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ABSTRACT A scalable structure is presented and analyzed that can provide delays in a wide range (microseconds to minutes) for the power‐on reset circuit. The proposed structure enables the implementation of these delays entirely on‐chip through the utilization of a provisional oscillator and a set of flip‐flops. The optimal number of flip‐flops can be determined through an area optimization process. The proposed power‐on reset circuit thresholds demonstrate the process, voltage, temperature (PVT) tolerance, facilitated by the use of resistors of the same type. Notably, the thresholds and provided delay for this circuit are supply‐rise‐time independent. The structure has been implemented in a 0.18‐μm CMOS technology, occupying an active area of 48 × 40 μm2. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In this study, the correlations between traditional acoustic measures (TAMs) and cepstral analysis (CA) were explored in Persian. Methods: This investigation was a cross-sectional study including 179 dysphonic (n = 141) and normophonic (n = 38) speakers. The TAMs (jitter, shimmer, and noise-to-harmonic ratio) and CA (cepstral peak prominence and cepstral peak prominence smoothed) values were obtained during vowel prolongation, reading a standard sentence, and a nonstandard running speech sample using Praat software. The difference of acoustic measures between normophonic and dysphonic speakers and intercorrelation among acoustic measures and correlation between the acoustic measures and perceived dysphonia levels were analyzed with independent t test, Mann-Whitney U test, Pearson, Spearman, and Kendall’s Tau-b correlation tests using IBM SPSS Statistics. Results: The findings showed that dysphonic speakers had higher TAM values and lower CA values than normophonic speakers (p < 0.05). In dysphonic speakers, a large correlation was discovered among all acoustic measurements (r = 0.52–0.96; p < 0.05), while in various perceived dysphonic speakers, there was a correlation of varying strength (r = 0.25–0.97; p < 0.05). Ultimately, there was a significant small-to-large correlation between the acoustic measures and perceived dysphonia levels (r = 0.34–0.58; p < 0.05). Conclusion: This research demonstrated that Persian speakers with dysphonia experienced a rise in TAM and a corresponding reduction in CA. In the future, multi-parametric indices can be developed using both TAM and CA to include various aspects of vocal production and yield a single, comprehensive value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: The perception of a clinical condition or disorder can vary across patients from different cultural-linguistic backgrounds. There is insufficient evidence to inspect this potential impact on the perception of vocal fatigue (VF) as a common condition perceived by patients with voice disorders. In order to more comprehensively explore this phenomenon, a systematic review was carried out to investigate the differences in perceived VF in a variety of cultural-linguistic contexts, based on a standard self-assessment instrument--the Vocal Fatigue Index (VFI), as translated in different languages. Method: A thorough search was done in MEDLINE, CENTRAL, Web of Science, and Google Scholar by March 2024. Cross-sectional studies investigating the accuracy of the VFI to detect perceived VF in all available languages were considered. The VFI has three distinct parts or factors assessing: (a) tiredness of voice, (b) physical discomfort associated with voicing, and (c) improvement of symptoms with rest. The cutoff points and sensitivity and specificity of each factor were submitted to meta-analysis, and the summary receiver operating characteristic curves were used to determine pooled sensitivity and specificity of each factor of the VFI. Results: Eight papers that examined the diagnostic accuracy of the VFI in English, Malayalam, Turkish, German, Mandarin Chinese, Polish, Cantonese, and Finnish languages were identified as being eligible for this meta-analysis. The pooled sensitivity and specificity along with their confidence intervals (CIs) were as follows: 0.91 CI [0.80, 0.96] and 0.88 CI [0.78, 0.94] for Factor 1, 0.83 CI [0.69, 0.91] and 0.84 CI [0.76, 0.89] for Factor 2, and 0.75 CI [0.67, 0.82] and 0.77 CI [0.59, 0.89] for Factor 3. Conclusions: The present research demonstrates medium to high but heterogeneous accuracy of the VFI for detecting perceived VF across cultural-linguistic contexts. Given the promising results, future studies should focus on (a) further investigating the underlying factors for the observed heterogeneity in diagnostic accuracy and (b) adapting and validating the VFI in more languages toward establishing its validity as a cross-linguistic diagnostic tool for the perception of VF. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: The relationship between personality traits and psychological distress with acoustic characteristics was investigated in the present study, regarding the existence of dysphonia, abnormal overall voice quality (AOVQ), and dysphonia type. Methods: Fifty‐five participants with dysphonia and 64 participants without dysphonia completed NEO Five‐Factor Inventory and Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale‐21. Jitter, shimmer, noise‐to‐harmonic ratio (NHR), cepstral peak prominence (CPP), and cepstral peak prominence‐smoothed (CPPS) were calculated in sustained vowel /a/ by Praat. Three expert speech and language pathologists divided participants with dysphonia into mild, moderate, and severe, based on the AOVQ. Pearson and Spearman correlation tests were performed by IBM SPSS Statistics. Results: The findings were indicative of large correlations between agreeableness with CPP, conscientiousness with shimmer, depression with jitter and shimmer, and anxiety with shimmer in patients with functional dysphonia (p < 0.05). The results showed small to medium significant correlations between agreeableness with jitter and NHR, conscientiousness with CPP in participants without dysphonia, and depression with jitter in the participants with dysphonia (p < 0.05). Lastly, no significant correlation was observed between personality traits and psychological distress with acoustic characteristics in mild, moderate, and severe AOVQ groups (p > 0.05). Conclusion: In participants with functional dysphonia, personality traits and psychological distress can provide some information about acoustic characteristics and vice versa. Level of Evidence: 3. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a technique for mitigating two well-known DAC non-idealities in continuous-time delta-sigma modulators (CTDSMs), particularly in wide-band and low over-sampling-ratio (OSR) cases. This technique employs a special digital-to-analog convertor (DAC) waveform, called modified return-to-zero (MRZ), to reduce the time uncertainty effect because of the jittered clock at the sampling time instances and eliminate the effect of inter-symbol-interference (ISI) which degrades the modulator performance, especially when non-return-to-zero (NRZ) DAC waveform is chosen in the modulator design. A third-order single-bit CTDSM is designed based on the proposed technique and step-by-step design procedure at circuit and system levels, considering clock jitter and ISI, is explained. Circuit simulations in 180-nm CMOS technology show that in the presence of circuit non-idealities which generate jitter and asymmetrical rise and fall times in the DAC current pulse, signal-to-noise-distortion-ratio (SNDR) of the proposed modulator is higher than the conventional modulator with NRZ waveform by about 10 dB. In these simulations, clock jitter standard deviation is 0.3% of the sampling period (TS) and the difference between fall/rise times in the DAC current pulse is 4%TS. Simulated at 600-MHz sampling frequency (fS) with an oversampling ratio (OSR) of 24, SNDR figure of merit (FOMSNDR) of the proposed modulator in 180-nm CMOS is 300 fj/conversion. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A fully integrated multi-band frequency synthesizer for Inphase and Quadrature local oscillator signal generation in Digital Video Broadcasting to Handheld receivers is presented. In the proposed PLL-based integer-N synthesizer, all of the allocated frequencies for DVB tuners, in VHF, UHF and L bands, are generated. Two voltage controlled oscillators cover a frequency range of 1880-3632 MHz by using switched-capacitor banks. The VCO frequency is divided by 2, 4 and 16 to generate the quadrature signals at the synthesizer output. A fast adaptive frequency calibration block selects the closest VCO frequency to the target frequency by setting the capacitor bank control code prior to the start of phase lock. A programmable charge pump is used to reduce variations in PLL characteristics over the wide frequency range. The synthesizer has been fabricated in a 0.18um CMOS technology and the die area is 2.1 x 1.8 mm². It consumes 29mA from a 1.8v power supply. Measurements show that the synthesizer quadrature output phase noise for UHF and VHF bands is lower than -83 dBc/Hz and-133dBc/Hz at 10 kHz and 1.45 MHz offset, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives/hypothesis: This study set out to uncover the correlation between maximum phonation time (MPT) with acoustic and cepstral analysis in the dysphonic and control groups, considering the effects of sex and dysphonia type., Methods: For this cross-sectional study, a sample of 179 attendees (141 dysphonic and 38 control) were randomly selected and requested to sustain the vowel /a/ as long as they could with their habitual pitch and loudness. Reading standard sentences and conversational connected speech tasks were obtained too. Using Praat, the MPT, jitter, shimmer, noise-to-harmonic ratio, cepstral peak prominence (CPP), and smoothed cepstral peak prominence (CPPS) were calculated in the target vocal tasks., Results: There was a very low to low significant correlation (r = 0.00-0.50) between MPT amounts and acoustic analysis in the dysphonic group (P < 0.05), except for between MPT with shimmer (P > 0.05). In contrast, findings showed no significant correlation between MPT and acoustic analysis in the control group, not even separated by sex (P > 0.05). There was a very low to low correlation between MPT amounts and acoustic analysis in the male dysphonic group (P < 0.05), except for the MPT with shimmer (P > 0.05). There was no significant correlation between MPT and acoustic analysis in the female dysphonic group (P > 0.05), except for MPT with CPP (sustained vowel) (P < 0.05). Finally, very low to high correlations between MPT and some of the acoustic analysis in all the different dysphonia types were observed (P < 0.05)., Conclusions: MPT contains some information about the acoustic features of the dysphonic voice, specifically the CPP and smoothed cepstral peak prominence. The data suggested that the observed relationship between MPT and the acoustic analysis has the capacity to be considered for the development of new multiparametric tests of voice assessment in dysphonia, regarding the sex and dysphonia type., (Copyright © 2023 The Voice Foundation. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)