Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Syllable and language model based features for detecting non-scorable tests in spoken language proficiency assessment applications

This work introduces new methods for detecting non-scorable tests, i.e., tests that cannot be accurately scored automatically, in educational applications of spoken language proficiency assessment. Those include cases of unreliable automatic speech recognition (ASR), often because of noisy, off-topic, foreign or unintelligible speech. We examine features that estimate signalderived syllable information and compare it with ASR results in order to detect responses with problematic recognition. Further, we explore the usefulness of language model based features, both for language models that are highly constrained to the spoken task, and for task independent phoneme language models. We validate our methods on a challenging dataset of young English language learners (ELLs) interacting with an automatic spoken assessment system. Our proposed methods achieve comparable performance compared to existing non-scorable detection approaches, and lead to a 21% relative performance increase when combined with existing approaches.
Plasma lutein concentrations are related to dietary intake, but unrelated to dietary saturated fat or cognition in young children

Lutein and zeaxanthin are xanthophyll carotenoids present in highly pigmented vegetables and fruits. Lutein is selectively accumulated in the brain relative to other carotenoids. Recent evidence has linked lutein to cognition in older adults, but little is known about lutein in young children, despite structural brain development. We determined lutein intake using FFQ, one 24 h recall and three 24 h recalls, plasma lutein concentrations and their association with cognition in 160 children 5·6–5·9 years of age, at low risk for neurodevelopmental delay. Plasma lutein was skewed, with a median of 0·23 (2·5th to 95th percentile range 0·11–0·53) µmol/l. Plasma lutein showed a higher correlation with lutein intake estimated as the average of three 24 h recalls (r 0·479; P = 0·001), rather than one 24 h recall (r 0·242; P = 0·003) or FFQ (r 0·316; P = 0·001). The median lutein intake was 697 (2·5th to 95th percentile range 178–5287) µg/d based on three 24 h recalls. Lutein intake was inversely associated with SFA intake, but dietary fat or SFA intakes were not associated with plasma lutein. No associations were found between plasma lutein or lutein intake and any measure of cognition. While subtle independent effects of lutein on child cognition are possible, separating these effects from covariates making an impact on both child diet and cognition may be difficult.
Summarization Experiments in DUC 2004

CL Research's participation in the Document Understanding Conference for 2004 was primarily intended to conduct further experiments in the use of XML-tagged documents containing increasingly richer characterizations of texts. We extended the Knowledge Management System to include (1) a refined capability for identifying multiword units (phrases) for use in keyword generation, (2) the incorporation of word-sense disambiguation to tag senses and identify semantic types, and (3) the integration of question-answering functionality into the summarization framework. We did not devote much effort in refining our system to create summaries for the five tasks, but achieved reasonable levels of performance. We viewed the length restrictions imposed on the tasks as not providing sufficient flexibility to investigate different modes of summarization. We viewed the tasks of summarizing machine translations of poor quality as not very interesting. We used Tasks 1 and 3 to develop and r efine a keywor d gen er ation capa bility, ach ieving levels of four th of 18 a nd fourth of 10 priority 1 systems. In the more general summarization tasks, our performance was near the bottom of participating systems, but still achieved acceptable levels of performance. We performed much better on quality measures with our extraction-based summaries, with an overall level of third of 14 systems for Task 5. For several quality measures, our performance was somewhat less; these levels identify specifically those areas of summarization analysis where the use of an XML representation are particularly amenable to improvement. While we will continue to improve our summarization capability within the general guidelines, we believe that summarization is only one part of document understanding and may not represent needs of users for document exploration at a much deeper level.
Mobility of Section 8 Families in 4 Alameda County Housing Economics

12 During the early 1990s, Section 8 vouchers were touted by the US Department of 13 Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as the way to provide greater housing 14 choice for the poor while also deconcentrating them. Toward the end of the 1990s, 15 however, evidence mounted that the voucher system was not deconcentrating the 16 poor. In response, HUD developed a set of five major demonstration programs that 17 supplemented the vouchers with various arrays of social services. While waiting for 18 results of these programs to return, HUD discovered that Section 8 participants in 19 local housing authorities in Alameda County, California, were experiencing an unex20 pected amount of interjurisdictional mobility toward suburban locations. Using a lo21 cal database of 16,951 Section 8 families and both logit and multinomial logit 22 analysis, this paper presents a cursory examination into the motivations of their sub23 urban mobility. 2002 Elsevier Science (USA). All rights reserved.
Alkaline Anion Exchange Membranes for Fuel Cells- A Patent Review

Recently, Alkaline Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (APEMFCs) have been attracting worldwide attention mainly due to the prospect of using non–platinum–group metal catalysts. In addition, there is growing evidence that these fuel cells can operate with the presence of carbonate. This mini review will introduce the state–of–the–art in understanding of alkaline anion–exchange membranes (AAEMs) in solid alkaline fuel cells. Ionomers for membrane electrode assembly (MEA) fabrication and the chemistry of the carbonate and bicarbonate forms of the AAEMs are also discussed. Key references to the latest scientific literature and reviews are included, along with a brief overview of directly relevant patents.
A randomized controlled study on the effect of two different treatments (FREMS AND TENS) in myofascial pain syndrome.

AIM Myofascial pain syndrome (MPS) is a frequent cause of chronic muscoloskeletal pain. Transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) is one of the most frequently employed treatments in MPS. The aim of this study is to compare the short and medium-term effects of frequency modulated neural stimulation (FREMS) to those of TENS in MPS. METHODS Forty subjects with upper trapezius MPS were randomly allocated to 1 of 2 groups, treated with either FREMS (n=19) or TENS (n=21). Each treatment consisted in 10 sessions lasting 20 min each. Patients were evaluated before treatment, at 1 week, and at 1 and 3 months after the end of treatment. Clinical evaluation included parameters for measurement of pain levels using the neck pain and disability visual analogue scale (NPDVAS) and algometry, evaluation of myofascial trigger point characteristics and measurement of the range of cervical movement (range of motion, ROM). RESULTS The FREMS group showed a significant improvement in the NPDVAS, algometry, in myofascial trigger point characteristics, and in the ROM (homolateral rotation, controlateral rotation, bending and extension) after the end of treatment and at 1 and 3 months follow-up evaluation. The TENS group showed significant improvement in the same outcome measures except for algometry and cervical extension, but these improvements were maintained only at the 1 month follow-up evaluation. However, were not observed statistically significant differences between FREMS of TENS in many of outcome measures. CONCLUSIONS Both FREMS and TENS have positive short-term effects on MPS. But, medium-term effects were achieved only with FREMS.
Midkine: A Promising Molecule for Drug Development to Treat Diseases of the Central Nervous System

Midkine (MK) is a heparin-binding cytokine, and promotes growth, survival, migration and other activities of target cells. After describing the general properties of MK, this review focuses on MK and MK inhibitors as therapeutics for diseases in the central nervous system. MK is strongly expressed during embryogenesis especially at the midgestation period, but is expressed only at restricted sites in adults. MK expression is induced upon tissue injury such as ischemic brain damage. Since exogenously administered MK or the gene transfer of MK suppresses neuronal cell death in experimental systems, MK has the potential to treat cerebral infarction. MK might become important also in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. MK is involved in inflammatory diseases by enhancing migration of leukocytes, inducing chemokine production and suppressing regulatory T cells. Since an aptamer to MK suppresses experimental autoimmune encephalitis, MK inhibitors are promising for the treatment of multiple sclerosis. MK is overexpressed in most malignant tumors including glioblastoma, and is involved in tumor invasion. MK inhibitors may be of value in the treatment of glioblastoma. Furthermore, an oncolytic adenovirus, whose replication is under the control of the MK promoter, inhibits the growth of glioblastoma xenografts. MK inhibitors under development include antibodies, aptamers, glycosaminoglycans, peptides and low molecular weight compounds. siRNA and antisense oligoDNA have proved effective against malignant tumors and inflammatory diseases in experimental systems. Practical information concerning the development of MK and MK inhibitors as therapeutics is described in the final part of the review.
The Relationship of School Structure and Support to Suspension Rates for Black and White High School Students

This study examined the relationship between structure and support in the high school climate and suspension rates in a statewide sample of 199 schools. School climate surveys completed by 5,035 ninth grade students measured characteristics of authoritative schools, defined as highly supportive, yet highly structured with academic and behavioral expectations. Multivariate analyses showed that schools low on characteristics of an authoritative school had the highest schoolwide suspension rates for Black and White students after statistically controlling for school demographics. Furthermore, schools low on both structure and support had the largest racial discipline gaps. These findings highlight the characteristics of risky settings that may not meet the developmental needs of adolescents and may contribute to disproportionate disciplinary outcomes for Black students.
Symmetric sequence processing in a recurrent neural network model with a synchronous dynamics

The synchronous dynamics and the stationary states of a recurrent attractor neural network model with competing synapses between symmetric sequence processing and Hebbian pattern reconstruction are studied in this work allowing for the presence of a self-interaction for each unit. Phase diagrams of stationary states are obtained exhibiting phases of retrieval, symmetric and period-two cyclic states as well as correlated and frozen-in states, in the absence of noise. The frozen-in states are destabilized by synaptic noise and well-separated regions of correlated and cyclic states are obtained. Excitatory or inhibitory self-interactions yield enlarged phases of fixed-point or cyclic behaviour.
Seedling competition between native Populus deltoides (Salicaceae) and exotic Tamarix ramosissima (Tamaricaceae) across water regimes and substrate types.

Populus deltoides subsp. wislizinii (Salicaceae), a cottonwood native to the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico, must potentially compete against exotic Tamarix ramosissima (Tamaricaceae) during establishment after flooding. We investigated competitive interactions between seedlings of Tamarix and Populus in two substrates representing field textures and declining (i.e., draw-down) or stagnant water tables. The experiment was performed using a full-additive series design and interpreted with response surface models for each species. As reflected in both aboveground mass and height, Populus suppressed aboveground growth of Tamarix across all treatments, whereas competitive effects of Tamarix against Populus could only be seen at low Populus densities. Clay substrates with draw-down stimulated the greatest growth and created the most intense competitive environment for both species. Tamarix was competitively suppressed in every substrate tested, with the weakest response in sand with no draw-down, where growth of Populus was poorest. These results suggest that stream flow management that promotes Populus establishment could also aid in controlling Tamarix invasion across a range of substrates.
Calcium-Sensing Receptors of Human Astrocyte-Neuron Teams: Amyloid-β-Driven Mediators and Therapeutic Targets of Alzheimer’s Disease

It is generally assumed that the neuropathology of sporadic (late-onset or nonfamilial) Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is driven by the overproduction and spreading of first Amyloid-βx-42 (Aβ42) and later hyperphosphorylated (hp)-Tau oligomeric “infectious seeds”. Hitherto, only neurons were held to make and spread both oligomer types; astrocytes would just remove debris. However, we have recently shown that exogenous fibrillar or soluble Aβ peptides specifically bind and activate the Ca2+-sensing receptors (CaSRs) of untransformed human cortical adult astrocytes and postnatal neurons cultured in vitro driving them to produce, accrue, and secrete surplus endogenous Aβ42. While the Aβ-exposed neurons start dying, astrocytes survive and keep oversecreting Aβ42, nitric oxide (NO), and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF)-A. Thus astrocytes help neurons’ demise. Moreover, we have found that a highly selective allosteric CaSR agonist (“calcimimetic”), NPS R-568, mimics the just mentioned neurotoxic actions triggered by Aβ●CaSR signaling. Contrariwise, and most important, NPS 2143, a highly selective allosteric CaSR antagonist (“calcilytic”), fully suppresses all the Aβ●CaSR signaling-driven noxious actions. Altogether our findings suggest that the progression of AD neuropathology is promoted by unceasingly repeating cycles of accruing exogenous Aβ42 oligomers interacting with the CaSRs of swelling numbers of astrocyte-neuron teams thereby recruiting them to overrelease additional Aβ42 oligomers, VEGF-A, and NO. Calcilytics would beneficially break such Aβ/CaSR-driven vicious cycles and hence halt or at least slow the otherwise unstoppable spreading of AD neuropathology
An energy efficient Montgomery modular multiplier for security systems using reversible gates

Recently, Security requirements for electronic transactions have become an important concern. RSA is the widely adopted public key algorithms. The RSA public key cryptography uses modular exponentiation operation both for encryption and decryption. A famous approach is Montgomery modular multiplication decreases the multiplication period dramatically. Today's system loses information after every logic operation. The amount of energy dissipated for every lost bit is KTln2. Reversible logic has gained much interest in recent years due to its ability in preserving the information without any energy loss. Therefore Montgomery modular multiplier designed using reversible logic gates gives better energy efficiency in terms of number of gates used, number of garbage outputs produced and quantum costs.
Wideband Propagation Channel Parameters Measurement Inside an University Building

Contemporary communications are predominantly wireless. Wireless systems propagation parameters are greatly influenced by multipath fading, even more so in an "indoor" environment. Theoretical parameters commonly used for describing multipath are coherence bandwidth and multipath delay spread. The goal of this paper is presentation of results of impulse response measurements in 2.4-GHz frequency band, conducted inside FESB building, using vector analyzer method. From the obtained channel impulse response delay spread was calculated, and the estimate of coherence bandwidth was made. Measurements were divided in four sets, each showing fair correlation of coherence bandwidth and delay spread results
Serial Plasma Osteopontin Levels Have Prognostic Value in Metastatic Breast Cancer

Purpose: Osteopontin is a malignancy-associated protein measurable in blood and tumor tissue. To evaluate its prognostic value in advanced disease, we conducted a prospective clinical study measuring serial osteopontin plasma levels in women with metastatic breast cancer throughout the course of their disease. Experimental Design: One hundred fifty-eight women with newly diagnosed metastatic breast cancer were enrolled in the study. Plasma osteopontin was measured using our validated ELISA, at baseline and every 3 to 12 weeks during and after therapy until death. Multivariate time-dependent survival analyses were conducted using models that right censored patient outcomes 3, 6, and 12 months after the last known osteopontin measurement. Results: Osteopontin was measured in 1,378 samples (median, 9 per patient). Ninety-nine patients had elevated baseline osteopontin (median, 177 ng/mL; range, 1-2,648 ng/mL). In univariate analysis, elevated baseline osteopontin was associated with short survival (P = 0.02). In a multivariate model incorporating standard prognostic factors, baseline osteopontin was significantly associated with survival duration (relative risk, 1.001; P = 0.038). Metastasis-free interval, visceral metastases, and Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status 2 to 4 also retained significance. In a multivariate model incorporating standard prognostic factors and changes in sequential osteopontin levels, an osteopontin increase of >250 ng/mL at any time was the variable with the most prognostic value for poor survival (relative risk, 3.26; P = 0.0003), and poor Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status also retained significance. Conclusions: This is the first study to show that in women with metastatic breast cancer, increases in osteopontin levels over time are strongly associated with poor survival. Sequential monitoring of osteopontin may have use in making treatment decisions for these patients.
Issues in mapping metamodels in the ontology development metamodel

Although the request for proposal for the Ontology Development Metamodel called for a metamodel and UML profile supporting OWL, the working party has decided that there are a number of modeling languages used for ontology development so that several languages will be supported in the ODM [odm], namely RDF/RDFS/OWL, Simple Common Logic (SCL), Topic Maps and the Entity-Relationship model, as well as UML.
Structure, dielectric properties and energy storage performance of barium strontium titanate thin films prepared by spin-coating technique

Ba<sub>0.4</sub>Sr<sub>0.6</sub>TiO<sub>3</sub> (BST) thin films were prepared by spin-coating technique and deposited on either Pt/TiO<sub>2</sub>/SiO<sub>2</sub>/Si (Pt/Si) substrate or silicon buffered by a lanthanum nickel oxide buffer layer (LNO/Si). X-ray diffraction and scanning electron microscopy showed that the BST films were crack free, compact and crystallized with a single perovskite structure. The effects of bottom electrodes on dielectric properties and energy storage performance of BST films were investigated. The results shows that the dielectric constant of BST/Pt film is a little higher than that of BST/LNO film, and the dielectric loss at 1 kHz of both films is very low, <;5<sup>0</sup>/<sub>00</sub>. A butterfly loops with good dielectric tunability was observed in the capacitance-voltage (C-V) curve of BST/LNO film. The DC leakage current densities at 100kV/cm are ~9.3×10<sup>-9</sup>A/cm<sup>2</sup> and ~1.0×10<sup>-8</sup>A/cm<sup>2</sup> for BST/LNO and BST/Pt films, respectively. The P-E loops and energy storage performance of both films are similar. It was indicated that BST/LNO thin film can be applied as a cost-effective and environment-friendly capacitor for high-power energy storage.
Coherent Fading Channels Driven by Arbitrary Inputs: Asymptotic Characterization of the Constrained Capacity and Related Information- and Estimation-Theoretic Quantities

We consider the characterization of the asymptotic behavior of the average minimum mean-squared error (MMSE) and the average mutual information in scalar and vector fading coherent channels, where the receiver knows the exact fading channel state but the transmitter knows only the fading channel distribution, driven by a range of inputs. We construct low-snr and -- at the heart of the novelty of the contribution -- high-snr asymptotic expansions for the average MMSE and the average mutual information for coherent channels subject to Rayleigh fading, Ricean fading or Nakagami fading and driven by discrete inputs (with finite support) or various continuous inputs. We reveal the role that the so-called canonical MMSE in a standard additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel plays in the characterization of the asymptotic behavior of the average MMSE and the average mutual information in a fading coherent channel. We also reveal connections to and generalizations of the MMSE dimension. The most relevant element that enables the construction of these non-trivial expansions is the realization that the integral representation of the estimation- and information- theoretic quantities can be seen as an h-transform of a kernel with a monotonic argument: this enables the use of a novel asymptotic expansion of integrals technique -- the Mellin transform method -- that leads immediately to not only the high-snr but also the low-snr expansions of the average MMSE and -- via the I-MMSE relationship -- to expansions of the average mutual information. We conclude with applications of the results to the characterization and optimization of the constrained capacity of a bank of parallel independent coherent fading channels driven by arbitrary discrete inputs.
Large Galois groups with applications to Zariski density

We introduce the first provably efficient algorithm to check if a finitely generated subgroup of an almost simple semi-simple group over the rationals is Zariski-dense. We reduce this question to one of computing Galois groups, and to this end we describe efficient algorithms to check if the Galois group of a polynomial $p$ with integer coefficients is "generic" (which, for arbitrary polynomials of degree $n$ means the full symmetric group $S_n,$ while for reciprocal polynomials of degree $2n$ it means the hyperoctahedral group $C_2 \wr S_n.$). We give efficient algorithms to verify that a polynomial has Galois group $S_n,$ and that a reciprocal polynomial has Galois group $C_2 \wr S_n. $ We show how these algorithms give efficient algorithms to check if a set of matrices $\mathcal{G}$ in $\mathop{SL}(n, \mathbb{Z})$ or $\mathop{Sp}(2n, \mathbb{Z})$ generate a \emph{Zariski dense} subgroup. The complexity of doing this in$\mathop{SL}(n, \mathbb{Z})$ is of order $O(n^4 \log n \log \|\mathcal{G}\|)\log \epsilon$ and in $\mathop{Sp}(2n, \mathbb{Z})$ the complexity is of order $O(n^8 \log n\log \|\mathcal{G}\|)\log \epsilon$ In general semisimple groups we show that Zariski density can be confirmed or denied in time of order $O(n^14 \log \|\mathcal{G}\|\log \epsilon),$ where $\epsilon$ is the probability of a wrong "NO" answer, while $\|\mathcal{G}\|$ is the measure of complexity of the input (the maximum of the Frobenius norms of the generating matrices). The algorithms work essentially without change over algebraic number fields, and in other semi-simple groups. However, we restrict to the case of the special linear and symplectic groups and rational coefficients in the interest of clarity.