Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study on Speaker-Adaptive Speech Recognition

Speaker-independent system is desirable in many applications where speaker-specific data do not exist. However, if speaker-dependent data are available, the system could be adapted to the specific speaker such that the error rate could be significantly reduced. In this paper, DARPA Resource Management task is used as the domain to investigate the performance of speaker-adaptive speech recognition. Since adaptation is based on speaker-independent systems with only limited adaptation data, a good adaptation algorithm should be consistent with the speaker-independent parameter estimation criterion, and adapt those parameters that are less sensitive to the limited training data. Two parameter sets, the codebook mean vector and the output distribution, are regarded to be most important. They are modified in the framework of maximum likelihood estimation criterion according to the characteristics of each speaker. In order to reliably estimate those parameters, output distributions are shared with each other if they exhibit certain acoustic similarity. In addition to modify these parameters, speaker normalization with neural networks is also studied in the hope that acoustic data normalization will not only rapidly adapt the system but also enhance the robustness of speaker-independent speech recognition. Preliminary results indicate that speaker differences can be well minimized. In comparison with speaker-independent speech recognition, the error rate has been reduced from 4.3% to 3.1% by only using parameter adaptation techniques, with 40 adaptation sentences for each speaker. When the number of speaker adaptation sentences is comparable to that of speaker-dependent training, speaker-adaptive recognition works better than the best speaker-dependent recognition results on the same test set, which indicates the robustness of speaker-adaptive speech recognition.
Empowering and Educating Parents to Implement a Home Intervention: Effects on Preschool Children’s Engagement in Hands-on Constructive Play

Constructive play is a creative process-oriented activity that promotes children’s engaged learning through building and designing with materials. This study investigated a parent-implemented intervention to promote active engagement in constructive play for preschool-aged children at risk for developmental delay. This study utilized a single-subject multiple-baseline across-participants design with four participants. Visual analysis of the data identified a functional relation between the temporal, physical, and social–emotional environmental support provided by the parents and the children’s active engagement in constructive play. Parents reported the intervention as meaningful to their lives, indicating strong social validity. These findings highlight the importance of centering and working with parents in their home environment and provide evidence that empowering parents to provide support and minimize barriers facilitates children’s active engagement in constructive play.
Current evidence for genetic testing in clopidogrel-treated patients undergoing coronary stenting.

A combined dual antiplatelet treatment consisting of aspirin and the P2Y12 receptor inhibitor clopidogrel is still considered the standard of care treatment in most of the patients undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Numerous research studies during the last decade, however, have highlighted possible shortcomings of the oral antiplatelet agent clopidogrel, namely its large response variability resulting in an unpredictable response for the individual patient,1,2 the association of both a low3 or enhanced response4,5 with a worse clinical outcome and the dependency of individual responsiveness on nongenetic and genetic variables.6 Response by Pare and Eikelboom on p 513 Clopidogrel is a prodrug that requires bioactivation into its active thiol metabolite before it targets the P2Y12 receptor on blood platelets. In vivo bioactivation of the drug is a 2-step process that is closely linked to the cytochrome P450 (CYP) system. Different isoenzymes are responsible for clopidogrel bioactivation and among them the isoenzyme CYP2C19 was found to play a key role in this setting by contributing to both clopidogrel bioactivation steps.7 In this context, common genetic variants within the CYP2C19 gene have been the subject of considerable attention and have stimulated numerous research projects in recent years.8–14 Beyond CYP2C19, other genes involved in clopidogrel absorption, bioactivation or interplay with the blood platelet and their receptors have been associated with drug responsiveness and clinical outcome as well. Indeed, a growing body of evidence suggests a possible role of genotyping in patients undergoing coronary stenting with a view on optimizing response to P2Y12 receptor inhibitors during and after the procedure. We review available evidence on the need of individualizing antiplatelet treatment regimens in everyday clinical practice. ### Genetic Determinants for Clopidogrel Response and Clinical Outcome In recent years, multiple genetic factors within different candidate genes being involved in clopidogrel absorption, bioactivation, and …
Decimal multiplication with efficient partial product generation

Decimal multiplication is important in many commercial applications including financial analysis, banking, tax calculation, currency conversion, insurance, and accounting. This paper presents a novel design for fixed-point decimal multiplication that utilizes a simple recoding scheme to produce signed-magnitude representations of the operands thereby greatly simplifying the process of generating partial products for each multiplier digit. The partial products are generated using a digit-by-digit multiplier on a word-by-digit basis, first in a signed-digit form with two digits per position, and then combined via a combinational circuit. As the signed-digit partial products are developed one at a time while traversing the recoded multiplier operand from the least significant digit to the most significant digit, each partial product is added along with the accumulated sum of previous partial products via a signed-digit adder. This work is significantly different from other work employing digit-by-digit multipliers due to the efficiency gained by restricting the range of digits throughout the multiplication process.
Graph-based Generalization Bounds for Learning Binary Relations

We investigate the generalizability of learned binary relations: functions that map pairs of instances to a logical indicator. This problem has application in numerous areas of machine learning, such as ranking, entity resolution and link prediction. Our learning framework incorporates an example labeler that, given a sequence $X$ of $n$ instances and a desired training size $m$, subsamples $m$ pairs from $X \times X$ without replacement. The challenge in analyzing this learning scenario is that pairwise combinations of random variables are inherently dependent, which prevents us from using traditional learning-theoretic arguments. We present a unified, graph-based analysis, which allows us to analyze this dependence using well-known graph identities. We are then able to bound the generalization error of learned binary relations using Rademacher complexity and algorithmic stability. The rate of uniform convergence is partially determined by the labeler's subsampling process. We thus examine how various assumptions about subsampling affect generalization; under a natural random subsampling process, our bounds guarantee $\tilde{O}(1/\sqrt{n})$ uniform convergence.
Block-Iterative Algorithms with Diagonally Scaled Oblique Projections for the Linear Feasibility Problem

We formulate a block-iterative algorithmic scheme for the solution of systems of linear inequalities and/or equations and analyze its convergence. This study provides as special cases proofs of convergence of (i) the recently proposed component averaging (CAV) method of Censor, Gordon, and Gordon [Parallel Comput. , 27 (2001), pp. 777--808], (ii) the recently proposed block-iterative CAV (BICAV) method of the same authors [IEEE Trans. Medical Imaging, 20 (2001), pp. 1050--1060], and (iii) the simultaneous algebraic reconstruction technique (SART) of Andersen and Kak [ Ultrasonic Imaging, 6 (1984), pp. 81--94] and generalizes them to linear inequalities. The first two algorithms are projection algorithms which use certain generalized oblique projections and diagonal weighting matrices which reflect the sparsity of the underlying matrix of the linear system. The previously reported experimental acceleration of the initial behavior of CAV and BICAV is thus complemented here by a mathematical study of the convergence of the algorithms.
The formation of non-volcanic rifted margins by the progressive extension of the lithosphere: the example of the West Iberian margin

Abstract Non-volcanic margins such as the West Iberian margin exhibit certain characteristics, such as a deficit of synrift igneous rock, a zone of exhumed subcontinental mantle in the continent–ocean transition and an apparent extension discrepancy. These observations can be explained as a consequence of the progressive extension of the lithosphere above relatively cool mantle. The evolving rheological stratification of the lithosphere controls the style of extension at different lithospheric levels at different times; extension is probably heterogeneous at all stages, with lower crustal and upper mantle boudinage controlling the patterns of thinning and mantle upwelling early in the rift history, and complete crustal embrittlement and mantle serpentinization controlling the formation of late-stage detachment faults. Extension in the brittle crust is via multiple phases of faulting, with a general focusing of extension towards the incipient ocean. The lack of melt is explained by a combination of heterogeneous extension of the lower lithosphere and a cool subcontinental geotherm. The extension discrepancy may in places be controlled by depth-dependent stretching of the crust through lower crustal boudinage, but may also simply be the result of incomplete recognition of the entire polyphase faulting history. The latter seems to be the case for West Iberia. Evidence for all these processes can be found at the West Iberian rifted margins as well as those preserved and partially exposed in the Alps.
Analysis of the syrP gene, which regulates syringomycin synthesis by Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae

Syringomycin is a lipodepsinonapeptide phytotoxin synthesized by Pseudomonas syringae pv. syringae on multienzymatic peptide synthetases. Sequence analysis of the interval between the syrB and syrD genes of P. syringae pv. syringae strain B301D revealed a 1,059-bp open reading frame (ORF), designated syrP. The predicted product of this ORF was a 39.6-kDa protein consisting of 353 amino acid residues. Searches of protein sequence databases demonstrated that SyrP was most similar to histidine kinases such as the CheA regulatory protein of Escherichia coli. The predicted SyrP sequence was aligned with the N terminus of CheA, a region corresponding to the phosphotransfer and acceptor domains of CheA. The SyrP region that aligns with the phosphotransfer domain of CheA contained a His at position 101 which is flanked by a weak consensus sequence of the unorthodox sensory kinase subfamily of two-component regulatory systems. Strain B301D-31, obtained by site-directed insertional mutagenesis of the syrP gene, exhibited an unusual pleiotropic phenotype including a failure to produce syringomycin in liquid media in contrast to production of elevated levels of the toxin on agar media. The syrP mutant was relieved of the suppression of toxin production that accompanies inorganic phosphate concentrations of > 1 mM on agar media. Nevertheless, the syrP mutant was substantially less virulent than the wild-type strain in pathogenicity assays in cherry fruits. These results suggest that the syrP gene encodes a regulatory protein that participates in a phosphorylation cascade controlling syringomycin production and virulence in P. syringae pv. syringae.
New Trends in Electrical Machines Technology—Part II

This "Special Section on New Trends in Electrical Machines Technology" has drawn large interest within the electrical machines and drives community. Therefore, many authors having something to present in these specific topics have submitted their contributions for the peerreview process. The total number of submitted papers was 156 from which only 37 have been accepted for final publication. For editorial reasons, this Special Section is being published in two parts, including 18 and 19 accepted papers, respectively. For each part, the Guest Editors grouped the accepted papers into 'hot' topics. With respect to this first part, two main topics have been defined, namely, the "advanced applications" topic (including ten papers) and the "thermal and efficiency issues" topic (with eight papers). Each paper is briefly summarized here.
An experiment using software agents for dialogue analysis in collaborative distance learning

Trends in distance education show a growing emphasis in collaborative learning, stimulating students to exchange ideas and information. A collaborative environment, however, will demand a higher effort from the teacher, who will supervise all discussions among learners, so that they do not deviate from the intended topic for a lesson. Moreover, the information proceeding from interactions among students will provide to the teacher features that allow an individual evaluation of each student and his course. In this way, this paper describes a first experience using a multi-agent architecture that is able to monitor communication tools in a distance-learning group.
Research on Strategies for Improving Employee Satisfaction in Domestic Airlines

: The most prominent issue in the current human resource management of domestic airlines in China is low employee satisfaction. Improving employee satisfaction can improve the quality of cabin services, increase passenger satisfaction, and ultimately attract customers, driving the sustained development of airlines. The reasons for low employee satisfaction in domestic airlines include: outdated management systems and lack of communication mechanisms, unreasonable salary management and performance evaluation, and single job content. Communication mechanisms, job content, salary systems, and performance standards can be improved based on Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, Hawthorne's experiment, two factor theory, and fairness theory.
PERAN KAMPANYE MEDIA SOSIAL, ISU LINGKUNGAN, DAN PERSEPSI EFEKTIVITAS KONSUMEN TERHADAP NIAT BELI PRODUK PENGGANTI KEMASAN SEKALI PAKAI

This research aims to analyze the effect of social media marketing through campaigns by involving the role of product knowledge, green awareness, price consciousness, perceived consumer effectiveness, and attitudes on purchase intention of single-use packaging replacement products. The data for this research were obtained from a questionnaire with 137 respondents who use environmentally friendly products in Indonesia as a sample tested using purposive sampling technique. This research uses quantitative research with descriptive analysis techniques using the SPSS 25 program and statistical analysis using WarpPLS 7.0. The main findings of this research show that environmental concern has a significant influence that affects consumer purchase intention towards single-use packaging replacement products. Besides, product knowledge and price consciousness also have a significant role in influencing purchase intention for single-use packaging replacement products. Moreover, another finding of this research is that consumer attitudes and perceptions also have a major influence on purchase intention. The contribution of this research is expected to influence people to consider switching to a sustainable lifestyle by using single-use packaging replacement products. Keywords: Social Media Campaigns; Green Product; Perceived Consumer Effectiveness. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis pengaruh pemasaran media sosial melalui kampanye dengan melibatkan peran pengetahuan produk, kesadaran lingkungan, kesadaran harga, persepsi efektivitas konsumen, dan sikap terhadap niat beli produk pengganti kemasan sekali pakai. Data untuk penelitian ini diperoleh dari kuesioner dengan 137 responden yang menggunakan produk ramah lingkungan di Indonesia sebagai sampel yang diuji dengan teknik purposive sampling. Penelitian ini menggunakan jenis penelitian kuantitatif dengan teknik analisis deskriptif menggunakan program SPSS 25 dan analisis statistik menggunakan WarpPLS 7.0. Temuan utama dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa kepedulian lingkungan memiliki pengaruh yang signifikan yang mempengaruhi niat beli konsumen terhadap produk pengganti kemasan sekali pakai. Selain itu, product knowledge dan price consciousness juga memiliki peran yang signifikan dalam mempengaruhi niat beli terhadap produk pengganti kemasan sekali pakai. Selain itu, temuan lain dari penelitian ini adalah sikap dan persepsi konsumen juga memiliki pengaruh besar terhadap niat beli. Kontribusi dari penelitian ini diharapkan dapat mempengaruhi masyarakat untuk mempertimbangkan beralih ke gaya hidup berkelanjutan dengan menggunakan produk pengganti kemasan sekali pakai. Kata kunci: kampanye media sosial; produk ramah lingkungan; persepsi efektivitas konsumen.
Synthesis and Characterization of Chitosan-Polyvinyl Alcohol Blended with Cloisite 30B for Controlled Release of the Anticancer Drug Curcumin

In the present research program, polymer nanocomposites have been used as the drug carrier for delivery systems of anticancer drug. Chitosan (Cs) and Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA) with different ratios were blended with different wt% of Cloisite 30B solution by solvent casting method. Glutaraldehyde with different wt% was added to the blended solution as a crosslinking agent. Cloisite 30B was incorporated in the formulation as a matrix material component which also plays the role of a co-emulsifier in the nanocomposite preparation. Curcumin with different concentrations were loaded with CS-PVA/ C 30B nanocomposites for studying the in-vitro drug delivery systems. Morphology and structure characterization of nanocomposites were investigated by fourier transmission infra red spectroscopy (FTIR), scanning electron microscope (SEM), tensile strength and water uptake capacity. The drug release was studied by changing time, pH and drug concentrations. The kinetics of the drug release was studied in order to ascertain the type of release mechanism. Based on the diffusion as well as the kinetics, the mechanism of the drug release from the composite matrix has been reported.
A participative methodology for prioritising intervention logic in the design of the Italian CAP Strategic Plan

The new CAP implementation model requires each Member State to design a CAP Strategic Plan (CSP) to deliver operational actions under the two CAP pillars. Each CSP must be built from an evidence-based needs assessment that undergoes rigorous prioritisation to plan comprehensive and achievable interventions. In Italy, the institutional context requires all the Regions and Autonomous Provinces to express their preferences and to discuss the CSP collectively, both as regards identifying territorial needs and their prioritisation. In this framework, it became pertinent to introduce a specific instrument to facilitate participation in this process. The Italian Ministry, in collaboration with the National Rural Network, developed a participatory route to assess the prioritisation of the identified needs, to support the decision-making process in CSP drafting process. The process is primarily based on a voting aggregation technique called the Constrained Cumulative Voting method. The process identified makes it possible, on the one hand, to formulate a shared consensus on the level of importance of each need; on the other one, via the definition of natural breaks, to determine homogeneous groups of needs by importance of intervention. This process is in line with the European Commission’s legislative proposals requiring a sound and well-founded logic of intervention.
Towards a Universal Approach for the Finite Departure Problem in Overlay Networks

A fundamental problem for overlay networks is to safely exclude leaving nodes, i.e., the nodes requesting to leave the overlay network are excluded from it without affecting its connectivity. There are a number of studies for safe node exclusion if the overlay is in a well-defined state, but almost no formal results are known for the case in which the overlay network is in an arbitrary initial state, i.e., when looking for a self-stabilizing solution for excluding leaving nodes. We study this problem in two variants: the Finite Departure Problem (FDP) and the Finite Sleep Problem (FSP). In the FDP the leaving nodes have to irrevocably decide when it is safe to leave the network, whereas in the FSP, this leaving decision does not have to be final: the nodes may resume computation when woken up by an incoming message. We are the first to present a self-stabilizing protocol for the FDP and the FSP that can be combined with a large class of overlay maintenance protocols so that these are then guaranteed to safely exclude leaving nodes from the system from any initial state while operating as specified for the staying nodes. In order to formally define the properties these overlay maintenance protocols have to satisfy, we identify four basic primitives for manipulating edges in an overlay network that might be of independent interest.
A2Net: An Anchor-Free Alignment Network for Oriented Object Detection in Remote Sensing Images

Object detection in remote sensing images is crucial for identifying and locating objects in the field, holding significance in remote sensing. Oriented object detection employs oriented bounding boxes to locate objects with varying orientations, achieving recent advancements. However, challenges persist due to vast variations in object scale and orientation. Existing methods use Intersection over Union (IoU) to measure bounding box quality but often ignore shape information. Unlike horizontal detectors, oriented detectors always incorporate an angle parameter. Yet, objects with different shapes exhibit varying angle sensitivity. For objects with the same angle but different shapes, their IoU can differ significantly. We argue that relying solely on IoU is not comprehensive. To address this, we propose the Shape-aware IoU Score (SaIS), considering shape information and IoU for each bounding box. We use SaIS to enhance the dynamic soft label assignment strategy, resulting in an improved Shape-aware Label Assignment (SaLA). SaLA aids the detector in selecting more suitable samples. Leveraging RTMDet-R and S2ANet strengths, we design an Anchor-free Alignment Network (A2Net) for oriented object detection. A2Net features two detection heads: the initial head and the refinement head. Utilizing alignment convolution (AlignConv) between these heads obtains aligned features. We validate the proposed approach’s effectiveness on the DOTA dataset and DIOR-R dataset.
A Non-Linear Control Strategy for Instantaneous Power Factor Correction in 3-ø 4-Wire Electrical Systems under Asymmetrical and Non-Linear Loads

A non-linear control strategy in a rotating frame for an active filter based on a voltage source converter shunt topology in a three-phase four-wire electrical system is proposed. The converter in combination with the proposed control strategy guarantees balanced overall currents, unity displacement power factor, and reduced current harmonics in the common coupling point. These features are achieved regardless of the linear/non-linear and/or balanced/unbalanced nature of the load. The proposed control strategy is based on the input-output linearization method which is implemented on a dq0 rotating current reference generation method. Various experimental tests demonstrate the high performance of the proposed scheme