Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Earwitness Evidence: The Reliability of Voice Identifications

This article discusses the reliability of non-expert voice identification evidence. While much attention has been paid to the frailties of eyewitness evidence, little attention has been given to the frailties of ‘earwitness’ evidence, even though it has been tendered in several wrongful conviction cases. The author reviews the results of the empirical literature that has examined the reliability of earwitness evidence. The author also analyzes the principal factors used by Canadian criminal courts to assess earwitness reliability in light of the empirical study of those factors. The general conclusions are that earwitness evidence can often be quite unreliable and that the courts have not always properly assessed its reliability.
Quality, Class, and Competition

This paper integrates the process oriented view of quality in manufacturing with the multi-attribute product positioning and customer preference models of marketing, within the context of traditional economic models of markets and competition. In manufacturing applications, "quality" is often defined as conformance to specifications or as meeting standards on the performance of the product. In the marketing and economics literature, "quality" typically refers to the performance level or "class" of the product. To capture both perspectives, a product is described by a vector of performance attributes, and the population of produced units is assumed to display a distribution on these attributes. The distribution perceived by customers may differ from the actual. The attribute levels (means) may be taken to define the class, or performance of the product. Quality in the sense of conformance is then conceptually identified with the absence of variation of the population. Consumer preferences are modelled by a cardinal utility function defined on the vector of attributes and price, and customers maximize expected utility. Product manufacturers are assumed to face a cost of producing a given population distribution. Under specific assumptions regarding costs and utility functions, models of monopoly, oligopoly and perfect competition are formulated. The model clarifies the distinction between product class (performance) and conformance quality, identifies the sources of quality improvement, and provides an economic framework relating issues like product positioning, process improvement, quality function deployment (QFD) and customer preference estimation. This framework is used to address issues such as quality costs and benefits and the economics of investments in quality.
Analysis of correlation of liver , kidney and thyroid functions with hyperlipidemia in senile patients

The objective of this study is to analyze the correlation of liver, kidney and thyroid functions with hyperlipidemia in senile patients, and provide objective clinical data for designing effective treatment plan in clinical work. According to the principle of informed consent form, a number of 1289 senile dyslipidemia patients who did physical examination in the health examination center in our hospital were enrolled in the study. Questionnaire of blood lipid was used to investigate general information of senile patients with dyslipidemia; indicators related to blood lipid, liver function, renal function and thyroid function were tested and factors related to dyslipidemia were analyzed. Statistical analysis demonstrated that the morbidity rate of high level of total cholesterol (TC) and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) in female was higher than that in male and the prevalence rate of low level of high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) in male was higher than that in female, which were all statistically significant; there was no significant difference of triglyceride (TG) levels between male and female. High TC, TG and LDL-C was mainly concentrated in the 66-70 years of age; while, there was no obvious difference of the prevalence rate of low HDL-C among different ages.TC was positively correlated with ALT, GGT and UA; TG was positively associated with age, ALT, GGT and UA; HDL-C was negatively correlated with sex and UA; LDL-C was positively associated with Cr and UA, and negatively correlated with sex and ALT. Therefore, the morbidity of dyslipidemia could be effectively decreased by improving liver function, renal function and thyroid function.
Fabrication of iron-cerium mixed oxide: an efficient photocatalyst for dye degradation

We report herein the fabrication of nanostructured and mesoporous iron-cerium mixed oxides for photocatalytic application. Phase, electronic structure and other properties of the products were characterized by both low-angle and wide-angle X-ray diffraction, diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy, raman spectroscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy, and N 2 adsorption-desorption isotherm methods. Analytical results demonstrate that the catalyst is in the nano order and mesoporous in nature. These samples were screened for photocatalytic degradation of phenol, methylene blue (MB) and congo red (CR). About 13 % (phenol) and 93 % (MB) photodegradation were observed where as complete mineralization was obtained in case of CR. The reason for higher catalytic activity of 1:1 (Fe/Ce) sample is ascribed to their higher surface area, surface acidity which determines the active sites of the catalyst and accelerates the photocatalytic reaction. Keywords : Mixed oxide, photocatalyst, photodegradation International Journal of Engineering, Science and Technology , Vol. 2, No. 9, 2010, pp. 53-65
Early Evaluation of Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (Wegeners) in the Patients with Atypical Sinusitis: An Introduction to Amir Alam Hospital Recommendation for Early Detection of Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis in Sinusitis

Background: Chronic and Atypical Sinusitis (AtS) is often the initial but frequently neglected presentation of Granulomatosis with Polyangiitis (GPA). These patients are primarily referred to otorhinolaryngology clinics and often receive prolonged antimicrobial medications before gradual development of other GPA symptoms. Objectives: This study was designed to find the number of patients with sinusitis fulfilling the ACR criteria for diagnosis of GPA (Wegener’s). Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 23 patients with AtS and 32 patients with Typical Sinusitis (TyS). For every patient a through physical examination focusing primarily on the head and neck region, chest X-ray and sinus roentgenograms in Waters and Caldwell views, Complete Blood Count, ESR, BUN, Creatinine, CRP, c-ANCA, p-ANCA and Urinalysis were done. Histopathologic studies were performed on sinus biopsies in AtS patients. Results: Chronicity, recurrence and sinus masses are three major factors to make a sinusitis atypical. The most frequent complaint was purulent/bloody discharge from the nose found in 15 (65%) of patients with AtS. The most frequent signs and symptoms in TyS group were posterior nasal drainage and production of phlegm. Radiographic studies found 5 bony masses in the AtS group. One patient with AtS was found to have pansinusitis and a disappeared nasal septum. Chest radiographs of patients with TyS did not show any pathologic finding but in two patients with AtS ring shadows in the base of both lungs and calcified granulomas were detected respectively. Histopathologic study in two patients with AtS showed chronic inflammatory cells, granulomas and necrosis highly suggestive for GPA. In AtS group, ESR was elevated in three female and two male patients. c-ANCA was found to be very high in a male patient with elevated ESR, BUN, creatinine and CBC impairment. Urinalysis showed microhematuria in one patient and the same male patient mentioned above had RBC casts. No patient in TyS group met the ACR criteria of GPA but in the AtS group, three (13%) patients (two female and one male) were found to have GPA according to ACR criteria and yet another three (13%) were highly suggestive to have GPA but did not fulfill the ACR criteria. Conclusion: Early identification of this high number of patients with GPA, in a limited number of otorhinolaryngological patients confers the advantages of screening and early treatment. Rheumatologic consultation in the treatment of AtS patients is therefore inevitable.
Hydrogen Bond Interactions Between Water Molecules in Bulk Liquid, Near Electrode Surfaces and Around Ions

Recently, a panel of experts, nominated by IUPAC, proposed the following tentative definition for the hydrogen bond: “The hydrogen bond is an attractive interaction between a group X-H and an atom or group of atoms Y in the same or different molecule(s), where there is evidence of bond formation” (Arunan, 2007). The energy of H-bond (~5 Kcal/mole of H-bonds) is intermediate between those of Van der Waals interaction (~0.3 Kcal/mole) and covalent (~100 Kcal/mole) chemical bonds (Stillinger, 1980). Since the energy of H-bond is of the order of a few KTs, thermal energy constantly acts to disrupt H-bonds. One can thus consider the energetics to drive formation of H-bonds, and entropic factors arising from thermal energy to break H-bonds. The result is a time-varying distribution of H-bonds among the different donor-acceptor pairs in the system. Combination of femtosecond 2D IR spectroscopy and molecular dynamics simulations demonstrated that the vast majority of average numbers of H-bonds are part of a H-bonded well of attraction and virtually all molecules return to a H-bonding partner within 200 fs (Eaves et al., 2005). Despite this continuous dynamics, fluctuation in the total number of H-bonds in a system containing a large number of molecules is quite small. Most simulation models suggest that a given H atom in water is H-bonded for 85-90% of the time (Bakker & Skinner, 2010). H-bonds have been a subject of intense research over several decades owing to the enormous role they play on several physico-chemical properties of interest. As quoted by Buckingham et al., “The concept of the H-bond is a century old but youthful because of its vital role in so many branches of science and because of continued advances in experiment, theory and simulation” (Buckingham et al., 2008). The significance of H-bonds can be best understood by comparing the physical state of water and methane, both of similar size; at room temperature, while methane is supercritical, water exists in liquid state, making it possible for life to sustain on earth. The anomalous expansion of water at 4°C makes it possible for marine life to exist. The high dielectric constant of water opens up the entire field of electrochemistry. The internal structure of water is largely responsible for selfassembly of surfactants, leading to a wide array of liquid crystalline phases. H-bonds are largely responsible for preserving the structure/conformation of several life-supporting biological molecules such as DNA, RNA and proteins in aqueous solutions.
Feeding feelings: Is there a relationship between emotional eating and body mass index in adults?

The present study aimed to investigate the relationship between emotional eating and body mass index (BMI) in an international sample of healthy weight, overweight, and obese adults (N = 226). It was hypothesised emotional eating scores would differ significantly between the BMI classification groups. Consistent with expectations, ANCOVA results revealed significant differences in emotional eating scores across weight groups, after controlling for gender. Post-hoc analyses revealed participants who were overweight or obese reported higher emotional eating levels than participants who were normal weight. An analysis of variance indicated that being over the age of 50 was the strongest predictor of BMI, however emotional eating scores were identified as the second strongest predictor. Contributions and limitations of the present study, as well as recommendations for future research are also discussed.
Wide-activated Deep Residual Networks based Restoration for BPG-compressed Images

We investigate a simple pipeline to achieve high-quality image compression under very low bit-rate. The pipeline is a stack of BPG image compression and deep network based restoration. Wide-activated deep residual networks from recent advances in image super-resolution are adopted for image restoration. Experiments demonstrate that the pipeline significantly reduces the quantity loss and remove visual artifacts for compressed images.
Mass Spectrometric Determination of the Effect of Surface Deactivation on Membranes Used for In-Situ Sampling of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF)

In this paper, a strategy for structured monitoring of surface modifications to control protein adsorption to membrane structures is presented. The already established on-surface enzymatic digestion (oSED) method combined with nano-liquid chromatography and tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) analysis was employed for the analysis of proteins in ventricular cerebrospinal fluid (vCSF) from neurointensive care patients. Protein adsorption was studied by in-situ sampling in a temporally resolved manner on both immobilized native and Pluronic-deactivated membranes. Deactivation was significantly reducing the protein adsorption but it also induced novel selective properties of the surface. The proposed versatile strategy will facilitate protein-biomaterial, protein-polymer, protein-protein interaction studies in the future.
An automated salt‐tracing gauge for flow‐velocity measurement

This article introduces the SVG (salt‐velocity gauge), a novel automated technique for measuring flow velocity by means of salt tracing. SVG allows a high measuring rate (up to one every 2 seconds), short control section length (down to 10 cm), high accuracy (+[sol ]−1·5 cm s−1), and unbiased calculation of the mean velocity in experimental conditions with turbulent, supercritical flow.
Geochronology of Type Santacrucian (Middle Tertiary) Land Mammal Age, Patagonia, Argentina

Mammal-bearing lacustrine and tuffaceous sediments from three localities of the Santa Cruz Formation, type fauna of the Santacrucian Land Mammal Age, in Patagonia, southern Argentina, are calibrated by radioisotope dating with the aid of magnetostratigraphy. The strata range from about 17.6 Ma to perhaps 16.0 Ma, and are thus of late-early Miocene age. The Santacrucian Land Mammal Age ranges from about 18.0 Ma to about 15.0 Ma.
A slowly evolving mean of the price-to-dividend ratio , its economic influences and predictive power for stock returns ∗

The potential forces behind persistent variations of the log price-to-dividend ratio (PtDR) and their implications for the prediction of stock returns have attracted a lively discussion in the literature. We estimate a gradually time-varying mean of the PtDR in the framework of a present value model, which is then used to adjust the PtDR in predictive regressions. In real time forecasting the proposed predictor outperforms the unadjusted PtDR and an adjustment of the PtDR by means of discrete shifts. We show that during the past 60 years this slowly evolving mean process is jointly shaped by the consumption risk, the demographic structure of the population and the proportion of firms with traditional dividend payout policy. In particular, the volatility of consumption growth plays the dominant role.
Optical Detection of Radiocarbon Dioxide: First Results and AMS Intercomparison

The first results of an optical method for measuring radiocarbon concentrations, based on mid-infrared laser spectroscopy of a carbon dioxide gas sample, are presented with the theoretical bases explained in detail. The first measurements on modern and highly enriched samples show the extreme linearity of this technique over more than 5 decades. An intercomparison with accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) is performed both for modern and 14C-dead samples, assessing the almost perfect agreement of their respectively measured concentration values. The main features of our technique are compared with liquid scintillation counting (LSC) and AMS, and future developments of the current setup are discussed.
Engineering models for merging wakes in wind farm optimization applications

The present paper deals with validation of 4 different engineering wake superposition approaches against detailed CFD simulations and covering different turbine interspacing, ambient turbulence intensities and mean wind speeds. The first engineering model is a simple linear superposition of wake deficits as applied in e.g. Fuga. The second approach is the square root of sums of squares approach, which is applied in the widely used PARK program. The third approach, which is presently used with the Dynamic Wake Meandering (DWM) model, assumes that the wake affected downstream flow field to be determined by a superposition of the ambient flow field and the dominating wake among contributions from all upstream turbines at any spatial position and at any time. The last approach developed by G.C. Larsen is a newly developed model based on a parabolic type of approach, which combines wake deficits successively. The study indicates that wake interaction depends strongly on the relative wake deficit magnitude, i.e. the deficit magnitude normalized with respect to the ambient mean wind speed, and that the dominant wake assumption within the DWM framework is the most accurate.
Unsteady 3D Post-Stall Aerodynamics Accounting for Effective Loss in Camber Due to Flow Separation

The current study couples a quasi-steady Vortex Lattice Method and a camber correcting technique, ‘Decambering’ for unsteady post-stall flow prediction. The wake is force-free and discrete such that the wake lattices move with the free-stream once shed from the wing. It is observed that the time-averaged unsteady coefficient of lift sees a relative drop at post-stall angles of attack in comparison to its steady counterpart for some angles of attack. Multiple solutions occur at post-stall and three different algorithms to choose solutions in these regimes show both unsteadiness and non-convergence of the iterations. The distribution of coefficient of lift on the wing span also shows sawtooth. Distribution of vorticity changes both along span and in the direction of the free-stream as the wake develops over time with distinct roll-up, which increases with time. Keywords—Post-stall, unsteady, wing, aerodynamics.
Discrimination of synthesized English vowels by American and Korean listeners

This study explored the discrimination of synthesized English vowel pairs by 27 American and Korean, male and female listeners. The average formant values of nine monophthongs produced by ten American English male speakers were employed to synthesize the vowels. Then, subjects were instructed explicitly to respond to AX discrimination tasks in which the standard vowel was followed by another one with the increment or decrement of the original formant values. The highest and lowest formant values of the same vowel quality were collected and compared to examine patterns of vowel discrimination. Results showed that the American and Korean groups discriminated the vowel pairs almost identically and their center formant frequency values of the high and low boundary fell almost exactly on those of the standards. In addition, the acceptable range of the same vowel quality was similar among the language and gender groups. The acceptable thresholds of each vowel formed an oval to maintain perceptual contrast from .
REINFORCED PIPELINE OPTIMIZATION: BEHAVING OPTIMALLY

Many machine learning systems are implemented as pipelines. A pipeline is essentially a chain/network of information processing units. As information flows in and out and gradients vice versa, ideally, a pipeline can be trained end-to-end via backpropagation provided with the right supervision and loss function. However, this is often impossible in practice, because either the loss function itself may be non-differentiable, or there may exist some non-differentiable units. One popular way to superficially resolve this issue is to separate a pipeline into a set of differentiable sub-pipelines and train them with isolated loss functions. Yet, from a decision-theoretical point of view, this is equivalent to making myopic decisions using ad hoc heuristics along the pipeline while ignoring the real utility, which prevents the pipeline from behaving optimally. In this paper, we show that by converting a pipeline into a stochastic counterpart, it can then be trained endto-end in the presence of non-differentiable parts. Thus, the resulting pipeline is optimal under certain conditions with respect to any criterion attached to it. In experiments, we apply the proposed approach reinforced pipeline optimization to Faster R-CNN, a state-of-the-art object detection pipeline, and obtain empirically near-optimal object detectors consistent with its base design in terms of mean average precision.
Disinfection By-Products (DBPs) in Drinking Water from Eight Systems Using Chlorine Dioxide

A study was initiated to determine the presence of organic disinfection by-products (DBPs) in drinking water treated with chlorine dioxide (ClO 2 ). One potential advantage for the use of ClO 2 as a disinfectant is the reduced formation of organic DBPs. Generally, water treated with ClO 2 produces chlorite and chlorate ions, but there is limited information regarding the presence of halogenated organic DBPs. Eight systems that use chlorine dioxide as part of the water disinfection process were investigated. All systems in this study applied chlorine as a primary or secondary disinfectant in addition to ClO 2 . To evaluate seasonal and spatial variations, water samples were collected during cold water (February to March 2003) and warm water (July to August 2003) months at five sites for each system: raw water (R, before treatment), treated water (T, after treatment but before distribution), and three points along the same distribution line (D1, D2, D3). Sampling and analysis were conducted according to established protocols. A suite of 27 organic DBPs including haloacetic acids (HAA), trihalomethanes (THM), haloacetonitriles (HAN), haloketones, haloacetaldehydes (HA), chloropicrin, and cyanogen chloride were examined. In addition, the concentration of oxyhalides (chlorite and chlorate ions) and auxiliary parameters were also determined. Chlorite was found in treated (T) and distributed (Dx) waters. The chlorite ion levels decreased along the distribution system (T > D1 > D2 > D3). At T sites, the levels ranged from 10 to 870 pg/L (winter), and from 300 to 1,600 pg/L (summer). Chlorite was not found in treated or distributed water in the one system that used ozone. Chlorate ion levels ranged from 20 to 310 pg/L (winter), and 80 to 318 μg/L (summer). Chlorate levels remained relatively constant throughout the distribution system. THM and eight HAA (HAA8) accounted for approximately 85% of the total DBPs (wt/wt) analyzed, followed by total HA (up to 7%) and HAN (3%). THM in distributed water were found at concentrations between 1.8 and 30.6 pg/L (winter), and 3.3 and 93.6 pg/L (summer). For HAA8, the levels ranged from 13 to 52 μg/L (winter), and 16 to 111 pg/L (summer). Chloral hydrate ranged from 0.2 to 5.2 pg/L (winter), and 0.4 to 12.2 pg/L (summer). The temporal and spatial variations observed in previous studies were confirmed in the current study as well.