Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Robust Speaker Diarization for News Broadcast

This contribution presents an efficient method of speaker diarization that employs bayesian information criterion for speaker embeddings. In contrast to the traditional approaches the speaker segmentation is done using manually spectral features. The proposed method is capable enough to segment audio recording of a broadcast news by $i$-vectors as well as GMM speaker model and the conventional GMM based agglomerative for clustering the data. An unsupervised Voice Active Detector (VAD) has been developed, so that it could distinguish between speech frame and non-speech frame such that the non-speech frames can be discarded. The results of our proposed method showed significantly outperformed with the benchmark methods and reduced the diarization error margin by 14%.
Intoxicated Person Identification Using Thermal Infrared Images and Gait

In this paper, the activities of facial blood veins and temperature distribution and variations on the eye socket of drunk persons are studied using thermal images. Our proposed method considers walking pattern of a drunk person, which differentiate them from sober persons. For a sober person, vessels around the nose and eyes as well as nearer to the forehead region remain inactive and smooth, whereas these vessels become more active for a drunken person. Hence, thermal images can be used to detect drunkenness. The proposed method uses Curvelet Transform to capture the edges of a face to identify intoxicated candidate. The sclera and the iris are of the same temperature for the sober person. In contrary to this, the sclera temperature is high for intoxicated persons. SURF (Speeded up Robust Features) are used to accurately detect the temperature change in iris and sclera. The walking trajectory/pattern of a sober person and a drunk person can also be discriminated easily. Optical flow is employed to determine motion trajectories of drunk and sober persons. Finally, classification is done by using Random Forest and the Support Vector Machine. The experimental results show the efficacy of the proposed method.
Validation and clinical application of a novel LC-MS method for quantification of dolutegravir in breast milk.

AIM A novel, sensitive and reproducible method for quantification of dolutegravir (DTG) in dried breast milk spots (DBMS) was developed and validated for use in clinical studies. Its application enabled measurement of DTG pharmacokinetics in breastfeeding mothers and their infants. Results/methodology: Sample extraction was by liquid-liquid extraction using Tert-butyl methy-ether, with DTG-d5 as an internal standard. DTG was eluted on a reverse phase C18 Waters XBridge (3.5 μm: 2.1 × 50 mm) column using a gradient mobile phase consisting of 0.1% formic acid in deionised water or methanol. The assay was validated over a calibration range of 10-4000 ng/ml. CONCLUSION Stability, inter and intra-assay variability were acceptable according to FDA and EMA bioanalytical method guidelines. The assay is robust, accurate, precise and can be reliably applied for analysis of clinical samples in trials from low resource settings.
Ontology population for open‐source intelligence: A GATE‐based solution

Open‐Source INTelligence is intelligence based on publicly available sources such as news sites, blogs, forums, etc. The Web is the primary source of information, but once data are crawled, they need to be interpreted and structured. Ontologies may play a crucial role in this process, but because of the vast amount of documents available, automatic mechanisms for their population are needed, starting from the crawled text. This paper presents an approach for the automatic population of predefined ontologies with data extracted from text and discusses the design and realization of a pipeline based on the General Architecture for Text Engineering system, which is interesting for both researchers and practitioners in the field. Some experimental results that are encouraging in terms of extracted correct instances of the ontology are also reported. Furthermore, the paper also describes an alternative approach and provides additional experiments for one of the phases of our pipeline, which requires the use of predefined dictionaries for relevant entities. Through such a variant, the manual workload required in this phase was reduced, still obtaining promising results.
Current concepts of macular buckle in myopic traction maculopathy

Since its introduction by Charles L. Schepens, macular buckle (MB) surgery has evolved over the past 60 years. Optical coherence tomography (OCT) has given a paradigm shift to the understanding of myopic macula, thereby helping in objective evaluation of the various manifestation of traction maculopathy. Staphyloma evaluation by ultrasound, wide-field fundus photography, and MRI scans along with OCT has led to the resurgence of MB surgery in the treatment of myopic traction maculopathy (MTM). Various surgical techniques with different buckle materials are being performed with encouraging anatomical and functional success rates. This article reviews the literature to explain the current concept of MB surgery based on its evolution, different kinds of buckle materials, rationale for planning MB surgery, and different surgical techniques for the management of MTM.
Battery Measurement on Experimental Testbed for Wireless Communication through Xbee

Many Zigbee-based wireless sensor networks have been developed for agriculture monitoring. The main attractiveness of Zigbee wireless technology is in its potential to set up self-organizing network that requires no network backbone and extremely low cost with low-power wireless networking. This paper provides experimental test results on actual voltage measurement using Zigbee protocol devices when communicating temperature, humidity and soil moisture data. The nodes are capable of relaying data up to 143 meters outdoor on unobstructed line of sights with requirement 5% data loss is fulfilled. The results can be used for battery lifetime prediction and suggest the suitability for Zigbee wireless communication for short-range outdoor applications.
Structural and Properties Study of Li3 PO4 Thin Film Electrolyte for Potentiometric Nox Sensing

Li<inf>3</inf> PO<inf>4</inf> solid-state electrolyte based mixed potential NO<inf>x</inf> gas sensors were fabricated with Ba(NO<inf>3</inf>)<inf>2</inf>-Li<inf>3</inf> PO<inf>4</inf> sensing electrodes and three different reference electrodes: Li<inf>2</inf> TiO<inf>3</inf>-Ti0<inf>2</inf>, sputtered Au and porous Pt electrodes. For each prototype, the sensing properties for NO<inf>2</inf>, NO and O<inf>2</inf> were tested, respectively. The NO<inf>x</inf> sensors could hardly respond to low concentration NO<inf>2</inf> because of electrochemical junctions. The sensor with a Li<inf>2</inf> TiO<inf>3</inf>-TiO<inf>2</inf> reference electrode showed an outstanding sensing performance for NO<inf>2</inf> with smooth but sluggish response and recovery, and good selectivity to NO and O<inf>2</inf>. The results revealed that the reference electrode materials may influence the sensing mechanism, and affect the properties of the NOx sensors further.
A Prospective Study of the Impact of Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation on EEG Correlates of Somatosensory Perception

The (8–12 Hz) neocortical alpha rhythm is associated with shifts in attention across sensory systems, and is thought to represent a sensory gating mechanism for the inhibitory control of cortical processing. The present preliminary study sought to explore whether alpha frequency transcranial alternating current stimulation (tACS) could modulate endogenous alpha power in the somatosensory system, and whether the hypothesized modulation would causally impact perception of tactile stimuli at perceptual threshold. We combined electroencephalography (EEG) with simultaneous brief and intermittent tACS applied over primary somatosensory cortex at individuals’ endogenous alpha frequency during a tactile detection task (n = 12 for EEG, n = 20 for behavior). EEG-measured pre-stimulus alpha power was higher on non-perceived than perceived trials, and analogous perceptual correlates emerged in early components of the tactile evoked response. Further, baseline normalized tactile detection performance was significantly lower during alpha than sham tACS, but the effect did not last into the post-tACS time period. Pre- to post-tACS changes in alpha power were linearly dependent upon baseline state, such that alpha power tended to increase when pre-tACS alpha power was low, and decrease when it was high. However, these observations were comparable in both groups, and not associated with evidence of tACS-induced alpha power modulation. Nevertheless, the tactile stimulus evoked response potential (ERP) revealed a potentially lasting impact of alpha tACS on circuit dynamics. The post-tACS ERP was marked by the emergence of a prominent peak ∼70 ms post-stimulus, which was not discernible post-sham, or in either pre-stimulation condition. Computational neural modeling designed to simulate macroscale EEG signals supported the hypothesis that the emergence of this peak could reflect synaptic plasticity mechanisms induced by tACS. The primary lesson learned in this study, which commanded a small sample size, was that while our experimental paradigm provided some evidence of an influence of tACS on behavior and circuit dynamics, it was not sufficient to induce observable causal effects of tACS on EEG-measured alpha oscillations. We discuss limitations and suggest improvements that may help further delineate a causal influence of tACS on cortical dynamics and perception in future studies.
Reducing USB Attack Surface: A Lightweight Authentication and Delegation Protocol

A privately owned smart device connected to a corporate network using a USB connection creates a potential channel for malware infection and its subsequent spread. For example, air-gapped (a.k.a. isolated) systems are considered to be the most secure and safest places for storing critical datasets. However, unlike network communications, USB connection streams have no authentication and filtering. Consequently, intentional or unintentional piggybacking of a malware infected USB storage or a mobile device through the air-gap is sufficient to spread infection into such systems. Our findings show that the contact rate has an exceptional impact on malware spread and destabilizing free malware equilibrium. This work proposes a USB authentication and delegation protocol based on radiofrequency identification (RFID) in order to stabilize the free malware equilibrium in air-gapped networks. The proposed protocol is modelled using Coloured Petri nets (CPN) and the model is verified and validated through CPN tools.
An Expected Patch Log Likelihood Denoising Method Based on Internal and External Image Similarity

Natural images always exhibit a certain nonlocal self-similarity property, which implies that the patch matrix formed by similar image patches is low-rank. In this paper, the self-similarity of images is combined with the EPLL (Expected patch $\log $ likelihood) method based on external similarity, and an EPLL denoising model based on internal and external image similarity is proposed. The experimental results show that compared with the original EPLL method, the proposed method not only has higher quantization index, but also has a good visual effect.
Complications of Decompressive Craniectomy

Decompressive craniectomy (DC) has become the definitive surgical procedure to manage medically intractable rise in intracranial pressure due to stroke and traumatic brain injury. With incoming evidence from recent multi-centric randomized controlled trials to support its use, we could expect a significant rise in the number of patients who undergo this procedure. Although one would argue that the procedure reduces mortality only at the expense of increasing the proportion of the severely disabled, what is not contested is that patients face the risk of a large number of complications after the operation and that can further compromise the quality of life. Decompressive craniectomy (DC), which is designed to overcome the space constraints of the Monro Kellie doctrine, perturbs the cerebral blood, and CSF flow dynamics. Resultant complications occur days to months after the surgical procedure in a time pattern that can be anticipated with advantage in managing them. New or expanding hematomas that occur within the first few days can be life-threatening and we recommend CT scans at 24 and 48 h postoperatively to detect them. Surgeons should also be mindful of the myriad manifestations of peculiar complications like the syndrome of the trephined and neurological deterioration due to paradoxical herniation which may occur many months after the decompression. A sufficiently large frontotemporoparietal craniectomy, 15 cm in diameter, increases the effectiveness of the procedure and reduces chances of external cerebral herniation. An early cranioplasty, as soon as the brain is lax, appears to be a reasonable choice to mitigate many of the late complications. Complications, their causes, consequences, and measures to manage them are described in this chapter.
Current management of diabetic tractional retinal detachments

Twenty-five percent of diabetes-related vision loss stems from complications of proliferative diabetic retinopathy (PDR). Panretinal photocoagulation has been the preferred treatment of high-risk PDR for decades and more recently intravitreal injections of drugs that inhibit the actions of vascular endothelial growth factor have become popular. But despite these treatments PDR may progress uncontrollably to advanced pathologies such as traction retinal detachments (TRDs), combined traction/rhegmatogenous retinal detachments (TRD/RRDs), vitreous hemorrhages, rubeosis iridis, and traction maculopathies, which produce mild-to-severe loss of vision. TDR have long been the most common indication for PDR-related vitreoretinal surgery. Vitrectomy surgery is indicated for recent (<6 months duration) TRD involving the macula, progressive TRD that threatens the macula, and recent data suggest that chronic macula-involving TRDs (>6 months duration) may also benefit. Combined TRD/RRD represents a particularly challenging surgical condition but advances in surgical instrumentation, dissection techniques, and post-operative tamponade have produced excellent success rates. The recent development of small-gauge vitrectomy systems has persuaded most surgeons to switch platforms since these appear to produce shorter surgical times and quicker post-operative recoveries. Pre-operative injections of bevacizumab are frequently administered for persistent neovascularization to facilitate surgical dissection of pre-retinal fibrosis and reduce the incidence of post-operative hemorrhages. Recent trends toward earlier surgical intervention and expanded indications are likely to continue as surgical instrumentation and techniques are further developed.
Reduced Graphene Oxide/Maghemite Nanocomposite for Detection of Lead Ions in Water Using Surface Plasmon Resonance

A prism-based surface plasmon resonance (SPR) sensor deposited with reduced graphene oxide/maghemite is presented for the detection of lead ions (Pb2+) in water. The SPR setup proposed followed the Kretschmann configuration with the installment of the nanocomposite integrated bilayer sensor chip onto the prism. For protection, the nanocomposite active layer was coated with 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)-carbodiimidehydrochloride/N-hydroxysuccinimide. When the sensor was tested with different concentrations of Pb2+ in static water, the limit of detection was achieved at 0.001 ppm with a resonance angle shift of 0.184°. As an improvisation, a sample circulation design was adapted into the setup in order to increase the interaction rate between the sample and the sensing layer. This managed to improve the detection limit to 0.3 ppb.
CellSpecks: A Software for Automated Detection and Analysis of Calcium Channels in Live Cells

To couple the fidelity of patch-clamp recording with a more high-throughput screening capability, we pioneered a novel approach to single channel recording that we named “optical patch clamp”. By using highly-sensitive fluorescent Ca2+ indicator dyes in conjunction with total internal fluorescence microscopy techniques, we monitor Ca2+ flux through individual Ca2+-permeable channels. This approach provides information about channel gating analogous to patch-clamp recording at time resolution of ~ 2 ms, with the additional advantage of being massively parallel, providing simultaneous and independent recording from thousands of channels in native environment. However, manual analysis of the data generated by this technique presents severe challenges as a video recording can include many thousands of frames. To overcome this bottleneck, we developed an image processing and analysis framework called CellSpecks, capable of detecting and fully analyzing the kinetics of ion channels within a video sequence. By using a randomly generated synthetic data, we tested the ability of CellSpecks to rapidly and efficiently detect and analyze the activity of thousands of ion channels, including openings for a few milliseconds. Here, we report the use of CellSpecks for the analysis of experimental data acquired by imaging muscle nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and the Alzheimer’s disease-associated amyloid beta pores with multiconductance levels in the plasma membrane of Xenopus laevis oocytes. We show that CellSpecks can accurately and efficiently generate location maps, create raw and processed fluorescence time-traces, histograms of mean open times, mean close times, open probabilities, durations, and maximum amplitudes, and a ‘channel chip’ showing the activity of all channels as a function of time. Although we specifically illustrate the application of CellSpecks for analyzing data from Ca2+ channels, it can be easily customized to analyze other spatially and temporally localized signals.
The osmoresponsiveness of oxytocin and vasopressin neurones: Mechanisms, allostasis and evolution

In the rat supraoptic nucleus, every oxytocin cell projects to the posterior pituitary, and is involved both in reflex milk ejection during lactation and in regulating uterine contractions during parturition. All are also osmosensitive, regulating natriuresis. All are also regulated by signals that control appetite, including the neural and hormonal signals that arise from the gut after food intake and from the sites of energy storage. All are also involved in sexual behaviour, anxiety‐related behaviours and social behaviours. The challenge is to understand how a single population of neurones can coherently regulate such a diverse set of functions and adapt to changing physiological states. Their multiple functions arise from complex intrinsic properties that confer sensitivity to a wide range of internal and environmental signals. Many of these properties have a distant evolutionary origin in multifunctional, multisensory neurones of Urbilateria, the hypothesised common ancestor of vertebrates, insects and worms. Their properties allow different patterns of oxytocin release into the circulation from their axon terminals in the posterior pituitary into other brain areas from axonal projections, as well as independent release from their dendrites.
Efficient Clustering for Multicast Device-to-Device Communications

The purpose of this paper is to propose an efficient clustering method for multicast device-to-device (D2D) communications. By reviewing the related research works, we examine the physical and social characteristics that affect the clustering. Considering the quality of the radio link, the required data and files, and the number of neighboring users, we do the clustering and consequently find the cluster head and associated members. Using these criteria, a weighted metric is proposed which introduces the cluster head and assigns the members to each cluster. After clustering the users in each cluster, the cluster head multicasts the required data to the associated members. First, we propose an idea to improve the clustering performance, which offers a decrease in the number of clusters and an increase in the throughput. Then, two new clustering algorithms are proposed and they are compared in order to show the efficacy of the proposed ones. The numerical analysis using MATLAB shows that the proposed algorithms significantly reduce the number of required radio resources and sharply increase the throughput.
Wideband Metamaterial Antenna Design

This paper presents the design of composite right/left handed transmission line (CRLH TL) wideband metamaterial antenna. The bandwidth enhancement was achieved by replacing horizontal ohm's shape slot with series horizontal slot. A comprehensive parametric analysis using Computer Simulation Technology CST software is carried out by varying the position of the slot $L_{n}$ to determine the effectiveness of the concept and fmd the right position of the slot for obtaining the wideband. From the simulation work, it was found that the impedance bandwidth covered from 2.2 GHz to 4.6 GHz which is equivalent to 75% fractional bandwidth. The antenna has a compact size of 30 by 16.80 mm^2. It has three different resonating bands at 2.6 GHz, 3.4 GHz and4.5 GHz within the range with realised peak gain of 2.39 dBi, 2.41 dBi,, and 3.22 dBi respectively and average efficiency of 95%.
Improving Detachable Ultrasonic Power Transfer System Using Piezoelectric Stack

This paper proposes an Ultrasonic Power Transfer (UPT) system using piezoelectric stacks in series and parallel configurations. According to the basic piezoelectric equations and an equivalent circuit model, the output voltage and power characteristics of the proposed system have been investigated. A prototype UPT system with IMHZ ceramic disc transducers stacks in series and parallel is constructed to verify the theoretical analysis of power transfer across metal barriers. The proposed UPT system is compared with the conventional system with one layer piezoelectric, and experimental results verified a 26% increase in power transfer efficiency across a lmm steel plate.
marvin: A Platform for Chemoinformatics Software Development

A strategy for a new type of platform for chemoinformatics software development and its first implementation are presented. The basic task of such a platform is to apply sequences of computational methods to high numbers of molecules. The implementation presented is based on four major components: (a) the application manager, responsible for running programs and for data management; (b) executable applications that supply limited pieces of functionality; (c) syntax definitions for data and control files and (d) the runtime library which comprises routines for data handling and user interface. This simple concept is implemented in the software package marvin. Different computational methods are available within marvin, including parts of commercial software packages (e.g. molecular modeling, bioinformatics, statistics, etc.) as well as newly developed and innovative algorithms. The basic layout of marvin is described and a simple example illustrates its application.