Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Starting small learning strategies for speech recognition

Designing various learning strategies has been gaining a lot of scientific interest during the recent progress of deep learning methodologies. Curriculum learning is a learning strategy aimed at training the neural network model by presenting the samples in a specific meaningful order rather than randomly sampling the training examples from the data distribution. In this work, we have explored starting small paradigm of curriculum learning technique for speech recognition. The starting small paradigm of curriculum learning is performed by a two step learning strategy. Training dataset is re-organized as a set of easily classifiable examples followed by the actual training dataset and the model is trained on the re-organized dataset. We hypothesize that by following the starting small learning paradigm the learning gets initialized in a better way and progresses to attain a better convergence. We propose to rank the toughness of the training example based on the posterior probabilities obtained using a previously trained model. Apart from re-arranging the training corpus starting small paradigm of curriculum learning is applied at model level. We consider the broad manner-class classification objective function as the smoother version of the phone class classification objective function. The model initially trained for broadclass classification is later adapted for phone classification. In this work, we have used TIMIT and a subset of Wall Street Journal (WSJ) corpus to validate the experiments, both the learning strategies have shown consistently better performances across the two datasets compared to the baseline system trained by randomly sampling the dataset.
Probing Changes in Neural Interaction During Adaptation

A procedure is developed to probe the changes in the functional interactions among neurons in primary motor cortex of the monkey brain during adaptation. A monkey is trained to learn a new skill, moving its arm to reach a target under the influence of external perturbations. The spike trains of multiple neurons in the primary motor cortex are recorded simultaneously. We utilize the methodology of directed transfer function, derived from a class of linear stochastic models, to quantify the causal interactions between the neurons. We find that the coupling between the motor neurons tends to increase during the adaptation but return to the original level after the adaptation. Furthermore, there is evidence that adaptation tends to affect the topology of the neural network, despite the approximate conservation of the average coupling strength in the network before and after the adaptation.
A Cross-Institutional Ethnographic Project: Mapping Play in Intercultural Communities

Curricula content and structure that encourages interdisciplinary learning, inter-level organization, cross-institutional study supports innovation and inspires new ideas about curricular design in higher education. The purpose of this article is to discuss a collaborative effort of two classes on different campuses to map play in the culturally diverse Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of the Twin Cities. Using technology to create geospatially situated digital visual stories about play was an effective mechanism for facilitating interdisciplinary learning, ethics, learner autonomy and dialogue. Cross-institutional pedagogical strategies shifted as we adjusted to the realities of the physical space, weather conditions, ethical and intercultural considerations.
Modeling First Line Of An Order Book With Multivariate Marked Point Processes

We introduce a new model in order to describe the fluctuation of tick-by-tick financial time series. Our model, based on marked point process, allows us to incorporate in a unique process the duration of the transaction and the corresponding volume of orders. The model is motivated by the fact that the "excitation" of the market is different in periods of time with low exchanged volume and high volume exchanged. We illustrate our result by numerical simulations on foreign exchange data sampling in millisecond. By checking the main stylized facts, we show that the model is consistent with the empirical data. We also find an interesting relation between the distribution of the volume of limited order and the volume of market orders. To conclude, we propose an application to risk management and we introduce a forecast procedure.
Defect-assisted plasmonic sensing

We report on a new class of plasmonic nanosensor which combines extraordinary optical transmission and resonance within structural defects in a plasmonic crystal. Resonant modes within the defect increase plasmon wave lifetime leading to enhanced light-analyte interactions. Initial sensitivity characterization was performed and simple linear regression analysis determines sensitivity to be 501nm·RIU-1, showing improvement over traditional nanohole array sensors.
Sparse coding based robust image denoising via coupled dictionary

This paper addresses the image denoising problem using the recent advancements in sparse representation based image restoration. This novel approach is based on sparse coding using a pre-learned coupled dictionary. Prior research suggests that it is possible to represent every image patch as a sparse linear combination of dictionary elements learned from a set of example patches. Joint training of coupled dictionaries for clear and noisy images helps to enforce self-similarity between noisy and latent images. The sparsity measure over such a coupled dictionary is used as a regularisation constraint to recover a denoised image patch from a noisy image patch. The experimental results indicate that the proposed method appears to be competitive with other denoising methods.
Persistence of Cultural Norms in Online Communities: The Curious Case of WikiLove

Tremendous progress in information and communication technologies in the last two decades has enabled the phenomenon of Internet-based groups and collectives, generally referred to as online communities. Many online communities have developed distinct cultures of their own, with accompanying norms. A particular research puzzle is the persistence and stability of such norms in online communities, even in the face of often exponential growth rates in uninitiated new users. We propose a network-theoretic approach to explain this persistence. Our approach consists of modelling the online community as a network of interactions, and representing cultural norms as transmissible ideas (or ‘memes’) propagating through this network. We argue that persistence of a norm over time depends, amongst other things, on the structure of the network through which it propagates. Using previous results from Network Science and Epidemiology, we show that certain structures are better than others to ensure persistence: namely, structures which have scale-free degree distributions and assortative mixing. We illustrate this theory using the case of the community of contributors at Wikipedia, a collaboratively generated online encyclopaedia.
Are Poor Countries Coming Closer to the Rich

ARE poor countries growing faster than rich countries and coming closer to them? Recently this has been a much-debated question in so-called mainstream economics. This debate owes much to the so-called 'new' growth theory propagated by Romer (1986, 1990), Lucas (1988), Rebelo (1991) and many others. The new growth theory came as a challenge to the old neoclassical growth theory pioneered by Solow (1986) and Swan (1956). Bringing in the role of human capital formation in growth, technical progress was endogenid hence they tend to grow at high rates. "This tendency for low-income countries to grow at high rates is reinforced in extensions of the neoclassical models that allow for international mobility of capital and technology" [Barro 1991:407]. The new growth theory assumes constant returns to a broad concept of reproducible capital which includes human capital; hence the growth rate of per capita product is independent of the starting level of per capita product. Romer (1990) took human capital as the key input to the research sector which generates new products or ideas. So countries with greater initial stocks of human capital experience a more rapid rate of introduction of new goods and tend to grow faster. Thus the convergence implication of the SolowSwan neoclassical growth theory has been theoretically challenged.
Motion Trajectory Classification for Visual Surveillance and Tracking

In this paper we present a video surveillance system for automated border and checkpoint analysis. The described system employs automated feature extraction and tracking to ascertain vehicle size, speed, and response to an interrogating vibration for vehicle bounce signature analysis. To increase the overall robustness of the surveillance system, we introduce a novel approach to invalid feature filtering. In particular, we use a hidden Markov model trained to simultaneously recognize specific coarse motion trajectories and tracking failures. The proposed recognition and filtering scheme effectively identifies erroneously tracked features and removes them prior to any subsequent motion analysis tasks. The result is a significant increase in classification and recognition accuracy. We demonstrate the efficacy of the suggested technique on a variety of video surveillance sequences.
ATTITUDES OF UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS COLLEGE OF AGRICULTURE FRESHMEN TOWARD AGRICULTURE

The primary purpose of this study was to determine the attitudes and intentions of University of Illinois College of Agriculture freshmen toward high school and university agriculture programs and the field of agriculture in an effort to better identify, recruit, and retain students in the College. Results indicated that a majority of freshmen students were female, Caucasian, had no background in agriculture, and viewed agriculture as being both scientific and technical. Students also believed high school agriculture to be good preparation for college. Whereas attitudes were generally positive, only about 60% of the freshmen class intended to graduate with a major in the College of Agriculture. However, of the students who had completed some high school agriculture, approximately 95% intended to graduate with a major in the College. That percentage increased to nearly 98% if the student had been an FFA member. Also, 86% of students who had been members of 4-H indicated they intended to graduate with majors in the College of Agriculture. Freshmen who completed high school agriculture programs indicated more positive attitudes toward university agriculture programs, high school agriculture programs, and agriculture as a career than did students with no high school agriculture experience. Central Region, agricultural enrollments ha d Enrollment in Colleges of Agriculture hav e recovered to early 1980 levels. However, th e closely paralleled that of high school agricultur e makeup of students now entering Colleges o f programs over the past three decades. Reachin g Agriculture has changed (Russell, 1989). According their peaks in the late 1970s, enrollment at the two to Russell, todays enrollees lack the agricultura l levels plummeted with the onset of the farm crisis in background possessed by earlier students. He noted the late 1970s and early 1980s. Dyer and Osborne that for the three year period 1983-85, 46.3% o f (1994) noted that secondary agricultural education incoming College of Agriculture freshmen at th e enrollment in Illinois dropped by over 60% durin g University of Illinois had, at a minimum, bee n this time period. enrolled in high school agriculture programs. From Likewise, Manderscheid (1988) reported a 24% 32.3%. Scofield (1995) likewise noted that a decline in Land Grant University agricultur e greater percentage (40%) of students enrolling i n enrollments and a 13% decrease in non-Land Grant the College of Agriculture at Iowa State University University agriculture enrollments from 1978 to were from urban residences as compared to far m 1988. Over the past few years, however, enrollment settings (36.7%). at both the high school and college levels has begun to increase. Litzenberg, Whatley, and Scamardo (1992) reported that with the exceptio n of the North
Using technology to deliver social protection: exploring opportunities and risks

Providing cash transfers to vulnerable groups reduces vulnerability and chronic poverty; but delivering cash to remote, rural locations can be expensive and insecure. Alternative delivery systems using technology are thus being piloted. This article uses examples from southern Africa to highlight the opportunities and risks involved in using technology to deliver social protection, with particular focus on two schemes in Malawi. It concludes that there is great potential for the use of technology in delivering social protection, especially if employed at a national scale and taking advantage of the full spectrum of uses to ensure cost-efficiency.
The effect of resistance exercise on the thermic effect of food.

PURPOSE The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the increment in energy expenditure above resting metabolic rate associated with the cost of absorption and processing of food for storage. Previous studies have shown that TEF is enhanced by aerobic endurance exercise of sufficient duration and intensity. The purpose of this study was to determine if a similar effect occurs with a single bout of resistance exercise (weightlifting). METHODS VO2 was measured in 9 healthy volunteers (3 males and 6 females) for 2 hours after ingestion of a 2760 kJ (660 kcal) carbohydrate meal with and without prior completion of a resistance training regimen (2 sets of 10 repetitions of 10 different exercises). RESULTS The meal caused an immediate and persistent thermic effect in both the control and the exercise trial. Mean oxygen consumption over baseline increased 20% in the control trial and 34% in the exercise trial. TEF calculated from VO2 and RER (total area under the response curve above baseline) was 73% greater in the exercise trial compared with the control trial (159 +/- 18 vs. 92 +/- 14 KJ/2 hrs, p < .02). CONCLUSION These results indicate that TEF in response to a carbohydrate meal is enhanced following a single bout of resistance exercise.
Rehabilitation Programs for Elderly Women Inpatients with Schizophrenia

ABSTRACT This study aims to describe rehabilitation and resocialization methods we believe to be appropriate for application to female patients with schizophrenia, in a psychiatric unit with a predominantly older population. We briefly describe the unit and the interventions used as an example of the proposed rehabilitation and resocialization methods applied. The article provides an overview to guide accurate intervention, particularly in inpatient women, in different types of cognitive impairment under the broad category of schizophrenia. Our clinical approach includes a token economy approach, cognitive remediation therapy, and social skills training. The token economy intervention is particularly directed to patients that present with a high mental deterioration and/or debility. Cognitive remediation training is applicable to subjects with both cognitive and social dysfunction, but that do not possess signs of an organic cerebral illness or of substance abuse. Social skills training can be the third step to resocialization, training verbal and nonverbal communication competencies.
Corner redicting software defects with causality tests

In this paper, we propose a defect prediction approach centered on more robust evidences towards causality between source code metrics (as predictors) and the occurrence of defects. More specifically, we rely on the Granger causality test to evaluate whether past variations in source code metrics values ccepted 14 January 2014 vailable online xxx
Development of a miniature pin-array tactile module using elastic and electromagnetic force for mobile devices

In these days, tactile sensation using a vibration motor is recently receiving attention for immersive interaction with mobile devices. However, the vibration motor is not enough to provide detailed texture or small-scale shape. In order to generate various and exiting tactile sensation, this paper presents a new tactile actuator with a solenoid, a permanent magnet and an elastic spring. This paper also proposes a miniature tactile module with the proposed actuators. On constructing a miniature tactile module, we separate the elastic springs in the actuators into several layers to minimize the contactor's gap without decreasing the performance of the tactile module. We conduct experiments to investigate each contactor's output force and the frequency response of the proposed tactile module. Each contactor can generate enough output force to stimulate human's mechanoreceptors. Moreover, since the contactors are actuated in a wide range of frequency, the proposed tactile module can generate various tactile sensations.
The influence of market and entrepreneurial orientation on strategic marketing choices: the cases of Dutch farmers and horticultural growers

Farmers and horticultural growers are expected by society to increase production to meet the demand for food and other agricultural produce, and, simultaneously, reduce negative effects on the physical and social environment. Whether farmers and horticultural growers choose to develop their businesses this way, is not clear. A market orientation (MO) and entrepreneurial orientation (EO) of farmers and horticultural growers is propagated to increase farm profitability and stimulate the economic vigour of rural areas. An MO is a firm owners’ belief that the best way to achieve the firm's objectives is to satisfy customers more effective and efficient than competitors do. An EO is a firm owners’ willingness to innovate to rejuvenate market offerings, take risks to try out new and uncertain products, services and markets, and be more proactive than competitors towards new marketplace opportunities. However, it is not clear how MO and EO influence farmers’ and horticultural growers’ choices about how to develo.
Ultrasound Artifact in an Unusual Site Simulating Bilateral Subdural Haematoma in a Neonate TF LEE , MW MAN

Ultrasound (US) provides a simple way to assess the infant brain. However, all imaging modalities have some sort of artifacts. Some of them will cause diagnostic dilemma or even leading to misdiagnosis. We report a case of an interesting US artifact which simulates a bilateral subdural haematoma in a term neonate. The basic physics of ultrasound and the cause of the artifact are briefly reviewed.
Expansion of schooling and educational inequality in Europe: the educational Kuznets curve revisited

This article analyses the relationship between schooling expansion and educational inequality in a panel of developed countries over different birth cohorts. We extend previous literature by exploiting the longitudinal dimension of our data and by focussing on different measures of inequality. Using either a Gini or a Theil measure of inequality, we find evidence that at higher average levels of education further increases are associated with rising inequality. The inverted-U Kuznets curve appears to depend on using the standard deviation as the measure of inequality. We also discuss how educational policies may influence educational inequality and find that the length of compulsory education affects inequality only through its effect on average education, whilst school tracking shapes inequality independently of the level of education.
Characterization of abrupt/gradual video shot transitions as unsmoothed/smoothed singularity

The multitude of high-level video operations demands sophisticated low-level video techniques. Detection (or segmentation) of video shot transitions (or boundaries) is one of the crucial low-level operations towards automatic video indexing, video editing, video abstracting or preview, and so on. Since content-based multimedia processing has been the focus of MPEG7, we shall develop a scheme to precisely characterize video shot transitions for further applications. Varieties of shot transition detection techniques have been reported in literature. However, no work was really done by taking the benefit of analyzing shot transitions from the local singularities of the signal. In this paper, we propose to characterize shot transitions from their time-frequency variations. First, the color differences between every two neighboring frames are collected as a discontinuity sequence. Second, the time frequency analysis of 1D continuous wavelet transform is employed to locate and interpret the local singularities of the resultant discontinuity sequence. Results reveal that abrupt transition could be characterized as an unsmoothed singularity while gradual transition could be characterized as a smoothed singularity.
Sustainability and the indispensability of politics: a study of sanitation partnerships in urban India

The chronic absence of hygienic sanitation for many urban Indians and the resultant contamination of surface water sources are a major cause for the poor environmental condition in most cities in India. In the past decade, public? private partnerships have been presented as an innovative strategy to rectify this pervasive problem. Numerous partnerships to improve sanitation have been launched in India as experiments. But while some of these partnerships have become sustainable, others have collapsed. This paper uses purposive transition analysis to inquire into the selective success of some notable partnerships. Making the connection that strategy and politics are indispensable to the endurance of partnerships, this paper concludes that sustainability in India is inherently a political enterprise that cannot be reduced to technical definitions.
Exercise Training with Weight Loss and either a High- or Low-Glycemic Index Diet Reduces Metabolic Syndrome Severity in Older Adults

Background: The efficacy of combining carbohydrate quality with exercise on metabolic syndrome risk is unclear. Thus, we determined the effects of exercise training with a low (LoGIx)- or high (HiGIx)-glycemic index diet on the severity of the metabolic syndrome (Z-score). Methods: Twenty-one adults (66.2 ± 1.1 years; BMI = 35.3 ± 0.9 kg/m2) with the metabolic syndrome were randomized to 12 weeks of exercise (60 min/day for 5 days/week at about 85% HRmax) and provided a LoGIx (n = 11) or HiGIx (n = 10) diet. Z-scores were determined from: blood pressure, triglycerides (TGs), high-density lipoproteins (HDLs), fasting plasma glucose (FPG), and waist circumference (WC) before and after the intervention. Body composition, aerobic fitness, insulin resistance, and nonesterfied fatty acid (NEFA) suppression were also assessed. Results: LoGIx and HiGIx diets decreased body mass and insulin resistance and increased aerobic fitness comparably (p < 0.05). LoGIx and HiGIx diets decreased the Z-score similarly as each intervention decreased blood pressure, TGs, FPG and WC (p < 0.05). The HiGIx diet tended to suppress NEFA during insulin stimulation compared with the LoGIx diet (p = 0.06). Conclusions: Our findings highlight that exercise with weight loss reduces the severity of the metabolic syndrome whether individuals were randomized to a HiGIx or a LoGIx diet.