Does My Dog ''Speak'' Like Me? The Acoustic Correlation between Pet Dogs and Their Human Owners

How hosts language influence their pets' vocalization is an interesting yet underexplored problem. This paper presents a preliminary investigation into the possible correlation between domestic dog vocal expressions and their human host's language environment. We first present a new dataset of Shiba Inu dog vocals from YouTube, which provides 7500 clean sound clips, including their contextual information of these vocals and their owner's speech clips with a carefully-designed data processing pipeline. The contextual information includes the scene category in which the vocal was recorded, the dog's location and activity. With a classification task and prominent factor analysis, we discover significant acoustic differences in the dog vocals from the two language environments. We further identify some acoustic features from dog vocalizations that are potentially correlated to their host language patterns

Static and Dynamic Load Tests of Shaft and Base Grouted Concrete Piles

This paper examines shaft and base grouted concrete piles by conducting vertical static load tests (SLTs) and dynamic load tests. Three concrete piles with shaft and base grouting, with base grouting only, and without grouting techniques were selected, and compressive SLTs were conducted. Two piles with grouting were also assessed with dynamic load tests. Another two uplift SLTs were conducted to one shaft and base grouted pile and one pile without grouting. Traditional presentations were provided to check whether the bored piles reached the design requirement. Interpretations of test results were also provided to determine the ultimate pile capacity. Results from these 5 SLT programs indicated that double-tangent and DeBeer's methods are close to each other, and Chin's method overestimates the pile capacity. Comparison of the results from the SLTs and dynamic load tests shows that the results from Chin's method are close to dynamic results, and Mazurkiewicz's method overestimates for friction resistance. The results also demonstrate that base and shaft grouted pile and base grouted pile increase by 9.82% and 2.89% in compressive capacity, respectively, and compared to the uplift SLTs; there is a 15.7% increment in pile capacity after using base and shaft grouting technology

Simulation of the Signal Propagation for Thin-gap RPC in the ATLAS Phase-II Upgrade

Thin-gap Resistive Plate Chambers (RPCs) with a 1 mm gap size are introduced in the Phase-II ATLAS upgrade. Smaller avalanche charge due to the reduced gap size raises concerns for signal integrity. This work focuses on the RPC signal propagation process in lossless conditions, and an analytical study is implemented for the ATLAS RPC. Detector modeling is presented, and the simulation of the RPC signal is discussed in detail. Simulated characteristic impedance and crosstalk have been compared with the measured value to validate this model. This method is applied to different RPC design geometries, including the newly proposed $\eta-\eta$ readout scheme.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, submitted to NIM

Towards Lexical Analysis of Dog Vocalizations via Online Videos

Deciphering the semantics of animal language has been a grand challenge. This study presents a data-driven investigation into the semantics of dog vocalizations via correlating different sound types with consistent semantics. We first present a new dataset of Shiba Inu sounds, along with contextual information such as location and activity, collected from YouTube with a well-constructed pipeline. The framework is also applicable to other animal species. Based on the analysis of conditioned probability between dog vocalizations and corresponding location and activity, we discover supporting evidence for previous heuristic research on the semantic meaning of various dog sounds. For instance, growls can signify interactions. Furthermore, our study yields new insights that existing word types can be subdivided into finer-grained subtypes and minimal semantic unit for Shiba Inu is word-related. For example, whimper can be subdivided into two types, attention-seeking and discomfort

Quantum Algorithms for Sampling Log-Concave Distributions and Estimating Normalizing Constants

Given a convex function $f\colon\mathbb{R}^{d}\to\mathbb{R}$, the problem of sampling from a distribution $\propto e^{-f(x)}$ is called log-concave sampling. This task has wide applications in machine learning, physics, statistics, etc. In this work, we develop quantum algorithms for sampling log-concave distributions and for estimating their normalizing constants $\int_{\mathbb{R}^d}e^{-f(x)}\mathrm{d} x$. First, we use underdamped Langevin diffusion to develop quantum algorithms that match the query complexity (in terms of the condition number $\kappa$ and dimension $d$) of analogous classical algorithms that use gradient (first-order) queries, even though the quantum algorithms use only evaluation (zeroth-order) queries. For estimating normalizing constants, these algorithms also achieve quadratic speedup in the multiplicative error $\epsilon$. Second, we develop quantum Metropolis-adjusted Langevin algorithms with query complexity $\widetilde{O}(\kappa^{1/2}d)$ and $\widetilde{O}(\kappa^{1/2}d^{3/2}/\epsilon)$ for log-concave sampling and normalizing constant estimation, respectively, achieving polynomial speedups in $\kappa,d,\epsilon$ over the best known classical algorithms by exploiting quantum analogs of the Monte Carlo method and quantum walks. We also prove a $1/\epsilon^{1-o(1)}$ quantum lower bound for estimating normalizing constants, implying near-optimality of our quantum algorithms in $\epsilon$.Comment: To appear in the proceedings of NeurIPS 202

On the Quantum Complexity of Closest Pair and Related Problems

The closest pair problem is a fundamental problem of computational geometry: given a set of $n$ points in a $d$-dimensional space, find a pair with the smallest distance. A classical algorithm taught in introductory courses solves this problem in $O(n\log n)$ time in constant dimensions (i.e., when $d=O(1)$). This paper asks and answers the question of the problem's quantum time complexity. Specifically, we give an $\tilde{O}(n^{2/3})$ algorithm in constant dimensions, which is optimal up to a polylogarithmic factor by the lower bound on the quantum query complexity of element distinctness. The key to our algorithm is an efficient history-independent data structure that supports quantum interference. In $\mathrm{polylog}(n)$ dimensions, no known quantum algorithms perform better than brute force search, with a quadratic speedup provided by Grover's algorithm. To give evidence that the quadratic speedup is nearly optimal, we initiate the study of quantum fine-grained complexity and introduce the Quantum Strong Exponential Time Hypothesis (QSETH), which is based on the assumption that Grover's algorithm is optimal for CNF-SAT when the clause width is large. We show that the na\"{i}ve Grover approach to closest pair in higher dimensions is optimal up to an $n^{o(1)}$ factor unless QSETH is false. We also study the bichromatic closest pair problem and the orthogonal vectors problem, with broadly similar results.Comment: 46 pages, 3 figures, presentation improve

Microbiome Structure and Mucosal Morphology of Jejunum Appendix and Colon of Rats in Health and Dysbiosis

Gut microbiota contributes to human health. Plenty of studies demonstrate that antibiotics can disrupt gut ecosystem leading to dysbiosis. Little is known about the microbial variation of appendix and its up/downstream intestine after antibiotic treatment. This study aimed to investigate the microbiome and mucosal morphology of jejunum, appendix, and colon of rats in health and dysbiosis. A rodent model of antibiotic-induced dysbiosis was employed. Microscopy was used to observe mucosal morphological changes. 16S rRNA sequencing was performed for identifying bacterial taxa and microbiome structure. The appendices of dysbiosis were found enlarged and infated with loose contents. Microscopy revealed the impairment of intestinal epithelial cells. High-throughput sequencing showed the Operational Taxonomic Units changed from 361±33, 634±18, 639±19 in the normal jejunum, appendix, colon to 748±98, 230±11, 253±16 in the disordered segments, respectively. In dysbiosis, Bacteroidetes translocated inversely from the colon and appendix (0.26%, 0.23%) to the jejunum (13.87%±0.11%); the relative abundance of all intestinal Enterococcaceae increased, while Lactobacillaceae decreased. Several bacterial clusters were found correlated to the normal appendix, whereas nonspecifc clusters correlated to the disordered appendix. In conclusion, species richness and evenness reduced in the disordered appendix and colon; similar microbiome patterns were shared between the appendix and colon regardless of dysbiosis; site-specifc bacteria were missing in the disordered appendix. Appendix is likely a transit region involving in upper and lower intestinal microfora modulation. The limitation of this study is all the data were derived from rats. We must be cautious about translating the microbiome results from rats to humans