Since its introduction acoustic beamforming has imposed itself as the principal technique for the mapping of acoustic sources in the far field. Even if some decades have passed since it was firstly used, important limitations still remain at the state of the art. In particular, the main shortcomings are relative to three aspects. The first one is the beamformer resolution capability, that stric...

This thesis presents research aimed at using a 3D linear statistical model (known as a 3D morphable model) of an object class (which could be faces, bodies, cars, etc) for robust shape recovery. Our aim is to use this recovered information for the purposes of potentially useful applications like recognition and synthesis. With a 3D morphable model as its central theme, this thesis includes: a f...

Abstract We advance Mixmash-AIS, a multimodal optimization music mashup creation model for loop recombination at scale. Our motivation is to (1) tackle current scalability limitations in state-of-the-art (brute force) computational models while enforcing the (2) compatibility of audio loops and (3) pool diverse mashups that can accommodate user preferences. To this end, we adopt artificial immu...

The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography is increasingly accepted as an informative null model of community composition and dynamics. It has successfully produced macro-ecological patterns such as species-area relationships and species abundance distributions. However, the models employed make many unrealistic auxiliary assumptions. For example, the popular spatially implicit...

Vaccination of domestic poultry against avian influenza (AI) has been used on a large-scale in South East Asia since 2003 and in Egypt since 2006 to fight H5N1 highly-pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) epidemics. The decision to use mass vaccination against HPAI in Egypt was taken as an emergency measure based on positive impact of such control measures in Vietnam and the People's Republic of Ch...

Nucleoside analogue therapy allows safe, long-term suppression of hepatitis B virus (HBV) and is a major milestone in the treatment of chronic hepatitis B. Entecavir has recently been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and is not only more potent than lamivudine and adefovir, but it is also associated with a very low rate of drug resistance. Peginterferon, which has been shown to...

In an attempt to improve the grave prognosis associated with the diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, researchers have explored a number of novel therapies. These include hormonal therapy, immunotherapy, radiopharmaceuticals, and novel chemotherapeutic agents. Unfortunately, most of these efforts have led at best to modest improvements in median survival, and have provided little opportunity for cur...

Within the traditional telephone system a certain level of quality and security has been established over the years. If we try to use IP Telephony systems as a core part of our future communication infrastructure (e.g. as classical PBX enhancement or replacement) continuous high availability, stable and error-free operation and the protection of the privacy of the spoken word are challenges, th...

Computational methods for de novo identification of gene regulation elements, such as transcription factor binding sites, have proved to be useful for deciphering genetic regulatory networks. However, despite the availability of a large number of algorithms, their strengths and weaknesses are not sufficiently understood. Here, we designed a comprehensive set of performance measures and benchmar...

This paper makes the case that pin bandwidth will be a critical consideration for future microprocessors. We show that many of the techniques used to tolerate growing memory latencies do so at the expense of increased bandwidth requirements. Using a decomposition of execution time, we show that for modern processors that employ aggressive memory latency tolerance techniques, wasted cycles due t...