Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Some Relationships between Speech Production and Perception

Abstract EMG studies of the American English vowel pairs /i-ι/ and /e-ε”/ reveal two different production strategies: some speakers appear to differentiate the members of each pair primarily on the basis to tongue height; for others the basis of differentiation appears to be tongue tension. There was no obvious reflection of these differences in the speech waveforms or formant patterns of the two groups. To determine if these differences in production might correspond to differences in perception, two vowel identification tests were given to the EMG subjects. Subjects were asked to label the members of a seven-step vowel continuum, /i/ through /ι/. In one condition each item had an equal probability of occurrence. The other condition was an anchoring test; the first stimulus, /i/, was heard four times as often as any other stimulus. Compared with the equal-probability test labelling boundary, the boundary in the anchoring test was displaced toward the more frequently occurring stimulus. The magnitude of the shift of the labelling boundary was greater for subjects using a production strategy based on tongue height than for subjects using tongue tension to differentiate these vowels, suggesting that the stimuli represent adjacent categories in the speakers’ phonetic space for the former, but not for the latter, group.
Online inserting virtual characters into dynamic video scenes

The seamless integration of virtual characters into dynamic scenes captured by video is a challenging problem. In order to achieve consistent composite results, both the virtual and real characters must share the same geometrical constraints and their interactions must follow some common sense. One essential question is how to detect the motion of real objects—such as real characters moving in the video—and how to steer virtual characters accordingly to avoid unrealistic collisions. We propose an online solution. First, by analysis of the input video, the motion states of the real pedestrians are recovered into a common world 3D coordinate system. Meanwhile, a simplified accuracy measurement is defined to represent the confidence of the motion estimate. Then, under the constraints imposed by the real dynamic objects, the motion of virtual characters are accommodated by a uniform steering model. The final step is to merge virtual objects back to the real video scene by taking into account visibility and occlusion constraints between real foreground objects and virtual ones. Several examples demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed algorithm. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Enhancement of Thermal Stability of Filled Skutterudite Thermoelectric Materials through Nano-SiO2 Coating

Single-phase Ba0.3In0. 2Ni0.05Co3. 95Sb12 bulk materials were synthesized by melting and spark plasma sin- tering (SPS) methods. Ba0.3In0. 2Ni0.05Co3. 95Sb12/SiO2 nanocomposite material with nano-SiO2 coating was prepared by wet chemical coating processing. Emphases were given on the evolution of microstructure, chemical composi- tion, and thermoelectric properties of two kinds of (Ba,In) double-atom filled skutterudite based bulk materials dur- ing periodic thermal cycling 2000 times in the range of 300-723-300 K. It was found that the thermal stability of (Ba,In) double-atom filled skutterudite was remarkably improved after nano-SiO2 coated. The microstructure and chemical composition along the grain boundaries of single-phase Ba0.3In0. 2Ni0.05Co3. 95Sb12 bulk material obviously changed, while the thermal cycling had no effect on Ba0.3In0. 2Ni0.05Co3. 95Sb12/SiO2 nanocomposite. Thus the nano-SiO2 stabilized the grain boundary and prevented the elements diffusing and volatilizing from intra-grain. The ZT values of two kinds of materials were very close and kept unchanged at 300 K and 500 K during the thermal cy- cling. The ZT values of single-phase bulk materials gradually decreased at 800 K. However, the ZT values of nano- composite mainly depended on the complex changes in thermal conductivity and increased with prolonging of quenching time, then reached 1.12 at 800 K after quenching for 1800 times, which was even higher than those of
Intestinal barrier integrity and function in infants with cholestasis

Background/Aims The safety of the human body is maintained by effective monitoring of the mucosal surface integrity and protection against potentially harmful compounds. This function of the gut called intestinal barrier function can be affected by cholestasis and the absence of bile in the intestinal lumen. We aimed to determine whether the gut barrier integrity is impaired in infants with cholestasis by evaluation of the intestinal fatty acid binding proteins (I-FABP) and ileal bile acid binding protein (I-BABP) as markers of intestinal epithelial cell damage and plasma D-lactate level as a marker of gut wall permeability. Methods This case-control study included 53 infants with cholestasis and 29 controls. Serum levels of I-FABP, I-BABP, and D-lactate were measured in all subjects. Results Both groups of patients with neonatal hepatitis and biliary atresia showed significantly higher levels of I-FABP and I-BABP than the controls. There were no differences in the serum D-lactate level between the cases and controls. There was no difference between the two groups of patients (I and II) regarding any of the parameters studied. No significant correlations between serum levels of I-FABP, I-BABP, or D-lactate and total or direct bilirubin levels were found in the cholestatic infants. Conclusions The intestinal epithelial barrier integrity is breached nearly in all parts of the intestine in infants with cholestasis. Further research is recommended to determine the impact of this finding on the management of these infants. The relationship between physical intestinal barrier damage and its functional failure remains subject for further research.
Downregulated Serum 14, 15-Epoxyeicosatrienoic Acid Is Associated With Abdominal Aortic Calcification in Patients With Primary Aldosteronism

Patients with primary aldosteronism (PA) have increased risk of target-organ damage, among which vascular calcification is an important indicator of cardiovascular mortality. 14, 15-Epoxyeicosatrienoic acid (14, 15-EET) has been shown to have beneficial effects in vascular remodeling. However, whether 14, 15-EET associates with vascular calcification in PA is unknown. Thus, we aimed to investigate the association between 14, 15-EET and abdominal aortic calcification (AAC) in patients with PA. Sixty-nine patients with PA and 69 controls with essential hypertension, matched for age, sex, and blood pressure, were studied. 14, 15-Dihydroxyeicosatrienoic acid (14, 15-DHET), the inactive metabolite from 14, 15-EET, was estimated to reflect serum 14, 15-EET levels. AAC was assessed by computed tomographic scanning. Compared with matched controls, the AAC prevalence was almost 1-fold higher in patients with PA (27 [39.1%] versus 14 [20.3%]; P=0.023), accompanied by significantly higher serum 14, 15-DHET levels (7.18±4.98 versus 3.50±2.07 ng/mL; P<0.001). Plasma aldosterone concentration was positively associated with 14, 15-DHET (&bgr;=0.444; P<0.001). Multivariable logistic analysis revealed that lower 14, 15-DHET was an independent risk factor for AAC in PA (odds ratio, 1.371; 95% confidence interval, 1.145–1.640; P<0.001), especially in young patients with mild hypertension and normal body mass index. In conclusion, PA patients exibited more severe AAC, accompanied by higher serum 14, 15-DHET levels. On the contrary, decreased 14, 15-EET was significantly associated with AAC prevalence in PA patients, especially in those at low cardiovascular risk.
Multimode step-index fibers as stress/strain sensors for large structural steel and concrete systems

1 Chapter 1 Fiber Sensors: Introduction and Background 2 Optical Fibers 0 0 • 0 • • • • • • 0 0 0 0 • • 0 0 • • 0 • 0 • • • • • 0 0 • • . -. • •• 4 -Power Coupling into Optical Fibers . 0 •••••• 0 . 0 •••• 0 • • • •• 6 Fresnel Reflections and Backscattering in Fibers 0 • . ': 0 0 0 • 0 • • 0 • 0 • 0 10 OTDR Operation and Design. 0-' ••• 0 0 • 0 0 . 0 • • • • • • • • • •• 12 Optical Losses at Fiber Interfaces . 0 • • 0 0 • • • 0 0 • • • 0 • • • • • • 0 0 • 0 14 , Axial Fiber Displacement . 0 • 0 0 • • • 0 • • 0 • • 0 0 • • 0 • 0 • 0 o. 14 Angular Misalignment Losses 0 : • 0 •• 0 0 0 • 0 0 •••• 0 • 0"'0 0 •• 16 Longitudinal (End Separation) Losses . 0 0 •• 0 • • 0 0 • • • • •• 17 Chapter 2 Theory and Design ofa Longitudinal Stress/Strain Fiber Optic Sensor 0 0 • 0 •••• 0 0 •• 0 • 0 0 • 0 •• 0 ••••• 0 • 0 ••••••••• 0 •• 20 Reflection Power Loss at a Fiber Interface . 0 •••••• 0 •• '. • •• 20 Physical Design of Longitudinally Moving Fiber Strain Sensor . 0 •• o. 22 Expanded Sensor Design Modeling an Increased Number of Connectors . 0 0 • • 0 • 0 • • • • • 0 • • • 0 0 • 0 • 0 0 • • 0 0 0 • • " 23 Chapter 3 Experimental Testing and Results: . 0 •••• 0 ••• 0 •••••• 0 •• 0 27 Laboratory Set-Up and Equipment . 0 • 0 0 •••• 0 ••••• 0 •••••• o. 28 V-Groove Transmission Testing : . 0 • • • • • • • '. • • • • • 0 • • • •• 30 Experimental Set-Up and Procedures . 0 •••• 0 •• 0 •• 0 . , 30 I-Interface Reflection Testing . 0 •••• 0 •• 0 •••••••••••••• " 33 Experimental Set-Up and Procedures 0 • • •• 34 2-lnterface Reflect,ion Testing 0 0 • 0 •• 0 •• 0 •• 0 " 37 Experimental Set-Up and Procedures 0 0 0 •• 0 0 0 • • • • • •• 38 Numerical Aperture of the Sensor System 0 ••• 0 • 0 •••• 0 •••••• o' 39 Chapter 4 AnalysTs and Recommendations for Future Work . 0 0 '" • 0 •• 43 ,,' Experimental vs. Theoretical Results . 0 • 0 •••••• 0 • • • 0 • " 43 Recommendations for Future Work . 0 ••• 0 •••• 0 • : • 0 • 0 ••••• o' 45 Conclusions . 0 • • •••••'. • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 0 46 Notes . ; . 0 • 0 •••••••••••• 0 •••••• , •• 0 0 •••• , ••• , •••• 47 Appendix I ; 0 •• 0 ',. 48 Vita-. , . , . 0 •••• 0 ••• , • 0 •••••• , •••••• , 0 • , •••••• , • • •• 61
Fiber optic label-free biophotonic diagnostic tool for cardiovascular disease

A label-free compact method for performing photonic characterization of "healthy" versus "diseased" arteries has been developed. It permits the detection of atherosclerotic lesion in living mouse arteries. Using this prototype, we observed that the spectral response (photonic fingerprint, PIN) obtained from aortas of wild-type mice differs from the response of ApoE-KO mice fed with high-fat diet (an atheroprone mouse model). Benchmark of the results against gold standard was performed by staining the aortas with Oil-Red-O to visualize atherosclerotic plaques.
Prognostic value of PD –L1 expression in patients with primary solid tumors

Programmed death-ligand 1 (PD-L1) is thought to play a critical role in immune escape by cancer, but whether PD-L1 expression can influence prognosis of patients with solid tumors is controversial. Therefore, we meta-analyzed available data on whether PD-L1 expression correlates with overall survival (OS) in such patients. PubMed, EMBASE and other databases were systematically searched for cohort or case-control studies examining the possible correlation between PD-L1 expression and OS of patients with solid tumors. OS was compared between patients positive or negative for PD-L1 expression using scatter plots, and subgroup analyses were performed based on tumor type and patient characteristics. Data from 59 studies involving 20,004 patients with solid tumors were meta-analyzed. The median percentage of tumors positive for PD-L1 was 30.1%. OS was significantly lower in PD-L1-positive patients than in PD-L1-negative patients at 1 year (P = 0.039), 3 years (P < 0.001) and 5 years (P < 0.001). The risk ratios of OS (and associated 95% confidence intervals) were 2.02 (1.56-2.60) at 1 year, 1.57 (1.34-1.83) at 3 years and 1.43 (1.24-1.64) at 5 years. Similar results were obtained in subgroup analyses based on patient ethnicity or tumor type. The available evidence suggests that PD-L1 expression negatively affects the prognosis of patients with solid tumors. PD-L1 might serve as an efficient prognostic indicator in solid tumor and may represent the important new therapeutic target.
Immunolocalization of AMPA receptor subunits within the enteric nervous system of the mouse colon and the effect of their activation on spontaneous colonic contractions

The appropriate expression of specific neurotransmitter receptors within the cellular networks that compose the enteric nervous system (ENS) is central to the regulation of gastrointestinal (GI) functions. While the ENS expression patterns of the neurotransmitter glutamate have been well documented, the localization of its receptors on ENS neurons remains to be fully characterized. We investigated the expression patterns of glutamate receptor AMPA subunits within ENS neurons of the mouse colon and the consequences of their pharmacological activation on spontaneous colonic contractility.
Temperature field of mass concrete in a pipe lattice

Removing heat from mass concrete at initial construction is important for assuring the quality of the concrete after curing. It serves two main purposes, preventing the excessive stress development within the concrete when the difference between the surface and interior temperature becomes high and keeping the temperature within the concrete below a certain critical temperature or as low as possible. The control of the temperature within a mass concrete structure can be attained by various means depending on the situation. In this paper, cooling in mass concrete using a lattice of water pipes is analyzed based on the Fourier–Biot heat conduction equation. Exact solution of the temperature field within the concrete is found by integrating concrete material properties, heat generation rate due to hydration, and characteristics of the cooling process. The analytic result is applied to understand reported thermocouple readings in a large concrete footing cooled in a pipe lattice. The model is applicable for establishing technical guideline on heat removal from mass concrete. Possible ways on keeping the temperature low within the concrete are suggested for future practices.
Massive MIMO Uplink Scheme Design and System-Level Performance Analysis

The intercell interference in massive multiple-input-multiple-output uplink consists of both correlated and uncorrelated components, where the former is due to pilot contamination and the latter is usually neglected in most of the existing literature. In this paper, we show that the uncorrelated intercell interference is actually not negligible for reasonably many antennas at the base station. Hence, a novel and general uplink performance analysis framework is established to take the uncorrelated interference into account. Specifically, we investigate the tradeoff between pilot overhead and uplink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) in four uplink transmission schemes. Without cell coordination, the conventional uplink scheme and the soft pilot reuse scheme are evaluated. Compared with the former one, the soft pilot reuse scheme has higher mitigation efficiency on correlated intercell interference. However, the uncorrelated intercell interference cannot be mitigated without cell coordination. With cell coordination, we first evaluate the scheme that the pilot information can be shared via backhaul. Hence, both the correlated and uncorrelated interference can be canceled effectively. We also propose and analyze a novel pilot extension scheme in the cell coordination scenario, which could address different preferences of both cell-edge and cell-center users. In all the above four schemes, the asymptotic expressions of uplink SINR for arbitrary user are first obtained. Based on them, we derive the distribution of uplink SINR by considering the randomness of interfering users’ locations. It is shown that the analytical results match the numerical simulation tightly. Besides, both analytical and numerical results demonstrate the performance gain of the proposed scheme.
Tidal Volume and Instantaneous Respiration Rate Estimation using a Volumetric Surrogate Signal Acquired via a Smartphone Camera

Two parameters that a breathing status monitor should provide include tidal volume (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula>) and respiration rate (RR). Recently, we implemented an optical monitoring approach that tracks chest wall movements directly on a smartphone. In this paper, we explore the use of such noncontact optical monitoring to obtain a volumetric surrogate signal, via analysis of intensity changes in the video channels caused by the chest wall movements during breathing, in order to provide not only average RR but also information about <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula> and to track RR at each time instant (IRR). The algorithm, implemented on an Android smartphone, is used to analyze the video information from the smartphone's camera and provide in real time the chest movement signal from <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$N = 15$</tex-math></inline-formula> healthy volunteers, each breathing at <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula> ranging from 300 mL to 3 L. These measurements are performed separately for each volunteer. Simultaneous recording of volume signals from a spirometer is regarded as reference. A highly linear relationship between peak-to-peak amplitude of the smartphone-acquired chest movement signal and spirometer <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula> is found ( <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r^{2} = 0.951 \pm 0.042$</tex-math></inline-formula>, mean ± SD). After calibration on a subject-by-subject basis, no statistically significant bias is found in terms of <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula> estimation; the 95% limits of agreement are −0.348 to 0.376 L, and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) was <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$0.182 \pm 0.107 \,{\rm L}$</tex-math></inline-formula>. In terms of IRR estimation, a highly linear relation between smartphone estimates and the spirometer reference was found (<inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$r^{2} = 0.999 \pm 0.002$</tex-math></inline-formula>). The bias, 95% limits of agreement, and RMSE are −0.024 breaths-per-minute (bpm), −0.850 to 0.802 bpm, and 0.414 <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\pm 0.178 \,{\rm bpm}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, respectively. These promising results show the feasibility of developing an inexpensive and portable breathing monitor, which could provide information about IRR as well as <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$V_{T}$</tex-math></inline-formula>, when calibrated on an individual basis, using smartphones. Further studies are required to enable practical implementation of the proposed approach.
Twins and the mystery of missing heritability: the contribution of gene–environment interactions

Since 2006, the advent of increasingly larger genome‐wide association studies and their meta‐analyses have led to numerous, replicated findings of genetic polymorphisms associated with many diseases and traits. Early studies suggested that the identified loci generally accounted for a small fraction of the genetic variance estimated from twin and family studies. This led to the concept of ‘missing heritability’. Here, the progress in accounting for a greater proportion of the variance is reviewed. In particular, gene–environment interactions can, for some traits and in certain circumstances, explain part of this missing heritability.
Disfluency Detection on spontaneous speech using Learning Cellular Automata

Speech recognition is an efficient tool for interacting between human and machines; but the speech includes some undesirable components (disfluencies), sometimes, and is called spontaneous speech in these cases. This paper focuses on detecting some simple disfluencies in this speech type, using a Learning Cellular Automata. This is a set of cells that each is a learning automata (LA), and selects an action with a determined probability. Each LA is assigned to a word of the speech transcription sentence, and the action set for each LA includes four simple disfluencies types and "Fluent". The environment considered for interacting with cells, evaluates the action selected by each cell in every step, and sends back a response to the LA. That response will be considered for rewarding or penalizing the selected type. Because of parallel operation by the cells, and by selecting appropriate values for rewarding and penalizing coefficients, the proposed model can reach a desirable performance for tagging the disfluencies, regarding the time consumption and precision.
Towards computing the Grothendieck constant

The Grothendieck constant KG is the smallest constant such that for every d ∈ N and every matrix A = (aij), [EQUATION] where B(d) is the unit ball in Rd. Despite several efforts [15, 23], the value of the constant KG remains unknown. The Grothendieck constant KG is precisely the integrality gap of a natural SDP relaxation for the KM, N-Quadratic Programming problem. The input to this problem is a matrix A = (aij) and the objective is to maximize the quadratic form Σij aijxiyj over xiyj ∈ [−1, 1]. In this work, we apply techniques from [22] to the KM, N-Quadratic Programming problem. Using some standard but non-trivial modifications, the reduction in [22] yields the following hardness result: Assuming the Unique Games Conjecture [9], it is NP-hard to approximate the KM, N-Quadratic Programming problem to any factor better than the Grothendieck constant KG. By adapting a "bootstrapping" argument used in a proof of Grothendieck inequality [5], we are able to perform a tighter analysis than [22]. Through this careful analysis, we obtain the following new results: • An approximation algorithm for KM, N-Quadratic Programming that is guaranteed to achieve an approximation ratio arbitrarily close to the Grothendieck constant KG (optimal approximation ratio assuming the Unique Games Conjecture). • We show that the Grothendieck constant KG can be computed within an error η, in time depending only on η. Specifically, for each η, we formulate an explicit finite linear program, whose optimum is η-close to the Grothendieck constant. We also exhibit a simple family of operators on the Gaussian Hilbert space that is guaranteed to contain tight examples for the Grothendieck inequality.
Safety of sertindole versus risperidone in schizophrenia: principal results of the sertindole cohort prospective study (SCoP)

Thomas SHL, Drici MD, Hall GC, Crocq MA, Everitt B, Lader MH, Le Jeunne C, Naber D, Priori S, Sturkenboom M, Thibaut F, Peuskens J, Mittoux A, Tanghøj P, Toumi M, Moore ND, Mann RD. Safety of sertindole versus risperidone in schizophrenia: principal results of the sertindole cohort prospective study (SCoP)
A quasi-constant composition method for studying the formation of artificial caries-like lesions.

Caries-like lesions were formed in human tooth enamel in a quasi-constant composition titration system without the use of surface dissolution inhibitors or weak acids. The titration system maintained the composition of the demineralizing solution constant to within 6% on the average. Thus, the rate of lesion formation may be quantitatively assessed from the rate of titration. The system has sufficient sensitivity for measuring the rate of lesion formation in a small area, e.g., 15 mm2, of a single human enamel specimen.