Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Compensating for asynchronies between musical voices in score-performance alignment

The goal of score-performance synchronisation is to align a given musical score to an audio recording of a performance of the same piece. A major challenge in computing such alignments is to account for musical parameters including the local tempo or playing style. To increase the overall robustness, current methods assume that notes occurring simultaneously in the score are played concurrently in a performance. Musical voices such as the melody, however, are often played asynchronously to other voices, which can lead to significant local alignment errors. In this paper, we present a novel method that handles asynchronies between the melody and the accompaniment by treating the voices as separate time lines in a multi-dimensional variant of dynamic time warping (DTW). Constraining the alignment with information obtained via classical DTW, our method measurably improves the alignment accuracy for pieces with asynchronous voices and preserves the accuracy otherwise.
Ulipristal Acetate Modulates the Expression and Functions of Activin A in Leiomyoma Cells

Uterine leiomyoma is the most common benign gynecological tumor in women of reproductive age and represents the single most common indication for hysterectomy. A development of new treatments is necessary for a medical management, and in this direction, several hormonal drugs are under investigation. Ulipristal acetate (UPA; a selective progesterone receptor modulator) is considered as one of the most promising because progesterone has a critical role in development and growth of uterine leiomyoma. The effect of steroids is partly mediated by growth factors like activin A which increases extracellular matrix expression contributing to the growth of leiomyoma. The present study aimed to test whether UPA acts on leiomyoma cells affecting expression and functions of activin A system. Cultured myometrial and leiomyoma cells were treated with UPA, and messenger RNA (mRNA) expression levels of activin A (inhibin βA [INHBA] subunits), its binding proteins (follistatin [FST] and FST-related gene), and its receptors (activin receptor-like kinase 4 [ALK4], activin receptor type [ActR] II, and ActRIIB) were evaluated. The effect of UPA on activin A modulation of fibronectin and vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) mRNA expression in cultured myometrial and leiomyoma cells was also studied. Ulipristal acetate decreased INHBA, FST, ActRIIB, and Alk4 mRNA expressions in leiomyoma cultured cells. In addition, UPA was able to block the activin A-induced increase in fibronectin or VEGF-A mRNA expression in myometrial and in leiomyoma cultured cells. The present data show that UPA inhibits activin A expression and functions in leiomyoma cells, and this may represent a possible mechanism of action of the drug on uterine leiomyoma.
Test–Retest Reliability of Contact Heat-Evoked Potentials From Cervical Dermatomes

Summary The purpose of this study was to investigate the test–retest reliability of contact heat-evoked potentials (CHEPs) in neurologically healthy subjects from cervical dermatomes (C4–C8). Seventeen individuals underwent test–retest examination of cervical CHEPs. Peak latencies and peak-to-peak amplitude of N2–P2 and ratings of perceived intensity were analyzed using test–retest reliability statistics (intraclass correlation coefficients [ICCs] and Bland–Altman confidence parameters). For comparison, a group of similar age and gender was also examined with dermatomal somatosensory-evoked potentials (dSSEPs, n = 17). The ICC values for CHEP latency and amplitude parameters were significant (P < 0.05) and corresponded to at least “fair” reliability, while peak-to-peak amplitude demonstrated “substantial” (≥0.81) reliability for all dermatomes. The coefficients of repeatability (i.e., 2SD of the difference between examinations) confirm that CHEPs and dSSEPs are reliable according to measures of latency. Superior peak-to-peak amplitude test–retest reliability was found for CHEPs. In conclusion, the test–retest reliability of dSSEP and CHEP parameters supports the fact that these outcomes can be used to objectively track changes in spinal conduction in the dorsal column and spinothalamic tract, respectively. The reliable acquisition of CHEPs may depend on the intensity of the sensation reported by the subject for a given area of skin stimulated.
Assessing the Relevance of Onset Information for Note Tracking in Piano Music Transcription

In Automatic Music Transcription, onset information is useful for correcting timing issues of multi-pitch estimation processes and obtain note-level representations of audio signals. Although this idea has been often used in transcription systems, it is still unclear to which degree its use is beneficial. We address this question by studying the influence of the accuracy of onset information in piano music transcription. Results indicate that note tracking results improve when the onset information provided is accurately estimated and properly included with the correct strategy. Additionally, results depict an important accuracy gap in note tracking when considering ground-truth onset information compared to using an automatic onset estimation algorithm, showing the need for more accurate onset detection methods for music transcription systems.
Performance Study of Several Methods and Selected Wavelets for Image Compression

compression is an application of data compression on digital images, which is in high demand as it reduces the computational time and consequently the cost in image storage and transmission. The basis for image compression is to remove redundant and unimportant data while to keep the compressed image quality in an acceptable range. In this work, Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT), Discrete Wavelet Transform (DWT) methods are used to process a test image is measured and compared in terms of parameters such as compression ratio, L2-norm error, mean squared error (MSE), peak signal- to- noise ratio (PSNR) and visual quality. The performance of several wavelets using DWT is also measured and compared in terms of the parameters mentioned above.
Modeling a Honeybee using Spiking Neural Network to Simulate Nectar Reporting Behavior

cognition is the field that explores the possibility of implanting human cognitive functions on machines by transplanting the processes in naturally self-organized colonies. These natural colonies, especially ant colony, honey bee colony, etc, have been deeply studied to explore the factors which enable them to simulate high cognitive functions, such as decision making, labor division, etc. In swarm cognition a human neuron is matched to an ant or a honeybee in a colony, because both have limited capabilities and their reactions mainly depend only on local interactions with their neighbors. This paper has postulated that any individual in a swarm is itself a network of neurons and thereby swarm is a network of networks. Each child network react to its neighboring networks such a way that where the mother network will be enabled to respond appropriately to the environmental changes. Accordingly, the paper models a honeybee as a network of neurons. The basic model is evaluated by simulating the behavior that a honeybee generates when it reports the food sources to the colony members. A neuron was modeled as a spiking neuron and the network consists of excitatory and inhibitory spiking neurons. The results have demonstrated that the proposed model is capable of demonstrating food reporting process of a honeybee.
SIR-Hawkes: Linking Epidemic Models and Hawkes Processes to Model Diffusions in Finite Populations

Among the statistical tools for online information diffusion modeling, both epidemic models and Hawkes point processes are popular choices. The former originate from epidemiology, and consider information as a viral contagion which spreads into a population of online users. The latter have roots in geophysics and finance, view individual actions as discrete events in continuous time, and modulate the rate of events according to the self-exciting nature of event sequences. Here, we establish a novel connection between these two frameworks. Namely, the rate of events in an extended Hawkes model is identical to the rate of new infections in the Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model after marginalizing out recovery events -- which are unobserved in a Hawkes process. This result paves the way to apply tools developed for SIR to Hawkes, and vice versa. It also leads to HawkesN, a generalization of the Hawkes model which accounts for a finite population size. Finally, we derive the distribution of cascade sizes for HawkesN, inspired by methods in stochastic SIR. Such distributions provide nuanced explanations to the general unpredictability of popularity: the distribution for diffusion cascade sizes tends to have two modes, one corresponding to large cascade sizes and another one around zero.
Steady-state analysis of an interleaved boost converter with coupled inductors

Boost converters are widely used as power-factor corrected preregulators. In high-power applications, interleaved operation of two or more boost converters has been proposed to increase the output power and to reduce the output ripple. A major design criterion then is to ensure equal current sharing among the parallel converters. In this paper, a converter consisting of two interleaved and intercoupled boost converter cells is proposed and investigated. The boost converter cells have very good current sharing characteristics even in the presence of relatively large duty cycle mismatch. In addition, it can be designed to have small input current ripple and zero boost-rectifier reverse-recovery loss. The operating principle, steady-state analysis, and comparison with the conventional boost converter are presented. Simulation and experimental results are also given.
Fine-grained sketch-based image retrieval by matching deformable part models

An important characteristic of sketches, compared with text, rests with their ability to intrinsically capture object appearance and structure. Nonetheless, akin to traditional text-based image retrieval, conventional sketch-based image retrieval (SBIR) principally focuses on retrieving images of the same category, neglecting the fine-grained characteristics of sketches. In this paper, we advocate the expressiveness of sketches and examine their efficacy under a novel fine-grained SBIR framework. In particular, we study how sketches enable fine-grained retrieval within object categories. Key to this problem is introducing a mid-level sketch representation that not only captures object pose, but also possesses the ability to traverse sketch and image domains. Specifically, we learn deformable part-based model (DPM) as a mid-level representation to discover and encode the various poses in sketch and image domains independently, after which graph matching is performed on DPMs to establish pose correspondences across the two domains. We further propose an SBIR dataset that covers the unique aspects of fine-grained SBIR. Through in-depth experiments, we demonstrate the superior performance of our SBIR framework, and showcase its unique ability in fine-grained retrieval.
Orofacial functional impairments among patients following stroke: a systematic review.

OBJECTIVES The objective of this study was to review orofacial functional impairments among patients following stroke, including objective and subjective assessment. METHODS A structured search strategy was applied to three electronic databases (Pubmed, Embase, and Web of Science) to identify effective papers. Relevant data regarding subjects, method, outcomes, and key findings were extracted from the effective papers and the results were summarized. RESULTS The initial search yielded 5227 papers, and 18 effective papers (Kappa: 0.971) were in accordance with the inclusion criteria. The patients with stroke consistently showed a decreased lip force, salivary flow rate, and chewing performance compared with the healthy controls. Due to equivocal results gained from the effective papers, the qualitative assessments regarding whether there was any change in masticatory force on the affected side and oral health-related quality of life were inconclusive. CONCLUSIONS Existing evidence highlights a number of compromised orofacial functions experienced by patients following stroke. These impairments appear to be sustained, with spontaneous recovery unlikely to occur. While rehabilitative approaches may have the potential to improve orofacial function and quality of life following stroke, there is currently a lack of evidence-based interventions available to inform the development of comprehensive rehabilitation protocols.
Cardiorespiratory Sleep Stage Detection Using Conditional Random Fields

This paper explores the probabilistic properties of sleep stage sequences and transitions to improve the performance of sleep stage detection using cardiorespiratory features. A new classifier, based on conditional random fields, is used in different sleep stage detection tasks (N3, NREM, REM, and wake) in night-time recordings of electrocardiogram and respiratory inductance plethysmography of healthy subjects. Using a dataset of 342 polysomnographic recordings of healthy subjects, among which 135 with regular sleep architecture, it outperforms hidden Markov models and Bayesian linear discriminants in all tasks, achieving an average accuracy of 87.38% and kappa of 0.41 (87.27% and 0.49 for regular subjects) for N3 detection, 78.71% and 0.55 (80.34% and 0.56 for regular subjects) for NREM detection, 88.49% and 0.51 (87.35% and 0.57 for regular subjects) for REM, and 85.69% and 0.51 (90.42% and 0.52 for regular subjects) for wake. In comparison with the state of the art, and having been tested on a much larger dataset, the classifier was found to outperform most of the work reported in the literature for some of the tasks, in particular for subjects with regular sleep architecture. It achieves a comparable accuracy for N3, higher accuracy and kappa for REM, and higher accuracy and comparable kappa for NREM than the best performing classifiers described in the literature.
Assessing physical activity in persons with rheumatoid arthritis using accelerometry.

PURPOSE To investigate empirically if the nonwear threshold and the "valid day" definition for accelerometer data from the general adult US population are appropriate for accelerometer data from persons with rheumatoid arthritis (RA). METHODS This study analyzed data from 107 persons with RA participating in the baseline (2006-2008) accelerometer assessment from two studies with common inclusion/exclusion criteria. We examined candidate nonwear thresholds ranging from 20 to 300 min of zero activity count. The effect of the selected nonwear threshold is examined in regard to 1) mean daily activity counts, 2) activity counts per wear hour, 3) mean daily minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity (MVPA) according to count thresholds that occur in 10-min bouts, and 4) MVPA bout minutes per wear hour. The effect of ranging the definition of a valid day of accelerometer data from 8 h of wear time to 12 h on data retention was also examined. RESULTS In 737 d of accelerometer data analyzed, the average daily wear hours increased with length of nonwear threshold of allowed continuous zero activity count minutes. The mean number of nonzero activity count minutes increased with the chosen nonwear threshold until it stabilized at 478 min.d of activity, which corresponded to the 90-min nonwear threshold. Choosing this threshold and requiring at least 10 h of wear time to constitute a valid day were associated with 92.8% of days of collected data defined as "valid. " CONCLUSIONS Data supported increasing the allowed nonwear threshold in this RA subpopulation from 60 to 90 min, while retaining the 10-h day as the measure of the "valid day. "
A Novel 3D Embedded Gate Field Effect Transistor: Device Concept and Modelling

A novel 3D Field Effect Transistor on SOI - the screen grid FET (SGFET) $for ultra-low power applications is proposed and TCAD analysis of the device is presented. The device is designed with the aim of decoupling the need for aggressive scaling of the gate oxide thickness when reducing the channel length. Other scaling objectives are: retaining low doping in the channel, maintaining the drain conductance and optimizing the low power/low voltage device behaviour. The simulation results show that these objectives are fulfilled: oxide thickness and channel doping have a reduced influence on the threshold voltage and do not need to be scaled aggressively to reduce the short channel effects. Finally, we show that the device performance for low-power/low-voltage applications is excellent
DLC films as anti-stiction coatings for MEMS

The stiction of microstructures is still a challenging problem in spite of innovative advances in modern micromachining technology. In this paper, diamond-like carbon films were suggested as a solution for this problem. The microwave electron cyclotron resonance plasma enhanced CVD equipment has been applied to prepare the DLC films. Confocal Raman spectra confirmed the DLC characteristics of the prepared films. Water contact angle increased from <30° on oxide-coated surfaces, to >110° on DLC-coated surfaces. The adhesion force of the DLC films was as low as 3.8nN measured by AFM, whereas the adhesion force of the oxide-coated surfaces was approximately 11.2nN. The polysilicon cantilever beam arrays have been used to determine the success of DLC coating for releasing microstructures. DLC films were prepared under the polysilicon cantilever beams with the sacrificial etching technology. The beam arrays were checked with scanning electron microscope. When the DLC films presented, the average longest detachment length was approximately 145 &mgr;m. While the DLC films didn't present, the average critical detachment length was shorter than 80.m. These results indicated the stiction of polysilicon cantilever beams was effectively restrained with DLC coatings.
Kynurenic Acid in Brain and Cerebrospinal Fluid of Fetal, Newborn, and Adult Sheep and Effects of Placental Embolization

Concentrations of the endogenous glutamate receptor antagonist kynurenic acid (KA) were measured in various brain regions and in cisternal cerebrospinal fluid of fetal, newborn, and adult sheep. KA concentrations were significantly higher in the fetal brain and cerebrospinal fluid at 90 and 140 d gestation compared with postnatal ages. In fetuses of 132-139 d gestation, KA concentrations in cerebrospinal fluid collected by drainage from an indwelling cisternal catheter increased significantly after infusion of the organic acid transport inhibitor probenecid (100 or 200 mg/kg, i.v.) indicating active transport of KA out of the fetal brain. In fetuses in which the umbilical circulation had been chronically restricted from 120 to 140 d gestation by partial embolization of the placenta, plasma concentrations of the KA precursor kynurenine were significantly lower than in control fetuses, and KA concentrations in the hypothalamus and hippocampus were significantly reduced; other brain regions were not affected. These results indicate that the production of KA is higher in the fetal brain compared with the newborn and adult brain. Because KA diminishes the risk of excitotoxic neuronal damage under hypoxic-ischemic conditions, the high levels of KA in the brain before birth may have a neuroprotective function. The decrease of KA concentrations in the hypothalamus and hippocampus after umbilical embolization suggests that, after chronic hypoxia in utero, these regions of the brain may become more vulnerable to subsequent episodes of acute hypoxia or ischemia encountered in late gestation or during parturition.
Glyphosate Degradation with Industrial Wastewater Effluent by Combined Adsorption Treatment and Advanced Oxidation Processes

Disposal of total phosphorus in wastewater from glyphosate production was studied by combined adsorption treatment and advanced oxidation processes. The effect of the nano-metal/resin complexes on the result of experiment was investigated. And it is found that complex of nano-metal on the resin surface do not have obvious effect on the adsorption behavior of resin and nano-metal complexes. Taking advantage from the nano-metal/resin complexes in advanced oxidation processes, the maximum degradation rate of glyphosate was enhanced up to 60.5%.
Last-male sperm precedence in Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier): observations in laboratory mating experiments with irradiated males

Abstract The Red Palm Weevil (RPW) Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Olivier 1790) is an invasive pest from southeastern Asia and Melanesia that in the last 30 years has spread widely in the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin. Its stem-boring larvae cause great damage to several palm species of the Arecaceae family, many of which are economically important for agricultural and ornamental purposes. Therefore, great attention has recently been focused in studying this species to identify sustainable and effective eradication strategies, such as sterile insect technique (SIT). The rapid spread of RPW is associated with its high reproductive success. To evaluate the suitability of a SIT strategy, particular physiological and behavioral aspects of RPW reproduction, such as the presence of polyandry and post-copulatory sperm selection mechanisms, were investigated. To determine paternity of progeny from multiply mated females, double-crossing experiments were carried out confining individual females with either a wild-type male or a γ-irradiated male (Co-60). Fecundity and fertility of females were scored to evaluate post-copulatory sperm selection. Results showed that progeny were almost exclusively produced by the sperm of the second male, suggesting that a last-male sperm precedence is expressed at high levels in this species, and providing interesting insights for an area-wide RPW management strategy such as the SIT.
Silicon Carbide Crystal and Substrate Technology: A Survey of Recent Advances

The quest of driving SiC toward the realization of its full potential as a semiconductor material continues in many organizations world-wide. R&D and manufacturing efforts continue to address issues of scale-up of wafer size, improvements in wafer shape and surface characteristics, reduction of background impurities in bulk crystals, controlled uniformity of electrical properties, and reduction and control of crystalline defects. Significant progress has been made in several key areas. Increased manufacturing activity in the production of 3-inch diameter crystals has led to substrates with micropipes densities <30 cm -2 in n-type and <80 cm -2 in semi-insulating material, and R&D demonstrations of substrates exhibiting micropipe densities <0.5 cm -2 in n-type and <5 cm -2 in semi-insulating wafers. Developmental 100-mm diameter substrates exhibiting micropipe densities <60 cm -2 in both n-type and semi-insulating materials have now been demonstrated. Significant improvement in bulk crystal purity has been achieved with reduction of impurity concentrations below 5 x 10 15 cm -3 .