Data analytics are now playing a more important role in the modern industrial systems. Driven by the development of information and communication technology, an information layer is now added to the conventional electricity transmission and distribution network for data collection, storage and analysis with the help of wide installation of smart meters and sensors. This paper introduces the big data analytics and corresponding applications in smart grids. The characterizations of big data, smart grids as well as huge amount of data collection are firstly discussed as a prelude to illustrating the motivation and potential advantages of implementing advanced data analytics in smart grids. Basic concepts and the procedures of the typical data analytics for general problems are also discussed. The advanced applications of different data analytics in smart grids are addressed as the main part of this paper. By dealing with huge amount of data from electricity network, meteorological information system, geographical information system etc., many benefits can be brought to the existing power system and improve the customer service as well as the social welfare in the era of big data. However, to advance the applications of the big data analytics in real smart grids, many issues such as techniques, awareness, synergies, etc., have to be overcome.

The behavioral and electrophysiological results demonstrate impaired categorical perception of lexical tones in Chinese children with dyslexia. Our findings support the hypothesis that children affected by dyslexia have a general deficit in categorical perception of speech, which generalizes to nonalphabetic languages at the suprasegmental level.

Flattening the fundamental frequency (F0) contours of Mandarin Chinese sentences reduces their intelligibility in noise but not in quiet. It is unclear, however, how the absence of primary acoustic cue for lexical tones might be compensated with the top-down information of sentence context. In this study, speech intelligibility was evaluated when participants listened to sentences and word lists with or without F0 variations in quiet and noise. The results showed that sentence context partially explained the unchanged intelligibility of monotonous Chinese sentences in quiet and further indicate that F0 variations and sentence context act in concert during speech comprehension.