Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Building a naturalistic emotional speech corpus by retrieving expressive behaviors from existing speech corpora

A key element in affective computing is to have large corpora of genuine emotional samples collected during natural conversations. Recording natural interactions through telephone is an appealing approach to build emotional databases. However, collecting real conversational data with expressive reactions is a challenging task, especially if the recordings are to be shared with the community (e.g., privacy concerns). This study explores a novel approach consisting in retrieving emotional reactions from existing spontaneous speech databases collected for general speech processing problems. Although most of the recordings in these databases are expected to have non-emotional expressions, given the naturalness of the interactions, the flow of the conversation can lead to emotional responses from conversation partners which we aim to retrieve. We use the IEMOCAP and SEMAINE databases to build emotion detector systems. We use these classifiers to identify emotional behaviors from the FISHER database, which is a large conversational speech corpus recorded over the phone. Subjective evaluations over the retrieved samples demonstrate the potential of the proposed scheme to build naturalistic emotional speech database. Index Terms: emotion recognition, expressive speech, information retrieval, emotional databases
IMPLEMENTING CRM : LEARNING CYCLES UNDER THE LENS OF ABSORPTIVE CAPACITY

In this paper we focus on the iterative process that occurs within the implementation phase of an ERP which we depict as a series of learning cycles: managers make decisions, identify mistakes, and accumulate experience (lessons learned). We argue that ERP development is a process of continuous evolution with no final design being possible or warranted. Moreover, we argue that ERP implementation is best viewed not as a one-time process but rather as a series of implementation and practical use cycles, each of which encompasses different degrees of reflection and learning such that the system becomes more embedded and better adapted to the context. We examine these “learning cycles” through the lens of absorptive capacity. We take from Cohen and Levinthal‟s (1990) original construct, the concept of “knowledge accumulation. ” From its further development we borrow concepts such as double loop learning and absorptive capacity; relative absorptive capacity, that is what a firm can learn in terms of new knowledge acquired through consultancy; how learning cycles can be seen as a dynamic capability, and the importance of framing the learning process within a multilevel perspective. Our case study is based on Alpha Co., an international company with its headquarters in the United States, which sells product development technologies to manufacturing firms. The contribution of this research study is represented by a qualitative study that uses the absorptive capacity framework (that historically has been used with quantitative analysis) to look at the dynamic process of developing the capability to exploit a new ERP. 1 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02452 USA, Phone +1.617. 955.4808 marabel_marc@bentley.edu 2 175 Forest Street, Waltham, MA 02452 USA, Phone +1.781. 891.2399 snewell@bentley.edu
An intracellular membrane junction consisting of flagellum adhesion glycoproteins links flagellum biogenesis to cell morphogenesis in Trypanosoma brucei

Summary African trypanosomes have a single, membrane-bounded flagellum that is attached to the cell cortex by membrane adhesion proteins and an intracellular flagellum attachment zone (FAZ) complex. The coordinated assembly of flagellum and FAZ, during the cell cycle and the life cycle development, plays a pivotal role in organelle positioning, cell division and cell morphogenesis. To understand how the flagellum and FAZ assembly are coordinated, we examined the domain organization of the flagellum adhesion protein 1 (FLA1), a glycosylated, transmembrane protein essential for flagellum attachment and cell division. By immunoprecipitation of a FLA1-truncation mutant that mislocalized to the flagellum, a novel FLA1-binding protein (FLA1BP) was identified in procyclic Trypanosoma brucei. The interaction between FLA1 on the cell membrane and FLA1BP on the flagellum membrane acts like a molecular zipper, joining flagellum membrane to cell membrane and linking flagellum biogenesis to FAZ elongation. By coordinating flagellum and FAZ assembly during the cell cycle, morphology information is transmitted from the flagellum to the cell body.
Before A Computer Can Draw, It Must First Learn To See

Most computationally creative systems lack adequate means of perceptually evaluating the artifacts they produce and are therefore not fully grounded in real world understanding. We argue that perceptually grounding such systems will increase their creative potential. Having adequate perceptual abilities can enable computational systems to be more autonomous, learn better internal models, evaluate their own artifacts, and create artifacts with intention. We draw from the ﬁelds of cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and art history to gain insights into the role that perception plays in the creative process. We use examples and methods from deep learning on the task of image generation and pareidolia to show the creative potential of systems with advanced perceptual abilities. We also discuss several issues and philosophical questions re-lated to perception and creativity.
Evaluating Oceanic Uptake of Atmospheric CCl4: A Combined Analysis of Model Simulations and Observations

We provide new estimates of the air‐sea flux of CCl4 using simulations from a global ocean biogeochemistry model (NEMO‐PlankTOM) in combination with depth‐resolved CCl4 observations from global oceanic databases. Estimates of global oceanic CCl4 uptake are derived from a range of model analyses, including prescribed parameterizations using reported values on hydrolysis and degradation, and analyses optimized using the global observational databases. We evaluate the sensitivity of our results to uncertainties in air‐sea gas exchange parameterization, estimation period, and circulation processes. Our best constrained estimate of ocean CCl4 uptake for the period 1996–2000 is 20.1 Gg/year (range 16.6–22.7), corresponding to estimates of the partial atmospheric lifetime with respect to ocean uptake of 124 (110–150) years. This new oceanic lifetime implies higher emissions of CCl4 than currently estimated and therefore a larger missing atmospheric source of CCl4.
Comparison of Markov Chain Abstraction and Monte Carlo Simulation for the Safety Assessment of Autonomous Cars

The probabilistic prediction of road traffic scenarios is addressed. One result is a probabilistic occupancy of traffic participants, and the other result is the collision risk for autonomous vehicles when executing a planned maneuver. The probabilistic occupancy of surrounding traffic participants helps to plan the maneuver of an autonomous vehicle, whereas the computed collision risk helps to decide if a planned maneuver should be executed. Two methods for the probabilistic prediction are presented and compared: 1) Markov chain abstraction and 2) Monte Carlo simulation. The performance of both methods is evaluated with respect to the prediction of the probabilistic occupancy and the collision risk. For each comparison test, we use the same models that generate the probabilistic behavior of traffic participants, where the generation of these data is not compared with real-world data. However, the results independently show the behavior generation that Markov chains are preferred for the probabilistic occupancy, whereas Monte Carlo simulation is clearly preferred for determining the collision risk.
Effect of Quercetin on Paraoxonase 2 Levels in RAW264.7 Macrophages and in Human Monocytes––Role of Quercetin Metabolism

There is increasing evidence that the intracellular antioxidant enzyme paraoxonase 2 (PON2) may have a protective function in the prevention of atherogenesis. An enhancement of PON2 activity by dietary factors including flavonoids is therefore of interest. In the present study we determined the effect of quercetin on paraoxonase 2 levels in cultured murine macrophages in vitro and in overweight subjects with a high cardiovascular risk phenotype supplemented with 150 mg quercetin/day for 42 days in vivo. Supplementation of murine RAW264.7 macrophages in culture with increasing concentrations of quercetin (1, 10, 20 μmol/L) resulted in a significant increase in PON2 mRNA and protein levels, as compared to untreated controls. Unlike quercetin, its glucuronidated metabolite quercetin-3-glucuronide did not affect PON2 gene expression in cultured macrophages. However the methylated quercetin derivative isorhamnetin enhanced PON2 gene expression in RAW264.7 cells to similar extent like quercetin. Although supplementing human volunteers with quercetin was accompanied by a significant increase in plasma quercetin concentration, dietary quercetin supplementation did not change PON2 mRNA levels in human monocytes in vivo. Current data indicate that quercetin supplementation increases PON2 levels in cultured monocytes in vitro but not in human volunteers in vivo.
Multicellular tumour spheroids in radiation biology.

PURPOSE Multicellular tumour spheroids are being used with increasing frequency in various aspects of tumour biology, including studies dealing with radiation biology. This review attempts to outline recent studies using these three-dimensional systems in radiation biology with particular reference made to papers testing radiotherapeutic protocols with spheroids. DEFINITIONS Multicellular tumour spheroids are three-dimensional structures composed of cancer cells. They are formed from monolayer tumour cells when these are grown by various in vitro methods (e.g. liquid-overlay, spinner flask and gyratory rotation systems). Because of the cellular organization in spheroids, they have been often shown to recreate in vivo tumours much more closely than two-dimensional in vitro models. CONCLUSIONS Because of their particular architectural characteristics, multicellular spheroids are demonstrated to be extremely useful in testing radiotherapeutic protocols, including dose rate and fractionation, radioimmunotherapy and the effects of combined treatments (e.g. radiation and anti-neoplastic drugs). Further studies should seek not only to continue testing these protocols, but also to investigate the more fundamental questions of radiation-induced apoptotic cell death, cell-cycle events, cell-cell interactions and cell adhesion phenomena.
Which Packages Would be Affected by This Bug Report?

A large project (e.g., Ubuntu) usually contains a large number of software packages. Sometimes the same bug report in such project would affect multiple packages, and developers of different packages need to collaborate with one another to fix the bug. Unfortunately, the total number of packages involved in a project like Ubuntu is relatively large, which makes it time-consuming to manually identify packages that are affected by a bug report. In this paper, we propose an approach named PkgRec that consists of 2 components: a name matching component and an ensemble learning component. In the name matching component, we assign a confidence score for a package if it is mentioned by a bug report. In the ensemble learning component, we divide the training dataset into n subsets and build a sub-classifier on each subset. Then we automatically determine an appropriate weight for each sub-classifier and combine them to predict the confidence score of a package being affected by a new bug report. Finally, PkgRec combines the name matching component and the ensemble learning component to assign a final confidence score to each potential package. A list of top-k packages with the highest confidence scores would then be recommended. We evaluate PkgRec on 3 datasets including Ubuntu, OpenStack, and GNOME with a total number of 42,094 bug reports. We show that PkgRec could achieve recall@5 and recall@10 scores of 0.511-0.737, and 0.614-0.785, respectively. We also compare PkgRec with other state-of-art approaches, namely LDA-KL and MLkNN. The experiment results show that PkgRec on average improves recall@5 and recall@10 scores of LDA-KL by 47% and 31%, and MLkNN by 52% and 37%, respectively.
Analyzing occupational stress based on inner composition alignment algorithm

To distinguish different level of occupational stress of students and nurses, this paper applied inner composition alignment (IOTA) algorithm to analyse differences between the students' Electroencephalogram (EEG) and the nurses' EEG and to explore the influence of occupational stress on EEG. First, we selected nine cases of students EEG data and the same quantity of nurses EEG data from General Hospital of Nanjing Military Region, then, constructed two different brain networks by utilizing IOTA method and analyzed the networks characteristics which include IOTA coefficient, Clustering coefficient and Average degree. In order to verify the accuracy of the results, we used SPSS to analyse the significant difference hypothesis testing. The IOTA coefficients are inconsistent between students' EEG and nurses' EEG. Compared with the students, nurses' brain network is more complex. The level of occupational stress of nurses is higher than students. The IOTA algorithm can significantly distinguish occupational stress between students and nurses, and all results demonstrated the validity of the algorithm.
GPs' assessment of patients' readiness to change diet, activity and smoking.

BACKGROUND The Stages of Change Model is increasingly used for lifestyle counselling. In general practice, the use of algorithms to measure stage of change is limited, but for successful counselling it is important to know patients' readiness to change. AIM To assess the accuracy of the assessment of patients' readiness to change fat consumption, physical activity, and smoking by GPs and general practice registrars. DESIGN OF STUDY Cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey. SETTING One hundred and ninety-nine patients at elevated cardiovascular risk aged 40-70 years, 24 GPs, and 21 registrars in Dutch general practices. METHOD Patients were asked to complete an algorithm to measure their motivation to change fat consumption, physical activity, and smoking. GPs and registrars were given descriptions of the stages of change for the three lifestyles, and were asked to indicate the description that matched their patient. Cohen's kappa was calculated as measure of agreement between patients and GPs/registrars. RESULTS Registrars' patients were younger, and less often overweight and hypertensive than GPs' patients. Cohen's kappa for smoking was moderate (0.50, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.34 to 0.67 for GPs and 0.47, CI = 0.27 to 0.68 for registrars). Agreement for fat and activity was poor to fair. No differences in accuracy were observed between GPs and registrars (P = 0.07-0.83). CONCLUSIONS Low accuracy indicates that counselling in general practice is often targeted at the wrong people at the wrong time. Improvements can possibly be achieved by making registration of lifestyle parameters in patient records common practice, and by simply asking patients where they stand in respect to lifestyle change.
Method for Fitting K-Distributed Probability Density Function to Ocean Pixels in Dual-Polarization SAR

Abstract This article presents a novel method using a closed-form solution derived from the first, second and third moments to estimate the parameters of K-distribution probability density function (PDF) and its applications to ship detection using dual-polarization synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data. Two key parameters which define a K-distribution PDF, equivalent number of independent looks (ENIL, L) and order parameter (ν), can be simultaneously estimated. The derivation has been provided and the applications to ship detection have been described with emphasis on K-distribution function to model ocean samples from a combined dual-polarization system for ship detection. This method along with its applications to ship detection has been thoroughly evaluated with RADARSAT-2 data. This article also presents the knowledge-based target discrimination methods to reduce false alarms when detection is applied to the ocean environment in the presence of sea ice. The detection results were evaluated using the Automatic Identification System (AIS) data. RÉSUMÉ Le présent document porte sur une nouvelle méthode reposant sur l’utilisation d’une solution analytique issue des 1er, 2e et 3e moments pour estimer les paramètres d’une fonction de densité de probabilité (FDP) à distribution k, ainsi que ses applications en matière de détection de navire, au moyen de données de radar à synthèse d’ouverture/à polarisation double. On peut estimer simultanément deux paramètres clés selon lesquels la FDP à distribution k est définie, soit un nombre équivalent de points de vue indépendants (ENIL, L) et un paramètre d’ordre (ν). La fonction dérivée est présentée et les applications en matière de détection de navire, décrites en mettant l’accent sur l’utilisation d’une fonction à distribution k pour modéliser des échantillons océaniques avec un systéme à polarisation double de détection de navire. La méthode décrite et ses applications sur le plan de la détection de navire ont été évaluées de manière approfondie à l’aide de données de RADARSAT-2. Le présent article porte aussi sur des méthodes de distinction de cible fondées sur des connaissances et destinées à réduire le nombre de fausses alertes, lorsque la détection est appliquée à un milieu océanique comportant de la glace marine. Les résultats de détection ont été évalués d’après des données du systéme d'identification automatique (AIS)
The Mediating Effects of the Different Dimensions of Pain Catastrophizing on Outcomes in an Interdisciplinary Pain Rehabilitation Program

Objective: Although reducing pain catastrophizing has been shown to contribute to functional improvement in patients receiving interdisciplinary pain care, little is known about how changes in the different dimensions of pain catastrophizing uniquely contribute to improvement in outcome. The study examined the unique relationship between changes in the 3 distinct factors of pain catastrophizing—helplessness, rumination, and magnification—and changes in pain outcomes. Materials and Methods: In this nonrandomized study, 641 patients who completed treatment in a 3-week interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation program between the years 2013 and 2014 completed a battery of psychometrically validated measures of pain catastrophizing, pain severity, pain interference, mental and physical health-related quality of life, and depressive symptoms at pretreatment and posttreatment. Results: A series of within groups (repeated measures) mediation analyses were conducted. Change in the helplessness, rumination, and magnification subscales were entered as multiple mediators in the model. Analyses revealed that change in helplessness partially mediated improvement in all outcome variables beyond the influence of change in other variables in the model, whereas change in rumination partially mediated improvement in pain severity, interference, and depressive symptoms. Change in magnification had the least impact on outcome, partially mediating improvements in only mental health quality of life. Discussion: Results suggest that changes in the 3 dimensions of pain catastrophizing differentially mediate improvement in pain outcome. Treatment approaches that specifically target helplessness and rumination may be particularly useful in improving the outcomes of patients with refractory pain conditions enrolled in interdisciplinary pain rehabilitation program.
Proposal of Flexible Touch Panel Sensor

Recently, new touch panels are actively developed. And, the device with the touch panel is widespread. However, past touch panels cannot fold. Therefore, they can be set up only on the plane. Flexibility is needed for the touch panel to set up the touch panel in various places. Then, we propose the flexible touch panel sensor. This sensor is made from a resistance films and an insulation film and metallic foils. The place touched can be specified according to the current ratio that flows to the circuit when the person touches the sensor. This sensor can be installed on various places.
Disassembly of synthetic Agrobacterium T-DNA–protein complexes via the host SCFVBF ubiquitin–ligase complex pathway

One the most intriguing, yet least studied, aspects of the bacterium–host plant interaction is the role of the host ubiquitin/proteasome system (UPS) in the infection process. Increasing evidence indicates that pathogenic bacteria subvert the host UPS to facilitate infection. Although both mammalian and plant bacterial pathogens are known to use the host UPS, the first prokaryotic F-box protein, an essential component of UPS, was identified in Agrobacterium. During its infection, which culminates in genetic modification of the host cell, Agrobacterium transfers its T-DNA—as a complex (T-complex) with the bacterial VirE2 and host VIP1 proteins—into the host cell nucleus. There the T-DNA is uncoated from its protein components before undergoing integration into the host genome. It has been suggested that the host UPS mediates this uncoating process, but there is no evidence indicating that this activity can unmask the T-DNA molecule. Here we provide support for the idea that the plant UPS uncoats synthetic T-complexes via the Skp1/Cullin/F-box protein VBF pathway and exposes the T-DNA molecule to external enzymatic activity.
A Cell Internalizing Antibody Targeting Capsid Protein (p24) Inhibits the Replication of HIV-1 in T Cells Lines and PBMCs: A Proof of Concept Study

There remains a need for newer therapeutic approaches to combat HIV/AIDS. Viral capsid protein p24 plays important roles in HIV pathogenesis. Peptides and small molecule inhibitors targeting p24 have shown to inhibit virus replication in treated cell. High specificity and biological stability of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) make them an attractive contender for in vivo treatments. However, mAbs do not enter into cells, thus are restricted to target surface molecules. This also makes targeting intracellular HIV-1 p24 a challenge. A mAb specific to p24 that can internalize into the HIV-infected cells is hypothesized to inhibit the virus replication. We selected a mAb that has previously shown to inhibit p24 polymerization in an in vitro assay and chemically conjugated it with cell penetrating peptides (CPP) to generate cell internalizing anti-p24 mAbs. Out of 8 CPPs tested, κFGF-MTS -conjugated mAbs internalized T cells most efficiently. At nontoxic concentration, the κFGF-MTS-anti-p24-mAbs reduced the HIV-1 replication up to 73 and 49% in T-lymphocyte and PBMCs respectively. Marked inhibition of HIV-1 replication in relevant cells by κFGF-MTS-anti-p24-mAbs represents a viable strategy to target HIV proteins present inside the cells.
Long-term effects of testing on the recall of nontested materials

Testing, or memory retrieval, is a powerful way to enhance long-term retention of studied material. Recent studies have shown that testing can also benefit later retention of related but nontested material (a finding known as retrieval-induced facilitation, Chan, McDermott, & Roediger, 2006), but the long-term consequences of this benefit is unknown. In the current experiment three retention intervals—20 minutes, 24 hours, 7 days—were used to assess the effects of testing on subsequent recall of the nontested material. The results indicate that the magnitude of retrieval-induced facilitation, like that of the testing effect (i.e., the memorial benefit of testing on the tested material), increases with delay at the beginning (i.e., between 20 minutes and 24 hours) but asymptotes afterward (i.e., between 24 hours and 7 days). Theoretical and applied implications of this finding are discussed.