Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neural network based speaker classification and verification systems with enhanced features

This work presents a novel framework based on feed-forward neural network for text-independent speaker classification and verification, two related systems of speaker recognition. With optimized features and model training, it achieves 100% classification rate in classification and less than 6% Equal Error Rate (ERR), using merely about 1 second and 5 seconds of data respectively. Features with stricter Voice Active Detection (VAD) than the regular one for speech recognition ensure extracting stronger voiced portion for speaker recognition, speaker-level mean and variance normalization helps to eliminate the discrepancy between samples from the same speaker. Both are proven to improve the system performance. In building the neural network speaker classifier, the network structure parameters are optimized with grid search and dynamically reduced regularization parameters are used to avoid training terminated in local minimum. It enables the training goes further with lower cost. In speaker verification, performance is improved with prediction score normalization, which rewards the speaker identity indices with distinct peaks and penalizes the weak ones with high scores but more competitors, and speaker-specific thresholding, which significantly reduces ERR in the ROC curve. TIMIT corpus with 8K sampling rate is used here. First 200 male speakerwje used to train and test the classification performance. The testing files of them are used as in-domain registered speakers, while data from the remaining 126 male speakers are used as out-of-domain speakers, i.e. imposters in speaker verification.
Antagonistic Interaction of BLADE-ON-PETIOLE1 and 2 with BREVIPEDICELLUS and PENNYWISE Regulates Arabidopsis Inflorescence Architecture1[C][W][OA]

The transition to flowering in many plant species, including Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana), is marked by the elongation of internodes to make an inflorescence upon which lateral branches and flowers are arranged in a characteristic pattern. Inflorescence patterning relies in part on the activities of two three-amino-acid loop-extension homeodomain transcription factors: BREVIPEDICELLUS (BP) and PENNYWISE (PNY) whose interacting products also promote meristem function. We examine here the genetic interactions between BP-PNY whose expression is up-regulated in stems at the floral transition, and the lateral organ boundary genes BLADE-ON-PETIOLE1 (BOP1) and BOP2, whose expression is restricted to pedicel axils. Our data show that bp and pny inflorescence defects are caused by BOP1/2 gain of function in stems and pedicels. Compatible with this, inactivation of BOP1/2 rescues these defects. BOP expression domains are differentially enlarged in bp and pny mutants, corresponding to the distinctive patterns of growth restriction in these mutants leading to compacted internodes and clustered or downward-oriented fruits. Our data indicate that BOP1/2 are positive regulators of KNOTTED1-LIKE FROM ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA6 expression and that growth restriction in BOP1/2 gain-of-function plants requires KNOTTED1-LIKE FROM ARABIDOPSIS THALIANA6. Antagonism between BOP1/2 and BP is explained in part by their reciprocal regulation of gene expression, as evidenced by the identification of lignin biosynthetic genes that are repressed by BP and activated by BOP1/2 in stems. These data reveal BOP1/2 gain of function as the basis of bp and pny inflorescence defects and reveal how antagonism between BOP1/2 and BP-PNY contributes to inflorescence patterning in a model plant species.
Activation Reduction in Anterior Temporal Cortices during Repeated Recognition of Faces of Personal Acquaintances

Repeated recognition of the face of a familiar individual is known to show semantic repetition priming effect. In this study, normal subjects were repeatedly presented faces of their colleagues, and the effect of repetition on the regional cerebral blood flow change was measured using positron emission tomography. They repeated a set of three tasks: the familiar-face detection (F) task, the facial direction discrimination (D) task, and the perceptual control (C) task. During five repetitions of the F task, familiar faces were presented six times from different views in a pseudorandom order. Activation reduction through the repetition of the F tasks was observed in the bilateral anterior (anterolateral to the polar region) temporal cortices which are suggested to be involved in the access to the long-term memory concerning people. The bilateral amygdala, the hypothalamus, and the medial frontal cortices, were constantly activated during the F tasks, and considered to be associated with the behavioral significance of the presented familiar faces. Constant activation was also observed in the bilateral occipitotemporal regions and fusiform gyri and the right medial temporal regions during perception of the faces, and in the left medial temporal regions during the facial familiarity detection task, which are consistent with the results of previous functional brain imaging studies. The results have provided further information about the functional segregation of the anterior temporal regions in face recognition and long-term memory.
#hardtoparse: POS Tagging and Parsing the Twitterverse

We evaluate the statistical dependency parser, Malt, on a new dataset of sentences taken from tweets. We use a version of Malt which is trained on gold standard phrase structure Wall Street Journal (WSJ) trees converted to Stanford labelled dependencies. We observe a drastic drop in performance moving from our in-domain WSJ test set to the new Twitter dataset, much of which has to do with the propagation of part-of-speech tagging errors. Retraining Malt on dependency trees produced by a state-of-the-art phrase structure parser, which has itself been self-trained on Twitter material, results in a significant improvement. We analyse this improvement by examining in detail the effect of the retraining on individual dependency types.
Behavioural discrimination of polarized light in the damselfish Chromis viridis (family Pomacentridae)

SUMMARY In this study, we demonstrate the capacity for damselfish (green chromis, Chromis viridis) to discriminate between different e-vector orientations of ultraviolet polarized light. We examined the ability of green chromis to resolve small differences in e-vector orientation of ultraviolet polarized light. Fish were successfully trained to swim towards an e-vector orientation of polarized light using a behavioural chamber. C. viridis was able to discriminate between the horizontal and the vertical plane of ultraviolet polarized light independent of brightness content of the stimuli. However, e-vector discrimination capability disappeared when the ultraviolet portion of the light stimuli was removed, indicating that the presence of ultraviolet light was critical for e-vector discrimination. Fish could also distinguish between relatively small e-vector orientations of ultraviolet polarized light. Functional implications for high e-vector discriminative capabilities could be used in functional domains such as feeding and communication.
International cooperative ataxia rating scale (ICARS): Appropriate for studies of Friedreich's ataxia?

Clinicians require scientifically rigorous, clinically meaningful rating scales to evaluate the health impact of disease and treatment that cannot be measured using conventional laboratory instruments. This study evaluated the psychometric properties of the International Cooperative Ataxia Rating Scale (ICARS), a commonly used clinician‐rated measure, in Friedreich's ataxia (FRDA). People with confirmed FRDA were assessed by using the ICARS. Two assumptions of its measurement model were tested: the legitimacy of reporting ICARS scores in FRDA, and the acceptability, reliability, and validity of total and subscale scores. Seventy‐seven people with FRDA were assessed. The ICARS total score effectively satisfied all psychometric criteria tested. The posture and gait disturbances subscale also performed well. The other three subscales did not pass standard criteria for tests of scaling assumptions, reliability, and validity. This small study recommends only the use of the ICARS total score as a measure of FRDA. However, the extent to which this score quantifies the true extent of FRDA remains uncertain as our validity testing was limited, partly by the lack of appropriate validating measures. Further validity testing, and examination of responsiveness, is required before the ICARS can be recommended as an outcome measure for treatment trials of FDRA. © 2005 Movement Disorder Society
Functional TRPV 4 channels are expressed in human airway smooth muscle cells

Jia, Yanlin, Xin Wang, LoriAnn Varty, Charles A. Rizzo, Richard Yang, Craig C. Correll, P. Tara Phelps, Robert W. Egan, and John A. Hey. Functional TRPV4 channels are expressed in human airway smooth muscle cells. Am J Physiol Lung Cell Mol Physiol 287: L272–L278, 2004. First published April 9, 2004; 10.1152/ajplung.00393. 2003. —Hypotonic stimulation induces airway constriction in normal and asthmatic airways. However, the osmolarity sensor in the airway has not been characterized. TRPV4 (also known as VR-OAC, VRL-2, TRP12, OTRPC4), an osmotic-sensitive cation channel in the transient receptor potential (TRP) channel family, was recently cloned. In the present study, we show that TRPV4 mRNA was expressed in cultured human airway smooth muscle cells as analyzed by RT-PCR. Hypotonic stimulation induced Ca influx in human airway smooth muscle cells in an osmolaritydependent manner, consistent with the reported biological activity of TRPV4 in transfected cells. In cultured muscle cells, 4 -phorbol 12,13-didecanoate (4PDD), a TRPV4 ligand, increased intracellular Ca level only when Ca was present in the extracellular solution. The 4PDD-induced Ca response was inhibited by ruthenium red (1 M), a known TRPV4 inhibitor, but not by capsazepine (1 M), a TRPV1 antagonist, indicating that 4PDD-induced Ca response is mediated by TRPV4. Verapamil (10 M), an L-type voltage-gated Ca channel inhibitor, had no effect on the 4PDD-induced Ca response, excluding the involvement of L-type Ca channels. Furthermore, hypotonic stimulation elicited smooth muscle contraction through a mechanism dependent on membrane Ca channels in both isolated human and guinea pig airways. Hypotonicity-induced airway contraction was not inhibited by the L-type Ca channel inhibitor nifedipine (1 M) or by the TRPV1 inhibitor capsazepine (1 M). We conclude that functional TRPV4 is expressed in human airway smooth muscle cells and may act as an osmolarity sensor in the airway.
Economic Implications of Extraordinary Movements in Stock Prices

MOST PEOPLE AGREE that stock prices sometimes behave in strange ways. Going beyond this simple observation typically proves more difficult. For at least the past quarter century, economists have been well aware that the variation of stock prices does not nicely match the familiar bell-shaped normal distribution.1 The problem is too many extreme movements. Very large increases or decreases would always be possible even if changes in stock prices were normally distributed, but they would occur only rarely. By contrast, actual stock prices rise or fall by large percentage amounts fairly often-certainly often enough to raise serious doubts that the usual normal distribution provides a useful way to think about how they vary. Economists and other analysts of the stock market have tended to react to this problem in either of two ways. The most common approach is simply to ignore it and go ahead to analyze changes in stock prices as
Regulation of Virulence Gene Expression Resulting from Streptococcus pneumoniae and Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae Interactions in Chronic Disease

Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) is a common inflammatory disease of the sinonasal cavity mediated, in part, by polymicrobial communities of bacteria. Recent molecular studies have confirmed the importance of Streptococcus pneumoniae and nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) in CRS. Here, we hypothesize that interaction between S. pneumoniae and NTHi mixed-species communities cause a change in bacterial virulence gene expression. We examined CRS as a model human disease to validate these polymicrobial interactions. Clinical strains of S. pneumoniae and NTHi were grown in mono- and co-culture in a standard biofilm assay. Reverse transcriptase real-time PCR (RTqPCR) was used to measure gene expression of key virulence factors. To validate these results, we investigated the presence of the bacterial RNA transcripts in excised human tissue from patients with CRS. Consequences of physical or chemical interactions between microbes were also investigated. Transcription of NTHi type IV pili was only expressed in co-culture in vitro, and expression could be detected ex vivo in diseased tissue. S. pneumoniae pyruvate oxidase was up-regulated in co-culture, while pneumolysin and pneumococcal adherence factor A were down-regulated. These results were confirmed in excised human CRS tissue. Gene expression was differentially regulated by physical contact and secreted factors. Overall, these data suggest that interactions between H. influenzae and S. pneumoniae involve physical and chemical mechanisms that influence virulence gene expression of mixed-species biofilm communities present in chronically diseased human tissue. These results extend previous studies of population-level virulence and provide novel insight into the importance of S. pneumoniae and NTHi in CRS.
Viral invasion of the Amniotic Cavity (VIAC) in the Midtrimester of Pregnancy

A role for microbial invasion leading to inflammation in the amniotic cavity and subsequent pre‐term delivery has been well established. For years, the role of viral infections in pregnancy has been minimized and thought of as harmless, with a few exceptions. Recent evidence now encourages us to expand our thinking and realize that viral infections during pregnancy may influence pregnancy more that we thought.
The Subcellular Localization of an Aquaporin-2 Tetramer Depends on the Stoichiometry of Phosphorylated and Nonphosphorylated Monomers

In renal principal cells, vasopressin regulates the shuttling of the aquaporin (AQP)2 water channel between intracellular vesicles and the apical plasma membrane. Vasopressin-induced phosphorylation of AQP2 at serine 256 (S256) by protein kinase A (PKA) is essential for its localization in the membrane. However, phosphorylated AQP2 (p-AQP2) has also been detected in intracellular vesicles of noninduced principal cells. As AQP2 is expressed as homotetramers, we hypothesized that the number of p-AQP2 monomers in a tetramer might be critical for the its steady state distribution. Expressed in oocytes, AQP2-S256D and AQP2-S256A mimicked p-AQP2 and non–p-AQP2, respectively, as routing and function of AQP2-S256D and wild-type AQP2 (wt-AQP2) were identical, whereas AQP2-S256A was retained intracellularly. In coinjection experiments, AQP2-S256A and AQP2-S256D formed heterotetramers. Coinjection of different ratios of AQP2-S256A and AQP2-S256D cRNAs revealed that minimally three AQP2-S256D monomers in an AQP2 tetramer were essential for its plasma membrane localization. Therefore, our results suggest that in principal cells, minimally three monomers per AQP2 tetramer have to be phosphorylated for its steady state localization in the apical membrane. As other multisubunit channels are also regulated by phosphorylation, it is anticipated that the stoichiometry of their phosphorylated and nonphosphorylated subunits may fine-tune the activity or subcellular localization of these complexes.
Sample of minor merger of galaxies : optical CCD surface photometry and HII region properties

We present the results of the B, V and I photometry of eleven southern minor mergers. The total apparent B magni- tude, integrated B−V and V − I colours were measured. We built B, V ,a ndI equivalent profiles for each galaxy and decomposed them into bulge and disk components when possible. From Hα+N(II) images we have estimated the basic photometric param- eters of the HII regions, such as position, size, B − V and V − I colours, Hα+(NII) luminosity and EW(Hα + (NII)) equivalent width. Primary components have blue absolute magnitudes in the range −22 < MB < −18, with a peak at MB = −22. The magnitudes of the secondary components are in the range −22 < MB < −16 with a maximum at MB = −19. Most pairs have ∆MB ∼ 2, which means that in luminosity the primary galaxy is on average about 6 times brighter than the secondary. We found a linear correlation between the luminosity ratios of the components and their ratio of major diameters, leading to mass ratios between 0.04 < Msecondary/M primary < 0.2, suggesting indeed that our sample is formed by minor mergers. On average the galaxies have colours bluer than those of isolated galaxies with the same morphological type. Most of the HII regions and evolved star-forming regions of the sample were formed between 3.6 to 13.7 Myr ago with an average of (6.3 ± 0.7) Myr. The HII region properties, luminosity, sizes and ages are similar in both components. The HII regions have log (Hα+(NII)) lumi- nosity between 38.6 and 41.7. The HII region luminosity function for the whole sample fits a power law of index α = -1.33. The linear correlation between the luminosity L(Hα+(NII)) and the size of the HII regions has slope of 2.12 ± 0.06. We found that the disk of the primary component is more luminous than those of Lu's sample, while the disk of the secondary is smaller and fainter. A plot of the disk parameters does not change with colour. This indicates that the different stellar populations in the disks were affected in the same way.
Tight Bounds for Randomized Load Balancing on Arbitrary Network Topologies

We consider the problem of balancing load items (tokens) on networks. Starting with an arbitrary load distribution, we allow in each round nodes to exchange tokens with their neighbors. The goal is to achieve a distribution where all nodes have nearly the same number of tokens. For the continuous case where tokens are arbitrarily divisible, most load balancing schemes correspond to Markov chains whose convergence is fairly well-understood in terms of their spectral gap. However, in many applications load items cannot be divided arbitrarily and we need to deal with the discrete case where the load is composed of indivisible tokens. This discretization entails a non-linear behavior due to its rounding errors, which makes the analysis much harder than in the continuous case. Therefore, it has been a major open problem to understand the limitations of discrete load balancing and its relation to the continuous case. We investigate several randomized protocols for different communication models in the discrete case. Our results demonstrate that there is almost no difference between the discrete and continuous case. For instance, for any regular network in the matching model, all nodes have the same load up to an additive constant in (asymptotically) the same number of rounds required in the continuous case. This generalizes and tightens the previous best result, which only holds for expander graphs.
Study by the isotopic antiglobulin technique of a cross‐reacting murine antibody produced by immunization with a syngeneic SV40 tumor

Tumor line SV‐AL/N, derived from SV40 transformation of an embryonic cell line, was employed to immunize syngeneic mice, and the resultant antisera were investigated with the modified isotopic antiglobulin assay. A single specificity was detected in the antiserum, which reacted strongly with an antigen present on SV40‐transformed lines. However, the antigen was also present on cells derived from the same embryonic line as SV‐AL/N but transformed instead either spontaneously or by polyoma virus. The antigen was present on one non‐transformed syngeneic embryonic line and may have been present in low concentration in a non‐transformed syngeneic fibroblast line; it was not detected in several methylcholanthrene‐induced lines. Antiserum derived from multiple immunizations with irradiated syngeneic fetuses reacted weakly in a similar pattern. The results suggest that the antigen detected is present in the host genome in occult form, and is derepressed by several processes, perhaps including embryogenesis.
Advancing Terrestrial Ecosystem Science With a Novel Automated Measurement System for Sun‐Induced Chlorophyll Fluorescence for Integration With Eddy Covariance Flux Networks

Sun‐induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) provides critical information on the dynamics of gross primary productivity, a unique role not readily achievable using other methods. Long‐term continuous SIF observations have the potential to advance terrestrial ecosystem science. Realizing this potential, however, requires synergistic implementation of SIF measurements within eddy covariance (EC) flux networks. There is a need for SIF systems that can integrate seamlessly with EC instrumentation to maximize synergistic use of obtained data. Here we introduce the Fluorescence Auto‐Measurement Equipment (FAME) and protocol that fulfill such a purpose. FAME is designed specifically for plug‐and‐play integration with existing EC data acquisition systems. Its innovative hardware and software designs provide versatility, extensibility, autonomous operation, and ease of maintenance for acquiring SIF data of high quality and quantity. A major novel feature of FAME is its synchronized sampling of spectral irradiance and environmental variables, allowing for more precise interpretation of the SIF signal. FAME has been deployed since September 2016 at the Missouri Ozark AmeriFlux site, providing high‐quality measurements even when air temperatures approached 40 °C. Results reveal that canopy SIF saturated or even slightly decreased at high light, similar to leaf‐level photosynthesis. Clear diurnal hysteresis was observed: For the same light, morning SIF was higher than afternoon. Dynamic energy dissipation processes and stress‐induced movements of chloroplasts and leaves may explain the observed pattern. The technology and measurement protocol introduced here advances the coordinated observation of SIF and EC fluxes and represents a step change in observational ecosystem and carbon cycle science research.
Learning Stochastic Categorial Grammars

Stochastic categorial grammars (SCGs) are introduced as a more appropriate formalismfor statistical language learners to estimate than stochastic context free grammars. As a vehicle for demonstrating SCG estimation, we show, in terms of crossing rates and in coverage, that when training materialis limited,SCG estimationusing the MinimumDescription Length Principle is preferable to SCG estimation using an indi(cid:11)erent prior.
The role of GTP binding and hydrolysis at the atToc159 preprotein receptor during protein import into chloroplasts

The majority of nucleus-encoded chloroplast proteins are targeted to the organelle by direct binding to two membrane-bound GTPase receptors, Toc34 and Toc159. The GTPase activities of the receptors are implicated in two key import activities, preprotein binding and driving membrane translocation, but their precise functions have not been defined. We use a combination of in vivo and in vitro approaches to study the role of the Toc159 receptor in the import reaction. We show that atToc159-A864R, a receptor with reduced GTPase activity, can fully complement a lethal insertion mutation in the ATTOC159 gene. Surprisingly, the atToc159-A864R receptor increases the rate of protein import relative to wild-type receptor in isolated chloroplasts by stabilizing the formation of a GTP-dependent preprotein binding intermediate. These data favor a model in which the atToc159 receptor acts as part of a GTP-regulated switch for preprotein recognition at the TOC translocon.