Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The SEMAINE API: Towards a Standards-Based Framework for Building Emotion-Oriented Systems

This paper presents the SEMAINE API, an open source framework for building emotion-oriented systems. By encouraging and simplifying the use of standard representation formats, the framework aims to contribute to interoperability and reuse of system components in the research community. By providing a Java and C++ wrapper around a message-oriented middleware, the API makes it easy to integrate components running on different operating systems and written in different programming languages. The SEMAINE system 1.0 is presented as an example of a full-scale system built on top of the SEMAINE API. Three small example systems are described in detail to illustrate how integration between existing and new components is realised with minimal effort.
The stability of late-type stars close to the Eddington limit

Theopacity-modiedEddingtonlimithasbeencom- puted for hydrogen-decient model atmospheres. The R Coro- nae Borealis (RCrB) stars are found to be located strikingly close to the limit, which suggests that the unknown trigger mechanism for their visual declines of the stars are instabil- ities in connection with the stars encountering the Eddington limit in their evolution. It also points to a similarity between the eruptive behaviours of the RCrB stars and the Luminous Blue Variables (LBVs). Super-Eddington luminosities in hydrostatic model atmo- spheres manifest themselves by the presence of gas pressure inversions. Such inversions are not an artifact of the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium but can also be present in hydrody- namical model atmospheres. Only for very large mass loss rates hardly realized in supergiants will the inversions be removed. Instabilities may, however, still be present in such inversions, which is investigated for both H-rich and H-decient late-type supergiantmodelatmospheres.Dynamicalinstabilitiesmayoc- cur in surface ionization zones, which might lead to ejections of gas. A local, non-adiabatic, linear stability analysis reveals that sound waves can be amplied due to the strong radiative forces. However, despite the super-Eddington luminosities, the efciency of the radiative instabilities is fairly low compared to for early-type stars with growth rates of 10 5 s 1 .
Natural Helping and Resilience in a Diné (Navajo) Community

This article presents findings of a pilot study on natural helping conducted in the southwestern region of the Diné (commonly referred to as Navajo) Nation in Arizona. The sample included 25 individuals identified by community members as natural helpers. Researchers used the same procedures and interview instrument utilized in previous studies of large samples of European American natural helpers in the Northeast and Midwest. Overall, findings support earlier results with respect to how help was initiated, problem type, and helping style. Helpers generally offered help before it was requested and gave instrumental help with environmental problems. Diné natural helping differed from natural helping in other populations studied in the extent to which helping one's relations emerged as a central aspect of individual and community identity. Relationships between helpers and recipients were long-standing, as in earlier studies, but were characterized by a greater degree of closeness and a stronger sense of commonality and reciprocity. Accordingly, there was little sense of social distance between helpers and recipients. Recipients were also more likely to ask for help than recipients in earlier studies. Another difference between Diné respondents and those in earlier studies was the extent to which problems and their solutions were perceived in spiritual terms. Overall, findings suggest the importance of professional helpers recognizing community strengths, particularly informal helping, as a vital resource in Native American communities. Findings further suggest the advisability of collaboration between professional and natural helpers. Detailed implications for research and practice are provided.
Teaching Middle School Students with Learning Disabilities to Recruit Positive Teacher Attention

Four middle school students with learning disabilities were taught to recruit teacher attention while they worked on assignments in two inclusive general education classrooms. The students were taught to show their work to the teacher two to three times per session and make statements such as: “How am I doing? ” Training was conducted in the special education classroom and consisted of modeling, role-playing, corrective feedback, and praise. A multiple baseline across students design showed that recruitment training increased (a) the rate of recruiting by the students, (b) the rate of teacher praise received by the students, (c) the rate of instructional feedback received by the students, and (d) the accuracy with which students completed their workbook assignments.
Intentional Hypertension During Dissection of Carotid Arteries in Endarterectomy Prevents Postoperative Development of New Cerebral Ischemic Lesions Caused by Intraoperative Microemboli

BACKGROUND:Low blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery (MCA) correlates with the development of postoperative cerebral ischemic lesions related to generation of microemboli during dissection of carotid arteries in carotid endarterectomy (CEA). OBJECTIVE:The purpose of this prospectively controlled trial was to determine whether increased mean blood flow velocity in the MCA by intentional hypertension during carotid dissection in CEA prevented postoperative development of new cerebral ischemic lesions caused by intraoperative microemboli. METHODS:Patients with ipsilateral internal carotid artery stenosis (>70%) underwent CEA under transcranial Doppler monitoring of mean blood flow velocity and microembolic signals in the ipsilateral MCA. Attempts were made to keep systolic blood pressure during carotid dissection between −10% and +10% of the preoperative value (controls, n = 65) or above a +10% increase (intentional hypertension group, n = 65). RESULTS:Incidence of new ischemic lesions on postoperative diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging was significantly lower in the intentional hypertension group both for all patients (controls, 15.4%; intentional hypertension group, 3.1%; P = .03) and in a subgroup of 37 patients showing microembolic signals during carotid dissection (controls, 52.6%; intentional hypertension group, 11.1%; P = .013). Logistic regression analysis demonstrated the absence of intentional hyperperfusion (95% confidence interval: 1.77-100.00; P = .012) and high number of microembolic signals (95% confidence interval: 1.00-1.62; P = .05) during carotid dissection were significant independent predictors of the postoperative development of new ischemic lesions on diffusion-weighted magnetic resonance imaging. CONCLUSION:Increased MCA mean blood flow velocity by intentional hypertension during dissection of the carotid artery in CEA prevents the postoperative development of new cerebral ischemic lesions caused by intraoperative microemboli.
Prevalence and Determinants of Pre-Hypertension among Omani Adults Attending Non-Communicable Disease Screening Program in Primary Care Setting in Sohar City.

OBJECTIVES To estimate the prevalence of pre-hypertension and its association with some selected cardiovascular risk factors among the Omani adult population in the primary healthcare setting. METHOD A cross-sectional study involving a sample taken from a National Screening Program of chronic non-communicable diseases in primary healthcare institutions, Sohar city, Sultanate of Oman (July 2006 - December 2007). Inclusion criteria included Omanis aged 40 years or above residents of Sohar city attending primary healthcare institutions not previously diagnosed with diabetes mellitus, hypertension, or chronic kidney diseases. Descriptive statistics were used to describe the demographic, physical and metabolic characteristics. Univariate analysis was used to identify the significant association between the characteristics and normal blood pressure, pre-hypertension and hypertension. Chi-squared test was used for categorical variables analysis and independent t-test was used for continuous variables analysis. In order to examine the strength of significant associations, the multinomial logistic regression analysis was used. RESULTS There were 1498 participants, 41% were males and 59% were females. Overall, pre-hypertension was observed in 45% of the total study population (95% CI: 0.422 - 0.473). There were more males affected than females (46% versus 44%). About 34% of the total study population was hypertensive. The multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that an increase of one unit of age, body mass index, fasting blood glucose and total blood cholesterol, were significantly associated with higher risk in both pre-hypertension and hypertension. High odds ratio of pre-hypertension and hypertension was found with the total blood cholesterol. CONCLUSION The prevalence of pre-hypertension was high among the Omani adult population. The determinants of pre-hypertension in this research age, body mass index, fasting blood glucose and total blood cholesterol. A cost-effectiveness study about the management of pre-hypertension within primary healthcare is significant in the future health system service strategies.
A profile-based protein sequence alignment algorithm for a domain clustering database

Aiming at the two main shortcomings in Homology Modeling, we have designed and established a domain clustering database. Searching the database is a fundamental work for it. However, current alignment algorithms are mainly based on the sequences, ignoring the structure conservation in domain. This paper proposed a profile-based alignment which considers the structure information into the profile, based on the character of our domain database. We designed an experiment within the database. The results show that both the quality and sensitivity of our scheme are better than pure Smith-Waterman and sequence-based profile algorithms. We strongly believe that this work can help to improve the protein structure prediction
Perceptuo-motor competence in prematurely born children at school age : Neurological and psychological aspects

This thesis focuses on perceptuo—motor competence in children born prematurely. The cohort, now 6 years of age, was highly selected and consisted of 183 children whose early cranial ultrasound appearance was well documented. In the literature review issues regarding the detection and classification of brain lesions, the outcome of follow up studies, and the description, identification and sub—grouping of children with perceptuo— motor problems are discussed. This is followed by an outline of the study undertaken and the results obtained. Overall differences in the performance on the neurological, perceptuo—motor, cognitive, behaviour and self—concept measures between the premature and reference groups are described. Prematurely born children showed more minor neurological signs and were less competent in age—appropriate perceptuo—motor tasks. Cognitive ability was generally lower in this group, but no differences with respect to the behaviour and self— concept measures were found. The relationship between early brain lesion and later perceptuo—motor competence was explored. Major haemorrhagic and/or ischaemic lesions were related to poor outcome. The prognosis of children with minor haemorrhagic and/or ischaemic lesions was more favourable although these children are clearly at an increased risk for more subtle perceptuo—motor problems as they grow up. The analyses suggested that among the group of children with perceptuo—motor problems six separate sub—groups existed. In addition to two sub—groups whose profile showed either average or below average performance across tasks, there were four sub— groups who showed specific problems with dynamic or static balance, ball skills or constructional tasks, respectively. Finally, the characteristics of children with poor constructional ability were examined in more detail. Using performance on a specially for this study designed form board task as an example, it was shown that in addition to quantitative profiles, qualitative descriptions of performance are important to gain a better understanding of subtle perceptuo—motor impairment in individual children.
Robust Principal Component Analysis with Missing Data

Recovering matrices from incomplete and corrupted observations is a fundamental problem with many applications in various areas of science and engineering. In theory, under certain conditions, this problem can be solved via a natural convex relaxation. However, all current provable algorithms suffer from superlinear per-iteration cost, which severely limits their applicability to large scale problems. In this paper, we propose a robust principal component analysis (RPCA) plus matrix completion framework to recover low-rank and sparse matrices from missing and grossly corrupted observations. Under the unified framework, we first present a convex robust matrix completion model to replace the linear projection operator constraint by a simple equality one. To further improve the efficiency of our convex model, we also develop a scalable structured factorization model, which can yield an orthogonal dictionary and a robust data representation simultaneously. Then, we develop two alternating direction augmented Lagrangian (ADAL) algorithms to efficiently solve the proposed problems. Finally, we discuss the convergence analysis of our algorithms. Experimental results verified both the efficiency and effectiveness of our methods compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms.
Extragalactic Foregrounds of the Cosmic Microwave Background: Prospects for the MAP Mission

While the major contribution to the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies are the sought-after primordial fluctuations produced at the surface of last scattering, other effects produce secondary fluctuations at lower redshifts. Here we study the extragalactic foregrounds of the CMB in the context of the upcoming Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) mission. We first survey the major extragalactic foregrounds and show that discrete sources, the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect, and gravitational lensing are the most dominant ones for MAP. We then show that MAP is expected to detect (>5 σ) about 46 discrete sources directly with 94 GHz fluxes above 2 Jy. The most prominent SZ features on the CMB sky are rich clusters of galaxies. In particular, we show that the Coma Cluster will be clearly detected and marginally resolved by MAP. We then consider a cosmological population of clusters, and show that MAP should detect (>5 σ) about 10 SZ clusters directly. The mean SZ fluxes of fainter clusters can be probed by cross-correlating MAP with cluster positions extracted from existing catalogs. For instance, a MAP-XBACs cross-correlation will be sensitive to clusters with S(94 GHz) ≳ 200 mJy, and will thus provide a test of their virialization state and a measurement of their gas fraction. Finally, we consider probing the hot gas on supercluster scales by cross-correlating the CMB with galaxy catalogs. Assuming that galaxies trace the gas, we show that a cross-correlation between the (MAP) and the Automatic Plate Measuring Facility (APM) catalog should yield a marginal detection, or at least a fourfold improvement on the COBE upper limits for the rms Compton y parameter.
New Forms of Interaction With Hierarchically Structured Events

Research in the semantic web community has given rise to some p werful methods for visualizing events and related media—mos tly in terms of interactive timelines—and for enabling users to interact with th ese visualizations. The present paper aims to advance this line of research in two way s: ( ) by developing interactive visualizations of event hierarchies of e ssentially arbitrary depth and size, which are more natural than timelines in the case of complex events that comprise subevents at various levels; and (b) by supporting forms of interaction that go beyond the usual activities of browsing and searchin g for events and related media, supporting additionally the sharing and annot ation of media and the provision of interactive illustrations of narrative texts .
Hospital-acquired pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia: recent advances in epidemiology and management

Purpose of review The recent evidence is reviewed on clinical epidemiology, trends in bacterial resistance, diagnostic tools and therapeutic options in hospital-acquired pneumonia (HAP), with a special focus on ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP). Recent findings The current incidence of VAP ranges from two to 16 episodes for 1000 ventilator-days, with an attributable mortality of 3–17%. Staphylococcus aureus (with 50–80% of methicillin-resistant strains), Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Enterobacteriaceae represent the most frequent pathogens in HAP/VAP. The prevalence of carbapenemase-producing Gram-negative bacilli (GNB) and the emergence of colistin resistance are alarming. Procalcitonin seems to have a good value to monitor the response to treatment. Rapid molecular tests for the optimization of empirical therapy will be available soon. Recent studies support the use of a high-dosing regimen of colistin in HAP/VAP caused by extensively drug-resistant GNB. Linezolid may probably be preferred to vancomycin for a subset of methicillin-resistant S. aureus HAP/VAP. Given the scarcity of novel antimicrobial drugs, different approaches such as bacteriophage therapy or immunotherapy warrant further clinical evaluations. Summary HAP/VAP is a major cause of deaths, morbidity and resources utilization, notably in patients with severe underlying conditions. The development of new diagnostic tools and therapeutic weapons is urgently needed to face the epidemic of multidrug-resistant pathogens.
Thymic OX40 Expression Discriminates Cells Undergoing Strong Responses to Selection Ligands 1

OX40 is a member of the TNF receptor family expressed on activated and regulatory T (Treg) cells. Using an Ox40-cre allele for lineage marking, we found that a subpopulation of naive T cells had also previously expressed OX40 in the thymus. Ox40-cre was induced in a small fraction of thymocytes that were OX40+, some of which were CD25high Treg cell precursors. Thymic OX40 expression distinguished cells experiencing a strong signaling response to positive selection. Naive T cells that had previously expressed OX40 demonstrated a partially activated phenotype that was distinct from that of most naive T cells. The results are consistent with the selection of Treg cells and a minor subpopulation of naive T cells being dependent on strong signaling responses to thymic self ligands.
Airway Delivery of Silica Increases Susceptibility to Mycobacterial Infection in Mice: Potential Role of Repopulating Macrophages1

Silica exposure results in an increased lifelong risk of developing mycobacterial pulmonary infections. To date, there are no animal models that replicate this finding to permit assessment of the mechanisms underlying susceptibility to mycobacterial infection. To test the hypothesis that prior silica exposure increases risk of mycobacterial infection, we intratracheally (I.T.) administered silica, a control dust (Al2O3) or saline into mechanically ventilated C57BL/6 mice. Later, the mice received Mycobacterium avium or Mycobacterium tuberculosis I.T. Mice were sacrificed at defined time points and mycobacteria in lung homogenates were quantified. M. avium or M. tuberculosis infection was markedly increased in silica-exposed mice compared with mice exposed to either Al2O3 or saline beginning 3 wk after silica exposure. Similarly, lung sections from silica-exposed mice had many more acid fast bacilli+ (AFB+) organisms than from control mice. Alveolar macrophages (AMs) from bronchoalveolar lavage of silica-exposed mice also revealed a higher number of mycobacteria compared with mice treated with Al2O3 or saline. In addition, passive transfer of AMs from silica-exposed mice to control mice increased M. tuberculosis susceptibility. These results indicate that silica exposure converts mycobacteria-resistant mice into mycobacteria-susceptible mice via a process that likely involves a new population of AMs that are more susceptible to mycobacterial infection.
Increased levels of tissue endostatin in human malignant gliomas.

PURPOSE Malignant gliomas are typically angiogenic and express greater amounts of angiogenic factors. We examined glioma tissues for their expression of an endogenous inhibitor of angiogenesis, endostatin, a COOH-terminal fragment of collagen XVIII. EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN We examined frozen tissues from 51 patients with astrocytic tumors (grade 2, 13; grade 3, 9; and grade 4, 29). Frozen tissues were subjected to immunoblot analysis and immunohistochemistry for endostatin. Tumor vascular density was determined by calculating the percentage of tumor capillary vessel areas/tissue section area. Tissue concentrations of vascular endothelial growth factor and basic fibroblast growth factor were examined by enzyme immunoassay. RESULTS The levels of endostatin protein estimated by immunoblotting were significantly higher in grade 4 than lower-grade glioma tissues. The immunoreactive bands for endostatin were identified as the fragment derived from noncollagenous domain 1 of collagen XVIII, a peptide 15 residues longer than endostatin toward the NH(2)-terminal end, by NH(2)-terminal amino acid sequencing. In addition to an intense immunoreactivity for endostatin in tumor blood vessels, sections from malignant gliomas showed widely distributed immunoreactivity around tumor cells near the hyperplastic microvessels. The tumor vascular density and the levels of vascular endothelial growth factor in grade 4 glioma tissues were significantly higher than grade 2 and grade 3 gliomas, whereas the levels of basic fibroblast growth factor were the same. CONCLUSIONS The results indicate a positive correlation between the levels of tissue endostatin and malignancy grades in gliomas. The endostatin may be released near the tumor blood vessels with hyperplasia to counteract angiogenic stimuli in malignant gliomas.