Discerning pig screams in production environments

Pig vocalisations convey information about their current state of health and welfare. Continuously monitoring these vocalisations can provide useful information for the farmer. For instance, pig screams can indicate stressful situations. When monitoring screams, other sounds can interfere with scream detection. Therefore, identifying screams from other sounds is essential. The objective of this study was to understand which sound features define a scream. Therefore, a method to detect screams based on sound features with physical meaning and explicit rules was developed. To achieve this, 7 hours of labelled data from 24 pigs was used. The developed detection method attained 72% sensitivity, 91% specificity and 83% precision. As a result, the detection method showed that screams contain the following features discerning them from other sounds: a formant structure, adequate power, high frequency content, sufficient variability and duration

Abstract P6-03-03: Could We Reduce the Number of Exams in the Follow-Up of Breast Cancer Survivors?

Abstract Background. The aim of this retrospective study was to determine by which way was diagnosed any breast cancer recurrence after the end of the adjuvant treatment and to draw guidelines for exams for the follow-up. Materials and methods. Between January 1995 to December 2005, 5419 patients were treated for non metastatic breast cancer in our institute, out of which 662 experienced a relapse either local or metastatic. The charts of 608 of these patients were analysable, and retrospectively reviewed. For each case, we looked at the exams or clinical symptom which revealed the recurrence. Results. Among the 608 patients who recurred, 173 patients (28%) experienced an isolated local relapse, while 12 experienced a contralateral breast cancer (2%), 423 experienced either a metastatic or metastatic plus local relapse (65% and 5%, respectively). Local relapses were detected in most of cases either clinically (42%) or on mammography and mammary ultrasound (US) (55%). An isolated increase of blood tumor marker (CA 15.3) revealed the relapse in 24% of cases (in 33% of cases for distant relapses and 3% for isolated local relapses). The remaining 67% of cases with metastases were diagnosed by clinical symptoms in 47% of cases, imaging in 22% of cases (bone scan in 6%, liver US 5%, mammography 1%, TDM 5%, chest X-ray 2%). In these cases of radiographically detected metastases clinical exam and/or tumor markers levels were abnormal in 42% of cases. Conclusion. A follow-up with a systematically clinical exam, mammography and mammary US, and blood tumor markers assessment permits the diagnosis of 100 percent of local relapse, 100% of contralateral breast cancer, and 89% of metastatic disease. Thus imaging exams could be avoided routinely, with less stress for the patient and improvement of the health cost. Citation Information: Cancer Res 2010;70(24 Suppl):Abstract nr P6-03-03.</jats:p