nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
An Overview of Noise-Robust Automatic Speech Recognition

New waves of consumer-centric applications, such as voice search and voice interaction with mobile devices and home entertainment systems, increasingly require automatic speech recognition (ASR) to be robust to the full range of real-world noise and other acoustic distorting conditions. Despite its practical importance, however, the inherent links between and distinctions among the myriad of methods for noise-robust ASR have yet to be carefully studied in order to advance the field further. To this end, it is critical to establish a solid, consistent, and common mathematical foundation for noise-robust ASR, which is lacking at present. This article is intended to fill this gap and to provide a thorough overview of modern noise-robust techniques for ASR developed over the past 30 years. We emphasize methods that are proven to be successful and that are likely to sustain or expand their future applicability. We distill key insights from our comprehensive overview in this field and take a fresh look at a few old problems, which nevertheless are still highly relevant today. Specifically, we have analyzed and categorized a wide range of noise-robust techniques using five different criteria: 1) feature-domain vs. model-domain processing, 2) the use of prior knowledge about the acoustic environment distortion, 3) the use of explicit environment-distortion models, 4) deterministic vs. uncertainty processing, and 5) the use of acoustic models trained jointly with the same feature enhancement or model adaptation process used in the testing stage. With this taxonomy-oriented review, we equip the reader with the insight to choose among techniques and with the awareness of the performance-complexity tradeoffs. The pros and cons of using different noise-robust ASR techniques in practical application scenarios are provided as a guide to interested practitioners. The current challenges and future research directions in this field is also carefully analyzed.
Virtual Food Court: A VR environment to Assess People's Food Choices

Immersive virtual reality environments can provide users with realistic experiences of worlds that do not exist or would be hard to reach. The ability to manipulate these environments and influence experiences can be used to understand decision making under different conditions. In this study we explore how VR can be used to understand more about people's food choices. We explore how policy-based interventions such as the "sugar tax" and "nutrition labelling" to promote healthier food choices could be tested. Only limited experimental studies have been conducted about such choices due to the difficulty of trying such interventions in large retail settings. The objectives of the study were to assess how accurately the Virtual Food Court (VFC), represents a real food court. The study (27 participants) had two study conditions; a control with regular food-court prices, and an experimental condition with taxes on food and beverages. Results revealed that participants were able to imagine doing their real-life food purchases in the VFC indicating that it is a good research tool for assessing people's food choices.
Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Combinatorial Action Space for Predicting Popular Reddit Threads

We introduce an online popularity prediction and tracking task as a benchmark task for reinforcement learning with a combinatorial, natural language action space. A specified number of discussion threads predicted to be popular are recommended, chosen from a fixed window of recent comments to track. Novel deep reinforcement learning architectures are studied for effective modeling of the value function associated with actions comprised of interdependent sub-actions. The proposed model, which represents dependence between sub-actions through a bi-directional LSTM, gives the best performance across different experimental configurations and domains, and it also generalizes well with varying numbers of recommendation requests.
State-space optimization of ETL workflows

Extraction-transformation-loading (ETL) tools are pieces of software responsible for the extraction of data from several sources, their cleansing, customization, and insertion into a data warehouse. In this paper, we derive into the logical optimization of ETL processes, modeling it as a state-space search problem. We consider each ETL workflow as a state and fabricate the state space through a set of correct state transitions. Moreover, we provide an exhaustive and two heuristic algorithms toward the minimization of the execution cost of an ETL workflow. The heuristic algorithm with greedy characteristics significantly outperforms the other two algorithms for a large set of experimental cases.
A coaxial-to-microstrip transition for multilayer substrates

Described is a right-angle coaxial-to-microstrip transition suitable for multilayer substrates. Electrically, it transforms the transmission mode from coaxial (TEM) to microstrip (quasi-TEM). Physically, this transformation occurs in two ways. First, strips of the ground plane are incrementally removed from each metal layer. At the same time, the coaxial line is gradually shifted off-center (i.e., made eccentric) toward the microstrip line. The theory supporting the technique is briefly discussed. To demonstrate, a coaxial transition is designed on a six-metal-layer laminate board. Measurements are compared to a conventional coaxial transition design.
A longitudinal study of the relation between adolescent boys and girls' computer use with friends and friendship quality: Support for the social compensation or the rich-get-richer hypothesis?

0747-5632/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.02.004 * Corresponding author. E-mail address: malinda.desjarlais@gmail.com (M. Using computers with friends either in person or online has become ubiquitous in the life of most adolescents; however, little is known about the complex relation between this activity and friendship quality. This study examined direct support for the social compensation and rich-get-richer hypotheses among adolescent girls and boys by including social anxiety as a moderating factor. A sample of 1050 adolescents completed a survey in grade 9 and then again in grades 11 and 12. For girls, there was a main effect of using computers with friends on friendship quality; providing support for both hypotheses. For adolescent boys, however, social anxiety moderated this relation, supporting the social compensation hypothesis. These findings were identical for online communication and were stable throughout adolescence. Furthermore, participating in organized sports did not compensate for social anxiety for either adolescent girls or boys. Therefore, characteristics associated with using computers with friends may create a comfortable environment for socially anxious adolescents to interact with their peers which may be distinct from other more traditional adolescent activities.
Computer-Aided Diagnosis Systems for Lung Cancer: Challenges and Methodologies

This paper overviews one of the most important, interesting, and challenging problems in oncology, the problem of lung cancer diagnosis. Developing an effective computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) system for lung cancer is of great clinical importance and can increase the patient's chance of survival. For this reason, CAD systems for lung cancer have been investigated in a huge number of research studies. A typical CAD system for lung cancer diagnosis is composed of four main processing steps: segmentation of the lung fields, detection of nodules inside the lung fields, segmentation of the detected nodules, and diagnosis of the nodules as benign or malignant. This paper overviews the current state-of-the-art techniques that have been developed to implement each of these CAD processing steps. For each technique, various aspects of technical issues, implemented methodologies, training and testing databases, and validation methods, as well as achieved performances, are described. In addition, the paper addresses several challenges that researchers face in each implementation step and outlines the strengths and drawbacks of the existing approaches for lung cancer CAD systems.
Grad-CAM: Visual Explanations from Deep Networks via Gradient-Based Localization

We propose a technique for producing ‘visual explanations’ for decisions from a large class of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based models, making them more transparent. Our approach – Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM), uses the gradients of any target concept (say logits for ‘dog’ or even a caption), flowing into the final convolutional layer to produce a coarse localization map highlighting the important regions in the image for predicting the concept. Unlike previous approaches, Grad- CAM is applicable to a wide variety of CNN model-families: (1) CNNs with fully-connected layers (e.g. VGG), (2) CNNs used for structured outputs (e.g. captioning), (3) CNNs used in tasks with multi-modal inputs (e.g. visual question answering) or reinforcement learning, without architectural changes or re-training. We combine Grad-CAM with existing fine-grained visualizations to create a high-resolution class-discriminative visualization, Guided Grad-CAM, and apply it to image classification, image captioning, and visual question answering (VQA) models, including ResNet-based architectures. In the context of image classification models, our visualizations (a) lend insights into failure modes of these models (showing that seemingly unreasonable predictions have reasonable explanations), (b) outperform previous methods on the ILSVRC-15 weakly-supervised localization task, (c) are more faithful to the underlying model, and (d) help achieve model generalization by identifying dataset bias. For image captioning and VQA, our visualizations show even non-attention based models can localize inputs. Finally, we design and conduct human studies to measure if Grad-CAM explanations help users establish appropriate trust in predictions from deep networks and show that Grad-CAM helps untrained users successfully discern a ‘stronger’ deep network from a ‘weaker’ one even when both make identical predictions. Our code is available at https: //github.com/ramprs/grad-cam/ along with a demo on CloudCV [2] and video at youtu.be/COjUB9Izk6E.
Navigation Among Movable Obstacles with learned dynamic constraints

In this paper we present the first planner for the problem of Navigation Among Movable Obstacles (NAMO) on a real robot that can handle environments with under-specified object dynamics. This result makes use of recent progress from two threads of the Reinforcement Learning literature. The first is a hierarchical Markov-Decision Process formulation of the NAMO problem designed to handle dynamics uncertainty. The second is a physics-based Reinforcement Learning framework which offers a way to ground this uncertainty in a compact model space that can be efficiently updated from data received by the robot online. Our results demonstrate the ability of a robot to adapt to unexpected object behavior in a real office scenario.
Scalable Collaborative Filtering Approaches for Large Recommender Systems

The collaborative filtering (CF) using known user ratings of items has proved to be effective for predicting user preferences in item selection. This thrivi ng subfield of machine learning became popular in the late 1990s with the spread of online services t hat use recommender systems, such as Amazon, Yahoo! Music, and Netflix. CF approaches are usually designed to work on very large data sets. Therefore the scalability of the methods is cruci al. In this work, we propose various scalable solutions that are validated against the Netflix Pr ize data set, currently the largest publicly available collection. First, we propose various matrix fac torization (MF) based techniques. Second, a neighbor correction method for MF is outlined, which alloy s the global perspective of MF and the localized property of neighbor based approaches efficie ntly. In the experimentation section, we first report on some implementation issues, and we suggest on how parameter optimization can be performed efficiently for MFs. We then show that the propos ed calable approaches compare favorably with existing ones in terms of prediction accurac y nd/or required training time. Finally, we report on some experiments performed on MovieLens and Jes ter data sets.
Lightweight Implementations of Probabilistic Programming Languages Via Transformational Compilation

We describe a general method of transforming arbitrary programming languages into probabilistic programming languages with straightforward MCMC inference engines. Random choices in the program are “named” with information about their position in an execution trace; these names are used in conjunction with a database holding values of random variables to implement MCMC inference in the space of execution traces. We encode naming information using lightweight source-to-source compilers. Our method enables us to reuse existing infrastructure (compilers, profilers, etc.) with minimal additional code, implying fast models with low development overhead. We illustrate the technique on two languages, one functional and one imperative: Bher, a compiled version of the Church language which eliminates interpretive overhead of the original MIT-Church implementation, and Stochastic Matlab, a new open-source language.
Detecting anomalous emotion through big data from social networks based on a deep learning method

Anomaly detection in social media refers to the detection of users’ abnormal opinions, sentiment patterns, or special temporal aspects of such patterns. Social media platforms, such as Sina Weibo or Twitter, provide a Big-data platform for information retrieval, which include user feedbacks, opinions, and information on most issues. This paper proposes a hybrid neural network model called Convolutional Neural Network-Long-Short Term Memory(CNN-LSTM), we successfully applies the model to sentiment analysis on a microblog Big-data platform and obtains significant improvements that enhance the generalization ability. Based on the sentiment of a single post in Weibo, this study also adopted the multivariate Gaussian model and the power law distribution to analyze the users’ emotion and detect abnormal emotion on microblog, the multivariate Gaussian method automatically captures the correlation between different features of the emotions and saves a certain amount of time through the batch calculation of the joint probability density of data sets. Through the measure of a joint probability density value and validation of the corpus from social network, anomaly detection accuracy of an individual user is 83.49% and that for a different month is 87.84%. The results of the distribution test show that individual user’s neutral, happy, and sad emotions obey the normal distribution but the surprised and angry emotions do not. In addition, the group-based emotions on microblogs obey the power law distribution but individual emotions do not.
Window-Aware Load Shedding for Aggregation Queries over Data Streams

Data stream management systems may be subject to higher input rates than their resources can handle. When overloaded, the system must shed load in order to maintain low-latency query results. In this paper, we describe a load shedding technique for queries consisting of one or more aggregate operators with sliding windows. We introduce a new type of drop operator, called a "Window Drop". This operator is aware of the window properties (i.e., window size and window slide) of its downstream aggregate operators in the query plan. Accordingly, it logically divides the input stream into windows and probabilistically decides which windows to drop. This decision is further encoded into tuples by marking the ones that are disallowed from starting new windows. Unlike earlier approaches, our approach preserves integrity of windows throughout a query plan, and always delivers subsets of original query answers with minimal degradation in result quality.
Detection and classification of road signs in natural environments

An automatic road sign recognition system first locates road signs within images captured by an imaging sensor on-board of a vehicle, and then identifies the detected road signs. This paper presents an automatic neural-network-based road sign recognition system. First, a study of the existing road sign recognition research is presented. In this study, the issues associated with automatic road sign recognition are described, the existing methods developed to tackle the road sign recognition problem are reviewed, and a comparison of the features of these methods is given. Second, the developed road sign recognition system is described. The system is capable of analysing live colour road scene images, detecting multiple road signs within each image, and classifying the type of road signs detected. The system consists of two modules: detection and classification. The detection module segments the input image in the hue-saturation-intensity colour space, and then detects road signs using a Multi-layer Perceptron neural-network. The classification module determines the type of detected road signs using a series of one to one architectural Multi-layer Perceptron neural networks. Two sets of classifiers are trained using the Resillient-Backpropagation and Scaled-Conjugate-Gradient algorithms. The two modules of the system are evaluated individually first. Then the system is tested as a whole. The experimental results demonstrate that the system is capable of achieving an average recognition hit-rate of 95.96% using the scaled-conjugate-gradient trained classifiers.
Automatically Extracting Procedural Knowledge from Instructional Texts using Natural Language Processing

Procedural knowledge is the knowledge required to perform certain tasks, and forms an important part of expertise. A major source of procedural knowledge is natural language instructions. While these readable instructions have been useful learning resources for human, they are not interpretable by machines. Automatically acquiring procedural knowledge in machine interpretable formats from instructions has become an increasingly popular research topic due to their potential applications in process automation. However, it has been insufficiently addressed. This paper presents an approach and an implemented system to assist users to automatically acquire procedural knowledge in structured forms from instructions. We introduce a generic semantic representation of procedures for analysing instructions, using which natural language techniques are applied to automatically extract structured procedures from instructions. The method is evaluated in three domains to justify the generality of the proposed semantic representation as well as the effectiveness of the implemented automatic system.
Word Embeddings vs Word Types for Sequence Labeling: the Curious Case of CV Parsing

We explore new methods of improving Curriculum Vitæ (CV) parsing for German documents by applying recent research on the application of word embeddings in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Our approach integrates the word embeddings as input features for a probabilistic sequence labeling model that relies on the Conditional Random Field (CRF) framework. Best-performing word embeddings are generated from a large sample of German CVs. The best results on the extraction task are obtained by the model which integrates the word embeddings together with a number of hand-crafted features. The improvements are consistent throughout different sections of the target documents. The effect of the word embeddings is strongest on semi-structured, out-of-sample data.
Lightly Supervised Learning of Procedural Dialog Systems

Procedural dialog systems can help users achieve a wide range of goals. However, such systems are challenging to build, currently requiring manual engineering of substantial domain-specific task knowledge and dialog management strategies. In this paper, we demonstrate that it is possible to learn procedural dialog systems given only light supervision, of the type that can be provided by non-experts. We consider domains where the required task knowledge exists in textual form (e.g., instructional web pages) and where system builders have access to statements of user intent (e.g., search query logs or dialog interactions). To learn from such textual resources, we describe a novel approach that first automatically extracts task knowledge from instructions, then learns a dialog manager over this task knowledge to provide assistance. Evaluation in a Microsoft Office domain shows that the individual components are highly accurate and can be integrated into a dialog system that provides effective help to users.
The International Prevalence Study on Physical Activity: results from 20 countries

Physical activity (PA) is one of the most important factors for improving population health, but no standardised systems exist for international surveillance. The International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) was developed for international surveillance. The purpose of this study was a comparative international study of population physical activity prevalence across 20 countries.



Between 2002-2004, a standardised protocol using IPAQ was used to assess PA participation in 20 countries [total N = 52,746, aged 18-65 years]. The median survey response rate was 61%. Physical activity levels were categorised as "low", "moderate" and "high". Age-adjusted prevalence estimates are presented by sex.



The prevalence of "high PA" varied from 21-63%; in eight countries high PA was reported for over half of the adult population. The prevalence of "low PA" varied from 9% to 43%. Males more frequently reported high PA than females in 17 of 20 countries. The prevalence of low PA ranged from 7-41% among males, and 6-49% among females. Gender differences were noted, especially for younger adults, with males more active than females in most countries. Markedly lower physical activity prevalence (10% difference) with increasing age was noted in 11 of 19 countries for males, but only in three countries for women. The ways populations accumulated PA differed, with some reporting mostly vigorous intensity activities and others mostly walking.



This study demonstrated the feasibility of international PA surveillance, and showed that IPAQ is an acceptable surveillance instrument, at least within countries. If assessment methods are used consistently over time, trend data will inform countries about the success of their efforts to promote physical activity.
Handwritten Chinese text line segmentation by clustering with distance metric learning

Separating text lines in handwritten documents remains a challenge because the text lines are often ununiformly skewed and curved. In this paper, we propose a novel text line segmentation algorithm based on Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) clustering with distance metric learning. Given a distance metric, the connected components of document image are grouped into a tree structure. Text lines are extracted by dynamically cutting the edges of the tree using a new objective function. For avoiding artificial parameters and improving the segmentation accuracy, we design the distance metric by supervised learning. Experiments on handwritten Chinese documents demonstrate the superiority of the approach.