Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multi-lingual speech recognition system for speech-to-speech translation

This paper describes the speech recognition module of the speech-to-speech translation system being currently developed at ATR. It is a multi-lingual large vocabulary continuous speech recognition system supporting Japanese, English and Chinese languages. A corpusbased statistical approach was adopted for the system design. The database we collected consists of more than 600 000 sentences covering broad range of travel related conversations in each of the three languages. The recognition system is based on language-dependent acoustic and language models, and pronunciation dictionaries. The models are built using the latest training methods developed at ATR as the Minimum Description Length Successive State Splitting (MDL-SSS) and Multi-dimensional Composite N-gram techniques. The specifics of each language are taken into account in order to achieve high recognition performance. The speech recognition system is under constant improvement and enhancement, and although the models for the different languages are at different development stages, the recent evaluation experiments showed that the recognition performance is above 92% for every language.
Temperature Profile of Hotspots in Narrow Current-Biased Superconducting Strips

The one-dimensional heat flow equation controlling the temperature of a current-driven hotspot (HS) in a long superconducting microbridge is reexamined in all its components. The resulting nonlinear differential system, which admits temperature-dependent thermal conductivities, and a blackbody-like phonon radiation into the substrate, is solved numerically. In this work, the phonon escape rate is not the outcome of a best-fitting procedure, but rather is derived from the dependence, in a pulse experiment, of the HS nucleation time upon the current intensity. As a result, the temperature profile of a self-heating HS in a niobium strip can be computed without any adjustable parameter for each choice of the bath temperature. One notes a severe limitation of the HS temperature as compared to previous models. The minimum current sustaining a stable HS thus determined is in close agreement with direct measurements even far from the critical temperature. The method is applied to a NbN filament typical of the superconducting single photon detectors.
Performance analysis of ZF and MMSE receivers in uplink of MU-MIMO system

For uplink of Multiuser (MU) Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output (MIMO) system with M receive antennas at base station and one transmit antenna at each user, in this paper, performances of linear decoders, namely Zero-Forcing decoder and Minimal Mean-Square Error (MMSE) decoder, are investigated. Differing from existing results which mainly describe various asymptotic properties, this paper gives analytical formulas of estimating pair-wise error probabilities (PEP) of ZF and MMSE decoders for given parameters M, K (number of users), and ρ (Signal-to-Noise Ratio, SNR). Furthermore, a formula estimating MMSE decoder dB gain over ZF decoder is given. Based on this formula, an analytical formula calculating the gain when ρ goes to infinite is also presented, which is almost the same as one given in the paper. At last, simulations to confirm these formulas are shown.
Bcl2L12-mediated inhibition of effector caspase-3 and caspase-7 via distinct mechanisms in glioblastoma

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly aggressive brain cancer that is characterized by the paradoxical features of intense apoptosis resistance yet a marked propensity to undergo necrosis. Bcl2L12 (for Bcl2-Like12) is a nuclear and cytoplasmic oncoprotein that is universally overexpressed in primary GBM and functions to block postmitochondrial apoptosis signaling by neutralizing effector caspase-3 and caspase-7 maturation. This postmitochondrial block in apoptosis engenders the alternate cell fate of cellular necrosis, thus providing a molecular explanation for GBM's classical features. Whereas Bcl2L12-mediated neutralization of caspase-7 maturation involves physical interaction, the mechanism governing Bcl2L12-mediated inhibition of caspase-3 activity is not known. The nuclear localization of Bcl2L12 prompted expression profile studies of primary astrocytes engineered to overexpress Bcl2L12. The Bcl2L12 transcriptome revealed a striking induction of the small heat shock protein α-basic-crystallin (αB-crystallin/HspB5), a link reinforced by robust αB-crystallin expression in Bcl2L12-expressing orthotopic glioma and strong coexpression of αB-crystallin and Bcl2L12 proteins in human primary GBMs. On the functional level, enforced αB-crystallin or Bcl2L12 expression enhances orthotopic tumor growth. Conversely, RNAi-mediated knockdown of αB-crystallin in Bcl2L12-expressing astrocytes and glioma cell lines with high endogenous αB-crystallin showed enhanced apoptosis, yet decreased necrotic cell death with associated increased caspase-3 but not caspase-7 activation. Mirroring this specific effect on effector caspase-3 activation, αB-crystallin selectively binds pro-caspase-3 and its cleavage intermediates in vitro and in vivo. Thus, αB-crystallin is a Bcl2L12-induced oncoprotein that enables Bcl2L12 to block the activation of both effector caspases via distinct mechanisms, thereby contributing to GBM pathogenesis and its hallmark biological properties.
Pharmacological and Genetic Characterization of Two Selective Serotonin Transporter Ligands: 2-[2-(Dimethylaminomethylphenylthio)]-5-fluoromethylphenylamine (AFM) and 3-Amino-4-[2-(dimethylaminomethyl-phenylthio)]benzonitrile (DASB)

The expression and function of the serotonin transporter (SERT) is important in the regulation of mood and emotion. Determination of SERT alterations in physiological and pathological states is essential for understanding the role of SERT in mood regulation, and in the etiology and therapy of psychiatric disorders. Two SERT ligands, AFM ([3H]2-[2-(dimethylaminomethylphenylthio)]-5-fluoromethylphenylamine) and DASB ([3H]3-amino-4-[2-(dimethylaminomethylphenylthio)]benzonitrile), have recently been developed for positron emission tomography (PET) imaging. The aim of the present study was to determine the selectivity of these compounds for SERT. Autoradiography of AFM or DASB binding was compared in the brains of mice with genetically normal, diminished, or absent SERT. In addition, the pharmacodynamic profile of [3H]AFM was examined in the mouse brain. The distribution of [3H]AFM and [3H]DASB binding in the normal brains was consistent with that of previously studied serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Both ligands had negligible binding in the brain of SERT knockout mice, and binding was reduced approximately 50% in heterozygote SERT mice. The Kd of [3H]AFM binding in the cortex and midbrain was 1.6 and 1.0 nM, respectively. Competition studies showed that [3H]AFM has very low affinity for norepinephrine and dopamine transporters as well as 5-HT receptors, including 5-HT1A, 5-HT1B, 5-HT2A, and 5-HT2C receptors. In addition, fenfluramine showed a low capability to compete with [3H]AFM. The present results suggest that both AFM and DASB are highly selective SERT ligands potentially suitable for use in human PET studies of SERT.
NADPH oxidase expression and production of superoxide by human corneal stromal cells

Purpose Superoxide (O2.-) may function as a second messenger or regulator of signal transduction when produced at low concentrations in the proper locations within cells. The purpose of these studies was to determine whether human corneal stromal (HCS) fibroblasts are capable of producing O2. - via nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidases, a family of protein complexes believed to be responsible for the localized and limited production of O2. - with regulatory activity. Methods HCS cells, grown as primary and low-passage cultures of fibroblasts, were used as the sources of RNA for reverse transcriptase PCR, with primers specific for mRNAs encoding the proteins that comprise NADPH oxidases. Small interfering (si)RNAs were used to knockdown specific NOX mRNAs. Proteins composing the NADPH oxidase complexes were identified using western blots. The production of O2. - by whole cells and cell-free preparations was assessed by measurement of NADPH-dependent superoxide dismutase-inhibitable cytochrome c reduction. Results Whole cells and cell-free extracts of corneal stromal fibroblasts produced O2. - in an NADPH-dependent manner. These fibroblasts constitutively produced mRNAs encoding eight proteins known to comprise NADPH oxidase complexes. mRNAs encoding NOX1, NOX4, NOX5, p22 phox, p47 phox, p67 phox, and p40 phox as well as Rac were expressed. Treatment of HCS fibroblasts with siRNA pools specific for each of these three NOXs significantly reduced the steady state levels of the respective mRNAs. Western blots confirmed the existence of all the proteins required for O2. - production. Rac 1, a regulator of the activity of some forms of NADPH complexes was present in membranous cell fractions containing the oxidase proteins. Conclusions HCS fibroblasts produced O2. - in a NADPH-dependent manner via at least three isoforms of NADPH oxidase. These cells expressed NOX1, NOX4, NOX5, p22 phox, p47 phox, p67 phox, and p40 phox as well as Rac. SiRNAs directed against each of the three putative isoforms of NOX significantly reduced the steady state levels of the appropriate NOX mRNA pools, thus confirming the existence of the three isoforms. The O2. - produced by the NADPH oxidases in HCS fibroblasts is a potential contributor to signal transduction pathways and a regulator of gene expression as well as a potential participant in processes that occur during inflammation.
Bone marrow cells engraft within the epidermis and proliferate in vivo with no evidence of cell fusion

In adults, bone marrow‐derived cells (BMDC) can contribute to the structure of various non‐haematopoietic tissues, including skin. However, the physiological importance of these cells is unclear. This study establishes that bone marrow‐derived epidermal cells are proliferative and, moreover, demonstrates for the first time that BMDC can localize to a known stem cell niche: the CD34‐positive bulge region of mouse hair follicles. In addition, engraftment of bone marrow cells into the epidermis is significantly increased in wounded skin, bone marrow‐derived keratinocytes can form colonies in the regenerating epidermis in vivo, and the colony‐forming capacity of these cells can be recapitulated in vitro. In some tissues this apparent plasticity is attributed to differentiation, and in others to cell fusion. Evidence is also provided that bone marrow cells form epidermal keratinocytes without undergoing cell fusion. These data suggest a functional role for bone marrow cells in epidermal regeneration, entering known epidermal stem cell niches without heterokaryon formation. Copyright © 2004 Pathological Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Prediction-Based Prefetch Scheduling in Mobile Service Applications

The usage of Web or Cloud-based applications on mobile devices suffers from varying link quality, which causes user-perceivable delays and therefore reduces the Quality of Experience (QoE). On the other hand, mobile devices are increasingly feature-rich, allowing to make usage of context data in order to predict network quality based on the user's location. In this paper, we propose a prefetch scheduling algorithm based on network quality predictions, and evaluate it using data collected from real-world field tests. We show that our approach fulfills the expected gain in QoE. Using network quality prediction to optimize data prefetching can improve the user-perceived response time by up to 95%. Our results not only show the feasibility of the proposed algorithm, but also motivate further research in the field of mobility pattern creation, and undermine the importance of location as a part of user context throughout the software stack.
Guidelines for good pharmacoepidemiology practices (GPP)

Pharmacoepidemiologic studies provide valuable information about the health effects of healthcare products. The ISPE Guidelines for Good Pharmacoepidemiology Practices (GPP) are intended to assist investigators with issues pertaining to the planning, conduct, and evaluation of pharmacoepidemiologic research. The first revision, in 2004 revised and superseded the Guidelines for Good Epidemiologic Practice (GEP) developed in 1996. In that revision, the scope of the guidelines was broadened geographically and conceptually, to reflect ISPE’s international membership, to include risk management and pharmacoeconomic activities, and to address more clearly the role of epidemiologic studies from industry and regulatory perspectives. Specifically, the 2004 revision provided guidance on regulatory reporting requirements as they relate both to individual cases and to aggregate data (see Section ‘Adverse Event Reporting From Pharmacoepidemiology Studies’). The focus of the second revision has been on the use and communication of statistical measures and to add clarification to specific items throughout the document. ISPE recognizes that pharmacoepidemiologic research—the study of the use and effects of healthcare products (e.g., including pharmaceuticals, devices, and vaccines)—has expanded to include clinical, economic, and other health outcomes, requiring study methods that were not covered in previous guidelines. Pharmacoepidemiology is being used increasingly to evaluate health care systems, interventions, and
Prospects of high-resolution resonant X-ray inelastic scattering studies on solid materials, liquids and gases at diffraction-limited storage rings

Diffraction-limited storage rings will allow for pushing the achievable energy resolution, signal intensity and the sampled spot size in resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) experiments to new limits. In this article the types of improved soft X-ray RIXS studies that will become possible with these instrumental improvements are envisioned.
Effect of work:rest cycle duration on fluctuations during intermittent exercise

ABSTRACT The succession of on-transient phases that induce a repetition of metabolic changes is a possible mechanism responsible for the greater response to intermittent training (IT). The objective of this study was to quantify fluctuations during intermittent exercise characterised by the same work:rest ratio, but different durations and identify which duration leads to the greatest fluctuations. Ten participants (24 ± 5 years; : 42 ± 7 mL·min−1·kg−1) performed (1) an incremental test to exhaustion to determine peak work rate (WRpeak) and oxygen uptake (), (2), and three 1 h intermittent exercises alternating work period at 70% WRpeak with passive recovery period of different 1:1 work:recovery duty cycles (30 s:30 s, 60 s:60 s, 120 s:120 s). response analysis revealed differences in the fluctuations across the intermittent conditions despite an identical total energy expenditure. The sum of the cycle’s nadir-to-peak differences (ΣΔ) and the oxygen fluctuation index (OFI) were both greater in the 60 s:60 s condition (ΣΔ: +38% ± 13% and +19% ± 18% vs. 120 s:120 s and 30 s:30 s, P < 0.05; OFI: +41% ± 29% and +67% ± 62% vs. 120 s:120 s and 30:30 s, P < 0.05). fluctuation analysis was successful in identifying the intermittent condition associated with the greatest disturbances: the 60 s:60 s duty cycle induces more fluctuations. The present findings also demonstrate that the selection of the duty cycle duration for submaximal intermittent exercise (70% of WRpeak) prescription is of interest to produce high fluctuations.
Minimum Error Rate Training and the Convex Hull Semiring

We describe the line search used in the minimum error rate training algorithm MERT as the "inside score" of a weighted proof forest under a semiring defined in terms of well-understood operations from computational geometry. This conception leads to a straightforward complexity analysis of the dynamic programming MERT algorithms of Macherey et al. (2008) and Kumar et al. (2009) and practical approaches to implementation.
Deriving adaptive MRF coefficients from previous normal-dose CT scan for low-dose image reconstruction via penalized weighted least-squares minimization.

PURPOSE Repeated computed tomography (CT) scans are required for some clinical applications such as image-guided interventions. To optimize radiation dose utility, a normal-dose scan is often first performed to set up reference, followed by a series of low-dose scans for intervention. One common strategy to achieve the low-dose scan is to lower the x-ray tube current and exposure time (mAs) or tube voltage (kVp) setting in the scanning protocol, but the resulted image quality by the conventional filtered back-projection (FBP) method may be severely degraded due to the excessive noise. Penalized weighted least-squares (PWLS) image reconstruction has shown the potential to significantly improve the image quality from low-mAs acquisitions, where the penalty plays an important role. In this work, the authors' explore an adaptive Markov random field (MRF)-based penalty term by utilizing previous normal-dose scan to improve the subsequent low-dose scans image reconstruction. METHODS In this work, the authors employ the widely-used quadratic-form MRF as the penalty model and explore a novel idea of using the previous normal-dose scan to obtain the MRF coefficients for adaptive reconstruction of the low-dose images. In the coefficients determination, the authors further explore another novel idea of using the normal-dose scan to obtain a scale map, which describes an optimal neighborhood for the coefficients determination such that a local uniform region has a small spread of frequency spectrum and, therefore, a small MRF window, and vice versa. The proposed penalty term is incorporated into the PWLS image reconstruction framework, and the low-dose images are reconstructed via the PWLS minimization. RESULTS The presented adaptive MRF based PWLS algorithm was validated by physical phantom and patient data. The experimental results demonstrated that the presented algorithm is superior to the PWLS reconstruction using the conventional Gaussian MRF penalty or the edge-preserving Huber penalty and the conventional FBP method, in terms of image noise reduction and edge/detail/contrast preservation. CONCLUSIONS This study demonstrated the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed scheme in utilizing previous normal-dose CT scan to improve the subsequent low-dose scans.
Association of OPRM1 and COMT single-nucleotide polymorphisms with hospital length of stay and treatment of neonatal abstinence syndrome.

IMPORTANCE Neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS) caused by in utero opioid exposure is a growing problem; genetic factors influencing the incidence and severity have not been previously examined. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the μ-opioid receptor (OPRM1), multidrug resistance (ABCB1), and catechol-o-methyltransferase (COMT) genes are associated with risk for opioid addiction in adults. OBJECTIVE To determine whether SNPs in the OPRM1, ABCB1, and COMT genes are associated with length of hospital stay and the need for treatment of NAS. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS Prospective multicenter cohort study conducted at 5 tertiary care centers and community hospitals in Massachusetts and Maine between July 2011 and July 2012. DNA samples were genotyped for SNPs, and then NAS outcomes were correlated with genotype. Eighty-six of 140 eligible mother-infant dyads were enrolled. Infants were eligible if they were 36 weeks' gestational age or older and exposed to methadone or buprenorphine in utero . MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES Primary outcome measure was length of hospital stay, with between-group differences expressed as β and calculated with linear regression models. Secondary outcome measures included need for any medical treatment for NAS and treatment with 2 or more medications. RESULTS Infants with the OPRM1 118A>G AG/GG genotype had shortened length of stay (β = -8.5 days; 95% CI, -14.9 to -2.1 days; P = .009) and were less likely to receive any treatment than AA infants (48% vs 72%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.76; 95% CI, 0.63-0.96; P = .006). The COMT 158A>G AG/GG genotype was associated with shortened length of stay (β = -10.8 days; 95% CI, -18.2 to -3.4 days; P = .005) and less treatment with 2 or more medications (18% vs 56%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.55-0.86; P = .001) than the AA genotype. Associations with the ABCB1 SNPs were not significant. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE Among infants with NAS, variants in the OPRM1 and COMT genes were associated with a shorter length of hospital stay and less need for treatment. These preliminary findings may provide insight into the mechanisms underlying NAS.
Testing Auditory Processing Skills and their Associations with Language in 4—5-year-olds

Infants’ auditory processing abilities have been shown to predict subsequent language development. In addition, poor auditory processing skills have been shown for some individuals with specific language impairment. Methods used in infant studies are not appropriate for use with young children, and neither are methods typically used to test auditory processing skills in specific language impairment (SLI). The objective in this study was to develop an appropriate way of testing auditory processing skills in children in the 4—5 year age range. We report data from 49 children aged 4—5 years (mean age 58.57 months) tested on five tasks with tones and synthesized syllables. Frequencies and inter-stimulus intervals were varied in the tone tasks; the second formant transitions between consonant and vowel were varied in the syllable tasks. Consistent with past research, variability was found in children’s auditory processing abilities. Significant correlations in discrimination thresholds for the tasks were found. The results from two regression analyses showed that the children’s auditory processing abilities predicted significant amounts of variance for receptive and expressive language.
Data storage framework on flash memory based SSD RAID 0 for performance oriented applications

Flash memory is hugely been using for small handheld to large enterprise applications due to its attractive characteristics like fast access speed, shock resistance and others. Performance oriented applications like multimedia, robotics, OLTP and further require fault tolerant more reliable high throughput. Therefore, flash memory with its remarkable features is an outstanding choice to meet their business needs. In this paper, we propose a firmware/driver based data storage framework to implement RAID 0 on flash memory platform to support the increasing requirements of data reliability and system performance. In our knowledge, this is the first research presented in concerned area. The real time experimental results prove the effectiveness of our technique.
Let Sense Bags Do Talking: Cross Lingual Word Semantic Similarity for English and Hindi

Cross Lingual Word Semantic (CLWS) similarity is deﬁned as a task to ﬁnd the semantic similarity between two words across languages. Semantic similarity has been very popular in computing the similarity between two words in same language. CLWS similarity will prove to be very effective in the area of Cross Lingual Information Retrieval, Machine Translation, Cross Lingual Word Sense Disam-biguation, etc. In this paper, we discuss a system that is developed to compute CLWS similarity of words between two languages, where one language is treated as resourceful and other is resource scarce. The system is developed using WordNet. The intuition behind this system is that, two words are semantically similar if their senses are similar to each other. The system is tested for English and Hindi with the accuracy 60.5% precision@1 and 72.91% precision@3.