Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Deep Learning–Based Noise Reduction Approach to Improve Speech Intelligibility for Cochlear Implant Recipients

Objective: We investigate the clinical effectiveness of a novel deep learning–based noise reduction (NR) approach under noisy conditions with challenging noise types at low signal to noise ratio (SNR) levels for Mandarin-speaking cochlear implant (CI) recipients. Design: The deep learning–based NR approach used in this study consists of two modules: noise classifier (NC) and deep denoising autoencoder (DDAE), thus termed (NC + DDAE). In a series of comprehensive experiments, we conduct qualitative and quantitative analyses on the NC module and the overall NC + DDAE approach. Moreover, we evaluate the speech recognition performance of the NC + DDAE NR and classical single-microphone NR approaches for Mandarin-speaking CI recipients under different noisy conditions. The testing set contains Mandarin sentences corrupted by two types of maskers, two-talker babble noise, and a construction jackhammer noise, at 0 and 5 dB SNR levels. Two conventional NR techniques and the proposed deep learning–based approach are used to process the noisy utterances. We qualitatively compare the NR approaches by the amplitude envelope and spectrogram plots of the processed utterances. Quantitative objective measures include (1) normalized covariance measure to test the intelligibility of the utterances processed by each of the NR approaches; and (2) speech recognition tests conducted by nine Mandarin-speaking CI recipients. These nine CI recipients use their own clinical speech processors during testing. Results: The experimental results of objective evaluation and listening test indicate that under challenging listening conditions, the proposed NC + DDAE NR approach yields higher intelligibility scores than the two compared classical NR techniques, under both matched and mismatched training-testing conditions. Conclusions: When compared to the two well-known conventional NR techniques under challenging listening condition, the proposed NC + DDAE NR approach has superior noise suppression capabilities and gives less distortion for the key speech envelope information, thus, improving speech recognition more effectively for Mandarin CI recipients. The results suggest that the proposed deep learning–based NR approach can potentially be integrated into existing CI signal processors to overcome the degradation of speech perception caused by noise.
A gradient of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety

Policy-makers are considering large-scale programs aimed at self-control to improve citizens’ health and wealth and reduce crime. Experimental and economic studies suggest such programs could reap benefits. Yet, is self-control important for the health, wealth, and public safety of the population? Following a cohort of 1,000 children from birth to the age of 32 y, we show that childhood self-control predicts physical health, substance dependence, personal finances, and criminal offending outcomes, following a gradient of self-control. Effects of children's self-control could be disentangled from their intelligence and social class as well as from mistakes they made as adolescents. In another cohort of 500 sibling-pairs, the sibling with lower self-control had poorer outcomes, despite shared family background. Interventions addressing self-control might reduce a panoply of societal costs, save taxpayers money, and promote prosperity.
Origin of an ancient hormone/receptor couple revealed by resurrection of an ancestral estrogen

Cladistic analysis allows inference of the structure of an ancestral steroid that acts as a ligand for the ancestral receptor. The origin of ancient ligand/receptor couples is often analyzed via reconstruction of ancient receptors and, when ligands are products of metabolic pathways, they are not supposed to evolve. However, because metabolic pathways are inherited by descent with modification, their structure can be compared using cladistic analysis. Using this approach, we studied the evolution of steroid hormones. We show that side-chain cleavage is common to most vertebrate steroids, whereas aromatization was co-opted for estrogen synthesis from a more ancient pathway. The ancestral products of aromatic activity were aromatized steroids with a side chain, which we named “paraestrols. ” We synthesized paraestrol A and show that it effectively binds and activates the ancestral steroid receptor. Our study opens the way to comparative studies of biologically active small molecules.
Homeobox Genes in the Developing Mouse Brain

Abstract: Any list of past and recent findings on vertebrate brain prenatal development would have to include the fundamental roles of homeobox genes, the genes encoding the nuclear regulatory homeodomain proteins. The discovery of homeobox genes and their involvement as master regulatory elements in programing the development of an embryo into a complete adult organism has provided a key to our understanding of ontogenesis. Also, the correlation of mouse developmental mutants and their corresponding human syndromes with mutations in homeobox genes has provided further evidence for the fundamental role of homeobox genes during the vertebrate brain embryonic development. Here, we review the expression patterns and the phenotypes of gene mutations that implicate a large repertoire of mouse homeobox genes in the specification of neuronal functions during brain embryogenesis.
Elastic Circuits

Elasticity in circuits and systems provides tolerance to variations in computation and communication delays. This paper presents a comprehensive overview of elastic circuits for those designers who are mainly familiar with synchronous design. Elasticity can be implemented both synchronously and asynchronously, although it was traditionally more often associated with asynchronous circuits. This paper shows that synchronous and asynchronous elastic circuits can be designed, analyzed, and optimized using similar techniques. Thus, choices between synchronous and asynchronous implementations are localized and deferred until late in the design process.
Immigrant Incorporation and Political Participation in the United States 1

This article examines several factors related to immigrant incorporation that have been ignored in previous studies of voting participation. We add various immigrant-related variables to a model that controls for individual resources, social incorporation, institutional barriers and contexts of political mobilization. We find little support for straight-line assimilationist theories of immigrant adaptation. We also find that coming from a repressive regime has no significant effect on voting and that living in areas with Spanish-language ballots does not increase the likelihood of voting among first generation Latinos. Our results also suggest that anti-immigrant legislation has a positive effect on participation among first and second generation immigrants. Overall, the immigrant-related variables introduced in our analysis add significantly to the existing theoretical knowledge on voting participation in the United States.
Evaluation of the H.264 Scalable Video Coding in Error Prone IP Networks

The Joint Video Team, composed by the ISO/IEC Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) and the ITU-T Video Coding Experts Group (VCEG), has standardized a scalable extension of the H.264/AVC video coding standard called scalable video coding (SVC). H.264/SVC provides scalable video streams which are composed by a base layer and one or more enhancement layers. Enhancement layers may improve the temporal, the spatial or the signal-to-noise ratio resolutions of the content represented by the lower layers. One of the applications of this standard is related to video transmission in both wired and wireless communication systems, and it is therefore important to analyze in which way packet losses contribute to the degradation of quality, and which mechanisms could be used to improve that quality. This paper provides an analysis and evaluation of H.264/SVC in error prone environments, quantifying the degradation caused by packet losses in the decoded video. It also proposes and analyzes the consequences of QoS-based discarding of packets through different marking solutions.
A critical review of age-related research on L2 ultimate attainment

This article addresses age-related attainment effects in second language acquisition, posing the question of whether such effects are to be explained in terms of a Critical Period with a predictable and abrupt offset point or in terms of the impact of a wider range of factors. It attempts to explore this question by focusing on four discussion points in the current debate: (i) the wide use of native-speaker behaviour as the key L2 attainment yardstick; (ii) the degree of compatibility of prevailing views regarding the notion of a critical period for L2 acquisition; (iii) the relative narrowness of much research in this area, where age of L2 onset is often regarded as the crucial if not the only critical variable; and (iv) insights relative to maturational constraints on language acquisition offered by recent brain research. The article concludes that a loosening of the association between ultimate L2 attainment research and Critical Period Hypothesis (CPH) issues would shed more light on L2 attainment in terms both of the comprehensiveness and of the acuity of the insights which would result.
Higher Order Expectations, Illiquidity, and Short-Term Trading

We propose a theory that jointly accounts for an asset illiquidity and for the asset price potential over-reliance on public information. We argue that, when trading frequencies differ across traders, asset prices reflect investors' Higher Order Expectations (HOEs) about the two factors that influence the aggregate demand: fundamentals information and liquidity trades. We show that it is precisely when asset prices are driven by investors' HOEs about fundamentals that they over-rely on public information, the market displays high illiquidity, and low volume of informational trading; conversely, when HOEs about fundamentals are subdued, prices under-rely on public information, the market hovers in a high liquidity state, and the volume of informational trading is high. Over-reliance on public information results from investors' under-reaction to their private signals which, in turn, dampens uncertainty reduction over liquidation prices, favoring an increase in price risk and illiquidity. Therefore, a highly illiquid market implies higher expected returns from contrarian strategies. Equivalently, illiquidity arises as a byproduct of the lack of participation of informed investors in their capacity as liquidity suppliers, a feature that appears to capture some aspects of the recent crisis.
Origin and early evolution of vertebrate skeletonization

Data from living and extinct faunas of primitive vertebrates imply very different scenarios for the origin and evolution of the dermal and oral skeletal developmental system. A direct reading of the evolutionary relationships of living primitive vertebrates implies that the dermal scales, teeth, and jaws arose synchronously with a cohort of other characters that could be considered unique to jawed vertebrates: the dermoskeleton is primitively composed of numerous scales, each derived from an individual dental papilla; teeth are primitively patterned such that they are replaced in a classical conveyor‐belt system. The paleontological record provides a unique but complementary perspective in that: 1) the organisms in which the skeletal system evolved are extinct and we have no recourse but to fossils if we aim to address this problem; 2) extinct organisms can be classified among, and in the same way as, living relatives; 3) a holistic approach to the incorporation of all data provides a more complete perspective on early vertebrate evolution. This combined approach is of no greater significance than in dealing with the origin of the skeleton and, combined with recent discoveries and new phylogenetic analyses, we have been able to test and reject existing hypotheses for the origin of the skeleton and erect a new model in their place. Microsc. Res. Tech. 59:352–372, 2002. © 2002 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Salience and the Social Meaning of Declarative Contours

Most studies exploring the social meaning of variation have focused on phonological variables at the segmental level. This article investigates the social meaning of intonational variation in the speech of three gay professionals. To examine how intonational meanings can be exploited as symbolic resources, this study takes an intraspeaker approach, inspecting declarative intonation patterns across three situations per speaker. The analysis reveals that speakers exhibit systematic patterns of variation on either of two levels—the frequency with which variants are employed or their phonetic manifestations—depending on the salience of variants. The social significance of these patterns is inferred by situating them in their discourse and ethnographic contexts. Importantly, intonational meaning surfaces in both the choice of a variant and its phonetic rendering. The categorical choice of a variant conveys pragmatic meaning, while the variant’s phonetic realization reflects the strength of its social meaning.
An Icelandic Version of McMasters Family Assessment Device (FAD)

Purpose: An analysis of the psychometric properties of an Icelandic version of McMasters Family Assessment Device (FAD) was conducted in this study. Method: Two groups, clinical and nonclinical, comprising of 529 parents answered the FAD. The study examined the internal reliability and discriminant validity of the instrument in addition to examining construct validity using exploratory factor analysis (EFA). Results: The theoretically based original FAD is reliable where the total scale had high α, . 95. The factors found for the Icelandic FAD were not as reliable as the original FAD. The discriminant validity showed that the clinical group scored higher (more dysfunctional) than the nonclinical group in most dimensions of both original FAD and the Icelandic FAD. The eight factors extracted in an EFA were different from the original factors. Discussion: The Icelandic FAD possesses good psychometric properties, although its factor structure differs from the original FAD. The results are promising and merit continued application.
Performance management of Australian and Singaporean expatriates

The cross‐cultural and practical challenge of evaluating the management performance of Australian and Singaporean expatriates has received little research attention. This paper explores critical perceptions of performance management by analysing the results of structured interviews with Australian and Singaporean expatriate managers and human resource professionals. Contrary to initial expectations, a slight majority of respondents were satisfied overall with the fairness and accuracy of expatriate performance management practices. Their proposals for more effective performance management are analysed, focussing on the efficacy of involving multiple, cross‐cultural raters in performance appraisal. The cultural differences between Australian and Singaporean expatriates are also explored. The findings of this research provide important direction for the development of culturally sensitive international human resource management practices.
On scalable measurement-driven modeling of traffic demand in large WLANs

Models of traffic demand are fundamental inputs to the design and engineering of data networks. In this paper we address this requirement in the context of large-scale wireless infrastructures using real measurement data from the University of North Carolina (UNC) wireless campus network. Our modeling effort focuses on capturing the demand variation in both the spatial and temporal domain in a way that scales well with the size of the wireless network. The network traffic dynamics are studied over two different week-long monitoring periods at various levels of spatial aggregation, from individual buildings to the whole network. We model traffic workload in terms of wireless sessions and network flows and find several modeling elements that are reusable in both temporal and spatial dimensions. The same set of parametric distributions for the session-and flow-related traffic variables capture the network traffic demand in both monitoring periods. Even more interestingly, these same distributions can characterize traffic dynamics at finer spatial scales, such as a single building or a group of buildings. We use our models to generate synthetic traffic and compare with trace data. The comparison clearly illustrates the trade-off between model scalability and reusability, on the one hand, and accuracy in capturing local-scale traffic dynamics on the other. Our main contribution is a novel behavioral approach for traffic demand modeling in large wireless networks that features high flexibility in the exploitation of the spatial and temporal resolution available in data traces.
Time Preference and Learning Versus Selection

With few exceptions, economic theory assumes that people’s valuations of the future - the discount applied to the future as opposed to the present - are fixed and exogenously set. The relevance of this assumption derives from the fact that this parameter of individual preference is critical in determining the likelihood that a person will engage in cooperative action, including the likelihood that they will abide by democratic norms and participate constructively in the development of efficient and competitive markets. Using a sample of Ukrainian youth - those who have emigrated to the West to complete their studies as compared to those who have remained in Ukraine - I question the validity of this assumption. Although the data reveals that those students who travel to the West are an unrepresentative sample of Ukraine’s student population generally in terms of the time discount they apply to the future, the data also suggest that the discount they apply to the future changes as a function of their length of stay in the West.
Treatment guidelines for bipolar disorder : A critical review

Introduction: The development of treatment guidelines emerged as an important element so as to standardize treatment and to provide clinicians with algorithms, which would be able to carry research findings to the everyday clinical practice. Material and method: The MEDLINE was searched with the combination of each one of the key words dmaniaT, dmanicT, dbipolarT, dmanic-depressionT, dmanic-depressiveT with dtreatment guidelinesT. Results: The search was updated until March 1st, 2004 and returned 224 articles. Twenty-seven papers concerning the publication of treatment algorithms were traced. Discussion: Despite supposedly being evidence-based, guidelines for the treatment of bipolar disorder vary significantly across committees or working groups. Overall, however, at the first stage of the mania/hypomania algorithm, monotherapy with lithium, divalproex sodium or olanzapine is generally recommended. At latter stages combination therapy is strongly recommended. It is clearly stated that in bipolar depression antidepressants should be used only in combination with antimanic agents in order to avoid switching of phases. During the maintenance phase all patients should receive antimanic agents, while some may need the addition of antidepressants. The most recent guidelines emphasize the use of atypical antipsychotics for mania and lamotrigine for depression. The main problem with guidelines is that they are rapidly outdated and that the evidence base relies mainly on registration monotherapy trials that hardly reflect treatment in routine clinical conditions. Conclusion: Treatment guidelines may be useful to avoid non-evidence-based treatment decisions, but they are quickly out-ofdate and may not fully apply to the clinical setting. The more recent guidelines point the value of atypical antipsychotics, lithium, and valproate in the treatment of mania; the role of lithium, lamotrigine, and olanzapine as options for maintenance therapy; and the scarcity of options for the treatment of bipolar depression. Psychoeducation is also supported by most guidelines as an adjunctive treatment. D 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The neuron doctrine - theory and facts

It may seem strange that, since I have always been opposed to the neuron theory-although acknowledging that its starting-point is to be found in my own work-I have chosen this question of the neuron as the subject of my lecture, and that it comes at a time when this doctrine is generally recognized to be going out of favour. The subject, however, is still a very important one in spite of these signs of decline; but more than that, it is a very real one, for the majority of phys-iologists, anatomists and pathologists still support the neuron theory, and no clinician could think himself sufficiently up to date if he did not accept its ideas like articles of faith. It is a subject which deserves to be reexamined all the more because there is a growing tendency to attach to the word neuron a meaning different from the proper one. Many authors, in fact, play on words by substituting the word neuron for nerve cell, and this has now become legalized through common usage and tradition. Admitting that eventual substitution scarcely involves a question of principle and that after all it is nothing new, for continuity between the cell and nerve fibres was already well known, I ought to say that I am against giving a meaning to a word which differs from that given it by the person who introduced the word into science. At a point of time that the results of black staining had hardly started to become generally known, while I had already for about ten years achieved results much better in terms of clarity than those which had attracted attention elsewhere, the idea that cells and nerve cells formed an anatomical unit became much more acceptable to the mind in a far more objective way than that made possible by previous studies. The concept then developed that the cell body and all its processes make up one independent elementary organism which is not joined to others but merely contiguous with them. Waldeyer perceived the existence of such a unit and called it the neuron. In an effort to use the word neuron with the meaning given it by its creator, I must quote in its entirety Waldeyer's own description in a lecture which he gave in 1891 on the latest research into the anatomy of the nervous system. On page 52