text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Jun 14, 2011
|Priority date
|Aug 22, 2005
|Fee status
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Liam D. Comerford, David Carl Frank, Burn L. Lewis, Leonid Rachevksy, Mahesh Viswanathan
|Original Assignee
|Nuance Communications, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Patent Citations (41), Non-Patent Citations (2), Referenced by (6), Classifications (9), Legal Events (3)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
The present invention relates generally to speech processing systems and, more particularly, to speech recognition systems.
Speech recognition systems may be described in terms of several properties including whether they use discrete word vocabularies (typical of large vocabulary recognizers) or grammar-based vocabularies (typical of small vocabulary recognizers), and whether they continuously process an uninterrupted stream of input audio or commence processing on command (typically a "microphone on" or "MICON" event). Recognizers that use control events may terminate recognition on an external event (typically a "microphone off" or "MICOFF" event), completion of processing of an audio buffer, or detection of silence in the buffered audio data. The processed audio stream in any case may be "live" or streamed from a buffer.
It is a common problem of continuously operated recognition systems that they generate large numbers of errors of recognition and spurious recognition output at times that the recognition system is not being addressed. For example, in a vehicle-based speech recognition system, this problem may occur due to audio from the radio, person-to-person conversation, and/or noise. This fact makes the use of a microphone button or other dialog pacing mechanism almost universal in automotive (telematic) speech recognition applications.
It is a common problem of microphone-button paced speech applications that the application user fails to operate the button correctly. The two typical errors are completing the pushing of the microphone-on button after speech has already begun and releasing the microphone-on button (or pushing the microphone-off button) before speech has ended. In either case, some speech intended to be recognized is being cut off due to these errors of operation by the user.
Accordingly, techniques for overcoming errors in speech recognition systems are needed.
Principles of the present invention provide techniques for overcoming errors in speech recognition systems.
It is to be understood that any errors that may occur in a speech recognition system that could cause loss of speech intended to be recognized will be generally referred to herein as "truncation errors." While two examples of user operation failure in microphone-button paced speech applications are given above, it is to be understood that the phrase "truncation error" is not intended to be limited thereto.
In one aspect of the invention, a technique for processing acoustic data in accordance with a speech recognition system comprises the following steps/operations. Acoustic data is obtained in association with the speech recognition system. The acoustic data is recorded using a combination of a first buffer area and a second buffer area, such that the recording of the acoustic data using the combination of the two buffer areas at least substantially minimizes one or more truncation errors associated with operation of the speech recognition system.
It is to be appreciated that the data structures types chosen for each of the buffer areas reflect the functions of those areas. By way of example, the first buffer type may be chosen to allow continuous recording so that the most recent few seconds (depending on the buffer size) of acoustic data is available for processing. Data structures such as circular or ring buffers and FIFO (First In First Out) stacks are suitable examples. The second buffer type may be chosen to ensure that the system will not run out of buffer space when recording long utterances. Linked lists or appropriately large memory blocks are exemplary data structures for implementing such buffers.
It is to be further appreciated that the acoustic data referenced here may be, by way of example, digital representations of speech and other audio signals present at a system input microphone. It is, in any case, data comprising acoustic features or data in a format that is suitable for extracting acoustic features, as is well known in the art. Such features may be used to determine whether speech was taking place at the time of the recording or not. Further, such data may be decoded into text that represents the words uttered by the user to create a part of the acoustic data.
In one embodiment, the recording step/operation may further comprise: recording acoustic data obtained by the speech recognition system in the first buffer area; stopping recording of acoustic data in the first buffer area and starting recording of acoustic data obtained by the speech recognition system at the start of the second buffer area, when an indication that the speech recognition system is being addressed is detected; and prepending, to the beginning of the acoustic data stored in the second buffer area, acoustic data in the first buffer. This data may be arranged so that the oldest acoustic data in the first buffer is located at the start of the segment prepended to the second buffer. This means that the acoustic data recorded immediately before the indication that the system is being addressed ends the prepended segment and is contiguous in memory with the acoustic data which immediately followed the "being addressed" event that is stored in the second area.
The technique may further comprise processing the acoustic data in the composite buffer area (prepended area and second buffer area) to detect features indicating silence. The location of the silence closest to the end of the prepended segment may then be used as the location in the composite buffer at which speech intended for the system to process begins. This silence will be in the prepended segment if the indication of speech was given after speech started. It will follow the end of the prepended segment if speech began after the indication event.
The technique may further comprise decoding acoustic data in the composite buffer area from the acoustic data format into text. The decoding of acoustic data in the composite buffer area may begin when the starting silence location has been established from the acoustic data.
The recording of acoustic data in the second buffer area may continue until an indication that the speech recognition system is no longer being addressed is detected and a silence indication is detected in the acoustic data recorded in the second buffer area. Recording of acoustic data in the second buffer area may stop and recording of acoustic data in the first buffer area may restart, when the indication that the speech recognition system is no longer being addressed is detected and the silence indication is detected in the acoustic data recorded in the second buffer area.
The indication that the speech recognition system is being addressed may comprise a microphone on event, and the indication that the speech recognition system is no longer being addressed may comprise a microphone off event.
The first buffer area may comprise a circular buffer, and the second buffer area may comprise a linear buffer. Further, the first buffer area and the second buffer area may be at least part of a single storage data structure, or may be at least part of separate storage data structures. These buffers may be in addition to any buffer resources maintained by the speech recognizer.
In another embodiment, the recording step/operation may further comprise: recording acoustic data obtained by the speech recognition system in the first buffer area; appending acoustic data recorded in the first buffer area to the second buffer area, when the first buffer area is full; identifying the existence of a speech region and a silence region in the acoustic data appended to the second buffer area; detecting when an indication that the speech recognition system is being addressed occurs; and filling a recognition buffer area at least with the acoustic data appended to the second buffer area, when a speech region is identified and when the indication that the speech recognition system is being addressed is detected, or filling the recognition buffer area at least with incoming acoustic data for the speech recognition system, when a silence region is identified and when the indication that the speech recognition system is being addressed is detected.
These and other objects, features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments thereof, which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings.
It is to be understood that while the present invention may be described below in the context of a particular computing system environment and an illustrative speech recognition application, the invention is not so limited. Rather, the invention is more generally applicable to any computing system environment and any speech recognition application in which it would be desirable to overcome truncation errors.
As used herein, the phrase "acoustic data" generally refers to any acoustic input picked up and transduced by a microphone of the Automatic Speech Recognizer (ASR) including, but not limited to, acoustic input representative of speech and acoustic input representative of silence. Depending on the requirements or features of a particular implementation, acoustic data may refer to compressed audio, audio that has undergone feature extraction and is represented, for example, as cepstra or any other digital representation of audio that that is suitable for silence detection and decoding into text.
As will be explained below, illustrative embodiments of the invention address the truncation error problem by means by of a software apparatus employing the "silence detection" capability of an automatic speech recognizer, an audio buffer arrangement, a buffer management algorithm and the events generated by microphone mechanisms that signal the user's intention to address the system such as "Push-to-Talk" or "Push-for-Attention" buttons.
When a "Push-to-Talk" button is employed in an apparatus containing an ASR, button depression typically causes a "MICON" event, and button release typically causes a "MICOFF" event. When a "Push-for-Attention" button is employed in an apparatus containing an ASR, button depression typically causes a "MICON" event, and button release typically does not produce any event. Other mechanisms such as video speech recognition may imitate either of these patterns.
Conventional ASRs provide "alignment" data that indicate which parts of an audio stream or buffer has been recognized or decoded into which particular words or silence.
In a conventional ASR, audio to be recognized begins to be stored in buffer memory upon receipt of the MICON message and ceases to be stored upon receipt of the MICOFF message. In accordance with illustrative principles of the invention, the acoustic data, which may include speech by the user, is continuously recorded in a circular buffer. That is, acoustic data is continuously picked up by the microphone of the ASR and is continuously stored in the buffer arrangement of the invention, as will be explained in detail below, regardless of the receipt of a MICON event or a MICOFF event (as will be seen, such events serve to trigger which buffer of the buffer arrangement does the storing).
As is known, the terms "circular buffer" or "ring buffer" refer to a commonly used programming method in which a region of memory is managed by a software module so that when the region has been filled with incoming data, new data is written beginning again at the start of the memory region. The management software retains the address of the current "write" location and the locations of the beginning and end of the memory region. Any portion of the memory region may be read. This permits the management software to read the data from the memory region as a continuous stream, in the correct order, even if, when the region is viewed as a linear segment of memory, the end of the data appears at a lower memory address than the start of the data. The effective topology of the memory region is thus made into a ring by the managing software. In contrast, a "linear buffer" typically does not have such a wrapping feature, and thus when the end of the buffer is reached, the processor must allocate additional buffer space.
Accordingly, in accordance with illustrative principles of the invention using a circular buffer and a linear buffer, upon receipt of the MICON message, the ASR and the software system of this invention proceed to:
1. mark the point in the circular buffer corresponding to the time at which the MICON was received by storing the address of that memory location and halt recording in that buffer,
2. buffer all further speech in a separate linear buffer, and;
3. prepend linear copy of circular buffer to linear buffer.
4. process the resulting composite buffer until the silence closest to the MICON marker is found.
The silence found in step 4 is taken to be the start of the utterance.
Depending on the particular ASR configuration, decoding into text may now proceed or be postponed until the MICOFF message is received or silence is detected in the most recently buffered audio. In either case, the audio buffer of step 2 continues to store additional acoustic data until both a detected silence occurs and a MICOFF message is received.
At detection of the terminal silence, and MICOFF event, recording re-commences in the circular buffer.
By these means, the meaning of MICON and MICOFF messages are converted into indications of the approximate time segment of speech to be decoded, and the exact boundaries of that period are determined using the silence detection features of the ASR. The silence detection feature of ASRs, such as the Embedded ViaVoice™ product available from IBM Corporation (Armonk, N.Y.), operates in parallel with the speech to text decoding functions so, at the point that the MICOFF and silence condition has been met, the speech sounds have also been decoded to text and are available for use by application software or dialog managers or other software components.
Referring initially to
Thus, as illustrated in
A linear copy of the circular buffer is prepended to the linear buffer (170). The data in this linear copy is arranged so that the oldest acoustic data in the circular buffer is located at the start of the segment prepended to the second buffer. This means that the acoustic data recorded immediately before the indication that the system is being addressed ends the prepended segment and is contiguous in memory with the acoustic data which immediately followed the MICON event that is stored in the second area.
The resulting composite buffer is searched for acoustic data representing silence. The location of the silence closest to the end of the prepended segment may then be used as the location in the composite buffer at which speech intended for the system to process begins. This silence will be in the prepended segment if the indication of speech was given after speech started. It will follow the end of the prepended segment if speech began after the MICON event.
The ASR may now start decoding (into text) the content of the augmented linear buffer from the address of the first detected silence. Later, at say time 3, the ASR detects silence (150) in the linear buffer data or receives a MICOFF event corresponding to time 3. As shown, at time 3, the write pointer points to a position (160) in the linear buffer since the encoded audio continues to be written as the ASR decodes.
Referring now to
In step 201, the methodology is started.
In step 202, a set of buffers (a circular buffer and a linear buffer) and their low-level support software are instantiated. The specification and programming support for such buffers and low-level support is well known to those of ordinary skill in the art. The circular buffer is of fixed size so that its oldest content is continually being over-written by the most recently captured acoustic signal. The linear buffer and its support are arranged to permit additional buffer space to be concatenated to the end of the buffer at any time the buffer runs low on space for recording.
In step 203, recording into the circular buffer begins. This completes the initialization phase.
In step 204, the methodology waits for a "MICON" event or signal or otherwise tests for the indication the user is addressing the system, by the means provided in the specific implementation of the system. If no event or indication is present, the methodology remains at step 204. Otherwise, in the presence of an indication or event or message, the system proceeds to 205.
In step 205, the memory location of the Write Pointer in the circular buffer is stored for later use.
In step 206, the value of the Write Pointer is changed to the memory address of the start of a linear buffer, at which location audio recording continues without interruption. This is possible because the process of encoding the audio into a form which can be stored in digital computer memory requires computing on digital samples acquired at a rate of several tens of thousands a second while modem computers are capable of several billion operations a second. There is, therefore, a surplus of time available to switch storage locations (change the Write Pointer) without interrupting the receipt or encoding or recording of the audio signal.
In step 207, a linear copy is made of the circular buffer segment. This copy begins at the oldest recoding (from the address of the write pointer in the circular buffer, stored in step 205) and continues using data from the circular buffer until the address in the circular buffer which immediately precedes the write pointer address is reached. This copy buffer is then prepended to the linear buffer so the location in the copy buffer corresponding to the last data written into the circular buffer is contiguous with the first location in which data has been written into the linear buffer. Alternatively, the copy of the circular buffer could be made into memory space immediately preceding the linear buffer which had been allocated for the purpose of making the copy buffer.
In step 208, the audio in the composite buffer is decoded by the silence detection mechanism of the ASR. The "alignment" data of the ASR is used to determine the beginning memory address of the silence that is in closest temporal proximity to the MICON event. The address of the silence closest to the end of the prepended segment may then be used as the address in the composite buffer at which speech intended for the system to process begins. This silence will be in the prepended segment if the indication of speech was given after speech started. It will follow the end of the prepended segment if speech began after the indication event. This address is stored for later use.
In step 209, the start address found in step 208 is passed to the ASR with the instruction to begin decoding.
In step 210, the ASR or some other mechanism detects that the user has stopped speaking for long enough to signal that the utterance is complete.
In step 211, the linear buffer recording is halted. At some time after this, the ASR returns the results of the recognition process through a channel created in another part of the application. This return is not a focus of the invention.
In step 212, the circular buffer is overwritten with values that cannot be misrecognized as silence and, in step 213, the recording process begins again.
In step 213, either the old linear buffer is cleared or a new buffer is allocated with a "pre-pend" segment (e.g., segment between arrows 170 and 140 in
The above embodiment has been described in terms of a circular buffer of fixed size, a linear buffer that can be extended, a microphone button supplying a "MICON" signal and an automatic speech recognizer with a silence detection feature. It should be understood that other configurations of buffers and other buffer segment selection mechanisms may be realized by those of ordinary skill in the art and could be applied to implementing this invention without departing from the spirit of the invention. These include, but are not limited to, single buffer configurations which are expanded or changed in topology when "MICON" or its equivalent is detected, multiple buffer configurations in which new allocation plays a reduced or nonexistent role, mechanisms which detect that speech is being directed to the recognition system without the use of a "microphone button," configurations which use First In First Out (FIFO) stacks in hardware or software in place of the circular buffer and utterance absence detection mechanisms other than acoustic silence detection.
An alternative embodiment of the invention is described below.
In this alternative embodiment, a large circular buffer is allocated when the program is started. This buffer is longer than the longest expected user utterance. For practical purposes, the buffer may hold approximately 100 seconds of recorded speech. For the purpose of discussion, an ASR capable of providing several services is assumed. These include the capability to convert analog audio signals into a digital format such as pulse code modulated (PCM) format, the ability to detect (within some several hundreds of milliseconds) when speech sounds have begun and when they have ended, and the ability to decode PCM stored in a memory buffer into a text representation of the speech audio stored in that buffer. The Embedded ViaVoice™ speech recognition engine from IBM Corporation (Armonk, N.Y.) is a currently commercially available ASR with these capabilities. That is, the ASR adapted for use in the embodiments of
Referring now to
In operation, the ASR is used to capture speech in a form suitable for later recognition. It is typical for an ASR to deal with short frames of speech audio. In the case of the IBM Embedded ViaVoice™ ASR, these frames are 100 milliseconds in length. In order to preserve the captured audio for later use, the ASR is provided with a linear buffer in which it stores audio until the buffer is filled. A signal, referred to as a "callback," is used to trigger a software component that transfers the content of the small linear buffer to the next appropriate location in the large circular buffer.
Operation of the invention can be understood by considering several computer processes that are carried on "simultaneously" in "threads," in the sense used by those with ordinary skill in the art of computer programming. These processes and operation of the invention are described below in the context of
The software instantiating this invention begins at step 400.
In step 402, the software components supporting the invention (the ASR) and the software components comprising the invention are initialized. For example, in the case of the IBM Embedded ViaVoice ASR product, part of the initialization includes making Application Programmers Interface (API) calls to the ASR to cause it to allocate and the small linear buffer 300.
An API call is made in step 406 to cause the ASR to begin its audio recording function using the linear buffer 300. This buffer 300 fills until the current write location 304 corresponds to the buffer finish location 306. When this condition is detected, in step 408, a callback is generated to a function 410 that appends the content of buffer 300 to the content of buffer 308 at location 312.
Function 412 then sets the linear buffer 300 current write location 304 to equal the buffer start 302. This switch is accomplished in less time than is required by the ASR to process the next frame of speech so the change in write location has no effect on the continuity or integrity of the recorded data. The same function 412 advances the circular buffer current write location 312 to the location corresponding to the end of the newly appended frame.
In step 414, the ASR is queried to determine whether a transition from speech sounds to silence 318 or from silence to speech sounds 320 occurred as detected in the last few frames. If either kind of transition was detected, then the frame number and circular buffer location of the transition is stored for later use. A region of the buffer between a silence to speech transition and a speech to silence transition is called a "speech region." The fact that the last two transitions are a speech to silence transition followed by a silence to speech transition indicates that the buffer is currently recording into a "speech region," while the opposite order indicates that it is currently recording into a "silence region."
Once started, the process loop initiated at step 408 continues to maintain and refresh the audio buffers until shutdown.
The process that utilizes the data stored in the circular buffer (starting at step 402) continues, in step 418, where the software waits (shown as looping) until the user signals the intention to speak to the application by depressing the microphone or attention button. This causes the record of speech to silence and silence to speech transitions buffer locations to be examined, in step 420, to determine whether the buffer recording is currently in a speech region or a silence region.
At step 422, either of two methods of preparing a buffer of speech to be recognized is chosen based on the kind of region the buffer is currently recording into. If the buffer was in a silence region, then the user (correctly) pressed the microphone button before starting to speak. In this case, in step 426, a new buffer is allocated and filled with a leading interval of silence and with all the audio buffered since the microphone button depression was detected. The ASR recognition process is then started, in step 428, to decode that audio into text. All new audio is also placed in this buffer as it arrives until, in step 430, the ASR detects a speech to silence transition and halts the recognition process.
If, in step 422, it is determined that the buffer was in a speech region when the microphone button was depressed, then the new buffer is filled with an appropriate amount of silence from the preceding silence region and all of the audio recorded from the end of the silence region to the current write location. All new audio is also placed in this buffer as it arrives until, in step 430, the ASR detects a speech to silence transition and halts the recognition process. When silence is detected at step 430, the software returns to step 418 to wait for the next microphone button depression.
It is to be appreciated that many variations in the details of this method are possible without departing from the spirit of the invention. For example, in steps 424 and 426, a new buffer is constructed to pass to the ASR. This can be avoided by using the circular buffer itself as the recognition buffer. This choice depends on details of the implementation platform. Similarly, this embodiment assumes a PUSH-ON, SILENCE-OFF microphone button paradigm. Other variations may be made for PUSH TO TALK, PUSH ON, PUSH OFF or other microphone button paradigms without straying from the spirit of the invention.
Referring lastly to
In this particular implementation, a processor 510 for controlling and performing methodologies described herein is coupled to a memory 520 and a user interface 530 via a computer bus 540.
It is to be appreciated that the term "processor" as used herein is intended to include any processing device, such as, for example, one that includes a CPU (central processing unit) or other suitable processing circuitry. For example, the processor may be a digital signal processor (DSP), as is known in the art. Also the term "processor" may refer to more than one individual processor. However, the invention is not limited to any particular processor type or configuration.
The term "memory" as used herein is intended to include memory associated with a processor or CPU, such as, for example, RAM, ROM, a fixed memory device (e.g., hard drive), a removable memory device (e.g., diskette), flash memory, etc. The circular and linear buffers may be implemented as part of memory 520. However, the invention is not limited to any particular memory type or configuration.
In addition, the term "user interface" as used herein is intended to include, for example, one or more input devices, e.g., keyboard, for inputting data to the processing unit, and/or one or more output devices, e.g., CRT display and/or printer, for providing results associated with the processing unit. The user interface 530 may also include one or more microphones (and associated microphone activation buttons) for receiving user speech. However, the invention is not limited to any particular user interface type or configuration.
Accordingly, computer software including instructions or code for performing the methodologies of the invention, as described herein, may be stored in one or more of the associated memory devices (e.g., ROM, fixed or removable memory) and, when ready to be utilized, loaded in part or in whole (e.g., into RAM) and executed by a CPU.
In any case, while illustratively referred to in the above embodiments in the context of software, it should be understood that the components/steps illustrated in
Although illustrative embodiments of the present invention have been described herein with reference to the accompanying drawings, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to those precise embodiments, and that various other changes and modifications may be made by one skilled in the art without departing from the scope or spirit of the invention.
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|U.S. Classification
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|Oct 21, 2005
Owner name: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, NEW Y
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|May 13, 2009
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Joe Jonas Kisses Girl On Set of New Video for 'Just In Love With You'
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On healthcare, the White House is struggling with a political riptide that threatens to drag it into deep water.
The Great Debate UK
Britain's economy should learn to speak a little Chinese
– John Ross is visiting professor at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University where he writes a blog on globalisation. The views expressed are his own. –
Memo to banks – it's not all about the money
– Peter Dixon is a guest columnist, the views expressed are his own. He is global financial economist at Commerzbank –
Government must act on bold promises to UK manufacturers
– Steve Radley is Director of Policy at EEF, Britain's manufacturers' organisation. The views expressed are his own.
from Commentaries:
Tech results give few clues to economy: Eric Auchard
LONDON, July 24 (Reuters) - Investors have proved all too ready to interpret positive earnings trends from Intel, IBM and Apple as signs of economic recovery and to justify a continued rally in technology stocks.
Predicting the economic effects of swine flu
– Marie Diron is senior economist at Oxford Economics. The opinions expressed are her own –
Bats and balls the key to economic bounce
-Simon Chadwick is the Director of the Centre for the International Business of Sport at Coventry University, and runs the blog 'Daily Sport Thought' in which he addresses many of the important challenges currently facing sport. The opinions expressed are his own.-
from The Great Debate:
China risks overcooking the economy
-- Wei Gu is a Reuters columnist. The opinions expressed are her own --
While China has been outspoken in expressing concern about the United States printing too much money, those worries might be better focused at home. No country beats China when it comes to effective monetary easing.
Shareholder confidence vs. value investing
– Brendan Wood is Chairman of Brendan Wood International, a global intelligence advisory firm. Recently, BWI published the World's TopGun CEOs as ranked by 2500 institutional investors, which provides insight into the executives in whom shareholders feel the greatest confidence. The opinions expressed are his own. –
Latvia: Apocalypse (not quite) now . . .
-Morten Hansen is head of the economics department at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. The opinions expressed are his own.-


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Performance of Chromogenic In Situ Hybridization on Testing HER2 Status in Breast Carcinomas With Chromosome 17 Polysomy and Equivocal (2+) HercepTest ResultsA Study of Two Institutions Using the Conventional and New ASCO/CAP Scoring Criteria
This study specifically addressed the performance of chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH) on HER2 testing in 66 breast carcinomas with chromosome 17 polysomy and 49 carcinomas with an equivocal HercepTest (DakoCytomation, Carpinteria, CA) score by comparing CISH with corresponding FISH results at 2 test sites and evaluating intersite agreement of CISH results. For tumors with chromosome 17 polysomy, when using the manufacturers' criteria, the concordance values between CISH and FISH at site A, site B, and intersite CISH agreement were 95.8%, 95.5%, and 93.5%, respectively; when using the American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists (ASCO/CAP) criteria, the values were 100.0%, 100.0%, and 100.0%, respectively. For tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score, when using the manufacturers' criteria, the concordance values between the 2 methods at site A, site B, and intersite CISH agreement were 88.2%, 95.1%, and 91.1%, respectively; when using the ASCO/CAP criteria, the values were 96.7%, 97.3%, and 97.4%, respectively. These results indicate that CISH is reliable for testing these 2 types of tumors, especially when the ASCO/CAP criteria are used.
- Breast carcinoma
- Fluorescence in situ hybridization
- Chromogenic in situ hybridization
- American Society of Clinical Oncology/College of American Pathologists
- Chromosome 17 polysomy
- Equivocal
- Immunohistochemistry
Identification of human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2) status is a prerequisite for eligibility for anti-HER2 therapies such as trastuzumab (Herceptin) and lapatinib in patients with breast cancer. Positive HER2 status (ie, overexpression of the HER2 protein or amplification of the HER2 gene) is a strong predictor of response to trastuzumab.1–7 Trastuzumab therapy has shown an impressive improvement in patients' clinical outcome in metastatic and adjuvant settings,1–3,5,7,8 as well as in the neoadjuvant setting.9,10 However, the significant benefits of trastuzumab are coupled with potential cardiotoxic effects and high cost.1,7,11–13 Therefore, accurate, yet easily available, HER2 testing is essential to effectively and promptly identify patients who might benefit from anti-HER2 targeted therapy while sparing patients who would not.
Immunohistochemical analysis and dual-probe fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) are the 2 assays commonly used to test HER2 status in breast cancer specimens. FISH assesses HER2 gene amplification and is more specific and reliable than immunohistochemical analysis7,14–16; however, FISH is relatively expensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive compared with immunohistochemical analysis. Usually, testing algorithms for HER2 start with immunohistochemical analysis as a first-line method to detect protein overexpression, with FISH being performed for tumors with equivocal results. Chromogenic in situ hybridization (CISH) is a relatively new method and, like FISH, evaluates HER2 gene amplification. In addition, CISH is similar to immunohistochemical analysis in that it allows detection of HER2 amplification using a conventional peroxidase reaction and enumeration of gene copy number with simultaneous histologic examination by regular bright-field microscopy.17,18 Consequently, CISH has been viewed by some proponents as a potential alternative to FISH in the HER2 testing algorithm or simply as a primary testing method.19
The Zymed SPOT-Light HER2 CISH kit (Invitrogen, Camarillo, CA) has been recently approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). However, unlike FISH (PathVysion kit, Vysis, Downers Grove, IL), which uses dual probes, CISH usually defines HER2 amplification based on a mean absolute HER2 gene copy number per nucleus, without chromosome 17 correction. Thus, there is a concern that CISH might overestimate the presence of gene amplification as a result of chromosome 17 polysomy (polysomy 17).18,20 On the other hand, as a confirmatory test, the performance of CISH for cases with an equivocal immunohistochemical score, which might be associated with polysomy 17,21–25 is also of interest.
The American Society of Clinical Oncology and the College of American Pathologists (ASCO/CAP) recently published guidelines to standardize specimen processing, testing, and scoring in an attempt to improve HER2 testing accuracy in routine clinical practice.26,27 A major component of the new guidelines was the change in the scoring criteria used to define positive and negative HER2 status. For example, 3 categories (ie, positive, equivocal, and negative), instead of the dichotomous categories established by manufacturers, are used to document the HER2 status determined by in situ hybridization methods. In addition, the cutoffs for determining positive and negative status also differ from conventional ones established by manufacturers Table 1. The ASCO/CAP guidelines mandate that a new assay should show 95% or more concordance with another validated test for positive and negative results before routine application. Results that fall into the equivocal category require further confirmation using another validated test.
A number of previous studies have demonstrated good overall concordance between CISH and FISH results and reproducibility, but in these studies, only the manufacturers' scoring criteria were used.17,28–35 We recently conducted a multicenter study on 226 consecutive breast carcinomas using the new ASCO/CAP scoring criteria and observed excellent concordance between CISH and FISH results at different test sites and very high (>98%) intersite reproducibility of CISH results.36 However, because generally a vast majority of tumors have clear-cut HER2 status, unselected tumor cohorts have limited biostatistical power to demonstrate the reliability of CISH in cases with potential borderline status. To the best of our knowledge, there have been no reports on the reliability of the CISH method for tumors with polysomy 17 and tumors with an equivocal (2+) immunohistochemical score. The present study specifically focused on these 2 types of tumors identified at either or both test sites and evaluated the impact of these cases on the HER2 status determined by CISH when using the ASCO/CAP scoring criteria.
Materials and Methods
Paraffin tissues from 286 invasive breast carcinomas were retrospectively obtained from 2 institutions. Of these, 226 were consecutive cases of surgically resected breast carcinomas: 110 from The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Houston (site A); and 116 from the Institute of Medical Technology, University of Tampere, Tampere, Finland (site B). To obtain a sufficient number of tumors qualified for this study, a set of 60 tumors, known to show an immunohistochemical score of 2+ (monoclonal antibody, clone AB8, dilution 1:100; NeoMarkers, Fremont, CA) determined during routine patient care at site A, was supplemented.
All paraffin blocks were less than 2 years old. Unstained sections of the 286 tumors were sent simultaneously to the 2 test sites for HER2 testing. At each site, HER2 status of the 286 tumors was determined by using the polymer detection kit for CISH analysis (Zymed SPOT-Light HER2 CISH) and the PathVysion kit for FISH analysis. We performed the tests according to the manufacturers' instructions, using procedures similar to what we reported previously, with appropriate control samples included.30,35,37 At each test site, immunohistochemical analysis was performed using the FDA-approved HercepTest (DakoCytomation, Carpinteria, CA) on the 60 supplementary tumors and on its own consecutive tumors (ie, 110 from site A and 116 from site B).
The results generated at each test were interpreted by pathologists at that site who were blinded to the results of HER2 status (previous status or the status obtained during the present study). The manufacturers' scoring criteria and the ASCO/CAP recommendations were used to score CISH and FISH results (Table 1). To standardize the interpretation criteria for HER2 status as determined by the different methods, each interpreter was instructed with a protocol and a PowerPoint (Microsoft, Redmond, WA) tutorial provided by Invitrogen.
In the CISH analysis, at least 30 invasive tumor cells from each sample were scored for average HER2 gene copy number using a light microscope under a 40× dry objective. If the average copy number was 4 to 6 per nucleus (equivocal), another 30 invasive tumor cells were enumerated, and the final average copy number of the case was calculated from the total of 60 cells.
In the FISH analysis, at least 20 invasive tumor cells from each sample were scored for nuclear HER2 and chromosome 17 centromere probe (CEP17) signals using an epifluorescence microscope. If the average HER2/CEP17 ratio was 1.8 to 2.2 (equivocal), another 20 invasive tumor cells were scored, and the final ratio of the case was calculated from the total of 40 cells. Polysomy 17 was defined as the presence of an average of 3 or more CEP17 signals per tumor nucleus. The tumors showing polysomy 17, identified from the 286 cases at either or both sites, were selected for this study to test the impact on CISH results.
In HercepTest analysis, HER2 expression was interpreted based on the new ASCO/CAP recommendations and scored as 0 (no staining), 1+ (weak and incomplete membrane staining), 2+ (strong, complete membrane staining in ≤30% of tumor cells or weak/moderate heterogeneous complete membrane staining in ≥10% of tumor cells), or 3+ (strong, complete, homogeneous membrane staining in >30% of tumor cells). HER2 status was considered negative or not overexpressed if the immunohistochemical score was 0 or 1+, equivocal if the score was 2+, and positive if the score was 3+. Cases showing an equivocal (2+) immunohistochemical score with the HercepTest were selected for this study to test the impact on CISH results.
The reliability of the CISH method in tumors showing polysomy 17 and tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score was assessed by comparing CISH results with the corresponding FISH results at site A and site B and by evaluating the reproducibility of CISH results between the 2 sites. Concordance and the Cohen κ coefficient, with the corresponding 95% confidence interval (CI), were used to evaluate intermethod and intersite agreement. The relationship between the κ value and the level of agreement was proposed by Landis and Koch38: 0.00 to 0.20, slight agreement; 0.21 to 0.40, fair agreement; 0.41 to 0.60, moderate agreement; 0.61 to 0.80, substantial agreement; and 0.81 to 1.00, almost perfect agreement.
This study was conducted with the approval of the institutional review boards at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center and the University of Tampere.
Cases With Chromosome 17 Polysomy
At site A, FISH results were available for 273 (95.5%) of the 286 tumors, and 51 (18.7%) of them showed polysomy 17. At site B, FISH results were available on 278 tumors (97.2%), and 22 (7.9%) of them showed polysomy 17 Image 1. The total number of tumors showing polysomy 17 at either or both sites was 66. Concordance between CISH and FISH at each site (51 cases at site A and 22 at site B) and intersite reproducibility of CISH on the 66 tumors is shown in Table 2.
When the manufacturers' scoring criteria were used, the concordance between CISH and FISH was 95.8% at site A and 95.5% at site B, and the agreement of HER2 status determined by CISH between the 2 sites was 93.5%.
When the ASCO/CAP guidelines were used for scoring, the HER2 gene was found by FISH to be amplified in 12 (23.5%) of 51 tumors at site A and in 12 (54.5%) of 22 tumors at site B. When the 3-category criteria (amplified, equivocal, and nonamplified) were used for comparison, the concordance between CISH and FISH was 91.7% at site A and 95.5% at site B, and intersite reproducibility of CISH was 90.3% Image 2. Discrepancies between CISH and FISH results were found in 5 cases: 4 at site A and 1 at site B Table 3. The corresponding HercepTest score was 2+ Image 3 in 4 and 1+ in 1. Intersite disagreement of CISH results was found in 6 tumors Table 4. The corresponding HercepTest score was 0 in 1 tumor, 2+ in 3, and 3+ in 2. Notably, all discrepancies were seen between equivocal and positive status or between equivocal and negative status, not between positive and negative status.
When the 2-category criteria defined in the ASCO/CAP guidelines for amplified and nonamplified status were used for comparison (ie, excluding cases with equivocal status determined by CISH or FISH), the concordance between the 2 methods for positive and negative HER2 status was 100% at both sites, exceeding the minimal concordance required by the ASCO/CAP guidelines (95%) before a new test is applied routinely in the diagnostic setting. Intersite agreement on CISH was 100.0% (Table 2).
Cases With an Equivocal (2+) Score by the HercepTest
Of the 226 consecutively obtained tumors, the HercepTest was performed at each site on that site's own specimens (110 at site A and 116 at site B), which identified a total of 21 tumors (9.3%) with a score of 2+. For the 60 supplementary tumors that had an immunohistochemical score of 2+, determined during routine patient care at site A using a monoclonal antibody from NeoMarkers, immunohistochemical analysis was reperformed using the HercepTest at both sites. A score of 2+ by the HercepTest was found in 15 (25.0%) of the 60 tumors at site A and 22 (36.7%) at site B. In this study, to evaluate the concordance between CISH and FISH on tumors with a 2+ HercepTest score, we used 36 tumors (21 from consecutive cases plus 15 from supplementary cases) at site A and 43 tumors (21 from consecutive cases plus 22 from supplementary cases) at site B. To evaluate the reproducibility of CISH results between the 2 test sites, tumors that demonstrated a 2+ HercepTest score at either or both sites were selected, and a total of 49 tumors were analyzed Table 5.
When using the manufacturers' scoring criteria, the concordance between CISH and FISH was 88.2% at site A and 95.1% at site B, and the reproducibility of HER2 status as determined by CISH between the 2 sites was 91.1% (Table 5).
When the ASCO/CAP guidelines were used for scoring, the HER2 gene was found by FISH to be amplified in 5 (13.9%) of 36 tumors at site A and 5 (11.6%) of 43 tumors at site B. When using the 3-category scoring criteria for comparison, the concordance between CISH and FISH results was 85.3% at site A and 87.8% at site B, and intersite reproducibility of CISH was 86.7% (Table 5). Discrepancies between CISH and FISH results were found in 10 cases, 5 at each site Table 6. Of the 10 cases, 8 showed a discrepancy between equivocal status by one method and positive or negative status by another method, including 1 tumor that showed the same discrepant pattern at both sites (case 5 at each site). Discrepancy between negative and positive status was found only in 1 tumor, and the pattern of the discordance at both sites (case 1 at each site) was identical: CISH– and FISH+. Of the 10 cases, polysomy 17 (determined by FISH) was found in 2 tumors (case 4 at site A and case 2 at site B), in which CISH was equivocal and FISH was negative. Of the 6 cases with discrepant CISH results between the 2 sites, 5 showed discrepancy between equivocal status at one site and positive or negative status at the other site, and 1 was between negative and positive status Table 7.
When the 2-category criteria defined in the ASCO/CAP guidelines for the positive and negative status were used for comparison, the concordance between CISH and FISH was 96.7% at site A and 97.3% at site B, fulfilling the concordance mandated by the ASCO/CAP guidelines. Also, intersite reproducibility on the CISH results was 97.4% (Table 5).
Currently, the dual-probe FISH is a validated, and well-accepted technique to evaluate HER2 status, which defines the status by determining the HER2 gene copies per chromosome 17 centromere because polysomy 17 has an effect on the HER2 copy number. Polysomy 17 is quite common in breast carcinomas, has an important role in breast cancer pathophysiology, and is an indicator of poor prognosis.39 However, there is no unified definition for polysomy 17. For example, some studies defined polysomy 17 when the CEP17 copy number per tumor nucleus was more than 2.25,40–43 2.1 or more,22 or more than 1.85.44 We and many others14,21,24,45,46 defined polysomy 17 using a cutoff of 3 or more CEP17 copies per tumor nucleus. Depending on the criteria used to define polysomy 17 and selection criteria of the cases included in the series, the reported incidence of polysomy 17 varied from 5% to 50%, mostly 8% to 20%.21–24,40–43,46–48 In our study, the frequency of such cases was 18.7% at site A and 7.9% at site B.
Previous studies have shown that CISH is a reliable method for HER2 testing, either as an alternative to FISH to confirm equivocal immunohistochemical results or as a frontline testing method in breast cancer.17,19,28–33,36 However, a major concern remains regarding how numeric alteration of chromosome 17 affects HER2 status because CISH determines HER2 status based on the absolute number of HER2 gene copies rather than the chromosome 17–corrected HER2 gene copy number.14 Performance of CISH on testing these cases using the ASCO/CAP scoring criteria has not been previously documented.
Some of the previous studies demonstrated that correction for chromosome 17 is critical for the determination of true HER2 status and for avoiding overestimating cases that have increased HER2 gene copy number resulting from polysomy 17,7,14,40,42,47 whereas others believe that polysomy 17 alone has a minor impact on the HER2 gene copy number and HER2 protein overexpression.43,49 These studies scored HER2 status using manufacturers' criteria. In the present study, we showed that although discordance between CISH and FISH was found in a minority of tumors at each test site using the manufacturers' scoring criteria, complete concordance for amplified and nonamplified results was observed in tumors with polysomy 17 using the ASCO/CAP 2-category criteria. Moreover, CISH results from the 2 test sites were also completely reproducible (Table 2). This is likely because the cutoff value for positive status in the new ASCO/CAP guideline is more than 6, whereas the HER2 gene copy in nonamplified tumors showing polysomy 17 is usually 4 to 6.22,24,42
Polysomy 17 has been reported to be closely associated with equivocal (2+) or low levels of HER2 overexpression by immunohistochemical analysis in breast cancer.21–25,39 In a study by Kostopoulou et al,25 43% of the equivocal (2+) cases were found to be polysomy 17. The equivocal immunohistochemical score was thought to be related to increased gene dosage by polysomy 17 in some cases. Therefore, in the present study, we examined tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score. Tumors with a 2+ score were found in 9.3% of 226 consecutive tumors. In an attempt to "enrich" this type of case, we additionally included 60 tumors that were shown to be equivocal on immunohistochemical scoring during routine patient care. Similar to results in tumors with polysomy 17, tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score showed higher concordance than required by the new ASCO/CAP guidelines for amplified and nonamplified results and also high reproducibility of CISH results between test sites. The concordance and reproducibility were suboptimal when the manufactures' scoring criteria and ASCO/CAP 3-category criteria were used.
It is noteworthy that the reproducibility of equivocal immunohistochemical results was low when a different antibody was used on the same set of tumors. HercepTest, an FDA-approved method, was developed to overcome variability associated with other immunohistochemical methods and antibodies, and is supposed to be a more standardized immunohistochemical method.50 Of the 60 tumors that had a 2+ score using the NeoMarkers antibody (AB8), only 25.0% at site A and 36.7% at site B yielded a 2+ score by the HercepTest. The poor reproducibility of 2+ immunohistochemical cases is well known. For example, Gown et al51 observed similar findings when the results from 2 antibodies (A0485 rabbit polyclonal antibody and SP3 rabbit monoclonal antibody) were compared. Presumably, variation in antibody specificity, staining technique, and interobserver interpretation are contributing factors.
In keeping with the findings of others,22–25,48,52 tumors with polysomy 17 or an equivocal HercepTest score in this study tended to be HER2 nonamplified by FISH. For example, of the tumors with polysomy 17, 23.5% at site A and 54.5% at site B were amplified. Likewise, of the tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score, 13.9% at site A and 11.6% at site B were amplified. The differences in HER2 status by FISH between sites may, in part, result from variation in technical factors and/or interobserver scoring variability. In a recent study by Press and coworkers,53 FISH was performed in 2 experienced sites: an academic reference/research laboratory and a large, high-volume commercial reference laboratory; however, concordance of HER2 status between the 2 laboratories was only 89%. This type of variation could also explain the difference in the incidence of polysomy 17 detected between the 2 test sites in our study (18.7% vs 7.9%).
Discordance between CISH and FISH when the ASCO/CAP 3-category criteria were used for comparison was less than 9% among tumors with polysomy 17 (Table 2) and less than 15% among tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score (Table 5). It is interesting that most of these tumors, except 1, showed "low-level" discordance (ie, between equivocal and positive or negative status, rather than between positive and negative status), rendering a high concordance when the ASCO/CAP 2-category criteria were used. For the only tumor that showed discordant HER2 status, a result of CISH– and FISH+ was observed at both sites, and the FISH results at each site were slightly above the positive cutoff (2.38 and 2.52, respectively; Table 6). Of the 10 discordant cases in tumors with an equivocal HercepTest score, polysomy 17 was found only in 2 cases, both of which were equivocal by CISH and negative by FISH (Table 6). We did not identify any tumor with polysomy 17 that was CISH+ and FISH–, indicating that polysomy 17–related change in the HER2 copy number does not seem to be a major factor responsible for the discordance. Therefore, correction for chromosome 17 seems to be rarely needed for the determination of true HER2 gene status using the ASCO/CAP guidelines.
To identify the underlying reasons responsible for the discordance, we examined the role of intratumoral heterogeneity because the difference in the foci selected for scoring in these cases may contribute to different HER2 status. However, we did not identify meaningful intratumoral heterogeneity in these discrepant cases. We believe that the presence of low-level discordance is probably attributable to the fact that the scoring criteria were inevitably arbitrary to some extent and may not have reflected the real status accurately in individual cases.44 Recently, using array comparative genomic hybridization or a FISH mapping technique, researchers in several groups demonstrated that the whole chromosome 17 polysomy is extremely uncommon in breast cancer. Gains of CEP17 copies are more often caused by aneusomy of 17q and/or amplification of CEP17. Therefore, increases in the copy number of CEP17 do not reliably represent chromosome 17 polysomy.54,55 Consequently, HER2 status determined on the basis of the HER2/CEP17 ratio may lead to false-negative HER2 status by FISH.56 This may also have some role in the discordant results between CISH and FISH in some cases in the present study.
By using tumors with polysomy 17 and with an equivocal HercepTest score identified at either or both test sites, we found high concordance between CISH and FISH results, especially when ASCO/CAP scoring criteria were used. The concordance values exceeded what is required by the ASCO/CAP guidelines for positive and negative results at both test sites. In addition, excellent intersite reproducibility of CISH results was found in these cases. These findings indicate that, when using the new ASCO/CAP scoring criteria, CISH can reliably determine positive or negative HER2 status of breast carcinomas. Apparently, if CISH is used as a primary HER2 testing method, any results falling into the equivocal range should be further confirmed by another validated method.
We thank scientific editor Sue Moreau, Department of Scientific Publications, M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, for editorial support.
Dr Gong received an honorarium as a speaker to present the data at an educational seminar organized by Biocare Medical at the 2009 United States and Canadian Academy of Pathology annual meeting; Drs Sneige and Isola received research funds from Invitrogen for this study; Drs Sweet and Greenfield are employees of Invitrogen; Dr Duh is a statistical consultant for Invitrogen; and Dr Symmans is a scientific advisor for Invitrogen.
- © American Society for Clinical Pathology


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Whether you live in Australia or another part of the world, you may need to renovate your home, entirely or may only want to renovate your bathrooms or kitchen. People do have a lot of home renovation ideas themselves, but they still need assistance in analyzing the exact process and requirements for a perfect home renovation. For Sydney home renovations, specialist offer complete assistance and guidance for a high quality renovation project completion.
If anyone who is going to renovate the bathrooms in his home, then he can also find bathroom renovators separately for specialized services that would cover all your bathroom renovation needs. For perfect bathroom renovations in Sydney, you need to have a pre-plan regarding all the process, the finances and the company you will be using to get the services.
Here are a few important steps that you will have to keep in mind while starting out the renovation process:
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Import projects from GitHub and login to your GitLab instance with your GitHub account.
To enable the GitHub OmniAuth provider you must register your application with GitHub. GitHub will generate an application ID and secret key for you to use.
Sign in to GitHub.
Navigate to your individual user settings or an organization's settings, depending on how you want the application registered. It does not matter if the application is registered as an individual or an organization - that is entirely up to you.
Select "OAuth applications" in the left menu.
If you already have applications listed, switch to the "Developer applications" tab.
Select "Register new application".
Provide the required details.
<Organization>'s GitLab or
<Your Name>'s GitLab or something else descriptive.
Select "Register application".
You should now see a Client ID and Client Secret near the top right of the page (see screenshot). Keep this page open as you continue configuration.
On your GitLab server, open the configuration file.
For omnibus package:
sudo editor /etc/gitlab/gitlab.rb
For installations from source:
cd /home/git/gitlab
sudo -u git -H editor config/gitlab.yml
See Initial OmniAuth Configuration for initial settings.
Add the provider configuration:
For omnibus package:
gitlab_rails['omniauth_providers'] = [
"name" => "github",
"app_id" => "YOUR_APP_ID",
"app_secret" => "YOUR_APP_SECRET",
"url" => "https://github.com/",
"args" => { "scope" => "user:email" }
For installation from source:
For GitHub.com:
- { name: 'github', app_id: 'YOUR_APP_ID',
app_secret: 'YOUR_APP_SECRET',
args: { scope: 'user:email' } }
For GitHub Enterprise:
- { name: 'github', app_id: 'YOUR_APP_ID',
app_secret: 'YOUR_APP_SECRET',
url: "https://github.example.com/",
args: { scope: 'user:email' } }
https://github.example.com/ with your GitHub URL.
Change 'YOUR_APP_ID' to the client ID from the GitHub application page from step 7.
Change 'YOUR_APP_SECRET' to the client secret from the GitHub application page from step 7.
Save the configuration file.
Restart GitLab for the changes to take effect.
On the sign in page there should now be a GitHub icon below the regular sign in form. Click the icon to begin the authentication process. GitHub will ask the user to sign in and authorize the GitLab application. If everything goes well the user will be returned to GitLab and will be signed in.


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It's Time to Talk: Forums on Race
Break through the barriers that perpetuate racism.
14th Annual It's Time to Talk: Forums on RaceTM
Keynote Speaker: Alan C. Page
Date: October 18, 2016
Time: 11:30 am - 1:30 pm
Location: Minneapolis Convention Center
Diverse leaders from business, education, arts and community service will come together to move Minnesota forward through honest conversation and powerful action. The strength of our future depends on our ability to develop new skills around inclusion and equity, understand the realities of racism today and to commit ourselves to action.
Individual tickets are sold out! Waitlist available.
Individual Seats: To be added to our ticket waitlist (we may have cancellations or ticket openings occur), please contact Michael Malone at firstname.lastname@example.com or 612-215-4161.
Tables and Sponsorships: To purchase a table or sponsor a table, please contact Michael Malone at firstname.lastname@example.com or 612-215-4161.
Attendee Information
- Doors open at 11:00 am. Event begins promptly at 11:30 am.
- Please arrive early and plan ahead for parking.
- Upon arrival, check in outside Ballroom A with a volunteer holding a clipboard to receive your table assignment.
Take Action
Corporations, nonprofit organizations, religious groups and schools have found participating in It's Time to Talk to be thought-provoking and inspirational. Based on feedback from attendees at previous events, you will leave inspired to personally take action to improve race relations at work, in the community, and with family and friends.
Keynote Presentation: Alan C. Page
Alan C. Page was born August 7, 1945, in Canton, Ohio. He graduated from Canton Central Catholic High School in 1963, and received his B.A. in political science from the University of Notre Dame in 1967 and his J.D. from the University of Minnesota Law School in 1978.
After graduating from law school, Alan Page worked as an attorney for a law firm in Minneapolis, then served seven years as an attorney in the office of the Minnesota Attorney General.
He sought election to the Minnesota Supreme Court in 1992 and won, becoming the first African American on the court and one of the few associate justices ever to join the court initially through election, rather than appointment by the governor. When Justice Page was reelected in 1998, he became the biggest vote-getter in Minnesota history. He was reelected in 2004 and 2010 and served until he reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 in 2015.
Law was Alan Page's second career; he was first known for his skills in football both in college and in the NFL. At Notre Dame, Alan Page led the school's storied football program to the 1966 national championship, and in 1993 he was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame.
Alan Page was a first-round draft choice of the Minnesota Vikings in 1967 and he played for the Vikings until 1978. The last three years of his football career were with the Chicago Bears, 1978–1981. During his career, Alan Page played in 218 consecutive games, earning All-Pro honors six times, and was voted to nine consecutive Pro Bowls. In 1971 he was named the NFL's Most Valuable Player, becoming only the second defensive player in history to be named MVP. In 1988 Alan Page was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.
Also in 1988, Justice Page and his wife Diane founded the Page Education Foundation, which assists students of color in their pursuit of post-secondary education. To date, the foundation has awarded over $12 million in grants to more than 6,000 individuals.
Justice Page and his daughter, Kamie Page, have written two children's picture books, The Invisible You (2014) and Alan and His Perfectly Pointy Impossibly Perpendicular Pinky (2013).


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This star rating is the opinion of the property owner only. A Self-Rated hotel has not been assessed by the AA or Visit Britain, whose official star ratings we use across LateRooms.com.
Drynachan Bed & Breakfast4 Self rated
Drynachan, ,, Invergarry, PH35 4HL
Price FromView Rooms
- Excellent
- 1 guest reviews
"Pleasant setting, excellent food and hospitality. Neville & Sonia were very friendly and had excellent knowledge of the local area. Good con..."
About the hotel
Drynachan Bed and Breakfast is a charming 17th century dwelling place in the heart of the Highlands. As one of the oldest inhabited properties in Lochaber, situated in the Great Glen, this is the ideal base for you to explore and tour throughout the Highlands and Islands. River walks, woodlands, mountains, lochs and castles are all just a short distance away.
We offer you a unique hospitality experience where your comfort is our speciality. Our gardens are mainly herbaceous shrub borders that are a delight to meander through and a haven to wild birdlife. Nestled against a backdrop of woodland the Great Glen cycle track runs across the hillside above us and Loch Oich, (part of the Caledonian Canal), can be viewed from the cottage. Drynachan has been refurbished to reflect the soft highland scenery that abounds the area. You will breakfast in the homely dining room where a sumptuous feast will set you up for a days sightseeing or hill walking. Evenings can be spent in the quiet of your room or in the comfort of our sitting room where you can enjoy a roaring log fire on more chilly days. An extensive library of books and DVD's will satisfy most tastes from 'grannies' to grandchildren! If you can't holiday without keeping in touch with work or home Wi-Fi internet is available on request. It is our aim that Drynachan is a 'home from home' and with this in mind children are welcome. Our motto is: "ARRIVE A STRANGER - LEAVE A FRIEND!".
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Facilities Show/hide
- Parking
- Car parking available onsite, Airport Shuttle
- Main
- Wake Up Call Available
- Business
- Wi-Fi Available In Public Areas
- Leisure
- Video/DVD Library
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- Call us on 0333 300 1007 and we'll help find the perfect hotel for you
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Useful Info Show/hide
- From 16:00 hours
- By 10:00 hours
- Up to 8 years old
- The price shown is based on the occupancy and dates you have searched for. Prices and availability are subject to change based on the arrival date, number of nights and occupancy searched for. All prices are inclusive of all local taxes.
- Pets are not allowed
Customer Reviews
Our reviews are from genuine LateRooms.com customers. We verify that the customer has stayed before leaving a review.
100% would recommend it to a friend
Customer service
Food quality
Room quality
Great Glen stop off
Pleasant setting, excellent food and hospitality.
Neville & Sonia were very friendly and had excellent knowledge of the local area. Good conversation. Liked Neville's woodwork.
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