Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-scale Context Based Attention for Dynamic Music Emotion Prediction

Dynamic music emotion prediction is to recognize the continuous emotion information in music, which is necessary for music retrieval and recommendation. In this paper, we adopt the dimensional valence-arousal (V-A) emotion model to represent the dynamic emotion in music. In our opinion, music and V-A emotion label do not have the one-to-one correspondence in the time domain, while the expression of music emotion at one moment is the accumulation of previous music content for a period of time, so we propose Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) based sequence-to-one mapping for dynamic music emotion prediction. Based on this sequence-to-one music emotion mapping, it is proved that different time scales' preceding content has an influence on the LSTM model's performance, so we further propose the Multi-scale Context based Attention (MCA) for dynamic music emotion prediction. We evaluate our proposed method on the database of Emotion in Music task at MediaEval 2015, and the results show that our proposed method outperforms most of the models using the same features and achieves a competitive performance with the state-of-the-art methods.
HIV-1 induces NALP3-inflammasome expression and interleukin-1&bgr; secretion in dendritic cells from healthy individuals but not from HIV-positive patients

Objective:NALP3-inflammasome is an innate mechanism, alternative to type-1 interferon, which is able to recognize nucleic acids and viruses in the cytoplasm and to induce pro-inflammatory response. Here, we hypothesized the involvement of inflammasome in the early defense against HIV-1 and in the full maturation of dendritic cells: for this, we evaluated the response of dendritic cells pulsed with HIV-1 in terms of inflammasome activation in healthy donors. Moreover, inflammasome response to HIV was evaluated in HIV-infected individuals. Design and methods:Monocyte-derived dendritic cells isolated from 20 healthy individuals (HC-DC) and 20 HIV-1-infected patients (HIV-DC) were pulsed with alditrithiol-2-inactivated HIV-1. We then analyzed inflammasome genes expression and interleukin-1&bgr; (IL-1&bgr;) secretion. Results:In HC-DC, HIV-1 induced higher NLRP3/NALP3 mRNA expression compared with other inflammasome genes such as NALP1/NLRP1 or IPAF/NLRC4 (P < 0.001). This augmented expression was accompanied by CASP1-increased and IL1B-increased mRNA levels and by a significant increment of IL-1&bgr; secretion (P < 0.05). Otherwise, HIV-1 failed to activate inflammasome and cytokine production in HIV-DC. HIV-DC showed an increased NLRP3/NALP3 basal expression, suggesting a chronic inflammatory profile of patients’ immune cells. Conclusion:HIV-1 was able to induce a NALP3-inflammasome response in healthy individuals, indicating that this inflammasome could play a role in the first steps of HIV-1 infection; the consequent inflammatory process may be important for directing host immune response against the virus and/or disease progression. HIV-DC seemed to be chronically activated, but unresponsive against pathogens. Our findings could be of interest considering the ongoing research about dendritic cell manipulation and therapeutic strategies for AIDS involving dendritic cell-based immune-vaccines.
Analysis of the Role of Port Labour Systems and Reforms on the Competitiveness of West Africa Ports

Purpose -- The purpose of this paper is to critically discuss the role port labour systems can play in the competitiveness of ports in the West African sub region and the implications of the choice of system using Ghana as an example.Design/Methodology/Approach -- The study basically draws heavily on existing literature to find answers to the questions posed. Finding answers to the research questions related to identification of available port labour systems, transferability of practices from one port to the other and benchmarking on the success of the systems lays the foundation for the objectives of the study to be achieved. Based on reviewed literature, various concepts and systems employed by ports and the resultant strategies adopted by management and the labour force to stand for their interest are discussed. Findings -- This study reveals that ports undergo lifecycle, which in turn comes along with its orientation either towards a social or market system. This depends on several identified factors. Thus, in the present assessed situation in the sub region, any West African port including Ghana’s ports and it society at large will be the losers in the long run in the face of intensive competition to serve the vast Sahelian hinterlands if their reforms are social biased.Practical Implications -- This paper is aimed at preparing the ground for future research in this area. The issues pointed out have far reaching consequences for the success or failure of the reforms that are taking place in various ports in the West Africa sub region.Originality/Value -- Effort has been made to point out that seemingly peaceful reform could turn disastrous in the long run if the roadmap and conditions to achieving the objective of the port reform is not layout and made transparent to stakeholders so that labour unions and investors can be proactive in knowing their role and adjusting to the future desired status of the port.
Pulse Transit Time Measurement Using Seismocardiogram, Photoplethysmogram, and Acoustic Recordings: Evaluation and Comparison

This work proposes a novel method of pulse transit time (PTT) measurement. The proximal arterial location data are collected from seismocardiogram (SCG) recordings by placing a micro-electromechanical accelerometer on the chest wall. The distal arterial location data are recorded using an acoustic sensor placed inside the ear. The performance of distal location recordings is evaluated by comparing SCG–acoustic and SCG–photoplethysmogram (PPG) measurements. PPG and acoustic performances under motion noise are also compared. Experimental results suggest comparable performances for the acoustic-based and PPG-based devices. The feasibility of each PTT measurement method is validated for blood pressure evaluations and its limitations are analyzed.
Estimation of intersection traffic density on decentralized architectures with deep networks

Intelligent Intersection Traffic Management has become increasingly important because of the need to reduce congestion and improve the overall travel experience of commuters. Given the dynamic nature of everyday city traffic, this paper proposes real-time processing of videos from cameras to estimate the traffic density and optimize the signal parameters of the intersection. The region-of-interest of the road segment is automatically extracted as a one-time operation, and the density is estimated using an ensemble of background subtraction and variants of convolutional neural networks. The architecture is scalable as the processing is entirely decentralized on the edge computing device installed at every intersection. We demonstrate that our technique is resilient to low resolution videos, long fields of view and chaotic traffic conditions with high occlusion. The proposed algorithms generalize across deployments with minimal reconfiguration.
Felix Guattari: A Critical Introduction

Introduction 1: The Formation of a Young Militant 2: Transversality and Politics 3: Subjectivity, Art, and Ecosophy 4: A-signifying Semiotics 5: Informatic Striation 6: Minor Cinema 7: Affect and Epilepsy Conclusion References Index
Assessment and control of vitamin A deficiency disorders.

The XX International Vitamin A Consultative Group (IVACG) meeting in Hanoi, Vietnam, in February 2001 celebrated 25 y of progress in prevention and control of vitamin A deficiency disorders (VADD). Programmatic themes included the following: 1) intervention innovations, 2) integration of vitamin A interventions, 3) the increased risk to health of women who are deficient, 4) measurement of progress and impact and 5) programmatic sustainability. The history of IVACG was remembered and the growth of the group from a meeting of 30 to 40 persons in 1975 to nearly 600 delegates from 63 countries was described. Successful adaptation to new challenges and scientific advances, in moving science to practice, was noted. Guidelines for indicators and interventions were reviewed. A set of revised recommendations were made, including the following indicators for assessment (and, for some, outcome evaluation) of VADD: 1) under-five mortality rate >50 as a surrogate indicator to trigger action, 2) maternal night blindness >5%, 3) rapid dark adaptation worse than -1.11 log cd/m(2) and 4) serum retinol <0.7 micro mol/L (>15%) in young children (<6 y). Key recommendations for specific interventions were to double the existing dose of prophylactic vitamin A supplementation to 50,000 international units (IU) at the three Expanded Programme on Immunization contacts for young infants (<6 mo) and to two doses of 200,000 IU each for women within 6 wk after delivery; to support fortification as a valid and necessary strategy to combat VADD; and to recognize that food-based approaches should include promoting breast-feeding and consuming animal products, because promoting plant-based foods alone will not eliminate VADD in young children due to the low bioefficacy of dietary beta-carotene. This meeting clearly set the agenda for the twenty-first century and called for successful implementation of integrated approaches that will eliminate VADD.
Comparison of Family 9 Cellulases from Mesophilic and Thermophilic Bacteria

ABSTRACT Cellulases containing a family 9 catalytic domain and a family 3c cellulose binding module (CBM3c) are important components of bacterial cellulolytic systems. We measured the temperature dependence of the activities of three homologs: Clostridium cellulolyticum Cel9G, Thermobifida fusca Cel9A, and C. thermocellum Cel9I. To directly compare their catalytic activities, we constructed six new versions of the enzymes in which the three GH9-CBM3c domains were fused to a dockerin both with and without a T. fusca fibronectin type 3 homology module (Fn3). We studied the activities of these enzymes on crystalline cellulose alone and in complex with a miniscaffoldin containing a cohesin and a CBM3a. The presence of Fn3 had no measurable effect on thermostability or cellulase activity. The GH9-CBM3c domains of Cel9A and Cel9I, however, were more active than the wild type when fused to a dockerin complexed to scaffoldin. The three cellulases in complex have similar activities on crystalline cellulose up to 60°C, but C. thermocellum Cel9I, the most thermostable of the three, remains highly active up to 80°C, where its activity is 1.9 times higher than at 60°C. We also compared the temperature-dependent activities of different versions of Cel9I (wild type or in complex with a miniscaffoldin) and found that the thermostable CBM is necessary for activity on crystalline cellulose at high temperatures. These results illustrate the significant benefits of working with thermostable enzymes at high temperatures, as well as the importance of retaining the stability of all modules involved in cellulose degradation.
Incontinence care in nursing homes: a cross-sectional study.

AIMS To describe the quality of incontinence care in nursing homes. Main outcome measures were: (1) availability of structural quality indicators on ward and institutional levels; (2) use of nursing interventions as quality indicators on a process level; (3) prevalence of incontinence as an outcome indicator. BACKGROUND Incontinence in older people is a major problem in nursing care that presents a high workload for nurses, increases costs and places a high burden on affected individuals. The availability of structural indicators, and the use of nursing interventions, is recommended to improve the quality of care. Only limited amounts of reliable and valid data are available regarding the quality of incontinence care in nursing homes. DESIGN A cross-sectional multicentre study in 16 nursing homes (N = 1302) in 2013. METHODS A standardized and validated questionnaire was used for data collection. Each resident was assessed by two trained nurses. RESULTS/FINDINGS The primary outcome of the study indicated that structural indicators, such as the availability of information brochures, are limited in nursing homes. On a process level, the provision of body worn pads or underlay pads to protect beds or chairs were most frequently used and training interventions were only delivered to a small proportion of residents with incontinence. The prevalence of all types of incontinence, particularly double incontinence, was high (69·2%). CONCLUSION Due to the high prevalence of double incontinence and low rate of training interventions regarding this type of incontinence, ongoing efforts to improve the quality of incontinence care are warranted.
Towards Elucidating the Structural Principles of Host-Pathogen Protein-Protein Interaction Networks: A Bioinformatics Survey

The ultimate goal of systems biology research area is to accurately predict the behavior of biological systems through the construction of computational models, using the related molecular-level data as the input, especially when the structural information of such biological system is available. Combining the three-dimensional (3D) structural information of the cohort of macromolecules underpinning the biological system, the researchers are poised with an unprecedented opportunity to gain a full understanding on how the molecules interact with each other, particularly for an interaction network, e.g. protein-protein interaction networks. Specifically, there are currently a limited number of studies focused on the reconstruction and modelling of the structural interaction networks (SIN) between hosts-pathogens protein-protein interaction networks. In this paper, we will survey the SIN on protein-protein interactions network, in which we focus on the interactions between pathogen and host species (PHPPI). As one of the most important component of inter-species PPI study, in-depth study of PHPPI at atomic-resolution level would reveal novel insights into the underlying principles of the organization and complexity of host-pathogen PPI networks. Several related sub areas are discussed, and the related typical Big Data methods including machine learning methodologies and statistics models will also be discussed. This paper contributes to a new, yet challenging, research area in applying data analytic and machine learning technologies in bioinformatics.
From Childhood Maltreatment to Allostatic Load in Adulthood

Although previous research has documented that social support acts as a protective factor for individuals exposed to trauma, most research relies on assessments of social support at one point in time. The present study used data from a prospective cohort design study to examine the stability of social support from childhood through middle adulthood in individuals with documented histories of childhood abuse and neglect and matched controls (aged 0–11) and assessed the impact of social support on allostatic load, a composite measure of physiological stress response assessed through blood tests and physical measurements, in middle adulthood. Maltreated children are more likely to have unstable social support across the life span, compared to matched controls. Social support across the life span partially mediated the relationship between child maltreatment and allostatic load in adulthood, although there were differences by race and sex. These findings have implications for interventions to prevent the negative consequences of child maltreatment.
Simulation of Deepwater Horizon oil plume reveals substrate specialization within a complex community of hydrocarbon degraders

Significance The Deepwater Horizon drilling accident was the first major release of oil and natural gases in the deep ocean, and considerable uncertainty remains about the fate of vast amounts of hydrocarbons that never reached the surface. We simulated the deep-sea plumes of dispersed oil microdroplets and measured biodegradation of crude oil components. We successfully reproduced the successive blooms of diverse bacteria observed in the field and obtained near-complete genomes of all major hydrocarbon-degrading species, providing an assessment of the metabolic capabilities of the microbial community responsible for biodegradation. Our results show that rapidly degraded components of oil were consumed by bacteria with highly specialized degradation capabilities and that crude oil alone could explain the microbial dynamics observed in the field. The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) accident released an estimated 4.1 million barrels of oil and 1010 mol of natural gas into the Gulf of Mexico, forming deep-sea plumes of dispersed oil droplets and dissolved gases that were largely degraded by bacteria. During the course of this 3-mo disaster a series of different bacterial taxa were enriched in succession within deep plumes, but the metabolic capabilities of the different populations that controlled degradation rates of crude oil components are poorly understood. We experimentally reproduced dispersed plumes of fine oil droplets in Gulf of Mexico seawater and successfully replicated the enrichment and succession of the principal oil-degrading bacteria observed during the DWH event. We recovered near-complete genomes, whose phylogeny matched those of the principal biodegrading taxa observed in the field, including the DWH Oceanospirillales (now identified as a Bermanella species), multiple species of Colwellia, Cycloclasticus, and other members of Gammaproteobacteria, Flavobacteria, and Rhodobacteria. Metabolic pathway analysis, combined with hydrocarbon compositional analysis and species abundance data, revealed substrate specialization that explained the successional pattern of oil-degrading bacteria. The fastest-growing bacteria used short-chain alkanes. The analyses also uncovered potential cooperative and competitive relationships, even among close relatives. We conclude that patterns of microbial succession following deep ocean hydrocarbon blowouts are predictable and primarily driven by the availability of liquid petroleum hydrocarbons rather than natural gases.
Secretory products from human adipocytes stimulate proinflammatory cytokine secretion from human endothelial cells

Hyperplasia and hypertrophy of fat cells can be found in obesity and increased adiposity is associated with endothelial dysfunction as an early event of atherosclerosis. However, it is unclear whether human adipocytes directly influence endothelial protein secretion. To study the crosstalk between fat and endothelial cells, human umbilical venous endothelial cells (HUVECs) were cultured in infranatants (Adipo) of primary differentiated human adipocytes. Interestingly, significantly increased secretion of 23 cytokines and chemokines from HUVECs was detected in four independent experiments after Adipo stimulation by protein array analysis detecting a total of 174 different proteins. Among those, time‐dependent Adipo‐induced upregulation of cytokine secretion in HUVECs was confirmed by ELISA for interleukin (IL)‐8, monokine induced by gamma interferon, macrophage inflammatory protein (MIP)‐1β, MIP‐3α, monocyte chemoattractant protein‐1, and IL‐6. Factors besides adiponectin, leptin, resistin, and tumor necrosis factor α appear to mediate these stimulatory effects. Our findings suggest that endothelial cell secretion is significantly influenced towards a proinflammatory pattern by adipocyte‐secreted factors. J. Cell. Biochem. 106: 729–737, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Temporal trends of transmitted HIV drug resistance in a multinational seroconversion cohort

Background: The rate of transmitted drug resistance (TDR) may increase with wider use of antiretroviral therapy and can contribute to therapeutic failure. We analysed time trends in TDR among HIV seroconverters. Methods: Using CASCADE data of individuals with well estimated dates of HIV seroconversion, we examined HIV nucleotide sequences collected prior to antiretroviral therapy use from 1996–2012. All samples were taken within 12 months of testing HIV positive. Using logistic regression, we examined the association between TDR and year of seroconversion, adjusting for confounders. Results: Of 4717 individuals seroconverting between 1996 and 2012, median (IQR) age at seroconversion was 33 (27, 39) years. The majority (3839; 92%) were male, mainly exposed through MSM (3767; 80%), and infected with subtype B (3464; 73%). Overall, 515 (11%) individuals had at least one drug resistance-related mutation; 280 individuals with nucleoside reverse transcriptase, 185 with nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase, and 144 with protease inhibitor mutations. Estimated TDR prevalence was 19.4% (8.2, 36.0) in 1996, significantly decreasing to 8.5% (5.9, 11.9) in 2012 [odds ratio (OR; 95% confidence interval (CI)) = 0.92 (0.90, 0.95) per year increase]. Individuals exposed through sex between men and women were significantly less likely to have been infected with a drug-resistant strain [OR (95% CI) = 0.59 (0.41, 0.87) compared with MSM], and there was marginal evidence that sampling during acute infection was associated with higher odds of resistance [OR (95% CI) = 1.20 (0.97, 1.7), P = 0.093] compared with later sampling. Conclusion: TDR has decreased over calendar time although a significant proportion of new infections still carry resistance-related mutations.
A novel pH-dependent dimerization motif in beta-lactoglobulin from pig (Sus scrofa).

beta-Lactoglobulin (BLG) is a lipocalin and is the major protein in the whey of the milk of cows and other ruminants, but not in all mammalian species. The biological function of BLG is not clear, but a potential role in carrying fatty acids through the digestive tract has been proposed. The capability of BLG to aggregate and form gels is often used to thicken foodstuffs. The structure of the porcine form is sufficiently different from other known BLG structures that SIRAS phases had to be measured in order to solve the crystal structure to 2.4 A resolution. The r.m.s. deviation of C(alpha) atoms is 2.8 A between porcine and bovine BLG. Nevertheless, the typical lipocalin fold is conserved. Compared with bovine BLG, the tilted alpha-helix alters the arrangement of surface residues of the porcine form, completely changing the dimerization behaviour. Through a unique pH-dependent domain-swapping mechanism involving the first ten residues, a novel dimer interface is formed at the N-terminus of porcine BLG. The existence of this novel dimer at low pH is supported by gel-filtration experiments. These results provide a rationale for the difference in physicochemical behaviour between bovine and porcine BLG and point the way towards engineering such dimerization motifs into other members of the lipocalin family.
Designing accessible ICT products and services: the VERITAS accessibility testing platform

Among the key components of designing accessible products and services for disabled users is accessibility testing and support. The VERITAS FP7 project has developed a platform that consists of several tools that provide automatic simulation feedback and reporting for built-in accessibility support at all stages of ICT product development. In this explorative pilot study, we evaluated the usability and technology acceptance of using three of these tools in the design of accessible GUI-based ICT products in five application domains. A sample of 80 designers/developers (12 female; 68 male) evaluated the three tools by filling in the standard SUS and TAM questionnaires. Results revealed good usability and technology acceptance for all three tools as a novel accessibility testing method. The VERITAS platform can offer an intuitive solution in accessibility design and can ensure that ICT products are designed for all.