Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving emotion recognition systems by embedding cardiorespiratory coupling

This work aims at showing improved performances of an emotion recognition system embedding information gathered from cardiorespiratory (CR) coupling. Here, we propose a novel methodology able to robustly identify up to 25 regions of a two-dimensional space model, namely the well-known circumplex model of affect (CMA). The novelty of embedding CR coupling information in an autonomic nervous system-based feature space better reveals the sympathetic activations upon emotional stimuli. A CR synchrogram analysis was used to quantify such a coupling in terms of number of heartbeats per respiratory period. Physiological data were gathered from 35 healthy subjects emotionally elicited by means of affective pictures of the international affective picture system database. In this study, we finely detected five levels of arousal and five levels of valence as well as the neutral state, whose combinations were used for identifying 25 different affective states in the CMA plane. We show that the inclusion of the bivariate CR measures in a previously developed system based only on monovariate measures of heart rate variability, respiration dynamics and electrodermal response dramatically increases the recognition accuracy of a quadratic discriminant classifier, obtaining more than 90% of correct classification per class. Finally, we propose a comprehensive description of the CR coupling during sympathetic elicitation adapting an existing theoretical nonlinear model with external driving. The theoretical idea behind this model is that the CR system is comprised of weakly coupled self-sustained oscillators that, when exposed to an external perturbation (i.e. sympathetic activity), becomes synchronized and less sensible to input variations. Given the demonstrated role of the CR coupling, this model can constitute a general tool which is easily embedded in other model-based emotion recognition systems.
Occurrence of Psychosis in Patients with Epilepsy Randomized to Tiagabine or Placebo Treatment

Summary: Purpose: Patients with drug‐resistant epilepsy have a higher incidence of psychiatric problems and possibly greater intolerance to antiepileptic drugs (AEDs) than do other patients with epilepsy. Concern has been raised that γ‐aminobutyric acid (GABA)ergic drugs may be associated with treatment‐emergent psychosis. Tiagabine (TGB; Gabitril), a new AED that blocks synaptic GABA uptake, was developed in trials of drug‐resistant patients with epilepsy. We conducted ad hoc analyses of adverse events, drug intolerance, and treatment response to evaluate the association between TGB treatment and psychosis and whether psychiatric history might be predictive of tolerance or effectiveness of this GABAergic drug.
Physiologic decline in fetal hemoglobin parameters in infants with sickle cell disease: implications for pharmacological intervention.

PURPOSE Fetal hemoglobin (HbF) is an important determinant in the clinical severity of patients with sickle cell disease. The physiologic decline in HbF parameters in a cohort of infants with sickle cell disease was investigated. PATIENTS AND METHODS The percent HbF and F cells were quantitated, and the HbF per F cell was then calculated. One hundred thirty-eight blood samples from 44 infants with homozygous sickle cell anemia (HbSS) and 56 samples from 24 infants with sickle cell hemoglobin (HbSC) were studied. RESULTS Infants with HbSS had a logarithmic decline in HbF parameters; at 24 months, the average HbF was 14.6%+/-7.3% and the % F cells was 64.7%+/-16.9%. The amount of HbF in each F cell (HbF per F cell) was <15 pg/cell, a suggested threshold for intracellular sickle polymerization, by age 12 months. Infants with HbSC had a more rapid decline: at 12 months the average % HbF was 12.2%+/-9.3%, the % F cells was 60.5%+/-18.7%, and the HbF per F cell was <10 pg/cell. CONCLUSIONS By age 2 years, HbF parameters including the % HbF, % F cells, and the HbF per F cell decrease to levels insufficient to inhibit sickling. Pharmacologic intervention designed to enhance HbF production and prevent chronic organ damage should be considered during infancy.
Protection from Pneumonic Infection with Burkholderia Species by Inhalational Immunotherapy

ABSTRACT Burkholderia mallei and B. pseudomallei are important human pathogens and cause the diseases glanders and melioidosis, respectively. Both organisms are highly infectious when inhaled and are inherently resistant to many antimicrobials, thus making it difficult to treat pneumonic Burkholderia infections. We investigated whether it was possible to achieve rapid protection against inhaled Burkholderia infection by using inhaled immunotherapy. For this purpose, cationic liposome DNA complexes (CLDC), which are potent activators of innate immunity, were used to elicit the activation of pulmonary innate immune responses. We found that mucosal CLDC administration before or shortly after bacterial challenge could generate complete or nearly complete protection from inhalational challenge with 100% lethal doses of B. mallei and B. pseudomallei. Protection was found to be dependent on the CLDC-mediated induction of gamma interferon responses in lung tissues and was partially dependent on the activation of NK cells. However, CLDC-mediated protection was not dependent on the induction of inducible nitric oxide synthase, as assessed by depletion studies. We concluded that the potent local activation of innate immune responses in the lung could be used to elicit rapid and nonspecific protection from aerosol exposure to both B. mallei and B. pseudomallei.
Conversion of Amazon rainforest to agriculture alters community traits of methane‐cycling organisms

Land use change is one of the greatest environmental impacts worldwide, especially to tropical forests. The Amazon rainforest has been subject to particularly high rates of land use change, primarily to cattle pasture. A commonly observed response to cattle pasture establishment in the Amazon is the conversion of soil from a methane sink in rainforest, to a methane source in pasture. However, it is not known how the microorganisms that mediate methane flux are altered by land use change. Here, we use the deepest metagenomic sequencing of Amazonian soil to date to investigate differences in methane‐cycling microorganisms and their traits across rainforest and cattle pasture soils. We found that methane‐cycling microorganisms responded to land use change, with the strongest responses exhibited by methane‐consuming, rather than methane‐producing, microorganisms. These responses included a reduction in the relative abundance of methanotrophs and a significant decrease in the abundance of genes encoding particulate methane monooxygenase. We also observed compositional changes to methanotroph and methanogen communities as well as changes to methanotroph life history strategies. Our observations suggest that methane‐cycling microorganisms are vulnerable to land use change, and this vulnerability may underlie the response of methane flux to land use change in Amazon soils.
Rate of inhibitor development in previously untreated hemophilia A patients treated with plasma‐derived or recombinant factor VIII concentrates: a systematic review

Summary. Background: Different rates of inhibitor development after either plasma‐derived (pdFVIII) or recombinant (rFVIII) FVIII have been suggested. However, conflicting results are reported in the literature. Objectives: To systematically review the incidence rates of inhibitor development in previously untreated patients (PUPs) with hemophilia A treated with either pdFVIII or rFVIII and to explore the influence of both study and patient characteristics. Methods: Summary incidence rates (95% confidence interval) from all included studies for both pdFVIII and rFVIII results were recalculated and pooled. Sensitivity analysis was used to investigate the effect of study design, severity of disease and inhibitor characteristics. Meta‐regression and analysis‐of‐variance were used to investigate the effect of covariates (testing frequency, follow‐up duration and intensity of treatment). Results: Two thousand and ninety‐four patients (1167 treated with pdFVIII, 927 with rFVIII; median age, 9.6 months) from 24 studies were investigated and 420 patients were observed to develop inhibitors. Pooled incidence rate was 14.3% (10.4–19.4) for pdFVIII and 27.4% (23.6–31.5) for rFVIII; high responding inhibitor incidence rate was 9.3% (6.2–13.7) for pdFVIII and 17.4% (14.2–21.2) for rFVIII. In the multi‐way anova study design, study period, testing frequency and median follow‐up explained most of the variability, while the source of concentrate lost statistical significance. It was not possible to analyse the effect of intensity of treatment or trigger events such as surgery, and to completely exclude multiple reports of the same patient or changes of concentrate. Conclusions: These findings underscore the need for randomized controlled trials to address whether or not the risk of inhibitor in PUPs with hemophilia A differs between rFVIII and pdFVIII.
International training and management development: theory and reality

Purpose – This article aims to outline the theoretical perspectives of international training and development and examine how theoretical frameworks have been implemented by practitioners.Design/methodology/approach – Literature review.Findings – There appears to be a considerable gap between academic theories and multinational enterprises’ (MNEs’) practices. MNEs pay little attention to international training and management development. Ineffective international training and management development have a considerably adverse impact on MNEs.Practical implications – In order to succeed in a globally competitive environment MNEs need to effectively train expatriates and their spouses, host‐country nationals (HCNs) and third‐country nationals (TCNs), and develop and nurture a truly global management team.Originality/value – This paper systematically reviews the existing literature and reveals a considerable gap between academic theories and MNEs’ practices.
The Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer and its first application: COSMOS

We present the Zurich Extragalactic Bayesian Redshift Analyzer (ZEBRA). The current version of ZEBRA combines and extends several of the classical approaches to produce accurate photometric redshifts down to faint magnitudes. In particular, ZEBRA uses the template-fitting approach to produce Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian redshift estimates based on the following points. (i) An automatic iterative technique to correct the original set of galaxy templates to best represent the Spectral Energy Distributions (SEDs) of real galaxies at different redshifts. (ii) A training set of spectroscopic redshifts for a small fraction of the photometric sample to improve the robustness of the photometric redshift estimates. (iii) An iterative technique for Bayesian redshift estimates, which extracts the full two-dimensional redshift and template probability function for each galaxy. We demonstrate the performance of ZEBRA by applying it to a sample of 866 I_AB ⩽ 22.5 COSMOS galaxies with available u*, B, V, g', r', i', z' and K_s photometry and zCOSMOS spectroscopic redshifts in the range 0 < z < 1.3 . Adopting a 5σ clipping that excludes ⩽10 galaxies, both the Maximum Likelihood and Bayesian ZEBRA estimates for this sample have an accuracy σ_(Δz/(1+z)) smaller than 0.03. Similar accuracies are recovered using mock galaxies.
Causes of farm diversification over time: an Australian perspective on an Eastern Norway model

Farm planning often focuses on optimal diversification with respect to risk, where the risk-management strategies combine production, marketing, financial and environmental aspects of the farm-firm. In this study an empirical examination of diversification has been carried out using a sample of farms in Eastern Norway. Four measures of diversification (indices) were defined to record the risks in relation to income from farm production. Using these alternative measures of diversification and panel-data, the results show that larger farms are more diversified, and for farms in more favourable locations and access to labour, the farmers have a greater incentive to spread risk. These results suggest that diversification and farm size are positively linked and that there may not be sufficient economies of scale to warrant specialisation and/or farm specialisation may not be environmentally desirable because of the pollution that would result. The Norwegian model offers good prospects for analysing similar issues of diversification in the Australian farming sector.
Graduate Nursing Students' Attitudes Toward Gay and Hemophiliac Men with AIDS

Subjects were 180 registered nurses enrolled in a master's nursing program. By random assignment, each read one of six versions of a vignette about a male patient. Vignettes differed in terms of patient's diagnosis (AIDS of unspecified origin, AIDS in a hemophiliac infected by blood transfusion, and leukemia) and sexual preference (gay or heterosexual). Nurses evaluated the patient on two scales, one involving judgments of patients and the other concerning willingness to interact socially with them. The hemophiliac/AIDS and leukemia patients were judged significantly less responsible for and less deserving of their illnesses than was the patient with AIDS of unspecified origin (p < .001). However, all three diagnostic categories were considered equally deserving of the best possible care. Both categories of AIDS patients were stigmatized in terms of certain social interactions. There was also some weak evidence of antigay bias. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
On the Devroye–Mitran–Tarokh and Rini–Tuninetti–Devroye Achievable Rate Regions for the Cognitive Interference Channels

This letter includes two important comments on two well-cited papers in the field of the cognitive interference channel (CIC). First, it is shown that the Devroye-Mitran–Tarokh (DMT) achievable rate region for the discrete memoryless CIC can be enlarged by utilizing an important overlooked dependence between secondary auxiliary random variables. Then, it is shown that, with this new change, the strict inclusion of DMT region in an inner bound of the Rini-Tuninetti-Devroye (RTD) achievable region (proved by Rini et al.) is no longer true between the enlarged (indeed amended) version of DMT region and RTD region. Thus, it is still not clear whether the RTD region is strictly the largest to date known region.
Self-double-emulsifying drug delivery system incorporated in natural hydrogels: a new way for topical application of vitamin C

Abstract This study aimed at the in vitro evaluation of topical hydrogels containing vitamin C-loaded self-double-emulsifying drug delivery system (SDEDDS). The liquid SDEDDS was converted into suitable unmodified xanthan gum hydrogels formulation and the prepared semi-solid hydrogels provided appropriate gel characteristics like pH, viscosity, spreadability, etc. The 5-week storage test displayed that the prepared hydrogels possessed good physicochemical stability. In addition, no significant cytotoxicity to L929 cells was observed for the vitamin C-loaded SDEDDS-based hydrogels, and the prepared hydrogels depicted a sustained drug release over an 8-h period. In vitro permeation study showed that the vitamin C-loaded SDEDDS-based hydrogels could significantly enhance vitamin C retention in the skin and permeation through the skin. The overall results demonstrated that the hydrogels containing vitamin C-loaded SDEDDS could be considered as a promising formulation for topical application.
Optimal Currents on Arbitrarily Shaped Surfaces

An optimization problem has been formulated to find a resonant current extremizing various antenna parameters. The method is presented on, but not limited to, particular cases of gain G, quality factor Q, gain to quality factor ratio G/ Q, and radiation efficiency η of canonical shapes with conduction losses explicitly included. The Rao-Wilton-Glisson basis representation is used to simplify the underlying algebra while still allowing surface current regions of arbitrary shape to be treated. By switching to another basis generated by a specific eigenvalue problem, it is finally shown that the optimal current can, in principle, be found as a combination of a few eigenmodes. The presented method constitutes a general framework in which the antenna parameters, expressed as bilinear forms, can automatically be extremized.
Learning from nudity: lessons from the nude phenotype

Abstract: In mice, rats, and humans, loss of function of Foxn1, a member of the winged helix/forkhead family of transcription factors, leads to macroscopic nudity and an inborn dysgenesis of the thymus. Nude (Foxn1nu/Foxn1nu) mice develop largely normal hair follicles and produce hair shafts. However, presumably because of a lack of certain hair keratins, the hair shafts that are generated twist and coil in the hair follicle infundibulum, which becomes dilated. Since hair shafts fail to penetrate the epidermis, macroscopic nudity results and generates the – grossly misleading – impression that nude mice are hairless. Here, we provide an overview of what is known on the role of Foxn1 in mammalian skin biology, its expression patterns in the hair follicle, its influence on hair follicle function, and onychocyte differentiation. We focus on the mechanisms and signaling pathways by which Foxn1 modulates keratinocyte differentiation in the hair follicle and nail apparatus and summarize the current knowledge on the molecular and functional consequences of a loss of function of the Foxn1 protein in skin. Foxn1 target genes, gene regulation of Foxn, and pharmacological manipulation of the nude phenotype (e.g. by cyclosporine A, KGF, and vitamin D3) are discussed, and important open questions as well as promising research strategies in Foxn1 biology are defined. Taken together, this review aims at delineating why enhanced research efforts in this comparatively neglected field of investigative dermatology promise important new insights into the controls of epithelial differentiation in mammalian skin.
DELAY-RANGE-DEPENDENT ROBUST STABILITY CRITERIA FOR UNCERTAIN NEUTRAL-TYPE LUR ’ E SYSTEMS WITH SECTOR-BOUNDED NONLINEARITIES

This paper is concerned with the robust stability of uncertain neutral-type Lur’e system with interval time-varying delays and sector-bounded nonlinearities. By use of augmented Lyapunov-Krasovskii functional (LKF) and delay-partitioning techniques, delay-dependent robust stability criteria are proposed in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) without using the general free-weighting matrix method. The criteria are less conservative than some previous ones. Numerical examples are presented to show the effectiveness and merits of the proposed approach.
Degrees of Freedom of Cooperative MIMO in Cellular Networks

In cellular networks, relays and/or mobiles can cooperate to improve the overall system performance. For example, once the transmission from a base station with multiple antennas is received by multiple nodes (relays and/or mobiles), they can exchange information to enhance the quality of intended signals while suppressing interference. Such virtual multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) transmission is a key ingredient in hierarchical cooperation by ozgur et al., which was shown to improve the throughput scaling of ad hoc networks greatly. In this paper, we analyze the achievable rate of such a cooperative MIMO between a base station with multiple antennas and a node group. An antenna array with a fixed area has a limited number of degrees of freedom. We use a realistic channel model that can capture the effect of geometry of antenna arrays on the number of degrees of freedom. Our achievable rate is limited by the product of the aperture of the antenna array in the base station and the angular spread, which is consistent with some known results on the limit of the degrees of antenna arrays.
Concepciones del profesorado sobre visitas escolares a museos de Ciencias

Las escuelas y los profesores suelen atribuir un alto valor formativo a las visitas a museos de ciencias, pero la bibliografia senala que la mayoria de los profesores no suelen definir los objetivos concretos de la visita. El objetivo del estudio es analizar las concepciones del profesorado sobre los objetivos de las visitas escolares a museos de ciencias, asi como la preparacion y tratamiento post-visita de las mismas. Para ello se ha disenado una entrevista con preguntas semi-abierta que ha sido contestada por 87 son profesores de educacion Primaria y 71 de educacion Secundaria que han visitado el Museo de la Ciencia de San Sebastian. Los resultados muestran que la mayoria del profesorado no aplica su conocimiento pedagogico profesional en la organizacion de la visita.
Mitoquinone restores platelet production in irradiation-induced thrombocytopenia

Abstract Myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) are hallmarked by cytopenia and dysplasia of hematopoietic cells, often accompanied by mitochondrial dysfunction and increases of reactive oxygen species (ROS) within affected cells. However, it is not known whether the increase in ROS production is an instigator or a byproduct of the disease. The present investigation shows that mice lacking immediate early responsive gene X-1 (IEX-1) exhibit lineage specific increases in ROS production and abnormal cytology upon radiation in blood cell types commonly identified in MDS. These affected cell lineages chiefly have the bone marrow as a primary site of differentiation and maturation, while cells with extramedullary differentiation and maturation like B- and T-cells remain unaffected. Increased ROS production is likely to contribute significantly to irradiation-induced thrombocytopenia in the absence of IEX-1 as demonstrated by effective reversal of the disorder after mitoquinone (MitoQ) treatment, a mitochondria-specific antioxidant. MitoQ reduced intracellular ROS production within megakaryocytes and platelets. It also normalized mitochondrial membrane potential and superoxide production in platelets in irradiated, IEX-1 deficient mice. The lineage-specific effects of mitochondrial ROS may help us understand the etiology of thrombocytopenia in association with MDS in a subgroup of the patients.
VSED: Death With Dignity or Without?

Abstract: Conceivably, in an ideal world, all patients with a life–limiting illness would receive optimal hospice and palliative care so that no one would ever wish to hasten their own death. The reality, however, is that despite provision of optimal hospice and palliative care, individuals with terminal illness experience suffering, loss of meaning, or deterioration in quality of life to the extent where they express the desire to expedite the dying process. While there has been extensive discussion surrounding physician–assisted death (PAD), there has been less attention paid to the practice of voluntary stopping eating and drinking (VSED) near the end of life. These twelve compelling narratives represent a dramatic groundswell of attention to the practice of VSED. Through my review of these narratives, numerous statements of significance emerged along with common ethical themes which bring to light matters that might otherwise remain idle. As such, integrity and autonomy become paramount while, unfortunately, logical fallacies like that of the slippery slope argument are asserted. Ultimately, the suffering that leads people to embrace VSED is compelling and must not be minimized. Therefore, this paper, while not comprehensive, is an attempt to dissect these major themes and offer recommendations for addressing concerns regarding end–of–life care that have surfaced during the VSED debate. It is through this endeavor that I will hopefully challenge prevailing assumptions and misconceptions that can only exist in an ideal world.