1,098 research outputs found
A comparison of homonym meaning frequency estimates derived from movie and television subtitles, free association, and explicit ratings
First Online: 10 September 2018Most words are ambiguous, with interpretation dependent on context. Advancing theories of ambiguity resolution is important for any general theory of language processing, and for resolving inconsistencies in observed ambiguity effects across experimental tasks. Focusing on homonyms (words such as bank with unrelated meanings EDGE OF A RIVER vs. FINANCIAL INSTITUTION), the present work advances theories and methods for estimating the relative frequency of their meanings, a factor that shapes observed ambiguity effects. We develop a new method for estimating meaning frequency based on the meaning of a homonym evoked in lines of movie and television subtitles according to human raters. We also replicate and extend a measure of meaning frequency derived from the classification of free associates. We evaluate the internal consistency of these measures, compare them to published estimates based on explicit ratings of each meaning’s frequency, and compare each set of norms in predicting performance in lexical and semantic decision mega-studies. All measures have high internal consistency and show agreement, but each is also associated with unique variance, which may be explained by integrating cognitive theories of memory with the demands of different experimental methodologies. To derive frequency estimates, we collected manual classifications of 533 homonyms over 50,000 lines of subtitles, and of 357 homonyms across over 5000 homonym–associate pairs. This database—publicly available at: www.blairarmstrong.net/homonymnorms/—constitutes a novel resource for computational cognitive modeling and computational linguistics, and we offer suggestions around good practices for its use in training and testing models on labeled data
Chronset: An automated tool for detecting speech onset
Published online: 6 December 2016The analysis of speech onset times has a
longstanding tradition in experimental psychology as a measure
of how a stimulus influences a spoken response. Yet the
lack of accurate automatic methods to measure such effects
forces researchers to rely on time-intensive manual or semiautomatic
techniques. Here we present Chronset, a fully automated
tool that estimates speech onset on the basis of multiple
acoustic features extracted via multitaper spectral analysis.
Using statistical optimization techniques, we show that the
present approach generalizes across different languages and
speaker populations, and that it extracts speech onset latencies
that agree closely with those from human observations.
Finally, we show how the present approach can be integrated
with previous work (Jansen & Watter Behavior Research
Methods, 40:744–751, 2008) to further improve the precision
of onset detection. Chronset is publicly available online at
www.bcbl.eu/databases/chronset.We thank P. Jansen and two anonymous reviewers for
their constructive comments and for helping us improve the present article,
especially by motivating the mixture-of-experts model and our discussion
of the merits of different measures of model fit. F.R. and B.C.A.
were both supported by Marie Sktodowska-Curie grants (to F.R., PIEFGA-
2013-62772; to B.C.A., PIIF-GA-2013-627784). M.C. was supported
by the BCBL and Ikerbasque, the Basque Foundation for Science, and
the European Research Council (Grant No. ERC-2011-ADG-295362).
B.C.A. and M.C. were also supported by the Severo Ochoa program,
Grant No. SEV-2015-049 awarded to the BCBL
The long road of statistical learning research: past, present and future
Published 21 November 2016
http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/1711/20160047http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/372/1711/20160047This paper was supported by the Israel Science Foundation
(grant no. 217/14 awarded to R.F.), by the National Institute of
Child Health and Human Development (RO1 HD 067364 awarded
to Ken Pugh and R.F., PO1-HD 01994 awarded to Haskins Laboratories)
and by the European Research Council (project ERC-ADG-
692502 awarded to R.F.)
How are visual words represented? Insights from EEG-based visual word decoding, feature derivation and image reconstruction
Issue Online: 23 October 2019Investigations into the neural basis of reading have shed light on the cortical locus
and the functional role of visual-orthographic processing. Yet, the fine-grained structure
of neural representations subserving reading remains to be clarified. Here, we
capitalize on the spatiotemporal structure of electroencephalography (EEG) data to
examine if and how EEG patterns can serve to decode and reconstruct the internal
representation of visually presented words in healthy adults. Our results show that
word classification and image reconstruction were accurate well above chance, that
their temporal profile exhibited an early onset, soon after 100 ms, and peaked around
170 ms. Further, reconstruction results were well explained by a combination of
visual-orthographic word properties. Last, systematic individual differences were
detected in orthographic representations across participants. Collectively, our results
establish the feasibility of EEG-based word decoding and image reconstruction. More
generally, they help to elucidate the specific features, dynamics, and neurocomputational
principles underlying word recognition.This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (to A.N., A.C.H.L., and B. C. A.)
Natural history of limbs with arterial insufficiency and chronic ulceration treated without revascularization
OBJECTIVES: The natural history of limbs affected by ischemic ulceration is poorly understood. In this report, we describe the outcome of limbs with stable chronic leg ulcers and arterial insufficiency that were treated with wound-healing techniques in patients who were not candidates for revascularization.
METHODS: A prospectively maintained database of limb ulcers treated at a comprehensive wound center was used to identify patients with arterial insufficiency, defined as an ankle-brachial index (ABI) 2.5 mg/dL), severity of ischemia measured by ABI or toe pressure, wound grade, wound size, and wound location.
RESULTS: Between January 1999 and March 2005, 142 patients with 169 limbs having arterial insufficiency and full-thickness ulceration were treated without revascularization. Mean patient age was 70.8 +/- 4.5. Diabetes mellitus was present in 70.4% of limbs and chronic renal insufficiency in 27.8%. Toe amputations or other foot-sparing procedures were performed in 28% of limbs. Overall, limb loss occurred in 37 patients. By life-table analysis, 19% of limbs required amputation 0.5 (P = .01). The only risk factor associated with wound closure was initial wound size (P < .005).
CONCLUSIONS: Limb salvage can be achieved in most patients with arterial insufficiency and uncomplicated chronic nonhealing limb ulcers using a program of wound management without revascularization. Healing proceeds slowly, however, requiring more than a year in many cases. Patients with an ABI <0.5 are more likely to require amputation. Interventions designed to improve outcomes in critical limb ischemia should stratify outcomes based on hemodynamic data and should include a comparative control group given the natural history of ischemic ulcers treated in a dedicated wound program
Interplay of LFV and slepton mass splittings at the LHC as a probe of the SUSY seesaw
We study the impact of a type-I SUSY seesaw concerning lepton flavour
violation (LFV) both at low-energies and at the LHC. The study of the di-lepton
invariant mass distribution at the LHC allows to reconstruct some of the masses
of the different sparticles involved in a decay chain. In particular, the
combination with other observables renders feasible the reconstruction of the
masses of the intermediate sleptons involved in decays. Slepton mass splittings can be either
interpreted as a signal of non-universality in the SUSY soft breaking-terms
(signalling a deviation from constrained scenarios as the cMSSM) or as being
due to the violation of lepton flavour. In the latter case, in addition to
these high-energy processes, one expects further low-energy manifestations of
LFV such as radiative and three-body lepton decays. Under the assumption of a
type-I seesaw as the source of neutrino masses and mixings, all these LFV
observables are related. Working in the framework of the cMSSM extended by
three right-handed neutrino superfields, we conduct a systematic analysis
addressing the simultaneous implications of the SUSY seesaw for both high- and
low-energy lepton flavour violation. We discuss how the confrontation of
slepton mass splittings as observed at the LHC and low-energy LFV observables
may provide important information about the underlying mechanism of LFV.Comment: 50 pages, 42 eps Figures, typos correcte
Search for the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) in gamma gamma collisions
Data taken with the ALEPH detector at LEP1 have been used to search for gamma
gamma production of the glueball candidates f0(1500) and fJ(1710) via their
decay to pi+pi-. No signal is observed and upper limits to the product of gamma
gamma width and pi+pi- branching ratio of the f0(1500) and the fJ(1710) have
been measured to be Gamma_(gamma gamma -> f0(1500)). BR(f0(1500)->pi+pi-) <
0.31 keV and Gamma_(gamma gamma -> fJ(1710)). BR(fJ(1710)->pi+pi-) < 0.55 keV
at 95% confidence level.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
Search for CP Violation in the Decay Z -> b (b bar) g
About three million hadronic decays of the Z collected by ALEPH in the years
1991-1994 are used to search for anomalous CP violation beyond the Standard
Model in the decay Z -> b \bar{b} g. The study is performed by analyzing
angular correlations between the two quarks and the gluon in three-jet events
and by measuring the differential two-jet rate. No signal of CP violation is
found. For the combinations of anomalous CP violating couplings, and , limits of \hat{h}_b < 0.59h^{\ast}_{b} < 3.02$ are given at 95\% CL.Comment: 8 pages, 1 postscript figure, uses here.sty, epsfig.st
Search for supersymmetry with a dominant R-parity violating LQDbar couplings in e+e- collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 130GeV to 172 GeV
A search for pair-production of supersymmetric particles under the assumption
that R-parity is violated via a dominant LQDbar coupling has been performed
using the data collected by ALEPH at centre-of-mass energies of 130-172 GeV.
The observed candidate events in the data are in agreement with the Standard
Model expectation. This result is translated into lower limits on the masses of
charginos, neutralinos, sleptons, sneutrinos and squarks. For instance, for
m_0=500 GeV/c^2 and tan(beta)=sqrt(2) charginos with masses smaller than 81
GeV/c^2 and neutralinos with masses smaller than 29 GeV/c^2 are excluded at the
95% confidence level for any generation structure of the LQDbar coupling.Comment: 32 pages, 30 figure
Socio-economic class, rurality and risk of cutaneous melanoma by site and gender in Sweden
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Cutaneous melanoma (CM) is a cancer usually associated with high socio-economic level in the literature. Few studies have, however, assessed this relationship by gender and site or the association between CM and rurality.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A major-sized historical occupational Swedish cohort comprising 2,992,166 workers was used to estimate relative risk of cutaneous melanoma, broken down by gender and anatomical site, for occupational sectors (as a proxy of socio-economic class) and rurality. To this end, Poisson models were fitted for each site in men and women, including occupational sector and town size, with adjustment for age, period of diagnosis and geographical area as possible confounding factors.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>White collar workers presented a marked increased of risk in men in all melanoma cases, as well as in trunk, upper and lower limbs. This pattern was less clear for women, in which some heterogeneity appeared, as low risks in lower socioeconomic sectors in trunk, or risk excesses in white collar workers in lower limbs did not achieve statistical significance. Males also showed significant differences in risk by rural/urban distribution, but in women this association was limited to CM of lower limb. Risk of CM of head/neck did not vary by occupational sector or town size, thus depicting a specific epidemiological profile, which proved common to both sexes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>While differences in risk between men and women could suggest greater homogeneity in UV-exposure behaviour among women, the uniform risk pattern in head and neck melanoma, present in both sexes, might support the coexistence of different aetiological pathways, related to anatomical site.</p
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