Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Distributed Speech Recognition Using Auditory Modelling

The use of the Internet for accessing information has expanded dramatically over the past few years, while the availability and use of mobile hand-held devices for communication and Internet access has greatly increased in parallel. Industry has reacted to this trend for information access by developing services and applications that can be accessed by users on the move. These trends have highlighted a need for alternatives to the traditional methods of user data input, such as keypad entry, which is difficult on small form-factor mobile devices. One alternative is to make use of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems that act on speech input from the user. An ASR system has two main elements. The first element is a front-end processor that extracts parameters, or features, that represent the speech signal. These features are processed by a back-end classifier, which makes the decision as to what has been spoken.
Synergy-based learning of hybrid position/force control for redundant manipulators

Describes an intelligent control architecture designed to endow human-like capabilities to robots and report experimental results that demonstrate the utility of this architecture in controlling a redundant dynamic manipulator in a hybrid position/force control task. Motor synergies that arise when control of a subset of the available degrees of freedom is coupled and coordinated to accomplish specific task sub-goals are used to simplify the problem, of controlling redundant systems by reducing the dimensionality of the control space. Using synergies as a basis control set gives the controller the general ability to execute novel tasks in unstructured environments. In addition, the rapid learning capabilities of the controller permit refinement of control through the acquisition of skilled control with practice.
A Panel VAR Analysis of the Shadow Economy in Europe and MENA

The objective of this chapter is to analyze empirically the potential dynamics of the relationship among the size of the shadow economy, fiscal burden and the official economy. The empirical analysis is based on the size estimates of the shadow economy in 17 developed and 11 transition economies of Europe for the period 1999-2013 and in 16 economies of Middle East and North Africa for the period 1999-2007. Direction of causal relations among shadow and official economies and the fiscal burden is investigated by exploiting the panel vector auto-regression approach and the associated impulse response analysis, which directly account for the potential endogeneity of the variables of interest. Findings mostly confirm the view that shadow and official economies are substitutes, and the dynamic effects of fiscal burden on the shadow economy are not as strong and clear as expected in the regions in question.
Quantitative Investing for the Global Markets: Strategies, Tactics, and Advanced Analytical Techniques

Over the past several years, the field of international investing has been transformed by a host of new, state-of-the-art techniques. Quantitative Investing for the Global Markets is the definitive handbook for money and portfolio managers, research analysts, pension consultants, corporate treasurers, and other professionals seeking a competitive edge in the global investment marketplace. Topics include: international asset allocation; optimum diversification levels; style analysis and evaluation; market neutral strategies; global stock valuation; advanced strategies for hedging currency risk; international benchmarking; etc.
Integrins in Mechanotransduction*

Mechanical forces are crucial to the regulation of cell and tissue morphology and function. At the cellular level, forces influence cytoskeletal organization, gene expression, proliferation, and survival. Integrin-mediated adhesions are intrinsically mechanosensitive and a large body of data implicates integrins in sensing mechanical forces. We review the relationship between integrins and mechanical forces, the role of integrins in cellular responses to stretch and fluid flow, and propose that some of these events are mechanistically related.
Building organisational capability

Much has been written about the benefits to be derived from maximising organisational capability as a means of increasing competitive advantage, establishing human resource functions as a strategic partner and improving stakeholder satisfaction. However, there is very little in the research on how organisations build their organisational capability (OC). This thesis explores how developments in our understanding of strategic planning and human resource practices have contributed to a focus in organisations on building their organisational capability. The emergence of the resource-based theory of the firm, together with changes in human resource practices in job analysis, performance management and staff development has laid the foundation for organisational capability. A Model of Organisational Capability is proposed that explores how systems and processes can be aligned to maximize core organisational capability. Three research questions emerge from the literature and the Model: *How do organisations define their Strategic Intent Domain? *How can organisations define their Core OCs? *How do organisations embed their OCs into their Job Context, Organisational Systems and Knowledge Networks Enablers? These questions are explored by examining an Australian University utilising a participatory action research methodology. The study focused on how the organisation engaged senior managers to develop an organisational capability framework and agreed on a strategy to embed the capabilities in HR practice. As a result, this thesis presents a step-by-step process for organisations seeking to build their Core Organisational Capability. Practitioners wishing to maximize their organisational capability can draw on the Model of Organisational Capability, step-by-step process and contextual principles, to assist them to engage with the organisation to explore an organisational capability agenda.
Rheological properties of antibody‐coated red cells

In vivo and in vitro antibody‐coated nonspherocytic red cells have normal deformability in iso‐osmolar media, and their isolated membranes have normal mechanical stability as measured in the ektacytometer, a laser visco‐diffractometer. The deformability of red cells from patients with hemolytic anemia was proportionately reduced with the degree of spherocytosis irrespective of whether the direct antiglobulin test was positive. However, when antibody‐sensitized nonspherocytic cells were suspended in hyperosmolar media and exposed to constant shear stress in the ektacytometer, they showed reduction of their deformability index in the presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP; 360,000 Daltons) but not dextran. This reduction was not due to alterations in cell water or cation content. Also, when incubated at 37 degrees C, sensitized red cells reacted specifically with PVP, and underwent a decrease in cell deformability. This appears to be the result of changes either in red cell membrane rigidity or membrane viscosity. The PVP effect was reproducible, time‐ and temperature‐ dependent, and predicted reliably the Rh phenotype. These observations were used to develop a novel approach to the antiglobulin test in the blood bank.
[Survey of pharmacology of oleanolic acid].

OBJECTIVE To summarize the pharmacological function of oleanolic acid. METHOD Based on the documents and related achievements, the pharmacological function and its mechanism including its clinical use were summed up. RESULT AND CONCLUSION Oleanolic Acid is a natural chemical which has wide-ranging function and abundant source. But we should place the emphasis on improving its biotic utilization and effect on clinical treatment.
Work Analysis Methods in Practice: The Context of Collaborative Review of CAD Models

Human work interaction design is an emerging discipline that aims to encourage empirical studies and conceptualizations of the interaction among humans, their variegated social contexts and the technology they use both within and across these contexts. In this paper the authors present a virtual reality system for visualization, navigation and reviewing of 3D CAD models within the oil industry domain. This system combines a large-screen interaction environment with remote mobile devices, thus allowing engineers in the field and teams in a control center to work in collaboration. To navigate through models the system uses the mobile device’s camera and inertial sensors and takes advantage of recent natural interaction techniques on large-screen environments. The authors describe and elaborate around the usage of different work analysis methods in this complex, real world work domain. The analysis is based on (i) input from experts in the oil platform engineering field, (ii) previous and related work and (iii) application of different methods considering the recent advances in technology. The authors conclude that hierarchical task analysis was not effective in obtaining a clear, common vision about the work domain. Storyboarding was the most useful technique as it promoted the discovery of novelty factors that differentiate the solution, while simultaneously supporting the human work at offshore engineering design and review sessions.
Employment Protection and Product Market Regulation

Product market regulation and employment protection are highly correlated across OECD countries. Using an augmented model of monopolistic competition we show why in countries with more regulated product markets, incumbent workers prefer to protect jobs relatively more. Product market regulation increases the scope for employment protection because firms can bear the cost of employment protection more easily and still break even. Moreover, product market regulation decreases employment so that the workers' outside option becomes relatively worse. This increases the incentive to protect the job.
Pheomelanogenesis is promoted at a weakly acidic pH

The diversity of pigmentation in the skin, hair, and eyes of humans has been largely attributed to the diversity of pH in melanosomes with an acidic pH being proposed to suppress melanin production, especially eumelanogenesis. We previously showed that an acidic pH greatly suppresses the late stage of eumelanogenesis after the dopachrome stage. The oxidation of tyrosine by tyrosinase in the presence of cysteine forms cysteinyldopa isomers, which are further oxidized to give rise to pheomelanin via benzothiazine intermediates. However, how those steps are controlled by pH has not been characterized. We therefore examined whether pheomelanin synthesis is chemically promoted at an acidic pH. We found that pheomelanin production either from dopa or tyrosine in the presence of cysteine by tyrosinase was greatest at pH values of 5.8–6.3, while eumelanin production was suppressed at pH 5.8. This suggests that mixed melanogenesis is chemically shifted to more pheomelanic states at a weakly acidic pH.
Increased fecal neutral sterol loss upon liver X receptor activation is independent of biliary sterol secretion in mice.

BACKGROUND & AIMS Reverse cholesterol transport (RCT) is defined as high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-mediated flux of excess cholesterol from peripheral cells to liver, followed by secretion into bile and disposal via the feces. Various steps of this pathway are controlled by the liver X receptor (LXR). We addressed the role of the intestine in LXR-dependent stimulation of fecal cholesterol excretion. METHODS To segregate biliary from intestine-derived cholesterol, wild-type and Mdr2 P-glycoprotein-deficient mice ( Mdr2 -/- ), which are unable to secrete cholesterol into bile, were treated with the LXR agonist GW3965. RESULTS Treatment with GW3965 increased biliary cholesterol secretion by 74% in wild-type mice but had no effect in Mdr2 -/- mice. LXR activation increased fecal neutral sterol excretion 2.1-fold in wild-type mice. Surprisingly, an identical increase was observed in Mdr2 -/- mice. Fractional cholesterol absorption was reduced on LXR activation in both strains but was more pronounced in Mdr2 -/- mice, coinciding with reduced Npc111 expression. Intestinal gene expression of ATP-binding cassette transporters (Abc) Abca1 , Abcg1 , Abcg5 , and Abcg8 was strongly induced upon LXR activation in both strains, whereas expression of HMGCoA reductase , controlling cholesterol synthesis, remained unaffected. Additionally, LXR activation stimulated the excretion of plasma-derived [ 3 H]cholesterol into the fecal neutral sterol fraction in Mdr2 -/- mice. CONCLUSIONS Increased fecal cholesterol loss upon LXR activation is independent of biliary cholesterol secretion in mice. An important part of excess cholesterol is excreted directly via the intestine, supporting the existence of an alternative, quantitatively important route for cholesterol disposal.
How Do Patients Perceive Electronic Documentation at the Bedside?

&NA; Electronic patient records provide an opportunity for real‐time access to patient information at the bedside, which has the potential to improve healthcare quality because it would increase efficiency and facilitate best practice. Patients in this study reported that portable computers used at the bedside did not affect the clinician‐patient relationship. Many patients thought that the technology was a valuable tool and that it could foster an efficient hospital atmosphere and promote reliable and accurate medical documentation.
BPDL: A Data Model for Grid Resource Broker Capabilities

Since the management and the optimal utilization of the highly dynamic grid resources cannot be handled by the users themselves, various grid Resource Brokers have been developed, supporting different grids. To ease interoperability and the higher level utilization of different resource brokers, we introduce a meta-data model for storing broker capabilities and show how an implementation of this model can be realized. We believe that this abstraction will help standardizing inter-broker communication to enable more efcient grid resource utilization.
Power Management Strategies for Islanded Microgrids

The focus of this thesis is on developing power management strategies for islanded microgrids. The main objectives of the developed control strategies and the considered sources that define the scope of this work are classified based on the microgrid hierarchal control structure. This control structure subdivides the microgrid control into a primary and a secondary control layer. At the Primary Control Layer, the main objective of the proposed strategies is to achieve decentralized power management of renewable energy sources and battery storage in droop controlled microgrids. More specifically, the strategies are developed for Photovoltaic (PV) as an example for one of the common renewable energy sources. Two structural configurations for the PV and the battery storage are considered. In the first configuration, the PV and the battery storage are deployed as a single PV/battery hybrid unit in a droop controlled microgrid. Two decentralized power management strategies are proposed for this configuration. In the second configuration, the PV and the battery storage are deployed independently as separate units in the droop controlled microgrid. In contrast to the common approach of controlling the PV unit as a current source, in the proposed strategies, the PV unit is controlled as a voltage source that follows a multisegment adaptive power/frequency characteristic curve. The strategies are implemented locally at the units using multi-loop controllers without relying on a central management system and communications, as most of the existing algorithms do. Small-signal models of the proposed control loops are developed to investigate system stability. The proposed strategies are validated experimentally results on a 4 kVA prototype microgrid. At the Secondary Control Layer, strategies are developed to improve reactive power sharing in islanded microgrids. Two control strategies are proposed to achieve accurate reactive power sharing. In the proposed strategies, communication is utilized to facilitate the tuning of the proposed adaptive controllers in order to compensate for the mismatch in voltage drops across feeders. If the communication channel is disrupted, the controllers will operate with the last tuned parameters, which are shown to still outperform the conventional voltage droop control. In addition, the reactive power sharing accuracy based on the proposed strategy is immune to the time delay in the communication channel. The sensitivity of the tuned controller parameters to changes in the system operating point is also explored. The net control action of the proposed controllers is demonstrated to have a negligible effect on the microgrid bus voltage. The feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed strategies are validated using simulation and experimental results.
Rule Extraction from Micro-Blog Using Inductive Logic Programming

Information recommender system attempts to present information that is likely to be useful for the user. Some information recommender systems recommend persons which users are likely to follow in Twitter. Showing recommendation reason is an important role of the systems. However, current recommender systems give only simple or quantitative reasons for the recommendation. In this paper, we aim at giving precise and non-quantitative reasons which are also easy to understand. We make use of formulas in first-order predicate logic for explaining the reason. In order to build such formulas, we use Inductive Logic Programming. We succeeded to extract several useful formulas from micro-blog.
Pathogenesis of infections related to intravascular catheterization

Over the past few decades, there have been major technological improvements in the manufacture of intravenous solutions and the manufacture and design of catheter materials. However, the risk of infection in patients receiving infusion therapy remains substantial, in part because of host factors (for example, increased use of immunosuppressive therapy, more aggressive surgery and life support, and improved survival at the extremes of life) and in part because of the availability of catheters that can be left in place for very long periods. Microbial components of normal skin flora, particularly coagulase-negative staphylococci, have emerged as the predominant pathogens in catheter-associated infections. Therefore, efforts to prevent skin microorganisms from entering the catheter wound (such as tunnelling of catheters and use of catheter cuffs and local antimicrobial agents) are logical and relatively effective. The specific properties of microorganisms that transform normally harmless commensals such as coagulase-negative staphylococci into formidable pathogens in the presence of a plastic foreign body are being explored. For example, Staphylococcus epidermidis elaborates a polysaccharide adhesin that also functions as a capsule and is a target for opsonic killing. However, the interactions between microorganism and catheter that lead to adherence, persistence, infection, and dissemination appear to be multifactorial.
User mobility model and data dissemination scheme for wireless sensor networks

Wireless sensor networks consist of sensor nodes and base-stations (sinks). The sensors, sinks, and user nodes can orthogonally provide their own mobility environments. Unlikely, the existing studies do not take all only sensor mobility, sink mobility, and event mobility into account. User mobility, however, can be possibly suggested as one of the mobility models. User mobility and routing mechanism to support it are proposed in this paper. For that, possible mobility environment and characteristics are also analyzed. At the end of this paper, excellence of the proposed routing model is proved through simulations results.
UPPER BOUNDS ON THE NUMBER OF SPANNING TREES IN A BIPARTITE GRAPH

Ferrers graphs are a family of connected bipartite graphs that arise from the Ferrers diagram of a partition. Ehrenborg and van Willigenburg gave a beautiful product formula for the number of spanning trees in a Ferrers graph. In this paper, we use linear algebraic techniques to investigate a conjecture of Ehrenborg stating that a similar product formula gives an upper bound for the number of spanning trees in an arbitrary bipartite graph.
Isolation and characterization of 10 tetranucleotide microsatellite loci from the yellow‐streaked greenbul (Phyllastrephus flavostriatus) and cross‐species amplification in four closely related taxa

We describe the isolation of 10 tetranucleotide microsatellite loci from the yellow‐streaked greenbul using an enrichment protocol. All loci were highly variable with the number of alleles ranging from 8 to 13, and observed heterozygosity ranging from 0.652 to 0.870. All loci were in Hardy–Weinberg equilibrium; however, loci Pfl12 and Pfl54 showed significant linkage disequilibrium. All 10 loci successfully amplified and were polymorphic in at least one of four related Phyllastrephus species. These loci should prove to be widely applicable to studies of phylogeography, hybridization and paternity in African greenbuls.
Minimizing the sum of flow times with batching and delivery in a supply chain

The aim of this thesis is to study one of the classical scheduling objectives that is of minimizing the sum of flow times, in the context of a supply chain network. We consider the situation that a supplier schedules a set of jobs for delivery in batches to several manufacturers, who in tum have to schedule and deliver jobs in batches to several customers. The individual problem from the viewpoint of supplier and manufacturers will be considered separately. The decision problem faced by the supplier is that of minimizing the sum of flow time and delivery cost of a set of jobs to be processed on a single machine for delivery in batches to manufacturers. The problem from the viewpoint of manufacturer is similar to the supplier's problem and the only difference is that the scheduling, batching and delivery decisions made by the supplier define a release date for each job, before which the manufacturer cannot start the processing of that job. Also a combined problem in the light of cooperation between the supplier and manufacturer will be considered. The objective of the combined problem is to find the best scheduling, batching, and delivery decisions that benefit the entire system including the supplier and manufacturer. Structural properties of each problem are investigated and used to devise a branch and bound solution scheme. Computational experience shows significant improvements over existing algorithms and also shows that cooperation between a supplier and a manufacturer reduces the total system cost of up to 12.35%, while theoretically the reduction of up to 20% can be achieved for special cases.
Estimation in Truncated GLG Model for Ordered Categorical Spatial Data Using the SAEM Algorithm

In this article, we utilize a scale mixture of Gaussian random field as a tool for modeling spatial ordered categorical data with non-Gaussian latent variables. In fact, we assume a categorical random field is created by truncating a Gaussian Log-Gaussian latent variable model to accommodate heavy tails. Since the traditional likelihood approach for the considered model involves high-dimensional integrations which are computationally intensive, the maximum likelihood estimates are obtained using a stochastic approximation expectation–maximization algorithm. For this purpose, Markov chain Monte Carlo methods are employed to draw from the posterior distribution of latent variables. A numerical example illustrates the methodology.