Extending the phone set is one common approach for dealing with phonetic confusions in spontaneous speech. We propose using likelihood ratio test as a confidence measure for automatic phone set extension to model phonetic confusions. We first extend the standard phone set using dynamic programming (DP) alignment to cover all possible phonetic confusions in training data. Likelihood ratio test i...

The count-mass distinction often served as a test case for asking how syntax and semantics are related, whether knowledge of one helps the acquisition of the other. Virtually no studies examined this distinction in classifier languages which supposedly lack the distinction. However, Cheng and Sybesma (1998) argued Mandarin as a classifier language encodes this distinction at the classifier leve...

OBJECTIVES Readmission and death are frequent after a hospitalisation and difficult to predict. While many predictors have been identified, few studies have focused on functional status. We assessed whether performance-based functional impairment at discharge is associated with readmission and death after an acute medical hospitalisation. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS We prospectively incl...

BACKGROUND The Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT) has been recommended as a simple screening tool to identify those at risk of falling. However, subsequent detailed assessment is required to identify underlying falls risk factors to provide direction for optimal targeted intervention strategies. METHODS 110 consecutive falls clinic patients underwent the TUGT, the Abbreviated Mental Test and the Phy...

Adaptation techniques in language modeling have shown growing potentials in improving speech recognition performance. For topic adaptation, a set of pre-defined topic-specific language models are typically used, and adaptation is achieved through adjusting the interpolation weights. However, mismatch between the test data and the pre-defined models inevitably exists and is left untreated in the...

Acoustic variability is ubiquitous in speech. To understand how listeners cope with this variability, the present study focuses on Mandarin tones. Since the major cues to tone are both spectral (F0 height and direction) and temporal (turning point, TP), tones provide a good test case to evaluate effects of context. The present study examined production variation due to changes in speaking rate ...

Monkeys with dorsolateral frontal ablations have been found able to learn go-no-go alternation despite a grave deficit in classical alternation. Subsequently, evidence has implicated certain limbic lesions in go-no-go types of task, e.g., passive avoidance and successive discriminations. This study was undertaken to test whether these limbic lesions would affect go-no-go more than classical alt...

OBJECTIVE To investigate the clinical feasibility of a newly developed, portable, gait assistive robot (WA-H, 'walking assist for hemiplegia') for improving the balance function of patients with stroke-induced hemiplegia. METHODS Thirteen patients underwent 12 weeks of gait training on the treadmill while wearing WA-H for 30 minutes per day, 4 days a week. Patients' balance function was evalu...

The current quasiexperimental study was intended to determine the efficacy of Ba Duan Jin (translation: eight-section brocade) in improving balance ability of Chinese community-dwelling older adults. The trial group (n = 47) engaged in a Ba Duan Jin exercise program for 12 weeks, whereas the control group (n = 48) participated in a 12-week walking exercise program. After the intervention, parti...