Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust formant features for speaker verification in the lombard effect

This paper presents a voice controlled speaker verification system for hand-held devices in noisy environments. In noisy environments, users unintentionally increase their voice intensity because of the ear-mouth feedback mechanism i.e., the Lombard effect; thus, the characteristic of the input signal is much different from that in a quiet environment. To enhance the accuracy of a speaker verification system, this paper proposes a robust formant feature that represents the physical nature of the voice production system of the speaker. It utilizes the analysis results that the impact of Lombard varies depending on the types and levels of the background noise, but the third and fourth formant frequencies are insensitive even in the Lombard condition. Experimental results show that optimal performance can be achieved when the above formant frequencies and corresponding bandwidths are combined.
Feedback stabilizer-based trajectory planning of mobile robots with kinematic constraints

Many theoretic approaches for feedback stabilization control of nonholonomic mobile robots cannot be directly applied to practical robots since various kinematic constraints such as the velocity and acceleration limits are not considered in existing methods. To deal with this issue, we aim to propose a generic approach which first uses an (arbitrary) feedback stabilizer to generate the `path' and then rebuilt the corresponding `trajectory' along this `path' to meet various kinematic constraints, which ultimately gives a practical satisfactory solution for local trajectory planning. Specifically, a general framework is established to transform feedback stabilizers into a feasible and highly efficient trajectory planner by using path generation and optimal velocity planning techniques, considering both kinematic and differential constraints. Extensive simulation results are provided to validate the proposed approach.
Ekspropriasi Pemegang Saham Minoritas dalam Struktur Kepemilikan Ultimat

Large shareholders establish control over a firm through pyramid structure and cross-holding among firms. Those types of ownership structure create divergence between cash flow rights and control rights. Large shareholders may have control over a firm despite little cash flow rights. This study investigates the effects of cash flow right and control right separation on firm value of Indonesian companies listed on the Indonesia Stock Exchange for the period of 2000 to 2004. I use cut-off point of 10 percent control rights to test those effects. The results show that cash flow rights have positive effect on firm value, suggesting that firm value increases as cash flow right of controlling shareholders increases. I further test whether cash flow right leverage depends on the controlling shareholders' participation in firm management and the presence of the second controlling shareholder. Contrary to the expectation, the evidence shows that the coefficients on both interactions are insignificant.
Protection against Virulent Mycobacterium avium Infection following DNA Vaccination with the 35-Kilodalton Antigen Is Accompanied by Induction of Gamma Interferon-Secreting CD4+ T Cells

ABSTRACT Mycobacterium avium is an opportunistic pathogen that primarily infects immunocompromised individuals, although the frequency of M. avium infection is also increasing in the immunocompetent population. The antigen repertoire of M. avium varies from that of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, with the immunodominant 35-kDa protein being present in M. avium and Mycobacterium leprae but not in members of the M. tuberculosis complex. Here we show that a DNA vector encoding this M. avium 35-kDa antigen (DNA-35) induces protective immunity against virulent M. avium infection, and this protective effect persists over 14 weeks of infection. In C57BL/6 mice, DNA vaccines expressing the 35-kDa protein as a cytoplasmic or secreted protein, both induced strong T-cell gamma interferon (IFN-γ) and humoral immune responses. Furthermore, the antibody response was to conformational determinants, confirming that the vector-encoded protein had adopted the native conformation. DNA-35 immunization resulted in an increased activated/memory CD4+T-cell response, with an accumulation of CD4+CD44hi CD45RBlo T cells and an increase in antigen-specific IFN-γ production. The protective effect of the DNA-35 vectors against M. avium infection was comparable to that of vaccination with Mycobacterium bovis BCG and significantly greater than that for previous treated infection withM. avium. These results illustrate the importance of the 35-kDa protein in the protective response to M. aviuminfection and indicate that DNA vaccination successfully promotes a sustained level of protection during chronic M. aviuminfection.
Comparative study on overlay multicast routing algorithms' design methods

Compared with IP multicast, overlay multicast has obvious advantages in terms of deployment, but usually consumes more underlying network resources. In this paper, we present a comparative study on some existing typical overlay multicast routing algorithms. According to the graph models of basic overlay networks that overlay multicast delivery structures are constructed from these routing algorithms can be divided into three categories, namely: based on complete graph, based on mesh, and based on partial tree. We compared some typical routing algorithms of the three categories in many aspects through simulation at the same underlying physical network conditions and got some useful study results which can provide beneficial guidance and help to build network applications that depend on overlay multicast.
Therapy for peripheral artery disease: gaps in treating patients with claudication.

Peripheral artery disease (PAD) is estimated to affect up to 29% of people ≥50 years of age in the United States1 and >200 million people worldwide.2 Diagnosis of PAD is associated with an increased risk of adverse medical events and premature mortality from cardiovascular disease.3,4 The classic symptom of PAD, intermittent claudication (IC), is characterized by exertional leg pain that resolves with rest and is estimated to affect up to 35% of PAD patients ≥50 years of age.5,6 Patients with PAD and IC have impaired walking ability, poor functional outcomes, and a reduced quality of life resulting at least in part from the leg pain experienced.7 Thus, PAD with IC is a significant international healthcare concern with an adverse impact on patients resulting from systemic atherosclerosis and IC symptoms. Few pharmacological therapy options are available to treat PAD symptoms. The most efficacious option currently to improve IC is supervised walking exercise. However, this treatment is not widely available despite strong evidence of its efficacy. In contrast, options that are more readily available to provide symptom relief for IC include invasive treatments such as endovascular therapy and surgical procedures.8 Article see p 939 In this issue of Circulation , Nordanstig and colleagues9 present their results of a comparison of invasive and noninvasive treatments in a prospective, single-center, randomized, clinical trial of patients with stable IC symptoms. The aim of the Invasive Revascularization or Not in Intermittent Claudication (IRONIC) trial was to compare outcomes for PAD patients receiving peripheral revascularization in combination with noninvasive therapy with outcomes in patients who received only noninvasive medical therapy. The noninvasive therapy included the provision of educational materials and medical management of the systemic atherosclerosis, prescription of cilostazol (100 mg twice daily), and general advice …
Mobile Tutoring for Situated Learning and Collaborative Learning in AIML Application Using QR-Code

The aim of this paper is to illustrate a technique of integration between Tutor Bot and QR codes, used to label real objects during learning activities in direct educational contexts (egc. Situated learning and Authentic Learning). Tutor Bot knowledge base, structured in AIML (Artificial Intelligent Markup Language), is questioned in natural language using a mobile device (smart-phones, tablet, etc.) that, with a specific software decodes the instructions contained in a QR label placed on the real object observed by the learner. Through the information contained in the QR-Code Tutor Bot provides, in natural language, labeled object description and refers to further investigations: for example referring to multimedia resources related to the observed object. With the help of these tools, learners can expand their learning experience by interacting directly with a virtual tutor and real with the virtual world. With this technique, the activity of learning by doing, Situated Learning, Authentic Learning and Collaborative Learning, can be enhanced and virtualized by increasing the educational efficiency.
Electromagnetic-based bridge energy harvester using traffic-induced bridge's vibrations and ambient wind

This paper presents a novel electromagnetic-based bridge energy harvester (EBEH) utilizing bridge vibrations and ambient wind to harvest energy for wireless sensor nodes (WSNs) used for monitoring the health of bridges. The architecture, working principle, fabrication and characterization of the harvester is discussed. The harvester consists of a fixed wound coil, a permanent magnet, an airfoil, a cantilever beam and a base support. The harvester is characterized both under ambient vibration and wind energies. The EBEH generated an open circuit voltage of about 1 V at resonance and under 1 g base acceleration. However, when a load resistance of 54.5 Ω is connected across its terminals, it produced an rms voltage of 290 mV. Moreover, the harvester delivered a maximum power of 354.5 μW to matching impedance at the first resonant frequency of 3.6 Hz, when provided an excitation level of 0.4 g.
Documenting Loss of Large Trophy Fish from the Florida Keys with Historical Photographs

Abstract: A loss of large vertebrates has occurred in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems, but data to measure long‐term population changes are sparse. Historical photographs provide visual and quantitative evidence of changes in mean individual size and species composition for groups of marine fish that have been targeted by sport fishing. I measured such trends for 13 groups of recreationally caught “trophy” reef fish with photographs taken in Key West, Florida, from 1956 to 2007. The mean fish size declined from an estimated 19.9 kg (SE 1.5) to 2.3 kg (SE 0.3), and there was a major shift in species composition. Landings from 1956 to 1960 were dominated by large groupers (Epinephelus spp.), and other large predatory fish were commonly caught, including sharks with an average length of just <2 m. In contrast, landings in 2007 were composed of small snappers (Lutjanus spp. and Ocyurus chrysurus) with an average length of 34.4 cm (SE 0.62), and the average length of sharks declined by more than 50% over 50 years. Major declines in the size of fish caught were not reflected in the price of fishing trips, so customers paid the same amount for a less‐valuable product. Historical photographs provide a window into a more pristine coral reef ecosystem that existed a half a century ago and lend support to current observations that unfished reef communities are able to support large numbers of large‐bodied fish.
Competitive Intelligence: concept, context and a case of its application

This paper focuses on the concept and context of Competitive Intelligence (CI) as well as its application in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Extensive literature is referenced for the appropriate and most accurate definition of CI and a thorough overview of the Pharmaceutical Industry is performed, concentrating on its financial aspects. Finally, the paper analyzes the uniqueness of the Pharmaceutical Industry as opposed to other industries and reviews the presence of CI in this industry.
KEY SUCCESS FACTORS IN IMPLEMENTING ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS IN UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL OF RENNES

An electronic Medical Record (EMR) is not just the future of Health care; it is the solution for high efficiency Health care today. Evidence suggests that implementation and adoption of EMR in the health care organizations are considered prerequisites for the efficient delivery of high quality health care in hospitals, and a positive return on investment for the practice. Study Objectives: To describe the existent situation and experiences on EMRs in the world and in CHU Rennes; To identify the key success factors for the implementation of EMR in CHU Rennes; To make recommendations for a successful EMR implementation. Purpose of the study: To describe the existent situation regarding the initial steps for implementation of a common Electronic Patient Information System in University Hospital of Rennes, to identify the main challenges, and to recommend activities to be developed during the process of implementation of the project. Design and method: This professional study has employed a qualitative approach. It is based on collection of available data concerning implementation of EMR and critical analysis of semi-structured interviews with different health professionals. The method we used is a descriptive analysis of published literature and reports, and critical analysis of interviews. Conclusions: The benefits of implementation of an EMR system in CHU Rennes are obvious both for patients and health professionals. Access to the information, increased safety and quality of care are the main positive aspects of EMR from the prospective of patient health. With the implementation of an EMR the health professionals from CHU Rennes will gain from the possibility to share health information regarding the patient among departments and sites . Elimination of order duplication and implementation of electronic remainders will make health care provided more efficient and cost effective. Availability of data will help clinical researchers, quality assurance and clinic managers, as well as financial managers, in their activities, making their work more efficient and resources allocation more consistent with clinical decision.
Processing and Evaluating Partial Tree Pattern Queries on XML Data

XML query languages typically allow the specification of structural patterns using XPath. Usually, these structural patterns are in the form of trees (Tree-Pattern Queries-TPQs). Finding the occurrences of such patterns in an XML tree is a key operation in XML query evaluation. The multiple previous algorithms presented for this operation focus mainly on the evaluation of tree-pattern queries. Recently, requirements for flexible querying of XML data have motivated the consideration of query classes that are more expressive and flexible than TPQs for which efficient nonmain-memory evaluation algorithms are not known. In this paper, we consider a class of queries, called Partial Tree-Pattern Queries (PTPQs), which generalize and strictly contain TPQs. PTPQs represent a broad fragment of XPath which is very useful in practice. In order to process PTPQs, we introduce a set of sound and complete inference rules to characterize structural relationship derivation. We provide necessary and sufficient conditions for detecting query unsatisfiability and node redundancy. We also show that PTPQs can be represented as directed acyclic graphs augmented with the “same-path” constraints. In order to leverage existing efficient evaluation algorithms for less expressive classes of queries, we design two approaches that evaluate a PTPQ by decomposing it into a set of simpler queries: algorithm IndexTPQGen, exploits a structural summary of the XML data and evaluates a PTPQ by generating an equivalent set of TPQs and unioning their answers. Algorithm PartialPathJoin decomposes the PTPQ into partial-path queries, and merge-joins their solutions. We also develop PartialTreeStack, an original polynomial time holistic algorithm for PTPQs. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first algorithm to support the evaluation of such a broad structural fragment of XPath in the inverted lists evaluation model. We provide a theoretical analysis of our algorithm and identify cases where it is asymptotically optimal. An extensive experimental evaluation shows that it is more efficient, robust, and stable than the other two and it outperforms a state-of-the art XQuery engine on PTPQs.
Steering control of the personal riding-type wheeled mobile platform (PMP)

This paper reports on the continued development of a new concept for a personal vehicle called the 'personal riding-type wheeled mobile platform (PMP)' that consists of two wheels and a standing base for a human rider. The two wheels are driven independently, and forward and backward movement and steering are achieved by simply changing the relative position of the rider's center of gravity (COG) on the base. The vehicle has two distinct advantages: a reduction in total weight through its simple structure and a space-saving design that does not use a steering unit. We have already proposed the first prototype (PMP-1) and its posture stabilizing and running control methods, and we have achieved proper forward and backward movement according to the rider's intentions. This paper describes our proposed structure for detecting the rider's COG on the base and the steering control method in order to achieve steering control by changing the position of the rider's COG and the second prototype (PMP-2) whose weight is smaller than 12kg. We also investigated the steering control method to improve maneuverability in various estimated standing poses. Our experimental results demonstrate that natural steering control can be achieved using the rider's COG based on the rider's intentions.
Quantification of artistic style through sparse coding analysis in the drawings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder

Recently, statistical techniques have been used to assist art historians in the analysis of works of art. We present a novel technique for the quantification of artistic style that utilizes a sparse coding model. Originally developed in vision research, sparse coding models can be trained to represent any image space by maximizing the kurtosis of a representation of an arbitrarily selected image from that space. We apply such an analysis to successfully distinguish a set of authentic drawings by Pieter Bruegel the Elder from another set of well-known Bruegel imitations. We show that our approach, which involves a direct comparison based on a single relevant statistic, offers a natural and potentially more germane alternative to wavelet-based classification techniques that rely on more complicated statistical frameworks. Specifically, we show that our model provides a method capable of discriminating between authentic and imitation Bruegel drawings that numerically outperforms well-known existing approaches. Finally, we discuss the applications and constraints of our technique.
Non-Cooperative Entry Deterrence in License Auctions: Dynamic Versus Sealed Bid

We examine the impact of potential entry on incumbent bidding behavior in license auctions, in both dynamic and sealed bid formats. Unlike sealed bid auctions, dynamic auctions reveal information about the identities of potential winners and allow bidders to revise their bids. This helps incumbents to coordinate their entry deterrence efforts. If entry is sufficiently costly for each incumbent, only the dynamic auction has an equilibrium where entry is deterred for sure. Numerical calculations suggest that, regardless of how costly entry is for each incumbent, sealed bid auctions can generate a higher probability of entry as well as a more efficient allocation.
Brain connectivity In listening to affective stimuli: A functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study and implications for psychotherapy

Abstract To investigate the functional connectivity among amygdala, insula, and auditory cortex during affective auditory stimulation and its relevance for psychotherapy, the authors recorded, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) responses of these brain regions in 20 healthy adults while listening to affective sounds (laughing and crying). Their connectivity was analyzed by time-series panel analysis. The authors found significant positive associations among brain regions, with time-lagged associations generally directed from the right to the left hemisphere. Associations between amygdalar and cortical regions, however, were negative; specifically, activations of the left auditory cortex preceded decreases of the right amygdala. This suggested that affect regulation using cognitive control may have been achieved through active inhibition of amygdalar structures by the cortex. The authors discuss the implications of the findings for the change mechanisms inherent in psychotherapy.
A Two-Stage Algorithm to Reduce Encoding Delay of Turbo Source Coding

Lossless turbo source coding employs an iterative encoding algorithm to search for the smallest codeword length that guarantees zero distortion. Although such encoder achieves promising compression rates, running the iterative algorithm for each individual message block imposes a large delay on the system. To reduce this delay, we propose a two-stage encoding algorithm for turbo source coding. We show that converging to zero distortion after a definite number of iterations, can be predicted from the earlier behavior of the distortion function. This will enable us to produce a quick, and yet sufficiently accurate, estimate of the codeword length in the first encoding stage. In the second stage, we iteratively increase this estimated codeword length until reaching zero distortion. Also, we show that employing an auxiliary distortion measure at the first stage of encoding may allow for better estimates and decrease the delay furthermore. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithm will decrease the encoding delay up to 19%. Although there are previous works in the literature on delay reduction of turbo source coding, those works achieve lower delays by reducing the message block length. However, the proposed algorithm achieves lower delays for the same block length and therefore the actual "per bit" encoding delay is decreased.
Accelerated nervous system development contributes to behavioral efficiency in the laboratory mouse: a behavioral review and theoretical proposal.

The emergence of the laboratory mouse as a favored species for genetic research has posed a number of problems for scientists interested in the reflection of genetic influences in mouse behavior. It is commonly thought that rat behavior, which has been studied more extensively than mouse behavior, could be easily generalized to mice. In this article, a number of categories of behavior displayed by the mouse (motor, spatial, defensive, social) are reviewed and contrasted with the same categories of behavior displayed by the rat. The comparison suggests that mouse behavior is simpler and more dependent upon elementary actions than the behavior of the rat. We suggest that the behavioral simplification in the mouse adapts it for a different ecological niche than that occupied by the rat. We propose that this simplification may be mediated by accelerated brain maturation during development. We further propose that this developmental acceleration in the mouse renders it less dependent upon complex social behavior and plastic nervous system changes associated with learning than the rat. This difference poses problems for the development of relevant methods of behavioral analysis and interpretation. Since the mouse's biological adaptations will be reflected in laboratory behavior, suggestions are made for behavioral approaches to the study and interpretation of mouse behavior.