Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on Using Word-Level HMMs to Improve ASR Performance over State-of-the-Art Phone-Level Acoustic Modeling for LVCSR

In this paper, we propose word-level hidden Markov models (HMMs) to supplement state-of-the-art phone-based acoustic modeling in order to enhance the performance of automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. Each word in a vocabulary is initially modeled by well-trained triphone models. Maximum a posteriori adaptation is then applied to generate models for words with a large number of occurrences in the training set so that the acoustic distribution of the words can be modeled more precisely. Experimental results show that the proposed wordbased systems outperform phone-based systems on the TIMIT task with a small training corpus. While in tasks with plenty of training data, word-based systems still show improvements over phone-based systems, such as the WSJ task. Furthermore the word-based systems have a better discriminating ability on short words and homophones. They are also more robust to language model weight variation than conventional phone-based systems.
5-Hydroxytryptamine2C Receptor Contribution to m-Chlorophenylpiperazine and N-Methyl-β-carboline-3-carboxamide-Induced Anxiety-Like Behavior and Limbic Brain Activation

Activation of 5-hydroxytryptamine2C (5-HT2C) receptors by the 5-HT2 receptor agonist m-chlorophenylpiperazine (m-CPP) elicits anxiety in humans and anxiety-like behavior in animals. We compared the effects of m-CPP with the anxiogenic GABAA receptor inverse agonist N-methyl-β-carboline-3-carboxamide (FG-7142) on both anxiety-like behavior and regional brain activation using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in the rat. We also determined whether the selective 5-HT2C receptor antagonist SB 242084 [6-chloro-2,3-dihydro-5-methyl-N-[6-[(2-methyl-3-pyridinyl)oxy]-3-pyridinyl]-1H-indole-1-carboxyamide dihydrochloride] would blunt m-CPP or FG-7142-induced neuronal activation. Both m-CPP (3 mg/kg i.p.) and FG-7142 (10 mg/kg i.p.) elicited anxiety-like behavior when measured in the social interaction test, and pretreatment with SB 242084 (1 mg/kg i.p.) completely blocked the behavioral effects of both anxiogenic drugs. Regional brain activation in vivo in response to anxiogenic drug challenge was determined by blood oxygen level-dependent (BOLD) fMRI using a powerful 9.4T magnet. Region of interest analyses revealed that m-CPP and FG-7142 significantly increased BOLD signals in brain regions that have been linked to anxiety, including the amygdala, dorsal hippocampus, and medial hypothalamus. These BOLD signal increases were blocked by pretreatment with SB 242084. In contrast, injection of m-CPP and FG-7142 resulted in BOLD signal decreases in the medial prefrontal cortex that were not blocked by SB 242084. In conclusion, the brain activation signals produced by anxiogenic doses of both m-CPP and FG-7142 are mediated at least partially by the 5-HT2C receptor, indicating that this receptor is a key component in anxiogenic neural circuitry.
Hybrid Multi-constrained Optimal Path QoS Routing with Inaccurate Link State

Many applications in the Internet today demand high end-to-end Quality of Service (QoS) assurance, such as bandwidth, delay, jitter and packet loss constraints. Also they seek better utilization of the network resources, while satisfying customer needs. Multi-constrained optimal path (MCOP) QoS routing problem attempts to find a feasible path that satisfies the requested QoS constraints, while maintaining high utilization of network resources. This problem is known to be intractable and several heuristic and approximation algorithms have been proposed. In practice, the network state information available for making the routing decisions at each node is often inaccurate. The effectiveness and performance of the routing algorithms can significantly be degraded by this outdated information and should not be treated as exact when selecting feasible paths. This research proposes an efficient heuristic algorithm called Distributed Heuristic Multi-Constrained Optimal Path (DHMCOP) for the MCOP problem, when the link state information is inaccurate. The proposed algorithm incorporates the aspects of both source and distributed routing. It attempts to minimize the computational complexity and protocol overhead while ensuring that the QoS guarantees are satisfied. The algorithm consists of a k-shortest path algorithm, a control message structure for resource reservation and a cost function for path optimization. The extensive simulation results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms the existing ones in terms of success ratio and control overhead.
Normal Perfusion Pressure Breakthrough Following AVM Resection: A Case Report and Review of the Literature

Objective: To report a patient’s clinical course illustrative of the NPPB mechanism for hyperperfusion-induced injury. Methods: A 65-year-old female presented with a severe headache and was found to have a 6-cm right parietal AVM on imaging. The patient underwent staged, pre-operative embolization and the AVM was surgically resected without intra-operative complication. After the patient emerged from anesthesia she exhibited left hemiplegia and hemispatial neglect. Her systolic blood pressure (SBP) at that time was between 110-120 mmHg. SBP was reduced to 90-100 mmHg and the patient’s symptoms resolved shortly thereafter. The patient’s strict blood pressure goal was relaxed the next morning. However, with her SBP 110-120 mmHg in the ensuing hours, the patient’s left-sided neglect and hemiparesis returned. Her SBP was reduced again to 90-100 mmHg, leading to resolution of her symptoms. Results: This patient’s clinical course supports the NPPB theory of hyperperfusion-induced injury. Despite CT imaging demonstrating no residual AVM following resection, the patient developed neurological deficits in the immediate postoperative period. Aggressive systemic hypotension improved clinical symptoms repeatedly, whereas a brief period of normotension triggered a return of neurological deficits. As a result, there was a direct correlation between fluctuations of neurological status and SBP. This case suggests that the intrinsic autoregulatory capacity was altered in our patient, and that aggressive hypotension was necessary to compensate for diminished autonomic reactivity. Conclusions: This case provides further evidence that NPPB plays a role in hyperperfusion-induced injury following AVM excision and that blood pressure control is vital in managing hyperemic complications following complete resection of cerebral AVMs.
Green scheduling for cloud data centers using renewable resources

Cloud data centers provide all kinds of service using hundreds of thousands of servers. This naturally leads to concerns about the effect on environment such as carbon emissions and global warming. Huge amounts of effort have been devoted to power-aware scheduling using renewable energy. However, the intermittent availability of the renewable energy brings us a new challenge: how to dynamically distribute the requests to the data centers that are powered by renewable energy, while minimizing carbon emissions under a fixed electricity budget. In this paper, we model our problem as a constraint optimization problem. The goal is to minimize the carbon emissions of the data centers by using renewable energy while satisfying: (1) the request processing time constraint; (2) the total electricity budget in each time slot; (3) the intermittent supply of the renewable resources; (4) the maximal number of servers in each data center. We solve the problem by ingeniously transforming it into an integer linear programming model, and calculate the decision variables using existed method. Experiments show that our scheduler can minimize carbon emissions using renewable resources, while satisfying the constraints mentioned above.
Enhancing the Data Collection to Reduced Interference in Tree Based Ad-Hoc Sensor Network

In the wireless sensor networks the energy of the nodes present in the network is limited. Due to the low manufacturing costs of sensor nodes, they can be deployed in large numbers and having more challenges in routing, topology and data management protocols. These challenges are complicated by severe energy constraints and the inherently unreliable nature of wireless communications which have yielded work in increasing network efficiency. What is the fastest rate at which we can collect a stream of aggregated data from a set of wireless sensors organized as a tree? We explore a hierarchy of techniques using realistic simulation models to address this question. We begin by considering TDMA scheduling on a single channel, reducing the original problem to minimizing the number of time slots needed to schedule each link of the aggregation tree. The second technique is to combine the scheduling with transmission power control to reduce the effects of interference. To better cope with interference, we then study the impact of utilizing multiple frequency channels by introducing a simple receiver-based frequency and time scheduling approach. We find that for networks of about a hundred nodes, the use of multi-frequency scheduling can suffice to eliminate most of the interference. The data collection rate then becomes limited not by interference, but by the maximum degree of the routing tree. Therefore we consider finally how the data collection rate can be further enhanced by the use of degree-constrained routing trees. Considering deployments at different densities, we show that these enhancements can improve the streaming aggregated data collection by as much as 10 times compared to the baseline of singlechannel data collection over non-degree constrained routing trees. Addition to our primary conclusion, in the frequency scheduling domain we evaluate the impact of different interference models on the scheduling performance and give topologyspecific bounds on time slot and frequency channel requirements.
Arbor: Comparative Analysis Workflows for the Tree of Life

We describe our efforts to develop a software package, Arbor, that will enable scientific research in all aspects of comparative biology. This software will enable developmental biologists, geneticists, ecologists, geographers, paleobiologists, educators, and students to analyze diverse types of comparative data at multiple phylogenetic and spatiotemporal scales using an intuitive visual interface. Arbor’s user-defined workflows will be exported and shared so that entire analyses can be quickly replicated with new or updated data. Arbor will also be designed to easily and seamlessly expand to include novel analytical tools as they are developed. Here we describe the core components of Arbor, as well as provide details of one proposed test case to illustrate the software’s key functionality.
Layer-by-Layer Assembly for Preparation of High-Performance Forward Osmosis Membrane

Forward osmosis (FO) membrane with high separation performance is needed to promote its practical applications. Herein, layer-by-layer (LbL) approach was used to prepare a thin and highly cross-linked polyamide layer on a polyacrylonitrile substrate surface to prepare a thin-film composite forward osmosis (TFC-FO) membrane with enhanced FO performance. The effects of monomer concentrations and assembly cycles on the performance of the TFC-FO membranes were systematically investigated. Under the optimal preparation condition, TFC-FO membrane achieved the best performance, exhibiting the water flux of 14.4/6.9 LMH and reverse salt flux of 7.7/3.8 gMH under the pressure retarded osmosis/forward osmosis (PRO/FO) mode using 1M NaCl as the draw against a DI-water feed, and a rejection of 96.1% for 2000 mg/L NaCl aqueous solution. The result indicated that layer-by-layer method was a potential method to regulate the structure and performance of the TFC-FO membrane.
Conductive BiSb topological insulator with colossal spin Hall effect for ultra-low power spin-orbit-torque switching

We report on epitaxial crystal growth and spin Hall effect in BiSb topological insulator thin films. We show that BiSb thin films with conductivity as high as σ ~ 2.5∗105 Ω-1m-1 can be epitaxially grown on GaAs(111)A substrate. Meanwhile, evaluation of spin-orbit-torque in Bi0.9Sb0. 1/MnGa bi-layers reveals a colossal spin Hall angle of θSH ~ 52 and a spin Hall conductivity σSH ~ 1.3∗107 ℏ/2e Ω-1m-1 at room temperature. We demonstrate that BiSb thin films can generate a colossal spin-orbit field of 2.3 kOe/(MA/cm2) and a critical switching current density as low as 1.5 MA/cm2 in Bi0.9Sb0. 1/MnGa bi-layers. BiSb is the best candidate for the first industrial application of topological insulators.
Maternal sensitivity and behaviour problems in young children with developmental delay

Children with developmental delay are at increased risk for behaviour problems, but little is known about risk and resilience factors. Previous research has established links between maternal sensitivity and behaviour problems in typically developing children, but no studies have examined maternal sensitivity in the development of behaviour problems in children with developmental delay. In this study, we coded videotaped interactions of 30 2-year-olds with developmental delay and their mothers using the maternal behaviour Q-sort and a child behaviour coding system. Mothers completed the child behaviour checklist when their children were 2 and 3 years old. Results revealed significant inverse relations between maternal sensitivity and concurrent and later externalizing problems, and significant positive relations between maternal sensitivity and concurrent observed appropriate behaviour (compliance and social engagement). This study informs developmental theory and identifies an important maternal variable that may reduce the risk of behaviour problems in children with developmental delay. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Using stochastic computation graphs formalism for optimization of sequence-to-sequence model

Variety of machine learning problems can be formulated as an optimization task for some (surrogate) loss function. Calculation of loss function can be viewed in terms of stochastic computation graphs (SCG). We use this formalism to analyze a problem of optimization of famous sequence-to-sequence model with attention and propose reformulation of the task. Examples are given for machine translation (MT). Our work provides a unified view on different optimization approaches for sequence-to-sequence models and could help researchers in developing new network architectures with embedded stochastic nodes.
Graph-based semi-supervised learning with multi-label

Conventional graph-based semi-supervised learning methods predominantly focus on single label problem. However, it is more popular in real-world applications that an example is associated with multiple labels simultaneously. In this paper, we propose a novel graph-based learning framework in the setting of semi-supervised learning with multi-label. The proposed approach is characterized by simultaneously exploiting the inherent correlations among multiple labels and the label consistency over the graph. We apply the proposed framework to video annotation and report superior performance compared to key existing approaches over the TRECVID 2006 corpus.
Workshop on the evaluation of multimedia retrieval

The evaluation of multimedia retrieval is a subject that has gained momentum in the last couple of years. CWI, the National Research Institute for Mathematics and Computer Science in the Netherlands, organised a workshop organised on the subject on 24 November 2004. The main aim of the workshop was to bring together researchers and practitioners in the field of multimedia retrieval to discuss the area of multimedia in general and methodology for evaluation within this area in particular. The workshop, organised by Franciska de Jong (Utwente/TNO, NL), Arjen de Vries (CWI, NL) and Thijs Westerveld (CWI, NL) was an informal half-day meeting without papers or proceedings. Because the workshop was co-located with Thijs Westerveld's PhD defence, we were able to invite Alex Hauptmann (CMU, PA, USA) to give a talk. In total six speakers were invited to present their work related to the evaluation of multimedia retrieval. The workshop started with a talk presenting multimedia retrieval in practise. Then, three talks discussed experiments in the laboratory context of the TRECVID video retrieval benchmark. The afternoon ended with a presentation of a study of interactive experiments and a talk discussing metrics for measuring multimedia retrieval effectiveness.
Dynamic Identification of Shared Transactional Locations

Hardware TM systems execute user code within an atomic{} delimiter without any instrumentation. Software transactional memory systems require complex sequences of operations to be executed on the memory locations shared by transactions, but typically not on unshared locations, even if these are accessed within the scope of a transaction. Lack of identification of such instructions introduces a large performance overhead. The problem of identifying if an instruction is accessing a location which is shared, even if these locations are declared in advance, is a dynamic runtime problem, i.e. not solvable effectively through the use of a compiler. In the spirit of the new trend towards hardware assisted STMs (HASTMs), we show how one can add a simple hardware element, the Virtual Memory Filter (VMF), that provides dynamic identification and execution of STM functions on transactionally shared locations. The VMF will provide STMs with the simplicity of HTMs: atomic{} code can execute “as is. ” Its introduction into commercial CPUs will eliminate the need to use a compiler to transactify user code, a benefit currently claimed only by full fledged HTM systems. Our preliminary empirical evidence shows that the VMF component has virtually no performance penalty.
Glutamine Binding Opens the Ammonia Channel and Activates Glucosamine-6P Synthase*

Glucosamine-6P synthase catalyzes the synthesis of glucosamine-6P from fructose-6P and glutamine and uses a channel to transfer ammonia from its glutaminase to its synthase active site. X-ray structures of glucosamine-6P synthase have been determined at 2.05 Å resolution in the presence of fructose-6P and at 2.35 Å resolution in the presence of fructose-6P and 6-diazo-5-oxo-l-norleucine, a glutamine affinity analog that covalently modifies the N-terminal catalytic cysteine, therefore mimicking the γ-glutamyl-thioester intermediate formed during hydrolysis of glutamine. The fixation of the glutamine analog activates the enzyme through several major structural changes: 1) the closure of a loop to shield the glutaminase site accompanied by significant domain hinging, 2) the activation of catalytic residues involved in glutamine hydrolysis, i.e. the α-amino group of Cys-1 and Asn-98 that is positioned to form the oxyanion hole, and 3) a 75° rotation of the Trp-74 indole group that opens the ammonia channel.