Automatic boost articulation therapy in adults with dysarthria: Acceptability, usability and user interaction.

BACKGROUND: Imprecise articulation has a negative impact on speech intelligibility. Therefore, treatment of articulation is clinically relevant in patients with dysarthria. In order to be effective and according to the principles of motor learning, articulation therapy needs to be intensive, well organized, with adequate feedback and requires frequent practice. AIMS: The aims of this pilot study are (1) to evaluate the feasibility of a virtual articulation therapy (VAT) to guide patients with dysarthria through a boost articulation therapy (BArT) program; (2) to evaluate the acoustic models' performance used for automatic phonological error detection; and (3) to validate the system by end-users from their perspective. METHODS & PROCEDURES: The VAT provides an extensive and well-structured package of exercises with visual and auditory modelling and adequate feedback on the utterances. The tool incorporates automated methods to detect phonological errors, which are specifically designed to analyse Dutch speech production. A total of 14 subjects with dysarthria evaluated the acceptability, usability and user interaction with the VAT based on two completed therapy sessions using a self-designed questionnaire. OUTCOMES & RESULTS: In general, participants were positive about the new computer-based therapy approach. The algorithm performance for phonological error detection shows it to be accurate, which contributes to adequate feedback of utterance production. The results of the study indicate that the VAT has a user-friendly interface that can be used independently by patients with dysarthria who have sufficient cognitive, linguistic, motoric and sensory skills to benefit from speech therapy. Recommendations were given by the end-users to further optimize the program and to ensure user engagement. CONCLUSIONS & IMPLICATIONS: The initial implementation of an automatic BArT shows it to be feasible and well accepted by end-users. The tool is an appropriate solution to increase the frequency and intensity of articulation training that supports traditional methods. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject Behavioural interventions to improve articulation in patients with dysarthria demand intensive treatments, repetitive practice and feedback. However, the current treatments are mainly limited in time to the interactive sessions in the presence of speech-language pathology. Automatic systems addressing the needs of individuals with dysarthria are scarce. This study evaluates the feasibility of a VAT program and investigates its acceptability, usability and user interaction. What this paper adds to existing knowledge The computer-based speech therapy approach developed and applied in this study intends to support intensive articulation training of patients with dysarthria. The virtual speech therapy offers the possibility of an individualized and customized therapy programme, with an extensive database of exercises, visual and auditory models of the target utterances, and providing adequate feedback based on automatic acoustic analysis of speech. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? The automatic BArT overcomes the limitation in time of face-to-face traditional speech therapy. It offers patients the opportunity to have access to speech therapy more intensively and frequently in their home environment.

Placing joy, surprise and sadness in space: a cross-linguistic study.

The valence-space metaphor posits that emotion concepts map onto vertical space such that positive concepts are in upper locations and negative in lower locations. Whilst previous studies have demonstrated this pattern for positive and negative emotions e.g. 'joy' and 'sadness', the spatial location of neutral emotions, e.g. 'surprise', has not been investigated, and little is known about the effect of linguistic background. In this study, we first characterised the emotions joy, surprise and sadness via ratings of their concreteness, imageability, context availability and valence before examining the allocation of these emotions in vertical space. Participants from six linguistic groups completed either a rating task used to characterise the emotions or a word allocation task to implicitly assess where these emotions are positioned in vertical space. Our findings suggest that, across languages, gender, handedness, and ages, positive emotions are located in upper spatial locations and negative emotions in lower spatial locations. In addition, we found that the neutral emotional valence of surprise is reflected in this emotion being mapped mid-way between upper and lower locations onto the vertical plane. This novel finding indicates that the location of a concept on the vertical plane mimics the concept's degree of emotional valence.

How good is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for predicting leadership-related behaviors?

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a popular tool used by psychologists working as managers' coaches in organizational contexts. Despite its popularity, few studies provide empirical evidence on the role of the MBTI as a predictor of managers' leadership-related behaviors. This article is written based on research that answers the question of how good the MBTI is to prove leadership behavior. It does so by comparing goodness-of-fit indexes of two confirmatory factor analysis models and two structural models on the personality-leadership relationship, following standards of reproducible research principles. We sampled 529 participants who were graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in business administration programs from Colombian universities. Results show conclusive evidence of the psychometric measurement of both MBTI and leadership practices, even though the relationship between MBTI and the leadership practices inventory proved to be weak.

Promoting Reciprocal Relations across Subfields of Behavior Analysis via Collaborations.

Several barriers may inhibit the growth of behavior analysis as a more integrated and collaborative field. Two such barriers are siloed environments that reinforce a basic-applied distinction, and a lack of translational research pathways. We describe the perils of silos, and elaborate on potential solutions to increase reciprocal relations among subfields in behavior analysis. We promote a five-tiered system to classify research in behavior analysis, and discuss literature on cultivating effective intra and cross-disciplinary collaborations, including using the framework of metacontingencies to understand collaborations. We also propose quantitative and qualitative measures to examine whether the potential solutions increase intra and interdisciplinary interactions. These measures include bibliometric (e.g., citations across fields), sociometric (e.g., social network analysis), and narrative analysis. We apply some of these measures to publications from 2011-2022 from the Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior and Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, and argue that behavior analysis overall may benefit from a more collaborative approach. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40614-023-00386-x.

A cluster-randomized controlled trial of handrubs for prevention of infectious diseases among children in Colombia.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effectiveness of alcohol-based handrubs (ABH) in reducing acute diarrheal diseases (ADD) and acute respiratory infections (ARI) among children 1-5 years of age in childcare centers with limited tap water. METHODS: This was the first cluster-randomized controlled trial in a developing country. The study took place at 42 childcare centers with sporadic and limited water availability in six towns in Colombia. Participants were randomly assigned to use ABH as a complement to handwashing (intervention arm: 21 centers/794 children); or to continue existing handwashing practices (control arm: 21 centers/933 children). ADD and ARI cases were identified through teacher-reported signs and symptoms of illness. Adverse events were monitored. Hazard ratios (HR) were obtained using Cox proportional hazards multivariate regression shared frailty models. RESULTS: Child-days of surveillance totaled 336 038. Loss to follow up was 14.5%. For both ADD and ARI, there were no differences in hazard ratios during the first trimester of the study. In the second and third trimesters, significant reductions in the risk of ADD were found in the intervention compared to control arm (HR = 0.55, P < 0.001 and HR = 0.44, P < 0.001, respectively). There were also significant risk reductions for ARI in the second trimester (HR = 0.80, P < 0.05) and in the third trimester (HR = 0.69, P < 0.001). No adverse events occurred. CONCLUSIONS: ABH effectively prevent ADD and ARI, and are safe. Colombia's national public health policies for prevention of these diseases should include use of ABH, especially in settings where handwashing with soap and water is limited by water availability.

Ingredients for Responsible Machine Learning: A Commented Review of The Hitchhiker's Guide to Responsible Machine Learning.

In The hitchhiker's guide to responsible machine learning, Biecek, Kozak, and Zawada (here BKZ) provide an illustrated and engaging step-by-step guide on how to perform a machine learning (ML) analysis such that the algorithms, the software, and the entire process is interpretable and transparent for both the data scientist and the end user. This review summarises BKZ's book and elaborates on three elements key to ML analyses: inductive inference, causality, and interpretability.

Countries Response for People With Disabilities During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Background and Objectives: During the Coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) pandemic, isolation and prevention measures to reduce COVID-19 contagions are essential for the care of all people; these measures should comply with the principles of inclusion and accessibility for people with disabilities (PWD), with all kinds of deficiencies and levels of dependency. Thereby, the aim of this article is to present the measures adopted for PWD or people with rehabilitation needs, for containment, mitigation, or suppression of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in different countries of all continents and of all income levels. Methods: A narrative approach was used in this article. First, a broad search was carried out in the 193 member states of the UN, and then 98 countries that issued any document, report, or information related to disability and COVID-19 were selected. Finally, 32 countries were included in this article because they presented official information. We considered official sources, the information available in the government, or on the health ministry page of the country. In this way, the countries that presented information which did not correspond to an official source were excluded. The search was conducted in August 2020 and updated in March 2021. Results: First, the non-pharmacological general interventions for PWD included informative measures and general recommendations during the stay at home, isolation, and biosecurity measures, contagion prevention, detection of positive cases, mobilization measures, and measures implemented in institutions or residences of PWD. Second, we identified the economic and social benefits provided to PWD during the pandemic. Finally, we identified the measures taken by countries according to the type of impairment (visual, hearing, physical, mental, and cardiopulmonary impairment) during the COVID-19 pandemic. Conclusion: In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, only 50% of countries from the five world regions created and implemented specific measures for PWD to containment, mitigation, or suppression of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There is very little specific information available about the measures to continue with the care of people with rehabilitation needs and the long-term follow-up of PWD, and for the prevention and response to violence, especially for women with disabilities.

A text mining approach for adapting a school-based sexual health promotion program in Colombia.

A common practice among clinical psychologists and other health professionals is the use of school-based sexual health promotion programs as a means for preventing sexually transmitted infections. A fundamental criterion for the designing and adaptation of these programs is the age of their target populations because limited education and language are the most relevant factors that limit the efficacy of these programs. The contribution of this paper consists of assessing both the readability of the written materials that accompany the contents of a Spanish-written school-based sexual health promotion program used in Colombia, as well as the words co-occurrence network structure of its contents. The readability of the evaluated program corresponded to its intended target population aged between 14 and 19, with the schooling of 9-13 years of education. The resulting words co-occurrence network structure of the COMPAS program also mirrored its theoretical content. These results all together are deemed as empirical evidence of the adequacy of the program.

Spatial and Temporal Variations in Traffic-related Particulate Matter at New York City High Schools.

Relatively little is known about exposures to traffic-related particulate matter at schools located in dense urban areas. The purpose of this study was to examine the influences of diesel traffic proximity and intensity on ambient concentrations of fine particulate matter (PM(2.5)) and black carbon (BC), an indicator of diesel exhaust particles, at New York City (NYC) high schools. Outdoor PM(2.5) and BC were monitored continuously for 4-6 weeks at each of 3 NYC schools and 1 suburban school located 20 kilometers upwind of the city. Traffic count data were obtained using an automated traffic counter or video camera. BC concentrations were 2-3 fold higher at urban schools compared with the suburban school, and among the 3 urban schools, BC concentrations were higher at schools located adjacent to highways. PM(2.5) concentrations were significantly higher at urban schools than at the suburban school, but concentrations did not vary significantly among urban schools. Both hourly average counts of trucks and buses and meteorological factors such as wind direction, wind speed, and humidity were significantly associated with hourly average ambient BC and PM(2.5) concentrations in multivariate regression models. An increase of 443 trucks/buses per hour was associated with a 0.62 mug/m(3) increase in hourly average BC at a NYC school located adjacent to a major interstate highway. Car traffic counts were not associated with BC. The results suggest that local diesel vehicle traffic may be important sources of airborne fine particles in dense urban areas and consequently may contribute to local variations in PM(2.5) concentrations. In urban areas with higher levels of diesel traffic, local, neighborhood-scale monitoring of pollutants such as BC, which compared to PM(2.5), is a more specific indicator of diesel exhaust particles, may more accurately represent population exposures.

Data of collaborative consumption in online food delivery services.

This data article contains data regarding the collaborative consumption that takes place in an Online Food Delivery Platform that connects restaurants owners, and customers who wish to order meals and receive them at home or office. These data are associated with the article "Evaluation of Collaborative consumption of food delivery services through web mining techniques" [1]. These data are stored in a comma separated value format; that can be easily downloaded from a Mendeley data repository (https://data.mendeley.com/datasets/m9z9hw4nsc/1).

Are average years of education losing predictive power for economic growth? An alternative measure through structural equations modeling.

The accumulation of knowledge required to produce economic value is a process that often relates to nations economic growth. Some decades ago many authors, in the absence of other available indicators, used to rely on certain measures of human capital such as years of schooling, enrollment rates, or literacy. In this paper, we show that the predictive power of years of education as a proxy for human capital started to dwindle in 1990 when the schooling of nations began to be homogenized. We developed a structural equation model that estimates a metric of human capital that is less sensitive than average years of education and remains as a significant predictor of economic growth when tested with both cross-section data and panel data.

The New York City Puerto Rican asthma project: study design, methods, and baseline results.

OBJECTIVE: We examined asthma risk factors among 274 Puerto Rican children born in New York to atopic mothers. METHODS: We prospectively followed the cohort to measure aeroallergens in their homes and assess allergic sensitization. Baseline data are presented. RESULTS: Maternal smoking was significantly higher among women born on the continental United States (25%) vs. those born elsewhere (11%). Cat ownership was more frequent among mainland-born women (15%) compared with those born in Puerto Rico (4%). While some aeroallergens were prevalent, few dust samples contained detectable dust mite allergens. CONCLUSIONS: By following this cohort, we hope to identify the roles that socio-cultural factors play in the process of allergic sensitization.

Manipulating the Alpha Level Cannot Cure Significance Testing.

We argue that making accept/reject decisions on scientific hypotheses, including a recent call for changing the canonical alpha level from p = 0.05 to p = 0.005, is deleterious for the finding of new discoveries and the progress of science. Given that blanket and variable alpha levels both are problematic, it is sensible to dispense with significance testing altogether. There are alternatives that address study design and sample size much more directly than significance testing does; but none of the statistical tools should be taken as the new magic method giving clear-cut mechanical answers. Inference should not be based on single studies at all, but on cumulative evidence from multiple independent studies. When evaluating the strength of the evidence, we should consider, for example, auxiliary assumptions, the strength of the experimental design, and implications for applications. To boil all this down to a binary decision based on a p-value threshold of 0.05, 0.01, 0.005, or anything else, is not acceptable.

Ideological Consumerism in Colombian Elections, 2015: Links Between Political Ideology, Twitter Activity, and Electoral Results.

Propagation of political ideologies in social networks has shown a substantial impact on voting behavior. Both the contents of the messages (the ideology) and the politicians' influence on their online audiences (their followers) have been associated with such an impact. In this study we evaluate which of these factors exerted a major role in deciding electoral results of the 2015 Colombian regional elections by evaluating the linguistic similarity of political ideologies and their influence on the Twitter sphere. The electoral results proved to be strongly associated with tweets and retweets and not with the linguistic content of their ideologies or politicians' followers in Twitter. Finally, suggestions for new ways to analyze electoral processes are discussed.

Seasonal occurrence of antibiotics and a beta agonist in an agriculturally-intensive watershed.

We evaluated the occurrence of 12 veterinary antibiotics and a beta agonist over spatial and temporal scales in Shell Creek, an intensively agricultural watershed in Nebraska, using Polar Organic Chemical Integrative Samplers (POCIS). Twelve pharmaceuticals were detected with concentrations ranging from 0.0003 ng/L to 68 ng/L. The antibiotics measured at the highest time-weighted average concentrations were lincomycin (68 ng/L) and monensin (49 ng/L), and both compounds were detected at increased concentrations in summer months. Analysis of variance indicates that mean concentrations of detected pharmaceuticals have no significant (p > 0.01) spatial variation. However, significant temporal differences (p < 0.01) were observed. This study demonstrates the utility of passive samplers such as POCIS for monitoring ambient levels of pharmaceuticals in surface waters.

Distribution and determinants of mouse allergen exposure in low-income New York City apartments.

Previous studies of mouse allergens and laboratory-animal-worker-related allergy and asthma suggest that quantifying mouse allergen levels in homes could augment our understanding of inner-city asthma. We hypothesized that levels of mouse allergen in inner-city homes would be related to certain household characteristics. Dust samples were collected from the kitchens and beds of 221 mothers enrolled in a prospective birth cohort study, 92 of African American and 129 of Dominican ethnicity. Samples were analyzed for mouse urinary protein. The geometric mean for kitchen samples was 4.6 micro g/g [95% confidence interval (95% CI), 3.2-6.5] and for bed samples was 0.9 micro g/g (95% CI, 0.8-1.1). The variables associated with mouse allergen levels in the home were frequency of mouse sightings, use of traps or pesticides for mice, presence of holes in ceilings or walls, absence of a cat, and living in a building with fewer than eight floors. Statistically significant neighborhood differences in levels of mouse allergen and report of rodents in the home were also observed. In conclusion, mouse allergen was prevalent among inner-city apartments, and the positive predictive value of self-reported frequent mouse sightings was high (90% for kitchens). However, high levels of mouse allergen were also found in many homes where mothers reported never seeing mice.

Random forests to predict rectal toxicity following prostate cancer radiation therapy.

PURPOSE: To propose a random forest normal tissue complication probability (RF-NTCP) model to predict late rectal toxicity following prostate cancer radiation therapy, and to compare its performance to that of classic NTCP models. METHODS AND MATERIALS: Clinical data and dose-volume histograms (DVH) were collected from 261 patients who received 3-dimensional conformal radiation therapy for prostate cancer with at least 5 years of follow-up. The series was split 1000 times into training and validation cohorts. A RF was trained to predict the risk of 5-year overall rectal toxicity and bleeding. Parameters of the Lyman-Kutcher-Burman (LKB) model were identified and a logistic regression model was fit. The performance of all the models was assessed by computing the area under the receiving operating characteristic curve (AUC). RESULTS: The 5-year grade ≥2 overall rectal toxicity and grade ≥1 and grade ≥2 rectal bleeding rates were 16%, 25%, and 10%, respectively. Predictive capabilities were obtained using the RF-NTCP model for all 3 toxicity endpoints, including both the training and validation cohorts. The age and use of anticoagulants were found to be predictors of rectal bleeding. The AUC for RF-NTCP ranged from 0.66 to 0.76, depending on the toxicity endpoint. The AUC values for the LKB-NTCP were statistically significantly inferior, ranging from 0.62 to 0.69. CONCLUSIONS: The RF-NTCP model may be a useful new tool in predicting late rectal toxicity, including variables other than DVH, and thus appears as a strong competitor to classic NTCP models.

A Text Mining Approach to the Text Difficulty of Latin American Peace Agreement / "Una aproximación por minería de texto a la dificultad textual de los acuerdos de paz en Latinoamérica"

Abstract A peace agreement was recently subjected to a plebiscite as a solution to finish the Colombian armed conflict. With 62.57% of abstention, 18.44% of the Colombian electorate rejected this agreement. This paper aims to propose a methodological approach that shows how to linguistically analyze peace agreements as political products that are acceptable or not according to their text difficulty. Given the socio-political similarities of the armed conflicts of Colombia, Guatemala, and El Salvador, we scrutinized with sufficient computational detail these peace agreements. The results revealed that the text difficulty of these accords was more appropriate for a person with at least 19 years of education, suggesting that these sort of texts are not written for broader and less-educated audiences.

Resumen El gobierno de Colombia sometió recientemente a plebiscito un acuerdo de paz para dar por finalizado su conflicto armado. Para este plebiscito la abstención electoral fue del 62.57% y solo el 18.44% de los votantes rechazó la implementación del acuerdo. El objetivo de este trabajo es proponer una aproximación metodológica que muestre cómo analizar los acuerdos de paz como productos políticos que pueden ser aceptables o no según su dificultad textual. Dadas las semejanzas socio-políticas de los conflictos armados en Colombia, Guatemala y El Salvador, en este trabajo se muestra con suficiente detalle computacional el análisis por minería de texto de los acuerdos de paz celebrados en estos países. Los resultados revelaron que la dificultad textual de estos acuerdos exige un nivel educativo de al menos 19 años de educación formal, lo que sugiere que ese tipo de documentos no suelen redactarse para audiencias más numerosas con menores niveles de educación formal.

Presence of organochlorine pesticides in breast milk samples from Colombian women.

The presence of organochlorine pesticides (OCPs) in biological and environmental samples has been studied for decades in many countries. Nonetheless, studies in Latin American countries like Colombia have been scarce. Determining the presence of OCPs in breast milk will be of relevance to assess exposures, potential health risks, and for surveillance among Latin American populations. Thirty-two breast-feeding mothers were selected to voluntarily participate in the study. Breast milk samples were analyzed for 10 OCPs (α-, ß-, γ-, δ-HCH, Heptachlor, α-, γ-Chlordane, 4,4' DDT, 4,4' DDE, 4,4' DDD). Milk samples were analyzed using liquid-liquid extraction, followed by sulfuric acid clean-up, and quantified using GC/µECD. Results were confirmed by GC/MS. OCPs concentrations were normalized using fat content. In all but one sample, 4,4' DDE was quantified in concentrations ranging between<17 and 14948 ng g(-1) (ng of OCP per g of lipids), with a mean value of 203 ng g(-1). One woman had 4,4' DDE concentrations that were orders of magnitude above the average concentrations observed worldwide. Concentrations of 4,4' DDE in a second breast milk sample collected in a different time period of lactation from a sub-group of 13 women from the original participants, showed no statistically significant difference with the concentrations found in the first sample. Based on the results obtained from the Persistent Organic Pollutants Global Monitoring Plan report of 2009 of the Stockholm Convention, Colombia ranks fourth from bottom to top in terms of 4,4' DDE average concentrations.

Millennials sex differences on Snapchat perceived privacy / Diferencias por sexo de los «Millenials¼ sobre la privacidad percibida en Snapchat

Abstract Snapchat offers a distinctive feature from other social networks in that its users control the visibility of the contents they share with others by defining how long these contents may be available. Snapchat is changing the way men and women perceive online information privacy and content management. This paper aims to illustrate the relevance of social representation theory to evaluate perceived privacy in Snapchat users, with a sample of 268 young adults residing in Bogotá. A survey method was employed for data collection purposes. The results reveal that Snapchat users are concerned about their networks' privacy, with no significant sex differences, although men's perception of Snapchat privacy is safer than that of women. Finally, a discussion is presented as to the limitations and implications of these results for further studies.

Resumen De las redes sociales existentes, Snapchat ofrece a sus usuarios el rasgo distintivo de permitirles controlar el tiempo que será visible el contenido que comparten con otros. Snapchat plantea un cambio en la manera cómo se concibe la privacidad de la información y el manejo de contenidos online por parte de hombres y mujeres. El objetivo de este trabajo es ilustrar la relevancia de la teoría de representaciones sociales para evaluar la privacidad percibida Redes sociales en usuarios de Snapchat a través de una muestra de 268 adultos jóvenes residentes en Bogotá. Con el diseño y aplicación de una encuesta especialmente adaptada se pudo observar que a los usuarios de Snapchat les preocupa la privacidad de sus redes sin que existan diferencias significativas por sexo; aunque, en comparación con sus pares femeninos, los hombres perciben que Snapchat es más segura. El artículo finaliza con una discusión sobre las limitaciones e implicaciones de estos resultados para futuros estudios.