Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Audio-Visual Automatic Speech Recognition for Connected Digits

Audio-visual automatic speech recognition (ASR) is a hotspot in field of human-computer interaction (HCI). This paper implemented an audio-visual ASR for Chinese connected digits and addressed on the method of speech segmentation. A novel speech segmentation approach combining Otsupsilas method with traditional short-time energy and zero-crossing rate (ZCR) based method was proposed. The experimental results showed its efficiency compared with traditional method. Discrete cosine transform (DCT) coefficients and Mel frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCC) were then used as the visual/audio features respectively. After the recognition tasks for speaker-independent ASR were carried out, performances of audio-visual ASR and audio-only ASR under different noisy conditions were compared.
Hierarchical prosodic pattern selection based on Fujisaki model for natural mandarin speech synthesis

In this paper, a novel hierarchical prosodic unit selection method is proposed based on pitch contour pattern retrieval, in order to obtained natural pitch contour of the personalized synthetic voice. In this framework, a hierarchical prosodic unit based on Fujisaki model is used to take local pitch contour variation and global intonation of utterance into account. Furthermore, novel ways of integrating pitch contour pattern of prosodic units in the prosodic model are invents in order to improve the selection mechanism of the appropriate pitch contour. A novel prosodic unit selection method is proposed based on sentence retrieval, which not only uses the traditional linguistic cue as selection criterion, but also the shape of the pitch contour. Also, the codewords of pitch patterns in the training corpus and synthesized corpus were constructed by the proposed method and were used to map the relation between training codeword and synthesized corpus. Finally, the language model of pitch pattern is adopted to find the proper pitch pattern sequence of input text. The evaluation results demonstrate that the proposed prosodic model substantially improves naturalness of the intonation of the synthesized speech compared to that of model-based method.
Costing and Perspective in Published Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

Background:Methods for appropriate costing in Cost-effectiveness analyses (CEAs), seemingly straightforward, have always raised questions. Questions linger about what cost components to include under a “societal” perspective, as well as how to value resources. Objectives:This article discusses issues surrounding costing and “perspective” in published CEA. Methods:I examine data from the Tufts Medical Center Cost-Effectiveness (CEA) Registry to investigate the use of perspective and costing methodology in published cost-utility analyses. The CEA Registry contains over 3000 cost-utility ratios and utility weights for roughly 4000 health states from 1164 published cost-utility analyses through 2005. The Registry also provides an online-based searchable database (Available at: www.cearegistry.org). I analyze changes over time in several dimensions related to costing methodology: disclosure of study perspective; statement of time horizon; use of discounting for future costs and quality-adjusted life years (QALYs); statement of year of currency; reporting of sensitivity analysis; and use of incremental analysis. Results:In practice, there has been a great deal of variation in costing methodology used in published CEAs, though methods have improved somewhat over time. Many CE researchers continue to claim that their studies take a societal perspective, but instead their articles only consider a health care payer perspective. Conclusions:Analysts conducting CEAs should be more transparent about their costing methodology and clearer in their usage of terminology regarding perspective. The field would also benefit from more attention to the question of how much different costing methods influence the results of CEAs.
Caspase-3 Contributes to ZO-1 and Cl-5 Tight-Junction Disruption in Rapid Anoxic Neurovascular Unit Damage

Background Tight-junction (TJ) protein degradation is a decisive step in hypoxic blood-brain barrier (BBB) breakdown in stroke. In this study we elucidated the impact of acute cerebral ischemia on TJ protein arrangement and the role of the apoptotic effector protease caspase-3 in this context. Methodology/Principal Findings We used an in vitro model of the neurovascular unit and the guinea pig whole brain preparation to analyze with immunohistochemical methods the BBB properties and neurovascular integrity. In both methodological approaches we observed rapid TJ protein disruptions after 30 min of oxygen and glucose deprivation or middle cerebral artery occlusion, which were accompanied by strong caspase-3 activation in brain endothelial cells (BEC). Surprisingly only few DNA-fragmentations were detected with TUNEL stainings in BEC. Z-DEVD-fmk, an irreversible caspase-3 inhibitor, partly blocked TJ disruptions and was protective on trans-endothelial electrical resistance. Conclusions/Significance Our data provide evidence that caspase-3 is rapidly activated during acute cerebral ischemia predominantly without triggering DNA-fragmentation in BEC. Further we detected fast TJ protein disruptions which could be partly blocked by caspase-3 inhibition with Z-DEVD-fmk. We suggest that the basis for clinically relevant BBB breakdown in form of TJ disruptions is initiated within minutes during ischemia and that caspase-3 contributes to this process.
Village Social Structure in Uganda

The overwhelming significance of farmer-to-farmer networks to the exchange of planting material and information about recommended management practices underscores the role of village social structures in determining the use of banana technologies. This appendix briefly discusses the current state of local social structure in the selected banana producing areas of Uganda, focusing specifically on village homogeneity (in terms of ethnicity and religion) and the participation in associations by agricultural households. There is evidence that information sharing among agricultural households depends on the characteristics of the social structures in which they live, and that some village norms are more conducive to sharing information and technology transfer or adoption. More extensive information about social capital and household interconnectedness is found in Katungi (2006). A high degree of social homogeneity, expressed in terms of domination by a single ethnic group,1 is apparent in Uganda (Table E.1). Highland villages were found to be more homogenous (more than 90 percent in one ethnic group) than lowland villages. Only 4 out of 20 villages surveyed had less than 50 percent of households from a single ethnic group, and all were found in the lowlands. According to key informants, the ethnic homogeneity in these villages was affected by the importation of labor from other regions to work in commercial crops (coffee and cotton), sugar factories, or railway construction during the colonial period. <Ta b l e E. 1 ne a r he r e >
The Impact of National Environment on Managerial Value Systems: A Comparative Study of Chinese Managers in the United States, Singapore and the People's Republic of China

■ This study examines the impact of national environment on managerial value systems by comparing representative samples of Chinese managers in the United States, Singapore and the People's Republic of China. ■ Two measures of managerial values are used. The dimensions of Western measures are Machiavellianism, Dogmatism, Locus of Control and Intolerance of Ambiguity. The Eastern measures comprise Integration, Confucian Dynamism, Human-heartedness and Moral Discipline.
Analysing the impact of a communication assist in a multiprocessor system-on-chip

In an embedded multiprocessor system the minimum throughput and maximum latency of real-time applications are usually derived given the worst-case execution time of the software tasks. Derivation of the worst-case execution time becomes easier if it is independent of the available communication bandwidth. In this paper we show that the worst-case execution time of tasks does not depend on communication bandwidth if a Communication Assist (CA) is applied, despite that memory ports are shared. Furthermore we show that adding a CA increases the processor utilization and reduces the required communication bandwidth. Finally we show that the difference between the measured and computed worst-case processor utilization is less than 6%, for our MP3 playback application.
SCADA-SST: a SCADA security testbed

The number of reported cybersecurity incidents on SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems increased significantly in the past few years. One contributing factor is the fact that security testing of live SCADA systems is not practical as such systems are expected to be operational 24/7. Also and most importantly, conducting live security testing on these types of systems is generally costly. A practical and cost-effective solution is to carry out security testing on a simulated version of the physical setting. The main contribution of this paper is to present a SCADA simulation environment (SCADA-SST) suitable for security testing. The simulation environment is generic, easy to setup (comes with a detailed manual), and supports hybrid architectures (involving simulated as well as physical components). We show how SCADA-SST can be used to simulate two realistic settings, namely, Water distribution and Electrical power grid. Finally, for the sake of security testing example, we show how SCADASST can be used to assess the resilience of common SCADA nodes to DOS attacks.
Active Boundary Component Models for robotic dressing assistance

The dynamics of deformable objects, especially that of highly flexible articles of clothing, is difficult to model. This is due to their vast number of degrees of freedom in addition to the noisy and incomplete measurements robots have to cope with. Therefore, we suggest focusing on the structures and object parts which are relevant to the task at hand. The openings (e.g., at the waist, leg or sleeve ends) characterize garments surprisingly well, not only from a topological perspective, but also in terms of their inherent function, namely dressing. We model openings as closed, oriented chains of movable points which we refer to as Active Boundary Component Models (ABCMs). Compared with the hardly predictable motions of an overall piece of clothing, relatively strict assumptions regarding the dynamics of these contour models can be made. We express these assumptions through position-based constraints which drastically restrict the degrees of freedom. In the present paper, we show how ABCMs can be initialized exploiting geometric prior knowledge of garments, and how they can be tracked visually using 3D point cloud data. Additionally, we consider the task of sliding a rod through a pant leg as a first step toward robotic dressing assistance for physically handicapped persons.
A general-purpose field-programmable pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip

Microfluidic biochips are VLSI solutions to automate the biochemistry operations. This technology proposes considerable improvements in terms of experiment speed, configurability and consumed experiment materials. In this paper a novel pin-constrained digital microfluidic biochip (DMFB) architecture is introduced for general-purpose assay execution. The proposed DMFB enjoys cost-saving of pin-constrained designs while providing general-purpose assay execution comparable with direct-addressing DMFBs and retains the same level of functionality as previous pin-constrained designs with lower number of electrodes and in turn lower number of control pins. The experimental results show that while reducing number of electrodes and control pins we managed to achieve the same level of performance; regarding number of electrodes 20 % and 56 % improvements were obtained compared with pin-constrained and direct-addressing designs respectively. Considering number of control pins the proposed design enjoys 3 % and 572 % improvements compared with pin-constrained and direct-addressing designs, respectively. Furthermore, since the availability of various routing paths, the proposed design offers droplet-routing times comparatively lower than previous pin-constrained designs; the routing times were reduced by 17 % and 23 % compared with pin-constrained and direct-addressing designs, respectively.
What in the World is Going On?: 10 Prophetic Clues You Cannot Afford to Ignore

Is the current economic and political crisis actually prophesied in the Bible? If so, what are we to do about it? It is hard to piece together all this information in a way that gives a comprehensive picture of what the end times will look like. Thats why so many theories abound. And thats why Dr. David Jeremiah has written What In the World Is Going On? , a unique book that cuts through the hundreds of books and numerous theories to identify the essential 10 most important bible prophecies. There is no other book like this. Youll find it the ultimate study tool for understanding the future. Youll have a greater sense of comfort that, even in these crazy times, God is indeed in control. If bible prophecy as always been a mystery to you, Dr. Jeremiahs book will help you solve the mystery. At last, bible prophecy can make sense, and make a difference. Its never been more important. What In the World Is Going On? is shocking and eye-opening but essential reading in these turbulent days.
Consumer Clustering of Conservation Attitude and Behaviour – A Step towards Sustainability

The paper aims at establishing a causal relationship between conservation attitude and behaviour. A descriptive approach is followed and primary data is collected from 300 regional respondents using a structured questionnaire. Linear regression, cluster analysis, descriptive analysis and analysis of variance with post-hoc test are applied. Findings indicate that conservation attitude is a significant determinant of conservation behaviour and three distinct consumer segments exist as per these two variables. One segment, detrimental is completely careless and effortless; the second, hopefuls, illuminates with optimism and aspirations. The third segment, shining stars is the segment of legitimate conserver consumers and is strengthening the way towards sustainability with their grace. Further, the study describes the conserver group as constituted with highly educated, married and working females who live in rural places and belong to medium sized and high class families. In this way, this work provides businesses and marketers with a conscientious segment of educated, working and married females to whom energy saving and other eco-friendly products may be offered with ease.
Disordered eating, body mass, and glycemic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.

OBJECTIVE To examine the relationship between disordered eating attitudes and behaviors, BMI, and glycemic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS In a cross-sectional design, 152 adolescents (ages 11-19 years) completed three scales from the Eating Disorders Inventory (EDI): Body Dissatisfaction, Drive for Thinness, and Bulimia. All subjects had diabetes for > 1 year. Glycemic control was assessed by glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c). Height and weight were measured to assess BMI. RESULTS Adolescents with type 1 diabetes did not report more disordered eating attitudes and behaviors than the normative comparison sample. Male subjects with type 1 diabetes reported fewer symptoms of bulimia and female subjects with type 1 diabetes reported greater body satisfaction than the normative group. A higher BMI was a significant predictor of greater body dissatisfaction, more so for female than male subjects. Symptoms of bulimia were associated with older adolescence and female sex. Those with more symptoms of bulimia were also more likely to have a higher BMI. Sex (female) and body dissatisfaction (more dissatisfied) predicted a stronger desire to be thin. Longer duration of disease, more symptoms of bulimia, and obesity all predicted poorer glycemic control. CONCLUSIONS Female patients aged 13-14 years seem to be at greatest risk for developing disordered eating patterns. Using the clinical cutoff score (> or = 5) of the EDI Bulimia subscale as a screener in diabetes clinics may help identify adolescents whose disordered eating patterns are likely to compromise their glycemic control.
Implementation of Artificial Neural Networks in MapReduce Optimization

The ability to handle large datasets has become a critical consideration for the success and ability of industrial organizations such as Microsoft, Amazon, Yahoo! and Facebook. As an important cloud computing framework for data processing, MapReduce is widely used by these organizations. However, its performance has been seriously limited by its stiff configuration strategy. In practice, even for a single simple job in a MapReduce framework, a large number of tuning parameters have to be set by end users, who often run into performance problems since they do not know how to configure them. Besides, once set, most parameters will never be changed again. This may easily lead to performance loss due to some misconfigurations. In this paper, we present a soft computing technique: Artificial Neural Network(ANN) to achieve the automatic configuration of parameters for MapReduce. Given a cluster and MapReduce job, frameworks can adapt the hardware and software configurations to the system dynamically and drive the system to an optimal configuration in acceptable time with the help of ANN. Experimental results show that ANN has a great contribution to optimize system performance and let the system at the speedup of 9x. Keywords-Neural Network; MapReduce; Automatic Configuration; Optimization; Big Data;
Effect of Glucose Variability on the Long-Term Risk of Microvascular Complications in Type 1 Diabetes

OBJECTIVE This study analyzed data from the Epidemiology of Diabetes Interventions and Complications (EDIC) study to see whether longer-term follow-up of Diabetes Control and Complications Trial (DCCT) patients reveals a role for glycemic instability in the development of microvascular complications. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS The mean area under the curve glucose and the within-day glucose variability (SD and mean amplitude of glycemic excursions [MAGE]) during the DCCT were assessed to see whether they contributed to the risk of retinopathy and nephropathy by year 4 of the EDIC. RESULTS Logistic regression analysis showed that mean glucose during the DCCT and mean A1C during EDIC were independently predictive of retinopathy (each P < 0.001) as well as A1C during EDIC of nephropathy (P = 0.001) development by EDIC year 4. Glucose variability did not add to this (all P > 0.25 using SD or MAGE). CONCLUSIONS Glucose variability in the DCCT did not predict the development of retinopathy or nephropathy by EDIC year 4.
Parameter identification for behavioral modeling of analog components including degradation

An analog system's performance can be influenced by many factors such as age-dependent degradation effects which need to be considered during the design process. Transistor level degradation analysis is very time-consuming for large and complex circuits. Behavioral models can be used to speed up the simulation and enable an evaluation on a higher abstraction level. In this paper, a structured method for the development of behavioral models is proposed. By using Response Surface Models to represent a system's key-performances, reliability analysis on system level is possible. A sensitivity analysis is used to identify the relevant parameters and to reduce the overall complexity of the model. The method is demonstrated on an amplifier and a voltage reference.
Efficient page caching algorithm with prediction and migration for a hybrid main memory

Emerging next generation memories, NVRAMs, such as Phase-change RAM (PRAM), Ferroelectric RAM (FRAM), and Magnetic RAM (MRAM) are rapidly becoming promising candidates for large scale main memory because of their high density and low power consumption. Many researchers have attempted to construct a main memory with NVRAMs, in order to make up for the limits of NVRAMs. However, we find that the preexisting page caching algorithms, such as LRU, LIRS, and CLOCK-Pro, are often sub-optimal for NVRAMs due to its DRAM-oriented design including uniform access latency and unlimited endurance. Consequently, the algorithms cannot be directly adapted to the hybrid main memory architecture with PRAM. To mitigate this design limitation, we propose a new page caching algorithm for the hybrid main memory. It is designed to overcome the long latency and low endurance of PRAM. On the basis of the LRU replacement algorithm, we propose a prediction of page access pattern and migration schemes to maintain write-bound access pages to DRAM. The experiment results have convinced us that our page caching algorithm minimizes the number of the write access of PRAM while maintaining the cache hit ratio. The results show that we can reduce the total write access count by a maximum of 52.9% and the consumed energy by 19.9%. Therefore, we can enhance the average page cache performance and reduce the endurance problem in the hybrid main memory.
The centriolar satellite proteins Cep72 and Cep290 interact and are required for recruitment of BBS proteins to the cilium

The ciliopathy-associated proteins Cep290 and BBS4 localize to cytoplasmic particles called centriolar satellites, yet the significance of this association is unknown. A new component of satellites, Cep72, is identified. Its role in the regulation of Cep290 and BBS4 is described, as are developmental defects resulting from loss of satellites in zebrafish.