Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Automatic melodic and structural analysis of music material for enriched concert related experiences

This PhD thesis proposal deals with the automatic analysis of musical audio, focusing on the estimation of the predominant melodic lines, which are used as a basis for extracting musical themes, and (along with other features) for structure recognition. The main focus is set on classical western music in large ensemble settings, which poses interesting research challenges to current state-of-the art algorithms. We will study the limitations of current approaches in this genre, and elaborate specific descriptors and methods, combining audio based analysis with further sources of knowledge and modalities. The creation of appropriate datasets will also be a main aspect, in order to properly evaluate the developed approaches. This work will be used to enrich musical concert related experiences, from music consumers to editors.
Synaptic Network Activity Induces Neuronal Differentiation of Adult Hippocampal Precursor Cells through BDNF Signaling

Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is regulated by activity. But how do neural precursor cells in the hippocampus respond to surrounding network activity and translate increased neural activity into a developmental program? Here we show that long-term potentiation (LTP)-like synaptic activity within a cellular network of mature hippocampal neurons promotes neuronal differentiation of newly generated cells. In co-cultures of precursor cells with primary hippocampal neurons, LTP-like synaptic plasticity induced by addition of glycine in Mg2+-free media for 5 min, produced synchronous network activity and subsequently increased synaptic strength between neurons. Furthermore, this synchronous network activity led to a significant increase in neuronal differentiation from the co-cultured neural precursor cells. When applied directly to precursor cells, glycine- and Mg2+-free solution did not induce neuronal differentiation. Synaptic plasticity-induced neuronal differentiation of precursor cells was observed in the presence of GABAergic neurotransmission blockers but was dependent on NMDA-mediated Ca2+ influx. Most importantly, neuronal differentiation required the release of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) from the underlying substrate hippocampal neurons as well as TrkB receptor phosphorylation in precursor cells. This suggests that activity-dependent stem cell differentiation within the hippocampal network is mediated via synaptically evoked BDNF signaling.
Gender Discrimination and Sexual Harassment in Medical Education: Perspectives Gained by a 14‐school Study

Purpose The authors attempted to determine male and female medical students' exposures to and perceptions of gender discrimination and sexual harassment (GD/SH) in selected academic and nonacademic contexts. Method An anonymous, self-report questionnaire was administered in the spring of 1997 to senior medical students at 14 U.S. medical schools. Data were collected about students' exposures to GD/SH during undergraduate medical education and outside the medical training environment. Students' perceptions of GD/SH in various medical specialties and practice settings were also measured. Results Of the 1,911 questionnaires administered, 1,314 were completed (response rate, 69%). Both men and women reported exposures to GD/SH. More women than men reported all types of exposures to GD/SH across all academic and nonacademic contexts. Differences between men and women in the frequencies of exposures were greatest outside the medical training environment (t = 15.67, df = 1171, p ≤ .001). Within academic medical training contexts, the differences by sex were most evident in core clerkships (t = 11.17, df = 1176, p ≤ .001). Women students perceived the prevalence of GD/SH to be significantly (p ≤ .001) higher in a number of medical specialties than did men. However, both groups believed these behaviors to be most common in general surgery and obstetrics—gynecology. Women perceived significantly more GD/SH in academic medical centers and community hospitals. Both groups perceived these behaviors to be significantly more prevalent in academic medical centers than in community hospitals, and more prevalent in community hospitals than in outpatient office settings. Conclusions This study suggests that mistreatment in the form of GD/SH is prevalent in undergraduate medical education, particularly within core clerkships. Interventions focused on particular specialties and training periods may be helpful.
Super Yang-Mills Theory with Impurity Walls and Instanton Moduli Spaces

We explore maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with walls of impurities respecting half of the supersymmetries. The walls carry fundamental or bifundamental matter multiplets. We employ three-dimensional N=2 superspace language to identify the Higgs branch of this theory. We find that the vacuum conditions determining the Higgs branch are exactly the bow equations yielding Yang-Mills instantons on a multi-Taub-NUT space. Under electric-magnetic duality, the super Yang-Mills theory describing the bulk is mapped to itself, while the fundamental- and bifundamental-carrying impurity walls are interchanged. We perform a one-loop computation on the Coulomb branch of the dual theory to find the asymptotic metric on the original Higgs branch.
An implementation and performance analysis of spatial data access methods

Four spatial data access methods, R-trees, K-D-B-trees, R+trees, and 2-D-Isam, have been implemented within a preliminary version of the POSTGRES DBMS (database management system). These access methods have been tested over a range of shapes and sizes of two-dimensional objects and for a range of logical page sizes. The CPU time, number of disk reads and writes, and the resulting tree sizes have been tabulated for insert and retrieve operations. It is concluded that R-trees provide the best tradeoff between performance and implementation complexity and that choice of implementation is crucial to the performance of all the methods investigated. <<ETX>>
DNA microarray analysis of cranial sensory Ganglia identifies genes involved in somatosensation in craniofacial structures including oropharynx related to food intake.

Ichiro Matsumoto1, Shugo Nakamura2, Soichi Arai3, Yasufumi Emori4 and Keiko Abe1 1Department of Applied Biological Chemistry, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan, 2Department of Biotechnology, Graduate School of Agricultural and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, 1-1-1 Yayoi, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8657, Japan, 3Department of Nutritional Science, Tokyo University of Agriculture, 1-1-1 Sakuragaoka, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo 156-8502, Japan and4 Department of Biophysics and Biochemistry, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Neurogenin 2 has an essential role in development of the dentate gyrus

The dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus has a central role in learning and memory in adult rodents. The DG is generated soon after birth, although new neurons continue to be generated in the DG throughout life. The proneural factors Mash1 (Ascl1) and neurogenin 2 (Ngn2) are expressed during formation of the DG but their role in the development of this structure has not yet been addressed. Here, we show that Ngn2 is essential for the development of the DG. Ngn2 mutant mice have fewer DG progenitors and these cells present defects in neuronal differentiation. By contrast, the DG is normal in Mash1 mutant mice at birth, and loss of both Mash1 and Ngn2 does not aggravate the defect observed in Ngn2 single mutants. These data establish a unique role of Ngn2 in DG neurogenesis during development and raise the possibility that Ngn2 has a similar function in adult neurogenesis.
Dynamics of Strongly Coupled Spiking Neurons

We present a dynamical theory of integrate-and-fire neurons with strong synaptic coupling. We show how phase-locked states that are stable in the weak coupling regime can destabilize as the coupling is increased, leading to states characterized by spatiotemporal variations in the interspike intervals (ISIs). The dynamics is compared with that of a corresponding network of analog neurons in which the outputs of the neurons are taken to be mean firing rates. A fundamental result is that for slow interactions, there is good agreement between the two models (on an appropriately defined timescale). Various examples of desynchronization in the strong coupling regime are presented. First, a globally coupled network of identical neurons with strong inhibitory coupling is shown to exhibit oscillator death in which some of the neurons suppress the activity of others. However, the stability of the synchronous state persists for very large networks and fast synapses. Second, an asymmetric network with a mixture of excitation and inhibition is shown to exhibit periodic bursting patterns. Finally, a one-dimensional network of neurons with long-range interactions is shown to desynchronize to a state with a spatially periodic pattern of mean firing rates across the network. This is modulated by deterministic fluctuations of the instantaneous firing rate whose size is an increasing function of the speed of synaptic response.
Insulin sensitivity and β-cell function estimated by HOMA2 model in sprint-trained athletes aged 20−90 years vs endurance runners and untrained participants

Abstract There are no studies available that portray insulin sensitivity and β-cell function in ageing sprint-trained athletes. We compared male young and master sprint-trained athletes to endurance-trained and untrained individuals. We hypothesised that ageing sprint-trained athletes would preserve insulin sensitivity and β-cell function at a level similar to that of endurance-trained peers and better than in untrained individuals. We showed the associations between age and parameters derived from the updated Homeostasis Model Assessment (HOMA2 model) in 52 sprint-trained track and field athletes (aged 20−90 years), 85 endurance runners (20−80 years) and 55 untrained individuals (20−70 years). Fasting glucose, fasting insulin, insulin sensitivity and β-cell function were not associated with age in sprint-trained athletes. These variables remained relatively stable across a wide range of age and comparable to those observed in endurance-trained athletes. In contrast, the untrained group showed considerable age-related increase in fasting insulin and β-cell activity and a strong decrease in insulin sensitivity compared to both athletic groups. HOMA2 parameters were significantly related to maximal oxygen in the combined group of participants. In summary, chronic training based on a “sprint model” of physical activity, that contains mixed exercise, seems to be effective in maintaining normal insulin sensitivity with ageing.
A Hybrid Model for Urdu Hindi Transliteration

We report in this paper a novel hybrid approach for Urdu to Hindi transliteration that combines finite-state machine (FSM) based techniques with statistical word language model based approach. The output from the FSM is filtered with the word language model to produce the correct Hindi output. The main problem handled is the case of omission of diacritical marks from the input Urdu text. Our system produces the correct Hindi output even when the crucial information in the form of diacritic marks is absent. The approach improves the accuracy of the transducer-only approach from 50.7% to 79.1%. The results reported show that performance can be improved using a word language model to disambiguate the output produced by the transducer-only approach, especially when diacritic marks are not present in the Urdu input.
MARCH2: Comparative Assessment of Therapeutic Effects of Acarbose and Metformin in Newly Diagnosed Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Background The data of MARCH (Metformin and AcaRbose in Chinese as the initial Hypoglycaemic treatment) trial demonstrated that acarbose and metformin have similar efficacy as initial therapy for hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) reduction in Chinese patients with newly diagnosed type 2 diabetes. We investigated whether the therapeutic efficacy was diversified under different body mass index (BMI) status. Methods All 784 subjects were divided into normal-weight group (BMI<24 kg/m2), overweight group (BMI 24–28 kg/m2) and obese group (BMI≥28 kg/m2). Patients were assigned to 48 weeks of therapy with acarbose or metformin, respectively. The clinical trial registry number was ChiCTR-TRC-08000231. Results The reduction of HbA1c levels and the proportion of patients with HbA1c of 6.5% or less were similar in the three groups after acarbose and metformin treatment. In overweight group, fasting blood glucose (FBG) after metformin treatment showed greater decline compared to acarbose group at 48 weeks [−1.73 (−1.99 to −1.46) vs. −1.37 (−1.61 to −1.12), P<0.05), however the decrease of 2 h post-challenge blood glucose (PBG) after acarbose treatment at 48 weeks was bigger compared to metformin group [−3.34 (−3.83 to−2.84) vs. −2.35 (−2.85 to −1.85), P<0.01 ]. Both acarbose and metformin treatment resulted in a significant decrease in waist circumference, hip circumference, weight and BMI in the three groups (all P<0.05). Conclusion Acarbose and metformin decreased HbA1c levels similarly regardless of BMI status of Chinese type 2 diabetic patients. Acarbose and metformin resulted in a significant and modest improvement of anthropometric parametres in different BMI status. Thus, acarbose treatment may contribute a similar effect on plasma glucose control compared to metformin, even in obesity patients. Trial Registration ChiCTR.org ChiCTR-TRC-08000231
Interactive Poster: Axes-Based Visualizations for Time Series Data

In the analysis of multidimensional time series data questions involving extremal events, trends and patterns play an increasingly important role in several applications. We focus on the use of Axes-based visualizations(similar to Parallel or Star Coordinates) to aid in the analysis of multidimensional data sets. We present two novel radial visual arrangements of axes - the TimeWheel and the MultiComb. They are implemented as part of an interactive framework called VisAxes. We report our early experiences with these novel design patterns.
Stochastic Spline-Collocation Method for Constrained Optimal Control Problem Governed by Random Elliptic PDE

In this paper, we investigate a stochastic spline-collocation approximation scheme for an optimal control problem governed by an elliptic PDE with random field coefficients. We obtain the necessary and sufficient optimality conditions for the optimal control problem and establish a scheme to approximate the optimality system through the discretization with respect to the spatial space by finite elements method and the probability space by stochastic splinecollocation method. We further investigate Smolyak approximation schemes, which are effective collocation strategies for smooth problems that depend on a moderately large number of random variables. For more general control problems where the state may be non-smooth with respect to the random variables in some areas, we adopt a domain decomposition strategy to partition the random space into smooth and non-smooth parts and then apply Smolyak scheme and spline approximation respectively. A priori error estimates are derived for the state, the co-state and the control variables. Numerical examples are presented to illustrate our theoretical results.
Impulsive noise mitigation scheme that combines nulling and time sample replacement

OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) is used in many applications that require high-speed communication. However, in the system using OFDM such as PLC (power line communication), there is a problem that reception characteristics are strongly deteriorated by the impulsive noise because impulsive noise has short time duration and very large magnitude. Therefore, many schemes such as clipping and nulling scheme and time sample replacement scheme have been proposed to reduce the influence of the impulsive noise in OFDM systems. In this paper, a combination of the conventional nulling scheme and time sample replacement scheme is proposed to improve the characteristics of the bit error rate.
Social factors reconsidered in the development of behavioral disorders in Attention-deficit Hyperactivity disordered children

Cesar, Kevin R. , B.A., December 1993 Clinical Psychology SOCIAL FACTORS RECONSIDERED IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF BEHAVIORAL DISORDERS IN ATTENTION-DEFICIT HI IVITY DISORDERED CHILDREN (246 pp.) The purpose of the present study was to examine possible psychosocial and perceptual factors that may differentiate families with an Attention-deficit Hyperactive disordered (ADHD) child from those with a child co-diagnosed ADHD+Conduct disorder ̂^br Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and to investigate familial and perceptual factors that may exacerbate the progression of ODD and CD in ADHD children. Subjects included 40 males, 7 to 11 and their biological mothers. 20 were diagnosed pure ADHD and 20 ADHD+CD/ODD. Perceptual factors were examined by the Family Environment Scale (FES; Moos & Moos, 1986), and the Parent Behavior Inventory (PBI; Weintraub, 1981). The children were administered the Child's Version of the Family Environment Scale (CVFES; Pino, Simons, & Slawinowski, 19 87), and the Children's Report of Parenting Behavior Inventory (CRPBI; Raskin, Booth, Reatig, Schulterbrandt, & Odle, 1971) . Results suggest that mothers of both ADHD males and ADHD+CD/ODD males perceive their environments and their parenting behavior as highly comparable. Likewise, both ADHD and ADHD+CD/ODD males perceived their home environments and their parent's behavior highly similarly with few exceptions. Additionally, perceptions of mother-son dyads were compared by group (ADHD and ADHD+CD/ODD). Results suggest similar levels of discrepancy between both sets of mother-son dyads regardless of condition. In general the psychosocial factors examined did not differentiate the two groups of mothers. Mothers of both ADHD and ADHD+CD/ODD children reported being well adjusted. Furthermore, other than the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL; Achenbach & Edelbrock, 1983) few measures differentiated ADHD from ADHD+CD/ODD males. On the CBCL, mothers of ADHD+CD/ODD children rated their sons higher on the Aggressive behavior, the Somatic complaints, and the Anxiety/Depression scales. A significant interaction was found for Group by Medication status of the child on the FES and the CBCL. Director: David Schuldberg, Ph.D.
An Alternative Taxonomy of Project Management Structures: Linking Project Management Structures and Project Success

This paper addresses the question of how projects are organized and how these management structures impact project success. Despite its widely accepted managerial importance, empirical studies could not provide significant evidence of a relationship between implemented management structures and project success. A major problem in finding meaningful empirical evidence is the conceptualization of the structure measure, which is derived from a typologist's perspective. In this study, we follow the taxonomists' perspective and empirically develop an alternative taxonomy of project management structures. We empirically compare both approaches, by using two different samples, collected in the United States and Germany, including together over 600 projects. Our empirical findings show that the validity of the widely accepted project organization typology is in question. The use of cluster analyses reveals an alternative taxonomy that encompasses five structural types, differentiated by the entities managing them: project coordinator, supervised project coordinator, autonomous project manager, supervised project manager, and autonomous functional project manager. The results strongly support the widely accepted proposition of a relationship between project organization and project success. The emerging taxonomy of project organization configurations enriches the theoretical and conceptual discussions of organizing projects and unravels the multiple aspects involved in organizing the execution of projects.
Upgrade to dual chamber pacing after long-term ventricular stimulation: feasibility and intermediate term follow-up.

AIMS To evaluate the feasibility and follow-up results of atrial lead implantation and a change to dual chamber pacing following long-term treatment with single chamber ventricular stimulation. METHODS AND RESULTS During a 30-month period, 70 consecutive patients with ventricular pacemakers were referred for pulse generator exchange or lead reoperation. Using defined criteria, an upgrade procedure was considered indicated in 34 of the cases (49%); these patients had a mean age of 74.8+/-8.8 years, and had been treated with VVI or VVIR pacing for a mean time of 7.8+/-3.8 years (range 1.8-17). An atrial lead was successfully implanted via ipsilateral subclavian venipuncture through the existing pectoral pacemaker pocket in 33 of the 34 cases (97% of the attempts). Postoperatively, one atrial lead dislodgement was seen, and another patient required atrial lead adjustment due to P wave undersensing. The mean follow-up period was 14+/-10 months. During this time, four patients developed permanent atrial fibrillation (annual incidence 11%. In 82% of the patients in whom an upgrade procedure was attempted, dual chamber pacing was maintained at the end of follow-up. CONCLUSION Restoration of AV synchrony is possible in a substantial proportion of patients treated with long-term ventricular stimulation. Atrial lead placement through ipsilateral subclavian venipuncture is generally feasible, and the vast majority of cases remain in dual chamber pacing with normal function during intermediate term follow-up.
Characterization of outbreak hepatitis a isolates in five Tunisian childcare centers

In the present study, epidemiological survey and molecular characterization of hepatitis A virus during an outbreak in five Tunisian childcare centers in El-Mahres during October and November 2006 were carried out. Five well-water and five drinking water samples were included in the present study. Serological investigation and molecular characterization were carried out. All patients were IgM seropositive and the viral genome was detected in all clinical and well-water samples whereas it was not detected in drinking water from the five childcare centers. Sequence analysis showed that all Tunisian strains belong to sub-genotype IA. The genetic profile of the VP1/2A junction showed that the outbreak isolates underwent an amino acid substitution which was absent in virus’s strains detected previously in Tunisia. Further studies need to be conducted to evaluate the emergence of the virus’s strains in clinical and water samples and more epidemiological data need to be collected about the risk factors which may contribute to acute hepatitis.