22 research outputs found
Using Variable Dwell Time to Accelerate Gaze-Based Web Browsing with Two-Step Selection
In order to avoid the "Midas Touch" problem, gaze-based interfaces for
selection often introduce a dwell time: a fixed amount of time the user must
fixate upon an object before it is selected. Past interfaces have used a
uniform dwell time across all objects. Here, we propose a gaze-based browser
using a two-step selection policy with variable dwell time. In the first step,
a command, e.g. "back" or "select", is chosen from a menu using a dwell time
that is constant across the different commands. In the second step, if the
"select" command is chosen, the user selects a hyperlink using a dwell time
that varies between different hyperlinks. We assign shorter dwell times to more
likely hyperlinks and longer dwell times to less likely hyperlinks. In order to
infer the likelihood each hyperlink will be selected, we have developed a
probabilistic model of natural gaze behavior while surfing the web. We have
evaluated a number of heuristic and probabilistic methods for varying the dwell
times using both simulation and experiment. Our results demonstrate that
varying dwell time improves the user experience in comparison with fixed dwell
time, resulting in fewer errors and increased speed. While all of the methods
for varying dwell time resulted in improved performance, the probabilistic
models yielded much greater gains than the simple heuristics. The best
performing model reduces error rate by 50% compared to 100ms uniform dwell time
while maintaining a similar response time. It reduces response time by 60%
compared to 300ms uniform dwell time while maintaining a similar error rate.Comment: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor &
Francis in the International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction on 30
March, 2018, available online:
http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10447318.2018.1452351 . For an eprint of
the final published article, please access:
https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/T9d4cNwwRUqXPPiZYm8Z/ful
MIMAMO Net: Integrating Micro- and Macro-motion for Video Emotion Recognition
Spatial-temporal feature learning is of vital importance for video emotion
recognition. Previous deep network structures often focused on macro-motion
which extends over long time scales, e.g., on the order of seconds. We believe
integrating structures capturing information about both micro- and macro-motion
will benefit emotion prediction, because human perceive both micro- and
macro-expressions. In this paper, we propose to combine micro- and macro-motion
features to improve video emotion recognition with a two-stream recurrent
network, named MIMAMO (Micro-Macro-Motion) Net. Specifically, smaller and
shorter micro-motions are analyzed by a two-stream network, while larger and
more sustained macro-motions can be well captured by a subsequent recurrent
network. Assigning specific interpretations to the roles of different parts of
the network enables us to make choice of parameters based on prior knowledge:
choices that turn out to be optimal. One of the important innovations in our
model is the use of interframe phase differences rather than optical flow as
input to the temporal stream. Compared with the optical flow, phase differences
require less computation and are more robust to illumination changes. Our
proposed network achieves state of the art performance on two video emotion
datasets, the OMG emotion dataset and the Aff-Wild dataset. The most
significant gains are for arousal prediction, for which motion information is
intuitively more informative. Source code is available at
https://github.com/wtomin/MIMAMO-Net.Comment: Accepted by AAAI 202
BlockEmulator: An Emulator Enabling to Test Blockchain Sharding Protocols
Numerous blockchain simulators have been proposed to allow researchers to
simulate mainstream blockchains. However, we have not yet found a testbed that
enables researchers to develop and evaluate their new consensus algorithms or
new protocols for blockchain sharding systems. To fill this gap, we develop
BlockEmulator, which is designed as an experimental platform, particularly for
emulating blockchain sharding mechanisms. BlockEmulator adopts a lightweight
blockchain architecture such that developers can only focus on implementing
their new protocols or mechanisms. Using layered modules and useful programming
interfaces offered by BlockEmulator, researchers can implement a new protocol
with minimum effort. Through experiments, we test various functionalities of
BlockEmulator in two steps. Firstly, we prove the correctness of the emulation
results yielded by BlockEmulator by comparing the theoretical analysis with the
observed experiment results. Secondly, other experimental results demonstrate
that BlockEmulator can facilitate the measurement of a series of metrics,
including throughput, transaction confirmation latency, cross-shard transaction
ratio, the queuing size of transaction pools, workload distribution across
blockchain shards, etc. We have made BlockEmulator open-source in Github
Loss of Rbl2 (Retinoblastoma‐Like 2) Exacerbates Myocardial Ischemia/Reperfusion Injury
Background The postmitotic state of adult cardiomyocytes, maintained by the cell cycle repressor Rbl2 (retinoblastoma‐like 2), is associated with considerable resistance to apoptosis. However, whether Rbl2 regulates cardiomyocyte apoptosis remains unknown. Methods and Results Here, we show that ablation of Rbl2 increased cardiomyocyte apoptosis following acute myocardial ischemia/reperfusion injury, leading to diminished cardiac function and exaggerated ventricular remodeling in the long term. Mechanistically, ischemia/reperfusion induced expression of the proapoptotic protein BCL2 interacting protein 3 (Bnip3), which was augmented by deletion of Rbl2. Because the Bnip3 promoter contains an adenoviral early region 2 binding factor (E2F)‐binding site, we further showed that loss of Rbl2 upregulated the transcriptional activator E2F1 but downregulated the transcriptional repressor E2F4. In cultured cardiomyocytes, treatment with H2O2 markedly increased the levels of E2F1 and Bnip3, resulting in mitochondrial depolarization and apoptosis. Depletion of Rbl2 significantly augmented H2O2‐induced mitochondrial damage and apoptosis in vitro. Conclusions Rbl2 deficiency enhanced E2F1‐mediated Bnip3 expression, resulting in aggravated cardiomyocyte apoptosis and ischemia/reperfusion injury. Our results uncover a novel antiapoptotic role for Rbl2 in cardiomyocytes, suggesting that the cell cycle machinery may directly regulate apoptosis in postmitotic cardiomyocytes. These findings may be exploited to develop new strategies to limit ischemia/reperfusion injury in the treatment of acute myocardial infarction
Impact of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme on the Rural Residents’ Hospitalization Medical Expenses: A Five-Year Survey Study for the Jiangxi Province in China
This survey study was conducted to understand the effect of the New Cooperative Medical Scheme (NCMS) on farmers’ medical expenses through comparing the information from five investigations and to obtain a scientific basis for a more applicable NCMS. The survey was carried out through interviewing farmers in their homes. The multi-phase stratified cluster random sampling was adopted to select 3 counties from all 92 counties of the Jiangxi province, 9 townships from the 3 selected counties, 27 villages from the selected 9 townships, and 60 families from each village between 2006 and 2014, and a longitudinal comparative analysis was conducted. The numbers of households/overall sample for the five years were 1924/8082, 1879/8015, 1885/7506, 1890/7857, and 1896/7811, respectively. We collected family members’ social demographic characteristics, health resources, and peoples’ health and medical expenses and reimbursement of each family member. The adjusted hospitalization expenses per capita of township hospitals and county hospitals were totally on a rising trend. However, the costs of tertiary hospitals were on a decreasing tendency. In addition, the expenses for county hospitalization per admission were on an upward trend in general. Furthermore, the total hospitalization expenses and reimbursement per capita (the insurance paid out for the hospitalization expenses) were also all on an upward trend. The proportion of reimbursement also had a tendency of increasing from 24.41% in 2006 to 41.34% in 2014. The costs paid from farmers’ pockets were fluctuated, but in general all lower than the costs in 2006. Furthermore, the percentage of hospitalization expenses from farmers’ annual incomes gradually decreased each year from 56.38% in 2006 to 26.58% in 2014. NCMS program has had an obvious impact on the hospitalization expenses in the Jiangxi rural area. It reduced the hospitalization expenses of the tertiary hospitals significantly. In addition, the program has also encouraged farmers to get more health care. However, there are still some shortages associated with present construction of the NCMS. Hence, there is a need for local government to continue to take effective countermeasures to control the rising trend of hospitalization expense
Research on the Relationships between Psychological Problems and School Bullying and Non-Suicidal Self-Injury among Rural Primary and Middle School Students in Developing Areas of China
(1) Purpose: To analyze the role of psychological problems in connection with school bullying and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI) among rural primary and middle school students in developing areas of China. (2) Methods: A multi-stage, stratified, cluster random sampling method was used to select 2284 rural primary and middle school students in Jiangxi Province for study. Questionnaires regarding the health risk behaviors of children in developing areas were left behind at primary and middle schools, and they were later collected and analyzed by using the mental health diagnostic monitoring scale for Chinese primary and middle school students. Pearson correlation, logistic regression, and bootstrap tests were conducted to analyze the association between psychological problems, school bullying, and NSSI. (3) Results: The incidence of NSSI in rural primary and middle school students in Jiangxi Province was 14.84%. Compared with other children with behavioral problems, those who had experienced school bullying and had mild/severe psychological problems were more likely to have engaged in NSSI behaviors (p < 0.001). Psychological problems have a mediating effect between school bullying and NSSI, which accounted for 12.96% of the total effect. (4) Conclusion: Psychological problems are likely an effect modifier in the connection between school bullying and NSSI behaviors. Therefore, effectively targeting psychological problems in rural primary and middle school students in Jiangxi Province may help prevent and control NSSI behaviors in students who have experienced school bullying