Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Assessing Posterior-Based Mispronunciation Detection on Field-Collected Recordings from Child Speech Therapy Sessions

A critical component of child speech therapy is home practice with a caregiver, who can provide feedback. However, caregivers oftentimes struggle with accurately rating speech and with perceiving pronunciation errors. One potential solution for this issue is to embed automatic mispronunciation-detection (MPD) algorithms within digital speech therapy applications. To address the need for MPD within child speech therapy, we investigated posterior-based mispronunciation detection using a custom corpus of disordered speech from children that had been manually annotated by an expert clinician. Namely, we trained a family of phoneme-speciﬁc logistic regression classiﬁers (LRC) and support vector machines (SVM) on log posterior probability and log posterior ratio features. Our results show that these classiﬁers outperformed baseline Goodness of Pronunciation scoring by 11% and 10%, respectively. Even more importantly, in an ofﬂine test, the LRC and SVM classiﬁers outperformed student clinicians at identifying mispronunciations by 18% and 16%, respectively. These results suggest that posterior-based mispronunciation detection may be suitable to provide at-home therapy feedback for children.
Prevalence and antimicrobial resistance phenotypes of Salmonella species recovered at various stages of broiler operations in Hathazari, Bangladesh

Background and Aim: Dissemination of multidrug-resistant (MDR) Salmonella through food chains has serious health implications, with higher rates of morbidity and mortality. Broiler meat remains a major reservoir of Salmonella contamination. The lack of proper hygiene in local broiler operations has, therefore, prompted this research into the assessment of Salmonella contamination in local shops and associated antimicrobial resistance (AMR) phenotypes. Materials and Methods: A total of 55 broiler samples including skin, meat, and swab samples from chopping and dressing sites were included in the study. The samples were collected from broiler shops in Hathazari, Bangladesh, and screened for the presence of Salmonella strains using culture-based methods. The isolates were biochemically characterized and further tested for AMR to eight common antibiotics using the disk diffusion technique. Results: Salmonella contaminations were identified in 29% (16/55) of the broiler samples. Swab samples collected from the chopping sites appeared to be contaminated in higher proportions (33%) than those collected from the dressing areas (25%). On the other hand, the skin samples (50%) were detected with a higher percentage of contamination than the meat samples (25%). All Salmonella isolates showed resistance toward at least one of the eight antibiotics used. Although none of the isolates was resistant to all antibiotics, 18.75% showed resistance to a maximum of seven antibiotics. Resistance to nalidixic acid was most prevalent (87.5%), followed by sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim (81.25%), erythromycin (81.25%), tetracycline (75%), streptomycin (56.25%), ampicillin-clavulanic acid (50%), chloramphenicol (43.75%), and cefotaxime (18.75%). The resistance patterns of the isolates were found to be highly diverse. The most frequently observed pattern was the following: Ampicillin-clavulanic acid-sulfamethoxazole-trimethoprim-nalidixic acid-tetracycline-chloramphenicol-streptomycin-erythromycin. Conclusion: The relatively high prevalence of MDR strains in the samples underlies an urgent need for surveillance and control measures concerning hygiene and antibiotic use in local broiler operations.
Substitutional Lithium Doping on Germanene: A First-principles Study

The density functional theory (DFT) based first-principles calculations have been adopted for the study of structural, electronic and magnetic properties of pure and single Lithium (Li) atom doped germanene monolayer. Due to the higher intrinsic carrier mobilities and large spin orbit gap, germanene has great possibility of being integrated into the silicon based semiconductor industry. Different studies have been done to change the band gap value from its’ pristine zero band gap state. We have doped the single Li atom into the germanene system with the intention of tuning the band gap and other electronic and magnetic properties. Band structure calculations show pristine germanene is semi-metallic in nature whereas the Li doped system is fully metallic with the overlapping of the conduction and valance bands in the Fermi level. Under density of states (DOS) calculations, it is evident that both pristine and doped system are non-magnetic in nature with symmetric DOS plot.
Graph Attention Feature Fusion Network for ALS Point Cloud Classification

Classification is a fundamental task for airborne laser scanning (ALS) point cloud processing and applications. This task is challenging due to outdoor scenes with high complexity and point clouds with irregular distribution. Many existing methods based on deep learning techniques have drawbacks, such as complex pre/post-processing steps, an expensive sampling cost, and a limited receptive field size. In this paper, we propose a graph attention feature fusion network (GAFFNet) that can achieve a satisfactory classification performance by capturing wider contextual information of the ALS point cloud. Based on the graph attention mechanism, we first design a neighborhood feature fusion unit and an extended neighborhood feature fusion block, which effectively increases the receptive field for each point. On this basis, we further design a neural network based on encoder–decoder architecture to obtain the semantic features of point clouds at different levels, allowing us to achieve a more accurate classification. We evaluate the performance of our method on a publicly available ALS point cloud dataset provided by the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS). The experimental results show that our method can effectively distinguish nine types of ground objects. We achieve more satisfactory results on different evaluation metrics when compared with the results obtained via other approaches.
An Integrated Model of Negative Critical Incidents and Quality Attributes Satisfaction

Copyright © 2003, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. ABSTRACT This study proposed an integration of the frequency of negative criteria incidents (FNCIs) and quality attributes satisfaction (QASAT) model based on theory guided. To accomplish this objective, criteria incidents related to the measurement model have been developed. An empirical study of online bookstores was illustrated. The results of this study developed a set of critical incidents and indicated that FNCIs affected overall satisfaction indirectly by QASAT was 44% on the Internet shopping environment.
Structural, pasting and sensory properties of rice from main and ratoon crops

ABSTRACT Ratooning was a practical approach to increase the grain yield of rice. In this research, main and ratoon crop rice were compared in quality attributes, including composition, starch morphology, starch crystalline structure, protein components, pasting property, texture, and sensory attributes of cooked rice. As compared to main crop rice, ratoon crop rice showed an increase in amylose content and a decrease in protein content. Both main and ratoon crop rice starches exhibited similar polyhedral shape and A-type crystalline structure, but the ratoon crop rice had a lower relative crystallinity. Globulin content of ratoon crop rice protein was higher than that of main crop rice protein. As compared to main crop rice flour, ratoon crop rice flour showed a decrease in pasting temperature, peak viscosity, and breakdown viscosity but an increase in final viscosity and setback viscosity. After cooking, ratoon crop rice had higher hardness, cohesiveness, gumminess, and resilience than main crop rice. In sensory evaluation conducted with trained panelists, ratoon crop rice scored higher than main crop rice in overall acceptance.
The Mystery of Discrimination in Latin America

In this paper we focus on a particular family of studies, namely, wage gaps decompositions. Numerous efforts have focused on documenting earnings differentials between females and males, indigenous and nonindigenous people, or Afro-descendants and whites. As the pieces of the literature that we survey in this section show, comparisons of hourly labor earnings (wages or self-employment income) suggest the existence of notorious gaps. However, non-indigenous (or male) workers exhibit human capital characteristics that are, on average, more desirable than those of indigenous (or female) workers. Examples of those characteristics include education, labor market experience, and field of specialization. To attribute the whole earnings gap to the existence of labor market discrimination would therefore be misleading. At least a component of the gap can be attributed to differences in observable human capital characteristics that the labor market rewards and, hence, is not attributable to the existence of discrimination. Blinder and Oaxaca were the first to explore this avenue of research, in which the profession has been able to identify, to some extent, the magnitude of this component
Correlations between dyslipidemia and cardiovascular disease in patients of type 2 diabetes mellitus

Hyperlipidemia in association with insulin resistance is common in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Insulin resistance and the ensuing hyperinsulinemia are associated with hypertriglyceridemia and low serum high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol concentrations. The lipoprotein abnormalities are related to the severity of the insulin resistance. The venous blood was collected for both fasting and post prandial for blood sugar estimation. The fasting blood samples were collected for the estimation of serum Total cholesterol, serum Triglycerides and serum HDL cholesterol estimation. In this study it was found that though the patients were on oral hypoglycaemic drugs and some patients were on Insulin the fasting blood sugar and post prandial blood sugar are significantly high in study groups when compared to control groups ( P < 0.001).
CARTAD: Compiler-Assisted Reinforcement Learning for Thermal-Aware Task Scheduling and DVFS on Multicores

As the power density of modern CPUs is gradually increasing, thermal management has become one of the primary concerns for multicore systems, where task scheduling and dynamic voltage/frequency scaling (DVFS) play a pivotal role in effectively managing the system temperature. In this article, we propose CARTAD, a new reinforcement learning (RL)-based task scheduling and DVFS method for temperature minimization and latency guarantee on multicore systems. The novelty of CARTAD framework is that we exploit the machine learning technique to analyze the applications’ intermediate representations (IRs) generated by a compiler and identify an important feature which is critical for predicting the application’s performance. With the newly explored feature, we construct an RL-based scheduler with the more effective state representation and reward function such that the system temperature can be minimized while guaranteeing applications’ latency. We implement and evaluate CARTAD on real platforms in comparison with the state-of-the-art approaches. Experimental results show CARTAD can reduce the maximum temperature by up to 16 °C and the average temperature by up to 10 °C.
Anthropogenic landslide geodetic monitoring

The first results of monitoring the slow dynamics of an anthropogenic landslide located in the mountainous part of the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania are presented in the article. Landslide motion measurements were performed using tacheometric surveying and the GPS/GLONASS global positioning system. The article considers the selection of sites for installation the basic network points for landslides monitoring.
Constant modulus waveform design for MIMO radar transmit beampattern synthesis

Multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) radar enables the antenna elements to transmit different waveforms freely. This waveform diversity provides great flexibility in transmit beampattern synthesis. By appropriately designing transmit waveforms, we can manage the radiation power effectively. In particular, more power would be concentrated into the interested spatial region, which is very useful in improving the signal noise ratio at the receive point. In this paper, we propose a novel method to optimize the transmit beampattern directly with constant modulus constraint. In the first step, we relax the fourth-order objective function as a quadratic one. In the second step, based on the majorization-minimization (MM) algorithm, we provide an iterative method, to solve the non-convex optimization problem efficiently. Lastly, simulation results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method.
Exploring the relationship between trust, ease of use after purchase and switching re-purchase intention

The research conducted by this researcher intends to analyze the effect of trust and ease of use on purchase decisions and repurchase intention. The data collection method in this study uses a questionnaire with 130 consumers who have purchased at an online store. The analytical method used is descriptive analysis, and the test instrument uses SEM AMOS. in this study using four variables, thirteen dimensions and twenty-six indicators. The results show that trust and ease of use have a significant effect on buying decisions and also have a significant effect on repurchase intention, and purchase decisions have a significant and significant effect on repurchase intention. so it can be said that trust and ease of use are the entry points that make consumers start to move to the next stage, therefore online store marketers need to pay attention.
N-acetylcysteine in non-acetaminophen-induced acute liver failure: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective studies

Introduction There are discordant reports on N-acetylcysteine (NAC) efficacy in non-acetaminophen acute liver failure (ALF). Aim To determine whether NAC is beneficial in non-acetaminophen ALF. Material and methods We performed a systemic review and meta-analysis of published data to address the question. PubMed and MEDLINE were searched using the terms non-acetylcysteine and ALF due to non-acetaminophen, viral infection, drug-induced or autoimmune hepatitis. The primary outcome was overall mortality. Secondary outcomes were transplant-free survival and length of hospital stay. Risk ratios were calculated using a random model for meta-analysis. Results A total of 672 patients were included in this meta-analysis from 5 prospective studies (NAC group: n = 334; control group: n = 338). Viral hepatitis (45.8% vs. 32.8%) followed by drug-induced liver injury (24.6% vs. 27.5%), indeterminate cause (13.2% vs. 21.6%) and autoimmune hepatitis (6.6% vs. 8.9%) were the most common etiologies of ALF in the treatment group and control group respectively. Treatment with N-acetylcysteine improved the transplant-free survival significantly (55.1% vs. 28.1%; RR = 0.56; 95% CI: 0.33–0.94) whereas the overall survival was not improved with NAC (71% vs. 59.8%; RR = 0.73; 95% CI: 0.48–1.09). The NAC treatment was associated with shorter hospital stay (standard difference in means (SMD) = –1.62; 95% CI: –1.84 to –1.40, p < 0.001). Conclusions The treatment of patients with acute liver failure with N-acetylcysteine improved transplant-free survival and length of stay.
Production and secretion of recombinant proteins using Bacillus megaterium

Diese Arbeit hat die systematische Entwicklung des Gram positiven Bakteriums Bacillus megaterium zum rekombinanten Proteinproduktionswirt am Beispiel einer heterologen Hydrolase aus Thermobifida fusca (TFH) und einer homologen Penicillin G Amidase aus dem B. megaterium Stamm ATCC 14945 zum Ziel. Die Produktion und Sekretion der TFH unter Kontrolle eines xyloseinduzierbaren Promoters war erst nach Anpassung des originalen tfh Gens an den optimalen B. megaterium Kodongebrauch erfolgreich. Der Stamm WH323 defizient in der Verstoffwechselung von Xylose fuhrte durch eine langzeitige Induktion des Promoters zu hoheren TFH Ausbeuten. In komplexem LB Medium wurden so in Schuttelkolbenkultivierungen 2.9 mg L-1 und im pH kontrollierten Bioreaktor 18.1 mg L-1 TFH sekretiert. In semi-definiertem A5 Medium konnten im pH kontrollierten Bioreaktor 13.9 mg TFH L-1 erzielt werden, so dass zum ersten Mal auch bei glukoselimitierter Zufutterung mit semidefiniertem Medium signifikante Proteinmengen sekretiert wurden. Schlieslich fuhrte eine kontinuierliche Kultivierung zu 12.3 mg TFH L-1. Die Produktion wurde 2.3-fach verbessert auf 421 U g CDW -1 im Vergleich zur Hochzelldichtekultivierung. Auserdem wurde die rekombinante Produktion und der Export einer Penicillin G amidase (PGA) optimiert, die bei der reversen Synthese von s-Laktamantibiotika zum Einsatz kommt. Dazu wurde der Stamm YYBm1, dem die Gene fur die extrazellulare Protease NprM und den Xylosestoffwechsel fehlen, verwendet. Die Ersetzung des PGA Signalpeptides durch das der B. megaterium Lipase A fuhrte zu einer 1.7 fachen Sekretionssteigerung. Weiterhin wurde ein gepuffertes Mineralmedium mit Calciumionen und dem definierten Zusatz von Aminosauren entwickelt und bis zum 2 L Bioreaktor skaliert. Mit einer Produktion von 40 mg L-1 PGA, fuhrte die Kombination der genetischen und Medienoptimierung zu einer 7-fachen Verbesserung. Abschliesend wurde eine 30-fache Steigerung in Hochzelldichtekultivierungen erzielt.
Damage Analysis in Glass Fibre Reinforced Epoxy Resin via Digital Image Correlation

The objective of the presented experimental work was to perform monotonic tensile tests and observe damage occurring on the surface of a glass fiber mat reinforced epoxy resin. The experiments were performed on dogbone specimens machined from a 5.8 mm thick composite plate. The macroscopic response was revealed from load data and by using 2D digital image correlation. FE-based DIC was employed to measure displacement fields and calculate strain fields across the entire Region of interest. In addition, the gray level residuals extracted from the correlation analyses were utilized to detect discontinuities (i.e. damage initiation and growth) on the surface of the investigated specimens.
SAXAGLIPTIN LEVELS AND ITS PHARMACOKINETIC APPLICATION IN PRESENCE OF SUCRALOSE IN ANIMALS SERUM BY HPLC METHOD

Objective: It is to develop a simple, valid and rapid chromatographic method for quantification of saxagliptin in rats serum in order to study saxagliptin pharmacokinetics parameters in sucralose fed rats simultaneously to detect any interaction possibility between saxagliptin and sucralose in rats. Methods: In our developed method of analysis, mobile phase was consisted of phosphate buffer (pH =4) and methanol (70:30) v/v at flow rate of 1 ml/min with UV detection at 230 nm. , C8 column of separation was used with the temperature of 40 °C using injection volume of 50 µl, samples run time was 10 min, and sildenafil citrate was used as internal standard. Saxagliptin was given to rats orally of (2g/kg) dose while sucralose was given with (11 mg/kg/day) dose. Results: A successful HPLC method was validated and developed to determine saxagliptin in rats serum, overall intra-day precision and accuracy were reasonable with coefficient of variation percentage CV % values range (o.14-4.03) and accuracy % range (99.5-104), while inter-day precision and accuracy showed accepted precision with CV% range (0.15-2.81) and accuracy % range (99.9-116). The coefficient of correlation was 0.99949 with reasonable sensitivity and selectivity. Combination effect of saxagliptin with sucralose on saxagliptin serum profile was demonstrated as strong statistical effect according to Cohen’s d and significant P values too. Conclusion: A successful HPLC method was validated and developed to quantify saxagliptin in rats serum, combination effect of saxagliptin with sucralose over all time intervals of saxagliptin serum profile was demonstrated as strong statistical effect.
Hybridity and the Politics of Location: A Study of Diaspora Space in Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West

1. Assistant Professor, Department of English, National University of Modern Languages, Multan Campus, Punjab, Pakistan 2. Assistant Professor, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan 3. Lecturer, Department of English, The Women University, Multan, Punjab, Pakistan PAPER INFO ABSTRACT Received: January 17, 2021 Accepted: March 15, 2021 Online: March 30, 2021 Diaspora, in Postcolonial context, refers to the notion of ‘dispersion’ which entails the connotations of a center or a locus from which the dispersion occurs. It takes into account the homing desire, which is not the same as the desire for ‘homeland’. Hybridity, in conflation with diaspora studies, refers to dismantling cultures from their totalizing specificities of cultural situations. This cultural decolonization leads towards an ambivalent space called the ‘Third Space of Enunciation’. The present study deals with Mohsin Hamid’s “Exit West” (2017) as it attempts to reveal how colonial subjects are positioned not only in relation to the Colonizer but also in relation to one another. Hence, the colonial identity is always in a state of flux and anxiety due to multi-locationality, as the home is a slippery space in the diasporic imagination. Moreover, the study deals with Hamid’s engagement with the arbitrariness of borders, as borders are discursive narratives, which further leads towards deterritorialization as dislocation and displacement of meanings and identities. Hamid, in the “Exit West”, significantly maintains the ambivalence of diaspora space where binaries of exclusion/inclusion, belonging/otherness, us/them are contested in a global context.
Structural, Optical and Magnetic Characterization of Vanadium Pentoxide Nanoparticles Synthesized in a Gelatin Medium

The V2O5 nanoparticles were synthesized from VCl3 precursor via a rather facile sol-gel route in gelatin medium followed by calcination at different temperatures of 400, 500 and 600 °C. The prepared samples were studied for their structural, morphological, optical and magnetic properties. The results showed that the synthesized particles consist mainly of crystalline α-V2O5 orthorombic phase. The calcination at higher temperatures caused an increment in the amount of other vanadium oxides minor phases, namely β-V2O5, and also increased the crystallite size from about 22 to 29 nm. The lattice contraction observed on calcination at higher temperatures may be associated to the the lower density of oxygen vacancies. The optical studies revealed the effect of raising the calcination temperature as an red shift in their direct band gap energy from 2.92 to 2.77 eV due to the size effects. The magnetic characterization of the sample calcined at 400 °C demonstrated a weak ferromagnetic behavior with saturation magnetization of about 0.14 emu/g induced probably by the oxygen vacancies.