Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relations Between Self-reported Executive Functioning and Speech Perception Skills in Adult Cochlear Implant Users.

HYPOTHESIS As a result of their hearing loss, adults with cochlear implants (CIs) would self-report poorer executive functioning (EF) skills than normal-hearing (NH) peers, and these EF skills would be associated with performance on speech recognition tasks. BACKGROUND EF refers to a group of high order neurocognitive skills responsible for behavioral and emotional regulation during goal-directed activity, and EF has been found to be poorer in children with CIs than their NH age-matched peers. Moreover, there is increasing evidence that neurocognitive skills, including some EF skills, contribute to the ability to recognize speech through a CI. METHODS Thirty postlingually deafened adults with CIs and 42 age-matched NH adults were enrolled. Participants and their spouses or significant others (informants) completed well-validated self-reports or informant-reports of EF, the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function - Adult (BRIEF-A). CI users' speech recognition skills were assessed in quiet using several measures of sentence recognition. NH peers were tested for recognition of noise-vocoded versions of the same speech stimuli. RESULTS CI users self-reported difficulty on EF tasks of shifting and task monitoring. In CI users, measures of speech recognition correlated with several self-reported EF skills. CONCLUSION The present findings provide further evidence that neurocognitive factors, including specific EF skills, may decline in association with hearing loss, and that some of these EF skills contribute to speech processing under degraded listening conditions.
Phonemes Classification with Recurrent Neural Networks

An automatic system, Rasta-PLP and Recurrent Neural Network based, for classifying vowels, fricatives and nasals from TIMIT has been built up. A new philosophy based on the idea to use a short piece of the available signal was implemented in the preprocessing phase. This allowed to save memory space and computational time. On the testing data, the results gave the 98.5% of correct classification for vowels and fricatives, and the 97% of correct classification for nasals. These results are significant considering that they have been obtained using only 30 msec of the signal available.
Inventories, Unobservable Heterogeneity and Long Run Price Elasticities

Studies of competition when information on actual firm costs is unavailable require consistent estimates of long run demand price-elasticities. When consumers stockpile, traditional static discrete-choice models overestimate long-term price responses. In this paper, we develop a dynamic model of demand with inventories and estimate the structural parameters fully accounting for consumers' unobservable heterogeneity, but without having to solve the dynamic programming. We find a severe quantitative difference between the price-elasticities yielded by the static and inventory model, pointing to the risks of making wrong policy recommendations based on short run measures.
Schooling institutions and academic achievement for migrant children in Urban China

Using data collected in Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, this paper identifies differences in student backgrounds and levels of school resources accessed between migrant students in private migrant schools and those in public urban schools. We then quantify differences in academic achievement between students in these two different schooling systems and employ multivariate regression to examine the extent to which differences in student background and school resources explain differences in achievement. In terms of student background, being from a disadvantaged background is associated with attendance in privately run migrant schools. Migrant schools are also inferior to public schools in terms of school resources. We find that migrants attending migrant schools score 0.56 standard deviations in math achievement below students in public schools. We find that this gap is better explained by differences in school resources (instead of student background). Based on these results, we suggest that government efforts to improve education quality for migrant students should focus on increasing access to public schools.
Adaptive Filtering of Comment Spam in Multi-user Forums and Blogs

The influence of web-based user-interaction platforms, like forums, wikis and blogs, has extended its reach into the business sphere, where comments about products and companies can affect corporate values. Thus, guaranteeing the authenticity of the published data has become very important. In fact, these platforms have quickly become the target of attacks aiming at injecting false comments. This phenomenon is worrisome only when implemented by automated tools, which are able to massively influence the average tenor of comments. The research activity illustrated in this paper aims to devise a method to detect automatically-generated comments and filter them out. The proposed solution is completely server-based, for enhanced compatibility and user-friendliness. The core component leverages the flexibility of logic programming for building the knowledge base in a way that allows continuous, mostly unsupervised, learning of the rules used to classify comments for determining whether a comment is
Syndrome of the Trephined: A Systematic Review.

BACKGROUND Syndrome of the trephined (SoT) is a rare, important complication of a craniectomy characterized by neurological dysfunction that improves with cranioplasty. Its varied symptoms include motor, cognitive, and language deficits. Its exact characterization appears suboptimal, with differing approaches of evaluation. Accordingly, this topic is in great need of further investigation. OBJECTIVE To accurately describe SoT and explore methods of an objective diagnosis/evaluation. METHODS Electronic searches of PubMed, MEDLINE, Web of Knowledge, and PsycINFO databases used the key words "syndrome of the trephined" and "sinking skin flap. " Non-English-language and duplicate articles were eliminated. Title and abstract reviews were selected for relevance. Full-text reviews were selected for articles providing individual characteristics of SoT patients. RESULTS This review identified that SoT most often occurs in male patients (60%) at 5.1 ± 10.8 months after craniectomy for neurotrauma (38%). The average reported craniectomy is 88.3 ± 34.4 cm and usually exists with a "sunken skin flap" (93%). Symptoms most commonly include motor, cognitive, and language deficits (57%, 41%, 28%, respectively), with improvement after cranioplasty within 3.8 ± 3.9 days. Functional independence with activities of daily living is achieved by 54.9% of patients after 2.9 ± 3.4 months of rehabilitation. However, evaluation of SoT is inconsistent, with only 53% of reports documenting objective studies. DISCUSSION SoT is a variable phenomenon associated with a prolonged time to cranioplasty. Due to current weaknesses in objectivity, we hypothesize that SoT is often underdiagnosed and recommend a multifaceted approach for consistent evaluation. CONCLUSION SoT is a serious complication that lacks exact characterization and deserves future investigation. Improved understanding and recognition have important implications for early intervention and patient outcomes. ABBREVIATIONS ADLs, activities of daily livingCBF, cerebral blood flowSoT, syndrome of the trephinedVP, ventriculoperitoneal.
The Human Eye and Adaptive Optics

Scientists have rapidly taken advantage of adaptive optics (AO) technology for the study of the human visual system. Vision, the primary human sense, begins with light entering the eye and the formation of an image on the retina (Fig 1), where light is transformed into electro-chemical impulses that travel towards the brain. The eye provides the only direct view of the central nervous system and is, therefore, the subject of intense interest as a means for the early detection of a host of retinal and possibly systemic diseases. However, ocular aberrations limit the optical quality of the human eye, thus reducing image contrast and resolution. With the use of AO it is now routinely possible to compensate for these ocular aberrations and image cellular level structures such as retinal cone and rod photoreceptors (Liang et al, 1997; Doble et al, 2011), the smaller foveal cones (Putnam et al, 2010), retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) cells (Roorda et al, 2007), leukocyte blood cells (Martin & Roorda, 2005) and the smallest retinal blood vessels (Tam et al, 2010; Wang et al, 2011), in vivo and without the aid of contrast enhancing agents.
Particle slippage and rearrangement during compression of pharmaceutical powders

Compression data from different size fractions of lactose, chloroquine diphosphate, stearic acid and calcium carbonate have been analysed using the Walker and the Heckel compression equations. Points of inflection in graphs of log applied pressure vs the reciprocal of the packing fraction at low pressures corresponded closely to figures for theoretical packing conditions for equisized spheres and are attributed to a change in the stage of compression. The degree of particle slippage and rearrangement taking place during compression has been shown to increase as the particle size of the powder decreases and to be more extensive for powders composed of non‐spherical particles. In addition, three types of compression behaviour have been distinguished for the four powders studied.
Using Partial Least Squares Regression to Analyze Cellular Response Data

Multivariate data and context-dependent signaling can be analyzed with the computational approach of PLSR. This Teaching Resource provides lecture notes, slides, and a problem set for a lecture introducing the mathematical concepts and interpretation of partial least squares regression (PLSR) that were part of a course entitled “Systems Biology: Mammalian Signaling Networks. ” PLSR is a multivariate regression technique commonly applied to analyze relationships between signaling or transcriptional data and cellular behavior.
Random-phase-approximation analysis of NMR and neutron-scattering experiments on layered cuprates.

Using a random-phase-approximation expression to approximate the dynamic susceptibility {chi}({bold q},{omega}) of a 2D Hubbard model, we have calculated the spin-relaxation rates and the neutron-scattering intensity. Here, using recent static magnetic measurements to set parameters which enter the hyperfine form factors, we show that this simple form for {chi}({bold q},{omega}) exhibits the features of the spin fluctuations that are required to fit the NMR data, and explore its consequences for the temperature and energy dependence of the magnetic neutron scattering.
Extended mean shift in handwriting clustering

The mean shift method, a simple iterative clustering procedure that shifts each data point to the average of data points in its neighborhood, is being extended in three ways: 1) the window parameter controlling the size of the neighborhood is automatically determined from the original distribution of points; 2) stable, hierarchical clustering is achieved by increasing the window parameter value in a deterministic manner; and 3) the guarantee of its convergence is rigorously proven. A critical comparison of the extended mean shift method to the k-means method and other hierarchical clustering methods is made using artificial 2D point distributions of overlapping Gaussians and half-circles with random noise. Moreover, the extended mean shift method has successfully been applied to the clustering of a wide variety of handwriting deformation in a 256-dimensional feature space.
Medical Home and Emergency Department Utilization Among Children With Special Health Care Needs: An Analysis of the 2005–2006 National Survey of Children With Special Health Care Needs

The purpose of this article was to determine whether medical home associated with reduction in emergency department utilization by children with special health care needs. The study comprised 40 723 children participating in the National Survey of Children with Special Health Care Needs. For whole sample, presence of medical home was not associated with a decrease in emergency department (ED) utilization. However, children aged 0 to 5 years and those with severe functional limitations derived the most benefit from a medical home. Presence of medical home for severely limited children was associated with fewer ED visits (odds ratio, 0.59; 95% confidence interval, 0.50-0.70). Additional studies are warranted to explore specific components of a medical home and ED use.
Call set-up time modeling for SIP-based stateless and stateful calls in next generation networks

This paper examines the call set-up delay (CSD), a performance parameter that may be used in specifying, measuring, and comparing the speed of call set-up processing in networks that employ the session initiation protocol (SIP), in establishing and terminating media sessions (calls) between users. One of the most important standardized technologies that use SIP in this way is the IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) which supports the provision of SIP-based multimedia services to next generation networks (NGN) terminals. The approach taken is, initially, to present some basic concepts for understanding and discussing call set-up in the context of SIP-based networks. Following this, we present some queuing models to simulate and calculate the call set-up delay in various scenarios (i.e., stateless, stateful, single domain and multi-domain scenarios). The proposed models can be used to examine the call set-up delay in other networks and scenarios considering the role of other network elements in the call flows.
AI/expert system applications for the automated office

AI/expert systems enable machines to emulate human thinking. Originally, AI technology was directed toward scientific applications, but now office applications are available for all computer configurations. AI/expert systems can enhance the quality of human thinking by decision makers in an organization and increase productivity. Organizations can develop expert· systems following a customized, semi-customized, or off-the-shelf software approach. Expert systems "clone" the best thinking of company gurus and distribute that knowledge wherever and whenever required. Programs currently available for office applications include decision making, training, word processing, and retrieval systems. The problems solved by AI/expert systems can be large or small but should be of a nature to justify the time and expense involved in developing such systems. Just as the acquisition of office automation was once deemed critical to company survival, so too will be the development of expert systems, the newest competitive edge.
Acute venous thrombosis after pancreas transplantation: diagnosis with duplex Doppler sonography and scintigraphy.

IanBoiskin,1 Martin P.SandIer,1 Arthur C.Fleischer,1 andWilliam A.NylanderThenumber ofpancreas transplantations performed inselected patients withseverediabetes mellitushasincreasedinrecent years.Technical complications aftersurgery arerelativelycommon andremainamajorobstacle tothesuccessoftheprocedure. According toHantoandSutherland [1],acutevenousthrombosis isthesecondmostcommon causeofgraftlossandusuallyoccurs inthefirstweekaftertrans-plantation. Successful thrombectomy hasnotbeenaccom-plished inanypatient; infarction occurs immediately afterthrombosis, andthediagnosis isnotmadeearlyenough toallowrevascularization.Perfusion scintigraphy isasensitive, albeitnonspecific in-dicatorofabnormal perfusion inthetransplanted organ[2]. Ifthegraftisnotvisualized, arteriography isnecessary andistheprocedure ofchoiceforfurtherevaluation. Theabsenceofbloodflowisthought tosignifyvascular thrombosis andwarrants theremoval oftheallograft [i]. Inarecentcase[3]inwhichduplex Doppler sonographywasusedincorrelation withtheradionuclide perfusion study,earlydiagnosis ofallograft renalveinthrombosis wasre-ported. Surgical correction wasdoneimmediately, andthetransplanted kidneywassalvaged.Wedescribe acaseinwhich,usingthesametwoproce-dures, wediagnosed anacute venous thrombosis inanallograft pancreas transplant.
The Endocannabinoid System: Role in Energy Regulation

Cannabis sativa has been used since antiquity to treat many ailments, including eating disorders. The primary psychoactive constituent of this plant, Δ9‐tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is an FDA approved medication to treat nausea and emesis caused by cancer chemotherapeutic agents as well as to stimulate appetite in AIDS patients suffering from cachexia. The effects of THC are mediated through the endocannabinoid system (ECS), which promotes a positive energy balance through stimulation of appetite as well as shifting homeostatic mechanisms toward energy storage. Here we discuss the physiological function of the ECS in energy balance and the therapeutic potential of targeting this system. Pediatr Blood Cancer 2012; 58: 144–148. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Seizure frequency and the health-related quality of life of adults with epilepsy

Objective: To compare the health-related quality of life (HRQL) of a nonsurgical sample of adults with epilepsy with that of age- and gender-equivalent norms, and to analyze the relative importance of seizure frequency, time since last seizure, gender, and comorbidity on HRQL in the epilepsy sample. Methods: Data were obtained from 139 adults with epilepsy from three US centers and published norms on the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 (SF-36). Patients were classified according to number of seizures over the prior 4 weeks (zero, one to five, six or more). Bivariate and multivariate modeling was used. Results: HRQL scores for seizure-free patients were similar to the general population. Significant differences between seizure frequency groups were found for seven domains and the physical and mental component summary scales of the SF-36 (p < 0.001). No differences were found in bodily pain. The largest differences were in physical role and social functioning, and general health (p < 0.001). In the multivariate model, seizure frequency was a significant inverse predictor of HRQL across all domains (p < 0.01 to 0.001). Men reported poorer physical function than women (p < 0.05), and patients with a comorbid condition had poorer HRQL in the areas of pain (p < 0.05) and general health perception (p < 0.01). Time since last seizure was not related uniquely to HRQL. Conclusions: Seizure-free adults can have HRQL levels comparable with those of the general population. As seizure frequency increases, patients report more impaired HRQL, regardless of time since last seizure, gender, and comorbid status. Potential for difficulties in HRQL should be considered in clinical assessment and in evaluating treatment outcomes.
Cassini Encounters Enceladus: Background and the Discovery of a South Polar Hot Spot

The Cassini spacecraft completed three close flybys of Saturn's enigmatic moon Enceladus between February and July 2005. On the third and closest flyby, on 14 July 2005, multiple Cassini instruments detected evidence for ongoing endogenic activity in a region centered on Enceladus' south pole. The polar region is the source of a plume of gas and dust, which probably emanates from prominent warm troughs seen on the surface. Cassini's Composite Infrared Spectrometer (CIRS) detected 3 to 7 gigawatts of thermal emission from the south polar troughs at temperatures up to 145 kelvin or higher, making Enceladus only the third known solid planetary body—after Earth and Io—that is sufficiently geologically active for its internal heat to be detected by remote sensing. If the plume is generated by the sublimation of water ice and if the sublimation source is visible to CIRS, then sublimation temperatures of at least 180 kelvin are required.
Microbial cleavage of nitrate esters: defusing the environment.

SUMMARY: The products of condensing organic hydroxyl groups (ROH) with the mineral acids (hydrochloric, nitric, phosphoric and sulphuric) collectively constitute a major part of the output of the synthetic organic chemical industry, with a wide diversity of applications including surfactants, pesticides, herbicides, dyes, methylating agents, explosives and pharmaceuticals. Compounds containing similar or related structures also occur as natural products. Phosphate esters are, of course, exceptional for their ubiquity in the living world, ranging from the simple intermediary metabolites of glycolysis, through phospholipids, to the backbone of DNA. Sulphate esters too are abundant (Dodgson et al., 1982) and naturally occurring halogenated compounds are also being detected in increasing numbers (for examples, see Strunz, 1984; Engvild, 1986; Neidleman & Geigert, 1986; Harper & Hamilton, 1988). It is therefore no surprise that living organisms have evolved phosphatase (Boyer, 1971), sulphatase (Dodgson & Rose, 1975; Dodgson et al., 1982) and dehalogenase (Neilson, 1990; Hardman, 1991) enzyme systems for initiating biodegradation of such compounds by the removal of the mineral moiety. In marked contrast, we are unable to find any examples of naturally occurring nitrate esters, so that the introduction of such compounds into the environment during their industrial production and usage constitutes a true xenobiotic challenge to microorganisms. This raises intriguing questions about microbial capability for biotransformation/biodegradation of nitrate esters, not only from an academic viewpoint but also because of the wide industrial usage of these compounds and their likely impact on the environment.