bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Heterogeneity in Spore Aggregation and Germination Results in Different Sized, Cooperative Microcolonies in an Aspergillus niger Culture
Authors: Lyu Jun , Tegelaar Martin , Post Harm , Moran Torres Juan , Torchia Costanza , Altelaar A. F. Maarten , Bleichrodt Robert-Jan , de Cock Hans , Lugones Luis G. , Wösten Han A. B.
Published: January 2023

Aspergillus niger
can form microcolonies of different size due to partial aggregation of spores and germlings. So far, this heterogeneity was considered a negative trait by the industry.
The Fission Yeast Mating-Type Switching Motto: “One-for-Two” and “Two-for-One”
Authors: Arcangioli Benoît , Gangloff Serge
Published: January 2023

Schizosaccharomyces pombe
is an ascomycete fungus that divides by medial fission; it is thus commonly referred to as fission yeast, as opposed to the distantly related budding yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae
. The reproductive lifestyle of
S. pombe
relies on an efficient genetic sex determination system generating a 1:1 sex ratio and using alternating haploid/diploid phases in response to environmental conditions.
Inflammatory Responses Induced by the Monophasic Variant of Salmonella Typhimurium in Pigs Play a Role in the High Shedder Phenotype and Fecal Microbiota Composition
Authors: Kempf Florent , Cordoni Guido , Chaussé Anne-Marie , Drumo Rosanna , Brown Helen , Horton Daniel L. , Paboeuf Frédéric , Denis Martine , Velge Philippe , La Ragione Roberto , Kerouanton Annaëlle
Published: January 2023

Salmonellosis remains the most frequent human foodborne zoonosis after campylobacteriosis and pork meat is considered one of the major sources of human foodborne infections. At the farm, host heterogeneity in pig infection is problematic.
Carriage and Transmission of
mcr-1
in Salmonella Typhimurium and Its Monophasic 1,4,[5],12:i:- Variants from Diarrheal Outpatients: a 10-Year Genomic Epidemiology in Guangdong, Southern China
Authors: Sun Ruan-Yang , Fang Liang-Xing , Ke Bi-Xia , Sun Jian , Wu Zuo-Wei , Feng You-Jun , Liu Ya-Hong , Ke Chang-Wen , Liao Xiao-Ping
Published: January 2023

Colistin is one of the last-line antibiotics for the clinical treatment of
Enterobacteriaceae
. However, the emergence of the mobilized colistin resistance (
mcr-1
) gene has spread throughout the entire human health system and largely threatens the usage of colistin in the clinical setting.
Origin of Late Cretaceous, enclave-bearing granitoids in southern Tibet: Implications for magma recharge and crustal thickening
Authors: Wen Ding-Jun , Hu Xiumian , Yu Jin-Hai , Wang Xiao-Lei , Chapman Timothy , Wang Rui-Qiang
Published: January 2023

Exposures of enclave-bearing granitoids can provide rare opportunities to directly evaluate the connection between compositional variability and the depth of origin of arc magmatic rocks. The ∼1000 km long Gangdese batholith is a composite batholith with composition from mafic to felsic; SiO2 ranges from 51 wt% to 70 wt%. New zircon U−Pb dating of the Nyemo plutons, Renbu plutons, and Xigaze plutons in the Gangdese batholith is consistent with their emplacement and crystallization in the Late Cretaceous (ca. 90−85 Ma). Mafic magmatic enclaves (MMEs) in the plutons are characterized by low SiO2 (50.9−56.0 wt%) and Nb/U, Ce/Pb, and Nb/La ratios coupled with enrichment in light rare earth elements and large ion lithophile elements and depletion in high field strength elements. These geochemical features, combined with depleted whole-rock εNd(t) (+4.2 to +4.7) and zircon εHf(t) (+9.0 to +13.8), suggest that they were derived by partial melting of a depleted mantle source associated with subduction-related fluids. The granitoids with high SiO2 (55.6−66.9 wt%) display adakitic geochemical characteristics, such as low Y and Yb contents, and high Sr/Y and La/Yb ratios. Their positive whole-rock εNd(t) (+4.0 to +5.5) and zircon εHf(t) (+6.9 to +14.3) values, as well as enrichment of incompatible elements, indicate that the granitoids were derived from partial melting of the juvenile lower crust. Geochemical modeling suggests that the compositional diversities of MMEs and adakitic granitoids were inherited from heterogeneous sources. This genetic relationship indicates that the underplated basaltic magmas could have supplied sufficient heat to trigger the melting of the thickened crust and thus formation of the enclave-bearing granitoid. In this regard, the origin of arc rocks can mirror the evolution of crustal thickness. Our results reveal that the crust was thickened to ∼50 km during the Late Cretaceous (90−85 Ma) and provide a magmatic record of crustal thickening prior to the Cenozoic Indo-Asia collision.
Supporting all breaths versus supporting some breaths during synchronised mechanical ventilation in neonates: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Batra Dushyant , Jaysainghe Dulip , Batra Nihit
Published: January 2023

Background

National Institute for Health and Clinical Effectiveness (NICE), UK, guideline published in 2019 recommends the use of volume-targeted ventilation (VTV). It recommends synchronised intermittent mandatory ventilation (SIMV) over the modes that support-all-breaths, for example, assist control ventilation (ACV). We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of the studies comparing SIMV mode with triggered modes supporting all breaths.

Methods

Patients: Neonates receiving mechanical ventilation.

Intervention: SIMV ventilation.

Comparison: Modes that support-all-breaths: ACV, pressure support ventilation and neurally adjusted ventilation.

Outcomes: Death before discharge and bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD) at 36 weeks’ corrected gestation, weaning duration, incidence of air leaks, extubation failure, postnatal steroid use, patent ductus arteriosus requiring treatment, severe (grade 3/4) intraventricular haemorrhage, periventricular leukomalacia and neurodevelopmental outcome at 2 years.

Randomised or quasi-randomised clinical trials comparing SIMV with triggered ventilation modes supporting all breaths in neonates, reporting on at least one outcome of interest were eligible for inclusion in the review.

Results

Seven publications describing eight studies fulfilled the eligibility criteria. No significant difference in mortality (OR 0.74, 95% CI 0.32 to 1.74) or BPD at 36 weeks (OR 0.63, 95% CI 0.33 to 1.24), but the weaning duration was significantly shorter in support-all-breaths group with a mean difference of −22.67 hours (95% CI –44.33 to –1.01). No difference in any other outcomes.

Conclusion

Compared with SIMV, synchronised modes supporting all breaths are associated with a shorter weaning duration with no statistically significant difference in mortality, BPD at 36 weeks or other outcomes. Larger studies with explicit ventilator and weaning protocols are needed to compare these modes in the current neonatal population.

PROSPERO registration number

The review was prospectively registered with PROSPERO: CRD42020207601.
Atypical giant cell arteritis presentations diagnosed with FDG-18 whole body PET imaging
Authors: Vijayaraghavan Nimal , Martin Jaye , Jayawickrama Waranga , Otome Ohide
Published: January 2023

Two male patients aged above 70 years were investigated for chronic non-specific symptoms and evidence of significant systemic inflammation, but without classic ‘cranial symptoms’ of giant cell arteritis (GCA). Each patient had multiple non-diagnostic investigations, but finally extensive large-vessel vasculitis was revealed by whole body positron emission tomography/CT imaging. Both cases were confirmed to have GCA on temporal artery biopsy and responded well to initial high-dose prednisolone therapy. The patients successfully completed 12 months of steroid-sparing therapy with tocilizumab and achieved remission of their condition.
Sport and exercise medicine/physiotherapy publishing has a gender/sex equity problem: we need action now!
Authors: Cowan Sallie M , Kemp Joanne L , Ardern Clare L , Thornton Jane S , Rio Ebonie Kendra , Bruder Andrea M , Mosler Andrea Britt , Patterson Brooke , Haberfield Melissa , Roughead Eliza A , Hart Harvi , To Laura , Neufeld Sydney , Mazahir Nada , Crossley Kay M
Published: January 2023

Objectives

We aimed to determine (1) the proportion of women authors overall, in first (lead) and last (senior) author positions, (2) the proportion of women research participants and (3) the association between women in first and/or last author positions and the proportion of women research participants in original research articles and editorials/opinion pieces in four sport and exercise medicine/physiotherapy journals.

Methods

The journals evaluated were theBritish Journal of Sports Medicine,Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy,Physical Therapy in SportandInternational Journal of Sports Physical Therapy.

We reviewed all original research articles and editorials/opinion pieces published in 2008, 2009, 2018 and 2019. For each, we aimed to determine the gender/sex of all authors (through gender pronouns, Google Scholar, ResearchGate, institutional profiles, personal websites, photographs and/or social media), and the gender/sex of study participants reported as ‘female’ or ‘male’ or ‘women’ or ‘men’ or ‘girls’ or ‘boys’.

Results

We included 952 original studies and 219 editorials/opinion pieces. There were 5146 authors of original studies and 706 authors of editorials/opinion pieces. Compared with 2008/2009, the proportion of women as first and last authors was 3.6% (33.0% compared with 29.4%) and 4.8% (33.2% compared with 27.4%) higher respectively in 2018/2019. On average, the proportion of women participants in original studies remained largely unchanged over the 10-year period, only 10% of all participants were women in studies.

Conclusion

Women are strikingly under-represented in first and last author positions, as are women participants in sports and exercise medicine/physiotherapy journals.
Prevalence, awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension in China, 2004-18: findings from six rounds of a national survey
Authors: Zhang Mei , Shi Yu , Zhou Bin , Huang Zhengjing , Zhao Zhenping , Li Chun , Zhang Xiao , Han Guiyuan , Peng Ke , Li Xinhua , Wang Youfa , Ezzati Majid , Wang Limin , Li Yichong
Published: January 2023

Objective

To assess the recent trends in prevalence and management of hypertension in China, nationally and by population subgroups.

Design

Six rounds of a national survey, China.

Setting

China Chronic Disease and Risk Factors Surveillance, 2004-18.

Participants

642 523 community dwelling adults aged 18-69 years (30 501 in 2004, 47 353 in 2007, 90 491 in 2010, 156 836 in 2013, 162 293 in 2015, and 155 049 in 2018).

Main outcome measures

Hypertension was defined as a blood pressure of ≥140/90 mm Hg or taking antihypertensive drugs. The main outcome measures were hypertension prevalence and proportion of people with hypertension who were aware of their hypertension, who were treated for hypertension, and whose blood pressure was controlled below 140/90 mm Hg.

Results

The standardised prevalence of hypertension in adults aged 18-69 years in China increased from 20.8% (95% confidence interval 19.0% to 22.5%) in 2004 to 29.6% (27.8% to 31.3%) in 2010, then decreased to 24.7% (23.2% to 26.1%) in 2018. During 2010-18, the absolute annual decline in prevalence of hypertension among women was more than twice that among men (−0.83 percentage points (95% confidence interval −1.13 to −0.52)
v
−0.40 percentage points (−0.73 to −0.07)). Despite modest improvements in the awareness, treatment, and control of hypertension since 2004, rates remained low in 2018, at 38.3% (36.3% to 40.4%), 34.6% (32.6% to 36.7%), and 12.0% (10.6% to 13.4%). Of 274 million (95% confidence interval 238 to 311 million) adults aged 18-69 years with hypertension in 2018, control was inadequate in an estimated 240 million (215 to 264 million). Across all surveys, women with low educational attainment had higher prevalence of hypertension than those with higher education, but the finding was mixed for men. The gap in hypertension control between urban and rural areas persisted, despite larger improvements in diagnosis and control in rural than in urban areas.

Conclusions

The prevalence of hypertension in China has slightly declined since 2010, but treatment and control remain low. The findings highlight the need for improving detection and treatment of hypertension through the strengthening of primary care in China, especially in rural areas.
Preclinical mouse model of a misfolded PNLIP variant develops chronic pancreatitis
Authors: Zhu Guoying , Wilhelm Steven J , George Leah G , Cassidy Brett M , Zino Sammy , Luke Cliff J , Hanna Mina , Stone Stephen , Phan Nhung , Matiwala Neel , Ballentine Samuel J , Lowe Mark E , Xiao Xunjun
Published: January 2023

Objective

Increasing evidence implicates mutation-induced protein misfolding and endoplasm reticulum (ER) stress in the pathophysiology of chronic pancreatitis (CP). The paucity of animal models harbouring genetic risk variants has hampered our understanding of how misfolded proteins trigger CP. We previously showed that pancreatic triglyceride lipase (PNLIP) p.T221M, a variant associated with steatorrhoea and possibly CP in humans, misfolds and elicits ER stress in vitro suggesting proteotoxicity as a potential disease mechanism. Our objective was to create a mouse model to determine if PNLIP p.T221M causes CP and to define the mechanism.

Design

We created a mouse model ofPnlipp.T221M and characterised the structural and biochemical changes in the pancreas aged 1–12 months. We used multiple methods including histochemistry, immunostaining, transmission electron microscopy, biochemical assays, immunoblotting and qPCR.

Results

We demonstrated the hallmarks of human CP inPnlipp.T221M homozygous mice including progressive pancreatic atrophy, acinar cell loss, fibrosis, fatty change, immune cell infiltration and reduced exocrine function. Heterozygotes also developed CP although at a slower rate. Immunoblot showed that pancreatic PNLIP T221M misfolded as insoluble aggregates. The level of aggregates in homozygotes declined with age and was much lower in heterozygotes at all ages. ThePnlipp.T221M pancreas had increased ER stress evidenced by dilated ER, increasedHspa5(BiP) mRNA abundance and a maladaptive unfolded protein response leading to upregulation ofDdit3(CHOP), nuclear factor-κB and cell death.

Conclusion

Expression of PNLIP p.T221M in a preclinical mouse model results in CP caused by ER stress and proteotoxicity of misfolded mutant PNLIP.
Meeting up in broken word/times: communication, temporality and pace in neuromixed writing
Authors: Bertilsdotter Rosqvist Hanna , Hjorth Elisabeth , Nygren Anna
Published: January 2023

The article investigates letter writing as a way to explore neurodiverse collectives, neuromixed communication and neurodiverse research collaboration. From the perspective of neurodiversity studies and translation practice/studies, the article negotiates new perspectives of inherited images of neurological selves and others, such as the non-autistic as the ‘typical’ in contrast to the ‘atypical’ autistic person. Experimenting with autistic time, allowing different sensory modalities and different approaches to time, detail and narrative, the article challenges deficit approaches to autism. Through a letter writing practice the possibilities and challenges of subjectivity, cultural translation and writing as method are examined. The article suggests that ‘counter narratives’ are important sources of knowledge as they reclaim personhood from dehumanising perspectives. By performing neuromixed conversation and dialogue with theoretical concepts, and pen palingas playas a fruitful form for responsible cross-neurotype translation, the article illuminates challenges and opportunities in neurodiverse collective writing.
Framework for Robust Design Optimization of Tuned Mass Dampers by Stochastic Subset Optimization
Authors: Khalid Mohd Aman , Bansal Sahil
Published: January 2023

This study is focused on robust design optimization (RDO) of the tuned mass dampers (TMDs), which are widely used as a passive vibration controller in structural systems. The performance of the TMDs designed under the implicit assumption that all relevant system parameters (such as loading and structural characteristics) are deterministic is greatly affected by the inevitable inherent uncertainties in the system parameters. In this regard, a framework is proposed for the RDO of TMDs to determine its optimal solution which is less sensitive to system parameter variability. RDO is defined as a multi-objective optimization problem that aims to minimize the mean and variance of the performance function. In the case of multiple TMDs, the proposed framework uniquely avoids the presumption of their mass distribution, number, and placement location. In the proposed RDO framework, an augmented formulation is adopted wherein the design parameters are artificially introduced as uncertain variables with some prescribed probability density function (PDF) over the design space. The resulting optimization problem is solved using the stochastic subset optimization (SSO) and KN, a direct search optimization method. The effectiveness of the proposed framework is studied by analyzing four illustrative examples involving a single TMD attached to a single-degree-of-freedom (SDOF) structure, a single TMD attached to a multiple-degree-of-freedom (MDOF) structure, multiple TMDs attached to an MDOF structure, and an 80-story structure equipped with multiple TMDs.
State-Dependent Riccati Equation-Based UAV Path Following Guidance for Shipborne Net Recovery
Authors: Singh Mandeep , Jetley Pranav , Singhal Akshath , Sujit P. B.
Published: January 2023

The landing of a fixed-wing aircraft on a ship is a challenging task due to a constrained landing space, wind disturbances, and the ship motion. In this paper, we consider the landing problem as a moving path following problem and present a decoupled three-dimensional State-Dependent Riccati Equation (SDRE)-based guidance law for net recovery landing of a fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on board a ship deck. Stability analysis of the guidance law is carried out and its performance is evaluated on aerosonde UAV in MATLAB and RASCAL aircraft in software-in-the-loop (SITL) taking actuator dynamics, different sea states for ship motion and varying wind disturbances into account. The proposed approach shows the general applicability of the guidance law for different types of aircraft
In SilicoStudy of Thiourea Derivatives as Potential Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor Inhibitors
Authors: Roslan Norashikin , Halim Khairul Bariyyah Abd. , Bunnori Noraslinda Muhamad , Aluwi Mohd Fadhlizil Fasihi Mohd , Kassim Karimah , Ngah Nurziana
Published: January 2023

Over the years, the escalation of cancer cases has been linked to the resistance, less selectivity, and toxicity of available anticancer drugs to normal cells. Therefore, continuous efforts are necessary to find new anticancer drugs with high selectivity of epidermal growth factor receptor tyrosine kinase (EGFR-TK) as a therapeutic target. The EGFR-TK protein has a crucial role in cell proliferation and cancer progression. With about 30% of cancer cases involved with the protein, it has piqued the interest as a therapeutic target. The potential of theoretically designed thiourea derivatives as anticancer agents in this report was evaluated against EGFR-TK via in silico techniques, including molecular docking (AutoDock Vina), molecular dynamics simulations (GROMACS), pharmacokinetics, and drug-likeness properties (SwissADME and Molinspiration). New hybrid molecules of the thiourea derivative moiety were designed in this study based on the fragment-based drug discovery and linked with diverse pharmacophoric fragments with reported anticancer potential ([Formula: see text]) and the modification of the methyl position on phenyl ring ([Formula: see text]). These fragments include pyridine, thiophene, furan, pyrrole and styrene groups. Out of 15 compounds, compound 13 displayed the most potent inhibitory activity, with the lowest binding affinity in docking of [Formula: see text]8.7 kcal/mol compared to the positive control erlotinib of [Formula: see text]6.7 kcal/mol. Our molecular dynamics (MD) simulations revealed that molecule 13, comprising styrene and 2-methylphenyl substituents on [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], respectively, showed adequate compactness, uniqueness and satisfactory stability. Subsequently, the absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion and toxicity (ADMET) properties and drug-likeness properties also indicate that this theoretically designed inhibitor ( 13) is less toxic and contains high druggable properties. Thus, compound 13 could be promising against EGFR-TK.
The Life of Mary Anning, Fossil Collector of Lyme Regis: a Contemporary Biographical Memoir by George Roberts
Authors: Taylor Michael A. , Benton Michael J.
Published: January 2023

Despite the modern celebrity of the fossil collector Mary Anning (1799–1847) of Lyme Regis and her frequent use as an icon in scientific education and popularization, there are few accounts of her life by her contemporaries. We report here a previously unpublished anonymous manuscript memoir of Anning's life, in the Special Collections of the University of Bristol Library. Evidence from textual analysis and handwriting corroborates its attribution to George Roberts (bap. 1804–60) of Lyme Regis, schoolmaster and historian. He wrote it at some time during 1837–47, perhaps 1839–47, by adapting a passage in his 1834 history of Lyme Regis. It was apparently intended for a new book, but was altered into an obituary after Anning's death. Evidence is presented that Roberts wrote the obituary of Anning in the
Athenæum
, which was widely republished in newspapers. Henry De la Beche (1796–1855) published another obituary in the
Proceedings of the Geological Society
. Roberts helped him to obtain information from Anning's family, but did not use this new information in his manuscript. Benjamin J.M. Donne (1831–1928), a former pupil of Roberts, painted the Society's portrait of Anning. A claim that it was commissioned by a group, mostly Fellows of the Society, remains unconfirmed.
SmokeMon
Authors: Alharbi Rawan , Shahi Soroush , Cruz Stefany , Li Lingfeng , Sen Sougata , Pedram Mahdi , Romano Christopher , Hester Josiah , Katsaggelos Aggelos K. , Alshurafa Nabil
Published: January 2023

Smoking is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide. Cigarette smoke includes thousands of chemicals that are harmful and cause tobacco-related diseases. To date, the causality between human exposure to specific compounds and the harmful effects is unknown. A first step in closing the gap in knowledge has been measuring smoking topography, or how the smoker smokes the cigarette (puffs, puff volume, and duration). However, current gold-standard approaches to smoking topography involve expensive, bulky, and obtrusive sensor devices, creating unnatural smoking behavior and preventing their potential for real-time interventions in the wild. Although motion-based wearable sensors and their corresponding machine-learned models have shown promise in unobtrusively tracking smoking gestures, they are notorious for confounding smoking with other similar hand-to-mouth gestures such as eating and drinking. In this paper, we present SmokeMon, a chest-worn thermal-sensing wearable system that can capture spatial, temporal, and thermal information around the wearer and cigarette all day to unobtrusively and passively detect smoking events. We also developed a deep learning--based framework to extract puffs and smoking topography. We evaluate SmokeMon in both controlled and free-living experiments with a total of 19 participants, more than 110 hours of data, and 115 smoking sessions achieving an F1-score of 0.9 for puff detection in the laboratory and 0.8 in the wild. By providing SmokeMon as an open platform, we provide measurement of smoking topography in free-living settings to enable testing of smoking topography in the real world, with potential to facilitate timely smoking cessation interventions.
Efficient Adaptive Beacon Deployment Optimization for Indoor Crowd Monitoring Applications
Authors: Zhen Yang , Sugasaki Masato , Kawahara Yoshihiro , Tsubouchi Kota , Ishige Matthew , Murakami Hiroaki , Shimosaka Masamichi
Published: January 2023

The indoor crowd density monitoring system using BLE beacons is one of the effective ways to prevent overcrowded indoor situations. The indoor crowd density monitoring system consists of a mobile application at the user's side and the beacon sensor network as the infrastructure. Since the performance of crowd density monitoring highly depends on how BLE beacons are placed, BLE beacon placement optimization is fundamental research work. This research proposes a beacon deployment method EABeD to incrementally place the beacons adaptively to the latest signal propagation status. Also, EABeD reduces most walking and measurement labor costs by applying Bayesian optimization and the walking distance optimization algorithm. We conducted the placement optimization experiment in the wild environment and compared the results with placements derived by the simulation-based method and people. The result shows that our proposed method can achieve 26.4% higher detection coverage than the simulation-based approach, 23.2% and 5.2% higher detection coverage than the inexperienced person's solution and the expert's solution. As for the labor cost reduction, our proposed method can reduce 90.2% of the walking distance and 74.4% of the optimization time compared with optimization by the dense data gathering method.
NeuralGait
Authors: Li Huining , Chen Huan , Xu Chenhan , Li Zhengxiong , Zhang Hanbin , Qian Xiaoye , Li Dongmei , Huang Ming-chun , Xu Wenyao
Published: January 2023

Brain health attracts more recent attention as the population ages. Smartphone-based gait sensing and analysis can help identify the risks of brain diseases in daily life for prevention. Existing gait analysis approaches mainly hand-craft temporal gait features or developing CNN-based feature extractors, but they are either prone to lose some inconspicuous pathological information or are only dedicated to a single brain disease screening. We discover that the relationship between gait segments can be used as a principle and generic indicator to quantify multiple pathological patterns. In this paper, we propose NeuralGait, a pervasive smartphone-cloud system that passively captures and analyzes principle gait segments relationship for brain health assessment. On the smartphone end, inertial gait data are collected while putting the smartphone in the pants pocket. We then craft local temporal-frequent gait domain features and develop a self-attention-based gait segment relationship encoder. Afterward, the domain features and relation features are fed to a scalable RiskNet in the cloud for brain health assessment. We also design a pathological hot update protocol to efficiently add new brain diseases in the RiskNet. NeuralGait is practical as it provides brain health assessment with no burden in daily life. In the experiment, we recruit 988 healthy people and 417 patients with a single or combination of PD, TBI, and stroke, and evaluate the brain health assessment using a set of specifically designed metrics including global accuracy, exact accuracy, sensitivity, and false alarm rate. We also demonstrate the generalization (e.g., analysis of feature effectiveness and model efficiency) and inclusiveness of NeuralGait.
Non-intrusive Anomaly Detection of Industrial Robot Operations by Exploiting Nonlinear Effect
Authors: Luo Zhiqing , Yan Mingxuan , Wang Wei , Zhang Qian
Published: January 2023

With the development of Internet of Robotic Things concept, low-cost radio technologies open up many opportunities to facilitate the monitoring system of industrial robots, while the openness of wireless medium exposes robots to replay and man-in-the-middle attackers, who send pre-recorded movement data to mislead the system. Recent advances advocate the use of high-resolution sensors to monitor robot operations, which however require invasive retrofit to the robots. To overcome this predicament, we present RobotScatter, a non-intrusive system that exploits the nonlinear effect of RF circuits to fuse the propagation of backscatter tags attached to the robot to defend against active attacks. Specifically, the backscatter propagation interacted by the tags significantly depends on various movement operations, which can be captured with the nonlinearity at the receiver to uniquely determine its identity and the spatial movement trajectory. RobotScatter then profiles the robot movements to verify whether the received movement information matches the backscatter signatures, and thus detects the threat. We implement RobotScatter on two common robotic platforms, Universal Robot and iRobot Create, with over 1,500 operation cycles. The experiment results show that RobotScatter detects up to 94% of anomalies against small movement deviations of 10mm/s in velocity, and 2.6cm in distance.
RetroSphere
Authors: Balaji Ananta Narayanan , Kimber Clayton , Li David , Wu Shengzhi , Du Ruofei , Kim David
Published: January 2023

Advanced AR/VR headsets often have a dedicated depth sensor or multiple cameras, high processing power, and a high-capacity battery to track hands or controllers. However, these approaches are not compatible with the small form factor and limited thermal capacity of lightweight AR devices. In this paper, we present RetroSphere, a self-contained 6 degree of freedom (6DoF) controller tracker that can be integrated with almost any device. RetroSphere tracks a passive controller with just 3 retroreflective spheres using a stereo pair of mass-produced infrared blob trackers, each with its own infrared LED emitters. As the sphere is completely passive, no electronics or recharging is required. Each object tracking camera provides a tiny Arduino-compatible ESP32 microcontroller with the 2D position of the spheres. A lightweight stereo depth estimation algorithm that runs on the ESP32 performs 6DoF tracking of the passive controller. Also, RetroSphere provides an auto-calibration procedure to calibrate the stereo IR tracker setup. Our work builds upon Johnny Lee's Wii remote hacks and aims to enable a community of researchers, designers, and makers to use 3D input in their projects with affordable off-the-shelf components. RetroSphere achieves a tracking accuracy of about 96.5% with errors as low as ~3.5 cm over a 100 cm tracking range, validated with ground truth 3D data obtained using a LIDAR camera while consuming around 400 mW. We provide implementation details, evaluate the accuracy of our system, and demonstrate example applications, such as mobile AR drawing, 3D measurement, etc. with our Retrosphere-enabled AR glass prototype.
BLEselect
Authors: Zhang Tengxiang , Lan Zitong , Xu Chenren , Li Yanrong , Chen Yiqiang
Published: January 2023

Spontaneous selection of IoT devices from the head-mounted device is key for user-centered pervasive interaction. BLEselect enables users to select an unmodified Bluetooth 5.1 compatible IoT device by nodding at, pointing at, or drawing a circle in the air around it. We designed a compact antenna array that fits on a pair of smart glasses to estimate the Angle of Arrival (AoA) of IoT and wrist-worn devices' advertising signals. We then developed a sensing pipeline that supports all three selection gestures with lightweight machine learning models, which are trained in real-time for both hand gestures. Extensive characterizations and evaluations show that our system is accurate, natural, low-power, and privacy-preserving. Despite the small effective size of the antenna array, our system achieves a higher than 90% selection accuracy within a 3 meters distance in front of the user. In a user study that mimics real-life usage cases, the overall selection accuracy is 96.7% for a diverse set of 22 participants in terms of age, technology savviness, and body structures.
Unveiling Causal Attention in Dogs' Eyes with Smart Eyewear
Authors: Zhao Yingying , Li Ning , Pan Wentao , Wang Yujiang , Dong Mingzhi , Ding Xianghua (Sharon) , Lv Qin , Dick Robert P. , Li Dongsheng , Yang Fan , Lu Tun , Gu Ning , Shang Li
Published: January 2023

Our goals are to better understand dog cognition, and to support others who share this interest. Existing investigation methods predominantly rely on human-manipulated experiments to examine dogs' behavioral responses to visual stimuli such as human gestures. As a result, existing experimental paradigms are usually constrained to in-lab environments and may not reveal the dog's responses to real-world visual scenes. Moreover, visual signals pertaining to dog behavioral responses are empirically derived from observational evidence, which can be prone to subjective bias and may lead to controversies. We aim to overcome or reduce the existing limitations of dog cognition studies by investigating a challenging issue: identifying the visual signal(s) from dog eye motion that can be utilized to infer causal explanations of its behaviors, namely estimating causal attention. To this end, we design a deep learning framework named Causal AtteNtIon NEtwork (CANINE) to unveil the dogs' causal attention mechanism, inspired by the recent advance in causality analysis with deep learning. Equipped with CANINE, we developed the first eyewear device to enable inference on the vision-related behavioral causality of canine wearers. We demonstrate the technical feasibility of the proposed CANINE glasses through their application in multiple representative experimental scenarios of dog cognitive study. Various in-field trials are also performed to demonstrate the generality of the CANINE eyewear in real-world scenarios. With the proposed CANINE glasses, we collect the first large-scale dataset, named DogsView, which consists of automatically generated annotations on the canine wearer's causal attention across a wide range of representative scenarios. The DogsView dataset is available online to facilitate research.
GC-Loc
Authors: He Tao , Niu Qun , Liu Ning
Published: January 2023

Indoor localization techniques play a fundamental role in empowering plenty of indoor location-based services (LBS) and exhibit great social and commercial values. The widespread fingerprint-based indoor localization methods usually suffer from the low feature discriminability with discrete signal fingerprint or high time overhead for continuous signal fingerprint collection. To address this, we introduce the collaboration mechanism and propose a graph attention based collaborative indoor localization framework, termed GC-Loc, which provides another perspective for efficient indoor localization. GC-Loc utilizes multiple discrete signal fingerprints collected by several users as input for collaborative localization. Specifically, we first construct an adaptive graph representation to efficiently model the relationships among the collaborative fingerprints. Then taking state-of-the-art GAT model as basic unit, we design a deep network with the residual structure and the hierarchical attention mechanism to extract and aggregate the features from the constructed graph for collaborative localization. Finally, we further employ ensemble learning mechanism in GC-Loc and devise a location refinement strategy based on model consensus for enhancing the robustness of GC-Loc. We have conducted extensive experiments in three different trial sites, and the experimental results demonstrate the superiority of GC-Loc, outperforming the comparison schemes by a wide margin (reducing the mean localization error by more than 42%).
Helping Users Debug Trigger-Action Programs
Authors: Zhang Lefan , Zhou Cyrus , Littman Michael L. , Ur Blase , Lu Shan
Published: January 2023

Trigger-action programming (TAP) empowers a wide array of users to automate Internet of Things (IoT) devices. However, it can be challenging for users to create completely correct trigger-action programs (TAPs) on the first try, necessitating debugging. While TAP has received substantial research attention, TAP debugging has not. In this paper, we present the first empirical study of users' end-to-end TAP debugging process, focusing on obstacles users face in debugging TAPs and how well users ultimately fix incorrect automations. To enable this study, we added TAP capabilities to an existing 3-D smart home simulator. Thirty remote participants spent a total of 84 hours debugging TAPs using this simulator. Without additional support, participants were often unable to fix buggy TAPs due to a series of obstacles we document. However, we also found that two novel tools we developed helped participants overcome many of these obstacles and more successfully debug TAPs. These tools collect either implicit or explicit feedback from users about automations that should or should not have happened in the past, using a SAT-solving-based algorithm we developed to automatically modify the TAPs to account for this feedback.
Sounds of Health
Authors: Clark Matthew , Doryab Afsaneh
Published: January 2023

This paper explores the feasibility of using sonification in delivering and communicating health and wellness status on personal devices. Ambient displays have proven to inform users of their health and wellness and help them to make healthier decisions, yet, little technology provides health assessments through sounds, which can be even more pervasive than visual displays. We developed a method to generate music from user preferences and evaluated it in a two-step user study. In the first step, we acquired general healthiness impressions from each user. In the second step, we generated customized melodies from music preferences in the first step to capture participants' perceived healthiness of those melodies. We deployed our surveys for 55 participants to complete on their own over 31 days. We analyzed the data to understand commonalities and differences in users' perceptions of music as an expression of health. Our findings show the existence of clear associations between perceived healthiness and different music features. We provide useful insights into how different musical features impact the perceived healthiness of music, how perceptions of healthiness vary between users, what trends exist between users' impressions, and what influences (or does not influence) a user's perception of healthiness in a melody. Overall, our results indicate validity in presenting health data through personalized music models. The findings can inform the design of behavior management applications on personal and ubiquitous devices.
CN: Verifying Systems C Code with Separation-Logic Refinement Types
Authors: Pulte Christopher , Makwana Dhruv C. , Sewell Thomas , Memarian Kayvan , Sewell Peter , Krishnaswami Neel
Published: January 2023

Despite significant progress in the verification of hypervisors, operating systems, and compilers, and in verification tooling, there exists a wide gap between the approaches used in verification projects and conventional development of systems software. We see two main challenges in bringing these closer together: verification handling the complexity of code and semantics of conventional systems software, and verification usability.

We describe an experiment in verification tool design aimed at addressing some aspects of both: we design and implement CN, a separation-logic refinement type system for C systems software, aimed at predictable proof automation, based on a realistic semantics of ISO C. CN reduces refinement typing to decidable propositional logic reasoning, uses first-class resources to support pointer aliasing and pointer arithmetic, features resource inference for iterated separating conjunction, and uses a novel syntactic restriction of ghost variables in specifications to guarantee their successful inference. We implement CN and formalise key aspects of the type system, including a soundness proof of type checking. To demonstrate the usability of CN we use it to verify a substantial component of Google's pKVM hypervisor for Android.
ADEV: Sound Automatic Differentiation of Expected Values of Probabilistic Programs
Authors: Lew Alexander K. , Huot Mathieu , Staton Sam , Mansinghka Vikash K.
Published: January 2023

Optimizing the expected values of probabilistic processes is a central problem in computer science and its applications, arising in fields ranging from artificial intelligence to operations research to statistical computing. Unfortunately, automatic differentiation techniques developed for deterministic programs do not in general compute the correct gradients needed for widely used solutions based on gradient-based optimization.

In this paper, we present ADEV, an extension to forward-mode AD that correctly differentiates the expectations of probabilistic processes represented as programs that make random choices. Our algorithm is a source-to-source program transformation on an expressive, higher-order language for probabilistic computation, with both discrete and continuous probability distributions. The result of our transformation is a new probabilistic program, whose expected return value is the derivative of the original program’s expectation. This output program can be run to generate unbiased Monte Carlo estimates of the desired gradient, that can be used within the inner loop of stochastic gradient descent. We prove ADEV correct using logical relations over the denotations of the source and target probabilistic programs. Because it modularly extends forward-mode AD, our algorithm lends itself to a concise implementation strategy, which we exploit to develop a prototype in just a few dozen lines of Haskell (https://github.com/probcomp/adev).
A Core Calculus for Equational Proofs of Cryptographic Protocols
Authors: Gancher Joshua , Sojakova Kristina , Fan Xiong , Shi Elaine , Morrisett Greg
Published: January 2023

Many proofs of interactive cryptographic protocols (e.g., as in Universal Composability) operate by proving the protocol at hand to be observationally equivalent to an idealized specification. While pervasive, formal tool support for observational equivalence of cryptographic protocols is still a nascent area of research. Current mechanization efforts tend to either focus on diff-equivalence, which establishes observational equivalence between protocols with identical control structures, or require an explicit witness for the observational equivalence in the form of a bisimulation relation. Our goal is to simplify proofs for cryptographic protocols by introducing a core calculus, IPDL, for cryptographic observational equivalences. Via IPDL, we aim to address a number of theoretical issues for cryptographic proofs in a simple manner, including probabilistic behaviors, distributed message-passing, and resource-bounded adversaries and simulators. We demonstrate IPDL on a number of case studies, including a distributed coin toss protocol, Oblivious Transfer, and the GMW multi-party computation protocol. All proofs of case studies are mechanized via an embedding of IPDL into the Coq proof assistant.
Fast Coalgebraic Bisimilarity Minimization
Authors: Jacobs Jules , Wißmann Thorsten
Published: January 2023

Coalgebraic bisimilarity minimization generalizes classical automaton minimization to a large class of automata whose transition structure is specified by a functor, subsuming strong, weighted, and probabilistic bisimilarity. This offers the enticing possibility of turning bisimilarity minimization into an off-the-shelf technology, without having to develop a new algorithm for each new type of automaton. Unfortunately, there is no existing algorithm that is fully general, efficient, and able to handle large systems.

We present a generic algorithm that minimizes coalgebras over an arbitrary functor in the category of sets as long as the action on morphisms is sufficiently computable. The functor makes at most
O
(
m
log
n
) calls to the functor-specific action, where
n
is the number of states and
m
is the number of transitions in the coalgebra.

While more specialized algorithms can be asymptotically faster than our algorithm (usually by a factor of (
m
/
n
)), our algorithm is especially well suited to efficient implementation, and our tool often uses much less time and memory on existing benchmarks, and can handle larger automata, despite being more generic.
Efficient Dual-Numbers Reverse AD via Well-Known Program Transformations
Authors: Smeding Tom J. , Vákár Matthijs I. L.
Published: January 2023

Where dual-numbers forward-mode automatic differentiation (AD) pairs each scalar value with its tangent value, dual-numbers
reverse-mode
AD attempts to achieve reverse AD using a similarly simple idea: by pairing each scalar value with a backpropagator function. Its correctness and efficiency on higher-order input languages have been analysed by Brunel, Mazza and Pagani, but this analysis used a custom operational semantics for which it is unclear whether it can be implemented efficiently. We take inspiration from their use of
linear factoring
to optimise dual-numbers reverse-mode AD to an algorithm that has the correct complexity and enjoys an efficient implementation in a standard functional language with support for mutable arrays, such as Haskell. Aside from the linear factoring ingredient, our optimisation steps consist of well-known ideas from the functional programming community. We demonstrate the use of our technique by providing a practical implementation that differentiates most of Haskell98.
Taking Back Control in an Intermediate Representation for GPU Computing
Authors: Klimis Vasileios , Clark Jack , Baker Alan , Neto David , Wickerson John , Donaldson Alastair F.
Published: January 2023

We describe our experiences successfully applying lightweight formal methods to substantially improve and reformulate an important part of Standard Portable Intermediate Representation SPIRV, an industry-standard language for GPU computing.
The formal model that we present has allowed us to (1) identify several ambiguities and needless complexities in the way that structured control flow was defined in the SPIRV specification; (2) interact with the authors of the SPIRV specification to rectify these problems; (3) validate the developer tools and conformance test suites that support the SPIRV language by cross-checking them against our formal model, improving the tools, test suites, and our models in the process; and (4) develop a novel method for fuzzing SPIRV compilers to detect miscompilation bugs that leverages our formal model.
The latest release of the SPIRV specification incorporates the revised set of control-flow definitions that have arisen from our work. Furthermore, our novel compiler-fuzzing technique has led to the discovery of twenty distinct, previously unknown bugs in SPIRV compilers from Google, the Khronos Group, Intel, and Mozilla. Our work showcases the practical impact that formal modelling and analysis techniques can have on the design and implementation of industry-standard programming languages.
INTech
Authors: Braswell Khalia , Rankin Yolanda A.
Published: January 2023

In this forum we explore different perspectives for how to apply intersectionality as a critical framework for design across multiple contexts.
--- Yolanda A. Rankin and Jakita O. Thomas, Editors
Minding the Higher Contexts
Authors: Ndumu Ana
Published: January 2023

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole.
--- Sheena Erete, Editor