Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Separation of singing voice from background musical noise using modified NMF and Filtering

Separation of voice from musical background is useful in many applications such as speaker identification, speaker specific information retrieval, word recognition etc. where background music is considered as a noise. Although speech separation has been extensively studied from last many years, sufficient work is not done on voice or speech separation from background musical noise. We propose a system to separate speech from musical background. Our system consists of two stages, in which modified nonnegative matrix factorization is used to decompose the input mixture spectrogram. Discontinuity thresholding is applied on the mixture spectrogram to select out NMF components. This discontinuity is considered in temporal (time) and spectral (frequency) direction. These selected NMF components are then eliminated from the mixture and filtering is applied after resynthesization. Extensive testing on MIR-1K public dataset is done.
Stabilizing Quantum States by Constructive Design of Open Quantum Dynamics

Based on recent work on the asymptotic behavior of controlled quantum Markovian dynamics, we show that any generic quantum state can be stabilized by devising constructively a simple Lindblad-GKS generator that can achieve global asymptotic stability at the desired state. The applicability of such result is demonstrated by designing a direct feedback strategy that achieves global stabilization of a qubit state encoded in a noise-protected subspace.
Trial and error versus errorless learning of functional skills in patients with acute stroke.

OBJECTIVE To compare the effectiveness of errorless learning versus trial and error learning for teaching activities of daily living to patients with acute stroke with or without explicit memory impairments. DESIGN Randomized crossover. SETTING Rehabilitation hospital. PARTICIPANTS Thirty-three adult subjects following an acute stroke. INTERVENTION Subjects were taught to prepare a wheelchair for a transfer and to put on a sock with a sock-donner. Tasks were taught using errorless learning or trial and error learning. Explicit memory was assessed using the Neurobehavioral Cognitive Status Exam. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Days until subject was able to demonstrate retention of the task, and success or failure at carry-over to a similar task. RESULTS No significant differences were found in days to retention for either functional task when taught using errorless learning or trial and error learning in subjects with or without explicit memory impairments. Carry-over was significantly better when trial and error learning was used for learning sock donning. CONCLUSIONS When choosing the best learning method for patients undergoing rehabilitation for stroke, the nature of the task should be considered. Additional research is needed to identify the best approach for teaching activities of daily living and facilitating carry-over of learning in individuals with acute stroke.
Hierarchical Structure-Based Virtual Screening for Drug Design

ABSTRACT Virtual ligand screening (VLS) has become an established approach for identification of new hit compounds for drug discovery programs. Recently hierarchical structure-based VLS (SB-VLS) protocols consisting of different levels of filtering have been developed. It was demonstrated that such hierarchical procedures based on docking-scoring methodology significantly improve the speed and the quality of SB-VLS. Here we overview current SB-VLS methods and hierarchical VLS protocols. Finally we present recent success stories obtained with hierarchical VLS methods.
Prevalence of carbapenemases among high-level aminoglycoside-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii isolates in a university hospital in China

The prevalence of aminoglycoside resistant enzymes has previously been reported and extended-spectrum β-lactamase among Acinetobacter baumannii. To track the risk of multidrug-resistant A. baumannii, the present study aimed to determine the prevalence of carbapenemases in high-level aminoglycoside resistant A. baumannii over two years. A total of 118 strains of A. baumannii were consecutively collected in the First Affiliated Hospital of Chengdu Medical College, Chengdu, China. These isolates were investigated on the genetic basis of their resistance to aminoglycosides. The results showed that 75 (63.56%) isolates were high-level resistant to aminoglycosides, including gentamicin and amikacin (minimum inhibitory concentration, ≥256 µg/ml). Aminoglycoside-resistant genes ant(2″)-Ia, aac(6′)-Ib, aph(3′)-Ia, aac(3)-Ia, aac(3)-IIa, armA, rmtA, rmtB, rmtC, rmtD, rmtE, rmtF, rmtG, rmtH and npmA, and carbapenem-resistant genes blaOXA-23, blaOXA-24, blaOXA-51, blaOXA-58, blaSIM, blaIMP, blaNDM-1 and blaKPC, were analyzed using polymerase chain reaction. The positive rate of ant(2″)-Ia, aac(6′)-Ib, aph(3′)-Ia, aac(3)-Ia and aac(3)-IIa was 66.95, 69.49, 42.37, 39.83 and 14.41%, respectively. armA was present in 72.0% (54/75) of A. baumannii isolates with high-level resistance to aminoglycosides. The remaining nine 16S ribosomal RNA methlyase genes (rmtA, rmtB, rmtC, rmtD, rmtE, rmtF, rmtG, rmtH and npmA) and aminoglycoside-modifying enzyme gene aac(6′)-Ib-cr were not detected. Among the 54 armA-positive isolates, the prevalence of the carbapenem resistant blaOXA-23 and blaOXA-51 genes was 79.63 and 100%, respectively. armA, ant(2″)-Ia and aac(6′)-Ib were positive in 43 isolates. The results of multilocus sequence typing revealed 31 sequence types (STs) in all clinical strains. Among these STs, the high-level aminoglycoside-resistant A. baumannii ST92, which mostly harbored blaOXA-23, was the predominant clone (29/75). In conclusion, A. baumannii harboring carbapenemases and aminoglycoside-resistant enzymes are extremely prevalent in western China, emphasizing the need to adopt surveillance programs to solve the therapeutic challenges that this presents.
Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 concentrations in critically ill patients

Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 is involved in the processing of cytokines during sepsis. We studied 10 critically ill patients within 12 h of fulfilling the American Consensus Conference criteria for severe sepsis and compared the results with 12 critically ill non‐septic control patients and eight healthy subjects. Total matrix metalloproteinase‐9 concentrations were measured on days 1, 2 and 3. The median admission Acute Physiological and Chronic Health Evaluation II score was 19.5 (range 13–27) in the septic patients and 20.5 (range 7–28) in the non‐septic patients. Four patients from each group died within 28 days. Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 concentrations were elevated significantly in both groups of patients compared with healthy subjects (p = 0.0004) but there was no difference between patients with and without sepsis. Matrix metalloproteinase‐9 levels did not change with time, and there was no difference between survivors and those who died. We conclude that matrix metalloproteinase‐9 represents a non‐specific marker of systemic inflammation.
West London first-episode study of schizophrenia. Clinical correlates of duration of untreated psychosis.

BACKGROUND Studies in schizophrenia suggest that a longer initial period of untreated illness is associated with a poorer clinical outcome. AIMS To determine whether, in first-episode schizophrenia, a longer duration of untreated psychosis (DUP) or of untreated illness (DUI) (DUP plus any prodrome) is associated with clinical variables that could mediate a poor prognosis. METHOD Clinical, social, neuropsychological and oculomotor function data on 53 patients with first-episode schizophrenia were related to the DUP and DUI. RESULTS Comparing short and long DUP groups split around the median showed no statistically significant differences (except age); patients in the latter group tended to perform worse on an executive attentional set-shifting task, and were more likely to be unemployed, and living alone or homeless. CONCLUSIONS There was little evidence of any association between either DUP or DUI and progressive deterioration in the schizophrenic illness or the development of resistance to initial drug treatment. Social variables that augur a poor prognosis may be associated with delayed presentation of schizophrenia to psychiatric services.
Absence of epidermal growth factor receptor gene mutations in patients with hormone refractory prostate cancer not responding to gefitinib

Mutations in the tyrosine kinase (TK) domain of the epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) gene in human cancers are associated with increased sensitivity to anilinoquinazoline EGFR inhibitors. To our knowledge no data have been reported on EGFR gene mutations in hormone refractory prostate cancer (HRPC).
Encapsulation layer design and scalability in encapsulated vertical 3D RRAM

Here we propose a novel encapsulated vertical 3D RRAM structure with each resistive switching cell encapsulated by dielectric layers, contributing to both the reliability improvement of individual cells and thermal disturbance reduction of adjacent cells due to the effective suppression of unwanted oxygen vacancy diffusion. In contrast to the traditional vertical 3D RRAM, encapsulated bar-electrodes are adopted in the proposed structure substituting the previous plane-electrodes, thus encapsulated resistive switching cells can be naturally formed by simply oxidizing the tip of the metal bar-electrodes. In this work, TaOx-based 3D RRAM devices with SiO2 and Si3N4 as encapsulation layers are demonstrated, both showing significant advantages over traditional unencapsulated vertical 3D RRAM. Furthermore, it was found thermal conductivity and oxygen blocking ability are two key parameters of the encapsulation layer design influencing the scalability of vertical 3D RRAM. Experimental and simulation data show that oxygen blocking ability is more critical for encapsulation layers in the relatively large scale, while thermal conductivity becomes dominant as the stacking layers scale to the sub-10 nm regime. Finally, based on the notable impacts of the encapsulation layer on 3D RRAM scaling, an encapsulation material with both excellent oxygen blocking ability and high thermal conductivity such as AlN is suggested to be highly desirable to maximize the advantages of the proposed encapsulated structure. The findings in this work could pave the way for reliable ultrahigh-density storage applications in the big data era.
Food Processing: The Influence of the Maillard Reaction on Immunogenicity and Allergenicity of Food Proteins

The majority of foods that are consumed in our developed society have been processed. Processing promotes a non-enzymatic reaction between proteins and sugars, the Maillard reaction (MR). Maillard reaction products (MRPs) contribute to the taste, smell and color of many food products, and thus influence consumers’ choices. However, in recent years, MRPs have been linked to the increasing prevalence of diet- and inflammation-related non-communicable diseases including food allergy. Although during the last years a better understanding of immunogenicity of MRPs has been achieved, still only little is known about the structural/chemical characteristics predisposing MRPs to interact with antigen presenting cells (APCs). This report provides a comprehensive review of recent studies on the influence of the Maillard reaction on the immunogenicity and allergenicity of food proteins.
Relay With Unlimited Lookahead

A relay channel with an unlimited lookahead at the relay is introduced. General upper and lower bounds on the capacity of this channel are established. These bounds coincide for the degraded case. For the general additive white Gaussian noise version of this channel, the two bounds coincide for a range of channel parameters, leading to a partial capacity result.
Nuevas aportaciones en la construcción del paradigma del capital intelectual

El desarrollo de las teoria del capital intelectual ha sido guiado por las ideas y los pensamientos de un pequeno grupo de gente practica influyente entre la que incluye Sveiby (1997) y Edvinson (Edvinson y Malone, 1997). Estos pioneros establecieron la base de lo que Andriessen (200]) denomina "La teoria estandar de capital intelectual ". En este articulo se explican los supuestos y princt~ios en los que dicha teoria estandar (vigente paradigma) se apoya o se sustenta. Para ello el articulo se centra principalmente en el "Intangible Assets Monitor ~', el "Balanced Scorecard" y el "Skandia Navigator" por considerar que entre los tres constituyen los cimientos del vigente paradigma, pero tambien considera las aportaciones significativas realizadas por los profesores Bueno Campos (200) y Leandro Canibano junto con otros colaboradores ("Proyecto Meritum'). El articulo introduce a continuacion otros modelos y metodologias alternativos a la teoria estandar, tales como el "IC Accounting System", "The Value Explorer" y el "Intellectual Capital Benchmarking System y tambien examina en profundidad los supuestos y principios en los que se fundamenta esta teoria alternativa (nuevo paradigma). El articulo finaliza presentando las conclusiones que se derivan de comparar y contrastar los modelos de la teoria estandar con los de la teoria emergente.
Effet du type de bruit sur le démasquage binaural chez l'adulte dyslexique

La dyslexie est un trouble de l'apprentissage de la lecture et de l'ecriture, en l'absence de deficits neurologiques ou intellectuels. Des troubles auditifs sont par ailleurs frequemment associes, parmi lesquels on note des deficits de la comprehension de la parole dans le bruit (Cunningham & al., 2001 ; Ziegler & al., 2007). Une autre caracteristique regulierement observee dans cette population est la presence de troubles de l'asymetrie, tant au niveau central (Habib, 2000) que peripherique (Veuillet & al., 2007). Le but de la presente etude est d'evaluer dans quelle mesure les indices binauraux sont utilises par le sujet dyslexique adulte en situation de comprehension de la parole dans le bruit, en etudiant l'effet du type de bruit sur le demasquage binaural. Pour ceci, nous avons presente a 20 sujets dyslexiques et 20 sujets normo-lecteurs des stimuli auditifs composes de 120 mots bisyllabiques presentes dans differents types de bruits : un bruit stationnaire, un bruit fluctuant et un cocktail de paroles a quatre voix mixtes. Chez le sujet normo-lecteur, les resultats montrent un masquage informationnel important en condition monaurale, notamment lorsque le bruit concurrent est un cocktail de parole, ce qui montre que les indices linguistiques lexicaux et phonologiques sont predominants dans l'effet de masquage. Ce masquage informationnel est cependant reduit en condition binaurale, ce qui nous indique que le demasquage binaural resiste aux interferences linguistiques creees par le cocktail de parole. Chez les sujets dyslexiques, on observe des performances plus faibles que les normo-lecteurs en condition monaurale lorsque le bruit concurrent est un bruit de parole: ceux-ci ont donc davantage de difficultes pour separer les differentes sources de parole lorsqu'elles sont spatialement proches. Cependant nos resultats n'ont revele aucun deficit dans l'utilisation des indices binauraux pour separer les differentes sources sonores.
Sonochemistry and hydrothermal pathways to the fabrication of ZnO nanowire transistors

We report on the growth of ZnO nanowires using two distinctive methods; sonochemistry and hydrothermal growth. The dimensions of the nanowires were varied by changing the concentration of the solution, growth time and volume of the solution. During growth by sonification, we were also able to alter the power supplied to the solution and the dimensions of the sonicator tip. The nanowires produced were then imaged using Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) and optical microscopy. We aim to create nanowires with dimensions suitable for the fabrication of ZnO nanowire transistor.
Pregnancy in Alloxan Diabetic Rats

Summary and Conclusion (1) Alloxan diabetes, like pancreatectomy diabetes, interferes with the normal oestrous cycle of rats, and impairs fertility. (2) Administration of olive oil aids in reversion of the oestrous cycle toward normal, but does not improve fertility. (3) The course of 11 of the 12 pregnancies reported in this study was uninfluenced by the presence of pre-existing permanent alloxan diabetes. (4) The course of the diabetes in 5 of the 7 rats observed was not influenced by single or repeated pregnancies. (5) Two rats died in hypoglycemia, one on the 15th day of pregnancy and one 6 days post partum. The mechanism of this hypoglycemia is unexplained. (6) Administration of insulin was not required in order to obtain live, full term litters in 10 of the 11 pregnancies observed.
Dimensions and psychology of peer teaching in medical education

Aim: Peer teaching, an educational arrangement in which one student teaches one or more fellow students, is applied in several forms in medical education. A number of authors have linked peer teaching to theories of education and psychology. Yet no comprehensive overview of what theory can offer to understand dynamics of peer teaching has been previously provided. Method: A framework is designed to categorize forms of peer teaching, distinguishing three dimensions: distance in stage of education, formality of the educational setting and size of the group taught. Theories are categorized in two dimensions: theories that explain benefits of peer teaching from a cognitive versus a social-psychological perspective, and theories that explain benefits for peer learners versus peer teachers. Conclusion: Both dimensional frameworks help to clarify why and in what conditions peer teaching may help students to learn.
Zero‐inflated models for regression analysis of count data: a study of growth and development

Poisson regression is widely used in medical studies, and can be extended to negative binomial regression to allow for heterogeneity. When there is an excess number of zero counts, a useful approach is to used a mixture model with a proportion P of subjects not at risk, and a proportion of 1‐P at‐risk subjects who take on outcome values following a Poisson or negative binomial distribution. Covariate effects can be incorporated into both components of the models. In child assessment, fine motor development is often measured by test items that involve a process of imitation and a process of fine motor exercise. One such developmental milestone is ‘building a tower of cubes’. This study analyses the impact of foetal growth and postnatal somatic growth on this milestone, operationalized as the number of cubes and measured around the age of 22 months. It is shown that the two aspects of early growth may have different implications for imitation and fine motor dexterity. The usual approach of recording and analysing the milestone as a binary outcome, such as whether the child can build a tower of three cubes, may leave out important information. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Dent's disease: chloride-proton exchange controls proximal tubule endocytosis.

Dent’s disease is a rare disorder of the proximal tubule caused by inactivating mutations in the endosomal chloride transporter ClC-5. The disease is characterized by defective endocytosis and manifestations of proximal tubule dysfunction (renal Fanconi syndrome) [1–3]. The primary defect in proximal tubule endocytosis has been attributed to an impaired vesicular acidification caused by the loss of endosomal Cl conductance mediated by ClC-5 (chloride shunt hypothesis) [4,5]. However, recent electrophysiological studies have shown that ClC-5 is a 2Cl/H exchanger rather than a Cl channel [6,7]. In order to test the relevance of this exchange activity for Dent’s disease, Novarino, Jentsch and colleagues [8] engineered a knockin (KI) mouse harbouring a point mutation in a critical glutamate residue which converts the exchanger into an uncoupled Cl channel that should facilitate endosomal acidification. They then compared these KI mice with the conventional knock-out (KO) mice that faithfully recapitulate the phenotype of Dent’s disease. As expected, acidification of the renal endosomes from WT and KI mice was normal, but severely impaired in KO mice. However, despite normal endosomal acidification, KI mice showed the same renal phenotype as KO mice and patients with Dent’s disease, including low-molecular-weight proteinuria, hyperphosphaturia and hypercalciuria. Furthermore, both the KI and KO mouse showed impaired proximal tubule endocytosis and a similar trafficking defect. Thus, proximal tubule dysfunction in Dent’s disease may occur despite normal acidification of renal endosomes. These findings, which exclude the chloride shunt hypothesis, suggest a role for a reduced endosomal chloride accumulation in Dent’s disease and point to the importance of chloride concentration for organelle physiology. Review of the field
A survey of sexual behaviour and reproduction of female cats.

Details of reproductive activity among 168 breeding queens were obtained from a survey of specific information supplied by cat breeders. Puberty was reached, on average, at 9–10 months of age. The gestation period was calculated to average 65 days. Almost half the queens in the survey showed cyclic occurrence of oestrus throughout the year. Cycles were usually 21 days long. When a non-breeding season was present it generally occurred between September and the end of January, its average duration being 4 months. The data obtained from the survey are examined and discussed, and are considered to illuminate usefully a scantily reported topic.
Collaborative Large-Scale Dense 3D Reconstruction with Online Inter-Agent Pose Optimisation

Reconstructing dense, volumetric models of real-world 3D scenes is important for many tasks, but capturing large scenes can take significant time, and the risk of transient changes to the scene goes up as the capture time increases. These are good reasons to want instead to capture several smaller sub-scenes that can be joined to make the whole scene. Achieving this has traditionally been difficult: joining sub-scenes that may never have been viewed from the same angle requires a high-quality camera relocaliser that can cope with novel poses, and tracking drift in each sub-scene can prevent them from being joined to make a consistent overall scene. Recent advances, however, have significantly improved our ability to capture medium-sized sub-scenes with little to no tracking drift: real-time globally consistent reconstruction systems can close loops and re-integrate the scene surface on the fly, whilst new visual-inertial odometry approaches can significantly reduce tracking drift during live reconstruction. Moreover, high-quality regression forest-based relocalisers have recently been made more practical by the introduction of a method to allow them to be trained and used online. In this paper, we leverage these advances to present what to our knowledge is the first system to allow multiple users to collaborate interactively to reconstruct dense, voxel-based models of whole buildings using only consumer-grade hardware, a task that has traditionally been both time-consuming and dependent on the availability of specialised hardware. Using our system, an entire house or lab can be reconstructed in under half an hour and at a far lower cost than was previously possible.