Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Multimicrophone Speech Dereverberation: Experimental Validation

Dereverberation is required in various speech processing applications such as handsfree telephony and voice-controlled systems, especially when signals are applied that are recorded in a moderately or highly reverberant environment. In this paper, we compare a number of classical and more recently developed multimicrophone dereverberation algorithms, and validate the different algorithmic settings by means of two performance indices and a speech recognition system. It is found that some of the classical solutions obtain a moderate signal enhancement. More advanced subspace-based dereverberation techniques, on the other hand, fail to enhance the signals despite their high-computational load.
Balancing Self-Organizing Agile Teams : A Grounded

Self-organizing teams are one of the critical success factors on Agile projects but unfortunately little is known about the self-organizing nature of Agile teams and the challenges they face in industrial practice. Based on a Grounded Theory study of 40 Agile practitioners across 16 software development organizations in New Zealand and India, we describe how self-organizing Agile teams perform balancing acts between (a) freedom and responsibility (b) cross-functionality and specialization, and (c) continuous learning and iteration pressure, in an effort to maintain their self-organizing nature. We use our study to demonstrate the application of Grounded Theory to Software Engineering. We discuss the relationship between the balancing acts and the general principles of self-organization — requisite variety, redundancy of functions, minimum critical specification, and learning to learn — from the organizational perspective. We then discuss the balancing acts in relation to the specific conditions of self-organization — autonomy, cross-functionality, and self-transcendence — as applied in Agile software development. In doing so, we discuss the major challenges we encountered while performing Grounded Theory’s various activities, and present our strategies for overcoming these challenges.
Super's Career Stages and the Decision to Change Careers

This study examined Super's (1990) concept of recycling through the stages of adult career development in a sample of 226 Australian men and women who were approximately evenly distributed across the following four steps in the uptake of a second career: (a) contemplating a change, (b) choosing a new field, (c) implementing a change, and (d) change fully completed. A group of adults of similar age, gender, education, occupation, and career history who had no intention of switching careers was also included for comparison. Recycling predictions were supported by the finding that the three groups who were in the throes of career change displayed greater concern with Super's first (exploration) stage than the nonchanging control group. In addition, the two groups who were most intensely involved in the change process (choosing field and implementing) scored higher in exploration concern than the group whose career change was fully completed. Satisfaction also varied as a function of the participant's stage in the process of switching to a new career. Global satisfaction with the present job was highest in workers who had completed the change to a new career, but nonchangers were more satisfied than the three groups who were actively caught up in the change process. On the other hand, satisfaction with the overall pattern of career development was higher in the two stable groups (nonchangers and change-completed) than among the three groups still actively involved in making a change. Implications of these results for midlife career counseling were considered.
On the dynamics of a twisted disc immersed in a radiation field

We study the dynamics of a twisted tilted disc under the influence of an external radiation field. Assuming the effect of absorption and re-emission/scattering is that a pressure is applied to the disc surface where the local optical depth is of the order of unity, we determine the response of the vertical structure and the influence it has on the possibility of instability to warping. We derive a pair of equations describing the evolution of a small tilt as a function of radius in the small-amplitude regime that applies to both the diffusive and the bending wave regimes. We also study the non-linear vertical response of the disc numerically using an analogous one-dimensional slab model. For global warps, we find that in order for the disc vertical structure to respond as a quasi-uniform shift or tilt, as has been assumed in previous work, the product of the ratio of the external radiation momentum flux to the local disc mid-plane pressure, where it is absorbed, with the disc aspect ratio should be significantly less than unity. Namely, this quantity should be of the order of or smaller than the ratio of the disc gas density corresponding to the layer intercepting radiation to the mid-plane density, λ≪ 1. When this condition is not satisfied, the disc surface tends to adjust so that the local normal becomes perpendicular to the radiation propagation direction. In this case, dynamical quantities determined by the disc twist and warp tend to oscillate with a large characteristic period T*∼λ−1TK, where TK is some ‘typical’ orbital period of a gas element in the disc. The possibility of warping instability then becomes significantly reduced. In addition, when the vertical response is non-uniform, the possible production of shocks may lead to an important dissipation mechanism.
Power control for wireless packet voice with application to EDGE system

In this paper, using the EDGE system as an example, we apply a Kalman filter power control method based on interference tracking and prediction to packet voice services in wireless networks. Our results reveal that power control significantly improves the spectral efficiency by enabling 1/3 frequency reuse while maintaining a stringent requirement of 2% packet loss probability for a voice service. More specifically, for allocated spectrum of 1.8, 3.6 and 5.4 MHz, the 1/3 reuse with the Kalman power control can yield 102.5%, 49.5% and 32.5% improvement in spectral efficiency, respectively, over 3/9 reuse (regardless of whether or not power control is used). We also find that the Kalman method provides 20% additional spectral efficiency when compared with a traditional SIR power control method, and the former method is more robust than the latter for increased power update period. The protocol requirements for the implementation of the Kalman method in the EDGE system are also discussed.
A 3-11GHz current-reuse low noise amplifier for ultra-wideband recievers

An ultra-wideband low noise amplifier is presented in this paper. The current-reuse technique is used to get the desired results with lower power consumption. Input impedance matching of 50 Ω is provided by a common-gate through resistive feedthrough stage all-entire the 3-11GHz band of interest. Second stage is used to get a good flatness and high conversion gain. Simulation results in TSMC 180nm CMOS technology shows the input reflection coefficient below -8.2 dB, high and flat S21 of 17.74 ± 0.64 dB and also flat noise figure of 3.37 ± 0.15 dB allentire the 3-11GHz band of interest. The proposed structure draws 7.74mW power from 1.6V voltage source.
Ontology Matching Approach Based on Multi-Strategy Combined

The purpose of ontology matching is to reuse the ontologies and integrate them in different fields, so as to implement the more bigger pool of information and knowledge to the new communication and application. The achievements of (semi-)automatic ontology matching are very limited. There are many works to do in about this field. Under the background, an ontology matching approach, SGOM, is put forward. It combines several strategies and has element-level matching, as well as structure-level matching. It carries on the ontology matching by using the semantic information. Our implementation and experimental results are given to demonstrate the effectiveness of the matching approach.
Intra-jet correlations of high-pt hadrons from STAR

Systematic measurements of pseudorapidity (Δn) and azimuthal (A0) correlations between high-P t charged hadrons in √SΝΝ = 200 GeV Au+Au collisions are presented. An enhancement of correlated yield at large Δη on the near side is observed. This effect persists up to trigger p t trig ∼ 9 GeV/c, indicating that it is associated with jet production. A more detailed analysis suggests distinct short-range and long-range components in the correlation.
Toward quantifying the response of the oceans' biological pump to climate change

The biological pump makes a major global contribution to the sequestration of carbon-rich particles in the oceans’ interior. This pump has many component parts from physics to ecology that together control its efficiency in exporting particles. Hence, the influence of climate change on the functioning and magnitude of the pump is likely to be complex and non-linear. Here, I employ a published 1-D coupled surface-subsurface Particulate Organic Carbon (POC) export flux model to systematically explore the potential influence of changing oceanic conditions on each of the pump’s ‘moving parts’, in both surface and subsurface waters. These simulations were run for typical high (High Nutrient Low Chlorophyll, HNLC) and low (Low Nutrient Low Chlorophyll, LNLC) latitude sites. Next, I couple pump components that have common drivers, such as temperature, to investigate more complex scenarios involving concurrent climate-change mediated alteration of multiple ‘moving parts’ of the pump. Model simulations reveal that in the surface ocean, changes to algal community structure (i.e., a shift towards small cells) has the greatest individual influence (decreased flux) on downward POC flux in the coming decades. In subsurface waters, a shift in zooplankton community structure has the greatest single effect on POC flux (decreased) in a future ocean. More complex treatments, in which up to ten individual factors (across both surface and subsurface processes) were concurrently altered, ~ halved the POC flux at both high and low latitudes. In general climate-mediated changes to surface ocean processes had a greater effect on the magnitude of POC flux than alteration of subsurface processes, some of which negated one another. This relatively simple 1-D model provides initial insights into the most influential processes that may alter the future performance of this pump, and more importantly reveals many knowledge gaps that require urgent attention before we can accurately quantify future changes to the biological pump.
A Comparison of Business Process Modeling Methods

Business process modeling is the basis of business process management. The target of business process modeling is to get an abstract representation of the actual business processes. Although there are many business modeling methods, no well established modeling standard is available in this area. This paper reviews major business process modeling methods. Important aspects of these methods are discussed, including meta-model, graphical notation, serial representation, and tool support
Embedded biometric cryptosystem based on finger vein patterns

Cryptosystems based on biometrics authentication is a developing area in the field of modern security systems. The present paper deals with the application of finger veins pattern as an approach for user authentication and encryption key generation. The design of the optical capture system by near infrared is described. We propose an algorithm for the location of the vein intersection points and the quantification of the angles between the vein-branches, this information is used to generate a personal key that allows the user to encrypt information after the authentication is approved. A testing of identity verification, after subject enrollment process is presented. In order to demonstrate the potential of the proposed approach, an example of image encryption is developed. All processes: biometric capture, image preprocessing, key generation and image encryption are performed on the same embedded platform adding an important portability and diminishing the execution time. The results show an accuracy of 96.1% for the authentication system.
Identification of some key parameters for photoelectric laser stimulation of IC: an experimental approach

The aim of this paper is to give a phenomenological approach of PLS in order to establish and justify what is the right choice of key parameters to perform a specific analysis. In this paper, we mostly focus on medium and low laser power density range. Our approach is built from experimental studies done on different apparatus giving us a wide range of parameter choices: from power densities in GW/cm/sup 2/ to mW/cm/sup 2/ range, from continuous to ultra short pulse, from fixed position to variable slow scan. This unique opportunity, experimental results and simulation performed has contributed to extend PLS knowledge.
Effectiveness of antibiotic prophylaxis in critically ill adult patients: systematic review of randomised controlled trials

Abstract Objective: To determine whether antibiotic prophylaxis reduces respiratory tract infections and overall mortality in unselected critically ill adult patients. Design: Meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials from 1984 and 1996 that compared different forms of antibiotic prophylaxis used to reduce respiratory tract infections and mortality with aggregate data and, in a subset of trials, data from individual patients. Subjects: Unselected critically ill adult patients; 5727 patients for aggregate data meta-analysis, 4343 for confirmatory meta-analysis with data from individual patients. Main outcome measures: Respiratory tract infections and total mortality. Results: Two categories of eligible trials were defined: topical plus systemic antibiotics versus no treatment and topical preparation with or without a systemic antibiotic versus a systemic agent or placebo. Estimates from aggregate data meta-analysis of 16 trials (3361 patients) that tested combined treatment indicated a strong significant reduction in infection (odds ratio 0.35; 95% confidence interval 0.29 to 0.41) and total mortality (0.80; 0.69 to 0.93). With this treatment five and 23 patients would need to be treated to prevent one infection and one death, respectively. Similar analysis of 17 trials (2366 patients) that tested only topical antibiotics indicated a clear reduction in infection (0.56; 0.46 to 0.68) without a significant effect on total mortality (1.01; 0.84 to 1.22). Analysis of data from individual patients yielded similar results. No significant differences in treatment effect by major subgroups of patients emerged from the analyses. Conclusions: This meta-analysis of 15 years of clinical research suggests that antibiotic prophylaxis with a combination of topical and systemic drugs can reduce respiratory tract infections and overall mortality in critically ill patients. This effect is significant and worth while, and it should be considered when practice guidelines are defined. Key messages Over 40% of patients who need ventilation in intensive care develop respiratory tract infections and about 30% may die in the units If the most effective antibiotic prophylaxis (that is, a protocol combining topical and systemic antibiotics) is used the incidence of respiratory tract infections can be reduced by 65% and total mortality by 20% A regimen of topical antibiotics alone reduces respiratory tract infections but does not influence survival The concern that widespread antibiotic use may lead to resistance cannot be confirmed or ruled out by this review. Trials with different design are probably warranted to handle this question This important effect of antibiotic prophylaxis with a combination of topical and systemic antibiotics on survival should be considered by intensivists when treatment policies are designed
Hybrid systems and control with fractional dynamics (II): Control

No mixed research of hybrid and fractional-order systems into a cohesive and multifaceted whole can be found in the literature. This paper focuses on such a synergistic approach of the theories of both branches, which is believed to give additional flexibility and help the system designer. It is part II of two companion papers and focuses on fractional-order hybrid control. Specifically, two types of such techniques are reviewed, including robust control of switching systems and different strategies of reset control. Simulations and experimental results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed strategies. Part I will introduce the fundamentals of fractional-order hybrid systems, in particular, modelling and stability of two kinds of such systems, i.e., fractional-order switching and reset control systems.
Content-Adaptive Feature Selection for Classifying Class-Imbalanced Data

In multi-class text classification, ranking based feature selection usually obtains low performance when number of data in each class is highly imbalanced. The larger class has much dominant influence on the selected features and the smaller one seems to be ignored. To reduce the influence of class-imbalanced distributions, concept of separating the larger classes into several smaller subclasses according to their proximities is proposed. We analyze data in each main class by hierarchical agglomerative clustering (HAC) then statistical outlier of distances among its subclasses are used to cluster data. Without a predefined number of clusters, this method can cluster data more statisticallybalanced in each main class. Then more-balanced subclass data are used to select a feature set for text classification. Performances of this method are evaluated on SVM and Naïve Bays by classifying the RCV1v2 dataset. The experimental results show that subclasses clustered by the proposed method achieve better classification performance than main classes and equally comparable to subclasses from ground-truth.
Antitumor activity of an immunocytokine composed of an anti-GD2 antibody and the IL-15 superagonist RLI

The use of interleukin (IL)-15 or the IL-15 superagonist RLI as immunological adjuvants presents many advantages over that of IL-2, including a reduced toxicity and an improved efficacy. We have generated an immunocytokine that specifically targets RLI to a tumor-associated antigen, namely, disialoganglioside GD2. This agent displayed robust antitumor activity in 2 syngeneic murine models of malignant disease.
Analyzing quality criteria in role-based identity and access management

Roles have turned into the de facto standard for access control in enterprise identity management systems. However, as roles evolve over time, companies struggle to develop and maintain a consistent role model. Up to now, the core challenge of measuring the current quality of a role model and selecting criteria for its optimization remains unsolved. In this paper, we conduct a survey of existing role mining techniques and identify quality criteria inherently used by these approaches. This guides organizations during the selection of a role mining technique that matches their company-specific quality preferences. Moreover, our analysis aims to stimulate the research community to integrate quality metrics in future role mining approaches.
Comparison of viro-immunological marker changes between HIV-1 and HIV-2-infected patients in France

Background:HIV-2 is known to be less pathogenic than HIV-1, although the underlying mechanisms are still debated. We compared the changes over time in viro-immunological markers in HIV-1 and HIV-2-infected patients living in France during natural history and after initiation of the first combination antiretroviral therapy (CART). Method:Patients were included in the ANRS CO3 HIV-1 cohort (N = 6707) or the ANRS CO5 HIV-2 cohort (N = 572). HIV-1-infected patients were matched to HIV-2 patients according to sex, age, HIV transmission group and period of treatment initiation. Changes in markers were estimated using linear mixed models. Results:Analyses were performed for three groups of patients: those with estimated date of contamination (98 HIV-1 and 49 HIV-2-seroincident patients); untreated seroprevalent patients (320 HIV-1 and 160 HIV-2); and those initiating a first CART (59 HIV-1 and 63 HIV-2). In group 1, CD4 T-cell counts decreased less rapidly in HIV-2 than HIV-1 patients (−9 versus −49 cells/μl per year, P < 10−4). Results were similar in group 2. Baseline CD4 cell count at CART initiation was not different according to the type of infection. During the first 2 months of treatment, the CD4 cell count increased by +59 cells/μl per month (CI 34; 84) for HIV-1 and +24 (CI 6; 42) for HIV-2. The plasma viral load drop was threefold more important in HIV-1 patients: −1.56 log10/ml per month versus −0.62 among HIV-2 patients (P < 10−4). Conclusion:Differences between the two infections during natural history are similar to those previously described in Africa. Once treatment is started, response is poorer in HIV-2 than in HIV-1 patients.
Urban extraction from SAR images using local statistical characteristics and gaussian markov random field mod

As synthesis aperture radar (SAR) represents a powerful Earth observation tool for monitoring geophysical resource globally, SAR images could be used for land description and scene analysis. Actually, various applications specifically require the detection and the analysis of urban areas from original SAR images, which is a difficult task due to the speckle signal of the images and the complexity of these scenes. In this paper, an unsupervised approach to extract urban areas from SAR images has been suggested based on local statistical characteristics and texture information described by Gaussian Markov Random field (MRF) model. First, a probability map of the urban areas is computed based on local statistical characteristics, using an ffmax operator proposed by C. Gouinaud. Then the Gaussian MRF model is adopted to describe the texture of urban zones and the parameters of the model are estimated from the original image together with the probability map. Finally, the urban areas are extracted under Bayesian framework by maximum a posterior (MAP) criterion, with modeling the urban label field by Potts model. The performance of the proposed method is evaluated by experimental results on real SAR images