Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Real-time Implementation of Multi-band Frequency Compression for Listeners with Moderate Sensorineural Impairment

Widening of auditory filters in persons with sensorineural hearing impairment leads to increased spectral masking and degraded speech perception. Multi-band frequency compression of the complex spectral samples using pitchsynchronous processing has been reported to increase speech perception by persons with moderate sensorineural loss. It is shown that implementation of multi-band frequency compression using fixed-frame processing along with leastsquares error based signal estimation reduces the processing delay and the speech output is perceptually similar to that from pitch-synchronous processing. The processing is implemented on a DSP board based on the 16-bit fixed-point processor TMS320C5515, and real-time operation is achieved using about one-tenth of its computing capacity. Index Terms: sensorineural hearing loss, multi-band frequency compression, real-time processing
Burkholderia pseudomallei Known Siderophores and Hemin Uptake Are Dispensable for Lethal Murine Melioidosis

Burkholderia pseudomallei is a mostly saprophytic bacterium, but can infect humans where it causes the difficult-to-manage disease melioidosis. Even with proper diagnosis and prompt therapeutic interventions mortality rates still range from >20% in Northern Australia to over 40% in Thailand. Surprisingly little is yet known about how B. pseudomallei infects, invades and survives within its hosts, and virtually nothing is known about the contribution of critical nutrients such as iron to the bacterium's pathogenesis. It was previously assumed that B. pseudomallei used iron-acquisition systems commonly found in other bacteria, for example siderophores. However, our previous discovery of a clinical isolate carrying a large chromosomal deletion missing the entire malleobactin gene cluster encoding the bacterium's major high-affinity siderophore while still being fully virulent in a murine melioidosis model suggested that other iron-acquisition systems might make contributions to virulence. Here, we deleted the major siderophore malleobactin (mba) and pyochelin (pch) gene clusters in strain 1710b and revealed a residual siderophore activity which was unrelated to other known Burkholderia siderophores such as cepabactin and cepaciachelin, and not due to increased secretion of chelators such as citrate. Deletion of the two hemin uptake loci, hmu and hem, showed that Hmu is required for utilization of hemin and hemoglobin and that Hem cannot complement a Hmu deficiency. Prolonged incubation of a hmu hem mutant in hemoglobin-containing minimal medium yielded variants able to utilize hemoglobin and hemin suggesting alternate pathways for utilization of these two host iron sources. Lactoferrin utilization was dependent on malleobactin, but not pyochelin synthesis and/or uptake. A mba pch hmu hem quadruple mutant could use ferritin as an iron source and upon intranasal infection was lethal in an acute murine melioidosis model. These data suggest that B. pseudomallei may employ a novel ferritin-iron acquisition pathway as a means to sustain in vivo growth.
Superoxide production and expression of NAD(P)H oxidases by transformed and primary human colonic epithelial cells

Background: Superoxide (O2−) generation through the activity of reduced nicotinamide dinucleotide (NADH) or reduced nicotinamide dinucleotide phosphate (NADPH) oxidases has been demonstrated in a variety of cell types, but not in human colonic epithelial cells. Aims: To measure O2− production and effects of modulators of NAD(P)H oxidase activity and inhibitors of potential O2− generating enzymes in cultures of human colonic epithelial cells. Expression of the catalytic subunits of NAD(P)H oxidase, Nox1 and gp91phox (phox, phagocytic oxidase), and the membrane bound subunit p22phox was assessed. Methods: The transformed colonic epithelial cell lines (DLD-1, HT-29, and Caco-2) were studied at subconfluence, confluence, and after differentiation. Primary colonic epithelial cells were isolated from mucosal biopsies from the normal human colon. Extracellular O2− production was measured by the cytochrome c reduction assay or luminol enhanced luminescence. Nox1, gp91phox, and p22phox mRNA expression was assessed in colonic epithelial cells and blood neutrophils by reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction. Results: Production rates of O2− were higher in subconfluent transformed cells (mean (SEM) 35.8 (4.2) nmol/mg of protein/h) and primary cells (40.4 (5.9)) than in confluent transformed cells (6.0 (0.9); p<0.01). The oxidoreductase inhibitor diphenylene iodonium significantly inhibited O2− production whereas NADPH and NADH increased production rates. In contrast, O2− was unaffected by phorbol myristate ester, NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester, indomethacin, or allopurinol. Nox1 mRNA was expressed in all colonic epithelial cells whereas gp91phox was detected only in HT-29 cells and neutrophils. p22phox was expressed in all cell types. Conclusions: Cultures of transformed and primary epithelial cells from human colon may produce extracellular O2− through an NAD(P)H oxidase expressing Nox1 and p22phox.
A Multirate Approach to Haptic Interaction with Deformable Objects Single and Multipoint Contacts

In this paper we describe a new solution for stable haptic interaction with deformable object simulations featuring low servo rates and computational delays. The solution presented is a combination of the local model and the virtual coupling concepts proposed in the past. By varying the local model impedance depending on the local stiffness of the deformable object, the interaction between local model and simulation can always be made stable independently of low servo rates or computational delays. Moreover, by using more complex local impedances that feature an integral term, we are able to control the steady-state error between the device and the surface of the deformable object. This allows us to maximize the Z -width of the simulation, while obtaining overall stable behavior without using any added damping. The local model is always computed using the current deformable object surface, thus allowing for multi-point contact interaction, i.e., allowing multiple users to feel each other’s influence on the object. The proposed solution is presented and analyzed in a multirate setting. Experimental results employing a Phantom haptic interface are presented.
Histopathology and analyses of inflammation intensity in the gills of mussels exposed to silver nanoparticles: role of nanoparticle size, exposure time, and uptake pathways

Abstract Environmentally induced perturbation of health parameters lead to morphological changes associated to the inflammatory response. Hematoxyline and eosin (H&E)-stained gill filaments sections were examined for such changes and inflammation intensity was scored according to a quantitative model in order to evaluate the health status of in vivo exposed (for 3, 6, and 12 h) mussels to silver nanoparticles (Ag-NPs <50 nm and Ag-NPs <100 nm) prior and after the inhibition of two potential uptake pathways (clathrin- and caveolae-mediated endocytosis) with the aid of pharmaceutical inhibitors (amantadine and nystatin). The impacts of the nanoparticles (NPs) size, as well as their uptake routes within different time of exposure on the inflammatory response were assessed. The results showed that Ag-NPs clearly induced morphological changes associated to the inflammatory response in gill tissues (Mann–Whitney p values were <.05). It is also clear that the length of the exposure as well as the NP size highly impacted inflammation intensity (highest histopathological indices recorded with Ag-NPs <100 nm). Also, the routes of NPs entry noticed to be major factor underlying inflammatory response (significant inflammation intensity reported with Ag-NPs <50 nm after blockade of uptake routes; p <.05). Throughout, it was concluded that inflammation intensity was related to NPs size and exposure time. Overall, uptake routes are shown to be the major factor underlying nanotoxicity.
Abusing the Tutte Matrix: An Algebraic Instance Compression for the K-set-cycle Problem

We give an algebraic, determinant-based algorithm for the K-Cycle problem, i.e., the problem of finding a cycle through a set of specified elements. Our approach gives a simple FPT algorithm for the problem, matching the O^*(2^|K|) running time of the algorithm of Bjorklund et al. (SODA, 2012). Furthermore, our approach is open for treatment by classical algebraic tools (e.g., Gaussian elimination), and we show that it leads to a polynomial compression of the problem, i.e., a polynomial-time reduction of the K-Cycle problem into an algebraic problem with coding size O(|K|^3). This is surprising, as several related problems (e.g., k-Cycle and the Disjoint Paths problem) are known not to admit such a reduction unless the polynomial hierarchy collapses. Furthermore, despite the result, we are not aware of any witness for the K-Cycle problem of size polynomial in |K|+ log n, which seems (for now) to separate the notions of polynomial compression and polynomial kernelization (as a polynomial kernelization for a problem in NP necessarily implies a small witness).
Managing Collaboration in the nanoManipulator

We designed, developed, deployed, and evaluated the Collaborative nanoManipulator (CnM), a distributed, collaborative virtual environment system supporting remote scientific collaboration between users of the nanoManipulator interface to atomic force microscopes. This paper describes the entire collaboration system, but focuses on the shared nanoManipulator (nM) application. To be readily accepted by users, the shared nM application had to have the same high level of interactivity as the single-user system and include all the functions of the single-user system. In addition the application had to support a user's ability to interleave working privately and working collaboratively. Based on our experience developing the CnM, we present: a method of analyzing applications to characterize the concurrency requirements for sharing data between collaborating sites, examples of data structures that support distributed collaboration and interleaved private and collaborative work, and guidelines for selecting appropriate synchronization and concurrency control schemes.
Multi-view subspace constraints on homographies

The motion of a planar surface between two camera views induces a homography. The homography depends on the camera intrinsic and extrinsic parameters, as well as on the 3D plane parameters. While camera parameters vary across different views, the plane geometry remains the same. Based on this fact, the paper derives linear subspace constraints on the relative motion of multiple (/spl ges/2) planes across multiple views. The paper has three main contributions. It shows that the collection of all relative homographies of a pair of planes (homologies) across multiple views, spans a 4-dimensional linear subspace. It shows how this constraint can be extended to the case of multiple planes across multiple views. It suggests two potential application areas which can benefit from these constraints: the accuracy of homography estimation can be improved by enforcing the multi-view subspace constraints; and violations of these multi-view constraints can be used as a cue for moving object detection. All the results derived in this paper are true for uncalibrated cameras.
Suicide among young Australians, 1964–1993: an interstate comparison of metropolitan and rural trends

OBJECTIVES (i) To compare suicide rates in 15-24 year old men and women; and (ii) for 15-24 year old men, to investigate differences in suicide rates between metropolitan and rural area, and changes in method-specific suicide rates and, in particular, firearm and hanging suicide rates in rural and metropolitan areas. DESIGN Retrospective analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) suicide data (1964-1993). SETTING All Australian States. SUBJECTS Young women and men aged 15-24 years who died by suicide. RESULTS Male youth suicide rates rose substantially over the 30 years in all Australian States, whereas female rates did not increase. Increases in suicide rates in young men in small rural towns consistently exceeded those in metropolitan areas in all Australian States. Metropolitan rates in 1964 were higher than those in small rural towns, but by 1993 the position was reversed. Medium-sized cities were the only areas where there was no consistent interstate trend. Differences were noted in suicide base rates in different States. High car exhaust suicide rates were noted in Western Australia, and high firearm suicide rates in Tasmania and Queensland. The ratio of firearm suicide rates in small rural areas to those in metropolitan areas rose in all mainland States, but the same ratio for hanging suicide rates changed little. CONCLUSIONS All Australian States reflect national suicide trend in relation to sex and residential area. In some States, particular suicide methods predominate. A decreasing trend in overall firearm suicide rates in young men in all States from 1984 to 1993 conceals substantial increases in firearm suicide rates in small rural areas in all mainland States over the 30-year period. This, together with the marked rate ratio difference in firearm suicides between metropolitan and small rural areas, suggests that particular risk factors for suicide are operating in small rural areas. The fact that hanging rate ratios changed little suggests that more general factors in male youth suicide are also operating in all areas. A better understanding of similarities and differences in health risks faced by metropolitan and rural youth is required.
Multi-Label Classification Using Dependent and Independent Dual Space Reduction

While multi-label classification can be widely applied for problems where multiple classes can be assigned to an object, its effectiveness may be sacrificed due to curse of dimensionality in the feature space and sparseness of dimensionality in the label space. As a solution, this paper presents two alternative methods, namely Dependent Dual Space Reduction and Independent Dual Space Reduction, to reduce dimensions in the dual spaces, i.e., the feature and label spaces, using Singular Value Decomposition (SVD). The first approach constructs the cross-covariance matrix to represent dependency between the features and labels, projects both of them into a single reduced space, and then performs prediction on the reduced space. On the other hand, the second approach handles the feature space and the label space separately by constructing a covariance matrix for each space to represent feature dependency and label dependency before performing SVD on dependency profile of each space to reduce dimension and for noise elimination and then predicting classes using their reduced dimensions. A number of experiments show that prediction on the reduced spaces for both dependent and independent reduction approaches can obtain better classification accuracy as well as faster computation, compared to the prediction using the original spaces. Finally, the results of our methods are also compared to the prediction using other types of dimensionality reduction, with consideration of the factors of covariance and threshold selection.
Efficacy of Once Daily Darunavir/Ritonavir in PI-Naïve, NNRTI-Experienced Patients in the ODIN Trial

Background. An exploratory subanalysis of the ODIN trial was performed to evaluate the efficacy of darunavir/ritonavir (DRV/r) 800/100 mg OD versus 600/100 mg BID in patients who were NNRTI-experienced but PI-naïve. Methods. ODIN was a phase III, 48-week study comparing DRV/r OD versus BID in 590 treatment-experienced patients with no DRV resistance-associated mutations (RAMs) at screening. Patients received DRV/r 800/100 mg OD or DRV/r 600/100 mg BID plus ≥2 NRTIs. Of the 590 patients randomized, 272 (46%) were NNRTI-experienced but PI-naïve. Results. Overall, 272 patients received DRV/r OD (n = 135) or BID (n = 137) plus ≥2 optimised NRTIs. The mean age was 39 years; 35% were female; 27% were Black, 24% Caucasian, 26% Oriental/Asian, and 23% other races; 17% were recruited in South Africa; and 48% had non-B HIV-1 subtypes. Mean baseline plasma HIV-1 RNA load was 4.10 log10⁡ copies/mL; median CD4 cell count was 258 cells/μL. At week 48, 111/135 (82%) of DRV/r OD and 109/137 (80%) of DRV/r BID patients achieved an HIV-1 RNA load <50 copies/mL. No patient developed primary PI RAMs. Conclusion. DRV/r 800/100 mg OD in combination with ≥2 optimised NRTIs led to virological suppression <50 copies/mL in 82% of NNRTI-experienced, PI-naïve patients by week 48.
Interpretation of Raman spectra of disordered and amorphous carbon

The model and theoretical understanding of the Raman spectra in disordered and amorphous carbon are given. The nature of the G and D vibration modes in graphite is analyzed in terms of the resonant excitation of \ensuremath{\pi} states and the long-range polarizability of \ensuremath{\pi} bonding. Visible Raman data on disordered, amorphous, and diamondlike carbon are classified in a three-stage model to show the factors that control the position, intensity, and widths of the G and D peaks. It is shown that the visible Raman spectra depend formally on the configuration of the ${\mathrm{sp}}^{2}$ sites in ${\mathrm{sp}}^{2}$-bonded clusters. In cases where the ${\mathrm{sp}}^{2}$ clustering is controlled by the ${\mathrm{sp}}^{3}$ fraction, such as in as-deposited tetrahedral amorphous carbon (ta-C) or hydrogenated amorphous carbon (a-C:H) films, the visible Raman parameters can be used to derive the ${\mathrm{sp}}^{3}$ fraction.
Choosing the Best Volatility Models: The Model Confidence Set Approach

This paper applies the model confidence set (MCS) procedure of Hansen, Lunde and Nason (2003) to a set of volatility models. An MCS is analogous to the confidence interval of a parameter in the sense that it contains the best forecasting model with a certain probability. The key to the MCS is that it acknowledges the limitations of the information in the data. The empirical exercise is based on 55 volatility models and the MCS includes about a third of these when evaluated by mean square error, whereas the MCS contains only a VGARCH model when mean absolute deviation criterion is used. We conduct a simulation study which shows that the MCS captures the superior models across a range of significance levels. When we benchmark the MCS relative to a Bonferroni bound, the latter delivers inferior performance.
Mirroring Mobile Phone in the Clouds

This paper presents a framework of Mirroring Mobile Phone in the Clouds (MMPC) to speed up data/computing intensive applications on a mobile phone by taking full advantage of the super computing power of the clouds. An application on the mobile phone is dynamically partitioned in such a way that the heavy-weighted part is always running on a mirrored server in the clouds while the light-weighted part remains on the mobile phone. A performance improvement (an energy consumption reduction of 70% and a speed-up of 15x) is achieved at the cost of the communication overhead between the mobile phone and the clouds (to transfer the application codes and intermediate results) of a desired application. Our original contributions include a dynamic profiler and a dynamic partitioning algorithm compared with traditional approaches of either statically partitioning a mobile application or modifying a mobile application to support the required partitioning.
Exploring the Decision Forest: An Empirical Investigation of Occam's Razor in Decision Tree Induction

We report on a series of experiments in which all decision trees consistent with the training data are constructed. These experiments were run to gain an understanding of the properties of the set of consistent decision trees and the factors that affect the accuracy of individual trees. In particular, we investigated the relationship between the size of a decision tree consistent with some training data and the accuracy of the tree on test data. The experiments were performed on a massively parallel Maspar computer. The results of the experiments on several artificial and two real world problems indicate that, for many of the problems investigated, smaller consistent decision trees are on average less accurate than the average accuracy of slightly larger trees.
Overexpression of EPHA2 receptor destabilizes adherens junctions via a RhoA-dependent mechanism

EPHA2 receptor tyrosine kinase is overexpressed in several human cancer types and promotes malignancy. However, the mechanisms by which EPHA2 promotes tumor progression are not completely understood. Here we report that overexpression of a wild-type EPHA2, but not a signaling-defective cytoplasmic truncation mutant (ΔC), in human mammary epithelial cells weakens E-cadherin-mediated cell-cell adhesion. Interestingly, the total level of cadherins and the composition of the adherens junction complexes were not affected, nor was the tyrosine phosphorylation of the cadherin complex components changed. By contrast, RhoA GTPase activity was significantly affected by modulating the EPHA2 activity in MCF-10A cells. Treatment with a ROCK kinase inhibitor rescued cell-cell adhesion defects in EPHA2-overexpressing cells, whereas expression of constitutively activated Rho disrupted adherens junctions in ΔC-expressing cells. EPHA2-dependent Rho activation and destabilization of adherens junctions appeared to be regulated via a signaling pathway involving Src kinase, low molecular weight phosphotyrosine phosphatase (LMW-PTP) and p190 RhoGAP. EPHA2 interacted with both Src and LMW-PTP, and the interactions increased in EPHA2-overexpressing cells. In addition, LMW-PTP phosphatase activity was elevated, and this elevation was accompanied by a decrease in tyrosine phosphorylation of p190 RhoGAP and destabilization of cell-cell adhesion. Expression of either a dominant negative LMW-PTP mutant, C12S, or a wild-type p190 RhoGAP rescued adhesion defects in EPHA2-overexpressing cells. Together, these data suggest that EPHA2 promotes tumor malignancy through a mechanism involving RhoA-dependent destabilization of adherens junctions.
FIRST RESULTS FROM THE CATALINA REAL-TIME TRANSIENT SURVEY

We report on the results from the first six months of the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey (CRTS). In order to search for optical transients (OTs) with timescales of minutes to years, the CRTS analyses data from the Catalina Sky Survey which repeatedly covers 26,000 of square degrees on the sky. The CRTS provides a public stream of transients that are bright enough to be followed up using small telescopes. Since the beginning of the survey, all CRTS transients have been made available to astronomers around the world in real time using HTML tables,RSS feeds, and VOEvents. As part of our public outreach program, the detections are now also available in Keyhole Markup Language through Google Sky. The initial discoveries include over 350 unique OTs rising more than 2 mag from past measurements. Sixty two of these are classified as supernovae (SNe), based on light curves, prior deep imaging and spectroscopic data. Seventy seven are due to cataclysmic variables (CVs; only 13 previously known), while an additional 100 transients were too infrequently sampled to distinguish between faint CVs and SNe. The remaining OTs include active galactic nucleus, blazars, high-proper-motions stars, highly variable stars (such as UV Ceti stars), and transients of an unknown nature. Our results suggest that there is a large population of SNe missed by many current SN surveys because of selection biases. These objects appear to be associated with faint host galaxies. We also discuss the unexpected discovery of white dwarf binary systems through dramatic eclipses.