Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient adaptive signal and signal dimension estimation using piecewise libraries

Previously, methods to estimate the number of jumps in a piecewise constant signal were presented in the framework of projection libraries. In this paper, these concepts are extended to general piecewise projection libraries appropriate for modeling, for example, piecewise polynomial and piecewise stationary signals. A general piecewise best basis algorithm is also presented that offers an efficient alternative to standard methods. Particularly, an algorithm for best piecewise wavelet basis is shown to reduce the entropy over wavelet packets. While a dynamic programming algorithm can still be employed to efficiently calculate optical estimates for these new piecewise projection libraries, additional modifications are often needed to reduce the computational requirements for practical implementation. An alternative approach, termed subspace pursuit, is presented that is applicable to all projection libraries and is especially suited for signal dimension estimation. The method is an order-recursive least square implementation of matched pursuit that requires roughly twice the computation but has the advantage that at each iteration the coefficients are optimal, that is, are obtained by a projection onto the subspace spanned by signals in the dictionary. Additionally, for the signal dimension estimation problem, an interesting paradox is presented where estimates are shown to be worse with increased signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) past a certain threshold and to converge to a level less than this optimum performance for infinite SNR.
Supporting Traumatic Grief: A Qualitative Analysis of Helper’s Lived Experience

Background: Usually managed by trained volunteers, crisis helplines services are of primary importance in community care. However, literature has shown that volunteers may be exposed to a high risk of developing negative psychological consequences in relation to the service performed. Although there are numerous studies dedicated to the use of helplines, evidence regarding the experiences of helpers in the context of traumatic losses is still limited. Objective: This study aimed to explore lived experiences of the operators of a crisis line supporting traumatic bereavement. Specifically, it analyzed the psychological impact of interacting with the caller, and the resources and strategies used by the operators themselves. Methods: The study considered 35 operators of the helpline provided by the Italian NGO De Leo Fund, which offers psychological support to survivors of traumatic bereavement. The inclusion criteria were: (a) currently being or having been a helper at the De Leo Fund helpline; and (b) having completed at least 10 shifts in the helpline service. Data were collected through an ad hoc questionnaire, filled online. The thematic analysis technique used Atlas.ti software 8. Results: Four thematic areas emerged from the transcription of the semi-structured interviews. These were: (a) motivation and expectations; (b) emotional and relational impact of the experience as a helper; (c) strategies adopted by operators; and (d) criticalities and strengths. Conclusions: Monitoring helpers’ emotional experiences and the impact of their work overtime emerged in a marked way. The analysis of the strategies and experiences of the operators represents a fundamental factor for the implementation of specific training programs for the management of emergency situations.
Toward Interactive Music Generation: A Position Paper

Music generation using deep learning has received considerable attention in recent years. Researchers have developed various generative models capable of imitating musical conventions, comprehending the musical corpora, and generating new samples based on the learning outcome. Although the samples generated by these models are persuasive, they often lack musical structure and creativity. For instance, a vanilla end-to-end approach, which deals with all levels of music representation at once, does not offer human-level control and interaction during the learning process, leading to constrained results. Indeed, music creation is a recurrent process that follows some principles by a musician, where various musical features are reused or adapted. On the other hand, a musical piece adheres to a musical style, breaking down into precise concepts of timbre style, performance style, composition style, and the coherency between these aspects. Here, we study and analyze the current advances in music generation using deep learning models through different criteria. We discuss the shortcomings and limitations of these models regarding interactivity and adaptability. Finally, we draw the potential future research direction addressing multi-agent systems and reinforcement learning algorithms to alleviate these shortcomings and limitations.
Group assignment problem

Multiple frame data association, whether it is based on multiple hypothesis tracking or multi-dimensional assignment problems, has established itself as the method of choice for difficult tracking problems, principally due to the ability to hold difficult data association decisions in abeyance until additional information is available. Over the last twenty years, these methods have focused on one-to-one assignments, many-to-one, and many-to-many assignments. Group tracking, on the other hand, introduces new complexity into the association process, especially if some soft decision making capability is desired. Thus, the goal of this work is to combine multiple grouping hypotheses for each frame of data (tracks or measurements) with matching these hypotheses across multiple frames of data using one-to-one, many-to-one, or many-to-many assignments to determine the correct hypothesis on each frame of data and connectivity across the frames. The resulting formulation is sufficiently general to cover four broad classes of problems in multiple target tracking, namely (a) group cluster tracking, (b) pixel (clump) IR cluster tracking, (c) the merged measurement problem, and (d) MHT for track-to-track fusion. What is more, the cluster assignment problem for either two or multiple dimensions represents a generalized data association problem in the sense that it reduces to the classical assignment problems when there are no overlapping groups or clusters. The formulation of the assignment problem for resolved object tracking and candidate group methods for use in multiple frame group tracking are briefly reviewed. Then, three different formulations of the group assignment problem are developed.
Role of donor defects in enhancing ferromagnetism of Cu-doped ZnO films

Zn0.97Cu0. 03O films were prepared by pulsed-laser deposition on c-cut sapphire substrates under various conditions in order to investigate the growth-dependent properties of the films. All the films exhibit room temperature ferromagnetism. Samples deposited at low temperature and low pressure show large saturation magnetization (Ms). Moreover, the enhancement of Ms was observed in films annealed both in vacuum and in Zn vapor. However, postannealing in air led to the remarkable reduction of ferromagnetism. The results show that the itinerant electrons introduced by oxygen-deficient or Zn-rich atmospheres may play a significant role in room temperature ferromagnetism observed in this ZnCuO dilute magnetic semiconductor. It is consistent with carrier-induced ferromagnetism. The magnetization strongly depends on the appearance of free carriers and is relatively insensitive to whether they arose from VO or/and Zni.
Dominance statistics: Ordinal analyses to answer ordinal questions.

Much behavioral rescarch involves comparing the central tendencies of different groups, or of the same subjects under different conditions, and the usual analysis is some form of mean comparison. This article suggests that an ordinal statistic, d, is often more appropriate. d compares the number of times a score from one group or condition is higher than one from the other, compared with the reverse. Compared to mean comparisons, d is more robust and equally or more powerful; it is invariant under transformation; and it often conforms more closely to the experimenter's research hypothesis. It is suggested that inferences from d be based on sample estimates of its variance rather than on the more traditional assumption of identical distributions
Pupil dilation and self-reported emotional response to IAPS pictures: the role of emotional regulation and trait mindfulness

Mindfulness has been associated with reduced emotional reactivity, with meditators showing an increased pupillary contraction and a weaker dilation to negative stimuli with respect to non-meditators. However, the role of individual differences in determining such different pupillary responses has not been assessed in this regard. Thus, we designed a pupillometry study with affective picture viewing in which we investigated for the first time whether self-reported measures of mindfulness and emotional regulation related to the pupil response. We collected pupil dilation data from 29 participants viewing a set of IAPS images with positive, neutral, and negative valence, presented in randomized order. For each image, we also collected subjective emotional experiences on three dimensions: valence, arousal, and dominance. Moreover, participants completed a battery of questionnaires assessing trait mindfulness and emotional regulation abilities. We found significant effects of image valence on both subjective ratings and pupillary response to the three different categories. We also found that emotional regulation affected the pupil minimum and maximum dilation in response to emotional stimuli, pleasant or unpleasant, while mindfulness reduce the time for recover pupil dilation after the first contraction in response to the stimulus onset. Overall, these results suggest that mindfulness had physiological effects on autonomic response and emotional regulation.
Characterization of High-Frequency Excitation of a Wake by Simulation

Insights into the effects of high-frequency forcing on free shear layer evolution are gained through analysis of several direct numerical simulations. High-frequency forcing of a fully turbulent plane wake results in only a weak transient effect. On the other hand, significant changes in the developed turbulent state may result when high-frequency forcing is applied to a transitional wake. The impacts of varying the characteristics of the high-frequency forcing are examined, particularly, the streamwise wavenumber band in which forcing is applied and the initial amplitude of the forcing. The high-frequency excitation is found to increase the dissipation rate of turbulent kinetic energy, to reduce the turbulent kinetic energy production rate, and to reduce the turbulent kinetic energy suppression increases with forcing amplitude once a threshold level has been reached. For a given initial forcing energy, the largest reduction in turbulent kinetic energy density was achieved by forcing wavenumbers that are about two to three times the neutral wavenumber determined from linear stability theory.
Laser Generation and Detection of Strongly Nonlinear Elastic Surface Pulses

Very high amplitude nonlinear surface acoustic wave pulses with 20–100 ns duration and acousticMach numbers up to 0.003 were excited in fused silica by nanosecond laser pulses acting on astrongly absorbing overlayer. Absolute measurements were performed with a calibrated dual-probe-laser deﬂection setup. The formation of shock fronts during propagation and nonlinear broadeningof the wave form were observed for the ﬁrst time. Three nonlinear acoustic constants wereevaluated and compared with values resulting from previously measured third-order elastic moduli. [S0031-9007(97)03749-6]
Overcoming Antibiotic Resistance with Novel Paradigms of Antibiotic Selection

Conventional antimicrobial susceptibility tests, including phenotypic and genotypic methods, are insufficiently accurate and frequently fail to identify effective antibiotics. These methods predominantly select therapies based on the antibiotic response of only the lead bacterial pathogen within pure bacterial culture. However, this neglects the fact that, in the majority of human infections, the lead bacterial pathogens are present as a part of multispecies communities that modulate the response of these lead pathogens to antibiotics and that multiple pathogens can contribute to the infection simultaneously. This discrepancy is a major cause of the failure of antimicrobial susceptibility tests to detect antibiotics that are effective in vivo. This review article provides a comprehensive overview of the factors that are missed by conventional antimicrobial susceptibility tests and it explains how accounting for these methods can aid the development of novel diagnostic approaches.
Comparative Analysis of Tetra(2-naphthyl)tetracyano-porphyrazine and Its Iron Complex as Photosensitizers for Anticancer Photodynamic Therapy

Photodynamic therapy (PDT) is a rapidly developing modality of primary and adjuvant anticancer treatment. The main trends today are the search for new effective photodynamic agents and the creation of targeted delivery systems with the function of controlling the release of the agent in the tumor. Recently, the new group of cyanoarylporphyrazine dyes was reported, which combine the properties of photosensitizers and sensors of the local microenvironment. Such unique characteristics allow the release of the photosensitizer from the transport carrier to be assessed in real time in vivo. The aim of the present work was to compare the photophysical and photobiological properties of tetra(2-naphthyl)tetracyanoporphyrazine and its newly synthesized Fe(II) complex. We have shown that the chelation of the Fe(II) cation with the porphyrazine macrocycle leads to a decrease in molar extinction and an increase in the quantum yield of fluorescence and photostability. We demonstrate that the iron cation significantly affects the rate of dye accumulation in cells, the dark toxicity and photodynamic activity, and the direction of the changes depends on the particular cell line. However, in all the cases, the photodynamic index of a metal complex was higher than that of a metal-free base. In general, both of the compounds were found to be very promising for PDT, including for the use with transport delivery systems, and can be recommended for further in vivo studies.
The Optimized γ-Globin Lentiviral Vector GGHI-mB-3D Leads to Nearly Therapeutic HbF Levels In Vitro in CD34+ Cells from Sickle Cell Disease Patients

We have previously demonstrated that both the original γ-globin lentiviral vector (LV) GGHI and the optimized GGHI-mB-3D LV, carrying the novel regulatory elements of the 3D HPFH-1 enhancer and the 3’ β-globin UTR, can significantly increase HbF production in thalassemic CD34+ cells and ameliorate the disease phenotype in vitro. In the present study, we investigated whether the GGHI-mB-3D vector can also exhibit an equally therapeutic effect, following the transduction of sickle cell disease (SCD) CD34+ cells at MOI 100, leading to HbF increase coupled with HbS decrease, and thus, to phenotype improvement in vitro. We show that GGHI-mB-3D LV can lead to high and potentially therapeutic HbF levels, reaching a mean 2-fold increase to a mean value of VCN/cell of 1.0 and a mean transduction efficiency of 55%. Furthermore, this increase was accompanied by a significant 1.6-fold HbS decrease, a beneficial therapeutic feature for SCD. In summary, our data demonstrate the efficacy of the optimized γ-globin lentiviral vector to improve the SCD phenotype in vitro, and highlights its potential use in future clinical SCD trials.
Etch-less UV-NIL process for patterning photonic crystal structure onto OLED substrate

An etch-less ultraviolet nanoimprint lithography (UV-NIL) process is proposed for patterning a photonic crystal (PC) structure onto an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) substrate. In a conventional UV-NIL, anisotropic etching is used to remove the residual layers and to transfer the patterns onto the substrate. The proposed process does not require an etching process. In the process, a stamp with nano-scale PC patterns is pressed on the dispensed resin and UV light is then exposed to cure the resin. After tens of seconds, the stamp is separated from the patterned polymer layer on the substrate. Finally, high-refractive index material is coated onto the layer. The refractive index of the polymer should be very similar to that of glass. The enhancement of the light extraction was assessed by the three-dimensional (3D) finite difference time domain (FDTD) method. The OLED was integrated on a nanoimprinted substrate and the electro-luminance intensity was found to have increased by as much as 50% compared to a conventional device.
Intervention to Improve Menstrual Health Among Adolescent Girls Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior in Iran: A Cluster-randomized Controlled Trial

Objectives: Poor menstrual health may lead to school absenteeism and adverse health outcomes for adolescents. The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of pubertal and menstrual health education on health and preventive behaviors among Iranian secondary school girls. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of a health intervention program. A total of 578 students (including intervention and control participants) in 12 schools in Tehran Province, Iran were included by multistage random sampling. The program comprised seven 2-hour educational sessions. After confirming the reliability and validity of a researcher-made questionnaire, that questionnaire was used to collect the required data, and the groups were followed up with after 6 months. Results: After the educational intervention, the mean scores of menstrual health-related knowledge and constructs of the theory of planned behavior were significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group (p<0.001 for all dimensions). Conclusions: The results of this study emphasize the effectiveness of menstrual health interventions in schools. These findings should also encourage health policy-makers to take committed action to improve performance in schools.
A new species of Alainites (Ephemeroptera, Baetidae) from Thailand

A new species of Baetidae, Alainites siamensissp. nov., is described from Thailand. This new species is closely related to Alainites lingulatus Tong & Dudgeon, 2000, Alainites laetificus (Kang & Yang, 1994) and Alainites yixiani (Gui & Lu, 1999). Species delimitation based on morphological and molecular (mitochondrial COI sequences) evidence is provided. The discovery of this species confirms the wide distribution of Alainites Waltz & McCafferty, 1994 in Southeast Asia.
Determination of carrier lifetime and diffusion length in Al-doped 4H–SiC epilayers by time-resolved optical techniques

A series of p-type 4H–SiC epilayers with aluminium concentration ranging from 2 × 1016 to 8 × 1019 cm−3 were investigated by time-resolved optical techniques in order to determine the effect of aluminium doping on high-injection carrier lifetime at room temperature and the diffusion coefficient at different injections (from ≈3 × 1018 to ≈5 × 1019 cm−3) and temperatures (from 78 to 730 K). We find that the defect limited carrier lifetime τSRH decreases from 20 ns in the low-doped samples down to ≈0.6 ns in the heavily doped epilayers. Accordingly, the ambipolar diffusion coefficient decreases from Da = 3.5 cm2 s−1 down to ≈0.6 cm2 s−1, corresponding to the hole mobility of µh = 70 cm2 Vs−1 and 12 cm2 Vs−1, respectively. In the highly doped epilayers, the injection-induced decrease of the diffusion coefficient, due to the transition from the minority carrier diffusion to the ambipolar diffusion, provided the electron diffusion coefficient of De ≈ 3 cm2 s−1. The Al-doping resulted in the gradual decrease of the ambipolar diffusion length, from LD = 2.7 µm down to LD = 0.25 µm in the epilayers with the lowest and highest aluminium concentrations.
Shifted Popov criterion and stability analysis of fuzzy control systems

The authors derive a shifted Popov criterion, which bridges the gap between the Popov and circle criteria. This criterion is applicable to nonlinear feedback systems whose nonlinearity consists of the main term and deviation term, where the main term is time-invariant and depends only on the output of the linear part, but the deviation term is time-varying and/or depends on variables other than the output. The proof of the theorem uses a lemma obtained in the composite-system analysis as well as a special form of the positive-real lemma. To show the practical significance of the new criterion, a certain type of fuzzy control system is analyzed. <<ETX>>
Myocardial Injury in Hospitalized Patients with Myasthenia Gravis

Objective: To investigate the clinical characteristics and outcome of myocardial injury in patients with myasthenia gravis (MG). Methods: We retrospectively searched medical records to screen hospitalized patients with MG at our hospital. The troponin T (TnT) levels were deemed necessary to be performed based on the patient’s clinical symptoms and were used as biomarkers of myocardial injury. The patients’ demographic and clinical information were collected. Death was the primary outcome. Results: A total of 336 patients with MG measured TnT levels and were included in the final analysis. The male MG patients with elevated TnT levels had a higher prevalence of infection (56.8% vs. 30.0%, p = 0.001) and myasthenic crisis (37.5% vs. 13.3%, p = 0.001) than those with normal TnT levels. Meanwhile, the female MG patients with elevated TnT levels were older (56.0 (16.6) vs. 49.2 (17.2)) years old, p = 0.007] and had a higher prevalence of infection (65.4% vs. 32.1%, p < 0.001), myasthenic crisis (33.6% vs. 17.9%, p = 0.015), and thymoma (38.5% vs. 16.7%, p = 0.001) than those with normal TnT levels. Older age (coef. = 0.004; p = 0.034), infection (coef. = 0.240; p = 0.001), myasthenic crisis (coef. = 0.312; p < 0.001), thymoma (coef. = 0.228; p = 0.001), and ICI therapy (coef. = 1.220; p < 0.001) were independent risk predictors for increasing log TnT levels. Thirty-seven patients died during hospitalization. High log TnT levels (OR = 8.818; p < 0.001), female sex (OR = 0.346; p = 0.023), thymoma (OR = 5.092; p = 0.002), and infection (OR = 14.597; p < 0.001) were independent risk predictors of death. Conclusions: Our study revealed that the surveillance of myocardial injury biomarkers in MG patients might be beneficial.
A Bayesian approach to density estimation

SUMMARY Assume a priori that the log density is a sample function from a Gaussian process subject to the condition that the density integrates to one. The posterior distribution given a number of observations is then still a Gaussian process with the same condition and the same covariance function. The mean value function is changed according to a simple formula. This prior may thus be regarded as a conjugate prior for an unknown density. The mode of the posterior distribution is given implicitly by a simple formula, which can be solved numerically. The mode is a close approximation to the optimal estimate with squared error loss in the discrete case. Some examples with data are given.