Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speaker normalization of static and dynamic vowel spectral features.

Two methods are described for speaker normalizing vowel spectral features: one is a multivariable linear transformation of the features and the other is a polynomial warping of the frequency scale. Both normalization algorithms minimize the mean-square error between the transformed data of each speaker and vowel target values obtained from a "typical speaker. " These normalization techniques were evaluated both for formants and a form of cepstral coefficients (DCTCs) as spectral parameters, for both static and dynamic features, and with and without fundamental frequency (F0) as an additional feature. The normalizations were tested with a series of automatic classification experiments for vowels. For all conditions, automatic vowel classification rates increased for speaker-normalized data compared to rates obtained for nonnormalized parameters. Typical classification rates for vowel test data for nonnormalized and normalized features respectively are as follows: static formants--69%/79%; formant trajectories--76%/84%; static DCTCs 75%/84%; DCTC trajectories--84%/91%. The linear transformation methods increased the classification rates slightly more than the polynomial frequency warping. The addition of F0 improved the automatic recognition results for nonnormalized vowel spectral features as much as 5.8%. However, the addition of F0 to speaker-normalized spectral features resulted in much smaller increases in automatic recognition rates.
Feline upper respiratory infections

Viral diseases. Herpesvirus 1 (rhinotracheitis; FHV-1) and calicivirus (FCV) are the most common viral causes of sneezing and nasal discharge in the cat. If oral ulcers are present, calicivirus is most likely. If corneal ulcers are present, herpesvirus 1 is most likely. FHV-1 has now also been associated with chronic stomatitis, facial dermatitis, and endogenous uveitis. Viral rhinitis with or without secondary bacterial infection can be recurrent. FHV-1 can be documented by direct fluorescent staining of conjunctival scrapings, virus isolation, or polymerase chain reaction. Since FHV-1 DNA can be detected in conjunctival cells of approximately 25% of healthy cats, the positive predictive value of these tests in diseased cats is low. Quantitative PCR may ultimately prove to correlate to the presence or absence of disease. Currently used PCR assays also detect vaccine strains of FHV-1. RT-PCR assays can be used to amplify the RNA of FCV. However, these assays have the same problems with predictive value as those to detect DNA of FHV-1.
Apprentissage automatique d’un modèle de résolution de la coréférence à partir de données orales transcrites du français : le système CROC

Cet article présente CROC 1 (Coreference Resolution for Oral Corpus), un premier système de résolution des coréférences en français reposant sur des techniques d’apprentissage automatique. Une des spécificités du système réside dans son apprentissage sur des données exclusivement orales, à savoir ANCOR (anaphore et coréférence dans les corpus oraux), le premier corpus de français oral transcrit annoté en relations anaphoriques. En l’état actuel, le système CROC nécessite un repérage préalable des mentions. Nous détaillons les choix des traits – issus du corpus ou calculés – utilisés par l’apprentissage, et nous présentons un ensemble d’expérimentations avec ces traits. Les scores obtenus sont très proches de ceux de l’état de l’art des systèmes conçus pour l’écrit. Nous concluons alors en donnant des perspectives sur la réalisation d’un système end-to-end valable à la fois pour l’oral transcrit et l’écrit.
AVALIAÇÃO DO STATUS HÍDRICO DO CAFÉ SOB EFEITO DE IRRIGAÇÃO ATRAVÉS DE ALGUMAS CARACTERÍSTICAS

RESUMO: O momento ideal para efetuar a irrigacao pode ser indicado diretamente pela planta, conseguindo desta forma resultados mais expressivos do que pelo solo. Assim, foram acompanhados de 15 em 15 dias em plantas de cafe da especie Coffea arabica cv. Catuai, com 13 anos de idade na Fazenda Muquem – FAEPE/UFLA na regiao de Lavras, Sul de Minas Gerais, durante o periodo de julho a dezembro de 1999 as 06:00h, o potencial hidrico foliar ( ψW) , e as 12:00 h alem dessa caracteristica, a resistencia estomatica e taxa de transpiracao. Com a analise estatistica, verificou-se que o ψW mostrou-se adequado para indicar o deficit hidrico da cultura, e no periodo mais quente do dia a cultura sob efeito de irrigacao proporciona uma menor resistencia estomatica e consequentemen te uma maior taxa de transpiracao do que tratamentos nao irrigados, demonstrando o bom status hidrico do cafeeiro sob irrigacao. PALAVRAS-CHAVES: Cafe, irrigacao e fisiologia vegetal
Ictal onset localization of epileptic seizures by magnetoencephalography

Objective– The aim of this study was to localize the ictal onset zone of focal epileptic seizures by magnetoencephalography (MEG) and to compare the results with interictal MEG localizations, ictal and interictal electroencephalography (EEG) results and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in epilepsy surgery candidates. Material and methods – Data of 13 patients with partial seizures during MEG recording were analysed. Measurements were performed with a Magnes II dual unit system. Results– In six of 13 cases, the ictal onset zone could be localized by MEG, with all interictal MEG findings being confirmed by ictal MEG results. In four cases, the ictal MEG localization results were corresponding to the ictal EEG localization results. In two cases, EEG yielded no comparable information. Conclusion – Ictal onset localization is feasible with MEG. Both interical and ictal MEG contribute valuable information to the presurgical assessment of epilepsy patients.
38 PHARMACOKINETICS , PHARMACODYNAMICS , AND DRUG DISPOSITION

During the last decade, the application of pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic modeling techniques has become an increasingly important aspect of contemporary clinical psychopharmacology (1–5). These techniques have been applied during the process of development of new drug entities as well as for the improved understanding of the clinical actions of drugs that are already marketed. Techniques for the study of drug metabolism in vitro have advanced substantially during the last decade, and now are an integral component of preclinical drug development and the link to subsequent clinical studies of drug metabolism and disposition. Kinetic-dynamic modeling techniques have been combined with in vitro metabolism procedures and in vitro–in vivo mathematical scaling models to provide insight into the general problem of pharmacokinetic drug interactions in clinical psychopharmacology (6–9). This chapter reviews some advances in pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and drug metabolism, along with methodologic applications to selected problems in clinical psychopharmacology.
iUpdater: Low Cost RSS Fingerprints Updating for Device-Free Localization

While most existing indoor localization techniques are device-based, many emerging applications such as intruder detection and elderly monitoring drive the needs of device-free localization, in which the target can be localized without any device attached. Among the diverse techniques, received signal strength (RSS) fingerprint-based methods are popular because of the wide availability of RSS readings in most commodity hardware. However, current fingerprint-based systems suffer from high human labor cost to update the fingerprint database and low accuracy due to the large degree of RSS variations. In this paper, we propose a fingerprint-based device-free localization system named iUpdater to significantly reduce the labor cost and increase the accuracy. We present a novel self-augmented regularized singular value decomposition (RSVD) method integrating the sparse attribute with unique properties of the fingerprint database. iUpdater is able to accurately update the whole database with RSS measurements at a small number of reference locations, thus reducing the human labor cost. Furthermore, iUpdater observes that although the RSS readings vary a lot, the RSS differences between both the neighboring locations and adjacent wireless links are relatively stable. This unique observation is applied to overcome the short-term RSS variations to improve the localization accuracy. Extensive experiments in three different environments over 3 months demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of iUpdater.
Self-reference in psychosis and depression: a language marker of illness

Background Language use is of increasing interest in the study of mental illness. Analytical approaches range from phenomenological and qualitative to formal computational quantitative methods. Practically, the approach may have utility in predicting clinical outcomes. We harnessed a real-world sample (blog entries) from groups with psychosis, strong beliefs, odd beliefs, illness, mental illness and/or social isolation to validate and extend laboratory findings about lexical differences between psychosis and control subjects. Method We describe the results of two experiments using Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count software to assess word category frequencies. In experiment 1, we compared word use in psychosis and control subjects in the laboratory (23 per group), and related results to subject symptoms. In experiment 2, we examined lexical patterns in blog entries written by people with psychosis and eight comparison groups. In addition to between-group comparisons, we used factor analysis followed by clustering to discern the contributions of strong belief, odd belief and illness identity to lexical patterns. Results Consistent with others’ work, we found that first-person pronouns, biological process words and negative emotion words were more frequent in psychosis language. We tested lexical differences between bloggers with psychosis and multiple relevant comparison groups. Clustering analysis revealed that word use frequencies did not group individuals with strong or odd beliefs, but instead grouped individuals with any illness (mental or physical). Conclusions Pairing of laboratory and real-world samples reveals that lexical markers previously identified as specific language changes in depression and psychosis are probably markers of illness in general.
Molecular Investigation of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 2 Subtype A Cases in South Korea

ABSTRACT We investigated the molecular characteristics of human immunodeficiency virus type 2 (HIV-2) subtype A isolates to clarify the transmission mode of HIV-2 within Korea. These findings indicated that the viruses from the six patients infected within Korea formed a distinct subcluster in the phylogenetic tree and might have been transmitted from one source.
Effects of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers on accumulation of aliskiren in the kidney.

I ncreased activity of the renin–angiotensin– aldosterone system (RAAS) plays an important role in the pathogenesis of chronic kidney disease (CKD) [1,2]. Inhibition of the RAAS with angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (ACEis) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) has beneficial effects in slowing the progression of renal injury. However, these agents do not always prevent end-stage renal disease (ESRD) [3]. Inhibition of renin, the first rate-limiting enzyme acting at the point of activation of the RAAS cascade, may provide different renoprotective effects than other RAAS-blocking agents [4]. Therefore, dual therapy of a renin inhibitor with an ACEi or an ARB might be beneficial in preventing ESRD. Aliskiren is the first orally active, nonpeptide, low molecular weight, direct renin inhibitor approved for the treatment of hypertension [5]. The efficacy of aliskiren on blood pressure reduction has been evaluated in animal experiments [6,7], as well as in patients with CKD [8] and diabetes [9]. The antihypertensive effect of aliskiren remains relatively long, even after treatment withdrawal [7], and is comparable or superior with that of other antihypertensive agents at recommended doses [10]. In streptozotocininduced diabetic (mRen-2)27 rats, aliskiren (10 mg/kg per day) does not reduce blood pressure as much as perindopril (0.2 mg/kg per day), but both drugs successfully reduce albuminuria and glomerulosclerosis [11]. Interestingly, aliskiren, but not perindopril, attenuates tubulointerstitial fibrosis, suggesting the significant renal tissue distribution of aliskiren [11]. Recently, we have also demonstrated that aliskiren augments antialbuminuric effects of an ARB in type 2 diabetic KKAy mice [12].
An Efficient Bottom-up Filtering of XML Messages by Exploiting the Postfix Commonality of XPath Queries

Recently, for more efficient filtering of XML data, YFilter system has been suggested to exploit the prefix commonalities that exist among path expressions. Sharing the prefix commonality gives the benefit of improving filtering performance through the tremendous reduction in filtering machine size. However, exploiting the postfix commonality can also be useful for an XML filtering situation. For example, when a stream of XML messages does not have any defined schema, or users cannot remember the defined schema exactly, users often use the partial matching path queries which begins with the descendant axis (“//”), e.g., '//science/article/title', '//entertainment/article/title', and '//title'. If so, the registered XPath queries are most likely to have the postfix commonality, e.g., the sample queries share the partial path expressions 'article/title' and 'title'. Therefore, in this paper, we introduce a bottom-up filtering approach exploiting the postfix commonality against the top-down approach of YFilter exploiting the prefix commonality. Some experimental results show that our method has better filtering performance when registered XPath queries mainly consist of the partial matching path queries with the postfix commonality.
Why Well Spread Probability Samples Are Balanced

When sampling from a finite population there is often auxiliary information available on unit level. Such information can be used to improve the estimation of the target parameter. We show that probability samples that are well spread in the auxiliary space are balanced, or approximately balanced, on the auxiliary variables. A consequence of this balancing effect is that the Horvitz-Thompson estimator will be a very good estimator for any target variable that can be well approximated by a Lipschitz continuous function of the auxiliary variables. Hence we give a theoretical motivation for use of well spread probability samples. Our conclusions imply that well spread samples, combined with the HorvitzThompson estimator, is a good strategy in a varsity of situations.
Stability enhancement of magnetic levitation ball system with two controlled electomagnets

Magnetic levitation ball system is a highly nonlinear and unstable system. If the system is linearised at the equilibrium point, the achievable balance range of the magnetically levitated ball is very short with one electromagnet. This paper presents an improved magnetic levitation ball system, that contains two electromagnets, where one electromagnet is set above the magnetic ball for pulling, and another one is set under the magnetic ball for pushing. In addition, this paper applies a 2-DOF (degree-of-freedom) PID (proportional-integral-derivative) controller instead of 1-DOF PID for the control of the two electromagnets so that they can work corporately to make the magnetic ball levitate in the air. These improvements not only increase the balance range of the ball, but also make the magnetic levitation ball system more stable. The effectiveness of the proposed system is further validated by both numerical simulations and real experiments.
Long-term Carperitide Treatment Attenuates Left Ventricular Remodeling in Rats With Heart Failure After Autoimmune Myocarditis

The effect of carperitide, recombinant human atrial natriuretic peptide, on chronic heart failure (HF) has not been clarified. We investigated the beneficial effects of chronic carperitide treatment in rats with HF after experimental autoimmune myocarditis. A 28-day infusion of carperitide (n = 14) or vehicle (n = 14) was administrated to the rats 4 weeks after experimental autoimmune myocarditis induction. After 4 weeks, the myocardial levels of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP), left ventricular function, myocyte hypertrophy, interstitial fibrosis, myocardial capillary vessel density, and activity of one prominent substrate of cGMP, vasodilator-stimulated phosphoprotein (VASP) that may enhance angiogenesis, were measured. Carperitide treatment increased the myocardial levels of cGMP and attenuated the functional severity along with a decreased myocyte cross-sectional area, interstitial fibrosis, and an increased capillary to myocyte ratio. Furthermore, carperitide treatment enhanced the phosphorylation of VASP at Ser239, which was preferentially phosphorylated by cGMP-dependent protein kinase but not Ser157, which was preferentially phosphorylated by cyclic adenosine monophosphate-dependent protein kinase. Long-term carperitide treatment attenuates ventricular remodeling and ameliorates the progression of chronic HF. The effects of carperitide treatment are associated with increased neovascularization among the residual myocytes and an increase of VASP activation.
Image enlargement using the giga-vision sensor model

Image enlargement is a typical application of image processing. Many algorithms have been proposed and have found successful applications. Most of these algorithms are based on the theory of interpolation and make use of local structure of natural images. In this paper, we propose a new algorithm which is inspired by a new imaging sensor called the giga-vision sensor. In the proposed algorithm, an image is converted to an “imaginary” sensor domain in which the size of the image is many times bigger than that of the original image. Low pass filtering and ensemble filtering are then applied to the sensor domain image to produce an enlarged image. To evaluate the quality of the enlarged image, we proposed a spectral and an information based measures. Results show that the quality of the image produced by the proposed algorithm is comparable to that of cubic-spline based interpolation.
Photocrosslinking of Polyglycidol and Its Derivative: Route to Thermoresponsive Hydrogels

Hydrogels of biologically well‐tolerated, high‐molar‐mass polyglycidol (PGl) and its thermoresponsive derivative poly(glycidol‐co‐ethyl glycidyl carbamate) have been obtained by direct UV crosslinking in the solid state. Polymers with molar masses up to 1.45 × 106 g mol−1 were crosslinked in the presence of benzophenone or (4‐benzoylbenzyl)trimethylammonium chloride as photosensitizers. The photosensitizer concentration was varied from 2 to 10 wt%. The influence of polymer composition and photosensitizer type and amount on the crosslinking efficiency, swelling and temperature behavior of the obtained hydrogels was investigated. The photocrosslinking of PGl and poly(glycidol‐co‐ethyl glycidyl carbamate) led to hydrogels with swelling degrees up to 1700%. The swelling degrees of the hydrogels decreased with the increase of the environmental temperature indicating the thermoresponsive nature of gels. The swelling of obtained gels can be controlled by varying the composition of the copolymer precursor and by the network density.
Continuous Estimation of Stress Using Physiological Signals during a Car Race

Mental stress refers to the feeling of strain and anxiety caused by internal and/or external factors. Stress may have both positive and negative influences on cognitive performance. For example, small amounts of stress may improve concentration, athletic performance, and reaction speed. However, excessive stress may harm health, and disturb concentration and motor control. Furthermore, increase in short-term stress has a considerable effect on physiological processes such as heart rate and sweating. However, to our knowledge, so far no study has estimated mental stress through continuous monitoring of physiological signals under a situation with various stressors. Therefore, it remains unclear how different physiological signals correlate with each other and how they change continuously in response to the changes in stressors. Here, we measured heart rate variability, galvanic skin response, and activity of the masseter muscle in a professional racer during a real car race. Car racing is one of the most dangerous sports, and the competition with other racers and physical discomfort during the race induce great short-term stresses. We used factor analysis to examine the relation between the three types of physiological signals, and clarified the events associated with stress (e.g., acceleration, competing car in vision, overtaking). The results showed that the heart rate variability and galvanic skin response correlated with each other, and were associated with the event of competition, which brought great mental stress. In contrast, activity of the masseter muscle did not correlate with the other two physiological signals, but was associated with the events of acceleration or deceleration, which brought great physical discomfort. We concluded that heart rate variability and galvanic skin response reflect mental stress, which is associated with an internal desire to win and is triggered by changes in the external world (e.g., the appearance of competing cars). In contrast, masseter muscle activity reflects the endurance of body discomfort, which is not linked to any internal state. Our results indicated that internal and external stressors may be dissociated from each other, and may affect different organs and physiological receptors.
More Than a Boundary Shift: Perceptual Adaptation to Foreign-Accented Speech Reshapes the Internal Structure of Phonetic Categories

The literature on perceptual learning for speech shows that listeners use lexical information to disambiguate phonetically ambiguous speech sounds and that they maintain this new mapping for later recognition of ambiguous sounds for a given talker. Evidence for this kind of perceptual reorganization has focused on phonetic category boundary shifts. Here, we asked whether listeners adjust both category boundaries and internal category structure in rapid adaptation to foreign accents. We investigated the perceptual learning of Mandarin-accented productions of word-final voiced stops in English. After exposure to a Mandarin speaker’s productions, native-English listeners’ adaptation to the talker was tested in 3 ways: a cross-modal priming task to assess spoken word recognition (Experiment 1), a category identification task to assess shifts in the phonetic boundary (Experiment 2), and a goodness rating task to assess internal category structure (Experiment 3). Following exposure, both category boundary and internal category structure were adjusted; moreover, these prelexical changes facilitated subsequent word recognition. Together, the results demonstrate that listeners’ sensitivity to acoustic–phonetic detail in the accented input promoted a dynamic, comprehensive reorganization of their perceptual response as a consequence of exposure to the accented input. We suggest that an examination of internal category structure is important for a complete account of the mechanisms of perceptual learning.
Sociotechnical Approaches to the Study of Information Systems

Through this chapter we provide an overview of the sociotechnical premise: the mutual constitution of people and technologies. The sociotechnical premise and its various approaches, including the seminal work of the Tavistock scholars, the Nordic and Scandic approaches, and their evolution, are developed as the historical basis of this work. In the chapter we also cover the role of sociological thinking, the contributions of science and technology studies and social construction/social shaping of technology, actor network theories, and contemporary approaches. The chapter concludes with a cursory review of current debates around economic sociology, multidimensional networks and advancing our current conceptualization of the digital artifact.