Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Piecewise linear definition of transformation functions for speaker de-identification

The main drawback of speaker de-identification approaches using voice conversion techniques is the need for parallel corpora to train transformation functions between the source and target speakers. In this paper, a voice conversion approach that does not require training any parameters is proposed: it consists in manually defining frequency warping (FW) based transformations by using piecewise linear approximations. An analysis of the de-identification capabilities of the proposed approach using FW only or combined with FW modification and spectral amplitude scaling (AS) was performed. Experimental results show that, using the manually defined transformations using only FW, it is not possible to obtain de-identified natural sounding speech. Nevertheless, when modifying the FW, both de-identification accuracy and naturalness increase to a great extent. A slight improvement in de-identification was also obtained when applying spectral amplitude scaling.
Towards a knowledge management system for tourism based on the semantic web technology

The goal of this paper is to examine the importance of knowledge management and semantic web in tourism. We will primarily aim to present the concepts of knowledge management, knowledge management systems, semantic web and ontologies. We also provide the importance of knowledge management in tourism, which gave the real benefits to be derived from the use semantic-web based ontologies for travelers. Finally, the last part is devoted to present tourism ontology for Morocco and architecture of the KMS we conceived.
NSAIDs and Acidic Environment Induce Gastric Mucosal Cellular Mitochondrial Dysfunction

Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) often cause gastrointestinal complications such as gastric ulcers and erosions. Recent studies on the pathogenesis have revealed that NSAIDs induce lipid peroxidation in gastric epithelial cells by generating superoxide in mitochondria, independently with cyclooxygenase inhibition and the subsequent prostaglandin deficiency. More recently, gastric hydrochloric acid (HCl) has been regarded as an inciting factor of gastric mucosal injuries, and reportedly induced cellular lipid peroxidation in vitro. We hypothesized that gastric acid and NSAID treatment synergistically induce cellular injury in gastric epithelial cells. We treated gastric epithelial RGM1 cells with acidic solutions and NSAIDs, and examined cellular injury, lipid peroxidation, mitochondrial transmenbrane potential and mitochondrial superoxide. We pretreated RGM1 cells with the acidic solutions for 0.5 h and after that treated them with each NSAID for 15 h and found that the exposure to acid and NSAIDs indeed induced cellular injury. We hypothesized that gastric acid and NSAID treatment synergistically induce mitochondrial superoxide production, which induces gastric cellular injury.
Growth of Pasteurella multocida in Vaccinated and Normal Mice

Specific pathogen-free CD-1 mice are highly susceptible to infection by Pasteurella multocida strain 5A whether introduced intravenously, intraperitoneally, subcutaneously, or aerogenically. The growth of the challenge organism in the blood, liver, spleen, lung, and peritoneal cavity was quantitated hourly for up to 12 h. Unvaccinated mice died 9 to 12 h after intravenous challenge due to the uncontrolled growth of the organism in all tissues tested. The rate of removal of the bacteria from the blood and of phagocytosis by peritoneal macrophages was extremely slow. In the absence of specific opsonins, more than 90% of the unopsonized challenge inoculum remained in the extracellular growth phase throughout the challenge period. Vaccination of mice with two doses of 108 heat-killed (60 C for 60 min) P. multocida given 7 days apart protected the mice against 100 to 1,000 lethal challenge doses. Survival data and growth curves obtained for both actively and passively immunized mice indicated that a humorally mediated immune mechanism was involved. Peak resistance to challenge occurred 21 to 28 days after the mice received the second dose of antigen, and this correlated with an 8- to 16-fold increase in specific agglutinin titers over the same time. Resistance to aerogenic challenge by vaccinated mice was less effective than when other routes of infection were used. The significance of these findings is discussed.
Energy efficient Digital Signal Processing

This paper focuses on issues related to energy efficient Digital Signal Processing (DSP) - taking a Systems-to-Silicon approach. This implies that achieving maximum energy efficiency in a DSP system is a distributed task from the systems level (compilers, algorithm design etc.) to a silicon (transistor, process technologies etc.) level. It addresses how we view this problem and also uses specific application areas such as hearing devices and medical imaging to illustrate the needs and concepts involved in this context.
Unsupervised Discretization Using Kernel Density Estimation

Discretization, defined as a set of cuts over domains of attributes, represents an important pre-processing task for numeric data analysis. Some Machine Learning algorithms require a discrete feature space but in real-world applications continuous attributes must be handled. To deal with this problem many supervised discretization methods have been proposed but little has been done to synthesize unsupervised discretization methods to be used in domains where no class information is available. Furthermore, existing methods such as (equal-width or equal-frequency) binning, are not well-principled, raising therefore the need for more sophisticated methods for the unsupervised discretization of continuous features. This paper presents a novel unsupervised discretization method that uses non-parametric density estimators to automatically adapt sub-interval dimensions to the data. The proposed algorithm searches for the next two sub-intervals to produce, evaluating the best cut-point on the basis of the density induced in the sub-intervals by the current cut and the density given by a kernel density estimator for each sub-interval. It uses cross-validated log-likelihood to select the maximal number of intervals. The new proposed method is compared to equal-width and equal-frequency discretization methods through experiments on well known benchmarking data.
TRANS-3′-HYDROXYCOTININE O- AND N-GLUCURONIDATIONS IN HUMAN LIVER MICROSOMES

Trans-3′-hydroxycotinine is a major metabolite of nicotine in humans and is mainly excreted as O-glucuronide in smoker's urine. Incubation of human liver microsomes with UDP-glucuronic acid produces not only trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronide but also N-glucuronide. The formation of N-glucuronide exceeds the formation of O-glucuronide in most human liver microsomes, although N-glucuronide has never been detected in human urine. Trans-3′-hydroxycotinine N-glucuronidation in human liver microsomes was significantly correlated with nicotine and cotinine N-glucuronidations, which are catalyzed mainly by UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT)1A4 and was inhibited by imipramine and nicotine, which are substrates of UGT1A4. Recombinant UGT1A4 exhibited substantial trans-3′-hydroxycotinine N-glucuronosyltransferase activity. These results suggest that trans-3′-hydroxycotinine N-glucuronidation in human liver microsomes would be mainly catalyzed by UGT1A4. In the present study, trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronidation in human liver microsomes was thoroughly characterized, since trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronide is one of the major metabolites of nicotine. The kinetics were fitted to the Michaelis-Menten equation with a Km of 10.0 ± 0.8 mM and a Vmax of 85.8 ± 3.8 pmol/min/mg. Among 11 recombinant human UGT isoforms expressed in baculovirus-infected insect cells, UGT2B7 exhibited the highest trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronosyltransferase activity (1.1 pmol/min/mg) followed by UGT1A9 (0.3 pmol/min/mg), UGT2B15 (0.2 pmol/min/mg), and UGT2B4 (0.2 pmol/min/mg) at a substrate concentration of 1 mM. Trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronosyltransferase activity by recombinant UGT2B7 increased with an increase in the substrate concentration up to 16 mM (10.5 pmol/min/mg). The kinetics by recombinant UGT1A9 were fitted to the Michaelis-Menten equation with Km = 1.6 ± 0.1 mM and Vmax = 0.69 ± 0.02 pmol/min/mg of protein. Trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronosyltransferase activities in 13 human liver microsomes ranged from 2.4 to 12.6 pmol/min/mg and were significantly correlated with valproic acid glucuronidation (r = 0.716, p < 0.01), which is catalyzed by UGT2B7, UGT1A6, and UGT1A9. Trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronosyltransferase activity in human liver microsomes was inhibited by imipramine (a substrate of UGT1A4, IC50 = 55 μM), androstanediol (a substrate of UGT2B15, IC50 = 169 μM), and propofol (a substrate of UGT1A9, IC50 = 296 μM). Interestingly, imipramine (IC50 = 45 μM), androstanediol (IC50 = 21 μM), and propofol (IC50 = 41 μM) also inhibited trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronosyltransferase activity by recombinant UGT2B7. These findings suggested that trans-3′-hydroxycotinine O-glucuronidation in human liver microsomes is catalyzed by mainly UGT2B7 and, to a minor extent, by UGT1A9.
Practical Skew Handling in Parallel Joins

We present an approach to dealing with skew in parallel joins in database systems. Our approach is easily implementable within current parallel DBMS, and performs well on skewed data without degrading the performance of the system on non-skewed data. The main idea is to use multiple algorithms, each specialized for a different degree of skew, and to use a small sample of the relations being joined to determine which algorithm is appropriate. We developed, implemented, and experimented with four new skew-handling parallel join algorithms; one, which we call virtual processor range partitioning, was the clear winner in high skew cases, while traditional hybrid hash join was the clear winner in lower skew or no skew cases. We present experimental results from an implementation of all four algorithms on the Gamma parallel database machine. To our knowledge, these are the first reported skew-handling numbers from an actual implementation.
Adaptive Seamless Designs: Selection and Prospective Testing of Hypotheses

There is a current trend towards clinical protocols which involve an initial “selection” phase followed by a hypothesis testing phase. The selection phase may involve a choice between competing treatments or different dose levels of a drug, between different target populations, between different endpoints, or between a superiority and a non-inferiority hypothesis. Clearly there can be benefits in elapsed time and economy in organizational effort if both phases can be designed up front as one experiment, with little downtime between phases. Adaptive designs have been proposed as a way to handle these selection/testing problems. They offer flexibility and allow final inferences to depend on data from both phases, while maintaining control of overall false positive rates. We review and critique the methods, give worked examples and discuss the efficiency of adaptive designs relative to more conventional procedures. Where gains are possible using the adaptive approach, a variety of logistical, operational, data handling and other practical difficulties remain to be overcome if adaptive, seamless designs are to be effectively implemented.
Empirical Chaos Processes and Blind Deconvolution

This paper investigates conditions under which certain kinds of systems of bilinear equations have a unique structured solution. In particular, we look at when we can recover vectors $\boldsymbol{w},\boldsymbol{q}$ from observations of the form \[ y_{\ell} = , \quad \ell = 1,\ldots,L, \] where $\boldsymbol{b}_\ell,\boldsymbol{c}_\ell$ are known. We show that if $\boldsymbol{w}\in\mathbb{C}^{M_1}$ and $\boldsymbol{q}\in\mathbb{C}^{M_2}$ are sparse, with no more than $K$ and $N$ nonzero entries, respectively, and the $\boldsymbol{b}_\ell,\boldsymbol{c}_\ell$ are generic, selected as independent Gaussian random vectors, then $\boldsymbol{w},\boldsymbol{q}$ are uniquely determined from \[ L \geq \mathrm{Const}\cdot (K+N)\log^5(M_1M_2) \] such equations with high probability. The key ingredient in our analysis is a uniform probabilistic bound on how far a random process of the form \[Z(\boldsymbol{X}) = \sum_{\ell=1}^L|\boldsymbol{b}_\ell^*\boldsymbol{X}\boldsymbol{c}_\ell|^2 \] deviates from its mean over a set of structured matrices $\boldsymbol{X}\in\mathcal{X}$. As both $\boldsymbol{b}_\ell$ and $\boldsymbol{c}_\ell$ are random, this is a specialized type of $4$th order chaos; we refer to $Z(\boldsymbol{X})$ as an {\em empirical chaos process}. Bounding this process yields a set of general conditions for when the map $\boldsymbol{X}\rightarrow \{\boldsymbol{b}_\ell^*\boldsymbol{X}\boldsymbol{c}_\ell\}_{\ell=1}^L$ is a restricted isometry over the set of matrices $\mathcal{X}$. The conditions are stated in terms of general geometric properties of the set $\mathcal{X}$, and are explicitly computed for the case where $\mathcal{X}$ is the set of matrices that are simultaneously sparse and low rank.
Intelligent control system for energy-saving of street lamp

We conduct fuzzy control algorithm. In order to reduce lighting enery use,we design an intelligent lighting energy saving control system. The system uses variable reactor to separate the high-pressure side and low-pressure side, and changes the low-pressure side voltage to control the voltage across the high-pressure side in order to realise saving energy and lighting continuous control. We also uses simulations to investigate the system, the results show that the system is reasonable and effective.
Some New Uses of Time Domain Reflectometry in Geotechnical Engineering

Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR) makes use of a device that propagates transverse electromagnetic waves through soils by means of special soil probes . As the wave encounters impedance mismatches a portion of the wave energy is reflected back to the TDR device and the remaining portion is transmitted. The probes simulate a coaxial cable where the dielectric medium between the center lead and the shield is soil. The standard compaction mold, with a steel rod driven into it , makes an excellent probe. For insitu testi ng, four spikes may be driven into the soil in a pattern that simulates a coaxial cable. The time elapsed between the portion of the signal reflected from the surface of the soil and another portion reflected from the end of the probe allows for calculati ng the apparent dielectric constant. Additionally, voltage measurements of the applied and reflected signal allow for calculating the bulk electrical conductivity of the soil , which is the inverse of the resistivity of the soil . Both the apparent dielectric constant and the electrical conductivity are strongly affected by the water content and dry density of the soil. The apparent dielectric constant is relatively independent of the pore fluid conductivity while the bulk electrical conductivity is strong ly affected by the pore fluid conductivity. The author, his colleagues, and his students have developed procedures for using these two measured values to determine the water content and dry density of soil. The technology has many applications and applies to most soils and soil mixtures except for highly plastic clays at high water contents and other “lossy” materials that have unusually high electrical conductivities. One of the obvious uses is for compaction quality control. Another, in the early sta ges of investigation, is the insitu measurement of density decrease and water content increase in sands with impending liquefaction. A third use is to accurately measure small amounts of bentonite clay introduced into clean sand as a means of altering the liquefaction potential of the sand. Another potential use is for soils that are modified with lime, cement, and similar stabilizing agents. The measurement of bulk electrical conductivity can accurately track the hydration process while the apparent diel ectric constant tracks the free (unbound) water in the material. A current project is exploring its use for assessing the progress and effectiveness of the soil -stabilization process. Finally, another project is exploring the frequency domain signature o f the TDR signal. The entire measurement apparatus, cable, and probe assembly are accurately
A new face mesh model based on edge attractor and nonlinear global topological constraints

Face Feature Point Detection (FFPD) is a significant and interesting topic in many related areas of face recognition. A new face mesh model is presented in this paper to realize the FFPD in a fast and training-free approach. At first, an automatic face mesh initialization algorithm based on the detection of face, eye-pairs and mouth is proposed. Second, a local operator referred as Edge Attractor and an adaptation algorithm based on global topological constraint are proposed to locate feature points at boundaries of facial features while maintain the global shape of the face mesh. At last, an iterative algorithm is developed to optimize the evaluation function of the face mesh. Experimental results showed that the proposed face mesh model is fast, robust, and accurate in detecting face feature points.
SCANPS: a web server for iterative protein sequence database searching by dynamic programing, with display in a hierarchical SCOP browser

SCANPS performs iterative profile searching similar to PSI-BLAST but with full dynamic programing on each cycle and on-the-fly estimation of significance. This combination gives good sensitivity and selectivity that outperforms PSI-BLAST in domain-searching benchmarks. Although computationally expensive, SCANPS exploits onchip parallelism (MMX and SSE2 instructions on Intel chips) as well as MPI parallelism to give acceptable turnround times even for large databases. A web server developed to run SCANPS searches is now available at http://www.compbio. dundee.ac. uk/www-scanps. The server interface allows a range of different protein sequence databases to be searched including the SCOP database of protein domains. The server provides the user with regularly updated versions of the main protein sequence databases and is backed up by significant computing resources which ensure that searches are performed rapidly. For SCOP searches, the results may be viewed in a new tree-based representation that reflects the structure of the SCOP hierarchy; this aids the user in placing each hit in the context of its SCOP classification and understanding its relationship to other domains in SCOP.
On Random Matrix Theory for stationary processes

Random Matrix Theory has generated tremendous interest in recent years, partly from powerful results developed for multi-user detection theory but also for growing applications in statistics, signal processing and econometrics. However the current theory has emphasized white noise data. In this paper we present for the first time some results applicable to temporally stationary processes.
Nonlinearities and Contextual Influences in Auditory Cortical Responses Modeled with Multilinear Spectrotemporal Methods

The relationship between a sound and its neural representation in the auditory cortex remains elusive. Simple measures such as the frequency response area or frequency tuning curve provide little insight into the function of the auditory cortex in complex sound environments. Spectrotemporal receptive field (STRF) models, despite their descriptive potential, perform poorly when used to predict auditory cortical responses, showing that nonlinear features of cortical response functions, which are not captured by STRFs, are functionally important. We introduce a new approach to the description of auditory cortical responses, using multilinear modeling methods. These descriptions simultaneously account for several nonlinearities in the stimulus–response functions of auditory cortical neurons, including adaptation, spectral interactions, and nonlinear sensitivity to sound level. The models reveal multiple inseparabilities in cortical processing of time lag, frequency, and sound level, and suggest functional mechanisms by which auditory cortical neurons are sensitive to stimulus context. By explicitly modeling these contextual influences, the models are able to predict auditory cortical responses more accurately than are STRF models. In addition, they can explain some forms of stimulus dependence in STRFs that were previously poorly understood.
Mean telomere length is not associated with current health status in a 50‐year‐old population sample

Telomeres are nucleoprotein complexes that cap the ends of linear chromosomes. Telomeric DNA decreases with age and shows considerable heterogeneity in the wider population. There is interest in the application of telomere length measures as a biomarker of general health or “biological age,” and the possibility of using mean telomere length to gauge individual disease risk, and to promote lifestyle changes to improve health. This study examined the effectiveness of telomere length as a biomarker for an individual's current overall health status by assessing several measures of general health including SF‐36v2 score, current smoking status and a comprehensive obesity phenotype.
Preparation and characterization of 2‐methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine polymer nanofibers prepared via electrospinning for biomedical materials

Electrospun nanofibers of poly (2-methacryloyloxyethyl phosphorylcholine) (MPC) possessing excellent hemocompatibility were successfully fabricated first. These nanofibers were investigated as drug-delivery vehicles for suppressing the acute thrombogenicity of vascular grafts to lower the risk of coronary artery disease by improving the graft patency rate; the graft patency rate is the percentage of patients who do not have any blockage in a graft after a stent-graft treatment. We varied the MPC concentrations in ethanol from 1 to 10 wt % to fabricate electrospun MPC fibers. Scanning electron microscopy images revealed that when the MPC concentration was lower than 5 wt %, beads instead of fibers were formed. When the MPC concentration was increased (>5 wt %), uniform fibers were produced with average fiber diameters of about 160 nm (5 wt %), 640 nm (7.5 wt %), and 1270 nm (10 wt %). In vitro drug-release tests showed that a higher amount of drugs was diffused from MPC fibers with small diameters; this indicated a faster drug-release rate for the thinner MPC fibers. Diameter-controlled MPC fibers could be used as a new vascular graft materials. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 2014, 131, 40606.