Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
EFFICIENT SPECTRAL ENVELOPE ESTIMATION AND ITS APPLICATION TO PITCH SHIFTING AND ENVELOPE PRESERVATION

In this article the estimation of the spectral envelope of sound signals is addressed. The intended application for the developed algorithm is pitch shifting with preservation of the spectral envelope in the phase vocoder. As a first step the different existing envelope estimation algorithms are investigated and their specific properties discussed. As the most promising algorithm the cepstrum based iterative true envelope estimator is selected. By means of controlled sub-sampling of the log amplitude spectrum and by means of a simple step size control for the iterative algorithm the run time of the algorithm can be decreased by a factor of 2.5-11. As a remedy for the ringing effects in the the spectral envelope that are due to the rectangular filter used for spectral smoothing we propose the use of a Hamming window as smoothing filter. The resulting implementation of the algorithm has slightly increased computational complexity compared to the standard LPC algorithm but offers significantly improved control over the envelope characteristics. The application of the true envelope estimator in a pitch shifting application is investigated. The main problems for pitch shifting with envelope preservation in a phase vocoder are identified and a simple yet efficient remedy is proposed.
Novel Dual-Band Out-of-Phase Power Divider With High Power-Handling Capability

In this paper, we present a novel dual-band out-of- phase power divider with high power-handling capability. The proposed device consists of five ports including one input port, two output ports, and two extra ones, which are connected by the external isolation resistors. To obtain the out-of-phase feature between the two output ports, double-sided parallel-strip lines are employed, and a conductor plane is inserted in the middle of the substrate as a common ground. A set of closed-form design equations is developed for analysis of the novel design structure by using the rigorous even- and odd-mode analysis method. The analysis shows that the proposed power divider can operate at two frequencies of f1 and mf1 with a wide frequency ratio range at 1.62 <; m <; 3. Furthermore, the power operation analysis also illustrates that the new circuit is superior in high power-handling capability over the conventional dividers with internal isolation resistors. For verification, an example power divider with frequency ratios of 2.4:1 is implemented. Simulation and experimental results agree well, validating the proposed design methodology.
Cortical response of the ventral attention network to unattended angry facial expressions: an EEG source analysis study

Introduction: We used an affective prime task composed of emotional (happy, angry, and neutral) prime faces and target words with either positive or negative valence. By asking subjects to attend to either the faces’ emotional expression or to the glasses’ shape, we assessed whether angry facial expressions were processed when they were unattended and task-irrelevant. Methods: We conducted a distributed source analysis on the corresponding event-related potentials focused on the early activity of face processing and attention networks’ related areas. We also evaluated the magnitude of the affective priming effect. Results: We observed a reduction of occipitotemporal areas’ (BA37) activation to unattended compared to attended faces and a modulation of primary visual areas’ activity lateralization. The latter was more right lateralized for attended than for unattended faces, and emotional faces were more right lateralized than neutral ones only in the former condition. Affective priming disappeared when emotional expressions of prime faces were ignored. Moreover, an increased activation in the right temporo–parietal junction (TPJ), but not in the intraparietal sulcus, was observed only for unattended angry facial expressions at ∼170 ms after face presentation. Conclusion: We suggest that attentional resources affect the early processing in visual and occipito-temporal areas, irrespective of the faces’ threatening content. The disappearance of the affective priming effect suggests that when subjects were asked to focus on glasses’ shape, attentional resources were not available to process the facial emotional expression, even though emotion-relevant and emotion-irrelevant features of the face were presented in the same position. On the other hand, unattended angry faces evoked a pre-attentive TPJ activity, which most likely represents a bottom–up trigger that signals their high behavioral relevance, although it is unrelated to task demands.
How do bilinguals switch between languages in different interactional contexts? A comparison between voluntary and mandatory language switching

Abstract How bilinguals switch between languages depends on the context. In a voluntary context, bilinguals are free to decide when to switch, whereas in a cued context they are instructed when to switch. While using two languages may be more costly than using one in cued switching ('mixing cost'), recent evidence suggests that voluntarily using two languages may be less effortful than using one ('mixing benefit'). Direct comparisons between mandatory and voluntary switching, however, are needed to better understand the effects of the interactional context on bilingual language control. The current study compared mandatory and voluntary switching within the same task, thus keeping the overall task characteristics the same. We observed overall slower mandatory responses and larger mandatory than voluntary mixing and switching effects. Thus, using two languages is more costly in a mandatory than voluntary context, showing that the interactional context can affect the effort needed to control two languages.
Do Report Cards Tell Consumers Anything They Don&Apos;T Already Know? the Case of Medicare Hmos

The use of government-mandated report cards to diminish uncertainty about the quality of products and services is widespread. However, report cards will have little effect if they simply confirm consumers' prior beliefs. Moreover, documented "responses" to report cards may reflect learning about quality that would have occurred in their absence ("market-based learning"). Using panel data on Medicare HMO market shares between 1994 and 2002, we examine the relationship between enrollment and quality before and after report cards were mailed to 40 million Medicare beneficiaries in 1999 and 2000. We find evidence that consumers learn from both public report cards and market-based sources, with the latter having a larger impact during our study period. Consumers are especially sensitive to both sources of information when the variance in HMO quality is greater. The effect of report cards is driven by beneficiaries' responses to consumer satisfaction scores; other reported quality measures such as the mammography rate did not affect enrollment decisions.
The effect of breath-hold diving on selected adaptive mechanisms in the circulatory-respiratory system in simulated static and dynamic apnoea

Background: ‪Current research results indicate high adaptation of an organism to long-term apnoea. Breathing techniques allow increasing the volume of the inhaled air and thus prolong the breath-hold time at rest and during physical effort. The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of breath-hold on adaptations of the respiratory and circulatory systems and cardiopulmonary-respiratory reactions at rest and during physical effort in persons practising freediving. Material and methods: ‪The study involved 17 athletes practising breath-hold diving, at the mean age of 38.4 ±8.4 years. Spirometry tests to evaluate static and dynamic lung indicators were conducted. The heart rate (HR), oxygen saturation (SpO2), and the apnoea time in three breath-hold trials were measured: static dry STA-D, static with face immersed in water STA-I and dynamic (DYN-D). Results: ‪The values of spirometry indicators were higher than the normal values at the appropriate peak expiratory flow (91.6 ± 27.2%). A significant effect of breath-hold on the HR was demonstrated in the STA-D test (W = 0.43, at p < 0.05) and STA-I (W = 0.51, at p < 0.05). The mean breath-hold time was significantly lower in the dynamic trial DYN-D vs STA-D (p < 0.001) and in STA-D Ex vs STA-I (P < 0.001). Higher mean values of SpO2 were shown in DYN-D in comparison to STA-D (p < 0.05). Conclusions: ‪The results of this study indicate that breath-hold training beneficially affects adaptation of the circulatory system, causing strong bradycardia and lower tolerance in response to prolonged apnoea during physical effort.
Finding Common Ground: Teacher Leaders and Principals Speak Out about Teacher Leadership

This study investigates how a small group of teacher leaders and their principals, participating in a teacher leadership program called the teacher connector (TC), understand teacher leadership and its impact on their practice. TCs’ responsibilities were typical of teacher leaders; thus, their experiences can provide insights into teacher leaders’ experiences more generally. Results indicate that the norms of egalitarianism, seniority, and autonomy influenced TCs’ descriptions of their positions and often lead to behaviors that undermined their authority. Principals downplayed these norms’ impact and often exacerbated teacher resistance. Alternatively, when principals and teacher leaders had clear converging views about the TCs’ goals and their connection to the school vision, teacher resistance decreased and TCs felt more efficacious.
Nilotinib Counteracts P-Glycoprotein-Mediated Multidrug Resistance and Synergizes the Antitumoral Effect of Doxorubicin in Soft Tissue Sarcomas

The therapeutic effect of doxorubicin (DXR) in the treatment of soft tissue sarcomas (STS) is limited by its toxicity and the development of multidrug resistance (MDR), the latter mainly induced by high expression of efflux pumps (e.g., P-glycoprotein [P-gp]). Therefore, the search for alternative therapies, which sensitize these tumors to chemotherapy while maintaining a low toxicity profile, is a rational approach. We assessed efficacy and molecular mechanisms involved in the antiproliferative effects of the tyrosine kinase inhibitors, nilotinib and imatinib, as single agents or in combination with DXR, in human synovial sarcoma SW982 and leiomyosarcoma SK-UT-1 cells. As single compound nilotinib (1–10 µM) was more potent than imatinib inhibiting the growth of SK-UT-1 and SW982 cells by 33.5–59.6%, respectively. Importantly, only nilotinib synergized the antitumoral effect of DXR (0.05–0.5 µM) by at least 2-fold, which clearly surpassed the mere sum of effects according to isobolographic analysis. Moreover, nilotinib in combination with DXR had a sustained effect on cell number (−70.3±5.8%) even 12 days after withdrawal of drugs compared to DXR alone. On the molecular level, only nilotinib fully blocked FBS-induced ERK1 and p38 MAPK activation, hence, reducing basal and DXR-induced up-regulation of P-gp levels. Moreover, efflux activity of the MDR-related proteins P-gp and MRP-1 was inhibited, altogether resulting in intracellular DXR retention. In high-risk STS tumors 53.8% and 15.4% were positive for P-gp and MRP-1 expression, respectively, with high incidence of P-gp in synovial sarcoma (72.7%). In summary, nilotinib exhibits antiproliferative effects on cellular models of STS and sensitizes them to DXR by reverting DXR-induced P-gp-mediated MDR and inhibiting MRP-1 activity, leading to a synergistic effect with potential for clinical treatment.
Low-Cost Epoch-Based Correlation Prefetching for Commercial Applications

The performance of many important commercial workloads, such as on-line transaction processing, is limited by the frequent stalls due to off-chip instruction and data accesses. These applications are characterized by irregular control flow and complex data access patterns that render many low-cost prefetching schemes, such as stream-based and stride-based prefetching, ineffective. For such applications, correlation-based prefetching, which is capable of capturing complex data access patterns, has been shown to be a more promising approach. However, the large instruction and data working sets of these applications require extremely large correlation tables, making these tables impractical to be implemented on-chip. This paper proposes the epoch-based correlation prefetcher, which cost-effectively stores its correlation table in main memory and exploits the concept of epochs to hide the long latency of its correlation table access, and which attempts to eliminate entire epochs instead of individual instruction and data misses. Experimental results demonstrate that the epoch-based correlation prefetches which requires minimal on-chip real estate to implement, improves the performance of a suite of important commercial benchmarks by 13% to 31% and significantly outperforms previously proposed correlation prefetchers.
The Efficacy of Hypnotherapy in the Treatment of Irritable Bowel Syndrome: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Background/Aims Hypnotherapy is considered as a promising intervention for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), but the evidence is still limited. The aims of this study were to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis to estimate the efficacy of hypnotherapy for the treatment of IBS. Methods A literature search was performed using MEDLINE (PubMed), Embase, PsycINFO and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL database). Only randomized controlled trials that compared hypnotherapy with any other conventional treatment or no treatment in patients with IBS were included. Studies had to report outcomes as IBS symptom score or quality of life. The mean change in outcome score was used to pool these outcomes for the meta-analysis. Data were synthesized using the standardized mean difference for continuous data. Results Seven randomized controlled trials (6 papers) involving 374 patients with IBS were identified. Performance bias was high in all trials because it was impossible to blind participants and therapists in this type of intervention. The outcomes in this meta-analysis were evaluated at 3 months for short-term effects and at 1 year for long-term effects. The change in abdominal pain score at 3 months was significant in the hypnotherapy group (standardized mean difference, −0.83; 95% CI, −1.65 to −0.01). Three of the 4 trials showed greater improvement in overall gastrointestinal symptoms in the hypnotherapy group. Conclusions This study provides clearer evidence that hypnotherapy has beneficial short-term effects in improving gastrointestinal symptoms of patients with IBS.
Skills, Schools, and Credit Constraints: Evidence from Massachusetts

Low college enrollment rates among low-income students may stem from a combination of credit constraints, low academic skill, and low-quality schools. Recent Massachusetts data allow the first use of school district fixed effects in the analysis of credit constraints, leading to four findings. First, low-income students in Massachusetts have lower intended college enrollment rates than higher income students but also have dramatically lower skills and attend lower-quality school districts. Second, inclusion of skill controls greatly reduces but does not eliminate this intended enrollment gap. Third, inclusion of school district fixed effects has little further impact, with low-income students eight percentage points less likely to intend enrollment than higher income students of the same skill and from the same school district. Fourth, medium- and high-skilled low-income students appear the most constrained. State governments could use the methods employed here to target financial aid more efficiently.
The Use of Supplementation Among People Practicing Powerlifting and its Connections with their Self – esteem and Body Value

Supplementation is one of the forms of powerlifting training support. It may have an influence on physical parameters of the contenders and may also have an impact on perception of the body and self – esteem. The aim of the study was to assess relationships between age, BMI, data concerning training, supplementation, self – assurance and body value among the contenders practising powerlifting.51 people who regularly practise powerlifting: 11 women aged 23.5 ±3.6 and 40 men aged 23.9 ±8.5 have been examined using self – esteem (SES) and body – esteem (BES) questionnaires. Data concerning age, BMI, training variables and supplementation have been also gathered.Supplementation is used by 91% of women and 85% of men. Men use more types of supplements than women (p < 0.05). Among women SES does not correlate with any other variables. Among men SES negatively correlates with the number of used supplements, as well as with all of the BES domains.Using supplementation among people who train powerlifting is rather common. Among women, SES in not related in any way with training or supplementation. Among men, lower self – esteem (SES) is significantly counterbalanced with BES.
Prevalence of sleep duration among Saudi adults

Objectives: To examine the associations between sleep duration and a variety of demographic and clinical variables in a sample of Saudi adults. Methods: A cross-sectional study among 2,095 participants was conducted at King Abdulaziz Medical City, Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, between May and October 2014. A questionnaire was administered to collect data related to clinical health outcomes and demographic characteristics. Participants were asked to report their average sleep duration per night in hours. Results: One-third (33.8%) reported short sleep duration of less than 7 hours/night. Short sleep duration was more prevalent in females (37.3% versus 31.4%, p=0.004). The most common medical problems reported were obesity with body mass index of >30 Kg/m2 (39.1%), hypertension (33.9%), diabetes mellitus (20.8%), depression (4.3%), asthma (17.3%), COPD (6.6%), and hyperlipidemia (2.7%). Diabetes mellitus was associated with long sleep of more than 9 hours/night (25.4%, p=0.011) and hypertension (54.2%, p=0.001). The linear regression model tend to reduce their sleep duration by roughly 22 minutes in female gender, 66 minutes in participants with hyperlipidemia, and 70 minutes in participants with poor sleep quality. Conclusions: Short sleep duration per night was prevalent, it affects one in every 3 Saudi adults. Long sleep duration of more than 9 hours was associated with increased comorbid conditions.
Analytic evaluation of RED performance

End-to-end congestion control mechanisms such as those in TCP are not enough to prevent congestion collapse in the Internet, and they must be supplemented by control mechanisms inside the network. The IRTF has singled out random early detection (RED) as one queue management scheme recommended for rapid deployment throughout the Internet. However, RED is not a thoroughly understood scheme-witness for example how the recommended parameter setting, or even the various benefits RED is claimed to provide, have changed over the past few years. In this paper, we describe simple analytic models for RED, and use these models to quantify the benefits (or lack thereof) brought about by RED. In particular, we examine the impact of RED on the loss and delay suffered by bursty and less bursty traffic (such as TCP and UDP traffic, respectively). We find that: (i) RED does eliminate the higher loss bias against bursty traffic observed with tail drop, but not by decreasing the loss rate of bursty traffic, rather by increasing that of non bursty traffic; (ii) the number of consecutive packet drops is higher with RED than tail drop, suggesting RED might not help as anticipated with the global synchronization of TCP flows; (iii) RED can be used to control the average queueing delay in routers and hence the end to end delay, but increases the jitter of non bursty streams. Thus, applications that generate smooth traffic, such as interactive audio applications, will suffer higher loss rates and require large playout buffers, thereby negating at least in part the lower mean delay brought about by RED.
Philadelphia Mindfulness Scale

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Interactive Distribution Ray Tracing

Distribution ray tracing uses multiple samples per pixel to produce antialiased images that include soft shadows, glossy reflection, motion blur, and depth-of-field. The two main potential barriers to making distribution ray tracing interactive are that many rays might be required, and that those rays are not coherent enough to derive efficiency from tracing them in packets. A new interleaved sampling approach based on the Sudoku puzzle is used to minimize the number of rays per pixel. An empirical demonstration is used to show that there is still enough coherence in the rays to allow for a per-ray cost near that of a traditional ray tracer. In addition, a demonstration is provided that participating media can also be handled interactively in a distribution ray tracer.
REGULATION OF FINE ROOT DYNAMICS BY MAMMALIAN BROWSERS IN EARLY SUCCESSIONAL ALASKAN TAIGA FORESTS

The effects of browsing by moose and snowshoe hares on fine root production, mortality, and decomposition in early successional forest ecosystems along the Tanana River floodplain in interior Alaska were studied over a 3-yr period using minirhizotrons placed inside and outside large permanent exclosures. Fine root production and mortality varied seasonally, with greatest rates of production occurring during June each year, and greatest rates of mortality occurring in fall and over winter. Annual production and mortality during 1993, a year of unusually low precipitation, were significantly higher than during either 1992 or 1994. Aboveground herbivory significantly reduced monthly rates of fine root production, and on an annual basis, fine root production of browsed plots (311.4 ± 31.7 mm·tube−1·yr−1) was significantly less than that of unbrowsed plots (453.8 ± 49.8 mm·tube−1·yr−1) when averaged over 3 yr. Because herbivory had less of an effect on monthly or annual rates of fine root mortality, fine root .
Errα and Gabpa/b specify PGC-1α-dependent oxidative phosphorylation gene expression that is altered in diabetic muscle

Recent studies have shown that genes involved in oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS) exhibit reduced expression in skeletal muscle of diabetic and prediabetic humans. Moreover, these changes may be mediated by the transcriptional coactivator peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor γ coactivator-1α (PGC-1α). By combining PGC-1α-induced genome-wide transcriptional profiles with a computational strategy to detect cis-regulatory motifs, we identified estrogen-related receptor α (Errα) and GA repeat-binding protein α as key transcription factors regulating the OXPHOS pathway. Interestingly, the genes encoding these two transcription factors are themselves PGC-1α-inducible and contain variants of both motifs near their promoters. Cellular assays confirmed that Errα and GA-binding protein a partner with PGC-1α in muscle to form a double-positive-feedback loop that drives the expression of many OXPHOS genes. By using a synthetic inhibitor of Errα, we demonstrated its key role in PGC-1α-mediated effects on gene regulation and cellular respiration. These results illustrate the dissection of gene regulatory networks in a complex mammalian system, elucidate the mechanism of PGC-1α action in the OXPHOS pathway, and suggest that Errα agonists may ameliorate insulin-resistance in individuals with type 2 diabetes mellitus.