Computer Science

In recent years a great deal of effort has been expended to develop methods that determine speech
quality through the use of comparative algorithms. These methods are designed to calculate an index
value of quality that correlates to a mean opinion score given by human subjects in evaluation sessions. In
this paper, we validate Perceptual Evaluation of Speech Quality (PESQ) - ITU-T Recommendation P.862
and the Netherlands’s Organization for Applied Scientific Research (TNO) proposal- Perceptual Speech
Quality Measurement 2010 (PSQM2010) on the Perceptual Objective Listening Quality Assessment (POLQA)
benchmark, which is the new ITU-T benchmarking for objective measurement of speech quality, on the
tonal language Igbo –a language spoken in south eastern- Nigeria. Experiments are done in super wideband
mode and PESQ was applied to down sampled versions of the signals. The result on PESQ P.862.2 shows a
good correlation between the subjective and objective measurements on the tonal language Igbo with a
correlation coefficient of r = 0.88 on the overall data set. For Dutch, the model shows less correlation
between the subjective and the objective measurements (r = 0.84) compared to the tonal language Igbo
(r = 0.88). .The PSQM2010 is optimized for western languages and the correlation for the Dutch super
wideband database is 0.91. For Igbo our super wideband result shows a poor correlation of 0.70 between
the subjective and objective measurements. For the tonal and non tonal sentences no big differences are
found. The correlation between the subjective results for tone and non-tone sentences is 0.96. We
conclude by making recommendations for research, policies and practices.

Mobile phone no doubt has become everyone’s personal companion. It finds close companionship among the youths. Mobile phone SMS slang has adversely affected students’ ability to write proper English grammar, as they find it a very convenient and economic way of communication. This work presents a needs assessment survey in which over 90% of respondents expressed desire to have an application that converts SMS slang. It also shows the design and implementation of SMS slang to English converter for Android devices. Results show a compression rate of over forty percent, therefore reducing the cost of the SMS, time and bandwidth.

In the management of Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection, there is a great interest in early monitoring of viral load
since early emergence of resistant strains can jeopardize the treatment outcome. In this paper we present an
ongoing research to address the question whether early longitudinal viral loads can be used as a surrogate in
discriminating responders / non-responders at the end of the trial. The data analyzed in this paper are from a
completed, randomized, phase II, clinical study, exploring the effect of a certain protease inhibitor (PI) therapy in
combination with the standard of care on efficacy, safety, tolerability, PK and PK/PD of the therapy. We propose a
semi-parametric mixed effect model which is used to model the longitudinal sequence up to week 12 of the
subjects. Based on subject specific parameters obtained from the semi-parametric model we estimated the
probability to be a responder at the end of the trial. The semi-parametric effect models were implemented with the
procedure PROC MIXED in SAS version 9.1.

Key Words: Hepatitis C Virus; Longitudinal viral RNA; Surrogate endpoint; Mixed Effects Models; PROC MIXED in SAS.

Background

This descriptive, non-comparative, phase III study evaluated the safety and tolerability of cell culture-derived (TIVc) and egg-derived (TIV) seasonal influenza vaccines in children at-risk of influenza-related complications.

Methods

430 subjects were randomized 2:1 to TIVc or TIV. Subjects aged 3 to <9 years received one dose (if previously vaccinated, n = 89) or two doses (if not previously vaccinated, n = 124) of the study vaccines; the 9- to <18-year olds (n = 213) received one dose. Reactogenicity was assessed for 7 days after vaccination; safety was monitored for 6 months.

Results

After any vaccination, the most frequently reported solicited local adverse event (AE) was tenderness/pain (TIVc [44%, 66%, 53%] and TIV [56%, 51%, 65%] in 3 to <6, 6 to <9, and 9- to <18-year olds, respectively) and the systemic AE was irritability (22% TIVc, 24% TIV) in 3- to <6-year olds and headache in 6- to <9-year olds (20% TIVc, 13% TIV) and 9- to <18-year olds (21% TIVc, 26% TIV). There were no cases of severe fever (≥40 °C). No vaccine-related serious AEs were noted. New onset of chronic diseases was reported in ≤1% of subjects.

Conclusion

TIVc and TIV had acceptable tolerability and similar safety profiles in at-risk children (NCT01998477).

Adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine 23-Valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine Immune response Safety a b s t r a c t Background: This study evaluated immunogenicity and safety of the adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) when the first dose was co-administered with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) in adults aged 50 years. Methods: In this open label, multi-center study (NCT02045836), participants were randomized 1:1 to receive either the first dose of RZV and PPSV23, co-administered at Day 0 and the second dose of RZV at Month 2 (Co-Ad group), or PPSV23 at Day 0, the first dose of RZV at Month 2 and second dose of RZV at Month 4 (Control group). Co-primary objectives were the RZV vaccine response rate (VRR) in the Co-Ad group and the non-inferiority of the antibody responses to RZV and PPSV23 in the Co-Ad group compared to the Control group. Reactogenicity and safety were also assessed. Results: 865 participants were vaccinated (Co-Ad: 432, Control: 433). VRRs to RZV were >98% in both groups. Humoral immune responses to co-administration of RZV and PPSV23 were non-inferior to sequential administration. All three co-primary immunogenicity objectives were met. Solicited local symptoms after the first RZV dose were reported by similar percentages of participants in both groups. Solicited general symptoms were more frequently reported when the first dose of RZV and PPSV23 were co-administered. No differences were apparent between groups after the second RZV dose. Conclusions: No immunologic interference was observed between RZV and PPSV23 when co-administered in adults 50 years. No safety concerns were raised.

Background
This study evaluated immunogenicity and safety of the adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine (RZV) when the first dose was co-administered with the 23-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPSV23) in adults aged ≥50 years.

Methods
In this open label, multi-center study (NCT02045836), participants were randomized 1:1 to receive either the first dose of RZV and PPSV23, co-administered at Day 0 and the second dose of RZV at Month 2 (Co-Ad group), or PPSV23 at Day 0, the first dose of RZV at Month 2 and second dose of RZV at Month 4 (Control group). Co-primary objectives were the RZV vaccine response rate (VRR) in the Co-Ad group and the non-inferiority of the antibody responses to RZV and PPSV23 in the Co-Ad group compared to the Control group. Reactogenicity and safety were also assessed.

Results
865 participants were vaccinated (Co-Ad: 432, Control: 433). VRRs to RZV were >98% in both groups. Humoral immune responses to co-administration of RZV and PPSV23 were non-inferior to sequential administration. All three co-primary immunogenicity objectives were met. Solicited local symptoms after the first RZV dose were reported by similar percentages of participants in both groups. Solicited general symptoms were more frequently reported when the first dose of RZV and PPSV23 were co-administered. No differences were apparent between groups after the second RZV dose.

Conclusions
No immunologic interference was observed between RZV and PPSV23 when co-administered in adults ≥50 years. No safety concerns were raised.

Abbreviations
VZV, varicella-zoster virus; HZ, herpes zoster; PHN, postherpetic neuralgia; CDC, United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; YOA years of age; ZVL zoster vaccine live; RZV adjuvanted recombinant zoster vaccine; PPSV2323-valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine; PCV13 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine; IDP invasive pneumococcal disease; gE glycoprotein E; M month GMC geometric mean concentration; GMT geometric mean titer; ELISA enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay; MOPA multiplex opsonophagocytic assay; VRR vaccine response rate; (S)AE (serious) adverse event; pIMD potential immune-mediated disease; CI confidence interval; LL/UL lower/upper limit; TVC total vaccinate cohort; ATP according-to-protocol
Keywords
Herpes zoster; Adjuvanted recombinant zoster; vaccine23-Valent pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine; Immune response; Safety

Agriculture plays a crucial role in Nigeria&#39;s economy, serving as a vital source of sustenance and livelihood for numerous Nigerians. With the escalating impact of climate change on crop yields, it becomes imperative to develop models that can effectively study and predict rice output under varying climatic conditions. This study collected rice yield data from Katsina state, spanning the years 1970 to 2017, sourced from the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics. Additionally, climatic data for the same period were obtained from the World Bank Climate Knowledge portal. Logistic Regression (LR), Artificial Neural Network (ANN), Random Forest (RF), Random Trees (RT), and Naïve Bayes (NB) were employed to develop rice yield prediction models utilizing this dataset. The findings reveal that random forest and random trees exhibited superior classification performance for yield prediction. The developed models offer a promising tool for predicting future rice yields, facilitating proactive meas...

Data centres form a key part of the infrastructure upon which a variety of information technology services are built. They provide the capabilities of centralized repository for storage, management, dissemination and networking of data and information organized around a particular body of knowledge or pertaining to a particular business. The increasing demand for data storage and compute resources has driven the growth of large data centres: the massive server farms that run many of our present day internet and e-commerce applications with its attendant significant investment capital outlay and ongoing operating costs. This makes a critical examination of costs associated with building, operating and upgrading data centres imperative. For this cost model to meet the requirements of stakeholders it must capture the multidimensional complexities in power delivery, cooling, and required levels of redundancies for a specific service level agreement. However, non factoring of major total cost of ownership (TCO) parameters like amortization and maintenance costs for power, cooling and information technology resources in the cost model for data centres have questioned the reliability of this cost model, hence necessitate a research of this nature. To attack the problems identified above, I adopted a more accurate data centre construction cost model developed at HP Labs and adopted by the Uptime Institute Inc., to serve as a business intelligence tool for measurement and prediction of TCO and return-on-investment analysis for data centres.

Ethnic conflict, communal clashes, terrorism and insurgency are major security challenges in the twenty-first century. These are responsible for the deaths of millions of people around the world. At the moment intra-state conflict in the form of Farmer/herder conflict has claimed several thousands of lives in Nigeria; however, controlling this conflict system has been a great challenge for many years.  Combining Fuzzy Cognitive Map (FCM) and Non-liner Hebbian Learning (NHL), this work modelled Farmer/Herder conflict in Nigeria as a nonlinear system and demonstrates the ability of the machine learning algorithms to provide control mechanism for the conflict system.  Factors understood to be influential in Farmer/Herder conflict were used to form FCM model that represents the conflict situation, while NHL was used as a control mechanism to find levels of weights between these causative factors that will minimize the conflict and maximize peace.   The result of the work showed that kee...