1 Abstract The present thesis is concerned with the study of creaky voice and its communicative functions in audio-visual presentation of a brand. This study analyzes nineteen videos that were part of the Sign On campaign produced by Greenpeace in 2009. The main purpose of this thesis is to measure the level of creaky voice in communicative functions. The communicative functions presented in this study are based on the model of Roman Jakobson (1960) and some new functions are proposed as addition to the model. One of the predictions of this thesis is that functions that are emotionally loaded will be comparatively more creaky and this prediction is partially met. Secondly, it was expected to see the same order of the communicative functions based on their level of creakiness among different groups of speakers. This expectation was not met and the possible reasons for the findings are discussed. This thesis uses only acoustic measurements for the comparison of the communicative functions based on their levels of creaky voice. Finally, this thesis discusses the possibilities and current limitations of acoustic methods used for detection of creaky phonation. Keywords: creaky voice, vocal fry, laryngealization, communicative functions, F0, HNR, H1-H2, antimode

This work deals with analysis of phonation in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Approximately 90% of patients with Parkinson’s disease suffer from speech motor dysfunction called hypokinetic dysarthria. System for Parkinson’s disease analysis from speech signals is proposed and several types of features are examined. Czech Parkinson’s speech database called PARCZ is used for classification. This dataset consists of 84 PD patients and 49 healthy controls. Results are evaluated in two ways. Firstly, features are individually analysed by Spearman correlation, mutual information and Mann-Whitney U test. Classification is based on random forests along with leave-one-out validation. Secondly, SFFS algorithm is employed for feature selection in order to get the best classification result. Proposed system is tested for each gender individually and both genders together as well. Best result for both genders together is expressed by accuracy 89,47 %, sensitivity 91,67% and specificity 85,71 %. Results of this work showed that the most important vowel realizations for phonation analysis are sustained vowels pronounced with maximum or minimum intensity (not whispering).

This thesis is about design and implementation of application for computing speech parameters on people with Parkinson disease. At the beginning is generaly described Parkinson disease and Hypokinetic dysarthria and how it affects the speech and speech parameters when it occurs. Mainly there are described areas of speech like phonation, prosody, articulation and fluent speech. As a part of next topic this thesis describes specific speech parameters with bigger meaning during diagnosis Parkinson disease and it's progress over the time. There are also mentioned few significant studies dealing with examination of speech of the subjects with diagnoses of Parkinson disease and computing some speech parameters in order to analyze their speech impairments. Part of the thesis is description of implemented standalone application for calculating, exporting and visualizing of speech parameters from selected sound records.

The presented thesis is involved in the biomechanics of phonation. The aim of the thesis is to set a fluid-structure interaction between the vocal folds and air flow when the pressure from lungs reaches the physiological values. In the expected outcome the self-oscillating vocal folds should be observable with characteristics shape-shift from convergent to divergent. In theory part of the thesis is described Anatomy of the vocal tract, physiology of the human phonation, research of computational simulations, experiments and visualisation methods are described in the theory part of the thesis. In the second part, setup of computational simulation with the finite element method is presented. Besides of the fluid-structure interaction the acoustical model is set. Achieved results are presented and compared to the results in literature. Displacements are evaluated from the structural model and pressures, velocities and flow velocities are evaluated from fluid model, so as acoustics results.

The presented dissertation thesis deals with a simulation of the human phonation in terms of latest theories. Phonation is considered here as a bi-directional fluid-structure-acoustic interaction, where the interaction between all three physical domains occurs due to the unsteady viscous compressible Navier-Stokes equations. There is a solid knowledge background in the first part of the thesis. It concerns the latest concepts in computational modeling of the human phonation, the most important and recent theories about the human voice production and some key aspects of the human anatomy, physiology and pathology. Also voice assessment is discussed. The second part of the thesis describes an in-depth analysis of a phonation simulation in a planar computational model. The basic concepts proceed from algorithms developed in the Institute of Solid Mechanics, Mechatronics and Biomechanics. Created models are able to reproduce sounds of all Czech vowels and the most common evaluated parameters very close to physiological ranges. The simulated pathology, Reinke's edema, is demonstrated in order to explore its influence on the vowel sound. The third part focuses on modeling of phonation in a spatial computational model. All Czech vowels are simulated also here and compared to the planar model and to actual measurement. The spatial model serves as the starting point to modeling of a longitudinal pretension incorporated in the vocal folds. In the last part of the thesis, a modeling of the phonation with vocal folds pretension is investigated. Although the models are tuned to a rather soft phonation, the results are in agreement with the relevant physiologic phenomena. While the spatial model is highly computationally expensive, a hybrid planar model with pretension is proposed. A special attention is paid to the analysis of self-sustained oscillation of the vocal folds. It is shown, the planar model cannot reproduce such kind of oscillation in the actual version, albeit time of oscillation was considerably extended. On the other hand, oscillation of the spatial vocal folds are stabilized without effects accompanying subduing of oscillation. It can be supposed that the spatial model is able to reproduce self-sustained oscillation as a basic principle present during the human phonation.

The diploma work is dealing with an influence of postural muscles on preschool children singing expression as weel as on connection between a posture and a breathe. The aim of this diploma work is not just a clarification of this issue, but primaliry it is an aspiration of creating a methodology of exercises, which leads to an improvement of children`s singing. Experimental part of this diploma work is concerned with a verification of created methodology on constant group of preschool children. An audio CD with records of children singing expressions, which confirms reached verdicts, is included.

This dissertation thesis deals with the demands on teachers' voice and proper use of voice in the teacher's profession. The whole thesis consists of two parts: theoretical and practical. The theoretical part is divided into nine sections: the anatomy and physiology of the vocal tract, voice developement, comparison of spoken and singing voice, psychological impact on voice, voice defects and hygiene, voice reeducation, methods of voice diagnostics and voice acoustics. The research part presents the findings of acoustic voice measurement. Students (only women) of Faculty of Education in Prague participed in the research. The objective of this part was to asses the quality of students' voice and their voice readiness for future teaching.

This doctoral thesis focuses on computational modelling of human vocal folds and vocal tract functions using finite element method (FEM). Human voice is crucial in human communication. Therefore one of the main targets of current medicine is creation of artificial vocal folds, which would substitute the original vocal folds. The computational modelling can be used to understand principles of voice production, determination of parameters that the artificial vocal folds have to meet and verification of their functionality. First part of this thesis focuses on modelling of human voice creation by whisper. Influence of intraglottal gap on eigenvalues distribution for individual vowels was analysed using FEM vocal tract and trachea model. Further there is presented two-dimensional (2D) finite element model of the flow-induced self-oscillation of the human vocal folds in interaction with acoustic spaces of the vocal tract. The 2D vocal tract model was created on the basis of converting the data from magnetic resonance images (MRI). Explicit coupling scheme with separated solvers for structure and fluid domain was used for modelling of the fluid-structure interaction. Created computational model comprises: large deformations of the vocal folds tissue, contact between vocal folds, fluid-structure interaction, morphing the fluid mesh according to the vocal-fold motion (Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian approach), unsteady viscous compressible or incompressible airflow described by the Navier-Stokes equations and airflow separation during glottis closure. This model is used to analyse the influence of stiffness and damping changes in individual vocal fold tissue layers (in particular in superficial lamina propria). Part of this computational analysis is also comparison of vocal folds behaviour for compressible and incompressible flow model. Videokymograms (VKG) are subsequently created from obtained results of FEM calculations which enable to compare individual variants between themselves and with motion of real human vocal folds. In next part of this thesis is presented three-dimensional (3D) finite element model of the flow-induced self-oscillation of the human vocal folds. This 3D model was created from a previous 2D model by extrude to the third direction. Using this model was again compared influence of compressible and incompressible flow model on vocal folds motion and generated sound by using videokymograms and acoustic spectra. The last part of this thesis focuses on the possibility to replace missing natural source voice in form reed-based element. Behaviour of reed-based element was analysed using computational modelling and using measurements on experimental physical model. The physical model enables changes in setting gap between reed and reed stop and performing acoustical and optical measurements.

Title: The effect of airway control on stance dynamic stability Objectives: The aim of this thesis is to find out whether and how will the influence of vocal cords modulation be manifested on the dynamic stabilization of the standing body during translational shifts of the supporting surface of different intensities and A-P directions. Thus, building on the findings of Massery et al (2013). Methods: The thesis has the character of qualitative research. The experiment was attended by 23 healthy probands, of which 7 men and 16 women aged 20-40 years. Spirometry was used to test the objectivity of airway airflow during breathing / phoning maneuvers with different vocal cords positioning and dynamic computer posturography using the Neurocom Smart Equi Test System and its Motor Control Test, which evaluated the effectiveness of automatic postural responses. We connected the posturograph with the spirometer using the Kistler accelerometer (type 8766A100BB). The course of the experiment was simultaneously recorded by a camera (GoPro Hero 7). The Smart EquiTest System generated three postural perturbations of different intensity (S - sub treshold, M - threshold, L - saturating) in two directions (anterior translation / posterior translation). The measured data were then processed in the program Neurocom...