Restoring Speech Following Total Removal of the Larynx

By speech articulator movement and training a transformation to audio we can restore the power of speech to someone who has lost their larynx. We sense changes in magnetic field caused by movements of small magnets attached to the lips and tongue. The sensor transformation uses recurrent neural networks

ChunkitApp : Investigating the relevant units of online speech processing

Peer reviewe

Direct Speech Reconstruction From Articulatory Sensor Data by Machine Learning

This paper describes a technique that generates speech acoustics from articulator movements. Our motivation is to help people who can no longer speak following laryngectomy, a procedure that is carried out tens of thousands of times per year in the Western world. Our method for sensing articulator movement, permanent magnetic articulography, relies on small, unobtrusive magnets attached to the lips and tongue. Changes in magnetic field caused by magnet movements are sensed and form the input to a process that is trained to estimate speech acoustics. In the experiments reported here this “Direct Synthesis” technique is developed for normal speakers, with glued-on magnets, allowing us to train with parallel sensor and acoustic data. We describe three machine learning techniques for this task, based on Gaussian mixture models, deep neural networks, and recurrent neural networks (RNNs). We evaluate our techniques with objective acoustic distortion measures and subjective listening tests over spoken sentences read from novels (the CMU Arctic corpus). Our results show that the best performing technique is a bidirectional RNN (BiRNN), which employs both past and future contexts to predict the acoustics from the sensor data. BiRNNs are not suitable for synthesis in real time but fixed-lag RNNs give similar results and, because they only look a little way into the future, overcome this problem. Listening tests show that the speech produced by this method has a natural quality that preserves the identity of the speaker. Furthermore, we obtain up to 92% intelligibility on the challenging CMU Arctic material. To our knowledge, these are the best results obtained for a silent-speech system without a restricted vocabulary and with an unobtrusive device that delivers audio in close to real time. This work promises to lead to a technology that truly will give people whose larynx has been removed their voices back

Diving into the vertical dimension of elasmobranch movement ecology

Knowledge of the three-dimensional movement patterns of elasmobranchs is vital to understand their ecological roles and exposure to anthropogenic pressures. To date, comparative studies among species at global scales have mostly focused on horizontal movements. Our study addresses the knowledge gap of vertical movements by compiling the first global synthesis of vertical habitat use by elasmobranchs from data obtained by deployment of 989 biotelemetry tags on 38 elasmobranch species. Elasmobranchs displayed high intra- and interspecific variability in vertical movement patterns. Substantial vertical overlap was observed for many epipelagic elasmobranchs, indicating an increased likelihood to display spatial overlap, biologically interact, and share similar risk to anthropogenic threats that vary on a vertical gradient. We highlight the critical next steps toward incorporating vertical movement into global management and monitoring strategies for elasmobranchs, emphasizing the need to address geographic and taxonomic biases in deployments and to concurrently consider both horizontal and vertical movements

From marine bands to hybrid flows: sedimentology of a Mississippian black shale

Organic‐rich mudstones have long been of interest as conventional and unconventional source rocks and are an important organic carbon sink. Yet the processes that deposited organic‐rich muds in epicontinental seaways are poorly understood, partly because few modern analogues exist. This study investigates the processes that transported and deposited sediment and organic matter through part of the Bowland Shale Formation, from the Mississippian Rheic–Tethys seaway. Field to micron‐scale sedimentological analysis reveals a heterogeneous succession of carbonate‐rich, siliceous, and siliciclastic, argillaceous muds. Deposition of these facies at basinal and slope locations was moderated by progradation of the nearby Pendle delta system, fourth‐order eustatic sea‐level fluctuation and localized block and basin tectonism. Marine transgressions deposited bioclastic ‘marine band’ (hemi)pelagic packages. These include abundant euhaline macrofaunal tests, and phosphatic concretions of organic matter and radiolarian tests interpreted as faecal pellets sourced from a productive water column. Lens‐rich (lenticular) mudstones, hybrid, debrite and turbidite beds successively overlie marine band packages and suggest reducing basin accommodation promoted sediment deposition via laminar and hybrid flows sourced from the basin margins. Mud lenses in lenticular mudstones lack organic linings and bioclasts and are equant in early‐cemented lenses and in plan‐view, and are largest and most abundant in mudstones overlying marine band packages. Thus, lenses likely represent partially consolidated mud clasts that were scoured and transported in bedload from the shelf or proximal slope, as a ‘shelf to basin’ conveyor, during periods of reduced basin accommodation. Candidate in situ microbial mats in strongly lenticular mudstones, and as rip‐up fragments in the down‐dip hybrid beds, suggest that these were potentially key biostabilizers of mud. Deltaic mud export was fast, despite the intrabasinal complexity, likely an order of magnitude higher than similar successions deposited in North America. Epicontinental basins remotely linked to delta systems were therefore capable of rapidly accumulating both sediment and organic matter

Global data on earthworm abundance, biomass, diversity and corresponding environmental properties

14 p.Earthworms are an important soil taxon as ecosystem engineers, providing a variety of crucial ecosystem functions and services. Little is known about their diversity and distribution at large spatial scales, despite the availability of considerable amounts of local-scale data. Earthworm diversity data, obtained from the primary literature or provided directly by authors, were collated with information on site locations, including coordinates, habitat cover, and soil properties. Datasets were required, at a minimum, to include abundance or biomass of earthworms at a site. Where possible, site-level species lists were included, as well as the abundance and biomass of individual species and ecological groups. This global dataset contains 10,840 sites, with 184 species, from 60 countries and all continents except Antarctica. The data were obtained from 182 published articles, published between 1973 and 2017, and 17 unpublished datasets. Amalgamating data into a single global database will assist researchers in investigating and answering a wide variety of pressing questions, for example, jointly assessing aboveground and belowground biodiversity distributions and drivers of biodiversity change

Large-scale phenotyping of patients with long COVID post-hospitalization reveals mechanistic subtypes of disease

One in ten severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infections result in prolonged symptoms termed long coronavirus disease (COVID), yet disease phenotypes and mechanisms are poorly understood1. Here we profiled 368 plasma proteins in 657 participants ≥3 months following hospitalization. Of these, 426 had at least one long COVID symptom and 233 had fully recovered. Elevated markers of myeloid inflammation and complement activation were associated with long COVID. IL-1R2, MATN2 and COLEC12 were associated with cardiorespiratory symptoms, fatigue and anxiety/depression; MATN2, CSF3 and C1QA were elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms and C1QA was elevated in cognitive impairment. Additional markers of alterations in nerve tissue repair (SPON-1 and NFASC) were elevated in those with cognitive impairment and SCG3, suggestive of brain–gut axis disturbance, was elevated in gastrointestinal symptoms. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2-specific immunoglobulin G (IgG) was persistently elevated in some individuals with long COVID, but virus was not detected in sputum. Analysis of inflammatory markers in nasal fluids showed no association with symptoms. Our study aimed to understand inflammatory processes that underlie long COVID and was not designed for biomarker discovery. Our findings suggest that specific inflammatory pathways related to tissue damage are implicated in subtypes of long COVID, which might be targeted in future therapeutic trials

SARS-CoV-2-specific nasal IgA wanes 9 months after hospitalisation with COVID-19 and is not induced by subsequent vaccination

BACKGROUND: Most studies of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 focus on circulating antibody, giving limited insights into mucosal defences that prevent viral replication and onward transmission. We studied nasal and plasma antibody responses one year after hospitalisation for COVID-19, including a period when SARS-CoV-2 vaccination was introduced. METHODS: In this follow up study, plasma and nasosorption samples were prospectively collected from 446 adults hospitalised for COVID-19 between February 2020 and March 2021 via the ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. IgA and IgG responses to NP and S of ancestral SARS-CoV-2, Delta and Omicron (BA.1) variants were measured by electrochemiluminescence and compared with plasma neutralisation data. FINDINGS: Strong and consistent nasal anti-NP and anti-S IgA responses were demonstrated, which remained elevated for nine months (p < 0.0001). Nasal and plasma anti-S IgG remained elevated for at least 12 months (p < 0.0001) with plasma neutralising titres that were raised against all variants compared to controls (p < 0.0001). Of 323 with complete data, 307 were vaccinated between 6 and 12 months; coinciding with rises in nasal and plasma IgA and IgG anti-S titres for all SARS-CoV-2 variants, although the change in nasal IgA was minimal (1.46-fold change after 10 months, p = 0.011) and the median remained below the positive threshold determined by pre-pandemic controls. Samples 12 months after admission showed no association between nasal IgA and plasma IgG anti-S responses (R = 0.05, p = 0.18), indicating that nasal IgA responses are distinct from those in plasma and minimally boosted by vaccination. INTERPRETATION: The decline in nasal IgA responses 9 months after infection and minimal impact of subsequent vaccination may explain the lack of long-lasting nasal defence against reinfection and the limited effects of vaccination on transmission. These findings highlight the need to develop vaccines that enhance nasal immunity. FUNDING: This study has been supported by ISARIC4C and PHOSP-COVID consortia. ISARIC4C is supported by grants from the National Institute for Health and Care Research and the Medical Research Council. Liverpool Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre provided infrastructure support for this research. The PHOSP-COVD study is jointly funded by UK Research and Innovation and National Institute of Health and Care Research. The funders were not involved in the study design, interpretation of data or the writing of this manuscript