11 research outputs found
Automatic Assessment of Oral Reading Accuracy for Reading Diagnostics
Automatic assessment of reading fluency using automatic speech recognition
(ASR) holds great potential for early detection of reading difficulties and
subsequent timely intervention. Precise assessment tools are required,
especially for languages other than English. In this study, we evaluate six
state-of-the-art ASR-based systems for automatically assessing Dutch oral
reading accuracy using Kaldi and Whisper. Results show our most successful
system reached substantial agreement with human evaluations (MCC = .63). The
same system reached the highest correlation between forced decoding confidence
scores and word correctness (r = .45). This system's language model (LM)
consisted of manual orthographic transcriptions and reading prompts of the test
data, which shows that including reading errors in the LM improves assessment
performance. We discuss the implications for developing automatic assessment
systems and identify possible avenues of future research
Automatic Speech Recognition of Non-Native Child Speech for Language Learning Applications
Voicebots have provided a new avenue for supporting the development of
language skills, particularly within the context of second language learning.
Voicebots, though, have largely been geared towards native adult speakers. We
sought to assess the performance of two state-of-the-art ASR systems,
Wav2Vec2.0 and Whisper AI, with a view to developing a voicebot that can
support children acquiring a foreign language. We evaluated their performance
on read and extemporaneous speech of native and non-native Dutch children. We
also investigated the utility of using ASR technology to provide insight into
the children's pronunciation and fluency. The results show that recent,
pre-trained ASR transformer-based models achieve acceptable performance from
which detailed feedback on phoneme pronunciation quality can be extracted,
despite the challenging nature of child and non-native speech.Comment: Published on SLATE 2023, Esmad, Politecnico Do Porto, Portugal, 26-28
June, 2023, pp: 11:1-11:
Alzheimer Disease Classification through ASR-based Transcriptions: Exploring the Impact of Punctuation and Pauses
Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is the world's leading neurodegenerative disease,
which often results in communication difficulties. Analysing speech can serve
as a diagnostic tool for identifying the condition. The recent ADReSS challenge
provided a dataset for AD classification and highlighted the utility of manual
transcriptions. In this study, we used the new state-of-the-art Automatic
Speech Recognition (ASR) model Whisper to obtain the transcriptions, which also
include automatic punctuation. The classification models achieved test accuracy
scores of 0.854 and 0.833 combining the pretrained FastText word embeddings and
recurrent neural networks on manual and ASR transcripts respectively.
Additionally, we explored the influence of including pause information and
punctuation in the transcriptions. We found that punctuation only yielded minor
improvements in some cases, whereas pause encoding aided AD classification for
both manual and ASR transcriptions across all approaches investigated
Delayed colorectal cancer care during covid-19 pandemic (decor-19). Global perspective from an international survey
Background
The widespread nature of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been unprecedented. We sought to analyze its global impact with a survey on colorectal cancer (CRC) care during the pandemic.
Methods
The impact of COVID-19 on preoperative assessment, elective surgery, and postoperative management of CRC patients was explored by a 35-item survey, which was distributed worldwide to members of surgical societies with an interest in CRC care. Respondents were divided into two comparator groups: 1) ‘delay’ group: CRC care affected by the pandemic; 2) ‘no delay’ group: unaltered CRC practice.
Results
A total of 1,051 respondents from 84 countries completed the survey. No substantial differences in demographics were found between the ‘delay’ (745, 70.9%) and ‘no delay’ (306, 29.1%) groups. Suspension of multidisciplinary team meetings, staff members quarantined or relocated to COVID-19 units, units fully dedicated to COVID-19 care, personal protective equipment not readily available were factors significantly associated to delays in endoscopy, radiology, surgery, histopathology and prolonged chemoradiation therapy-to-surgery intervals. In the ‘delay’ group, 48.9% of respondents reported a change in the initial surgical plan and 26.3% reported a shift from elective to urgent operations. Recovery of CRC care was associated with the status of the outbreak. Practicing in COVID-free units, no change in operative slots and staff members not relocated to COVID-19 units were statistically associated with unaltered CRC care in the ‘no delay’ group, while the geographical distribution was not.
Conclusions
Global changes in diagnostic and therapeutic CRC practices were evident. Changes were associated with differences in health-care delivery systems, hospital’s preparedness, resources availability, and local COVID-19 prevalence rather than geographical factors. Strategic planning is required to optimize CRC care
Screening policies, preventive measures and in-hospital infection of COVID-19 in global surgical practices
Background: In a surgical setting, COVID-19 patients may trigger in-hospital outbreaks and have worse postoperative outcomes. Despite these risks, there have been no consistent statements on surgical guidelines regarding the perioperative screening or management of COVID-19 patients, and we do not have objective global data that describe the current conditions surrounding this issue. This study aimed to clarify the current global surgical practice including COVID-19 screening, preventive measures and in-hospital infection under the COVID-19 pandemic, and to clarify the international gaps on infection control policies among countries worldwide.
Methods: During April 2-8, 2020, a cross-sectional online survey on surgical practice was distributed to surgeons worldwide through international surgical societies, social media and personal contacts. Main outcome and measures included preventive measures and screening policies of COVID-19 in surgical practice and centers' experiences of in-hospital COVID-19 infection. Data were analyzed by country's cumulative deaths number by April 8, 2020 (high risk, >5000; intermediate risk, 100-5000; low risk, <100).
Results: A total of 936 centers in 71 countries responded to the survey (high risk, 330 centers; intermediate risk, 242 centers; low risk, 364 centers). In the majority (71.9%) of the centers, local guidelines recommended preoperative testing based on symptoms or suspicious radiologic findings. Universal testing for every surgical patient was recommended in only 18.4% of the centers. In-hospital COVID-19 infection was reported from 31.5% of the centers, with higher rates in higher risk countries (high risk, 53.6%; intermediate risk, 26.4%; low risk, 14.8%; P < 0.001). Of the 295 centers that experienced in-hospital COVID-19 infection, 122 (41.4%) failed to trace it and 58 (19.7%) reported the infection originating from asymptomatic patients/staff members. Higher risk countries adopted more preventive measures including universal testing, routine testing of hospital staff and use of dedicated personal protective equipment in operation theatres, but there were remarkable discrepancies across the countries.
Conclusions: This large international survey captured the global surgical practice under the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted the insufficient preoperative screening of COVID-19 in the current surgical practice. More intensive screening programs will be necessary particularly in severely affected countries/institutions
Surgeons' fear of getting infected by COVID19: A global survey.
Surgeons' fear of getting infected by COVID19: A global surve
Impact of asymptomatic COVID-19 patients in global surgical practice during the COVID-19 pandemic.
CorrespondenceImpact of asymptomatic COVID-19patients in global surgical practiceduring the COVID-19 pandemi
Screening policies, preventive measures and in-hospital infection of COVID-19 in global surgical practices
Background In a surgical setting, COVID-19 patients may trigger in-hospital outbreaks and have worse postoperative outcomes. Despite these risks, there have been no consistent statements on surgical guidelines regarding the perioperative screening or management of COVID-19 patients, and we do not have objective global data that describe the current conditions surrounding this issue. This study aimed to clarify the current global surgical practice including COVID-19 screening, preventive measures and in-hospital infection under the COVID-19 pandemic, and to clarify the international gaps on infection control policies among countries worldwide.Methods During April 2-8, 2020, a cross-sectional online survey on surgical practice was distributed to surgeons worldwide through international surgical societies, social media and personal contacts. Main outcome and measures included preventive measures and screening policies of COVID-19 in surgical practice and centers' experiences of in-hospital COVID-19 infection. Data were analyzed by country's cumulative deaths number by April 8, 2020 (high risk, >5000; intermediate risk, 100-5000; low risk, <100).Results A total of 936 centers in 71 countries responded to the survey (high risk, 330 centers; intermediate risk, 242 centers; low risk, 364 centers). In the majority (71.9%) of the centers, local guidelines recommended preoperative testing based on symptoms or suspicious radiologic findings. Universal testing for every surgical patient was recommended in only 18.4% of the centers. In-hospital COVID-19 infection was reported from 31.5% of the centers, with higher rates in higher risk countries (high risk, 53.6%; intermediate risk, 26.4%; low risk, 14.8%; P<0.001). Of the 295 centers that experienced in-hospital COVID-19 infection, 122 (41.4%) failed to trace it and 58 (19.7%) reported the infection originating from asymptomatic patients/staff members. Higher risk countries adopted more preventive measures including universal testing, routine testing of hospital staff and use of dedicated personal protective equipment in operation theatres, but there were remarkable discrepancies across the countries.Conclusions This large international survey captured the global surgical practice under the COVID-19 pandemic and highlighted the insufficient preoperative screening of COVID-19 in the current surgical practice. More intensive screening programs will be necessary particularly in severely affected countries/institutions