Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Feature Selection for Speaker Traits

This study focuses on handling high-dimensional classification problems by means of feature selection. The data sets used are provided by the organizers of the Interspeech 2012 Speaker Trait Challenge. A combination of two feature selection approaches gives results that approach or exceed the challenge baselines using a knearest-neighbor classifier. One of the feature selection methods is based on covering the data set with correct unsupervised or supervised classifications according to individual features. The other selection method applies a measure of statistical dependence between discretized features and class labels. Index Terms: pattern recognition, feature selection, high-dimensional data, speaker characteristics
Fiber pathways connecting cortical areas relevant for spatial orienting and exploration

By implementing a task that closely resembled a clinical test for diagnosing spatial neglect in stroke patients, Himmelbach et al. ( : Neuroimage 32:1747–1759) found significantly increased activation during active exploration in those cortical areas in healthy subjects that are known to induce spatial neglect in case of a lesion. The present study investigated whether direct intra‐hemispheric cortico‐cortical connections could be found between these activated clusters using a probabilistic fiber‐tracking approach in 52 healthy subjects. We found that parts of the extreme capsule (EmC) and the middle longitudinal fascicle (MdLF) connected the functional cluster in the prefrontal cortex with the superior temporal cortex and the temporo‐parietal junction (TPJ) area in both hemispheres. The activation peak in the TPJ was additionally connected to the inferior frontal cortex by parts of the arcuate fascicle and the superior longitudinal fascicle (SLF II) in the right hemisphere. Our study elucidates the connections constituting the perisylvian network for spatial orienting and attention. Hence, we complement the knowledge from patients suffering from spatial neglect by giving first empirical evidence for the complete postulated network in healthy subjects. Hum Brain Mapp 35:1031–1043, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Feasible Equilibrium Search Model of Individual Wage Dynamics with Experience Accumulation

We present a tractable equilibrium job search model of individual worker careers allowing for human capital accumulation, employer heterogeneity and individual-level shocks. We estimate our structural model on a panel of Danish matched employer-employee data and use it to analyze the determinants of individual wage dynamics. Our main motivation for doing this is to quantify the respective roles of human capital accumulation coming along with work experience and the forces of labor market competition activated by workers' job search behavior in shaping individual labor earnings dynamics over the life cycle. Our structural model permits a decomposition of monthly wage growth into contributions from human capital accumulation and from job search, within and between job spells. We find that the job-search-related within-job effects dominates between-job effects. In relative terms, human capital accumulation is quantitatively more important for wage growth early in workersâ careers, and its quantitative importance increases in workers' educational attainment. Indeed, human capital accumulation is the primary source for early career wage growth among high-educated workers.
Task-linked Diurnal Brain Network Reorganization in Older Adults: A Graph Theoretical Approach

Testing older adults in the morning generally improves behavioral performance relative to afternoon testing. Morning testing is also associated with brain activity similar to that of young adults. Here, we used graph theory to explore how time of day (TOD) affects the organization of brain networks in older adults across rest and task states. We used nodes from the automated anatomical labeling atlas to construct participant-specific correlation matrices of fMRI data obtained during 1-back tasks with interference and rest. We computed pairwise group differences for key graph metrics, including small-worldness and modularity. We found that older adults tested in the morning and young adults did not differ on any graph metric. Both of these groups differed from older adults tested in the afternoon during the tasks—but not rest. Specifically, the latter group had lower modularity and small-worldness (indices of more efficient network organization). Across all groups, higher modularity and small-worldness strongly correlated with reduced distractibility on an implicit priming task. Increasingly, TOD is seen as important for interpreting and reproducing neuroimaging results. Our study emphasizes how TOD affects brain network organization and executive control in older adults.
Life on the edge: carnivore body size variation is all over the place

Evolutionary biologists have long been fascinated by both the ways in which species respond to ecological conditions at the edges of their geographic ranges and the way that species' body sizes evolve across their ranges. Surprisingly, though, the relationship between these two phenomena is rarely studied. Here, we examine whether carnivore body size changes from the interior of their geographic range towards the range edges. We find that within species, body size often varies strongly with distance from the range edge. However, there is no general tendency across species for size to be either larger or smaller towards the edge. There is some evidence that the smallest guild members increase in size towards their range edges, but results for the largest guild members are equivocal. Whether individuals vary in relation to the distance from the range edges often depends on the way edge and interior are defined. Neither geographic range size nor absolute body size influences the tendency of size to vary with distance from the range edge. Therefore, we suggest that the frequent significant association between body size and the position of individuals along the edge-core continuum reflects the prevalence of geographic size variation and that the distance to range edge per se does not influence size evolution in a consistent way.
Comovement and Investment Banking Networks

We test the hypothesis that investment banking networks affect stock prices and trading behavior. Consistent with the notion that investment banks serve as information hubs for segmented groups of investors, the stock prices of firms that use the same lead underwriter during their equity offerings tend to move together. We also find that when firms switch underwriters between their initial public offering (IPO) and a seasoned equity offering (SEO), they comove less with the stocks associated with the old bank and more with the stocks associated with the new bank. This change in comovement is greater for stocks completing their first SEO and for those experiencing large changes in institutional ownership.
Linear Regression Modeling of Rim Area to Discriminate Between Normal and Glaucomatous Optic Nerve Heads: The Bridlington Eye Assessment Project

PurposeTo create a diagnostic algorithm by modeling the normal variability of rim area (measured by Heidelberg Retina Tomography) using linear regression in normal elderly subjects. MethodsMultiple linear regression was performed between log rim area and disc area, age, and sex in 712 normal elderly subjects. The relationship between log rim area and disc area was not linear and showed significant heteroscedascity (increasing variability of rim area with increasing disc area). These factors violate the assumptions of linear regression as performed by the Moorfields Regression Analysis (MRA), and were overcome by conducting linear regression separately for each disc area quartile. Actual rim area in each disc sector was compared with the 95% lower limit predicted by the analysis in the normal subjects and 58 glaucoma patients. ResultsSpecificity and sensitivity of the New Regression Analysis (NRA) was 83% and 81%, respectively (84.4% and 82.7%, respectively for MRA). NRA specificity was unaffected by disc size (81.6% and 86.3% in the smallest and largest disc area quartiles, respectively, P=0.36). MRA specificity was reduced in larger discs (91.1% and 73.1% in smallest and largest disc area quartiles, P<0.001), with reduced sensitivity in smaller discs (58.3% and 85.0% in smallest and largest quartiles, P=0.05). ConclusionsNonlinearity and heteroscedascity in the relationship between log rim area and disc area explain reduced specificity of the MRA in bigger discs as a statistical error. Although overall not offering better diagnostic performance, the NRA performed consistently across different disc sizes, offering better performance than the MRA in large discs.
Early Intervention for Psychosis: A Canadian Perspective

Abstract This paper provides an overview of early intervention (EI) services for psychosis in Canada. We describe a leading Canadian EI program’s approach to enhancing access (via early case detection, open referral, and rapid response) and providing specialized phase-specific treatment. Learnings from this program’s research/evaluation indicate that EI can significantly improve service user and family engagement. Achieving and maintaining symptom remission (particularly negative symptoms) may be important for better social and occupational functioning in first-episode psychosis (FEP). Our program demonstrates the feasibility of establishing and sustaining an open referral, rapid-response system to address the chronic systemic problems of long waiting lists and barriers to access. We argue that an integrated clinical-research program based on specialized EI guidelines can significantly improve outcomes and advance FEP research.
Fostering Teacher’s Digital Competencies And Innovative Work Behavior In Facing Merdeka Belajar Policy: Digital Informal Learning As A Mediator

Digital competence is the important issue of education where information technology is growing rapidly through computer networks and online media. The challenge of digitalization is the basis for teachers to develop their digital skills. The Merdeka Belajar Policy is a strategy towards a future education system to adapt on those issues. This study purposes to examine the mediators of digital informal learning between teachers' digital competencies and innovative work behavior. The sampling technique used purposive sampling with criteria of samples that teachers who have taught virtually. The number of samples are 175 teachers. Data analysis in this study used second-order construct of SEM PLS with model repeated indicator approach. The result shows that the teacher's digital competencies significantly influence on digital informal learning and innovative work behavior. The indirect effect gets the result that digital informal learning partially mediates between teacher’s digital competencies and innovative work behavior. The contribution of this research is to provide an overview of current education about the importance of teachers adapting to the digitalization so they can develop innovative work behaviors in teaching and learning.
Google's Cloud Vision API is Not Robust to Noise

Google has recently introduced the Cloud Vision API for image analysis. According to the demonstration website, the API "quickly classifies images into thousands of categories, detects individual objects and faces within images, and finds and reads printed words contained within images. " It can be also used to "detect different types of inappropriate content from adult to violent content. " In this paper, we evaluate the robustness of Google Cloud Vision API to input perturbation. In particular, we show that by adding sufficient noise to the image, the API generates completely different outputs for the noisy image, while a human observer would perceive its original content. We show that the attack is consistently successful, by performing extensive experiments on different image types, including natural images, images containing faces and images with texts. For instance, using images from ImageNet dataset, we found that adding an average of 14.25% impulse noise is enough to deceive the API. Our findings indicate the vulnerability of the API in adversarial environments. For example, an adversary can bypass an image filtering system by adding noise to inappropriate images. We then show that when a noise filter is applied on input images, the API generates mostly the same outputs for restored images as for original images. This observation suggests that cloud vision API can readily benefit from noise filtering, without the need for updating image analysis algorithms.
of the Therapeutic Use of Simethicone in Gastroenterology

NAIR [5]). Background: The history of simethicone covers more than 50 years. The main properties of simethicone are the defoaming reduction of surface tension and the reduction of surface viscosity and hydrophobicity which enable simethicone to spread easily over surfaces. It is not absorbed and is virtually non-toxic. While its use is well-established in diagnostic procedures, therapeutic studies have sometimes been contradictory. Objective: To assess the therapeutic efficacy and safety of simethicone taking into account clinically relevant end points and following the guidelines provided by the Cochrane Collaboration. Methods: The data sources consulted were bibliographic databases, references from review articles and books, as well as personal contacts up to September 07. All papers were screened and those dealing with prospective clinical trials were summarized in a table by indication, study design and methodological quality. Results: Out of a total of 83 publications, 14 concerning diagnostic procedures and 23 therapeutic trials were retained for closer analysis. Good evidence of efficacy was found for antifoaming in diagnostic work-ups and as a therapeutic agent in: 1st) Functional dyspepsia, (4 trials; 266 patients simethicone vs. 310 controls) with simethicone superior to placebo and to cisapride, and 2nd) traveller’s diarrhoea, (2 large trials; 248 simethicone patients vs. 244 placebo) with simethicone superior to placebo (increased efficacy when combined with an μ-opioid-agonist). Data are not conclusive in: 1) ‘IBS-like’ symptoms (2 trials; 80 patients simethicone vs. 54 controls); 2) in post-operative management of intestinal activity (4 mostly old trials; 847 patients simethicone vs. 631 controls); 3) Infantile colics, (7 trials; 306 infants simethicone vs. 296 controls); and 4) as an add-on, against symptoms of gastroesophageal reflux, (3 studies) and in partial adhesive small-bowel obstruction (1 trial). Conclusions: Simethicone may be beneficial in the various indications in which its intraluminal defoaming and coating action are desired. RCTs have shown its efficacy in some indications, in addition to its well-established uses in diagnostic procedures. More RCTs for non-confirmed indications are needed, particularly in view of the very large safety margin of simethicone.
The multi 2D systolic design and implementation of Convolutional Neural Networks

A novel Systolic Convolutional Neural Network (SCoNN) architecture suitable to be implemented in a single hardware die is proposed in this paper. A large size of memory is required to store the input and intermediate data resulted among convolutional layers in the CoNN. However, to parallelize the computations, multiple memory accesses should be achieved simultaneously. Consequently, memory bandwidth should be increased by the use of either fast expensive components or complicated managed interleaved scheme. Our proposed system can address this challenge efficiently. This is achieved due to the use of smaller memory to store the input pattern and to re-use it as an intermediate memory for inter-processing patterns that produced between two convolutional layers. Using systolic technique which can efficiently exploit its input leads to achieve this goal. A high parallelism level can be achieved with a minimal number of memory accesses. Also, the proposed computational units is designed to be suitable for processing an image of scaled resolutions. The reason behind that is attributed to using a sliding window architecture to implement the convolution process. Now apart from the size of the input pattern or window and instead of feeding the window across the image, the image is fed through the window due to using FIFO caching scheme. According to these advantages, an easily, efficient, and scalable SCoNN architecture can be implemented using small FPGA resources.
Obesity among adolescents of ahmedabad city, gujarat, india- a community based cross-sectional study

Background and objectives: Overweight and obesity are important determinants of health leading to adverse metabolic changes and increase the risk of non communicable diseases. Following the increase in adult obesity, the proportion of overweight and obese adolescents has also been increasing. Hence, the present study was undertaken to study the magnitude of overweight/obesity and find out the associations of obesity among adolescents in Ahmedabad city in Western India and suggest interventions. Materials and Methods: A community based cross sectional study was conducted in all the six zones of Ahemdabad Municipal Corporation. A total of 900 subjects, aged 10-19 years were included. Probability proportionate to size of population technique (PPS) was used to decide the number of adolescents to be included from each zone, Simple random sampling technique was used to select the ward and area from each zone. Pre-tested semi-structured questionnaire was used to elicit the information on individual characteristics. Height and weight was measured and BMI was calculated. Overweight and obesity was assessed by Body Mass Index (BMI) for age. Adolescents who had BMI for age >85th and 95th percentile of reference population were classified as obese. Results: Out of 900 study population, 439(48.8%) were females and 461(51.2%) were males. Total 120(13.3%) adolescents were found overweight, while 49(5.4%) were found obese. Overweight-obesity was significantly associated with Higher socio-economic status, indadequate sleep duration at night, lack of physical activity, consumption of junk foods Conclusion: Interventions shoud be done at adolescence period to prevent the obesity in adulthood. Life style modification can play very important role not only in preventing obesity among adolescents but also inculcating good habits for adulthood.
On the stability of flexible permission structures

Games with a permission structure are a type of cooperative games with transferable utility in which cooperation is restricted. In these games it is assumed that players can have veto power over other players. Two approaches are distinguished. In the conjunctive approach, a player needs permission from all his direct superiors to be able to cooperate. In the disjunctive approach, a players needs permission from only one of his direct superiors. In this thesis we study the stability properties of these permission networks. In order to do so, we first create a new model that allows for superior-successor links to be created and severed and in which links have a cost to them. For the conjunctive approach we find that only trees and forests can be stable, as an agent can only receive less value when the amount of his direct superiors increases. In the disjunctive approach, having more direct superiors can increase the value allocated to a player. Whether trees can be stable or not depends in this case on the size of the link cost.
CCR2 Expression in Neutrophils Plays a Critical Role in Their Migration Into the Joints in Rheumatoid Arthritis

Infiltration of neutrophils into the joints plays an important role in bone erosion and articular destruction in rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Neutrophil trafficking during inflammation is a process that involves activation of chemotactic receptors. Recent findings suggest that changes in chemotactic receptor patterns could occur in neutrophils under certain inflammatory conditions. The aim of this study was to evaluate the gain of responsiveness of neutrophils to CCL2 in RA patients and to assess the role of CCL2 in driving neutrophil infiltration into the joints.
Sets of exact approximation order by rational numbers III

For a function Ψ : R>0 → R>0, let Exact(Ψ) be the set of real numbers that are approximable by rational numbers to order Ψ, but to no order cΨ with 0 < c < 1. When Ψ is non-increasing and satisfies Ψ(x) = o(x−2), we establish that Exact(Ψ) has Hausdorff dimension 2/λ, where λ is the lower order at infinity of the function 1/Ψ. Furthermore, we study the set Exact(Ψ) when Ψ is not assumed to be non-increasing and show that the set Exact(Ψ) is uncountable for a large class of functions Ψ satisfying Ψ(x) = o(x−2).
Transcriptome Dynamics during the Transition from Anaerobic Photosynthesis to Aerobic Respiration in Rhodobacter sphaeroides 2.4.1

ABSTRACT Rhodobacter sphaeroides 2.4. 1 is a facultative photosynthetic anaerobe that grows by anoxygenic photosynthesis under anaerobic-light conditions. Changes in energy generation pathways under photosynthetic and aerobic respiratory conditions are primarily controlled by oxygen tensions. In this study, we performed time series microarray analyses to investigate transcriptome dynamics during the transition from anaerobic photosynthesis to aerobic respiration. Major changes in gene expression profiles occurred in the initial 15 min after the shift from anaerobic-light to aerobic-dark conditions, with changes continuing to occur up to 4 hours postshift. Those genes whose expression levels changed significantly during the time series were grouped into three major classes by clustering analysis. Class I contained genes, such as that for the aa 3 cytochrome oxidase, whose expression levels increased after the shift. Class II contained genes, such as those for the photosynthetic apparatus and Calvin cycle enzymes, whose expression levels decreased after the shift. Class III contained genes whose expression levels temporarily increased during the time series. Many genes for metabolism and transport of carbohydrates or lipids were significantly induced early during the transition, suggesting that those endogenous compounds were initially utilized as carbon sources. Oxidation of those compounds might also be required for maintenance of redox homeostasis after exposure to oxygen. Genes for the repair of protein and sulfur groups and uptake of ferric iron were temporarily upregulated soon after the shift, suggesting they were involved in a response to oxidative stress. The flagellar-biosynthesis genes were expressed in a hierarchical manner at 15 to 60 min after the shift. Numerous transporters were induced at various time points, suggesting that the cellular composition went through significant changes during the transition from anaerobic photosynthesis to aerobic respiration. Analyses of these data make it clear that numerous regulatory activities come into play during the transition from one homeostatic state to another.