DIA : a tool for objective intelligibility assessment of pathological speech

Intelligibility is generally accepted to be a very relevant measure in the assessment of pathological speech. In clinical practice, intelligibility is measured using one of the many existing perceptual tests. These tests usually have the drawback that they employ unnatural speech material (e.g. nonsense words) and that they cannot fully exclude errors due to the listener's bias. This raises the need for an objective and automated tool to measure intelligibility. Here, we present the Dutch Intelligibility Assessment (DIA), an objective tool that aids the speech therapist in evaluating the intelligibility of persons with pathological speech. This tool will soon be made publicly available

Objective intelligibility assessment of pathological speakers

Intelligibility is a primary measure for the assessment of pathological speech. Traditionally, it is measured using a perceptual test, which is by definition subjective in nature. Consequently, there is a great interest in reliable, automatic and therefore objective methods. This paper presents such a method that incorporates an automatic speech recognizer (ASR) for producing features that characterize the pronunciations of a speaker and an intelligibility prediction model (IPM) for converting these features into an intelligibility score. High correlations (about 0.90) between objective and perceptual scores are obtained with a system comprising two different speech recognizers: one with traditional acoustic models relating acoustical observations to triphone states and one using phonological features as an intermediate layer between the acoustical observations and the phonetic states

Assessment of Prosodic Communicative Efficiency in Parkinson's Disease As Judged by Professional Listeners

This study examines the impact of Parkinson's disease (PD) on communicative efficiency conveyed through prosody. A new assessment method for evaluating productive prosodic skills in Dutch speaking dysarthric patients was devised and tested on 36 individuals (18 controls, 18 PD patients). Three professional listeners judged the intended meanings in four communicative functions of Dutch prosody: Boundary Marking, Focus, Sentence Typing, and Emotional Prosody. Each function was tested through reading and imitation. Interrater agreement was calculated. Results indicated that healthy speakers, compared to PD patients, performed significantly better on imitation of Boundary Marking, Focus, and Sentence Typing. PD patients with a moderate or severe dysarthria performed significantly worse on imitation of Focus than on reading of Focus. No significant differences were found for Emotional Prosody. Judges agreed well on all tasks except Emotional Prosody. Future research will focus on elaborating the assessment and on developing a therapy programme paralleling the assessment

Acoustic identification of sentence accent in speakers with dysarthria : cross-population validation and severity related patterns

Dysprosody is a hallmark of dysarthria, which can affect the intelligibility and naturalness of speech. This includes sentence accent, which helps to draw listeners’ attention to important information in the message. Although some studies have investigated this feature, we currently lack properly validated automated procedures that can distinguish between subtle performance differences observed across speakers with dysarthria. This study aims for cross-population validation of a set of acoustic features that have previously been shown to correlate with sentence accent. In addition, the impact of dysarthria severity levels on sentence accent production is investigated. Two groups of adults were analysed (Dutch and English speakers). Fifty-eight participants with dysarthria and 30 healthy control participants (HCP) produced sentences with varying accent positions. All speech samples were evaluated perceptually and analysed acoustically with an algorithm that extracts ten meaningful prosodic features and allows a classification between accented and unaccented syllables based on a linear combination of these parameters. The data were statistically analysed using discriminant analysis. Within the Dutch and English dysarthric population, the algorithm correctly identified 82.8 and 91.9% of the accented target syllables, respectively, indicating that the capacity to discriminate between accented and unaccented syllables in a sentence is consistent with perceptual impressions. Moreover, different strategies for accent production across dysarthria severity levels could be demonstrated, which is an important step toward a better understanding of the nature of the deficit and the automatic classification of dysarthria severity using prosodic features

Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial : prophylactic swallowing exercises in head-and-neck cancer patients treated with (chemo)radiotherapy (PRESTO trial)

Background: Dysphagia is a common and serious complication after (chemo)radiotherapy (CRT) for head-and-neck cancer (HNC) patients. Prophylactic swallowing exercises (PSE) can have a significantly positive effect on post-treatment swallowing function. However, low adherence rates are a key issue in undermining this positive effect. This current randomized trial will investigate the effect of adherence-improving measures on patients' swallowing function, adherence and quality of life (QOL). Methods: This ongoing trial will explore the difference in adherence and swallowing-related outcome variables during and after PSE in HNC patients performing the same therapy schedule, receiving different delivery methods. One hundred and fifty patients treated in various hospitals will be divided into three groups. Group 1 performs PSE at home, group 2 practices at home with continuous counseling through an app and group 3 receives face-to-face therapy by a speech and language pathologist. The exercises consist of tongue-strengthening exercises and chin-tuck against resistance with effortful swallow. The Iowa Oral Performance Instrument and the Swallowing Exercise Aid are used for practicing. Patients are evaluated before, during and after treatment by means of strength measurements, swallowing and QOL questionnaires. Discussion: Since low adherence rates undermine the positive impact of PSE on post-treatment swallowing function, there is need to develop an efficient PSE protocol maximizing adherence rates

Application of Simple Smart Logic for Waterflooding Reservoir Management

A simple smart logic for controlling inflow control valves (ICV) in waterflooding reservoir management is implemented and analyzed, with the final objective of improving the long term financial return of a petroleum reservoir. Such a control is based in a reactive simple logic that responds to the watercut measured in the ICV. Basically, when the watercut increases, the ICV is set to close proportionally. For comparison purposes, four strategies are presented: base case scenario with conventional control, the best completion configuration found by trial-and-error, the reactive control, and a deterministic optimal control based on Nonlinear Gradient Method with adjoint-gradient formulation is shown for comparison purposes. Finally, all four strategies are tested again in different reservoir realizations in order to mimic the geological uncertainties. Two different synthetic reservoir models were studied. First, a simple cube with a five-spot well configuration, in which the permeability field has a horizontal pattern defined by lognormal distributions. The second model is a benchmark proposed by the Dutch university, TU delft, with 101 channelized permeability fields representing river patterns. For the first model, no significant relative gain is found neither in the variable control nor in the optimal control. Manly because of the high homogeneity of the reservoir models. Therefore, no intelligent completion is recommended. On the other hand, for the second and more complex case, the results indicate an expressive relative gain in the use of simple reactive logic. Besides, this type of control achieves results nearly as good as the optimal control. The test in different realizations, however, shows that reservoir characterization is still a key part of any attempt to improve production. Although the variable reactive control is semi-independent, with action being taken based on measurements, some parameters need a priori model to be tuned