Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Histogram Equalization Utilizing Window-Based Smoothed CDF Estimation for Feature Compensation

In this letter, we propose a new histogram equalization method to compensate for acoustic mismatches mainly caused by corruption of additive noise and channel distortion in speech recognition. The proposed method employs an improved test cumulative distribution function (CDF) by more accurately smoothing the conventional order statistics-based test CDF with the use of window functions for robust feature compensation. Experiments on the AURORA 2 framework confirmed that the proposed method is effective in compensating speech recognition features by reducing the averaged relative error by 13.12% over the order statistics-based conventional histogram equalization method and by 58.02% over the mel-cepstral-based features for the three test sets.
Correlates of Treatment Outcomes and Drug Resistance among Pulmonary Tuberculosis Patients Attending Tertiary Care Hospitals of Kolkata, India

BACKGROUND Worldwide highest number of new pulmonary tuberculosis (PTB) cases, was reported from India in 2012. Adverse treatment outcomes and emergence of drug resistance further complicated the prevailing scenario owing to increased duration, cost and toxicity associated with the treatment of drug-resistant cases. Hence to reinforce India's fight against TB, identification of the correlates of adverse treatment outcomes and drug resistance, seemed critical. METHODS To estimate the associations between diagnostic findings, patient types (based on treatment outcomes), drug resistance and socio-demographic characteristics of PTB patients, a cross-sectional study was conducted in two tertiary-care hospitals in Kolkata between April 2010 and March 2013. Altogether, 350 consenting Mycobacterium tuberculosis sputum-culture positive PTB patients were interviewed about their socio-demographic background, evaluated regarding their X-ray findings (minimal/moderately advanced/far advanced/cavities), sputum-smear positivity, and treatment history/outcomes (new/defaulter/relapse/treatment-failure cases). Multiple-allele-specific polymerase chain reaction (MAS-PCR) was conducted to diagnose drug resistance. RESULTS Among all participants, 31.43% were newly diagnosed, while 44%, 15.43% and 9.14% patients fell into the categories of relapsed, defaulters and treatment-failures, respectively. 12.29% were multi-drug-resistant (MDR: resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampicin), 57.71% had non-MDR two-drug resistance and 12% had single-drug resistance. Subjects with higher BMI had lower odds of being a relapse/defaulter/treatment failure case while females were more likely to be defaulters and older age-groups had more relapse. Elderly, females, unmarried, those with low BMI and higher grade of sputum-smear positivity were more likely to have advanced X-ray features. Higher grade of sputum-smear positivity and advanced chest X-ray findings were associated with relapse/treatment-failures. Elderly, unmarried, relapse/defaulter/treatment-failure cases had higher odds and those with higher BMI and moderately/far advanced X-ray findings had lower odds of having MDR/non-MDR two-drug resistant PTB. CONCLUSION Targeted intervention and appropriate counseling are needed urgently to prevent adverse treatment outcomes and development of drug resistance among PTB patients in Kolkata.
Content-Based Classification, Search, and Retrieval of Audio

Many audio and multimedia applications would benefit from the ability to classify and search for audio based on its characteristics. The audio analysis, search, and classification engine described here reduces sounds to perceptual and acoustical features. This lets users search or retrieve sounds by any one feature or a combination of them, by specifying previously learned classes based on these features, or by selecting or entering reference sounds and asking the engine to retrieve similar or dissimilar sounds.
PARSING STRATEGIES IN L1 AND L2 SENTENCE PROCESSING

To contribute to a better understanding of second language (L2) sentence processing, the present study examines how L2 learners parse temporarily ambiguous sentences containing relative clauses. Results are reported from both off-line and on-line experiments with three groups of advanced learners of Greek whose native languages (L1s) were Spanish, German, or Russian as well as from corresponding experiments with a control group of adult native speakers of Greek. We found that, despite their nativelike mastery of the construction under investigation, the L2 learners showed relative-clause attachment preferences that were different from those of the native speakers. Moreover, the L2 learners did not exhibit L1-based preferences in their L2 Greek, as might be expected if they were directly influenced by L1 attachment preferences. We suggest that L2 learners integrate information relevant for parsing differently from native speakers, with the L2 learners relying more on lexical cues than the native speakers and less on purely structurally based parsing strategies.
Collaborative Enhancement of Antibody Binding to Distinct PECAM-1 Epitopes Modulates Endothelial Targeting

Antibodies to platelet endothelial cell adhesion molecule-1 (PECAM-1) facilitate targeted drug delivery to endothelial cells by “vascular immunotargeting. ” To define the targeting quantitatively, we investigated the endothelial binding of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) to extracellular epitopes of PECAM-1. Surprisingly, we have found in human and mouse cell culture models that the endothelial binding of PECAM-directed mAbs and scFv therapeutic fusion protein is increased by co-administration of a paired mAb directed to an adjacent, yet distinct PECAM-1 epitope. This results in significant enhancement of functional activity of a PECAM-1-targeted scFv-thrombomodulin fusion protein generating therapeutic activated Protein C. The “collaborative enhancement” of mAb binding is affirmed in vivo, as manifested by enhanced pulmonary accumulation of intravenously administered radiolabeled PECAM-1 mAb when co-injected with an unlabeled paired mAb in mice. This is the first demonstration of a positive modulatory effect of endothelial binding and vascular immunotargeting provided by the simultaneous binding a paired mAb to adjacent distinct epitopes. The “collaborative enhancement” phenomenon provides a novel paradigm for optimizing the endothelial-targeted delivery of therapeutic agents.
Hand-gesture recognition for automated speech generation

In the past few years the development in the field of Gesture Recognition and the tools, devices, models and algorithms are into existence. Regardless of various innovations in the above technologies humans are still comfortable with showing gestures according to the plain hand. In this paper we focus on a system that runs on a mobile computing device which provides us the technology for automated translation of the Indian Sign Language system into Speech in the English Language and thus provides a duplex communication between the vocally impaired people and the common people of the society. This system can be very effective and can be used in the near future for communication between the people who do not understand the Sign language since it works on the principle of Gesture Recognition. The system uses an intrinsic mobile camera for gesture recognition and acquisition; gesture acquired is processed with the help of Algorithms like HSV model-(Skin Color Detection), LargeBlob Detection, Flood Fill and Contour Extraction. The system is able to recognize one handed sign representation of the standard alphabets (A-Z) and numeric values (0-9). The output of this system is very efficient, consistent and of high approximation of gesture processing and speech analysis.
Aerospace Reconnaissance Distributed System Design Based on WES

A distributed embedded system is designed based on WES&#65288;Windows Embedded Studio&#65289;, which is used to improve the stability and reliability of the aerospace optoelectronic reconnaissance platform, and enhance the visualization in the complicated natural environment. This system is combined with the component of distributed data communication, the component of CCD image acquisition and transfers, all of which are designed on the hardware of PM401 by WES. Then, plying the EWF technology, integrate the stable and reliable distributed system. At last, using NHPP mathematic model, analyze the stability and reliability of the system. The results show that the stability and the reliability of this distributed system works well, up to 94.61%.
The Impact of Input Fluctuations on the Frequency–Current Relationships of Layer 5 Pyramidal Neurons in the Rat Medial Prefrontal Cortex

The role of irregular cortical firing in neuronal computation is still debated, and it is unclear how signals carried by fluctuating synaptic potentials are decoded by downstream neurons. We examined in vitro frequency versus current (f–I) relationships of layer 5 (L5) pyramidal cells of the rat medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) using fluctuating stimuli. Studies in the somatosensory cortex show that L5 neurons become insensitive to input fluctuations as input mean increases and that their f–I response becomes linear. In contrast, our results show that mPFC L5 pyramidal neurons retain an increased sensitivity to input fluctuations, whereas their sensitivity to the input mean diminishes to near zero. This implies that the discharge properties of L5 mPFC neurons are well suited to encode input fluctuations rather than input mean in their firing rates, with important consequences for information processing and stability of persistent activity at the network level.
Personality and Musical Preference Using Social-Tagging in Excerpt-Selection

Music preference has been related to individual differences like social identity, cognitive style, and personality, but quantifying music preference can be a challenge. Self-report measures may be too presumptive of shared genre definitions between listeners, while listener ratings of expert-selected music may fail to reflect typical listeners’ genre boundaries. The current study aims to address this by using a social-tagging approach to select music for studying preference. In this study, 2,407 tracks were collected and subsampled from the Last.fm social-tagging service and the EchoNest platform based on attributes such as genre, tempo, and danceability. The set was further subsampled according to tempo estimates and metadata from EchoNest, resulting in 48 excerpts from 12 genres. Participants (n = 210) heard and rated the excerpts, rated each genre using the Short Test of Music Preferences (STOMP; n.d.), and completed the Ten-Item Personality Index (TIPI), the Empathy Quotient (EQ) and the Systemizing Quotient (SQ). Mean preference ratings correlated significantly with STOMP scores, suggesting that social tagging can provide a fairly reliable link between perception and genre labels. Principal component analysis (PCA) of the ratings revealed 4 musical components: “Danceable,” “Jazzy,” “Hard,” and “Rebellious. ” Component scores correlated modestly but significantly with TIPI, EQ, and SQ scores. These results support and expand previous findings linking personality and music preference, and provide support for a novel method of using crowd tagging in the study of music preference.
Ontology Creation as a Sensemaking Activity

This article explores the use of diagramming to support simultaneous sensemaking and ontology development. The authors argue that tools can be developed to support a continuum of knowledge models, from initial free-form diagrams that make it easy to capture anauthorés knowledge and intent but are only interpretable by humans, to propositionally coherent concept maps that structure the free-form diagrams into independently meaningful node-link-node triples, and finally to description-logic concept maps that combine human readability and understanding with logical formalism and a machine-understandable format. The CmapTools Ontology Editor (COE) is a version of CmapTools that uses a descriptive-logic style to encode meanings. Rendering Web Ontology Language (OWL) into concept map notation may be regarded as a first marker in the territory that lies toward the formal end of a continuum of human-machine functionality. In COE-OWL diagrams, the machine reads the parts of the diagram that it can and performs allowable logical operations, while ignoring the parts of the diagram it cannot read. Conversely, humans read those parts of the diagram that make sense and can ignore the rest, knowing that the two formsóthe natural and the logicalóare linked in a way that is itself meaningful and functional. The authors call this merger of ontology creation and sensemaking ìopportunistic computation.
9 The Continuous-Discrete Approach

Next we show how to maintain completely decentralized overlay networks, i.e. now we do not have a supervisor any more. We will assume that peers that want to enter the network already know a peer that is in the network. (In practice, peers contact rendezvous servers available over the worldwide web that will introduce the peer to a peer in the network.) For the decentralized overlay networks presented in this section we will use an approach called the continuous-discrete approach [3]. The basic idea of the continuous-discrete approach is to define a continuous model of graphs and to apply this continuous model to a finite set of nodes. Consider some d-dimensional space U = [0, 1) d , and suppose that we have a set F of functions where |S| denotes the volume of a set S. F is called mixing if α > 0 and rapidly mixing if α is a constant. If F does not mix, then there are disconnected areas in U. As a prerequisite for our constructions we require that it is possible to go from any area to any other area in U , and we will therefore assume in the following that F is mixing. Under this assumption, the continuous setting can be transformed into a discrete, connected graph as follows: Invariant 9.1 Suppose that we have a set V of n nodes, and suppose that a region R(v) ⊆ U has been assigned to each node v ∈ V so that the regions cover the entire space U , i.e. ∪ v R(v) = U. Then the graph G F (V) contains an edge (v, w) for every pair of nodes v and w for which there is an edge (x, y) ∈ E F with x ∈ R(v) and y ∈ R(w). Thus, for the invariant to be useful, we need • a family of functions F on some space U that is mixing, and • a rule for assigning regions to nodes that cover U. There are two basic strategies for the second part: cutting U into disjoint regions, or choosing overlapping regions for the nodes.
An Arabidopsis mutant atcsr-2 exhibits high cadmium stress sensitivity involved in the restriction of H2S emission

The gene AtCSR encodes peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerases (PPIases) that accelerate energetically unfavorable cis/trans isomerization of the peptide bond preceding proline production. In our studies, we found that AtCSR was associated with cadmium (Cd)-sensitive response in Arabidopsis. Our results show that AtCSR expression was triggered by Cd-stress in wild type Arabidopsis. The expression of some genes responsible for Cd2+ transportation into vacuoles was induced, and the expression of the iron-regulated transporter 1 (IRT1) related to Cd2+ absorption from the environment was not induced in wild type with Cd2+ treatment. The expression of Cd-transportation related genes was not in response to Cd-stress, whereas IRT expression increased dramatically in atcsr-2 with Cd2+ treatment. The expression of glutathione 1 (GSH1) was consistent with GSH being much lower in atcsr-2 in comparison with the wild type with Cd2+ treatment. Additionally, malondialdehyde (MDA), hydrogen peroxide, and Cd2+ contents, and activities of some antioxidative enzymes, differed between the wild type and atcsr-2. Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) has been confirmed as the third gas-transmitter over recent years. The findings revealed that the expression pattern of H2S-releasing related genes and that of Cd-induced chelation and transportation genes matched well in the wild type and atcsr-2, and H2S could regulate the expression of the Cd-induced genes and alleviate Cd-triggered toxicity. Finally, one possible suggestion was given: down-regulation of atcsr-2, depending on H2S gas-transmitter not only weakened Cd2+ chelation, but also reduced Cd2+ transportation into vacuoles, as well as enhancing the Cd2+ assimilation, thus rendering atcsr-2 mutant sensitive to Cd-stress.
The Hubble Deep Field South Flanking Fields

As part of the Hubble Deep Field South program, a set of shorter two-orbit observations were obtained of the area adjacent to the deep fields. The WFPC2 flanking fields cover a contiguous solid angle of 48 arcmin2. Parallel observations with the STIS and NICMOS instruments produce a patchwork of additional fields with optical and near-infrared (1.6 μm) response. Deeper parallel exposures with WFPC2 and NICMOS were obtained when STIS observed the NICMOS deep field. These deeper fields are offset from the rest, and an extended low surface brightness object is visible in the deeper WFPC2 flanking field. In this data paper, which serves as an archival record of the project, we discuss the observations and data reduction and present SExtractor source catalogs and number counts derived from the data. Number counts are broadly consistent with previous surveys from both ground and space. Among other things, these flanking field observations are useful for defining slit masks for spectroscopic follow-up over a wider area around the deep fields, for studying large-scale structure that extends beyond the deep fields, for future supernova searches, and for number counts and morphological studies, but their ultimate utility will be defined by the astronomical community.
Satellite cell activation and populations on single muscle-fiber cultures from adult zebrafish (Danio rerio)

Satellite cells (SCs), stem cells in skeletal muscle, are mitotically quiescent in adult mammals until activated for growth or regeneration. In mouse muscle, SCs are activated by nitric oxide (NO), hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and the mechanically induced NO–HGF signaling cascade. Here, the SC population on fibers from the adult, ectothermic zebrafish and SC responsiveness to activating stimuli were assessed using the model system of isolated fibers cultured at 27 and 21°C. SCs were identified by immunostaining for the HGF receptor, c-met, and activation was determined using bromodeoxyuridine uptake in culture or in vivo. In dose–response studies, SC activation was increased by treatment with the NO-donor drug isosorbide dinitrate (1 mmol l−1) or HGF (10 ng ml−1) to maximum activation at lower concentrations of both than in previous studies of mouse fibers. HGF-induced activation was blocked by anti-c-met antibody, and reduced by culture at 21°C. The effect of cyclical stretch (3 h at 4 cycles per minute) increased activation and was blocked by nitric oxide synthase inhibition and reduced by culture at 21°C. The number of c-met+ SCs per fiber increased rapidly (by 3 h) after stretching. The character of signaling in SC activation on zebrafish fibers, in particular temperature-dependent responses to HGF and stretch, gives new insights into the influence of ectothermy on regulation of muscle growth in teleosts and suggests the use of the single-fiber model system to explore the basis of fiber hyperplasia and the conservation of regulatory pathways between species.
Exact certification of global optimality of approximate factorizations via rationalizing sums-of-squares with floating point scalars

We generalize the technique by Peyrl and Parillo [Proc. SNC 2007] to computing lower bound certificates for several well-known factorization problems in hybrid symbolic-numeric computation. The idea is to transform a numerical sum-of-squares (SOS) representation of a positive polynomial into an exact rational identity. Our algorithms successfully certify accurate rational lower bounds near the irrational global optima for benchmark approximate polynomial greatest common divisors and multivariate polynomial irreducibility radii from the literature, and factor coefficient bounds in the setting of a model problem by Rump (up to n = 14, factor degree = 13. The numeric SOSes produced by the current fixed precision semi-definite programming (SDP) packages (SeDuMi, SOSTOOLS, YALMIP) are usually too coarse to allow successful projection to exact SOSes via Maple 11's exact linear algebra. Therefore, before projection we refine the SOSes by rank-preserving Newton iteration. For smaller problems the starting SOSes for Newton can be guessed without SDP ("SDP-free SOS"), but for larger inputs we additionally appeal to sparsity techniques in our SDP formulation.
Survey Techniques to Measure and Explain Corruption

Reinikka and Svensson demonstrate that, with appropriate survey methods and interview techniques, it is possible to collect quantitative micro-level data on corruption. Public expenditure tracking surveys, service provider surveys, and enterprise surveys are highlighted with several applications. While often broader in scope, these surveys permit measurement of corruption at the level of individual agents, such as schools, health clinics, or firms. They also permit the study of mechanisms responsible for corruption, including leakage of funds and bribery, as data on corruption can be combined with other data collected in these surveys.
A Highly Stable Millimeter Wave Low Noise Amplifier in 130 nm CMOS Technology

The design of a 60 GHz four-stage cascaded low noise amplifier (LNA) is presented in this paper. By using proper microstrip transmission lines in the gate and source of the common-source transistor, high stability factor and low noise figure are obtained simultaneously. The proposed LNA is designed in 130nm CMOS technology and simulated using ADS software employing accurate models for both transistors and microstrip lines. The simulation results show a 14 dB gain and less than a 4 dB noise figure at 60 GHz. The stability factor (K) of the designed LNA is more than 10 in hole of the desired bandwidth.
Boosting Twin Support Vector Machine Approach for MCs Detection

Clustered microcalcifications (MCs) are one of the early signs of breast cancer, and they are of great importance for an early diagnosis. Moreover, the spatial distribution and the shape of the microcalcifications have a significant impact in medical practice to evaluate the probability of malignancy of the tumor. In this paper we investigate an approach based on boosted twin support vector (Boosting-TWSVM) for detection of microcalcifications clusters (MCs) in digital mammograms.In the algorithm, we formulate MCs detection as a supervised-learning problem and apply the trained Boosted-TWSVM classifier to develop the detection algorithm. We tested the proposed method using DDSM database of 80cases mammograms containing about 980 MCs. Detection performance of the proposed method is evaluated by using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves. We compared the proposed algorithm with other existing methods. In our experiments, the proposed detection method outperformed the other methods tested. In particular, a sensitivity as high as 92.35% was achieved by our detection algorithm at an error rate of 8.3%. The experiment results suggest that Boosted-TWSVM is a promising technique for MCs detection.
Asymmetric Contests with Interdependent Valuations

I show that a unique equilibrium exists in a two-player all-pay auction with asymmetric independent discrete signal distributions and asymmetric interdependent valuations. The proof is constructive, and the construction is simple to implement as a computer program. For special cases, which include some private value settings, common value settings, and symmetric players, I derive additional properties and comparative statics. I also characterize the set of equilibria when a reserve price is introduced.