UCSY-SC1: A Myanmar speech corpus for automatic speech recognition

This paper introduces a speech corpus which is developed for Myanmar Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) research. Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) research has been conducted by the researchers around the world to improve their language technologies. Speech corpora are important in developing the ASR and the creation of the corpora is necessary especially for low-resourced languages. Myanmar language can be regarded as a low-resourced language because of lack of pre-created resources for speech processing research. In this work, a speech corpus named UCSY-SC1 (University of Computer Studies Yangon - Speech Corpus1) is created for Myanmar ASR research. The corpus consists of two types of domain: news and daily conversations. The total size of the speech corpus is over 42 hrs. There are 25 hrs of web news and 17 hrs of conversational recorded data.The corpus was collected from 177 females and 84 males for the news data and 42 females and 4 males for conversational domain. This corpus was used as training data for developing Myanmar ASR. Three different types of acoustic models  such as Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM) - Hidden Markov Model (HMM), Deep Neural Network (DNN), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) models were built and compared their results. Experiments were conducted on different data  sizes and evaluation is done by two test sets: TestSet1, web news and TestSet2, recorded conversational data. It showed that the performance of Myanmar ASRs using this corpus gave satisfiable results on both test sets. The Myanmar ASR  using this corpus leading to word error rates of 15.61% on TestSet1 and 24.43% on TestSet2

Seismic Risk Analysis for Critical Infrastructure: The Case Study of a Medical Center and its Supporting Systems in Yangon, Myanmar

Myanmar has a great strike-slip active fault called the “Sagaing Fault Zone” besides the Sumatra-Andaman Subduction Zone. Major cities (Yangon, Naypyitaw, Bago and Mandalay) are at risk along this fault. Recently, in 2012, Thabeikkyin earthquake with Magnitude of 6.8 caused collapse of many residential housings and ground failures near Mandalay. Therefore more attention should be paid for Yangon which has no large earthquakes since 1930 and is the largest not only in population but also in socio-economic activity. One of the most important concerns after an earthquake is to survive under any disastrous conditions. The medical care is requested not only for emergent injured people after an earthquake, but also for various types of patient and aged people from several weeks to longer periods. So medical center must be always functional before and after earthquake. For this purpose, medical buildings should be structurally resilient and also be functional for medical services by sustainable supply of electric power, water and any other delivery service which can be carried out by urban lifeline systems. This research is to investigate the structural vulnerability of hospital buildings and facilities, to assess the performance of urban lifeline systems and to check the operational capability of medical services in which surgical capability and life safety management method should be discussed. The water supply system is adopted as a typical lifeline system in Yangon in this study. One sample medical center in Yangon is adopted to carry out this analysis. Finally, the performance of medical services after the earthquakes can be assessed in a probabilistic manner

A Study of Burkholderia pseudomallei in the Environment of Farms in Thanlyin and Hmawbi Townships, Myanmar.

Melioidosis is a tropical infection, first described in Myanmar but now rarely diagnosed there, which is widespread in Southeast Asia. The infection is predominantly acquired by people and animals through contact with soil or water. This study aimed to detect the causative organism, Burkholderia pseudomallei, in environmental samples from farms in Thanlyin and Hmawbi townships near Yangon, Myanmar. One hundred and twenty soil samples and 12 water samples were collected and processed using standard microbiological methods. Burkholderia species were isolated from 50 of the 120 (42%) soil samples but none of the water samples. Arabinose assimilation was tested to differentiate between B. pseudomallei and the nonpathogenic Burkholderia thailandensis, and seven of 50 isolates (14%) were negative. These were all confirmed as B. pseudomallei by a species-specific multiplex polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This is the first study to detect environmental B. pseudomallei in Myanmar and confirms that melioidosis is still endemic in the Yangon area

The legend of laphet: A Myanmar fermented tea leaf

Background: Laphet, a Myanmar traditional fermented tea leaf, has been developed as an ethnic food. It has a very long history in Myanmar. In ancient times fermented tea leaves were used as a peace symbol or peace offering between warring kingdoms. Nowadays, the laphet tray is a main expression of hospitality offering to houseguests. Methods: The culture of laphet, the production of laphet from tea leaves, and the health benefits of its active compounds were analyzed from scientific articles on fermented tea leaf, green tea, and collected data from tea leaf-producing areas. Results: Laphet is of Myanmar origin and not derived from other cultures. It is an essential popular dish for traditional ceremonies in Myanmar. The polyphenolic compounds remain in laphet after the fermentation of tea leaves. Conclusion: Fermentation is the traditional method. Epigallocatechin gallate is a powerful constituent of laphet for human health. Its caffeinated effect is also popular in Myanmar society. This study will contribute to understanding Myanmar fermented tea leaves and spread the legend of laphet around the world

CRYPTOSPORIDIOSIS IN MYANMAR INFANTS WITH ACUTE DIARRHEA

Abstract. Cryptosporidiosis has been found in Myanmar for the first time in infants presenting with a mild transient form of acute diarrhea. A total of 203 fecal samples collected from those infants were examined by Kinyoun's acid fast modified method. 3.4% of infants between 2 and I I months of age were found passing cryptosporidium oocysts. All casespresented with features consistent with findings reported by other authors from developing countries. Cryptosporidium was the sole microorganism isolated. Hence, cryptosporidiosis may be responsible for acute diarrhea in these Myanmar infants

Building HMM-SGMM Continuous Automatic Speech Recognition on Myanmar Web News

Myanmar language is a tonal and analyticlanguage. It can be considered as an under-resourcedlanguage because of its linguistic resource availability.Therefore, speech data collection is a very challengingtask in building Myanmar automatic speechrecognition. Today a lot of speech data are freelyavailable on the Internet and we can collect it easily.Therefore, in this system, we take the advantages ofInternet and we use daily news from the Web inbuilding our speech corpus. In this paper, we willpresent about the task of data collection, the effect ofAutomatic Speech Recognition (ASR) performanceaccording to amount of training data, language modelsize and error analysis of the experimental result. Theexperiments will be developed using Hidden MarkovModel (HMM) with Gaussian Mixture Model (GMM)and Subspace Gaussian Mixture Model (SGMM). As aresult, using our developed 5 hours training data, thissystem achieves word error rate (WER) of 7.6% onclose test data and 31.9% on open test data withHMM-SGMM

Transfusion-Associated Graft-Versus-Host Disease in Two Patients at Yangon General Hospital

Transfusion-associated graft-versus-host disease (TA-GVHD) is a rare complication&nbsp;of blood transfusion. Two male patients admitted to the Department of Clinical Haematology,&nbsp;Yangon General Hospital (YGH) diagnosed to have TA-GVHD in 2011 and in 2016 are presented. Both of the patients received blood donation from close relatives where&nbsp;neither leukoreduction nor irradiation was done. Both patients had fever, skin rashes,gastrointestinal symptoms, raised liver enzymes and pancytopenia. Skin biopsies of both patients showed characteristic histological changes. Unlike graft-versus-host disease that&nbsp;occurred after haemopoeitic stem cell transplantation, TA-GVHD involves the recipient&rsquo;s&nbsp;bone marrow leading to bone marrow aplasia</p

Barrier Curvature Dependent Transmission Probabilities for 16O+12C, 16O+58Ni, 16O+154Sm Systems

The transmission probabilities through the Coulomb barrier for reactions having difference barrier curvatures have been calculated. We have chosen three heavy-ion fusion reactions with a fixed projectile and three targets in different mass region, namely, 16O+12C, 16O+58Ni, 16O+154Sm systems. The transmission probability for each system is evaluated by using parabolic approximation of potential barrier. It is found that the variation of transmission probability depends on the different curvature of Coulomb barriers of colliding systems. For lighter systems, the transmission probability is closer to that of classical result. As the system becomes heavier, the curvature of the barrier becomes larger and consequently the deviation from the classical limit becomes significant. Thus, the quantum effect in transmission probability is found to be larger in heavy-ion fusion reactions with heavy target than those of lighter ones

Mobile Health App for Tuberculosis Screening and Compliance to Undergo Chest X-ray Examination Among Presumptive Cases Detected by the App in Myanmar: Usability Study

BackgroundIn Myanmar, the use of a mobile app for tuberculosis (TB) screening and its operational effect on seeking TB health care have not been evaluated yet. ObjectiveThis study aims to report the usability of a simple mobile app to screen TB and comply with chest X-ray (CXR) examination of presumptive cases detected by the app. MethodsA new “TB-screen” app was developed from a Google Sheet based on a previously published algorithm. The app calculates a TB risk propensity score from an individual’s sociodemographic characteristics and TB clinical history and suggests whether the individual should undergo a CXR. The screening program was launched in urban slum areas soon after the COVID-19 outbreak subsided. A standard questionnaire was used to assess the app’s usability rated by presumptive cases. Compliance to undergo CXR was confirmed by scanning the referral quick response (QR) code via the app. ResultsRaters were 453 presumptive cases detected by the app. The mean usability rating score was 4.1 out of 5. Compliance to undergo CXR examination was 71.1% (n=322). Active TB case detection among CXR compliances was 7.5% (n=24). One standard deviation (SD) increase in the app usability score was significantly associated with a 59% increase in the odds to comply with CXR (β=.464) after adjusting for other variables (P<.001). ConclusionsThis simple mobile app got a high usability score rated by 453 users. The mobile app usability score successfully predicted compliance to undergo CXR examination. Eventually, 24 (7.5%) of 322 users who were suspected of having TB by the mobile app were detected as active TB cases by CXR. The system should be upscaled for a large trial

Pre-operative pseudothrombocytopenia: terrifying but innocuous

An isolated thrombocytopenia was found in a 47-year old man during pre-operative&nbsp;work-up for his closed radial bone fracture on left forearm after a fall. His platelet count&nbsp;was as low as 14 x 103/&mu;L, but there was no active bleeding and past history of bleeding&nbsp;disorder. The clue to true diagnosis started from careful blood film examination - platelet&nbsp;clumps in blood film. Repeat full blood count tests were requested not only with the usual&nbsp;anticoagulant EDTA (Ethylene diamine tetra-acetic acid) but also with heparin as well as with&nbsp;citrate. EDTA-dependent pseudothrombocytopenia was diagnosed which can be confused&nbsp;with other life-threatening platelet disorders. The operation was successfully done without&nbsp;unusual bleeding.</p