Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Objective Metric of Human Subjective Audio Quality Optimized for a Wide Range of Audio Fidelities

The goal of this paper is to develop an audio quality metric that can accurately quantify subjective quality over audio fidelities ranging from highly impaired to perceptually lossless. As one example of its utility, such a metric would allow scalable audio coding algorithms to be easily optimized over their entire operating ranges. We have found that the ITU-recommended objective quality metric, ITU-R BS.1387, does not accurately predict subjective audio quality over the wide range of fidelity levels of interest to us. In developing the desired universal metric, we use as a starting point the model output variables (MOVs) that make up BS.1387 as well as the energy equalization truncation threshold which has been found to be particularly useful for highly impaired audio. To combine these MOVs into a single quality measure that is both accurate and robust, we have developed a hybrid least-squares/minimax optimization procedure. Our test results show that the minimax-optimized metric is up to 36% lower in maximum absolute error compared to a similar metric designed using the conventional least-squares procedure.
Effect of Mycobacterium tuberculosis and its components on macrophages and the release of matrix metalloproteinases.

BACKGROUND: Pulmonary tuberculosis is associated with caseating necrosis, parenchymal lung destruction, and cavity formation. It was hypothesised that tuberculous lung destruction is mediated, at least in part, by the participation of matrix metalloproteinases released by mononuclear phagocytes. METHODS: Cells of the myelomonocytic leukaemia cell line THP-1 were incubated with lipoarabinomannan (LAM), the major antigenic cell wall component, and with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and analysed by Northern blot analysis. Two patients with active cavitary tuberculosis also underwent bronchoalveolar lavage and the cells were analysed by Northern blotting. RESULTS: Incubation of THP-1 cells with LAM resulted in the stimulated release of matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9), a 92 kDa gelatinase, by 24 hours in a dose-dependent fashion. In addition, Northern analysis revealed that LAM upregulated the gene for MMP-9 by 24 hours, but not the gene for the 72 kDa gelatinase MMP-2. Heat killed M tuberculosis H37Ra also upregulated the MMP-9 gene. Bronchoalveolar lavage of the two patients with active cavitary tuberculosis showed striking upregulation of the MMP-9 gene compared with a normal control using Northern analysis. LAM also upregulated the type I interstitial collagenase (MMP-1) gene by 24 hours in both THP-1 cells and peripheral blood monocytes. CONCLUSIONS: These data suggest that M tuberculosis and its major cell antigenic component, LAM, stimulate the release of MMP-9 and upregulate the expression of genes for MMP-1 and MMP-9. It is possible that M tuberculosis and its components contribute directly to cavity formation by their ability to stimulate macrophages to release matrix metallo-proteinases that digest collagens I-IV, and indirectly by stimulating the release of the cytokines interleukin 1 beta and tumour necrosis factor alpha that induce fibroblasts to amplify the release of matrix metalloproteinases.
Radiation tolerant mixed signal microcontroller for Martian surface applications

We are developing a radiation tolerant, mixed-signal microcontroller for applications exposed to the Martian surface thermal environment. The part can be used for spacecraft/rover engineering data collection, parameter monitoring, and fault detection at the sensor and needs minimal external support circuits. The 8-bit microcontroller includes timer resources, three serial communications ports, a 16-bit programmable digital interface, an 8-level interrupt controller, and I 2C master/slave bus interface. Mixed signal peripherals include a 16-channel, 10-bit successive approximation A/D converter, 10-bit D/A converter, programmable gain amplifier, and voltage reference. All memory interfaces use a 13-bit wide two-bit error detection, single-bit error correction code for each byte. There is an internal 512 times 13 bit scratchpad static random access memory and 2 Ki times 13 bit electrically erasable programmable read only memory
Harassment Origin for Kinematic Substructures in Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies

Instituto de Astrof´isica de Canarias, Via La´ctea s/n; 38200 La Laguna, Spain.cglez@iac.es, jalfonso@iac.es, balcells@iac.esReceived idate? / Accepted idate? Abstract. We have run high resolution N-body models simulating the encounter of a dwarf galaxy with a bright ellipticalgalaxy. The dwarf absorbs orbital angular momentum and shows counter-rotating features in the external regions of the galaxy.To explain the core-envelope kinematic decoupling observed in some dwarf galaxies in high-density environments requiresnearly head-on collisions and very little dark matter boundto the dwarf. These kinematic structures appear under rather re-strictive conditions. As a consequence, in a cluster like Virgo ∼ 1% of dwarf galaxies may present counter-rotation formed byharassment.Key words. Galaxies: dwarf– galaxies: interactions– galaxies: kinem atics and dynamics– galaxies: structure– methods: N-bodysimulations
Sparse nonnegative matrix factorization using ℓ0-constraints

Although nonnegative matrix factorization (NMF) favors a part-based and sparse representation of its input, there is no guarantee for this behavior. Several extensions to NMF have been proposed in order to introduce sparseness via the ℓ1-norm, while little work is done using the more natural sparseness measure, the ℓ0-pseudo-norm. In this work we propose two NMF algorithms with ℓ0-sparseness constraints on the bases and the coefficient matrices, respectively. We show that classic NMF [1] is a suited tool for ℓ0-sparse NMF algorithms, due to a property we call sparseness maintenance. We apply our algorithms to synthetic and real-world data and compare our results to sparse NMF [2] and nonnegative K-SVD [3].
Ultra-low leakage MTCMOS circuits with regular-Vt long channel stacked footers for deep sub-100 nm technologies

This paper demonstrates that regular-Vt long channel stacked and optimally tapered headers/footers can be used for ultra-low leakage circuits at Iow-VddS with dramatic leakage reduction over earlier schemes. Our proposed schemes take advantage of the fact that the leakage saving of two stacked OFF devices as compared to a single OFF device increase rapidly when the sub-threshold slope reduces (improves).
Mathematical Modeling of Dynamic Instability in Microtubules

Microtubules are biological polymers that have many functions in cells, such as support and structure in the cytoskeleton, providing avenues and mechanisms for intracellular transportation, and separating chromatids during cell division. Microtubule dynamic instability is an integral part of cell functioning, enabling microtubules to rapidly find and change spatial arrangements and interact with necessary biological components. Due to dynamic instability, microtubule ends switch randomly between phases of growth and depolymerization (subunits are being constantly added and removed from the ends of the various microtubules). The mechanisms of dynamic instability are not well understood, partially due to the complexity of microtubule structure. Experiments have shown that microtubules do not exhibit behavior consistent with the classical model of equilibrium polymer dynamics. Mathematical and computational models have been created to explore and better understand the phenomenon of dynamic instability. A coarse-grained stochastic model of a system of microtubules from Gregoretti et al. (JCS 2006) had previously been extended to simulate free microtubules in solution. To improve the model and make it more biologically realistic, a Monte Carlo algorithm was implemented that allows new microtubules to spontaneously form (nucleate) from the free subunits in the solution. Additional statistical output and analysis was also added to facilitate the investigation of the microtubule behavior. This enables the exploration of the effect of the ease of nucleation on the behavior of the system. The simulations will be compared with experimental results to attempt to better understand dynamic instability. The refinement of the understanding of dynamic instability has implications for the development of cancer treatments and the study of self-organized systems.
Color Gradients in Early-Type Galaxies: Dependence on Environment and Redshift

Color gradients in early-type galaxies contain valuable clues about their formation and evolutionary histories and mechanisms. We examine color gradients in 1700 early-type galaxies in 159 galaxy clusters spanning a redshift range of 0.05-0.2. We find that color gradients strongly depend on the environment where galaxies reside, with steeper color gradients in poor rather than rich clusters. No dependence of color gradients on galaxy luminosity is found in either rich or poor clusters. The difference in color gradients can be explained by a change in the internal metallicity and/or an age gradient in these galaxies. Our results support a reasonable picture whereby young early-type galaxies form in a dissipative collapse process and then undergo increased (either major or minor) merging activity in richer rather than in poor clusters.
Spitzer IRAC Observations of White Dwarfs. I. Warm Dust at Metal-Rich Degenerates

This paper presents the results of a Spitzer IRAC 3-8 μm photometric search for warm dust orbiting 17 nearby, metal-rich white dwarfs, 15 of which apparently have hydrogen-dominated atmospheres (type DAZ). G166-58, G29-38, and GD 362 manifest excess emission in their IRAC fluxes and the latter two are known to harbor dust grains warm enough to radiate detectable emission at near-infrared wavelengths as short as 2 μm. Their IRAC fluxes display differences compatible with a relatively larger amount of cooler dust at GD 362. G166-58 is presently unique in that it appears to exhibit excess flux only at wavelengths longer than about 5 μm. Evidence is presented that this mid-infrared emission is most likely associated with the white dwarf, indicating that G166-58 bears circumstellar dust no warmer than T ∼ 400 K. The remaining 14 targets reveal no reliable mid-infrared excess, indicating the majority of DAZ stars do not have warm debris disks sufficiently opaque to be detected by IRAC.
Fast NIC based RDMA implementation for adaptive unreliable networks

Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) is one of the basic communication fabrics for parallel computers. Its performance is crucial for most parallel workloads. For next generation super computers, the system usually extends to extremely large scale with millions of computation cores connected through the interconnection network. Most interconnection network features out of order packets delivery and low system-wide network reliability. Building high performance and reliable point-to-point communication over next generation interconnection network is a challenging task. Current system usually implements RDMA through two approaches: 1) the receiver side counters approach; 2) sender side sliding window approach. We see that current approach works better on reliable interconnection networks, but has obvious performance degradation over the un-reliable network. This paper proposes a new hardware approach for fast RDMA transmission, which can provide scalable performance on un-reliable network. Our approach uses a novel receiver side sliding window to support out-of-order packets delivery. Our approach proposes a new implementation of the traditional sliding window approach, which uses receiver side sliding window to efficiently retransmit partial RDMA data when part of the packets fail to reach the receiver. The experiments show that for low reliability interconnection network, our approach has scalable performance benefit over current RDMA implementations.
Thermoregulation in a Nocturnal, Tropical, Arboreal Snake

Abstract Few studies have focused on the thermal biology of tropical or nocturnal snakes. We recorded preferred body temperatures (Tb) of seven Brown Treesnakes (Boiga irregularis) in the laboratory and compared these to operative temperatures obtained with copper models and Tbs obtained by radiotelemetry from 11 free-ranging snakes on Guam. Operative temperatures on Guam did not vary across refuge types, unless the site received direct solar radiation. In a thermal gradient and on Guam, Brown Treesnakes thermoregulated around two distinct temperature ranges (21.3–24.9°C; 28.1–31.3°C). In the gradient, brown treesnakes exhibited elevated Tb into the higher range only in the evening. On Guam, snakes achieved Tbs in the high range only when direct solar radiation was available during the afternoon, a period when snakes were inactive. Higher mean Tbs on sunny days corresponded with observations of basking behavior.
Finding fountain codes for real-time data by fixed point method

We study fountain coding-like transfer method over a packet erasure channel for data with real-time requirements, such as streaming video or voice. The proposed method uses a sliding window, which defines the current section of non-expired data. The coding is systematic, with new blocks entering the window being initially sent intact, followed by a possible correction packet. Two different strategies for correction packet sending are studied. In both methods correction packets are generated in fountain-coding like fashion using bitwise XOR-operation for addition of source blocks. The correction packets are constructed so as to maximize the probability of immediately decoding useful data at the receiver's end, based on the sender's belief on the receiver's state. After sending the correction packet this belief is updated. Fixed point iteration is used to find the stationary solution in long streams. The two methods differ in the details how the window is moved and how exactly the correction packets are generated. We study the performance of proposed methods and give theoretical and simulation results for both of the used approaches.
Acute microelectrode array implantation into human neocortex: preliminary technique and histological considerations.

OBJECT Researchers at The Center for Neural Interfaces at the University of Utah have designed and produced a silicon-based high-density microelectrode array that has been used successfully in mammalian models. The authors investigate the ability to transfer array insertion techniques to humans and examine the acute response of human cortical tissue to array implantation. METHODS Six patients who were scheduled to undergo temporal lobectomy surgery were enrolled in an Institutional Review Board-approved protocol. Before the patients underwent lateral temporal cortical resection, one or two high-density microelectrode arrays were implanted in each individual by using a pneumatic insertion device. Cortical tissue was then excised and preserved in formalin. The specimens were sectioned and stained for histological examination. Pneumatic insertion of a microelectrode array into human cortex in the operating room was feasible. There were no clinical complications associated with implantation and no evidence of significant insertion-related hemorrhage. Tissue responses ranged from mild cortical deformity to small focal hemorrhages several millimeters below the electrode tines. Based on initial results, the insertion device was modified. A footplate that mechanically isolates a small area of cortex and a calibrated micromanipulator were added to improve the reproducibility of insertion. CONCLUSIONS A high-density microelectrode array designed to function as a direct cortical interface device can be implanted into human cortical tissue without acute clinical complications. Further modifications to the insertion device and array design are ongoing and future work will assess the functional significance of the tissue reactions observed.
A case of presumed acute retinal necrosis after intraocular foreign body injury

The aim of this study was to report a case of acute retinal necrosis (ARN) after intraocular foreign body removal. A 32-year-old male presented with visual loss in the left eye. He was hit by an iron fragment while he was hammering. An intraocular foreign body was found with corneal laceration and traumatic cataract. On the day he was injured, primary closure of the laceration, lensectomy, and vitrectomy were performed, and the foreign body was removed. The day after the operation, there was no sign of retinal detachment or retinitis. Two days after the operation, retinal necrosis and accompanying vitreous inflammation were noted in the far periphery. On day 3, the necrosis spread circumferentially and inflammation became more distinct. ARN was presumed and intravenous acyclovir was administered. The necrotic areas were reduced 2 days later, and were resolved in 1 month. The final visual acuity in his left eye was 20/20 after implantation of an intraocular lens. This case is the first report of ARN after penetrating injury and an intraocular foreign body. ARN may develop after open-globe injury.
Modeling multimodal integration based on colored Petri nets and feature structures

Multimodal integration is a vital technology in human-computer interaction systems. In this paper, a multimodal system's architecture is presented based on feature structures, which represent the semantic contributions of the different modalities, and multimodal integration is driven by unification of feature structures. We propose a MJHCP-net (multimodal integration-net based on hierarchical colored Petri net), which is an extension to hierarchical colored Petri net (HCPN) integrated with unification of feature structures, to model such multimodal systems. A specific multimodal system, "multimodal battle deployment editor", is used to demonstrate the modeling power of the method. Lastly, benefits and limitations of the approach are discussed.
Swarming Behavior of Multi-agent Systems *

In this paper we consider a continuous-time anisotropic swarm model in n-dimensional space with an attraction/repulsion function and study its aggregation properties. It is shown that the swarm members will aggregate and eventually form a cohesive cluster of finite size around the swarm center. Moreover, the numerical simulations show that all agents will eventually enter into and remain in a bounded region around the swarm center. The model is more general than isotropic swarms and our results provide further insight into the effect of the interaction pattern on individual motion in a swarm system.
A discourse perspective on evaluation

This paper explores issues and implications of evaluation considered from a discourse perspective. Five topics are discussed: questions, description, authority, criteria, and positioning. In each case, issues are identified that tend to be overlooked, ignored, or not visible from an evaluationas-methods perspective. The paper concludes with an appeal for increased openness and diversity in our understandings and practices of evaluation.
Centenarian Studies: Important Contributors to Our Understanding of the Aging Process and Longevity

In the course of the next 10 years, say the watchers of consumer trends, a new generation—Generation C—will emerge. Born after 1990, they are referred to as “digital natives,” now beginning to attend university and enter the workforce, they are expected to transform the world as we know it [1]. The “C” stands for “connected,” “communicating,” “content-centric,” “creative,” and “change”; however, it may just as well stand for “centenarian” as for the first time in history many of this birth cohort will live 100 years or more. The fact is that people are living longer and generally healthier lives than ever before. Mortality, and by some measures incident morbidity and disability, is being delayed considerably in today's elderly [2]. As a result, centenarians, once considered rare, are now becoming commonplace. Indeed, they are the fastest growing demographic group of the world's population, their numbers having roughly doubled every decade since 1950, and they are globally projected to more than quintuple between 2005 and 2030 [3].
A methodology for the verification of a “system on chip”

This paper summarizes the verification effort of a complex ASIC designated to be an "all in one" ISDN network router. This ASIC is unique because it actually consists of many independent components, called "cores" (including the processor). The integration of these components onto one chip results in an ISOC (Integrated System On a Chip). The complexity of verifying an ISOC is virtually impossible without a proper methodology. This paper presents the methodology developed for verifying the router. In particular, the verification method as well as the tools that were built to execute this method are presented. Finally, a summary of the verification results is given.
Study on Measurement Model of Putting People First for E-mail Login System

E-mail system has become an important platform for information exchange in Information Age. Users use e-mail login system with an obvious purpose. The main function of the realization of e-mail login system depends on the exchange of information. Synthesized the distance of information-state transition(DIT) theory and evaluation theory, this paper studied the DIT of e-mail login system in commercial websites from the perspective of putting people first, put forward the measurement model of putting people first for e-mail login system based on DIT theory. Then took using e-mail login system in Netease and Sina web as examples, comparatively analyzed the DIT from two perspectives-not putting people first and putting people first. Meanwhile, this study provide the necessary academic basics and data support for further analysis of the information management on login system in commercial websites.
Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing Urban Change Detection Based on Coherence and Intensity Characteristics of Sar Imagery

In this paper, an unsupervised change-detection approach was proposed to detect new urban areas from multi-temporal SAR images. The novelty of the proposed approach is the joint use of coherence and intensity characteristics of SAR imagery. The approach involves two main steps: (a) the extraction of difference feature containing information on changed areas, and (b) the unsupervised two-dimensional (2D) thresholding. First, two difference features based on the concepts of long-term coherence and backscattering temporal variability are extracted from a series of multi-temporal SAR images. Then, the resulting features that represent the INSAR signal temporal variability of changed areas are merged, and a 2D thresholding technique based on the maximum 2D Renyi's entropy criterion is developed to obtain the change-detection results. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is confirmed with experimental results obtained from a set of six ERS-1/2 SLC SAR images acquired in Shanghai, China.
Demand-driven curriculum for embedded system software in Korea

This paper describes how Korean Government has designed and driven the innovation of undergraduate curriculums to meet increasing industrial demand for quality IT experts in the computer-software field. The computer-software field has been categorized into five specialized areas, tracks. The embedded system software area is one among them. Educational contents (including track curriculums, detailed syllabuses, and class materials) have been designed and constructed for the tracks. First, a curriculum development methodology is described, which is used to develop curriculums in the computer-software field. Next, artifacts for the embedded software system track produced in the process are described. By applying iterative and incremental principles of the methodology, all artifacts will be continuously updated and constantly upgraded as related technologies progress rapidly.