INTRODUCTION During the aging process, natural modifications occur in the larynx and the structures involved in phonation which explain the specific characteristics found in the voices of elderly persons. When, at any moment, a voice fails and there is interference with communication, a voice disorder has occurred. This can generate disadvantages in communicative efficiency and have a negative ...

Several mammalian species scale their voice fundamental frequency (F0) and formant frequencies in competitive and mating contexts, reducing vocal tract and laryngeal allometry thereby exaggerating apparent body size. Although humans' rare capacity to volitionally modulate these same frequencies is thought to subserve articulated speech, the potential function of voice frequency modulation in hu...

A 30-year-old Chinese lady was admitted for hoarseness of voice of one month's duration. Clinical examination revealed a granuloma of the left vocal cord while chest X-ray showed an opacity in the lower lobe of the right lung. The provisional clinical diagnosis was tuberculous laryngitis. A biopsy of the vocal cord lesion revealed inflamed tissue with actinomycotic colonies. Cultures and sputum...

Efforts to achieve effective and meaningful patient and public involvement (PPI) in healthcare have existed for nearly a century, albeit with limited success. This brief commentary discusses a recent paper by Carter and Martin exploring the “Challenges Facing Healthwatch, a New Consumer Champion in England,” and places these challenges in the context of the broader struggle to give a voice to h...

background and objectives: patients experience moderate to high level of anxiety before cardiac catheterization. this study aimed to investigate the effect of voice of quran on anxiety before cardiac catheterization. methods: in this randomized controlled trial, 60 patients who met the inclusion criteria were conveniently sampled and randomly allocated to the experimental and control groups. in...

evaluation of voice quality parameters of esophageal speech in different neoglottis forms after total laryngectomy. methods: presentation of voice analysis of 20 patients, who underwent total laryngectomy. the success of acquiring this technique was estimated by means of a voice analyzing program (pitch, sound-holding, loudness, spectrogram), and by the intelligibility via the telephone. shape ...

pro-market economists usually present “competition” as the only solution of government’s inefficiencies. therefore, having given too much credence to the private sector in economy, they choose market strategy rather than state strategy in economic policies, prizing market choice above state choice, thereby advising strongly privatization policies in the economic system in order to inject ration...

it is inevitable that healthcare workers throughout their careers will witness actual or potential threats to patient safety in the course of their work. some of these threats will result in serious harm occurring to others, whilst at other times such threats will result in minimal harm, or a ‘near miss’ where harm is avoided at the last minute. despite organizations encouraging employees to ‘s...

Recent years have seen increasing efforts to improve speech technology tools such as speaker verification, speech recognition, and speech synthesis by taking voice and speech variations due to speaker emotion or attitudes into account. Given the global marketing of speech technology products, it is of vital importance to establish whether the vocal changes produced by emotional and attitudinal ...