Homomorphic Encryption for Speaker Recognition: Protection of Biometric Templates and Vendor Model Parameters

Data privacy is crucial when dealing with biometric data. Accounting for the latest European data privacy regulation and payment service directive, biometric template protection is essential for any commercial application. Ensuring unlinkability across biometric service operators, irreversibility of leaked encrypted templates, and renewability of e.g., voice models following the i-vector paradigm, biometric voice-based systems are prepared for the latest EU data privacy legislation. Employing Paillier cryptosystems, Euclidean and cosine comparators are known to ensure data privacy demands, without loss of discrimination nor calibration performance. Bridging gaps from template protection to speaker recognition, two architectures are proposed for the two-covariance comparator, serving as a generative model in this study. The first architecture preserves privacy of biometric data capture subjects. In the second architecture, model parameters of the comparator are encrypted as well, such that biometric service providers can supply the same comparison modules employing different key pairs to multiple biometric service operators. An experimental proof-of-concept and complexity analysis is carried out on the data from the 2013-2014 NIST i-vector machine learning challenge

Comprehending stories in pantomime. A pilot study with typically developing children and its implications for the narrative origin of language

This paper presents a pilot study aimed at investigating the comprehension of pantomimic stories and its possible cognitive underpinnings in typically developing children. A group of twenty-two Italian-speaking children aged between 8.02 and 10.11 years were included in the study. Participants watched short videos in which professional actors performed pantomime narratives; then answered a comprehension question and retold the stories. Analyses revealed positive correlations between the comprehension of pantomimes and age, theory of mind, and working memory. The implications of these results for a narrative model of language origin are discussed against the background of an eco-evo-devo perspective

The impact of peer ability and heterogeneity on student achievement: Evidence from a natural experiment

This paper estimates the impact of peer achievement and variance on math achievement growth. It exploits exogenous variation in peer characteristics generated at the transition to upper-secondary school in a sample of Berlin fifth graders. Parents and schools are barely able to condition their decisions on peer characteristics since classes are newly built up from a large pool of elementary school pupils. I find positive peer effects on achievement growth and no effects for peer variance. Lower-achieving pupils benefit more from abler peers. Results from simulations suggest that pupils are slightly better off in comprehensive than in ability-tracked school systems. --peer effects in secondary school,comparison between ability-tracked and comprehensive school,natural experiment

Testing for linear and quadratic effects between price adaptation and export performance: The impact of values and perceptions

Managerial perceptions are essential in explaining strategic decisions. It is, therefore, surprising that despite the number of studies that have examined the impact of managerial characteristics in exporting, little research has been reported in the export literature that investigates the importance of managers' perceptions on strategic decisions and resultant performance outcomes. To address this gap in the literature, the authors examine the key determinants of managers' psychic distance as well as its influence on international pricing decisions, and this in turn, on the export performance of SMEs. We also examine the quadratic effects of price adaptation on export performance. This is particularly relevant since price adaptation and export performance have been assumed in the literature to have a linear relationship. The results show that managers' perceptions have a significant impact on pricing decisions and resultant performance outcomes. Our findings also indicate that price adaptation has an inverted U-shaped relationship with export performance

The relationship between socioeconomic status and neuropsychological performance in 7-10 year-old South African children

Includes bibliographical referencesSocioeconomic status (SES) plays a significant role in neuropsychological performance, with several empirical research studies reporting that low-SES children score more poorly on cognitive tasks than do high-SES children, even when IQ is statistically controlled. However, cognitive ability is not depressed across the board among low-SES children. Rather, abilities have been linked to specific neurocognitive systems. However, in South Africa there is a lack of local research focusing specifically on the link between SES and children's neuropsychological performance. The aim of the current study, therefore, was to investigate the relationship between SES and neuropsychological performance in a sample of South African children (divided into three SES-based groups) between the ages of 7- and 10-years old, with specific focus on the domains of attention, memory, and executive functioning. In addition, I aimed to provide preliminary normative data, stratified by age and SES, for the test battery used in this study

Reading Comprehension and Nursing Education: A Missing Variable Associated with Nursing Student Attrition?

ABSTRACT READING COMPREHENSION AND NURSING EDUCATION: A MISSING VARIABLE ASSOCIATED WITH STUDENT ATTRITION? by Debra L. Lajoie, MSN The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee December, 2013 Under the Supervision of Susan Dean-Baar, PhD, RN, FAAN The goals of nursing faculty and administrators are to select students most capable of completing the nursing program and to provide academic support needed for program completion. However, despite stronger entrance requirements, educators are still baffled by the persistent attrition from nursing education programs. The purpose of this study was to describe and compare the level of reading comprehension of two groups of students, a pre-nursing student group and a senior nursing student group, to begin to understanding the level of reading comprehension found in the nursing student population. This could contribute to future research to determine whether reading ability might be an unexplored variable contributing to the persistent attrition of nursing students from baccalaureate programs at a time when resources in these programs are limited, and the demand for a competent and diverse workforce continues to increase. This study used a descriptive, quantitative, non-experimental design. Reading comprehension was measured using the Nelson-Denny Reading Test (NDRT). The findings of this study showed that both the pre-nursing and senior nursing students\u27 levels of reading comprehension are low. The mean grade equivalent score for the pre-nursing student sample was 10.09, and 14.75 for the senior nursing student sample. Pre-nursing and senior nursing students scored below the standardization norms for comparable college students, and senior nursing students also scored below the standardization values for other health profession students at a comparable level of education. Senior nursing students scored at a higher level than pre-nursing students, however, it is not known if this reflects growth in reading ability with exposure to higher levels of post-secondary education or student attrition. Student perceptions of their college reading expectations or experiences were assessed using a five-point Likert scale. Pre-nursing students were extremely optimistic in their abilities to successfully complete their reading assignments, while the seniors were much more realistic and described challenges completing assigned readings. Selected demographics variables were compared with reading scores using simultaneous multiple regression. Three demographic predictors collectively accounted for 51.9% of the variance: (1) group (pre-nursing or senior student), (2) self-reported hours spent working per week, and (3) number of hours spent reading per week. The number of self-reported hours spent working per week was not a significant predictor of the student\u27s total reading score. Limitations of the study included the use of a nonrandomized sample which limits the ability to generalize the findings beyond the sample population, homogeneity of the sample, the use of self-reported measures, and time limitations, which included the age of the normative sample and test administration time limits. This study supports the need for further research in the areas of reading comprehension and student academic outcomes. This will contribute to the emerging body of research describing academic literacy, discipline-specific literacy, and the literacy needs of English language learners

Predicting the educational achievement of preschool and kindergarten children from the cognitive subtests of early screening profiles.

The purpose of the study was to collect predictive validity data on the cognitive subtests and composite of Early Screening Profiles, a screening instrument that will be published in 1990. Data collection involved 135 children, ages 3-6 through 6-11. The scores on Early Screening Profiles were compared to scores on the Achievement Scale of the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children (K-ABC), the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R), and, for the 85 children in kindergarten or grade one at the time of follow-up testing, a teacher rating scale, Teacher Rating of Academic Performance (TRAP). Time between testing ranged from 5 $1\over2$ to 8 months. For the population studied, statistically significant, strong correlations of.75,.73, and.70 were found between the composite of Early Screening Profiles and K-ABC Achievement, PPVT-R, and TRAP (p $\u3c$.01). Strong or moderate correlations, all significant at the.01 level, resulted when Early Screening Profiles cognitive subtests were compared to criterion subtests. High agreement rates were found for standard scores of one standard deviation above the mean (82%) and one standard deviation below the mean (84%). Comparison of the Early Screening Profiles cognitive composite score with the total scores of all three criterion measures yielded average specificity and sensitivity rates of.80 and.74, respectively, for scores of 115 or higher. For scores of 85 or lower, the average specificity was high (.97) and the average sensitivity rate was modest (.32). No significant differences emerged based on sex. The older group of children scored higher than the younger on the K-ABC Achievement Scale. Research results indicate that the cognitive subtests and composite of Early Screening Profiles show promise of becoming useful and valid additions to the field of early childhood screening

The Potential Link Between Teacher Evaluation and Student Achievement

Abstract The push for educational accountability and standardization in the United States gained traction with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. Uniformity in the curriculum, academic standards, testing, and accountability were some of the requirements that were being touted by politicians, educators, and special interest groups. School districts across the United States were forced to develop systems to prove that teachers were teaching and students were learning. New York State enacted reform legislation under Education Law section 3012-c, which included the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) to evaluate teachers and principals. One of the components of this evaluation system consisted of the use of New York State ELA and math scores for students as a means to measure student achievement and was incorporated into the overall ratings for teacher effectiveness. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the potential link between teacher effectiveness in New York State as measured by APPR scores and its possible relationship to student achievement as measured by New York State ELA and math scores. The study sought to examine and establish a definitive relationship between teacher effectiveness and student achievement in New York State as a whole. Some of the essential questions of this research were as follows: What is the relationship between APPR and achievement in ELA and math at the school level when controlling for student characteristics (enrollment, free lunch, reduced lunch, and economically disadvantaged)? What is the relationship between teacher effectiveness and student achievement in ELA and math at the school level when controlling for teacher qualifications (experience and highest degree)? What is the relationship between student achievement in ELA/math and teacher effectiveness (APPR ratings) at the school level? The study included schools within Orange County, Wyoming County, Westchester County, Nassau County, and Suffolk County regions in New York State. The study included a total of 37 school districts, 155 schools, 93,340 students, and 6,915 educators. Data from the 2015–2016 New York State Education Department for both teacher and student scores were used. In 2015, Governor Cuomo issued a moratorium on the use of student achievement scores to calculate teacher APPR scores. Thus, in this study, the teacher APPR scores did not include student achievement scores. This study explored and potentially identified the relationship between teacher effectiveness and students’ achievement. By understanding the relationship between teacher effectiveness and student achievement, individual states, New York, in particular, maybe better equipped to direct resources and assistance to school districts that are most in need