Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Bootstrapping a statistical speech translator from a rule-based one

We describe a series of experiments in which we start with English to French and English to Japanese versions of a rule-based speech translation system for a medical domain, and bootstrap corresponding statistical systems. Comparative evaluation reveals that the statistical systems are still slightly inferior to the rule-based ones, despite the fact that con- siderable effort has been invested in tuning both the recognition and translation components; however, a hybrid system is able to deliver a small but significant improvement in performance. In conclusion, we suggest that the hybrid architecture we describe potentially allows construction of limited-domain speech translation systems which combine substantial source-language coverage with high-precision translation.
Higher-Order Properties of Analytic Wavelets

The influence of higher-order wavelet properties on the analytic wavelet transform behavior is investigated, and wavelet functions offering advantageous performance are identified. This is accomplished through detailed investigation of the generalized Morse wavelets, a two-parameter family of exactly analytic continuous wavelets. The degree of time/frequency localization, the existence of a mapping between scale and frequency, and the bias involved in estimating properties of modulated oscillatory signals, are proposed as important considerations. Wavelet behavior is found to be strongly impacted by the degree of asymmetry of the wavelet in both the frequency and the time domain, as quantified by the third central moments. A particular subset of the generalized Morse wavelets, recognized as deriving from an inhomogeneous Airy function, emerge as having particularly desirable properties. These ldquoAiry waveletsrdquo substantially outperform the only approximately analytic Morlet wavelets for high time localization. Special cases of the generalized Morse wavelets are examined, revealing a broad range of behaviors which can be matched to the characteristics of a signal.
The Central Kentucky Prototype; an object-oriented geologic map data model for the National Geologic Map Database

2002 This report is preliminary and has not been reviewed for conformity with U.S. Geological Survey editorial standards or with the North American Stratigraphic Code. Any use of trade, product, or firm names in this publication is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Government. INTRODUCTION In the U.S. and Canada, national geologic map databases are being designed and, in prototype form, constructed. These database systems simultaneously address two basic needs: improving the efficiency of routine information handling within an agency, and promoting both traditional and non-traditional uses of geologic information within and outside the agency. In North America, for example, three major systems or initiatives exemplify this approach: 1) the Canadian Geoscience Knowledge Network (CGKN; <http://cgkn.net/>), a cooperative initiative to link the public geoscience data providers in Canada, led by the Geological Survey of Canada In 1999 and 2000, drawing on experiences from the Canadian and United States initiatives above, the authors undertook to design and build a prototype NGMDB database for central Kentucky, a state well advanced in geological mapping. This report describes the object-oriented data model upon which this prototype was founded, and briefly describes the implementation in the GE-Smallworld database environment. We believe that it is principally through such prototypes that the geoscience community will evolve to a stable set of modeling concepts and implementation approaches that effectively manage digital geologic map information. At present, however, data modeling of geologic map information is not a mature discipline. Both the data model and the database design presented here are experimental; they were built as prototypes, not formal proposals, and so lack completeness and polish by comparison to some other publicly-accessible database designs for the geosciences. On the other hand, these activities have stimulated additional, advanced data modeling beyond that described here, particularly as reported in Hastings and Brodaric (2001) and Brodaric and Hastings (2002), portions of which are excerpted here for ease of reference. In sum, this is a progress report on geological data modeling in the NGMDB generally, as well as a final report on the prototype for central Kentucky. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Each of the five authors brought different expertise and interests to this project, and it is appropriate to identify their contributions. The senior author notes that first-authorship could readily have been justified for each of his coauthors, and he expresses his thanks for their participation in this research. Jerry Weisenfluh …
EFFECT OF CONSPECIFIC AND HETEROSPECIFIC VIDEO PLAYBACK ON FOOD CONSUMPTION IN BUDGERIGARS AND BENGALESE FINCHES

Both budgerigars and Bengalese finches are small and relatively easy to care for, so they are popular pets in Japan and other countries. These avian species have been also used in laboratory experiments, often for communication studies. Many such studies have used video images of birds to measure behavioral responses in subject birds. Recent studies in budgerigars reported behavioral contagion and imitation using visual instruments (e.g., video images), while no reports have been made in Bengalese finches thus far. Here, we investigated the effects of video playback of other birds’ feeding behavior on food consumption in budgerigars and Bengalese finches. We found that feeding videos of conspecific birds facilitated feeding in budgerigars, but not in Bengalese finches, and that this facilitation was only observed with video images of conspecific birds. Our findings suggest that video images are effective for social facilitation and behavioral contagion in budgerigars but not in Bengalese finches.
Asset Bubbles without Dividends - An Experiment ∗

Bubbles in asset markets have been documented in numerous experimental studies. However, all experiments in which bubbles occur pay dividends after each trading day. In this paper we study whether bubbles can occur in markets without dividends. We investigate the role of two features that are present in real markets. (1) The mere possibility that some traders may have inside information, and (2) the option to communicate with other traders. We find that bubbles can indeed occur without dividends. Surprisingly, communication turns out to be counterproductive for bubble formation, whereas the possibility of inside information is, as expected, crucial.
Renal function and cardiovascular mortality in elderly men: the role of inflammatory, procoagulant, and endothelial biomarkers.

AIMS To assess the extent to which inflammatory, procoagulant, and endothelial biomarkers modify the relationship between diminished renal function and cardiovascular mortality. METHODS AND RESULTS Prospective study of 4029 men aged 60-79 years followed up for a mean period of 6 years, during which 304 cardiovascular deaths occurred. Predicted estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was used as a measure of renal function. Reduced eGFR was associated with increased prevalence of established cardiovascular risk factors [cardiovascular disease, diabetes, hypertension, left ventricular (LV) hypertrophy, and dyslipidaemia] and higher levels of inflammatory markers [interleukin 6 (IL-6), C-reactive protein], endothelial markers [von Willebrand factor (vWF) and tissue plasminogen activator], activated coagulation markers (fibrin D-dimer), and blood viscosity. Cardiovascular mortality risk increased with decreasing levels of eGFR, particularly among men with eGFR <60 mL/min per 1.73 m(2) even after adjustment for established risk factors (adjusted RR 1.49, 95% CI 1.10, 2.03; <60 vs. > or =70 mL/min per 1.73 m(2)). The association was attenuated after further adjustment for vWF, D-dimer, and IL-6 (adjusted RR 1.34, 95% CI 0.98-1.82). CONCLUSION Mild-to-moderate renal insufficiency is associated with significantly increased cardiovascular mortality in elderly men, which is partly explained by the increased prevalence of established risk factors, markers of coagulation, endothelium, and inflammation.
The Topic Browser An Interactive Tool for Browsing Topic Models

Topic models have been shown to reveal the semantic content in large corpora. Many individualized visualizations of topic models have been reported in the literature, showing the potential of topic models to give valuable insight into a corpus. However, good, general tools for browsing the entire output of a topic model along with the analyzed corpus have been lacking. We present an interactive tool that incorporates both prior work in displaying topic models as well as some novel ideas that greatly enhance the visualization of these models.
Simple fault ride-through capability analysis for wind power plants under different grid code requirements

The various grid codes regulating the connection of wind energy conversion systems (WECS) to the transmission network present different requirements between each other, making the evaluation of fault ride-through capability of wind turbines a time consuming repetitive task. This work presents a simplified analysis based on energy conservation principle, on system empirical data and on the power companies voltage drop profile. The method enables a preliminary evaluation of the plant stability under different grid codes and points out possible design modifications that will enable compliance with the requirements.
Hadoop Mapreduce for Remote Sensing Image Analysis

— Image processing algorithms related to remote sensing have been tested and utilized on the Hadoop MapReduce parallel platform by using an experimental 112-core high-performance cloud computing system that is situated in the Environmental Studies Center at the University of Qatar. Although there has been considerable research utilizing the Hadoop platform for image processing rather than for its original purpose of text processing, it had never been proved that Hadoop can be successfully utilized for high-volume image files. Hence, the successful utilization of Hadoop for image processing has been researched using eight different practical image processing algorithms. We extend the file approach in Hadoop to regard the whole TIFF image file as a unit by expanding the file format that Hadoop uses. Finally, we apply this to other image formats such as the JPEG, BMP, and GIF formats. Experiments have shown that the method is scalable and efficient in processing multiple large images used mostly for remote sensing applications, and the difference between the single PC runtime and the Hadoop runtime is clearly noticeable.
Inferring user activities from spatial-temporal data in mobile phones

Activity inference is a key to the development of various ubiquitous computing applications. Here, we observe that users perform several actions in their mobile phone: take photos, perform check-in, and access Wi-Fi networks. These behaviors generate spatial-temporal data that could be utilized to capture user activities. Hence, three features are extracted for activities inference: 1) geographical feature: indicating where user performs activities; 2) temporal feature: indicating when user performs activities; and 3) semantic feature: showing semantic concept of a place from location-based social networks. Here, we propose Spatial-Temporal Activity Inference Model (STAIM) to infer users' activities from aforementioned features. Experimental results show that STAIM is able to effectively infer users' activities, achieving 75% accuracy on average.
Evolution of Neural Architecture Fitting Environmental Dynamics

Temporal and sequential information is essential to any agent continually interacting with its environment. In this paper, we test whether it is possible to evolve a recurrent neural network controller to match the dynamic requirement of the task. As a benchmark, we consider a sequential navigation task where the agent has to alternately visit two rewarding sites to obtain food and water after first visiting the nest. To achieve a better fitness, the agent must select relevant sensory inputs and update its working memory to realize a non-Markovian sequential behavior in which the preceding state alone does not determine the next action. We compare the performance of a feed-forward and recurrent neural control architectures in different environment settings and analyze the neural mechanisms and environment features exploited by the agents to achieve their goal. Simulation and experimental results using the Cyber Rodent robot show that a modular architecture with a locally excitatory recur rent layer outperformed the general recurrent controller.
Mining complaints for traffic-jam estimation: A social sensor application

Physical events in the real world are known to trigger reactions and then discussions in online social media. Mining these reactions through online social sensors offers a fast and low cost way to understand what is happening in the physical world. In some cases, however, further study of the affected population's emotional state can improve this understanding. In our study we analyzed how car commuters react on Twitter while stuck in heavy traffic. We discovered that the online social footprint does not necessarily follow a strict linear correlation with the volume of a traffic jam. Through our analysis we offer a potential explanation: people's mood could be an additional factor, apart from traffic severity itself, that leads in fluctuations of the observed reaction in social media. This finding can be important for social sensing applications where external factors, like sentiment, also contribute on how humans react. We propose a novel traffic-congestion estimation model that utilizes the volume of messages and complaints in online social media, based on when they happen. We show through experimental evaluation that the proposed model can estimate, with higher accuracy, traffic jam severity and compare the results with several baselines. The model achieves at least 38% improvement of absolute error and more than 45% improvement of relative error, when compared with a baseline that assumes linear correlation between traffic and social volume. To support our findings we combined data from the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) and Twitter, for a total of 6 months, and focused on a major traffic-heavy freeway in Los Angeles, California.
Piecewise linear parameter varying mathematical model of a Hybrid Solar Vehicle

The paper presents a mathematical model for a series architecture hybrid solar vehicle, based on previous versions. A quasi piecewise linear parameter varying (qPWLPV) model was built, both in continuous and in discrete time. The advantage of the new modeling approach lies in a better handling of nonlinearities and answering model related analytical questions. Controllability and stability of the switching system was studied. The model was tested throughout open loop simulations, it can further be used for developing control strategies for energy optimization.
Virtual Engineering Teams: Strategy and Implementation

A medium-sized and distributed (16 regional offices) Norwegian engineering company (ASPLAN-VIAK) has started a transformation to exploit information and communication technology as a potential for organising knowledge work in new modes. The effort does not only challenge technology, but also organisational systems and social constructs. The paper provides a philosophical, technological and social context for a full-scale experiment, and also summmarizes some experiences.
Micro Air Vehicle: Technology Review and Design Study

This paper presents the technology review and design study now carrying-out at UTM on the micro air vehicles (MAVs). There are several existing MAVs in the market with various configurations and built for a designated function. These vehicles may carry visual, acoustic, chemical or biological sensors for such missions as traffic management, hostage situation surveillance, rescue operations and a few more. In this report, all existing technology for MAV airframes and systems was reviewed. After reviewing all the configurations, the concept of rotary wing MAV was selected for our design study. The concept was selected mainly due to its stability during manoeuvres. The components selection and system integration required for building the MAV were also discussed. The components were arranged in such a way that the centre of gravity of the MAV is located at the centreline of the body. This is to stabilise the vehicle statically and dynamically.
Learning phrase break detection in Thai text-to-speech

One of the crucial problems in developing high quality Thai text-to-speech synthesis is to detect phrase break from Thai texts. Unlike English, Thai has no word boundary delimiter and no punctuation mark at the end of a sentence. It makes the problem more serious. Because when we detect phrase break incorrectly, it is not only producing unnatural speech but also creating the wrong meaning. In this paper, we apply machine learning algorithms namely C4.5 and RIPPER in detecting phrase break. These algorithms can learn useful features for locating a phrase break position. The features which are investigated in our experiments are collocations in different window sizes and the number of syllables before and after a word in question to a phrase break position. We compare the results from C4.5 and RIPPER with a based-line method (Part-of-Speech sequence model). The experiment shows that C4.5 and RIPPER appear to outperform the basedline method and RIPPER performs better accuracy results than C4.5.
Functional and geographical differentiation of candidate balanced polymorphisms in Arabidopsis thaliana

Molecular population genetic analysis of three chromosomal regions in Arabidopsis thaliana suggested that balancing selection might operate to maintain variation at three novel candidate adaptive trait genes, including SOLUBLE STARCH SYNTHASE I (SSI), PLASTID TRANSCRIPTIONALLY ACTIVE 7(PTAC7), and BELL‐LIKE HOMEODOMAIN 10 (BLH10). If balanced polymorphisms are indeed maintained at these loci, then we would expect to observe functional variation underlying the previously detected signatures of selection. We observe multiple replacement polymorphisms within and in the 32 amino acids just upstream of the protein–protein interacting BELL domain at the BLH10 locus. While no clear protein sequence differences are found between allele types in SSI and PTAC7, these two genes show evidence for allele‐specific variation in expression levels. Geographical patterns of allelic differentiation seem consistent with population stratification in this species and a significant longitudinal cline was observed at all three candidate loci. These data support a hypothesis of balancing selection at all three candidate loci and provide a basis for more detailed functional work by identifying possible functional differences that might be selectively maintained.
The cultural mission of China’s elite universities: examples from Peking and Tsinghua

Since the late nineteenth century, China, as a latecomer to modernization, has prioritized Western learning. The first modern university was created in China in 1895 to serve such a purpose with little linkage to China’s rich indigenous cultural traditions. Modelled on European and North American experiences and operating in a Confucian socio-cultural context, Chinese universities have long been struggling with their cultural identity. In line with recent development, China’s higher education has made impressive progress, and cultural experiment has been placed increasingly highly on the agenda. With an understanding of Chinese and Western knowledges by the elites, China’s very best universities have the promise to integrate both traditions in their day-to-day operation. Such a bi-culturality, or even multi-culturality, is in stark contrast to the still largely mono-cultural university operation environment in the West. The integration would open spaces for Chinese universities to explore an alternative to Western models that have dominated world’s higher education since Western industrialization. Based on fieldwork at Peking and Tsinghua Universities in Beijing, this article reports some findings from a three-year project supported by the Hong Kong Research Grants Council. It attempts to suggest a different angle to observe China’s experience in higher education. It argues that cultural experiment would enable top Chinese universities to bring back their cultural traditions to integrate with Western values, and thus contribute to inter-civilizational dialogue.
Rolle des Endocannabinoidsystems für die Therapie von Angsterkrankungen

Zusammenfassung Das Interesse an zentralen Korrelaten von Angsterkrankungen und expositionsbasierter Therapie hat in den vergangenen Jahren Hypothesen auf einer breiten Basis von Tierexperimenten generiert. Hier wurden, vor allem in Konditionierungsexperimenten, die genetischen, biologischen und neurobiologischen Komponenten der Angstkonditionierung untersucht. Die Ergebnisse dieser Untersuchungen weisen unter anderem auf eine deutliche Modulation der Effekte durch das Endocannabinoidsystem hin, welche an gewissen Punkten beeinflussbar zu sein scheint. Auch wenn das Endocannabinoidsystem beim Menschen pharmakologischen Interventionen gut zugänglich ist, gelang es bislang nur sehr eingeschränkt, die breite Basis an Ergebnissen von Tierstudien auf die klinische Anwendung am Menschen zu übertragen. Es fehlen vor allem Erkenntnisse, ob und inwiefern das hochvolatile Endocannabinoidsystem beim Menschen tatsächlich vergleichbar zum Nagetier reagiert.
with Broadband Sampling Oscilloscope Characterization the "Nose-to-Nose" Calibration Procedure: A Theoretical and Practical Analysis

In the past the "nose-to-nose" calibration procedure has been introduced as probably the most accurate method to determine the impulse response of broadband sampling oscilloscopes like the HP54124T. The method is based on the hypothesis "sampler kick-out equals oscilloscope impulse response". This hypothesis was originally based on an intuitive approach and was later verified experimentally (comparison with power measurements) as well as with SPICE simulations. Until now, however, there was no generalized mathematical evidence supporting this basic hypothesis. In this paper a mathematical theory is developed, which starts from a generalized sampler equivalent scheme, and which shows that, under conditions which are valid in practice, the sampler kick-out indeed equals the sampler impulse response. Experimental results are reported concerning the accuracy and precision of the calibration procedure. These experiments involve the investigation of experiment repeatability, noise, sampler linearity and timebase effects. >
The binary exponentiated gradient algorithm for learning linear functions

This paper develops and analyzes a new online algorithm for learning linear functions, called the Binary Exponentiated Gradient algorithm (BEG). BEG imposes an lower and upper bound for all the weights. Using Kivinen and Warmuth’s methodology, the BEG algorithm is developed from a binary entropy distance function and the square loss function, and worst-case upper bounds on the square loss are demonstrated for BEG on arbitrary sequences of trials (instance-outcome pairs). BEG’s behavior is unusual in that in some situations its worst-case behavior is comparable to the wellknown gradient descent algorithms, e.g. WidrowHoff, while in others, it is comparable to the newer exponentiated gradient algorithms. An experiment shows when it outperforms both algorithms.