Predicting the First Response Latency of Maintainers and Contributors in Pull Requests

The success of a Pull Request (PR) depends on the responsiveness of the maintainers and the contributor during the review process. Being aware of the expected waiting times can lead to better interactions and managed expectations for both the maintainers and the contributor. In this paper, we propose a machine-learning approach to predict the first response latency of the maintainers following the submission of a PR, and the first response latency of the contributor after receiving the first response from the maintainers. We curate a dataset of 20 large and popular open-source projects on GitHub and extract 21 features to characterize projects, contributors, PRs, and review processes. Using these features, we then evaluate seven types of classifiers to identify the best-performing models. We also perform permutation feature importance and SHAP analyses to understand the importance and impact of different features on the predicted response latencies. Our best-performing models achieve an average improvement of 33% in AUC-ROC and 58% in AUC-PR for maintainers, as well as 42% in AUC-ROC and 95% in AUC-PR for contributors compared to a no-skilled classifier across the projects. Our findings indicate that PRs submitted earlier in the week, containing an average or slightly above-average number of commits, and with concise descriptions are more likely to receive faster first responses from the maintainers. Similarly, PRs with a lower first response latency from maintainers, that received the first response of maintainers earlier in the week, and containing an average or slightly above-average number of commits tend to receive faster first responses from the contributors. Additionally, contributors with a higher acceptance rate and a history of timely responses in the project are likely to both obtain and provide faster first responses.Comment: Manuscript submitted to IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering (TSE

A Literature Review of Voice Indices Available for Voice Assessment

Background:Recent years have seen the development of voice indices for multi-parametric objective voice evaluation. The current study aims to review these indices and examine their efficiency through the literature.Methods: The study design is a literature review. The five databases of ‘PubMed’, ‘Scopus’, ‘Google Scholar’, ‘Science Direct’, and ‘Web of Science’ were searched using the keywords ‘voice index’, ‘acoustic’, ‘voice assessment’, and ‘acoustic analysis’. Attempts were made to include only the acoustic indices that have been validated and are fairly user-friendly.Results: Five voice indices were found that met the inclusion criteria: Dysphonia Severity Index (DSI), Acoustic Voice Quality Index (AVQI), Cepstral Spectral Index of Dysphonia (CSID), The Acoustic Breathiness Index (ABI), and Acoustic Psychometric Severity Index of Dysphonia (APSID).Conclusions: The results suggest using AVQI, ABI, DSI, and CSID in the evaluation and treatment of voice disorders. Of course, it is recommend to examine the efficacy of these indices in more languages and also developing new indices by considering more aspects of voice

The effects of spaced transcranial Direct Current Stimulation combined with conventional dysphagia therapy in Parkinson’s disease

Parkinson's disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system that is characterized by a set of motor and non-motor symptoms. Impaired swallowing or dysphagia is one relatively common motor symptom in patients with PD. We investigated whether neuroplasticity induction by spaced transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) combined with conventional swallowing therapy leads to long-lasting effects on swallowing ability in patients with PD. We present a case of a 61-year-old male PD patient with dysphagia. Conventional Swallowing Therapy (CDT) combined with tDCS (bilateral anodal, 1 mA, 20 min, 10 online sessions, twice daily with a 20 min interval in between for five days over two weeks) was applied over the pharyngeal motor cortex. Our findings suggest that anodal tDCS combined with CDT is feasible, safe, and well-tolerated, and leads to a clinically relevant improvement of swallowing functions

Systemic communication and performance : a humanist learning approach to agricultural extension and rural development

This study posits a model of 'rural extension' which begins from humans, not from technology or information. The model has been used to facilitate community development at the village level. The research illustrates the potential of drama and participative forms of theatre as empowering 'action' learning/researching tools to reach people in rural communities, and as a means of involving those communities in creativity and learning about themselves and their environment collaboratively. The writer seeks to integrate participatory approaches with community development and human inquiry, humanistic approaches to education, experiential learning theories, and drama education theories and methods. The central questions which this research addresses are : 1/. What are the functions and the methods of participative theatre (as systemic communication) in the process of social change and development? and 2/. How can these participative forms of theatre elicit whole aspects of local knowledge, that is, tacit/explicit knowledge, facilitate learning and foster critical thinking through grass-roots participation? The ideas were formulated and tested through intensive field experiences with Iranian nomads, Iranian farmers, immigrant farmers in NSW, Australia, and within a number of workshops with different groups of students at Hawkesbury. This includes a critique of rural development in Iran, examinations of rural extension from a critical perspective, drama and theatre as process, learning and conscientization, personal construct psychology, systems thinking, learning through metaphor, action theory, Boal's participative forum theatre theory, and action research. Finally, the study explores drama as a form of systemic communication (that is, dialogue through a number of group activity techniques

A Comparative Study on Motor Skills in 5-Year-Old Children with Phonological and Phonetic Disorders

Background and Aim: Speech as a motor phenomenon requires repetitive and rapid function of articulatory organs performing extremely fine movements. Practice on motor skills results in facilitation in treatment progress of children with phonological disorders. The purpose of this study was to compare motor skills in 5-year-old children with phonological and phonetic disorders.Methods: Thirty-two children age 5 years, 16 with phonemical speech sound disorders and 16 with difficulty at a phonetic level participated in this study. TOLD Test was performed for linguistic skills investigation among children. Phonetic test, Wepman test, diadochokinesis and oral assessment was used for diagnosis between phonological and phonetic disorders. The children were also evaluated with Oseretsky motor developmental scale .Results: In comparison, mean scores of movement skills between both groups showed significant difference (p=0.006) and children with phonetic disorder got significantly higher scores on all part of this test.Conclusions: The findings of this study support the idea that speech sound disorders are frequently associated with motor problems, and that type of articulation disorder affects the motor performance in a different way. Phonological disorders seem to have more impact on motor performance than phonetic disorders. The results authenticate the need to pay more attention to the motor skills of children with articulation disorders

Analysis of factors affecting rural people's attitudes towards rural tourism: the case of Doroodzan District of the Marvdasht County

Although different governments place a lot of interest in developing rural tourism targets and a lot of budgets are spend in this respect, less attention is paid to study the attitudes of the host communities towards tourism.  Thus, the aim of this study was to analyze the factors that can affect the attitudes of rural people towards rural tourism in the Doroodzan District of the Marvdasht County. The research was conducted in 2015.  The survey research method was used for this purpose and data were collected using a pre-designed questionnaire. The research sample included 250 villagers that were selected using Kerjcie and Morgan Sampling Table and the Random Sampling Technique. The Face validity of the questionnaire was verified by the expert faculty members and the staff of the Rural Development Management Department of the Yasouj University, and its reliability was also verified by calculating Cronbach's Alpha reliability coefficient (from 0.61 to 0.86) that was obtained from a pilot study.  The results of the Path Analysis showed that value of tourism is the most effective factor for predicting the respondents' attitudes towards rural tourism. Next to that there are other variables such as income from tourism and observation that have had the most effect on the respondents' attitudes. Finally, it is recommended that the means of mass media such as local radio and television broadcast services prepare programs and campaigns about rural tourism and related topics in order to improve the attitudes of the rural people towards rural tourism

Verbal Fluency Performance in Patients with Non-demented Parkinson’s Disease

Objective: While Parkinson’s disease (PD) has traditionally been defined by motor symptoms, many researches have indicated that mild cognitive impairment is common in non-demented PD patients. The purpose of this study was to compare verbal fluency performance in non-demented Parkinson’s disease patients with healthy controls.Method: In this cross-sectional study thirty non-demented Parkinson’s disease patients and 30 healthy controls, matched by age, gender and education, were compared on verbal fluency performance. Verbal fluency was studied with a Phonemic Fluency task using the letters F, A, and S, a semantic fluency task using the categories animals and fruits. The independent t-test was used for data analysis.Results: Overall, participants generated more words in the semantic fluency task than in the phonemic fluency task. Results revealed significant differences between patients and controls in semantic fluency task (p<.05). In addition, PD patients showed a significant reduction of correctly generated words in letter fluency task. The total number of words produced was also significantly lower in the PD group (p<.05).Conclusion: Verbal fluency disruption is implied in non-demented PD patients in association with incipient cognitive impairment

Developing a Persian Verbal Fluency Test and Comparing the Results Between Healthy Persian Speakers and Persian Speakers Patients With Alzheimer Disease and Mild Cognitive Impairment

Objectives: Phonemic and semantic fluency tasks are used for verbal fluency (VF) evaluation. The present study aimed to select the most appropriate semantic categories and the most frequent phonemes of Persian as items for the VF test. Then, we determine the test results in differentiation between cognitively intact people and those with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer Disease (AD). Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted on 120 people (60 cognitively intact, 30 with AD, and 30 with MCI) in two phases. In phase one, linguists determine the most frequent phonemes at the beginning of Persian words and the most frequent semantic categories based on a survey. In phase two, the verbal fluency test was administered to cognitively intact people and those with cognitive impairment (patients with AD and MCI). One-way ANOVA and multiple linear regression were used for statistical analysis. Results: The normal subjects scored significantly higher in all phonemic and semantic fluency tasks than the patients with AD and people with MCI (P<0.05). Regarding the phonemic VF task, the phonemes /sh/, /s/, and then /a/ were better in differentiating the MCI and AD groups from the normal group. Regarding the semantic VF task, the animals’ category was better differentiated the MCI and AD groups from the normal group. Discussion: Comparing frequent phonemes and semantic categories of Persian across three groups of normal, AD, and MCI showed that some phonemes and semantic categories can be more differentiating in the VF task. However, it is a preliminary validation study, and this topic needs more investigation in the future