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The e-books industry is mature, and audiobooks are becoming increasingly popular. More and more publishers are coming to realize that audiobooks could be a potential revenue driver and intend to release audiobooks. Considering that there is a certain substitutability between e-books and audiobooks, publishers need to decide how to release a book in its audible version and its e-book version into the market. In this paper, we incorporate the discount factor and the consumers' acceptance level for audiobooks into the consumer utility by dividing consumers into two types, high-value type and low-value type, and construct two different release models: releasing the audiobook and the e-book simultaneously and releasing the audiobook after the e-book. Using an optimization tool, we investigate pricing strategies of a monopolistic publisher under two different release models. By comparing the theoretical results of the two models, we find that when the consumers' patience exceeds a certain threshold, releasing a book in its audible version after its e-book version is better for the publisher, and the publisher should adopt a skimming (refers to decreasing markups over time) pricing strategy for the e-book in this case. Further, the publisher should set a higher price for the audiobook than the e-book, whether or not they release the audiobook after the e-book. In addition, we conduct a numerical analysis to investigate how the discount factor, the percentage of high-value consumers, and the high-value consumers' acceptance level for audiobooks affect the consumer surplus and the social welfare. This study offers publishers some managerial insights into the complex issues involving pricing and release strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Maritime transport responsible for as much as 90% of world trade, currently suffers from a shortage of quali-fied officers. The 2010 International Convention on Standards of Training and Watchkeeping (STCW) en-courages the international community to promote employment at sea among young people, especially females. So far, the Cadet Record Book (CRB), based on International Seafarers' Federation (ISF) requirements is the basic and only document confirming obtaining the required qualifications by cadets to become an officer. Due to the continuous progress of technology and the maritime industry demands, the companies are developing their own (more detailed) cadet training systems. Such solutions enable a more detailed approach to training which results in better preparation for future work at sea. In this paper, one such system is presented in detail, which is already in use by one of the company and compares it to present training requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the discussion on papers available for publication. Topics include information quality of academic social networking sites exploring the everyday life information seeking behaviour of postgraduate students; showing substantial growth in the circulation of audio-books with genres being crime, science fiction, and fantasy; and focusing on the use of power through information sharing.

An editorial is presented which discusses article on several topics including within the field of information research dealing with different aspects of scientific activity. Topics discussed include small ethnic minority populations in China who are moved to resettlement areas, reading habits of Croatian library users during the Covid-19 pandemic, and six theoretical approaches to information behaviour along with the features and affordances of audiobook apps.

Copyright of Religious Studies / Dini Araştırmalar is the property of Diyanet Isleri Baskanligi Yayinlari and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Many early Japanese books record a large amount of information, including historical politics, economics, culture, and so on, which are all valuable legacies. These books are waiting to be reorganized at the moment. However, a large amount of the books are described by Kuzushiji, a type of handwriting cursive script that is no longer in use today and only readable by a few experts. Therefore, researchers are trying to detect and recognise the characters from these books through modern techniques. Unfortunately, the characteristics of the Kuzushiji, such as Connect‐Separate‐characters and Many‐variation, hinder the modern technique assisted re‐organisation. Connect‐Separate‐characters refer to the case of some characters connecting each other or one character being separated into unconnected parts, which makes character detection hard. Many‐variation is one of the typical characteristics of Kuzushiji, defined as the case that the same character has several variations even if they are written by the same person in the same book at the same time, which increases the difficulty of character recognition. In this sense, this paper aims to construct an early Japanese book reorganisation system by combining image processing and deep learning techniques. The experimentation has been done by testing two early Japanese books. In terms of character detection, the final Recall, Precision and F‐value reaches 79.8%, 80.3%, and 80.0%, respectively. The deep learning based character recognition accuracy of Top3 reaches 69.52%, and the highest recognition rate reaches 82.57%, which verifies the effectiveness of our proposal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Acta Histriae is the property of Historical Society of Southern Primorska of Koper and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Acta Zoologica Lilloana is the property of Fundacion Miguel Lillo and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Sociologia & Antropologia is the property of Sociologia & Antropologia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper, situated at the intersection of public and technical services, proposes a conceptual and theoretical foundation of advocacy for integrating audiobooks into library collections and programs. Suggestions are made primarily with librarians in public libraries in mind, although it is hoped that academic and special librarians will also benefit from them; these suggestions build on the analysis of the rising popularity of audiobooks as an accessible medium and a medium of choice for leisure readers with and without disabilities. The authors consider equal status for audiobooks and the wider acceptance of audiobooks through the combined lens of diversity and privilege. In their study, they survey extant literature (research-based, media, and social media publications); examine and synthesize it in a critical and innovative manner; propose new ways to consider the issues of advocacy and practice; and offer specific ideas for librarians to implement. The authors argue that some anxieties and concerns about audiobooks and audio-reading, among others, can derive from different types of privileges held by professionals and social groups, which becomes particularly important when they are endowed with decision-making power. These privileges include the privilege of body ability, the privilege of lifestyle, the Western privilege, the privilege of literacy, privileging format over story, and the privilege of citizenship and language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The general objective of this research is to analyze, through a descriptive methodology, the impact that audiobooks have on internal processes in the value chain of Spanish publishers. To this are added two more specific objectives related to answer the following questions: (a) how to include the agents of the audiobook in the publishing circuit?, and (b) is this new business model consolidated within the Spanish publishing sector? Through the analysis of the publishing circuit and the production flow chart, it is possible to observe not only the impact of the audiobook on the entire operational process of a publisher but the new actors in the publishing business scene. Based on the existing data on the audiobook business in Spain, the study concludes that today, the Spanish publishing sector has recently begun to perceive the economic potential of this sound format. The confinement by COVID-19 has led to a collateral effect on the production, marketing, and consumption of audiobooks, driven by the two large publishing groups that dominate the book market in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography of the Serbian Academy of Sciences & Arts / Glasnik Etnografskog Instituta SANU is the property of Institute of Ethnography, SASA and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Estudios de Cultura Maya is the property of Instituto de Investigaciones Filologicas - UNAM and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This paper investigates consumption patterns in digital subscription-based streaming services for books by means of a large-scale dataset derived from Storytel. The aim is twofold: to empirically discuss how book consumption in the commercial top segment diverges between print books and digital streaming platforms, and to conceptually show the usefulness and considerable possibilities with computational approaches for digital publishing studies and contemporary book history. This is accomplished by introducing the concept of the beststreamer, and the average finishing degree measure. The empirical output shows large differences between print bestsellers and digital beststreamers, both in terms of genre distributions, finished streams, and levels of completion. These results are discussed in relation to factors fostering consumption patterns, such as platform design, pricing models, supply, marketing, customer base, and media-specific features of the audiobook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the current way of elaboration of the topographical and cadastral documentation needed in the process of tracking the behavior of hydrotechnical constructions such as earth dam. The studied area is represented by the accumulation of Pârcovaci located in the Deleni territorial administrative unit in Iaşi county. Using topo-geodetic measurements the magnitude of the vertical displacement of the studied construction were determined. The measurements were performed during the exploitation period of the dam, during 23 series of observations. Thus, there were highlighted the displacements of landmarks located on coping dam, downstream slope and outlet tower. Charts of evolution over time of vertical deformation have been made according to field observation. Also, the suface of the land corresponding to the whole of the accumulation of Pârcovaci was registered at Office of Cadastre and Real Estate Advertising Iaşi, through first registration documentation. This has made precise spatial delimitation of the set of lands and construction of studied area, and the whole land was recorded in the land book by assigning a unique cadastral number. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Against the backdrop of accelerating the "national cyber development strategy", positive development momentum was seen in the digital publishing industry in China in 2018, generating a total revenue of RMB833.08 billion, exceeding the RMB800 billion mark, with an increase of 17.8% over the previous year. To fulfill the task of media integration for further development, higher requirements have been put forward for digital publishing, which is not in the face of new development opportunities and challenges. In this paper, we analyze the environment and development of the Digital Publishing Industry in 2018, propose countermeasures to further promote the development of digital publishing, and forecast the development trend of digital publishing in the coming year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper deals how to define relations between guests and organizational culture in museum. Guest books are lectured at temporary exhibitions presented at the Museum of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn, from the half of 20th Century up today. They are the source of analysis of the characteristics of the relationship between the museum and visitors as well as the review of opinions and assessments when receiving the exhibition. The exhibition is a product of the museum's organizational culture. The culture is the process and state that determines the hierarchy of values and activities, it decides about the identity of employees, as well as about the convictions the institution about itself. Statements about the museum and exhibitions, recorded in guest books, reflect the characteristics of organizational culture and they signal various ways of self-identification of the recipients of the exhibition. Contact is understood here as a state of compliance of the museum's mission and strategy as well as the intentions and goals of the visitor. Analysis of entries due to content will allow to find answers to the following questions: What are the symptoms of connecting the visitor to the museum? Which elements of the museum's organizational culture are distinguished by the visitor? What are the characteristics of the space of "contact"? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the influence of platformization on literary publishing, focusing on the impact of audiobooks and streaming services on editorial processes and business objectives. Increased importance of some genres, sliding concepts of quality, increasing dependency on social media, diminishing economic margins, and stricter editorial decisions are transitioning traits highlighted in this study on Norwegian trade publishers. Further, the analysis brings forward three central challenges to today's publishers: dependence on digital platforms to obtain readership, favoring simple narrative structures countering broader catalogues, and increased press on prioritizing in a market characterized by customization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The library channel is often underappreciated as a key part of a publisher's business strategy. In an age where publishers are constantly seeking new revenue and marketing opportunities, presence in the library-digitally-can yield significant growth. This paper examines the library channel, its business model based on library lending, the performance of eBooks and audiobooks across all subjects, and consumer reading behavior. Digital Book Clubs, a relatively new phenomenon, are also defined and illustrated with examples demonstrating the library's valuable role in increasing discoverability and ultimately sales. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On 26 April 1986, one of the most important events in the history of nuclear energy took place: the Chernobyl accident. This historic event marked the decline of the Soviet Union, an environmental agenda and new geopolitics of the world. It has been portrayed in literature, film, photo-reportage and documentary, among others. This paper seeks to analyse and contrast the HBO series Chernobyl (2019) and Svetalna Alexievich's Voices from Chernobyl (1997), specifically the relationship between reality and literary and filmic reconstruction. For this purpose, we use a descriptive-argumentative logic and a visual analysis with a mixed methodology. The analysis reveals a conflictive relationship between the two works, since the testimonies recorded in the book are easily recognisable in the series, although the latter has never specified that they are based on the book. Among the conclusions, the narrative structure carrying ideology (which seeks to strengthen a collective imaginary over the commonly accepted biases about the Soviet Union and its model of socialism), carried out with remarkable art direction, stands out. Finally, the series comes at a time of widespread debate in civil society about the use of nuclear energy, just as the end of the current model of fossil fuel-based energy generation for society and heavy industry approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audiobooks have gained significant popularity in China and other regions worldwide. While scholars and practitioners have extensively researched strategies to develop the audiobook market, limited attention has been given to the factors influencing audiences' attitude toward audiobooks, which is a gap this study aimed to explore. Survey data was collected from a total of 537 consumers and analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The results indicate that experiencing telepresence and emotional connectedness while listening to audiobooks positively contributes to audiences' affective outcomes, fostering their favorable attitude. The findings also reveal that narrator performance, background music, and the narrative style of an audiobook can potentially enhance telepresence and emotional connectedness. These results provide both theoretical insights and practical suggestions for audiobook publishers and other industry players. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Turkish Culture & Haci Bektas Veli Research Quarterly is the property of Turkish Cultur & Haci Bektas Veli Research Quarterly and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

From a high-frequency perspective, the order book data records each market participant's price expectations for the current underlying assets, and therefore it records the fundamental mechanism of pricing. In this paper, we propose a stationarized indicator based on the classical indicator – Order Flow Imbalance (OFI), and empirically find that there is a stronger linear relationship between the new indicator and the mid-price. Furthermore, we develop a statistical arbitrage strategy based on this new indicator. Compared with the classic indicator, the strategy built with the new indicator has better performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary focus of this paper is to examine the way the emotional categories of 'happiness' and 'sadness' are expressed vocally in the reading aloud of prose. In particular, the two semantic categories were analysed in terms of the pitch level and the pitch variability on a corpus based on 28 works written by Charles Dickens. passages with the intended emotional colouring were selected and the fragments found in the corresponding audiobooks. They were then analysed acoustically in terms of the mean F0 and the standard deviation of F0. The results for individual emotional passages were compared with a particular reader's mean pitch and standard deviation of pitch. The differences obtained in this way supported the initial assumptions that the pitch level and its standard deviation would raise in 'happy' extracts but lower in 'sad' ones. Nevertheless, not all of these tendencies could be statistically validated and additional examples taken from a selection of random novels by other nineteenth century writers were added. The statistical analysis of the larger samples confirmed the assumed tendencies but also indicated that the two semantic domains may utilise the acoustic parameters under discussion to varying degrees. While 'happiness' tends to be signalled primarily by raising F0, 'sadness' is communicated mostly by lowering the variability of F0. Changes in the variability of F0 seem to be of less importance in the former case, and shifts in the F0 level less significant in the latter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we describe an adaptive speech rate control technology for ultrafast listening that is equivalent to skimming. Nowadays, listening to audio books on mobile devices is quite common. Therefore, in the future we will obtain ever-increasing amounts of information through speech instead of conventional printed materials. People read books at various levels of detail from close reading to skimming. Although a similar feature to skimming is required to efficiently obtain information from audio sources, there is no tool equivalent to skimming for audio playback. Thus, we have developed a new speech rate conversion method to efficiently obtain information from audio sources with very fast replay. This algorithm will help not only sighted people to enjoy audio books but also visually impaired people because almost all of their information is obtained from speech. Thus, the implementation of this technology on special audio players for visually impaired people as a new replay function is expected to be useful. Moreover, this technology should be useful for all audio book listeners, not only people with limited sight. 1 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper discusses the Arapaima gigas' fisheries in the Araguaia River and the debates around this activity through the analysis of the photographic records published in the books Charm of the West (Encantos do Oeste) by Agenor Couto de Magalhães (1945) and Dramas of the West (Dramas do Oeste) by Leolídio Di Ramos Caiado (195?). The interconnections between the books are understood as an active part of the political controversies related to the fishing activity in the mentioned river. The photographic records of pirarucus fishes are directly related to the local contradictions and controversies coupled to the policies and ideology of the "March towards the West" and to the phenomenon of tourism intensification. The specimens captured and photographed were part and fomented two distinct speculations about the future of the Araguaia River: one linked to the success of tourism and the fishing industry and the second one related to the extinction of the species A. gigas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes the probabilistic-keyword CF method for a library book recommendation system. Our focus is to address the sparsity problem commonly occurs on the Collaborative Filtering (CF) approach. The framework of the method consists of four processes. First, building the circulation and keyword matrices respectively based on the book circulation records and the book keyword attribute data. Second, building the keyword model that takes into account both the book circulation records and the book keyword data. Third, building the probabilistic-keyword model that employs a probabilistic technique to calculate the probability of a user to borrow a book conditional to his/her keyword model. Fourth, generating the top- N book recommendations. Experiment results on a library dataset show that our probabilistic-keyword CF method outperforms the traditional user-based and item-based CF methods in terms of all evaluation metrics. This result conjectures that the probabilistic-keyword CF method that employs the probabilistic-keyword model can enhance the recommendation performance and is able to deal with the sparse dataset better than the traditional methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University courses in ethics are designed to help a student develop their moral character. But while classroom work provides students with knowledge, it is often not sufficient for deeper character development. The students also need some sort of practical engagement with people in their surrounding communities. This interaction creates both individual reflection and social awareness. Service-learning is a program which encourages the participants to learn and develop their moral characters through working in the community. During this interaction, both participants and community members learn by sharing and exchanging their experiences. But the question remains how effective this program is in creating awareness of communities outside of the orbit of the typical university experience? This paper, uses a case study of an audio-book program developed at Assumption University of Thailand called: 'AU Voice for the Blind.' It will demonstrate on both a theoretical and practical level how the student participant's values are shaped by such learning experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some key questions for publishers in today’s market are: Could Amazon’s recent merger and acquisitions strategy create a disruptive or paradigm shifting business model in the publishing industry? Do their recent actions post mergers and acquisitions illustrate a predicable pattern of behaviour that publishers can strategize around? This paper will explore these questions and look at some of the possible reasons behind Amazon’s business practices and the possible consequences to publishers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the controllability of an Expressive TTS system trained on a dataset for a continuous control. The dataset is the Blizzard 2013 dataset based on audiobooks read by a female speaker containing a great variability in styles and expressiveness. Controllability is evaluated with both an objective and a subjective experiment. The objective assessment is based on a measure of correlation between acoustic features and the dimensions of the latent space representing expressiveness. The subjective assessment is based on a perceptual experiment in which users are shown an interface for Controllable Expressive TTS and asked to retrieve a synthetic utterance whose expressiveness subjectively corresponds to that a reference utterance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sikchi begins with mankind's efforts to maintain life while consuming natural food. The history of Korean food, a long experience of adapting to nature, can be found since prehistoric times. For example, Bangudae (a rock picture of hunting whales) showed how individuals gained knowledge on edible things in nature to survive. Also, Korea's specific vegetation, climate, and culture led to development of the Sikchi suitable for Koreans. The myth of Dangun of Gojoseon dynasty demonstrated the first historical record of the Sikchi. Although the Sikchi theory was established in China, Korean food therapy was systematized and developed into a unique diet that reflects our hyangyak (Korean herbal medicine) and constitution. For the king and royal family's health, Seungjeongwon-Ilgi (national-level documents of royal records) and other medical books recorded many examples of Sikchi practice, which were different from China or Japan. The wide spread of the royal Sikchi practice among citizens promoted the notion that food was a useful way to promote health and treat disease. The Sikchi should be seen as not only a kind of life-sustaining method but medicine and food-based medicinal food therapy. Further, the Sikchi refers to the treatment process of adjusting the gaps between medicine and the patient's condition with the mercenary technique called sumgoreugi (take a breather). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Audiobooks have recently become more prevalent in the publishing industry. Vietnam is a potential market for audiobook companies, and audiobook apps are soaring in popularity in this country. This study examines how consumers perceive audiobook apps' consumption values, including functional value, social value, emotional value, epistemic value, and conditional value. Data were obtained from 1041 Vietnamese consumers using an online survey method. Results show that conditional value had the highest mean score, followed by epistemic value and emotional value. Notably, consumers hold negative perceptions of audiobook apps' functional value, especially regarding their reliability and consistency. The findings also suggest that consumers will use audiobook apps more if there are more discounts, promotional benefits, and books available in the apps. This study is the first to explain how consumers perceive the different consumption values of audiobook apps, which have important implications for audiobook companies, publishers and app developers to promote audiobooks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Language is fundamentally predictable, both on a higher schematic level as well as low-level lexical items. Regarding predictability on a lexical level, collocations are frequent co-occurrences of words that are often characterized by high strength of association. So far, psycho- and neurolinguistic studies have mostly employed highly artificial experimental paradigms in the investigation of collocations by focusing on the processing of single words or isolated sentences. In contrast, here we analyze EEG brain responses recorded during stimulation with continuous speech, i.e., audio books. We find that the N400 response to collocations is significantly different from that of non-collocations, whereas the effect varies with respect to cortical region (anterior/posterior) and laterality (left/right). Our results are in line with studies using continuous speech, and they mostly contradict those using artificial paradigms and stimuli. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first neurolinguistic study on collocations using continuous speech stimulation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Austral Comunicacion is the property of Austral Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In 1919, the European bison population became extinct in the wild. The rescue of the lowland subspecies and the whole species was achieved mainly thanks to individuals from the Białowieża Forest (Polish-Belarusian border). There are currently two breeding lines—the lowland (purebred B. b. Bonasus) founded by 7 individuals and the lowland-Caucasian (hybrids of B. b. Bonasus and B. b. caucasicus) founded by 12 individuals. This genealogical study was conducted on 15,071 individuals recorded in the pedigree book between 1881 and 2020. Its objective was to determine the level of genetic variability and inbreeding almost 100 years after the rescue measures were initiated. The completeness of the pedigree of the reference population was 77% in the fifth generation backwards. A maximum of 23 generations can be traced back in the pedigree. The average inbreeding coefficient and the mean average relatedness of the reference population were very high, about 17% and 16% respectively. No significant amount of new inbreeding was discovered. The reference population has lost 9.11% of the total genetic diversity compared to the population of founders. A male of the Caucasian subspecies Kaukasus was discovered among the ancestors of the lowland lineage reference population. The effective population size calculated based on the increase in inbreeding was 23.93 individuals, based on complete generations equivalent it was 16.1 individuals. Wright's F-statistics showed very small differences in genotypic frequencies between individuals within the two lineages in the reference population (FIS = 0.10), between individuals and the total population (FIT = 0.04) and low differentiation between lineages (FST = 0.06). The population of the European bison from the Białowieża Forest is generally very uniform but still shows good fitness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding spoken language requires transforming ambiguous acoustic streams into a hierarchy of representations, from phonemes to meaning. It has been suggested that the brain uses prediction to guide the interpretation of incoming input. However, the role of prediction in language processing remains disputed, with disagreement about both the ubiquity and representational nature of predictions. Here, we address both issues by analyzing brain recordings of participants listening to audiobooks, and using a deep neural network (GPT-2) to precisely quantify contextual predictions. First, we establish that brain responses to words are modulated by ubiquitous predictions. Next, we disentangle model-based predictions into distinct dimensions, revealing dissociable neural signatures of predictions about syntactic category (parts of speech), phonemes, and semantics. Finally, we show that high-level (word) predictions inform low-level (phoneme) predictions, supporting hierarchical predictive processing. Together, these results underscore the ubiquity of prediction in language processing, showing that the brain spontaneously predicts upcoming language at multiple levels of abstraction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We obtain a narrower and more reliable range of the delay of Earth's rotation, Δ T , than those obtained before. At the same time, we determine the observation sites of these eclipses in the early seventh century. The eclipses are the one on AD 616 May 21 recorded in the history book Suíshū of the Suí dynasty, and the one on AD 628 April 10 recorded in the first official Japanese history book Nihon Shoki (also called as Nihongi). Our method of analysis is to express multiple observations simultaneously on the "Sôma" diagram in which the ordinate is Δ T and the abscissa is the correction to the coefficient of the lunar tidal term. In order to increase the reliability of the present result, we analyze several solar eclipses and an occultation of Mars during the period from the fifth century to the end of the seventh century. These analyses show the short-term variations of Δ T off the smoothed spline curves of Stephenson, Morrison, and Hohenkerk (2016, Proc. R. Soc. A, 472, 20160404). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Convexity has played a prodigious role in various areas of science through its properties and behavior. Convexity has booked record developments in the field of mathematical inequalities in the recent few years. The Slater inequality is one of the inequalities which has been acquired with the help of convexity. In this note, we obtain some estimations for the Slater gap while dealing with the notion of convexity in an extensive manner. We acquire the deliberated estimations by utilizing the definition of convex function, Jensen's inequality for concave functions, and triangular, power mean, and Hölder inequalities. We discuss several consequences of the main results in terms of inequalities for the power means. Moreover, by utilizing the main results, we give estimations for the Csiszár and Kullback–Leibler divergences, Shannon entropy, and the Bhattacharyya coefficient. Furthermore, we present some estimations for the Zipf–Mandelbrot entropy as additional applications of the acquired results. The perception and approaches adopted in this note may pretend more research in this direction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ReDigi, Inc. was argued in the Southern District of New York (SDNY) [Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., No. 1:2012cv00095—Document 109 (S.D.N.Y. 2013)]. ReDigi maintained that their online digital resale market was permissible under the First Sale doctrine of 17 U.S.C. (§109(a) in the Copyright Law of the U.S. because of substantive technological changes. The court rejected their argument; and the court ascertained ReDigi had violated the Copyright Law of the U.S. because of their infringement by creating an internet platform designed to enable the resale of digital products. ReDigi appealed to the 2nd Circuit [Capitol Records, LLC v. ReDigi Inc., No. 16–2321 (2d Cir. 2018)]. The 2nd Circuit determined that ReDigi had infringed on the plaintiff's exclusive rights under 17 U.S.C. §106(1). ReDigi appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Justices turned down ReDigi's appeal. Consequently, the resale market of digital e-books and audiobooks is illegal in the U.S. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article analyzes an important aspect of early modern Russian culture: the emergence and evolution of the autobiographical genre within the framework of traditional Old Russian manuscript heritage. The earliest personal notes, that can be defined proto-autobiographical, appeared in the Muscovite state in the seventeenth century within the ruling and intellectual elite, while the less 'enlightened' social groups turned to the autobiographical genre in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. For the most part, early Russian autobiographical texts are either memo records or inscriptions on the margins of manuscripts or printed books. The article investigates the emergence of the new autobiographical genre within the framework of traditional Russian mediaeval forms; it analyzes several models used by Russian authors of the early modern and modern period in their search for an appropriate form to note down their personal records: in textbooks and notebooks, bookkeeping ledgers, as additions to a handwritten miscellanea, as marginalia in a manuscript book or a printed one. The case studies examined reveal the ways in which, while retaining their original traditional character, the works in which the personal annotations were inscribed underwent an inner transformation precisely because of the autobiographical additions, thus acquiring a new function by being transformed into record books. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a literature review of research on the topics of audiobooks and electronic books, with particular focus given to research on their place in libraries. Summaries of research on topics including online reading, electronic books in the classroom, and use of electronic books by college students are offered, and the author's assertion that libraries must be prepared to move beyond traditional media is examined. Suggestion for building and marketing e-book and audiobook collections are also provided.

The article reports on a conference entitled "Die Matrix des Hörbuches" (The Matrix of the Audiobook), held at the Ruhr University of Bochum, Germany, from December 7-9, 2010. The papers presented addressed the relationship between the written and the spoken word in literature and literary production, including, for example, questions of orality and literacy in the Romantic movement, the effect of listening and reading on the perception of poetry, and methods of literary analysis for audiobooks.

This paper describes how digital talking books (DTBs) with embedded functionality for learners can be generated from content structured according to the OU OpenLearn schema. It includes examples showing how a software transformation developed from open source components can be used to remix OpenLearn content, and discusses issues concerning the generation of synthesised speech for educational purposes. Factors which may affect the quality of a learner's experience with open educational audio resources are identified, and in conclusion plans for testing the effect of these factors are outlined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author talks about her library's teen advisory group (TAG) and examines TAG members' attitude on technology and its impact on their lives. Particular focus is given to Pew Internet studies on technology use and ownership among American teenagers. Topics discussed include paper books versus ebooks preference, the appeal of paper books, advantages and disadvantages of audiobooks, and the primary device used by TAG members.

Mobile phones are used in almost all aspects of life by people. But in the case of visually impaired, they are still a step behind in using smart phones for various purposes. Having interactive android OS, navigation and travel aiding apps using sensors and voice user interfaces (VUI) or the voice response systems, we are still a step lagging in giving them an application for educational purposes. This paper proposes a complete new idea of having a portal where they can store audio books aided with interactive system so that they can use them whenever needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. The study objective was to estimate the burden of human rabies in Ethiopia from 2015–2019. Study Design. A descriptive study design was applied to measure the size of the problem. Method. Retrospective data were used from the Ethiopian Public Health Institute rabies case record book that was registered between 2015 to 2019. Result. Eighty-seven (87) cases of human rabies were diagnosed clinically in the Ethiopian Public Health Institute over the period of five years (2015–2019) with 100% case fatality. Of these, 83 (95.4%) cases were attributed to dog bites, whereas 1 (1.1%) to a cat and 3 (3.4%) to wild animals. The fatalities were from Oromia (n = 51 (58.6%), 13 (14.9%) were from Amhara, 15 (17.2%) were from Addis Ababa, and 8 (9.2%) from the Southern region. All referred cases had no record of immunization against rabies except eight. Ineffective postexposure treatment was the reason for 5 (5.7%) deaths. Out of 1,652 brain samples of different animals, mainly dogs, submitted for examination, 1,122 (68%) were found to be positive for rabies by the FAT. Dog bites were more common among males than females. The number of dog bite victims who had visited the EPHI counseling office and recommended to take postexposure prophylaxis against rabies both from Addis Ababa and the surrounding areas were 9,592 and 4,192, respectively. Out of these, 5,708 were males and 3,884 females for the capital Addis Ababa. Similarly, 2,439 males and 1,753 females account for areas surrounding Addis Ababa. Among those exposed from Addis Ababa, 1,079 (11.2%) were in the age group less than five, 1696 (17.7%) were in the age group 6–13, and 6,817 (71.1%) in the age group 14 and greater. Victims from outside of the capital Addis Ababa account for 644 (15.4%) for the age group less than 5 years, 964 (23%) for the age group 6–13 and, 2,584 (61.6%) for the age group 14 and greater. Conclusion. Mechanisms must be sought to reduce the cost of PEP and means of obtaining funds so as to initiate timely treatment for rabies exposed individuals of low socioeconomic status. Besides prevention, strategies should focus on public education and strict dog population control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]