A phonetic-based approach to query-by-example spoken term detection

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41822-8_63Query-by-Example Spoken Term Detection (QbE-STD) tasks are usually addressed by representing speech signals as a sequence of feature vectors by means of a parametrization step, and then using a pattern matching technique to find the candidate detections. In this paper, we propose a phoneme-based approach in which the acoustic frames are first converted into vectors representing the a posteriori probabilities for every phoneme. This strategy is specially useful when the language of the task is a priori known. Then, we show how this representation can be used for QbE-STD using both a Segmental Dynamic Time Warping algorithm and a graph-based method. The proposed approach has been evaluated with a QbE-STD task in Spanish, and the results show that it can be an adequate strategy for tackling this kind of problemsWork partially supported by the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under contract TIN2011-28169-C05-01 and FPU Grant AP2010-4193, and by the Vic. d’Investigació of the UPV (PAID-06-10)Hurtado Oliver, LF.; Calvo Lance, M.; Gómez Adrian, JA.; García Granada, F.; Sanchís Arnal, E. (2013). A phonetic-based approach to query-by-example spoken term detection. En Progress in Pattern Recognition, Image Analysis, Computer Vision, and Applications. Springer Verlag (Germany). 8529:504-511. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-41822-8_63S5045118529Anguera, X., Macrae, R., Oliver, N.: Partial sequence matching using an unbounded dynamic time warping algorithm. In: ICASSP, pp. 3582–3585 (2010)Hazen, T., Shen, W., White, C.: Query-by-example spoken term detection using phonetic posteriorgram templates. In: ASRU, pp. 421–426 (2009)Zhang, Y., Glass, J.: Unsupervised spoken keyword spotting via segmental DTW on gaussian posteriorgrams. In: ASRU, pp. 398–403 (2009)Akbacak, M., Vergyri, D., Stolcke, A.: Open-vocabulary spoken term detection using graphone-based hybrid recognition systems. In: ICASSP, pp. 5240–5243 (2008)Fiscus, J.G., Ajot, J., Garofolo, J.S., Doddingtion, G.: Results of the 2006 spoken term detection evaluation. In: Proceedings of ACM SIGIR Workshop on Searching Spontaneous Conversational, pp. 51–55 (2007)Metze, F., Barnard, E., Davel, M., Van Heerden, C., Anguera, X., Gravier, G., Rajput, N., et al.: The spoken web search task. In: Working Notes Proceedings of the MediaEval 2012 Workshop (2012)Gómez, J.A., Castro, M.J.: Automatic segmentation of speech at the phonetic level. In: Caelli, T.M., Amin, A., Duin, R.P.W., Kamel, M.S., de Ridder, D. (eds.) SSPR & SPR 2002. LNCS, vol. 2396, pp. 672–680. Springer, Heidelberg (2002)Gómez, J.A., Sanchis, E., Castro-Bleda, M.J.: Automatic speech segmentation based on acoustical clustering. In: Hancock, E.R., Wilson, R.C., Windeatt, T., Ulusoy, I., Escolano, F. (eds.) SSPR & SPR 2010. LNCS, vol. 6218, pp. 540–548. Springer, Heidelberg (2010)Moreno, A., Poch, D., Bonafonte, A., Lleida, E., Llisterri, J., Marino, J., Nadeu, C.: Albayzin speech database: Design of the phonetic corpus. In: Third European Conference on Speech Communication and Technology (1993)Park, A., Glass, J.: Towards unsupervised pattern discovery in speech. In: ASRU, pp. 53–58 (2005)Kullback, S.: Information theory and statistics. Courier Dover Publications (1997)MAVIR corpus, http://www.lllf.uam.es/ESP/CorpusMavir.htm

Análisis de los cuellos de botella en la logística internacional de las Pymes de confecciones en Colombia.

En el presente trabajo encontraremos una serie de conceptos y la aplicación de estos, aprendidos a lo largo de este diplomado como son “La cadena de valor de Porter es una herramienta de gestión desarrollada por el profesor e investigador Michael Porter, que permite realizar un análisis interno de una empresa, a través de su desagregación en sus principales actividades generadoras de valor”.Analysis of bottlenecks in the international logistics of clothing SMEs in Colombia

Sistema de diálogo multimodal basado en modelos estadísticos

[ES] En este trabajo presentamos un sistema de diálogo multimodal. Además de la multimodalidad de entrada y salida, la principal característica del sistema es que los módulos más importantes están basados en modelos estadísticos.[EN] In this paper, we present a multimodal dialog system. In addition to input and output multimodality, the main feature of the system is that its key modules are based on statistical models.Sanchís Arnal, E.; Hurtado Oliver, LF.; Gómez Adrian, JA.; García Granada, F.; Pastor Pellicer, J.; Planells Lerma, J.; Segarra Soriano, E. (2011). Sistema de diálogo multimodal basado en modelos estadísticos. PROCESAMIENTO DEL LENGUAJE NATURAL. (47):325-326. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/28872S3253264

May Measurement Month 2018: a pragmatic global screening campaign to raise awareness of blood pressure by the International Society of Hypertension

Aims Raised blood pressure (BP) is the biggest contributor to mortality and disease burden worldwide and fewer than half of those with hypertension are aware of it. May Measurement Month (MMM) is a global campaign set up in 2017, to raise awareness of high BP and as a pragmatic solution to a lack of formal screening worldwide. The 2018 campaign was expanded, aiming to include more participants and countries. Methods and results Eighty-nine countries participated in MMM 2018. Volunteers (≥18 years) were recruited through opportunistic sampling at a variety of screening sites. Each participant had three BP measurements and completed a questionnaire on demographic, lifestyle, and environmental factors. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg, or taking antihypertensive medication. In total, 74.9% of screenees provided three BP readings. Multiple imputation using chained equations was used to impute missing readings. 1 504 963 individuals (mean age 45.3 years; 52.4% female) were screened. After multiple imputation, 502 079 (33.4%) individuals had hypertension, of whom 59.5% were aware of their diagnosis and 55.3% were taking antihypertensive medication. Of those on medication, 60.0% were controlled and of all hypertensives, 33.2% were controlled. We detected 224 285 individuals with untreated hypertension and 111 214 individuals with inadequately treated (systolic BP ≥ 140 mmHg or diastolic BP ≥ 90 mmHg) hypertension. Conclusion May Measurement Month expanded significantly compared with 2017, including more participants in more countries. The campaign identified over 335 000 adults with untreated or inadequately treated hypertension. In the absence of systematic screening programmes, MMM was effective at raising awareness at least among these individuals at risk

Goodbye Hartmann trial: a prospective, international, multicenter, observational study on the current use of a surgical procedure developed a century ago

Background: Literature suggests colonic resection and primary anastomosis (RPA) instead of Hartmann's procedure (HP) for the treatment of left-sided colonic emergencies. We aim to evaluate the surgical options globally used to treat patients with acute left-sided colonic emergencies and the factors that leading to the choice of treatment, comparing HP and RPA. Methods: This is a prospective, international, multicenter, observational study registered on ClinicalTrials.gov. A total 1215 patients with left-sided colonic emergencies who required surgery were included from 204 centers during the period of March 1, 2020, to May 31, 2020. with a 1-year follow-up. Results: 564 patients (43.1%) were females. The mean age was 65.9 ± 15.6 years. HP was performed in 697 (57.3%) patients and RPA in 384 (31.6%) cases. Complicated acute diverticulitis was the most common cause of left-sided colonic emergencies (40.2%), followed by colorectal malignancy (36.6%). Severe complications (Clavien-Dindo ≥ 3b) were higher in the HP group (P < 0.001). 30-day mortality was higher in HP patients (13.7%), especially in case of bowel perforation and diffused peritonitis. 1-year follow-up showed no differences on ostomy reversal rate between HP and RPA. (P = 0.127). A backward likelihood logistic regression model showed that RPA was preferred in younger patients, having low ASA score (≤ 3), in case of large bowel obstruction, absence of colonic ischemia, longer time from admission to surgery, operating early at the day working hours, by a surgeon who performed more than 50 colorectal resections. Conclusions: After 100 years since the first Hartmann's procedure, HP remains the most common treatment for left-sided colorectal emergencies. Treatment's choice depends on patient characteristics, the time of surgery and the experience of the surgeon. RPA should be considered as the gold standard for surgery, with HP being an exception

Speaking in Worlds of Adventure: Tabletop Roleplaying Games within the EFL Classroom

Fostering spoken communication in a foreign language classroom is not an easy task. With that in mind, this paper explores a proposal to motivate students’ L2 oral communication through the practice of narrative games called tabletop roleplaying games adapted as task-based activities. It implied an action research process in which the teacher-researcher with his students reflected and intervened on the identified problematic situation: Lack of oral communication in L2. In that sense, it started with a diagnostic test that showed the current state of verbal communication in L2 in a Colombian rural public school. Next, the teacher-researcher chose to appeal to the gamification of the classroom along with the adoption of a task-based framework to activity design aiming to improve students’ motivation to take the risk of communicating in L2. The teacher-researcher applied sets of activities that progressed from traditional role-play to a tabletop roleplaying game. In accordance, video recordings, narratives, artifacts collections, and semi-structured interviews were essential to collect data. Afterward, the teacher-researcher analyzed the data with an emic approach to identify patterns in the information that uncovered the categories and subcategories of information. Consequently, the teacher-researcher concluded that the students feel better motivated using L2 if the learning environment offers opportunities for social interaction, collaborative work, and scaffolding in task-based exercises embedded in a fictional world game

Mouse activity data WT_810

Mouse activity data WT_81

Data from: Genetic redundancy strengthens the circadian clock leading to a narrow entrainment range

Circadian clocks are internal timekeepers present in almost all organisms. Driven by a genetic network of highly conserved structure, they generate self-sustained oscillations that entrain to periodic external signals such as the 24 h light–dark cycle. Vertebrates possess multiple, functionally overlapping homologues of the core clock genes. Furthermore, vertebrate clocks entrain to a range of periods three times as narrow as that of other organisms. We asked whether genetic redundancies play a role in governing entrainment properties and analysed locomotor activity rhythms of genetically modified mice lacking one set of clock homologues. Exposing them to non-24 h light–dark cycles, we found that the mutant mice have a wider entrainment range than the wild types. Spectral analysis furthermore revealed nonlinear phenomena of periodically forced self-sustained oscillators for which the entrainment range relates inversely to oscillator amplitude. Using the forced oscillator model to explain the observed differences in entrainment range between mutant and wild-type mice, we sought to quantify the overall oscillator amplitude of their clocks from the activity rhythms and found that mutant mice have weaker circadian clocks than wild types. Our results suggest that genetic redundancy strengthens the circadian clock leading to a narrow entrainment range in vertebrates