ACOUSTIC AND PERCEPTUAL ANALYSIS OF VOCAL REGISTERS

analysis of vocal registers in childre

2022 Top Trends in Academic Libraries

This article summarizes trending topics in academic librarianship from the past two years–a time of tremendous upheaval and change, including a global pandemic, difficult reflections concerning racial justice, and war between nation states. Rapid changes and uncertainty from these events have created a significant amount of shifts to academic libraries, higher education, and society in general. Such shifts have yielded new perspectives and innovations in how librarians approach delivering services, supporting student success, managing staff and physical spaces, embracing new technology, and managing data. This report attempts to provide a snapshot of developments worth noting

A large genome-wide association study of age-related macular degeneration highlights contributions of rare and common variants.

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from Nature Publishing Group via http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ng.3448Advanced age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly, with limited therapeutic options. Here we report on a study of >12 million variants, including 163,714 directly genotyped, mostly rare, protein-altering variants. Analyzing 16,144 patients and 17,832 controls, we identify 52 independently associated common and rare variants (P < 5 × 10(-8)) distributed across 34 loci. Although wet and dry AMD subtypes exhibit predominantly shared genetics, we identify the first genetic association signal specific to wet AMD, near MMP9 (difference P value = 4.1 × 10(-10)). Very rare coding variants (frequency <0.1%) in CFH, CFI and TIMP3 suggest causal roles for these genes, as does a splice variant in SLC16A8. Our results support the hypothesis that rare coding variants can pinpoint causal genes within known genetic loci and illustrate that applying the approach systematically to detect new loci requires extremely large sample sizes.We thank all participants of all the studies included for enabling this research by their participation in these studies. Computer resources for this project have been provided by the high-performance computing centers of the University of Michigan and the University of Regensburg. Group-specific acknowledgments can be found in the Supplementary Note. The Center for Inherited Diseases Research (CIDR) Program contract number is HHSN268201200008I. This and the main consortium work were predominantly funded by 1X01HG006934-01 to G.R.A. and R01 EY022310 to J.L.H

Acoustic, perceptual and physiological studies of ten-year-old children's voices

Acoustic, Perceptual and Physiological Studies of Ten-Year-Old Children's Voices by Anita McAllisler Dissertation from the Department of Logopedics and Phonialrics, Karolinska Institute. Huddinge University Hospital, and from the Department of Speech Music and Hearing, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH). Stockholm The aim of the present investigation was to study hoarseness and its perceptual, acoustic and physiological characteristics in ten-year-old children's voices. Fifty-eight children's voices were perceptually evaluated along 15 voice parameters. The rank ordered means of each parameter revealed a discontinuity in the distribution for all parameters except pitch, breathiness and vocal fry. This discontinuity was used as an operational borderline between normal and deviant voice characteristics. Statistical analysis showed that hyperfunction, breathiness and roughness are the main predictors of hoarseness. Pitch and intensity ranges of 60 children were recorded in voice range profiles (VRP). Vocal fold status was determined by video-microlaryngoscopy and, when possible, also by stroboscopy. Six children, all boys had vocal nodules. Twenty-five children had incomplete glottal closure. The children had somewhat compressed VRP contours reflecting a more restricted pitch range and dynamics than adults. The occurrence of register transitions in children's voices was studied in an experiment Five voice experts perceptually identified such transitions from a tape made of the VRP recording sessions. On this tape the stimuli occurred in ascending pitch order. One transition was identified in most voices at a mean fundamental frequency (F0) of A#4. A second transition was identified in four voices at a mean F0 of A#5. SPL and subglottal pressure were measured at different pitch and loudness levels in nine children. At phonation threshold and at normal conversational loudness the children's subglottal pressures were similar to those of adult female voices. Acoustic correlations to perceptual voice characteristics were analyzed in two investigations For the first, six children representing different degrees of hoarseness were selected. The voice sample was running speech. Two perturbation measures were examined but no correlation was found between the perceptual evaluation and these two measures. For the second investigation 50 children were chosen. The material consisted of sustained vowels. The acoustic measures were period perturbation quotient (PPQ), amplitud perturbation quotient (APQ) and two harmonics-to-noise ratio measures, NNEa and NNEb, operating in different frequencies. The results showed that hoarseness, breathiness and roughness correlated with the acoustic measures PPQ and NNEa at the p 001 Ievel of significance. Hyperfunction and instability did not correlate with any of these measurements Conclusions: Hoarseness in children's voices is a stable concept consisting of three main predictors; hyperfunction, breathiness and roughness. Children generally had somewhat compressed VRP recording as compared to adults. Register transitions could be identified in most children's voices, approximately 25% higher in F0 than for adults Incomplete glottal closure may be regarded as a normal finding in ten- year-old children. Subglottal pressure values in these children's voices were similar to those of adult females. In children's sustained vowel phonation hoarseness, breathiness and roughness correlated with the acoustic measures PPQ and NNEa. Key words: Child voice, hoarseness, perceptual evaluation, voice characteristics, visual analog scales, voice range profiles, fundamental frequency range, dynamic range, glottal closure, stroboscopy, vocal nodules, register transitions, subglottal pressure, SPL, perturbation, harmonics-to-noise measures. ISBN 91-628-2392-2 From the Department of Logopedics and Phoniatrics, Karolinska [nstitute, Huddinge University Hospital, S-141 86 Huddinge, SWEDEN