Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wavelet Analysis for Onset Detection

Many of the auditory perception processes which researchers have sought to automate can be decomposed into stages, the first of which involves segmentation of the input audio. In music this stage equates to locating note onsets, and advances in this task should therefore ease further analyses. There are also many direct applications of onset detection, including synchronisation of audio with other media and location of significant time points in graphical editing of audio. It is for these reasons that this work focuses on the task of detecting onsets. An onset is considered as a particular type of change in the time-frequency representation of a sound. The modulus plane derived from a semitone-based harmonic wavelet analysis is first transformed, to account for the varying frequency sensitivity and mapping from amplitude to loudness observed in the human auditory system. Vectors are then derived from adjacent regions of the plane, and compared for change using Minkowski's distance measure. Peaks of distance correspond to significant changes, and commencing partials are sought at peak locations to identify onset peaks. The process of testing the method is considered in some detail, and an experiment is derived in which a test piece is recorded using a wide range of timbres from a MIDI synthesiser. The piece includes a repeated note and a range of intervals, and legato and staccato styles are demonstrated. Separate test cases demonstrate results in the presence of reverberation, dynamic variation, low notes, short notes, vibrato, tremolo and drum sounds (with overlapping cymbals). The main body of tests was conducted using a large number of parameter settings and variations of the analysis method (including different loudness scales and exponents in the distance measure) to achieve optimal results, but the reduction to a single analysis method with one parameter was also considered. The use of a novel technique to compensate for slowly rising onsets is also investigated. Although the domain is restricted to monophonic musical audio, many of the test cases contain overlap and the method is shown to have some potential in the analysis of polyphonic examples. The results of this experiment are assessed in the context of error tolerances, derived from consideration of a number of typical applications. It is shown that such assessment is not a straightforward matter and, for example, there may be interaction between the type of timbre and the error tolerance which will apply in a specific application. In summary, the thesis establishes that onset detection can be accomplished by monitoring a distance measure calculated from a harmonic wavelet analysis; and does this via the design and implementation of a comprehensive experiment.
The Actions of Lyophilized Apple Peel on the Electrical Activity and Organization of the Ventricular Syncytium of the Hearts of Diabetic Rats

This study was designed to examine the effects of lyophilized red delicious apple peel (RDP) on the action potentials (APs) and the input resistance-threshold current relationship. The experiments were performed on isolated papillary heart muscles from healthy male rats, healthy male rats treated with RDP, diabetic male rats, and diabetic male rats treated with RDP. The preparation was superfused with oxygenated Tyrode's solution at 37°C. The stimulation and the recording of the APs, the input resistance, and the threshold current were made using conventional electrophysiological methods. The RDP presented no significant effect in normal rats. Equivalent doses in diabetic rats reduced the APD and ARP. The relationship between input resistance and threshold current established an inverse correlation. The results indicate the following: (1) The functional structure of the cardiac ventricular syncytium in healthy rats is heterogeneous, in terms of input resistance and threshold current. Diabetes further accentuates the heterogeneity. (2) As a consequence, conduction block occurs and increases the possibility of reentrant arrhythmias. (3) These modifications in the ventricular syncytium, coupled with the increase in the ARP, are the adequate substrate so that, with diabetes, the heart becomes more arrhythmogenic. (4) RDP decreases the APD, the ARP, and most syncytium irregularity caused by diabetes.
An Intelligent Method for Inferring Information about the User / Client

Having in mind today's growth of information sources, both in terms of their number and of their size, whether we are referring to the Internet, a corporate intranet, or a library information retrieval system, we can say that manipulating information is not a trivial task. The user is not often being catered for in distributed information systems. He/ she seems to be interacting with systems that do not recognize his/her uniqueness and thus do not offer an individualized treatment. As a result, User Modeling is a core, essential factor in achieving personalization. We present here an intelligent way of inferring user related information that is not available, a situation that is very likely to occur due to sparseness of relevant data. This method can be very useful in recommender systems and this is illustrated with an example.
Experimental mathematics and computational statistics

The field of statistics has long been noted for techniques to detect patterns and regularities in numerical data. In this article, we explore connections between statistics and the emerging field of ‘experimental mathematics’. These include both applications of experimental mathematics in statistics as well as statistical methods applied to computational mathematics. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
A developmentally regulated chicken neuronal protein associated with the cortical cytoskeleton

Monoclonal antibody 3D5 recognizes a single component of the neuronal membrane skeleton isolated from the chicken embryo brain. The 3D5 antigen is highly enriched in the CNS, and smaller amounts are found in the PNS. It is also present in non-neural tissues, but this is due to peripheral innervation. The biochemical and molecular properties of the 3D5 antigen are very similar to those of the previously described mammalian protein B-50 (Zwiers et al., 1985)/GAP 43 (Jacobson et al., 1986)/pp46 (Ellis et al., 1985)/F1 (Chan et al., 1986), and include anomalous SDS gel migration, acidic isoelectric point, and extraction from the cytoplasmic side of the plasma membrane only under extremely alkaline conditions. The 3D5 antigen is also developmentally regulated, with maximum expression in brain occurring at E14-E16, after which levels decrease approximately 4-fold in the adult. Immunofluorescence staining of cultured neurons shows that the 3D5 antigen is located in all parts of the cell but is particularly enriched in the growth cone and the growth cone filopodia. As the 3D5 antigen is enriched in the membrane skeleton, we suggest that this protein is involved in an association between the actin-containing cytoskeleton and the plasma membrane.
American Nightmares: Social Problems in an Anxious World by Joel Best (review)

I f you are favorably disposed toward Hilgartner and Bosk’s (1988) social arenas model of social problems, then American Nightmares is a book that you will want to read. Joel Best and co-authors creatively apply the social arenas model to a set of social problems across six chapters, and along the way articulate a full-throated critique of academic sociology. Best’s critique of sociology is situated within his purpose of analyzing the rise and fall of social problems, and how the framing of social problems is related to statistical incidence and related social behavior. For example, he analyzes the problem of gun-related homicide as a “popular hazard” by comparing it to the incidence of gun accidents and criminal victimization using firearms. This expansive view is further justified by the fact that gun ownership is widespread and politically entrenched. Because this analysis demonstrates that gun homicide is relatively rare, a broad approach taking into account all of the related behaviors is presumed more efficacious than a narrow focus upon homicide alone. This kind of attention to detail matters because American society, while apparently resting upon a bedrock of middle-class optimism, has a long history of obsession with threatening nightmares. Best asserts that these nightmares have taken the form of “witches, immigrants, Catholics, alcohol, capitalism, labor unions, Communists, criminals, dime novels, comic books, movies, drugs, cults—the list is almost endless” (xvi). By contextualizing social problems, sociologists would better serve society as well as gain professional credibility, thus better serving themselves. Best argues that this balanced approach to research is not happening for two reasons. First, because sociological research demonstrates a lack of appreciation for the most important contours of American society. Studies are cited that pose the “American dream” as a straw man, rather than what it truly is: an aspiration that has never been fully realized. Best argues that sociologists “hate” (63) the American dream because they are too invested in inequality research. Sociologists overlook that the full meaning of the American dream, from James Truslow Adams to the present, “is rarely invoked with complacency; it is almost
Extending ACO R to Solve Multi-Objective Problems

Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) was first proposed to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem, and later applied to solve more problems of a combinatorial nature. Some research based on ACO to tackle continuous problems has been published, but this has not followed the original ACO metaheuristic exactly. Recently, ACOR has been proposed to solve continuous function optimization problems. We have taken this work and extended it to solve multi-objective optimization problems. After an analysis of the results obtained, including comparisons with two other well-known methods, we conclude that ACOR is a promising new technique for solving multi-objective problems.
Reactive task-oriented redundancy resolution using constraint-based programming

Constraint based programming provides a versatile framework for combining several different constraints into a single robot control scheme. We take advantage of the redundancy of a robot manipulator to improve the execution of a reactive tracking task, in terms of a task-dependent measure which is a weighted sum of velocity transmissions along the current directions of motion. With inspiration from recent work, we provide analytical gradients and computable weights of the task-dependent measure, which enable us to include it in a reactive constraint based programming framework, without relying on inexact numerical approximations and manually tuning weights. The proposed approach is illustrated in a set of simulations, comparing the performance with a standard constraint based programming method.
Incidence of retinopathy and nephropathy in youth-onset compared with adult-onset type 2 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To examine the risk of retinopathy and nephropathy in participants in whom type 2 diabetes was diagnosed in youth (before 20 years of age) compared with those in whom type 2 diabetes was diagnosed at older ages. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Subjects in whom youth-onset or adult-onset diabetes was diagnosed in the longitudinal study of health in the Pima Indians of Arizona were followed for microvascular complications. Diabetes was diagnosed in 178 subjects before 20 years of age (youth), in 1,359 subjects at 20-39 years of age (younger adults), and in 971 subjects at 40-59 years of age (older adults). Incidence rates of diabetic retinopathy diagnosed by direct ophthalmoscopy through dilated pupils and nephropathy (protein-to-creatinine ratio > or =0.5 g/g) were calculated by age at diagnosis. RESULTS Over 25 years, nephropathy developed in 35 of the participants with youth-onset type 2 diabetes; this incidence rate was not significantly different from that in patients with adult-onset diabetes (P = 0.77). Incidence rates of retinopathy, however, were significantly lower for the youth-onset group (P = 0.007). Adjusted for sex, glycemia, and blood pressure, risk of retinopathy was lower in patients with youth-onset diabetes than in those with adult-onset diabetes (hazard rate ratio [HRR] 0.42, 95% CI 0.24-0.74, P = 0.003), but risk of nephropathy was not different (HRR 1.2, 95% CI 0.77-1.3, P = 0.38). CONCLUSIONS In Pima Indians, the risk of nephropathy as a function of duration of diabetes is similar in all age groups. By contrast, the risk of retinopathy is lower in patients with youth-onset type 2 diabetes.
Large-scale optical datacentre networks using hybrid Fibre Delay Line buffers and packet Retransmission

In this paper, we propose a large-scale transparent optical datacentre network with a coordinated congestion management technique, combining optical Fibre Delay Line (FDL) buffering and novel packet retransmission schemes. Two different retransmission mechanisms are investigated: Random Retransmission (RR) and a novel scheme called Pre-Reservation Retransmission (PRR). To examine the efficacy of the hybrid optical buffering/retransmission schemes in resolving contention, a detailed performance analysis has been conducted in the optical network under study. Simulation results show that our proposed hybrid solution can efficiently manage traffic conflicts in the optical network with good latency performance, and maintain a relatively low retransmission rate. Thus, the proposed high-performance optical packet-switched network exploiting the merits of different congestion technologies presents a promising networking solution for future datacentre networks.
Home network management for IPTV service operations — A service provider perspective

As the global IPTV market is growing fast, assurance of IPTV service quality becomes one of the key factors to the success of IPTV business. To deal with the IPTV service assurance issue, one of the practical approaches that the service provider can apply is to employ the state-of-the-art development technologies (e.g., NGOSS frameworks) to construct an IPTV management platform, in which a number of Operations Support Systems (OSS) can be seamlessly integrated and co-work to support the daily IPTV service operations. In this paper, an end-to-end IPTV network management architecture was depicted, and a unified network management system (NMS) was developed to monitor and control multi-vendor, multi-technology broadband network elements deployed in the carrier's head end, core network, access network, and home network. The in-house NMS supports loosely-coupled systems integration with other OSS based on the service-oriented architecture (SOA). Moreover, a practical approach to home network management was described to show how the NMS automatically collects a variety of IPTV-related data from set-top boxes (STBs) and then provides some useful management functions (e.g., video/audio packet loss analysis and IPTV audience rating) for the ease of service assurance and the exploration of subscribers' tastes for IPTV programs.
More Precise versus Less Precise Accounting Standards : The Effect of Auditor Judgment Frameworks in Constraining Aggressive Reporting

We experimentally investigate auditors’ judgments under accounting standards that differ in their precision and whether alternative judgment frameworks help auditors constrain aggressive financial reporting. We find that auditors are more likely to allow aggressive reporting when accounting standards are less precise, but employing a judgment framework reduces auditors’ acceptance of such aggressive reporting. In particular, a framework based on the SEC’s Advisory Committee on Improvements to Financial Reporting’s (CIFiR’s) recommendation for the critical evaluation of the pros and cons of alternative accounting methods helps auditors constrain aggressive reporting under less precise standards. However, we find evidence that modifications to CIFiR’s proposed judgment guidance based on Construal Level Theory improve the quality of auditors’ judgments and lead to less aggressive reporting. These results inform regulators, standard-setters, and auditors on how accounting precision affects auditors’ response to aggressive reporting and on the effectiveness of different judgment frameworks in constraining aggressive reporting.
The flexible signature dictionary

Dictionary learning and Sparse representation of signals and images has been a hot topic for the past decade and aims to help find the sparsest representation for the signal(s) at hand. Typically, the Dictionary learning process involves finding a large number of free variables. Also, the resulting dictionary in general does not have a specific structure. In this paper we use the ideas from Image Signature Dictionary and General overlapping frames and proposed a flexible signature dictionary. We show that the resulting signatures capture the essence of the signal and can represent signals of their own type very well in opposed to signals of other types.
Should Hospitals Keep Their Patients Longer? The Role of Inpatient Care in Reducing Post-Discharge Mortality

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the National Quality Forum have endorsed 30-day mortality rates as important indicators of hospital quality. Concerns have been raised, however, as to whether post-discharge mortality rates are reasonable measures of hospital quality as they consider the frequency of an event that occurs after a patient is discharged and no longer under the watch and care of the hospital. Using a large dataset comprised of all hospital encounters of every Medicare patient from 2000 to 2011 and an instrumental variables methodology to address the potential endogeneity bias in hospital length-of-stay, we find evidence that 30-day mortality rates are appropriate measures of hospital quality. For patients with diagnoses of Pneumonia or Acute Myocardial Infarction, an additional day in the hospital could decrease 30-day mortality rates by up to 12.8%. Moreover, we find that, from a social planner's perspective, the gains achieved in reducing mortality rates far exceed the cost of keeping these patients in the hospital for an additional day.
Performance Evaluation of Various Routing Protocols in MANET

MANET(Mobile Adhoc Network) is a self organizing and self configuring network without the need of any centralized base station. In MANETs, the nodes are mobile and battery operated. As the nodes have limited battery resources and multi hop routes are used over a changing network environment due to node mobility, it requires energy efficient routing protocols to limit the power consumption ,prolong the battery life and to improve the robustness of the system. This paper evaluates the performance of adhoc routing protocols such as DSDV,AODV,DSR and AOMDV in terms of energy efficiency. Simulation is done using NS-2(version NS-2.33). Key Terms: AODV, AOMDV, DSR, DSDV, MANET, Power aware routing.
Fundamentals and HW/SW Partitioning

The main goal of this Chapter is devoted to provide all the fundamental basis related to the involved technological issues relative to the single-sensor imaging devices. A rough under- standing of the overall ingredients of a typical imaging pipeline is important also to consider the performance of any imaging devices, from low to high level, as the result of several components that run together to compose a complex system. The final image/video quality is the result of a certain number of design choices, that involve, in almost all cases, all aspects of the hardware and software technology. As briefly stated in the preface, the book aims to cover all aspects of algo- rithms and methods for the processing of digital images acquired by imaging consumer devices. More specifically, we will introduce the fundamental basis of specific processing into CFA (Color Filter Array) domain such as demosaicing, enhancement, denoising, compression together with ad-hoc matrixing, color balancing and exposure correction techniques devoted to preprocess input datacomingfromthesensor. WeconcludetheChapterjustincludingsomerelatedissuesrelatedto the intrinsic modularity of the pipeline together with a brief description of the hardware/software partitioning design phase.
Mindfulness as a Moderator of Clinician History of Trauma on Compassion Satisfaction

Compassion satisfaction is an understudied phenomenon in the counseling literature. The impact of a clinician’s history of trauma on compassion satisfaction and potential protective factors that may enhance feelings of compassion satisfaction is equally understudied. This study aimed to address models of mindfulness as a protective factor for the associations between a clinician’s history of trauma and their experience with compassion satisfaction. The sample consisted of licensed clinicians (N = 113) reporting on their past history of trauma, dispositional mindfulness, and compassion satisfaction. Results indicated that mindfulness moderated the association between a clinician’s history of trauma and compassion satisfaction. Findings also show mindfulness to be significant in supporting a clinician’s experience with compassion satisfaction, overall. Therefore, mindfulness should be further considered as an important safeguard for clinicians to consider in order to continue to enjoy their work. Implications are considered for clinicians, counseling training programs, and agency employers.
Impact of Source-Drain Tunneling on Double-Gate Performance

We investigate the effects of source-drain tunneling on the performance of double-gate MOS devices with a 2D quantum-mechanical model. We show that a clear signature of the source-drain tunneling current is observable in the subthreshold behavior, affecting device performance even at room temperature. Dependences of the tunneling current on the main design variables are then analyzed in detail