14,874 research outputs found
Automatic Estimation of Intelligibility Measure for Consonants in Speech
In this article, we provide a model to estimate a real-valued measure of the
intelligibility of individual speech segments. We trained regression models
based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) for stop consonants
\textipa{/p,t,k,b,d,g/} associated with vowel \textipa{/A/}, to estimate the
corresponding Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) at which the Consonant-Vowel (CV)
sound becomes intelligible for Normal Hearing (NH) ears. The intelligibility
measure for each sound is called SNR, and is defined to be the SNR level
at which human participants are able to recognize the consonant at least 90\%
correctly, on average, as determined in prior experiments with NH subjects.
Performance of the CNN is compared to a baseline prediction based on automatic
speech recognition (ASR), specifically, a constant offset subtracted from the
SNR at which the ASR becomes capable of correctly labeling the consonant.
Compared to baseline, our models were able to accurately estimate the
SNR~intelligibility measure with less than 2 [dB] Mean Squared Error
(MSE) on average, while the baseline ASR-defined measure computes
SNR~with a variance of 5.2 to 26.6 [dB], depending on the consonant.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 7 tables, submitted to Inter Speech 2020
Conferenc
High-dimensional Sparse Inverse Covariance Estimation using Greedy Methods
In this paper we consider the task of estimating the non-zero pattern of the
sparse inverse covariance matrix of a zero-mean Gaussian random vector from a
set of iid samples. Note that this is also equivalent to recovering the
underlying graph structure of a sparse Gaussian Markov Random Field (GMRF). We
present two novel greedy approaches to solving this problem. The first
estimates the non-zero covariates of the overall inverse covariance matrix
using a series of global forward and backward greedy steps. The second
estimates the neighborhood of each node in the graph separately, again using
greedy forward and backward steps, and combines the intermediate neighborhoods
to form an overall estimate. The principal contribution of this paper is a
rigorous analysis of the sparsistency, or consistency in recovering the
sparsity pattern of the inverse covariance matrix. Surprisingly, we show that
both the local and global greedy methods learn the full structure of the model
with high probability given just samples, which is a
\emph{significant} improvement over state of the art -regularized
Gaussian MLE (Graphical Lasso) that requires samples. Moreover,
the restricted eigenvalue and smoothness conditions imposed by our greedy
methods are much weaker than the strong irrepresentable conditions required by
the -regularization based methods. We corroborate our results with
extensive simulations and examples, comparing our local and global greedy
methods to the -regularized Gaussian MLE as well as the Neighborhood
Greedy method to that of nodewise -regularized linear regression
(Neighborhood Lasso).Comment: Accepted to AI STAT 2012 for Oral Presentatio
ECONOMICS OF WHEAT-FALLOW CROPPING SYSTEMS IN WESTERN NORTH DAKOTA
Income and risk aspects of wheat-fallow cropping systems are analyzed in western North Dakota. A wheat yield trend estimation model based on county yields (1950-77) is developed using independent variables of year, annual precipitation, acres of nonfallowed wheat and a dummy variable for fallow and nonfallow practices. The year-to-year change in wheat yields on fallowed and nonfallowed land indicates that summer fallow is becoming less desirable economically. Based on 1980 costs and yields, summer fallow maximizes returns to land at low yields, low wheat prices, and high nitrogen prices. Income variability is reduced under summer fallow.Crop Production/Industries,
Performance Factors and Management Practices Related to Earnings of East Central North Dakota Crop Farms
Agricultural Finance, Farm Management,
African American Archival Resources: Representation in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
The breadth, scope, security, evaluation, and preservation of African American archival resources in the United States are all understudied. Moreover, the scope and contents of the majority of African American resources are likely unknown. The purpose of this study was to compile a record of collections holding primary resources on African Americans to conducting research on African American Archival Resources in three states, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia
Speaking my patient's language: bilingual nurses’ perspective about provision of language concordant care to patients with limited English proficiency
Aim
The aim of this study was to explore bilingual nurses’ perspective about providing language concordant care to patients with limited English proficiency (LEP) and its impact on patients and nurses. Factors affecting the provision of language concordant care to patients LEP were also explored.
Background
With an increase in migration and mobility of people across the world, the likelihood of experiencing language barriers while providing and receiving care is high. Nurses are responsible for providing care to patients regardless of their culture, religion, ethnic background or language. Language barriers, however, are hurdles that hamper development of effective communication between nurses and patients. Eliminating language barriers is a crucial step in providing culturally competent and patient-centred care.
Design
Qualitative descriptive study.
Methods
During January-August 2015, 59 nurses, working in acute hospitals in the UK, participated in 26 individual in-depth interviews and three focus group discussions. The data were analysed using thematic analysis.
Findings
Four themes: ‘when we speak the same language’; ‘when I speak my patient's language’; ‘what facilitates provision of language concordant care’ and ‘what hinders the provision of language concordant care’ were identified. Factors affecting nurses’ ability to provide language concordant care included individual factors (confidence; years of experience as a nurse; years of experience in the work setting; and relationship with colleagues), patients’ expectation, attitudes of other patients, colleagues and nurse managers, organizational culture and organizational policies.
Conclusion
Bilingual nurses can play a very important role in the provision of language concordant for patients with LEP. Further research is needed to explore patient perspective
Cosmic Pathways for Compact Groups in the Milli-Millennium Simulation
We detected 10 compact galaxy groups (CGs) at in the semi-analytic
galaxy catalog of Guo et al. (2011) for the milli-Millennium Cosmological
Simulation (sCGs in mGuo2010a). We aimed to identify potential canonical
pathways for compact group evolution and thus illuminate the history of
observed nearby compact groups. By constructing merger trees for sCG
galaxies, we studied the cosmological evolution of key properties, and compared
them with Hickson CGs (HCGs). We found that, once sCG galaxies come
within 1 (0.5) Mpc of their most massive galaxy, they remain within that
distance until , suggesting sCG "birth redshifts". At stellar masses
of sCG most-massive galaxies are within . In several cases, especially in the two 4- and 5-member
systems, the amount of cold gas mass anti-correlates with stellar mass, which
in turn correlates with hot gas mass. We define the angular difference between
group members' 3D velocity vectors, , and note that
many of the groups are long-lived because their small values of
indicate a significant parallel component. For
triplets in particular, values range between
and so that galaxies are coming together along
roughly parallel paths, and pairwise separations do not show large pronounced
changes after close encounters. The best agreement between sCG and HCG physical
properties is for galaxy values, but HCG values are higher overall,
including for SFRs. Unlike HCGs, due to a tail at low SFR and , and a
lack of galaxies, only a few sCG galaxies
are on the star-forming main sequence.Comment: Style fixes to better match ApJ published version. Uses likeapj1.1
style files: 17 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables. LaTex style files available at
https://github.com/qtast/likeapj/releases/lates
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