Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quantifying the Robustness of the English Sibilant Fricative Contrast in Children.

PURPOSE Four measures of children's developing robustness of phonological contrast were compared to see how they correlated with age, vocabulary size, and adult listeners' correctness ratings. METHOD Word-initial sibilant fricative productions from eighty-one 2- to 5-year-old children and 20 adults were phonetically transcribed and acoustically analyzed. Four measures of robustness of contrast were calculated for each speaker on the basis of the centroid frequency measured from each fricative token. Productions that were transcribed as correct from different children were then used as stimuli in a perception experiment in which adult listeners rated the goodness of each production. RESULTS Results showed that the degree of category overlap, quantified as the percentage of a child's productions whose category could be correctly predicted from the output of a mixed-effects logistic regression model, was the measure that correlated best with listeners' goodness judgments. CONCLUSIONS Even when children's productions have been transcribed as correct, adult listeners are sensitive to within-category variation quantified by the child's degree of category overlap. Further research is needed to explore the relationship between the age of a child and adults' sensitivity to different types of within-category variation in children's speech.
Correlation between Radiological and Pathological Findings in Patients with Mycoplasma pneumoniae Pneumonia

Studies focused on the pathological–radiological correlation of human Mycoplasma (M) pneumoniae pneumonia have rarely been reported. Therefore, we extensively reviewed the literature regarding pathological and radiological studies of Mycoplasma pneumonia, and compared findings between open lung biopsy specimen and computed tomography (CT). Major three correlations were summarized. (1) Peribronchial and perivascular cuffing characterized by mononuclear cells infiltration was correlated with bronchovascular bundles thickening on CT, which was the most common finding of this pneumonia. (2) Cellular bronchitis in the small airways accompanied with exudates or granulation tissue in the lumen revealed as centrilobular nodules on CT. (3) Neutrophils and exudates in the alveolar lumen radiologically demonstrated as air-space consolidation or ground-glass opacities. In M. pulmonis-infected mice model, pathologic patterns are strikingly different according to host cell-mediated immunity (CMI) levels; treatment with interleukin-2 lead to marked cellular bronchitis in the small airways and treatment with prednisolone or cyclosporin-A lead to neutrophils and exudates in the alveolar lumen. Patients with centrilobular nodules predominant radiologic pattern have a high level of CMI, measuring by tuberculin skin test. From these findings, up-regulation of host CMI could change radiological pattern to centrilobular nodules predominant, on the other hand down-regulation of host CMI would change radiological pattern to ground-glass opacity and consolidation. It was suggested the pathological features of M. pneumoniae pneumonia may be altered by the level of host CMI.
Measuring Similarity by Prediction Class between Biomedical Datasets via Fuzzy Unordered Rule Induction

The need of similarity measures in life science is ever paramount given the modern biotechnology in producing and storing biomedical datasets in large amounts. This paper presents a novel scheme in measuring similarity of two datasets by prediction class, namely SPC. SPC offers an alternative approach to traditionally used ones such as pairwise correlations which assume every attribute carries equal importance. The unique advantage of SPC is the use of a machine learning model called Fuzzy Unordered Rule Induction to infer the similarity between two datasets based on their common attributes and their degrees of relevance pertaining to a predicted class. The method is demonstrated by a case of comparing lung cancer dataset and heart disease dataset.
Localization, from the observed far-field, of radiating centers in a 2D-scene

In this paper, a method to pinpoint locations of secondary scattering off a platform from antenna radiation data in a 2D-scene is considered. As the platform is assimilated to a collection of radiating centers, the received field in far-field zone is modelized. A solution to pinpoint the location of these centers is then applied at a constant frequency and over pi radians observation. This method, based on a substitution with estimated angles and a FFT, yields an image of the platform by measuring the diffracted field.
Micro-automating semiconductor fabrication

Progress in automating very-small-scale mechanical processes is reviewed. The special requirements of microautomation are identified, and three applications are examined. They are positioning, electrical probing, and mechanical probing. The architecture and design of a microautomation system are described. Microsensors and microactuators are discussed. The use of magnetics technology for driving the microautomation system is reported, and a precision workspace for demonstrating a microautomation system is described. Also described are a coarse/fine positioner and a linear transport path capable of moving the fine manipulator from one precision-demanding area to another. <<ETX>>
Initial treatment of immune thrombocytopenic purpura with high-dose dexamethasone.

BACKGROUND The role of high-dose dexamethasone in the treatment of immune thrombocytopenic purpura in adults is controversial. We assessed the effectiveness of high-dose dexamethasone as initial treatment in a series of consecutive adults with immune thrombocytopenic purpura. METHODS Consecutive patients with newly diagnosed immune thrombocytopenic purpura and a platelet count of less than 20,000 per cubic millimeter or a platelet count of less than 50,000 per cubic millimeter and clinically significant bleeding were enrolled between January 1997 and December 2000. Oral dexamethasone at a dose of 40 mg per day for four consecutive days was the initial treatment. A response was defined as an increase in the platelet count of at least 30,000 per cubic millimeter and a platelet count of more than 50,000 per cubic millimeter by day 10 after the initiation of treatment. A sustained response was defined as a platelet count of more than 50,000 per cubic millimeter six months after the initial treatment. RESULTS Of 157 consecutive patients, 125 were eligible. The mean (+/-SD) platelet count before treatment was 12,200+/-11,300 per cubic millimeter. A good initial response to high-dose dexamethasone occurred in 106 of the 125 patients (85 percent): the platelet count increased by at least 20,000 per cubic millimeter by the third day of treatment, and the mean platelet count was 101,400+/-53,200 per cubic millimeter (range, 50,000 to 260,000 per cubic millimeter) one week after the initiation of treatment. Among the 106 patients with a response, 53 (50 percent) had a sustained response; the other 53 (50 percent) had a relapse within six months, most of them (94 percent) within the first three months. A platelet count of less than 90,000 per cubic millimeter on day 10 was associated with a high risk of relapse. The treatment was well tolerated. CONCLUSIONS A four-day course of high-dose dexamethasone is effective initial therapy for adults with immune thrombocytopenic purpura.
An introduction to artificial neural networks in bioinformatics - application to complex microarray and mass spectrometry datasets in cancer studies

Applications of genomic and proteomic technologies have seen a major increase, resulting in an explosion in the amount of highly dimensional and complex data being generated. Subsequently this has increased the effort by the bioinformatics community to develop novel computational approaches that allow for meaningful information to be extracted. This information must be of biological relevance and thus correlate to disease phenotypes of interest. Artificial neural networks are a form of machine learning from the field of artificial intelligence with proven pattern recognition capabilities and have been utilized in many areas of bioinformatics. This is due to their ability to cope with highly dimensional complex datasets such as those developed by protein mass spectrometry and DNA microarray experiments. As such, neural networks have been applied to problems such as disease classification and identification of biomarkers. This review introduces and describes the concepts related to neural networks, the advantages and caveats to their use, examples of their applications in mass spectrometry and microarray research (with a particular focus on cancer studies), and illustrations from recent literature showing where neural networks have performed well in comparison to other machine learning methods. This should form the necessary background knowledge and information enabling researchers with an interest in these methodologies, but not necessarily from a machine learning background, to apply the concepts to their own datasets, thus maximizing the information gain from these complex biological systems.
Maternal Teaching Strategies in Chicano Families of Varied Educational and Socioeconomic Levels.

LAOSA, Luirs M. Maternal Teaching Strategies in Chicano Families of Varied Educational and Socioeconomic Levels. CmLD DEVELOPMENT, 1978, 49, 1129-1135. The relationship of maternal teaching behavior to educational level and occupational status was studied among Chicano families. 43 mothers were observed teaching cognitive perceptual tasks to their own 5-year-old children. Significant relationships were found between the teaching strategies mothers used and the amount of formal education they had received. Mothers who had received more years of formal education used inquiry and praise more than mothers with less education. On the other hand, the lower the mothers' formal education level the more they used modeling as a teaching strategy. In addition, but for boys only, there was an inverse relationship between maternal formal education level and maternal teaching strategies considered to involve physical punishment.
Are dropout and degree completion in doctoral study significantly dependent on type of financial support and field of research?

In this article, the determinants of ‘time to dropout’ from doctoral studies and ‘time to PhD completion’ are studied using a discrete-time competing risks survival analysis for a sample of 3092 doctoral candidates from the Université libre de Bruxelles. Not surprisingly, results show that students supported with research fellowships have much higher PhD completion hazards than teaching assistants or unfinanced students. Concerning dropout, students with no financing showed the highest withdrawal rate, while students with selective research fellowships showed the lowest one. Dropout is also influenced by the ability of the student, which is correlated to their success in the fellowship allocation procedure. However, the type of financial support influences time to dropout from doctoral studies even when controlling for the ability of the student. Finally, our findings suggest that there are no significant differences in dropout and degree completion between fields of study, except for unfinanced students.
Community-level Impacts of AIDS-Related Mortality: Panel Survey Evidence from Zambia

n communities hit hard by HIV and AIDS, households not directly incurring a death may nevertheless be affected by taking in orphans, losing access to resources owned by kin-related afflicted households, or transferring resources to afflicted households. In addition, broader effects of high mortality rates on communities’ economic and social structures are likely. To date, relatively little quantitative research has been devoted to examining community “resilience,” that is, the factors explaining why some communities appear better able than others to withstand the impacts of AIDSrelated mortality despite suffering similar adult mortality rates (AMRs). This study measures the effects of prime age (PA) AMRs on community resilience using a set of community level indicators—changes in area of land under cultivation, crop output, and per capita income.
Spatio-temporal registration of embryo images

Current imaging techniques can capture temporal sequences of 3D images with very high time resolution over several hours. Comparing sequences covering the same time period opens the way to the study of developmental variability. Stitching together sequences captured from different embryos may help producing a sequence covering the whole development of the animal of interest. For this, it is necessary to align two sequences in both time and space. We present here a method to align two 3D+t time series, based on the detection and pairing of 3D+t landmarks. These landmarks, which correspond to periods of fast morphogenetic change, are deduced from the analysis of the non-linear transformations that allow to co-register pairs of consecutive 3D images in each sequence.
International Through-life Engineering Services Conference Application of TRIZ to Develop an In-Service Diagnostic System for a Synchronous Belt Transmission for Automotive Application

Development of robust diagnostic solutions to monitor the health of systems and components to ensure through life cost effectiveness is often technically difficult, requiring an effective integration of design development with research and innovation. This paper presents a structured application of TRIZ and USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking) to generate concept solutions for an in-service diagnostic system for a synchronous belt drive system for an automotive application. The systematic exploration through TRIZ and USIT methods has led to the development of six concept solution ideas directed at the functional requirement to determine the state or condition of the belt. The paper demonstrates that the combined deployment of TRIZ and USIT frameworks is a valuable approach addressing difficult design problems. © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the International Scientific Committee of the "2 International Through-life Engineering Services Conference" and the Programme Chair – Ashutosh Tiwari.
The Changing Demography of Public School Teachers: Some Implications for Faculty Turnover in Urban Areas.

Using a sample of 3,549 public school teachers in a major Southwestern metropolis, the paper assesses changes in the class origin of three racial groups of teachers and, in turn, the variables associated with a desire to quit teaching. Younger black and white teachers significantly more often comefrom higher professional and white collarfamilies than do their older cohorts, while younger Mexican-American teachers more often come from lower blue collar and-farm backgrounds than their older counterparts. In general, teachers who plan to quit are white, under 35 years of age, come from higher class origins, and are assigned to schools with student racial distributions they define as undesirable. However, when class origin is introduced as a control, the race of teacher ceases to differentiate between those who plan to leave education and those who do not. The findings suggest that federalfaculty desegregation mandates, which consider only the teacher's race, force school districts to replace teachers who resign from urban districts with individuals who are equally likely to quit teaching.
The Effect of Anti-Inflammatory and Antimicrobial Herbal Remedy PADMA 28 on Immunological Angiogenesis and Granulocytes Activity in Mice

PADMA 28 is a herbal multicompound remedy that originates from traditional Tibetan medicine and possesses anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antimicrobial, angioprotecting, and wound healing properties. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of this remedy on immunological angiogenesis and granulocytes metabolic activity in Balb/c mice. Mice were fed daily, for seven days, with 5.8 mg of PADMA (calculated from recommended human daily dose) or 0.085 mg (dose in the range of active doses of other herbal extracts studied by us previously). Results. Highly significant increase of newly formed blood vessels number in ex vivo cutaneous lymphocyte-induced angiogenesis test (LIA) after grafting of Balb/c splenocytes from both dosage groups to F1 hybrids (Balb/c × C3H); increase of blood lymphocytes and granulocytes number only in mice fed with lower dose of remedy; and significant suppression of metabolic activity (chemiluminescence test) of blood granulocytes in mice fed with higher dose of PADMA. Conclusion. PADMA 28 behaves as a good stimulator of physiological angiogenesis, but for this purpose it should be used in substantially lower doses than recommended by producers for avoiding the deterioration of granulocyte function.
Incidence and risk factors of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after total hip or knee arthroplasty: a retrospective study with routinely applied venography

Deep vein thrombosis (DVT) after total hip or knee arthroplasty is relatively common and is associated with significant morbidity and mortality, presenting a large clinical burden. The objective of this study was to investigate the incidence and risk factors for DVT after total joint arthroplasty. This retrospective review was conducted in a single institution. The patients received postoperative DVT chemoprophylaxis (Fraxiparine or Rivaroxaban), followed by venography to check for DVT on the third to ninth postoperative day. The clinical characteristics were summarized and analyzed using SPSS version 17.0. From March 2010 to July 2013, 963 patients were enrolled in the study. DVT chemoprophylaxis was administered to all of the 963 patients. DVT occurred in 173 subjects (17.96%). Univariate analysis showed that age (P < 0.001), BMI (P < 0.01), cholesterol (P < 0.001), high-density lipoprotein (P < 0.001), apolipoprotein A (P < 0.01), history of tumor (P < 0.05), visual analogue scale (VAS) pain score (P < 0.001), and operative duration (P < 0.05) were significant risk factors for DVT. The incidence of DVT was 17.96% after total joint arthroplasty with prophylactic antithrombotic therapy. Age, BMI, cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein, apolipoprotein A, history of tumor, VAS score, and operative duration were significant risk factors for DVT.
Visual Analytics of Dynamic Networks – A Case Study

In this paper, we present a case study of applying visual analytics methods to explore a dynamic social network. The visualization and analysis of this kind of data is challenging because of its relational and temporal nature. We illustrate a method and its prototypical implementation that integrate: the combination of three views based on node-link diagrams, a dynamic layout, the visualization of social network analysis metrics, and specific interaction techniques for tracking node trajectories and connections over time. We discuss how this integration of visual, interactive and analytical methods, driven by perceptual principles, can help users with gaining insights when examining dynamic organizational network data.
Stereoscopic video conversion based on depth tracking

Conventional 2D-to-3D conversion approaches always have some problems due to fast motion and non-rigid objects. In this proposed approach, a bi-direction optical flow is used to extract credible corner points from original sequences, and then Mean Shift algorithm helps to segment foreground object. In addition, improved active contour model offers more accurate outlines. Finally depth correlation gets to deal with the temporal depth variation caused by objects' motion or camera motion. The experimental results give good performance with higher accuracy.
Approximate maximum likelihood hyperparameter estimation for Gibbs priors

We describe an approximate ML estimator for the hyperparameters of a Gibbs prior which can be computed simultaneously with a maximum a posteriori (MAP) image estimate. The algorithm is based on a mean field approximation technique through which multidimensional Gibbs distributions are approximated by a separable function equal to a product of one dimensional densities. We show how this approach can be used to simplify the ML estimation problem. We also show how the Gibbs-Bogoliubov-Feynman bound can be used to optimize the approximation for a restricted class of problems.
The neuropil of the glomeruli of the olfactory bulb.

The neuropil of the glomeruli of the rat olfactory bulb has been studied with the electron microscope with a view to elucidating the type of processes involved - dendrites, appendages and axons - their cellular identity, and the synaptic relationships they establish. The problems encountered in defining these are considered and criteria based on the previous study of neuron types and on examination of serial sections are put forward. The glomeruli are large structures containing many thousands of processes and are the sole site of termination of the olfactory receptor axons. The terminals of the latter are characteristically electron-dense, allowing identification in normal material; they run through the glomeruli making many synapses by means of spherical vesicles and asymmetrical thickenings on to all types of dendritic profile. The glomerular dendritic arborizations of mitral and tufted cells, which are indistinguishable from each other, start as large, fairly regular, pale profiles but become increasingly varicose as they branch and diminish in size. They regularly show groups of spherical vesicles, often in association with asymmetrical synaptic thickenings directed from the dendrite; these are typically associated with return, reciprocal, synapses of the symmetrical type from profiles containing large flattened vesicles. These latter profiles are those of the dendrites and gemmules of periglomerular cells; the dendrites are of irregular outline and give rise to many appendages, mostly gemmules making synaptic contact with mitral or tufted cell dendrites. A small number of pale axon terminals containing either small or large flattened vesicles, derived from short-axon and periglomerular cells respectively, synapse with symmetrical thickenings on to the periglomerular cell dendritic processes. Close associations of particular types of axo-dendritic and dendro-dendritic synapses on interconnecting processes, termed synaptic patterns, are described and their significance considered. The nature of the glomerular interactions is discussed and then placed in the context of other, smaller glomeruli in the central nervous system; certain common principles of glomeruli are suggested.
Chemical magnetoreception in birds: The radical pair mechanism

Migratory birds travel vast distances each year, finding their way by various means, including a remarkable ability to perceive the Earth's magnetic field. Although it has been known for 40 years that birds possess a magnetic compass, avian magnetoreception is poorly understood at all levels from the primary biophysical detection events, signal transduction pathways and neurophysiology, to the processing of information in the brain. It has been proposed that the primary detector is a specialized ocular photoreceptor that plays host to magnetically sensitive photochemical reactions having radical pairs as fleeting intermediates. Here, we present a physical chemist's perspective on the “radical pair mechanism” of compass magnetoreception in birds. We outline the essential chemical requirements for detecting the direction of an Earth-strength ≈50 μT magnetic field and comment on the likelihood that these might be satisfied in a biologically plausible receptor. Our survey concludes with a discussion of cryptochrome, the photoactive protein that has been put forward as the magnetoreceptor molecule.