Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using an Anti-Relaxation Step to Improve the Accuracy of the Frictional Contact Solution in a Differential Variational Inequality Framework for the Rigid Body Dynamics Problem

Systems composed of rigid bodies interacting through frictional contact are manifest in several science and engineering problems. The number of contacts can be small, such as in robotics and geared machinery, or large, such as in terramechanics applications, additive manufacturing, farming, food industry, and pharmaceutical industry. Currently, there are two popular approaches for handling the frictional contact problem in dynamic systems. The penalty method calculates the frictional contact force based on the kinematics of the interaction, some representative parameters, and an empirical force law. Alternatively, the complementarity method, based on a differential variational inequality (DVI), enforces non-penetration of rigid bodies via a complementarity condition. This contribution concentrates on the latter approach and investigates the impact of an anti-relaxation step that improves the accuracy of the frictional contact solution. We show that the proposed anti-relaxation step incurs a relatively modest cost to improve the quality of a numerical solution strategy which poses the calculation of the frictional contact forces as a cone-complementarity problem.
Learning mid-level features from object hierarchy for image classification

We propose a new approach for constructing mid-level visual features for image classification. We represent an image using the outputs of a collection of binary classifiers. These binary classifiers are trained to differentiate pairs of object classes in an object hierarchy. Our feature representation implicitly captures the hierarchical structure in object classes. We show that our proposed approach outperforms other baseline methods in image classification.
High Prevalence of Giardia duodenalis Assemblage B Infection and Association with Underweight in Rwandan Children

Background Giardia duodenalis is highly endemic in East Africa but its effects on child health, particularly of submicroscopic infections, i.e., those below the threshold of microscopy, and of genetic subgroups (assemblages), are not well understood. We aimed at addressing these questions and at examining epidemiological characteristics of G. duodenalis in southern highland Rwanda. Methodology/Principal Findings In 583 children <5 years of age from communities and health facilities, intestinal parasites were assessed by triplicate light microscopy and by PCR assays, and G. duodenalis assemblages were genotyped. Cluster effects of villages were taken into account in statistical analysis. The prevalence of G. duodenalis as detected by microscopy was 19.8% but 60.1% including PCR results. Prevalence differed with residence, increased with age, and was reduced by breastfeeding. In 492 community children without, with submicroscopic and with microscopic infection, underweight (weight-for-age z-score <−2 standard deviations) was observed in 19.7%, 22.1%, and 33.1%, respectively, and clinically assessed severe malnutrition in 4.5%, 9.5%, and 16.7%. Multivariate analysis identified microscopically detectable G. duodenalis infection as an independent predictor of underweight and clinically assessed severe malnutrition. Submicroscopic infection showed respective trends. Overall, G. duodenalis was not associated with gastrointestinal symptoms but assemblages A parasites (proportion, 13%) were increased among children with vomiting and abdominal pain. Conclusions/Significance The prevalence of G. duodenalis in high-endemicity areas may be greatly underestimated by light microscopy, particularly when only single stool samples are analysed. Children with submicroscopic infections show limited overt manifestation, but constitute unrecognized reservoirs of transmission. The predominance of assemblage B in Rwanda may be involved in the seemingly unimposing manifestation of G. duodenalis infection. However, the association with impaired child growth points to its actual relevance. Longitudinal studies considering abundant submicroscopic infections are needed to clarify the actual contribution of G. duodenalis to morbidity in areas of high endemicity.
Nano-flow multidimensional liquid platform using strong ion-exchange and reversed-phase chromatography for improved proteomic analyses

In this study, an integrated multidimensional nano-flow liquid chromatography platform was established with the combination of peptide separation via online SCX, and successfully applied for proteome analysis. By this platform, peptides were first separated by a SCX microcolumn under a series of salt steps, separated by nano-reversed phase liquid chromatography, and finally identified by ESI-MS/MS. To evaluate the performance, the rat hippocampal cytosol proteins were analyzed. Ten fractions were loaded onto a SCX column via autosampler and analyzed by LC-MS/MS. More than 3323 spectra matched to peptides, and 3141 unique peptide were searched. A total of 600 proteins were identified in this single analysis. Compared with the results obtained by offline 2D-Nano-RPLC-MS/MS approach, the identified protein number was increased upto 13%, with decreased consumed time from 96 to 18 h. These results shows that such an integrated approach would gain attention for better proteome results.
Altered anxiety‐related and social behaviors in the Fmr1 knockout mouse model of fragile X syndrome

The loss of fragile X mental retardation (FMR1) gene function causes fragile X syndrome (FXS), a common mental retardation syndrome. Anxiety and abnormal social behaviors are prominent features of FXS in humans. To better understand the role of FMR1 in these behaviors, we analyzed anxiety‐related and social behaviors in Fmr1 knockout (KO) mice. In the mirrored chamber test, Fmr1 KO mice showed greater aversion to the central mirrored chamber than wild‐type (WT) littermates, suggesting increased anxiety‐like responses to reflected images of mice. Fmr1 KO mice exhibited abnormal social interactions in a tube test of social dominance, winning fewer matches than WT littermates. In a partition test, Fmr1 KO mice had normal levels of social interest and social recognition. However, during direct interaction tests, Fmr1 KO mice showed significant increases in sniffing behaviors. We further tested the influence of environmental familiarity on the social responses of Fmr1 KO mice to unfamiliar partners. In unfamiliar partitioned cages, Fmr1 KO mice did not differ from WT mice in investigation of unfamiliar partners. However, in familiar partitioned cages, Fmr1 KO mice showed less investigation of a newly introduced partner during the first 5 min and more investigation during the last 5 min of a 20‐min partition test, behaviors consistent with initial social anxiety followed by enhanced social investigation. Our findings indicate that the loss of Fmr1 gene function results in altered anxiety and social behavior in mice and demonstrate that the Fmr1 KO mouse is a relevant animal model for the abnormal social responses seen in FXS.
Unpleasantness of animated characters corresponds to increased viewer attention to faces

Animated characters are frequently used in television programs, movies, and video games, but relatively little is known about how their characteristics affect attention and viewer opinions. We used eyetracking and questionnaires to examine the role of visual complexity and animation style on viewing patterns and ratings of video-recorded and animated movie clips. We created videos of an actress performing and describing a series of actions with blocks. Of the videos, one set included regular HD recordings of the actress. The remaining video sets were animated using motion capture data from that actress for three characters: realistic, cartoon, and robot. Increased facial looking time correlated with unpleasantness ratings for individual characters and clips, determining that animation styles have an effect on both viewing patterns and audience members' subjective opinions of characters. In addition, the method described in this paper can expand future research on character animation.
Uni ation-based Parsers that Automati ally Take Advantage of Context Freeness

Although parsing with ontext-free phrase stru ture rules an be done in worstase ubi time, it is well-known that adding feature onstraints an make the resulting system exponential in the worst ase, if not undeidable. In this paper we observe that the standard algorithms for ombining feature onstraints with ontext-free phrase stru ture rules an be exponential even when the ombination is ontext-free equivalent. We then introdu e two new algorithms based on disjun tive lazy opy links that automati ally take advantage of simple ontext-freeness in su h grammars and parse in ubi time. The algorithms des ribed do not require that the grammar be pre-analyzed or ompiled; instead, the omputational properties are a by-produ t of how the algorithms work. Consequently, the algorithms improve performan e even for grammars that are not altogether ontext-free equivalent, sin e they will automati ally take advantage of situations where the amount of information owing upward from a onstituent to any of its onsumers is bounded.
Mutations affecting gyrase in Haemophilus influenzae

Mutants separately resistant to novobiocin, coumermycin, nalidixic acid, and oxolinic acid contained gyrase activity as measured in vitro that was resistant to the antibiotics, indicating that the mutations represented structural alterations of the enzyme. One Novr mutant contained an altered B subunit of the enzyme, as judged by the ability of a plasmid, pNov1, containing the mutation to complement a temperature-sensitive gyrase B mutation in Escherichia coli and to cause novobiocin resistance in that strain. Three other Novr mutations did not confer antibiotic resistance to the gyrase but appeared to increase the amount of active enzyme in the cell. One of these, novB1, could only act in cis, whereas a new mutation, novC, could act in trans. An RNA polymerase mutation partially substituted for the novB1 mutation, suggesting that novB1 may be a mutation in a promoter region for the B subunit gene. Growth responses of strains containing various combinations of mutations on plasmids or on the chromosome indicated that low-level resistance to novobiocin or coumermycin may have resulted from multiple copies of wild-type genes coding for the gyrase B subunit, whereas high-level resistance required a structural change in the gyrase B gene and was also dependent on alteration in a regulatory region. When there was mismatch at the novB locus, with the novB1 mutation either on a plasmid or the chromosome, and the corresponding wild-type gene present in trans, chromosome to plasmid recombination during transformation was much higher than when the genes matched, probably because plasmid to chromosome recombination, eliminating the plasmid, was inhibited by the mismatch.
Enhancing the Self-Efficacy of Struggling Readers

hroughout elementary school, Carol struggled unsuccessfully to learn to read. Now that she's an adolescent she wants nothing to do with reading. "Why bother? " she thinks. "I'll never learn to read, no matter how hard I try. " Unfortunately, Carol's pessimism about her ability to learn to read is characteristic of many children and adolescents who struggle with reading. Such negative beliefs adversely affect their motivation to read and often become the most powerful obstacle that teachers face in helping those students become better readers. To reverse these self-defeating beliefs, teachers must understand and directly address students' self-efficacy doubts.
Towards a pattern language for object oriented design

Since the publication of the Design Patterns book (E. Gamma et al., 1994), a large number of design patterns have been identified and codified. Unfortunately, these patterns are mostly organised in an ad hoc fashion, making it hard for programmers to know which pattern to apply to any particular problem. We have organised a large number of existing object oriented design patterns into a pattern language, by analysing the patterns and the relationships between them. Organising patterns into languages has the potential to make large collections of patterns easier to understand and to use.
Investigating user perceptions of engagement and information quality in mobile human computation games

We investigate user perceptions of engagement and information quality of a mobile human computation game (HCG) by comparing it against a non-game-based application. Results suggest that the mobile HCG enabled participants to occupy their leisure time but the information contributed was perceived to be not as relevant. Implications of this study are discussed.
An implicit author verification system for text messages based on gesture typing biometrics

Gesture typing is a popular text input method used on smartphones. Gesture keyboards are based on word gestures that subsequently trace all letters of a word on a virtual keyboard. Instead of tapping a word key by key, the user enters a word gesture with a single continuous stroke. In this paper, we introduce an implicit user verification approach for short text messages that are entered with a gesture keyboard. We utilize the way people interact with gesture keyboards to extract behavioral biometric features. We propose a proof-of-concept classification framework that learns the gesture typing behavior of a person and is able to decide whether a gestured message was written by the legitimate user or an imposter. Data collected from gesture keyboard users in a user study is used to assess the performance of the classification framework, demonstrating that the technique has considerable promise.
Unsupervised feature selection by joint graph learning

The recent literature indicates that preserving local geometric structure of data graph becomes much more important for unsupervised feature selection and that many existing feature selection criteria essentially work in this way. Key to constructing a local geometric structure of data graph is to determine the elements of the similarity matrix from which it is derived. Thus, the performance of feature selection are highly determined by the effectiveness of data similarity learning. Because the process of constructing or learning the underlying data similarity and feature ranking are often conducted in two separated steps, the learned data similarity may not be the optimal one for subsequent feature ranking and lead to the suboptimal results. In this paper, we propose a unsupervised feature selection model to learn the data similarity and feature selection simultaneously. Moreover, besides preserving the local sample similarity of graph, our new model also preserve the uniformity (or smoothness) of graph by adding an entropy regularizer. An efficient algorithm based on augmented Lagrangian method will be derived to solve the above constrained optimization problem to find the stable local solution. Experimental results are provided which demonstrate the effectiveness of the method.
Regression in thin melanoma is associated with nodal recurrence after a negative sentinel node biopsy

Prognostic markers for nodal metastasis in thin melanoma patients are debated. We present a single institution study looking at factors predictive of nodal disease in thin melanoma patients. Retrospective review from 1997 to 2012 identified 252 patients with thin melanoma (≤1 mm) who underwent a sentinel lymph node biopsy (SLNB). Node‐positive patients included positive SLNB patients and negative SLNB patients who developed a nodal recurrence (false‐negative SLNB). Clinicopathologic characteristics were correlated with nodal status and outcome. Median follow‐up was 45.5 months. Twelve of 252 patients (4.8%) were node‐positive including six positive SLNB (2.4%) and six false‐negative SLNB (2.4%) patients. No clinicopathologic factors were significantly correlated with nodal disease. For the six false‐negative SLNB patients, median time to nodal recurrence was 37.5 months. Regression was seen in only 16% of cases, but the rate increased to 60% for false‐negative SLNB cases. Both age (odds ratio [OR]: 1.09, 95% CI: 1.01–1.17; P = 0.02) and regression (OR: 8.33, 95% CI: 1.34–52.63; P = 0.02) were significantly associated with nodal recurrence after a negative SLNB on univariable analysis. Nodal disease in thin melanoma patients was seen in 4.8% of cases. Although regression was not correlated with nodal metastasis, it was correlated with a false‐negative SLNB. Patients with thin melanoma and regression may need more intensive surveillance after a negative SLNB. Further study is needed to determine if the same immune mechanisms that result in regression in primary tumors also lead to regression in lymph nodes, which may decrease detection of melanoma nodal metastases.
Mode independent interaction pattern design

This paper proposes an approach for cross-modal user interface design using interaction patterns. A meta-domain is introduced in which the user interface can be designed without the determination of its realisation in a particular interaction domain. When fully described in the meta-domain, the user interface can be realised in different domains (visual, auditory, tactile etc) exploiting the strengths of each different mode to its maximum. The paper proposes a set of interaction patterns along with visual and auditory realisations. To prove the concept, a prototype was designed for a real-world application, Microsoft Explorer. An auditory display prototype was developed making extensive use of virtual audio environments for non-visual visualisation of objects in the Explorer interface, taking advantage of a spatial layout. The prototype was evaluated with visually impaired, blind and sighted computer users.
Two-state Conformational Changes in Inositol 1,4,5-Trisphosphate Receptor Regulated by Calcium*

Inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate receptor (IP3R) is a highly controlled calcium (Ca2+) channel gated by inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP3). Multiple regulators modulate IP3-triggered pore opening by binding to discrete allosteric sites within IP3R. Accordingly we have postulated that these regulators structurally control ligand gating behavior; however, no structural evidence has been available. Here we show that Ca2+, the most pivotal regulator, induced marked structural changes in the tetrameric IP3R purified from mouse cerebella. Electron microscopy of the IP3R particles revealed two distinct structures with 4-fold symmetry: a windmill structure and a square structure. Ca2+ reversibly promoted a transition from the square to the windmill with relocations of four peripheral IP3-binding domains, assigned by binding to heparin-gold. Ca2+-dependent susceptibilities to limited digestion strongly support the notion that these alterations exist. Thus, Ca2+ appeared to regulate IP3 gating activity through the rearrangement of functional domains.
The Kullback–Leibler Divergence and Nonnegative Matrices

This correspondence establishes an interesting connection between the Kullback-Leibler divergence and the Perron root of nonnegative irreducible matrices. In the second part of the correspondence, we apply these results to the power control problem in wireless communications networks to show a fundamental tradeoff between fairness and efficiency. A power vector is said to be efficient if it maximizes the overall network efficiency expressed in terms of an aggregate network utility function parameterized by some weight vector. For two widely used examples of utility functions, the correspondence identifies the unique weight vector for which a power vector is both efficient and max-min fair in the sense that each communication link has the same quality-of-service. These results also give rise to new saddle point characterizations of the Perron root
Tools of the Trade or Part of the Family? Horses in Competitive Equestrian Sport

The horse-human relationship is based on mutual respect and understanding, and the development of trusting partnerships may be particularly important in elite equestrian sport, where horses and humans rely on each other to tackle sporting challenges. The increasing commercialization of equestrian sport is eroding aspects of the horse-human relationship, as the commodity value of sports horses increases and the pressure for quick results threatens the formation of deep bonds between horse and rider. This article presents data from an ethnographic study of competitive equestrian sport in England, including interviews with 26 elite riders, to explore how the changing nature of elite equestrian sport is altering the basis of the horse-human relationship, changing the horse from a trusted partner in sporting pursuits to a commodity to be bought and sold for human commercial benefit.
Negotiation of leisure constraints

Abstract Virtually all past leisure constraints research has been based on a conception of constraints as insurmountable obstacles to leisure participation. Thus, it has typically been assumed that if an individual encounters a constraint, the outcome will be nonparticipation. This article elaborates an alternative view of constraints that has recently begun to appear in the literature, summarized in the central proposition that leisure participation is dependent not on the absence of constraints but on negotiation through them. Such negotiation may modify participation rather than foreclosing it. Evidence from the existing literature for the negotiation proposition is examined, and five additional propositions are defined concerning relative success in negotiating constraints, interactions between different types of constraints, and balance between constraints and motivations.
When One Size Does Not Fit All: A Simple Statistical Method to Deal with Across-Individual Variations of Effects

In science, it is a common experience to discover that although the investigated effect is very clear in some individuals, statistical tests are not significant because the effect is null or even opposite in other individuals. Indeed, t-tests, Anovas and linear regressions compare the average effect with respect to its inter-individual variability, so that they can fail to evidence a factor that has a high effect in many individuals (with respect to the intra-individual variability). In such paradoxical situations, statistical tools are at odds with the researcher’s aim to uncover any factor that affects individual behavior, and not only those with stereotypical effects. In order to go beyond the reductive and sometimes illusory description of the average behavior, we propose a simple statistical method: applying a Kolmogorov-Smirnov test to assess whether the distribution of p-values provided by individual tests is significantly biased towards zero. Using Monte-Carlo studies, we assess the power of this two-step procedure with respect to RM Anova and multilevel mixed-effect analyses, and probe its robustness when individual data violate the assumption of normality and homoscedasticity. We find that the method is powerful and robust even with small sample sizes for which multilevel methods reach their limits. In contrast to existing methods for combining p-values, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test has unique resistance to outlier individuals: it cannot yield significance based on a high effect in one or two exceptional individuals, which allows drawing valid population inferences. The simplicity and ease of use of our method facilitates the identification of factors that would otherwise be overlooked because they affect individual behavior in significant but variable ways, and its power and reliability with small sample sizes (<30–50 individuals) suggest it as a tool of choice in exploratory studies.