of initially nondemented individuals and cross-sectional investigations comparing at-risk with normal individuals. We systematically reviewed 91 studies of neuropsychological functioning, structural neuroimaging, or functional neuroimaging in preclinical AD. The neuropsychological studies indicated that preclinical AD might be characterized by subtle deficits in a broad range of neuropsychological domains, particularly in attention, learning and memory, executive functioning, processing speed, and language. Recent findings from neuroimaging research suggest that volume loss and cerebral blood flow or metabolic changes, particularly in the temporal lobe, may be detected before the onset of dementia. There exist several markers of a preclinical period of AD, in which specific cognitive and biochemical changes precede the clinical manifestations. The preclinical indicators of AD reflect early compromise of generalized brain integrity and temporal lobe functioning in particular. (JINS, 2006, 12, 707–735.)
ADMM decoding of non-binary LDPC codes in F2m

In this paper, we develop an efficient algorithm for linear programming (LP) decoding of non-binary low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes. We build our algorithm on the decomposition method based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Although expressing the LP decoding problem using ADMM is not hard, a sub-routine of ADMM - projection onto a polytope formed from embeddings of the non-binary single parity-check code - is not straightforward. In this work, we focus on non-binary codes in fields of characteristic two. This allows us to use operations in F2 to relax the polytope under consideration into a form that is computational friendly. We introduce a rotation step that normalizes the geometry under consideration. We then apply ADMM a second time to solve the projection problem, which is a quadratic program (QP). Our decoding algorithm scales linearly with block length, linearly with check degree, and quadratically with field size.
An improved neighborhood algorithm: Parameter conditions and dynamic scaling

The Neighborhood Algorithm (NA) is a popular direct search inversion technique. For dispersion curve inversion, physical conditions between parameters Vs and Vp (linked by Poisson's ratio) may limit the parameter space with complex boundaries. Other conditions may come from prior information about the geological structure. Irregular limits are not natively handled by classical search algorithms. In this paper, we extend the NA formulation to such parameter spaces. For problems affected by non‐uniqueness, the ideal solution is made of the ensemble of all models that equally fits the data and prior information. Hence, a powerful exploration tool is required. Exploiting the properties of the Voronoi cells, we show that a dynamic scaling of the parameters during the convergence to the solutions drastically improves the exploration.
Reynolds-averaged Navier-Stokes calculations of unsteady turbulent flow

In this study, a combination of the unsteady in-compressible Navier-Stokes equations in vorticity-velocity formulation and the Algebraic Stress Model (ASM) of Gatski and Speziale (1996) is employed for Unsteady Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (URANS) calculations of turbulent boundary layer ows. The Navier-Stokes equations are solved using a fourth-order compact diierence scheme in space and a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method in time. The highly accurate numerical method greatly reduces the possibility of contamination of the results by second-order artiicial dissipation from the numerical schemes. A at plate boundary layer subjected to a strong adverse pressure gradient with laminar separation and turbulent reattachment is investigated. Performing URANS calculations for this ow, we found that unsteady vortical structures remain in the ow eld despite the large \eeective eddy viscosity" produced by the turbulence model (ASM). This is due to the fact that a special function is used in this turbulence model such that the eddy viscosity is strongly coupled with the unsteady ow structures. For comparison, URANS calculations were also carried out employing the standard k ? model, where in contrast no unsteady vortical structures were found in the ow eld. For further comparison, results from 2-D \Direct Numerical Simulation (DNS)" and 3-D Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) using the standard Smagorinsky model are also presented and discussed.