Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sensitivity to change of the field-based Wheelchair Mobility Performance Test in wheelchair basketball.

OBJECTIVE The Wheelchair Mobility Performance (WMP) test is a reliable and valid measure to assess mobility performance in wheelchair basketball. The aim of this study was to examine the sensitivity to change of the WMP test by manipulating wheelchair configurations. METHODS Sixteen wheelchair basketball players performed the WMP test 3 times in their own wheelchair: (i) without adjustments ("control condition"); (ii) with 10 kg additional mass ("weighted condition"); and (iii) with 50% reduced tyre pressure ("tyre condition"). The outcome measure was time (s). If paired t-tests were significant (p <0.05) and differences between conditions were larger than the standard error of measurement, the effect sizes (ES) were used to evaluate the sensitivity to change. ES values ≥0.2 were regarded as sensitive to change. RESULTS The overall performance times for the manipulations were significantly higher than the control condition, with mean differences of 4.40 s (weight - control, ES = 0.44) and 2.81 s (tyre - control, ES = 0.27). The overall performance time on the WMP test was judged as sensitive to change. For 8 of the 15 separate tasks on the WMP test, the tasks were judged as sensitive to change for at least one of the manipulations. CONCLUSION The WMP test can detect change in mobility performance when wheelchair configurations are manipulated.
Relation Between Mathematical Performance, Math Anxiety, and Affective Priming in Children With and Without Developmental Dyscalculia

Many children show negative emotions related to mathematics and some even develop mathematics anxiety. The present study focused on the relation between negative emotions and arithmetical performance in children with and without developmental dyscalculia (DD) using an affective priming task. Previous findings suggested that arithmetic performance is influenced if an affective prime precedes the presentation of an arithmetic problem. In children with DD specifically, responses to arithmetic operations are supposed to be facilitated by both negative and mathematics-related primes (=negative math priming effect). We investigated mathematical performance, math anxiety, and the domain-general abilities of 172 primary school children (76 with DD and 96 controls). All participants also underwent an affective priming task which consisted of the decision whether a simple arithmetic operation (addition or subtraction) that was preceded by a prime (positive/negative/neutral or mathematics-related) was true or false. Our findings did not reveal a negative math priming effect in children with DD. Furthermore, when considering accuracy levels, gender, or math anxiety, the negative math priming effect could not be replicated. However, children with DD showed more math anxiety when explicitly assessed by a specific math anxiety interview and showed lower mathematical performance compared to controls. Moreover, math anxiety was equally present in boys and girls, even in the earliest stages of schooling, and interfered negatively with performance. In conclusion, mathematics is often associated with negative emotions that can be manifested in specific math anxiety, particularly in children with DD. Importantly, present findings suggest that in the assessed age group, it is more reliable to judge math anxiety and investigate its effects on mathematical performance explicitly by adequate questionnaires than by an affective math priming task.
Characterization, Performance and Optimization of PVDF as a Piezoelectric Film for Advanced Space Mirror Concepts

Piezoelectric polymers based on polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) are of interest for large aperture space-based telescopes as adaptive or smart materials. Dimensional adjustments of adaptive polymer films depend on controlled charge deposition. Predicting their long-term performance requires a detailed understanding of the piezoelectric material features, expected to suffer due to space environmental degradation. Hence, the degradation and performance of PVDF and its copolymers under various stress environments expected in low Earth orbit has been reviewed and investigated. Various experiments were conducted to expose these polymers to elevated temperature, vacuum UV, {gamma}-radiation and atomic oxygen. The resulting degradative processes were evaluated. The overall materials performance is governed by a combination of chemical and physical degradation processes. Molecular changes are primarily induced via radiative damage, and physical damage from temperature and atomic oxygen exposure is evident as depoling, loss of orientation and surface erosion. The effects of combined vacuum UV radiation and atomic oxygen resulted in expected surface erosion and pitting rates that determine the lifetime of thin films. Interestingly, the piezo responsiveness in the underlying bulk material remained largely unchanged. This study has delivered a comprehensive framework for material properties and degradation sensitivities with variations in individual polymer performances clearly apparent. Themore » results provide guidance for material selection, qualification, optimization strategies, feedback for manufacturing and processing, or alternative materials. Further material qualification should be conducted via experiments under actual space conditions. « less
High-Capacity Short-Reach Optical Communications

The global traffic is experiencing an exponential growth due to the emerging bandwidth hungry applications and the increase of the number of users, posing a severe challenge to the communication networks in terms of capacity. As a future-proof technology to provide high capacity, fiber communication is widely implemented in different network segments. According to the transmission distance, the fiber networks can be categorized as the long-haul and the shortreach. This thesis focuses on the short-reach communication networks, including 1) fiber access network connecting the end users to the metro/core networks and typically covering tens of kilometers, and 2) optical datacenter network handling the traffic within the datacenter with transmission distance up to a few kilometers. For fiber access networks, wavelength division multiplexing passive optical network (WDMPON) is one of the promising candidates, where a dedicated wavelength channel is assigned to each user guaranteeing high data rate. The dense wavelength channels can enlarge the number of users supported in WDM-PON, but makes the signals vulnerable to the wavelength drift occurring in the lasers. In this regard, we propose two schemes based on optical frequency comb technique and carry out the experiments to verify that the proposed two schemes are able to generate stable multiple carriers for WDM-PONs. Meanwhile, radio-over-fiber techniques allow wireless signals to be optically transmitted for a long distance and are therefore widely considered for transmission of radio signals between central offices and the cells. Millimeter wave (MMW) over fiber techniques, on the other hand, offer high bandwidth and are hence promising for future high capacity mobile access. In this thesis, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a palmshaped spectrum generation, where the high-power central carrier (like the middle finger of the palm) can be used at the cell for the upstream transmission, while multiple MMW bands like the other fingers of the palm are capable of transmitting different downstream data simultaneously. Regarding optical datacenters networks, passive optical interconnects (POIs) have been proposed as an energy-efficient solution thanks to the fact that only passive optical components are used for interconnection of different servers. However, the high insertion loss of the passive components may result in a serious scalability problem. In this thesis, we develop a methodology that is able to take into account various physicallayer aspects, e.g., receiver types, modulat ion formats, to quantify the scalability of the POIs. Both theoretical analyses and experimenta l measurements have been performed to assess the scalability of various coupler-based POIs.
Carcinogenic Effects of Benzene : An Update

The major issue addressed in this document involves the nature and magnitude of the inhalation risk of cancer to humans exposed to low levels of benzene. Occupational studies continue to provide the bulk of evidence of benzene’s carcinogenicity. Workers are exposed at much higher levels than is the general public. This document reconfirms that benzene is a “known” human carcinogen by all routes of exposure. This finding is supported by evidence from human epidemiologic studies, animal data, and an improvement in understanding of mechanism(s) of action. Human epidemiologic studies of highly exposed occupational cohorts have demonstrated that inhalation exposure to benzene can cause acute nonlymphocytic leukemia and other blood disorders, that is, preleukemia and aplastic anemia. Additionally, changes in blood and bone marrow consistent with hematotoxicity are recognized in humans and experimental animals. Currently, there is insufficient evidence to deviate from using an assumption of a linear dose-response curve for benzene, hence, the Agency’s past approach of using a model with lowdose linearity is still recommended. Of the various approaches employing a linear assumption, utilizing the Pliofilm workers cohort, the inhalation risk at 1 ppm ranges from 7.1 × 10 to 2.5 × 10. This reflects a modest change from the EPA’s 1985 interim risk assessment which provided only a single estimate of risk (i.e., 2.6 × 10).
Privacy-preserving Machine Learning as a Service

Abstract Machine learning algorithms based on deep Neural Networks (NN) have achieved remarkable results and are being extensively used in different domains. On the other hand, with increasing growth of cloud services, several Machine Learning as a Service (MLaaS) are offered where training and deploying machine learning models are performed on cloud providers’ infrastructure. However, machine learning algorithms require access to the raw data which is often privacy sensitive and can create potential security and privacy risks. To address this issue, we present CryptoDL, a framework that develops new techniques to provide solutions for applying deep neural network algorithms to encrypted data. In this paper, we provide the theoretical foundation for implementing deep neural network algorithms in encrypted domain and develop techniques to adopt neural networks within practical limitations of current homomorphic encryption schemes. We show that it is feasible and practical to train neural networks using encrypted data and to make encrypted predictions, and also return the predictions in an encrypted form. We demonstrate applicability of the proposed CryptoDL using a large number of datasets and evaluate its performance. The empirical results show that it provides accurate privacy-preserving training and classification.
Automatic Analysis of Sewer Pipes Based on Unrolled Monocular Fisheye Images

The task of detecting and classifying damages in sewer pipes offers an important application area for computer vision algorithms. This paper describes a system, which is capable of accomplishing this task solely based on low quality and severely compressed fisheye images from a pipe inspection robot. Relying on robust image features, we estimate camera poses, model the image lighting, and exploit this information to generate high quality cylindrical unwraps of the pipes' surfaces. Based on the generated images, we apply semantic labeling based on deep convolutional neural networks to detect and classify defects as well as structural elements.
Detecting Compressed Cleartext Traffic from Consumer Internet of Things Devices

Data encryption is the primary method of protecting the privacy of consumer device Internet communications from network observers. The ability to automatically detect unencrypted data in network traffic is therefore an essential tool for auditing Internet-connected devices. Existing methods identify network packets containing cleartext but cannot differentiate packets containing encrypted data from packets containing compressed unencrypted data, which can be easily recovered by reversing the compression algorithm. This makes it difficult for consumer protection advocates to identify devices that risk user privacy by sending sensitive data in a compressed unencrypted format. Here, we present the first technique to automatically distinguish encrypted from compressed unencrypted network transmissions on a per-packet basis. We apply three machine learning models and achieve a maximum 66.9% accuracy with a convolutional neural network trained on raw packet data. This result is a baseline for this previously unstudied machine learning problem, which we hope will motivate further attention and accuracy improvements. To facilitate continuing research on this topic, we have made our training and test datasets available to the public.
Remote delivery of psychological interventions for Parkinson's disease

ABSTRACT Objective: Over two-thirds of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients experience comorbid neuropsychiatric symptoms, which adversely impact their quality of life and often require intervention. There is a preference for non-pharmacological, psychological approaches in addressing these symptoms. Given mobility limitations, travel burden, and cost, accessibility to psychological treatment can be problematic in this population. There has been a recent shift toward delivering care via telehealth in PD. Accordingly, this review aimed to examine remotely delivered psychological interventions for PD patients. Results: Most of the telehealth studies for PD involved Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) based anxiety and depression telephone interventions with relatively short (one month) follow-up periods. Conclusion: Although a preliminary work indicates efficacy, future studies should demonstrate the non-inferiority of these telehealth programs compared to face-to-face delivery, and examine the long-term outcomes of remotely delivered therapy. Video-conferencing (VC) appears to be a promising modality to overcome noted limitations of telephone delivery, and has demonstrated efficacy for PD speech programs. Further research should be conducted evaluating telehealth VC modalities for delivery of psychotherapy including CBT, as well as mindfulness-based therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy for remote treatment of depression and anxiety in PD.
Driver Ants Invading a Termite Nest: Why Do the Most Catholic Predators of All Seldom Take This Abundant Prey?

Driver ants (i.e., epigaeic species in the army ant genus Dorylus, subgenus Anomma) are among the most extreme polyphagous predators, but termites appear to be conspicuously absent from their prey spectrum and attacks by driver ants on termite nests have not yet been described. Here, we report a Dorylus (Anomma) rubellus attack on a colony of the fungus‐growing termite Macrotermes subhyalinus that was observed during the dry season in a savannah habitat in Nigeria's Gashaka National Park. It was estimated that several hundred thousand termites (probably more than 2.4 kg dry mass) were retrieved. The apparent rarity of driver ant predation on Macrotermes nests may be explained by different habitat requirements, by the fact that these ants mostly forage aboveground, by efficient termite defense behavior and nest architecture that make entry into the nest difficult, and finally by driver ant worker morphology, which differs remarkably from that of subterranean Dorylus species that regularly invade and destroy termite colonies.
Ancient Polities, Modern States

Political science is concerned with the study of polities. However, remarkably few scholars are familiar with the polities of the premodern era, such as Vijayanagara, Siam, Abyssinia, the Kingdoms of Kongo or Mutapa, or the Mysore or Maratha empires. This dissertation examines the legacies of precolonial polities in India, during the period from 1707 to 1857. I argue that, contrary to the widespread perception that the Indian subcontinent was a pre-state society, the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries were a time of rapid defensive modernization across the subcontinent, driven by the requirements of gunpowder weaponry and interstate warfare among South Asian regimes and against European colonial powers. These changes included the broadening and deepening of the tax base, consolidation of territorial control, reorganization of domestic militaries to use infantry and gunpowder weapons, rationalization of the administration through use of accounts and printed records, and the professionalization and functional differentiation of the executive branch. I then trace the boundaries of precolonial eighteenth-century South Asian polities, in order to show that districts of India that lie narrowly within the boundary lines of historically centralized states perform significantly better today on a wide variety of district-level indicators of state effectiveness than those narrowly outside these boundaries, despite the fact that these borders largely ceased to exist in the early nineteenth century. These estimated effects are robust to a wide variety of controls, placebo tests for border displacement, the exclusion of individual polities, and controls for the boundaries of India’s contemporary federal states. I verify the persistent legacy of precolonial states using a combination of archival research, district-level colonial data on taxation and public goods from 1853 to 1901, and a field test of bureaucratic responsiveness conducted in the state of Karnataka. Using extensive archival research on the fiscal and bureaucratic structure of Indian states in the eighteenth century, I show that following the decline of the Mughal Empire, warfare
Is the grass always greener on the other side? Social comparisons of subjective well-being

This study investigates subjective well-being (SWB) among residents of Munich (n = 380) and Venice (n = 545) with respect to their individual SWB and their judgments of SWB for residents of their own city and those living in the other city. Our results indicate that egocentrism rather than striving for self-enhancement guided people's judgments of SWB. For people with low individual SWB, a below-average effect was found, whereas for people with high individual SWB, a better-than-average effect emerged. Also in line with the egocentrism approach, judgments of individual SWB were positively related to the judgments of SWB for residents of their own city, but unrelated to SWB of those living in the other city. Implications for future research are discussed.
Avatar-Net: Multi-scale Zero-Shot Style Transfer by Feature Decoration

Zero-shot artistic style transfer is an important image synthesis problem aiming at transferring arbitrary style into content images. However, the trade-off between the generalization and efficiency in existing methods impedes a high quality zero-shot style transfer in real-time. In this paper, we resolve this dilemma and propose an efficient yet effective Avatar-Net that enables visually plausible multi-scale transfer for arbitrary style. The key ingredient of our method is a style decorator that makes up the content features by semantically aligned style features from an arbitrary style image, which does not only holistically match their feature distributions but also preserve detailed style patterns in the decorated features. By embedding this module into an image reconstruction network that fuses multi-scale style abstractions, the Avatar-Net renders multi-scale stylization for any style image in one feed-forward pass. We demonstrate the state-of-the-art effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed method in generating high-quality stylized images, with a series of successive applications include multiple style integration, video stylization and etc.
Quantitative survival impact of composite treatment delays in head and neck cancer

Multidisciplinary management of head and neck cancer (HNC) must reconcile increasingly sophisticated subspecialty care with timeliness of care. Prior studies examined the individual effects of delays in diagnosis‐to‐treatment interval, postoperative interval, and radiation interval but did not consider them collectively. The objective of the current study was to investigate the combined impact of these interwoven intervals on patients with HNC.
Time-evolving genetic networks reveal a NAC troika that negatively regulates leaf senescence in Arabidopsis

Significance Leaf senescence is regulated in a complex manner, involving time-dependent interactions with developmental and environmental signals. Genetic screens have identified key regulators of senescence, particularly late-stage senescence regulators. Recently, time-course gene-expression and network analyses, mostly analyses of static networks, have predicted many senescence regulators. However, senescence is defined by time-evolving networks, involving the temporal transition of interactions among senescence regulators. Here, we present time-evolving networks of NAM/ATAF/CUC (NAC) transcription factors, central regulators of leaf senescence in Arabidopsis, via time-course gene-expression analysis of NACs in their mutants. These time-evolving networks revealed a unique regulatory module of NACs that controls the timely induction of senescence-promoting processes at a presenescent stage of leaf aging. Senescence is controlled by time-evolving networks that describe the temporal transition of interactions among senescence regulators. Here, we present time-evolving networks for NAM/ATAF/CUC (NAC) transcription factors in Arabidopsis during leaf aging. The most evident characteristic of these time-dependent networks was a shift from positive to negative regulation among NACs at a presenescent stage. ANAC017, ANAC082, and ANAC090, referred to as a “NAC troika,” govern the positive-to-negative regulatory shift. Knockout of the NAC troika accelerated senescence and the induction of other NACs, whereas overexpression of the NAC troika had the opposite effects. Transcriptome and molecular analyses revealed shared suppression of senescence-promoting processes by the NAC troika, including salicylic acid (SA) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) responses, but with predominant regulation of SA and ROS responses by ANAC090 and ANAC017, respectively. Our time-evolving networks provide a unique regulatory module of presenescent repressors that direct the timely induction of senescence-promoting processes at the presenescent stage of leaf aging.