Comparison of word-, sentence, and phoneme-based training strategies in improving the perception of spectrally-distorted speech

Purpose: To compare the effectiveness of three self-administered strategies for auditory training that might improve speech perception by adult users of cochlear implants. The strategies are based, respectively, on discriminating isolated words, words in sentences, and phonemes in nonsense syllables. Method: Participants were 18 normally-hearing adults who listened to speech processed by a noise-excited vocoder to simulate the information provided by a cochlear implant. They were assigned randomly to word-, sentence-, or phoneme-based training and underwent nine 20-minute training sessions on separate days over a 2-3-week period. The effectiveness of training was assessed as the improvement in accuracy of discriminating vowels and consonants, and identifying words in sentences, relative to participants’ best performance in repeated tests prior to training. Results: Word- and sentence-based training led to significant improvements in the ability to identify words in sentences that were significantly larger than the improvements produced by phoneme-based training. There were no significant differences between the effectiveness of word- and sentence-based training. No significant improvements in consonant or vowel discrimination were found for the sentence- or phoneme-based training groups, but some improvements were found for the word-based training group. Conclusions: The word- and sentence-based training strategies were more effective than the phoneme-based strategy at improving the perception of spectrally-distorted speech

A multi-view approach to cDNA micro-array analysis

The official published version can be obtained from the link below.Microarray has emerged as a powerful technology that enables biologists to study thousands of genes simultaneously, therefore, to obtain a better understanding of the gene interaction and regulation mechanisms. This paper is concerned with improving the processes involved in the analysis of microarray image data. The main focus is to clarify an image's feature space in an unsupervised manner. In this paper, the Image Transformation Engine (ITE), combined with different filters, is investigated. The proposed methods are applied to a set of real-world cDNA images. The MatCNN toolbox is used during the segmentation process. Quantitative comparisons between different filters are carried out. It is shown that the CLD filter is the best one to be applied with the ITE.This work was supported in part by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the UK under Grant GR/S27658/01, the National Science Foundation of China under Innovative Grant 70621001, Chinese Academy of Sciences under Innovative Group Overseas Partnership Grant, the BHP Billiton Cooperation of Australia Grant, the International Science and Technology Cooperation Project of China under Grant 2009DFA32050 and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany

Optical techniques for 3D surface reconstruction in computer-assisted laparoscopic surgery

One of the main challenges for computer-assisted surgery (CAS) is to determine the intra-opera- tive morphology and motion of soft-tissues. This information is prerequisite to the registration of multi-modal patient-specific data for enhancing the surgeon’s navigation capabilites by observ- ing beyond exposed tissue surfaces and for providing intelligent control of robotic-assisted in- struments. In minimally invasive surgery (MIS), optical techniques are an increasingly attractive approach for in vivo 3D reconstruction of the soft-tissue surface geometry. This paper reviews the state-of-the-art methods for optical intra-operative 3D reconstruction in laparoscopic surgery and discusses the technical challenges and future perspectives towards clinical translation. With the recent paradigm shift of surgical practice towards MIS and new developments in 3D opti- cal imaging, this is a timely discussion about technologies that could facilitate complex CAS procedures in dynamic and deformable anatomical regions