Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integration and Adaptation of Harmonic and Inharmonic Models for Separating Polyphonic Musical Signals

This paper describes a sound source separation method for polyphonic sound mixtures of music to build an instrument equalizer for remixing multiple tracks separated from compact-disc recordings by changing the volume level of each track. Although such mixtures usually include both harmonic and inharmonic sounds, the difficulties in dealing with both types of sounds together have not been addressed in most previous methods that have focused on either of the two types separately. We therefore developed an integrated weighted-mixture model consisting of both harmonic-structure and inharmonic-structure tone models (generative models for the power spectrogram). On the basis of the MAP estimation using the EM algorithm, we estimated all model parameters of this integrated model under several original constraints for preventing over-training and maintaining intra-instrument consistency. Using standard MIDI files as prior information of the model parameters, we applied this model to compact-disc recordings and achieved the instrument equalizer.
Parameterized model checking of fault-tolerant distributed algorithms by abstraction

We introduce an automated parameterized verification method for fault-tolerant distributed algorithms (FTDA). FTDAs are parameterized by both the number of processes and the assumed maximum number of faults. At the center of our technique is a parametric interval abstraction (PIA) where the interval boundaries are arithmetic expressions over parameters. Using PIA for both data abstraction and a new form of counter abstraction, we reduce the parameterized problem to finite-state model checking. We demonstrate the practical feasibility of our method by verifying safety and liveness of several fault-tolerant broadcasting algorithms, and finding counter examples in the case where there are more faults than the FTDA was designed for.
Word Modeling Accoustic Signal Processor Pattern Testing Dynamic Time Warping Pattern Sequence Training Word Scores Selected Word Speech Input

This work presents a general overview of a new speech processing and recognition tool (SPEAR). This tool presents a set of signal processing and recognition algorithms together for handling speech signals in a cooperative way. The different tool modules work under strong interaction and communication for passing relevant information among all of them. The proposed system handles speech signals in three different analysis levels. The first level corresponds to a signal processing stage and is done using several modules (Fourier analysis, normalization, noise addition, signal overlapping, etc). The second stage consists in a feature extraction process for obtaining important speech parameters (formant frequencies, energy, LP, cepstrum, PLP coefficients, etc.). The third module corresponds to the speech recognizer. The current development allows single word recognition in two phases. The first one is a frame by frame phone recognition by means of a set of parallel associative memories. The second phase uses a Dynamic Time Warping algorithm for the complete word matching. Current results show a good recognition level for speaker dependent and independent tests under semi-clean environments (above 15 dB S/N).
A Semantic Approach to Metadata Management in Sensor Systems

With the increasing of multi-sensors system and the appearance of several standards for encoding metadata produced by sensors, the management and the interpretation of this metadata became hard due to their heterogeneity. In this paper we discuss the reasons, which drove to this high heterogeneity factor and we discuss the benefits of proposing a metadata integration system overcoming the heterogeneity issues. We also expose the challenges of its implementation.
3D-Shape Retrieval Using Curves and HMM

In this paper, we propose a new approach for 3D-shape matching. This approach encloses an off-line step and an on-line step. In the off-line one, an alphabet, of which any shape can be composed, is constructed. First, 3D-objects are subdivided into a set of 3D-parts. The subdivision consists to extract from each object a set of feature points with associated curves. Then the whole set of 3D-parts is clustered into different classes from a semantic point of view. After that, each class is modeled by a Hidden Markov Model (HMM). The HMM, which represents a character in the alphabet, is trained using the set of curves corresponding to the class parts. Hence, any 3D-object can be represented by a set of characters. The on-line step consists to compare the set of characters representing the 3D-object query and that of each object in the given dataset. The experimental results obtained on the TOSCA dataset show that the system efficiently performs in retrieving similar 3D-models.
Timothy‐Specific IgG Antibody Levels Vary with the Pollen Seasons

Serum samples were collected from eight grass pollen hypersensitive children during a 4‐year period. The sera were assayed for contents of timothy‐specific IgE antibodies by RAST. Timothy‐specific IgG and IgA antibodies were quantified by a refined ELISA in which covalent binding of the antigen to the polystyrene solid phase had been performed. IgG antibodies were also assayed by a Sepharose‐protein‐A technique with radiolabelled timothy allergens as the antigen. It was possible to register clearcut seasonal variations with postseasonally boosted antibody levels not only of timothy‐specific IgE but also of IgG antibody. Both igG1 and IgG4 antibodies specific for timothy showed seasonal variations of a similar degree. It was not possible to register seasonal variations of the same magnitude of timothy‐specific IgA antibodies.
Filter measurement results from the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment

During the Airborne Antarctic Ozone Experiment (AAOE), filter samples were obtained for the determination of the total nitrate, sulfate, acidic chloride and acidic fluoride content along the flight path of the NASA ER-2. On three flights of the 12-flight series, filters were flown that allowed the separate but simultaneous collection of these species in the aerosol and vapor phase. The ratio of particulate sulfate observed outside the chemically perturbed region (CPR) of the vortex to that inside the CPR was 2.6. The total nitrate levels observed inside the CPR were less than those outside the CPR with one exception. The total nitrate levels observed inside the CPR decreased at a rate of 0.06 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) nitrate d−1 over the 36-day period of the measurements. Nitrate was observed in the particulate phase on two flights and was correlated with the coldest temperatures observed on the flights. Vapor phase nitrate within the CPR was measured on two flights and it ranged from 1.3 to 2.8 ppbv. Chloride and fluoride were not observed in the particulate phase at concentrations above the detection limits for those determinations. Total acidic fluoride was observed to be larger inside the CPR than outside in contrast to the other measured species. Ratios of total acidic chloride to total acidic fluoride observed at flight altitude exhibit values near 1, rather than the accepted mid-latitude value of 4–5, suggesting a loss of chloride from the reservoir species HCl and ClONO2. The existence of larger amounts of total acidic fluoride inside the CPR compared to outside the CPR, coupled with the observation of less sulfate inside than outside suggests that the air inside the CPR had descended from a higher altitude.
Methods for Categorical Longitudinal Survey Data: Understanding Employment Status of Australian Women

Many variables that are of interest in social science research are nominal variables with two or more categories, such as employment status, occupation, political preference, or self-reported health status. With longitudinal survey data it is possible to analyse the transitions of individuals between different employment states or occupations (for example). In the statistical literature, models for analysing categorical dependent variables with repeated observations belong to the family of models known as generalized linear mixed models (GLMMs). The specific GLMM for a dependent variable with three or more categories is the multinomial logit random effects model. For these models, the marginal distribution of the response does not have a closed form solution and hence numerical integration must be used to obtain maximum likelihood estimates for the model parameters. Techniques for implementing the numerical integration are available but are computationally intensive requiring a large amount of computer processing time that increases with the number of clusters (or individuals) in the data and are not always readily accessible to the practitioner in standard software. For the purposes of analysing categorical response data from a longitudinal social survey, there is clearly a need to evaluate the existing procedures for estimating multinomial logit random effects model in terms of accuracy, efficiency and computing time. The computational time will have significant implications as to the preferred approach by researchers. In this paper we evaluate statistical software procedures that utilise adaptive Gaussian quadrature and MCMC methods, with specific application to modeling employment status of women using a GLMM, over three waves of the HILDA survey.
LOW COST REVERSE ENGINEERING TECHNIQUES FOR 3 D MODELLING OF PROPELLERS

In aeronautics and shipbuilding fields quality control of propellers is an obligatory step, a hard task up to some years ago: the shape of each blade has to be measured with high accuracy and referred to a global frame. Specific CMMs were used in the past to perform such complex analyses. When propellers were mounted on ships on dry dock, inspections became nearly impossible to be performed. In this work, both photogrammetric and laser scanning low cost methodologies for 3D reverse modelling of complex objects with high level of detail are proposed. Three photogrammetric software for both commercial and research uses, have been tested in this study for generating high density point clouds. The feasibility of using a low cost triangulation scanner for high accuracy purposes has been studied in the case of small screw propellers. The problem of bringing together all the measurements in a single reference frame with high accuracy is solved by means of colour information. The study shows that a hybrid approach that integrates both photogrammetry and laser scanning methods is necessary. Screws of different sizes, surveyed in laboratory and on the field, such as in dry docks, are modelled and inspected. Different procedures for determining geometrical parameters are shown. Geometrical characteristics derived by 3D models of screws, are compared both with those expected by original plans and CMM measurements.
Falls control using posture reshaping and active compliance

We address the problem of humanoid falls when they are unavoidable. We propose a control strategy that combines two behaviors: i) closed-loop posture reshaping - during the falling phase, which allows best impact absorption from a predefined taxonomy, coupled with ii) an active compliance through instant PD gains reduction, instead of shutting-off the actuators or instead of high-gains control with additional implements as previously proposed by other works. We perform several simulations to assess our strategy and made experimental trials on the HRP-4 humanoid robot.
914 MHz path loss prediction models for indoor wireless communications in multifloored buildings

Qualitative models are presented that predict the effects of walls, office partitions, floors, and building layout on the path loss at 914 MHz. The site-specific models have been developed based on the number of floors, partitions, and concrete walls between the transmitter and receiver, and provide simple prediction rules which relate signal strength to the log of distance. The standard deviation between measured and predicted path loss is 5.8 dB for the entire data set, and can be as small as 4 dB for specific areas within a building. Average floor attenuation factors, which describe the additional path loss (in decibels) caused by floors between transmitter and receiver, are found for as many as four floors in a typical office building. Path loss contour plots for measured data are presented. In addition, contour plots for the path loss prediction error indicate that the prediction models presented are accurate to within 6 dB for a majority of locations in a building. >
Subtle Hand Gesture Identification for HCI Using Temporal Decorrelation Source Separation BSS of Surface EMG

Hand gesture identification has various human computer interaction (HCI) applications. This paper presents a method for subtle hand gesture identification from sEMG of the forearm by decomposing the signal into components originating from different muscles. The processing requires the decomposition of the surface EMG by temporal decorrelation source separation (TDSEP) based blind source separation technique. Pattern classification of the separated signal is performed in the second step with a back propagation neural network. The focus of this work is to establish a simple, yet robust system that can be used to identify subtle complex hand actions and gestures for control of prosthesis and other HCI based devices. The proposed model based approach is able to overcome the ambiguity problems (order and magnitude problem) of BSS methods by selecting an a priori mixing matrix based on known hand muscle anatomy. The paper reports experimental results, where the system was able to reliably recognize different subtle hand gesture with an overall accuracy of 97%. The advantage of such a system is that it is easy to train by a lay user, and can easily be implemented in real time after the initial training. The paper also highlights the importance of mixing matrix analysis in BSS technique.
Dinitrogenase reductase-activating glycohydrolase can be released from chromatophores of Rhodospirillum rubrum by treatment with MgGDP

Dinitrogenase reductase-activating glycohydrolase (DRAG), involved in the regulation of nitrogenase activity in Rhodospirillum rubrum, is associated with chromatophore membranes in cell extracts. We show that DRAG can be specifically released by treatment with MgGDP; other nucleotides studied had no effect. The DRAG activity released corresponds to the release of DRAG protein.
Semi-supervised image database categorization using pairwise constraints

As image collections become ever larger, effective access to their content requires a meaningful categorization of the images. Such a categorization can rely on clustering methods working on image features, but should greatly benefit from any form of supervision the user can provide, related to the visual content. Semi-supervised clustering - learning from both labelled and unlabelled data - has consequently become a topic of significant interest. In this paper we present a new semi-supervised clustering algorithm, pairwise-constrained competitive agglomeration, which is based on a fuzzy cost function that takes pairwise constraints into account.
WCE Abnormality Detection Based on Saliency and Adaptive Locality-Constrained Linear Coding

Wireless capsule endoscopy (WCE) has become a widely used diagnostic technique for the digestive tract, at the price of a large volume of data that needs to be analyzed. To tackle this problem, a new computer-aided system using novel features is proposed in this paper to classify WCE images automatically. In the feature learning stage, to obtain the representative visual words, we first calculate the color scale invariant feature transform from the bleeding, polyp, ulcer, and normal WCE image samples separately and then apply $K$ -means clustering on these features to obtain visual words. These four types of visual words are combined together to composite the representative visual words for classifying the WCE images. In the feature coding stage, we propose a novel saliency and adaptive locality-constrained linear coding (SALLC) algorithm to encode the images. The SALLC encodes patch features based on adaptive coding bases, which are calculated by the distance differences among the features and the visual words. Moreover, it imposes the patch saliency constraint on the feature coding process to emphasize the important information in the images. The experimental results exhibit a promising overall recognition accuracy of 88.61%, validating the effectiveness of the proposed method.
The Younger Dryas episode and the radiocarbon chronologies of the Lake Huleh and Ghab Valley pollen diagrams, Israel and Syria

Pollen diagrams from the former Lake Huleh in Israel and the Ghab Valley in Syria are the most important records of vegetation change in the Levant during the Lateglacial and early Holocene. Environmentally deterministic explanations of the development of agriculture in this region therefore rely on the accuracy of the diagrams radiocarbon chronologies. Radiocarbon results at both sites are subject to large reservoir effects, however: the 14C content of modern water from the Huleh basin implies that the Huleh radiocarbon results require corrections of up to 5500 14C years. A revised chronology of the latest Huleh pollen diagram is proposed. This is consistent with the regional vegetation sequence recorded in eastern Mediterranean marine sediments. The regional sequence also provides the most plausible chronology for the Ghab pollen diagrams.
Sustained activation of DNA damage response in irradiated apoptosis-resistant cells induces reversible senescence associated with mTOR downregulation and expression of stem cell markers

Cells respond to genotoxic stress by activating the DNA damage response (DDR). When injury is severe or irreparable, cells induce apoptosis or cellular senescence to prevent transmission of the lesions to the daughter cells upon cell division. Resistance to apoptosis is a hallmark of cancer that challenges the efficacy of cancer therapy. In this work, the effects of ionizing radiation on apoptosis-resistant E1A + E1B transformed cells were investigated to ascertain whether the activation of cellular senescence could provide an alternative tumor suppressor mechanism. We show that irradiated cells arrest cell cycle at G2/M phase and resume DNA replication in the absence of cell division followed by formation of giant polyploid cells. Permanent activation of DDR signaling due to impaired DNA repair results in the induction of cellular senescence in E1A + E1B cells. However, irradiated cells bypass senescence and restore the population by dividing cells, which have near normal size and ploidy and do not express senescence markers. Reversion of senescence and appearance of proliferating cells were associated with downregulation of mTOR, activation of autophagy, mitigation of DDR signaling, and expression of stem cell markers.
Better Image Segmentation by Exploiting Dense Semantic Predictions

It is well accepted that image segmentation can benefit from utilizing multilevel cues. The paper focuses on utilizing the FCNN-based dense semantic predictions in the bottom-up image segmentation, arguing to take semantic cues into account from the very beginning. By this we can avoid merging regions of similar appearance but distinct semantic categories as possible. The semantic inefficiency problem is handled. We also propose a straightforward way to use the contour cues to suppress the noise in multilevel cues, thus to improve the segmentation robustness. The evaluation on the BSDS500 shows that we obtain the competitive region and boundary performance. Furthermore, since all individual regions can be assigned with appropriate semantic labels during the computation, we are capable of extracting the adjusted semantic segmentations. The experiment on Pascal VOC 2012 shows our improvement to the original semantic segmentations which derives directly from the dense predictions.
Some effects of spinal cord lesions on experienced emotional feelings.

In structured interviews, 26 adult males with spinal cord lesions at varying levels were asked to compare certain of their emotional feelings before and after injury. The investigator, himself a paraplegic, knew all subjects well. The major findings follow. 1Significant decreases in experienced feelings of anger, sexual excitement, fear, and an over-all estimate of change were found. 2A significant increase in feelings of sentimentality was reported. 3Although spinal cord lesions decrease some emotional feelings, overt emotional behavior may continue to be displayed. 4Support was offered for the belief that disruption of the autonomic nervous system and its afferent return causes notable changes in experienced emotional feelings. A trend was noted which suggests that the more extensive the disruption, the greater the decrease in some emotional feelings.
Introducing Pharmaceutical Care to Primary Care in Iceland—An Action Research Study

Even though pharmaceutical care is not a new concept in pharmacy, its introduction and development has proved to be challenging. In Iceland, general practitioners are not familiar with pharmaceutical care and additionally no such service is offered in pharmacies or primary care settings. Introducing pharmaceutical care in primary care in Iceland is making great efforts to follow other countries, which are bringing the pharmacist more into patient care. General practitioners are key stakeholders in this endeavor. The aim of this study was to introduce pharmacist-led pharmaceutical care into primary care clinics in Iceland in collaboration with general practitioners by presenting different setting structures. Action research provided the framework for this research. Data was collected from pharmaceutical care interventions, whereby the pharmaceutical care practitioner ensures that each of a patient’s medications is assessed to determine if it is appropriate, effective, safe, and that the patient can take medicine as expected. Sources of data included pharmaceutical care notes on patients, researcher’s notes, meetings, and interviews with general practitioners over the period of the study. The study ran from September 2013 to October 2015. Three separate semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with five general practitioners from one primary health care clinic in Iceland at different time points throughout the study. Pharmaceutical care was provided to elderly patients (n = 125) before and between general practitioners’ interviews. The study setting was a primary care clinic in the Reykjavik area and the patients’ homes. Results showed that the GPs’ knowledge about pharmacist competencies as healthcare providers and their potential in patient care increased. GPs would now like to have access to a pharmacist on a daily basis. Direct contact between the pharmacist and GPs is better when working in the same physical space. Pharmacist’s access to medical records is necessary for optimal service. Pharmacist-led clinical service was deemed most needed in dose dispensing polypharmacy patients. This research indicated that it was essential to introduce Icelandic GPs to the potential contribution of pharmacists in patient care and that action research was a useful methodology to promote and develop a relationship between those two health care providers in primary care in Iceland.