Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Vicarious Responses to Social Touch in Posterior Insular Cortex Are Tuned to Pleasant Caressing Speeds

Background. Affective touch carries strong significance for social mammals, including humans. Gentle, dynamic touch of a kind that occurs during social interactions is preferentially encoded by a distinct neural pathway involving tactile C (CT) afferents, a type of unmyelinated afferent nerve found exclusively in hairy skin. CT afferents increase firing when the skin is stroked at a pleasant, caress-like speed of ∼3 cm/s, and their discharge frequency correlates with the subjective hedonic experience of the caress. In humans, the posterior insula is a cortical target for CT afferents. Since the potential social relevance of affective touch extends to the touch interactions of others, we postulated that information from CT afferents in posterior insular cortex provides a basis for encoding observed caresses. Results. In two experiments, we exploited CT afferents' functionally unique tuning curve for stroking speed, demonstrating that a speed optimal for eliciting CT discharge (3 cm/s) also gives rise to higher BOLD responses in posterior insula than a nonoptimal speed (30 cm/s). When participants viewed videos of others' arms being stroked at CT-optimal versus -nonoptimal speeds, the posterior insula showed a similar response as to directly felt touch. Further, this region's response was specific for social interactions, showing no CT-related modulation for nonsocial dynamic-touch videos. Conclusions. These findings provide direct evidence for a functional relationship between CT signaling and processing in posterior insular cortex. Such selective tuning for CT-optimal signals in insula may allow recognition of the hedonic relevance of a merely observed caress.
Information gain in patients using a multimedia website with tailored information on anaesthesia.

BACKGROUND The preoperative visit is an appropriate time to educate the patient on anaesthesia. The aim of this study was to determine if a website, as an information source for anaesthesia before the visit to the preoperative assessment clinic (PAC), increases patients' knowledge on anaesthesia. METHODS A multimedia website was developed containing specific information about anaesthesia relevant to the patient. A questionnaire was developed to measure knowledge gain. Patients were divided into three groups: (i) those who read the existing brochure; (ii) those who looked at the new website; and (iii) a cluster of non-brochure and non-website users: those who did not read the brochure or website but had completed the questionnaire. An anaesthesiologist also informed all three groups during the preoperative visit at the PAC. RESULTS Patients visiting the website had a higher educational level than others. A significant increase in knowledge was observed after using the website information compared with the other two groups (P<0.001). The group with higher education levels had higher knowledge gains, and the website independently contributed to the knowledge gain. CONCLUSIONS A patient-tailored multimedia website is an effective way to support the information provided by the anaesthesiologist in order to inform patients about their upcoming anaesthetic procedure. The use of such a website gives a significant increase in knowledge compared with only spoken information, or spoken information combined with a brochure.
Crafting a Narrative Inheritance: An HCI Design Framework for Family Memory

xii Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Motivation 1 Thesis And Research Questions 3 RQ1: Understanding family memory practices 4 RQ2: Addressing the unmet challenges of digital mementos 5 RQ3: Designing interactive family memory artifacts 6 Thesis Contributions 6 Thesis Scope 7 Overview of Chapters 8
Overweight and Obesity Among Children and Adolescents in Al-Muqdadiyah City

خلفية الدراسة: السمنة لدى الأطفال, المراهقين أو البالغين واحدة من أكثر المخاطر الصحية في القرن الحادي والعشرين, إذ إنتشرت بشكل واسع خلال العقود الثلاثة الماضية, وأن هذا الإنتشار المتنامي لسمنة الأطفال له علاقة بنشوء الأمراض في أعمار مبكرة لما للسمنة من تأثيرات سلبية على كافة أعضاء الجسم تقريبا, وغالبا ما ينشأ عنها أمراض خطيرة. اهداف الدراسة: هدفت هذه الدراسة الى لمعرفة إنتشار هذا الوباء بين أطفالنا ورسم صورة حقيقية عن أطفال المدارس الإبتدائية في قضاء المقدادية. المرضى والطرائق : دراسة مستعرضة, تضمنت طلبة المراحل الخامسة والسادسة إذ تم أخذ المعلومات والقياسات من 633 طفل373) ذكر, 260أنثى) وبأعمار تراوحت بين 123-144 شهر في مدة تراوحت شهرا واحدا (كانون الأول (2016, تم من خلالها زيارة 10 مدارس إبتدائية لكلا الجنسين (أربع منها في مركز القضاء وست في القرى المحيطة به) شملت العمر, الوزن, الطول, حساب مؤشر كتلة الجسم, محيط الخصر, نسبة الخصر الى الطول, ضغط الدم الإنقباضي وضغط الدم الإنبساطي بالإضافة الى إستمارة إستبيان ومعلومات البطاقة المدرسية. النتائج: بلغت نسب فرط الوزن والسمنة عند الذكور 13.6%,4.07% للمرحلة الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي, أما الإناث فكانت 10.31%,6.06% للمرحلة الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي. وبلغت نسب فرط الوزن والسمنة المركزية لمحيط الخصر عند الذكور 4.2%,0.81% للمرحلة الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي, أما الإناث فكانت5 %,2.32% للمرحلة السادسة والخامسة على التوالي. وهناك إرتفاع في نسب ضغط الدم الإنقباضي لدى الذكور والإناث في المرحلة الخامسة والسادسة, وإنخفاض نسب ضغط الدم الطبيعي لكلا الجنسين فقد وصلت في الذكور الى %36.4 34.15% في المرحلتين الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي, والإناث 36.98%,22.73% في المرحلتين الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي. أما نسب ضغط الدم الإنبساطي الطبيعي فكانت56 %,54.47% للذكور في المرحلتين الخامسة والسادسة, والإناث 49.48%, 42.42% في المرحلتين الخامسة والسادسة على التوالي. الاستنتاجات : إن نسب إرتفاع ضغطي الدم الإنقباضي والإنبساطي كانت عالية بين الأطفال مما ينذر بحدوث كوارث صحية مستقبلية.
Haptic texturing-a stochastic approach

All objects have a surface roughness which manifests itself as small forces when objects slide under load against each other. Simulating this roughness haptically enriches the interaction between a user and a virtual world, just as creating graphical textures enhances the depiction of a scene. As with graphical textures, a major design constraint for haptic textures is the generation of a sufficiently "realistic" texture given hard constraints on computational costs. The authors present a simple, fast algorithm to synthesize haptic textures from statistical properties of surfaces. The synthesized texture can be overlaid on other contact models, such as hard contact with Coulomb friction. The algorithm requires minimal hardware support, and can be implemented on a variety of force-feedback mechanisms. It has been successfully implemented on a two-degree-of-freedom haptic interface (the Pantograph).
Ideal Binocular Disparity Detectors Learned Using Independent Subspace Analysis on Binocular Natural Image Pairs

An influential theory of mammalian vision, known as the efficient coding hypothesis, holds that early stages in the visual cortex attempts to form an efficient coding of ecologically valid stimuli. Although numerous authors have successfully modelled some aspects of early vision mathematically, closer inspection has found substantial discrepancies between the predictions of some of these models and observations of neurons in the visual cortex. In particular analysis of linear-non-linear models of simple-cells using Independent Component Analysis has found a strong bias towards features on the horoptor. In order to investigate the link between the information content of binocular images, mathematical models of complex cells and physiological recordings, we applied Independent Subspace Analysis to binocular image patches in order to learn a set of complex-cell-like models. We found that these complex-cell-like models exhibited a wide range of binocular disparity-discriminability, although only a minority exhibited high binocular discrimination scores. However, in common with the linear-non-linear model case we found that feature detection was limited to the horoptor suggesting that current mathematical models are limited in their ability to explain the functionality of the visual cortex.
A two-step serum-free culture system supports development of human oocytes from primordial follicles in the presence of activin.

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to determine whether follicles grown within human ovarian cortical strip culture for 6 days in serum-free medium could be isolated at the secondary stage of pre-antral development and grown in vitro to the late pre-antral/early antral stage during a 4 day culture period. METHODS Ovarian cortical biopsies were obtained from six women aged 26-40 years, with informed consent, during elective Caesarean section. Small tissue slices of ovarian cortex, with underlying stromal tissue removed, were cultured in serum-free medium for 6 days and at the end of this period pre-antral (secondary) follicles were dissected from the strips. Seventy-four intact pre-antral follicles ranging in size (66-132 microm) (mean size 100 microm +/- 3.4) were selected for further culture. Follicles were placed individually within V-shaped microwell culture plates in serum-free medium in the presence (n = 38) or absence (n = 36) of 100 ng/ml of human recombinant activin A. RESULTS Pre-antral follicles grown for 4 days in the presence of activin A grew to a larger size (mean diameter 143 microm +/- 7.4) than those grown in control medium (mean diameter 111 microm +/- 8) (P < 0.005). Ninety percent of follicles cultured in the presence of activin A increased in size during the first 2 days of culture compared with only 36% of follicles in control medium (P > 0.005). Of the follicles surviving the entire culture period, 30% of those cultured in the presence of activin A showed normal morphology with intact oocytes and antral formation. None of the follicles grown in control medium developed antral cavities and >90% of those follicles collected at the end of the culture period showed signs of oocyte degeneration. CONCLUSIONS The results reported here demonstrate that under certain conditions, it is possible to achieve accelerated oocyte/follicle development from human primordial/primary follicles. This provides the first encouraging step towards achieving full in vitro growth of human oocytes.
Degrees of sharing: proximate media sharing and messaging by young people in khayelitsha

This paper explores the phone and mobile media sharing relationships of a group of young mobile phone users in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Intensive sharing took place within peer and intimate relationships, while resource sharing characterized relationships with a more extensive circle, including members of the older generation. Phones were kept open to others to avoid inferences of stinginess, disrespect, or secretiveness and the use of privacy features (such as passwords) was complicated by conflicts between an ethos of mutual support and the protection of individual property and privacy. Collocated phone use trumped online sharing but media on phones constituted public personae similar to social media 'profiles'. Proximate sharing within close relationships allowed social display, relationship-building and deference to authority. We suggest changes to current file-based interfaces for Bluetooth pairing, media 'galleries', and peer-to-peer text communication to better support such proximate exchanges of media and messaging.
Image mining and Automatic Feature extraction from Remotely Sensed Image (RSI) using Cubical Distance Methods

Information processing and decision support system using image mining techniques is in advance drive with huge availability of remote sensing image (RSI). RSI describes inherent properties of objects by recording their natural reflectance in the electro-magnetic spectral (ems) region. Information on such objects could be gathered by their color properties or their spectral values in various ems range in the form of pixels. Present paper explains a method of such information extraction using cubical distance method and subsequent results. This method is one among the simpler in its approach and considers grouping of pixels on the basis of equal distance from a specified point in the image or selected pixel having definite attribute values (DN) in different spectral layers of the RSI. The color distance and the occurrence pixel distance play a vital role in determining similar objects as clusters aid in extracting features in the RSI domain.
Web Service Integration for Next Generation Localisation

Developments in Natural Language Processing technologies promise a variety of benefits to the localization industry, both in its current form in performing bulk enterprise-based localization and in the future in supporting personalized web-based localization on increasingly user-generated content. As an increasing variety of natural language processing services become available, it is vital that the localization industry employs the flexible software integration techniques that will enable it to make best use of these technologies. To date however, the localization industry has been slow reap the benefits of modern integration technologies such as web service integration and orchestration. Based on recent integration experiences, we examine how the localization industry can best exploit web-based integration technologies in developing new services and exploring new business models
Exploration of Event-Related Dynamics of Brain Oscillations in Ice Hockey Shooting

The research exploring the cognitive dynamics of sport performance has been largely dominated by the exploration of the alpha bandwidth in self-paced, closed skill sports or in resting conditions. Although voluntary (self-paced) movement demonstrates characteristic patterns of electroencephalographic activity, externally paced (stimulus driven) cortical activity is more complex and involves stimulus processing, anticipation, motor preparation, and execution (Neuper & Pfurtscheller, 2001). Thus, the primary purpose of the present study was to explore the event-related dynamics of brain oscillations in the externally paced sport skill of ice hockey shooting. Twenty-eight ice hockey players completed a total of 50 shots on net taken on five possible random targets that illuminated at a random time. This randomization of time and location enabled the evaluation of cue-driven cortical activity during a sport skill. Event-related desynchronization and synchronization of electroencephalographic activity were analyzed from −3 to +0.5 s relative to the cue light, and prior to shot execution was analyzed for multiple spectral bandwidths to explore premovement cortical dynamics. Overall, the results revealed that the cortical patterns of ice hockey shooting differ from that of self-paced, closed-skilled sport. Specifically, theta, alpha, and lower beta bands demonstrated significant widespread event-related desynchronization prior to the external cue (target light), and event-related synchronization (or reduction of event-related desynchronization) occurred only after the cue appeared.
Performance of Zigbee in Electricity Supply Substations

A study to assess the impact of partial discharge on the performance of ZigBee equipment in high voltage electricity supply substations is described. The character of partial discharge and ZigBee technology are both briefly reviewed. A field trial system developed for deployment in a 400 kV air insulted substation is described in detail and some preliminary proof-of-system results are presented.
A Novel Co-clustering Method with Intra-similarities

Recently, co-clustering has become a topic of much interest because of its applications to many problems. It has been proved more effective than one-way clustering methods. But the existing co-clustering approaches just treat the document as a collection of words, disregarding the word sequences. They only consider the co-occurrence counts of words and documents, but do not take into account the similarities between words and similarities between documents. However, these similarity information can help improving the co-clustering. In this paper, we incorporate the word similarities and document similarities into the co-clustering algorithm, and propose a new co-clustering method. And we provide a theoretical analysis that our algorithm can converge to a local minimum. The empirical evaluation on publicly available data sets also shows that our algorithm is effective.
Well-Posedness and Controllability of a Class of Coupled Linear Systems

We consider coupled systems consisting of an infinite-dimensional part and a finite-dimensional part connected in feedback, such as, for example, the well-known SCOLE system (a beam with a rigid body attached at one end). The external world interacts with the coupled system via the finite-dimensional part, which receives the external input and sends out the output. The infinite-dimensional part is assumed to be such that it becomes well-posed and strictly proper when connected in cascade with an integrator. Under several assumptions, we derive well-posedness and exact controllability results for such coupled systems. The first main result concerns the case when the input signal of the finite-dimensional part is the difference between the external input and the feedback signal. The second main result allows a more general structure for the finite-dimensional part. We also prove a result for the approximate controllability of coupled systems.
Nanoscale architecture in atherosclerotic calcification.

Calcium mineral deposits are radiographically evident in the majority of significant atherosclerotic lesions.1 These deposits generally consist of a nonhomogeneous composite containing hydroxyapatite mineral nanocrystals embedded in an organic matrix including type I collagen nanofibers. The morphometry varies over a spectrum. Amorphous deposits lack organization at the light-microscopic scale, whereas bone-like deposits have varying degrees of architectural macro-organization similar to those of developing and mature skeletal bone, which also consist of a nonhomogeneous composite containing hydroxyapatite nanocrystals embedded in a collagenous organic matrix. Based on histopathologic features, the organized, bone-like deposits appear to arise from angiogenic invasion of the amorphous deposits.2 This is consistent with the known sequence of events that leads to bone formation in fracture repair, embryonic intramembranous ossification, and in embryonic endochondral ossification, where bone arises from a cartilage scaffold. See accompanying article on page 2030 The similarities between atherosclerotic calcification and osteogenesis are more than skin deep. Several investigative groups have demonstrated osteogenic features at the cellular and molecular levels, including dynamic osteogenic gene expression in vitro and in vivo as reviewed recently by Towler and colleagues.3 In this issue of ATVB , Duer and colleagues4 take this comparison to the next level—nanoscale architecture. Using solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) techniques, they examined the mineral-organic interface in calcium deposits from atherosclerotic plaque and skeletal bone and found marked similarities. The NMR method (rotational echo double resonance) has the capacity to isolate the nanoscale features because it generates forces that act only within distances less …
Web Services Discovery and Invocation by using DNS-EPD

The universal description, discovery and integration (UDDI) is a specification for distributed Web-based information registries for Web Services. UDDI allows HTTP enabled business services to be published, and subsequently searched, based on their interface. However, Web services specifications may be changed, the address may be modified or the number of instances of a particular service deployed may vary. To solve this, DNS endpoint discovery (DNS-EPD) introduces an extension to the existing DNS infrastructure that provides the means of advertising and discovering Web service endpoint references using the domain name registry. In this paper, we propose a prototype implementation of the current DNS-EPD Internet-Draft that has been integrated as a discovery option for a handful of the Web services.
Contingencies for Low Implementation Levels of New Manufacturing Practices

New manufacturing practices, common in many industries, have been underrepresented in the apparel industry. For this industry, the researcher explored what barriers and organizational characteristics exist for firms that have low implementation levels of these new manufacturing practices. Findings show that management’s approach or strategy choice for quality management and return on investment had significant relationships to implementation levels of new manufacturing practices. Resources were perceived as a barrier to implementation, and firm size had significant relationships to new manufacturing practices implementation.
Golgi apparatus, GERL, and secretory granule formation within neurons of the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system of control and hyperosmotically stressed mice

The vasopressin-producing neurons of the hypothalamo-neurohypophysial system are a particularly good model with which to consider the relationship between the Golgi apparatus nd GERL and their roles in secretory granule production because these neurons increase their synthesis and secretion of vasopressin in response to hyperosmotic stress. Enzyme cytochemical techniques for acid phosphatase (AcPase) and thiamine pyrophosphatase (TPPase) activities were used to distinguish GERL from the Golgi apparatus in cell bodies of the supraoptic nucleus from normal mice, mice hyperosmotically stressed by drinking 2% salt water, and mice allowed to recover for 5-10 d from hyperosmotic stress. In nonincubated preparations of control supraoptic perikarya, immature secretory granules at the trans face of the Golgi apparatus were frequently attached to a narrow, smooth membrane cisterna identified as GERL. Secretory granules were occasionally seen attached to Golgi saccules. TPPase activity was present in one or two of the trans Golgi saccules; AcPase activity appeared in GERL and attached immature secretory granules, rarely in the trans Golgi saccules, and in secondary lysosomes. As a result of hyperosmotic stress, the Golgi apparatus hypertrophied, and secretory granules formed from all Golgi saccules and GERL. Little or no AcPase activity could be demonstrated in GERL, whereas all Golgi saccules and GERL-like cisternae were TPPase positive. During recovery, AcPase activity in GERL returned to normal; however, the elevated TPPase activity and secretory granule formation seen in GERL-like cisternae and all Golgi saccules during hyperosmotic stress persisted. These results suggest that under normal conditions GERL is the predominant site for the secretory granule formation, but during hyperosmotic stress, the Golgi saccules assume increased importance in this function. The observed cytochemical modulations in Golgi saccules and GERL suggest that GERL is structurally and functionally related to the Golgi saccules.
Scaling low-latency optical packet switches to a thousand ports

Optical packet switches that scale to thousands of input/output ports might find their application in next-generation datacenters (DCs). They will allow interconnecting the servers of a DC in a flat topology, providing higher bandwidth and lower latency in comparison with currently applied electronic switches. Using a simple analytic model that allows computing end-to-end latency and throughput, we show that optical interconnects that employ a centralized (electronic) controller cannot scale to thousands of ports while providing end-to-end latencies below 1 μs and high throughput. We therefore investigate architectures with highly distributed control. We present astrictly non-blocking wavelength division multiplexing architecture with contention resolution based on wavelength conversion. We study the packet loss probability of such architecture for different implementations of the contention resolution functionality. Furthermore, we show that the proposed architecture, applied in a short link with flow control, provides submicrosecond end-to-end latencies and allows high load operation, while scaling over a thousand ports.