Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Analysis of hierarchical bottleneck framework for improved phoneme recognition

In this paper, an attempt is made to examine and evaluate the effect of bottleneck and the hierarchical bottleneck (HBN) framework in MLP-based Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems. In particular, the bottleneck and hierarchical bottleneck framework are analyzed using Volterra series. Experiments on several architectures with incorporation of systematic hierarchical and bottleneck properties are done. We obtain significant increase in % Phone Recognition Accuracy (PRA) as compared to traditional cepstral features based Hidden Markov Model (HMM) acoustic modeling to more complex architectures such as the HBN framework. To this extent, the best results are achieved when tandem and acoustic features are combined in a deep HBN framework with 73.72 % PRA on entire TIMIT database. In addition, we observe a relative drop in dependence of language model (LM) on final % PRA with this proposed architecture.
ECG beat recognition using fuzzy hybrid neural network

This paper presents the application of the fuzzy neural network for electrocardiographic (ECG) beat recognition and classification. The new classification algorithm of the ECG beats, applying the fuzzy hybrid neural network and the features drawn from the higher order statistics has been proposed in the paper. The cumulants of the second, third, and fourth orders have been used for the feature selection. The hybrid fuzzy neural network applied in the solution consists of the fuzzy self-organizing subnetwork connected in cascade with the multilayer perceptron, working as the final classifier. The c-means and Gustafson-Kessel algorithms for the self-organization of the neural network have been applied. The results of experiments of recognition of different types of beats on the basis of the ECG waveforms have confirmed good efficiency of the proposed solution. The investigations show that the method may find practical application in the recognition and classification of different type heart beats.
Modeling the carbon cost of plant nitrogen acquisition: Mycorrhizal trade‐offs and multipath resistance uptake improve predictions of retranslocation

Accurate projections of the future land carbon (C) sink by terrestrial biosphere models depend on how nutrient constraints on net primary production are represented. While nutrient limitation is nearly universal, current models do not have a C cost for plant nutrient acquisition. Also missing are symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi, which can consume up to 20% of net primary production and supply up to 50% of a plant's nitrogen (N) uptake. Here we integrate simultaneous uptake and mycorrhizae into a cutting‐edge plant N model—Fixation and Uptake of Nitrogen (FUN)—that can be coupled into terrestrial biosphere models. The C cost of N acquisition varies as a function of mycorrhizal type, with plants that support arbuscular mycorrhizae benefiting when N is relatively abundant and plants that support ectomycorrhizae benefiting when N is strongly limiting. Across six temperate forested sites (representing arbuscular mycorrhizal‐ and ectomycorrhizal‐dominated stands and 176 site years), including multipath resistance improved the partitioning of N uptake between aboveground and belowground sources. Integrating mycorrhizae led to further improvements in predictions of N uptake from soil (R2 = 0.69 increased to R2 = 0.96) and from senescing leaves (R2 = 0.29 increased to R2 = 0.73) relative to the original model. On average, 5% and 9% of net primary production in arbuscular mycorrhizal‐ and ectomycorrhizal‐dominated forests, respectively, was needed to support mycorrhizal‐mediated acquisition of N. To the extent that resource constraints to net primary production are governed by similar trade‐offs across all terrestrial ecosystems, integrating these improvements to FUN into terrestrial biosphere models should enhance predictions of the future land C sink.
Encoding of Motion Targets by Waves in Turtle Visual Cortex

Visual stimuli evoke wave activity in the visual cortex of freshwater turtles. Earlier work from our laboratory showed that information about the positions of stationary visual stimuli is encoded in the spatiotemporal dynamics of the waves and that the waves can be decoded using Bayesian detection theory. This paper extends these results in three ways. First, it shows that flashes of light separated in space and time and stimuli moving with three speeds can be discriminated statistically using the waves generated in a large-scale model of the cortex. Second, it compares the coding capabilities of spike rate and spike time codes. Spike rate codes were obtained by low-pass filtering the activities of individual neurons in the model with filters of different band widths. For the moving targets used in the study, detectability using spike rate codes is immune to the choice of a specific bandwidth, indicating that a coarse filter is able to adequately discriminate targets. Spike timing codes are binary sequences indicating the precise timing of spike activity of individual neurons across the cortex. Spike time codes generally perform better than do spike rate codes. Third, the encoding process is examined in terms of the underlying cellular mechanisms that result in the initiation, propagation and cessation of the wave. The period of peak detectability corresponds to the period in which waves are propagating across the cortex
Rapid salvage treatment with virus-specific T cells for therapy-resistant disease.

BACKGROUND Viral infections are major complications after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). During posttransplant immunosuppression the regular T-cell control is compromised. Even if treatment strategies against infections caused by herpes viruses such as cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, and adenovirus have improved, the mortality rate is still considerable. If primary antiviral therapy fails or cannot be tolerated, adoptive therapy with virus-specific cytotoxic T cells (CTL) can be utilized. METHODS In this study, we used virus-specific CTLs to treat 8 patients suffering from severe viral infections after allogeneic HSCT. Using positive selection with HLA multimers and magnetic beads, we isolated CTLs from both frozen donor material as well as third-party donors within hours. RESULTS At 90 days after CTL infusions 7 out of 8 patients were still living. CTLs infused from third-party donors were detected in 5 of 6 patients up to 76 days after infusion. No graft-versus-host disease associated with CTL infusions was observed. CONCLUSIONS Our separation approach offers a rapid alternative for adoptive CTL therapy if primary antiviral treatment strategies fail. Because no prolonged expansion steps are needed, this method may be used for early treatment of patients suffering from life-threatening infectious complications.
A new heuristic possibilistic clustering algorithm for feature selection

The paper deals with the problem of selection of the most informative features. A new effective and efficient heuristic possibilistic clustering algorithm for feature selection is proposed. First, a brief description of basic concepts of the heuristic approach to possibilistic clustering is provided. A technique of initial data pre- processing is described and a fuzzy correlation measure is considered. The new algorithm is described and then illustrated on the well-known Iris data set benchmark and the results obtained are compared with those by us- ing the conventional, well-known and widely employed method of principal component analysis (PCA). Conclu- sions and suggestions for future research are given.
Regional Alterations in Long Bone Produced by Internal Fixation Devices. Part I. 85Sr Clearance

We examined the effect of rigid plate application on the radiostrontium clearance of the intact canine femur at 6 months. We examined each of the component surgical steps. We calculated the clearance both for the whole bone and for each of the five transverse sections of the whole bone. Screw application, but not drilling, increased the clearance in the segment about the screw holes. Plate application produced an increase in the segment beneath the plate as well as around the screws and in the whole bone. These changes are accomplished not only by an absolute increase in clearance to the middle three segments, but by a relative diminution in clearance by the most proximal and distal segments. The histomorphometric changes in long bones following rigid plating may be accompanied by regional increases in bone blood flow.
Generalisation and domain specific functions in genetic programming

This research presents an evaluation of user defined domain specific functions of genetic programming using relational learning problems, generalisation for this class of learning problems and learning bias. After providing a brief theoretical background, two sets of experiments are detailed: experiments and results concerning the Monk-2 problem and experiments attempting to evolve generalising solutions to parity problems with incomplete data sets. The results suggest that using non-problem specific functions may result in greater generalisation for relational problems.
Scalable optical tracking for navigating large virtual environments using spatially encoded markers

In this paper we present a novel approach for tracking the movement of a user in a large indoor environment. Many studies show that natural walking in virtual environments increases the feeling of immersion by the users. However, most tracking systems suffer from a limited working area or are expensive to scale up to a reasonable size for navigation. Our system is designed to be easily scalable both in working area and number of simultaneous users using inexpensive off-the-shelf components. To accomplish this, the system determines the 6 DOF pose using passive LED strips, mounted to the ceiling, which are spatially encoded using De Bruijn codes. A camera mounted to the head of the user records these patterns. The camera can determine its own pose independently, so no restriction on the number of tracked objects is required. The system is accurate to a few millimeters in location and less than a degree in orientation. The accuracy of the tracker is furthermore independent of the size of the working area which makes it scalable to enormous installations. To provide a realistic feeling of immersion, the system is developed to be real-time and is only limited by the framerate of the camera, currently at 60Hz.
Engineering and Continuously Operating Self-Adaptive Software Systems: Required Design Decisions

Self-adaptive or autonomic systems are computing systems which are able to manage/adapt themselves at runtime according to certain high-level goals. It is appropriate to equip software systems with adaptation capabilities in order to optimize runtime properties, such as performance, availability, or operating costs. Architectural models are often used to guide system adaptation. When engineering such systems, a number of cross-cutting design decisions, e.g. instrumentation, targeting at a system's later operation/maintenance phase must and can be considered during early design stages. In this paper, we discuss some of these required design decisions for adaptive software systems and how models can help in engineering and operating these systems. The discussion is based on our experiences, including those gathered from evaluating research results in industrial settings. To illustrate the discussion, we use our self-adaptation approach SLAstic to describe how we address the discussed issues. SLAstic aims to improve a software system's resource efficiency by performing architecture-based runtime reconfigurations that adapt the system capacity to varying workloads, for instance to decrease the operating costs.
Life-Cycle Monitoring and Voltage-Managing Unit for DC-Link Electrolytic Capacitors in PWM Converters

A novel life-cycle monitoring and voltage-managing device for dc-link electrolytic capacitors in pulsewidth modulation converters is presented. The system performs online identification of the capacitor's equivalent series resistance (ESR) in order to detect the life-cycle status and permit preventive maintenance. The ESR detection is based on the capacitor's ac losses calculated from voltage/current measurements using a simple low-cost microcontroller. The unit is designed as small printed circuit board located directly at the capacitor's screw terminals in order to simplify the required temperature sensing and to minimize wiring effort. The minimized energy consumption allows a power supply taken out of the capacitor to be tested. Besides life-cycle monitoring, the unit further facilitates energy-efficient voltage balancing for capacitors in series arrangements avoiding any power resistors typically used in balancing circuits. Instead, the unit controls the capacitor voltage by influencing its power consumption. Each individual monitoring unit (one per each power capacitor of the converter) transfers the ESR results to the converter's main controller and receives control commands via a common optoisolated fieldbus. Alternatively, this data transfer is performed using wireless near-field communication leading to a completely autonomous monitoring unit without any wiring for power supply and data transmission.
Friends in High Places: The Effects of Social Networks on Discrimination in Salary Negotiations

This article tests hypotheses about the effects of social networks on inequitable salary negotiation outcomes using a U.S. high-technology company's salary negotiation data for 1985–1995. Analyzing results of 3,062 actual salary negotiations, we found that members of racial minority groups negotiated significantly lower salary increases than majority members, but this effect was dramatically reduced when we controlled for social ties to the organization. Having a social tie to the organization significantly increased salary negotiation outcomes, and minorities were less likely than majority members to have such a social tie.
Adaptive output tracking control design of a gun launched micro aerial vehicle based on approximate feedback linearization

This paper considers the problem of controlling the position and the orientation of a Gun Launched Micro Aerial Vehicle - GLMAV - despite unknown aerodynamic efforts. The proposed approach overcomes the problem of gyroscopic coupling by taking advantage from the structure of the thrust mechanism, which is made of two counter rotating propellers. An adaptive linearizing controller is designed, allowing the trajectory tracking and the stabilization of the vehicle's position and orientation while the unknown aerodynamic efforts are estimated by means of an identifier. The overall process is shown to be stable for constant, or slowly time varying, aerodynamic efforts. However numerical simulations demonstrate the satisfying controller's performance even with non constant aerodynamic efforts.
Adhesive subdivisions intrinsic to the epithelial somites.

Developing somites express two subtypes of classic cadherin adhesion receptors, N-cadherin and cadherin-11 (cad11). To investigate the role of these adhesion molecules in somite morphogenesis, we analyzed the somites of mice whose N-cadherin and cad11 genes were disrupted. The epithelial somites of N-cadherin null mutant mice were fragmented as reported, whereas those of cad11(-/-) mice showed no structural anomaly. In mice double homozygous for N-cadherin and cad11 mutation, however, somites were further fragmented into smaller clusters than in the N-cadherin-deficient mice, suggesting that these two cadherins cooperate in the maintenance of epithelial somites. Despite the disorganization of epithelial structures, dorsoventral polarity markers were expressed in their correct patterns in all of these mutant somites. Uncx4.1, whose expression is localized only in the caudal region of each somite, was also expressed in a normal pattern in the mutant somites. However, the staining for Uncx4.1 revealed that, in the N-cadherin mutants, each somite tended to be cleaved at the border between the Uncx4. 1-positive and -negative regions and that the cleaved subunits maintained the clustered state, often exhibiting epithelioid morphology. This separation of the rostral and caudal regions was observed as soon as the epithelial somites had been formed. In the N-cadherin/cad11 double-homozygous mutants, this tendency was also observed, although each half of the somite further disintegrated into randomly arranged cell clusters. These results suggest that cells of the rostral and caudal regions of each epithelial somite have an activity to aggregate independently or separate from one another and that one role of N-cadherin and cad11 is to connect the two halves into a single unit.
selscan: An Efficient Multithreaded Program to Perform EHH-Based Scans for Positive Selection

Haplotype-based scans to detect natural selection are useful to identify recent or ongoing positive selection in genomes. As both real and simulated genomic data sets grow larger, spanning thousands of samples and millions of markers, there is a need for a fast and efficient implementation of these scans for general use. Here, we present selscan, an efficient multithreaded application that implements Extended Haplotype Homozygosity (EHH), Integrated Haplotype Score (iHS), and Cross-population EHH (XPEHH). selscan accepts phased genotypes in multiple formats, including TPED, and performs extremely well on both simulated and real data and over an order of magnitude faster than existing available implementations. It calculates iHS on chromosome 22 (22,147 loci) across 204 CEU haplotypes in 353 s on one thread (33 s on 16 threads) and calculates XPEHH for the same data relative to 210 YRI haplotypes in 578 s on one thread (52 s on 16 threads). Source code and binaries (Windows, OSX, and Linux) are available at https://github.com/szpiech/selscan.
Directional Transverse Oscillation Vector Flow Estimation

A method for estimating vector velocities using transverse oscillation (TO) combined with directional beamforming is presented. In directional TO (DTO), a normal focused field is emitted and the received signals are beamformed in the lateral direction transverse to the ultrasound beam to increase the amount of data for vector velocity estimation. The approach is self-calibrating as the lateral oscillation period is estimated from the directional signal through a Fourier transform to yield quantitative velocity results over a large range of depths. The approach was extensively simulated using Field IIpro and implemented on the experimental Synthetic Aperture Real-time Ultrasound System (SARUS) scanner in connection with a BK Medical 8820e convex array transducer. Velocity estimates for DTO are found for beam-to-flow angles of 60°, 75°, and 90°, and vessel depths from 24 to 156 mm. Using 16 emissions, the standard deviation (SD) for angle estimation at depths ranging from 24 to 104 mm is between 6.01° and 0.93° with a mean SD of 2.8°. The mean relative SD for the lateral velocity component is 9.2% and the mean relative bias −3.4% or four times lower than for traditional TO. The approach also works for deeper lying vessels with a slight increase in SD to 15.7%, but a maintained bias of −3.5% from 126 to 156 mm. Data for a pulsating flow have also been acquired for 15 cardiac cycles using a CompuFlow 1000 pump. The relative SD was here 7.4% for a femoral artery waveform.
Neonatally Primed Lymph Node, but Not Splenic T Cells, Display a Gly-Gly Motif within the TCR β-Chain Complementarity-Determining Region 3 That Controls Affinity and May Affect Lymphoid Organ Retention1

Ig-proteolipid protein 1 (Ig-PLP1) is an Ig chimera expressing the encephalitogenic PLP1 peptide corresponding to amino acid residues 139–151 of PLP. Newborn mice given Ig-PLP1 in saline on the day of birth and challenged 7 wk later with PLP1 peptide in CFA develop an organ-specific neonatal immunity that confers resistance against experimental allergic encephalomyelitis. The T cell responses in these animals are comprised of Th2 cells in the lymph node and anergic Th1 lymphocytes in the spleen. Intriguingly, the anergic splenic T cells, although nonproliferative and unable to produce IFN-γ or IL-4, secrete significant amounts of IL-2. Studies were performed to determine whether the two populations display any structural differences in the TCR H chain variable region that could contribute to the differential affinity and retention in different organs. Responsive Th2 lymph node T cells and anergic splenic lymphocytes were immortalized, and the structures of their TCR Vβ were determined. The results show that Vβ and Jβ usage was random, but the CDR3 regions of the lymph node cells had a conserved Gly-Gly motif. Analysis of TCR affinity/avidity correlated the Gly-Gly motif with lower affinity and retention of the Th2 cells in the lymph node. Also, it is suggested that a higher TCR affinity may be a contributing factor for the development of the neonatal Th1 response in the spleen.
Upgrade of the small-angle X-ray scattering beamline X33 at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Hamburg

The small-angle X-ray scattering beamline X33 of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) at the DORIS III storage ring [Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron (DESY) Hamburg] was used for more than two decades to study the structure of non-crystalline biological systems. During recent years the beamline's scope has changed and is now predominantly used to analyze solutions of biological macromolecules. Owing to renewed interest in solution scattering studies from the biological community, the workload on the beamline has steadily increased. A major upgrade of X33 was performed to improve the beamline stability and data quality, to shorten the measurement time and to ensure user-friendly operation. The upgrade involved all major components of the beamline, including the optical system (monochromator, mirror, slits, beam monitors), electronics, control and acquisition software, X-ray detector system and the sample environment. The upgrade improved the brilliance by a factor of about three and the measuring time was reduced by a factor of seven. The knowledge and experience gained during the implementation of the upgrades to X33, may aid the design process for the BioSAXS beamline to be constructed for the PETRA-3 facility at DESY.
Signal Recovery From Incomplete and Inaccurate Measurements Via Regularized Orthogonal Matching Pursuit

We demonstrate a simple greedy algorithm that can reliably recover a vector <i>v</i> ¿ ¿<sup>d</sup> from incomplete and inaccurate measurements <i>x</i> = ¿<i>v</i> + <i>e</i>. Here, ¿ is a <i>N</i> x <i>d</i> measurement matrix with <i>N</i><<d, and <i>e</i> is an error vector. Our algorithm, Regularized Orthogonal Matching Pursuit (ROMP), seeks to provide the benefits of the two major approaches to sparse recovery. It combines the speed and ease of implementation of the greedy methods with the strong guarantees of the convex programming methods. For any measurement matrix ¿ that satisfies a quantitative restricted isometry principle, ROMP recovers a signal <i>v</i> with <i>O</i>(<i>n</i>) nonzeros from its inaccurate measurements <i>x</i> in at most <i>n</i> iterations, where each iteration amounts to solving a least squares problem. The noise level of the recovery is proportional to ¿{log<i>n</i>} ||<i>e</i>||<sub>2</sub>. In particular, if the error term <i>e</i> vanishes the reconstruction is exact.