Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Modelling of the electrode-auditory nerve fibre interface in cochlear prostheses

The objective of this thesis is to provide additional insight into the electrode arraynerve fibre interface that exists in the implanted cochlea and to facilitate investigation of new electrode arrays in interaction with the cochlea and auditory nerve fibres. The focus is on potential distributions and excitation profiles generated by different electrode array types and factors that could have an influence on these distributions and profiles. Research contributions made by the thesis are the creation of a detailed 3-D model of the implanted cochlea that accurately predicts measurable effects in cochlear implant wearers and facilitates effortless simulation of existing and new electrode array variations; the establishment of the important anatomical structures required in a 3-D representation of the implanted cochlea; establishment of evidence that array location is the primary parameter that controls spread of excitation; definition of the critical focussing intensity of intracochlear electrode pairs; confirmation that University of Pretoria etd
Cross-Dialect Adaptation Framework for Constructing Prosodic Models for Chinese Dialect Text-to-Speech Systems

This paper presents an efficient cross-dialect adaptation framework for constructing prosodic models for Chinese dialect text-to-speech systems. In this framework, dialect prosodic models are adapted from an existing Mandarin speaking rate-dependent hierarchical prosodic model. The rationale of the framework is based on the cross-dialectal similarities between Mandarin and other Chinese dialects in terms of syntactic and prosodic structures. Two main problems are addressed in this study: One problem pertains to the use of cross-dialectal similarities in the design and adaptation of the dialect speaking rate-dependent hierarchical prosodic model. The other problem pertains to the data sparseness caused by the insufficiency of an adaptation corpus covering essential linguistic contexts and prosodic events as well as a wide speaking rate range. This problem is solved by employing the structural maximum a posteriori method that hierarchically organizes the dialect speaking rate-dependent hierarchical prosodic model parameters into decision trees to facilitate parameter estimations. The effectiveness of the proposed approach was evaluated by experiments on two Chinese dialects: Min and Hakka. Objective and subjective evaluations demonstrated that the prosodic features generated by the dialect speaking rate-dependent hierarchical prosodic models were quite natural in various speaking rates ranging from 3.3 to 6.7 syllables per second. These results confirm that the proposed cross-dialect adaptation framework is effective and promising.
Differential Maturation of GABA Action and Anion Reversal Potential in Spinal Lamina I Neurons: Impact of Chloride Extrusion Capacity

A deficit in inhibition in the spinal dorsal horn has been proposed to be an underlying cause of the exaggerated cutaneous sensory reflexes observed in newborn rats. However, the developmental shift in transmembrane anion gradient, potentially affecting the outcome of GABAA transmission, was shown to be completed within 1 week after birth in the spinal cord, an apparent disparity with the observation that reflex hypersensitivity persists throughout the first 2-3 postnatal weeks. To further investigate this issue, we used several approaches to assess the action of GABA throughout development in spinal lamina I (LI) neurons. GABA induced an entry of extracellular calcium in LI neurons from postnatal day 0 (P0) to P21 rats, which involved T- and N-type voltage-gated calcium channels. Gramicidin perforated-patch recordings revealed that the shift in anion gradient was completed by P7 in LI neurons. However, high chloride pipette recordings demonstrated that these neurons had not reached their adult chloride extrusion capacity by P10-P11. Simultaneous patch-clamp recordings and calcium imaging revealed that biphasic responses to GABA, consisting of a primary hyperpolarization followed by a rebound depolarization, produced a rise in [Ca2+]i. Thus, even if Eanion predicts GABAA-induced hyperpolarization from rest, a low chloride extrusion capacity can cause a rebound depolarization and an ensuing rise in [Ca2+]i. We demonstrate that GABA action in LI neurons matures throughout the first 3 postnatal weeks, therefore matching the time course of maturation of withdrawal reflexes. Immature spinal GABA signaling may thus contribute to the nociceptive hypersensitivity in infant rats.
A unified latent factor correction scheme for collaborative filtering

Collaborative filtering is the most popular technique to ease the information overload issue in the field of recommender system. The nearest neighbor based method and the latent factor based model are two widely used collaborative filtering methods. In order to benefit from both approaches, some researchers have proposed strategies to combine them, and the combinations have been shown to obtain more accurate results, especially during the Netflix competition. However, the unified scheme, which uses the neighborhood information to correct the learnt latent factors, is not well researched. In this paper, we generalize a novel unified scheme by correcting the latent features of users and items with the neighborhood information to boost the recommendations. We further elaborate several state-of-the-art latent factor models and some relationship integrating strategies into the proposed scheme. Finally, we conduct several series of experiments to compare the performance of different methods and latent factor based models within the unified scheme, and conclude with some suggestions in deploying the recommender systems.
Wireless Adhoc Networks in the Metropolitan / Wide Area : Concepts and First Results

– This paper is dedicated to on-going research activities in the field of wireless metropolitan and wide area networks with Quality-of-Service (QoS) guarantees. We focus on self-organizing systems, so-called adhoc networks, which can operate without any wired infrastructure (e.g. cellular base stations) – except for some interface points providing interconnectivity to other networks like the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) or the Internet. Obviously, the lack of a wired back-bone network implicates that routing, signalling and other management functions must be handled completely over the air in a self-organizing manner. Key-Words:– Adhoc Networking, Radio Resource Management, Synchronization, IEEE 802.11
Optimization of Tree Modes for Parallel Hash Functions: A Case Study

This paper focuses on parallel hash functions based on tree modes of operation for an inner Variable-Input-Length function. This inner function can be either a single-block-length (SBL) and prefix-free MD hash function, or a sponge-based hash function. We discuss the various forms of optimality that can be obtained when designing parallel hash functions based on trees where all leaves have the same depth. The first result is a scheme which optimizes the tree topology in order to decrease the running time. Then, without affecting the optimal running time we show that we can slightly change the corresponding tree topology so as to minimize the number of required processors as well. Consequently, the resulting scheme decreases in the first place the running time and in the second place the number of required processors.
Lepidosaurian diversity in the Mesozoic–Palaeogene: the potential roles of sampling biases and environmental drivers

Lepidosauria is a speciose clade with a long evolutionary history, but there have been few attempts to explore its taxon richness through time. Here we estimate patterns of terrestrial lepidosaur genus diversity for the Triassic–Palaeogene (252–23 Ma), and compare observed and sampling-corrected richness curves generated using Shareholder Quorum Subsampling and classical rarefaction. Generalized least-squares regression (GLS) is used to investigate the relationships between richness, sampling and environmental proxies. We found low levels of richness from the Triassic until the Late Cretaceous (except in the Kimmeridgian–Tithonian of Europe). High richness is recovered for the Late Cretaceous of North America, which declined across the K–Pg boundary but remained relatively high throughout the Palaeogene. Richness decreased following the Eocene–Oligocene Grande Coupure in North America and Europe, but remained high in North America and very high in Europe compared to the Late Cretaceous; elsewhere data are lacking. GLS analyses indicate that sampling biases (particularly, the number of fossil collections per interval) are the best explanation for long-term face-value genus richness trends. The lepidosaur fossil record presents many problems when attempting to reconstruct past diversity, with geographical sampling biases being of particular concern, especially in the Southern Hemisphere.
Generating structure of latent variable models for nested data

Probabilistic latent variable models have been successfully used to capture intrinsic characteristics of various data. However, it is nontrivial to design appropriate models for given data because it requires both machine learning and domain-specific knowledge. In this paper, we focus on data with nested structure and propose a method to automatically generate a latent variable model for the given nested data, with the proposed method, the model structure is adjustable by its structural parameters. Our model can represent a wide class of hierarchical and sequential latent variable models including mixture models, latent Dirichlet allocation, hidden Markov models and their combinations in multiple layers of the hierarchy. Even when deeply-nested data are given, where designing a proper model is difficult even for experts, our method generate an appropriate model by extracting the essential information. We present an efficient variational inference method for our model based on dynamic programming on the given data structure. We experimentally show that our method generates correct models from artificial datasets and demonstrate that models generated by our method can extract hidden structures of blog and news article datasets.
A pruning method of joint 2D digital predistortion model for nonlinearity and I/Q imperfections in concurrent dual-band transmitters

In this paper, we propose a new method to prune the joint 2D digital predistortion (2D-DPD) model for concurrent dual-band transmitter where in-phase and quadrature (I/Q) imbalance and local oscillator (LO) leakage often exist. The phenomenon of over compensation of the DPD model is found if too many terms in the DPD model are adopted. Thus redundant polynomial terms are removed in order to solve this problem, and meanwhile, to reduce the model complexity. Then the proposed model is evaluated on a 10W inverse class-F power amplifier operating at 940 MHz excited by two concurrent signals with center separation of 61.44MHz, in the presence of I/Q modulator imperfections. The experiment compares linearization performance and model complexity of the proposed model with other state-of-the-art models. It is shown to have the advantage of reducing the model complexity and avoiding the over compensation problem effectively, and the proposed method produces good performance on linearization and spectral regrowth suppression.
Efficient, high-power operation of CW Yb:YAG and Q-switched Nd:YAG planar waveguide lasers

The planar waveguide gain medium offers a good approach to creating a highpower lasers. Excellent thermal properties allow for lasers with good beam-quality and high-efficiency. A Neodymium doped YAG planar waveguide laser was actively Q-switched using a hybrid unstable resonator and acousto-optic modulator. A Ytterbium doped YAG planar waveguide laser was side-pumped using two laser diode stacks with a total of 800 W incident pump power. The Nd:YAG planar waveguide laser has a core 200 μm thick and was face pumped with ten laser diode bars. Q-switching was achieved through the use of a new hybrid unstable resonator configuration providing high-speed modulation of the laser cavity. The laser produced 100 W of average power with a pulse repetition rate of 100 kHz, giving 1 mJ pulses with 50 ns duration. Shorter 15 ns pulses were achieved with 4.5 mJ pulse energy at lower pulse repetition rates. The Yb:YAG planar waveguide laser has a 150 μm core thickness, side pumped by two 430 W, six-bar diode laser stacks. Each diode stack has a custom phaseplate, correcting for collimation errors and lens aberrations. These gave a line focus matching the dimensions of the waveguide core with an incident intensity on each side of approximately 22 kWcm−2. Ray tracing of spontaneous emission within the waveguide core shows side facet angles of 7◦ and 20◦ were required to minimise ASE and parasitic oscillations within the waveguide core. A technique to image the fluorescence from the Yb:YAG waveguide core has been developed. This technique allows for easy alignment of the pump lasers to the waveguide core and measurement of the pump intensity profile throughout the planar waveguide. This technique showed single-sided pumping to follow Beer’s law, and with double-sided pumping considerably improved the pump uniformity. A diode laser probe was used to measure the gain present within the waveguide. The small signal gain coefficient was shown to be 1 cm−1 with a uniform profile across the width of the waveguide when pumped to saturation. This highlights the potential of operating the planar waveguide laser as an efficient amplifier. High-power high-efficiency operation of the Yb:YAG planar waveguide laser was achieved through the use of a hybrid stable waveguide resonator. Output power of 400 W was extracted in a multi-mode beam with a slope efficiency of 75%. This result represents the highest output power from a diode-pumped solid-state planar waveguide laser to date.
The Polar Express: Copyright restrictions prevent ACM from providing the full text for this work.

Narrators 1-8 Narrator 1: On Christmas Eve, many years ago, I lay quietly in my bed. I did not rustle the sheets. I breathed slowly and silently. I was listening for a sound-a sound a friend had told me I'd never hear-ringing bells of Santa's sleigh. Narrator 2 There's no Santa Narrator 3: my friend insisted, but I knew he was wrong. Late that night I did hear the sounds, though not of ringing bells. Narrator 4: From outside came the sounds of hissing steam and squeaking metal. I looked through my window and saw a train standing perfectly still in from of my house. Narrator 5: It was wrapped in an apron of steam. Snowflakes fell lightly around it. A conductor stood at the open door of one of the cars. Narrator 6: He took large pocket watch from his vest, then looked up at my window. I put on my slippers and robe. I tiptoed downstairs and out the door. Narrator 4: I took his outstretched hand and he pulled me aboard. Narrator 5: The train was filled with other children, all in their pajamas and nightgowns. We sang Christmas carols and ate candies with nougat centers as white as snow. Narrator 6: We drank hot cocoa as thick and rich as melted chocolate bars. Outside the lights of towns and villages flickered in the distance as the Polar Express raced northward. Narrator 7: Soon there were no more lights to be seen. We traveled through cold, dark forests where lean wolves roamed and white tailed rabbits hid from our train as it thundered through the quiet wilderness.
Spinal Mechanisms of Pain Control

ObjectivesTo demonstrate initial results using Khan Kinetic Treatment (KKT) as a chronic neck pain treatment and to present pain control mechanistic theory on which the treatment is based. MethodsA self-reported functional assessment, neck pain questionnaire, and pain medication dose were used as outcome measures for 44 matched patients randomly split into 2 groups (“treatment” and “control”). The treatment group underwent a treatment period consisting of several individual KKT treatments, whereas the control group continued conventional therapy. ResultsCompared with a control group, the treatment group lowered both their self-recorded neck pain scores (P=0.012) and pain medication dose (P=0.048), although current functional assessment questionnaires (range of motion, overall activity, and recreation/work activities) did not detect changes (P=0.233, 0.311, and 0.472, respectively). DiscussionWe address the theory of the pain control mechanisms of the device in detail. Although we await randomized placebo controlled trials and additional results from ongoing mechanistic studies, initial results show that KKT is potentially an effective treatment for chronic neck pain and may contribute to the reduction of pain relieving medication.
AIDA: Web Agents in Dental Treatment Planning

The objective of the AIDA project (Artificial Intelligent Dental Agents, http://aida.uni-hd.de) is the analysis of dental decision-making, the design of a computer-based decision support system, as well as the testing of the decision structure in interactions with dental experts, practicing dentists, and patients. The planning of the solution alternatives for an individual patient is based on a top-down structure for dental decision-making, aiming at a standardization of the argumentation. From a theoretical point of view, decision support can be provided only for anticipated decisions (planning). Moreover, only parts of these anticipated decisions can be supported. Accordingly, a separation of these partial aspects has to take place before one is able to build decision support systems. For prosthetic dentistry, clinicians have been shown how to use individual patient findings to sketch the possible treatment alternatives and later derive guidelines for the treatment. The planning module for fixed prostheses has already been integrated into a software agent. Planning modules for other types of prostheses are currently specified, implemented, and verified.
Neuropeptide receptors provide a signalling pathway for trigeminal modulation of olfactory transduction

The mammalian olfactory epithelium contains olfactory receptor neurons and trigeminal sensory endings. The former mediate odor detection, the latter the detection of irritants. The two apparently parallel chemosensory systems are in reality interdependent in various well‐documented ways. Psychophysical studies have shown that virtually all odorants can act as irritants, and that most irritants have an odor. Thus, the sensory perception of odorants and irritants is based on simultaneous input from the two systems. Moreover, functional interactions between the olfactory system and the trigeminal system exist on both peripheral and central levels. Here we examine the impact of trigeminal stimulation on the odor response of olfactory receptor neurons. Using an odorant with low trigeminal potency (phenylethyl alcohol) and a non‐odorous irritant (CO2), we have explored this interaction in psychophysical experiments with human subjects and in electroolfactogram (EOG) recordings from rats. We have demonstrated that simultaneous activation of the trigeminal system attenuates the perception of odor intensity and distorts the EOG response. On the molecular level, we have identified a route for this cross‐modal interaction. The neuropeptide calcitonin‐gene related peptide (CGRP), which is released from trigeminal sensory fibres upon irritant stimulation, inhibits the odor response of olfactory receptor neurons. CGRP receptors expressed by these neurons mediate this neuromodulatory effect. This study demonstrates a site of trigeminal–olfactory interaction in the periphery. It reveals a pathway for trigeminal impact on olfactory signal processing that influences odor perception.
Three phase tooth-concentrated interspersed windings with low space harmonic content

The paper presents a new possibility of obtaining lower space harmonic content for the fractional-slot, tooth-concentrated windings by interspersing the phase windings. By using multiple layer windings it is possible to reduce or even to cancel some space sub-harmonics having as final result lower eddy current losses induced by the armature reaction in the iron structure of the rotor. The general method of multiplying the winding and relatively shifting by one (or more) slots is presented in the paper. The application of the method is developed for the general case of the windings having Z=2p±1 where, instead of double layers winding, the partial three or even four layers winding is obtained. The example of application is given for 15 slots, 14 poles, three phase concentrated windings which is presented and analyzed as primitive windings.
Analytic drawing of 3D scaffolds

We describe a novel approach to inferring 3D curves from perspective drawings in an interactive design tool. Our methods are based on a traditional design drawing style known as analytic drawing, which supports precise image-space construction of a linear 3D scaffold. This scaffold in turn acts as a set of visual constraints for sketching 3D curves. We implement analytic drawing techniques in a pure-inference sketching interface which supports both single-and multi-view incremental construction of complex scaffolds and curve networks. A new representation of 3D drawings is proposed, and useful interactive drawing aids are described. Novel techniques are presented for deriving constraints from single-view sketches drawn relative to the current 3D scaffold, and then inferring 3D line and curve geometry which satisfies these constraints. The resulting analytic drawing tool allows 3D drawings to be constructed using exactly the same strokes as one would make on paper.
Smart Business Services via Consumer Purchasing Behaviour Modeling

Provision of active and personalized services relies on the understanding of individual behaviour. In this study, a broad spectrum of online purchasing scenarios was analyzed in order to define a general model termed the Consumer Behaviour Model (CBM). Contexts, including purchase activities, environmental data, etc., so-called big data, are important sources for extracting the characteristics of consumers, contributing to the growth of CBM. This research proposes a framework which includes a data mining engine and a knowledge fusion engine for the continuous extraction of customer purchasing behaviour. Moreover, an open platform has been designed for facilitating access to CBM by third-party applications. In this paper, two consumer purchasing scenarios are posited along with an illustration of how the Consumer Behaviour Model grows accordingly.
Effects of aluminum additions to gas atomized reaction synthesis produced oxide dispersion strengthened alloys

xiii CHAPTER 1: Introduction 1 Thesis Organization 1 Purpose of Study 1 CHAPTER 2: Advanced Ultra Supercritical Coal-Fired Power Plants 4 United States Energy Statistics 4 Coal Power Plants 5 Material Considerations 10 Oxidation Resistance 12 CHAPTER 3: Oxide Dispersion Strengthening (ODS) 16 Dispersion Strengthening 16 Strong Obstacles 17 Weak Obstacles 22 CHAPTER 4: Ferritic Oxide Dispersion Strengthened Alloys 26 Mechanical Alloying 26 GARS Processing 30