Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spectral Discontinuity in Concatenative Speech Synthesis - Perception, Join Costs and Feature Transformations

This thesis explores the problem of determining an objective measure to represent human perception of spectral discontinuity in concatenative speech synthesis. Such measures are used as join costs to quantify the compatibility of speech units for concatenation in unit selection synthesis. No previous study has reported a spectral measure that satisfactorily correlates with human perception of discontinuity. An analysis of the limitations of existing measures and our understanding of the human auditory system were used to guide the strategies adopted to advance a solution to this problem. A listening experiment was conducted using a database of concatenated speech with results indicating the perceived continuity of each concatenation. The results of this experiment were used to correlate proposed measures of spectral continuity with the perceptual results. A number of standard speech parametrisations and distance measures were tested as measures of spectral continuity and analysed to identify their limitations. Time-frequency resolution was found to limit the performance of standard speech parametrisations.As a solution to this problem, measures of continuity based on the wavelet transform were proposed and tested, as wavelets offer superior time-frequency resolution to standard spectral measures. A further limitation of standard speech parametrisations is that they are typically computed from the magnitude spectrum. However, the auditory system combines information relating to the magnitude spectrum, phase spectrum and spectral dynamics. The potential of phase and spectral dynamics as measures of spectral continuity were investigated. One widely adopted approach to detecting discontinuities is to compute the Euclidean distance between feature vectors about the join in concatenated speech. The detection of an auditory event, such as the detection of a discontinuity, involves processing high up the auditory pathway in the central auditory system. The basic Euclidean distance cannot model such behaviour. A study was conducted to investigate feature transformations with sufficient processing complexity to mimic high level auditory processing. Neural networks and principal component analysis were investigated as feature transformations. Wavelet based measures were found to outperform all measures of continuity based on standard speech parametrisations. Phase and spectral dynamics based measures were found to correlate with human perception of discontinuity in the test database, although neither measure was found to contribute a significant increase in performance when combined with standard measures of continuity. Neural network feature transformations were found to significantly outperform all other measures tested in this study, producing correlations with perceptual results in excess of 90%.
Intravascular Drug Delivery

Background Catheter-based systems are being developed to deliver drugs directly into the vessel wall. Pressure-mediated trauma and lack of homogeneous delivery are key limitations of these approaches. Methods and Results We studied a new catheter-based delivery system that uses electrical current to force the drug into the vessel wall. The in vivo feasibility of this approach has been assessed by delivering 125I-hirudin into porcine carotid arteries. Vascular levels of hirudin after active iontophoresis (4 mA/cm2, 5 minutes) were 80-fold greater than those achieved by passive diffusion (without electricity). Tissue hirudin levels declined over time; by 1 hour after delivery, 80% of the drug had left the vessel wall, and by 3 hours later, the levels of hirudin within the wall were similar to those achieved by passive diffusion. Autoradiography revealed distribution of
The quantum-field renormalization group in the problem of a growing phase boundary

Within the quantum-field renormalization-group approach we examine the stochastic equation discussed by S.I. Pavlik in describing a randomly growing phase boundary. We show that, in contrast to Pavlik`s assertion, the model is not multiplicatively renormalizable and that its consistent renormalization-group analysis requires introducing an infinite number of counterterms and the respective coupling constants ({open_quotes}charge{close_quotes}). An explicit calculation in the one-loop approximation shows that a two-dimensional surface of renormalization-group points exits in the infinite-dimensional charge space. If the surface contains an infrared stability region, the problem allows for scaling with the nonuniversal critical dimensionalities of the height of the phase boundary and time, {delta}{sub h} and {delta}{sub t}, which satisfy the exact relationship 2 {delta}{sub h}= {delta}{sub t} + d, where d is the dimensionality of the phase boundary. 23 refs., 1 tab.
Improvement on Automated Thai Assignment Scoring by Using a Thesaurus

Essays are a great useful tool to assess students’ learning outcomes. Automated essay scoring represents a practical solution to the time-consuming activity of manual scoring of students’ essays. However, one problem of the efficiency automated essay scoring is the synonym. The objective of this research was to compare the results of an experimental study of automated Thai assignment scoring with a thesaurus to solve the synonym problem and without a thesaurus. The experiment was conducted with 1,000 undergraduate students who were assigned to complete a particular on-line exercise in the course of Information Technology for Learning at the Thepsatri Rajabhat University, Lopburi, Thailand. The proposed model has 2 types of categories, Thai Assignment Scoring without Thesaurus (TASWOT) and Thai Assignment Scoring with Thesaurus (TASWT). Both types were designed using the principles of text mining including Document Clustering and Document Classification. The accuracy rate of classification was used to evaluate efficiency. The experimental results showed that the performance of the automated Thai assignment scoring with a thesaurus equaled 83.77 percent of average accuracy, while the automated Thai assignment scoring without a thesaurus had 74.92 percent of average accuracy. The results of the experiment indicated that automated Thai assignment scoring with a thesaurus had higher efficiency than automated Thai assignment scoring without a thesaurus. Because, that the use of Thesaurus to solve the synonym problems before clustering has resulted in some documents shifted into other clusters when comparing with clustering without a Thesaurus. As a result, machine scoring has been changed and that also leads to the effectiveness of machine scoring getting better.
Understanding evidence-based thermal care in the low birth weight neonate: Part 1: An overview of principles and current practice

SUMMARY This is the first of a two part paper focusing on the issue of neonatal thermoregulation using a specific case study of a low birth weight (LBW) neonate to capture important issues for discussion and learning. Optimum evidence based thermal care is paramount in the neonatal population and a fundamental component of good practice in this field globally. Care should aim at preventing heat loss and, in the worse case, hypothermia following birth and beyond. This applies to the delivery suite, hospital or home setting for newborns delivered at any gestation in any country across the world. The potential for heat loss is even more significant however in the LBW and / or premature neonate due to the physiological immaturity of thermoregulatory systems. In part 1, this discussion focuses on the areas of heat loss prevention and temperature regulation in the delivery suite and neonatal unit. Health professionals working with LBW neonates can learn from a case example as this which highlights important practice points within an evidence based and global perspective. Part two will focus on family centred thermal care.
PLATELET STORAGE LESION: ROLE OF CD62 (P-SELECTIN)

N platelets day 5: Without PAS the range was from 8.57 + 1.12 similarly on day 5 with PAS the range was from . 97 + . 54 and the p value was 0.001. (d) For CD62 evaluation in platelets day 7: Without PAS the range was from 9.27 + 1.01 similarly on day 7 with PAS the range was from . 77 + . 61 and the p value was play role in mediating transfusion reactions These cytokines pyrogenic can inflammatory
UGT1A9-overexpressing HeLa Cells Is an Appropriate Tool to Delineate the Kinetic Interplay between BCRP and UGT and to Rapidly Identify the Glucuronide Substrates of BCRP

The interplay between phase II enzymes and efflux transporters leads to extensive metabolism and low bioavailability for flavonoids. To investigate the simplest interplay between one UGT isoform and one efflux transporter in flavonoid disposition, engineered HeLa cells stably overexpressing UGT1A9 were developed, characterized and further applied to investigate the metabolism of two model flavonoids (genistein and apigenin) and excretion of their glucuronides. The results indicated that the engineered HeLa cells overexpressing UGT1A9 rapidly excreted the glucuronides of genistein and apigenin. The kinetic characteristics of genistein or apigenin glucuronidation were similar when using UGT1A9 overexpressed in HeLa cells or the commercially available UGT1A9. siRNA-mediated UGT1A9 silencing resulted in the substantial decrease in glucuronide excretion (>75%, p<0.01). Furthermore, a potent inhibitor of BCRP Ko143 caused, in a dose-dependent manner, a substantial and marked reduction of the clearance (74%-94%, p<0.01), and a substantial increase in the intracellular glucuronide levels (4 to 8 folds, p<0.01), resulting in a moderate decrease in glucuronide excretion (19%-59%, p<0.01). In addition, a significant albeit moderate reduction in the fraction of genistein metabolized (or f met ) in the presence of Ko143 was observed. In contrast, LTC 4 and siRNA against MRP2 and MRP3 did not affect excretion of flavonoid glucuronides. In conclusion, the engineered HeLa cells overexpressing UGT1A9 is an appropriate model to study the kinetic interplay between UGT1A9 and BCRP in the phase II disposition of flavonoids. This simple cell model should also be very useful to rapidly identify if a phase II metabolite is the substrate of BCRP. apigenin
Mathematical Modelling of Ultrasensitivity in Enzyme-Mediated Reactions

Ultrasensitivity is a particularly interesting dose-response behaviour found in cascade structures, such as cell signalling networks (the failure of which is linked to the development of some cancers), and robust perfect adaptation mechanisms, observed in signal transduction and gene regulation. Ultrasensitivity has previously been investigated in reversible covalentmodification cycles under the assumption that the substrate concentrations exist in vast excess over the enzyme concentrations. Here we furthered this investigation by using a variety of analytic and numeric models to examine the detrimental effect on ultrasensitivity of introducing comparable concentrations of enzyme and substrate. This required us to introduce new terms to the nomenclature in order to describe the new behaviours which we observed, namely the conversion potential, mid-conversion stimulus, and mixed-sensitivity. This analysis also comprised of a thorough investigation into how the parameter regimes associated with this system effect these new behaviours and ultrasensitivity. We then proposed two novel strategies of positive autoregulation into the covalent-modification cycle to attempt and improve the dose-response profiles. Here we observed that the new models were able to improve on the ultrasensitivity and conversion potential, but at the expense of introducing the potential for bistability.
MiceInfection in Surfactant Protein C-Deficient Pseudomonas aeruginosa to Pulmonary Macrophage Dysfunction and Susceptibility

To determine the role of surfactant protein C (SP-C) in host defense, SP-C-deﬁcient ( Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) ) mice were infected with the pulmonary pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa by intratracheal injection. Survival of young, postnatal day 14 Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice was decreased in comparison to Sftpc (cid:2) / (cid:2) mice. The sensitivity to Pseudomonas bacteria was speciﬁc to the 129S6 strain of Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice, a strain that spontaneously develops interstitial lung disease-like lung pathology with age. Pulmonary bacterial load and leukocyte inﬁltration were increased in the lungs of Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice 24 h after infection. Early inﬂux of polymorphonuclear leukocytes in the lungs of uninfected newborn Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice relative to Sftpc (cid:2) / (cid:2) mice indicate that the lack of SP-C promotes proinﬂammatory responses in the lung. Mucin expression, as indicated by Alcian blue staining, was increased in the airways of Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice following infection. Phagocytic activity of alveolar macrophages from Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice was reduced. The uptake of ﬂuorescent beads in vitro and the number of bacteria phagocytosed by alveolar macrophages in vivo was decreased in the Sftpc (cid:1) / (cid:1) mice. Alveolar
Evaluating Satellite Detected Tropospheric Ozone Trends above Europe with Ozonesondes

Tropospheric ozone is of significant concern due to its detrimental impact on human health, crops and climate. Assessment of the global tropospheric ozone burden and its trend requires global observations of tropospheric column ozone. Satellite observations are the only source of this important information. There are a total of five satellite products available for the community but they disagree regarding tropospheric column ozone trends. Continual monitoring of ozone profiles from in situ observations such as ozonesondes at different locations around the world provide data necessary for evaluating satellite-detected ozone variability and trends. This study quantified the trends of tropospheric column ozone as measured by ozonesondes over Hohenpeissenberg, Germany. While ozonesondes are flown with a frequency of once a week or less at most stations around the world, Hohenpeissenberg has on average 3-4 launches per week. The tropospheric column ozone was maximum in spring/summer in agreement with other mid-latitude sites. The analysis of tropospheric column ozone trends over Hohenpeissenberg showed no change during the 1996-2018 period. However, the regression analysis of seasonal ozone indicated a statistically significant negative trend during the summer months and a small positive trend during the winter, with no trend during the other seasons. We will use this robust data set to evaluate satellite-detected ozone trends above Europe and will report findings from three publicly available satellite products. This analysis is just the first step in a global-scale intercomparison of newly developed satellite products.
Motion Equations and Attitude Control in the Vertical Flight of a VTOL Bi-Rotor UAV

This paper gathers the design and implementation of the control system that allows an unmanned Flying-wing to perform a Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) maneuver using two tilting rotors (Bi-Rotor). Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) operating in this configuration are also categorized as Hybrid UAVs due to their ability of having a dual flight envelope: hovering like a multi-rotor and cruising like a traditional fixed-wing, providing the opportunity of facing complex missions in which these two different dynamics are required. This work exhibits the Bi-Rotor nonlinear dynamics, the attitude tracking controller design and also, the results obtained through Hardware-In-the-Loop (HIL) simulation and experimental studies that ensure the controller’s efficiency in hovering operation.
Interactive comment on “Contrasting decadal trends of subsurface excess nitrate in the western and eastern North Atlantic Ocean”

The paper “Contrasting decadal trends of subsurface excess nitrate in the western and eastern North Atlantic Ocean” presents an impressive compilation of nutrient data from the North Atlantic (NA) Ocean. The main result is a DIN excess increase in subsurface waters of the western NA during the last 3 decades, which might be explained by anthropic atmospheric nitrogen deposition. Some other results, interesting interpretation and discussion follows, but according to my analysis the main result should be discussed before, relying on the accuracy of DIP measurements necessary for DIN excess calculation. I will begin with this major concern and follow with other comments. [Response] We thank this referee for the constructive comments, and believe that the revised manuscript has been considerably improved as a result of the referee’s suggestions. We have addressed all issues raised and provide our point-by-point replies below.
Coconut Shell Charcoal as Filter Material for Blackwater Purification

-- Blackwater is known as a type of domestic wastewater with high pollutant content, thus it has high turbiditylevel. In the common method of purification, blackwater is often filtered with various filter materials such as sand, gravel, and charcoal. Among those three filter materials, charcoal is the material with the most potential since it is able to remove the suspended solids and chemical pollutants thanks due to its carbon content. This study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of coconut shell charcoal as a filter material for blackwater purification. Coconut shell charcoal was chosen for research because it is relatively easy to obtain and inexpensive. These two factors are important considerations in formulating wastewater treatment for developing countries like Indonesia. This study also sought to determine the best filter layer thickness and the most optimal blackwater waste discharge in the treatment of turbidity reduction. The research data was the level of blackwater turbidity. The treatment of filter layer was using the thickness variations of 10 cm, 15 cm, 20 cm, and 30 cm. In addition, different residence times were applied, starts from 1 to 9 day. The result of Regression analysis showed that the thickness of the charcoal filter layer, as well as the wastewater discharge, had a significant effect on the reduction of blackwater turbidity. The best treatment was 30 cm of charcoal thickness with 9 days of residence time. Therefore, it can be stated that coconut shell charcoal is truly potential to be used as a blackwater waste filter material. In addition, this method can be easily applied by the community, especially in developing countries as the material is easy to get and the method doesn’t require high budget.
Self-ampli cation of Oxidative Stress With Tumour Microenvironment-activatable Iron-doped Nanoplatform for Targeting Hepatocellular Carcinoma Synergistic Cascade Therapy and Diagnosis

Qiao-Mei Zhou Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Yuan-Fei Lu Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Jia-Ping Zhou Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Xiao-Yan Yang Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Xiao-Jie Wang Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Jie-Ni Yu Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital Yong-Zhong Du Zhejiang University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences Ri-Sheng Yu (  risheng-yu@zju.edu.cn ) Zhejiang University School of Medicine Second A liated Hospital
Auditor’s Attributes and Cost of Capital in Iran Capital Market

This research aims to examine the impact of audit quality (auditor’s quality evaluation, auditor size, auditor industry specialization, and auditor tenure) on Iran capital market. The result of the analysis of 1140 years of the company during 2006-2015 has shown that there is a significant negative relationship between the auditor expertise and auditor tenure. Although the negative relationship between all of the criteria of audit quality and cost of capital is not confirmed, it cannot be claimed that high audit quality does not cause reduction in cost of capital in Iran capital market.
Towards an Operational Semantics for Solidity

—Solidity is a multi-paradigm programming language used for writing smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain and offers a wide range of features, such as Ethereum transfers between contracts or wallets of normal users. Its speciﬁcation is not formally deﬁned, the behaviours of Solidity constructs are informally provided by its documentation, leading to misunder-standings and buggy code. Without a formal semantics, reasoning about programs becomes extremely hard, if not impossible. In this paper, we provide a ﬁrst-step towards a formal operational semantics for Solidity, deﬁning a memory model for the language, able to capture its main features.
Cellular basis of urothelial squamous metaplasia: roles of lineage heterogeneity and cell replacement

K14-positive basal cells, and the keratinized epithelium expands horizontally to replace the surrounding normal urothelium. These data suggest that the urothelium consists of multiple cell lineages, that trigone urothelium is closely related to the urothelium covering the rest of the bladder, and that lineage heterogeneity coupled with cell migration/ replacement form the cellular basis for urothelial squamous metaplasia. feeders and by counting the cells when they reached (cid:1) 80% confluence. In some experiments, urothelial cells (10 5 ) were plated in the keratinocyte serum-free medium (GIBCO BRL). The colony-forming efficiency was determined by plating 300 cells in the pres- ence of 3T3 feeder cells followed by fixing and staining the dish with Rhodanille blue 14 d later (Rheinwald and 1975).
Constitutive MHC Class II Expression Human Cytomegalovirus Disrupts

CD8 (cid:1) and CD4 (cid:1) T lymphocytes are important in controlling human CMV (HCMV) infection, but the virus has evolved protean mechanisms to inhibit MHC-based Ag presentation and escape T lymphocyte immunosurveillance. Herein, the interaction of HCMV with the MHC class II Ag presentation pathway was investigated in cells stably transfected with class II transactivator. Flow cytometry experiments demonstrate that HCMV infection decreases cell-surface MHC class II expression. HCMV down-regulates MHC class II surface expression without a signiﬁcant effect on class II RNA or steady-state protein levels. SDS-stability and confocal microscopy experiments demonstrate normal levels of steady-state peptide-loaded class II molecules in infected cells and that class II molecules reach late endosomal and HLA-DM positive peptide-loading compartments. However, MHC class II positive vesicles are retained in an abnormal perinuclear distribution. Finally, experiments with a mutant HCMV strain demonstrate that this novel mechanism of decreased MHC class II expression is not mediated by one of the known HCMV immunomodulatory genes. These defects in MHC class II expression combined with previously identiﬁed CMV strategies for decreasing MHC class I expression enables infected cells to evade T lymphocyte immunosurveillance. The Journal of Immunology, 2002, 169: 167–176.
POLYPHENOLIC CONTENT AND RADICAL SCAVENGING CAPACITY OF KOHLRABI SPROUTS AT DIFFERENT MATURITY STAGES

The vegetable and cereal sprouts’ consumption is a modern, pleasant and low-cost way to ensure a healthy diet. The kohlrabi sprouts are particularly rich in antioxidants, especially in polyphenolic compounds. The present paper analyses the antioxidant properties reflected by total polyphenolics and radical scavenging capacity of edible kohlrabi sprouts at different maturity stages (5, 7 and 9 days old), in the purpose to suggest the optimal harvest time to produce sprouts with better health-promoting content. The obtained results recommend the harvest of 5-days sprouts, if the producer is interested in a high content of total polyphenolics and increased soluble dry matter. In the case that a product with higher radical scavenging capacity, no matter the nature of contained antioxidants, is required, then the harvest of kohlrabi at the stage of 7-days old sprouts is recommended.