Background and Aims The accurate differentiation between a delayed pharyngeal swallow (sensory impairment) and premature spillage secondary to poor oro-lingual control (motor impairment) is essential to effective dysphagia management. However both physiologic abnormalities result in an identical radiographic sign, that of pre-swallow pooling of the bolus in the pharynx. The dysphagia literature does not provide satisfactory guidelines for making this distinction on videofluoroscopy. The purpose of this study was to assess the validity of a three-part rating scale for differentiating between these two impairments. Methods Videofluoroscopy was used to evaluate the swallowing of 29 participants presenting with dysphagia following stroke. Sensory thresholds for these participants were established by electrical stimulation of the anterior faucial pillars. The videofluoroscopic swallowing studies were analysed using the three-part rating scale and results from this were compared to sensory thresholds using Pearson's product moment correlation. Results There was no significant correlation between the three-part criteria and sensory thresholds. Inter-rater reliability for some measures was poor. Conclusions The three-part criteria was not shown to be a valid measure for differentiating between delayed pharyngeal swallow and premature spillage secondary to poor oro-lingual control. Possible explanations for these findings are discussed, including the relevance of faucial pillar sensation to swallowing.

Os Javalis da espécie Sus scrofa são mamíferos, omnívoros, não ruminantes, da ordem Artiodáctilos e da família Suidae. A língua possui um sistema altamente diferenciado de papilas, que apresentam amplas variações com influência direta das espécies. O objetivo do presente estudo consiste em descrever as características morfológicas estruturais e ultraestruturais do tecido lingual do Javali (Sus scrofa). As técnicas utilizadas foram microscopia de luz, microscopia eletrônica de varredura e microscopia eletrônica de transmissão possibilitando a aquisição de dados quantitativos e qualitativos. Quatro tipos de papilas foram encontrados na superfície dorsal da língua: filiforme, fungiforme, foliada e valada, sendo que as papilas filiformes estavam distribuídas por toda a superfície rostral da língua. Após a remoção epitelial as papilas conjuntivas filiformes revelaram-se cônicas. As papilas fungiformes foram encontradas na região medial e latero-caudal, assim como as papilas foliadas que possuem de três a quatro sulcos irregulares. Após a remoção epitelial as papilas conjuntivas fungiforme e foliada apresentaram projeções lineares em sua superfície. A papila valada foi encontrada na região caudal da superfície dorsal da língua, possui um formato oval e é rodeada por um sulco completo e após a remoção do tecido epitelial foi possível observar alguns ductos nas paredes do sulco. Os componentes ultraestruturais do epitélio dorsal da língua são: camadas epiteliais queratinizada, córnea, granular, espinhosa e basal, uma grande quantidade de colágeno foi encontrado na lâmina própria, assim como vários desmossomos e grânulos que queratohialina na camada granular. Conclui-se que as características morfológicas das papilas linguais do Javali assemelham-se com a de outros mamíferos / The boar of the species Sus scrofa are omnivorous, non-ruminant mammal of the order Artiodactyla and family Suidae. The language has a highly differentiated system of taste, which feature large variations with direct influence of species. The objective of the present study is to describe the structural and ultrastructural morphological characteristics of lingual tissue of wild boar (Sus scrofa). The techniques used were light microscopy, scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron microscopy, enabling the acquisition of quantitative and qualitative data. Four types of papillae were found on the dorsal surface of the tongue: fungiform, filiform, foliate and vallate, the filiform papillae were distributed over the entire surface rostral of the tongue, which after removing the epithelial surface revealed conical connective tissue core. The fungiform papillae were found in the middle and latero-medial region, as well as the foliate papillae which have three or four irregular grooves. After removing the epithelial surface, the connective tissue core of the fungiform papillae and foliate papillae presented linear projections on their surface. The vallate papillae were found in the caudal region of the dorsal surface of the tongue, have an oval shape and are surrounded by a full groove and after removing the epithelial tissue it was possible to observe some ducts in the walls of the groove. The ultrastructural components of dorsal epithelium of the tongue are: keratinized epithelial layers, containing cornea, granular, and basal cells, as well as a large amount of collagen found in the lamina propria, and various desmosomes and gap junctions and keratohyaline beads on granular layer. We conclude that the morphological characteristics of the Boar lingual papillae are similar to that of other mammals

In this thesis, we propose a new approach to Chinese-English Biomedical cross-lingual information retrieval (CLIR) using query expansion based on the eCMeSH Tree, a Chinese-English ontology extended from the Chinese Medical Subject Headings (CMeSH) Tree. The CMeSH Tree is not designed for information retrieval (IR), since it only includes heading terms and has no term weighting scheme for these terms. Therefore, we design an algorithm, which employs a rule-based parsing technique combined with the C-value term extraction algorithm and a filtering technique based on mutual information, to extract Chinese synonyms for the corresponding heading terms. We also develop a term-weighting mechanism. Following the hierarchical structure of CMeSH, we extend the CMeSH Tree to the eCMeSH Tree with synonymous terms and their weights. We propose an algorithm to implement CLIR using the eCMeSH Tree terms to expand queries. In order to evaluate the retrieval improvements obtained from our approach, the results of the query expansion based on the eCMeSH Tree are individually compared with the results of the experiments of query expansion using the CMeSH Tree terms, query expansion using pseudo-relevance feedback, and document translation. We also evaluate the combinations of these three approaches. This study also investigates the factors which affect the CLIR performance, including a stemming algorithm, retrieval models, and word segmentation.

A conversão de voz é um problema emergente em processamento de fala e voz com um crescente interesse comercial, tanto em aplicações como Tradução Fala para Fala (Speech-to-Speech Translation - SST) e em sistemas Text-To-Speech (TTS) personalizados. Um sistema de Conversão de Voz deve permitir o mapeamento de características acústicas de sentenças pronunciadas por um falante origem para valores correspondentes da voz do falante destino, de modo que a saída processada é percebida como uma sentença pronunciada pelo falante destino. Nas últimas duas décadas, o número de contribuições cientícas relacionadas ao problema de conversão de voz tem crescido consideravelmente, e um panorama sólido do processo histórico, assim como de técnicas propostas são indispensáveis para contribuição neste campo. O objetivo deste trabalho é realizar um levantamento geral das técnicas utilizadas para resolver o problema, apontando vantagens e desvantagens de cada método, e a partir deste estudo, desenvolver novas ferramentas. Dentre as contribuições do trabalho, foram desenvolvidos um método para decomposição espectral em termos de bases radiais, mapas fonéticos articiais, agrupamentos k-verossímeis, funções de empenamento em frequência entre outras, com o intuito de implementar um sistema de conversão de voz inter-linguístico independente de texto de alta qualidade. / Voice conversion is an emergent problem in voice and speech processing with increasing commercial interest, due to applications such as Speech-to-Speech Translation (SST) and personalized Text-To-Speech (TTS) systems. A Voice Conversion system should allow the mapping of acoustical features of sentences pronounced by a source speaker to values corresponding to the voice of a target speaker, in such a way that the processed output is perceived as a sentence uttered by the target speaker. In the last two decades the number of scientic contributions to the voice conversion problem has grown considerably, and a solid overview of the historical process as well as of the proposed techniques is indispensable for those willing to contribute to the eld. The goal of this work is to provide a critical survey that combines historical presentation to technical discussion while pointing out advantages and drawbacks of each technique, and from this study, to develop new tools. Some contributions proposed in this work include a method for spectral decomposition in terms of radial basis functions, articial phonetic map, warping functions among others, in order to implement a text-independent crosslingual voice conversion system of high quality.

Udržování prolinkování dokumentů v ryhle rostoucích kolekcích je problematické. To je dále zvětšeno vícejazyčností těchto kolekcí. Navrhujeme použít Explicitní Sémantickou Analýzu k identifikaci relevantních dokumentů a linků napříč jazyky, bez použití strojového překladu. Navrhli jsme a implementovali několik přistupů v prototypu linkovacího systému. Evaluace byla provedena na Čínské, České, Anglické a Španělské Wikipedii. Diskutujeme evaluační metodologii pro linkovací systémy, a hodnotíme souhlasnost mezi odkazy v různých jazykoých verzích Wikipedie. Hodnotíme vlastnosti Explicitní Sémantické Analýzy důležité pro její praktické použití.

Research into Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR), the task of transforming speech into text, remains highly relevant due to its countless applications in industry and academia. State-of-the-art ASR models are able to produce nearly perfect, sometimes referred to as human-like transcriptions; however, accurate ASR models are most often available only in high-resource languages. Furthermore, the vast majority of ASR models are monolingual, that is, only able to handle one language at a time. In this thesis, we extensively evaluate the quality of existing monolingual ASR models for Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian. In addition, we search for parallels between monolingual ASR models and the cognition of foreign languages in native speakers of these languages. Lastly, we extend the Swedish monolingual model to handle all three languages. The research conducted in this thesis project is divided into two main sections, namely monolingual and multilingual models. In the former, we analyse and compare the performance of monolingual ASR models for Scandinavian languages in monolingual and cross-lingual settings. We compare these results against the levels of mutual intelligibility of Scandinavian languages in native speakers of Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian to see whether the monolingual models favour the same languages as native speakers. We also examine the performance of the monolingual models on the regional dialects of all three languages and perform qualitative analysis of the most common errors. As for multilingual models, we expand the most accurate monolingual ASR model to handle all three languages. To do so, we explore the most suitable settings via trial models. In addition, we propose an extension to the well-established Wav2Vec 2.0-CTC architecture by incorporating a language classification component. The extension enables the usage of language models, thus boosting the overall performance of the multilingual models. The results reported in this thesis suggest that in a cross-lingual setting, monolingual ASR models for Scandinavian languages perform better on the languages that are easier to comprehend for native speakers. Furthermore, the addition of a statistical language model boosts the performance of ASR models in monolingual,  cross-lingual, and multilingual settings. ASR models appear to favour certain regional dialects, though the gap narrows in a multilingual setting. Contrary to our expectations, our multilingual model performs comparably with the monolingual Swedish ASR models and outperforms the Danish and Norwegian models. The multilingual architecture proposed in this thesis project is fairly simple yet effective. With greater computational resources at hand, further extensions offered in the conclusions might improve the models further.

京都大学 / 0048 / 新制・課程博士 / 博士(医学) / 甲第20078号 / 医博第4171号 / 新制||医||1018(附属図書館) / 33194 / 京都大学大学院医学研究科医学専攻 / (主査)教授 妻木 範行, 教授 開 祐司, 教授 松田 秀一 / 学位規則第4条第1項該当 / Doctor of Medical Science / Kyoto University / DFAM

No description available.

Introduction: Cochlear Implants (CI) are designed to address severe to profound hearing loss. When implantation occurs after language develops, it is referred to as post-lingual (PL) implantation. Currently, no interventions have been identified to address the communication challenges that young adults with PL-CIs may face after they complete post-CI rehabilitation services. This study analyzes if an individualized intervention plan is beneficial for a person with PL-CIs when experiencing changing communication demands in the transition to college or the workforce. Methodology: Baseline assessments were conducted; the results of which allowed for the establishment of four co-constructed goals. These goals were targeted in four intervention sessions focused on use of listening strategies. Results: Accuracy improved, and all goals were met. Clinicians observed success in independent strategy use. Participant noted a value in individualized intervention. Conclusion: The participant noted a benefit in an individualized intervention plan to support changing communication demands with PL-CIs.

La presente investigación propone identificar las características del frenillo lingual y de la producción del habla en niños de 6 y 7 años de dos I.E. públicas de Huaycán. El proceso metodológico de investigación y análisis de resultados, se realizan de acuerdo al enfoque cuantitativo y cualitativo, el diseño es no experimental, transeccional o transversal descriptivo, de diseño descriptivo simple. Este estudio se justifica, en el conocimiento de las variables, a nivel teórico y en proponer sugerencias a nivel práctico. Al analizar de manera sistemática los resultados, se obtiene que 18% de los niños presentan frenillo lingual alterado, y el 54% evidencia alteraciones del habla, siendo las alteraciones de origen fonético del habla las que presentaron mayor frecuencia (30%). Las alteraciones del habla de mayor incidencia fueron las sustituciones (88.9%) y el sonido más afectado fue la vibrante múltiple /rr/ (34%). La vibración en el ápice de la lengua fue el movimiento menos realizado (20%), la abertura de boca reducida (51.9%), lengua en el piso de la boca (42.6%) y la velocidad aumentada (25.9%) Se concluye que el frenillo lingual alterado es una alteración musculoesquelética en la que se evidencian alteraciones del habla, mas no es el factor que determina la presencia de dichas alteraciones. / The present investigation's purpose is to identify the characteristics of lingual frenulum and speech production in six and seven years old children of two public schools of Huaycán. The methodological process and the analysis investigation's results are performed according to the quantitative and qualitative approach, the design is non-experimental, transactional or transversal descriptive, of the simple descriptive design. This research is justified in two levels, at the theoretical level in the knowledge of the variables and at the practical level to propose suggestions. Analyzing in a systematic way the results, it's obtained that 18% percent of children presents altered lingual frenulum and 54% of children presents alterations speech, in which, the phonetic origin alterations presented the higher frequency (30%). The speech alterations more frequency, they were the substitutions (88.9%), the more affected fone was the multiply vibrant /rr/ (34%). The results evidences that tip of tongue vibration was the less movement realized (20%), the mouth opening reduced (51.9%), tongue on the floor of the mouth (46.2%), increased speed (25.9%). It concludes that altered lingual frenulum it's a skeletal muscle alteration disorder, in wish its evidence altered speech, but it is not the factor that determines the presences of these alterations.