Evaluación agronómica de 9 variedades de alfalfa (Medicago sativa L.)

En la campaña 2019, de la mano de la empresa MAS Seeds Iberia, la Confederación Hidrográfica del Ebro y la Escuela Politécnica Superior de Huesca, se ha llevado a cabo un ensayo de 9 variedades de alfalfa.La finalidad de realizar este trabajo es comparar las variedades de alfalfa con un novedoso recubrimiento en la semilla desarrollado por MAS Seeds, con otras variedades convencionales. Este recubrimiento proporciona una mejor implantación del cultivo de la alfalfa en las primeras fases y, además, aumenta la producción y la cantidad de proteína.El ensayo se ubica en el Centro agronómico de La Melusa (CHE), donde se proporcionó una parcela de riego fijo por aspersión, donde se sembraron las 9 variedades, dispuestas aleatoriamente en 3 repeticiones en microparcelas de unos 6 m2.MAS Seeds Iberia proporcionó la semilla de las variedades de alfalfa que quería implantar para el ensayo, comerciales, en fase de desarrollo y testigo. Por motivos de confidencialidad a cada variedad se la ha asignado una letra de la A-I.En el ensayo se evaluaron los parámetros de altura de planta, clorofila, producción, proteína, humedad y materia seca. Estos datos se recogieron para cada corte, con un total de 4 cortes. Además, en el momento de la nascencia se tomó el dato de la densidad de plantas por metro cuadrado.Tras la recogida de datos se ha realizado un análisis estadístico, donde se ha comprobado la normalidad de los datos recogidos y seguidamente se ha realizado un análisis de la varianza (Anova) para comprobar si existen diferencias significativas entre las variedades.Los resultados obtenidos se han representado de manera gráfica en función de cada variedad y corte, para poder discutir los resultados a simple vista. En cuanto a las conclusiones que se han obtenido, podemos decir que no se aprecian diferencias significativas entre las variedades. Esto es posiblemente debido a que es el primer año y solo se ha hecho el estudio de un año. Lo correcto sería estudiar los años siguientes para ver si se pueden extraer conclusiones claras.<br /

Neuromechanical Modelling of Articulatory Movements from Surface Electromyography and Speech Formants

Speech articulation is produced by the movements of muscles in the larynx, pharynx, mouth and face. Therefore speech shows acoustic features as formants which are directly related with neuromotor actions of these muscles. The first two formants are strongly related with jaw and tongue muscular activity. Speech can be used as a simple and ubiquitous signal, easy to record and process, either locally or on e-Health platforms. This fact may open a wide set of applications in the study of functional grading and monitoring neurodegenerative diseases. A relevant question, in this sense, is how far speech correlates and neuromotor actions are related. This preliminary study is intended to find answers to this question by using surface electromyographic recordings on the masseter and the acoustic kinematics related with the first formant. It is shown in the study that relevant correlations can be found among the surface electromyographic activity (dynamic muscle behavior) and the positions and first derivatives of the first formant (kinematic variables related to vertical velocity and acceleration of the joint jaw and tongue biomechanical system). As an application example, it is shown that the probability density function associated to these kinematic variables is more sensitive than classical features as Vowel Space Area (VSA) or Formant Centralization Ratio (FCR) in characterizing neuromotor degeneration in Parkinson's Disease.This work is being funded by Grants TEC2016-77791-C4-4-R from the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Competitiveness of Spain, Teka-Park 55 02 CENIE-0348_CIE_6_E POCTEP (InterReg Programme) and 16-30805A, SIX Research Center (CZ.1.05/2.1.00/03.0072), and LO1401 from the Czech Republic Government

Monitorización de la enfermedad de Parkinson a partir de la cinemática de la articulación del habla

Parkinson Disease (PD) is a neuromotor illness affecting general movements of different muscles, those implied in speech production being among them. The relevance of speech in monitoring illness progression has been documented in these last two decades. Most of the studies have concentrated in dysarthria and dysphonia induced by the syndrome. The present work is devoted to explore how PD affects the dynamic behavior of the speech neuromotor biomechanics (neuromechanics) involved in deficient articulation (dysarthria), in contrast to classical measurements based on static features as extreme and central vowel triangle positions. A statistical distribution of the kinematic velocity of the lower jaw and tongue is introduced, which presents interesting properties regarding pattern recognition and classification. This function may be used to establish distances between different articulation profiles in terms of information theory. Results show that these distances are correlated with a set of tests currently used by neurologists in PD progress evaluation, and could be used in elaborating new speech testing protocols.La enfermedad de Parkinson (EP) es un trastorno del sistema neuromotor que afecta a todo tipo de movimientos regulados por el sistema muscular humano, entre ellos los que controlan la producción del habla. La importancia del habla en la monitorización del progreso de la EP se ha estudiado ampliamente durante las últimas dos décadas. La mayoría de los estudios se han concentrado en describir y modelar el comportamiento de la fonación (disfonía) y de la articulación (disartria), en relación con el síndrome de la EP. El presente trabajo se centra en explorar la forma en la que la EP afecta al comportamiento dinámico de la biomecánica neuromotora relacionada con la disartria típica mostrada por este tipo de pacientes, a diferencia de las mediciones clásicamente utilizadas hasta el momento, que se basan en las posiciones extremas y centrales del triángulo vocálico. Se propone, para ello, una nueva medida basada en la distribución estadística de la cinemática del sistema mandibular y lingual, que presenta interesantes propiedades de cara al reconocimiento de patrones utilizado en la clasificación de los rasgos disártricos del paciente. Esta medida puede emplearse para establecer las distancias entre las distintas articulaciones en términos de la teoría de información. Los resultados del estudio presentado muestran que dichas distancias se hallan sustancialmente correlacionadas con ciertas pruebas utilizadas habitualmente por los neurólogos para evaluar el progreso de la EP. La distancia cinemática propuesta puede servir para elaborar nuevos protocolos de realización de pruebas para el seguimiento de la EP

A methodology for monitoring emotional stress in phonation

Stress in phonation is mainly shown in the signature of the fundamental frequency. The proposed methodology is based on the estimation of the vocal fold biomechanics in terms of the distribution of the dynamic mass and the mechanical tension of the vocal fold structure. These parameters are derived from the reconstruction of the glottal source by inverse filtering. The vocal fold mechanical tension correlates (stress and strain), are used as the bases for tremor estimation. The correlates of tension and tremor are used to characterize the spontaneous speech of a database of 40 speakers of both genders (20 male and 20 female). Spontaneous speech consists in short interviews of 20 s of duration where the speakers have to express opinions on hot issues with which they are in agreement (pro) or in disagreement (con) following Arciuli's methodology. The emotional stress is estimated from the biomechanical correlates expressed above (tension and tremor). The null hypothesis formulated as the insensitivity of the speaker to pro and con situations has to be disregarded in view of the results for both genders. Interesting open questions are to be raised regarding the possibility of speakers consciously hiding their true opinion based on political correctness. The discussion will offer different hypotheses to further exploit the objective of detecting self-congruence in spoken messages

BioMet®Tools: from modeling and simulation to product design and development

BioMet®Tools is a set of software applications developed for the biometrical characterization of voice in different fields as voice quality evaluation in laryngology, speech therapy and rehabilitation, education of the singing voice, forensic voice analysis in court, emotional detection in voice, secure access to facilities and services, etc. Initially it was conceived as plain research code to estimate the glottal source from voice and obtain the biomechanical parameters of the vocal folds from the spectral density of the estimate. This code grew to what is now the Glottex®Engine package (G®E). Further demands from users in medical and forensic fields instantiated the development of different Graphic User Interfaces (GUI’s) to encapsulate user interaction with the G®E. This required the personalized design of different GUI’s handling the same G®E. In this way development costs and time could be saved. The development model is described in detail leading to commercial production and distribution. Study cases from its application to the field of laryngology and speech therapy are given and discussed

BioMet®Phon: A system to monitor phonation quality in the clinics

BioMet®Phon is a software application developed for the characterization of voice in voice quality evaluation. Initially it was conceived as plain research code to estimate the glottal source from voice and obtain the biomechanical parameters of the vocal folds from the spectral density of the estimate. This code grew to what is now the Glottex®Engine package (G®E). Further demands from users in laryngology and speech therapy fields instantiated the development of a specific Graphic User Interface (GUI’s) to encapsulate user interaction with the G®E. This gave place to BioMet®Phon, an application which extracts the glottal source from voice and offers a complete parameterization of this signal, including distortion, cepstral, spectral, biomechanical, time domain, contact and tremor parameters. The semantic capabilities of biomechanical parameters are discussed. Study cases from its application to the field of laryngology and speech therapy are given and discussed. Validation results in voice pathology detection are also presented. Applications to laryngology, speech therapy, and monitoring neurological deterioration in the elder are proposed