Towards the design of a kid’s music organizer

In this paper, we investigate how young children aged 2 to 5 interact with music and their family's music collections. By going into their homes, interviewing them and their parents and observing the children performing a range of music-related tasks, we explore the way that pre-school children select, interact with, and organize music. Additionally, drawing tasks were included in the visits to engage the children and allow them to demonstrate their thoughts in a concrete manner. Insights into the children's' music behaviours suggest design features for a music organizer / player for very young children

ZHAW-CAI : ensemble method for Swiss German speech to Standard German text

This paper presents the contribution of ZHAW-CAI to the Shared Task ”Swiss German Speech to Standard German Text” at the SwissText 2021 conference. Our approach combines three models based on the Fairseq, Jasper and Wav2vec architectures trained on multilingual, German and Swiss German data. We applied an ensembling algorithm on the predictions of the three models in order to retrieve the most reliable candidate out of the provided translations for each spoken utterance. With the ensembling output, we achieved a BLEU score of 39.39 on the private test set, which gave us the third place out of four contributors in the competition

Accumulation of neutral lipids in peripheral blood mononuclear cells as a distinctive trait of Alzheimer patients and asymptomatic subjects at risk of disease

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Alzheimer's disease is the most common progressive neurodegenerative disease. In recent years, numerous progresses in the discovery of novel Alzheimer's disease molecular biomarkers in brain as well as in biological fluids have been made. Among them, those involving lipid metabolism are emerging as potential candidates. In particular, an accumulation of neutral lipids was recently found by us in skin fibroblasts from Alzheimer's disease patients. Therefore, with the aim to assess whether peripheral alterations in cholesterol homeostasis might be relevant in Alzheimer's disease development and progression, in the present study we analyzed lipid metabolism in plasma and peripheral blood mononuclear cells from Alzheimer's disease patients and from their first-degree relatives.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Blood samples were obtained from 93 patients with probable Alzheimer's disease and from 91 of their first-degree relatives. As controls we utilized 57, cognitively normal, over-65 year-old volunteers and 113 blood donors aged 21-66 years, respectively. Data are reported as mean ± standard error. Statistical calculations were performed using the statistical analysis software Origin 8.0 version. Data analysis was done using the Student t-test and the Pearson test.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Data reported here show high neutral lipid levels and increased ACAT-1 protein in about 85% of peripheral blood mononuclear cells freshly isolated (<it>ex vivo</it>) from patients with probable sporadic Alzheimer's disease compared to about 7% of cognitively normal age-matched controls. A significant reduction in high density lipoprotein-cholesterol levels in plasma from Alzheimer's disease blood samples was also observed. Additionally, correlation analyses reveal a negative correlation between high density lipoprotein-cholesterol and cognitive capacity, as determined by Mini Mental State Examination, as well as between high density lipoprotein-cholesterol and neutral lipid accumulation. We observed great variability in the neutral lipid-peripheral blood mononuclear cells data and in plasma lipid analysis of the subjects enrolled as Alzheimer's disease-first-degree relatives. However, about 30% of them tend to display a peripheral metabolic cholesterol pattern similar to that exhibited by Alzheimer's disease patients.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>We suggest that neutral lipid-peripheral blood mononuclear cells and plasma high density lipoprotein-cholesterol determinations might be of interest to outline a distinctive metabolic profile applying to both Alzheimer's disease patients and asymptomatic subjects at higher risk of disease.</p

A System for Continuous Learning of Visual Concepts

We present an artificial cognitive system for learning visual concepts. It comprises of vision, communication and manipulation subsystems, which provide visual input, enable verbal and non-verbal communication with a tutor and allow interaction with a given scene. The main goal is to learn associations between automatically extracted visual features and words that describe the scene in an open-ended, continuous manner. In particular, we address the problem of cross-modal learning of visual properties and spatial relations. We introduce and analyse several learning modes requiring different levels of tutor supervision

A System for Continuous Learning of Visual Concepts

We present an artificial cognitive system for learning visual concepts. It comprises of vision, communication and manipulation subsystems, which provide visual input, enable verbal and non-verbal communication with a tutor and allow interaction with a given scene. The main goal is to learn associations between automatically extracted visual features and words that describe the scene in an open-ended, continuous manner. In particular, we address the problem of cross-modal learning of visual properties and spatial relations. We introduce and analyse several learning modes requiring different levels of tutor supervision

Evaluating the effect of R-Baclofen and LP-211 on autistic behavior of the BTBR and Fmr1-KO mouse models

Introduction: Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a persistent neurodevelopmental condition characterized by two core behavioral symptoms: impaired social communication and interaction, as well as stereotypic, repetitive behavior. No distinct cause of ASD is known so far; however, excitatory/inhibitory imbalance and a disturbed serotoninergic transmission have been identified as prominent candidates responsible for ASD etiology. Methods: The GABA B receptor agonist R-Baclofen and the selective agonist for the 5HT7 serotonin receptor LP-211 have been reported to correct social deficits and repetitive behaviors in mouse models of ASD. To evaluate the efficacy of these compounds in more details, we treated BTBR T+ Itpr3 tf /J and B6.129P2-Fmr1 tm1Cgr /J mice acutely with R-Baclofen or LP-211 and evaluated the behavior of animals in a series of tests. Results: BTBR mice showed motor deficits, elevated anxiety, and highly repetitive behavior of self-grooming. Fmr1-KO mice exhibited decreased anxiety and hyperactivity. Additionally, Fmr1-KO mice's ultrasonic vocalizations were impaired suggesting a reduced social interest and communication of this strain. Acute LP-211 administration did not affect the behavioral abnormalities observed in BTBR mice but improved repetitive behavior in Fmr1-KO mice and showed a trend to change anxiety of this strain. Acute R-Baclofen treatment improved repetitive behavior only in Fmr1-KO mice. Conclusion: Our results add value to the current available data on these mouse models and the respective compounds. Yet, additional studies are needed to further test R-Baclofen and LP-211 as potential treatments for ASD therapy

The bivalent ligand approach as a tool for improving the in vitro anti-alzheimer multitarget profile of dimebon

Inspired by the concept of bivalent ligands, we prepared a small set of analogues of the drug candidate dimebon. They were shown to inhibit AChE, Aβ42 aggregation, and NMDA receptor activation to a greater extent than dimebon. Some of these compounds also enhanced the survival of chicken neurons under apoptosis-inducing conditions. Copyright © 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim

The bivalent ligand approach as a tool for improving the in vitro anti-alzheimer multitarget profile of dimebon

Inspired by the concept of bivalent ligands, we prepared a small set of analogues of the drug candidate dimebon. They were shown to inhibit AChE, Aβ42 aggregation, and NMDA receptor activation to a greater extent than dimebon. Some of these compounds also enhanced the survival of chicken neurons under apoptosis-inducing conditions.Peer Reviewe