Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Clinical Programming Software to Evaluate Auditory Performance in Cochlear Implant Patients using Smartphone

Cochlear Implant (CI) system is an auditory prosthesis that provides the perception of hearing sensation to the sensorineural deafened people by surgically implanting and electrically stimulating the auditory nerve. Four to six weeks after surgical implantation of CI, audiologist activates the implant and systematically stimulates the auditory nerve through dedicated software usually called ‘clinical programming software (CPS)’, to fine tune the electrodes so that the patient perceives the sound. It is understood that every cochlear implanted child needs to visit the audiologist periodically up to an age of 18 to undergo routine evaluations. This paper presents a new smartphone-based CPS developed to address the requirements of audiologist with attended advantages to the patients to carry CPS with previous history of stimulated values commonly referred as ‘MAP’ in CI programming. Besides, it provides flexibility to the patient by especially in the case of emergency or visiting nearest doctor for creating a new MAP or attend for routine evaluations, which is not the case provided by the contemporary CI manufacturers.The Smartphone-based CI Programme (SCIP) was developed using Android Studio IDE. SCIP assists audiologist to perform audiological evaluations such as (i) finding electrode status (Active, Short or Open), (ii) impedance measurement, (iii) fine tuning of, threshold and maximum audible level values for each electrode and (iv) updating the speech processor with the fine tuned values. The performance of SCIP software application was validated against a standard Electrode Impedance Tester device during in vitro testing of the developed Indian cochlear implant prosthesis, which is expected to undergo human clinical trials soon.
MEASUREMENT OF ULTRASHORT LASER PULSES BY THREE‐PHOTON FLUORESCENCE

We have measured for the first time the duration of picosecond pulses by three‐photon fluorescence (3PF). The advantages over the two‐photon fluorescence (TPF) technique include higher contrast ratios (10:1 versus 3:1) and capability of measuring the phase‐intensity correlation.
Leverage and Influence Diagnostics for Spatial Point Processes

Abstract. For a spatial point process model fitted to spatial point pattern data, we develop diagnostics for model validation, analogous to the classical measures of leverage and influence in a generalized linear model. The diagnostics can be characterized as derivatives of basic functionals of the model. They can also be derived heuristically (and computed in practice) as the limits of classical diagnostics under increasingly fine discretizations of the spatial domain. We apply the diagnostics to two example datasets where there are concerns about model validity.
Discovery of a massive unseen star in LMC X-3

Spectroscopic observations of the optical counterpart of LMC X-3 show it to be a spectroscopic binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud with an orbital period of 1.70 days. The B3 main-sequence primary has a large radial velocity amplitude indicating a mass function of 2.3 solar masses. LMC X-3 is an extremely luminous and variable X-ray source, but no 1.7 day X-ray periodicity has been detected. The lack of optical and X-ray eclipses limits the inclination to less than 70 degrees and implies a mass for the unseen star of more than 9.0 solar masses, if the B star has a normal mass. The system now appears to be the strongest evidence for the existence of a stellar mass black hole and is the first extragalactic example.
Suboptimal H∞ hyperglycemia control on T1DM accounting biosignals of exercise and nocturnal hypoglycemia

The availability of novel technologies for exogenous insulin release and continuous glucose monitoring have increased the possibilities of developing an artificial pancreas. This contribution tackles the design of a H∞‐based controller to manage glycemia in Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) under two scenarios: exercise and nocturnal hypoglycemia. Two biosignals are integrated to the blood glucose control problem: lactate is used in exercise scenario, while adrenaline releasing is used for nocturnal hypoglycemia. The effects of each scenario are represented by weighting transfer functions at the control design. Each weighting function accounts the effect of hepatic glucose production and defines separately the following relations: (a) from plasmatic glucose to lactate during exercise and (b) from plasmatic glucose to adrenaline during nocturnal hypoglycemia. Also, the controller is designed by adding a frequency restriction in control signal to incorporate frequency components by the pancreatic insulin release pattern in a healthy subject. A nonlinear physiological model, including Glucose–Insulin–Glucagon dynamics and counter‐regulatory effects, is used to show the time‐response of the closed‐loop including actuator dynamics and parametric changes. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Research on the Graph Matching based on Shape Context and Sequential Monte Carlo

According to the traditional shape context algorithm within the image distortion, excessive noise points and lower matching rate issues, we present a Sequential Monte Carlo algorithm based on graph matching. First, the image feature points were evenly distributed to compute shape context information. Second, remaining points obtain a histogram of all the feature points by the shape context information. Using histogram function to calculate the cost of the square distance cost, were begin to match. Finally, structuring the graph model, using graphical models construct the affinity matrix; the matrix will be close to integer quadratic programming use the Sequential Monte Carlo algorithm to find out the optimal matching schemes. Experimental results show that: the proposed algorithm in image matching to ensure a high rate, while images of different perspectives and images in quite different conditions has good robustness and stableness.
Properties of high κ gate dielectrics Gd2O3 and Y2O3 for Si

We present the materials growth and properties of both epitaxial and amorphous films of Gd2O3 (κ=14) and Y2O3 (κ=18) as the alternative gate dielectrics for Si. The rare earth oxide films were prepared by ultrahigh vacuum vapor deposition from an oxide source. The use of vicinal Si (100) substrates is key to the growth of (110) oriented, single domain films in the Mn2O3 structure. Compared to SiO2 gate oxide, the crystalline Gd2O3 and Y2O3 oxide films show a reduction of electrical leakage at 1 V by four orders of magnitude over an equivalent oxide thickness range of 10–20 A. The leakage of amorphous Y2O3 films is about six orders of magnitude better than SiO2 due to a smooth morphology and abrupt interface with Si. The absence of SiO2 segregation at the dielectric/Si interface is established from infrared absorption spectroscopy and scanning transmission electron microscopy. The amorphous Gd2O3 and Y2O3 films withstand the high temperature anneals to 850 °C and remain electrically and chemically intact.
Aircraft technology portfolio optimization using ant colony optimization

Technology portfolio selection is a combinatorial optimization problem often faced with a large number of combinations and technology incompatibilities. The main research question addressed in this article is to determine if Ant Colony Optimization (ACO) is better suited than Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Simulated Annealing (SA) for technology portfolio optimization when incompatibility constraints between technologies are present. Convergence rate, capability to find optima, and efficiency in handling of incompatibilities are the three criteria of comparison. The application problem consists of finding the best technology portfolio from 29 aircraft technologies. The results show that ACO and GAs converge faster and find optima more easily than SA, and that ACO can optimize portfolios with technology incompatibilities without using penalty functions. This latter finding paves the way for more use of ACO when the number of constraints increases, such as in the technology and concept selection for complex engineering systems.
Tunability and ferroelectric relaxor properties of bismuth strontium titanate ceramics

A systemic study was performed on bismuth strontium titanate (Sr1−1.5xBixTiO3, 0.04⩽x⩽0.25) ceramics. Dielectric properties were measured from 83to373K at different frequencies. A transformation from relaxor ferroelectrics to relaxor behavior was observed when x>0.10. Both diffuseness and relaxation degree increase as x rises. Tunability was found to increase with increasing x value until 0.07, and then decrease when Bi3+ content increases. Meanwhile, their figures of merit (defined as tunability/loss) shows a maximum at x=0.12. The change from relaxor ferroelectrics into relaxor behavior has a positive impact on the tunability of bismuth strontium titanate system.
Holographic Lens Resolution Using the Convolution Theorem

The similarity between object and image of negative asymmetrical holographic lenses (HLs) stored in a low-toxicity photopolymer has been evaluated theoretically and experimentally. Asymmetrical experimental setups with negative focal lengths have been used to obtain HLs. For this purpose, the resolution of the HLs was calculated using the convolution theorem. A USAF 1951 test was used as an object and the impulse responses of the HLs, which in this case was the amplitude spread function (ASF), were obtained with two different methods: using a CCD sensor and a Hartmann Shack (HS) wavefront sensor. For a negative asymmetrically recorded HL a maximum resolution of 11.31 lp/mm was obtained. It was evaluated at 473 nm wavelength. A theoretical study of object-image similarity had carried out using the MSE (mean squared error) metric to evaluate the experimental results obtained quantitatively.
Surface radiation at sea -validation of satellite-derived data with shipboard measurements

Quality-controlled and validated radiation products are the basis for their ability to serve the climate and solar energy community. Satellite-derived radiation fluxes are well preferred for this task as they cover the whole research area in time and space. In order to monitor the accuracy of these data, validation with well maintained and calibrated ground based measurements is necessary. Over sea, however, long-term accurate reference data sets from calibrated instruments recording radiation are scarce. Therefore data from research vessels operating at sea are used to perform a reasonable validation. A prerequisite is that the instruments on board are maintained as well as land bome stations. This paper focuses on the comparison of radiation data recorded on board of the German Research Vessel "Meteor" during her 13 months cruise across the Mediterranean and the Black Sea with CM-SAF products using NOAA- and MSG-data (August 2006-August 2007): surface incoming short-wave radiation (SIS) and surface downward long-wave radiation (SDL). Measuring radiation fluxes at sea causes inevitable errors, e.g. shadowing of fields of view of the radiometers by parts of the ship. These ship-inherent difficulties are discussed at first. A comparison of pairs of ship-recorded and satellite-derived mean fluxes for the complete measuring period delivers a good agreement: the mean bias deviation (MBD) for SIS daily means is -7.6 W/m 2 with a median bias of -4 W/m 2 and consistently the MBD for monthly means is -7.3 W/m 2 , for SDL daily means the MBD is 8.1 and 6 W/m 2 median bias respectively. The MBD for monthly means is 8.2 W/m 2 . The variances of the daily means (ship and satellite) have the same annual courses for both fluxes. No significant dependence of the bias on the total cloud cover recorded according to WMO (1969) has been found. The results of the comparison between ship-based observations and satellite retrieved surface radiation reveal the good accuracy of the satellite-based CM-SAF products over sea.
The Masking of Pure Tones and of Speech by White Noise

This report presents the results of a study of the monaural masking of pure tones by white noise at eight sensation levels (SL) from 20 to 90 db. The observed values of masking were employed to determine two basic functions: (a) The critical band width of a masking noise, i.e., the ratio, in decibels, between the level of a pure tone and the level per cycle of the noise that is just able to mask the tone. (b) The function relating the amount of masking to the effective level of the masking noise. With the aid of these two functions, a set of contours was constructed to represent the masked threshold for pure tones heard monaurally against background of white noise having an ideal flat spectrum at the ear of the listener. A study was also made of the masking by white noise of speech in the form of continuous discourse. Measurements of the threshold of detectability and of the threshold of intelligibility were made at the same eight noise levels used to mask pure tones.
Sound Field of a Directional Source in a Reverberant Room

It is useful to have an efficient method to determine the sound field in a room produced by a source that is not omnidirectional. A method is thus developed for simulating a “higher order” source with an arbitrary directional pattern in a reverberant room. Several types of directional sources are subsumed by the higher order source, including an arbitrarily vibrating cylinder and an array of vertical line sources arranged on a cylinder. The sound field is calculated by extending the image-source method. For simplicity the sound is modelled in 2-D where sources are either tall or have an infinite vertical extent. A modal expansion of the sound field is used, which reduces the computation of calculating the sound field over a large number of points. The method is particularly suited to array signal processing where the sound field is sampled at multiple points. Efficient algorithms are presented for simulating both circularly-shaped regions absent of sound sources and the entire room.
Real‐time shock arrival predictions during the “Halloween 2003 epoch”

The “Halloween” epoch from 19 October to 20 November 2003 was marked by 19 major solar flares that were accompanied by metric type II radio bursts. Several of these flares were followed by major geomagnetic storms. The radio bursts were used in real time because they imply coronal and interplanetary transport. Most of these events were also associated with halo (or partial halo) coronal mass ejections (CMEs). A continuing, widely distributed, real‐time research project called “fearless forecasts,” using an ensemble of four physics‐based models, has been made of the ensuing shock arrival times since 1997 at the L1 libration point. Model inputs include consideration of the type II shock speed estimates above the flare sites as well as preliminary CME leading edge speeds in the plane of sky. Thus the model ensemble used inputs that were guided by both speed estimates. The rationale for using CME speeds includes the assumption that their high speeds represented the shocks themselves in addition to an assumption concerning their quasi‐sphericity as they left the Sun. We compare the shock arrival predictions to those observed by the solar wind and magnetic field monitors on the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and the solar wind monitor on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) satellite. Success rates of the models are provided as a metric for this kind of active epoch. These success rates are 79% for one of the considered models using a “hit” window of ±24 hours and 74% when ±15 hours was used. This model demonstrates the importance of simulating both nonhomogeneous background environments and complex shock interactions.
Temperature dependence of the far-infrared absorption spectrum in amorphous dielectrics

A study of the temperature dependence of the absorption coefficient in amorphous dielectrics below 10 cm/sup -1/is the basis of identification of two-level configurations from thermal population changes. It is also found that the anomalous low-frequency modes in glasses consist of widely spaced manifolds of energy levels. (auth)
Mean free paths and elastic and related transport cross sections for neutrals and singly charged ions of Li, Be, and B in hydrogen plasmas

The mean free paths are computed from the momentum transfer cross sections associated with collisions of protons with Li, Be, and B and for Li, Li+, Be+, and B+ colliding with atomic hydrogen, for center of mass energies between 0.0001 and 10 000 eV. The elastic and viscosity cross sections are also calculated for these collision systems. A fully quantum mechanical approach has been used up to 100 eV along with a more approximate, quasiclassical method between ∼0.1 and 10 000 eV.
Terra: Scalable Cross-Layer GDA Optimizations

Geo-distributed analytics (GDA) frameworks transfer large datasets over the wide-area network (WAN). Yet existing frameworks often ignore the WAN topology. This disconnect between WAN-bound applications and the WAN itself results in missed opportunities for cross-layer optimizations. In this paper, we present Terra to bridge this gap. Instead of decoupled WAN routing and GDA transfer scheduling, Terra applies scalable cross-layer optimizations to minimize WAN transfer times for GDA jobs. We present a two-pronged approach: (i) a scalable algorithm for joint routing and scheduling to make fast decisions; and (ii) a scalable, overlay-based enforcement mechanism that avoids expensive switch rule updates in the WAN. Together, they enable Terra to quickly react to WAN uncertainties such as large bandwidth fluctuations and failures in an application-aware manner as well. Integration with the FloodLight SDN controller and Apache YARN, and evaluation on 4 workloads and 3 WAN topologies show that Terra improves the average completion times of GDA jobs by 1.55x-3.43x. GDA jobs running with Terra meets 2.82x-4.29x more deadlines and can quickly react to WAN-level events in an application-aware manner.
A Strong Law for the Largest Nearest‐Neighbour Link between Random Points

Suppose that X1, X2, X3, … are independent random points in Rd with common density f, having compact support Ω with smooth boundary ∂Ω, with f∣Ω continuous. Let Rni, k denote the distance from Xi to its kth nearest neighbour amongst the first n points, and let Mn, k = maxi⩽n Rni, k. Let θ denote the volume of the unit ball. Then as n → ∞, nθMn,kd/logn→max((minfΩ)‐1,2(1‐1/d)(minf∂Ω)‐1),almostsurely.
General thermal wavelength and its applications

It is found that the thermal wavelength of the particles in any positive dimensionality with any positive-exponent energy-momentum (i.e. dispersion) relation must be redefined. A new definition of the thermal wavelength is given, from which the thermodynamic properties of a free ideal system consisting of such particles may be expressed in a compact form similar to those for a three-dimensional nonrelativistic ideal system with which we are all familiar. Moreover, some significant and novel characteristics of the general thermal wavelength redefined here are revealed.
Low-Loss Amorphous Silicon Multilayer Waveguides Vertically Stacked on Silicon-on-Insulator Substrate

Low-loss amorphous-silicon (a-Si) waveguides comprising three vertically stacked layers prepared on silicon-on-insulator substrates are demonstrated. We have fabricated multilayer a-Si waveguides and investigated their loss characteristics; this is the first such investigation to our knowledge. All the process temperatures were regulated below 400 °C for the complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) backend process compatibility. When the surface roughness and sidewall roughness were decreased, the propagation loss decreased to 3.7 dB/cm even in the case of the third layer a-Si waveguide. Such low-loss waveguides can be effectively applied to realize multilayer stacked optical devices.
Non-supercell Tornadoes

Abstract Analyses of tornadoes that are not associated with supercells are presented. The database for this study was collected during CINDE (Convention INitiation and Downburst Experiment), a field project operated during the summer of 1987 in Colorado. A total of 27 visual vortices were studied. They appeared to form as shear instabilities along radar detected convergence lines. The circulations initiated at low levels generally in the absence of precipitation echo. Subsequently as these vortices propagated along the convergence line they appeared to strengthen to tornadic intensity when they became colocated with the updraft of a rapidly developing storm. It is hypothesized that vortex stretching is responsible for intensifying the initial rotation. Although these tornadoes were weaker than those accompanied by strong midlevel mesocyclones, estimates of their strength suggest damage capability as high as F2. The implications for operational radars to detect these types of phenomena were identified. The.
Intertwining operators associated to the group

For any finite reflection group G on an Euclidean space there is a parametrized commutative algebra of differential-difference operators with as many parameters as there are conjugacy classes of reflections in G. There exists a linear isomorphism on polynomials which intertwines this algebra with the algebra of partial differential operators with constant coefficients, for all but a singular set of parameter values (containing only certain negative rational numbers). This paper constructs an integral transform implementing the intertwining operator for the group S3, the symmetric group on three objects, for parameter value > ! The transform is realized as an absolutely continuous measure on a compact subset of M2(R), which contains the group as a subset of its boundary. The construction of the integral formula involves integration over the unitary group U(3) . Associated to any finite reflection group G on an Euclidean space there is a parametrized commutative algebra of differential-difference operators with as many parameters as there are conjugacy classes of reflections in G. It has been shown that there exists a linear isomorphism on polynomials which intertwines this algebra with the algebra of partial differential operators with constant coefficients, for all but a "singular set" of parameter values. This singular set contains only negative values and is closely linked to the zero-set of the Poincare series of G. This paper constructs an integral transform implementing the intertwining map for the group S3, the symmetric group on three objects, for positive parameter values. Previously this had been done only for the group Z2 (acting by sign-change on R) where the transform is a classical fractional integral. The transform in this paper has its origin in the adjoint action of the unitary group U(3) on the linear space of real diagonal 3 x 3 matrices (the complexification of the maximal torus). This will lead to a transform realized as an absolutely continuous measure on a certain compact subset of M2(R). Here is a concise statement of the main result (rephrased from formulas (5.1), (5.6)): the operator V intertwines the differential-difference operators Received by the editors August 22, 1994. 1991 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 22E30, 33C80; Secondary, 33C50, 20B30.
Bulk conduction and nonlinear behaviour in multiferroic YMnO3

Electrical conductivity of YMnO3 in O2, air, and N2 has been investigated by impedance spectroscopy. Within the investigated temperature range, three types of electrical conductivity were distinguished. Below 300 °C, the conductivity is dominated by p-type conductivity, while between 300 and 500 °C, the conductivity is in the so called saturation region. Above 500 °C, n-type conductivity occurred, probably due to the loss of oxygen. The air-processed YMnO3 is characterized by the presence of mixed Mn3+/Mn4+ and electrical heterogeneous structure, which are responsible for both, dielectric anomaly observed between 200 and 300 °C and nonlinear behavior under high electric field.