Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring the Power of Cross-Contextual Large Language Model in Mimic Emotion Prediction

utilize multimodal data to predict the intensity of three emotional categories. In our work, we discovered that integrating multiple dimensions, modalities, and levels enhances the effectiveness of emotional judgment. In terms of feature extraction, we utilize over a dozen types of medium backbone networks, including W2V-MSP, GLM, and FAU, which are representative of audio, text, and video modalities, respectively. Additionally, we utilize the LoRA framework and employ various domain adaptation methods to effectively adapt to the task at hand. Regarding model design, apart from the RNN model in the baseline, we have extensively incorporated our transformer variant and multi-modal fusion model. Finally, we propose a Hyper-parameter Search Strategy (HPSS) for late fusion to further enhance the effectiveness of the fusion model. For the MuSe-MIMIC, our method achieves Pearson's Correlation Coefficient of 0.7753, 0.7647, and 0.6653 for Approval, Disappointment, and Uncertainty, respectively, outperforming the baseline system by a large margin (i.e., 0.5536, 0.5139, and 0.3395) on the test set. The final mean pearson is 0.7351, surpassing all other participants and ranking Top 1.
Towards a Social Justice Aligned Makerspace: Co-designing Custom Assistive Technology within a University Ecosystem

Digital fabrication methods offer exciting opportunities for producing customized assistive technology (AT). However, utilizing these tools currently requires a high level of technical expertise as well as time and money investments. Furthermore, facilitating collaboration between end users and makers needs effective and inclusive approaches with shared language and support for asynchronous, dispersed communication of design requirements. While these Do-It-Yourself (DIY) approaches are shown to support end-user agency and furthering technology democratization, research has to yet explore how they can further align with social justice values and practices. We explored these possibilities by facilitating DIY-AT design with students with disabilities within a university makerspace. By explicitly encouraging participants to consider social justice issues important to them as they engaged in DIY-AT design, we studied the considerations and supports needed for facilitating flexible co-design activities and broader conversations about accessibility barriers at the university. Adopting a transdisciplinary approach, we offer lessons learned about the potential of co-designing DIY-ATs as a way to investigate questions of social justice, inclusion, and access in academic contexts.
Understanding Strategies and Challenges of Conducting Daily Data Analysis (DDA) Among Blind and Low-vision People

Being able to analyze and derive insights from data, which we call Daily Data Analysis (DDA), is an increasingly important skill in everyday life. While the accessibility community has explored ways to make data more accessible to blind and low-vision (BLV) people, little is known about how BLV people perform DDA. Knowing BLV people’s strategies and challenges in DDA would allow the community to make DDA more accessible to them. Toward this goal, we conducted a mixed-methods study of interviews and think-aloud sessions with BLV people (N=16). Our study revealed five key approaches for DDA (i.e., overview obtaining, column comparison, key statistics identification, note-taking, and data validation) and the associated challenges. We discussed the implications of our findings and highlighted potential directions to make DDA more accessible for BLV people.
Ocular motor disorders in children and adults with mTBI: a scoping review protocol

Introduction Ocular motor function is susceptible to neurological injury because it requires a large portion of brain circuitry including every lobe of the brain, brainstem, thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum, cranial nerves and visual tracts. While reports of a high frequency of ocular motor dysfunctions after mild traumatic brain injury (mTBI) span multidisciplinary journals, there is no scoping review of the signs, diagnostic assessments and criteria, and appropriate management of ocular motor disorders post-mTBI. Post-mTBI ocular motor dysfunction has been reported to respond to active treatment. The objective of this scoping review is to map the available evidence on the diagnostic assessment and treatment modalities currently used in the management of mTBI-related ocular motor disorders in children and adults. This scoping review also aims to identify gaps in the current literature and provide suggestions for future research. Methods and analysis This review will include populations with reported concussion and/or mTBI without restrictions on age, race, sex or time since injury. The review will evaluate the reported symptoms related to ocular motor dysfunction, types of assessments and diagnostic criteria used, reported treatments, and the level of evidence supporting the reported treatments. This review will exclude literature on brain injury of non-traumatic aetiology and moderate/severe traumatic brain injury. Ocular motor dysfunction after mTBI appears in journals across multiple disciplines. Thus, multiple databases will be evaluated including Pubmed, Embase, PEDro, OVID, Clinical Key, Google Scholar and REHABDATA. Literature will be searched from inception to present day. Evidence sources will include experimental study designs including randomised controlled trials, non-randomised controlled trials and interrupted time-series. Additionally, analytical observational studies including prospective and retrospective cohort studies, case series, cross-sectional studies and clinical practice guidelines will be considered for inclusion. Data will be extracted on clinical presentation, frequency, assessment, diagnostic criteria management strategies and outcomes of concussion and mTBI-related ocular motor disorders. Ethics and dissemination This scoping review will use data from existing publications and does not require ethical approval by an institutional review board. Results will be disseminated through publication in a peer-reviewed scientific journal and presented at relevant conferences and as part of future workshops with professionals involved with diagnosis and management of patients with mTBI.
Improving the Accessibility of Screen-Shared Presentations by Enabling Concurrent Exploration

Presenters often screen-share slides over remote meetings as visual aids. Screen reader users however often do not have adequate ways to access slide content during presentations. To inform the design of more accessible interfaces, we ran a formative design workshop to elicit what screen reader users value during live screen-shared presentations, which are Prioritize Key Information, Reduce Cognitive Load, Provide Exploration Independence, Minimize Control Effort, and Encode Spatial Information. Based on these values, we created two prototypes that users experienced in a follow-up design probe. These interactions provide users control over what, when, and how slide elements are read out and introduce spatial audio separation between the presenter’s voice and screen reader audio. Participants found that a laptop-based prototype designed for the first four values significantly improved the accessibility of screen-shared content over existing tools, even with a presenter who was perceived to present materials accessibly. The importance of concurrent exploration is highlighted by participants’ frequent and diverse use of access to consume information complementary to the presenter, align focus, and understand information using alternative means. A phone-based prototype that encoded spatial information and greater exploration independence at the cost of increased cognitive load received mixed feedback, illustrating the balance between values that interaction design needs to strike. We conclude with insights and considerations for how the identified values and corresponding interactions can be used to improve the accessibility of screen-shared presentations.
A Usability Study of Nomon: A Flexible Interface for Single-Switch Users

Many individuals with severe motor impairments communicate via a single switch—which might be activated by a blink, facial movement, or puff of air. These switches are commonly used as input to scanning systems that allow selection from a 2D grid of options. Nomon is an alternative interface that provides a more flexible layout, not confined to a grid. Previous work suggests that, even when options appear in a grid, Nomon may be faster and easier to use than scanning systems. However, previous work primarily tested Nomon with non–motor-impaired individuals, and evaluation with potential end-users was limited to a single motor-impaired participant. We provide a usability study following seven participants with motor impairments and compare their performance with Nomon against a row-column scanning system. Most participants were faster with Nomon in a picture selection task, while entry rates varied more in a text-entry task. However, we found participants had to click more times per selection using Nomon, motivating future research into mitigating this increased click load. All but one participant preferred using Nomon; most reported it felt faster and had better predictive text.
Seamless Code Generator Synchronization in the Composition of Heterogeneous Modeling Languages

In Software Language Engineering, the composition of heterogeneous languages has become an increasingly relevant research area in recent years. Despite considerable advances in different composition techniques, they mainly focus on composing concrete and abstract syntax, while a thorough yet general concept for synchronizing code generators and their produced artifacts is still missing. Current solutions are either highly generic, typically increasing the complexity beyond their actual value, or strictly limited to specific applications. In this paper, we present a concept for lightweight generator composition, using the symbol tables of heterogeneous modeling languages to exchange generator-specific accessor and mutator information. The information is attached to the symbols of model elements via templates allowing code generators to communicate access routines at the code level without a further contract. Providing suitable synchronization techniques for code generation is essential to enable language composition in all aspects.
Understanding Digital Content Creation Needs of Blind and Low Vision People

Creative activities play an essential role in everyday life. Recently, there has been increasing interest in the accessibility community to support blind and low vision (BLV) people’s digital creative experiences. We conducted a mixed-method study to gain a comprehensive understanding of their creative needs to inform and focus this line of research. Through a large-scale survey (N = 165) and follow-up interviews (N = 15), we learned that BLV people are interested in a more diverse range of creative tasks than what is currently accessible. In particular, many forms of visual content creation and advanced expressions still remain challenging. Participants pointed out both accessibility improvements and social changes needed to fulfill personal creative pursuits. In turn, we discuss potential design ideas to move toward more inclusive creative practices, such as developing alternative, non-visual information-sharing methods and establishing visual information presentation guidelines specific to creative contexts.
Banal Autistic Social Media: A Found Footage Autoethnography

In this position paper, we argue for designing autistic social media for thriving neurodiverse online communities. We discuss emerging work in the field of Human-Computer Interaction around autism and social media design, and explore how a Banal Autistic Design approach can lead to a less deficit-focused design paradigm by conducting a Found Footage Autoethnography, a method we introduce as an autoethnography variant suited to autistic embodied ways of knowing. Finally, we juxtapose our design insights with existing design guidelines for autistic social media, and argue for design for customisation, anti-normativity, non-prescripitiveness, granular publics, and interest-centricity.
“Not There Yet”: Feasibility and Challenges of Mobile Sound Recognition to Support Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing People

While recent advances have enabled mobile sound recognition tools for deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) people, these tools have only been studied in the lab or through short, controlled experiments. To assess the real-world feasibility and guide the future designs of mobile sound awareness systems, we conducted a three-week field study of SoundWatch, a smartwatch-based sound recognition app, with 10 DHH participants. Our findings suggest the app's utility in increasing environmental awareness and facilitating everyday tasks for DHH users. However, several challenges, such as background noises, variability of real-world sounds, and confusion among similar sounding sounds, indicated that mobile sound recognition solutions are “not there yet” for adoption and use in daily life. We close by presenting HCI design opportunities to improve model reliability by increasing contextual awareness, supporting end-user customization, and fostering the collective improvement of sound recognition models.
The R1441C-LRRK2 mutation induces myeloid immune cell exhaustion in an age- and sex-dependent manner

Considering age is the greatest risk factor for many neurodegenerative diseases, aging, in particular aging of the immune system, is the most underappreciated and understudied contributing factor in the neurodegeneration field. Genetic variation around the LRRK2 gene affects risk of both familial and sporadic Parkinson’s disease (PD). The leucine-rich repeat kinase 2 (LRRK2) protein has been implicated in peripheral immune signaling, however, the effects of an aging immune system on LRRK2 function have been neglected to be considered. We demonstrate here that the R1441C mutation induces a hyper- responsive phenotype in macrophages from young female mice, characterized by increased effector functions, including stimulation-dependent antigen presentation, cytokine release, phagocytosis, and lysosomal function. This is followed by age-acquired immune cell exhaustion in a Lrrk2-kinase-dependent manner. Immune-exhausted macrophages exhibit suppressed antigen presentation and hypophagocytosis, which is also demonstrated in myeloid cells from R1441C and Y1699C-PD patients. Our novel findings that LRRK2 mutations confer immunological advantage at a young age but may predispose the carrier to age-acquired immune exhaustion have significant implications for LRRK2 biology and therapeutic development. Indeed, LRRK2 has become an appealing target in PD, but our findings suggest that more research is required to understand the cell-type specific consequences and optimal timing of LRRK2- targeting therapeutics. One Sentence Summary The R1441C-LRRK2 mutation causes an age-acquired immune cell exhaustion in macrophages in sex-dependent manner
Cortical mapping of sensory responses reveals strong brain-state dependence of the late component

Sensory information must be integrated across a distributed brain network for stimulus processing and perception. Recent studies have revealed specific spatiotemporal patterns of cortical activation for the early and late components of sensory-evoked responses, which are associated with stimulus features and perception, respectively. However, our understanding of how the brain state influences the sensory-evoked activation across the mouse cortex remains limited. In this study, we utilized isoflurane to modulate the brain state and conducted wide-field calcium imaging of Thy1-GCaMP6f mice to monitor the distributed activation evoked by multi-whisker stimulation. Our findings reveal that the level of anesthesia strongly shapes the spatiotemporal features and the functional connectivity of the sensory-activated network. As anesthesia levels decrease, we observe increasingly complex responses, accompanied by the emergence of the late component within the sensory-evoked response. The persistence of the late component under anesthesia raises new questions regarding the potential existence of perception during unconscious states.
Revisiting Hox gene evolution and Hox cluster linkage across Nematoda

Hox genes are central to metazoan body plan formation, patterning and evolution, playing a critical role in cell fate decisions early in embryonic development in invertebrates and vertebrates. While the archetypical Hox gene cluster consists of members of nine ortholog groups (HOX1-HOX9), arrayed in close linkage in the order in which they have their anterior-posterior patterning effects, nematode Hox gene sets do not fit this model. The Caenorhabditis elegans Hox gene set is not clustered and contains only six Hox genes from four of the ancestral groups. The pattern observed in C. elegans is not typical of the phylum, and variation in orthologue set presence and absence and in genomic organisation has been reported. Recent advances in genome sequencing have resulted in the availability of many novel genome assemblies in Nematoda, especially from taxonomic groups that had not been analysed previously. Here, we explored Hox gene complements in high-quality genomes of 80 species from all major clades of Nematoda to understand the evolution of this key set of body pattern genes and especially to probe the origins of the “dispersed” cluster observed in C. elegans. We also included the recently available high-quality genomes of some Nematomorpha as an outgroup. We find that nematodes can have Hox genes from up to six orthology groups. While nematode Hox “clusters” are often interrupted by unrelated genes we identify species in which the cluster is intact and not dispersed.
Design of universal Ebola virus vaccine candidates via immunofocusing

Ebola virus causes hemorrhagic fever in humans and poses a significant threat to global public health. Although two viral vector vaccines have been approved to prevent Ebola virus disease, they are distributed in the limited ring vaccination setting and only indicated for prevention of infection from orthoebolavirus zairense (EBOV) – one of three orthoebolavirus species that have caused previous outbreaks. Ebola virus glycoprotein GP mediates viral infection and serves as the primary target of neutralizing antibodies. Here we describe a universal Ebola virus vaccine approach using structure-guided design of candidates with hyperglycosylation that aims to direct antibody responses away from variable regions and toward conserved epitopes of GP. We first determined the hyperglycosylation landscape on Ebola virus GP and used that to generate hyperglycosylated GP variants with two to four additional glycosylation sites to mask the highly variable glycan cap region. We then created vaccine candidates by displaying wild-type or hyperglycosylated GP variants on ferritin nanoparticles (Fer). Immunization with these antigens elicited potent neutralizing antisera against EBOV in mice. Importantly, we observed consistent cross-neutralizing activity against Bundibugyo virus and Sudan virus from hyperglycosylated GP-Fer with two or three additional glycans. In comparison, elicitation of cross-neutralizing antisera was rare in mice immunized with wild-type GP-Fer. These results demonstrate a potential strategy to develop universal Ebola virus vaccines that confer cross-protective immunity against existing and emerging filovirus species. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Ebola virus outbreaks cause hemorrhagic fever with high mortality rates. Current viral vaccines require cold-chain storage and are distributed in limited ring vaccination settings. They are only indicated for protection against orthoebolavirus zairense (EBOV), one of three human-pathogenic Ebola virus species. Here we harness hyperglycosylation as an immunofocusing approach to design universal Ebola virus vaccine candidates based on Ebola virus glycoprotein (GP) displayed on ferritin nanoparticles (Fer). Compared with wild-type GP-Fer, immunization with hyperglycosylated GP-Fer elicited potently neutralizing antisera against EBOV, and more importantly, consistent cross-neutralizing activity against the other two orthoebolavirus species. Our work shows that immunofocusing antibody responses toward conserved and neutralizing epitopes of GP represents a promising strategy for vaccine design against antigenically diverse Ebola virus species.
ACID: A Comprehensive Toolbox for Image Processing and Modeling of Brain, Spinal Cord, and Ex Vivo Diffusion MRI Data

Diffusion MRI (dMRI) has become a crucial imaging technique in the field of neuroscience, with a growing number of clinical applications. Although most studies still focus on the brain, there is a growing interest in utilizing dMRI to investigate the healthy or injured spinal cord. The past decade has also seen the development of biophysical models that link MR-based diffusion measures to underlying microscopic tissue characteristics, which necessitates validation through ex vivo dMRI measurements. Building upon 13 years of research and development, we present an open-source, MATLAB-based academic software toolkit dubbed ACID: A Comprehensive Toolbox for Image Processing and Modeling of Brain, Spinal Cord, and Ex Vivo Diffusion MRI Data. ACID is designed to process and model dMRI data of the brain, spinal cord, and ex vivo specimens by incorporating state-of-the-art artifact correction tools, diffusion and kurtosis tensor imaging, and biophysical models that enable the estimation of microstructural properties in white matter. Additionally, the software includes an array of linear and non-linear fitting algorithms for accurate diffusion parameter estimation. By adhering to the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) data organization principles, ACID facilitates standardized analysis, ensures compatibility with other BIDS-compliant software, and aligns with the growing availability of large databases utilizing the BIDS format. Furthermore, ACID seamlessly integrates into the popular Statistical Parametric Mapping (SPM) framework, benefitting from a wide range of segmentation, spatial processing, and statistical analysis tools as well as a large and growing number of SPM extensions. As such, this comprehensive toolbox covers the entire processing chain from raw DICOM data to group-level statistics, all within a single software package.
Valuing carbon sequestration by Antarctic krill faecal pellets

Marine life contribute to carbon stores helping lock carbon away from the atmosphere. Open-ocean pelagic ecosystems are vastly under-reported in terms of carbon sequestration conservation potential, compared to coastal vegetation ‘blue carbon’ systems. Here we show that a harvested organism, Antarctic krill, has similar carbon sequestration potential through its sinking faecal pellets as coastal blue carbon stores, namely seagrasses, mangroves and marshes. Building upon recent advances in krill abundance and faecal pellet carbon flux data, and combining these with an ocean circulation model, we show that from Austral spring to early autumn Antarctic krill sequester 20 Mt C into the deep ocean for at least 100 years. This equates to USD$ 4 - 46 billion per spring/summer season depending on the price of carbon. The footprint of remineralised krill pellet carbon has a global extent, with some reaching as far as the North Pacific. The vast area of ocean krill inhabit and their high abundance make their total carbon sequestered each year similar to that from coastal vegetated blue carbon stores. As Antarctic krill are being impacted by rapid polar climate change and they are harvested, both krill populations and their habitat warrant protection to preserve this valuable carbon sink.