A genome-wide association study suggests that a locus within the ataxin 2 binding protein 1 gene is associated with hand osteoarthritis: the Treat-OA consortium

To identify the susceptibility gene in hand osteoarthritis (OA) the authors used a two-stage approach genome-wide association study using two discovery samples (the TwinsUK cohort and the Rotterdam discovery subset; a total of 1804 subjects) and four replication samples (the Chingford Study, the Chuvasha Skeletal Aging Study, the Rotterdam replication subset and the Genetics, Arthrosis, and Progression (GARP) Study; a total of 3266 people). Five single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) had a likelihood of association with hand OA in the discovery stage and one of them (rs716508), was successfully confirmed in the replication stage (meta-analysis p = 1.81×10−5). The C allele conferred a reduced risk of 33% to 41% using a case–control definition. The SNP is located in intron 1 of the A2BP1 gene. This study also found that the same allele of the SNP significantly reduced bone density at both the hip and spine (p<0.01), suggesting the potential mechanism of the gene in hand OA might be via effects on subchondral bone. The authors' findings provide a potential new insight into genetic mechanisms in the development of hand OA

Speech produced in noise: Relationship between listening difficulty and acoustic and durational parameters.

Conversational speech produced in noise can be characterised by increases in intelligibility relative to such speech produced in quiet. Listening difficulty (LD) is a metric that can be used to evaluate speech transmission performance more sensitively than intelligibility scores in situations in which performance is likely to be high. The objectives of the present study were to evaluate the LD of speech produced in different noise and style conditions, to evaluate the spectral and durational speech modifications associated with these conditions, and to determine whether any of the spectral and durational parameters predicted LD. Nineteen subjects were instructed to speak at normal and loud volumes in the presence of background noise at 40.5 dB(A) and babble noise at 61 dB(A). The speech signals were amplitude-normalised, combined with pink noise to obtain a signal-to-noise ratio of -6 dB, and presented to twenty raters who judged their LD. Vowel duration, fundamental frequency and the proportion of the spectral energy in high vs low frequencies increased with the noise level within both styles. LD was lowest when the speech was produced in the presence of high level noise and at a loud volume, indicating improved intelligibility. Spectrum balance was observed to predict LD

Assessment of Speech Dialog Systems using Multi-Modal Cognitive Load Analysis and Driving Performance Metrics

Abstract—In this paper, cognitive load analysis via acousticand CAN-Bus-based driver performance metrics is employed to assess two different commercial speech dialog systems (SDS) during in-vehicle use. Several metrics are proposed to measure increases in stress, distraction and cognitive load and we compare these measures with statistical analysis of the speech recognition component of each SDS. It is found that care must be taken when designing an SDS as it may increase cognitive load which can be observed through increased speech response delay (SRD), changes in speech production due to negative emotion towards the SDS, and decreased driving performance on lateral control tasks. From this study, guidelines are presented for designing systems which are to be used in vehicular environments. I

Automatic regularization of cross-entropy cost for speaker recognition fusion

Contains fulltext : 116325.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access)Interspeech 2013, 25 augustus 201

A large-scale collaborative effort for noise-robust speaker verification

Contains fulltext : 116114.pdf (author's version ) (Open Access)Interspeech 2013, 25 augustus 201