Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Semantic Process for Syntactic Disambiguation

Structural ambiguity in a sentence cannot be resolved without semantic help. We present a process for structural disambiguation that uses verb expectations, presupposition satisfaction, and plausibility, and an algorithm for making the final choice when these cues give conflicting information. The process, called the Semantic Enquiry Desk, is part of a semantic interpreter that makes sure all its partial results are well-formed semantic objects; it is from this that it gains much of its power.
Single I/O space for scalable cluster computing

In this paper, we propose a novel single I/O space architecture for achieving a single system image (SSI) at the I/O subsystem level. This is very much desired in a scalable cluster computing environment using commodity components. Our design achieves a single address space for all blocks of data in the cluster, which can tolerate all single disk failures. While traditional approaches focused on at user-level or at the distributed file subsystem level, we separate the I/O subsystem of a cluster into the file system and a set of distributed virtual device drivers (VDDs). All SSI services are provided by the VDDs with unmodified file systems. Compared to previous approaches, our approach has higher transparency, better performance, lower implementation cost, higher availability, and application compatibility for I/O intensive cluster computing.
Visual speech discrimination and identification of natural and synthetic consonant stimuli

From phonetic features to connected discourse, every level of psycholinguistic structure including prosody can be perceived through viewing the talking face. Yet a longstanding notion in the literature is that visual speech perceptual categories comprise groups of phonemes (referred to as visemes), such as /p, b, m/ and /f, v/, whose internal structure is not informative to the visual speech perceiver. This conclusion has not to our knowledge been evaluated using a psychophysical discrimination paradigm. We hypothesized that perceivers can discriminate the phonemes within typical viseme groups, and that discrimination measured with d-prime (d’) and response latency is related to visual stimulus dissimilarities between consonant segments. In Experiment 1, participants performed speeded discrimination for pairs of consonant-vowel spoken nonsense syllables that were predicted to be same, near, or far in their perceptual distances, and that were presented as natural or synthesized video. Near pairs were within-viseme consonants. Natural within-viseme stimulus pairs were discriminated significantly above chance (except for /k/-/h/). Sensitivity (d’) increased and response times decreased with distance. Discrimination and identification were superior with natural stimuli, which comprised more phonetic information. We suggest that the notion of the viseme as a unitary perceptual category is incorrect. Experiment 2 probed the perceptual basis for visual speech discrimination by inverting the stimuli. Overall reductions in d’ with inverted stimuli but a persistent pattern of larger d’ for far than for near stimulus pairs are interpreted as evidence that visual speech is represented by both its motion and configural attributes. The methods and results of this investigation open up avenues for understanding the neural and perceptual bases for visual and audiovisual speech perception and for development of practical applications such as visual lipreading/speechreading speech synthesis.
Crime and disorder

This thesis investigates growing use of civil and public law orders as tools of crime control by crime prevention partnerships. This development has been little explored in criminology. The proliferation of crime prevention partnerships is viewed by many criminologists as forming part of a bifurcation in criminal policy between serious crime and anti-social behaviour, in which the 'enforcement approach' of the criminal justice system is being focused upon the former and a non-legal 'partnership approach' advanced for the control of the latter. It is argued that the 'partnership approach' runs a risk of becoming an extension of and not an alternative to the 'enforcement approach' of the criminal justice system. In investigating this risk, it is intended that this thesis should contribute to criminology in two ways. The first contribution is an investigation of the theoretical potential for the local to become a site of authoritarian crime control. The second is an investigation of the extent this potential is being realised in England and Wales. Empirical research centred on the development of crime prevention strategies in implementing the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. Fieldwork focused on the development of metropolitan borough s trategies in twenty-one London boroughs, and a police sector and two social housing estate strategies in the borough of Westminster. Resort to civil and publicilaw orders was found to be significant to the approach taken by the majority of London boroughs studied, including Westminster. One of the estate strategies at Westminster was found to be as authoritarian as the borough strategy, but the other estate strategy and the police sector strategy were not. Punitive views were not encountered among local practitioners on any of the three sites. Punitive views were encountered among local residents on the police sector, but not on either of the estates. Once the peculiarities of the institutions and areas studied were taken into account, it was concluded that there is a significant risk that crime prevention partnerships will take an authoritarian approach to crime control unless they are located in areas where there is a strong sense of geographical community, and their policies are shaped by local practitioners and local residents.
Vertigo as a Symptom of Migraine

Migraine and vertigo are common disorders, affecting about 14% and 10%, respectively, of the general population. If migraine and vertigo were unrelated, the expected comorbidity would be 1%, whereas recent epidemiological studies indicate that 3.2% of the population have both migraine and vertigo. The excess comorbidity may be attributed to two factors: 1) vertigo syndromes (including Menière's disease, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, and anxiety‐related dizziness) that are more common in migraineurs than in controls and 2) vestibular migraine (VM) (vertigo as a symptom of migraine.) VM presents with attacks of spontaneous or positional vertigo lasting seconds to days. Headaches are often absent during acute attacks, but other migrainous features such as photophobia or auras, may be present. Like migraine headaches, VM triggers include stress, sleep deprivation, and hormonal changes. During acute attacks, there may be central spontaneous or positional nystagmus and, less commonly, unilateral vestibular hypofunction. In the symptom‐free interval, vestibular testing shows mostly minor and nonspecific findings. The pathogenesis of VM is uncertain, but migraine mechanisms may interfere with the vestibular system at the labyrinth, brainstem, and cerebral cortex. Treatment includes vestibular suppressants for acute attacks and migraine prophylaxis for patients with frequent recurrences. However, treatment efficacy has not been validated by properly controlled clinical trials. VM does not fit into the 2004 International Headache Society Classification, in which “basilar‐type migraine” must have at least two posterior circulation manifestations; isolated vertigo would not satisfy this criterion.
Carrageenan Based Bionanocomposites as Drug Delivery Tool with Special Emphasis on the Influence of Ferromagnetic Nanoparticles

Over the past few years, considerable attention has been focused on carrageenan based bionanocomposites due to their multifaceted properties like biodegradability, biocompatibility, and nontoxicity. Moreover, these composites can be tailored according to the desired purpose by using different nanofillers. The role of ferromagnetic nanoparticles in drug delivery is also discussed here in detail. Moreover, this article also presents a short review of recent research on the different types of the carrageenan based bionanocomposites and applications.
REAL-TIME ORIENTATION OF A PTZ-CAMERA BASED ON PEDESTRIAN DETECTION IN VIDEO DATA OF WIDE AND COMPLEX SCENES

Object detection and tracking is the basis for many applications in surveillance and activity recognition. Unfortunately the utilized cameras for the observation of wide scenes are mostly not sufficient for detailed information about the observed objects. We present a two-camera-system for pedestrian detection in wide and complex scenes with the opportunity to achieve detailed information about the detected individuals. The first sensor is a static video camera with fixed interior and exterior orientation, which observes the complete scene. Pedestrian detection and tracking is realized in the video stream of this camera. The second component is a single-frame PTZ (pan / tilt / zoom) camera of higher geometric resolution, which enables detailed views of objects of interest within the complete scene. For this reason the orientation of the PTZ-camera has to be adjusted to the position of a detected pedestrian in real-time in order to caption a high-resolution image of the person. This image is stored along with time and position stamps. In post-processing the pedestrian can be interactively classified by a human operator. Because the operator is only confronted with high-resolution images of stand-alone persons, this classification is very reliable, economic and user friendly.
2 Methodology 2 . 1 Subdivision of 3 D Points Cloud into Local Patches

In this paper, we propose a new 3D object recognition method that employs a set of 3D local features extracted from point cloud representation of 3D views. The method makes use of the 2D organization of range data produced by 3D sensor. A detector of 3D interest points requires the expression of the local surface variation around points. In our case, we opted for a curvature-based approach. We test six methods which combine principles curvatures values under the form of: 1) a measure of the Shape Index (SI), 2) a measure of a Quality Factor (FQ), 3) a map of Shape Index (SI) and curvedness(C), 4) a map of Gaussian (H) and Mean (K) curvatures, 5) a combination of 3 and 4 (SC_HK) and 6) a combination of 5 and 4(SC_HK_FQ). For each extracted point, a local description using the point and its neighbors is done by combining the shape index histogram and the normalized histogram of angles between normals. This local surface patch representation is used to find the correspondences between a model-test view pair. Performance evaluation of the detectors in terms of stability and repeatability shows the robustness of the proposed detectors to viewpoint variations. Experimental results on the Minolta data set are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach in view based object recognition.
Static lightpath design by heuristic methods in multifiber WDM networks

We present a new approach to WDM multifiber network design and optimization under static traffic aimed to minimize the number of fibers in the network. The heuristic optimization comprises an initial setup of all the demanded lightpaths and an iteration during which the network is progressively improved by rerouting lightpaths and consequently eliminating fibers with a high number of unused wavelengths. In our approach static traffic is actually managed with the same techniques as dynamic traffic by suitably sorting the static connection demands and offering them in sequence to the network. The employment of the multifiber layered graph as a template to represent the network states allows to compare a very wide range of routing, fiber and wavelength assignment criteria, link metrics, wavelength-conversion environments and so on. In this paper we will show and discuss the optimization of a particular case-study network and we will analyze the influence of various design parameters on the final results.
Immunogenicity and Cross-Protective Efficacy Induced by Outer Membrane Proteins from Salmonella Typhimurium Mutants with Truncated LPS in Mice

Lipopolysaccharide (LPS) is a major virulence factor present in the outer membrane of Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium (S. Typhimurium). Outer membrane proteins (OMPs) from Salmonella show high immunogenicity and provide protection against Salmonella infection, and truncated LPS alters the outer membrane composition of the cell wall. In our previous study, we demonstrated that Salmonella mutants carrying truncated LPS failed to induce strong immune responses and cross-reaction to other enteric bacteria, due to their high attenuation and low colonization in the host. Therefore, we plan to investigate whether outer membrane proteins from Salmonella mutants with truncated LPS resulting from a series of nonpolar mutations, including ∆waaC12, ∆waaF15, ∆waaG42, ∆rfaH49, ∆waaI43, ∆waaJ44, ∆waaL46, ∆wbaP45 and ∆wzy-48, affect immunogenicity and provide protection against diverse Salmonella challenge. In this study, the immunogenicity and cross-protection efficiency of purified OMPs from all mutants were investigated to explore a potential OMP vaccine to protect against homologous or heterologous serotype Salmonella challenge. The results demonstrated that OMPs from three Salmonella mutants (∆waaC12, ∆waaJ44 and ∆waaL46) induced higher immune responses and provided good protection against homologous S. Typhimurium. The OMPs from these three mutants were also selected to determine the cross-protective efficacy against homologous and heterologous serotype Salmonella. Our results indicated that the mutant ∆waaC12 can elicit higher cross-reactivity and can provide good protection against S. Choleraesuis and S. Enteritidis infection and that the cross-reactivity may be ascribed to an antigen of approximately 18.4–30 kDa.
Bouncing gel balls

– We investigated impacts of nearly elastic spherical gels (very soft balls) onto a solid substrate. The Hertz contact deformation expected in the static (elastic) limit was observed only at very small impact velocities. For larger velocities, a gel ball deformed into flattened forms like a pancake. We measured the size of gel balls at the maximal deformation and a contact time as a function of velocities for samples different in the original spherical radius and the Young modulus. The experimental results revealed a number of scaling relations. To interpret these relations, we developed scaling arguments to propose a physical picture. Introduction. – Impact of spherical objects is concerned with a wide range of subjects from daily life to solid mechanics [1, 2, 3]. Accordingly, it has been studied for a long time in different contexts and still continues to be an important research subject. The Hertz contact theory [4] is a classic example in the static limit within the linear elastic theory. For larger impact velocities, internal vibrations [5] and dissipative processes such as solid viscosity [6], plastic deformation [2,7] should be considered. Impact of solid spheres in a granular medium has been found to be important fundamental processes in granular flow, and has attracted a considerable attention [7, 8, 9]. Impacts of balls of soft matter could also be an interesting problem: unique phenomena are expected due to variety of constitutive equations and due to large deformations. For example, impact or dynamics of liquid balls has attracted a wide audience [10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17]. In this paper, we study another example from soft matter: impacts of soft gel balls vertically impinging onto a solid substrate. There the Hertz contact deformation is observed only for small velocities. For larger velocities, gel balls are flattened globally during the impact on the substrate, i.e., expanded into the lateral direction. We present experimental data on the lateral dimension of balls at the maximal deformation and a contact time as a function of impact velocities to show the existence of a number of scaling relations. These relations are interpreted via a naive physical picture.
Driving Change Through Brokering Practices In An Online Community Ecosystem

This study investigated how online communities helped drive change in a three-year professional development programme for New Zealand teachers. The programme aimed to embed effective ICT-based teaching practices in schools, together with a student-centred approach that positioned the teacher’s role as a facilitator of learning. An unofficial blogging community, connecting three cluster-based online communities to a global network, was found to play a role in driving embedding of the new approach. Influential individuals from this community (connector-leaders) employed a set of brokering practices, making differentiated use of technologies to foster knowledge embedding via five processes: focusing, persuading, aligning, adapting and owning. Their influence was extended by the activities of a group of followers who brokered knowledge across the online/offline boundary. The study identifies the workings of a socio-technological system in which change was promoted through brokering practices and sophisticated use of technology. It suggests that when system-level change is the goal, managers should consider the value of brokering roles and normative social processes that help to embed and sustain change. The activities of this system can be seen as supporting both the empirical-rational and the normative-re-educative approach to change (Chin and Benne, 1969).
Overlapping Frame Approach to Estimate and Reduce Noise from Single Channel Speech

Speech enhancement is a long standing problem with various applications like telephone conversation and speech recognition. The corruption of speech due to presence of additive background noise causes severe difficulties in various communication environments. If the background noise is evolving more slowly than the speech, then the estimation of the noise during speech pauses is easier as compared to non stationary noise. If in case the Noise is varying rapidly then estimation is more difficult. This paper focuses on the class of single-channel noise reduction methods that are performed with frequency domain using short-time Fourier Transform (STFT). There are number of publications and implementations on noise reduction systems. But, there are still some issues in non-stationary noisy systems. This single-channel approach is more dominant and effective approach for practical systems. From last few years, algorithms have been proposed for this problem but most of them are worked on noisy signal in current frame. So in this paper we are trying to propose the new model using Wiener filter by using the concept of multi-frame approach with different window sizes and overlaps. The proposed method shows the results with its superiority.
Modeling, identification, and control of micro-sensor prototypes

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) are stimulating the move of modern digital control "on-chip" for a growing number of sophisticated applications. One such application is microinertial sensors of ever increasing capability bringing inertial awareness to virtually anything that moves. Modeling, identification and control of this particular genre of MEMS developed through a Boeing and UCLA collaboration is presented as an illustration on the rising edge of this revolutionary transition in the realization and theory of modern control systems.
Phase I/II and Pharmacodynamic Study of Dovitinib (TKI258), an Inhibitor of Fibroblast Growth Factor Receptors and VEGF Receptors, in Patients with Advanced Melanoma

Purpose: Dovitinib (TKI258) is an orally available inhibitor of fibroblast growth factor (FGF), VEGF, and platelet-derived growth factor receptors. This phase I/II dose–escalation study was conducted to evaluate the safety, pharmacodynamics, and preliminary efficacy of dovitinib in the treatment of advanced melanoma. Experimental Design: Patients with advanced melanoma resistant or refractory to standard therapies or for whom no standard therapy was available were enrolled. Dovitinib was administered at doses ranging from 200 to 500 mg/d. Results: Forty-seven patients were enrolled. The most frequently reported adverse events were fatigue (77%; grade ≥3, 28%), diarrhea (77%; grade ≥3, 11%), and nausea (77%; grade ≥3, 9%). Six dose-limiting toxicities were observed in the 400-mg and 500-mg dose cohorts, which consisted of grade 3 nausea, fatigue, and diarrhea and grade 4 fatigue events. The maximum tolerated dose was 400 mg/d. The best tumor response was stable disease, which was observed in 12 patients. Increases in plasma FGF23, VEGF, and placental growth factor and decreases in soluble VEGF receptor 2 were noted during the first cycle of treatment, consistent with FGF receptor (FGFR) and VEGF receptor (VEGFR) inhibition. Dynamic contrast-enhanced MRI analysis showed a dose-dependent decrease in tumor blood flow and vascular permeability with dovitinib therapy. A decrease in FGFR phosphorylation was observed in paired tumor biopsy samples from a patient treated with dovitinib at a dose of 400 mg/d. Conclusions: At a dose of 400 mg/d, dovitinib showed an acceptable safety profile and limited clinical benefit and inhibited FGFR and VEGFR. Clin Cancer Res; 17(23); 7451–61. ©2011 AACR.
Statistical Speaker Diarization Using Dependent Combination of Extracted Features

The paper describes a novel method that improvises the procedure for supervised speaker diarization. The procedure supposes that the database of the speakers is available. Initially, the database and observation signal of the speakers, are prepared. The audio features has been extracted from the database and the observation signal. Instead of the using of one of Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficient, Perceptual Linear Prediction, or Power Normalized Cepstral Coefficients, a combination of all of them have been used. The combination form of these features is independent, i.e. They are concatenated in the feature matrix. The comparison between features of observation signal and statistical properties of database features, has been made. The comparing procedure is used to make the decision of the logical mask of the comparison. Both of bottom-up and top-down scenarios collaborate to complete the last decisions successfully. Diarization Error Rate test denotes that combination of features has less than errors than any one alone.
On the use of a population-based particle swarm optimizer to design combinational logic circuits

In this paper, we introduce the use of a population-based selection scheme in a particle swarm optimizer used for designing combinational logic circuits. The scheme aims to distribute the search effort in a better way within the particles of the population as to accelerate convergence while improving the robustness of the algorithm. For our study, we compare six PSO-based approaches, combining different encodings (integer and binary) with both single- and multi-objective selection schemes. The comparative study performed indicates that the use of a population-based approach combined with an integer encoding improves both the robustness and quality of results of PSO when designing combinational logic circuits.