Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Improving preselection in unit selection synthesis

Unit selection synthesis is a method of selecting and concatenating speech segments from a large single-speaker audio database to synthesize utterances. Selection is based on assigning target and concatenation costs to units and then ﬁnding a lowest cost sequence of units that will synthesize a given utterance. In order to synthesize efﬁciently, it is necessary to limit the number of units considered in the unit selection cost network, a part of the process called preselection. This paper examines the role of preselection in unit selection synthesis. We reﬁne the existing process of preselection by adding multiple phone sets to the list of features considered. We present experimental results that demonstrate better database usage and signiﬁcantly increased synthesis quality using this new method.
Somatic Complaints Are Significantly Associated with Chronic Uninvestigated Dyspepsia and Its Symptoms: A Large Cross-sectional Population Based Study

Background/Aims Somatization may influence persistence and severity of symptoms in gastrointestinal diseases. Some studies suggest that somatization is associated with chronic uninvestigated dyspepsia (CUD); however, the association is unclear. We aimed to determine the association between the profiles of somatic complaints with CUD and its symptoms. Methods In a cross-sectional study conducted on 4763 Iranian adults, somatic complaints were assessed using a comprehensive 31-items questionnaire. Patients with CUD were identified by the Rome III diagnostic criteria. Profiles of somatic complaints were derived from factor analysis. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between extracted profiles with CUD and its symptoms. Results CUD, bothersome postprandial fullness, early satiation, and epigastric pain or burning was identified in 723 (15.2%), 384 (8.1%), 302 (6.3%), and 371 (7.8%) of the study population. The frequency of all 31 somatic complaints was significantly higher in patients with CUD compared with controls (P < 0.001), and the most frequent was severe fatigue (45.1%). The profiles of somatic complaints were extracted in 4 domains, including “psychological”, “gastrointestinal”, “neuro-skeletal”, and “pharyngeal-respiratory”. The psychological (OR, 1.49; 95% CI, 1.44–1.54), gastrointestinal (OR, 2.22; 95% CI, 2.09–2.37), neuro-skeletal (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.44–1.59), and pharyngeal-respiratory (OR, 2.09; 95% CI, 1.94–2.25) profiles were significantly associated with greater odds of CUD. Conclusions CUD and its symptoms are strongly associated with higher levels of somatic complaints and their related extracted profiles. This perhaps explains that why it can be difficult to treat, however further prospective investigations are required to confirm these associations.
SCHEDULING IN CLOUD COMPUTING

Cloud computing is an emerging technology. It process huge amount of data so scheduling mechanism works as a vital role in the cloud computing. Thus my protocol is designed to minimize the switching time, improve the resource utilization and also improve the server performance and throughput. This method or protocol is based on scheduling the jobs in the cloud and to solve the drawbacks in the existing protocols. Here we assign the priority to the job which gives better performance to the computer and try my best to minimize the waiting time and switching time. Best effort has been made to manage the scheduling of jobs for solving drawbacks of existing protocols and also improvise the efficiency and throughput of the server.
Developing limits for driving under cannabis.

OBJECTIVE Development of a rational and enforceable basis for controlling the impact of cannabis use on traffic safety. METHODS An international working group of experts on issues related to drug use and traffic safety evaluated evidence from experimental and epidemiological research and discussed potential approaches to developing per se limits for cannabis. RESULTS In analogy to alcohol, finite (non-zero) per se limits for delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) in blood appear to be the most effective approach to separating drivers who are impaired by cannabis use from those who are no longer under the influence. Limited epidemiological studies indicate that serum concentrations of THC below 10 ng/ml are not associated with an elevated accident risk. A comparison of meta-analyses of experimental studies on the impairment of driving-relevant skills by alcohol or cannabis suggests that a THC concentration in the serum of 7-10 ng/ml is correlated with an impairment comparable to that caused by a blood alcohol concentration (BAC) of 0.05%. Thus, a suitable numerical limit for THC in serum may fall in that range. CONCLUSIONS This analysis offers an empirical basis for a per se limit for THC that allows identification of drivers impaired by cannabis. The limited epidemiological data render this limit preliminary.
A pareto-based Artificial Bee Colony and product line for optimizing scheduling of VM on cloud computing

In this paper, we present a task scheduling management based on the utility model which is used in economics to represent the needs of both the client and the provider. Indeed, our work copes with two man parameters that affect the broker, the cost of virtual machine instances and their response time. Minimizing those two objectives give the best quality of service to the customers and offer the broker an important profit. In fact, we consider the virtual machines as a product line and use the feature models to represent the virtual machines configurations to select the efficient resources that suit customer requirements and try at same time to minimize virtual machine cost. An efficient task scheduling mechanism can not only fit client's requirements, but also improve the resource utilization, be aware of the changing environment and intends to try to balance the system. Thus, our work is based on Artificial Bee Colony to optimize the scheduling of tasks on virtual machine in cloud computing by analyzing the difference of virtual machine load balancing algorithm.
How number processing survives left occipito-temporal damage

We investigated the neural systems that support number processing in a patient (JL) who had damage to the left ventral occipito-temporal cortex (LvOT). JL had severely impaired written word recognition but he was remarkably accurate in number tasks, albeit slower than normal. This suggests LvOT activation is necessary for efficient but not for accurate number decisions. Here we investigated how JL made accurate number decisions using fMRI; we compared JL's brain activation to that in healthy controls and in two patients with frontal lobe damage who, like JL, made slow but accurate responses in number tasks. For semantic relative to perceptual decisions on numbers, JL did not activate the left occipito-temporal area that was involved in all other subjects. However, JL had significantly increased activation in a left posterior middle temporal region. In addition, during semantic and perceptual decisions on numbers, JL showed increased activation in: (1) the right occipito-temporal cortex, (2) right caudate, and (3) bilateral frontal regions. These effects were unique to JL and cannot be explained in terms of abnormally long response times because they were not observed in the other patients who made slow but accurate number decisions. Together these results show that although the LvOT usually contributes to efficient number processing, activation in this region is not essential for accurate performance because (i) perceptual processing of numbers can be supported by right occipital, right caudate, and bilateral frontal activation and (ii) semantic processing of numbers can be supported by increased left posterior middle temporal activation associated with hand actions.
Optimality Conditions and a Smoothing Trust Region Newton Method for NonLipschitz Optimization

Regularized minimization problems with nonconvex, nonsmooth, perhaps non-Lipschitz penalty functions have attracted considerable attention in recent years, owing to their wide applications in image restoration, signal reconstruction, and variable selection. In this paper, we derive affine-scaled second order necessary and sufficient conditions for local minimizers of such minimization problems. Moreover, we propose a global convergent smoothing trust region Newton method which can find a point satisfying the affine-scaled second order necessary optimality condition from any starting point. Numerical examples are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the smoothing trust region Newton method.
Punishment attitudes: their social and psychological bases

Peoples’ use of punishment, primarily in child rearing, has been an important issue of psychological investigation, and the damaging effects of harsh physical punishment on children has been powerfully documented in the research literature (Gershoff, 2002). In contrast to the huge research literature on the effects of parental physical punishment, there has been very little systematic research on peoples’ attitudes and beliefs about the use of punishment, either in child rearing or in general in society. Most of the research done consists of scattered surveys that have looked at attitudes and belief about different kinds of punishment (e.g. most commonly capital punishment, longer versus shorter prison sentences, corporal punishment and particular kinds of parental punishments) (e.g. Wiener & Haney, 2004), in relation to various possible correlates of these attitudes (e.g. mostly socio-demographic, but sometimes other attitudes, and behaviour). One issue of interest has been that of whether people with attitudes favouring stricter, more frequent and more severe punishments do express this in behaviour, most notably their child-rearing behaviour. In the few studies on this, the correlation has tended to be positive and significant. For example, Vittrup, Holden and Buck (2006) found correlations ranging from 0.21 to 0.50 between mothers’ attitudes to spanking and actual spanking of their children. Peoples’ punishment attitudes, however, have broader implications for society. More favourable attitudes to punishment will be expressed in support for social policies and practices – most prominently for greater punitiveness in the criminal justice system in the form of longer prison sentences, support for capital 1 Punishment attitudes: their social and psychological bases
Stress, dyadic coping, and relationship satisfaction in late adolescent couples

In adult couples, stress emerging outside the relationship (extra-dyadic stress) spills over into the relationship evoking conflict between the partners (intra-dyadic stress), which itself has a negative effect on relationship satisfaction over time. This detrimental effect of stress spillover can be buffered by adequate dyadic coping (DC) skills of both partners. The current study aimed at replicating these effects in a sample of 96 Swiss adult couples and 124 Swiss late adolescent (non-cohabitating) couples, who were in a serious relationship for at least 1 year. We examined (a) whether extra-dyadic stress is associated with intra-dyadic stress and relationship satisfaction and (b) whether the potential buffering effect of DC on these associations already exists in this important developmental phase. Contrary to the adult sample, for which indirect actor and partner effects were significant, we found a marginally significantly negative indirect actor effect of extra-dyadic stress on relationship satisfaction via intra-dyadic stress in late adolescents only for participants experiencing high extra-dyadic stress and low support from the partner. DC moderated the spillover between extra-dyadic and intra-dyadic stress for late adolescents. This study highlights the importance of investigating dyadic processes in romantic relationships in late adolescence to gain an insight into these relationships and the associated developmental processes.
Identifying Zero Pronouns in Japanese Dialogue

Japanese dialogue containing zero pronouns is analyzed for the purpose of automatic Japanese-English conversation translation. Topic-driven Discourse Structure is formalized which identifies mainly non-human zero pronouns as a by-product. Other zero pronouns are handled using cognitive and sociolinguistic information in honorific, deictic, speech-act and mental predicates. These are integrated into the model.
Patients repeatedly referred to secondary care with symptoms unexplained by organic disease: prevalence, characteristics and referral pattern.

BACKGROUND Patients with medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are commonly referred to specialist clinics. Repeated referrals suggest unmet patient need and inefficient use of resources. OBJECTIVES How often does this happen, who are the patients and how are they referred? METHODS The design of the study is a case-control survey. The setting of the study is five general practices in Scotland, UK. The cases were 193 adults with three or more referrals over 5 years, at least two of which resulted in a diagnosis of MUS. The controls were (i) patients referred only once over 5 years and (ii) patients with three or more referrals with symptoms always diagnosed as medically explained. The measures of the study are SF-12 physical and mental component summaries; symptom count; and number of referrals, number of different GPs who had referred and number of specialist follow-up appointments. RESULTS A total of 1.1% [95% confidence interval (CI) 1.0-1.2%] of patients had repeated (median 3, range 2-6) referrals with MUS. Compared to infrequently referred controls, they were older and more likely to be female, living alone and unemployed. Compared to controls with medically explained symptoms, their health status was comparable or worse: odds ratio for SF-12 physical component summary<40, 1.2 (95% CI 0.72-2.0); SF-12 mental component summary<40, 1.8 (95% CI 1.1-3.0); reporting eight or more physical symptoms, 2.2 (95% CI 1.2-3.8). They were referred by more GPs and received less specialist follow-up. CONCLUSIONS A small proportion of primary care patients are repeatedly referred to specialist clinics where they receive multiple diagnoses of MUS. The needs of these patients and how they are managed merits greater attention.
Mass functions and bias of dark matter halos

Aims. We revisit the study of the mass functions and the bias of dark matter halos. Methods. Focusing on the limit of rare massive halos, we point out that exact analytical results can be obtained for the large-mass tail of the halo mass function. This is most easily seen from a steepest-descent approach, that becomes asymptotically exact for rare events. We also revisit the traditional derivation of the bias of massive halos, associated with overdense regions in the primordial density field. Results. We check that the theoretical large-mass cutoff agrees with the mass functions measured in numerical simulations. For halos defined by a nonlinear threshold $\delta=200$ this corresponds to using a linear threshold $\delta_L\simeq 1.59$ instead of the traditional value $\simeq$$ 1.686$. We also provide a fitting formula that matches simulations over all mass scales and obeys the exact large-mass tail. Next, paying attention to the Lagrangian-Eulerian mapping (i.e. corrections associated with the motions of halos), we improve the standard analytical formula for the bias of massive halos. We check that our prediction, which contains no free parameter, agrees reasonably well with numerical simulations. In particular, it recovers the steepening of the dependence on scale of the bias that is observed at higher redshifts, which published fitting formulae did not capture. This behavior mostly arises from nonlinear biasing.
Information Dispersion and Auction Prices

Do bidders behave as auction theory predicts they should? How do bidders (and thus, prices) react to different types of information? This paper derives implications of auction theory with respect to the dispersion of private information signals in an auction. I conduct a survey of non-bidders to construct a measure of information dispersion that is independent of bidding data. This permits joint tests of Bayesian-Nash equilibrium bidder behavior and information structure (common vs. private value) in a sample of eBay auctions for computers. The measure also allows me to separately estimate the price effects of seller reputation and product information. eBay prices appear consistent with Bayesian-Nash common value bidding behavior. Uncertainty about the value of goods due to information dispersed over auction participants plays a larger role than uncertainty about the trustworthiness of the sellers, but both are significant drivers of price. Thus, seller reputation complements, rather than substitutes for, information provided in the auction descriptions by lending credibility to that information, creating an incentive for sellers to reduce uncertainty in their auctions.
International Journal of Information Management

Purpose: Drawing from literature on innovation, strategy and culture the objective of this study is to explore the role of perceived potentials and perceived strategic importance on CIOs’ perspective on RFID technology in two different cultural settings. Methodology: Basedonsurveyresponsesfrom463Germanand157ItalianITdecisionmakersweanalyzed the data with PLS structural equation modeling. Findings: We show that perceived potentials of RFID inﬂuence the perceived strategic importance which positively inﬂuences CIOs’ intention to invest in RFID. The composition of perceived potentials affecting the strategic importance of RFID differs signiﬁcantly in both cultures. In Germany, potentials attributed to RFID are improving quality, automating manpower, reducing counterfeits, and improving customer service. Italian CIOs value reducing stock inconsistencies, optimizing stock keeping, and improving customer service as RFID potentials. Regardless of culture, ﬁndings show that company size hardly has impact on perceived strategic importance. Originality/value: This research shows on a large empirical basis cultural differences in the perception of RFID in two countries using PLS. © 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Effect Of Nutrition And Management Of Dairy Heifers On Resultant Cow Longevity

Longevity as defined by the Random House Dictionary is “the duration of an individual’s life”. Currently dairy cows average 2.8 calvings in a ‘lifetime (Cassell, 2005). Raising high quality heifers that will express their genetic potential for milk production and allow optimal duration in the milking herd (longevity) is a priority objective to balance the investment of 15-20% of total costs of milk production with a net return to the dairy (Lormore, 2005). In a study evaluating heifer raising costs to first calving age on eight New York dairy farms, Karzses (2005) found that feed accounted for 49% of the total costs and labor 18%. This suggests a focus on nutrition and management factors are critical with implication to survival in the milking herd. The applied dynamics of the process to attain a balance of investment return and longevity involves attention to many variables.
Design of Interactional End-to-End Web Applications for Smart Cities

Nowadays, the number of flexible and fast human to application system interactions is dramatically increasing. For instance, citizens interact with the help of the internet to organize surveys or meetings (in real-time) spontaneously. These interactions are supported by technologies and application systems such as free wireless networks, web -or mobile apps. Smart Cities aim at enabling their citizens to use these digital services, e.g., by providing enhanced networks and application infrastructures maintained by the public administration. However, looking beyond technology, there is still a significant lack of interaction and support between "normal" citizens and the public administration. For instance, democratic decision processes (e.g. how to allocate public disposable budgets) are often discussed by the public administration without citizen involvement. This paper introduces an approach, which describes the design of enhanced interactional web applications for Smart Cities based on dialogical logic process patterns. We demonstrate the approach with the help of a budgeting scenario as well as a summary and outlook on further research.
THE IMPORTANCE OF WIDE-FIELD FOREGROUND REMOVAL FOR 21 cm COSMOLOGY: A DEMONSTRATION WITH EARLY MWA EPOCH OF REIONIZATION OBSERVATIONS

In this paper we present observations, simulations, and analysis demonstrating the direct connection between the location of foreground emission on the sky and its location in cosmological power spectra from interferometric redshifted 21 cm experiments. We begin with a heuristic formalism for understanding the mapping of sky coordinates into the cylindrically averaged power spectra measurements used by 21 cm experiments, with a focus on the effects of the instrument beam response and the associated sidelobes. We then demonstrate this mapping by analyzing power spectra with both simulated and observed data from the Murchison Widefield Array. We find that removing a foreground model that includes sources in both the main field of view and the first sidelobes reduces the contamination in high k∥ modes by several per cent relative to a model that only includes sources in the main field of view, with the completeness of the foreground model setting the principal limitation on the amount of power removed. While small, a percent-level amount of foreground power is in itself more than enough to prevent recovery of any Epoch of Reionization signal from these modes. This result demonstrates that foreground subtraction for redshifted 21 cm experiments is truly a wide-field problem, and algorithms and simulations must extend beyond the instrument’s main field of view to potentially recover the full 21 cm power spectrum.
Urinary and Plasma Catecholamines and Metanephrines in Dogs with Pheochromocytoma, Hypercortisolism, Nonadrenal Disease and in Healthy Dogs

Background Diagnosis of pheochromocytoma (PC) is based on a combination of clinical suspicion, finding an adrenal mass, increased plasma, and urine concentrations of catecholamine metabolites and is finally confirmed with histopathology. In human medicine, it is controversial whether biochemically testing plasma is superior to testing urine. Objectives To measure urinary and plasma catecholamines and metanephrines in healthy dogs, dogs with PC, hypercortisolism (HC), and nonadrenal diseases (NAD) and to determine the test with the best diagnostic performance for dogs with PC. Animals Seven PC dogs, 10 dogs with HC, 14 dogs with NAD, 10 healthy dogs. Methods Prospective diagnostic clinical study. Urine and heparin plasma samples were collected and stored at −80°C before analysis using high‐pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) coupled to electrochemical detection or tandem mass spectrometry were performed. Urinary variables were expressed as ratios to urinary creatinine concentration. Results Dogs with PC had significantly higher urinary normetanephrine and metanephrine : creatinine ratios and significantly higher plasma‐total and free normetanephrine and plasma‐free metanephrine concentrations compared to the 3 other groups. There were no overlapping results of urinary normetanephrine concentrations between PC and all other groups, and only one PC dog with a plasma normetanephrine concentration in the range of the dogs with HC and NAD disease. Performances of total and free plasma variables were similar. Overlap of epinephrine and norepinephrine results between the groups was large with both urine and plasma. Conclusion and clinical importance Measurement of normetanephrine is the preferred biochemical test for PC and urine was superior to plasma.