Statistical Machine Translation between Myanmar Sign Language and Myanmar Written Text

This paper contributes the first evaluation of the quality of automatic translation between Myanmar sign language (MSL) and Myanmar written text, in both directions. Our developing MSL-Myanmar parallel corpus was used for translations and the experiments were carried out using three different statistical machine translation (SMT) approaches: phrase-based, hierarchical phrase-based, and the operation sequence model. In addition, three different segmentation schemes were studies, these were syllable segmentation, word segmentation and sign unit based word segmentation. The results show that the highest quality machine translation was attained with syllable segmentations for both MSL and Myanmar written text

Development of Natural Language Processing based Communication and Educational Assisted Systems for the People with Hearing Disability in Myanmar

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) provide people with disabilities to better integrate socially and economically into their communities by supporting access to information and knowledge, learning and teaching situations, personal communication and interaction. Our research purpose is to develop systems that will provide communication and educational assistance to persons with hearing disability using Natural Language Processing (NLP). In this paper, we present corpus building for Myanmar sign language (MSL), Machine Translation (MT) between MSL, Myanmar written text (MWT) and Myanmar SignWriting (MSW) and two Fingerspelling keyboard layouts for Myanmar SignWriting. We believe that the outcome of this research is useful for educational contents and communication between hearing disability and general people

Functional Food, Myin-Khwa and its Antioxidant Activity and Acute Toxicity

In this research, Hydrocotyle asiatica Linn. (Myin-khwa) has been chosen for chemical analysis. From phytochemical analysis, Myin-khwa was known to contain polyphenols, flavonoids and phenolic compounds, so it was chosen to determine antioxidant activity and acute toxicity. Nutritional values including moisture (7.75), ash (8.66 %), protein (8.89 %), fat (1.68 %), fibre (1.46 %) and carbohydrate (4.11%) of Myin-khwa residues were also investigated. Mineral contents of Myin-khwa were analyzed by using AAS method. From this study, the adequate amount of Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Mn, Na and Zn were present in dry Myin-khwa. Acute toxicities of ethanolic extract of Myin-khwa was determined by using Wistar Strain Rats and antioxidant activities of Myin-khwa extracts with four kind of solvents such as distilled water, ethanol, n-hexane and ethylacetate were determined by using DPPH (1,1-diphenyl-2-picryl hydrazine) assay. The highest radical scavenging effect was observed in Myin-khwa with IC50 - 0.66µgml-1 . The potency of radical scavenging effect of EtOH extract of Myin-khwa was greater than standard antioxidant ascorbic acid. From the acute test, it was found that the median lethal dose (LD50) was more than 18g/kg when administered orally

Transfer Learning Based Myanmar Sign Language Recognition for Myanmar Consonants

Abstract— In this paper, a study on the different Transfer Learning models is made for the purpose of recognizing Myanmar Fingerspelling (Myanmar Sign Language) alphabets. This experiment shows that Transfer Learning can play a significant role for sign language recognition system and is capable of recognizing the static hand gesture images that represent the Myanmar consonants from က (ka) to အ (a). The main objective of this paper is to investigate the performance of various Transfer Learning models for Myanmar Fingerspelling recognition. We proposed 12 Transfer Learning models using TensorFlow library and the accuracy for each model is compared. Among these 12 models, VGG16, ResNet50 and MobileNet with epoch 50 yielded the highest accuracy score with 94%. Although there are some limitations in the datasets, each model provides the encouraging results and thus, it can believe that the fully generalizable recognition system based on Transfer Learning can be produced for all Myanmar Sign Language Fingerspelling characters by doing further research with more data

Two Fingerspelling Keyboard Layouts for Myanmar SignWriting

Sign language is the first language for the Deaf. The Deaf people could communicate with the hearing people by Sign language. The use of sign language technologies in the interface of computing systems to improve their accessibility for deaf signers. In this paper, we propose two fingerspelling keyboard layouts for typing Myanmar fingerspelling characters with SignWriting. Fingerspelling is used in sign language to spell out names of people and places for which there is not a sign. We discuss the usability of our approach based on the user study and the evaluation results. The evaluations were made in terms of typing speed CPM (Character per Minute) and Likert scale feedbacks from both hearing-impaired and hearing users. The outcome of the research will be useful in implementing Myanmar SignWriting text input interface for Myanmar sign language

A systems approach to trauma care in Myanmar: from health partnership to academic collaboration

Experience from a variety of disciplines suggests that improving healthcare, particularly in resource-poor environments, can benefit from a systems approach. However, putting this into practice is challenging, especially in the context of an international institutional health partnership. In this article, we outline how a systems approach to the improvement of trauma care has informed both clinical improvement and academic collaboration as part of an ongoing partnership involving Cambridge University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, the University of Cambridge, and Cambridge Global Health Partnerships in the UK, and Yangon General Hospital, University of Medicine 1, and the Tropical Health and Education Trust (THET) in Myanmar. Improving and researching trauma care is an exemplar of a systems problem, requiring an understanding of the relevant people, equipment, processes, institutions, and power structures that result in the delivery of care at all points of the patient’s journey from injury to rehabilitation. Exploring this in the explicit context of traumatic brain injury is one of the research themes of the NIHR Global Health Research Group on Neurotrauma, allowing systems research to directly inform efforts at practical improvement.NIHR Global Health Research Group on Neurotraum

Burden of Chikungunya Virus Infection during an Outbreak in Myanmar

Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) infection is a re-emerging arboviral disease with no approved vaccine, although numerous options are in development. Before vaccine implementation, disease burden, affected age group, and hospitalization rate information should be documented. In 2019, a sizeable outbreak of the East Central South African genotype of CHIKV occurred in Myanmar, and during this period, a cross-sectional study was conducted in two regions, Mandalay and Yangon, to examine the molecular and seropositivity rate of the CHIKV infection. The participants (1124) included dengue-suspected pediatric patients, blood donors, and healthy volunteers, who were assessed using molecular assays (quantitative real-time RT-PCR), serological tests (anti-CHIKV IgM capture and IgG indirect enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays), and neutralization tests. The tests confirmed the following positivity rates: 11.3% (127/1124) for the molecular assay, 12.4% (139/1124) for the anti-CHIKV IgM Ab, 44.5% (500/1124) for the anti-CHIKV IgG Ab, and 46.3% (520/1124) for the CHIKV neutralizing Ab. The highest rate for the molecular test occurred with the dengue-suspected pediatric patients. The seroprevalence rate through natural infection was higher in the healthy volunteers and blood donors than that in the pediatric patients. The results of this study will help stakeholders determine the criteria for choosing appropriate recipients when a CHIKV vaccine is introduced in Myanmar

Acute-phase Serum Cytokine Levels and Correlation with Clinical Outcomes in Children and Adults with Primary and Secondary Dengue Virus Infection in Myanmar between 2017 and 2019

The dengue virus (DENV) has been endemic in Myanmar since 1970, causing outbreaks every 2–3 years. DENV infection symptoms range from mild fever to lethal hemorrhage. Clinical biomarkers must be identified to facilitate patient risk stratification in the early stages of infection. We analyzed 45 cytokines and other factors in serum samples from the acute phase of DENV infection (within 3–5 days of symptom onset) from 167 patients in Yangon, Myanmar, between 2017 and 2019. All of the patients tested positive for serum DENV nonstructural protein 1 antigen (NS1 Ag); 78.4% and 62.9% were positive for immunoglobulin M (IgM) and G (IgG), respectively; and 18.0%, 19.8%, and 11.9% tested positive for serotypes 1, 3, and 4, respectively. Although the DENV-4 viral load was significantly higher than those of DENV-1 or DENV-3, disease severity was not associated with viral load or serotype. Significant correlations were identified between disease severity and CCL5, SCF, PDGF-BB, IL-10, and TNF-α levels; between NS1 Ag and SCF, CCL5, IFN-α, IL-1α, and IL-22 levels; between thrombocytopenia and IL-2, TNF-α, VEGF-D, and IL-6 levels; and between primary or secondary infection and IL-2, IL-6, IL-31, IL-12p70, and MIP-1β levels. These circulating factors may represent leading signatures in acute DENV infections, reflecting the clinical outcomes in the dengue endemic region, Myanmar