Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gallium Nitride Applications in Power Electronics

For just over 50 years doped Silicon (Si) has been the dominant semiconductor material for electronic circuit design and will continue its dominance for the foreseeable future for good reason. For now, competing or complementary process technologies lack the economies of scale to drive costs down in parallel with Si. In addition to development and manufacturing costs, Si process behavior and circuit performance are well understood and consistently predictable well into the deep submicron level. Current production Si channel lengths are about 22nm and 18µm for digital and analog integrated circuit manufacturers, respectively. Other than design specific characteristics, doped Si performance suffices for the vast majority of applications today. This paper will lightly cover Gallium Nitride (GaN) properties and the applications in power electronics. Additionally, GaN will also be compared with Silicon Carbide (SiC) which has very good characteristics for power electronics but is not a III-Nitride compound.
The Ghost in the Machine : A Theory-laden Approach to Demographic Inference in Machine Learning Blinded for Review

A variety of studies have shown that machine learning methods like convolutional neural nets and random forests can be used to accurately infer characteristics of people online such as their gender, age, race, or political orientation. However, these methods are atheoretical: producing models which fail to generalize across context and offer little insight why some models perform better in some contexts and not others. This study compares the performance of state-of-the-art, atheoretical models to models informed by social theory on the task of inferring gender in text. Theory-laden models are developed using gender systems theory in sociology. Texts come from five corpora: blog posts, tweets, crowdfunding essays, movie scripts, and professional writing. The results show that models of gender built from theory are as accurate or more accurate than state of the art models. However, performance still varied substantially across corpora and, in some cases, even poor models with little theoretical motivation perform better than the best models. The success of this model suggests the presence of anomalous gender differences with little theoretical ex-
RELIGION AND SOUND CHANGE IN EASTERN NEW ENGLAND ENGLISH

There are several ongoing sound changes in the Eastern New England (ENE) English dialect region of the United States, including the backing of START and PALM, and mergers of NORTH/FORCE and MARRY/MERRY/MARY. Prior work has suggested that these changes are advancing faster in Northern ENE, particularly New Hampshire, compared to Boston, Massachusetts, which may be due to an ideological urban vs. rural split. The current work examines these changes in the Jewish community in Northern ENE, which has stronger links to the urban centers of both Boston and New York City compared to the non-Jewish community. Jewish speakers are advancing faster on one change, START /PALM backing, suggesting that a more complex view of intraregional ties and attitudes towards urban centers are needed to explain the changes in Northern ENE.
Treatment through Folate Conjugated Gold Nanoparticles ( * )

Here, we report our research on the optimum design, in vitro tests and in vivo applications of folate-conjugated gold nanoparticles (nanoconjugates) for selective targeting of folate receptor positive cancerous cells, which over express folate-receptor on their surface. Significantly high light absorption of these new nanoconjugate makes them promising materials for photo-activated cancer therapy and thermal ablation of tumors. We have produced two nanoconjugates made of folate and gold nanoparticle (AuNP) with various linkers. We have used them for in vitro selective cancer cells targeting and destruction with excellent results. Experiments were conducted on human adenocarcinoma HeLa cell chosen as the model cancer cell line because of its folate-receptor over expression. In addition, MCF7 cell line was used as control because of its low level of folate-receptor expression. Following photothermal treatment, more than 95% cell killing was achieved for HeLa cells. The following specific subjects will be reported here: 1) Synthesis and characterization and optimum design of folateconjugated AuNPs using different linkers. 2) Our In vitro examination of the effects of light-particle interaction on cell lethality and optimization of the choice of linker and shape and size of gold nanoparticle. 3) Our ongoing In vivo research into ways to reduce the folate-conjugated gold nanoparticles antigenicity, increasing their hydrodynamic size, and studying their cytotoxicity.
Exploring Effective Fuzzing Strategies to Analyze Communication Protocols

While coverage-based greybox fuzzing has gained great success in the field of vulnerability detection due to its simplicity and efficiency, it could become less powerful when applied directly to protocol fuzzing due to the unique challenges of protocol fuzzing. In particular, (1) The implementation of protocols usually involves multiple program binaries, i.e., multiple fuzzing entries; (2) The communication among multiple ends contains more than one packet, which are not necessarily dependent upon each other, i.e., fuzzing single (usually the first) packet can only achieve extremely limited code coverage. In this paper, we study such challenges and demonstrate the limitation of current non-stateful greybox fuzzer. In order to achieve higher code coverage, we design and implement a stateful protocol fuzzer, yFuzz, to explore the code related to different protocol states. yFuzz is built on AFL (a mainstream greybox fuzzer), and incorporates a stateful fuzzer (which contains a state switching engine) together with a multi-state forkserver (which enables multi-state program forking) to consistently and flexibly fuzz different states of a compiler-instrumented protocol program. Our experimental results on OpenSSL show that yFuzz improves the code coverage by 73% and increases the number of identified unique crashes by 100% when comparing against AFL fuzzing the first packet during a protocol handshake.
BuildingBlocks : Head-mounted Virtual Reality for Robot Interaction in Large Non-Expert Audiences

Virtual Reality (VR) technology empowers users to experience and manipulate virtual environments in a novel way. Further, by using digital twins of real world objects it is also possible to extend the reach of interaction to reality. In this work, we explore how users interact with a robot arm and its programming by using a digital representation in VR. In particular, we were interested in how public spaces influence these interactions. As a preliminary outcome in this direction, we present a simple application called BuildingBlocks, which allows any member of the public to assemble a work order for a robot with almost no instruction. This application was tested anecdotally during an industry fair with 235 active participants. ACM Classification
Carrier Frequency and Phase Synchronization for Burst-Mode Continuous Phase Modulation

Two carrier frequency and phase synchronization algorithms applicable to burst-mode continuous phase modulation (CPM) are presented. The first algorithm is a data aided (DA) carrier frequency and phase synchronization algorithm only based on the preamble. The second algorithm is a non data aided (NDA) carrier frequency and phase synchronization algorithm applied to the full burst. Simulations show that both algorithms reach the Cramer-Rao bound (CRB) even at low signal to noise ratio (SNR).
Cell and Molecular Mediators involved in damage and repair in emphysema using mouse models

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of morbidity and mortality in the United States and an epidemic worldwide. COPD pathologically manifests as emphysema, which is characterized by the abnormal and permanent airspace enlargement. Current research strives to understand the exact sequence of events triggering and leading to the progression of this disease, with the continued hope of finding a cure. The overarching aim of the current study was to investigate the role for the receptor for advanced glycation end products (RAGE) and a distal bronchial progenitor cell population (DBPCs) in mediating alveolar damage and repair using murine models of emphysema. RAGE has gained importance in the context of COPD in the past decade. Highly expressed in normal adult lung tissue; its expression is altered in the context of lung injury. The present study tests the hypothesis that RAGE mediates cigarette smoke induced alveolar injury based on its previously described pro-inflammatory function. RAGE knockout mice (RAGE-/-) were used to investigate the contribution of this receptor towards the development of cigarette smoke induced emphysema. Our data indicates RAGE’s key contribution towards cigarette smoke induced emphysema, mediated through neutrophil recruitment and increased loss of tissue elastance. Emphysema is thought to result from the disruption of a delicate balance that exists within the alveolar compartment; accentuated by failure at endogenous attempts to repair in the presence of extensive inflammation and loss of underlying basement membrane. Using a transgenic mouse line (CC10-Cre x Rosa26-LacZ) developed in our laboratory, we trace and confirm the migration of a distal bronchial progenitor cell population from the bronchoalveolar duct junction (BADJ)/ terminal bronchioles into the adjacent injured alveolar compartment. We further confirm our findings in a knock-in mouse line (CC10-iCre X Rosa26-LacZ) and thereby authenticate the contribution of these progenitor cells towards repopulating the injured alveolus. This study shows that RAGE mediates early neutrophil recruitment leading to the pathogenic progression of alveolar damage and elucidates the contribution of a CC10 expressing bronchial progenitor arising from the distal airways leading to alveolar repopulation in the context of emphysema.
Sensor Selection and Rate Distribution Based Beamforming in Wireless Acoustic Sensor Networks

Power usage is an important aspect of wireless acoustic sensor networks (WASNs) and reducing the amount of information that is to be transmitted is one effective way to save it. In previous contributions, we presented sensor selection as well as rate distribution methods to reduce the power usage of beamforming algorithms in WASNs. Taking only transmission power into account, it was shown that rate distribution is a generalization of sensor selection and that rate distribution is more efficient than sensor selection with respect to the power usage versus performance trade-off. However, this excludes the energy consumption that it takes to keep the WASN nodes activated. In this paper, we present a more detailed comparison between sensor selection and rate-allocation by taking also into account the power to keep sensors activated for centralized WASNs. The framework is formulated by minimizing the total power usage, while lower bounding the noise reduction performance. Numerical results show that whether rate distribution is more efficient than sensor selection depends on the actual power that is used to keep sensors activated.
Speech Enhancement Using Forked Generative Adversarial Networks with Spectral Subtraction

Speech enhancement techniques that use a generative adversarial network (GAN) can effectively suppress noise while allowing models to be trained end-to-end. However, such techniques directly operate on time-domain waveforms, which are often highly-dimensional and require extensive computation. This paper proposes a novel GAN-based speech enhancement method, referred to as S-ForkGAN, that operates on log-power spectra rather than on time-domain speech waveforms, and uses a forked GAN structure to extract both speech and noise information. By operating on log-power spectra, one can seamlessly include conventional spectral subtraction techniques, and the parameter space typically has a lower dimension. The performance of S-ForkGAN is assessed for automatic speech recognition (ASR) using the TIMIT data set and a wide range of noise conditions. It is shown that S-ForkGAN outperforms existing GAN-based techniques and that it has a lower complexity.
The Proscenium of Opera Houses as a Disappeared Intangible Heritage: A Virtual Reconstruction of the 1840s Original Design of the Alighieri Theatre in Ravenna

In a Historical Opera House (HOH), the proscenium is the foreground part of the stage. Until the end of the 19th Century, it was extended through the cavea, being the orchestra placed at the same level of the stalls, without an orchestra pit. Soloists often moved in the proscenium when they sung, in order to increase the strength of the voice and the intelligibility of the text. The Alighieri theatre in Ravenna, designed by the Meduna brothers, the former designers of Venice’s “La Fenice” theater, is chosen as a case study. During a refurbishment in 1928, the proscenium of the stage was removed in order to open the orchestra pit, which was not considered in the original design. The original design and the present one are compared by using numerical simulations. Acoustic measurements of the opera house and vibro-acoustic measurements on a wooden stage help to reach a proper calibration of both models. Results are discussed by means of ISO 3382 criteria: the proscenium increases the sound strength of the soloists but reduces the intelligibility of the text.
Study of the Performance of Automatic Speech Recognition Systems in Speakers with Parkinson's Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) affects motor capabilities of patients, who in some cases need to use human-computer assistive technologies to regain independence. The objective of this work is to study in detail the differences in error patterns from state-of-the-art Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems on speech from people with and without PD. Two different speech recognizers (attention-based end-to-end and Deep Neural Network - Hidden Markov Models hybrid systems) were trained on a Spanish language corpus and subsequently tested on speech from 43 speakers with PD and 46 without PD. The differences related to error rates, substitutions, insertions and deletions of characters and phonetic units between the two groups were analyzed, showing that the word error rate is 27% higher in speakers with PD than in control speakers, with a moderated correlation between that rate and the developmental stage of the disease. The errors were related to all manner classes, and were more pronounced in the vowel /u/. This study is the first to evaluate ASR systems’ responses to speech from patients at different stages of PD in Spanish. The analyses showed general trends but individual speech deficits must be studied in the future when designing new ASR systems for this population.
Scaling Of Student T-Distribution And Properties Of LÃ©vy-Student Processes

The Student t-distribution can be applied in financial studies as heavy-tailed substitute to the normal distribution. The aim of this study is to explore the properties of Student t-distribution and Lévy -Student processes under finance. For a suitable modification of the Lévy measure of Student tdistribution, an explicit expression of its Fourier transform was calculated. It was shown that how the Fourier inversion of this function, which yields the density of the Lévy measure. Further, Lévy-student process is derived that nests the Brownian motion with subordinated by GIG distribution as parameters special case.
Molecular mechanisms involved in the synergistic interaction of the EZH 2 inhibitor 3-deazaneplanocin A ( DZNeP ) with gemcitabine in pancreatic cancer cells

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is characterized by overexpression of Enhancer-of Zeste-Homolog-2 (EZH2), which plays a pivotal role in cancer-stem-cell (CSC) self-renewal through methylation of histone-H3-lysine-27 (H3K27m3). Against this background, EZH2 was identified as an attractive target and we investigated the interaction of the EZH2-inhibitor DZNeP with gemcitabine. EZH2 expression was detected by quantitative-RT-PCR in 15 PDAC cells, including 7 primary cell cultures, showing expression values correlated with their originator tumors (SpearmanR2=0.89, P=0.01). EZH2 expression in cancer cells was significantly higher than in normal ductal pancreatic cells and fibroblasts. DZNeP (5 μM, 72-hour-exposure) modulated EZH2 and H3K27m3 protein expression, and synergistically enhanced the antiproliferative activity of gemcitabine, with combination index values of 0.2 (PANC-1), 0.3 (MIA-PaCa-2) and 0.7 (LPC006). The drug combination reduced the percentages of cells in G2/M phase (e.g., from 27 to 19% in PANC-1, P<0.05), and significantly increased apoptosis compared to gemcitabine-alone. Moreover, DZNeP enhanced the mRNA and protein expression of the nucleoside transporters hENT1/hCNT1, possibly because of the significant reduction of deoxynucleotides content (e.g., 25% reduction of deoxycytidinenucleotides in PANC-1), as detected by LC-MS/MS. DZNeP decreased cell migration, which was additionally reduced by DZNeP/gemcitabine combination (-20% in LPc006, after 8-hour exposure, P<0.05), and associated with increased Ecadherin mRNA and protein expression. Furthermore, DZNeP and DZNeP/gemcitabine combination significantly reduced the volume of PDAC spheroids growing in CSC-selectivemedium, and decreased the proportion of CD133+ cells. All these molecular mechanisms underlying the synergism of DZNeP/gemcitabine combination support further studies on this novel therapeutic approach for treatment of PDAC. Corresponding author: Dr. Elisa Giovannetti, MD, PhD Dept. Medical Oncology, VU University Medical Center Cancer Center Amsterdam, CCA room 1.52 De Boelelaan 1117 1081 HV Amsterdam The Netherlands Tel: (31) 20 4442633 Fax: (31) 20 4442267 e.giovannetti@vumc.nl, elisa.giovannetti@gmail.com. *Notes: Equally contributed Conflicts of interest. The authors have no conflict of interest to disclose. NIH Public Access Author Manuscript Mol Cancer Ther. Author manuscript; available in PMC 2013 August 01. Published in final edited form as: Mol Cancer Ther. 2012 August ; 11(8): 1735–1746. doi:10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-12-0037. N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript N IH PA Athor M anscript
A CONVERGENCE ANALYSIS OF ORTHOGONAL SPLINE COLLOCATION FOR SOLVING TWO-POINT BOUNDARY VALUE PROBLEMS WITHOUT THE BOUNDARY SUBINTERVALS

We consider a new Hermite cubic orthogonal spline collocation (OSC) scheme to solve a two-point boundary value problem (TPBVP) with boundary subintervals excluded from the given interval. Such TPBVPs arise, for example, in the alternating direction implicit OSC solution of parabolic problems on arbitrary domains. The scheme involves transfer of the given Dirichlet boundary values to the end points of the interior interval. The convergence analysis shows that the scheme is of optimal fourth order accuracy in the maximum norm. Numerical results confirm the theoretical results.
A SIP-based audio conferencing system on P 2 P network Student :

As the Internet steadily broadens the bandwidth scope, some application services such as Internet phone (Voice over Internet Protocol) and video services that required high bandwidth are deployed extensively. In recent decade, a popular architecture of Internet service has been developed: Peer-to-Peer network (P2P network). We will try to integrate the P2P network into our proposed SIP based audio conference system. Nowadays VoIP can be considered as a killer application on the Internet, and there are quite a few users enjoying its ease, comfort and affordable cost. For present network bandwidth, end-to-end bandwidth of the two-way Internet phone connection is able to achieve good quality of service (Quality of Service, QoS). Although the multiparty connection can still reach a certain level of service quality in further audio conference, with the increase in the number of participants, the voice quality of service would quickly decline. On the other hand, the audio conference participants have to wait for quite a long duration from joining the conference to the really speaking and listening. Therefore, acceleration of the establishment and optimization of voice conferencing quality will be our major focus in this thesis. In this thesis, we make an integrated improvement regarding the initial establishment working with the P2P network and the media streaming control protocol for an audio conference. Focusing on the acceleration of the audio
Unexpected Earnings , Stock Returns , and Risk in the Brazilian Capital Market * , * *

This article analyzes the role of risk in the earnings response coefficient (ERC) in the Brazilian capital market. Since ‘risk’ may be measured in various ways and it can vary systematically according to the conditions under analysis, empirical studies have reported conflicting evidence with regard to the role of risk in the ERC. The empirical study is based on annual data from a sample of 212 companies listed on the Brazilian Securities, Commodities, and Futures Exchange (BM&FBOVESPA), within the period from 1995 to 2013. The analysis takes into account longitudinal data and various measurements of unexpected earnings, risk, and several control variables. The results suggest that the earnings-return relationship is negatively affected by total risk and nonlinear effects of unexpected earnings and it is positively affected by earnings persistence. The analysis failed to indicate any significant association between the ERC and systematic risk and it failed to provide evidence that the full adoption of the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), in 2010, affected the way how the market reacts to surprises in the disclosure of accounting earnings. In order to analyze the earnings-return relationship, classifying companies by the total risk ranking showed better results in terms of distinguishing high and low-risk companies. This article contributes to the accounting literature in emerging markets by reporting that controlling the earnings-return relationship through total risk, nonlinear effects, and earnings persistence may optimize financial analysis and the companies’ assessment process.
Service Quality in Management Institutions : Perceived and Expected Quality Gaps in Viewpoint of Students

In the past few decades a phenomenal growth is observed in Management Institutions in India and therefore the quality is the major concern. There are various stakeholders involved in quality of education that includes students, teachers, industries, alumnus, society etc. But students play a major role in education system they are one who is most affected. Thus the present study aimed at understanding the students’ perception and expectation from the quality of management institutions. The quality gap of educational services was determined based on differences between students' perceptions and expectations. The results demonstrated that negative quality gap is found between the five dimensions of service quality. The least and the highest negative quality gap were found in the reliability (-0.371) and tangibility (-0.498) dimensions respectively. Also, the result of the paired t-test shows that there were significant differences between perceptions and expectations of students in all of the five service quality dimensions as tangibility, responsiveness, reliability, assurance and empathy. Negative quality gaps shows that students' expectations exceed their perceptions of service quality of management institutions. Thus, improvements are needed across all five dimensions.