Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Localization of Multiple Speakers under High Reverberation using a Spherical Microphone Array and the Direct-Path Dominance Test

One of the major challenges encountered when localizing multiple speakers in real world environments is the need to overcome the effect of multipath distortion due to room reverberation. A wide range of methods has been proposed for speaker localization, many based on microphone array processing. Some of these methods are designed for the localization of coherent sources, typical of multipath environments, and some have even reported limited robustness to reverberation. Nevertheless, speaker localization under conditions of high reverberation still remains a challenging task. This paper proposes a novel multiple-speaker localization technique suitable for environments with high reverberation, based on a spherical microphone array and processing in the spherical harmonics (SH) domain. The non-stationarity and sparsity of speech, as well as frequency smoothing in the SH domain, are exploited in the development of a direct-path dominance test. This test can identify time-frequency (TF) bins that contain contributions from only one significant source and no significant contribution from room reflections, such that localization based on these selected TF-bins is performed accurately, avoiding the potential distortion due to other sources and reverberation. Computer simulations and an experiment in a real reverberant room validate the robustness of the proposed method in the presence of high reverberation .
Exploring the Effect of Organizational Dynamic Capability on Data Quality-BI Success Relationship

There is growing use of business intelligence (BI) success for better decision-making in many organizations. However, there is a lack of empirical studies on BI Success in academic research. Data Quality is of high importance to employees on every organizational level. The present research investigates Data Quality-BI Success relationship from an organizational dynamic capability perspective. Organizational dynamic capability is the ability to sense and respond to market opportunities and threats with speed, and BI can be of great use in that sensing role of organizational dynamic capability. Drawing on the dynamic capabilities framework, and literature about business intelligence and data quality, we hypothesize that BI Success and Data Quality relationship is moderated by organizational dynamic capability. A research model was developed to define the relationship of BI and Data Quality with organizational dynamic capability. Survey data were collected and used to assess the model. The results of the research show that better data quality is of significant value for organizations, as well as it can be a source of organizational dynamic capability and competitive advantage.
Efficient, adaptive and scalable device activation for M2M communications

When traffic arrives from the network for an idled mobile device, the network executes device activation procedures to wake the device up. Current device activation mechanisms are ill suited to support the expected growth of machine-to-machine (M2M) devices and traffic. We propose an adaptive device activation architecture for LTE/EPC cellular networks that adapts to network conditions and M2M application requirements to realize scalable device activation without increasing the resources used for this purpose. Our evaluation shows that our adaptive approach enables the network to handle M2M applications with a large number of devices without negatively impacting existing human-to-human (H2H) and human-to-machine (H2M) traffic.
On the Design of Linear Transceivers for Multiuser Systems with Channel Uncertainty

We consider the design of linear transceivers for multiuser communication systems in the presence of uncertain channel state information (CSI), with an emphasis on downlink systems with a single antenna at each receiver. For systems with uplink-downlink reciprocity, we consider a stochastic model for the channel uncertainty, and we propose an efficient algorithm for the joint design of the linear preceding matrix at the base station and the equalizing gains at the receivers so as to minimize the average mean-square-error (MSE) over the channel uncertainty. The design is based on a generalization, derived herein, of the MSE duality between the broadcast and multiple access channels (MAC) to scenarios with uncertain CSI, and on a convex formulation for the design of robust transceivers for the dual MAC. For systems in which quantized channel feedback is employed, we consider a deterministically-bounded model for the channel uncertainty, and we study the design of robust downlink transceivers that minimize the worst- case MSE over all admissible channels. While we show that the design problem is NP-hard, we also propose an iterative local optimization algorithm that is based on efficiently-solvable convex conic formulations. Our framework is quite flexible, and can incorporate different bounded uncertainty models as well as a variety of power constraints. In particular, we study a "system-wide" uncertainty model, and although the resulting design problem is still NP hard, it does result in a significantly simpler iterative local design algorithm than the "per-user" uncertainty model. Our approaches to the minimax design for the downlink can be extended to the uplink, and we provide explicit formulations for the resulting uplink designs. Simulation results indicate that the proposed approaches to robust linear transceiver design can significantly reduce the sensitivity of the downlink to uncertain CSI, and can provide improved performance over that of existing robust designs.
Customer Satisfaction of Online Music Services in Taiwan

Many products selling on the Internet channel include music, which also sells in brick and mortar stores and in online stores, developed from digitalized music. This study attempts to explore which influence among the service quality, content quality, and the website service quality affects the paying customers’ satisfaction, and studies the relationship of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Further, the study probes the factors of customer relationship management. The research framework is based on the customer relationship management of digital content industry model. Results revealed that privacy, system availability, service provider’s reliability, perceived enjoyment, perceived ease of use, and fulfillment significantly affects consumers’ intentions to be paid-members of online music services.
Thermally Activated, Variable Blazed Grating for Coherent Beam Steering

Abstract : The ability to perform non-mechanical optical beam steering is of critical importance in laser communication and remote sensing; it is as vital as a phased-array antenna is for RADAR. Directed energy transmission and direction-selective reception increase performance and produce tactical advantage in DoD applications. However, specific geometric features of non-mechanical beam steering devices must be designed in proportion to the wavelength of the monochromatic light to be steered. Also, the ability to handle higher energies by reducing the energy per unit requires large areas of uniform properties on the micrometer scale. These challenges have been addressed in the past using liquid crystals (LC) to produce a peak steering angle of 4 degrees, albeit limited by problems due to the fringing field effect. Recent advances in micro-fabrication techniques, including the synthesis and manipulation of certain electro- and thermo-optic materials, hold new opportunities for efficient beam steering solutions. The objective of this thesis research is to demonstrate thermally controllable beam steering, and enable further investigation of efficiency and response time and their dependence on geometry. The design, fabrication and performance of such a thermally-activated, nonmechanical beam steering device is demonstrated for the first time herein. The elastomeric media, polydimethlyoxane (PDMS), was used as the active, phase-controlling agent. Its temperature-dependent index of refraction was employed in a reflection-mode device by depositing it on a stair-step-approximated, blazed grating. The periodic nature of the device contains the reflected beam within discrete, angular orders. The proofof- concept device is modeled, tested and analyzed to explain its observed performance. Angular control of up to 1.2 degrees has been experimentally demonstrated. This approach promises simplicity of design and fabrication without thelarger,
Advances in Genetic Manipulation of Obligate Intracellular Bacterial Pathogens

Infections by obligate intracellular bacterial pathogens result in significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. These bacteria include Chlamydia spp. , which causes millions of cases of sexually transmitted disease and blinding trachoma annually, and members of the α-proteobacterial genera Anaplasma, Ehrlichia, Orientia, and Rickettsia, agents of serious human illnesses including epidemic typhus. Coxiella burnetii, the agent of human Q fever, has also been considered a prototypical obligate intracellular bacterium, but recent host cell-free (axenic) growth has rescued it from obligatism. The historic genetic intractability of obligate intracellular bacteria has severely limited molecular dissection of their unique lifestyles and virulence factors involved in pathogenesis. Host cell restricted growth is a significant barrier to genetic transformation that can make simple procedures for free-living bacteria, such as cloning, exceedingly difficult. Low transformation efficiency requiring long-term culture in host cells to expand small transformant populations is another obstacle. Despite numerous technical limitations, the last decade has witnessed significant gains in genetic manipulation of obligate intracellular bacteria including allelic exchange. Continued development of genetic tools should soon enable routine mutation and complementation strategies for virulence factor discovery and stimulate renewed interest in these refractory pathogens. In this review, we discuss the technical challenges associated with genetic transformation of obligate intracellular bacteria and highlight advances made with individual genera.
A Semi-Distributed Axiomatic Game Theoretical Mechanism for Replicating Data Objects in Large Distributed Computing Systems

Replicating data objects onto servers across a system can alleviate access delays. The selection of data objects and servers requires solving a constraint optimization problem, which is NP-complete in general. A majority of conventional replica placement techniques falter on issues of scalability or solution quality. To counteract such issues, we propose a game theoretical replica placement technique, in which computational agents compete for the allocation or reallocation of replicas onto their servers in order to reduce the user perceived access delays. The technique is based upon six well-defined axioms, each guaranteeing certain basic game theoretical properties. This eccentric method of designing game theoretical techniques using axioms is unique in the literature and takes away from the designers the cumbersome mathematical details of game theory. The distinctive feature of these axioms is that when amassed together, their individual properties constrict into one system-wide performance enhancement property, which in our case is the reduction of access time. The control of the proposed technique is "semi-distributed" in nature, wherein all the heavy processing is done on the servers of the distributed system and the central body is only required to take a binary decision: (0) not to replicate or (1) to replicate. This semi-distributed approach makes the technique scalable and helps solutions to converge in a fast turn-around time without loosing much of the solution quality. Experimental comparisons are made against: 1) branch and bound, 2) greedy, 3) genetic, 4) Dutch auction, and 5) English auction. As attested by the results, the proposed technique maintains superior solution quality in terms of lower communication cost and reduced execution time.
Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs request parity with Helicobacter pylori

OBJECTIVE A matched case-control study was conducted in a population of Spanish children and adolescents (5-18 years old), to assess the interaction between the Gln27Glu polymorphism of the ADRB2 and television (TV) watching on obesity risk. PATIENTS Obese (n=165) and control subjects (n=165) matched by sex and age were recruited and classified according to Spanish reference data. Results. Using conditional logistic regression, we calculated the obesity risk linked to the polymorphism. A statistically significant association was found for 27Glu carrier allele girls (OR = 1.95; 95% CI = 1.02-3.70), but no association was apparent among boys. In the fully adjusted model, the odds ratio for obesity linked to the genotype Glu27Glu in the female population rose to 4.84 (95% CI = 1.37-17.10). Moreover, we found a significant negative interaction between hours of TV watching and the Gln27Glu polymorphism for obesity risk in girls. Surprisingly, among 27Glu carrier subjects, even girls with a low level of TV watching ( < 12.5 h/week) had a high obesity risk (OR = 4.60; 95% CI = 1.01-20.02), which was not very different to the odds ratio values for sedentary girls carrying the 27 Glu allele watching TV more than 12.5 h/week (OR = 6.05; 95% CI = 1.31-27.71). Conclusion. A higher risk of obesity was found for girls carrying the 27Glu allele of the ADRB2 gene even when they spent less than 12.5 h/week watching TV. In addition, our results suggest that the effect of sedentary lifestyle on obesity risk may depend on the genotype of the subject.
Huntingtin Is Required for Epithelial Polarity through RAB11A-Mediated Apical Trafficking of PAR3-aPKC

The establishment of apical-basolateral polarity is important for both normal development and disease, for example, during tumorigenesis and metastasis. During this process, polarity complexes are targeted to the apical surface by a RAB11A-dependent mechanism. Huntingtin (HTT), the protein that is mutated in Huntington disease, acts as a scaffold for molecular motors and promotes microtubule-based dynamics. Here, we investigated the role of HTT in apical polarity during the morphogenesis of the mouse mammary epithelium. We found that the depletion of HTT from luminal cells in vivo alters mouse ductal morphogenesis and lumen formation. HTT is required for the apical localization of PAR3-aPKC during epithelial morphogenesis in virgin, pregnant, and lactating mice. We show that HTT forms a complex with PAR3, aPKC, and RAB11A and ensures the microtubule-dependent apical vesicular translocation of PAR3-aPKC through RAB11A. We thus propose that HTT regulates polarized vesicular transport, lumen formation and mammary epithelial morphogenesis.
Research on the Content of Binder in Pattenless Casting Manufacturing Technique

The patternless casting manufacturing (PCM) technique adopted two nozzles to spray the binder and the curing agent separately into the dry sand under the control of a computer. In the PCM technique, the resin content of sand mold is mostly determined the quality of the final casts. In this paper the content of the binder droplets in sand particles is analyzed in detail. Thus it provides the theoretical basis for these process parameters such as scanning speed, layer thickness and so on. The results of experiments well verify the analysis.
Characterizing individual user behaviors in wlans

Modeling and analysis of wireless traffic is fundamental to traffic engineering and resource management. The majority of existing work in this arena has focused on modeling/analyzing aggregate traffic, and little has been done in modeling/analyzing wireless traffic at the per-user level. In this paper, we bridge the gap and perform a detailed analysis and modeling on the traffic generated by individual wireless users, leveraging the data traces collected in a period of 4 months (November 2003 - February 2004) on the Dartmouth campus-wide 802.11 WLANs. Our study indicates that several parameters that characterize the wireless traffic generated by individual users are predictable, such as the traffic volume originating from a user and destined for a specific IP address, the set of destination IP addresses (for which connections initiated by a user are destined), and the patterns by which a wireless user connects to applications. We also model the per-connection traffic volume, the duration, and the interarrival time, of connections issued by a user using Weibull or Pareto distributions, and show that the burstiness of aggregate wireless traffic (which has been reported in the literature) is a direct consequence of the burstiness of the burstiness of traffic generated by individual users. These findings can be used to optimize traffic and resource management and provide better QoS (in terms of availability, resiliency, and performance).
An Analytical Method for the Planning of Robust Assembly Tasks of Complex Shaped Planar Parts

The paper addresses the automatic assembly of planar parts with complex geometry. Its main focus is on the automatic generation and parameterization of the assembly sequence, which should provide maximal robustness with respect to positioning errors of the robot and residual position uncertainties of vision based object localization. The assembly utilizes active or passive compliance of the robot in order to align the parts automatically. Success of the automatic alignment, i.e., the convergence of the assembly process can be guaranteed using the means of regions of attraction (ROA). The planning optimizes the assembly trajectories and parameters in such a way that the ROA is maximized for a given part geometry. For the convergence analysis, passivity properties of the robot and the environment are used. The method is validated through extensive experiments and can be successfully applied also for the automated assembly planning with passive compliance devices, as widely used today in industrial automation.
APLIKASI FILTER KERAMIK BERBASIS TANAH LIAT ALAM DAN ZEOLIT PADA PENGOLAHAN AIR LIMBAH HASIL PROSES LAUNDRY

Abstract Ceramic filters made of natural clay and zeolite were used to treat the efluent from laundry industry in Palembang. The pretreatment process using silica and active carbon was applied to the samples prior feed to the ceramic filter. Process variables studied were operating time and the filters composition. Parameters analyzed were TDS (Total Dissolved Solid), pH, EC (Electrical Conductivity), COD (Chemical Oxygen Demand), BOD (Biological Oxygen Demand) and the concentration of LAS (Linear Alkylbenzene Sulphonate). The results showed that ceramic filters combined with silica and activated carbon can reduce the LAS concentration in detergent wastewater up-to 97%. Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images shows that filter could be categorized as microfiltration filter with random porous structures.
New York University 2012 System for KBP Slot Filling

This paper describes the New York University 2012 system for the KBP regular slot filling (SF) task. The NYU 2012 SF system has a similar architecture to the NYU 2011 system. We improved our distant-supervision based slot-filling component with a few techniques including filtering errors by statistical measures collected from the source corpus, and relabeling erroneous training examples with a set of maximum entropy models and by applying bootstrapped/hand-coded patterns. We also augmented our query expansion procedure. After the formal evaluation we experimented with models for estimating slot confidence. We report on the impact of these changes.
AFM-mapped nanoscale absorber-driven laser damage in UV high-reflector multilayers

Submicrometer lateral-size craters that develop independently of the presence of micron-scale growth nodules and whose number density follows the intensity profile of the full laser beam are the dominant laser-damage features in 351-nm high-reflector production coatings on the University of Rochester's 60-beam OMEGA laser. Coupled with the observation that the smallest measured damage craters allow for initiating absorber sizes not larger than 10 nm, the experimental evidence points toward randomly distributed nano-cluster absorbers as the sources for energy transfer from the optical field to the porous film medium.
An efficient and provably secure public key encryption scheme based on coding theory

Although coding-based public key encryption schemes such as McEliece and Niederreiter cryptosystems have been well studied, it is not a trivial task to design an efficient coding-based cryptosystem with semantic security against adaptive chosen ciphertext attacks (IND-CCA2). To tackle this challenging issue, in this paper, we first propose an efficient IND-CCA2-secure public key encryption scheme based on coding theory. We then use the provable security technique to formally prove the security of the proposed scheme is tightly related to the syndrome decoding (SD) problem in the random oracle model. Compared with the previously reported schemes, the proposed scheme is merited with simple construction and fast encryption speed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Correlation of size and photoluminescence of single CdSe/ZnS quantum dots

In this thesis the correlation between size and emission wavelength of single CdSe/ZnS quantum dots (QDs) has been studied. Based on the quantum confinement model QDs of different size emit light of different wavelength. In order to characterize individual QDs, experiments were carried out using a high-resolution atomic force microscope (AFM) placed on top of an inverted optical microscope. The quantum dots were exited with a high-power diode laser (405 nm) and the spectral response was recorded with a CCD camera attached to a spectrometer. Samples with two different average-sized QDs exhibiting photoluminescence maximum at 600 and 621 nm were prepared by spin-coating a highly diluted QD/toluene solution on cleaned glass cover slides. The results of this thesis verify the theoretical prediction and show on single particle level that with decreasing QD size the emission energy increases.
Joint exploration of architectural and physical design spaces with thermal consideration

Heat is a main concern for processors in deep sub-micron technologies. The chip temperature is affected by both the power consumption of processor components and the chip layout. Therefore, for thermal-aware design it is crucial to consider the thermal effects of different floorplans during micro-architectural design space exploration. In this paper, we propose a thermal-aware architectural floorplanning framework. With the aid of this framework, an architect can explore both physical and architectural design spaces simultaneously to find an architecture and the corresponding chip layout that maximizes performance under a thermal limitation.
AP-4, a Novel Protein Complex Related to Clathrin Adaptors*

Here we report the identification and characterization of AP-4, a novel protein complex related to the heterotetrameric AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3 adaptors that mediate protein sorting in the endocytic and late secretory pathways. The key to the identification of this complex was the cloning and sequencing of two widely expressed, mammalian cDNAs encoding new homologs of the adaptor β and ς subunits named β4 and ς4, respectively. An antibody to β4 recognized in human cells an ∼83-kDa polypeptide that exists in both soluble and membrane-associated forms. Gel filtration, sedimentation velocity, and immunoprecipitation experiments revealed that β4 is a component of a multisubunit complex (AP-4) that also contains the ς4 polypeptide and two additional adaptor subunit homologs named μ4 (μ-ARP2) and ε. Immunofluorescence analyses showed that AP-4 is associated with the trans-Golgi network or an adjacent structure and that this association is sensitive to the drug brefeldin A. We propose that, like the related AP-1, AP-2, and AP-3 complexes, AP-4 plays a role in signal-mediated trafficking of integral membrane proteins in mammalian cells.