Sibilant consonants classification with deep neural networks

Abstract. Many children su ering from speech sound disorders cannot pronounce the sibilant consonants correctly. We have developed a serious game that is controlled by the children's voices in real time and that allows children to practice the European Portuguese sibilant consonants. For this, the game uses a sibilant consonant classi er. Since the game does not require any type of adult supervision, children can practice the production of these sounds more often, which may lead to faster improvements of their speech. Recently, the use of deep neural networks has given considerable improvements in classi cation for a variety of use cases, from image classication to speech and language processing. Here we propose to use deep convolutional neural networks to classify sibilant phonemes of European Portuguese in our serious game for speech and language therapy. We compared the performance of several diferent arti cial neural networks that used Mel frequency cepstral coefcients or log Mel lterbanks. Our best deep learning model achieves classi cation scores of 95:48% using a 2D convolutional model with log Mel lterbanks as input features.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Safety of intravenous ferric carboxymaltose versus oral iron in patients with nondialysis-dependent CKD: an analysis of the 1-year FIND-CKD trial.

Background: The evidence base regarding the safety of intravenous (IV) iron therapy in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) is incomplete and largely based on small studies of relatively short duration. Methods: FIND-CKD (ClinicalTrials.gov number NCT00994318) was a 1-year, open-label, multicenter, prospective study of patients with nondialysis-dependent CKD, anemia and iron deficiency randomized (1:1:2) to IV ferric carboxymaltose (FCM), targeting higher (400-600 µg/L) or lower (100-200 µg/L) ferritin, or oral iron. A post hoc analysis of adverse event rates per 100 patient-years was performed to assess the safety of FCM versus oral iron over an extended period. Results: The safety population included 616 patients. The incidence of one or more adverse events was 91.0, 100.0 and 105.0 per 100 patient-years in the high ferritin FCM, low ferritin FCM and oral iron groups, respectively. The incidence of adverse events with a suspected relation to study drug was 15.9, 17.8 and 36.7 per 100 patient-years in the three groups; for serious adverse events, the incidence was 28.2, 27.9 and 24.3 per 100 patient-years. The incidence of cardiac disorders and infections was similar between groups. At least one ferritin level ≥800 µg/L occurred in 26.6% of high ferritin FCM patients, with no associated increase in adverse events. No patient with ferritin ≥800 µg/L discontinued the study drug due to adverse events. Estimated glomerular filtration rate remained the stable in all groups. Conclusions: These results further support the conclusion that correction of iron deficiency anemia with IV FCM is safe in patients with nondialysis-dependent CKD