Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A centralized acoustic echo canceller exploiting masking properties of the human ear

The design of a shared, centralized acoustic echo canceller (AEC) for use in modem digital communication networks faces new challenges. Specially, the performance of conventional approaches for AEC is severely degraded by vocoder nonlinearities along the transmission chain. In this paper, based on the analysis of the nonlinear echo path and the performance of the Wiener-type post-filter in the presence of vocoders, we propose a centralized AEC which incorporates a psychoacoustic post-filter. Computer experiments show that the proposed AEC is very promising for practical use in terms of high acoustic echo suppression, robust performance and ease of implementation.
A Humanlike Predictor of Facial Attractiveness

This work presents a method for estimating human facial attractiveness, based on supervised learning techniques. Numerous facial features that describe facial geometry, color and texture, combined with an average human attractiveness score for each facial image, are used to train various predictors. Facial attractiveness ratings produced by the final predictor are found to be highly correlated with human ratings, markedly improving previous machine learning achievements. Simulated psychophysical experiments with virtually manipulated images reveal preferences in the machine's judgments which are remarkably similar to those of humans. These experiments shed new light on existing theories of facial attractiveness such as the averageness, smoothness and symmetry hypotheses. It is intriguing to find that a machine trained explicitly to capture an operational performance criteria such as attractiveness rating, implicitly captures basic human psychophysical biases characterizing the perception of facial attractiveness in general.
The Effect of Interphase on the Elastic Modulus of Polymer Based Nanocomposites

The elastic modulus of interphase in polymer based nanocomposites is investigated. A new three-dimensional unit cell model has been developed for modeling three constituent phases including particle, interphase and matrix. The elastic modulus of the interphase as a function of radius is then evaluated with the help of mathematical models. The average value of interphase elastic modulus is defined and the effect of interphase thickness and particle and matrix elastic modulus on interphase is investigated.
Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in the Local Universe. III. Implications for the Field Galaxy Luminosity Function

We present a luminosity function for low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies identified in the Automatic Plate Measuring Facility survey of Impey et al. These galaxies have central surface brightnesses [μ(0)] in B in the range 22.0 ≤ μ(0) ≤ 25.0. Using standard maximum likelihood estimators, we determine that the best-fit Schechter function parameters for this luminosity function (LF) are α = -1.42, M* = -18.34, and ϕ* = 0.0036, assuming H0 = 100 h100 km s-1 Mpc-1. We compare the luminosity and number densities derived from this luminosity function with those obtained from other recent field galaxy studies and find that surveys that do not take account of the observational selection bias imposed by surface brightness are missing a substantial fraction of the galaxies in the local universe. Under our most conservative estimates, our derivation of the LF for LSB galaxies suggests that the CfA Redshift Survey has missed at least one-third of the local galaxy population. This overlooked fraction is not enough by itself to explain the large number of faint blue galaxies observed at moderate redshift under no-evolution models, but it does help to close the gap between local and moderate-redshift galaxy counts.
Efficient and Secure File Deduplication in Cloud Storage

Outsourcing to a cloud storage brings forth new challenges for the efficient utilization of computing resources as well as simultaneously maintaining privacy and security for the outsourced data. Data deduplication refers to a technique that eliminates redundant data on the storage and the network, and is considered to be one of the most-promising technologies that offers efficient resource utilization in the cloud computing. In terms of data security, however, deduplication obstructs applying encryption on the outsourced data and even causes a side channel through which information can be leaked. Achieving both efficient resource utilization and data security still remains open. This paper addresses this challenging issue and proposes a novel solution that enables data deduplication while also providing the required data security and privacy. We achieve this goal by constructing and utilizing equality predicate encryption schemes which allow to know only equivalence relations between encrypted data. We also utilize a hybrid approach for data deduplication to prevent information leakage due to the side channel. The performance and security analyses indicate that the proposed scheme is efficient to securely manage the outsourced data in the cloud computing. key words: cloud computing security, data deduplication, predicate encryption, online guessing attack
Mechanism of action of extracorporeal photochemotherapy in chronic graft‐versus‐host disease

Chronic graft‐versus‐host disease (GvHD) affects 50% of long‐term bone marrow transplant survivors and remains a cause of major long‐term morbidity in these patients despite aggressive therapy. Extracorporeal photochemotherapy (ECP), considered as an effective treatment for patients with erythrodermic cutaneous T‐cell lymphoma (CTCL), has recently been used successfully in the treatment of GvHD. One of the most intriguing aspects of ECP is its ability to induce two apparently opposite effects: activation of the immune system against neoplastic cells (as in CTCL) and downregulation of the activity of T‐cell clones in autoimmune diseases (as in systemic sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus and pemphigus vulgaris) and autoallogeneic immune responses (as in GvHD and allograft rejection). Only a better and more complete understanding of the various mechanisms involved will enable this interesting new therapy to be made more effective and selective.
The ecology of extinction: molluscan feeding and faunal turnover in the Caribbean Neogene

Molluscan faunal turnover in the Plio–Pleistocene of the tropical western Atlantic has been attributed to drops in temperature or primary productivity, but these competing hypotheses have not been assessed ecologically. To test these alternatives, we compiled data on changing molluscan life habits and trophic composition over 12 million years derived from 463 newly made collections from the southwestern Caribbean. Shelf ecosystems have altered markedly in trophic structure since the Late Pliocene. Predatory gastropods and suspension-feeding bivalves declined significantly in abundance, but not in diversity, and reef-dwellers became common. By contrast, all other ecological life habits remained remarkably stable. Food-web changes strongly support the hypothesis that declining regional nutrient supply had an increasing impact on regional macroecology, culminating in a faunal turnover.
Multi-robot, multi-rendezvous recharging paradigm: An opportunistic control strategy

This paper presents an opportunistic control approach to address the multi-robot, multi-rendezvous recharging problem. The control strategy adapted attempts to take advantages of both centralized as well as distributed methodologies while addressing the problem. Every robotic agent of the group is equipped with a decision engine that scores available rendezvous locations that are obtained via communicating with mother robot that is in-charge of recharging the robotic agents in search of energy. While such decision engine provides autonomy to individuals to finalize their corresponding choice of rendezvous locations, the central rendezvous estimation mechanism that is performed by mother robots prevents system failure that may incur due to out-of-charge agents and/or uneven distribution of agents over available recharging rendezvous locations. Properties that might be attributed to agents' decision engine are demonstrated. Simulation results and performance analysis of the proposed approach along with comparisons to alternative recharging methodologies and techniques have been presented.
Design and Control of Concrete Mixtures

This updated, definitive reference book on concrete technology covers the fundamentals and detailed information on freshly mixed and hardened concrete for Canada. The properties of concrete as needed in concrete construction are presented, including strength and durability. All concrete ingredients are reviewed for their optimal use in designing and proportioning concrete mixtures. Applicable standards from the American Society for Testing and Materials, Canadian Standards Association and American Concrete Institute are referred to extensively. Individual chapters address: (1) fundamentals of concrete; (2) Portland, blended and other hydraulic cements; (3) fly ash, slag, silica fume and natural pozzolans; (4) mixing water; (5) aggregates for concrete; (6) admixtures for concrete; (7) fibers; (8) air-entrained concrete; (9) designing and proportioning normal concrete mixtures; (10) batching, mixing, transporting and handling concrete; (11) placing and finishing concrete; (12) curing concrete; (13) hot weather concreting; (14) cold-weather concreting; (15) volume changes of concrete; (16) control tests for concrete; (17) high-performance concrete; and (18) special types of concrete.
Role of distress in delusion formation

Background Contemporary cognitive psychological theories suggest that distress plays a mediating role in delusion formation. Aims To study the amplifying role of distress from early perceptual intrusions to delusion formation. Method A general population sample of 7076 individuals was interviewed with the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI) in 1996 (baseline), 1997 (T1) and 1999 (T2). At T2, clinicians also scored the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) item ‘unusual thought content’. Analyses compared hallucinatory experiences with and without subjective distress at baseline for risk of delusion formation at follow-up. Results Individuals experiencing hallucinations with distress, compared with those without distress had a fourfold increased risk of subsequent delusion formation. Conclusions This finding corroborates the hypothesis that distress associated with early perceptual intrusions serves as a catalyst in the development of delusions.
Thioredoxin-dependent regulatory networks in chloroplasts under fluctuating light conditions

Plants have adopted a number of mechanisms to restore redox homeostasis in the chloroplast under fluctuating light conditions in nature. Chloroplast thioredoxin systems are crucial components of this redox network, mediating environmental signals to chloroplast proteins. In the reduced state, thioredoxins control the structure and function of proteins by reducing disulfide bridges in the redox active site of a protein. Subsequently, an oxidized thioredoxin is reduced by a thioredoxin reductase, the two enzymes together forming a thioredoxin system. Plant chloroplasts have versatile thioredoxin systems, including two reductases dependent on ferredoxin and NADPH as reducing power, respectively, several types of thioredoxins, and the system to deliver thiol redox signals to the thylakoid membrane and lumen. Light controls the activity of chloroplast thioredoxin systems in two ways. First, light reactions activate the thioredoxin systems via donation of electrons to oxidized ferredoxin and NADP+, and second, light induces production of reactive oxygen species in chloroplasts which deactivate the components of the thiol redox network. The diversity and partial redundancy of chloroplast thioredoxin systems enable chloroplast metabolism to rapidly respond to ever-changing environmental conditions and to raise plant fitness in natural growth conditions.
Primary psoas abscess following spontaneous vaginal delivery

for placenta previa-placenta accreta. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 177:210 – 214. Mitty HA, Sterling Km, Alvarez M et al. 1993. Obstetric haemorrhage: Prophylactic and emergent arterial catheterisation and embolotherapy. Radiology 188:183 – 187. RCOG. 2004. Report on Confidential Enquiries into Maternal deaths in the United Kingdom. (2000 – 2002 triennium). London: RCOG Press. Thomas J, Paranjothy S. 2001. Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Clinical Effectiveness Support Unit. The national sentinel caesarean section audit report, London: RCOG Press. Thorpe JM, Councell RB, Sandridge DA et al. 1992. Antepartum diagnosis of placenta praevia percreta by magnetic resonance imaging. Obstetrics and Gynecology 80:506 – 508.
Downlink SDMA for legacy IEEE 802.11a/g mobile stations: acknowledgement recovery and channel estimation

We address the problem of downlink throughput improvement for IEEE 802.11a/g systems by using a modified access point (AP) equipped with multiple antennas. The main restriction is that standard terminals should not be modified in any way. An alternating time-offset space division multiple access (SDMA) solution is proposed to overcome restrictions imposed by the legacy terminals requirement. Simulations based on the IEEE 802.11 channel models demonstrate that a near doubling of downlink capacity can be achieved in a conference room environment.
Control of ovarian follicular growth and maturation by the corpus luteum and the placenta during pregnancy in sheep.

Ovarian follicular growth and maturation and its control throughout pregnancy have not been described fully in sheep. Experiment 1 characterized the size and maturation (steroid production in vitro and aromatase activity) of ovarian follicles obtained at days 20, 50, 80 and 110 of pregnancy compared with those obtained at day 12 of the oestrous cycle. There was no difference in the number of small follicles (< 3 mm in diameter) between cyclic and pregnant ewes, regardless of the stage of pregnancy. There was a marked reduction (P < 0.01) in the number of medium follicles (3-5 mm) starting at day 80 of pregnancy. Large follicles (> 5 mm) were not detected at day 110 of pregnancy. In vitro testosterone output by follicles was constant throughout pregnancy. Oestradiol output remained steady until day 80, but decreased markedly at day 110 of pregnancy. This decrease was associated with a reduction in aromatase activity in follicles obtained at this stage. Experiment 2 examined the effect of administration of high concentrations of progesterone between day 100 and day 120 after mating on resumption of follicular growth in ewes that underwent Caesarean section at day 99 of pregnancy. In ewes that underwent Caesarean section, progesterone supplementation was successful in mimicking the profile found in pregnant ewes, but did not prevent re-initiation of follicular growth, as demonstrated by the presence of large follicles (> 5 mm) at day 120 after mating. Experiment 3 examined the effects of PGF(2alpha)-induced regression of the corpus luteum of day 100 of pregnancy on resumption of follicular growth. High concentrations of PGF(2alpha) (0.28 mg kg(-1) body weight) administrated at day 100 of pregnancy were required to initiate regression of the corpus luteum. At day 120 after mating, the mean (+/- SEM) diameter of the largest follicle in PGF(2alpha)-treated ewes (3.40 +/- 0.47 mm) was significantly greater (P < 0.05) than that in control pregnant ewes (2.52 +/- 0.34 mm). Experiment 4 examined the effect of removal of the fetus and of the corpus luteum at day 100 of pregnancy on resumption of ovulation. Removal of the corpus luteum by PGF(2alpha) treatment at the time of removal of the fetus resulted in earlier occurrence of short luteal phases (27.8 versus 40.6 days, PGF(2alpha)-treated versus non-treated) but did not alter the timing of the first normal luteal phases (41 days). In conclusion, the results from these experiments indicate that placental compounds play a major role in inhibiting follicular growth and maturation during late pregnancy in sheep.
Nominated Texture Based Cervical Cancer Classification

Accurate classification of Pap smear images becomes the challenging task in medical image processing. This can be improved in two ways. One way is by selecting suitable well defined specific features and the other is by selecting the best classifier. This paper presents a nominated texture based cervical cancer (NTCC) classification system which classifies the Pap smear images into any one of the seven classes. This can be achieved by extracting well defined texture features and selecting best classifier. Seven sets of texture features (24 features) are extracted which include relative size of nucleus and cytoplasm, dynamic range and first four moments of intensities of nucleus and cytoplasm, relative displacement of nucleus within the cytoplasm, gray level cooccurrence matrix, local binary pattern histogram, tamura features, and edge orientation histogram. Few types of support vector machine (SVM) and neural network (NN) classifiers are used for the classification. The performance of the NTCC algorithm is tested and compared to other algorithms on public image database of Herlev University Hospital, Denmark, with 917 Pap smear images. The output of SVM is found to be best for the most of the classes and better results for the remaining classes.
Ultra-fine grain FPGAs: A granularity study

In this paper, we investigate the opportunity to use ultra-fine grain logic cells to design reconfigurable circuits. We use ultra-fine grain computation cells, built with only 7 Double-Gate Carbon Nanotubes FETs, and we arrange them into regular matrices with a fixed and incomplete interconnection pattern, in order to minimize the reconfigurable interconnection overhead. We subsequently organize them into Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) suited to ultra-fine grain reconfigurability. To assess this architectural scheme in an efficient and objective manner, we propose a complete benchmarking tool flow, which enables the optimization of the specific interconnection topologies. We finally perform the evaluation with widely used circuit benchmarks, and we show that the matrices have an optimal size of 3 by 3, while the ultra-fine grain FPGA demonstrated an area saving of up to 62% with respect to the CMOS LUT FPGA counterpart.
“Evolution”: Design and Implementation of Digital Educational Material to Strengthen Computational Thinking Skills

This paper describes how an educational digital material supports the improvement of skills in the development of algorithms within math problems, which belong to a part of an operative computational thinking, in students of the subject logic programming. This paper reflects how students lack the fundamentals of math and the algorithmic thinking which is required to solve the problems established in the educational digital material. The results show that doing a reiterative challenge helps student not only to get the fundamentals of math, but also to solve the algorithms used in the educational digital material, learning from the mistakes made.
Tumor Necrosis Factor-α Promotes Survival of Opossum Kidney Cells via Cdc42-induced Phospholipase C-γ1 Activation and Actin Filament Redistribution

Although the renal proximal tubular epithelial cells are targeted in a variety of inflammatory diseases of the kidney, the signaling mechanism by which tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α exerts its effects in these cells remains unclear. Here, we report that TNF-α elicits antiapoptotic effects in opossum kidney cells and that this response is mediated via actin redistribution through a novel signaling mechanism. More specifically, we show that TNF-α prevents apoptosis by inhibiting the activity of caspase-3 and this effect depends on actin polymerization state and nuclear factor-κB activity. We also demonstrate that the signaling cascade triggered by TNF-α is governed by the phosphatidylinositol-3 kinase, Cdc42/Rac1, and phospholipase (PLC)-γ1. In this signaling cascade, Cdc42 was found to be selectively essential for PLC-γ1 activation, whereas phosphatidylinositol-3,4,5-triphosphate alone is not sufficient to activate the phospholipase. Moreover, PLC-γ1 was found to associate in vivo with the small GTPase(s). Interestingly, PLC-γ1 was observed to associate with constitutively active (CA) Cdc42V12, but not with CA Rac1V12, whereas no interaction was detected with Cdc42(T17N). The inactive Cdc42(T17N) and the PLC-γ1 inhibitor {"type":"entrez-nucleotide","attrs":{"text":"U73122","term_id":"4098075","term_text":"U73122"}}U73122 prevented actin redistribution and depolymerization, confirming that both signaling molecules are responsible for the reorganization of actin. Additionally, the actin filament stabilizer phallacidin potently blocked the nuclear translocation of nuclear factor-κB and its binding activity, resulting in abrogation of the TNF-α-induced inhibition of caspase-3. To conclude, our findings suggest that actin may play a pivotal role in the response of opossum kidney cells to TNF-α and implicate Cdc42 in directly regulating PLC-γ1 activity.
A smooth permittivity function for Poisson–Boltzmann solvation methods

This work introduces a continuous smooth permittivity function into Poisson–Boltzmann techniques for continuum approaches to modeling the solvation of small molecules and proteins. The permittivity function is derived using a Gaussian method to describe volume exclusion. The new method allows a rigorous determination of solvent forces within a grid‐based technology. The generality of approach is demonstrated by considering a range of applications for small molecules and macromolecules. We also present a very complete statistical analysis of grid errors, and show that the accuracy of our Gaussian‐based method is improved over standard techniques. The method has been implemented in a new code called ZAP, which is freely available to academic institutions. 1 © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Comput Chem 22: 608–640, 2001
Effect of Bundle Waviness on Compressive Strength and Notch Sensitivity of Non-Crimp Fabric Composites

Non-Crimp Fabrics (NCF) and vinylester resins seem to give lower compression strength data than similar prepreg-based composites. However, the lower data turned out to be not only material issue, but a problem associated with testing methodology, namely design of test fixtures and specimen configuration. Specimen geometry optimization study led to research concerning notch sensitivity of NCF. Investigations were performed testing specimens with circular center holes and symmetric sharp edge notches. In all cases reduction of compressive strength, corresponding to the net cross-section, due to introduced notches was not observed. Although NCF composites showed rather low compressive strength if compared with similar prepreg materials, they also exhibit almost complete notch insensitivity. This can be explained by irregular and uneven internal structure of NCF composite. Due to complex internal geometry NCF composite fails close to an internal defect, prior to the failure in vicinity of the notch, where stress concentration takes place.Copyright © 2002 by ASME