Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Child-Robot Interaction in a Musical Dance Game: An Exploratory Comparison Study between Typically Developing Children and Children with Autism

ABSTRACT Using robots in therapy for children on the autism spectrum is a promising avenue for child-robot interaction, and one that has garnered significant interest from the research community. After preliminary interviews with stakeholders and evaluating music selections, twelve typically developing (TD) children and three children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) participated in an experiment where they played the dance freeze game to four songs in partnership with either a NAO robot or a human partner. Overall, there were significant differences between TD children and children with ASD (e.g., mimicry, dance quality, & game play). There were mixed results for TD children, but they tended to show greater engagement with the researcher. However, objective results for children with ASD showed greater attention and engagement while dancing with the robot. There was little difference in game performance between partners or songs for either group. However, upbeat music did encourage greater movement than calm music. Using a robot in a musical dance game for children with ASD appears to show the advantages and potential just as in previous research efforts. Implications and future research are discussed with the results.
Multi-Objective Optimization of Building Life Cycle Performance. A Housing Renovation Case Study in Northern Europe

While the operational energy use of buildings is often regulated in current energy saving policies, their embodied greenhouse gas emissions still have a considerable mitigation potential. The study aims at developing a multi-objective optimization method for design and renovation of buildings incorporating the operational and embodied energy demands, global warming potential, and costs as objective functions. The optimization method was tested on the renovation of an apartment building in Denmark, mainly focusing envelope improvements as roof and exterior wall insulation and windows. Cellulose insulation has been the predominant result, together with fiber cement or aluminum-based cladding and 2-layered glazing. The annual energy demand has been reduced from 166.4 to a range between 76.5 and 83.7 kWh/(m2 y) in the optimal solutions. The fact that the legal requirements of 70 kWh/(m2 y) are nearly met without building service improvements indicates that energy requirements can be fulfilled without compromising greenhouse gas emissions and cost. Since the method relies on standard national performance reporting tools, the authors believe that this study is a preliminary step towards more cost-efficient and low-carbon building renovations by utilizing multi-optimization techniques.
Efficient and Stable All‐Inorganic Perovskite Solar Cells

The large-scale commercial application of organic – inorganic hybrid perovskite solar cells (PSCs) based on organic hole transport material (HTM) is still hindered by poor long-term operational stability, although a certi ﬁ ed record power conversion ef ﬁ ciency (PCE) as high as 25.2% can be achieved. In the recent several years, all-inorganic PSCs have received tremendous attention due to their superb thermal and moisture stability and considerable progresses have been witnessed. Herein, the recent advancements of all-inorganic PSCs are reviewed compre-hensively. First, the recent progresses of the strategies for stabilizing the black phase of inorganic perovskites through either increasing tolerance factor or enhancing the energy barrier of phase transition from black to yellow phase are summarized and discussed. Second, the deposition and growth techniques of inorganic perovskite ﬁ lms are discussed. Third, the effective inorganic HTMs in normal all-inorganic PSCs are described. Fourth, HTM-free normal all-inorganic PSCs are discussed. Afterward, the effective inorganic electron transport materials in inverted all-inorganic PSCs are discussed. Subsequently, the advancements of interface engineering for increasing the PCE and stability of all-inorganic PSCs are reviewed. Finally, a brief summary and outlook are presented to push up the PCE of all-inorganic PSCs to over 20% in the near future.
Can the youth materialism scale be used across different countries and cultures?

As global material wealth rises and young people are heavily exposed to advertising across a range of channels, including rapidly developing social media where material goods are flaunted as symbols of a happy and successful lifestyle, materialism levels across the world seem likely to rise. Given consistent research showing the correlation between materialism and low well-being, this gives cause for concern. However, no studies have so far tested whether current measures of youth materialism are generalizable across different countries and cultures. Our article fills this gap by exploring through a range of internal and external validity tests whether the popular Youth Materialism Scale (YMS) can be used with confidence across China, France, Belgium, Poland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We show that a 5-item version of YMS is invariant across the countries (internal validity) and that it broadly correlates in expected ways with six different theoretically related constructs: Self-Esteem, Life Satisfaction, Attitude to Advertising, Parental Support, TV Use, and Internet Use (external validity). We believe that researchers and policy makers can confidently use this 5-item version of the scale in international contexts.
Developing a Model for Educational Managers to Optimize Adoption and Use of Management of Information System (MIS) in Higher Education Institutions

The research study aims to design a model for educational managers to optimize adoption and use of MIS in Higher Education Institutions. Research was descriptive in nature, mainly consists of surveys, both qualitative and quantitative techniques were used to identify determinants of technology adoption and use. Questionnaires, structured interviews, field observations, focused group discussions and document analysis were used as data gathering tools for model development. On the basis of findings of the study it was concluded that people accept or reject new information Technology for many reasons like Professional Development training, Culture learning openness, social effects, Leadership attitude, various incentives like financial, moral, appreciation or recognition incentives attract the system user to adoption and use of MIS. Software design characteristics play an important role in adoption and use of MIS. User friendly Graphical interfaces are easy to work, navigate and understand. Users participation in MIS development is very crucial and can lead to optimum results regarding adoption and use of MIS
Ecuadorian regulatory traffic sign detection and recognition by using HOG and ELM

This article develops an algorithm for the detection and recognition of regulatory traffic signs of Ecuador, under extreme lighting conditions in the visible spectrum. The method consists of the following steps, i) video stabilization to reduce vertical oscilation, ii) location of the regions of interest based on color over the RBG-normalized and HSV spaces,iii) implementation of a two-stage multiclassification algorithm, based on Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) and the HOG descriptor, to classify by form and content. The experimental results of the recognition stage were developed on a database of regulatory traffic signs of Ecuador. This dataset is with more than47000 images of Ecuadorian road signs over 16 classes, which are used to obtain an accuracy of 99.85 %, and a sensitivity of 99.78 %, in the first stage, followed by an accuracy of 96.71 %, and a sensitivity of 94.16 % for the second stage. In addition, its robustness was verified when compared with other classifiers,being the one with the shortest processing time, i.e. a trade-off between accuracy and computational speed is obtained. Finally, the traffic sign detection system works at 24 frames per second, and was tested in real driving conditions in several Ecuadorian cities, during the day.
Effect of tropical sub‐seasonal variability on heatwaves over India

One of the important consequences of changing climate is the increase in temperature extremes and heat stress over many regions of the world. Understanding the various factors that modulate these events on different time scales is of utmost importance due to their great societal relevance. For example, understanding and prediction on sub‐seasonal time scales is crucial for reducing losses due to extremes and diligent management of limited resources. In this study, the effect of tropical intraseasonal oscillations like convectively coupled equatorial waves (CCEWs) such as equatorial Rossby wave (ER), Kelvin wave, mixed Rossby gravity waves and the Madden and Julian Oscillations (MJO) in modulating heatwaves occurrence over India is explored. We find that these oscillations significantly modulate extreme heat events. The extent of the modulation is also found to be highly dependent on the location, type and phase of these waves. The maximum effect is observed in case of ER with positive phase (defined as high outgoing longwave radiation phase) enhancing the frequency of the events by almost twice the normal values, and supporting long duration and more intense heatwaves while the opposite phase totally suppresses the heatwave events. The effect of MJO is region dependent with positive (negative) phase increasing (decreasing) the heatwave frequency over South and Eastern (North‐western) parts of the country. Kelvin and MT waves are also found to have lesser but significant effect on heatwaves, and mostly reduces the occurrence of heatwaves. Overall, the study shoes that the ER wave has the most significant effect on the frequency and duration of heatwaves over the study region.
The Relationship between Problematic Use of Smartphones and Social Anxiety

: This study investigated the smartphone use as the indicators of smartphone addiction and their associations with social anxiety as related variables. Problematic use of smartphones which is well known to be associated with anxiety might act as a common underlying factor explaining social anxiety disorder. This study aims to analyze the associations between mobile phone dependence and social anxiety disorder and to find possible predictors of social anxiety. Methods : Smartphone addiction assessed using the 20-item Nomophobia Questionnaire (NMP-Q) and Smartphone addiction scale (SAS). Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS) was used to determine social anxiety. The correlational analysis used to investigate the relationship between smartphone addiction and social anxiety. Linear regression conducted to calculate the predictors of social anxiety based on smartphone addiction parameters. Results : It is revealed that the level of social anxiety and smartphone addiction scales are positively correlated. Linear regression models for male and female participants showed different predictors of social anxiety. Conclusions : The study provides deeper insights into smartphone use and smartphone addiction as predictors of social anxiety in young people and concluded lesser dependence of males’ social anxiety on smartphone addiction level than the females’.
A Survey on Energy Expenditure Estimation Using Wearable Devices

Human Energy Expenditure (EE) is a valuable tool for measuring physical activity and its impact on our body in an objective way. To accurately measure the EE, there are methods such as doubly labeled water and direct and indirect calorimetry, but their cost and practical limitations make them suitable only for research and professional sports. This situation, combined with the proliferation of commercial activity monitors, has stimulated the research of EE estimation (EEE) using machine learning on multimodal data from wearable devices. The article provides an overview of existing work in this evolving field, categorizes it, and makes publicly available an EEE dataset. Such a dataset is one of the most valuable resources for the development of the field but is generally not provided by researchers due to the high cost of collection. Finally, the article highlights best practices and promising future direction for designing EEE methods.
Hexokinase 2 is a Key Mediator of Aerobic Glycolysis Promoting Tumour Growth in Glioblastoma Multiforme

Proliferating tissues, including embryonic and tumour tissues, preferentially employ aerobic glycolysis to support cell growth. This reliance on glycolysis even in the presence of oxygen, referred to as the “Warburg Effect”, may confer a proliferative, survival and invasive advantage and be exploited therapeutically. In this thesis, we demonstrate that the glycolytic enzyme Hexokinase 2 (HK2) is crucial for the “Warburg Effect” in human Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM), the most common and therapeutically resistant malignant brain tumour. In contrast to normal brain and lowgrade gliomas, GBMs exhibited a marked increase in HK2 expression, but not HK1, particularly in perinecrotic, hypoxic regions and its expression predicted poor overall survival of GBM patients. Stable loss of HK2 in GBM cells restored oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS)-mediated glucose metabolism, with increased oxygen consumption and decreased lactic acid production, an effect not seen with loss of glycolytic enzymes HK1 or PKM2. Furthermore, HK2 depletion resulted in decreased proliferation in vitro and in vivo and increased sensitivity to apoptotic inducers such as iii radiation and chemotherapy, both common adjuvant therapies of GBMs. Intracranial xenografts of GBM cells with reduced HK2 demonstrated significantly increased survival with decreased proliferation and angiogenesis yet enhanced invasiveness. In contrast, exogenous HK2 expression in GBM cells promoted proliferation, therapeutic resistance and intracranial growth. This was dependent partly on the PI3K/AKT dependent translocation of HK2 to the mitochondrial membrane. Stable loss of glycolytic enzymes HK2, HK1 and PKM2 reduced GBM proliferation but differentially altered the PI3K/AKT/mTOR and AMPK signaling pathways, the extent to which may influence whether a cell preferentially undergoes autophagy or apoptosis as the primary mode of cell death. Collectively, targeting enzymes employed by the tumour to modulate its energy metabolism, such as HK2 in GBMs, may favourably alter its therapeutic sensitivity to radiation and both classical and novel chemotherapeutic agents.
Hessian Schatten‐norm and adaptive dictionary for image recovery

From many fewer acquired measurements than that suggested by the Nyquist sampling theory, compressive sensing (CS) theory demonstrates that a signal can be reconstructed with high probability when it exhibits sparsity in a certain domain. Recent CS methods have employed analytical sparsifying transforms such as wavelets, curvelets, and finite differences. In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm for image recovery, which minimizes a linear combination of three terms corresponding to least square data fitting, adaptive dictionary, and Hessian Schatten‐norm regularization. We split the problem into some subproblems which turn the minimization task into much simpler. Numerical experiments are conducted on several test images with a variety of sampling patterns and ratios in both noiseless and noise scenarios. The results demonstrate the superior performance of the proposed algorithm.
Explaining island‐wide geographical patterns of Caribbean fish diversity: A multi‐scale seascape ecology approach

Geographical patterning of fish diversity across coral reef seascapes is driven by many interacting environmental variables operating at multiple spatial scales. Identifying suites of variables that explain spatial patterns of fish diversity is central to ecology and informs prioritization in marine conservation, particularly where protection of the highest biodiversity coral reefs is a primary goal. However, the relative importance of conventional within-patch variables versus the spatial patterning of the surrounding seascape is still unclear in the ecology of fishes on coral reefs. A multi-scale seascape approach derived from landscape ecology was applied to quantify and examine the explanatory roles of a wide range of variables at different spatial scales including: (i) within-patch structural attributes from field data (5 × 1 m2 sample unit area); (ii) geometry of the seascape from sea-floor maps (10–50 m radius seascape units); and wave exposure from a hydrodynamic model (240 m resolution) for 251 coral reef survey sites in the US Virgin Islands. Non-parametric statistical learning techniques using single classification and regression trees (CART) and ensembles of boosted regression trees (TreeNet) were used to: (i) model interactions; and (ii) identify the most influential environmental predictors from multiple data types (diver surveys, terrain models, habitat maps) across multiple spatial scales (1–196,350 m2). Classifying the continuous response variables into a binary category and instead predicting the presence and absence of fish species richness hotspots (top 10% richness) increased the predictive performance of the models. The best CART model predicted fish richness hotspots with 80% accuracy. The statistical interaction between abundance of living scleractinian corals measured by SCUBA divers within 1 m2 quadrats and the topographical complexity of the surrounding sea-floor terrain (150 m radius seascape unit) measured from a high-resolution terrain model best explained geographical patterns in fish richness hotspots. The comparatively poor performance of models predicting continuous variability in fish diversity across the seascape could be a result of a decoupling of the diversity-environment relationship owing to structural degradation leading to a widespread homogenization of coral reef structure.
Determination of Synthetic Cathinones in Urine and Oral Fluid by Liquid Chromatography High-Resolution Mass Spectrometry and Low-Resolution Mass Spectrometry: A Method Comparison

Synthetic cathinones have become very popular recreational drugs. Therefore, determining them in biological samples is now a matter of concern. In recent years, different methods that have been developed can determine these drugs at low-concentration levels. In general, liquid chromatography mass spectrometry detection plays an important role in these methods and the trend is to use low-resolution and high-resolution mass spectrometry. In this article, for the first time, we compare these two analyzers using an Orbitrap and a triple quadrupole mass spectrometer in order to determine a group of synthetic cathinones in urine and oral fluid samples. For this comparison, we evaluated and compared different parameters: Method detection and quantification limits, linearity, apparent recoveries, matrix effect, repeatability (intra-day), reproducibility (inter-day), and accuracy. Similar results were obtained for the two analyzers for the apparent recoveries and matrix effect. However, triple quadrupole showed higher sensitivity compared to Orbitrap for both urine and oral fluid samples. The quantification limits in urine and the detection limits in saliva were two times lower for triple quadrupole. Finally, when blind samples were analyzed to study the accuracy, similar results were obtained for both analyzers.
Analysis of morphological variability in the clam shrimp Eosestheria middendorfii (Crustacea, Spinicaudata) from the Lower Cretaceous of China, and its implications for spinicaudatan taxonomy

Unresolved taxonomic issues regarding spinicaudatans, clam shrimps that formed the most abundant faunal element in the lacustrine Barremian to Aptian Yixian Formation, have hampered palaeoecological and evolutionary interpretations of this key fossil group. Here, we analyse morphological variability in East Asian clam‐shrimp taxa by quantifying: (1) size and shape; and (2) ornamental features (radial lirae distances). Intergeneric variability was examined using 51 specimens of various East Asian Mesozoic taxa, 16 of which were chosen for a taxonomic revision of the 10 species described from the Yixian Formation of western Liaoning. Geometric morphometrics proved to be effective for the separation of genera, while the quantification of ornamental features was species‐diagnostic. Various authors have previously indicated the possibility that East Asian clam‐shrimp species have been split excessively, a criticism that has been confirmed by our analyses. According to our results, four of the ten species described from the Yixian Formation are valid, of which one might represent a junior synonym of Diestheria jeholensis; five taxon names represent junior synonyms of Eosestheria middendorfii (Jones), and one a nomen dubium. According to lirae distances and analysis of shape, Eosestheria fuxinensis, the original type species of Eosestheria, is synonymous with the type of Diestheria. Therefore, a new type species for Eosestheria is warranted and here fixed as E. middendorfii. This taxonomic revision questions the high level of clam‐shrimp diversity recognized within the Yixian Formation, and indicates that many of the species described in fact represent various ontogenetic stages of E. middendorfii.
Production of 7-methylxanthine from Theobromine by Metabolically Engineered E. coli

In this work, a novel biocatalytic process for the production of 7-methylxanthines from theobromine, an economic feedstock has been developed. Bench scale production of 7-methlxanthine has been demonstrated. The biocatalytic process used in this work operates at 30 OC and atmospheric pressure, and is environmentally friendly. The biocatalyst was E. coli BL21(DE3) engineered with ndmB/D genes combinations. These modifications enabled specific N7- demethylation of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine. This production process consists of uniform fermentation conditions with a specific metabolically engineered strain, uniform induction of specific enzymes for 7-methylxanthine production, uniform recovery and preparation of biocatalyst for reaction and uniform recovery of pure 7-methylxanthine. Many E. coli BL21(DE3) strains metabolically engineered with single and/or multiple ndmB/D genes were tested for catalytic activity, and the best strains which had the higher activity were chosen to carry out the N-demethylation reaction of theobromine. Strain pBD2dDB had the highest activity for the production of 7-methylxanthine from theobromine. That strain was used to find the optimum amount of cells required to achieve complete conversion of theobromine to 7-methylxanthine within two hours. It was found that the optimum concentration of pBD2dDB strain to achieve 100% conversion of 0.5 mM theobromine to 7-methylxanthine was 5 mg/mL. The cell growth of pBD2dDB strain was studied using two different growth media, (Luria-Bertani Broth and Super Broth). Super broth was found to be the best medium to produce the highest amount of cell paste (1.5 g). Subsequently, the process was scaled up in which 2 L reaction volume was used to produce 7-methylxanthine (100% conversion) from 0.5 mM theobromine catalyzed by pBD2dDB strain. The reactions was carried out at 30 oC and 250 rpm shaker speed, and the reaction medium was 50 mM potassium phosphate buffer (pH=7). 7-methylxanthines was separated by preparative chromatography with high recovery, and the product solution was collected, purified by drying at 120-140 oC for 4 hours and, recovered (127 mg). Purity of the isolated 7-methylxanthine was comparable to authentic standards with no contaminant peaks, as observed by HPLC, LC-MS, and NMR.