Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Augmented climbing: interacting with projected graphics on a climbing wall

This paper describes our efforts in developing a novel augmented climbing wall. Our system combines projected graphics on an artificial climbing wall and body tracking using computer vision technology. The system is intended for accelerating motor skill learning or to make monotonous parts of the training fun by adding relevant goals and encouraging social collaboration. We describe six initial prototypes and the feedback obtained from testing them with intermediate and experienced climbers.
One-to-N wireless power transmission system based on multiple access one-way in-band communication

For an efficient wireless charging to multiple devices, transmitter (TX) system should be able to control the transmitting power-level by monitoring number of receiver (RX) devices via their identification information and charging status and capacity of each receivers. This work proposes a one-way in-band communication scheme, corresponding system structure, and charging algorithm for efficient one-to-N wireless charging system, which has been verified experimentally.
Both ETA and ETB receptors mediate contraction to endothelin-1 in human blood vessels.

BACKGROUND Endothelin (ET)-1 has potent vascular effects. Two endothelin receptors have been cloned, namely, the ETA receptor, which preferentially binds ET-1, and the ETB receptor, which equally binds ET-1 and ET-3 and preferentially sarafotoxin S6c. We characterized endothelin receptor subtypes on vascular smooth muscle and endothelium of isolated human internal mammary artery (IMA) and vein (IMV) and porcine coronary artery (PCA) using the ETA antagonists FR139317 and BQ-123, the ETB ligand sarafotoxin S6c, and the ETA/ETB antagonist Ro 47-0203 (bosentan). METHODS AND RESULTS In endothelium-denuded IMA and PCA and less so in IMV, FR139317 and BQ-123 (in PCA only) shifted the concentration-contraction curves to ET-1 parallel to the right. However, even at 10(-5) mol/L, FR139317 did not inhibit a high-sensitivity portion of the concentration-contraction curve. Moreover, the ETB receptor agonist sarafotoxin S6c induced contraction in vessels preincubated with FR139317. IMV was significantly more sensitive to the contractile effect of ET-1 and sarafotoxin S6c than was IMA (P < .05). Prolonged incubation with sarafotoxin S6c (to downregulate ETB receptors) and FR139317 eliminated the contraction resistant to FR139317. The ETA/ETB receptor antagonist bosentan caused a parallel shift of the concentration-contraction curve to the right at all concentrations of endothelin. ETB receptor mRNA was detected by Northern blot analysis in IMA and aortic smooth muscle cells. In precontracted IMA and PCA with endothelium, sarafotoxin S6c did not cause endothelium-dependent relaxations, whereas transient responses occurred in IMV. CONCLUSIONS Vascular smooth muscle cells of human IMA, IMV, and PCA contain both ETA and ETB receptors, whereas the endothelium of IMA and PCA does not express functional ETB receptors linked to nitric oxide and/or prostacyclin production. Hence, inhibition of endothelin-induced contraction in patients requires the use of combined ETA/ETB antagonists.
Examination of Image Retrieval System Using Subjective Image Information

The demand for an efficient retrieval method has increased as the number of digital content increases. However, a versatile image retrieving method does not exist though a lot of researches have been tried to achieve one up to now. This paper reports KANSEI perspective. It orthogonalizes to an existing retrieval method, and contributes to the improvement of retrieval precision by combining it. KANSEI perspective is a method to express image characteristics by extracting subjective features by watching the image. The features used in KANSEI perspective are categorized as follows: the object position in the image, the relative camera position, and the camera elevation. By combining these three parameters, the amount of feature of the image is assumed. The advantage of this method is to achieve less fluctuation of the expression by those who describe it. In addition, the amount of feature expressed by this method is to be described as meta-data item compliant to MPEG-7, and the image retrieval test bed using this method has been completed
The effects of a home exercise program on impairment and health-related quality of life in persons with chronic peripheral neuropathies.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The effects of a home exercise program for persons with chronic peripheral neuropathies (CPN) have not been documented. We compared changes in impairment and health-related quality of life (HRQL) between exercise and control groups, investigated the relationship between HRQL and measures of impairment, and contrasted the HRQL of individuals with CPN to that previously described for the general population. SUBJECTS Twenty-eight subjects with CPN, aged 23 to 84 years (mean = 56.2, SD = 14.9), completed the study. METHODS Impairment measures included average muscle score (AMS), handgrip force, walking time, and forced vital capacity. The HRQL instrument measured the eight scales of the Medical Outcomes Study 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36) and the component scales. The exercise group (n = 14) completed a 6-week home exercise program. The control group (n = 14) did not participate in a home exercise program. RESULTS There was an increase in the AMS in the exercise group compared with the control group. No other between-group differences were found. The exercise group improved in scores on the role limitation scales of the SF-36. The AMS and walking time were moderately correlated with the physical function scale of the SF-36 (r = .55 and -.62, respectively). The SF-36 scores of individuals with CPN were lower than scores previously described for the general population. CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION The home exercise program appears to be an important component of the treatment of persons with CPN. Compared with the general population, patients with CPN appear to have a lower HRQL, but some areas appear to improve following a home exercise program.
The Meanings of Interjections in Q’eqchi’ Maya

In Western philosophy and linguistic theory, interjectionsthat is, words like oof, ouch, and bleahhave traditionally been understood to indicate emotional states. This article offers an account of interjections in Qeqchi Maya that illuminates their social and discursive functions. In particular, it discusses the grammatical form of interjections, both in Qeqchi and across languages, and characterizes the indexical objects and pragmatic functions of interjections in Qeqchi in terms of a semiotic framework that may be generalized for other languages. With these grammatical forms, indexical objects, and pragmatic functions in hand, it details the various social and discursive ends that interjections serve in one Qeqchi community, thereby shedding light on local values, norms, ontological classes, and social relations. In short, this article argues against interpretations of interjections that focus on internal emotional states by providing an account of their meanings in terms of situational, discursive, and social context.
Modelling H.264/AVC sensivitity for error protection in wireless transmissions

A simple method is proposed to optimise the protection levels on the different parts of an H.264/AVC bitstream for transmission over an error-prone channel. This method relies on a semi-analytical model of the video stream sensitivity, that allows to predict the resulting distortion depending on the channel errors viewed by the video decoder. Valid for a frame, a partition or a group of pictures (GOP) by taking into account the dependencies existing between partitions and frames, the model allows to set the adapted protection for each partition or frame to minimise the overall sequence distortion for a given erroneous context by joint source channel optimisation of the compression and protection mechanisms. The method is then applied to determine the best trade-off of channel and source coding rates for a given operating point or protection rate, with equal or unequal error protection
Exploring the Relationship between Students' Sense of Community, Student Satisfaction, and Doctoral Program Retention

This is a study examining the interaction between certain doctoral student engagement indicators (peer, institution, curriculum, faculty, spirituality) and student satisfaction. The scope is to understand if student sense of community is a significant moderator to this interaction in order to address the issue of student attrition. It is important to understand these interactions and the influence of sense of community so that institutions of higher education better analyze student commitment. The outcomes of this study may be used as a means to design and implement engagement strategies that are effective in student retention and completion. Doctoral students were invited through email to participate in a Likert survey comprised of multiple scales measuring the key engagement indicators along with sense of community and student satisfaction. The quantitative results show that engagement is a predictor of satisfaction and, in some cases, is significantly moderated by sense of community. This study supports contemporary research conclusions suggesting that both student engagement and academic communities are paramount to student satisfaction which will ultimately lead to higher rates of retention. Recommendations for future research include determining how online students will be better served through engaging academic communities and strategies designed to enhance the engagement experiences.
Molecular characterization and functional properties of cardiomyocytes derived from human inducible pluripotent stem cells

In view of the therapeutic potential of cardiomyocytes derived from induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells (iPS‐derived cardiomyocytes), in the present study we investigated in iPS‐derived cardiomyocytes, the functional properties related to [Ca2+]i handling and contraction, the contribution of the sarcoplasmic reticulum (SR) Ca2+ release to contraction and the b‐adrenergic inotropic responsiveness. The two iPS clones investigated here were generated through infection of human foreskin fibroblasts (HFF) with retroviruses containing the four human genes: OCT4, Sox2, Klf4 and C‐Myc. Our major findings showed that iPS‐derived cardiomyocytes: (i) express cardiac specific RNA and proteins; (ii) exhibit negative force–frequency relations and mild (compared to adult) post‐rest potentiation; (iii) respond to ryanodine and caffeine, albeit less than adult cardiomyocytes, and express the SR‐Ca2+ handling proteins ryanodine receptor and calsequestrin. Hence, this study demonstrates that in our cardiomyocytes clones differentiated from HFF‐derived iPS, the functional properties related to excitation–contraction coupling, resemble in part those of adult cardiomyocytes.
Maintaining empathy in medical school: It is possible

Background: Empathy is an indispensable skill in medicine and is an integral part of ‘professionalism’. Yet, there is still increasing concern among medical educators and medical professionals regarding the decline in medical students’ empathy during medical education. Aims: This article aims at comparing the levels of empathy in medical school students across the different years of undergraduate medical education. It also aims at examining differences in empathy in relation to gender, year of study, cultural and religious backgrounds, previous tertiary education and certain programmes within the curriculum. Method: The Jefferson Scale of Physician Empathy, Student version (JSPE-S) was employed to measure empathy levels in medical students (years one to five) in a cross-sectional study. Attached to the scale was a survey containing questions on demographics, stage of medical education, previous education, and level of completion of particular programmes that aim at promoting personal and professional development (PPD). Results: Four hundred and four students participated in the study. The scores of the JSPE-S ranged from 34 to 135 with a mean score of 109.07 ± 14.937. Female medical students had significantly higher empathy scores than male medical students (111 vs. 106, p < 0.001) across all five years of the medical course. There was no significant difference in the total empathy scores in relation to year of medical education. Yet, the highest means were scored by year five students who had completed personal and professional development courses. Conclusions: Our findings suggest that there is a gender difference in the levels of empathy, favouring female medical students. They also suggest that, despite prior evidence of a decline, empathy may be preserved in medical school by careful student selection and/or personal and professional development courses.
Genomic interplay in bacterial communities: implications for growth promoting practices in animal husbandry

The discovery of antibiotics heralded the start of a “Golden Age” in the history of medicine. Over the years, the use of antibiotics extended beyond medical practice into animal husbandry, aquaculture and agriculture. Now, however, we face the worldwide threat of diseases caused by pathogenic bacteria that are resistant to all existing major classes of antibiotic, reflecting the possibility of an end to the antibiotic era. The seriousness of the threat is underscored by the severely limited production of new classes of antibiotics. Evolution of bacteria resistant to multiple antibiotics results from the inherent genetic capability that bacteria have to adapt rapidly to changing environmental conditions. Consequently, under antibiotic selection pressures, bacteria have acquired resistance to all classes of antibiotics, sometimes very shortly after their introduction. Arguably, the evolution and rapid dissemination of multiple drug resistant genes en-masse across microbial pathogens is one of the most serious threats to human health. In this context, effective surveillance strategies to track the development of resistance to multiple antibiotics are vital to managing global infection control. These surveillance strategies are necessary for not only human health but also for animal health, aquaculture and plant production. Shortfalls in the present surveillance strategies need to be identified. Raising awareness of the genetic events that promote co-selection of resistance to multiple antimicrobials is an important prerequisite to the design and implementation of molecular surveillance strategies. In this review we will discuss how lateral gene transfer (LGT), driven by the use of low-dose antibiotics in animal husbandry, has likely played a significant role in the evolution of multiple drug resistance (MDR) in Gram-negative bacteria and has complicated molecular surveillance strategies adopted for predicting imminent resistance threats.
The Household Registration System and Rural-Urban Educational Inequality in Contemporary China

This article examines the effect on educational inequality in contemporary China of the household registration (hukou) system, based on which Chinese citizens were designated as having either rural or urban status and entitled to different life chances. Analyses of data from a national representative survey in 2005 consistently reveal a significant educational gap between people of different hukou status, even after controlling for other covariates. Furthermore, to rule out the selectivity effect of hukou assignment based on education, endogenous switching regression models are employed to demonstrate a causal impact of hukou status on educational attainment. The article thus calls for attention to be paid to the hukou institution in studying educational stratification and the reassessment of the role of the socialist state in generating social inequality in contemporary China.
Microprocessor Technology and Single Event Upset Susceptibility

Today's small satellites employ powerful microcircuits to control virtually every aspect of the spacecraft. While these small devices are very capable, they are increasingly vulnerable to heavy ion induced Single Event Upset (SEU). Current technology is not very susceptible to SEUs. The evolution of microdevices is toward lower power and higher speed while spacecraft evolve toward smaller and lighter structures. This combination, along with the increased heavy ion particle fluence associated with large solar flares, will cause tomorrow's microdevices to experience SEU at rates approaching 100 upsets per device per day! To ensure mission success, these small satellites must consider implementing one or more SEU mitigation techniques.
Drosophila Food-Associated Pheromones: Effect of Experience, Genotype and Antibiotics on Larval Behavior

Animals ubiquitously use chemical signals to communicate many aspects of their social life. These chemical signals often consist of environmental cues mixed with species-specific signals—pheromones—emitted by conspecifics. During their life, insects can use pheromones to aggregate, disperse, choose a mate, or find the most suitable food source on which to lay eggs. Before pupariation, larvae of several Drosophila species migrate to food sources depending on their composition and the presence of pheromones. Some pheromones derive from microbiota gut activity and these food-associated cues can enhance larval attraction or repulsion. To explore the mechanisms underlying the preference (attraction/repulsion) to these cues and clarify their effect, we manipulated factors potentially involved in larval response. In particular, we found that the (i) early exposure to conspecifics, (ii) genotype, and (iii) antibiotic treatment changed D. melanogaster larval behavior. Generally, larvae—tested either individually or in groups—strongly avoided food processed by other larvae. Compared to previous reports on larval attractive pheromones, our data suggest that such attractive effects are largely masked by food-associated compounds eliciting larval aversion. The antagonistic effect of attractive vs. aversive compounds could modulate larval choice of a pupariation site and impact the dispersion of individuals in nature.
Robust word recognition using articulatory trajectories and gestures

Articulatory Phonology views speech as an ensemble of constricting events (e.g. narrowing lips, raising tongue tip), gestures, at distinct organs (lips, tongue tip, tongue body, velum, and glottis) along the vocal tract. This study shows that articulatory information in the form of gestures and their output trajectories (tract variable time functions or TVs) can help to improve the performance of automatic speech recognition systems. The lack of any natural speech database containing such articulatory information prompted us to use a synthetic speech dataset (obtained from Haskins Laboratories TAsk Dynamic model of speech production) that contains acoustic waveform for a given utterance and its corresponding gestures and TVs. First, we propose neural network based models to recognize the gestures and estimate the TVs from acoustic information. Second, the “synthetic-data trained” articulatory models were applied to the natural speech utterances in Aurora-2 corpus to estimate their gestures and TVs. Finally, we show that the estimated articulatory information helps to improve the noise robustness of a word recognition system when used along with the cepstral
Similarity is like analogy: Structural alignment in comparison

Similarity is a focal idea in cognitive theory. It is used to help explain conceptual structure, transfer of learning, generalization, and other basic phenomena. Despite its importance no satisfactory process model for similarity has yet been proposed. Previous work has generally assumed that similarity requires a simple measurement of mental distance or a straightforward count of matching and mismatching features . In this chapter we propose that the similarity process involves the alignment of relational structures . This proposal has its roots in research on analogical reasoning, which has long been viewed as a mapping of complex representations (Hesse 1966) . We begin by reviewing two current approaches to similarity . Then we describe a framework for characterizing analogical processing and show how this framework can be extended to include ordinary literal similarity. We suggest some processing principles for human similarity and discuss some supporting empirical findings . Finally, we describe a computer model that makes the processing principles more explicit and demonstrates that analogical mapping is a computationally viable process.
Bayesian Spam Filtering Mechanism Based on Decision Tree of Attribute Set Dependence in the MapReduce Framework

Bayesian spam filtering is a classification method based on the theory of probability and statistics, and the Bay- esian spam filtering based on Mapreduce can solve the defect of the traditional Bayesian spam filtering that consumes large amounts of system resources and network resources when the mail set is pre-training. It needs to classify mails manually in the pre-training phase of mail set, which consumes a lot of human and financial resources and affects the effi- ciency of the system. Bayesian spam filtering mechanism based on decision tree of the attribute sets dependence in the MapReduce framework which is presented in this paper. And the decision tree of attribute sets dependence is used in the training stage of the mail set, which improves execution efficiency of the system by lowering the time complexity.
The management of nipple pain and/or trauma associated with breastfeeding.

Breastfeeding is important for the health and development of both mother and child and provides optimal infant nutrition. Nipple pain and trauma as complications associated with breastfeeding are considered amongst the most significant factors impacting on breastfeeding in the first weeks of motherhood.2 The degree of nipple pain ranges from an uncomfortable feeling to severe pain, which is associated with nipple trauma in both frictional and suction lesions.4 The incidence is reported to vary between 34% to 96%2 and it peaks at day 3 and decreases by day 7.4 Up to one third of mothers who experience these complications may change to alternate methods of infant nutrition within the first six weeks postnatal.3 Definitions
Characterizing Web Page Complexity and Its Impact

Over the years, the Web has evolved from simple text content from one server to a complex ecosystem with different types of content from servers spread across several administrative domains. There is anecdotal evidence of users being frustrated with high page load times. Because page load times are known to directly impact user satisfaction, providers would like to understand if and how the complexity of their Web sites affects the user experience. While there is an extensive literature on measuring Web graphs, Web site popularity, and the nature of Web traffic, there has been little work in understanding how complex individual Web sites are, and how this complexity impacts the clients' experience. This paper is a first step to address this gap. To this end, we identify a set of metrics to characterize the complexity of Web sites both at a content level (e.g., number and size of images) and service level (e.g., number of servers/origins). We find that the distributions of these metrics are largely independent of a Web site's popularity rank. However, some categories (e.g., News) are more complex than others. More than 60% of Web sites have content from at least five non-origin sources, and these contribute more than 35% of the bytes downloaded. In addition, we analyze which metrics are most critical for predicting page render and load times and find that the number of objects requested is the most important factor. With respect to variability in load times, however, we find that the number of servers is the best indicator.