Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Clinical Report on Speech Production of Cochlear Implant Users

Objective The aim was to assess articulation and speech intelligibility over time in a group of cochlear implant users implanted at 8 yr or over. The hypothesis was that the postoperative speech production performance would be greater than the preoperative performance. Design A test of intelligibility using sentences and an articulation test measuring non-imitative elicited speech were administered to 11 and 10 subjects, respectively, who were implanted with the 22-elec-trode cochlear implant. Nine subjects received both tests. Age at implantation ranged from 8 yr to 20 yr and implant use ranged from 1 yr to 4 yr 5 mo. Results For both the intelligibility and articulation tests roughly half of the subjects showed significant improvements over time and group mean postoperative performance significantly exceeded preoperative performance. Improvements occurred for front, middle, and back consonants; for stops, fricatives, and glides and for voiceless and voiced consonants. Conclusions Despite being deprived of acoustic speech information for many childhood years, roughly half of the patients assessed showed significant gains in speech intelligibility and articulation postimplantation. The lack of a control group of non-implanted patients means that we cannot separate out the influence of the implant on speech production from other influences such as training and tactile-kinaesthetic feedback.
Courbure discrète : théorie et applications

We describe a framework for robust shape reconstruction from raw point sets, based on optimal transportation between measures, where the input point sets are seen as distribution of masses. In addition to robustness to defect-laden point sets, hampered with noise and outliers, our approach can reconstruct smooth closed shapes as well as piecewise smooth shapes with boundaries.
Blind estimation of long and short Pseudo-random codes in multi-rate LSC-DS-CDMA signals

Aiming at the problem of blind estimation of pseudo-noise codes in multi-rate long and short codes direct sequence code division multiple access signal, in this paper, a novel codes estimation method based on Fast-ICA algorithm and sequences properties is proposed in this paper. The received signal is firstly segmented twice according to its maximum long scrambling code period and minimum spreading code period. Each user’s composite code fragments consisting of long and short codes are separated by Fast-ICA algorithm. Then the user's long and short codes are estimated in descending order of the data rate, and the specific steps are as follows. Firstly, the separated composite code fragments make up the fuzzy sequences, and the double delay-and-multiply method is used to eliminate the order fuzzy and spread code interference. Secondly, combined with cyclotomic cosets and triple correlation properties, the method of feature information matching is used to estimate the long scrambling codes of all users with the same data rate. Meanwhile, the short spread codes are estimated by correlation operation. Lastly, all the estimated users’ composite code fragments are deleted by using similarity matrix, fuzzy sequences are reconstructed, and three steps above are repeated until all users’ long and short codes are estimated. Simulation results show the effectiveness of the proposed method. © 2019, North Atlantic University Union. All rights reserved.
Econometric Prediction on the Effects of Financial Development and Trade Openness on the German Energy Consumption: A Startling Revelation from the Data Set

This study aims to predict the effects of financial development and Trade openness on the German energy consumption. To ensure this, the study used time series data from 1970-2013. Following to this, the Zivot-Andrew structural break unit root test, the Bayer-Hank combined cointegration test, the ARDL bounds test and the VECM Granger causality test were applied. The findings of the study confirmed the existence of cointegration among the variables. As a result, the study discovered that economic growth adds to energy demand in Germany. Surprisingly, financial development, capital use and Trade openness were found to decline energy demand. It was discovered that a 1% increase in economic growth influence energy consumption by 2.1053%. , while a 1% increase in financial development, capital use and Trade openness decrease energy consumption by 0.1863%, 0.9269%, 0.2091% respectively. The causality analysis reveals the existence of feedback effect between financial development and energy consumption and same inference was found to exist between trade openness and energy consumption. The results of the Granger causality analysis reveal that economic growth Granger-cause energy consumption, financial development, capital use and trade openness in Germany. In the light of this, the study advocates for a continued investment effort in renewable energy and the adoption of those policies and strategies that will promote the use of ‘green’ technologies at the industrial level. While at the household level, investment should be encouraged in the appropriate energy infrastructure that could assist with the simultaneous satisfaction of efficient energy usage. Keywords: Economic Growth; Financial Development; Trade; Energy; Germany JEL Classifications: C61; D24; Q42
A randomized clinical trial of three active therapies for chronic low back pain.

STUDY DESIGN A randomized clinical trial. OBJECTIVES To examine the relative efficacy of three active therapies for chronic low back pain. SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA There is much evidence documenting the efficacy of exercise in the conservative management of chronic low back pain, but many questions remain regarding its exact prescription and method of application. The most successful method must be identified to enable refinement of future rehabilitation programs to target the specific needs of the patient with chronic low back pain and the budget of the healthcare provider. METHODS One hundred forty-eight patients with chronic low back pain were randomized to one of the following treatments, which they attended twice a week for 3 months: 1) modern active physiotherapy, 2) muscle reconditioning on training devices, or 3) low-impact aerobics. Pretherapy and posttherapy, objective measurements of lumbar mobility were performed, and questionnaires were administered inquiring about self-rated pain and disability, and psychosocial factors. Similar questionnaires were administered 6 months after therapy. The data were analyzed using the intention-to-treat principle. RESULTS Of the 148 patients, 16 (10.8%) dropped out of the therapy. One hundred thirty-seven questionnaires (93%) were available for analysis at all three time points. After therapy, significant reductions were observed in pain intensity, frequency, and disability; Fear-Avoidance Beliefs about physical activity (FABQactivity); and "praying/hoping," "catastrophizing," and "pain behavior" coping strategies--each with no group differences in the extent of the response. These effects were maintained over the subsequent 6 months, with the exception of disability and FABQactivity for the physiotherapy group. There were small but significant posttherapy increases in lumbar mobility, with aerobics and devices showing a greater response than physiotherapy. CONCLUSION The general lack of treatment specificity suggests that the main effects of the therapies were educed not through the reversal of physical weaknesses targeted by the corresponding exercise modality, but rather through some "central" effect, perhaps involving an adjustment of perception in relation to pain and disability. The direct costs associated with administering physiotherapy were three times as great, and devices four times as great, as those for aerobics. Administration of aerobics as an efficacious therapy for chronic low back pain has the potential to relieve some of the huge financial burden associated with the condition.
The 1996 Soft State Transition of Cygnus X-1

We report continuous monitoring of Cygnus X-1 in the 1.3-200 keV band using All-Sky Monitor/Rossi X-Ray Timing Explorer and BATSE/Compton Gamma Ray Observatory for about 200 days from 1996 February 21 to early September. During this period, Cygnus X-1 experienced a hard-to-soft and then a soft-to-hard state transition. The low-energy X-ray (1.3-12 keV) and high-energy X-ray (20-200 keV) fluxes are strongly anticorrelated during this period. During the state transitions, flux variations of about a factor of 5 and 15 were seen in the 1.3-3.0 keV and 100-200 keV bands, respectively, while the average 4.8-12 keV flux remains almost unchanged. The net effect of this pivoting is that the total 1.3-200 keV luminosity remained unchanged to within ~15%. The bolometric luminosity in the soft state may be as high as 50%-70% above the hard state luminosity, after color corrections for the luminosity below 1.3 keV. The blackbody component flux and temperature increase in the soft state are probably caused by a combination of the optically thick disk mass accretion rate increase and a decrease of the inner disk radius.
Do Conglomerate Firms Allocate Resources Inefficiently Across Industries? Theory and Evidence

We develop a profit-maximizing neoclassical model of optimal firm size and growth across different industries based on differences in industry fundamentals and firm productivity. In the model, a conglomerate discount is consistent with profit maximization. The model predicts how conglomerate firms will allocate resources across divisions over the business cycle and how their responses to industry shocks will differ from those of single-segment firms. Using plant level data, we find that growth and investment of conglomerate and single-segment firms is related to fundamental industry factors and individual segment level productivity. The majority of conglomerate firms exhibit growth across industry segments that is consistent with optimal behavior. Copyright The American Finance Association 2002.
ConFunc – Functional Annotation in the Twilight Zone Supplementary Information

Motivation: The success of genome sequencing has resulted in many protein sequences without functional annotation. We present ConFunc, an automated Gene Ontology (GO) based protein function prediction approach, which uses conserved residues to generate sequence profiles to infer function. ConFunc splits sets of sequences identified by PSI-BLAST into sub-alignments according to their GO annotations. Conserved residues are identified for each GO term sub-alignment for which a position specific scoring matrix is generated. This combination of steps produces a set of feature (GO annotation) derived profiles from which protein function is predicted. Results: We assess the ability of ConFunc, BLAST and PSIBLAST to predict protein function in the twilight zone of sequence similarity. ConFunc significantly outperforms BLAST & PSIBLAST obtaining levels of recall and precision not obtained by either method and maximum precision 24% greater than BLAST. Further for a large test set of sequences with homologues of low sequence identity, at high levels of presicision, ConFunc obtains recall 6 times greater than BLAST. These results demonstrate the potential for ConFunc to form part of an automated genomics annotation pipeline. Availability http://www.sbg. bio.ic. ac.uk/confunc Contact: m.sternberg@imperial.ac.uk Supplementary Material:
Intracellular Localization of Endogenous Mouse ABCG1 Is Mimicked by Both ABCG1-L550 and ABCG1-P550—Brief Report

Objective— In a recent article in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, it was reported that ATP-binding cassette transporter G1 (ABCG1) containing leucine at position 550 (ABCG1-L550) was localized to the plasma membrane, whereas ABCG1-P550 (proline at position 550) was intracellular. Because the published data on the subcellular localization of ABCG1 are controversial, we performed additional experiments to determine the importance of leucine or proline at amino acid 550. Approach and Results— We transfected multiple cell lines (CHO-K1, Cos-7, and HEK293 [human embryonic kidney]) with untagged or FLAG-tagged ABCG1 containing either leucine or proline at position 550. Immunofluorescence studies demonstrated that in all cases, ABCG1 localized to intracellular endosomal vesicles. We also show that both ABCG1-L550 and ABCG1-P550 are equally active in both promoting the efflux of cellular cholesterol to exogenous high-density lipoprotein and in inducing the activity of sterol regulatory element–binding protein-2, presumably as a result of redistributing intracellular sterols away from the endoplasmic reticulum. Importantly, we treated nontransfected primary peritoneal macrophages with a liver X receptor agonist and demonstrate, using immunofluorescence, that although endogenous ABCG1 localizes to intracellular endosomes, none was detectable at the cell surface/plasma membrane. Conclusions— ABCG1, irrespective of either a leucine or proline at position 550, is an intracellular protein that localizes to vesicles of the endosomal pathway where it functions to mobilize sterols away from the endoplasmic reticulum and out of the cell.
Automatic Paraphasia Detection from Aphasic Speech: A Preliminary Study

Aphasia is an acquired language disorder resulting from brain damage that can cause significant communication difficulties. Aphasic speech is often characterized by errors known as paraphasias, the analysis of which can be used to determine an appropriate course of treatment and to track an individual’s recovery progress. Being able to detect paraphasias automatically has many potential clinical benefits; however, this problem has not previously been investigated in the literature. In this paper, we perform the first study on detecting phonemic and neologistic paraphasias from scripted speech samples in AphasiaBank. We propose a speech recognition system with task-specific language models to transcribe aphasic speech automatically. We investigate features based on speech duration, Goodness of Pronunciation, phone edit distance, and Dynamic Time Warping on phoneme posteriorgrams. Our results demonstrate the feasibility of automatic paraphasia detection and outline the path toward enabling this system in real-world clinical applications.
MAXCUT is UGC-hard to approximate [ KKMO 05 ]

We present a key result of Khot, Kindler, Mossel and O'Donnel [KKMO05] which states that if the Unique Games Conjecture [Khot02] holds then the Goemans-Williamson approximation algorithm [GW95] for MAXCUT is optimal, unless P = NP . Prepared for the Student Seminar in Complexity at the Weizmann Institute of Science, organized by Roei Tell. These notes aim to help the students (including, most importantly, me) during the presentation, so informalities and inaccuracies are to be expected. 1 Preliminaries 1.1 Fourier analysis of Boolean functions Recall that each f : {±1} → R can be uniquely written as f = ∑ S⊆[n] f̂ (S)χS where χS (x) = ∏ i∈S xi, and the following de nitions and facts De nition 1.1. The in uence of i on f is
Antibiotics, Present and Future

The problem of antibiotic resistance in bacterial pathogens is a problem in genetic ecology. For the past half century, microbes have been exposed to enormous quantities of toxic agents (antibiotics) and they have survived. The principal survival strategy employed was the functional acquisition and horizontal transfer of antibiotic resistance genes. It is apparent that the genetic mechanisms involved in these processes were novel and that they were likely to have been involved in the broader aspect of bacterial genome evolution for a long period of time.
What metaphor identification systems can tell us about metaphor-in-language

This paper evaluates four metaphor identification systems on the 200,000 word VU Amsterdam Metaphor Corpus, comparing results by genre and by sub-class of metaphor. The paper then compares the rate of agreement between the systems for each genre and sub-class. Each of the identification systems is based, explicitly or implicitly, on a theory of metaphor which hypothesizes that certain properties are essential to metaphor-inlanguage. The goal of this paper is to see what the success or failure of these systems can tell us about the essential properties of metaphorin-language. The success of the identification systems varies significantly across genres and sub-classes of metaphor. At the same time, the different systems achieve similar success rates on each even though they show low agreement among themselves. This is taken to be evidence that there are several sub-types of metaphor-in-language and that the ideal metaphor identification system will first define these sub-types and then model the linguistic properties which can distinguish these sub-types from one another and from nonmetaphors.
Altered Calcium Dynamics Do Not Account for Attenuation of Endothelium-Derived Hyperpolarizing Factor–Mediated Dilations in the Female Middle Cerebral Artery

Background and Purpose— The contribution of endothelium-derived hyperpolarizing factor (EDHF) to ATP-mediated dilations is significantly attenuated in the rat middle cerebral artery of intact and estrogen-treated ovariectomized (OVX) females compared with males and vehicle-treated OVX females. Since an increase in endothelial calcium appears to be a critical prerequisite in the EDHF response, we tested the hypothesis that endothelial cell intracellular calcium ([Ca2+]i) fails to reach sufficient levels to elicit robust EDHF-mediated dilations in females and that this effect is mediated by estrogen. Methods— Vascular diameter and [Ca2+]i were measured concomitantly in perfused middle cerebral artery segments with the use of videomicroscopy and fura 2 fluorescence, respectively. Results— In the presence of NG-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester and indomethacin, the dilation to 10−5 mol/L ATP was significantly reduced (P <0.05) in intact females (42±8%; n=6) and estrogen-treated OVX females (25±6%; n=9) compared with intact males (89±5%; n=6) and vehicle-treated OVX females (92±2%; n=7). Contrary to our initial hypothesis, endothelial cell [Ca2+]i increased to comparable levels in intact females (461±116 nmol/L), estrogen-treated OVX females (417±50 nmol/L), intact males (421±77 nmol/L), and vehicle-treated OVX females (530±92 nmol/L). In response to luminal ATP (10−5 mol/L), smooth muscle cell [Ca2+]i decreased to a greater degree in males (37±4%; n=8) compared with females (21±5%; n=7) and in vehicle-treated OVX females (18±7%; n=7) compared with estrogen-treated OVX females (3±5%; n=9). Conclusions— Our data suggest that loss of a factor coupling EDHF to reduction of ionized smooth muscle cell [Ca2+]i accounts for the attenuated EDHF-mediated dilations in the female middle cerebral artery.
UPPER INCISOR PROMINENCE IS A GOOD PREDICTOR OF DIFFICULT INTUBATION

Respiratory tract complications are the most common adverse events associated with anesthesia. h e incidence of dii cult intubation in the general population is 5.8% (95% CI, 4.5%-7.5%) (3). By dei nition of the American Society of Anesthesiologists, dii cult intubation is the one that requires multiple intubation attempts in the presence or absence of tracheal pathology, whereas unsuccessful intubation is impossibility of placing endotracheal tube in spite of multiple attempts (4).
Iteratively Reweighted Least Squares Algorithms for L1-Norm Principal Component Analysis

Principal component analysis (PCA) is often used to reduce the dimension of data by selecting a few orthonormal vectors that explain most of the variance structure of the data. L1 PCA uses the L1 norm to measure error, whereas the conventional PCA uses the L2 norm. For the L1 PCA problem minimizing the fitting error of the reconstructed data, we propose an exact reweighted and an approximate algorithm based on iteratively reweighted least squares. We provide convergence analyses, and compare their performance against benchmark algorithms in the literature. The computational experiment shows that the proposed algorithms consistently perform best.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Recent Work Title Against the wind : Radio light curves of type ia supernovae interacting with low-density circumstellar shells Permalink

For decades, a wide variety of observations spanning the radio through optical and on to the xray have attempted to uncover signs of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) interacting with a circumstellar medium (CSM). The goal of these studies is to constrain the nature of the hypothesized SN Ia mass-donor companion. A continuous CSM is typically assumed when interpreting observations of interaction. However, while such models have been successfully applied to core-collapse SNe, the assumption of continuity may not be accurate for SNe Ia, as shells of CSM could be formed by presupernova eruptions (novae). In this work, we model the interaction of SNe with a spherical, low density, finite-extent CSM and create a suite of synthetic radio synchrotron light curves. We find that CSM shells produce sharply peaked light curves, and identify a fiducial set of models that all obey a common evolution and can be used to generate radio light curves for interaction with an arbitrary shell. The relations obeyed by the fiducial models can be used to deduce CSM properties from radio observations; we demonstrate this by applying them to the non-detections of SN 2011fe and SN 2014J. Finally, we explore a multiple shell CSM configuration and describe its more complicated dynamics and resultant radio light curves.
Manufacturing of microchannels in soda-lime glass by femtosecond laser and chemical etching

We report the fabrication of rectangular shaped microchannels inscribed in ordinary microscope slides by using Femtosecond Laser Irradiation followed by Chemical Etching (FLICE) technique that allow to construct true 3-D structures. The femtosecond laser pulses in conjunction with a nano positioner are initialy used to make a matrix of interconnected waveguides. This matrix is dipped in a 10% fluoridric acid (HF) to modify the matrix to a microchannel. The process of line-by-line recording using FLICE technique is used because it permits better control over the microchannels characteristics aimed to specific aplications.
Neurobiology and the Development of Violence: Common Assumptions and Controversies

This paper addresses four common assumptions and related controversies regarding neurobiological factors explaining violence: (i) scholars often assume stability of individual differences in neurobiological factors pertaining to violence, yet much change occurs in aggression/violence during the life course, (ii) individual differences in aggression/violence reflect one or more underlying mechanisms that are believed to have neurobiological origins, yet there is little agreement about which underlying mechanisms apply best, (iii) the development of aggression/violence to some degree can be explained by social, individual, economic and environmental factors, yet it is unclear to what extent neurobiological factors can explain the escalation to, and desistance from, violence over and above social, individual, economic and environmental factors, and (iv) violence waxes and wanes in society over time, yet the explanation of secular differences in violence by means of neurobiological and other factors is not clear. Longitudinal analyses from the Pittsburgh Youth Study are used to illustrate several of these issues.