Discovering important factors of intangible firm value by association rules

It is very important for investors to understand the critical factors affecting the value of firms before making investments. In knowledge-based economy, the method for creating firm value transfers from traditional physical assets to intangible knowledge. As intangible assets value is an important part of firm value, valuation of intangible assets becomes a widespread topic of interest in the future of economy. This paper applies association rules, one data mining technique, to discover critical factors affecting firm value in Taiwan and to provide a more flexible model than the traditional regression method. Based on collecting related factors found in literature, the results indicate that R&D intensity, family, participation in management, pyramids, profitability, and dividend are the six important factors, in which some are consistent with significant important variables in prior literature, but most of them are unique for Taiwan, one emerging economy

Speech Enhancement Guided by Contextual Articulatory Information

Previous studies have confirmed the effectiveness of leveraging articulatory information to attain improved speech enhancement (SE) performance. By augmenting the original acoustic features with the place/manner of articulatory features, the SE process can be guided to consider the articulatory properties of the input speech when performing enhancement. Hence, we believe that the contextual information of articulatory attributes should include useful information and can further benefit SE in different languages. In this study, we propose an SE system that improves its performance through optimizing the contextual articulatory information in enhanced speech for both English and Mandarin. We optimize the contextual articulatory information through joint-train the SE model with an end-to-end automatic speech recognition (E2E ASR) model, predicting the sequence of broad phone classes (BPC) instead of the word sequences. Meanwhile, two training strategies are developed to train the SE system based on the BPC-based ASR: multitask-learning and deep-feature training strategies. Experimental results on the TIMIT and TMHINT dataset confirm that the contextual articulatory information facilitates an SE system in achieving better results than the traditional Acoustic Model(AM). Moreover, in contrast to another SE system that is trained with monophonic ASR, the BPC-based ASR (providing contextual articulatory information) can improve the SE performance more effectively under different signal-to-noise ratios(SNR).Comment: Will be submitted to TASL

Use of Electronic Word of Mouth as Quality Metrics: A Comparison of Airline Reviews on Twitter and Skytrax

User-generated content (UGC) at online platforms serves as a critical data source in the service industry as it can be accessed in real-time and reflect customers’ changing focus on service aspects. Drawing upon the importance-performance analysis framework, we propose a methodology to derive service quality metrics by utilizing the heterogeneous sources of UGC with customized text mining techniques and examining the effectiveness of these quality metrics. UGC data related to major U.S. airlines were collected from non-social media (Skytrax) and social media platforms (Twitter) from 2014 to June 2019. The results suggest that the topic distributions and the UGC-derived weighted service quality (WSQ, which represents the weighted sentiment based on service aspects) significantly vary between the non-social media and social media platforms. In addition, the WSQ scores derived from two platforms are significant indicators of the objective service quality measurement (i.e., airline quality rating) with stronger predictive power from the social media derived WSQ score

Role of myosin light chain kinase in intestinal epithelial barrier defects in a rat model of bowel obstruction

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bowel obstruction is a common cause of abdominal emergency, since the patients are at increased risk of septicemia resulting in high mortality rate. While the compartmentalized changes in enteric microfloral population and augmentation of bacterial translocation (BT) have already been reported using experimental obstruction models, alterations in epithelial permeability of the obstructed guts has not been studied in detail. Myosin light chain kinase (MLCK) is actively involved in the contraction of epithelial perijunctional actinomyosin ring and thereby increases paracellular permeability. In the current study we attempt to investigate the role of MLCK in epithelial barrier defects using a rat model of simple mechanical obstruction.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Wistar rats received intraperitoneal injection of ML-7 (a MLCK inhibitor) or vehicle at 24, 12 and 1 hrs before and 12 hrs after intestinal obstruction (IO). The distal small intestine was obstructed with a single ligature placed 10 cm proximal to the ileocecal junction in IO rats for 24 hrs. Sham-operated rats served as controls.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Mucosal injury, such as villous blunting and increased crypt/villus ratio, was observed in the distal small intestine of IO rats. Despite massive enterocyte shedding, intestinal villi were covered with a contiguous epithelial layer without cell apoptosis. Increased transmural macromolecular flux was noticed in the distal small intestine and the proximal colon after IO. The bacterial colony forming units in the spleen and liver of IO rats were significantly higher than those of sham controls. Addition of ML-7 ameliorated the IO-triggered epithelial MLC phosphorylation, mucosal injury and macromolecular flux, but not the level of BT.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The results suggest that IO-induced premature enterocytic sloughing and enhanced paracellular antigenic flux were mediated by epithelial MLCK activation. In addition, enteric bacteria may undergo transcytotic routes other than paracellular paths to cross the epithelium.</p

Blind Source Separation of Hemodynamics from Magnetic Resonance Perfusion Brain Images Using Independent Factor Analysis

Perfusion magnetic resonance brain imaging induces temporal signal changes on brain tissues, manifesting distinct blood-supply patterns for the profound analysis of cerebral hemodynamics. We employed independent factor analysis to blindly separate such dynamic images into different maps, that is, artery, gray matter, white matter, vein and sinus, and choroid plexus, in conjunction with corresponding signal-time curves. The averaged signal-time curve on the segmented arterial area was further used to calculate the relative cerebral blood volume (rCBV), relative cerebral blood flow (rCBF), and mean transit time (MTT). The averaged ratios for rCBV, rCBF, and MTT between gray and white matters for normal subjects were congruent with those in the literature

A systematic review and meta-analysis of guided tissue regeneration/osseous grafting for the treatment of Class II furcation defects

AbstractBackground/purposeThe purpose of this article was to conduct a systematic review of the clinical evidence on the efficacy of guide tissue regeneration (GTR) with/without osseous grafting (OG) in treating periodontal furcation Class II defects.Materials and methodsReports from randomized controlled clinical trials, with at least 6 months follow-up, comparing open flap debridement (OFD); GTR, and GTR + OG were located from various sources. Sources included the electronic databases of Cochrane Oral Health Group specialist trials register, MEDLINE, and PubMed; in addition, journal archives were hand-searched. Trials up to and including March 2012 were included. Using the PICO (Patient or Problem, Intervention, Comparison, and Outcome) question format, data from eligible articles were extracted and meta-analyzed. The outcomes measures were furcation closure rate, vertical/horizontal bone fill (re-entry), and vertical/horizontal attachment level gain.ResultsThe meta-analysis showed that the GTR and GTR + OG groups obtained greater furcation closure rate, vertical/horizontal bone fill, and vertical/horizontal attachment level gain than the OFD group in mandibular molars. The GTR group obtained greater vertical/horizontal bone fill and vertical attachment level gain than the OFD group in maxillary molars. The GTR + OG group achieved better clinical outcomes than the GTR group did in all the comparing outcomes in mandibular molars.ConclusionGTR technique seemed to be more effective than OFD for resolving Class II periodontal furcation defects, and the GTR + OG technique showed even better clinical results. The outcomes were better for mandibular molars than for maxillary molars