2,653 research outputs found
Analysing Changes in the Acoustic Features of the Human Voice to Detect Depression amongst Biological Females in Higher Education
Depression significantly affects a large percentage of the population, with young adult females being one of the most at-risk demographics. Concurrently, there is a growing demand on healthcare, and with sufficient resources often unavailable to diagnose depression, new diagnostic methods are needed that are both cost-effective and accurate. The presence of depression is seen to significantly affect certain acoustic features of the human voice. Acoustic features have been found to exhibit subtle changes beyond the perception of the human auditory system when an individual has depression. With advances in speech processing, these subtle changes can be observed by machines. By measuring these changes, the human voice can be analysed to identify acoustic features that show a correlation with depression. The implementation of voice diagnosis would both reduce the burden on healthcare and ensure those with depression are diagnosed in a timely fashion, allowing them quicker access to treatment. The research project presents an analysis of voice data from 17 biological females between the ages of 20-26 years old in higher education as a means to detect depression. Eight participants were considered healthy with no history of depression, whilst the other nine currently had depression. Participants performed two vocal tasks consisting of extending sounds for a period of time and reading back a passage of speech. Six acoustic features were then measured from the voice data to determine whether these features can be utilised as diagnostic indicators of depression. The main finding of this study demonstrated one of the acoustic features measured demonstrates significant differences when comparing depressed and healthy individuals.<br/
Effects of municipal smoke-free ordinances on secondhand smoke exposure in the Republic of Korea
ObjectiveTo reduce premature deaths due to secondhand smoke (SHS) exposure among non-smokers, the Republic of Korea (ROK) adopted changes to the National Health Promotion Act, which allowed local governments to enact municipal ordinances to strengthen their authority to designate smoke-free areas and levy penalty fines. In this study, we examined national trends in SHS exposure after the introduction of these municipal ordinances at the city level in 2010.MethodsWe used interrupted time series analysis to assess whether the trends of SHS exposure in the workplace and at home, and the primary cigarette smoking rate changed following the policy adjustment in the national legislation in ROK. Population-standardized data for selected variables were retrieved from a nationally representative survey dataset and used to study the policy action’s effectiveness.ResultsFollowing the change in the legislation, SHS exposure in the workplace reversed course from an increasing (18% per year) trend prior to the introduction of these smoke-free ordinances to a decreasing (−10% per year) trend after adoption and enforcement of these laws (β2 = 0.18, p-value = 0.07; β3 = −0.10, p-value = 0.02). SHS exposure at home (β2 = 0.10, p-value = 0.09; β3 = −0.03, p-value = 0.14) and the primary cigarette smoking rate (β2 = 0.03, p-value = 0.10; β3 = 0.008, p-value = 0.15) showed no significant changes in the sampled period. Although analyses stratified by sex showed that the allowance of municipal ordinances resulted in reduced SHS exposure in the workplace for both males and females, they did not affect the primary cigarette smoking rate as much, especially among females.ConclusionStrengthening the role of local governments by giving them the authority to enact and enforce penalties on SHS exposure violation helped ROK to reduce SHS exposure in the workplace. However, smoking behaviors and related activities seemed to shift to less restrictive areas such as on the streets and in apartment hallways, negating some of the effects due to these ordinances. Future studies should investigate how smoke-free policies beyond public places can further reduce the SHS exposure in ROK
Introduction to Psychology
Introduction to Psychology is a modified version of Psychology 2e - OpenStax
EXPRESSO: EXploring the PREvalence, Service utilisation and patient experience of Severe Obesity
Background
The study’s genesis is the author’s district nursing role caring for increasing numbers of individuals at home with severe obesity (BMI ≥40 kg/m2 ). Such individuals often experience physical disability and functional limitations associated with severe obesity, needing help at home from community health and social care services. Care needs can pose previously unknown challenges for care providers. Little evidence exists to guide quality of care, service development or effective use of resources.
Aim
To better characterise the population with BMI ≥40 kg/m2 who require help at home from community health and social care services.
Key questions are:
1. How many people known to health and social care services have a current BMI ≥40 kg/m2 ?
2. How many of these are known to be housebound or in care?
3. What health and social care services does the BMI ≥40 kg/m2 population use?
4. What are the costs of these health and social care services?
5. What are participants’ experiences of using these services?
Methods
A scoping review of international measured prevalence data on adult BMI ≥40 kg/m2 applied a broad search strategy, utilising diverse sources.
An instrumental case study approach was used to explore the approvals process for this mixed-methods, observational study, engaging routinely-collected data. In a representative United Kingdom local authority, consenting individuals with severe obesity were recruited via community health and social care professionals. Participants were visited at home by the investigator, where height and weight measures were taken using specialist weighing scales and alternative height measures where needed.
An investigator-administered questionnaire recorded participants’ self-reported need for help at home, including use of community health and social care services. Data were verified against routinely-collected data in health and social care records. Local and published sources informed a detailed micro-costing. Community services were also asked to identify eligible adults in a “census” of their caseloads.
A nested qualitative element involved participants undertaking individual, audiorecorded, semi-structured interviews, which were transcribed and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis.
Results
Eighteen countries, across five continents, reported BMI ≥40 kg/m2 prevalence data in surveys since 2010: 11% of eligible national surveys examined. Prevalence
of BMI ≥40 kg/m2 ranged from 1.3% (Spain) to 7.7% (USA) for all adults, 0.7% (Serbia) to 5.6% (USA) for men and 1.8% (Poland) to 9.7% (USA) for women. Limited trend data covering recent decades support significant growth of the population with BMI ≥40 kg/m2.
Formal approvals by nine separate stakeholders from four different organisations took nearly three years, including fifteen initial or revised applications, assessments, or agreements. Fragmented data systems, multiple data controllers, and a changing data governance environment created challenges to using routine data, requiring study design modification.
Twenty-five individuals (15 women) participated, aged 40-87 (mean=62) years, BMI 40-77 (mean=55) kg/m2 : 20 participants (80%) were housebound. Incomplete census data identified a further 261 eligible individuals.
Weights ranged from 98.4 to 211.8 kg (mean=150 kg), with 16 participants requiring bariatric scales. For six people unable to stand, wheelchair scales(n=1), bed weighing scales (n=2),
routine weights from care home records (n=2) or weight data from hospital records (n=1) were used. The standard portable stadiometer was usable for only one participant: Others required alternative measures from which to estimate height, which gave diverse heights.
Twenty-two different cross-sector community health and social care services were used. Only five participants had contact with weight management services. Twenty-four (96%) participants used three or more services, with longest care episode lasting over 14 years. Total annual service costs incurred by participants varied from £2,053 to £82,792 base case estimate, mean £26,594 (lower estimate £2,053 to £80,064, mean £22,462; upper estimate £2,053 to £88,870, mean £30,726), with greatest costs being for social care.
Nine women and three men (n=12) participated in qualitative interviews, aged 40-76 (mean 60) years, BMI ranged from 45-74 (mean 59) kg/m2 , eight were housebound. Three overarching themes were identified. Firstly, the hidden struggles of living with a larger body impacted all participants, including functional limitations affecting mobility and personal care. These contributed to a sense of being stuck physically, socially, and biographically, partially due to poor treatment options. A second theme found explicit weight bias was commonly, but not wholly, denied. However, most participants related implicit weight bias by a system structurally unprepared to care for people with severe obesity. The majority of participants showed strong internalised weight bias, linked to shame and self-blame for their poor function and larger bodies. Thirdly, a day-to-day coping theme highlighted strategies regularly used by participants: resigned acceptance, avoidance and denial, exercising choice, and support from informal carers.
Conclusion
Accurate prevalence data for the population with BMI ≥40 kg/m2 is under reported. International health surveys could improve data availability by publishing disaggregated data beyond BMI ≥30 kg/m2 . Current practice regarding anthropometric measures likely excludes people with severe obesity and functional limitations. Specialist scales and standardised methods for height estimation appropriate for people with severe obesity are needed. Lack of data impairs surveillance of population trends, understanding of causation, societal provision for individuals living with higher weights, and the effectiveness of future service planning.
Practitioners face a complex approvals process to use data they routinely collect for research or evaluation purposes. Data sources for poorly documented community health and social care services exist and are navigable at an individual level. Population-level usage of such records needs developed.
Adults with severe obesity, including those under 65 years, may need sustained care from multiple community care services, with potentially high annual costs. Economic evaluations of obesity and weight management need to include these wider care costs to ensure completeness.
Participants experienced unmet physical and psychological care needs associated with their larger bodies, leading to poor quality of care and life. Given rising prevalence, changes to care services are required. Specific recommendations include staff training about needs of people with severe obesity, ensuring the physical infrastructure of care services can safely accommodate people with severe obesity, and improving access to effective, person-centred weight management treatments, with strategies to tackle internalised weight bias.
Future research could explore how the duration and severity of obesity affects an individual’s functional limitations, subsequent need for care, and quality of life
Swallow, breathing and survival: sex-specific effects of opioids.
This dissertation presents a series of studies examining mechanisms of deglutition and respiration, and how these vital processes are impacted by opioids. The experiments in Chapter Two investigated the role of the upper esophagus in airway protection through systematic activation of pharyngeal and esophageal mechanoreceptors in a cat electromyography model. Chapter Three compared effects of opioid administration on breathing and swallowing between male and female rats, and found that females are more susceptible to opioid-induced depression of breathing and swallow than males. Findings from Chapters Two and Three led to the development of a translational model of opioid-induced dysphagia using videofluoroscopy. Chapter Four demonstrated that opioid administration resulted in a significant decline in airway protection during swallow in freely feeding, unrestrained cats. This work has advanced knowledge of the regulation of the upper aerodigestive tract, and its dual roles in breathing and swallowing. An improved understanding of the neural control of deglutition will facilitate the development of effective treatments for dysphagia. This dissertation includes the first study to compare effects of opioids on pharyngeal swallow between sexes, and provides mechanistic and clinically-translatable insights into opioid-induced dysphagia. Elucidating the actions of opioids on the brainstem breathing and swallowing networks will aid the prevention and treatment of opioid-induced respiratory depression and dysphagia related complications such as aspiration pneumonia
2017 GREAT Day Program
SUNY Geneseo’s Eleventh Annual GREAT Day.https://knightscholar.geneseo.edu/program-2007/1011/thumbnail.jp
Influences on Expert Intelligibility Judgments of School-age Children's Speech
Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) make impressionistic intelligibility judgments as part of an evaluation of children for speech sound disorders. Despite the lack of formalization, it is an important measure of choice for SLPs, going beyond single-word standardized measures by using spontaneous speech to assess functional communication. However, spontaneous speech introduces sources of error and bias in the listener. This dissertation argues that impressionistic intelligibility judgments are influenced by listener-dependent factors due to their subjectivity. To identify potential sources of error and bias, speech data were collected from four school-aged child groups: typically developing monolingual, children with speech sound disorder, typically developing Spanish-English bilingual (i.e., an accent familiar to the study’s listeners), and typically developing Mam-English bilingual (i.e., an accent unfamiliar to the study’s listeners), in two school-age groups. Perceiver data were collected from two listener groups (i.e., expert [SLP] and lay). Listeners provided baseline measurements of lab-based intelligibility scores and comprehensibility ratings by orthographically transcribing and rating audio recordings of experimentally controlled utterances. Listeners also made impressionistic global intelligibility assessments after viewing video recordings of children’s spontaneous speech. Findings showed differences between expert’s and lay listener’s global intelligibility assessments however experts were no better than lay listeners at discerning between age and speaker groups. Of the four speaker groups, there was a significant effect of the Mam-English bilingual speaker group on global intelligibility assessments. Relationships were found between global intelligibility assessments and both the lab-based intelligibility measure and the comprehensibility rating, indicating impressionistic judgments tap into both speech signal features and the understandability of speech. Surprisingly, the age and linguistic ability of the child speakers were not significant factors on global intelligibility assessments, so perhaps listeners were making accommodations for these differences in their assessments. These findings indicate the need for increased training of SLPs to reduce error and bias in their speech intelligibility judgments, as well as the need for further research to improve its objectivity
ACOUSTIC SPEECH MARKERS FOR TRACKING CHANGES IN HYPOKINETIC DYSARTHRIA ASSOCIATED WITH PARKINSON’S DISEASE
Previous research has identified certain overarching features of hypokinetic dysarthria
associated with Parkinson’s Disease and found it manifests differently between
individuals. Acoustic analysis has often been used to find correlates of perceptual
features for differential diagnosis. However, acoustic parameters that are robust for
differential diagnosis may not be sensitive to tracking speech changes. Previous
longitudinal studies have had limited sample sizes or variable lengths between data
collection. This study focused on using acoustic correlates of perceptual features to
identify acoustic markers able to track speech changes in people with Parkinson’s
Disease (PwPD) over six months. The thesis presents how this study has addressed
limitations of previous studies to make a novel contribution to current knowledge.
Speech data was collected from 63 PwPD and 47 control speakers using an online
podcast software at two time points, six months apart (T1 and T2). Recordings of a
standard reading passage, minimal pairs, sustained phonation, and spontaneous speech
were collected. Perceptual severity ratings were given by two speech and language
therapists for T1 and T2, and acoustic parameters of voice, articulation and prosody
were investigated. Two analyses were conducted: a) to identify which acoustic
parameters can track perceptual speech changes over time and b) to identify which
acoustic parameters can track changes in speech intelligibility over time. An additional
attempt was made to identify if these parameters showed group differences for
differential diagnosis between PwPD and control speakers at T1 and T2.
Results showed that specific acoustic parameters in voice quality, articulation and
prosody could differentiate between PwPD and controls, or detect speech changes
between T1 and T2, but not both factors. However, specific acoustic parameters within
articulation could detect significant group and speech change differences across T1 and
T2. The thesis discusses these results, their implications, and the potential for future
studies
Applying machine learning: a multi-role perspective
Machine (and deep) learning technologies are more and more present in several fields. It is undeniable that many aspects of our society are empowered by such technologies: web searches, content filtering on social networks, recommendations on e-commerce websites, mobile applications, etc., in addition to academic research. Moreover, mobile devices and internet sites, e.g., social networks, support the collection and sharing of information in real time. The pervasive deployment of the aforementioned technological instruments, both hardware and software, has led to the production of huge amounts of data. Such data has become more and more unmanageable, posing challenges to conventional computing platforms, and paving the way to the development and widespread use of the machine and deep learning. Nevertheless, machine learning is not only a technology. Given a task, machine learning is a way of proceeding (a way of thinking), and as such can be approached from different perspectives (points of view). This, in particular, will be the focus of this research. The entire work concentrates on machine learning, starting from different sources of data, e.g., signals and images, applied to different domains, e.g., Sport Science and Social History, and analyzed from different perspectives: from a non-data scientist point of view through tools and platforms; setting a problem stage from scratch; implementing an effective application for classification tasks; improving user interface experience through Data Visualization and eXtended Reality. In essence, not only in a quantitative task, not only in a scientific environment, and not only from a data-scientist perspective, machine (and deep) learning can do the difference
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