Silent speech: restoring the power of speech to people whose larynx has been removed

Every year, some 17,500 people in Europe and North America lose the power of speech after undergoing a laryngectomy, normally as a treatment for throat cancer. Several research groups have recently demonstrated that it is possible to restore speech to these people by using machine learning to learn the transformation from articulator movement to sound. In our project articulator movement is captured by a technique developed by our collaborators at Hull University called Permanent Magnet Articulography (PMA), which senses the changes of magnetic field caused by movements of small magnets attached to the lips and tongue. This solution, however, requires synchronous PMA-and-audio recordings for learning the transformation and, hence, it cannot be applied to people who have already lost their voice. Here we propose to investigate a variant of this technique in which the PMA data are used to drive an articulatory synthesiser, which generates speech acoustics by simulating the airflow through a computational model of the vocal tract. The project goals, participants, current status, and achievements of the project are discussed below.Universidad de Málaga. Campus de Excelencia Internacional Andalucía Tech

An Automatic System for Dementia Detection using Acoustic and Linguistic Features

Early diagnosis of dementia is crucial for mitigating the consequences of this disease in patients. Previous studies have demonstrated that it is possible to detect the symptoms of dementia, in some cases even years before the onset of the disease, by detecting neurodegeneration-associated characteristics in a person’s speech. This paper presents an automatic method for detecting dementia caused by Alzheimer’s disease (AD) through a wide range of acoustic and linguistic features extracted from the person’s speech. Two well-known databases containing speech for patients with AD and healthy controls are used to this end: DementiaBank and ADReSS. The experimental results show that our system is able to achieve state-of-theart performance on both databases. Furthermore, our results also show that the linguistic features extracted from the speech transcription are significantly better for detecting dementia.This work was funded by the Spanish State Research Agency (SRA) under the grant PID2019-108040RBC22/ SRA/10.13039/501100011033. Jose A. Gonzalez-Lopez holds a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporation Fellowship from the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (IJCI-2017-32926)

GANBA: Generative Adversarial Network for Biometric Anti-Spoofing

Acknowledgments: Alejandro Gomez-Alanis holds a FPU fellowship (FPU16/05490) from the Spanish Ministry of Education and Vocational Training. Jose A. Gonzalez-Lopez also holds a Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación fellowship (IJCI-2017-32926) from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. Furthermore, we acknowledge the support of Nvidia with the donation of a Titan X GPU.Data Availability Statement: The ASVspoof 2019 datasets were used in this study. They are publicly available at https://datashare.ed.ac.uk/handle/10283/3336 (accessed on 5 December 2021).Automatic speaker verification (ASV) is a voice biometric technology whose security might be compromised by spoofing attacks. To increase the robustness against spoofing attacks, presentation attack detection (PAD) or anti-spoofing systems for detecting replay, text-to-speech and voice conversion-based spoofing attacks are being developed. However, it was recently shown that adversarial spoofing attacks may seriously fool anti-spoofing systems. Moreover, the robustness of the whole biometric system (ASV + PAD) against this new type of attack is completely unexplored. In this work, a new generative adversarial network for biometric anti-spoofing (GANBA) is proposed. GANBA has a twofold basis: (1) it jointly employs the anti-spoofing and ASV losses to yield very damaging adversarial spoofing attacks, and (2) it trains the PAD as a discriminator in order to make them more robust against these types of adversarial attacks. The proposed system is able to generate adversarial spoofing attacks which can fool the complete voice biometric system. Then, the resulting PAD discriminators of the proposed GANBA can be used as a defense technique for detecting both original and adversarial spoofing attacks. The physical access (PA) and logical access (LA) scenarios of the ASVspoof 2019 database were employed to carry out the experiments. The experimental results show that the GANBA attacks are quite effective, outperforming other adversarial techniques when applied in white-box and black-box attack setups. In addition, the resulting PAD discriminators are more robust against both original and adversarial spoofing attacks.FEDER/Junta de Andalucía-Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades Proyecto PY20_00902PID2019-104206GB-I00 funded by MCIN/ AEI /10.13039/50110001103

Study by DTA/TG of the formation of calcium aluminate obtained from an aluminium hazardous waste

A Spanish hazardous waste from tertiary aluminium industry was used as a raw material for the synthesis of calcium aluminate. An amorphous precursor was obtained by a hydrothermal method at different values of pH. The transformation of the precursor in a crystalline aluminate was followed by TG/DTA up to 1300 C. At temperatures between 719 and 744 C, the precursors evolve towards the formation of C12A7 which becomes CA at circa 1016 C. Mass spectrometry coupled to thermal analyser allowed the identification of the decomposition productsMEC for financing project CTM2005-01964 and the company Recuperaciones y Reciclajes Roman S.L. (Fuenlabrada, Madrid, Spain) for supplying the waste and Dr. M. I. Martı´n for the FRX analysis and Dr. I. Padilla for the technical assistance. Laura Delgado-Gonzalo is grateful to the CSIC (Spanish National Research Council) for an I3P contractPeer reviewe

Non-Parallel Articulatory-to-Acoustic Conversion Using Multiview-based Time Warping

This work was supported in part by the Spanish State Research Agency (SRA) grant number PID2019-108040RB-C22/SRA/10.13039/501100011033, and the FEDER/Junta de AndalucíaConsejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades project no. B-SEJ-570-UGR20.In this paper, we propose a novel algorithm called multiview temporal alignment by dependence maximisation in the latent space (TRANSIENCE) for the alignment of time series consisting of sequences of feature vectors with different length and dimensionality of the feature vectors. The proposed algorithm, which is based on the theory of multiview learning, can be seen as an extension of the well-known dynamic time warping (DTW) algorithm but, as mentioned, it allows the sequences to have different dimensionalities. Our algorithm attempts to find an optimal temporal alignment between pairs of nonaligned sequences by first projecting their feature vectors into a common latent space where both views are maximally similar. To do this, powerful, nonlinear deep neural network (DNN) models are employed. Then, the resulting sequences of embedding vectors are aligned using DTW. Finally, the alignment paths obtained in the previous step are applied to the original sequences to align them. In the paper, we explore several variants of the algorithm that mainly differ in the way the DNNs are trained. We evaluated the proposed algorithm on a articulatory-to-acoustic (A2A) synthesis task involving the generation of audible speech from motion data captured from the lips and tongue of healthy speakers using a technique known as permanent magnet articulography (PMA). In this task, our algorithm is applied during the training stage to align pairs of nonaligned speech and PMA recordings that are later used to train DNNs able to synthesis speech from PMA data. Our results show the quality of speech generated in the nonaligned scenario is comparable to that obtained in the parallel scenario.Spanish State Research Agency (SRA) PID2019-108040RB-C22/SRA/10.13039/501100011033FEDER/Junta de AndalucíaConsejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades project no. B-SEJ-570-UGR20

Evaluation of the competitiveness of agri-food sector in the región of the Alcarria Conquense(Spain)

The agrifood industry, like other sectors, faces the ongoing challenge of improving their competitiveness in order to strengthen its market presence and cater to the growing global population. This research measures the competitiveness of the agrifood industry in the region of La Alcarria Conquense (Spain), in the framework of the evaluation of programs in the territory that have aimed at improving and enhancing this sector. Through building the competitiveness profiles (Porter, 1990) and cluster analysis we have identified six competitive strategy patterns in food companies in the region. In addition, we have analyzed each of the areas of competitiveness and we can identify the strengths and weaknesses of the sector, and identify recommendations for increasing the responsiveness of the territory. Among the defining characteristics are the lack of association, the limitation on payment systems or virtual absence of training and innovation. However, programs to support the sector are highly valued and reverse in the long-term viability of these companies

Influence of the patients' sex, type of dental prosthesis and antagonist on residual bone resorption at the level of the premaxilla

Objectives: To analyze the height and width of the ridge at the level of the premaxilla in edentulous patients, eva-luating whether the sex of the patient, type of prosthetic rehabilitation and antagonist have an influence. Material and Method: We randomly selected a total of 89 patients, having an average age of 66.21 years old. A total of 308 measurements were made, all of them at the level of the premaxilla, in the intercanine area. As dependent variables, we analyzed the patients' sex, age and the antagonist: removable (dental) prostheses (RP), fixed (dental) prostheses (FD), natural dentition (ND). As independent variables, we measured the height and residual width in sagittal sections provided by tomographic studies using Dentascan®. Results: We observed a significantly smaller ridge in women versus in men, and in patients whose antagonist was a fixed prosthesis; whereas for the type of prosthesis, we did not observe significant differences between the two categories analyzed. Conclusions: Bone resorption at the level of the premaxilla is a variable process in which a smaller size is observed (height and width) in women and when the antagonist is a fixed prosthesis. © Medicina Oral S. L

Azonia derivatives of the γ-carboline system. A new class of DNA intercalators

1-Methyl-γ-carboline derivatives were transformed into the corresponding N-aminoazinium salts, which were condensed with 1,2-dicarbonyl compounds (Westphal reaction) to afford azonia derivatives with a bridgehead quaternary nitrogen atom. Some of them show DNA intercalating properties.Instituto de Qulmica Computaciona

Tendências da pesquisa educacional na Colômbia: contribuições para a construção de um marco integral, histórico e cultura

Purpose. The study investigates the current situation of educational research in Colombia, based on the research trends that emerge from the processes developed by universities, groups and lines of research in the country. Method. The methodological design responds to a descriptive content analysis, based on the complementarity perspective, which constitutes a qualitative approach aimed at the holistic understanding of complex cultural realities, based on the analysis of multiple sources of information. Results. The research shows that, despite the multiplicity of research processes in educational sciences, Colombia has not yet consolidated a research structure that enables the generation of disciplinary, interdisciplinary, or transdisciplinary knowledge to promote educational quality and social change in the national territory. Objetivo. El estudio indaga la situación actual de la investigación educativa en Colombia, a partir de las tendencias investigativas que emergen de los procesos desarrollados por las universidades, los grupos y las líneas de investigación en el país. Metodología. El diseño metodológico responde a un análisis de contenido, orientado desde el enfoque de complementariedad, el cual busca el abordaje holístico de las realidades culturales. Resultados. La investigación muestra que, a pesar de la multiplicidad de procesos investigativos en ciencias de la educación, Colombia aún no ha consolidado una estructura investigativa que permita interrelacionar la generación de saber disciplinar, interdisciplinar o transdisciplinar para promover la calidad educativa y el cambio social en el territorio nacional.Objetivo. O estudo investiga a situação atual da pesquisa educacional na Colômbia, com base nas tendências de pesquisa que emergem dos processos desenvolvidos por universidades, grupos e linhas de pesquisa no país. Metodologia. O desenho metodológico responde a uma análise de conteúdo descritiva, assente na abordagem da complementaridade, que constitui uma abordagem qualitativa orientada para a compreensão holística das realidades culturais, baseada na análise de múltiplas fontes de informação. Conclusões. a pesquisa mostra que, apesar da multiplicidade de processos investigativos nas ciências da educação, a Colômbia ainda não consolidou uma estrutura de pesquisa que permita inter-relacionar a geração de conhecimento disciplinar, interdisciplinar ou transdisciplinar para promover a qualidade educacional e a mudança social no território nacional

Factores asociados a la competencia de inglés como lengua extranjera de los estudiantes universitarios colombianos

120 Páginas.Esta investigación tuvo como objetivo establecer los factores asociados al nivel de competencia en inglés de los estudiantes que presentaron las pruebas Saber Pro en Colombia en el año 2014. De manera más específica, el estudio de corte cuantitativo, descriptivo, transversal y correlacional, estableció los determinantes que resultaron significativos en la obtención de altos niveles de desempeño en dicha competencia. Los datos que se utilizaron en la investigación, correspondieron a las pruebas Saber Pro del año 2014 con aproximadamente 217.969 individuos. Mediante la utilización de un modelo logístico, se estimaron las probabilidades de obtener altos niveles de desempeño en lengua extranjera (inglés), a partir de un conjunto de variables independientes conformadas por factores demográficos y socioeconómicos, institucionales y de desempeño en las pruebas genéricas (razonamiento cuantitativo, lectura crítica, comunicación escrita y competencias ciudadanas). Los hallazgos de esta investigación señalan que, variables demográficas, socioeconómicas e institucionales determinan el éxito en la obtención de altos niveles de desempeño en la competencia en inglés. El estudio también demuestra que existe una relación positiva entre los desempeños en las pruebas genéricas (razonamiento cuantitativo, lectura crítica, competencias ciudadanas y comunicación escrita) con los niveles altos de desempeño en la competencia en inglés. Los resultados cuestionan el papel de las políticas sobre bilingüismo en Colombia y genera interrogantes acerca de las propuestas curriculares para la enseñanza de inglés en el país, la preparación docente y el uso de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación.​​