Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Kinesthesia, Empathy, and Related Pleasures: An Inquiry into Audience Experiences of Watching Dance

Dance is frequently described as being “about” movement. “Dance,” writes Ann Daly, “although it has a visual component, is fundamentally a kinesthetic art” (Daly 1992, 243). Audience experiences of dance can therefore be conceptualized in terms of responses to movement, most prominently in terms of what has been described as “kinesthetic empathy. ” What does it mean, however, to watch, respond to, or appreciate movement? And how does the historical and theoretical concept of kinesthetic empathy relate to contemporary audiences' articulations of the experience of watching dance? This article sets out to answer these questions by exploring different kinds of kinesthetic and empathetic responses and pleasures (and indeed displeasures) articulated by spectators of live dance across different styles and contexts. Pleasure is of particular importance to audience studies because it relates to motivations. Why do people seek out dance performances to watch? What are they looking for in the experience? In this context, we are interested in kinesthetic empathy as a mode of engaging with dance that can give pleasure to spectators and can be a strong motivating factor in why people choose to watch dance.
In Vivo Optical Coherence Tomography of the Human Larynx: Normative and Benign Pathology in 82 Patients

Objectives: Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is an emerging imaging modality that combines low‐coherence light with interferometry to produce cross‐sectional images of tissue with resolution about 10 μm. Patients undergoing surgical head and neck endoscopy were examined using a fiberoptic OCT imaging probe to study and characterize microstructural anatomy and features of the larynx and benign laryngeal pathology in vivo.
Diosgenin effectively suppresses skin inflammation induced by phthalic anhydride in IL-4/Luc/CNS-1 transgenic mice

To quantitatively evaluate the therapeutic effects of diosgenin (DG) and investigate the role of IL-4 on skin inflammation, alterations in luciferase-derived signal and general phenotype biomarkers were measured in IL-4/Luc/CNS-1 transgenic mice with phthalic anhydride (PA)-induced skin inflammation after treatment with DG for 4 weeks. High levels of luciferase-derived signal detected in the abdominal region and submandibular lymph node (SL) of the PA treated group was significantly decreased by 67–88% in the PA + DG cotreated group. Furthermore, the weight of the lymph node and spleen, IgE concentration, epidermis thickness, and number of infiltrated mast cells were lower in the PA + DG treated group than the PA + Vehicle treated group. Moreover, expression of IL-6 and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) also decreased in the PA + DG cotreated group. These results suggest that PA-induced skin inflammation could be successfully suppressed by DG treatment in IL-4/Luc/CNS-1 Tg mice through attenuation of IL-4 and IL-6 expression, as well as decreased IgE concentration and mast cells infiltration. Graphical abstract Measurement of luciferase signal in the whole body (A) and each organ (B) of IL-4/Luc/CNS-1 Tg mice.
A pr 2 01 7 Consensus of rankings

Rankings are widely used in many information systems. In information retrieval, a ranking is a list of ordered documents, in which a document with lower position has higher ranking score than the documents behind it. This paper studies the consensus measure for a given set of rankings, in order to understand the degree to which the rankings agree and the extent to which the rankings are related. The proposed approach, without the need for pairwise comparison between rankings, allows to measure the consensus in a set of rankings, with respect to the length of common patterns, the number of common patterns for a given length, and the number of all common patterns. The experiments show that the proposed approach can be used to compare the search engines in terms of closeness of the returned results when semantically related key words are sent to them.
The Crick Report: difference, equality and racial justice

This article examines current policy on citizenship education in England, drawing on the recommendations of the 1998 Crick Report, Education for Citizenship and the Teaching of Democracy in Schools. In particular, it seeks to establish whether the proposals for citizenship education outlined in the report and draft frameworks for citizenship education, published by the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority as part of the National Curriculum review for England, have the potential to contribute towards racial equality. The report sets out to provide a framework for citizenship education which is intended to strengthen our democracy. The publication of the Macpherson Report of the Stephen Lawrence inquiry in 1999 led senior politicians to acknowledge institutional racism in British society and to pledge themselves to a programme to eradicate racism. Racism is therefore now officially recognized by those in government as one of the forces which operates to restrict the citizenship rights of minorities and undermines the principles of democracy. An understanding of racism, the ways in which it serves to undermine democracy, and skills to challenge this anti-democratic force are therefore essential features of any education programme which seeks to promote the political literacy of citizens. This article argues that a key aim in any programme of citizenship education must be to enable young people to understand the barriers to citizenship and to equip them with the skills to challenge and overcome such barriers. It examines the images and understandings of multiculturalism in the Crick Report and considers how it deals with questions of difference, equality and justice. It further examines whether the proposals within the report are an adequate basis from which sound anti-racist education programmes might be developed or whether the report itself may unwittingly reflect racism. It concludes by suggesting how the citizenship education project might be modified so that it promotes a vision of a multicultural society founded on principles of human rights and of schools where children are able to realize their rights on the basis of equality.
Le rôle des informations visuelles dans le développement du langage de l'enfant sourd muni d'un implant cochléaire

Les implants cochleaires donnent generalement d’excellents resultats, surtout si l’implantation a ete realisee de facon precoce. La notion de « periode sensible » pour un developpement optimal du langage durant les premieres annees de la vie est pertinente pour rendre compte de l’effet de la precocite d’implantation. En presence d’un input auditif normal, le systeme neural central en developpement fournit un espace et une organisation pour le traitement auditif. En cas de deprivation auditive, cette organisation ne peut prendre place ; apres quelques annees de deprivation, les ressources necessaires ne sont plus disponibles pour le traitement auditif, meme si celui-ci est restaure tardivement. Meme dans les cas d’implantation precoce, il semble indeniable que les informations visuelles (lecture labiale et cles du LPC) ameliorent la perception de la parole, parce qu’elles fournissent un complement phonetique au signal appauvri delivre par l’implant. En effet, les processus utilises dans l’integration intermodale des informations auditives et visuelles sont lies au codage phonetique et a la construction de representations phonologiques et lexicales du langage parle.
Comparison of Responses in the Murine Local Lymph Node Assay ( LLNA ) Between CBA and BALB / c Mouse Strains

While CBA is currently the recommended strain for the LLNA, the assay was originally developed using BALB/c mice. Since the introduction of the LLNA, several groups in the U.S. have published LLNA studies using BALB/c mice, including the National Toxicology Program, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the Dow Chemical Corporation. This has resulted in reference databases for the LLNA that include studies conducted with both CBA and BALB/c mice. However, there is little published literature that directly compares the performance of the LLNA in studies done on the same substances in the two mouse strains. The study reported here is a retrospective evaluation of the results of LLNA studies using CBA mice compared to results using BALB/c mice. NICEATM evaluated 108 independent studies representing 16 substances in four vehicles in which 86 studies used CBA mice and 22 used BALB/c mice. Fourteen of these substances had guinea pig reference data and 13 had human reference data. LLNA outcomes using BALB/c are in agreement with LLNA outcomes obtained with CBA for 81% (13/16) of the test substances. LLNA outcomes with CBA agree with guinea pig outcomes for 86% (12/14) of the test substances and with human outcomes for 85% (11/13) of the test substances. LLNA outcomes with BALB/c agree with guinea pig outcomes for 72% (10/14) of the test substances and with human outcomes for 69% (9/13) of the test substances. A correlation analysis of log transformed EC3 values calculated using LLNA data from each of the two strains indicates that the results from the two strains are correlated (r = 0.79, p ≤ 0.0005). Where there were different outcomes (n=3) between the two mouse strains, the CBA studies were positive while the BALB/c studies were negative. Because the CBA study results were concordant with the human and GP outcomes, these results suggest that further characterization of strain and substrain differences is needed. ILS staff was supported by NIEHS contract N01-ES-35504.
Comparative Antimicrobial Activities of Aerosolized Sodium Hypochlorite, Chlorine Dioxide, and Electrochemically Activated Solutions Evaluated Using a Novel Standardized Assay

ABSTRACT The main aim of this study was to develop a standardized experimental assay to enable differential antimicrobial comparisons of test biocidal aerosols. This study represents the first chlorine-matched comparative assessment of the antimicrobial activities of aerosolized sodium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, and electrochemically activated solution (ECAS) to determine their relative abilities to decontaminate various surface-associated health care-relevant microbial challenges. Standard microbiological challenges were developed by surface-associating typed Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus subtilis spores, or a clinical methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) strain on stainless steel, polypropylene, or fabric. All test coupons were subjected to 20-min biocidal aerosols of chlorine-matched (100 ppm) sodium hypochlorite, chlorine dioxide, or ECAS within a standard aerosolization chamber using a commercial humidifier under defined conditions. Biocidal treatment type and material surface had a significant effect on the number of microorganisms recovered from various material surfaces following treatment exposure. Under the conditions of the assay, the order of antimicrobial efficacy of biocidal aerosol treatment was as follows: ECAS > chlorine dioxide > sodium hypochlorite. For all biocides, greater antimicrobial reductions were seen when treating stainless steel and fabric than when treating plastic-associated microorganisms. The experimental fogging system and assay protocol designed within this study were shown capable of differentiating the comparative efficacies of multiple chlorine-matched biocidal aerosols against a spectrum of target organisms on a range of test surface materials and would be appropriate for testing other biocidal aerosol treatments or material surfaces.
An Improved Neuron Segmentation Model for Crack Detection – Image Segmentation Model

Abstract It is still very challenging to establish a unified and robust framework to perform accurate and complete crack extraction from images with cluttered background, various morphological differences and even with shadow influence. In this paper, an improved neuron segmentation model with two stages is proposed for crack segmentation. Firstly, a robust crack indicator function is designed based on local directional filtering; it makes up for the traditional function based on hessian matrix, which is resulting in problem of local structure discontinuities. After obtaining the indicator function, the crack detection is performed in an integrated mode; it is incorporating the automated directional region growing without manual intervention by adopting level sets; then efficient and complete crack segmentation is realized by iterative contour evolution. The performance of the proposed model is demonstrated by experiments on three kinds of grouped crack sample images and the quantitative evaluation. We also argue that the proposed model is applicable for biomedical image segmentation.
INFORMATION IN A CULTURE-ALERT SOCIETY Can Photogrammetry measure the Visual Perception of Works of Art ?

The intention of this presentation is to propose a new point-of-view, from which a quest for innovative applications of Photogrammetry in assessment of cultural heritage can be initiated. As such, the main point rests on the presentation of new ideas, rather than on completely resolving the involved technical issues. Wölfflin’s principles in for comparative examination of pieces of art and architecture, belonging to different art periods are evaluated with photogrammetric means. The “clarity” of figures is assessed with edge-enhancement and image segmentation. The perceived “depth” is assessed through virtual emboss of the images and creation of “virtual” stereo pairs. The image information is assessed through entropy calculations. The existence of “focal points” is assessed through interest-point operators and the development of an eye-gaze tracking system. Examples from Renaissance and Baroque artists are given, to prove the feasibility of the approaches.
EYE BLINK DETECTION USING INTENSITY VERTICAL PROJECTION

Blinking is a spontaneous or voluntary action of human eyes. It has long been used for human-machine communication and human physiological detection. In these applications, detecting the eye’s states, opened or closed, is an important step and affects the accuracy of detecting human intention or physiological states. In this paper, we present a robust method to detect eye blink based on the intensity vertical projection of eye’s image. Unlike many previous works on eye blink detection based on edges of images, our work addresses blink detection by using the intensity of images. The method can deal with the variation of user’s eye shape and distances between users and camera.
Unique Chromatin Remodeling and Transcriptional Regulation in Spermatogenesis

Most of our knowledge of transcriptional regulation comes from studies in somatic cells. However, increasing evidence reveals that gene regulation mechanisms are different in haploid germ cells. A number of highly specialized strategies operate during spermatogenesis. These include a unique chromatin reorganization program and the use of distinct promoter elements and specific transcription factors. Deciphering the rules governing transcriptional control during spermatogenesis will provide valuable insights of biomedical importance.
FATTY ACID CONTENT AND MORPHOLOGICAL INDICATORS OF WINTER WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM L.) SEEDLINGS GROWN FROM SEEDS TREATED WITH OZONE

Background. Presently, a selection of environmentally friendly technologies for pre-sowing treatment of wheat seeds is conducted in agriculture. Ozone, an allotropic form of oxygen, is highly reactive, acts as an effective insecticide, promotes seed improvement, and reduces soil contamination. The impact of ozone on seeds is one of the promising technologies to improve the quality of seedlings. It is known that the field germination of winter wheat may be less than 50%, depending on the environmental conditions, and therefore the quality of seedlings is very important. Purpose. To evaluate the effect of different ozone concentrations on morphological parameters and synthesis of fatty acids (FA) in winter wheat seedlings. Materials and methods. The object of the study was the seeds of soft winter wheat (variety Irkutskaya). The ozonation was conducted with ozone concentrations of 2, 4, 6 and 8 g/m3 during 15, 30, 45 and 60 min. The germination of treated and control seeds was carried out for three days in the dark in a thermostat (24±1°C). On the third day, the morphometric characteristics were measured. The extraction of lipids from shoots and roots was carried out according to the method of Bligh, Dyer [14]. The methyl esters of lipid fatty acids were analyzed by chromato-mass spectrometry. Statistical data processing was conducted with the use of R programming language and SigmaPlot v. 12.5. Results. Ozone in concentrations of 2, 4, 6 g/m3 has a stimulating effect on seedling germination, the length of the shoots and roots increases. At ozone concentration of 8 g/m3, the length of the shoots and roots decreases. There is a general trend in the content of fatty acids, in the shoots of seedlings there is some decrease in lipid unsaturation, and in the roots - some increase in lipid unsaturation. Conclusion. Ozone in concentrations up to 8 g/m3 is suitable for pre-sowing seed treatment and improves seedling performance.
Shallow Discourse Parsing with Conditional Random Fields

Parsing discourse is a challenging natural language processing task. In this paper we take a data driven approach to identify arguments of explicit discourse connectives. In contrast to previous work we do not make any assumptions on the span of arguments and consider parsing as a token-level sequence labeling task. We design the argument segmentation task as a cascade of decisions based on conditional random fields (CRFs). We train the CRFs on lexical, syntactic and semantic features extracted from the Penn Discourse Treebank and evaluate feature combinations on the commonly used test split. We show that the best combination of features includes syntactic and semantic features. The comparative error analysis investigates the performance variability over connective types and argument positions.
Co‐expression of TNFR2 and CD25 identifies more of the functional CD4+FOXP3+ regulatory T cells in human peripheral blood

Previously, we found that co‐expression of CD25 and TNFR2 identified the most suppressive subset of mouse Treg. In this study, we report that human peripheral blood (PB) FOXP3+ cells present in CD25high, CD25low and even CD25– subsets of CD4+ cells expressed high levels of TNFR2. Consequently, TNFR2‐expressing CD4+CD25+ Treg included all of the FOXP3+ cells present in the CD4+CD25high subset as well as a substantial proportion of the FOXP3+ cells present in the CD4+CD25low subset. Flow cytometric analysis of PB identified five‐fold more Treg, determined by FOXP3 expression, in the CD4+CD25+TNFR2+ subset than in the CD4+CD25high subset. In addition, similar levels of FOXP3+ cells were identified in both the CD4+CD25+TNFR2+ and CD4+CD25+CD127low/− subsets. Furthermore, the CD4+CD25+TNFR2+ subset expressed high levels of CTLA‐4, CD45RO, CCR4 and low levels of CD45RA and CD127, a phenotype characteristic of Treg. Upon TCR stimulation, human PB CD4+CD25+TNFR2+ cells were anergic and markedly inhibited the proliferation and cytokine production of co‐cultured T‐responder cells. In contrast, CD4+CD25+TNFR2– and CD4+CD25–TNFR2+ T cells did not show inhibitory activity. As some non‐Treg express TNFR2, the combination of CD25 and TNFR2 must be used to identify a larger population of human Treg, a population that may prove to be of diagnostic and therapeutic benefit in cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Transition to parenthood and positive parenting: Longitudinal and intervention approaches

A successful transition to parenthood is a building block for early positive parenting. In this paper the transition to parenthood is approached in the context of the life-span model of motivation (Salmela-Aro, 2009) illustrated by longitudinal findings. Second, in line with the model, intervention is presented as a way of promoting a successful transition to parenthood and related positive parenting (Rodrigo, 2010). The paper describes how the key factors of the life-span model of motivation are helpful in understanding changes during the transition to parenthood. First, in the context of the life-span model of motivation, findings are presented concerning the way in which personal goals change during the transition to parenthood and how these changes are related to changes in depressive symptoms among 348 couples who filled in questionnaires during early pregnancy, late pregnancy, three months after childbirth and two years later. Second, as the transition to parenthood is a shared transition, cross-lagged paths between the role of partner support for personal goals and spousal satisfaction are presented. Third, an intervention (n = 371; randomized into intervention n = 131, control n = 240) including six psycho-education group sessions during pregnancy and one after childbirth aiming to increase positive parenting by increasing motivation and related preparedness to the transition to parenthood among those suffering from intense fear of childbirth is presented.
Transfer learning for QoS aware topology management in energy efficient 5G cognitive radio networks

In this paper, we investigate the use of a transfer learning approach applied to a topology management framework in a 5G heterogeneous aerial-terrestrial broadband access network, to reduce energy consumption and deployment cost, and improve system capacity and QoS. We implement a cognitive engine at the base station (BS), with reinforcement learning algorithms applied at the link level for spectrum assignment, and at the network level for user association. A novel transfer learning algorithm is developed to transfer the expertise knowledge learnt from spectrum assignment to formulate a knowledgebase for user association. Furthermore, a QoS aware base station switching operation algorithm is proposed at a network controller, to dynamically switch BSs between sleep and active modes based on system QoS requirements. System simulations under practical configurations show that the transfer learning based user association algorithm achieves significant energy saving and QoS improvement with optimized load management in a spectrum sharing scenario. The BS switching operation algorithm effectively controls the delay and retransmissions when saving energy from sleep mode.
A domain-specific language for building self-optimizing AST interpreters

Self-optimizing AST interpreters dynamically adapt to the provided input for faster execution. This adaptation includes initial tests of the input, changes to AST nodes, and insertion of guards that ensure assumptions still hold. Such specialization and speculation is essential for the performance of dynamic programming languages such as JavaScript. In traditional procedural and objectoriented programming languages it can be tedious to write selfoptimizing AST interpreters, as those languages fail to provide constructs that would specifically support that. This paper introduces a declarative domain-specific language (DSL) that greatly simplifies writing self-optimizing AST interpreters. The DSL supports specialization of operations based on types of the input and other properties. It can then use these specializations directly or chain them to represent the operation with the minimum amount of code possible. The DSL significantly reduces the complexity of expressing specializations for those interpreters. We use it in our high-performance implementation of JavaScript, where 274 language operations have an average of about 4 and a maximum of 190 specializations. In addition, the DSL is used in implementations of Ruby, Python, R, and Smalltalk.