Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Eye blinks are perceived as communicative signals in human face-to-face interaction

In face-to-face communication, recurring intervals of mutual gaze allow listeners to provide speakers with visual feedback (e.g. nodding). Here, we investigate the potential feedback function of one of the subtlest of human movements—eye blinking. While blinking tends to be subliminal, the significance of mutual gaze in human interaction raises the question whether the interruption of mutual gaze through blinking may also be communicative. To answer this question, we developed a novel, virtual reality-based experimental paradigm, which enabled us to selectively manipulate blinking in a virtual listener, creating small differences in blink duration resulting in ‘short’ (208 ms) and ‘long’ (607 ms) blinks. We found that speakers unconsciously took into account the subtle differences in listeners’ blink duration, producing substantially shorter answers in response to long listener blinks. Our findings suggest that, in addition to physiological, perceptual and cognitive functions, listener blinks are also perceived as communicative signals, directly influencing speakers’ communicative behavior in face-to-face communication. More generally, these findings may be interpreted as shedding new light on the evolutionary origins of mental-state signaling, which is a crucial ingredient for achieving mutual understanding in everyday social interaction.
Redefining the Offline Retail Experience: Designing Product Recommendation Systems for Fashion Stores

Retailers worldwide have started deploying smart service innovations in their stores to regain market share lost to online competitors. Against this backdrop, this paper focuses on the design of product recommendation systems for fashion stores. Our research particularly aims at answering the issues of whether and to what extent (i) the sensing capabilities of smart fashion retail environments and (ii) the integration of contextual information can improve the quality of such recommendations. To this end, we consider smart fitting rooms with the ability to detect products and customers as a showcase; a transaction dataset from a leading German fashion retailer; and contextual information about the time of purchase, the store type, and the weather conditions. Our preliminary analyses indicate that sensor information regarding garment and user identification, as well as further context data help to improve product recommendations in fashion stores.
A Task Framework for Predicting the effects of Automation

The ongoing digitalization changes the nature of work. Nowadays, even complex tasks can be automated and reliably performed by machines. This new wave of automation has led to an increased interest in predicting the effects of automation on job design. A recent study suggests that around half of today's jobs could disappear in the coming twenty years. However, these results are heavily debated. Other studies claim that the effect of automation will be much less dramatic. A fundamental issue underlying all these studies is the question of how to categorize tasks. Some authors simply divide tasks into routine and non-routine tasks, others also consider which kind of cognitive abilities are required. since the predicted effect of automation directly relates to the categories considered, a sound task framework is essential for useful predictions. Recognizing that existing task models are limited in terms of granularity and time, we use a literature study, interviews, and an analysis of historical data to systemically develop a new task framework for predicting the effects of automation. We conduct an evaluation of our framework to demonstrate the generalizability of the framework and compare the framework with existing models.
The most common end-of-life reflections: A survey of hospice and palliative nurses

Abstract To identify the most common end-of-life reflections among terminally ill patients, 124 nurses from the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association (HPNA) completed an online, open-ended survey. Common themes of these reflections included concern for loved ones, regret, morbidity and mortality, gratitude, spirituality, legacy, and thoughts about acceptance or non-acceptance of impending death. Nurses reported that their patients were more concerned about their loved ones than their own morbidity and mortality. Common end-of-life reflections may serve as cues that hospice and palliative patients are self-initiating therapeutic life review.
Calculating with Unreliable Data in Business Analytics Applications

The success of operational and managerial decisions depends on the reliability of the information provided to decision makers by the respective business analytics applications. Thus, in this research-inprogress paper, we explain how the mathematical foundations of the Algebra of Random Variables (AoRV) can be used to extend the capability of business analytics applications to process and report unreliable data. First, we present the theoretical foundations of the AoRV in a concise way that is tailored to business analytics. Second, we present and discuss two example cases, in which we evaluate an application of the AoRV to real-world business analytics scenarios. Initial results from this first designand-evaluate feedback loop show that the additional reliability information provided by the AoRV is of high value for decision makers, since it allows to predict how uncertainties in complex business analytics scenarios will interact. As the next step of this research project, we plan to test the potential of the AoRV to extend business analytics applications through another evaluation loop in a fully natural setting.
Patient characteristics, treatment patterns, and mortality in elderly patients newly diagnosed with ALL

Abstract To describe patient characteristics and treatment patterns among elderly patients (≥66 years) newly diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), we analyzed 100% Medicare ALL data from 2007 to 2015. Only 764 out of 1428 (53.5%) elderly patients received treatment within 90 d of diagnosis with ≥30-d follow-up; 32.4% received chemotherapy without tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs), 8.8% received both chemotherapy and TKIs, 9.8% received steroids only and 2.6% received TKIs only. Among 717 patients receiving chemotherapy any time during follow-up, 65.8% received only one course of treatment. Patients treated with chemotherapy or TKIs compared to untreated patients were younger (<75 years: 51.5 vs. 21.7%) and had a lower comorbidity burden (Charlson Comorbidity index ≤ 2: 90.9 vs. 71.4%). Overall, 67.5% of patients died within 3 years of diagnosis. Our findings demonstrate that many elderly ALL patients are not treated in the real-world setting and highlight the need for tolerable therapies for these patients.
BRCA1/2 Functional Loss Defines a Targetable Subset in Leiomyosarcoma.

BACKGROUND Soft-tissue sarcomas (STS) describe a heterogeneous group of mesenchymal tumors with limited treatment options. Targeted therapies exist for BRCA1/2 gene alterations, but their prevalence and role have not been fully described in STS. Here, we present the largest effort to characterize the frequency of homologous recombination (HR) DNA repair pathway alterations in STS subtypes and highlight the unique nature of leiomyosarcoma (LMS). MATERIALS AND METHODS DNA sequencing data were analyzed for HR pathway alterations for 1,236 patients with STS. DNA sequencing data from an additional 1,312 patients were used to confirm the prevalence of HR pathway alterations in LMS. Four uterine LMS (uLMS) patients with functional BRCA2 loss were evaluated for response to poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) inhibition. RESULTS In an unselected STS study population, BRCA2 alterations were identified in 15 (1%) patients, and homozygous BRCA2 loss was detected in 9 (<1%). However, subset analysis revealed that these BRCA2 alterations were concentrated in uLMS as compared with any other STS subtype. Notably, 10% of uLMS tumors had a BRCA2 alteration. We further report that PARP inhibitors had demonstrated durable clinical benefit in four uLMS patients with BRCA2 loss. CONCLUSION HR pathway alterations are rare in most STS. However, we identify uLMS to be enriched for BRCA2 loss and report the positive outcomes of a series of patients treated with PARP inhibitors. Our data suggest that patients with uLMS should be considered for somatic BRCA2 profiling. Prospective trials are necessary to confirm the efficacy of PARP inhibition in uLMS. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Soft-tissue sarcomas are a highly morbid, diverse set of tumors with limited treatment options. This study identifies an increased prevalence of functional BRCA1/2 loss in patients with uterine leiomyosarcoma (uLMS). It also presents four patients with uLMS and BRCA2 loss who achieved durable clinical benefit from poly (ADP-ribose) polymerase inhibition. These data suggest that patients with uLMS in particular should be screened for BRCA1/2 alterations and may benefit from treatment targeted to these alterations.
Designing Predictive Maintenance for Agricultural Machines

The Digital Transformation alters business models in all fields of application, but not all industries transform at the same speed. While recent innovations in smart products, big data, and machine learn-ing have profoundly transformed business models in the high-tech sector, less digitalized industries—like agriculture—have only begun to capitalize on these technologies. Inspired by predictive mainte-nance strategies for industrial equipment, the purpose of this paper is to design, implement, and evaluate a predictive maintenance method for agricultural machines that predicts future defects of a machine’s components, based on a data-driven analysis of service records. An evaluation with 3,407 real-world service records proves that the method predicts damaged parts with a mean accuracy of 86.34%. The artifact is an exaptation of previous design knowledge from high-tech industries to agriculture—a sector in which machines move through rough territory and adverse weather conditions, are utilized exten-sively for short periods, and do not provide sensor data to service providers. Deployed on a platform, the prediction method enables co-creating a predictive maintenance service that helps farmers to avoid resources shortages during harvest seasons, while service providers can plan and conduct maintenance service preemptively and with increased efficiency.
Towards Design Principles for Data-Driven Decision Making - An Action Design Research Project in the Maritime Industry

Data-driven decision making (DDD) refers to organizational decision-making practices that emphasize the use of data and statistical analysis instead of relying on human judgment only. Various empirical studies provide evidence for the value of DDD, both on individual decision maker level and the organizational level. Yet, the path from data to value is not always an easy one and various organizational and psychological factors mediate and moderate the translation of data-driven insights into better decisions and, subsequently, effective business actions. The current body of academic literature on DDD lacks prescriptive knowledge on how to successfully employ DDD in complex organizational settings. Against this background, this paper reports on an action design research study aimed at designing and implementing IT artifacts for DDD at one of the largest ship engine manufacturers in the world. Our main contribution is a set of design principles highlighting, besides decision quality, the importance of model comprehensibility, domain knowledge, and actionability of results.
Virtual Reality for Teletherapy: Avatars May Combine the Benefits of Face-to-Face Communication with the Anonymity of Online Text-Based Communication

Self-disclosure is an essential component of social communication that has been associated with trust, liking, and ultimately strong relationships. As technology continues to develop, so do the number of methods to create and maintain relationships. While speaking face-to-face (FtF) remains the primary way to communicate, computer-mediated communication has become more common, meaning that research into self-disclosure has expanded to new domains, including virtual reality (VR). This study compared self-disclosure between three conversation contexts: FtF, online text-based (OTB) communication, or VR. Zero-contact dyads comprised female university students who completed 20-minute conversations guided by one of two discussion prompts: the closeness-generating or small talk procedure. These prompts were designed to either increase or not increase self-disclosure. These conversations were recorded and coded for the frequency of total, factual, cognitive, and emotional self-disclosures as objective measures. Participants' perceptions of personal and partner's self-disclosures were also assessed by questionnaires as perceived measures. FtF and VR conditions exceeded OTB communication in perceived and objective measures of self-disclosure. Although no significant differences emerged between FtF and VR conditions for factual or perceived self-disclosure, participants in the FtF condition had more total, cognitive, and emotional self-disclosures than VR conditions. Implications for communication and teletherapy are discussed. The present study offers preliminary evidence that VR could potentially rival FtF as a communication medium and be as effective in facilitating self-disclosure. Findings offer a starting point for research on social applications of VR.
Redefining the Practical Utility of Blood Transcriptome Biomarkers in Inflammatory Bowel Diseases

Abstract Background and Aims The study investigates the practical utility of whole-blood gene expression profiling to diagnose inflammatory bowel diseases [IBDs]. Methods The discovery cohorts included 102 and 51 paediatric IBD patients and controls, and 95 and 46 adult IBD patients and controls, respectively. The replication cohorts included 447 and 76 paediatric IBD patients and controls, and 271 and 108 adult IBD patients and controls, respectively. In the discovery phase, RNA samples extracted from whole peripheral blood were analysed using RNA-Seq, and the predictive values of selected biomarkers were validated using quantitative polymerase chain reaction [qPCR]. Results In all, 15 differentially expressed transcripts [adjusted p ≤0.05] were selected from the discovery sequencing datasets. The receiver operating characteristic curves and area under the curve [ROC-AUC] in replication analyses showed high discriminative power [AUC range, 0.91–0.98] for 11 mRNAs in paediatric patients with active IBD. By contrast, the AUC-ROC values ranged from 0.63 to 0.75 in comparison among inactive paediatric IBDs and active/inactive adult IBDs, indicating a lack of discriminative power. The best multi-mRNA diagnostic classifier showed moderate discriminative power [AUC = 0.81] for paediatric inactive IBD, but was not able to discriminate active or inactive adult IBD patients from controls. The AUC-ROC values did not confirm an ability of the mRNAs abundances to discriminate between active ulcerative colitis and active Crohn’s disease in paediatric or adult populations. Conclusions This study identifies and validates blood transcriptional biomarkers that could be used in clinical settings as diagnostic predictors of IBD clinical activity in paediatric, but not adult, IBD patients.
Severe vitamin D deficiency is a risk factor for renal hyperfiltration.

Background Vitamin D deficiency is associated with renal progression in chronic kidney disease. Moreover, improvement of clinical outcomes after vitamin D supplementation has been reported in the diabetic and chronic kidney disease population. Objective We investigated the association between renal hyperfiltration (RHF) and vitamin D status in a relatively healthy population. Design Data were retrieved from the Korean NHANES, a nationwide population-based cross-sectional study from 2008 to 2015. Overall, 33,210 subjects with normal renal function were included in the final analysis. Severe vitamin D deficiency was defined as serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentration <10 ng/mL. RHF was defined as estimated glomerular filtration rate with residual in the >95th percentile after adjustment for age, sex, height, weight, and history of hypertension or diabetes. Results The mean ± SD age of subjects was 48.1 ± 15.9 y, and the number of women was 18,779 (56.5%). Estimated glomerular filtration rate was negatively associated with serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D concentrations in multivariable linear regression analysis (β: -0.02; 95% CI: -0.02, -0.01; P < 0.001). Furthermore, 1637 (4.9%) subjects were categorized into the RHF group, and the prevalence of RHF was significantly higher in the severe vitamin D deficiency group than in the sufficiency group (5.8% compared with 5.0%, P < 0.001). In a multivariable logistic regression model, severe vitamin D deficiency was a significant risk factor for RHF (OR: 2.41; 95% CI, 1.72, 3.43; P < 0.001). Conclusions Severe vitamin D deficiency is significantly associated with increasing prevalence of RHF in a relatively healthy adult population.
A recursive ensemble organ segmentation (REOS) framework: application in brain radiotherapy

The aim of this work is to develop a novel recursive ensemble OARs segmentation (REOS) framework for accurate organs-at-risk (OARs) automatic segmentation. The REOS recursively segment individual OARs by ensembling images features extracted from an organ localization module and a contour detection module. Both modules are based on a 3D U-Net architecture. The organ localization module is trained for rough segmentation to localize a region of interest (ROI) that encompasses the to-be-delineated OAR, while the contour detection module is trained to segment the OAR within the identified ROI. In this study, the developed REOS framework is applied for brain radiotherapy on segmenting six OARs including the eyes, the brainstem (BS), the optical nerves and the chiasm. Eighty T1-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRI) from 80 brain cancer patients’ cases with OARs’ gold standard contours were collected for training and testing REOS. On 20 testing cases, the REOS achieve a high segmentation accuracy with Dice similarity coefficient (DSC) mean and standard deviation of 93.9% ± 1.4%, 94.5% ± 2.0%, 90.6% ± 2.7%, on the left and right eyes and the BS, respectively. On small and segmentation-challenging organs, the left and right optical nerves and the chiasm, the REOS achieves DSC of 78.0% ± 10.5%, 82.2% ± 5.9% and 71.1% ± 9.1%. The satisfactory performances demonstrated the effectiveness of the REOS in OARs segmentation.
Increased Alzheimer's risk during the menopause transition: A 3-year longitudinal brain imaging study

Two thirds of all persons with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are women. Identification of sex-based molecular mechanisms underpinning the female-based prevalence of AD would advance development of therapeutic targets during the prodromal AD phase when prevention or delay in progression is most likely to be effective. This 3-year brain imaging study examines the impact of the menopausal transition on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) biomarker changes [brain β-amyloid load via 11C-PiB PET, and neurodegeneration via 18F-FDG PET and structural MRI] and cognitive performance in midlife. Fifty-nine 40–60 year-old cognitively normal participants with clinical, neuropsychological, and brain imaging exams at least 2 years apart were examined. These included 41 women [15 premenopausal controls (PRE), 14 perimenopausal (PERI), and 12 postmenopausal women (MENO)] and 18 men. We used targeted minimum loss-based estimation to evaluate AD biomarker and cognitive changes. Older age was associated with baseline Aβ and neurodegeneration markers, but not with rates of change in these biomarkers. APOE4 status influenced change in Aβ load, but not neurodegenerative changes. Longitudinally, MENO and PERI groups showed declines in estrogen-dependent memory tests as compared to men (p < .04). Adjusting for age, APOE4 status, and vascular risk confounds, the MENO and PERI groups exhibited higher rates of CMRglc decline as compared to males (p ≤ .015). The MENO group exhibited the highest rate of hippocampal volume loss (p’s ≤ .001), and higher rates of Aβ deposition than males (p < .01). CMRglc decline exceeded Aβ and atrophy changes in all female groups vs. men. These findings indicate emergence and progression of a female-specific hypometabolic AD-endophenotype during the menopausal transition. These findings suggest that the optimal window of opportunity for therapeutic intervention to prevent or delay progression of AD endophenotype in women is early in the endocrine aging process.
Drug and Chemical Glucosidation by Control Supersomes and Membranes from Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf) 9 Cells: Implications for the Apparent Glucuronidation of Xenobiotics by UDP-glucuronosyltransferase 1A5

Accumulating evidence indicates that several human UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) enzymes catalyze both glucuronidation and glucosidation reactions. Baculovirus-infected insect cells [Trichoplusia ni and Spodoptera frugiperda (Sf9)] are used widely for the expression of recombinant human UGT enzymes. Following the observation that control Supersomes (c-SUP) express a native enzyme capable of glucosidating morphine, we characterized the glucosidation of a series of aglycones with a hydroxyl (aliphatic or phenolic), carboxylic acid, or amine functional group by c-SUP and membranes from uninfected Sf9 cells. Although both enzyme sources glucosidated the phenolic substrates investigated, albeit with differing activities, differences were observed in the selectivities of the native UDP-glucosyltransferases toward aliphatic alcohols, carboxylic acids, and amines. For example, zidovudine was solely glucosidated by c-SUP. By contrast, c-SUP lacked activity toward the amines lamotrigine and trifluoperazine and did not form the acyl glucoside of mycophenolic acid, reactions all catalyzed by uninfected Sf9 membranes. Glucosidation intrinsic clearances were high for several substrates, notably 1-hydroxypyrene (∼1400–1900 µl/min⋅mg). The results underscore the importance of including control cell membranes in the investigation of drug and chemical glucosidation by UGT enzymes expressed in T. ni (High-Five) and Sf9 cells. In a coincident study, we observed that UGT1A5 expressed in Sf9, human embryonic kidney 293T, and COS7 cells lacked glucuronidation activity toward prototypic phenolic substrates. However, Sf9 cells expressing UGT1A5 glucosidated 1-hydroxypyrene with UDP-glucuronic acid as the cofactor, presumably due to the presence of UDP-glucose as an impurity. Artifactual glucosidation may explain, at least in part, a previous report of phenolic glucuronidation by UGT1A5.