Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dialect and Accent Recognition

State of the art speech recognition systems are concentrating on modeling the speech variances among different speakers such as dialects or accents of the spoken language, the speaker gender, as well as some physiological variances such as differences in vocal tract length. These variations lead to difficulties in modeling large-scale speaker-independent systems. This thesis focuses on recognizing the dialect or accent of a given speech utterance, and demonstrates how parameter tuning affects the system performance. In this thesis, we construct a baseline dialect recognition system based on frame-based spectral modeling techniques and describe how we can improve the system performance by tuning the baseline system parameters. Then the performance of the baseline system is compared with identity vectors (i-vectors) based dialect recognition system. The main contribution of this study is to observe the sensitivity of the evaluation metrics on parameters of the designed dialect and accent recognition system. Our experiments are based on Callfriend corpus, and from this corpus English, Mandarin and Spanish languages were selected. For each experiment, three different evaluation metrics are used, identification error rates, equal error rates and the detection cost function. The best results achieved in i-vector based dialect recognition system for all of three selected languages. The English language achieved its best results at minimum detection cost function of 0.0807, identification error rate of 28.43% and equal error rate of 11.31%, Mandarin language achieved its best results at minimum detection cost function of 0.0543, identification error rate of 23.56% and equal error rate of 8.41%, and finally Spanish language achieved its best result at minimum detection cost function of 0.0569, identification error rate of 28.24% and equal error rate of 9.12%. The results indicate that Mandarin dialects have the most distinctive characteristics compared to other two languages. Moreover, Regarding the sensitivity of the results to tuning parameters, the recognition system is more sensitive to changes in number of GMM components and VAD thresholds than other tuning parameters. VTLN, RASTA filtering, addition of mel-cepstral coefficients to SDC feature vectors, and feature normalization appear in next orders, respectively. keywords: Dialect and Accent Recognition, Spectral Modeling, Phonotactic modeling, Shifted Delta Cepstral Coefficients, Universal background Modeling, Vocal Tract Length Normalization, Identity Vectors.
Improving capability of conceptual modeling of watershed rainfall–runoff using hybrid wavelet-extreme learning machine approach

Rainfall–runoff process identification, due to uncertainties and complexities, requires advanced modeling strategies. For this end, this study presented different strategies to explore spatio-temporal variation of rainfall–runoff process for the Ajichay watershed located in northwest Iran. Extreme learning machine (ELM) was used to predict the runoff in conceptual models. First, a geomorphology integrated ELM (G-ELM) was used to predict watershed runoff in multiple-stations form for the watershed. The spatial and temporal features of sub-basins were selected as input data wherein temporal features were pre-processed by wavelet transform (WT). Results confirmed the capability of G-ELM in successive prediction of watershed runoff. Afterwards, an integrated ELM (I-ELM) was developed based on conceptual reservoir modeling to predict monthly river runoff where the model had the semi-distributed specifications of ELM. This model was capable of exploring spatial variation of rainfall–runoff process without requiring physical characteristics of sub-basins. To meter sufficiency of the modeling strategies, cross-validation technique was performed for station 3 in which G-ELM performed better in comparison to I-ELMs. Furthermore, classic and wavelet-based modeling (W-ELM) of rainfall–runoff was performed for one-step-ahead predictions. Statistical evaluations confirmed the W-ELM, I-ELM, and G-ELM performance, respectively.
Triple Negative Breast Cancer : What Surgeons Should Know

Breast cancer has been classified into different subgroups with discrete tumor behavior, prognosis and therapeutic approaches. Triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) is characterized by lack of expression of estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). TNBC represents a heterogeneous group of tumors with more aggressive biologic behavior and poorer prognosis. Lack of receptor expression, which excludes hormonal therapy and trastuzumab as treatment options, is a therapeutic challenge. In this manuscript, we have reviewed our current knowledge about the epidemiology and contributing risk factors of TNBC, heterogeneity in the molecular landscape, clinical course of TNBC, and current evidence on available therapeutic options and developing novel modalities such as targeted therapy. Molecular heterogeneity is an important contributing factor that could explain the discrepancies in the literature, in terms of various clinical aspects of TNBC. Genetic features should be considered and studied alongside in the prospective trials, to better understand and clinically address the heterogeneous nature of this disease.
USING UHPFRC AS A TOPPING LAYER FOR ORTHOTROPIC BRIDGE DECKS : PROTOTYPE VALIDATION

Within the framework of the French national R&D project Orthoplus, an experimental and numerical study has been carried out on UHPFRC used as a topping layer for orthotropic bridge decks. Two large-scale specimens have been tested to assess the role of a thin UHPFRC layer to decrease the fatigue stress at the welded junction between troughs and deck plate under the effect of a local loading by a truck wheel. This solution also allows a dead weight reduction thanks to the very small thickness of UHPFRC compared to the traditional solution with bituminous concrete. Quasi-static loadings under different configurations, as well as fatigue tests under a central loading (up to 2 million cycles aiming to represent 100years traffic loading) were carried out. Even though the mechanical connection between the steel plate and the UHPFRC layer turned out only partial, the efficiency of UHPFRC in reducing stress concentrations and increasing the structural stiffness of the deck over the lifespan was confirmed. Résumé Dans le cadre du projet Orthoplus soutenu par l’Agence Nationale de la Recherche, le BFUP a été étudié expérimentalement et numériquement pour constituer le revêtement de tabliers de ponts à dalle orthotrope. Deux modèles de grande taille ont été testés pour évaluer la contribution d’un revêtement mince de BFUP à la diminution des contraintes de fatigue à la jonction soudée entre augets et platelage, sous l’effet de la charge locale due à une roue de poids lourd. Cette configuration réduit également le poids propre étant donné la faible épaisseur du BFUP par rapport à la solution traditionnelle de revêtement en béton bitumineux. Des essais quasi-statiques selon différentes configurations ont été réalisés, ainsi que des chargements de fatigue sous effort localisé au centre (jusqu’à 2 millions de cycles destinés à représenter l’effet de 100 ans de trafic). Même si la connexion entre le platelage d’acier et le BFUP s’est avérée seulement partielle, l’efficacité du BFUP pour réduire durablement les concentrations de contrainte et augmenter la rigidité structurale a été confirmée. RILEM-fib-AFGC Int. Symposium on Ultra-High Performance Fibre-Reinforced Concrete, UHPFRC 2013 – October 1-3, 2013, Marseille, France
2 . 2 . 1 Perceived Usefulness , Perceived Ease of Use , Intended Use

Forum Jual Beli (FJB) Kaskus, an e-commerce portal of Kaskus online forum in Indonesia has achieve a total transaction up to 575 billion rupiah/month in 2012. This intriguing fact show how e-commerce technology has developing well for consumer in Indonesia. The aim of this paper is to investigate what factors that affect the technology acceptance of e-commerce in Indonesia, which intended to identify what improvement can be made for the future. The data for this research were collected from 223 respondents of Kaskus users. The research model is based on Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). Results showed that Trust positively affects Intended Use but, Perceived Ease of Use has insignificant affect towards Intended Use, and also Risk is not negatively affects Intended Use. Seller Status & Reputation indeed has positive affect towards Trust. In conclusion, for Kaskus the power of community from which already existed must be maintained, as it proved to be the reason of why they become a successful e-commerce site. Key-Words: Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), Electronic Commerce, Perceived Community, Seller Status & Reputation
Functional brain networks during picture encoding and recognition in di ff erent odor contexts

Contextual odors can serve as retrieval cues when applied during encoding and recall/recognition of information. To investigate the neuronal basis of these observations, we collected functional MRI data while participants (n = 51) performed an encoding and recognition memory task during which odors (congruent: CO or incongruent: IO) were presented as contextual cues. Recognition performance was not influenced by odor, but there was increased activation in the piriform cortex during successful encoding in the CO group, possibly indicating enhanced retrieval of information previously integrated with an olfactory percept. Moreover, group-independent component analysis revealed a stronger task-modulation of subcortical networks for IO versus CO during the recognition task, pointing to differences in olfactory processing. These observations provide a deeper understanding of the involvement of functional neuronal networks in memory tasks and a basis for further evaluation of the impact of odor contexts.
Algorithm for Effective Movement of Emergency Vehicles from Traffic Control Signal

Emergency Vehicles if delayed for a couple of seconds can cause a major loss for some. In this paper, a technique is proposed for movement of Emergency Vehicles that is Fire brigade and Ambulances in least time . The objective is to direct Fire brigades and Ambulances from source to Destination point in most efficient and effective time. Movement of these vehicles should be safe and vehicles should follow shortest path. The proposed method can help in selecting Emergency Vehicles from n-number of available Emergency Vehicles, Directing the shortest safest and least crowded path for the vehicles so that it can reach the accident point in least time. To make the movement of vehicles efficient, all traffic control signals should guide traffic to move in favour of clearing the emergency vehicle‟s route. Check condition are made for assigning priority to emergency vehicles and higher priority emergency vehicles are facilitated first at a particular traffic control signal, if more than one vehicles waiting on a traffic square. The proposed technique avoids problems that usually arise with standard traffic control system. The Large number of vehicles on traffic square requires routing needs assignment of priority number, judgement and decision. Avoiding bottleneck at a traffic control signal, tracking based techniques will help for routing higher priority vehicles first.
ON THE ONSET OF SUBCRITICAL TURBULENCE IN SHEAR FLOWS

The onset of sustained turbulence in pipe flow is a non-equilibrium phase transition between decaying and spreading turbulence [2]. However, the extremely long timescales of these processes in pipe flow make it very difficult to measure important signatures of criticality, such as the scaling of turbulent fraction. This information is necessary to determine the phase transition class of the onset of turbulence in shear flows. With this goal in mind we have built a Taylor-Couette experiment with an aspect ratio of more than 200 and an azimuthal length of more than 300 gap-widths, allowing us to measure turbulent fractions in the vicinity of the critical point. PREVIOUS WORK IN PIPE FLOW Pipe flow is a classical example of a shear flow that is linearly stable. Reynolds observed already more than 125 years ago that finite amplitude perturbations are necessary to trigger turbulence [13], which is characteristic for a subcritical transition. At low Reynolds number Re the turbulence appears localized (called puffs in pipe flow) in the otherwise laminar flow and is transient [9, 3, 10]. However, the ability of puffs to spread and split thereby generating another puff can statistically outweigh the decay of individual puffs, leading to a sustainment of turbulence [2, 4]. This non-equilibrium phase transition between transient and sustained turbulence takes place at 2040±10 [2] and is believed to be of second order [4].
Stochastic Sub-grid Scale Models and the Spectral Kink

The unresolved scales of motion in atmospheric general circulation models are typically modeled using the ensemble mean or Reynolds average within a grid-cell. Such schemes may not be capable of representing the true variability of the real atmosphere. According to the measurements of Nastrom and Gage [ 24], the observed kinetic energy spectrum of the atmosphere contains a kink, where the spectral slope changes from 3 at large scales to 5 3 in the mesoscale regime. Lindborg [20] and Waite and Bartello [31] present evidence that the large scale spectrum is dominated by rotational modes, whereas the ageostrophic or divergent modes are responsible for the 5 3 regime. To analyze the impact of stochastic parameterizations on the large scale dynamics, the tangent linear (TLM) and adjoint models can be applied. Our goal is to investigate how stochastic forcings project onto rotational and wave modes.
Consumers behavior and rice attributes for Thai hommali rice in Sichuan province of China

During 2012-13, Thailand loses its price competitiveness due to the rice pledging policy. This enables Vietnam, and Pakistan to take over the Chinese rice market. Although, the pledging policy is abolished in 2014, Thailand is slowly regained its rice market share in China. With impressive economic growth, huge population and the Look West Policy of China created a great potential for a new market for Thai HomMali rice in the Sichuan Province where 81 million people with 8-9 percent of economic growth during 2014-15. Chengdu, the capital, experienced an increase in GDP per capita 9-10 percent and the food expenditure per capita grows at 8 percent. To facilitate a better understanding for this new market, consumers’ preference for Thai HamMali rice is needed and the implicit price of the important attribute of HomMali rice should be investigated. This study employed consumer survey of 412 samples in Chengdu and using the hedonic price model to analyze the implicit price of each attribute for HomMali Rice. The results show that modern trade, supermarket, and convenient store are the main marketplaces to purchase rice of Chengdu consumers. The softness and taste of Thai HomMali are the major factors that consumer preferred. Those consumers buying Thai rice have comparatively higher income and education, and have more cheerful lifestyle. The empirical results of consumer preference reflected that significant attributes influencing price are color, broken rice, new-season rice, rice standards, rice brand, softness, taste and fragrance. The implicit price of Thai rice depends more on cooking and eating quality. As a result, to make Sichuan province to become a potential high quality Thai rice market, Thai government and traders should create product differentiation by emphasizing on Thai rice quality and standard in terms of physical quality, cooking and eating quality according to the Chinese demand.
An Overview of the Japanese GALA-V Wideband VLBI System

NICT is developing a new broadband VLBI system, named GALA-V with aim of frequency comparison between atomic time standards over intercontinental baseline. The development of broadband GALA-V system is coordinated to be as compatible as possible with the VGOS system. Two types of original broadband feed systems were developed for Kashima 34m antenna of modified Cassegrain optics. The first prototype feed named IGUANA-H works at 6.5 16 GHz frequency range and the second feed NINJA works at 3.2 14 GHz range. The GALA-V observation system is designed to capture four bands of 1024 MHz width signal in 3 14 GHz range. Two sorts of data acquisition modes are available. One is narrow channel mode, which acquires multiple channels of 32 MHz width signals. This mode is compatible with the NASA proof of Concept (PoC) system developed by MIT Haystack Observatory. The other is broad channel acquisition mode, in which signal of 1024 MHz width is digitized as a single channel. Radio frequency (RF) direct sampling technique was used in this mode as a new approach for broadband observation with taking advantages of high speed sampler K6/GALAS and its digital filtering function. This technique has several advantages in precise delay measurement by broadband bandwidth synthesis. VLBI Experiments were conducted between Kashima 34m antenna and Ishioka 13m VGOS station of GSI of Japan. The first broadband observation over 8 GHz bandwidth was successful on this baseline in early 2015. Result of the broadband bandwidth synthesis over 8GHz 1. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology 2. National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology, National Metrology Institute of Japan bandwidth proved sub-pico second resolution group delay measurement in 1 second of integration. Time series of the group delay data shows several pico seconds of fluctuation in a few hundred seconds of time scale. That Alan standard deviation is consistent with frozen flow model of Kolmogorov tropospheric turbulence.
Effect of paclobutrazol and cycocel on growth , flowering , chemical composition and histological features of potted Tabernaemontana coronaria Stapf plant

This study was carried out during the two successive seasons of 2011/2012 and 2012/2013 to evaluate the effect of paclobutrazol (PP333) at 0.0, 50, 100 and 150ppm and cycocel (CCC) at 0.0, 1000, 1500 and 2000ppm on growth, flowering, chemical composition and histological features of potted Tabernaemontana coronaria plants. The obtained data showed that: All PP333 and CCC concentrations decreased plant height and leaf area, especially PP333 at 150ppm in both seasons. On contrary, all applied treatments of PP333 and CCC significantly increased the number of branches and leaves / plant to reach its maximum with the highest concentration for each. The heaviest fresh and dry weights of leaves/plant were gained by 100ppm pp333-sprayed plants in the two seasons. Also, PP333 and CCC treatments delayed the flowering of Tabernaemontana plant when compared with control plants which induced the earliest flowering in both seasons. In addition, number of flowers/plant as well as their fresh and dry weights were significantly increased with PP333 and CCC treatments in the two seasons. However, the highest number of flowers/ plant was scored by 150ppm PP333-sprayed plants, whereas the heaviest flowers fresh and dry weights/plant were gained by CCC at 2000 ppm sprayed plants. Moreover, the highest show value (plant width/ height ratio) was existed with PP333 at 150 and 100 ppm in the two seasons. The highest number of roots/plant as well as their fresh and dry weights were registered by 2000ppm CCCsprayed plants in both seasons. Furthermore, PP333 and CCC treatments significantly increased leaf N, P, K, total carbohydrates and total chlorophylls contents as compared with unsprayed plants in the two seasons. As for the endogenous phytohormones, all PP333 and CCC treatments increased cytokinins and abscisic acid (μg/g F.W), but they decreased gibberellins and auxins (μg/g F.W) of Tabernaemontana leaves. With regard to the anatomical features of leaf anatomy, most traits were increased with different applied treatments, particularly PP333 at 150 and 100 ppm and CCC at 2000 ppm. Among these anatomical features were the most important ones, i.e., thickness of leaf midrib, length & width of vascular bundle, phloem & xylem tissues and number of xylem vessels in vascular bundle as well as the leaf blade thickness.
COORDENATION AND KINEMATICS IN 200 M FRONT CRAWL SWIMMING ALL OUT 1

The aim of this study was to compare coordinative and kinematics parameters along the four laps of a 200 m front crawl stroke all out. Fifteen male swimmers performed a 200 m trial, all out, in front crawl. Index of coordination (IdC), swimming velocity (SV), stroke length (SL), stroke rate (SR) and stroke phase’s duration along the laps were measured and compared. Results were: SR increased while SL and SV decreased; IdC was in superposition and stroke phase’s duration were similar. Probably these results are related to the physiological environment along the 200 m and the attempt to keep the swimming velocity constant.
Molecular Ultrasound Imaging

In the last decade, molecular ultrasound imaging has been rapidly progressing. It has proven promising to diagnose angiogenesis, inflammation, and thrombosis, and many intravascular targets, such as VEGFR2, integrins, and selectins, have been successfully visualized in vivo. Furthermore, pre-clinical studies demonstrated that molecular ultrasound increased sensitivity and specificity in disease detection, classification, and therapy response monitoring compared to current clinically applied ultrasound technologies. Several techniques were developed to detect target-bound microbubbles comprising sensitive particle acoustic quantification (SPAQ), destruction-replenishment analysis, and dwelling time assessment. Moreover, some groups tried to assess microbubble binding by a change in their echogenicity after target binding. These techniques can be complemented by radiation force ultrasound improving target binding by pushing microbubbles to vessel walls. Two targeted microbubble formulations are already in clinical trials for tumor detection and liver lesion characterization, and further clinical scale targeted microbubbles are prepared for clinical translation. The recent enormous progress in the field of molecular ultrasound imaging is summarized in this review article by introducing the most relevant detection technologies, concepts for targeted nano- and micro-bubbles, as well as their applications to characterize various diseases. Finally, progress in clinical translation is highlighted, and roadblocks are discussed that currently slow the clinical translation.