bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
N-HANS: A neural network-based toolkit for in-the-wild audio enhancement
Authors: Liu Shuo , Keren Gil , Parada-Cabaleiro Emilia , Schuller Björn 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThe unprecedented growth of noise pollution over the last decades has raised an always increasing need for developing efficient audio enhancement technologies. Yet, the variety of difficulties related to processing audio sources in-the-wild, such as handling unseen noises or suppressing specific interferences, makes audio enhancement a still open challenge. In this regard, we present (the Neuro-Holistic Audio-eNhancement System), a Python toolkit for in-the-wild audio enhancement that includes functionalities for audio denoising, source separation, and —for the first time in such a toolkit—selective noise suppression. The architecture is specially developed to automatically adapt to different environmental backgrounds and speakers. This is achieved by the use of two identical neural networks comprised of stacks of residual blocks, each conditioned on additional speech- and noise-based recordings through auxiliary sub-networks. Along to a Python API, a command line interface is provided to researchers and developers, both of them carefully documented. Experimental results indicate that achieves great performance w. r. t. existing methods, preserving also the audio quality at a high level; thus, ensuring a reliable usage in real-life application, e. g., for in-the-wild speech processing, which encourages the development of speech-based intelligent technology.
Application of generalized Pareto distribution for modeling aleatory variability of ground motion
Authors: Zhang Meng , Pan Hua 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThe lognormal distribution is commonly used to characterize the aleatory variability of ground-motion prediction equations (GMPEs) in probabilistic seismic hazard analysis (PSHA). However, this approach often leads to results without actual physical meaning at low exceedance probabilities. In this paper, we discuss how to calculate PSHA with a low exceedance probability. Peak ground acceleration records from the NGA-West2 database and 15,493 residuals calculated by Campbell-Bozorgnia using the NGA-West2 GMPE were applied to analyze the tail shape of the residuals. The results showed that the generalized Pareto distribution (GPD) captured the characteristics of residuals in the tail better than the lognormal distribution. Further study showed that the shapes of the tails of the distributions of residuals with different magnitudes varied significantly due to the heteroscedasticity of the magnitude; the distribution of residuals with larger magnitudes had a smaller upper limit on the right side. Moreover, the residuals of the three magnitude ranges given in this study were more consistent with the GPD of different parameters at the tail than the lognormal distribution and the GPD fitted by all the residuals, leading to a bounded PSHA hazard curve. Therefore, the lognormal distribution is more representative up to a determined threshold, and the GPD fitted to the residuals of three ranges of magnitude better characterizes the tail for PSHA calculation.
Influence of Wetting on Viscous Fingering Via 2D Lattice Boltzmann Simulations
Authors: Mora Peter , Morra Gabriele , Yuen Dave A. , Juanes Ruben 
Published: June 2021

AbstractWe present simulations of two-phase flow using the Rothman and Keller colour gradient Lattice Boltzmann method to study viscous fingering when a “red fluid” invades a porous model initially filled with a “blue” fluid with different viscosity. We conducted eleven suites of 81 numerical experiments totalling 891 simulations, where each suite had a different random realization of the porous model and spanned viscosity ratios in the range$$M\in [0.01,100]$$M∈[0.01,100]and wetting angles in the range$$\theta _w\in [180^\circ ,0^\circ ]$$θw∈[180∘,0∘]to allow us to study the effect of these parameters on the fluid-displacement morphology and saturation at breakthrough (sweep). Although sweep often increased with wettability, this was not always so and the sweep phase space landscape, defined as the difference in saturation at a given wetting angle relative to saturation for the non-wetting case, had hills, ridges and valleys. At low viscosity ratios, flow at breakthrough is localized through narrow fingers that span the model. After breakthrough, the flow field continues to evolve and the saturation continues to increase albeit at a reduced rate, and eventually exceeds 90% for both non-wetting and wetting cases. The existence of a complicated sweep phase space at breakthrough, and continued post-breakthrough evolution suggests the hydrodynamics and sweep is a complicated function of wetting angle, viscosity ratio and time, which has major potential implications to Enhanced Oil Recovery by water flooding, and hence, on estimates of global oil reserves. Validation of these results via experiments is required to ensure they translate to field studies.
Surface Patterning Increases Fluid Sorption Efficiency in Porous Reactive Coatings: A Model for Optimised Surface-Flow Filtration
Authors: Gane P. A. C. , Ridgway C. J. , Kijevčanin M. , Stijepović M. , Uskoković P. S. , Barać N. , Dimić-Mišić K. , Imani M. , Janaćković D. , Barceló E. 
Published: June 2021

AbstractA novel surface-flow filter has been designed to take advantage of a combination of both diffusion and lateral flow permeation, since active coatings, even if porous, tend to be far less permeable than through-flow constructs. The formation of a continuous coating layer virtually excludes any fluid transport into the coating other than by planar diffusion for gases or capillarity for liquids. This study considers the additional potential advantage of creating a pixelated/patterned coating, applied using a pin coater to form printed dots onto a highly permeable cellulose fibrous paper-like substrate. The coating—fine particulate calcium carbonate combined with micro-nanofibrillated cellulose as binder and humectant—reacts on exposure to NO2 gas to form calcium nitrate. Experimental results show an effective doubling of nitrate-forming efficiency using pixelated coating compared with a reference continuous layer coating. To establish an understanding of the comparative mechanisms of gas-coating contact, computational fluid dynamic modelling is used to generate surface pressure profiles combined with a pore network model of the coating to estimate theoretical fluid permeability and gas diffusion coefficients. Although pressure-driven permeation was calculated to be approximately two orders of magnitude less than the diffusive flow, it is concluded that patterned aerofoil pressure differential effects can reduce the impact of surface stagnant layering and so aid fluid transfer, boosting the diffusive transport, which in turn delivers greater contact efficiency based on the increased accessibility to the active coating.
Context-Aware Holographic Communication Based on Semantic Knowledge Extraction
Authors: Manolova Agata , Tonchev Krasimir , Poulkov Vladimir , Dixir Sudhir , Lindgren Peter 
Published: June 2021

AbstractAugmented, mixed and virtual reality are changing the way people interact and communicate. Five dimensional communications and services, integrating information from all human senses are expected to emerge, together with holographic communications (HC), providing a truly immersive experience. HC presents a lot of challenges in terms of data gathering and transmission, demanding Artificial Intelligence empowered communication technologies such as 5G. The goal of the paper is to present a model of a context-aware holographic architecture for real time communication based on semantic knowledge extraction. This architecture will require analyzing, combining and developing methods and algorithms for: 3D human body model acquisition; semantic knowledge extraction with deep neural networks to predict human behaviour; analysis of biometric modalities; context-aware optimization of network resource allocation for the purpose of creating a multi-party, from-capturing-to-rendering HC framework. We illustrate its practical deployment in a scenario that can open new opportunities in user experience and business model innovation.
Thiolane-type sulfides from garlic, onion, and Welsh onion
Authors: Nohara Toshihiro , Fujiwara Yukio , El-Aasr Mona , Ikeda Tsuyoshi , Ono Masateru , Nakano Daisuke , Kinjo Junei 
Published: June 2021

AbstractIn this paper, we review our work in the last 10 years wherein we examined the sulfides in the acetone extracts of garlic (Allium sativum), onion (A. cepa), and Welsh onion (A. fistulosum), obtained and characterized the structures of new sulfides, three 3,4-dimethylthiolane-type sulfides from onion and Welsh onion, respectively, and four acyclic-type, nine 3,4-dimethyl- thiolane-type, four 2-methylthiolane (and thiane)-type, two 1,2-dithiolane-type, and two 2-oxothiolane-type sulfides, together with (E)-ajoene and one kujounin-type sulfide from garlic. During this process, structural corrections were made in onionin A group, garlicnin A, and garlicnin B group in some 3,4-dimethylthiolane-type sulfides. Next, hypothetical pathways for the production of the aforementioned sulfides were proposed. Furthermore, it was revealed that a typical 3,4-dimethylthiolane-type sulfide, onionin A1 obtained from onion, having the isomeric structure of garlicnin B1 obtained from garlic, decreased tumor proliferation and controlled tumor metastasis. These results showed that onionin A1 is an effective agent for controlling tumors, and that the antitumor effects observed in vivo are likely caused by reversing the antitumor immune system. Activation of the antitumor immune system by onionin A1 might be an effective adjuvant therapy for patients with osteosarcoma, ovarian cancer and other malignant tumors.
Estimating the class prior for positive and unlabelled data via logistic regression
Authors: Łazęcka Małgorzata , Mielniczuk Jan , Teisseyre Paweł 
Published: June 2021

AbstractIn the paper, we revisit the problem of class prior probability estimation with positive and unlabelled data gathered in a single-sample scenario. The task is important as it is known that in positive unlabelled setting, a classifier can be successfully learned if the class prior is available. We show that without additional assumptions, class prior probability is not identifiable and thus the existing non-parametric estimators are necessarily biased in general if extra assumptions are not imposed. The magnitude of their bias is also investigated. The problem becomes identifiable when the probabilistic structure satisfies mild semi-parametric assumptions. Consequently, we propose a method based on a logistic fit and a concave minorization of its (non-concave) log-likelihood. The experiments conducted on artificial and benchmark datasets as well as on a large clinical database MIMIC indicate that the estimation errors for the proposed method are usually lower than for its competitors and that it is robust against departures from logistic settings.
Simplified Phasmatodea population evolution algorithm for optimization
Authors: Song Pei-Cheng , Chu Shu-Chuan , Pan Jeng-Shyang , Yang Hongmei 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThis work proposes a population evolution algorithm to deal with optimization problems based on the evolution characteristics of the Phasmatodea (stick insect) population, called the Phasmatodea population evolution algorithm (PPE). The PPE imitates the characteristics of convergent evolution, path dependence, population growth and competition in the evolution of the stick insect population in nature. The stick insect population tends to be the nearest dominant population in the evolution process, and the favorable evolution trend is more likely to be inherited by the next generation. This work combines population growth and competition models to achieve the above process. The implemented PPE has been tested and analyzed on 30 benchmark functions, and it has better performance than similar algorithms. This work uses several engineering optimization problems to test the algorithm and obtains good results.
Zulu Poems of (and for) Nature: Bhekinkosi Ntuli’s Environmental Imagination inImvunge Yemvelo(1972)
Authors: Nyambi Oliver , Otomo Patricks Voua 
Published: June 2021

AbstractNature, climate crisis, and the Anthropocene have carved space in recent inter-, cross-, and multi-disciplinary humanities studies. In South Africa, such studies have barely touched literature in African languages. Nyambi and Otomo focus on the tropes of “lady nature,” nostalgia, and dystopia in Zulu writer Bhekinkosi Ntuli’sImvunge Yemveloto explore the complex ways in which these tropes test the normative epistemes of ecological crises. Beyond rejecting imperial distortions of indigenous environmentalism, Ntuli’s poems re-center local knowledge of nature in understanding its relationship with humans. That knowledge subverts epistemic structures of colonial conservation, revising and re-visioning racially geo-politicized knowledge hierarchies.
Effect of niacin supplementation on nausea-like behaviour in an isoniazid-induced mouse model of pellagra
Authors: Natsumi Susai , Kuroita Tomohiro , Ishikawa Tatsuru , Kuronuma Koji , Yoshioka Takeshi 
Published: June 2021

AbstractNiacin deficiency causes pellagra, the symptoms of which include dermatitis, diarrhoea and dementia. Investigating the mechanism underlying these phenotypes has been challenging due to the lack of an appropriate animal model. Here, we report a mouse model of pellagra-related nausea induced by feeding mice a low-niacin diet and administering isoniazid (INH), which is thought to induce pellagra. Mice fed a normal or low-niacin diet received INH (0·3 or 1·0 mg/mg per animal, twice daily, 5 d), and nausea was evaluated based on pica behaviour, which considered the rodent equivalent of the emetic reflex. Furthermore, the effect of therapeutic niacin administration on nausea was evaluated in this model. Urinary and hepatic metabolite levels were analysed by LC coupled with MS. INH-induced pica was observed in mice fed a low-niacin diet but not in those fed a normal diet. Levels of urinary metabolites, such as 1-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide, kynurenic acid and xanthurenic acid, were significantly reduced in the mice treated with INH compared with those that did not receive INH. Furthermore, niacin supplementation prevented pica and restored the levels of some metabolites in this mouse model. Our findings suggest that INH-related nausea is pellagra-like. We also believe that our newly established method for quantifying pica is a useful tool for investigating the mechanisms of pellagra-related nausea.
Au cœur de la tempête : L'opinion publique électorale et la crise des réfugiés
Authors: Dumouchel David 
Published: June 2021

RésuméLa littérature sur les tempêtes médiatiques n'a jamais évalué leurs effets sur l'opinion publique de manière systématique. Cet article vise à combler ce vide en mobilisant des données de sondage pour évaluer l’évolution de l'opinion publique en regard de la crise des réfugiés, une tempête médiatique survenue durant la campagne fédérale canadienne de 2015. Les résultats montrent que la période de tempête médiatique a influencé les attitudes citoyennes à l’égard de certains cadres liés à la question et que l'effet a persisté jusqu’à la fin de la campagne. Ils révèlent par ailleurs que certaines opinions politiques en viennent à constituer des éléments déterminants de l'intention de vote et du choix de vote final. Ces éléments de preuve montrent que les citoyens sont réceptifs aux tempêtes médiatiques et constituent un exemple concret de la manière dont la logique de marché médiatique devient parfois prépondérante dans les rapports de force qui caractérisent la sphère publique.
Objective assessment of nasal resistance among electronic cigarette users
Authors: Lim S W , Zulkiflee AB 
Published: June 2021

AbstractBackgroundElectronic cigarettes have been a popular alternative to tobacco smoking. The effect of tobacco smoking on nasal airway resistance has been investigated before; however, the effect of the aerosol generated by electronic cigarettes is still unknown. This study aimed to evaluate the short-term effects of e-cigarettes on nasal airway resistance.MethodsSixty-one participants were recruited into a vapers group and a control group. The vapers group was instructed to smoke for 5 minutes, and their nasal resistance was measured pre-procedure and at 1 and 5 minutes post-procedure. The results were compared between both groups.ResultsRepeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that vaping has no statistically significant effect on total nasal airway resistance.ConclusionAlthough the differences between both groups were not statistically significant overall, the vapers group showed a reduction in nasal airway resistance in the short term.
Outcomes of examination under anaesthesia of post-nasal space and grommet insertion in adults presenting with otitis media with effusion
Authors: Mohammed H , Qureshi M H , Yates P 
Published: June 2021

AbstractBackgroundIn adults, otitis media with effusion causes considerable morbidity and has poorly established outcomes. A small number of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients present with isolated ear-related symptoms. The investigation of choice for these patients is a point of debate.MethodsA retrospective cohort study was conducted using a local database of adult patients who underwent examination under anaesthesia of the post-nasal space with grommet insertion for otitis media with effusion between January 2014 and January 2016.ResultsNinety-eight patients met the inclusion criteria. Follow-up duration ranged from 39 to 63 months. Complications of grommets were present in 36 out of 98 patients (36.73 per cent). The findings of examination under anaesthesia of the post-nasal space were documented as abnormal in three patients. No patient was diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.ConclusionGrommets in adults with otitis media with effusion as the sole presenting feature carry a high complication rate, especially in those with previously inserted grommets. Examination under anaesthesia of the post-nasal space offers a low yield. A magnetic resonance imaging scan of the post-nasal space may be a more sensitive alternative.
SwitchNet: Learning to switch for word-level language identification in code-mixed social media text
Authors: Sarma Neelakshi , Sanasam Singh Ranbir , Goswami Diganta 
Published: June 2021

AbstractWord-level language identification is an essential prerequisite for extracting useful information from code-mixed social media content. Previous studies in word-level language identification show two important observations. First, the local context is an important indicator of the language of a word when a word is valid in multiple languages. Second, considering the word in isolation from its context leads to more effective language classification when a word is borrowed or embedded into sentences of other languages. In this paper, we propose a framework for language identification that makes use of a dynamic switching mechanism for effective language classification of both words that are borrowed or embedded from other languages as well as words that are valid in multiple languages. For a given input, the proposed switching mechanism makes a dynamic decision to bias its prediction either towards the prediction obtained by the contextual information or that obtained by the word in isolation. In contrast to existing studies that rely upon large amounts of annotated data for robust performance in a multilingual environment, the proposed approach uses minimal annotated resources and no external resources, making it easily extendible to newer languages. Evaluation over a corpus of transliterated Facebook comments shows that the proposed approach outperforms its baseline counterparts: classification based on the contextual information, classification based on the word in isolation, as well as an ensemble of the two classifiers.
Evaluation of Chinese Scatterometer Ocean Surface Wind Data: Preliminary Analysis
Authors: Zhao Ke , Zhao Chaofang , Chen Ge 
Published: June 2021

AbstractThree scatterometers have been launched in China including Haiyang‐2A scatterometer (HY‐2A/SCAT), Haiyang‐2B scatterometer (HY‐2B/SCAT), and China French Oceanography Satellite scatterometer (CFOSCAT). Both of HY‐2A/SCAT and HY‐2B/SCAT are rotating pencil‐beam scatterometers while CFOSCAT is the first rotating fan‐beam scatterometer (RFSCAT) in the world. In this study, we focus on the evaluation of Chinese scatterometer operational wind products from January 2019 to April 2019. Scatterometer wind products are collocated with buoy measurements. Error varieties under different atmospheric stratification conditions are also taken into consideration. The average biases and root mean square errors (RMSEs) between buoy and scatterometer data are basically satisfied with the scatterometer mission requirements (2 m/s and 20°). HY‐2B/SCAT wind products have the best data quality. However, HY‐2A/SCAT wind products have the largest deviations compared with buoy measurements and the wind direction RMSE was about 24.19°. The biases change a lot between different atmospheric stratification conditions. HY‐2A/SCAT winds have abnormal large deviations when wind speeds are higher than 10 m/s while HY‐2B/SCAT and CFOSCAT winds are stable under neutral conditions. In brief, the wind data quality of HY‐2B/SCAT is the best and then is CFOSCAT while HY‐2A/SCAT winds have the largest deviations and are unstable under different atmospheric stratification conditions. Atmospheric stratification impacts should be considered in wind retrieval and marine application.
Seasonal Characteristics of Biogenic Secondary Organic Aerosols Over Chichijima Island in the Western North Pacific: Impact of Biomass Burning Activity in East Asia
Authors: Verma Santosh Kumar , Kawamura Kimitaka , Deshmukh Dhananjay Kumar , Haque Md. Mozammel , Pavuluri Chandra Mouli 
Published: June 2021

AbstractTo better understand the formation processes of biogenic secondary organic aerosols (SOAs) over remote oceanic regions, aerosol samples were collected from 2010 to 2012 at Chichijima Island in the western North Pacific (WNP). The samples were analyzed by gas chromatography‐mass spectrometry for SOA tracers, which are produced by the photochemical oxidation of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs), including isoprene, monoterpenes, and sesquitepenes. Although no seasonal trend was identified for the isoprene‐derived SOA tracers, we observed higher levels of the monoterpene‐derived and sesquiterpene‐derived SOA tracers in winter/spring and lower levels in summer/autumn. We found a significant correlation (r = 0.87) of β‐caryophyllinic acid with levoglucosan, the latter being a specific tracer of biomass burning (BB). This suggests that the β‐caryophyllene accumulated in higher plants is evaporated by BB followed by atmospheric oxidation during long‐range transport from the Asian continent over the WNP. The biogenic secondary organic carbon concentration estimated using a tracer‐based approach ranged from 0.11 to 174 ngC m−3 (avg. 34.8 ± 38.2 ngC m−3), accounting for 0.02%–32.0% (avg. 6.11% ± 6.42%) of the measured organic carbon. Our results indicate that SOAs are formed by the photooxidation of BVOCs. The backward trajectories of air masses further support their transport from the central Pacific during mid‐spring to mid‐autumn, whereas BB aerosols are transported from the Asian continent during mid‐autumn to mid‐spring over the WNP. Positive matrix factorization analyses of the SOA tracers suggest that organic aerosols of Chichijima are mostly related to BVOC emissions, with BB’s additional contributions especially in winter and spring.