Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Topics and Spoken Language Recognition

This paper concerns the use of discourse information in spoken dialogue systems, and argues that knowledge of the domain, modelled with the help of topic trees, is important in improving the recognition accuracy of spoken utterances. The use of discourse information in spoken language systems is usually motivated by arguments concerning the system's robustness: (1) support for speech recognition and (2) providing necessary context for higher level dialogue management. Previous research has taken discourse information into account mainly in the form of speech acts [8, 10, 7], which seem to provide a suitable basis for dialogue models: they have been widely studied, and dealing with the speaker's intentions, they can be considered domain-independent. However, speakers do not only produce intentionally linked utterances: they also aim at maintaining thematic coherence. Thus knowledge of the information focus of the utterances is important too. In practical applications (information providing systems, speech-to-speech translation, etc), analysis of the semantic content of the utterances, even if the aim is a shallow analysis only, is required, and knowledge of what is talked about can be used for disambiguation and as an approximation of the content. Recently interest has thus shifted to the information content of the utterances. In the JANUSsystem [5], translation is guided by Semantic Dialogue Units, semantically coherent pieces of information, while [9] report that the Jumping Context approach, which uses syntactic and semantic information of the input utterance, gives consistently better accuracy results than approaches relying strictly on act sequences. [4] present preliminary results of using topic information in spoken language systems. Our goal is to to combine the speaker's intentions with the semantic focus of the utterance and study how speech recognition can be improved by taking the information content of the utterances into account. The most pertinent task in this is the recognition of dialogue topics, which encode what is being talked about in the dialogue. In the rest of the paper we describe a topic model for spoken dialogue systems and present results of assigning topics to utterances using the PredictSupport Algorithm.
Guinea pig immune response-related histocompatibility antigens. Partial characterization and distribution

We have previously demonstrated that guinea pig alloantisera directed at strain 2 and strain 13 membrane antigens block specific lymphocyte activation in immune response gene-controlled systems. In this communication we describe the partial characterization of the antigens against which these antisera are directed (the 2 and 13 antigens) and, in addition, that of the B antigen which by distribution resembles the human HL-A and mouse H-2 major histocompatibility antigens. Lymphoid cells from strain 2 and strain 13 guinea pigs were surface labeled with 125I by the lactoperoxidase technique. Nonidet P-40 extracts of these labeled cells were precipitated by sandwiches of strain 2 antistrain 13, strain 13 antistrain 2, or outbred anti-B antisera, followed by rabbit antiguinea pig immunoglobulin antisera. Precipitates were dissolved in sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) and electrophoresed on SDS polyacrylamide gels. Radioactive peaks representing the 2 and B-cell membrane antigens were obtained from strain 2 lymph node cells, as well as from a B-lymphoid cell population (L2C leukemia cells) and a T- lymphocyte population (STRAIN 2 PERITONEAL EXUDATE LYMPHOCYTES [PELs]). Radioactive peaks representing the 13 and B-cell membrane antigens were obtained from strain 13 lymph node cells and strain 13 PELs. All anti-B precipitates produced two peaks when electrophoresed on SDS polyacrylamide gels; one representing an antigen with a mol wt of approximately 45,000, and one representing an antigen with a mol wt of about 12,000. Both may be components of a single protein. All anti-2 and anti-13 precipitates produced a single peak when electrophoresed on SDS polyacrylamide gels. Both the 2 and 13 antigens were found by this technique to have mol wt of approximately 25,000. By molecular weight criteria, as well as by previously investigated distributional criteria, the B antigen is similar to the human LA and Four antigens, and to the mouse D and K antigens, and the 2 and 13 antigens are similar to the mouse Ia antigens.
Using Drugs to Probe the Variability of Trans-Epithelial Airway Resistance

Background Precision medicine aims to combat the variability of the therapeutic response to a given medicine by delivering the right medicine to the right patient. However, the application of precision medicine is predicated on a prior quantitation of the variance of the reference range of normality. Airway pathophysiology provides a good example due to a very variable first line of defence against airborne assault. Humans differ in their susceptibility to inhaled pollutants and pathogens in part due to the magnitude of trans-epithelial resistance that determines the degree of epithelial penetration to the submucosal space. This initial ‘set-point’ may drive a sentinel event in airway disease pathogenesis. Epithelia differentiated in vitro from airway biopsies are commonly used to model trans-epithelial resistance but the ‘reference range of normality’ remains problematic. We investigated the range of electrophysiological characteristics of human airway epithelia grown at air-liquid interface in vitro from healthy volunteers focusing on the inter- and intra-subject variability both at baseline and after sequential exposure to drugs modulating ion transport. Methodology/Principal Findings Brushed nasal airway epithelial cells were differentiated at air-liquid interface generating 137 pseudostratified ciliated epithelia from 18 donors. A positively-skewed baseline range exists for trans-epithelial resistance (Min/Max: 309/2963 Ω·cm2), trans-epithelial voltage (-62.3/-1.8 mV) and calculated equivalent current (-125.0/-3.2 μA/cm2; all non-normal, P<0.001). A minority of healthy humans manifest a dramatic amiloride sensitivity to voltage and trans-epithelial resistance that is further discriminated by prior modulation of cAMP-stimulated chloride transport. Conclusions/Significance Healthy epithelia show log-order differences in their ion transport characteristics, likely reflective of their initial set-points of basal trans-epithelial resistance and sodium transport. Our data may guide the choice of the background set point in subjects with airway diseases and frame the reference range for the future delivery of precision airway medicine.
Tissue-Derived Stem and Progenitor Cells

The characterization and isolation of various stem cell populations, from embryonic through tissue-derived stem cells, have led a rapid growth in the field of stem cell research. These research efforts have often been interrelated as to the markers that identify a select cell population are frequently analyzed to determine their expression in cells of distinct organs/tissues. In this review, we will expand the current state of research involving select tissue-derived stem cell populations including the liver, central nervous system, and cardiac tissues as examples of the success and challenges in this field of research. Lastly, the challenges of clinical therapies will be discussed as it applies to these unique cell populations.
Alternate method of TDDB study for aluminum oxide using magneto-resistance

A sensitive and accurate method/test to predict the lifetime of aluminum oxide used as a tunnel barrier in magnetic random access memory (MRAM) has been devised. The performance of magnetic tunnel junction is dependent upon the lifetime of aluminum oxide. Aluminum oxide has also been used in high dielectric constant gate dielectric MOS devices suitable for high speed applications. This method relies upon the measurement of anti parallel and parallel resistance of the magnetic stack in a tunnel magneto resistor using aluminum oxide as a tunnel barrier. This is a more sensitive method than the conventional methods.
Augmented reality: a class of displays on the reality-virtuality continuum

In this paper we discuss augmented reality (AR) displays in a general sense, within the context of a reality-virtuality (RV) continuum, encompassing a large class of `mixed reality' (MR) displays, which also includes augmented virtuality (AV). MR displays are defined by means of seven examples of existing display concepts in which real objects and virtual objects are juxtaposed. Essential factors which distinguish different MR display systems from each other are presented, first by means of a table in which the nature of the underlying scene, how it is viewed, and the observer's reference to it are compared, and then by means of a three dimensional taxonomic framework comprising: extent of world knowledge, reproduction fidelity, and extent of presence metaphor. A principal objective of the taxonomy is to clarify terminology issues and to provide a framework for classifying research across different disciplines.
A Time Domain Raw Signal Simulator for Hybrid Mode Interferometric SAR

A raw signal simulator for a SAR system operating in stripmap, spotlight and hybrid mode on a Kepler’s orbit is presented. The simulator operates in time domain and, unlike frequency domain simulators, it can easily take into account mechanical oscillation of the mast that supports the second antenna, orbit perturbation, etc. The proposed model represents an useful tool to analyze sensors performance also in presence of deviations from nominal conditions.
Tamper detection with self-correction hybrid spatial-DCT domains image authentication technique

The development of effective image authentication techniques is of remarkably growing interest. Some recently developed fragile, semi-fragile/robust or hybrid-watermarking algorithms not only verify the authenticity of the watermarked image but also provide self-reconstruction capabilities. However, several algorithms have been reported as vulnerable to various attacks, especially blind pattern matching attacks with insufficient security. In this paper, we propose a new blind dual-domain self-embedding watermarking scheme with more secure embedding processes of the imagepsilas blocks fragile signatures and robust approximations and more reliable local alterations detection with auto-correction capabilities while surviving normal image content preserving operations.
Gene Human Colorectal Carcinoma Is an Early Growth Response Ubiquitin-Ribosomal Protein S 27 a Gene Overexpressed in Updated Version

One of the extension proteins on the carboxy terminus of ubiquitin was reported as the ribosomal protein S27a. We have cloned a gene which encodes this ubiquitin hybrid protein from a complementary ONA library of a human colon carcinoma cell line. Northern blot analysis of surgical specimens from colon cancer patients showed that these messenger RNA levels were higher in tumor tissue than in adjacent normal mucosa. Fur thermore, to investigate the role of this novel ubiquitin hybrid gene in cellular growth control, the responsiveness of this gene to serum growth factors was examined. Within 30 min after serum or 12-O-tetradecanoylphorbol-13-acetate stimulation, its messenger RNA expression in rat libroblast cells (Rat 1) was increased. Nuclear runoff transcription studies showed that the kinetics of induction of this gene is almost identical to that of protooncogene c-jun or c-fos, the known early growth response genes. Thus, this ubiquitin hybrid gene appears to be a novel early growth response gene overexpressed in human colon cancer and warrants further studies in the pathogenesis of colorÃ©ela! carcinoma.
Palmprint recognition based on phase congruency and Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis

Two-Dimensional Principal Component Analysis (2DPCA) has been widely used for feature extraction in palmprint recognition. However, it is sensitive to variable illumination. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to solve this problem by combing phase congruency (PC) with 2DPCA. Our method consists of two parts. One is to extract the palmprint phase congruency features which are invariant to changes in image illumination. The other is transforming the palmprint phase congruency features into subspace by 2DPCA, which is able to classify the individual palmprint representation optimally. The design of Gabor filters for phase congruency feature extraction is also discussed. The PolyU palmprint database was used to generate the results. Experiments show that phase congruency significantly improves system performance whilst 2DPCA outperforms many existing subspace projection methods. The proposed method achieves 99.44% recognition rate on the PolyU database, and its feature extraction and matching time is 0.311s.
A comparative study on texture features used for segmentation of images rich in texture

A comparative study based method to select appropriate texture feature for image segmentation using K-means clustering algorithm is proposed in this paper. We study and record the performances based on three features namely, Contourlet, Gabor and Tamura. An enhanced version of Tamura feature is proposed that produces better result than the conventional one. Results of our experiment suggest that, for a given class of images, segmentation algorithm using Contourlet and Gabor with similar feature space perform equally well. On the other hand, performance of conventional Tamura feature lacks consistency but Tamura with multiple coarseness and directions improves segmentation.
Intermediate Effects in Psychodiagnostic Classification

Most comparative studies of performance in psychodiagnostic classification contrast novices with very experienced clinicians, and do not include a group with an intermediate level of experience. We describe an empirical study involving 41 clinicians with three levels of experience. We asked novices, intermediates, and very experienced psychodiagnosticians to give the diagnostic (DSM) classification for 10 written cases. We found an intermediate effect in diagnosticians' decision time and correctness: Intermediates performed worse and faster than both novices and very experienced clinicians. In line with most other studies, we found that experienced diagnosticians were not significantly more accurate than novices.
Remarks on the Spatial Smoothing Step in Coarray MUSIC

Sparse arrays such as nested and coprime arrays use a technique called spatial smoothing in order to successfully perform MUSIC in the difference-coarray domain. In this paper it is shown that the spatial smoothing step is not necessary in the sense that the effect achieved by that step can be obtained more directly. In particular, with R̃ss denoting the spatial smoothed matrix with finite snapshots, it is shown here that the noise eigenspace of this matrix can be directly obtained from another matrix R̃ which is much easier to compute from data.
A Conditioned Behavioral Paradigm for Assessing Onset and Lasting Tinnitus in Rats

Numerous behavioral paradigms have been developed to assess tinnitus-like behavior in animals. Nevertheless, they are often limited by prolonged training requirements, as well as an inability to simultaneously assess onset and lasting tinnitus behavior, tinnitus pitch or duration, or tinnitus presence without grouping data from multiple animals or testing sessions. To enhance behavioral testing of tinnitus, we developed a conditioned licking suppression paradigm to determine the pitch(s) of both onset and lasting tinnitus-like behavior within individual animals. Rats learned to lick water during broadband or narrowband noises, and to suppress licking to avoid footshocks during silence. After noise exposure, rats significantly increased licking during silent trials, suggesting onset tinnitus-like behavior. Lasting tinnitus-behavior, however, was exhibited in about half of noise-exposed rats through 7 weeks post-exposure tested. Licking activity during narrowband sound trials remained unchanged following noise exposure, while ABR hearing thresholds fully recovered and were comparable between tinnitus(+) and tinnitus(-) rats. To assess another tinnitus inducer, rats were injected with sodium salicylate. They demonstrated high pitch tinnitus-like behavior, but later recovered by 5 days post-injection. Further control studies showed that 1): sham noise-exposed rats tested with footshock did not exhibit tinnitus-like behavior, and 2): noise-exposed or sham rats tested without footshocks showed no fundamental changes in behavior compared to those tested with shocks. Together, these results demonstrate that this paradigm can efficiently test the development of noise- and salicylate-induced tinnitus behavior. The ability to assess tinnitus individually, over time, and without averaging data enables us to realistically address tinnitus in a clinically relevant way. Thus, we believe that this optimized behavioral paradigm will facilitate investigations into the mechanisms of tinnitus and development of effective treatments.
An experimental study of acoustic adaptation algorithms

There has been much interest in the area of adaptation for improved speech recognition in the presence of mismatches between the training and testing conditions. We focus on transformation-based maximum-likelihood (ML) adaptation. Some of the important adaptation parameters include whether the adaptation is performed in the feature-space or model-space, and whether the adaptation is supervised or unsupervised. An additional parameter is the adaptation data. For example adaptation may be performed using an independent dataset or the test data itself. The latter is referred to as transcription-mode adaptation. We experimentally study the effect of these various parameters, and report on our findings.
Virtual Screening Models for Prediction of HIV-1 RT Associated RNase H Inhibition

The increasing resistance to current therapeutic agents for HIV drug regiment remains a major problem for effective acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) therapy. Many potential inhibitors have today been developed which inhibits key cellular pathways in the HIV cycle. Inhibition of HIV-1 reverse transcriptase associated ribonuclease H (RNase H) function provides a novel target for anti-HIV chemotherapy. Here we report on the applicability of conceptually different in silico approaches as virtual screening (VS) tools in order to efficiently identify RNase H inhibitors from large chemical databases. The methods used here include machine-learning algorithms (e.g. support vector machine, random forest and kappa nearest neighbor), shape similarity (rapid overlay of chemical structures), pharmacophore, molecular interaction fields-based fingerprints for ligands and protein (FLAP) and flexible ligand docking methods. The results show that receptor-based flexible docking experiments provides good enrichment (80–90%) compared to ligand-based approaches such as FLAP (74%), shape similarity (75%) and random forest (72%). Thus, this study suggests that flexible docking experiments is the model of choice in terms of best retrieval of active from inactive compounds and efficiency and efficacy schemes. Moreover, shape similarity, machine learning and FLAP models could also be used for further validation or filtration in virtual screening processes. The best models could potentially be use for identifying structurally diverse and selective RNase H inhibitors from large chemical databases. In addition, pharmacophore models suggest that the inter-distance between hydrogen bond acceptors play a key role in inhibition of the RNase H domain through metal chelation.
AIRLINE ECONOMICS OF "SCALE" AND AUSTRALIAN DOMESTIC AIR TRANSPORT POLICY

Economies of scale in the airline industry have been an important issue over many years and have featured prominently in discussion on regulation of the industry. In Australia, for instance, fear of monopoly development appears to be a popular rationale for the Two-Airline Policy. (See Kirby (1979) for a discussion of this policy and Kirby (1981, ch. 2) on the issue of monopoly. ) Discussion has revealed sharp differences of opinion but economists have generally tended to reject the claims of many representatives of the airline industry that economies of scale exist1 This paper suggests that the issue is clouded by the use on both sides of imprecise terminology, and that much of the apparent conflict is due to differ ences in interpretation of airline "scale", which have meant that the discussion is often at cross purposes. Thus a more systematic approach is needed to the concept of airline scale or output. This paper presents a conceptual framework for analysing an airline's scale of operations, estimates an airline cost function based on this framework, and uses the empirical results to simulate the cost implications of some alternative policies for the Australian domestic airline industry.
Association between Tooth Loss and Gastric Cancer: A Meta-Analysis of Observational Studies

Observational studies showed that tooth loss is associated with gastric cancer, but the findings are inconsistent. In this study, a meta-analysis was conducted to evaluate the relationship between tooth loss and gastric cancer. Relevant studies were screened in PubMed and Embase databases, and nine observational studies were considered eligible for the analysis. The combined relative risks for the highest versus the lowest categories of tooth loss were 1.86 (95% CI: 1.08–3.21) and 1.31 (95% CI: 1.12–1.53) in case control and cohort studies, respectively. However, unstable results were observed in the stratified and sensitivity analysis. The current evidence, based solely on four case-control studies and five cohort studies, suggested that tooth loss is a potential marker of gastric cancer. However, we can not concluded at this time that tooth loss may be a risk factor for gastric cancer due to significant heterogeneity among studies and mixed results between case-control studies and cohort studies. Additional large-scale and high-quality prospective studies are required to evaluate the association between tooth loss and risk of gastric cancer.
Evolutionary History of Wild Barley (Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum) Analyzed Using Multilocus Sequence Data and Paleodistribution Modeling

Studies of Hordeum vulgare subsp. spontaneum, the wild progenitor of cultivated barley, have mostly relied on materials collected decades ago and maintained since then ex situ in germplasm repositories. We analyzed spatial genetic variation in wild barley populations collected rather recently, exploring sequence variations at seven single-copy nuclear loci, and inferred the relationships among these populations and toward the genepool of the crop. The wild barley collection covers the whole natural distribution area from the Mediterranean to Middle Asia. In contrast to earlier studies, Bayesian assignment analyses revealed three population clusters, in the Levant, Turkey, and east of Turkey, respectively. Genetic diversity was exceptionally high in the Levant, while eastern populations were depleted of private alleles. Species distribution modeling based on climate parameters and extant occurrence points of the taxon inferred suitable habitat conditions during the ice-age, particularly in the Levant and Turkey. Together with the ecologically wide range of habitats, they might contribute to structured but long-term stable populations in this region and their high genetic diversity. For recently collected individuals, Bayesian assignment to geographic clusters was generally unambiguous, but materials from genebanks often showed accessions that were not placed according to their assumed geographic origin or showed traces of introgression from cultivated barley. We assign this to gene flow among accessions during ex situ maintenance. Evolutionary studies based on such materials might therefore result in wrong conclusions regarding the history of the species or the origin and mode of domestication of the crop, depending on the accessions included.