Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Generating f0 contours for speech synthesis using the tilt intonation theory.

This paper presents a method for generating F 0 contours for a speech synthesis system using the Tilt intonation theory ((10], 9]). The Tilt theory ooers an abstract description of natural F 0 contours which may be derived automatically from natural speech. Given a speech database labelled with Tilt events, this paper shows how that data may be used to train a model which can adequately predict Tilt parameters from features available in a text to speech system and hence produce natural sounding F 0 contours. After a short description of the Tilt theory, the database used and the necessary features used to generate the parameters are presented. For comparison , this work is contrasted with a previous similar experiment on the same database using the ToBI intonation labelling system 2]. The Tilt method not only produces better results (RMSE 32.5 and correlation 0.60) but as it ooers automatic labelling of data, it promises the ability to more easily train from general speech databases. In the task of rendering natural sounding speech from raw text, one of the many tasks is generating natural sounding intonation. A number of intonation theories have been utilised in various systems to try to do this task. As the quality of speech synthesis improves, a greater demand is put on the intonation system to produce more varied intonation tunes. Because of this demand, and the requirement to quickly and easily add new voices and new accents to our systems, intonation systems should be train-able, where appropriate, from natural speech data. ToBI 7] ooers a well-deened intonation phonology for labelled speech. It is probably still the most widely available standard labelling system. The ToBI labelling system itself does not deene a mechanism to go from the labels to an F 0 contour, or the reverse. However there are both hand written rule systems (e.g. 1]) and statistically trained methods (e.g. 2]) which do this task. The Tilt intonation theory has been shown to be a good representational method for natural F 0 contours 10] but prior to the work presented here it has not been shown that Tilt parameters could be predicted reliably from text input. Tilt and ToBI typify two major classes of intonation system. Tilt comes from a data-driven approach attempting to form an abstraction of the natural contour but maintaining mechanism to recreate it. ToBI takes a more linguistic or phonological approach specifying …
Endovascular Treatment of Aberrant Right Subclavian (Lusorian) Artery to Oesophagus Fistula: A Case Report

The creation of a fistula between the subclavian artery and the oesophagus is extremely rare. All the reported cases of subclavian oesophagus—arterial fistulae have been described either in aberrant subclavian arteries or as caused by foreign bodies in the oesophagus. In this article, a case of fistulous communication between an aberrant right subclavian and the oesophagus managed with the positioning of endovascular prosthesis is presented.
LATER models of neural decision behavior in choice tasks

Reaction time has been increasingly used over the last few decades to provide information on neural decision processes: it is a direct reflection of decision time. Saccades provide an excellent paradigm for this because many of them can be made in a very short time and the underlying neural pathways are relatively well-known. LATER (linear approach to threshold with ergodic rate) is a model originally devised to explain reaction time distributions in simple decision tasks. Recently, however it is being extended to increasingly more advanced tasks, including those with decision errors and those requiring voluntary control such as the antisaccade task and those where sequential decisions are required. The strength of this modeling approach lies in its detailed, quantitative predictions of behavior, yet LATER models still retain their conceptual simplicity that made LATER initially successful in explaining reaction times in simple decision tasks.
Bmc Microbiology Transcriptional Analysis of Mycobacterium Fortuitum Cultures upon Hydrogen Peroxide Treatment Using the Novel Standard Rrna-p1

Background: The ability of an intracellular pathogen to establish infection depends on the capacity of the organism to survive and replicate inside the host. Mycobacterium fortuitum is a bacteria that contains genes involved in the detoxification of the oxygen reactive species such as those produced by the host during the infection. In this work, we investigate the effects of hydrogen peroxide on the transcription and expression of these genes by developing a real time quantitative PCR technique (qRT-PCR) using the ribosomal promoter region (rrnA-P1) as reference product for quantification of the mRNA levels.
Threonine-205 in the F Helix of P450 2B1 Contributes to Androgen 16β-Hydroxylation Activity and Mechanism-Based Inactivation

Four mutants of Thr-205 in cytochrome P450 2B1 were constructed and expressed in Escherichia coli. The Ser-, Ala-, and Val-mutants displayed stable reduced CO difference spectra and were able to metabolize 7-ethoxy-4-(trifluoromethyl)coumarin, testosterone, androstenedione, and benzphetamine. The Arg-mutant displayed an unstable reduced CO difference spectrum at 450 nm, was concomitantly converted to a denatured form with a peak at 422 nm, and showed no catalytic activity with any of the four substrates tested. The Ser-mutant displayed activity and metabolite profiles for testosterone and androstenedione similar to those of the wild-type P450 2B1 (WT). Substitution of Thr-205 with Ala or Val markedly suppressed the 16β-hydroxylation activity but exhibited little effect on the 16α-hydroxylation activity for testosterone and androstenedione. Because 16β-hydroxylation activity of androgens is a specific P450 2B subfamily marker and residue 205 is located in the F helix, which forms the ceiling of the active site, we postulate that the γ-hydroxyl side chain of Thr may play an important role in directing the 16β-face of testosterone and androstenedione toward the active site. Surprisingly, the Val-mutant retained full activity for benzphetamine demethylation. When mechanism-based inactivators for P450 2B1 were used to evaluate the susceptibility to inactivation, the Val-mutant was resistant to inactivation by 17α-ethynylestradiol and less sensitive to inactivation by 2-ethynylnaphthalene compared with the WT enzyme. Our results demonstrate the importance of Thr-205 in determining substrate specificity and product formation as well as in influencing the susceptibility of P450 2B1 to mechanism-based inactivators.
Dimension Reduction of the Schrödinger Equation with Coulomb and Anisotropic Confining Potentials

We consider dimension reduction for the three-dimensional (3D) Schrodinger equation with the Coulomb interaction and an anisotropic confining potential to lower-dimensional models in the limit of infinitely strong confinement in one or two space dimensions and obtain formally the surface adiabatic model (SAM) or surface density model (SDM) in two dimensions (2D) and the line adiabatic model (LAM) in one dimension (1D). Efficient and accurate numerical methods for computing ground states and dynamics of the SAM, SDM, and LAM models are presented based on efficient and accurate numerical schemes for evaluating the effective potential in lower-dimensional models. They are applied to find numerically convergence and convergence rates for the dimension reduction from 3D to 2D and 3D to 1D in terms of ground state and dynamics, which confirm some existing analytical results for the dimension reduction in the literature. In particular, we explain and demonstrate that the standard Schrodinger--Poisson system in 2.
Errorless codes for over-loaded synchronous CDMA systems and evaluation of channel capacity bounds

In this paper we introduce a new class of codes for over-loaded synchronous wireless and optical CDMA systems which increases the number of users for fixed number of chips without introducing any errors. Equivalently, the chip rate can be reduced for a given number of users, which implies bandwidth reduction for downlink wireless systems. An upper bound for the maximum number of users for a given number of chips is derived. Also, lower and upper bounds for the sum channel capacity of an overloaded CDMA are derived that can predict the existence of such overloaded codes. Although a high percentage of the overloading factor degrades the system performance in noisy channels, simulation results show that this degradation is not significant.
Improving Performance of Cluster Based Routing Protocol using Cross-Layer Design

The main goal of routing protocol is to efficiency delivers data from source to destination. All routing protocols are the same in this goal, but the way they adopt to achieve it is different, so routing strategy has an egregious role on the performance of an ad hoc network. Most of routing protocols proposed for ad hoc networks have a flat structure. These protocols expand the control overhead packets to discover or maintain a route. On the other hand a number of hierarchical-based routing protocols have been developed, mostly are based on layered design. These protocols improve network performances especially when the network size grows up since details about remote portion of network can be handled in an aggregate manner. Although, there is another approach to design a protocol called cross-layer design. Using this approach information can exchange between different layer of protocol stack, result in optimizing network performances. In this paper, we intend to exert cross-layer design to optimize Cluster Based Routing Protocol (Cross-CBRP). Using NS-2 network simulator we evaluate rate of cluster head changes, throughput and packet delivery ratio. Comparisons denote that Cross-CBRP has better performances with respect to the original CBRP.
Intra-arterial Thrombolysis of Acute Iatrogenic Intracranial Arterial Occlusion Attributable to Neuroendovascular Procedures or Coronary Angiography

Background and Purpose— For selected stroke patients, intra-arterial thrombolysis (IAT) has been shown to be an effective treatment option. However, knowledge of safety and efficacy of IAT in patients with acute stroke as a complication of arterial catheter interventions is limited. Methods— We analyzed clinical radiological findings and functional outcomes in consecutive patients 3 months after treatment with IAT for peri-procedural strokes occurring during neuroendovascular or cardiac catheter interventions. To measure outcome, the modified Rankin scale score was used. Results— Of a total of 432 patients treated with IAT, 12 (4 women and 8 men; mean age, 60 years) were treated because of an ischemic stroke after a neuro-endovascular procedure (n=6) or coronary angiography (n=6). The median baseline National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale score was15. Recanalization was complete (thrombolysis in myocardial infarction grade 3) in 6, partial (thrombolysis in myocardial infarction 2) in 5, and minimal (thrombolysis in myocardial infarction 1) in 1. Nine patients (75%) had a favorable outcome (modified Rankin scale score, 0 to 2), and 3 had a poor outcome (modified Rankin scale score, 3 or 4). All patients with complete recanalization had a favorable outcome, whereas only 3 of 6 patients with partial or minimal recanalization (P=0.18) had a favorable outcome. Follow-up brain imaging was normal in 2 and showed new ischemic lesions in 10 patients. Two patients (17%) had a symptomatic intracerebral hemorrhage. Conclusion— In acute stroke attributable to arterial catheter interventions, IAT is feasible and has the potential to improve outcome in these patients. A high recanalization rate could be achieved.
Preparation and mechanical properties of thermosetting epoxy foams based on epoxy/ 2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol system with different curing agent contents

Epoxy/2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol system with different curing agent content was completely cured for foaming, and the effect of a systematic variation in 2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol content on the crosslinking density of cured epoxy resins was investigated. It was found that the crosslinking density of completed cured epoxy reduced as the 2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol content increased in certain range of contents (10–50 mol%). Then the precursors were foamed by a batch foaming process with supercritical carbon dioxide. The cellular morphologies of foamed epoxy resins were analyzed by scanning electron microscopy. The results revealed that the reduced crosslinking density would improve the foamability of cured epoxy resin. The microcellular epoxy foams could be obtained by maintaining a moderate crosslinking density, which can be controlled by varying 2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol content. For the completely cured epoxy with different curing agent content, when the crosslinking density of epoxy resin was 232.40 mol m–3 (the 2-ethyl-4-methylimidazol content was 35 mol%) or lower, microcellular structure was obtained by adjusting the foaming conditions. The effects of foaming on the mechanical properties were also discussed. The results indicated that microcellular epoxy foams had higher impact strength but lower tensile strength and tensile modulus, validating that the introduction of microcellular structure in epoxy matrix was conducive to the improvement of the ductility of epoxy foams.
Genetic Risk Profiling and Gene Signature Modeling to Predict Risk of Complications After IPAA

BACKGROUND: Severe pouchitis and Crohn's disease-like complications are 2 adverse postoperative complications that confound the success of the IPAA in patients with ulcerative colitis. To date, approximately 83 single nucleotide polymorphisms within 55 genes have been associated with IBD. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to identify single-nucleotide polymorphisms that correlate with complications after IPAA that could be utilized in a gene signature fashion to predict postoperative complications and aid in preoperative surgical decision making. DESIGN: One hundred forty-two IPAA patients were retrospectively classified as “asymptomatic” (n = 104, defined as no Crohn's disease-like complications or severe pouchitis for at least 2 years after IPAA) and compared with a “severe pouchitis” group (n = 12, ≥4 episodes pouchitis per year for 2 years including the need for long-term therapy to maintain remission) and a “Crohn's disease-like” group (n = 26, presence of fistulae, pouch inlet stricture, proximal small-bowel disease, or pouch granulomata, occurring at least 6 months after surgery). Genotyping for 83 single-nucleotide polymorphisms previously associated with Crohn's disease and/or ulcerative colitis was performed on a customized Illumina genotyping platform. The top 2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms statistically identified as being independently associated with each of Crohn's disease-like and severe pouchitis were used in a multivariate logistic regression model. These single-nucleotide polymorphisms were then used to create probability equations to predict overall chance of a positive or negative outcome for that complication. RESULTS: The top 2 single-nucleotide polymorphisms for Crohn's disease-like complications were in the 10q21 locus and the gene for PTGER4 (p = 0.006 and 0.007), whereas for severe pouchitis it was NOD2 and TNFSF15 (p = 0.003 and 0.011). Probability equations suggested that the risk of these 2 complications greatly increased with increasing number of risk alleles, going as high as 92% for severe pouchitis and 65% for Crohn's disease-like complications. CONCLUSION: In this IPAA patient cohort, mutations in the 10q21 locus and the PTGER4 gene were associated with Crohn's disease-like complications, whereas mutations in NOD2 and TNFSF15 correlated with severe pouchitis. Preoperative genetic analysis and use of such gene signatures hold promise for improved preoperative surgical patient selection to minimize these IPAA complications.
Automated Planning for Open Architectures

End-to-end connections experience a high level of diversity in network characteristics. At one extreme, an application may receive highly degraded service, leaving the application unusable. At another extreme, the costs to guarantee some level of service may be undesirably high to the user or overall system. Open architecture networks help applications push adaptation technology into the network and reduce the effects of poor network characteristics. Automated planning is important for the services that are supported by the open architecture. The remedies that modify an application’s data stream to adjust it to unfavorable network conditions should be located and ordered to provide good data transfer and network resources use. The search for good plans is a hard AI problem and requires additional research.
Multi-step ahead direct prediction for machine condition prognosis using regression trees and neuro-fuzzy systems

This paper presents an approach to predict the operating conditions of machine based on classification and regression trees (CART) and adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system (ANFIS) in association with direct prediction strategy for multi-step ahead prediction of time series techniques. In this study, the number of available observations and the number of predicted steps are initially determined by using false nearest neighbor method and auto mutual information technique, respectively. These values are subsequently utilized as inputs for prediction models to forecast the future values of the machines’ operating conditions. The performance of the proposed approach is then evaluated by using real trending data of low methane compressor. A comparative study of the predicted results obtained from CART and ANFIS models is also carried out to appraise the prediction capability of these models. The results show that the ANFIS prediction model can track the change in machine conditions and has the potential for using as a tool to machine fault prognosis.
On tailored three-dimensional optical materials by atomic layer deposition

Atomic Layer Deposition in combination with selective etch processes is exploited as a tool to impart tailored optical functionality to a three-dimensional polymeric nano-template made by Direct-Laser-Writing lithography. This way, tailor-doped semiconductor films and the first photonic crystal exhibiting a complete photonic bandgap in the visible are fabricated and characterized. The photonic crystal is shown to drastically modify the spontaneous emission of embedded emitters.
Enhancing localization accuracy with multi-antenna UHF RFID fingerprinting

Accurate indoor positioning systems are still expensive in terms of hardware price or computing complexity. Cost reduction of wireless devices, reuse of already deployed infrastructures besides the non-intrusive features (compared to vision-based systems) of radiofrequency (RF) solutions, make these systems good candidates for cost effective indoor positioning systems. Here, the use of multi-antenna devices could help to improve location accuracy and to reduce the infrastructure costs. This paper presents a signal strength-based localization system using active UHF RFID. Different indoor positioning techniques are defined and analyzed, particularizing them for the multi-antenna case. The system performance is assessed for these methods and comparing one and two-antenna readers based on the field trial measurements. Finally, a trade-off of the number of tags and number of antennas is carried out in order to evaluate the capability of the presented system to reduce fixed infrastructure costs.
Modeling wireless links for transport protocols

Wireless links have intrinsic characteristics that affect the performance of transport protocols; these include variable bandwidth, corruption, channel allocation delays, and asymmetry. In this paper we review simulation models for cellular, WLAN and satellite links used in the design of transport protocols, and consider the interplay between wireless links and transport. We argue that the design and evaluation of transport protocols can be improved by providing easily available models of wireless links that strike a balance between realism, generality, and detail.There is an ongoing tussle between wireless link design and transport protocol design, with papers about how wireless link designers should take into account the dynamics of TCP, and other papers about how TCP and other transport protocols can be designed or modified for better performance over current wireless link technologies. In this paper we consider how appropriate models for wireless links can help in this tussle, and in the general design and evaluation of transport protocols over wireless links.
Optimized design of THz microstrip antenna based-on dual-surfaced multiple split-ring resonators

With the huge increasing need of wide-band wireless/mobile communication, the 5G or even further future generation systems based on millimeter-wave or even higher frequency band like terahertz (THz) waveband has been attracting more and more hot research on the related antenna design. In this paper, an optimized design of one kind of the THz microstrip antenna based on the dual-surfaced multiple split-ring resonators (DSMSRRs) is presented. Attached on both surfaces of the antenna substrate, each layer contains the same MSRRs connected with a feeding line correspondingly. The total two feeding lines are overlapped from the top view while the MSRRs structure on each surface is connected with each feeding line in an opposite direction from one to the other. The well performance of even current distribution on MSRRs of both surfaces can be achieved at the resonant frequency of around 300 GHz. Some numerical results are verified by the test ones of a fabricated antenna model according to the scaling effect.
Alignment and characterisation of hexagonal lyotropic liquid crystalline nanostructure for membrane synthesis

Weiwei has been devoting to the alignment and characterisation of hexagonal lyotropic liquid crystalline nanostructure to uniform orientation by applying external fields. According to the Synchrotron small angle x-ray scattering results, it has produced distinct progress. This technique is aimed for improving the filtration efficiency of nanoporous membranes.
Statistical Power and Sample Size Requirements for Three Level Hierarchical Cluster Randomized Trials

Summary Cluster randomized clinical trials (cluster‐RCT), where the community entities serve as clusters, often yield data with three hierarchy levels. For example, interventions are randomly assigned to the clusters (level three unit). Health care professionals (level two unit) within the same cluster are trained with the randomly assigned intervention to provide care to subjects (level one unit). In this study, we derived a closed form power function and formulae for sample size determination required to detect an intervention effect on outcomes at the subject's level. In doing so, we used a test statistic based on maximum likelihood estimates from a mixed‐effects linear regression model for three level data. A simulation study follows and verifies that theoretical power estimates based on the derived formulae are nearly identical to empirical estimates based on simulated data. Recommendations at the design stage of a cluster‐RCT are discussed.