Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DISCRIMINATIVE METHODS FOR NOISE ROBUST SPEECH RECOGNITION: A CHIME CHALLENGE BENCHMARK

The recently introduced second CHiME challenge is a difficult two-microphone speech recognition task with non-stationary interference. Current approaches in the source-separation community have focused on the front-end problem of estimating the clean signal given the noisy signals. Here we pursue a different approach, focusing on state-of-the-art ASR techniques such as discriminative training and various feature transformations, in addition to simple noise suppression methods based on prior-based binary masking with estimated angle of arrival. In addition, we propose an augmented discriminative feature transformation that can introduce arbitrary features to a discriminative feature transform, an efficient combination method of Discriminative Language Modeling (DLM) and Minimum Bayes Risk (MBR) decoding in an ASR post-processing stage, and preliminarily investigate the effectiveness of deep neural networks for reverberated and noisy speech recognition. Using these techniques we present a benchmark on the middle-vocabulary subtask of CHiME challenge, showing their effectiveness for this task. Promising results were also obtained for the proposed augmented feature transformation and combination of DLM and MBR decoding. A part of the training code has been released as an advanced ASR baseline, using the Kaldi speech recognition toolkit. Index Terms—CHiME challenge, Noise robust ASR, Discriminative methods, Feature transformation, Prior-based binary masking
Rotational dynamics of axially symmetric solutes in isotropic solvents. II. The stochastic model

In paper I of this series, a molecular dynamics (MD) study of liquid chlorine was performed, and it includes the definition and observation of operational cage variables. These cage variables were used to describe the local environment of a rotating axially symmetric molecule, or probe. Probe and cage properties of interest, such as rotational correlation functions and momentum correlation functions, were computed, together with an effective distribution of librational cage frequencies. In the second part of this work, we develop a stochastic model which includes the relevant elementary relaxation processes previously identified by the MD study. This stochastic model is based upon a multi‐dimensional Fokker–Planck equation for the coupled dynamics of the probe and cage orientations, the angular momentum of the probe, and the librational frequencies for the probe in the cage. Semi‐analytical approximations, based upon a ‘‘Born–Oppenheimer’’‐type separability of fast and slow variables, are used in order to.
A Semantics-based Information Retrieval Model

In this paper, I propose a semantics-based IR model, which uses triplet (concept-relationconcept) instead of keywords to index documents. It uses the sense instead of the string of a term to index document, which not only makes the representation more accuracy, but also well solves the synonym problem. More importantly, this model avoids the frequently occurred situation in keywordbased IR model that two keywords co-occur in a document but they do not have any syntactic or semantic relation at all. Besides, the model well supports the integration with domain ontology. Thus, it is reasonable to expect higher performance on the proposed semantics-based IR model. I present the models and the methods for components of indexing, searching and matching in detail, which documents the technical feasibility. A case study is performed showing the performance improvement of the new model in comparison with keyword-based IR model.
User authentication scheme based on Fast-Walsh Hadamard transform

User authentication scheme in context of audio can be achieved by labeling the speech signal with key signal dependent physical features. The key features for the development of the label are identified by using the common classification schemes such as ANN, kNN and SVM. The relevant features are given as input to an online QR code generator to obtain the QR code which is employed as the watermark. Using the FWHT transform, speech signal is then labeled and the confirmation along with comparison at the receiving end guarantees speaker authentication.
The Relation of Poor Emotional Awareness and Externalizing Behavior Among Children With ADHD

Objective: Children with ADHD often demonstrate poor emotional self-awareness and higher levels of externalizing behavior problems relative to unaffected children. This study examined the relation of deficient emotional self-awareness to externalizing behavior problems in children with ADHD, and the role of emotional reactivity in this relationship. Method: Fifty-one 8- to 12-year-old children with ADHD and their parents completed measures of the children’s emotional and behavioral functioning, as well as a diagnostic structured interview. Results: Logistic regression suggested that more impaired emotional self-awareness was strongly associated with the diagnosis of a comorbid externalizing disorder. Hierarchical regression analyses strongly supported the relation of poor emotional awareness to reactivity-driven externalizing behavior, but not to proactive externalizing behavior. These effects were evident across reporters. Conclusion: This study suggested that poor emotional self-awareness is significantly linked to externalizing problems in children with ADHD, and that dysregulated emotional reactivity plays an important role in this relationship.
A feature-word-topic model for image annotation and retrieval

Image annotation is a process of finding appropriate semantic labels for images in order to obtain a more convenient way for indexing and searching images on the Web. This article proposes a novel method for image annotation based on combining feature-word distributions, which map from visual space to word space, and word-topic distributions, which form a structure to capture label relationships for annotation. We refer to this type of model as Feature-Word-Topic models. The introduction of topics allows us to efficiently take word associations, such as {ocean, fish, coral} or {desert, sand, cactus}, into account for image annotation. Unlike previous topic-based methods, we do not consider topics as joint distributions of words and visual features, but as distributions of words only. Feature-word distributions are utilized to define weights in computation of topic distributions for annotation. By doing so, topic models in text mining can be applied directly in our method. Our Feature-word-topic model, which exploits Gaussian Mixtures for feature-word distributions, and probabilistic Latent Semantic Analysis (pLSA) for word-topic distributions, shows that our method is able to obtain promising results in image annotation and retrieval.
Alguns problemas de teoria das classes sociais

Ele situa-se, desde logo, nao no terreno das accoes individuais e finalizadas e da interaccao, mas no das praticas colectivas produtoras do social, no das relacoes sociais. As classes funcionam, enquanto instrumento conceptual, como uma mediacao entre o conjunto das estruturas sociais e um conjunto de praticas socialmente significativas. A operacao que consiste em torna-las como variavel independente tem como condicao de pertinencia o nao perder de vista esse caracter mediador, ou seja, que elas proprias sao socialmente produzidas, que constituem efeitos, em termos de clivagens sociais, de estruturacoes historicas complexas. A reproducao social nao se inscreve, com efeito, em terreno virgem. Se as estruturas condicionantes sao resultado de praticas sociais, sao-no enquanto cristalizacoes mais ou menos duraveis em modos de organizacao economica e social, em sistemas ideologicos, em organizacoes politicas. E essa heranca multifacetada que determina em cada conjuntura, em cada tempo e em cada espaco os limites das praticas. E ela que limita as modalidades da sua propria transformacao, os graus de possibilidade de irrupcao do novo, que se afirmara em negacao parcial duma inercia. Se toda a explicacao do social tem assim, por definicao, uma componente genetica, nem por isso deixa de ser teoricamente pertinente o fechamento do campo analitico que remete para o seu exterior, de forma controlada, quer boa parte dos processos historicos que formaram uma situacao actual e que, portanto, contribuem para a explicar, quer parte das multiplas conexoes que a ligam a outros processos de diversa localizacao. Nem de outro modo se poderia proceder em qualquer pesquisa empirica, com as diferentes opcoes que a construcao dos objectos de conhecimento imponham 1.
The International Workshop on Computer Architecture for Machine Perception and Sensing Development of High-resolution Digital Vision Chip Based on CFPE Architecture

AbstratIn this paper, we describe VLSI implementation using a new vision chip architecture that enables various visual processings on the same architecture and combines high speed and the high accumulation. A 64 x 64 pixel prototype vision chip and its evaluation results are shown. The chip is integrated on a 3.6 mm x 3.9 mm chip using a 0.35 ,um CMOS DLP/TLM process; the pixel size is 33.0 ,um x 33.0 ,um. The maximum current consumption is approximately 500 mA.
&agr;4&bgr;1 Integrin Mediates Selective Endothelial Cell Responses to Thrombospondins 1 and 2 In Vitro and Modulates Angiogenesis In Vivo

Abstract— We examined the function of &agr;4&bgr;1 integrin in angiogenesis and in mediating endothelial cell responses to the angiogenesis modulators, thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2. &agr;4&bgr;1 supports adhesion of venous endothelial cells but not of microvascular endothelial cells on immobilized thrombospondin-1, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1, or recombinant N-terminal regions of thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2. Chemotactic activities of this region of thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2 are also mediated by &agr;4&bgr;1, whereas antagonism of fibroblast growth factor-2–stimulated chemotaxis is not mediated by this region. Immobilized N-terminal regions of thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2 promote endothelial cell survival and proliferation in an &agr;4&bgr;1-dependent manner. Soluble &agr;4&bgr;1 antagonists inhibit angiogenesis in the chick chorioallantoic membrane and neovascularization of mouse muscle explants. The latter inhibition is thrombospondin-1–dependent and not observed in explants from thrombospondin-1−/− mice. Antagonizing &agr;4&bgr;1 may in part block proangiogenic activities of thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2, because N-terminal regions of thrombospondin-1 and thrombospondin-2 containing the &agr;4&bgr;1 binding sequence stimulate angiogenesis in vivo. Therefore, &agr;4&bgr;1 is an important endothelial cell receptor for mediating motility and proliferative responses to thrombospondins and for modulation of angiogenesis.
Constraint Handling in Multiobjective Evolutionary Optimization

This paper proposes a constraint handling technique for multiobjective evolutionary algorithms based on an adaptive penalty function and a distance measure. These two functions vary dependent upon the objective function value and the sum of constraint violations of an individual. Through this design, the objective space is modified to account for the performance and constraint violation of each individual. The modified objective functions are used in the nondominance sorting to facilitate the search of optimal solutions not only in the feasible space but also in the infeasible regions. The search in the infeasible space is designed to exploit those individuals with better objective values and lower constraint violations. The number of feasible individuals in the population is used to guide the search process either toward finding more feasible solutions or favor in search for optimal solutions. The proposed method is simple to implement and does not need any parameter tuning. The constraint handling technique is tested on several constrained multiobjective optimization problems and has shown superior results compared to some chosen state-of-the-art designs.
Risk based capital for guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit

The guaranteed minimum withdrawal benefit (GMWB), which is sold as a rider to variable annuity contracts, guarantees the return of total purchase payment regardless of the performance of the underlying investment funds. The valuation of GMWB has been extensively covered in the previous literature, but a more challenging problem is the computation of the risk based capital for risk management and regulatory reasons. One needs to find the tail distribution of the profit–loss function, which differs from its expected payoff required for pricing the GMWB contract. GMWB has embedded two option-like features: Management fees are proportional to the current value of the policyholder’s account which results in an average price of the account. Thus the contract resembles an Asian option. However, the fees are charged only up to the time of the account hitting zero which resembles a barrier option payoff. Thus the GMWB is mathematically more complicated than Asian or barrier options traded on the financial markets. To the authors’ best knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature to formulate and analyse profit–loss distribution using PDE methods of such a product with intricate option-like features. Our approach is much more efficient than the current market practice of rather intensive and expensive Monte Carlo simulations due to the lack of samples for extreme cases.
Toward a Theory of Assurance Case Confidence

Abstract : Assurance cases provide an argument and evidence explaining why a claim about some system property holds. This report outlines a framework for justifying confidence in the truth of such an assurance case claim. The framework is based on the notion of eliminative induction - the principle (first put forward by Francis Bacon) that confidence in the truth of a hypothesis (or claim) increases as reasons for doubting its truth are identified and eliminated. Possible reasons for doubting the truth of a claim (defeaters) arise from analyzing an assurance case using defeasible reasoning concepts. Finally, the notion of Baconian probability provides a measure of confidence based on how many defeaters have been identified and eliminated.
Sustained excitability elevations induced by transcranial DC motor cortex stimulation in humans

The authors show that in the human transcranial direct current stimulation is able to induce sustained cortical excitability elevations. As revealed by transcranial magnetic stimulation, motor cortical excitability increased approximately 150% above baseline for up to 90 minutes after the end of stimulation. The feasibility of inducing long-lasting excitability modulations in a noninvasive, painless, and reversible way makes this technique a potentially valuable tool in neuroplasticity modulation.
On an approach to object recognition in X-ray medical images and interactive diagnostics process

The research behind this paper is dedicated to building a tool for batch-procesing X-ray medical images in medical establishments. This paper proposes the approach to object detection and edge finding suitable for X-ray medical images and producing object boundaries in vector representation as polygons. The approach consists of detection stage and edge refinement stage and exploits a class-specific trait of X-ray medical images. The detection is performed by minimization the distance function between contours. Edge refinement uses active contours approach with the new gradient map filtering procedure which improves the resulting boundary quality. The proposed method does not require a training set of images and a-priori data is represented by initial template which is obtained manually. The visual results and performance of this approach were quite satisfactory. Representation of the target boundary as a polyline helps perform distance measurements between specific points. Possible applications of this approach for interactive medical diagnosis process are discussed.
Computers and Mathematics with Applications Static Program Analysis Assisted Dynamic Taint Tracking for Software Vulnerability Discovery

The evolution of computer science has exposed us to the growing gravity of security problems and threats. Dynamic taint analysis is a prevalent approach to protect a program from malicious behaviors, but fails to provide any information about the code which is not executed. This paper describes a novel approach to overcome the limitation of traditional dynamic taint analysis by integrating static analysis into the system and presents framework SDCF to detect software vulnerabilities with high code coverage. Our experiments show that SDCF is not only able to provide efficient runtime protection by introducing an overhead of 4.16× based on the taint tracing technique, but is also capable of discovering latent software vulnerabilities which have not been exploited, and achieve code coverage of more than 90%.
Covariance-based online validation of video tracking

A novel approach is proposed for online evaluation of video tracking without ground-truth data. The temporal evolution of the covariance features is exploited to detect the stability of the tracker output over time. A model validation strategy performs such detection without learning the failure cases of the tracker under evaluation. Then, the tracker performance is estimated by a finite state machine determining whether the tracker is on-target (successful) or not (unsuccessful). The experimental results over a heterogeneous dataset show that the proposed approach outperforms related state-of-the-art approaches in terms of performance and computational cost.
Effect of light quality on the organization of photosynthetic electron transport chain of pea seedlings.

The activity of NADP and O(2) photoreduction by water is essentially higher in chloroplasts isolated from pea seedlings (Pisum sativum L.) grown under blue light as compared with that from plants grown under red light. In contrast, the photoreduction of NADP and O(2) with photosystem I only is practically the same or even lower in chloroplasts isolated from plants grown under blue light. The addition of plastocyanin does not affect the rate or the extent of NADP photoreduction by water in the chloroplasts isolated from plants grown under blue light, whereas it sharply activates NADP reduction in the chloroplasts isolated from plants grown under red light. The extent of the light-induced oxidation of cytochrome f is appreciably higher in chloroplasts isolated from plants grown under blue light. Cytochrome b(559) plays the predominant role in the oxidoreductive reactions of these chloroplasts. Furthermore, the fluorescence measurements indicate more effective transfer of excitation energy from chlorophyll to the photosystem II reaction center in chloroplasts isolated from plants grown under blue light.The data reported are interpreted in terms of differential rates of electron transport from water in the two chloroplast preparations.
The effects of threatened social evaluation of the physique on cortisol activity

Social self preservation theory asserts that situations high in social-evaluative threat elicit increases in cortisol, a hormone released by the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Most tests of the theory have examined threats associated with social evaluation of a performance. Two experiments examined the effects of threatened social evaluation of one's physique. In Experiments 1 (n = 50) and 2 (n = 40), participants allocated to an experimental (threat) condition had significantly higher post-manipulation cortisol than participants in a control (no threat) condition. In Experiment 1, perceptions of social-evaluative threat were significantly correlated with post-manipulation cortisol levels. These results suggest that the threatened social evaluation of one's body can activate the cortisol response. Women who frequently experience such threats may be at increased risk for a variety of health conditions associated with chronic cortisol exposure.
Increased expression of CD4 molecules on Jurkat cells mediated by human immunodeficiency virus tat protein

The tat gene of the human immunodeficiency virus, tat-III, when introduced into T-lymphoblastoid Jurkat cells by a Moloney retroviral recombinant DNA vector expressed high levels of the functional tat protein as measured by the chloramphenicol acetyltransferase assay. Immunofluorescence analysis with CD4-specific monoclonal antibodies demonstrated that the cell surface levels of the CD4 antigen were increased by 5- to 10-fold in the tat-III-infected Jurkat cells. Cellular cytoplasmic RNA analysis indicated that the enhanced CD4 expression was mediated at the mRNA level. Our findings suggest that the single expression of the human immunodeficiency virus tat protein in the absence of the other viral proteins causes an upregulation of CD4 gene expression on helper T cells, although infection of these cells by the virus, thus expressing all the viral gene products including tat, is known to downregulate CD4 antigen expression.
Intermediate Range Wireless Power Transfer With Segmented Coil Transmitters for Implantable Heart Pumps

In wireless power transfer systems, substantial differences in transmission range and alignment sensitivity can occur when the transmitting coil dimensions are varied. A coil with larger inner and outer diameter was found to provide a wider transmission range and lower alignment sensitivity. Accordingly, we developed a larger coil (24×30 cm2) designed to be embedded in the back of a vest to power dc pumps for artificial hearts or left ventricular assist devices. To significantly reduce the required transmitting coil voltage, the coil was divided into eight segments with resonant capacitors. The coil was operated at 6.78 MHz and evaluated with a 5.3-cm diameter receiving coil. A circuit model for the energy coupling coils was developed to predict the output power and efficiency. Having a coil separation of 7.7 cm, we measured an output power of 48.2 W and a corresponding energy efficiency higher than 80%. The energy coupling coils were also evaluated with a dc pump in parallel to an additional load representing the power consumed by auxiliary circuits of an implanted heart pump. Experimental results showed that the proposed coil segmentation technique for mid-range wireless energy transfer can significantly reduce the transmitter voltage to a safe level (∼10 Vrms).
Improving stereo camera depth measurements and benefiting from intermediate results

This paper presents a method for improving the disparity values obtained with a stereo camera by applying an iconic Kalman filter and known ego-motion. The improvements are demonstrated in an application of determining the free space in a scene as viewed by a vehicle-mounted camera. Using disparity maps from a stereo camera and known camera motion, the disparity maps are first filtered by an iconic Kalman filter, operating on each pixel individually, thereby reducing variance and increasing the density of the filtered disparity map. Then, a stochastic occupancy grid is calculated from the filtered disparity map, providing a top-down view of the scene where the uncertainty of disparity measurements are taken into account. These occupancy grids are segmented to indicate a maximum depth free of obstacles, enabling the marking of free space in the accompanying intensity image. Even without motion of the camera, the quality of the disparity map is increased significantly.