RAMP: Retrieval-Augmented MOS Prediction via Confidence-based Dynamic Weighting

Automatic Mean Opinion Score (MOS) prediction is crucial to evaluate the perceptual quality of the synthetic speech. While recent approaches using pre-trained self-supervised learning (SSL) models have shown promising results, they only partly address the data scarcity issue for the feature extractor. This leaves the data scarcity issue for the decoder unresolved and leading to suboptimal performance. To address this challenge, we propose a retrieval-augmented MOS prediction method, dubbed {\bf RAMP}, to enhance the decoder's ability against the data scarcity issue. A fusing network is also proposed to dynamically adjust the retrieval scope for each instance and the fusion weights based on the predictive confidence. Experimental results show that our proposed method outperforms the existing methods in multiple scenarios.Comment: Accepted by Interspeech 2023, ora

Effect of Thiazolidinedione Amide on Insulin Resistance, Creactive Protein and Endothelial Function in Young Women with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Purpose: To investigate the effect of thiazolidinedione amide (TZDA) treatment on high-sensitivity Creactive protein (hsCRP) levels and endothelial dysfunction in patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).Methods: Twenty five women (mean age 24.7 ± 3.9 years; mean body mass index (BMI), 23.2 ± 4.0 kg/m2) with PCOS were treated with 15 μM TZDA daily for 12 months. Serum levels of testosterone, leutenizing hormone (LH), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG), insulin and hsCRP were measured. BMI, hirsutism scores and insulin sensitivity indices were also calculated prior to and after TZDA treatment. Brachial artery responses to stimuli was used to measure arterial endothelium and smooth muscle function prior to and after the treatment.Results: TZDA treatment caused a significant (p < 0.05) decrease in serum testosterone from 93.1 ± 40.3 to 54.8 ± 19.5 ng/dl and fasting insulin concentration from 11.9 ± 6.8 to 9.23 ± 5.13 U/mL. Insulin resistance index significantly (p < 0.05) improved and hirsutism score decreased significantly from 11.6 ± 2.0 to 6.8 ± 2.0. BMI, waist circumference, serum total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL)- cholesterol, FSH and LH levels remained almost unchanged. Twenty-four of the women reverted to regular menstrual cycles. SHBG levels showed a significant (p < 0.05) increase from 24.8 ± 9.5 to 49.1 ± 13.5 nmol/L after TZDA treatment. Serum hsCRP levels decreased (p < 0.05) from 0.25 ± 0.1 to 0.09 ± 0.02 mg/dL while endothelium-dependent vascular responses significantly improved (p < 0.05) following TZDA treatment (9.9 ± 3.9 vs 16.4 ± 5.1%).Conclusion: TZDA treatment improves insulin sensitivity, decreases androgen production and improves endothelial dysfunction in young women with PCOS.Keywords: Thiazolidinedione amide, Insulin sensitivity, Endothelial dysfunction, Polycystic ovary syndrom

Massive MIMO in 5G Networks: Selected Applications

This SpringerBrief focuses mainly on the basic theory and applications of massive MIMO in 5G networks. The significance of massive MIMO for 5G or future communications is first briefly discussed. Then, the basic theory of massive MIMO technology is comprehensively analyzed, i.e., a variety of 5G scenarios and their improvements are described when massive MIMO is taken into account. Art physical-layer techniques and various networking techniques for interference mitigation and resource scheduling are introduced as well. This SpringerBrief also examines the selected applications of massive MIMO in 5G networks, i.e., massive MIMO-aided millimeter communications and energy transfer. The physical-layer design, multiple access control (MAC) mechanism and networking techniques are discussed for millimeter-wave communications aided by massive MIMO technology. Then, massive MIMO is covered for hybrid information and energy transfer. A downlink precoder and a uplink pilot scheme is proposed for single cell networks, and both non-cooperative and cooperative energy transfer in multi-cell are presented. Communication researchers in the area of MIMO technology, as well as researchers and practitioners working in millimeter communications and energy transfer seeking new research topics, and topic areas with communication system design, centralized and distributed algorithms, will find this brief useful as a reference. Advanced-level students studying communication engineering will also find this book useful as a secondary text

EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF TWO LARGE-SCALE MODELS’ SEAKEEPING PERFORMANCE IN COASTAL WAVES

Actual sea waves and vessel motion are an unsteady nonlinear random process. The currently adopted test to simulate wave impact of vessel models in tank can\u27t fully reveal the impact of real sea waves on vessel swing motion. In this paper the buoy wave height meter is adopted to carry out measurements and analyses of the coastal wave environment. The correlation between the coastal wave spectra and the ocean wave spectra is analyzed. The test system is established for remote control and telemetry self-propelled vessel models suitable for the experiment conducted in the coastal areas. The seakeeping performance test is conducted for the same tonnage of round bilge vessel model and the deep-V hybrid monohull of large-scale vessel model under the coastal wave conditions. The experimental results are compared with the test results of small-scale vessel model in the towing tank. The experimental results show that the seakeeping performance of the deep-V hybrid monohull is improved by a wide margin in contrast to that of the round bilge model, and there is a marked difference between the motion characteristics of large-scale vessel models in the coastal wave environment and that of small-scale vessel models in tank

Cirrhosis Classification Based on Texture Classification of Random Features

Accurate staging of hepatic cirrhosis is important in investigating the cause and slowing down the effects of cirrhosis. Computer-aided diagnosis (CAD) can provide doctors with an alternative second opinion and assist them to make a specific treatment with accurate cirrhosis stage. MRI has many advantages, including high resolution for soft tissue, no radiation, and multiparameters imaging modalities. So in this paper, multisequences MRIs, including T1-weighted, T2-weighted, arterial, portal venous, and equilibrium phase, are applied. However, CAD does not meet the clinical needs of cirrhosis and few researchers are concerned with it at present. Cirrhosis is characterized by the presence of widespread fibrosis and regenerative nodules in the hepatic, leading to different texture patterns of different stages. So, extracting texture feature is the primary task. Compared with typical gray level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM) features, texture classification from random features provides an effective way, and we adopt it and propose CCTCRF for triple classification (normal, early, and middle and advanced stage). CCTCRF does not need strong assumptions except the sparse character of image, contains sufficient texture information, includes concise and effective process, and makes case decision with high accuracy. Experimental results also illustrate the satisfying performance and they are also compared with typical NN with GLCM