Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Estimation of Phoneme-Specific HMM Topologies for the Automatic Recognition of Dysarthric Speech

Dysarthria is a frequently occurring motor speech disorder which can be caused by neurological trauma, cerebral palsy, or degenerative neurological diseases. Because dysarthria affects phonation, articulation, and prosody, spoken communication of dysarthric speakers gets seriously restricted, affecting their quality of life and confidence. Assistive technology has led to the development of speech applications to improve the spoken communication of dysarthric speakers. In this field, this paper presents an approach to improve the accuracy of HMM-based speech recognition systems. Because phonatory dysfunction is a main characteristic of dysarthric speech, the phonemes of a dysarthric speaker are affected at different levels. Thus, the approach consists in finding the most suitable type of HMM topology (Bakis, Ergodic) for each phoneme in the speaker's phonetic repertoire. The topology is further refined with a suitable number of states and Gaussian mixture components for acoustic modelling. This represents a difference when compared with studies where a single topology is assumed for all phonemes. Finding the suitable parameters (topology and mixtures components) is performed with a Genetic Algorithm (GA). Experiments with a well-known dysarthric speech database showed statistically significant improvements of the proposed approach when compared with the single topology approach, even for speakers with severe dysarthria.
Adaptive Regularizer for Recursive Neural Network Training Algorithms

Adaptive Marquardt parameter correction techniques are tested for recursive Levenberg-Marquardt (RLM) and proposed novel application on decomposed recursive Levenberg Marquardt (DRLM) algorithms. The adaptive Marquardt correction is based on recursive moving-window residual. Experiment results show superior convergence using decomposed approach and a slight improvement in performance by adopting the adaptive Marquardt correction ona fixed size multilayer perceptrons (MLP) network.
Development of a myoelectric discrimination system for a multi-degree prosthetic hand

A multiple degrees of freedom prosthetic hand, NTU Hand, was developed in our laboratory. The paper focuses on the development of a myoelectric discrimination system for a multi-degree prosthetic hand. The discrimination system uses two surface electrodes to acquire the electromyography (EMG) signal from the flexor digitorum superficialis muscle and the extensor pollicis brevis muscle. Since eight types of hand movements, such as three-jaw chuck, lateral hand, hook grasp, power grasp, cylindrical grasp, centralized grip, flattened hand and wrist flexion are often used in daily life, they are used as key movements in the discrimination system. In order to distinguish those hand movements, the techniques of variance, bias zero-crossings, autoregressive model and spectral estimation are employed for preprocessing of features. Then, an error backpropagation neural network is applied to discriminate among the feature sets. Finally, an analysis interface system based on a PC environment is constructed to verify the idea. Besides, a 3-D graphic interface program based on the programmer's hierarchical interactive graphic system (PHIGS) is applied to simulate the prosthetic movement of the NTU hand. The discrimination system can achieve a success rate of 85% for off-line test and of 71% for online test.
How Fast Does the Walk Run ?

The Grr obner Walk is an algorithm which converts a given Grr obner basis of a polynomial ideal I of arbitrary dimension to a Grr obner basis of I with respect to another term order. The conversion is done in several steps (the walk) following a path in the Grr obner fan of I. We report on our experiences with a rst implementation of the walk connected with a state-of-the-art Grr obner basis package. Our implementation allows us to evaluate the walk on a large set of non-trivial examples. We can thus give an estimation when it is promising to apply the walk for the computation of lexicographic Grr obner Bases.
First Clear Signature of an Extended Dark Matter Halo in the Draco Dwarf Spheroidal

We present the first clear evidence for an extended dark matter halo in the Draco dwarf spheroidal galaxy based on a sample of new radial velocities for 159 giant stars out to large projected radii. Using a two-parameter family of halo models spanning a range of density profiles and velocity anisotropies, we are able to rule out (at about the 2.5 σ confidence level) halos in which mass follows light. The data strongly favor models in which the dark matter is significantly more extended than the visible dwarf. However, halos with harmonic cores larger than the light distribution are also excluded. When combined with existing measurements of the proper motion of Draco, our data strongly suggest that Draco has not been tidally truncated within ~1 kpc. We also show that the rising velocity dispersion at large radii represents a serious problem for modified gravity (MOND).
Stata 10 (Time Series and Forecasting)

Stata 10 is a powerful, versatile, and flexible statistical package with a wide range of userfriendly and accurate time series analytical and forecasting commands. It was released in June 2007, about two years after Stata 9 appeared. Prospective users want to know what features the package offers, while veteran users want to know what is novel about the latest version(s). This review addresses time series and forecasting capability in Stata 10 and notes prominent new features in versions 9 and 10, what is still needed and what might be refined. Because all users need to have confidence in the accuracy of the package, this review examines accuracy of the principal time series algorithms. It also briefly describes associated graphics, diagnostics, documentation, help facilities, output, customization, and support. Altogether, these features characterize a very well-designed and well-crafted and powerful time series analysis and forecasting package (Baum 2004).
High Frequency Data Do Improve Volatility and Risk Estimation

1 Introduction 22 Realized volatility 32.1 High-frequency realized volatility . 32.2 Bias and anomalous scaling . 42.3 Bias correction . 83 Forecasting model of volatility 93.1 Time series operators . 93.2 Tick-by-tick volatility computation . 133.3 Forecasting model . 133.4 Bias Correction of high frequency partial volatilities forecasts . 144 Methodology and Data 154.1 The benchmark model . 154.2 Choice of the time scale . 154.3 Performance measures . 154.4 Data . 175 Results 176 Outlook and Conclusions 186.1 Outlook . 186.2 Conclusions . 18References 191
Zones of conceptualisation in scientific papers: a window to negative and speculative statements

In view of the increasing need to facilitate processing the content of scientific papers, we present an annotation scheme for annotating full papers with zones of conceptualisation, reflecting the information structure and knowledge types which constitute a scientific investigation. The latter are the Core Scientific Concepts (CoreSCs) and include Hypothesis, Motivation, Goal, Object, Background, Method, Experiment, Model, Observation, Result and Conclusion. The CoreSC scheme has been used to annotate a corpus of 265 full papers in physical chemistry and biochemistry and we are currently automating the recognition of CoreSCs in papers. We discuss how the CoreSC scheme relates to other views of scientific papers and indeed how the former could be used to help identify negation and speculation in scientific texts.
The values of intrapleural pressure before the removal of chest tube in non-complicated pulmonary lobectomies.

OBJECTIVES Digitalized chest drainage systems allow for quantification of air leak and measurement of intrapleural pressure. Little is known about the value of intrapleural pressure during the postoperative phase and its role in the recovering process after pulmonary resection. The objective of this investigation was to measure the values of pleural pressure immediately before the removal of chest tube after different types of pulmonary lobectomy. METHODS Prospective observational analysis on 203 consecutive patients submitted to pulmonary lobectomy during a 12-month period at two centres. Multiple measurements were recorded in the last hour before the removal of chest tube and averaged for the analysis. All patients were seated in bed in a 45° up-right position or in a chair, had a single chest tube and were not connected to suction during the evaluation period. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to assess the differences in pleural pressure between different types of lobectomies. RESULTS The average maximum, minimum and differential pressures were -6.1, -19.5 and 13.3 cmH(2)O, respectively. The average pressures were similar in all types of lobectomies (ANOVA, P = 0.2) and ranged from -11 to -13 cmH(2)O, with the exception of right upper bilobectomy (-20 cmH(2)O, all P-values vs. other types of lobectomies <0.05). Similar values were also recorded for maximum pressures (range -4.4 to -8.4 cmH(2)O) and minimum pressures (-31.6 cmH(2)O vs. ranged from -15.4 to -20.5 cmH(2)O, all P-values <0.01). The average pleural pressure was not associated with FEV1 (P = 0.9), DLCO (P = 0.2) or FEV1/FVC ratio (P = 0.6), when tested with linear regression. Similarly, the average pleural pressure was similar in patients with and without COPD (-12.1 vs. -13.0 cmH(2)O, P = 0.4). The ANOVA test was used to assess differences in pressures between different lobectomies. CONCLUSIONS The so-called water seal status may actually correspond to intrapleural pressures ranging from -13 to -20 cmH(2)O. Modern electronic chest drainage devices allow a stable control of the intrapleural pressure. Thus, the values found in this study may be used as target pressures for different types of lobectomies, in order to favour lung recovery after surgery.
SuperScent—a database of flavors and scents

Volatiles are efficient mediators of chemical communication acting universally as attractant, repellent or warning signal in all kingdoms of life. Beside this broad impact volatiles have in nature, scents are also widely used in pharmaceutical, food and cosmetic industries, so the identification of new scents is of great industrial interest. Despite this importance as well as the vast number and diversity of volatile compounds, there is currently no comprehensive public database providing information on structure and chemical classification of volatiles. Therefore, the database SuperScent was established to supply users with detailed information on the variety of odor components. The version of the database presented here comprises the 2D/3D structures of approximately 2100 volatiles and around 9200 synonyms as well as physicochemical properties, commercial availability and references. The volatiles are classified according to their origin, functionality and odorant groups. The information was extracted from the literature and web resources. SuperScent offers several search options, e.g. name, Pubchem ID number, species, functional groups, or molecular weight. SuperScent is available online at: http://bioinformatics.charite. de/superscent.
Three-Dimensional Lower Extremity Joint Loading in a Carved Ski and Snowboard Turn: A Pilot Study

A large number of injuries to the lower extremity occur in skiing and snowboarding. Due to the difficulty of collecting 3D kinematic and kinetic data with high accuracy, a possible relationship between injury statistic and joint loading has not been studied. Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to compare ankle and knee joint loading at the steering leg between carved ski and snowboard turns. Kinetic data were collected using mobile force plates mounted under the toe and heel part of the binding on skies or snowboard (KISTLER). Kinematic data were collected with five synchronized, panning, tilting, and zooming cameras. An extended version of the Yeadon model was applied to calculate inertial properties of the segments. Ankle and knee joint forces and moments were calculated using inverse dynamic analysis. Results showed higher forces along the longitudinal axis in skiing and similar forces for skiing and snowboarding in anterior-posterior and mediolateral direction. Joint moments were consistently greater during a snowboard turn, but more fluctuations were observed in skiing. Hence, when comparing joint loading between carved ski and snowboard turns, one should differentiate between forces and moments, including the direction of forces and moments and the turn phase.
An XMM-Newton observation of the extreme narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy Mrk 359

We present XMM-Newton observations of Mrk 359, the first narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxy (NLS1) discovered. Even among NLS1s, Mrk 359 is an extreme case with extraordinarily narrow optical emission lines. The XMM-Newton data show that Mrk 359 has a significant soft X-ray excess which displays only weak absorption and emission features. The continuum, including reflection, is flatter than that of the typical NLS1, with . A strong emission line of equivalent width ≈200 eV is also observed, centred near 6.4 keV. We fit this emission with two line components of approximately equal strength: a broad iron line from an accretion disc and a narrow, unresolved core. The unresolved line core has an equivalent width of ≈120 eV and is consistent with fluorescence from neutral iron in distant reprocessing gas, possibly in the form of a ‘molecular torus’. Comparison of the narrow-line strengths in Mrk 359 and other low–moderate luminosity Seyfert 1 galaxies with those in QSOs suggests that the solid angle subtended by the distant reprocessing gas decreases with increasing active galactic nucleus luminosity.
Watermarking digital images for copyright protection

A watermark is all invisible mark placed on an image that can only be detected when the image is compared with the original. This mark is designed to identify both the source of a document as well as its intended recipient. This paper discusses various techniques for embedding such marks in grey scale and colour digital images. It begins specifying the requirements that an effective image watermarking scheme must possess, followed by a review of current and novel techniques based on image transforms.
Scalable and Efficient Discovery of Resource , Applications , and Services in P 2 PGrids

Distributed computing enables us to harness all the resources and computing power of the millions of computers connected to the Internet. Therefore, this work describes the construction of an efficient and scalable resource discovery mechanism, capable of searching not only for physical resources (e.g. CPU, Memory, etc.), but also services (e.g. facial recognition, high-resolution rendering, etc.) and applications (e.g. ffmpeg video encoder, programming language compilers, etc.) from computers connected to the same Peer-to-Peer Grid network. This is done in a novel way by combining all resource information into Attenuated Bloom Filters, which also allows us to efficiently route messages in a completely decentralized unstructured P2P network (no super-peers). The research shows that previous P2P, Grid, and Cycle Sharing systems tackled this problem by focusing on each resource type in isolation, such as (physical) resource discovery and service discovery. Methods to minimize storage and transmission costs were also researched. The discovery mechanism was evaluated with a number of different test scenarios that varied resource distribution, resource values, topologies, etc. For comparison, we also evaluated the Random Walk discovery method which served as a baseline. The results were favorable over Random Walk, having higher query success rates with less hops while requiring increase in message size and storage space at each node (for routing information), thus attaining our objectives of effectiveness, efficiency, and scalability.
A sustained hospital outbreak of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium bacteremia due to emergence of vanB E. faecium sequence type 203.

BACKGROUND A significant increase in the rate of vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium (VREfm) bacteremia at our health service, despite improved infection control, prompted us to investigate the cause. METHODS E. faecium bacteremia (including VREfm) over a 12-year period (1998-2009) was investigated using multilocus sequence typing, antibiotic and antiseptic susceptibility profiles, optical mapping, and whole genome sequencing of historical and recent isolates. RESULTS For 10 years, the rate of bacteremia due to vanB VREfm remained stable and sequence type (ST) 17 was predominant. In 2005, ST203 vancomycin-susceptible E. faecium first appeared at our institution, and from March 2007, coinciding with the appearance of a vanB VREfm ST203, the rate of VRE bacteremia has increased exponentially. Although we found no difference in antiseptic susceptibility or presence of genes encoding putative virulence determinants (esp(Efm), hyl(Efm), and fms genes), comparative genomics revealed almost 500 kb of unique sequence when an ST17 and an ST203 VREfm isolate were compared, suggesting that other genomic factors are responsible for the apparent success of E. faecium. CONCLUSIONS The application of multilocus sequence typing has uncovered the emergence of an epidemic clone of E. faecium ST203 that appears to have acquired the vanB locus and has caused a sustained outbreak of VRE bacteremia.
Adaptive image restoration using a perception based error measurement

This paper deals with image restoration; we have developed a novel, perceptually inspired image restoration method which takes human perception knowledge into consideration to reverse the effects of blur. Instead of using a conventional greyscale based error measurement such as the MSE, we compare local statistical information about regions in two images using a new error measure. The new method provides a better appraisal of image quality in terms of human vision. We extended the popular constrained least square error cost function by incorporating this novel image error measure. Using the well known Karush-Kuhn-Tucker theorem, we have mathematically verified that there exists an optimal solution to this nonlinear constrained optimization problem in terms of the Hopfield neural network. We show that the new restoration algorithm visually restores images as well as the previously presented LVMSE-based algorithm.
Inflation, Debt and the Zero Lower Bound

This paper analyses the macroeconomic effects of a protracted period of low and falling inflation rates when monetary policy is constrained by the zero lower bound (ZLB) on nominal interest rates and the private sector is indebted in nominal terms (debt-deflation channel). In this scenario, even cost-push shocks that in normal circumstances would reduce inflation and stimulate output are found to have contractionary effects on economic activity, especially when the interplay of ZLB and debt deflation is considered.
IITP: A Supervised Approach for Disorder Mention Detection and Disambiguation

In this paper we briefly describe our supervised machine learning approach for disorder mention detection system that we submitted as part of our participation in the SemEval-2014 Shared task. The main goal of this task is to build a system that automatically identifies mentions of clinical conditions from the clinical texts. The main challenge lies due in the fact that the same mention of concept may be represented in many surface forms. We develop the system based on the supervised machine learning algorithms, namely Conditional Random Field and Support Vector Machine. One appealing characteristics of our system is that most of the features for learning are extracted automatically from the given training or test datasets without using deep domain specific resources and/or tools. We submitted three runs, and best performing system is based on Conditional Random Field. For task A, it shows the precision, recall and F-measure values of 50.00%, 47.90% and 48.90%, respectively under the strict matching criterion. When the matching criterion is relaxed, it shows the precision, recall and F-measure of 81.50%, 79.70% and 80.60%, respectively. For task B, we obtain the accuracies of 33.30% and 69.60% for the relaxed and strict matches, respectively.
The postsynaptic inhibitory control of lumbar motoneurons during the atonia of active sleep: effect of strychnine on motoneuron properties

The present study examined the effects of strychnine on the tonic hyperpolarization and the changes in membrane properties of lumbar motoneurons that occur during active sleep. To carry out these studies, intracellular recordings from lumbar motoneurons were combined with the juxtacellular microiontophoretic application of strychnine in chronic, undrugged, normally respiring cats. During active sleep, compared to quiet sleep, motoneurons that were not exposed to strychnine exhibited tonic hyperpolarization, a decrease in cell excitability, and an increase in membrane conductance; they were also bombarded by high- frequency, large-amplitude IPSPs. In conjunction with the juxtacellular application of strychnine, there was a marked reduction in the degree of hyperpolarization during active sleep; motoneuron excitability was no longer suppressed, and there was a reduction in the increase in membrane conductance. In addition, the large-amplitude IPSPs were blocked. These results identify glycine as the neurotransmitter responsible for the state-dependent changes in membrane properties and the hyperpolarization of motoneurons that takes place during active sleep.
False alarms in intensive care unit monitors: Detection of life-threatening arrhythmias using elementary algebra, descriptive statistics and fuzzy logic

Aims: A false alarm ratio of up to 86 % has been reported in Intensive Care Unit (ICU) monitors. Such a high value can lead to reduced staff attention and patient deprivation. We present a methodfor detection of specific arrhythmias - asystole, extreme bradycardia, extreme tachycardia, ventricular tachycardia and ventricular flutter I fibrillation - in accordance with the "2015 PhysionetlCinC Challenge". Data: The method was trained with the use of 750 records and tested on 500 records from ICUs provided by Physionet. Method: Invalid data segments are detected in each of the channels. Next, QRS complexes and RR intervals are found in all signals using a different QRS detection approach according to the signal source. The RR series obtained are tested for regular heart activity; if this fails, an arrhythmia-specific test is processed. Tests for individual arrhythmias are based on examination of QRS temporal distribution, comparison of heart rate (HR) with known limits, and observation of low-frequency ECG activities. Results: Training-set sensitivity and specificity of 96 % and 89 % were achieved. A hidden test set resulted in a score of 81.39 (real-time event) and 84.96 (retrospective event).
Social Networks and the Labour Market Outcomes of Rural to Urban Migrants in China

In this paper, the role of social networks on the labour market outcomes of rural migrants in China is investigated. Information on the size and quality of the network are derived using data from a unique survey and are used to estimate regression models of social networks on wages. The main findings indicate that for migrants who found a job through informal channels, having a large network and an employed closest tie is associated with higher wages. These results are corroborated testing the same models for individuals who found the job through more formal channels. Potential threats to the causal interpretation of the results are discussed and evidence is provided to support the fact that endogeneity issues do not affect substantially the findings.