Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gaze allocation during gestural enhancement of degraded speech in native and non-native listeners

In natural communication, humans mostly focus on the speaker’s face and devote very little visual attention to gestures, which play a significant role in language comprehension. To date, explicit attention to gestures has only been studied in optimal listening conditions, and only with native speakers of a language. We investigated how native and non-native listeners allocate attention to speech relevant visual information (visible speech and iconic gestures) when speech is both clear and degraded. We recorded participants’ eye movements while they watched videos of an actress who uttered a high frequency Dutch verb (e.g., rijden, to drive in English) in either clear or 6-band noise-vocoded speech (moderate speech signal degradation), and who also either performed or not the accompanying iconic gesture. We found that the face was the locus of sustained attention in clear and degraded speech, suggesting gestures, when they were presented, attracted little overt attention in (non)-native listeners. While both listener groups gazed more to gestures in clear than degraded speech, overall, non-native listeners gazed significantly more to gestures compared to native listeners. Taken together, the results suggest explicit attention to the face is functional for the extraction of information from visual speech articulators while gestural information can be extracted peripherally. Yet, the fact that gestures attract more visual attention from non-native listeners than would be normally expected may suggest that non-native listeners conceive of visual semantic information conveyed by gestures as an especially rich source of information that can aid language comprehension under both good and suboptimal listening conditions.
Discovery of Approximate (and Exact) Denial Constraints

Maintaining data consistency is known to be hard. Recent approaches have relied on integrity constraints to deal with the problem - correct and complete constraints naturally work towards data consistency. State-of-the-art data cleaning frameworks have used the formalism known as denial constraint (DC) to handle a wide range of real-world constraints. Each DC expresses a relationship between predicates that indicate which combinations of attribute values are inconsistent. The design of DCs, however, must keep pace with the complexity of data and applications. The alternative to designing DCs by hand is automatically discovering DCs from data, which is computationally expensive due to the large search space of DCs. To tackle this challenging task, we present a novel algorithm to efficiently discover DCs: DCFinder. The algorithm combines data structures called position list indexes with techniques based on predicate selectivity to efficiently validate DC candidates. Because the available data often contain errors, DCFinder is especially designed to discovering approximate DCs, i.e., DCs that may partially hold. Our experimental evaluation uses real and synthetic datasets and shows that DCFinder outperforms all the existing approximate DC discovery algorithms.
Genotypic and phenotypic characteristics associated with biofilm formation in E. coli and Salmonella spp isolated from ulam in Terengganu

F U L L P A P E R Genotypic and phenotypic characteristics associated with biofilm formation in Escherichia coli and Salmonella spp. isolated from ulam in Terengganu Bahri, A.A. , * Wan Abdullah, W.Z. , Lani, M.N. , Salleh, W. and Alias, R. Faculty of Fishery and Food Sciences, Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, 21030 Kuala Nerus, Terengganu, Malaysia Terengganu Food Safety and Quality Laboratory, Ministry of Health Malaysia, 21200 Kuala Terengganu, Terengganu, Malaysia Institute of Bio-IT Selangor, Universiti Selangor, Seksyen 7, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor, Malaysia
Costly decisions, rigid wages, and frictional labor reallocation

We propose a model of labor market dynamics in which choosing a partner is costly, and likewise negotiating a wage is costly. Both costs are derived from an underlying “control cost” framework, which supposes that making any choice with greater precision requires greater expenditures on decision-making. These decision costs imply that both labor relationships and wages are endogenously sticky, and that market participants optimally trade off the costs of errors on the matching and wage-setting margins. In equilibrium, the pattern of matching is intermediate between the random search and directed search specifications, and the wage adjustment hazard is intermediate between the state-dependent and constant-hazard specifications. We study the model’s implications for the comovement of job formation, separation, and wage adjustment in response to idiosyncratic and aggregate shocks.
Auto-Perceptive Reinforcement Learning (APRiL)

The relationship between the feedback given in Reinforcement Learning (RL) and visual data input is often extremely complex. Given this, expecting a single system trained end-to-end to learn both how to perceive and interact with its environment is unrealistic for complex domains. In this paper we propose Auto-Perceptive Reinforcement Learning (APRiL), separating the perception and the control elements of the task. This method uses an auto-perceptive network to encode a feature space. The feature space may explicitly encode available knowledge from the semantically understood state space but the network is also free to encode unanticipated auxiliary data. By decoupling visual perception from the RL process, APRiL can make use of techniques shown to improve performance and efficiency of RL training, which are often difficult to apply directly with a visual input. We present results showing that APRiL is effective in tasks where the semantically understood state space is known. We also demonstrate that allowing the feature space to learn auxiliary information, allows it to use the visual perception system to improve performance by approximately 30%. We also show that maintaining some level of semantics in the encoded state, which can then make use of state-of-the art RL techniques, saves around 75% of the time that would be used to collect simulation examples.
A cognitively plausible algorithm for causal inference

People without any advanced training can make deductions about abstract causal relations. For instance, suppose you learn that habituation causes seriation, and that seriation prevents methylation. The vast majority of reasoners infer that habituation prevents methylation. Cognitive scientists disagree on the mechanisms that underlie causal reasoning, but many argue that people can mentally simulate causal interactions. We describe a novel algorithm that makes domain-general causal inferences. The algorithm constructs small-scale iconic simulations of causal relations, and so it implements the “model” theory of causal reasoning (Goldvarg & JohnsonLaird, 2001; Johnson-Laird & Khemlani, 2017). It distinguishes between three different causal relations: causes, enabling conditions, and preventions. And, it can draw inferences about both orthodox relations (habituation prevents methylation) and omissive causes (the failure to habituate prevents methylation). To test the algorithm, we subjected participants to a large battery of causal reasoning problems and compared their performance to what the algorithm predicted. We found a close match between human causal reasoning and the patterns predicted by the algorithm.
Anatomy of the Italian occupational structure: concentrated power and distributed knowledge

Which type of work do Italians perform? In this contribution we aim at detecting the anatomy of the Italian occupational structure by taking stock of a micro-level dataset registering the task content, the execution of procedures, the knowledge embedded in the work itself, called ICP (Indagine Campionaria sulle Professioni), the latter being comparable to the U.S. O*NET dataset. We perform an extensive empirical investigation moving from the micro to the macro level of aggregation. Our results show that the Italian occupational structure is strongly hierarchical, with the locus of power distinct by the locus of knowledge generation. It is also weak in terms of collaborative and worker involvement practices, and possibility to be creative. Our analysis allows to pinpoint the role exerted by hierarchical structures, decision making autonomy, and knowledge as the most relevant attributes characterizing the division of labour.
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND IN VITRO ANTIOXIDANT AND ANTIBACTERIAL ACTIVITIES OF SARGASSUM VULGARE C. AGARDH FROM LOBO, BATANGAS, PHILIPPINES

Seaweeds are notable in producing diverse kinds of bioactive compounds with promising pharmacological properties. A study was conducted at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (BIOTECH), University of the Philippines Los Baños from July to November 2018 to evaluate the proximate composition and potential antioxidant and antibacterial properties of a brown macroalga, Sargassum vulgare C. Agardh. Determination of the total phenolic compounds using Folin-Ciocalteu reagent showed that the dried algal biomass have a total phenolic content of 10.13 ± 0.166 mg GAE/g. Relative antioxidant efficiency showed that S. vulgare exerted potent radical scavenging activity in a concentration dependent manner with EC50 value of 37.2 ± 0.015 μg GAE. The tested algal extract exhibited radical scavenging activity that is dose-dependent and positively correlated to its phenolic content. On the other hand, proximate composition of the dried macroalga showed that S. vulgare contains high carbohydrate, ash and crude fiber content of 34.18±0.32%, 27.09±0.00%, and 22.59±0.21 respectively. Methanolic extract of the macroalgal strain was subjected to microtiter plate dilution assay against a wide spectrum of pathogenic bacteria. S. vulgare showed pronounced activity against Staphylococcus aureus having MIC of 250 μg/ml. Aeromonas hydrophila, Bacillus cereus and Methicillin-resistant S. aureus were also moderately inhibited each having MIC of 500 μg/mL, 500 μg/mL, and 1000 μg/mL, respectively. Minimum bactericidal activity against S. aureus is higher than that of Bacillus cereus and Aeromonas hydrophila, having 500 μg/mL and 1000 μg/mL, respectively. On the other hand, Methicillin-resistant S. aureus exhibited MBC value of >1000μg/ml. This study showed the potential antioxidant and antibacterial activity of S. vulgare, which make it a suitable candidate for production of new bioactive compounds important for pharmacological and food industries.
Incidence Networks For Geometric Deep Learning (DRAFT: October 18, 2019)

Sparse incidence tensors can represent a variety of structured data. For example, we may represent attributed graphs using their node-node, node-edge, or edge-edge incidence matrices. In higher dimensions, incidence tensors can represent simplicial complexes and polytopes. In this work, we formalize incidence tensors, analyze their structure, and present the family of equivariant networks that operate on them. We show that any incidence tensor decomposes into invariant subsets. This decomposition, in turn, leads to a decomposition of the corresponding equivariant layer that allows efficient and intuitive pooling-andbroadcasting implementation, for both dense and sparse tensors. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this family of networks by reporting state-of-the-art on graph learning tasks for many targets in the QM9 dataset.
Synchronization patterns in the European Union

ABSTRACT In this paper, we quantify business cycles synchronization in the European Union by combining Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with a Random Matrix Theory (RMT) model. We employ a balanced panel of industrial production indexes over the 2000–2017 period and we track the evolution of the European synchronization, as measured by the largest and statistically significant principal component. Using the information contained in the eigenvector associated to it, we then identify the dynamics of synchronization clusters. Our results suggest that the degree of synchronization has increased since the introduction of the common currency and until the Great Recession, but decreased thereafter. In addition, our results point to the evolution of synchronization clusters over the past decades. Whereas western and eastern countries had divergent business cycles at the beginning of the 21st century, they have become more synchronized over the analysed period. However, since the dawn of the European sovereign debt crisis, the synchronization divide has become more apparent between northern and southern economies.
WTTHECORV PCR 2 AND Xba I 7 ISOLATION OF MIX AND PCRUSING 2 THE 2 . 2 kb FRAGMENTA OLIGO ' S 1 + 2 FRAGMENTB EcoRV / Xba

van Pei et al. Isolation and analysis of XInR, encoding a transcrip tional activator co-ordinating Xylanolytic expression in Aspergillus niger, Molecular Microbiology 27(1): 131-142, 1998. * de Lorenzo et al. Engineering of alkyland haloaromatic-responsive gene expression with mini-transposons containing regulated promot ers of biodegregadative pathways of Pseudomonas, Gene 130:41-46, 1994. * Scorpione et al., “A New Promoter-Probe Vector for Saccharomyces cerevisiae using Fungal Glucoamylase cDNA as the Reporter Gene. ” Yeast, vol. 9, p. 599-605 (1993). Inouye et al., “Nucleotide Sequence of the Regulatory Gene xylR of the TOL plasmid from Pseudomonasputida,' Gene, vol. 66, No. 2, p. 301-306 (1988). Kreuzer et al., “Identification and Sequence Analysis of the Bacillus subtilis W23 xylR Gene and xyl Operator. ” Journal of Bacteriology, vol. 171, No. 7, p. 3840-3845 (1989). Rosenfeld et al., “Cloning and Characterization of the xyl genes from Escherichia coli,' Molecular and General Genetics, vol. 194, p. 410-415 (1984). Sizemore et al., “Organization, promoter analysis and transcription regulation of the Staphylococcus xylosus xylose utilization operon. ” Molecular and General Genetics, vol. 227, p. 377-384 (1991). Lokman et al., “Organization and characterization of three genes involved in D-xylose catabolism in Lactobacilluspentosus, "Molecu lar and General Genetics, vol. 230, p. 161-169 (1991). Sambrook & Russe 11, Molecular Cloning, A Laboratory Manual, 3' edition, vol. 2, p. 10.47, formula (3) (2001). Bos et al., “Adenine and pyrimidine genes of Aspergillus niger and evidence for a seventh linkage group. Curr Genet. , vol. 16, pp. 307-310 (1989). Van Pei et al., “The Transcriptional activator XlnR regulates both Xylanolytic and endoglucanase gene expression in Aspergillus niger:” Applied and Environmental Microbiology, pp. 3615-3619 (Oct. 1998). Kraulis et al., “Structure of the DNA-binding domain of zinc GAL.4. ” Nature, vol. 356, No. 6368, pp. 448-450 (Apr. 1992). Katz et al. Mol. Cell. Biol. 9(12):5696-5701 (1989). Fowler et al. Current Genetics, 18:537-545 (1990). De Graaffetal, Mol. Microbiol. , 12(3):479-490 (1994). Buxton et al. Gene, 84(2):329-334 (1989). Wittington et al. Current Genetics, 18(6):531-536 (1990). Flipphietal, Microbiology, 140(10):2673-2682 (1994). Hata et al. Current Genetics, 22:85-91 (1992). Dowzer et al. Mol. Cell. Biol., 11(11):5701-5709 (1991). Felenboketal, Gene, 73(2):385-396 (1988). de Lorenzo et al. Gene, 130:41-46 (1993).
Morphological disparity in theropod jaws: comparing discrete characters and geometric morphometrics

Disparity, the diversity of form and function of organisms, can be assessed from cladistic or phenetic characters, and from discrete characters or continuous characters such as landmarks, outlines, or ratios. But do these different methods of assessing disparity provide comparable results? Here we provide evidence that all metrics correlate significantly with each other and capture similar patterns of morphological variation. We compare three methods of capturing morphological disparity (discrete characters, geometric morphometric outlines and geometric morphometric landmarks) in coelurosaurian dinosaurs. We standardize our study by focusing all our metrics on the mandible, so avoiding the risk of confounding disparity methods with anatomical coverage of the taxa. The correlation is strongest between the two geometric morphometric methods, and weaker between the morphometric methods and the discrete characters. By using phylogenetic simulations of discrete character and geometric morphometric data sets, we show that the strength of these correlations is significantly greater than expected from the evolution of random data under Brownian motion. All disparity metrics confirm that Maniraptoriformes had the highest disparity of all coelurosaurians, and omnivores and herbivores had higher disparity than carnivores.
Gamougam, K., ... MenAfriCar Consortium (2018). Development of a PCR algorithm to detect and characterize Neisseria meningitidis carriage isolates in the African meningitis

Improved methods for the detection and characterization of carried Neisseria meningitidis isolates are needed. We evaluated a multiplex PCR algorithm for the detection of a variety of carriage strains in the meningitis belt. To further improve the sensitivity and specificity of the existing PCR assays, primers for gel-based PCR assays (sodC, H, Z) and primers/ probe for real-time quantitative PCR (qPCR) assays (porA, cnl, sodC, H, E, Z) were modified or created using Primer Express software. Optimized multiplex PCR assays were tested on 247 well-characterised carriage isolates from six countries of the African meningitis belt. The PCR algorithm developed enabled the detection of N. meningitidis species using gelbased and real-time multiplex PCR targeting porA, sodC, cnl and characterization of capsule genes through sequential multiplex PCR assays for genogroups (A, W, X, then B, C, Y and finally H, E and Z). Targeting both porA and sodC genes together allowed the detection of meningococci with a sensitivity of 96% and 89% and a specificity of 78% and 67%, for qPCR and gel-based PCR respectively. The sensitivity and specificity ranges for capsular genogrouping of N. meningitidis are 67% 100% and 98%-100% respectively for gel-based PCR and 90%-100% and 99%-100% for qPCR. We developed a PCR algorithm that allows simple, rapid and systematic detection and characterisation of most major and minor N. meningitidis capsular groups, including uncommon capsular groups (H, E, Z). PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone. 0206453 December 5, 2018 1 / 16 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111
Commonsense about Human Senses: Labeled Data Collection Processes

We consider the problem of extracting from text commonsense knowledge pertaining to human senses such as sound and smell. First, we consider the problem of recognizing mentions of human senses in text. Our contribution is a method for acquiring labeled data. Experiments show the effectiveness of our proposed data labeling approach when used with standard machine learning models on the task of sense recognition in text. Second, we propose to extract novel, common sense relationships pertaining to sense perception concepts. Our contribution is a process for generating labeled data by leveraging large corpora and crowdsourcing questionnaires.
Isolation and Characterization of Novel Sulfate-Reducing Bacterium Capable of Anaerobic Degradation of p-Xylene

A novel strain of p-xylene-degrading sulfate reducer was isolated in pure culture. Strain PP31 was obtained from a p-xylene-degrading enrichment culture established from polluted marine sediment. Analyses of the 16S rRNA gene and two functional genes involved in sulfate respiration and anaerobic degradation of aromatic compounds revealed that the isolate was closely related to members of the genus Desulfosarcina. Strain PP31 was capable of growing on p-xylene under sulfate-reducing conditions, and the ratio of generated sulfide and consumed p-xylene suggested complete oxidation by the novel isolate. The strain could not grow on benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, m-xylene oxylene, or n-hexane as an electron donor. Strain PP31 is the first isolated bacterium that degrades p-xylene anaerobically, and will be useful to understanding the mechanism of anaerobic degradation of p-xylene.
OAJSM_A_180598 133..144

Physical Education and Sport Sciences Department, Faculty of Education and Health Sciences, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland Abstract: The last decade has seen a dramatic rise in sports science research due to the ever-increasing professionalization of sport. As a result, many alternative training methodologies that challenge traditional training philosophies have emerged. In the sport of swimming, ultra-short race-pace training (USRPT) was recently proposed. The aim of this article was to provide current perspectives on USRPT in competitive swimming. A systematic review was conducted to determine the effects of USRPT on performance in competitive swimmers. Of the 1347 studies retrieved, 1332 were excluded. The full-texts of 15 studies were assessed for eligibility. However, all 15 studies were excluded as the intervention did not consist of USRPT. Consequently, there are concerns surrounding USRPT as it is not currently based on peer-reviewed published literature. In addition, the recommendations within USRPT to avoid resistance training, cross-training activities, training intensities less than race-pace velocity and part practice swimming drills are highly controversial and lack scientific evidence. There is evidence to suggest that USRPT is a derivative of high-intensity training (HIT) and there is peer-reviewed published literature available to support the effects of HIT on performance in competitive swimmers. Swimming coaches and sports scientists are advised to consider the applications of USRPT with caution. The authors suggest that USRPT is a training method, which may be incorporated within a holistic periodized training program that includes a variety of training methods and stimuli. Future research should involve a randomized controlled intervention of USRPT in competitive swimmers.
Vector calibration for magnetic field based indoor localization

In fingerprinting techniques using a magnetic field signal, since the moving direction of the current user may be different from the moving direction of the person who creates the magnetic field map at the collection time, the sampled magnetic vector may have different values from the vector values recorded in the field map. This may substantially lower the positioning accuracy. In this paper we propose a vector calibration algorithm which can adjust the sampled magnetic vector values to the vector direction of the magnetic field map by using the parametric equation of a circle. This can minimize the inaccuracy caused by the direction mismatch. To implement this, we just need to compute the relative azimuth from the moving direction of the current user to the moving direction during the magnetic field map collection. To evaluate our vector calibration al-gorithm, we first collected a magnetic field map in our test-bed. Then, a user walked through a random path and we adjust the sampled vector values to match the recorded magnetic field direction in the map. As a result, we can decrease the difference between the sampled magnetic vector and the magnetic field map values from 17.34 μT to 2.98 μT in x dimension , and from 13.12 μT to 1.98 μT in y dimension on average. This translates to 85% reduction in the map mismatch compared to the numbers without calibration. In addition, we also demonstrate the effectiveness of the calibration by applying the algorithm to our LSTM-based indoor positioning system (IPS).