Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PROSODY UNDER CONTROL: CONTROLLING PROSODY IN TEXT-TO-SPEECH SYNTHESIS BY ADJUSTMENTS IN LATENT REFERENCE SPACE

We present a methodology for controlling prosodic characteristics of the output of an end-to-end TTS system based on direct adjustments of latent reference style conditioning vectors (style embeddings). The adjustments follow directions of maximal change calculated as gradients of regression fits of prosodic features against dimensions of the latent space. We also introduce a procedure for mitigating inter-dependencies among control in multiple prosodic dimensions based on an orthogonal projection. As the method does not rely on explicit prosodic annotations used for training, it is easy to implement, and can be applied to existing models without retraining. Our approach is evaluated on two single-speaker speech corpora that contain prosodically and stylistically rich material.
Functions for simulating data and designing studies of physiological flexibility in the acute glucocorticoid response to stressors.

Wild animals often experience unpredictable challenges that demand rapid and flexible responses. The glucocorticoid mediated stress response is one of the major systems that allows vertebrates to rapidly adjust their physiology and behavior. Given its role in responding to challenges, evolutionary physiologists have focused on the consequences of between-individual and, more recently, within-individual variation in the acute glucocorticoid response. Although sophisticated approaches are available to partition this variation statistically, empirical studies of physiological flexibility are severely limited by the logistical challenges of measuring the same animal multiple times during a single acute response or across multiple instances of acute responses. Empiricists have largely adopted the strategy of standardizing sampling as much as possible to allow for comparison between individuals, but this standardization also makes it very difficult to detect certain types of variation in the functional shape of acute response curves. Data simulation is a powerful approach when empirical data are limited, but has not been adopted to date in studies of physiological flexibility. In this paper, I describe the simcoRt package, which includes functions that can generate realistic acute glucocorticoid response data with user specified characteristics. Simulated animals can be sampled continuously through an acute response and across as many separate responses as desired, while varying key parameters (e.g., the degree of correlation between the speed and scope of a response). Using this simulation, I explore several possible scenarios to highlight areas where simulation might either provide new insight into physiological flexibility directly or aid in designing empirical studies that are better able to test the hypotheses of interest.
Evaluation of architectural changes along the proximal to distal regions of the dorsal laminar interface in the equine hoof

Objective —To describe architectural changes along the dorsal laminar interface of the equine foot. Sample Population —6 macroscopically normal forefeet obtained from 6 equine cadavers. Procedure —Histologic sections of 8 evenly spaced, proximal to distal, samples of the dorsal laminar interface were photographed, digitized, and examined for differences in architecture. Laminar depth; secondary laminar density; number and consistency of bifurcations occurring within the secondary laminae, and areas composed of primary dermal lamina, primary epidermal lamina, and secondary laminar interface were recorded. Data were examined to test for differences in architecture associated with the proximal to distal positioning of
The Linder Hypothesis for Foreign Direct Investment Revisited *

This paper examines the Linder hypothesis for foreign direct investment using a newly constructed and comprehensive dataset of greenfield and brownfield investment activities across various industries from 2003 to 2018. The canonical three-way gravity framework is used to examine the Linder hypothesis, which suggests that firms are more likely to invest in countries with similar income levels as their home country. The main findings indicate that the Linder hypothesis holds regardless of the foreign direct investment type. The Linder effect varies according to the economic sector, being more relevant for the utility, construction, and manufacturing sectors compared to finance and business support. Furthermore, the Linder effect is larger in downstream segments of global value chains. Our results underscore the importance of industry, quality, and value chain differences in the Linder effect.
Choosing energy efficiency – consumer response to operating costs at the point of sale

Consumers have a big effect on energy use through their choice of the appliances and cars that they buy. But they may buy a product without thinking about energy costs –focussing instead on the initial cost and other features. Do we know if alerting them to running costs encourages them to buy more efficient products? There has been a continuing interest in this area, with eighteen studies published on experiments and field trials of operating costs labels since 2011, but no recent meta-analysis of this body of work. This paper reviews the recent literature to see what the evidence suggests. The picture is complicated and quite fragmented: studies have looked at diverse products, with different proportions of up front and operational costs, some of which are have reasonably consistent energy use (eg fridges) and some with wide variations in consumer usage (eg cars). The study methods are also varied using choice experiments (in the ‘laboratory’, in fact generally online) and ‘field studies’, which have measured the actual change in consumer purchases in a physical or online shops. Moreover, researchers have presented consumers with information on a variety of operational costs: for one, five or ten years, for a given usage (distance driven for cars) or over the product’s expected lifetime. Perhaps unsurprisingly the results from these experiments are also complex and difficult to interpret: most studies found a statistically significant increase in sales from providing energy cost information but not all. Choice experiments generally found a more positive effect than field trials, probably because the researchers had greater control in both design and execution. The paper presents possible explanations for the lack of consistency in results between and within different product types. As things stand the evidence
THE BURDEN OF HIGH FARE PRICES ON URBAN INEQUALITY: AN ANALYSIS OF TRANSPORT COSTS IN

– In recent years there has been a surge of interest in the relation between transport and equity. While transport expenditure plays a pivotal role in promoting equity within public transport systems, out-of-pocket user costs are often overlooked. Making transport affordable is one of the foremost challenges, especially in the Global South, where inequality levels are high. The primary objective of this research was to determine who was most affected by high public transport fares and to assess the resulting implications for equity in Rio de Janeiro. This study uses survey data collected from public transport users in 2023 to assess real transport expenditures and incomes to provide a complex description of fare affordability in the city. By considering both perceived affordability and a calculated affordability metric, we use statistical analysis to identify which groups were most likely to be adversely impacted by the existing fare policies. We then evaluated these groups’ accompanying perceptions of public transport. Finally , a Pseudo Palma ratio was used to measure the equity of fare costs across those who could and could not afford their transport. Our findings revealed that income, gender, transport expenditure, trip time and trip purpose were the main factors that distinguish those who could or could not afford their daily transport needs. We find that the relation between fare policies and transport equity depends on a complex interaction between fare costs, sociodemographic characteristics, perceptions, and spatial organization.
THE ROLE OF INTONATION TYPE AND STRESS POSITION IN NATIVE MANDARIN SPEAKERS’ PERCEPTION OF ENGLISH LEXICAL STRESS

This is an original empirical study investigating the extent to which intonation type (IT) and stress position (SP) influence the perception of L2 English lexical stress by native Mandarin speakers. The stimuli were 16 sets of non-vowel-reducing disyllabic English heteronyms, which differs in stress positions (trochaic vs. iambic) and intonation types (read with falling vs. rising contours). Thirty Mandarin speakers majoring in English completed a lexical stress test using two-alternatives forced-choice identification paradigm, and the accuracy rates (AR) and reaction times (RT) of their lexical stress perception were compared. The results reveal that both IT and SP had significant main effects on subjects’ lexical stress judgment, that IT exhibited a more robust role than SP according to effect sizes, and that there are genuinely significant interaction effects between IT and SP signifying a complex interactive network existing in native Mandarin speakers’ perception of L2 English lexical stress.
Digital Commons @ University of Digital Commons @ University of South Florida South Florida

Background: Cigarette smoking is the leading preventable cause of disease and death in the US. Despite availability of a plethora of evidence-based smoking cessation resources, less than a third actively seek cessation services. For example, free “quitlines” are available in all US states, but less than 3% of smokers—those motivated to take action to quit smoking—utilize them. Lacking are low-cost, scalable interventions that support smokers unready to quit (ambivalent smokers) to gradually promote smoking behavior changes until motivation to quit arises, at which time they can be navigated to evidence-based smoking cessation interventions. Conversational agents or chatbots could provide cessation education and support to ambivalent smokers to build motivation and navigate them to evidence-based resources when ready to quit. Objective: The goal of our study is to develop and pilot test preliminary feasibility and acceptability of a smoking cessation support chatbot. Methods: We will accomplish our study aims in two phases: In Phase 1, we will survey 300 ambivalent smokers to determine their preferences/priorities for a smoking cessation support chatbot. Using conjoint analysis, data gathered will be used to program a prototype chatbot. In Phase 2, we will assess the prototype chatbot’s acceptability in N=25 smokers using semi-structured interviews. Results: We are initiated data collection for Phase 1 of the study and anticipate that all study aims will be completed by June 2023. Conclusions: Study results will yield a smoking behavior change chatbot prototype developed for ambivalent smokers that will be ready for efficacy testing in a larger study
AVALIAÇÃO CLÍNICA DO USO DO OXALATO DE POTÁSSIO EM RESTAURAÇÕES DE LESÕES CERVICAIS NÃO-CARIOSAS

Avaliou-se a eficiencia do uso do oxalato de potassio (BisBlock – Bisco) em restauracoes de lesoes cervicais nao-cariosas. Para a realizacao do estudo, foram selecionados vinte pacientes voluntarios de ambos os sexos, com idades entre vinte e quatro e cinquenta e cinco anos, com no minimo duas lesoes que foram restauradas com as tecnicas a serem avaliadas. Noventa dentes foram aleatoriamente divididos em dois grupos, a saber: Grupo 1 - Restauracao pela tecnica convencional com o condicionamento acido total e Grupo 2 - Restauracao com pre-tratamento de oxalato de potassio seguido da aplicacao do sistema adesivo. O sistema restaurador adesivo empregado foi o XP Bond (Dentisply) – Durafill (Kulzer). Para a realizacao das avaliacoes clinicas, foi empregado o metodo USPHS modificado, levando-se em consideracao os seguintes criterios: retencao (R), integridade marginal (IM), descoloracao marginal (DM), sensibilidade pos-operatoria (S), carie (C), forma anatomica (FA). As avaliacoes clinicas foram realizadas por dois avaliadores nos periodos imediato (Baseline), seis meses e um ano. A intensidade da sensibilidade dolorosa foi avaliada antes e apos o tratamento utilizando-se uma escala de medida verbal. Ao final de um ano, os resultados de restauracoes clinicamente satisfatorios (Alfa e Bravo) obtidos para o grupo controle e experimental foram respectivamente: R (97%/89%), IM (100%/100%), DM (100%/100%), S (100%/100%), C (100%/100%), FA (100%/100%). Os resultados foram submetidos a analise estatistica com os testes de Kruskal-Wallis e Mann-Whitney para os niveis de sensibilidade e o exato de Fisher para os demais criterios com o nivel de significância de 5% (p<0,05). Com base na analise estatistica dos resultados, conclui-se que o emprego do oxalato de potassio como agente de pre-tratamento dentinario nao influenciou no desempenho clinico das restauracoes de lesoes cervicais nao-cariosas ao final de um ano.
Influence of Water Quality and Sediment Transport on Biological Recovery Downstream of Lime Doser Systems

BEDU-MENSAH, HENRY, M.S., August 2015, Environmental Studies Influence of Water Quality and Sediment Transport on Biological Recovery Downstream of Lime Doser Systems Director of Thesis: Natalie Kruse Lime doser treatment for acid mine drainage (AMD) is often used in areas with insufficient space for passive treatment systems and in rural areas where more complex treatment systems would be impractical. In this study, assessment of pH, conductivity, sulfate, iron, manganese and aluminum was conducted for 8-11 miles downstream of each doser. Grain size profile and trace metal concentration in stream sediments were also analyzed. Doser downstream reaches’ field parameters, water quality profile and sediment were analyzed with R application and compared to assess differences in biological recovery in the four watersheds. Results of the study showed that precipitation of dissolved metals, high alkalinity content, high average grain size of sediment downstream of the doser treatment led to better biological improvement. Model output of multivariate regression showed strong relationship between biological score and iron and alkalinity. The adjusted R was 0.47. The parameter linkage in the streams in the different watersheds shows that the influential factors are applicable to many different systems to enhance biological score improvement.
Spatiotemporal Virtual Transformation Based Super-Resolution Angle Estimation Under 2-D Nonuniform Sparse MIMO Array

In traditional multiple input multiple output (MIMO) mmWave radar, missing estimation is a common problem in coherent source scenarios due to low angle resolution in elevation and azimuth dimensions. To address this, we propose a novel two-dimensional (2-D) super-resolution angle estimation method based on compressed sensing. Our approach involves a spatial virtual transformation of the nonuniform sparse array of $M$ emitters and $N$ receivers, generating a spatiotemporal virtual array (MIMO-II-VA) with two times aperture of the spatial virtual array using multiple snapshots based on nested array rules. The received echo signal of MIMO-II-VA is then recovered using compressed sensing technology, enabling accurate and stable angle estimation for multiple targets in the coherent source scenario. We first introduce the optimal sub-pattern assignment (OSPA) metric criterion to the angle estimation domain, which effectively measures under-estimated or over-estimated target errors compared to the conventional root mean square error criterion (RMSE). Our simulation results demonstrate that our proposed method achieves an angle resolution approaching azimuth 0.5° and elevation 1° using ARS548 RDI mmWave radar with 12 emitters and 16 receivers under actual physical antenna array when the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is higher than 5dB. Furthermore, with more than 16 snapshots, our approach achieves a 100% success rate in 5 coherent sources.
A Data-Driven Approach to Predict Social Impact of Rural Tourism: Insights from UNWTO’s Video Campaigns

Measuring the impact of tourism on society is important for efficient tourism planning and budgeting. Considerable amount of financial resources has been allocated for tourism promotional efforts. Therefore, it is important to understand how well promotional efforts have stimulated tourism social impacts. This study aims to predict the UNWTO promotional video views and its resulting impact on society. A CNN model with VGG16 was used to classify videos and images into clusters and RGB models. Quantitative analysis was conducted to predict video views and annual GDP as a societal impact. Our model performance for predicting official video views reveals strong relationship between image characteristics and promotional video views. Most notably, the strong correlation between image/video data and countries’ GDP growth rate highlighted by the model’s performance illuminates the potential of image data as a predictive tool in understanding the economic impacts of tourism particularly in rural areas.
Automated Generation of OpenSCENARIO Scenarios for Evaluating Advanced Driver Assistance Systems

The automotive industry widely adopts virtual testing of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) since it is more reliable, time-saving, and cost-efficient. Constant testing and validation ensures the safety and reliability of a driver-assistance feature. It is initially done on a virtual platform since on-road testing is expensive and cannot reproduce the same results. Testing in a virtual environment uses a scenario-based approach where each scenario represents a real-world condition, and the simulation can help replicate real-world results. Scenarios are usually designed manually by experts following specific rules and standards and is a time-consuming process. The proposed method uses an OpenDRIVE map as its primary input and some user-specified parameters to generate scenarios. Two methods are studied for route generation: one involves route generation using simulator callbacks, and the second method uses an analytical method for calculating the route trajectory for each dynamic entity based on its position in the road network. The output is an OpenSCENARIO file containing information regarding the position, speed, trajectory, and maneuvers of every dynamic entity in the road network. The proposed method gives more control to the user for scenario generation and can automatically generate large scenario datasets quickly compared to manual scenario creation.
The use of seismically isolated buildings by urban wildlife in Japan

Some wildlife species that have expanded their range into urban areas use various anthropogenic structures for breeding and resting. We investigated the use of seismically isolated buildings, with gaps between the structures and ground surface, by urban wildlife in Japan. Camera traps set in a building revealed that masked palm civets (Paguma larvata) continued to use the building for approximately 3 years. Civet feces and footprints were found in two buildings during field sign surveys. To ensure public health, civets should be prevented from invading seismically isolated buildings by covering gaps with elastic materials and avoiding placing pipes that could be used by the animals near these gaps.
Hall Effect Sensor-Based Low-Cost Flow Monitoring Device: Design and Validation

Monitoring and assessment of coastal and river velocities plays a key role in both scientific and industry applications. Field measurements are key for decision-making for resource management and protection, as well as for the validation of numerical models and climate change studies. In this article, a Hall effect sensor-based cost-effective novel device is proposed for measuring velocities and direction of near-bed currents and water-level. This device, called the Hydromast, provides instantaneous measurements in real-world conditions and is equipped with communication capabilities to allow near real-time data transfer and monitoring. The validation of the device is performed in real-world steady and unsteady flow conditions. Within the device measurement range, it is shown that the root-mean-square error (RMSE) of the time-averaged flow measurements is under 0.1 m/s.
Patterns of Spatial Variation in Rumen Microbiology, Histomorphology, and Fermentation Parameters in Tarim wapiti (Cervus elaphus yarkandensis)

The rumen is divided into multiple rumen sacs based on anatomical structure, and each has its unique physiological environment. Tarim wapiti preserved roughage tolerance after domestication, and adaptation to the desertified environment led to the development of a unique rumen shape and intraruminal environment. In this work, six Tarim wapiti were chosen and tested for fermentation parameters, microbes, and histomorphology in four rumen areas (Dorsal sac, DS; Ventral sac, VS; Caudodorsal blind sac, CDBS; Caudoventral blind sac, CVBS). Tarim wapiti’s rumen blind sac had better developed rumen histomorphology, the ventral sac was richer in VFAs, and the dominant bacteria varied most notably in the phylum Firmicutes, which was enriched in the caudoventral blind sac. The ventral sac biomarkers focused on carbohydrate fermentation-associated bacteria, the dorsal sac focused on N recycling, and the caudoventral blind sac identified the only phylum-level bacterium, Firmicutes; we were surprised to find a probiotic bacterium, Bacillus clausii, identified as a biomarker in the ventral sac. This research provides a better understanding of rumen fermentation parameters, microorganisms, and histomorphology in the Tarim wapiti rumen within a unique ecological habitat, laying the groundwork for future regulation targeting the rumen microbiota and subsequent animal production improvement.
Hybridization Methodology for Predicting ORE from Mines to End User using Machine Learning Technique

Iron ore is the most important iron ore in India and it is often lost on the way from the mine to its final destination. Manual sorting of many types of iron ore is difficult and time consuming. We deploy the most advanced RFID technology, along with weighbridges and GPS tracking systems, to solve this problem. Instead of using F-CNN, Iron ore grades were classified using a preliminary object recognition algorithm (YOLO V5). One crucial technical job in mining and excavation is locating mineral reserves. Conventional methods, however, are laborious and time-consuming. The concept makes use of machine learning capabilities to provide proactive, data-driven mine-to-end-user logistics, which minimizes environmental impact, lowers costs, and increases efficiency. Thus, datasets pertaining to mineral reserves were classified more accurately through the application of data augmentation and transfer learning. Comparative trials showed that using transfer learning may effectively counteract the improvement of categorization performance, up to and including 94%. This is a new concept for mining problems that can be solved by the above mentioned method.