Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of age and hearing loss on sentence perception in noise using temporal envelope and temporal fine structure cues

Abstract Purpose: The perception of speech is affected by many physical, physiological and pathological factors related to the stimuli and the listener. Researchers have addressed the effect of each of these factors independently on the perception of speech. In everyday situations, these factors do not occur in isolation but they may occur simultaneously and affect the overall perception of speech. The information on the extent to which each of these factors affect the speech perception is seldom being investigated. Methods: The present study explored the role of temporal envelope and temporal fine structures in the perception of sentences in noise by normal hearing young & older adults; and young & older adults with hearing loss. The envelope and fine structures of the sentences were extracted based on Hilbert transformation using Matlab software. The effect of noise was estimated by processing the sentences in quiet and at 0 dB and -5 dB SNR. The sentences were also filtered using 4, 8, 16 and 32 frequency channels to assess the role of frequency filtering on speech perception. Results: The envelope was more important for speech perception in both quiet and noise. The perception of speech was inversely proportional to age, hearing loss and noise levels, whereas it was directly proportional to the number of frequency channels. Conclusion: These findings indicate that the temporal envelope is important for speech perception in noise. The research findings may help in designing new signal processing strategies for hearing aids and cochlear implants based on the envelope cues.
Generating Efficient Context-Switch Capable Circuits through Autonomous Design Flow

Commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) Field-Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) are becoming increasingly powerful. In addition to their huge hardware resources, they are also integrated into complete systems on chips (SOCs), e.g., in the latest Xilinx Zynq or Altera Stratix platforms. However, cooperation between FPGAs and their surroundings, and the flexibility of hardware task management could still be improved. For instance, mechanisms have yet to be automated to allow multi-user approaches. A reconfigurable resource can be shared between applications or users only if it has a context-switch ability allowing applications to be paused and resumed in response to system demands. Here, we present a high-level synthesis (HLS) design flow producing a context-switch-capable circuit. The design flow manipulates the intermediate representation of an HLS tool to build the context extraction mechanism and to optimize performance for the circuit produced. The method is based on efficient checkpoint selection and insertion of a powerful scan-chain into the initial circuit. This scan-chain can extract flip-flops or memory content. Experiments with the system produced show that it has a low hardware overhead for many benchmark applications, and that the hardware added has a negligible impact on application performance. Comparisons with current standard methods highlight the efficiency of our contributions.
Knowledge, beliefs and communication preferences with regards to the HPV vaccine; the perspective of unvaccinated Greek adolescent girls, young women, and mothers of vaccine-eligible girls

ABSTRACT Background: Every year in Europe 60,000 women develop cervical cancer and 30,000 die from the disease. HPV vaccines are currently believed to constitute an important element of cervical cancer control strategy. The introduction of the HPV vaccine constitutes a shift in health policy and health promotion practice. The aim of this study was to investigate knowledge, beliefs and communication preferences of the Greek public with regards to the HPV vaccine. Methods: Six focus groups (5–8 participants) were conducted with unvaccinated teenage girls, young women and mothers of vaccine-eligible girls, recruited via schools and universities. Pre-focus group questionnaires consisted of: socio-demographic details and a knowledge questionnaire. The discussion guide was based on issues raised by relevant studies such as disease severity and personal risk perception, perceived benefits and barriers to vaccination, etc. Participants were also shown three types of stimuli namely, a leaflet, an expert interview and a documentary containing equivalent information on HPV and the HPV vaccine. Thematic analysis was used for analysis of the qualitative data. Findings: Findings revealed that participants had low to moderate knowledge levels on HPV and cervical cancer. Beliefs specific to the HPV vaccine as well as general beliefs about medicines and their use in everyday life were prevalent. The vaccination dilemma was exacerbated by the conflicting advice received by health professionals coupled with the difficulties participants experienced in evaluating relevant health information. Participants judged all stimuli according to content and format but the documentary was their preferred health information communication option. Conclusions: Findings could contribute to the understanding of health decision making with regards to preventive vaccination and help formulate recommendations for health policy adjustments.
A New X-Ray Flare from the Galactic Nucleus Detected with the XMM-Newton Photon Imaging Cameras

Sgr A*, the compact radio source believed to be the counterpart of the massive black hole at the Galactic nucleus, was observed to undergo rapid and intense flaring activity in X-rays with Chandra in 2000 October. We report here the detection with XMM-Newton European Photon Imaging Cameras of the early phase of a similar X-ray flare from this source, which occurred on 2001 September 4. The source 2-10 keV luminosity increased by a factor of ≈20 to reach a level of 4 × 1034 ergs s-1 in a time interval of about 900 s, just before the end of the observation. The data indicate that the source spectrum was hard during the flare. This XMM-Newton observation confirms the results obtained by Chandra and suggests that in Sgr A* rapid and intense X-ray flaring is not a rare event. This can constrain the emission mechanism models proposed for this source and also implies that the crucial multiwavelength observation programs planned to explore the behavior of the radio/submillimeter and hard X-ray/gamma-ray emissions during the X-ray flares have a good chance of success.
The Cognitive Outcome of Hemispherectomy in 71 Children

Summary: Purpose: Long‐term neuropsychological outcome was studied in 71 patients who underwent hemispherectomy for severe and intractable seizures at The Johns Hopkins Hospital between 1968 and 1997 and who agreed to participate. Seizures were due to cortical dysplasias (n = 27), Rasmussen syndrome (n = 37), or vascular malformations or strokes (n = 7). Both presurgical and follow‐up results are available and reported for 53 patients.
A New Evaluation Framework and Image Dataset for Keypoint Extraction and Feature Descriptor Matching

Key point extraction and description mechanisms play a crucial role in image matching, where several image points must be accurately identified to robustly estimate a transformation or to recognize an object or a scene -- New procedures for keypoint extraction and for feature description are continuously emerging -- In order to assess them accurately, normalized data and evaluation protocols are required -- In response to these needs, we present a (1) new evaluation framework that allow assessing the performance of the state-of-the-art feature point extraction and description mechanisms, (2) a new image dataset acquired under controlled affine and photometric transformations and (3) a testing image generator -- Our evaluation framework allows generating detailed curves about the performance of different approaches, providing a valuable insight about their behavior -- Also, it can be easily integrated in many research and development environments -- The contributions mentioned above are available on-line for the use of the scientific community
Identification of antibiotic resistance genes in the multidrug-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii strain, MDR-SHH02, using whole-genome sequencing

This study aimed to investigate antibiotic resistance genes in the multidrug-resistant (MDR) Acinetobacter baumannii (A. baumanii) strain, MDR-SHH02, using whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The antibiotic resistance of MDR-SHH02 isolated from a patient with breast cancer to 19 types of antibiotics was determined using the Kirby-Bauer method. WGS of MDR-SHH02 was then performed. Following quality control and transcriptome assembly, functional annotation of genes was conducted, and the phylogenetic tree of MDR-SHH02, along with another 5 A. baumanii species and 2 Acinetobacter species, was constructed using PHYLIP 3.695 and FigTree v1.4. 2. Furthermore, pathogenicity islands (PAIs) were predicted by the pathogenicity island database. Potential antibiotic resistance genes in MDR-SHH02 were predicted based on the information in the Antibiotic Resistance Genes Database (ARDB). MDR-SHH02 was found to be resistant to all of the tested antibiotics. The total draft genome length of MDR-SHH02 was 4,003,808 bp. There were 74.25% of coding sequences to be annotated into 21 of the Clusters of Orthologous Groups (COGs) of protein terms, such as 'transcription' and 'amino acid transport and metabolism'. Furthermore, there were 45 PAIs homologous to the sequence MDRSHH02000806. Additionally, a total of 12 gene sequences in MDR-SHH02 were highly similar to the sequences of antibiotic resistance genes in ARDB, including genes encoding aminoglycoside-modifying enzymes [e.g., aac(3)-Ia, ant(2″)-Ia, aph33ib and aph(3′)-Ia], β-lactamase genes (bl2b_tem and bl2b_tem1), sulfonamide-resistant dihydropteroate synthase genes (sul1 and sul2), catb3 and tetb. These results suggest that numerous genes mediate resistance to various antibiotics in MDR-SHH02, and provide a clinical guidance for the personalized therapy of A. baumannii-infected patients.
Mineralocorticoid Receptor Antagonism Prevents the Electrical Remodeling That Precedes Cellular Hypertrophy After Myocardial Infarction

Background—Cardiac hypertrophy underlies arrhythmias and sudden death, for which mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) activity has recently been implicated. We sought to establish the sequence of ionic events that link the initiating insult and MR to hypertrophy development. Methods and Results—Using whole-cell, patch-clamp and quantitative reverse transcription–polymerase chain reaction techniques on right ventricular myocytes of a myocardial infarction (MI) rat model, we examined the cellular response over time. One week after MI, no sign of cellular hypertrophy was found, but action potential duration (APD) was lengthened. Both an increase in Ca2+ current (ICa) and a decrease in K+ transient outward current (Ito) underlay this effect. Consistently, the relative expression of mRNA coding for the Ca2+ channel &agr;1C subunit (Cav1.2) increased, and that of the K+ channel Kv4.2 subunit decreased. Three weeks after MI, AP prolongation endured, whereas cellular hypertrophy developed. ICa density, Cav1.2, and Kv4.2 mRNA levels regained control levels, but Ito density remained reduced. Long-term treatment with RU28318, an MR antagonist, prevented this electrical remodeling. In a different etiologic model of abdominal aortic constriction, we confirmed that APD prolongation and modifications of ionic currents precede cellular hypertrophy. Conclusions—Electrical remodeling, which is triggered at least in part by MR activation, is an initial, early cellular response to hypertrophic insults.
The Cooperative Brain

Cooperation is essential for the functioning of human societies. To better understand how cooperation both succeeds and fails, recent research in cognitive neuroscience has begun to explore novel paradigms to examine how cooperative mechanisms may be encoded in the brain. By combining functional neuroimaging techniques with simple but realistic tasks adapted from experimental economics, this approach allows for the discrimination and modeling of processes that are important in cooperative behavior. Here, we review evidence demonstrating that many of the processes underlying cooperation overlap with rather fundamental brain mechanisms, such as, for example, those involved in reward, punishment and learning. In addition, we review how social expectations induced by an interactive context and the experience of social emotions may influence cooperation and its associated underlying neural circuitry, and we describe factors that appear important for generating cooperation, such as the provision of incentives. These findings illustrate how cognitive neuroscience can contribute to the development of more accurate, brain-based, models of cooperative decision making.
Effects of Emotional and Sensorimotor Knowledge in Semantic Processing of Concrete and Abstract Nouns

There is much empirical evidence that words’ relative imageability and body-object interaction (BOI) facilitate lexical processing for concrete nouns (e.g., Bennett et al., 2011). These findings are consistent with a grounded cognition framework (e.g., Barsalou, 2008), in which sensorimotor knowledge is integral to lexical processing. In the present study, we examined whether lexical processing is also sensitive to the dimension of emotional experience (i.e., the ease with which words evoke emotional experience), which is also derived from a grounded cognition framework. We examined the effects of emotional experience, imageability, and BOI in semantic categorization for concrete and abstract nouns. Our results indicate that for concrete nouns, emotional experience was associated with less accurate categorization, whereas imageability and BOI were associated with faster and more accurate categorization. For abstract nouns, emotional experience was associated with faster and more accurate categorization, whereas BOI was associated with slower and less accurate categorization. This pattern of results was observed even with many other lexical and semantic dimensions statistically controlled. These findings are consistent with Vigliocco et al.’s (2009) theory of semantic representation, which states that emotional knowledge underlies meanings for abstract concepts, whereas sensorimotor knowledge underlies meanings for concrete concepts.
Distributed scheduling of flexible manufacturing systems: stability and performance

We consider a manufacturing system producing several part-types on several machines. Raw parts are input to the system. Each unit of a given part-type requires a predetermined processing time at each of several machines, in a given order. A setup time is required whenever a machine switches from processing one part-type to another. For a single machine system with constant demand rates, we present a class of generalized round-robin scheduling policies for which the buffer level trajectory of each part-type converges to a steady state level. Furthermore, for all small initial conditions, we show that these policies can be Pareto-efficient with respect to the buffer sizes required. Allowing the input streams to have some burstiness, we derive upper bounds on the buffer levels for small initial conditions. For non-acyclic systems, we consider a class of policies which are stable for all inputs with bounded burstiness. We show how to employ system elements, called regulators, to stabilize systems. Using the bounds for the single machine case, we analyze the performance of regulated systems implementing generalized round-robin scheduling policies. >
A three-dimensional self-learning kinetic Monte Carlo model: application to Ag(111)

The reliability of kinetic Monte Carlo (KMC) simulations depends on accurate transition rates. The self-learning KMC method (Trushin et al 2005 Phys. Rev. B 72 115401) combines the accuracy of rates calculated from a realistic potential with the efficiency of a rate catalog, using a pattern recognition scheme. This work expands the original two-dimensional method to three dimensions. The concomitant huge increase in the number of rate calculations on the fly needed can be avoided by setting up an initial database, containing exact activation energies calculated for processes gathered from a simpler KMC model. To provide two representative examples, the model is applied to the diffusion of Ag monolayer islands on Ag(111), and the homoepitaxial growth of Ag on Ag(111) at low temperatures.
The UCSD HIRES/Keck I Damped Lyα Abundance Database. III. An Empirical Study of Photoionization in the Damped Lyα System toward GB 1759+7539

We investigate the ionization state of the damped Lyα system at z = 2.62 toward GB 1759+7539 through an analysis of ionic ratios sensitive to photoionization: Ar0/S+, Fe++/Fe+, N+/N0, and Al++/Al+. Approximately half of the metals arise in a mostly neutral velocity component with H I/H > 0.9, based on Fe++/Fe+ < 0.013. In contrast, the remaining half exhibit Fe++/Fe+ ≈ 0.3, indicative of a partially ionized medium with H I/H ≈ 0.5. These conclusions are supported by the observed N+/N0, Al++/Al+, and Ar0/Si+ ratios. We assess ionization corrections for the observed column densities through photoionization models derived from the CLOUDY software package. In the neutral gas, the ionization corrections are negligible, except for Ar0. However, for the partially ionized gas, element abundance ratios differ from the ionic ratios by 0.1-0.3 dex for (Si+, S+, Ni+, Al+)/Fe+ ratios and more for (N0, Ar0)/Fe+. Independent of the shape of the photoionizing spectrum and assumptions of the number of ionization phases, these ionization corrections have minimal impact (≲0.1 dex) on the total metallicity inferred for this damped Lyα system. Measurements of the relative elemental abundances of the partially ionized gas, however, have a greater than ≈0.15 dex uncertainty, which hides the effects of nucleosynthesis and differential dust depletion. We caution the reader that this damped system is unusual for a number of reasons (e.g., a very low Ar0/S+ ratio), and we believe its ionization properties are special but not unique. Nevertheless, it clearly shows the value of examining photoionization diagnostics such as Fe++/Fe+ in a larger sample of damped systems.
Project Risk Choices Under Privately Guaranteed Debt Financing

Although a considerable amount of research has been undertaken on detrimental risk taking by managers, much less studies are devoted to endogenizing risk choices in the context of corporate project financing and in the presence of financial guarantees. A firm's risk appetite increases greatly when it has a guarantee contract on its debt, which creates a conflict of interest between the firm and the guarantee provider. To address this moral hazard issue, we propose an equilibrium model in which the borrowing firm and the guarantee provider pre-commit themselves to conscripted risk levels at the signature of the contract. We show if the borrowing firm and the guarantor pre-commit, the equilibrium risk level is lower than the one the firm will choose unilaterally. When the firm's shareholders have a big equity stake in the new project, for short (long) maturity debts, both parties gain by agreeing on a high (low) risk project. We also find that the optimal risk level of the borrowing firm is entirely driven by its ex-post capital structure.
Portfolio Choice in the Presence of Housing

I show that investment in housing plays a crucial role in explaining the patterns of cross-sectional variation in the composition of wealth and the level of stockholdings observed in portfolio composition data. Due to investment in housing, younger and poorer investors have limited financial wealth to invest in stocks, which reduces the benefits of equity market participation. House price risk crowds out stockholdings, and this crowding out effect is larger for low financial net-worth. In the model as in the data leverage is positively correlated with stockholdings. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.
Firm Default and Aggregate Fluctuations

This paper studies the relation between macroeconomic fluctuations and corporate defaults while conditioning on industry affiliation and an extensive set of firm-specific factors. Using a multiperiod logit approach on a panel data set for all incorporated Swedish businesses over 1990-2002, we find strong evidence for a substantial and stable impact of aggregate fluctuations. Macroeffects differ across industries in an economically intuitive way. Out-of-sample evaluations show our approach is superior to both models that exclude macro information and best fitting naive forecasting models. While firm-specific factors are useful in ranking firms' relative riskiness, macroeconomic factors capture fluctuations in the absolute risk level.
Multiplicity among solar-type stars

Context. The statistical properties of binary stars are clues for understanding their formation process. A radial velocity survey was carried on amongst nearby G-type stars and the results were published in 1991. Aims. The survey of radial velocity measurements was extended towards K-type stars. Methods. A sample of 261 K-type stars was observed with the spectrovelocimeter CORAVEL (COrrelation RAdial VELocities). Those stars with a variable radial velocity were detected on the basis of the P(Χ2) test. The orbital elements of the spectroscopic binaries were then derived. Results. The statistical properties of binary stars were derived from these observations and published in 2003. We present the catalogue of the radial velocity measurements obtained with CORAVEL for all the K stars of the survey and the orbital elements derived for 34 spectroscopic systems. In addition, the catalogue contains eight G-type spectroscopic binaries that have received additional measurements since 1991 and for which the orbital elements are revised or derived for the first time.
Research skills that men and women developed at university and then used in workplaces

ABSTRACT This qualitative study probed the mismatch between graduates’ and employers’ perspectives, especially in regard to graduates’ learning orientation and investigating skills. Specifically, the study delved into male and female graduates’ perceptions of research skills that were developed explicitly during their undergraduate degree and used by them in employment for research, investigations and for ongoing learning that kept them current. Thematic analysis of the qualitative data revealed substantial similarities between the male and female graduates’ emphasis about four of the six research skills investigated. However, the skills that graduates did not emphasize – embarking and clarifying for men; analyzing and synthesizing for women – give some clues as to why those interviewed may not have, use or transfer, the full set of skills needed to engage in investigation and learning in workplaces, and this incomplete skill set may lead to lower employer satisfaction with graduate skills.
Enabling Social Search in Time through Graphs

Recently, social networks have attracted considerable attention. The huge volume of information contained in them, as well as their dynamic nature, make the problem of searching social data challenging. In this work, we envision the design of a complete framework for social search by exploiting both the underlying social graph and the temporal information available in social networks. To encompass the numerous search needs, our framework includes a time-aware graph and query model. To deploy the proposed query model over any social network, we define a logical algebra that provides a set of operators required for query evaluation, and for supporting a ranking functionality. We conclude by presenting SQTime, a prototype that implements our framework.