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The need for a standard approach for the diagnosis of speech disorders, in particular resonance disorders associated with cleft lip and/or palate, has been recognised. A reliable and valid measure of nasality is important, because it not only affects clinical decision making but is also essential for the evaluation of treatment outcomes. In order to allow cross-linguistic comparisons of the assessment of resonance, language specific stimuli developed according to a common set of guidelines have been recommended. The aim of this thesis was to contribute to the development of an assessment protocol for use in Malay speaking individuals with clefts of the lip and/or palate, specifically focusing on the detection of nasality. A series of four studies were completed which systematically developed and then validated a set of stimuli in the Malay language using both perceptual and instrumental measures. / In the first study, three stimuli were developed for the assessment of nasality based on both the proportion of nasal phonemes in typical conversation samples in Malay and guidelines from the current international literature. The phonetic content of the stimuli were comparable to similar passages used in English and comprised of an Oral Passage, a Nasal Passage and a Set of Sentences. / In the second study, the stimuli constructed were tested in a large number of typically developing (non-cleft) Malay speaking children using both instrumental and perceptual methods of assessment. The results of this study provide the first set of normative data of nasalance scores for the three newly developed stimuli. The mean nasalance score for the Oral Passage was 13.86% (SD = 5.11, 95% CI = 13.04–14.68), 60.28% (SD = 6.99, 95% CI = 59.15–61.41) for the Nasal Passage, and 27.72% (SD = 4.74, 95% CI = 26.96–28.49) for the Set of Sentences. These scores were significantly different from each other suggesting that they can be used to detect the different types of resonance disorder in speech (e.g. hypernasality and/or hyponasality). / In the third study, the stimuli were validated in a sample of Malay speaking children with cleft of the lip and/or palate and compared with a control population. Nasality was measured using perceptual evaluation and nasometry. The results suggested that the Oral Passage and Set of Sentences developed in Malay were valid measures for detecting hypernasality for both perceptual evaluation of nasality, and for nasometry. Due to the small number of participants that were hyponasal, the validity of the Nasal Passage could not be determined. / For nasometry to be clinically relevant threshold values that indicate abnormal nasality are required. The threshold values for each of the stimuli were first ascertained after obtaining typical nasality levels from a group of healthy Malay speaking children and then tested in a sample of cleft and non-cleft Malay speaking children. In contrast to the nasalance cutoffs obtained from typical Malay speaking children, the cutoffs obtained from the cleft children yielded better outcomes for detecting resonance disorders. The cutoffs were: ≥ 22% for the Oral Passage (sensitivity = 0.91, specificity = 0.93, overall efficiency = 0.92), ≥ 30% for the Set of Sentences (sensitivity = 0.96, specificity = 0.85, overall efficiency = 0.88) and ≤ 39 on the Nasal Passage (sensitivity = 1.00, specificity = 0.99, overall efficiency = 0.99). / Finally, the fourth study explored the application of recently developed techniques for assessing nasality using spectral voice analysis and compared these results with nasometry using a sub-sample of Malay speaking children from the third study. The participants were children with cleft lip and/or palate with perceived hypernasality and a group of healthy controls perceived to have normal resonance. The potential of assessing nasality using vowels, which ideally can be an easier option to administer clinically and have minimal impact on language and literacy skills, were investigated. / The findings showed that only the one-third-octave analysis method could be successfully used to detect hypernasality in the cleft population compared to the VLHR method. Using the one-third-octave analysis, the spectral characteristics of nasalised vowel /i/ taken from /pit/ and /tip/ showed an increase in amplitude in F1, between F1 and F2 regions. The amplitude of the formants at F3 region was lower in the cleft group but did not differ from the control group as reported in previous studies. Although, the one-third-octave analysis has some potential in detecting hypernasality, the accuracy of the analysis compared to perceptual ratings of nasality was only moderate. Compared to nasometry, the diagnostic value of the one-third-octave analysis in detecting hypernasality was lower. / The overall findings suggest that, except for the Nasal Passage, the Oral Passage and the Set of Sentences developed in Malay using this systematic approach were culturally appropriate and valid for the assessment of nasality. Furthermore, by comparing two instrumental methods (nasometry and spectral analysis) with perceptual evaluation in a large number of cleft and typically developing children, the present thesis was able to demonstrate the clinical benefits of two recently proposed methods of spectral voice analyses and compare them to existing methods. Compared to spectral analysis, nasometry remains a superior method for assessing nasality. Threshold values that indicate abnormal nasality levels for the newly developed stimuli in Malay have been recommended.

<p>Syftet med denna studie var att, utifrån vetenskaplig litteratur, beskriva hur föräldrar till barn med läpp-, käk- och gomspalt (LKG) upplevde beskedet och den första tiden efter barnets födelse, samt hur de bemöttes av vårdpersonalen. Litteratursökningen genomfördes i Medline och totalt valdes 15 vetenskapliga artiklar ut till föreliggande studies resultat. Många föräldrar till barn med LKG befinner sig den första tiden efter beskedet i en utsatt situation, deras funderingar kan vara många och behovet av stöd kan vara stort. Föreliggande studie visade att en viktig faktor för föräldrarnas upplevelse och välmående var grundlig information och stöd till föräldrarna, givna av välutbildad och erfaren vårdpersonal och att de inte enbart såg till barnets missbildning utan även till barnets hälsa. Vid sjukhusvistelse borde vårdpersonalen uppmärksamma föräldrars eventuella behov av att få känna sig delaktiga i vården av sitt barn. Prenatal diagnos visade sig ha en positiv inverkan på föräldrarnas upplevelse av att få ett barn med LKG. Betydande för hur föräldrarna upplevde sin nya situation var vårdpersonalens attityd och ordval gentemot dem. Möjlighet till kontakt med psykolog eller kontakt med andra föräldrar till barn med LKG visade sig också betyda mycket för föräldrarna.</p> / <p>The aim of this study was to, from scientific articles, illustrate how parents with children born suffering from cleft lip and palate (CLP) reacted when informed of their childs diagnosis, how they experienced the first time period after the birth and the attitude and support from the caregivers. The 15 scientific articles used were found in Medline. Parents with children with CLP are at first in a vulnerable situation beacuse of their many questions and need of support. The result of this study showed that an important factor for the well-being of the parents was profound information and support from well-educated personnel which not only focused on the malformation of the child but also their health. During the hospitalization the caregivers should observe the possible needs the parents could have and how they could be involved in the care of their own child. Further, the result found that prenatal diagnosis had a positiv affect on the parents experience when having a child with cleft lip and palate. The result also proved that the caregivers attitude and their selection of words towards the parents was very important of how the parents experienced the situation. Another important aspect for the parents experience was the possibilty of contact with psychologist and other parents with children with CLP.</p>

abstract With many visual speech animation techniques now available, there is a clear need for systematic perceptual evaluation schemes. We describe here our scheme and its application to a new video-realistic (potentially indistinguishable from real recorded video) visual-speech animation system, called Mary 101. Two types of experiments were performed: a) distinguishing visually between real and synthetic image- sequences of the same utterances, ("Turing tests") and b) gauging visual speech recognition by comparing lip-reading performance of the real and synthetic image-sequences of the same utterances ("Intelligibility tests"). Subjects that were presented randomly with either real or synthetic image-sequences could not tell the synthetic from the real sequences above chance level. The same subjects when asked to lip-read the utterances from the same image-sequences recognized speech from real image-sequences significantly better than from synthetic ones. However, performance for both, real and synthetic, were at levels suggested in the literature on lip-reading. We conclude from the two experiments that the animation of Mary 101 is adequate for providing a percept of a talking head. However, additional effort is required to improve the animation for lip-reading purposes like rehabilitation and language learning. In addition, these two tasks could be considered as explicit and implicit perceptual discrimination tasks. In the explicit task (a), each stimulus is classified directly as a synthetic or real image-sequence by detecting a possible difference between the synthetic and the real image-sequences. The implicit perceptual discrimination task (b) consists of a comparison between visual recognition of speech of real and synthetic image-sequences. Our results suggest that implicit perceptual discrimination is a more sensitive method for discrimination between synthetic and real image-sequences than explicit perceptual discrimination.

Ultrasound is the primary modality for fetal imaging, but Magnetic Resonance Imaging nowadays has a valuable complementary role as it often reveals findings that alter pregnancy management. Knowledge on some clinically relevant areas of the normal fetal development is still lacking, and this was the aim of this project. We wanted 1) to obtain reference MRI data of normal brain measurements before 24 gestation weeks (GW), 2) to study the development of the hippocampus, 3) to study the development of the ear and 4) to test the ability of MRI for evaluating the lip and palate. For this, we retrospectively analysed a database with 464 in vivo and 21 post mortem fetal MRI examinations. Study I evaluated a series of 70 normal fetuses. A table of normal brain measurements from 17 to 23 GW was built, the first in the literature that includes ages below 20 GW. Study II focused on the evolution of the hippocampus from 18 to 38 GW by evaluating 3 post mortem and 60 in vivo MRI examinations. Our results suggested this area to develop later and more asymmetrically than previously thought. Study III analysed a series of 122 normal MRI in vivo and 16 MRI post mortem. We described the development of the fetal ear in vivo for the first time in the literature, realizing that the value of MRI is limited by the size of the structures evaluated. In study IV, 60 brain-targeted MRI examinations of 55 normal fetuses and 5 fetuses with orofacial clefts were blindly reviewed by two readers, focusing on the lips and palates. Our results suggest a high accuracy of MRI in the evaluation of this area, regardless of fetal age or previous ultrasound findings. This thesis brings new knowledge on the normal development of the fetal brain and cranium.

Syftet med denna studie var att, utifrån vetenskaplig litteratur, beskriva hur föräldrar till barn med läpp-, käk- och gomspalt (LKG) upplevde beskedet och den första tiden efter barnets födelse, samt hur de bemöttes av vårdpersonalen. Litteratursökningen genomfördes i Medline och totalt valdes 15 vetenskapliga artiklar ut till föreliggande studies resultat. Många föräldrar till barn med LKG befinner sig den första tiden efter beskedet i en utsatt situation, deras funderingar kan vara många och behovet av stöd kan vara stort. Föreliggande studie visade att en viktig faktor för föräldrarnas upplevelse och välmående var grundlig information och stöd till föräldrarna, givna av välutbildad och erfaren vårdpersonal och att de inte enbart såg till barnets missbildning utan även till barnets hälsa. Vid sjukhusvistelse borde vårdpersonalen uppmärksamma föräldrars eventuella behov av att få känna sig delaktiga i vården av sitt barn. Prenatal diagnos visade sig ha en positiv inverkan på föräldrarnas upplevelse av att få ett barn med LKG. Betydande för hur föräldrarna upplevde sin nya situation var vårdpersonalens attityd och ordval gentemot dem. Möjlighet till kontakt med psykolog eller kontakt med andra föräldrar till barn med LKG visade sig också betyda mycket för föräldrarna. / The aim of this study was to, from scientific articles, illustrate how parents with children born suffering from cleft lip and palate (CLP) reacted when informed of their childs diagnosis, how they experienced the first time period after the birth and the attitude and support from the caregivers. The 15 scientific articles used were found in Medline. Parents with children with CLP are at first in a vulnerable situation beacuse of their many questions and need of support. The result of this study showed that an important factor for the well-being of the parents was profound information and support from well-educated personnel which not only focused on the malformation of the child but also their health. During the hospitalization the caregivers should observe the possible needs the parents could have and how they could be involved in the care of their own child. Further, the result found that prenatal diagnosis had a positiv affect on the parents experience when having a child with cleft lip and palate. The result also proved that the caregivers attitude and their selection of words towards the parents was very important of how the parents experienced the situation. Another important aspect for the parents experience was the possibilty of contact with psychologist and other parents with children with CLP.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the burden of care (BOC) of two presurgical infant orthopedic (PSIO) protocols used for complete unilateral cleft lip and palate (CUCLP), and to compare aesthetic outcomes with centres not utilizing PSIO. Four samples were collected. Two from the same centre that underwent either traditional infant orthopedics (TIO) or nasoalveolar molding (NAM) and two from centres not employing PSIO. BOC data were collected for the PSIO groups and photos at age 5 were collected for ratings of nasolabial aesthetics. The BOC of NAM was found to be significantly greater than IO for number of visits (9.9 vs. 6.6, (p<0.001)) and days wearing the appliance (127 vs. 112, (p<0.05)). Significant differences in aesthetic ratings were noted amongst the three centres but not between the NAM and TIO groups. Overall, an increased burden of NAM over TIO was detected, without an observable aesthetic improvement.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the burden of care (BOC) of two presurgical infant orthopedic (PSIO) protocols used for complete unilateral cleft lip and palate (CUCLP), and to compare aesthetic outcomes with centres not utilizing PSIO. Four samples were collected. Two from the same centre that underwent either traditional infant orthopedics (TIO) or nasoalveolar molding (NAM) and two from centres not employing PSIO. BOC data were collected for the PSIO groups and photos at age 5 were collected for ratings of nasolabial aesthetics. The BOC of NAM was found to be significantly greater than IO for number of visits (9.9 vs. 6.6, (p<0.001)) and days wearing the appliance (127 vs. 112, (p<0.05)). Significant differences in aesthetic ratings were noted amongst the three centres but not between the NAM and TIO groups. Overall, an increased burden of NAM over TIO was detected, without an observable aesthetic improvement.

A clutch actuator is used in a vehicle to transmit movement and force from the clutch pedal to the release bearing of the clutch. A pneumatic clutch actuator consists of an anodised aluminium cylinder, inside of which a piston, with a rubber lip seal and a PTFE guiding ring, slides. The system is lubricated with silicone grease before assembly. A commercial clutch actuator of this type, has a service life of 3 million actuations and must function in a wide temperature range, from -40 ºC to 140 ºC. In this thesis, the complex tribological system of pneumatic clutch actuators has been studied. Field worn actuators have been disassembled and investigated. A laboratory test method has been developed to understand the tribomechanisms present in pneumatic clutch actuators. The test method's capability of simulating the real contact has been verified, by the comparison with studied actuators from the field. The influence of contact parameters: temperature, load, lubrication and particle contamination, has been investigated. In addition, different anodised aluminium surfaces have been studied. The manufacturing method of the aluminium cylinder influences surface topography and structure of the oxide, resulting in different mechanical and frictional properties. The wear during tests with only silicone grease is reminiscent, but on a lower scale, to the wear during tests with a mixture of silicone grease and standard dust. The initially applied amount of silicone grease is not important, the friction seems to depend on the amount of silicone grease that is dragged into or pushed out from the contact area during testing. Silicone grease lubrication reduces wear of the lip seal. However, during some tests, an adhesive layer, composed of  grease residuals and some PTFE, was formed on the lip. A triple PTFE transfer, from guiding ring to aluminium surface, to lip seal, to aluminium surface, occurred. Such transfer of material from the PTFE guiding ring was detected from the unlubricated tests, and also from the silicone grease lubricated tests, i.e. silicone grease lubrication does not prevent PTFE material transfer.

No description available.