• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.2 no.4
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• pp.51-58
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• 2010

English vowels play an important role in the daily communication between Korean students and international visitors. However, many Korean students still have difficulty producing them distinctively. Vowels vary according to shapes of oral and pharyngeal cavities, which are mainly determined by the degree of jaw opening and tongue position. Yang (2008a) proposed a simplified chart of English and Korean vowels for an educational purpose. He also suggested to use wooden chopsticks to secure distinguishable jaw openings. The purpose of this study is to tap whether wooden chopsticks can be applicable to a method for correcting English vowel pronunciation. Twelve male and female students participated in the recordings of eight /hVd/ words followed by additional recordings with wooden chopsticks between upper and lower teeth. The first and second formant trajectories of both natural and controlled vowel productions were obtained and compared at six equidistant measurement points using Praat. Results showed that the formant values of natural vowel productions were comparable to those of controlled productions. Vowels with similar formant trajectories of male students were separated with the aid of chopsticks. The width of each chopstick could be controlled similarly in the experiment. The author concludes that wooden chopsticks can be useful to correct vowel pronunciation. Further studies are desirable for native speakers to make perceptual evaluations of controlled vowel productions by nonnative speakers.

• Journal of Audiology & Otology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.146-151
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The relationship between hearing aid (HA) use and improvement in cognitive function is not fully known. This study aimed to determine whether HAs could recover temporal resolution or hearing in noise functions. Materials and Methods: We designed a prospective study with two groups: HA users and controls. Patients older than 45 years, with a pure tone average threshold of worse than 40 dB and a speech discrimination score better than 60% in both ears were eligible. Central auditory processing tests and hearing in noise tests (HINTs) were evaluated at the beginning of the study and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the use of a monaural HA in the HA group compared to the control group. The changes in the evaluation parameters were statistically analyzed using the linear mixed model. Results: A total of 26 participants (13 in the HA and 13 in the control group) were included in this study. The frequency (p<0.01) and duration test (p=0.02) scores showed significant improvements in the HA group after 1 year, while the HINT scores showed no significant change. Conclusions: After using an HA for one year, patients performed better on temporal resolution tests. No improvement was documented with regard to hearing in noise.

• Korean Journal of Audiology
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.146-151
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• 2021

Background and Objectives: The relationship between hearing aid (HA) use and improvement in cognitive function is not fully known. This study aimed to determine whether HAs could recover temporal resolution or hearing in noise functions. Materials and Methods: We designed a prospective study with two groups: HA users and controls. Patients older than 45 years, with a pure tone average threshold of worse than 40 dB and a speech discrimination score better than 60% in both ears were eligible. Central auditory processing tests and hearing in noise tests (HINTs) were evaluated at the beginning of the study and 1, 3, 6, and 12 months after the use of a monaural HA in the HA group compared to the control group. The changes in the evaluation parameters were statistically analyzed using the linear mixed model. Results: A total of 26 participants (13 in the HA and 13 in the control group) were included in this study. The frequency (p<0.01) and duration test (p=0.02) scores showed significant improvements in the HA group after 1 year, while the HINT scores showed no significant change. Conclusions: After using an HA for one year, patients performed better on temporal resolution tests. No improvement was documented with regard to hearing in noise.

• 재활복지
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• v.15 no.2
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• pp.147-173
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• 2011

The purpose of this study was to develop a stuttering therapy device to aid in stutter therapy. The research method used for this study was as follows: First, the stuttering therapy device based on analysis of the prolonged speech method used at home and abroad was designed to achieve the goal of research. Second, the stuttering therapy device was to be developed to maintain a vocalization state, to use bio-feedback visualization, to have enough inspiration, to use Korean language in this device, and to use transfer and maintenance training in daily life. Third, the stuttering therapy device effectiveness was to be verified through use in clinical cases. The results of subjects receiving speech therapy and using the breathing control prolonged speech device and SI(stuttering Interview) evaluation programs for 3 months were as follows: For subject A, the stuttered word rate was reduced from 3.20 SW/M to 0.5 SW/M. For subject B, the stuttered word rate was reduced from 1.90 SW/M to 0.75 SW/M. For subject C, the stuttered word rate was reduced from 3.37 SW/M to 0.34 SW/M. For Subject D, the stuttered word rate was reduced from 0.51 SW/M to 0 SW/M. Follow-up evaluations verified the effectiveness of how the stuttering therapy device can reduce subjects' SW/M.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.22 no.9
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• pp.195-207
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• 2022

COVID-19 has remained one of the most serious health crises in recent history, resulting in the tragic loss of lives and significant economic impacts on the entire world. The difficulty of controlling COVID-19 poses a threat to the global health sector. Considering that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has contributed to improving research methods and solving problems facing diverse fields of study, AI algorithms have also proven effective in disease detection and early diagnosis. Specifically, acoustic features offer a promising prospect for the early detection of respiratory diseases. Motivated by these observations, this study conceptualized a speech-based diagnostic model to aid in COVID-19 diagnosis. The proposed methodology uses speech signals from confirmed positive and negative cases of COVID-19 to extract features through the pre-trained Visual Geometry Group (VGG-16) model based on Mel spectrogram images. This is used in addition to the K-means algorithm that determines effective features, followed by a Genetic Algorithm-Support Vector Machine (GA-SVM) classifier to classify cases. The experimental findings indicate the proposed methodology's capability to classify COVID-19 and NOT COVID-19 of varying ages and speaking different languages, as demonstrated in the simulations. The proposed methodology depends on deep features, followed by the dimension reduction technique for features to detect COVID-19. As a result, it produces better and more consistent performance than handcrafted features used in previous studies.

• The Korean Journal of Applied Statistics
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• v.32 no.2
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• pp.213-227
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• 2019

In this paper, we propose an end-to-end deep learning model combining Bayesian neural network with Korean speech recognition. In the past, Korean speech recognition was a complicated task due to the excessive parameters of many intermediate steps and needs for Korean expertise knowledge. Fortunately, Korean speech recognition becomes manageable with the aid of recent breakthroughs in "End-to-end" model. The end-to-end model decodes mel-frequency cepstral coefficients directly as text without any intermediate processes. Especially, Connectionist Temporal Classification loss and Attention based model are a kind of the end-to-end. In addition, we combine Bayesian neural network to implement the end-to-end model and obtain Monte Carlo estimates. Finally, we carry out our experiments on the "WorimalSam" online dictionary dataset. We obtain 4.58% Word Error Rate showing improved results compared to Google and Naver API.

• Proceedings of the KOR-BRONCHOESO Conference
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• 1978.06a
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• pp.9.2-9
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• 1978

Monaural and binaural hearing aid performance under quiet and noisy conditions were compared in regard to (1) the degree of hearing impairment, (2) the symmetry of pure tone audiogram, (3) the automatic gain control of the hearing aid. (4) hearing impairement with recruitment and, word discrimination ability. Performance using binaural hearing aids was consistently superior to that using monaural hearing aids. The results were as follows. 1. Speech detection thresholds were enhanced by a mean of 4.25dB when tested with danavox 747 PP stereo type hearing aid and by a mean of 4.12 dB when tested hearing aids connected seperately to the right and left ears. 2. Binaurally tested speech reception thresholds were superior to monaurally tested thresholds by a mean of 3.56dB when tested in quiet and by a mean of 5.56dB when tested in noise. 3. Binaurally tested word discrimination scores were also superior by a mean of 17.09% in quiet and by a mean 19.63% in noise. 4. Both SRT and word discrimination scores were performed best by subjects with moderately-severe impairement. The performance by one mildly impaired subject was the poorest of all performances. The levels of performance order were; moderately-severe loss, severe loss. moderate loss and mild loss. 5. The data obtained using AGC aids when compaired with that of linear amplification show that when AGC aids were worn in both ears. the results were very poor but when one AGC aid was worn in one ear and linear amplification in the other. the results were good. 6. The advantages of binaural hearing aids were obvious even in cases 1) with great diferences in hearing thresholds between right and left ears, 2) when the subject was unable to discriminate words without vision and. 3) when the subject had extreme recruitme t phenomenon.

• Journal of the Korean Institute of Telematics and Electronics B
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• v.31B no.3
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• pp.123-131
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• 1994

This paper describes on the analysis of morphemes and it's synthesis being constituted of Korean word phrases. To analyze morphemes, we propose the introduction of "morph" for morpheme features in lexicon and the usage of chart data structures. it controls over the generation of unnecessary morpheme, and extracts every possible morpheme unit in a word phrase which minimized lexicon investigation by using heuristic information. Moreover, to synthesize morphemes, it is composed of every possible analyzed morphemes in word phrases to take advantage of speech and union information which can be obtained for program. Therefore, the systhesis of analyzed morphemes were designed to aid a syntactic analysis next step of natural language processing. This system for analyzing and systhesizing morpheme was to generate a word phrase by unifying syntactic and semantic features of analyzed morphemes in lexicon, and then established by C language of the personal computer.

• Journal of Korean Institute of Industrial Engineers
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• v.30 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2004

Advance in Internet technology has changed traditional production planning and control methods. In particular, collaborations between participants in supply chains are being increasingly addressed in industry for enhancing chain-wide productivity. A representative paradigm that emphasizes collaboration in production planning and control is CPFR(Collaborative Planning, Forecasting and Replenishment). In this paper, we present a multi-agent system architecture that supports the collaborations specified in CPFR. The multi-agent system architecture consists of event manager, data view agent, business rule agent, and collaboration agent. The collaboration agent systematically controls negotiation between supplier and buyer with the aid of collaboration protocol and blackboard. The multi-agent system has been implemented with EJB(Enterprise Java Beans).

• Proceedings of the KSLP Conference
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• 1998.11a
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• pp.196-196
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• 1998

후두전적출술후 음성재활방법은 식도발성, 기관식도발성, 전기후두발성, 기체역학형 인공후두 발성등이 있다. 본 연구에서는 각각의 음향학적 특성과 어떤 방법이 음성의 발성에 효과적이고, 음의 고저를 잘 나타낼 수 있는 지를 연구하였고 식도발성과 기관식도발성이 동시에 가능한 환자에서도 위와 같이 어떤 것이 음의 고저를 잘 나타낼 수 있는 지를 보고자 본 연구를 시행하였다. 식도발성자 5명, 기관식도발성자 7명(2가지가 다 가능한 발성자 2명을 포함하여), 전기후두발성자 3명과 공기를 이용한 인공후두(Pneumatic speech aid) 발성자 3명을 대상으로 하여 Maximal phonation time(sec), Sound intensity (dB SPL), Fundemental frequency (F0), Jitter(%), Shimmer(%)를 Matlab V5.1을 기초로 저자들이 고안한 프로그램인 Laryngeal analyser Vl.0 으로 측정하였다. 각각의 발성법에 따라 특징적인 변수의 차이가 있었으며 그중 공기를 이용한 인공후두 발성자에서 음의 고저를 가장 잘 표현하였다. (p<0.01). 그리고 식도발성과 기관식도발성을 같이 사용할 수 있는 2명에서 식도발성이 기관식도발성보다 더 효과적으로 음의 고저를 잘 나타냈다.