SIRIS-Lab/unlabelled-sti-corpus huggingface dataset:
Combining Directional Microphone and Single-Channel Noise Reduction Algorithms

This study tested a combination of algorithms designed to improve cochlear implant performance in noise. A noise reduction (NR) algorithm, based on signal to noise ratio estimation was evaluated in combination with several directional microphone algorithms available in the Cochlear CP810 sound processor.Fourteen adult unilateral cochlear implant users participated in the study. Evaluation was conducted using word recognition in quiet, sentence recognition in noise, and subjective feedback via questionnaire after a period of take-home use. Music appreciation was also evaluated in a controlled listening task. The sentence recognition task measured speech reception threshold for 50% morphemes correct. The interfering maskers were speech-weighted noise and competing talkers, which were spatially separated from the target speech. In addition, the locations of the noise maskers changed during the test in an effort to replicate relevant real-world listening conditions. SmartSound directionality settings Standard, Zoom, and Beam (used in the SmartSound programs Everyday, Noise, and Focus, respectively) were all evaluated with and without NR.Microphone directionality demonstrated a consistent benefit in sentence recognition in all noise conditions tested. The group average speech reception threshold benefit over the Standard setting was 3.7 dB for Zoom and 5.3 dB for Beam. Addition of the NR algorithm further improved sentence recognition by 1.3 dB when the noise maskers were speech-weighted noise. There was an overall group preference for the NR algorithm in noisy environments. Group mean word recognition in quiet, preference in quiet conditions, and music appreciation were all unaffected by the NR algorithm.Multimicrophone directionality was effective in improving speech understanding in spatially separated noisy conditions. The single-channel NR algorithm further enhanced speech intelligibility in speech-weighted noise for cochlear implant users while maintaining equivalent performance in quiet situations and when listening to music.
POLYMORPH OF THE ANTIHISTAMINE NORASTEMIZOLE

Polymorphic crystalline forms of the antihistaminic drug norastemizole are disclosed. Processes for the production of the preferred polymorph are also disclosed.
WATERPROOF PLASMA TREATED FOOTWEAR WITH LIQUID ABSORBING FOOTBED

An item of footwear having a liquid-repelling polymeric coating, obtained by a plasma treatment process, provided over at least part of a surface thereof, said item also being provided at the region on the inside upon which the wearer's foot rests with a liquid-absorbing foot supporting footbed. Items of this type provide improved comfort for the wearer.
Territorial promotion based on cultural heritage in the transnational area alongside the ancient Roman road Via Claudia Augusta

In the Alpine area the Roman roads, as Via Claudia Augusta (VCA), were the first regular link between the North and the South of Europe. The territory alongside these roads was particularly involved in cultural and economic exchanges and is enriched by several evidence of the past. Today the ancient VCA is an element which brings together different cultures and populations, from the northern Adriatic to the area of the Danube, offering them the opportunity to meet and exchange experiences. The project aims to define a common strategy and best practices for the promotion of this transnational territory; its most important aspect is to create a network among the actors involved. Culture, local products, environmental resources and tourism are the components of the project which acts by transnational and local pilot projects and adopts an integrated approach within the framework of sustainable development. The project is open to the contribution of the local partners and to the collaboration with other similar initiatives and envisage instruments, as a territorial brand, in order to ensure vitality of the initiative in the future.
Survey of Hypoglycemia in Elderly People With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Japan

The number of elderly type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients in Japan is increasing continuously. Hypoglycemia is a significant issue in their treatment. However, the actual situation and related details of their hypoglycemia remain unclear. In order to elucidate them, the Japan Physicians Association conducted a large-scale questionnaire survey for physicians and their outpatients all over Japan.Targeted elderly T2DM outpatients were 65 years old or older in 2011. Specialized questionnaire survey forms were distributed to both of physicians and patients. The forms for physicians included questions whether patient had hypoglycemia in the last 1 month or 1 year; those for patients included whether they experienced it in the same durations and any of the 28 symptoms that are suggestive of hypoglycemia or pertaining to geriatric syndrome in the last 1 month, as well as questions about knowledge regarding hypoglycemia. We analyzed associations between hypoglycemia and the symptoms, and between hypoglycemia and medications.Of 15,892 T2DM patients (age, 74.2 ± 6.3 years; diabetes duration, 12.8 ± 8.9 years; HbA1c, 7.0±1.0%), dipeptidyl peptidase-4 inhibitor (DPP-4i) was the most prescribed medication among all oral hypoglycemic agents (OHAs). The frequencies of hypoglycemia in the last 1 month recognized by physicians and experienced by patients were 7.8% and 10.4% (P < 0.0001), and in the last 1 year were 15.5% and 21.1% respectively (P < 0.0001). The most common symptom was "weakness, fatigue/feeling languid" and the majority of all patients reported neuroglycopenic or autonomic symptoms. Regarding monotherapy, hypoglycemia was observed in 32.7% of the patients with insulin, 4% in sulfonylurea (SU), 3.8% in glinide, and 3.5% in pioglitazone. The questions asking knowledge about hypoglycemia revealed that SU or insulin users had significantly more knowledge of hypoglycemia than others (P < 0.001); however, 63% of patients using insulin, and 31% of patients using SU always carried glucose or a similar medication with them.The present study suggested two types of "hidden hypoglycemia", one is that physicians did not detect and the other one is that patients were not aware. It is vital that physicians strive to prevent hypoglycemia by paying closer attention to symptoms of "hidden hypoglycemia" in their elderly patients.
Retracted: Recent drought events over the central Indian region: Pacific Ocean origin and insights from moisture budgets

Analysis of rainfall variation over the central Indian (CI) region, using a high resolution rainfall gridded data set over the Indian longitudes, shows that the recent decade (1998–2009) has large number of drought events, compared with the earlier two decades (1979–1997). Improved understanding of the underlying mechanism responsible for these summer monsoon droughts is important because of their profound socio-economic impact over this region. Our analysis here reveals that most of the recent droughts are associated with extended break events (breaks lasting more than 7 d) and that the process responsible for it may also be the mechanism responsible for these droughts.



Sub-seasonal diagnostics, focusing on such drought-producing break monsoon events, show prominent structures resembling the central Pacific (CP) El Nino warming over central equatorial Pacific Ocean. We then performed sub-seasonal moisture budget diagnostics using newly available European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) interim reanalysis. The primary aim is to identify the various moist processes through which the break monsoon conditions are initiated and maintained over CI, thus leading to large-scale drought conditions. The budget diagnostic shows that dry advection is the principal moisture process to initiate drought-producing break conditions over CI. The primary processes leading to dry advection are as follows: the enhanced rainfall over western north Pacific (WNP) induces cyclonic circulation anomalies to its northwest as a Rossby wave response, and the northerlies at the poleward of this circulation advect dry air of low moisture content from continental subtropics to south Asia. The present result also indicates that the enhanced radiative cooling over CI plays an important role in maintaining such break conditions. A direct implication of our research is that observational efforts are essential to monitor the three-dimensional moisture distribution over the south Asian monsoon region, for a better understanding of these drought-producing break monsoon events.
POSTAGE METER

1. Franking machine with a franking head (2) fixed to the end of a machine main shaft (1) and in which are adjustably mounted franking value index wheels, which are in driving connection with an engagement tooth system (28) of racks (4, 4') guided in the machine main shaft (1) and which, in addition to the engagement tooth system (28), has a driving tooth system (29) and a retaining tooth system (31), whereby at least one electromagnet (16, 17) engages in each case one adjusting ram (5, 6) with the driving tooth system (29) of a rack (4, 4') and on the driving tooth system (29) of each rack (4, 4') is provided a pawl (44, 44', 45, 45') preventing the rearward movement of the rack and on the retaining tooth system (31) of the rack (4, 4') there is at least one retaining pawl (19, 20) additionally securing the adjustment position, characterized in that the retaining pawls (19, 20) can be engaged and disengaged with respect to the retaining tooth system (31), a sensor (80) indicating to the franking machine control unit the position of the retaining pawls (19, 20).
NOVEL TANDEM siRNAS

The present invention provides novel molecules, compositions, methods and uses for treating microvascular disorders, eye diseases and respiratory conditions based upon inhibition of two or more target genes.
Automatic system testing

Verifying the correctness of software systems requires extensive and expensive testing sessions. While there are tools and methodologies to efficiently address unit and integration testing, system testing is still largely the result of manual effort.
Testing software applications at the system level requires executing the applications through their interfaces to verify the correctness of their functionalities and stimulate all their layers and components. Automating just part of this process can dramatically improve the effectiveness of verification activities and significantly reduce development costs, relevantly alleviating developers from their verification effort.
This project addresses the development of a pre-commercial tool that has the unique capability of efficiently and automatically generating semantically-relevant system test cases equipped with functional oracles. This capability derives from the AUGUSTO technique, which is an outcome of the Learn ERC project. The idea behind Augusto is to exploit the common-sense knowledge, that is, the background knowledge that every computer user has and that normally lets her/him use software applications without the need of accessing any documentation or manual. Once this knowledge is represented abstractly and then embedded in AUGUSTO, the technique can automatically adapt its definition to the software under test every time a program is tested. 
This development work will be performed jointly with A company that produces and markets testing tools.
Safe maritime operations under extreme conditions: the arctic case

Maritime traffic in the Arctic region is rapidly increasing. But there has been a huge increase in marine casualties in this region due to its extremely harsh environment and the severe safety challenges for ships’ navigation teams.

SEDNA will develop an innovative and integrated risk-based approach to safe Arctic navigation, ship design and operation, to enable European maritime interests to confidently fully embrace the Arctic’s significant and growing shipping opportunities, while safeguarding its natural environment.

More specifically SEDNA will create and demonstrate the improved safety outcomes of: 
1. The Safe Arctic Bridge, a human-centered operational environment for the ice-going ship bridge using augmented reality technology to provide improved situational awareness and decision making whilst enabling integration with new key information layers developed by the project using innovative big data management techniques.      
2. Integrated dynamic meteorological and oceanographic data with real time ship monitoring and ice movement predictions to provide reliable decision making for safe and efficient Arctic voyage optimisation.
3. Anti-icing engineering solutions, using nature inspired approaches, to prevent ice formation on vessels, eliminating ice as a ship stability and working-environment hazard.
4. Risk-based design framework to ensure that vessel design is connected to all key hazards of ship operation in the Arctic. The holistic treatment of the ship design, operating regime and environment will improve safety and minimise impact over the entire life cycle.  
5. A CEN Workshop Agreement on a process to systematically address safety during bunkering of methanol as a marine fuel along with safety zone guidance for three bunkering concepts: Truck to Ship, Shore to Ship and Ship to Ship.

To maximise impact, SEDNA will provide formal inputs to international regulatory regimes regarding regulation adaptation requirements for its safety solutions.
Increasing complex i stability as a cure for mitochondrial diseases

Mitochondria are found within every human cell and are responsible for the majority of energy production in the cell. When the mitochondria do not function properly, they cause devastating diseases affecting many and often multiple organs with the highest energy needs, such as skeletal muscle, brain, heart and liver. Over the years we have steadily increased our understanding of the genetic and molecular mechanisms leading to mitochondrial disease, developed different models and biomarkers. Unfortunately, development of effective therapeutic approaches able to improve the outcome of the diseases or at least to ameliorate or postpone the symptoms was much less effective.
Today, therapeutic options for mitochondrial diseases still remain focused on supportive dietary interventions aimed at relieving complications. Therefore, it would be ideal if a single approach could be developed that would be equally effective with various mitochondrial diseases most often characterized by complex I deficiency.
Our preliminary data show that by removing the major mitochondrial matrix protease CLPXP, and therefore stabilizing CI, we could ameliorate the symptoms of respiratory deficiency in different cellular models of mitochondrial dysfunction. The loss of CLPP in these models resulted not only in increased stability of CI, but also normalized NAD+/ NADH that collectively resulted in improved proliferation and survival rates. Remarkably, even partial loss of ClpXP activity in respiratory deficient cells led to mild increase in the CI levels, opening an exciting prospect for therapeutic interventions. Therefore, the overall goal of this project is to explore the possibility of targeting CLPP activity to ameliorate symptoms of mitochondrial diseases in in vivo models through genetic interventions and search for specific protease inhibitors.
DEVICE FOR LASER CUTTING A WORKPIECE AND FOR COLLECTING THE ELEMENTS PRODUCED, AND IMPLEMENTATION METHOD

The invention relates to a device for capturing and transporting elements produced when cutting a workpiece (4) using a power laser, said workpiece notably comprising radioactive elements, the device comprising a power laser able to cut the workpiece, comprising a laser-irradiation head (1) emitting a laser beam (2), and a stream of flushing air (3) and a bell for collecting the elements produced by the cutting operation which is connected removably to the laser-irradiation head (1), said bell comprising a) a hollowed part (5) comprising a discharge (7) and b) a blowing nozzle (6) able to emit a stream (8) of compressed air aimed towards the discharge (7) of the hollowed part (5). The invention also relates to a method for the laser cutting of a workpiece (4) and for collecting the elements produced during the cutting of the workpiece by implementing said device.
Imprints of impulse-excited hydromagnetic waves on electrons in the Van Allen radiation belts

Ultralow frequency electromagnetic oscillations, interpreted as standing hydromagnetic waves in the magnetosphere, are a major energy source that accelerates electrons to relativistic energies in the Van Allen radiation belt. Electrons can rapidly gain energy from the waves when they resonate via a process called drift resonance, which is observationally characterized by energy-dependent phase differences between electron flux and electromagnetic oscillations. Such dependence has been recently observed and interpreted as spacecraft identifications of drift resonance electron acceleration. Here we show that in the initial wave cycles, the observed phase relationship differs from that characteristic of well-developed drift resonance. We further examine the differences and find that they are imprints of impulse-excited, coupled fast-Alfven waves before they transform into more typical standing waves. Our identification of such imprints provides a new understanding of how energy couples in the inner magnetosphere, and a new diagnostic for the generation and growth of magnetospheric hydromagnetic pulsations.
Advanced decision support for complex clinical decisions

A Physician’s decision-making skills are directly related to the patient’s positive outcomes. Therefore, a wealth of medical knowledge and clinical experience are key assets for a physician to have. The goal here is to use historical clinical data and relationships processed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to aid physicians in their decision making process. Presenting this information in a Clinical Decision Support System (CDSS) is an effective means to consolidate decision results. The CDSS provides a large number of medical support functions to help clinicians make the most reasonable diagnosis and choose the best treatment measures. Initial results have shown great promise in accurately predicting Fibrosis Stage in Hepatitis patients. Utilizing this tool could mitigate the need for some liver biopsies in the more than 170 million Hepatitis patients worldwide. The prototype is extendable to accommodate additional techniques (for example genetic algorithms and logistics regression) and additional medical domain solutions (for example HIV/AIDS).
Statistical learning and l2 literacy acquisition: towards a neurobiological theory of assimilating novel writing systems

The overarching goal of L2STAT is to understand L2 literacy acquisition by bringing together, for the first time, recent advances in the neurobiology of statistical learning (SL), a detailed statistical characterization of the world’s writing systems, and neurally-plausible general principles of learning, representation, and processing. L2STAT aims to provide a new theoretical framework that considers L2 learning and SL a two-way street: SL, on the one hand, tunes learners to the regularities of a new linguistic environment, and on the other hand, L2 environment shapes learners’ sensitivity to its specific types of statistical properties. The project will focus on the assimilation of reading skills in four novel linguistic environments, and investigate how exposure to their distinct writing systems shape, in turn, SL. L2STAT is an interdisciplinary project that launches in parallel five mutually informative research axes: 1) we employ advanced methods from computational linguistics and machine learning to precisely characterize the statistics of four highly contrasting writing systems (English, Spanish, Hebrew, Chinese). 2) We study the learning that results from biologically-inspired computational models that are exposed to these statistics, to generate a priori predictions regarding what statistical properties can (or cannot) be learned, and how neural mechanisms constrain the representations learned during L2 literacy acquisition. 3) We develop psychometrically reliable behavioral tests of individuals’ capacities to extract regularities in the visual and auditory modalities. 4) We use state of the art neuroimaging techniques including EEG, MEG, fMRI to probe the neurobiological underpinning for detecting regularities in the visual and auditory modalities. 5) We conduct behavioral experimentation in four sites (Israel, Spain, Taiwan to track literacy acquisition longitudinally in the four different languages.
Practical imaging and inversion of transient light transport

The automated analysis of visual data is a key enabler for industrial and consumer technologies and of immense economic
and social importance. Its main challenge is in the inherent ambiguity of images due to the very mechanism of image
capture: light reaching a pixel on different paths or at different times is mixed irreversibly. Consequently, even after
decades of extensive research, problems like deblurring or descattering, geometry/material estimation or motion tracking
are still largely unsolved and will remain so in the foreseeable future.
Transient imaging (TI) tackles this problem by recording ultrafast optical echoes that unmix light contributions by the total
pathlength. So far, TI used to require high-end measurement setups. By introducing computational TI (CTI), we paved the
way for a lightweight capture of transient data using consumer hardware. We showed the potential of CTI in scenarios like
robust range measurement, descattering and imaging of objects outside the line of sight – tasks that had been considered
difficult to impossible so far.
The ECHO project is rooted in computer graphics and computational imaging. In it, we will overcome the practical limitations that are hampering a large-scale deployment of TI: the time required for data capture and to reconstruct the
desired information, both in the order of seconds to minutes, a lack of dedicated image priors and of quality guarantees for
the reconstruction, the limited accuracy and performance of forward models and the lack of ground-truth data and
benchmark methods.
Over the course of ECHO, we will pioneer advanced capture setups and strategies, signal formation models, priors and numerical
methods, for the first time enabling real-time reconstruction and analysis of transient light transport in complex and dynamic
scenes. The methodology developed in this far-reaching project will turn TI from a research technology into a family of
practical tools that will immediately benefit many applications.