Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Pitch Based Sound Classification

A sound classification model is presented that can classify signals into music, noise and speech. The model extracts the pitch of the signal using the harmonic product spectrum. Based on the pitch estimate and a pitch error measure, features are created and used in a probabilistic model with soft-max output function. Both linear and quadratic inputs are used. The model is trained on 2 hours of sound and tested on publicly available data. A test classification error below 0.05 with 1 s classification windows is achieved. Further more it is shown that linear input performs as well as a quadratic, and that even though classification gets marginally better, not much is achieved by increasing the window size beyond 1 s
Climatological analysis of December rainfall in the Panama Canal Watershed

Monthly accumulated precipitation over the tropical Panama Canal Watershed has the largest interannual variability in December, with the wettest month on record being December 2010. December accumulated precipitation over the watershed is found to vary with sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies in both the tropical North Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans, but a considerably stronger relationship is found with the difference between these SST anomalies. The configuration of SST anomalies in these two ocean basins during December has a strong effect on the flux of low‐level moisture over the Caribbean Sea, southern Central America, and the eastern Pacific Ocean through the modification of the Caribbean Low‐Level Jet (CLLJ) and the Chorro del Occidente Colombiano (CHOCO) jet. Wet Decembers in the watershed are associated with cool (warm) SST anomalies in the tropical Pacific (North Atlantic), a weakening (strengthening) of the CLLJ (CHOCO jet), and increased moisture convergence over and around Panama, with the opposite conditions associated with dry Decembers. The SST anomalies in these two ocean basins affect the distribution of daily precipitation during December differently, with SST anomalies in the Pacific (Atlantic) predominately associated with changes in the frequency of heavier (lighter) precipitation. The analysis shows that December 2010 followed the pattern of associations of wet Decembers but with the highest intensity of precipitation and CHOCO jet strength.
Past and Future Changes in Extreme Sea Levels and Waves

(1) Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, UK (plw@pol.ac.uk) (2) The Hadley Centre, Met Office, UK (jason.lowe@metoffice.gov.uk) (3) Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory, Princeton, USA (tom.knutson@noaa.gov) (4) The Hadley Centre, Met Office, UK (ruth.mcdonald@metoffice.gov.uk) (5) CSIRO, Aspendale, Australia (kathleen.mcinnes@csiro.au) (6) GKSS, Geesthacht, Germany (woth@gkss.de) (7) GKSS, Geesthacht, Germany (storch@gkss.de) (8) Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, UK (jaw@pol.ac.uk) (9) Environment Canada, Downsview, Canada (val.swail@ec.gc.ca) (10) Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada (natacha.bernier@phys.ocean.dal.ca) (11) P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology, Moscow, Russia (gul@sail.msk.ru) (12) Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, Liverpool, UK (kevinh@pol.ac.uk) (13) National Institute of Oceanography, Goa, India (unni@darya.nio.org) (14) University of Hobart, Tasmania, Australia (john.hunter@utas.edu.au)
Phenomenological evidence in favor of a remote seismic coupling for large volcanic eruptions

A correlation has been recently found between large earthquakes and the succeeding largest 9 explosive eruptions of the last century, which has been interpreted as a product of co‐ and post‐seismic stress diffusion. Here, we check the statistical significance of the proposed coupling by using a larger dataset, and investigate the reliability of the causality hypothesis. We find that the volcanoes with VEI ≥ 4 eruptions underwent, in the few decades before the volcanic event, higher seismic stress perturbations due to large earthquakes compared to other volcanic areas. The correlation is statistically significant and it is not explained by a spatio‐temporal clustering of eruptions and earthquakes due to tectonic pulses. This implies that the large earthquakes indeed triggered the eruptions.
Fast Thin-Film Transistor Circuits Based on Amorphous Oxide Semiconductor

Five-stage ring oscillators (ROs) composed of amorphous In/Ga/Zn/O (a-IGZO) channel thin-film transistors (TFTs) with the channel lengths of 10 mum were fabricated on a glass substrate. The a-IGZO layer was deposited by RF magnetron sputtering onto the unheated substrate. The RO operated at 410 kHz (the propagation delay of 0.24 mus/stage), when supplied with an external voltage of +18 V. This is the fastest integrated circuit based on oxide-semiconductor channel TFTs to date that operates faster than the ROs using conventional hydrogenated amorphous silicon TFTs and organic TFTs
Efficient inverted polymer solar cells

We investigate the effect of interfacial buffer layers—vanadium oxide (V2O5) and cesium carbonate (Cs2CO3)—on the performance of polymer solar cells based on regioregular poly-(3-hexylthiophene) and [6,6]-phenyl C60 butyric acid methyl ester blend. The polarity of solar cells can be controlled by the relative positions of these two interfacial layers. Efficient inverted polymer solar cells were fabricated with the structure of indium tin oxide (ITO)/Cs2CO3/polymer blend/vanadium oxide (V2O5)/aluminum (Al). Short-circuit current of 8.42mA∕cm2, open-circuit voltage of 0.56V, and power conversion efficiency of 2.25% under a AM1.5G 130mW∕cm2 condition were achieved. The interfacial layers were also used to fabricate polymer solar cells using ITO and a thin gold (Au) layer as the transparent electrodes. The thickness of V2O5 layer (10nm) makes it an effective protective layer for the active layer so that ITO can be used for both the electrodes, enabling highly efficient transparent polymer solar cells (i.e., p.
A new temnospondyl amphibian from the Lower Triassic of South America

A new temnospondyl from the Early Triassic Buena Vista Formation (Paraná Basin) in Uruguay is described. The specimen is represented by a skull table fragment which includes the left orbit, and, although fairly incomplete, shows close affinities with the basal temnospondyl clade (Dvinosaurus + Tupilakosauridae). Previously, members of this clade were only known from Upper Permian and Lower Triassic deposits from the Northern Hemisphere. The new specimen described herein together with a recent record from the Lower Triassic of South Africa (Karoo Basin), support the hypothesis of an invasion of members of the basal (Dvinosaurus + Tupilakosauridae) clade into Gondwana as early as the Late Permian.
Edinburgh Research Explorer Cooperative AUV Navigation using a Single Maneuvering Surface Craft

This paper describes the experimental implementation of an online algorithm for cooperative localization of submerged autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) supported by an autonomous surface craft. Maintaining accurate localization of an AUV is difﬁcult because electronic signals, such as GPS, are highly attenuated by water. The usual solution to the problem is to utilize expensive navigation sensors to slow the rate of dead-reckoning divergence. We investigate an alternative approach that utilizes the position information of a surface vehicle to bound the error and uncertainty of the on-board position estimates of a low-cost AUV. This approach uses the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) acoustic modem to exchange vehicle location estimates while simultaneously estimating inter-vehicle range. A study of the system observability is presented so as to motivate both the choice of ﬁltering approach and surface vehicle path planning. The ﬁrst contribution of this paper is the presentation of an experiment in which an extended Kalman ﬁlter (EKF) implementation of the concept ran online on-board an OceanServer Iver2 AUV while supported by an autonomous surface vehicle moving adaptively. The second contribution of this paper is provide a quantitative performance comparison of three estimators: particle ﬁltering (PF), Nonlinear Least Squares optimization (NLS), and the EKF for a mission using three autonomous surface craft (two operating in the AUV role). Our results indicate that the PF and NLS estimators outperform the EKF, with NLS providing the best performance.
Imaging nanoprobe for prediction of outcome of nanoparticle chemotherapy by using mammography.

PURPOSE To prospectively predict the effectiveness of a clinically used nanochemotherapeutic agent by detecting and measuring the intratumoral uptake of an x-ray contrast agent nanoprobe by using digital mammography. MATERIALS AND METHODS All animal procedures were approved by the institutional animal care and use committee. A long-circulating 100-nm-scale injectable liposomal probe encapsulating 155 mg/mL iodine was developed. Preliminary studies were performed to identify the agent dose that would result in adequate tumor enhancement without enhancement of the normal vasculature in rats. This dose was used to image a rat breast tumor (n = 14) intermittently for 3 days by using a digital mammography system; subsequently, the animals were treated with liposomal doxorubicin. The predictive capability of the probe was characterized by creating good- and bad-prognosis subgroups, on the basis of tumor enhancement found during imaging, and analyzing the tumor growth after treatment of the animals in these two subgroups. RESULTS A dose of 455 mg of iodine per kilogram of body weight was found to produce an undetectable signal from the blood while achieving enough intratumoral accumulation of the probe to produce adequate signal for detection. The good- and bad-prognosis subgroups demonstrated differential tumor growth rates (P < .003). An inverse linear relationship between the contrast enhancement rate constant during imaging and the tumor growth rate constant during treatment was found (slope = -0.576, R(2) = 0.838). CONCLUSION In this animal model, quantitative measurement of vascular permeability enabled prediction of therapeutic responsiveness of tumors to liposomal doxorubicin.
A new conocoryphid trilobite from the Lower Cambrian of the Flinders Ranges, South Australia

A new species of conocoryphid trilobite, Atops rupertensis, is described from the upper part of the Lower Cambrian Hawker Group of the Flinders Ranges, South Australia. Atops has not been previously described from Australia. The specimens described herein represent the most detailed material yet available for the genus; a new generic diagnosis is given. It is suggested that Ivshiniellus Korobov is a synonym of Atops; the material described as Ivshiniellus briandailyi from the Heatherdale Shale near Adelaide probably belongs in Atops. It is possible that Atopina Korobov is a synonym of Pseudatops Lake.
Evaluation of central serous retinopathy with en face optical coherence tomography

Background: The diagnosis of idiopathic central serous retinopathy (CSR) is usually based on biomicroscopy and fluorescein angiography (FA). The optical coherence tomography (OCT) ophthalmoscope produces en face OCT scans (OCT C-scans) and provides additional information not readily available by conventional imaging techniques. The authors describe the characteristic features observed in patients with a clinical diagnosis of CSR using the OCT ophthalmoscope. Methods: 38 eyes with a clinical diagnosis of CSR, seen at the Academic Medical Centre (Amsterdam, Netherlands) and the New York Eye and Ear Infirmary (New York, USA) between August 2002 and March 2004, were evaluated with standard digital FA and scanned with the OCT ophthalmoscope. Results: Nine of 38 eyes had no serous neurosensory detachment (inactive CSR) when scanned with the OCT ophthalmoscope. Characteristics for active CSR (n = 29) were large neurosensory detachment (23/29), subretinal hyper-reflective deposits (20/29), and pigment epithelial detachment (15/29). One third of the patients, either active or inactive, had multiple small pigment epithelial detachments located both within and outside the neurosensory detachment. Conclusion: The OCT ophthalmoscope provides complementary morphological information on patients with CSR. The presence of more diffuse retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) changes lends further support to the concept that CSR is a diffuse rather than localised RPE anomaly.
Online gaming addiction in children and adolescents: A review of empirical research.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Research suggests that excessive online gaming may lead to symptoms commonly experienced by substance addicts. Since games are particularly appealing to children and adolescents, these individuals may be more at risk than other groups of developing gaming addiction. METHODS Given these potential concerns, a literature review was undertaken in order (i) to present the classification basis of online gaming addiction using official mental disorder frameworks, (ii) to identify empirical studies that assess online gaming addiction in children and adolescents, and (iii) to present and evaluate the findings against the background of related and established mental disorder criteria. RESULTS Empirical evidence comprising 30 studies indicates that for some adolescents, gaming addiction exists and that as the addiction develops, online gaming addicts spend increasing amounts of time preparing for, organizing, and actually gaming. CONCLUSIONS Evidence suggests that problematic online gaming can be conceptualized as a behavioral addiction rather than a disorder of impulse control.
Leaf level experiments to discriminate between eucalyptus species using high spectral resolution reflectance data: use of derivatives, ratios and vegetation indices

The purpose of this study was to investigate the potential of imaging spectroscopy for the discrimination between eucalyptus species. High spectral reflectance signatures of 11 eucalyptus species were measured in the laboratory and significant differences at a number of wavelength positions were detected. There were differences in terms of absolute reflectance, depths of absorption features and the relative position of change in terms of the wavelength. The differences between species were more noticeable in the first derivative spectra when compared with the raw spectra. This was attributed to the ability of derivatives to remove the noise from raw reflectance spectra. The results also indicate the possibility of utilizing the common vegetation indices and ratios used in remote sensing for discriminating species and highlight the need to select spectral channels at pertinent positions where the differences are the greatest. This study has identified many of these positions in relation to some eucalyptus species. However, the study also shows that there is no single wavelength which will discriminate between all species and it also shows that even with hyperspectral data, issues with detailed level of mapping will still exist.
Origin and control of the dominant time constant of salamander cone photoreceptors

Recovery of the light response in vertebrate photoreceptors requires the shutoff of both active intermediates in the phototransduction cascade: the visual pigment and the transducin–phosphodiesterase complex. Whichever intermediate quenches more slowly will dominate photoresponse recovery. In suction pipette recordings from isolated salamander ultraviolet- and blue-sensitive cones, response recovery was delayed, and the dominant time constant slowed when internal [Ca2+] was prevented from changing after a bright flash by exposure to 0Ca2+/0Na+ solution. Taken together with a similar prior observation in salamander red-sensitive cones, these observations indicate that the dominance of response recovery by a Ca2+-sensitive process is a general feature of amphibian cone phototransduction. Moreover, changes in the external pH also influenced the dominant time constant of red-sensitive cones even when changes in internal [Ca2+] were prevented. Because the cone photopigment is, uniquely, exposed to the external solution, this may represent a direct effect of protons on the equilibrium between its inactive Meta I and active Meta II forms, consistent with the notion that the process dominating recovery of the bright flash response represents quenching of the active Meta II form of the cone photopigment.
Region-Specific Insertion of Transposons in Combination with Selection for High Plasmid Transferability and Stability Accounts for the Structural Similarity of IncP-1 Plasmids

ABSTRACT The overall architecture of IncP-1 plasmids is very conserved in that the accessory genes are typically located in one or two specific regions: between oriV and trfA and between the tra and trb operons. Various hypotheses have been formulated to explain this, but none have been tested experimentally. We investigated whether this structural similarity is due to region-specific transposition alone or also is reliant on selection for plasmids with insertions limited to these two regions. We first examined the transposition of Tn21Km into IncP-1β plasmid pBP136 and found that most Tn21Km insertions (67%) were located around oriV. A similar experiment using the oriV region of IncP-1β plasmid pUO1 confirmed these results. We then tested the transferability, stability, and fitness cost of different pBP136 derivatives to determine if impairment of these key plasmid characters explained the conserved plasmid architecture. Most of the pBP136 derivatives with insertions in transfer genes were no longer transferable. The plasmids with insertions in the oriV-trfA and tra-trb regions were more stable than other plasmid variants, and one of these also showed a significantly lower fitness cost. In addition, our detailed sequence analysis of IncP-1 plasmids showed that Tn402/5053-like transposons are situated predominantly between the tra and trb operons and close to the putative resolution site for the ParA resolvase, a potential hot spot for those transposons. Our study presents the first empirical evidence that region-specific insertion of transposons in combination with selection for transferable and stable plasmids explains the structural similarity of IncP-1 plasmids.
Equilibrium Price Dynamics in Perishable Goods Markets: The Case of Secondary Markets for Major League Baseball Tickets

This paper analyzes the dynamics of prices in two online secondary markets for Major League Baseball tickets. Controlling for ticket quality, prices tend to decline significantly as a game approaches. The paper describes and tests alternative theoretical explanations for why this happens in equilibrium, considering the problems of both buyers and sellers. It shows that sellers cut prices (either fixed prices or reserve prices in auctions) because of declining opportunity costs of holding onto tickets as their future selling opportunities disappear. Even though prices can be expected to fall, the majority of observed early purchases can be rationalized by plausible ticket valuations and return to market costs given product differentiation and uncertainties about ticket availability.
Eliminating Class Noise in Large Datasets

This paper presents a new approach for identifying and eliminating mislabeled instances in large or distributed datasets. We first partition a dataset into subsets, each of which is small enough to be processed by an induction algorithm at one time. We construct good rules from each subset, and use the good rules to evaluate the whole dataset. For a given instance Ik, two error count variables are used to count the number of times it has been identified as noise by all subsets. The instance with higher error values will have a higher probability of being a mislabeled example. Two threshold schemes, majority and non-objection, are used to identify the noise. Experimental results and comparative studies from real-world datasets are reported to evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed approach.
A global analysis of the 1991 geomagnetic jerk

Summary A recent examination of the geomagnetic annual mean values for the European magnetic observatories has shown the existence of a sudden change in the secular acceleration in about 1991 (Cafarella & Meloni 1995; Macmillan 1996). Using first differences of the Y (east geomagnetic field component) mean values from 74 observatories, the worldwide character of the 1991 impulse has been determined (De Michelis et al. 1998). Using data from 109 observatories widely distributed all over the world, the structure of the secular variation for the X (north) and Z (vertical) magnetic field intensities around 1990 was investigated, and evidence of this most recent jerk was found. External effects were removed from the annual mean data by comparing the long-term variations of the geomagnetic field components at individual observatories with the long-term variations of two geomagnetic indices, aa and Dst, and of a solar index, the Wolf number R. A careful analysis has been carried out on the amplitude of the external disturbance, on its dependence on latitude, and on the weights of the geomagnetic indices in the evaluation of the resulting external field. The secular variation has been evaluated from the corrected annual means. Around 1990, the secular variation can be fitted at many observatories by two straight lines with a sudden and marked change in slope. In this manner the jerk occurrence time and the intensity of the step in the second time derivative (ΔX′′,ΔY′′ and ΔZ′′) were computed. Maps of ΔX′′,ΔY′′ and ΔZ′′ provide information on the worldwide intensity distribution of the examined event. Maps of the jerk occurrence-time distributions are also given. The mean jerk occurrence time is 1990.1 ± 0.6. Finally, a spherical harmonic analysis was used to complete the quantitative description of this phenomenon in order to study the trend of the energy density spectrum as a function of the harmonic degree n.
The effect of temperature and field strength on the resistivity of transformer oil

Safety operation of total ultra-HVDC transmission system could be directly affected by the operation reliability of converter transformer which is one of the most important equipments in the system. The transformer oil is the main liquid dielectric medium in the converter transformer. Thus, it is significant to study the dielectric properties of the transformer oil. In this paper, the dc resistivity of transformer oil under different conditions has been systematically investigated, and then the temperature and field strength were the test parameter variables. The variation range of temperature was 25~80°C, and under each temperature point the field strength changed ranging from 0.5V/mm to 10kV/mm. Meanwhile, 15 min is selected as the duration of testing resistivity. In this paper, the authors obtained the systematical data points and analysis curves of resistivity under different temperature and field strength, and obtained a empirical equation which describe the relationship between resistivity, temperature and field strength. It enhanced the understanding of the resistivity for transformer oil and provided the theoretical and test basis to expand the engineering application of this transformer oil.
In Pursuit of the Least Luminous Galaxies

The dwarf galaxy companions to the Milky Way are unique cosmological laboratories. With luminosities as low as , they inhabit the lowest mass dark matter halos known to host stars and are presently the most direct tracers of the distribution, mass spectrum, and clustering scale of dark matter. Their resolved stellar populations also facilitate detailed studies of their history and mass content. To fully exploit this potential requires a well-defined census of virtually invisible galaxies to the faintest possible limits and to the largest possible distances. I review the past and present impacts of survey astronomy on the census of Milky Way dwarf galaxy companions and discuss the future of finding ultra-faint dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way and beyond in wide-field survey data.