Speaker-turn aware diarization for speech-based cognitive assessments.

Introduction: Speaker diarization is an essential preprocessing step for diagnosing cognitive impairments from speech-based Montreal cognitive assessments (MoCA).

Methods: This paper proposes three enhancements to the conventional speaker diarization methods for such assessments. The enhancements tackle the challenges of diarizing MoCA recordings on two fronts.

Automatic selection of spoken language biomarkers for dementia detection.

This paper analyzes diverse features extracted from spoken language to select the most discriminative ones for dementia detection. We present a two-step feature selection (FS) approach: Step 1 utilizes filter methods to pre-screen features, and Step 2 uses a novel feature ranking (FR) method, referred to as dual dropout ranking (DDR), to rank the screened features and select spoken language biomarkers. The proposed DDR is based on a dual-net architecture that separates FS and dementia detection into two neural networks (namely, the operator and selector).

Intelligent surgical workflow recognition for endoscopic submucosal dissection with real-time animal study.

Recent advancements in artificial intelligence have witnessed human-level performance; however, AI-enabled cognitive assistance for therapeutic procedures has not been fully explored nor pre-clinically validated. Here we propose AI-Endo, an intelligent surgical workflow recognition suit, for endoscopic submucosal dissection (ESD). Our AI-Endo is trained on high-quality ESD cases from an expert endoscopist, covering a decade time expansion and consisting of 201,026 labeled frames.

The Hong Kong Grocery Shopping Dialog Task (HK-GSDT): A Quick Screening Test for Neurocognitive Disorders.

The Hong Kong Grocery Shopping Dialog Task (HK-GSDT) is a short and easy-to-administer cognitive test developed for quickly screening neurocognitive disorders (NCDs). In the test, participants are instructed to do a hypothetical instrumental activity of daily living task of purchasing ingredients for a dish from a grocery store and verbally describe the specific shopping procedures. The current study aimed to validate the test with a sample of 545 Hong Kong older adults (58.

An Integrated Approach of Machine Learning and Systems Thinking for Waiting Time Prediction in an Emergency Department.

Objective: The objective of this study is to apply machine learning algorithms for real-time and personalized waiting time prediction in emergency departments. We also aim to introduce the concept of systems thinking to enhance the performance of the prediction models.

Methods: Four popular algorithms were applied: (i) stepwise multiple linear regression; (ii) artificial neural networks; (iii) support vector machines; and (iv) gradient boosting machines.

The molecular tweezer CLR01 inhibits aberrant superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) self-assembly and in the G93A-SOD1 mouse model of ALS.

Mutations in superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) cause 15-20% of familial amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (fALS) cases. The resulting amino acid substitutions destabilize SOD1's protein structure, leading to its self-assembly into neurotoxic oligomers and aggregates, a process hypothesized to cause the characteristic motor-neuron degeneration in affected individuals. Currently, effective disease-modifying therapy is not available for ALS.

How can we better use Twitter to find a person who got lost due to dementia?

Twitter is a social media platform for online message sharing. The aim of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of using Twitter to search for people who got lost due to dementia. The online messages on Twitter, i.

Cardiovascular mortality in hypertensive patients newly prescribed perindopril vs. lisinopril: a 5-year cohort study of 15,622 Chinese subjects.

Background: Perindopril and lisinopril are two common ACE inhibitors prescribed for management of hypertension. Few studies have evaluated their comparative effectiveness to reduce mortality. This study compared the all-cause and cardiovascular related mortality among patients newly prescribed ACE inhibitors.