Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spotting the Details: The Various Facets of Facial Expressions

3D Morphable Models (MM) are a popular tool for analysis and synthesis of facial expressions. They represent plausible variations in facial shape and appearance within a low-dimensional parameter space. Fitted to a face scan, the model's parameters compactly encode its expression patterns. This expression code can be used, for instance, as a feature in automatic facial expression recognition. For accurate classification, an MM that can adequately represent the various characteristic facets and variants of each expression is necessary. Currently available MMs are limited in the diversity of expression patterns. We present a novel high-quality 3D Facial Expression Morphable Model built from a large-scale face database as a tool for expression analysis and synthesis. Establishment of accurate dense correspondence, up to finest skin features, enables a detailed statistical analysis of facial expressions. Various characteristic shape patterns are identified for each expression. The results of our analysis give rise to a new facial expression code. We demonstrate the advantages of such a code for the automatic recognition of expressions, and compare the accuracy of our classifier to state-of-the-art.
Memory and Decision Making: Effects of Sequential Presentation of Probabilities and Outcomes in Risky Prospects

The rationality of decision making under risk is of central concern in psychology and other behavioral sciences. In real-life, the information relevant to a decision often arrives sequentially or changes over time, implying nontrivial demands on memory. Yet, little is known about how this affects the ability to make rational decisions and a default assumption is rather that information about outcomes and probabilities are simultaneously available at the time of the decision. In 4 experiments, we show that participants receiving probability- and outcome information sequentially report substantially (29 to 83%) higher certainty equivalents than participants with simultaneous presentation. This holds also for monetary-incentivized participants with perfect recall of the information. Participants in the sequential conditions often violate stochastic dominance in the sense that they pay more for a lottery with low probability of an outcome than participants in the simultaneous condition pay for a high probability of the same outcome. Computational modeling demonstrates that Cumulative Prospect Theory (Tversky & Kahneman, 1992) fails to account for the effects of sequential presentation, but a model assuming anchoring-and adjustment constrained by memory can account for the data. By implication, established assumptions of rationality may need to be reconsidered to account for the effects of memory in many real-life tasks.
Head circumference at birth and childhood developmental disorders in a nationwide cohort in Denmark

BACKGROUND Early markers of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) may improve the understanding and early recognition of these disorders. We aimed to estimate the association between head circumference at birth, a measure of cerebral size at birth, and the risk of ADHD and ASD. METHODS We present a register-based cohort study of all Danish singletons born alive between 1997 and 2013. Cox proportional hazards regression was used for the statistical analyses. Sibling-matched analyses were performed to account for unmeasured confounding shared by siblings. RESULTS The analyses included 986 909 new-borns. Compared to normocephalic children, microcephaly was associated with an increased risk of ADHD (hazard ratio [HR] 1.22, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.12, 1.32). Macrocephaly was associated with a decreased risk of ADHD (HR 0.90, 95% CI 0.82, 0.99). Neither microcephaly nor macrocephaly were associated with ASD (HR 1.06, 95% CI 0.94, 1.19 and 1.03, 95% CI 0.90, 1.19). The largest difference was found within the normocephalic children. A head circumference at the lower limit of normocephaly compared to a head circumference at the upper limit was associated with an increased risk of ADHD (HR 1.52, 95% CI 1.43, 1.63). The sibling analyses confirmed the increased risk of ADHD with decreasing head circumference in the normocephalic children. No other clear associations were present in the sibling analyses. CONCLUSIONS Within normocephalic children, smaller head circumference at birth was associated with a higher risk of ADHD. Restricted foetal brain growth may be a risk factor for the development of ADHD but not ASD.
Properties of Microcrystalline Chitosan-Calcium Phosphate Complex Composite

Nature itself uses materials like, cellulose to provide the structure of plants, chitin as the exoskeleton of several insects and molluscs, collagen for mechanical support in connective tissues and so on. At present, the socioeconomic situation of the modern world has raised the interest in renewable materials being used in regenerative medicine. The composition of MCCh/? -TCP complex in sponge shape is derived from the junction of two or more different materials, containing organic and inorganic materials, including bioactivity and biodegradability as a characteristic. The chemical characteristics of MCCh/? -TCP complex composites showed that both of the components organic and inorganic exist in the material. All sponge preparations, with MCCh/? -TCP have a well-shaped 3-dimentional structure, a highly porous and interconnected and homogenous pore structure to ensure a biological environment conducive to cell attachment and proliferation as well as tissue growth, providing the passage of nutrient flow. These materials can be used in future for medical applications as a base for scaffolds production and as implants in regenerative medicine.
The scientific analysis of the influence of petrol and LPG gas powered engines dynamic indicators on active road safety

The article presents the results of vehicles testing conducted on a chassis dynamometer during the dynamic acceleration on chosen gears and engine being powered by 95 octane unleaded petrol and liquefied petroleum gas — LPG. The test vehicles were equipped with four different fuel supply systems. The first tested vehicle was equipped with a carburettor petrol fuel supply system and a 1st generation mixer fuel supply system of LPG gas. The second vehicle was adapted to run with BOSCH Mono Motronic single-point petrol fuel supply system and Blos gas carburettor from BRC which allowed the engine to run on LPG gas fuel. The article describes the attempt to evaluate the vehicles active safety on the basis of the dynamic indicators analysis of the vehicles taking part in each edition of the Zlombol rally. On the basis of obtained test results, external dynamic engine characteristics were prepared and dynamic engine indicators were calculated for each of the vehicles. The analysis was focused on an engine elasticity evaluation as a basis indicator which allows to assess the tested vehicles capability to accelerate and which has a direct influence the active safety of all vehicles and road users. Additionally the comparison analysis of the test results for the engines powered by unleaded petrol and LPG fuel was made in the article. The range of the results evaluation covered the problems of testing the vehicles on chassis dyno while conducting the inertia test. The influence of the actual transmission gear on the achieved characteristics and maximum power and torque values generated by the engines was indicated.
Red Blood Cell Homeostasis: Mechanisms and Effects of Microvesicle Generation in Health and Disease

Red blood cells (RBCs) generate microvesicles to remove damaged cell constituents such as oxidized hemoglobin and damaged membrane constituents, and thereby prolong their lifespan. Damage to hemoglobin, in combination with altered phosphorylation of membrane proteins such as band 3, lead to a weakening of the binding between the lipid bilayer and the cytoskeleton, and thereby to membrane budding and microparticle shedding. Microvesicle generation is disturbed in patients with RBC-centered diseases, such as sickle cell disease, glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency, spherocytosis or malaria. A disturbance of the membrane-cytoskeleton interaction is likely to be the main underlying mechanism, as is supported by data obtained from RBCs stored in blood bank conditions. A detailed proteomic, lipidomic and immunogenic comparison of microvesicles derived from different sources is essential in the identification of the processes that trigger vesicle generation. The contribution of RBC-derived microvesicles to inflammation, thrombosis and autoimmune reactions emphasizes the need for a better understanding of the mechanisms and consequences of microvesicle generation.
Ultrawideband Technology for Medical In-Body Sensor Networks: An Overview of the Human Body as a Propagation Medium, Phantoms, and Approaches for Propagation Analysis

An in-body sensor network is that in which at least one of the sensors is located inside the human body. Such wireless in-body sensors are used mainly in medical applications, collecting and monitoring important parameters for health and disease treatment. IEEE Standard 802.15. 6-2012 for wireless body area networks (WBANs) considers in-body communications in the Medical Implant Communications Service (MICS) band. Nevertheless, high-data-rate communications are not feasible at the MICS band because of its narrow occupied bandwidth. In this framework, ultrawideband (UWB) systems have emerged as a potential solution for in-body highdata-rate communications because of their miniaturization capabilities and low power consumption.
Defective 3-Paintability of Planar Graphs

A $d$-defective $k$-painting game on a graph $G$ is played by two players: Lister and Painter. Initially, each vertex is uncolored and has $k$ tokens. In each round, Lister marks a chosen set $M$ of uncolored vertices and removes one token from each marked vertex. In response, Painter colors vertices in a subset $X$ of $M$ which induce a subgraph $G[X]$ of maximum degree at most $d$. Lister wins the game if at the end of some round there is an uncolored vertex that has no more tokens left. Otherwise, all vertices eventually get colored and Painter wins the game. We say that $G$ is $d$-defective $k$-paintable if Painter has a winning strategy in this game. In this paper we show that every planar graph is 3-defective 3-paintable and give a construction of a planar graph that is not 2-defective 3-paintable.
Aerobic fitness and physical activity are inversely associated with body fat, dyslipidemia and inflammatory mediators in children and adolescents living with HIV

ABSTRACT This study aimed to investigate if moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) and aerobic fitness are associated with cardiovascular risk factors in HIV+ children and adolescents. Sixty-five children and adolescents (8 to 15 years) provided minutes of MVPA measured by accelerometers and peak oxygen uptake (peak VO2) by breath-by-breath respiratory exchange. Cardiovascular risk factors were characterized by body fat, blood pressure, total cholesterol, HDL-c, LDL-c, triglycerides, glucose, insulin, C-reactive protein (CRP), interleukin (IL)-6, tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) and carotid intima-media thickness. Results indicated that higher MVPA was associated with lower values of total (β = −3.566) and trunk body fat (β = −3.495), total cholesterol (β = −0.112) and LDL-c (β = −0.830). Likewise, higher peak VO2 was associated with lower total (β = −0.629) and trunk body fat values (β = −0.592) and levels of CRP (β = −0.059). The physically active participants had lower total cholesterol (−24.4 mg.dL−1) and LDL-c (−20.1 mg.dL−1) compared to participants judged to be insufficiently active. Moreover, participants with satisfactory peak VO₂ showed lower total (−4.1%) and trunk (−4.3%) body fat, CRP (−2.3 mg.L−1), IL-6 (−2.4 pg.mL−1) and TNF-α (−1.0 pg.mL−1) compared to low peak VO2 peers. High levels of MVPA and aerobic fitness may prevent developing of cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents HIV+.
PD-1 Blockade Unleashes Effector Potential of Both High- and Low-Affinity Tumor-Infiltrating T Cells

Antitumor T cell responses involve CD8+ T cells with high affinity for mutated self-antigen and low affinity for nonmutated tumor-associated Ag. Because of the highly individual nature of nonsynonymous somatic mutations in tumors, however, immunotherapy relies often on an effective engagement of low-affinity T cells. In this study, we studied the role of T cell affinity during peripheral priming with single-peptide vaccines and during the effector phase in the tumor. To that end, we compared the antitumor responses after OVA257–264 (N4) peptide vaccination of CD8+ T cells carrying TCRs with high (OT-1) and low (OT-3) avidity for the N4 peptide in B16.N4 tumor-bearing C57BL/6 mice. Additionally, we assessed the response of OT-1 cells to either high-affinity (B16.N4) or low-affinity (B16.T4) Ag-expressing tumors after high-affinity (N4) or low-affinity (T4) peptide vaccination. We noticed that although low-affinity tumor-specific T cells expand less than high-affinity T cells, they express lower levels of inhibitory receptors and produce more cytokines. Interestingly, tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T cells show similar in vivo re-expansion capacity to their counterparts in secondary lymphoid organs when transferred to tumor-free hosts, suggesting that T cells in tumors may be rekindled upon relief of tumor immunosuppression. Moreover, our results show that αPD-1 treatment enhances tumor control of high- and low-affinity ligand-expressing tumors, suggesting that combination of high-affinity peripheral priming by altered peptide ligands and checkpoint blockade may enable tumor control upon low-affinity Ag recognition in the tumor.
Internal charge behaviour of nanocomposites

The incorporation of 23 nm titanium dioxide nanoparticles into an epoxy matrix to form a nanocomposite structure is described. It is shown that the use of nanometric particles results in a substantial change in the behaviour of the composite, which can be traced to the mitigation of internal charge when a comparison is made with conventional TiO2 fillers. A variety of diagnostic techniques (including dielectric spectroscopy, electroluminescence, thermally stimulated current, photoluminescence) have been used to augment pulsed electro-acoustic space charge measurement to provide a basis for understanding the underlying physics of the phenomenon. It would appear that, when the size of the inclusions becomes small enough, they act co-operatively with the host structure and cease to exhibit interfacial properties leading to Maxwell-Wagner polarization. It is postulated that the particles are surrounded by high charge concentrations in the Gouy-Chapman-Stern layer. Since nanoparticles have very high specific areas, these regions allow limited charge percolation through nano-filled dielectrics. The practical consequences of this have also been explored in terms of the electric strength exhibited. It would appear that there was a window in which real advantages accrue from the nano-formulated material. An optimum loading of about 10% (by weight) is indicated.
New switching technique for quasi-Z-source resonant converter

The Quasi-Z-Source (QZS) inverters are the promising topology for the renewable integration with the grid. QZSI achieves the MPPT during the shoot through state, without additional DC-DC converter, and simultaneously delivering the AC power to the grid or motor load. The quasi components (L and C) sizes are reduced by increasing the switching frequency of the converters. But the switching losses of the converter will dominate at the higher frequencies. To minimize the switching losses of the converter, this paper proposes reduced switching loss single stage inverter for high power applications. Using only six devices rated at supply voltage, the QZS resonant converter can operate properly by adding resonant inductor and capacitor to the ac side of each phase. The proposed converter can control the output with true pulse width modulation (PWM) at high frequency and the Zero Voltage Switching (ZVS) and Zero Current Switching is achieved at every switching cycle. The detailed analysis, modulation and simulation are presented to verify the operating principle of the QZS resonant converter.
Telemedicine System to Avoid Sudden Death Syndrome by Continuous Monitoring of Vital Signs

We present a telemedicine system for home use, which focuses on the continuous monitoring of vital signs, in order to present a broader picture of the state of the baby, especially useful for premature babies, with little weight, recently operated or with problems congenital, which are the patients at higher risk of sudden death due to the existence of a blockage of the respiratory tract that causes low saturation of oxygen in the blood. The impact of this project is the contribution that has been given to the scientific community, since the product of this research is directed mainly to the area of biomedicine, providing them with a technology that is within their reach, conformed by the visualization interface, alert and adaptable to the requirements created for the growing needs in the current times. With the aim of reducing mortality due to Sudden Death Syndrome in infants.
A probabilistic measurement method for terrain aided navigation for airborne platforms

Inertial Navigation Systems (INS) have an unbounded type of error characteristics. In order to overcome this problem, aiding systems are used to fuse information obtained via additional sensors with the INS solutions. Terrain Aided Navigation (TAN) is an integrated solution method which exploits Digital Terrain Elevation Maps (DTEM) and on board altimeter data to aid INS in case of GNSS outage. In TAN applications, a position measurement is formed by comparing the terrain profiles, which are obtained by using on board altimeters, with a preloaded DTEM. In general, this position measurement is formed by finding the DTEM points which create minimum-mean-square error with the terrain profile that is measured with on board altimeters. Error on the formed position measurement varies with the terrain profile over which the airborne platform flies. This position measurement is used to keep INS errors bounded with various sensor fusion techniques, two of which are Extended Kalman Filtering (EKF) and Gaussian Sum Filtering (GSF). However, error on the position measurement may cause these techniques to produce very erroneous navigation data or to behave in a divergent manner. Probabilistic Measurement Method (PMM) offered in this paper results with more probable position measurements which have less errors. PMM method is used with an EKF structure and takes advantage of position error covariances that are readily available within the EKF. Joint Probability Density Function (JPDF) of horizontal error components are formed and used while the terrain profile is compared with DTEM in order to form a position measurement. In this paper, performances of EKF with conventional positioning, GSF, and EKF with PMM are investigated and evaluated for 10 different flight paths. Flight paths are chosen to have different terrain profiles and the performance evaluation is realized by comparing the mean horizontal and vertical position errors.
Proper isometric actions of hyperbolic groups on $L^p$-spaces

Abstract We show that every non-elementary hyperbolic group $\G $ admits a proper affine isometric action on $L^p(\bd \G \times \bd \G )$, where $\bd \G $ denotes the boundary of $\G $ and $p$ is large enough. Our construction involves a $\G $-invariant measure on $\bd \G \times \bd \G $ analogous to the Bowen–Margulis measure from the ${\rm CAT}(-1)$ setting, as well as a geometric, Busemann-type cocycle. We also deduce that $\G $ admits a proper affine isometric action on the first $\ell ^p$-cohomology group $H^1_{(p)}(\G )$ for large enough $p$.
Transition Period and Immunosuppression: Critical Period of Dairy Cattle Reproduction

This seminar study is prepared on the objectives of: revising important aspects of transition period of dairy cattle and highlighting some potential areas of research and challenges for the future. It has sufficiently been discussed that improved understanding of this frontier of the biology, immunology, nutrition and management of cows during the transition period will provide the largest gains in productivity and profitability of dairy farms. In the manuscript under each specific topic, transition cow program and reproductive performance, immunosuppressant effect of transition period, early predictors of disorders and major abnormalities are discussed in an informative way. Future potential areas of research and possible challenges are also indicated briefly. Finally, it is concluded that despite decades of research in the area of transition cow health and management the high incidence of health disorders around calving continues to negatively affect milk production and reproductive performance; and as recommendation, implementing a transition nutrition program with the help of nutritionists can help dairy herd avoid most of the costly problems and molecular level research studies should get due attention to further understand the situation and devise proper intervention techniques.
Linking environmental conditions and ship movements to estimate invasive species transport across the global shipping network

Aim Some nations, and the International Maritime Organization, are moving towards requirements for managing ballast water to reduce the number of alien species transported and released. These and other measures will be most efficient when targeted at ships posing the greatest risks. Here, we analyse world‐wide ship movements and port environmental conditions to explore how these risk components differ across arriving ships.
Static VAr compensator using packed U-cell based multilevel converter

The 5-level modified packed U-cell converter (MPUC5) is investigated in this paper to work as static VAr compensator (statcom). Main advantages of the MPUC5 include the reduced DC link voltages and having redundant switching states to balance those DC terminals. Such redundancies are analyzed to design an effective voltage balancing technique. The voltage balancing technique is integrated into switching algorithm in order to prevent further complexity. Since the DC link voltages are balanced through redundant switching states, a standard cascaded control is applied to control the injected reactive current and DC bus voltages without additional voltage regulators. Some simulations of MPUC5 statcom are performed and results are discussed. An intentional change in the amount of exchanging reactive power is made to ensure acceptable performance of the controller and proposed converter for STATCOM application.
Using Semantic Relations between Keywords to Categorize Articles from Scientific Literature

The amount of digital data is growing exponentially, and it is time consuming for researchers and readers to locate relevant information. Hence, being up-to-date in a specific research field (or topic) is a tedious and complex task. Our final goal is to create an intelligent scientific search engine by taking semantic relations into account. Our approach described in this paper is the starting point of such a smart system. Semantic relations between keywords are extracted from scientific articles in order to later help in the process of browsing and searching for content in a meaningful scientific way. By computing the most correlated categories and domains inherited from the keywords, we are able to extract the correct meaning of these keywords in relation to the article's concept. Our approach achieves a precision of 0.92 for both categories and domains extraction and a recall of 0.89 and 0.96, respectively.