Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic Classification of Spoken Languages using Diverse Acoustic Features

Many of the language identification (LID) systems are based on language models using machine learning (ML) techniques that take into account the fluctuation of speech over time, such as Hidden Markov Models (HMM). Considering the fluctuation of speech results LID systems use relatively long recording intervals to obtain reasonable accuracy. This research tries to extract enough features from short recording intervals in order to enable successful classification of the tested spoken languages. The classification process is based on frames of 20 milliseconds (ms) where most of the previous LID systems were based on much longer time frames (from 3 seconds to 2 minutes). We defined and implemented 173 low level features divided into three feature sets: cepstrum, relative spectral (RASTA), and spectrum. The examined corpus, containing speech files in seven languages, is a subset of the Oregon Graduate Institute (OGI) telephone speech corpus. Six machine learning (ML) methods have been applied and compared and the best optimized results have been achieved by Random Forest (RF): 89%, 82%, and 80% for 2, 5, and 7 languages, respectively.
A Critical Note on the Forecast Error Variance Decomposition

The paper questions the reasonability of using forecast error variance decompositions for assessing the role of different structural shocks in business cycle fluctuations. It is shown that the forecast error variance decomposition is related to a dubious definition of the business cycle. A historical variance decomposition approach is proposed to overcome the problems related to the forecast error variance decomposition.
Phytophthora capsici homologue of the cell cycle regulator SDA1 is required for sporangial morphology, mycelial growth and plant infection.

SDA1 encodes a highly conserved protein that is widely distributed in eukaryotic organisms. SDA1 is essential for cell cycle progression and organization of the actin cytoskeleton in yeasts and humans. In this study, we identified a Phytophthora capsici orthologue of yeast SDA1, named PcSDA1. In P. capsici, PcSDA1 is strongly expressed in three asexual developmental states (mycelium, sporangia and germinating cysts), as well as late in infection. Silencing or overexpression of PcSDA1 in P. capsici transformants affected the growth of hyphae and sporangiophores, sporangial development, cyst germination and zoospore release. Phalloidin staining confirmed that PcSDA1 is required for organization of the actin cytoskeleton. Moreover, 4',6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) staining and PcSDA1-green fluorescent protein (GFP) fusions revealed that PcSDA1 is involved in the regulation of nuclear distribution in hyphae and sporangia. Both silenced and overexpression transformants showed severely diminished virulence. Thus, our results suggest that PcSDA1 plays a similar role in the regulation of the actin cytoskeleton and nuclear division in this filamentous organism as in non-filamentous yeasts and human cells.
Frontal Lobe Function and Dysfunction

Introduction and historical perspective Neuroanatomical organization, experimental models and neuroimaging in animals Cognitive functioning in patients with frontal lobe lesions The role of the frontal lobes in memory Response preparation and motor functioning Integration of experimental models with studies of patients Neuropsychiatric and developmental effects of frontal lobe damage Rehabilitation of the frontal lobe damaged patient Summary.
Longitudinal outcomes associated with significant other responses to chronic fatigue and pain

This study investigated significant others’ behavior associated with fatigue, pain, and mental health outcomes among 68 individuals with chronic fatigue (43% also had fibromyalgia) over 18 months. More negative significant others’ responses were associated with more pain, poorer physical and mental health, and more fatigue-related symptoms over time. More fibromyalgia tender points covaried with more solicitous significant others’ responses over time. Better mental health covaried with more distracting significant others’ responses over time. The results are discussed in terms of theoretical models of the role of perceived significant others’ responses on patient outcomes and recommendations for future research.
Extent of N‐terminal modifications in cytosolic proteins from eukaryotes

Most proteins in all organisms undergo crucial N‐terminal modifications involving N‐terminal methionine excision, N‐α‐acetylation or N‐myristoylation (N‐Myr), or S‐palmitoylation. We investigated the occurrence of these poorly annotated but essential modifications in proteomes, focusing on eukaryotes. Experimental data for the N‐terminal sequences of animal, fungi, and archaeal proteins, were used to build dedicated predictive modules in a new software. In vitro N‐Myr experiments were performed with both plant and animal N‐myristoyltransferases, for accurate prediction of the modification. N‐terminal modifications from the fully sequenced genome of Arabidopsis thaliana were determined by MS. We identified 105 new modified protein N‐termini, which were used to check the accuracy of predictive data. An accuracy of more than 95% was achieved, demonstrating (i) overall conservation of the specificity of the modification machinery in higher eukaryotes and (ii) robustness of the prediction tool. Predictions were made for various proteomes. Proteins that had undergone both N‐terminal methionine (Met) cleavage and N‐acetylation were found to be strongly overrepresented among the most abundant proteins, in contrast to those retaining their genuine unblocked Met. Here we propose that the nature of the second residue of an ORF is a key marker of the abundance of the mature protein in eukaryotes.
Store vulnerability window (SVW): re-execution filtering for enhanced load optimization

The load-store unit is a performance critical component of a dynamically-scheduled processor. It is also a complex and non-scalable component. Several recently proposed techniques use some form of speculation to simplify the load-store unit and check this speculation by re-executing some of the loads prior to commit. We call such techniques load optimizations. One recent load optimization improves load queue (LQ) scalability by using re-execution rather than associative search to check speculative intra- and inter- thread memory ordering. A second technique improves store queue (SQ) scalability by speculatively filtering some load accesses and some store entries from it and re-executing loads to check that speculation. A third technique speculatively removes redundant loads from the execution engine; re-execution detects false eliminations. Unfortunately, the benefits of a load optimization are often mitigated by re-execution itself Re-execution contends for cache bandwidth with store commit, and serializes load re-execution with subsequent store com-mit. If a given load optimization requires a sufficient number of load re-executions, the aggregate re-execution cost may overwhelm the benefits of the technique entirely and even cause drastic slowdowns. Store vulnerability window (SVW) is a new mechanism that significantly reduces the re-execution requirements of a given load optimization. SVW is based on monotonic store sequence numbering and an adaptation of Bloom filtering. The cost of a typical SVW implementation is a 1KB buffer and a 16-bit field per LQ entry. Across the three optimizations we study, SVW reduces re-executions by an average of 85%. This reduction relieves cache port contention and removes many of the dynamic serialization events that contribute the bulk of re-execution's cost, allows these load optimizations to perform up to their full potential. For the speculative SQ, this means the chance to perform at all, as without SVW it posts significant slowdowns.
Predictive Biomarkers and Personalized Medicine CYP 3 A 4 22 Genotype and Systemic Exposure Affect Paclitaxel-Induced Neurotoxicity

Purpose: Paclitaxel is used for the treatment of several solid tumors and displays a high interindividual variation in exposure and toxicity. Neurotoxicity is one of themost prominent side effects of paclitaxel. This study explores potential predictive pharmacokinetic and pharmacogenetic determinants for the onset and severity of neurotoxicity. Experimental Design: In an exploratory cohort of patients (n 1⁄4 261) treated with paclitaxel, neurotoxicity incidence, and severity, pharmacokinetic parameters and pharmacogenetic variants were determined. Paclitaxel plasma concentrations were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography or liquid chromatography/tandem mass spectrometry, and individual pharmacokinetic parameters were estimated from previously developed population pharmacokinetic models by nonlinear mixed effects modeling. Genetic variants of paclitaxel pharmacokinetics tested were CYP3A4 22, CYP2C8 3, CYP2C8 4, and ABCB1 3435 C>T. The association between CYP3A4 22 and neurotoxicity observed in the exploratory cohort was validated in an independent patient cohort (n 1⁄4 239). Results: Exposure to paclitaxel (logAUC) was correlated with severity of neurotoxicity (P < 0.00001). FemaleCYP3A4 22 carriers were at increased risk of developing neurotoxicity (P1⁄4 0.043) in the exploratory cohort.CYP3A4 22 carrier status itself was not associatedwithpharmacokinetic parameters (CL, AUC,Cmax, or T>0.05) of paclitaxel in males or females. Other genetic variants displayed no association with neurotoxicity. In the subsequent independent validation cohort, CYP3A4 22 carriers were at risk of developing grade 3 neurotoxicity (OR 1⁄4 19.1; P 1⁄4 0.001). Conclusions: Paclitaxel exposure showed a relationship with the severity of paclitaxel-induced neurotoxicity. In this study, female CYP3A4 22 carriers had increased risk of developing severe neurotoxicity during paclitaxel therapy. These observations may guide future individualization of paclitaxel treatment. Clin Cancer Res; 19(12); 1–9. 2013 AACR.
Hepatoblastoma in Children With Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome: Does it Warrant Different Treatment?

Patients with Beckwith-Wiedemann Syndrome (BWS) are predisposed to developing hepatoblastoma. Clinical data were reviewed in all cases of hepatoblastoma in patients with BWS reported in the literature and from personal cases. Patients were identified by literature review using PubMed and by a search of the authors’ local tumor registries. Fifty-six patients were identified. The median age of presentation with hepatoblastoma was 6 months (range birth-30 mo). Thirteen of 26 patients were born prematurely. Of 31 evaluable patients, 19 exhibited hemihypertrophy. Thirty-two of 33 patients with &agr;-fetoprotein data reported had elevated levels at diagnosis. Overall survival was 75% (27 of 36 patients). Of 25 patients with data who survived, 24 were treated with chemotherapy and surgery (vs. only 2 of 8 who did not survive). All 9 patients with hepatoblastoma detected by routine screening with outcomes reported were surviving at the time of the reports. Overall survival was high in patients with BWS and hepatoblastoma, especially given lower stage at presentation and when treated with surgery and chemotherapy. Future prospective trials should evaluate if BWS is independently associated with outcome and if the outcome is improved by routine screening.
Does Smoking Increase Risk for Caries? A Cross-Sectional Study in an Italian Military Academy

Background/Aims: Traditionally, tobacco is considered as part of the military culture. A cross-sectional survey was designed to clarify if smoking habit increases the caries risk in a sample of Italian adults attending a Military Academy. Methods: Clinical examinations including dental caries and presence of bleeding at probing were carried out following WHO criteria. Related socio-behavioural factors were collected. Four calibrated examiners observed 763 subjects (men = 722; 94.6% and women = 41; 5.4%). Results: One of the 763 subjects did not declare the smoking status and was excluded from the analysis. Hundred twenty-six (16.5%) subjects claimed to have never smoked, 200 (26.3%) were coded as light smokers and 436 (57.2%) as heavy tobacco users. Statistically significant linear trend across the educational level (p = 0.03), self-satisfaction with the appearance of teeth and gums (p = 0.04) and dental check-up in the past 6 months (p = 0.02) was found among the 3 subgroups. Almost the entire sample showed caries experience (84.1%). Mean DS ranged from 0.6 in the nonsmokers subgroup to 1.1 in the heavy smokers. Differences among means were statistically significant for DS, DMFS and Significant Caries Index (p = 0.01, 0.04 and 0.03, respectively). The zero-inflated regression model showed that caries severity was significantly associated with smoking habit (p = 0.02), dental check-up in the past 6 months (p = 0.01), self-satisfaction with the appearance of teeth and gums (p < 0.01) and healthy gums (p = 0.04). Conclusion: Heavy smokers attending a Military Academy showed a higher prevalence of caries, confirming a correlation between the disease and tobacco use.
Line probe assay for detection of rifampicin and isoniazid resistant tuberculosis in Pakistan.

OBJECTIVE To assess the efficacy of a line-probe assay delta (LiPA) as rapid diagnostic test for early detection of drug-resistant tuberculosis compared to conventional susceptibility methods in Pakistan. METHODS Resistance to rifampicin (RIF) and isoniazid (INH) in 108 smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis samples was detected using a line-probe assay [GenoType MTBDRplus (Hain Lifescience, GmbH, Nehren, Germany)] at the clinical microbiology laboratory of Aga Khan University Hospital in May, 2009. Results were compared with susceptibilities performed while using agar proportion. RESULTS In comparison to the agar proportion method, the detection rate and specificity of resistance using MTBDR plus was 92.5% and 98.2% for rifampicin, and 76.3% and 100% for isoniazid. Mutations in codons 531 and 533 of rpoB gene (62%S531L) were responsible for 67.9% of rifampicin resistance. S315T mutation of katG gene was detected in 55.9% and inhA promoter mutation at positions -15 (C15T) in 11.9% of isoniazid resistant isolates. Four phenotypically rifampicin-resistant and 14 isoniazid-resistant strains were not detected by MTBDRplus. Sequencing these strains revealed mutations in 4 strains; 2 in rpoB gene S531W, del518 and 2 in katG genesW300L, S315N. Hence, two phenotypic rifampicin-resistant and 13 phenotypic isoniazid-resistant strains were not detected by the commercial line probe assay. CONCLUSION The study showed that MTBDRplus had a high detection rate for rifampicin resistance. However, additional probes need to be included in the assay to improve the detection of isoniazid-resistant mycobacterium tuberculosis strains in Pakistan.
Matrix factorizations and mirror symmetry: the cubic curve

We revisit open string mirror symmetry for the elliptic curve, using matrix factorizations for describing D-branes on the B-model side. We show how flat coordinates can be intrinsically defined in the Landau-Ginzburg model, and derive the A-model partition function counting disk instantons that stretch between three D-branes. In mathematical terms, this amounts to computing the simplest Fukaya product m2 from the LG mirror theory. In physics terms, this gives a systematic method for determining non-perturbative Yukawa couplings for intersecting brane configurations.
Sensorineural Hearing Loss as an Exceptional Mode of Revelation of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: A Case Report

Nasopharyngeal carcinomas are responsible of a high mortality rate in many parts of the world. The clinical aspects of these cancers are various; they find their explanations in the ways of tumor extension. The knowledge of these expansion ways has been significantly modified by the addition of CT and MRI. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first case of nasopharyngeal carcinomas that manifested with sensorineural hearing loss as the first and unique symptom. We report the case of a 48 years old male Arab patient with an unusual mode of revelation of this cancer, he presented with sensorineural hearing loss. He had no other clinical manifestations. The patient was assessed for Cerebellopontine Angle Tumors, MRI rectified the diagnosis. The intracranial extension of nasopharyngeal carcinomas may be manifested by sensorineural hearing loss due to the auditory nerve damage and can be the first and the unique symptom of the disease. Imaging section (CT scan and MRI) is the cornerstone that can rectify the diagnosis.
Investigating the Role of Socio-organizational Factors in the Information Security Compliance in Organizations

The increase reliance on information systems has created unprecedented challenges for organizations to protect their critical information from different security threats that have direct consequences on the corporate liability, loss of credibility, and monetary damage. As a result, the security of information has become a top priority in many organizations. This study investigates the role of socio-organizational factors by drawing the insights from the organizational theory literature in the adoption of information security compliance in organizations. Based on the analysis of the survey data collected from 294 employees from different organizations, the study indicates management commitment, awareness and training, accountability, technology capability, technology compatibility, processes integration, and audit and monitoring have a significant positive impact on the adoption of information security compliance in organizations. The study contributes to the information security compliance research by exploring the criticality of socio-organizational factors at the organizational level for information security compliance.
Unsupervised feature learning framework for no-reference image quality assessment

In this paper, we present an efficient general-purpose objective no-reference (NR) image quality assessment (IQA) framework based on unsupervised feature learning. The goal is to build a computational model to automatically predict human perceived image quality without a reference image and without knowing the distortion present in the image. Previous approaches for this problem typically rely on hand-crafted features which are carefully designed based on prior knowledge. In contrast, we use raw-image-patches extracted from a set of unlabeled images to learn a dictionary in an unsupervised manner. We use soft-assignment coding with max pooling to obtain effective image representations for quality estimation. The proposed algorithm is very computationally appealing, using raw image patches as local descriptors and using soft-assignment for encoding. Furthermore, unlike previous methods, our unsupervised feature learning strategy enables our method to adapt to different domains. CORNIA (Codebook Representation for No-Reference Image Assessment) is tested on LIVE database and shown to perform statistically better than the full-reference quality measure, structural similarity index (SSIM) and is shown to be comparable to state-of-the-art general purpose NR-IQA algorithms.
All-trans-retinoic acid decreases vein graft intimal hyperplasia and matrix metalloproteinase activity in vivo.

BACKGROUND Development of vein graft intimal hyperplasia has been associated with increased activity of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). All-trans-retinoic acid (atRA) decreases expression and activity of MMPs in tissue culture and has decreased intimal hyperplasia following arterial balloon catheter injury. We examined the effect of oral administration of atRA on intimal hyperplasia and MMP expression in an animal model of vein bypass grafting. MATERIALS AND METHODS Interposition jugular vein bypass grafts were placed in the carotid artery of New Zealand white rabbits. Animals received either atRA (10 mg/kg/day) or vehicle (corn oil) for a period of 2 weeks. Retinoic acid serum levels were determined by HPLC. Intimal and medial areas were measured using morphometric analysis of perfusion-fixed vein graft specimens, and intimal thickness was calculated using circumferential measurements. Expression of MMP-2, MMP-9, and TIMP-1 in vein grafts and unoperated control veins was determined using Northern analysis, and proteolytic activity was determined using substrate gel zymography. RESULTS Animals treated with atRA had significantly elevated serum levels of this compound and its metabolites. A decrease in intimal to medial ratio was noted after 28 days in vein grafts from treated animals (0.63 vs 0.88, P < 0.01), and a decrease in calculated intimal thickness was noted at 7 and 28 days. Expression of MMP-2 was decreased in treated animals 7 days following surgery, and expression of both MMP-2 and MMP-9 was decreased at 28 days. A decrease in proteolytic activity was noted on zymography at 68 kDa, 7 and 28 days following surgery in vein grafts from animals treated with atRA, corresponding with a decrease in the active form of MMP-2. Increased expression of TIMP-1 was noted in vein grafts from both the treated and the control groups, 7 and 28 days following graft placement. CONCLUSIONS Oral administration of all-trans-retinoic acid resulted in decreased intimal hyperplasia in an animal model of vein bypass grafting. This was associated with decreased expression and activity of MMP-2 in treated animals.
Identifying Event-Sentiment Association using Lexical Equivalence and Co-reference Approaches

In this paper, we have identified event and sentiment expressions at word level from the sentences of TempEval-2010 corpus and evaluated their association in terms of lexical equivalence and co-reference. A hybrid approach that consists of Conditional Random Field (CRF) based machine learning framework in conjunction with several rule based strategies has been adopted for event identification within the TimeML framework. The strategies are based on semantic role labeling, WordNet relations and some handcrafted rules. The sentiment expressions are identified simply based on the cues that are available in the sentiment lexicons such as Subjectivity Wordlist, SentiWordNet and WordNet Affect. The identification of lexical equivalence between event and sentiment expressions based on the part-of-speech (POS) categories is straightforward. The emotional verbs from VerbNet have also been employed to improve the coverage of lexical equivalence. On the other hand, the association of sentiment and event has been analyzed using the notion of co-reference. The parsed dependency relations along with basic rhetoric knowledge help to identify the co-reference between event and sentiment expressions. Manual evaluation on the 171 sentences of TempEval-2010 dataset yields the precision, recall and F-Score values of 61.25%, 70.29% and 65.23% respectively.
Collagen: Animal Sources and Biomedical Application

ABSTRACT Collagen is the sole most profuse protein in the animal kingdom. It has been subjected to various studies from time immemorial. Its applications are numerous and have been extracted from various sources such as land animals (mainly bovine and porcine) and birds. Although collagen sources are abundant the outbreak of varied diseases among land animals posed a threat to its utilization in our daily life. Thus a probe for an alternative source began which in turn revealed the immense untapped marine source. The present article deals with a brief description of collagen its characteristics, chemistry, common extraction procedure, application in various fields and sources. A lot of studies have been carried out on various land animals, birds and marine organisms and this review sums up the work performed to date in a concise manner.