Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
C-FMCW Based Contactless Respiration Detection Using Acoustic Signal

Recent advances in ubiquitous sensing technologies have exploited various approaches to monitoring vital signs. One of the vital signs is human respiration which typically requires reliable monitoring with low error rate in practice. Previous works in respiration monitoring however either incur high cost or suffer from poor error rate. In this paper, we propose a Correlation based Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave method (C-FMCW) which is able to achieve high ranging resolution. Based on C-FMCW, we present the design and implementation of an audio-based highly-accurate system for human respiration monitoring, leveraging on commodity speaker and microphone widely available in home environments. The basic idea behind the audio-based method is that when a user is close to a pair of speaker and microphone, body movement during respiration causes periodic audio signal changes, which can be extracted to obtain the respiration rate. However, several technical challenges exist when applying C-FMCW to detect respiration with commodity acoustic devices. First, the sampling frequency offset between speakers and microphones if not being corrected properly would cause high ranging errors. Second, the uncertain starting time difference between the speaker and microphone varies over time. Moreover, due to multipath effect, weak periodic components due to respiration can easily be overwhelmed by strong static components in practice. To address those challenges, we 1) propose an algorithm to compensate dynamically acoustic signal and counteract the offset between speaker and microphone; 2) co-locate speaker and microphone and use the received signal without reflection (self-interference) as a reference to eliminate the starting time difference; and 3) leverage the periodicity of respiration to extract weak periodic components with autocorrelation. Extensive experimental results show that our system detects respiration in real environments with the median error lower than 0.35 breaths/min, outperforming the state-of-the-arts.
Overlapping sound event detection with supervised Nonnegative Matrix Factorization

In this paper we propose a supervised Nonnegative Matrix Factorization (NMF) model for overlapping sound event detection in real life audio. We start by highlighting the usefulness of non-euclidean NMF to learn representations for detecting and classifying acoustic events in a multi-label setting. Then, we propose to learn a classifier and the NMF decomposition in a joint optimization problem. This is done with a general β-divergence version of the nonnegative task-driven dictionary learning model. An experimental evaluation is performed on the development set of the DCASE 2016 task3 challenge. The proposed supervised NMF-based system improves performance over the baseline and the submitted systems.
Influence of Experimental Edema on Metabolically Determined Blood Flow

To evaluate the effects of edema and elevated tissue pressure on metabolically determined blood flow, forelimb vascular resistance was determined by two techniques. Peak reactive hyperemic blood flow after release of a 5-minute arterial occlusion was bilaterally measured in the brachial arteries of 11 dogs before and after venous congestion of one limb for 4 hours at 70 mm Hg and after infusion of 1,000 ml of 6% Dextran 70. Before determining peak reactive hyperemic blood flow, congestion was released; venous pressure was then similar in both limbs. Congestion reduced peak reactive hyperemic blood flow from 23.9 ± 5.7 (SE) to 16.0 ± 3.6 ml/min 100 g−1 (P < 0.05). Peak reactive hyperemic blood flow was unchanged in the uncongested control limb (21.2 ± 5.2 to 20.4 ± 4.5 ml/min 100 g−1, P > 0.5) at the time when it was reduced in the congested limb. Total tissue pressure measured with a needle was greater in the congested limb (9.1 ± 1.7 mm Hg) than it was in the uncongested limb (2.5 ± 1.5 mm Hg, P < 0.01). Likewise, pressure in a chronically implanted perforated capsule was −2.1 ± 2.0 mm Hg in the control limb but was +7.2 ± 1.5 mm Hg (P < 0.01) in the contralateral limb following congestion. Dextran 70 was infused after venous congestion; this procedure produced peak reactive hyperemic blood flows and tissue pressures which were similar in both limbs. Similarly, minimum vascular resistance following an ischemic stimulus in an isolated, denervated constant-perfused forelimb was increased from 17.7 ± 2.2 to 23.9 ± 1.8 mm Hg/ml min−1 100 g−1 (P < 0.01) following congestion in five dogs. Brachial arterial sodium content was unchanged in four dogs following 4 hours of congestion. These data suggest that, in the presence of edema, metabolic arteriolar dilation may be impaired.
De Novo Genes Arise at a Slow but Steady Rate along the Primate Lineage and Have Been Subject to Incomplete Lineage Sorting

De novo protein-coding gene origination is increasingly recognized as an important evolutionary mechanism. However, there remains a large amount of uncertainty regarding the frequency of these events and the mechanisms and speed of gene establishment. Here, we describe a rigorous search for cases of de novo gene origination in the great apes. We analyzed annotated proteomes as well as full genomic DNA and transcriptional and translational evidence. It is notable that results vary between database updates due to the fluctuating annotation of these genes. Nonetheless we identified 35 de novo genes: 16 human-specific; 5 human and chimpanzee specific; and 14 that originated prior to the divergence of human, chimpanzee, and gorilla and are found in all three genomes. The taxonomically restricted distribution of these genes cannot be explained by loss in other lineages. Each gene is supported by an open reading frame-creating mutation that occurred within the primate lineage, and which is not polymorphic in any species. Similarly to previous studies we find that the de novo genes identified are short and frequently located near pre-existing genes. Also, they may be associated with Alu elements and prior transcription and RNA-splicing at the locus. Additionally, we report the first case of apparent independent lineage sorting of a de novo gene. The gene is present in human and gorilla, whereas chimpanzee has the ancestral noncoding sequence. This indicates a long period of polymorphism prior to fixation and thus supports a model where de novo genes may, at least initially, have a neutral effect on fitness.
Stochastic Geometry-Based Performance Bounds for Non-Fading and Rayleigh Fading Ad Hoc Networks

In this paper, we study the performance of non-fading and Rayleigh fading ad hoc networks. We first characterize the distribution of the signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) through the Laplace transform of the inverted SINR for non-fading channels. Since most communication systems are interference-limited, we also consider the case of negligible noise power, and derive the upper and lower bounds for the signal-to-interference ratio (SIR) distribution under both non-fading and fading cases. These bounds are of closed forms and thus more convenient for theoretical analysis. Based on these derivations, we obtain closed-form bounds for both the average Shannon and outage rates. We also leverage the above results to study partial fading ad-hoc systems. These results are useful for investigating and comparing fifth-generation communication systems, for example massive multi-antenna and small-cell networks as in our illustrative example.
Methods of Infrared Non-Destructive Techniques: Review and Experimental Studies

The first part of the paper is devoted to presentation and discussion of the capabilities, advantages and limitations of infrared non-destructive techniques (IR NDT). Then, the results of experimental analysis performed by testing several specimens made of woven glass epoxy resin and containing artificial delamination in the form of square PTFE foil are presented.
Predictors of Having a Potential Live Donor: A Prospective Cohort Study of Kidney Transplant Candidates

The barriers to live donor transplantation are poorly understood. We performed a prospective cohort study of individuals undergoing renal transplant evaluation. Participants completed a questionnaire that assessed clinical characteristics as well as knowledge and beliefs about transplantation. A participant satisfied the primary outcome if anyone contacted the transplant center to be considered as a live donor for that participant. The final cohort comprised 203 transplant candidates, among whom 80 (39.4%) had a potential donor contact the center and 19 (9.4%) underwent live donor transplantation. In multivariable logistic regression, younger candidates (OR 1.65 per 10 fewer years, p < 0.01) and those with annual income ≥US$ 15 000 (OR 4.22, p = 0.03) were more likely to attract a potential live donor. Greater self‐efficacy, a measure of the participant's belief in his or her ability to attract a donor, was a predictor of having a potential live donor contact the center (OR 2.73 per point, p < 0.01), while knowledge was not (p = 0.56). The lack of association between knowledge and having a potential donor suggests that more intensive education of transplant candidates will not increase live donor transplantation. On the other hand, self‐efficacy may be an important target in designing interventions to help candidates find live donors.
Understanding and Exploiting Network Traffic Redundancy

The Internet carries a vast amount and a wide range of content. Some of this content is more popular, and accesse d more frequently, than others. The popularity of content could be quite ephemeral e.g., a Web flash crowd or much more permanent e.g., google.com’s banner. A direct consequenc e of the skew in popularity is that, at any time, a fraction of the information carried over the Internet is redundant. We make two contributions in this paper. First, we study the fundamental properties of the redundancy in the information carried over the Internet, with a focus on network edges. We collect traffic traces at two network edge locations – a large university’s access link serving roughly 50,000 users, and a tier-1 ISP network link connected to a large data center. We conduct several analyses over this data: What fraction of bytes are redundant? What is the frequency at which strings of bytes repeat across different packets? What is the overlap in the information accessed by distinct groups of end-users? Second, we leverage our measurement observations in the design of a family mechanisms for eliminating redundancy in network traffic and improving the overall network performan ce. The mechanisms we proposed can improve the available capaci ty of single network links as well as balance load across multip le network links.
Synthesis of Fe-filled carbon nanocapsules by an electric plasma discharge in an ultrasonic cavitation field of liquid ethanol

Nanoparticles of iron carbides (Fe_3C and χ-Fe_2.5C) wrapped in multilayered graphitic sheets were synthesized by a developed method in which an electric plasma was generated in an ultrasonic cavitation field containing thousands of tiny activated bubbles in liquid ethanol. Annealing changed the phase composition, structure, and size of the carbon nanocapsules as most of the iron carbides decomposed into the α-Fe phase and graphite. Powder samples annealed at 873 and 973 K have maximal saturation magnetization values equal to 80.6 and 83.4 A m^2/kg, respectively, which is approximately 40% of the value of bulk iron. Using this method, it will be possible to synthesize nanoparticles of a metal of choice encapsulated by graphite shells by selecting appropriate materials for the ultrasonic tip and electrodes.
Multi-Modal Bayesian Embeddings for Learning Social Knowledge Graphs

We study the extent to which online social networks can be connected to open knowledge bases. The problem is referred to as learning social knowledge graphs. We propose a multi-modal Bayesian embedding model, GenVector, to learn latent topics that generate word and network embeddings. GenVector leverages large-scale unlabeled data with embeddings and represents data of two modalities---i.e., social network users and knowledge concepts---in a shared latent topic space. Experiments on three datasets show that the proposed method clearly outperforms state-of-the-art methods. We then deploy the method on AMiner, a large-scale online academic search system with a network of 38,049,189 researchers with a knowledge base with 35,415,011 concepts. Our method significantly decreases the error rate in an online A/B test with live users.
Removal of Malicious Attacks using Hybrid Symmetric Cryptograhic Technique

Security in Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) plays an important role for providing effective network service without any malicious attack. Intrusion detection is crucial in improving the performance of mobile ad-hoc network. Intrusion detection monitors the activities in a mobile system by collecting the information and then analyzing them. Most previous works for intrusion detection use the current acknowledgement and location-based routing protocol to combat against the intrusion detection. In this work to secure the mobile network system from malicious attacks, Hybrid Symmetric Cryptography Technique (HSCT) is introduced. The HSCT uses Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) and Message Digest 5 (MD5). Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) is based on the principle of substitution and permutation keying model adapted as node ids in the mobile ad-hoc network. AES ensures higher amount of packets being transmitted with minimum packet delay. The main MD5 algorithm operates on a 128-bit state, divided into four 32-bit words in mobile nodes to remove the malicious attack. AES and MD5 fused together on the mobile nodes to communicate packets with high security. The HSCT algorithms offer data security and users authenticity using a mixture of two symmetric cryptographic techniques. HSCT measure and analyze different parameters such as true positive rate on detecting abnormal activities, packet delay, rate of intrusion being detected with respect to node density and packets being transmitted. The HSCT is simulated using NS2. Experiment results show that the proposed technique achieves better performance in considerably minimizing the packet delay rate by 33.36% and improves the true positive rate on detecting abnormal activities by 25.83% compared to the state-of-the-art works.
Soft blocking: flexible blocker tags on the cheap

A "blocker" tag is a privacy-enhancing radio-frequency identification (RFID) tag. It operates by interfering with the protocol in which a reader communicates individually with other RFID tags. While inexpensive to manufacture in quantity, blockers are nonetheless special-purpose devices, and thus introduce level of complexity that may pose an obstacle to their deployment. We propose a variant on the blocker concept that we call <i>soft blocking</i>. This involves software (or firmware) modules that offer a different balance of characteristics than ordinary blockers. Soft blocking offers somewhat weaker privacy enforcement that is essentially voluntary or internally auditable (much like P3P). It has the significant advantage, however, of relying on standard (or very slightly modified) RFID tags. Additionally, soft blocking offers the possibility of flexible privacy policies in which partial or scrubbed data is revealed about "private" tags, in lieu of the all-or-nothing policy enforced by a blocker. We show, moreover, how the correct functioning of a soft-blocker system may be rendered externally auditable with minor modifications to the basic tag-reading protocol. We also briefly discuss the special, attractive approach of <i>unblocking</i>, a soft-blocking variant that permits an "opt-in" approach to consumer privacy.
Linking student information security awareness and behavioural intent

This study analysed existing theories from the social sciences in order to gain a better understanding of factors which contribute to student mobile phone users’ poor information security behaviour. Two key aspects associated with information security behaviour were considered, namely: awareness and behavioural intent. Researchers have identified the most common cause of poor security practices on the part of mobile phone users, and which cause them to fall victim to social engineering techniques such as phishing, is their lack of awareness of existing security threats, vulnerabilities and risks. However, an increasing number of researchers consider human behaviour to be another cause of security breaches. Zhang et al. (2009) concur with this view and state that understanding human behaviour is important when dealing with the problems caused by human errors. Harnesk et al. (2011) expressed a concern that existing research does not address the interlinked relationship between anticipated security behaviour and the enactment of security procedures. Existing researchers in the field of information security still grapple with the ‘knowing-and-doing’ gap, where user information security knowledge/awareness sometimes does not result in safer behavioural practises. This paper proposes that the knowing-and-doing gap can possibly be reduced by addressing both awareness and behavioural intent. This paper explores the relationship between student mobile phone user information security awareness and behavioural intent in a developmental university in South Africa.
Effect of Extremely Low Frequency Magnetic Field on Cultured Skeletal Myoblasts

The effect of a magnetic field at an extremely low frequency on proliferation and orientation of cultured skeletal myoblasts has been studied in vitro. Skeletal muscle cells were isolated from a hind-limb quadriceps. The minced sample from a skeletal muscle was rinsed with a phosphate buffer solution, processed with an enzymatic digestion, centrifuged at 250 G, cultured in the medium for one hour, and filtered. The isolated cells were collected and seeded onto a dish coated with collagen. The culture dishes were placed parallel to the uniform alternating magnetic field, which was generated with the manufactured solenoid coil. The result shows that the cultured skeletal myoblasts tend to align to the direction of the magnetic field at the extremely low frequency.
Comparison of the efficacy of subgingival irrigation with 2% povidone-iodine and tetracycline HCl in subjects with chronic moderate periodontitis: A clinico microbiological study

Background: This study was performed to evaluate and compare the clinical and antimicrobial efficacy of subgingival irrigation with tetracycline and povidone-iodine as an adjunct to nonsurgical periodontal therapy. Materials and Methods: Twenty subjects with chronic moderate periodontitis were recruited in this split-mouth study with probing pocket depth of >3 and ≤5 mm and clinical attachment loss of 3-4 mm in relation to 16, 36, and 46. In each subject, three selected periodontal pockets were assigned to receive one out of three irrigants (1) sterile water (control) in 16; (2) tetracycline at 10 mg/ml in 36; (3) 2% povidone-iodine in 46, and these sites were designated as Group A, Group B, and Group C, respectively. Plaque score, gingival score, pocket probing depth, and clinical attachment level were evaluated before treatment and at 1 and 3 months posttreatment. Multiplex polymerase chain reaction was used to detect Porphyromonas gingivalis and Tannerella forsythensis which have been implicated as the major risk factors for periodontal disease. Subgingival plaque collected before treatment and at 1 and 3 months posttreatment. Data were analysed using ANOVA and repeated measure ANOVA. Results were considered significant if P < 0.05. Results: Clinical and microbiological parameters were reduced posttreatment, the reduction being significantly higher in Group B compared to Group C. Conclusion: It can be concluded that chemical and mechanical therapies were of slight benefit in the treatment of chronic moderate periodontitis, and there was an adjunctive effect of significance when scaling and root planing was combined with a single subgingival irrigation with tetracycline or povidone-iodine in lower concentration.
Agent-Directed Tracing of Multi-Scale Drug Disposition Events within Normal and Diseased In Silico Livers

Cirrhosis, a chronic liver disease, alters hepatic drug disposition; however, little is known about micro-mechanisms underpinning disease progression and how they contribute to changes in liver disposition properties. In this article, the authors present multilevel, agent-based and agent-directed In Silico Livers ISLs to probe plausible micro-mechanistic details for a cationic drug, diltiazem, in two different types of cirrhotic rat livers. Starting with ISLs that validated against diltiazem disposition data from normal livers, the authors systematically transformed ISL characteristics to achieve validation against perfusion outflow profiles from the two types of diseased livers. In this regard, the authors developed and implemented multilevel methods to trace each object representing diltiazem during simulated perfusion experiments. This enabled gaining heretofore-unavailable insight into plausible micro-mechanistic details from diltiazem's perspective in normal and diseased livers. The authors posit that the presented ISL micro-mechanistic details may have disease caused counterparts during disposition.
Motion Extrapolation in the Central Fovea

Neural transmission latency would introduce a spatial lag when an object moves across the visual field, if the latency was not compensated. A visual predictive mechanism has been proposed, which overcomes such spatial lag by extrapolating the position of the moving object forward. However, a forward position shift is often absent if the object abruptly stops moving (motion-termination). A recent “correction-for-extrapolation” hypothesis suggests that the absence of forward shifts is caused by sensory signals representing ‘failed’ predictions. Thus far, this hypothesis has been tested only for extra-foveal retinal locations. We tested this hypothesis using two foveal scotomas: scotoma to dim light and scotoma to blue light. We found that the perceived position of a dim dot is extrapolated into the fovea during motion-termination. Next, we compared the perceived position shifts of a blue versus a green moving dot. As predicted the extrapolation at motion-termination was only found with the blue moving dot. The results provide new evidence for the correction-for-extrapolation hypothesis for the region with highest spatial acuity, the fovea.
An Analysis of Spectral Envelope Reduction via Quadratic Assignment Problems

A new spectral algorithm for reordering a sparse symmetric matrix to reduce its envelope size was described in [Barnard, Pothen, and Simon, Numer. Linear Algebra Appl. , 2 (1995), pp. 317--334]. The ordering is computed by associating a Laplacian matrix with the given matrix and then sorting the components of a specified eigenvector of the Laplacian. In this paper we provide an analysis of the spectral envelope reduction algorithm. We describe related 1- and 2-sum problems; the former is related to the envelope size, while the latter is related to an upper bound on the work in an envelope Cholesky factorization. We formulate these two problems as quadratic assignment problems and then study the 2-sum problem in more detail. We obtain lower bounds on the 2-sum by considering a relaxation of the problem and then show that the spectral ordering finds a permutation matrix closest to an orthogonal matrix attaining the lower bound. This provides a stronger justification of the spectral envelope reduction algorithm than previously known. The lower bound on the 2-sum is seen to be tight for reasonably "uniform" finite element meshes. We show that problems with bounded separator sizes also have bounded envelope parameters.