Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Comparison of Speech Intelligibility Measures between Unsophisticated Listener Judgements and Orthographic Transcription

An abstract of the thesis of Carla J. Dukart for the Master of Science in Speech Communication: Speech and Hearing Sciences presented November 6, 1996. Title: A Comparison of Speech Intelligibility Measures Between Unsophisticated Listener Judgements and Orthographic Transcription. Intelligible speech is a primary component for successful communication. However, the speech of children with disordered phonologies is often unintelligible. Therefore, when assessing the speech intelligibility of children in order to determine whether they qualify for intervention services, speech-language pathologists need reliable evaluation tools. The focus of this investigation was the measurement of speech intelligibility. The purpose ofthis study was to examine the relationship between two methods for measuring speech intelligibility. The first, identification method, involves the listener transcribing a speech sample from which the percentage of words understood is calculated. The second, scaling procedure, involves the listener estimating the percentage of words understood from a continuous speech sample. The secondary purpose of this study was to examine the accuracy of the scaling method as measured by ear estimation compared to the identification method as measured through orthographic transcription for each of three groups of children with: (a) the most intelligibility, (b) average intelligibility, and ( c) least intelligibility.
Response

Dear Editor, I was encouraged by the article “Breastfeeding Duration in Relation to Child Care Arrangement and Participation in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children,” as I found the content interesting and relevant. Based on the dataset studied, it would also be interesting to evaluate the proportion of first child propensity to breastfeed versus the second or earlier born. As the study suggests, this added variable might help narrow the primary at-risk group even further which can be used to promote educational programs. This specific “target market” could be the highest priority for educational or community/peer support interventions and could help the child obtain the best nutrition during the first 6 months of life. Women who never initiated breastfeeding and those who ceased before the 4-month threshold were combined for study purposes and listed as a limitation. The difference was stated to not be material, or similar, to results that break this piece of data out. I think this information is useful in identifying higher-risk individuals. Based on this study limitation, the shorter-duration (< 4 mo) breastfeeding group is 30% weighted by mothers who never initiated breastfeeding. The intervention changes considerably and a major hurdle in beginning to nurse the baby has been achieved for the remaining 70% (overall population). The syllabus for this group, which initiated then ceased, would cover nutritional benefits, but more importantly, it would focus on day-to-day challenges seen in the workforce. Also, the information provided could include material on speaking with supervisors at work or how to make time at home to nurse or express milk via breast pump. By extracting this data subset, the educational course would change, as the focus of the educational material could be more precise.
Application of stereology and morphometry on synapses and neurons in the hippocampus of ageing rats : an illustration of problems and solutions

textabstractIt is generally accepted that synaptic contact zones are dynamic structures able to modify their chemical, physiological and functional properties throughout the lifespan of an organism. Such changes have been shown to be accompanied by alterations in the morphology of synapses. For example, modifications in synaptic ultrastructure have been reported to be involved in learning and memory, in sensitization and in other functions of the CNS (Central Nervous System). However, qualitative changes, if not extreme, are difficult to detect and compare. Therefore, quantification of synaptic ultrastructural features is of prime importance in neurobiology.
Résultats fonctionnels, oncologiques et complications de l’exérèse des carcinomes épidermoïdes oropharyngés par chirurgie transorale robot-assistée : étude monocentrique prospective à propos de 32 cas

Des etudes ont rapporte de meilleurs resultats fonctionnels et carcinologiques avec la chirurgie transorale robot-assistee (CTORA) qu’avec la chirurgie conventionnelle ou la radiochimiotherapie (RCT) exclusive des carcinomes epidermoides oropharynges precoces. L’objectif etait de comparer nos resultats a la litterature. PATIENTS ET METHODES : Dans cette etude prospective monocentrique, 32 patients ont ete operes par CTORA sur 27 mois. RESULTATS : 81% des patients avaient une lesion precoce T1T2. 37,5% etaient prealablement irradies. La duree moyenne d’exerese etait de 64±31,3min et diminuait significativement avec l’experience apres 10 procedures (80,5±40,1 contre 49±25 min, p=0,05). La duree moyenne de sejour etait 22 ±9,4 jours. La duree moyenne d’alimentation par sonde naso-gastrique etait 21±16,1 jours, et augmentait significativement en cas d’irradiation prealable (49±7,1 contre 15±6,9 min, p<0,02). 8 necessitaient une gastrostomie (irradiaton prealable, T3 ou RCT adjuvante). 5 hemorragies pharyngees ont necessite une reprise chirurgicale. 4 fistules pharyngocutanees, 6 pneumopathies, 1 spondylodiscite et 6 deces sont survenus. Un patient etait tracheotomise secondairement pour stenose pharyngee. Le suivi median etait de 16±7,9 mois. Bien que 37,5% des marges soient envahies, aucun patient presentant une premiere lesion T1T2 n’a recidive localement. La survie sans recidive etait de 91,7% a 12 mois et de 59% a 24 mois et semblait diminuer en cas d’irradiation prealable (p=0,32). CONCLUSION : Nos resultats fonctionnels et oncologiques montrent que les premiers cancers oropharynges precoces peuvent etre traites par CTORA seule ou suivie de radiotherapie avec d’excellents resultats. L’etude prospective multicentrique en cours permettrait de confirmer ces resultats encourageants sur le long terme.
Seroprevalence of Toxoplasma Gondii Among Pregnant Women in Makkah, Saudi Arabia

Toxoplasmosis is a disease caused by the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Congenital transmission may occur when a pregnant mother acquires T. gondii infection for the first time in her life during pregnancy. Detection of antiToxoplasma immunoglobulin M (IgM) and IgG is essential for the diagnosis of Toxoplasma infection in pregnant women. The current study is one of the prime investigations to evaluate the prevalence rate of T. gondii among pregnant women in the holy city of Makkah Al-Mukkarmah and to consider some of the environmental and personal factors that may contribute to infection. Serum samples of 197 pregnant women aged 17 to 45 years attending the Maternity hospital in Makkah were tested for anti-Toxoplasma IgG and IgM antibodies using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serological results, reflecting T. gondii prevalence rate, were statistically analyzed and linked to epidemiological data collected through a standard questionnaire. The seroprevalence of anti-Toxoplasma IgG was 29.4% (58 out of 197), whereas IgM seropositivity was 5.6%. The highest IgG and IgM seroprevalence were among participants aged 35 to 43 years (48.8% and 12% respectively). No statistically significant relation was observed between T. gondii seroprevalence and the other variable factors studied. The current study indicates that there is a considerable rate of Toxoplasma infection among pregnant women in Makkah and support the concern that Saudi women may be vulnerable to that infection. Moreover, it shows the need to provide health education to pregnant women in order to prevent primary infection during pregnancy.
BİLATERAL OPTİK DİSK DRUZENİ VE PAPİLÖDEM AYIRICI TANISINDA OPTİK KOHERENS TOMOGRAFİNİN YERİ: ÜÇ OLGU NEDENİYLE

Optic disc drusen is composed of hyaline-like calcific material within the substance of the optic nerve head. If it occurs in both eyes it is generally misdiagnosed as papiledema. In this report, we evaluated the clinical features and the results of optical coherence tomography of three cases with bilateral optic disc drusen. By these three cases we also discuss the efficiency of optical coherence tomography in the differential diagnosis of optic disc drusen and papiledema
New species of Haematoloechus (Digenea: Plagiorchidae) in the lung of the foothill yellow-legged frog Rana boylii (Anura), from Humboldt County, California, USA

A new species of Haematoloechus is described from the lungs of Rana boylii from Humboldt County, California. The new species is similar to Haematoloechus buttensis, Haematoloechus kernensis, and Haematoloechus complexus in general course of the uterus and gonad shape. It is similar to H. buttensis by having a cirrus sac terminating midway between the posterior margin of the pharynx and the anterior margin of the ovary, and having a smaller oral/ ventral sucker ratio; to H. complexus by having the genital pore ventral to the pharynx, and it is similar to H. kernensis by having a larger oral sucker to pharynx width ratio. The new species is unique by lacking an extra-cecal longitudinal uterine loop from the hind-body. Molecularly, the new species differs 1.04–1.15% in partial 28S sequence with respect to H. complexus, and a monophyletic grouping of these specimens in a phylogenetic analysis of all available sequence data consistent with the species-specific status proposed herein. Evidence is also presented to suggest that specimens identified as H. buttensis in Rana pretiosa from British Columbia, Canada represents a new, but still undescribed species. The importance of conducting biological inventories of helminths, along with continued monitoring of populations, and collections based taxonomy are related.
β2 Microglobulin-deficient (B2mnull) NOD/SCID mice are excellent recipients for studying human stem cell function

Human SCID repopulating cells (SRC) are defined based on their functional ability to repopulate the bone marrow of NOD/ SCID mice with both myeloid and lymphoid cell populations. The frequency of SRC in umbilical cord blood cells is 1 in 9.3 3 10 5 mononuclear cells. We report that as few as 8 3 104 human cord blood mononuclear cells transplanted into NOD/ SCID/B2mnull mice resulted in mutlilineage differentiation in the murine bone marrow, revealing a more than 11-fold higher SRC frequency than in NOD/SCID mice. Moreover, as few as 2 to 5 3 10 3 CD341 cells recovered from the bone marrow of primary transplanted NOD/ SCID mice were sufficient for engrafting secondary NOD/SCID/B2mnull mice with SRC, suggesting SRC self-renewal. Thus, by using NOD/SCID/B2mnull mice as recipients, we established a functional assay for human stem cells capable of engrafting the bone marrow of primary and secondary transplanted immune-deficient mice with SRC, providing a model that better resembles autologous stem cell transplantation. (Blood. 2000;95:31023105)
FIRST HOST RECORD FOR THE ROOT PARASITE CORYNAEA CRASSA (BALANOPHORACEAE)

Corynaea crassa es una planta hemiparasita de raiz poco comun y de la cual sabemos muy poco acerca de su historia natural y en particular sobre su rango de hospederos. En este estudio escabamos 32 tuberculos de dicha especie y seguimos las raices que estaban parasitando para determinar su identidad. Encontramos Bocconia frutescens (Papaveraceae), Verbesina sp. (Asteraceae), Cayaponia sp. (Cucurbitaceae) y Palicourea sp. (Rubiaceae). Este es el primer registro de hospederos disponible para la especies y es informacion de gran utilidad para las conservacion de C. crassa en habitats naturales.
Geoprocessamento aplicado na identificação e localização potencial de conflitos de uso em áreas de preservação permanente na microbacia do córrego Monte Belo, Botucatu (SP, Brasil)

This work aimed to evaluate the potential of geo-processing in the identification and localization of potential conflicts of use over 1592ha in permanent preservation areas (APPs) of the Monte Belo watershed - Botucatu (SP, Brazil) (22° 45’ to 22° 48’ S and 48o 15’ to 48° 21’ W), through the use of Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and digital satellite images, bands 3, 4 and 5 of Sensor TM of LANDSAT 5, of the orbit 220, point 76, quadrant A, passage of 23/10/2006. The results allowed verification that 62.78% of the area is occupied with reforestation and 37.22% is forest, and that only 2.65% of the area has been used inadequately with reforestation.
FORAGE YIELD, QUALITY AND UTILIZATION EFFICIENCY ON NATIVE PASTURES UNDER DIFFERENT STOCKING RATES AND SEASONS OF THE YEAR IN THE MEXICAN HUMID TROPIC

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of season of the year (SY) and stocking rate (SR) on forage yield, utilization efficiency, development of plant components, crude protein (CP), cell wall content (CWC), ruminal degradation of dry matter (DM), acid detergent fiber (ADF) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) of native grasses, in two consecutive years, in Veracruz, Mexico. Treatments included 2, 3 and 4 cows ha-1 during the rainy, windy and dry seasons. For each SR, 10 Holstein x Zebu cows were used in 10 paddocks of 0.5, 0.33 and 0.25 ha for SR 2, 3 and 4 cows ha-1, respectively. Each paddock was grazed for three days and had a rest period of 27 days. A randomized design with two replications was used. Stocking rate did not affect forage yield (6171 kg DM ha-1), CP of leaves (9.9 %) and stems (7.2 %), CWC, ruminal degradation of DM of leaves (69.8 %) and stems (70.7 %), nor NDF of leaves (69.6 %) and stems (73.5 %), whereas SY did affect these variables. The SY was the main factor affecting forage yield and nutritive quality. The density and length of stems, and the length of leaves were higher at a lower SR in the rainy season.
IDENTIFICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF ANTIFUNGAL CHITINASE FROM BACILLUS SUBTILIS JD-09 AND THEIR ROLE IN INHIBITION OF VIABLE FUNGAL GROWTH

Objective: Chitinase plays an important role against fungal pathogen and is a hopeful solution against fungal diseases. The main of this research is to screen a chitin degrading strain which can significantly used as biocontrol agent against Fusarium oxysporum . Methods: In the present study, chitinase producing bacteria were isolated from soil sample of crop field and identified based on biochemical observation and 16S rRNA analysis. The molecular weight of the enzyme was determined by zymogram. The purified enzyme from identified strain JD-09 was tested for antagonistic activity against Fusarium oxysporum . Results: Strain JD-09 was screened and identified as Bacillus subtilis . The strain exhibited a maximum chitinase production of 1.33 U/mL in colloidal chitin broth after 3 days of cultivation at 28 °C. The molecular weight of the chitinase was estimated to be 57 kDa, 39 kDa and 30.7 kDa. Hydrolysis products of the fungal cell wall by the purified enzymes of B. subtilis JD-09 were analyzed by high-pressure liquid chromatography (HPLC) and identified as oligosaccharides. Conclusion: It can be interfered that Bacillus subtilis JD-09 may be an optimal candidate for use as an antifungal agent of Fusarium wilt in crops. The purified chitinase can be directly applied for suppressing growth of living fungal hyphae. Keywords: Fusarium oxysporum , B. subtilis JD-09, chitinase, antifungal activity.
Bayesian Optimization for Categorical and Category-Specific Continuous Inputs

Many real-world functions are defined over both categorical and category-specific continuous variables and thus cannot be optimized by traditional Bayesian optimization (BO) methods. To optimize such functions, we propose a new method that formulates the problem as a multi-armed bandit problem, wherein each category corresponds to an arm with its reward distribution centered around the optimum of the objective function in continuous variables. Our goal is to identify the best arm and the maximizer of the corresponding continuous function simultaneously. Our algorithm uses a Thompson sampling scheme that helps connecting both multi-arm bandit and BO in a unified framework. We extend our method to batch BO to allow parallel optimization when multiple resources are available. We theoretically analyze our method for convergence and prove sub-linear regret bounds. We perform a variety of experiments: optimization of several benchmark functions, hyper-parameter tuning of a neural network, and automatic selection of the best machine learning model along with its optimal hyper-parameters (a.k.a automated machine learning). Comparisons with other methods demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method.
Towards Reliable Evaluation of Road Network Reconstructions

Existing performance measures rank delineation algorithms inconsistently, which makes it difficult to decide which one is best in any given situation. We show that these inconsistencies stem from design flaws that make the metrics insensitive to whole classes of errors. To provide more reliable evaluation, we design three new metrics that are far more consistent even though they use very different approaches to comparing ground-truth and reconstructed road networks. We use both synthetic and real data to demonstrate this and advocate the use of these corrected metrics as a tool to gauge future progress.
PCKV: Locally Differentially Private Correlated Key-Value Data Collection with Optimized Utility

Data collection under local differential privacy (LDP) has been mostly studied for homogeneous data. Real-world applications often involve a mixture of different data types such as key-value pairs, where the frequency of keys and mean of values under each key must be estimated simultaneously. For key-value data collection with LDP, it is challenging to achieve a good utility-privacy tradeoff since the data contains two dimensions and a user may possess multiple key-value pairs. There is also an inherent correlation between key and values which if not harnessed, will lead to poor utility. In this paper, we propose a locally differentially private key-value data collection framework that utilizes correlated perturbations to enhance utility. We instantiate our framework by two protocols PCKV-UE (based on Unary Encoding) and PCKV-GRR (based on Generalized Randomized Response), where we design an advanced Padding-and-Sampling mechanism and an improved mean estimator which is non-interactive. Due to our correlated key and value perturbation mechanisms, the composed privacy budget is shown to be less than that of independent perturbation of key and value, which enables us to further optimize the perturbation parameters via budget allocation. Experimental results on both synthetic and real-world datasets show that our proposed protocols achieve better utility for both frequency and mean estimations under the same LDP guarantees than state-of-the-art mechanisms.
Cosmology and Matter-Induced Branes

The extra space paradigm plays a significant role in modern physics and cosmology as a specific case. In this review, the relation between the main cosmological parameters—the Planck mass and the Cosmological constants—and a metric of extra space is discussed. Matter distribution inside extra space and its effect on the 4-dimensional observational parameters is of particular interest. The ways to solve the fine-tuning problem and the hierarchy problem are analyzed.
Determination of slimness, low weight and low growth rates in rural and urban schoolboys in Golpayegan

Background and Aim: Malnutrition is one of the causative agents of death in children. So, this study was done for assessment of anthropometric indices of students and malnutrition status in Golpayegan, Iran. Materials and Methods: This research was done as a descriptive – analytical (inferential) study. Sampling was done as clusters and multistage. In order to collect data, the standard questionnaire of anthropometric indicators standards (ANIS) pattern was used. Low and low height was used based on Z score. Collected data was analyzed by Epi-info and SPSS software. Results: Of 1062 schoolboys, 550 were male and 512 were female. Anthropometric indicators including age (month), weight (kg) and height (Cm) showed significant differences (P < 0.05). The mean of malnutrition index was 5.4 % (WAZ<-2) and 3% (WAZ<-2) in our study. Conclusion: The significant difference between prevalence of slimness, low weighting and low growth in rural and urban Schoolboys is an indicator of the undesirable situation in rural areas. Therefore, nutritional planning should be considered in rural children.
Do Not Trust Additive Explanations

Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI)has received a great deal of attention recently. Explainability is being presented as a remedy for the distrust of complex and opaque models. Model agnostic methods such as LIME, SHAP, or Break Down promise instance-level interpretability for any complex machine learning model. But how faithful are these additive explanations? Can we rely on additive explanations for non-additive models? In this paper, we (1) examine the behavior of the most popular instance-level explanations under the presence of interactions, (2) introduce a new method that detects interactions for instance-level explanations, (3) perform a large scale benchmark to see how frequently additive explanations may be misleading.
A Benchmarking of DCM Based Architectures for Position, Velocity and Torque Controlled Humanoid Robots

This paper contributes toward the benchmarking of control architectures for bipedal robot locomotion. It considers architectures that are based on the Divergent Component of Motion (DCM) and composed of three main layers: trajectory optimization, simplified model control, and whole-body quadratic programming (QP) control layer. While the first two layers use simplified robot models, the whole-body QP control layer uses a complete robot model to produce either desired positions, velocities, or torques inputs at the joint-level. This paper then compares two implementations of the simplified model control layer, which are tested with position, velocity, and torque control modes for the whole-body QP control layer. In particular, both an instantaneous and a Receding Horizon controller are presented for the simplified model control layer. We show also that one of the proposed architectures allows the humanoid robot iCub to achieve a forward walking velocity of 0.3372[Formula: see text]m/s, which is the highest walking velocity achieved by the iCub robot.
PRECEDE-PROCEED: The Best Model to Plan in order to Improve Interns’ Self-Efficacy Specific to Doctor- Patient Communication Skills

Patient satisfaction with health services is one of the pivotal factors affecting the continuity of self-care and treatment behaviors as well as acquisition of a vast majority of desired health outcomes [1, 2]. According to Montini and colleagues, qualitative content analysis of eight research reports showed that patients’ dissatisfaction with the quality and quantity of the doctor-patient relationship was at the top of the patients’ complain list [3]. A 2010 systematic review on the effective training strategies for teaching communication skills to physicians declared that according to many studies, the communication styles of the medical doctors plays a key role in “patient satisfaction” and “patient compliance” [4]. This study also confirmed that the prevailing doctor-patient communication behavior resulting from deeply rooted habits needs to be improved by designing the effective training strategies, and the important reason for finding an effective training approach lies in the fact that medical professionals often encounter a distinct lack of time to continue to attend a considerable extent of the training courses. Moreover, this review contributed learnercenteredness and practiceorientation of a training program as well as its duration of at least one day to the effectiveness of the program and concluded role-play, feedback and small group discussions as the effective training strategies [4]. Some research indicates that learning of communication skills are more influenced by