Speech therapy and general practice in Hong Kong

Speech therapy services in Hong Kong have changed dramatically in the past two decades. Further development is urgently required in three main areas; norms of speech and language development in Cantonese, descriptions of disordered communication in adults and children, and the development of screening and diagnostic speech and language instruments. General Practitioners and speech therapists can work in concert to develop a database on normal and disordered speech and language skills of the Hong Kong population, to increase the likelihood of identification of disability and referral to an appropriate agency, and to develop assessment tools.published_or_final_versio

Agreement and reliability using reference-matching paradigm in perceptual voice quality rating in Chinese and English

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Issues for computer modelling of room acoustics in non-concert hall settings

The basic principle of common room acoustics computer models is the energy-based geometrical room acoustics theory. The energy-based calculation relies on the averaging effect provided when there are many reflections from many different directions, which is well suited for large concert halls at medium and high frequencies. In recent years computer modelling has become an established tool in architectural acoustics design thanks to the advance in computing power and improved understanding of the modelling accuracy. However concert hall is only one of many types of built environments that require good acoustic design. Increasingly computer models are being sought for non-concert hall applications, such as in small rooms at low frequencies, flat rooms in workplace surroundings, and long enclosures such as underground stations. In these built environments the design issues are substantially difference from that of concert halls and in most cases the common room acoustics models will needed to be modified or totally re-formulated in order to deal with these new issues. This paper looks at some examples of these issues. In workplace environments we look at the issues of directional propagation and volume scattering by furniture and equipment instead of the surface scattering that is common assumed in concert hall models. In small rooms we look at the requirement of using wave models, such as boundary element models, or introducing phase information into geometrical room acoustics models to determine wave behaviours. Of particular interest is the ability of the wave models to provide phase information that is important not only for room modes but for the construction of impulse response for auralisation. Some simulated results using different modelling techniques will be presented to illustrate the problems and potential solutions

Tuning the magnetic and structural phase transitions of PrFeAsO via Fe/Ru spin dilution

Neutron diffraction and muon spin relaxation measurements are used to obtain a detailed phase diagram of Pr(Fe,Ru)AsO. The isoelectronic substitution of Ru for Fe acts effectively as spin dilution, suppressing both the structural and magnetic phase transitions. The temperature of the tetragonal-orthorhombic structural phase transition decreases gradually as a function of x. Slightly below the transition temperature coherent precessions of the muon spin are observed corresponding to static magnetism, possibly reflecting a significant magneto-elastic coupling in the FeAs layers. Short range order in both the Fe and Pr moments persists for higher levels of x. The static magnetic moments disappear at a concentration coincident with that expected for percolation of the J1-J2 square lattice model

Vocal fold vibratory and acoustic features in fatigued Karaoke singers

Session 3aMU - Musical Acoustics and Speech Communication: Singing Voice in Asian CulturesKaraoke is a popular singing entertainment particularly in Asia and is gaining more popularity in the rest of world. In Karaoke, an amateur singer sings with the background music and video (usually guided by the lyric captions on the video screen) played by Karaoke machine, using a microphone and an amplification system. As the Karaoke singers usually have no formal training, they may be more vulnerable to vocal fatigue as they may overuse and/or misuse their voices in the intensive and extensive singing activities. It is unclear whether vocal fatigue is accompanied by any vibration pattern or physiological changes of vocal folds. In this study, 20 participants aged from 18 to 23 years with normal voice were recruited to participate in an prolonged singing task, which induced vocal fatigue. High speed laryngscopic imaging and acoustic signals were recorded before and after the singing task. Images of /i/ phonation were quantitatively analyzed using the High Speed Video Processing (HSVP) program (Yiu, et al. 2010). It was found that the glottis became relatively narrower following fatigue, while the acoustic signals were not sensitive to measure change following fatigue. © 2012 Acoustical Society of Americapublished_or_final_versio

Infection of Oriental Mustard by Nematospora: A Fluorescence and Scanning Electron Microscope Study

Fluorescence light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy were used to study penetration by the yeast Nematospora caryli through the seed coat and into the embryonic tissues of oriental mustard seed (Brasslca iuncea). Infection of the seed was associated with its physical injury; however, it was evident that the yeast was capable of successfully invading healthy plant cells. The pathological process was followed in parallel using both the above types of microscopy. Foci of yeast infection on the seed coat outer surface were characterized by swelling of the infected epidermal cells. Nematospora hyphae were seen in the lumina of the seed coat palisa de cells and spread laterally when the hyaline layer between the seed coat and embryo was reached. Sites of infection at the surface of cotyledon cells appeared as zones of localized erosion. Asci and spores were visible, embedded in disorganized and disintegrating plant tissue

Secure Metric-Based Index for Similarity Cloud

We propose a similarity index that ensures data privacy and thus is suitable for search systems outsourced in a cloud. The proposed solution can exploit existing efficient metric indexes based on a fixed set of reference points. The method has been fully implemented as a security extension of an existing established approach called M-Index. This Encrypted M-Index supports evaluation of standard range and nearest neighbors queries both in precise and approximate manner. In the first part of this work, we analyze various levels of privacy in existing or future similarity search systems; the proposed solution tries to keep a reasonable privacy level while relocating only the necessary amount of work from server to an authorized client. The Encrypted M-Index has been tested on three real data sets with focus on various cost components

Light atom quantum oscillations in UC and US

High energy vibrational scattering in the binary systems UC and US is measured using time-of-flight inelastic neutron scattering. A clear set of well-defined peaks equally separated in energy is observed in UC, corresponding to harmonic oscillations of the light C atoms in a cage of heavy U atoms. The scattering is much weaker in US and only a few oscillator peaks are visible. We show how the difference between the materials can be understood by considering the neutron scattering lengths and masses of the lighter atoms. Monte Carlo ray tracing is used to simulate the scattering, with near quantitative agreement with the data in UC, and some differences with US. The possibility of observing anharmonicity and anisotropy in the potentials of the light atoms is investigated in UC. Overall the observed data is well accounted for by considering each light atom as a single atom isotropic quantum harmonic oscillator.Comment: 10 pages, 8 figure

High throughput short read alignment via bi-directional BWT

The advancement of sequencing technologies has made it feasible for researchers to consider many highthroughput biological applications. A core step of these applications is to align an enormous amount of short reads to a reference genome. For example, to resequence a human genome, billions of reads of 35 bp are produced in 1-2 weeks, putting a lot of pressure of faster software for alignment. Based on existing indexing and pattern matching technologies, several short read alignment software have been developed recently. Yet this is still strong need to further improve the speed. In this paper, we show a new indexing data structure called bi-directional BWT, which allows us to build the fastest software for aligning short reads. When compared with existing software (Bowtie is the best), our software is at least 3 times faster for finding unique best alignments, and 25 times faster for finding all possible alignments. We believe that bi-directional BWT is an interesting data structure on its own and could be applied to other pattern matching problems. Availability: http://www.bio5.cs.hku.hk:8080/P2BWT, where two human genomes are indexed for alignment. © 2009 IEEE.published_or_final_versionThe IEEE International Conference on Bioinformatics and Biomedicine (BIBM 2009), Washington, DC., 1-4 November 2009. In Proceedings of BIBM, 2009, p. 31-3