SyncFusion: Multimodal Onset-synchronized Video-to-Audio Foley Synthesis

Sound design involves creatively selecting, recording, and editing sound effects for various media like cinema, video games, and virtual/augmented reality. One of the most time-consuming steps when designing sound is synchronizing audio with video. In some cases, environmental recordings from video shoots are available, which can aid in the process. However, in video games and animations, no reference audio exists, requiring manual annotation of event timings from the video. We propose a system to extract repetitive actions onsets from a video, which are then used - in conjunction with audio or textual embeddings - to condition a diffusion model trained to generate a new synchronized sound effects audio track. In this way, we leave complete creative control to the sound designer while removing the burden of synchronization with video. Furthermore, editing the onset track or changing the conditioning embedding requires much less effort than editing the audio track itself, simplifying the sonification process. We provide sound examples, source code, and pretrained models to faciliate reproducibilit

L3DAS21 Challenge: Machine Learning for 3D Audio Signal Processing

The L3DAS21 Challenge is aimed at encouraging and fostering collaborative research on machine learning for 3D audio signal processing, with particular focus on 3D speech enhancement (SE) and 3D sound localization and detection (SELD). Alongside with the challenge, we release the L3DAS21 dataset, a 65 hours 3D audio corpus, accompanied with a Python API that facilitates the data usage and results submission stage. Usually, machine learning approaches to 3D audio tasks are based on single-perspective Ambisonics recordings or on arrays of single-capsule microphones. We propose, instead, a novel multichannel audio configuration based multiple-source and multiple-perspective Ambisonics recordings, performed with an array of two first-order Ambisonics microphones. To the best of our knowledge, it is the first time that a dual-mic Ambisonics configuration is used for these tasks. We provide baseline models and results for both tasks, obtained with state-of-the-art architectures: FaSNet for SE and SELDNet for SELD. This report is aimed at providing all needed information to participate in the L3DAS21 Challenge, illustrating the details of the L3DAS21 dataset, the challenge tasks and the baseline models.Comment: Documentation paper for the L3DAS21 Challenge for IEEE MLSP 2021. Further information on www.l3das.com/mlsp202

Pediatric nurses in pediatricians' offices: a survey for primary care pediatricians

Background: The role played by nurses in caring for children in pediatricians' officies in the community is crucial to ensure integrated care. In Italy, pediatricians are responsible for the health of children aged 0-14 years living in the community. This study aimed to describe Italian primary care pediatricians' opinions about the usefulness of several nursing activities that pediatric nurses could perform in pediatricians' offices. Methods: An online survey with pediatricians working in primary care in Italy was conducted between April-December 2018. A 40-item questionnaire was used to assess four types of nursing activities: clinical care, healthcare education, disease prevention, and organizational activities. The answers ranged from 1 (not useful at all) to 6 (very useful). Moreover, three open-ended questions completed the questionnaire. Results: Overall, 707 pediatricians completed the online survey. Participants were mainly female (63%), with a mean age of 57.74 (SD = 6.42). The presence of a pediatric nurse within the pediatrician's office was considered very useful, especially for healthcare education (Mean 4.90; SD 1.12) and disease prevention (Mean 4.82; SD 1.11). Multivariate analysis confirmed that pediatricians 'with less working experience', 'having their office in a small town', and 'collaborating with a secretary and other workers in the office' rated the nurse's activities significantly more useful. Conclusions: A pediatric nurse in the pediatrician's office can significantly contribute to many activities for children and their families in the community. These activities include clinical care, healthcare education, disease prevention, and the organizational processes of the office. Synergic professional activity between pediatricians and pediatric nurses could ensure higher health care standards in the primary care setting

Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment as support for bathing waters profiling

Profiling bathing waters supported by Quantitative Microbial Risk Assessment (QMRA) is key to the WHO's recommendations for the 2020/2021 revision of the European Bathing Water Directive. We developed an areaspecific QMRA model on four pathogens, using fecal indicator concentrations (E. coil, enterococci) for calculating pathogen loads. The predominance of illness was found to be attributable to Human Adenovirus, followed by Salmonella, Vibrio, and Norovirus. Overall, the cumulative illness risk showed a median of around 1 case/10000 exposures. The risk estimates were strongly influenced by the indicators that were used, suggesting the need for a more detailed investigation of the different sources of fecal contamination. Area-specific threshold values for fecal indicators were estimated on a risk-basis by modelling the cumulative risk against E. coll. and enterococci concentrations. To improve bathing waters assessment, we suggest considering source apportionment locally estimating of pathogen/indicator ratios, and calculating site-specific indicators thresholds based on risk assessment

Understanding discourses on technological interventions to tackle soil salinity

Soil salinity is an environmental hazard in arid and semi-arid regions in the world, diminishing crops growth and, hence, affecting agricultural production. One scientifically accepted solution to contrast the problem is the practice of leaching, consisting in the application of an extra amount of water, in addition to that used for irrigation, which can remove salts from the root zone, washed away through drainage. In the province of Khuzestan, Iran, the issue of soil salinity adds to and is fed by the bad quality and poor quantity of water sources, and it seems to be worsened by a lack of appropriate drainage system, so that leaching has not been adopted yet. This thesis has a dual goal: besides assessing if interventions such as leaching are feasible in the context of Khuzestan, it sheds new light on the underlying existing socio-economic factors that constrain their adoption. More specifically, it explores the discourses on the adoption of technical interventions needed to address soil salinity developed by the different stakeholders involved in the improvement of irrigation networks in the region, namely farmers, scientific experts, and the governmental authorities. This is done by combining interviews with local farmers carried out in Khuzestan with scientific reports drafted by experts of the Humboldt University of Berlin for the Khuzestan Region and Power Authority. The results show how not only is soil salinity an environmental hazard, but also it can represent an important economic constraint. Power relations among stakeholders affect which and whose opinions get the possibility to be materialized into practice, what actions to be taken and what priorities to be given. Ultimately, it is shown that limited finances represent an important variable to farmers' experiences, and that this influences greatly the adoption and shaping of technologies. It is highlighted that the designing of technological interventions to prevent and tackle soil salinity in irrigation networks should take into account local socio-economic constraints, to allow a successful adoption of new strategies. This work concludes that issues faced by the local populations need to be fully understood, to realize what solutions may match their needs

La traduzione dei racconti di Pat Mora: muoversi tra due lingue e due culture

This dissertation deals with the translations of seven books for children written by the Chicano author Pat Mora. I started to be interested in the Chicano world, a world suspended between Mexico and the United States, after reading a book by Sandra Cisneros. I decided to deepen my curiosity and for this reason, I discovered a hybrid reality full of history, culture and traditions. In this context, the language used is characterized by a continuous code switching between Spanish and English and I thought it was an interesting phenomenon from the literary and translation point of view. During my research in the Chicano culture, I ran across Pat Mora. Her books for children fascinated me because of their actual themes (the cultural diversity and the defense of identity) and their beautiful illustrations. For this reason, I chose to translate seven of her books because I believe they could be an enrichment for children literature in Italy. The work consists of five chapters. The first one deals with the identity of Chicano people, their history, their literature and their language. In the second chapter, I outline Pat Mora’s profile. I talk about her biography and I analyze her most famous works. In the third chapter, I introduce the seven books for children to be translated and I point out their plots and main themes. In the fourth chapter, I present the translation of the books. The fifth chapter is the translation comment. I deal with the linguistic analysis of the source texts and the analysis of the target texts focusing on the choices made during the translation process

Quando il problema diventa clinico: dalla gestione dello stress alla psicopatologia nello sport

La valutazione clinimetrica multidimensionale dei fattori eziologici e subsindromici (sotto soglia), in grado di determinare complessi esiti negativi (fisiopatologici, cos. come anche psicopatologici) sull’attività sportiva, possiede una significativa rilevanza clinica, in termini di potenziali ricadute diagnostico-applicative sia rispetto ad attività di promozione della salute (prevenzione primaria-secondaria e terziaria), sia in relazione all’invio e/o attuazione di attività di counseling e psicoterapia (su un piano tanto conservativo-supportivo e di sostegno-supporto, quanto espressivo-trasformativo). Sulla base di una ricerca della letteratura scientifica, realizzata su database internazionali come ISI Web of Science, PubMed, Scopus, PsycINFO, ScienceDirect, il presente contributo ha due obiettivi principali: 1) analizzare, da un punto di vista clinimetrico, le principali conseguenze, sia psicosomatiche sia somatopsichiche, legate all’insorgenza di problematiche psicologico-cliniche nello sport (distress e allostatic overload, demoralizzazione, mental pain, meccanismi di somatizzazione); 2) riportare i più significativi correlati psicologici protettivi (wellbeing) associati a un miglioramento della pratica sportiva

The influence of grain-boundaries on the electronic performance of CVD diamond films

CVD diamond shows interesting perspectives for the production of high-performance radiation detectors and electronic devices. However,due to a polycrystalline structure, the performance of CVD diamond-based devices may be hampered by the low signal-to-noise ratioassociated with high level of conductivity. We consider that the level of conductivity correlates with the presence of graphitic impuritieswithin the polycrystalline samples. Assuming that this graphitic phase is concentrated in the free volume of the interfacial crystal grainboundaries,we show that the graphitic contamination and bulk leakage conductivity can be reduced by increasing the nucleation density. Thiseffect is mainly due to a better filling of the interfacial space by smaller grains induced during the first stage of CVD deposition process. The60 Am-thick films were structurally characterized, using Raman spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD), and electrically by the analysis ofroom temperature (RT) conductivity and charge collection efficiency, extracted from low-energy X-ray irradiation (8.05 keV)