Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Intelligibility Robustness of Five Speech Codec Modes in Frame-Erasure and Background-Noise Environments

Frame erasures and background noise are two factors that can interact with speech coding to reduce speech intelligibility and thus impair public safety mission-critical voice communications. We conducted two tests of intelligibility in the face of these factors. The tests covered five adaptive multi-rate (AMR) and enhanced voice services (EVS) speech coding modes, each using a bit rate near 13 kb/s. Two EVS Channel Aware (CA) modes were included. Both tests use the Modified Rhyme Test (MRT) protocol and together they comprise over 150,000 trials. The first test used frame erasures targeted at critical consonants for maximum sensitivity and the second used frame erasures generated at random by a two-state Gauss-Markov model. By using these large numbers of MRT trials we found that the CA codec modes offer small but statistically significant speech intelligibility improvements in numerous frame-erasure environments.
LONG-TERM INTAKE OF ASPARTAME AND HEPATOCELLULAR INJURY IN RABBIT

Background: Nowadays, the widespread use of sugar substitutes coexists with the rise in the percent of the population who are diabetic or dieting. Materials and methods: thirty adult male New Zealand white rabbit were randomly divided into three groups, ten rabbits each. The first group was given distilled water. The second group was given aspartame in a dose of 125 mg/kg bw/day for six months. The third group was given aspartame in a dose of 250 mg/kg bw/day for six months. Blood and liver tissue samples were collected and processed for enzymatic analysis. Other Liver tissue samples were collected and processed for light and electron microscopic examination. Aim of work: This study was designed to investigate whether the long-term administration of aspartame induces hepatocellular injury in rabbit. Results: revealed that aspartame administration in a dose 125 mg/kg b.wt did not significantly increase the levels of aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) in serum and did not significantly change the activities of glutathione peroxidase (GPx) superoxide dismutase (SOD) and catalase (CAT) while its administration in a dose of 250 mg/kg bw/day significantly increased the levels of AST, ALT and ALP and significantly decreased the activities of GPx, SOD and CAT as compared to the control group. The histopathological examination showed that Long-term intake of aspartame induced hepatic cell injury (vacuolar degeneration, hydropic degeneration, fatty change) with different degrees of apoptotic, necrotic and inflammatory changes. Conclusion: it could be concluded that moderation is the key with chronic aspartame consumption and even the acceptable daily intake can cause hepatic cell injury. Key words: aspartame-liver-rabbit
Do female and male engineers rate different competencies as important

A study was conducted to identify and select the competencies needed by engineers. Competencies were identified from a broad range of literature and refined to a list of 64 competencies which might be required by engineers. Three hundred established engineers, that is, engineers with five to twenty years of experience since graduating from a degree of four years or more, were surveyed on their work and asked to rate each of the 64 competencies for importance to their work. There were unexpected significant differences between the competency ratings made by men and women. These are partially explained by a difference in the work performed by the men and women who participated. The gender effects have implications for the measurement of competencies.
Performance Testing of NACA0012 Aerofoil by Providing Dimple Surface

: The aim of research paper is to delay the flow separation of an aerofoil by providing dimples on the upper surface of aerofoil at trailing edge. In present work research is done on experimental and numerical analysis of lift and drag performance of NACA0012 aerofoil. The lift and drag forces are calculated at different angle of attack varying from 0 0 to 20 0 for low Reynolds number. The flow characteristics over NACA0012 aerofoil are studied experimentally in a low speed wind tunnel. All the models are prepared by wood and experiments are conducted in 300mm x 300mm x 1000mm subsonic wind tunnel. Lift and Drag coefficient were calculated and obtained results were plotted against angle of attack. From the experimental investigation has been observed that the flow separation of aerofoil can be delayed by using dimples on the upper surface. That indicates by providing dimple surface we can able to control flow separation successfully.
Pseudomonas Aeruginosa and Newer β-Lactamases: An Emerging Resistance Threat

Infact, the rising trend of developing resistance to multiple antibiotics in microbes, leading to therapeutic failure is a serious problem of global magnitude. P.aeruginosa, Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Vancomycin resistant Enterococci(VRE), Glycopeptide Intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (GISA), Glycopeptide Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (GRSA), Acinetobacter baumani, Stenotrophomonas maltophila etc. need special attention as they are commonly isolated from Health Care Associated Infections(HAI) and belong to Multidrug resistant Organism (MDRO) i.e. they are resistant to one or more classes of antibiotics (Harrison & Lederberg, 1998). P. aeruginosa is responsible for 10-15% of nosocomial infections worldwide. The β-lactam group of antibiotics which include Penicillins, Cephalosporins, Monobactams and Carbapenems are mainly used to treat infections caused by Gram negative bacteria. The widespread use of antibiotics put tremendous selective pressure on bacteria which develop new mechanisms to escape the lethal action of the antibiotics. These infections are difficult to treat because of emergence of newer β-lactamases such as Extended Spectum β-lactamases (ESBL), AmpCβlactamases and Carbapenemases. The β-lactamases inactivate β-lactam antibiotics by cleaving the structural β-lactam ring. Failure to detect these enzymes producing strains has contributed to their uncontrolled spread in Health Care setup and therapeutic failure.
A nonparametric characteristics model of the demand for milk

Characteristics models in demand analysis capture the idea that people value goods not For the commodity itself but for the characteristics (or attributes) or embodied in the good. For example, agents may care about the fat content and the taste of different sorts of milk but not the actual type of milk. When we have fewer characteristics than types of good the theory imposes restrictions on observables. We present a revealed preference characteristics model analysis of the demand for milk in Denmark.
Validation of CMIP5 multimodel ensembles through the smoothness of climate variables

Smoothness is an important characteristic of a spatial process that measures local variability. If climate model outputs are realistic, then not only the values at each grid pixel but also the relative variation over nearby pixels should represent the true climate. We estimate the smoothness of long-term averages for land surface temperature anomalies in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5), and compare them by climate regions and seasons. We also compare the estimated smoothness of the climate outputs in CMIP5 with those of reanalysis data. The estimation is done through the composite likelihood approach for locally self-similar processes. The composite likelihood that we consider is a product of conditional likelihoods of neighbouring observations. We find that the smoothness of the surface temperature anomalies in CMIP5 depends primarily on the modelling institution and on the climate region. The seasonal difference in the smoothness is generally small, except for some climate regions where the average temperature is extremely high or low.
Tangible 3D Modelling: Bridging the Gap Between Physicality and Virtuality

This paper presents an experimental approach to teaching 3D modelling techniques in an Industrial Design programme. The approach includes the use of tangible free form models as tools for improving the overall learning. The paper is based on lecturer and student experiences obtained through facilitated discussions during the course as well as through a survey distributed to the participating students. The analysis of the experiences shows a mixed picture consisting of both benefits and limits to the experimental technique. A discussion about the applicability of the technique and about the needed adjustments concludes the paper.
A numerical study of rotating convection during tropical cyclogenesis

We present idealized numerical model experiments to investigate the convective generation of vertical vorticity in a tropical depression. The ambient vertical vorticity is represented by a uniform solid‐body rotation. The calculations are motivated by observations made during the Pre‐Depression Investigation of Cloud‐systems in the Tropics (PREDICT) experiment. A specific aim is to isolate and quantify the effects of low‐ to mid‐level dry air on convective cells that form within a depression and, in particular, on the generation of vertical vorticity in these cells. The results do not support a common perception that dry air aloft produces stronger convective downdraughts and more intense, cold‐air outflows therefrom. Indeed, we find that dry air aloft weakens both updraughts and downdraughts, corroborating the recent results of James and Markowski.
INTERACTION OF VESICULAR MONOAMINE TRANSPORTER 2 (VMAT2) AND NEUROMELANIN PIGMENT AMONG THE MIDBRAIN DOPAMINERGIC NEURONS, IN MAN

Neuromelanin (NM) pigment accumulates with age in catecholaminergic neurons in man, and the ventral substantia nigra dopaminergic neurons that are the most vulnerable to degeneration in Parkinson's disease (PD) contain the greatest amount of this pigment. In vitro data indicate that NM pigment is formed from the excess cytosolic catecholamine that is not accumulated into synaptic vesicles via the vesicular monoamine transporter2 (VMAT2). Using semi-quantitative immunohistochemical methods in human postmortem brain, we sought to examine the relationship between the contents of VMAT2 and NM pigment. The immunostaining intensity (ISI) was measured for VMAT2 in two regions of the midbrain dopaminergic cell complex. The ISI of the cells was related to the density of NM pigment within the cells. We also measured the ISI for tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and examined the noradrenergic neurons in the locus coeruleus (LC). In brains 22-65 years of age: 1) ventral substantia nigra neurons had the lowest VMAT2 ISI of all neurons in the midbrain cell complex, whereas over 2-fold higher levels are found in most ventral tegmental area neurons; 2) there was an inverse relationship between VMAT2 ISI and neuromelanin pigment in the midbrain dompaminergic neurons; 3) neurons with the highest VMAT2 ISI resided in the LC; 4) neurons with high VMAT2 ISI also had high TH ISI; and 5) in the newborn brain, which has not yet accumulated neuromelanin pigment in the aminergic neurons, the regional distribution of VMAT2 and TH-ISI was similar to that found in the adult brain. These data support the hypothesis that among the midbrain dopaminergic neurons, the ventral substantia nigra dopamine neurons accumulate the highest levels of NM pigment because they have the lowest levels of VMAT2, which thereby renders them especially vulnerable to degeneration in PD.
EFFECT OF DIFFERENT SEASONS AND THAWING PROTOCOLS ON CERTAIN SEMINAL ATTRIBUTES OF INDIAN STANDARD BRED STALLION SEMEN PRESERVED USING 1% GLYCEROL AND 1% DIMETHYL FORMAMIDE AS CRYOPROTECTANT

Standard bred stallion semen was collected during the breeding (n=5) (March-October) and non breeding (n=5) (November-January) seasons using artificial vagina for seven occasions on alternate days from each stallion for both seasons. Semen was evaluated for physical attributes, motility and membrane integrity, diluted using INRA 82 extender to which 2% egg yolk, 1% glycerol and 1% dimethyl formamide were added filled in french medium straws and cryopreserved by instant freezing over LN2 Vapors. After 24 hours of storage, semen was thawed using three different protocols Treatment 1 (T1) 37oC for 30 secs, Treatment 2 (T2) 60oC for 8secs and Treatment 3 (T3) 75oC for 7 secs. The post thaw motility, post thaw viability and post thaw HOS positive sperms were significantly higher during the non breeding season. The thawing protocol T2 was found to be the best during the breeding as well was non-breeding seasons.
Fuzzy PI Controllers Performance on Boost Converter

Electric voltage of about 220 volts is required to supply the home appliance in Indonesia, such as for lighting lamps. When there is no 220 volts power supply, while the available voltage source is equal to the battery voltage of about 1.5 to 12 volts, it requires the voltage converter to convert a low voltage 220 volts Become. By using a transformer, it is easy to rise the AC voltage. Meanwhile for DC voltage, the transformer can not be used to raise it, Because The changing magnetic field do not occur then the output of transformer voltage is not higher but the transformer Become hot Because of DC voltage. To raise the DC voltage, DC to DC converter is needed, such as Boost Converter. Boost Converter works based on the changing current that flows through an inductor. This current change will Affect the inductor voltage change. The output voltage of boost converter has a unique comparison to the input voltage duty cycle. By adjusting the amount of the voltage duty cycle, the output voltage will be easy to control. In this paper, we presented a prototype of 12 to 220 V DC-DC boost converter, using fuzzy-PI intervention that being embedded on ATmega168 AVR microcontroller. The controller can maintain a fixed output voltage by regulating the input duty cycle. From the test results, is obtained an efficiency of 75% at 15 watts whereas percentage of error of about less than 3%. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.11591/ijece.v3i2. 2262
Eta invariants and complex immersions

L'objet de l'article est de calculer l'invariant eta d'un complexe qui est acyclique en dehors d'une sous-variete. On utilise pour cela le theoreme d'indice d'Atiyah-Patodi-Singer et les superconnexions de Quillen
A Study of the Relationship between Manager' s Leadership Style and Organizational Commitment in Taiwan' s International Tourist Hotels

This study was aimed at analyzing the cognition and the relationship between managers’ leadership styles and employees’ organizational commitment in the operation unit of international tourist hotels. In order to meet the features of this industry, both the theories,“situational leadership” by Hersey & Blanchard and “organizational commitment” by Porter, Steers, Mowday & Boulian serve as the basis of this study. From the former theory, how subordinate managers prepare for the task becomes a situational factor. Task and relationship develop as structural sides of situational leadership. In this way, managers’ leadership styles can be sorted into the following four types: selling (persuasion), telling (command), participating and delegating (empowerment). In the latter theory,“value ,” “effort ,” and “retention” make up the main parts to be studied. The international tourist hotels involved in this study consisted of 58 state-qualified hotels which were evaluated and granted qualification by the government in 2004. Three hundred and thirty-one employees filled out the questionnaire. The survey instrument included: (a) leadership style inventory, (b) organizational commitment inventory, and (c) personal background data. By analyzing all the data collected, the results of this study indicate: 1.A‘ delegating’ leadership style has the highest frequency of occurrences. It is followed by‘ selling’ and ‘participating’ styles. ‘ Telling’ leadership has the lowest frequency of occurrences. 2.Employees of different ages, lengths of services, major subjects, top-level leadership styles, and the locations of the hotels will show significantly different organizational commitments. 3.The more that managers belong to the selling, participating, and delegating leadership styles, the more organizational commitment the employees have. In general, the ‘participati ng’ leadership attracts the most employee commitment, while the ‘ telling’ leadership obtains the least.
Masters Thesis: Joint Angle-Frequency Estimation for Multiple Signals with Circular Arrays

In electronic warfare information about radio signals is gathered. Parameters as the directionof-arrival (DOA) and the frequency can be estimated from sampled data received on antenna arrays. The objective of this thesis is to investigate the use of circular arrays for joint anglefrequency estimation (JAFE). A 1-D (azimuth and frequency) and 2-D (azimuth, elevation and frequency) JAFE algorithm is presented. Both algorithms use phase-mode excitation and ESPRIT. The 1-D algorithm with spatial smoothing is introduced. With this algorithm it is possible to estimate signals with similar frequencies, when the elevation is the same and known for all signals of interest. Simulations demonstrate that when two signals are coherent and a spatial smoothing factor of two or higher is applied the algorithm is able to estimate the azimuth correctly. It is also demonstrated that when two signals have the same DOA a temporal smoothing factor of two is necessary and that more temporal smoothing reduces the standard deviation of the azimuth estimation. It is shown that the phase-mode excitation technique introduces a systematic error that is considerably high for few antenna elements and an even number of elements. It is demonstrated that interpolation can reduce this error in case a UCA of 5 elements, but not for a UCA of an even number of 12 elements. The sample rate used for sampling can be adjusted to the Nyquist rate or higher. Simulations demonstrate that a little bit oversampling reduces the RMSE (Root Mean Square Error) of the azimuth, elevation and frequency. It shows that after a certain point oversampling increases the RMSE error of the elevation and especially the frequency estimation. An ESPRIT-based algorithm for joint angle-frequency-delay estimation is introduced. For the delay estimation, using a matched filter approach with ESPRIT, it is possible to estimate the delay correctly for a SNR above 40 dB only, since it is very sensitive to imperfections in the signal separation. Master of Science Thesis Joost Geelhoed
A pair of reddened young star clusters in Centaurus

Photometry in the BVI and JHK bands is presented for the first time for the southern open clusters Danks 1 and 2, located in the Centaurus region. They are relatively rich and compact, and projected at approximately 4 arcmin from each other. The clusters are very reddened, with A V = 8.1 ± 0.45 and 9.3 ± 0.6, respectively. They are young clusters, with ages of approximately 10 Myr, and may be related to the 305° H II region complex in the area. Distances from the Sun of d ○. 3.6 ± 0.5 and 3.4 ± 0.2 kpc are derived for Danks 1 and 2. They might form a physical cluster pair.
Tandem repetitions in transcriptomes of some Solanaceae species

Characterization of occurrence, density and motif sequence of tandem repeats in the transcribed regions is helpful in understanding the functional significance of these repeats in the modern genomes. We analyzed tandem repeats present in expressed sequences of thirteen species belonging to genera Capsicum, Nicotiana, Petunia and Solanum of family Solanaceae and the genus Coffea of Rubiaceae to investigate the propagation and evolutionary sustenance of these repeats. Tandem repeat containing sequences constituted 1.58% to 7.46% of sequences analyzed. Tandem repetitions of size 2, 15, 18 and 21 bp motifs were more frequent. Repeats with unit sizes 21 and 22 bp were also abundant in genomic sequences of potato and tomato. While mutations occurring in these repeats may alter the repeat number, genomes adjust to these changes by keeping the translated products unaffected. Surprisingly, in majority of the species under study, tandem repeat motif length did not exceed 228 bp. Conserved tandem repeat motifs of sizes 180, 192 and 204 bp were also abundant in the genomic sequences. Our observations lead us to propose that these tandem repeats are actually remnants of ancestral megasatellite repeats, which have split into multiple repeats due to frequent insertions over the course of evolution.
Parenting competencies: development of an assessment instrument

Theoretical Framework: The assessment of parenting competencies is essential for defining Nursing interventions that promote the transition to parenthood. Objectives: To develop an instrument that guides the assessment of parenting competencies, from pregnancy to the sixth month after birth, and analyse its clinical usefulness and psychometric properties. Methodology: In the first phase, the learning needs were identified through interviews conducted to 51 parents and through a literature review, and the instrument model was designed. In the second phase, the clinical characteristics and psychometric properties of the instrument were analysed using a sample composed of 630 mothers and 214 fathers. Results: The Parenting Competencies Assessment Instrument encompassed 17 parenting competencies and 193 indicators. Concerning internal consistency, a KR20=0.94 and a KR20=0.87 were observed in the maternal and paternal versions, respectively. The analysis of the knowledge and skills subscales of both mothers and fathers found significant levels of internal consistency (α=0.86 and α=0.66; α=0.89 and α=0.76, respectively). Conclusion: This instrument proved to have clinical usefulness and to be reliable to assess parenting competencies from pregnancy to the sixth month after birth.
Can Job Competition Prevent Hold-Ups?

We consider an economy in which firms need to invest in capital before they can advertise a job, while applicants may have to compete for jobs. Our aim is to investigate how this competition affects the investment decisions of firms. Our first result shows that the economy always generates the right number of jobs. However, with random search firms under-invest in capital due to a hold-up problem. In contrast, if workers can direct their search to firms with different capital levels, the equilibrium is efficient. This result contrasts sharply with the predictions of models with ex post bargaining that never yield an efficient allocation. Moreover, our results extend the efficiency of auction mechanisms to an environment with non-contractible investments.
The fluid dynamics of hydrocyclones

Nous utilisons une methode computationnelle pour predire les champs de velocite dans les hydrocyclones de geometries differentes fonctionnant dans une plage etendue de conditions. Nous demontrons ici comment notre methode sert a predire les trajectoires des particules dans les hydrocyclones et leur efficacite de separation. Nous analysons par ailleurs l'influence des variables conceptuelles et operationnelles sur le rendement des hydrocyclones. La comparaison entre les resultats ainsi calcules et les donnees d'experience disponibles nous a permis de constater un assez bon accord.