Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gaussian Process Regression for Continuous Emotion Recognition with Global Temporal Invariance

Continuous emotion recognition (CER) is a task which requires the prediction of time series emotional parameter outputs corresponding to query time series inputs given training data in the form of matched pairs of input and output time series. In order to address this task, it is important to be able to model not only relationships between points in the input and output spaces, but also temporal relationships between points within the output space. Gaussian process regression (GPR) is an inference technique which has desirable properties for CER, including its ability to produce predictive distributions over the outputs rather than only point estimates. However, GPR is generally applied to pointwise prediction or interpolation tasks, rather than to predictions of entire functional outputs. We propose a covariance structure that is able to incorporate both input-output and temporal information to produce predictions that take into account the functional nature of CER data. We demonstrate the application of this method to simulated data, and to the AVEC2016 CER task, showing that GPR with this covariance structure is able to make predictions of emotional arousal from audio with over twice the accuracy of a straightforward pointwise application of GPR in the input feature space, and is furthermore able to produce predictions with accuracy approaching that of a competitive CER system using only very general component covariance models.
Robust Mixed-Criticality Systems

Certification authorities require correctness and survivability. In the temporal domain this requires a convincing argument that all deadlines will be met under error free conditions, and that when certain defined errors occur the behaviour of the system is still predictable and safe. This means that occasional execution-time overruns should be tolerated and where more severe errors occur levels of graceful degradation should be supported. With mixed-criticality systems, fault tolerance must be criticality aware, i.e. some tasks should degrade less than others. In this paper a quantitative notion of robustness is defined, and it is shown how fixed priority-based task scheduling can be structured to maximise the likelihood of a system remaining fail operational or fail robust (the latter implying that an occasional job may be skipped if all other deadlines are met). Analysis is developed for fail operational and fail robust behaviour, optimal priority ordering is addressed and an experimental evaluation is described. Overall, the approach presented allows robustness to be balanced against schedulability. A designer would thus be able to explore the design space so defined.
Pseudoprogression of brain tumors

This review describes the definition, incidence, clinical implications, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) findings of pseudoprogression of brain tumors, in particular, but not limited to, high‐grade glioma. Pseudoprogression is an important clinical problem after brain tumor treatment, interfering not only with day‐to‐day patient care but also the execution and interpretation of clinical trials. Radiologically, pseudoprogression is defined as a new or enlarging area(s) of contrast agent enhancement, in the absence of true tumor growth, which subsides or stabilizes without a change in therapy. The clinical definitions of pseudoprogression have been quite variable, which may explain some of the differences in reported incidences, which range from 9–30%. Conventional structural MRI is insufficient for distinguishing pseudoprogression from true progressive disease, and advanced imaging is needed to obtain higher levels of diagnostic certainty. Perfusion MRI is the most widely used imaging technique to diagnose pseudoprogression and has high reported diagnostic accuracy. Diagnostic performance of MR spectroscopy (MRS) appears to be somewhat higher, but MRS is less suitable for the routine and universal application in brain tumor follow‐up. The combination of MRS and diffusion‐weighted imaging and/or perfusion MRI seems to be particularly powerful, with diagnostic accuracy reaching up to or even greater than 90%. While diagnostic performance can be high with appropriate implementation and interpretation, even a combination of techniques, however, does not provide 100% accuracy. It should also be noted that most studies to date are small, heterogeneous, and retrospective in nature. Future improvements in diagnostic accuracy can be expected with harmonization of acquisition and postprocessing, quantitative MRI and computer‐aided diagnostic technology, and meticulous evaluation with clinical and pathological data.
Orthodontic treatment in periodontitis‐susceptible subjects: a systematic literature review

The aim is to evaluate the literature for clinical scientific data on possible effects of orthodontic treatment on periodontal status in periodontitis‐susceptible subjects. A systematic literature review was performed on studies in English using PubMed, MEDLINE, and Cochrane Library central databases (1965‐2014). By manually searching reference lists of selected studies, we identified additional articles; then we searched these publications: Journal of Periodontology, Periodontology 2000, Journal of Clinical Periodontology, American Journal of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Angle Orthodontist, International Journal of Periodontics & Restorative Dentistry, and European Journal of Orthodontics. Search terms included randomized clinical trials, controlled clinical trials, prospective and retrospective clinical studies, case series >5 patients, periodontitis, orthodontics, alveolar bone loss, tooth migration, tooth movement, orthodontic extrusion, and orthodontic intrusion. Only studies on orthodontic treatment in periodontally compromised dentitions were included. One randomized controlled clinical trial, one controlled clinical trial, and 12 clinical studies were included. No evidence currently exists from controlled studies and randomized controlled clinical trials, which shows that orthodontic treatment improves or aggravates the status of periodontally compromised dentitions.
Neurology 2020 & Cognitive Neuroscience 2020 Neurovascular couping: A unifying theory for post-concussion syndrome treatment and functional neuroimaging

P ost-concussion syndrome (PCS) occurs in a significant percentage of concussion patients and is defined as having a history of traumatic brain injury with persistence of three or more symptoms. Standard structural clinical neuroimaging studies show no abnormal findings for the majority of PCS patients as opposed to functional MRI, which often reveals irregularities in the Blood-Oxygen Level Dependent (BOLD) signal. This suggests that dysregulation of Neurovascular Coupling (NVC), which causes abnormal BOLD signals, plays a significant role in PCS pathology. Compared to the pathophysiologic mechanisms occurring in acute concussion, the underlying neuropathophysiology of chronic concussive sequelaeor PCS is less understood, though becoming clearer with emerging research. We present a treatment approach grounded in the physiological theory presented here called Enhanced Performance in Cognition (EPIC), which has shown strong clinical success. Dysregulation of neurovascular coupling (NVC), along with disruptions in Cerebrovascular Reactivity (CVR) and Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) dysregulation are the targets of EPIC treatment. Success of the approach tentatively supports the hypothesis that these features figure prominently in the neuropathophysiology of PCS. The aim is to provide a theory of the underlying mechanisms of PCS pathology and its treatment that is in accord with the current corpus of research and explains the recent therapeutic success seen in PCS patient using the EPIC treatment. We propose a theory by which NVC dysregulation is normalized through focused, intense and repetitive neurocognitive challenges during post-exercise cognitive boost and the avoidance of intracerebral steal in the setting of restored and re-regulated CVR and ANS.
Can the Use of Variable-Angle Volar Locking Plates Compensate for Suboptimal Plate Positioning in Unstable Distal Radius Fractures? A Biomechanical Study

Objective: To compare the biomechanical stability under load-to-failure conditions of optimally placed fixed-angle volar locking plates versus suboptimally placed variable-angle volar locking plates in unstable, intraarticular distal radius fractures. Methods: A Melone type 1 (AO 23-C3) fracture was created in 25 sawbone radii and plated with either a fixed-angle or variable-angle Synthes plate with identical profile. Four plate positions were tested: distal ulnar (DU, positioned distally to obtain subchondral support and ulnar to hold the lunate facet fragments), distal radial (DR, 3 mm radial to DU), proximal ulnar (PU, 3 mm proximal to DU), and proximal radial (PR, 3 mm proximal and 3 mm radial to DU). The specimens were loaded until failure as defined by a 2-mm displacement of any fracture fragment. The fixed-angle plates were tested in the DU position, whereas the variable-angle plates were tested in all 4 positions. Results: The dorsal lunate fragment was the first to fail in every group followed by the radial styloid and volar lunate fragments, respectively. Load-to-failure, from greatest to least, occurred at the DR (278 ± 56 N), PR (277 ± 68 N), DU fixed-angle (277 ± 68 N), DU variable-angle (236 ± 31 N), and PU (202 ± 75 N) positions, respectively. Rigidity was calculated using the slope of the dorsal lunate force–displacement curve before failure (at loads 100–150 N). Rigidity was greatest at the PU position (126 ± 60 N/mm) followed by PR (125 ± 30 N/mm), DU fixed-angle (125 ± 25 N/mm), DR (122 ± 66 N/mm), and DU variable-angle (101 ± 35) positions, respectively. Univariate analysis of rigidity and load-to-failure was not significantly different between groups. Conclusions: In this experimental model, variable-angle screws provided a leeway of 3 mm in both the sagittal and coronal directions without sacrificing construct strength, which may considerably facilitate fixation of these difficult fractures.
αT-catenin: A developmentally dispensable, disease-linked member of the α-catenin family

ABSTRACT α-Catenins are actin-filament binding proteins and critical subunits of the cadherin-catenin cell-cell adhesive complex. They are found in nominally-defined epithelial (E), neural (N), and testis (T) forms transcribed from three distinct genes. While most of α-catenin research has focused on the developmentally essential founding member, αE-catenin, this review discusses recent studies on αT-catenin (CTNNA3), a developmentally dispensable isoform that is emerging as relevant to cardiac, allergic and neurological diseases.
CacheQuote: Efficiently Recovering Long-term Secrets of SGX EPID via Cache Attacks

Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX) allows users to perform secure computation on platforms that run untrusted software. To validate that the computation is correctly initialized and that it executes on trusted hardware, SGX supports attestation providers that can vouch for the user’s computation. Communication with these attestation providers is based on the Extended Privacy ID (EPID) protocol, which not only validates the computation but is also designed to maintain the user’s privacy. In particular, EPID is designed to ensure that the attestation provider is unable to identify the host on which the computation executes. In this work we investigate the security of the Intel implementation of the EPID protocol. We identify an implementation weakness that leaks information via a cache side channel. We show that a malicious attestation provider can use the leaked information to break the unlinkability guarantees of EPID. We analyze the leaked information using a lattice-based approach for solving the hidden number problem, which we adapt to the zero-knowledge proof in the EPID scheme, extending prior attacks on signature schemes.
Preleukemia and Leukemia-Initiating Cell Activity in inv(16) Acute Myeloid Leukemia

Acute myeloid leukemia (AML) is a collection of hematologic malignancies with specific driver mutations that direct the pathology of the disease. The understanding of the origin and function of these mutations at early stages of transformation is critical to understand the etiology of the disease and for the design of effective therapies. The chromosome inversion inv(16) is thought to arise as a founding mutation in a hematopoietic stem cell (HSC) to produce preleukemic HSCs (preL-HSCs) with myeloid bias and differentiation block, and predisposed to AML. Studies in mice and human AML cells have established that inv(16) AML follows a clonal evolution model, in which preL-HSCs expressing the fusion protein CBFβ–SMMHC persist asymptomatic in the bone marrow. The emerging leukemia-initiating cells (LICs) are composed by the inv(16) and a heterogeneous set of mutations. In this review, we will discuss the current understanding of inv(16) preleukemia development, and the function of CBFβ–SMMHC related to preleukemia progression and LIC activity. We also discuss important open mechanistic questions in the etiology of inv(16) AML.
Semiparametric efficiency bounds for high-dimensional models

Asymptotic lower bounds for estimation play a fundamental role in assessing the quality of statistical procedures. In this paper we propose a framework for obtaining semi-parametric efficiency bounds for sparse high-dimensional models, where the dimension of the parameter is larger than the sample size. We adopt a semi-parametric point of view: we concentrate on one dimensional functions of a high-dimensional parameter. We follow two different approaches to reach the lower bounds: asymptotic Cramer-Rao bounds and Le Cam's type of analysis. Both these approaches allow us to define a class of asymptotically unbiased or "regular" estimators for which a lower bound is derived. Consequently, we show that certain estimators obtained by de-sparsifying (or de-biasing) an $\ell_1$-penalized M-estimator are asymptotically unbiased and achieve the lower bound on the variance: thus in this sense they are asymptotically efficient. The paper discusses in detail the linear regression model and the Gaussian graphical model.
Questioning discrimination through critical media literacy. Findings from seven European countries

This paper presents the main findings of an action-research study that took place in seven European countries in order to develop effective educational responses to prevent and combat discrimination. The study entailed the design of media and citizenship education activities, their implementation in the different educational contexts and the evaluation of their effectiveness in raising young people’s awareness of discrimination. The results of the study shed light both on the advantages and constraints of educational practice, variations that often depend on the specific cultural and social context. On the one hand, the analysis and the evaluation of educational experiences suggest that critical media literacy can enable the development of critical reading/viewing skills as well as acts of participatory and inclusive citizenship that question derogative and essentialist media representations of the Other. On the other hand, the results highlight the difficulty of promoting young people’s awareness of discrimination through active methods of teaching and learning or through media content which is far from young people’s experience, interests and concerns.
Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognitive Functioning and Wellbeing: Biological and Psychological Benefits

Much evidence shows that physical exercise (PE) is a strong gene modulator that induces structural and functional changes in the brain, determining enormous benefit on both cognitive functioning and wellbeing. PE is also a protective factor for neurodegeneration. However, it is unclear if such protection is granted through modifications to the biological mechanisms underlying neurodegeneration or through better compensation against attacks. This concise review addresses the biological and psychological positive effects of PE describing the results obtained on brain plasticity and epigenetic mechanisms in animal and human studies, in order to clarify how to maximize the positive effects of PE while avoiding negative consequences, as in the case of exercise addiction.
Characterization, Sequence Determination, and Immunogenicity of a 64-Kilodalton Protein of Mycobacterium bovis BCG Expressed in Escherichia coli K-12

We report the DNA sequence of a previously cloned Mycobacterium bovis BCG gene encoding an immunogenic 64-kilodalton protein. This protein, MbaA, was purified from overproducing Escherichia coli K-12 cells, and the presence of antibodies to MbaA in human sera was determined by an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. In about 80% of serum samples from tuberculosis patients and in about 60% of samples from BCG-vaccinated individuals, significant levels of anti-MbaA antibodies were found. Surprisingly, in about 30% of the control serum samples obtained from children, anti-MbaA antibodies were also observed. Guinea pigs sensitized with M. bovis BCG or MbaA showed a delayed-type hypersensitivity reaction after challenge with purified MbaA, supporting the previously observed strong reactivity of human T-cell clones with this, for mycobacteria, common antigen.
Oberlin's Transfer: Long Term Outcomes.

BACKGROUND Brachial plexus injury is very commonly associated with road traffic accidents, and frequently affects young adults, causing significant disability and impact on quality of life. The successful treatment of upper plexus injury with the Oberlin technique to restore elbow flexion with good functional results. METHODS We retrieved the records of all patients with upper plexus injury who underwent Oberlin transfer operation between March 2007 and July 2012. Outcomes were assessed using the Medical Research Council (MRC) power grading system for biceps muscle, Disabilities of the Arm, Shoulder and Hand score (DASH) for patient functional outcomes and the Visual Analogue Scale for daily disability (VAS where 0- no restrictions; 10- significant limitations) for overall patient satisfaction. Follow-up was performed for at least 12 months post-operatively. RESULTS The average follow up period was 43.6 months. Six cases gained effective elbow flexion, improving to MRC grade 5/5 and four cases improved to MRC grade 4/5 for biceps function. The average DASH score was 27.25. One patient had serious disability with no changes after Oberlin's transfer operation. No permanent impairment of ulnar nerve function was observed. Seven out of 10 patients had begun daily work, with no discomfort and no functional impact on activities of daily living. CONCLUSIONS We found The Oberlin transfer is a useful salvage procedure and most effective results are for young patients with short interval between injury and operation.
Tackling Adolescent Substance Abuse in Hong Kong: Where We Should and Should Not Go

In the 2007 Policy Address, the Chief Executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, P.R. C. expressed the Administration’s concern about adolescent substance abuse and proposed to form a high-level interdepartmental task force to tackle the problem in a holistic manner. In this paper, the author presents his observations about adolescent substance abuse in Hong Kong, and outlines the risk factors and related strategies based on the ecological perspective that the Government should consider in order to tackle the problem of adolescent substance abuse in Hong Kong. Furthermore, the directions where the Government should and should not go are discussed.
Research in the Sociology of Education

paradox; it has become both established and disestablished more or less concurrently. The establishment is unquestionable - recognition in universities and colleges throughout most of the world for sociology as a subject with academic standing and with legitimate research functions - a rapid growth in the range of accredited and well-funded research institutes; definitive recognition through direct sponsorship from major funding organizations and through public grant-awarding bodies. The establishment of research in sociology has been a necessary condition of the establishment of the discipline itself. Only by demonstrating, empirically that there are laws governing human behaviour in societies could sociology substantiate its claim for a legitimate separate existence either from literature with its established capacity to describe and interpret human interaction, or from history with its established strategies of analysing unique events and their consequencesl. The battle for scientific recognition of this kind was first fought by the psychologists, successfully but at considerable cost to the development of the subject - where the crudities of behaviourism, having the manner of approved scientific method, were tolerated, while the existing but largely untestable hypotheses in the field of psychoanalysis presented continuous embarrassment. The rigorous formalism of the British Psychological Society, still largely modelled on the prestigious pure science organizations, points to a continuing belief in a need for scientific respectability. Sociology was spared some of these traumas. The recognition of psychology opened the path for the recognition of sociology even though it was along a path that had been laid down by the psychologists. But at least some of the exertions to establish it could be avoided by sociologists who were able to devote somewhat more of their time to exploring sociological as opposed to scientific perspectives. In this they were helped by the standing of anthropological study as a distinct and acceptable even if somewhat remote area of study. Yet the influence of the psychological interpretation of the pure science model on sociology is regularly to be seen, and Swift (1973) has noted that sociologists in Britain still find themselves "forced" into doing social psychology'. He suggests that many of the problems in the way of a fruitful relationship between sociology and psychology spring from the psychology determined path of recognition that has had to be trodden by sociologists. There are many examples in present day sociology that reaffirm this history. The almost
Enabling Users of Enterprise Systems to Mash Up Resources and Develop Widgets

Companies are operating in a dynamic environment and need continuously to adapt their information systems to changing business processes and associated information needs. Viewed from a micro-perspective, business users are managing and executing business processes on a daily basis, but are not able to adapt used software to their individual needs and working practices. In this chapter, we present the development and evaluation of a prototypic environment which enables users to create enterprise widgets tailored to their personal information needs without the need of programming knowledge. It allows the mashing up of enterprise resources using a lightweight visual design technique. The evaluation of the prototype in business contexts indicates its usefulness and usability.
How do anticoagulated atrial fibrillation patients who suffer ischemic stroke or spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage differ?

Atrial fibrillation (AF) increases risk of ischemic stroke, and oral anticoagulation (OAC) increases risk of intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). This study aimed to compare OAC‐treated AF patients with an ischemic stroke/transient ischemic attack (TIA) or spontaneous ICH as their first lifetime cerebrovascular event, especially focusing on patients with therapeutic international normalized ratio (INR).