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Richard Lyon

Publications and source records attributed to Richard Lyon.

4 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Estimating excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand: Addendum

In our previous article, we estimated excess mortality during in Aotearoa New Zealand for 2020 to 2023. Since our work was published, updated population estimates have been released by Statistics NZ. In this short letter, we provide the results of applying our original model to the new population data. Our updated excess mortality estimate of 2.0% (95% CI [0.5%, 3.3%]) is 1.3 percentage points higher than our original estimate because the new population estimates for the period 2020 to 2023 are smaller, but the main conclusions of our original article still apply.

stat.AP↗
arXiv2025

A dataset and model for auditory scene recognition for hearing devices: AHEAD-DS and OpenYAMNet

Scene recognition is important for hearing devices, however; this is challenging, in part because of the limitations of existing datasets. Datasets often lack public accessibility, completeness, or audiologically relevant labels, hindering systematic comparison of machine learning models. Deploying such models on resource-constrained edge devices presents another challenge.The proposed solution is two-fold, a repack and refinement of several open source datasets to create AHEAD-DS, a dataset designed for auditory scene recognition for hearing devices, and introduce OpenYAMNet, a sound recognition model. AHEAD-DS aims to provide a standardised, publicly available dataset with consistent labels relevant to hearing aids, facilitating model comparison. OpenYAMNet is designed for deployment on edge devices like smartphones connected to hearing devices, such as hearing aids and wireless earphones with hearing aid functionality, serving as a baseline model for sound-based scene recognition. OpenYAMNet achieved a mean average precision of 0.86 and accuracy of 0.93 on the testing set of AHEAD-DS across fourteen categories relevant to auditory scene recognition. Real-time sound-based scene recognition capabilities were demonstrated on edge devices by deploying OpenYAMNet to an Android smartphone. Even with a 2018 Google Pixel 3, a phone with modest specifications, the model processes audio with approximately 50ms of latency to load the model, and an approximate linear increase of 30ms per 1 second of audio. The project website with links to code, data, and models. https://github.com/Australian-Future-Hearing-Initiative

cs.SD↗
arXiv2024

Estimating excess mortality during the Covid-19 pandemic in Aotearoa New Zealand

Background. The excess mortality rate in Aotearoa New Zealand during the Covid-19 pandemic is frequently estimated to be among the lowest in the world. However, to facilitate international comparisons, many of the methods that have been used to estimate excess mortality do not use age-stratified data on deaths and population size, which may compromise their accuracy. Methods. We used a quasi-Poisson regression model for monthly all-cause deaths among New Zealand residents, controlling for age, sex and seasonality. We fitted the model to deaths data for 2014-19. We estimated monthly excess mortality for 2020-23 as the difference between actual deaths and projected deaths according to the model. We conducted sensitivity analysis on the length of the pre-pandemic period used to fit the model. We benchmarked our results against a simple linear regression on the standardised annual mortality rate. Results. We estimated cumulative excess mortality in New Zealand in 2020-23 was 1040 (95% confidence interval [-1134, 2927]), equivalent to 0.7% [-0.8%, 2.0%] of expected mortality. Excess mortality was negative in 2020-21. The magnitude, timing and age-distribution of the positive excess mortality in 2022-23 were closely matched with confirmed Covid-19 deaths. Conclusions. Negative excess mortality in 2020-21 reflects very low levels of Covid-19 and major reductions in seasonal respiratory diseases during this period. In 2022-23, Covid-19 deaths were the main contributor to excess mortality and there was little or no net non-Covid-19 excess. Overall, New Zealand experienced one of the lowest rates of pandemic excess mortality in the world.

stat.AP↗