Statistical assessment of speech system performance

Methods for the normalization of performance tests results of speech recognition systems are presented. Technological accomplishments in speech recognition systems, as well as planned research activities are described

Presenting dcpos and dcpo algebras

Dcpos can be presented by preorders of generators and inequational relations expressed as covers. Algebraic operations on the generators (possibly with their results being ideals of generators) can be extended to the dcpo presented, provided the covers are “stable” for the operations. The resulting dcpo algebra has a natural universal characterization and satisfies all the inequational laws satisfied by the generating algebra. Applications include known “coverage theorems” from locale theory

The Six-Year Hangover: An Assessment of the Effectiveness of Unconventional Monetary Policy in Dealing with Debt Overhang within the U.S. Economy

After the Financial Crisis of 2007 to 2008, the Federal Reserve and the federal government used monetary and fiscal policy to buoy the economy out of the recession, but the Fed had to turn to non-standard forms of monetary policy, or unconventional monetary policy. The Federal Reserve used forward guidance, quantitative easing, and the maturity extension program to: lower interest rates, raise inflation expectations, and increase GDP. Six years after the Financial Crisis, the Federal Reserve has begun to taper from unconventional monetary policy. Yet, there has been much debate as to whether unconventional monetary policy is effective or not, and whether the Federal Reserve used these policies for “too” long. This paper argues that debt overhang is preventing unconventional monetary policy from being effective. Debt overhang is a debt burden that is so great that an entity cannot take on additional debt to finance future projects. For instance, when the housing bubble burst, home values dropped below the mortgage value leaving individuals with less equity, even negative equity, contributing to debt overhang. Through regression and graphical analysis, the results indicate that unconventional monetary policy stimulates investment and consumption, while debt overhang has a significant impact on investment and consumption. Therefore, the low interest rate environment that the unconventional monetary policy creates is not stimulating investment and consumption because market participants are trying to save money

The Efficacy of a Screening Tool to Assess Malnutrition in Adults Admitted to a Large Urban University Hospital

Background: The increasing use of electronic health records (EHR) provides a novel opportunity to evaluate hospital-based nutritional outcomes, such as malnutrition. There is no universally accepted screening tool for the detection of malnutrition. However, assessment for malnutrition should be made early, be simple, based on scientific evidence, and include data on age, gender, and disease severity. The malnutrition screening tool (MST) used in this study is a two question tool that assesses two parameters commonly seen when diagnosing malnutrition (weight loss and loss of appetite). Objective: The purpose of this study is to determine the ability of the MST used at a tertiary or quaternary hospital to accurately identify patients with malnutrition by comparing it against the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition criteria for malnutrition. Participants/setting: A descriptive cohort study was conducted that included 167 patients admitted to Emory University Hospital between October 1 - 14, 2014. MST score, malnutrition diagnostic criteria, and demographic and anthropometric characteristics were obtained to describe and assess the study population. Statistical Analysis: Frequency statistics were used to describe the demographic and anthropometric characteristics and MST score results. Normality statistics were used to determine the distribution of continuous variables. A Chi Square table was used to determine the significance of the association between the MST score and diagnosis of malnutrition made by the Registered Dietitian (RD) as well as the sensitivity and specificity of the MST. Results: A total of 167 patients (48.5% male, 51.5% Caucasian, non-Hispanic) were admitted during the study period. The vast majority of the patient population with malnutrition (79%), as diagnosed by the RD, was identified as such by the MST (p \u3c 0.01). The sensitivity and specificity of the MST was 79% and 62%, respectively. Conclusion: The MST is a useful screening tool for malnutrition in adults admitted to a large urban university hospital. There is a lack of research validating the MST in the adult outpatient population. Therefore, future studies are necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the MST in this population

Isolation and integration: Thematic elements in the fiction of DH Lawrence

D. H. Lawrence asserts in his essay “The Spirit of Place” that the state of mind of an individual determines whether he can discover his personal freedom. This freedom is not a political, but a personal, mental one in which the individuals being grows towards wholeness and integration. Certain aspects of one\u27s environment may facilitate this development, says Lawrence: Men are free when they are in a living Homeland, not when they are straying and breaking away. Men are free when they are obeying some deep, inward voice of religious belief. Obeying from within. Men are free when active and fulfilling some unfulfilled, perhaps unrealized purpose

Cognitive control Training as an adjunct to behavioral activation therapy in the treatment of depression

Major depressive disorder (MDD) is characterized by reduced activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), a brain region involved in both emotion regulation and basic cognitive control processes. Recent studies have indicated that computerized interventions designed to activate the DLPFC can reduce depressive symptoms. The current study was a randomized controlled trial which extends this research to test whether one such program, called Cognitive Control Training (CCT), enhances depression treatment outcomes when used in adjunct to brief behavioral activation therapy for depression (BATD), an empirically-supported outpatient intervention. This study also explored whether the effects of BATD + CCT treatment on depression were mediated by changes in rumination and cognitive control. In a sample of thirty-four adults diagnosed with MDD, participants were randomly assigned to complete four sessions of either computerized CCT or a non-active computerized control task, concurrently with four sessions of BATD. Completion of the assigned computerized task took place immediately before each of the four BATD therapy sessions. Depression symptoms and proposed treatment mediators were assessed at baseline, mid-treatment, post-treatment, and four-week follow-up visits. I hypothesized that compared to the control group, participants receiving adjunctive CCT would demonstrate significantly reduced depressive symptoms. I also hypothesized that these effects would be mediated by changes in inhibitory control and set-shifting performance in the context of negative emotional material, as well as by changes in ruminative brooding. Results did not support these hypotheses. Depressive symptoms were reduced over time in both treatment conditions, with no significant difference between treatment conditions. Assignment to CCT was not associated with changes in the proposed mediators. Furthermore, exploratory analyses found minimal evidence that performance on inhibitory control and set-shifting tasks were related to baseline clinical characteristics (such as depression severity, rumination, or anxiety symptoms) or treatment outcomes. The results of this study support the potential for BATD as a brief, low-cost, flexible intervention for the treatment of depression and further show that CCT administered in adjunct to a 4-session BATD program does not add clinical benefit in the treatment of depression. This study and other recent research suggest that the effects of CCT may not be as robust as previously indicated, highlighting the need for continued investigation of the conditions under which CCT may be effective

Commemoration and Protest: The Use of Heritage Trails to Connect Women\u27s History with Historic Sites

Women\u27s heritage trails employ the theme of women’s history to link historic sites across cities or entire states. As shifts in preservation practice have begun to promote greater diversity in the interpretation of historic sites, these trails serve as educational tools and initiatives for heritage tourism that create networks of women’s history sites. The trails also serve as public commemorations of women’s roles in American history and as protests against the absence of women in the interpretation at historic sites. Through case studies in Boston, New Jersey, Maryland, and upstate New York, this thesis considers the motives and goals of women’s heritage trails within a broader movement to include the histories of diverse populations at heritage sites

Topological Duality and Lattice Expansions, II: Lattice Expansions with Quasioperators

The main objective of this paper (the second of two parts) is to show that quasioperators can be dealt with smoothly in the topological duality established in Part I. A quasioperator is an operation on a lattice that either is join preserving and meet reversing in each argument or is meet preserving and join reversing in each argument. The paper discusses several common examples, including orthocomplementation on the closed subspaces of a fixed Hilbert space (sending meets to joins), modal operators auS and a- on a bounded modal lattice (preserving joins, resp. meets), residuation on a bounded residuated lattice (sending joins to meets in the first argument and meets to meets in the second). This paper introduces a refinement of the topological duality of Part I that makes explicit the topological distinction between the duals of meet homomorphisms and of join homomorphisms. As a result, quasioperators can be represented by certain continuous maps on the topological duals

Concurrent Kleene Algebra with Tests and Branching Automata

We introduce concurrent Kleene algebra with tests (CKAT) as a combination of Kleene algebra with tests (KAT) of Kozen and Smith with concurrent Kleene algebras (CKA), introduced by Hoare, Möller, Struth and Wehrman. CKAT provides a relatively simple algebraic model for reasoning about semantics of concurrent programs. We generalize guarded strings to guarded series-parallel strings , or gsp-strings, to give a concrete language model for CKAT. Combining nondeterministic guarded automata of Kozen with branching automata of Lodaya and Weil one obtains a model for processing gsp-strings in parallel. To ensure that the model satisfies the weak exchange law (x‖y)(z‖w)≤(xz)‖(yw) of CKA, we make use of the subsumption order of Gischer on the gsp-strings. We also define deterministic branching automata and investigate their relation to (nondeterministic) branching automata. To express basic concurrent algorithms, we define concurrent deterministic flowchart schemas and relate them to branching automata and to concurrent Kleene algebras with tests