Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sparse Modeling of Magnitude and Phase-Derived Spectra for Playing Technique Classification

Computational modeling of musical timbre is important for a variety of music information retrieval applications. While considerable progress has been made to recognize musical genres and instruments, relatively little attention has been paid to modeling playing techniques, which affect timbre in more subtle ways. In this paper, we contribute to this area of research by systematically evaluating various audio features and processing methods for multi-class playing technique classification, considering up to nine distinct playing techniques of bowed string instruments. Specifically, a collection of 6,759 chamber-recorded single notes of four bowed string instruments and a collection of 33 real-world solo violin recordings are used in the evaluation. Our evaluation shows that using sparse features extracted from the magnitude spectra and phase derivatives including group delay function (GDF) and instantaneous frequency deviation (IFD) leads to significantly better performance than using a combination of state-of-the-art temporal, spectral, cepstral and harmonic feature descriptors. For playing technique classification of violin singe notes, the former approach attains 0.915 macro-average F-score under a tenfold cross validation setting, while the latter only attains 0.835. Moreover, sparse modeling of magnitude and phase-derived spectra also performs well for single-note joint instrument-technique classification (F-score 0.770) and for playing technique classification of real-world violin solos (F-score 0.547). We find that phase information is particularly important in discriminating playing techniques with subtle differences, such as playing with different bowing positions (i.e., normal, sul tasto, and sul ponticello). A systematic investigation of the effect of parameters such as window sizes, hop factors, window types for phase-derived features is also reported to provide more insights.
Predicting habitat use from opportunistic observations: a case study of the Virgin Islands tree boa (Epicrates granti)

Wildlife managers must often make conservation decisions based on uncertain and incomplete information. The challenge is to make the most robust predictions of species’ requirements given these limitations. This is particularly the case when the species is rare and difficult to locate and baseline data are virtually non-existent. In the absence of other data, we used 143 opportunistic observations collected over 25 years and geographical information systems to predict the habitat of the endangered Virgin Islands tree boa (Epicrates granti) on St Thomas, United States Virgin Islands. We compared the habitat characteristics surrounding observations to the rest of the island using logistic habitat models with varying spatial resolution. Models formed with smaller-scale presence definitions were better able to discriminate areas of occurrence from the rest of the island but were more biased towards developed areas. To investigate habitat associations below the resolution of the models, we compared microhabitat near high-certainty observations with microhabitat at nearby, random locations. Snakes were disproportionately found in low elevation (<150 m) areas with non-stony soils. Vegetation near snakes consisted of woody plants 5–10 m tall with a high degree of vegetation continuity (e.g. mangroves, drought deciduous forests, thicket/scrub). This habitat occurs primarily along the southeastern coast of St Thomas. Our multi-scale approach allowed a more informed prediction of the snakes’ requirements than any single-scale approach, particularly in light of the variable resolution of the observations.
Normal ATXN3 Allele but Not CHIP Polymorphisms Modulates Age at Onset in Machado–Joseph Disease

Background: Age at onset (AO) in Machado–Joseph disease (MJD) is closely associated with the length of the CAG repeat at the mutant ATXN3 allele, but there are other intervening factors. Experimental evidence indicates that the normal ATXN3 allele and the C-terminal heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70)-interacting protein (CHIP) may be genetic modifiers of AO in MJD. Methods: To investigate this hypothesis, we determined the length of normal and expanded CAG repeats at the ATXN3 gene in 210 unrelated patients with MJD. In addition, we genotyped five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) within the CHIP gene. We first compared the frequencies of the different genotypes in two subgroups of patients who were highly discordant for AO after correction for the length of the expanded CAG allele. The possible modifier effect of each gene was then evaluated in a stepwise multiple linear regression model. Results: AO was associated with the length of the expanded CAG allele (r2 = 0.596, p < 0.001). Frequencies of the normal CAG repeats at the ATXN3 gene and of CHIP polymorphisms did not differ significantly between groups with highly discordant ages at onset. However, addition of the normal allele improved the model fit for prediction of AO (r2 = 0.604, p = 0.014). Indeed, we found that the normal CAG allele at ATXN3 had a positive independent effect on AO. Conclusion: The normal CAG repeat at the ATXN3 gene has a small but significant influence on AO of MJD.
Three dimensional numerical analysis of inducer about suppression of cavitation instabilities by asymmetric slits on blades

Cavitation is the phenomenon in which liquid evaporates and vapor bubbles occur in the low pressure region such as a pressure of liquid is roughly less than saturated vapor pressure. The cavitation causes a bad in uence such as vibration, noise, and a decline in performance on the turbomachineries. Moreover, the unsteady cavitation brings the oscillations in the turbomachinery which is called cavitation instabilities. In our laboratory, the suppression technique of the cavitation instabilities by using asymmetric slits on each blade has been investigated as a simple method. From the numerical results, it was con rmed that the cavitation instabilities are completely suppressed by a certain arrangement of asymmetric slits. In this study, the three-dimensional numerical analysis of the inducer was conducted. Two inducers which have asymmetric slits were used for this calculation. Moreover, to consider the asymmetric slit for effectiveness of cavitation instabilities, transient analysis are conducted. Although arranging the asymmetric slit cannot completely suppress the phenomenon, the cavity volume becomes smaller than without slit in all blades. This indicates that arranging asymmetric slits has the possibility to weaken the amplitude of cavitation instabilities.
Comparative evaluation of three different treponemal enzyme immunoassays for syphilis.

BACKGROUND To reduce human errors and subjective interpretation, automation is currently a trend. However, replacing any tests with automation must first be validated. OBJECTIVE Evaluate the EIA tests performance characteristics of three commercially available enzyme immunoassays; Enzygnost Syphilis (Dade Behring Ltd), Syphilis EIA 480 (Newmarket Laboratory Ltd) and ICE* Syphilis (Abbott Murex). MATERIAL AND METHOD Three thousand and fifty-five serum samples were obtained from all workers who came for physical check ups before working abroad at the physical check-up unit of the out- patient department at Siriraj Hospital between February and August, 2001. Serum specimens known to be positive with VDRL and TPHA or FTA-ABS tests were included in the present study. RESULTS Of all the samples, 2953 were from workers who came for physical check ups; 102 were selected from known specimens positive with the Venereal Disease Research Laboratory test (VDRL) and Treponema Pallidum Hemagglutination Assay (TPHA) or Fluorescent Treponemal Antibody ABSorption (FTA-ABS) test. A true positive result was determined when the sample was reactive either with two out of three enzyme immunoassays and TPHA or FTA-ABS, or both TPHA and FTA-ABS. A true negative result was determined when the aforementioned were absent. The sensitivity and specificity of Enzygnost Syphilis, Syphilis EIA 480 and ICE* Syphilis were 100% and 97.89%, 100% and 99.59%, and 99.1% and 99.76%, respectively. The results suggest that the specificity of Enzygnost Syphilis is the lowest among these three enzyme immunoassays; the price is also the cheapest. The decision to replace an existing test depends not only on the performance characteristics but also on other factors such as cost effectiveness, turnaround time, instrument maintenance, etc. The present study shows performance characteristics, whereas an economic evaluation is only briefly mentioned regarding a hospital's decision in making test selection. CONCLUSION Among the three commercial kits, the specificity of Enzygnost Syphilis was the lowest. However, the replacement of any existing test depends greatly on the purpose of the individual laboratory whereas performance characteristics will provide us with an appropriate economic evaluation.
Comparison of Fin-Edge Roughness and Metal Grain Work Function Variability in InGaAs and Si FinFETs

The fin-edge roughness (FER) and the TiN metal grain work function (MGW)-induced variability affecting OFF and ON device characteristics are studied and compared between a 10.4-nm gate length In0.53Ga0. 47As FinFET and a 10.7-nm gate length Si FinFET. We have analyzed the impact of variability by assessing five figures of merit (threshold voltage, subthreshold slope, OFF-current, drain-induced-barrier-lowering, and ON-current) using the two state-of-the-art in-house-build 3-D simulation tools based on the finite-element method. Quantum-corrected 3-D drift-diffusion simulations are employed for variability studies in the subthreshold region while, in the ON-region, we use quantum-corrected 3-D ensemble Monte Carlo simulations. The In0.53Ga0. 47As FinFET is more resilient to the FER and MGW variability in the subthreshold compared with the Si FinFET due to a stronger quantum carrier confinement present in the In0.53Ga0. 47As channel. However, the ON-current variability is between 1.1 and 2.2 times larger for the In0.53Ga0. 47As FinFET than for the Si counterpart, respectively.
TNFA and IL10 Gene Polymorphisms are not Associated with Periodontitis in Brazilians

IL-10 and TNF-α are cytokines that have complex and opposing roles in the inflammatory responses. G/A polymorphisms at position –1082 of IL10 and –308 of TNFA genes have been reported to influence the expression of IL-10 and TNF-α, respectively. The aim of this study was to investigate the association between the IL10 (-1082) and TNFA (- 308) gene polymorphisms with different clinical forms or severity of periodontitis in a sample of Brazilian individuals. DNA was obtained from oral swabs of 165 Brazilian individuals, which were divided into three groups: individuals with chronic periodontitis, aggressive periodontitis and individuals without clinical evidence of periodontitis. Evaluation of IL10 and TNFA polymorphisms was performed by RFLP analysis. Statistical analysis of data was performed using the χ2 likelihood ratio and Fisher`s exact test. No significant differences in the genotype and allele distribution of either IL10 or TNFA were observed among individuals with different clinical forms or with different degrees of severity of periodontitis. Moreover, combined analysis of IL10 and TNFA polymorphisms did not show any association with periodontal status. As conclusion, the IL10 and TNFA gene promoter polymorphisms investigated are not associated with different clinical forms of periodontitis or with severity of the disease in the Brazilian population polymorphisms.
Metrical Phonology: German Sound System.

AUTHOR Tice, Bradley S. TITLE Metrical Phonology: German Sound System. PUB DATE 1997-00-00 NOTE 11p. ; Paper presented at the TFLA Fall Conference (Corpus Christi, TX, October 30-November 1, 1997). PUB TYPE Information Analyses (070) Reports Research (143) Speeches /Meeting Papers (150) EDRS PRICE MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. DESCRIPTORS Contrastive Linguistics; English; *German; *Language Patterns; Language Research; *Language Rhythm; Linguistic Theory; *Phonology; Second Language Instruction; Second Languages; *Stress (Phonology) IDENTIFIERS *Metrical Phonology
Effectiveness of cognitive behavioural therapy in primary health care: a review.

BACKGROUND Depression and anxiety are highly prevalent disorders causing substantial impairment in daily life. Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) delivered face-to-face or as self-help has shown to be an effective treatment for these disorders. Such treatments may be suitable for delivery in primary health care. AIM The aim of the article was to review research on the effectiveness of CBT for depression and anxiety disorders delivered in primary care by primary care therapists. METHODS A literature search of quantitative studies of the effectiveness of CBT delivered in primary care was conducted on multiple electronic databases. A total of 17 studies were included in the review. RESULTS Eight studies of supported Internet- or computer-based CBT, six of which were randomized controlled trials (RCTs), indicate that this treatment is effective for mild to moderate depression and anxiety. Five studies suggest that this treatment may be more effective than usual care for mild to moderate but not for more severe symptoms. Results of four RCTs of brief therapies using written self-help material suggest that while such interventions are effective, no particular approach outperformed any other, including usual care. Five RCTs of CBT delivered face-to-face show that this treatment can be effective when delivered by therapists highly educated in the mental health field. However, many primary care therapists may find such interventions too time consuming. CONCLUSIONS CBT delivered in primary care, especially including computer- or Internet-based self-help programs, is potentially more effective than usual care and could be delivered effectively by primary care therapists.
Improved Min-Sum-Plus-Correction-Factor Algorithm using stopping node for LDPC decoding

Low-Density-Parity-Check Code (LDPC) codes have received great attention recently because of the excellent error-correcting capability and optional error correct code. A new method base on Min-Sum-Plus-Correction-Factor Algorithm using stopping node to reduce computing complexity on Low-Density-Parity-Check Code decoding algorithm is presented in this paper. The improved method shows how to make early decisions to reduce computation complexity of LDPC decoding algorithm in the next iteration under QPSK systems. Simulation results show that computational complexity of LDPC decoding using Stopping node criterion can reduce up to 6 times with maintaining quality level.
Multi-cue pedestrian classification with partial occlusion handling

This paper presents a novel mixture-of-experts framework for pedestrian classification with partial occlusion handling. The framework involves a set of component-based expert classifiers trained on features derived from intensity, depth and motion. To handle partial occlusion, we compute expert weights that are related to the degree of visibility of the associated component. This degree of visibility is determined by examining occlusion boundaries, i.e. discontinuities in depth and motion. Occlusion-dependent component weights allow to focus the combined decision of the mixture-of-experts classifier on the unoccluded body parts. In experiments on extensive real-world data sets, with both partially occluded and non-occluded pedestrians, we obtain significant performance boosts over state-of-the-art approaches by up to a factor of four in reduction of false positives at constant detection rates. The dataset is made public for benchmarking purposes.
EXPLORING MULTIMEDIA PRINCIPLES FOR SUPPORTING CONCEPTUAL LEARNING OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM WITH VISUOHAPTIC SIMULATIONS

This paper explores multimedia principles for a visuohaptic simulation-based approach to improve students’ understanding of electricity and magnetism concepts. The study implemented different multimedia principles for incorporating visuohaptic simulations for learning guided byMultimedia Learning Theory. This study compared the use of visuohaptic simulations to a visual-only simulation and to instructional multimedia-only materials. The results indicated that students in the visuohaptic simulation group out-performed students in the visual-only simulation group and the instructional multimedia-only group; although not significantly. This paper discusses implications for teaching and learning with touch technologies.
The Current Use of Impella 2.5 in Acute Myocardial Infarction Complicated by Cardiogenic Shock: Results from the USpella Registry

Objectives To evaluate the periprocedural characteristics and outcomes of patients supported with Impella 2.5 prior to percutaneous coronary intervention (pre-PCI) versus those who received it after PCI (post-PCI) in the setting of cardiogenic shock (CS) complicating an acute myocardial infarction (AMI). Background Early mechanical circulatory support may improve outcome in the setting of CS complicating an AMI. However, the optimal timing to initiate hemodynamic support has not been well characterized. Methods Data from 154 consecutive patients who underwent PCI and Impella 2.5 support from 38 US hospitals participating in the USpella Registry were included in our study. The primary end-point was survival to discharge. Secondary end-points included assessment of patients’ hemodynamics and in-hospital complications. A multivariate regression model was used to identify independent predictors for mortality. Results Both groups were comparable except for diabetes (P = 0.02), peripheral vascular disease (P = 0.008), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (P = 0.05), and prior stroke (P = 0.04), all of which were more prevalent in the pre-PCI group. Patients in the pre-PCI group had more lesions (P = 0.006) and vessels (P = 0.01) treated. These patients had also significantly better survival to discharge compared to patients in the post-PCI group (65.1% vs.40.7%, P = 0.003). Survival remained favorable for the pre-PCI group after adjusting for potential confounding variables. Initiation of support prior to PCI with Impella 2.5 was an independent predictor of in-hospital survival (Odds ratio 0.37, 95% confidence interval: 0.17–0.79, P = 0.01) in multivariate analysis. The incidence of in-hospital complications included in the secondary end-point was similar between the 2 groups. Conclusions The results of our study suggest that early initiation of hemodynamic support prior to PCI with Impella 2.5 is associated with more complete revascularization and improved survival in the setting of refractory CS complicating an AMI.
Validation of a Self-Report Measure of Somatic Health

The primary purpose was to assess the validity of a new self-report inventory of general somatic health status. In addition, we sought to examine the influence of social desirability and negative affectivity on health reports and to learn whether asking respondents to report concrete, memorable aspects of illness episodes such as seeing a doctor or staying home in bed for all or most of a day would enhance validity. The somatic component of the Cornell Medical Index was used as a criterion measure of health status because that Index has been shown to reflect medical records with great accuracy. Scores on the new health inventory correlated highly with the Cornell somatic scores, and this relationship was independent of negative affectivity and social desirability. The addition of the “concrete, memorable” aspects of illness accounted for no additional variance in the Cornell Index somatic scores beyond that accounted for by mere reporting of the presence of the symptom or illness. This study offers evidence supporting the validity of the Inventory of Health Status as a predictor of somatic health independent of social desirability and negative affectivity and also indicates that a simple indication of whether the patient had the symptoms is sufficient.
Effect of Polyaryl Hydrocarbons on Cytotoxicity in Monocytic Cells: Potential Role of Cytochromes P450 and Oxidative Stress Pathways

Background Benzo(a)pyrene (BaP), naphthalene (NPh), phenanthrene (Phe), benzo(a)antharacene (BeA), and benzo(b)fluoranthene (BeF) are known carcinogenic polyaryl hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in cigarette smoke. This study was designed to examine the relative effect of these constituents on the cytotoxicity of monocytic cells and the possible mechanism of PAH-mediated cytotoxicity. Methods We examined the acute (6–24 hours) and chronic (7 days) effects of these PAHs on the expression of cytochromes P450 (CYPs), oxidative stress, and cytotoxicity. The treated cells were examined for mRNA and protein levels of CYPs (1A1 and 3A4) and antioxidants enzymes (AOEs) superoxide dismutase-1 (SOD1) and catalase. Further, we assessed the levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), caspase-3 cleavage activity, and cell viability. We performed these experiments in U937 and/or primary monocytic cells. Results Of the five PAHs tested, after chronic treatment only BaP (100 nM) showed a significant increase in the expression of CYP1A1, AOEs (SOD1 and catalase), ROS generation, caspase-3 cleavage activity, and cytotoxicity. However, acute treatment with BaP showed only an increase in the mRNA expression of CYP1A1. Conclusions These results suggest that of the five PAHs tested, BaP is the major contributor to the toxic effect of PAHs in monocytic cells, which is likely to occur through CYP and oxidative stress pathways.
Delivery of on-demand video services in rural areas via IEEE 802.16 broadband wireless access networks

A simulation study of delivery of streaming video on-demand via IEEE 802.16 based technologies is described. A number of scenarios are simulated which are representative of rural area deployments of such technologies. The study finds that IEEE 802.16 can support up to 9/10 simultaneous users streaming typical cinematic video content in CIF resolution, 24 frames/s, at average rates of around 750 kbps. Further, the study demonstrates the utility of H.264/AVC Scalable Video Coding (SVC) and a buffer-based congestion control algorithm in an adaptive video streaming solution
Learning Cross-Media Joint Representation With Sparse and Semisupervised Regularization

Cross-media retrieval has become a key problem in both research and application, in which users can search results across all of the media types (text, image, audio, video, and 3-D) by submitting a query of any media type. How to measure the content similarity among different media is the key challenge. Existing cross-media retrieval methods usually focus on modeling the pairwise correlation or semantic information separately. In fact, these two kinds of information are complementary to each other and optimizing them simultaneously can further improve the accuracy. In this paper, we propose a novel feature learning algorithm for cross-media data, called joint representation learning (JRL), which is able to explore jointly the correlation and semantic information in a unified optimization framework. JRL integrates the sparse and semisupervised regularization for different media types into one unified optimization problem, while existing feature learning methods generally focus on a single media type. On one hand, JRL learns sparse projection matrix for different media simultaneously, so different media can align with each other, which is robust to the noise. On the other hand, both the labeled data and unlabeled data of different media types are explored. Unlabeled examples of different media types increase the diversity of training data and boost the performance of joint representation learning. Furthermore, JRL can not only reduce the dimension of the original features, but also incorporate the cross-media correlation into the final representation, which further improves the performance of both cross-media retrieval and single-media retrieval. Experiments on two datasets with up to five media types show the effectiveness of our proposed approach, as compared with the state-of-the-art methods.