Prosodic Preferences of Surface Electromyography-based Subvocal Speech for People With Laryngectomy.

Introduction: People who undergo a total laryngectomy lose their natural voice and depend on alaryngeal technologies for communication. However, these technologies are often difficult to use and lack prosody. Surface electromyographic-based silent speech interfaces are novel communication systems that overcome many of the shortcomings of traditional alaryngeal speech and have the potential to seamlessly incorporate individualized prosody.

Optimizing Communication in Ataxia: A Multifaceted Approach to Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC).

The progression of multisystem neurodegenerative diseases such as ataxia significantly impacts speech and communication, necessitating adaptive clinical care strategies. With the deterioration of speech, Alternative and Augmentative Communication (AAC) can play an ever increasing role in daily life for individuals with ataxia. This review describes the spectrum of AAC resources available, ranging from unaided gestures and sign language to high-tech solutions like speech-generating devices (SGDs) and eye-tracking technology.

Continual preparation of chemical vapor standard mixtures: Autonomous generator based on modified dynamic methods.

Many applications in laboratory, industrial and R&D practice involve utilization of standard chemical vapor mixtures, therefore their availability, ease of preparation and reliability play a crucial role. This work is presenting a new instrumentation based on the innovated dynamic preparation method using the injection of liquid sample, fast evaporation, and uniform mixing with carrier gas. The combination of precise syringe drives, quantitative evaporation and controlled flow of carrier gas provides very high level of accuracy and stability of the generation process.

A Virtual Reality Exergame: Clinician-Guided Breathing and Relaxation for Children with Muscular Dystrophy.

This study introduces a VR-based breathing and relaxation exergame tailored for individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). DMD is a rare neuromuscular disease that leads to respiratory muscle dysfunction with anxiety being a common comorbidity. Clinical management requires frequent visits to rare disease specialists to manage symptom progression.

Empirical Evaluation of the Role of Vocal Fold Collision on Relative Fundamental Frequency in Voicing Offset.

Objectives: Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is an acoustic measure of changes in fundamental frequency during voicing transitions. The physiological mechanisms underlying RFF remain unclear. Recent modeling suggests that changes in RFF during voicing offset are due to decreases in overall system stiffness as a direct result of the cessation of vocal fold collision.

Ability-Based Methods for Personalized Keyboard Generation.

This study introduces an ability-based method for personalized keyboard generation, wherein an individual's own movement and human-computer interaction data are used to automatically compute a personalized virtual keyboard layout. Our approach integrates a multidirectional point-select task to characterize cursor control over time, distance, and direction. The characterization is automatically employed to develop a computationally efficient keyboard layout that prioritizes each user's movement abilities through capturing directional constraints and preferences.

Prediction of Voice Fundamental Frequency and Intensity from Surface Electromyographic Signals of the Face and Neck.

Silent speech interfaces (SSIs) enable speech recognition and synthesis in the absence of an acoustic signal. Yet, the archetypal SSI fails to convey the expressive attributes of prosody such as pitch and loudness, leading to lexical ambiguities. The aim of this study was to determine the efficacy of using surface electromyography (sEMG) as an approach for predicting continuous acoustic estimates of prosody.

Ability-based Keyboards for Augmentative and Alternative Communication: Understanding How Individuals' Movement Patterns Translate to More Efficient Keyboards: Methods to Generate Keyboards Tailored to User-specific Motor Abilities.

This study presents the evaluation of ability-based methods extended to keyboard generation for alternative communication in people with dexterity impairments due to motor disabilities. Our approach characterizes user-specific cursor control abilities from a multidirectional point-select task to configure letters on a virtual keyboard based on estimated time, distance, and direction of movement. These methods were evaluated in three individuals with motor disabilities against a generically optimized keyboard and the ubiquitous QWERTY keyboard.

Effects of Age and Parkinson's Disease on the Relationship between Vocal Fold Abductory Kinematics and Relative Fundamental Frequency.

Purpose: This study reports on two experiments to examine vocal fold abduction and its relationship with relative fundamental frequency (RFF), considering two attributes that have been shown to elicit group differences in RFF: age (Experiment 1) and Parkinson's disease (PD; Experiment 2).

Methods: For both experiments, simultaneous acoustic and nasendoscopic recordings were collected as participants produced the utterance, /ifi/. RFF values were computed from the acoustic signal, whereas abduction duration and glottic angle at voicing offset were identified from the laryngoscopic images.

Clinical Cutoff Scores for Acoustic Indices of Vocal Hyperfunction That Combine Relative Fundamental Frequency and Cepstral Peak Prominence.

Purpose: This study examined the discriminative ability of acoustic indices of vocal hyperfunction combining smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) and relative fundamental frequency (RFF).

Method: Demographic, CPPS, and RFF parameters were entered into logistic regression models trained on two 1:1 case-control groups: individuals with and without nonphonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (NPVH; = 360) and phonotraumatic vocal hyperfunction (PVH; = 240). Equations from the final models were used to predict group membership in two independent test sets ( = 100 each).

Coherent fibre link for synchronization of delocalized atomic clocks.

Challenging experiments for tests in fundamental physics require highly coherent optical frequency references with suppressed phase noise from hundreds of kHz down to μHz of Fourier frequencies. It can be achieved by remote synchronization of many frequency references interconnected by stabilized optical fibre links. Here we describe the path to realize a delocalized optical frequency reference for spectroscopy of the isomeric state of the nucleus of Thorium-229 atom.

Relative Fundamental Frequency in Individuals with Globus Syndrome and Muscle Tension Dysphagia.

Objective: Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) has been investigated as an acoustic measure to assess for changes in laryngeal tension. This study aimed to assess RFF in individuals with globus syndrome, individuals with muscle tension dysphagia (MTDg), and individuals with typical voices.

Methods: RFF values were calculated from the speech acoustics of individuals with globus syndrome (n = 12), individuals with MTDg (n = 12), and age- and sex-matched controls with typical voices (n = 24).

Effect of Maternal and Fetal Characteristics in Feto-Placental Doppler and Impact of Using Adjusted Standards in the Definition of Fetal Growth Restriction at Term.

Introduction: This study aimed to determine the effect and clinical impact of physiological characteristics on the 95th/5th centile of the umbilical artery (UA) Doppler and the cerebroplacental ratio (CPR), at 36+ weeks.

Methods: From the multicenter randomized trial "Ratio37," we selected 4,505 low-risk pregnant women between June 2016 and January 2020. We registered physiological characteristics and the pulsatility indexes (PI) of the UA and middle cerebral artery (36-39 weeks).

In vitro simulation of acute feto-fetal transfusion in case of single intrauterine fetal death in monochorionic twins.

Introduction: Thanks to shared circulation in monochorionic twins, single intrauterine fetal death (IUD) may lead to acute feto-fetal transfusion (aFFTR). The objective of the study was to describe our model of aFFTR simulation after IUD in monochorionic (MC) twins.

Methods: Prospective study analyzed 99 fresh MC placentas with the physiological course.

Surface Electromyography-Based Recognition, Synthesis, and Perception of Prosodic Subvocal Speech.

Purpose This study aimed to evaluate a novel communication system designed to translate surface electromyographic (sEMG) signals from articulatory muscles into speech using a personalized, digital voice. The system was evaluated for word recognition, prosodic classification, and listener perception of synthesized speech. Method sEMG signals were recorded from the face and neck as speakers with ( = 4) and without ( = 4) laryngectomy subvocally recited (silently mouthed) a speech corpus comprising 750 phrases (150 phrases with variable phrase-level stress).

Vocal fold kinematics and relative fundamental frequency as a function of obstruent type and speaker age.

The acoustic measure, relative fundamental frequency (RFF), has been proposed as an objective metric for assessing vocal hyperfunction; however, its underlying physiological mechanisms have not yet been fully characterized. This study aimed to characterize the relationship between RFF and vocal fold kinematics. Simultaneous acoustic and high-speed videoendoscopic (HSV) recordings were collected as younger and older speakers repeated the utterances /ifi/ and /iti/.

Acoustic Identification of the Voicing Boundary during Intervocalic Offsets and Onsets based on Vocal Fold Vibratory Measures.

Methods for automating relative fundamental frequency (RFF)-an acoustic estimate of laryngeal tension-rely on manual identification of voiced/unvoiced boundaries from acoustic signals. This study determined the effect of incorporating features derived from vocal fold vibratory transitions for acoustic boundary detection. Simultaneous microphone and flexible nasendoscope recordings were collected from adults with typical voices (N=69) and with voices characterized by excessive laryngeal tension (N=53) producing voiced-unvoiced-voiced utterances.

Prescriptive Reference Standards of Third-Trimester Cerebroplacental Ratio and Its Physiological Determinants.

Objective: To construct valid reference standards reflecting optimal cerebroplacental ratio and to explore its physiological determinants.

Methods: A cohort of 391 low-risk pregnancies of singleton pregnancies of nonmalformed fetuses without maternal medical conditions and with normal perinatal outcomes was created. Doppler measurements of the middle cerebral artery and umbilical artery were performed at 24-42 weeks.

Automated Relative Fundamental Frequency Algorithms for Use With Neck-Surface Accelerometer Signals.

Objective: Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) has been suggested as a potential acoustic measure of vocal effort. However, current clinical standards for RFF measures require time-consuming manual markings. Previous semi-automated algorithms have been developed to calculate RFF from microphone signals.

Cursor Click Modality in an Accelerometer-Based Computer Access Device.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of different cursor click modalities in an alternative computer access device using accelerometry from head tilt to control cursor movement. Eighteen healthy adults performed a target acquisition task using the device with five different cursor click modalities, while maintaining cursor movement control via accelerometry. Three dwell-based click modalities with dwell times of 0.

Integrated Head-Tilt and Electromyographic Cursor Control.

This study evaluated the performance of two alternate computer access methods that could be used for two-dimensional cursor control. The first method, ACC/sEMG, integrates head acceleration and facial surface electromyography. The second method, Camera Mouse, is a free-to-use, computer vision-based access method.

First-trimester screening for preeclampsia.

Design: Review article.

Setting: Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University Hospital Olomouc; Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Palacky University Olomouc, Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University Hospital Olomouc; The Institute for the Care of Mother and Child and 3rd Faculty of Medicine Charles University, Prague; G-CENTRUM Olomouc, Olomouc; Genetika Plzeň, Pilsen. Methods, results: Preeclampsia (PE) is a multisystem disorder complicating pregnancy.

Refining algorithmic estimation of relative fundamental frequency: Accounting for sample characteristics and fundamental frequency estimation method.

Relative fundamental frequency (RFF) is a promising acoustic measure for evaluating voice disorders. Yet, the accuracy of the current RFF algorithm varies across a broad range of vocal signals. The authors investigated how fundamental frequency (f) estimation and sample characteristics impact the relationship between manual and semi-automated RFF estimates.

Ultrasound cesarean scar assessment one year postpartum in relation to one- or two-layer uterine suture closure.

Introduction: This study compared healing of the scars after cesarean section during the first postpartum year using a single- or double-layer suturing technique. Scarring was assessed by a transvaginal ultrasound. We explored the appearance and localization of uterine scars with regard to the obstetric history.