Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust speech recognition based on Viterbi Bayesian predictive classification

In this paper, we investigate a new Bayesian predictive classification (BPC) approach to realize robust speech recognition when there exist mismatches between training and test conditions but no accurate knowledge of the mismatch mechanism is available. A specific approximate BPC algorithm called Viterbi BPC (VBPC) is proposed for both isolated word and continuous speech recognition. The proposed VBPC algorithm is compared with conventional Viterbi decoding algorithm on speaker-independent isolated digit and connected digit string (TIDIGITS) recognition tasks. The experimental results show that VBPC can considerably improve robustness when mismatches exist between training and testing conditions.
Structural modeling of the flagellum MS ring protein FliF reveals similarities to the type III secretion system and sporulation complex

The flagellum is a large proteinaceous organelle found at the surface of many bacteria, whose primary role is to allow motility through the rotation of a long extracellular filament. It is an essential virulence factor in many pathogenic species, and is also a priming component in the formation of antibiotic-resistant biofilms. The flagellum consists of the export apparatus and stator in the cytosol; the basal body, spanning the bacterial membrane(s) and periplasm; and the hook-filament, that protrudes away from the bacterial surface. Assembly of the bacterial flagellum is initiated by the formation of the basal body MS ring region, constituted of multiple copies of the protein FliF. Here, I report an analysis of the FliF sequence from various bacterial species, demonstrating that its periplasmic region is composed of a domain homologuous to that of the type III secretion system proteins PrgK, and of a second globular domain that possesses a similar fold to that of the sporulation complex component SpoIIIAG. I also describe that Chlamydia possesses an unusual FliF protein, lacking part of the PrgK homology domain and the SpoIIIAG-like domain, and fused to FliG at its C-terminus. Finally, I have combined the sequence analysis of FliF with the EM map of the MS ring, to propose the first atomic model for the FliF oligomer. These results further emphasize the similarity between the flagellum, T3SS and sporulation complex, and will facilitate further structural studies.
Empirical evaluation of RFID-based indoor localization with human body effect

In this paper, the human body effect on indoor localization is evaluated based on experiments. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology is used for this localization system. The location of a RFID reader is estimated based on the known locations of the RFID tags attached to the ceiling with 60 cm separation. Two cases of experiments are considered. For the first case, the RFID reader is attached to the camera tripod and the second case, it is attached to human body. Then, two simple location estimation methods are employed. To evaluate the effect of human body on the localization, the results of location estimation with and without human are compared. The experimental results illustrate that the human body affects the location estimation in some certain. However, the error of location estimation is still less than 50 cm which is applicable for some indoor applications.
Secretome Analysis Reveals an Arabidopsis Lipase Involved in Defense against Alternaria brassicicolaw⃞

The Arabidopsis thaliana secretome was analyzed by the proteomic approach, which led to the identification of secreted proteins implicated in many aspects of cell biology. We then investigated the change in the Arabidopsis secretome in response to salicylic acid and identified several proteins involved in pathogen response. One of these, a secreted lipase with a GDSL-like motif designated GDSL LIPASE1 (GLIP1), was further characterized for its function in disease resistance. glip1 plants were markedly more susceptible to infection by the necrotrophic fungus Alternaria brassicicola compared with the parental wild-type plants. The recombinant GLIP1 protein possessed lipase and antimicrobial activities that directly disrupt fungal spore integrity. Furthermore, GLIP1 appeared to trigger systemic resistance signaling in plants when challenged with A. brassicicola, because pretreatment of the glip1 mutant with recombinant GLIP1 protein inhibited A. brassicicola–induced cell death in both peripheral and distal leaves. Moreover, glip1 showed altered expression of defense- and ethylene-related genes. GLIP1 transcription was increased by ethephon, the ethylene releaser, but not by salicylic acid or jasmonic acid. These results suggest that GLIP1, in association with ethylene signaling, may be a critical component in plant resistance to A. brassicicola.
A Kalman filter approach based on random drift data of Fiber Optic Gyro

Fiber Optic Gyro (FOG) based on the Sagnac effect is presently used in the Strapdown Inertial Navigation System (SINS) for its outstanding merits. However, the sensor errors of FOG still affect the accuracy of the whole system greatly. The gyro sensor errors consist of two parts: a deterministic part and a random part. The random part is basically due to the gyro random drift and primarily includes the measurement noise. Kalman filter (KF) is applied to on-the-fly filtering the noisy drift data of FOG and reduce its random noise. This paper suggests improving the gyro random error model for the KF by wavelet multiple level of decomposition before filtering the gyro drift data. The improved KF approach was applied to a tactical grade FOG and the results showed that the random noises in gyro drift data could be greatly reduced, e.g. bias instability noise has turned from 1.85 deg/hr to 0.16 deg/hr.
Gypsies and travellers : empowerment and inclusion in British society

Foreword ~ Lord Avebury PART ONE: CONTEXT, ISSUES AND POLICY RESPONSES: Setting the Context: Gypsies and Travellers in British Society ~ Joanna Richardson and Andrew Ryder Accommodation Needs and Planning Issues ~ Joanna Richardson and Maggie Smith-Bendell Gypsy and Traveller Health ~ Patrice Van Cleemput Education, inclusion and government policy ~ Brian Foster and Sarah Cemlyn Gypsies, Travellers and Social Policy: Marginality and Insignificance: A case study of Gypsy and Traveller children in care ~ Dan Allen Economic Inclusion ~ Margaret Greenfields, Andrew Ryder, David Smith PART TWO: EMPOWERING GYPSIES AND TRAVELLERS: Justice and Empowerment? ~ Joanna Richardson and Andrew Ryder Recognising Gypsy/Traveller History and Culture ~ Thomas Acton and Andrew Ryder Research with and for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers Combining Policy, Practice and Community in Action Research ~ Margaret Greenfields and Andrew Ryder 'Stamp on the Camps' - The Social Construction of Gypsies and Travellers in Media and Political Debate ~ Joanna Richardson and Richard O'Neill EU Framework for National Roma Integration Strategies: Insights into Empowerment and Inclusive Policy Development ~ Iulius Rostas and Andrew Ryder PART THREE: CONCLUSIONS: Inclusion, Space and Empowerment for Gypsies, Roma and Travellers ~ Joanna Richardson and Andrew Ryder.
Speciation processes in putative island endemic sister bat species: false impressions from mitochondrial DNA and microsatellite data

Cases of geographically restricted co‐occurring sister taxa are rare and may point to potential divergence with gene flow. The two bat species Murina gracilis and Murina recondita are both endemic to Taiwan and are putative sister species. To test for nonallopatric divergence and gene flow in these taxa, we generated sequences using Sanger and next‐generation sequencing, and combined these with microsatellite data for coalescent‐based analyses. MtDNA phylogenies supported the reciprocally monophyletic sister relationship between M. gracilis and M. recondita; however, clustering of microsatellite genotypes revealed several cases of species admixture suggesting possible introgression. Sequencing of microsatellite flanking regions revealed that admixture signatures stemmed from microsatellite allele homoplasy rather than recent introgressive hybridization, and also uncovered an unexpected sister relationship between M. recondita and the continental species Murina eleryi, to the exclusion of M. gracilis. To dissect the basis of these conflicts between ncDNA and mtDNA, we analysed sequences from 10 anonymous ncDNA loci with *beast and isolation‐with‐migration and found two distinct clades of M. eleryi, one of which was sister to M. recondita. We conclude that Taiwan was colonized by the ancestor of M. gracilis first, followed by the ancestor of M. recondita after a period of allopatric divergence. After colonization, the mitochondrial genome of M. recondita was replaced by that of the resident M. gracilis. This study illustrates how apparent signatures of sympatric divergence can arise from complex histories of allopatric divergence, colonization and hybridization, thus highlighting the need for rigorous analyses to distinguish between such scenarios.
No Significant Difference in Depression Rate in Employed and Unemployed in a Pair-Matched Study Design

Objectives: The main objective of this study was to evaluate the differences of depression rate in employed and unemployed persons in the period of financial and economic crisis in Romania, in a pair-matched study design. Method: The cross-sectional study uses a pair match design (395 pairs) of two groups of employed and unemployed persons. Other socio-demographic risk factors of depression (gender, age, marital status, residence, ethnicity, educational level, and profession) were controlled. The study was done in a historical period of economic crisis, 2009–2010. For the screening of depression we used the patient health questionnaire-9. Results: There were no statistical differences (p = 0.054) between the depression rates in the employed (17.98%) and unemployed (23.80%) samples. The depression rate in both groups was higher in females, age (51–55), marital status (divorced), living in the rural area, with a low level of education and poverty. Suicidal ideas are more frequent in men, employed persons with low level of education and in unemployed persons with medium level of education. Conclusion: The exposure to short term unemployment status was not associated with change in depression rate in the period of financial and economic crisis in Romania, comparing with controls pair-matched. Unemployment status increases the depression rate only in vulnerable groups such as single or divorced women; and suicidal ideas were associated with the unemployment status (longer than 8 months) in men from rural area with medium level of education.
Évaluation de l’activation du comportement de recherche d’emploi

La reforme de l’accompagnement et du suivi des chomeurs mise en place en juillet 2004 combine encouragements et menaces de sanctions. D’un cote, l’effort de recherche des chomeurs indemnises est controle plus etroitement et des sanctions sont prevues si cet effort est juge insuffisant; il s’agit de la procedure d’Activation du Comportement de Recherche (ACR) de l’ONEM. De l’autre, il vise a renforcer l’acces aux politiques actives des services publics de l’emploi (SPE) regionaux. La nouvelle procedure de controle des chomeurs indemnises reste controversee: «chasse aux chomeurs» pour les uns, ingredient essentiel de toute politique de reduction du chomage pour les autres. Nous souhaitons, a travers ce projet de recherche, contribuer a une evaluation objective et rigoureuse de ce nouveau dispositif d’accompagnement et de suivi des chomeurs.
Evolving AI Opponents in a First-Person-Shooter Video Game

One of the major commercial applications of AI is in the rapidly expanding computer game industry. Virtually every game sold today has some sort of AI, from the ”computer player” in a chess game to the machine-gun-toting enemies in a first-person shooter (FPS). Any virtual being that does not behave in a strictly pre-scripted manner has some sort of AI behind it. Sadly, however, the multi-billion dollar gaming industry has done very little to advance the field of AI. The industry has moved past the day when an AI opponent would not even react to the death of his teammate standing three feet away, but that does not mean these bots, as they are commonly called, have any serious thought processes. Cube1 is an open-source FPS, written in C++ for Linux and Windows, that is based on a very unorthodox engine that emphasizes simple 3D designs to provide a quickly and cleanly rendered environment. The Cube Engine is, to quote its website, mostly targeted at reaching feature richness through simplicity of structure and brute force, rather than finely tuned complexity. The code for Cube is much shorter and simpler than that for many other FPS games, and, because it is open-source, we have full access to all of the code and thus almost any change is possible . We realized that given the simplicity of Cube, developing a straight hard-coded AI that would show real improvement would be a difficult project. Rather than spending lots of time trying to figure out how the agents (bots, monsters, opponents) should behave, we decided that it would be easier and more interesting to add an evolutionary algorithm(Mitchell 1996) to the agent’s deterministic behavior. By evolving over time, the agents could learn from experience what the best strategies were and would, for example, decide for themselves how often they should jump over obstacles, instead of running around them. The idea is that each of an agent’s possible decisions are represented by a single value (true, false, or a probability) and all of these values combined determine his behavior. This string of values, which we can call his DNA, is attached to an individual agent. Whenever the agent needs to make a decision, he consults both the usual criteria and the corresponding value in his DNA. (Strings are initially all zero at
REPEAT TEST SCORES ON NEUROBEHAVIORAL MEASURES OVER AN EIGHT-YEAR PERIOD IN A SAMPLE OF PORTUGUESE CHILDREN

Normative data were collected on a sample of 503 Portuguese children who were taking part in a dental study. At the outset, the children were aged 8–11.9 years, with an average of just over 10. A standard battery of neurobehavioral tests covering learning and memory, visual-motor function, and attention was administered at baseline and during seven subsequent years. Normative test data are presented separately by gender and by age at study inception (younger versus older). Results provide normative data for use in clinical settings, where dissociations in performance between cognitive domains need to be identified for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes.
Combination of General and Specific Warm-Ups Improves Leg-Press One Repetition Maximum Compared With Specific Warm-Up in Trained Individuals

Abad, CCC, Prado, ML, Ugrinowitsch, C, Tricoli, V, and Barroso, R. Combination of general and specific warm-ups improves leg-press one repetition maximum compared with specific warm-up in trained individuals. J Strength Cond Res 25(8): 2242-2245, 2011—Accurate assessment of muscular strength is critical for exercise prescription and functional evaluation. The warm-up protocol may affect the precision of the 1 repetition maximum (1RM) test. Testing guidelines recommend performing both general and specific warm-ups before strength tests. The general warm-up intends to raise muscle temperature, whereas the specific warm-up aims to increase neuromuscular activation. Although there is scientific evidence for performing the specific warm-up, the effects of general warm-up on strength tests are still unclear. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether the combination of a general with a specific warm-up (G + SWU) protocol would improve leg press 1RM values compared with a specific warm-up (SWU) protocol. Thirteen participants were tested for leg-press 1RM under 2 warm-up conditions. In the first condition, participants performed the SWU only, which was composed of 1 set of 8 repetitions at approximately 50% of the estimated 1RM followed by another set of 3 repetitions at 70% of the estimated 1RM. In the second condition (G + SWU), participants performed the 1RM test after a 20-minute general warm-up on a stationary bicycle at 60% of HRmax and the same specific warm-up as in the SWU. Values of 1RM in SWU and in G + SWU were compared by a paired t-test, and significance level was set at p ≤ 0.05. Strength values were on average 8.4% (p = 0.002) higher in the G + SWU compared with the SWU. These results suggest that the G + SWU induced temperature-dependent neuromuscular adjustments that increased muscle force production capacity. Therefore, these results support the recommendations of the testing guidelines to perform a moderate intensity general warm-up in addition to the specific warm-up before maximum strength assessments.
The Relationship Between Annual GDP Growth and Income Inequality: Developed and Undeveloped Countries

The hypothesis is that there exists a linear relationship between income inequality and annual GDP growth rate. When the GDP growth rate decreases, the income inequality also decreases. The researchers measured this across two major categories of countries: the developed and the undeveloped countries to see if there exists an optimal range of GDP growth that results in the lowest level of income inequality.
HyParView: A Membership Protocol for Reliable Gossip-Based Broadcast

Gossip, or epidemic, protocols have emerged as a powerful strategy to implement highly scalable and resilient reliable broadcast primitives. Due to scalability reasons, each participant in a gossip protocol maintains a partial view of the system. The reliability of the gossip protocol depends upon some critical properties of these views, such as degree distribution and clustering coefficient. Several algorithms have been proposed to maintain partial views for gossip protocols. In this paper, we show that under a high number of faults, these algorithms take a long time to restore the desirable view properties. To address this problem, we present HyParView, a new membership protocol to support gossip-based broadcast that ensures high levels of reliability even in the presence of high rates of node failure. The HyParView protocol is based on a novel approach that relies in the use of two distinct partial views, which are maintained with different goals by different strategies.
Camera Based Calibration Techniques for Seamless Flexible Multi-Projector Displays

Multi-projector large-scale displays are commonly used in scientific visualization, VR, and other visually intensive applications. In recent years, several camera-based computer vision techniques have been developed that help reduce the effort needed to construct tiled projection-based display such that they are seamless both in terms of geometry and color. These automated techniques have replaced the traditional labor intensive manual deployment by using cameras to “calibrate” display geometry and photometry, computing per-projector corrective warps and intensity correction to create seamless imagery across projector mosaics. These techniques have made projector-based displays cost-effective, low-maintenance, and flexible. In this paper, we present a summary of the different camera-based geometric and color registration techniques. Several techniques have been proposed and demonstrated, each addressing particular display configurations and modes of operation. We overview each of these approaches and discuss their advantages and disadvantages.
Biting Deterrence, Repellency, and Larvicidal Activity of Ruta chalepensis (Sapindales: Rutaceae) Essential Oil and Its Major Individual Constituents Against Mosquitoes

ABSTRACT The essential oil from aerial parts of Ruta chalepensis L. (Sapindales: Rutaceae) was obtained by hydrodistillation, and its chemical profile was identified using gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. Compounds, 2-undecanone (43.2%), 2-nonanone (27.9%), and 2-nonyl acetate (10.6%) were the major constituents of the oil. Biting deterrent activity of R. chalepensis essential oil at 10 and 50 µg/cm2, 2-undecanone at 8.5 µg/cm2, 2-nonanone at 9 µg/cm2, and 2-nonyl acetate at 9.3 µg/cm2 was similar to DEET (N, N-diethyl-meta-toluamide) at 4.8 µg/cm2, against Aedes aegypti L. Biting deterrent activity of R. chalepensis oil at 50 µg/cm2 against Anopheles quadrimaculatus Say was statistically similar to DEET at 4.8 µg/cm2, whereas the activity was lower in the other compounds tested. In cloth patch assay, R. chalepensis essential oil was effective at 187 µg/cm2, whereas 2-undecanone was effective at 108.9 µg/cm2 against Ae. aegypti. In larval bioassays, 2-undecanone showed similar toxicity whereas toxicity of R. chalepensis essential oil and 2-nonanone was higher at 24-h posttreatment at the LD50 in An. quadrimaculatus than Ae. aegypti. This study revealed that R. chalepensis essential oil and its major compounds were active biting deterrents against Ae. aegypti at higher application rates whereas only the essential oil showed activity similar to DEET against An. quadrimaculatus. 2-undecanone was the most active compound in in vivo repellency bioassay against Ae. aegypti. Chemical composition of R. chalepensis essential oil varies because of plant production and harvest practices, and the activity level of the essential oil may depend on the source of the sample.
CONTROLLING THE ULTIMATE OPENING RESIDUES FOR A ROBUST DELINEATION OF FRAGMENTED ROCKS

These last years image analysis has started to be thoroughly sed for size distribution quality control in mineral industry. Compared to sifting, it has the advantage of reduc ing the interference with production, of measuring automatically and on-line, and finally of improving the repr sentativeness. Nevertheless, measurement is confronted to various problems, among which the correct ext raction of fragments projected areas (2D), more particularly related to problems of over-segmentatio n and fusion. Indeed, images taken under natural conditions of lighting and positioning of fragments are ver y complex and noisy to be properly processed. Usual filtering methods, based on linear and non-linear filte rs, are not appropriate for this kind of analysis. In this paper, a new filtering method is presented. It is based on a new topographic interpretation of image structures (relative grey levels), and uses residual morph ological transformations (ultimate opening residues and its associated function). A control of the ultimate open ing construction is carried out with the help of a geometrical criterion applied on fragments shapes. Thus, i t i possible to calculate a new and dramatically filtered associated function, giving access to relevant mar kers for the fragments. Thanks to the evaluation of the method on images affected by various types of noise (fine p articles, strong texturation, etc), its robustness and efficiency can be proved. Lastly, the faithful delineati on of fragments, carried out thanks to relevant marking, leads to the extraction of correct 2D information, t tally usable for size attribution (1D) and volume reconstruction (3D).
Historical and Conceptual Foundations

Abstract This article summarizes Section I, “Historical and Conceptual Foundations,” of the 2007 Handbook of Distance Education (Moore 2007a). Of the eight chapters, two are dedicated to historical perspectives of distance education. Another is centered on research. Five other chapters are focused on distance education theory/theorists.