Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Using the FASST source separation toolbox for noise robust speech recognition

We describe our submission to the 2011 CHiME Speech Separation and Recognition Challenge. Our speech separation algorithm was built using the Flexible Audio Source Separation Toolbox (FASST) we developed recently. This toolbox is an implementation of a general flexible framework based on a library of structured source models that enable the incorporation of prior knowledge about a source separation problem via userspecifiable constraints. We show how to use FASST to develop an efficient speech separation algorithm for the CHiME dataset. We also describe the acoustic model training and adaptation strategies we used for this submission. Altogether, as compared to the baseline system, we obtain an improvement of keyword recognition accuracies in all conditions. The best improvement of about 40 % is achieved in the worst condition of -6 dB Signalto-Noise-Ratio (SNR), where 18 % of this improvement is due to the speech separation. The improvement decreases when the SNR increases. These results indicate that audio source separation can be very helpful to improve speech recognition in noisy or multi-source environments. Index Terms: speech separation, source separation, general flexible framework, noise robust speech recognition
The Role Of Commercialization Competence In Endogenous Economic Growth

While innovation supply is creative, unpredictable and not necessarily related to future economic usefulness, resource provision is experience based and much more narrow, implying a positive economic risk of losing innovative winners. We demonstrate through simulation experiments on a firm based and economy wide model that industrial growth is explained by the identification and financial support of winners that are carried on to industrial scale production and distribution. Competence bloc theory is used to model the innovation supply and commercialization processes. We demonstrate that lack of commercialization competence, notably industrial competence embodied in venture capitalists ability to identify, select and finance radically new innovations breaks the conventionally assumed linearity between innovation supply and economic growth. We also show that the loss of long term output from losing winners and promoting losers is very large. Key words, Commercialization, Dynamic Efficiency, Economic Growth, : New Economy, New Firm Formation, Venture Capitalist Competence JEL Code: D92, G24,O12, O31, L11
A Three-Phase Current Reconstruction Strategy With Online Current Offset Compensation Using a Single Current Sensor

This paper proposes a three-phase current reconstruction technique with an online current offset compensation function for three-phase inverter applications utilizing only a single current sensor. In the proposed current sensing method, a phase current and a branch current are simultaneously measured twice in a switching period by using a single current sensor. After that, the current reconstruction algorithm is applied to obtain the three-phase current information. Compared to previous single current sensor strategies, in the proposed method, the sensor output is regularly sampled, and the dead zone is located near the boundary of the voltage vector space instead of near the origin and the borders of each sector. This boundary-neighbored dead zone makes the proposed method more attractive in extremely low modulation index cases because it avoids periodical dead zones which have been an issue in the existing methods. Moreover, the online compensation method for a current measurement offset makes it possible to achieve purely balanced three-phase current control without an offset component. The effectiveness of the proposed method has been verified through simulations and experiments by measuring and reconstructing three-phase currents under various conditions.
Quantitative Measurement of Carotid Atherosclerosis in Relation to Levels of Von Willebrand Factor and Fibrinolytic Variables in Plasma — A 2-year Follow-Up Study

Background It has been proposed that the mechanism of action of the new risk factors for myocardial infarction and stroke, von Willebrand factor (vWF), tissue plasminogen activator (tPA) and tissue plasminogen activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) could possibly be mediated via a primary effect on atherogenesis but there is little data to substantiate this. Design A prospective single-centre cohort study of progression of atherosclerosis. Methods Carotid plaque area was quantitated by two-dimensional (2D) ultrasound in 258 subjects at entry and after 1 and 2 years. Plasma and serum samples were drawn at baseline and serum lipids and plasma levels of haemostatic factors were measured. Results The traditional risk factors, smoking, total cholesterol, hypertension and male gender explained 51% of the variance in plaque area at baseline and 48% at 1-year follow-up. There were small positive associations of plaque area with vWF, tPA and tPA/PAI-1 complex and a tendency to negative associations with PAI-1 levels, independent from the traditional risk factors. The additional explanatory power of the haemostatic factors did not exceed 3%. Conclusion The data accord with a marginal role in atherogenesis of vWF and tPA, and underline the major impact of smoking, hypertension and cholesterol on carotid plaque area progression.
Securityholder Taxes, Corporate Capital Structures and the Priority Structure of Debt

This paper shows that the firm has an incentive to issue multiple classes of debt that are differentiated by seniority to enhance securityholder tax-timing option values. The analysis establishes that there is at least one mix of senior and junior debt that maximizes the tax option gain from having multiple priority classes of debt. An analytic example provides specifications for the optimal amount of leverage and the optimal mix of senior and junior debt. Relative to the case of only one class of debt, a multiple debt priority structure increases the optimal amount of corporate leverage. Copyright 1997 by MIT Press.
The regulation of presynaptic inhibition during co‐contraction of antagonistic muscles in man.

1. The size of the soleus, tibialis anterior and medial gastrocnemius H reflexes were measured at different levels of EMG activity in ankle plantar‐ and dorsiflexors. At similar levels of EMG activity in the agonist muscle, the soleus and tibials anterior H reflexes were found to be smaller during co‐contraction than during an isolated agonist contraction. In contrast to this, the medial gastrocnemius H reflex had the same size during co‐contraction as during an isolated plantarflexion at comparable EMG levels. 2. Peaks occurred at monosynaptic reflex latency in the post‐stimulus time histogram (PSTH) of firing of soleus and tibialis anterior motor units following stimulation of their respective motor nerves. These homonymous Ia peaks were found to be smaller during co‐contraction than during isolated agonist contraction, whereas that of medial gastrocnemius motor units was unchanged. As the monosynaptic peak in the PSTH may give an indirect measure of the size of the monosynaptic EPSP in the motoneurone, it is suggested that these findings reflect a differential control of presynaptic inhibition of soleus and tibialis anterior motor units with respect to medial gastrocnemius motor units. 3. The monosynaptic Ia facilitation of the soleus H reflex evoked by a stimulation of the femoral nerve, was also found to be smaller during co‐contraction of tibials anterior and soleus than during isolated plantarflexion. This suggests that presynaptic inhibition of heteronymous Ia fibres from the quadriceps muscle projecting to soleus motoneurones is regulated in the same way as presynaptic inhibition of homonymous Ia fibres during co‐contraction. 4. The femoral nerve‐induced monosynaptic facilitation of the soleus H reflex was found to decrease with increasing tonic levels of both co‐contraction and isolated dorsi‐ and plantarflexion. The amount of facilitation decreased to the same degree with increasing levels of dorsiflexion and co‐contraction. For the same level of EMG in the dorsiflexors there was thus no difference in the amount of facilitation whether the dorsiflexors were activated separately or in a co‐contraction. 5. Whereas the soleus H reflex increased in size 50 ms prior to the onset of a dynamic plantarflexion, it did not change prior to the onset of a co‐contraction. The femoral nerve‐induced facilitation increased prior to the plantarflexion, but decreased prior to the co‐contraction. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Efficacy of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF)-penetrating antiretroviral drugs against HIV in the neurological compartment: different patterns of phenotypic resistance in CSF and plasma.

BACKGROUND Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) concentrations of multiple drugs in a large human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected patient population, the virtual phenotype profiles for HIV in the plasma and CSF compartments, and the correlation of these profiles with exposure to antiretroviral therapy need to be further investigated. METHODS Drug concentrations in CSF and plasma were concomitantly determined for a large group of HIV-infected individuals receiving highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). Samples were analyzed using a validated method consisting of liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry. For patients with detectable levels of virus, genotypic analysis was performed, followed by a virtual phenotype study. RESULTS Sixty-three HIV-infected patients were included in the study, 78% of whom were affected by neurological disease. Drug concentrations in CSF specimens were undetectable for didanosine, efavirenz, nelfinavir, and concomitantly administered ritonavir and saquinavir. CSF concentrations were higher for nevirapine, with a median CSF-to-plasma concentration ratio of 0.63, followed by lamivudine (0.23), stavudine (0.20), and indinavir (0.11). In 18 of the 40 patients with virtual phenotype data available for virus recovered from CSF samples and from plasma samples, differences in fold-change of resistance between the CSF virus and the plasma virus were noted for at least 1 drug. Factors associated with having differences in fold-change of resistance were number of drugs to which the patient had been exposed (P=.02) and presence of neurological disease (P=.05). A significant association was found between duration of therapy and fold-change of resistance in CSF and plasma isolates. CONCLUSIONS Antiretrovirals have different levels of penetration in the CSF, with several drugs achieving only low CSF concentrations. CSF isolates have different resistance profiles than do plasma isolates. Effective treatment decisions for CSF manifestations of disease may require better knowledge of drug penetration and the drug susceptibility of HIV in the CSF.
“Education Is My Mother and Father”: The “Invisible” Women of Sudan

Education plays a significant role in informing the way people develop gender values, identities, relationships, and stereotypes. The education of refugees, however, takes place in multiple and diverse settings. Drawing on a decade of field research in Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, and North America, I examine the promises and challenges of education for refugees and argue that southern Sudanese refugee women and girls experience gendered and unequal access to education in protracted refugee sites such as the Kakuma refugee camp, as well as in resettled destinations such as Massachusetts. Many of these refugees, who are commonly referred to as the “lost boys and girls,” did not experience schooling in the context of a stable family life; that is why they often reiterate the Sudanese proverb, “Education is my mother and father. ” I argue that tertiary education is crucial because it promotes self-reliance. It enables refugees, particularly women, to gain knowledge, voice, and skills which will give them access to better employment opportunities and earnings and thus enhance their equality and independence. Indeed, education provides a context within which to understand and make visible the changing nature of gender relationships of power.
Bank Loans and Troubled Debt Restructurings

This paper examines the relation between the number and type of lenders that participate in corporate loan facilities and the nature of troubled debt restructurings. We find that loans from traditional bank lenders are significantly easier to restructure out of court than loans from institutional lenders. We also find that the existence of a past banking relationship between the borrower and the lead arranger of a syndicated loan adversely affects the ease of restructuring. Finally, we find that reliance on loans that are held in part by collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) is positively related to the likelihood of a prepackaged bankruptcy, consistent with greater holdout problems when loans are held by CLOs. Overall, our findings suggest that the role of banks in the restructuring process is quite different when bank loans are diffusely held or securitized.
Do Balanced Budget Rules Work? U.S. Experience and Possible Lessons for the Emu

The `Excessive Deficit Procedure' of the Maastricht Treaty on Economic and Monetary Union proposes two fiscal convergence conditions for entry and continued membership in the EMU: 1) a country's overall budget deficit for each fiscal year must be equal to or below 3% of GDP, and 2) a country's stock of gross public debt must be equal to or less than 60% of GDP. Will the current EMU Excessive Deficit Procedure work as an effective constraint on countries' deficit behaviors? When understood within the context of a political economy model of deficit behavior, recent U.S. evidence on balanced budget rules strongly suggests that effective deficit constraints must use ex post deficit accounting, must be constitutionally grounded, must be enforced by an open and politically independent review panel or court with significant sanctions for violations, and costly to amend. While ex post, constitutionally grounded, and difficult to amend, current EMU rules are not enforced, at present, by an open and politically independent review panel using significant penalties. The ability of the EMU's deficit procedure to constrain in doubt. Institutional reforms that will strengthen the EMU's balanced budget procedures are discussed.
A hybrid feature selection approach for the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease

Objective. Recently, significant advances have been made in the early diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) from electroencephalography (EEG). However, choosing suitable measures is a challenging task. Among other measures, frequency relative power (RP) and loss of complexity have been used with promising results. In the present study we investigate the early diagnosis of AD using synchrony measures and frequency RP on EEG signals, examining the changes found in different frequency ranges. Approach. We first explore the use of a single feature for computing the classification rate (CR), looking for the best frequency range. Then, we present a multiple feature classification system that outperforms all previous results using a feature selection strategy. These two approaches are tested in two different databases, one containing mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and healthy subjects (patients age: 71.9 ± 10.2, healthy subjects age: 71.7 ± 8.3), and the other containing Mild AD and healthy subjects (patients age: 77.6 ± 10.0; healthy subjects age: 69.4 ± 11.5). Main results. Using a single feature to compute CRs we achieve a performance of 78.33% for the MCI data set and of 97.56% for Mild AD. Results are clearly improved using the multiple feature classification, where a CR of 95% is found for the MCI data set using 11 features, and 100% for the Mild AD data set using four features. Significance. The new features selection method described in this work may be a reliable tool that could help to design a realistic system that does not require prior knowledge of a patient's status. With that aim, we explore the standardization of features for MCI and Mild AD data sets with promising results.
Wavelet Decomposition of Gradient Boosting

In this paper we introduce a significant improvement to the popular tree-based Stochastic Gradient Boosting algorithm using a wavelet decomposition of the trees. This approach is based on harmonic analysis and approximation theoretical elements, and as we show through extensive experimentation, our wavelet based method generally outperforms existing methods, particularly in difficult scenarios of class unbalance and mislabeling in the training data.
[Physical training for nursing home residents--has it any effect?].

BACKGROUND The paper presents documentation of the effect of physical training for nursing home residents. MATERIAL AND METHODS Literature study based on review articles and exercise trials in nursing home populations. RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION The relatively few studies available indicate that physical training in a nursing home setting could be carried out. One study, reporting the effect of a fourfold increase in physiotherapy and occupational therapy, found positive effects on physical functioning and nursing costs. Furthermore, training is reported to improve aspects of physical functioning, like muscle strength and mobility. Several studies report effect on incontinence of low-dose physical exercises combined with scheduled toilet training. No study reports effect of physical training alone on the incidence of falls among nursing home residents. Nevertheless, physical training seems to improve physical fitness and functioning, cognition and behaviour. It is suggested that physical training for nursing home residents is carried out routinely in order to maintain physical functioning. Important aspects of such training are muscle strength, balance, coordination, endurance and flexibility. However, the most crucial type of training is active participation in the activities of daily life in order to prevent loss of independence.
Balanced scorecard: a rising trend in strategic performance measurement

The long‐term survival of a business is dependent upon meeting market needs through a long‐term value creation process. Traditional performance measurement systems have been criticized as being too narrowly focused on financial figures and functional level performance such that they often fail to capture organizational long‐term business success. In contrast, the balanced scorecard calls on managers to first make a commitment to introduce an array of measures or scorecards that will guide their decisions away from the narrowly focused financial measures. These scorecards, in turn, serve as dials on a dashboard and guide businesses into greater profitability as managers position themselves to better serve their employees, customers, and shareholders at large. Using information collected from 83 electronics companies located within the USA, results from the study provide support for the balanced scorecard. Specifically, findings show that manufacturing plants that have strategically linked their corporate goals or objectives to their performance measurement systems, via the scorecard, performed better than those that do not.
Activation of Jak2 catalytic activity requires phosphorylation of Y1007 in the kinase activation loop

The Janus protein tyrosine kinases (Jaks) play critical roles in transducing growth and differentiation signals emanating from ligand-activated cytokine receptor complexes. The activation of the Jaks is hypothesized to occur as a consequence of auto- or transphosphorylation on tyrosine residues associated with ligand-induced aggregation of the receptor chains and the associated Jaks. In many kinases, regulation of catalytic activity by phosphorylation occurs on residues within the activation loop of the kinase domain. Within the Jak2 kinase domain, there is a region that has considerable sequence homology to the regulatory region of the insulin receptor and contains two tyrosines, Y1007 and Y1008, that are potential regulatory sites. In the studies presented here, we demonstrate that among a variety of sites, Y1007 and Y1008 are sites of trans- or autophosphorylation in vivo and in in vitro kinase reactions. Mutation of Y1007, or both Y1007 and Y1008, to phenylalanine essentially eliminated kinase activity, whereas mutation of Y1008 to phenylalanine had no detectable effect on kinase activity. The mutants were also examined for the ability to reconstitute erythropoietin signaling in gamma2 cells, which lack Jak2. Consistent with the kinase activity, mutation of Y1007 to phenylalanine eliminated the ability to restore signaling. Moreover, phosphorylation of a kinase-inactive mutant (K882E) was not detected, indicating that Jak2 activation during receptor aggregation is dependent on Jak2 and not another receptor-associated kinase. The results demonstrate the critical role of phosphorylation of Y1007 in Jak2 regulation and function.
When Are State Lotteries a Good Bet

This paper outlines the conditions under which a state-run lottery yields an expected return greater than its costs. The analysis considers the possibility of multiple winner, the fact that lottery winnings are typically paid out over a 10 to 20 year span, the taxation of lottery winnings as income, and the government's vigorish. We also derive the conditions under which it is worthwhile to buy every possible outcome of the litter, hence guaranteeing a winning ticket. We then apply our analysis to the recent $106.5 million Florida Lottery and the $27 million Virginia Lottery in which an Australian consortium attempted to buy the pot.
Tyrosine Residues 951 and 1059 of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor Receptor-2 (KDR) Are Essential for Vascular Permeability Factor/Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor-induced Endothelium Migration and Proliferation, Respectively*

Vascular permeability factor/vascular endothelial growth factor (VPF/VEGF) exerts its multiple functions by activating two receptor tyrosine kinases, Flt-1 (VEGFR-1) and KDR (VEGFR-2), both of which are selectively expressed on primary vascular endothelium. To dissect the respective signaling pathways and biological functions mediated by these receptors in primary endothelial cells with two receptors intact, we, recently developed chimeric receptors (EGDR and EGLT) in which the extracellular domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor was fused to the transmembrane domain and intracellular domain of KDR and Flt-1, respectively. With these fusion receptors, we have shown that KDR is solely responsible for VPF/VEGF-induced human umbilical vein endothelial cell (HUVEC) proliferation and migration, whereas Flt-1 showed an inhibitory effect on KDR-mediated proliferation but not migration. To further characterize the VPF/VEGF-stimulated HUVEC proliferation and migration here, we have created several EGDR mutants by site-directed mutagenesis. We show that tyrosine residues 1059 and 951 of KDR are essential for VPF/VEGF-induced HUVEC proliferation and migration, respectively. Furthermore, the mutation of tyrosine 1059 to phenylanaline results in the complete loss of KDR/EGDR-mediated intracellular Ca2+ mobilization and MAPK phosphorylation, but the mutation of tyrosine 951 to phenylanaline did not affect these events. Our results suggest that KDR mediates different signaling pathways for HUVEC proliferation and migration and, moreover, intracellular Ca2+ mobilization and MAPK phosphorylation are not essential for VPF/VEGF-induced HUVEC migration.
A Microeconomic Approach To Induced Innovation

Invention possibilities are reformulated using research processes which have a cost and different implications for rates and biases of technical change. In the comparative static model a firm has the choice to build a plant of existing design or to improve it by research. The firm maximizes present value over the lifetime of the plant. Research costs and present value of capital and labor costs influence research mix and rate and bias to technical change. Controversies in the literature of induced innovation are discussed in terms of the model. A rise in labor costs does not necessarily lead to a more labor saving bias.