Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Emotion Analysis and Classification: Understanding the Performers' Emotions Using the LMA Entities

The increasing availability of large motion databases, in addition to advancements in motion synthesis, has made motion indexing and classification essential for better motion composition. However, in order to achieve good connectivity in motion graphs, it is important to understand human behaviour; human movement though is complex and difficult to completely describe. In this paper, we investigate the similarities between various emotional states with regards to the arousal and valence of the Russell's circumplex model. We use a variety of features that encode, in addition to the raw geometry, stylistic characteristics of motion based on Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Motion capture data from acted dance performances were used for training and classification purposes. The experimental results show that the proposed features can partially extract the LMA components, providing a representative space for indexing and classification of dance movements with regards to the emotion. This work contributes to the understanding of human behaviour and actions, providing insights on how people express emotional states using their body, while the proposed features can be used as complement to the standard motion similarity, synthesis and classification methods.
The effect of quasi-identifier characteristics on statistical bias introduced by k-anonymization

The de-identification of publicly released datasets that contain personal information is necessary to preserve personal privacy. One such de-identification algorithm, kanonymization, reduces the risk of the re-identification of such datasets by requiring that each combination of information-revealing traits be represented by at least k different records in the dataset. However, this requirement may skew the resulting dataset by preferentially deleting records that contain more rare information-revealing traits. This paper investigates the amount of bias and loss of utility introduced into an online education dataset by the k-anonymization process, as well as suggesting future directions that may decrease the amount of bias introduced during de-identification procedures.
Commentary on "Characteristics and Survival of Korean Anal Cancer From the Korea Central Cancer Registry Data"

To the editor: I read with great interest Park et al. [1]'s study, which is one the largest reports on anal canal cancer published in the literature. It provides valuable information regarding the characteristics of and the outcomes for Korean patients with anal canal cancer. The study has mainly focused on the prognostic impact of age, sex, stage, and study duration on the 5 year relative overall survival rates. However, as declared by the authors, due to the limitations of their database, the study lacks important clinical data. Kim [2] well pointed out some of the study's limitations in the editorial entitled, "Anal Cancer Study Based on Korea Central Cancer Registry Data: One Step Forward in Clinical Research". Park et al. [1]'s study did not address a mean or a median age for the entire study population. Malignant neoplasms of the anal canal tend to present in the sixth and the seventh decades of life and rarely before the second decade [3]. The distributions of tumor characteristics such as histologic type, stage and tumor grade between themselves and among different sex and age groups have not been provided. In addition, the modalities used to treat different stages and histological types were not addressed. The treatment approach is usually based on histological type, disease stage, and patient's performance status and desire [3, 4]. Finally, the authors did not compare the patients' and the tumor's characteristics and the 5 year overall survival rates in their study to those previously reported in the literature for large series [5, 6]. Herein, we provided a table (Table 1) to present and compare the patients demographics, the histological types and the 5 year overall survival rates in Park et al. [1]'s study and in two of the largest reports of anal canal cancer from Australia and the United States [1, 5, 6]. Accordingly, the female/male ratio of Korean patients with anal canal cancer is comparable to the values reported in the literature [3, 5, 6]. Park et al. [1] found a lower (50% vs 70% and 77%) proportion for squamous cell carcinomas and a higher (32% vs 27.5% and 19%) one for adenocarcinomas, which is different from most reported series. Furthermore, the average 5-year-survival of Korean patients with anal canal cancer is consistent with the values for most reported series [3, 5, 6]. Table 1 Patient characteristics, clinicopathologic features and overall survival for patients with anal canal cancer based on the three largest reported series in the literature
Treatment of HIV-Associated Nephropathies

In patients with HIV, the use of highly active antiretroviral therapy has improved life expectancy. At the same time, this increase in life expectancy has been associated with a higher frequency of chronic kidney disease due to factors other than HIV infection. Besides HIV-associated nephropathy, a number of different types of immune complex and non-immune complex-mediated processes have been identified on kidney biopsies, including vascular disease (nephrosclerosis), diabetes, and drug-related renal injury. In this setting, renal biopsy needs to be considered in order to obtain the correct diagnosis in individual patients with HIV and kidney impairment. Many issues regarding the optimal treatment of the different pathological processes affecting the kidneys of these patients have remained unresolved. Further research is needed in order to optimize treatment and renal outcomes in patients with HIV and kidney disease.
Zero-Shot Recognition Using Dual Visual-Semantic Mapping Paths

Zero-shot recognition aims to accurately recognize objects of unseen classes by using a shared visual-semantic mapping between the image feature space and the semantic embedding space. This mapping is learned on training data of seen classes and is expected to have transfer ability to unseen classes. In this paper, we tackle this problem by exploiting the intrinsic relationship between the semantic space manifold and the transfer ability of visual-semantic mapping. We formalize their connection and cast zero-shot recognition as a joint optimization problem. Motivated by this, we propose a novel framework for zero-shot recognition, which contains dual visual-semantic mapping paths. Our analysis shows this framework can not only apply prior semantic knowledge to infer underlying semantic manifold in the image feature space, but also generate optimized semantic embedding space, which can enhance the transfer ability of the visual-semantic mapping to unseen classes. The proposed method is evaluated for zero-shot recognition on four benchmark datasets, achieving outstanding results.
Effect of Plant Growth Stimulants on Alfalfa Response to Salt Stress

Salinity is a major impediment to crop production. This study was undertaken to compare the effect of seaweed extract, humic acid, and potassium sulfate nanoparticles in alleviating salt stress in Alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.). Seeds of ten alfalfa genotypes were germinated in a growth chamber at five salt concentrations (0%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 1.5%, and 2.00%). Salt concentrations above 1% reduced seed germination by more than 70% in most genotypes. One salt tolerant genotype (Mesa-Sirsa) and one salt sensitive (Bulldog 505) were selected and planted in greenhouse pots containing 2 kg of sand and subjected to two salt levels (10 and 15 dS· m-1). Four treatments consisting of 1) control (Hoagland solution, no-salt), 2) seaweed extract at 4 Kg·ha-1, 3) humic acid at 28 L· ha-1, and 4) potassium sulfate at 300 Kg· ha-1. Plant biomass was reduced under both salt concentrations in both genotypes, with a greater magnitude in the salt sensitive genotype. Application of seaweed extract resulted in higher relative water content and proline under both salt concentrations (10 and 15 dS·m-1) in the salt sensitive genotype, and lower electrolyte leakage in both salt tolerant and salt sensitive genotypes, under both salt concentrations. Seaweed extract also resulted in higher catalase and SOD activities in both genotypes under 10 dS·m-1. Catalase and SOD activities were associated with significantly (p < 0.01) reduced electrolyte leakage and increased shoot dry weight. Overall, seaweed extract seemed to have a positive effect in alleviating salt stress in alfalfa.
Behavioral management for children and adolescents: assessing the evidence.

OBJECTIVE Behavioral management services for children and adolescents are important components of the mental health service system. Behavioral management is a direct service designed to help develop or maintain prosocial behaviors in the home, school, or community. This review examined evidence for the effectiveness of family-centered, school-based, and integrated interventions. METHODS Literature reviews and individual studies published from 1995 through 2012 were identified by searching PubMed, PsycINFO, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, Sociological Abstracts, Social Services Abstracts, Published International Literature on Traumatic Stress, the Educational Resources Information Center, and the Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature. Authors chose from three levels of evidence (high, moderate, and low) based on benchmarks for the number of studies and quality of their methodology. They also described the evidence of service effectiveness. RESULTS The level of evidence for behavioral management was rated as high because of the number of well-designed randomized controlled trials across settings, particularly for family-centered and integrated family- and school-based interventions. Results for the effectiveness of behavioral management interventions were strong, depending on the type of intervention and mode of implementation. Evidence for school-based interventions as an isolated service was mixed, partly because complexities of evaluating group interventions in schools resulted in somewhat less rigor. CONCLUSIONS Behavioral management services should be considered for inclusion in covered plans. Further research addressing the mechanisms of effect and specific populations, particularly at the school level, will assist in bolstering the evidence base for this important category of clinical intervention.
r-extreme signalling for congestion control

ABSTRACT In many ‘smart city’ applications, congestion arises in part due to the nature of signals received by individuals from a central authority. In the model of Mareček et al., each agent uses one out of multiple resources at each time instant. The per-use cost of a resource depends on the number of concurrent users. A central authority has up-to-date knowledge of the congestion across all resources and uses randomisation to provide a scalar or an interval for each resource at each time. In this paper, the interval to broadcast per resource is obtained by taking the minima and maxima of costs observed within a time window of length r, rather than by randomisation. We show that the resulting distribution of agents across resources also converges in distribution, under plausible assumptions about the evolution of the population over time.
Reducing violence in licensed venues : community safety action projects

The aims of this paper are to describe a series of community safety action projects in three North Queensland cities, and to report their results. These projects had as their major objective improvements in the safety of the environments in and around licensed venues in the central city entertainment areas. They were designed as replications of the safety action intervention model developed in Surfers Paradise in 1992 and 1993.
PWWP-DOMAIN INTERACTOR OF POLYCOMBS1 Interacts with Polycomb-Group Proteins and Histones and Regulates Arabidopsis Flowering and Development

A so far uncharacterized gene family connects Polycomb-group proteins to nuclear organization and nucleosomal occupancy. Polycomb-group (PcG) proteins mediate epigenetic gene regulation by setting H3K27me3 via Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2). In plants, it is largely unclear how PcG proteins are recruited to their target genes. Here, we identified the PWWP-DOMAIN INTERACTOR OF POLYCOMBS1 (PWO1) protein, which interacts with all three Arabidopsis thaliana PRC2 histone methyltransferases and is required for maintaining full H3 occupancy at several Arabidopsis genes. PWO1 localizes and recruits CURLY LEAF to nuclear speckles in Nicotiana benthamiana nuclei, suggesting a role in spatial organization of PcG regulation. PWO1 belongs to a gene family with three members having overlapping activities: pwo1 pwo2 pwo3 triple mutants are seedling lethal and show shoot and root meristem arrest, while pwo1 single mutants are early flowering. Interestingly, the PWWP domain of PWO1 confers binding to histones, which is reduced by a point mutation in a highly conserved residue of this domain and blocked by phosphorylation of H3S28. PWO1 carrying this mutation is not able to fully complement the pwo1 pwo2 pwo3 triple mutant, indicating the requirement of this domain for PWO1 in vivo activity. Thus, the PWO family may present a novel class of histone readers that are involved in recruiting PcG proteins to subnuclear domains and in promoting Arabidopsis development.
Environmental Metagenomic Assemblies Reveal Seven New Highly Divergent Chlamydial Lineages and Hallmarks of a Conserved Intracellular Lifestyle

The Chlamydiae phylum exclusively encompasses bacteria sharing a similar obligate intracellular life cycle. Existing 16S rDNA data support a high diversity within the phylum, however genomic data remain scarce owing to the difficulty in isolating strains using culture systems with eukaryotic cells. Yet, Chlamydiae genome data extracted from large scale metagenomic studies might help fill this gap. This work compares 33 cultured and 27 environmental, uncultured chlamydial genomes, in order to clarify the phylogenetic relatedness of the new chlamydial clades and to investigate the genetic diversity of the Chlamydiae phylum. The analysis of published chlamydial genomes from metagenomics bins and single cell sequencing allowed the identification of seven new deeply branching chlamydial clades sharing genetic hallmarks of parasitic Chlamydiae. Comparative genomics suggests important biological differences between those clades, including loss of many proteins involved in cell division in the genus Similichlamydia, and loss of respiratory chain and tricarboxylic acid cycle in several species. Comparative analyses of chlamydial genomes with two proteobacterial orders, the Rhizobiales and the Rickettsiales showed that genomes of different Rhizobiales families are much more similar than genomes of different Rickettsiales families. On the other hand, the chlamydial 16S rRNAs exhibit a higher sequence conservation than their Rickettsiales counterparts, while chlamydial proteins exhibit increased sequence divergence. Studying the diversity and genome plasticity of the entire Chlamydiae phylum is of major interest to better understand the emergence and evolution of this ubiquitous and ancient clade of obligate intracellular bacteria.
Capsid Assembly Modulators Have a Dual Mechanism of Action in Primary Human Hepatocytes Infected with Hepatitis B Virus

ABSTRACT Hepatitis B virus (HBV) capsid assembly is a critical step in the propagation of the virus and is mediated by the core protein. Due to its multiple functions in the viral life cycle, core became an attractive target for new antiviral therapies. Capsid assembly modulators (CAMs) accelerate the kinetics of capsid assembly and prevent encapsidation of the polymerase-pregenomic RNA (Pol-pgRNA) complex, thereby blocking viral replication. CAM JNJ-632 is a novel and potent inhibitor of HBV replication in vitro across genotypes A to D. It induces the formation of morphologically intact viral capsids, as demonstrated by size exclusion chromatography and electron microscopy studies. Antiviral profiling in primary human hepatocytes revealed that CAMs prevented formation of covalently closed circular DNA in a dose-dependent fashion when the compound was added together with the viral inoculum, whereas nucleos(t)ide analogues (NAs) did not. This protective effect translated into a dose-dependent reduction of intracellular HBV RNA levels as well as reduced HBe/cAg and HBsAg levels in the cell culture supernatant. The same observation was made with another CAM (BAY41-4109), suggesting that mechanistic rather than compound-specific effects play a role. Our data show that CAMs have a dual mechanism of action, inhibiting early and late steps of the viral life cycle. These effects clearly differentiate CAMs from NAs and may translate into higher functional cure rates in a clinical setting when given alone or in combination with the current standard of care.
Activation of matrix metalloproteinase-9 via neuronal nitric oxide synthase contributes to NMDA-induced retinal ganglion cell death.

PURPOSE Understanding the mechanism of neuronal cell death in retinal diseases like glaucoma is important for devising new treatments. One factor involves excitatory amino acid stimulation of N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA)-type glutamate receptors, excessive Ca2+ influx, and formation of nitric oxide (NO) via neuronal NO synthase (nNOS). Another factor is the abnormal activation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), in particular MMP-9, which triggers an extracellular signaling cascade leading to apoptosis. This study was designed to investigate the mechanism of excitotoxic retinal ganglion cell (RGC) death in vivo and its relationship to MMP activation. METHODS NMDA and glycine were injected into the vitreous of the eye in rats and in nNOS-deficient mice (nNOS-/-) versus control. Gelatinolytic activity of MMP-9 and MMP-2 by zymography and cellular localization by immunohistochemistry were examined, and the effect of MMP inhibition on NMDA-induced RGC death was tested. RESULTS NMDA was found to upregulate the proform of MMP-9 in the retina and to increase MMP-9 gelatinolytic activity. Retrograde labeling with aminostilbamidine to identify RGCs confirmed that MMP activity occurred only in these retinal neurons and not in glial or other retinal cell types after excitotoxic insult. Deconvolution fluorescence microscopy revealed that MMP activity colocalized with immunoreactive S-nitrosylated protein. NMDA-induced MMP activation was diminished in the retina of nNOS-/- mice, implying that S-nitrosylation of MMP had indeed occurred. In addition, the broad-spectrum MMP inhibitor GM6001 protected RGCs after intravitreal NMDA injection. CONCLUSIONS These findings suggest that an extracellular proteolytic pathway in the retina contributes to RGC death via NO-activated MMP-9.
Plasmonic Physics of 2 D Crystalline Materials

Collective modes of doped two-dimensional crystalline materials, namely graphene, MoS2 and phosphorene, both monolayer and bilayer structures, are explored using the density functional theory simulations together with the random phase approximation. The many-body dielectric functions of the materials are calculated using an ab initio based model involving material-realistic physical properties. Having calculated the electron energy-loss, we calculate the collective modes of each material considering the in-phase and out-of-phase modes for bilayer structures. Furthermore, owing to many band structures and intreband transitions, we also find high-energy excitations in the systems. We explain that the material-specific dielectric function considering the polarizability of the crystalline material such as MoS2 are needed to obtain realistic plasmon dispersions. For each material studied here, we find different collective modes and describe their physical origins.
Effects of Ag Addition on High Temperature Thermoelectric Properties of (Ca0.9Gd0.1)3Co4O9 Ceramics

A series of (Ca0.9Gd0.1)3Co4O9/xAg(x=0, 0.1, 0.15, 0.2) ceramics were prepared by a polyacrylamide gel method and Spark Plasma Sintering. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) revealed that small size Ag particles were dispersed into the (Ca0.9Gd0.1)3Co4O9(CGCO) matrix. The electrical conductivity of the composites was obviously higher than that of (Ca0.9Gd0.1)3Co4O9, and increased with increase of Ag content. However, the addition of Ag seemed to have a negative impact on the Seebeck coefficient (S) of the composites samples due to its poor S. Since the increase of electrical conductivity (σ) is more significant than the degradation of S, the power factor (P=σS2) was found to be improved by the addition of Ag. At 973 K, the P value of the sample with x =0.2 reached 3.17×10-4 W•m-1•K-2, which was 12.5% higher than that of Ca3Co4O9(CCO) bulk material.
DataMill: rigorous performance evaluation made easy

Empirical systems research is facing a dilemma. Minor aspects of an experimental setup can have a significant impact on its associated performance measurements and potentially invalidate conclusions drawn from them. Examples of such influences, often called hidden factors, include binary link order, process environment size, compiler generated randomized symbol names, or group scheduler assignments. The growth in complexity and size of modern systems will further aggravate this dilemma, especially with the given time pressure of producing results. So how can one trust any reported empirical analysis of a new idea or concept in computer science? This paper introduces DataMill, a community-based easy-to-use services-oriented open benchmarking infrastructure for performance evaluation. DataMill facilitates producing robust, reliable, and reproducible results. The infrastructure incorporates the latest results on hidden factors and automates the variation of these factors. Multiple research groups already participate in DataMill. DataMill is also of interest for research on performance evaluation. The infrastructure supports quantifying the effect of hidden factors, disseminating the research results beyond mere reporting. It provides a platform for investigating interactions and composition of hidden factors.
Phenotypic plasticity of mate recognition systems prevents sexual interference between two sympatric leaf beetle species

Maladaptive sexual interactions among heterospecific individuals (sexual interference) can prevent the coexistence of animal species. Thus, the avoidance of sexual interference by divergence of mate recognition systems is crucial for a stable coexistence in sympatry. Mate recognition systems are thought to be under tight genetic control. However, we demonstrate that mate recognition systems of two closely related sympatric leaf beetle species show a high level of host‐induced phenotypic plasticity. Mate choice in the mustard leaf beetles, Phaedon cochleariae and P. armoraciae, is mediated by cuticular hydrocarbons (CHCs). Divergent host plant use causes a divergence of CHC phenotypes, whereas similar host use leads to their convergence. Consequently, both species exhibit significant behavioral isolation when they feed on alternative host species, but mate randomly when using a common host. Thus, sexual interference between these syntopic leaf beetles is prevented by host‐induced phenotypic plasticity rather than by genotypic divergence of mate recognition systems.