Speaker age estimation for elderly speech recognition in European Portuguese

Phone-like acoustic models (AMs) used in large-vocabulary automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems are usually trained with speech collected from young adult speakers. Using such models, ASR performance may decrease by about 10% absolute when transcribing elderly speech. Ageing is known to alter speech production in ways that require ASR systems to be adapted, in particular at the level of acoustic modeling. In this study, we investigated automatic age estimation in order to select age-specific adapted AMs. A large corpus of read speech from European Portuguese speakers aged 60 or over was used. Age estimation (AE) based on i-vectors and support vector regression achieved mean error rates of about 4.2 and 4.5 years for males and females, respectively. Compared with a baseline ASR system with AMs trained using young adult speech and a WER of 13.9%, the selection of five-year-range adapted AMs, based on the estimated age of the speakers, led to a decrease in WER of about 9.3% relative (1.3% absolute). Comparable gains in ASR performance were observed when considering two larger age ranges (60-75 and 76-90) instead of six five-year ranges, suggesting that it would be sufficient to use the two large ranges only.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Systematic study of Coulomb distortion effects in exclusive (e,e'p) reactions

A technique to deal with Coulomb electron distortions in the analysis of (e,e'p) reactions is presented. Thereby, no approximations are made. The suggested technique relies on a partial-wave expansion of the electron wave functions and a multipole decomposition of the electron and nuclear current in momentum space. In that way, we succeed in keeping the computational times within reasonable limits. This theoretical framework is used to calculate the quasielastic (e,e'p) reduced cross sections for proton knockout from the valence shells in $^{16}$O, $^{40}$Ca, $^{90}$Zr and $^{208}$Pb. The final-state interaction of the ejected proton with the residual nucleus is treated within an optical potential model. The role of electron distortion on the extracted spectroscopic factors is discussed.Comment: 45 pages, 10 encapsulated postscript figures, Revtex, uses epsfig.sty and fancybox.sty, to be published in Physical Review

Inclusive electron scattering in a relativistic Green function approach

A relativistic Green function approach to the inclusive quasielastic (e,e') scattering is presented. The single particle Green function is expanded in terms of the eigenfunctions of the nonhermitian optical potential. This allows one to treat final state interactions consistently in the inclusive and in the exclusive reactions. Numerical results for the response functions and the cross sections for different target nuclei and in a wide range of kinematics are presented and discussed in comparison with experimental data.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures, REVTeX

Relativistic mean field approximation to the analysis of 16O(e,e'p)15N data at |Q^2|\leq 0.4 (GeV/c)^2

We use the relativistic distorted wave impulse approximation to analyze data on 16O(e,e'p)15N at |Q^2|\leq 0.4 (GeV/c)^2 that were obtained by different groups and seemed controversial. Results for differential cross-sections, response functions and A_TL asymmetry are discussed and compared to different sets of experimental data for proton knockout from p_{1/2} and p_{3/2} shells in 16O. We compare with a nonrelativistic approach to better identify relativistic effects. The present relativistic approach is found to accommodate most of the discrepancy between data from different groups, smoothing a long standing controversy.Comment: 28 pages, 7 figures (eps). Major revision made. New figures added. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Chemotherapy, genetic susceptibility, and risk of venous thromboembolism in breast cancer patients

Purpose: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is highly heritable and a serious complication of cancer and its treatment. We examined the individual and joint effects of chemotherapy and genetic susceptibility on VTE risk in patients with breast cancer. Experimental design: A Swedish population-based study including 4,261 women diagnosed with primary invasive breast cancer between 2001 and 2008 in Stockholm, followed until 2012. Risk stratification by chemotherapy and genetic susceptibility [a polygenic risk score (PRS), including nine established VTE loci] was assessed using Kaplan-Meier and flexible parametric survival analyses, adjusting for patient, tumor, and treatment characteristics. Results: In total, 276 patients experienced a VTE event during a median follow-up of 7.6 years. Patients receiving chemotherapy [HR (95% CI) = 1.98; 1.40-2.80] and patients in the highest 5% of the PRS [HR (95% CI) = 1.90; 1.24-2.91] were at increased risk of developing VTE. Chemotherapy and PRS acted independently on VTE risk and the 1-year cumulative incidence in patients carrying both risk factors was 9.5% compared with 1.3% in patients not having these risk factors (P < 0.001). Stratified analyses by age showed that the risk-increasing effect of PRS was stronger in older patients (P interaction = 0.04), resulting in an excess risk among genetically susceptible patients receiving chemotherapy aged ≥ 60 years (1-year cumulative incidence = 25.0%). Conclusions: Risk stratification by chemotherapy and genetic susceptibility identifies patients with breast cancer at high VTE risk, who could potentially benefit from thromboprophylaxis. Our results further suggest that genetic testing is more informative in older patients with breast cancer.Swedish Research Council (20142271)Swedish Cancer Society (CAN 2013/469)Swedish Research Council for Health Working Life & Welfare (Forte) (2013-0474)PublishedAccepte

The reaction dynamics of the 16O(e,e'p) cross section at high missing energies

We measured the cross section and response functions (R_L, R_T, and R_LT) for the 16O(e,e'p) reaction in quasielastic kinematics for missing energies 25 <= E_miss <= 120 MeV at various missing momenta P_miss <= 340 MeV/c. For 25 < E_miss < 50 MeV and P_miss \approx 60 MeV/c, the reaction is dominated by single-nucleon knockout from the 1s1/2-state. At larger P_miss, the single-particle aspects are increasingly masked by more complicated processes. For E_miss > 60 MeV and P_miss > 200 MeV/c, the cross section is relatively constant. Calculations which include contributions from pion exchange currents, isobar currents and short-range correlations account for the shape and the transversity but only for half of the magnitude of the measured cross section.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to Phys Rev Lett, formatting error fixe

High Resolution Genotyping of Clinical Aspergillus flavus Isolates from India Using Microsatellites

Contains fulltext : 124312.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)BACKGROUND: Worldwide, Aspergillus flavus is the second leading cause of allergic, invasive and colonizing fungal diseases in humans. However, it is the most common species causing fungal rhinosinusitis and eye infections in tropical countries. Despite the growing challenges due to A. flavus, the molecular epidemiology of this fungus has not been well studied. We evaluated the use of microsatellites for high resolution genotyping of A. flavus from India and a possible connection between clinical presentation and genotype of the involved isolate. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: A panel of nine microsatellite markers were selected from the genome of A. flavus NRRL 3357. These markers were used to type 162 clinical isolates of A. flavus. All nine markers proved to be polymorphic displaying up to 33 alleles per marker. Thirteen isolates proved to be a mixture of different genotypes. Among the 149 pure isolates, 124 different genotypes could be recognized. The discriminatory power (D) for the individual markers ranged from 0.657 to 0.954. The D value of the panel of nine markers combined was 0.997. The multiplex multicolor approach was instrumental in rapid typing of a large number of isolates. There was no correlation between genotype and the clinical presentation of the infection. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: There is a large genotypic diversity in clinical A. flavus isolates from India. The presence of more than one genotype in clinical samples illustrates the possibility that persons may be colonized by multiple genotypes and that any isolate from a clinical specimen is not necessarily the one actually causing infection. Microsatellites are excellent typing targets for discriminating between A. flavus isolates from various origins

Meson and Isobar Degrees of Freedom in A(e⃗,e′p⃗\vec{e},e'\vec{p}) reactions at 0.2≤Q2≤0.8(GeV/c)20.2 \leq Q^2 \leq 0.8 (GeV/c)^2

The effect of meson and isobar degrees of freedom in A($\vec{e},e'\vec{p}$) and A(e,e'n) is studied for four-momentum transfers Q^2 in the range between 0.2 and 0.8 (GeV/c)^2. The calculations are performed in a non-relativistic framework with explicit (N,\Delta,\pi) degrees-of-freedom. For the whole range of momentum transfers under investigation the relative effect of the meson-exchange and isobar degrees of freedom is significant. At low missing momenta and quasi-elastic conditions, a tendency to reduce the (e,e'p) and (e,e'n) differential cross sections is noticed. The greatest sensitivity is found in the interference structure functions $W_{LT}$ and $W_{TT}$. The recoil polarization observables, on the other hand, are moderately affected by the meson-exchange and $\Delta$-isobar currents.Comment: 16 pages (Revtex) + 18 figures (eps file

International development of a patient-centered core outcome set for assessing health-related quality of life in metastatic breast cancer patients

Purpose For patients living with metastatic breast cancer (MBC), achieving best possible health-related quality of life, along with maximizing survival, is vital. Yet, we have no systemic way to determine if we achieve these goals. A Core Outcome Set (COS) that allows standardized measurement of outcomes important to patients, but also promotes discussing these outcomes during clinical encounters, is long overdue. Methods An international expert group (EG) of patient advocates, researchers, medical specialists, nurse specialists, and pharmaceutical industry representatives (n = 17) reviewed a list of relevant outcomes retrieved from the literature. A broader group (n = 141: patients/patient advocates (n = 45), health care professionals/researchers (n = 64), pharmaceutical industry representatives (n = 28), and health authority representatives (n = 4)) participated in a modified Delphi procedure, scoring the relevance of outcomes in two survey rounds. The EG finalized the COS in a consensus meeting. Results The final MBC COS includes 101 variables about: (1) health-related quality of life (HRQoL, n = 26) and adverse events (n = 24); (2) baseline patient characteristics (n = 9); and (3) clinical variables (n = 42). Many outcome that cover aspects of HRQoL relevant to MBC patients are included, e.g. daily functioning (including ability to work), psychosocial/emotional functioning, sexual functioning, and relationship with the medical team. Conclusion The COS developed in this study contains important administrative data, clinical records, and clinician-reported measures that captures the impact of cancer. The COS is important for standardization of clinical research and implementation in daily practice and has received accreditation by the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM)