Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Adaptive Gaze Strategies for Locomotion with Constricted Visual Field

In retinitis pigmentosa (RP), loss of peripheral visual field accounts for most difficulties encountered in visuo-motor coordination during locomotion. The purpose of this study was to accurately assess the impact of peripheral visual field loss on gaze strategies during locomotion, and identify compensatory mechanisms. Nine RP subjects presenting a central visual field limited to 10–25° in diameter, and nine healthy subjects were asked to walk in one of three directions—straight ahead to a visual target, leftward and rightward through a door frame, with or without obstacle on the way. Whole body kinematics were recorded by motion capture, and gaze direction in space was reconstructed using an eye-tracker. Changes in gaze strategies were identified in RP subjects, including extensive exploration prior to walking, frequent fixations of the ground (even knowing no obstacle was present), of door edges, essentially of the proximal one, of obstacle edge/corner, and alternating door edges fixations when approaching the door. This was associated with more frequent, sometimes larger rapid-eye-movements, larger movements, and forward tilting of the head. Despite the visual handicap, the trajectory geometry was identical between groups, with a small decrease in walking speed in RPs. These findings identify the adaptive changes in sensory-motor coordination, in order to ensure visual awareness of the surrounding, detect changes in spatial configuration, collect information for self-motion, update the postural reference frame, and update egocentric distances to environmental objects. They are of crucial importance for the design of optimized rehabilitation procedures.
Coping with bullying in the workplace

The purpose of the study was to investigate the 1-year prevalence of bullying in the form of repeated exposure to slander and/or nasty teasing in Danish workplaces, and to analyse whether respondents subjected to bullying use the same coping strategies as respondents who are not subjected to bullying. The results show that approximately 2% of the Danish employees are subjected to bullying at work. We compared the use of coping strategies in three groups: a non-exposed group, a somewhat exposed group, and a very exposed group (i.e., bullied). The results showed no linear association between the three groups, but a difference between being exposed and not exposed. The results seem to indicate that it is not necessarily the quantity of the negative acts that cause the change in behaviour but more the fact of being exposed to such acts.
Modeling the Overproduction of Ribosomes when Antibacterial Drugs Act on Cells

Bacteria that are subjected to ribosome inhibiting antibiotic drugs show an interesting behavior: Although the drug slows down cell growth, it also paradoxically increases the cell’s concentration of ribosomes. We combine a prior nonlinear model of the energy-biomass balance in undrugged E. coli cells (Maitra and Dill, PNAS 2015) with Michaelis-Menten binding of drugs that inactivate ribosomes. Predictions are in good agreement with experiments on ribosomal concentrations and synthesis rates vs. drug concentrations and growth rates. The model indicates that added drug drives the cell to overproduce ribosomes keeping roughly constant the level of ribosomes producing ribosomal proteins, an important quantity for cell growth. The model also predicts that ribosomal production rates should increase, then decrease with added drug. This model gives insights into cellular driving forces and suggests new experiments.
Temporal Flexibility and its Limits: The Personal Use of ICTs at Work

Employee temporal flexibility is a common strategy aimed at assisting workers to reduce conflict between work and family life. Information and communication technologies can facilitate this by enabling employees to attend to various personal life matters during the workday. Critical to utilising such flexibility is a degree of autonomy over how work time can be used. However, in organisational settings, such autonomy is tempered by structural and normative constraints. This article examines how environments of constrained autonomy affect employees’ ability to use time flexibly. Case study data of engineers and managers working in the telecommunications industry is presented. This reveals two findings. Firstly, environments of constrained autonomy limit when during the workday employees can engage in personal mediated communications. Secondly, when personal time is inserted into such contexts, the quantitative and qualitative character of this time is affected.
A Systematic Requirements Analysis and Development of an Assistive Device to Enhance the Social Interaction of People Who are Blind or Visually Impaired

People who are blind can be at a disadvantage in social situations because face-to-face communication relies heavily on non-verbal cues. Lack of access to cues such as eye contact can sometimes lead to awkward situations, such as answering a question that was directed to another person. This problem is compounded by the fact that sighted people are not always aware of their use of these nonverbal cues, and they do not take this into account when communicating with people who are blind. In the long term, this can limit employment opportunities for people who are blind, can adversely impact their professional advancement, and can even isolate them. To address this problem, we propose a methodology for determining and enumerating the most important needs of people who are blind, as they interact with others in social situations. Next, we establish design guidelines for building a Social Interaction Assistant to provide access to essential visual information during social encounters for the visually impaired. Finally, we use our design guidelines to develop a wearable Social Interaction Assistant prototype that is aimed at providing this essential information in real-time, during social interactions.
Outlining a Psychotherapy Model for Enhancing Muslim Mental Health Within an Islamic Context

The central role that Islam plays in the lives of adherent Muslims throughout the world calls for more spiritually oriented methods of approaching psychological treatment with this group. This article explores the psychology of Islam with respect to human behavior, pathology, health, and spirituality. A general therapeutic framework of psychological intervention within an Islamic context is offered. Within the model, practical interventions are suggested that are consistent with the Islamic views of the varying elements of the human being. There is also a discussion of culture, assessment, and rapport-building considerations unique to the treatment of Muslim populations. This model is offered as a framework to be considered by clinicians working with Muslims.
A fixed-frequency Sliding-mode control in a cascade scheme for the Half-bridge Bidirectional DC-DC converter

For the Half-bridge Bidirectional DC-DC power converter focused on electric traction applications, this paper develops a fixed-frequency Sliding-mode control (SMC) based on a cascade structure. First, the use of cascade control is justified by means of the state space small-signal averaged equations. Then, the design of the proposed cascade SMC scheme is detailed. Lastly, the simulation results showed that the developed control strategy outperforms the sole use of SMC for different comparison scenarios.
Microbial Cultures of Mink Testis with Orchitis and ~ or Aspermatogenesis

It has been established that >10% of married couples are infertile (1) and the cause of the infertile state is often obscure (2). There is increasing evidence that autoimmunity to sperm antigens may be an important mechanism of unexplained infertility. A higher prevalence of antibodies to spermatozoa has been detected in the sera of couples with unexplained infertility as compared with fertile couples (3, 4). In many species, including guinea pigs, rabbits, rats, and mice, immunization with sperm or testicular antigens results in autoimmune response to sperm antigens and experimental allergic orchitis, an autoimmune disease of the testis (5-7). Orchitis can lead to aspermatogenesis and infertility. Testicular biopsy of some infertile men often reveals aspermatogenesis (8). Female animals immunized with sperm develop antisperm antibodies and may also become infertile (9-12). Autoantibodies to spermatoioa can block prefertilization and fertilization steps in vitro (13, 14). Vasectomy results in autoimmune response to sperm antigens (7, 15-18) and orehitis that resembles experiment allergic orchitis (19, 20). Over 70% of vasectomized patients who had vasovasostomy and resultant normal sperm count are infertile (21). In this regard, it is of interest that autoantibodies to sperm from vasectomized guinea pigs have recently been found to block fertilization in vitro (22). Finally, in infertile couples with antisperm antibodies, treatment with corticosteroids reduces antibody level and pregnancy may ensue (23, 24). Research on any organ-specific autoimmune disease is facilitated by the study of a natural model of the disease. This helps to explore immunoregulatory aberrations in the diseased individuals, the physiologic and pathologic tolerance state of the individuals to the respective organ-specific autoantigens, and the genetic aspects of the disease. Side effects introduced by adjuvant can be ruled out. Moreover, the knowledge that a naturally occurring autoimmune disease of the testis exists provides clinical relevance and impetus for further investigation of orchitis. In breeding mink for fine black fur, a colony of black mink was developed wherein ~20-30% of the males are infertile. Unequivocal evidence of orchitis and/or aspermatogenesis with testicular sperm antigen-antibody complexes, which was found in many of these animals, is documented in this paper. Infertile black mink thus provide a natural model of immunologic male infertility.
Mesaconyl-Coenzyme A Hydratase, a New Enzyme of Two Central Carbon Metabolic Pathways in Bacteria

ABSTRACT The coenzyme A (CoA)-activated C5-dicarboxylic acids mesaconyl-CoA and β-methylmalyl-CoA play roles in two as yet not completely resolved central carbon metabolic pathways in bacteria. First, these compounds are intermediates in the 3-hydroxypropionate cycle for autotrophic CO2 fixation in Chloroflexus aurantiacus, a phototrophic green nonsulfur bacterium. Second, mesaconyl-CoA and β-methylmalyl-CoA are intermediates in the ethylmalonyl-CoA pathway for acetate assimilation in various bacteria, e.g., in Rhodobacter sphaeroides, Methylobacterium extorquens, and Streptomyces species. In both cases, mesaconyl-CoA hydratase was postulated to catalyze the interconversion of mesaconyl-CoA and β-methylmalyl-CoA. The putative genes coding for this enzyme in C. aurantiacus and R. sphaeroides were cloned and heterologously expressed in Escherichia coli, and the proteins were purified and studied. The recombinant homodimeric 80-kDa proteins catalyzed the reversible dehydration of erythro-β-methylmalyl-CoA to mesaconyl-CoA with rates of 1,300 μmol min−1 mg protein−1. Genes coding for similar enzymes with two (R)-enoyl-CoA hydratase domains are present in the genomes of Roseiflexus, Methylobacterium, Hyphomonas, Rhodospirillum, Xanthobacter, Caulobacter, Magnetospirillum, Jannaschia, Sagittula, Parvibaculum, Stappia, Oceanicola, Loktanella, Silicibacter, Roseobacter, Roseovarius, Dinoroseobacter, Sulfitobacter, Paracoccus, and Ralstonia species. A similar yet distinct class of enzymes containing only one hydratase domain was found in various other bacteria, such as Streptomyces species. The role of this widely distributed new enzyme is discussed.
A Proximal Minimization Algorithm for Constrained Optimization

The proximal minimization algorithm (PMA) is an iterative method for minimizing a convex function f(x) over D, the closure of the essential domain of a second convex function h. The PMA is an interior-point algorithm, in the sense that each iterate lies within the interior of D. For each k, the next iterate, x, minimizes the function f(x) + Dh(x, x ), where Dh(x, z) = h(x) − h(z) − 〈∇h(z), x − z〉 is the Bregman distance associated with h. Then x satisfies the inclusion ∇h(x) − ∇h(x) ∈ ∂f(x), where ∂f(x) is the subdifferential of f at x. The PMA generalizes the PMD algorithm of Censor and Zenios [6] and is related to the proximity operators of Moreau (see [7, 8]) and to the entropic proximal mappings of Teboulle [9].
Body mass index associated with onset and progression of osteoarthritis of the knee but not of the hip: The Rotterdam Study

Objective: To investigate the relationship between body mass index (BMI) and the incidence and progression of radiological knee as well as of radiological hip osteoarthritis. Design: Cohort study. Setting: Population based. Participants: 3585 people aged ⩾55 years were selected from the Rotterdam Study, on the basis of the availability of radiographs of baseline and follow-up. Main outcome measures: Incidence of knee or hip osteoarthritis was defined as minimally grade 2 at follow-up and grade 0 or 1 at baseline. The progression of osteoarthritis was defined as a decrease in joint space width. Methods:x Rays of the knee and hip at baseline and follow-up (mean follow-up of 6.6 years) were evaluated. BMI was measured at baseline. Results: A high BMI (>27 kg/m2) at baseline was associated with incident knee osteoarthritis (odds ratio (OR) 3.3), but not with incident hip osteoarthritis. A high BMI was also associated with progression of knee osteoarthritis (OR 3.2). For the hip, a significant association between progression of osteoarthritis and BMI was not found. Conclusion: On the basis of these results, we conclude that BMI is associated with the incidence and progression of knee osteoarthritis. Furthermore, it seems that BMI is not associated with the incidence and progression of hip osteoarthritis.
Early conversations: communication and dialogue

Abstract What is dialogue and how can we find it? This paper addresses this question in the context of tracing the origins of communication in human infancy. Structural criteria - such as turn taking -have often been used to identify genuine communication. Implementing these criteria have led to considerable debate in relation to the 'proto-conversations' of the twomonth- old, debates which arose in the late 1970s and are still alive today. The paper considers some of the evidence from infant behaviour involved in these debates and in relation to the question of infants' awareness of the 'meaning' of adult facial expressions. In addition to these structural criteria it is suggested that functional criteria such as openness and recognition might be important for our understanding of the origins of dialogue. The paper discusses the apparent paradox of language -how communication is needed to make private experience public, but at the same time, cannot occur until experience is already public- and argues that this paradox disappears if shared experience rather than private representation is taken as primary.
First-Order Recurrent Neural Networks and Deterministic Finite State Automata

We examine the correspondence between first-order recurrent neural networks and deterministic finite state automata. We begin with the problem of inducing deterministic finite state automata from finite training sets, that include both positive and negative examples, an NP-hard problem (Angluin and Smith 1983). We use a neural network architecture with two recurrent layers, which we argue can approximate any discrete-time, time-invariant dynamic system, with computation of the full gradient during learning. The networks are trained to classify strings as belonging or not belonging to the grammar. The training sets used contain only short strings, and the sets are constructed in a way that does not require a priori knowledge of the grammar. After training, the networks are tested using various test sets with strings of length up to 1000, and are often able to correctly classify all the test strings. These results are comparable to those obtained with second-order networks (Giles et al. 1992; Watrous and Kuhn 1992a; Zeng et al. 1993). We observe that the networks emulate finite state automata, confirming the results of other authors, and we use a vector quantization algorithm to extract deterministic finite state automata after training and during testing of the networks, obtaining a table listing the start state, accept states, reject states, all transitions from the states, as well as some useful statistics. We examine the correspondence between finite state automata and neural networks in detail, showing two major stages in the learning process. To this end, we use a graphics module, which graphically depicts the states of the network during the learning and testing phases. We examine the networks' performance when tested on strings much longer than those in the training set, noting a measure based on clustering that is correlated to the stability of the networks. Finally, we observe that with sufficiently long training times, neural networks can become true finite state automata, due to the attractor structure of their dynamics.
Globalisation and reconfigured English in Japan

This paper examines the role played by the English language in the relationship Japan conducts with the rest of the world. It argues that the history of insularity which kept the country free from international influence for over 200 years has vestigial significance in the way that Japan now regulates both its relations with and image of the outside world. Such an attitude can be illustrated with reference to the phenomenon of the foreign country theme park (gaikoku mura), and also to the separatist nature of the Japanese tourist industry, both of which attempt to control and adapt concepts of foreign culture. The sociological dynamics at work within such practices can be related to the principle of dochakuka, by which local cultures absorb and adapt global forces, and this principle also provides a useful model for analysis of the way that the English language exists and functions within Japanese society. Both the influx of loanwords and the use of an ornamental English in advertising and the media, can be seen to adhere to a process of "Japanisation", thus effecting a use of the language which does not conform to orthodox interpretation of the implications of English as a Global Language.
‘Women are just more active’ – gender as a determining factor in involvement in senior centres

ABSTRACT Centres for seniors offering leisure-time activities currently represent significant actors that translate the idea of active ageing into a particular approach to seniors. Despite the fact that active ageing is now represented by the state and providers of social services as the universally desirable way of ageing, the significantly smaller numbers of male clients was identified as a marked feature of such organisations. A three-year ethnographic study was conducted at two centres in the Czech Republic which offer seniors-only leisure-time activities strongly grounded in the idea of active ageing. The method of participant observation was used, and 47 in-depth interviews were conducted with the centres' clients and employees. The higher participation by women in the centres and the role they attribute to such organisations in their lives is analysed in the context of their previous gendered biographies. Gender patterns embedded in the way daily activities at the senior centres are organised, as well as in the idea of active ageing itself, are highlighted. Despite the seeming invisibility of gender as a principle that structures the way these centres are run, they are in fact gendered organisations, where gender emerges as a basic principle affecting the chances of participating in active ageing as presented by the centres.
Is that ‘tingling feeling’ enough? Constructions of teaching and learning in further education

This paper is concerned with changing constructions of teaching and learning in the further education (FE) sector in England. It explores how current changes may be affecting the development of lecturers' professional identity, drawing upon a small‐scale study of trainees on a full‐time FE teacher training programme in the academic year 2001–2002. Our underlying concern is the possibilities for democratic forms of practice within the changing context of lecturers' work. The paper considers how trainees make sense of pedagogic relations, and considers how such work might inform debates about new forms of professionalism and practice in FE.
On the counting of holomorphic discs in toric Fano manifolds

Open Gromov-Witten invariants in general are not well-defined. We discuss in detail the enumerative numbers of the Clifford torus $T^2$ in $\CP^2$. For cyclic A-infinity algebras, we show that certain generalized way of counting may be defined up to Hochschild or cyclic boundary elements. In particular we obtain a well-defined function on Hochschild or cyclic homology of a cyclic A-infinity algebra, which has invariance property under cyclic A-infinity homomorphism. We discuss an example of Clifford torus $T^2$ and compute the invariant for a specific cyclic cohomology class.
Effects of Categorization on Color Perception

Subjects were shown simple objects and were asked to reproduce the colors of the objects Even though the objects remained on the screen while subjects reproduced the colors and the objects' shapes were irrelevant to the subjects' task, subjects' color perceptions were influenced by the shape category of an object For example, objects that belonged to categories with redder objects were judged to be more red than identically colored objects belonging to another category Further experiments showed that the object categories that subjects use, rather than being fixed, depend on the objects to which subjects are exposed
Activation of Rho Is Required for Ligand-independent Oncogenic Signaling by a Mutant Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor*

Mutations in the epidermal growth factor receptor have been identified in several human tumor types, including gliomas. These receptor mutants have deletions in their extracellular ligand-binding domains and are, therefore, no longer regulated by ligand, resulting in constitutive activation of the receptor kinase. These mutants have been proposed to transduce oncogenic signals via ligand-independent signaling pathways. Avian viral homologues of these oncogenic epidermal growth factor receptors exhibit structurally homologous deletions and form tumors in chickens. One such mutant, S3v-ErbB, transforms fibroblasts in vitro, and transformation has been correlated with the formation of a novel tyrosine phosphoprotein complex. V-ErbB-mediated complex formation and transformation have been shown to occur independently of Ras activation. The major aims of this study are to further characterize this ligand-independent v-ErbB oncogenic signaling pathway. Here we show that both v-ErbB-mediated phosphoprotein complex formation and transformation are inhibited by a dominant negative mutant of Rho. This inhibition is specific for dominant negative Rho; dominant negative mutants of Rac and Cdc42 have no effect on transformation or on tyrosine phosphorylation of the phosphoprotein complex. Based on these observations, we propose that S3v-ErbB stimulates a Rho-dependent tyrosine kinase, resulting in complex formation and ultimately oncogenic transformation.