Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speech coding based on adaptive mel-cepstral analysis

We propose an ADPCM coder which uses a backward adaptive predictor based on the adaptive mel-cepstral analysis. The spectrum represented by the mel-cepstral coefficients has frequency resolution similar to that of the human ear which has high resolution at low frequencies. In the coder, since the transfer functions of noise shaping and postfiltering are also defined through the mel-cepstral coefficients, the effects of nose shaping and postfiltering should fit with characteristics of the human auditory sensation. We incorporate a pitch predictor into the ADPCM coder, and evaluate the speech quality based on objective and subjective performance tests. It is shown that the coder at 16 kb/s can produce a high quality speech comparable with that of the CCITT G.721 ADPCM coder at 32 kb/s with no algorithmic delay. <<ETX>>
tGBS® genotyping-by-sequencing enables reliable genotyping of heterozygous loci

Abstract Conventional genotyping-by-sequencing (cGBS) strategies suffer from high rates of missing data and genotyping errors, particularly at heterozygous sites. tGBS® genotyping-by-sequencing is a novel method of genome reduction that employs two restriction enzymes to generate overhangs in opposite orientations to which (single-strand) oligos rather than (double-stranded) adaptors are ligated. This strategy ensures that only double-digested fragments are amplified and sequenced. The use of oligos avoids the necessity of preparing adaptors and the problems associated with inter-adaptor annealing/ligation. Hence, the tGBS protocol simplifies the preparation of high-quality GBS sequencing libraries. During polymerase chain reaction (PCR) amplification, selective nucleotides included at the 3′-end of the PCR primers result in additional genome reduction as compared to cGBS. By adjusting the number of selective bases, different numbers of genomic sites are targeted for sequencing. Therefore, for equivalent amounts of sequencing, more reads per site are available for SNP calling. Hence, as compared to cGBS, tGBS delivers higher SNP calling accuracy (>97–99%), even at heterozygous sites, less missing data per marker across a population of samples, and an enhanced ability to genotype rare alleles. tGBS is particularly well suited for genomic selection, which often requires the ability to genotype populations of individuals that are heterozygous at many loci.
Women in a Man's World: Sexual Harassment

Sexual harassment is defined and surveys used to establish its extent, consequences, and most prevalent characteristics of harassers and victims. The psychodynamics of sexual harassment maintains an unequal power structure between the sexes, forcing women into compliance with nurturant or sexual aspects of the traditional sex role. Resistance to group pressure gives a woman the role of deviant. Characteristic group responses to a deviant result in isolation or severe sexual harassment. Refusal to comply with sexual harassment elicits aggression and denigration of the woman. Group responses to a victim create a hostile environment with an increase in the likelihood of further sexual harassment and denigration. ft is possible for work groups to develop sexual equality and integration by changing the male task directive/female nurturant or courting repertoires to express equal power and affiliation between the sexes. Organizational policies to encourage integration are suggested.
When friends leave: A structural analysis of the relationship between turnover and stayers' attitudes.

David Krackhardt and Lyman W. Porter It is argued in this paper that macro and micro perspectives can each benefit from the other. To demonstrate this, a current research issue in micro organizational behavior is analyzed with the help of theories in psychology, social psychology, and sociology. The specific question is: What effect does turnover in an organization have on the attitudes of those who remain in the organization? A longitudinal investigation of three fast-food restaurants explored this relationship against the background of the social network structures in each site. Among the findings was that the closer the employee was to those who left, the more satisfied and committed he or she became. The results underscore the importance of the structural context in studying micro phenomena, while at the same time they demonstrate the richness of micro theory in understanding why these phenomena occur. *
Chromosome t(7;11)(p15;p15) translocation in acute myeloid leukemia coexisting with multilineage dyspoiesis and mutations in NRAS and WT1: A case report and literature review

The chromosomal translocation t(7;11)(p15;p15) and the resulting nucleoporin 98-homeobox A9 (NUP98-HOXA9) gene fusion is rare but recurrent genetic abnormity in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The present study describes a case of AML plus maturation (−M2) with multilineage dyspoiesis in a 30-year-old male in whom a 46,XY,t(7;11)(p15;p15) karyotype was detected through chromosome analysis. Subsequent molecular and sequencing analysis demonstrated a NUP98-HOXA9 fusion gene with a type I fusion between NUP98 exon 12 and HOXA9 exon 1b, and mutations in neuroblastoma V-Ras oncogene homolog and Wilms tumor 1. The patient achieved hematological complete remission (CR) following two courses of induction chemotherapy. However, the NUP98-HOXA9 fusion gene remained detectable during the hematological CR period and following intensive consolidation chemotherapy. The disease relapsed 11 months after diagnosis, and the patient became refractory, with complications from an infection causing eventual mortality. The present case and literature review suggest that patients with AML and t(7;11) may have unique biological and clinical characteristics, and a poor prognosis.
Waveguides in single-crystal lithium niobate thin film by proton exchange.

The proton exchanged (PE) planar and channel waveguides in a 500 nm thick single-crystal lithium niobate thin film (lithium niobate on insulator, LNOI) were studied. The mature PE technique and strong confinement of light in the LN single-crystal thin film were used. The single mode and cut-off conditions of the channel waveguides were obtained by finite difference simulation. The results showed that the single mode channel waveguide would form if the width of the PE region was between 0.75 μm and 2.1 μm in the β(4) phase. The channel waveguide in LNOI had a much smaller mode size than that in the bulk material due to the high-refractive-index contrast. The mode size reached as small as 0.6 μm(2). in simulation. In the experiment, the refractive index and phase transition after PE in LNOI were analyzed using the prism coupling method and X-ray diffraction. Three different width waveguides (5 μm, 7 μm and 11 μm) were optically characterized. Near-field intensity distribution showed that their mode sizes were 3.3 μm(2). ,5 μm(2). and 7 μm(2). The propagation losses were evaluated to be about 16 dB/cm, 12 dB/cm and 11 dB/cm, respectively. The results indicate that PE is a promising method for building more complicated photonic integrated circuits in single-crystal LN thin film.
Formation of Self-Generated Gradients of Iodixanol

The formation of self-generated gradients of iodixanol from a solution of uniform concentration requires the use of vertical or near-vertical rotors. The density profile that is generated depends upon the sedimentation path length of the rotor, centrifugation time, RCF and temperature. Modulation of the starting concentration changes the density range of the gradient. This Protocol Article illustrates the effect of these parameters on gradient shape in a few selected rotors. Because the gradients are formed by the centrifugal field, they are highly reproducible and easy to execute.
Novel back-projection framework for single image super-resolution

A novel back-projection framework for single image super-resolution is proposed in this paper. In our framework, the edge of the high-resolution image is firstly detected by the canny edge detection algorithm and the bilateral filtering algorithm, and the high-resolution image is divided into edge area and flat area. Then the edge area of the high resolution image is filtered by the adaptive kernel regression denoising algorithm in the iterative back-projection process. And the flat area of the high resolution image is reconstructed by the iterative back-projection method. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can reconstruct high quality images in both the measure of objective quality and the subjective perception.
Time Machine at the LHC

Recently, black hole and brane production at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC) has been widely discussed. We suggest that there is a possibility to test causality at the LHC. We argue that if the scale of quantum gravity is of the order of few TeVs, proton-proton collisions at the LHC could lead to the formation of time machines (spacetime regions with closed timelike curves) which violate causality. One model for the time machine is a traversable wormhole. We argue that the traversable wormhole production cross section at the LHC is of the same order as the cross section for the black hole production. Traversable wormholes assume violation of the null energy condition (NEC) and an exotic matter similar to the dark energy is required. Decay of the wormholes/time machines and signatures of time machine events at the LHC are discussed.
Hindlimb Ischemia/Reperfusion-Induced Remote Injury to the Small Intestine: Role of Inducible Nitric-Oxide Synthase-Derived Nitric Oxide

Systemic inflammatory response syndrome, as a consequence of ischemia/reperfusion (I/R), negatively influences the function of the affected organs. The objective of this study was to assess the role of nitric oxide (NO) in remote intestinal inflammatory response elicited by hindlimb I/R. To this end, C57BL/6 (wild type; WT) and inducible nitric-oxide synthase (iNOS)-deficient mice were subjected to bilateral hindlimb ischemia (1 h) followed by 6 h of reperfusion. Some WT mice were injected with iNOS inhibitor N-[3-(aminomethyl)benzyl] acetamidine (1400W) (5 mg/kg s.c.) immediately before reperfusion, and proinflammatory response was assessed 6 h later. Hindlimb I/R resulted in dysfunction of the small intestine as assessed by the increase in permeability [blood-to-lumen clearance of Texas Red-dextran (molecular mass 3 kDa)] and an increase in the luminal levels of tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α protein and nitrate/nitrite (\batchmode \documentclass[fleqn,10pt,legalpaper]{article} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amsmath} \pagestyle{empty} \begin{document} \(\mathrm{NO}_{2}^{-}{/}\mathrm{NO}_{3}^{-}\) \end{document}). The above-mentioned changes were accompanied by up-regulation of the proinflammatory phenotype in the mucosa of small intestine with respect to 1) an increase in TNF-α and iNOS protein expression, 2) leukocyte accumulation, 3) formation of edema, 4) an increase in leukocyte rolling/adhesion in the submucosal microvasculature, and 5) activation of transcription factor nuclear factor-κB and up-regulation of adhesion molecule expression. Interestingly, the most profound changes with respect to intestinal dysfunction were found in jejunum and ileum, whereas duodenum was affected the least. Interfering with iNOS activity (1400W and iNOS-deficient mice) significantly attenuated hindlimb I/R-induced inflammatory response and dysfunction of the small intestine with respect to the above-mentioned markers of inflammation. The obtained results indicate that hindlimb I/R induces remote inflammatory response in the small intestine through an iNOS-derived NO-dependent mechanism.
The pedagogical academy: a way to encourage and reward scholarly teaching

In 2001 a large-scale project, the ‘Breakthrough project’, to develop teaching and learning was started at Lund Institute of Technology (LTH), Lund University, Sweden. The project has had a duration of 3 years and the aims of the project were to change the paradigm from teaching to learning and implement a sense of scholarship of teaching in the organization. Since the beginning of 2004 the Breakthrough project has been a permanent activity at LTH linked to the HR-function. Developed in this project was the pedagogical academy. This is a novel approach to stimulate and reward scholarship of teaching. Every teacher at LTH may apply for admission to the pedagogical academy and receive an excellent teaching practice award. If they qualify, they immediately receive an increased salary and the teacher's department receives additional funding. Six assessment criteria for the pedagogical academy have been developed from the area of scholarship of teaching. In a teaching portfolio the teacher should be able to show how well these criteria are fulfilled in practise and thinking.
Adaptive adjustments of n-Epidemic routing protocol for opportunistic networks

To improve the energy efficient of n-Epidemic routing protocol in the opportunistic networks, where lack end to end forwarding path, a novel adjustments strategy of parameter n is proposed. Firstly, nodes dynamically update their energy level of current environment while moving around. Secondly, nodes with low energy level take the large n avoiding energy consumption during the messages exchange and vice versa. Thirdly, nodes will only replicate message to their neighbors when the number of neighbors reach the threshold n. So the number of messages transmitted is reduced and energy is saved. The simulation results show that, n-Epidemic routing protocol with the proposed adjustment method can efficiently reduce energy consumption and balance the energy consumption among nodes compared with the prime n-Epidemic routing protocol. And it obviously prolongs the life time of network.
A sensor-based controller able to treat total image loss and to guarantee non-collision during a vision-based navigation task

This paper deal with the problem of executing a vision-based task in an unknown environment. During such a task, two unexpected events may occur: the image data loss due to a camera occlusion and the robot collision with obstacles. We first propose a method allowing to compute the visual data when they are totally lost, before addressing the obstacle avoidance problem. Then, we design a sensor-based control strategy to perform safely vision-based tasks despite complete loss of the image. Simulation and experimental results validate our work.
Cellular Hypoxia of Pancreatic β-Cells Due to High Levels of Oxygen Consumption for Insulin Secretion in Vitro*

Cellular oxygen consumption is a determinant of intracellular oxygen levels. Because of the high demand of mitochondrial respiration during insulin secretion, pancreatic β-cells consume large amounts of oxygen in a short time period. We examined the effect of insulin secretion on cellular oxygen tension in vitro. We confirmed that Western blotting of pimonidazole adduct was more sensitive than immunostaining for detection of cellular hypoxia in vitro and in vivo. The islets of the diabetic mice but not those of normal mice were hypoxic, especially when a high dose of glucose was loaded. In MIN6 cells, a pancreatic β-cell line, pimonidazole adduct formation and stabilization of hypoxia-inducible factor-1α (HIF-1α) were detected under mildly hypoxic conditions. Inhibition of respiration rescued the cells from becoming hypoxic. Glucose stimulation decreased cellular oxygen levels in parallel with increased insulin secretion and mitochondrial respiration. The cellular hypoxia by glucose stimulation was also observed in the isolated islets from mice. The MIN6 cells overexpressing HIF-1α were resistant to becoming hypoxic after glucose stimulation. Thus, glucose-stimulated β-cells can become hypoxic by oxygen consumption, especially when the oxygen supply is impaired.
Hematologic Patients' Clinical and Psychosocial Experiences With Implanted Long-term Central Venous Catheter: Self-management Versus Professionally Controlled Care

Background: A significant decrease in catheter-related infections was demonstrated in our earlier randomized controlled trial of central venous catheter (CVC) care in hematologic patients. Objective: This article focuses on patients' clinical and psychosocial experiences with CVC self-care compared with professionally controlled CVC care. Methods: Eighty-two patients with tunneled CVCs were enrolled in the randomized controlled trial. The intervention group (n = 42) was trained to perform CVC self-care. The control group (n = 40) followed standard CVC procedure provided by nurses. Eighteen patients were selected for semistructured interviews focusing on patients' clinical and psychosocial experiences with CVCs. Results: Methods of CVC care have different influences on the patients' clinical and psychosocial outcomes, depending on whether they were hospitalized or outpatients. Central venous catheter was viewed as important because it was the main port of treatment toward a cure, although patients constantly fear complications. Central venous catheter self-care increased patients' independence from health professionals and supported perceived self-efficacy and control. Central venous catheters cause psychosocial problems including altered body perception, sexual activity avoidance, and feeling stigmatized. Conclusions: Patients experience increased perceived self-control and independence when individually supervised and trained in CVC self-management. Assuming ownership of CVC care can encourage patients to feel less inhibited about sexual activity and socialization. Implications for Practice: Placement of a tunneled CVC should engage nurses to organize individualized structured and supervised patient education. Stigma originating from CVCs should be carefully considered by health professionals when maintaining CVC insertion for longer periods. Central venous catheters should be removed whenever the potential risks exceed the catheter's functional necessity.
Towards improved Adoption: Effectiveness of Research Tools in the Real World

One of the challenges in the area of software engineering research has been the low rate of adoption by industry of the tools and methods produced by university researchers. We present a model to improve the situation by providing tangible evidence that demonstrates the real-world effectiveness of such tools and methods. A survey of practising software engineers indicates that the approach in the model is valid and applicable. We apply and test the model for providing such evidence and demonstrate its effectiveness in the context of static analysis using FindBugs. This model can be used to analyse the effectiveness of academic research contributions to industry and contribute towards improving their adoption.
Anomie Theory and Crime in a Transitional China (1978—)

This article examines the testability of Merton's anomie theory with regard to crime problems in the context of contemporary China. An overview of crime trends in China after the onset of economic reform in the early 1980s reveals distinctive crime patterns. The analysis of the criminogenic potential of socioeconomic transition in China suggests that these crime patterns with Chinese characteristics cannot be fully accounted for within the framework of the traditional anomie theory. A newly formulated institutional discrepancy-anomie theory is proposed arguing that the institutional discrepancies generated by coexistence of China's market-oriented economy and authoritarian polity contribute significantly to the dramatic increase in crime rates. The policy implication that the Chinese government should reconsider the undue emphasis on punitive crime control policy is presented.
An Object-Based Classification Approach in Mapping Tree Mortality Using High Spatial Resolution Imagery

In California, a newly discovered virulent pathogen (Phytophthora ramorum) has killed thousands of trees, including tanoak (Lithocarpus densiflorus), coast live oak (Quercus agrifolia), and black oak (Quercus kelloggii). Mapping the distribution of overstory mortality associated with the pathogen is an important part of disease management. In this study, we developed an object-based approach, including an image segmentation process and a knowledge-based classifier, to detect individual tree mortality in imagery of 1 m spatial resolution. The combined segmentation and classification methods provided an easy and intuitive way to incorporate human knowledge into the classification process. The object-based approach significantly outperformed a pixel-based maximum likelihood classification method in mapping the tree mortality on high-spatial-resolution multispectral imagery.
Bilingual children weigh speaker’s referential cues and word-learning heuristics differently in different language contexts when interpreting a speaker’s intent

Past research has investigated how children use different sources of information such as social cues and word-learning heuristics to infer referential intents. The present research explored how children weigh and use some of these cues to make referential inferences. Specifically, we examined how switching between languages known (familiar) or unknown (unfamiliar) to a child would influence his or her choice of cue to interpret a novel label in a challenging disambiguation task, where a pointing cue was pitted against the mutual exclusivity (ME) principle. Forty-eight 3-and 4-years-old English–Mandarin bilingual children listened to a story told either in English only (No-Switch), English and Mandarin (Familiar-Switch), English and Japanese (Unfamiliar-Switch), or English and English-sounding nonsense sentences (Nonsense-Switch). They were then asked to select an object (from a pair of familiar and novel objects) after hearing a novel label paired with the speaker’s point at the familiar object, e.g., “Can you give me the blicket? ” Results showed that children in the Familiar-Switch condition were more willing to relax ME to follow the speaker’s point to pick the familiar object than those in the Unfamiliar-Switch condition, who were more likely to pick the novel object. No significant differences were found between the other conditions. Further analyses revealed that children in the Unfamiliar-Switch condition looked at the speaker longer than children in the other conditions when the switch happened. Our findings suggest that children weigh speakers’ referential cues and word-learning heuristics differently in different language contexts while taking into account their communicative history with the speaker. There are important implications for general education and other learning efforts, such as designing learning games so that the history of credibility with the user is maintained and how learning may be best scaffolded in a helpful and trusting environment.
Serial concatenation of LDPC and turbo code for the next generation mobile communications

The effect of concatenated LDPC (low density parity check) code to improve the performance of turbo code is analyzed in this paper. Turbo code shows error floor at high SNR (signal to noise ratio) region. But LDPC code shows better performance than turbo code without error floor at high SNR. In addition, very simple decoding algorithm can be used for LDPC code. So the concatenation of LDPC and turbo code can be a good choice to get very low BER with low decoding complexity, especially for the next generation multimedia mobile communications.