Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Prevalence of HIV and other infections and injection behaviours among people who inject drugs in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia

Background: Ethiopia is one of the sub-Saharan African countries most affected by HIV/AIDS. However, the country lacks data describing the extent of the epidemic among people who inject drugs (PWID). Thus, a bio-behavioural study was conducted in 2015 to generate strategic information on the magnitude of HIV, hepatitis B virus (HBV), hepatitis C virus (HCV), syphilis and related risk behaviours among PWID in Addis Ababa. Methods: A cross-sectional study using respondent-driven sampling was conducted among people reported to have injected illicit drugs within 6 months before the study. Males and females aged 15 years or above and who were resident in Addis Ababa were included in the study between 26 March and 22 May 2015. Data was analysed using respondent-driven (RDS) Analyst software. Results: A total of 237 participants, including 6 seeds, enrolled in the study; most of the PWID were males (96%) with a mean age of 26 years. Most (79%) of the PWID reported injecting heroin but also reported using non-injecting drugs, including marijuana or ganja (47%) and/or khat (31%). Forty per cent of PWID reported ever sharing needles and 56% reported sharing other injecting equipment. However, only 14% reported injecting daily, and 49% reported injecting only 1 to 3 times a month. HIV prevalence was 6%, HBV was 5.1%, HCV was 2.9% and syphilis 5.1% among PWID. Among HIV-positive PWID, 60% reported sharing a needle the last time they injected. Conclusion: Even though the prevalence of HIV among drug users is not much higher than in the general population in Addis Ababa, the needle sharing prevalence was high. Thus, this baseline study shows the need to establish harm reduction programmes and prevention strategies for the PWID in Addis Ababa.
DynamicSlide: Reference-based Interaction Techniques for Slide-based Lecture Videos

Presentation slides play an important role in online lecture videos. Slides convey the main points of the lecture visually, while the instructor's narration adds detailed verbal explanations to each item in the slide. We call the link between a slide item and the corresponding part of the narration a reference. In order to assess the feasibility of reference-based interaction techniques for watching videos, we introduce DynamicSlide, a video processing system that automatically extracts references from slide-based lecture videos and a video player. The system incorporates a set of reference-based techniques: emphasizing the current item in the slide that is being explained, enabling item-based navigation, and enabling item-based note-taking. Our pipeline correctly finds 79% of the references in a set of five videos with 141 references. Results from a user study suggest that DynamicSlide's features improve the learner's video browsing and navigation experience.
Zebrafish models for personalized psychiatry: Insights from individual, strain and sex differences, and modeling gene x environment interactions

Currently becoming widely recognized, personalized psychiatry focuses on unique physiological and genetic profiles of patients to best tailor their therapy. However, the role of individual differences, as well as genetic and environmental factors, in human psychiatric disorders remains poorly understood. Animal experimental models are a valuable tool to improve our understanding of disease pathophysiology and its molecular mechanisms. Due to high reproduction capability, fully sequenced genome, easy gene editing, and high genetic and physiological homology with humans, zebrafish (Danio rerio) are emerging as a novel powerful model in biomedicine. Mounting evidence supports zebrafish as a useful model organism in CNS research. Robustly expressed in these fish, individual, strain, and sex differences shape their CNS responses to genetic, environmental, and pharmacological manipulations. Here, we discuss zebrafish as a promising complementary translational tool to further advance patient‐centered personalized psychiatry.
Progress of Brain Amyloid Deposition in Familial Alzheimer's Disease with Taiwan D678H APP Mutation.

BACKGROUND The amyloid AV-45 (florbetapir) positron emission tomography (PET) has been used in the study of the familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD) with the D678H amyloid precursor protein (APP) mutation. In addition, the progress of the disease remains unknown. OBJECTIVE We aim to investigate the progression rate of amyloid accumulation in FAD patients with this mutation by neuroimages analysis. METHODS The clinical course, changes in cognitive function, brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and 18F-AV-45 PET scan were investigated in FAD patients and sporadic AD (sAD) patients. We compared the amyloid deposition pattern in serial brain 18F-AV-45 PET scan among the FAD, familial mild cognitive impairment (FMCI), and sMCI and sAD patients. RESULTS Seven familial patients received a follow-up survey. The follow up duration for brain AV-45 PET was from 1.54 to 3.61 years. In 4 FMCI patients, an increased regional SUVR was noted, and the annual change rates were increased from 1.03% to 18.82%. However, a decreased regional SUVR was noted in 3 FAD patients and the annual change rates were from -2.62% to -16.03%. As compared with the sAD and sMCI patients, the annual change rate is statistically significant in FAD and FMCI patients respectively. CONCLUSIONS The data indicate a biphasic course with an initial increase and then a decrease of SUVR in brain amyloid PET scan in familial APP mutation patients. The data also reveal that the novel Taiwan APP (D678H) mutation has a more amyloid burden than the sAD patients, particularly in an MCI stage.
Association Between Polymorphisms in Dopamine‐Related Genes and Orthopedic Pain Expression in a Chinese Elderly Population

The dopaminergic pathway plays a vital role in pain expression. Here, our aim was to investigate the effects of polymorphisms in genes encoding the dopamine active transporter (SLC6A3) and dopamine receptor D2 (DRD2) on preoperative pain expression among patients preparing for orthopedic surgery.
Semantic subtyping for non-strict languages

Semantic subtyping is an approach to define subtyping relations for type systems featuring union and intersection type connectives. It has been studied only for strict languages, and it is unsound for non-strict semantics. In this work, we study how to adapt this approach to non-strict languages: in particular, we define a type system using semantic subtyping for a functional language with a call-by-need semantics. We do so by introducing an explicit representation for divergence in the types, so that the type system distinguishes expressions that are results from those which are computations that might diverge.
On the Existence and Uniqueness of Poincaré Maps for Systems With Impulse Effects

The Poincaré map is widely used to study the qualitative behavior of dynamical systems. For instance, it can be used to describe the existence of periodic solutions. The Poincaré map for dynamical systems with impulse effects (SIEs) was introduced in the last decade and mainly employed to study the existence of limit cycles (periodic gaits) for the locomotion of bipedal robots. We investigate sufficient conditions for the existence and uniqueness of Poincaré maps for dynamical SIEs evolving on a differentiable manifold. We apply the results to show the existence and uniqueness of Poincaré maps for systems with multiple domains.
Punicic acid: A potential compound of pomegranate seed oil in Type 2 diabetes mellitus management

Diabetes is one of the most prevalent diseases in the worldwide. Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), the most common form of the disease, has become a serious threat to public health and is a growing burden on global economies. Due to the unexpected adverse effects of antidiabetic medicines, the use of nutraceuticals as a complementary therapy has drawn extensive attention by investigators. In this issue, a novel nutraceutical, Punicic acid (PA)—the main ingredient of pomegranate seed oil (PSO) that has potential therapeutic effects in T2DM—has been investigated. PA is a peroxisome proliferator‐activated receptor gamma agonist, and unlike synthetic ligands, such as thiazolidinediones, it has no side effects. PA exerts antidiabetic effects via various mechanisms, such as reducing inflammatory cytokines, modulating glucose homeostasis, and antioxidant properties. In this review, we discussed the potential therapeutic effects of PSO and PA and represented the related mechanisms involved in the management of T2DM.
Sequential Learning of Movement Prediction in Dynamic Environments using LSTM Autoencoder

Predicting movement of objects while the action of learning agent interacts with the dynamics of the scene still remains a key challenge in robotics. We propose a multi-layer Long Short Term Memory (LSTM) autoendocer network that predicts future frames for a robot navigating in a dynamic environment with moving obstacles. The autoencoder network is composed of a state and action conditioned decoder network that reconstructs the future frames of video, conditioned on the action taken by the agent. The input image frames are first transformed into low dimensional feature vectors with a pre-trained encoder network and then reconstructed with the LSTM autoencoder network to generate the future frames. A virtual environment, based on the OpenAi-Gym framework for robotics, is used to gather training data and test the proposed network. The initial experiments show promising results indicating that these predicted frames can be used by an appropriate reinforcement learning framework in future to navigate around dynamic obstacles.
Guest Editorial: The Computational Face

The papers in this special section examine the concept of automated face analysis (AFA). AFA has received special attention from the computer vision and pattern recognition communities. Research progress often gives the impression that problems such as face recognition and face detection are solved, at least for some scenarios. Several aspects of face analysis remain open problems, including the implementation of large scale face recognition/detection methods for in the wild images, emotion recognition, micro-expression analysis, and others. The community keeps making rapid progress on these topics, with continual improvement of current methods and creation of new ones that push the state-of-the-art. Applications are countless, including security and video surveillance, human computer/robot interaction, communication, entertainment, and commerce, while having an important social impact in assistive technologies for education and health. The importance of face analysis, together with the vast amount of work on the subject and the latest developments in the field, motivated us to organize a special section on this theme. The scope of the compilation comprises all aspects of face analysis from a computer vision perspective. Including, but not limited to: recognition, detection, alignment, reconstruction of faces, pose estimation of faces, gaze analysis, age, emotion, gender, and facial attributes estimation, and applications among others.
Vasohibin 2 promotes malignant behaviors of pancreatic cancer cells by inducing epithelial‐mesenchymal transition via Hedgehog signaling pathway

Based on previous findings, we hypothesized that Vasohibin 2 (VASH2) protein may induce epithelial‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) of pancreatic cancer (PC) cells by promoting the malignant behaviors of these cells. The present study aimed to test this hypothesis and explore the possible mechanisms involved.
On exercise thermoregulation in females: interaction of endogenous and exogenous ovarian hormones

One in two female athletes chronically take a combined, monophasic oral contraceptive pill (OCP). Previous thermoregulatory investigations proposed that an endogenous rhythm of the menstrual cycle still occurs with OCP usage. Forthcoming large international sporting events will expose female athletes to hot environments differing in their thermal profile, yet few data exist on how trained women will respond from both a thermoregulatory and performance stand‐point. In the present study, we have demonstrated that a small endogenous rhythm of the menstrual cycle still affects Tcore and also that chronic OCP use attenuates the sweating response, whereas behavioural thermoregulation is maintained. Furthermore, humid heat affects both performance and thermoregulatory responses to a greater extent than OCP usage and the menstrual cycle does.
Orecchio: Extending Body-Language through Actuated Static and Dynamic Auricular Postures

In this paper, we propose using the auricle - the visible part of the ear - as a means of expressive output to extend body language to convey emotional states. With an initial exploratory study, we provide an initial set of dynamic and static auricular postures. Using these results, we examined the relationship between emotions and auricular postures, noting that dynamic postures involving stretching the top helix in fast (e.g., 2Hz) and slow speeds (1Hz) conveyed intense and mild pleasantness while static postures involving bending the side or top helix towards the center of the ear were associated with intense and mild unpleasantness. Based on the results, we developed a prototype (called Orrechio) with miniature motors, custom-made robotic arms and other electronic components. A preliminary user evaluation showed that participants feel more comfortable using expressive auricular postures with people they are familiar with, and that it is a welcome addition to the vocabulary of human body language.
RollingStone: Using Single Slip Taxel for Enhancing Active Finger Exploration with a Virtual Reality Controller

We propose using a single slip tactile pixel on virtual reality controllers to produce sensations of finger sliding and textures. When a user moves the controller on a virtual surface, we add a slip opposite to the movement, creating an illusion of a finger that is sliding on the surface, while varying the slip feedback changes lateral forces on fingertip. When coupled with hand motion the lateral forces can be used to create perceptions of artificial textures. RollingStone has been implemented as a prototype VR controller consisting of a ball-based slip display positioned under the user's fingertip. Within the slip display, a pair of motors actuates the ball, which is capable of gener- ating both short- and long-term two-degree-of-freedom slip feedback. An exploratory study was conducted to ensure that changing the relative motion between the finger and the ball could alter the perceptions conveying the properties of a tex- ture. The following two perception-based studies examined the minimum changes in speed of slip and angle of slip that are detectable by users. The results help us to design haptic patterns as well as our prototype applications. Finally, our preliminary user evaluation indicated that participants wel- comed RollingStone as a useful addition to the range of VR controllers.
ShareSpace: Facilitating Shared Use of the Physical Space by both VR Head-Mounted Display and External Users

Currently, "walkable" virtual reality (VR) is achieved by dedicating a room-sized space for VR activities, which is not shared with non-HMD users engaged in their own activities. To achieve the goal of allowing shared use of space for all users while overcoming the obvious difficulty of integrating use with those immersed in a VR experience, we present ShareSpace, a system that allows external users to communicate their needs for physical space to those wearing an HMD and immersed in their VR experience. ShareSpace works by allowing external users to place "shields" in the virtual environment by using a set of physical shield tools. A pad visualizer helps this process by allowing external users to examine the arrangement of virtual shields. We also discuss interaction techniques that minimize the interference between the respective activities of the HMD wearers and the other users of the same physical space. To evaluate our design, a user study was conducted to collect user feedback from participants in four trial scenarios. The results indicate that our ShareSpace system allows users to perform their respective activities with improved engagement and safety. In addition, this study shows that while the HMD users did perceive a considerable degree of interference due to the internal visual indications from the ShareSpace system, they were still more engaged in their VR experience than when interrupted by direct external physical interference initiated by external users.
Respiratory Chlamydia Infection Induce Release of Hepoxilin A3 and Histamine Production by Airway Neutrophils

Background: Hepoxilins are biologically active metabolites of arachidonic acid that are formed through the 12-lipoxygenase pathway. Hepoxilin A3 is now known to be an important regulator of mucosal inflammation in response to infection by bacterial pathogens and was recently identified as a potent neutrophil chemoattractant in the intestinal mucosa. Our goal in this study was to determine if airway infection with Chlamydia in a murine model of allergic airway disease (AAD) induces hepoxilin secretion along with airway neutrophilia. Methods: We utilized an AAD adult Balb/c mouse model to evaluate airway pathology and immune response by assaying bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) fluid cytokine, cellularity, histidine decarboxylase (HDC) as well as histamine released in response to in-vivo chlamydial antigen stimulation of purified airway neutrophils. Hepoxilin A3 production was determined by Western blot identification of 12-lipoxygenase precursor (12-LO). Results: Chlamydial infection induced increased production of IL-2, IL-12, TNF-α, and IFN-γ in BAL fluid compared to uninfected animals. Chlamydia-infected mice responded with robust airway neutrophil infiltration and upon induction of AAD increased their production of IL-4, IL-5, and IL-13 by >3 fold compared to unsensitized groups. In addition, 12-LO mRNA was upregulated in infected, but not in uninfected AAD mice, suggesting the production of hepoxilin A3. mRNA expression of HDC was induced only in neutrophils from the airways of Chlamydia-infected mice, but was not seen in AAD only or uninfected controls. When purified neutrophils from infected animals were challenged with chlamydial antigen in vitro there was significant histamine release. Conclusions: Our data confirms the production and release of hepoxilin A3 in the murine airways concomitant with airway neutrophilia in response to chlamydial infection. We further confirmed that Chlamydia provokes the production and release of histamine by these neutrophils. These findings suggest that neutrophils, provoked by Chlamydia infection can synthesize and release histamine, thereby contributing directly to airway inflammation.
Touch180: Finger Identification on Mobile Touchscreen using Fisheye Camera and Convolutional Neural Network

We present Touch180, a computer vision based solution for identifying fingers on a mobile touchscreen with a fisheye camera and deep learning algorithm. As a proof-of-concept research, this paper focused on robustness and high accuracy of finger identification. We generated a new dataset for Touch180 configuration, which is named as Fisheye180. We trained a CNN (Convolutional Neural Network)-based network utilizing touch locations as auxiliary inputs. With our novel dataset and deep learning algorithm, finger identification result shows 98.56% accuracy with VGG16 model. Our study will serve as a step stone for finger identification on a mobile touchscreen.
Wall-based Space Manipulation Technique for Efficient Placement of Distant Objects in Augmented Reality

We present a wall-based space manipulation (WSM) technique that enables users to efficiently select and move distant objects by dynamically squeezing their surrounding space in augmented reality. Users can bring a target object closer by dragging a solid plane behind the object and squeezing the space between them and the plane so that they can select and move the object more delicately and efficiently. We furthermore discuss the unique design challenges of WSM, including the dimension of space reduction and the recognition of the reduced space in relation to the real space. We conducted a user evaluation to verify how WSM improves the performance of the hand-centered object manipulation technique on the HoloLens for moving near objects far away and vice versa. The results indicate that WSM overall performed consistently well and significantly improved efficiency while alleviating arm fatigue.
Lip-Interact: Improving Mobile Device Interaction with Silent Speech Commands

We present Lip-Interact, an interaction technique that allows users to issue commands on their smartphone through silent speech. Lip-Interact repurposes the front camera to capture the user's mouth movements and recognize the issued commands with an end-to-end deep learning model. Our system supports 44 commands for accessing both system-level functionalities (launching apps, changing system settings, and handling pop-up windows) and application-level functionalities (integrated operations for two apps). We verify the feasibility of Lip-Interact with three user experiments: evaluating the recognition accuracy, comparing with touch on input efficiency, and comparing with voiced commands with regards to personal privacy and social norms. We demonstrate that Lip-Interact can help users access functionality efficiently in one step, enable one-handed input when the other hand is occupied, and assist touch to make interactions more fluent.
High-intensity interval training (HIIT) alleviated NAFLD feature via miR-122 induction in liver of high-fat high-fructose diet induced diabetic rats

Abstract Background: Exercise intervention is strongly recommended to manage metabolic diseases. In this study, we investigate, whether HIIT and CET can induce hepatic miR-122 expression, NAFLD rats with diabetes. Methods: 40 Wistar rats divided into 2 groups, non-diabetic (NDC) and diabetic . Type 2 diabetes was induced by high-fat high-fructose diet (HFHFD). Then diabetic rats were subdivided into three groups: diabetic control (HFHFD + DC), CET (HFHFD + CET), and HIIT (HFHFD + HIIT). After eight weeks of exercise on a rodent treadmill, we measured miR-122 and its target genes expression in the liver of rats. Results: HIIT decreased the expression of FAS, ACC, SREBP-1c compared with HFHFD + DC (p = .004, p = .032, p = .043, respectively), and could partially increase miR-122 expression as compared with HFHFD + DC (26.8%, p = .68). Conclusions: Exercise training could be a non-pharmacological intervention for improvement of NAFLD of diabetic rats by induction of miR-122. HIIT had a greater effect on NAFLD amelioration than CET.