Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Geometric source separation: merging convolutive source separation with geometric beamforming

Blind source separation of broad band signals in a multi-path environment remains a difficult problem. Robustness has been limited due to frequency permutation ambiguities. Increasing the number of sensors allows improved performance but introduces degrees of freedom in the separating filters that are not determined by separation criteria. We propose to further shape the filters and improve the robustness of blind separation by including geometric information such as sensor positions and localized source assumption. This allows us to combine blind source separation with adaptive and geometric beamforming leading to a number of novel algorithms collectively termed "geometric source separation". Performance comparisons on real room recordings for 2 and 3 simultaneous sources are presented.
Four vector-matrix primitives

Abstract : This paper discusses a set of powerful primitive matrix operations which allow easy specification of parallel matrix routines. It demonstrates via the hypercube implementation that the additional expressive power need not reduce performance and can, in fact, improve performance by providing automatic load balancing in the case where there are more matrix elements than processors. Some routines based on these primitives and other simple parallel operations give some timings for the primitives and routines for our implementation on the Connection Machine. One expects to generalize these implementations of the primitives so they work on processor grids whose row and column sizes are not powers of two, and to allow a vector extracted from a row off a matrix to be distributed to or deposited in either a row or column of another matrix. The primitives should be available to higher level languages so that they can be easily used.
A design methodology for compositional high-level synthesis of communication-centric SoCs

Systems-on-chip are increasingly designed at the system level by combining synthesizable IP components that operate concurrently while interacting through communication channels. CAD-tool vendors support this System-Level Design approach with high-level synthesis tools and libraries of interface primitives implementing the communication protocols. These interfaces absorb timing differences in the hardware-component implementations, thus enabling compositional design. However, they introduce also new challenges in terms of functional correctness and performance optimization. We propose a methodology that combines performance analysis and optimization algorithms to automatically address the issues that SoC designers may accidentally introduce when assembling components that are specified at the system level.
Interaction of Excitation and Inhibition in Anteroventral Cochlear Nucleus Neurons That Receive Large Endbulb Synaptic Endings

Spherical bushy cells (SBCs) of the anteroventral cochlear nucleus (AVCN) receive their main excitatory input from auditory nerve fibers (ANFs) through large synapses, endbulbs of Held. These cells are also the target of inhibitory inputs whose function is not well understood. The present study examines the role of inhibition in the encoding of low-frequency sounds in the gerbil's AVCN. The presynaptic action potentials of endbulb terminals and postsynaptic action potentials of SBCs were monitored simultaneously in extracellular single-unit recordings in vivo. An input–output analysis of presynaptic and postsynaptic activity was performed for both spontaneous and acoustically driven activity. Two-tone stimulation and neuropharmacological experiments allowed the effects of neuronal inhibition and cochlear suppression on SBC activity to be distinguished. Ninety-one percent of SBCs showed significant neuronal inhibition. Inhibitory sidebands enclosed the high- or low-frequency, or both, sides of the excitatory areas of these units; this was reflected as a presynaptic to postsynaptic increase in frequency selectivity of up to one octave. Inhibition also affected the level-dependent responses at the characteristic frequency. Although in all units the presynaptic recordings showed monotonic rate-level functions, this was the case in only half of the postsynaptic recordings. In the other half of SBCs, postsynaptic inhibitory areas overlapped the excitatory areas, resulting in nonmonotonic rate-level functions. The results demonstrate that the sound-evoked spike activity of SBCs reflects the integration of acoustically driven excitatory and inhibitory input. The inhibition specifically affects the processing of the spectral, temporal, and intensity cues of acoustic signals.
Universal and Language-specific Dependency Relations for Analysing Romanian

This paper is meant as a brief description of the Romanian syntax within the dependency framework, more specifically within the Universal Dependency (UD) framework, and is the result of a volunteer activity of mapping two independently created Romanian dependency treebanks to the UD specifications. This mapping process is not trivial, as concessions have to be made and solutions need to be found for various language specific phenomena. We highlight the specific characteristics of the UD relations in Romanian and argument the need for other relations. If they have already been defined for (an)other language(s) in the UD project, we adopt them.
Towards Controlling Lawful States and Events in Business Process Models

In enterprises it is important to control whether unlawful events occur or business objects are in unlawful states during business process execution. Existing modelling methods such as BPMN and Archi Mate do not to a full extent support description of conceivable and lawful state and event spaces that can affect execution of the process. This gap jeopardizes compliance of business process models with external and internal regulations. This paper proposes a theoretical solution for closing the gap between business process and enterprise architecture models and conceivable and lawful state and event spaces by using BWW model. BWW model is a generic framework for conceptualization of information system objects.
Composite Density Maps for Multivariate Trajectories

We consider moving objects as multivariate time-series. By visually analyzing the attributes, patterns may appear that explain why certain movements have occurred. Density maps as proposed by Scheepens et al. [25] are a way to reveal these patterns by means of aggregations of filtered subsets of trajectories. Since filtering is often not sufficient for analysts to express their domain knowledge, we propose to use expressions instead. We present a flexible architecture for density maps to enable custom, versatile exploration using multiple density fields. The flexibility comes from a script, depicted in this paper as a block diagram, which defines an advanced computation of a density field. We define six different types of blocks to create, compose, and enhance trajectories or density fields. Blocks are customized by means of expressions that allow the analyst to model domain knowledge. The versatility of our architecture is demonstrated with several maritime use cases developed with domain experts. Our approach is expected to be useful for the analysis of objects in other domains.
Mirror neurons: Enigma of the metaphysical modular brain

Mirror neurons are one of the most important discoveries in the last decade of neuroscience. These are a variety of visuospatial neurons which indicate fundamentally about human social interaction. Essentially, mirror neurons respond to actions that we observe in others. The interesting part is that mirror neurons fire in the same way when we actually recreate that action ourselves. Apart from imitation, they are responsible for myriad of other sophisticated human behavior and thought processes. Defects in the mirror neuron system are being linked to disorders like autism. This review is a brief introduction to the neurons that shaped our civilization.
Sublinear-time decremental algorithms for single-source reachability and shortest paths on directed graphs

We consider dynamic algorithms for maintaining Single-Source Reachability (SSR) and approximate Single-Source Shortest Paths (SSSP) on n-node m-edge directed graphs under edge deletions (decremental algorithms). The previous fastest algorithm for SSR and SSSP goes back three decades to Even and Shiloach (JACM 1981); it has O(1) query time and O(mn) total update time (i.e., linear amortized update time if all edges are deleted). This algorithm serves as a building block for several other dynamic algorithms. The question whether its total update time can be improved is a major, long standing, open problem. In this paper, we answer this question affirmatively. We obtain a randomized algorithm which, in a simplified form, achieves an Õ(mn0.984) expected total update time for SSR and (1 + ε)-approximate SSSP, where Õ(·) hides poly log n. We also extend our algorithm to achieve roughly the same running time for Strongly Connected Components (SCC), improving the algorithm of Roditty and Zwick (FOCS 2002), and an algorithm that improves the Õ (mn log W)-time algorithm of Bernstein (STOC 2013) for approximating SSSP on weighted directed graphs, where the edge weights are integers from 1 to W. All our algorithms have constant query time in the worst case.
Design method of MTCMOS power switch for low-voltage high-speed LSIs

The design of the power switch which turns on and off the power supply to the logic gates is essential to low-voltage high-speed circuit techniques such as multi-threshold voltage CMOS (MTCMOS). This is because this switch influences the speed, area, and power of a low-voltage LSI. This paper describes the influences of the power switch on the circuit performance in detail, and proposes a systematic method for designing a power switch which takes them into consideration for the first time. The main feature of this method, called the average-current method, is the use of the average current consumed in an LSI to determine the power-switch size. This makes it easy for designers to determine the minimum size of the power-switch needed to satisfy the required speed, which results in minimizing the area penalty and the standby power. Useful analytical formula and the practical determination flow are also described. Measurement of an actual 0.25 /spl mu/m MTCMOS/SIMOX 290-Kgate LSI operating at 1 V confirmed the effectiveness of this method. This method estimated well the required power-switch width, and as a result it reduced the area penalty and standby current by about 80% compared to the conventional design scheme.
Tier Based Anycast to Achieve Maximum Lifetime by Duty Cycle Control in Wireless Sensor Networks

In a wireless sensor network, the routing control overhead is prohibitive because mostly many nodes are involved in routing. To overcome the overhead problem, tier based anycast protocol was proposed in (Kulkarni et al., 2006). However, it has a shortcoming of using much more energy compared to other competitors of deterministic routing protocols in transmitting data packets towards the sink node. In this paper, we visited the tier based anycast protocol in depth and presented a new analytic framework by using the concept of sub-tiering. Firstly, we formulated the problem for finding an optimal duty cycle for each tier as a minimax optimization problem, and proved that the solution exists and it is unique. From the analysis results, we found that the network lifetime can be improved very much by allocating a duty cycle adaptively for each tier. Through simulations, we also confirmed that our duty cycle control algorithm increases the network lifetime by approximately 30%.
Towards Executing Dynamically Updating Finite-State Controllers on a Robot System

Modern software systems are increasingly required to run for a long time and deliver uninterrupted service. Their requirements or their environments, however, may change. Therefore, these systems must be updated dynamically, at run-time. Typical examples can be found in manufacturing, transportation, or space applications, where stopping the system to deploy updates can be difficult, costly, or simply not possible. In previous work we proposed a model-driven approach that uses automatically synthesized finite-state controllers from scenario-based assume/guarantee specifications to safely and efficiently dynamically update the system. In this paper we describe an execution infrastructure of this approach, which allows us to execute and deploy newly synthesized dynamically updating controllers on embedded devices. We present a prototype implementation in Java for Lego Mind storms robots. This experience gained can lead to a systematic approach to implement dynamic updates in the aforementioned critical software-intensive systems.
LexTOR: Lexicographic teach optimize and repeat based on user preferences

In the last years, many researchers started to consider teach-and-repeat approaches for reliable autonomous navigation. The paradigm, in all its proposed forms, is deeply rooted in the idea that the robot should autonomously follow a route that has been demonstrated by a human during a teach phase. However, human demonstrations are often inefficient in terms of execution time or may cause premature wear of the robot components due to jittery behavior or strong accelerations. In this paper, we propose the concept of teach, optimize and repeat, which introduces a trajectory optimization step between the teach and repeat phases. To address this problem, we further propose LexTOR, a constrained trajectory optimization method for teach and repeat problems, where the constraints are defined according to user preferences. At its core, LexTOR optimizes both the execution time and the trajectory smoothness in a lexicographic sense. The experiments show that LexTOR is very effective, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in terms of execution time, smoothness, accuracy and bound satisfaction.
A strategy for allowing meaningful and comparable scores in approximate matching

The goal of approximate data matching is to assess whether two distinct data instances represent the same real world object. This is usually achieved through the use of a similarity function, which returns a score that defines how similar two data instances are. If this score surpasses a given threshold, both data instances are considered as representing the same real world object. The score values returned by a similarity function depend on the algorithm that implements the function and have no meaning to the user (apart from the fact that a higher similarity value means that two data instances are more similar). In this paper, we propose that instead of defining the threshold in terms of the scores returned by a similarity function, the user specifies the precision that is expected from the matching process. Precision is a well known quality measure and has a clear interpretation from the user's point of view. Our approach relies on mapping between similarity scores and precision values based on a training data set. Experimental results show the training may be executed against a representative data set, and reused for other databases from the same domain.
A Convex Complementarity Approach for Simulating Large Granular Flows

Aiming at the simulation of dense granular flows, we propose and test a numerical method based on successive convex complementarity problems. This approach originates from a multibody description of the granular flow: all the particles are simulated as rigid bodies with arbitrary shapes and frictional contacts. Unlike the discrete element method (DEM), the proposed approach does not require small integration time steps typical of stiff particle interaction; this fact, together with the development of optimized algorithms that can run also on parallel computing architectures, allows an efficient application of the proposed methodology to granular fiows with a large number of particles. We present an application to the analysis of the refueling flow in pebble-bed nuclear reactors. Extensive validation of our method against both DEM and physical experiments results indicates that essential collective characteristics of dense granular flow are accurately predicted.
Implant-supported maxillary overdentures: outcome in planned and emergency cases.

At the Postgraduate Dental Education Center, Orebro, Sweden, maxillary implant-supported overdentures have mainly been used in either planned cases (where implants sufficient for a fixed prosthesis could not be placed) or emergency cases (originally planned for a fixed restoration but where implants lost during the healing period made such treatment impossible). Twenty-five cases were studied retrospectively. In the planned group, only two of 19 patients had lost an implant during the follow-up period with overdentures; in the emergency group, four subjects of six lost implant(s) during the same period. The total loss of implants during healing and overdenture function was 7% in the planned group and 72% in the emergency group. The curves for survival of overdentures without loss of supporting implants were significantly different (P = .00) for the planned group and the emergency group.
An empirical study of the factors affecting co-change frequency of cloned code

Code clones are duplicated code fragments that are copied to re-use functionality and speed up development. However, due to the duplicate nature of code clones, inconsistent updates can lead to defects in software system. We extend the existing studies on the inconsistent co-change characteristics, by investigating further factors that affect clone evolution. We study the effect of development cycles, the number of developers, method names similarity and code complexity. Our empirical study includes six industrial software systems to determine if the observations are statistically significant. We discover that one way to improve maintenance of code clones is to decrease code complexity. We find that increased code complexity leads to a decrease in co-change, which can lead to software defects. Likewise, we find that method name similarity is an important factor on co-change frequency of cloned code. From development cycles point of view, we observe that co-change frequency of cloned code does not change significantly from early to later and from development to defect fixing cycles. As a result, we suggest assigning a higher priority for early refactoring (i.e., within the first six months) of all cloned methods with infrequent co-change focusing on clone classes with low similarity in method names and high code complexity.
Modelling the impact of wildfire on spectral reflectance

This paper presents a method to extract information on the impact of wildfire on vegetation canopies. A simple linear model is proposed with a ‘generic’ spectral model of the impacts of wildfire on vegetation canopies. This allows a term related to the projected proportion of a pixel affected by fire (fcc) to be estimated from measurements of pre- and post-fire spectral reflectance. The properties of fcc are investigated using a hybrid radiative transfer model to simulate the impacts of wildfire in a multi-layered canopy. Spectral sampling from MODIS is assumed (7 bands). The fcc is confirmed to relate to the fractional area of a pixel affected by fire, although in multi-layer canopies it is modulated by a term dependent on the contrast between the pre-fire reflectance of areas affected by fire and those unaffected.
A Home-Based Program of Transcutaneous Electrical Nerve Stimulation and Task-Related Trunk Training Improves Trunk Control in Patients With Stroke

Background. Impaired trunk motor control is common after stroke. Combining transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) with task-related trunk training (TRTT) has been shown to enhance the recovery of lower limb motor function. Objective. This study investigated whether combining TENS with TRTT would enhance trunk control after stroke. Methods. Thirty-seven subjects with stroke were recruited into a randomized controlled clinical trial. Subjects were randomly assigned to any one of the three 6-week home-based training groups: (1) TENS + TRTT, (2) placebo TENS + TRTT, or (3) control without active training. The outcome measures included isometric peak trunk flexion torque and extension torque; forward seated and lateral seated reaching distance to the affected and unaffected side; and Trunk Impairment Scale (TIS) scores. All outcome measures were assessed at baseline, after 3 and 6 weeks of training, and 4 weeks after training ended at follow-up. Results. Both the TENS + TRTT and the placebo-TENS + TRTT groups had significantly greater improvements in isometric peak trunk flexion torque and extension torque, lateral seated reaching distance to affected and unaffected side, and TIS score than the control group after 3 weeks of training. The TENS + TRTT group had significantly greater and earlier improvement in its mean TIS score than the other 2 groups. Conclusions. Home-based TRTT is effective for improving trunk muscle strength, sitting functional reach and trunk motor control after stroke in subjects without somatosensory deficits. The addition of TENS to the trunk augments the effectiveness of the exercise in terms of TIS scores within the first 3 weeks of training.
Investigations into prosodic syllable contour features for speaker recognition

We investigate various ways of generating prosodic syllable contour features that have recently been applied to enhance systems for speaker recognition. We compare different approaches for segmentation of speech into syllable-like units, techniques for contour modeling and the extraction of pitch and energy, taking into account the computational complexity and gender dependence. We show that the performance is especially affected by the segmentation and the quality of the pitch tracking algorithm and that the features are highly gender dependent. Still, computationally simple ways of segmentation of speech can be used to achieve good results, as experiments on 2006 NIST speaker recognition evaluation task indicate.
Spatial changes in calcium signaling during the establishment of neuronal polarity and synaptogenesis

Calcium imaging techniques were used to obtain a clear although indirect evidence about the distribution of functional glutamate receptors of NMDA and non-NMDA type in cultured hippocampal neurons during establishment of polarity and synaptogenesis. Glutamate receptors were expressed and were already functional as early as one day after plating. At this stage NMDA and non-NMDA receptors were distributed in all plasmalemmal areas. During the establishment of neuronal polarity, responses to either types of glutamate receptors became restricted to the soma and dendrites. Compartmentalization of glutamate receptors occurred at stages of development when synaptic vesicles were already fully segregated to the axon. Formation of synapses was accompanied by a further redistribution of receptors, which segregated to synapse-enriched portions of dendrites. Receptor compartmentalization and dendritic redistribution as well as accumulation of synaptic vesicles at synaptic sites occurred also in neurons cultured in the presence of either the sodium channel blocker tetrodotoxin or glutamate receptor antagonists. These results indicate that signals generated by neuronal electrical activity or receptor activation are not involved in the establishment of neuronal polarity and synaptogenesis.