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The INTERSPEECH 2018 Computational Paralinguistics Challenge addresses four different problems for the first time in a research competition under well-defined conditions: In the Atypical Affect Sub-Challenge, four basic emotions annotated in the speech of handicapped subjects have to be classified; in the Self-Assessed Affect Sub-Challenge, valence scores given by the speakers themselves are used for a three-class classification problem; in the Crying Sub-Challenge, three types of infant vocalisations have to be told apart; and in the Heart Beats Sub-Challenge, three different types of heart beats have to be determined. We describe the Sub-Challenges, their conditions and baseline feature extraction and classifiers, which include data-learnt (supervised) feature representations by end-to-end learning, the ‘usual’ ComParE and BoAW features and deep unsupervised representation learning using the AUDEEP toolkit for the first time in the challenge series.

Background: After the acquisition of basic grammatical skills, narrative competence gradually develops in preschool and primary school age, including the subsequent elaboration of syntactic complexity and the use cohesive elements. In addition, the adequate use of lexical means is an important component of story-telling. Previous research has shown children with language impairment have substantial difficulty when telling stories. Their deficits affect both the microstructural and the macrostructural level. Since lexical competence is relevant for narrative competence and lexical problems are often part of language impairment, the present study investigates the quantity, diversity, and composition of the lexicon in oral narratives. Method: The first, cross-sectional study includes 100 monolingual, typically developing (TD), German-speaking children at age 3;0-6;0. The children narrated three picture stories. The number of types, tokens, types-token ratio, mean length of utterance (MLU) and lexical composition were analysed. Results demonstrate that vocabulary size, as well as lexical composition, did not change over time, while lexical diversity and MLU increased with age. In study 2, a comparison of 34 children with language impairment (LI) and 34 age-matched TD children from study 1 shows a limited lexical diversity and a significantly lower MLU for children with LI. Children with LI used more nouns and more personal-social words, but fewer pronouns. Discussion: Vocabulary size and the use of word categories in children with LI are broadly similar to that of TD children. However, oral narratives of children with LI are characterized by a limited lexical diversity and shorter utterances. In addition, subtle differences with respect to the use of word categories were found, which are more typical for earlier phases of language development.

Eye tracking is a noninvasive technique based on infrared video technology that is used to analyze eye movements. Such analyses might provide insights into perceptual and cognitive capacities. It is a method widely used in various disciplines, such as ophthalmology, neurology, psychiatry and neuropsychology for basic science, but also clinical practice. For example, recent studies on children who were later diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders revealed early abnormal eye movement patterns in socio-communicative settings; children with dyslexia appeared to also have peculiar eye movement patterns, expressed in longer fixation durations and smaller saccades while reading. Current research using eye tracking systems in combination with neurophysiological and brain imaging techniques will add to a better understanding of cognitive, linguistic and socio-communicative development and in the near future possibly also lead to a broader clinical application of this method.

Catheter-associated infections markedly contribute to treatment failure in peritoneal dialysis (PD) patients. There is much controversy surrounding prophylactic strategies to prevent these infections.In this nationwide multicenter study we analyzed strategies to prevent catheter-associated infections as performed in Austrian PD centers in 2006. A questionnaire was sent to all 23 PD centers in Austria.Ten different catheter models were used in the 332 patients being treated in the 23 Austrian PD centers. Systemic antibiotics prior to catheter placement were given by 17 of the 23 PD centers (glycopeptides, n = 7; cephalosporins, n = 10). Nasal swabs were taken preoperatively by 17 PD centers; nasal Staphylococcus aureus carriers were treated prophylactically with mupirocin cream in 15 of these centers. Dressing change was routinely performed in 318 of 332 chronic PD patients (nonocclusive film dressing, n = 58; gauze dressing, n = 260). Disinfectants for chronic exit-site care included povidone iodine (n = 155), sodium hypochlorite (n = 31), povidone iodine + sodium hypochlorite together (n = 102), and octenidine dihydrochloride/phenoxyethanol (n = 17). Water + non-disinfectant soap or 0.9% sodium chloride was administered as a cleansing agent to the exit site by 27 patients. Routine S. aureus screening (nasal and/or exit-site swabs) in chronic PD patients was performed in 12 PD centers; carriers were treated with mupirocin cream in 11 of these centers. Dialysis staff members were screened for S. aureus in 8 PD centers and spouses were screened for S. aureus in 5 PD centers. The overall exit-site infection rate was 1 episode/43.9 patient-months, tunnel infection rate was 1 episode/88.9 patient-months, and peritonitis rate was 1 episode/51.0 patient-months. Patients of centers that have installed a prophylaxis protocol for treating S. aureus carriers had lower mean infection rates compared with those not using such a protocol.Various individual prophylactic strategies are used to prevent catheter-associated infections in Austrian PD centers. Infection rates are within the range reported in the literature. There is still scope for improvement in some centers (e.g., by establishing a prophylaxis protocol).