Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speaking Style Conversion from Normal to Lombard Speech Using a Glottal Vocoder and Bayesian GMMs

Speaking style conversion is the technology of converting natural speech signals from one style to another. In this study, we focus on normal-to-Lombard conversion. This can be used, for example, to enhance the intelligibility of speech in noisy environments. We propose a parametric approach that uses a vocoder to extract speech features. These features are mapped using Bayesian GMMs from utterances spoken in normal style to the corresponding features of Lombard speech. Finally, the mapped features are converted to a Lombard speech waveform with the vocoder. Two vocoders were compared in the proposed normal-to-Lombard conversion: a recently developed glottal vocoder that decomposes speech into glottal flow excitation and vocal tract, and the widely used STRAIGHT vocoder. The conversion quality was evaluated in two subjective listening tests measuring subjective similarity and naturalness. The similarity test results show that the system is able to convert normal speech into Lombard speech for the two vocoders. However, the subjective naturalness of the converted Lombard speech was clearly better using the glottal vocoder in comparison to STRAIGHT.
Posttraumatic Psychological Symptoms are Associated with Reduced Inhibitory Control, not General Executive Dysfunction

Abstract Although there is mounting evidence that greater PTSD symptoms are associated with reduced executive functioning, it is not fully understood whether this association is more global or specific to certain executive function subdomains, such as inhibitory control. We investigated the generality of the association between PTSD symptoms and executive function by administering a broad battery of sensitive executive functioning tasks to a cohort of returning Operation Enduring Freedom/Operation Iraqi Freedom Veterans with varying PTSD symptoms. Only tasks related to inhibitory control explained significant variance in PTSD symptoms as well as symptoms of depression, while measures of working memory, measures of switching, and measures simultaneously assessing multiple executive function subdomains did not. Notably, the two inhibitory control measures that showed the highest correlation with PTSD and depressive symptoms, measures of response inhibition and distractor suppression, explained independent variance. These findings suggest that greater posttraumatic psychological symptoms are not associated with a general decline in executive functioning but rather are more specifically related to stopping automatic responses and resisting internal and external distractions. (JINS, 2015, 21, 342–352)
Are international economic and financial co-movements characterized by asymmetric co-integration?

Purpose - – The recent economic crises have attracted attention to the issue of international equity co-movements and correlations. Using data from 1980 to 2010, the authors examine the international co-movements of both real economic activity, as reflected in industrial production and the gross domestic product (GDP), and financial activity, as reflected in equity market returns. While classic symmetric co-integration tests do not reject the hypothesis of no co-integration, the authors find evidence of asymmetric co-integration in these three variables between the USA and the rest of the Group of Seven (G7) countries. The momentum threshold autoregressive (M-TAR) model captures the nature of the asymmetry most effectively and is the most applicable model for adjustment to long-term equilibrium. This model suggests that the path of adjustment to long-run equilibrium is somewhat different when the price differential is decreasing than when it is increasing. These findings imply that the benefits of asset diversification for investors with a long horizon might be limited in scope. Design/methodology/approach - – This work is based on the theory of integrated time series. The authors use symmetric and asymmetric co-integration tests to market indices, as well as to monthly industrial production statistics and quarterly data about the GDP. In line with the financial economic literature, the authors select the GDP as a proxy that reflects the real economy and share prices to mirror the financial sector of the economy. Because no monthly data exist about GDP, the authors use instead the industrial production. Both variables cover the period from January 1980 to June 2010. Findings - – The overall findings demonstrate that the USA and the rest of the G7 countries are not symmetrically co-integrated with respect to the GDP. Indeed, they are asymmetrically co-integrated. These findings may explain the additional important result that the majority of equity markets are also asymmetrically co-integrated with the USA. Research limitations/implications - – The co-movements of the equity markets and real economic activity imply that the benefits of asset diversification for investors with a long horizon might be limited in scope. In the short run, however, portfolio diversification can be more beneficial due to the short-term fluctuations that may derive from the asymmetric correction process. Originality/value - – Prior research on co-movements has focused mainly on studying the correlations among international equity markets by analyzing conditional correlations or using symmetric co-integration methods; the authors test the existence of a long-term relationship between economic variables with respect to the USA and the rest of the G7 countries using a threshold co-integration model.
Influence of Feeding Enzymatically Hydrolyzed Yeast Cell Wall on Growth Performance and Digestive Function of Feedlot Cattle during Periods of Elevated Ambient Temperature

In experiment 1, eighty crossbred steers (239±15 kg) were used in a 229-d experiment to evaluate the effects of increasing levels of enzymatically hydrolyzed yeast (EHY) cell wall in diets on growth performance feedlot cattle during periods of elevated ambient temperature. Treatments consisted of steam-flaked corn-based diets supplemented to provide 0, 1, 2, or 3 g EHY/hd/d. There were no effects on growth performance during the initial 139-d period. However, from d 139 to harvest, when 24-h temperature humidity index averaged 80, EHY increased dry matter intake (DMI) (linear effect, p<0.01) and average daily gain (ADG) (linear effect, p = 0.01). There were no treatment effects (p>0.10) on carcass characteristics. In experiment 2, four Holstein steers (292±5 kg) with cannulas in the rumen and proximal duodenum were used in a 4×4 Latin Square design experiment to evaluate treatments effects on characteristics of ruminal and total tract digestion in steers. There were no treatment effects (p>0.10) on ruminal pH, total volatile fatty acid, molar proportions of acetate, butyrate, or estimated methane production. Supplemental EHY decreased ruminal molar proportion of acetate (p = 0.08), increased molar proportion of propionate (p = 0.09), and decreased acetate:propionate molar ratio (p = 0.07) and estimated ruminal methane production (p = 0.09). It is concluded that supplemental EHY may enhance DMI and ADG of feedlot steers during periods of high ambient temperature. Supplemental EHY may also enhance ruminal fiber digestion and decrease ruminal acetate:propionate molar ratios in feedlot steers fed steam-flaked corn-based finishing diets.
LWR-Based Fully Homomorphic Encryption, Revisited

Very recently, Costache and Smart proposed a fully homomorphic encryption (FHE) scheme based on the Learning with Rounding ( LWR ) problem, which removes the noise (typically, Gaussian noise) sampling needed in the previous lattices-based FHEs. But their scheme did not work, since the noise of homomorphic multiplication is complicated and large, which leads to failure of decryption. More specifically, they chose LWR instances as a public key and the private key therein as a secret key and then used the tensor product to implement homomorphic multiplication, which resulted in a tangly modulus problem. Recall that there are two moduli in the LWR instances, and then the moduli will tangle together due to the tensor product. Inspired by their work, we built the first workable LWR -based FHE scheme eliminating the tangly modulus problem by cleverly adopting the celebrated approximate eigenvector method proposed by Gentry et al. at Crypto 2013. Roughly speaking, we use a specific matrix multiplication to perform the homomorphic multiplication, hence no tangly modulus problem. Furthermore, we also extend the LWR -based FHE scheme to the multikey setting using the tricks used to construct LWE -based multikey FHE by Mukherjee and Wichs at Eurocrypt 2016. Our LWR -based multikey FHE construction provides an alternative to the existing multikey FHEs and can also be applied to multiparty computation with higher efficiency.
DC/AC/RF Characteristic Fluctuations Induced by Various Random Discrete Dopants of Gate-All-Around Silicon Nanowire n-MOSFETs

In this paper, we explored the characteristic fluctuations induced by various random discrete dopants (RDDs) on gate-all-around silicon nanowire metal–oxide semiconductor field-effect transistors. A 3-D quantum-mechanically corrected transport model was employed to analyze the simulated devices. The statistical results indicate that the variation of threshold voltage (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {th}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>) not only can be reduced from 28.6% to 10.7% without channel doping and penetration from the source/drain into the channel, but also the variation of 3-dB frequency can be reduced from 8% to 2.7% due to the reduction of the variation of <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">${V}_{\text {th}}$ </tex-math></inline-formula>. We reported that the high-frequency characteristic fluctuations (voltage gain and cutoff frequency) were dominated by electron mobility. This caused by RDDs from the drain extension exhibited less variability than that caused by RDDs from the source extension due to a reduced injection velocity near the S side and a negligible difference in the electron saturation velocity near the D side. This paper provides pertinent information on the design of high-frequency amplifier circuits in relation to devices with RDDs induced by variations in the semiconductor process.
A large proportion of fecal immunochemical test-positive participants in colorectal cancer screening is symptomatic

Background Symptomatic invitees are advised not to participate in colorectal cancer (CRC) screening but to directly consult their general practitioner (GP), because fecal immunochemical test (FIT) sensitivity for cancer is not optimal. This recommendation may not always be followed in daily practice. We evaluated how many FIT-positive participants had CRC-related symptoms and whether the presence of symptoms was associated with the presence and location of CRC/advanced neoplasia. Methods We prospectively collected data on CRC-related symptoms in all FIT-positive participants in the Dutch CRC screening program, referred to our endoscopy centers between 2014 and 2016, and evaluated whether symptoms were associated with detected CRC/advanced neoplasia at colonoscopy. Results Of 527 FIT-positive participants, 314 had advanced neoplasia, of which 41 had CRC. Overall, 246 (47%; 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.42–0.51) reported CRC-related symptoms. A change in bowel habits (odds ratio (OR) 2.86, CI 1.23–6.62) and visible blood in stool (OR 8.65, CI 2.34–32.0) were associated with the detection of CRC at colonoscopy. We did not observe significant associations between evaluated symptoms and advanced neoplasia. Conclusions A large proportion of FIT-positive screening participants have CRC-related symptoms. This suggests that current instructions do not retain symptomatic screening invitees from participation and awareness of CRC-related symptoms is inadequate.
The fluid representations of networks estimating liquid viscosity

Liquids exhibit incredibly diverse behaviours across a large spectrum of possible scenes. Despite this, we are very well able to estimate the sliminess or viscosity of a liquid with high constancy [1]. Here we used DNNs (Deep Neural Networks) to gain new insights from image-based models that can visually estimate viscosity. We created a training set of 100,000 computer-generated animations of liquids with 16 different viscosities interacting with 10 classes of scene with different kinds of liquid interactions, e.g. pouring or dipping. The network consists of three convolution layers and one fully connected layer using a ‘slow-fusion’ design that gradually integrates the temporal domain [2]. We gathered perceived viscosity ratings from 16 observers for a subset of stimuli that were excluded from training. Not only does our network make humanlike estimation errors, it predicts average human judgments better than most individual observers, in terms of both error and correlation.
Semi-supervised Training Data Generation for Multilingual Question Answering

Recently, various datasets for question answering (QA) research have been released, such as SQuAD, Marco, WikiQA, MCTest, and SearchQA. However, such existing training resources for these task mostly support only English. In contrast, we study semi-automated creation of the Korean Question Answering Dataset (K-QuAD), by using automatically translated SQuAD and a QA system bootstrapped on a small QA pair set. As a na¨ıve approach for other language, using only machine-translated SQuAD shows limited performance due to translation errors. We study why such approach fails and motivate needs to build seed resources to enable leveraging such resources. Speciﬁcally, we annotate seed QA pairs of small size (4K) for Korean language, and design how such seed can be combined with translated English resources. These approach, by combining two resources, leads to 71.50 F1 on Korean QA (comparable to 77.3 F1 on SQuAD).
Clinically relevant inflammatory breast cancer patient-derived xenograft–derived ex vivo model for evaluation of tumor-specific therapies

Inflammatory breast cancer (IBC) is a rare and aggressive presentation of invasive breast cancer with a 62% to 68% 5-year survival rate. It is the most lethal form of breast cancer, and early recognition and treatment is important for patient survival. Like non-inflammatory breast cancer, IBC comprises multiple subtypes, with the triple-negative subtype being overrepresented. Although the current multimodality treatment regime of anthracycline- and taxane-based neoadjuvant therapy, surgery, and radiotherapy has improved the outcome of patients with triple-negative IBC, overall survival continues to be worse than in patients with non-inflammatory locally advanced breast cancer. Translation of new therapies into the clinics to successfully treat IBC has been poor, in part because of the lack of in vitro preclinical models that can accurately predict the response of the original tumor to therapy. We report the generation of a preclinical IBC patient-derived xenograft (PDX)-derived ex vivo (PDXEx) model and show that it closely replicates the tissue architecture of the original PDX tumor harvested from mice. The gene expression profile of our IBC PDXEx model had a high degree of correlation to that of the original tumor. This suggests that the process of generating the PDXEx model did not significantly alter the molecular signature of the original tumor. We demonstrate a high degree of similarity in drug response profile between a PDX mouse model and our PDXEx model generated from the same original PDX tumor tissue and treated with the same panel of drugs, indicating that our PDXEx model had high predictive value in identifying effective tumor-specific therapies. Finally, we used our PDXEx model as a platform for a robotic-based high-throughput drug screen of a 386-drug anti-cancer compound library. The top candidates identified from this drug screen all demonstrated greater therapeutic efficacy than the standard-of-care drugs used in the clinic to treat triple-negative IBC, doxorubicin and paclitaxel. Our PDXEx model is simple, and we are confident that it can be incorporated into a PDX mouse system for use as a first-pass screening platform. This will permit the identification of effective tumor-specific therapies with high predictive value in a resource-, time-, and cost-efficient manner.
Isolation and genetic characterization of Lysinibacillus sphaericus strains found in mosquito larvae (Diptera: Culicidae)

Introduction Lysinibacillus sphaericus is a highly effective and specific bioinsecticide used for the control of Culicidae larvae. Objective This study aimed to identify and characterize L. sphaericus strains isolated from Culex quinquefasciatus larvae in Brazil. Methods C. quinquefasciatus larvae were collected from streams in the urban area of São Paulo state. L. sphaericus strains were identified through cytomorphology, biochemical, and physiological analyses. Qualitative bioassays were performed to evaluate the toxicity of the strains against C. quinquefasciatus. The crystal compound protein pattern of L. sphaericus strains was analyzed by sodium dodecyl sulfate polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. Five reference strains were used as standards in all tests performed. Repetitive extragenic palindromic elements-polymerase chain reaction (REP-PCR) was utilized in an attempt to differentiate pathogenic and nonpathogenic isolates. Results Twenty-one strains were isolated. Only one presented toxic activity against C. quinquefasciatus. REP-PCR results identified 23 patterns among the 26 strains used in the study, and the fragment analysis showed low similarity (16%) between L. sphaericus isolates and the five reference strains. Conclusion Comparison of strains isolated in this study using REP-PCR showed a low similarity to other strains, demonstrating the high intraspecific variability for L. sphaericus.
A coherent parameter calibration method for distributed array radar

To generate high gain synthesized transmitting beam, a coherent parameter calibration method for distributed array radar is proposed in this paper. The method first executes coarse calibration on each radar unit the coarse adjusting unit radar array and position array reference point, then calculates position precision range according to antenna gain requirement and estimates radar position error using optimization algorithm. Finally, transmitting beam is formed based on the weighted calibration estimate value. The simulation result of the distributed array radar model demonstrates the effectiveness of the method.
Linearity : an analytic tool in the study of complexity and semantics of programming languages. (Linéarité : un outil analytique pour l'étude de la complexité et de la sémantique des langages de programmation)

In the first part, we propose, inspired by Soft Linear Logic, a type assignment system for lambda-calculus in sequent calculus style, named Soft Type Assignment (STA). STA enjoys the subject reduction property. and is correct and complete for polynomial time computations. Then, we propose a natural deduction named STA_N. While simple, STA_N has the disadvantage of allowing the explicit renaming of variables in the subject. To overcome to this problem, we propose another natural deduction system, named STA_M, where contexts are multisets, hence rules renaming variables can be avoided. The type inference for STA_M seems in general undecidable. We propose an algorithm Pi returning, for every lambda-term, a set of constraints that need to be satisfied in order to type the term. Pi is correct and complete. We extend the lambda-calculus by basic boolean constants and we propose the system STA_B. The peculiarity of STA_B is that the conditional rule treats the contexts in an additive way. Every STA_B program can be executed, through an abstract machine, in polynomial space. Moreover, STA_B is also complete for PSPACE. In the second part we propose a restriction of PCF, named SlPCF. The language is naturally equipped with an operational semantics mixing call-by-name and call-by-value parameter passing and it can be interpreted in linear coherence space in a standard way. SlPCF is recursive complete, but it is not complete, and thus not fully abstract, with respect to linear coherence spaces
Frequency-based Watermarking with Spatial Masking for DRM of MMS Content

Copyright enforcement is the major constraint to the development of mobile content distribution business. In this paper a low computational complexity watermarking scheme is presented. The algorithm exhibits resilience to the major expected attacks in the MMS context using a canonical insertion procedure in the Fourier domain. Watermark transparency is provided based on spatial texture masking through a constrained frequency perturbation maximization procedure. This watermarking scheme is the core protection mechanism of a Proxy-based DRM solution for MMS, currently under trial with a mobile operator.
Assessment of the Effect of Caffeine on Intraocular Pressure Among Adults Attending the Ophthalmic Clinics of Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital

This study determines the effect of caffeine on the intraocular pressure of adults. It is a retrospective study carried out on adults attending the ophthalmic clinic in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital (ISTH), Irrua Nigeria. The study was conducted using questionnaire to obtain information on consumption of caffeinated drinks, tea and chocolate via the National Health Service semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire assessment. Subjects who met the criteria and gave informed consent were recruited for ocular examination and intraocular pressure (IOP) measurement using the standard Goldman applanation tonometer. Statistical analysis was conducted on 388 subjects who completed the study out of which 201 of them had history of caffeine intake giving a prevalence of caffeine intake to be 51.80. Irrespective of caffeine intake, mean intra ocular pressure was higher in the right eye compared to the left eye. Mean IOP was also significantly higher in caffeine positive group (right eye = 22.05±6.61 mmHg versus 12.21±5.31 mmHg; p<0.05, and the left eye = 19.40±5.94 mmHg versus 11.87±5.05 mmHg; p<0.05) compared to caffeine negative group. Judging by the findings herein presented, caffeine intake may be a risk factor for high IOP and may predispose to glaucoma, visual impairment and blindness.
Isoprostane in systemic sclerosis: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Objectives: To further the knowledge of oxidative stress in systemic sclerosis (SSc), we performed a systematic review and meta-analysis on studies measuring isoprostane, a vasoactive agent deriving from arachidonic acid and implicated in the vasculopathy of SSc. Methods: Systematic search following the PRISMA guidelines in PubMed and EMBASE between January-1990/December-2017 using the terms: oxidative stress, isoprostane, systemic sclerosis and scleroderma. Results: After the screening process, 8 studies including 240 SSc patients and 192 controls were included in the systematic review and meta-analysis, 6 investigating urinary and 2 serum isoprostane: random effect meta-analysis revealed isoprostane overgeneration in SSc (p < .001) with wide heterogeneity (I2 = 75%). Subgroup analysis on urinary isoprostane favoured excess excretion in SSc (p = .009) with slightly lower heterogeneity (I2 = 67%); further subgroup analysis according to unit of measurement revealed no increased isoprostane excretion when expressed as pg/mg creatinine but increased when expressed as pmol/mmol creatinine (p = .05) with medium heterogeneity (I2 = 32%). Subgroup analysis on serum isoprostane favoured overproduction in SSc (p < .0001) with no heterogeneity. Conclusion: There is some evidence for isoprostane overgeneration in SSc that confirms the occurrence of oxidative stress in this setting: further prospective studies with specified outcomes are needed to evaluate the prognostic value of this functional biomarker.