Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep neural network based trainable voice source model for synthesis of speech with varying vocal effort

This paper studies a deep neural network (DNN) based voice source modelling method in the synthesis of speech with varying vocal effort. The new trainable voice source model learns a mapping between the acoustic features and the time-domain pitch-synchronous glottal flow waveform using a DNN. The voice source model is trained with various speech material from breathy, normal, and Lombard speech. In synthesis, a normal voice is first adapted to a desired style, and using the flexible DNN-based voice source model, a style-specific excitation waveform is automatically generated based on the adapted acoustic features. The proposed voice source model is compared to a robust and high-quality excitation modelling method based on manually selected mean glottal flow pulses for each vocal effort level and using a spectral matching filter to correctly match the voice source spectrum to a desired style. Subjective evaluations show that the proposed DNN-based method is rated comparable to the baseline method, but avoids the manual selection of the pulses and is computationally faster than a system using a spectral matching filter.
Exploring Awakening Experiences: A study of awakening experiences in terms of their triggers, characteristics, duration and after-effects

Awakening experiences are temporary experiences of an intensification and expansion of awareness, with characteristics such as intensified perception, a sense of connection and well-being. Ninety awakening experiences were collected and thematically analysed to identify their triggers and characteristics, and also their duration and after-effects. Four main triggers of awakening experiences were found: psychological turmoil, contact with nature, spiritual practice and engagement with spiritual literature (or audio or video materials). Characteristics were found to be positive affective states, intensified perception, love and compassion, a transcendence of separateness, a sense of revelation and inner quietness. The duration of the majority of experiences was from a few minutes to a few hours. The most prevalent after-effects were a desire to recapture the experience and a shift in perspectives and values. The study confirms the importance of psychological turmoil in generating awakening experiences, and that most awakening experiences occur spontaneously, outside the context of spiritual practices and traditions
Throughput optimization via cache partitioning for embedded multiprocessors

In embedded multiprocessors cache partitioning is a known technique to eliminate inter-task cache conflicts, so to increase predictability. On such systems, the partitioning ratio is a parameter that should be tuned to optimize performance. In this paper we propose a simulated annealing (SA) based heuristic to determine the cache partitioning ratio that maximizes an application's throughput. In its core, the SA method iterates many times over many partitioning ratios, checking the resulted throughput. Hence the throughput of the system has to be estimated very fast, so we utilize a light simulation strategy. The light simulation derives the throughput from tasks' timings gathered off-line. This is possible because in an environment where tasks don't interfere with each other, their performance figures can be used in any possible combination. An application of industrial relevance (H.264 decoder) running on a parallel homogeneous platform is used to demonstrate the proposed method. For the H.264 application 9% throughput improvement is achieved when compared to the throughput obtained using methods of partitioning for the least number of misses. This is a significant improvement as it represents 45% from the theoretical throughput improvement achievable when assuming an infinite cache
Rolling Into the Profession: Exploring the Motivation and Experience of Becoming a Project Manager

The number of people who, at a certain point during their career, assume responsibilities as a project manager is increasing every year. Yet, we know little about the reasons why people want to become project managers, how they become project managers, and the ways in which they perceive their job once they have become project managers. In the current qualitative study, we conducted in-depth, semistructured interviews, using a multisource approach, from the perspectives of both project managers (n = 31) and direct supervisors of project managers (n = 21) from the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Our results indicate that project managers tend to be drawn into the field by their enterprising interests, and mainly “roll into their profession” knowing little about possible career paths, and experience multiple positive and negative aspects of their jobs. Reflections on the outcomes are discussed, and practical implications for individuals considering a career in project management and their working organizations are given.
A Study of the Persistence of Mycobacterium bovis in the Environment under Natural Weather Conditions in Michigan, USA

Reisolation of Mycobacterium bovis from inoculated substrates was used to follow the persistence of viable M. bovis bacteria exposed to natural weather conditions over a 12-month period. Environmental factors were recorded continuously, and factors affecting M. bovis persistence (i.e., temperature, season, and substrate) were studied using survival analysis and Cox's proportional hazards regression. Persistence of M. bovis in the environment was significantly shorter in the spring/summer season, characterized by the highest average daily temperatures over the 12-month period. M. bovis persisted up to 88 days in soil, 58 days in water and hay, and 43 days on corn. These studies demonstrate that M. bovis bacteria persist long enough to represent a risk of exposure for cattle and/or wildlife and strengthen evidence that suggests cattle farm biosecurity and efforts to eliminate supplemental feeding of white-tailed deer will decrease the risk of bovine TB transmission among and between cattle and deer populations.
Relative potency of xenobiotic estrogens in an acute in vivo mammalian assay.

The in vivo effects of xenoestrogens are of interest in relation to their potential health risks and/or beneficial effects on humans and animals. However, the apparent in vivo potency of the examined response can be confounded by a short half-life, and the metabolism of estrogens is very dependent on the nature of conversion and/or inactivation. To minimize such variables, we examined the estrogenic potency of a range of xenoestrogens in an acute in vivo assay--the stimulation of increased uterine vascular permeability in ovariectomized mice 4 hr after subcutaneous administration. While estradiol (E 2 ) and estriol (E 3 ; a relatively weak natural estrogen) readily induced vascular responses [median effective dose (ED 50 ) <10 -9 mol], much higher amounts of xenoestrogens were required. Bisphenol A was about 10,000-fold less potent than E 2 and E 3 , and octylphenol and nonylphenol were about 100,000-fold less potent; dioctyl phthalate, benzyl butyl phthalate, dibutyl phthalate, and trichlorinated biphenol produced no effect. Coumestrol was the most active phytoestrogen, with an ED 50 between 10 -6 and 10 -7 mol; genistein was about 10-fold less potent than coumestrol, and neither daidzein nor formononetin produced any marked effect, even at doses up to 10 -5 mol. All increases in vascular permeability could be blocked by the pure antiestrogen ICI 182,780. There was no evidence that any of the compounds could act as an antiestrogen in this assay or that they could exert synergistic effects in combination. These results indicate that even short-term exposure to most of the xenobiotic estrogens can induce typical estrogenic effects in vivo , but their estrogenic potency is very weak even when assessed in an acute response. ImagesFigure 1Figure 2
Performance analysis and soft demapping for coded MIMO-OFDM systems

Multiple input multiple output-Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (MIMO-OFDM) is a viable solution for providing high data rate services in harsh channel environments. The optimum receivers for them are those based on the maximum likelihood criterion. However, they have a prohibitive complexity especially when channel dimensions are high and coding is employed. Zero Forcing (ZF) and Linear Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) receivers on the other hand provide practicable and low complexity solutions for detection, but require soft demappers to deduce the soft bits information contained in each of the received symbols. In this work, we present the ZF and MMSE receiver analysis of a bit interleaved and coded MIMO-OFDM system and propose a soft output demapper based on MMSE equalizer output to demap the information needed for viterbi decoding. A comparison of the proposed soft demapper with conventional soft demappers in literature show a significant performance improvement. We also noticed that it is more advantageous to apply the proposed demapper on a MIMO-OFDM system employing higher modulation schemes.
LTP in the Hippocampal CA1 Region Does Not Require Insertion and Activation of GluR2-Lacking AMPA Receptors

An automatic transmission comprises a torque converter, a torque converter case for accommodating the torque converter, a transmission, an input shaft for connecting the torque converter with the transmission, a forward and reverse changeover apparatus including a planetary gear, a planetary carrier and a reverse brake, comprising, a forward clutch drum connected with the input shaft, a forward clutch plate provided between the forward clutch drum and the planetary carrier, a lock-up clutch drum connected with the torque converter case, a lock-up clutch plate provided between the forward clutch drum and the lock-up clutch drum, a lock-up clutch piston slidably fitted to the input shaft for engaging and releasing the lock-up clutch plate and provided inside of said forward clutch drum between the forward clutch drum and the forward and reverse changeover apparatus, a forward clutch piston slidably fitted to the input shaft for engaging and releasing the forward clutch plate and provided inside of the forward clutch drum between the lock-up clutch piston and the forward and reverse changeover apparatus, a first pressure chamber provided between the forward clutch piston and the lock-up clutch piston for operating the forward clutch piston, and a second pressure chamber provided between the lock-up clutch piston and the forward clutch drum for operating the lock-up clutch piston.
pygeodyn 1.0.0: a Python package for geomagnetic data assimilation

Abstract. pygeodyn is a sequential geomagnetic data assimilation package written in Python. It gives access to the core surface dynamics, controlled by geomagnetic observations, by means of a stochastic model anchored to geodynamo simulation statistics. pygeodyn aims at giving access to a user-friendly and flexible data assimilation algorithm. It is designed to be tunable by the community by different means: possibility to use embedded data and priors, or to supply custom ones; tunable parameters through configuration files; adapted documentation for several user profiles. In addition, output files are directly supported by the package webgeodyn that provides a set of visualisation tools to explore the results of computations.
Continuous welding of Cu–Ni dissimilar couple using CO2 laser

Abstract The evolution of microstructure during continuous laser welding of dissimilar metals has been studied for a binary Cu–Ni couple. The effects of laser beam scan speed and laser power on the shape and size of the melt pool, the weldment–substrate interface, the composition profiles, and microstructures of the weldments have been investigated. It is shown that the melt pools exhibit a characteristic asymmetry in shape. The observed microstructure is characterised by the existence of compositional and microstructural variations leading to a banded appearance suggesting localised mixing. Distinct differences exist in the evolution of the microstructure in the copper and nickel sides of the weld pool. An attempt is made to explain some of the experimental observations using thermodynamic and thermal transport arguments.
The Dynamics of Catch-Up and Skill and Technology Upgrading in China

This paper accounts for China’s economic growth since 1980 in a unified endogenous growth model in which a sequencing of physical capital accumulation, human capital accumulation and innovation drives the rise in China’s aggregate income. The first stage is characterized by physical capital accumulation. The second stage includes both physical and human capital accumulation, and in the final stage innovation is added to the mix. Model calibrations indicate that the growth model can generate a trajectory that accords well with the different stages of development in China.
Smoggy-Link: Fingerprinting interference for predictable wireless concurrency

Operating in unlicensed ISM bands, ZigBee devices often yield poor throughput and packet reception ratio due to the interference from ever increasing wireless devices in 2.4 GHz band. Although there have been many efforts made for interference avoidance, they come at the cost of miscellaneous overhead, which oppositely hurts channel utilization. Our empirical results show that, a specific interference is likely to have different influence on different outbound links of a ZigBee sender, which indicates the chance of concurrent transmissions. Based on this insight, we propose Smoggy-Link, a practical protocol to exploit the potential concurrency for adaptive ZigBee transmissions under harsh interference. Smoggy-Link maintains an accurate link model to describe and trace the relationship between interference and link quality of the sender's outbound links. With such a link model, Smoggy-Link can obtain fine-grained spatiotemporal link information through a low-cost interference identification method. The link information is further utilized for adaptive link selection and intelligent transmission schedule. We implement and evaluate a prototype of our approach with TinyOS and TelosB motes. The evaluation results show that Smoggy-Link has consistent improvements in both throughput and packet reception ratio under interference from various interferer.
Human detection and tracking using new features combination in particle filter framework

Human tracking is an interesting topic in computer vision domain. In this paper, a human detection and tracking algorithm based on new features combination in one camera system is proposed. In detection part, first, mixture of Gaussian background subtraction method is used to find moving regions, then histogram of oriented gradient (HOG) feature of these regions are extracted. At the end, SVM classifier is used to distinguish human from non-human according to their HOG features. In tracking part, first, color, cellular local binary pattern (Cell-LBP) and HOG features of humans are extracted, then their next positions are estimated using particle filter framework. Color, Cell-LBP and HOG features are used to model humans. Color is an effective feature in dealing with object deformation and partial occlusion but has some restriction in cases where background or objects have same color. Cell-LBP is an improved texture descriptor that is robust against partial occlusion, this feature compensates color's restriction. HOG is a shape descriptor that can separate humans from background and is robust against illumination changes. Combination of these three features improves tracking result despite challenges like partial occlusion, object's deformation and illumination changes. Experimental results show advantage of the proposed algorithm.
Overview of ITRI PAC project - from VLIW DSP processor to multicore computing platform

The Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) PAC (parallel architecture core) project was initiated in 2003. The target is to develop a low-power and high-performance programmable SoC platform for multimedia applications. In the first PAC project phase (2004-2006), a 5-way VLIW DSP (PACDSP) processor has been developed with our patented distributed & ping-pong register file and variable-length VLIW encoding techniques. A dual-core PAC SoC, which is composed of a PACDSP core and an ARM9 core, has also been designed and fabricated in the TSMC 0.13 mum technology to demonstrate its outstanding performance and energy efficiency for multimedia processing such as real-time H.264 codec. This paper summarizes the technical contents of PACDSP, DVFS (dynamic voltage and frequency scaling) -enabled PAC SoC, and the energy-aware multimedia codec. The research directions of our second-phase PAC project (PAC II), including multicore architectures, ESL (electronics system-level) technology, and low-power multimedia framework, are also addressed in this paper.
An LVCSR Based Automatic Scoring Method in English Reading Tests

This paper describes a reading quality scoring system based on large vocabulary continuous speech recognition (LVCSR). Our previous scoring system was based on forced alignment. A disadvantage of forced alignment based system is it can hardly catch huge kinds of reading miscues, while LVCSR based system avoids this disadvantage. The most challenge was that the LVCSR recognition rate was low on our corpus. To improve the recognition rate, we optimized our LVCSR engine for passage scoring tasks by presenting a novel dynamic language model (LM) constructing algorithm. The optimized LVCSR's recognition rate on test speech data was 70.2%, while the recognition rate of the original LVCSR on the same database was 37.9%. Our scoring method was to align the text reference and the confusion network generated from the LVCSR decoding result. The LVCSR based system reduced the scoring error rate of the baseline system by 14.5% relatively.
Development of muscle suit and application to factory laborers

Because of the progress of technology, we have liberated from heavy tasks in a large sense. However, heavy tasks that are difficult to mechanically automate are still remained a lot in the field of agriculture, manufacture, construction, and so forth. These heavy tasks are big issue since they cause work-related musculoskeletal disorders. Therefore, we developed Muscle Suit in order to solve this problem. Muscle Suit, wearable robot, provides a muscular support by wearing it on the laborers. The use of McKibben artificial muscle allows Muscle Suit to be lightweight, small enough, and reliable for practical use. In this paper, we have developed Muscle Suit for factory laborers and also examined the effects of Muscle Suit on lifting and holding tasks.
The use of short role-plays for an ethics intervention in university auditing courses

ABSTRACT This paper reports how short 10-minute role-plays can be used as an effective tool for ethics education within university auditing classes. A mixed method approach elicited student perceptions of role-plays in developing ethical awareness. While many students self-reported difficulty in recognising and dealing with the ethical dilemmas appropriately, most agreed role-plays helped them to prepare for dealing with these issues in the workplace. This was especially the case for students with English as an additional language. Students reported the role-play ethical dilemmas raised their awareness of the need to protect their professional independence. Students commented that they had a better understanding of the importance of the professional code of conduct and the code of ethics. Role-plays are a simple experiential learning approach that helps students to recognise ethical dilemmas, explore strategies to deal with such dilemmas in a safe environment, and practice listening and questioning skills to obtain information. Short role-plays can offer critical thinking opportunities that are more relevant to the student’s personal experience than case studies of historical ethical breaches.
Interventions for Managing Necrotic Immature Permanent Teeth Following Traumatic Dental Injury

2 1 List of Tables . 6 2 List of Figures . 9 3 Preface . 11 4 Setting the Scene . 12 5 Literature Review . 13 5.1 Dental Trauma and the Immature Tooth . 13 5.2 The Clinical Problem of Non-Vital Immature Teeth: Prevalence, Complexity, and Ambiguity . 18 5.3 Options for Intervention of Non-Vital, Immature, Permanent Teeth 20 5.4 Appraisal of the Literature . 44 5.5 Securing the Opinion of Clinicians through Surveys . 60 5.6 Outcomes of Endodontic Intervention . 68 6 How do UK Dentists, Paediatric Dentists and Endodontists Respond to Survey Research? A Study of Response Rate . 85 6.1 Research Question. 85 6.2 Clarification of Research Question and Scope . 85 6.3 Method . 90 6.4 Data Collection and Analysis . 91 6.5 Results . 92 6.6 Discussion . 100 6.7 Future Work . 103 6.8 Conclusions . 104 7 Investigating the Decision-Making Practices of Specialists in Paediatric Dentistry and Endodontics: A Self-Administered Postal Survey 105 7.1 Research Question. 105
1988 1990 1992 1994 1996 1998 2000 2002 percentage change on year ago inflation expected inflation

the ideas in this lecture. I am grateful also to Luca Benati for help with interpreting the macroeconomic statistics, to Richard Geare and James Cookson for their efforts in compiling the data on historic Harrods prices and to Kath Begley for help in identifying material on retail prices in the early 20th century. I have also benefited from comments, help and advice from Peter Andrews, Hasan Bakhshi, Sebastian Barnes, Charlie Bean, John Campbell, Enzo Cassino, Philip Evans, Katie Farrant, Guillermo Felices, Neal Hatch, Rishi Kansagra, Ben Martin, Michael McMahon, Jack McKeown, Alan Mankikar, Peter Rodgers and Greg Thwaites.
Cloud light weight: A new solution for load balancing in cloud computing

Load balancing is one of the central issues and challenges in cloud computing environments. In cloud computing environments, the system should avoid wasting resources as a result of under-utilization and avoid lengthy response times as a result of over-utilization. In this paper, we propose a new load balancing method, named Cloud Light Weight (CLW), which not only balances the Virtual Machines'(VM) workload in cloud computing datacenters, but it also assures QoS for users. It reduces both the number of VM migration processes and the migration time during applications execution. We validate our algorithm using the CloudSim cloud system simulator.
A Mobile Node Filter Method in Wireless Sensor Network Based on Improved MH Particle

An improved grouped particle filter algorithm is designed to pre-process the RSSI (received signal strength indicator) signal which includes plenty of background noise in wireless sensor network communication. This algorithm ensures the monotonic function relation between RSST value and distance of nodes. The coordinate space which was quantized by using RSSI value is used to describe the robot’s state and target position. The filtering and navigation calculation are executed through multiple nodes at the same time, which enhances the real time performance of the algorithm. The simulation results and measured data show the efficacy of the method.