Gary: combining speech synthesis and eye tracking to support struggling readers

Children with reading difficulties face several obstacles in learning to fluently read written material. Multimedia applications integrating text-to-speech (TTS) synthesisers are valuable tools for supporting reading activities. The paper presents GARY, an application that combines TTS synthesis with eye tracking. GARY is meant to be used on a tablet device coupled with an eye tracker. Making use of the information from reader's eye movement, the system allows users to adapt the speed rate of the synthesised voice to their pace of reading. The paper describes the system, its functioning and future steps in designing a tool for supporting readers' ability in making the connection between the sounds heard and the letters read

Phloem-specific protein expression patterns in apple and grapevine during phytoplasma infection and recovery

Recovery - complete remission of disease symptoms - has been reported in plants affected by phytoplasmas. The physiological basis for this phenomenon is not yet understood, but it seems associated to ultrastructural and biochemical modification of the phloem, the tissue where phytoplasmas live and spread. In this work we compared asymptomatic, phytoplasma-infected and recovered apple and grapevine leaf tissues by means of ultrastructural and gene-expression analyses, focusing on a possible role of specific phloem proteins in the plant defense-related processes. Preliminary results indicate that different occlusion mechanisms could interact in the phloem during phytoplasma symptomatic status and/or recovery