Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature dimensionality reduction through Genetic Algorithms for faster speaker recognition

Mel-Frequency Cepstral Coefficients and their derivatives are commonly used as acoustic features for speaker recognition. Reducing the number of features leads to more robust estimates of model parameters, and speeds up the classification task, which is crucial for real-time speaker recognition applications running on low-resource devices. In this paper, a feature selection procedure based on Genetic Algorithms (GA) is presented and compared to two well-known dimensionality reduction techniques, namely PCA and LDA. Evaluation is carried out for two speech databases, containing laboratory read speech and telephone spontaneous speech, applying a standard speaker recognition system. Results suggest that dynamic features are less discriminant than static ones, since the low-size optimal subsets found by the GA did not include dynamic features. GA-based feature selection outperformed PCA and LDA when dealing with clean speech, whereas PCA and LDA outperformed GA-based feature selection for telephone speech, probably due to some kind of noise compensation implicit in linear transforms, which cannot be accomplished just by selecting a subset of features.
Broadband high power stripline compact multisection coupled-line coupler for VHF and UHF applications

In this study, a broadband stripline multisection coupled-line coupler is designed and fabricated. The coupler has 50 dB coupling in the frequency range of 30 to 1000 MHz. The coupler is designed by cascading several unit section couplers consisting of two unequal length coupled line sections connected by different length uncoupled transmission lines. The unequal length coupled line sections with different coupling coefficients introduce a degree of freedom for bandwidth improvement and can help to reduce the overall dimensions of the multisection coupler. A lumped-element compensating circuit is used in series with the coupling port of the coupler to flatten the overall coupling response of the coupler over multioctave frequency bands. The fabricated coupler is compact in size and handles up to 200 W of RF power. The flatness of the coupler depends on the frequency response of the multisection coupler and the compensating circuit. The designed coupler has maximum 1 dB ripple in the coupling response over multioctave bandwidth.
Production sources and food web structure of a temperate tidal estuary: integration of dietary and stable isotope data

Food web structure and major sources of primary production consumed by metafauna of Mad Island Marsh, a coastal saltmarsh on the NW coast of the Gulf of Mexico, were compared using stable isotopes and dietary analysis. Carbon and nitrogen isotope data were entered into a mixing model containing 5 potential production sources. Results were inconclusive due to overlapping iso- topic signatures of certain sources, but nonetheless indicated that most fishes and macroinvertebrates assimilated material derived mostly from variable mixtures of macrophytes and filamentous algae. Highest estimates of percentage of material assimilated directly or indirectly from C4 marsh grasses (ranging from 30 to 82%) were for spot Leiostomus xanthurus and Gulf killifish Fundulus grandis. Isotopic analysis could not reveal the detailed structure of predator-prey interactions at the species level; greater detail of trophic pathways was revealed by the dietary analysis. Estimates of vertical web structure (species trophic levels) by the 2 methods were largely concordant. The exceptions were 2 zooplanktivorous and detritivorous fish species and grass shrimp Palaemonetes pugio that had higher trophic levels according to nitrogen isotope ratios. For these taxa, the isotopic method more accurately indexed the number of trophic transfers than the dietary method, which depends on accurate dietary estimation for all food chain components leading to a consumer, and which assumes equal assimilation efficiencies for items found in stomach contents. The isotopic method underesti- mated trophic levels of several invertebrates, possibly due to inaccurate estimation of mean δ 15 N for production sources supporting these taxa and/or differential trophic fractionation. Together, stable isotope and dietary analyses provide a more accurate assessment of food web structure and dynam- ics of coastal marsh ecosystems than either method alone.
Technology's Role in Supporting Elementary Preservice Teachers as They Teach: An Urban STEM Afterschool Enrichment Program

This chapter describes a teacher preparation model incorporating a STEM focused, technology enhanced course and field experiences for preservice teachers. This field-based science method course supports and engages preservice teachers in creating and implementing lessons for early childhood and elementary students enrolled in an afterschool STEM Enrichment Program offered in a diverse urban elementary school. Technology is woven throughout the model, supporting preservice teachers as they build their content knowledge, and research effective practices to teach and assess their students. This model also helps to address the need to enhance STEM instruction in schools and inspire preservice teachers to engage their students in the STEM learning process. Findings from the model’s implementation indicates a positive impact on the preservice teachers’ understanding of science content and standards, on their pedagogical practices to design STEM lessons based on the revealed understandings of students’ knowledge, and on the development of their professional identities.
Clinal patterns of desiccation and starvation resistance in ancestral and invading populations of Drosophila subobscura

As invading species expand, they eventually encounter physical and biotic stressors that limit their spread. We examine latitudinal and climatic variation in physiological tolerance in one native and two invading populations of Drosophila subobscura. These flies are native to the Palearctic region, but invaded both South and North America around 1980 and spread rapidly across 15° of latitude on each continent. Invading flies rapidly evolved latitudinal clines in chromosome inversion frequencies and in wing size that parallel those of native populations in the Old World. Here we investigate whether flies on all three continents have evolved parallel clines in desiccation and starvation tolerance, such that flies in low‐latitude regions (hot, dry) might have increased stress resistance. Starvation tolerance does not vary with latitude or climate on any continent. In contrast, desiccation tolerance varies clinally with latitude on all three continents, although not in parallel. In North American and Europe, desiccation tolerance is inversely related to latitude, as expected. But in South America, desiccation tolerance increases with latitude and is greatest in relatively cool and wet areas. Differences among continents in latitudinal patterns of interspecific‐competition potentially influence clinal selection for physiological resistance, but no simple pattern is evident on these continents.
Pragmatic Collaborations: Advancing Knowledge While Controlling Opportunism

This paper starts from the observation that firms are increasingly engaging in collaborations with their suppliers, even as they are reducing the extent to which they are vertically integrated with those suppliers. This fact seems incompatible with traditional theories of the firm, which argue that integration is necessary to avoid the potential for hold-ups created when non-contractible investments are made. Our view is that pragmatist mechanisms such as benchmarking, simultaneous engineering and "root cause" error detection and correction make possible "learning by monitoring"--a relationship in which firms and their collaborators continuously improve their joint products and processes without the need for a clear division of property rights. We argue that pragmatic collaborations based on "learning by monitoring" both advance knowledge and control opportunism and thus align interests between the collaborators. Copyright 2000 by Oxford University Press.
Effects of the impurity-host interactions on the nonradiative processes in ZnS:Cr

There is a great deal of controversy about whether the behavior of an intermediate band in the gap of semiconductors is similar or not to the deep-gap levels. It can have significant consequences, for example, on the nonradiative recombination. In order to analyze the behavior of an intermediate band, we have considered the effect of the inward and outward displacements corresponding to breathing and longitudinal modes of Cr-doped ZnS and on the charge density for different processes involved in the nonradiative recombination using first-principles. This metal-doped zinc chalcogenide has a partially filled band within the host semiconductor gap. In contrast to the properties exhibited by deep-gap levels in other systems, we find small variations in the equilibrium configurations, forces, and electronic density around the Cr when the nonradiative recombination mechanisms modify the intermediate band charge. The charge density around the impurity is equilibrated in response to the perturbations in the equilibrium nuclear configuration and the charge of the intermediate band. The equilibration follows a Le Chatelier principle through the modification of the contribution from the impurity to the intermediate band and to the valence band. The intermediate band introduced by Cr in ZnS for the concentrations analyzed makes the electronic capture difficult and later multiphonon emission in the charge-transfer processes, in accordance with experimental results.
Notice of RetractionThe model of strategic software outsourcing implementation

There are some theories, and to summarize2. Outsourcing company's business and operations with particularity, is then package business, and therefore such companies then package competitive with what exactly? The most important capability that? It is necessary to study this issue. The need to: define the software outsourcing business and its access packet behavior, define what is a software outsourcing company then packages to compete? This paper received from a business ecosystem perspective competitiveness package, therefore, must have a different understanding, what is the meaning of this knowledge? Therefore, this research question actually is: software outsourcing companies how to use it to compete in the next package of business ecosystem cultivating competitiveness? Also how to promote their own business ecosystem to gain competitive advantage?
The Social Psychology of Online Collaborative Learning: The Good, the Bad, and the Awkward

Many social psychological phenomena that are found in face-to-face group work are also found in online group work (i.e., collaborative learning). In this chapter, we describe some of these more common phenomena, including social loafing, social categorization, and a variety of cognitive distortions. We also describe the stages that groups go through in order to become fully functioning teams. Because some of these experiences are unpleasant for both the instructor and the student, both faculty and students sometimes resist the use of collaborative learning. Furthermore, because of the anonymous nature of online group work, these negative experiences can be magnified. Ashcraft & Treadwell Copyright © 2008, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. We therefore make recommendations on how best to respond to and resolve them. We specifically draw on our experiences with collaborative online research and learning (CORAL) in order to demonstrate these phenomena and recommendations. CORAL is a teaching/learning method that integrates two course topics through assignments teams of students at two universities must complete together by utilizing video conferencing and other online tools.
Genetic multi-stage fuzzy PID controller with a fuzzy switch

A genetic algorithm is used to optimize the membership functions and rule bases of a multi-stage fuzzy PID controller with a fuzzy switch. The multistage controller uses the fuzzy switch to blend a proportional-plus-derivative fuzzy logic controller with an integral fuzzy logic input. The multi-stage structure operates on fuzzy values by passing the consequence of a prior stage onto the next stage as fact. The genetic algorithm is used to optimize the large number of variables across a range of inputs and operating states. A sample run of the genetic algorithm produces a controller with better rise time, overshoot and settling time than both a classical PID controller and a multi-stage fuzzy PID controller tuned by an intuitive method. The genetic algorithm designed controller is compared to the intuitive controller.
Decorrelation of user defined function invocations in queries

Queries containing user-defined functions (UDFs) are widely used, since they allow queries to be written using a mix of imperative language constructs and SQL, thereby increasing the expressive power of SQL; further, they encourage modularity, and make queries easier to understand. However, not much attention has been paid to their optimization, except for simple UDFs without imperative constructs. Queries invoking UDFs with imperative constructs are executed using iterative invocation of the UDFs, leading to poor performance, especially if the UDF contains queries. Such poor execution has been a major deterrent to the wider usage of complex UDFs. In this paper we present a novel technique to decorrelate UDFs containing imperative constructs, allowing set-oriented execution of queries that invoke UDFs. Our technique allows imperative execution to be modeled using the Apply construct used earlier to model correlated subqueries, and enables transformation rules to be applied subsequently to decorrelate (or inline) UDF bodies. Subquery decorrelation was critical to the wide use of subqueries; our work brings the same benefits to queries that invoke complex UDFs. We have applied our techniques to UDFs running on two commercial database systems, and present results showing up to orders of magnitude improvement.
Sociology Exploring The Architecture Of Everyday Life Readings

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The practicality of interference alignment with measured IEEE 802.11ac wireless channels

Interference is known to cause the performance degradation of the wireless network. To solve the interference problem, cooperative transmission scheme such as interference alignment (IA) is required. Channel state information (CSI) among IA participation nodes should be essentially obtained to implement IA. By implementing the IA prototype with obtaining the real environment CSI, we can check the performance of our developed IA algorithms and compare the IA and non-IA case.
Seasonal and biological variation of blood concentrations of total cholesterol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, hemoglobin A(1c), IgA, prolactin, and free testosterone in healthy women.

BACKGROUND Concentrations of physiological response variables fluctuate over time. The present study describes within-day and seasonal fluctuations for total cholesterol, dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate (DHEA-S), hemoglobin A(1c) (HbA(1c)), IgA, prolactin, and free testosterone in blood, and estimates within- (CV(i)) and between-subject (CV(g)) CVs for healthy women. In addition, the index of individuality, prediction intervals, and power calculations were derived. METHODS A total of 21 healthy female subjects participated in the study. Using a random effects analysis of variance, we estimated CV(g) and total within-subject variation (CV(ti)), i.e., the combined within-subject and analytical variation, from logarithmically transformed data. Analytical variation was subtracted from CV(ti) to give CV(i). CV(i) was estimated from samples taken monthly during 1 year (CV(iy)), weekly during 1 month (CV(im)), and six times within 1 day (CV(id)). RESULTS A cyclic seasonal variation was demonstrated for total cholesterol, DHEA-S, HbA(1c), prolactin, and free testosterone. Within-day variation was shown for prolactin and free testosterone. The overall mean values for the group and the variability (CV(iy) and CV(g)) were: 5.1 mmol/L, 13% [corrected], and 12% [corrected] for total cholesterol; 6.6 micromol/L, 20% [corrected], and 49% [corrected] for DHEA-S; 30% [corrected], 7.0% [corrected], and 7.5% [corrected] for HbA(1c)/hemoglobin(total); 2.1 g/L, 5.9%, and 13% for IgA; 136 mIU/L, 58% [corrected], and 63% [corrected] for prolactin; and 5.4 pmol/L, 55% [corrected], and 68% [corrected] for free testosterone. CONCLUSIONS Collecting samples at specific hours of the day or times of the year may reduce high biological variation. Alternatively, the number of individuals may be increased and a paired study design chosen to obtain adequate statistical power.
User-centered development and testing of a monitoring system that provides feedback regarding physical functioning to elderly people

Purpose To involve elderly people during the development of a mobile interface of a monitoring system that provides feedback to them regarding changes in physical functioning and to test the system in a pilot study. Methods and participants The iterative user-centered development process consisted of the following phases: (1) selection of user representatives; (2) analysis of users and their context; (3) identification of user requirements; (4) development of the interface; and (5) evaluation of the interface in the lab. Subsequently, the monitoring and feedback system was tested in a pilot study by five patients who were recruited via a geriatric outpatient clinic. Participants used a bathroom scale to monitor weight and balance, and a mobile phone to monitor physical activity on a daily basis for six weeks. Personalized feedback was provided via the interface of the mobile phone. Usability was evaluated on a scale from 1 to 7 using a modified version of the Post-Study System Usability Questionnaire (PSSUQ); higher scores indicated better usability. Interviews were conducted to gain insight into the experiences of the participants with the system. Results The developed interface uses colors, emoticons, and written and/or spoken text messages to provide daily feedback regarding (changes in) weight, balance, and physical activity. The participants rated the usability of the monitoring and feedback system with a mean score of 5.2 (standard deviation 0.90) on the modified PSSUQ. The interviews revealed that most participants liked using the system and appreciated that it signaled changes in their physical functioning. However, usability was negatively influenced by a few technical errors. Conclusion Involvement of elderly users during the development process resulted in an interface with good usability. However, the technical functioning of the monitoring system needs to be optimized before it can be used to support elderly people in their self-management.
Analyse économique des comportements face à un risque sanitaire : le cas de la pêche récréative de coquillages

Les risques lies aux consommations issues d'activite recreatives sont peu pris en compte par les pouvoirs publics. Ainsi, ceux lies a la peche de coquillages sont un cas d'etude, du fait de son poids local et de part la difficulte qu'ont rencontree les autorites a imposer une reglementation sanitaire. Ces difficultes ont montre le besoin de mieux cerner le comportement des pecheurs. La premiere partie recense les outils theoriques et methodologiques debouchant sur un modele specifique de comportements des pecheurs. Le choix d'un cadre pseudomarchand donne une forme theorique particuliere a la methode de valorisation retenue, la methode contingente des couts de deplacement. En outre, afin d'ameliorer l'analyse des attitudes face au risque, il est fait appel aux travaux de psychologues (modele HBM). Ces choix theoriques et methodologiques sont testes lors d'une etude menee sur le littoral breton. Celle-ci permet de cerner les traits sociodemographiques des pecheurs, en montrant qu'il s'agit d'une activite ciblee sur des categories populaires et d'un âge assez avance. L'etude des comportements montre que, face a des risques identifies, les pecheurs ont une attitude coherente et prudente. Pourtant, elle montre que l'exposition et le traitement des informations sur ces risques ont un impact notable sur ces comportements. Ainsi, la connaissance souvent floue des risques explique un ecart notable entre les intentions prudentes et les attitudes effectives. Ceci souligne une carence dans la gestion de ces risques, mais peut aussi reveler un phenomene singulier decrit sous le concept d'information endogene. De plus, la methode contingente des couts de deplacement a permis de calculer les benefices associes a des reductions de risque. L'absence de valeurs aberrantes et la faible part de faux-zeros plaident en faveur de cette methode. Enfin, la modelisation econometrique des CAP montre l'interet d'introduire des variables explicatives propres aux modeles psychologiques.
LIKEABLE LIKENESS: PERSONALITY, EXPERIENCE AND PREFERENCE FOR ABSTRACT AND LOW COMPLEXITY ART

This study investigated preferences towards abstract vs. realist and low vs. high complexity paintings in context of personality traits (measured with NEO PI-R Inventory), selected demographics and art experience (aesthetic interests, knowledge and preferences). 134 participants completed an online survey, rating attractiveness and artistic value of 48 paintings grouped on two continuum scales: abstractednessrealism and general complexity of the composition. Art experience and Openness to Experience positively (while Neuroticism and Conscientiousness negatively) correlated with high judgments of abstract and low complexity artworks. High Extraversion level was positively correlated with high ratings of abstract paintings. The findings support some and contradict other previous results, reflecting the need of application of stylistic dichotomy scales (rather than style differentiation) into future research.
Efficient BDD-based Fault Simulation in Presence of Unknown Values

Unknown (X) values, originating from memories, clock domain boundaries or A/D interfaces, may compromise test signatures and fault coverage. Classical logic and fault simulation algorithms are pessimistic w.r. t. the propagation of X values in the circuit. This work proposes efficient hybrid logic and stuck-at fault simulation algorithms which combine heuristics and local BDDs to increase simulation accuracy. Experimental results on benchmark and large industrial circuits show significantly increased fault coverage and low runtime. The achieved simulation precision is quantified for the first time.