Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Investigation on an autoregressive recurrent mixture density network for parametric speech synthesis

Neural-network-based mixture density networks are important tools for acoustic modeling in statistical parametric speech synthesis. Recently we found that incorporating an autoregressive model in a recurrent mixture density network, which is referred to as AR-RMDN, enabled the network to generate quite smooth acoustic data trajectories without using the delta and delta-delta coefficients. More interestingly, the new model generated trajectories with a dynamic range similar to that of the natural data, thus alleviating over-smoothing effect. In this work, after explaining the AR-RMDN from the perspective of signal and filter, we compare one AR-RMDN with a modulationspectrum-based post-filtering method that also eases the over-smoothing effect. It is demonstrated that the AR-RMDN also alters the modulation spectrum of the generated data trajectories but in a different way from the post-filtering method. The AR-RMDN also generates synthetic speech with better perceived quality. Based on the signal and filter interpretation, we further extend the AR-RMDN so that the inverse AR filter can acquire complex poles and stay stable.
Effects of Information Intermediary Functions of ComparisonShopping Sites on Customer Loyalty

Customers are able to enjoy convenience and save time by turning to e-commerce for purchasing services and products. However, the increasing availability of product information and large differences in prices can lead to information overload for customers. Comparison shopping sites can address this problem by allowing customers to make more informed purchase decisions. Comparison shopping sites function as intermediaries, maintaining intentions and encouraging repeat visits. This study evaluates the effects of information intermediary functions of comparison shopping sites on customers’ e-loyalty to comparison shopping sites.
Feng Efficient Skeleton-guided Displaced Subdivision Surfaces

Displacement mapping is a computer graphics technique that uses scalar offsets along normals on a base surface to represent and render a model with highly geometric details. The technique natively compresses the model and saves memory I/O. A subdivision surface is the ideal base surface, due to its good geometric properties, such as arbitrary topology, global smoothness, and multi-resolution via hardware tessellation, among others. Two of the main challenges in displacement mapping representation are constructing the base surface faithfully and generating displacement maps efficiently. In this paper, we propose an efficient skeleton-guided displaced subdivision surfaces method. The construction of the base mesh is guided by a sketched skeleton. To make the shape of the base surface fit the input model well, we develop an efficient progressive GPU-based subdivision fitting method. Finally, a GPU-based raycasting method is proposed to sample the input model and generate the displacement maps. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can efficiently generate a high-quality displacement mapping representation. Compared with the traditional displaced subdivision surface method, the proposed method is more suitable for the modern rendering pipeline and has higher efficiency.
Flow field in the compressor blade cascade NACA 65-100 Tomáš Turek

An investigation is made into the effects of a flow field in the compressor blade cascade NACA 65-100. This task has two main sections to explore, the transonic flow and the transition model. These sections are solving via the CFD software ANSYS Fluent. The transonic flow with a compressible fluid and with a steady flow is solving by the RNG k- model with non-equilibrium wall functions. Shock waves for the transonic flow are found by choosing the supersonic Mach number and adapted. The transition model is without an effect of compressibility and is consists of the laminar flow and the turbulent flow. Shock waves are eliminated for the transition model by choosing the subsonic Mach number. The laminar flow with an incompressible fluid and with an unsteady flow is solving by the laminar model. The turbulent flow with an incompressible fluid and with a steady flow is solving by the standard model and after by the advance model. The standard model is the RNG k- model with nonequilibrium wall functions and the advance model is the SST transition model.
Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory

Springer is pleased to announce that Masha Polinsky has joined the book series Studies in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory as one of the series editors. Studies in Natural Language & Linguistic Theory provides a forum for the discussion of theoretical research that pays close attention to natural language data, offering a channel of communication between researchers of a variety of points of view. Like its associated journal Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, http:// www.springer.com/journal/11049 , the series actively seeks to bridge the gap between descriptive work and work of a highly theoretical, less empirically oriented nature. The series editors welcome proposals for monographs and edited volumes. For more information on how to submit your proposal, please contact the publishing editor, Jolanda Voogd. E-mail: jolanda.voogd@springer.com
MODELING NETWORK CONVERSATION FLUX FOR PATTERNLESS INTRUSION DETECTION

A novel system for conducting non-signature based, or patternless, intrusion detection of computer networks is presented. This system uses principles of thermodynamics to model network conversation characteristics. Observing the properties of entropy, energy and temperature within the system develops a notion of baseline operating conditions. Perturbations in these properties are considered potential intrusions for further investigation. Preliminary results indicate this system has significant potential for revealing anomalies in large network systems. Key-Words: Patternless network intrusion detection, entropy, statistical mechanics
Parallel SIFT

A number of computer vision and image processing algorithms rely on image features, and compute them in their preprocessing phase. Among the well known image features available in the literature, Scale Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) is known to be highly accurate, and is widely used in certain applications. However, for real time applications and applications like large scale image search, SIFT is seldom used because of the huge time it takes to compute them. As an attempt to solve this, I have implemented a parallel version of SIFT using GPU. The results obtained show a speedup of 62.08318 for a 800 X 640 image. Moreover it is seen that the algorithm is highly scaleable with respect to the image dimensions.
Identifying tube in molecular simulations of polymer melt

Description of dynamics in a polymer melt is a difficult many-body problem. The tube theory suggests that this is equivalent to evolution of one polymer in a tube representing the effect of all the other polymers. The tube theory invokes phenomenological concepts of tube diameter and primitive path (axes of the tube). How these are connected to the full atomistic dynamics is not completely known. In this report we have used numerical simulations on a bead spring model to directly measure the primitive path, and the potential due to this tube. To compare our results to the tube model, we have also created a numerical model of one polymer in a tube and measured the monomer displacement. We have underlined some differences between the tube theory and our model. Key word : Polymere melt tube model primitive path -numerical simulation bead-spring model Polymers and Complex Fluids Group, School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leeds, LS2 9JT, UK. www.pcf. leeds.ac. uk Directed by : Peter OLMSTED ( P.D.Olmsted@leeds.ac.uk) Chinmay DAS ( C.Das@leeds.ac.uk)
MEANING IN MALAY-ENGLISH DICTIONARIES: AN APPLICATION OF FRAME SEMANTICS AND THE FRAMENET

A literature review of bilingual dictionary research in Malaysia shows that most research has focused on the problems of equivalents recorded in bilingual dictionaries. What is lacking is proper linguistic analysis of the discrimination of meaning for the source language entry and the findings of the target language equivalents. This paper attempts to fill this research gap by investigating the problems that arise in the discrimination of meanings of two Malay-English dictionaries, and the English equivalents. The analysis adopts the methods of frame semantics in describing the Malay verb memberi, assessing the different senses of meaning through the frames that are available. The theoretical framework of Frame Semantics has successfully helped the writer to reorganise the meaning of the Malay transitive verb memberi (translation in English "give") from the different frames evoked by the entry. Meanwhile, the information of the lexical units (LU) provided by the frames, for example the LUs from the frame of GIVING in the FrameNet database have contributed to a list of English equivalents that can be used in the Malay-English dictionary entry. This framebased analysis relies on the 5 million words Dewan Bahasa dan PustakaUniversiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (DBP-UKM) Malay corpus while all the English equivalents are sourced from FrameNet and English dictionaries.
Centre for Urban Economics and Real Estate Working Paper 2005 – 06 Spatial Autocorrelations and Urban Housing Market Segmentation

This paper seeks to let data define urban housing market segments, replacing the conventional administrative or any pre-defined boundaries used in the previous housing submarket literature. We model housing transaction data using a conventional hedonic function. The hedonic residuals are used to estimate an isotropic semi-variogram, from which residual variance-covariance matrix is constructed. The correlations between hedonic residuals are used as identifier to assign housing units into clusters. Standard submarket identification tests are applied to each cluster to examine the segmentation of housing market. The results are compared with the prevailing structure of market segments. Weighted mean square test shows that the defined submarket structure can improve the precision of price prediction by 17.5%. This paper is experimental in the sense that it represents one of the first attempts at investigating market segmentation through house price spatial autocorrelations.
cial cilia for micro uidics exploring the use of a horizontally micro-structured ferromagnetic PDMS composite

Cilia are thin, exible rods found in nature which induce mixing and pumping on a microscale. This way of inducing motion in a uid can be applied to the domain of micro uidics. As a step towards micro uidic control by arti cial cilia, magnetic actuation of arti cial cilia was investigated in theory and tested in practise by feasibility prototypes; both con rmed the possibility of inducing motion in ferromagnetic arti cial cilia using a magnetic eld. The bending of a cilium as a result of a magnetic eld was estimated theoretically for a paramagnetic as well as a ferromagnetic material; the former in the high-gradient eld of a current wire, and the latter in the homogeneous eld of a magnet. When combined with an estimation of the parameters involved, the resulting cilia movement favoured the ferromagnetic cilium, which could achieve a greater de ection than the paramagnetic cilium and whose behaviour was independent of scaling. Both showed a p-dependence on aspect-ratio. Feasibility prototypes were created for experimental veri cation. The soft polymer polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) was used as a material for arti cial cilia. It was doped with 70nm Fe@C particles to make it magnetic. Characterisation by a vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) showed that the magnetic behaviour was independent of the concentration of magnetic particles in PDMS, with which the saturation magnetisation Ms, remanent eld Mr and susceptibility χ scaled linearly. Extrapolating the measurements to a 100vol% Fe@C-PDMS composite resulted in Ms = 0.6MA/m, Mr = 0.16Ms and χ ≈ 5. The coercive eld was measured to be Hc = 17.5mT. Field-curing of the composite did not substantially enhance its magnetic properties. To obtain micro-fabricated high-aspect ratio structures, PDMS was structured horizontally using a sacri cial layer lift-o technique. For this procedure, two photosensitive PDMS formulations were investigated, of which s-PDMS was selected. This resulted in micro-structured arti cial cilia of about 10μm in thickness and 250μm in length. Actuation with a 50mT eld resulted in a de ection of about 180μm, which was in the same order of magnitude as calculated from theory and VSM measurements. Also arti cial cilia with a size of one order of magnitude larger were found to behave accordingly. Although the actuating eld exceeded the coercive eld of the composite, a permanent moment perpendicular to the eld was shown to remain and cause the cilium to de ect.
Duality-Based Bayesian Analysis of Residential Gas Demand under Decreasing Block Rate Pricing

This paper discusses a novel Bayesian estimation method for the residential gas demand function in Japan where the price per unit decreases as the demand exceeds certain thresholds. Such a price system is known as decreasing block rate pricing. The demand function under decreasing block rate pricing is derived by using the well-known discrete/continuous choice approach. However, because of the nonconvex budget set, the conventional approach imposes highly nonlinear constraints on the model parameters, thus making the maximization of the likelihood function under such constraints difficult to implement. To overcome this difficulty, we first apply the duality relationship in consumer theory, and approximate the conditional expenditure in order to linearize these nonlinear constraints. Then, we adopt a Bayesian approach with the Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation in order to estimate the model parameters under linear constraints. Our proposed method is illustrated by a numerical example and is adopted to analyze the demand for residential gas in Japan. JEL classification: C11, D12, Q41 keyword: Block rate pricing, Discrete/continuous choice approach, Duality, Bayesian analysis, Markov chain Monte Carlo
AUTOMATIC INDEXING OF INFORMATION RESOURCES CONCERNING AGRICULTURE IN POLISH

Article history: Received: March 2014 Received in the revised form: September 2014 Accepted: October 2014 Contemporary research and production activity require searching and collecting a variety of information, this also applies to issues in the field of agriculture. Today, the vast majority of resources are available in a digital form. FAO on the portal of the Agricultural Information Management Standards presents an AgroTagger, tool for indexing documents in the field of agriculture, which is designed for the English language. Extraction of knowledge is not very convenient in languages such as Polish language with a very extensive inflection. In Polish, the following parts of speech inflect: verbs, nouns, numerals, adjectives, and pronouns. Proper indexing requires an initial reduction of grammatical forms, to which the authors have used the dictionary of the Polish language and have developed a programme of reducing. Moreover the algorithms for determining weights corresponding to the validity of the appointments taking into account the prevalence of terms and their position in the document were developed and implemented.
The effect of Internet-based multimedia reading environments on undergraduate students' reading comprehension

UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION by KRISTI A. LEONARD (Under the Direction of Robert Maribe Branch) ABSTRACT This study investigated the application of the cognitive theory of multimedia learning’s multimedia principle on reading comprehension, specifically in Internet-based reading environments with undergraduate students. Participants that completed the study were assigned to one of two treatment groups: text only and text and graphics. Participants completed a prior knowledge test, spatial ability test, reading comprehension test, and a cognitive load questionnaire. An ANCOVA was used to analyze the reading comprehension differences between the treatment groups, text only and text and graphics. The results of the study indicated that the inclusion or exclusion of graphics had no impact on reading comprehension. Additionally, correlational analysis was used to investigate the impact that the learner characteristics prior knowledge, spatial ability, and cognitive load had on reading comprehension. The results of the study indicated that overall, higher prior knowledge and higher spatial ability were beneficial to reading comprehension and higher cognitive load was detrimental to reading comprehension.
Evaluation of strontium ranelate in the repair of standardized intrabuccal bone defects in a rat model

The treatment of intrabuccal bone defects and the search for new agents to optimize regeneration procedures are extremely valuable. The present experimental study aimed to evaluate the effects of orally administered Strontium Ranelate (SrR), in the repair of intrabuccal bone defects in rats. Twenty Lewis rats, divided in 4 groups (2 control and 2 test groups) were used and evaluated at 14 and 42 days. Standardized bone defects in the distal alveolar region of the first superior molar were created in all animals. Test groups received a daily dose of SrR (625 mg/kg), and control groups received a placebo. Bone neoformation within the defects were evaluated through histological and morphometric analysis. At 14 days, histological analysis revealed similar healing patterns between groups. However, at 42 days, the test group presented healing patterns with better tissue organization, compatible with slightly advanced bone maturation. At 14 days, morphometric analysis revealed a higher rate of bone deposition in the test group when compared to the control group (P<0.05). At 42 days, no significant differences between groups were observed in relation to morphometric parameters. SrR seemed to accelerate the process of bone neoformation.
Queue profile estimation in signalized arterials by utilizing probe vehicle data

Queues at signalized intersections are one of the main causes of traffic delays and urban traffic state variability. Hence, a method to estimate characteristics of queues provides a better understanding of urban traffic dynamics and also a performance measurement of signalized arterials. In order to capture the evolution of queues, we aim at leveraging the collective effect of spatially and temporally dispersed GPS data to identify the queue profile in the time-space plane that designates the manner of formation and dissipation of queues. The queue profile characterizes the time evolution of both queue front and back, which consequently can be separated in a two-step estimation process resulting to the queue profile polygon. The evolution of queue front, in the time-space diagram, based on the kinematic traffic shockwave theory is modeled as a line with the known slope of queue-discharging shockwave. The evolution of back of queue is more challenging and modeled as a piecewise linear function where slope of segments is between the queue-discharging shockwave and zero. In the proposed method, the input data consists of position and velocity of GPS-equipped probe vehicles. In addition, the queue profile estimation method does not require any explicit information of signal settings and arrival distribution. The proposed method is tested with various penetration rates and sampling intervals of GPS data, which reveals promising results once compared to a uniform arrival queue profile estimation procedure. The proposed method could be beneficial for spillback identification, vehicle trajectory construction, and fuel consumption and emission estimation.
A study relationship work environment and employee performance on manufacturing sector in Penang , Malaysia

Article history: Received 30 May 2017 Received in revised form 30 June 2017 Accepted 7 July 2017 Available online 25 July 2017 Work environment is very important for the performance of the employees in organization. Therefore, they are very important for manufacturing industry to ensure that their employees can perform their job in good conditions. The purpose of this research is to measure the relationship of work environment and employee’s performance in manufacturing industry. A questionnaire was designed to collect the data on factors related work environment such as teamwork, relationship among employees, safe working conditions and flexible working hours with employee’s performance. The data was collected from different types of manufacturing industry in Penang, Malaysia. It is founded that there is a significant relationship between work environment and on executive employee’s performance. It is proved that from correlation analysis all the work environment factors have a high significant relationship to each other.
Crosslinguistic Influence as a Problem for the Language Learning Classroom

This paper discusses crosslinguistic influence (CLI), or the various language interaction phenomena that occur in multilingual language systems, and its effects on English language learners’ classroom production. It uses the example of a group of trilingual university students to examine some of the effects of CLI that should be taken into consideration by language teachers. First, the group itself is analyzed sociolinguistically, and it is seen that ethnocultural factors such as nationality exert a strong influence on these students’ language systems. Then, several examples of both written and spoken production are examined in order to show some of the most common ways that CLI manifests in the classroom. These include errors in syntax, morphology, and word order, as well as increased use of hesitations and code-switching. Students themselves, however, are often unaware of these processes, or only recognize them in extreme forms. Thus, the paper ends with some suggestions for classroom methodology designed to increase students’ awareness of CLI.
Opportunistic management behavior in reporting earnings of agricultural companies

This study examines reliability of reported earnings of agricultural companies in the Republic of Serbian. Methodologically, the study utilizes the various regression models and univariate tests. Using sample of 1,983 firm-year observations from the period 2009 to 2013, we find that agricultural companies in the Republic of Serbia are engaged in earnings management. Further, we find that profitability and leverage have a significant influence on scope and direction of earnings management. Income-decreasing behavior is observed in more profitable firms, while income-increasing behavior is observed in highly leveraged and more profitable firms. The results might have significant implications for agricultural regulators, users of financial statements and researchers who study the problem of earnings management within international accounting setting and weak legal enforcement.
Correlations for Cross-Modal Multimedia Information Retrieval

Advanced information retrieval systems face a great challenge arising from the emergence of massive and multi-modal data, including images, texts, video, audio and etc. One of the most important problems in this field is to accomplish effective and efficient search across various modalities of information. Given a query from one modality, it is desirable to retrieve semantically relevant answers in all the available modalities. This chapter first briefly reviews related works, including uni-modal information retrieval, multi-modal information retrieval, and cross-modal information retrieval. For crossmodal retrieval models, this chapter gives an introduction to manifold alignment-based