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Spectral clustering has proven effective in grouping speech representations for speaker diarization tasks, although post-processing the affinity matrix remains difficult due to the need for careful tuning before constructing the Laplacian. In this study, we present a novel pruning algorithm to create a sparse affinity matrix called \emph{spectral clustering on p-neighborhood retained affinity matrix} (SC-pNA). Our method improves on node-specific fixed neighbor selection by allowing a variable number of neighbors, eliminating the need for external tuning data as the pruning parameters are derived directly from the affinity matrix. SC-pNA does so by identifying two clusters in every row of the initial affinity matrix, and retains only the top $p\%$ similarity scores from the cluster containing larger similarities. Spectral clustering is performed subsequently, with the number of clusters determined as the maximum eigengap. Experimental results on the challenging DIHARD-III dataset highlight the superiority of SC-pNA, which is also computationally more efficient than existing auto-tuning approaches., Comment: Submitted to ICASSP 2025

Alzheimer's disease (AD), characterized by progressive cognitive decline and memory loss, presents a formidable global health challenge, underscoring the critical importance of early and precise diagnosis for timely interventions and enhanced patient outcomes. While MRI scans provide valuable insights into brain structures, traditional analysis methods often struggle to discern intricate 3D patterns crucial for AD identification. Addressing this challenge, we introduce an alternative end-to-end deep learning model, the 3D Hybrid Compact Convolutional Transformers 3D (HCCT). By synergistically combining convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and vision transformers (ViTs), the 3D HCCT adeptly captures both local features and long-range relationships within 3D MRI scans. Extensive evaluations on prominent AD benchmark dataset, ADNI, demonstrate the 3D HCCT's superior performance, surpassing state of the art CNN and transformer-based methods in classification accuracy. Its robust generalization capability and interpretability marks a significant stride in AD classification from 3D MRI scans, promising more accurate and reliable diagnoses for improved patient care and superior clinical outcomes., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures