Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
SOUND EVENT RECOGNITION IN HOME ENVIRONMENTS

The sounds that we hear in everyday environments contain a wide variety of acoustic information that assists us in accomplishing many daily tasks. Sound event recognition (SER) aims to automatically detect and classify these sounds to provide more information about the surroundings. This research focuses on sound events found in home environments, which has a wide range of potential applications. However the audio signal received in the home environment is completely unstructured and there exists a range of challenges faced by these applications. In this thesis, we focus on two of the commonly faced problems while performing SER in the home environments: (1) the presence of interference noise and (2) limited training data. The problem of interference noise refers to noise which is highly non-stationary and may be regarded as a signal itself. An example of an interference noise commonly occurring in the home environment is the audio signal produced by the television (TV). Conventional noise robustness methods that aim to improve the results of sound recognition under background noise typically assume that the noise is stationary or slowly changing. These assumptions do not hold for interference noise and will not be effective if used in practice. To reduce the interference noise, many existing methods assume the use of an additional reference microphone to receive the TV signal. With the knowledge of TV reference signal, the problem is simplified to estimating the room impulse response using adaptive filtering. Instead of adaptive filtering, the approach taken in this thesis is based on a regression mapping in the frequency domain. This is called the regressive noise cancellation (RNC), which finds a global minimum for the error function instead of iteratively minimising the error function. While this is shown to improve the cancellation compared to the previous techniques, some noise remains in the form of residual noise. To address the residual noise, an existing subband power distribution image feature (SPD-IF) classification framework is employed to localize
Is this Model for Real? Simulating Data to Reveal the Proximity of a Model to Reality

Simulated data plays a central role in Educational Data Mining and in particular in Bayesian Knowledge Tracing (BKT) research. The initial motivation for this paper was to try to answer the question: given two datasets could you tell which of them is real and which of them is simulated? The ability to answer this question may provide an additional indication of the goodness of the model, thus, if it is easy to discern simulated data from real data that could be an indication that the model does not provide an authentic representation of reality, whereas if it is hard to set the real and simulated data apart that might be an indication that the model is indeed authentic. In this paper we will describe analyses of 42 GLOP datasets that were performed in an attempt to address this question. Possible simulated data based metrics as well as additional findings that emerged during this exploration will be discussed.
Exploring the nonlinear geometry of protein homology

The explosion of biological data resulting from genomic and proteomic research has created a pressing need for data analysis techniques that work effectively on a large scale. An area of particular interest is the organization and visualization of large families of protein sequences. An increasingly popular approach is to embed the sequences into a low‐dimensional Euclidean space in a way that preserves some predefined measure of sequence similarity. This method has been shown to produce maps that exhibit global order and continuity and reveal important evolutionary, structural, and functional relationships between the embedded proteins. However, protein sequences are related by evolutionary pathways that exhibit highly nonlinear geometry, which is invisible to classical embedding procedures such as multidimensional scaling (MDS) and nonlinear mapping (NLM). Here, we describe the use of stochastic proximity embedding (SPE) for producing Euclidean maps that preserve the intrinsic dimensionality and metric structure of the data. SPE extends previous approaches in two important ways: (1) It preserves only local relationships between closely related sequences, thus allowing the map to unfold and reveal its intrinsic dimension, and (2) it scales linearly with the number of sequences and therefore can be applied to very large protein families. The merits of the algorithm are illustrated using examples from the protein kinase and nuclear hormone receptor superfamilies.
Field-induced thermal metal-to-insulator transition in underdoped LSCO

The transport of heat and charge in cuprates was measured in single crystals of La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4+delta) (LSCO) across the doping phase diagram at low temperatures. In underdoped LSCO, the thermal conductivity is found to decrease with increasing magnetic field in the T-->0 limit, in striking contrast to the increase observed in all superconductors, including cuprates at higher doping. In heavily underdoped LSCO, where superconductivity can be entirely suppressed with an applied magnetic field, we show that a novel thermal metal-to-insulator transition takes place upon going from the superconducting state to the field-induced normal state.
The girth of a design

In 1976 Erdös asked about the existence of Steiner triple systems that lack collections of j blocks employing just j + 2 points. This has led to the study of anti-Pasch, anti-mitre and 5-sparse Steiner triple systems. Simultaneously generating sets and bases for Steiner triple systems and t-designs have been determined. Combining these ideas, together with the observation that a regular graph is a 1-design, we arrive at a natural definition for the girth of a design. In turn, this provides a natural extension of the search for cages to the universe of all t-designs. We include the results of computational experiments that give an abundance of examples of these new definitions.
An Assessment of Quantum Computation Research

In an image forming apparatus in which multiple photoconductors for corresponding developers of different colors are disposed along a transfer belt or paper conveyance belt, the photoconductors are disposed at intervals that are each an integer multiple of the outer circumference length of the driving roller that drives the transfer belt or paper conveyance belt, and the distance between at least one pair of photoconductors is made different from the distances between the other pairs of photoconductors. As a result, in comparison with when all of the photoconductors are disposed at equal intervals, the degree of freedom in arranging the multiple image forming units that each include an photoconductor can be increased, while color shift among the developed images of the difference colors on the transfer belt or the like is prevented.
Saliency detection based on Boosting learning

In this paper, we propose a method for saliency detection based on Boosting algorithms in still images. Compared to saliency detectors of pixel level based, we detect salient regions of an image based on sub-windows at any locations and sizes. For each window, we compute a set of features including local contrast, gradient histogram contrast. We construct our detector based on a cascade AdaBoost classifier to get the sub-windows which contain salient objects. Generally, more than one sub-window would get through the AdaBoost detector and we introduce a score function to remove redundant sub-windows and get the final one. The algorithm is tested on the MSRA Salient Object Database, and experiment results show that the proposed approach achieves a fast and accurate saliency detection system.
Occurrence of the megatoothed sharks (Lamniformes: Otodontidae) in Alabama, USA

The Otodontidae include some of the largest sharks to ever live in the world’s oceans (i.e., Carcharocles megalodon). Here we report on Paleocene and Eocene occurrences of Otodus obliquus and Carcharocles auriculatus from Alabama, USA. Teeth of Otodus are rarely encountered in the Gulf Coastal Plain and this report is one of the first records for Alabama. Carcharocles auriculatus is more common in the Eocene deposits of Alabama, but its occurrence has been largely overlooked in the literature. We also refute the occurrence of the Oligocene Carcharocles angustidens in the state. Raised awareness and increased collecting of under-sampled geologic formations in Alabama will likely increase sample sizes of O. obliquus and C. auriculatus and also might unearth other otodontids, such as C. megalodon and C. chubutensis.
Is America Becoming Greece?

It does not take more than a glance at the headlines to see that European countries are in trouble. From Greece to Britain, from France to Portugal, it is becoming clear that the modern welfare state is unsustainable, facing fiscal catastrophe, stagnant economic growth, punishing taxes, and prolonged joblessness. European countries are being forced, kicking and screaming, to rethink their approach to social welfare. But how much better off is the United States? According to the Congressional Budget Office, the United States will run a budget deficit in 2013 of roughly $940 billion (CBO 2013). However, because this does not include “emergency” and other unbudgeted expenditures, it is likely that our deficit will actually exceed $1 trillion for the fifth consecutive year. Indeed, Congress recently approved a relief bill for victims of Hurricane Sandy that will add an additional $51 billion to this year’s deficit. And, while deficits are projected to decline slightly between 2013 and 2018, they are expected to begin growing rapidly once again thereafter, particularly once entitlement programs begin a period of explosive growth after 2020.Europe’s ongoing debt crisis provides an extraordinary laboratory, enabling us to view the results once the modern welfare state becomes unaffordable. The instability being seen in Europe today presents the likely endpoint for this country unless we are able to put our economic house in order. The question becomes relevant therefore: How far has the U.S. traveled down the road toward a European-style debt crisis?
Strength in Numbers? Public Participation in the Media Ownership Proceeding at the Federal Communication Commission

This paper studies the role of ICTs in public participation in administrative agency rulemaking. It examines the 2002-2003 media ownership rulemaking proceeding before the Federal Communication Commission (Federal Communications Commission [FCC], 2002a). This proceeding included extensive use the Internet, e-mail, the Web, and blogs by various public-interest groups and media-reform groups, and many individual members of the public who used these ICTs to communicate with the Commission and with each other (McChesney, 2004). Public participation for this proceeding could be ‘transacted’ entirely online as well as by traditional means, and the public chose to use ICTs to submit comments to the FCC in unusually large numbers. In its Report and Order, adopted on June 2, 2003, the FCC reported that more than 500,000 informal comments were received from individuals. (FCC, 2003a). Approximately 200,000 of these had been transmitted electronically (Ahrens, 2003a; Labaton, 2003); public interest groups and advocacy groups estimated that over 2 million comments were ultimately submitted (see, e.g., Pingree, 2003). This paper examines how ICTs were used by public-interest groups and other media advocacy groups to facilitate public participation in this proceeding. Given the fact that – despite the numerous, coordinated campaigns employing ICTs that elicited ‘vociferous and voluminous’ (Noveck, 2004a, 448) public opposition to the Commission’s proposed media ownership rule changes – the FCC commissioners voted to roll back those restrictions anyway, what conclusions can we draw about ICTs as additional and effective channels of communication in the rulemaking process?
Divalent cation regulation of the function of the leukocyte integrin LFA-1

The integrin lymphocyte function-associated antigen-1 (LFA-1) expressed on T cells serves as a useful model for analysis of leukocyte integrin functional activity. We have assessed the role of divalent cations Mg2+, Ca2+, and Mn2+ in LFA-1 binding to ligand intercellular adhesion molecule-1 (ICAM-1) and induction of the divalent cation-dependent epitope recognized by mAb 24. Manganese strongly promoted both expression of the 24 epitope and T cell binding to ICAM-1 via LFA-1, suggesting that Mn2+ is able to directly alter the conformation of LFA- 1 in a manner that favors ligand binding. Since Mn2+ also promotes functional activity of other integrins, parallels in mechanism of ligand binding may span the integrin family. In contrast, induction of 24 epitope expression by Mg2+ required removal of Ca2+ from T cell LFA- 1 with EGTA. Furthermore, binding of mAb 24 to T cell LFA-1 in the presence of either Mn2+ or Mg2+ was found to be specifically inhibited by Ca2+, suggestive of a negative regulatory role for Ca2+ in the control of leukocyte integrin function. Analysis of T cell binding to ICAM-1 via LFA-1 in the presence of Mg2+ or Mn2+, confirmed that Ca2+ exerted inhibitory effects upon LFA-1 function. The implication of our findings is that Ca2+ bound with relatively high affinity to LFA-1 may serve to maintain an inactive state. Thus induction of function and 24 epitope expression may occur as a result of displacement of Ca2+ from leukocyte integrins or alternatively, such activators may be able to impose the required conformational change in the presence of bound Ca2+.
Preservation of hearing and facial nerve functions during the extended middle fossa approach operation of small cerebellopontine angle tumors

Wyniki: Wśród pacjentów w stadium zaawansowania choroby T1 i T2 słuch zachowało odpowiednio 67.4% oraz 37.5% (p=0.12). Stwierdzono istotnie statystycznie znaczącą korelację pomiędzy lepszymi wynikami badań audiologicznych a stosunkiem guza do pajęczynówki (łatwa do zidentyfikowania płaszczyzna preparacji). Nie stwierdzono istotnego statystycznie wpływu monitorowania śródoperacyjnego na wyniki leczenia (53% versus 50%, p=0.86). Monitoring zastosowano w 43.3% przypadków.
The Relationship Between Student Perceived Teacher Dispositions of Care and Student Outcomes of Belief, Understanding, and Application of LDS Doctrine

This study explored the relationship between student-perceived teacher dispositions of care and student self-reported outcomes of belief, understanding, and application of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) doctrine. Since the release of the Teaching Emphasis in 2003, LDS seminary leadership has consistently emphasized the importance of positive teacher dispositions of care and the relationship it has with desired student outcomes of LDS seminary students. However, no known studies to date have gathered and analyzed data to determine if such a relationship exists. Data regarding student-perceived teacher dispositions of care and student outcomes of belief, understanding, and application of LDS doctrine were gathered via self-report survey from 801 LDS seminary students in Idaho’s Washington, Payette, Gem, Canyon, Ada, Elmore, Jerome, Minidoka, Cassia, and Twin Falls Counties, as well as Malheur County in Oregon. Data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and one-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Findings indicated a statistically significant positive correlation (p <.01) between student perceived teacher dispositions of care and student self-reported outcomes of belief, understanding, and application. Additionally, with information obtained from the data, a statistically positive correlation (p <.01) was discovered between student self-reported attitude towards LDS seminary and student self-reported outcomes of belief, understanding, and application as well as statistically significant correlations (p <.01) between each of the individual factors of belief, understanding, and
Methods for Intrinsic Plagiarism Detection and Author Diarization

The paper investigates methods for intrinsic plagiarism detection and author diarization. We developed a plagiarism detection method based on constructing an author style function from features of text sentences and detecting outliers. We adapted the method for the diarization problem by segmenting author style statistics on text parts, which correspond to different authors. Both methods were tested on the PAN-2011 collection for the intrinsic plagiarism detection and implemented for the PAN-2016 competition on author diarization.
Nerve Growth Factor for the Treatment of Spinocerebellar Ataxia Type 3: An Open-label Study

Background: Spinocerebellar ataxia type 3 (SCA3) is the most common subtype of SCA worldwide, and runs a slowly progressive and unremitting disease course. There is currently no curable treatment available. Growing evidence has suggested that nerve growth factor (NGF) may have therapeutic effects in neurodegenerative diseases, and possibly also in SCA3. The objective of this study was to test the efficacy of NGF in SCA3 patients. Methods: We performed an open-label prospective study in genetically confirmed adult (>18 years old) SCA3 patients. NGF was administered by intramuscular injection (18 &mgr;g once daily) for 28 days consecutively. All the patients were evaluated at baseline and 2 and 4 weeks after treatment using the Chinese version of the scale for assessment and rating of ataxia (SARA). Results: Twenty-one SCA3 patients (10 men and 11 women, mean age 39.14 ± 7.81 years, mean disease duration 4.14 ± 1.90 years, mean CAG repeats number 77.57 ± 2.27) were enrolled. After 28 days of NGF treatment, the mean total SARA score decreased significantly from a baseline of 8.48 ± 2.40 to 6.30 ± 1.87 (P < 0.001). Subsections SARA scores also showed significant improvements in stance (P = 0.003), speech (P = 0.023), finger chase (P = 0.015), fast alternating hand movements (P = 0.009), and heel-shin slide (P = 0.001). Conclusions: Our preliminary data suggest that NGF may be effective in treating patients with SCA3.
Effect of Individual Omega-3 Fatty Acids on the Risk of Prostate Cancer: A Systematic Review and Dose-Response Meta-Analysis of Prospective Cohort Studies

Epidemiological studies have suggested inconsistent associations between omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (n-3 PUFAs) and prostate cancer (PCa) risk. We performed a dose-response meta-analysis of prospective observational studies investigating both dietary intake and circulating n-3 PUFAs and PCa risk. PubMed and EMBASE prior to February 2014 were searched, and 16 publications were eligible. Blood concentration of docosahexaenoic acid, but not alpha-linolenic acid or eicosapentaenoic acid, showed marginal positive association with PCa risk (relative risk for 1% increase in blood docosahexaenoic acid concentration: 1.02; 95% confidence interval, 1.00–1.05; I2 = 26%; P = 0.05 for linear trend), while dietary docosahexaenoic acid intake showed a non-linear positive association with PCa risk (P < 0.01). Dietary alpha-linolenic acid was inversely associated with PCa risk (relative risk for 0.5 g/day increase in alpha-linolenic acid intake: 0.99; 95% confidence interval, 0.98–1.00; I2 = 0%; P = 0.04 for linear trend), which was dominated by a single study. Subgroup analyses indicated that blood eicosapentaenoic acid concentration and blood docosahexaenoic acid concentration were positively associated with aggressive PCa risk and nonaggressive PCa risk, respectively. Among studies with nested case-control study designs, a 0.2% increase in blood docosapentaenoic acid concentration was associated with a 3% reduced risk of PCa (relative risk 0.97; 95% confidence interval, 0.94–1.00; I2 = 44%; P = 0.05 for linear trend). In conclusion, different individual n-3 PUFA exposures may exhibit different or even opposite associations with PCa risk, and more prospective studies, especially those examining dietary n-3 PUFAs and PCa risk stratified by severity of cancer, are needed to confirm the results.
The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Topology aware adaptive security

Adaptive security systems aim to protect valuable assets in the face of changes in their operational environment. They do so by monitoring and analysing this environment, and deploying security functions that satisfy some protection (security, privacy, or forensic) requirements. In this paper, we suggest that a key characteristic for engineering adaptive security is the topology of the operational environment, which represents a physical and/or a digital space including its structural relationships, such as containment, proximity, and reachability. For adaptive security, topology expresses a rich representation of context that can provide a system with both structural and semantic awareness of important contextual characteristics. These include the location of assets being protected or the proximity of potentially threatening agents that might harm them. Security-related actions, such as the physical movement of an actor from a room to another in a building, may be viewed as topological changes. The detection of a possible undesired topological change (such as an actor possessing a safe’s key entering the room where the safe is located) may lead to the decision to deploy a particular security control to protect the relevant asset. This position paper advocates topology awareness for more effective engineering of adaptive security. By monitoring changes in topology at runtime one can identify new or changing threats and attacks, and deploy adequate security controls accordingly. The paper elaborates on the notion of topology and provides a vision and research agenda on its role for systematically engineering adaptive security systems.
A Novel Link-Segment Storage and Query Scheme for Object Tracking Applications in Wireless Sensor Networks

We investigate the data storage and query problem for object tracking applications in wireless sensor networks. We focus on how to query the object tracking and obtain the object position effectively. The main idea is to apply multiple access entries of a storage link which stores the detected events in local storage and maintain the relation of the sensed data. When an object moves across the sensing field, the detecting sensors can construct a virtual linked list with multiple access entries along the moving path of the object. The stored events can be extracted by tracing the linked list from any access entry to get the complete or partial tracking information. Performance analysis and simulation studies show that the proposed link-segment storage and query scheme is energy efficient and it keeps high query success ratio and low query latency.
Adoption of the Six Traits Analytic Writing Model with a Low-Income Student Population

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) have renewed attention on writing instruction. This study investigates the impact of teachers’ use of the Six Traits Analytic Writing model on random stratified samples of upper elementary students from a low-income population. All students, on average, made significant gains in each of the six traits during the school year. However, students in the Six Traits group made significantly greater gains in the trait of voice. The Six Traits Model showed some promise in improving the writing achievement of a low-income population, a critical concern in the current context of CCSS implementation.