Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive Story Box for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Children with cerebral palsy (CP) tend to have difficulty in speech communication, geometric cognition, and motion control. They need to go through intensive rehabilitation exercises to develop and enhance their capabilities for daily living. The training aids or tools currently used cannot attract such a group of children to participate and persist in long-term exercise. This study aims to develop an Interactive Story Box to facilitate rehabilitation exercises of speech interaction, geometric cognition, and upper limb motion control under a playful and joyful rehabilitation environment. This box is designed to offer diverse geometric shape matching using puzzles with cartoon characteristics, and then a series of stories and speech interactions are generated based on the specific matching results. The multiple shapes of graphic puzzles, cartoon characters, intelligent voice synthesis, and audio-visual feedback are applied in this box design. Preliminary user testing in Suzhou BenQ Medical Center suggests that this box is warmly welcomed, easy to follow, manipulate and interact with, and children are better motivated to participate in the rehabilitation exercise.
CHANGES IN SERUM CARDIAC TROPONIN I IN ASIAN ELEPHANTS (ELEPHAS MAXIMUS) WITH ELEPHANT ENDOTHELIOTROPIC HERPESVIRUS INFECTION

Abstract: Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) is one of the most important causes of mortality in Asian elephants (Elephas maximus). The unusual tropism of EEHV for endothelial cells of capillaries can lead to catastrophic vascular dysfunction, hemorrhage, cardiac damage, and death. Cardiac troponin I (cTnI) is an intracellular protein of cardiomyocytes that is released into circulation in levels directly correlated to the severity of cardiomyocyte damage. The purpose of this study was to assess if cTnI could be used to distinguish when EEHV viremia leads to clinical disease versus subclinical infection. Thirty-seven individual Asian elephants contributed 53 blood samples that were evaluated for EEHV viremia using quantitative polymerase chain reaction and analyzed for cTnI using a high-sensitivity assay. Viremia was categorized as none (24/53), low (< 20,000 vge/ml, 12/53) and high (≥20,000 vge/ml, 17/53). Seven of the nonviremic samples had detectable cTnI. Nine low-viremia samples were positive for EEHV1 (1A and 1B combined) and lacked a detectable cTnI. Fourteen high-viremia samples were positive for EEHV1 and had detectable cTnI. There was statistical significance between having viremia and having a detectable cTnI value (P = 0.0001), and animals with EEHV1 viremia were more likely to have a positive cTnI value (P = 0.04). The presence of cTnI was associated with the presence of clinical signs, with higher values of cTnI in the presence of clinical signs versus subclinical viremia (P = 0.0001). In addition, four elephants contributed multiple samples from a single viremic event and results displayed a trend of elevation in troponin values with progression of EEHV viremia. The association of EEHV viremia with cTnI suggests these markers might be used in conjunction to help predict when EEHV viremia is likely to progress to EEHV-HD for an individual.
Green Stories for Digital Sustainable Development Education

Increasingly, Education for Sustainable Development is taking root in Teaching English as a Foreign Language classrooms as well as in literary studies. In this context, recent research in empirical and cognitive literary studies examines ways of enhancing environmental literacy through literature's potential to evoke empathy and critical thinking. In this study, our aim is to examine the added value of ‘making’ in improving effects of ‘green stories’ by combining forms of embodied reading and performance methodologies with recent approaches to ‘making’. The effects of making activities to be explored within the context of our study will include setting up video interviews with fictional characters, creating VR rooms to meet literary characters and retelling stories with interactive tools such as twine. We will review and negotiate results with the findings presented by Bull et al. [4] and Chu et al. [6]. We work from empirical research on the impact of literary reading on environmental literacy, and then examine potential benefits of performance methodologies and embodied reading in enhancing environmental literacy. In order to explore the value of making in the literature classroom, we bring together cognitive literary studies, performance methodologies and environmental literacy with research on making and maker spaces.
INNOVATIVE CIRCULAR SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES FOR NEW BUILDINGS AND REFURBISHMENTS

The housing sector is responsible for more than 50% of global resource extraction, about 50% of world energy consumption, 1/3 of water consumption and furthermore generates about 1/3 of all produced waste. A new, circular approach is needed to enable better decision-making on the selection of innovative architectural solutions for all phases of a building’s life cycle. The current building sector’s business model must be redesigned to include the application of new and improved methods, solutions and innovative services, and advance a positive transition from a linear economy to a circular economy. We will present the circular interventions carried out on a centenary building located in Vienna in the framework of the HOUSEFUL project. HOUSEFUL is an EU-funded initiative with the objective to develop and demonstrate integrated circular services, focusing on the optimal management of resources throughout the life cycle of new or existing buildings. The demonstration will include technologies to circulate all process flows while reducing the overall energy demand. These technologies will be offered as integrated services to produce treated rain and wastewater for internal reuse, the generation of renewable energy from biogas, compost production combined with urban gardening and for the use of nutrients in a greenhouse. The design of more efficient processes, such as green walls, innovative conservatories, building-integrated solar thermal and photovoltaic panels will improve building energy efficiency. All process flows will be intensely monitored to ensure safety and collect data for further replication cases. The solutions will also include the use of sustainable and upcycled materials and the implementation will be based on the principles of reversibility and de-constructability. The final services of the building will be elaborated in co-creation workshops with a multitude of stakeholders. Additional service-oriented modelling facilitates replication for the transition to the circular housing sector.
Role Theory Perspectives: Past, Present, and Future Applications of Role Theories in Management Research

Role theories examine how individual behavior is shaped by prevailing social roles and provide insights into how behavior is perceived by others in light of such roles. Current movements for police reform as well as the landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court concerning the employment rights of LGBTQIA individuals have brought conversations concerning roles and their potential impact to the forefront of public discourse. Academic perspectives in management research have aided in building knowledge concerning how roles impact individuals and organizations in a variety of research domains, including entrepreneurship, human resource management, organizational behavior, and strategic management. While the utilization of role theory has gained tremendous momentum over the past two decades, its central tenets are often blurred given that several related but unique perspectives surrounding roles exist in the literature. We trace the origins and development of specific role theories by defining central constructs to bring clarity to the conceptual ambiguities between various role theories and key concepts. Next, we provide an integrative review of empirical role research in management journals over the past 20 years. Here, we identify the five most prominent research themes in the management literature: roles and identity, work–nonwork interface, biases and stereotypes, career life cycles, and ethics and other-oriented behavior. Finally, we provide an agenda for future research that highlights missed opportunities in management research that draws from the key themes identified in our review.
Visualising post-disaster damage on maps: a user study

Abstract The mapping of the damage caused by natural disasters is a crucial step in deciding on the actions to take at the international, national, and local levels. The large variety of representations that we have observed leads to problems of transfer and variations in analysis. In this article, we propose a representation, Regular Dot map (RD), and we compare it to 4 others routinely used to visualise post-disaster damage. Our comparison is based on a user study in which a set of participants carried out various tasks on multiple datasets using the various visualisations. We then analysed the behaviour during the experiment using three approaches: (1) quantitative analysis of user answers according to the reality on the ground, (2) quantitative analysis of user preferences in terms of perceived effectiveness and appearance, and (3) qualitative analysis of the data collected using an eye tracker. The results of this study lead us to believe that RD is the best compromise in terms of effectiveness among the various representations studied.
Precision analysis and dynamic stability in the numerical solution of the two-dimensional wheel/rail tangential contact problem

ABSTRACT In this paper the two-dimensional contact problem is analysed through different mesh topologies and strategies for approaching equations, namely; the collocation method, Galerkin, and the polynomial approach. The two-dimensional asymptotic problem (linear theory) associated with very small creepage (or infinite friction coefficient) is taken as a reference in order to analyse the numerical methods, and its solution is tackled in three different ways, namely steady-state problem, dynamic stability problem, and non-steady state problem in the frequency domain. In addition, two elastic displacements derivatives calculation methods are explored: analytic and finite differences. The results of this work establish the calculation conditions that are necessary to guarantee dynamic stability and the absence of numerical singularities, as well as the parameters for using the method that allows for maximum precision at the minimum computational cost to be reached.
Simultaneous stochastic optimization of mining complexes - mineral value chains: an overview of concepts, examples and comparisons

ABSTRACT This paper overviews the simultaneous stochastic optimisation of mining complexes or mineral value chains where raw materials mined from mineral deposits in an area are transformed into a set of sellable products. The supply of materials extracted from available mines represents a major source of uncertainty and technical risk that needs to be managed, along with market demand. An overview of the main concepts, case studies and comparisons show how the approach manages risk and capitalises on synergies between the components of the mining complex and major differences from conventional methods. Results lead to strategic plans with larger amounts of metal produced from the same mineral resources, a substantially improved ability for operations to meet production forecasts, and a significantly higher net present value.
Weighted Attribute-Based Encryption with Parallelized Decryption

Unlike conventional ABE systems, which support Boolean attributes (with only 2 states: 1 and 0, or "Present" and "Absent"), weighted Attribute-based encryption schemes also support numerical values attached to attributes, and each terminal node of the access structure contains a threshold for a minimum weight. We propose a weighted ABE system, with access policy of logarithmic expansion, by dividing each weighted attribute in sub-attributes. On top of that, we show that the decryption can be parallelized, leading to a notable improvement in running time, compared to the serial version.
Security Against Honorific Adversaries: Efficient MPC with Server-aided Public Verifiability

—Secure multiparty computation (MPC) allows dis-trustful parties to jointly compute some functions while keeping their private secrets unrevealed. MPC adversaries are often categorized as semi-honest and malicious, depending on whether they follow the protocol specifications or not. Covert security was first introduced by Aumann and Lindell in 2007, which models a third type of active adversaries who cheat but can be caught with a probability. However, this probability is predefined externally, and the misbehavior detection must be made by other honest participants with cut-and-choose in current constructions. In this paper, we propose a new security notion called security against honorific adversaries , who may cheat during the protocol execution but are extremely unwilling to be punished . Intuitively, honorific adversaries can cheat successfully, but decisive evidence of misbehavior will be left to honest parties with a probability close to one. By introducing an independent but not trusted auditor to the MPC ideal functionality in the universal composability framework (UC), we avoid heavy cryptographic machinery in detection and complicated discussion about the probability of being caught. With this new notion, we construct new provably secure protocols without cut-and-choose for garbled circuits that are much more efficient than those in the covert and malicious model, with slightly more overhead than passively secure protocols.
Error Leakage using Timing Channel in FHE Ciphertexts from TFHE Library

Timing attack is a class of side-channel attacks that aims to leak secret information based on the time it takes to perform different operations. The biggest advantage of a timing attack is that it does not require sophisticated or expensive equipment to be carried out. Side Channels on FHE schemes have been reported on the client side which has the secret key. But the present project aims to delve into the counter intuitive question, can an analysis be performed on the server end which ideally has no information of the secret key. In this report, we investigate when homomorphic operations are performed on the ciphertexts stored in the server, can timing reveal information of the error used to mask the ciphertexts? Finally, can this be utilized to determine the secret key of the ciphering technique?
A CONCRETE approach to torus fully homomorphic encryption

The homomorphic encryption allows to operate on encrypted data, making any action less vulnerable to hacking. The implementation of a fully homomorphic cryptosystem has long been impracticable. A breakthrough was achieved only in 2009 thanks to Gentry and his innovative idea of bootstrapping. TFHE is a torus-based fully homomorphic cryptosystem using the bootstrapping technique. This paper aims to present TFHE from an algebraic point of view, starting from the CONCRETE library which implements TFHE.
Arithmetic Tuples for MPC

Some of the most efficient protocols for Multi-Party Computation (MPC) use a two-phase approach where correlated randomness, in particular Beaver triples, is generated in the offline phase and then used to speed up the online phase. Recently, more complex correlations have been introduced to optimize certain operations even further, such as matrix triples for matrix multiplications. In this paper, our goal is to speed up the evaluation of multivariate polynomials and therewith of whole arithmetic circuits in the online phase. To this end, we introduce a new form of correlated randomness: arithmetic tuples . Arithmetic tuples can be fine tuned in various ways to the constraints of application at hand, in terms of round complexity, bandwidth, and tuple size. We show that for many real-world setups an arithmetic tuples based online phase outperforms state-of-the-art protocols based on Beaver triples.
Integrated project delivery as an enabler for collaboration: a Middle East perspective

Purpose This study investigates the extent to which the popular forms of contract adopted in the Middle East (ME) address collaboration. The purpose of this paper is to assess how collaboration features weaved into the construct of integrated project delivery (IPD) may impact projects in the ME. In this context, the study identifies features in IPD and existing delivery methods that may enable or inhibit collaboration and evaluates their impact on project success from the perspective of various contract managers in the ME. Design/methodology/approach The study employs structured face-to-face interviews with 41 construction industry practitioners in top contract management positions in the ME to evaluate the significance of collaboration features in IPD. Data collected from the structured interviews/surveys were analyzed using statistical tools in R and Excel. Findings Results reveal that while experts recognize the collaboration benefits which IPD features may contribute to a project, the current contractual environment of the industry does not optimally encompass these features. The current status of project delivery does not favor IPD implementation nor does it enable its collaborative features. Originality/value This study contributes to the growing international body of knowledge addressing the application of collaborative contracts in construction projects, and it is innovative in evaluating collaboration features within IPD and exiting project deliveries in the ME.
Area-Efficient Bidirectional Shift-Register Using Bidirectional Pulsed-Latches

This brief proposes an area-efficient bidirectional shift-register using bidirectional pulsed-latches. The proposed bidirectional shift-register reduces the area and power consumption by replacing master–slave flip-flops and 2-to-1 multiplexers with the proposed bidirectional pulsed-latches and non-overlap delayed pulsed clock signals, and by using sub shift-registers and extra temporary storage latches. A 256-bit bidirectional shift-register was fabricated using a 65 nm CMOS process. Its area was 1943 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\boldsymbol {\mu }}\text{m}^{\boldsymbol {2}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> and its power consumption is 200 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${\boldsymbol {\mu }}\text{W}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> at a 100 MHz clock frequency with <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\text{V}_{\textbf {DD}}\boldsymbol {=}\boldsymbol {1.2}$ </tex-math></inline-formula> V. It reduces area by 39.2% and power consumption by 19.4% compared to the conventional bidirectional shift-register.
Dust Obscuration in the Universe

Abstract A substantial population of red quasars has been discovered in a complete sample of flat-spectrum radio sources. Dust is the most likely cause of the reddening in this sample. The location of the dust is poorly known, but may either be in the line-of-sight to the quasar, or in the immediate quasar environment. In this paper we are interested in models where the dust is located in the line of sight to the quasar. We calculate the probability distribution of the optical depth in galactic dust as a function of source redshift, using a range of parameters which might describe real galaxies. We compare these results with those found for our sample of radio quasars. If the dust content is unevolving, then it is not possible to account for all the observed reddening in the quasar sample using these models. Our minimum dust model predicts that 15% of background quasars to z ~ 5 will have a line of sight within 5 kpc of a galaxy’s centre, and would therefore be reddened out of B-band flux-limited samples.
Adeno‐associated viral delivery of TrkB receptor enhances functional recovery after cervical spinal hemisection

Unilateral C2 spinal cord hemisection (C2SH) removes premotor drive to phrenic motoneurons, paralyzing the ipsilateral diaphragm muscle (DIAm). In previous studies, we found that intrathecal brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) increases the proportion of rats displaying recovery of ipsilateral DIAm activity over time. We hypothesized that enhancing expression of the tropomyosin‐related kinase receptor subtype B (TrkB) in phrenic motoneurons will promote functional recovery ipsilateral to C2SH. Adult rats were injected intrapleurally with AAV7 expressing TrkB.FL‐FLAG, and 3 weeks later C2SH was performed. A separate group of C2SH animals served as controls. Bilateral DIAm EMG activity was chronically monitored to assess recovery up to 2 weeks after C2SH. In AAV‐treated rats, delivery of TrkB.FL‐FLAG to phrenic motoneurons was evident by the presence of FLAG protein in the phrenic motor nucleus. At 7‐days post‐C2SH, the proportion of rats displaying ipsilateral DIAm EMG activity was 13% and 40% in the untreated control and AAV‐treated groups, respectively. At 14‐days post‐C2SH, all AAV‐treated rats displayed functional recovery compared to 40% of C2SH rats. We conclude that targeted delivery of TrkB.FL to phrenic motoneurons enhances functional recovery of DIAm respiratory activity following upper cervical spinal cord injury.
Characterization of PXI-Based Generators for Impedance Measurement Setups

Multichannel digital sinewave generators play a key role in digital automated impedance bridges. Along with the technological progress in the development of commercial data acquisition (DAQ) boards, which brings with it improvements in their metrological and functional properties, it is possible to realize the DAQ-based high-precision multichannel generators. This paper describes the evaluation of properties of three commercial DAQs, available in the form of PCI eXtensions for Instrumentation modules and working as two-channel generators supervised by software developed by the authors. Due to the fact that the main application area of these generators is digital impedance bridges, this paper presents research results the most relevant for the impedance bridges, i.e., the stability of amplitude ratio and phase difference as well as total harmonic distortion and spurious-free dynamic range. The results and conclusion presented in this paper may be useful when choosing DAQs intended to be used in the multichannel generators.
Comparison of detailed descriptors for noisy silhouettes

In this paper we propose a new method for comparing silhouettes. Silhouettes of 3D objects, extracted from 2D images, are described using the LWDOS language [21]. Sometimes, even though the silhouettes appear identical, their LWDOS detailed descriptors may be very different; therefore, we might wrongly conclude that the two silhouettes are different. In order to eliminate this problem which is due to several phenomena, we try to deduce the same detailed descriptor from two slightly different descriptors of two silhouettes.
Electrokinetic Properties of 3D-Printed Conductive Lattice Structures

Lattice structures with lattice parameters in the mm range are routinely fabricated by additive manufacturing. Combining light weight and mechanical strength, these structures have plenty of potential applications. When composed of conducting elements, a 3D lattice has interesting electrical and electromagnetic properties. In this work, the electrokinetic properties of a conducting lattice are described by mixing the theory of resistor networks and continuous-medium electrodynamics. Due to the length scale provided by the lattice parameter, the effective continuous medium that mimics the electrokinetic response of a resistor lattice is characterized by a non-local Ohm’s law.