Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Longitudinal development of speech motor control: Motor and linguistic factors.

Lip shape in adult talkers is primarily driven by vertical opening; however, little is known about how children converge on this highly organized and efficient lip shape pattern. This longitudinal study investigated the development of lip shape control and its relation to speech and vocabulary acquisition in 28 typically developing children between 3 months and 5 years of age. Results suggested that during infancy lip shape was characterized by horizontal spreading of the lips, but that the contribution of vertical opening increased nonmonotonically over time. This change co-occurred with gains in expressive communication. These data suggest that lip shape may represent an important marker of normal oromotor development. Future work is required to determine the functional significance of the observed changes in lip shape control for identifying children at risk for speech and language impairments.
Vehicle Tra c Light Control Using SARSA

SARSA (Sutton, 1996) is applied to a simulated, tra c-light control problem (Thorpe, 1997) and its performance is compared with several, xed control strategies. The performance of SARSA with four di erent representations of the current state of tra c is analyzed using two reinforcement schemes. Training on one intersection is compared to, and is as e ective as training on all intersections in the environment. SARSA is shown to be better than xed-duration light timing and four-way stops for minimizing total tra c travel time, individual vehicle travel times, and vehicle wait times. Comparisons of performance using a constant reinforcement function versus a variable reinforcement function dependent on the number of vehicles at an intersection showed that the variable reinforcement resulted in slightly improved performance for some cases.
Grandparental and Parental Obesity Influences on Childhood Overweight: Implications for Primary Care Practice

Background: Community-based studies have suggested a multigenerational pattern of obesity affecting children's risk of overweight, but no national data have substantiated such a pattern. Our objective was to examine the prevalence of overweight [body mass index (BMI) ≥95th percentile for age and sex] among children aged 5 to 19 in a national sample, stratified by the obesity status of their parents and grandparents. Methods: We used a secondary analysis of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, Child Development Supplement, a multigenerational, genealogical, prospective cohort study of the US population. Self-report height and weight data from adults and measured height and weight data for children were used to calculate BMI. The prevalence of child overweight was calculated for different possible combinations of parental and grandparental BMI status, including missing status. Results: The sample included 2591 children aged 5 to 19 years, for whom parental BMI data were available for 94% and grandparental BMI data were available for 61%. Prevalence of childhood overweight (18.6%) in the sample was comparable with contemporaneous measured national data from other sources. Among children with normal-weight parents and normal-weight grandparents, 7.9% were overweight. In contrast, among children with overweight parents (BMI 25–29.9) and normal-weight grandparents, 17.9% were overweight, and among children with obese parents (BMI ≥30) and normal-weight grandparents, 31.9% were overweight (P < .0001). Importantly, when parents were normal weight, if grandparents were obese, then the prevalence of child overweight was 17.4% (P < .0001). The prevalence of child overweight was similarly elevated (16.4%) when parents were normal weight and grandparental BMI was missing. Conclusions: This is the first national study to find an association of child weight status with grandparental obesity, distinct from parental obesity. Primary care physicians may find it helpful to consider grandparents’ weight status in judging risk of childhood overweight for their patients, especially when parents’ weight is normal.
Experiencing menopause in the UK: The interrelated narratives of normality, distress, and transformation

ABSTRACT We investigated the experience and perspectives of menopause among 48 UK mothers through qualitative in-depth interviews. Interviews were analyzed thematically then explored using social science theories. Three interdependent narratives emerged: menopause as a normal, biological process, distinct from self and social transitions; menopause as struggle, an “idiom of distress” expressing upset, identity loss, shame, and social upheaval; and menopause as transformative and liberating, arising from biopsychic and relational changes. Some women followed a predictable “rite of passage” trajectory with transformation emerging from distress, but not all: Menopause arises from a complex interplay of personal predicament, somatic change, and sociocultural context.
Integrating keyword search with multiple dimension tree views over a summary corpus data cube

We demonstrate a system that integrates a novel OLAP component with a keyword search engine, to support querying over sparse and ragged corpus data. The key contribution of our system is the integration of dynamically selected point sets such as search results with OLAP querying over aggregated data. During the demonstration, participants will be able to enter a keyword search; observe the returned list of result files; observe distributional features such as outliers and clusters of results in the corpus in multiple dimension views; and select and partition corpus slices in the OLAP component to narrow search results. Participants will be able to experience not just the individual querying features of our system, but the way that they work together to facilitate smooth interaction sequences that combine OLAP and keyword search querying.
The Structure of the Local Interstellar Medium. IV. Dynamics, Morphology, Physical Properties, and Implications of Cloud-Cloud Interactions

We present an empirical dynamical model of the LISM based on 270 radial velocity measurements for 157 sight lines toward nearby stars. Physical parameter measurements (i.e., temperature, turbulent velocity, depletions) are available for 90 components, or one-third of the sample, enabling initial characterizations of the physical properties of LISM clouds. The model includes 15 warm clouds located within 15 pc of the Sun, each with a different velocity vector. We derive projected morphologies of all clouds and estimate the volume filling factor of warm partially ionized material in the LISM to be between ~5.5% and 19%. Relative velocities of potentially interacting clouds are often supersonic, consistent with heating, turbulent, and metal depletion properties. Cloud-cloud collisions may be responsible for the filamentary morphologies found in ~ of LISM clouds, the distribution of clouds along the boundaries of the two nearest clouds (LIC and G), the detailed shape and heating of the Mic Cloud, the location of nearby radio scintillation screens, and the location of an LISM cold cloud. Contrary to previous claims, the Sun appears to be located in the transition zone between the LIC and G Cloud.
A COMPARISON OF COVERTYPE DELINEATIONS FROM AUTOMATED IMAGE SEGMENTATION OF INDEPENDENT AND MERGED IRS AND LANDSAT TM IMAGE-BASED DATA SETS

Existing image segmentation algorithms have recently been ported to the widely used ERDAS Imagine graphical user interface. Within the USDA Forest Service Region 5 Remote Sensing Lab these algorithms have traditionally been applied to Landsat TM data for the purpose of landscape delineation. A less confining image processing environment, combined with the wide availability of finer resolution data sets, has lead to the possibility of multi-scale delineation of various orders of landscape features from diverse spectral categories. A comparison of image segmentation output is made for five meter IRS panchromatic, thirty meter Landsat TM multispectral, and a merged data set. The merging of satellite imagery is commonly used to generate a product that has enhanced complimentary characteristics. The method introduced consists of performing image segmentation on spatially and spectrally merged data sets. The results indicate segment delineations using a merged data set for mid and fine scale landscape mapping efforts as a marked improvement over conventional image segmentation procedures.
Hierarchical recurrent self-organising memory ( H-RSOM ) architecture for an emergent speech representation towards robot grounding

If social robots are to become widespread there is a need for them to offer spoken communication in a manner close to humans. This should be achieved by grounding the speech being recognised by the robot into the real world instead of trying to recognise the speech signal in isolation. This paper examines a hierarchical recurrent self-organising map (H-RSOM) memory model for emergent speech representation, which makes use of evidence from human cognitive processing. The H-RSOM memory architecture is constrained by the structure of the cerebral cortex and working memory, neurocognitive evidence on word representation and infant speech acquisition. By associating the speech signal representation with semantic (visual) features the HRSOM offers a temporal-distribution speech representation based on phone like-speech sounds and semantic (visual) features. Using this representational approach it should be possible in the future, in a similar fashion to infants, to develop a robotic automatic speech recogniser that offers grounding of words in meaning.
“Overshoot” of O2 Is Required to Maintain Baseline Tissue Oxygenation at Locations Distal to Blood Vessels

In vivo imaging of cerebral tissue oxygenation is important in defining healthy physiology and pathological departures associated with cerebral disease. We used a recently developed two-photon microscopy method, based on a novel phosphorescent nanoprobe, to image tissue oxygenation in the rat primary sensory cortex in response to sensory stimulation. Our measurements showed that a stimulus-evoked increase in tissue pO2 depended on the baseline pO2 level. In particular, during sustained stimulation, the steady-state pO2 at low-baseline locations remained at the baseline, despite large pO2 increases elsewhere. In contrast to the steady state, where pO2 never decreased below the baseline, transient decreases occurred during the “initial dip” and “poststimulus undershoot. ” These results suggest that the increase in blood oxygenation during the hemodynamic response, which has been perceived as a paradox, may serve to prevent a sustained oxygenation drop at tissue locations that are remote from the vascular feeding sources.
Enhanced AES-CCMP key structure in IEEE 802.11i

This study is conducted to establish an alternative, creative technique for key structure of AES-Counter Mode with Cipher Block Chaining Message Authentication Code Protocol (AES-CCMP) encryption method in IEEE 802.11i. The proposed method modifies AES-CCMP key length from 128 bits to 256 bits through recommending three distinctive solutions including Random NonceKey, Four Way Handshake alteration and Pseudo Random Function (PRF). Besides, the memory usage and the avalanche effect of the proposed method and the traditional method are compared. The avalanche effect of the proposed method is near to optimized style and the memory usage is approximately close to memory usage of classic AES-CCMP. In addition in the mentioned method, pre computation attack is completely eliminated.
Knowledge, Domination, and Criminal Punishment

Recent dramatic increases of criminal punishment in the United States and very different trends in the Federal Republic of Germany suggest a critique of basic sociological theory traditions. The article confronts structural-functionalist, Marxist, and legalistic approaches with these trends and suggests an alternative and more complex theory. Utilizing and ideal-typical comparison between the two countries, this article develops a set of interrelated hypotheses on the impact of the institutionalization of (a) knowledge production in the public, political, and academic sectors and (b) political and legal decision making on (c) macro outcomes of political and legal decision making. Using the case of criminal punishment, the article suggests new themes for theory development and empirical macro-sociological research. It also contributes to the understanding of current instabilities in the political process in the United States.
Classification and performance evaluation of simultaneous multithreaded architectures

In this paper, we classify simultaneous multithreaded architectures based on how they select instructions issued in a single cycle. This classification allows us to study the present trend of technology as well as to explore the new avenues for improvements in simultaneous multithreaded architectures. Based on our classification, we study the impact of various parameters of simultaneous multithreading on the performance of the architecture.
The mt-86 β aphasia battery: A subset of normative data in relation to age and level of school education

Abstract The MT-86 β version of the Montreal-Toulouse Aphasia Battery has been devised for the clinical assessment of adult French speakers with language disorders. It includes 22 subtests for the appraisal of linguistic abilities in both encoding and decoding oral and written speech. The whole battery has been administered to a total of 143 neurologically healthy adults. This report deals with normative data for seven of the MT-86 β subtests, i.e. repetition, reading aloud, writing to dictation, copy, naming, verbal fluency, word and sentence picture-matching. These subtests correspond to classical tests used in aphasia batteries and are often discussed in the literature in relation to the effect of ageing of linguistic function. Mean scores, standard deviations and score ranges are reported and cut-off scores corresponding to the fifth percentile are suggested. Main effects of both age and education were found to exist in five subtests. Differences indicate better scores among younger versus older adult.
Ibrutinib as Initial Therapy for Patients with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia.

BACKGROUND Chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) primarily affects older persons who often have coexisting conditions in addition to disease-related immunosuppression and myelosuppression. We conducted an international, open-label, randomized phase 3 trial to compare two oral agents, ibrutinib and chlorambucil, in previously untreated older patients with CLL or small lymphocytic lymphoma. METHODS We randomly assigned 269 previously untreated patients who were 65 years of age or older and had CLL or small lymphocytic lymphoma to receive ibrutinib or chlorambucil. The primary end point was progression-free survival as assessed by an independent review committee. RESULTS The median age of the patients was 73 years. During a median follow-up period of 18.4 months, ibrutinib resulted in significantly longer progression-free survival than did chlorambucil (median, not reached vs. 18.9 months), with a risk of progression or death that was 84% lower with ibrutinib than that with chlorambucil (hazard ratio, 0.16; P<0.001). Ibrutinib significantly prolonged overall survival; the estimated survival rate at 24 months was 98% with ibrutinib versus 85% with chlorambucil, with a relative risk of death that was 84% lower in the ibrutinib group than in the chlorambucil group (hazard ratio, 0.16; P=0.001). The overall response rate was higher with ibrutinib than with chlorambucil (86% vs. 35%, P<0.001). The rates of sustained increases from baseline values in the hemoglobin and platelet levels were higher with ibrutinib. Adverse events of any grade that occurred in at least 20% of the patients receiving ibrutinib included diarrhea, fatigue, cough, and nausea; adverse events occurring in at least 20% of those receiving chlorambucil included nausea, fatigue, neutropenia, anemia, and vomiting. In the ibrutinib group, four patients had a grade 3 hemorrhage and one had a grade 4 hemorrhage. A total of 87% of the patients in the ibrutinib group are continuing to take ibrutinib. CONCLUSIONS Ibrutinib was superior to chlorambucil in previously untreated patients with CLL or small lymphocytic lymphoma, as assessed by progression-free survival, overall survival, response rate, and improvement in hematologic variables. (Funded by Pharmacyclics and others; RESONATE-2 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT01722487.).
Alltagsvorstellungen über inhaltliche Kennzeichen von Lügen

Zusammenfassung: In dieser Studie wurde untersucht, welche inhaltlichen Kriterien Laien benutzen, um uber konkrete Aussagen ein Urteil zu fallen. Die Versuchspersonen beurteilten Transkripte von wahren und falschen Aussagen auf ihre Glaubwurdigkeit und gaben anschliesend frei drei Grunde fur ihr Urteil an. Die Grunde wurden kategorisiert und in Bezug auf ihren Zusammenhang mit dem objektiven bzw. dem subjektiv beurteilten Wahrheitsgehalt der Aussagen regressionsanalytisch nach dem Brunswikschen Linsenmodell ausgewertet. Es zeigte sich, dass naive Urteiler vor allem auf logische Konsistenz achten. Im Gegensatz zu den von Experten benutzten Wahrheitskriterien nannten in dieser Studie Laien auch ein Lugenkriterium, den fantastisch-romanhaften Charakter der Aussage als Begrundung fur ihr Glaubwurdigkeitsurteil, welches jedoch weder das subjektive Glaubwurdigkeitsurteil noch den objektiven Wahrheitsgehalt vorhersagte. Expertise, verstanden als ahnliche eigene Erfahrung, konnte am besten sowohl das subjektive G.
Multipath policy routing for the inter-domain scenario

Multipath routing can provide a better solution for several of the current BGP's problems in the inter-domain scenario by allowing a cleaner separation between routing and traffic engineering and better failure containment. The separation between routing control logic and data forwarding, and the use of software defined networking principles open space to easier deployments of new routing protocols at the inter-domain level. This paper explores the potential of using a multipath policy based inter-domain routing algorithm based on an algebraic model. The algorithm establishes multiple paths to a destination following a policy-based architecture and works with simple destination-based hop-by-hop forwarding. We focus on the definition of algebraic models for the links, their composition and the resulting path's ranking. Our algorithm addresses the most common situations in the Internet and we include others not so common as backup links and sibling relations. We prove the correctness of the algorithm under conditions that open several implementation options and describe how it can use multipath for failure containment, using the extra paths to make each failure less important. The paper finishes with the presentation of some experimental results that illustrate the algorithm capabilities.
Divide and conquer: atomizing and parallelizing a task in a mobile crowdsourcing platform

In this paper we present some conclusions about the advantages of having an efficient task formulation when a crowdsourcing platform is used. In particular we show how the task atomization and distribution can help to obtain results in an efficient way. Our proposal is based on a recursive splitting of the original task into a set of smaller and simpler tasks. As a result both more accurate and faster solutions are obtained. Our evaluation is performed on a set of ancient documents that need to be digitized.
Seismic data processing with curvelets: a multiscale and nonlinear approach.

In this abstract, we present a nonlinear curvelet-based sparsitypromoting formulation of a seismic processing flow, consisting of the following steps: seismic data regularization and the restoration of migration amplitudes. We show that the curvelet’s wavefront detection capability and invariance under the migration-demigration operator lead to a formulation that is stable under noise and missing data.
Randomized controlled trial of yoga and exercise in multiple sclerosis

Objective: To determine the effect of yoga and of aerobic exercise on cognitive function, fatigue, mood, and quality of life in multiple sclerosis (MS). Methods: Subjects with clinically definite MS and Expanded Disability Status Score less than or equal to 6.0 were randomly assigned to one of three groups lasting 6 months: weekly Iyengar yoga class along with home practice, weekly exercise class using a stationary bicycle along with home exercise, or a waiting-list control group. Outcome assessments performed at baseline and at the end of the 6-month period included a battery of cognitive measures focused on attention, physiologic measures of alertness, Profile of Mood States, State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Multi-Dimensional Fatigue Inventory (MFI), and Short Form (SF)-36 health-related quality of life. Results: Sixty-nine subjects were recruited and randomized. Twelve subjects did not finish the 6-month intervention. There were no adverse events related to the intervention. There were no effects from either of the active interventions on either of the primary outcome measures of attention or alertness. Both active interventions produced improvement in secondary measures of fatigue compared to the control group: Energy and Fatigue (Vitality) on the SF-36 and general fatigue on the MFI. There were no clear changes in mood related to yoga or exercise. Conclusion: Subjects with MS participating in either a 6-month yoga class or exercise class showed significant improvement in measures of fatigue compared to a waiting-list control group. There was no relative improvement of cognitive function in either of the intervention groups.
Towards deeper understanding of the latent semantic analysis performance

The paper studies the factors influencing the performance of the Latent Semantic Analysis. Unlike previous related research that concentrates on parameters such as matrix elements weighting, space dimensionality, similarity measure etc., we address the impact of another fundamental factor: the definition of “word”. For the purpose, series of experiments were performed on two corpora in order to compare (with respect to the task of text categorisation) six word variants with different linguistic quality. The results show that while the linguistic processing influences the performance, the traditional factors are more important.
The challenges of research on new ways to support recovery

Purpose – The randomised controlled trial, though highly valued, has been criticised as not helping to understand how results occur: Real-life complexity is not captured, i.e. what actually happens at trial sites (rather than what was intended). The purpose of this paper is to summarise and comment on two 2014 research papers addressing this challenge of randomised trials – concerning new therapeutic approaches for people diagnosed with psychotic disorders. Design/methodology/approach – One paper is about what staff thought when adopting a new recovery-focused approach in two mental health services as part of a randomised trial. The other is the plan for a small pilot trial of a new treatment for psychosis called positive psychotherapy. It describes how the researchers planned to study the detail of what happens in their small trial, to help them improve the design of a future, larger trial. Findings – The first paper recommends avoiding services undergoing too many changes and ensuring managers will visibly support the project. When training staff in a new approach, trainers should recognise staff's existing knowledge and skills and use practical methods like role-play. In the second paper, the plan for the small positive psychotherapy trial seems detailed enough to explain what really happens, except in one area: looking at how clinicians actually select service users for the trial. Originality/value – These papers concern pioneering therapeutic approaches in psychosis. With randomised trials highly influential, both these papers recognise their potential problems, and seem to represent good attempts to understand what really happens.