Lorenzo Turicchia’s main research interests are in nonlinear signal processing, especially for audio and biomedical applications, and bioelectronics. His work has included research on cochlear implants (bionic ears) for the hearing impaired, visual prostheses for the blind, speech prostheses for individuals with severe communication disabilities, automatic speech recognition in noise, and wearable medical devices. In these areas he has authored seven patent applications and more than thirty publications. He is currently working on robust techniques for the recognition of speech, speaker, and language in noisy environments; bioelectronics for wearable and implantable medical devices; and neural decoding techniques for neural prosthetic devices for the paralyzed.

1. S. Mandal, L. Turicchia, and Rahul Sarpeshkar, “A Low-Power Battery-Free Tag for Body Sensor Networks,” IEEE Pervasive Computing, in press, 2009.

2. M. Tavakoli, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “An Ultra-Low-Power Pulse Oximeter Implemented with an Energy-Efficient Transimpedance Amplifier,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, in press, 2009.

3. L. Turicchia, S. Mandal, M. Tavakoli, L. Fay, V. Misra, J. Bohorquez, W. Sanchez, and R. Sarpeshkar, “Ultra-low-power Electronics for Non-invasive Medical Monitoring,” Invited Paper, Proceedings of the IEEE Custom Integrated Circuits Conference (CICC 2009), pp. 85-92, San Jose, California, USA, September 13-16, 2009. doi: 10.1109/CICC.2009.5280892

4. Z. Al Bawab, L. Turicchia, R. M. Stern, and B. Raj, “Deriving Vocal Tract Shapes From ElectroMagnetic Articulograph Data Via Geometric Adaptation and Matching,” Proceedings of Interspeech 2009, Brighton, U.K., September 6-10, 2009.

5. S. Mandal, L. Turicchia, R. Sarpeshkar, “A Battery-Free Tag for Wireless Monitoring of Heart Sounds,” Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks (BSN 2009), pp. 201-206, Berkeley, CA, USA, June 2009. doi: 10.1109/BSN.2009.11

6. K. H. Wee, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “An Analog Bionic Vocal Tract,” Proceedings of the IEEE Biomedical Circuits and Systems Conference (BioCAS 2008), pp. 281-284, Baltimore, MD, USA, 2008. doi:10.1109/BIOCAS.2008.4696929

7. J. Bohorquez, W. Sanchez, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “An Integrated-Circuit Switched-Capacitor Model and Implementation of the Heart,” Invited Paper, Proceedings of the First International Symposium on Applied Sciences in Biomedical and Communication Technologies (ISABEL), Aalborg, Denmark, 2008. doi:10.1109/ISABEL.2008.4712624

8. L. Turicchia, M. O’Halloran, D. P. Kumar, and R. Sarpeshkar, “A Low-Power Imager and Compression Algorithms for a Brain-Machine Visual Prosthesis for the Blind,” Invited Paper, Proceedings of the SPIE, Vol. 7035, pp. 703510-1:703510-13, San Diego, CA, USA, 2008. doi:10.1117/12.797211

9. K. H. Wee and L. Turicchia and R. Sarpeshkar, “An Analog Integrated-Circuit Vocal Tract,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Circuits and Systems, Vol. 2, No. 4, pp. 316 - 327, 2008. doi:10.1109/TBCAS.2008.2005296

10. G. Rota, L. Turicchia, R. Veitc, M. Guazzellia, N. Birbaumer, and G. Dogil, “Perceptual learning of speech processed by a cochlear implant simulator—An fMRI investigation,” International Journal of Psychophysiology, Vol. 69, No. 3, pp. 225-226, 2008.

11. B. Raj, L. Turicchia, B. Schmidt-Nielsen, and R. Sarpeshkar, “An FFT-Based Companding Front End for Noise-Robust Automatic Speech Recognition,” EURASIP Journal on Audio, Speech, and Music Processing, Vol. 2007, Article ID 65420, 13 pages, 2007. doi:10.1155/2007/65420

12. A. Oxenham, A. Simonson, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “Evaluation of Companding-Based Spectral Enhancement Using Simulated Cochlear-Implant Processing,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, Vol. 121, No. 3, pp. 1709-1716, 2007. doi:10.1121/1.2434757

13. A. Simonson, A. Oxenham, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “Evaluation of companding-based spectral enhancement using simulated cochlear-implant processing,” American Auditory Society Meeting (AAS2006), Scottsdale, AZ, USA, March 2006.

14. L. Turicchia and R. Sarpeshkar, “A Bio-Inspired Companding Strategy for Spectral Enhancement,” IEEE Transactions on Speech and Audio Processing, Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 243-253, 2005. doi:10.1109/TSA.2004.841044

15. R. Sarpeshkar, C. Salthouse, J.J. Sit, M. Baker, S. Zhak, T. Lu, L. Turicchia, and S. Balster, “An Ultra-Low-Power Programmable Analog Bionic Ear Processor,” IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering , Vol. 52, No. 4, pp. 711-727, 2005. doi:10.1109/TBME.2005.844043

16. R. Sarpeshkar, M. Baker, C. Salthouse, J.J. Sit, L. Turicchia, and S. Zhak, “An Analog Bionic Ear Processor with Zero-Crossing Detection,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Solid State Circuits Conference (ISSCC'05), San Francisco, CA, USA, February 2005.

17. J. Guiness, B. Raj, B. Nielsen, L. Turicchia, and R. Sarpeshkar, “A Companding Front End for Noise-Robust Automatic Speech Recognition,” Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing (ICASSP’05), pp. 249-252, Philadelphia, PA, USA, March 2005.

18. Loizou, P., K. Kasturi, L. Turicchia, R. Sarpeshkar, M. Dorman, and T. Spahr, “Evaluation of the Companding and Other Strategies for Noise Reduction in Cochlear Implants,” Proceedings of the 2005 Conference on Implantable Auditory Prostheses, Pacific Grove, CA, USA, 2005.

19. L. Turicchia and R. Sarhpeshkar, “The Silicon Cohlea: from Biology to Bionics,” The Biophysics of the Cochlea: Molecules to Models, World Scientific, New Jersey, USA, 2003.

20. M. Balduzzo, F. Ferro Milone, T.A. Minelli, I. Pittaro-Cadore and L. Turicchia, “Mathematical Phenomenology of Neural Stimulation by Periodic Fields,” Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci., Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 115-137, 2003.

21. R. Nobili, A. Vetešník, L. Turicchia, F. Mammano, “Otoacoustic emissions from residual oscillations of the cochlear basilar membrane in a human ear model,” J Assoc Res Otolaryngol., Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 478-494, 2003.

22. R. Nobili, A. Vetešník, L. Turicchia and F. Mammano, “Otoacoustic emissions simulated in the time-domain by a hydrodynamic model of the human cochlea,” The Biophysics of the Cochlea: Molecules to Models, World Scientific, New Jersey, USA, 2003.

23. Turicchia L., Depoli G., Mian G.A., Nobili R., “Audio analysis by a physiological auditory model,” Proceedings of the COST G-6 Conference on Digital Audio Effects (DAFX-00), December 2000.

24. M. Balduzzo, T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Signal Analysis and Simulation of the EEG Activity,” International Journal of Chaos Theory and Applications, Vol. 4, No. 7, pp. 7-14, 1999.

25. M. Balduzzo, F. Ferro Milone, T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Neuron Synchronisation Mathematical Phenomenology,” 9-th International Conference of The Society for Chaos Theory in Psychology & Life Science, Berkeley, CA, July 1999, SPTCLS Newsletters, Vol. 6, No. 4, p.2, July 1999.

26. T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Progressive Coherence Patterns for Electroencephalographic phenomenology,” Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci., Vol. 3, No. 2. pp. 129-142, 1999.

27. F. Ferro Milone, T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Neuron Synchronization and Human EEG Phenomenology Simulation,” Nonlinear Dynamics Psychol Life Sci., Vol. 2, No. 21, pp. 21-33, 1998.

28. C. Gabrieli, F. Ferro Milone, G. Ferro Milone, T.A Minelli, and L. Turicchia, “From the Mathematical Anatomy to the Mathematical Physiology of Brain Co-operative Phenomena,” Proceedings of the International Conference Chaos, Fractals & Models, F. Marsella and G. Salvadori eds. pp.406-410, Italian University Press, 1998.

29. P. Amodio, T.A. Minelli, A. Pesavento e L. Turicchia, “Rumore browniano frazionario nell'EEG dell'encefalopatia epatica,” Atti del XIV Congresso della Società Italiana di Biofisica Pura e Applicata, CNR, Genova, IT, p. 100, September 1998.

30. F. Ferro Milone, G. Ferro Milone, T.A Minelli, L. Turicchia and R. Zanini, “The Windowed Spectral Coherence and the Reference Problem,” I Mediterranean Neuroscience Conference, Montpellier, September 1997.

31. F. Ferro Milone, T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Nonlinear Analysis and Simulation of the EEG Time Series,” Proceedings of the 27 European Mathematical Psychology Group, 1996.

32. F. Ferro Milone, T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “A Phenomenological Model of the Brain Rhythm Generation,” Third European Congress on Systems Science, Edizioni Kappa, Rome, IT, pp. 787-791, 1996.

33. T.A. Minelli and L. Turicchia, “Nonlinear Simulation of the Electrocortical Activity,” Nonlinear Physics: theory and experiment (Nature, Structure and Properties of Nonlinear Phenomena), World Scientific, New Jersey, USA, pp. 551-553, 1996.