528 research outputs found
Examination of the Impact of Living Arrangements and Marital Status on Depression among Older Adult Male Veterans
As the older adult population grows, depression rates are also on the rise. This is especially evident among American veterans, who experience a depression incidence close to 30%, making it one of the most common diagnoses treated within the Veterans Health Administraiton (Hankin, Spiro, Miller et al, as cited in Cully, Zimmer, Khan & Petersen, 2008).
The purpose of this study is to identify key demographic variables associated with depression among older male veterans. The results could help improve patterns of care, hopefully improving the management of depression. The retrospective descriptive study uses existing medical record data to identify patterns of factors commonly occurring in veterans with depression. Demographic variables, depression screening scores, and patterns of International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems 9th Revision (ICD9 codes) are analyzed for patterns that can improve care. Descriptive findings and relevant correlations are reported with recommendations to improve care for older adult male veterans diagnosed with depression
Maternal input and infantsâ response to infantâdirected speech
Caregivers typically use an exaggerated speech register known as infantâdirected speech (IDS) in communication with infants. Infants prefer IDS over adultâdirected speech (ADS) and IDS is functionally relevant in infantâdirected communication. We examined interactions among maternal IDS quality, infantsâ preference for IDS over ADS, and the functional relevance of IDS at 6 and 13 months. While 6âmonthâolds showed a preference for IDS over ADS, 13âmonthâolds did not. Differences in gaze following behavior triggered by speech register (IDS vs. ADS) were found in both age groups. The degree of infantsâ preference for IDS (relative to ADS) was linked to the quality of maternal IDS infants were exposed to. No such relationship was found between gaze following behavior and maternal IDS quality and infantsâ IDS preference. The results speak to a dynamic interaction between infantsâ preference for different kinds of social signals and the social cues available to them
The role of linguistic experience in the hemispheric processing of lexical tone
This is the publisher's version, made available with the permission of the publisher.This study investigated hemispheric lateralization of Mandarin tone. Four groups of listeners were examined:
native Mandarin listeners, EnglishâMandarin bilinguals, Norwegian listeners with experience
with Norwegian tone, and American listeners with no tone experience. Tone pairs were dichotically
presented and listeners identified which tone they heard in each ear. For the Mandarin listeners, 57% of
the total errors occurred in the left ear, indicating a right-ear (left-hemisphere) advantage. The Englishâ
Mandarin bilinguals exhibited nativelike patterns, with 56% left-ear errors. However, no ear advantage
was found for the Norwegian or American listeners (48 and 47% left-ear errors, respectively). Results
indicate left-hemisphere dominance of Mandarin tone by native and proficient bilingual listeners,
whereas nonnative listeners show no evidence of lateralization, regardless of their familiarity with
lexical tone
Plain-to-clear speech video conversion for enhanced intelligibility
Clearly articulated speech, relative to plain-style speech, has been shown to improve intelligibility. We examine if visible speech cues in video only can be systematically modified to enhance clear-speech visual features and improve intelligibility. We extract clear-speech visual features of English words varying in vowels produced by multiple male and female talkers. Via a frame-by-frame image-warping based video generation method with a controllable parameter (displacement factor), we apply the extracted clear-speech visual features to videos of plain speech to synthesize clear speech videos. We evaluate the generated videos using a robust, state of the art AI Lip Reader as well as human intelligibility testing. The contributions of this study are: (1) we successfully extract relevant visual cues for video modifications across speech styles, and have achieved enhanced intelligibility for AI; (2) this work suggests that universal talker-independent clear-speech features may be utilized to modify any talkerâs visual speech style; (3) we introduce âdisplacement factorâ as a way of systematically scaling the magnitude of displacement modifications between speech styles; and (4) the high definition generated videos make them ideal candidates for human-centric intelligibility and perceptual training studies
Impact of Age and Body Site on Adult Female Skin Surface pH
Background: pH is known as an important parameter in epidermal barrier function and homeostasis. Aim: The impact of age and body site on skin surface pH (pH(SS)) of women was evaluated in vivo. Methods: Time domain dual lifetime referencing with luminescent sensor foils was used for pH(SS) measurements. pH(SS) was measured on the forehead, the temple, and the volar forearm of adult females (n = 97, 52.87 +/- 18.58 years, 20-97 years). Every single measurement contained 2,500 pH values due to the luminescence imaging technique used. Results: pH(SS) slightly increases with age on all three investigated body sites. There are no significant differences in pH(SS) between the three investigated body sites. Conclusion: Adult pH(SS) on the forehead, the temple and the volar forearm increases slightly with age. This knowledge is crucial for adapting medical skin care products. Copyright (C) 2012 S. Karger AG, Base
Isoflurane promotes early spontaneous breathing in ventilated intensive care patients: A post hoc subgroup analysis of a randomized trial
Background: Spontaneous breathing is desirable in most ventilated patients. We
therefore studied the influence of isoflurane versus propofol sedation on early spon taneous breathing in ventilated surgical intensive care patients and evaluated poten tial mediation by opioids and arterial carbon dioxide during the first 20 h of study
sedation.
Methods: We included a single-center subgroup of 66 patients, who participated in
a large multi-center trial assessing efficacy and safety of isoflurane sedation, with
33 patients each randomized to isoflurane or propofol sedation. Both sedatives
were titrated to a sedation depth of â4 to â1 on the Richmond Agitation Sedation
Scale. The primary outcome was the fraction of time during which patients breathed
spontaneously.
Results: Baseline characteristics of isoflurane and propofol-sedated patients were
well balanced. There were no substantive differences in management or treatment
aside from sedation, and isoflurane and propofol provided nearly identical sedation
depths. The mean fraction of time spent spontaneously breathing was 82% [95% CI:
69, 90] in patients sedated with isoflurane compared to 35% [95% CI: 22, 51] in those
assigned to propofol: median difference: 61% [95% CI: 14, 89], p < .001. After ad justments for sufentanil dose and arterial carbon dioxide partial pressure, patients
sedated with isoflurane were twice as likely to breathe spontaneously than those se dated with propofol: adjusted risk ratio: 2.2 [95%CI: 1.4, 3.3], p < .001.
Conclusions: Isoflurane compared to propofol sedation promotes early spontaneous
breathing in deeply sedated ventilated intensive care patients. The benefit appears to
be a direct effect isoflurane rather than being mediated by opioids or arterial carbon
dioxide
Effects of Spatial Speech Presentation on Listener Response Strategy for Talker-Identification
This study investigates effects of spatial auditory cues on human listeners' response strategy for identifying two alternately active talkers (âturn-takingâ listening scenario). Previous research has demonstrated subjective benefits of audio spatialization with regard to speech intelligibility and talker-identification effort. So far, the deliberate activation of specific perceptual and cognitive processes by listeners to optimize their task performance remained largely unexamined. Spoken sentences selected as stimuli were either clean or degraded due to background noise or bandpass filtering. Stimuli were presented via three horizontally positioned loudspeakers: In a non-spatial mode, both talkers were presented through a central loudspeaker; in a spatial mode, each talker was presented through the central or a talker-specific lateral loudspeaker. Participants identified talkers via speeded keypresses and afterwards provided subjective ratings (speech quality, speech intelligibility, voice similarity, talker-identification effort). In the spatial mode, presentations at lateral loudspeaker locations entailed quicker behavioral responses, which were significantly slower in comparison to a talker-localization task. Under clean speech, response times globally increased in the spatial vs. non-spatial mode (across all locations); these âresponse time switch costs,â presumably being caused by repeated switching of spatial auditory attention between different locations, diminished under degraded speech. No significant effects of spatialization on subjective ratings were found. The results suggested that when listeners could utilize task-relevant auditory cues about talker location, they continued to rely on voice recognition instead of localization of talker sound sources as primary response strategy. Besides, the presence of speech degradations may have led to increased cognitive control, which in turn compensated for incurring response time switch costs
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