Intelligibility Test Research Articles

A simulation framework for cooperative intelligent transport systems testing and evaluation

Connected and automated driving in the context of cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS) is an emerging area in transport systems research. Interaction and cooperation between actors in transport systems are now enabled by the connectivity by means of vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2X) communication. To ensure the goals of C-ITS, which are safer and more efficient transport systems, testing and evaluation are required before deployment of C-ITS applications. Therefore, this paper presents a simulation framework—consisting of driving-, traffic-, and network-simulators—for testing and evaluation of C-ITS applications. Examples of cooperative adaptive cruise control (CACC) applications are presented, and are used as test cases for the simulation framework as well as to elaborate on potential use cases of it. Challenges from combining the simulators into one framework, and limitations are reported and discussed. Finally, the paper concludes with future development directions, and applications of the simulation framework in testing and evaluation of C-ITS.

Automatic Speech Recognition Predicts Speech Intelligibility and Comprehension for Listeners With Simulated Age-Related Hearing Loss.

The purpose of this article is to assess speech processing for listeners with simulated age-related hearing loss (ARHL) and to investigate whether the observed performance can be replicated using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. The long-term goal of this research is to develop a system that will assist audiologists/hearing-aid dispensers in the fine-tuning of hearing aids. Sixty young participants with normal hearing listened to speech materials mimicking the perceptual consequences of ARHL at different levels of severity. Two intelligibility tests (repetition of words and sentences) and 1 comprehension test (responding to oral commands by moving virtual objects) were administered. Several language models were developed and used by the ASR system in order to fit human performances. Strong significant positive correlations were observed between human and ASR scores, with coefficients up to .99. However, the spectral smearing used to simulate losses in frequency selectivity caused larger declines in ASR performance than in human performance. Both intelligibility and comprehension scores for listeners with simulated ARHL are highly correlated with the performances of an ASR-based system. In the future, it needs to be determined if the ASR system is similarly successful in predicting speech processing in noise and by older people with ARHL.

Air gasification of biogas-derived digestate in a downdraft fixed bed gasifier

Digestate is a byproduct from biomass anaerobic digestion process. Gasification of dried digestate to produce gasesous product might be a promising route. In this work, air gasification of digestate with high ash content was performed in a downdraft fixed bed gasifier at temperature varying from 600°C to 800°C and air equivalence ratio (ER) ranging from 0.25 to 0.30. The ash melting properties were firstly detected by the Intelligent Ash Melting Point Test, and the by-products (biochar and ash) were analyzed.The results showed that no ash slagging was observed and therefore it is feasible to operate digestate gasification under 800°C and ER ranging from 0.25 to 0.30. High temperature favored gas production, 800°C is proposed for digestate gasification in the present study. ER with a medium value improved gas quality and cold gas efficiency (CGE), and the optimal LHV of 4.78MJ/Nm3 and CGE of 67.01% were obtained with ER of 0.28. High ER favored the increase of gas yield and decrease of tar concentration, and the optimal gas yield of 2.15 Nm3/kg and tar concentration of 1.61g/Nm3 were achieved with ER of 0.30. Improved molar ratio of H2/CO varying from 1.03 to 1.08 was obtained at 800°C, indicating gaseous product has the potential for chemical synthesis processes (1<H2/CO<2). The byproducts biochar and ash could be applied on land as fertilizer.

Model‐based design of an autonomous function for responsive satellite operations

AbstractPROMPT (PRompt Observation Methodology with intelligent Pointing and Testing) is a concept for the responsive observation method used by a satellite with an autonomous function on board. This paper shows its concept of how to shorten the timeline to observation of days to a month that normal satellites take after their launch. It also shows a model‐based design of an autonomous function that enables a robust satellite behavior against on‐orbit uncertainties.

Cochlear Implantation in Patients With Usher Syndrome Type IIa Increases Performance and Quality of Life.

Usher syndrome type IIa (USH2a) is characterized by congenital moderate to severe hearing impairment and retinitis pigmentosa. Hearing rehabilitation starts in early childhood with the application of hearing aids. In some patients with USH2a, severe progression of hearing impairment leads to insufficient speech intelligibility with hearing aids and issues with adequate communication and safety. Cochlear implantation (CI) is the next step in rehabilitation of such patients. This study evaluates the performance and benefit of CI in patients with USH2a. Retrospective case-control study to evaluate the performance and benefit of CI in 16 postlingually deaf adults (eight patients with USH2a and eight matched controls). Performance and benefit were evaluated by a speech intelligibility test and three quality-of-life questionnaires. Patients with USH2a with a mean age of 59 years at implantation exhibited good performance after CI. The phoneme scores improved significantly from 41 to 87% in patients with USH2a (p = 0.02) and from 30 to 86% in the control group (p = 0.001). The results of the questionnaire survey demonstrated a clear benefit from CI. There were no differences in performance or benefit between patients with USH2a and control patients before and after CI. CI increases speech intelligibility and improves quality of life in patients with USH2a.

برنامج مقترح قائم على نظام الفورمات 4 MAT System وفاعلیته فی علاج عسر الحساب و تنمیة الاستمتاع بتعلمه لذوی صعوبات التعلم بالمرحلة الابتدائیة

استهدف البحث التعرف على فاعلية برنامج مقترح قائم على نظام الفورمات لمکارثي في علاج عسر الحساب و تنمية الاستمتاع بتعلمه لذوي صعوبات التعلم بالصف الثالث الابتدائي. واستخدم البحث المنهج الوصفي التحليلي والمنهج شبه التجريبي والتصميم التجريبي ذو المجموعتين: التجريبية والضابطة، کما تکونت عينة البحث من مجموعة من تلميذات الصف الثالث الابتدائي من ذوي عسر الحساب، بلغ عددهن (74) طالبة وقسمت الى مجموعتين: احداهما تجريبية ودرست بالبرنامج المقترح والآخرى ضابطة ودرست بالطريقة المعتادة في المدارس واستخدم البحث اختبار الذکاء المصور واختبار تشخيصي واختبار تحصيلي ومقياس للاستمتاع بتعلم الحساب. وأشارت نتائج البحث الى فاعلية البرنامج المقترح والقائم على نظام الفورمات في علاج عسر الحساب و تنمية الاستمتاع بتعلمه لذوي صعوبات التعلم بالصف الثالث الابتدائي Research aims to identify theeffectiveness of a Suggested program based on 4 mate system in the treatment of Dyscalculia and enhancing the enjoyment arithmetic learning for student with learning disabilities at the primary stage., the researcher used Descriptive analytic method, quasi experimental method, and the experimental and control group experimental design. sample of the research included ( 74) schoolgirl at third grade with Dyscalculia – in KSA , divided to two equal groups: The experimental group and control group .The research also used Pictorial intelligent test ,Diagnostic Math test, Achievement test and Enjoyment arithmetic learning scale . The results of the research showed effectiveness of the suggested program based on 4mat system in Treatment of Dyscalculia and enhancing Enjoyment of arithmetic Learning for student with learning disabilities at the primary stage.

The effect of permutations of time samples in the speech waveform on intelligibility.

This paper describes the effect of two types of temporal permutations of the speech waveform on speech intelligibility. Using an overlap-add procedure with triangular-shaped windows for frame lengths of 1/8 to 2048 ms, the temporal order of the speech samples within each frame was subjected to either of two types of permutations: time-reversal or randomization. For both permutations, speech intelligibility tests expectantly show 100% intelligibility for the very short frame lengths containing only a few speech samples. Intelligibility drops to essentially zero toward longer frame lengths of around 1 ms. Interestingly, only for the reverse condition, intelligibility recovers to essentially 100% for frame lengths in the 4-32 ms range, dropping again to zero for frame lengths exceeding about 100 ms. Tests for the Japanese and the English language show essentially similar results. The data are interpreted along the lines of a previous paper by Kazama and the present authors [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 127(3), 1432-1439 (2010)]. As in that previous paper, the loss of temporal envelope correlation shows a pattern very similar to that of the intelligibility data, illustrating again the importance of the preservation of narrow-band envelopes for speech intelligibility.

A More Intelligent Test Case Generation Approach through Task Models Manipulation

Ensuring that an interactive application allows users to perform their activities and reach their goals is critical to the overall usability of the interactive application. Indeed, the effectiveness factor of usability directly refers to this capability. Assessing effectiveness is a real challenge for usability testing as usability tests only cover a very limited number of tasks and activities. This paper proposes an approach towards automated testing of effectiveness of interactive applications. To this end we resort to two main elements: an exhaustive description of users' activities and goals using task models, and the generation of scenarios (from the task models) to be tested over the application. However, the number of scenarios can be very high (beyond the computing capabilities of machines) and we might end up testing multiple similar scenarios. In order to overcome these problems, we propose strategies based on task models manipulations (e.g., manipulating task nodes, operator nodes, information...) resulting in a more intelligent test case generation approach. For each strategy, we investigate its relevance (both in terms of test case generation and in terms of validity compared to the original task models) and we illustrate it with a small example. Finally, the proposed strategies are applied on a real-size case study demonstrating their relevance and validity to test interactive applications.

Intelligibility and acceptability of time-compressed utterances: an experimental study with blind and sighted listeners

This paper reports an experimental study on the impact of time-compressed speech on acceptability and intelligibility of utterances in Brazilian Portuguese. For the experiments, short audio sentences containing warning messages were used as stimuli. These sentences were recorded in a natural speech rate and then digitally manipulated to faster rates in a scalar fashion (from 9 to 19 syllables per second). Intelligibility and acceptability tests were then conducted with blind and sighted subjects. The results indicate that time-compressed speech has a significant impact on both acceptability and intelligibility of utterances for both groups of participants and that while blind subjects tended to give slightly higher acceptability rates across all speech rate conditions, sighted subjects performed better in the intelligibility experiment, what contradicts a trend that is often reported in the literature

Maintaining vowel distinctiveness in children with Steinert Myotonic Dystrophy: An ultrasound study

Speech production entails appropriately timed contractions of many muscles. Steinert myotonic dystrophy, a neurodegenerative disease that causes muscle weakness and difficulties in muscle relaxation after muscle contraction, frequently affects orofacial articulatory dynamics leading to decreased speech intelligibility. We aimed to investigate the articulatory and acoustic characteristics of cardinal vowels produced by children with Steinert disease. We recruited fourteen 6- to 14-year-old French-speaking children diagnosed with Steinert disease and 14 aged-matched typically developing children. They were asked to produce repetitions of the vowels /i a u/ in consonant-vowel (CV) contexts. A synchronized ultrasound, Optotrak motion tracking system, and audio recording system was used to track lip and jaw displacement as well as tongue shape and position. Duration and formant values were also extracted. The Euclidean distance between vowels, in the formant space, was reduced in children with Steinert disease compared to the control children. Different patterns of articulatory contrasts were observed among the children, with some of them using more tongue contrasts than lip contrasts. Intelligibility tests conducted with adult listeners on a subset of the data show that some patterns are related to higher intelligibility scores than others.

Effects of GABAB receptors in the insula on recognition memory observed with intellicage

BackgroundInsular function has gradually become a topic of intense study in cognitive research. Recognition memory is a commonly studied type of memory in memory research. GABABR has been shown to be closely related to memory formation. In the present study, we used intellicage, which is a new intelligent behavioural test system, and a bilateral drug microinjection technique to inject into the bilateral insula, to examine the relationship between GABABR and recognition memory.MethodsMale Sprague–Dawley rats were randomly divided into control, Sham, Nacl, baclofen and CGP35348 groups. Different testing procedures were employed using intellicage to detect changes in rat recognition memory. The expression of GABABR (GB1, GB2) in the insula of rats was determined by immunofluorescence and western blotting at the protein level. In addition, the expression of GABABR (GB1, GB2) was detected by RT-PCR at the mRNA level.ResultsThe results of the intellicage test showed that recognition memory was impaired in terms of position learning, punitive learning and punitive reversal learning by using baclofen and CGP35348. In position reversal learning, no significant differences were found in terms of cognitive memory ability between the control groups and the CGP and baclofen groups. Immunofluorescence data showed GABABR (GB1, GB2) expression in the insula, while data from RT-PCR and western blot analysis demonstrated that the relative expression of GB1 and GB2 was significantly increased in the baclofen group compared with the control groups. In the CGP35348 group, the expression of GB1 and GB2 was significantly decreased, but there was no significant difference in GB1 or GB2 expression in the control groups.ConclusionsGABABR expression in the insula plays an important role in the formation of recognition memory in rats.

Intelligent Testing in the 21st Century

Intelligent Testing in the 21st Century

Speech Intelligibility in Persian Hearing Impaired Children with Cochlear Implants and Hearing Aids.

The aim of present study is to evaluate and compare speech intelligibility in hearing impaired children with cochlear implants (CI) and hearing aid (HA) users and children with normal hearing (NH). The sample consisted of 45 Persian-speaking children aged 3 to 5-years-old. They were divided into three groups, and each group had 15, children, children with CI and children using hearing aids in Hamadan. Participants was evaluated by the test of speech intelligibility level. Results of ANOVA on speech intelligibility test showed that NH children had significantly better reading performance than hearing impaired children with CI and HA. Post-hoc analysis, using Scheffe test, indicated that the mean score of speech intelligibility of normal children was higher than the HA and CI groups; but the difference was not significant between mean of speech intelligibility in children with hearing loss that use cochlear implant and those using HA. It is clear that even with remarkabkle advances in HA technology, many hearing impaired children continue to find speech production a challenging problem. Given that speech intelligibility is a key element in proper communication and social interaction, consequently, educational and rehabilitation programs are essential to improve speech intelligibility of children with hearing loss.

Evaluation of sequential adaptive testing with real-data simulation: A case study

Computer-based testing systems take advantage of the interaction between computers and individuals to sequentially customize the presented test items to the test-taker’s ability estimate. Administering such sequential adaptive tests has many benefits including personalized tests, accurate measureme nt, item security, and substantial cost reduction. However, the design of such intelligent tests is a complex process and it is important to explore the impact of various parameters and options on the performance before switching from traditional tests in a particular environment. Although Monte Carlo simulation is a typical tool for achieving this purpose, it depends on generating pseudo-random samples, which may fail to effectively represent the environment under study and thus incorrect inferences can be drawn. This paper presents a comprehensive case study to evaluate and compare the performance of a number of sequential adaptive testing procedures but using post-hoc simulation, where items of a real conventional test are re-administered adaptively. The comparisons are based on the number of administered items, standard error of measurement, item exposure rates, and correlation between adaptive and non-adaptive estimates. It is found that the results varies based on the settings. However, Bayesian estimation with adaptive item selection can lead to greater savings in terms of the number of test items without jeopardizing the estimated ability. It also has the lowest average exposure rate for each item.

Selection of test-setup parameters to target specific signal-to-noise regions in speech-on-speech intelligibility testing

Objective: To investigate the magnitude of the change in speech-reception threshold (SRT) provided by altering four different test-setup parameters. Furthermore, to determine whether these changes in SRT are of a sufficient magnitude, such that they can be used to design a test-setup in future experiments that target a predefined signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) region. This could be particularly important if the test contrast investigated is confounded with test SNR. Design: The investigated test-setup parameters were: Spatial separation between target (0°) and maskers (±15°, ±30°, ±45°, or ±75°), number of maskers (two, four or six), scoring method (scoring percent-correct words or sentences) and masker gender (same or opposite to target). Twenty SRTs were measured per test subject. Study sample: Twenty hearing-impaired test subjects participated over two visits. Results: Alteration of masker gender, spatial separation between target and masker (±15°, ±30°, ± 45°), and scoring method was shown to offer SRT changes of a sufficient magnitude. The different test setups resulted in average SRTs ranging from −4.0 to 3.3 dB. Conclusion: Deliberately selecting test setup parameters can change the overall difficulty of the test by up to 7.3 dB SRT. Thus, a future experiment can, to this extent, be designed to target a specific SNR region.

Thirteen years of the fight against doping in figures.

Every year, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) publishes the main statistics reported by the accredited laboratories, which provide very valuable information for assessing changes in the patterns of doping in sports over time. Using the information provided since 2003 as the basis for the analysis, the evolution of doping/anti-doping figures over the last decade can be examined in reasonable detail, at least in reference to samples analyzed and categories of substances more commonly found in athletes' samples. This brief analysis of the WADA statistical reports leads us to the following outcomes: the increase in anti-doping pressure from 2003 to 2015, as evidenced by increased numbers of samples analyzed and banned substances, has not directly produced a higher frequency of adverse/atypical findings. Although this could be interpreted as steady state in the capacity to detect doping through this whole period, it also resulted in a significant increase in the absolute number of samples catalogued as doping (from 2247 in 2003 to 5912 in 2015). Anabolic agents have been the most common doping substances detected in all statistics reports while the remaining groups of substances are much less frequently found in doping control samples. Given that one might have expected the enhancement of the anti-doping programme led by WADA over this last decade to have increased the percentage of adverse/atypical findings, the fact that it did not might indicate the need to take another step in sampling strategies, such as 'more intelligent testing' based on the differences in the prevalence of doping substances among sports. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Measuring cross-linguistic intelligibility in the Germanic, Romance and Slavic language groups

We administered six functional intelligibility tests, i.e., spoken and written versions of (i) an isolated word recognition test, (ii) a cloze test at the sentence level and (iii) a picture-to-text matching task at the paragraph level. The scores on these functional tests were compared with each other and with intersubjective measures obtained for the same materials through opinion testing, i.e., estimated and perceived intelligibility. The native language of the speakers and listeners belonged to one of three groups of European language families, i.e., Germanic (Danish, Dutch, English, German, Swedish, yielding 20 within-family pairs of different speaker and listener languages), Romance (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, yielding 20 language pairs) and Slavic (Bulgarian, Croatian, Czech, Polish, Slovak, Slovene, i.e., 30 pairs). Results from 13,566 participants were analyzed for the 70 within-family combinations of speaker and listener languages. The word recognition test and the cloze test revealed similar patterns of intelligibility but correlated poorly with the picture-to-text matching scores. Both measures of judged intelligibility (estimated and perceived) correlated highly with one another and with the functional test scores, especially those of the cloze test. We conclude that lay listeners are able to judge the intelligibility of a non-native test language from within their own language family. Moreover, participants understood written language better than the spoken forms. Advantages and disadvantages of the various intelligibility measures we used are discussed. We conclude that the written cloze procedure which we developed is the optimal cross-language intelligibility test in the European language area.

The reliability of recorded text test scores: widespread inconsistent intelligibility testing in minority languages

ABSTRACTThe recorded text test (RTT) is commonly used to test dialect intelligibility, often to inform language development decisions. More than 25 papers using the RTT method were published on www.sil.org/silesr from January 2009 to March 2013. As introduced by Casad [1974. Dialect Intelligibility Testing. Summer Institute of Linguistics Publications in Linguistics and Related Fields, publication no. 38. Norman: Summer Institute of Linguistics of the University of Oklahoma], the method involves recording a narrative text, developing, and piloting an audio test based on the text, and using this test with speakers of speech varieties related to the text’s speech variety. This is the first study to explore the reliability of RTT scores in a generalisable way. This study demonstrates that the selection of a text to be developed into an RTT has significant implications on the results of the RTT which could lead to incorrect recommendations about how well material produced in one speech variety could be used by speakers of related speech varieties. The 10 questions Casad (1974, 117) recommends may not be sufficient to obtain a consistent measure of intelligibility.

Poder predictivo de la edad y la inteligencia en el desempeño de una tarea de planificación: Torre de Londres

La planificación es un concepto clave de la función ejecutiva que permite a las personas generar un plan de acción necesario para la resolución eficaz de un problema con un propósito. Se trata de una capacidad que se desarrolla desde la infancia hasta mediados de la adolescencia y es fundamental para un funcionamiento cotidiano eficaz. El objetivo de este trabajo es determinar el poder predictivo de la edad y la inteligencia sobre la planificación en una muestra de niños de 6 a 13 años de edad. La muestra estuvo conformada por 240 niños divididos equitativamente en cuatro grupos etarios: 6, 8, 11 y 13. Se administró la prueba Torre de Londres y dos pruebas de la Escala de Inteligencia para Niños de Wechsler. Para determinar el grado de asociación entre las variables, se realizaron análisis de correlación, y para determinar el poder predictivo de la edad y la inteligencia sobre la planificación se realizó un análisis de regresión lineal. Los resultados muestran que ambas variables —edad e inteligencia— se asocian positivamente con el desempeño en Torre de Londres, y que también esas variables tienen un poder predictivo sobre el rendimiento en la tarea de planificación. Los datos permiten concluir que la planificación es una habilidad que se desarrolla a lo largo de la infancia y principios de la adolescencia, y que el nivel intelectual tiene un efecto en la capacidad para generar planes a partir de problemas con un propósito.

Intelligent testing for Arduino UNO based on thermal image

The goal of this paper is to develop a tool that will aid manufacturers of Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) in testing their production lines with an acceptable rate of fault detection and minimize the test time. The PCB unit, namely the Arduino UNO board, is used to generate the thermal profile for the unit under test. This work is based on using a classification approach that classifies the PCB defects into the Integrated Circuit (IC) level. In the proposed technique, histogram features are extracted from the ICs hotspots which are used as inputs into a classifier model. The number of effective features are minimized by the principal component analysis. The image classification and detection are performed based on three soft computing techniques; multilayer perceptron, support vector machine, and adaptive neuron-fuzzy inference system. The effectiveness of the models is evaluated by comparing their performance and accuracy of classification.