Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Monaural Speech Separation Based on Computational Auditory Scene Analysis and Objective Quality Assessment of Speech

Monaural speech separation is a very challenging problem in speech signal processing. It has been studied extensively, and many separation systems based on computational auditory scene analysis (CASA) have been proposed in the last two decades. Although the research on CASA has tended to introduce high-level knowledge into separation processes using primitive data-driven methods, the knowledge on speech quality still has not been combined with it. This makes the performance evaluation of CASA mainly focused on the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) improvement. Actually, the quality of the separated speech is not directly related to its SNR. In order to solve this problem, we propose a new method which combines CASA with objective quality assessment of speech (OQAS). In the grouping process of CASA, we use OQAS as the guide to instruct the CASA system. With this combination, the performance of the speech separation can be improved not only in SNR, but also in mean opinion score (MOS). Our system is systematically evaluated and compared with previous systems, and it yields substantially better performance, especially for the subjective perceptual quality of separated speech
EEG-Based Person Authentication Using a Fuzzy Entropy-Related Approach with Two Electrodes

Person authentication, based on electroencephalography (EEG) signals, is one of the directions possible in the study of EEG signals. In this paper, a method for the selection of EEG electrodes and features in a discriminative manner is proposed. Given that EEG signals are unstable and non-linear, a non-linear analysis method, i.e., fuzzy entropy, is more appropriate. In this paper, unlike other methods using different signal sources and patterns, such as rest state and motor imagery, a novel paradigm using the stimuli of self-photos and non-self-photos is introduced. Ten subjects are selected to take part in this experiment, and fuzzy entropy is used as a feature to select the minimum number of electrodes that identifies individuals. The experimental results show that the proposed method can make use of two electrodes (FP1 and FP2) in the frontal area, while the classification accuracy is greater than 87.3%. The proposed biometric system, based on EEG signals, can provide each subject with a unique key and is capable of human recognition.
Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems ( PACIS ) 7-15-2012 Impact Of Social Media Usage On Organizations

Social media is a growing phenomenon and have the biggest impact on organizations’ continual communication with customers and the public. It also plays increasingly important role as a marketing platform. Even though social media has been recognized as the most powerful medium in business practice, there is lack of understanding in terms of how social media benefits the organization. Therefore, this study using mixed method techniques such as website analysis, interviews and survey aims to investigate the various factors that influence the social media usage and its subsequent impact on organizations. Based on the qualitative findings and literature review, the TOE framework was identified as the appropriate model for this study.
The BlogVox Opinion Retrieval System

The BlogVox system retrieves opinionated blog posts specified by ad hoc queries. BlogVox was developed for the 2006 TREC blog track by the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory using a novel system to recognize legitimate posts and discriminate against spam blogs. It also processes posts to eliminate extraneous non-content, including blog-rolls, link-rolls, advertisements and sidebars. After retrieving posts relevant to a topic query, the system processes them to produce a set of independent features estimating the likelihood that a post expresses an opinion about the topic. These are combined using an SVM-based system and integrated with the relevancy score to rank the results. We evaluate BlogVox's performance against human assessors. We also evaluate the individual splog filtering and non-content removal components of BlogVox.
Easy Rigging of Face by Transfer of Skinning Parameters

Preparing a facial mesh to be animated requires a laborious manual rigging process. The rig specifies how the input animation data deforms the surface and allows artists to manipulate a character. We present a method that automatically rigs a facial mesh based on Radial Basis Functions (RBF) and linear blend skinning approach. Our approach transfers the skinning parameters (feature points and their envelopes, ie. pointvertex weights), of a reference facial mesh (source) already rigged to the chosen facial mesh (target) by computing an automatic registration between the two meshes. There is no need to manually mark the correspondence between the source and target mesh. As a result, inexperienced artists can automatically rig facial meshes and start right away animating their 3D characters. Last, we show how a rigged facial mesh is ready to be animated driven by motion capture data.
A Study on the Stability and Numerical Dispersion of the Lumped-Network FDTD Method

The lumped-network finite-difference time-domain (LN-FDTD) technique is an extension of the conventional FDTD method that enables the incorporation of linear one-port LNs in a single FDTD cell. This paper studies the stability and the numerical dispersion of this technique. To this end, an isotropic medium that is uniformly loaded with LNs in the x-direction is considered as a working model. The stability analysis, based on the von Neumann method, is performed for general Mth-order LNs and closed-form stability conditions are derived for some particular cases. The numerical dispersion relation is obtained for plane-wave propagation in the proposed LN-loaded medium. It is shown that LNs can be interpreted in terms of an effective frequency-dependent permittivity and, as a consequence, the LN-loaded medium can be viewed as a uniaxial medium. The numerical admittance of the LNs is also obtained showing that, as a side-effect of the time discretization, the LN parameters become frequency-dependent, e.g. for the resistor case, the resistance becomes a function of the frequency.
Differences of Mortality Rates between Pocket and Nonpocket Cardiovascular Implantable Electronic Device Infections

A steady rise in the use of cardiovascular implantable electronic devices (CIEDs), particularly in the elderly, has led to an increase in device‐related infections. Although often studied and reported as a single entity, these complications in fact comprise a heterogeneous group. Specific subgroups may be associated with distinct mortality risks.
Measuring reef complexity and rugosity from monocular video bathymetric reconstruction

Topographic structural complexity of a reef is highly correlated to coral growth rates, coral cover and overall levels of biodiversity, and is therefore integral in determining ecological processes. Modeling these processes commonly includes measures of rugosity obtained from a wide range of different survey techniques that often fail to capture rugosity at different spatial scales. Here we show that accurate estimates of rugosity can be obtained from video footage captured using underwater video cameras (i.e., monocular video). To demonstrate the accuracy of our method, we compared the results to in situ measurements of a 2m x 20m area of forereef from Glovers Reef atoll in Belize. Sequential pairs of images were used to compute fine scale bathymetric reconstructions of the reef substrate from which precise measurements of rugosity and reef topographic structural complexity can be derived across multiple spatial scales. To achieve accurate bathymetric reconstructions from uncalibrated monocular video, the position of the camera for each image in the video sequence and the intrinsic parameters (e.g., focal length) must be computed simultaneously. We show that these parameters can be often determined when the data exhibits parallax-type motion, and that rugosity and reef complexity can be accurately computed from existing video sequences taken from any type of underwater camera from any reef habitat or location. This technique provides an infinite array of possibilities for future coral reef research by providing a cost-effective and automated method of determining structural complexity and rugosity in both new and historical video surveys of coral reefs.
Focusing Testing by using Inspection and Product Metrics

A well-known approach for identifying defect-prone parts of software in order to focus testing is to use different kinds of product metrics such as size or complexity. Although this approach has been evaluated in many contexts, the question remains if there are further opportunities to improve test focusing. One idea is to identify other types of information that may indicate the location of defect-prone software parts. Data from software inspections, in particular, appear to be promising. This kind of data might already lead to software parts that have inherent difficulties or programming challenges, and in consequence might be defect-prone. This article first explains how inspection and product metrics can be used to focus testing activities. Second, we compare selected product and inspection metrics commonly used to predict defect-prone parts (e.g. size and complexity metrics, inspection defect content metrics, and defect density metrics). Based on initial experience from two case studies performed in different environments, the suitability of different metrics for predicting defect-prone parts is illustrated. The studies revealed that inspection defect data seems to be a suitable predictor, and a combination of certain inspection and product metrics led to the best prioritizations in our contexts. In addition, qualitative experience is presented, which substantiates the expected benefit of using inspection results to optimize testing.
Season of Birth, Sex and Sleep Timing Preferences

Objective: To evaluate whether the season of birth and sex are associated with preferences for bedtime among Chinese adults. Methods: A national population-based study on sleep preferences was conducted among Chinese in 2008. A questionnaire was used to collect information on the sleep time of Chinese adults. Analysis of covariance was used to examine the relationship between season of birth and preferences for bedtime. Two sets of potential confounders were used in the adjusted models. Model 1 adjusted for age. Model 2 additionally adjusted for area, occupation, education level, smoking, and drinking. Participants and Measurements: The questionnaire was administered to a sample of 3959 Chinese adults. Results: Men had a higher delayed mean sleep onset and offset time (22:38 and 6:32) than women (22:18 and 6:25). Men also slept for a shorter duration compared to women (7 h 54 min vs. 8 h 7 min). Women born in fall had the latest sleep onset time sleep offset time (22:23/6:30), compared to their counterparts born in winter. These associations were attenuated by additional adjustments of more confounders. Conclusions: There were significant differences in sleep timing preferences between men and women. Season of birth was not associated with sleep timing in Chinese adults.
Molecular Basis of the Core Regulatory Network in ABA Responses: Sensing, Signaling and Transport

ABA is a major phytohormone that regulates a broad range of plant traits and is especially important for adaptation to environmental conditions. Our understanding of the molecular basis of ABA responses in plants improved dramatically in 2009 and 2010, banner years for ABA research. There are three major components; PYR/PYL/ RCAR (an ABA receptor), type 2C protein phosphatase (PP2C; a negative regulator) and SNF1-related protein kinase 2 (SnRK2; a positive regulator), and they offer a double negative regulatory system, [PYR/PYL/RCAR—| PP2C—| SnRK2]. In the absence of ABA, PP2C inactivates SnRK2 by direct dephosphorylation. In response to environmental or developmental cues, ABA promotes the interaction of PYR/PYL/RCAR and PP2C, resulting in PP2C inhibition and SnRK2 activation. This signaling complex can work in both the nucleus and cytosol, as it has been shown that SnRK2 phosphorylates basic-domain leucine zipper (bZIP) transcription factors or membrane proteins. Several structural analyses of PYR/PYL/RCAR have provided the mechanistic basis for this ‘core signaling’ model, by elucidating the mechanism of ABA binding of receptors, or the ‘gate–latch–lock’ mechanism of interaction with PP2C in inhibiting activity. On the other hand, intercellular ABA transport had remained a major issue, as had intracellular ABA signaling. Recently, two plasma membrane-type ABC transporters were identified and shed light on the influx/efflux system of ABA, resolving how ABA is transported from cell to cell in plants. Our knowledge of ABA responses in plants has been greatly expanded from intracellular signaling to intercellular transport of ABA.
Self-Assembly Properties and Dynamics of Synthetic Proteo Nucleic Building Blocks in Solution and on Surfaces

Synthetic proteo nucleic structures (PDNAs) encompassing a single-stranded DNA sequence covalently attached to a redox protein domain able to interact with surface or matrix were designed and characterized. They constitute versatile building blocks alternative to regular DNA for creating scaffolds with optical, electrical, or catalytic properties. PDNAs self-assemble in the presence of complementary oligonucleotides, to form a network of protein domains linked by double-stranded DNA segments. Electrophoretic and hydrodynamic behaviors of PDNAs and corresponding DNA were compared under electrophoresis and gel filtration conditions. Hybridization rates between small and large assemblies were characterized by rapidmixing experiments. Results showed that the protein part significantly contributes to hydrodynamic behaviors of structures but marginally affects the conformation and hybridization properties of the nucleic domain. PDNA metal-mediated complexes with nitriloacetate-modified phospholipids can diffuse and interact at the surface of vesicles or supported membranes. Surface plasmon resonance analysis of membrane PDNA interactions indicated that two protein units are required to allow stable surface association and that surface occupancy constrains assembly sizes. High-speed atomic force microscopy illustrated rapid lateral diffusion of assemblies on mica, revealing transient association between noncomplementary PDNA extremities and frequent trapping by surface defects. Regularly organized protein domains were visualized using a larger DNA framework.
Cryptanalysis And Further Improvement Of A Biometric-Based Remote User Authentication Scheme Using Smart Cards

Recently, Li et al. proposed a secure biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards to withstand the security flaws of Li-Hwang’s efficient biometric-based remote user authentication scheme using smart cards. Li et al.’s scheme is based on biometrics verification, smart card and one-way hash function, and it also uses the random nonce rather than a synchronized clock, and thus it is efficient in computational cost and more secure than Li-Hwang’s scheme. Unfortunately, in this paper we show that Li et al.’s scheme still has some security weaknesses in their design. In order to withstand those weaknesses in their scheme, we further propose an improvement of their scheme so that the improved scheme always provides proper authentication and as a result, it establishes a session key between the user and the server at the end of successful user authentication.
Multi‐scale characterization of the energy landscape of proteins with application to the C3D/Efb‐C complex

We present a novel multi‐level methodology to explore and characterize the low energy landscape and the thermodynamics of proteins. Traditional conformational search methods typically explore only a small portion of the conformational space of proteins and are hard to apply to large proteins due to the large amount of calculations required. In our multi‐scale approach, we first provide an initial characterization of the equilibrium state ensemble of a protein using an efficient computational conformational sampling method. We then enrich the obtained ensemble by performing short Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations on selected conformations from the ensembles as starting points. To facilitate the analysis of the results, we project the resulting conformations on a low‐dimensional landscape to efficiently focus on important interactions and examine low energy regions. This methodology provides a more extensive sampling of the low energy landscape than an MD simulation starting from a single crystal structure as it explores multiple trajectories of the protein. This enables us to obtain a broader view of the dynamics of proteins and it can help in understanding complex binding, improving docking results and more. In this work, we apply the methodology to provide an extensive characterization of the bound complexes of the C3d fragment of human Complement component C3 and one of its powerful bacterial inhibitors, the inhibitory domain of Staphylococcus aureus extra‐cellular fibrinogen‐binding domain (Efb‐C) and two of its mutants. We characterize several important interactions along the binding interface and define low free energy regions in the three complexes. Proteins 2010. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Intrapulmonary shunting in biliary atresia before and after living‐related liver transplantation

Intrapulmonary shunting (IPS) is frequently observed and causes hypoxaemia in liver cirrhosis. This study investigated the prevalence, predictors of reversibility and the effect of living‐related liver transplantation (LRLT) on IPS using contrast echocardiography in patients with end‐stage biliary atresia.
Dynamic Changes of Intrinsic Brain Activity in Cirrhotic Patients after Transjugular Intrahepatic Portosystemic Shunt: A Resting-State fMRI Study

Purpose The majority of cirrhotic patients who underwent transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunt (TIPS) experienced the first post-TIPS hepatic encephalopathy (HE) episode within the first three months after TIPS insertion. However, so far, little is known about the exact neuro-pathophysiological mechanism of TIPS's effects on brain function. We aimed to investigate the dynamics of brain function alteration of post-TIPS patients using resting-state functional MRI (rs-fMRI). Materials and Methods Sixteen cirrhotic patients who were scheduled for TIPS and 16 healthy controls were included in the rs-fMRI scans. Ten patients repeated the MRI study in a median 8-day follow-up interval following TIPS and seven in a median 3-month follow-up. The amplitude of low frequency fluctuation (ALFF), an index reflecting the spontaneous brain activity, was compared between patients before TIPS and healthy controls as well as patients pre- and post- TIPS. Results Compared with healthy controls, patients showed decreased ALFF in frontal and parietal regions and increased ALFF in insula. Patients who underwent the median 8-day follow-up fMRI examinations showed decreased ALFF in posterior cingulate cortex (PCC)/precuneus and increased ALFF in anterior cingulate cortex (ACC). Of 10 patients in this group, 9 had moderate to large increase rate of ALFF value (>20%, mean 49.19%) in ACC, while only one patient with the smallest increase rate of ALFF value (<10%) in ACC, who experienced three episodes of overt HE during the 3-month follow-up. In the median 3-month follow up observation, patients displayed persistently decreased ALFF in PCC, ACC and medial prefrontal cortex (MPFC), while no increased regional ALFF was observed. Conclusion TIPS insertion alters cirrhotic patients' ALFF patterns in the resting state, which may imply different short-term and moderate-term effects on cirrhotic patients, i.e., both impairment and compensatory mechanism of brain functions in peri-TIPS and continuous impairment of brain function 3 months following TIPS.
Minimum Audible Movement Angle as a Function of the Azimuth and Elevation of the Source

In the future auditory directional cues may enhance situational awareness in cockpits with head-coupled displays. This benefit would depend, however, on the pilot's ability to detect the direction of moving sounds at different locations in space. The present investigation examined this ability. Auditory motion acuity was measured by the minimum audible movement angle (MAMA): the minimum angle of travel required for detection of the direction of sound movement. Five experienced listeners were instructed to indicate the direction of travel of a sound source (broadband noise at 50 dBA) that moved at a velocity of 20 deg/s. Nine azimuth positions were tested at 0 deg elevation. Five elevations were then tested at 0 deg azimuth. Finally two azimuth positions were tested at an elevation of 80 deg. The position of the source did not significantly affect the MAMA for azimuth locations between +40 and -40 deg and elevations below 80 deg. Within this area the MAMA ranged between 1 and 2 deg. Outside this area the MAMA increased to 3 to 10 deg.
Hierarchical merging of adjacent subtrees from Delaunay triangulation with centers of superpixels

Image segmentation is used in computer vision, medical imaging, and biological imaging to locate object boundaries and to group similar pixels together to form a set of coherent image regions. The important factors of clustering are similarity, proximity, and good continuation, which lead to visually meaningful segmentation. On the contrary, there are some problems of visual grouping such as over-segmentation, inaccuracy, and time-consuming tasks. Among the problems, we concentrate on reducing manual settings and avoiding the over-segmentation. In the paper, we propose a segmentation method which is merging hierarchically partial trees of superpixels. Given the superpixels, we determine the each center of superpixels to each node, and construct a Delaunay triangulation to compute which regions are adjacent. Similar regions are joined by using a similarity measure. An important chacteristic of the algorithm is its ability to reduce the over-segmentation and to preserve detail.
An inverted CMOS class-AB transconductor featuring rail-to-rail common-mode input range and constant transconductance gain

In this paper, I present a simple class-AB transconductor made from floating-gate MOS (FGMOS) transistors featuring an odd-symmetric expansive nonlinear current-voltage transfer characteristic, a constant transconductance gain, and a rail-to-rail common-mode input-voltage range. I show measured DC transfer characteristics that demonstrate these characteristics over four orders of magnitude in bias current in weak and moderate inversion from a prototype circuit fabricated in a 0.5-μm double-poly CMOS process through MOSIS.
The Latin Music Database

In this paper we present the Latin Music Database, a novel database of Latin musical recordings which has been developed for automatic music genre classification, but can also be used in other music information retrieval tasks. The method for assigning genres to the musical recordings is based on human expert perception and therefore capture their tacit knowledge in the genre labeling process. We also present the ethnomusicology of the genres available in the database as it might provide important information for the analysis of the results of any experiment that employs the database.