• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.343-349
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• 2004

Electroglottograph(EGG) is a signal recorded from the vocal cord vibration by measuring electrical impedance across the vocal folds through the neck skin. The purpose of this study was to develop EGG system and to evaluate possibility for the application on speech analysis and laryngeal disease diagnosis. EGG system was composed of two pairs of ring electrodes, tuned amplifier, phase sensitive detector, low pass filter, and auto-gain controller. It was designed to extract electric impedance after detecting by amplitude modulation method with 2.7MHz carrier signal. Extracted signals were transmitted through line-in of PC sound card, sampled and quantized. Closed Quotient(CQ), Speed Quotient(SQ), Speed Index(SI), fundamental frequency of vocal cord vibration(F0), pitch variability of vocal fold vibration (Jitter), and peak-to-peak amplitude variability of vocal fold vibration(Shimmer) were analyzed as EGG parameters. Experimental results were as follows: the faster vocal fold vibration, the higher values in CQ parameter and the lower values in SQ and SI parameters. EGG and speech signals had the same fundamental frequency. CQ, SQ, and SI were significantly different between normal subjects and patients with laryngeal cancer. These results suggest that it is possible to implement portable EGG system to monitor the function of vocal cord and to test functional changes of the glottis.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.122-126
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• 2015

Background and Objective : Laryngeal microscopic surgery (LMS) is popular method to treat for vocal polyp. There is not always the improvement of the voice after operation. Many methods have been developed for better outcome of the surgery. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of the triamcinolone injection at vocal cord during LMS. Materials and Methods : The medical records of 28 patients, received LMS under diagnosis of vocal polyp, were retrospectively reviewed. The patients were divided into two groups depending on whether triamcinolone injected or not (case group : Triamcinolone-injected group, control group : Triamcinolone-not injected group). The quality of voice was evaluated by GRBAS scale, fundamental frequency (Fo), jitter, shimmer and NHR (Noise to harmonic ratio) at previous operation, 4 weeks after operation, 8 weeks after operation. Each voice analysis factor was compared between case group and control group by Independent t-test. Results : The mean differences of each voice analysis factor. The mean difference of Jitter, Shimmer, NHR in case group were lower than in control group, and mean difference of GRBAS scale in case group were higher than in control group. These differences were not significant (p>0.05). Conclusion : Though there was a tendency of better voice outcome in patients of triamcinolone-injection, it may not be concluded that the triamcinolone injection is helpful for better voice outcome in surgery of vocal polyp due to statistical insignificance.

• Journal of Sasang Constitutional Medicine
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• v.17 no.1
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• pp.84-102
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• 2005

Objectives The purpose of this study was to objectify the diagnosis of Sasang constitution. It was analyzed the adult female voices into 44 factors with PSSC-2004. Methods The study was conducted on the subjects inputted /a/ 2.5-3 sec of 217 adult women voices to PSSC-2004. The statistical analyses are applied to three groups: total group, under 55 year-old group, over 55 year-old group. The group of total 216 was composed with 8 Taeyangins, 60 Soyangins, 66 Taeumins and 83 Soeumins. The under 55 year-old group was composed with 6 Taeyangins, 53 Soyangins, 55 Taeumins and 76 Soeumins. The over 55 year-old group was composed with 2 Taeyangins, 7 Soyangins, 11 Taeumins and 7 Soeumins. Results 1. In total group and under 55 year-old one, Soeumin's center pitch were significantly high compared with the others(P=0.005)(P=0.019). It was significant for distinction between Taeumin and Soeumin at the result of post mortem. 2. In over 55 year-old group, Soeumin's center freq.(total) and center freq.(1) were significantly high compared with the others(P=0.024)(P=0.016). In under 55 year-old group, Soeumin's center freq.(4) was significantly high(P=0.025). While Taeumin's center freq.(3) in under 55 year-old group and center freq.(4) in over 55 year-old group were significantly high(P=0.049)(P=0.043). 3. In over 55 year-old group, Soeumin's APQ(center), APQ(2/5), APQ(3/5), APQ(4/5) and APQ(2/3) were significantly high compared with the others. It was significant for distinction between Taeumin and Soeumin at the result of post mortem(P=0.004) (P=0.003) (P=0.004) (P=0.013) (P=0.004). 4. In over 55 year-old group, Soeumin's APQ(1/3), APQ(1/2), APQ(2/2) and zeroover APQ were significantly high compared with the others (P=0.013) (P=0.003) (P=0.008) (P=0.012). 5. In over 55 year-old group, Taeyangin's octave 3 shimmer was significantly high compared with the others(P=0.000). 6. In under 55 year-old group, Taeyangin's total energy was significantly high compared with the others(P=0.040). 7. In under 55 year-old group, Taeyangin's zeroover energy sum was significantly high compared with the others(P=0.038). Conclusions From above result, there is the possibility of efficiency standard guide for constitutional diagnosis by analyzation of the voices.

• Journal of IKEEE
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• v.19 no.2
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• pp.237-243
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• 2015

Recently, eight out of ten people have smartphone in Korea. Also, many applications of smartphone have increased. So, smartphone addiction has become a social issue. Especially, many people in smartphone addiction can't control themselves. Sometimes they don't realize that they are smartphone addiction. Many studies, mostly surveys, have been conducted to diagnose smartphone addiction, e.g. S-measure. In this paper, we suggest how to detect smartphone addiction based on ECG and Eye Gaze. We measure the signals of ECG from the Shimmer and the signals of Eye Gaze from the smart eye when the subjects see the emotional video. In addition, we extract features from the S-transform of ECG. Using Eye Gaze signals(pupil diameter, Gaze distance, Eye blinking), we extract 12 features. The classifier is trained using Random Forest. The classifiers detect the smartphone addiction using the ECG and Eye Gaze signals. We compared the detection results with S-measure results that surveyed before test. It showed 87.89% accuracy in ECG and 60.25% accuracy in Eye Gaze.

• 재활복지
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• v.22 no.1
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• pp.157-168
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• 2018

The purpose of this study is to investigate the impact of semi-closed vocal training-based Vocal Aerobic Treatment on the voice improvement of soprano. Study subject was one soprano who appealed to the suffering of her voice problem due to vocal cord nodule. A study method of conducting pre/post acoustic evaluation and subjective voice evaluation to compare the measures was used; Vocal Aerobic Treatment was carried out twice a week for a total of 32 session. In the acoustic evaluation, MDVP (multi-dimensional voice program) and VRP (voice range profile) were used to evaluate the pitch, voice quality, and voice range; in the subjective voice evaluation, SVHI (singing voice handicap index) was used to assess voice satisfaction. As a result of the pitch evaluation, the soprano maintained a proper Fo. As a result of the voice quality evaluation, the jitter, shimmer, and the noise harmonic ratio numbers decreased compared to the numbers shown before the treatment. As a result of the voice range evaluation, the scope of the range was broadened, with the number of semitone increasing from 30 to 35. As for the subjective voice evaluation, the result of the total score obtained after the survey report divided by the number of questions showed a decrease from 3.6 to 0.6. The soprano herself reported of having a minor extent of a voice problem. The summary of the above results reflects that Vocal Aerobic Treatment is useful in the voice improvement of vocalists However, as this study is case research regarding the Vocal Aerobic Treatment effect on one soprano, further research on the treatment effect covering many other vocalists is necessary. Also, there is a need for follow-up studies regarding voice management and voice treatment program on not only the vocalists but also the voice users in many other professions.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.18 no.11
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• pp.634-642
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• 2018

People with spinocerebellar ataxia, a hereditary and progressive neurogenic disorder, suffer from ataxic dysarthria due to cerebellar dystrophy. This study was designed to examine if intensive motor speech treatment yields improvement in progressive ataxic dysarthria and if then, to investigate magnitude of therapeutic effect. SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ was provided to a 55-year old female diagnosed with SCA for improving motor speech functions. Magnitude of therapeutic effect was large in changes of MPT and vocal intensity across speech tasks. Small effect size was found in changes of fundamental frequency, however, large therapeutic effect was observed in changes of frequency range. In addition, improvement of vocal quality based on jitter, shimmer, and HNR was observed with large therapeutic effect size and vowel space was expanded, particularly, due to F1. Lastly, VHI scores were decreased. Intensive motor speech treatment, called as SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ was effective enough to observe improvement in vocal intensity, frequency range, and vocal quality, expanding vowel space and lowering VHI scores. Based on the results of this case study, further efficacy evaluation of SPEAK $OUT!^{(R)}$ for improving progressive ataxic dysarthria in people with SCA is required.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.13 no.2
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• pp.57-66
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• 2021

This study focuses on the issue of automatic severity classification of dysarthric speakers based on speech intelligibility. Speech intelligibility is a complex measure that is affected by the features of multiple speech dimensions. However, most previous studies are restricted to using features from a single speech dimension. To effectively capture the characteristics of the speech disorder, we extracted features of multiple speech dimensions: voice quality, prosody, and pronunciation. Voice quality consists of jitter, shimmer, Harmonic to Noise Ratio (HNR), number of voice breaks, and degree of voice breaks. Prosody includes speech rate (total duration, speech duration, speaking rate, articulation rate), pitch (F0 mean/std/min/max/med/25quartile/75 quartile), and rhythm (%V, deltas, Varcos, rPVIs, nPVIs). Pronunciation contains Percentage of Correct Phonemes (Percentage of Correct Consonants/Vowels/Total phonemes) and degree of vowel distortion (Vowel Space Area, Formant Centralized Ratio, Vowel Articulatory Index, F2-Ratio). Experiments were conducted using various feature combinations. The experimental results indicate that using features from all three speech dimensions gives the best result, with a 80.15 F1-score, compared to using features from just one or two speech dimensions. The result implies voice quality, prosody, and pronunciation features should all be considered in automatic severity classification of dysarthria.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.172-178
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• 2022

Background and Objectives Injection laryngoplasty is a common method for treatment of unilateral vocal fold paralysis. Unilateral vocal fold paralysis has various causes, including idiopathic, infection, stroke, neurologic condition, surgery and nerve invasion by cancer. To the knowledge of the authors, there was no study on the relationship between the causes of vocal cord paralysis and the outcome of injection laryngoplasty. Therefore, we tried to investigate the difference in the outcomes of injection laryngoplasty between vocal cord paralysis after surgery group and nerve invasion by cancer group. Materials and Method A retrospective analysis was performed for 24 patients who underwent vocal cord injection due to unilateral vocal cord paralysis caused by surgery or nerve invasion by cancer. The objective quality of the voice was assessed by acoustic voice analysis with the Multi-Dimensional Voice Program. Results Both group showed an improvement of fundamental frequemcy (F0), jitter percent, shimmer (percent), and noise to hearmonic ratio (NHR) after injection laryngoplasty. The vocal cord paralysis due to nerve invasion group showed more improvement in both the mean and median value of F0, shimmer percent and NHR than the vocal cord paralysis due to surgery group, but there was not statistically significant. Conclusion Our study did not show a statistically significant difference in outcome between vocal cord paralysis due to cancer invasion group and surgery group, but statistically tendency was suggested. The vocal cord paralysis due to nerve invasion group showed more improvement in both the mean and median value of acoustic voice analysis than surgery group.

• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.3
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• pp.53-58
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• 2023

After thyroidectomy, some patients who show normal vocal cord movement still complain of subjective voice problems, which could lead to a decrease in quality of life related to communication. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of a newly designed voice therapy applying neck exercise and semi-occluded vocal tract exercise (SOVTE) to improve voice problems after thyroidectomy without neurological injury. For this purpose, voice therapy was randomly assigned to 10 women who received thyroidectomy. Acoustic analysis [fundamental frequency, jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonics ratio, min Voice Range Profile (VRP), max VRP, VRP] was performed before and after surgery and immediately after voice therapy to compare voice changes. The study showed a statistically significant increase in max VRP and VRP after voice therapy compared to before surgery. These results suggest that the voice therapy methods in this study effectively improve a major symptom of voice problems after thyroidectomy, specifically the reduction in the high-frequency range. However, this study was limited in the number of s participants and did not control for the type of surgery. Therefore, further research utilizing larger sample sizes and controlled variables is needed to investigate the long-term effects of voice therapy.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Laryngology, Phoniatrics and Logopedics
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• v.14 no.2
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• pp.94-97
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• 2003

Background and Objectives : Bowing of the vocal fold, a bowed edge of the vocal fold results from various disorder causes glottic incompetence resulting in voice disorders. The results of treatment were not satisfactory even though a variety of methods of treatment were applied. The goal of this study is to evaluate of efficacy of the non-surgical, voice therapy in patients with vocal fold bowing. Materials and Method : Twenty two patients of vocal fold bowing not resulting from vocal fold palsy and sulcus vocalis were analyzed. After voice therapy and medical treatment, parameters of perceptual, acoustic, aerodynamic analysis and stroboscopic findings were compared those of pretreatment results. Results and Conclusion : Jitter, shimmer and maximal phonation time were significantly improved and subjective satisfaction was improved in 73% of patients. In the videostroboscopic examination, vocal fold gap was decreased in 27% of patents. The result of this study indicates that voice therapy alone has effect in treatment of vocal fold bowing. Voice therapy is one of the mainstay of treatment of vocal fold bowing.