Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interactive grasp learning based on human demonstration

We describe our effort in development of an artificial cognitive system, able of performing complex manipulation tasks in a teleoperated or collaborative manner. Some of the work is motivated by human control strategies that, in general, involve comparison between sensory feedback and a-priori known, internal models. According to recent neuroscientific findings, predictions help to reduce the delays in obtaining the sensory information and to perform more complex tasks. This paper deals with the issue of robotic manipulation and grasping in particular. Two main contributions of the paper are: i) evaluation, recognition and modeling of human grasps during the arm transportation sequence, and ii) learning and representation of grasp strategies for different robotic hands.
Review Article: Influence of occupational stress on mental health among Chinese off-shore oil workers

Aim: To explore the influence of occupational stress on mental health in off-shore oil production. Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 561 Chinese off-shore oil workers. The workers were invited to fill in a self-administered questionnaire exploring their socio-demographic characteristics, occupational stress levels, and 12-item general health questionnaire. A hierarchical multiple regression procedure was used to assess the effects of occupational stress on mental health. Results: After controlling for age, educational level, marital status and years of off-shore work, poor mental health was found to have a significant positive association with seven of the nine identified sources of occupational stress. They were: conflict between job and family/social life, poor development of career and achievement at work, safety problems at work, management problems and poor relationship with others at work, poor physical environment of the work place, uncomfortable ergonomic factors at work, and poor organizational structure at work. All of these occupational stress sources together explained 19.9% of the total variance. Conclusions: The results confirmed that occupational stress was a major risk factor for poor mental health among Chinese off-shore oil workers. Reducing or eliminating occupational stressors at work would benefit workers’ mental health.
Heat-evoked Activation of TRPV4 Channels in a HEK293 Cell Expression System and in Native Mouse Aorta Endothelial Cells*

We have compared activation by heat of TRPV4 channels, heterogeneously expressed in HEK293 cells, and endogenous channels in mouse aorta endothelium (MAEC). Increasing the temperature above 25 °C activated currents and increased [Ca2+] i in HEK293 cells transfected with TRPV4 and in MAEC. When compared with activation of TRPV4 currents by the selective ligand 4αPDD (α-phorbol 12,13-didecanoate), heat-activated currents in both systems showed the typical biophysical properties of currents through TRPV4, including their single channel conductance. Deletion of the three N-terminal ankyrin binding domains of TRPV4 abolished current activation cells by heat in HEK293. In inside-out patches, TRPV4 could not be activated by heat but still responded to the ligand 4αPDD. In MAEC, the same channel is activated under identical conditions as in the HEK expression system. Our data indicate that TRPV4 is a functional temperature-sensing channel in native endothelium, that is likely involved in temperature-dependent Ca2+ signaling. The failure to activate TRPV4 channels by heat in inside-out patches, which responded to 4αPDD, may indicate that heat activation depends on the presence of an endogenous ligand, which is missing in inside-out patches.
Surface regions of interest for viewpoint selection

While the detection of the interesting regions in images has been extensively studied, relatively few papers have addressed surfaces. This paper proposes an algorithm for detecting the regions of interest of surfaces. It looks for regions that are distinct both locally and globally and accounts for the distance to the foci of attention. Many applications can utilize these regions. In this paper we explore one such application - viewpoint selection. The most informative views are those that collectively provide the most descriptive presentation of the surface. We show that our results compete favorably with the state-of-the-art results.
Dexterous underwater object manipulation via multi-robot cooperating systems

The complete design and realization of an underwater manipulation system composed of two cooperating arms has been one of the main goals of the AMADEUS Phase II project, within the framework of the MAST III program on Marine Technology development. In this paper, the directions and methodologies followed within the design of the complete functional and algorithmic control architecture for the workcell is presented in some details, by mainly focusing on its various aspects of modularity, scalability and composability, which presently allow the execution of many different, cooperative, object manipulation tasks.
Biochemical analysis of serum amylase and lipase in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a metabolic disease characterized by abnormally high blood glucose levels. Caused by a derangement in the secretion and function of the endocrinal portion of the pancreas as there is a interrelation between the functional and the anatomical portion of the pancreas. Objectives: To evaluate serum amylase and serum lipase in diabetic patients and its association. Materials and Methods: 30 age and sex matched diagnosed cases of type 2 DM between 40-80yr were included in the study and 30 healthy individuals as controls. All samples were analyzed by auto analyser. Data analysis was done by means of two tailed and independent ‘t’ test. Results: There was a considerable decline in serum amylase (p<0.0001) and serum lipase (p=0.00661) in diabetic patients compared to controls who were age and sex matched. FBS showed moderate positive correlation with serum amylase (r=0.1086) and serum lipase (r=0.0155). Conclusion: The current study shows an pancreatic exocrine destruction in type 2 DM. Serum pancreatic enzymes can be used as an extra explanatory parameter for the evaluation of progression of the disease and response to treatment.
PERSISTENT MIRROR MOVEMENTS: A CLINICAL STUDY OF 17 CHILDREN, ADOLESCENTS AND YOUNG ADULTS

The author reports a series o f 17 cases o f congenital mirror movements of the hands and forearms (and in a few cases the toes), but no other signs of gross neurological deviation. This is an uncommon disorder that often goes unrecognised. This slight but definite disability seems to persist largely unchanged at least into the late teens, and probably into adulthood. A hereditary background is suggested in about half o f the cases. Various neuropsychiatric deficits were seen i n combination with the mirror movements in about half the cases, as well as a high incidence of non‐right‐handedness. Although the clinical heterogeneity of the disorder was clear, the phenomeno of mirror movements was similar in all cases. Recent progress in understanding the pathophysiology of this disorder i s reviewed.
Serial and Parallel Genetic Algorithms as Function Optimizers

{PG,1 A standard capitulum type of chrysanthemum plant which is a sport of the non-commercial cultivar Arcade, disclosed in U.S. Plant Pat. No. 3,659, granted Nov. 26, 1974; Brocade being distinguished from the parent cultivar by its medium to dark yellow ray floret color, taller plant height, larger flower size, and longer flowering response period.
The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Towards process design for efficient organisational problem solving Conference Item

This paper presents initial results on stochastic business process modelling. We interpret business processes as problem solving processes to show that certain trade-offs in stakeholder involvement can usefully be analysed. Our initial results illustrate the analytic potential of our stochastic model, which could be useful to business process analysts and designers. Keywords-process modelling; business process design; Problem Oriented Engineering
Unsupervised Activity Discovery and Characterization From Event-Streams

We present a framework to discover and characterize different classes of everyday activities from event-streams. We begin by representing activities as bags of event n-grams. This allows us to analyze the global structural information of activities, using their local event statistics. We demonstrate how maximal cliques in an undirected edge-weighted graph of activities, can be used for activity-class discovery in an unsupervised manner. We show how modeling an activity as a variable length Markov process, can be used to discover recurrent event-motifs to characterize the discovered activity-classes. We present results over extensive data-sets, collected from multiple active environments, to show the competence and generalizability of our proposed framework.
Mining Temporal Subgraph Patterns in Heterogeneous Information Networks

With an increasing interest in social network applications, finding frequent social interactions can help us to do disease modeling, cultural and information transmission and behavioral ecology. We model the social interactions among objects and people by a temporal heterogeneous information network, where a node in the network represents an individual, and an edge between two nodes denotes the interaction between two individuals in a certain time interval. As time goes by, lots of temporal heterogonous information networks at different time unit can be collect. In this work, we aim to mine frequent temporal social interactions (call patterns) exist in numerous temporal heterogonous information networks. We propose a novel algorithm, TSP-algorithm (Temporal Subgraph Patterns algorithm) to mine the patterns which contain temporal information and forms a connective subgraph. The proposed method recursively grows the patterns in a depth-first search manner. Since the TSP-algorithm only needs to scan the database once and does not generate unnecessary candidates, the experiment results show that the TSP-algorithm outperforms the modified Apriori on time-efficiency and memory usage in both synthetic and real datasets. Keywordssocial network mining; temporal subgraph patterns; heterogeous information network; closed frequent patterns;
Applying eMM in a 3D Approach to e-Learning Quality Improvement

Abstract—The E-Learning Maturity Model (eMM) is a framework for quality improvement, by which institutions can assess and compare their capability to sustainably develop, deploy and support e-learning. This paper presents a three-dimensional (3D) approach to e-Learning quality improvement. In the approach the eMM is applied in “Diagnosis” phase as an assessment tool for e-Learning process improvement in institutional context where the key elements necessary for improvement in e-learning activities are identified. The “Development” phase of the 3D approach concentrates on putting together improvement or change packages to target areas of deficiency. In strategic point of views, the packages are translated into implementation plans in a short term, a mid term, and a long term. In “Delivery” phase of the approach, the main focus is the human resource and marketing efforts for implementing the change packages in operational point of views. The 3D approach described can be beneficial in guiding individual institution's understanding of their e-learning capability and providing educational institutions with a roadmap for e-learning process improvement as well as providing a framework for strategic and operational planning and investment.
Increased urinary excretion of nephrin , podocalyxin , and igh 3 in women with preeclampsia

Wang Y, Zhao S, Loyd S, Groome LJ. Increased urinary excretion of nephrin, podocalyxin, and ig-h3 in women with preeclampsia. Am J Physiol Renal Physiol 302: F1084–F1089, 2012. First published February 1, 2012; doi:10.1152/ajprenal.00597. 2011. — Emerging evidence has shown that podocyte injury and reduced specific podocyte protein expressions contribute to proteinuria in preeclampsia. We collected urine specimens from women with preeclampsia to study whether podocyte-specific protein shedding is associated with renal barrier dysfunction. Urine specimens from women with normal pregnancies and from pregnant women complicated by chronic hypertension were used for comparison. We determined soluble podocyte slit protein nephrin levels in the urine specimens. Podocalyxin, ig-h3, and VEGF concentrations were also measured. We found that nephrin and podocalyxin were barely detectable in the urine specimens from normal pregnant women and from women with chronic hypertension. In preeclampsia, urinary nephrin and podocalyxin concentrations were significantly increased and highly correlated to each other, r 0.595. Nephrin and podocalyxin were also correlated with urine protein concentrations. ig-h3 was detected in the urine specimens from women with preeclampsia, and it is highly correlated with nephrin and podocalyxin concentrations in preeclampsia. ig-h3 was undetectable in normal pregnancy and pregnancy complicated by chronic hypertension. Elevated VEGF levels were also found in women with preeclampsia compared with those of normal pregnancy and pregnancy complicated by chronic hypertension. These results provide strong evidence that podocyte protein shedding occurs in preeclampsia, and their levels are associated with proteinuria. The finding of urinary ig-h3 excretion in preeclampsia suggests that increased transforming growth factor activity might also be involved in the kidney lesion in this pregnancy disorder.
Effect of chronic exposure to prometryne on oxidative stress and antioxidant response in early life stages of common carp (Cyprinus carpio L.).

OBJECTIVES The aim of the study was to investigate effects of the triazine herbicide prometryne on early life stages of common carp Cyprinus carpio as indicated by oxidative stress and antioxidant indices. DESIGN Toxicity tests were performed according to OECD 210 methodologies. Common carp larvae and embryos exposed for 35 days to prometryne at three concentrations, 0.51 (reported concentration in Czech rivers), 80 (1% 96 h LC50), and 1200 (15% 96 h LC50) μg/l, were compared to carp in a non-treated control group. Activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), and glutathione reductase (GR), as well as levels of thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARS) were assessed. RESULTS Chronic exposure of early life stages of carp to prometryne showed no effect on growth and mortality rates. Levels of oxidative damage in fish test groups showed no significant differences from the controls. Glutathione reductase activity at exposure 0.51 μg/l was significantly increase (p<0.01) compared with controls and other exposures. CONCLUSION The chronic exposure to prometryne showed no influence on oxidative stress. Differences from control fish was observed in GR activity in exposure prometryne 0.51 μg/l.
Kinetics of the LOV domain of ZEITLUPE determine its circadian function in Arabidopsis

A LOV (Light, Oxygen, or Voltage) domain containing blue-light photoreceptor ZEITLUPE (ZTL) directs circadian timing by degrading clock proteins in plants. Functions hinge upon allosteric differences coupled to the ZTL photocycle; however, structural and kinetic information was unavailable. Herein, we tune the ZTL photocycle over two orders of magnitude. These variants reveal that ZTL complexes with targets independent of light, but dictates enhanced protein degradation in the dark. In vivo experiments definitively show photocycle kinetics dictate the rate of clock component degradation, thereby impacting circadian period. Structural studies demonstrate that photocycle dependent activation of ZTL depends on an unusual dark-state conformation of ZTL. Crystal structures of ZTL LOV domain confirm delineation of structural and kinetic mechanisms and identify an evolutionarily selected allosteric hinge differentiating modes of PAS/LOV signal transduction. The combined biochemical, genetic and structural studies provide new mechanisms indicating how PAS/LOV proteins integrate environmental variables in complex networks. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.7554/eLife.21646. 001
Effect of season on embryo production in Iraqi local black goat

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of season on embryo production in Iraqi local black goat. 599 female genital system of Iraqi local black goat were collected from AL-Fallujah abattoir, AL-Anbar province during the period from July 2010 to the 1 July 2011. The oocytes were collected via aspiration and slicing. Only good and fair quality oocytes were selected for in vitro maturation. Fresh semen was used from two Bucks of proven fertility for fertilization. TALP, MEM, and TCM-199 culture media were used of in-vitro maturation (IVM) and in-vitro fertilization (IFV). It has been shown that high recovery and maturation rate 87.3% and 45.6% respectively were observed at breeding season as compared with recovery rate 72.5% and maturation rate 35.2% respectively in non-breeding season. There was a significant difference (P˂0.05) in recovery rate and maturation rate between different season. It has been found that fertilization rate was 60.05% in breeding season. While it has 33.9% in non-breeding season. There was a significant difference in fertilization rate (P˂0.05) between breeding and non-breeding season. Blastocyst obtained during breeding season was 56.41%, while it was 43.24% in non-breeding season. There was a significant difference (P˂0.05) between different season. It was concluded that there is an effect of season on oocyte recovery.
Ocular manifestations of X-linked dominant FAM58A mutation in toe syndactyly, telecanthus, anogenital, and renal malformations (‘STAR’) syndrome

ABSTRACT Purpose: To report the newest ophthalmic manifestations of a mother-daughter pair diagnosed with toe syndactyly, telecanthus, anogenital and renal malformations (STAR) syndrome, a rare X-linked developmental disorder. Methods: The medical and ophthalmic records were reviewed for a mother-daughter pair diagnosed with FAM58A confirmed STAR syndrome on chromosome Xq28. Results: The mother at birth had left foot syndactyly, telecanthus, anal stenosis, and clitoromegaly and was told at 19 she had a hypoplastic left kidney. The daughter, born at 38 weeks after a complication of oligohydramnios, had a more severe presentation, demonstrating toe syndactyly, telecanthus, anal stenosis, clitoromegaly, bilateral renal hypoplasia, ureteral reflux, urogenital sinus, and congenital heart disease amongst others. The pair shared similar ophthalmic findings, though those of the daughter were more pronounced. They included bilateral, medial upper eyelid prominences with madarosis, mild peripapillary atrophy, and soft macular drusen with the daughter also displaying optic nerve hypoplasia and peripheral anterior synechia in the iridocorneal angle. Conclusion: These ophthalmic findings are the first reported to our knowledge in association with STAR syndrome. The literature frequently demonstrates that patients with developmental anomalies often have ocular manifestations, warranting a full ophthalmic examination when the diagnosis of STAR syndrome has been made or is being considered.
A signal/semantic framework for image retrieval

The article presents an approach for integrating perceptual signal features (i.e. color and texture) and semantic information within an integrated architecture for image retrieval. It relies on an expressive knowledge representation formalism handling high-level image descriptions and a full-text query framework. It consequently brings the level of image retrieval closer to users' needs by translating low-level signal features to high-level data and coupling it with semantics within index and query structures
Fine-grained Recognition Datasets for Biodiversity Analysis

In the following paper, we present and discuss challenging applications for fine-grained visual classification (FGVC): biodiversity and species analysis. We not only give details about two challenging new datasets suitable for computer vision research with up to 675 highly similar classes, but also present first results with localized features using convolutional neural networks (CNN). We conclude with a list of challenging new research directions in the area of visual classification for biodiversity research.
Gameplay Design Patterns for Believable Non-Player Characters

Descriptions of humans require several qualities for people to experience them as believable: human body; selfawareness, intentional states, and self impelled actions; expression of emotions; ability to use natural language; and persistent traits. Based on these we analyze non-player character Claudette Perrick in The Elders Scroll IV: Oblivion to detect how these qualities can be created in the interactive environment of a game. We derive the gameplay design patterns Awareness of Surrounding, Visual Body Damage, Dissectible Bodies, Initiative, Own Agenda, Sense of Self, Emotional Attachment, Contextual Conversational Responses, and Goal-Driven Personal Development, which point to design choices that can be made when designing believable non-player characters in games.
A scalable interest management scheme for distributed virtual environments

With the expansion of the internet and its bandwidth, distributed virtual environment (DVE) applications have become more prevalent. In DVE applications, users frequently crowd in a specific place, and a key aspect to consider is how to provide interactive performance for users. However, existing approaches using multicast require users to receive uninteresting messages. Even though recent works have addressed fine-grained filtering, they still incur other drawbacks in terms of assigning lots of multicast addresses or handling overhead of multicast groups. This makes the system less scalable as the number of users increases. In this paper, we propose a new scalable filtering scheme that reduces not only the number of messages during interaction in a region and among neighboring regions, but also the number of multicast addresses without significant computational overhead. Interest management in a region dynamically creates groups of users with the same interests. While members communicate with each other with high fidelity, a representative sends information to non-members with low frequency. For interaction among neighboring regions, we propose a sub-region concept to select only a subset of users from the neighboring regions based on proximity, the distribution of the users' locations, and the viewing direction of a user. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.