Monaural Musical Octave Sound Separation Using Relaxed Extended Common Amplitude Modulation

Monaural music sound separation isolates individual instrument sources from a mono-channel polyphonic mixture. The primary challenge is to separate the source partials overlapped in time-frequency regions, especially for the full overlapping cases that at least one source does not have any nonoverlapping partial. Due to the lack of effective methods to separate the sources with full overlapping partials, this paper put forward a relaxed extended common amplitude modulation (RECAM) approach to deal with the octave sound separation, one of the most difficult cases. Our strategy uses a multi-band co-processing way for each short-time partial wave segment. Extensive experiments are conducted on octave mixture samples drawn from the Iowa University Musical Instrument Database. Results confirm that our RECAM achieves the best separation performance. For nonvibrato and vibrato mixtures, the average improvement of RECAM in each measure exceeds [Formula: see text]dB and [Formula: see text]dB, respectively.

Palm Kernel Shell as Partial Coarse Aggregate Replacement in Asphalt Mixture: Optimum Binder Content and Volumetric Properties Investigation

Pavement failures such as fatigue, rutting, cracking, bleeding, and stripping are typical pavement deterioration. Researchers have been experimenting with pavement modification to overcome these problems. This study determines the optimum binder content (OBC) for modifying an asphalt mixture with a partial replacement of coarse aggregate (5mm-14mm sieve size) with palm kernel shell (PKS). A 60/70 penetration grade bitumen was mixed with 10, 20 and 30% PKS at selected aggregate gradation following the Public Work Department of Malaysia (JKR/SPJ/2008-S4) specification. The preparation of 60 samples of unmodified and modified asphalt mixture employed the Marshall Method compacted with 75 blows. The OBC was determined based on five volumetric properties of asphalt mixture namely stability, flow, bulk density, void filled with asphalt, and void in total mix. The OBC and volumetric properties of the modified PKS asphalt mixture samples were compared with unmodified asphalt mixture samples in accordance to the specification. Results showed that the OBC sample with 30% aggregate replacement produced the highest OBC value of 5.53% relative to the control sample with 5.40% OBC. The trend for OBC with PKS replacement begins with 10% PKS with 5.30% OBC, 20% PKS with 5.32% OBC and 30% PKS. All volumetric properties of the PKS samples are within the specification limit. Thus, PKS has a promising potential as a coarse aggregate replacement in asphalt mixture.

Multiplex Detection of Magnetic Beads Using Offset Field Dependent Frequency Mixing Magnetic Detection

Magnetic immunoassays employing Frequency Mixing Magnetic Detection (FMMD) have recently become increasingly popular for quantitative detection of various analytes. Simultaneous analysis of a sample for two or more targets is desirable in order to reduce the sample amount, save consumables, and save time. We show that different types of magnetic beads can be distinguished according to their frequency mixing response to a two-frequency magnetic excitation at different static magnetic offset fields. We recorded the offset field dependent FMMD response of two different particle types at frequencies f1 + n⋅f2, n = 1, 2, 3, 4 with f1 = 30.8 kHz and f2 = 63 Hz. Their signals were clearly distinguishable by the locations of the extremes and zeros of their responses. Binary mixtures of the two particle types were prepared with different mixing ratios. The mixture samples were analyzed by determining the best linear combination of the two pure constituents that best resembled the measured signals of the mixtures. Using a quadratic programming algorithm, the mixing ratios could be determined with an accuracy of greater than 14%. If each particle type is functionalized with a different antibody, multiplex detection of two different analytes becomes feasible.

Effectiveness of Loaded Wheel Tracking Test to Ascertain Moisture Susceptibility of Asphalt Mixtures

Moisture damage of asphalt mixtures is a major distress affecting the durability of asphalt pavements. The loaded wheel tracking (LWT) test is gaining popularity in determining moisture damage because of its ability to relate laboratory performance to field performance. However, the accuracy of LWT’s “pass/fail” criteria for screening mixtures is limited. The objective of this study was to evaluate the capability of the LWT test to identify moisture susceptibility of asphalt mixtures with different moisture conditioning protocols. Seven 12.5 mm asphalt mixtures with two asphalt binder types (unmodified PG 67-22 and modified PG 70-22), and three aggregate types (limestone, crushed gravel, and a semi-crushed gravel) were utilized. Asphalt binder and mixture samples were subjected to five conditioning levels, namely, a control; single freeze–thaw-; triple freeze–thaw-; MiST 3500 cycles; and MiST 7000 cycles. Frequency sweep at multiple temperatures and frequencies, and multiple stress creep recovery tests were performed to evaluate asphalt binders. LWT test was used to evaluate the asphalt mixture samples. Freeze–thaw and MiST conditioning resulted in an increase in stiffness in the asphalt binders as compared with the control. Further, freeze–thaw and MiST conditioning resulted in an increase in rut depth compared with the control asphalt mixture. The conditioning protocols evaluated were effective in exposing moisture-sensitive mixtures, which initially showed compliance with Louisiana asphalt mixture design specifications.

The disappearance of vitexin from Tartary buckwheat flour-water mixtures after the hydrothermal treatment

Vitexin is an apigenin flavone glucoside with known biological functions. This research reported the effects of initial temperature treatments of Tartary buckwheat flour mixture with water and time of methanol extraction from the cooked doughs on the amount of extractable vitexin. The mixtures of flour and water were initially hydrothermally treated at temperatures from 25 °C to 95 °C. Afterward the mixtures were cooked at 95 °C for 20 min, and vitexin extracted at room temperature with 80% aqueous methanol for 20 min, 2 h and 8 h. The extractable vitexin was extracted during the same extraction times for the control in the nonhydrothermally treated Tartary buckwheat flour-water mixture samples. For the cooked dough samples, the hydrothermal treatments were important in terms of the extractability of vitexin. The extractable vitexin persisted in the control samples during the extraction time up to 8 hours, while in the hydrothermally treated and cooked dough samples, there remained none detectable vitexin. The high-temperature initial treatments during dough preparation appeared not to prevent the degradation of vitexin in Tartary buckwheat flour.

Direct Measurement of B Lymphocyte Gene Expression Biomarkers in Peripheral Blood Transcriptomics Enables Early Prediction of Vaccine Seroconversion

Peripheral blood transcriptome is a highly promising area for biomarker development. However, transcript abundances (TA) in these cell mixture samples are confounded by proportions of the component leukocyte subpopulations. This poses a challenge to clinical applications, as the cell of origin of any change in TA is not known without prior cell separation procedure. We developed a framework to develop a cell-type informative TA biomarkers which enable determination of TA of a single cell-type (B lymphocytes) directly in cell mixture samples of peripheral blood (e.g., peripheral blood mononuclear cells, PBMC) without the need for subpopulation separation. It is applicable to a panel of genes called B cell informative genes. Then a ratio of two B cell informative genes (a target gene and a stably expressed reference gene) obtained in PBMC was used as a new biomarker to represent the target gene expression in purified B lymphocytes. This approach, which eliminates the tedious procedure of cell separation and directly determines TA of a leukocyte subpopulation in peripheral blood samples, is called the Direct LS-TA method. This method is applied to gene expression datasets collected in influenza vaccination trials as early predictive biomarkers of seroconversion. By using TNFRSF17 or TXNDC5 as the target genes and TNFRSF13C or FCRLA as the reference genes, the Direct LS-TA B cell biomarkers were determined directly in the PBMC transcriptome data and were highly correlated with TA of the corresponding target genes in purified B lymphocytes. Vaccination responders had almost a 2-fold higher Direct LS-TA biomarker level of TNFRSF17 (log 2 SMD = 0.84, 95% CI = 0.47–1.21) on day 7 after vaccination. The sensitivity of these Direct LS-TA biomarkers in the prediction of seroconversion was greater than 0.7 and area-under curves (AUC) were over 0.8 in many datasets. In this paper, we report a straightforward approach to directly estimate B lymphocyte gene expression in PBMC, which could be used in a routine clinical setting. Moreover, the method enables the practice of precision medicine in the prediction of vaccination response. More importantly, seroconversion could now be predicted as early as day 7. As the acquired immunology pathway is common to vaccination against influenza and COVID-19, these biomarkers could also be useful to predict seroconversion for the new COVID-19 vaccines.

Suitability of phytoliths as a quantitative process tracer for soil erosion studies

<p>Phytoliths are a plant microfossil commonly used as qualitative archive markers in archaeological and paleoecological studies. Their potential uniqueness to the vegetation cover, robustness to weathering, and lack of chemical alteration along the paths make them a potentially suitable tracer for quantitative erosion studies.<br>In this pilot study, we explore the potential of phytoliths in a sediment fingerprinting study in the Ceguera catchment (28 km2) in NE Spain. The phytolith concentrations and morphologies of four land cover classes (agricultural land, badland, forest, and shrubland) were analyzed, and their contributions to four sediment mixture samples along the river course were modelled. Phytoliths concentrations allowed us to discriminate sources sufficiently, albeit with limited sample size. The performance of the phytoliths as the tracer was tested by reproducing the sources of artificial sediment mixture samples with satisfactory recall ratio. Results identified badlands to be the main contributor, with 84–96% of the sediment load to the sinks, followed by shrublands (median 5%) and agricultural lands (median 2%). Additionally, an intensively used agricultural area in the SW of the catchment was well indicated. These major findings can be reproduced by other conventional erosion studies from this area, indicating that phytoliths are suited to quantifying erosion patterns in mesoscale catchments.</p>

Evaluation of microhaplotypes in forensic kinship analysis from a Swedish population perspective

The development of massively parallel sequencing (MPS) technology has enabled the discovery of several new types of forensic markers where microhaplotypes are one of these promising novel genetic markers. Microhaplotypes are, commonly, less than 300 nucleotides in length and consist of two or more closely linked single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). In this study, we have examined a custom-made QIAseq Microhaplotype panel (Qiagen), including 45 different microhaplotype loci. DNA libraries were prepared according to the GeneRead DNAseq Targeted Panels V2 library preparation workflow (Qiagen) and sequenced on a MiSeq FGx instrument (Verogen). We evaluated the performance of the panel based on 75 samples of Swedish origin and haplotype frequencies were established. We performed sensitivity studies and could detect haplotypes at input amounts down to 0.8 ng. We also studied mixture samples with two contributors for which haplotypes, for the minor contributor, were detectable down to the level of 1:100. Furthermore, we executed kinship simulations to evaluate the usefulness of this panel in kinship analysis. The results showed that both paternity and full sibling cases can clearly be solved. When simulating a half sibling versus unrelated case scenario, there were, however, some overlap of the likelihood ratio distributions potentially resulting in inconclusiveness. To conclude, the results of this initial study are promising for further implementation of this microhaplotype assay into the forensic field, although we noticed some primer design issues that could be optimized, which possibly would increase the power of the assay.