Bayesian Speaker Adaptation Based on a New Hierarchical Probabilistic Model

In this paper, a new hierarchical Bayesian speaker adaptation method called HMAP is proposed that combines the advantages of three conventional algorithms, maximum a posteriori (MAP), maximum-likelihood linear regression (MLLR), and eigenvoice, resulting in excellent performance across a wide range of adaptation conditions. The new method efficiently utilizes intra-speaker and inter-speaker correlation information through modeling phone and speaker subspaces in a consistent hierarchical Bayesian way. The phone variations for a specific speaker are assumed to be located in a low-dimensional subspace. The phone coordinate, which is shared among different speakers, implicitly contains the intra-speaker correlation information. For a specific speaker, the phone variation, represented by speaker-dependent eigenphones, are concatenated into a supervector. The eigenphone supervector space is also a low dimensional speaker subspace, which contains inter-speaker correlation information. Using principal component analysis (PCA), a new hierarchical probabilistic model for the generation of the speech observations is obtained. Speaker adaptation based on the new hierarchical model is derived using the maximum a posteriori criterion in a top-down manner. Both batch adaptation and online adaptation schemes are proposed. With tuned parameters, the new method can handle varying amounts of adaptation data automatically and efficiently. Experimental results on a Mandarin Chinese continuous speech recognition task show good performance under all testing conditions

Cosmological parameters sigma_8, the baryon density, and the UV background intensity from a calibrated measurement of H I Lyman-alpha absorption at z = 1.9

We identify a concordant model for the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift z=1.9 that uses popular values for cosmological and astrophysical parameters and accounts for all baryons with an uncertainty of 6%. We have measured the amount of absorption, DA, in the Ly-alpha forest at redshift 1.9 in spectra of 77 QSO from the Kast spectrograph. We calibrated the continuum fits with realistic artificial spectra, and we found that averaged over all 77 QSOs the mean continuum level is within 1-2% of the correct value. Absorption from all lines in the Ly-alpha forest at z=1.9 removes DA=15.1 +/- 0.7% of the flux between 1070 and 1170 (rest) Angstroms. This is the first measurement using many QSOs at this z, and the first calibrated measurement at any redshift. Metal lines absorb 2.3 +/- 0.5%, and LLS absorb 1.0 +/- 0.4% leaving 11.8 +/- 1.0% from the lower density bulk of the IGM. Averaging over Delta z=0.1 or 154 Mpc, the dispersion is 6.1 +/- 0.3% including LLS and metal lines, or 3.9 (+0.5, -0.7)% for the lower density IGM alone, consistent with the usual description of large scale structure. LLS and metal lines are major contributors to the variation in the mean flux, and they make the flux field significantly non-Gaussian. We find that a hydrodynamic simulation on a 1024 cubed grid in a 75.7 Mpc box reproduces the observed DA from the low density IGM with parameters values H_o=71 km/s/Mpc, Omega_Lambda=0.73, Omega_m=0.27, Omega_b=0.044, sigma_8=0.9 and a UV background that has an ionization rate that is 1.08 +/- 0.08 times the prediction by Madau, Haardt & Rees (1999).Comment: Submitted to Ap

The effect of osteopontin and osteopontin-derived peptides on preterm brain injury

Background: Osteopontin (OPN) is a highly phosphorylated sialoprotein and a soluble cytokine that is widely expressed in a variety of tissues, including the brain. OPN and OPN-derived peptides have been suggested to have potential neuroprotective effects against ischemic brain injury, but their role in preterm brain injury is unknown. Methods: We used a hypoxia-ischemia (HI)-induced preterm brain injury model in postnatal day 5 mice. OPN and OPN-derived peptides were given intracerebroventricularly and intranasally before HI. Brain injury was evaluated at 7 days after the insults. Results: There was a significant increase in endogenous OPN mRNA and OPN protein in the mouse brain after the induction of HI at postnatal day 5. Administration of full-length OPN protein and thrombin-cleaved OPN did not affect preterm brain injury. This was demonstrated with both intracerebroventricular and intranasal administration of OPN as well as in OPN-deficient mice. Interestingly, both N134–153 and C154–198 OPN-derived peptides increased the severity of brain injury in this HI-induced preterm brain injury model. Conclusions: The neuroprotective effects of OPN are age-dependent, and, in contrast to the more mature brain, OPN-derived peptides potentiate injury in postnatal day 5 mice. Intranasal administration is an efficient way of delivering drugs to the central nervous system (CNS) in neonatal mice and is likely to be an easy and noninvasive method of drug delivery to the CNS in preterm infants

Safety of the human papillomavirus (HPV)-16/18 AS04-adjuvanted vaccine in adolescents aged 12-15 years : Interim analysis of a large community-randomized controlled trial

This community-randomized controlled trial was initiated to assess the overall and herd effects of 2 different human papillomavirus (HPV) immunization strategies in over 80,000 girls and boys aged 1215 y in 33 communities in Finland (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00534638). Overall, 14,838 adolescents received HPV-16/18 vaccine (2,440 boys and 12,398 girls) and 17,338 received hepatitis-B virus (HBV) vaccine {9,221 boys and 8,117 girls). In an interim analysis, vaccine safety was assessed by active monitoring and surveillancece via health registry linkage. Active monitoring showed that the HPV-16/18 vaccine has acceptable safety and reactogenicity in boys. In all study participants, the observed incidences (per 100,000 person-years) of serious adverse events (SAEs) possibly, related to vaccination were 54.3 (95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 34.0-82.1) in the HPV-16/18 group and 64.0 (95% CI: 43.2-91.3) in the HBV group. During the follow-up period for this interim analysis, the most common new-onset autoimmune diseases (NOADs; with incidence rate >= 15 per 100,000) in any group based on hospital discharge registry (HILMO) download were ulcerative colitis, juvenile arthritis, celiac disease insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (IDDM) and Crohn's disease. No increased NOAD incidences were observed in HPV-16/18 vaccine recipients compared to HBV vaccine recipients. In both the SAE possibly related- and HILMO-analyses, a lower incidence of IDDM was observed in HPV-16/18 vaccinees compared to HBV vaccinees (relative risks, 0.26 [95% CI: 0.03-1.24] and 0.16 [95% CI: 0.03-0.55], respectively).Peer reviewe

The immune response after hypoxia-ischemia in a mouse model of preterm brain injury

Background: Preterm brain injury consists primarily of periventricular leukomalacia accompanied by elements of gray-matter injury, and these injuries are associated with cerebral palsy and cognitive impairments. Inflammation is believed to be an important contributing factor to these injuries. The aim of this study was to examine the immune response in a postnatal day (PND) 5 mouse model of preterm brain injury induced by hypoxia-ischemia (HI) that is characterized by focal white and gray-matter injury. Methods: C57Bl/6 mice at PND 5 were subjected to unilateral HI induced by left carotid artery ligation and subsequent exposure to 10% O2 for 50 minutes, 70 minutes, or 80 minutes. At seven days post-HI, the white/gray-matter injury was examined. The immune responses in the brain after HI were examined at different time points after HI using RT-PCR and immunohistochemical staining. Results: HI for 70 minutes in PND 5 mice induced local white-matter injury with focal cortical injury and hippocampal atrophy, features that are similar to those seen in preterm brain injury in human infants. HI for 50 minutes resulted in a small percentage of animals being injured, and HI for 80 minutes produced extensive infarction in multiple brain areas. Various immune responses, including changes in transcription factors and cytokines that are associated with a T-helper (Th)1/Th17-type response, an increased number of CD4+ T-cells, and elevated levels of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM-2) and its adaptor protein DNAX activation protein of 12 kDa (DAP12) were observed using the HI 70 minute preterm brain injury model. Conclusions: We have established a reproducible model of HI in PND 5 mice that produces consistent local white/gray-matter brain damage that is relevant to preterm brain injury in human infants. This model provides a useful tool for studying preterm brain injury. Both innate and adaptive immune responses are observed after HI, and these show a strong pro-inflammatory Th1/Th17-type bias. Such findings provide a critical foundation for future studies on the mechanism of preterm brain injury and suggest that blocking the Th1/Th17-type immune response might provide neuroprotection after preterm brain injury

Searching for plasticity in dissociated cortical cultures on multi-electrode arrays

We attempted to induce functional plasticity in dense cultures of cortical cells using stimulation through extracellular electrodes embedded in the culture dish substrate (multi-electrode arrays, or MEAs). We looked for plasticity expressed in changes in spontaneous burst patterns, and in array-wide response patterns to electrical stimuli, following several induction protocols related to those used in the literature, as well as some novel ones. Experiments were performed with spontaneous culture-wide bursting suppressed by either distributed electrical stimulation or by elevated extracellular magnesium concentrations as well as with spontaneous bursting untreated. Changes concomitant with induction were no larger in magnitude than changes that occurred spontaneously, except in one novel protocol in which spontaneous bursts were quieted using distributed electrical stimulation