Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Drum Sound Detection in Polyphonic Music with Hidden Markov Models

This paper proposes a method for transcribing drums from polyphonic music using a network of connected hidden Markov models (HMMs). The task is to detect the temporal locations of unpitched percussive sounds (such as bass drum or hi-hat) and recognise the instruments played. Contrary to many earlier methods, a separate sound event segmentation is not done, but connected HMMs are used to perform the segmentation and recognition jointly. Two ways of using HMMs are studied: modelling combinations of the target drums and a detector-like modelling of each target drum. Acoustic feature parametrisation is done with mel-frequency cepstral coefficients and their first-order temporal derivatives. The effect of lowering the feature dimensionality with principal component analysis and linear discriminant analysis is evaluated. Unsupervised acoustic model parameter adaptation with maximum likelihood linear regression is evaluated for compensating the differences between the training and target signals. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated on a publicly available data set containing signals with and without accompaniment, and compared with two reference methods. The results suggest that the transcription is possible using connected HMMs, and that using detector-like models for each target drum provides a better performance than modelling drum combinations.
Modeling Blood Flow in a Brain Tumor Treated Concurrently with Radiotherapy and Chemotherapy

Blood flow through a tumor plays a critical role in tumor growth and cancer therapies. Hence, fluid dynamics is an appropriate method to study blood flow through a tumor. Drug transport in the tumor interstitial depends on convection and diffusion. To investigate characteristics of blood flow through a spherical tumor, a coupled convection-diffusion models for simulating the interactions between two anti cancer drugs has been developed in this paper. This model provides the computational transportation to evaluate systematically and quantitatively the effects of interactions on the concentration within the tumor. Mathematical expressions for the spatial variations of the interstitial velocity and interstitial pressure are developed and calculated analytically, while variations of drug concentrations within a tumor are determined numerically in this paper. We determined the way interstitial pressure and velocity vary in the radial direction, which agreed with the experiments, as well as we studied the way one drug concentration changes in the presence or absence of a second drug within the tumor. We found that the concentration of a drug in the tumor could be improved in the presence of another drug in the tumor.
DNA prime-protein boost based vaccination with a conserved region of leptospiral immunoglobulin-like A and B proteins enhances protection against leptospirosis

Leptospirosis is a zoonotic disease caused by pathogenic spirochetes of theLeptospira genus. Vaccination with bacterins has severe limitations. Here, we evaluated the N-terminal region of the leptospiral immunoglobulin-like B protein (LigBrep) as a vaccine candidate against leptospirosis using immunisation strategies based on DNA prime-protein boost, DNA vaccine, and subunit vaccine. Upon challenge with a virulent strain ofLeptospira interrogans, the prime-boost and DNA vaccine approaches induced significant protection in hamsters, as well as a specific IgG antibody response and sterilising immunity. Although vaccination with recombinant fragment of LigBrep also produced a strong antibody response, it was not immunoprotective. These results highlight the potential of LigBrep as a candidate antigen for an effective vaccine against leptospirosis and emphasise the use of the DNA prime-protein boost as an important strategy for vaccine development.
High expression of Bcl-2 protein predicts favorable outcome in non-small cell lung cancer: evidence from a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND The prognostic value of Bcl-2 protein expression in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is under debate. We therefore systematically reviewed the evidence for Bcl-2 protein effects on NSCLC survival to elucidate this issue. MATERIALS AND METHODS An electronic search in Pubmed and Embase complemented by manual searches in article references were conducted to identify eligible studies to evaluate the association between Bcl-2 protein expression and overall survival (OS) as well as disease free survival (DFS) of NSCLC patients. Combined hazard ratios (HRs) with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95%CIs) were pooled using the random-effects model. RESULTS A total of 50 trials (including 52 cohorts) encompassing 7,765 patients were pooled in the meta-analysis regarding Bcl-2 expression and OS of NSCLC patients. High expression of Bcl-2 protein had a favorable impact (HR=0.76, 95%CI=0.67-0.86). In the group of Bcl-2 expression and DFS, 11 studies including 2,634 patients were included. The synthesized result indicated high expression of Bcl-2 protein might predict good DFS (HR=0.85, 95%CI=0.75-0.95). CONCLUSIONS Our present meta-analysis demonstrated favorable prognostic values of Bcl-2 expression in patients with NSCLC. Further prospective trails are welcomed to validate the utility of assessing Bcl-2 in NSCLC patient management.
Computer vision, camouflage breaking and countershading

Camouflage is frequently used in the animal kingdom in order to conceal oneself from visual detection or surveillance. Many camouflage techniques are based on masking the familiar contours and texture of the subject by superposition of multiple edges on top of it. This work presents an operator, Darg, for the detection of three-dimensional smooth convex (or, equivalently, concave) objects. It can be used to detect curved objects on a relatively flat background, regardless of image edges, contours and texture. We show that a typical camouflage found in some animal species seems to be a ‘countermeasure’ taken against detection that might be based on our method. Detection by Darg is shown to be very robust, from both theoretical considerations and practical examples of real-life images.
Phorbol Ester‐ and Retinoic Acid‐Induced Regulation of the Protein Kinase C Substrate MARCKS in Immortalized Hippocampal Cells

Abstract: The expression of MARCKS, a major protein kinase C (PKC) substrate, was examined in the immortalized hippocampal cell line HN33, following differentiation using phorbol esters or retinoic acid. In cells exposed to phorbol esters, MARCKS protein levels were reduced through an apparent PKC‐dependent mechanism. Exposure to 1 µM phorbol 12‐myristate 13‐acetate (PMA) for 10 min resulted in a rapid loss of PKC activity in the soluble fraction with a concurrent increase in membrane‐associated PKC activity. PKC activity was reduced to <20% of control values in both soluble and membrane fractions following 1 h of PMA exposure. Significant reductions in MARCKS protein levels were initially observed in membrane and soluble fractions following PMA exposure for 4 and 8 h, respectively. The reduction in MARCKS protein levels was maximal following 24 h of PMA exposure. MARCKS protein expression was also down‐regulated in a dose‐dependent manner on exposure of HN33 cells to retinoic acid. In cells exposed to 10 µM retinoic acid, the MARCKS protein level was reduced in the membrane fraction within 4 h. Reduction of MARCKS protein levels was maximal (>90%) by 12 h with no evidence for any alteration in PKC activity. Reduced levels of MARCKS protein were also observed in the soluble fraction of retinoic acid‐exposed cells, but to a significantly lesser extent. Addition of the PKC inhibitor GF109203X blocked the down‐regulation of MARCKS protein in PMA‐treated cultures but not in retinoic acid‐treated cells. These findings suggest that the down‐regulation of MARCKS may play an important role in both phorbol ester‐ and retinoic acid‐induced differentiation in cells of neuronal origin.
A Bayesian Model for Discovering Typological Implications

A standard form of analysis for linguistic typology is the universal implication. These implications state facts about the range of extant languages, such as “if objects come after verbs, then adjectives come after nouns. ” Such implications are typically discovered by painstaking hand analysis over a small sample of languages. We propose a computational model for assisting at this process. Our model is able to discover both well-known implications as well as some novel implications that deserve further study. Moreover, through a careful application of hierarchical analysis, we are able to cope with the well-known sampling problem: languages are not independent.
Anaglyph Stereo Without Ghosting

Anaglyph stereo provides a low‐budget solution to viewing stereoscopic images. However, it may suffer from ghosting and bad color reproduction. Here we address the first issue. We present a novel technique to perceptually calibrate an anaglyph stereoscopic system and to use the calibration to eliminate ghosting from the anaglyph image. We build a model based on luminance perception by the left and right eyes through the anaglyph glasses. We do not rely on power spectra of a monitor or on transmission spectra of anaglyph glasses, but show how the five parameters of our model can be captured with just a few measurements within a minute. We present how full color, half color, and gray anaglyphs can be rendered with our technique and compare them to the traditional method.
Red Cell Distribution Width and Other Red Blood Cell Parameters in Patients with Cancer: Association with Risk of Venous Thromboembolism and Mortality

Background Cancer patients are at high risk of developing venous thromboembolism (VTE). Red cell distribution width (RDW) has been reported to be associated with arterial and venous thrombosis and mortality in several diseases. Here, we analyzed the association between RDW and other red blood cell (RBC) parameters with risk of VTE and mortality in patients with cancer. Methods RBC parameters were measured in 1840 patients with cancers of the brain, breast, lung, stomach, colon, pancreas, prostate, kidney; lymphoma, multiple myeloma and other tumor sites, that were included in the Vienna Cancer and Thrombosis Study (CATS), which is an ongoing prospective, observational cohort study of patients with newly diagnosed or progressive cancer after remission. Primary study outcome is occurrence of symptomatic VTE and secondary outcome is death during a maximum follow-up of 2 years. Results During a median follow-up of 706 days, 131 (7.1%) patients developed VTE and 702 (38.2%) died. High RDW (>16%) was not associated with a higher risk of VTE in the total study cohort; in competing risk analysis accounting for death as competing variable the univariable subhazard ratio (SHR) was 1.34 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.80–2.23, p = 0.269). There was also no significant association between other RBC parameters and risk of VTE. High RDW was associated with an increased risk of mortality in the total study population (hazard ratio [HR, 95% CI]: 1.72 [1.39–2.12], p<0.001), and this association prevailed after adjustment for age, sex, hemoglobin, leukocyte and platelet count (HR [95% CI]: 1.34 [1.06–1.70], p = 0.016). Conclusions RDW and other RBC parameters were not independently associated with risk of VTE in patients with cancer and might therefore not be of added value for estimating risk of VTE in patients with cancer. We could confirm that high RDW is an independent predictor of poor overall survival in cancer.
Improved Inter-Cluster Separation Algorithm

The inter-cluster separation (ICS) algorithm adds the separation item into the objective function to minimize the fuzzy Euclidean distance and maximize the inter-cluster separation. However, ICS is sensitive to noisy data, so an improved inter-cluster separation (IICS) algorithm is proposed to deal with this problem. It is claimed that IICS is an incorporation of ICS and improved possibilistic c-means (IPCM) clustering. IICS can produce both possibilities and memberships simultaneously, and it overcomes the noise sensitivity problem of ICS and the coincident clusters problem of possibilistic c-means (PCM) clustering. Further, IICS does not depend on the parameters that exist in IPCM. The experimental results show that IICS compares favorably with ICS.
On the generalized Erlang ( n ) risk model

For actuarial aplications we consider the Sparre–Andersen risk model when the interclaim times are Generalized Erlang(n) distributed. We first address the problem of solving an integro–differential equation that is satisfied by the survival probability, as well as other probabilities, and present a method to solve such equation. This is done by considering the roots with positive real parts of the generalized Lundberg’s equation, and then establishing a one-one relation between them and the solutions of the integro–differential equation mentioned before. We study the cases when all the roots are single and when there are roots with higher multiplicity. Afterwards, we apply our findings above in the computation of the distribution of the maximum severity of ruin. Finally, considering an interest force, we study the expected discounted dividends prior to ruin, showing an alternative and more general method to the one provided by Albrecher et al. (2006), by considering a general claim amount distribution.
Population-Level Differentiation in Growth Rates and Leaf Traits in Seedlings of the Neotropical Live Oak Quercus oleoides Grown under Natural and Manipulated Precipitation Regimes

Widely distributed species are normally subjected to spatial heterogeneity in environmental conditions. In sessile organisms like plants, adaptive evolution and phenotypic plasticity of key functional traits are the main mechanisms through which species can respond to environmental heterogeneity and climate change. While extended research has been carried out in temperate species in this regard, there is still limited knowledge as to how species from seasonally-dry tropical climates respond to spatial and temporal variation in environmental conditions. In fact, studies of intraspecific genetically-based differences in functional traits are still largely unknown and studies in these ecosystems have largely focused on in situ comparisons where environmental and genetic effects cannot be differentiated. In this study, we tested for ecotypic differentiation and phenotypic plasticity in leaf economics spectrum (LES) traits, water use efficiency and growth rates under natural and manipulated precipitation regimes in a common garden experiment where seedlings of eight populations of the neotropical live oak Quercus oleoides were established. We also examined the extent to which intraspecific trait variation was associated with plant performance under different water availability. Similar to interspecific patterns among seasonally-dry tropical tree species, live oak populations with long and severe dry seasons had higher leaf nitrogen content and growth rates than mesic populations, which is consistent with a “fast” resource-acquisition strategy aimed to maximize carbon uptake during the wet season. Specific leaf area (SLA) was the best predictor of plant performance, but contrary to expectations, it was negatively associated with relative and absolute growth rates. This observation was partially explained by the negative association between SLA and area-based photosynthetic rates, which is contrary to LES expectations but similar to other recent intraspecific studies on evergreen oaks. Overall, our study shows strong intraspecific differences in functional traits in a tropical oak, Quercus oleoides, and suggests that precipitation regime has played an important role in driving adaptive divergence in this widespread species.
VisuaLaws : Visualizing Laws over Time

Viewing a law as it was at a particular point in time is an important, yet time consuming task requiring the user to search through a table summary of changes made to the law, comparing them with the current version of the document. Building a mental model of the document at two points in time, and understanding the differences between them is a challenging task for large laws. Understanding the history of how a large law has changed over time is nearly impossible. We introduce VisuaLaws, a prototype web-based tool for visualizing changes to laws over time, which efficiently supports comparing two versions of a law over time and simplifies the challenge of understanding the complex history of changes made in the lifetime of a law.
Establishment of Stable Reporter Expression for In Vivo Imaging of Nuclear Factor-κB Activation in Mouse Liver

The nuclear factor-κB (NF-κB) signaling pathway plays a critical role in a multitude of cellular processes. Activation of the NF-κB transcription factor family is essential for the initiation of inflammation, immunity, cell proliferation and apoptosis through a list of responsive genes. In hepatic tissue, activation of the NF-κB pathway has been implicated in a number of pathological conditions. Here we described a mouse model for noninvasive quantification of NF-κB activation in the hepatic tissues. Mice were subjected to hydrodynamic delivery with a mixture of pattB-NF-κB-Fluc reporter and φC31o integrase vector. Hepatic expression of φC31o integrase mediated chromosomal integration of the pattB-NF-κB-Fluc reporter, resulting in stable luciferase expression at 300 days post transfection. We applied noninvasive imaging and were able to detect NF-κB activation under acute liver injury and hepatitis conditions. During hepatectomy-induced liver regeneration, NF-κB activation was detected locally in the tissues at the surgery site. Treatment with Sorafenib suppressed NF-κB activation, accompanied with perturbation of liver regeneration. In conclusion, we established a method for stable transfection of the hepatic tissues and applied the transfected mice to longitudinal monitoring of NF-κB activity under pathological conditions. Further exploration of this methodology for establishment of other disease models and for evaluation of novel pharmaceuticals is likely to be fruitful.
The Mating Game : ( Potential ) Intergenerational Conflict on Marital Arrangements

Recent research has shown that across several countries there is an ongoing decline in marriages arranged by the parents of the spouses (AM). This transition has been associated with industrialization, higher human capital investment, incorporation of younger cohorts into paid jobs, urbanization and the dissolution of extended households prominent features of the modernization process. This paper proposes a partial equilibrium model to explain these patterns, highlighting one mechanism within a household through which modernization might lead to self-choice marriages. The model is a noncooperative two-period game between parents and one child, where AM are used as the means to enter into an informal risk-sharing contract with another household (i.e. allows parents to create alliances among them, or reinforce their standing within their social network): if the child accepts the AM, she (and her parents) will share risk with another household. However, the opportunity costs of the arranged marriage are limited geographic and social mobility in order to enforce the informal contract, the new couple follows strict post-marital residence rules. In contrast, children having a self-choice marriage are not geographically nor socially constrained; they might look for a partner with higher labor market return, have access to better-remunerated occupations, and find a spouse of higher quality. The model suggests that arranged marriages might disappear when the net benefits of the insurance arrangement (within their social network) decrease relative to (unconstrained) returns (to human capital) outside of their social group. In this framework, love marriages, increasing investment in human capital and the dissolution of extended households are endogenously determined. Nonetheless, the transition period might be characterized by an inefficient investment in the human capital of children, as parents might try to lower their child’s outside option. JEL: B52, C72, J11, J12, O53, O55. ∗grubio4@ucmerced.edu. I am truly indebted to my advisor, Adriana Lleras-Muney, for uncountable hours of discussion, guidance and support. I am also particularly grateful to Alex Whalley, Wes Yin, Leah Boustan, Paola Giuliano, Maurizio Mazzocco and Robert Jensen for their comments and suggestions. I have also benefited from participants at the Applied Micro Lunch Meeting and the Albert Family Proseminar at UCLA, the 2013 All-California Labor Economics Conference, the Applied Microeconomics Seminar at University of California at Riverside, and from seminars and conferences at Simon Fraser University, Eastern Connecticut State University, University of California at Merced, University of Illinois at Chicago, NERA, Boston University, ITAM, Bank of Mexico, LACEA-LAMES, SEA, Wesleyan University, and NEUDC. This paper was circulated previously as part of my job market paper “How love conquered marriage: Theory and Evidence on the Disappearance of Arranged Marriages. ” All remaining errors are mine.
Adaptable cache service and application to grid caching

Caching is an important element to tackle performance issues in largely distributed data management. However, caches are efficient only if they are well configured according to the context of use. As a consequence, they are usually built from scratch. Such an approach appears to be expensive and time consuming in grids where the various characteristics lead to many heterogeneous cache requirements. This paper proposes a framework facilitating the construction of sophisticated and dynamically adaptable caches for heterogeneous applications. Such a framework has enabled the evaluation of several configurations for distributed data querying systems and leads us to propose innovative approaches for semantic and cooperative caching. This paper also reports the results obtained in bioinformatics data management on grids showing the relevance of our proposals. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Statistical scatter and variability of creep property estimates in θ projection method

Abstract The prediction of long term creep properties from short term tests is discussed in terms of the θ projection method. The method has been shown to yield reasonable extrapolation functions and the present paper investigates the characterisation of creep scatter and the procedures required to give estimates of variability of creep predictions. The nature of errors in individual creep curves and in multiple curves obtained from various specimens under differing test conditions are discussed and formulae are developed that allow an assessment of the reliability of derived parameters. These methods are then extended to estimated creep properties (both interpolated and extrapolated) so that the variances of predicted quantities can be calculated. The analysis is carried out for general creep curve functions, but is illustrated with reference to the double exponential description of creep strain ξ with time: ξ=θ1(1−e−θ2t) + θ3(eθ4t − 1). Numerical examples relating to the creep properties of IN 100 are g.