Speech Dereverberation Based on Integrated Deep and Ensemble Learning Algorithm

Reverberation, which is generally caused by sound reflections from walls, ceilings, and floors, can result in severe performance degradation of acoustic applications. Due to a complicated combination of attenuation and time-delay effects, the reverberation property is difficult to characterize, and it remains a challenging task to effectively retrieve the anechoic speech signals from reverberation ones. In the present study, we proposed a novel integrated deep and ensemble learning algorithm (IDEA) for speech dereverberation. The IDEA consists of offline and online phases. In the offline phase, we train multiple dereverberation models, each aiming to precisely dereverb speech signals in a particular acoustic environment; then a unified fusion function is estimated that aims to integrate the information of multiple dereverberation models. In the online phase, an input utterance is first processed by each of the dereverberation models. The outputs of all models are integrated accordingly to generate the final anechoic signal. We evaluated the IDEA on designed acoustic environments, including both matched and mismatched conditions of the training and testing data. Experimental results confirm that the proposed IDEA outperforms single deep-neural-network-based dereverberation model with the same model architecture and training data

Nitroprusside modulates pulmonary vein arrhythmogenic activity

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Pulmonary veins (PVs) are the most important sources of ectopic beats with the initiation of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, or the foci of ectopic atrial tachycardia and focal atrial fibrillation. Elimination of nitric oxide (NO) enhances cardiac triggered activity, and NO can decrease PV arrhythmogensis through mechano-electrical feedback. However, it is not clear whether NO may have direct electrophysiological effects on PV cardiomyocytes. This study is aimed to study the effects of nitroprusside (NO donor), on the ionic currents and arrhythmogenic activity of single cardiomyocytes from the PVs.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Single PV cardiomyocytes were isolated from the canine PVs. The action potential and ionic currents were investigated in isolated single canine PV cardiomyocytes before and after sodium nitroprusside (80 μM,) using the whole-cell patch clamp technique.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Nitroprusside decreased PV cardiomyocytes spontaneous beating rates from 1.7 ± 0.3 Hz to 0.5 ± 0.4 Hz in 9 cells (P < 0.05); suppressed delayed afterdepolarization in 4 (80%) of 5 PV cardiomyocytes. Nitroprusside inhibited L-type calcium currents, transient outward currents and transient inward current, but increased delayed rectified potassium currents.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Nitroprusside regulates the electrical activity of PV cardiomyocytes, which suggests that NO may play a role in PV arrhythmogenesis.</p

Comparative efficacy of Chinese herbal medicines for dialysis patients with uremic pruritus: A systematic review and network meta-analysis

Introduction: Uremic pruritus is common in dialysis patients and reduces their quality of life. Chinese herbal medicine has been effective in patients with this condition.Methods: We conducted a random-effects network meta-analysis to compare the efficacies of different Chinese herbal medicine treatments for uremic pruritus. Outcome measures including the overall effective rates, visual analog scale scores, C-reactive protein levels, and adverse drug reactions were analyzed.Results: The network meta-analysis retrieved 25 randomized controlled trials. Compared with conventional treatments alone, combination treatments with Xiao-Yang-Ke-Li was the most effective intervention in decreasing visual analog scale scores (mean difference −2.98, 95% mean difference −5.05 to −0.91) and levels of C-reactive protein (mean difference −5.01, 95% mean difference −7.27 to −2.75). Conventional treatment combined with Si-Wu Tang was superior to other therapeutic combinations when overall effective rates were determined. The best visual analog scale scores and overall effective rates were achieved by adjunctive treatment with the Touxie-Jiedu-Zhiyang decoction followed by uremic clearance granules; these treatments were the most beneficial for uremic pruritis.Conclusion: Our network meta-analysis provided the relative efficacies of different adjunctive Chinese herbal formulas. Adjunctive treatment with the Touxie-Jiedu-Zhiyang decoction was the best treatment for improving overall effective rates and reducing visual analog scores of uremic pruritus in dialysis patients.Systematic Review Registration:https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=357656; Identifier: CRD42022357656

Use of Chinese Herbal Medicine Was Related to Lower Risk of Osteoporotic Fracture in Sarcopenia Patients: Evidence from Population-Based Health Claims

Introduction: With population aging, sarcopenia and its accompanying risk of osteoporotic fracture has drawn increased attention. Nowadays, while Chinese herbal medicine (CHM) is often used as complementary therapy for many medical conditions, its effect against likelihood of osteoporotic fracture among sarcopenia subjects was not fully elucidated yet. We therefore conducted a population-level study to compare osteoporotic fracture risk for sarcopenia persons with or without CHM use. Methods: Using the patient record from a nationwide insurance database, we recruited persons with newly diagnosed sarcopenia and simultaneously free of osteoporotic fracture between 2000 and 2010. Propensity score matching was then applied to randomly select sets of CHM users and non-CHM users. All of them were tracked until end of 2013 to measure the incidence and adjusted hazard ratios (HRs) for new new-onset fracture in multivariable Cox proportional hazards model. Results: Compared to non-CHM users, the CHM users indeed had a lower incidence of osteoporotic fracture (121.22 vs 156.61 per 1000 person-years). Use of CHM correlated significantly with a lower fracture likelihood after adjusting for potential covariates, and those receiving CHM treatment for more than two years experienced a remarkably lower risk by 73%. Uses of several herbal formulae were correlated to reduced risk of osteoporotic fracture, such as Caulis Spatholobi, Xuduan, Duzhong, Danshen, Shu-Jing-Huo-Xue- Tang, Du-Huo-Ji-Sheng-Tang, Shao-Yao-Gan-Cao-Tang, and Shen-Tong-Zhu-Yu -Tang. Conclusion: Our study depicted that cumulative CHM exposure was inversely associated with osteoporotic fracture risk in a duration-dependent manner, implying that CHM treatment may be embraced as routine care in preventing incident osteoporotic fracture

Emotion Detection in Textual Information by Semantic Role Labeling and Web Mining Techniques

Automatic emotion detection in textual information is critical for the development of intelligent interfaces in many interactive multimedia applications. In the literature, existing approaches based on keyword spotting or statistic natural language process techniques, have limited success rate in free text emotion sensing applications. In this paper, we describe a system, developed in the framework of the National ChiNan University and LORIA collaboration, that associates semantic labeling and web mining techniques, to detect several basic emotions. A common sense knowledgebase – ConceptNet – is also used in order to retrieve some additional contextual information that can be used to retrieve appropriate background images for the presentation. Our objective is to adapt a multimedia presentation by detecting emotions contained in the textual information

A panel of tumor markers, calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3 in upper tract urothelial carcinoma identified by proteomic and immunological analysis

BACKGROUND: Upper tract urothelial carcinoma (UTUC) is a tumor with sizable metastases and local recurrence. It has a worse prognosis than bladder cancer. This study was designed to investigate the urinary potential tumor markers of UTUC. METHODS: Between January 2008 and January 2009, urine was sampled from 13 patients with UTUC and 20 healthy adults. The current study identified biomarkers for UTUC using non-fixed volume stepwise weak anion exchange chromatography for fractionation of urine protein prior to two-dimensional gel electrophoresis. RESULTS: Fifty five differential proteins have been determined by comparing with the 2-DE maps of the urine of UTUC patients and those of healthy people. Western blotting analysis and immunohistochemistry of tumor tissues and normal tissues from patients with UTUC were carried out to further verify five possible UTUC biomarkers, including zinc-alpha-2-glycoprotein, calreticulin, annexin A2, annexin A3 and haptoglobin. The data of western blot and immunohistochemical analysis are consistent with the 2-DE data. Combined the experimental data in the urine and in tumor tissues collected from patients with UTUC, the crucial over-expressed proteins are calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3. CONCLUSIONS: Calreticulin, annexin A2, and annexin A3 are very likely a panel of biomarkers with potential value for UTUC diagnosis

Automatic event-level textual emotion sensing using mutual action histogram between entities

International audienceAutomatic emotion sensing in textual data is crucial for the development of intelligent interfaces in many interactive computer applications. This paper describes a high-precision, knowledgebase-independent approach for automatic emotion sensing for the subjects of events embedded within sentences. The proposed approach is based on the probability distribution of common mutual actions between the subject and the object of an event. We have incorporated web-based text mining and semantic role labeling techniques, together with a number of reference entity pairs and hand-crafted emotion generation rules to realize an event emotion detection system. The evaluation outcome reveals a satisfactory result with about 85% accuracy for detecting the positive, negative and neutral emotions