Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spoken Word Recognition Errors in Speech Audiometry: A Measure of Hearing Performance?

This report provides a detailed analysis of incorrect responses from an open-set spoken word-repetition task which is part of a Dutch speech audiometric test battery. Single-consonant confusions were analyzed from 230 normal hearing participants in terms of the probability of choice of a particular response on the basis of acoustic-phonetic, lexical, and frequency variables. The results indicate that consonant confusions are better predicted by lexical knowledge than by acoustic properties of the stimulus word. A detailed analysis of the transmission of phonetic features indicates that “voicing” is best preserved whereas “manner of articulation” yields most perception errors. As consonant confusion matrices are often used to determine the degree and type of a patient's hearing impairment, to predict a patient's gain in hearing performance with hearing devices and to optimize the device settings in view of maximum output, the observed findings are highly relevant for the audiological practice. Based on our findings, speech audiometric outcomes provide a combined auditory-linguistic profile of the patient. The use of confusion matrices might therefore not be the method best suited to measure hearing performance. Ideally, they should be complemented by other listening task types that are known to have less linguistic bias, such as phonemic discrimination.
Image Encryption Using Block-Based Transformation Algorithm

Encryption is used to securely transmit data in open networks. Each type of data has its own features, therefore different techniques should be used to protect conf idential image data from unauthorized access. Most of the available encryption algorithms are mainly used for textual data and may not be suitable for multimedia data such as images. In this paper, we introduce a block-based transformation algorithm based on the combination of image transformation and a well known encryption and decryption algorithm called Blowfish. The original image was divided into blocks, which were rearranged into a transformed image using a transformation algorithm presented here, and then the transformed image was encrypted using the Blowfish algorithm. The results showed that the correlation between image elements was sig nificantly decreased by using the proposed technique. The results also show that increasing the number of blocks by using smaller block sizes resulted in a lower correlation and hig her entropy.
Beyond the Ludic Lover: Individual Differences in Playfulness and Love Styles in Heterosexual Relationships.

Adult playfulness contributes to well-functioning romantic relationships, claim the authors, who study the association between playfulness of several kinds (other directed, lighthearted, intellectual, whimsical) and six specific attitudes towards love they call love styles—eros, ludus, storge, pragma, mania and agape. To do so, they engaged seventy-seven heterosexual couples to rate the love styles against a checklist for playful behaviors in romantic relationships the authors call the Playful Love Checklist (PLC). The authors then analyzed the responses for similarities and robust associations, either negative or positive, between partners for their views on playfulness in love relationships. Their findings suggest, among other things, that current conceptualizations of playfulness do not much overlap with what other researchers have called the ludic lover, and the authors’ analysis of self-ratings and partner ratings contributes to our understanding of the association between playfulness and love styles.
Preference for copying unambiguous demonstrations in dogs (Canis familiaris).

In an earlier study (P. Pongracz et al., 2001), it was shown that human demonstration significantly enhances the detouring ability of dogs (Canis familiaris) around a V-shaped fence. The authors investigated the effect of the direction of the demonstrated detour and the dogs' detouring experience. They found that dogs' trial-and-error experience influences strongly the direction of the dogs' detours later, even if the demonstrator showed detours along the opposite side of the fence. However, dogs' preferences based on their own experiences were changed when the dogs observed demonstrations only on 1 side of the fence. Dogs with no trial-and-error experience followed the direction of 1-sided demonstrations. The change from dogs' own directions to the demonstrated directions seems not to be due to simple facilitative effects of social experience; the similarity with the demonstrated action depends on complex interactions between individual experience and socially provided information.
Persistence of Pathogens with Short Infectious Periods in Seasonal Tick Populations: The Relative Importance of Three Transmission Routes

Background The flaviviruses causing tick-borne encephalitis (TBE) persist at low but consistent levels in tick populations, despite short infectious periods in their mammalian hosts and transmission periods constrained by distinctly seasonal tick life cycles. In addition to systemic and vertical transmission, cofeeding transmission has been proposed as an important route for the persistence of TBE-causing viruses. Because cofeeding transmission requires ticks to feed simultaneously, the timing of tick activity may be critical to pathogen persistence. Existing models of tick-borne diseases do not incorporate all transmission routes and tick seasonality. Our aim is to evaluate the influence of seasonality on the relative importance of different transmission routes by using a comprehensive mathematical model. Methodology/Principal Findings We developed a stage-structured population model that includes tick seasonality and evaluated the relative importance of the transmission routes for pathogens with short infectious periods, in particular Powassan virus (POWV) and the related “deer tick virus,” emergent encephalitis-causing flaviviruses in North America. We used the next generation matrix method to calculate the basic reproductive ratio and performed elasticity analyses. We confirmed that cofeeding transmission is critically important for such pathogens to persist in seasonal tick populations over the reasonable range of parameter values. At higher but still plausible rates of vertical transmission, our model suggests that vertical transmission can strongly enhance pathogen prevalence when it operates in combination with cofeeding transmission. Conclusions/Significance Our results demonstrate that the consistent prevalence of POWV observed in tick populations could be maintained by a combination of low vertical, intermediate cofeeding and high systemic transmission rates. When vertical transmission is weak, nymphal ticks support integral parts of the transmission cycle that are critical for maintaining the pathogen. We also extended the model to pathogens that cause chronic infections in hosts and found that cofeeding transmission could contribute to elevating prevalence even in these systems. Therefore, the common assumption that cofeeding transmission is not relevant in models of chronic host infection, such as Lyme disease, could lead to underestimating pathogen prevalence.
Nephrology Dialysis Transplantation Mesalazine-associated interstitial nephritis '

Background. When used for oral treatment of inflammatory bowel disease, Asacol (a coated form of mesalazine = 5-aminosalicylic acid) can cause interstitial nephritis. The spectrum of severity, frequency of occurrence and the best renal function test to detect this complication are not known. The value of immunosuppression in addition to drug withdrawal is similarly undetermined. Methods. Four cases of interstitial nephritis which occurred in association with oral Asacol treatment are presented and a further 12 cases who received similar treatment are reviewed. Clinical trials published previously were scrutinized to assess the frequency of impaired renal function. Results. The available evidence suggests that renal impairment of any severity may occur in up to 1 in 100 patients, but that clinically significant interstitial nephritis occurs in less than 1 in 500 patients. This is most reliably detected by an elevated serum creatinine concentration. If the diagnosis of nephrotoxicity is delayed until 18 months after commencement of medication, restoration of renal function, which is seen on withdrawal of medication alone up to 10 months, does not occur and there is no evidence to date to indicate that addition of immunosuppression confers any significant advantage at this later stage. Conclusions. It is suggested that serum creatinine concentration should be measured each month for the first 3 months of treatment, 3-monthly for the remainder of the first year and annually thereafter. The use of concurrent immunosuppressive therapy may necessitate extension to the period of intensive monitoring. Any elevation of serum creatinine which cannot be related to a relapse of inflammatory bowel disease should prompt immediate withdrawal of Asacol and related medications and substitution of alternative therapy. Neither the lack of urinary abnormalities on routine testing nor the absence of clinical or laboratory features of drug allergy can be relied upon to rule out Correspondence and offprint requests to: M. J. World BSc, MD, FRCP, Professor of Military Medicine, Royal Army Medical College, 45 Millbank, London SW1P4RJ, UK. interstitial nephritis during oral therapy with these drugs.
Plosive spotting with margin classifiers

This paper presents a novel algorithm for precise spotting of plosives. The algorithm is based on a pattern matching technique implemented with margin classifiers, such as support vector machines (SVM). A special hierarchical treatment to overcome the problem of fricative and false silence detection is presented. It uses the loss-based multi-class decisions. Furthermore, a method for smoothing the overall decisions by sequential linear programming is described. The proposed algorithm was tested on the TIMIT corpus, which produced a very high spotting accuracy. The algorithm presented here is applied to plosives detection, but can easily be adapted to any class of phonemes.
Simplified similarity scoring using term ranks

We propose a method for document ranking that combines a simple document-centric view of text, and fast evaluation strategies that have been developed in connection with the vector space model. The new method defines the importance of a term within a document qualitatively rather than quantitatively, and in doing so reduces the need for tuning parameters. In addition, the method supports very fast query processing, with most of the computation carried out on small integers, and dynamic pruning an effective option. Experiments on a wide range of TREC data show that the new method provides retrieval effectiveness as good as or better than the Okapi BM25 formulation, and variants of language models.
Lipschitzian stability in nonlinear control and optimization

This paper studies Lipschitz properties, relative to the parameter p, of the set of solutions to problems of the form\[{\text{find }}z \in \Omega _p {\text{ such that }}T_p (z) \in F_p (z). \] As applications, various problems in control and optimization are examined, focusing in particular on the stability of the feasible set of a control problem, and the stability of solutions of infinite-dimensional mathematical programs and optimal control problems. In another application, an estimate is obtained for the error in the Euler approximation to an optimal control problem.
Adapting to User Preference Changes in Interactive Recommendation

Recommender systems have become essential tools in many application areas as they help alleviate information overload by tailoring their recommendations to users' personal preferences. Users' interests in items, however, may change over time depending on their current situation. Without considering the current circumstances of a user, recommendations may match the general preferences of the user, but they may have small utility for the user in his/her current situation. We focus on designing systems that interact with the user over a number of iterations and at each step receive feedback from the user in the form of a reward or utility value for the recommended items. The goal of the system is to maximize the sum of obtained utilities over each interaction session. We use a multi-armed bandit strategy to model this online learning problem and we propose techniques for detecting changes in user preferences. The recommendations are then generated based on the most recent preferences of a user. Our evaluation results indicate that our method can improve the existing bandit algorithms by considering the sudden variations in the user's feedback behavior.
EXTENDING THE VALIDITY SCOPE OF ITU-T P . 1202 . 2

We extend the validity scope of ITU-T Recommendation (Rec.) P.1202. 2, Parametric Non-Intrusive Bitstream Assessment of Video Media Streaming Quality Higher Resolution Application Area on the Intel and Technische Universität München (TUM) video quality assessment (VQA) databases (DB). To find a new use case for the Rec. P.1202. 2 mode 1 compression artifact VQA model on dynamic adaptive streaming over HTTP (DASH), we investigated its possibility under a wide range of dataset classifications including different content types (spatial and temporal complexity), encoding profiles (Main and High), and device sizes (on the Intel VQA DB: HDTV, TFT tablet, AMOLED phone, Retina tablet, and Retina phone; on the TUM VQA DB: monitor, HDTV, and projector). Results show that the Rec. P.1202. 2 mode 1 compression artifact VQA model tends to overestimate low quality compressed videos and can be improved by taking into account quality variations on different display devices or under different encoding profiles. Hence, we propose some guidelines to calibrate the Rec. P.1202. 2 mode 1 compression artifact VQA model.
Soybean susceptibility to manufactured nanomaterials with evidence for food quality and soil fertility interruption

Based on previously published hydroponic plant, planktonic bacterial, and soil microbial community research, manufactured nanomaterial (MNM) environmental buildup could profoundly alter soil-based food crop quality and yield. However, thus far, no single study has at once examined the full implications, as no studies have involved growing plants to full maturity in MNM-contaminated field soil. We have done so for soybean, a major global commodity crop, using farm soil amended with two high-production metal oxide MNMs (nano-CeO2 and -ZnO). The results provide a clear, but unfortunate, view of what could arise over the long term: (i) for nano-ZnO, component metal was taken up and distributed throughout edible plant tissues; (ii) for nano-CeO2, plant growth and yield diminished, but also (iii) nitrogen fixation—a major ecosystem service of leguminous crops—was shut down at high nano-CeO2 concentration. Juxtaposed against widespread land application of wastewater treatment biosolids to food crops, these findings forewarn of agriculturally associated human and environmental risks from the accelerating use of MNMs.
Interference modeling and analysis for optical wireless communication

The optical wireless communication (OWC) system can be distorted by inter symbol interference(ISI) and background noise such as the ambient noise from the lighting etc. Detailed ISI and ambient noise modeling according to different geometry setup can help OWC systems achieve better system performance. For a given system setup, the ISI can be approached by the unified ceiling height of a ceiling bounce model. The system performance under different ambient noise to signal ratio (ASR) can also be obtained by investigate different system parameters, e.g. data rate and bit error rate (BER). The interference related parameters were discussed and analyzed under a given geometry setup, the performance were simulated using a pulse position and amplitude modulation (PAPM) scheme. The simulation results showed a generalized interference model under specific type of interference can be derived, and can be further employed for similar OWC systems.
Solving the Travelling Salesman Problem by the Program of Ant Colony Algorithm

Ant colony algorithm is a novel simulated ecosystem evolutionary algorithm, which is applied to solving complex combinatorial optimization problems. The basic principle and realization about ant colony algorithm are studied in this paper. The algorithm is realized under the Visual C++ compiler environment, and applied to solving the travelling salesman problem (TSP). The result is accordance with the best route solution. This algorithm has practical worth. Keywords-ant colony algorithm; combinatorial optimization; travelling salesman problem (TSP); pheromone; solution
Enterprise Architecture Evaluation Using Utility Theory

With the increase in the number of quality attributes (e.g. cost, availability, reusability), that are being considered in the process of enterprise architecture analysis, the decision maker needs a systematic way to balance these attributes against each other to obtain the best possible architecture. Utility theory addresses this need by providing methods for numerical representation of preferences of a stakeholder involved in a decision-making process. In this paper utility theory key concepts are explained with examples. The process of calculating the utility metric, which reflects stake holder's set of preferences to select the most preferred architecture scenario is explained. The paper provides an explanation of how utility theory can be applied in enterprise architecture models which are meta-object facility compliant. This paper concludes by an example comparing two quality attributes on two architecture scenarios using utility theory and calculating the decision maker's overall utility metric across both quality attributes is provided. This shows the applicability of utility theory on architecture scenario analysis with multiple quality attributes.
Pathway Processor 2.0: a web resource for pathway-based analysis of high-throughput data

Summary: Pathway Processor 2.0 is a web application designed to analyze high-throughput datasets, including but not limited to microarray and next-generation sequencing, using a pathway centric logic. In addition to well-established methods such as the Fisher’s test and impact analysis, Pathway Processor 2.0 offers innovative methods that convert gene expression into pathway expression, leading to the identification of differentially regulated pathways in a dataset of choice. Availability and implementation: Pathway Processor 2.0 is available as a web service at http://compbiotoolbox.fmach.it/pathwayProcessor/. Sample datasets to test the functionality can be used directly from the application. Contact: duccio.cavalieri@fmach.it Supplementary information: Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Autophagy-Dependent Rhodopsin Degradation Prevents Retinal Degeneration in Drosophila

Recent studies have demonstrated protective roles for autophagy in various neurodegenerative disorders, including the polyglutamine diseases; however, the role of autophagy in retinal degeneration has remained unclear. Accumulation of activated rhodopsin in some Drosophila mutants leads to retinal degeneration, and although it is known that activated rhodopsin is degraded in endosomal pathways in normal photoreceptor cells, the contribution of autophagy to rhodopsin regulation has remained elusive. This study reveals that activated rhodopsin is degraded by autophagy in collaboration with endosomal pathways to prevent retinal degeneration. Light-dependent retinal degeneration in the Drosophila visual system is caused by the knockdown or mutation of autophagy-essential components, such as autophagy-related protein 7 and 8 (atg-7/atg-8), or genes essential for PE (phosphatidylethanolamine) biogenesis and autophagosome formation, including Phosphatidylserine decarboxylase (Psd) and CDP-ethanolamine:diacylglycerol ethanolaminephosphotransferase (Ept). The knockdown of atg-7/8 or Psd/Ept produced an increase in the amount of rhodopsin localized to Rab7-positive late endosomes. This rhodopsin accumulation, followed by retinal degeneration, was suppressed by overexpression of Rab7, which accelerated the endosomal degradation pathway. These results indicate a degree of cross talk between the autophagic and endosomal/lysosomal pathways. Importantly, a reduction in rhodopsin levels rescued Psd knockdown-induced retinal degeneration. Additionally, the Psd knockdown-induced retinal degeneration phenotype was enhanced by Ppt1 inactivation, which causes infantile neuronal ceroid lipofuscinosis, implying that autophagy plays a significant role in its pathogenesis. Collectively, the current data reveal that autophagy suppresses light-dependent retinal degeneration in collaboration with the endosomal degradation pathway and that rhodopsin is a key substrate for autophagic degradation in this context.
An Educated Guess on QoE in Operational Networks through Large-Scale Measurements

Network monitoring and reporting systems as well as network quality benchmarking campaigns use the Average Downlink Throughput (ADT) as the main Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) reflecting the health of the network. In this paper we address the problem of network performance monitoring and assessment in operational networks from a user-centric, Quality of Experience (QoE) perspective. While accurate QoE estimation requires measurements and KPIs collected at multiple levels of the communications stack -- including network, transport, application and end-user layers, we take a practical approach and provide an educated guess on QoE using only a standard ADT-based KPI as input. Armed with QoE models mapping downlink bandwidth to user experience, we estimate the QoE undergone by customers of both cellular and fixed-line networks, using large-scale passive traffic measurements. In particular, we study the performance of three highly popular end-customer services: YouTube, Facebook and WhatsApp. Results suggest that up to 33\% of the observed traffic flows might result in sub-optimal -- or even poor, end-customer experience in both types of network.
Phase-Noise Driven System Design of Fractional-N Frequency Synthesizers and Validation With Measured Results

Phase noise has been a primary issue in the design of frequency synthesizers. The system level noise analysis of a fractional-N (frac-N) PLL is presented to enable the circuit design of a 5-Mbps GMSK modulated data transmitter in the 900 MHz ISM band. A mathematical model describes the noise contributions due to the charge pump (CP), the phase frequency detector (PFD), the loop filter, the VCO, and the delta-sigma modulator. The model takes into account the effects of DeltaSigma modulated CP pulse-widths on its thermal and flicker noise. The DeltaSigma sequence noise caused by static CP current mismatch, CP dynamic mismatch and PFD reset delay mismatch is taken into consideration in the noise analysis. Relying on a combined time-domain and frequency-domain noise analysis, the behavioral model provides fast and accurate phase noise estimation at the system level. This analysis enables the designer to determine the dominant contributors to the in-band and out-of-band phase noise simplifying the transistor level design of frac-N synthesizers. Measured results of a MASH-12 frac-N synthesizer designed in 1.8V TSMC 0.18mum mixed signal/RF process correlate well with behavioral noise model predictions. The proposed system noise analysis methodology has general applicability to frac-N PLL design.