Assessing the Linkages Between a Processing-Based Dietary Index and Nutrient Intakes, Obesity, and the Gut Microbiome Among Bolivian Women in a Region Undergoing the Nutrition Transition

Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are undergoing a rapid dietary transition from traditional foods to highly processed Western diets. Conventional analyses of dietary patterns do not account for the level of processing of foods in the diet, yet methods of food processing and ingredients introduced into foods to make them more palatable, nutrient-dense, and/or shelf-stable have been hypothesized to increase individuals’ risk for obesity, in part through disruptions to the gut microbiome. This dissertation implemented the use of two food processing-based indices, the Processed Food Dietary Index (PFDI) and NOVA, to characterize the level of processing of diets among women recruited from the baseline participants of a three-year longitudinal cohort study in Montero, Bolivia, a country experiencing a rapid dietary transition, to further examine the associations between the extent of processing of diets, obesity, and gut microbiome composition. With the linkages between the nutrition transition in LMICs and obesity best established in women, we collected three 24-hr dietary recalls, anthropometric measurements, and two fecal samples from 160 women of reproductive age (18-49 years) based on the extent of processing in the diet using data from the aforementioned baseline assessment data of the longitudinal study. The first aim utilized both the PFDI and NOVA as a single measure of diet quality to examine and compare relationships between nutrient intakes and the dietary share of processing level groups; it also examined the distribution of nutrient means across quintiles of the dietary share of ultra-processed foods and drinks (UPFDs) and unprocessed/minimally processed foods. We found statistically significant linear relationships between various nutrient means and PFDI and NOVA scores, although not always in the hypothesized directions. There were also a number of nutrients typically associated with processing that did not exhibit statistically significant linear relationships with processing levels (i.e., saturated fat, trans fat, sodium). The second aim examined the association between the processing level of the diet and measures of obesity (i.e., body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), and waist-to-hip ratio (WHR)) using the PFDI and NOVA as a single measure of overall dietary quality. Although daily caloric intake increased across quintiles of PFDI and NOVA scores, there were no differences found in BMI, WC, or WHR between quintile pairs. Neither processing level of the diet nor the consumption of UPFDs were associated with obesity. The third aim evaluated the association between the processing level of the diet, obesity, and the gut microbiome. We found that the processing level of the diet, as measured by the PFDI, may influence the Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes (F/B) ratio and that the proportion of UPFD intake in the diet is associated with the diversity of microbiota present in the gut. We also observed that F/B ratios were not different between obese and lean individuals; however, obese individuals had a less diverse microbiome than those who were lean. These studies provide information regarding the use of the PFDI and NOVA classification systems in future studies assessing the impact of food processing on human health, as well as novel insight into the relationships between the level of processing in the diet, obesity, and the composition of the gut microbiome.PHDNutritional SciencesUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/147646/1/ericalc_1.pd

Robust extraction of data from diverse Web sources

Thesis (M. Eng.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2010.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 31).In order to make the best use of the multitude of diverse, semi-structured sources of data available on the internet, information retrieval systems need to reliably access the data on these different sites in a manner that is robust to changes in format or structure that these sites might undergo. An interface that gives a system uniform, programmatic access to the data on some web site is called a web wrapper, and the process of inferring a wrapper for a given website based on a few examples of its pages is known as wrapper induction. A challenge of using wrappers for online information extraction arises from the dynamic nature of the web-even the slightest of changes to the format of a web page may be enough to invalidate a wrapper. Thus, it is important to be able to detect when a wrapper no longer extracts the correct information, and also for the system to be able to recover from this type of failure. This thesis demonstrates improved error detection as well as methods of recovery and repair for broken wrappers for START, a natural-language question-answering system developed by Infolab at MIT.by Erica L. Cooper.M.Eng

Investigating Range-Equalizing Bias in Mean Opinion Score Ratings of Synthesized Speech

Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is a popular measure for evaluating synthesized speech. However, the scores obtained in MOS tests are heavily dependent upon many contextual factors. One such factor is the overall range of quality of the samples presented in the test -- listeners tend to try to use the entire range of scoring options available to them regardless of this, a phenomenon which is known as range-equalizing bias. In this paper, we systematically investigate the effects of range-equalizing bias on MOS tests for synthesized speech by conducting a series of listening tests in which we progressively "zoom in" on a smaller number of systems in the higher-quality range. This allows us to better understand and quantify the effects of range-equalizing bias in MOS tests.Comment: Proceedings of Interspeech 2023. DOI: 10.21437/Interspeech.2023-107

Comparison of methods for revegetation of vehicle tracks in High Arctic tundra on Svalbard.

Natural regeneration after anthropogenic disturbance is slow in the tundra biome, but assisted regeneration can help speed up the process. A tracked off-road vehicle damaged a High Arctic dwarf shrub heath in Svalbard in May 2009, drastically reducing vegetation cover, soil seed bank and incoming seed rain. We assisted regeneration the following year using six different revegetation treatments, and monitored their effects one month-, and one- and eight years after their application. By 2018, all treatments still had a lower vegetation cover and limited species composition than the undamaged reference vegetation. The fertiliser treatment was the most effective in restoring vegetation cover (71 % vegetation cover, of which 62 % were bryophytes and 38 % vascular plant species). Compared to the reference plots (98 % vegetation cover, of which 32 % were bryophytes and 66 % were vascular plant species), the composition of the disturbed vegetation was still far from regenerated to its original state nine years after the tracks were made. The slow regrowth demonstrated in this study underlines the importance of avoiding disturbance of fragile tundra, and of implementing and upholding regulations restricting or banning such disturbance.publishedVersio

Exploring Disentanglement with Multilingual and Monolingual VQ-VAE

This work examines the content and usefulness of disentangled phone and speaker representations from two separately trained VQ-VAE systems: one trained on multilingual data and another trained on monolingual data. We explore the multi- and monolingual models using four small proof-of-concept tasks: copy-synthesis, voice transformation, linguistic code-switching, and content-based privacy masking. From these tasks, we reflect on how disentangled phone and speaker representations can be used to manipulate speech in a meaningful way. Our experiments demonstrate that the VQ representations are suitable for these tasks, including creating new voices by mixing speaker representations together. We also present our novel technique to conceal the content of targeted words within an utterance by manipulating phone VQ codes, while retaining speaker identity and intelligibility of surrounding words. Finally, we discuss recommendations for further increasing the viability of disentangled representations.Comment: Accepted to Speech Synthesis Workshop 2021 (SSW11

Art installation of conic sea and peculiar angels and its affordances

Installations attempt to expose everyday space by depicting an environment that appears normal yet has been altered in perceptibly unexpected ways. Such environments are typically designed to re-orient participants, giving them the feeling of stepping out of conventional reality, with the goal of creating a lingering heightened perception of one’s normal environs. A video art installation entitled Conic Sea and Peculiar Angels was created with the intent to inveigle participants into exploring an unwonted environment. The main artistic properties used to entice exploration will be reviewed. With emphasis on these specific properties influential artists and their work will be expounded upon. Ecological Psychology, a theoretical framework most closely associated with the seminal writings of J.J. Gibson, was used to critically evaluate this installation. A key theoretical construct in this framework is the concept of an affordance. An affordance is a property of the immediate environment taken with reference to a perceiver. Such relational properties enable a range of activities that may or may not be utilized by the inhabitants of an environment. The artistic properties used by artists can be related to affordances in Ecological Psychology, as are they both mechanisms to entice exploration. Based on personal observation and reflection, as well as on the works of relevant artists, the affordances that enable exploration of this installation are proposed and discussed. The installation mounted and view on three separate occasions. The researcher observed and documented the audiences’ responses that showed a desire to explore. It was found that the artistic properties in Conic Sea and Peculiar Angels afforded participants to explore