• Phonetics and Speech Sciences
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.1-10
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• 2023

This study investigated the relative effectiveness of letter-based versus syllable-based measures of speech rate and articulation rate in predicting the articulation score, prosody fluency, and rating sum using "English speech data of Koreans for education" from AI Hub. We extracted and analyzed 900 utterances from the training data, including three balanced age groups (13, 19, and 26 years old). The study built three models that best predicted the pronunciation assessment scores using linear mixed-effects regression and compared the predicted scores with the actual scores from the validation data (n=180). The correlation coefficients between them were also calculated. The findings revealed that syllable-based measures of speech and articulation rates were more effective than letter-based measures in all three pronunciation assessment categories. The correlation coefficients between the predicted and actual scores ranged from .65 to .68, indicating the models' good predictive power. However, it remains inconclusive whether speech rate or articulation rate is more effective.

• Korean Journal of Applied Biomechanics
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• v.17 no.2
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• pp.217-226
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• 2007

Putting score counts about 43 % of the golf score. The dominant idea of the putting motion to amateur golfers as well as to many professional golfers is a pendulum-like motion. If a golfer's putting stroke motion is a pendulum-like motion, the putting motion should be straight-back-and-through, the same backswing, downswing, and follow through length and period, and a swing with a fixed hinge joint. If the putting motions of the human are different from the pendulum motion, there could be confusion in understanding and teaching golf putting. The purpose of this study was to examine the center of rotation(COR) of the putter head to reveal whether professional golfers really putt like a pendulum. Thirteen male professional golfers were recruited for the study. Each golfers executed 10.94 m putts six times on an artificial grass mat. Putter head position data were collected through a 60 Hz three-dimensional motion analysis system and low pass filtered with cut-off frequency of 6 Hz. COR of the putter head was mathematically acquired. Each golfer's last five putting motions were considered. The results show that the COR of the putter head was neither fixed nor located inside of the golfer. The medio-lateral directional component of the COR of the putter head fluctuated in the range of 10 cm during downswing and follow through. The anterior-posterior directional component of the COR of the putter head was fixed from the beginning of the downswing through impact. Just after impact, however, it moved to the target up to 60 cm. The superior-inferior directional component of COR of the putter head moved in a superior direction with the beginning of the downswing and showed peak height just prior to impact. During the follow through, it moved back in an inferior direction. The height-normalized peak value of the COR of the putter head was $1.4{\pm}0.3$ height. Technically speaking, male professional golfers' 10.94 m putting motion is not a pendulum-like motion. The dominating idea of a pendulum-like motion in putting might come from the image of the flawless, smooth motion of a pendulum.

• Anxiety and mood
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.22-28
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• 2011

Objective : Social anxiety disorder (SAD) has been characterized by a marked sense of anxiety provoked by exposure to one or more social situations. It has been well-known that the cultural characteristics of a society strongly affect the expression of SAD symptoms. The current study attempted to explore clinical and cultural characteristics of social anxiety symptoms in the Korean nonclinical population. Methods : 801 volunteers who participated in the national social anxiety screening day, which was held by Korean academy of anxiety disorders, were invited to complete the self-report version of Liebowitz social anxiety scale (LSAS-SR). A total of 691 participants completed the LSAS-SR and other information related to this study. Results : Social anxiety symptoms were reported by a great percentage of subjects, as displayed by the relatively high mean LSAS scores (44.58 ; SD=25.60). There were no significant differences in total LSAS score according to sex, education, or marital status. The three most fearful or avoided situations for participants, as measured by the percentage of subjects who had a score of more than 3 on each LSAS item were as follows: item 6 (acting, performing, or giving a talk in front of an audience ; 29.67% for fear and 22.72% for avoidance), item 16 (speaking up in a meeting ; 25.62% for fear and 21.56% for avoidance), and item 15 (being the center of attention; 13.89% for fear and 9.70% for avoidance). Conclusion : The Korean participants in this study demonstrated a high level of SAD symptoms. Our subjects reported that they were more likely to be fearful or avoid passive situations such as being the center of attention as compared with results from a study of western society which indicated that western people were more likely to be fearful or avoid active situations. These findings emphasize the importance of considering a patient's cultural background when evaluating SAD symptoms.

• 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.29 no.1
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• pp.30-36
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• 2018

Background and Objectives : The effect of palliative injection laryngoplasty in cancer-related unilateral vocal cord paralysis patients on voice and swallowing function is uncertain and there are few previous studies of its suitability, benefits as a palliative treatment option. The purpose of this study is to confirm the objective results of voice and swallowing function after palliative office-based hyaluronic acid injection laryngoplasty in cancer-related unilateral vocal cord paralysis patients. Materials and Method : 36 patients who had unilateral vocal cord paralysis from non-thyroidal, extralaryngeal neoplasms were included in this study. To evaluate the clinical outcome, we analyzed perceptual GRBAS grading, acoustic analysis, aerodynamic study, Electroglottography (EGG), Voice Handicap Index (VHI-30) about voice function and disability rating scale (DRS), gastric tube dependency, aspiration pneumonia about swallowing function and 36-Item Short Form Survey version 2 (SF-36v2) about quality of life. Results : In GRBAS scale, G (p<0.001), R (p=0.004), B (p=0.001), A (p=0.011), and S (p=0.007) showed significant improvement. Jitter, shimmer, speaking fundamental frequency, maximal phonation time, VHI-30, DRS score, gastric tube dependency, aspiration pneumonia, and SF-36v2 were significantly improved after injection (p=0.016, p=0.011, p=0.045, p=0.005, p<0.001, p<0.001 p=0.003, p<0.001, and p<0.001 respectively). Conclusion : From this study we concluded office-based hyaluronic acid injection can be used as a useful palliative treatment option in cancer-related ill patients with unilateral vocal cord paralysis. Palliative hyaluronic acid injection laryngoplasty avoids the need for tube feeding, thus reducing the risk of aspiration pneumonia. These outcomes are accompanied by significant improvement in voice quality.

• Clinical and Experimental Pediatrics
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• v.60 no.7
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• pp.227-231
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• 2017

Purpose: This study aimed to verify the safety of low-dose topiramate on language development in pediatric patients with migraine. Methods: Thirty newly diagnosed pediatric patients with migraine who needed topiramate were enrolled and assessed twice with standard language tests, including the Test of Language Problem Solving Abilities (TOPs), Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test, Urimal Test of Articulation and Phonology, and computerized speech laboratory analysis. Data were collected before treatment, and topiramate as monotherapy was sustained for at least 3 months. The mean follow-up period was $4.3{\pm}2.7months$. The mean topiramate dosage was 0.9 mg/kg/day. Results: The patient's mean age was $144.1{\pm}42.3months$ (male-to-female ratio, 9:21). The values of all the language parameters of the TOPs were not changed significantly after the topiramate treatment as follows: Determine cause, from $15.0{\pm}4.4$ to $15.4{\pm}4.8$ (P>0.05); making inference, from $17.6{\pm}5.6$ to $17.5{\pm}6.6$ (P>0.05); predicting, from $11.5{\pm}4.5$ to $12.3{\pm}4.0$ (P>0.05); and total TOPs score, from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P>0.05). The total mean length of utterance in words during the test decreased from $44.1{\pm}13.4$ to $45.3{\pm}13.6$ (P<0.05). The Receptive and Expressive Vocabulary Test results decreased from $97.7{\pm}22.1$ to $96.3{\pm}19.9months$, and from $81.8{\pm}23.4$ to $82.3{\pm}25.4months$, respectively (P>0.05). In the articulation and phonology validation in both groups, speech pitch and energy were not significant, and all the vowel test results showed no other significant values. Conclusion: No significant difference was found in the language-speaking ability between the patients; however, the number of vocabularies used decreased. Therefore, topiramate should be used cautiously for children with migraine.

• Journal of the Institute of Convergence Signal Processing
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.8-14
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• 2002

In this paper, we realized a real-time text-independent speaker recognition system using gaussian mixture model, and applied frame level likelihood normalization method which shows its effects in verification system. The system has three parts as front-end, training, recognition. In front-end part, cepstral mean normalization and silence removal method were applied to consider speaker's speaking variations. In training, gaussian mixture model was used for speaker's acoustic feature modeling, and maximum likelihood estimation was used for GMM parameter optimization. In recognition, likelihood score was calculated with speaker models and test data at frame level. As test sentences, we used text-independent sentences. ETRI 445 and KLE 452 database were used for training and test, and cepstrum coefficient and regressive coefficient were used as feature parameters. The experiment results show that the frame-level likelihood method's recognition result is higher than conventional method's, independently the number of registered speakers.

• 재활복지
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.247-264
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• 2016

The Children's Home Inventory for Listening Difficulties (CHILD) questionnaire has been applied for assessing listening and communication difficulties in various home situations for children with hearing loss. The purpose of the study was to translate the CHILD questionnaire for parents into Korean and verify reliability and validity of Korean version of CHILD (CHILD-K). CHILD-K was completed by 55 parents of children (from ages 3~12 years) using cochlear implants (CI). Among the 55 children, 27 were in preschool and 28 in elementary. Internal consistency reliability of CHILD-K was verified by Chronbach's alpha. The mixed factorial ANOVA was conducted to compare the effects of the age group and situation factors (Quiet, Noise, Distance, Social, and Media factors) on the score of CHILD. The results indicated that CHILD-K showed excellent internal consistency reliability (${\alpha}=.96$). The CHILD scores among age groups were significantly different as the older age group resulted in higher scores in all situations except Distance. For both groups the mean scores for the Quiet situation were significantly higher than other situations, and the mean scores for the Social situation were significantly lower than other situations. Moreover, analysis showed that children with CI had difficulties in the Social situation combined with other situation factors. The results indicate that the Korean version of CHILD questionnaire is a reliable tool for the assessment of communication abilities in home situation in Korean-speaking children using CI.

• Science of Emotion and Sensibility
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• v.24 no.3
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• pp.17-26
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• 2021

This study investigated the association between depression and oral health and the factors influencing depression in adults. Data on 13,199 people (male 5,793, female 7,406; age ≥19 years old) were extracted from the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey VIII (KNHANES VIII) (2016~2018) and analyzed using frequency, percentage, an x² test, a T-test, and logistic regression analysis. Depression was defined as either a medical diagnosis or a score ≥10 on Patient Health Questionnaire-9. The probability of depression was found to be statistically different for general characteristics, such as gender, age, school grade, income, and drinking. The logistic regression analysis showed that the independent variables, general health awareness (OR=9.094, 95% CI 7.139~11.585) and oral health awareness (OR=1.936, 95% CI 1.465~2.560), were associated with depression, and speaking discomfort, chewing discomfort, oral pain (within 1 year), and prosthesis were found to increase depression probability. The depression probability was also was found to significantly increase by 1.81 times if brushing frequency was less that once a day, if people used dental floss (OR=1.42), and had to have an oral examination (OR=1.31). These results indicated that oral health and oral health behaviors are associated with the depression, with the influencing factors having oral health and behavior-related characteristics. Therefore, proper oral health and oral health risk factor behavior management programs should be developed to assist in reducing depression.