Delayed Decision-making in Real-time Beatbox Percussion Classification

This is an electronic version of an article published in Journal of New Music Research, 39(3), 203-213, 2010. doi:10.1080/09298215.2010.512979. Journal of New Music Research is available online at: www.tandfonline.com/openurl?genre=article&issn=1744-5027&volume=39&issue=3&spage=20

Down-regulation of human topoisomerase IIα expression correlates with relative amounts of specificity factors Sp1 and Sp3 bound at proximal and distal promoter regions

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Topoisomerase IIα has been shown to be down-regulated in doxorubicin-resistant cell lines. The specificity proteins Sp1 and Sp3 have been implicated in regulation of topoisomerase IIα transcription, although the mechanism by which they regulate expression is not fully understood. Sp1 has been shown to bind specifically to both proximal and distal GC elements of the human topoisomerase IIα promoter <it>in vitro</it>, while Sp3 binds only to the distal GC element unless additional flanking sequences are included. While Sp1 is thought to be an activator of human topoisomerase IIα, the functional significance of Sp3 binding is not known. Therefore, we sought to determine the functional relationship between Sp1 and Sp3 binding to the topoisomerase IIα promoter <it>in vivo</it>. We investigated endogenous levels of Sp1, Sp3 and topoisomerase IIα as well as binding of both Sp1 and Sp3 to the GC boxes of the topoisomerase IIα promoter in breast cancer cell lines <it>in vivo </it>after short term doxorubicin exposure.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Functional effects of Sp1 and Sp3 were studied using transient cotransfection assays using a topoisomerase IIα promoter reporter construct. The <it>in vivo </it>interactions of Sp1 and Sp3 with the GC elements of the topoisomerase IIα promoter were studied in doxorubicin-treated breast cancer cell lines using chromatin immunoprecipitation assays. Relative amounts of endogenous proteins were measured using immunoblotting. <it>In vivo </it>DNA looping mediated by proteins bound at the GC1 and GC2 elements was studied using the chromatin conformation capture assay. Both Sp1 and Sp3 bound to the GC1 and GC2 regions. Sp1 and Sp3 were transcriptional activators and repressors respectively, with Sp3 repression being dominant over Sp1-mediated activation. The GC1 and GC2 elements are linked <it>in vivo </it>to form a loop, thus bringing distal regulatory elements and their cognate transcription factors into close proximity with the transcription start site.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These observations provide a mechanistic explanation for the modulation of topoisomerase IIα and concomitant down-regulation that can be mediated by topoisomerase II poisons. Competition between Sp1 and Sp3 for the same cognate DNA would result in activation or repression depending on absolute amounts of each transcription factor in cells treated with doxorubicin.</p

Audio Event Detection using Weakly Labeled Data

Acoustic event detection is essential for content analysis and description of multimedia recordings. The majority of current literature on the topic learns the detectors through fully-supervised techniques employing strongly labeled data. However, the labels available for majority of multimedia data are generally weak and do not provide sufficient detail for such methods to be employed. In this paper we propose a framework for learning acoustic event detectors using only weakly labeled data. We first show that audio event detection using weak labels can be formulated as an Multiple Instance Learning problem. We then suggest two frameworks for solving multiple-instance learning, one based on support vector machines, and the other on neural networks. The proposed methods can help in removing the time consuming and expensive process of manually annotating data to facilitate fully supervised learning. Moreover, it can not only detect events in a recording but can also provide temporal locations of events in the recording. This helps in obtaining a complete description of the recording and is notable since temporal information was never known in the first place in weakly labeled data.Comment: ACM Multimedia 201

Feedlot Surface Conditions and Ammonia Emissions

Moisture and urine were applied to a feedlot surface in a 2x2 factorial design. Forced-air wind tunnels were used to determine differences in the net flux of ammonia (NH3) being volatilized. Surface DM, pH and surface temperature were all analyzed within each treatment to determine effect on NH3 net flux. No effects of urine were detected. There were differences detected due to moisture and moisture*time with the dry plots releasing significantly more NH3

Feedlot Surface Conditions and Ammonia Emissions

Moisture and urine were applied to a feedlot surface in a 2x2 factorial design. Forced-air wind tunnels were used to determine differences in the net flux of ammonia (NH3) being volatilized. Surface DM, pH and surface temperature were all analyzed within each treatment to determine effect on NH3 net flux. No effects of urine were detected. There were differences detected due to moisture and moisture*time with the dry plots releasing significantly more NH3

PEArL: a systems approach to demonstrating authenticity in information systems design

The process of information systems (IS) design has been dominated by the demands inherent in providing a technical solution to a perceived problem or need. Engineering IS design methods applied in order to satisfy the problem situation tend to have a preoccupation with verifying specifications as being mathematically correct. Diffculties arise when the ideas underpinning verification are extended in an attempt to ‘prove’ the validity of a proposed design for an IS. A pure engineering approach does not facilitate a response to the subjective elements within social situations, which experience has shown to be essential in demonstrating the pertinence of new designs to those concerned. We suggest that, by applying interpretivist systems ideas, it is possible to support concerned individuals in reflecting upon crucial aspects of the inquiry, enabling those individuals to judge the relevance or ‘authenticity’ of the learning, according to their own values and beliefs. The elements of participants, engagement, authority, relationships and learning are suggested as being crucial. These make up the mnemonic PEArL, which is offered as an aide-mémoire for those concerned with IS design

Optimization of respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation for the modulation of blood pressure in hypertension

Background: The objective of this pilot study was to identify frequency-dependent effects of respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation (RAVANS) on the regulation of blood pressure and heart rate variability in hypertensive subjects and examine potential differential effects by sex/gender or race. Methods: Twenty hypertensive subjects (54.55 ± 6.23 years of age; 12 females and 8 males) were included in a within-person experimental design and underwent five stimulation sessions where they received RAVANS at different frequencies (i.e., 2 Hz, 10 Hz, 25 Hz, 100 Hz, or sham stimulation) in a randomized order. EKG and continuous blood pressure signals were collected during a 10-min baseline, 30-min stimulation, and 10-min post-stimulation periods. Generalized estimating equations (GEE) adjusted for baseline measures were used to evaluate frequency-dependent effects of RAVANS on heart rate, high frequency power, and blood pressure measures, including analyses stratified by sex and race. Results: Administration of RAVANS at 100 Hz had significant overall effects on the reduction of heart rate (β = −2.03, p = 0.002). It was also associated with a significant reduction of diastolic (β = −1.90, p = 0.01) and mean arterial blood pressure (β = −2.23, p = 0.002) in Black hypertensive participants and heart rate in female subjects (β = −2.83, p = 0.01) during the post-stimulation period when compared to sham. Conclusion: Respiratory-gated auricular vagus afferent nerve stimulation exhibits frequency-dependent rapid effects on the modulation of heart rate and blood pressure in hypertensive patients that may further differ by race and sex. Our findings highlight the need for the development of optimized stimulation protocols that achieve the greatest effects on the modulation of physiological and clinical outcomes in this population

The single morpheme -ed/-en of the English past/passive

All English regular verbs and about half its irregular verbs have the same form for the finite past tense and the past participle. The finite past tense is different from the participle only for a closed class of about 100 irregular verbs. These latter can be analyzed by a lexical device of wide-ranging applicability called Alternative Realization. All other Past forms of Vs, finite and non-finite, can then be derived from a single morpheme -ed which appears in two contexts: one when V is finite and one when it is selected by a semantically empty stative verb, have or be. There is also a third use of -ed to form passive participles, in both verbal and adjectival passives.The paper presents a formalized system of selection features for lexical items including but going beyond classical subcategorization. This system permits formulating a single full lexical entry for the suffix -ed that covers all its uses. The final version of this entry exemplifies how to specify Alternative Realization, uninterpretability of categories and disjunctive contexts, and independently justifies each of these notations

A parallel computer implementation of fast low-rank QR approximation of the Biot-Savart law

In this paper we present a low-rank QR method for evaluating the discrete Biot-Savart law on parallel computers. It is assumed that the known current density and the unknown magnetic field are both expressed in a finite element expansion, and we wish to compute the degrees-of-freedom (DOF) in the basis function expansion of the magnetic field. The matrix that maps the current DOF to the field DOF is full, but if the spatial domain is properly partitioned the matrix can be written as a block matrix, with blocks representing distant interactions being low rank and having a compressed QR representation. The matrix partitioning is determined by the number of processors, the rank of each block (i.e. the compression) is determined by the specific geometry and is computed dynamically. In this paper we provide the algorithmic details and present computational results for large-scale computations

Investigation of Radar Propagation in Buildings: A 10 Billion Element Cartesian-Mesh FETD Simulation

In this paper large scale full-wave simulations are performed to investigate radar wave propagation inside buildings. In principle, a radar system combined with sophisticated numerical methods for inverse problems can be used to determine the internal structure of a building. The composition of the walls (cinder block, re-bar) may effect the propagation of the radar waves in a complicated manner. In order to provide a benchmark solution of radar propagation in buildings, including the effects of typical cinder block and re-bar, we performed large scale full wave simulations using a Finite Element Time Domain (FETD) method. This particular FETD implementation is tuned for the special case of an orthogonal Cartesian mesh and hence resembles FDTD in accuracy and efficiency. The method was implemented on a general-purpose massively parallel computer. In this paper we briefly describe the radar propagation problem, the FETD implementation, and we present results of simulations that used over 10 billion elements