Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phoneme segmentation and Voice activity detection

This internship was intended to be a continuation of my work last year with the same team, whose focus is non-linear methods for complex signal analysis using concepts of scale invariance and particularly the development of a new multiscale microcanonical formalism (MMF). While the fields of application of this new formalism are diverse, one of them is speech processing. My contribution was exploratory research into innovative methods for text-independent phoneme segmentation which conform to a "linear" model, the goal being to provide a performance comparison with the "non-linear" MMF-based methods under development by the other team members. This year I focused on two areas: a continuation of last year's work in phoneme segmentation, and implementation of voice activity detection algorithms. For the continuation of last year's work, I performed experiments with more rigor in order to better understand the results I obtained last year. I re-examined the algorithms I implemented last year and corrected discrepancies, and brought the implementations closer into line with standard practice. Some of the work to this end is described in a section in the Appendix A. I performed the requisite experiments to evaluate the performance of these methods on a standard database used for phoneme segmentation. I continued past this point with experiments on two other segmentation methods, in preparation for publication of a comprehensive journal paper. I made improvements to the functioning some of these methods, and in some instances I was able to improve the performance of the algorithms. In addition to phoneme segmentation, the team is interested in applying the MMF to the field of Voice Activity Detection (VAD). It was desired that I implement several so-called "classical" VAD algorithms to serve as a basis for comparison for the new, non-linear algorithms which will be developed by the team in the future. As such I implemented four VAD algorithms commonly used as references in the literature to function as a standard reference for the new methods being developed. Further, I implemented a framework for evaluation of VAD algorithms. This consisted in devising methods for generating test databases for use in evaluating the performance of VAD algorithms and implementing them in code. Also under this effort, I wrote programs for scoring the output of these algorithms. I adapted existing code for two standard VADs to function within this framework, and finally evaluated these VADs under different conditions.
Games and network formation

OF THE DISSERTATION Games and Network Formation by BASAK HOROWITZ Dissertation Director: Professor Tomas Sjöström This dissertation consists of three studies in communication and information networks. The rst chapter analyzes formation of networks when players choose how much time to invest in other players. I assume the information can be transferred using all possible paths in the network and study the model under two di¤erent link strength functions. First, under the assumption that the link strength is the arithmetic mean of agentsinvestment levels, which allows players to form links unilaterally to other players, every player is connected to another either directly or indirectly with no more than two links under any Nash equilibrium. Moreover, the strict Nash equilibrium structure is a star network. Second,under the assumption that the link strength function is Cobb-Douglas in which players have to have bilateral agreement to form links with each other, I show that paired networks in which players are matched in pairs, are Nash equilibria. Moreover, I consider a sequential game in which players choose and announce their investments publicly according to a random ordering. I show that an Assortative Pair Equilibrium, in which players are assortatively matched in pairs according to their information levels, is the only strongly robust Nash equilibrium.
Comparing Interactivity on Twitter by Political Reporters at TV Networks, Online-Only News Websites, and Newspapers

Although the public regularly attempts to interact with reporters on Twitter, it is not clear to what extent reporters at various types of news outlets engage with citizens, politicians, and other users on the microblog. To find out, a content analysis was conducted on 4,500 tweets during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign from political reporters at TV networks/cable news, online-only news websites, and large newspapers. Findings indicate significant differences in Twitter interactivity by news outlet type, with TV political reporters most likely to interact with politicians and online-only political reporters most likely to interact with citizens. However, interactivity was generally low except with fellow journalists, which supports the normalization hypothesis.
Reporting Quality of Financial Information Based On Behavioral and Value Accounting

The purpose of this research is to provide a model for reporting quality of financial information based on behavioral and value accounting of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange which is based on Structural Equation Modeling. This research in terms of applied purpose is applied research and in terms of data collection method is post-semi experimental research in the field of proofing accounting research with deductive- inductive approach. The statistical population of this is including the sample of 128 listed companies in the Tehran Stock Exchange between 2007 and 2017. The behavioral characteristics of managers (hidden variables) is measured by observable variables of myopia, opportunistic behavior and over confidence of managers and the value content of accounting information (hidden variable) is evaluated by the observable variables of relevance of profit and relevance of book value. And reporting quality of financial information is also investigated based on the scores accrued to each company and the announcement published by the Tehran Stock Exchange based on the companies' rating in terms of the quality of reporting and proper notification. After insuring the acceptable fitness of the measurement pattern and the structure of research in both approaches; Structural Equations Modeling and regression, the results indicate that there is a significant negative relationship between the behavioral characteristics of managers and the reporting quality financial information. Also, there is a positive and significant relationship between value content of accounting information and reporting quality of financial information.
Information‐Theoretic Clustering and Algorithms

Clustering is the task of partitioning objects into clusters on the basis of certain criteria so that objects in the same cluster are similar. Many clustering methods have been proposed in a number of decades. Since clustering results depend on criteria and algo- rithms, appropriate selection of them is an essential problem. Recently, large sets of users ’ behavior logs and text documents are common. These are often presented as high-dimensional and sparse vectors. This chapter introduces information-theoretic clustering (ITC), which is appropriate and useful to analyze such a high-dimensional data, from both theoretical and experimental side. Theoretically, the criterion, generative models, and novel algorithms are shown. Experimentally, it shows the effectiveness and usefulness of ITC for text analysis as an important example.
The Mediating Effect of CEO Characteristics on the Relationship between Corporate Governance Attributes and Earnings Management in Nigerian Financial Sector: Proposed Conceptual Framework

Corporate governance comprises a couple of relationships that exist between the management of the company, its auditors, its board of directors, shareholders and other stakeholders. These relationships in other words, involve various rules and incentives and then offer the structure through which the aims and objectives of the company are set, and the means of achieving these objectives as well as providing effective transparency among managers and shareholder. This study attempt to investigate the mediating effect of CEO characteristics on corporate governance attributes and earning management due to the recent financial frauds in the Nigerian financial institutions. The study covered all the 58 listed financial institutions on the main flow of the Nigerian Stock Exchange comprising banks and other non-banks financial services in 2016, the entire population is also the sample size of the study. The study applied the use of a secondary source of data collection from annual reports and financial statements of the selected companies from 2012 to 2016.The expected outcomes of the study relied on the earlier studies which suggested that corporate governance attributes play a vital role in safeguarding the integrity of financial reporting process, the CEO characteristics is perceived to save as a link between corporate governance attributes and earnings management, to act as a third party which helps in mitigating information asymmetry and clash of interests among management and shareholders.
Farming efficiency, cropland rental market and income effect: evidence from panel data for rural Central Vietnam

Understanding the drivers and income effects of land rental markets is important to facilitate agricultural transformation. This study uses a panel dataset of rural households in Vietnam to examine the efficiency, equity and income effects of land rental markets. Probit and tobit models find that land is transferred from less to more efficient farmers and thus removing administrative barriers to the market operation is suggested. However, instrumental variable and quantile regressions show that the poor do not benefit significantly from participation in the markets. This highlights the need to take care of the poor to ensure that they are not left behind. Further analysis might focus on the efficiency thresholds that farmers switch from a market regime to another.
Millimeter Wave Small Cell Network Planning for Outdoor Line-of-Sight Coverage

The millimeter wave is considered as an important candidate for providing most of the capacity in a future heterogeneous network. Network densification is also necessary for enhanced capacity and high-rate coverage. However, deploying a very large number of the base stations is costly. We develop an outdoor small cell millimeter wave network planner and minimize the number of base stations. First, we estimate the base station densities required for small cell line-of-sight millimeter wave networks. We develop an automatic outdoor network planner by first, placing many candidates on the map and then, selecting a subset of candidates to minimize the total number of base stations. We run our simulations over two large dense urban areas. Second, we design a wireless backhaul network planner to further reduce the costs by reducing the number of wired connections in the network, where we consider millimeter wave line-of-sight wireless backhauling as our choice.
Assessing service performance: applying data envelopment analysis for evaluating employees' performance in the service industry

The service industry is the most important economic sector worldwide. Thus, economic growth within developed economies is almost exclusively based on services. In the production of services, employees have a crucial influence on the perceived quality of the output, since they are the core of the interaction with the customers. In this context, employees´ knowledge and skills are primary resources for an organization´s ability to compete and generate profits. The adequate evaluation of employee performance, employee empowerment and a concern for training therefore becomes a necessity for each service organization. However, traditional approaches for evaluating employee performance mostly originate from the manufacturing sector and therefore often fall short in accounting for the advanced requirements of evaluating service performance. A promising approach that may be able to address several of the shortcomings of traditional performance evaluation approaches is the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA), which has widely been used to evaluate the performance of organizations in a variety of contexts. However, there is still very little experience regarding the application of DEA on individual level and employee´s response to it. Adopting a case-study strategy based on a mixed methods approach, this research investigates DEA´s technical and organisational suitability for evaluating employees´ performance in the service sector. After reviewing literature on why services may require an advanced approach for performance evaluation and on DEA´s previous applications in organizational contexts, the DEA approach was applied to performance data of 40 service employees in a German Cooperative Bank to gain empirical evidence. Hence, in a quantitative analysis, the results of the application were examined to assess DEA´s technical suitability and to gain a deeper understanding of its application on individual level. Subsequently, focus group interviews among bank managers and members of the workers´ council as well as a questionnaire study among employees were carried out to investigate DEA´s perception by all major stakeholders and thus provide substantiation of its organizational suitability. Eventually, the evidence from these multiple sources was analysed by triangulation. The findings indicate that DEA is a suitable approach to overcome many shortcomings of traditional approaches. Thus, the thesis concludes by summarizing the results, reflecting on limitations and by pointing out implications that may contribute to draw analytic generalizations to inform theory and practice.
Drivers of purchase behavior and post-purchase evaluation in the Singles’ Day promotion

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the strategies used by consumers to control themselves in the Singles’ Day promotion. It also examines how promotion and social influence affect consumers’ purchase behavior and post-purchase evaluation. Design/methodology/approach A mixed methods approach including a quantitative study (N = 480) and a follow-up qualitative study (N = 35) was conducted to verify the hypotheses and provide deeper insights. Findings This study demonstrates that consumers allocate in-store slack in shopping budgets to restrict unplanned purchases and in-store slack is positively related to post-purchase evaluation. Social influence, which helps consumers rationalize purchase decisions, has positive effects on planned purchases and post-purchase evaluation. Both promotion strength and promotion range moderate the relationship between in-store slack and unplanned purchases. Originality/value Most studies investigate how promotion designs affect consumers’ in-store decision-making. This study focuses on the Singles’ Day promotion in China and examines the tactics consumers use to control purchase behavior in the promotion.
Branded Food Commodities: A Study of the Egyptian Commodity Products

Purpose: The study explored the attitudes and brand awareness of consumers towards purchasing branded food products. Moreover, the factors that influence the consumers’ decisions while purchasing the chosen branded commodities foods products have been investigated. Methodology: The study used a sample of 200 participants acquired from diverse cities within Egypt, while the selected products comprised branded sugar and rice. The study used variance analysis of participant’s attitudes and buying intentions. Findings: It was revealed that consumers’ awareness when purchasing the branded rice and sugar, originates from the relatives, friends, and reference groups. It also comes from the point-of-sales promotion and recommendations from the retailers and sellers. Concerning the consumers’ perceptions, it was revealed that they consider branded sugar and rice as safe from harmful chemicals such as insecticides and pesticides, as well as adulterants. On the same note, the customers perceive that buying marked rice and sugar is a sign of high social status. Regarding the factors that influence the buying decisions, it was revealed that flavor, safety from adulterants or harmful chemicals, and aroma are the primary factors that consumers consider. Study Limitations: Based on validity constraints, the further study with a broader sample size was proposed. The further research should focus on the link between brand equity and the branded commodity goods. Practical impacts of the study: Retailers and product marketers should focus on creating brand awareness which is the primary concern for the consumers. Similarly, the marketers should formulate strategies targeting the different consumers’ demographics-based market segments. Value/originality: this research is unique since it aims to investigate the consumers’ purchase behavior for commodity goods, especially the branded food products, which other studies have not assessed. Additionally, limited researchers have focused on investing the consumers’ attitude and brand awareness with respect to the branded food products in developing countries such as Egypt. In formulating marketing strategies of such products managers need to understand how consumers evaluate and what kind of attitudes they hold towards it.
Didactic Codetermination in the creation of an integrated math and science teacher education: The Case of Mathematics and Geography

This paper presents an application of the Anthropological Theory of the Didactic to describe and analyse the genesis of an integrated mathematics and science preservice teacher education. Reporting from the pre-experimentation phase, it is shown how the levels in the scale of didactic codetermination enable us to understand more clearly how integration is envisaged. We examine more closely the case of a bidisciplinary teaching-module wherein math plays one part together with geography, and we demonstrate how the scale can be used to explore the precise nature of the intended interaction between the two disciplines.
Précis-writing as a form of speed training for translation students

ABSTRACT Translators are required to work under time pressure, and employers seek graduates who can integrate seamlessly into the professional work environment. However, conventional translator training does not emphasize speed training. Translation is a complex activity with a high cognitive load. This paper explores the introduction of speed training using monolingual text summarization exercises where translation students are encouraged to sharpen their decision-making skills without having to deal with language transfer. Because précis-writing skills have particular relevance for translator training, a ten-week experiment was designed around a series of exercises where 21 students in the third year of a BA in Translation program had to summarize texts on a very short deadline. The resulting summaries were analyzed and feedback was provided. Students’ progress was charted over the course of the semester, and they were surveyed about their experience at three different points – beginning, middle and end – during the experiment. Results suggest that it is possible to beneficially incorporate some form of speed training into the broader translation curriculum with a view to helping students to acquire the types of transversal skills sought after by employers. Moreover, these speed training exercises can serve to reinforce other aspects of the translation curriculum.
Ethical and Legal Perspective of Software Piracy and Business Effects on the Illegal Use of Peer-to-Peer Systems Architecture

This is descriptive survey research aims to investigate the ethical and legal perspective of software piracy and use of P2P Systems architecture. It sought to answer the profile of the respondents regarding the program, age and year level of the respondents, the attitudes of the respondents regarding software piracy and the attitudes of the respondents regarding the use of Peer to Peer Systems Architecture. The respondents are also asked about the reason for using the P2P and pirate software. The result of the respondent’s shows that majority of the respondents agree that software piracy is acceptable. While most of the respondents agree that piracy is accepted, most of the respondents sometimes practice piracy because of the high cost of content and respondents does not want to pay for it. Based on the result, it is recommended that content providers should increase the security of content to avoid loss of profit.
Interplay between Attitude and Purchase Intention: An Empirical Survey on Over-the-Counter (OTC) Drugs Consumer Behaviour

Over-the-Counter drugs (OTC) segment is rapidly growing within the pharmaceutical sector in India. In 2009, the Indian OTC market exhibited a growth of US$1.8 billion however as per the estimates by PwC India is likely to witness a growth of US$11 billion-a CAGR of 18% by 2020. As OTCs are self medicated it is essential to evaluate the stimulus that triggers a particular behaviour1. In recent past, India has also witnessed an increase in OTC drugs purchase of health supplements2. An empirical survey was conducted based on a validated questionnaire to assess the consumer behavioural intention towards OTC purchase. The survey involved assessment of key variables like “perceived behavioural control, attitude and subjective norm as per the theory of planned behaviour (TPb)”3. As per the survey the TPb model exhibited a variation of 39.4% in the purchase intention, wherein attitude appeared as the most important driver of intention closely followed by perceived behavioural control. Findings indicate that the TPb based model appropriately explains the interplay between the key variables influencing purchase intention of OTC drug products. Attitude was attributed to having the strongest influence (β = 0.401, p = 0.000) on intention among the variables studied. Perceived behavioural control was identified as the next most important variable.
Non-financial motivations in mergers and acquisitions: The Fiat–Ferrari case

Abstract Most studies of mergers and acquisitions focus on the financial motivations (‘synergy’) of the acquiring and acquired firms, as well as managers’ self-interest and overconfidence. Few studies consider the contextual contingencies that motivate a merger and acquisition. This study examines non-financial motivations that drove the 1969 Fiat company’s acquisition of the Ferrari company. The financial records and historical context surrounding this acquisition are analysed through an institutional logics framework, examining annual reports, minutes of board meetings and media coverage of the acquisition. The findings suggest the acquisition was driven by family control, brand reputation and professional expertise, and that financial and accounting motivations had only marginal importance.
Nature of Crime, Duration of Stay, Parafunctional Habits and Periodontal Status in Prisoners

INTRODUCTION Oral health is an integral part of general health. It has long been recognized that preventive oral care is important in the prevention of oral diseases, which also has significant impact on general health (1-3). Despite great achievements in the oral health of populations globally, problems still remain in many communities around the world particularly among underprivileged groups in developed and developing countries. The greatest burden of all diseases is on the disadvantaged and socially marginalized (4).