Search results for: job access with speech

Authors: Mairo Musa Galadima, Phoebe Mshelia

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In Nigeria, the national policy of education stipulates that the kindergarten-primary schools and the legislature are to use the three popular Nigerian Languages namely: Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. However, the English language seems to be preferred and this calls for this paper. Attempts were made to draw out the challenges faced by learners in understanding English speech sounds and using them to communicate effectively in English; using 5 (five) selected secondary school in Bauchi. It was discovered that challenges abound in the wrong use of stress and intonation, transfer of phonetic features from their first language. Others are inadequately qualified teachers and relevant materials including textbooks. It is recommended that teachers of English should lay more emphasis on the teaching of supra-segmental features and should be encouraged to go for further studies, seminars and refresher courses.

Keywords: stress and intonation, phonetic and challenges, teaching and learning English, secondary schools

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Authors: Amin Pashaye Amiri

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Freedom of information, according to which the public has a right to have access to government-held information, is largely considered as a tool for improving transparency and accountability in governments, and as a requirement of self-governance and good governance. So far, more than ninety countries have recognized citizens’ right to have access to public information. This recognition often took place through the adoption of an act referred to as “freedom of information act”, “access to public records act”, and so on. A freedom of information act typically imposes a positive obligation on a government to initially and regularly release certain public information, and also obliges it to provide individuals with information they request. Such an act usually allows governmental bodies to withhold information only when it falls within a limited number of exemptions enumerated in the act such as exemptions for protecting privacy of individuals and protecting national security. Some steps have been taken at the national and international level towards the recognition of freedom of information as a human right. Freedom of information was recognized in a few countries as a part of freedom of expression, and therefore, as a human right. Freedom of information was also recognized by some international bodies as a human right. The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled in 2006 that Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights, which concerns the human right to freedom of expression, protects the right of all people to request access to government information. The European Court of Human Rights has recently taken a considerable step towards recognizing freedom of information as a human right. However, in spite of the measures that have been taken, public access to government information is not yet widely accepted as an international human right. The paper will consider the degree to which freedom of information has been recognized as a human right, and study the possibility of widespread recognition of such a human right in the future. It will also examine the possible benefits of such recognition for the development of the human right to free expression.

Keywords: freedom of information, freedom of expression, human rights, government information

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Authors: Endalew Fufa Kufi

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One of the major concerns in educational provision and success determination is access to available opportunities. In that, girls’ access to education has been a point of concern, and more emphasis has come to be at the forefront regarding success. Researches have mostly been held on extremes such as equal access and success, but only a few works deal with process issues related to home and school interplay, issues of progress from lower to higher levels, and spatial conditions related to girls’ education. Hence, this survey assessed experiences in three countries of Africa: Ethiopia, Ghana, and Botswana regarding girls’ education in policy and practice as related to contextual matters in girls’ education. Contextual discourse analysis of qualitative design was used to materialize the study. From each country, five research works held 2010 onwards were purposively selected through criterion-sampling. On the policy aspect, workable documents were looked into. The findings denoted that educational access was of more stretch and generic nature, and the narration was dominated by institutional expectations, not identifying which group should benefit what. The researches largely dealt with either subject-specific dealings or access alone at large. Success studies, by far, dealt with a comparison of girls with boys rather than determinant-related projections. Moreover, the cultural representation of girls’ education had a very minimal part in both policy and researches. From that, it could be found that in-depth scrutiny on the individual, institutional, and leadership determinants of girls’ education would be necessary.

Keywords: determinants, girls, education, feminism

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Authors: L. Kamandulytė-Merfeldienė

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The paper deals with the main issues of methodology of the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian which was started to be developed in 2006. At present, the corpus consists of 300,000 grammatically annotated word forms. The creation of the corpus consists of three main stages: collecting the data, the transcription of the recorded data, and the grammatical annotation. Collecting the data was based on the principles of balance and naturality. The recorded speech was transcribed according to the CHAT requirements of CHILDES. The transcripts were double-checked and annotated grammatically using CHILDES. The development of the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian has led to the constant increase in studies on spontaneous communication, and various papers have dealt with a distribution of parts of speech, use of different grammatical forms, variation of inflectional paradigms, distribution of fillers, syntactic functions of adjectives, the mean length of utterances.

Keywords: CHILDES, corpus of spoken Lithuanian, grammatical annotation, grammatical disambiguation, lexicon, Lithuanian

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Authors: Ismail Baniadam, Nafisa Tadayyon, Javid Fereidoni

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This study aimed to investigate medical students’ attitudes toward some teachers’ talking features regarding their gender in the Iranian context. To do so, 60 male and 60 female medical students of Urmia University of Medical Sciences (UMSU) participated in the research. A researcher made Likert-type questionnaire which was initially piloted and was used to gather the data. Comparing the four different factors regarding the features of teacher talk, it was revealed that visual and extra-linguistic information factor, Lexical and syntactic familiarity, Speed of speech, and the use of Persian language had the highest to the lowest mean score, respectively. It was also indicated that female students rather than male students were significantly more in favor of speed of speech and lexical and syntactic familiarity.

Keywords: attitude, gender, medical student, teacher talk

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Authors: Rohan Bhasin

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Agrammatism in non-fluent Aphasia Cases can be defined as a language disorder wherein a patient can only use content words ( nouns, verbs and adjectives ) for communication and their speech is devoid of functional word types like conjunctions and articles, generating speech of with extremely rudimentary grammar . Past approaches involve Speech Therapy of some order with conversation analysis used to analyse pre-therapy speech patterns and qualitative changes in conversational behaviour after therapy. We describe this approach as a novel method to generate functional words (prepositions, articles, ) around content words ( nouns, verbs and adjectives ) using a combination of Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning algorithms. The applications of this approach can be used to assist communication. The approach the paper investigates is : LSTMs or Seq2Seq: A sequence2sequence approach (seq2seq) or LSTM would take in a sequence of inputs and output sequence. This approach needs a significant amount of training data, with each training data containing pairs such as (content words, complete sentence). We generate such data by starting with complete sentences from a text source, removing functional words to get just the content words. However, this approach would require a lot of training data to get a coherent input. The assumptions of this approach is that the content words received in the inputs of both text models are to be preserved, i.e, won't alter after the functional grammar is slotted in. This is a potential limit to cases of severe Agrammatism where such order might not be inherently correct. The applications of this approach can be used to assist communication mild Agrammatism in non-fluent Aphasia Cases. Thus by generating these function words around the content words, we can provide meaningful sentence options to the patient for articulate conversations. Thus our project translates the use case of generating sentences from content-specific words into an assistive technology for non-Fluent Aphasia Patients.

Keywords: aphasia, expressive aphasia, assistive algorithms, neurology, machine learning, natural language processing, language disorder, behaviour disorder, sequence to sequence, LSTM

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Authors: Justie Su-Tzu Juan, Ming-Jheng Li, Ching-Fen Lee, Ruei-Yu Wu

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A secret image sharing scheme is a way to protect images. The main idea is dispersing the secret image into numerous shadow images. A secret image sharing scheme can withstand the impersonal attack and achieve the highly practical property of multiuse  is more practical. Therefore, this paper proposes a verifiable and detectable secret image-sharing scheme called VDGMSISS to solve the impersonal attack and to achieve some properties such as encrypting multi-secret images at one time and multi-use. Moreover, our scheme can also be used for any genera access structure.

Keywords: multi-secret image sharing scheme, verifiable, de-tectable, general access structure

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Authors: Said Rabah Azzam, Andrew Graham

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Fragmentation of packets caused by encryption applied on the network layer of the IOS model in Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) networks as well as the possibility of using fragmentation and Access Control Lists (ACLs) as a method of restricting network access to certain hosts or areas of a network.Using default settings, fragmentation is expected to occur and each fragment to be reassembled at the other end. If this does not occur then a high number of ICMP messages should be generated back towards the source host indicating that the packet is too large and that it needs to be made smaller. This result is also expected when the MTU is changed for certain links between devices.When using ACLs and packet fragments to restrict access to hosts or network segments it is possible that ACLs cannot be set up in this way. If ACLs cannot be setup to allow only fragments then it is a limitation of the hardware’s firmware holding back this particular method. If the ACL on the restricted switch can be set up in such a way to allow only fragments then a connection that forces packets to fragment should be allowed to pass through the ACL. This should then make a network connection to the destination machine allowing data to be sent to and from the destination machine. ICMP messages from the restricted access switch and host should also be blocked from being sent back across the link which will be shown in an SSH session into the switch.

Keywords: fragmentation, encryption, security, switch

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Authors: Kuo-Kai Lin, Po-Lun Chang

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Research Background and Purpose: Following the development of the Internet and multimedia, the Internet and information technology have become crucial avenues of modern communication and knowledge acquisition. The advantages of using mobile devices for learning include making learning borderless and accessible. Mobile learning has become a trend in disease management and health promotion in recent years. End-stage renal disease (ESRD) is an irreversible chronic disease, and patients who do not receive kidney transplants can only rely on hemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis to survive. Due to the complexities in caregiving for patients with ESRD that stem from their advanced age and other comorbidities, the patients’ incapacity of self-care leads to an increase in the need to rely on their families or primary caregivers, although whether the primary caregivers adequately understand and implement patient care is a topic of concern. Therefore, this study explored whether primary caregivers’ health care provisions can be improved through the intervention of an automatic speech intelligent system, thereby improving the objective health outcomes of patients undergoing long-term dialysis. Method: This study developed an automatic speech intelligent system with healthcare functions such as health information voice prompt, two-way feedback, real-time push notification, and health information delivery. Convenience sampling was adopted to recruit eligible patients from a hemodialysis center at a regional teaching hospital as research participants. A one-group pretest-posttest design was adopted. Descriptive and inferential statistics were calculated from the demographic information collected from questionnaires answered by patients and primary caregivers, and from a medical record review, a health care scale (recorded six months before and after the implementation of intervention measures), a subjective health assessment, and a report of objective physiological indicators. The changes in health care behaviors, subjective health status, and physiological indicators before and after the intervention of the proposed automatic speech intelligent system were then compared. Conclusion and Discussion: The preliminary automatic speech intelligent system developed in this study was tested with 20 pretest patients at the recruitment location, and their health care capacity scores improved from 59.1 to 72.8; comparisons through a nonparametric test indicated a significant difference (p < .01). The average score for their subjective health assessment rose from 2.8 to 3.3. A survey of their objective physiological indicators discovered that the compliance rate for the blood potassium level was the most significant indicator; its average compliance rate increased from 81% to 94%. The results demonstrated that this automatic speech intelligent system yielded a higher efficacy for chronic disease care than did conventional health education delivered by nurses. Therefore, future efforts will continue to increase the number of recruited patients and to refine the intelligent system. Future improvements to the intelligent system can be expected to enhance its effectiveness even further.

Keywords: automatic speech intelligent system for health care, primary caregiver, long-term hemodialysis, health care capabilities, health outcomes

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Authors: Sonika Raj, Amarjeet Singh, Vijay Lakshmi Sharma

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Introduction: In 21st century, due to revolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), there has been phenomenal development in quality and quantity of knowledge in the field of medical science. So, the access to relevant information to physicians is critical to the delivery of effective healthcare services to patients. The study was conducted to assess the information needs and attitudes of the medical professionals; to determine the sources and channels of information used by them; to ascertain the current usage of ICTs and the barriers faced by them in utilization of ICTs in health information access. Methodology: This descriptive cross-sectional study was carried in 2015 on hundred medical professionals working in public and private sectors of Chandigarh. The study used both quantitative and qualitative method for data collection. A semi structured questionnaire and interview schedule was used to collect data on information seeking needs, access to ICTs and barriers to healthcare information access. Five Data analysis was done using SPSS-16 and qualitative data was analyzed using thematic approach. Results: The most preferred sources to access healthcare information were internet (85%), trainings (61%) and communication with colleagues (57%). They wanted information on new drug therapy and latest developments in respective fields. All had access to computer with but almost half assessed their computer knowledge as average and only 3% had received training regarding usage. Educational status (p=0.004), place of work (p=0.004), number of years in job (p=0.004) and sector of job (p=0.04) of doctors were found to be significantly associated with their active search for information. The major themes that emerged from in-views were need; types and sources of healthcare information; exchange of information among different levels of healthcare providers; usage of ICTs to obtain and share information; barriers to access of healthcare information and quality of health information materials and involvement in their development process Conclusion and Recommendations: The medical professionals need information in their in their due course of work. However, information needs of medical professionals were not being adequately met. There should be training of professional regarding internet skills and the course on bioinformatics should be incorporated in the curricula of medical students. The policy framework must be formulated that will encourage and promote the use of ICTs as tools for health information access and dissemination.

Keywords: health information, ICTs, medical professionals, qualitative

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Authors: Cheryl Marie Cordeiro

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Although fisheries and aquaculture studies might seem marginal to international business (IB) studies in general, fisheries and aquaculture IB (FAIB) management is currently facing increasing pressure to meet global demand and consumption for fish in the next coming decades. In part address to this challenge, the purpose of this systematic review of literature (SLR) study is to investigate the use of the term ‘market access’ in its context of use in the generic literature and business sector discourse, in comparison to the more specific literature and discourse in fisheries, aquaculture and seafood. This SLR aims to uncover the knowledge/interest gaps between the academic subject discourses and business sector practices. Corpus driven in methodology and using a triangulation method of three different text analysis software including AntConc, VOSviewer and Web of Science (WoS) analytics, the SLR results indicate a gap in conceptual knowledge and business practices in how ‘market access’ is conceived and used in the context of the pharmaceutical healthcare industry and FAIB research and practice. While it is acknowledged that the product orientation of different business sectors might differ, this SLR study works with the assumption that both business sectors are global in orientation. These business sectors are complex in their operations from product to market. This SLR suggests a conceptual model in understanding the challenges, the potential barriers as well as avenues for solutions to developing market access for FAIB.

Keywords: market access, fisheries and aquaculture, international business, systematic literature review

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Authors: Alhusein Almahjoub, Dongyu Qiu

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This paper deals with the random access procedure in next-generation networks and presents the solution to reduce total service time (TST) which is one of the most important performance metrics in current and future internet of things (IoT) based networks. The proposed solution focuses on the calculation of optimal transmission probability which maximizes the success probability and reduces TST. It uses the information of several idle preambles in every time slot, and based on it, it estimates the number of backlogged IoT devices using Naïve Bayes estimation which is a type of supervised learning in the machine learning domain. The estimation of backlogged devices is necessary since optimal transmission probability depends on it and the eNodeB does not have information about it. The simulations are carried out in MATLAB which verify that the proposed solution gives excellent performance.

Keywords: random access, LTE/LTE-A, 5G, machine learning, Naïve Bayes estimation

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Authors: Laszlo Vari

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In the digital age, the spread of the mobile world and the nature of the cyberspace, offers many new opportunities for the prevalence of the fundamental right to free expression, and therefore, for free speech and freedom of the press; however, these new information communication technologies carry many new challenges. Defamation, censorship, fake news, misleading information, hate speech, breach of copyright etc., are only some of the violations, all of which can be derived from the harmful exercise of freedom of expression, all which become more salient in the internet. Here raises the question: how can we eliminate these problems, and practice our fundamental freedom rightfully? To answer this question, we should understand the elements and the characteristic of the nature of freedom of expression, and the role of the actors whose duties and responsibilities are crucial in the prevalence of this fundamental freedom. To achieve this goal, this paper will explore the European practice to understand instructions found in the case-law of the European Court of Human rights for the rightful exercise of freedom of expression.

Keywords: collision of rights, European case-law, freedom opinion and expression, media law, freedom of information, online expression

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Authors: Simone Belli, Sergio Minniti, Valeria Santoro

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ICTs and technology transfer can benefit and move a country forward in economic and social development. However, ICT and access to the Internet have been inequitably distributed in most developing countries. In terms of science production and dissemination, this divide articulates itself also through the inequitable distribution of access to scientific knowledge and networks, which results in the exclusion of developing countries from the center of science. Developing countries are on the fringe of Science and Technology (S&T) production due not only to low investment in research but also to the difficulties to access international scholarly literature. In this respect, Open access (OA) initiatives and knowledge infrastructure represent key elements for both producing significant changes in scholarly communication and reducing the problems of developing countries. The spreading of the OA movement in the region, exemplified by the growth of regional and national initiatives, such as the creation of OA institutional repositories (e.g. SciELO and Redalyc) and the establishing of supportive governmental policies, provides evidence of the significant role that OA is playing in reducing the scientific gap between Latin American countries and improving their participation in the so-called ‘global knowledge commons’. In this paper, we map OA publications in Latin America and observe how Latin American countries are moving forward and becoming a leading force in widening access to knowledge. Our analysis, developed as part of the H2020 EULAC Focus research project, is based on mixed methods and consists mainly of a bibliometric analysis of OA publications indexed in the most important scientific databases (Web of Science and Scopus) and OA regional repositories, as well as the qualitative analysis of documents related to the main OA initiatives in Latin America. Through our analysis, we aim at reflecting critically on what policies, international standards, and best practices might be adapted to incorporate OA worldwide and improve the infrastructure of the global knowledge commons.

Keywords: open access, LAC countries, scientific publications, bibliometric analysis

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Authors: Ankita R. Bansal, Naren S. Burade

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Idea is to create a cloud based virtual lab for Deaf Students, “A language acquisition program using Visual Phonics and Cued Speech” using VMware Virtual Lab. This lab will demonstrate students the sounds of letters associated with the Language, building letter blocks, making words, etc Virtual labs are used for demos, training, for the Lingual development of children in their vernacular language. The main potential benefits are reduced labour and hardware costs, faster response times to users. Virtual Computing Labs allows any of the software as a service solutions, virtualization solutions, and terminal services solutions available today to offer as a service on demand, where a single instance of the software runs on the cloud and services multiple end users. VMWare, XEN, MS Virtual Server, Virtuoso, and Citrix are typical examples.

Keywords: visual phonics, language acquisition, vernacular language, cued speech, virtual lab

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Authors: Carolina Silva Ansélmo

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Airports are demand-generating poles that affect the flow of traffic around them. The airport access system must be fast, convenient, and adequately planned, considering its potential users. An airport with good ground access conditions can provide the user with a more satisfactory access experience. When several transport options are available, service providers must understand users' preferences and the expected quality of service. The present study focuses on airport access in a comparative scenario between bus, private vehicle, subway, taxi and urban mobility transport applications to São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. The objectives are (i) to identify the factors that influence the choice, (ii) to measure Willingness to Pay (WTP), and (iii) to estimate the market share for each modal. The applied method was Adaptive Choice-based Conjoint Analysis (ACBC) technique using Sawtooth Software. Conjoint analysis, rooted in Utility Theory, is a survey technique that quantifies the customer's perceived utility when choosing alternatives. Assessing user preferences provides insights into their priorities for product or service attributes. An additional advantage of conjoint analysis is its requirement for a smaller sample size compared to other methods. Furthermore, ACBC provides valuable insights into consumers' preferences, willingness to pay, and market dynamics, aiding strategic decision-making to provide a better customer experience, pricing, and market segmentation. In the present research, the ACBC questionnaire had the following variables: (i) access time to the boarding point, (ii) comfort in the vehicle, (iii) number of travelers together, (iv) price, (v) supply power, and (vi) type of vehicle. The case study questionnaire reached 213 valid responses considering the scenario of access from the São Paulo city center to São Paulo/Guarulhos International Airport. As a result, the price and the number of travelers are the most relevant attributes for the sample when choosing airport access. The market share of the selection is mainly urban mobility transport applications, followed by buses, private vehicles, taxis and subways.

Keywords: adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis, ground access to airport, market share, willingness to pay

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Authors: Joshua Osondu

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This research explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be utilized as a policy response to address teaching and learning (TL) issues in education in Ghana. The dual (AI and human) instructor model is used as a theoretical framework to examine how AI can be employed to improve teaching and learning processes and to equip learners with the necessary skills in the emerging AI society. A qualitative research design was employed to assess the impact of AI on various TL issues, such as teacher workloads, a lack of qualified educators, low academic performance, unequal access to education and educational resources, a lack of participation in learning, and poor access and participation based on gender, place of origin, and disability. The study concludes that AI can be an effective policy response to TL issues in Ghana, as it has the potential to increase students’ participation in learning, increase access to quality education, reduce teacher workloads, and provide more personalized instruction. The findings of this study are significant for filling in the gaps in AI research in Ghana and other developing countries and for motivating the government and educational institutions to implement AI in TL, as this would ensure quality, access, and participation in education and help Ghana industrialize.

Keywords: artificial intelligence, teacher, learner, students, policy response

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Authors: Chuan-Ching Sue, Kai-Chun Chuang

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Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live streaming systems still suffer a challenge when thousands of new peers want to join into the system in a short time, called flash crowd, and most of new peers suffer long start-up delay. Recent studies have proposed a slot-based user access control mechanism, which periodically determines a certain number of new peers to enter the system, and a user batch join mechanism, which divides new peers into several tree structures with fixed tree size. However, the slot-based user access control mechanism is difficult for accurately determining the optimal time slot length, and the user batch join mechanism is hard for determining the optimal tree size. In this paper, we propose a structured access control (SAC) mechanism, which constructs new peers to a multi-layer mesh structure. The SAC mechanism constructs new peer connections layer by layer to replace periodical access control, and determines the number of peers in each layer according to the system’s remaining upload bandwidth and average video rate. Furthermore, we propose an analytical model to represent the behavior of the system growth if the system can utilize the upload bandwidth efficiently. The analytical result has shown the similar trend in system growth as the SAC mechanism. Additionally, the extensive simulation is conducted to show the SAC mechanism outperforms two previously proposed methods in terms of system growth and start-up delay.

Keywords: peer-to-peer, live video streaming system, flash crowd, start-up delay, access control

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Authors: Saira Mehnaz, Ali Jafar Abedi, Shazia Farooq Fazli, Sakeena Mushfiq, Zulfia Khan, M. Athar Ansari

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Introduction: Public health spending is a necessity in an underdeveloped country like India. The people are already suffering from poverty and that clubbed with out of pocket expenditure leads them to a very catastrophic situation, reducing the overall access to healthcare. Objectives: This study was designed to determine the usual source of medical care opted, the illness pattern, the expenditure incurred on illness and its source of procurement by the study population. It also intended to assess this expenditure as a determinant of access to health care. Methodology: Cities like Aligarh, which are classified as B grade cities in India are thought to be ripe sites for getting livelihood and hence are almost half filled with migrants living in urban slums. A cross sectional study was done to study the newer slum pockets. 3409 households with a population of 16,978 were studied with the help of pretested questionnaire; SPSS 20 was used for statistical analysis. Results and Conclusions: In our study, we found that almost all the households suffered from catastrophic health expenditure. The study population, which was already vulnerable owing to their low socio-economic and migrant status was further being forced with into poverty and indebtedness on account of expenditure on illness. This lead to a significant decrease in access to health. National health financing systems should be designed to protect households from financial catastrophe, by reducing out-of-pocket spending.

Keywords: access to healthcare, catastrophic health expenditure, new urban slums, out of pocket expenditure

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Authors: Iris Sirirada Pattara-Angkoon, Rory Devine, Anja Lindberg, Wendy Browne, Sarah Foley, Gabrielle McHarg, Claire Hughes

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Introduction: The “Terrible Twos” is a phrase used to describe toddlers 18-30 months old. It characterizes a transition from high dependency to their caregivers in infancy to more autonomy and mastery of the body and environment. Toddlers at this age may also show more willfulness and stubbornness that could predict a future trajectory leading to conduct disorders. Thus, an important goal for this age group is to promote responsiveness to their caregivers (i.e., compliance). Existing literature tends to focus on praise to increase desirable child behavior. However, this relationship is not always straightforward as some studies have found no or negative association between praise and child compliance. Research suggests positive emotions and affection showed through body language (e.g., smiles) and actions (e.g., hugs, kisses) along with positive parent-child relationship can strengthen the praise and child compliance association. Nonetheless, few studies have examined the influences of positive emotionality within the speech. This is important as implementing verbal positive emotionality is easier than physical adjustments. The literature also tends not to include fathers in the study sample as mothers were traditionally the primary caregiver. However, as child-caring duties are increasing shared equally between mothers and fathers, it is important to include fathers within the study as studies have frequently found differences between female and male caregiver characteristics. Thus, the study will address the literary gap in two ways: 1. explore the influences of positive emotionality in parental speech and 2. include an equal sample of mothers and fathers. Positive emotionality is expected to positively correlate with and predict child compliance. Methodology: This study analyzed toddlers (18-24 months) in their dyadic interactions with mothers and fathers. A Duplo (block) task was used where parents had to work with their children to build the Duplo according to the given photo for four minutes. Then, they would be told to clean up the blocks. Parental positive emotionality in different speech types (e.g., bids, praises, affirmations) and child compliance were measured. Results: The study found that mothers (M = 28.92, SD = 12.01) were significantly more likely than fathers (M = 23.01, SD = 12.28) to use positive verbal emotionality in their speech, t(105) = 4.35, p< .001. High positive emotionality in bids during Duplo task and Clean Up was positively correlated with more child compliance in each task, r(273) = .35, p< .001 and r(264) = .58, p< .001, respectively. Overall, parental positive emotionality in speech significantly predicted child compliance, F(6, 218) = 13.33, p< .001, R² = .27) with emotionality in verbal bids (t = 6.20, p< .001) and affirmations (t = 3.12, p = .002) being significant predictors. Conclusion: Positive verbal emotions may be useful for increasing compliance in toddlers. This can be beneficial for compliance interventions as well as to the parent-child relationship quality through reduction of conflict and child defiance. As this study is correlational in nature, it will be important for future research to test the directional influence of positive emotionality within speech.

Keywords: child temperament, compliance, positive emotion, toddler, verbal bids

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Authors: Mounia El Jaouhari, Mira Goral, Samir Diouny

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Introduction: Previous research has indicated that language impairments are recognized as a feature of many neurodegenerative disorders, including non-language-led dementia subtypes such as Alzheimer´s disease (AD). In this preliminary study, the focal aim is to quantify the semantic content of naming and connected speech samples of Moroccan patients diagnosed with AD using two tasks taken from the culturally adapted and validated Moroccan version of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination. Methods: Five individuals with AD and five neurologically healthy individuals matched for age, gender, and education will participate in the study. Participants with AD will be diagnosed on the basis of the Moroccan version of the Diagnostic and Statistial Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-4) screening test, the Moroccan version of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) test scores, and neuroimaging analyses. The participants will engage in two tasks taken from the MDAE-SF: 1) Picture description and 2) Naming. Expected findings: Consistent with previous studies conducted on English speaking AD patients, we expect to find significant word production and retrieval impairments in AD patients in all measures. Moreover, we expect to find category fluency impairments that further endorse semantic breakdown accounts. In sum, not only will the findings of the current study shed more light on the locus of word retrieval impairments noted in AD, but also reflect the nature of Arabic morphology. In addition, the error patterns are expected to be similar to those found in previous AD studies in other languages.

Keywords: alzheimer's disease, anomia, connected speech, semantic impairments, moroccan arabic

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Authors: Hadri Hussain, M.Nasir Ibrahim, Chee-Ming Ting, Mariani Idroas, Fuad Numan, Alias Mohd Noor

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A biometric security system has become an important application in client identification and verification system. A conventional biometric system is normally based on unimodal biometric that depends on either behavioural or physiological information for authentication purposes. The behavioural biometric depends on human body biometric signal (such as speech) and biosignal biometric (such as electrocardiogram (ECG) and phonocardiogram or heart sound (HS)). The speech signal is commonly used in a recognition system in biometric, while the ECG and the HS have been used to identify a person’s diseases uniquely related to its cluster. However, the conventional biometric system is liable to spoof attack that will affect the performance of the system. Therefore, a multimodal biometric security system is developed, which is based on biometric signal of ECG, HS, and speech. The biosignal data involved in the biometric system is initially segmented, with each segment Mel Frequency Cepstral Coefficients (MFCC) method is exploited for extracting the feature. The Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used to model the client and to classify the unknown input with respect to the modal. The recognition system involved training and testing session that is known as client identification (CID). In this project, twenty clients are tested with the developed system. The best overall performance at 44 kHz was 93.92% for ECG and the worst overall performance was ECG at 88.47%. The results were compared to the best overall performance at 44 kHz for (20clients) to increment of clients, which was 90.00% for HS and the worst overall performance falls at ECG at 79.91%. It can be concluded that the difference multimodal biometric has a substantial effect on performance of the biometric system and with the increment of data, even with higher frequency sampling, the performance still decreased slightly as predicted.

Keywords: electrocardiogram, phonocardiogram, hidden markov model, mel frequency cepstral coeffiecients, client identification

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Authors: N. M. G. Al-Saidi, K. A. Kadhim, N. A. Rajab

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Over the past decades, computer networks and data communication system has been developing fast, so, the necessity to protect a transmitted data is a challenging issue, and data security becomes a serious problem nowadays. A secret sharing scheme is a method which allows a master key to be distributed among a finite set of participants, in such a way that only certain authorized subsets of participants to reconstruct the original master key. To create a secret sharing scheme, many mathematical structures have been used; the most widely used structure is the one that is based on graph theory (graph access structure). Subsequently, many researchers tried to find efficient schemes based on graph access structures. In this paper, we propose a novel efficient construction of a perfect secret sharing scheme for uniform access structure. The dominating set of vertices in a regular graph is used for this construction in the following way; each vertex represents a participant and each minimum independent dominating subset represents a minimal qualified subset. Some relations between dominating set, graph order and regularity are achieved, and can be used to demonstrate the possibility of using dominating set to construct a secret sharing scheme. The information rate that is used as a measure for the efficiency of such systems is calculated to show that the proposed method has some improved values.

Keywords: secret sharing scheme, dominating set, information rate, access structure, rank

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Authors: Khayriniso Bakhtiyarovna Ganiyeva

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The article explores the significance of punctuation in achieving communicative competence. It underscores that effective communication goes beyond simply using punctuation correctly. In the successful completion of a communicative activity, it is important not that the writer correctly uses punctuation marks but that he was able to achieve a goal aimed at expressing a certain meaning. The unanimity of the writer and the reader in the mutual understanding of the text is of primary importance. It should also be taken into account that situational communication provides special informative content and expressiveness of speech. Also, the norms of the situation are determined by the nature of the information in the text, and the punctuation marks expressed in accordance with the norm perform logical-semantic, highlighting expressive-emotional and signaling functions. It is a mistake to classify the signs subject to the norm of the situation as created by the author because they functionally reflect the general stylistic features of different texts. Such signs are among the common signs that are codified only by the semantics and structure of the created text.

Keywords: communicative-pragmatic approach, expressiveness of speech, stylistic features, comparative analysis

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Authors: Ali A. Hammadi

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In this work, a practical study on a commissioned Giga Passive Optical Network (GPON) fiber to the home access network in Kuwait is presented. The work covers the framework of the conceptual design of the deployed Passive Optical Networks (PONs), access network, optical fiber cable network distribution, technologies, and standards. The work also describes methodologies applied by system engineers for design of Optical Network Terminals (ONTs) and Optical Line Terminals (OLTs) transceivers with respect to the distance, operating wavelengths, splitting ratios. The results have demonstrated and justified the limitation of transmission distance of a PON link in Fiber to The Premises (FTTP) to not exceed 20 km. Optical Time Domain Reflector (OTDR) test has been carried for this project to confirm compliance with International Telecommunication Union (ITU) specifications regarding the total length of the deployed optical cable, total loss in dB, and loss per km in dB/km with respect to the operating wavelengths. OTDR test results with traces for segments of implemented fiber network will be provided and discussed.

Keywords: passive optical networks (PONs), fiber to the premises (FTTx), access network, OTDR

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Authors: El Hadji Mamadou Sonko, Ndiogou Sankhare, Maïmouna Lo, Jean Birane Gning, Cheikh Diop

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In Senegal, access to water, hygiene, and sanitation in small island towns is a particular problem, which is still poorly understood by the public authorities and development aid actors. The main objective of this study carried out in the Municipality of Foundiougne is to contribute to the knowledge of the problems related to the supply of drinking water, access to sanitation, and hygiene in small island towns in Senegal. The methodology adopted consisted of a literature review and quantitative surveys of a sample of 100 households in the Municipality. Semi-structured interviews using interview guides and informal interviews were also conducted with mechanical and manual emptiers, municipal authorities, public toilet managers, and neighbourhood leaders. Direct observation with photography was also used. The results show that, with regard to access to drinking water, 35% of households have unimproved water services, 46% have a limited level of service, and 19% have a basic level of service. Regarding sanitation, 77% of households are considered to have access to basic sanitation services, compared to 23% with limited sanitation services. However, these figures hide the dysfunctions of the sanitation system. Indeed, manual emptying is practiced exclusively by 4% of households, while 17% of households combine it with mechanical emptying. In addition, domestic wastewater is mainly evacuated outside the sanitation facilities, and all the sludge extracted from the pits is discharged directly into the environment without treatment. As a matter of fact, the surveys showed that 52% of households do not have access to a basic level of hygiene-related to handwashing when leaving the toilet. These results show that there is real work to be done at the level of small urban centres if we want to achieve MDG 6.

Keywords: Foundiougne, Senegal, small island, small town, water-sanitation, hygiene

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Authors: Ben Soltane Cheima, Ittansa Yonas Kelbesa

Abstract:

Speaker Identification (SI) is the task of establishing identity of an individual based on his/her voice characteristics. The SI task is typically achieved by two-stage signal processing: training and testing. The training process calculates speaker specific feature parameters from the speech and generates speaker models accordingly. In the testing phase, speech samples from unknown speakers are compared with the models and classified. Even though performance of speaker identification systems has improved due to recent advances in speech processing techniques, there is still need of improvement. In this paper, a Closed-Set Tex-Independent Speaker Identification System (CISI) based on a Multiple Classifier System (MCS) is proposed, using Mel Frequency Cepstrum Coefficient (MFCC) as feature extraction and suitable combination of vector quantization (VQ) and Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) together with Expectation Maximization algorithm (EM) for speaker modeling. The use of Voice Activity Detector (VAD) with a hybrid approach based on Short Time Energy (STE) and Statistical Modeling of Background Noise in the pre-processing step of the feature extraction yields a better and more robust automatic speaker identification system. Also investigation of Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG) clustering algorithm for initialization of GMM, for estimating the underlying parameters, in the EM step improved the convergence rate and systems performance. It also uses relative index as confidence measures in case of contradiction in identification process by GMM and VQ as well. Simulation results carried out on voxforge.org speech database using MATLAB highlight the efficacy of the proposed method compared to earlier work.

Keywords: feature extraction, speaker modeling, feature matching, Mel frequency cepstrum coefficient (MFCC), Gaussian mixture model (GMM), vector quantization (VQ), Linde-Buzo-Gray (LBG), expectation maximization (EM), pre-processing, voice activity detection (VAD), short time energy (STE), background noise statistical modeling, closed-set tex-independent speaker identification system (CISI)

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Authors: Dilang Thouk Tharjiath

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This study seeks to examine determinants of access to finance: the case of micro and small enterprises in bonga town. It identifies the sector as the key to unlocking the economic potentials of the country. For the achievement of the objective of the study simple random and stratified sampling has been used to select 179 respondents, primary and secondary data were used, primary data were collected through face to face interview and preparing questionnaire and secondary data were collected through reviewing firms record and reports, quantitative research approach were used and the data obtained were analyzed using descriptive research design. Access to finance is one of the key obstacles of MSE’s not only when starting the business project but also when operating. Identifying the major determinants of access to finance is therefore quite crucial. Based on descriptive result the financiers specially formal financiers tend to grant credit easily for enterprises which are located near to town, having operators with higher educational level, experienced and with a positive attitudes towards or fulfill their lending procedures, and a firm having collateralized asset, prepare business plan, maintain accounting practice ,large and old enough. Finally the study recommended that As Educational level of entrepreneurs has significant effect on access to credit from bank and the managers or owners education level is low in Bonga town the concerned bodies of both the government and non-governmental institutions in collaboration with Bonga town MSE development office are recommended to create awareness and facilitate the provision of additional training for those with lower educational level.

Keywords: credit, entrepreneur, enterprise, manager

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Authors: William Coburn, Dylan Hauchard, Amel Naouali

Abstract:

Background: The nature of the HIV epidemic in Puerto Rico (PR) is less understood than in the continental U.S. There is evidence to suggest that there are differences in health care access based on geographical location, such that rural areas are less underserved and have less immediate access to HIV prevention resources. Methods: The current study consists of a cross-sectional online survey of self-reporting HIV-negative sexual minority men (SMM) residing in PR. Results: In this sample, there were no differences between urban and rural-based services for SMM. However, more than half of the sample reported that they have never disclosed their gender identity and sexual practices to a physician. Conclusion: HIV is a significant public health concern affecting Latinos/Hispanics in the U.S. Findings in this paper can have implications for HIV prevention services in PR specifically, as few studies have directly focused on the impact of HIV and health care services in PR outside of the continental U.S.

Keywords: HIV, Puerto Rico, infectious diseases , public health

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Authors: John Narh

Abstract:

There is high rate of deforestation in Ghana due to agricultural expansion, illegal mining and illegal logging. While it is attempting to address the illegalities, Ghana has also initiated a reforestation program known as the Modified Taungya System (MTS). Within the MTS framework, farmers are allocated degraded forestland and provided with tree seedlings to practice agroforestry until the trees form canopy. Yet, the political, ecological and economic models that inform the selection of tree species, the motivations of participating farmers as well as the factors that accounts for differential access to the land and performance of farmers engaged in the program lie underexplored. Using a sequential explanatory mixed methods approach in five forest-fringe communities in the Eastern Region of Ghana, the study reveals that economic factors and Ghana’s commitment to international conventions on the environment underpin the selection of tree species for the MTS program. Social network and access to remittances play critical roles in having access to, and enhances poor farmers’ chances in the program respectively. Farmers are more motivated by the access to degraded forestland to cultivate food crops than having a share in the trees that they plant. As such, in communities where participating farmers are not informed about their benefit in the tree that they plant, the program is largely unsuccessful.

Keywords: translocality, deforestation, forest management, social network

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