We present a study on the relation between fundamental frequency (F0) and its perceptual effect in the context of text-tospeech (TTS) synthesis. Features that essentially capture the intonational (macro-prosodic) properties of spoken speech are introduced and analysed with regard to the following questions: (i) How does the prosodic variation of TTS signals differ from natural speech? (ii) Is t...

BACKGROUND Disrupted atherosclerotic plaques in the left anterior descending coronary artery are discussed controversially as a potential pathophysiological mechanism in Takotsubo syndrome (TTS). Therefore, the aim of the present study was to assess plaque burden and morphology by using optical coherence tomography in patients with TTS. METHODS AND RESULTS A total of 23 consecutive TTS patien...

BACKGROUND Data regarding the influence of minor changes in thyroid function on body mass index (BMI) are scarce and conflicting. This study aims to evaluate the association between normal levels of serum TSH and BMI, taking into consideration the effect of smoking tobacco. METHODS In this cross-sectional community-based survey, 1581 randomly selected subjects who had no histories of thyroid ...

A Frisian adaptation of a Dutch TTS system based on Festival, NeXTeNS, is presented as a case study in prototyping TTS for resource-poor minority languages. For these languages, demonstrator systems are essential to seed projects in speech and language technology. The conversion of a Dutch TTS system to a new language with minimal speech and language resources, Frisian, demonstrates that a TTS ...

Background: Differentiated thyroid carcinoma (DTC) is the most prevalent thyroid neoplasm which includes papillary and follicular cell carcinoma. Exposure to ionizing radiation is a predisposing factor for developing DTC. Non Homologous End Joining (NHEJ) DNA repair pathway is important one among DNA repair pathways which rejoins ends of broken DNA strands. XRCC4 gene is one of the most importa...

To The Editor: I read with great interest the contribution by Suzuki et al, published online on November 28, 2013 ahead of print in the Journal,1 about the assessment of cerebral blood flow (CBF) in 3 consecutive patients with Takotsubo syndrome (TTS) and at follow-up, when myocardial function had recovered. This is the first evidence that CBF, and indirectly brain activity, is enhanced in the ...

BACKGROUND The threshold of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in current screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) from the heel prick test is 5 mU/l. This study uses cost-effective analysis to evaluate increasing the threshold to minimize false-positive results and recall rates. METHODS Cost of screening, diagnosis and treatment, education, and care of mentally retarded patients were gath...