Vowel space in hypokinetic dysarthria: : Preliminary investigations.

The paper discusses acoustic and articulatory data on the use of vowel space by speaker affected by Parkinson’s Disease who developed hypokinetic dysarthria. Two experiments involving pathological subjects and matching controls are described, whose general aim is to better understand if the vowel space in Parkinson’s Disease dysarthric subjects is always and homogeneously reduced. In the first investigation, acoustic and kinematic data are collected and analyzed to test if pathological speakers always use a reduced vowel space compared to control subjects, and if they adopt different articulatory strategies depending on the axis of the speech gesture (vertical vs horizontal). In the second investigation, various articulatory metrics are used to better investigate the dimension and position of the acoustic vowel space, and if they change in Parkinson’s Disease subjects compared to controls. Results show that reduction takes place, but some subjects appear to compensate, widening their tongue gestures on the horizontal axis even though the lip gesture is not necessarily undershot. Nevertheless, metrics used in the second experiment do not allow to capture a reduction, even though, in line with results of the first experiment, they point to an asymmetry in the vowel space used depending on the axis considered

The Phonetics of Speech Production and Medical Research

The production of speech requires the interplay of a number of cognitive and motoric activities, which make it an interesting object of study from both a linguistic and a medical point of view. In this paper, we discuss, first, the features and domain of application of the most used technologies in linguistic research on speech production, focusing on those that have been applied to medicine. Second, we offer an insight into the main results that have been obtained so far in studying dysarthria in Italian Parkinson's Disease, as an example of the interdisciplinary, experimental research at the border between linguistics and medicine

Roma: Oltre le baraccopoli: Agenda politica per ripartire dalle periferie dimenticate

Con il presente documento, presentato in vista delle elezioni comunali che si svolgeranno a Roma nel 2016, l’Associazione 21 luglio vuole proporre alle forze politiche e ai candidati a cariche elettive i principi essenziali per mutare radicalmente le politiche verso gli abitanti delle baraccopoli e dei micro insediamenti presenti nella Capitale. Le azioni previste nel documento hanno come obiettivo, nell’arco temporale di 5 anni: la chiusura graduale e progressiva delle baraccopoli e dei micro insediamenti della Capitale e il superamento dei centri di raccolta dove sono concentrate le famiglie vittime degli sgomberi che nel passato hanno coinvolto abitanti di numerose baraccopoli. “Roma: oltre le baraccopoli” si avvale degli studi condotti dall’Associazione 21 luglio e, nell’ultima parte, del prezioso apporto del prof. Tommaso Vitale, Sciences Po (Université Sorbonne Paris Cité)1. Il testo condivide medesimi principi e metodi riportati all’interno della “Delibera di iniziativa popolare per il superamento dei campi rom”, promossa da nove associazioni2 e sottoscritta da oltre 6.000 cittadini, depositata in Campidoglio l’11 settembre 2015

Automatic detection of Voice Disorders: recent literature advancements

A short review of some recent findings in the field of automatic voice disorders detection and classification is provided in this article. The matter is getting more and more interest due to appealing non-invasiveness of the methods as well as the good achievable performances. An increasing role is played by Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), especially Deep ones, despite the need for large amounts of data for such networks, that are not always available for the task in question. The research in this field is directed in other directions too, including the investigation of new features and the capability to process running speech other than sustained sounds

Voice Biometrics Technologies and Applications for Healthcare: an overview.

Our medical information is perhaps considered the most personal and valuable of all. On the other hand, the rapid increase in the digitization of the healthcare industry nowadays is giving the patient identification and electronic medical record maintenance a key role to improve patient safety, protect against medical identity theft, enhance patient satisfaction, not to mention financial performances. Regulatory pressures and compliance guidelines naturally require health care providers to handle patient information with the highest degree of privacy and care. In this scenario, innovative healthcare organizations are increasingly using biometric technologies to support smoother and safer patient access and information sharing to improve security. Biometric identifiers are measurable unique characteristics of an individual physiological (such as fingerprints, iris, retina, DNA) or behavioural (such as typing rhythm, voice, and gait) traits that can be used to positively identify a person. Among them, voice biometrics is actually a convenient and secure method of authenticating a speaker's identity using just a few words, which has many advantages over other forms of biometric identification especially in the healthcare sector. After briefly discussing the impact of biometric technologies from a general point of view, the present paper focuses on voice biometrics, to give a technical understanding of how it works according to the current state of art and the forthcoming progress, and how it can be successfully integrated in the healthcare systems

The rhythms of language: an overview of linguistic processes and neural oscillations

For the last decades neuroscientists have grown interest in the analysis of the rhythmic activity of the brain synchronized at temporal and spatial level. These neural oscillations, grouped by their frequency, have been proposed to govern all cognitive processes. In the field of the neurobiology of language, considerable research has linked speech processing and language comprehension to neural oscillations. On one hand, neural rhythmic activity is thought to synchronize to relevant spectral information of speech on three-time scales – which physically reflect phoneme, syllable and phrase processing. On the other hand, syntactic and semantic processing is subserved by faster oscillatory patterns not necessarily related to the acoustic properties of speech. For each linguistic process, this article summarizes the neural oscillations involved. Further evidence comes from studies on language-related pathologies