Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Signals and meanings of gaze in animated faces

The creation of conversational agents capable of expressive and communicative behaviors requires to define the relationship between the agent’s communicative intentions and how these intentions are expressed in a coordinated verbal and nonverbal message. Suppose an agent S (a Sender) has the goal of communicating something to an interlocutor A (Addressee) in a particular situation and context; s/he has to decide what to say, which words to employ, which intonation, gestures and facial expressions to display in the various phases of the message. We are currently working on the automatic generation of verbal and nonverbal messages in order to animate a 3D agent. Our plan is to define nonverbal communicative acts in the same type of structure as is used for verbal communicative acts. Several problems need to be solved: how natural language generation systems may be extended to include the generation of nonverbal communicative acts; how planning operators should be refined to include them; and finally how verbal and nonverbal communicative acts may be synchronized. In this work, we restrict ourselves to only one aspect of the visual display of communicative acts, leaving aside body posture, hand gestures and so on. We focus on gaze behavior and propose a meaning-to-face approach, aimed at simulating automatic generation of face expressions driven by semantic data. The dynamic aspects of the generation of meanings in the flowing of discourse which we do not deal in this paper, are addressed in other works [Poggi et al., 2000].
Circuit-Level Timing Error Tolerance for Low-Power DSP Filters and Transforms

In this paper, we present a novel circuit-level timing error mitigation technique, which aims to increase energy-efficiency of digital signal processing datapaths without loss of robustness. Timing errors are detected using razor flip-flops on critical-paths, and the error-rate feedback is used to control a dynamic voltage scaling control loop. In place of conventional razor error correction by replay, we propose a new approach to bound the magnitude of intermittent timing errors at the circuit level. A timing guard-band is created by shaping the path delay distribution such that the critical paths correspond to a group of least-significant bit registers. These end-points are ensured to be critical by modifying the topology of the final stage carry-merge adder, and by using tool-based device sizing. Hence, timing violations lead to weakly correlated logical errors of small magnitude in a mean-squared-error sense. We examine this approach in an finite-impulse response (FIR) filter and a 2-D discrete cosine transform implementation, in 32-nm CMOS. Power saving compared to a conventional design at iso-frequency is 21%-23% at the typical corner, while retaining a voltage guard-band to protect against fast transient changes in switching activity and supply noise. The impact on minimum clock period is small (16%-20%), as it does not necessitate the use of ripple-carry adders and also requires only a bare minimum of additional design effort.
Challenging the Role of Design(ing) in the Sustainability Field: Towards a 'Humble' Design Approach

Design for Sustainability (DfS) and Sustainable Interaction Design (SID) have a large focus on exposing norms in society around sustainability. While various legitimate arguments have been made against the limited scope of mainstream Design for Behaviour and HCI approaches within these fields, it needs further exploration on what the scope and approaches could be instead. We have been experimenting with co-creative 'humble' design approaches together with various actor-stakeholders. Central in these approaches are embracing different perspectives by strengthening the situated experiences, values and norms of the various stakeholders, and creating platforms for discussion rather than stressing a specific perspective of what is 'good or right'. Objectives for the workshop are to define reflections on various approaches at hand, as well as drafting common ground for a research agenda within HCI. In this workshop we will focus on three themes: uncertainty, humbleness and reflectivity.
A New Method for Detecting Users Behavior from Web Access Logs

The development of the web has created a big challenge for directing the client to the website pages in their area of interest. One option is to capture the requirement of the client and provide them a list of recommendation. Most specifically, an online navigation behavior develops with each passing day, consequently extracting information intelligently from it is a difficult issue. Webmaster of an organization should utilize methods of web mining to fetch users requirement and Web usage mining (WUM) is one of the method. WUM is designed to operate on web server logs, logs contain client's navigation history which is very useful for the web recommendation. Recommendation is an application of web usage mining. Consequently, recommendation system can be utilized to forecast the navigation pattern of client and recommend those to client in a form of recommendation list. In this paper, we tend to propose a recommendation approach that recommends a listing of pages based mostly upon client's historic pattern (recorded within the web log). This approach brings the accuracy of the pages displayed to the client or users.
Absolute risk regression for competing risks: interpretation, link functions, and prediction

In survival analysis with competing risks, the transformation model allows different functions between the outcome and explanatory variables. However, the model's prediction accuracy and the interpretation of parameters may be sensitive to the choice of link function. We review the practical implications of different link functions for regression of the absolute risk (or cumulative incidence) of an event. Specifically, we consider models in which the regression coefficients β have the following interpretation: The probability of dying from cause D during the next t years changes with a factor exp(β) for a one unit change of the corresponding predictor variable, given fixed values for the other predictor variables. The models have a direct interpretation for the predictive ability of the risk factors. We propose some tools to justify the models in comparison with traditional approaches that combine a series of cause‐specific Cox regression models or use the Fine–Gray model. We illustrate the methods with the use of bone marrow transplant data. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Vegetation texture as an approach to community structure: community-level convergence in a New Zealand temperate rainforest

Summary: Functional convergence of different communities in similar environments would be expected as an outcome of the operation of ‘assembly rules’. At an ecological level, competitive exclusion would restrict the co-occurrence of species with similar niches. Repetition of competitive sorting on an evolutionary time scale might lead to character displacement. Either process would ultimately lead to species niches being more regularly arranged in ecological factor space than expected on a random basis, with the consequence that the niche structure of different communities in similar environments would converge. We assessed the applicability of this model of community structure by comparing vegetation between study sites spaced in altitude 20 m apart along a continuous gradient in South Westland low-altitude conifer/ broad-leaved forest, with respect to seven variates of vegetation texture primarily concerning the morphology of the photosynthetic unit (PSU). We employed a null model that assigns observed species to sites at random, as would be expected in the absence of assembly rules for the communities, comparing observed variation in texture to variation under the null model to look for convergence or divergence and to determine statistical significance. Significant convergence between adjacent sites was found in all variates when species weighted either by percentage cover or cover rank were used to calculate site texture means, but convergence was less pronounced among groups of five or 10 consecutive sites. Significant divergence occurred at the five-site level (three variates) using cover rank as a weighting factor and at the two-, five- and 10-site levels (five variates) when no weighting factor was used. Overall, divergence was more pronounced among sets of sites spanning a wider range in altitude, which seemed consistent with the presence of an environmental gradient along the transect, although a DCA ordination of site floristics failed to reveal a simple altitudinal trend. This study is the first to seek community-level convergence within a local area and the first to find statistically significant convergence between vegetation patches.
An Inductive Approach to Provable Anonymity

We formalise in a theorem prover the notion of provable anonymity proposed by Garcia et al. Our formalization relies on inductive definitions of message distinguish ability and observational equivalence over observed traces by the intruder. Our theory differs from its original proposal which essentially boils down to the existence of a reinterpretation function. We build our theory in Isabelle/HOL to have a mechanical framework for the analysis of anonymity protocols. Its feasibility is illustrated through the onion routing protocol.
Glutton: large-scale integration of non-model organism transcriptome data for comparative analysis

High-throughput RNA-seq data has become ubiquitous in the study of non-model organisms, but its use in comparative analysis remains a challenge. Without a reference genome for mapping, sequence data has to be de novo assembled, producing large numbers of short, highly redundant contigs. Preparing these assemblies for comparative analyses requires the removal of redundant isoforms, assignment of orthologs and converting fragmented transcripts into gene alignments. In this article we present Glutton, a novel tool to process transcriptome assemblies for downstream evolutionary analyses. Glutton takes as input a set of fragmented, possibly erroneous transcriptome assemblies. Utilising phylogeny-aware alignment and reference data from a closely related species, it reconstructs one transcript per gene, finds orthologous sequences and produces accurate multiple alignments of coding sequences. We present a comprehensive analysis of Glutton’s performance across a wide range of divergence times between study and reference species. We demonstrate the impact choice of assembler has on both the number of alignments and the correctness of ortholog assignment and show substantial improvements over heuristic methods, without sacrificing correctness. Finally, using inference of Darwinian selection as an example of downstream analysis, we show that Glutton-processed RNA-seq data give results comparable to those obtained from full length gene sequences even with distantly related reference species. Glutton is available from http://wasabiapp.org/software/glutton/ and is licensed under the GPLv3.
The Efficacy of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy on Self-Efficacy and Anxiety Among Epileptic Patients

Objective: The aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on self-efficacy and anxiety among epileptic patients. Methods: The present study with a pretest-posttest control-group design was performed on epileptic patients in public healthcare centers of Kuhdasht, Iran. Through randomized sampling, 15 patients were selected for the experimental group and 15 epileptic patients for the control group. The experimental group received MBCT once a week during 8 sessions, while the control group was engaged in usual activities. The data collection tools included the general self-efficacy scale (GSES) and Zung self-rating anxiety scale (SAS). For statistical analysis, descriptive tests and repeated measures analysis of variance were performed. Results: Data analysis showed significant differences in self-efficacy and anxiety scores between the experimental and control groups (P < 0.001). Conclusions: According to the results, MBCT can increase self-efficacy and decrease anxiety in epileptic patients.
Coordination-Policy Based Composed System Behavior Derivation

The coordination-policy that components interactions satisfied often determines the properties of nowadays component-based information systems, e.g. safety, liveness and fairness etc. Therefore, how to derive coordination-policy satisfying behavior all out of such system to achieve better system properties is of a significant problem that needs to be solved. Aim to this problem, we propose an optimistic policy- satisfying behavior derivation approach in this paper. The main idea of the approach is to automatically construct a Coordination Environment (CE) for such composed system that system components can work together in a deadlock-free and policy-satisfying manner, and so as to obtain desired system properties. In this approach, component-based information system is modeled by interface automaton network (IAN), and component coordination-policies are specified by LTL. To explain the correctness and validity of this approach, we give a corresponding example certification.
Lentivirus transduced interleukin-1 receptor antagonist gene expression in murine bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells in vitro

Genetically modified mesenchymal stem cells have been used in attempts to increase the expression of interleukin-1 receptor antagonist (IL-1Ra); however, the attempts thus far have been unsuccessful. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether the lentivirus transduced IL-1Ra gene was able to be stably expressed in murine bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (mBMSCs) in vitro. In the present study, third generation lentiviral (Lv) vectors transducing the IL-1Ra/green fluorescent protein (copGFP) gene were constructed and transfected into mBMSCs to establish the Lv.IL-1Ra.copGFP/mBMSCs, which were evaluated using fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry, cell viability analysis using a cell counting kit-8 kit, Trypan blue staining and an MTT growth kinetics assay. The expression of IL-1Ra was analyzed using reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction and western blotting. The results demonstrated that the Lv.IL-1Ra/copGFP vector was successfully constructed. The mBMSCs exhibited a short proliferation life, however they had good growth kinetics at an early stage and improved viability following efficient transduction of the IL-1Ra gene. IL-1Ra was overexpressed following transfection of mBMSCs. In conclusion, lentiviral vector transduced mBMSCs were able to efficiently express exogenous Il-1Ra under certain conditions and had a marked capacity for proliferation.
Social or Green? A Data-Driven Approach for More Enjoyable Carpooling

Carpooling, i.e. the sharing of vehicles to reach common destinations, is often performed to reduce costs and pollution. Recent works on carpooling and journey planning take into account, besides mobility match, also social aspects and, more generally, non-monetary rewards. In line with this, we present a data-driven methodology for a more enjoyable carpooling. We introduce a measure of enjoyability based on people's interests, social links, and tendency to connect to people with similar or dissimilar interests. We devise a methodology to compute enjoyability from crowd-sourced data, and we show how this can be used on real world datasets to optimize for both mobility and enjoyability. Our methodology was tested on real data from Rome and San Francisco. We compare the results of an optimization model minimizing the number of cars, and a greedy approach maximing the enjoyability. We evaluate them in terms of cars saved, and average enjoyability of the system. We present also the results of a user study, with more than 200 users reporting an interest of 39% in the enjoyable solution. Moreoever, 24% of people declared that sharing the car with interesting people would be the primary motivation for carpooling.
A Novel Cooperative Strategy for Wireless Multihop Backhaul Networks

The 5G wireless network architecture will bring dense deployments of base stations called {\em small cells} for both outdoors and indoors traffic. The feasibility of their dense deployments depends on the existence of a high data-rate transport network that can provide high-data backhaul from an aggregation node where data traffic originates and terminates, to every such small cell. Due to the limited range of radio signals in the high frequency bands, multihop wireless connection may need to be established between each access node and an aggregation node. In this paper, we present a novel transmission scheme for wireless multihop backhaul for 5G networks. The scheme consists of 1) {\em group successive relaying} that established a relay schedule to efficiently exploit half-duplex relays and 2) an optimized quantize-map-and-forward (QMF) coding scheme that improves the performance of QMF and reduces the decoding complexity and the delay. We derive an achievable rate region of the proposed scheme and attain a closed-form expression in the asymptotic case for several network models of interests. It is shown that the proposed scheme provides a significant gain over multihop routing (based on decode-and-forward), which is a solution currently proposed for wireless multihop backhaul network. Furthermore, the performance gap increases as a network becomes denser. For the proposed scheme, we then develop energy-efficient routing that determines {\em groups} of participating relays for every hop. To reflect the metric used in the routing algorithm, we refer to it as {\em interference-harnessing} routing. By turning interference into a useful signal, each relay requires a lower transmission power to achieve a desired performance compared to other routing schemes. Finally, we present a low-complexity successive decoder, which makes it feasible to use the proposed scheme in practice.
Image-Based Estimation of Ventricular Fiber Orientations for Personalized Modeling of Cardiac Electrophysiology

Technological limitations pose a major challenge to acquisition of myocardial fiber orientations for patient-specific modeling of cardiac (dys)function and assessment of therapy. The objective of this project was to develop a methodology to estimate cardiac fiber orientations from in vivo images of patient heart geometries. An accurate representation of ventricular geometry and fiber orientations was reconstructed, respectively, from high-resolution ex vivo structural magnetic resonance (MR) and diffusion tensor (DT) MR images of a normal human heart, referred to as the atlas. Ventricular geometry of a patient heart was extracted, via semiautomatic segmentation, from an in vivo computed tomography (CT) image. Using image transformation algorithms, the atlas ventricular geometry was deformed to match that of the patient. Finally, the deformation field was applied to the atlas fiber orientations to obtain an estimate of patient fiber orientations. The accuracy of the fiber estimates was assessed using six normal and three failing canine hearts. The mean absolute difference between inclination angles of acquired and estimated fiber orientations was 15.4° . Computational simulations of ventricular activation maps and pseudo-ECGs in sinus rhythm and ventricular tachycardia indicated that there are no significant differences between estimated and acquired fiber orientations at a clinically observable level.
Automatic Recognition of an Unknown and Time-Varying Number of Simultaneous Environmental Sound Sources

— The present work faces the problem of automatic enumeration and recognition of an unknown and time-varying number of environmental sound sources while using a single microphone. The assumption that is made is that the sound recorded is a realization of sound sources belonging to a group of audio classes which is known a-priori. We describe two variations of the same principle which is to calculate the distance between the current unknown audio frame and all possible combinations of the classes that are assumed to span the soundscene. We concentrate on categorizing environmental sound sources, such as birds, insects etc. in the task of monitoring the biodiversity of a specific habitat.
Four genes predict high risk of progression from smoldering to symptomatic multiple myeloma (SWOG S0120)

Multiple myeloma is preceded by an asymptomatic phase, comprising monoclonal gammopathy of uncertain significance and smoldering myeloma. Compared to the former, smoldering myeloma has a higher and non-uniform rate of progression to clinical myeloma, reflecting a subset of patients with higher risk. We evaluated the gene expression profile of smoldering myeloma plasma cells among 105 patients enrolled in a prospective observational trial at our institution, with a view to identifying a high-risk signature. Baseline clinical, bone marrow, cytogenetic and radiologic data were evaluated for their potential to predict time to therapy for symptomatic myeloma. A gene signature derived from four genes, at an optimal binary cut-point of 9.28, identified 14 patients (13%) with a 2-year therapy risk of 85.7%. Conversely, a low four-gene score (<9.28) combined with baseline monoclonal protein <3 g/dL and albumin ≥3.5 g/dL identified 61 patients with low-risk smoldering myeloma with a 5.0% chance of progression at 2 years. The top 40 probe sets showed concordance with indices of chromosome instability. These data demonstrate high discriminatory power of a gene-based assay and suggest a role for dysregulation of mitotic checkpoints in the context of genomic instability as a hallmark of high-risk smoldering myeloma.
A variable DNA recognition site organization establishes the LiaR-mediated cell envelope stress response of enterococci to daptomycin

LiaR is a ‘master regulator’ of the cell envelope stress response in enterococci and many other Gram-positive organisms. Mutations to liaR can lead to antibiotic resistance to a variety of antibiotics including the cyclic lipopeptide daptomycin. LiaR is phosphorylated in response to membrane stress to regulate downstream target operons. Using DNA footprinting of the regions upstream of the liaXYZ and liaFSR operons we show that LiaR binds an extended stretch of DNA that extends beyond the proposed canonical consensus sequence suggesting a more complex level of regulatory control of target operons. We go on to determine the biochemical and structural basis for increased resistance to daptomycin by the adaptive mutation to LiaR (D191N) first identified from the pathogen Enterococcus faecalis S613. LiaRD191N increases oligomerization of LiaR to form a constitutively activated tetramer that has high affinity for DNA even in the absence of phosphorylation leading to increased resistance. Crystal structures of the LiaR DNA binding domain complexed to the putative consensus sequence as well as an adjoining secondary sequence show that upon binding, LiaR induces DNA bending that is consistent with increased recruitment of RNA polymerase to the transcription start site and upregulation of target operons.