Intermolecular hydrogen bonding of the two independent molecules of N-3,5-dinitrobenzoyl-L-leucine

The title compound, C₁₃H₁₅N₃O₇, crystallizes as two independent molecules which differ in their conformation. Intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the amide and carboxylic acid groups as N-H...O=C interactions results in the formation of one-dimensional chains with N...O distances of 2.967 (6) and 3.019 (6) Å. Neighbouring chains are linked by C=O...H-O interactions to form a two-dimensional network, with O...O distances of 2.675 (6) and 2.778 (6) Å

Automatic Extraction of Commonsense LocatedNear Knowledge

LocatedNear relation is a kind of commonsense knowledge describing two physical objects that are typically found near each other in real life. In this paper, we study how to automatically extract such relationship through a sentence-level relation classifier and aggregating the scores of entity pairs from a large corpus. Also, we release two benchmark datasets for evaluation and future research.Comment: Accepted by ACL 2018. A preliminary version is presented on AKBC@NIPS'1

A physiologically inspired model for solving the cocktail party problem.

At a cocktail party, we can broadly monitor the entire acoustic scene to detect important cues (e.g., our names being called, or the fire alarm going off), or selectively listen to a target sound source (e.g., a conversation partner). It has recently been observed that individual neurons in the avian field L (analog to the mammalian auditory cortex) can display broad spatial tuning to single targets and selective tuning to a target embedded in spatially distributed sound mixtures. Here, we describe a model inspired by these experimental observations and apply it to process mixtures of human speech sentences. This processing is realized in the neural spiking domain. It converts binaural acoustic inputs into cortical spike trains using a multi-stage model composed of a cochlear filter-bank, a midbrain spatial-localization network, and a cortical network. The output spike trains of the cortical network are then converted back into an acoustic waveform, using a stimulus reconstruction technique. The intelligibility of the reconstructed output is quantified using an objective measure of speech intelligibility. We apply the algorithm to single and multi-talker speech to demonstrate that the physiologically inspired algorithm is able to achieve intelligible reconstruction of an "attended" target sentence embedded in two other non-attended masker sentences. The algorithm is also robust to masker level and displays performance trends comparable to humans. The ideas from this work may help improve the performance of hearing assistive devices (e.g., hearing aids and cochlear implants), speech-recognition technology, and computational algorithms for processing natural scenes cluttered with spatially distributed acoustic objects.R01 DC000100 - NIDCD NIH HHSPublished versio

Night Thoughts

Poem by Maurice Kenn

Susan: Part of a Novel

Fiction by Maurice F. Kenn

Mobile Self-Efficacy in Canadian Nursing Education Programs

This paper reported on a study of the readiness of nursing faculty and students to use mobile technologies such as iPhones and Blackberries in their teaching and learning – especially in clinical education experiences when students are off campus. In particular, we measured their self-confidence (self-efficacy) in engaging in this form of learning. To make this assessment, we carried out a survey of students and faculty in two nursing education programs at a Western Canadian college. 121 faculty members and students completed the survey in January, 2011. Our results showed a high level of ownership and use of mobile devices among our respondents. Their median mobile self-efficacy score was 75 on a scale of 100, which indicates that they are highly confident in their use of mobile technologies and prepared to engage in mobile learning.The purpose of this study was to assess the self-efficacy of nursing faculty and students related to their potential use of mobile technology and to ask what are the implications for their teaching and learning in practice education contexts. We used a cross-sectional survey design involving students and faculty in two nursing education programs in a Western Canadian college. 121 faculty members and students completed the survey in January, 2011. Results showed a high level of ownership and use of mobile devices among our respondents. Their median mobile self-efficacy score was 75 on a scale of 100, indicating that they are highly confident in their use of mobile technologies and prepared to engage in mobile learning