Co-Speech Movement in Conversational Turn-Taking

This study investigates co-speech movements as a function of the conversational turn exchange type, the type of speech material at a turn exchange, and the interlocutor’s role as speaker or listener. A novel interactive protocol that mixes conversation and (non-read) nursery rhymes works to elicit many speech turns and co-speech movements within dyadic speech interaction. To evaluate a large amount of data, we use the density of co-speech movement as a quantitative measure. Results indicate that both turn exchange type and participant role are associated with variation in movement density for head and brow co-speech movement. Brow and head movement becomes denser as speakers approach overlapping speech exchanges, indicating that speakers increase their movement density as an interruptive exchange is approached. Similarly, head movement generally increases after such overlapping exchanges. Lastly, listeners display a higher rate of co-speech movement than speakers, both at speech turns and remote from them. Brow and head movements generally behave similarly across speech material types, conversational roles, and turn exchange types. On the whole, the study demonstrates that the quantitative co-speech movement density measure advanced here is useful in the study of co-speech movement and turn-taking.

Quantifying Fluctuations of Average Environments for Embedding Calculations

In the context of employing embedding methods to study spectroscopic properties, the viability and effectiveness of replacing an ensemble of calculations by a single calculation using an average description of the system of study are evaluated. This work aims to provide a baseline of the expected fluctuations in the average description of the system obtained in the two cases: from calculations of an ensemble of geometries, and from an average environment constructed with the same ensemble. To this end, the classical molecular dynamics simulation of a very simple system was used: a rigid molecule of acetone in a solution of rigid water. We perform a careful numerical analysis of the fluctuations of the electrostatic potential felt by the solute, as well as the fluctuations in the effect on its electronic density, measure through the dipole moment and the atomic charges derived from the corresponding potential. At the same time, we inspect the accuracy of the methods used to construct average environments. Finally, the proposed approach to generate the embedding potential from an average environment density is applied to estimate the solvatochromic shift of the first excitation of acetone. In order to account for quantum-confinement effects that may be important in certain cases, the fluctuations on the shift due to the interaction with the solvent are evaluated using Frozen-Density Embedding Theory. Our results demonstrate that, for normally-behaved environments, the constructed average environment is a reasonably good representation of a discrete solvent environment.

Neighborhood Inequities in Tobacco Retailer Density and the Presence of Tobacco-Selling Pharmacies and Tobacco Shops

Studies document inequitable tobacco retailer density by neighborhood sociodemographics, but these findings may not be robust to different density measures. Policies to reduce density may be less equitable depending on how the presence of store types differs by neighborhood characteristics. We built a 2018 list of probable tobacco retailers in the United States and calculated four measures of density for all census tracts ( N = 71,495), including total count, and number of retailers per 1,000 people, square mile, and kilometers of roadway. We fit multivariable regression models testing associations between each density measure and tract-level sociodemographics. We fit logistic regression models testing associations between sociodemographics and the presence of a tobacco-selling pharmacy or tobacco shop. Across all measures, tracts with a greater percentage of residents living below 150% of the federal poverty level (FPL) had higher density. A higher percentage of Black residents, Hispanic or Latino residents, and vacant housing was inconsistently associated with density across measures. Neighborhoods with a greater percentage of Black residents had a lower odds of having a pharmacy (adjusted odds ratio [a OR] = 0.96, 95% confidence interval [CI; 0.95, 0.97]) and tobacco shop (a OR = 0.87, CI [0.86, 0.89]), while those with a greater percentage of residents living below 150% FPL had greater odds of having a tobacco shop (a OR = 1.18, CI [1.16, 1.20]). Researchers and policymakers should consider how various measures of retailer density may capture different aspects of the environment. Furthermore, there may be an inequitable impact of retailer-specific policies on tobacco availability.

Results of researches for new method for metrological assurance of mass measurements on conveyor weigher

The paper considers the issue related to calibration of conveyor weigher in laboratory environment for its usage as etalon and the subsequent transfer of a unit of linear density from them to the transported means of comparison – the measure of linear density. The equations of the mass flow in instant hopper-conveyor system are got. The algorithm of etalon conveyor weigher calibration is developed on the results of mass measurement in hopper at work process of hopper-conveyor instant system which doesn’t require passing a known fixed mass through a conveyor weigher. The transfer way of linear density unit from etalon conveyor weigher to linear density measure with accuracy required by measurement chain is proposed.

Characterizing the hypergraph-of-entity and the structural impact of its extensions

The hypergraph-of-entity is a joint representation model for terms, entities and their relations, used as an indexing approach in entity-oriented search. In this work, we characterize the structure of the hypergraph, from a microscopic and macroscopic scale, as well as over time with an increasing number of documents. We use a random walk based approach to estimate shortest distances and node sampling to estimate clustering coefficients. We also propose the calculation of a general mixed hypergraph density measure based on the corresponding bipartite mixed graph. We analyze these statistics for the hypergraph-of-entity, finding that hyperedge-based node degrees are distributed as a power law, while node-based node degrees and hyperedge cardinalities are log-normally distributed. We also find that most statistics tend to converge after an initial period of accentuated growth in the number of documents. We then repeat the analysis over three extensions—materialized through synonym, context, and tf_bin hyperedges—in order to assess their structural impact in the hypergraph. Finally, we focus on the application-specific aspects of the hypergraph-of-entity, in the domain of information retrieval. We analyze the correlation between the retrieval effectiveness and the structural features of the representation model, proposing ranking and anomaly indicators, as useful guides for modifying or extending the hypergraph-of-entity.

Identification of New Urban Centers by Using Taxonomic Methods

Research background: In recent years, the return of city and suburbs dwellers to city centers has been observed. This phenomenon is caused in particular by the growing costs of transport and time spent on commuting. From this point of view, it seems interesting to observe the prices of properties located in the suburbs in relation to the prices of properties located around city centers and to examine their similarity. The center, however, should not be identified solely as the Old Town but rather as a certain area in which the professional, cultural and private life of the citizens is concentrated. Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to find a method of identifying new city centers that allow developers to create a pricing map and, consequently, to determine the appropriate price level on the primary market. At the same time, it should help appraisers to capture the relationship between values of the properties located in different parts of a city. Research methodology: The purpose of this study is achieved by deploying a taxonomic method (the modified density method) to identify new (or created) urban centers. The analysis is applied to the city of Wrocław. Results: The findings reveal that it is clearly possible to identify visually clusters constituting new city centers by using the applied method. It is also possible to indicate in an analytical way the central location of a given center. The main advantage of the applied approach is that it is of universal use, suitable both for cities where one city center dominates, and for those where the dominant center is not present and is represented, for example, by the coastline of a sea. Novelty: The density measure presented in the paper allows identifying city centers in an analytical way, based on given conditions. Habitants usually feel where the local center is, but it is not obvious how the prices of residentials might spread out in space according to those centers. The measure can be easily modified by introducing new features that characterize the centers.

Genome-wide association study of peripheral blood DNA methylation and conventional mammographic density measures

Age- and body mass index (BMI)-adjusted mammographie density is one the strongest breast cancer risk factors. DNA methylation is a molecular mechanism that could underlie interindividual variation in mammographic density. We aimed to investigate the association between breast cancer risk-predicting mammographic density measures and blood DNA methylation. For 436 women from the Australian Mammographic Density Twins and Sisters Study and 591 women from the Melbourne Collaborative Cohort Study, mammographic density (dense area, non-dense area and percentage dense area) defined by the conventional brightness threshold was measured using the CUMULUS software, and peripheral blood DNA methylation was measured using the HumanMethylation450 (HM450) BeadChip assay. Associations between DNA methylation at >400,000 sites and mammographic density measures adjusted for age and BMI were assessed within each cohort and pooled using fixed-effect meta-analysis. Associations with methylation at genetic loci known to be associated with mammographic density were also examined. We found no genome-wide significant(P<10−7)association for any mammographic density measure from the meta-analysis, or from the cohort-specific analyses. None of the 299 methylation sites located at genetic loci associated with mammographic density was associated with any mammographic density measure after adjusting for multiple testing (all P>0.05/299 = 1.7 × 10−4). In summary, our study did not detect associations between blood DNA methylation, as measured by the HM450 assay, and conventional mammographic density measures that predict breast cancer risk.