Acoustic measurement of overall voice quality in sustained vowels and continuous speech

Measurement of dysphonia severity involves auditory-perceptual evaluations and acoustic analyses of sound waves. Meta-analysis of proportional associations between these two methods showed that many popular perturbation metrics and noise-to-harmonics and others ratios do not yield reasonable results. However, this meta-analysis demonstrated that the validity of specific autocorrelation- and cepstrum-based measures was much more convincing, and appointed ‘smoothed cepstral peak prominence’ as the most promising metric of dysphonia severity. Original research confirmed this inferiority of perturbation measures and superiority of cepstral indices in dysphonia measurement of laryngeal-vocal and tracheoesophageal voice samples. However, to be truly representative for daily voice use patterns, measurement of overall voice quality is ideally founded on the analysis of sustained vowels ánd continuous speech. A customized method for including both sample types and calculating the multivariate Acoustic Voice Quality Index (i.e., AVQI), was constructed for this purpose. Original study of the AVQI revealed acceptable results in terms of initial concurrent validity, diagnostic precision, internal and external cross-validity and responsiveness to change. It thus was concluded that the AVQI can track changes in dysphonia severity across the voice therapy process. There are many freely and commercially available computer programs and systems for acoustic metrics of dysphonia severity. We investigated agreements and differences between two commonly available programs (i.e., Praat and Multi-Dimensional Voice Program) and systems. The results indicated that clinicians better not compare frequency perturbation data across systems and programs and amplitude perturbation data across systems. Finally, acoustic information can also be utilized as a biofeedback modality during voice exercises. Based on a systematic literature review, it was cautiously concluded that acoustic biofeedback can be a valuable tool in the treatment of phonatory disorders. When applied with caution, acoustic algorithms (particularly cepstrum-based measures and AVQI) have merited a special role in assessment and/or treatment of dysphonia severity

Leisure/Crime, Immaterial Labor, and the Performance of the Teenage Girl in Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2012) and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring (2013)

Harmony Korine’s Spring Breakers (2012) and Sofia Coppola’s The Bling Ring (2013) introduced audiences to girls exploring criminal behavior both for and as leisure. The films introduce an idea of leisure/crime: criminal acts that appear to develop as natural, fruitful extensions of leisure activities, circumnavigating conventional laws of capitalism, yet still allow its actors to access, attain, and consume goods, money, value, and status. Through close analysis of the films’ style and character performances, this article proposes that the films and their enactments of leisure/crime in fact offer complex critical commentary on contemporary relations between the representation of teenage girls, notions of performativity, and immaterial labor in the late-capitalist US. Throughout, the girl remains the pivotal figure; by desiring what is and what, in turn, becomes desirable, she shapes the consumer market as much as she is subject or victim to it. Whether or not this allows her to become subversive, or radical enough to undermine the system, remains to be seen, but the films certainly offer plenty of challenging new directions for us to consider along the way

Socially desirable responding on the Machiavellianism scale: Response bias or construct?

The Mach IV scale measures Machiavellianism, the propensity to be manipulatory in interpersonal relations. The Mach IV has been criticized for social desirability response bias, or the tendency to present oneself in an overly favorable light. Socially desirable responding, as measured by the Balanced Inventory of Desirable Responding, however, was postulated to reflect a facet of the Machiavellianism construct. A coalition-bargaining game was played with college students (N = 126), using 21 groups each of sex-segregated triads in a 2 (sex) by 3 (high, medium, and low levels of Machiavellianism) between-subjects design. Game scores served as the dependent variable and were interpreted as a measure of manipulative success. Neither sex nor levels of Machiavellianism were significantly related to game performance. Machiavellianism was negatively related to overall social desirability and its two subtypes, impression management and self-deceptive enhancement

Bone Stress Injuries in Collegiate Distance Runners: Review of Incidence, Distribution, and Risk Factors

This literature review investigates the risk factors for bone stress injuries that apply to collegiate distance runners. Collegiate distance runners demonstrate high incidence rates of this type of injury and can suffer from a loss of training time. It is important to review the risk factors that apply to these athletes in order to mitigate the time lost to injury and optimize training. PubMed and Google Scholar were searched for original articles pertaining to risk factors associated with bone stress injuries and/or stress fractures. Results from these original articles demonstrate that this injury has many risk factors including biomechanical, biological, and environmental factors. Collegiate distance runners need to be assessed on the basis of these risk factors so that they may mitigate their risk of bone stress injury and optimize their training time. This paper concludes with practical recommendations for collegiate distance runners to take into consideration that may decrease the risk of stress fracture

O znaczeniu przedmiotowym i metatekstowym jednostek regularny i regularnie

The purpose of this article is to describe the syntactic and semantic properties of the units regularny and regularnie. The basic thesis concerns the existence of homonyms in the form regularny / regularnie representing the class of adjectives and adverbs as well as metapredicative operators. The adverb regularnie, from which the adjective regularny is semantically derived, conveys the idea of repetitiveness of an event at specific, relatively equal time intervals. The metapredicate regularnie constitutes a comment on the rheme, it confirms the accuracy of use of a particular predicate.  The purpose of this article is to describe the syntactic and semantic properties of the units regularny and regularnie. The basic thesis concerns the existence of homonyms in the form regularny / regularnie representing the class of adjectives and adverbs as well as metapredicative operators. The adverb regularnie, from which the adjective regularny is semantically derived, conveys the idea of repetitiveness of an event at specific, relatively equal time intervals. The metapredicate regularnie constitutes a comment on the rheme, it confirms the accuracy of use of a particular predicate

Reporting Rape: Stigmatizing Reactions to Survivors Who Seek Accountability

Rape survivors face stigma when disclosing their experiences. We hypothesized that a rape survivor who formally reports their rape would experience more stigma than one who does not, and that this effect will be stronger when the perceiver is a man or low in support for sexual consent. Across two studies using self-report, observational, and psychophysiological measures, we found that a reporting survivor was seen more negatively than an identical survivor who did not report their rape. Men and those low in support for sexual consent also responded more negatively to the survivor. Implications of these findings are discussed

Comfort Levels of Male Collegiate Student Athletes in Reporting Symptoms of Eating Disorders

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to investigate the comfort levels of male student athletes at a Division III college in reporting symptoms of eating disorders to Athletic Trainers. MAIN OUTCOME MEASUREMENT Likert scale questions with one open ended question