Elder emotion classification through multimodal fusion of intermediate layers and cross-modal transfer learning.

The objective of the work is to develop an automated emotion recognition system specifically targeted to elderly people. A multi-modal system is developed which has integrated information from audio and video modalities. The database selected for experiments is ElderReact, which contains 1323 video clips of 3 to 8 s duration of people above the age of 50. Here, all the six available emotions Disgust, Anger, Fear, Happiness, Sadness and Surprise are considered. In order to develop an automated emotion recognition system for aged adults, we attempted different modeling techniques. Features are extracted, and neural network models with backpropagation are attempted for developing the models. Further, for the raw video model, transfer learning from pretrained networks is attempted. Convolutional neural network and long short-time memory-based models were taken by maintaining the continuity in time between the frames while capturing the emotions. For the audio model, cross-model transfer learning is applied. Both the models are combined by fusion of intermediate layers. The layers are selected through a grid-based search algorithm. The accuracy and F1-score show that the proposed approach is outperforming the state-of-the-art results. Classification of all the images shows a minimum relative improvement of 6.5% for happiness to a maximum of 46% increase for sadness over the baseline results.

Histogram of States Based Assistive System for Speech Impairment Due to Neurological Disorders.

Assistive speech technology is a challenging task because of the impaired nature of dysarthric speech, such as breathy voice, strained speech, distorted vowels, and consonants. Learning compact and discriminative embeddings for dysarthric speech utterances is essential for impaired speech recognition. We propose a Histogram of States (HoS)-based approach that uses Deep Neural Network-Hidden Markov Model (DNN-HMM) to learn word lattice-based compact and discriminative embeddings. Best state sequence chosen from word lattice is used to represent dysarthric speech utterance. A discriminative model-based classifier is then used to recognize these embeddings. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using three datasets, namely 15 acoustically similar words, 100-common words datasets of the UA-SPEECH database, and a 50-words dataset of the TORGO database. The proposed HoS-based approach performs significantly better than the traditional Hidden Markov Model and DNN-HMM-based approaches for all three datasets. The discriminative ability and the compactness of the proposed HoS-based embeddings lead to the best accuracy of impaired speech recognition.

Incidence of Third Head of Biceps Brachii in South Indian Population

Additional heads of the biceps brachii muscle of arm have the clinical importance, because they mislead the surgeon in arm surgical procedures. Existence of such variation is one of the reasons for neurovascular compression in the arm region. The present study was conducted to find out the incidence of third head of biceps brachii among 80 samples in South Indian population. The third head of biceps brachii was found in right side in one case which was 13.7 cm in length and arising from antero medial wall of lower part of shaft of humerus. Incidence of the study is 1.25% in South Indians. Occurrence of supernumerary third head of biceps is rare in Indian population.

Regulation of insulin-like growth factors and their binding proteins by thyroid stimulating hormone in human osteoblast-like (SaOS2) cells.

Thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) is shown to have definite anabolic effects on skeletal metabolism. Previous studies have demonstrated that Insulin-like growth factors (IGF-I and IGF-II) and their six high affinity binding proteins (IGFBPs 1-6) regulate proliferation and differentiation of bone-forming osteoblasts. The current study was intended to determine whether the anabolic effects of TSH on human osteoblastic (SaOS2) cells are mediated through insulin-like growth factor system components. TSH given at 0.01 ng to 10 ng/ml dose levels for 24 and 48 h significantly increased human osteoblastic (SaOS2) cell proliferation and alkaline phosphatase activity, the differentiation marker. TSH significantly increased IGFs (IGF-I and IGF-II) mRNA expression after 6 and 24 h and their protein levels after 24 and 48 h of treatment, respectively. Unlike the IGFs, the IGFBPs responded differently to TSH treatment. Though there were some inconsistencies in the regulation of stimulatory IGF binding protein-3 and -5 by TSH treatment, there was an overall increase at the mRNA abundance and protein levels. Again, the inconsistency persisted at the regulation of the inhibitory IGFBPs 2, 4, and 6 especially at the level of mRNA expression due to TSH treatment, there is an overall decrease in the levels of IGFBP-2, 4, and 6 in the conditioned media (CM) of SaOS2 cell cultures. The IGFBP proteases which control the availability of IGFs are also regulated by hormones. Pregnancy-Associated Plasma Protein-A (PAPP-A) is responsible for the proteolysis of IGFBP-4. TSH treatment significantly unregulated the expression of PAPP-A both at mRNA and protein levels. In conclusion, TSH promotes human osteoblastic (SaOS2) cell proliferation and differentiation by upregulating IGFs and their stimulatory IGF binding proteins and down regulating the inhibitory IGF binding proteins.

Effect of sunlight irradiation on photocatalytic pyrene degradation in contaminated soils by micro-nano size TiO2.

The enhanced catalytic pyrene degradation in quartz sand and alluvial and red soils by micro-nano size TiO(2) in the presence and absence of sunlight was investigated. The results showed that the synergistic effect of sunlight irradiation and TiO(2) was more efficient on pyrene degradation in quartz sand and red and alluvial soils than the corresponding reaction system without sunlight irradiation. In the presence of sunlight irradiation, the photooxidation (without TiO(2)) of pyrene was very pronounced in alluvial and red soils and especially in quartz sand. However, in the absence of sunlight irradiation, the catalytic pyrene degradation by TiO(2) and the photooxidation (without TiO(2)) of pyrene were almost nil. This implicates that ultra-violet (UV) wavelength range of sunlight plays an important role in TiO(2)-enhanced photocatalytic pyrene degradation and in photooxidation (without TiO(2)) of pyrene. The percentages of photocatalytic pyrene degradation by TiO(2) in quartz sand, alluvial and red soils under sunlight irradiation were 78.3, 23.4, and 31.8%, respectively, at 5h reaction period with a 5% (w/w) dose of the amended catalyst. The sequence of TiO(2)-enhanced catalytic pyrene degradation in quartz sand and alluvial and red soils was quartz sand>red soil>alluvial soil, due to different texture and total organic carbon (TOC) contents of the quartz sand and other two soils. The differential Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectra of degraded pyrene in alluvial soil corroborate that TiO(2)-enhanced photocatalytic degradation rate of degraded pyrene was much greater than photooxidation (without TiO(2)) rate of degraded pyrene. Based on the data obtained, the importance for the application of TiO(2)-enhanced photocatalytic pyrene degradation and associated organic contaminants in contaminated soils was elucidated.

Oxidative degradation of pyrene in contaminated soils by δ-MnO2 with or without sunlight irradiation.

The enhanced oxidative degradation of pyrene in quartz sand and alluvial and red soils by micro-nano size birnessite (δ-MnO(2)) in the presence and absence of sunlight was investigated. The degradation of pyrene by δ-MnO(2) in quartz sand showed very little synergistic effect of sunlight irradiation on δ-MnO(2) oxidizing power. However, pyrene degradation by δ-MnO(2) in alluvial and red soils was greater under solar irradiation than the combination of photooxidation of pyrene and oxidation of pyrene by δ-MnO(2). The oxidative degradation percentages of pyrene by δ-MnO(2) under sunlight irradiation are 94.8, 97.7, and 100% for alluvial soil, red soil, and quartz sand, respectively. Oxidative degradation percentages of pyrene by δ-MnO(2) in alluvial and red soils with irradiation of sunlight almost attained a maximum at 1 h with a 5% (w/w) dose of the amended oxidant. Due to their different total organic carbon (TOC) contents, the sequence of enhanced oxidative degradation of pyrene by δ-MnO(2) in quartz sand and alluvial and red soils was quartz sand>red soil>alluvial soil. Further, this study revealed that δ-MnO(2)-enhanced oxidative degradation of pyrene is very pronounced in contaminated soils in situ even at deep soil layers where irradiation by sunlight is very limited.

Effects of Aroclor 1254 on femoral bone metabolism in adult male Wistar rats.

Environmental pollutants that disrupt endocrine system might also affect the modeling and remodeling of bone. Environmental factors, irrespective of age and sex contribute for the development of secondary osteoporosis. Polychlorinated biphenyls have adverse effects on various organs including bone. The present study was designed to investigate the effects of PCB (Aroclor 1254) on femur bone and the ameliorative role of vitamin C or E. In this regard, four groups of adult male albino rats were used as control, PCB (2mg/kgb.wt.), PCB+vitamin C (100mg/kgb.wt.) and PCB+vitamin E (50mg/kgb.wt.). The bone formation markers (ALP, Collagen), bone resorption marker (TRAP), antioxidant enzymes (SOD, GPX and GST) and lipid peroxidation in the femur were studied. Aroclor 1254 treatment decreased the ALP activity and collagen, but increased the TRAP activity and lipid peroxidation. While it decreased the SOD and GPX activity, GST was unaltered. Interestingly, simultaneous administration of vitamin C or E prevented the adverse effects of Aroclor 1254 in the femur. In conclusion, the present investigation suggests that Aroclor 1254 induced oxidative stress affects femoral bone metabolism. However, vitamin C or vitamin E protected the femur from the oxidative stress.

Effect of ethanol on human osteosarcoma cell proliferation, differentiation and mineralization.

The habitual consumption of even moderate quantities of alcoholic beverages is clearly associated with reduced bone mass, increased prevalence of skeletal fracture and also it is the major risk factor for the development of secondary osteoporosis. The present in vitro study was designed to determine the dose response effects of ethanol on osteoblast-like human osteosarcoma cells (SaOS-2) proliferation, differentiation, mineralization and cyto-toxicity. SaOS-2 cells were plated in 48 and 6 well culture plates and exposed to different concentrations of ethanol (1, 10, 100, 200 and 300 mM) for 24, 48 and 72 h. At the end of incubation, proliferation of cells was studied using crystal violet Bioassay. The cell lysate was utilized to determine ALP activity and conditioned media were used to measure LDH activity. Histochemical localization of ALP and mineralized nodules were studied from cells treated with ethanol (10 and 100 mM) for 21 days. At higher doses, there was a significant reduction in cell number, whereas at lower doses there were variable effects. In 24 h treatment, the higher doses showed a significant increase in ALP activity, whereas 48 and 72 h treatments showed an opposite trend. Ethanol treatment caused a dose- and time-dependent increase in LDH activity. Ethanol treatment altered the quality of mineralization at 10 mM dose whereas completely inhibited mineralization at 100 mM dose, despite the presence of serum. In conclusion, the toxic effect of ethanol is reflected on cell proliferation, differentiation and mineralization even at low doses and at extended treatment duration.