Towards Structured Deep Neural Network for Automatic Speech Recognition

In this paper we propose the Structured Deep Neural Network (Structured DNN) as a structured and deep learning algorithm, learning to find the best structured object (such as a label sequence) given a structured input (such as a vector sequence) by globally considering the mapping relationships between the structure rather than item by item. When automatic speech recognition is viewed as a special case of such a structured learning problem, where we have the acoustic vector sequence as the input and the phoneme label sequence as the output, it becomes possible to comprehensively learned utterance by utterance as a whole, rather than frame by frame. Structured Support Vector Machine (structured SVM) was proposed to perform ASR with structured learning previously, but limited by the linear nature of SVM. Here we propose structured DNN to use nonlinear transformations in multi-layers as a structured and deep learning algorithm. It was shown to beat structured SVM in preliminary experiments on TIMIT

Cereal and nonfat milk support muscle recovery following exercise

All authors are with the Exercise Physiology and Metabolism Laboratory Department of Kinesiology and Health Education The University of Texas at Austin Austin, TX, USABackground: This study compared the effects of ingesting cereal and nonfat milk (Cereal) and a carbohydrate-electrolyte sports drink (Drink) immediately following endurance exercise on muscle glycogen synthesis and the phosphorylation state of proteins controlling protein synthesis: Akt, mTOR, rpS6 and eIF4E. -- Methods: Trained cyclists or triathletes (8 male: 28.0 ± 1.6 yrs, 1.8 ± 0.0 m, 75.4 ± 3.2 kg, 61.0 ± 1.6 ml O2•kg-1•min-1; 4 female: 25.3 ± 1.7 yrs, 1.7 ± 0.0 m, 66.9 ± 4.6 kg, 46.4 ± 1.2 mlO2•kg-1•min-1) completed two randomly-ordered trials serving as their own controls. After 2 hours of cycling at 60–65% VO2MAX, a biopsy from the vastus lateralis was obtained (Post0), then subjects consumed either Drink (78.5 g carbohydrate) or Cereal (77 g carbohydrate, 19.5 g protein and 2.7 g fat). Blood was drawn before and at the end of exercise, and at 15, 30 and 60 minutes after treatment. A second biopsy was taken 60 minutes after supplementation (Post60). Differences within and between treatments were tested using repeated measures ANOVA. -- Results: At Post60, blood glucose was similar between treatments (Drink 6.1 ± 0.3, Cereal 5.6 ± 0.2 mmol/L, p < .05), but after Cereal, plasma insulin was significantly higher (Drink 123.1 ± 11.8, Cereal 191.0 ± 12.3 pmol/L, p < .05), and plasma lactate significantly lower (Drink 1.4 ± 0.1, Cereal 1.00 ± 0.1 mmol/L, p < .05). Except for higher phosphorylation of mTOR after Cereal, glycogen and muscle proteins were not statistically different between treatments. Significant Post0 to Post60 changes occurred in glycogen (Drink 52.4 ± 7.0 to 58.6 ± 6.9, Cereal 58.7 ± 9.6 to 66.0 ± 10.0 μmol/g, p < .05) and rpS6 (Drink 17.9 ± 2.5 to 35.2 ± 4.9, Cereal 18.6 ± 2.2 to 35.4 ± 4.4 %Std, p < .05) for each treatment, but only Cereal significantly affected glycogen synthase (Drink 66.6 ± 6.9 to 64.9 ± 6.9, Cereal 61.1 ± 8.0 to 54.2 ± 7.2%Std, p < .05), Akt (Drink 57.9 ± 3.2 to 55.7 ± 3.1, Cereal 53.2 ± 4.1 to 60.5 ± 3.7 %Std, p < .05) and mTOR (Drink 28.7 ± 4.4 to 35.4 ± 4.5, Cereal 23.0 ± 3.1 to 42.2 ± 2.5 %Std, p < .05). eIF4E was unchanged after both treatments. -- Conclusion: These results suggest that Cereal is as good as a commercially-available sports drink in initiating post-exercise muscle recovery.Kinesiology and Health [email protected]

Radiative and flavor-violating transitions of leptons from interactions with color-octet particles

It has been recently proposed that neutrino mass could originate from Yukawa interactions of leptons with new colored particles. This raises the interesting possibility of testing mass generation through copious production of those particles at hadron colliders. A realistic assessment of it however should take into account how large those interactions could be from available precision results. In this work we make a systematic analysis to the flavor structure in Yukawa couplings, provide a convenient parametrization to it, and investigate the rare radiative and pure leptonic decays of the muon and tau leptons. For general values of parameters the muon decays set stringent constraints on the couplings, and all rare tau decays are far below the current experimental sensitivity. However, there is room in parameter space in which the muon decays could be significantly suppressed by destructive interference between colored particles without generically reducing the couplings themselves. This is also the region of parameters that is relevant to collider physics. We show that for this part of parameter space some tau decays can reach or are close to the current level of precision.Comment: 20 pages, 7 figure

THE EFFECT OF INSULIN AND CARBOHYDRATE SUPPLEMENTATION ON GLYCOGEN REPLENISHMENT AMONG DIFFERENT HINDLIMB MUSCLES IN RATS FOLLOWING PROLONGED SWIMMING

In the present study we investigated the interactive effects of insulin and carbohydrate on glycogen replenishment in different rat hindlimb muscles. Forty male Sprague Dawley rats were assigned to 5 groups, including 1) sedentary control with carbohydrate supplement (2 g glucose · kg body wt-1), 2) sedentary rats with 16 hours recovery, carbohydrate and insulin (0.5 U · kg body wt-1), 3) swimming without recovery, 4) swimming with 16 hours recovery and carbohydrate supplement, and 5) swimming with 16 hours recovery, carbohydrate and insulin. The swimming protocol consisted of two 3 h swimming sections, which were separated by a 45 min rest. The insulin and carbohydrate were administered to the rats immediately after exercise. At the end of the experiment, the soleus (S), plantaris (P), quadriceps (Q) and gastrocnemius (G) were surgically excised to evaluate glycogen utilization and replenishment. We observed that glycogen utilization was significantly lower in G and Q than S and P during swimming (p <0.05), and S showed the greatest capacity of glycogen resynthesis after post-exercise recovery (p <0.05). In the sedentary state, the glycogen synthesis did not differ among hindlimb muscles during insulin and carbohydrate treatments. Interestingly, with insulin and carbohydrate, the glycogen resynthesis in S and P were significantly greater than in Q and G following post-exercise recovery (p <0.05). We therefore concluded that the soleus and plantaris are the primary working muscles during swimming, and the greatest glycogen replenishment capacity of the soleus during post-exercise recovery is likely due to its highest insulin sensitivity

Lepton Flavor Violating Muon Decays in a Model of Electroweak-Scale Right-Handed Neutrinos

The small neutrino mass observed in neutrino oscillations is nicely explained by the seesaw mechanism. Rich phenomenology is generally expected if the heavy neutrinos are not much heavier than the electroweak scale. A model with this feature built in has been suggested recently by Hung. The model keeps the standard gauge group but introduces chirality-flipped partners for the fermions. In particular, a right-handed neutrino forms a weak doublet with a charged heavy lepton, and is thus active. We analyze the lepton flavor structure in gauge interactions. The mixing matrices in charged currents (CC) are generally non-unitary, and their deviation from unitarity induces flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC). We calculate the branching ratios for the rare decays \mu\to e\gamma and \mu\to ee\bar e due to the gauge interactions. Although the former is generally smaller than the latter by three orders of magnitude, parameter regions exist in which \mu\to e\gamma is reachable in the next generation of experiments even if the current stringent bound on \mu\to ee\bar e is taken into account. If light neutrinos dominate for \mu\to e\gamma, the latter cannot set a meaningful bound on unitarity violation in the mixing matrix of light leptons due to significant cancelation between CC and FCNC contributions. Instead, the role is taken over by the decay \mu\to ee\bar e.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. v2: added 2 refs and improved a comment on previous work; no other changes. v3: proofread version for PLB; added a few clarifying sentences in paragraph before eq (17) plus minor editting change

Ripple: A Distributed Medium Access Protocol for Multi-hop Wireless Mesh Networks

Abstract-Wireless mesh network, a new wireless broadband access technology, is currently attracting significant attention. This work proposes a distributed medium access protocol, named Ripple, for wireless mesh networks (WMNs) under tree topology. In contrast to existing random-access approaches, Ripple uses a controlled-access approach to protect nodes from unintentional packet collisions and maximize the spatial reuse. The performance of Ripple under an error-free channel was investigated and the accuracy of the analysis was verified by simulation. Simulation results also indicated that Ripple achieved throughput, stability, and QoS enhancement than that of 802.11 DCF under a highly loaded situation in both chain and tree topologies

In-Band Asymmetry Compensation for Accurate Time/Phase Transport over Optical Transport Network

The demands of precise time/phase synchronization have been increasing recently due to the next generation of telecommunication synchronization. This paper studies the issues that are relevant to distributing accurate time/phase over optical transport network (OTN). Each node and link can introduce asymmetry, which affects the adequate time/phase accuracy over the networks. In order to achieve better accuracy, protocol level full timing support is used (e.g., Telecom-Boundary clock). Due to chromatic dispersion, the use of different wavelengths consequently causes fiber link delay asymmetry. The analytical result indicates that it introduces significant time error (i.e., phase offset) within 0.3397 ns/km in C-band or 0.3943 ns/km in L-band depending on the wavelength spacing. With the proposed scheme in this paper, the fiber link delay asymmetry can be compensated relying on the estimated mean fiber link delay by the Telecom-Boundary clock, while the OTN control plane is responsible for processing the fiber link delay asymmetry to determine the asymmetry compensation in the timing chain

Effects of computer-based cognitive training combined with physical training for older adults with cognitive impairment: A four-arm randomized controlled trial

OBJECTIVE: Combined physical (PHY) and cognitive (COG) training in sequential (SEQ) and simultaneous (SIMUL) sessions may delay the progression of cognitive impairment. To date, no study has directly compared in older adults with cognitive impairment the effects of COG training, PHY training, SEQ motor-cognitive training and SIMUL motor-cognitve training on specific indices of cognitive performance and activities of daily living (ADL). The purpose of this study was to determine whether SEQ and SIMUL motor-cognitive training can improve treatment outcomes compared with PHY or COG training alone. We also aimed to compare the effects of SEQ versus SIMUL motor-cognitive training on cognitive functions and instrumental ADL (IADL) in older adults with cognitive impairment. METHODS: A cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted. Eighty older adults with cognitive impairment were randomly assigned to COG, PHY, SEQ or SIMUL training groups. The intervention consisted of 90-min training sessions, totaling 36 sessions. Outcome measures were the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, three subtests of the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS) and the Lawton IADL scale. RESULTS: Significant interaction effects between group and time were found in WMS-spatial span ( CONCLUSIONS: Our study showed SEQ and SIMUL motor-cognitive training led to more pronounced improvements in visuospatial working memory or verbal memory compared with isolated COG or PHY training for community-based older adults with cognitive impairment. For enhancing effects on IADL, we suggest the use of sensitive measurement tools and context-enriched cognitive training involving real-life task demands

Reduced Risk of Dementia in Patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus using Chinese herbal medicine: A nested case-control study

Dementia is a prevalent condition in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients. While Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is often employed as complementary therapy for glycemic control, its effect in controlling likelihood of dementia has not yet been fully elucidated. AIM To compare the risk of dementia between T2DM patients with and without CHM treatment. METHODS We undertook a nested case-control study and obtained data on patients 20-70 years of age who received medical care for T2DM between 2001 and 2010 from the National Health Insurance Research database in Taiwan. Cases, defined as those with dementia that occurred at least one year after the diagnosis of T2DM, were randomly matched to controls without dementia from the study cohort at a 1:1 ratio. We applied conditional logistic regression to explore the associations between CHM treatment and dementia. RESULTS A total of 11699 dementia cases were matched to 11699 non-dementia controls. We found that adding CHM to conventional care was related to a lower risk of dementia [adjusted odds ratio (OR) = 0.51], and high-intensity CHM treatment was associated with an adjusted OR of 0.22. CONCLUSION This study shows that the cumulative CHM exposure was inversely associated with dementia risk in an exposureresponse manner, implying that CHM treatment may be embraced as a disease management approach for diabetic patients to prevent dementia

Sialylation of vasorin by ST3Gal1 facilitates TGF-β1-mediated tumor angiogenesis and progression.

ST3Gal1 is a key sialyltransferase which adds α2,3-linked sialic acid to substrates and generates core 1 O-glycan structure. Upregulation of ST3Gal1 has been associated with worse prognosis of breast cancer patients. However, the protein substrates of ST3Gal1 implicated in tumor progression remain elusive. In our study, we demonstrated that ST3GAL1-silencing significantly reduced tumor growth along with a notable decrease in vascularity of MCF7 xenograft tumors. We identified vasorin (VASN) which was shown to bind TGF-β1, as a potential candidate that links ST3Gal1 to angiogenesis. LC-MS/MS analysis of VASN secreted from MCF7, revealed that more than 80% of its O-glycans are sialyl-3T and disialyl-T. ST3GAL1-silencing or desialylation of VASN by neuraminidase enhanced its binding to TGF-β1 by 2- to 3-fold and thereby dampening TGF-β1 signaling and angiogenesis, as indicated by impaired tube formation of HUVECs, suppressed angiogenesis gene expression and reduced activation of Smad2 and Smad3 in HUVEC cells. Examination of 114 fresh primary breast cancer and their adjacent normal tissues showed that the expression levels of ST3Gal1 and TGFB1 were high in tumor part and the expression of two genes was positively correlated. Kaplan Meier survival analysis showed a significantly shorter relapse-free survival for those with lower expression VASN, notably, the combination of low VASN with high ST3GAL1 yielded even higher risk of recurrence (p = 0.025, HR = 2.967, 95% CI = 1.14-7.67). Since TGF-β1 is known to transcriptionally activate ST3Gal1, our findings illustrated a feedback regulatory loop in which TGF-β1 upregulates ST3Gal1 to circumvent the negative impact of VASN