Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Mel-Band and MFCC-Based Error Metrics for Correspondence to Discrimination of Spectrally Altered Musical Instrument Sounds*

Several mel-band-based metrics and a single MFCC-based error metric were evaluated for best correspondence with human discrimination of single tones resynthesized from similar musical instrument time-varying spectra. Results show high levels of correspondence that are very close and often nearly identical to those found previously for harmonic and critical-band error metrics. The number of spectrum-related terms in the metrics required to achieve 85% R 2 correspondence is about five for harmonics, ten for mel bands, and ten for MFCCs, leading to the conjecture that subjects discriminate more on the basis of the first few harmonics than on the broad spectral envelope.
Entomological Surveillance, Spatial Distribution, and Diversity of Culicidae (Diptera) Immatures in a Rural Area of the Atlantic Forest Biome, State of São Paulo, Brazil

ABSTRACT: Because of the high adaptive capacity of mosquitoes, studies that focus on transitional environments become very important, such as those in rural areas, which are considered as bridges between wild diseases and human populations of urban areas. In this study, a survey of the existing species of mosquitoes was performed in an Atlantic Forest area of the city of Santa Bárbara d'Oeste, São Paulo state, Brazil, using traps for immatures and analyzing the frequency and distribution of these insects over the sampling months. Five mosquito species were found: Aedes albopictus (the most frequent species), Aedes aegypti, Aedes fluviatilis, Culex quinquefasciatus, and Toxorhynchites theobaldi. The 4,524 eggs collected in ovitraps showed the presence of the tribe Aedini. Aedes aegypti and Ae. albopictus were identified after larval hatching in the laboratory, with different spatial distributions: the first of which coincides with the area of greatest diversity calculated using the Simpson index, while the second does not. The association of ecological analysis of spatial diversity with simple methods of data collection enables the identification of possible epidemiological risk situations and is a strategy that may be implemented to monitor ecological processes resulting from the interaction among different species of mosquitoes.
Neuro-based human-face recognition with 2-dimensional discrete Walsh transform

Conventional face image recognition has been done based on the extraction techniques of many features such as shapes and relations among the positions of eyes, mouth, nose and so on. However, it is difficult to extract many features because the human face has an unclear shadow. In addition, the extracted features resemble each other among face images. Therefore, face images recognition for many persons is difficult. In this research, we try to recognize face images for many persons by using a multi-layer neural network and 2-dimensional discrete Walsh transform. This face image recognition is also able to discriminate unlearnt face images.
An Exercise Intervention for South Asian Mothers with Risk Factors for Diabetes

ABSTRACT South Asians (Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Sri Lankans, Nepalis, and Bhutanese) in the United States have a very high prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). This pilot study evaluated a culturally tailored exercise intervention among South Asian immigrant mothers with DM risk factors. Through an academic–community partnership, South Asian women with risk factors for DM and who had at least one child between 6 and 14 yr were enrolled into this single-arm study. The intervention for the mothers included 16 wk of twice weekly exercise classes, self-monitoring with activity trackers, goal setting, and classes on healthy eating. Based on prior community-based participatory research, children were offered exercise classes during the mothers' classes. The primary efficacy outcomes were change in mothers' moderate/vigorous physical activity and body weight pre- and postintervention (16 wk). Program adherence, clinical, and psychosocial outcomes were measured. A qualitative process evaluation was conducted to understand participant perspectives. Participants' (n = 30) average age was 40 yr (SD, 5), 57% had a high school education or less, and all were overweight/obese. At baseline, women were not meeting the recommended physical activity guidelines. Overall, participants attended 75% of exercise classes. Compared with baseline, participants' weight decreased by 3.2 lb (95% confidence interval, −5.5 to −1.0) postintervention. Among women who attended at least 80% of classes (n = 17), weight change was −4.8 lb (95% confidence interval, −7.7 to −1.9). Change in accelerometer-measured physical activity was not significant; however, exercise-related confidence increased from baseline (P < 0.01). Women described multiple physical and psychosocial benefits from the intervention. In conclusion, this pilot study suggests that a culturally tailored exercise intervention that included exercise classes for children was feasible and had physical and psychosocial benefits in South Asian mothers with risk factors for DM.
Think Like An Owner: Identifying the Characteristics that Are Important for Ownership-like Thought in the Hospitality Industry

Companies want recruits who “think like an owner”; that is, managers who demonstrate entrepreneurial aptitude and skills, think on their feet, and possess good problem-solving abilities. This exploratory study sought to identify the characteristics important for ownership-like thought in the hospitality industry. A questionnaire based on a review of entrepreneurship literature drew responses from 182 hotel and restaurant industry operators, executives, and owners. Results suggested six factors or characteristics that lead to ownership-like thought or behavior. Companies want recruits who “think like an owner”; that is, managers who demonstrate entrepreneurial aptitude and skills, think on their feet, and possess good problem-solving abilities. This exploratory study sought to identify the characteristics important for ownership-like thought in the hospitality industry. A questionnaire based on a review of entrepreneurship literature drew responses from 182 hotel and restaurant industry operators, executives, and owners. Results suggested six factors or characteristics that lead to ownership-like thought or behavior.
Comments on "Timed Petri Nets in Modeling and Analysis of Cluster Tools"

In the above paper by Zuberek, conflict-free Petri nets with deterministic timing are used for modeling cluster tools. Performance analysis of the models is based on P-invariants. This comment tries to clarify some statements in the paper and points out a more efficient performance-analysis approach based on linear programming, which is of polynomial time complexity.
Haber process and steam‐coal gasification: Two standard thermodynamic problems elucidated using two distinct approaches

The present study shows how the direct Gibbs free energy minimization technique is sometimes superior to the reaction coordinates—equilibrium constants method when the thermodynamic analysis of complex systems is performed. In this respect, the above two methods are applied for two different processes to determine their equilibrium compositions: (1) the Haber process: a simple problem consisting of a single gas‐phase reaction where both methods are expected to give the same result and (2) steam‐coal gasification process which is more complex since it involves numerous reactions and solid‐phase chemical species (i.e., coal or carbon). Thus, in the second case the reaction coordinates—equilibrium constants method fails to provide correct predictions of the equilibrium composition. In addition, the authors give the optimum conditions for the two processes: high pressure for Haber process and high temperature for steam‐coal gasification in agreement with LeChatelier principle. In order to deal with deviation from the ideal‐case assumption, the Peng–Robinson Equation of State (PR EOS) is implemented for both techniques and both case studies. All computations and figures are generated using a single computer algebra, Mathematica©. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput. Appl. Eng. Educ. 24:58–70, 2016; View this article online at wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/cae; DOI 10.1002/cae.21672
Palpable Thyroid and Parathyroid Nodules in Asymptomatic Cats

Client-owned cats underwent surgery to remove palpable cervical masses in cats with normal total T4 values and no clinical signs of hyperthyroidism, renal disease, or hyperparathyroidism. Non-functional thyroid and parathyroid adenomas were found and identified by histopathological examination. The significance of these findings is discussed in relation to palpating a goiterous mass in an asymptomatic cat.
An Information Retrieval Algorithm to Extract Influential Factors

Past literatures showed that there are many factors that can be used to assess company’s performance but only a limited number of factors are needed to efficiently assess its performance. The aim of the study is to develop an algorithm that can extract a minimum set of factors that can be used to assess companies’ performances. Stock price was used as the dependent factor. The factors extracted are known as influential factors because these factors were found to have strong influence on the stock price. The objectives of the study were to obtain a comprehensive influential factors from past literatures, develop an extraction algorithm that can identify influencial factors, and present factors that influenced companies’ stock prices. Data consisted of financial factors that were obtained from financial documents of distressed companies and non-distressed companies listed on a stock exchange. The extraction algorithm was developed and implemented using Matlab programming language. Results showed that out of 33 factors, 5 factors were found to be the minimum set needed to assess the companies’ performances. These were debt, investment, total asset, asset turnover, and working capital. The algorithm were tested on other dataset and results produced more than 70 percent of positive feedback. This indicates that the algorithm was able to produce a good model. The extraction algorithm developed showed that influencial factors produced could be used as guideline for companies to monitor and strategize ways for business improvement.
Strategies for research on the interactions of drugs of abuse.

NIDA Research Monographs are prepared by the research divisions of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and published by its Office of Science. The primary objective of the series is to provide critical reviews of research problem areas and techniques, the content of state-of-the-art conferences, and integra-tive research reviews. its dual publication emphasis is rapid and targeted dissemination to the scientific and professional community. ACKNOWLEDGMENT This monograph is based upon papers and discussion from a technical review on strategies for research on the interactions of drugs of Certain figures and tables and portions of the text in the chapter by Dr. Clifford L. Mitchell on pages 41 to 64 are copyrighted by the New York Academy of Sciences. All figures and tables and portions of the text in the chapter by Drs. on pages 117 to 141 are copyrighted by Williams and Wilkins. The National Institute on Drug Abuse has also obtained permission from the copyright holders to reproduce certain other previously published material as noted in the text. Further reproduction of this copyrighted material is permitted only as part of a reprinting of the entire publication or chapter. For any other use, the copyright holder's permission is required. All other material in this volume except quoted passages from copyrighted sources is in the public domain and may be used or reproduced without permission from the Institute or the authors. Citation of the source is appreciated. Opinions expressed in this volume are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or official policy of the National Institute on Drug Abuse or any other part of the U.S.
Semantic 3D Reconstruction with Finite Element Bases

We propose a novel framework for the discretisation of multi-label problems on arbitrary, continuous domains. Our work bridges the gap between general FEM discretisations, and labeling problems that arise in a variety of computer vision tasks, including for instance those derived from the generalised Potts model. Starting from the popular formulation of labeling as a convex relaxation by functional lifting, we show that FEM discretisation is valid for the most general case, where the regulariser is anisotropic and non-metric. While our findings are generic and applicable to different vision problems, we demonstrate their practical implementation in the context of semantic 3D reconstruction, where such regularisers have proved particularly beneficial. The proposed FEM approach leads to a smaller memory footprint as well as faster computation, and it constitutes a very simple way to enable variable, adaptive resolution within the same model.
Rat Intubation and Ventilation for Surgical Research

Effective outcomes in cardiothoracic surgical research using rodents are dependent upon adequate techniques for intubation and mechanical ventilation. Multiple methods are available for intubation of the rat; however, not all techniques are appropriate for survival studies. This article presents a refinement of intubation techniques and a simplified mechanical ventilation setup necessary for intrathoracic surgical procedures using volatile anesthetics. The procedure is defined and complications of the procedure are elucidated that provide a justification for animal numbers needed for initiating new studies. Lewis rats weighing 178–400 g (287 ± 44) were anesthetized using Enflurane and intubated with a 16-G angiocatheter using transillumination. Mechanical ventilation (85 bpm, 2.5 mL TV, enflurane 1.5–2%) maintained adequate sedation for completion of an intrathoracic procedure. Complications of the intubation and ventilation included mortality from anesthetic overdose, intubation difficulty, pneumothorax, traumatic extubation, and ventilation disconnection. Anesthetic agents and their related effects on the rat heart and reflexes are compared. This article also underscores the importance of refinement, reduction, and replacement in the context of cardiothoracic surgery using rodent models.
Layered Coding Transport (LCT) Building Block

Layered Coding Transport (LCT) provides transport level support for reliable content delivery and stream delivery protocols. LCT is specifically designed to support protocols using IP multicast, but also provides support to protocols that use unicast. LCT is compatible with congestion control that provides multiple rate delivery to receivers and is also compatible with coding techniques that provide reliable delivery of content.
The Automotive Situation in Poznań versus other Cities and National Indexes

Following the dynamic development of the automotive industry and economic changes in the last 20 years Polish transport-related needs and citizen mobility have changed as well. An increased demand for traveling and easy access to individual means of transport in the form of passenger cars put Poznań in the top ten of the largest cities of Poland in terms of the motorization level. The paper analyses the current situation of the level of motorization of the city of Poznań based on statistical data from Central Vehicle and Driver Register, Department of Motor Vehicles in Poznań and published by Central Oﬃce of Statistics. A synthetic analysis has been presented of the situation in Poznań against other largest cities of Poland and the average situation in the country. The paper also presents the analysis of the preferences of the citizens of Poznań in terms of engine capacity, type of fuel, engine type as and the most popular vehicle makes.
A Framework for Automatic Verifying Privacy Properties of Security Protocols

Security protocols play more and more important role with widely use in many applications nowadays. They are designed to provide security properties for users who wish to exchange messages over unsecured medium. There are many tools were designed to specify and verify security protocols such as Casper/FDR, ProVerif or AVISPA. While most of the existing tools focus on secrecy and authentication properties. few supports properties like anonymity and privacy, which are crucial in many protocols such as in electronic voting systems or anonymous online transactions. Moreover, to the best of our knowledge, there is still not have a fully automatic tool using formal methods to verify these two properties. In this paper, we introduce a framework for specifying security protocols in the Labeled Transition System (LTS) semantics model and give the formal definition for three existing types of anonymity and privacy properties using this model. We also come up with the verification algorithms for verification and implement all the ideas in a module SeVe inside PAT model checker.
Self-tracking on the Web: why and how

Social, professional or commercial interactions on the Web rely extensively on the exchange of private, personal information. This is already the case in the offline world where disclosing certain personal information is necessary to enable engagement with other people and organisations. However, on the Web, the circulation of such information is happening in an un-restrained, fragmented and distributed environment, making it difficult for individuals to monitor and control what is being exposed and shared about them. In other words, while personal information, interests and habits are being tracked by a large number of websites and organisations through various mechanisms and for various purposes, individual Web users are mostly unaware of the type of information they expose and that is circulated about them on the Web.
Pengaruh Kualitas Pelayanan Pajak, Sanksi Pajak Dan Kesadaran Wajib Pajak Terhadap Kepatuhan Wajib Pajak Dalam Membayar PBB (Pada Kecamatan Selupu Rejang)

The aim of this study were to determine the impact of the quality of tax services, tax penalties and taxpayer awareness of the tax compliance in paying taxes on land and buildings, the District Selupu Rejang. This type of research study are classified as causative. The population in this study are all taxpayer land and building located in the sub-district Selupu Rejang regency of Rejang Lebong. This study used proportional sampling technique sampling method, using the formula Slovin. The data analysis technique used is multiple regression. The test results showed that the quality of service tax, tax penalties and taxpayer awareness of significant positive impact on tax compliance. Suggestions in this study is necessary to have a good quality of service tax, penalty tax and taxpayer awareness so high that it will increase tax compliance in meeting tax obligations. Tax office should be more active in providing services to the taxpayer so as to improve tax compliance in meeting its obligation to pay the property tax. For further research studies researchers can use a variable outside the model examined in this study. Keywords: quality of service tax, tax penalties, a taxpayer awareness, taxpayer compliance
Innovation-related knowledge from customers for new financial services: A conceptual framework

Customers are reported to be providers of innovation-related knowledge for the development of new services. In order to benefit from this source of innovation-related knowledge, a company requires the organizational capability to identify and use it, denoted as its absorptive capacity. This research provides a conceptual framework for the co-creation of new financial services, which is driven by the underlying organizational learning mechanisms of a company’s absorptive capacity. The context of financial services, which are characterized as being knowledge-intensive, should provide an interesting area of research for testing this conceptual framework.
The Impact of Consumer’s Perceived Deception on Brand Trust, Brand Aﬀect, and Brand Loyalty: Deceptive Tactics as an Impediment to Consumer Trust

Data have been collected in the electronics sector among 310 real consumers concerning their perceptions of deception and how these impact their reactions, in terms of brand trust, brand aﬀect, and brand loyalty. A hypothetical framework is developed and tested. Structural equation modeling (SEM) is used to test the proposed relationships. This paper analyzes the relation between brand trust, affect, and loyalty at product level, and consumer’s perceived deception at corporate level. The results showing that there is a negative relationship between consumers’ perceived deception and brand trust. But brand trust has positive inﬂuence on brand aﬀect and brand loyalty. Further, brand affect also positively relate to brand loyalty. This research conﬁrmed that high levels of perceived deception decreases consumer trust toward a brand, which ﬁnally has negative impact on brand loyalty. The managerial implications of the outcomes are also discussed.
A text based drug query system for mobile phones

Dissemination of medical information using mobile phones is still in a nascent stage because of their limited features - lack of penetration of mobile internet, small screen size etc. We present the design of a drug QA system that could be used for providing information about medicines over short message service SMS. We begin with a survey of the drug information domain and classify the drug related queries into a set of predefined classes. Our system uses several natural language processing tools coupled with machine learning classification techniques to process drug information related queries. We focus on developing a natural language interface allowing the user to be flexible in phrasing their queries and attain an accuracy of 81% in classifying the drug related questions. We conclude that it is feasible and cheap to deploy such a system to encourage the practice of evidence based medicine.
Language modeling for mixed language speech recognition using weighted phrase extraction

To train a code switching language model for mixed language speech recognition, we propose to assign weights to the sentence pairs in the parallel text data. The code switching language model which is composed of the code switching boundary prediction model, code switching translation model and reconstruction model is incorporated with a language for mixed language speech recognition. The code switching translation model which is trained using selected subsets of the sentence pairs in the parallel text data allows the decoder to make the decision whether a phrase is in the matrix language or in the embedded language. Moreover, we propose a weighting procedure while training the code switching translation model. We eval-uate our methods on Mandarin-English code switching lecture speech and lunch conversations. Our proposed method reduces word error rate by a statistically signiﬁcant 1.74% on the lecture speech, and by 1.29% on the lunch conversation over the conventional interpolated language model.
GLOBALIZATION AND STRATEGIC ALLIANCES: THE CASE OF THE AIRLINE INDUSTRY

This book provides a rigorous analysis of the key aspects of airline alliances. Although the book treats all types of airline alliances, the core chapters focus on analysis of the economic effects and regulatory policy issues of the strategic airline alliance, which is defined as a long-term partnership of two or more firms who attempt to enhance competitive advantages collectively vis-a-vis their competitors by sharing risks and resources, market access capability, improving product quality and customer services, and thereby, improving profitability. In this definition, strategic alliances are different from ordinary alliances in that the partners make a long-term commitment to cooperate, not only on operational matters but also on key strategic matters. An index is provided.