Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wave like an Egyptian: accelerometer based gesture recognition for culture specific interactions

The user's behavior and his interpretation of interactions with others is influenced by his cultural background, which provides a number of heuristics or patterns of behavior and interpretation. This cultural influence on interaction has largely been neglected in HCI research due to two challenges: (i) grasping culture as a computational term and (ii) infering the user's cultural background by observable measures. In this paper, we describe how the Wiimote can be utilized to uncover the user's cultural background by analyzing his patterns of gestural expressivity in a model based on cultural dimensions. With this information at hand, the behavior of an interactive system can be adapted to culture-dependent patterns of interaction.
On the Use of Linear Fixed Effects Regression Estimators for Causal Inference ∗

Linear fixed effects regression estimators are a primary workhorse for causal inference. Applied researchers use them either to adjust for unobserved confounders or to implement popular identification strategies including stratification and difference-in-differences. This paper presents novel finite sample equivalence results between these estimators and various matching estimators. Unlike a typical model-based perspective, our approach identifies the exact information used by fixed effects estimators to estimate counterfactual outcomes. This clarifies why these estimators may be biased under common identification assumptions. We further show that with appropriate weighting one can eliminate this potential bias and draw valid causal inference. JEL Code: C18
Activation of PI3K Is Indispensable for Interleukin 7–mediated Viability, Proliferation, Glucose Use, and Growth of T Cell Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia Cells

Interleukin (IL)-7 is essential for normal T cell development. Previously, we have shown that IL-7 increases viability and proliferation of T cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) cells by up-regulating Bcl-2 and down-regulating the cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitor p27kip1. Here, we examined the signaling pathways via which IL-7 mediates these effects. We investigated mitogen-activated protein kinase (MEK)–extracellular signal-regulated kinase (Erk) and phosphatidylinositol-3-kinase (PI3K)–Akt (protein kinase B) pathways, which have active roles in T cell expansion and have been implicated in tumorigenesis. IL-7 induced activation of the MEK–Erk pathway in T-ALL cells; however, inhibition of the MEK–Erk pathway by the use of the cell-permeable inhibitor PD98059, did not affect IL-7–mediated viability or cell cycle progression of leukemic cells. IL-7 induced PI3K-dependent phosphorylation of Akt and its downstream targets GSK-3, FOXO1, and FOXO3a. PI3K activation was mandatory for IL-7–mediated Bcl-2 up-regulation, p27kip1 down-regulation, Rb hyperphosphorylation, and consequent viability and cell cycle progression of T-ALL cells. PI3K signaling was also required for cell size increase, up-regulation of CD71, expression of the glucose transporter Glut1, uptake of glucose, and maintenance of mitochondrial integrity. Our results implicate PI3K as a major effector of IL-7–induced viability, metabolic activation, growth and proliferation of T-ALL cells, and suggest that PI3K and its downstream effectors may represent molecular targets for therapeutic intervention in T-ALL.
Mosaicing deep underwater imagery

Numerous sources of distortions render mosaicing of underwater (UW) images an immensely challenging effort. Methods that can process conventional photographs (terrestrial/aerial) fail to deliver the desired results on UW images. Taking the sources of underwater degradations into account is central to ensuring quality performance. The work described in this paper specifically deals with the problem of mosaicing deep UW images captured by Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs). These images are mainly degraded by haze, color changes, and non-uniform illumination. We propose a framework that restores these images in accordance with a suitably derived degradation model. Furthermore, our scheme harnesses the scene geometry information present in each image to aid in constructing a mosaic that is free from artifacts such as local blurring, ghosting, double contouring and visible seams. Several experiments on real underwater images sequences have been carried out to demonstrate the performance of our mosaicing pipeline along with comparisons.
A Stronger Bound for the Strong Chromatic Index

We prove χ′ s (G) ≤ 1.93 Δ(G)2 for graphs of sufficiently large maximum degree where χ′ s (G) is the strong chromatic index of G. This improves an old bound of Molloy and Reed. As a by-product, we present a Talagrand-type inequality where we are allowed to exclude unlikely bad outcomes that would otherwise render the inequality unusable.
Large-scale Classification of Fine-Art Paintings: Learning The Right Metric on The Right Feature

In the past few years, the number of fine-art collections that are digitized and publicly available has been growing rapidly. With the availability of such large collections of digitized artworks comes the need to develop multimedia systems to archive and retrieve this pool of data. Measuring the visual similarity between artistic items is an essential step for such multimedia systems, which can benefit more high-level multimedia tasks. In order to model this similarity between paintings, we should extract the appropriate visual features for paintings and find out the best approach to learn the similarity metric based on these features. We investigate a comprehensive list of visual features and metric learning approaches to learn an optimized similarity measure between paintings. We develop a machine that is able to make aesthetic-related semantic-level judgments, such as predicting a painting's style, genre, and artist, as well as providing similarity measures optimized based on the knowledge available in the domain of art historical interpretation. Our experiments show the value of using this similarity measure for the aforementioned prediction tasks.
Consensus Review of the Treatment of Cardiovascular Disease in People With Hemophilia A and B

With advances in care, increasing numbers of people with hemophilia (PWH) achieve near-normal life expectancies and present with typical age-related cardiovascular conditions. Evidence-based guidelines for medical or surgical management of cardiovascular conditions in individuals with hemophilia are limited. Published recommendations exist for the management of some common cardiovascular conditions (eg, ischemic heart disease, atrial fibrillation), but identifying optimal strategies for anticoagulant or antithrombotic therapy constitutes the primary challenge of managing nonoperative cardiovascular disease (CVD) in PWH. In general, as long as factor concentrates or other hemostatic therapies maintain adequate hemostasis, the recommended medical and surgical management of CVD in PWH parallels that in individuals without hemophilia. The presence of factor inhibitors complicates hemophilia management. Published outcomes of CVD treatment in PWH are similar to those in the general population. Specific knowledge about factor replacement, factor inhibitors, and disease-specific treatment distinguishes the cardiovascular care of PWH from similar care of individuals without this rare bleeding disorder. Furthermore, a multidisciplinary approach incorporating a hematologist with an onsite coagulation laboratory, ideally associated with a hemophilia treatment center, is integral to the management of CVD in PWH.
Dromion solutions of noncommutative Davey–Stewartson equations

We consider a noncommutative version of the Davey–Stewartson equations and derive two families of quasideterminant solution via Darboux and binary Darboux transformations. These solutions can be verified by direct substitution. We then calculate the dromion solutions of the equations and obtain computer plots in a noncommutative setting.
Intraspecific preen oil odor preferences in dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis)

Most birds possess a uropygial gland that produces a secretion, preen oil, that contains volatile compounds that may transmit information about individual attributes. However, the ability of passerine songbirds to discriminate among the odors of different individuals has not yet been demonstrated. We tested whether dark-eyed juncos (Junco hyemalis) could discriminate among preen oil odors from 1) conspecifics and heterospecifics; 2) male and female conspecifics; 3) conspecifics from same or different population or subspecies; and 4) males with large or small plumage ornaments. Our evidence suggests that juncos can discriminate between the odor of conspecifics and heterospecifics. In 2-way choice tests between conspecific odors, both males and females spent more time with male preen oil. Subjects did not discriminate between odors of individuals from their own population or a different one, and no relationship was found between choice and plumage ornaments. Unexpectedly, females spent more time with the odor of males with smaller body size, regardless of population of origin. This result was especially surprising because an analysis of preen oil volatile compounds revealed that the odors of smaller males were less "male-like" than the odors of larger males. We conclude that songbirds are able to detect odors from preen oil as shown by their ability to distinguish odors arising from males and females. They may also be able to distinguish among individuals of varying body size. Copyright 2011, Oxford University Press.
Using learning automata for adaptive push-based data broadcasting in asymmetric wireless environments

Push systems are not suitable for applications with a priori unknown, dynamic client demands. This paper proposes an adaptive push-based system. It suggests the use of a learning automaton at the broadcast server to provide adaptivity to an existing push system while maintaining its computational complexity. Using simple feedback from the clients, the automaton continuously adapts to the client population demands so as to reflect the overall popularity of each data item. Simulation results are presented that reveal the superior performance of the proposed approach in environments with a priori unknown, dynamic client demands.
Price and Income Elasticities of Residential Water Demand: A Meta-Analysis

This article presents a meta-analysis of variations in price and income elasticities of residential water demand. Meta-analysis constitutes an adequate tool to synthesize research results by means of an analysis of the variation in empirical estimates reported in the literature. We link the variation in estimated elasticities to differences in theoretical microeconomic choice approaches, differences in spatial and temporal dynamics, as well as differences in research design of the underlying studies. The occurrence of increasing or decreasing block rate systems turns out to be important. With respect to price elasticities, the use of the discrete-continuous choice approach is relevant in explaining observed differences. (JEL H31, Q25)
The Effect of Viewing a Self-Avatar on Distance Judgments in an HMD-Based Virtual Environment

Few HMD-based virtual environment systems display a rendering of the user's own body. Subjectively, this often leads to a sense of disembodiment in the virtual world. We explore the effect of being able to see one's own body in such systems on an objective measure of the accuracy of one form of space perception. Using an action-based response measure, we found that participants who explored near space while seeing a fully-articulated and tracked visual representation of themselves subsequently made more accurate judgments of absolute egocentric distance to locations ranging from 4 m to 6 m away from where they were standing than did participants who saw no avatar. A nonanimated avatar also improved distance judgments, but by a lesser amount. Participants who viewed either animated or static avatars positioned 3 m in front of their own position made subsequent distance judgments with similar accuracy to the participants who viewed the equivalent animated or static avatar positioned at their own location. We discuss the implications of these results on theories of embodied perception in virtual environments.
The Impact of Poor Health on Education: New Evidence Using Genetic Markers

This paper examines the influence of health conditions on academic performance during adolescence. To account for the endogeneity of health outcomes and their interactions with risky behaviors we exploit natural variation within a set of genetic markers across individuals. We present strong evidence that these genetic markers serve as valid instruments with good statistical properties for ADHD, depression and obesity. They help to reveal a new dynamism from poor health to lower academic achievement with substantial heterogeneity in their impacts across genders. Our investigation further exposes the considerable challenges in identifying health impacts due to the prevalence of comorbid health conditions and endogenous health behaviors.
Management of perivascular epithelioid cell tumor of the liver: A case report and review of the literature

Perivascular epithelioid cell tumor (PEComa) is a rare tumor that originates from mesenchymal tissues. Cases of PEComa in the liver are extremely rare. The present study aimed to analyze the clinical features of PEComa in the liver and discuss its management. Here we report a 25-year-old female with multiple lesions of low density with poorly defined borders in the liver, as shown by a computed tomography (CT) scan. A partial hepatectomy was proceeded and PEComa was diagnosed by immunohistochemistry. No evidence of recurrence was observed during the one year follow-up. A total of 20 patients with hepatic PEComa, including one case from the present study and 19 cases that were reported in literature between June 2001 and December 2012, were reviewed and analyzed. The mean patient age was 43.4 years (range, 25–67 years) and the cases consisted of 18 female and two male patients. The tumor size ranged between 2.0×1.6 and 15.0×12.0 cm. Of the 20 patients, nine were asymptomatic and 11 had mild to significant complaints. Immunohistochemistry plays a key role in the diagnosis of PEComa. All the cases in this study were strongly positive for human melanoma black-45. A surgical resection is the gold standard for curative intent. All the patients underwent a surgical resection and none were administered perioperative chemotherapy or radiotherapy. In total, 13 of the 14 patients with follow-up information survived during the 8–36-month follow-up period and one patient succumbed due to recurrence two years after the surgery.
Geometry and percolation on half planar triangulations

We analyze the geometry of domain Markov half planar triangu-lations. In [5] it is shown thatthere exists a one-parameter family ofmeasures supported on half planar triangulations satisfying translation invariance and domain Markov property. We study the geometry of these maps and show that they exhibit a sharp phase-transition inview of their geometry atα = 2/3. For α 2/3,we obtain maps of hyperbolic nature with exponential growth andanchoredexpansion. Some results about the geometry of percolation clusters on such maps and random walk on them are also obtained.
Morphometric and electrophoretic analysis of 13 populations of Anatolian black pine in Turkey.

The genetic variation in populations of Anatolian black pine (Pinus nigra Arn. subsp. pallasiana (L.) Holmboe. ), one of the species covering large areas in Turkey, was investigated. Open pollinated seeds were collected from 13 populations in a natural distribution range. Six characters of seeds (length, width, ratio of length to width, weight/1000 seeds) and seedling characters (cotyledon number and hypocotyls height) and two enzyme systems viz. leucine aminopeptidase (LAP) and glutamate oxaloacetate transaminase, (GOT) were investigated. Significant differences were detected among the populations for the morphological characters. In addition, isozyme patterns of two enzyme systems revealed that LAP has two loci (one with 2 alleles and the other with 3), while GOT has three loci (two with 3 alleles and the third one with 2 alleles). Polymorphic loci were 74% on the average. The mean number of alleles per loci was 1.94 and expected heterozygosity was 19%. The mean total genetic diversity was calculated as 0.203; the mean gene diversity within populations was determined as 0.188, and the average between subpopulations diversity was 0.016. The relative magnitude of genetic differentiation among subpopulations was measured as 0.074 indicating that only 7.4% of the total genetic diversity was there between populations. Average genetic distance was 0.093 according to Gregorius. Nei's genetic distance was 0.022.
Autonomy support or direct control? High school students' experience of their teacher's behaviour

The main goal of the present study was to detect teacher behaviour (as perceived by students) in a sample of Hungarian high school students and to test its possible relationship with certain socio demographic (gender) and school variables (faculty, school year, school achievement) as well as with psychological variables (self-efficacy, aggressive behaviours, and boredom). Using a sample of 385 high school students in Debrecen, a major metropolitan centre in the eastern region of Hungary (ages 15 to 20, 39.2% female), findings supported the claim that students bene fit the most when teachers support their autonomy. Teachers’ autonomy-supportive behaviour was associated with decreased levels of verbal and psychic aggression, and an increased level of self-efficacy. In addition, teachers’ directly controlling behaviour was a predictor of self-efficacy, whereas the supportive but ‘laissez-faire’ behaviour was associated with a higher level of boredom. These findings underline the importance of teachers’ autonomy-supportive behaviour but also emphasise that the role of teacher behaviour may be dependent on the specific context of the cultural and social environment.
A Heterogeneous Parallel Ecologically-Inspired Approach Applied to the 3D-AB Off-Lattice Protein Structure Prediction Problem

This paper applies a heterogeneous parallel ecology-inspired algorithm (pECO) to solve a complex problem from bioinformatics. The ecological-inspired algorithm represents a new perspective to develop cooperative evolutionary algorithms. Different algorithms are applied to compose the computational ecosystem in a heterogeneous model. The aim is to search low energy conformations for the Protein Structure Prediction problem, concerning the 3D-AB off-lattice model. Being a problem that demands a lot of computational effort, a parallel master-slave architecture is employed in order to allow the application of the computational ecosystem in a reasonable computing time. From the results, the pECO approach obtained the best conformation for the 13 amino-acid long sequence and competitive results for the other sequences.
OptiML: An Implicitly Parallel Domain-Specific Language for Machine Learning

As the size of datasets continues to grow, machine learning applications are becoming increasingly limited by the amount of available computational power. Taking advantage of modern hardware requires using multiple parallel programming models targeted at different devices (e.g. CPUs and GPUs). However, programming these devices to run efficiently and correctly is difficult, error-prone, and results in software that is harder to read and maintain. We present OptiML, a domain-specific language (DSL) for machine learning. OptiML is an implicitly parallel, expressive and high performance alternative to MATLAB and C++. OptiML performs domain-specific analyses and optimizations and automatically generates CUDA code for GPUs. We show that OptiML outperforms explicitly parallelized MATLAB code in nearly all cases.
Visualization Techniques of Trajectory Data: Challenges and Limitations

As a consequence of the prevalence of mobile computing and location based services, huge amounts of movement data are nowadays being collected. While the research interest on the analysis of trajectory data has also significantly increased, there are still several open challenges in areas related to geographic information systems. Despite the existence of several techniques for the visualization of movement data, it is still unclear how usable and useful these techniques are, how can they be improved, and in which tasks they should be used. In this paper, we highlight the current limitations in the visual exploration of trajectory data, and present the ongoing research aiming to address those issues. For that, we propose the development of taxonomies addressing visualization tasks, techniques, and data, based on empirical data, through systematic comparative usability studies, and present an overview of the current results.
Evidence for Host-Genotype Associations of Borrelia burgdorferi Sensu Stricto

Different genotypes of the agent of Lyme disease in North America, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, show varying degrees of pathogenicity in humans. This variation in pathogenicity correlates with phylogeny and we have hypothesized that the different phylogenetic lineages in North America reflect adaptation to different host species. In this study, evidence for host species associations of B. burgdorferi genotypes was investigated using 41 B. burgdorferi-positive samples from five mammal species and 50 samples from host-seeking ticks collected during the course of field studies in four regions of Canada: Manitoba, northwestern Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritimes. The B. burgdorferi genotypes in the samples were characterized using three established molecular markers (multi-locus sequence typing [MLST], 16S-23S rrs-rrlA intergenic spacer, and outer surface protein C sequence [ospC] major groups). Correspondence analysis and generalized linear mixed effect models revealed significant associations between B. burgdorferi genotypes and host species (in particular chipmunks, and white-footed mice and deer mice), supporting the hypotheses that host adaptation contributes to the phylogenetic structure and possibly the observed variation in pathogenicity in humans.
Effects of Greenhouse Gas Mitigation on Drought Impacts in the United States

AbstractThe authors present a method for analyzing the economic benefits to the United States resulting from changes in drought frequency and severity due to global greenhouse gas (GHG) mitigation. The method begins by constructing reduced-form models of the effect of drought on agriculture and reservoir recreation in the contiguous United States. These relationships are then applied to drought projections based on two climate stabilization scenarios and two twenty-first-century time periods. Drought indices are sector specific and include both the standardized precipitation index and the Palmer drought severity index. It is found that the modeled regional effects of drought on each sector are negative, almost always statistically significant, and often large in magnitude. These results confirm that drought has been an important driver of historical reductions in economic activity in these sectors. Comparing a reference climate scenario to two GHG mitigation scenarios in 2050 and 2100, the authors find th.