Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial unmasking of circular moving sound sources in the free field

This study investigates the unmasking of a horizontally moving tonal source in noise under free-field presentation. Thresholds of static and circularly moving 500 Hz sine tones presented in octave-band noise from the front were measured with four normal hearing listeners with an adaptive forced choice method. Six velocities were tested from 10°/s to 200°/s. Stimuli were of fixed duration, started in the front and moved to an azimuthal end position, determined by the overall probe tone duration in relation to their speed. The moving sound sources were generated with 17th order Ambisonics and played via 36 horizontally arranged loudspeakers in an anechoic chamber. Preliminary results suggest that for the six velocities tested, spatial unmasking increased with increasing velocity up to 10 dB for 200°/s. However, unmasking remained substantially lower than for static sources, at the respective most lateral position reached in the movement trajectory at the end of the overall probe tone duration. This is consistent with observations in the literature on binaural sluggishness. Even for a small velocity of 50°/s, and therefore relatively slow changes in interaural phase, spatial unmasking decreased by 4 dB. This velocity is comparable to that of a walking person in 2 meters distance. It seems that in the free field, also slow changes in the interaural cues can lead to a decrease in binaural unmasking. This finding is important for extending binaural models to more realistic, dynamic listening situations in the free field.
Tracking and prediction of convective cells based on lightning data

Lightning cells identification based on lightning data consists of grouping lightning flashes detected by the LLS in an area representing the electrical active core of a thunderstorm. Because, most of lightning flashes occur close to the updraft region in the thunderstorm it is possible to group them in consistent groups representing the convective core. This can be achieved thanks to data clustering methods.
NetFence : Preventing Internet Denial of Service from Inside Out Technical Report 2010-01

Denial of Service (DoS) attacks frequently happen on the Internet, paralyzing Internet services and causing millions of dollars of financial loss. This work presents NetFence, a scalable DoSresistant network architecture. NetFence uses a novel mechanism, secure congestion policing feedback, to enable robust congestion policing inside the network. Bottleneck routers update the feedback in packet headers to signal congestion, and access routers use it to police senders’ traffic. Targeted DoS victims can use the secure congestion policing feedback as capability tokens to suppress unwanted traffic. When compromised senders and receivers organize into pairs to congest a network link, NetFence provably guarantees a legitimate sender its fair share of network resources without keeping per-host state at the congested link. We use a Linux implementation, ns-2 simulations, and theoretical analysis to show that NetFence is an effective and scalable DoS solution: it reduces the amount of state maintained by a congested router from per-host to at most per-(Autonomous System).
Comparative Analyses of Greenland Halibut ( Reinhardtius hippoglossoides ) Maturation for Populations Throughout the North Atlantic by

We examined the maturation of four populations of Greenland halibut: Gulf of St. Lawrence, Labrador-eastern Newfoundland, East Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Islands and the Northeast Arctic (Svalbard and Barents Sea). We compared the maturity schedules among these populations as well as the variability in the data across the different populations. Estimates of size and age at 50% maturity were very similar except that the fish in the Labrador-eastern Newfoundland area appeared to mature at a larger size and older age. All data sets showed substantial variability with data from the Gulf of St. Lawrence during the 1996 to 2000 period being perhaps the least variable. When data collected over the entire distribution area were compared to data collected from portions of population distribution variability was found to be substantially less.
AUTOMATED CAMERA MANAGEMENT BASED ON EMOTIONAL ANALYSIS OF THE FILM SCRIPT

The expressiveness and possible impact on the viewer are some of the most important characteristics in order to film a cinema scene. However, it is quite rare to see this kind of features in the different approaches of automatic Camera Management Systems in virtual environments. The diverse studies that have used in some way cinematographic techniques are more focused on their geometrical aspects, or on how to avoid the occlusion with other scene objects, rather than in the emotive aspect of it. Another fundamental issue is how to obtain the needed information for this task. Frequently, this information is acquired in a previous evaluation of the scene, or generating templates associated to the characters actions in the virtual environment. This work presents a prototype of an automatic Camera Management System focused on the emotive aspect of the cinematographic techniques. It uses different methods of Natural Language Processing over the story script to obtain the necessary information to manage the virtual cameras correctly. The prototype is evaluated and compared with real scenes for the validation.
MAPPING OF NON-DESTRUCTIVE TECHNIQUES FOR INSPECTION OF WIRE AND ARC ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING

The present work addresses the challenges of identifying applicable non-destructive-testing techniques suitable for inspection and materials characterization techniques for Wire and Arc Additive Manufacturing (WAAM) parts. The overall manufacturing process productivity will be increased by increasing the yield, driven by the reduction in scrap rate, enabled by inprocess inspection and material characterization. Thus, the main objective of this paper is to evaluate the capability for detecting the potential defects that are associated with WAAM. During this study, radiography, liquid penetrant inspection and ultrasonic testing were applied on reference specimens in order to detect the defects and its location. Then, metallographic, hardness and electrical conductivity field analysis were applied on the same specimens for material characterization. Experimental outcomes prove that typical WAAM defects can be detected by the referred techniques. Also, the blocks characterization using the electrical conductivity technique shows that heterogeneities, porosities and interfaces between layers can be effectively identified, suggesting that the application of this physical principle to nondestructive-evaluation has the potential to complement or substitute the generally used destructive methods in AM processing.
Assessment of a critical area for a give-way ship in a collision encounter

In this paper, we introduce a framework evaluating a critical distance between two encountering ships being on collision courses, at which the collision can be avoided by course alteration of give-way ship alone. This distance is determined with the use of a hydrodynamic model of ship motion, and series of simulations conducted for several types of encounters and predefined two types of ships, namely Ro-Ro and bulk carrier. The framework delivers results in a form of a deterministic critical envelope around a stand-on ship, delineating the area required by the give-way ship to perform collision evasive action. The concept of MDTC contour is promising and could lead to rising marine traffic safety level by increasing the situational awareness among navigators. Once the concept is fully developed it could be implemented as a part of collision evasive solutions or a part of e-navigation systems, informing the officers about the critical distance and time to commence a successful last chance maneuver.
Frequency effects in Subject Islands 1

This work provides evidence that Subject Island violation effects vanish if subject-embedded gaps are made as frequent and pragmatically felicitous as non-island counterpart controls. We argue that Subject Island effects are caused by the fact that subject-embedded gaps are pragmatically unusual – as the informational focus does not usually correspond to a dependant of the subject phrase – and therefore are highly contrary to comprehenders’ expectations about the distribution of ﬁller–gap dependencies (Chaves 2013, Hofmeister, Casasanto & Sag 2013). This not only explains why sentences with subject-embedded gaps often become more acceptable ‘parasitically’, in the presence of a second gap outside the island, but also explains why some Subject Island violations fail to exhibit any amelioration with repetition (Sprouse 2009, Crawford 2011, Goodall 2011); some ameliorate marginally (Snyder 2000, 2017) or moderately (Hiramatsu 2000, Clausen 2011, Chaves & Dery 2014), and others become fully acceptable, as in our case. This conclusion extends to self-paced reading Subject Island studies (Stowe 1986, Kurtzman & Crawford 1991, Pickering, Barton & Shillcock 1994, Phillips 2006), which sometimes ﬁnd evidence of gap ﬁlling and sometimes do not.
Quality of life in diabetic patients referred to the Diabete research Center in Kermanshah

Background: Quality of life is an important determinate of treatment effectiveness in diabetic patients. The aim of the study was quality of life determination in diabetic patients referred to the Research Center of Diabetes in Kermanshah (2006). Methods: In this descriptive–analytic study, 350 diabetic patients who referred to the Research Center of Diabetes in Kermanshah was selected using convenience sampling method. Data was collected with a three-section questionnaire including demographic information, basic variables and the Short Form Health Survey standardized Questionnaire (SF-36). ANOVA, t-test, Pearson Correlation and descriptive methods applied for data analyses. Results: The mean quality of life score was 56.8±22.7 in physical domain and 55.3 ±21.7 in mental domain. The results showed that quality of life was significantly associated with demographic variables such as age, sex, educational level, marital status (p<0.05) and biochemical factors such as FBS, 2hPPBS, HbA1c, LDL, HDL, cholesterol levels (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study indicated the quality of life in some of domains were significantly associated with clinical indices such as HbA1c that is most important in prediction of quality of life in diabetic patient. Improving quality of life and changing life style in diabetes patients is necessary by health providers.
FRESNEL DIFFRACTION AT SNOWFLAKE APERTURES : SYMMETRIES & BOUNDARY CONDITIONS

Diffraction plays a fundamental role in our understanding of wave physics in general, and it is perhaps at its most fascinating when the system under consideration incorporates some degree of fractality (where proportional levels of spatial structure persist over many decades of scale). For example, Berry examined “diffractals” arising from plane waves scattered from fractal phase objects (Berry, 1979). Those scattered waves acquire multi-scale characteristics in their statistical properties.
Pollard ’ s p-1 and Lenstra ’ s factoring algorithms

This paper presents the result of my summer research on Lenstra’s algorithm for factoring with elliptic curves. It first describes Pollard’s p-1 algorithm, which is in a way the basis for Lenstra’s algorithm. The theory behind both algorithms will be discussed, as well as the their detailed steps, their implementation and their efficiency. This paper is intended for people with little previous knowledge in group theory. Understanding of basic algebra, such as the ideas of gcd and modular arithmetic, is assumed.
Effectiveness of Psychoeducation of Relatives of Schizophrenic Patients: A Prospective Cohort Study in Five Cities of China

This is a report on the first-year results of a five-year, multicenter, sectorized, cooperative study conducted in the Chinese cities of Jinan, Hangzhou, Shengyang, Suzhou, and Shanghai. The purpose of the study is to explore, within the context of a primary care mental health program, the feasibility and effectiveness of group psychoeducation for relatives of people with schizophrenia. Most of our schizophrenic subjects, who had been discharged from a hospital, were living in the community with relatives. In recent times, particularly in the last ten years, a considerable literature has accumulated on interventions with patients and their families aimed at prevent
Parallel task contexts in QoE testing . Can EEG help to understand the results ?

Improved intelligibility of distorted speech has been observed after a parallel psycho-motor task has been introduced. Electroencephalographic activity has been recorded and analyzed for several test situations – neutral, a plain intelligibility test, an intelligibility test with parallel aimed shooting, and an intelligibility test with parallel hit counting. Our findings indicate increased brain activity in the area of the central auditory circles, which evaluate the content of audio information during a parallel cognitive and motor task when the complex motor parallel task is considered to be primary (more important).
A Multipath OpenFlow Controller for Multiple TCP Stream Applications

: A large amount of data needs to be transferred from one site to another as fast as possible in the computational science ﬁelds. To achieve high-speed data transfer, many applications utilize multiple TCP streams. However, since multiple TCP streams of applications are usually routed according to the default IP routing protocol, only a single shortest path among the multiple paths can be utilized for the data transfer. This research proposes a multi-path controller that increases the performance of data transfer by leveraging multiple paths simultaneously for parallel TCP streams. For this purpose, we utilize the Software-Deﬁned Networking (SDN) technology and its implementation, OpenFlow. Furthermore, we proposed a method to determine optimal numbers of parallel TCP streams to be assigned for each path according to its own network condition. This paper presents the design and implementation of the proposed system. As a case study, we applied our proposed system on GridFTP and evaluated the performance improvement. The results demonstrate that our proposed system accelerates the data transfer of GridFTP in both a virtual and a real global-scale environment.
CHEMICAL COMPOSITION AND IN AND ANTI-INFLAMMATORY FROM FRESH GRASS OF CYMBOPOGANTRAVANCORENSIS 1

In the present study, the chemical composition of the essential oil from its efficacy for its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities are reported. The essential oil from grass of Cymbopogantravancorensis (Poaceae), obtained by hydrodistillation method was analysed by Gas Chromatography Mass Spectrometry (GC-MS). Totally sixty nine components, representing more than 98.22 % of the oil with an yield of 2.0 % (v/w) were identified. by GC-MS studies. Tricyclene, α-Pinene, Camphene, dl 2-(3-Methoxyphenoxy) propanoicacid, Fenchyl alcohol Caryophyllene oxide are the major constituents of the essential oil extracted from the aerial (grass) part of the plant. The essential oil sample when screened for its possible antioxidant activity by 2, picrylhydrazyl (DPPH), Hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), Reducing power, Nitric oxide (NO) methods showed significant inhibition efficiency. The oil when tested for its anti Cell membrane stabilization (HRBC) method showed higher inhibition efficiency than standard diclofenac sodium at all the test doses.
FLUORCALCIOPYROCHLORE, A NEW MINERAL SPECIES FROM BAYAN OBO, INNER MONGOLIA, P.R. CHINA

Fluorcalciopyrochlore, ideally (Ca,Na)2Nb2O6F, cubic, is a new mineral species (IMA2013-055) occurring in the Bayan Obo Fe-Nb-REE deposit, Inner Mongolia, People’s Republic of China. The mineral is found in a dolomite-type niobium rareearth ore deposit. Associated minerals are dolomite, aegirine, riebeckite, diopside, fluorite, baryte, phlogopite, britholite-(Ce), bastnäsite-(Ce), zircon, magnetite, pyrite, fersmite, columbite-(Fe), monazite-(Ce), rutile, and others. Crystals mostly form as octahedra {111}, dodecahedra {110}, and cubes {100}, or combinations thereof, and generally range in size from 0.01 to 0.3 mm. It is brownish-yellow to reddish-orange in color with a light yellow streak. Crystals of fluorcalciopyrochlore are translucent to transparent with an adamantine to greasy luster on fractured surfaces. It has a conchoidal fracture. No parting or cleavage was observed. The Mohs hardness is 5, and the calculated density is 4.34(1) g/cm. The empirical formula is (Ca1.14Na0.74Ce0.06Sr0.03Th0.01Fe0.01Y0.01La0.01Nd0.01)R2.02(Nb1.68Ti0.29Zr0.02Sn0.01)R2.00O6. 00(F0.92O0.08)R1.00 on the basis of 7(O,F) anions pfu. The simplified formula is (Ca,Na)2Nb2O6F. The strongest four reflections in the X-ray powder-diffraction pattern [d in Å (I) hkl] are: 6.040 (9) 1 1 1, 3.017 (100) 2 2 2, 2.613 (17) 0 0 4, 1.843 (29) 0 4 4, and 1.571 (15) 2 2 6. The unitcell parameters are a 10.4164(9) Å, V 1130.2(2) Å, Z1⁄4 8. The structure was solved and refined in space group Fd3m with R1⁄4 0.05. The type material is deposited in the Geological Museum of China, Beijing, People’s Republic of China, catalogue number M12182.
Effects of Preparation Methods of Organoclays with Polyvinyl Alcohol in their Compatibility with HDPE . Thermal Stability

In this paper, the effect of polyvinyl alcohol addition on organoclay obtained by in situ polymerization and subsequent alcoholysis of polyvinyl acetate is studied. The incorporation of the monomer is carried out following two procedures. The first is the incorporation of the monomer by direct contact between the monomer and the organoclay. The second procedure involves a first step of impregnating the organoclay with propyl alcohol and the subsequent incorporation of the monomer. Both procedures consist of the polymerization in situ via a free radical mechanism. PVA modified clays showed substantial improvements in thermal properties with respect to the organoclay (MMTHDTMA), corresponding to the greater stability to clay obtained by direct contact with the monomer, PVAMMT/HDTMA (VA). The clays prepared by both methods were incorporated into a HDPE matrix by melt blending, to study the effect of the method of preparing the organoclay with PVA in the polymer/clay compatibility and the effect on their thermal properties. The material characterization techniques were performed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), thermal analysis (TG, DTG, DSC) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). The results show a clear improvement in the HDPE thermal properties with the addition of organoclays containing PVA and allow a discussion of effect of preparation on compatibility and improved thermal properties.
AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY TO EVALUATE PROTECTIVE EFFECTS OF NAPROXEN AND VALDECOXIB ON NAPHTHALENE INDUCED CATARACT IN ALBINO RATS

Background: The role of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) in cataract formation is still unclear, previous data has indicated a cataractogenic as well as a potential protective effect of NSAIDs against cataract formation. Anti-cataract efficacy of NSAIDs have been studied extensively in different experimental settings. In view of this naproxen is used as standard and valdecoxib, a COX II (cyclooxygenase II) inhibitor is used as drug for comparison to evaluate the protective effects on naphthalene induced cataract in albino rats. Objective : The objective of the present study was to evaluate the effects of naproxen and valdecoxib on naphthalene induced cataract in albino rats. Materials and methods: Thirty-six adult albino rats were taken and divided into six groups containing six animals each. Group I (control) received normal saline orally. Group II (control) received normal saline eye drops. Group III received naproxen (4mg/kg) orally. Group IV received naproxen eye drops (2%). Group V received valdecoxib (3mg/kg) orally. Group VI received valdecoxib eye drops (2%). Oral dose and eye drops were given daily for 10 days prior to induction of cataract. Cataract was induced by oral administration of naphthalene 1gm/kg in albino rats. Rats were examined daily for appearance of lenticular capacity by indirect illumination, direct ophthalmoscopy, slit lamp examination, and observed for any mortality for period of thirty days. Conclusion: Naproxen is more efficacious than valdecoxib a COX II selective inhibitor in retarding progress of cataract induced by naphthalene.
Vegetation Dynamics of a Tidal Freshwater Marsh: Long-Term and Inter-Annual Variability and their Relationship to Salinity

Tidal freshwater marshes (TFMs) support diverse plant communities and provide valuable habitat for commercially important fish and wildfowl populations. Relative sea level rise (RSLR) may cause declines in this diversity due to increased salinity and altered hydroperiod, but little research has focused on the community level response of TFM plants to increased salinity. Sweet Hall Marsh, a component of the Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve in Virginia, is a model system for studying long­ term variation in vegetation dynamics of a TFM. Vegetation studies completed in 1974 and 1987 provided historical data. The second of the two studies quantitatively documented a change in vegetation from the first study, suggesting a shift towards an oligohaline marsh. In 2003, previous study areas were re-sampled using the same methods. Percent cover, stem density, and frequency were measured at each of 76 1m2 plots throughout the growing season. Dominant species, based on aboveground biomass collected in August 2003, were Zizania aquatica (266g/ m2) and Peltandra virginica (71.3g/ m2). Comparison across the three studies of importance values of perennial species found an increase in salt-tolerant perennials (including S. alterniflora and E. palustris) and a decrease in freshwater perennials (including P. virginica and C. stricta). Highly variable river salinities suggest that salinity stress associated with storm events and years with low freshwater flow might be contributing to the plant community change. A follow-up study in July 2004 showed a reversal in the vegetation trend; the relative importance of salt-tolerant species had decreased while the importance of some freshwater species increased from July 2003 to July 2004. Implications are that both the perennial and annual components of the vegetation community of this TFM may be highly variable from year to year. Therefore, the increase in salt-tolerant perennials observed in 2003 may have been a response to short-term climatic factors rather than long-term salinity increases. Results support the hypothesis that TFMs may remain vegetated with increasing salinities associated with rising sea levels and highlight the need for yearly monitoring of vegetation community. VEGETATION DYNAMICS OF A TIDAL FRESHWATER MARSH: LONG-TERM AND INTER-ANNUAL VARIABILITY AND THEIR RELATION TO SALINITY