A new mask-based objective measure for predicting the intelligibility of binary masked speech

ABSTRACT Mask-based objective speech-intelligibility measures have been successfully proposed for evaluating the performance of binary masking algorithms. These objective measures were computed directly by comparing the estimated binary mask against the ground truth ideal binary mask (IdBM). Most of these objective measures, however, assign equal weight to all time-frequency (T-F) units. In this study, we propose to improve the existing mask-based objective measures by weighting each T-F unit according to its target or masker loudness. The proposed objective measure shows significantly better performance than two other existing mask-based objective measures

Automatic speech analysis to early detect functional cognitive decline in elderly population

This study aimed at evaluating whether people with a normal cognitive function can be discriminated from subjects with a mild impairment of cognitive function based on a set of acoustic features derived from spontaneous speech. Voice recordings from 90 Italian subjects (age >65 years; group 1: 47 subjects with MMSE>26; group 2: 43 subjects with 20≤ MMSE ≤26) were collected. Voice samples were processed using a MATLAB-based custom software to derive a broad set of known acoustic features. Linear mixed model analyses were performed to select the features able to significantly distinguish between groups. The selected features (% of unvoiced segments, duration of unvoiced segments, % of voice breaks, speech rate, and duration of syllables), alone or in addition to age and years of education, were used to build a learning-based classifier. The leave-one-out cross validation was used for testing and the classifier accuracy was computed. When the voice features were used alone, an overall classification accuracy of 0.73 was achieved. When age and years of education were additionally used, the overall accuracy increased up to 0.80. These performances were lower than the accuracy of 0.86 found in a recent study. However, in that study the classification was based on several tasks, including more cognitive demanding tasks. Our results are encouraging because acoustic features, derived for the first time only from an ecologic continuous speech task, were able to discriminate people with a normal cognitive function from people with a mild cognitive decline. This study poses the basis for the development of a mobile application performing automatic voice analysis on-the-fly during phone calls, which might potentially support the detection of early signs of functional cognitive decline

Towards a comprehensive evaluation of ultrasound speckle reduction

Over the last three decades, several despeckling filters have been developed to reduce the speckle noise inherently present in ultrasound images without losing the diagnostic information. In this paper, a new intensity and feature preservation evaluation metric for full speckle reduction evaluation is proposed based contrast and feature similarities. A comparison of the despeckling methods is done, using quality metrics and visual interpretation of images profiles to evaluate their performance and show the benefits each one can contribute to noise reduction and feature preservation. To test the methods, noise-free images and simulated B-mode ultrasound images are used. This way, the despeckling techniques can be compared using numeric metrics, taking the noise-free image as a reference. In this study, a total of seventeen different speckle reduction algorithms have been documented based on adaptive filtering, diffusion filtering and wavelet filtering, with sixteen qualitative metrics estimation.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Carotid Ultrasound Boundary Study (CUBS): An Open Multicenter Analysis of Computerized Intima–Media Thickness Measurement Systems and Their Clinical Impact

Common carotid intima–media thickness (CIMT) is a commonly used marker for atherosclerosis and is often computed in carotid ultrasound images. An analysis of different computerized techniques for CIMT measurement and their clinical impacts on the same patient data set is lacking. Here we compared and assessed five computerized CIMT algorithms against three expert analysts’ manual measurements on a data set of 1088 patients from two centers. Inter- and intra-observer variability was assessed, and the computerized CIMT values were compared with those manually obtained. The CIMT measurements were used to assess the correlation with clinical parameters, cardiovascular event prediction through a generalized linear model and the Kaplan–Meier hazard ratio. CIMT measurements obtained with a skilled analyst's segmentation and the computerized segmentation were comparable in statistical analyses, suggesting they can be used interchangeably for CIMT quantification and clinical outcome investigation. To facilitate future studies, the entire data set used is made publicly available for the community at http://dx.doi.org/10.17632/fpv535fss7.1

Sensitivity of the human auditory cortex to acoustic degradation of speech and non-speech sounds

The perception of speech is usually an effortless and reliable process even in highly adverse listening conditions. In addition to external sound sources, the intelligibility of speech can be reduced by degradation of the structure of speech signal itself, for example by digital compression of sound. This kind of distortion may be even more detrimental to speech intelligibility than external distortion, given that the auditory system will not be able to utilize sound source-specific acoustic features, such as spatial location, to separate the distortion from the speech signal. The perceptual consequences of acoustic distortions on speech intelligibility have been extensively studied. However, the cortical mechanisms of speech perception in adverse listening conditions are not well known at present, particularly in situations where the speech signal itself is distorted. The aim of this thesis was to investigate the cortical mechanisms underlying speech perception in conditions where speech is less intelligible due to external distortion or as a result of digital compression. In the studies of this thesis, the intelligibility of speech was varied either by digital compression or addition of stochastic noise. Cortical activity related to the speech stimuli was measured using magnetoencephalography (MEG). The results indicated that degradation of speech sounds by digital compression enhanced the evoked responses originating from the auditory cortex, whereas addition of stochastic noise did not modulate the cortical responses. Furthermore, it was shown that if the distortion was presented continuously in the background, the transient activity of auditory cortex was delayed. On the perceptual level, digital compression reduced the comprehensibility of speech more than additive stochastic noise. In addition, it was also demonstrated that prior knowledge of speech content enhanced the intelligibility of distorted speech substantially, and this perceptual change was associated with an increase in cortical activity within several regions adjacent to auditory cortex. In conclusion, the results of this thesis show that the auditory cortex is very sensitive to the acoustic features of the distortion, while at later processing stages, several cortical areas reflect the intelligibility of speech. These findings suggest that the auditory system rapidly adapts to the variability of the auditory environment, and can efficiently utilize previous knowledge of speech content in deciphering acoustically degraded speech signals.Puheen havaitseminen on useimmiten vaivatonta ja luotettavaa myös erittäin huonoissa kuunteluolosuhteissa. Puheen ymmärrettävyys voi kuitenkin heikentyä ympäristön häiriölähteiden lisäksi myös silloin, kun puhesignaalin rakennetta muutetaan esimerkiksi pakkaamalla digitaalista ääntä. Tällainen häiriö voi heikentää ymmärrettävyyttä jopa ulkoisia häiriöitä voimakkaammin, koska kuulojärjestelmä ei pysty hyödyntämään äänilähteen ominaisuuksia, kuten äänen tulosuuntaa, häiriön erottelemisessa puheesta. Akustisten häiriöiden vaikutuksia puheen havaitsemiseen on tutkttu laajalti, mutta havaitsemiseen liittyvät aivomekanismit tunnetaan edelleen melko puutteelisesti etenkin tilanteissa, joissa itse puhesignaali on laadultaan heikentynyt. Tämän väitöskirjan tavoitteena oli tutkia puheen havaitsemisen aivomekanismeja tilanteissa, joissa puhesignaali on vaikeammin ymmärrettävissä joko ulkoisen äänilähteen tai digitaalisen pakkauksen vuoksi. Väitöskirjan neljässä osatutkimuksessa lyhyiden puheäänien ja jatkuvan puheen ymmärrettävyyttä muokattiin joko digitaalisen pakkauksen kautta tai lisäämällä puhesignaaliin satunnaiskohinaa. Puheärsykkeisiin liittyvää aivotoimintaa tutkittiin magnetoenkefalografia-mittauksilla. Tutkimuksissa havaittiin, että kuuloaivokuorella syntyneet herätevasteet voimistuivat, kun puheääntä pakattiin digitaalisesti. Sen sijaan puheääniin lisätty satunnaiskohina ei vaikuttanut herätevasteisiin. Edelleen, mikäli puheäänien taustalla esitettiin jatkuvaa häiriötä, kuuloaivokuoren aktivoituminen viivästyi häiriön intensiteetin kasvaessa. Kuuntelukokeissa havaittiin, että digitaalinen pakkaus heikentää puheäänien ymmärrettävyyttä voimakkaammin kuin satunnaiskohina. Lisäksi osoitettiin, että aiempi tieto puheen sisällöstä paransi merkittävästi häiriöisen puheen ymmärrettävyyttä, mikä heijastui aivotoimintaan kuuloaivokuoren viereisillä aivoalueilla siten, että ymmärrettävä puhe aiheutti suuremman aktivaation kuin heikosti ymmärrettävä puhe. Väitöskirjan tulokset osoittavat, että kuuloaivokuori on erittäin herkkä puheäänien akustisille häiriöille, ja myöhemmissä prosessoinnin vaiheissa useat kuuloaivokuoren viereiset aivoalueet heijastavat puheen ymmärrettävyyttä. Tulosten mukaan voi olettaa, että kuulojärjestelmä mukautuu nopeasti ääniympäristön vaihteluihin muun muassa hyödyntämällä aiempaa tietoa puheen sisällöstä tulkitessaan häiriöistä puhesignaalia

A multiplicative process for generating a beta-like survival function with application to the UK 2016 EU referendum results

Human dynamics and sociophysics suggest statistical models that may explain and provide us with better insight into social phenomena. Contextual and selection effects tend to produce extreme values in the tails of rank-ordered distributions of both census data and district-level election outcomes. Models that account for this nonlinearity generally outperform linear models. Fitting nonlinear functions based on rank-ordering census and election data therefore improves the fit of aggregate voting models. This may help improve ecological inference, as well as election forecasting in majoritarian systems. We propose a generative multiplicative decrease model that gives rise to a rank-order distribution, and facilitates the analysis of the recent UK EU referendum results. We supply empirical evidence that the beta-like survival function, which can be generated directly from our model, is a close fit to the referendum results, and also may have predictive value when covariate data are available

Games for active ageing, wellbeing and quality of life: A pilot study

The goal of this study is to identify a set of psychosocial variables and design domains important for game designers to encourage active ageing, well-being and quality of life. Sixty adult learners at four universities of third age were randomly assigned to three groups: the experimental group (G1), who tested firstly a game-based learning platform (GBLP) and then a computer-assisted platform (CAP); the comparison group (G2), who tested firstly the CAP and then the GBLP and the control group (G3) that did not take part in the intervention. Participants were assessed on their health-related well-being and quality of life, using the SF36v2 and WHOQOL-BREF scales before and after each experiment. Findings suggest that there were differences between the group type and their perception on mental health (F(2,57) = 3.771, p =.029) and general health-related well-being (F(2,57) = 5.231, p =.008), in which the GBLP showed improvements relative to the CAP. The environment and mental health were some of the psychosocial domains that should be considered, whereas storytelling, context-aware challenges, game space, immediate feedback, role-playing and social engagement were relevant design domains for these games