Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic identification of drinking activities at home using depth data from RGB-D camera

With the increasing elderly population all around the world, the healthcare services to elderly has become more important. Dementia is one of the common cognitive problems among the elderly population where a basic daily dining activity could be difficult for them to perform. Drinking activities is one of the most important daily needs to keep a person away from dehydrating. Most of the existing works on dining activities recognitions are mainly based on wearable sensors and sensor rich eating utensil. Although the accuracy for sensor based techniques is high, some of the elderly might be reluctant to wear, and some might even forgot to wear altogether. In this paper, we propose a novel system that is purely based on depth data from an RGB-D camera for drinking activities recognition. Dynamic time warping algorithm is used to recognize and detect the drinking activities.
Documenting sociopolitical development via participatory action research (PAR) with women of color student activists in the neoliberal university

Political activism attests to the sociopolitical development and agency of young people. Yet the literature sparingly engages the intersectional subjectivities that inform the sociopolitical development of young people, especially women of color. Important questions remain in the theorizing of sociopolitical development among youth engaged in political activism within higher education settings. Thus, we focus on the following question: What experiences informed or catalyzed the sociopolitical development of women of color student activists within a racialized neoliberal university in the United States? In addressing this question we demonstrate how student-led participatory action research (PAR) within the neoliberal university can facilitate and support sociopolitical development. Of most value, this paper demonstrates how PAR can be used as a tool to support the intersectional sociopolitical development of student activists organizing within racialized neoliberal settings of higher education that threaten the academic thriving and overall wellbeing of students of color, specifically women of color. Sociopolitical development theorizing must engage elements of relational healing as a dimension of wellbeing. Therefore, our work contributes to these conversations by centering the experiences of women of color student activists.
The social gradient in birthweight at term: quantification of the mediating role of maternal smoking and body mass index.

BACKGROUND Maternal education is associated with the birthweight of offspring. We sought to quantify the role of maternal body mass index (BMI) and smoking as intermediary variables between maternal education and birthweight at term. METHODS We examined the association between maternal education, BMI, smoking and offspring's birthweight among women who delivered at term in the Danish National Birth Cohort (n = 75,085). RESULTS Compared with mothers with more than 12 years of education, women with 10-12 years of education had babies that were 12 (4-19) g lighter. Mothers with 9 years of education had babies that were 51 (95% CI; 39-62) g lighter. BMI and smoking affected the association between maternal education and birthweight, albeit in different directions. If all mothers had the BMI of the highest educated mothers, the deficits would be larger: -20 (-22 to -19) and -74 (-80 to -68) g, respectively. If all mothers smoked like the highest educated mothers, mothers with a shorter education would have the heaviest babies: the difference would be 9 (2-16) and 23 (11-36) g, respectively. In combination, smoking and BMI all but explained the educational gradient in birthweight at term. CONCLUSION Maternal smoking and BMI are important intermediates of the educational gradient in birthweight at term. As the prevalence of smoking is dropping and the prevalence of obesity is increasing the educational gradient will likely reverse, but it seems unlikely that this will translate into a health advantage for the children of the least educated mothers.
Pattern-Oriented Modeling of Agent-Based Complex Systems: Lessons from Ecology

Agent-based complex systems are dynamic networks of many interacting agents; examples include ecosystems, financial markets, and cities. The search for general principles underlying the internal organization of such systems often uses bottom-up simulation models such as cellular automata and agent-based models. No general framework for designing, testing, and analyzing bottom-up models has yet been established, but recent advances in ecological modeling have come together in a general strategy we call pattern-oriented modeling. This strategy provides a unifying framework for decoding the internal organization of agent-based complex systems and may lead toward unifying algorithmic theories of the relation between adaptive behavior and system complexity.
Energy Efficient Transceiver Design in MIMO Interference Channels: The Selfish, Unselfish, Worst-Case, and Robust Methods

This paper is concerned with the energy efficiency maximization problem in multiple-input multiple-output interference channels. In the first part of this paper, we design the transmit beamforming matrices based on three approaches. In the first approach, each user tries to maximize their own energy efficiency, resulting in what we call the selfish method. The maximization problem corresponding to the selfish method can be implemented in a distributed manner with a semi-closed-form solution. The second approach aims to maximize the weighted sum-energy efficiency; we refer to it as the unselfish method. The proposed unselfish method has the following advantages. 1) It is easily implementable as the problem can be divided into several sub-problems and solved in a distributed manner. 2) It results in a quadratically constrained quadratic program with a semi-closed-form solution. Also, we consider fairness with the minimum-energy efficiency maximization problem, an approach that results in what we call the worst-case method. In the second part, general energy efficiency maximization in the presence of norm-bounded channel uncertainty is investigated which leads to a semi-definite program; the resulting method is called the robust method. Finally, the effect of the system parameters is evaluated through simulations.
Numerical stability of nystrom extension for image segmentation

A stability analysis of the approximate solution for spectral partitioning in image segmentation based on the Nystrom extension is presented. Algorithmic modifications are introduced to improve the stability of the original technique reported in (C. Fowlkes et al., 2004). The proposed improvement includes a criterion for the selection of the initial sample and more stable estimations of inverse matrices. The proposed algorithm is validated by several computer experiments
Endothelial-Rac1 Is Not Required for Tumor Angiogenesis unless αvβ3-Integrin Is Absent

Endothelial cell migration is an essential aspect of tumor angiogenesis. Rac1 activity is needed for cell migration in vitro implying a requirement for this molecule in angiogenesis in vivo. However, a precise role for Rac1 in tumor angiogenesis has never been addressed. Here we show that depletion of endothelial Rac1 expression in adult mice, unexpectedly, has no effect on tumor growth or tumor angiogenesis. In addition, repression of Rac1 expression does not inhibit VEGF-mediated angiogenesis in vivo or ex vivo, nor does it affect chemotactic migratory responses to VEGF in 3-dimensions. In contrast, the requirement for Rac1 in tumor growth and angiogenesis becomes important when endothelial β3-integrin levels are reduced or absent: the enhanced tumor growth, tumor angiogenesis and VEGF-mediated responses in β3-null mice are all Rac1-dependent. These data indicate that in the presence of αvβ3-integrin Rac1 is not required for tumor angiogenesis.
Human, social and cultural predictors of productive activities in later life

Abstract While considerable scholarly attention has been given to factors influencing productive activity, less is known about how multiple forms of resources predict the maintenance or initiation of such activity over time. Using two-wave panel data of older adults from the National Social Life, Health, and Aging Project (NSHAP), the study investigated the relationship between measures of capital and changes in multiple types of productive activity. Findings showed that all three types of capital were associated with volunteering in cross-sectional analyses, but only education, neighbourhood socialisation and religious service attendance remain significant predictors of continued volunteerism. Human capital strongly influenced employment both cross-sectionally and over time. Aspects of social capital – marital status and network size – were linked to participation and initiation of care-giving activities. The findings demonstrate that different patterns emerge in cross-sectional and two-wave panel data of multiple productive activities, adjusting for baseline activity level and selective attrition. The project also suggests factors that promote or hinder continued engagement in productive activity.
Small Heat-Shock Protein HSPB1 Mutants Stabilize Microtubules in Charcot-Marie-Tooth Neuropathy

Mutations in the small heat shock protein HSPB1 (HSP27) are causative for Charcot-Marie-Tooth (CMT) neuropathy. We previously showed that a subset of these mutations displays higher chaperone activity and enhanced affinity to client proteins. We hypothesized that this excessive binding property might cause the HSPB1 mutant proteins to disturb the function of proteins essential for the maintenance or survival of peripheral neurons. In the present work, we explored this hypothesis further and compared the protein complexes formed by wild-type and mutant HSPB1. Tubulin came out as the most striking differential interacting protein, with hyperactive mutants binding more strongly to both tubulin and microtubules. This anomalous binding leads to a stabilization of the microtubule network in a microtubule-associated protein-like manner as reflected by resistance to cold depolymerization, faster network recovery after nocodazole treatment, and decreased rescue and catastrophe rates of individual microtubules. In a transgenic mouse model for mutant HSPB1 that recapitulates all features of CMT, we could confirm the enhanced interaction of mutant HSPB1 with tubulin. Increased stability of the microtubule network was also clear in neurons isolated from these mice. Since neuronal cells are particularly vulnerable to disturbances in microtubule dynamics, this mechanism might explain the neuron-specific CMT phenotype caused by HSPB1 mutations.
Combining available datasets for building named entity recognition models of Croatian and Slovene

The paper presents efforts in developing freely available models for named entity recognition and classification in Croatian and Slovene text. Our experiments focus on the most informative set of linguistic features taking into account the availability of language tools and resources for the languages in question. Besides the classic linguistic features, distributional similarity features calculated from large unannotated monolingual corpora are exploited as well. We performed two batches on experiments, the first one on a self-built dataset on which the optimal set of features is sought, and a second batch with additional, much larger datasets obtained at a later point on which we verify the findings from the first batch. On the initial dataset using distributional information improves the results for 7-8 points in F1 while adding morphological information improves the results for additional 3-4 points in both languages. The second batch of experiments shows that morphosyntactic and distributional information lose importance as the dataset size significantly increases. The best performing models that use distributional information only, along with test sets for comparison with existing and future systems are made publicly available for both academic and non-academic use.
Sophisticated Text Mining System for Extracting and Visualizing Numerical and Named Entity Information from a Large Number of Documents

We have developed a system that can semiautomatically extract numerical and named entity sets from a large number of Japanese documents and can create various kinds of tables and graphs. In our experiments, our system semiautomatically created approximately 300 kinds of graphs and tables at precisions of 0.2–0.8 with only 2 h of manual preparation from a 2-year stack of newspapers articles. Note that these newspaper articles contained a large quantity of data, and all of them could not be read or checked manually in such a short amount of time. From this perspective, we concluded that our system is useful and convenient for extracting information from a large number of documents. We have constructed a demonstration system. In this paper, we briefly describe the demonstration system.
Assessing the Underwater Acoustics of the World's Largest Vibration Hammer (OCTA-KONG) and Its Potential Effects on the Indo-Pacific Humpbacked Dolphin (Sousa chinensis)

Anthropogenic noise in aquatic environments is a worldwide concern due to its potential adverse effects on the environment and aquatic life. The Hongkong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge is currently under construction in the Pearl River Estuary, a hot spot for the Indo-Pacific humpbacked dolphin (Sousa chinensis) in China. The OCTA-KONG, the world's largest vibration hammer, is being used during this construction project to drive or extract steel shell piles 22 m in diameter. This activity poses a substantial threat to marine mammals, and an environmental assessment is critically needed. The underwater acoustic properties of the OCTA-KONG were analyzed, and the potential impacts of the underwater acoustic energy on Sousa, including auditory masking and physiological impacts, were assessed. The fundamental frequency of the OCTA-KONG vibration ranged from 15 Hz to 16 Hz, and the noise increments were below 20 kHz, with a dominant frequency and energy below 10 kHz. The resulting sounds are most likely detectable by Sousa over distances of up to 3.5 km from the source. Although Sousa clicks do not appear to be adversely affected, Sousa whistles are susceptible to auditory masking, which may negatively impact this species' social life. Therefore, a safety zone with a radius of 500 m is proposed. Although the zero-to-peak source level (SL) of the OCTA-KONG was lower than the physiological damage level, the maximum root-mean-square SL exceeded the cetacean safety exposure level on several occasions. Moreover, the majority of the unweighted cumulative source sound exposure levels (SSELs) and the cetacean auditory weighted cumulative SSELs exceeded the acoustic threshold levels for the onset of temporary threshold shift, a type of potentially recoverable auditory damage resulting from prolonged sound exposure. These findings may aid in the identification and design of appropriate mitigation methods, such as the use of air bubble curtains, “soft start” and “power down” techniques.
Materializing and Querying Learned Knowledge

In many Semantic Web domains a tremendous number of statements (expressed as triples) can potentially be true but, in a given domain, only a small number of statements is known to be true or can be inferred to be true. It thus makes sense to attempt to estimate the truth values of statements by exploring regularities in the Semantic Web data via machine learning. Our goal is a “push-button” learning approach that requires a minimum of user intervention. The learned knowledge is materialized off-line (at loading time) such that querying is fast. We define an extension of SPARQL for the integration of the learned probabilistic statements into querying. The proposed approach deals well with typical properties of Semantic Web data. i.e., with the sparsity of the data and with missing data. Statements that can be inferred via logical reasoning can readily be integrated into learning and querying. We study learning algorithms that are suitable for the resulting high-dimensional sparse data matrix. We present experimental results using a friend-of-a-friend data set.
CALCULATING RESERVOIR OFFSETS FROM PAIRED SAMPLE DATA

It is necessary to calculate location-specific marine ∆R values in order to calibrate marine samples using calibration curves such as those provided through the IntCal98 (Stuiver et al. 1998) data. Where known-age samples are available, this calculation is straightforward (i.e. Stuiver et al. 1986). In the case that a paired marine/terrestrial sample calculation is performed, however, the standard calculation (i.e. Stuiver and Braziunas 1993) requires that the samples are treated as relating to isochronous events. This may not be an appropriate assumption for many archaeological paired samples. In this paper, we present an approach to calculating marine ∆R values that does not require the dated events to be treated as isochronous. When archaeological evidence allows the dated events to be tightly temporally constrained, the approach presented here and that described by Stuiver and Braziunas (1993) give very similar results. However, where tight temporal constraints are less certain, the 2 approaches can give rise to differing results. The example analysis considered here shows that a ∆R of –81 ± 64 14C yr is appropriate for samples in the vicinity of Nenumbo (Reef Islands, southeast Solomon Islands) around the period 2000–3000 BP.
Efficient formation of stratospheric aerosol for climate engineering by emission of condensible vapor from aircraft

Recent analysis suggests that the effectiveness of stratospheric aerosol climate engineering through emission of non‐condensable vapors such as SO2 is limited because the slow conversion to H2SO4 tends to produce aerosol particles that are too large; SO2 injection may be so inefficient that it is difficult to counteract the radiative forcing due to a CO2 doubling. Here we describe an alternate method in which aerosol is formed rapidly in the plume following injection of H2SO4, a condensable vapor, from an aircraft. This method gives better control of particle size and can produce larger radiative forcing with lower sulfur loadings than SO2 injection. Relative to SO2 injection, it may reduce some of the adverse effects of geoengineering such as radiative heating of the lower stratosphere. This method does not, however, alter the fact that such a geoengineered radiative forcing can, at best, only partially compensate for the climate changes produced by CO2.
Personalized suggestions by means of Collaborative Filtering: A comparison of two different model-based techniques

Recommendation systems are commonly used for suggesting products or services. Among different existing techniques, Model-Based Collaborative Filtering (MBCF) approaches have been proven to address scalability and cold-starting problems that often arise. In this paper we investigate two MBCF algorithms: Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) for Collaborative Filtering and Item-based Fuzzy Clustering Collaborative Filtering (IFCCF). These two techniques have been selected because preliminary results have proven that when applied to the clustering of users or items the quality of the recommendation system increases with respect to the k-means. Within recommendation systems, no comparison of these two techniques exists. Therefore, our experimentation is aimed at comparing these two techniques by means of MovieLens and Jester dataset in order to provide a guideline for their implementation in the e-Commerce domain.
Damage and Springback Analysis of Two Typical Dented Pipelines With Different Parameters

During pipeline construction, the pipeline may be impacted by sharp rocks or excavators. To study the failure mechanism of the pipeline, the damage degree and springback rate of the pipelines with two typical dents (transverse and longitudinal) were analyzed in terms of various factors (indenter size, pipeline size and internal pressure, and dent depth). The results reveal the following: (1) when pipeline size and internal pressure are unchanged and indenter size is changed, the integral value I used to measure the damage degree of the dented pipeline increases with increasing dent depth. When the dent depth reaches a certain value, at the same dent depth, the smaller the indenter size, the larger the damage integral value; (2) when other parameters remain unchanged, the larger the pipeline size is, the larger is the damage integral value, and the larger the internal pressure is, the smaller is the damage integral value. (3) The curves for damage and springback for the two kinds of dents are basically similar. Generally, the maximum damage of the longitudinal dent is larger than that of the transverse dent. (4) By a combination of an orthogonal experimental design and a gray correlation degree calculation, for the damage integral value of the two typical dented pipelines, the order of importance of the influential factors was obtained. (5) Formulas for the damage integral value and influence factors were fit using a nonlinear regression method, which provides a reference for calculation of pipeline damage.
Psychometric Fundamentals of the Social Skills Improvement System: Social–Emotional Learning Edition Rating Forms

This study described the development of the Social Skills Improvement System Social Emotional Learning Edition Rating Forms (SSIS SEL RF) for teachers, parents, and students. This new multirater assessment is a reconfiguration of the SSIS Rating Scales items inspired by the CASEL Social Emotional Competency framework. The internal structure and score reliability estimates were examined across three raters for a common sample of more than 200 individual children ages 3 to 18 years. Confirmatory factor analyses tested against the CASEL five-dimensional SEL theoretical model demonstrated adequate fit for the SSIS SEL Parent and Student RFs and mediocre fit of the Teacher RF. Internal consistency, test-retest, and interrater reliability estimates for scores on each of the SSIS SEL RFs all met or exceeded acceptable criteria. Thus, researchers and practitioners interested in measuring the social–emotional behavior of children ages 3 to 18 can expect reliable scores and structurally meaningful behavior content within the Collaborative on Academic Social Emotional Learning (CASEL) SEL competency framework. Limitations to the present findings and suggestions for future research conclude the report.