scholarly journals Early Detection of Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases using the VOT_Mean Feature

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 6912-6918
Author(s):  
A. Kehili ◽  
Κ. Dabbabi ◽  
A. Cherif
Keyword(s):  
Early Detection ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Neurological Diseases ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Experimental Tests ◽  
Phonetic Perception ◽  
Parkinson’S Diseases ◽  
The World ◽  
Tunisian Arabic ◽  
Very High

Alzheimer’s (AD) and Parkinson’s diseases (PD) are tw of the most common neurological diseases in the world. Several studies have been conducted on the identification of these diseases using speech and laryngeal disorders. Those symptoms can appear even at the early stages of AD and PD, but not in very specific and prominent ways. Voice Onset Time (VOT) is an acoustic specification of the stopping consonant that is commonly discussed in studies of phonetic perception. In this study, the VOT_Mean feature was explored to identify AD and PD early using /pa/, /ka/, and /ta/ syllables for the diadochokinetic task (DDK). VOT_Mean was calculated as the average of the first and the second VOT values (VOT_1 and VOT_2), corresponding to the second and the penultimate VOT measurement cycles. Experimental tests were performed on Tunisian Arabic and Spanish databases for the early detection of AD and PD respectively. The results showed a very high significance of VOT_Mean on the early detection of AD and PD. Moreover, the best results were achieved using the XGBoost (XGBT) algorithm as a classifier on the VOT_Mean feature.

Acoustic and Perceptual Analysis of Word-Initial Stop Consonants in Phonologically Disordered Children

1988 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 449-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Forrest ◽  
Barbara K. Rockman
Keyword(s):  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Acoustic Cues ◽  
Perceptual Analysis ◽  
Spectral Cues ◽  
Voicing Contrast ◽  
Temporal Measures ◽  
Very High

Spectrographic measures of voice onset time (VOT) were made for phonologically disordered children in whom a voicing contrast was just beginning to emerge. These temporal measures were related to adult listeners' perception of voicing of the initial stop consonant to determine how well VOT could predict perceived voicing. In general, the predictive utility of VOT was not very high. The relation between VOT as produced by the phonologically disordered children and perceived voicing ranged from 0.31 to 0.43. A finer-grained analysis was conducted to determine what other acoustic cues might have influenced the listeners' judgments of voicing. Although no one acoustic cue could be found to explain all listeners' responses, spectral cues such as fundamental and F 1 frequencies at the onset of voicing, as well as the burst and aspiration amplitude relative to the vowel onset amplitude accounted for the perceived voicing of about half of the tokens that were not differentiated by VOT. Rather than relying solely on the temporal characteristics of the VOT interval, a matrix of acoustic cues may influence how a listener perceives word-initial voicing as produced by phonologically disordered children.

How India Fights with COVID-19 with Learning from Highly Affected Countries

2020 ◽  
Vol 15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pooja Sharma ◽  
Karan Veer
Keyword(s):  
Risk Assessment ◽  
Gene Sequencing ◽  
Lessons Learned ◽  
World Health ◽  
Global Risk ◽  
The World ◽  
Global Risk Assessment ◽  
Health Organization ◽  
Very High ◽  
Breathing Problem

: It was 11 March 2020 when the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the name COVID-19 for coronavirus disease and also described it as a pandemic. Till that day 118,000 cases were confirmed of pneumonia with breathing problem throughout the world. At the start of New Year when COVID-19 came into knowledge a few days later, the gene sequencing of the virus was revealed. Today the number of confirmed cases is scary, i.e. 9,472,473 in the whole world and 484,236 deaths have been recorded by WHO till 26 June 2020. WHO's global risk assessment is very high [1]. The report is enlightening the lessons learned by India from the highly affected countries.

Spillovers to the Global South

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilmaz Akyüz
Keyword(s):  
World Economy ◽  
Commodity Prices ◽  
Global South ◽  
Capital Inflows ◽  
Global Crisis ◽  
Advanced Economies ◽  
The World ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Global Growth ◽  
Very High

The crisis demolished the myth that EDEs were decoupled from advanced economies and BRICS were becoming new engines of global growth. From 2011 onwards, with the end of the twin booms in commodity prices and capital inflows, growth in EDEs has converged downward towards the depressed levels of advanced economies from the very high levels achieved in the run-up to the global crisis and the immediate aftermath. Loss of momentum is particularly visible in economies that failed to manage the earlier booms prudently. In examining the spillovers from policies in major advanced economies and China to EDEs, the chapter introduces the notion of commodity-finance nexus wherein these markets reinforce each other during both expansions and contractions. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of policies needed to put the world economy into decent shape and to avoid liquidity and debt crises in EDEs.

scholarly journals Longitudinal Developments in Bilingual Second Language Acquisition and First Language Attrition of Speech: The Case of Arnold Schwarzenegger

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 61
Author(s):  
Lisa Kornder ◽  
Ineke Mennen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
First Language ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Speech Development ◽  
Dynamic Interactions ◽  
First Language Attrition ◽  
Second Formant ◽  
L1 And L2

The purpose of this investigation was to trace first (L1) and second language (L2) segmental speech development in the Austrian German–English late bilingual Arnold Schwarzenegger over a period of 40 years, which makes it the first study to examine a bilingual’s speech development over several decades in both their languages. To this end, acoustic measurements of voice onset time (VOT) durations of word-initial plosives (Study 1) and formant frequencies of the first and second formant of Austrian German and English monophthongs (Study 2) were conducted using speech samples collected from broadcast interviews. The results of Study 1 showed a merging of Schwarzenegger’s German and English voiceless plosives in his late productions as manifested in a significant lengthening of VOT duration in his German plosives, and a shortening of VOT duration in his English plosives, closer to L1 production norms. Similar findings were evidenced in Study 2, revealing that some of Schwarzenegger’s L1 and L2 vowel categories had moved closer together in the course of L2 immersion. These findings suggest that both a bilingual’s first and second language accent is likely to develop and reorganize over time due to dynamic interactions between the first and second language system.

Phonetic feature size in second language acquisition: Examining VOT in voiceless and voiced stops

2021 ◽  
pp. 026765832110089
Author(s):  
Daniel J Olson
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Voice Onset Time ◽  
Onset Time ◽  
Stop Consonant ◽  
Acoustic Similarity ◽  
Stop Consonants ◽  
Voiceless Stop ◽  
English Speaking ◽  
Underlying Mechanisms

Featural approaches to second language phonetic acquisition posit that the development of new phonetic norms relies on sub-phonemic features, expressed through a constellation of articulatory gestures and their corresponding acoustic cues, which may be shared across multiple phonemes. Within featural approaches, largely supported by research in speech perception, debate remains as to the fundamental scope or ‘size’ of featural units. The current study examines potential featural relationships between voiceless and voiced stop consonants, as expressed through the voice onset time cue. Native English-speaking learners of Spanish received targeted training on Spanish voiceless stop consonant production through a visual feedback paradigm. Analysis focused on the change in voice onset time, for both voiceless (i.e. trained) and voiced (i.e. non-trained) phonemes, across the pretest, posttest, and delayed posttest. The results demonstrated a significant improvement (i.e. reduction) in voice onset time for voiceless stops, which were subject to the training paradigm. In contrast, there was no significant change in the non-trained voiced stop consonants. These results suggest a limited featural relationship, with independent voice onset time (VOT) cues for voiceless and voices phonemes. Possible underlying mechanisms that limit feature generalization in second language (L2) phonetic production, including gestural considerations and acoustic similarity, are discussed.

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