Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Design of speech corpus for text-to-speech synthesis

This paper deals with the design of a speech corpus for a concatenation-based text-to-speech (TTS) synthesis. Several aspects of the design process are discussed here. We propose a sentence selection algorithm to choose sentences (from a large text corpus) which will be read and stored in a speech corpus. The selected sentences should include all possible triphones in a sufficient number of occurrences. Some notes on recording the speech are also discussed to ensure a quality speech corpus. As some popular speech synthesis techniques require knowing the moments of principal excitation of vocal tract during the speech, pitch-mark detection is also a subject of our attention. Several automatic pitch-mark detection methods are discussed here and a comparison test is performed to find out the best method.
Combination of acoustic models in continuous speech recognition hybrid systems

The combination of multiple sources of information has been an attractive approach in different areas. That is the case of speech recognition area where several combination methods have been presented. Our hybrid MLP/HMM systems use acoustic models based on different set of features and different MLP classiﬁer structures. In this work we developed a method combining phoneme probabilities generated by the different acoustic models trained on distinct feature extraction processes. Two different algorithms were implemented for combining the acoustic models probabilities. The ﬁrst covers the combination in the probability domain and the second one in the log-probability domain. We made combinations of two and three alternative baseline systems where was possible to obtain relative improve-ments on word error rate larger than 20% for a large vocabulary speaker independent continuous speech recognition task.
Low-Mass X-Ray Binary as the Progenitor of PSR J1713 + 0747

We have calculated the evolution of low-mass X-ray binaries that leads to the formation of the binary radio pulsars like PSR J1713+0747. We show that the mass transfer is most likely to be nonconservative, due to unstable disk accretion, to account for the mass of PSR J1713+0747, which is close to its initial value. We assume that part of the lost material from the binary may form a circumbinary disk, and find that it can significantly influence the mass transfer processes. We briefly discuss the implications of the circumbinary disks on the evolution of low-mass X-ray binaries and the formation of low-mass binary pulsars.
State Misallocation and Housing Prices: Theory and Evidence from China

This paper examines the equilibrium price effects of the privatization of housing assets that were previously owned and allocated by the state. I develop a theoretical framework that shows that privatization can have ambiguous effects on prices in the private market, and tha the degree of misallocation of the assets prior to privatization determines the subsequent price effects. I test the predictions of the model using a large-scale housing reform in China. The results suggest that the removal of price distortions allowed households to increase their consumption of housing and led to an increase in equilibrium housing prices. (JEL L33, O18, P25, R31, R38)
Frequency analysis and sheared reconstruction for rendering motion blur

Motion blur is crucial for high-quality rendering, but is also very expensive. Our first contribution is a frequency analysis of motion-blurred scenes, including moving objects, specular reflections, and shadows. We show that motion induces a shear in the frequency domain, and that the spectrum of moving scenes can be approximated by a wedge. This allows us to compute adaptive space-time sampling rates, to accelerate rendering. For uniform velocities and standard axis-aligned reconstruction, we show that the product of spatial and temporal bandlimits or sampling rates is constant, independent of velocity. Our second contribution is a novel sheared reconstruction filter that is aligned to the first-order direction of motion and enables even lower sampling rates. We present a rendering algorithm that computes a sheared reconstruction filter per pixel, without any intermediate Fourier representation. This often permits synthesis of motion-blurred images with far fewer rendering samples than standard techniques require.
A novel frequency reconfigurable monopole antenna using PIN diode for WLAN/WIMAX applications

A frequency reconfigurable microstrip monopole antenna for WLAN/WiMax applications is proposed in this paper. The antenna uses three PIN diodes for the aim of achieving frequency reconfigurability. By switching the state of PIN diodes, the antenna is capable of operating at four different frequency bands with the center resonant frequencies of 2.4 Ghz, 3.3 GHz, 5.1 GHz and 5.6 GHz. The radiation pattern of the antenna is similar at all configurations. In different switching states, the antenna operates in single band mode. The dimension parameters of the antenna are calculated using some theoretical formula, simulated and optimized using CST software. The results in dimension parameter between calculating and simulating are relatively the same. The antenna is fabricated on FR4 substrate with a size of 40 X 30 mm, a thickness of 1.6 mm, and the relative permittivity of 4.4. A good agreement has been observed between the resonate frequency of measurement and simulation.
Transferring Frames: Utilization of Linked Lexical Resources

In our experiment, we evaluate the transferability of frames from Swedish to Finnish in parallel corpora. We evaluate both the theoretical possibility of transferring frames and the possibility of performing it using available lexical resources. We add the frame information to an extract of the Swedish side of the Kotus and JRC-Acquis corpora using an automatic frame labeler and copy it to the Finnish side. We focus on evaluating the results to get an estimation on how often the parallel sentences can be said to express the same frame. This sheds light on the questions: Are the same situations in the two languages expressed using different frames, i.e. are the frames transferable even in theory? How well can the frame information of running text be transferred from one language to another?
Onset of the spring bloom in the northwestern Mediterranean Sea: influence of environmental pulse events on the in situ hourly-scale dynamics of the phytoplankton community structure

Most of phytoplankton influence is barely understood at the sub meso scale and daily scale because of the lack of means to simultaneously assess phytoplankton functionality, dynamics and community structure. For a few years now, it has been possible to address this objective with an automated in situ high frequency sampling strategy. In order to study the influence of environmental short-term events (nutrients, wind speed, precipitation, solar radiation, temperature, and salinity) on the onset of the phytoplankton bloom in the oligotrophic Bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer (NW Mediterranean Sea), a fully remotely controlled automated flow cytometer (CytoSense) was deployed on a solar-powered platform (EOL buoy, CNRS-Mobilis). The CytoSense carried out single-cell analyses on particles (1–800 μm in width, up to several mm in length), recording optical pulse shapes when analyzing several cm3. Samples were taken every 2 h in the surface waters during 2 months. Up to 6 phytoplankton clusters were resolved based on their optical properties (PicoFLO, Picoeukaryotes, Nanophytoplankton, Microphytoplankton, HighSWS, HighFLO). Three main abundance pulses involving the 6 phytoplankton groups monitored indicated that the spring bloom not only depends on light and water column stability, but also on short-term events such as wind events and precipitation followed by nutrient pulses. Wind and precipitation were also determinant in the collapse of the clusters' abundances. These events occurred within a couple of days, and phytoplankton abundance reacted within days. The third abundance pulse could be considered as the spring bloom commonly observed in the area. The high frequency data-set made it possible to study the phytoplankton cell cycle based on daily cycles of forward scatter and abundance. The combination of daily cell cycle, abundance trends and environmental pulses will open the way to the study of phytoplankton short-term reactivity to environmental conditions.
Acyl cystamine: Small‐molecular foldase mimics accelerating oxidative refolding of disulfide‐containing proteins

Based on the structural characteristic of Protein disulfide isomerases and DsbA that have hydrophobic regions around the active sites, hydrophobic alkyl tails are linked to cystamine to create new small molecular foldase mimics, acyl cystamine. Both the oxidizing power and oxidation specificity of cystamine are enhanced by n‐octanoyl or n‐hexanoyl tail. N‐octanoyl and n‐hexanoyl cystamine are very effective to facilitate oxidative protein refolding at strong reducing environments. In the presence of 0.42 mM DTT, the activity recovery of lysozyme is over 90% by 90‐min refolding with 0.1 mM n‐octanoyl cystamine and 0.1 mM cystamine as oxidant, while almost no activity is recovered with 0.2 mM GSSG by 160‐min refolding. For the refolding of 0.2 mg/mL lysozyme, with 0.6 mM n‐hexanoyl cystamine and 1.12 mM residual DTT as redox agents, the activity recovery reaches as high as 93% after refolding for only 20 min. For ribonuclease A (RNase A) refolding, with 0.4 mM n‐hexanoyl cystamine and 1.30 mM DTT, the recovery of activity reaches as high as 90% within 3 h. Thus, with n‐octanoyl or n‐hexanoyl cystamine as the oxidants, the necessity to remove excess DTT in the reduced and denatured protein solutions can be greatly alleviated. With a moderate hydrophobicity, n‐hexanoyl cystamine is promising for application in oxidative protein refolding at an extensive concentration range. It is observed that in the oxidative refolding of 0.2 mg/mL lysozyme and RNase A, only about half of n‐hexanoyl cystamine is needed when compared to cystamine to achieve the same kinetic effect. © 2011 American Institute of Chemical Engineers Biotechnol. Prog. , 2011
Regulation of serum tumor necrosis factor in glucocorticoid-sensitive and -resistant rodent endotoxin shock models

Bolus injection of lethal or sublethal doses of endotoxin or lipopolysaccharide (LPS) results in the rapid and transient rise in tumor necrosis factor (TNF) levels in serum in mammals. TNF levels peak between 1 and 2 h after LPS injection in mice and guinea pigs and approach basal levels by 6 h. Although the kinetics of TNF in serum appear similar between these two species, guinea pigs respond to a lethal dose of LPS of 20 mg/kg by producing approximately 10-fold more TNF than mice do. These two endotoxin shock models also differ in their sensitivity to glucocorticoids. TNF levels in serum are not reduced in the lethal endotoxin shock model in guinea pigs after treatment with dexamethasone at 25 mg/kg. In contrast, TNF levels in mouse serum are inhibited by more than 90% after treatment with dexamethasone at 3 mg/kg. Coincident with the TNF peak in serum is a leukopenia which approaches control levels by 6 h in dexamethasone-treated mice, while remaining depressed in dexamethasone-treated guinea pigs. Treatment with dexamethasone at 25 mg/kg did not save guinea pigs from endotoxin lethality, whereas long-term survival of mice under identical conditions was apparent. These results suggest that the relative glucocorticoid resistance observed in guinea pigs is also apparent in a lethal endotoxin shock model in which dexamethasone does not modulate TNF levels or result in increased survival as occurs in mice. The lack of clear efficacy for steroid therapy in human clinical septic shock trials would suggest that the guinea pig endotoxin model may be a more predictive system than the mouse model for the identification of novel agents useful in the treatment of endotoxin shock.
Functional transforms in MR image segmentation

Image segmentation, feature extraction and image components classification form a fundamental problem in many applications of multi-dimensional signal processing. The paper is devoted to the use of watershed transform for image segmentation in connection with wavelet transform allowing image de-noising and image components feature extraction. Proposed methods are applied for biomedical image analysis and processing. The study of MR image segmentation devoted to the detection of its specific components results in the proposal of the appropriate image preprocessing to reduce problems of its oversegmentation. Resulting algorithms include the use of wavelet transform and gradient methods in the preprocessing stage. Proposed algorithms are verified for simulated images and applied for a selected MR biomedical images containing different structures.
Conjunctive Query Inseparability in OWL 2 QL is ExpTime-hard

We settle an open question on the complexity of the following problem: given two OWL2QL TBoxes and a signature, decide whether these TBoxes return the same answers to any conjunctive query over any data formulated in the given signature. It has been known that the complexity of this problem is between PSpace and ExpTime. Here we show that the problem is ExpTime-complete and, in fact, deciding whether two OWL2QL knowledge bases (each with its own data) give the same answers to any conjunctive query is ExpTime-hard.
In Vivo Determination of Cerebral Blood Volume with Radioactive Oxygen‐15 in the Monkey

A method for the in vivo determination of cerebral blood volume was tested in 15 adult rhesus monkeys. The technique utilized external residue detection and required the serial measurement of two mean transit times, namely, that of an intravascular tracer, CI5O-hemoglobin, and that of a diffusible tracer, H215O. In computing the mean transit time for the intravascular tracer, the conventional Hamilton extrapolation of the downslope of the recording obtained for the washout of the tracer from the brain subsequent to an intracarotid bolus injection was found to be inadequate, yielding a mean transit time that systematically underestimated that parameter. Alternatively, the use of a power law extrapolation, as proposed by Huang, allowed a more accurate prediction of the vascular mean transit time. The preliminary studies testing the method predicted that the relationship between cerebral blood volume (CBV) and cerebral blood flow (CBF) was adequately represented by the equation CBV = 0.80CBF038, with a correlation coefficient of r = 0.90 for the cerebral blood flow range of 16 to 134 ml/100 g min−1 with a normocapnic cerebral blood volume of 3.5 ml/100 g perfused brain tissue (arterial Pco2 = 37 torr, CBF = 50 ml/100 g min−).
Exploring causality via identification of SNPs or haplotypes responsible for a linkage signal

In a small chromosomal region, a number of polymorphisms may be both linked to and associated with a disease. Distinguishing the potential causal sites from those indirectly associated due to linkage disequilibrium (LD) with a causal site is an important problem. This problem may be approached by determining which of the associations can explain the observed linkage signal. Recently, several methods have been proposed to aid in the identification of disease associated polymorphisms that may explain an observed linkage signal, using genotype data from affected sib pairs (ASPs) [Li et al. [2005] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 76:934–949; Sun et al. [2002] Am. J. Hum. Genet. 70:399–411]. These methods can be used to test the null hypothesis that a candidate single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) is the sole causal variant in the region, or is in complete LD with the sole causal variant in the region. We extend variations of these methods to test for complete LD between a disease locus and haplotypes composed of two or more tightly linked candidate SNPs. We study properties of the proposed methods by simulation and apply them to type 1 diabetes data for ASPs and their parents at candidate SNP and microsatellite marker loci in the Insulin (INS) gene region. Genet. Epidemiol. 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Towards optimum face recognition

Discusses some of the relevant steps towards optimum face recognition in the framework of decision theory. In particular, it addresses the central question, how to estimate joint image probability distributions based on a strongly limited number of example images. This leads to a new, morphing based approach which combines varying view, varying illumination, and inter-personal variations in a uniform framework.
Source localization in magnetoencephalography using an iterative weighted minimum norm algorithm

Imaging of brain activity based on magnetoencephalography (MEG) requires high-resolution estimates that closely approximate the spatial distribution of the underlying currents. The authors examine the physics of the MEG problem to give the motivation for developing a new algorithm that meets its unique requirements. The technique is a nonparametric, iterative, weighted norm minimization procedure with a posteriori constraints. The authors develop the algorithm and determine the necessary requirements for convergence. Issues of initialization and bias equalization for MEG reconstruction, and techniques for analysis of noisy data are discussed. <<ETX>>
3-Clique Attacks in Online Social Networks

Online Social Networks (OSNs) have become ubiquitous in the past few years, counting hundreds of millions of people as members. In this paper we show that the ease of accessing third party information by engineering OSN features, makes users vulnerable to infiltration attacks. Providing invaluable user context information, such attacks can become dangerous tools in the hands of spammers and phishers. Using a set of primitive attacks, we formalize a new infiltration attack called the 3-Clique attack. We design an automated attack system, iFriendU, to demonstrate the effectiveness of these attacks on more than 10,000 Facebook users. We show that the 3Clique attack outperforms any existing attack by at least 75% in the number of users it can befriend. We propose a novel OSN security framework, MORPH-x that defends against infiltration attacks. We show the effectiveness of our solution through extensive simulations on a large Facebook social graph. We prove its practicality by implementing MORPH-x as a web aplication and demonstrate user interests through a user study. We show that our solution imposes only negligible computing overheads on its users and succeeds in blocking the studied attacks in 93-98% of the cases.
Heterogeneous Gpu&cpu Cluster for High Performance Computing in Cryptography

This paper addresses issues associated with distributed computing systems and the application of mixed GPU&CPU technology to data encryption and decryption algorithms. We describe a heterogenous cluster HGCC formed by two types of nodes: Intel processor with NVIDIA graphics processing unit and AMD processor with AMD graphics processing unit (formerly ATI), and a novel software framework that hides the heterogeneity of our cluster and provides tools for solving complex scientific and engineering problems. Finally, we present the results of numerical experiments. The considered case study is concerned with parallel implementations of selected cryptanalysis algorithms. The main goal of the paper is to show the wide applicability of the GPU&CPU technology to large scale computation and data processing.
A formal approach for SOA design patterns composition

Software Design Patterns provide architects and developers with reusable software elements helping them to master building complex software systems. Nevertheless, presented in an informal way, software design patterns may give rise to ambiguity and may lead to their incorrect usage as well as incorrect compositions. In this paper we focus on SOA design patterns composition and we propose a rigorous composition method based on two steps. Firstly, we outline a precise definition of the composition process with the semi-formal SoaML standard language. Secondly, we outline a formal composition process using Event-B method. Our approach covers both structural and behavioral features of composed patterns.
Radiative and Chemical Response to Interactive Stratospheric Sulfate Aerosols in Fully Coupled CESM1(WACCM)

We present new insights into the evolution and interactions of stratospheric aerosol using an updated version of the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model (WACCM). Improved horizontal resolution, dynamics, and chemistry now produce an internally generated quasi‐biennial oscillation and significant improvements to stratospheric temperatures and ozone compared to observations. We present a validation of WACCM column ozone and climate calculations against observations. The prognostic treatment of stratospheric sulfate aerosols accurately represents the evolution of stratospheric aerosol optical depth and perturbations to solar and longwave radiation following the June 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo. We confirm the inclusion of interactive OH chemistry as an important factor in the formation and initial distribution of aerosol following large inputs of sulfur dioxide (SO2) to the stratosphere. We calculate that depletion of OH levels within the dense SO2 cloud in the first weeks following the Pinatubo eruption significantly prolonged the average initial e‐folding decay time for SO2 oxidation to 47 days. Previous observational and model studies showing a 30 day decay time have not accounted for the large (30–55%) losses of SO2 on ash and ice within 7–9 days posteruption and have not correctly accounted for OH depletion. We examine the variability of aerosol evolution in free‐running climate simulations due to meteorology, with comparison to simulations nudged with specified dynamics. We assess calculated impacts of volcanic aerosols on ozone loss with comparisons to observations. The completeness of the chemistry, dynamics, and aerosol microphysics in WACCM qualify it for studies of stratospheric sulfate aerosol geoengineering.
A source, a cascade, a schizoid: A heuristic proposal from The Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders

Abstract It is argued that personality pathology represents the final emergent product of a complex interaction of underlying neurobehavioral systems as well as environment inputs. A number of factors may be involved in the developmental pathway and a cascading of effects is plausible, although a unifying cascade for all personality disorders is not likely. The present study suggests a possible cascade relevant to one personality disorder: schizoid personality disorder in emerging adulthood. In brief, it is hypothesized that the absence of a relationship characterized by a rich degree of psychological proximal process in early childhood, which is associated with nurturance and the facilitation of more complex development, predicts impairment in the actualization of the affiliation system (i.e., that system that facilitates interpersonal connectedness and social bonds in human beings and is under substantial genetic influence), and this impairment in the affiliation system predicts the appearance of schizoid personality disorder symptoms in emerging adulthood (late teens/early 20s), which persists over time into emerging adulthood. The impairment in the affiliation system is argued to proceed through childhood sociality as reflected in temperament on through adult personality as reflected in communal positive emotion. Furthermore, it is also hypothesized that the relationship between proximal processes and the affiliation system maintains irrespective of other childhood temperament factors that might adversely impact early parent/caregiver and child relations. The data for a preliminary illustration of this possible cascade are drawn from The Longitudinal Study of Personality Disorders, which is a prospective, multiwave study of personality disorders, personality, and temperament in a large sample of adults drawn from a nonclinical population.