原文標(biāo)題：
Artificial intelligence
Sickies called
An algorithm can diagnose a cold from changes in someone’s voice
人工智能
請(qǐng)病假
一種通過(guò)人聲變化來(lái)診斷感冒的算法

Malingerers, watch out
裝病者請(qǐng)注意

[Paragraph 1]

FAKING SICKNESS is about to get harder.

裝病會(huì)變得越來(lái)越難。

Sneaking a day off work by nervously coughing down the phone to your boss might no longer cut the mustard—very soon your company might be able to tell whether or not your symptoms are real, just from the sound of your voice.

通過(guò)緊張地在電話里咳嗽來(lái)騙過(guò)老板請(qǐng)一天假的方法可能不再奏效。很快，你的公司可能會(huì)從你的聲音中判斷你的癥狀是否真實(shí)。

[Paragraph 2]
As anyone who has woken up with a runny nose and a voice like Darth Vader can attest, infection with the common cold virus alters how a person’s voice sounds.
當(dāng)感冒病毒感染人體時(shí)，會(huì)導(dǎo)致人的聲音發(fā)生變化，例如鼻塞，聲音嘶啞地像達(dá)斯·維德，這是很多人都有過(guò)的經(jīng)歷。

That is because the vocal cords often become inflamed, which changes their acoustic properties.
這是因?yàn)槁晭Оl(fā)炎導(dǎo)致聲頻特性改變。

The tissue temporarily swells and, therefore, vibrates at a lower pitch, which tends to make people with a cold develop a deeper voice.
組織暫時(shí)腫脹，因此振動(dòng)頻率降低，這往往會(huì)使感冒患者發(fā)出更低沉的聲音。

[Paragraph 3]
A research team at the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology in Surat, India, tried to decode exactly how a “cold voice” differs from a healthy voice.
印度蘇拉特薩達(dá)爾·瓦拉布哈伊國(guó)家技術(shù)學(xué)院的一個(gè)研究小組試圖解碼“感冒聲音”與健康聲音到底有何不同。

Their research makes use of the fact that human speech, like any musical instrument, does not produce single frequencies of sounds.
他們的研究利用了這樣一個(gè)事實(shí)：人類語(yǔ)言與任何樂器一樣，不會(huì)產(chǎn)生單一頻率的聲音。

Even the best trained singers cannot hit pure notes like those that come from tuning forks.
即使是訓(xùn)練有素的歌手也無(wú)法像擊打音叉那樣發(fā)出純音符。

The dominant notes in the human voice are instead accompanied by a series of higher-pitched overtones.
人類聲音中的主要音符反而伴隨著一系列更高音調(diào)的泛音。

[Paragraph 4]
Together these sets of notes fit into mathematical patterns called harmonics, with overtones having frequencies that are multiples of the original note.
這些音符集合在一起，形成了諧波模數(shù)，其中泛音頻率是純音頻率的整倍數(shù)。

For example, the pitch of the second harmonic note is twice the frequency of the main note and so on.
例如，二次諧波音符的音高是基波頻率的兩倍，依此類推。

The amplitude (loudness) of these harmonics in speech tends to diminish as they proceed up the frequency scale.
這些諧波在語(yǔ)音中的振幅（響度）隨著頻率增大而減小。

The team of researchers, led by Pankaj Warule, an electronic engineer, reasoned that infection with a cold might alter how this attenuation happened.
電子工程師潘卡·瓦魯勒領(lǐng)導(dǎo)的研究小組推斷，感冒感染可能會(huì)改變這種衰減的方式。

[Paragraph 5]
To find out, the scientists made use of an unusual resource: recordings of the voices of 630 people in Germany, 111 of whom were suffering from a cold.
為了找出答案，科學(xué)家們啟用了一種特殊資源：德國(guó)630人的聲音錄音，其中111人患感冒。

Each was asked to count from one to 40 and describe what they did at the weekend.
每個(gè)人都被要求從1數(shù)到40，并描述周末做了什么。

They also read aloud Aesop’s fable “The North Wind and the Sun”, which has been a popular text for phonetics research since 1949.
他們還大聲朗讀伊索寓言《北風(fēng)和太陽(yáng)》，這篇文章自1949年以來(lái)一直是語(yǔ)音學(xué)研究中的流行文本。

[Paragraph 6]
By breaking down each person’s speech into its spectrum of component wavelengths, the researchers could identify the dominant frequency and the harmonics in each case.
通過(guò)將每個(gè)人的聲音分解成其組成波長(zhǎng)的光譜，研究人員可以在每種情況下識(shí)別基波頻率和諧波頻率。

They then used machine-learning algorithms to analyse the relationships between the amplitudes of these harmonics and found patterns that could distinguish the cold voices from the healthy voices.
然后，他們使用機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)算法來(lái)分析這些諧波振幅之間的關(guān)系，并發(fā)現(xiàn)了可以區(qū)分感冒聲音和健康聲音的模式。

They reported their work in Biomedical Signal Processing and Control.
他們?cè)谏镝t(yī)學(xué)期刊上發(fā)表了他們的研究成果。

[Paragraph 7]
It is not just the common cold that can be diagnosed from speech in this way.
并不只有普通感冒可以通過(guò)這種方式從聲音中診斷出來(lái)。

Other scientists are looking at how conditions from Parkinson’s disease and depression to head and neck cancers can also affect the patterns of frequencies in a person’s voice.
其他科學(xué)家正在研究帕金森病、抑郁癥、頭頸癌等疾病如何影響人的聲音頻率模式。

It is part of a wider effort by medics, psychiatrists and computer scientists to remotely detect biomarkers for diseases in data collected on how people talk, write and even walk.
這是醫(yī)生、精神科醫(yī)生和計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家為遠(yuǎn)程檢測(cè)人們談話、寫作甚至走路時(shí)收集到的數(shù)據(jù)中的疾病生物標(biāo)志物而進(jìn)行更廣泛研究的一部分。

[Paragraph 8]
The Indian team’s diagnosis of cold voice is not yet foolproof. The results show it can correctly diagnose a cold up to around 70% of the time.
印度團(tuán)隊(duì)對(duì)感冒聲音的診斷并不是百分之百可靠。結(jié)果顯示，它診斷感冒的正確率高達(dá)70%左右。

Faced with another dreary Monday at the office, would you take the risk?
面對(duì)又一個(gè)沉悶的周一工作日，你會(huì)冒險(xiǎn)請(qǐng)病假嗎？

（恭喜讀完，本篇英語(yǔ)詞匯量561左右）
原文出自：2023年4月8日《The Economist》Science & technology版塊。

精讀筆記來(lái)源于：自由英語(yǔ)之路

本文翻譯整理: Irene本文編輯校對(duì): Irene
僅供個(gè)人英語(yǔ)學(xué)習(xí)交流使用。

【補(bǔ)充資料】（來(lái)自于網(wǎng)絡(luò)）
Darth Vader是《星球大戰(zhàn)》系列電影中的虛構(gòu)角色。在原始三部曲中，他是中心反派，而在前傳三部曲中，他是主要的英雄之一。

諧波頻率是基波頻率的整倍數(shù)，根據(jù)法國(guó)數(shù)學(xué)家傅立葉(M．Fourier)分析原理證明，任何重復(fù)的波形都可以分解為含有基波頻率和一系列為基波倍數(shù)的諧波的正弦波分量。諧波是正弦波，每個(gè)諧波都具有不同的頻率，幅度與相角。諧波可以區(qū)分為偶次與奇次，第3、5、7次編號(hào)的為奇次諧波，而2、4、6、8等為偶次諧波，如基波為50Hz時(shí)，2次諧波為100Hz，3次諧波則是150Hz。

【重點(diǎn)句子】（3?個(gè)）
The tissue temporarily swells and, therefore, vibrates at a lower pitch, which tends to make people with a cold develop a deeper voice.
組織暫時(shí)腫脹，因此振動(dòng)頻率降低，這往往會(huì)使感冒患者發(fā)出更低沉的聲音。

Other scientists are looking at how conditions from Parkinson’s disease and depression to head and neck cancers can also affect the patterns of frequencies in a person’s voice.
其他科學(xué)家正在研究帕金森病、抑郁癥、頭頸癌等疾病如何影響人的聲音頻率模式。

The Indian team’s diagnosis of cold voice is not yet foolproof. The results show it can correctly diagnose a cold up to around 70% of the time.
印度團(tuán)隊(duì)對(duì)感冒聲音的診斷并不是百分之百可靠。結(jié)果顯示，它診斷感冒的正確率高達(dá)70%左右。