Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Proxemic peddler: a public advertising display that captures and preserves the attention of a passerby

Effective street peddlers monitor passersby, where they tune their message to capture and keep the passerby's attention over the entire duration of the sales pitch. Similarly, advertising displays in today's public environments can be more effective if they were able to tune their content in response to how passersby were attending them vs. just showing fixed content in a loop. Previously, others have prototyped displays that monitor and react to the presence or absence of a person within a few proxemic (spatial) zones surrounding the screen, where these zones are used as an estimate of attention. However, the coarseness and discrete nature of these zones mean that they cannot respond to subtle changes in the user's attention towards the display. In this paper, we contribute an extension to existing proxemic models. Our Peddler Framework captures (1) fine-grained continuous proxemic measures by (2) monitoring the passerby's distance and orientation with respect to the display at all times. We use this information to infer (3) the passerby's interest or digression of attention at any given time, and (4) their attentional state with respect to their short-term interaction history over time. Depending on this attentional state, we tune content to lead the passerby into a more attentive stage, ultimately resulting in a purchase. We also contribute a prototype of a public advertising display -- called Proxemic Peddler -- that demonstrates these extensions as applied to content from the Amazon.com website.
Multimodal BCI-mediated FES suppression of pathological tremor

Tremor constitutes the most common movement disorder; in fact 14.5% of population between 50 to 89 years old suffers from it. Moreover, 65% of patients with upper limb tremor report disability when performing their activities of daily living (ADL). Unfortunately, 25% of patients do not respond to drugs or neurosurgery. In this regard, TREMOR project proposes functional compensation of upper limb tremors with a soft wearable robot that applies biomechanical loads through functional electrical stimulation (FES) of muscles. This wearable robot is driven by a Brain Neural Computer Interface (BNCI). This paper presents a multimodal BCI to assess generation, transmission and execution of both volitional and tremorous movements based on electroencephalography (EEG), electromyography (EMG) and inertial sensors (IMUs). These signals are combined to obtain: 1) the intention to perform a voluntary movement from cortical activity (EEG), 2) tremor onset, and an estimation of tremor frequency from muscle activation (EMG), and 3) instantaneous tremor amplitude and frequency from kinematic measurements (IMUs). Integration of this information will provide control signals to drive the FES-based wearable robot.
Microsomal Glutathione Transferase 1 Protects Against Toxicity Induced by Silica Nanoparticles but Not by Zinc Oxide Nanoparticles

Microsomal glutathione transferase 1 (MGST1) is an antioxidant enzyme located predominantly in the mitochondrial outer membrane and endoplasmic reticulum and has been shown to protect cells from lipid peroxidation induced by a variety of cytostatic drugs and pro-oxidant stimuli. We hypothesized that MGST1 may also protect against nanomaterial-induced cytotoxicity through a specific effect on lipid peroxidation. We evaluated the induction of cytotoxicity and oxidative stress by TiO2, CeO2, SiO2, and ZnO in the human MCF-7 cell line with or without overexpression of MGST1. SiO2 and ZnO nanoparticles caused dose- and time-dependent toxicity, whereas no obvious cytotoxic effects were induced by nanoparticles of TiO2 and CeO2. We also noted pronounced cytotoxicity for three out of four additional SiO2 nanoparticles tested. Overexpression of MGST1 reversed the cytotoxicity of the main SiO2 nanoparticles tested and for one of the supplementary SiO2 nanoparticles but did not protect cells against ZnO-induced cytotoxic effects. The data point toward a role of lipid peroxidation in SiO2 nanoparticle-induced cell death. For ZnO nanoparticles, rapid dissolution was observed, and the subsequent interaction of Zn2+ with cellular targets is likely to contribute to the cytotoxic effects. A direct inhibition of MGST1 by Zn2+ could provide a possible explanation for the lack of protection against ZnO nanoparticles in this model. Our data also showed that SiO2 nanoparticle-induced cytotoxicity is mitigated in the presence of serum, potentially through masking of reactive surface groups by serum proteins, whereas ZnO nanoparticles were cytotoxic both in the presence and in the absence of serum.
Autotuning Runtime Specialization for Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication

Runtime specialization is used for optimizing programs based on partial information available only at runtime. In this paper we apply autotuning on runtime specialization of Sparse Matrix-Vector Multiplication to predict a best specialization method among several. In 91% to 96% of the predictions, either the best or the second-best method is chosen. Predictions achieve average speedups that are very close to the speedups achievable when only the best methods are used. By using an efficient code generator and a carefully designed set of matrix features, we show the runtime costs can be amortized to bring performance benefits for many real-world cases.
Precision Dosing: Public Health Need, Proposed Framework, and Anticipated Impact

“Precision dosing” focuses on the individualization of drug treatment regimens based on patient factors known to alter drug disposition and/or response. In 2015, over 8 in 10 nonfederal acute care hospitals in the United States had adopted a basic electronic health record (EHR) system,1 which will facilitate the application of precision dosing. Expanding on recent publications,2, 3 we outline the public health need, a proposed framework, and the anticipated impact for the adoption of precision dosing.
Pigeon aortic smooth muscle cells lack a functional low density lipoprotein receptor pathway.

The low density lipoprotein (LDL) receptor pathway was studied in aortic smooth muscle cells from atherosclerosis-susceptible White Carneau pigeons and compared with rhesus monkey cells whose LDL receptor pathway has been previously characterized. Pigeon LDL was bound with high affinity in a saturable manner to both pigeon and monkey aortic smooth muscle cells. The kinetics of binding were different, however. LDL binding to pigeon cells exhibited positive cooperativity at low LDL concentrations and at least two classes of binding sites. The same pigeon LDL bound to monkey cells in a manner consistent with a single class of binding sites. Thus, these differences were a property of the pigeon cells and not the result of differences in the LDL. On the average, pigeon cells bound less than 50% the amount of LDL as monkey cells. Despite the surface binding to pigeon cells, little of the LDL was internalized, whereas pigeon LDL was actively internalized by monkey cells. Consistent with this observation, chloroquine and leupeptin had no effect on accumulation of LDL or on LDL degradation by pigeon cells, and incubation of pigeon cells with LDL produced no increase in cellular cholesteryl ester content. Binding of LDL to pigeon cells also differed from that of monkey cells by being unaffected by pretreatment with the proteolytic enzyme pronase, and by not requiring calcium. Binding was not specific for LDL since acetyl-LDL, and to a lesser degree HDL, were able to compete for LDL binding. Incubation with lipoprotein-deficient serum decreased LDL binding in pigeon cells while 25-OH cholesterol caused an increase in binding; both effects are opposite of that seen with the same LDL in mammalian cells. Preincubation with LDL or cholesterol dissolved in ethanol were without effect on LDL binding in pigeon cells, even though they produced significant increases in cellular free cholesterol content. In spite of the failure to internalize LDL, there was considerable degradation of LDL. This apparently occurred on the cell surface rather than by internalization and degradation within the lysosomes as occurs in mammalian cells. The functional significance of LDL binding to pigeon smooth muscle cells is unclear. The characteristics of binding resemble that of a nonspecific lipoprotein receptor referred to by others as the "lipoprotein receptor" or the "EDTA-insensitive receptor. " It is apparent, however, that White Carneau pigeon aortic smooth muscle cells lack a functional LDL receptor pathway and in this way resemble cells from human beings with homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia or from Watanabe rabbits.
Sprachentwicklung und Spielniveau bei retardierten Kindern

In einer Stichprobe von 108 lern- und geistigbehinderten Kindern wird der Zusammenhang zwischen Symbolspielniveau, allgemeiner kognitiver Entwicklung und sprachlicher Entwicklung untersucht. Die Entwicklungshohe von Symbolspiel und Sprachvermogen korreliert unabhangig vom mentalen Alter miteinander. Es werden Schlussfolgerungen aus diesem entwicklungsmasigen Zusammenhang fur die Planung sprachtherapeutischer Forderprogramme bei mental retardierten Kindern diskutiert. (DIPF/ Orig.) The relationship of symbolic play behavior, general cognitive functioning and language in 108 mentally retarded children was studied. Correlations between play and language measures were found with mental age partialed out. Clinical implications for planning language facilitation programs with mentally retarded children are discussed. (DIPF/ Orig.)
FingerGlass: efficient multiscale interaction on multitouch screens

Many tasks in graphical user interfaces require users to interact with elements at various levels of precision. We present FingerGlass, a bimanual technique designed to improve the precision of graphical tasks on multitouch screens. It enables users to quickly navigate to different locations and across multiple scales of a scene using a single hand. The other hand can simultaneously interact with objects in the scene. Unlike traditional pan-zoom interfaces, FingerGlass retains contextual information during the interaction. We evaluated our technique in the context of precise object selection and translation and found that FingerGlass significantly outperforms three state-of-the-art baseline techniques in both objective and subjective measurements: users acquired and translated targets more than 50% faster than with the second-best technique in our experiment.
The relationship between working memory and gait performance

The purpose of this study was to establish how performance in cognitive (i.e., working memory) and motor (i.e., gait) tasks vary when the tasks are performed in isolation and concurrently. Sixteen collegiate students, three males and 13 females, comprised the sample. The hypothesis was gait performance would decline when performed with a working memory task (dual-task condition) compared to when gait performance was performed alone (single task condition). I expected that an increase in working memory requirements during the dual tasks would lead to a corresponding decrement in gait performance by shifting gait toward maladaptive behavior. The results did not support my hypothesis. A MANOVA was used to determine if task condition influenced performance in any of the gait performance metrics (stride interval standard mean, standard deviation, or DFA α) or cognitive performance metrics (absolute score, partial score, speed error, accuracy error, or math error). No differences were observed in any of the gait or cognitive metrics as a function of the task condition. It is possible that differences were not found in gait performance metrics because the cognitive task and gait task were not drawing from the same resources. It is also conceivable that the cognitive task used in this study did not significantly tax memory to cause a decrement in gait performance.
A review of the prevalence, utility, and caveats of using chloroplast simple sequence repeats for studies of plant biology

Microsatellites occur in all plant genomes and provide useful markers for studies of genetic diversity and structure. Chloroplast microsatellites (cpSSRs) are frequently targeted because they are more easily isolated than nuclear microsatellites. Here, we quantified the frequency and uses of cpSSRs based on a literature review of over 400 studies published 1995–2013. These markers are an important and economical tool for plant biologists and continue to be used alongside modern genomics approaches to study genetic diversity and structure, evolutionary history, and hybridization in native and agricultural species. Studies using species-specific primers reported a greater number of polymorphic loci than those employing universal primers. A major disadvantage to cpSSRs is fragment size homoplasy; therefore, we documented its occurrence at several cpSSR loci within and between species of Acmispon (Fabaceae). Based on our empirical data set, we recommend targeted sequencing of a subset of samples combined with fragment genotyping as a cost-efficient, data-rich approach to the use of cpSSRs and as a test of homoplasy. The availability of genomic resources for plants aids in the development of primers for new study systems, thereby enhancing the utility of cpSSRs across plant biology.
Mutual self-disclosure online in the B2C context

Purpose – This paper aims to investigate the relationship between company identity information disclosure, trust, and consumer self‐disclosure intentions during the first visit to a company website.Design/methodology/approach – This study conducts one‐factor (company identity information disclosure) between‐subject experiment design. Participants were randomly assigned into two groups: company identity information disclosure – high vs low. Furthermore, this study also uses LISREL to analyse the model.Findings – The analytical results indicate that when a company website discloses much of its identity information, consumers trust the company more, and exhibit greater intentions to provide their personal information. Specifically, this study's results show that consumer's trust mediates the relationship between company identity information disclosure and consumer self‐disclosure intentions.Practical implications – Companies often invite consumers to disclose personal information on websites, and then use th.
The College Admissions Problem Reconsidered

This paper revisits the college admissions problem and studies the efficiency, incentive, and monotonicity for colleges. We show that max-min criterion that is stronger than substitutability, together with the quota-saturability that requires having enough acceptable applicants, guarantees weak Pareto efficiency and strategy-proofness for colleges under the colleges-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm. Moreover, we introduce a new notion of max-min criterion, called W-max-min criterion, which together with the quota-saturability condition, ensures that the colleges-proposing deferred acceptance algorithm is not only weakly Pareto efficient and strategy-proof, but also monotone for colleges.
The Effect of Diabetes Mellitus on Lung Cancer Prognosis

AbstractPrevious studies suggested that diabetes mellitus (DM) was associated with risk and mortality of cancer, but studies investigating the correlation between DM and lung cancer prognosis remain controversial. Herein, a meta-analysis was performed to derive a more precise estimate of the prognostic role of DM in lung cancer.Medline and Embase were searched for eligible articles from inception to October 25, 2015. The pooled hazard ratio (HR) with its 95% confidence interval (95% CI) was calculated to evaluate the correlation between DM and lung cancer prognosis. Subgroup meta-analysis was performed based on the histology and the treatment methods.A total of 20 cohort studies from 12 articles were included in the meta-analysis. Also, 16 studies investigated the overall survival (OS) and 4 studies investigated the progression-free survival (PFS). DM was significantly associated with the inferior OS of lung cancer with the pooled HR 1.28 (95% CI: 1.10–1.49, P = 0.001). The association was prominent in the nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) subgroup (HR 1.35, 95%CI: 1.14–1.60, P = 0.002), whereas the association was not significant in the small cell lung cancer (SCLC) subgroup (HR 1.33, 95% CI: 0.87–2.03, P = 0.18). When NSCLC patients were further stratified by treatment methods, DM had more influence on the surgically treated subgroup than the nonsurgically treated subgroup. There was no obvious evidence for publication bias by Begg's and Egger's test.The results of this meta-analysis exhibit an association of DM with inferior prognosis amongst lung cancer patients, especially the surgically treated NSCLC patients. Given the small number of studies included in this meta-analysis, the present conclusion should be consolidated with more high-quality prospective cohort studies or randomized controlled trials.
The Presence of IGHG1 in Human Pancreatic Carcinomas Is Associated With Immune Evasion Mechanisms

Objectives: To investigate the expression of Ig&ggr;-1 chain C region (IGHG1) in human pancreatic carcinomas and determine the biological function of IGHG1 expression in immune evasion mechanisms. Methods: Comparative proteomic analysis was used to detect the differential expression of IGHG1 in human pancreatic cancer tissues versus adjacent noncancerous tissues, followed by confirmatory tests including quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction, Western blot analysis, immunohistochemistry, and immunofluorescence. A murine pancreatic tumor model was established by transplantation of IGHG1-overexpressing Panc02 cells. The cytotoxic responses of natural killer (NK) cells were assessed with a lactate dehydrogenase release assay. Results: Ig&ggr;-1 chain C region was found to be present in human pancreatic cancer tissues but nearly absent or expressed lower in adjacent noncancerous tissues. In the murine pancreatic tumor model, the tumor growth was significantly accelerated from day 12 to 20 after tumor injection, and the survival time of animals was decreased. Blockage of IGHG1 led to retarded tumor growth and improved survival. The cytotoxicity assay revealed that IGHG1 downregulated the cytotoxic activity of NK cells through inhibition of antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity function. Conclusions: The presence of IGHG1 in pancreatic cancer cells might constitute an important element responsible for tumor cell proliferation and immune evasion mechanisms.Abbreviations: IGHG1 - Ig&ggr;-1 chain C region, ADCC - antibody-dependent cellular cytotoxicity, NK cells - natural killer cells, PCR - polymerase chain reaction, LDH - lactate dehydrogenase, CH - constant region of heavy chain
Initial Phase of Neuropathic Pain within a Few Hours after Nerve Injury in Mice

We tested a hypothesis that the spinal plasticity induced within a few hours after nerve injury may produce changes in cortical activities and an initial phase of neuropathic pain. Somatosensory cortical responses elicited by vibratory stimulation were visualized by transcranial flavoprotein fluorescence imaging in mice. These responses were reduced immediately after cutting the sensory nerves. However, the remaining cortical responses mediated by nearby nerves were potentiated within a few hours after nerve cutting. Nerve injury induces neuropathic pain. In the present study, mice exhibited tactile allodynia 1–2 weeks after nerve injury. Lesioning of the ipsilateral dorsal column, mediating tactile cortical responses, abolished somatic cortical responses to tactile stimuli. However, nontactile cortical responses appeared in response to the same tactile stimuli within a few hours after nerve injury, indicating that tactile allodynia was acutely initiated. We investigated the trigger mechanisms underlying the cortical changes. Endogenous glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), found in the Meissner corpuscles, induced basal firing ∼0.1 Hz or less in its Aβ tactile afferents, and disruption of the basal firing triggered the potentiation of nontactile cortical responses. Application of 10 nm LY341495 [(2S)-2-amino-2-[(1S,2S)-2-carboxycycloprop-1-yl]-3-(xanth-9-yl) propanoic acid], a specific antagonist of group II metabotropic glutamate receptors (mGluRs), on to the surface of the spinal cord also induced the potentiation of nontactile cortical responses. Together, it is suggested that low-frequency afferent firing produced by GDNF in touch-sensitive nerve fibers continuously activated spinal group II mGluRs and that failure of this activation triggered tactile allodynia.
A wearable mobility aid for the visually impaired based on embedded 3D vision and deep learning

In this paper we propose an effective and wearable mobility aid for people suffering of visual impairments purely based on 3D computer vision and machine learning techniques. By wearing our device the users can perceive, guided by audio messages and tactile feedback, crucial information concerned with the surrounding environment and hence avoid obstacles along the path. Our proposal can work in synergy with the white cane and allows for very effective and real-time obstacle detection on an embedded computer, by processing the point-cloud provided by a custom RGBD sensor, based on passive stereo vision. Moreover, our system, leveraging on deep-learning techniques, enables to semantically categorize the detected obstacles in order to increase the awareness of the explored environment. It can optionally work in synergy with a smartphone, wirelessly connected to the the proposed mobility aid, exploiting its audio capability and standard GPS-based navigation tools such as Google Maps. The overall system can operate in real-time for hours using a small battery, making it suitable for everyday life. Experimental results confirmed that our proposal has excellent obstacle detection performance and has a promising semantic categorization capability.
Measuring memory and metamemory: Theoretical and statistical problems with assessing learning (in general) and using gamma (in particular) to do so.

In what has become a classic metamemory paper, Dunlosky and Nelson (1992) had participants study paired associates such as ocean–tree. Later, the experimenters represented the same items and asked participants to judge how likely they would be to remember the second word if shown the first word 10 minutes later (i.e., they were asked to make JOLs in the form of predicting their future recall performance). There were two independent variables of interest. The first was delay: JOLs were made either immediately (i.e., the next trial after the words were presented) or after some number of intervening (presentation or JOL) trials. The second was type of presentation at the time of making the JOL: Participants saw either the intact cue–target pair (i.e., ocean–tree) or the cue alone (i.e., ocean–? ). As measured by γ, JOLs were far more accurate in the delayed cue-only condition than any other condition. The superiority of the delayed cue-only condition is an important effect (e.g., for evaluating whether one has studied enough) and has been replicated many times (see Narens, Nelson, & Scheck; Weaver, Terrell, Krug, & Kelemen, this volume, for a review). In a similar study, Nelson and Dunlosky (1991) noted that most of their participants reported trying to silently recall the target word when given a delayed cue-only JOL; that is, they made “covert retrieval attempts. ” In our comment on that article, we (Spellman & Bjork, 1992) argued that some of the superiority of the delayed cue-only condition might be due to a self-fulfilling prophecy — because covert retrieval attempts could have two important, if unintended, consequences (see Figure 1). The first consequence is strategic: Participants use the outcome of the covert retrieval as a basis to predict future recall on the final test. That is, if they fail at covert retrieval on the JOL trial, they are likely to assume that they will fail again on the