PP-MeT: a Real-world Personalized Prompt based Meeting Transcription System

Speaker-attributed automatic speech recognition (SA-ASR) improves the accuracy and applicability of multi-speaker ASR systems in real-world scenarios by assigning speaker labels to transcribed texts. However, SA-ASR poses unique challenges due to factors such as speaker overlap, speaker variability, background noise, and reverberation. In this study, we propose PP-MeT system, a real-world personalized prompt based meeting transcription system, which consists of a clustering system, target-speaker voice activity detection (TS-VAD), and TS-ASR. Specifically, we utilize target-speaker embedding as a prompt in TS-VAD and TS-ASR modules in our proposed system. In constrast with previous system, we fully leverage pre-trained models for system initialization, thereby bestowing our approach with heightened generalizability and precision. Experiments on M2MeT2.0 Challenge dataset show that our system achieves a cp-CER of 11.27% on the test set, ranking first in both fixed and open training conditions

Analysis of chromosomal structural variations in patients with recurrent spontaneous abortion using optical genome mapping

Background and aims: Certain chromosomal structural variations (SVs) in biological parents can lead to recurrent spontaneous abortions (RSAs). Unequal crossing over during meiosis can result in the unbalanced rearrangement of gamete chromosomes such as duplication or deletion. Unfortunately, routine techniques such as karyotyping, fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), chromosomal microarray analysis (CMA), and copy number variation sequencing (CNV-seq) cannot detect all types of SVs. In this study, we show that optical genome mapping (OGM) quickly and accurately detects SVs for RSA patients with a high resolution and provides more information about the breakpoint regions at gene level.Methods: Seven couples who had suffered RSA with unbalanced chromosomal rearrangements of aborted embryos were recruited, and ultra-high molecular weight (UHMW) DNA was isolated from their peripheral blood. The consensus genome map was created by de novo assembly on the Bionano Solve data analysis software. SVs and breakpoints were identified via alignments of the reference genome GRCh38/hg38. The exact breakpoint sequences were verified using either Oxford Nanopore sequencing or Sanger sequencing.Results: Various SVs in the recruited couples were successfully detected by OGM. Also, additional complex chromosomal rearrangement (CCRs) and four cryptic balanced reciprocal translocations (BRTs) were revealed, further refining the underlying genetic causes of RSA. Two of the disrupted genes identified in this study, FOXK2 [46,XY,t(7; 17)(q31.3; q25)] and PLXDC2 [46,XX,t(10; 16)(p12.31; q23.1)], had been previously shown to be associated with male fertility and embryo transit.Conclusion: OGM accurately detects chromosomal SVs, especially cryptic BRTs and CCRs. It is a useful complement to routine human genetic diagnostics, such as karyotyping, and detects cryptic BRTs and CCRs more accurately than routine genetic diagnostics

Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990–2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021

BACKGROUND Regular, detailed reporting on population health by underlying cause of death is fundamental for public health decision making. Cause-specific estimates of mortality and the subsequent effects on life expectancy worldwide are valuable metrics to gauge progress in reducing mortality rates. These estimates are particularly important following large-scale mortality spikes, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. When systematically analysed, mortality rates and life expectancy allow comparisons of the consequences of causes of death globally and over time, providing a nuanced understanding of the effect of these causes on global populations. METHODS The Global Burden of Diseases, Injuries, and Risk Factors Study (GBD) 2021 cause-of-death analysis estimated mortality and years of life lost (YLLs) from 288 causes of death by age-sex-location-year in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations for each year from 1990 until 2021. The analysis used 56 604 data sources, including data from vital registration and verbal autopsy as well as surveys, censuses, surveillance systems, and cancer registries, among others. As with previous GBD rounds, cause-specific death rates for most causes were estimated using the Cause of Death Ensemble model-a modelling tool developed for GBD to assess the out-of-sample predictive validity of different statistical models and covariate permutations and combine those results to produce cause-specific mortality estimates-with alternative strategies adapted to model causes with insufficient data, substantial changes in reporting over the study period, or unusual epidemiology. YLLs were computed as the product of the number of deaths for each cause-age-sex-location-year and the standard life expectancy at each age. As part of the modelling process, uncertainty intervals (UIs) were generated using the 2·5th and 97·5th percentiles from a 1000-draw distribution for each metric. We decomposed life expectancy by cause of death, location, and year to show cause-specific effects on life expectancy from 1990 to 2021. We also used the coefficient of variation and the fraction of population affected by 90% of deaths to highlight concentrations of mortality. Findings are reported in counts and age-standardised rates. Methodological improvements for cause-of-death estimates in GBD 2021 include the expansion of under-5-years age group to include four new age groups, enhanced methods to account for stochastic variation of sparse data, and the inclusion of COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality-which includes excess mortality associated with the pandemic, excluding COVID-19, lower respiratory infections, measles, malaria, and pertussis. For this analysis, 199 new country-years of vital registration cause-of-death data, 5 country-years of surveillance data, 21 country-years of verbal autopsy data, and 94 country-years of other data types were added to those used in previous GBD rounds. FINDINGS The leading causes of age-standardised deaths globally were the same in 2019 as they were in 1990; in descending order, these were, ischaemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and lower respiratory infections. In 2021, however, COVID-19 replaced stroke as the second-leading age-standardised cause of death, with 94·0 deaths (95% UI 89·2-100·0) per 100 000 population. The COVID-19 pandemic shifted the rankings of the leading five causes, lowering stroke to the third-leading and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease to the fourth-leading position. In 2021, the highest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 occurred in sub-Saharan Africa (271·0 deaths [250·1-290·7] per 100 000 population) and Latin America and the Caribbean (195·4 deaths [182·1-211·4] per 100 000 population). The lowest age-standardised death rates from COVID-19 were in the high-income super-region (48·1 deaths [47·4-48·8] per 100 000 population) and southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania (23·2 deaths [16·3-37·2] per 100 000 population). Globally, life expectancy steadily improved between 1990 and 2019 for 18 of the 22 investigated causes. Decomposition of global and regional life expectancy showed the positive effect that reductions in deaths from enteric infections, lower respiratory infections, stroke, and neonatal deaths, among others have contributed to improved survival over the study period. However, a net reduction of 1·6 years occurred in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021, primarily due to increased death rates from COVID-19 and other pandemic-related mortality. Life expectancy was highly variable between super-regions over the study period, with southeast Asia, east Asia, and Oceania gaining 8·3 years (6·7-9·9) overall, while having the smallest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 (0·4 years). The largest reduction in life expectancy due to COVID-19 occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean (3·6 years). Additionally, 53 of the 288 causes of death were highly concentrated in locations with less than 50% of the global population as of 2021, and these causes of death became progressively more concentrated since 1990, when only 44 causes showed this pattern. The concentration phenomenon is discussed heuristically with respect to enteric and lower respiratory infections, malaria, HIV/AIDS, neonatal disorders, tuberculosis, and measles. INTERPRETATION Long-standing gains in life expectancy and reductions in many of the leading causes of death have been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the adverse effects of which were spread unevenly among populations. Despite the pandemic, there has been continued progress in combatting several notable causes of death, leading to improved global life expectancy over the study period. Each of the seven GBD super-regions showed an overall improvement from 1990 and 2021, obscuring the negative effect in the years of the pandemic. Additionally, our findings regarding regional variation in causes of death driving increases in life expectancy hold clear policy utility. Analyses of shifting mortality trends reveal that several causes, once widespread globally, are now increasingly concentrated geographically. These changes in mortality concentration, alongside further investigation of changing risks, interventions, and relevant policy, present an important opportunity to deepen our understanding of mortality-reduction strategies. Examining patterns in mortality concentration might reveal areas where successful public health interventions have been implemented. Translating these successes to locations where certain causes of death remain entrenched can inform policies that work to improve life expectancy for people everywhere. FUNDING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Anti-Forensics of Image Contrast Enhancement Based on Generative Adversarial Network

In the multimedia forensics community, anti-forensics of contrast enhancement (CE) in digital images is an important topic to understand the vulnerability of the corresponding CE forensic method. Some traditional CE anti-forensic methods have demonstrated their effective forging ability to erase forensic fingerprints of the contrast-enhanced image in histogram and even gray level cooccurrence matrix (GLCM), while they ignore the problem that their ways of pixel value changes can expose them in the pixel domain. In this paper, we focus on the study of CE anti-forensics based on Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) to handle the problem mentioned above. Firstly, we exploit GAN to process the contrast-enhanced image and make it indistinguishable from the unaltered one in the pixel domain. Secondly, we introduce a specially designed histogram-based loss to enhance the attack effectiveness in the histogram domain and the GLCM domain. Thirdly, we use a pixel-wise loss to keep the visual enhancement effect of the processed image. The experimental results show that our method achieves high anti-forensic attack performance against CE detectors in the pixel domain, the histogram domain, and the GLCM domain, respectively, and maintains the highest image quality compared with traditional CE anti-forensic methods

Design and Fabrication of a Tunable Optofluidic Microlens Driven by an Encircled Thermo-Pneumatic Actuator

This paper presents the design, simulation, fabrication, assembly, and testing of a miniature thermo-pneumatic optofluidic lens. The device comprises two separate zones for air heating and fluid pressing on a flexible membrane. A buried three-dimensional spiral microchannel connects the two zones without pumps or valves. The three-dimensional microfluidic structure is realized using a high-resolution three-dimensional printing technique. Multi-physics finite element simulations are introduced to assess the optimized air chamber design and the low-temperature gradient of the optical liquid. The tunable lens can be operated using a direct-current power supply. The temperature change with time is measured using an infrared thermal imager. The focal length ranges from 5 to 23 mm under a maximum voltage of 6 V. Because of the small size and robust actuation scheme, the device can potentially be integrated into miniature micro-optics devices for the fine-tuning of focal lengths

Protocol for efficient and self-healing near-infrared perovskite light-emitting diodes.

Preparation of highly efficient and stable perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) with reproducible device performance is challenging. This protocol describes steps for fabrication of high-performance and self-healing PeLEDs. These include instructions for synthesis of charge-transporting zinc oxide (ZnO) nanocrystals, step-by-step device fabrication, and control over self-healing of the degraded devices. For complete details on the use and execution of this protocol, please refer to Teng et al. (2021).Funding agencies: RC Starting Grant (no. 717026), the Swedish Energy AgencyEnergimyndigheten (no. 48758-1), and the Swedish Government Strategic Research Area in Mate-rials Science on Functional Materials Linko ̈ ping University (Faculty Grant SFO-Mat-LiU no. 2009-00971). Y.Z. and B.S. also thank the support from Macau SAR (file no. 0044/2021/A)</p

Modulating the Electronic Structure of FeCo Nanoparticles in N-Doped Mesoporous Carbon for Efficient Oxygen Reduction Reaction

The development of highly efficient and stable oxygen reduction electrocatalysts and revealing their underlying catalytic mechanism are crucial in expanding the applications of metal-air batteries. Herein, an excellent FeCo alloy nanoparticles (NPs)-decorated N-doped mesoporous carbon electrocatalyst (FeCo/NC) for oxygen reduction reaction, prepared through the pyrolysis of a dual metal containing metal-organic framework composite scaffold is reported. Benefiting from the highly exposed bimetal active sites and the carefully designed structure, the Fe0.25Co0.75/NC-800 catalyst exhibits a promising electrocatalytic activity and a superior durability, better than those of the state-of-the-art catalysts. Suggested by both the X-ray absorption fine structures and the density functional theoretical calculation, the outstanding catalytic performance is originated from the synergistic effects of the bimetallic loading in NC catalysts, where the electronic modulation of the Co active sites from the nearby Fe species leads to an optimized binding strength for reaction intermediates. This work demonstrates a class of highly active nonprecious metals electrocatalysts and provides valuable insights into investigating the structure–performance relationship of transition metal-based alloy catalysts.</p

Solution-Mediated Polymorphic Transformation: From Amorphous to Crystals of Disodium Guanosine 5′-Monophosphate in Ethanol

Solvent-mediated transformation of disodium guanosine 5′-monophosphate (5′-GMPNa₂) from amorphous to hydrated crystal phases was studied. The SMT process is dominated by the dissolution of the amorphous form and nucleation and growth of the crystal polymorph. The kinetic estimation based on population balance equation was carried out according to experimental data, including polymorphic fraction in the solid phase, solute concentration, and crystal size distribution. Furthermore, independent seeded batch experiments were carried out to estimate the kinetic parameters. The experimental data showed that the nucleation and growth of the crystal polymorph occurred shortly after the dissolution of the amorphous form. The estimated growth, nucleation, and dissolution rates indicated that the solution-mediated transformation was governed by the nucleation and growth of crystal polymorph. We believe that the results hold great importance toward understanding the transformation process of 5′-GMPNa₂, which provides theoretical guidance for producing its specific forms, and possibly those for other pharmaceuticals and chemicals as well