How to improve TTS systems for emotional expressivity

Several experiments have been carried out that revealed weaknesses of the current Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems in their emotional expressivity. Although some TTS systems allow XML-based representations of prosodic and/or phonetic variables, few publications considered, as a pre-processing stage, the use of intelligent text processing to detect affective information that can be used to tailor the parameters needed for emotional expressivity. This paper describes a technique for an automatic prosodic parameterization based on affective clues. This technique recognizes the affective information conveyed in a text and, accordingly to its emotional connotation, assigns appropriate pitch accents and other prosodic parameters by XML-tagging. This pre-processing assists the TTS system to generate synthesized speech that contains emotional clues. The experimental results are encouraging and suggest the possibility of suitable emotional expressivity in speech synthesis

How can the recall of early affiliative memories with peers influence on disordered eating behaviours?

The present study aimed to explore the role of early affiliative memories with peers on the adoption of disordered eating attitudes and behaviours through the mechanisms of external shame and self-judgment. The sample used in the current study comprised 632 women from the community, aged between 18 and 60 years old. The tested model explained 22% of eating psychopathology’s variance and showed excellent model fit indices. Results indicated that the impact of the recall of early positive memories with peers on eating psychopathology was fully carried through the mechanisms of external shame and self-judgment. In fact, these findings seem to suggest that the lack of warm and safe affiliative memories with peers is linked with higher levels of shame (e.g., feelings of inferiority and inadequacy), and also with higher vulnerability to engage in maladaptive emotional strategies (such as self-judgmental attitudes), which appears to explain the increase of disordered eating behaviours. These findings contribute to the understanding of the impact of peer-related early affiliative memories on the engagement in disordered eating. Furthermore, this study has significant clinical implications, emphasizing the importance of targeting shame and maladaptive emotional strategies, especially in a context involving early adverse emotional experiences with peers

Do shame and perfectionistic self-presentation explain the link between early affiliative memories and eating psychopathology?

This study explored a model examining the impact that early affiliative memories (with family and peers) presents on eating psychopathology, and whether this link is carried by the mechanisms of external shame and body image-related perfectionistic self-presentation. This study’s sample comprised 480 female college students, who completed the self-report measures of interest. Path analyses’ results revealed that this model accounted for 48% of disordered eating’s variance. Furthermore, results showed that 26% of external shame was explained by early memories of warmth and safeness, and that 19% of body image-related perfectionistic self-presentation was explained by the lack of recall of these affiliative memories, through increased levels of external shame. These findings seem to suggest that the lack of these positive memories is associated with higher levels of shame (feelings of inferiority and unattractiveness), and with higher tendencies to adopt body image-related perfectionistic strategies, that seem to explain excessive eating concern and rigid control of one’s eating behaviours. This study offers important insights for future research and for the development of intervention programs, by revealing the importance of assessing and targeting shame and perfectionistic strategies and suggesting the importance of promoting adaptive emotion regulation strategies to deal with adverse memories

Prognostic Impact of Admission Blood Glucose for All-Cause Mortality in Patients with Acute Coronary Syndromes: Added Value on Top of GRACE Risk Score

BACKGROUND: Abnormal glucose metabolism is a predictor of worse outcome after acute coronary syndrome (ACS). However, this parameter is not included in risk prediction scores, including GRACE risk score. We sought to evaluate whether the inclusion of blood glucose at admission in a model with GRACE risk score improves risk stratification. METHODS: Study of consecutive patients included in a single centre registry of ACS. Our primary endpoint was the occurrence of all-cause mortality at one-year follow-up. The ability of the two logistic regression models (GRACE risk score alone and in combination with blood glucose) to predict death was analysed. Continuous net reclassification improvement (NRI) and integrated discrimination improvement (IDI), with corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs), were also calculated. RESULTS: We included 2099 patients, with a mean age of 64 (SD=13) years, 69% males. In our sample, 55.1% presented with ST-segment elevation ACS and 13.1% in Killip class ≥ 2. Only 25% were known diabetic at admission. In-hospital mortality was 5.8% and 9.7% at one-year follow-up. The best cut-point for blood glucose was 160 mg/dl (sensitivity 62% and specificity 68%), and 35.2% of the patients had increased levels. This group was elderly, had more prevalence of cardiovascular risk factors, worse renal function and GRACE score as well as more frequently Killip class ≥2. Treatment was similar in both groups besides less frequent use of clopidogrel in high glycaemic patients. The hyperglycaemia group had higher one-year mortality (17.2% vs. 5.6%, p<0.001). Moreover, binary blood glucose remained a predictor of death independently of the GRACE risk score and the presence of diabetes (odds ratio (OR) 1.99, 95% CI 1.40-2.84, p<0.001). The inclusion of blood glucose, as a continuous variable, in a logistic regression model with GRACE score, increased the area under the ROC curve from 0.80 to 0.82 (p=0.018) as well as the goodness-of-fit and was associated with an improvement in both the NRI (37%) and the IDI (0.021), suggesting effective reclassification. CONCLUSIONS: A blood glucose level on admission ≥ 160 mg/dl is an independent predictor of mortality in medium-term follow-up. It offers an incremental predictive value when added to the GRACE risk score, although with a modest magnitude of improvement, probably due to the high predictive performance of the GRACE risk score alone.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Is It Possible to Simplify Risk Stratification Scores for Patients with ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction Undergoing Primary Angioplasty?

INTRODUCTION: There are several risk scores for stratification of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI), the most widely used of which are the TIMI and GRACE scores. However, these are complex and require several variables. The aim of this study was to obtain a reduced model with fewer variables and similar predictive and discriminative ability. METHODS: We studied 607 patients (age 62 years, SD=13; 76% male) who were admitted with STEMI and underwent successful primary angioplasty. Our endpoints were all-cause in-hospital and 30-day mortality. Considering all variables from the TIMI and GRACE risk scores, multivariate logistic regression models were fitted to the data to identify the variables that best predicted death. RESULTS: Compared to the TIMI score, the GRACE score had better predictive and discriminative performance for in-hospital mortality, with similar results for 30-day mortality. After data modeling, the variables with highest predictive ability were age, serum creatinine, heart failure and the occurrence of cardiac arrest. The new predictive model was compared with the GRACE risk score, after internal validation using 10-fold cross validation. A similar discriminative performance was obtained and some improvement was achieved in estimates of probabilities of death (increased for patients who died and decreased for those who did not). CONCLUSION: It is possible to simplify risk stratification scores for STEMI and primary angioplasty using only four variables (age, serum creatinine, heart failure and cardiac arrest). This simplified model maintained a good predictive and discriminative performance for short-term mortality

Remote experimentation network - yielding an inter-university peer-to-peer e-service

The goal of this paper is to discuss the benefits and challenges of yielding an inter-continental network of remote laboratories supported and used by both European and Latin American Institutions of Higher Education. Since remote experimentation, understood as the ability to carry out real-world experiments through a simple web browser, is already a proven solution for the educational community as a supplement to on-site practical lab work (and in some cases, namely for distance learning courses, a replacement to that work), the purpose is not to discuss its technical, pedagogical, or economical strengths, but rather to raise and try to answer some questions about the underlying benefits and challenges of establishing a peer-to-peer network of remote labs. Ultimately, we regard such a network as a constructive mechanism to help students gain the working and social skills often valued by multinational/global companies, while also providing awareness of local cultural aspects

Predictive Impact on Medium-Term Mortality of Hematological Parameters in Acute Coronary Syndromes: Added Value on Top of GRACE Risk Score

BACKGROUND: Red Cell Distribution Width (RDW) prognostic value in patients with Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) has been well validated whereas that of Platelet Distribution Width (PDW) is less well known. OBJECTIVES: Investigate the incremental prognostic value, on top of GRACE risk score, of a new variable resulting from the combination of RDW and PDW. METHODS: Consecutive patients with ACS. Complete blood count, with RDW and PDW, was obtained. Primary endpoint was one-year all-cause mortality and Cox regression models were used to measure the influence of RDW and PDW on patients' survival time. A new combination categorical variable (RDW/PDW) was created with both discretized RDW and PDW and logistic regression models were used. Predictive value and discriminative ability of the model with GRACE risk score alone and of the model with inclusion of RDW/PDW was assessed. RESULTS: We included 787 patients. Hospital and one-year mortality rates were 5.1% and 7.8%, respectively. Both continuous RDW and PDW were independent predictors of death. The best cut-off for RDW was 13.9%, and 14.5% for PDW. Inclusion of RDW/PDW in a model with GRACE risk score improved the AUC from 0.81 (95% CI 0.75-0.86) to 0.84 (95% CI 0.79-0.90) (p=0.024) with an improvement in total NRI (56%) and IDI (0.048). CONCLUSIONS: Simple markers such as RDW and PDW can be useful in risk stratification of death after ACS. Combining both markers with GRACE risk score improved the predictive value for all-cause mortality and reduced the estimated risk of those who did not die.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

PMD tolerant nonlinear compensation using in-line phase conjugation

In this paper, we numerically investigate the impact of polarisation mode dispersion on the efficiency of compensation of nonlinear transmission penalties for systems employing one of more inline phase conjugation devices. We will show that reducing the spacing between phase conjugations allows for significantly improved performance in the presence polarisation mode dispersion or a significant relaxation in the acceptable level of polarization mode dispersion. We show that these results are consistent with previously presented full statistical analysis of nonlinear transmission appropriately adjusted for the reduced section length undergoing compensation

Metastatic small bowel occlusion as initial presentation of squamous cell carcinoma of the lung

info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Limits of Optical Fibre Communication Systems

In this presentation, we will review the historical evolution of performance predictions for optical communication systems, including single channel systems, soliton systems and high spectral density coherent systems. We will describe how such predictions have been made from the outset of optical communications research and their present form, accurately predicting the performance of coherently detected communication systems and establishing the fundamental limits of nonlinearity compensation