Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
VIRTUAL ACOUSTICS AND 3-D SOUND IN MULTIMEDIA SIGNAL PROCESSING

In this work, aspects in real-time modeling and synthesis of three-dimensional sound in the context of digital audio, multimedia, and virtual environments are studied. The concept of virtual acoustics is discussed, which includes models for sound sources, room acoustics, and spatial hearing. Real-time virtual acoustics modeling is carried out using a real-time parametric room impulse response rendering technique proposed by the author. The algorithm uses a well-known time-domain hybrid model, in which the direct sound and early energy are modeled using geometrical acoustics, and di use late energy is modeled using a recursive reverberator. Sound source directivity, and dynamic room acoustical phenomena such as time-varying early re ections from boundary materials and air absorption are incorporated in the image-source model using low-order digital lter approximations. A novel technique for estimation of source directivity based on the reciprocity method is introduced. Optimization of binaural systems is discussed. Novel methods for head-related transfer function approximation based on frequency warping and balanced model truncation are proposed by the author. Objective and subjective methods for estimating the quality of virtual source generation in headphone listening are introduced. For objective analysis, a binaural auditory model is used, which predicts well the expected performance of di erent lter designs. Subjective listening tests have been carried out to compare design techniques. The results show that binaural lter design based on auditory criteria results in more eAEcient and more perceptually relevant processing. This is the main result of the thesis. Crosstalk canceled loudspeaker reproduction of 3-D sound is reviewed. Stereo widening and virtual loudspeaker algorithms are discussed. An eAEcient, highquality design method of virtual surround lters for playback of multichannel audio on two loudspeakers based on a warped shu er structure is presented. The performance of the method has been veri ed in subjective listening tests. The methods and results presented in this thesis are applicable to digital audio signal processing in general, and especially to implementation of virtual acoustic environments in multimedia and virtual reality systems.
The Usefulness of Determining Neutrophil Gelatinase-Associated Lipocalin Concentration Excreted in the Urine in the Evaluation of Cyclosporine A Nephrotoxicity in Children with Nephrotic Syndrome

Introduction. The use of cyclosporine (CsA) in the treatment of nephrotic syndrome (NS) contributed to a significant reduction in the amount of corticosteroids used in therapy and its cumulative side effects. One of the major drawbacks of CsA therapy is its nephrotoxicity. Prolonged CsA treatment protocols require sensitive, easily available, and simple to measure biomarkers of nephrotoxicity. NGAL is an antibacterial peptide, excreted by cells of renal tubules in response to their toxic or inflammatory damage. Aim of the Study. The aim of this study was to assess the suitability of the NGAL concentration in the urine as a potential biomarker of the CsA nephrotoxicity. Material and Methods. The study was performed on a group of 31 children with NS treated with CsA. The control group consisted of 23 children diagnosed with monosyptomatic enuresis. The relationship between NGAL excreted in urine and the time of CsA treatment, concentration of CsA in blood serum, and other biochemical parameters was assessed. Results. The study showed a statistically significant positive correlation between urine NGAL concentration and serum triglycerides concentration and no correlation between C0 CsA concentration and other observed parameters of NS. The duration of treatment had a statistically significant influence on the NGAL to creatinine ratio. Conclusions. NGAL cannot be used alone as a simple CsA nephrotoxicity marker during NS therapy. Statistically significant correlation between NGAL urine concentration and the time of CsA therapy indicates potential benefits of using this biomarker in the monitoring of nephrotoxicity in case of prolonged CsA therapy.
Sequential action of phase I and II enzymes cytochrome p450 1B1 and glutathione S-transferase P1 in mammary estrogen metabolism.

The Phase I enzyme cytochrome p450 1B1 (CYP1B1) has been postulated to play a key role in estrogen-induced mammary carcinogenesis by catalyzing the oxidative metabolism of 17beta-estradiol (E(2)) to catechol estrogens (2-OHE(2) and 4-OHE(2)) and highly reactive estrogen quinones (E(2)-2,3-Q and E(2)-3,4-Q). The potential of the quinones to induce mutagenic DNA lesions is expected to be decreased by their conjugation with glutathione (GSH) either nonenzymatically or catalyzed by glutathione S-transferase P1 (GSTP1), a Phase II enzyme. Because the interaction of the Phase I and Phase II enzymes is not well defined in this setting, we prepared recombinant purified CYP1B1 and GSTP1 to examine their individual and combined roles in the oxidative pathway and used gas and liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry to measure the parent hormone E(2), the catechol estrogens, and the GSH conjugates. 2-OHE(2) and 4-OHE(2) did not form conjugates with GSH alone or in the presence of GSTP1. However, incubation of GSH and CYP1B1 with 2-OHE(2) resulted in nearly linear conjugation through C-4 and C-1 (i.e., 2-OHE(2)-4-SG and 2-OHE(2)-1-SG), whereas the reaction of 4-OHE(2) yielded only 4-OHE(2)-2-SG. When CYP1B1 and GSTP1 were added together, the rate of conjugation was accelerated with a hyperbolic pattern of product formation in the order 4-OHE(2)-2-SG > 2-OHE(2)-4-SG >> 2-OHE(2)-1-SG. Incubation of E(2) with CYP1B1 and GSTP1 resulted in the formation of 4-OHE(2), 2-OHE(2), 4-OHE(2)-2-SG, 2-OHE(2)-4-SG, and 2-OHE(2)-1-SG. The production of GSH-estrogen conjugates was dependent on the concentrations of E(2) and GSTP1 but overall yielded only one-tenth of the catechol estrogen production. The concentration gap between catechol estrogens and GSH-estrogen conjugates may result from nonenzymatic reaction of the labile quinones with other nucleophiles besides GSH or may reflect the lower efficiency of GSTP1 compared with CYP1B1. In summary, both reactions are coordinated qualitatively in terms of product formation and substrate utilization, but the quantitative gap would leave room for the accumulation of estrogen quinones and their potential for DNA damage as part of estrogen-induced mammary carcinogenesis.
Influence of van der Waals forces on increasing the strength and toughness in dynamic fracture of nanofibre networks: a peridynamic approach

The peridynamic method is used here to analyse the effect of van der Waals forces on the mechanical behaviour and strength and toughness properties of three-dimensional nanofibre networks under imposed stretch deformation. The peridynamic formulation allows for a natural inclusion of long-range forces (such as van der Waals forces) by considering all interactions as ‘long-range’. We use van der Waals interactions only between different fibres and do not need to model individual atoms. Fracture is introduced at the microstructural (peridynamic bond) level for the microelastic type bonds, while van der Waals bonds can reform at any time. We conduct statistical studies to determine a certain volume element for which the network of randomly oriented fibres becomes quasi-isotropic and insensitive to statistical variations. This qualitative study shows that the presence of van der Waals interactions and of heterogeneities (sacrificial bonds) in the strength of the bonds at the crosslinks between fibres can help in increasing the strength and toughness of the nanofibre network. Two main mechanisms appear to control the deformation of nanofibre networks: fibre reorientation (caused by deformation and breakage) and fibre accretion (due to van der Waals interaction). Similarities to the observed toughness of polymer adhesive in the abalone shell composition are explained.
History of induced abortion as a risk factor for preterm birth in European countries: results of the EUROPOP survey.

BACKGROUND The objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between history of induced abortion and preterm delivery in various parts of Europe, and according to the main cause of preterm birth. METHODS We used data from a case-control survey, the EUROPOP study; 2938 preterm births and 4781 controls at term from ten European countries were included. Based on national statistics, we distinguished three groups of countries with high, intermediate and low rates of induced abortion. RESULTS Previous induced abortions were significantly associated with preterm delivery and the risk of preterm birth increased with the number of abortions. Odds ratios did not differ significantly between the three groups of countries. The extent of association with previous induced abortion varied according to the cause of preterm delivery. Previous induced abortions significantly increased the risk of preterm delivery after idiopathic preterm labour, preterm premature rupture of membranes and ante-partum haemorrhage, but not preterm delivery after maternal hypertension. The strength of the association increased with decreasing gestational age at birth. CONCLUSIONS Identifying subgroups of preterm births on the basis of the complications involved in delivery increases our understanding of the mechanisms by which previous induced abortion affects subsequent pregnancy outcomes.
2 . WorldScan : a global applied general equilibrium model

This paper presents two scenarios simulated with the applied general equilibrium model WorldScan. The scenarios are constructed to study the effects of globalization on environment quality and environmental policies. WorldScan quantifies the economic content of the scenarios and the volume growth of energy and emissions between 1995 and 2020. It shows that trade as such does not affect the volume of emissions except for technology spillovers. However, trade liberalization affects significantly the carbon leakage of implementing environmental policies in the Annex-1 regions to the non Annex-1 regions. This paper benefitted from discussions with Hans Timmer.
The quantization error in the average consensus problem

This work studies how uniform quantization in communications affects the linear diffusion algorithm for average consensus problem. Starting from the well-known linear diffusion algorithm, we analyze a simple and effective adaptation which is able to preserve the average of states and to drive the system near to the consensus value. The error is estimated by a worst case analysis, which suggests that it can increase as the number of agents goes to infinity. The algorithm is also compared with the existing literature.
Burnout en terapia ocupacional: un análisis focalizado sobre el nivel de consecuencias individuales y organizacionales Burnout in occupational therapy: An analysis centered on individual and organizational consequences

Following transactional models of burnout (Cherniss, 1980; Moreno, Gonzalez y Garrosa, 2001), this paper examines the dimensions of occupational therapy burnout, together with organizational and job sources of the syndrome, to be associated with different consequences as stated in the literature. A sample of 110 occupational therapists serving in the Madrid Autonomous Community were administered a written survey. By means of a multiple hierarchical regression analysis, the existence of highly significant associations were revealed between the syndrome and adverse consequences for the individual’s health, his interpersonal sphere and the organization. Emotional exhaustion was the most relevant burnout dimension that showed up. In addition to that, the explanatory relevance of extra-occupational problems not related to work was identified, together with a number of factors that could contribute through burnout generation, such as work overload, task characteristics, lack of support and recognition from the staff, and fear of malpractice.
Optimal Co-Addition of Imaging Data for Rapidly Fading Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows

We present a technique for optimal co-addition of image data for rapidly varying sources, with specific application to gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglows. Unweighted co-addition of rapidly fading afterglow light curve data becomes counterproductive relatively quickly. It is better to stop co-addition of the data once noise dominates late exposures. A better alternative is to optimally weight each exposure to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) of the final co-added image data. By using information about GRB light curves and image noise characteristics, optimal image co-addition increases the probability of afterglow detection and places the most stringent upper limits on nondetections. For a temporal power-law flux decay typical of GRB afterglows, optimal co-addition has the greatest potential to improve the S/N of afterglow imaging data (relative to unweighted co-addition) when the decay rate is high, the source count rate is low, and the background rate is high. The optimal co-addition technique is demonstrated with applications to Swift Ultraviolet/Optical Telescope (UVOT) data of several GRBs, with and without detected afterglows.
An enhanced edge directed preprocessing scheme

In image processing, bi-cubic pre-processing is frequently chosen over bi-linear pre-processing. Images sampled again with bicubic pre-processing are better and have fewer pre-processing obstacles. In linear methods, multiple pre-processing kernels of definite size have been taken. Such linear pre-processing techniques were inserted without concentration on the edges. Thus, they can fetch obstacles, like blurring of image when the image has discontinuities on edges. More involved pre-processing techniques are further developed in order to precisely preserve the edge orientation without a large estimation.
ReviewChemical Biology : Innovative Solutions for Diverse Challenges

The Yale Chemical Biology Symposium is a day-long event that highlights new advances at the interface of chemistry and biology. Held annually since 1998, the symposium features presentations by acclaimed investigators from academic and industrial institutions as well as a poster session for student and postdoctoral presenters. The 2005 symposium held on May 13 featured Dr. Joshua Boger (Chairman, President, and CEO of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) as the keynote speaker as well as Drs. Carolyn Bertozzi (UC Berkeley), Alice Ting (MIT), Peter Lansbury (Harvard), Patrick Loria (Yale), and Ronald Breaker (Yale). This meeting review summarizes the novel chemical biology approaches to fields as diverse as glycobiology, neurochemistry, drug discovery, molecular biophysics, and molecular genetics presented at the symposium.
Input-dependent estimation of generalization error under covariate shift

A common assumption in supervised learning is that the training and test input points follow the same probability distribution. However, this assumption is not fulfilled, e.g., in interpolation, extrapolation, active learning, or classification with imbalanced data. The violation of this assumption—known as the covariate shift—causes a heavy bias in standard generalization error estimation schemes such as cross-validation or Akaike's information criterion, and thus they result in poor model selection. In this paper, we propose an alternative estimator of the generalization error for the squared loss function when training and test distributions are different. The proposed generalization error estimator is shown to be exactly unbiased for finite samples if the learning target function is realizable and asymptotically unbiased in general. We also show that, in addition to the unbiasedness, the proposed generalization error estimator can accurately estimate the difference of the generalization error among different models, which is a desirable property in model selection. Numerical studies show that the proposed method compares favorably with existing model selection methods in regression for extrapolation and in classification with imbalanced data.
Enhancement of sleep slow waves: underlying mechanisms and practical consequences

Even modest sleep restriction, especially the loss of sleep slow wave activity (SWA), is invariably associated with slower electroencephalogram (EEG) activity during wake, the occurrence of local sleep in an otherwise awake brain, and impaired performance due to cognitive and memory deficits. Recent studies not only confirm the beneficial role of sleep in memory consolidation, but also point to a specific role for sleep slow waves. Thus, the implementation of methods to enhance sleep slow waves without unwanted arousals or lightening of sleep could have significant practical implications. Here we first review the evidence that it is possible to enhance sleep slow waves in humans using transcranial direct-current stimulation (tDCS) and transcranial magnetic stimulation. Since these methods are currently impractical and their safety is questionable, especially for chronic long-term exposure, we then discuss novel data suggesting that it is possible to enhance slow waves using sensory stimuli. We consider the physiology of the K-complex (KC), a peripheral evoked slow wave, and show that, among different sensory modalities, acoustic stimulation is the most effective in increasing the magnitude of slow waves, likely through the activation of non-lemniscal ascending pathways to the thalamo-cortical system. In addition, we discuss how intensity and frequency of the acoustic stimuli, as well as exact timing and pattern of stimulation, affect sleep enhancement. Finally, we discuss automated algorithms that read the EEG and, in real-time, adjust the stimulation parameters in a closed-loop manner to obtain an increase in sleep slow waves and avoid undesirable arousals. In conclusion, while discussing the mechanisms that underlie the generation of sleep slow waves, we review the converging evidence showing that acoustic stimulation is safe and represents an ideal tool for slow wave sleep (SWS) enhancement.
The Accrual Volatility Anomaly

We find that quarterly cash flow shocks are more likely to be offset by contemporaneous accruals than to be reported as earnings. We examine the pricing implications of a consistent deviation of earnings from cash flow. Measuring the consistent deviation by accrual volatility, we find a strong and long-lasting negative association between accrual volatility and future stock returns. In decile portfolios that rank accrual volatility, a hedge portfolio that goes long in the lowest decile and short in the highest decile generates an annual, risk-adjusted return in the order of 10% from one-month to five-year horizon. These results are robust to common risk factors and return-informative variables, extend to both operating accruals and discretionary accruals, are distinct from the accrual anomaly, and are not subsumed by transaction costs and short-sale constraints. In addition, an accrual-volatility mimicking portfolio provides additional explanatory power to returns on the Fama-French 25 size/book to market portfolio. The accrual volatility effect is consistent with the information uncertainty effect where higher historical information uncertainty leads to lower future returns, and is also consistent with the earnings fixation hypothesis in that investors overprice the transitory accruals component of earnings in high accrual volatility stocks.
Tracking per-flow state — Binned Duration Flow Tracking

Recent advances in network monitoring have increasingly focused on obtaining per-flow information, such as flow state. Tracking the state of network flows opens up a new dimension of information gathering for network operators, allowing previously unattainable data to be captured. This paper presents a time efficient novel method — Binned Duration Flow Tracking (BDFT) — of tracking per-flow state by grouping valid flows into “bins”. BDFT is intended for high-speed routers where CPU time is crucial. BDFT is time efficient by adopting Bloom filters as the primary data structures. Simulation results show that BDFT can achieve over 99% accuracy on traces of real network traffic.
Selective Thymus Settling Regulated by Cytokine and Chemokine Receptors1

To generate T cells throughout adult life, the thymus must import hemopoietic progenitors from the bone marrow via the blood. In this study, we establish that thymus settling is selective. Using nonirradiated recipient mice, we found that hemopoietic stem cells were excluded from the thymus, whereas downstream multipotent progenitors (MPP) and common lymphoid progenitors rapidly generated T cells following i.v. transfer. This cellular specificity correlated with the expression of the chemokine receptor CCR9 by a subset of MPP and common lymphoid progenitors but not hemopoietic stem cells. Furthermore, CCR9 expression was required for efficient thymus settling. Finally, we demonstrate that a prethymic signal through the cytokine receptor fms-like tyrosine kinase receptor-3 was required for the generation of CCR9-expressing early lymphoid progenitors, which were the most efficient progenitors of T cells within the MPP population. We conclude that fms-like tyrosine kinase receptor-3 signaling is required for the generation of T lineage-competent progenitors, which selectively express molecules, including CCR9, that allow them to settle within the thymus.
Tunneling of rectangular wave packages through resonant quantum systems

Tunneling of wave packages through resonant quantum systems presented in an S-matrix form is investigated. An arbitrary incident wave package can be written as the superposition of the Gaussian-form pulses and for latter ones the exact analytic solution was obtained already. As a practically interesting case, the transition of the rectangular wave package through a one-resonant level system is considered. Using developed recently modified saddle-points method the transition of the wave package having a Gaussian and a rectangular form is investigated. The time delay, argument and amplitude of the outgoing wave are calculated. The dependence of tunneling time on the width and energy of resonance levels, and the momentum of incident wave-package are illustrated. The results are compared with the ones obtained for tunneling of the one Gaussian package. Possible applications are discussed.
Dynamic Task Distribution in the Grid for BLAST

BLAST programs are being widely used as tools for searching protein and DNA databases for sequence similarities. Even though many parallelization approaches have been developed in order to decrease the search time, individual databases are growing at a faster pace making searches longer than ever. Fortunately, Grid middleware is finding its acceptance across many campus Grids which are starting to utilize more and more distributed and smaller resources which would normally sit idle. Dynamic BLAST is an open-source implementation relying on Grid middleware technologies to distribute multiple queries across many, possibly geographically distributed, resources and thus perform searches resulting in shorter turnaround time. All of the intricacies of resource acquisition, data distribution, and job submission are handled by Dynamic BLAST, without any user intervention. We present the architectural and implementation details along with the experimental results to illustrate the scalability and usability of the system in a campus grid.