Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Categorical Perception of Fear and Anger Expressions in Whole, Masked and Composite Faces

Human observers are remarkably proficient at recognizing expressions of emotions and at readily grouping them into distinct categories. When morphing one facial expression into another, the linear changes in low-level features are insufficient to describe the changes in perception, which instead follow an s-shaped function. Important questions are, whether there are single diagnostic regions in the face that drive categorical perception for certain parings of emotion expressions, and how information in those regions interacts when presented together. We report results from two experiments with morphed fear-anger expressions, where (a) half of the face was masked or (b) composite faces made up of different expressions were presented. When isolated upper and lower halves of faces were shown, the eyes were found to be almost as diagnostic as the whole face, with the response function showing a steep category boundary. In contrast, the mouth allowed for a substantially lesser amount of accuracy and responses followed a much flatter psychometric function. When a composite face consisting of mismatched upper and lower halves was used and observers were instructed to exclusively judge either the expression of mouth or eyes, the to-be-ignored part always influenced perception of the target region. In line with experiment 1, the eye region exerted a much stronger influence on mouth judgements than vice versa. Again, categorical perception was significantly more pronounced for upper halves of faces. The present study shows that identification of fear and anger in morphed faces relies heavily on information from the upper half of the face, most likely the eye region. Categorical perception is possible when only the upper face half is present, but compromised when only the lower part is shown. Moreover, observers tend to integrate all available features of a face, even when trying to focus on only one part.
Sequential cryogen spraying for heat flux control at the skin surface

Heat transfer rate at the skin-air interface is of critical importance for the benefits of cryogen spray cooling in combination with laser therapy of shallow subsurface skin lesions, such as port-wine stain birthmarks. With some cryogen spray devices, a layer of liquid cryogen builds up on the skin surface during the spurt, which may impair heat transfer across the skin surface due to relatively low thermal conductivity and potentially higher temperature of the liquid cryogen layer as compared to the spray droplets. While the mass flux of cryogen delivery can be adjusted by varying the atomizing nozzle geometry, this may strongly affect other spray properties, such as lateral spread (cone), droplet size, velocity, and temperature distribution. We present here first experiments with sequential cryogen spraying, which may enable accurate mass flux control through variation of spray duty cycle, while minimally affecting other spray characteristics. The observed increase of cooling rate and efficiency at moderate duty cycle levels supports the above described hypothesis of isolating liquid layer, and demonstrates a novel approach to optimization of cryogen spray devices for individual laser dermatological applications.
New Insights into the Genetic Organization of the FK228 Biosynthetic Gene Cluster in Chromobacterium violaceum No. 968

ABSTRACT The biosynthetic gene cluster of FK228, an FDA-approved anticancer natural product, was identified and sequenced previously. The genetic organization of this gene cluster has now been delineated through systematic gene deletion and transcriptional analysis. As a result, the gene cluster is redefined to contain 12 genes: depA through depJ, depM, and a newly identified pathway regulatory gene, depR.
DDRC: Data Dissemination in Vehicular Networks Using Rateless Codes

In this paper, we address the problem of delivering multimedia content to a sparse vehicular network from roadside info-stations, using efficient vehicle-to-vehicle collaboration. Due to the highly dynamic nature of the underlying vehicular network topology, we depart from architectures requiring centralized coordination, reliable MAC scheduling, or global network state knowledge, and instead adopt a distributed paradigm with simple protocols. In other words, we investigate the problem of reliable dissemination from multiple sources when each node in the network shares a limited amount of its resources for cooperating with others. By using rateless coding at the Road Side Unit (RSU) and using vehicles as data carriers, we describe an efficient way to achieve reliable dissemination to all nodes (even disconnected clusters in the network). In the nutshell, we explore vehicles as mobile storage devices. We then develop a method to keep the density of the rateless coded packets as a function of distance from the RSU at the desired level set for the target decoding distance. We investigate various tradeoffs involving buffer size, maximum capacity, and the mobility parameter of the vehicles.
Contamination by the Israeli Military Industry and its Impact on Apartment Sale Prices in an Adjacent Tel-Aviv Neighborhood : A Hedonic Pricing Model Study

Contamination by the Israeli Military Industry and its Impact on Apartment Sale Prices in an Adjacent Tel-Aviv Neighborhood: A Hedonic Pricing Model Study A window of opportunity opened to investigate present effects of past environmental policies of the Israel Defense Forces and its military industry when one of its facilities, Taas Magen, was required to close down in 1997. For decades, untreated discharge was released into absorption pits, which contaminated the soil and groundwater with many toxic compounds, including the carcinogen trichloroethylene. Surrounding the industrial facility is a housing market, consisting of more than 11,000 apartments, directly affected by the contamination. This hedonic pricing model study quantifies the effect of the environmental degradation due to the operations of Taas Magen on the nearby housing market. This was achieved by examining the effect distance away from Taas had on apartment sale prices. Results show that apartments near the facility were more negatively impacted than those further away. Next, the model was expanded to isolate the impact of the contamination from that of the facility by incorporating information regarding the public’s awareness of the degradation. The resulting regression coefficients suggest that only after public acknowledgement of the harm did distance significantly impact prices. Therefore, it is the environmental contamination and not necessarily the facility that negatively impacted prices. As a result of the contamination, the mean apartment price loss was -$24,650.74 (’06 dollars), which is approximately 14% of an apartment’s average value. Losses to the surrounding housing market are estimated at $267 to $287 million. These are only a minimum of the total social and economic costs incurred by the greater community, which are estimated to total at least $358 million. Assuming the government were to fund the estimated $33 million cleanup costs, a minute gain of 1.5% in the value of this $2.2 billion housing market would create the necessary economic benefit to offset the cost of decontaminating the site. Similarly, a more technologically advanced, yet expensive, iron nanoparticle remediation process would require a gain of 10.1% to offset its costs. Such market gains are not unreasonable given a drastic decrease in environmental harms. Furthermore, reclaiming a lost aquifer, reduction in human health risks, restoration of environmental integrity, and further increases to the housing market are all benefits of remediation that may greatly overshadow the concomitant cleanup costs. Future research should focus on quantifying all these benefits. With such information at hand, it will undoubtedly become apparent that remediation is socially and economically feasible.
Dynamics of cD Clusters of Galaxies. IV. Conclusion of a Survey of 25 Abell Clusters

We present the final results of a spectroscopic study of a sample of cD galaxy clusters. The goal of this program has been to study the dynamics of the clusters, with emphasis on determining the nature and frequency of cD galaxies with peculiar velocities. Redshifts measured with the MX Spectrometer have been combined with those obtained from the literature to obtain typically 50–150 observed velocities in each of 25 galaxy clusters containing a central cD galaxy. We present a dynamical analysis of the final 11 clusters to be observed in this sample. All 25 clusters are analyzed in a uniform manner to test for the presence of substructure and to determine peculiar velocities and their statistical significance for the central cD galaxy. These peculiar velocities were used to determine whether or not the central cD galaxy is at rest in the cluster potential well. We find that 30%–50% of the clusters in our sample possess significant subclustering (depending on the cluster radius used in the analysis), which is in agreement with other studies of non-cD clusters. Hence, the dynamical state of cD clusters is not different than that of other present-day clusters. After careful study, four of the clusters appear to have a cD galaxy with a significant peculiar velocity. Dressler-Shectman tests indicate that three of these four clusters have statistically significant substructure within 1.5 h Mpc of the cluster center. The dispersion of the cD peculiar velocities is 164 km s-1 around the mean cluster velocity. This represents a significant detection of peculiar cD velocities but at a level that is far below the mean velocity dispersion for this sample of clusters. The picture that emerges is one in which cD galaxies are nearly at rest with respect to the cluster potential well but have small residual velocities due to subcluster mergers.
Personalized Anonymity Algorithm Using Clustering Techniques

Anonymity is an essential technique to preserve individual privacy information in data releasing setting. However, most existing anonymous methods focus on the universal approach that exerts the same amount of preservation for all individuals. The result is that the released data may offer insufficient protection to a subset of people, while applying excessive privacy control to another subset. In addition, those methods using generalization and suppression techniques suffer from high information loss and low usability mainly due to reliance on pre-defined generalization hierarchies or total order imposed on each attribute domain. To address this issue, we develop a new personalized anonymity algorithm using clustering techniques. Experimental results show that the proposed method can reduce the information loss and improve the usability of the released data while satisfying everybody’s privacy preserving requirements.
An Architecture for Contextual Insider Threat Detection

Recent studies have shown there is a growing concern about the damage possible when trusted organization insiders behave maliciously. In particular, data exfiltration can lead to loss of revenue, damage to an organization’s reputation, and disruption of service for critical infrastructure systems. In this work, we introduce the Contextually Adaptive INsider threat architecture (CAIN), which incorporates contextual and risk-based access control with anomaly detection. While traditional Mandatory Access Control (MAC) can offer high assurance for information security, its rigid structure can hinder workers’ productivity. The goal of CAIN is to balance these dual goals of data protection and flexible access. This paper outlines the design goals of CAIN, as well as the behavior of its components. We also describe our initial design for building a prototype of our system and our future work.
Mapping knowledge to boolean dynamic systems in Bateson's epistemology.

Gregory Bateson (1972, 1979) established an epistemology that integrates mind and nature as a necessary unity, a unity in which learning and evolution share fundamental principles and in which criteria for mental process are explicitly specified. E42 is a suite of freely available Java applets that constitute an online research lab for creating and interacting with simulations of the Boolean systems developed by Kauffman (1993) in his study of evolution where he proposed that self-organization and natural selection are co-principles "weaving the tapestry of life. " This paper maps Boolean systems, developed in the study of evolution, onto Bateson's epistemology in general and onto his criteria of mental process in particular.
Protective Effect of Fisetin (3,7,3',4'-Tetrahydroxyflavone) against γ-Irradiation-Induced Oxidative Stress and Cell Damage

Ionizing radiation can induce cellular oxidative stress through the generation of reactive oxygen species, resulting in cell damage and cell death. The aim of this study was to determine whether the antioxidant effects of the flavonoid fisetin (3,7,3',4'-tetrahydroxyflavone) included the radioprotection of cells exposed to γ-irradiation. Fisetin reduced the levels of intracellular reactive oxygen species generated by γ-irradiation and thereby protected cells against γ-irradiation-induced membrane lipid peroxidation, DNA damage, and protein carbonylation. In addition, fisetin maintained the viability of irradiated cells by partially inhibiting γ-irradiation-induced apoptosis and restoring mitochondrial membrane potential. These effects suggest that the cellular protective effects of fisetin against γ-irradiation are mainly due to its inhibition of reactive oxygen species generation.
A Preliminary Study of a New Soft Biometric Finger Recognition for Keystroke Dynamics

Keystroke dynamics is an interesting biometric modal- ity as a user can be authenticated while typing a passphrase or a password on a keyboard. In order to improve the accuracy of biometric systems, it is possible to exploit some prior information that can be known or extracted from the biometric raw data. This process is known as "soft biometrics". In this paper, we propose a new soft biometric approach for keystroke dynamics con- sisting in extracting from keystroke dynamics templates if the user types with one or two hands. Preliminary experi- mental results show a correct accuracy recognition equal to 80%.
Effect of a mitochondria-targeted vitamin E derivative on mitochondrial alteration and systemic oxidative stress in mice

The objective of the present study was to determine whether a mitochondria-targeted vitamin E derivative (MitoVit E) would affect certain mitochondrial parameters, as well as systemic oxidative stress. A total of sixty-four mice were fed a high-fat (HF) diet for 5 weeks. They were then switched to either a low-fat (LF) or a medium-fat (MF) diet, and administered orally with MitoVit E (40 mg MitoVit E/kg body weight) or drug vehicle (10 % (v/v) ethanol in 0·9 % (w/v) NaCl solution), every other day for 5 weeks. Mitochondrial ATP and H2O2 production rates in both the liver and the gastrocnemius were not affected by MitoVit E administration in either LF or MF diet-fed mice. However, the number and average size of the subsarcolemmal mitochondria, but not the intermyofibrillar mitochondria, from the soleus muscle were significantly higher in the MF group receiving MitoVit E (MF-E) than in the MF group receiving vehicle only (MF-C). After the mice were switched from the HF diet to the four dietary treatments (LF-C, LF-E, MF-C and MF-E), the decrease in urinary isoprostane concentration was significantly greater in the LF-E group than in the other three groups during the whole study (weeks 6–10). In addition, MitoVit E significantly increased plasma superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity in the MF diet-fed group without affecting plasma glutathione peroxidase activity or H2O2 levels. Overall, these data suggest that MitoVit E affects subsarcolemmal mitochondrial density and systemic oxidative stress parameters such as plasma SOD activity and urinary isoprostane concentration.
Latest supernova data in the framework of the generalized Chaplygin gas model

We use the most recent Type Ia supernova data in order to study the dark energy–dark matter (XCDM) unification approach in the context of the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model. Rather surprisingly, we find that data allow models with α > 1. We have studied how the GCG adjusts flat and non-flat models, and our results show that GCG is consistent with a flat case up to 68 per cent confidence level. Actually this holds even if one relaxes the flat prior assumption. We have also analysed what one should expect from a future experiment such as the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP). We find that there is a degeneracy between the GCG model and an XCDM model with a phantom-like dark energy component.
Impact of Cerebrospinal Fluid Shunting for Idiopathic Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus on the Amyloid Cascade

The aim of this study was to determine whether the improvement of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) flow dynamics by CSF shunting, can suppress the oligomerization of amyloid β-peptide (Aβ), by measuring the levels of Alzheimer’s disease (AD)-related proteins in the CSF before and after lumboperitoneal shunting. Lumbar CSF from 32 patients with idiopathic normal pressure hydrocephalus (iNPH) (samples were obtained before and 1 year after shunting), 15 patients with AD, and 12 normal controls was analyzed for AD-related proteins and APLP1-derived Aβ-like peptides (APL1β) (a surrogate marker for Aβ). We found that before shunting, individuals with iNPH had significantly lower levels of soluble amyloid precursor proteins (sAPP) and Aβ38 compared to patients with AD and normal controls. We divided the patients with iNPH into patients with favorable (improvement ≥ 1 on the modified Rankin Scale) and unfavorable (no improvement on the modified Rankin Scale) outcomes. Compared to the unfavorable outcome group, the favorable outcome group showed significant increases in Aβ38, 40, 42, and phosphorylated-tau levels after shunting. In contrast, there were no significant changes in the levels of APL1β25, 27, and 28 after shunting. After shunting, we observed positive correlations between sAPPα and sAPPβ, Aβ38 and 42, and APL1β25 and 28, with shifts from sAPPβ to sAPPα, from APL1β28 to 25, and from Aβ42 to 38 in all patients with iNPH. Our results suggest that Aβ production remained unchanged by the shunt procedure because the levels of sAPP and APL1β were unchanged. Moreover, the shift of Aβ from oligomer to monomer due to the shift of Aβ42 (easy to aggregate) to Aβ38 (difficult to aggregate), and the improvement of interstitial-fluid flow, could lead to increased Aβ levels in the CSF. Our findings suggest that the shunting procedure can delay intracerebral deposition of Aβ in patients with iNPH.
In hindsight, life Xows from left to right

Three experiments investigated the mental representation of meaningful event sequences. Experiment 1 used extended (5 min long) naturalistic scenes excerpted from commercial movies. Experiments 2 and 3 presented everyday activities by means of sequences of six photo- graphs. All experiments found both left-right and distance eVects in an order decision task, suggesting that when con- templated in hindsight, experienced events unfold along a left-to-right analogical mental line. Present results are dis- cussed in the context of the mental representation of other kinds of ordinal sequences, and other left-right eVects reported in non-ordinal domains.
Dynamic instability 30 years later: complexities in microtubule growth and catastrophe

Microtubules are not like other polymers. Whereas polymers such as F-actin will grow continuously as long as the subunit concentration is high enough, a steadily growing microtubule can suddenly shrink even when there is ample αβ-tubulin around. This remarkable behavior was discovered in 1984 when Tim Mitchison and Marc Kirschner deduced that microtubules switch from growth to shrinkage when they lose their GTP caps. Here, I review the canonical explanation of dynamic instability that was fleshed out in the years after its discovery. Many aspects of this explanation have been recently subverted, particularly those related to how GTP-tubulin forms polymers and why GTP hydrolysis disrupts them. I describe these developments and speculate on how our explanation of dynamic instability can be changed to accommodate them.
Selecting a comprehensive set of reviews

Online user reviews play a central role in the decision-making process of users for a variety of tasks, ranging from entertainment and shopping to medical services. As user-generated reviews proliferate, it becomes critical to have a mechanism for helping the users (information consumers) deal with the information overload, and presenting them with a small comprehensive set of reviews that satisfies their information need. This is particularly important for mobile phone users, who need to make decisions quickly, and have a device with limited screen real-estate for displaying the reviews. Previous approaches have addressed the problem by ranking reviews according to their (estimated) helpfulness. However, such approaches do not account for the fact that the top few high-quality reviews may be highly redundant, repeating the same information, or presenting the same positive (or negative) perspective. In this work, we focus on the problem of selecting a comprehensive set of few high-quality reviews that cover many different aspects of the reviewed item. We formulate the problem as a maximum coverage problem, and we present a generic formalism that can model the different variants of review-set selection. We describe algorithms for the different variants we consider, and, whenever possible, we provide approximation guarantees with respect to the optimal solution. We also perform an experimental evaluation on real data in order to understand the value of coverage for users.
Striatal dopamine transporter imaging correlates with anxiety and depression symptoms in Parkinson's disease.

UNLABELLED We studied the correlation of striatal dopamine transporter (DAT) imaging with anxiety and depression symptoms in Parkinson's disease (PD). METHODS Patients with idiopathic PD (n = 76) and age-matched healthy volunteers (n = 46) underwent SPECT brain scans with (99m)Tc-TRODAT-1, a radiolabeled tropane that selectively binds to the DAT. TRODAT-1 distribution volume ratios, a reflection of DAT availability, were calculated from the SPECT scan data for 6 regions of interest (ROIs) in the caudate and putamen. The association between neuropsychiatric symptoms (anxiety, depression, and fatigue) and DAT availability was explored for both subject groups, and the impact of disease severity on this association was examined in the PD group. RESULTS PD patients showed lower DAT availability than did healthy volunteers in all examined regions (for all ROIs, P < 0.001). In PD patients, higher individual affective measures (for anxiety, r = -0.30 and P = 0.01; and for depression, r = -0.24 and P = 0.05) and total affect scores (r = -0.31; P = 0.01) were associated with diminished left anterior putamen DAT availability. The association between total affect scores and DAT availability was present only in the subset of patients with less severe PD (r = -0.35; P = 0.04), but subjects with the highest DAT availability did not show high total affect scores. No association between neuropsychiatric measures and DAT availability was found in the controls. CONCLUSION These preliminary findings suggest that decreased DAT availability may be necessary for but not invariably associated with the development of affective symptoms in PD. This suggestion is consistent with previous research showing a link between depression and basal ganglia impairment, particularly involving the left hemisphere, and extends this finding to include anxiety.