An Empirical Analysis of DoD Construction Task Order Performance

Cost and schedule overrun plague over 50 of all construction projects, engendering diminished available funding that leads to deferred maintenance and impaired award ability for needed projects. Though existing research attempts to identify overruns sources, the results are inconclusive and frequently differ. Accordingly, this research reviews DoD construction contract data from the past ten years to identify the contract attributes of 79,894 projects that correlate with superior performance for use in future project execution. This research starts with creating a database that houses the largest single source of construction contract information. The research then evaluates the data to determine if differences in project performance exist when comparing contracting agents, funding agents, and award months. Next, the research utilizes stepwise logistic regression to determine the significant contract attributes and predict future projects overrun likelihoods. Model accuracy for predicting the likelihood of cost and schedule overrun is 65% and 75%, respectively. Finally, this research concludes by providing insights into efforts that could improve modeling accuracies, thereby informing better risk management practices. This research is expected to support public and private sector planners in their ongoing efforts to execute construction projects more cost-effectively and better utilize requested funds

From Stakeholders to Experts: A Careful Approach to Democratizing Pharmaceuticals Policy

This paper investigates a recent FDA hearing on the popular breast cancer drug, Avastin. Using rhetorical stasis analysis, the authors demonstrate how the FDA hearing procedures exclude patient representatives from the decision-making process. The results of this study are suggestive for the development of more inclusive hybrid forums for technical decision-making

A software system for pathological voice acoustic analysis

International audienceA software system for pathological voice analysis using only the resources of a personal computer with a sound card is proposed. The system is written on the basis of specific methods and algorithms for pathological voice analysis and allows evaluation of: 1) Pitch period (To); 2) Degree of unvoiceness; 3) Pitch perturbation and amplitude perturbation quotients; 4) Dissimilarity of surfaces of the pitch pulses; 5) Ratio aperiodic/periodic components in cepstra; 6) Ratio {energy in the cepstral pitch pulse}-to-{total cepstral energy}; 7) Harmonics-to-noise ratio; 8) Degree of hoarseness; 9) Ratio low-to-high frequency energies; 10) Glottal Closing Quotient. The voices of 400 persons were analyzed - 100 (50 females/50 males) normal speakers and 300 (100 females/200 males) patients. The statistical analysis shows very significant changes in PPQ, DH, DPP, DUV, APR, HNR and PECM, and significant changes in APQ and CQ

Arctiini Leach, [1815] (Lepidoptera, Erebidae, Arctiinae) da Amazônia Brasileira. III – Subtribo Ctenuchina Kirby, 1837

The Ctenuchina moths comprise 874 New World species. Here we provide a list of Ctenuchina species from the Brazilian Amazon. The list was produced from specimens deposited in the most important Brazilian collections and from literature data. Nearly 31% (273) of the New World Ctenuchina species were recorded, including 28 new occurrences for the Brazilian Amazon. Santarém and Belém were the municipalities with the highest number of species records, with 139 and 88, respectively. The high number of Ctenuchina records in the Amazon is underestimated because this subtribe has never been sampled in the vast majority of the biome. This is a worrying scenario because the Amazon has the world highest absolute rate of forest reduction. To suggest efficient conservation policies for the Arctiinae fauna of Amazon, it is urgent to intensify the sampling effort in this biome.As mariposas Ctenuchina compreendem 874 espécies no Novo Mundo. Neste trabalho, nós apresentamos uma lista das espécies de Ctenuchina que ocorrem na Amazônia brasileira. A lista foi produzida através de observação de espécimes depositados nas mais importantes coleções brasileiras e também através de dados da literatura. Aproximadamente 31% (273) das espécies de Ctenuchina que ocorrem no Novo Mundo foram registradas, incluindo 28 novas ocorrências para a Amazônia brasileira. Santarém e Belém foram os municípios com maior número de espécies registradas, com 139 e 88, respectivamente. Embora o número de registros de Ctenuchina seja considerado alto na Amazônia, este valor é subestimado visto que a fauna nunca foi amostrada na imensa maioria do bioma. Este cenário é preocupante, pois a Amazônia possui a maior taxa absoluta de redução florestal do mundo. A fim de podermos sugerir políticas de conservação eficientes para a fauna de Arctiinae da Amazônia, é urgente que se intensifique o esforço de coleta neste bioma

Robust hybrid pitch detector for pathologic voice analysis

International audienceA hybrid speech period (To) detector characterizided by parallel analyses of three speech signals in temporal spectral and cepstral domains and preprocessing for periodic/aperiodic (unvoiced) separation (PAS) is proposed. The preprocessing is realized by analysis in these three domains and PAS by multi layer Perceptron neural network.Two phonations of the wowel "a" of 40 speakers and 62 patients were analyzed. For the proposed detector errors were significantly minimized

CLAPI, une base de données multimodale pour la parole en interaction : apports et dilemmes

Dans cette contribution, nous présentons la base CLAPI développée au laboratoire ICAR dans le contexte de l’évolution des bases de données de langues parlées en France au cours des trente dernières années. Nous détaillons les deux composantes de CLAPI, l’archive de corpus de langue parlée en interaction audio et vidéo enregistrés dans des situations sociales naturelles variées, et la plateforme d’outils.L’usage et l’apport de CLAPI sont illustrés par deux études. L’une décrit comment la base peut être utilisée pour des travaux de linguistique interactionnelle intégrant la multimodalité (« oh là là ») ; l’autre concerne une recherche combinant données et métadonnées (« trop »). L’article est aussi l’occasion d’un bilan plus général. La mise en perspective montre en effet qu’après la période des questions est venue celle des dilemmes. La période des questions, choix et décisions à toutes sortes de niveaux a accompagné la mise en place des bases de données. L’expérience permet maintenant de mesurer leurs indéniables apports en termes non seulement de quantité de données disponibles (et traitables grâce aux outils), mais aussi de qualité (comme conséquence des exigences de standardisation liées au partage des données). La période des dilemmes nous conduit à nous interroger sur les meilleurs choix à opérer aujourd’hui dans les relations entre la poursuite des recherches sur des corpus variés (et parfois sensibles) et les exigences des bases de données ouvertes.In this contribution, we present the development of the CLAPI by the ICAR Lab in the context of the evolution of the databases of spoken languages in France during the last thirty years. We describe the two components of CLAPI, the archive of corpus of spoken languages in interaction, audio and video, recorded in varied naturally-occurring social situations, and the plateform of tools.The use and the support of CLAPI the research are shown out of two studies. One illustrates how the database can be used for working in an interactional linguistic perspective, including multimodality (“oh là là”); the other concerns a research combining data and metadata (“trop”).The article is also the occasion of a more general assessment. The perspective on the last thirty years shows that after a period of questions came that of dilemmas. The period of questions, choices and decisions at various levels accompanied the implementation of the databases. The experience enables now to measure their undeniable contributions in terms not only of quantity of available data (and possibly dealt with supported by the tools), but also of quality of the data (as a consequence of the requirements of standardization linked to the needs of sharing the data). The period of the dilemmas leads us to wonder about the best choices to be operated today among continuing research on varied corpuses (sometimes delicate) and the requirements of the databases

Paraphrastic Reformulations in Spoken Corpora

International audienceOur work addresses the automatic detection of paraphrastic reformulation in French spoken corpora. The proposed approach is syn-tagmatic. It is based on specific markers and the specificities of the spoken language. Manual multi-dimensional annotation performed by two annotators provides fine-grained reference data. An automatic method is proposed in order to decide whether sentences contain or not paraphras-tic relations. The obtained results show up to 66.4% precision. Analysis of the manual annotations indicates that few paraphrastic segments show morphological modifications (inflection, derivation or compounding) and that the syntactic equivalence between the segments is seldom respected, as these usually belong to different syntactic categories