Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Methods for task adaptation of acoustic models with limited transcribed in-domain data

Application specific acoustic models provide the best recognition accuracy, but they are expensive, because they require the transcription of tens or hundreds of hours of in-domain speech for training. Therefore, this paper focuses on the acoustic model estimation given limited in-domain transcribed speech data, and large amounts of (typically available) transcribed out-of-domain data. First, we evaluate several combinations of known methods to optimize the adaptation/training of acoustic models on the limited in-domain speech data. Then, we propose to use Gaussian sharing to combine in-domain models with out-of-domain models, and a data generation process to simulate the presence of more speakers in the in-domain data. In a spoken language dialog application, we contrast our methods against an upper accuracy bound of 69.1% (model trained on many in-domain data) and a lower bound of 60.8% (no in-domain data). Using only 2 hours of in-domain speech for model estimation, we improve the accuracy by 5.1% (to 65.9%) over the lower bound; data generation and Gaussian sharing contibute 2.2% to this improvement. With 9 hours of in-domain speech, the improvement of accuracy is 6.5%, to 67.3%.
Analysing information flows and key mediators through temporal centrality metrics

The study of influential members of human networks is an important research question in social network analysis. However, the current state-of-the-art is based on static or aggregated representation of the network topology. We argue that dynamically evolving network topologies are inherent in many systems, including real online social and technological networks: fortunately the nature of these systems is such that they allow the gathering of large quantities of finegrained temporal data on interactions amongst the network members. In this paper we propose novel temporal centrality metrics which take into account such dynamic interactions over time. Using a real corporate email dataset we evaluate the important individuals selected by means of static and temporal analysis taking two perspectives: firstly, from a semantic level, we investigate their corporate role in the organisation; and secondly, from a dynamic process point of view, we measure information dissemination and the role of information mediators. We find that temporal analysis provides a better understanding of dynamic processes and a more accurate identification of important people compared to traditional static methods.
Vitamin D Intake and Status in 12-Month-Old Infants at 63–66° N

The objective was to assess the vitamin D status in healthy 12-month-old infants in relation to quantity and sources of dietary vitamin D, breastfeeding and seasons. Subjects were 76 12-month-old infants. Serum levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) ≥ 50 nmol/L were considered indicative of vitamin D sufficiency and 25(OH)D < 27.5 nmol/L as being indicative of increased risk for rickets. Additionally, 25(OH)D > 125 nmol/L was considered possibly adversely high. Total vitamin D at 9–12 months (eight data collection days) included intake from diet and supplements. The mean ± SD of vitamin D intake was 8.8 ± 5.2 μg/day and serum 25(OH)D 98.1 ± 32.2 nmol/L (range 39.3–165.5). Ninety-two percent of infants were vitamin D sufficient and none at increased risk for rickets. The 26% infants using fortified products and supplements never/irregularly or in small amounts had lower 25(OH)D (76.8 ± 27.1 nmol/L) than the 22% using fortified products (100.0 ± 31.4 nmol/L), 18% using supplements (104.6 ± 37.0 nmol/L) and 33% using both (110.3 ± 26.6 nmol/L). Five of six infants with 25(OH)D < 50 nmol/L had no intake of supplements or fortified products from 0 to 12 months. Supplement use increased the odds of 25(OH)D > 125 nmol/L. Breastfeeding and season did not affect vitamin D status. The majority of infants were vitamin D sufficient. Our findings highlight the need for vitamin D supplements or fortified products all year round, regardless of breastfeeding.
Implementation of a Schoolwide Reading Improvement Model: "No One Ever Told Us It Would Be This Hard!"

Educators now have solid scientific evidence built on more than 30 years of research of the necessary fundamentals of early reading instruction and practices that produce reliable improvement. Yet efforts to translate knowledge of effective practice and pedagogy have been neither consistently effective nor fully realized for students who are most at risk of reading failure. In this article, we describe a schoolwide model for reading improvement and its stages and application in the primary grades of 2 schools. The Schoolwide Reading Improvement Model is directed by the overarching assumptions that reading improvement (a) requires a multidimensional intervention based on scientific research and the strategic integration of curriculum, instruction, and assessment and (b) must recognize and build on the conditions and contexts of the host environment. School administrators describe the process of schoolwide reading improvement for the full range of learners and offer their insights and lessons learned to bui.
Optical approach based omnidirectional thermal visualization

In this paper, a new optical approach based on omnidirectional thermal visualization system is proposed. It will provides observer or image processing tool a 360 degree viewing of surrounding area using a single thermal camera. By applying the proposed omnidirectional thermal visualization system even in poor lighting condition, surrounding area is under proper surveillance and the surrounding heating machineries/items can be monitored indeed. Infrared(IR) reflected hyperbolic mirrors have been designed and custom made for the purpose of reflecting omnidirectional scenes in infrared range for the surrounding area to be captured on a thermal camera, thus producing omnidirectional thermal visualization images. Five cost effective and market-common IR reflected materials used to fabricate the designed hyperbolic mirror are studied, i.e. stainless steel, mild steel, aluminum, brass, and chromium. Among these materials, chromium gives the best IR reflectivity, withIµr = 0.985. Specifically, we introduce log-polar mapping for unwarping the captured omnidirectional thermal image into a panoramic view, hence providing observers or image processing tools a complete wide angle of view. Three mapping techniques are proposed in this paper namely the point sample, mean sample and interpolation mapping techniques. Point sample mapping technique provides the greatest interest due to its lower complexity and moderate output image quality.
Modeling and Verification of Context-Aware Systems

Verifying adaptive behavior is a critical challenge in the development of context-aware systems due to their complexity and uncertainty. This paper presents our novel model-based approach that provides a modeling framework to (1) specify the structural and behavioral aspects of a context-aware system, (2) define invariants of the system that need to be satisfied regardless of the adaptations, and (3) support formal verification of the system model against the invariants. Underlying this framework is our ROAD4Context model that supports the separation of adaptation concerns in context-aware systems. We show how the behavioral model of ROAD4Context can be translated into Petri nets, and how it can be verified against the system invariants. We demonstrate our approach through the modeling and verification of an adaptive cruise control system.
Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology Potential Evidence for Biotype-specific Chemokine Profile following Bvdv Infection of Bovine Macrophages

Chemokines play a key role in initiating the innate and subsequently adaptive immune response by recruiting immune cells to the site of an infection. Monocytes/macrophages (MØ) are part of the first line of defence against invading pathogens, and have been shown to release a variety of chemokines in response to infection. Here, we reveal the early trans-criptional response of MØ to infection with cytopathogenic (cp) and non-cytopathogenic (ncp) bovine viral diarrhoea strains (BVDV). We demonstrate up-regulation of several key chemokines of the CCL and CXCL families in MØ exposed to cpBVDV, but not ncpBVDV. In contrast, infection of MØ with ncpBVDV led to down-regulation of chemokine mRNA expression compared to uninfected cells. Data suggest that ncpBVDV can shut down production of several key chemokines that play crucial roles in the immune response to infection. This study helps to further our understanding of the pathogenesis of BVDV infection, highlighting biotype-specific cellular responses.
The Development of Emotional Flexible Spine Humanoid Robots

Over the past 15 years, there has been an increasing interest in humanoid robots. Researchers worldwide are trying to develop robots that look and move more like humans because they believe that anthropometric biped robots have several advantages over wheeled robots. For instance, humanoid robots can communicate with us and express their emotions by facial expressions, speech and body language. They can also work in our living environment without the need of special infrastructure. Moreover, they can serve as companions and take care of the elderly in our aging society. Due to the usefulness of humanoid robots, some research labs and companies, especially in Japan and Korea, have spent an enormous amount of financial and human resources in this research area. With advances in computer and robot technologies (RT), several impressive biped walking humanoid robots have been developed. For instance, the Honda’s ASIMO, Sony’s QRIO and the Kawada’s HRP-3P. Although these robots are able to walk stably, their movements are not as natural looking as a human’s. One of the reasons is that they do not have a flexible spine as we do. Instead, they have a box-like torso. Since it is very difficult to design and control a biped walking spine robot, researchers have been treating their robots as a rigid mass carried by the legs. They neglect the contributions of the spine in daily activities. We believe that in order for the next generation of humanoid robots to better express themselves through body language and to achieve tasks that cannot be accomplished by conventional humanoid robots, they should have a flexible spine as we do. This chapter is organized as follows. In Section 2 we give an overview of related research on flexible spine humanoid robotics and point out some of the problems faced by researchers in this research area. Then, in Section 3, we describe our approach for solving these problems. In Section 4, we present psychological experiments on the effect of a flexible spine humanoid robot on human perceptions. Finally, in Section 5, we conclude this chapter.
Development of Brain Mechanisms for Processing Orthographic and Phonologic Representations

Developmental differences in the neurocognitive networks for lexical processing were examined in 15 adults and 15 children (9-to 12-year-olds) using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The lexical tasks involved spelling and rhyming judgments in either the visual or auditory modality. These lexical tasks were compared with nonlinguistic control tasks involving judgments of line patterns or tone sequences. The first main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the cross-modal lexical tasks in a region proposed to be involved in mapping between orthographic and phonologic representations. The visual rhyming task, which required conversion from orthography to phonology, produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The auditory spelling task, which required the conversion from phonology to orthography, also produced greater activation for adults in the angular gyrus. The greater activation for adults suggests they may have a more elaborated posterior heteromodal system for mapping between representational systems. The second main finding was that adults showed greater activation than children during the intra-modal lexical tasks in the angular gyrus. The visual spelling and auditory rhyming did not require conversion between orthography and phonology for correct performance but the adults showed greater activation in a system implicated for this mapping. The greater activation for adults suggests that they have more interactive convergence between representational systems during lexical processing.
A Scene Based Video Watermarking in Discrete Multiwavelet Domain

The rapid increase in internet usage has resulted in the media ownership and attention towards intellectual property rights among internet users. In this paper, a Discrete Multiwavelet Transform (DMWT) and Quantization Index Modulation (QIM) based video watermarking is proposed. A logo watermark is inserted in the uncompressed domain of a video. Using QIM, the watermark is embedded into the selected multiwavelet coefficients by quantizing the coefficients. Scrambled watermarks are generated using a set of secret keys, and each watermark is embedded in each motionless scene of the video. The watermark extraction does not require the original video. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is robust against the frame dropping, averaging, swapping, and statistical analysis attacks. It is also robust against some intentional and unintentional attacks. Keywords— Discrete Multiwavelet Transform, Quantization Index Modulation, Quantization Step, Scene-Change and S-Transform
Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Pediatric Epilepsy

Epilepsy is a common neurological affliction of children. It carries an estimated annual incidence of up to 1 per 1,000, and a prevalence of up to 5 per 1,000 children (1). Children suffering from epilepsy have a significantly increased mortality rate (2–4). The major causes of death are the underlying cause of the epilepsy itself, associated neurological compromise, injuries, and status epilepticus (5). Epilepsy was characterized as occasional, sudden, excessive, rapid, and local discharges of gray matter by Jackson (6) in 1873. It now is defined as a chronic predisposition to recurrent unprovoked seizures, which occur as a result of increased abnormal electrical discharges of neurons. An important distinction should be made between epilepsy and acute seizures; the latter typically occur as a consequence of an acute neurological change, such as that in the setting of trauma, infection, ischemia, tumors, and even fevers.
Design of an Acoustic Target Classification System Based on Small-Aperture Microphone Array

The acoustic recognition module of the unattended ground sensor (UGS) system applied in wild environments is faced with the challenge of complicated noise interference. In this paper, a small-aperture microphone array (MA)-based acoustic target classification system, including the system hardware architecture and classification algorithm scheme, is designed as a node-level sensor for the application of UGS in noisy situation. Starting from the analysis of signature of the acoustic signal in wild environments and the merits of small-aperture array in noise reduction, a closely arranged microelectromechanical systems MA is designed to improve the signal quality. Considering the similarities between speaker discrimination and acoustic target recognition, a classification algorithm scheme, consisting of a simplified Mel-frequency cepstrum coefficients and the Gaussian mixture model, is developed to distinguish acoustic targets' patterns. The proposed classification algorithm has been implemented on embedded system after being tested on training datasets. By combining the small-aperture array and low-complexity classification algorithm, the presented acoustic classification prototype system is portable and efficient. To demonstrate the efficiency of the design, the prototype system is verified in a practical situation with the employment of wheeled and tracked vehicles. Evaluation of the system performances in comparison with other state-of-the-art methods indicates that the proposed design is practical for the acoustic target classification and may be widely adopted by UGS.
Connection between annealed free energy and belief propagation on random factor graph ensembles

Recently, Vontobel showed the relationship between Bethe free energy and annealed free energy for protograph factor graph ensembles. In this paper, annealed free energy of any random regular factor graph ensembles are connected to Bethe free energy. The annealed free energy is expressed as the solution of maximization problem whose stationary condition coincides with equations of belief propagation since the contribution to partition function of particular type of variable and factor nodes has similar form of minus Bethe free energy. It gives simple derivation of quenched free energy by using the replica method. It implies equivalence of the replica and cavity methods for any random irregular factor graph ensembles. As consequence, it is shown that the replica symmetric solution and annealed free energy are equal for regular ensemble.
Mapping method of reconfigurable cell matrices based on nanoscale devices using inter-stage fixed interconnection scheme

Emerging devices open the way to build nanoscale logic cells, dedicated to high-density reconfigurable computation. Nevertheless, in an architectural context, fine-grain logic cells integration is limited by traditional interconnection scheme and associated overload. This paper describes an interconnection scheme, based on static and incomplete interconnection topologies. We also propose a method to map functions onto such architectures. Then, to evaluate 4 proposed topologies, we test mapping efficiency and fault tolerance. The analyses show that this approach could improve scalability of traditional FPGAs by a factor of 8.
The ideal teacher: An analysis of a teacher-recruitment advertisement

Building on research in systemic functional approaches to multimodal discourse analysis, this paper develops macro-analytical and micro-analytical techniques for transcription and analysis of a multimodal advertisement film text. This paper proposes the usefulness of the visual semantics stratum to investigate inter-frame relations in the multimodal film text. This approach is applied to an analysis of a teacher-recruitment television advertisement commissioned by the Singapore’s Ministry of Education where the construction of an ideal teacher’s identity becomes a form of commodification within a consumerist culture. The meanings in the advertisement are also discussed in light of prevailing ideologies in Singapore’s education system.
Commentary on “An Evolutionarily Informed Education Science” by David C. Geary

Dr. David C. Geary's article centers on the concept of inherited folk psychology modules, together with the idea of a transition from primary to secondary learning. This article suggests that there exist only effective folk psychology modules, which are the result of interaction of inherited primary emotional systems with the physical, biological, and social environment. Consequently there is no transition from primary to secondary learning; all cognitive modules result from the process characterized by Geary as secondary learning. Furthermore, an evolutionary psychology analysis does not support the idea of a phoneme-based approach to learning how to read, as suggested by Geary; rather all evolutionary processes are top-down as well as bottom-up, and hence rather support holistic, meaning-based approaches. Finally the issue of proof and evidence in these contexts is raised; it is suggested that no adequate criteria have been given for proving existence of the suggested folk psychology modules, whereas such criteria do exist for the primary emotional systems that are in fact the lynchpin of evolutionary psychology effects.
Effect of Polypurine Tract (PPT) Mutations on Human Immunodeficiency Virus Type 1 Replication: a Virus with a Completely Randomized PPT Retains Low Infectivity

ABSTRACT We introduced polypurine tract (PPT) mutations, which we had previously tested in an in vitro assay, into the viral clone NL4-3KFSΔnef. Each mutant was tested for single-round infectivity and virion production. All of the PPT mutations had an effect on replication; however, mutation of the 5′ end appeared to have less of an effect on infectivity than mutation of the 3′ end of the PPT sequence. Curiously, a mutation in which the entire PPT sequence was randomized (PPTSUB) retained 12% of the infectivity of the wild type (WT) in a multinuclear activation of galactosidase indicator assay. Supernatants from these infections contained viral particles, as evidenced by the presence of p24 antigen. Two-long terminal repeat (2-LTR) circle junction analysis following PPTSUB infection revealed that the mutant could form a high percentage of normal junctions. Quantification of the 2-LTR circles using real-time PCR revealed that number of 2-LTR circles from cells infected with the PPTSUB mutant was 3.5 logs greater than 2-LTR circles from cells infected with WT virus. To determine whether the progeny virions from a PPTSUB infection could undergo further rounds of replication, we introduced the PPTSUB mutation into a replication-competent virus. Our results show that the mutant virus is able to replicate and that the infectivity of the progeny virions increases with each passage, quickly reverting to a WT PPT sequence. Together, these experiments confirm that the 3′ end of the PPT is important for plus-strand priming and that a virus that completely lacks a PPT can replicate at a low level.
The best, the worst and the average: secondary school choice and education performance in East London

In this paper we investigate whether the distance between school and the pupil’s home is related to social background in a six borough area of East London. Also investigated is the extent to which schools in the area perform in line with expectations on the basis of the social composition of their intake. The research involves analysis of the Pupil Level Annual School Census (PLASC) to which geodemographic codes supplied by Experian have been attached. We demonstrate that the six schools in the area which achieved the highest average points score at GCSE recruit pupils widely from within the area (and to a lesser extent outside), whilst the lowest performing six schools recruit from much more narrowly defined catchment areas. In terms of school performance, we show that whilst we might expect schools to perform better as they become more distant from inner East London and nearer to the M25, this is not necessarily the case. In our conclusions we argue that these data support the claims made on the basis of ethnographic data about the class nature of school selection and parental choice.
Children as Mediators for the Second Language Learning of their Migrant Parents

This paper argues that parent/child sharing of school homework provides a beneficial environment for the migrant parent to learn English as a second language (L2). Ten US Hispanic children aged seven to ten were studied in interactions with their migrant mothers in two settings: during homework and at meal time. Results show that during homework children spoke English more frequently, produced English verbs with richer morphology (e.g. third person singular -s, past -ed, progressive -ing), and provided feedback (e.g. corrective repetition, recast, and clarification request) more often than in meal-time conversations. Since these characteristics of the input have been argued to have an effect on both first language (L1) acquisition and L2 acquisition in classroom settings, we argue that homework is a more advantageous setting for L2 learning in untutored environments than a common daily interaction such as meal-time conversations. Finally, it is suggested that school homework requiring parent/child interaction could be reshaped to maximise parents' L2 learning.