Prompt-driven Target Speech Diarization

We introduce a novel task named `target speech diarization', which seeks to determine `when target event occurred' within an audio signal. We devise a neural architecture called Prompt-driven Target Speech Diarization (PTSD), that works with diverse prompts that specify the target speech events of interest. We train and evaluate PTSD using sim2spk, sim3spk and sim4spk datasets, which are derived from the Librispeech. We show that the proposed framework accurately localizes target speech events. Furthermore, our framework exhibits versatility through its impressive performance in three diarization-related tasks: target speaker voice activity detection, overlapped speech detection and gender diarization. In particular, PTSD achieves comparable performance to specialized models across these tasks on both real and simulated data. This work serves as a reference benchmark and provides valuable insights into prompt-driven target speech processing.Comment: Accepted by ICASSP 202

Radix Astragali-Based Chinese Herbal Medicine for Oxaliplatin-Induced Peripheral Neuropathy: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background. Treatment of chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy (CIPN) remains a big challenge for oncologists. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effects of Radix Astragali- (RA-) based Chinese herbal medicine in the prevention and treatment of oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy, including the incidence and grading of neurotoxicity, effective percentage, and nerve conduction velocity. Methods. All randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were found using PubMed, Cochrane, Springer, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI), and Wanfang Database of China Science Periodical Database (CSPD) by keyword search. Meta-analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.0. Results. A total of 1552 participants were included in 24 trials. Meta-analysis showed the incidence of all-grade neurotoxicity was significantly lower in experimental groups and high-grade neurotoxicity was also significantly less. Effective percentage was significantly higher and sensory nerve conduction velocity was improved significantly, but changes in motor nerve conduction velocity were not statistically significant. No adverse events associated with RA-based intervention were reported. Conclusion. RA-based intervention may be beneficial in relieving oxaliplatin-induced peripheral neuropathy. However, more double-blind, multicenter, large-scale RCTs are needed to support this theory. Trial Registration. PROSPERO International prospective register of systematic reviews has registration number  CRD42015019903

Preventive Effects of a Chinese Herbal Formula, Shengjiang Xiexin Decoction, on Irinotecan-Induced Delayed-Onset Diarrhea in Rats

Irinotecan is a well-known chemotherapy drug for the treatment of various cancers. However, delayed-onset diarrhea is a common adverse reaction, limiting the application of the drug. The study presented was designed to evaluate the preventive effects of Shengjiang Xiexin decoction (SXD) on irinotecan-induced diarrhea and to explore the possible mechanisms of this action. We established a diarrhea rat model. The condition of the rats was observed. The proliferation and apoptosis of intestinal cells were measured using immunohistochemical assays and a caspase-3 activity assay, respectively. The expression of Lgr5 and CD44 staining were used to observe intestinal stem cells (ISCs). In addition, the activity of β-glucuronidase in the rats’ feces was measured. Our results showed that the number of proliferating intestinal cells in the SXD groups was obviously higher, while the activity of caspase-3 was lower. The expression of Lgr5 and the integrated option density (IOD) of CD44 stain were increased significantly by SXD. Additionally, SXD decreased the activity of β-glucuronidase after irinotecan administration. In conclusion, SXD exhibited preventive effects on irinotecan-induced diarrhea, and this action was associated with an inhibitory effect on intestinal apoptosis and β-glucuronidase and a promotive effect on intestinal cell proliferation due to increased maintenance of ISCs

Leakage control of water distribution system by drop-restore pressure based on viscoelastic mechanism

As a common method to control leakage of water distribution systems, pressure management has the advantages of reducing energy consumption, reducing the possibility of explosion, and avoiding the aggravation of leakage. With the popularization of plastic pipe in the world, it is necessary to study its leakage characteristic in recent years. Our research group carried out leakage experiments on high-density polyethylene (HDPE) pipe, and found that the correlation curve between leakage flow and pressure did not completely coincide in the phase of pressure boost and pressure reduction. The existing FAVAD and exponential leakage models could not explain this phenomenon, which challenges the pressure management theory dominated by a single depressing-pressure process, thus it’s necessary to explore pressure management strategies suitable for plastic pipes. Based on the viscoelastic properties of plastic pipe, we established the viscoelastic leakage model and proposed the leakage control method of drop-restore pressure, and verified its feasibility in practical engineering cases. The main research objectives of this paper will be first to describe the strain response of leakage area in the process of continuous stress application with the Boltzmann superposition principle for HDPE pipe; the Voigt-Kelvin model is used to simulate the creep behavior of viscoelastic material, and a suitable leakage model for viscoelastic pipe is proposed to provide accurate expression of the leakage under the regulation of drop-restore pressure. Secondly, the viscoelastic pipe leakage model is embedded into the pressure-driven analysis model based on non-iterative method and the pressure-driven viscoelastic leakage model is obtained. Finally, evaluating the proposed leakage model in the practical case. With the minimum leakage flow as the objective function, the leakage control model of drop-restore pressure is established and solved by a particle swarm optimization algorithm to obtain an accurate pressure regulation scheme. After applying the scheme from the optimization, the leakage rate decreases from 37.7% to 16.8% on weekdays, which is a great impact on leakage control

USED: Universal Speaker Extraction and Diarization

Speaker extraction and diarization are two crucial enabling techniques for speech applications. Speaker extraction aims to extract a target speaker's voice from a multi-talk mixture, while speaker diarization demarcates speech segments by speaker, identifying `who spoke when'. The previous studies have typically treated the two tasks independently. However, the two tasks share a similar objective, that is to disentangle the speakers in the spectral domain for the former but in the temporal domain for the latter. It is logical to believe that the speaker turns obtained from speaker diarization can benefit speaker extraction, while the extracted speech offers more accurate speaker turns than the mixture speech. In this paper, we propose a unified framework called Universal Speaker Extraction and Diarization (USED). We extend the existing speaker extraction model to simultaneously extract the waveforms of all speakers. We also employ a scenario-aware differentiated loss function to address the problem of sparsely overlapped speech in real-world conversations. We show that the USED model significantly outperforms the baselines for both speaker extraction and diarization tasks, in both highly overlapped and sparsely overlapped scenarios. Audio samples are available at https://ajyy.github.io/demo/USED/.Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 202

Angiopoietin-2 impairs collateral artery growth associated with the suppression of the infiltration of macrophages in mouse hindlimb ischaemia

Abstract Background Angiopoietin-2 (Ang-2), a ligand of the Tie-2 receptor, plays an important role in maintaining endothelial cells and in destabilizing blood vessels. Collateral artery growth (arteriogenesis) is a key adaptive response to arterial occlusion. It is unknown whether the destabilization of blood vessels by Ang-2 can affect arteriogenesis and modulate mononuclear cell function. This study aimed to investigate the effects of Ang-2 on collateral artery growth. Methods Hindlimb ischaemia model was produced in C57BL/6 mice by femoral artery ligation. Blood flow perfusion was measured using a laser Doppler perfusion imager quantitative RT-PCR analysis was applied to identify the level of angiogenic factors. Results After the induction of hindlimb ischaemia, blood flow recovery was impaired in mice treated with recombinant Ang-2 protein; this was accompanied by a reduction of peri-collateral macrophage infiltration. In addition, quantitative RT-PCR analysis revealed that Ang-2 treatment decreased monocyte chemotactic protein-1 (MCP-1), platelet-derived growth factor-BB (PDGF-BB) mRNA levels in ischaemic adductor muscles. Ang-2 can lead to macrophage M1/M2 polarization shift inhibition in the ischaemic muscles. Furthermore, Ang-2 reduced the in vitro inflammatory response in macrophages and vascular cells involved in arteriogenesis. Conclusions Our results demonstrate that Ang-2 is essential for efficient arteriogenesis, which controls macrophage infiltration

Innovative Water Supply Network Pressure Management Method—The Establishment and Application of the Intelligent Pressure-Regulating Vehicle

The development of many intelligent technologies, such as artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, has brought new opportunities for water industry intelligence. Based on intelligent pressure regulation technology, this paper built an intelligent management platform, designed an intelligent pressure-regulating device, and combined both to form an intelligent pressure-regulating vehicle (IPRV). The IPRV has the functions of developing a pressure-regulating scheme, equipment selection, pressure reduction potential analysis, etc. It can bring convenience to the field test of the water supply network. In the field test, an intelligent pressure-regulating device was used to obtain the network data in the pilot site called S-cell. After utilizing the intelligent management platform to analyze the measured data, the water usage pattern and pressure reduction potential of the S-cell were obtained, and an optimal pressure-regulating strategy was formulated. The water pressure at the critical node always met the water demand at the critical node during the field test. In addition, no complaints were received from other users. The results show that the IPRV is not only convenient for utility managers to make decisions on building pressure-reducing stations but also meets user needs, realizing a win–win situation for both users and companie