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Building cross-lingual voice conversion (VC) systems for multiple speakers and multiple languages has been a challenging task for a long time. This paper describes a parallel non-autoregressive network to achieve bilingual and code-switched voice conversion for multiple speakers when there are only mono-lingual corpora for each language. We achieve cross-lingual VC between Mandarin speech with multiple speakers and English speech with multiple speakers by applying bilingual bottleneck features. To boost voice cloning performance, we use an adversarial speaker classifier with a gradient reversal layer to reduce the source speaker's information from the output of encoder. Furthermore, in order to improve speaker similarity between reference speech and converted speech, we adopt an embedding consistency loss between the synthesized speech and its natural reference speech in our network. Experimental results show that our proposed method can achieve high quality converted speech with mean opinion score (MOS) around 4. The conversion system performs well in terms of speaker similarity for both in-set speaker conversion and out-set-of one-shot conversion., Comment: Submitted to Interspeech 2021

Phase transitions of water molecules are commonly expected to occur only under extreme conditions, such as nanoconfinement, high pressure, or low temperature. We herein report the disordered-ordered phase transition of two-dimensional interfacial water molecules under ambient conditions using molecular-dynamics simulations. This phase transition is greatly dependent on the charge dipole moment, production of both charge values, and the dipole length of the solid surface. The phase transition can be identified by a sharp change in water-water interaction energies and the order parameters of the two-dimensional interfacial water monolayer, under a tiny dipole moment change near the critical dipole moment. The critical dipole moment of the solid material surface can classify a series of materials that can induce distinct ordered phases of surface water, which may also result in surface wetting, friction, and other properties.

In this Letter, we present a trimodality imaging system and an intravascular endoscopic probe for the detection of early-stage atherosclerotic plaques. The integrated system is able to acquire optical coherence tomography (OCT), fluorescence, and ultrasound images and simultaneously display them in real time. A trimodality intravascular endoscopic probe of 1.2 mm in diameter and 7 mm in length was fabricated based on a dual-modality optical probe that integrates OCT and fluorescence imaging functions and a miniature ultrasound transducer. The probe is capable of rotating at up to 600 rpm. Ex vivo images from rabbit aorta and human coronary arteries showed that this combined system is capable of providing high resolution, deep penetration depth and specific molecular fluorescence contrast simultaneously.

In this Letter, we present a trimodality imaging system and an intravascular endoscopic probe for the detection of early-stage atherosclerotic plaques. The integrated system is able to acquire optical coherence tomography (OCT), fluorescence, and ultrasound images and simultaneously display them in real time. A trimodality intravascular endoscopic probe of 1.2 mm in diameter and 7 mm in length was fabricated based on a dual-modality optical probe that integrates OCT and fluorescence imaging functions and a miniature ultrasound transducer. The probe is capable of rotating at up to 600 rpm. Ex vivo images from rabbit aorta and human coronary arteries showed that this combined system is capable of providing high resolution, deep penetration depth and specific molecular fluorescence contrast simultaneously.

We developed a multimodality fluorescence and optical coherence tomography probe based on a double-clad fiber (DCF) combiner. The probe is composed of a DCF combiner, grin lens, and micromotor in the distal end. An integrated swept-source optical coherence tomography and fluorescence intensity imaging system was developed based on the combined probe for the early diagnoses of atherosclerosis. This system is capable of real-time data acquisition and processing as well as image display. For fluorescence imaging, the inflammation of atherosclerosis and necrotic core formed with the annexin V–conjugated Cy5.5 were imaged. Ex vivo imaging of New Zealand white rabbit arteries demonstrated the capability of the combined system.

We developed a multimodality fluorescence and optical coherence tomography probe based on a double-clad fiber (DCF) combiner. The probe is composed of a DCF combiner, grin lens, and micromotor in the distal end. An integrated swept-source optical coherence tomography and fluorescence intensity imaging system was developed based on the combined probe for the early diagnoses of atherosclerosis. This system is capable of real-time data acquisition and processing as well as image display. For fluorescence imaging, the inflammation of atherosclerosis and necrotic core formed with the annexin V–conjugated Cy5.5 were imaged. Ex vivo imaging of New Zealand white rabbit arteries demonstrated the capability of the combined system.

This paper reports on a bi-resonant structure of piezoelectric PVDF films energy harvester (PPEH), which consists of two cantilevers with resonant frequencies of 15 Hz and 22 Hz. With increased acceleration, the vibration amplitudes of the two cantilever-mass structures are increased and collision occurs which causes strong mechanical coupling between the two subsystems. The experimental results show that the operating bandwidth is widened to 14 Hz (14–28 Hz) at an acceleration of 9.81 m/s2, and the peak output power can be 0.35 W at a relatively low operation frequency of 16 Hz. Simulation and experiments with piezoelectric elements show that the energy harvesting device with the bi-resonant structure can generate higher power output than that of the sum of the two separate devices from random vibration sources at low frequency, and hence significantly improves the vibration-to- electricity conversion efficiency by 40–81%.

Lipid deposition inside the arterial wall is a key indicator of plaque vulnerability. An intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) catheter is considered a promising device for quantifying the amount of lipid inside the arterial wall. Thus far, IVPA systems suffered from slow imaging speed (~50 s per frame) due to the lack of a suitable laser source for high-speed excitation of molecular overtone vibrations. Here, we report an improvement in IVPA imaging speed by two orders of magnitude, to 1.0 s per frame, enabled by a custom-built, 2-kHz master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA)-pumped, barium nitrite [Ba(NO3)2] Raman laser. This advancement narrows the gap in translating the IVPA technology to the clinical setting.

For the diagnosis of atherosclerosis, biomedical imaging techniques such as intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) have been developed. The combined use of IVUS and OCT is hypothesized to remarkably increase diagnostic accuracy of vulnerable plaques. We have developed an integrated IVUS-OCT imaging apparatus, which includes the integrated catheter, motor drive unit, and imaging system. The dual-function imaging catheter has the same diameter of current clinical standard. The imaging system is capable for simultaneous IVUS and OCT imaging in real time. Ex vivo and in vivo experiments on rabbits with atherosclerosis were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of the integrated intravascular imaging modality.

For the diagnosis of atherosclerosis, biomedical imaging techniques such as intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and optical coherence tomography (OCT) have been developed. The combined use of IVUS and OCT is hypothesized to remarkably increase diagnostic accuracy of vulnerable plaques. We have developed an integrated IVUS-OCT imaging apparatus, which includes the integrated catheter, motor drive unit, and imaging system. The dual-function imaging catheter has the same diameter of current clinical standard. The imaging system is capable for simultaneous IVUS and OCT imaging in real time. Ex vivo and in vivo experiments on rabbits with atherosclerosis were conducted to demonstrate the feasibility and superiority of the integrated intravascular imaging modality.

OBJECTIVE: Combined use of optical coherence tomography (OCT) and intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) is a potential method for accurate assessment of plaques characteristics and vulnerability. The aim of this study is to develop and evaluate the feasibility of a fully integrated intracoronary OCT-IVUS imaging technique to visualize plaques in living animals. BACKGROUND: In vivo imaging of plaques by an integrated OCT-IVUS system has not been reported. METHODS: Simultaneous real-time OCT-IVUS imaging is performed using an integrated OCT-IVUS system and a single fully-integrated catheter with a 3.6F outer-diameter same as a commercial IVUS catheter. RESULTS: To verify in vivo imaging capability of this technique, five atherosclerotic-model rabbits and a swine were imaged. Images were obtained in these animals without complications. Linear regression shows a high correlation between rabbit plaque sizes determined from histology and OCT/IVUS estimated plaque sizes (R2=0.955, P<0.001 between OCT and histology; R2=0.970, P<0.001 between IVUS and histology). Classification of plaque types and quantitative analysis of plaque sizes were performed in vitro using cadaver coronary segments (n=14). CONCLUSIONS: For the first time, this study shows that an integrated intracoronary OCT-IVUS system is feasible and safe to use in vivo to detect atherosclerotic plaques. This technique provides high resolution and deep penetration capability simultaneously which can facilitate a more powerful tool to explore the development of plaques and may lead to a more accurate assessment of vulnerable plaques in patients.

Lipid deposition inside the arterial wall is a key indicator of plaque vulnerability. An intravascular photoacoustic (IVPA) catheter is considered a promising device for quantifying the amount of lipid inside the arterial wall. Thus far, IVPA systems suffered from slow imaging speed (~50 s per frame) due to the lack of a suitable laser source for high-speed excitation of molecular overtone vibrations. Here, we report an improvement in IVPA imaging speed by two orders of magnitude, to 1.0 s per frame, enabled by a custom-built, 2-kHz master oscillator power amplifier (MOPA)-pumped, barium nitrite [Ba(NO3)2] Raman laser. This advancement narrows the gap in translating the IVPA technology to the clinical setting.

Sex determining region Y-box 2 (SOX2) is well known as one of the "sternness" factors and is often expressed in cancers including breast cancer. In this study, we developed a reporter system using fluorescent protein driven by the promoter for SOX2 gene to detect and isolate living SOX2-positive cells. Using this system, we determined that SOX2 promoter activities were well correlated with SOX2 mRNA expression levels in 5 breast cancer cell lines, and that the cell population with positive SOX2 promoter activity (pSp-T+) isolated from one of the 5 cell lines, MCF-7 cells, showed a high SOX2 protein expression and high sphere-forming activity compared with very low promoter activity (pSp-Tlow/-). The pSp-T(+)pbpulation expressed higher mRNA levels of several stemness-related genes such as CD44, ABCB1, NANOG and TWIST] than the pSp-Tlow/- population whereas the two populations expressed CD24 at similar levels. These results suggest that the cell population with SOX2 promoter activity contains cancer stem cell (CSC)-like cells which show different expression profiles from those of CSC-marker genes previously recognized in human breast cancers. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this study, we examined the effects of hypoxia on the malignancy of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cell lines, and found (I) hypoxia enhanced motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cells; (2) this phenomenon resulted from increased expression of sialylated MUC1 through the activation of HIF-1 pathway; (3) two HIF-binding sites located in the promoter region of MUC1 were important for MUC1 transactivation under hypoxia. These findings are useful for better understanding molecular mechanisms of aggressive behavior of MPM cells and for targeting them in the clinical therapies for MPM patients.

In this study, we examined the effects of hypoxia on the malignancy of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cell lines, and found (I) hypoxia enhanced motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cells; (2) this phenomenon resulted from increased expression of sialylated MUC1 through the activation of HIF-1 pathway; (3) two HIF-binding sites located in the promoter region of MUC1 were important for MUC1 transactivation under hypoxia. These findings are useful for better understanding molecular mechanisms of aggressive behavior of MPM cells and for targeting them in the clinical therapies for MPM patients.

Sex determining region Y-box 2 (SOX2) is well known as one of the "sternness" factors and is often expressed in cancers including breast cancer. In this study, we developed a reporter system using fluorescent protein driven by the promoter for SOX2 gene to detect and isolate living SOX2-positive cells. Using this system, we determined that SOX2 promoter activities were well correlated with SOX2 mRNA expression levels in 5 breast cancer cell lines, and that the cell population with positive SOX2 promoter activity (pSp-T+) isolated from one of the 5 cell lines, MCF-7 cells, showed a high SOX2 protein expression and high sphere-forming activity compared with very low promoter activity (pSp-Tlow/-). The pSp-T(+)pbpulation expressed higher mRNA levels of several stemness-related genes such as CD44, ABCB1, NANOG and TWIST] than the pSp-Tlow/- population whereas the two populations expressed CD24 at similar levels. These results suggest that the cell population with SOX2 promoter activity contains cancer stem cell (CSC)-like cells which show different expression profiles from those of CSC-marker genes previously recognized in human breast cancers. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Sex determining region Y-box 2 (SOX2) is well known as one of the "sternness" factors and is often expressed in cancers including breast cancer. In this study, we developed a reporter system using fluorescent protein driven by the promoter for SOX2 gene to detect and isolate living SOX2-positive cells. Using this system, we determined that SOX2 promoter activities were well correlated with SOX2 mRNA expression levels in 5 breast cancer cell lines, and that the cell population with positive SOX2 promoter activity (pSp-T+) isolated from one of the 5 cell lines, MCF-7 cells, showed a high SOX2 protein expression and high sphere-forming activity compared with very low promoter activity (pSp-Tlow/-). The pSp-T(+)pbpulation expressed higher mRNA levels of several stemness-related genes such as CD44, ABCB1, NANOG and TWIST] than the pSp-Tlow/- population whereas the two populations expressed CD24 at similar levels. These results suggest that the cell population with SOX2 promoter activity contains cancer stem cell (CSC)-like cells which show different expression profiles from those of CSC-marker genes previously recognized in human breast cancers. (C) 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

In this study, we examined the effects of hypoxia on the malignancy of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cell lines, and found (I) hypoxia enhanced motility and invasiveness of human malignant pleural mesothelioma (MPM) cells; (2) this phenomenon resulted from increased expression of sialylated MUC1 through the activation of HIF-1 pathway; (3) two HIF-binding sites located in the promoter region of MUC1 were important for MUC1 transactivation under hypoxia. These findings are useful for better understanding molecular mechanisms of aggressive behavior of MPM cells and for targeting them in the clinical therapies for MPM patients.

Being able to answer questions with respect to a given text is the cornerstone of language understanding and at the primary school level students are taught how to answer various kinds of questions including why and how questions. In the building of automated question answering systems the focus so far has been more on factoid questions and comparatively little attention has been devoted to answering why and how questions. In this paper we explore answering why and how questions with respect to a frame-based knowledge base and give algorithms and ASP (answer set programming) implementation to answer two classes of questions in the Biology domain. They are of the form: "How are X and Y related in the process Z?" and "Why is X important to Y?"

Motivation: Genetic factors determine differences in pharmacokinetics, drug efficacy, and drug responses between individuals and sub-populations. Wrong dosages of drugs can lead to severe adverse drug reactions in individuals whose drug metabolism drastically differs from the " assumed average" Databases such as PharmGKB are excellent sources of pharmacogenetic information on enzymes, genetic variants, and drug response affected by changes in enzymatic activity. Here, we seek to aid researchers, database curators, and clinicians in their search for relevant information by automatically extracting these data from literature. Approach: We automatically populate a repository of information on genetic variants, relations to drugs, occurrence in sub-populations, and associations with disease. We mine textual data from PubMed abstracts to discover such genotype-phenotype associations, focusing on SNPs that can be associated with variations in drug response. The overall repository covers relations found between genes, variants, alleles, drugs, diseases, adverse drug reactions, populations, and allele frequencies. We cross-reference these data to EntrezGene, PharmGKB, PubChem, and others. Results: The performance regarding entity recognition and relation extraction yields a precision of 90-92% for the major entity types (gene, drug, disease), and 76-84% for relations involving these types. Comparison of our repository to PharmGKB reveals a coverage of 93% of gene-drug associations in PharmGKB and 97% of the gene-variant mappings based on 180,000 PubMed abstracts. Availability: http://bioai4core.fulton.asu.edu/snpshot. © 2012 Elsevier Inc..

Being able to answer questions with respect to a given text is the cornerstone of language understanding and at the primary school level students are taught how to answer various kinds of questions including why and how questions. In the building of automated question answering systems the focus so far has been more on factoid questions and comparatively little attention has been devoted to answering why and how questions. In this paper we explore answering why and how questions with respect to a frame-based knowledge base and give algorithms and ASP (answer set programming) implementation to answer two classes of questions in the Biology domain. They are of the form: "How are X and Y related in the process Z?" and "Why is X important to Y?"

梁珊珊., "2006年8月", 論文(哲學碩士)--香港中文大學, 2006., 參考文獻(leaves 133-146)., "2006 nian 8 yue", s in Chinese and English., Liang Shanshan., Lun wen (zhe xue shuo shi)--Xianggang Zhong wen da xue, 2006., Can kao wen xian (leaves 133-146)., Chapter 第一章 --- 緒論 --- p.1, Chapter 第一節 --- 硏究對象 --- p.1, Chapter 第二節 --- 硏究範圍 --- p.5, Chapter 第三節 --- 他人硏究成果槪述 --- p.18, Chapter 第四節 --- 女性主義敘事學理論簡介 --- p.20, Chapter 第二章 --- “五四´ح時期書信體小說興起的源流及槪况 --- p.26, Chapter 第一節 --- 客觀歷史條件的具備 --- p.27, Chapter 第二節 --- 晚清以迄“五四´ح書信體小說的流變 --- p.31, Chapter 第三節 --- 西方文學理論的影響 --- p.42, Chapter 第三章 --- 書信體小說的文體特徵 --- p.46, Chapter 第一節 --- 真實性 --- p.46, Chapter 第二節 --- 私密性/封閉性 --- p.48, Chapter 第三節 --- 對話性/公共性 --- p.53, Chapter 第四節 --- 兼容性 --- p.56, Chapter 第四章 --- 書信體小說的敘述視點及敘述層次 --- p.58, Chapter 第一節 --- 敘述視點 --- p.58, Chapter 第二節 --- 敘述層次 --- p.74, Chapter 第三節 --- 小結 --- p.87, Chapter 第五章 --- 書信體小說的女性主義敘事學硏究 --- p.88, Chapter 第一節 --- 作者型敘述聲音 --- p.94, Chapter 第二節 --- 個人型敘述聲音 --- p.100, Chapter 第三節 --- 集體型敘述聲音 --- p.108, Chapter 第四節 --- 小結 --- p.110, Chapter 第六章 --- 書信體小說的衰落 --- p.113, Chapter 第七章 --- 結論 --- p.118, Chapter 第一節 --- 總結 --- p.118, Chapter 第二節 --- 硏究意義 --- p.123, [附錄一]“五四´ح女作家小傳 --- p.125, [附錄二] “五四´ح女作家書信體小說(1917-1927)列表 --- p.131, 參考文獻 --- p.133, Chapter 一、 --- 作家作品 --- p.133, Chapter 二、 --- 參考. --- p.135, Chapter 三、 --- 學位論文 --- p.141, Chapter 四、 --- 期刊論文 --- p.141, http://library.cuhk.edu.hk/record=b5896480, Use of this resource is governed by the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International” License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)