Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enhancing interactional synchrony with an ambient display

Nonverbal communication is an essential part of face-to-face social interaction, conveying information about emotion and interpersonal relationships. The rigorous sensing capabilities of pervasive technologies and the subtle nature of ambient technologies make them ideal to support the production of nonverbal communication in social interactions. In this paper we present a study using an ambient technology that supports nonverbal communication, and specifically nonverbal behaviours associated with rapport. We show that an ambient display can influence a participant's nonverbal behaviour, and that participants are not aware of this change in their behaviour. We discuss these findings in terms of the design and ethical issues that it raises, and define an agenda for future work.
The effects of background music on the evaluation of crying faces

This exploratory study was designed to determine the effects of background music of different valence on the perception of tearful faces and other emotional expressions. Participants (154 men, age range 9–64 years, and 208 women, age range 9–77 years) rated photographs of crying, smiling, anger expressing and yawning unique men and women (N = 12 each) on the following three dimensions: kindness, attractiveness and pleasantness, while concurrently being exposed to happy, angry, sad and calm music, or a no-music condition. Mixed models analysis revealed that observers made more favourable judgments about a crier when listening to sad and calm background music. This particularly concerned the ratings on the dimensions kindness and pleasantness, while calm music additionally increased ratings of attractiveness. Opposite effects were found for angry faces, for which lower ratings were obtained on all three dimensions with calm music. We speculate that calm background music may be helpful to boost social bonding and empathy, when people are in tears.
Integrating international students' contests with software engineering courses Lessons learned and best practices

There are many general computer contests targeting undergraduate and graduate students. The prizes vary from cash, trip, fame, conference participation and others. Contests can be class, school, national, regional or global. This workshop aims to share the knowledge and experience of different educational institutes of integrating students' contests with academic software engineering courses. The main goal is to identify, discuss and promote best practices to properly benefit from such integration.
Fundamentalists, priests, martyrs and converts: a typology of first tier management in Further Education

This article presents findings from a study of first tier managers in English Further Education colleges, a role critically neglected within the literature, despite its centrality to organisational effectiveness and learner success. The role was found to be diverse, contested and elastic and while first tier managers were found to be highly autonomous, the research also documented the high levels of ‘home invasion’ of work as first tier managers attempted to meet the immediate gratification needs of senior managers, learners and lecturers. While most management typologies are founded upon a dialectic between organisation and staff, this research suggests that first tier managers operate within a trialectic of organisation, team and students. As such, a typology of first tier management is proposed based upon metaphors of faith which includes four categories: fundamentalists, priests, converts and martyrs, each exhibiting prioritisation within the trialectic and each faith‐orientation determining how the role is performed.
The tails of apical scaffolding proteins EBP50 and E3KARP regulate their localization and dynamics

ERM-binding protein of 50 kDa (EBP50) and NHE3 kinase A regulatory protein (E3KARP) are closely related but show dramatically different dynamics in microvilli. The high dynamics of EBP50 is determined by a region in its tail and is inhibited by its PDZ domains, but is activated upon PDZ ligand binding. Proteomic analysis of the effects of EBP50 dynamics identifies a novel PDZ binding partner, IRSp53.
Quantitative verification: models, techniques and tools

Automated verification is a technique for establishing if certain properties, usually expressed in temporal logic, hold for a system model. The model can be defined using a high-level formalism or extracted directly from software using methods such as abstract interpretation. The verification proceeds through exhaustive exploration of the state-transition graph of the model and is therefore more powerful than testing. Quantitative verification is an analogous technique for establishing quantitative properties of a system model, such as the probability of battery power dropping below minimum, the expected time for message delivery and the expected number of messages lost before protocol termination. Models analysed through this method are typically variants of Markov chains, annotated with costs and rewards that describe resources and their usage during execution. Properties are expressed in temporal logic extended with probabilistic and reward operators. Quantitative verification involves a combination of a traversal of the state-transition graph of the model and numerical computation. This paper gives a brief overview of current research in quantitative verification, concentrating on the potential of the method and outlining future challenges. The modelling approach is described and the usefulness of the methodology illustrated with an example of a real-world protocol standard - Bluetooth device discovery - that has been analysed using the PRISM model checker (www.prismmodelchecker.org).
Kinect as a tool in estimation of selected human body dimensions

The aim of this paper the extraction of human body dimensions using the latest Microsoft Kinect device. Another focus is the analysis of various application of this device in specific branches of science and research and its application in estimation of dimensions. Brief analysis of the device itself is carried out as well. The principal output of this paper the software application that utilizes data from Microsoft Kinect sensor in order to estimate the height of human body as well as the length of its limbs. Further comparison between both generations of Kinect devices is carried out.
GeoEcho: Inferring User Interests from Geotag Reports in Network Traffic

Being transmitted as part of numerous Internet services, geo location data is increasingly bringing hints of people's real-world activities into Internet traffic. This paper focuses on the discovery of key properties that motivate personal activities - locational interests. We propose and design GeoEcho, a mobile traffic analysis system that extracts and analyses a wealth of latitude-longitude geotag reports with the purpose of identifying the points of interest (PoI) which people actually visit. The key challenge in such identification is that geotag reports are commonly sent arbitrarily, sparsely and without a sufficient accuracy to uniquely identify any PoI. In our analysis of a two-week trace from a large North-American cell phone operator, we show that 22% of geo reports do not even represent actual people's positions, while another 45% of the reports have low accuracy, such that they ambiguously indicate a number of potential PoIs. We devise methods that effectively identify and prune irrelevant geo information and infer personal interests of individuals. Thereby creating representative profiles of personal interests, our key results reveal that users show interest in a limited number of topics, and their interests are largely unique and stable over time. Our analysis shows a significant GeoEcho usability in various contexts ranging from generic user profile and user group analysis, to advertising and security applications.
March 2003 EOS Aqua AMSR-E Arctic Sea Ice Field Campaign

An overview of the March 2003 coordinated sea ice field campaign in the Alaskan Arctic is presented with reference to the papers in this special section. This campaign is part of the program to validate the Aqua Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer for Earth Observing System (AMSR-E) sea ice products. Standard AMSR-E sea ice products include sea ice concentration, sea ice temperature, and snow depth on sea ice. The validation program consists of three elements, namely: 1) satellite data comparisons; 2) coordinated satellite/aircraft/surface measurements; and 3) modeling and sensitivity analyses. Landsat-7 and RADARSAT observations were used in comparative studies with the retrieved AMSR-E sea ice concentrations. The aircraft sensors provided high-resolution microwave imagery of the surface, atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity, and digital records of sea ice conditions. When combined with in situ measurements, aircraft data were used to validate the AMSR-E sea ice temperature and snow-depth products. The modeling studies helped interpret the field-data comparisons, provided insight on the limitations of the AMSR-E sea ice algorithms, and suggested potential improvements to the AMSR-E retrieval algorithms
Identification and Characterization of Skin Biomolecules for Drug Targeting and Monitoring by Vibrational Spectroscopy

The article discusses the application of vibrational spectroscopy techniques for in vivo identification and characterization of glucose biomolecules monitored in the skin of healthy, prediabetes and diabetes subjects; for molecular characterization of water and proteins in in vivo monitored patch tested inflamed skin of the patients with contact dermatitis; for description of nucleic acids and proteins at the molecular level with progression to malignancy in skin cancerous lesions. The results of the studies show new possibilities to assess activity levels of glucose metabolism in the skin tissue of healthy, prediabetes and diabetes subjects; activity and severity of inflammation; activity of the processes of carcinogenesis with regard to benign, premalignant and malignant transformation. Based on our findings, we suggest that vibrational spectroscopy might be a rapid screening tool with sufficient sensitivity and specificity to identify and characterize skin biomolecules in described diseases for drug targeting and monitoring by the pharmacological community.
Clinical experience and results of a Sentinel Health Investigation related to indoor fungal exposure.

This is a review of exposure conditions, clinical presentation, and morbidity of children and adults with indoor fungal exposure such as toxic Stachybotrys chartarum. Indoor exposure was characterized using different methods including microscopic, culture, cytotoxicity screening tests, and chemical analyses. Clinical case histories and physical and laboratory findings are presented of children (age < 18 years, n = 22; mean age 9 years; 60% females) and adults (age >18 years, n = 125; mean age 39 years, 67% females) who consulted an environmental health specialty clinic. In the pediatric patients' exposure history, widespread fungal contamination of water-damaged building materials with known toxic or allergic fungi was identified. Primarily disorders of the respiratory system, skin, mucous membranes, and central nervous system were reported. Some enumeration and functional laboratory abnormalities, mainly of the lymphatic blood cells, were observed, although no statistically significant differences were found. IgE or IgG fungi-specific antibodies, used as exposure markers, were positive in less than 25% of all tested cases. In an evaluation of a symptomatic girl 11 years of age (sentinel case investigation) living in an apartment with verified toxigenic fungi (i.e., S. chartarum), several health indicators showed improvement after exposure cessation. ImagesFigure 1
RNA dynamics: perspectives from spin labels

Dynamics are important and indispensible physical attributes that play essential roles in RNA function. RNA dynamics are complex, spanning vast timescales, and encompassing a large number of physical modes. The technique of site‐directed spin labeling (SDSL), which derives information on local structural and dynamic features of a macromolecule by monitoring a chemically stable nitroxide radical using electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy, has been applied to monitor intrinsic dynamics at defined structural states as well as to probe conformational transition dynamics of RNAs. The current state of SDSL studies of RNA dynamics is summarized here. Further development and application of SDSL promise to open up many more opportunities for probing RNA dynamics and connecting dynamics to structure and function. WIREs RNA 2012, 3:62–72. doi: 10.1002/wrna.104
LaTTe: a Java VM just-in-time compiler with fast and efficient register allocation

For network computing on desktop machines, fast execution of Java bytecode programs is essential because these machines are expected to run substantial application programs written in Java. Higher Java performance can be achieved by just-in-time (JIT) compilers which translate the stack-based bytecode into register-based machine code on demand. One crucial problem in Java JIT compilation is how to map and allocate stack entries and local variables into registers efficiently and quickly, so as to improve the Java performance. This paper introduces LaTTe, a Java JIT compiler that performs fast and efficient register mapping and allocation for RISC machines. LaTTe first translates the bytecode into pseudo RISC code with symbolic registers, which is then register allocated while coalescing those copies corresponding to pushes and pops between local variables and the stack. The LaTTe JVM also includes an enhanced object model, a lightweight monitor, a fast mark-and-sweep garbage collector, and an on-demand exception handling mechanism, all of which are closely coordinated with LaTTe's JIT compilation.
Simultaneous Online Tracking of Adjacent and Non-adjacent Dependencies in Statistical Learning

When children learn their native language, they have to deal with a confusing array of dependencies between various elements in an utterance. Some of these dependencies may be adjacent to one another whereas others can be separated by considerable intervening material. Research on statistical learning has begun to explore how such adjacent and nonadjacent dependencies may be learned—but in separate studies. In this paper, we investigate whether both types of dependencies can be learned together, similarly to the task facing young children. Statistical learning of adjacent and non-adjacent dependencies was assessed using a modified serial-reaction-time task. The results showed (i) increasing online sensitivity to both dependency types during training, and (ii) non-adjacent dependency learning being highly correlated with adjacent dependency learning. These results suggest that adjacency and non-adjacency learning can occur in parallel and that they might be subserved by a common statistical learning mechanism.
Cytomegalovirus and Herpes Simplex Virus Effect on the Prognosis of Mechanically Ventilated Patients Suspected to Have Ventilator-Associated Pneumonia

Objective Cytomegalovirus (CMV) and herpes simplex virus (HSV) are common viruses that can affect critically ill patients who are not immunocompromised. The aim of this study was to determine whether the identification of CMV and/or HSV in mechanically ventilated critically ill patients suspected of having pneumonia was associated with an increased mortality. Design Prospective epidemiological study. Setting Medical intensive care unit of a tertiary medical center. Patients Ninety-three patients with suspected pneumonia. Interventions Patients with suspected pneumonia had bronchoalveolar lavage and blood samples taken to confirm the diagnosis. Antigenemia was used to detect CMV in the blood. Bronchoalveolar lavage samples were submitted to testing using quantitative real-time Polymerase Chain Reaction. Measurements and Main Results We identified 22 patients with a CMV infection, 26 patients with an HSV infection and 45 patients without CMV or HSV infection (control group). Mortality at day 60 was higher in patients with a CMV infection than in patients from the control group (55% vs. 20%, P<0.01). Mortality at day 60 was not significantly increased in the group with HSV infection. Duration of ICU stay and ICU mortality were significantly higher in patients with CMV infections when compared to patients from the control group, whereas ventilator free days were significantly lower in patients with CMV infections when compared to patients from the control group. Conclusions In critically ill patients, a CMV infection is associated with an increased mortality. Further interventional studies are needed to evaluate whether treatment could improve the prognosis.
The availability of cues for word segmentation and vocabulary acquisition in Catalan child-directed speech

Varios estudios previos han senalado ya la utilidad del tipo de lenguaje que las madres utilizan para dirigirse a sus hijos en el aprendizaje de lenguas, ya que dicho lenguaje ha demostrado ser de ayuda en varias de las tareas a las que los aprendices de primeras lenguas se enfrentan. En concreto, investigaciones recientes sugieren que el tipo de simplificaciones estructurales y lexicas a las que los ninos estan expuestos (es decir, la longitud de los enunciados maternos y la redundancia lexica en su discurso) son particularmente utiles para una segmentacion inicial de palabras en el discurso oral. Mientras que la mayoria de los estudios se centran en el ingles, se sabe poco acerca de las caracteristicas y los efectos que el discurso materno puede tener en otras lenguas. El presente estudio tiene como objetivo aportar evidencia de la utilidad del discurso materno en catalan a partir del analisis de fragmentos del lenguaje dirigido a ninos aprendices de esta lengua.
Toward Anonymizing IoT Data Streams via Partitioning

Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices are capable of capturing physiological measures, location and activity information, hence sharing sensed data can lead to privacy implications. Data anonymization provides solution to this problem, however, traditional anonymization approaches only provide privacy protection for data stream generated from a single entity. Since, a single entity can make use of multiple IoT devices at an instance, IoT data streams are not fixed in nature. As conventional data stream anonymization algorithms only work on fixed width data stream they cannot be applied to IoT. In this work, we propose an anonymization algorithm for publishing IoT data streams. Our approach anonymizes tuples with similar description in a single cluster under time based sliding window. It considers similarity of tuples when clustering, and provides solution to anonymize tuples with missing values using representative values. Our experiment on real dataset shows that the proposed algorithm publishes data with less information loss and runs faster compared to conventional anonymization approaches modified to run for IoT data streams.
Transracialized selves and the emergence of post‐white teacher identities

This article draws on two previous studies by the authors, both based on interviews with European‐American individuals, to document white experiences with multiculturalism, race, and cultural differences. We consider recent developments in research on whiteness and offer a perspective on racial identities defined as discursively enacted identifications that are rooted in racialized discourse communities. We provide profiles of two white women who draw upon assets developed, in our view, largely through their successful negotiation of relationships with racially and culturally different members of multicultural discourse communities. Next, we demonstrate a methodology based on the narrative analytic tools of Stanton Wortham (2001, Narratives in action: a strategy for research and analysis [New York, Teachers College Press]) that was used to explicate multiple ways in which both participants narrated their identities during interviews. Our analysis demonstrates how these women enacted what we call ‘transracialized’ selves, that is, ways of being white that transcend predictable performances of more typically racialized identities. We link transracialized identities to the notion of ‘post‐white’ identity. Finally, we close with comments about the implications of transracialized, post‐white identities for the field of multicultural teacher education. The future calls for each of us to become partners in the dance of diversity, a dance in which everyone shares the lead. And because we have been separated by race and ethnicity for so long, we may feel awkward at first with the new moves…. But with a little help from our friends in other cultures, even white folks can learn to dance, again, as we did among the great stone circles of ancient Europe. (Howard, 1993, p. 41)
Predicting protein-RNA residue-base contacts using two-dimensional conditional random field

Understanding of interactions between proteins and RNAs is essential to reveal networks and functions of molecules in cellular systems. Many studies have been done for analyzing and investigating interactions between protein residues and RNA bases. For interactions between protein residues, it is supported that residues at interacting sites have co-evolved with the corresponding residues in the partner protein to keep the interactions between the proteins. In our previous work, on the basis of this idea, we calculated mutual information (MI) between residues from multiple sequence alignments of homologous proteins for identifying interacting pairs of residues in interacting proteins, and combined it with the discriminative random field (DRF), which is useful to extract some characteristic regions from an image in the field of image processing, and is a special type of conditional random fields (CRFs). In a similar way, in this paper, we make use of mutual information for predicting interactions between protein residues and RNA bases. Furthermore, we introduce labels of amino acids and bases as features of a simple two-dimensional CRF instead of DRF. To evaluate our method, we perform computational experiments for several interactions between Pfam domains and Rfam entries. The results suggest that the CRF model with MI and labels is more useful than the CRF model with only MI.
Production of 1-Kestose in Transgenic Yeast Expressing a Fructosyltransferase from Aspergillus foetidus

ABSTRACT Sucrose-inducible secretory sucrose:sucrose 1-fructosyltransferase (1-SST) from Aspergillus foetidus has been purified and subjected to N-terminal amino acid sequence determination. The enzyme is extensively glycosylated, and the active form is probably represented by a dimer of identical subunits with an apparent molecular mass of 180 kDa as judged from mobility in seminative acrylamide gels. The enzyme catalyzes fructosyl transfer from sucrose to sucrose producing glucose and 1-kestose. Oligosaccharides with a higher degree of polymerization are not obtained with sucrose as the substrate. The cDNA encoding the A. foetidus 1-SST has been cloned and sequenced. Sequence homology was found to be highest to levanases, but no hydrolytic activity was observed when levan was incubated with the enzyme. Expression of the cloned gene in an invertase-deficient mutant of Saccharomyces cerevisiae resulted in 1-kestose production, with 6-kestose and neokestose being side products of the reaction. Products were well distinguishable from those formed by yeast transformants expressing a cytosolic invertase.