Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
High Quality Voice Conversion through Phoneme-Based Linear Mapping Functions with STRAIGHT for Mandarin

A novel voice conversion system using phoneme-based linear mapping functions on main vowel phonemes is proposed in this paper. Our voice conversion algorithm has the following three improvements. First, instead of using all the vocal tract resonance (VTR) vectors in the portion of a phoneme, we use the VTR vector at the steady-state of each phoneme to train phoneme-based GMM. Second, different linear mapping functions have been trained to describe the mapping relationships for corresponding phonemes. Third, in the transformation procedure, the transformed formant frequencies at the main vowel phonemes are obtained using the corresponding GMM. Besides, prosody parameters are also transformed. Finally the converted speech is re-synthesized with the transformed parameters by high quality speech manipulation framework STRAIGHT (Speech Transformation and Representation based on Adaptive Interpolation of weiGHTed spectrogram). Perceptual results for F-M and M-F conversion show that our MOS score of the converted voice is improved from 3.8 to 4.1 and ABX score from 3.3 to 3.8 compared with IBM's system. Comparisons with other systems are also given in this paper.
Dissociating the effects of automatic facilitation and event expectancy on the control of attention and performance

Many cognitive experiments that measure performance across multiple trials use a trial sequence that is unsystematic or random. Performance in these experiments is known to fluctuate according to the sequence of events leading up to any given trial. The current experiments examined how these changes relate to a) explicit anticipation of the events on the next trial, and b) automatic facilitation based on recent event history. A dissociation was consistently found between trends in expectancy and trends in performance. This effect manifests in response biases in choice reaction time tasks, and spatial biases in attention under dual-stream rapid serial visual presentation. The results indicate automatic facilitation of controlled cognitive processes which is clearly dissociable from conscious anticipation.
Effect of extracytoplasmic function sigma factors on autoaggregation, hemagglutination, and cell surface properties of Porphyromonas gingivalis

Porphyromonas gingivalis is a bacterium frequently isolated from chronic periodontal lesions and is involved in the development of chronic periodontitis. To colonize the gingival crevice, P. gingivalis has to adapt to environmental stresses. Microbial gene expression is regulated by transcription factors such as those in two-component systems and extracytoplasmic function (ECF) sigma factors. ECF sigma factors are involved in the regulation of environmental stress response genes; however, the roles of individual ECF sigma factors are largely unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate the functions, including autoaggregation, hemagglutination, gingipain activity, susceptibility to antimicrobial agents, and surface structure formation, of P. gingivalis ECF sigma factors encoded by SigP (PGN_0274), SigCH (PGN_0319), PGN_0450, PGN_0970, and SigH (PGN_1740). Various physiological aspects of the sigP mutant were affected; autoaggregation was significantly decreased at 60 min (p < 0.001), hemagglutination activity was markedly reduced, and enzymatic activities of Kgp and Rgps were significantly decreased (p < 0.001). The other mutants also showed approximately 50% reduction in Rgps activity. Kgp activity was significantly reduced in the sigH mutant (p < 0.001). No significant differences in susceptibilities to tetracycline and ofloxacin were observed in the mutants compared to those of the wild-type strain. However, the sigP mutant displayed an increased susceptibility to ampicillin, whereas the PGN_0450 and sigH mutants showed reduced susceptibility. Transmission electron microscopy images revealed increased levels of outer membrane vesicles formed at the cell surfaces of the sigP mutant. These results indicate that SigP is important for bacterial surface-associated activities, including gingipain activity, autoaggregation, hemagglutination, vesicle formation, and antimicrobial susceptibility.
A methodology for an application profiling at system level

This paper comes within the framework in the application-architecture matching. The proposed methodology covers the upper part of the codesign flow which is located before the partitioning step. The issue is to provide the designer and to the partitioning step with useful information in order to design an ad hoc architecture. Also, the estimations are computed without knowledge of the implementation. The optimisation potential existing between the function are taking into account to obtain a global and dynamic cost of the application.
“Catch me if you can”: visual Analysis of Coherence Defects in Web Archiving

The World Wide Web is a continuously evolving network of contents (e.g. Web pages, images, sound files, etc.) and an interconnecting link structure. Hence, an archivist may never be sure if the contents collected so far are still consistent with those contents she needs to retrieve next. Therefore, questions arise about detecting, measuring them and – finally – understanding coherence defects. To this end, visualization strategies are being presented that might be applied on different level of granularities: working with (in the ideal case) properly set last-modified timestamps, based on metadata extracted from the crawler in accelerated crawl-revisit pairs, or from the Internet Archive’s WARC files. In order to help the archivist in understanding the nature of these defects, this paper investigates means for visualizing change behavior and archive coherence.
Statistical Dependence in Biological Sequences

We demonstrate the use of information-theoretic tools for the task of identifying segments of biomolecules (DNA or RNA) that are statistically correlated. We develop a precise and reliable methodology, based on the notion of mutual information, for finding and extracting statistical as well as structural ependencies. A simple threshold function is defined, and its use in quantifying the level of significance of dependencies between biological segments is explored. These tools are used in two specific applications. First, for the identification of correlations between different parts of the maize zmSRp32 gene. There, we find significant dependencies between the 5' untranslated region and its alternatively spliced exons. This observation may indicate the presence of as-yet unknown alternative splicing mechanisms or structural scaffolds. Second, using data from CODIS, we demonstrate that our approach is well suited for the problem of discovering short tandem repeats (STRs).
Urbanization and Economic Growth : Testing for Causality 16 th Annual Pacific Rim Real Estate Conference

The study seeks to empirically test the Granger causality of urbanization and economic growth. By using co-integration and causality tests, it investigates the relationship between urbanization and economic growth for 28 countries for the period 1950-2000. The results are consistent with some previous research findings: There is a long-run stable relationship between the two variables. The causality tests further suggest that the urbanization variable Granger-causes the economic variable for developing nations, while the opposite holds for developed nations. It is therefore suggested that the causal relationship between the two variables is dependent upon the economic development status of a nation. Furthermore, the author posits that the change of the sign of the causal link as the nation’s economy advances is due primarily to the changes in the major factors of production: from labour intensive production at the preliminary stage of development to capitalor technology-intensive production when it becomes more developed. Economies of scale, both internal and external, could be a reason for the time lag between the two variables.
User-generated metadata in audio-visual collections

In recent years, crowdsourcing has gained attention as an alternative method for collecting video annotations. An example is the internet video labeling game Waisda? launched by the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision. The goal of this PhD research is to investigate the value of the user tags collected with this video labeling game. To this end, we address the following four issues. First, we perform a comparative analysis between user-generated tags and professional annotations in terms of what aspects of videos they describe. Second, we measure how well user tags are suited for fragment retrieval and compare it with fragment search based on other sources like transcripts and professional annotations. Third, as previous research suggested that user tags predominately refer to objects and rarely describe scenes, we will study whether user tags can be successfully exploited to generate scene-level descriptions. Finally, we investigate how tag quality can be characterized and potential methods to improve it.
Assessing the Effects of Concurrent versus Sequential Cisplatin/Radiotherapy on Immune Status in Lung Tumor–Bearing C57BL/6 Mice

Kao and colleagues performed a comprehensive analysis in a lung cancer mouse model and show that sequential chemoradiotherapy had an equivalent amount of antitumor activity compared with concurrent therapy, but the two regimens elicited differences in immune response biomarkers, including Tregs, microRNA-29c, CD28, and serum IFNγ. Concurrent and sequential cisplatin-based chemoradiotherapy regimens are standard therapeutic approaches in cancer treatment. Recent clinical data suggest that these different dosing schedules may adversely affect antigen-specific immunotherapy. The goal of the present preclinical study was to explore the effects of concurrent and sequential cisplatin/radiotherapy on immune status in a lung cancer mouse model. A total of 150 C57BL/6 mice were randomized into six treatment groups: control; 8 Gy thoracic radiotherapy (dose schedules 1 and 2); cisplatin 2.5 mg/kg i.p.; cisplatin + radiotherapy (concurrent); and cisplatin + radiotherapy (sequential; n = 25, all groups). At the end of the study (week 41), serum cytokines were assessed by multiplex immunoassay, surface markers of spleen-derived lymphocytes were assessed by immunostaining and flow cytometry, lung tumor expression of programmed death ligands 1 and 2 (PD-L1/2) was evaluated by immunohistochemistry, and miRNA profiling was performed in serum and lymphocytes by quantitative real-time PCR. Lung whole mounts were prepared to assess treatment effects on lung tumor foci formation. The results showed that sequential chemoradiotherapy (two cycles of cisplatin followed by 8 Gy radiotherapy) had equivalent antitumor activity as concurrent therapy. However, sequential cisplatin/radiotherapy resulted in significant differences in several immune response biomarkers, including regulatory T cells, miR-29c, expression of costimulatory molecule CD28, and serum IFNγ. PD-L1 and PD-L2 were strongly expressed in tumor foci, but no trend was seen between groups. These results suggest that monitoring immune status may be necessary when designing treatment regimens combining immunotherapy with chemoradiotherapy. Cancer Immunol Res; 3(7); 741–50. ©2015 AACR.
Human medial temporal lobe in aging: Anatomical basis of memory preservation

The integrity of the hippocampal formation is necessary for the correct function of declarative memory for facts and events. Normal aging is associated with a widespread decrease in cortical volume, including the hippocampal formation and related cortical areas, although in many cases, memory is only minimally impaired. In the present study, we quantified the extent of the parahippocampal gyrus (entorhinal cortex, as well as the medial temporal lobe proisocortical areas related to memory function, such as temporopolar cortex, perirhinal cortex, and posterior parahippocampal cortex) in 42 control cases. After detailed cytoarchitectonic analysis (based on homology with the nonhuman primate medial temporal lobe), planimetric measurement (calculated area) of a two‐dimensional reconstruction of the parahippocampal gyrus was performed, and cases older than 70 years were compared with cases younger than 70 years. All areas showed atrophy with aging (average, entorhinal cortex, 5%; perirhinal cortex, 4%; posterior parahippocampal cortex, 15%; temporal pole, not assessable). Both entorhinal and posterior parahippocampal cortices reached statistical significance. Our results suggest that cortical areas relevant in memory function, and anatomically linked to the hippocampus, present a small degree of atrophy with aging, thereby permitting the reciprocal flow of information between the hippocampus and the cerebral cortex necessary for memory encoding and retrieval. Microsc. Res. Tech. 43:8–15, 1998. © 1998 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
MicroRNA-143 inhibits cell growth by targeting ERK5 and MAP3K7 in breast cancer

This study aimed to investigate the function and mechanism of microRNA-143 (miR-143) in the occurrence and development of breast cancer (BC). A total of 30 BC tissues, 30 corresponding noncancerous tissues, and 10 normal control (NC) breast tissues were obtained to detect the levels of miR-143, extracellular signal-regulated kinase 5 (ERK5) and mitogen-activated protein 3 kinase 7 (MAP3K7) using RT-qPCR, western blotting or immunohistochemistry. The correlation of miR-143 with ERK5 or MAP3K7 was evaluated using Pearson correlation analysis. MCF-7 cells were transiently transfected with miR-143 mimic, miR-143 inhibitor, miR-143 mimic/inhibitor + si-ERK5, si-MAP3K7 or si-cyclin D1. Then, cell growth was evaluated by MTT assay and the expressions of phospho-ERK5 (p-ERK5), ERK5, p-MAP3K7, MAP3K7 and cyclin D1 were detected by western blotting. Results showed that, compared with noncancerous tissues or NC breast tissues, miR-143 level was decreased, while p-ERK5, ERK5, p-MAP3K7 and MAP3K7 expressions were increased in BC tissues (all P<0.01). The miR-143 level was negatively correlated with the mRNA level of ERK5 or MAP3K7 (r=-4.231 or r=-4.280, P<0.01). In addition, up-regulated miR-143 significantly decreased the expressions of p-ERK5, ERK5, p-MAP3K7, MAP3K7 and cyclin D1 (all P<0.01), as well as cell viability in MCF-7 cells (all P<0.05) while the effect of down-regulated miR-143 was the opposite. In conclusion, both ERK5 and MAP3K7 may be the target genes of miR-143. Increased expression of miR-143 can inhibit cell growth, which may be associated with ERK5 and MAP3K7 expressions in BC.
Language Knowledge and Other Dialects

TN RECENT VARIATION studies, we have found an increasing number of proposals to extend the limits of the grammar beyond the idealized unistylistic idiolect (Butters 1971, Bailey 1973, Bickerton 1973, Labov 1973, Trudgill 1974). The question of the outer limit of the grammar is not, of course, a consideration which has been opened up uniquely by variationists, and the issue would not die with a diminished interest in variation studies. It is, in fact, an issue which must be confronted squarely by anyone attempting to write a serious grammar. At various points in the history of American linguistics, there have been attempts to expand the limits of the grammar to cover more than one variety. In each attempt, there are important theoretical assumptions on which the proposal is based, although the theoretical basis of some of these proposals has sometimes been more implicit than explicit. The thread of this concern winds through linguistic descriptions regardless of one's theoretical orientation. It is found in Trager and Smith's "overall pattern" (1951), Weinreich's "diassystem" (1954), Klima's extension rules (1964), Carden's unified method analysis (1973), Bickerton's polylectal grammar (1973), and Bailey's panlectal grammar (1973). Each of these proposals has offered some interesting alternatives to the "I'll describe my dialect, you describe yours" era of linguistics. Given the fact that at least some variationists are taking issues concerning the outer limits of the grammar quite seriously, it becomes important to know how we can establish the range of capabilities for speakers who do not use productively a particular structure. Rather than speculate on the basis of selective anecdote or theorize without empirical evidence, as many proposals have done, this article confines itself to an illustrative case. Admittedly, our conclusions may be modest, but they do have implications which extend considerably beyond the particulars of our illustrative case. While we cannot realistically answer all questions involving the issue of the outer limits of a grammar, we hopefully can gain some insight into the types of evidence admissible for considering the boundaries of the grammar.
Effects of Acute Pravastatin Treatment on Intensity of Rescue Therapy, Length of Inpatient Stay, and 6-Month Outcome in Patients After Aneurysmal Subarachnoid Hemorrhage

Background and Purpose— We have previously demonstrated that acute pravastatin therapy after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage ameliorates vasospasm-related delayed ischemic deficits. This study assesses the effects of pravastatin on the frequency and intensity for rescue therapy, length of inpatient stay, and long-term outcome at 6 months. Methods— Eighty aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage patients (age 18 to 84 years, onset 1.8±1.3 days) were randomized to receive daily oral pravastatin (40 mg) or placebo for up to 14 days. Clinical events were recorded during the trial. Six-month outcome was assessed using the Short Form 36 and the modified Rankin Scale. Results— Although no significant difference in the outcome at discharge was found between the trial groups, multivariate analysis showed pravastatin therapy reduced unfavorable outcome by 73% (P=0.041). The benefit persisted at 6 months (P=0.063) and was notable in the physical (P<0.001) and psychosocial (P<0.001) aspects measured using Short Form 36. Furthermore, the acute pravastatin therapy reduced the requirement for triple-H therapy (hypertensive, hypervolemic, hemodilution; P=0.045) and mortality related to vasospasm (P=0.02) and sepsis (P=0.001); no significant difference was found in the length of inpatient stay between the trial groups. Conclusions— This trial demonstrates that acute statin treatment reduces traditional rescue therapy for vasospasm after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage. Improvement in early outcome has proved robust at 6 months, particularly in relation to physical and psychosocial (Short Form 36) outcome.
Male gamblers – suicide victims and living controls: comparison of adversity over the life course

Abstract The objective of this research is to investigate the possible difference in accumulation of adversity over the life course among decedent gamblers and living control gamblers in the province of Quebec, Canada. A sample of 90 adult men, 41 living participants and 49 suicide decedents, met the criteria for at-risk and problem gambling over the last five years. Data were obtained from informants in the case of suicide and directly from living controls during semi-structured face-to-face interviews using SCID I and II, SOGS, Module K and a recount of life trajectories methodology. The results showed a high level of adversity throughout the life trajectories of both groups. However, the living gamblers faced more difficulties during their lifespan than the suicide victims. In the last six months before their death, suicide victims had a significantly higher number of mental health disorders, especially co-morbid mental health disorders and anxiety, compared to the living controls. We also observed a rapid escalation of difficulties, more life events and more psychological distress in the last six months of their lives among the suicide decedents. Suicidal behaviour needs to be carefully investigated by medical staff and mental health practitioners, especially when gamblers demonstrate evidence of mental health disorders or financial difficulties.
LOV KELCH PROTEIN2 and ZEITLUPE repress Arabidopsis photoperiodic flowering under non-inductive conditions, dependent on FLAVIN-BINDING KELCH REPEAT F-BOX1.

LOV KELCH PROTEIN2 (LKP2), ZEITLUPE (ZTL)/LOV KELCH PROTEIN1 (LKP1) and FLAVIN-BINDING KELCH REPEAT F-BOX1 (FKF1) constitute a family of Arabidopsis F-box proteins that regulate the circadian clock. Over-expression of LKP2 or ZTL causes arrhythmicity of multiple clock outputs under constant light and in constant darkness. Here, we show the significance of LKP2 and ZTL in the photoperiodic control of flowering time in Arabidopsis. In plants over-expressing LKP2, CO and FT expression was down-regulated under long-day conditions. LKP2 and ZTL physically interacted with FKF1, which was recruited from the nucleus into cytosolic speckles. LKP2 and ZTL inhibited the interaction of FKF1 with CYCLING DOF FACTOR 1, a ubiquitination substrate for FKF1 that is localized in the nucleus. The Kelch repeat regions of LKP2 and ZTL were sufficient for their physical interaction with FKF1 and translocation of FKF1 to the cytoplasm. Over-expression of LKP2 Kelch repeats induced late flowering under long-day conditions. lkp2 ztl double mutant plants flowered earlier than wild-type plants under short-day (non-inductive) conditions, and both CO and FT expression levels were up-regulated in the double mutant plants. The early flowering of lkp2 ztl was dependent on FKF1. LKP2, ZTL or both affected the accumulation of FKF1 protein during the early light period. These results indicate that an important role of LKP2 and ZTL in the photoperiodic pathway is repression of flowering under non-inductive conditions, and this is dependent on FKF1.
Impact of a Large-Scale Science Intervention Focused on English Language Learners

The authors evaluated the effects of P-SELL, a science curricular and professional development intervention for fifth-grade students with a focus on English language learners (ELLs). Using a randomized controlled trial design with 33 treatment and 33 control schools across three school districts in one state, we found significant and meaningfully sized intervention effects on a researcher-developed science assessment and the state science assessment. Subgroup analyses revealed that the P-SELL intervention had a positive and significant effect for each language proficiency group (ELLs, recently reclassified ELLs, former ELLs, and non-ELLs) on the researcher-developed assessment. The intervention also had a positive effect for former ELLs and non-ELLs on the state science assessment, but for ELLs and recently reclassified ELLs, the effect was not statistically significant.
Correlates of Whistle-Blowers' Perceptions of Organizational Retaliation

1 Since whistle-blowing may also occur in nonbureaucratic organizations, our study was not limited to bureaucratic organizations. The process of public whistle-blowing and the organizational responses to it are explored, with particular emphasis on retaliation. Individuals who had filed complaints of unfair employment discrimination completed questionnaires about the organizational retaliation that followed their whistle-blowing. Correlation and regression analyses revealed that organizations were more likely to retaliate both against whistle-blowers who were valued by the organization because of their age, experience, or education, and against whistle-blowers whose cases lacked public support, than against other whistle-blowers. *