Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
COMMON SPATIAL PATTERNS APPLIED TO VOICE SIGNALS FOR LARYNX PATHOLOGY CLASSIFICATION

Voice disorders are a common and sometimes neglected pathology that affects especially people with intense use of speech like teachers. In order to assist therapists in making effective diagnoses in early cases, several researches study patterns extracted from voice signals to classify the pathologies. In this work, we present a method to discriminate among sustained “a” samples recorded from three classes of people with: healthy larynx, vocal fold nodules, and Reinke’s edema. The proposed features are classified using support vector machines and are obtained using the common spatial patterns method on signals reconstructed from a waveletpacket decomposition of the voice samples. The mean discrimination rates between the healthy and pathological cases reach up to 94% with the proposed method. Keywords— Common spatial patterns, larynx pathology, wavelets, pattern recognition. Resumo— Patologias da laringe são um problema comum e muitas vezes negligenciado que afeta especialmente pessoas com intenso uso vocal, como professores. De forma a auxiliar os profissionais da saúde a fazer diagnósticos eficazes em casos iniciais, muitas pesquisas estudam padrões extráıdos de sinais de voz para classificar as doenças. Neste trabalho, apresenta-se um método de discriminação de amostras de “a” sustentado coletados de três classes de pessoas com: laringe saudável, nódulo nas pregas vocais e edema de Reinke. Os padrões propostos são classificados usando support vector machines e são obtidos usando o método de padrões espaciais comuns aplicados em sinais reconstrúıdos a partir da decomposição por wavelet-packets das amostras de voz. A taxa média de discriminação entre os casos saudáveis e patológicos alcança 94% com o método proposto. Palavras-chave— Padrões espaciais comuns, patologia de laringe, wavelets, reconhecimento de padrões.
1.2-V CMOS op-amp with a dynamically biased output stage

A very low-voltage operational amplifier in a standard CMOS process with a 0.75 V threshold voltage is presented. It uses a novel dynamically biased output stage based on the switched-capacitor approach. Thanks to this, drive performance is greatly improved and accurate current control is also achieved. The amplifier is capable of working with a power supply as low as 1.2 V while providing a -74 dB total harmonic distortion with a 700 mV peak-to-peak output voltage into a 500 /spl Omega/ and 20 pF output load. The open-loop gain and the gain-bandwidth product are higher than 90 dB and 2.2 MHz, respectively.
Screening and identification of Trametes lactinea and Pycnoporous coccineus isolated from Kampar for laccase production

Aims: Laccase is a blue copper oxidase that catalyses four electron reduction of molecular oxygen to water. It is able to oxidise aromatic compounds with molecular oxygen as the terminal electron acceptor. The aim of this study was to screen for laccase producing basidiomycetes isolated from decaying woods and tree trunks around Kampar, Perak. Methodology and results: The isolated basidiomycetes were screened for their laccase activity on different agar plates supplemented with 2, 2-azino-bis-3-ethylbenzothiazoline-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS), guaiacol and Remazol Brillant Blue R (RBBR), respectively. In the presence of laccase, the colourless ABTS and guaiacol were oxidised to form blue-green and reddish-brown coloured zone around the fungal colony, respectively; whereas the blue RBBR was decolourised by the enzyme. Colour or colourless halo zones that are formed on the agar plates indicate the presence of ligninolytic enzyme activities. Isolates KA1 and TR9 indicated the highest enzymatic hydrolysis on ABTS plates with the halo zone ratio of 1.43  0.04 and 0.98  0.01, respectively. Based on the BLAST results from the amplicon of ITS1 and ITS4 primers, Isolates KA1 and TR9 were identified as Trametes lactinea and Pycnoporous coccineus, respectively. Under submerged fermentation, P. coccineus has higher laccase production (0.72 U/mL) compared with T. lactinea (0.16 U/mL). Conclusion, significance and impact of study: Both T. lactinea and P. coccineus are potential strains for laccase production which can be used for dye decolourisation and degradation. Future studies will focus on the application of the laccase in textile dye degradation.
Influence of lean body mass on performance differences of male and female distance runners in warm, humid environments.

The purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the influence of lean body mass (LBM) and body weight (BW) on the thermoregulatory responses and endurance performance of male and female athletes in warm, humid environments. Ten (5 males, 5 females) healthy, moderately trained athletes with varying physiques performed a self-paced 30-min run on a motorized treadmill in warm (30 degrees C), humid (60% relative humidity) conditions, with the aim of running the greatest distance possible. Males completed one trial, while females completed two trials, one in each of the follicular (Fol) and luteal (Lut) phases of the menstrual cycle in a randomized fashion. There were no significant differences among groups for distance run (males, 5.2 +/- 0.4 km; Fol, 4.9 +/- 0.1 km; Lut, 4.7 +/- 0.1 km). However, following analysis of covariance accounting for LBM and BW, the distances run were significantly different. The adjusted means for distance run after accounting for LBM were 3.4 km for males (P < 0.05), 5.9 km for Fol, and 5.6 km for Lut. Adjusted means accounting for BW resulted in run distances of 6.5 km for males (P < 0.05), 4.2 km for Fol, and 4.0 km for Lut. Thermoregulatory responses such as rectal and skin temperatures were similar among groups. Avenues of heat loss and gain were altered relative to the menstrual cycle phase. The results suggest that one reason for the disparity in performance between male and female athletes over similar race distances might in part be related to unequal body characteristics and in particular to differences in LBM.
An ideal polymeric C 60 coating on a Si electrode for durable Li-ion batteries

http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.carbon. 2014.06. 049 0008-6223/ 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author: Fax: +82 29585451. E-mail address: sckim@kist.re. kr (S. Kim). Minwoong Joe , Young-Kyu Han , Kwang-Ryeol Lee , Hiroshi Mizuseki , Seungchul Kim a,* a Center for Computational Science, Korea Institute of Science and Technology, Seoul 136-791, Republic of Korea b Department of Energy and Materials Engineering, Dongguk University-Seoul, Seoul 100-715, Republic of Korea c School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, 2066, Seobu-ro, Jangan-gu, Suwon, Gyeonggi 440-746, Republic of Korea
Matching the Acoustic Model to Front-End Signal Processing for ASR in Noisy and Reverberant Environments

Distant-talking automatic speech recognition (ASR) represents an extremely challenging task. The major reason is that unwanted additive interference and reverberation are picked up by the microphones besides the desired signal. A hands-free human-machine interface should therefore comprise a powerful acoustic preprocessing unit in line with a robust ASR back-end. However, since perfect speech enhancement cannot be achieved in practice, the output of the front-end will always contain some residual interference and some distortion of the desired signal. It is hence of decisive importance to carefully adjust the hidden Markovmodels (HMMs) of the ASR system to the front-end. In this contribution, we present a two-channel acoustic front-end based on blind source separation along with Wiener filtering. For the front-end integration into the ASR system, different types of multi-style as well as adaptive training and HMM adaptation are investigated.
SEISMIC PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF A SIMPLY-SUPPORTED HIGHWAY BRIDGE CROSSING FAULT-RUPTURE ZONE

This study focused on investigating the seismic performance of a highway bridge crossing faultrupture zone. A three dimensional model of a typical simply supported beam bridge was developed in OpenSees. The nonlinear characteristics of the bridge piers and the pounding effect between the bridge girders and abutments are considered. A total of 20 near-fault ground motions were synthetized by considering different permanent displacements. Based on the relative location of the fault to the bridge, two different longitudinal movement scenarios of the bridge spans at two sides of the fault, i.e. the reverse movement (Case A) and opposite movement (Case B), are considered in nonlinear dynamic history analysis. Results showed that the bridge in fault zone experienced four different damage stages. The unseating of the girders happened before the collapse of the pier. In the case of opposite movement, the simple supported bridge crossing fault suffered larger damage and had a higher possibility of collapse compared to that in the case of reverse movement. This study could provide a useful reference for aseismic design of a new highway bridge crossing active fault. 1 Professor, Key Laboratory of Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Structure of China Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Email: wangjingquan@seu.edu. cn Ph.D. Candidate, Key Laboratory of Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Structure of China Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Email: seuzhangfan@ seu.edu. cn Ph.D. Candidate, Key Laboratory of Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Structure of China Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Email: hmlishuai@163.com Master Candidate, Key Laboratory of Concrete and Prestressed Concrete Structure of China Ministry of Education, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China. Email: 615756264@qq.com J. Q. Wang, F. Zhang, S. Li, C. Q. Chu. Seismic Performance Assessment of a Highway Bridges Crossing FaultRupture Zones. Proceedings of the 11 National Conference in Earthquake Engineering, Earthquake Engineering Research Institute, Los Angeles, CA. 2018. Seismic Performance Assessment of a Simply-Supported Highway Bridge Crossing Fault-Rupture Zone J. Q. Wang, F. Zhang, S. Li, C. Q. Chu
Fire Following Earthquake Loss Estimation

Fire following earthquakes can cause significant losses that, at times, have exceeded earthquake shake losses. Due to the complexity of conflagration modeling, simulation techniques are used to provide estimates of the potential fire losses under earthquake scenarios. This paper describes the simulation technique and its components. Results for selected scenario events in the United States are presented.
Learning From Demonstrations in Changing Environments: Learning Cost Functions and Constraints for Motion Planning

We address the problem of performing complex tasks for a robot operating in changing environments. We propose two approaches to the following problem: 1) define taskspecific cost functions for motion planning that represent path quality by learning from an expert’s preferences and 2) using constraint-based representation of the task inside learning from demonstration paradigm. In the first approach, we generate a set of paths for a given task using a motion planner and collect data about their features (path length, distance from obstacles, etc.). We provide these paths to an expert as a set of pairwise comparisons. We then form a ranking of the paths from the expert’s comparisons. This ranking is used as training data for learning algorithms, which attempt to produce a cost function that maps path feature values to a cost that is consistent with the expert’s ranking. We test our method on two simulated car-maintenance tasks with the PR2 robot: removing a tire and extracting an oil filter. We found that learning methods which produce non-linear combinations of the features are better able to capture expert preferences for the tasks than methods which produce linear combinations. This result suggests that the linear combinations used in previous work on this topic may be too simple to capture the preferences of experts for complex tasks. In the second approach, we propose to introduce a constraint-based description of the task that can be used together with the motion planner to produce the trajectories. The description is automatically created from the demonstration by performing segmentation and extracting constraints from the motion. The constraints are represented with the Task Space Regions (TSR) that are extracted from the demonstration and used to produce a desired motion. To account for the parts of the motion where constraints are different a segmentation of the demonstrated motion is performed using TSRs. The proposed approach allows performing tasks on robot from human demonstration in changing environments, where obstacle distribution or poses of the objects could change between demonstration and execution. The experimental evaluation on two example motions was performed to estimate the ability of our approach to produce the desired motion and recover a demonstrated trajectory.
Schultheiss Nucleic acid-based modulation of cardiac gene expression for the treatment of cardiac diseases Approaches and perspectives

n Zusammenfassung In den letzten Jahren wurden wichtige konzeptionelle und technische Fortschritte erzielt auf dem Weg zur therapeutischen Modulation der kardialen Genexpression bei kardialen Erkrankungen. Zu diesen Fortschritten zählt 1. Die Identifikation neuer therapeutischer Ziele bei der Herzinsuffizienz, oft anhand genetischer Tiermodelle. 2. Ein besseres Verständnis der molekularen und zellulären Determinanten kardialen Gentransfers in vivo, in Tiermodellen und in ersten klinischen Studien. 3. Die Entwicklung regulierbarer und langzeitstabiler Vektorsysteme. Diese Übersicht fokussiert sich auf die Nukleinsäure-basierte Modulation der kardialen CalciumHomöostase als ein Paradigma für diese gentherapeutischen Ansätze, da jüngere bahnbrechende Arbeiten annehmen lassen, dass die Calcium-Homöostase ein Therapieziel von zentraler Bedeutung bei der Herzinsuffizienz darstellt. So konnte die Entwicklung einer schweren Herzinsuffizienz im genetischen MLP Tiermodell vollständig blockiert werden durch die gezielte genetische Ausschaltung des Phospholambans (PL), eines zentralen Regulators der kardialen Calcium-Homöostase. Dieser eindrucksvolle Effekt einer permanenten PL-Ausschaltung liefert – in Verbindung mit wichtigen früheren Arbeiten über Störungen der Calcium-Homöostase im insuffizienten menschlichen Herzen – eine rationale Basis für den therapeutischen Ansatz einer ad hoc-Suppression von PL mit Hilfe von antisense-Strategien (antisense-RNAs, Ribozyme, RNA-Interferenz) oder PL-Varianten. Wegen des sehr breiten Spektrums an Methoden, die zur Charakterisierung dieser Strategie eingesetzt worden sind, können PL-gerichtete Strategien als Paradigma für zukünftige genetische Therapien kardialer Erkrankungen angesehen werden, trotz bekannter komplexer Unterschiede zwischen Tiermodellen und dem Menschen. Hohe Sicherheit jeglicher solchen Therapie ist eine Voraussetzung für ihre mögliche klinische Anwendung und neue Kontrollmethoden werden daher entwickelt: 1. Regulation des Vektors durch biochemische Anomalien, die mit der Zielkrankheit selbst assoziiert sind („Inductionby-Disease“ Gentherapie). 2. Externe Kontrolle der Vektoraktivität durch den Einsatz pharmakon-sensitiver Promotoren. Darüber hinaus konnte das wichtige Ziel kardialer Langzeit-Stabilität der therapeutischen Vektoren in jüngster Zeit tierexperimentell mit Vektoren auf der Basis von Adeno-assoziierten Viren erreicht werden.
Real-Time Stable Personal Broadcasting Community for Mobile Terminals

Many people from all over the world have been supplied with mobile terminals, and this has increased the computing power of each individual. Based on this increased utilization of mobile terminals, there are new services that are emerging as well. Also, as User Created Contents (UCC) is becoming widely available, the new era of easily sharing contents with others has started. As the result of these two factors, users can now record materials easily with mobile terminals, create UCC, and eventually share with others as means of communication. Also, users prefer the real-time UCC broadcasting because of their desires to communicate with other users through contents, which they have created by themselves, and to receive contents services that they want. Thus, this study will present the mobile terminal and additional servers for its maintenance of configuring the real-time personal broadcasting service using the mobile terminal. This study will also present functions that help transfer of data by managing the network and participating in the network. For evaluation, we choose two multicast schemes: ZIGZAG and PRIME. ZIGZAG shows the great performance on low B/W usage and it is used for single-tree structure; PRIME has advantage on fast transmission and the usage of comparing mesh methods. With the mobile environment probabilities at 10% and 20%, our proposed idea showed 11% and 24%, respectively, higher node surviving rates than ZIGZAG, and 4% and 12%, respectively, higher node surviving rates than PRIME. And with the mobile environment probabilities at 10% and 20%, our proposed idea needed half B/W than PRIME and almost same B/W with ZIGZAG.
Prediction of voltage stability in power System by using CPF Method

A method for the online testing and estimation of power system stability is proposed. This paper deals with the voltage stability by using P –V curve method. P –V curve can be drawn by obtaining the various load flow data. For the load flow analysis we adopted continuous power flow analysis method on IEEE standard 30 bus system. Continuous power flow analysis starting from the initial starting point and reaches to the maximum loading point. P –V curve has been plotted for different contingency conditions in this paper. A power system analysis tool is used to run continuation power flow. The Jacobian matrix of power flow equations becomes singular at the voltage stability limit. Continuation power flow overcomes this problem. Continuation power flow finds successive load flow solutions according to a load scenario. Power system voltage stability is analyzed for pre contingency and post contingency condition by using load ability margin concept. KeywordsVoltage stability, continuation power flow, predictor –corrector step, P –V curve maximum loading point.
Fall 2015 A Graph Partitioning Model of Congressional Redistricting

Redrawing congressional districts in the United States is a constitutionally required, yet politically controversial, task undertaken after each decennial census. Federal law requires contiguous, ‘relatively compact’ congressional districts that maintain ‘approximately equal’ population. Controversy is introduced when individual states redraw their districts, or redistrict, using partisan committees. States such as Ohio continue to redistrict with a committee appointed according to the current proportion of legislators’ political parties to the whole. When political parties have majority power in redistricting committees, they can draw districts in a way that gives their party the best chance to keep its majority representation, a process called gerrymandering. Mathematical redistricting models seek an unbiased computational approach to the problem. Rather than trust partisan committees, mathematical modeling approaches rely upon well-defined methods in computational geometry, graph theory, game theory, and other fields. Here, we discuss two such approaches. The first, given as a background for comparison, constructs Voronoi diagrams to redistrict states into convex polygons, which are generally considered ‘compact’. We give greater emphasis to a new model that discretizes a state’s population and partitions it into regions of approximately equal population. This model, our main focus, relies upon graph partitioning to achieve the desired result and uses census population data as the sole parameter in redistricting. Acknowledgements: The author is gratefully indebted to the insightful advisement of Dr. Tom Wakefield and Dr. George Yates in this research. I would also like to thank YSU CURMath for funding this project and my research partner Eric Shehadi, whose exceptional mastery of GIS played no small part in this work. RHIT Undergrad. Math. J., Vol. 16, No. 2 Page 39
APPLICATION OF HEURISTIC SEARCH METHODS TO PHASE VELOCITY INVERSION IN MICROTREMOR ARRAY EXPLORATION

Microtremor array exploration has been recognized as one of powerful techniques to know S-wave profile of sedimentary layers. In the exploration, phase velocity of Rayleigh wave is estimated from array records of vertical microtremors. The phase velocity is inverted to an S-wave profile using optimization techniques. Originally, least square methods developed in seismological community were applied in the inversion. Recently Genetic Algorithms which are regarded as one of the heuristic search methods are tried to be used in inverting phase velocity from microtremor exploration, because of robustness of the algorithms.
PRICE TRANSMISSION AND MARKET INTEGRATION OF SAWN-WOOD OF Poga oleosa ( Pierre ) IN DELTA STATE ,

Department of Forestry and Wildlife, Delta State University Abraka, Delta State, Nigeria. Department of Forestry and Wildlife Technology, Federal University of Technology, Owerri, Nigeria. E-mail: kes4ever2002@yahoo.com; Phone: +234 8032082627 Marketing of forest products such as sawn-wood plays an important role in determining the prices received by the forestry sector and those paid by the forest stakeholders. Forest product marketing system in Nigeria appears to be inefficient and poorly integrated. The study examined market integration of sawn-wood of Poga oleosa in Delta State of Nigeria with a view to evaluating the performance of the markets. The study investigated the trend in prices of selected dimensions {2”×2”×16 (0.013m) 2”×3”×16 (0.019m) and 2”×4”×16 (0.025m)} of P. oleosa sawn-wood in Delta State, Nigeria. Secondary data on monthly retail prices of the Poga oleosa and dimensions spanning 2004 to 2013 were sourced from sale records of sawnwood sellers in the urban and rural markets of the state. The data were analyzed using Ravallion model, Augmented Dicker Fuller (ADF) test, Engle-Granger Co-integration test and Error Correction Mechanisms. The maximum and minimum prices for P. oleosa in urban market were ₦320, ₦435, ₦610 and ₦135, ₦225, ₦330 while prices in the rural market were ₦350, ₦465, ₦570 and ₦140, ₦240, ₦330 respectively. Sawn-wood prices for all dimensions considered were all integrated of order one I (1). The Index of Market Concentration (IMC) indicates that the markets exhibit high short-run market integration for 2”×2”×16 (0.013m) and 2”×4”×16 (0.025m) while 2”×3”×16 (0.019m) exhibited low short-run market integration. The urban and rural markets were co-integrated in the long-run and the error correction model result indicated that there is high degree of price transmission. This shows that there is high efficiency of price information flow in sawn-wood markets in Delta State. We recommends that forest stakeholders should be provided with more price information to stimulate their interest in forestry investment, which will lead to sustainable forestry development in Delta State since the sawn-wood market is performing efficiently.
Viewpoint Information

In this paper, we present a new perspective to quantify the information associated with a viewpoint. The starting point is twofold: a visibility channel between a set of viewpoints and the polygons of an object, and two specific information measures introduced respectively by DeWeese and Meister (1999) and Butts (2003) to evaluate the significance of stimuli and responses in the neural code. In our approach, these information measures are applied to the visibility channel in order to quantify the information associated with each viewpoint and are compared with both viewpoint entropy and viewpoint mutual information. A number of experiments show the behavior of the proposed measures in best view selection.