Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tracking of human activities using shape-encoded particle propagation

We present an approach to tracking human activities in a monocular video. We model the human body by decomposing it into torso and limbs and use simple 3D shapes to approximate them. The limb motions are parametrized by the relative joint angles. The problems of motion tracking and estimation are posed as nonlinear state estimation problems. The measurements are computed using the outputs of 3D shape-encoded filters which extract the boundary gradient information of the body image. The uncertainties of body pose are propagated by a branching particle system. We first sample a set of particles approximating the initial distribution of the state vector conditioned on observations, where each particle encodes the body pose. The posterior density is realized by the weight of the particle, where the weight represents geometric and temporal fit, and computed bottom-up from the raw image using a shape-encoded filter. The particles branch so that the mean number of offspring is proportional to the weight. Applications to both synthetic and real video sequences show the effectiveness of this approach.
Becoming a Xhosa Healer: Nomzi’s Story

Abstract This paper presents the story of an isiXhosa traditional healer (igqirha), Nomzi Hlathi (pseudonym), as told to the first author. Nomzi was asked about how she came to be an igqirha and the narrative focuses on those aspects of her life story that she understood as relevant to that developmental process. The material was obtained from a series of semi-structured interviews with Nomzi, with some collateral from her cousin, and synthesised into a chronological narrative presented in Nomzi’s own words. The aim of the study was to examine her account of her unfolding experience within three hermeneutic frames. The first is the isiXhosa traditional account of what it is to become an igqirha, a process initiated by intwaso, an illness understood to be a call from the ancestors, and guided by messages from the ancestors in dreams and other symbolic communications. The second is the perspective of Western Clinical Psychology on the cognitive, emotional and behavioural disturbances that characterise intwaso. The third is the perspective of transpersonal psychology on the nature and development of shamanic healing gifts, as understood from observations of such practices in traditional societies across the world. As the narrative of Nomzi’s story is quite long, this paper presents her narrative as well as the methodology which gave rise to it. The interpretative review of the material from each of the three perspectives is presented in a second paper.
Learning Discriminative Activated Simplices for Action Recognition

We address the task of action recognition from a sequence of 3D human poses. This is a challenging task firstly because the poses of the same class could have large intra-class variations either caused by inaccurate 3D pose estimation or various performing styles. Also different actions, e.g., walking vs. jogging, may share similar poses which makes the representation not discriminative to differentiate the actions. To solve the problems, we propose a novel representation for 3D poses by a mixture of Discriminative Activated Simplices (DAS). Each DAS consists of a few bases and represent pose data by their convex combinations. The discriminative power of DAS is firstly realized by learning discriminative bases across classes with a block diagonal constraint enforced on the basis coefficient matrix. Secondly, the DAS provides tight characterization of the pose manifolds thus reducing the chance of generating overlapped DAS between similar classes. We justify the power of the model on benchmark datasets and witness consistent performance improvements.
Functional analysis of the SRY—KRAB interaction in mouse sex determination

Background information. SRY (sex‐determining region Y), the master regulator of male development in mammals, has been studied extensively for more than 17 years, but how the SRY protein triggers the chain of events leading to testis development remains unclear. SRY probably requires a partner protein to elicit its molecular function. KRAB‐O, a novel protein containing a KRAB (Krüppel‐associated box) domain only, was suggested recently as a candidate SRY partner. In order to investigate the possible role of KRAB‐O in sex determination, we studied its expression and conducted functional assays of the SRY—KRAB interaction.
Moral reasoning and type of criminal offence

Many studies have investigated the relationship of Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning to criminal behaviour, the consensual finding being that known delinquents tend to use less advanced forms of moral reasoning than control subjects. An assumption common to the majority of these studies is that moral stage relates equivalently to all forms of criminal behaviour. It is argued that this assumption is incompatible with cognitive-developmental theory as elaborated by Kohlberg since the theory implies that developmentally primitive moralities will be associated with delinquent behaviour only to the extent that the behaviour in question is differently evaluated at the different moral stages. On this basis it is hypothesized that preconventional moral reasoning will be associated only with crimes in which the offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment. In support of this hypothesis prisoners whose current offence is of this type are shown to use more preconventional moral judgement than either other offenders or non-offenders. Various possible alternative explanations of this finding are discussed.
Predictive Tagging of Social Media Images using Unsupervised Learning

popularity of online social media has provided a huge repository of multimedia contents. To effectively retrieve and store this multimedia content and to mine useful pattern from this data is a herculean task. This paper deals with the problems of social image tagging. Multimedia tagging i.e. assigning tags or some keywords to multimedia contents like images, audio, video etc. by users is reshaping the way the people generally search multimedia resources. This huge amount of data must be effectively mined and knowledge is discovered to find some useful patterns hidden in it. Some facts like Facebook which has more than one billion active users, and millions of photos are uploaded daily, YouTube has 490 million unique users who visit every month, People upload 3,000 images to Flickr (the photo sharing social media site) every minute, Flickr hosts over 5 billion images. Apart from their usage for general purpose search, they are also leading towards many diverse areas of research like land mark recognition, tag recommendation, tag relevancy, automatic image tagging or annotation. This paper addresses the problem of automatic image tagging or Predictive tagging of digital images in social network scenario. Predictive tagging aims to automatically predict tags and check the relevancy of tags associated with images. This can be accomplished by using unsupervised learning.
Lifelong learning as serious leisure: policy, practice and potential

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which post-compulsory education can be viewed as a serious leisure activity. Such links between the fields of leisure studies and adult education have yet to be fully explored, especially from a UK perspective. Although Stebbins (1998) has explored the concept of learning serious leisure through adult education, the concept of adult education as serious leisure has yet to be examined. Since 1995 successive UK Governments have engaged in high profile policy initiatives to encourage ‘lifelong learning’, a somewhat controversial concept which has attracted criticism as well as a significant bandwagon. The principal impetus behind the policy is the perceived need to skill the workforce so that industry can operate in an increasingly competitive global market. Emphasized to a much lesser extent, however, is the wish to create a ‘learning society’ in which continual learning, (including that for non-vocational purposes) becomes integral within society, with a subsequent enhancement of social capital. It is argued that it is through learning as ‘serious leisure’, rather than as vocationally oriented that will be most appropriate for such a policy. In this paper the authors have sought to concentrate on this non-vocational dimension of lifelong learning and to explore the links between the concept of serious leisure and lifelong learning. The paper then draws upon literature from the fields of leisure studies and education policy to examine the implications of ‘lifelong learning as leisure’ for the individual, the community and society as a whole.
A Reply to Carlson and Gorman

approaches to science-technology studies, see Michael E. Gorman and W. Bernard Carlson, 'Can Experiments Be Used to Study Science? ', Social Epistemology, Vol. 3 (1989), 89-106. 19. One limitation of this approach, of course, is that it reflects only the inventor's perspective. Bell, for example, was both recruiter and recruitee; when he recruited a backer like Gardiner Hubbard, he was also recruited into Hubbard's network. As noted earlier, Latour's answer is to create multiple STGs. An alternative might be to represent the network as a set of links among individuals, a possibility we are now exploring. 20. We have been using our cognitive mapping scheme to teach engineering students about the heterogeneous nature of technological problem-solving. First, a team of students has worked closely with us analyzing inventors' sketches and developing our mapping techniques. Second, we have begun working with several computer science students to create a computer simulation of inventing a telephone. It is our hope that activities such as these will permit new concepts in science-technology studies to enrich engineering education, and we welcome any advice or suggestions about how this aim might be furthered.
Cooperative control and modeling for narrow passage traversal with an ornithopter MAV and lightweight ground station

The power, size, and weight constraints of micro air vehicles (MAVs) limit their on-board sensing and computational resources. Ground vehicles have less mobility than MAVs, but relaxed size constraints, and typically more computing power. These specializations present many opportunities for robot-robot cooperation. In this work, we demonstrate cooperative target-seeking between a 13 gram ornithopter MAV and a lightweight ground station using computer vision. We develop models for the ornithopter, ground station, and cooperative system dynamics. We determine model parameters of the real systems through experimental system identification. Finally, we verify those models using experiments on narrow passage traversal, and arrive at a cooperative system model which accurately predicts the backwards-reachable region for successfully negotiating ornithopter flight through narrow passages. We also introduce a new ornithopter MAV, the 13 gram H2Bird. It features clap and fling wings, improves upon previous designs by utilizing a carbon fiber airframe, tail rotor, and elevator, and carries a 2.8 gram payload. We augment the ornithopter's built-in gyroscope-based control with a lightweight ground station, which has power and weight requirements appropriate for deployment on ground vehicles with 10 gram payloads. The ground station provides heading estimates to the ornithopter by running a real-time motion tracking algorithm over a live video stream.
Predictores de rendimiento académico en la escuela media: habilidades, autoeficacia y rasgos de personalidad

Resumen El papel de las aptitudes y las creencias de autoef icacia en la prediccion del rendimiento academico h a sido bien establecido. Por otra parte, la evidencia es mixta respecto al rol de los rasgos de personalidad en la explicacion del exito escolar. En este trabajo se investiga la cont ribucion de estos tres constructos psicologicos a l a explicacion de la variabilidad del rendimiento academico en Lengua y Matematica, en una muestra de estudiantes secund arios de la ciudad de Cordoba, Argentina. Los resultados sugier en que las tres variables predicen de manera signif icativa el exito escolar en estas asignaturas aunque las habil idades verbal y matematica, tal como son medidas por el DAT-5, fueron las mas relevantes de los modelos de regresi on. Se analizan estos resultados en relacion al mod elo socialcognitivo de rendimiento academico. Palabras-claves: Rendimiento academico, inteligencia, autoeficacia , rasgos de personalidad
PTA: A Predictive Tracking Algorithm in Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks

In this paper, we propose a new Predictive Tracking Algorithm for Wireless Multimedia Sensor Networks named PTA. PTA is a complete tracking algorithm that implements a five-step process: wake up, detection, localization, prediction, and next sensor selection. Each step has an important role in the tracking process. PTA attempts to find the trade-off between tracking accuracy and energy conservation. In this algorithm, the prediction phase is performed using a Kalman Filter, which is a recursive state estimator. Using simulations, we show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm in both trajectory prediction as well as energy saving. Moreover, we perform a comparative study between PTA and existing solutions: 1) BASIC solution where all the Camera Sensors are always active, 2) Optimal Camera Node Selection (OCNS) which is a cluster-based mechanism based on probabilistic node election. And Finally 3) PAM, another predictive scheme based on Autoregressive Model. Our results show that PTA increases the tracking accuracy up to 30% compared to existing solutions, while reducing energy consumption down to 589.16 Joules. Therefore, PTA yields an accurate upcoming position prediction, and is more efficient than existing predictive models.
Reliable B Cell Epitope Predictions: Impacts of Method Development and Improved Benchmarking

The interaction between antibodies and antigens is one of the most important immune system mechanisms for clearing infectious organisms from the host. Antibodies bind to antigens at sites referred to as B-cell epitopes. Identification of the exact location of B-cell epitopes is essential in several biomedical applications such as; rational vaccine design, development of disease diagnostics and immunotherapeutics. However, experimental mapping of epitopes is resource intensive making in silico methods an appealing complementary approach. To date, the reported performance of methods for in silico mapping of B-cell epitopes has been moderate. Several issues regarding the evaluation data sets may however have led to the performance values being underestimated: Rarely, all potential epitopes have been mapped on an antigen, and antibodies are generally raised against the antigen in a given biological context not against the antigen monomer. Improper dealing with these aspects leads to many artificial false positive predictions and hence to incorrect low performance values. To demonstrate the impact of proper benchmark definitions, we here present an updated version of the DiscoTope method incorporating a novel spatial neighborhood definition and half-sphere exposure as surface measure. Compared to other state-of-the-art prediction methods, Discotope-2.0 displayed improved performance both in cross-validation and in independent evaluations. Using DiscoTope-2.0, we assessed the impact on performance when using proper benchmark definitions. For 13 proteins in the training data set where sufficient biological information was available to make a proper benchmark redefinition, the average AUC performance was improved from 0.791 to 0.824. Similarly, the average AUC performance on an independent evaluation data set improved from 0.712 to 0.727. Our results thus demonstrate that given proper benchmark definitions, B-cell epitope prediction methods achieve highly significant predictive performances suggesting these tools to be a powerful asset in rational epitope discovery. The updated version of DiscoTope is available at www.cbs. dtu.dk/services/DiscoTope-2.0.
Domain Decomposition Operator Splittings for the Solution of Parabolic Equations

We study domain decomposition counterparts of the classical alternating direction implicit (ADI) and fractional step (FS) methods for solving the large linear systems arising from the implicit time stepping of parabolic equations. In the classical ADI and FS methods for parabolic equations, the elliptic operator is split along coordinate axes; they yield tridiagonal linear systems whenever a uniform grid is used and when mixed derivative terms are not present in the differential equation. Unlike coordinate-axes-based splittings, we employ domain decomposition splittings based on a partition of unity. Such splittings are applicable to problems on nonuniform meshes and even when mixed derivative terms are present in the differential equation and they require the solution of one problem on each subdomain per time step, without iteration. However, the truncation error in our proposed method deteriorates with smaller overlap amongst the subdomains unless a smaller time step is chosen. Estimates are presented for the asymptotic truncation error, along with computational results comparing the standard Crank--Nicolson method with the proposed method.
The electrified mind : development, psychopathology, and treatment in the era of cell phones and the internet

Acknowledgments Chapter 1 The Cell Phone-Internet Lexicon: Overview and Implications Chapter 2 Minds on Media: Young People and Mental Health in the Internet Age Chapter 3 The Epidemic of Information: Pros and Cons Chapter 4 Cyberspace, Transitional Space and Adolescent Development Chapter 5 Cyberplay: The Pros and Cons of a 'Macrosphere' Chapter 6 Reality in Cyberspace: Patients' Use of the Internet and Ordinary Everyday Psychosis Chapter 7 Preoedipal Paradise in the World of the Web Chapter 8 The Electronic Couch: Some Observations About Skype Treatment Chapter 9 Separation, Sex, Superego, and Skype Chapter 10 Multiple Meanings of the 'Electrified Mind': A Concluding Commentary References About the Editor and Contributors
Acts of Kindness and Acts of Novelty Affect Life Satisfaction

ABSTRACT The present experiment was designed to establish the effects of acts of kindness and acts of novelty on life satisfaction. Participants aged 18–60 took part on a voluntary basis. They were randomly assigned to perform either acts of kindness, acts of novelty, or no acts on a daily basis for 10 days. Their life satisfaction was measured before and after the 10-day experiment. As expected, performing acts of kindness or acts of novelty resulted in an increase in life satisfaction.
Ric-3 Promotes Functional Expression of the Nicotinic Acetylcholine Receptor α7 Subunit in Mammalian Cells*

Expression of functional, recombinant α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptors in several mammalian cell types, including HEK293 cells, has been problematic. We have isolated the recently described human ric-3 cDNA and co-expressed it in Xenopus oocytes and HEK293 cells with the human nicotinic acetylcholine receptor α7 subunit. In addition to confirming the previously reported effect on α7 receptor expression in Xenopus oocytes we demonstrate that ric-3 promotes the formation of functional α7 receptors in mammalian cells, as determined by whole cell patch clamp recording and surface α-bungarotoxin binding. Upon application of 1 mm nicotine, currents were undetectable in HEK293 cells expressing only the α7 subunit. In contrast, co-expression of α7 and ric-3 cDNAs resulted in currents that averaged 42 pA/pF with kinetics similar to those observed in cells expressing endogenous α7 receptors. Immunoprecipitation studies demonstrate that α7 and ric-3 proteins co-associate. Additionally, cell surface labeling with biotin revealed the presence of α7 protein on the plasma membrane of cells lacking ric-3, but surface α-bungarotoxin staining was only observed in cells co-expressing ric-3. Thus, ric-3 appears to be necessary for proper folding and/or assembly of α7 receptors in HEK293 cells.
Shock Compression of Deuterium and the Interiors of Jupiter and Saturn

Recently, deuterium has been the focus of a high level of experimental and theoretical activity, sparked by a disagreement on the experimental value of the maximum compression along the principal Hugoniot. The behavior of deuterium at megabar pressures is not well understood. It is of great interest to understand how the current uncertainty on the hydrogen/deuterium equation of state (EOS) affects the inferred structures of Jupiter and Saturn. In particular, the mass of a core of heavy elements (other than H and He) and the total mass of those heavy elements in these two planets are quite sensitive to the EOS of hydrogen and constitute important clues to their formation process. We present a study of the range of structures allowed for Jupiter and Saturn by the current uncertainty in the hydrogen EOS and astrophysical observations of the two planets. An improved experimental understanding of hydrogen at megabar pressures and better determinations of the gravitational moments of both planets are necessary to put tight bounds on their internal structure.
Information Retrieval and Visualization for Searching Scientific articles and Patents

Given the rapidly changing face of technology, keeping up with the trends and identifying potential areas to be explored for research or commercialization is a challenging task. Decision makers, research analysts, scholars, research directors all make use of digital collections, use of which is facilitated by search applications developed on top of them. However, search is a human-driven activity and the result of such analysis is largely dependent on the initial inputs that are provided by the expert. Besides, aggregating and assimilating all the information returned by a search engine is no less daunting. In this paper, we propose intelligent methods for presenting search results to help information assimilation. We also present methods for analyzing large collections of documents in an automated way to generate insights that can prove to be useful for analysts. Starting from time-stamped collections of research publications and patent documents, we present several Information retrieval (IR) techniques that can successfully extract and present insights about emerging, popular and re-ceding trends in research along with their current levels of commercialization. We present results of experiments based on research abstracts made available by digital libraries and US patent office.
Mouse transgenic lines that selectively label type I, type IIa, and types IIX+B skeletal muscle fibers

Skeletal muscle fibers vary in contractile and metabolic properties. Four main fiber types are present in mammalian trunk and limb muscles; they are called I, IIA, IIX, and IIB, ranging from slowest‐ to fastest‐contracting. Individual muscles contain stereotyped proportions of two or more fiber types. Fiber type is determined by a combination of nerve‐dependent and ‐independent influences, leading to formation of “homogeneous motor units” in which all branches of a single motor neuron form synapses on fibers of a single type. Fiber type composition of muscles can be altered in adulthood by multiple factors including exercise, denervation, hormones, and aging. To facilitate analysis of muscle development, plasticity, and innervation, we generated transgenic mouse lines in which Type I, Type IIA, and Type IIX+B fibers can be selectively labeled with distinguishable fluorophores. We demonstrate their use for motor unit reconstruction and live imaging of nerve‐dependent alterations in fiber type. genesis 50:50–58, 2012. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.