Audio-visual emotion recognition: A dynamic, multimodal approach Audio-visual emotion recognition: A dynamic, multimodal approach

ABSTRACT Designing systems able to interact with students in a natural manner is a complex and far from solved problem. A key aspect of natural interaction is the ability to understand and appropriately respond to human emotions. This paper details our response to the continuous Audio/Visual Emotion Challenge (AVEC'12) whose goal is to predict four affective signals describing human emotions. The proposed method uses Fourier spectra to extract multi-scale dynamic descriptions of signals characterizing face appearance, head movements and voice. We perform a kernel regression with very few representative samples selected via a supervised weighted-distance-based clustering, that leads to a high generalization power. We also propose a particularly fast regressor-level fusion framework to merge systems based on different modalities. Experiments have proven the efficiency of each key point of the proposed method and our results on challenge data were the highest among 10 international research teams

Shaping Vesicles–Controlling Size and Stability by Admixture of Amphiphilic Copolymer

The production of structurally well-defined unilamellar vesicles and the control of their stability are of utmost importance for many of their applications but still a largely unresolved practical issue. In the present work we show that by admixing small amounts of amphiphilic copolymer to the original components of a spontaneously vesicle-forming surfactant mixture we are able to control the self-assembly process in a systematic way. For this purpose we employed a zwitanionic model system of zwitterionic TMDAO and anionic LiPFOS. As the copolymer reduces the line tension of the intermediately formed disks, this translates directly into a longer disk growth phase and formation of correspondingly larger vesicles. By this approach we are able to vary their size over a large range and produce vesicles of extremely low polydispersity. Furthermore, the temporal stability of the formed vesicles is enhanced by orders of magnitude in proportion to the concentration of copolymer added. This is achieved by exerting kinetic control that allows engineering the vesicle structure <i>via</i> a detailed knowledge of the formation pathway as obtained by highly time-resolved SAXS experiments. Synthesis of such very well-defined vesicles by the method shown should in general be applicable to catanionic or zwitanionic amphiphiles and will have far reaching consequences for controlled nanostructure formation and application of these self-assembled systems

PANDORE: an environmental box for ITk integration tests

International audiencePANDORE is the environmental box that is going to be used for the quality control of loaded local supports of the ATLAS ITk Pixel Outer Barrel at LAPP (Annecy, France). First PANDORE, its interlock system, diphasic CO$_{2}$ cooling station, and data acquisition system are described. Subsequently, the results of the qualification tests are shown. Given the complexity of the ITk Pixel Outer Barrel system, several loading sites are going to be needed. By documenting the state-of-the-art of PANDORE, this note aims to help the wide ITk Pixel community in the discussion for standardizing the quality control procedure and equipment of the loaded local supports

Identification of SARS-CoV-2-specific immune alterations in acutely ill patients

Dysregulated immune profiles have been described in symptomatic patients infected with SARS-CoV-2. Whether the reported immune alterations are specific to SARS-CoV-2 infection or also triggered by other acute illnesses remains unclear. We performed flow cytometry analysis on fresh peripheral blood from a consecutive cohort of (a) patients hospitalized with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, (b) patients of comparable age and sex hospitalized for another acute disease (SARS-CoV-2 negative), and (c) healthy controls. Using both data-driven and hypothesis-driven analyses, we found several dysregulations in immune cell subsets (e.g., decreased proportion of T cells) that were similarly associated with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection and non-COVID-19-related acute illnesses. In contrast, we identified specific differences in myeloid and lymphocyte subsets that were associated with SARS-CoV-2 status (e.g., elevated proportion of ICAM-1+ mature/activated neutrophils, ALCAM+ monocytes, and CD38+CD8+ T cells). A subset of SARS-CoV-2-specific immune alterations correlated with disease severity, disease outcome at 30 days, and mortality. Our data provide an understanding of the immune dysregulation specifically associated with SARS-CoV-2 infection among acute care hospitalized patients. Our study lays the foundation for the development of specific biomarkers to stratify SARS-CoV-2-positive patients at risk of unfavorable outcomes and to uncover candidate molecules to investigate from a therapeutic perspective

THE SUPER-B PROJECT ACCELERATOR STATUS *

The SuperB project is an international effort aiming at building in Italy a very high luminosity e + e − (10 36 cm-2 sec-1) asymmetric collider at the Y(4S) energy in the CM. The accelerator design has been extensively studied and changed during the past year. The present design, based on the new collision scheme, with large Piwinski angle and the use of “crab waist ” sextupoles already successfully tested at the DAΦNE Φ-Factory at LNF Frascati, provides larger flexibility, better dynamic aperture and spin manipulation sections in the Low Energy Ring (LER) for longitudinal polarization of the electron beam at the Interaction Point (IP). The Interaction Region (IR) has been further optimized in terms of apertures and reduced backgrounds in the detector. The injector complex design has been also updated. A summary of the project status will be presented in this paper

SuperB Progress Reports: Accelerator

This report details the present status of the Accelerator design for the SuperB Project. It is one of four separate progress reports that, taken collectively, describe progress made on the SuperB Project since the publication of the SuperB Conceptual Design Report in 2007 and the Proceedings of SuperB Workshop VI in Valencia in 2008

SuperB Progress Reports -- Accelerator

Conceptual Design Report, 162 pages, 27 chapters , LPSC-accThis report details the present status of the Accelerator design for the SuperB Project. It is one of four separate progress reports that, taken collectively, describe progress made on the SuperB Project since the publication of the SuperB Conceptual Design Report in 2007 and the Proceedings of SuperB Workshop VI in Valencia in 2008