Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Visual Speech Synthesis Using a Variable-Order Switching Shared Gaussian Process Dynamical Model

In this paper, we present a novel approach to speech- driven facial animation using a non-parametric switching state space model based on Gaussian processes. The model is an extension of the shared Gaussian process dynamical model, augmented with switching states. Two talking head corpora are processed by extracting visual and audio data from the sequences followed by a parameterization of both data streams. Phonetic labels are obtained by performing forced phonetic alignment on the audio. The switching states are found using a variable length Markov model trained on the labelled phonetic data. The audio and visual data corresponding to phonemes matching each switching state are extracted and modelled together using a shared Gaussian process dynamical model. We propose a synthesis method that takes into account both previous and future phonetic context, thus accounting for forward and backward coarticulation in speech. Both objective and subjective evaluation results are presented. The quantitative results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms other state-of-the-art methods in visual speech synthesis and the qualitative results reveal that the synthetic videos are comparable to ground truth in terms of visual perception and intelligibility.
Analysis of mobile phone data under a cloud computing framework

With the increasing amount of information, the percentage of processed large-scale heterogeneous data is rapidly growing. Take mobile phones as an example. Due to their various sensors, high presence among people, and cost-effectiveness, they are becoming very popular. This has made it easy to obtain users' contextual data whose collection can be valuable in engineering and business domains, e.g., transportation, location-based services, and advertisement industry. The data volume generated by mobile phones and the need to analyze the information near the real-time are the challenges facing researchers. Recently, big data has attracted much attention from academia, industry as well as government. There is a strong need for new technologies, e.g., frameworks based on cloud computing, that could not only process and analyze a large volume of data, but also ingest a large volume of data at a fast pace. In this paper, we propose to use a dynamic data analysis framework to explore and analyze mobile phone data. After preprocessing the dataset consisting of cell phone communication records, this paper presents an interactive exploratory spatial data analysis algorithm and its analysis results.
Why Quantum Strategies Are Quantum Mechanical

The relevance of classical models for quantum systems depends upon the use to which they are put. In the modern context of quantum information processing, models must scale with the number of qubits, and be dynamical. Thus, despite the fact that there is a classical model for a single qubit, since it fails to scale, winning strategies in PQ PENNY FLIP are quantum mechanical in exactly the way quantum algorithms are. 1998 Physics and Astronomy Classi cation Scheme: 03.67. Lx, 03.67. -a, 02.50. Le. American Mathematical Society Subject Classi cation: 81P15, 90D05. Journal of Economic Literature Classi cation System: C72.
In vivo Studies on the Protective Effect of Propolis on Doxorubicin-Induced Toxicity in Liver of Male Rats

Objective: Since anticancer drugs are to be administered for long durations of time and are associated with systemic toxicities, the present studies were conducted to evaluate the protective potential of honey bee propolis against a widely used anticancer drug, doxorubicin (DXR) induced toxicity and oxidative damage in liver tissues of rats. Materials and Methods: Sixteen male Sprague Dawley rats, weighing between 200-220 g, were used and were divided into four equal groups. Propolis was given orally to rats [250 mg/kg body weight (bw) for 14 consecutive days] and DXR [25 mg/kg bw; intraperitoneally (i.p) was administered on 12 th , 13 th and 14 th day of the experiment. All the animals were sacrificed on day 15 th day by decapitation. Blood and tissue samples were collected for measurement of toxicity and oxidative damage parameters (enzymatic assays and biochemical estimations). Results: Administration of DXR for 3 days at a cumulative dose of 25 mg/kg bw, induced toxicity and oxidative stress in rats as significantly decreased activity of catalase (CAT), superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione-S-transferase (GST), glutathione peroxidase (GSH-Px) and glutathione reductase (GR) were observed in rat liver supernatants when compared to control group. Increased activity of serum glutamic pyruvic transaminase (SGPT) and serum glutamic oxaloacetic transaminase (SGOT) was obtained in DXR administered rats. Also there are significantly increased levels of lipid peroxides (measured as malondialdehyde formation) and significantly decreased level of glutathione (GSH) in doxorubicin treated rat liver supernatants as compared to healthy controls. On the other hand, administration of animals with propolis prior to DXR treatment led to significant modulation of the oxidative damage related parameters in liver and hepatotoxicity parameters in blood, when compared to doxorubicin treated group. However results were still not comparable to control group or only propolis group indicating partial protection by propolis at the concentration used against anticancer drug toxicity. Conclusion: Propolis extract was found to have a protective effect against doxorubicin-induced toxicity in rat liver though it was still not normalized. It can be concluded that propolis provides partial protection from toxicity of anticancer drug.
Robust Algorithms for a Multimodal Biometric System Using Palmprint and Speech

Abstract In this paper, we propose a person verification scheme using a novel combination of palmprint and speech. The crucial aspect of biometric based verification lies in its use of features in verification. Thus, in this paper, we propose two novel feature extraction methods for palmprint verification. The proposed methods are based on the Gaussian mixture model followed by subspace based approaches such as ICA I and ICA II, called independent component analysis I mixture model (ICA I MM) and independent component analysis II mixture model (ICA II MM) for palmprint verification. The speech verification system uses sphericity based measurement for person verification. The proposed multimodal biometric system uses a fairly large database of 150 users. The robustness of the proposed methods is validated by introducing six different types of noises on palmprint images and Gaussian white noise with two different signal-to-noise ratios on speech samples. Then, fusion of palmprint and speech are carried out at match score level using the weighted SUM rule for both clean and noisy conditions. Finally, we compare the results of combined biometric with the results of individual biometric and also the results of the proposed methods against conventional (without mixture model) subspace methods.
The Multiple LIM Domain-Containing Adaptor Protein Hic-5 Synaptically Colocalizes and Interacts with the Dopamine Transporter

The Na+/Cl−-dependent dopamine transporter (DAT) is critical in terminating dopaminergic transmission by removing the transmitter away from the synapse. Several lines of evidence suggest that transporter-interacting proteins may play a role in DAT function and regulation. In this report, using the yeast two-hybrid system, we have identified a novel interaction between DAT and the multiple Lin-11, Isl-1, and Mec-3 (LIM) domain-containing adaptor protein Hic-5. This association involves the N-terminal portion of the intracellular tail of DAT and the LIM region of Hic-5. In human embryonic kidney 293 cells, Hic-5 colocalizes with DAT at polarized sites and reduces DAT uptake activity through a mechanism involving a decrease in the cell-surface levels of the transporter. A fragment of Hic-5 containing the LIM domains is sufficient to bind DAT but lacks the ability to inhibit transporter activity. In addition, the LIM fragment prevents the effect of the full-length Hic-5 on DAT localization and function. In the brain, Hic-5 protein is expressed in the cerebral cortex, hippocampus, hypothalamus, cerebellum, and striatum, suggesting a role for this protein in the nervous system. The association of the endogenous Hic-5 and DAT proteins was confirmed biochemically by coimmunoprecipitation from brain striatal extracts. Moreover, immunostaining of rat midbrain neurons in culture revealed a presynaptic colocalization of Hic-5 and DAT. Because Hic-5 has been shown to interact with several signaling molecules, including the nonreceptor protein tyrosine kinases focal adhesion kinase and Fyn, this raises the possibility that this adaptor protein may link DAT to intracellular signaling pathways.
Review and historical overview of experimental facilities used in hull coating hydrodynamic tests

The prediction of hydrodynamic performance of hull coatings with different surface conditions is a challenging task. Moreover, with the emergence of new prototype coatings that are relatively smooth in terms of roughness characteristics, the accurate estimation of their drag is particularly important, as this will enable a good grading of drag reducing benefits of coatings. In the context of coating studies, the experimental methods are considered as the backbone and results obtained from experimental facilities with the required performance will enable accurate scaling of test results to full-scale ship results. Although numerical simulations like computational fluid dynamics have acquired the level of accuracy good enough to replace some of the systematic model testing used for ship design optimization, it is still not evident whether the simulations will be able to replicate the physical reality such as coating type, its roughness and biofilms accurate enough to enable predictions of the power requirements for ships. Therefore, this article gives insight into various coating hydrodynamic testing facilities and methods that are capable of measuring drag characteristics of coatings. The work highlights the details of each method and identifies the concepts and parameters needed to describe, implement and analyze hydrodynamic coating drag measurements. This article also summarizes the merits and demerits of each type of facility based on reports and studies reported in open literature. Finally, the authors propose a recommendation that can be incorporated into the design of the new hydrodynamic facility.
Identification of proteins secreted by head and neck cancer cell lines using LC‐MS/MS: Strategy for discovery of candidate serological biomarkers

In search of blood‐based biomarkers that would enhance the ability to diagnose head and neck/oral squamous cell carcinoma (HNOSCC) in early stages or predict its prognosis, we analyzed the HNOSCC secretome (ensemble of proteins secreted and/or shed from the tumor cells) for potential biomarkers using proteomic technologies. LC‐MS/MS was used to identify proteins in the conditioned media of four HNOSCC cell lines (SCC4, HSC2, SCC38, and AMOSIII); 140 unique proteins were identified on the basis of 5% global false discovery rate, 122 of which were secretory proteins, with 29 being previously reported to be overexpressed in HNOSCC in comparison to normal head and neck tissues. Of these, five proteins including α‐enolase, peptidyl prolyl isomerase A/cyclophilin A, 14‐3‐3 ζ, heterogeneous ribonucleoprotein K, and 14‐3‐3 σ were detected in the sera of HNOSCC patients by Western blot analysis. Our study provides the evidence that analysis of head and neck cancer cells' secretome is a viable strategy for identifying candidate serological biomarkers for HNOSCC. In future, these biomarkers may be useful in predicting the likelihood of transformation of oral pre‐malignant lesions, prognosis of HNOSCC patients and evaluate response to therapy using minimally invasive tests.
A high resolution SPECT detector based on thin continuous LYSO

Single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) detectors with improved spatial resolution can be used to build multi-pinhole SPECT systems that have a higher sensitivity or a higher spatial resolution. In order to improve the spatial resolution we investigate the performance of a 2 mm thick continuous Lutetium Yttrium Orthosilicate (LYSO) scintillator and compare it to the performance of a 5 mm thick continuous NaI(Tl) scintillator. The advantages of LYSO are its high stopping power and its non-hygroscopicity. Drawbacks are the lower light output and the intrinsic radioactivity. The hypothesis of this study is that such a thin LYSO scintillator will have a small light spread and, as a consequence, will also have an improved spatial resolution when coupled to a Hamamatsu H8500 position sensitive photomultiplier tube. To optimize the spatial resolution and the useful detector area we used a mean nearest neighbor event-positioning method. Beam source measurements (99mTc, 140 keV) were done to investigate the energy resolution and the spatial resolution of both detectors. The effect of the intrinsic radioactivity of the LYSO scintillator in the energy window was quantified. The mean energy resolution is 9.3% for the NaI(Tl) scintillator and 21.3% for the LYSO scintillator. The LYSO spectrum shows an X-ray escape peak which decreases the detection efficiency with 9.1%. The spatial resolution of the LYSO detector (0.93 mm full width at half maximum (FWHM)) is superior to the spatial resolution of the NaI(Tl) detector (1.37 mm FWHM). The intrinsic radioactivity in the energy window (42% window centered at 140 keV) is low (125.6 cps, 0.024 cps mm−3). LYSO is a promising scintillator for small-animal SPECT imaging, where spatial resolution is more important than energy resolution.
Approximation algorithms for scheduling parallel machines with capacity constraints ∗

In this paper, we consider the classical scheduling problem on parallel machines with capacity constraints. We are given m identical machines, where each machine k can process up to ck jobs. The goal is to assign the n ≤ ∑m k=1 ck independent jobs on the machines subject to the capacity constraints such that the makespan is minimized. This problem is a generalization of the c-partition problem where ck = c for each machine. The c-partition problem is strongly NP-hard for c ≥ 3 and the best known approximation algorithm of which has a performance ratio of 4/3 due to Babel et al.[2]. For the general problem where machines could have different capacities, the best known result is a 1.5-approximation algorithm with running time O(n log n+mn) [13]. In this paper, we improve the previous result substantially by establishing an efficient polynomial time approximation scheme (EPTAS) whose running time is 2 2 log2(1/ ) log log(1/ )) + O(n log n log log n). The key idea is to establish a non-standard ILP (Integer Linear Programming) formulation for the scheduling problem, where a set of crucial constraints (called proportional constraints) is introduced. Such constraints, along with a greedy rounding technique, allow us to derive an integer solution from a relaxed fractional one without violating constraints.
Cannabis Mobile Apps: A Content Analysis

Background Mobile technology is pervasive and widely used to obtain information about drugs such as cannabis, especially in a climate of rapidly changing cannabis policy; yet the content of available cannabis apps is largely unknown. Understanding the resources available to those searching for cannabis apps will clarify how this technology is being used to reflect and influence cannabis use behavior. Objective We investigated the content of 59 cannabis-related mobile apps for Apple and Android devices as of November 26, 2014. Methods The Apple and Google Play app stores were searched using the terms “cannabis” and “marijuana. ” Three trained coders classified the top 20 apps for each term and each store, using a coding guide. Apps were examined for the presence of 20 content codes derived by the researchers. Results Total apps available for each search term were 124 for cannabis and 218 for marijuana in the Apple App Store, and 250 each for cannabis and marijuana on Google Play. The top 20 apps in each category in each store were coded for 59 independent apps (30 Apple, 29 Google Play). The three most common content areas were cannabis strain classification (33.9%), facts about cannabis (20.3%), and games (20.3%). In the Apple App Store, most apps were free (77%), all were rated “17+” years, and the average user rating was 3.9/5 stars. The most popular apps provided cannabis strain classifications (50%), dispensary information (27%), or general facts about cannabis (27%). Only one app (3%) provided information or resources related to cannabis abuse, addiction, or treatment. On Google Play, most apps were free (93%), rated “high maturity” (79%), and the average user rating was 4.1/5. The most popular app types offered games (28%), phone utilities (eg, wallpaper, clock; 21%) and cannabis food recipes (21%); no apps addressed abuse, addiction, or treatment. Conclusions Cannabis apps are generally free and highly rated. Apps were most often informational (facts, strain classification), or recreational (games), likely reflecting and influencing the growing acceptance of cannabis for medical and recreational purposes. Apps addressing addiction or cessation were underrepresented in the most popular cannabis mobile apps. Differences among apps for Apple and Android platforms likely reflect differences in the population of users, developer choice, and platform regulations.
Statistical procedures for determining the extent of cognitive change following concussion

Neuropsychological (NP) testing is now often used to help to determine if the cognitive function of a concussed athlete has declined. The NP test score after concussion is compared with the baseline test score. Many clinicians simply subtract one from the other and make a clinical decision about the significance or otherwise of the resulting “difference score”. Such techniques are inadequate, as they fail to account for the many factors that may confound interpretation of serially acquired cognitive test scores. This is a review of a number of alternative approaches used in other areas of medicine for differentiating “true” changes from changes caused by these confounding factors. A case example is used to illustrate the effect that the statistical approach may have on clinical decision making.
Lipid‐soluble fraction of Shakuyaku‐kanzo‐to inhibits myometrial contraction in pregnant women

Shakuyaku‐kanzo‐to, a Kampo medicine composed equally of shakuyaku and kanzo, is an antispasmodic drug that can inhibit contraction of uterine smooth muscles in pregnant women and rats. We aimed to test the inhibitory effects of water‐ and lipid‐soluble extracts of shakuyaku‐kanzo‐to, shakuyaku, and kanzo in order to identify the fraction responsible for inhibiting uterine smooth muscle contraction in pregnancy.
Visualization of the Oropharynx With Transcervical Ultrasound.

OBJECTIVE The purposes of this article are to illustrate the sonographic appearance of the oropharynx and to discuss the potential role of ultrasound in evaluation of the oropharynx. CONCLUSION Ultrasound is not currently used in the standard clinical evaluation of the oropharynx, but it is a promising imaging modality for evaluating the base of the tongue and the palatine tonsils. Ultrasound is comparable and complementary to CT and MRI, which have recognized limitations.
Efficient Retrieval of Complex Objects: Query Processing in a Hybrid DB and IR System

Information retrieval systems are currently being developed to represent and manipulate com plex multimedia objects. Such objects contain two types of components, i. tructured compo nents (e.g. of the type integer , real, fixed-length string, etc.), and unstructured components (e.g. text, images, sounds). Relational database systems (RDBS) are often used to store structured data and retrieve it via exact matching, while unstructured data is or ganized into inverted files, and accessed by Information storage and Retrieval Systems (IRS), utilizing indeterminate matching. The difficulty is how to fill the gap between the RDBs and inverted files, as well as the gap be tween the RDBMSs and IRSs based on inverted files. W e describe an approach to integrating the two types of systems and the two dif ferent types of data.
Calorimetric Study with Uncertainty Analysis to Investigate the Precipitation Kinetics in a Nanostructured Al Composite

Nanostructured Al–Zn–Mg–Cu alloy and boron carbide/Al–Zn–Mg–Cu composite powders are fabricated through cryomilling. η'‐MgZn2 precipitation in each material is characterized through differential scanning calorimetry. The activation energy of η' precipitation is derived through Kissinger analysis. The addition of boron carbide to nanostructured Al–Zn–Mg–Cu powder increases the onset and peak temperatures of η' precipitation, but do not significantly affect the activation energy. Further analysis of uncertainties in measurement indicates that weighted least squares linear regression is a more reliable method that supplements the use of differential scanning calorimetry as a method for rapid characterization of precipitation in materials.
The Role of the Microbiome of Truffles in Aroma Formation: a Meta-Analysis Approach

ABSTRACT Truffles (Tuber spp.) are ascomycete subterraneous fungi that form ectomycorrhizas in a symbiotic relationship with plant roots. Their fruiting bodies are appreciated for their distinctive aroma, which might be partially derived from microbes. Indeed, truffle fruiting bodies are colonized by a diverse microbial community made up of bacteria, yeasts, guest filamentous fungi, and viruses. The aim of this minireview is two-fold. First, the current knowledge on the microbial community composition of truffles has been synthesized to highlight similarities and differences among four truffle (Tuber) species (T. magnatum, T. melanosporum, T. aestivum, and T. borchii) at various stages of their life cycle. Second, the potential role of the microbiome in truffle aroma formation has been addressed for the same four species. Our results suggest that on one hand, odorants, which are common to many truffle species, might be of mixed truffle and microbial origin, while on the other hand, less common odorants might be derived from microbes only. They also highlight that bacteria, the dominant group in the microbiome of the truffle, might also be the most important contributors to truffle aroma not only in T. borchii, as already demonstrated, but also in T. magnatum, T. aestivum, and T. melanosporum.