A Subband-Based SVM Front-End for Robust ASR

This work proposes a novel support vector machine (SVM) based robust automatic speech recognition (ASR) front-end that operates on an ensemble of the subband components of high-dimensional acoustic waveforms. The key issues of selecting the appropriate SVM kernels for classification in frequency subbands and the combination of individual subband classifiers using ensemble methods are addressed. The proposed front-end is compared with state-of-the-art ASR front-ends in terms of robustness to additive noise and linear filtering. Experiments performed on the TIMIT phoneme classification task demonstrate the benefits of the proposed subband based SVM front-end: it outperforms the standard cepstral front-end in the presence of noise and linear filtering for signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) below 12-dB. A combination of the proposed front-end with a conventional front-end such as MFCC yields further improvements over the individual front ends across the full range of noise levels

Cancer biomarker development from basic science to clinical practice

The amount of published literature on biomarkers has exponentially increased over the last two decades. Cancer biomarkers are molecules that are either part of tumour cells or secreted by tumour cells. Biomarkers can be used for diagnosing cancer (tumour versus normal and differentiation of subtypes), prognosticating patients (progression free survival and overall survival) and predicting response to therapy. However, very few biomarkers are currently used in clinical practice compared to the unprecedented discovery rate. Some of the examples are: carcino-embryonic antigen (CEA) for colon cancer; prostate specific antigen (PSA) for prostate; and estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PR) and HER2 for breast cancer. Cancer biomarkers passes through a series of phases before they are used in clinical practice. First phase in biomarker development is identification of biomarkers which involve discovery, demonstration and qualification. This is followed by validation phase, which includes verification, prioritisation and initial validation. More large-scale and outcome-oriented validation studies expedite the clinical translation of biomarkers by providing a strong ‘evidence base’. The final phase in biomarker development is the routine clinical use of biomarker. In summary, careful identification of biomarkers and then validation in well-designed retrospective and prospective studies is a systematic strategy for developing clinically useful biomarkers

The distribution of the ABO blood groups among the diabetes mellitus patients

Background: There is strong evidence in the literature that there is an association between ABO blood group and certain diseases.Aim: The aim of this study was to investigate any association between the ABO blood groups and diabetes mellitus (DM) in Qatar.Design: This was a sex.matched case.control study.Setting: This study was carried out in the diabetic outpatient clinics and blood bank of the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) from April 2011 to December 2012.Subjects and Methods: The study included 1633 diabetic patients and 1650 nondiabetic apparently healthy controls. Atotal of 2148 adult patients above 18 years of age were selected consecutively from the diabetic clinics of the hospitals and 1633 patients gave consent to take part in this study, thus giving a response rate of 76%. Atotal of 2150 nondiabetic healthy adults above 18 years of age were recruited from the blood bank and 1650 individuals agreed to take part in this study, giving a response rate of 76.7%. Blood group of the recruited subjects was taken from the database of the Blood Bank, Central laboratory, HMC.Results: The data revealed that the blood group B was significantly more common in diabetic patients as compared with healthy population (25.7% vs. 20.4%; P < 0.001). Blood group O was significantly less common in diabetic patients compared with nondiabetics (38.5% vs. 45.4%; P < 0.001). Among diabetic men, the frequency of only blood group B was significantly higher, while on the contrary among diabetic women the  frequency of both A and B (29.7% vs. 24.8%; P = 0.03 and 25.5% vs. 20%; P < 0.009, respectively) were significantly higher as compared with nondiabetic healthy population.Conclusion: The findings in this study suggest that ABO antigens are associated with DM. DM is more common in individuals with blood group B.Key words: ABO blood groups, case.control, diabetes mellitus, prevalenc

How successful are women\u27s groups in health promotion and disease prevention? A synthesis of the literature and recommendations for developing countries.

There is a general scarcitly of resources for delivery of services to the population in all social welfare and development sectors, with the health sector being no exception. In developing countries, lack of trained manpower, illiteracy and compliance issues make health care interventions even more complex. Various community-based projects have used women as a specific group for delivery of health care interventions. The objective of this paper was to review published studies that evaluated women\u27s groups for the promotion of health and prevention of disease. A total of 8 studies were reviewed. Women\u27s groups have proved to be a convenient and workable option for delivering health care interventions in several developing countries

Exploring inter-generational influence on entrepreneurial intention: the mediating role of perceived desirability and perceived feasibility

Children of self-employed parents are twice as likely as other children to become self-employed themselves, as family background exerts a significant influence on the values, attitudes, and behaviour one adopts. This study explores how entrepreneurial intentions are transmitted across generations within families. Using the data from 805 respondents and expanding upon Shapero and Sokol's model of intention in entrepreneurial events (SEE), we analyse the role of an entrepreneurial family background as an intergenerational influence on entrepreneurial intention and the underlying mediating effect of perceived desirability and perceived feasibility in starting a business

A Multi-level Study of Entrepreneurship Education among Pakistani University Students

This study examines how a university’s support impacts students’ entrepreneurial intentions and finds that entrepreneurship education, concept-development support, and business-development support increase such intentions. The university role is critical to the growth of entrepreneurial intentions, and we argue that an individual’s decision in favor of or against becoming an entrepreneur depends on the multi-level context provided by the university. Our findings suggest that students perceive the education and concept-development support (educational and cognitive) from their universities as highly influential on their entrepreneurial intentions. We conclude that a multi-level perspective offers a meaningful understanding of entrepreneurship and offer suggestions for university management and policy-makers for enhancing entrepreneurship. A sample of 805 undergraduate students in universities in Pakistan took part in the study