Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The tritone paradox and the pitch range of the speaking voice : a dubious connection

Deutsch and coworkers (Deutsch, 1991; Deutsch, North, & Ray, 1990) have proposed that individual differences in the perception of the "tritone paradox" derive from listeners9 reference to a mental pitch template, acquired through experience with the pitch range of their own voice, as well as with the voice ranges typical of their language community. These authors have reported a correspondence between perceptual results and the upper limit of the individual voice range for a small group of selected subjects, as well as a striking difference in tritone perception between American and British listeners. The present study compared groups of Dutch, British, and American listeners on two tritone tests and also collected voice pitch data for the first two groups in a reading task. There was no within-group correlation of perceptual results with individual differences in voice range. Differences in tritone perception as a function of stimulus characteristics (spectral envelope) were much larger than reported by Deutsch, which casts doubt on the notion of stable individual pitch templates. A significant difference between British and American listeners, with the Dutch group in between, was found in one of the two tritone tests but not in the other. Although the origin of this difference remains unclear, it seems unlikely that it has anything to do with regional differences in voice pitch range.
A bioimpedance sensing system for in-vivo cancer tissue identification: Design and preliminary evaluation

Bioimpedance evaluation can provide useful information for biological tissue characterization and potentially allows the identification of pathological areas within a tissue in-vivo. In this study a new needle-based bioimpedance sensing system was designed and developed to provide such capability considering intra-operative detection of cancerous tissue in the larynx as the primary specific application. The system is small, low-power, fully embedded in a printed circuit board and based on a disposable concentric electrode needle. These characteristics make it appropriate for the envisioned clinical use. In addition, the device operates in real-time and offers functionalities allowing the tuning of its properties to maximize its sensing capabilities for different applications. This includes the possibility to perform bioimpedance measurements using a sweep of excitation frequencies or a single frequency. Here, the first functionality was used to evaluate the instrument's tissue discrimination performance at different frequencies and consequently identify the best frequency for such task. The second functionality was used to evaluate the performance of the system by obtaining repeated measurements on different locations of specific biological tissues. This was done using six different ex-vivo animal tissues and an ex-vivo porcine larynx. The bioimpedance measurements acquired were then investigated in terms of magnitude and phase. Combined analysis of these two terms suggests that it is indeed possible to discriminate between different tissues using the developed instrument. This is a highly motivating preliminary result that demonstrates the potential of the technology and justify the investment of further efforts towards a clinically usable system.
Image Segmentation-Based Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Safe Navigation

This work proposes a vision-based guidance scheme for an unmanned aerial vehicle navigating through urban environments while seeking a predefined goal point. Optical flow of image corner feature points is considered to segment obstacles from the image. An obstacle-avoidance guidance law is proposed to avoid the segmented obstacles. Additionally, detecting open space between segmented obstacles, a passage-following guidance law also presented for intelligent decision making. Analytic comparison with an existing methodology is carried out to highlight superior obstacle-avoidance properties of the proposed strategy. Simulations are carried out in a three-dimensional environment for single and multiple obstacles. Results comply with the analytic findings and present a much improved avoidance performance as compared to existing optical flow-based methods.
Does Problem Focused Coping Buffer the Effects of Trait Anxiety on Depressive Symptoms of Chronic Urticaria Patients?

ABSTRACT The present study examined the moderating role of problem-focused coping in trait anxiety—depressive symptoms' relationship in patients with chronic urticaria (CU). Eighty-eight CU patients, who applied to an outpatient clinic of Clinical Immunology and Allergic Diseases, filled out a questionnaire set including State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Ways of Coping Inventory, and Beck Depression Inventory. The results suggested that CU patients high on trait anxiety reported more depressive symptoms, and the ones using more problem-focused coping (PFC) strategies reported less depressive symptoms. Also, PFC strategies moderated trait anxiety-depressive symptoms relation. Accordingly, PFC strategies did not lead to any significant difference in CU patients who were low on trait anxiety in terms of the level of depressive symptoms. However, CU patients with high trait anxiety experienced significantly less depressive symptoms if they used more PFC strategies. The findings were discussed in the light of the relevant literature.
Proposal Form Part 2 : Scientific Information 2 Research Plan 2.1 State of Research

1 Summary Despite advances in programming languages, software development environments, documentation standards, and software processes, software continues to be hard to develop, hard to understand, and hard to maintain. In particular , no matter how much effort is put into developing clean, modern, software systems, it seems that successful software inevitably drifts towards increasingly complex and hard-to-maintain " legacy systems. " This project proposes to develop new tools and techniques for decomposing software systems, that is, for breaking down and understanding complex software, and for composing software systems, that is, structuring software so that it becomes easier to maintain, reconfigure, and extend. The proposed work builds on our previous work on the MOOSE reverse engineering environment and the Piccola composition language. Decomposition: We propose to develop techniques for extracting architectural artifacts from software by (i) applying rule-based reasoning to analyze the software information space, and (ii) providing mechanisms to visualize, reason about and interact with the run-time structures. • Code Analysis: We propose to extend MOOSE with a rule-based interface based on the SOUL logic programming framework. This will allow us to more easily perform various analyses on software systems , such as type reconstruction, evaluation of constraints, and recovery of architectural artifacts. We also propose to develop tools and techniques to detect potential software components, and to classify and group software elements with a view towards component-based reengineering. • Run-time Interaction: We have previously focused on program understanding by means of visualizing simple metrics extracted from complex software systems. We now propose to extend this approach to (i) visualizing artifacts of a running systems, and (ii) interacting with a running system to understand the dynamic architecture. Composition: We further propose to develop techniques to support high-level composition of applications from software components. • Composition Languages: We plan to develop a successor to Piccola that simplifies the design of com-positional styles by making components first-class entities. Reasoning about composition will be supported by a type system that expresses constraints over interfaces of components and the scripts that configure them • Compositional Styles: Existing component models are mostly general-purpose and heavyweight. We propose to develop various lightweight domain-specific component models, or compositional styles that reflect the compositional characteristics and constraints of each domain. • Composition Mechanisms: Existing programming languages are better suited for " wiring " components than for plugging them together. We propose to experiment with higher-level compositional mechanisms for …
Permanent Magnet Synchronous Generator-Based Standalone Wind Energy Supply System

In this paper, a novel algorithm, based on dc link voltage, is proposed for effective energy management of a standalone permanent magnet synchronous generator (PMSG)-based variable speed wind energy conversion system consisting of battery, fuel cell, and dump load (i.e., electrolyzer). Moreover, by maintaining the dc link voltage at its reference value, the output ac voltage of the inverter can be kept constant irrespective of variations in the wind speed and load. An effective control technique for the inverter, based on the pulsewidth modulation (PWM) scheme, has been developed to make the line voltages at the point of common coupling (PCC) balanced when the load is unbalanced. Similarly, a proper control of battery current through dc-dc converter has been carried out to reduce the electrical torque pulsation of the PMSG under an unbalanced load scenario. Based on extensive simulation results using MATLAB/SIMULINK, it has been established that the performance of the controllers both in transient as well as in steady state is quite satisfactory and it can also maintain maximum power point tracking.
Performance evaluation of social relation opportunistic routing in dynamic social networks

Social wireless and mobile networks have received more attentions over the recent years. Previously, we proposed the Social Relation Opportunistic Routing (SROR) algorithm for mobile social networks, and introduced the social relations and profiles among nodes as the key metrics to compute the optimal forwarding node in routing such that the packet delivery probability is maximized. In this paper, we aim to extend the performance evaluation of the algorithm by considering the packet delivery probability and the algorithm efficiency metrics to assess the effectiveness of our proposed SROR protocol. Given the dynamic social environments, the results outperform the existing Social Pressure Method algorithm as well as the benchmark algorithms, namely Prophet, SimBet, and Fresh, targeting a similar scenario. The results further verify the validity of our SROR algorithm under a delay tolerant environment.
Isolation and characterization of a novel uronic acid-containing acidic glycosphingolipid from the ascidian Halocynthia roretzi Published, JLR Papers in Press, October 5, 2006.

A novel uronic acid-containing glycosphingolipid (UGL-1) was isolated from the ascidian Halocynthia roretzi. UGL-1 was prepared from chloroform-methanol extracts and purified by the use of successive column chromatography on DEAE-Sephadex, Florisil, and Iatrobeads. Chemical structural analysis was performed using methylation analysis, gas chromatography, gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, matrix-assisted laser-desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry, and 1H-NMR spectra. The chemical structure of UGL-1 was determined to be a glucuronic acid-containing glycosphingolipid, Galβ1-4(Fucα1-3)GlcAβ1-1Cer. The ceramide component was composed of C16:0 and C18:0 acids and C16-, C17-, and C18-phytosphingosines as major components.
Comparative MR analysis of the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus in diagnosing Alzheimer disease.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Our purpose was to use volumetric MR imaging to compare the extent of atrophy and discriminative ability of the volumes of two temporal lobe structures, the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus, between patients with Alzheimer disease and control subjects. METHODS The study group consisted of 30 patients with probable Alzheimer disease diagnosed according to the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke and the Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders Association (NINCDS-ADRDA) criteria and 32 healthy control subjects. The MR volumes of the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus were used for the discriminant function and receiver operator characteristic analysis as well as multivariate analysis of variance for repeated measures to compare their discriminative power. RESULTS Compared with control subjects, patients with Alzheimer disease had significantly smaller volumes of the entorhinal cortex and the hippocampus on both sides. Both the receiver operator characteristic and the discriminant function analyses using both volumes classified control subjects and Alzheimer patients with a high degree of accuracy (approximately 90%). Significant group x region interaction favoring hippocampal volumetry was determined by multivariate analysis of variance. CONCLUSION The volumetric measurements of both the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus have comparably high discriminative power in diagnosing Alzheimer disease. In clinical practice, hippocampal volumetry may be more feasible, because the method is easier to use and has less variability.
Social Research Methodology: A Critical Introduction

Overview of the Book Controlled Experiments More Naturalism in Experiments Sample Surveys and Statistical Representativeness Natural Experiments Controlling for Time in Natural Experiments Using Bureaucratic Data in Research Questions and Answers Analysing the Results of Qualitative Interviews Observing Naturally Occurring Events Analysing Written Documents Evaluative and Emancipatory Research Research Ethics Bibliography Index
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN SPANISH

In this review, we examined the role of phonological awareness in literacy development for Spanish-speaking students. There appears to be a close relationship between Spanish-language phonological awareness and literacy development. In particular, Spanish phonological awareness appears to develop in stages. Not only is the development of phonemic awareness skills probably supported by reading instruction, but it likely contributes to reading development as well. Sensitivity to syllables in Spanish may be particularly important for later reading success, and the ability to segment words into their phonemes may play a critical role in reading acquisition. Training students in spelling, blending, and segmenting syllables and phonemes may be especially valuable because these skills are closely related to those which students use when actually reading and writing words. Finally, there is evidence of cross-language transfer of phonological awareness skills between Spanish and English. Suggestions for Spanish ph.
Extended analysis and treatment of self‐injurious behavior

In experiment 1, an extended functional analysis of self-injury was conducted with a 21-year-old male diagnosed with autism and profound mental retardation. The multielement phase yielded undifferentiated results. Subsequent blocking of conditions plus the addition of a component allowing access to multiple sensory stimuli suggested that self-injury was unrelated to programmed positive or negative reinforcement contingencies. The behavior appeared to be automatically reinforced; its occurrence decreased when access to alternative sensory stimuli was provided. Experiment 2 evaluated a treatment condition in which response-independent access to these sensory stimuli was provided within the participant's everyday environment. Baseline and treatment frequencies of self-injury were compared in a combined, multiple-baseline-across-settings and ABAB design. The level of self-injury decreased substantially during treatment. These results support the use of extended analog analyses of aberrant behavior in instances in which undifferentiated responding occurs in the initial analogue analysis. Additionally, a procedure is described for generalizing the intervention derived from the experimental analysis into the participant's everyday environment. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Theory Pictures as Trails: Diagrams and the Navigation of Theoretical Narratives

This paper examines diagrams as academic and theoretical tools. Drawing upon the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (1987), a diagram is defined as an abstract machine for constructing arguments. The theoretical diagram provides neither a direct representation of the natural world nor a representation of a natural data set, but a suggested theoretical walk through a landscape of data. It is a tool for learning how to see, how to reason, and how to narrate. The paper begins with a closer examination of diagrammatic thought and the ways in which diagrams differ from other visual representations. It then introduces Vannevar Bush (1945) and follows his idea of associative trails through more recent attempts at modeling semantic associations (Semantica Inc., 2005) and the use of “trails” as narrative markers in the sequential art of comics (McCloud, 1993). These trails, in turn, lead to a discussion of academic work practices, trajectory (Strauss, 1993), and the means of navigating information ecologies (Hutchins, 1996; Bowker & Star,
The RAMCloud Storage System

RAMCloud is a storage system that provides low-latency access to large-scale datasets. To achieve low latency, RAMCloud stores all data in DRAM at all times. To support large capacities (1PB or more), it aggregates the memories of thousands of servers into a single coherent key-value store. RAMCloud ensures the durability of DRAM-based data by keeping backup copies on secondary storage. It uses a uniform log-structured mechanism to manage both DRAM and secondary storage, which results in high performance and efficient memory usage. RAMCloud uses a polling-based approach to communication, bypassing the kernel to communicate directly with NICs; with this approach, client applications can read small objects from any RAMCloud storage server in less than 5μs, durable writes of small objects take about 13. 5μs. RAMCloud does not keep multiple copies of data online; instead, it provides high availability by recovering from crashes very quickly (1 to 2 seconds). RAMCloud’s crash recovery mechanism harnesses the resources of the entire cluster working concurrently so that recovery performance scales with cluster size.
Spanish Translation of the Children's Hope Scale Using Quantitative Methods for Verifying Semantic Equivalence

ion: goals in general, goals in a certain life arena, or one goal in specific (Lopez et al., 2003). Goals play an important role in Snyder’s (2002) Hope Theory. Goals are the cognitive components that make human actions goal directed. They provide targets of mental action sequences and can be both visual and verbal, depending on the person’s style. There are two types of goal outcomes, positive goal outcomes and negative goal outcomes. Positive goal outcomes refer to reaching a goal for the first time, sustaining a
Utilizing Human-to-Human Conversation Examples for a Multi Domain Chat-Oriented Dialog System

SUMMARY This paper describes the design and evaluation of a method for developing a chat-oriented dialog system by utilizing real human-to-human conversation examples from movie scripts and Twitter conversations. The aim of the proposed method is to build a conversational agent that can interact with users in as natural a fashion as possible, while reducing the time requirement for database design and collection. A number of the challenging design issues we faced are described, including (1) constructing an appropriate dialog corpora from raw movie scripts and Twitter data, and (2) developing an multi domain chat-oriented dialog management system which can retrieve a proper system response based on the current user query. To build a dialog corpus, we propose a unit of conversation called a tri-turn (a trigram conversation turn), as well as extraction and semantic similarity analysis techniques to help ensure that the content extracted from raw movie/drama script files forms appropriate dialog-pair (query-response) examples. The constructed dialog corpora are then utilized in a data-driven dialog management system. Here, various approaches are investigated including example-based (EBDM) and response generation using phrase-based statistical machine translation (SMT). In particular, we use two EBDM: syntactic-semantic similarity retrieval and TF-IDF based cosine similarity retrieval. Experiments are conducted to compare and contrast EBDM and SMT approaches in building a chat-oriented dialog system, and we investigate a combined method that addresses the advantages and disadvantages of both approaches. System performance was evaluated based on objective metrics (semantic similarity and cosine similarity) and human subjective evaluation from a small user study. Experimental results show that the proposed filtering approach effectively improve the performance. Furthermore, the results also show that by combing both EBDM
Invisible Lives: Women, Men and Obituaries

Differences between the obituaries of men and women were examined in this study. All obituaries (n = 595) published between November 15, 1992 and January' 15, 1993 in two newspapers, The Boston Globe and The Sacramento Bee, were analyzed. The content and length of the obituaries were coded by gender, age, and occupation of the deceased. In addition to being awarded significantly fewer obituaries, women were found to have shorter obituaries than their male counterparts. Women received the longest obituaries if they were a relative of a famous man. These findings are discussed in a framework which maintains that obituaries are a measurement of life achievement suggesting that women's accomplishments are devalued, even after death.
Illum information

Shannon's mutual information measures the degree of mutual dependence between two random variables. Two related information functionals have also been developed in the literature: multiinformation, a multivariate extension of mutual information; and lautum information, the Csiszár conjugate of mutual information. In this work, we define illum information, the multivariate extension of lautum information and the Csiszár conjugate of multiinformation. We provide operational interpretations of this functional, including in the problem of independence testing of a set of random variables. Further, we also provide informational characterizations of illum information such as the data processing inequality and the chain rule for distributions on tree-structured graphical models. Finally, as illustrative examples, we compute the illum information for Ising models and Gauss-Markov random fields.
Extracting and Analyzing the Implemented Security Architecture of Business Applications

Security is getting more and more important for the software development process as the advent of more complex, connected and extensible software entails new risks. In particular, multi-tier business applications, e.g., based on the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), are vulnerable to new attacks, which may endanger the business processes of an organization. These applications consist often of legacy code, which is now exported via Web Services, although it has originally been developed for internal use only. The last years showed great progress in the area of static code analysis for the detection of common low level security bugs, such as buffer overflows and cross-site scripting vulnerabilities. However, there is still a lack of tools that allow an analyst to assess the implemented security architecture of an application. In this paper, we propose a technique that automatically extracts the implemented security architecture of Java-based business applications from the source code. In addition, we carry out threat modeling on this extracted architecture to detect security flaws. We evaluate and discuss our approach with the help of two commercial real-world case studies, one taken from the e-government domain and the other one from logistics.