A development and implementation of a tinnitus treatment method

Tinnitus is a physiological phenomenon where a person listens sounds which have not been generated by any external source. Today, many people suffer this condition. Although, in very few cases therapeutic methods completely eliminate tinnitus, it is possible to apply a variety of techniques to improve the quality of life of people with this condition. One of the most used methods to treat tinnitus consists of masking the tinnitus using an external sound. The main goal of this work is to present the development of a tinnitus treatment method, which optimizes the synthesized sounds in order to improve the life's quality of the user. Subjective tests and experimental results are used to analyze the performance of the method.Fil: Uriz, Alejandro José. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Agüero, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Tulli, Juan Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Castiñeira Moreira, Jorge. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: González, Esteban Lucio. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Moscardi, Graciela. Universidad FASTA "Santo Tomas de Aquino"; ArgentinaFil: Sajama, Elber Emanuel. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; Argentin

Simulation of a non-invasive glucometer based on a microwave resonator sensor

In this paper a simulation of a microwave resonator sensor for constructing a noninvasive blood glucose meter is presented. A relationship between changes of the dielectric permittivity of the blood and the frequency response of S parameters of the sensor is observed. This can lead to a measuring procedure in which the glucose level present has a correlation with the value of the frequency resonance of the sensor. The test bank consists of a planar spiral microwave resonator over which the individual under test places his/her finger. This modifies the initial frequency resonance of the resonator because of the change produced in the measuring procedure over the dielectric permittivity of the resonator. Simulations show a correlation between dielectric permittivity blood changes, and changes in the value of the frequency resonance, in the frequency response of S parameters of the resonatorFil: Pimentel, Santiago. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Aguero, Pablo Daniel. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Uriz, Alejandro José. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Bonadero, Juan Carlos. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Liberatori, Mónica Cristina. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; ArgentinaFil: Castiñeira Moreira, Jorge. Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata. Facultad de Ingeniería. Departamento de Electrónica. Laboratorio de Comunicaciones; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentin

Robust Estimation of Jitter in Pathological Voices

Acoustical analysis of speech using computers has reached an important development in the latest years. The subjective evaluation of a clinician is complemented with an objective measure of relevant parameters of voice. Praat, MDVP and SAV are some examples of software for speech analysis. In this paper we describe an algorithm for the estimation of the fundamental frequency that considers the non-periodic nature of the speech signal under analysis. The experiments show that the use of these estimated f0 values reduces the errors in perturbation measures of f0, compared to the errors of other state-of-the-art speech analysis softwares, such as Praat and MDVP.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Patients with severe mental illness and hepatitis C virus infection benefit from new pangenotypic direct-acting antivirals: Results of a literature review

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a global health problem that can results in cirrhosis, hepatocellular carcinoma and even death. HCV infection is 3–20-fold more prevalent among patients with versus without severe mental illness (SMI), such as major depressive disorder, personality disorder, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Treatment options for HCV were formerly based on pegylated interferon alpha, which is associated with neuropsychiatric adverse events, and this contributed to the exclusion of patients with SMI from HCV treatment, elimination programmes, and clinical trials. Moreover, the assumption of poor adherence, scant access to healthcare and the stigma and vulnerability of this population emerged as barriers and contributed to the low rates of treatment and efficacy. This paper reviews the literature published between December 2010 and December 2020 exploring the epidemiology of HCV in patients with SMI, and vice versa, the effect of HCV infection, barriers to the management of illness in these patients, and benefits of new therapeutic options with pangenotypic direct antiviral agents (DAAs). The approval of DAAs has changed the paradigm of HCV infection treatment. DAAs have proven to be an equally efficacious and safe option that improves quality of life (QoL) in patients SMI. Knowledge of the consequences of the HCV infection and the benefits of treatment with new pangenotypic DAAs among psychiatrists can increase screening, referral and treatment of HCV infection in patients with SM

Thermochronology of the Ventana Ranges and Claromecó Basin, Argentina: Record of Gondwana breakup and South Atlantic passive margin dynamics

The Ventana Ranges and the neighboring Claromecó basin display multiple extensional and compressional tectonic events throughout their Phanerozoic evolution. A passive continental margin setting during the early Paleozoic changed to a compressional system in the late Paleozoic, for which the Ventana Ranges are its fossilized fold and thrust belt and the Claromecó Basin, to the north-northeast, its associated foreland basin. The thermochronology study presented here and the cooling ages obtained for the Ventana Ranges are interpreted as a long-lived, probably multi-stage, exhumation event that occurred throughout the Mesozoic. The ZFT and AFT ages indicate that the Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian units cooled during the Late Triassic to Early Jurassic (from 204.4 ± 18.8 to 146.5 ± 11.6 Ma). These ages, consistent with rifting events described for the neighboring Colorado basin (to the south-southeast), are interpreted as exhumation in the rift´s northern flank. In the Claromecó Basin, a cooling event is indicated from the AFT PAZ data for the late Early Cretaceous (Barremian-Aptian, 125.8 ± 10.6 Ma), interpreted as a part of passive margin exhumation during the drift stage after the South Atlantic opening in the Valanginian-Hauterivian. The obtained ages indicate exhumation in the basin flank and are consistent with the different rifting events previously interpreted for Colorado basin.Fil: Arzadún, Guadalupe. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. lA - Te Andes S.A. Laboratorio de Termocronología de Los Andes; ArgentinaFil: Lovecchio, Juan Pablo. Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales S. A.; ArgentinaFil: Becchio, Raul Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Salta; ArgentinaFil: Uriz, Norberto Javier. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Cingolani, Carlos Alberto. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de La Plata; ArgentinaFil: Febbo, María Belén. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Bahía Blanca; Argentina. Provincia de Buenos Aires. Gobernación. Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Sur. Departamento de Geología; ArgentinaFil: Hernández, Roberto. lA - Te Andes S.A. Laboratorio de Termocronología de Los Andes; ArgentinaFil: Bolatti, Nestor. Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales S. A.; ArgentinaFil: Kress, Pedro. Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales S. A.; Argentin

Automatic selection of acoustic features using a lazy spitting method

The increasing amount of music data approaching the scale of ten million of tracks poses the challenge of organizing such huge information. Audio Tag Classification is a sub-area in Music Information Retrieval. Its objective is to predict human motivated tags given the acoustic data. One major problem in this procedure is the training of the classifier. An important step in the training is the selection of the appropriate acoustical features. This paper explores two selection approaches: greedy and spitting. Experimental results indicate that the proposed spitting algorithm has a superior performance both in classification (F-measure score) and speed (lower computational requirements).Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Estimation of RASATI scores using objective acoustical parameters

Acoustical analysis of speech using computers has reached an important development in the latest years. The subjective evaluation of a clinician is complemented with an objective measure of relevant parameters of voice. Praat, MDVP and SAV are some examples of software for speech analysis. This paper describes an approach to estimate the subjective characteristics of RASATI scale given objective acoustical parameters. Two approaches were used: linear regression with non-negativity constraints, and neural networks. The experiments show that such approach gives correct evaluations with ±1 error in 80% of the cases.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Hearing Impairment Simulation Model using the standard MPEG-1 Audio Layer III

The MPEG standard for digital compression for high-fidelity audio provides two implementations of the psychoacoustic model: the Psychoacoustic Model I and the Psychoacoustic Model II. Both of these models are explained in detail in the ISO/IEC 13818-3:1194(E). In this work a model of the auditory system will be obtained with the purpose of simulating several types of hearing impairments. The system is able to simulate several types of auditory problems from curves that represent the Sound Pressure Level as a function of the frequency.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Sistema de compresión de voz portátil basado en un dsPIC

Las pérdidas de audición son una dolencia que afecta a un gran porcentaje de la Sociedad. Si bien existen dispositivos que permiten mejorar la calidad de vida de las personas con estas dolencias, estas suelen ser costosas y además muchas veces no se ajustan por completo a los requerimientos del usuario. Este trabajo se enfoca en el desarrollo de un dispositivo portátil de asistencia a personas con algún tipo de impedimento auditivo utilizando un dsPIC producido por Microchip. Con el fin de validar los resultados, se utiliza un modelo capaz de simular pérdidas de audición mediante un banco de filtros polifásicos, lo que permite analizar el desempeño de dos algoritmos de compresión: el lineal y el SPINC. Resultados subjetivos experimentales demuestran las ventajas de la utilización de la función SPINC, la cual es implementada en un dispositivo dsPIC33FJ128GP802-E/SP de Microchip, sobre otras como por ejemplo funciones lineales.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ

Desarrollos con microprocesadores para el control del ganado

Diversos estudios con animales estabulados han demostrado que existe una correlación entre los sonidos producidos durante el arranque, la masticación y la rumia, y la ingesta del animal. Se estima en consecuencia que a partir de estos sonidos se pueden determinar aspectos tales como el engorde o el rendimiento que se obtendrá del ganado. Adicionalmente, en algunas regiones, las áreas en donde el ganado, principalmente ovino, puede pastar libremente se están desertificando, esto implica que el manejo de estas tierras deba ser llevado a cabo con sumo cuidado. Una opción al parcelamiento con alambre o al uso de “boyeros” es el uso de parcelas virtuales. Esto se logra equipando al ganado con dispositivos basados en GPS. que mantendrá al animal dentro de un perímetro virtual. El desarrollo de dispositivos autónomos y portátiles de registro de sonidos y posicionamiento global permitirán, por una parte, obtener información en condiciones normales de pastoreo, dando una herramienta muy útil al ingeniero agrónomo, investigador o productor para determinar la cantidad de alimento ingerido o los requerimientos de forraje necesarios para suministrarle al ganado una correcta alimentación. Por otra parte, estos dispositivos podrán confinar al animal en áreas especificas sin necesidad de cercas físicas.Several studies over cattle in stables have demonstrated that exists a correlation between bites, chews or ruminate sounds and the animal intake of forages. Consequently, it is estimated than analyzing these sounds it is possible to determinate the cattle fattening. Additionally, in some regions, areas where the livestock (mainly flocks of sheep) can graze freely are in process of desertification. This implies that the management of this lands must be carried out with care. An option to protect these sensitive areas is to fence the area with a “boyero” or electric fence, but in some areas this can be impractical or costly. An alternative is to furnish the animal with a GPS collar in their neck that produces a mild tactile electric stimulation to keep the animal inside an specific area drawn in UTM coordinates on the a collar computer. The developing of autonomous and portable devices to record sounds and get position will allow, in one hand to obtain information of the feeding behavior in normal grazing conditions, giving the farmer or researcher a very useful tool to measure the intake of forages or the necessary amount of food to feed the animal. In the other hand, this device will allow to confine cattle in specific areas without the need of a fiscal fence.Sociedad Argentina de Informática e Investigación Operativ