Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A method for describing different styles of singing. A comparison of a female singer's voice source in "classical", "pop", "jazz" and "blues

The voice is apparently used in quite different manners in different repertoires of singing. Also, it differs between individuals. Some of these differences concern the voice source, which, however, varies considerably with loudness, pitch, and mode of phonation. Therefore, when comparing different types of voice use, it is necessary to analyze how the voice source varies with these parameters. This investigation attempts to describe voice source differences between classical, pop, jazz and blues styles of singing as produced by a professional female singer and voice pedagogue at the pitches A3, C#4, E4 and G4 in soft middle and loud phonation. The voice source was analyzed by inverse filtering the flow signal. Four parameters were considered: (1) subglottal pressure, captured as the oral pressure during p-occlusion; (2) closed quotient; (3) the level difference between the two lowest source spectrum partials; and (4) the glottal compliance, defined as the ratio between the air volume contained in a voice pulse divided by the underlying subglottal pressure. The method was first to analyze how these voice source characteristics varied with pitch and loudness in the different modes and styles. Then averages across pitch and loudness for each mode and style were compared and related to their total range of variation in the subject. It was found that for most of the voice source parameters, classical was most similar to flow and leaky phonation, pop and jazz to neutral and flow phonation, and blues to pressed phonation.
Prevalence and Correlates of Client-Perpetrated Violence against Female Sex Workers in 13 Mexican Cities

Background Globally, client-perpetrated violence against female sex workers (FSWs) has been associated with multiple health-related harms, including high-risk sexual behavior and increased exposure to HIV/STIs. This study examined correlates of client-perpetrated sexual, physical, and economic violence (e.g., robbery) against FSWs in 13 cities throughout Mexico. Methods FSWs (N = 1,089) who were enrolled in a brief, evidence-based, sexual risk reduction intervention for FSWs (Mujer Segura) were interviewed about their work context, including experiences of violence perpetrated by clients, sexual risk and substance use practices, financial need, and social supports. Three broad categories of factors (sociodemographic, work context, behavioral and social characteristics of FSWs) were examined as correlates of sexual, physical, and economic violence. Results The prevalence of different types of client-perpetrated violence against FSWs in the past 6 months was: sexual (11.7%), physical (11.8%), economic (16.9%), and any violence (22.6%). Greater financial need, self-identification as a street worker, and lower perceived emotional support were independently associated with all three types of violence. Alcohol use before or during sex with clients in the past month was associated with physical and sexual violence. Using drugs before or during sex with clients, injection drug use in the past month, and population size of city were associated with sexual violence only, and FSWs’ alcohol use score (AUDIT-C) was associated with economic violence only. Conclusions Correlates of client-perpetrated violence encompassed sociodemographic, work context, and behavioral and social factors, suggesting that approaches to violence prevention for FSWs must be multi-dimensional. Prevention could involve teaching FSWs strategies for risk avoidance in the workplace (e.g., avoiding use of alcohol with clients), enhancement of FSWs’ community-based supports, development of interventions that deliver an anti-violence curriculum to clients, and programs to address FSWs’ financial need by increasing their economic opportunities outside of the sex trade.
Thyroid growth and its relationship to metamorphosis in Rana temporaria.

In a previous work on pronephric degeneration, larvae of Rana temporaria from practically the whole range of the metamorphic cycle were studied (Fox, 1962). Metamorphosis in anurans is dependent upon the presence of a functional thyroid gland (Kollros, 1951; Lynn & Wachowski, 1951; Etkin, 1964), and the same specimens have now been used to investigate thyroid growth and development quantitatively and qualitatively, especially in relation to those major events which occur at the metamorphic climax between stages 49 and 54 (Cambar & Marrot, 1954). It will be shown that in larvae from 16 mm long (stage 41; see Fox, 1962) until practically the end of the climax (stage > 53), thyroid cells are of stable volume (about 700 μ 3 ), and thyroid enlargement is by cellular proliferation and vesicular expansion. The maximum rate of thyroid growth occurs between 16 mm and 28 mm (stages 41–45).
Characterization of growth and differentiation in a telomerase-immortalized human corneal epithelial cell line.

PURPOSE To develop and characterize a telomerase-immortalized human corneal epithelial cell line (hTCEpi) to serve as an in vitro model for studying the molecular mechanisms involved in regulating human corneal epithelial cell differentiation. METHODS Primary cultures of human corneal epithelial cells were infected with a retroviral vector encoding human telomerase reverse transcriptase (hTERT). Infected hTCEpi cells were selected, cloned, and characterized to identify telomerase activity, proliferative capacity, karyotype, and differentiative potential in routine culture and under consecutive submerged and air-lifted conditions. Cells were evaluated to measure cell cycle kinetics (anti-Ki-67, anti-p16), stratification (phalloidin and anti-ZO-1), and differentiation (anti-K3, anti-BCL-2 and TUNEL labeling). RESULTS hTCEpi cells exhibited telomerase activity, a normal karyotype and cell cycle kinetics at greater than 240 population doublings, and loss of p16 after passage 10. Air-lifting produced a well stratified epithelium (five to seven cell layers) with apical ZO-1-stained tight junctions. Submersed culture demonstrated increasing expression of stratification markers (K5/K14) with K3-corneal keratin marker expression in long-term, air-lifted culture. Anti-BCL-2 staining showed both nuclear and cytoplasmic localization with loss of nuclear BCL-2 expression in TUNEL-labeled surface epithelial cells. CONCLUSIONS hTCEpi cells stratify, differentiate, and desquamate similar to normal human corneal epithelium. Further study of the hTCEpi cell line may be valuable in studying the molecular mechanisms regulating corneal epithelial cell differentiation and desquamation.
The Hitting Time of Rainbow Connection Number Two

In a graph $G$ with a given edge colouring, a rainbow path is a path all of whose edges have distinct colours. The minimum number of colours required to colour the edges of $G$ so that every pair of vertices is joined by at least one rainbow path is called the rainbow connection number $rc(G)$ of the graph $G$. For any graph $G$, $rc(G) \ge diam(G)$. We will show that for the Erd\H{o}s-R\'enyi random graph $G(n,p)$ close to the diameter 2 threshold, with high probability if $diam(G)=2$ then $rc(G)=2$. In fact, further strengthening this result, we will show that in the random graph process, with high probability the hitting times of diameter 2 and of rainbow connection number 2 coincide.
Intrinsic Disorder and Prote in Modifications: Building an SVM Predictor for Methylation

Post-translational prote in modifications play an important role in many protein path ways and interactions. It has been hypothesized that modifications to prote insoccur in regions that are easily accessible, and many have been determined to belocated with in intrinsically disordered regions. However, identifying precise locations of prote in modifications involve sex pensive and time consuming laboratory work. Thus, automated identification of these sites is helpful. This paper studies methylated proteins and describes methods of building a predictor for arginine and lysine methylation sites using support vector machines. Our results indicate that, based on current data, both arginine and lysine methylation sites are likely to be intrinsically disordered and that the accuracies of methylation site predictions are high enough to be useful for prote in screening and for testing biological hypotheses.
Carotenoid and protein supplementation have differential effects on pheasant ornamentation and immunity

A currently popular hypothesis states that the expression of carotenoid‐dependent sexual ornaments and immune function may be correlated because both traits are positively affected by carotenoids. However, such a correlation may arise for another reason: it is well known that immune function is dependent on nutritional condition. A recent study has suggested that the expression of ornaments may too depend on nutritional condition, as males in good nutritional condition are better at assimilating and/or modulating carotenoids. Thus, carotenoid‐dependent ornaments and immune function may be correlated because both are dependent on nutritional condition. To elucidate if, and how, ornamentation and immune function are linked, pheasant diets were supplemented with carotenoid and/or protein in a fully factorial experiment. Carotenoid treatment affected wattle coloration and tail growth, but not cellular or humoral immunity. Immunity was unrelated to males’ initial ornamentation including wattle colour. Males in better body condition, measured as residual mass, increased their wattle coloration more when carotenoid supplemented. Protein positively affected humoral but not cellular immunity, but had no effect on ornaments. Cellular, but not humoral, immunity increased with male body condition. Thus, there was no evidence that an immune‐stimulatory effect of carotenoids resulted in wattle coloration honestly signalling immune function, but wattle coloration may still signal male body condition.
Teaching philosophies reconsidered:A conceptual model for the development and evaluation of teaching philosophy statements

Increasingly, the requirements of applicants to academic faculty positions, promotion and tenure procedures, nominations for teaching awards, or other application processes for innovative teaching grants worldwide include a teaching portfolio or dossier or a statement of teaching philosophy. Current literature provides a spectrum of approaches to constructing a teaching philosophy statement. While these resources provide practical utility, this literature generally lacks conceptual models that provide clear operational definitions and comprehensive frameworks for the process of generating or evaluating a teaching philosophy statement. However, this literature does illustrate the complexity of the task. Each teaching philosophy statement reflects not only personal beliefs about teaching and learning, but also disciplinary cultures, institutional structures and cultures, and stakeholder expectations as well. This synergy among self, discipline, and institutional context guided the development of a conceptual model for constructing a teaching philosophy statement. Based on the authors' survey of the literature, a conceptual model was developed, and then refined in a series of three workshops that included input from graduate students, academic faculty, faculty developers, and academic managers (administrators). The resulting conceptual framework includes the six dimensions commonly found in a survey of faculty teaching philosophies: the purpose of teaching and learning; the role of the teacher; the role of the student; the methods used; evaluation and assessment of teaching and learning; and also includes two framing devices - a metaphor or a critical incident and a device for acknowledging the impact that contextual factors have on teacher decision making. This paper describes the development of this conceptual model, and provides an evaluation rubric that can be applied to assess teaching philosophy statements generated using the proposed framework.
Standard-model bundles

We describe a family of genus one fibered Calabi-Yau threefolds with fundamental group Z/2. On each Calabi-Yau Z in the family we exhibit a positive dimensional family of Mumford stable bundles whose symmetry group is the Standard Model group SU(3) × SU(2) × U(1) and which have c3 = 6. We also show that for each bundle V in our family, c2(Z) − c2(V ) is the class of an effective curve on Z. These conditions ensure that Z and V can be used for a phenomenologically relevant compactification of Heterotic M-theory. MSC 2000: 14D21, 14J32
Cost-effective complex service mapping in cloud infrastructures

In cloud computing, instead of building their own network and facilities, companies can allocate resources from network operators, thus reducing hardware investment and maintenance cost. The company's IT infrastructure can be designed as an abstract virtual graph of services to be mapped into the substrate network of the operator. In this paper, we refer to the virtual graph mapping problem as service composition. How to identify and locate the substrate components to map the virtual graph to in an optimal way is the subject of this paper. We propose three algorithms for three different graph topologies: path, star, and tree, whose complexity is O(V3) + O(ERV2) where V is the set of substrate network nodes and ER is the set of virtual links. We also provide simulations to evaluate the performance of our algorithms.
Iteration of order preserving subhomogeneous maps on a cone

We investigate the iterative behaviour of continuous order preserving subhomogeneous maps $f: K\,{\rightarrow}\, K$, where $K$ is a polyhedral cone in a finite dimensional vector space. We show that each bounded orbit of $f$ converges to a periodic orbit and, moreover, the period of each periodic point of $f$ is bounded by \[ \beta_N = \max_{q+r+s=N}\frac{N! }{q! r! s! }= \frac{N! }{\big\lfloor\frac{N}{3}\big\rfloor! \big\lfloor\frac{N\,{+}\,1}{3}\big\rfloor! \big\lfloor\frac{N\,{+}\,2}{3}\big\rfloor! }\sim \frac{3^{N+1}\sqrt{3}}{2\pi N}, \] where $N$ is the number of facets of the polyhedral cone. By constructing examples on the standard positive cone in $\mathbb{R}^n$, we show that the upper bound is asymptotically sharp. These results are an extension of work by Lemmens and Scheutzow concerning periodic orbits in the interior of the standard positive cone in $\mathbb{R}^n$.
International Journal of Information Management

Complaint behaviors are critical to maintaining customer loyalty in an online market. They provide insight into the customer’s experience of service failure and help to redress the failures. Previous studies have shown the importance of customer satisfaction as a mediator for complaint intentions. It is important to examine the antecedents of customer satisfaction and its link to complaint intentions. Online shoppers are both buyers of products/services and users of web-based systems. Trust also plays a critical role in forming a psychological state with positive or negative feelings toward e-vendors. In this context, there are three major concerns: justice, technology and trust. This study proposes a research model to combine these issues, in order to investigate complaint intentions. Data were collected from an online survey wherein subjects were encouraged to reﬂect on recent service failure experiences. The results from testing a structural equation model indicate that distributive and interactional justice contribute signiﬁcantly to customer satisfaction and, in turn, to complaint intentions, but procedural justice does not. Technology-based features and trust are also important in determining the two target variables. The implications for managers and scholars are also discussed.
Herbal Prescription, DSGOST, Prevents Cold-Induced RhoA Activation and Endothelin-1 Production in Endothelial Cells

Herbal prescription, Danggui-Sayuk-Ga-Osuyu-Saenggang-tang (DSGOST), has long been used to treat Raynaud's phenomenon (RP) in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). However, a biological mechanism by which DSGOST ameliorates RP is yet deciphered. In this study, we demonstrate that DSGOST inhibits cold-induced activation of RhoA, in both vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMC) and endothelial cells (EC), and blocks endothelin-1-mediated paracrine path for cold response on vessels. While cold induced RhoA activity in both cell types, DSGOST pretreatment prevented cold-induced RhoA activation. DSGOST inhibition of cold-induced RhoA activation further blocked α2c-adrenoreceptor translocation to the plasma membrane in VSMC. In addition, DSGOST inhibited endothelin-1-mediated RhoA activation and α2c-adrenoreceptor translocation in VSMC. Meanwhile, DSGOST inhibited cold-induced or RhoA-dependent phosphorylation of FAK, SRC, and ERK. Consistently, DSGOST inhibited cold-induced endothelin-1 expression in EC. Therefore, DSGOST prevents cold-induced RhoA in EC and blocks endothelin-1-mediated paracrine path between EC and VSMC. In conclusion, our data suggest that DSGOST is beneficial for treating RP-like syndrome.
The effect of different type Ia supernova progenitors on Galactic chemical evolution

Aims. Our aim is to show how different hypotheses about type Ia supernova progenitors can affect Galactic chemical evolution. Supernovae Ia are believed to be the main producers of Fe and the timescale with which Fe is restored into the interstellar medium depends on the assumed supernova progenitor model. This is a way of selecting the most appropriate progenitor model for supernovae Ia, a still debated issue. Methods. We include different type Ia SN progenitor models, identified by their distribution of time delays, in a very detailed chemical evolution model for the Milky Way which follows the evolution of several chemical species. We test the single degenerate and the double degenerate models for supernova Ia progenitors, as well as other more empirical models based on differences in the time delay distributions. Results. We find that assuming the single degenerate or the double degenerate scenario produces negligible differences in the predicted [O/Fe] vs. [Fe/H] relation. On the other hand, assuming a percentage of prompt (exploding in the first 100 Myr) type Ia supernovae of 50%, or that the maximum type Ia rate is reached after 3–4 Gyr from the beginning of star formation, as suggested by several authors, produces more noticeable effects on the [O/Fe] trend. However, given the spread still existing in the observational data, no model can be firmly excluded on the basis of only the [O/Fe] ratios. On the other hand, when the predictions of the different models are compared with the G-dwarf metallicity distribution, the scenarios with very few prompt type Ia supernovae can be excluded. Conclusions. Models including the single degenerate or double degenerate scenario with a percentage of 10–13% of prompt type Ia supernovae produce results in very good agreement with the observations. A fraction of prompt type Ia supernovae larger than 30% worsens the agreement with observations and the same occurs if no prompt type Ia supernovae are allowed. In particular, two empirical models for the type Ia SN progenitors can be excluded: the one without prompt type Ia supernovae and the one assuming a delay time distribution that is ∝t −0.5 . We conclude that the typical timescale for the Fe enrichment in the Milky Way is around 1–1.5 Gyr and that type Ia supernovae already should appear during the halo phase.
In Silico Design of Small RNA Switches

The discovery of natural RNA sensors that respond to a change in the environment by a conformational switch can be utilized for various biotechnological and nanobiotechnological advances. One class of RNA sensors is the riboswitch: an RNA genetic control element that is capable of sensing small molecules, responding to a deviation in ligand concentration with a structural change. Riboswitches are modularly built from smaller components. Computational methods can potentially be utilized in assembling these building block components and offering improvements in the biochemical design process. We describe a computational procedure to design RNA switches from building blocks with favorable properties. To achieve maximal throughput for genetic control purposes, future designer RNA switches can be assembled based on a computerized preprocessing buildup of the constituent domains, namely the aptamer and the expression platform in the case of a synthetic riboswitch. Conformational switching is enabled by the RNA versatility to possess two highly stable states that are energetically close to each other but topologically distinct, separated by an energy barrier between them. Initially, computer simulations can produce a list of short sequences that switch between two conformers when trigerred by point mutations or temperature. The short sequences should possess an additional desirable property; when these selected small RNA switch segments are attached to various aptamers, the ligand binding mechanism should replace the aforementioned event triggers, which will no longer be effective for crossing the energy barrier. In the assembled RNA sequence, energy minimization folding predictions should then show no difference between the folded structure of the entire sequence relative to the folded structure of each of its constituents. Moreover, energy minimization methods applied on the entire sequence could aid at this preprocessing stage by exhibiting high mutational robustness to capture the stability of the formed hairpin in the expression platform. The above computer-assisted assembly procedure together with application specific considerations may further be tailored for therapeutic gene regulation
Pruning Filters for Efficient ConvNets

The success of CNNs in various applications is accompanied by a significant increase in the computation and parameter storage costs. Recent efforts toward reducing these overheads involve pruning and compressing the weights of various layers without hurting original accuracy. However, magnitude-based pruning of weights reduces a significant number of parameters from the fully connected layers and may not adequately reduce the computation costs in the convolutional layers due to irregular sparsity in the pruned networks. We present an acceleration method for CNNs, where we prune filters from CNNs that are identified as having a small effect on the output accuracy. By removing whole filters in the network together with their connecting feature maps, the computation costs are reduced significantly. In contrast to pruning weights, this approach does not result in sparse connectivity patterns. Hence, it does not need the support of sparse convolution libraries and can work with existing efficient BLAS libraries for dense matrix multiplications. We show that even simple filter pruning techniques can reduce inference costs for VGG-16 by up to 34% and ResNet-110 by up to 38% on CIFAR10 while regaining close to the original accuracy by retraining the networks.