阿迪新闻英语-科学家正研究人工智能通过咳嗽声来辨别新冠病毒
2020-11-05 23:38阅读：
20201105 Thu
阿迪新闻英语
科学家正研究人工智能通过咳嗽声来辨别新冠病毒
AI Aims to Identify COVID-19 by Sounds of a Cough
Researchers are working on machine learning systems to identify
COVID-19 cases by the sounds of a person's cough.
One system has demonstrated a high success rate in detecting
COVID-19 in people with no physical signs of the disease. Such a
tool could be important in the fight against COVID-19, which can be
spread by people who do not even know they are infected.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT,
recently published a paper reporting results of the system.
The team created an artificial intelligence (AI) model to examine
the sounds of people who produced a forced cough. The sounds were
collected from people who recorded them on computers or mobile
devices. The individuals were also asked to provide information
about any symptoms they were experiencing, as well as whether they
had been officially tested for COVID-19.
People then sent the recordings and data to researchers through the
internet or their devices. Researchers reported they had received
more than 70,000 recordings, amounting to about 200,000 individual
cough examples. The team then trained the model on the cough
sounds, as well as spoken words.
When the new cough recordings were fed into the system, it
correctly identified 98.5 percent of coughs from people confirmed
to have COVID-19, the researchers reported. The model also detected
100 percent of coughs in people who reported they had tested
positive for the virus, but had no signs of the disease.
One of the project's leaders is Brian Subirana, a research
scientist in MIT's Auto-ID Laboratory. Subirana and his team had
already been developing AI models to examine forced-cough
recordings to search for signs of Alzheimer's disease. Such signs
can include changes in personality and memory loss, but Alzheimer's
can also cause nerve and muscle problems, including weakened
speech.
The MIT team says its latest model trained to identify Alzheimer's
disease from cough sounds had also shown good progress as a
possible way to help detect the condition.
So when the coronavirus pandemic developed, Subirana told MIT News,
he thought the same model structure might work for COVID-19. This
is because there was evidence that COVID-19 infected individuals
may also experience voice muscle weakness.
Subirana said the researchers discovered 'a striking similarity' in
the ability of the model to detect Alzheimer's and COVID-19. The
experiment showed that the way a person produces sound changes if
they are infected with COVID-19 even if no physical signs are
present, he added.
The team says it is working to develop 'a user-friendly app' that
could be used on a wide basis to detect COVID-19 cases. This would
make it possible for users to cough into their phone and receive
immediate information on whether they might be infected and should
seek an official test.
The effective use of such a tool could also 'diminish the spread of
the pandemic if everyone uses it before going to a classroom, a
factory, or a restaurant,' Subirana explained.
U.S. researchers at Pennsylvania's Carnegie Mellon University are
also using machine learning methods to develop a 'voice-based
testing system for COVID-19.' That system also uses recordings of
coughs – as well as some vowel sounds and the alphabet – to
identify 'signatures' of the virus, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
reported.
And in Britain, a similar project is being carried out by engineers
at the University of Cambridge. Researchers working on that system
reported in July they had created a machine learning tool that
could correctly identify COVID-19 cases based on cough and breath
sounds. Those models performed with a success rate of about 80
percent in laboratory tests, the team reported.
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Words in This Story
cough – n. to force air through your throat with a short, loud
noise often because you are sick
detect – v. to discover or notice something
artificial intelligence – n. the power of a machine to copy
intelligent human behavior
symptom – n. a sign or marker of something, such as disease
positive – adj. in a medical test, positive means the person being
tested has a disease or condition
striking – adj. easily noticed
app – n. a mobile phone program that performs a special
function
diminish – v. to become less
signature – n. a sign that confirms something's identity
