Electromagnetic Articulography (EMA) is a technology created over two decades ago. EMA enables to acquire spatiotemporal data from sensors placed on the tongue in order to obtain information about the positioning of the tongue, its shape and dynamics during vocalizations of various sounds of human speech. The articulograph is often supported by an audio recorder and a vision system. In this paper, a novel system integrating EMA, audio and visual data recording is presented. The articulatory data was obtained with a Carsten's AG500 articulograph. The vision system was constructed from 3 high-speed cameras (Gazelle GZL-CL-22C5M-C) manufactured by Point Grey. The cameras registered movements of markers attached to the face of the speakers. The audio recorder consisted of a 16-channel microphone array and an electronic device that registered and processed signals from the microphones. The microphone array made it possible to map sources of sound propagation on the speaker’s face. The simultaneous recording of signals from EMA, the video system and the audio recorder is controlled from a computer with a host program and is supported by a synchronizer. The electromagnetic articulograph registers signals from EMA sensors which return their spatiotemporal positions with the sampling frequency of 200 Hz. The readouts of the spatial positioning of sensors attached to the tongue provide information about its shape and movements in time. There are three cameras registering the movements of external articulators and organs (e.g. lips, jaw and cheeks) from the front and side views. The cameras register movies with the frame rate of 200 FPS. The circular microphone array with 16 microphones records 16-channel audio with 96 kHz sampling rate and 16 bit resolution. During the recording sessions, the participants read aloud words that are displayed on the screen. An application on the host computer sends commands to AG500 which in turn generates synchronization signals in the TTL standard to external devices. These signals are used for activating the audio recorder and the synchronizer in the video system. Articulographic and simple acoustic analysis is performed with created in MATLAB software called phonEMAtool. This software is very useful and ergonomic for fast feature extraction of tongue movements during speech. The application allows to display simultaneously: speech waveform, EMA sensors position and orientation, phonetic segmentation. Before an analysis, the data from AG500 are pre-processed twice with a Savitzky-Golay filter so as to remove undesirable noise. In the paper an exemplary analysis performed by the phonEMAtool of particular articulatory gestures in the articulation of [m] in the Polish word Tamara is presented. Another analysis is beamforming of audio signals in order to obtain three-dimensional acoustic field distribution images. In the paper an example of this technique applied to the analysis of the nasal consonant in the word Tamara [tamara] has been shown. Analysis indicated that the highest intensity of the acoustic field during the pronunciation of the consonant [m] occurs in the nose region and for vowel [a], the highest intensity is observed in the mouth. Due to movement registration of facial markers the reconstruction of positions of external articulators can be obtained. With additional face triangulation using Delaunay algorithm some differences between positions of external articulators can be easily tracked. The measurement system described in this paper is effective and allows for an examination of the vocal tract in 3 ways: tongue movements, acoustic field intensity distribution and external articulator movements. A particularly useful tool is the dedicated acoustic camera based on multi-channel audio recorder and a microphone array. The results obtained with this equipment are unique and show great research and application potential.
DOCUMENT
Ambassadeur Simon Smits is Ambassadeur internationale organisaties in Nederland. Als 'diplomaat dicht bij huis' fungeert hij als aanspreekpunt voor de professionals die werken bij internationale organisaties als het EMA, het Internationaal Gerechtshof en Europol. Met Simon spreken we over het belang van het hebben van internationale organisaties voor een land als Nederland, over internationale ecosystemen en over stroopwafeldiplomatie. En wat vinden die expats eigenlijk van ons land?
MULTIFILE
This paper is about the political imbalance in the EU when it comes to attracting European agencies. Over the years, mainly due to the Brexit negotiations and for cost-efficiency reasons, many EU agencies moved from the UK to elsewhere, finding a new sea for headquarters functions or other departments. Whenever such a move is announced, EU countries and their candidate host cities jump into the breach to make a beneficial offer. The way these processes take place is a vector of the politicization of European integration. Nevertheless, these new locations of the EU agencies have won the bidding contest, is a process that usually takes place under the radar. The decision-making of these kinds of processes rests with the member states of the agency. Instead of choosing the most strategic place and ensuring an equal distribution among EU countries, which is the deal, often the highest bidder or the state contributing the most wins the agency. Interestingly, these processes have hardly been studied in the light of the increased politicization. This paper is an attempt to fill this research gap, by focusing on three cases and the processes of decision-making. The cases are the Collège européen de police (European Police College, CEPOL) which moved from the UK to Budapest in 2014, the European Medicine Agency (EMA) moving from London to Amsterdam in 2019, and the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) which moved its EU-funded program to Bonn and Helsinki mid-2021. The research strategy is as follows: the cases and the lobbying processes are described, then the main political actors are described, and the outcomes are described. The main research question is: How do these processes of political decision-making work out in practice? By answering this question, this study contributes to the discussion on globalized decision-making across the EU and the politicized imbalance which is the result of this.
DOCUMENT
As the Dutch population is aging, the field of music-in-healthcare keeps expanding. Healthcare, institutionally and at home, is multiprofessional and demands interprofessional collaboration. Musicians are sought-after collaborators in social and healthcare fields, yet lesser-known agents of this multiprofessional group. Although live music supports social-emotional wellbeing and vitality, and nurtures compassionate care delivery, interprofessional collaboration between musicians, social work, and healthcare professionals remains marginal. This limits optimising and integrating music-making in the care. A significant part of this problem is a lack of collaborative transdisciplinary education for music, social, and healthcare students that deep-dives into the development of interprofessional skills. To meet the growing demand for musical collaborations by particularly elderly care organisations, and to innovate musical contributions to the quality of social and healthcare in Northern Netherlands, a transdisciplinary education for music, physiotherapy, and social work studies is needed. This project aims to equip multiprofessional student groups of Hanze with interprofessional skills through co-creative transdisciplinary learning aimed at innovating and improving musical collaborative approaches for working with vulnerable, often older people. The education builds upon experiential learning in Learning LABs, and collaborative project work in real-life care settings, supported by transdisciplinary community forming.The expected outcomes include a new concept of a transdisciplinary education for HBO-curricula, concrete building blocks for a transdisciplinary arts-in-health minor study, innovative student-led approaches for supporting the care and wellbeing of (older) vulnerable people, enhanced integration of musicians in interprofessional care teams, and new interprofessional structures for educational collaboration between music, social work and healthcare faculties.
In tijden van toenemende culturele diversiteit en arbeidsonzekerheid hebben jongeren in Nederlandse en Duitse stadswijken grote behoefte aan richting met betrekking tot hun toekomstige leven. Ouders en leraren lijken zelf vaak te worden overweldigd door de snel veranderende wereld waarin ze leven. Naast deze veranderingen neemt het gebruik van sociale media sterk toe, waardoor de al bestaande generatiekloof nog groter wordt. Deze ontwikkelingen hebben grote gevolgen voor de levensloopperspectieven van jongeren en leiden er vaak toe dat ze meer dan ooit richting zoeken bij hun leeftijdgenoten. In plaats van dit te zien als een problematische situatie, is dit project erop gericht de netwerken van jongeren te gebruiken als bron voor verbetering van de stadswijken. Het basisidee is jonge adolescenten (in de leeftijd van 12-14 jaar) te empoweren via bepaalde leeftijdgenoten die al gerespecteerd, verantwoordelijk en stabiel in het leven staan. Deze ‘homies’ (vier Nederlandse en vier Duitse jongeren) worden getraind en begeleid door experts op het gebied van oplossingsgericht denken en inspirerende communicatie. Daarna gaan de homies aan de slag in hun eigen wijk, waar ze drie maanden actief zullen zijn. De meeste communicatie met hun leeftijdgenoten zal verlopen via mobiele communicatie en sociale medianetwerken. In het begeleidende onderzoek wordt een analyse gemaakt van de leefsituatie van jongeren in de geselecteerde wijken voor en na de tussenkomst van de homies. De homies houden zelf een (mobiel) dagboek bij dat inzicht zal bieden in hoe zij zelf de veranderingen bij de jongeren in hun wijk zien.
Mensen die moeite hebben met lezen en schrijven (laaggeletterden) zijn ondervertegenwoordigd in onderzoek, waardoor een belangrijke onderzoekspopulatie ontbreekt. Dit is een probleem, omdat zorgbeleid dan onvoldoende op hun behoeften wordt aangepast. Laaggeletterden hebben vaak een lage sociaal economische positie (SEP). Mensen met een lage SEP leven gemiddeld 4 jaar korter en 15 jaar in minder goed ervaren gezondheid vergeleken met mensen met een hoge SEP. Om laaggeletterden te betrekken in onderzoek, is het o.a. nodig om onderzoek toegankelijker te maken. Dit project draagt hieraan bij door de ontwikkeling van een toolbox voor toegankelijke (proefpersonen)informatie (pif) en toestemmingsverklaringen. We ontwikkelen in co-creatie met de doelgroep toegankelijke audiovisuele materialen die breed ingezet kunnen worden door (gezondheids)onderzoekers van (zorggerelateerde) instanties/bedrijven én kennisinstellingen voor de werving voor en informatieverstrekking over onderzoek. In de multidisciplinaire samenwerking met onze partners YURR.studio, Pharos, Stichting ABC, Stichting Crowdience, de HAN-Sterkplaats en de Academische Werkplaats Sterker op eigen benen (AW-SOEB) van Radboudumc stellen we de behoeften van de doelgroep centraal. Middels creatieve sessies en gebruikerservaringen wordt in een iteratief ontwerpende onderzoeksaanpak toegewerkt naar diverse ontwerpen van informatiebrieven en toestemmingsverklaringen, waarbij de visuele communicatie dragend is. Het ontwikkelproces biedt kennisontwikkeling en hands-on praktijkvoorbeelden voor designers en grafisch vormgevers in het toegankelijk maken van informatie. Als laaggeletterden beter bereikt worden d.m.v. de pif-toolbox, kunnen de inzichten van deze groep worden meegenomen. Dit zorgt voor een minder scheef beeld in onderzoek, waardoor (gezondheids)beleid zich beter kan richten op kwetsbare doelgroepen. Hiermee wordt een bijdrage geleverd aan het verkleinen van gezondheidsverschillen.
Centre of Expertise, part of Hogeschool van Amsterdam
Centre of Expertise, part of De Haagse Hogeschool
