Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of Vibrato Features to Control Singing Voices

Singing synthesis applications have recently been developed to create natural singing voices. Applications such as VOCALOID can synthesize singing voices by inputting lyrics and scores, and musical expressions such as vibrato and portamento are added to the singing voices by controlling pitches. This control is crucial to synthesize natural singing voices, but users are required to edit the pitch contour precisely, which means that the sound quality depends on the skill of the user. If the singing voices were controlled by using professional singers’ musical expressions, users could synthesize natural singing voices more easily. We created a singing database composed of several singers’ vi-brato and portamento and then extracted their musical expressions and analyzed the vibrato to synthesize natural singing voices. The database consists of four professional singers (two females and two males) who sang the five Japanese vowels. The vibrato pitches were set to thirteen pitches of an octave that each singer could sing. This data-base contains not only the singers’ own singing voices but also imitations of other singers. We used the database to analyze the differences of vibrato between professional singers and to determine how to control vibrato by imper-sonation. In a previous study, a vibrato model in the form of a fundamental frequency (F0) contour was proposed to synthesize natural singing voices. This model can control the vibrato rate (speed of pitch fluctuation) and vibrato extent (width of pitch fluctuation). Vibrato sections are extracted and vibrato features are calculated from the F0 contour of singing voices and defined as average in the vibrato section. It was reported that these vibrato features varied according to the type of song. Song type was the only focus of this study, whereas in our study, we focus on the difference of vibrato based on the singer. We propose using vibrato duration (the ratio between vibrato length and voice length) and time fluctuations of the vibrato rate and vibrato extent to analyze professional singers’ vibrato. The time fluctuation of the vibrato rate is calculated from period of F0 contour, and the time fluctuation of the vibrato extent is calculated from the instantaneous amplitude of the F0 contour. Results showed the different vibrato features of the professional singers and also indicated that when a singer imitates another singer, the vibrato features are consciously controlled.
2016 Ieee International Conference on Big Data (big Data) Java Thread and Process Performance for Parallel Machine Learning on Multicore Hpc Clusters

—The growing use of Big Data frameworks on large machines highlights the importance of performance issues and the value of High Performance Computing (HPC) technology. This paper looks carefully at three major frameworks Spark, Flink and Message Passing Interface (MPI) both in scaling across nodes and internally over the many cores inside modern nodes. We focus on the special challenges of the Java Virtual Machine (JVM) using an Intel Haswell HPC cluster with 24 cores per node. Two parallel machine learning algorithms, K-Means clustering and Multidimensional Scaling (MDS) are used in our performance studies. We identify three major issues – thread models, affinity patterns, and communication mechanisms – as factors affecting performance by large factors and show how to optimize them so that Java can match the performance of traditional HPC languages like C. Further we suggest approaches that preserve the user interface and elegant dataflow approach of Flink and Spark but modify the runtime so that these Big Data frameworks can achieve excellent performance and realize the goals of HPC-Big Data convergence.
Regeneration of Solanum nigrum by Somatic Embryogenesis, Involving Frog Egg-Like Body, a Novel Structure

A new protocol was established for the regeneration of Solanum nigrum by frog egg-like bodies (FELBs), which are novel somatic embryogenesis (SE) structures induced from the root, stem, and leaf explants. The root, stem, and leaf explants (93.33%, 85.10%, and 100.00%, respectively) were induced to form special embryonic calli on Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium containing 1.0 mg/L 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, under dark condition. Further, special embryonic calli from the root, stem, and leaf explants (86.97%, 83.30%, and 99.47%, respectively) were developed into FELBs. Plantlets of FELBs from the three explants were induced in vitro on MS medium supplemented with 5.0 mg/L 6-benzylaminopurine and 0.1 mg/L gibberellic acid, and 100.00% plantlet induction rates were noted. However, plantlet induction in vivo on MS medium supplemented with 20 mg/L thidiazuron showed rates of 38.63%, 15.63%, and 61.30% for the root, stem, and leaf explants, respectively, which were lower than those of the in vitro culture. Morphological and histological analyses of FELBs at different development stages revealed that they are a novel type of SE structure that developed from the mesophyll (leaf) or cortex (stem and root) cells of S. nigrum.
L-VIRT: A 3-D Range-Free Localization Method for RFID Tags Based on Virtual Landmarks and Mobile Readers

RFID is an automatic identification technology that enables tracking of people and objects. This research focuses on improving context-awareness by associating locations to identities. We propose L-VIRT, an extension of our 3-D range-free localization method for RFID tags [1] that uses additional mobile readers to refine its accuracy. Topological constraints are deduced from connectivity information and combined with virtual landmarks to localize tags. Mobile tags are localized with the static reader infrastructure while the localization of static tags is enhanced with mobile readers. Simulation results show a fine-grained accuracy when readers are densely deployed and an impressive error reduction when few mobile readers are involved.
An Ethnographic Study about the Lived Experiences of Transracial Adoption from a Haudenosaunee Adult Adoptee Perspective

Promoting transracial adoptions became common in attempting to assimilate American Indians into European American culture. These adoptions were authorized by the United States Government through the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act. This research focused on how American Indian transracial adoptees developed a Haudenosaunee cultural identity after being adopted by a European American family. The ethnographic study was conducted with Haudenosaunee adult adoptees to explore their lived experiences. Face-to-face semi-structured interviews were used to guide the conversation about the degree to which each participant developed a cultural identity as a Haudenosaunee. Qualitative methods were used for data analysis. The study discovered four themes which were: traumatic beginnings, relationships, identity development, and cultural transcendence. These themes validate the Haudenosaunee adoptee’s life experiences. A result of this study a policy change for Indian Child Services Welfare Act (ICWA) is recommended. Also in the field of social work further cultural competence training is recommended especially those involved with transracial adoptions. Lastly, the need for more research about this topic needs to continue to keep expanding the knowledge of how indigenous communities have demonstrated cultural resiliency. Document Type Dissertation Degree Name Doctor of Education (EdD) Department Executive Leadership First Supervisor Kim VanDerLinden Second Supervisor Sally Wagner Subject Categories Education This dissertation is available at Fisher Digital Publications: https://fisherpub.sjfc. edu/education_etd/334 An Ethnographic Study about the Lived Experiences of Transracial Adoption from a Haudenosaunee Adult Adoptee Perspective
When is a First Language More Emotional? Psychophysiological Evidence from Bilingual Speakers

This chapter will review recent studies measuring physiological aspects of bilinguals’ emotional response to stimuli presented in speakers’ first and second language. We also introduce a new theory, ‘the emotional contexts of learning theory’, developed to account for findings from existing studies of bilingualism and emotion. We then evaluate the data consistent with this theory, the new predictions it makes, and the overall prospects for integrating psychophysiological research with cross-linguistic and cross-cultural research. The connections between emotion and cognition have been increasingly studied over the past decade (e.g. Damasio, 1994, 1999; LeDoux, 1996, 2002; Panksepp, 1998). Less attention has been paid to the emotional correlates of language. One arena in which emotional concomitants of language are keenly felt is in bilingual speakers’ sense that there is greater emotional arousal associated with their first language compared to their second language. Intuitions like these have been documented in the writings of bilingual authors (Pavlenko, 1998), testimonials of patients undergoing psychotherapy (Altarriba & Santiago-Rivera, 1994; SantiagoRivera & Altarriba, 2002; Schrauf, 2000), and in laboratory studies (Anooshian & Hertel, 1994; Aycicegi & Harris, 2004; Bond & Lai, 1986; Marian & Neisser, 2000; Schrauf & Rubin, 1998). However, investigation of personal emotional experiences, such as which language feels more emotional, has traditionally been assumed to lie outside the scope of scientific research. The cognitive sciences have avoided studying emotion and subjective experience for several reasons: (1) the origins of the cognitive revolution
Phylogeography of the Rock Shell Thais clavigera (Mollusca): Evidence for Long-Distance Dispersal in the Northwestern Pacific

The present-day genetic structure of a species reflects both historical demography and patterns of contemporary gene flow among populations. To precisely understand how these factors shape current population structure of the northwestern (NW) Pacific marine gastropod, Thais clavigera, we determined the partial nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene for 602 individuals sampled from 29 localities spanning almost the whole distribution of T. clavigera in the NW Pacific Ocean (~3,700 km). Results from population genetic and demographic analyses (AMOVA, ΦST-statistics, haplotype networks, Tajima’s D, Fu’s FS, mismatch distribution, and Bayesian skyline plots) revealed a lack of genealogical branches or geographical clusters, and a high level of genetic (haplotype) diversity within each of studied population. Nevertheless, low but significant genetic structuring was detected among some geographical populations separated by the Changjiang River, suggesting the presence of geographical barriers to larval dispersal around this region. Several lines of evidence including significant negative Tajima’s D and Fu’s FS statistics values, the unimodally shaped mismatch distribution, and Bayesian skyline plots suggest a population expansion at marine isotope stage 11 (MIS 11; 400 ka), the longest and warmest interglacial interval during the Pleistocene epoch. The lack of genetic structure among the great majority of the NW Pacific T. clavigera populations may be attributable to high gene flow by current-driven long-distance dispersal of prolonged planktonic larval phase of this species.
Detection of fast- ux botnets through DNS tra c analysis

Botnets are networks built up of a large number of bot computers, which provide the attacker with massive resources, such as bandwidth, storage, and processing power, in turn, allowing the attacker to launch massive attacks, such as Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks, or undertake spamming or phishing campaigns. One of the main approaches for botnet detection is based on monitoring and analyzing DNS query/responses in the network, where botnets make their detection more diicult by using techniques such as fast-uxing. Moreover, the main challenge in detecting fast-ux botnets arises from their similar behavior with that of legitimate networks, such as CDNs, which employ a round-robin DNS technique. In this paper, we propose a new system to detect fast-ux botnets by passive DNS monitoring. The proposed system rst lters out domains seen in historical DNS traces assuming that they are benign. We believe this assumption to be valid as benign domains usually have long lifetime as compared to botnet domains, which are usually short-lived. Hence, CDN domains, which are the main cause of misclassiication when looking for malicious fast-ux domains, are removed. Afterwards, a few simple features are calculated to help in properly categorizing the domains in question as either benign or botnet related. The proposed system is evaluated by employing DNS traces from our campus network and encouraging evaluation results are obtained.
A Parameters Selection Scheme for Medical Image Registration

This paper presents a novel approach for automating the process of medical image registration. Considering rigid image registration, we propose a methodology in which the image registration process is divided in two phases. Phase 1 is used to obtain an accurate estimate of the rotations and a rough estimate of the translations. Phase 2 is used to finetune the translation estimates. In each phase, a fuzzy logic controller is used to adjust the registration parameters to obtain accurate transformation estimates. The proposed methodology produces highly accurate medical image registrations while reducing the required user interaction and maintaining excellent computational efficiency
Genetics of cortico-cerebellar expansion in anthropoid primates: a comparative approach

What adaptive changes in brain structure and function underpin the evolution of increased cognitive performance in humans and our close relatives? Identifying the genetic basis of brain evolution has become a major tool in answering this question. Numerous cases of positive selection, altered gene expression or gene duplication have been identified that may contribute to the evolution of the neocortex, which is widely assumed to play a predominant role in cognitive evolution. However, the neocortex co-evolves with other, functionally inter-dependent, regions of the brain, most notably the cerebellum. The cerebellum is linked to a range of cognitive tasks and expanded rapidly during hominoid evolution, independently of neocortex size. Here we demonstrate that, across primates, genes with known roles in cerebellum development are just as likely to be targeted by selection as genes linked to cortical development. In fact, cerebellum genes are more likely to have evolved adaptively during hominoid evolution, consistent with phenotypic data suggesting an accelerated rate of cerebellar expansion in apes. Finally, we present evidence that selection targeted genes with specific effects on either the neocortex or cerebellum, not both. This suggests cortico-cerebellar co-evolution is maintained by selection acting on independent developmental programs.
A Distributed Geo-Routing Algorithm for Wireless Sensor Networks

Geographic wireless sensor networks use position information for greedy routing. Greedy routing works well in dense networks, whereas in sparse networks it may fail and require a recovery algorithm. Recovery algorithms help the packet to get out of the communication void. However, these algorithms are generally costly for resource constrained position-based wireless sensor networks (WSNs). In this paper, we propose a void avoidance algorithm (VAA), a novel idea based on upgrading virtual distance. VAA allows wireless sensor nodes to remove all stuck nodes by transforming the routing graph and forwarding packets using only greedy routing. In VAA, the stuck node upgrades distance unless it finds a next hop node that is closer to the destination than it is. VAA guarantees packet delivery if there is a topologically valid path. Further, it is completely distributed, immediately responds to node failure or topology changes and does not require planarization of the network. NS-2 is used to evaluate the performance and correctness of VAA and we compare its performance to other protocols. Simulations show our proposed algorithm consumes less energy, has an efficient path and substantially less control overheads.
Airport Congestion When Carriers Have Market Power

This paper analyzes airport congestion when carriers are nonatomistic, showing how the results of the road-pricing literature are modified when the economic agents causing congestion have market power. The analysis shows that when an airport is dominated by a monopolist, congestion is fully internalized, yielding no role for congestion pricing under monopoly conditions. Under a Cournot oligopoly, however, carriers are shown to internalize only the congestion they impose on themselves. A toll that captures the uninternalized portion of congestion may then improve the allocation of traffic. The analysis is supported by some rudimentary empirical evidence.
The cerebellum in action: a simulation and robotics study

The control or prediction of the precise timing of events are central aspects of the many tasks assigned to the cerebellum. Despite much detailed knowledge of its physiology and anatomy, it remains unclear how the cerebellar circuitry can achieve such an adaptive timing function. We present a computational model pursuing this question for one extensively studied type of cerebellar‐mediated learning: the classical conditioning of discrete motor responses. This model combines multiple current assumptions on the function of the cerebellar circuitry and was used to investigate whether plasticity in the cerebellar cortex alone can mediate adaptive conditioned response timing. In particular, we studied the effect of changes in the strength of the synapses formed between parallel fibres and Purkinje cells under the control of a negative feedback loop formed between inferior olive, cerebellar cortex and cerebellar deep nuclei. The learning performance of the model was evaluated at the circuit level in simulated conditioning experiments as well as at the behavioural level using a mobile robot. We demonstrate that the model supports adaptively timed responses under real‐world conditions. Thus, in contrast to many other models that have focused on cerebellar‐mediated conditioning, we investigated whether and how the suggested underlying mechanisms could give rise to behavioural phenomena.
The Road: an ethnography of (im)mobility, space, and cross-border infrastructures in the Balkans

groups. On the other hand, the increasingly repressive strategy of the regime, coupled with the prospect of the military draft, placed an ‘all or nothing’ choice before students, which was conducive to radicalization and made them particularly receptive to revolutionary ideas. The Revolution before the Revolution is a landmark study, bringing us an insightful look into student mobilization against authoritarianism which will be of interest not only to students and scholars of Southern European democratization, but also to those concerned with the dynamics of opposition to authoritarianism in a wide range of settings.
Distance measures for MPEG-7-based retrieval

In visual information retrieval the careful choice of suitable proximity measures is a crucial success factor. The evaluation presented in this paper aims at showing that the distance measures suggested by the MPEG-7 group for the visual descriptors can be beaten by general-purpose measures. Eight visual MPEG-7 descriptors were selected and 38 distance measures implemented. Three media collections were created and assessed, performance indicators developed and more than 22500 tests performed. Additionally, a quantisation model was developed to be able to use predicate-based distance measures on continuous data as well. The evaluation shows that the distance measures recommended in the MPEG-7-standard are among the best but that other measures perform even better.
The Role of Cognitive Instrumental Processes, Social Influence Processes and Perceived Behavioural Control in the Acceptance of the Internet as a Learning Tool

The adoption and use of the Internet and World Wide Web (hereafter referred to as the Internet) for learning purposes has increased rapidly over the past few years, and a plethora of new web-based learning tools and technologies have begun to emerge (Mioduser, Nachmias, Lahav & Oren 2000). The use of such tools has not been restricted to the traditional distance learning environment, and their adoption by institutions for internal courses as well is now commonplace (McClelland 2001).
Security monitor inlining and certification for multithreaded Java

Security monitor inlining is a technique for security policy enforcement whereby monitor functionality is injected into application code in the style of aspect-oriented programming. The intention is that the injected code enforces compliance with the policy (security), and otherwise interferes with the application as little as possible (conservativity and transparency). Such inliners are said to be correct. For sequential Java-like languages, inlining is well understood, and several provably correct inliners have been proposed. For multithreaded Java one difficulty is the need to maintain a shared monitor state. We show that this problem introduces fundamental limitations in the type of security policies that can be correctly enforced by inlining. A class of race-free policies is identified that precisely characterizes the inlineable policies by showing that inlining of a policy outside this class is either not secure or not transparent, and by exhibiting a concrete inliner for policies inside the class which is secure, conservative and transparent. The inliner is implemented for Java and applied to a number of practical application security policies. Finally, we discuss how certification in the style of proof-carrying code could be supported for inlined programs by using annotations to reduce a potentially complex verification problem for multithreaded Java bytecode to sequential verification of just the inlined code snippets.
Cooperative Set Aggregation for Multiple Lagrangian Systems

In this paper, we study the cooperative set tracking problem for a group of Lagrangian systems. Each system observes a convex set as its local target. The intersection of these local sets is the group aggregation target. We first propose a control law based on each system's own target sensing and information exchange with neighbors. With necessary connectivity for both cases of fixed and switching communication graphs, multiple Lagrangian systems are shown to achieve rendezvous on the intersection of all the local target sets while the vectors of generalized coordinate derivatives are driven to zero. Then, we introduce the collision avoidance control term into set aggregation control to ensure group dispersion. By defining an ultimate bound on the final generalized coordinate between each system and the intersection of all the local target sets, we show that multiple Lagrangian systems approach a bounded region near the intersection of all the local target sets while the collision avoidance is guaranteed during the movement. In addition, the vectors of generalized coordinate derivatives of all the mechanical systems are shown to be driven to zero. Simulation results are given to validate the theoretical results.
Transitional results on symbian based call quality measurement for telecommunication network

The proposed methodology addresses the issue of call quality from the end users and operators perspective. The purpose here is to present the emerging result of the research work, which is more on the development of the software for the speech quality analysis. The idea is aimed at developing an algorithm that will be driven by the operating system to measure certain call parameter during calls and provide average scores at the end of the call. Such call parameters includes, the successful call rate, drop call rate, handover success rate, handover failure rate and Location Area Code (LAC).