A study on the effects of using short utterance length development data in the design of GPLDA speaker verification systems

This paper studies the performance degradation of Gaussian probabilistic linear discriminant analysis (GPLDA) speaker verification system, when only short-utterance data is used for speaker verification system development. Subsequently, a number of techniques, including utterance partitioning and source-normalised weighted linear discriminant analysis (SN-WLDA) projections are introduced to improve the speaker verification performance in such conditions. Experimental studies have found that when short utterance data is available for speaker verification development, GPLDA system overall achieves best performance with a lower number of universal background model (UBM) components. As a lower number of UBM components significantly reduces the computational complexity of speaker verification system, that is a useful observation. In limited session data conditions, we propose a simple utterance-partitioning technique, which when applied to the LDA-projected GPLDA system shows over 8% relative improvement on EER values over baseline system on NIST 2008 truncated 10–10 s conditions. We conjecture that this improvement arises from the apparent increase in the number of sessions arising from our partitioning technique and this helps to better model the GPLDA parameters. Further, partitioning SN-WLDA-projected GPLDA shows over 16% and 6% relative improvement on EER values over LDA-projected GPLDA systems respectively on NIST 2008 truncated 10–10 s interview-interview, and NIST 2010 truncated 10–10 s interview-interview and telephone-telephone conditions.     

Bayesian sample-size determination for two independent Poisson rates

Because of the high cost and time constraints for clinical trials, researchers often need to determine the smallest sample size that provides accurate inferences for a parameter of interest. Although most experimenters have employed frequentist sample-size determination methods, the Bayesian paradigm offers a wide variety of sample-size determination methodologies. Bayesian sample-size determination methods are becoming increasingly more popular in clinical trials because of their flexibility and easy interpretation inferences. Recently, Bayesian approaches have been used to determine the sample size of a single Poisson rate parameter in a clinical trial setting. In this paper, we extend these results to the comparison of two Poisson rates and develop methods for sample-size determination for hypothesis testing in a Bayesian context. We have created functions in R to determine the parameters for the conjugate gamma prior and calculate the sample size for the average length criterion and average power methods. We also provide two examples that implement our sample-size determination methods using clinical data.     

Replica Placement Strategies in Data Grid

Replication is a technique used in Data Grid environments that helps to reduce access latency and network bandwidth utilization. Replication also increases data availability thereby enhancing system reliability. The research addresses the problem of replication in Data Grid environment by investigating a set of highly decentralized dynamic replica placement algorithms. Replica placement algorithms are based on heuristics that consider both network latency and user requests to select the best candidate sites to place replicas. Due to dynamic nature of Grid, the candidate site holds replicas currently may not be the best sites to fetch replicas in subsequent periods. Therefore, a replica maintenance algorithm is proposed to relocate replicas to different sites if the performance metric degrades significantly. The study of our replica placement algorithms is carried out using a model of the EU Data Grid Testbed 1 [Bell et al. Comput. Appl., 17(4), 2003] sites and their associated network geometry. We validate our replica placement algorithms with total file transfer times, the number of local file accesses, and the number of remote file accesses.     

红河油田水平井梯级筛管完井优化设计研究

基于红河油田底水油藏渗流与井筒管流耦合模型和基管上泄流孔孔眼摩阻计算模型,建立梯级筛管完井的油藏-井筒-孔眼耦合数学模型。可行性实例研究显示,使用梯级筛管后,孔眼入流的限制使得产液剖面得到改善。     

Atmospheric emission and attenuation in the range 100 to 600 GHz measures from a mountain site

Further measurements of atmospheric emission from a site in the Canary Islands (Izana, âltitude 2.4 km) have been made during the month of August 1980. The measurements were made with a polarising Interferometer and a composite Ge bolometer. An independent measurement of the precipitable water vapour was made using Infrared Hygrometers. The experimental details are described and the spectra obtained are compared with model spectra using the measured precipitable water vapour.     

The prevalence of hepatitis B surface antigen in commercially prepared plasma products

Commercially available lots of plasma derivatives prepared between 1957 and 1975 were tested for hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) by radioimmunoassay. In all, 69 per cent of lots of plasma protein fraction, 40 per cent of factor IX concentrate, 20 per cent of normal serum albumin, 13 per cent of antihemophilic factor, 3 per cent of fibrinogen, and 0.7 per cent of immune serum globulin lots tested were HBsAg-positive. There was great variation in the prevalence of HBsAg-positive lots of each product among the different manufacturers, reflecting not only differences in methods of processing plasma, but also differences in donor populations. Those manufacturers relying upon volunteer donor plasma or placental source material demonstrated lower rates of HBsAg-positive lots of final products than those relying upon commercial donor plasma. There was a marked decrease in the prevalence of positive lots during the period 1971 to 1973, coincident with the onset of routine plasma donor screening for HBsAg. However, current requirements for plasma screening have not resulted in totally HBsAg-free plasma products. Use of more sensitive and more reliable tests for HBsAg will probably reduce contamination of plasma pools with HBsAg to undetectable levels. Despite HBsAg-status, however, the "high-risk" plasma products (fibrinogen, antihemophilic factor, factor IX concentrate) must still be considered capable of transmitting hepatitis and used only with the strictest indications.     

B4C/Ni多孔复合材料的制备及性能

采用粉末冶金法制备了B4C/Ni多孔复合材料。对制得的试样进行了扫描电镜（SEM）观察和抗压强度的测试，并摘要计算得出了试样的孔隙度。分析结果表明，复合材料的孔隙度随烧结温度的升高而下降；抗压强度随孔隙度的下降而增大；并且复合材料中镍含量越高材料抗压强度越大。根据后续浸渗金属液体的要求，此多孔复合材料要达到高孔隙度、较高强度和较高硼含量等指标。所以综合分析结果和后续要求最终确定了最佳体积百分含量为碳化硼15%、镍55%、造孔剂碳酸钠30%和最佳烧结温度800℃。