Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speech enhancement using a minimum mean square error short-time spectral amplitude estimator

Absstroct-This paper focuses on the class of speech enhancement systems which capitalize on the major importance of the short-time spectral amplitude (STSA) of the speech signal in its perception. A system which utilizes a minimum mean-square error (MMSE) STSA estimator is proposed and then compared with other widely used systems which are based on Wiener filtering and the " spectral subtraction " algorithm. In this paper we derive the MMSE STSA estimator, based on modeling speech and noise spectral components as statistically independent Gaussian random variables. We analyze the performance of the proposed STSA estimator and compare it with a STSA estimator derived from the Wiener estimator. We also examine the MMSE STSA estimator under uncertainty of signal presence in the noisy observations. In constructing the enhanced signal, the MMSE STSA estimator is combined with the complex exponential of the noisy phase. It is shown here that the latter is the MMSE estimator of the complex exponential of the original phase, which does not affect the STSA estimation. The proposed approach results in a significant reduction of the noise, and provides enhanced speech with colorless residual noise. The complexity of the proposed algorithm is approximately that of other systems in the discussed class.
3D Alternating Direction TV-Based Cone-Beam CT Reconstruction with Efficient GPU Implementation

Iterative image reconstruction (IIR) with sparsity-exploiting methods, such as total variation (TV) minimization, claims potentially large reductions in sampling requirements. However, the computation complexity becomes a heavy burden, especially in 3D reconstruction situations. In order to improve the performance for iterative reconstruction, an efficient IIR algorithm for cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) with GPU implementation has been proposed in this paper. In the first place, an algorithm based on alternating direction total variation using local linearization and proximity technique is proposed for CBCT reconstruction. The applied proximal technique avoids the horrible pseudoinverse computation of big matrix which makes the proposed algorithm applicable and efficient for CBCT imaging. The iteration for this algorithm is simple but convergent. The simulation and real CT data reconstruction results indicate that the proposed algorithm is both fast and accurate. The GPU implementation shows an excellent acceleration ratio of more than 100 compared with CPU computation without losing numerical accuracy. The runtime for the new 3D algorithm is about 6.8 seconds per loop with the image size of 256 × 256 × 256 and 36 projections of the size of 512 × 512.
Localization and Control of Expression of VEGF-A and the VEGFR-2 Receptor in Fetal Sheep Intestines

We studied expression of vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGF-A) and its main receptor, VEGFR-2, in the small intestine from five groups of fetal sheep (each n = 5): 1) preterm controls, 2) term controls, 3) preterm animals where the fetus was infused with cortisol, or 4) saline, and 5) term animals where adrenalectomy had been performed preterm. The main transcript expressed in fetal small intestine was VEGF-A165. Comparing term with preterm animals, there were significantly higher levels of expression of VEGF-A protein (p = 0.005). Levels of VEGF-A protein expression were lower in term adrenalectomized animals (p = 0.01) and were higher in preterm animals infused with cortisol (p = 0.01), compared with their respective control groups. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated strongest expression of VEGF-A protein in the epithelial cells and lamina propria of the villi. Intestinal expression of mRNA encoding the VEGFR-2 receptor did not significantly vary with gestational age. In situ hybridization localized VEGFR-2 to the lamina propria of the villous core and receptor autoradiography using 125I VEGF-A demonstrated binding in the same site. These data show that intestinal VEGF-A is up-regulated with advancing gestation in a glucocorticoid-dependent manner—novel findings consistent with a role for VEGF-A stimulated angiogenesis in preparing the fetal gut for birth.
Stress, satisfaction and resilience: the psychological aspects of life for elders in a Chinese setting

Little research to date has focused on personal accounts of psychological aspects of the aging process of elders and their relationship with adult-children in an urban Chinese setting. The present study aimed to explore such aspects in Chinese elders. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 3 varied samples of elders (aged 70 to 87), with those living with their family (study 1), those in a residential setting (study 2) and those in a sheltered community (study 3). Grounded Theory, was used as the method for data collection and analysis, and in addition to the interviews, focus groups and a written account also provided data. The overarching theme of “family communication” was highlighted in the studies, reflecting the central position of participants’ concerns with their relationship with adult-children, and their understanding of their roles in the family. The variety of responses seemed to be connected with whether the person was self-reliant or dependant as well as with individual personality. The study’s findings suggest that this small sample of older people in a large urban city in China generally live closely with their families and take great pride in retaining their independence and supporting families and friends.
A widespread bacteriophage abortive infection system functions through a Type IV toxin–antitoxin mechanism

Bacterial abortive infection (Abi) systems are ‘altruistic’ cell death systems that are activated by phage infection and limit viral replication, thereby providing protection to the bacterial population. Here, we have used a novel approach of screening Abi systems as a tool to identify and characterize toxin–antitoxin (TA)-acting Abi systems. We show that AbiE systems are encoded by bicistronic operons and function via a non-interacting (Type IV) bacteriostatic TA mechanism. The abiE operon was negatively autoregulated by the antitoxin, AbiEi, a member of a widespread family of putative transcriptional regulators. AbiEi has an N-terminal winged-helix-turn-helix domain that is required for repression of abiE transcription, and an uncharacterized bi-functional C-terminal domain, which is necessary for transcriptional repression and sufficient for toxin neutralization. The cognate toxin, AbiEii, is a predicted nucleotidyltransferase (NTase) and member of the DNA polymerase β family. AbiEii specifically bound GTP, and mutations in conserved NTase motifs (I-III) and a newly identified motif (IV), abolished GTP binding and subsequent toxicity. The AbiE systems can provide phage resistance and enable stabilization of mobile genetic elements, such as plasmids. Our study reveals molecular insights into the regulation and function of the widespread bi-functional AbiE Abi-TA systems and the biochemical properties of both toxin and antitoxin proteins.
Parallel approximate steady-state analysis of large probabilistic Boolean networks

Probabilistic Boolean networks (PBNs) is a widely used computational framework for modelling biological systems. The steady-state dynamics of PBNs is of special interest in the analysis of biological machinery. However, obtaining the steady-state distributions for such systems poses a significant challenge due to the state space explosion problem which arises in the case of large PBNs. The only viable way is to use statistical methods. In the literature, the two-state Markov chain approach and the Skart method have been proposed for the analysis of large PBNs. However, the sample size required by both methods is often huge in the case of large PBNs and generating them is expensive in terms of computation time. Parallelising the sample generation is an ideal way to solve this issue. In this paper, we consider combining the Gelman & Rubin method with either the two-state Markov chain approach or the Skart method for parallelisation. The first method can be used to run multiple independent Markov chains in parallel and to control their convergence to the steady-state while the other two methods can be used to determine the sample size required for computing the steady-state probability of states of interest. Experimental results show that our proposed combinations can reduce time cost of computing stead-state probabilities of large PBNs significantly.
Callous-unemotional traits and empathy deficits: Mediating effects of affective perspective-taking and facial emotion recognition

Although empathy deficits are thought to be associated with callous-unemotional (CU) traits, findings remain equivocal and little is known about what specific abilities may underlie these purported deficits. Affective perspective-taking (APT) and facial emotion recognition may be implicated, given their independent associations with both empathy and CU traits. The current study examined how CU traits relate to cognitive and affective empathy and whether APT and facial emotion recognition mediate these relations. Participants were 103 adolescents (70 males) aged 16–18 attending a residential programme. CU traits were negatively associated with cognitive and affective empathy to a similar degree. The association between CU traits and affective empathy was partially mediated by APT. Results suggest that assessing mechanisms that may underlie empathic deficits, such as perspective-taking, may be important for youth with CU traits and may inform targets of intervention.
Extracting Melody Lines From Complex Audio

We propose a system which extracts the melody line played by a solo instrument from complex audio. At every time frame multiple fundamental frequency (F0) hypotheses are generated, and later processing uses various knowledge sources to choose the most likely succession of F0s. Knowledge sources include an instrument recognition module and temporal knowledge about tone durations and interval transitions, which are integrated in a probabilistic search. The proposed system improved the number of frames with correct F0 estimates by 14% compared to a baseline system which simply uses the strongest F0 at every point in time. The number of spurious tones was reduced to nearly a third compared to the baseline system, resulting in significantly smoother melody lines.
Rapid phosphorylation of histone H2A.X following ionotropic glutamate receptor activation

Excessive activation of ionotropic glutamate receptors increases oxidative stress, contributing to the neuronal death observed following neurological insults such as ischemia and seizures. Post‐translational histone modifications may be key mediators in the detection and repair of damage resulting from oxidative stress, including DNA damage, and may thus affect neuronal survival in the aftermath of insults characterized by excessive glutamate release. In non‐neuronal cells, phosphorylation of histone variant H2A.X (termed γ‐H2AX) occurs rapidly following DNA double‐strand breaks. We investigated γ‐H2AX formation in rat cortical neurons (days in vitro 14) following activation of N‐methyl‐d‐aspartate (NMDA) or α‐amino‐3‐hydroxyl‐5‐methyl‐4‐isoxazolepropionic acid (AMPA)/kainate glutamate receptors using fluorescent immunohistochemical techniques. Moreover, we evaluated the co‐localization of γ‐H2AX ‘foci’ with Mre11, a double‐strand break repair protein, to provide further evidence for the activation of this DNA damage response pathway. Here we show that minimally cytotoxic stimulation of ionotropic glutamate receptors was sufficient to evoke γ‐H2AX in neurons, and that NMDA‐induced γ‐H2AX foci formation was attenuated by pretreatment with the antioxidant, Vitamin E, and the intracellular calcium chelator, BAPTA‐AM. Moreover, a subset of γ‐H2AX foci co‐localized with Mre11, indicating that at least a portion of γ‐H2AX foci is damage dependent. The extent of γ‐H2AX induction following glutamate receptor activation corresponded to the increases we observed following conventional DNA damaging agents [i.e. non‐lethal doses of gamma‐radiation (1 Gy) and hydrogen peroxide (10 µm)]. These data suggest that insults not necessarily resulting in neuronal death induce the DNA damage‐evoked chromatin modification, γ‐H2AX, and implicate a role for histone alterations in determining neuronal vulnerability following neurological insults.
An anticipatory approach to improve XCSF

XCSF is a novel version of learning classifier systems (LCS) which extends the typical concept of LCS by introducing computable classifier prediction. In XCSF Classifier prediction is computed as a linear combination of classifier inputs and a weight vector associated to each classifier. Learning process takes place using a weight update mechanism. Initial results show that XCSF can be used to evolve accurate approximations of some functions. In this paper, we try to add an anticipatory component to XCSF improving its performance.
Molecular cytogenetic investigations of synchronous bilateral breast cancer

Background: Bilaterality in breast cancer is a rare event and together with an early onset of disease points towards inheritance of the disease. However, most cases seem to occur sporadically, either in a synchronous or metachronous manner. Methods: Thirty two invasive carcinomas and one in situ carcinoma from 16 patients with synchronous, bilateral breast cancer were investigated by means of comparative genomic hybridisation (CGH) and polymerase chain reaction based multiplex microsatellite analysis. The results were analysed conventionally and were also subjected to a biomathematical cluster analysis. Results: On average, bilateral breast cancer cases showed a low number of genetic alterations, a low frequency of genetic amplifications, and a high rate of chromosomal 16q losses. A distinct, characteristic genetic alteration associated with bilateral breast disease could not be found. Although two tumour pairs appeared to be related using biomathematical processing for microsatellite analysis, this result was reproduced by CGH data processing in one patient only. Conclusions: Most synchronous, bilateral breast cancer cases seem to represent independent tumours rather than metastatic events. Nevertheless, the possibility of a specific susceptibility remains.
An Application of Machine Learning to Anomaly Detection

The anomaly detection problem has been widely studied in the computer security literature. In this paper we present a machine learning approach to anomaly detection. Our system builds user profiles based on command sequences and compares current input sequences to the profile using a similarity measure. The system must learn to classify current behavior as consistent or anomalous with past behavior using only positive examples of the account's valid user. Our empirical results demonstrate that this is a promising approach to distinguishing the legitamate user from an intruder.
Factor XIIa inhibition by Infestin-4: in vitro mode of action and in vivo antithrombotic benefit

Summary Coagulation factor XII (FXII) plays a central role in initiating the intrinsic cascade of blood coagulation. Purified recombinant Human Albumin- tagged Infestin-4 (rHA-Infestin-4) is a recently described FXIIa inhibitor that displayed strong anticoagulant activity without compromising haemostasis in several animal models. We pursued detailed in vitro characterisation of rHA-Infestin-4 and demonstrated that it is a competitive inhibitor of FXIIa with slow on and off rate constants for binding (kon =5x105 M-1s-1, koff =6x10–4 s-1), it can block FXIIa activation of its physiological substrates (plasma prekallikrein and FXI), and it can inhibit ellagic acid-triggered thrombin generation in plasma. Potency and selectivity profiling in enzyme assays suggest that rHAInfestin- 4 is indeed highly potent on FXIIa (IC50=0.3 ± 0.06, 1.5 ± 0.06, 1.2 ± 0.09 nM, for human, rat, and rabbit FXIIa, respectively) with at least >100-fold selectivity against factors IIa, Xa, IXa, XIa, VIIa, and plasma kallikrein in all three species. rHA-Infestin-4 dose-dependently and markedly reduced clot weight in the arteriovenous shunt thrombosis model in rats and rabbits, accompanied with minimal increase in cuticle bleeding times in either species. rHA-Infestin-4 treatment at 5 mg/kg in rabbit resulted in a 13% reduction in ex vivo FXa activity, demonstrating a modest off-target effect. In summary, our findings confirmed and extended previous reports that inhibition of FXIIa by rHA-Infestin-4 can produce strong antithrombotic efficacy while preserving haemostasis. Our comprehensive selectivity profiling, mode of action, and kinetic studies of rHA-Infestin-4 reveal limitations of this molecule and offer new perspectives on any potential effort of discovering novel FXIIa inhibitors.
Applying scattering operators for face recognition: A comparative study

Face identification is the problem of determining whether two face images depict the same person or not. This is difficult due to variations in scale, pose, lighting, background, expression, hairstyle, and glasses. Thus, a powerful feature descriptor with local-deformation tolerance ability and discriminating capability is essential to fulfill all these variations. In this paper, we present a local descriptor, scattering operator, which includes multi-scale and multi-direction co-occurrence information. It is computed with a cascade of wavelet decompositions and complex modulus. This scattering representation is locally translation invariant and can linearize deformations. We evaluate the abilities of this Gabor-based scattering operator by an effective face recognition paradigm and show that this descriptor outperforms the compared descriptors.
A novel method to calculate the mechanical properties of cancer cells based on atomic force microscopy.

PURPOSE Mechanical properties, as the inherent characteristics of cells, play a critical role in many essential physiological processes, including cell differentiation, migration, and growth. The mechanical properties of cells are one of the criteria that help to determine whether the tissue contains lesions at the single cell level, and it is very important for the early prevention and accurate diagnosis of diseases. Atomic force microscopy (AFM) makes it possible to measure the mechanical properties at single cell level in physiological state. This paper presents a novel method to calculate the mechanical properties of cancer cells more accurately through Atomic force microscopy. METHODS A new induced equation of Hertz's model, called differential Hertz's model, has been proposed to calculate the mechanical properties of cancer cells. Moreover, the substrate effect has also been effectively reduced through comparing the calculated mechanical properties of cell at different cell surface areas. RESULTS The results indicate that the method utilized to calculate the mechanical properties of cells can effectively eliminate the errors in calculation, caused by the thermal drift of AFM system and the substrate effect, and thus improve the calculation accuracy. CONCLUSION The mechanical properties calculated by our method in this study are closer to the actual value. Thus, this method shows potential for use in establishing a standard library of Young's modulus.
Title: Automated Test Case Generation for Code Generators Based on Graph-transformation Rules

In automotive software development models are the central artefact within the whole development process (model-based development). The new technology of automatic code generation closes the gap between the software design on the base of a model (executable specification) and its implementation (controller code). This paper shows how to test formally specified code generators and gives guidance in test case determination for specific code generator transformation rules.
The Effects of Guided Imagery on Heart Rate Variability in Simulated Spaceflight Emergency Tasks Performers

Objectives. The present study aimed to investigate the effects of guided imagery training on heart rate variability in individuals while performing spaceflight emergency tasks. Materials and Methods. Twenty-one student subjects were recruited for the experiment and randomly divided into two groups: imagery group (n = 11) and control group (n = 10). The imagery group received instructor-guided imagery (session 1) and self-guided imagery training (session 2) consecutively, while the control group only received conventional training. Electrocardiograms of the subjects were recorded during their performance of nine spaceflight emergency tasks after imagery training. Results. In both of the sessions, the root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), the standard deviation of all normal NN (SDNN), the proportion of NN50 divided by the total number of NNs (PNN50), the very low frequency (VLF), the low frequency (LF), the high frequency (HF), and the total power (TP) in the imagery group were significantly higher than those in the control group. Moreover, LF/HF of the subjects after instructor-guided imagery training was lower than that after self-guided imagery training. Conclusions. Guided imagery was an effective regulator for HRV indices and could be a potential stress countermeasure in performing spaceflight tasks.
Human Responsibility for Autonomous Agents

Automated or autonomous systems can sometimes fail harmlessly, but they can also destroy data, compromise privacy, and consume resources, such as bandwidth or server capacity. What's more troubling is that automated systems embedded in vital systems can cause financial losses, destruction of property, and loss of life. Controlling these dangers will increase trust while enabling broader use of these systems with higher degrees of safety. Obvious threats stem from design errors and software bugs, but we can't overlook mistaken assumptions by designers, unanticipated actions by humans, and interference from other computerized systems. This article is part of a special issue on Interacting with Autonomy.
1 In vitro evaluation of a novel non-mulberry silk scaffold for use in tendon regeneration

1 Department of Medicine, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand 2 School of Biological Sciences, The University of Auckland, Auckland 1142, New Zealand 3 Maurice Wilkins Centre, University of Auckland, Private Bag 92014, Auckland, New Zealand 4 Oxford Biomaterials Ltd, Magdalen Centre, Oxford Science Park, Oxford OX4 4GA, UK 5 Department of Orthopaedics, Middlemore Hospital, Private Bag 93311, Auckland, New Zealand
Automatic quality measurement for health information on the internet

The internet has been a main source from which healthcare consumers get health information. Quality of the health information is thus essential, since improper health information may cause serious damage to human life. However measurement of the quality is challenging since the quality is correlated with many factors that are difficult to quantitatively measure and integrate. In this paper, we propose a technique SPA to measure the quality of the health information in any given webpage. SPA employs a quality indicator, named health information concentration, which is defined to be the amount of different health terms in the largest passage that mainly contains those terms that are correlated to health. Experiments on thousands of real-world web pages are conducted to evaluate SPA. The results show that SPA can rank high those web pages that are judged to be high-quality by ethical quality standards and readers' credibility perceptions. SPA can thus work with search engines to help healthcare consumers to access both quality and relevant passages for specific health information needs.