Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intersubjectivity in human-agent interaction

What is the hallmark of success in human–agent interaction? In animation and robotics, many have concentrated on the looks of the agent — whether the appearance is realistic or lifelike. We present an alternative benchmark that lies in the dyad and not the agent alone: Does the agent’s behavior evoke intersubjectivity from the user? That is, in both conscious and unconscious communication, do users react to behaviorally realistic agents in the same way they react to other humans? Do users appear to attribute similar thoughts and actions? We discuss why we distinguish between appearance and behavior, why we use the benchmark of intersubjectivity, our methodology for applying this benchmark to embodied conversational agents (ECAs), and why we believe this benchmark should be applied to human–robot interaction.
Central command: control of cardiac sympathetic and vagal efferent nerve activity and the arterial baroreflex during spontaneous motor behaviour in animals

Feedforward control by higher brain centres (termed central command) plays a role in the autonomic regulation of the cardiovascular system during exercise. Over the past 20 years, workers in our laboratory have used the precollicular–premammillary decerebrate animal model to identify the neural circuitry involved in the CNS control of cardiac autonomic outflow and arterial baroreflex function. Contrary to the traditional idea that vagal withdrawal at the onset of exercise causes the increase in heart rate, central command did not decrease cardiac vagal efferent nerve activity but did allow cardiac sympathetic efferent nerve activity to produce cardiac acceleration. In addition, central command‐evoked inhibition of the aortic baroreceptor–heart rate reflex blunted the baroreflex‐mediated bradycardia elicited by aortic nerve stimulation, further increasing the heart rate at the onset of exercise. Spontaneous motor activity and associated cardiovascular responses disappeared in animals decerebrated at the midcollicular level. These findings indicate that the brain region including the caudal diencephalon and extending to the rostral mesencephalon may play a role in generating central command. Bicuculline microinjected into the midbrain ventral tegmental area of decerebrate rats produced a long‐lasting repetitive activation of renal sympathetic nerve activity that was synchronized with the motor nerve discharge. When lidocaine was microinjected into the ventral tegmental area, the spontaneous motor activity and associated cardiovascular responses ceased. From these findings, we conclude that cerebral cortical outputs trigger activation of neural circuits within the caudal brain, including the ventral tegmental area, which causes central command to augment cardiac sympathetic outflow at the onset of exercise in decerebrate animal models.
Collective resonances inχ(3): A QED study

We calculate the third order susceptibility $\chi^{(3)}$ of a pair of 2 level atoms which interact via the exchange of photons. QED corrections to second order in coupling to vacuum field modes yield collective two photon absorption resonances which can be observed in transmission spectroscopy of shaped broadband pulses. While some collective effects can be obtained by introducing an effective interatomic coupling using a quantum master equation, the predicted signals contain clear features that are missed by that level of theory and require a full diagrammatic QED treatment.
Computational Intelligence Technique To Detect Myocardial Infarction

The myocardial infarction which is commonly known as heart attack caused by Coronary Heart Disease(CHD) in which hardening of artery wall due to accumulation of cholesterol known as atherosclerosis stops blood flowing properly to a part of the heart and the cardiac muscle is injured because of insufficient delivery of oxygen. The most common symptom of myocardial infarction is chest pain or uneasiness. Often it is in the center or left side of the chest and lasts for more than a few minutes. Worldwide, over 3 million people have MIs, so early detection of myocardial infarction using particle swarm optimization (pso) –support vector machine (svm) classifier algorithm is having significant application with accuracy of 99.73% which are higher than accuracies obtained by fuzzy rule based algorithm in detection plaque accumulation in arteries before heart attack.
Evaluating How Doctorate Recipients Make Their Career Decisions

Doctorate recipients have two choices for their career: academic or non-academic. The purpose of this paper is to examine various factors that affect their decisions in seeking and accepting academic or non-academic jobs. In addition, job satisfaction levels of doctorate recipients working for non-academic organizations are also evaluated. The paper proposes theoretical frameworks to capture how doctorate recipients make their career decisions and develops multilevel models to test the effects of individual and organizational variables.
Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood Viola

BACKGROUND Teenage motherhood has been associated with a host of adverse outcomes over the life cycle. Less, however, is known about the impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life. OBJECTIVE To study the impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health, using a retrospective survey of almost 12,000 women aged 50+ from 13 European countries containing detailed information on early-life circumstances. METHODS We develop linear models of the association between teenage motherhood and late-life health outcomes. We control for early-life factors parametrically as well as through propensity score matching. In addition, we employ recently developed methods to derive consistent lower-bound estimates for the causal impact of teenage motherhood on late-life health outcomes. RESULTS We find that teenage mothers experience substantially poorer self-reported late-life health and are more likely to display depressive symptoms than nonteenage mothers. This result remains after controlling for early-life as well contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions. CONTRIBUTION We exploit recently developed empirical techniques to derive consistent lower bounds of the causal impact of teenage motherhood on health later in life using a cross-national survey of early-life and contemporaneous socioeconomic conditions. 1 University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Email: v.angelini@rug.nl. 2 University of Groningen, the Netherlands. Email: j.o. mierau@rug.nl. Angelini & Mierau: Late-life health effects of teenage motherhood 1082 http://www.demographic-research.org
Incorporating interconnect, register, and clock distribution delays into the retiming process

A retiming algorithm is presented which includes the effects of variable register, clock distribution, and interconnect delays. These delay components are incorporated into the retiming process by assigning register electrical characteristics (RECs) to each edge in the graph representation of a synchronous circuit. A matrix, called the sequential adjacency matrix (SAM), is presented that contains all path delays. Timing constraints for each data path are derived from this matrix. Vertex lags are assigned ranges rather than single values as in existing retiming algorithms. The approach used in the proposed algorithm is to initialize these ranges with unbounded values and to continuously tighten these ranges using localized timing constraints until an optimal solution is obtained. A branch and bound method is offered for the general retiming problem where the REC values are arbitrary. Certain monotonicity constraints can be placed on the REC values to permit the use of standard linear programming methods, thereby requiring significantly less computational time. These conditions and the feasibility of their application to practical circuits are presented. The algorithm is demonstrated on modified benchmark circuits and both increased clock frequencies and the elimination of all race conditions are observed.
The Social Realism of Body Language in Rosetta

It is frequently assumed in the visual media that there is only one universal body language. As Susan Bordo puts it, media teaches us to construct and interpret identities based on this universal "bodily discourse. " Yet, despite this, we also know that each body is uncompromisingly unique-each with its own history, its own expression, its own way of being in the world. The Dardenne brothers of Belgium are highly aware of this particularity and use it in their social realist filmmaking. This article uses insights from Foucault and Judith Butler to examine how a film that focuses so intently on the body is able to achieve a rare degree of sociological and psychological depth.
A high-performance auditory feature for robust speech recognition

An auditory feature extraction algorithm for robust speech recognition in adverse acoustic environments is proposed. Based on the analysis of human auditory system, the feature extraction algorithm consists of several modules: FFT, outer-middle-ear transfer function, frequency conversion from linear to Bark scales, auditory filtering, nonlinearity, and discrete cosine transform. Three recognition experiments have been conducted on connected digit recognition in wireless and land-line communications using handsets and handsfree microphones. Compared to LPCC and MFCC features, the proposed feature has shown 11% to 23% error-rate reductions on average in handset and hands-free acoustic environments in the experiments.
Impact of time bound constraints and batching on metallization in an opto-semiconductor fab

Time bound sequences are constraints deemed necessary to ensure product quality and avoid yield loss due to time dependent effects. Although they are commonly applied in production system control they cause severe logistical challenges. In this paper, we evaluate the effects of time constraints in combination with batching on a real metallization work center of an opto-semiconductor fab. We use simulation to analyze the impact of these production constraints and point out potentials to increase work center performance. We have a closer look at the required planning horizon, the influence of dedication, the capacity loss due to time bounds and the effects of batching strategies on wafer cost. Our results show the importance to tackle these issues. Furthermore, we will discuss actions taken in response to the experiments.
Innate immune network in the retina activated by optic nerve crush.

PURPOSE Innate immunity plays a role in many diseases, including glaucoma and AMD. We have used transcriptome profiling in the mouse to identify a network of genes involved in innate immunity that is present in the normal retina and that is activated by optic nerve crush (ONC). METHODS Using a recombinant inbred (RI) mouse strain set (BXD, C57BL/6 crossed with DBA/2J mice), we generate expression datasets (Illumina WG 6.2 arrays) in the normal mouse retina and 2 days after ONC. The normal dataset is constructed from retinas from 80 mouse strains and the ONC dataset is constructed from 62 strains. These large datasets are hosted by GeneNetwork.org, along with a series of powerful bioinformatic tools. RESULTS In the retina datasets, one intriguing network involves transcripts associated with the innate immunity. Using C4b to interrogate the normal dataset, we can identify a group of genes that are coregulated across the BXD RI strains. Many of the genes in this network are associated with the innate immune system, including Serping1, Casp1, C3, Icam1, Tgfbr2, Cfi, Clu, C1qg, Aif1, and Cd74. Following ONC, the expression of these genes is upregulated, along with an increase in coordinated expression across the BXD strains. Many of the genes in this network are risk factors for AMD, including C3, EFEMP1, MCDR2, CFB, TLR4, HTA1, and C1QTNF5. CONCLUSIONS We found a retina-intrinsic innate immunity network that is activated by injury including ONC. Many of the genes in this network are risk factors for retinal disease.
GENERATION OF WEB APPLICATIONS FROM UML MODELS USING AN XML PUBLISHING FRAMEWORK

In this paper we present a method for the semiautomatic transition from the design models of a Web application to a running implementation. The design phase consists of constructing a set of UML models such as the conceptual model, the navigation model and the presentation model. We use the UML extension mechanisms, i.e. stereotypes, tagged values and OCL constraints, thereby defining a UML Profile for the Web application domain. We show how these design models can automatically be mapped to XML documents with a structure conforming to their respective XML Schema definitions. Further on we demonstrate techniques how XML documents for the conceptual model are automatically mapped to conceptual DOM objects (Document Object Model). DOM objects corresponding to interactional objects are automatically derived from conceptual DOM objects and/or other interactional DOM objects. The XSLT mechanism serves to transform the logical presentation objects representing the user interface to physical presentation objects, e.g. HTML or WAP pages. Finally we present a production system architecture for Web applications using the XML publishing framework Cocoon which provides a very flexible way to generate documents comprising XSLT and XSP (eXtensible server pages) processors.
LCARS

Newly emerging location-based and event-based social network services provide us with a new platform to understand users' preferences based on their activity history. A user can only visit a limited number of venues/events and most of them are within a limited distance range, so the user-item matrix is very sparse, which creates a big challenge to the traditional collaborative filtering-based recommender systems. The problem becomes even more challenging when people travel to a new city where they have no activity information. In this article, we propose LCARS, a location-content-aware recommender system that offers a particular user a set of venues (e.g., restaurants and shopping malls) or events (e.g., concerts and exhibitions) by giving consideration to both personal interest and local preference. This recommender system can facilitate people's travel not only near the area in which they live, but also in a city that is new to them. Specifically, LCARS consists of two components: offline modeling and online recommendation. The offline modeling part, called LCA-LDA, is designed to learn the interest of each individual user and the local preference of each individual city by capturing item cooccurrence patterns and exploiting item contents. The online recommendation part takes a querying user along with a querying city as input, and automatically combines the learned interest of the querying user and the local preference of the querying city to produce the top-k recommendations. To speed up the online process, a scalable query processing technique is developed by extending both the Threshold Algorithm (TA) and TA-approximation algorithm. We evaluate the performance of our recommender system on two real datasets, that is, DoubanEvent and Foursquare, and one large-scale synthetic dataset. The results show the superiority of LCARS in recommending spatial items for users, especially when traveling to new cities, in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. Besides, the experimental analysis results also demonstrate the excellent interpretability of LCARS.
Dietary Sodium Restriction Increases the Risk of Misinterpreting Mild Cases of Primary Aldosteronism.

CONTEXT The aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR) is recommended to screen for primary aldosteronism (PA). OBJECTIVE To evaluate whether dietary sodium restriction results in misinterpretation of PA screening. PARTICIPANTS Untreated hypertensives with ARR more than 20 on a high dietary sodium intake (HS) were also evaluated on a low dietary sodium intake (LS) (n = 241). Positive screening for PA was defined as: plasma renin activity (PRA) less than or equal to 1.0 ng/mL · h with serum aldosterone more than or equal to 6 ng/dL. PA was confirmed by a 24-hour urinary aldosterone excretion more than or equal to 12 mcg with urinary sodium more than 200 mmol. RESULTS Only 33% (79/241) of participants with an ARR more than 20 had a positive PA screen on HS. On LS, 56% (44/79) of these participants no longer met criteria for positive PA screening. When compared with participants with positive PA screening on both diets, participants with a positive screen on HS but negative on LS exhibited a significantly higher PRA on both diets. Remarkably, of the 48/79 participants who had PA confirmed, 52% had negative PA screening on LS. The distinguishing feature of these participants with "discordant" screening results was a larger rise in PRA on LS resulting in normalization of the ARR and higher Caucasian race prevalence. CONCLUSIONS Sodium restriction is recommended in hypertension; however, it can significantly raise PRA, normalize the ARR, and result in false interpretation of PA screening. Milder phenotypes of PA, where PRA is not as suppressed, are most susceptible to dietary sodium influences on renin and ARR. Optimal screening for PA should occur under conditions of HS.
The Respective Role of Low and High Spatial Frequencies in Supporting Configural and Featural Processing of Faces

One distinctive feature of processing faces, as compared to other categories, is thought to be the large dependence on configural cues such as the metric relations among features. To test the role of low spatial frequencies (LSFs) and high spatial frequencies (HSFs) in configural and featural processing, subjects were presented with triplets of faces that were filtered to preserve either LSFs (below 8 cycles per face width), HSFs (above 32 cycles per face width), or the full frequency spectrum. They were asked to match one of two probe faces to a target face. The distractor probe face differed from the target either configurally, featurally, or both featurally and configurally. When the difference was at the configural level, performance was better with LSF faces than with HSF faces. In contrast, with a featural difference, a strong performance advantage was found for HSF faces as compared to LSF faces. These results support the dominant role that LSFs play in the configural processing of faces, whereas featural processing is largely dependent on HSFs.
Myeloperoxidase produces nitrating oxidants in vivo.

Despite intense interest in pathways that generate reactive nitrogen species, the physiologically relevant mechanisms for inflammatory tissue injury remain poorly understood. One possible mediator is myeloperoxidase, a major constituent of neutrophils, monocytes, and some populations of macrophages. The enzyme uses hydrogen peroxide and nitrite to generate 3-nitrotyrosine in vitro. To determine whether myeloperoxidase produces nitrating intermediates in vivo, we used isotope dilution gas chromatography/mass spectrometry to quantify 3-nitrotyrosine in two models of peritoneal inflammation: mice infected with Klebsiella pneumoniae and mice subjected to cecal ligation and puncture. Both models developed an intense neutrophil inflammatory response, and the inflammatory fluid contained markedly elevated levels of 3-chlorotyrosine, a marker of myeloperoxidase action. In striking contrast, 3-nitrotyrosine levels rose only in the mice infected with K. pneumoniae. Levels of total nitrite and nitrate were 20-fold higher in mice injected with K. pneumoniae than in mice subjected to cecal ligation and puncture. Levels of 3-nitrotyrosine failed to increase in mice infected with K. pneumoniae that lacked functional myeloperoxidase. Our observations provide strong evidence that myeloperoxidase generates reactive nitrogen species in vivo and that it operates in this fashion only when nitrite and nitrate become available. This article was published online in advance of the print edition. The date of publication is available from the JCI website, http://www.jci. org.
Evidence for G-quadruplex in the promoter of vegfr-2 and its targeting to inhibit tumor angiogenesis

Tumor angiogenesis is mainly mediated by vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), a pro-angiogenic factor produced by cancer cells and active on the endothelium through the VEGF receptor 2 (VEGFR-2). Here we identify a G-rich sequence within the proximal promoter region of vegfr-2, able to form an antiparallel G-quadruplex (G4) structure. This G4 structure can be efficiently stabilized by small molecules with the consequent inhibition of vegfr-2 expression. Functionally, the G4-mediated reduction of VEGFR-2 protein causes a switching off of signaling components that, converging on actin cytoskeleton, regulate the cellular events leading to endothelial cell proliferation, migration and differentiation. As a result of endothelial cell function impairment, angiogenic process is strongly inhibited by G4 ligands both in vitro and in vivo. Interestingly, the G4-mediated antiangiogenic effect seems to recapitulate that observed by using a specific interference RNA against vegfr-2, and it is strongly antagonized by overexpressing the vegfr-2 gene. In conclusion, we describe the evidence for the existence of G4 in the promoter of vegfr-2, whose expression and function can be markedly inhibited by G4 ligands, thereby revealing a new, and so far undescribed, way to block VEGFR-2 as target for anticancer therapy.
Color and luminance compensation for mobile panorama construction

This paper addresses the problem of color and luminance compensation for sequences of overlapping images where the source images have very different colors and luminance. We apply the method for panoramic image construction on mobile phones. A simple approach is proposed that minimizes both the color differences of neighboring images and the overall color correction over the whole sequence. We compare several combinations of gamma correction and linear adjustment over different color representations, and select the method with best results: use YCbCr and apply gamma correction for the luminance component and linear correction for the chrominance components
Moving back to scrum and scaling to scrum of scrums in less than one year

We report on the experience of re-introducing Scrum in a project team that had previously failed to adopt that agile method. We explore the reasons we believe that caused the failure and explain how we approached the team to uncover them. Then, we describe our strategy to avoid incurring in those problems again and to take the team to a higher level of productivity, quality and personal satisfaction. We also present the motivation and the actions taken to go further and scale this scenario to multiple feature-oriented teams using Scrum of Scrums. All these changes occurred in less than one year.