Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Speaker Clustering Based on Non-Negative Matrix Factorization

This paper addresses unsupervised speaker clustering for multiparty conversations. Hierarchical clustering methods were mainly used in previous studies. However, these methods require many processes, such as distance calculation and cluster merging, when there are many utterances in conversation data. We propose a clustering method based on non-negative matrix factorization. The proposed method can perform fast and robust clustering by decomposing a matrix consisting of distances between models. We conducted speaker clustering experiments using a Bayesian information criterion based method, a method based on the likelihood ratio between Gaussian mixture models, and the proposed method. Experimental results showed that the proposed method achieves higher clustering accuracy than these conventional methods. Index Terms: unsupervised speaker clustering, non-negative matrix factorization, agglomerative hierarchical clustering, multi-party conversation
Anticholinergic Activity of 107 Medications Commonly Used by Older Adults

The objective of this study was to measure the anticholinergic activity (AA) of medications commonly used by older adults. A radioreceptor assay was used to investigate the AA of 107 medications. Six clinically relevant concentrations were assessed for each medication. Rodent forebrain and striatum homogenate was used with tritiated quinuclidinyl benzilate. Drug‐free serum was added to medication and atropine standard‐curve samples. For medications that showed detectable AA, average steady‐state peak plasma and serum concentrations (Cmax) in older adults were used to estimate relationships between in vitro dose and AA. All results are reported in pmol/mL of atropine equivalents. At typical doses administered to older adults, amitriptyline, atropine, clozapine, dicyclomine, doxepin, L‐hyoscyamine, thioridazine, and tolterodine demonstrated AA exceeding 15 pmol/mL. Chlorpromazine, diphenhydramine, nortriptyline, olanzapine, oxybutynin, and paroxetine had AA values of 5 to 15 pmol/mL. Citalopram, escitalopram, fluoxetine, lithium, mirtazapine, quetiapine, ranitidine, and temazepam had values less than 5 pmol/mL. Amoxicillin, celecoxib, cephalexin, diazepam, digoxin, diphenoxylate, donepezil, duloxetine, fentanyl, furosemide, hydrocodone, lansoprazole, levofloxacin, metformin, phenytoin, propoxyphene, and topiramate demonstrated AA only at the highest concentrations tested (patients with above‐average Cmax values, who receive higher doses, or are frail may show AA). The remainder of the medications investigated did not demonstrate any AA at the concentrations examined. Psychotropic medications were particularly likely to demonstrate AA. Each of the drug classifications investigated (e.g., antipsychotic, cardiovascular) had at least one medication that demonstrated AA at therapeutic doses. Clinicians can use this information when choosing between equally efficacious medications, as well as in assessing overall anticholinergic burden.
Two-party quantum privacy comparison with polarization-entangled bell states and the coherent states

We propose a protocol of quantum privacy comparison with polarization-entangled Bell states and the coherent states. One of two legitimate participants, Alice, prepares polarization-entangled Bell states and keeps one photon of each photon pair and sends the other photons to the third party, Charlie. Receiving the photons, Charlie performs single-photon transformation operations on them and then sends them to the other legitimate participant, Bob. Three participants adopt parity analysis method to check the distribution security of Bell states. Exploiting polarization beam splitters and non-linear interactions mediated by the probe coherent states in Kerr media, Alice and Bob check the parities of their photons using the bases of {|H〉, |V〉} or {|+〉, |-〉}. On the basis of the parity analysis outcomes and Charlie's publicized information, they can analyze the security of the distributed quantum channel. Confirming secure distribution of the shared Bell states, two participants perform respective parity measurements on the privacy photons and own photons of Bell states, and then send the results to Charlie. According to information provided by two legitimate participants and his single-qubit transformation operations, Charlie compares the privacy information of Alice and Bob and publicizes the conclusion.
Neurobiology of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Serotonin and Beyond

Abstract The evidence for the involvement of the serotonergic system in the pathogenesis of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is circumstantial at best, despite being the focus for most pathophysiological research over the last 2 decades. This hypothesis was initially motivated by the observed differential efficacy of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors in alleviating OCD symptoms. Direct evidence that serotonergic perturbations are implicated in the pathophysiology of OCD is still sparse. There is growing evidence, from both preclinical and clinical studies, that the dopamine system may also be involved in the pathogenesis of OCD, and that dopaminergic and serotonergic pathways play a role in the genesis and maintenance of obsessive-compulsive symptoms. The complex interactions between both systems, the phenotypic heterogeneity of the disorder, and the limitations of the available tests to probe both systems, make it as yet impossible to draw firm conclusions as to how these systems are implicated. Further studies with more selective pharmacologic agents and neurocognitive probes in humans, studies using deep brain stimulation in combination with neuroimaging, and the development of better animal models for OCD may further our understanding of this disabling condition.
Gelatinase Contributes to the Pathogenesis of Endocarditis Caused by Enterococcus faecalis

ABSTRACT The Gram-positive pathogen Enterococcus faecalis is a leading agent of nosocomial infections, including urinary tract infections, surgical site infections, and bacteremia. Among the infections caused by E. faecalis, endocarditis remains a serious clinical manifestation and unique in that it is commonly acquired in a community setting. Infective endocarditis is a complex disease, with many host and microbial components contributing to the formation of bacterial biofilm-like vegetations on the aortic valve and adjacent areas within the heart. In the current study, we compared the pathogenic potential of the vancomycin-resistant E. faecalis V583 and three isogenic protease mutants (ΔgelE, ΔsprE, and ΔgelE ΔsprE mutants) in a rabbit model of enterococcal endocarditis. The bacterial burdens displayed by GelE− mutants (ΔgelE and ΔgelE ΔsprE mutants) in the heart were significantly lower than those of V583 or the SprE− mutant. Vegetations on the aortic valve infected with GelE− mutants (ΔgelE and ΔgelE ΔsprE mutants) also showed a significant increase in deposition of fibrinous matrix layer and increased chemotaxis of inflammatory cells. In support of a role for proteolytic modulation of the immune response to E. faecalis, we also demonstrate that GelE can cleave the anaphylatoxin complement C5a and that this proteolysis leads to decreased neutrophil migration in vitro. In vivo, a decreased heterophil (neutrophil-like cell) migration was observed at tissue sites infected with GelE-producing strains but not at those infected with SprE-producing strains. Taken together, these observations suggest that of the two enterococcal proteases, gelatinase is the principal mediator of pathogenesis in endocarditis.
Automatic Generation of Formula Simplifiers based on Conditional Rewrite Rules

This paper addresses the problem of creating simplifiers for logic formulas based on conditional term rewriting. In particular, the paper focuses on a program synthesis application where formula simplifications have been shown to have a significant impact. We show that by combining machine learning techniques with constraint-based synthesis, it is possible to synthesize a formula simplifier fully automatically from a corpus of representative problems, making it possible to create formula simplifiers tailored to specific problem domains. We demonstrate the benefits of our approach for synthesis benchmarks from the SyGuS competition and automated grading.
Mining user trails in critiquing based recommenders

Critiquing based recommenders are very commonly used to help users navigate through the product space to find the required product by tweaking/critiquing one or more features. By critiquing a product, the user gives an informative feedback(i.e, which feature needs to be modified) about why they rejected a product and preferred the other one. As a user interacts with such a system, trails are left behind. We propose ways of leveraging these trails to induce preference models of items which can be used to estimate the relative utilities of products which can be used in ranking the recommendations presented to the user. The idea is to effectively complement knowledge of explicit user interactions in traditional social recommenders with knowledge implicitly obtained from trails.
A discrete-event systems approach to modeling dextrous manipulation

SUMMARY To perform dextrous manipulation efficiently, it is necessary to coordinate the interactions of many component processes. This paper investigates one approach to coordination: discrete-event systems. The applicability of discrete-event systems to the modeling of dextrous manipulation tasks is studied. Discrete-event control theory offers formal methods for determining whether a coordinator of the components can be generated. A representative dextrous manipulation task, the planar Grasp-Lift-Replace task of Howe and Cutkosky, is presented as a discrete-event process. The task is extended to include two-fingered exploratory procedures. The effectiveness of the discrete-event system approach is illustrated through simulations of several test cases.
Percutaneous Compression Plate versus Dynamic Hip Screw for Treatment of Intertrochanteric Hip Fractures: A Meta-Analyse of Five Randomized Controlled Trials

Background. Percutaneous compression plating (PCCP) has been advocated to reduce blood loss, relieve pain, and lead to faster rehabilitation for the treatment of intertrochanteric fractures. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to estimate the outcomes and complications of the PCCP versus dynamic hip screw (DHS) fixation for intertrochanteric fractures. Methods. All randomized controlled trials (RCT) that compared PCCP with DHS in treating adult patients with intertrochanteric fractures were included. Main outcomes were collected and analysed using the RevMan 5.1 version. Results. Five trials met the inclusion criteria. Compared with DHS, PCCP had similar operation time (95% CI: −26.01~4.05, P = 0.15), length of hospitalization (95% CI: −1.79~1.25, P = 0.73), mortality (95% CI: 0.37~1.02, P = 0.06), incidence of implant-related complications (95% CI: 0.29~1.82, P = 0.49), and reoperation rate (95% CI: 0.41~3.05, P = 0.83). But blood loss (95% CI: −173.84~−4.81, P = 0.04) and transfusion need (95% CI: −0.53~−0.07, P = 0.01) significantly favored the PCCP. Conclusions. The PCCP was associated with reduced blood loss and less transfusion need, but similar to DHS in other respects. Owing to the limitations of this systematic review, more high-quality RCTs are still needed to assess the clinical efficiency of PCCP.
Leveraging mega-events beyond the host nation: a case study of the 2010 FIFA World Cup African Legacy Programme in Cameroon and Nigeria

This article focuses on mega-event leveraging, specifically on experiences in the developing context. While most large-scale sporting events such as the Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cups have been traditionally hosted in the more affluent, developed and industrialised nations; the hosting of the first-ever FIFA World Cup in South Africa in 2010 provided new research opportunities to examine the effects of such events when they are hosted in developing contexts. The article departs from the premise that there is no known case study that has focused on the leveraging of mega-events beyond the host nation and this is an additional contribution to the growing literature on mega-event legacy impacts. The continental orientation (‘African World Cup’) accorded to the 2010 FIFA event by host nation South Africa, and the subsequent leveraging of the event across the African continent raises the importance of questioning the post-event legacies experienced beyond the host nation. A qualitative and quantitative methodology, within a case study design, was undertaken in two case study countries (Cameroon and Nigeria). Face-to-face interviews were conducted with relevant stakeholders and resource persons using a structured questionnaire. The results provide evidence that these countries attempted to maximise the leveraging opportunity presented by the mega-event. In addition, while the leveraging efforts yielded some positive benefits in terms of tourism and sport-related infrastructure, several challenges were experienced by countries in implementing legacy-related projects linked to the African Legacy Programme and the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Reciprocal working by education, health and social services: lessons for a less-travelled road.

The 2001 Gulliford Lecture was given by Professor Roy McConkey, of the University of Ulster. In this article, based on his lecture, Roy McConkey reflects on some of the themes in Ron Gulliford’s work from the 1960s. These themes still seem relevant to our workwith pupils and students with special educational needs today. Roy McConkey focuses, in particular, on collaboration between practitioners from different professional backgrounds. He invites the reader to reflect on some of the strengths of current practice and to consider the ways in which these initiatives might be taken forward. This article closes with a setof strategies that could be used to develop innovative, holistic, inter-agency approaches in future.
The limitations of language and nationality as prime markers of African Diaspora identities in the State of Victoria1

This paper suggests that African migrants in Australia are often seen as a homogenous group of people with very little if any difference among them. The popular line of thinking about who Africans are appears to go like this: because they all look alike (by virtue of the colour of their skin), originate from the same continent (Africa) and are presumed to be speakers of perceived ‘standard’ African languages, then their behaviours, their needs, their attitudes and the things they are capable of doing (or not capable of doing) are the same. Language and country of origin are the two major taxonomies often used to classify different groups of African communities in Australia. The premise of this paper is that defining African identities in terms language and country of origin is defective in the sense that it is mimicry of identity categories invented by colonial and postcolonial regimes in Africa. Such generic terms as ‘African migrants’, ‘Sudanese refugees’, ‘Ethiopian community’, ‘Amharic community’, ‘Swahili speakers’, ‘Dinka community’, etc., are not exhaustive and precise enough because they overshadow more salient micro‐level forms of diversity within what are presumed to be homogenous groups of people.
The Practice of Leadership in the Messy World of Organizations

This article examines the practice of leadership in organizations characterized by ambiguous authority relationships. Drawing on three empirical case studies illustrative of a long-term research program on change in health care organizations, we examine leadership as a practical activity focusing particularly on its dynamic, collective, situated, and dialectical nature. We invite researchers on leadership to look carefully at the embeddedness of leadership roles in context and at the type and consequences of practices that leaders develop in such contexts. Implications of these ideas for further research and for would-be leaders are discussed.
The nature of phonetics

In ‘The Future of Phonetics’, Klaus Kohler sets out his personal view of modern phonetics as an integrated subject. He sets his vision of the future of phonetics, seen broadly as the study of the spoken medium of language, in a historical perspective. He is concerned to argue that modern phonetics is not the juxtaposition of subjects dealing with the spoken medium, but should be considered to be an autonomous subject. His argument is both academic and political, in that he suggests that independent departments of phonetics, with their own budgets, would thereby be protected from the loss of staff, funds, research and teaching activities that he describes as happening in several cases after amalgamation with linguistics.
Decorrelation of neural activity during fixational instability: Possible implications for the refinement of V1 receptive fields

Early in life, visual experience appears to influence the refinement and maintenance of the orientation-selective responses of neurons in the primary visual cortex. After eye opening, the statistical structure of visually driven neural responses depends not only on the stimulus, but also on how the stimulus is scanned during behavior. Modulations of neural activity due to behavior may thus play a role in the experience-dependent refinement of cell response characteristics. To investigate the possible influences of eye movements on the maturation of thalamocortical connectivity, we have simulated the responses of neuronal populations in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) and V1 of the cat while images of natural scenes were scanned in a way that replicated the cat's oculomotor activity. In the model, fixational eye movements were essential to attenuate neural sensitivity to the broad correlational structure of natural visual input, decorrelate neural responses, and establish a regime of neural activity that was compatible with a Hebbian segregation of geniculate afferents to the cortex. We show that this result is highly robust and does not depend on the precise characteristics of the model.
Containing Viral Spread on Sparse Random Graphs: Bounds, Algorithms, and Experiments

Viral spread on large graphs has many real-life applications such as malware propagation in computer networks and rumor (or misinformation) spread in Twitter-like online social networks. Although viral spread on large graphs has been intensively analyzed on classical models such as Susceptible–Infectious–Recovered, there still exits a deficit of effective methods in practice to contain epidemic spread once it passes a critical threshold. Against this backdrop, we explore methods of containing viral spread in large networks with the focus on sparse random networks. The viral containment strategy is to partition a large network into small components and then to ensure that all messages delivered across different components are free of infection. With such a defense mechanism in place, an epidemic spread starting from any node is limited to only those nodes belonging to the same component as the initial infection node. We establish both lower and upper bounds on the costs of inspecting intercomponent messages. We further propose heuristic-based approaches to partitioning large input graphs into small components. Finally, we study the performance of our proposed algorithms under different network topologies and different edge-weight models.
Frequency of functional constipation in 3 different populations and its causative factors.

OBJECTIVE To assess the frequency of constipation and its causative factors in 3 different populations, namely, the hospitalized patients admitted at Civil Hospital Karachi, their attendants and medical students. METHOD A sample size of 200 was divided into 3 groups: hospitalized patients, their attendants and medical students. Frequency of constipation was expected to be greater in patients, so 100 subjects were taken from this population; while from the other 2 populations only 50 subjects were taken. The subjects were diagnosed as constipated on the basis of Rome III criteria for functional constipation and their dietary habits and physical activity were also assessed. RESULTS The frequency of functional constipation was found to be 53% in hospitalized patients, 52% in their attendants and 34% in medical students. Among the constipated individuals, 50.94% of hospitalized patients, 46.15% of attendants and 29.41% of medical students took laxatives for relief of their symptoms. Constipation was most prevalent among the age group of 18 to 30 years in all the 3 populations. CONCLUSION Constipation was fairly common in all 3 populations. Male to female ratio is almost equal. Physical inactivity and low fiber intake were prominent risk factors for constipation.
Modified agile practices for outsourced software projects

Frustration with the bureaucratic nature of the disciplined approach has led to the call for agile development. The new approach is defined by the Agile Manifesto (http://agilemanifesto.org/), which values individuals and interactions over processes and tools, working software over comprehensive documentation, customer collaboration over contract negotiation, and agility in responding to change over following a prescribed plan. Agile development does not focus on process improvement; instead it focuses on customer satisfaction and employee empowerment. This is evident from reading the stated values and principles of the Agile Manifesto, which include fairly extreme positions such as "welcome changing requirements, even late in development" and "the best architectures, requirements, and designs emerge from self-organizing teams. " An interesting issue arising from the call for agile development is its role in distributed development, which usually translates to offshore development. A recent study indicates that agile practices can reduce temporal, geographical, and socio-cultural distances in distributed development projects. The study researched agile development between teams located in the U.S. and Ireland, and while it reported that overall communication was improved, it also noted problems related to geographical, temporal, and even language distances. Although there are other reported successes of distributed agile development, the projects are generally small, the team members are likely familiar with each other, and the participants are largely experts or high caliber developers. This raises a research, as well as a practical, question: can we extend the use of agile practices from small projects to medium and large projects that involve a significant outsourcing component? To address this question, we must drop constraints such as small size projects, and expert developers belonging to the same company, and examine problems arising from geographical, temporal, and cultural distances. Accordingly, agile practices may need to be modified. In this article, the key issues of software projects with an outsourced component are first identified. These issues are then used as a background to evaluate how standard agile practices stand up when applied to larger projects. This evaluation is followed by recommendations for modified agile practices for outsourced software projects.