Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
An Experimental Comparison of Deep Neural Networks for End-to-end Speech Recognition

Performance of end-to-end automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems can significantly be improved by the increasing large speech corpus and deeper neural network. Given the arising problem of training speed and recent success of deep convolutional neural network in ASR, we build a novel deep recurrent convolutional network for acoustic modeling and apply deep residual learning framework to it, our experiments show that it has not only faster convergence speed but better recognition accuracy over traditional deep convolutional recurrent network. We mainly compare convergence speed of two acoustic models, which are novel deep recurrent convolutional networks and traditional deep convolutional recurrent networks. With faster convergence speed, our novel deep recurrent convolutional networks can reach the comparable performance. We further show that applying deep residual learning can boost both convergence speed and recognition accuracy of our novel recurret convolutional networks. Finally, we evaluate all our experimental networks by phoneme error rate (PER) with newly proposed bidirectional statistical language model. Our evaluation results show that our model applied with deep residual learning can reach the best PER of 17.33% with fastest convergence speed in TIMIT database.
A Systematic Framework for Grammar Testing

Grammars, especially context-free grammars, are widely used within and even outside the field of computer science. In this paper, we present a systematic framework for grammar testing, in which some commonly used techniques for testing programs such as module testing and integration testing are adapted and applied to the testing of grammars. We propose a nonterminal-based approach for grammar modularization, combined with an iterative process for grammar testing in which a grammar is tested with respect to both a generator and a recognizer. Experiments on grammars for some non-trivial programming languages such as C and Java demonstrate the feasibility and efficiency of the testing framework and the proposed approaches.
CX3CL1/CX3CR1 and CCL2/CCR2 Chemokine/Chemokine Receptor Complex in Patients with AMD

Purpose The chemokine receptors CX3CR1 and CCR2 have been implicated in the development of age-related macular degeneration (AMD). The evidence is mainly derived from experimental cell studies and murine models of AMD. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between expression of CX3CR1 and CCR2 on different leukocyte subsets and AMD. Furthermore we measured the plasma levels of ligands CX3CL1 and CCL2. Methods Patients attending our department were asked to participate in the study. The diagnosis of AMD was based on clinical examination and multimodal imaging techniques. Chemokine plasma level and chemokine receptor expression were measured by flow-cytometry. Results A total of 150 participants were included. We found a significantly lower expression of CX3CR1 on CD8+ T cells in the neovascular AMD group compared to the control group (p = 0.04). We found a significant positive correlation between CCR2 and CX3CR1 expression on CD8+ cells (r = 0.727, p = 0.0001). We found no difference in plasma levels of CX3CL1 and CCL2 among the groups. Conclusions Our results show a down regulation of CX3CR1 on CD8+ cells; this correlated to a low expression of CCR2 on CD8+ cells. Further studies are needed to elucidate the possible role of this cell type in AMD development.
24-Hour Oscillation of Mouse Methionine Aminopeptidase2, a Regulator of Tumor Progression, Is Regulated by Clock Gene Proteins

Methionine aminopeptidase2 (MetAP2) plays an important role in the growth of endothelial cells during the tumor angiogenesis stage. Recently, we have clarified that mouse methionine aminopeptidases (mMetAPs) show a 24-hour rhythm in implanted tumor masses. In the present study, we investigated the mechanism underlying the 24-hour rhythm of mMetAP2 activity in tumor-bearing mice under a light-dark (lights on from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.) cycle. The 5′ flanking region of mMetAP2 included eight E-boxes. The transcription of the mMetAP2 promoter was enhanced by the mCLOCK:mBMAL1 heterodimer, and its activation was inhibited by mPER2 or mCRY1. Deletion and mutation of the E-boxes in the region indicated that the E-box nearest to the initiation start site played an important role in the transcriptional regulation by clock genes. In sarcoma180-bearing mice, the pattern of binding of mCLOCK and mBMAL1 to the E-box and transcription of the mMetAP2 promoter showed a 24-hour rhythm with higher levels from the mid-light to early dark phase. The pattern of mMetAP2 transcription was closely associated with that of mMetAP2 mRNA expression in three types of tumor-bearing mice. mMetAP2 protein expression varied with higher levels from the late-dark to early light phase. The rhythmicity of the protein expression was synchronous with that of the activity of mMetAPs but out of phase with that of the mMetAP2 mRNA expression. These results suggest that the 24-hour rhythm of mMetAP2 activity is regulated by the transcription of clock genes within the clock feedback loops.
Language reconfiguration in bilinguals

The present study investigated language inhibition and cross-language interference as two possible mechanisms of bilingual language control (BLC) that can be affected by Huntington’s disease (HD), a neurodegenerative disease (ND) affecting the striatum. To this aim, the study explored the performance of pre-symptomatic and early-stage HD patients in two experimental tasks meant to elicit cross-language interference and language inhibition, including a Stroop task and a language switching task. The results revealed dissociations between these two mechanisms, indicating that language activation or inhibition is related to HD pathology while cross-language interference is not. Switch costs in HD patients were greater than controls in low-demand control conditions of language switching (longer preparation time), while Stroop effects were similar between the two groups of participants. This result was interpreted as a difficulty in overcoming the excessive inhibition applied to non-target language. The BLC processes related to the striatum and subcortical structures are discussed.
Recommendation system for big data applications based on set similarity of user preferences

Recommender system techniques are software techniques to provide users with tips on the object they need to devour or the item they want to apply. The conventional approach is to consider this as a decision problem and to solve it using rule based techniques, or cluster analysis. But recommendation systems are mainly employed in applications such as online market, which works with big data. Since, performing data mining on big data is a tedious task due to its distributed nature and enormity, instead of data mining, another method known as set-similarity join can be utilized. This paper proposes a solution for item recommendation for big data applications. The proposed work presents customized and personalized item recommendations and prescribes the most suitable items to the users successfully. In particular, key terms are used to indicate users preferences, and a user-based collaborative filtering algorithm is embraced to create suitable suggestions. Proposed work is designed to work with Hadoop, a broadly chosen distributed computing platform using the MapReduce framework
X-band 10W MMIC high-gain power amplifier with up to 60% PAE

This paper describes a power amplifier operating at X-band demonstrating 61% power added efficiency (PAE) at 10 GHz associated with 14W output power in CW mode. The design uses a 0. 15μm GaN 3MI process from TriQuintTM. The devices operate at a peak power density of 3.8 W/mm at 10GHz with a PAE higher than 48% over a 500-MHz bandwidth. The two-stage MMIC PA has a saturated gain of 19dB at peak efficiency. The total size of the chip is 9.2 mm2.
Emotional Labour in Social Workers’ Encounters with Children and Their Families

The ways in which social workers experience a range of emotions that are evoked in their professional relationships with children and families is an area that is little focused upon and yet the processes involved in their expression and management can have profound implications for all involved. Theoretically informed by sociological concepts and combining data from a two-year, UK four-nation, ESRC-funded research project, ‘Talking and Listening to Children’ (TLC), this paper explores the ways in which social work organisational contexts and dynamics give rise to ‘feeling rules’ in the workplace and the impact of these on social workers’ relationships with children and families. Using Hochschild’s (1983) emotional labour analytical framework, the paper highlights that the management and expression of social workers’ feelings are filtered through personal, professional and organisational contexts. The implications of these pervasive and powerful processes are explored. The paper concludes by considering the significant, wide-reaching implications of this focus on the experience, expression and management of emotion for everyday social work practice in both children and families settings specifically and other social work practice contexts more broadly.
Hemispheric Specialization for Processing Soccer Related Pictures: The Role of Supporter Fanaticism

The response-hemispheric congruence predicts that manual reaction times (MRTs) are faster when responses to the positive stimulus are done with the right hand and to the negative stimulus with the left hand than the opposite arrangement. This effect has been attributed to the hemispheric specialization for emotional processing, in which the left and the right hemispheres are related, respectively, to positive and negative emotions, eliciting a congruence effect when the affective stimulus valence and the responding hand coincide within the same hemisphere. Here, we investigated if this congruence effect can be detected when stimuli represent the favorite and rival soccer teams and whether the results depend on supporter emotional attachment. Volunteers were divided into high and low fanaticism groups according to the Football Supporter Fanaticism Scale. A significant interaction between fanaticism and stimuli field revealed that only the lower fanaticism group exhibited the usual left visual field advantage. There was also a congruence effect for the lower fanaticism group, in which congruent responses were faster than incongruent ones. However, for the higher fanaticism group there were no significant differences for the 2 congruency conditions. Results were discussed as evidence for distinct brain asymmetry patterns among football supporters depending on the level of fanaticism.
Aversive States Affecting Consumer Behavior

In this dissertation, I examine the influence of aversive states (e.g., unpleasant emotions, undesired outcomes) on consumers’ motivations and behaviors. In essay 1, I explore how feelings of physical and moral disgust can be threatening to consumers’ sense of self and motivate them to engage in compensatory consumption. In essay 2, I investigate why and when consumers exhibit negative behavioral intentions against firms that terminate unconditional business-to-consumer gift-giving initiatives. In essay 3, I explore how loneliness affects consumers’ preferences for products and services that do or do not require interpersonal touch and interaction (e.g., getting a massage vs. shopping online). Together, the three essays contribute to the literature on emotion, identity threats, and compensatory consumption, to the literature on sales promotion, and to the literature on loneliness. Moreover, the research findings inform marketing practice in the fields of advertising, sales promotions design, and consumer haptics. Finally, this research provides insights into consumer welfare by bringing attention to the unforeseen consequences of marketers’ actions that seek to benefit the consumers but instead generate compensatory behaviors to cope with their aversiveness.
Comparison of the efficiency of two taping techniques in reducing thoracic kyphosis among girls aged 18-30 years

Background: Kyphosis means an abnormal increase in the curvature of the thoracic region of the vertebral column and refers to a situation where the thoracic kyphosis range is more than forty five degrees. Vertebral column taping seems to be one of the most effective ways of treating kyphosis. The aim of this study was to investigate and compare the effect of two taping techniques in reducing the degree of kyphosis in girls aged 18-30 years. Methods: Thirty-two volunteers were randomly assigned into two groups (n=19 per group) of V–shaped tape and I-shaped tape. Taping techniques were performed as follows by applying 50% tensile force: V–shaped tape: The tape started on both sides of the anterior of acromioclavicular joint and extended to the spinous process of T6 vertebra. I–shaped tape: The patient's body was kept in a standing and straight state and then a longitudinal tape was applied from T1 to the deepest lumbar lordosis region. The measurements were carried out before, immediately, 24, and 48 hours after taping by a flexible ruler in a similar manner. Data analysis was performed using Friedman Test, Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test, Wilcoxon Signed Rank Test and Mann Whitney Test. Results: The results of this study showed a significant reduction in the degree of kyphosis in the case of the V-shaped tape 48 hours after taping. However, the degree of kyphosis decreased after 24 h (P = 0.001) and 48 hours (P< 0001) in the I-shaped tape group. In addition, there was no significant difference between the two interventions in terms of decreasing the degree of kyphosis at any time interval except for 24 hours (P=0.043). Conclusion: Taping reduces the degree of kyphosis by creating mechanical support, creating proprioceptive feedback, affecting the proprioception, improving the function of spinal erectors, and improving the mental image of the body with kyphosis. It appears that the I-shaped tape positioning on the alignment of spinal erectors spine makes it more effective.
Individual Differences and False Confessions: A Conceptual Replication of Kassin and Kiechel (1996)

In their study, Kassin and Kiechel (1996) falsely accused students of causing a computer crash and found that 69% of them were willing to sign a false confession, 28% internalized guilt, and 9% confabulated details to support their false beliefs. The authors interpreted these results to mean that false confessions can be easily elicited. However, in their study, false confessions were explicitly not associated with negative consequences. The current study examined whether false incriminating evidence may elicit false confessions in undergraduate students when such confessions are explicitly associated with financial loss. We also explored whether individual differences in compliance, suggestibility, fantasy-proneness, dissociation, and cognitive failures are related to false confessions. The large majority of participants (82%) were willing to sign a false confession. In about half of the participants, false confessions were accompanied by internalization and confabulation. There was no evidence that individual differences modulate participants' susceptibility to false confessions. Taken together, our study replicates previous findings of Kassin and Kiechel.
Waggling 1 the Form Baton 2 : Analyzing Body-Movement-Based Design Patterns in Nintendo Wii Games, Toward Innovation of New Possibilities for Social and Emotional Experience

This chapter describes research conducted to analyze and better understand what is compelling about particular body-movement-based design patterns in Nintendo Wii games, towards innovating new possibilities for social and emotional experience with movement-based games and other interactive experiences. The authors analyzed games from diverse genres, to generate a bottom-up set of dimensions and characteristics of the mechanics, that can help build a foundation for heightening social and emotional engagement and enjoyment through design of novel mechanics, and/or through combining and extending successful existing mechanics. Key findings include the prevalence of kinesthetic mimicry, the value of whole body versus piecemeal movement, tensions between precision and loose movement in design, and the value of using Laban’s dimensions of Effort as a lens through which to understand which sorts of movement patterns are more engaging.
People, power, change: three pillars of a food sovereignty research praxis

ABSTRACT This article is situated within nascent debates on the role of academics within food sovereignty movements. Drawing on insights from a collective autoethnography, we report on our experiences conducting three food sovereignty research projects in different contexts and at different scales. We suggest that that the principles and practices of food sovereignty translate into a food sovereignty research praxis. This consists of three pillars focusing on people (humanizing research relationships), power (equalizing power relations) and change (pursuing transformative orientations). This article discusses these pillars and analyzes the extent to which we were able to embody them within our projects.
Study of tumor molecular diagnosis model based on artificial neural network with gene expression profile

We introduce a method for modeling cancer diagnosis at the molecular level using a Chinese microarray gastric cancer dataset. The method combines an artificial neural network with a decision tree that is intended to precede standard techniques, such as classification, and enhance their performance and ability to detect cancer genes. First, we used the relief algorithm to select the featured genes that could unravel cancer characteristics out of high dimensional data. Then, an artificial neural network was employed to find the biomarker subsets with the best classification performance for distinguishing cancerous tissues and their counterparts. Next a decision tree expression was used to extract rules subsets from these biomarker sets. Rules induced from the best performance decision tree, in which the branches denote the level of gene expression, were interpreted as a diagnostic model by using previous biological knowledge. Finally, we obtained a gastric cancer diagnosis model for Chinese patients. The results show that using the Chinese gastric biomarker genes with the diagnostic model provides more instruction in biological experiments and clinical diagnosis reference than previous methods.
Neu differentiation factor activation of ErbB-3 and ErbB-4 is cell specific and displays a differential requirement for ErbB-2

Neu differentiation factor (NDF)-induced signaling involves the activation of members of the ErbB family of receptor tyrosine kinases. Although ectopic expression of recombinant ErbB receptors has yielded valuable insight into their signaling properties, the biological function and in vivo interplay of these receptors are still poorly understood. We addressed this issue by studying NDF signaling in various human cell lines expressing moderate levels of all known ErbB receptors. NDF-induced phosphorylation of ErbB-2 and ErbB-3 was found in the breast epithelial cell line MCF10A, the breast tumor cell lines T47D and MCF7, and the ovarian tumor cell line OVCAR3. Despite similar expression levels, NDF-induced phosphorylation of ErbB-4 was cell specific and only detected in T47D and OVCAR3 cells. Blocking cell surface expression of ErbB-2 by intracellular expression of a single-chain antibody revealed that in these two cell lines, ErbB-2 significantly enhanced phosphorylation of ErbB-4. Efficient NDF-induced phosphorylation of ErbB-3 was strictly ErbB-2 dependent in the breast tumor cell lines T47D and MCF7, while it was largely ErbB-2 independent in MCF10A and OVCAR3 cells. Consequently, NDF-stimulated intracellular signaling and induction of a biological response displayed a cell-specific requirement for ErbB-2. Thus, while ErbB-2 cooperates with NDF receptors in the breast tumor cell lines, ErbB-2 independent mechanisms seem to prevail in other cellular contexts.
Simultaneous use of different scalarizing functions in MOEA/D

The use of Pareto dominance for fitness evaluation has been the mainstream in evolutionary multiobjective optimization for the last two decades. Recently, it has been pointed out in some studies that Pareto dominance-based algorithms do not always work well on multiobjective problems with many objectives. Scalarizing function-based fitness evaluation is a promising alternative to Pareto dominance especially for the case of many objectives. A representative scalarizing function-based algorithm is MOEA/D (multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition) of Zhang & Li (2007). Its high search ability has already been shown for various problems. One important implementation issue of MOEA/D is a choice of a scalarizing function because its search ability strongly depends on this choice. It is, however, not easy to choose an appropriate scalarizing function for each multiobjective problem. In this paper, we propose an idea of using different types of scalarizing functions simultaneously. For example, both the weighted Tchebycheff (Chebyshev) and the weighted sum are used for fitness evaluation. We examine two methods for implementing our idea. One is to use multiple grids of weight vectors and the other is to assign a different scalarizing function alternately to each weight vector in a single grid.
Consumer perception of mobile telephony tariffs with cost caps

In this article we provide a seminal academic investigation of mobile telephony consumers' perception of the recently introduced cost cap tariff in comparison to corresponding pay-per-use and flatrate calling plans. Previous studies have identified several psychological effects through which consumers are believed to be biased towards flatrate plans. However, flatrate plans also limit customers' tariff flexibility in months of low usage. Cost cap tariffs are a hybrid between pay-per-use and flatrate plans and can offer cost insurance while maintaining flexibility. In particular, we provide evidence from a survey among 214 German university students that flexibility, cost insurance and the so-called taximeter effect are the main drivers behind cost cap tariff choice. Furthermore, we show that the insurance and taximeter effects are distinct if evaluated within a flatrate or cost cap tariff framework. Finally, based on our results we also comment on the profitability of cost cap plans from a strategic management perspective.
Throughput and Transmission Capacity of Underwater Networks with Randomly Distributed Nodes

In this paper, we derive fundamental performance limits of underwater (UW) networks via an analysis of the average behavior of random deployments. In particular, we consider an UW network that consists of a Poisson point process of transmitters, each with a receiver at a given distance. The link channel model accounts for path-loss, frequency-dependent absorption, and Rayleigh fading. We evaluate the probability of a successful transmission, defined as the probability that the signal-to-interference-and-noise ratio at the typical receiver is greater than a predetermined threshold, over different network and channel realizations. We then determine the network throughput density and the transmission capacity, defined as the maximum throughput density such that a constraint on the success probability is satisfied. The dependence of these metrics on the operating frequency and other system parameters is quantified through the proposed framework.