Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spectral Coefficient Analyses of Word-Initial Stop Consonant Productions Suggest Similar Anticipatory Coarticulation for Stuttering and Nonstuttering Adults

A longstanding hypothesis about the sensorimotor mechanisms underlying stuttering suggests that stuttered speech dysfluencies result from a lack of coarticulation. Formant-based measures of either the stuttered or fluent speech of children and adults who stutter have generally failed to obtain compelling evidence in support of the hypothesis that these individuals differ in the timing or degree of coarticulation. Here, we used a sensitive acoustic technique–spectral coefficient analyses–that allowed us to compare stuttering and nonstuttering speakers with regard to vowel-dependent anticipatory influences as early as the onset burst of a preceding voiceless stop consonant. Eight adults who stutter and eight matched adults who do not stutter produced C1VC2 words, and the first four spectral coefficients were calculated for one analysis window centered on the burst of C1 and two subsequent windows covering the beginning of the aspiration phase. Findings confirmed that the combined use of four spectral coefficients is an effective method for detecting the anticipatory influence of a vowel on the initial burst of a preceding voiceless stop consonant. However, the observed patterns of anticipatory coarticulation showed no statistically significant differences, or trends toward such differences, between the stuttering and nonstuttering groups. Combining the present results for fluent speech in one given phonetic context with prior findings from both stuttered and fluent speech in a variety of other contexts, we conclude that there is currently no support for the hypothesis that the fluent speech of individuals who stutter is characterized by limited coarticulation.
Nonperturbative comparison of clover and highly improved staggered quarks in lattice QCD and the properties of the ϕ meson

We compare correlators for pseudoscalar and vector mesons made from valence strange quarks using the clover quark and highly improved staggered quark (HISQ) formalisms in full lattice QCD. We use fully nonperturbative methods to normalize vector and axial vector current operators made from HISQ quarks, clover quarks and from combining HISQ and clover fields. This allows us to test expectations for the renormalization factors based on perturbative QCD, with implications for the error budget of lattice QCD calculations of the matrix elements of clover-staggered b-light weak currents, as well as further HISQ calculations of the hadronic vacuum polarization.We also compare the approach to the (same) continuum limit in clover and HISQ formalisms for the mass and decay constant of the ϕ meson. Our final results for these parameters, using single-meson correlators and allowing an uncertainty for the neglect of quark-line disconnected diagrams are: Mϕ ¼ 1. 023ð6Þ GeV and fϕ ¼ 0. 238ð3Þ GeV in good agreement with experiment. The results come from calculations in the HISQ formalism using gluon fields that include the effect of u, d, s and c quarks in the sea with three lattice spacing values and mu=d values going down to the physical point.
The effect of commitment to future interaction on reactions to norm violations.

Social norms are important, m part, because they prevent harmful or anarchic social mtercourse, enable persons to agree on a common definition of the social situabon (see Goffman, 1959), and lower the cost of social exchange (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). It follows, then, that those who violate social norms will be negabvely evaluated (e g, S. Kiesler, 1966) But one's covert evaluabon and overt treatment of an mappropnate other depend on a number of situabonal vanables, including the expectabon of future mteracbon with the other. There is akeady considerable evidence that strong anticipabon of future mteracbon with others profoundly affects social attitudes and behavior (eg., Kiesler, Zanna, & De Salvo, 1966) C. Kiesler (m press) has argued that commitment to future mteracbon makes certam responses to others more difficult, and, therefore, less probable. Certam alternative reacbons to a person who acts mappropnately should also be more difficult when one IS committed to future mteracbon with him Intuibvely, when one must interact with another over time it should be more difficult to discoimt or "forget" the violabon because the present violabon may have predicbve importance. Therefore, covert negabve feelmgs toward a norm violator should be greater when
An Improved Two-Factor Mutual Authentication Scheme with Key Agreement in Wireless Sensor Networks

As a main component of Internet of Things (IoTs), the wireless sensor networks (WSNs) have been widely applied to various areas, including environment monitoring, health monitoring of human body, farming, commercial manufacture, reconnaissance mission in military, and calamity alert etc. Meanwhile, the privacy concerns also arise when the users are required to get the real-time data from the sensor nodes directly. To solve this problem, several user authentication and key agreement schemes with a smart card and a password have been proposed in the past years. However, these schemes are vulnerable to some attacks such as offline password guessing attack, user impersonation attack by using attacker’s own smart card, sensor node impersonation attack and gateway node bypassing attack. In this paper, we propose an improved scheme which can resist a wide variety of attacks in WSNs. Cryptanalysis and performance analysis show that our scheme can solve the weaknesses of previously proposed schemes and enhance security requirements while maintaining low computational cost.
The long-term natural history of the weekly symptomatic status of bipolar I disorder.

BACKGROUND To our knowledge, this is the first prospective natural history study of weekly symptomatic status of patients with bipolar I disorder (BP-I) during long-term follow-up. METHODS Analyses are based on ongoing prospective follow-up of 146 patients with Research Diagnostic Criteria BP-I, who entered the National Institute of Mental Health (Bethesda, Md) Collaborative Depression Study from 1978 through 1981. Weekly affective symptom status ratings were analyzed by polarity and severity, ranging from asymptomatic, to subthreshold levels, to full-blown major depression and mania. Percentages of follow-up weeks at each level as well as number of shifts in symptom status and polarity during the entire follow-up period were examined. Finally, 2 new measures of chronicity were evaluated in relation to previously identified predictors of chronicity for BP-I. RESULTS Patients with BP-I were symptomatically ill 47.3% of weeks throughout a mean of 12.8 years of follow-up. Depressive symptoms (31.9% of total follow-up weeks) predominated over manic/hypomanic symptoms (8.9% of weeks) or cycling/mixed symptoms (5.9% of weeks). Subsyndromal, minor depressive, and hypomanic symptoms combined were nearly 3 times more frequent than syndromal-level major depressive and manic symptoms (29.9% vs 11.2% of weeks, respectively). Patients with BP-I changed symptom status an average of 6 times per year and polarity more than 3 times per year. Longer intake episodes and those with depression-only or cycling polarity predicted greater chronicity during long-term follow-up, as did comorbid drug-use disorder. CONCLUSIONS The longitudinal weekly symptomatic course of BP-I is chronic. Overall, the symptomatic structure is primarily depressive rather than manic, and subsyndromal and minor affective symptoms predominate. Symptom severity levels fluctuate, often within the same patient over time. Bipolar I disorder is expressed as a dimensional illness featuring the full range (spectrum) of affective symptom severity and polarity.
Nutritional Status in the First 2 Years of Life in Cystic Fibrosis Diagnosed by Newborn Screening

Objective: To evaluate nutritional status and associated factors in a cystic fibrosis (CF) cohort diagnosed by newborn screening and followed up to month 24. Methods: A prospective longitudinal multicenter study assessing nutritional status according to pancreatic status, feeding modalities, prescriptions, pulmonary outcome, and biological nutritional parameters. Results: One hundred and five infants were recruited and 99 completed the study. Nutritional care management prevented undernutrition and stunting in those with exocrine pancreatic sufficiency (EPS), but affected (13/87) 15% and (21/86) 24%, respectively, of infants with exocrine pancreatic insufficiency (EPI). The logistic regression model found a positive association between both weight and length z scores “at risk” at month 24, and initial pulmonary symptoms (odds ratio [OR] 0.06, P < 0.01 and OR 0.08, P < 0.01, respectively); these symptoms were less frequent when age at first visit was earlier than 1.2 months (33% vs 67%, P = 0.02); stunting was also associated with high-calorie density intake and Staphylococcus aureus (OR 0.05, P = 0.01 and OR 0.17, P < 0.01). Pulmonary outcome did not differ according to pancreatic status; breast-feeding for at least 3 months delayed first acquisition of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Despite sodium and fat-soluble vitamin supplementation, half of both cohorts had low urinary sodium output and half of the EPI cohort had low vitamin D levels. Conclusions: Our data shed light on the fact that stunting was more frequent than undernutrition, while both parameters involved only patients with pancreatic insufficiency. Modalities of feeding were not associated with nutritional status; breast-feeding may provide some protection against acquisition of P aeruginosa.
A comparison of the ultrasound measurement of the inferior vena cava obtained with cardiac and convex transducers

Abstract Background Ultrasound measurement of the inferior vena cava diameter and its respiratory variability are amongst the predictors of fluid volume status. The primary purpose of the present study was to compare the consistency of inferior vena cava diameter measurements and the collapsibility index, obtained with convex and cardiac transducers. A secondary aim was to assess the agreement of the patient’s allocation to one of the two groups: “fluid responder” or “fluid non-responder”, based on inferior vena cava collapsibility index calculation made with two different probes. Methods 20 experienced clinicians blinded to the purpose of the study analysed forty anonymized digital clips of images obtained during ultrasound examination of 20 patients. For each patient, one digital loop was recorded with a cardiac and the second with a convex probe. The participants were asked to determine the maximal and minimal diameters of the inferior vena cava in all presented films. An independent researcher performed a comparative analysis of the measurements conducted with both probes by all participants. The calculation of the collapsibility index and allocation to “fluid responder” or “fluid non-responder” group was performed at this stage of the study. Results The comparison of measurements obtained with cardiac and convex probes showed no statistically significant differences in the measurements of the maximal and minimal dimensions and in the collapsibility index. We also noticed that the decision of allocation to the “fluid responder” or “non-responder” group was not probe-dependent. Conclusion Both transducers can be used interchangeably for the estimation of the studied dimensions.
Adaptive traffic light control on highway entrances

In this work, we study the problem of optimal traffic signal control of automotive flow on urban multilane road. We employ macroscopic approach, describing traffic flow with non-linear second-order hyperbolic system on PDEs (for traffic density and speed). We close this system with the equation for dependency of traffic flow intensity on its density, obtained empirically for each segment of the road based on traffic detector data and GPS tracks. We verify the effectiveness of proposed methodology using numerical modeling of Moscow Automotive Ring Road, a 10-lane, 108 km long highway encircling the city of Moscow, Russia.
The interaction of beta-lactoglobulin with ciprofloxacin and kanamycin; a spectroscopic and molecular modeling approach

A vast research has been conducted to find suitable and safe carriers for vital and pH-sensitive drugs including antibiotics. This article reports the use of easily accessible and abundant purified beta-lactoglobulin (β-LG) protein as the potential carrier of widely used Kanamycin (Kana) and Ciprofloxacin (Cip) antibiotics. Spectroscopic techniques (Fluorescence, UV–vis, Circular Dichroism) combined with molecular docking were used to determine the binding mechanism of these drugs. Fluorescence studies showed moderate binding affinity with the calculated binding constants KCip = 60.1 (±0.2) × 103 M−1 and Kkana = 2.5 (±0.6) × 103 M−1 with the order of Cip > Kana. Results of UV–vis were consistent with fluorescence measurements and demonstrated a stronger complexation for Cip rather than Kana. The secondary structure of β-LG was preserved upon interaction with Kana; however, a reduction in β-sheet content from 39.1 to 31.9% was convoyed with an increase in α-helix from 12.8 to 20.5% due to complexation of Cip. Molecular docking studies demonstrated that preferred binding sites of these drugs are not the same and several amino acids are involved in stabilizing the interaction. Based on the achieved results, Kana and Cip can spontaneously bind to β-LG and this protein may serve as their transport vehicle.
Nematodes: The Worm and Its Relatives

Browse recently published articles in most issues of leading journals, and there will be mention of “the worm”. What is this worm, why is it so keenly studied by so many, and what has it told us about the diversity of life? And why this worm, and not one of the many other worms?
Outcomes That Matter to Teens With Type 1 Diabetes

Purpose The purpose of the study was to describe outcomes that matter to teens with type 1 diabetes. Understanding outcomes that matter to teens could support successful interventions to improve diabetes self-management. Methods Fifty publicly available posts published in the “teen” sections of 2 major diabetes online forums between 2011 and 2013 were analyzed using qualitative research methods. From each post, content and descriptive data (eg, duration of diabetes and age) were collected. Two members of the research team independently used open coding techniques to identify outcomes (defined as impacts or consequences of type 1 diabetes) and organized them into themes and subthemes. A codebook was jointly developed to facilitate the identification of meaningful outcomes from the posts. Results Teens’ average age was 15.7 years, and the average time since diabetes diagnosis was 6.3 years. The 3 most commonly mentioned outcomes were (1) interactions with peers (“I want to talk to someone who understands”), (2) emotional well-being (“Diabetes makes me want to cry”), and (3) blood glucose management (“My blood sugar never goes down”). Other identified outcomes included (4) physical well-being, (5) education and motivation of others, (6) family interactions, (7) academic achievement, and (8) interactions with important others such as teachers. Conclusions While teens are concerned about control of their blood glucose, there are many other outcomes that matter to them. Health care providers and diabetes educators may want to consider these other outcomes when motivating teens with type 1 diabetes to improve blood glucose control.
Quantum phase transition and non-Fermi liquid behavior in Fe1−xCoxSi (x ⩾ 0.7)

We report on the nature of electron correlations in Fe1−xCoxSi (0.7⩽x<1) using combined results of magnetization, specific heat and transport properties. Doping driven quantum critical point is observed to occur at x∼0.75. The magnetically unstable regime is identified to be centered around x∈ [0.75,0.95]. The emergence of non-Fermi liquid behaviors in x = 0.8 (near to ferromagnetic quantum critical point) and x = 0.9 (disorder-induced) compositions are discussed on the basis of the power-law dependence of susceptibility χ∼T−g (g∼1.07 for x = 0.8 and 0.55 for x = 0.9), specific heat C/T∼T−1+λ (λ∼1.52 for x = 0.8 and 0.9) and resistivity Δρ∼Td (d∼1.56 for x = 0.8 and 1.38 for x = 0.9). Further, a comprehensive classification of doping dependent physical properties of Fe1−xCoxSi is presented in the revisited temperature-composition (T-x) phase diagram.
Sex-specific markers developed by next-generation sequencing confirmed an XX/XY sex determination system in bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix)

Sex-specific markers are powerful tools for identifying sex-determination system in various ani-mals. Bighead carp ( Hypophthalmichthys nobilis ) and silver carp ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix ) are two of the most important edible fish in Asia, which have a long juvenility period that can lasts for 4–5years. In this study, we found one sex-specific marker by next-generation sequencing together with bioinformatics analysis in bighead carp. The male-specific markers were used to perform molecular sexing in the progenies of artificial gynogenetic diploids and found all progenies ( n ¼ 160) were females. Meanwhile, around 1 : 1 sex ratio was observed in a total of 579 juvenile offspring from three other families. To further extend the male-specific region, we performed genome walking and got a male-specific sequence of 8,661bp. Five pairs of primers were designed and could be used to efficiently distinguish males from females in bighead carp and silver carp. The development of these male-specific markers and results of their molecular sexing in different populations provide strong evidence for a sex determination system of female homoga-metry or male heterogametry (XX/XY) in bighead carp and silver carp. To the best of our knowl-edge, this is the first report of effective sex-specific markers in these two large carp species.
Loss of Bim Increases T Cell Production and Function in Interleukin 7 Receptor–deficient Mice

Interleukin (IL)-7 receptor (R) signaling is essential for T and B lymphopoiesis by promoting proliferation, differentiation, and survival of cells. Mice lacking either IL-7 or the IL-7Rα chain have abnormally low numbers of immature as well as mature T and B lymphocytes. Transgenic expression of the apoptosis inhibitor Bcl-2 rescues T cell development and function in IL-7Rα–deficient mice, indicating that activation of a proapoptotic Bcl-2 family member causes death of immature and mature T cells. BH3-only proteins such as Bim, which are distant proapoptotic members of the Bcl-2 family, are essential initiators of programmed cell death and stress-induced apoptosis. We generated Bim/IL-7Rα double deficient mice and found that loss of Bim significantly increased thymocyte numbers, restored near normal numbers of mature T cells in the blood and spleen, and enhanced cytotoxic T cell responses to virus infection in IL-7Rα−/− mice. These results indicate that Bim cooperates with other proapoptotic proteins in the death of IL-7–deprived T cell progenitors in vivo, but is the major inducer of this pathway to apoptosis in mature T cells. This indicates that pharmacological inhibition of Bim function might be useful for boosting immune responses in immunodeficient patients.
A novel method for salient image enhancement

Visual Salient Object Detection and enhancement plays a vital role in many computer vision applications. In the traditional image processing approaches which are used to extract salient maps have various assumptions such as color, contrast, context, gradient and histogram. The existed models have achieved good progress to extract saliency map on selected features, still considerable features are unclear. The detection sensitivity of the previous models to object interior texture, background textures, object boundaries and blurred contours is same. The proposed model is based on multi-scale transforms and it is developed by contrast based enhancement operator. This approach includes properties of multi-scales and entropy measure of image. By using this we can achieve more complete and uniformly enhanced salient object regions. This model can enhance the salient object interior textures, background texture while simultaneously reducing blur on object boundaries. It achieves better enhancement measure of entropy, frequency measure and mean absolute errors which are the performance measures of salient object enhancement while compared to the state of art methods.
Superior Glycemic Control With a Glucose-Responsive Insulin Analog: Hepatic and Nonhepatic Impacts

We evaluated the hepatic and nonhepatic responses to glucose-responsive insulin (GRI). Eight dogs received GRI or regular human insulin (HI) in random order. A primed, continuous intravenous infusion of [3-3H]glucose began at −120 min. Basal sampling (−30 to 0 min) was followed by two study periods (150 min each), clamp period 1 (P1) and clamp period 2 (P2). At 0 min, somatostatin and GRI (36 ± 3 pmol/kg/min) or HI (1.8 pmol/kg/min) were infused intravenously; basal glucagon was replaced intraportally. Glucose was infused intravenously to clamp plasma glucose at 80 mg/dL (P1) and 240 mg/dL (P2). Whole-body insulin clearance and insulin concentrations were not different in P1 versus P2 with HI, but whole-body insulin clearance was 23% higher and arterial insulin 16% lower in P1 versus P2 with GRI. Net hepatic glucose output was similar between treatments in P1. In P2, both treatments induced net hepatic glucose uptake (HGU) (HI mean ± SEM 2.1 ± 0.5 vs. 3.3 ± 0.4 GRI mg/kg/min). Nonhepatic glucose uptake in P1 and P2, respectively, differed between treatments (2.6 ± 0.3 and 7.4 ± 0.6 mg/kg/min with HI vs. 2.0 ± 0.2 and 8.1 ± 0.8 mg/kg/min with GRI). Thus, glycemia affected GRI but not HI clearance, with resultant differential effects on HGU and nonHGU. GRI holds promise for decreasing hypoglycemia risk while enhancing glucose uptake under hyperglycemic conditions.
Parallax360: Stereoscopic 360° Scene Representation for Head-Motion Parallax

We propose a novel 360° scene representation for converting real scenes into stereoscopic 3D virtual reality content with head-motion parallax. Our image-based scene representation enables efficient synthesis of novel views with six degrees-of-freedom (6-DoF) by fusing motion fields at two scales: (1) disparity motion fields carry implicit depth information and are robustly estimated from multiple laterally displaced auxiliary viewpoints, and (2) pairwise motion fields enable real-time flow-based blending, which improves the visual fidelity of results by minimizing ghosting and view transition artifacts. Based on our scene representation, we present an end-to-end system that captures real scenes with a robotic camera arm, processes the recorded data, and finally renders the scene in a head-mounted display in real time (more than 40 Hz). Our approach is the first to support head-motion parallax when viewing real 360° scenes. We demonstrate compelling results that illustrate the enhanced visual experience — and hence sense of immersion-achieved with our approach compared to widely-used stereoscopic panoramas.
Iterative Sequential OFDM Symbol Estimation Algorithm over Time-Frequency-Selective Fading Channels

Time-frequency-selective, i.e., time-variant multipath, fading in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems destroys subcamer orthogonality, resulting in intercarrier interference (ICI). In general, the previously proposed estimation schemes to resolve this problem are only applicable to slowly time-variant channels or suffer from high complexity due to large-sized matrix inversion. In this letter, we propose and develop efficient symbol estimation schemes, called the iterative sequential neighbor search (ISNS) algorithm and the simplified iterative sequential neighbor search (S-ISNS) algorithm. These algorithms achieve enhanced performances with low complexities, compared to the existing estimation methods.