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Hypernasality in singing among children with cleft palate: a preliminary study

Peter S, Abdul Rahman ZA, Pillai S

Int J Oral Maxillofac Surg, 2019 Oct;48(10):1317-1322.
PMID: 31014926 DOI: 10.1016/j.ijom.2019.03.896

The aim of this study was to document differences in hypernasality during speaking and singing among children with cleft palate and to compare nasality score ratings of trained and untrained listeners. Twenty subjects with cleft palate aged between 7 and 12 years participated in this study. Audio recordings were made of the children reading a passage and singing a common local song, both in the Malay language. The degree of hypernasality was judged through perceptual assessment. Three trained listeners (a speech therapist, a classical singer, and a linguistic expert - all academicians) and two untrained listeners (a cleft volunteer worker and a national high school teacher) assessed the recordings using a visual analogue scale (VAS). Inter-rater and intra-rater reliability for hypernasality in both speaking and singing were verified using the intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC). A significant reduction in hypernasality was observed during singing as compared to speaking, indicating that hypernasality reduces when a child with cleft palate sings. The act of singing significantly reduces hypernasality. The outcome of this study suggests that children with cleft palate would benefit from singing exercises to ultimately reduce hypernasality. However, future research is needed to objectively measure nasality in singing compared to speaking.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing*
Fulltext The effectiveness of Dalcroze Music Approach in enhancing musical coordination skill among year 4 students in urban area

Md Jais Ismail

Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2017;2(1):54-65.
MyJurnal

This study is designed in qualitative form which focuses on musical coordination skill that is sing and
clapping rhythm simultaneously in meter . The researcher used one of music teaching method which
is Dalcroze Approach as an intervention in this study. Dalcroze Approach is a method which relates
musical concepts with movement. Research sample is among Year 4 students aged 10 years old from
different sex and race. Data have been collected through observation and interview. A comprehension
exam is conducted as a supplementary data collection. Findings show the students have achieved good
result in music coordination skill after the implementation of the Dalcroze Approach. Observation
revealed that all the students have increase their coordination skill in singing and clapping the rhythm simultaneously. Interview which is conducted on students found 60 percent of them are very confident
to do the skill as well. The result of comprehension exam shows 73 percent of students score A which
can be described as excellent. Researcher wish to have further study in developing the music
coordination skill by improving the intervention of the study.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Fulltext Alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness: a comparison between Malaysian preschool children from public and private kindergartens

Julia Lee, Ai Cheng, Wang, Joanna Joo Ying

Journal of Cognitive Sciences & Human Development, 2020;6(2):1-15.
MyJurnal

Alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness are essential skills in learning to read. This research examined the level of acquisition on alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness among 60 preschoolers from private and public preschools in Kuching, Sarawak. The mean age of the children was 5.58. The children were administered letter name and sound knowledge, and letter naming fluency tests to examine their alphabetic knowledge; Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processing and Yopp-Singer Phoneme Segmentation Test to examine their phonological awareness. Higher achievement in alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness was found among preschoolers from private preschools compared to those from public preschools. This study discusses the implications for practice and ways teachers could explicitly foster alphabetic knowledge and phonological awareness skills in classroom.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Fulltext Chaos-embedded particle swarm optimization approach for protein-ligand docking and virtual screening

Tai HK, Jusoh SA, Siu SWI

J Cheminform, 2018 Dec 14;10(1):62.
PMID: 30552524 DOI: 10.1186/s13321-018-0320-9

BACKGROUND: Protein-ligand docking programs are routinely used in structure-based drug design to find the optimal binding pose of a ligand in the protein's active site. These programs are also used to identify potential drug candidates by ranking large sets of compounds. As more accurate and efficient docking programs are always desirable, constant efforts focus on developing better docking algorithms or improving the scoring function. Recently, chaotic maps have emerged as a promising approach to improve the search behavior of optimization algorithms in terms of search diversity and convergence speed. However, their effectiveness on docking applications has not been explored. Herein, we integrated five popular chaotic maps-logistic, Singer, sinusoidal, tent, and Zaslavskii maps-into PSOVina[Formula: see text], a recent variant of the popular AutoDock Vina program with enhanced global and local search capabilities, and evaluated their performances in ligand pose prediction and virtual screening using four docking benchmark datasets and two virtual screening datasets.
RESULTS: Pose prediction experiments indicate that chaos-embedded algorithms outperform AutoDock Vina and PSOVina in ligand pose RMSD, success rate, and run time. In virtual screening experiments, Singer map-embedded PSOVina[Formula: see text] achieved a very significant five- to sixfold speedup with comparable screening performances to AutoDock Vina in terms of area under the receiver operating characteristic curve and enrichment factor. Therefore, our results suggest that chaos-embedded PSOVina methods might be a better option than AutoDock Vina for docking and virtual screening tasks. The success of chaotic maps in protein-ligand docking reveals their potential for improving optimization algorithms in other search problems, such as protein structure prediction and folding. The Singer map-embedded PSOVina[Formula: see text] which is named PSOVina-2.0 and all testing datasets are publicly available on https://cbbio.cis.umac.mo/software/psovina .

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Monitoring Breathing Muscle Performance During Singing Noninvasively Using Mechanomyography and Electromyography

Ramli MI, Hamzaid NA, Engkasan JP

J Voice, 2019 Jul 09.
PMID: 31300185 DOI: 10.1016/j.jvoice.2019.06.006

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to investigate the performance of mechanomyography (MMG) and electromyography (EMG) in monitoring the sternocleidomastoid (SCM) as accessory respiratory muscles when breathing during singing.
METHODS: MMG and EMG were used to record the activity of the SCM in 32 untrained singers reciting a monotonous text and a standard folk song. Their voices were recorded and their pitch, or fundamental frequency (FF), and intensity were derived using Praat software. Instants of inhale and exhales were identified during singing from their voice recordings and the corresponding SCM MMG and EMG activities were analysed.
RESULTS: The SCM MMG, and EMG signals during breathing while singing were significantly different than breathing at rest (p < 0.001). On the other hand, MMG was relatively better correlated to voice intensity in both reading and singing than EMG. EMG was better, but not significantly, correlated with FF in both reading and singing as compared to MMG.
CONCLUSIONS: This study established MMG and EMG as the quantitative measurement tool to monitor breathing activities during singing. This is useful for applications related to singing therapy performance measure including potentially pathologically effected population. While the MMG and EMG could not distinguish FF and intensity significantly, it is useful to serve as a proxy of inhalation and exhalation levels throughout a particular singing session. Further studies are required to determine its efficacy in a therapeutic setting.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Individuality in the songs of wild agile gibbons (Hylobates agilis) of Peninsular Malaysia

Haimoff EH, Gittins SP

Am J Primatol, 1985;8(3):239-247.
PMID: 31986812 DOI: 10.1002/ajp.1350080306

Recordings were made and analyzed of the female dominated duet songs by eight adult pairs of wild agile gibbons from two sites in Peninsular Malaysia. A statistical analysis of their songs revealed that individuality occurred throughout the females' songs from both sites. Individuality in gibbon songs may allow singing individuals to more efficiently and effectively locate and identify neighboring nonmate conspecifics.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Fulltext Proper musical activities during music instructional process for gifted and talented students in Malaysia

Md Jais Ismail, Rorlinda Yusuf, Loo, Fung Chiat

Malaysian Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities, 2018;3(5):30-40.
MyJurnal

Previous studies approved that not all lesson activities are suitable for gifted and talented students.
This study is designed to identify what are the proper musical activities that can fill the needs of gifted
and talented students in Malaysia. The research sample is among gifted and talented students from the
whole Malaysia who are studying in Pusat PERMATApintar Negara. Result in this study may be used
as reference for educators who want to teach music on gifted and talented children, so that educators
may choose the right and effective activities to implement on those children. Therefore, the researcher
collects data using Focus Group Discussion Techique,and Indepth Interview on gifted and talented
children who had experienced music in formal class. Observation is also conducted in music classes in
Pusat PERMATApintar Negara to identify their behavioral on the musical activities conducted. Result
reveals that all the students believe the most proper musical activities are playing musical instruments, performance, music theory and singing. Teachers may attract students’ attention by using interactive
learning apparatus, relates theory and practical, and justify the importance of music study.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Fulltext Evolution of the implementation of corporate culture in the Ministry of Health

Roslan, J.G., Nordin, M.J., Lutpiyudin, A., Husnita, H.

Malaysian Journal of Public Health Medicine, 2003;3(1):58-61.
MyJurnal

Corporate culture can simply be defined as “The way we do things around here". It comprise of assumptions, values, norms and tangible signs. Ministry of Health has started its culture building in 1991. Prior to this study, there have been two studies to evaluate its implementation. There were two types of respondents, where administered questionnaires were sent to all head of departments and all U3 medical ojjicers in public services in Malaysia, About 50% (n=126) of head of departments and only 18% (n=1321) of medical ojjicers responded. The study shows that at least 83% of head of departments perceived that the three core value of corporate culture has been implemented in their departments. However for rites and rituals, less than habf of them have implemented it. Singing of corporate song is done more in hospital as compared to health. As for medical officer, only 28% of them have received training on corporate culture. Among those who have received training, only a quarter understood the meaning of corporate culture. Doctors were also asked to give opinion on how to generate a caring doctor. About one-third suggested to reduce the workload of doctors. Apart from increasing manpower, workload can also be reduced by reengineering the system and upgrading the doctors’ competency.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing
Fulltext Microbiome of tracheoesophageal prosthesis: who are they?

Syatirah Abdullah, Janet Quinn, Mohamed EL-Badawey, Nicholas Jakubovics

Malaysian Journal of Medicine and Health Sciences, 2019;15(108):44-44.
MyJurnal

Introduction: Laryngectomy patients undergo voice rehabilitation that requires implantation of trachea-oesophagal speech valves (TESV). Usually, laryngeal cancer patients require insertion of these devices post-operatively to im-prove their quality of life. Implantation of TESV dates back to 1979 by pioneering work of Blom and Singer. There are cases of aspiration of TESV wearer reported, and obstruction of the TESV causes leakage through the valve and is suggested as a main reason for replacement of the device. The dysfunctional failure may be caused by microbial colonization on the valve or physical malfunction and requires immediate replacement is desirable. The aim of this study is to identify the microbial community members of selected TESVs using both culture-independent techniques (Next-generation sequencing) to analyse the microbiota, including unculturable species, and routine microbiology techniques (culture-dependent method) and to obtain representative isolates that can form the basis for experiments to enable increased understanding of the community. Methods: Biofilms were harvested from 16 explanted speech valves from patients visiting the ENT clinic in Freeman Hospital, Newcastle, UK. Routine microbiology techniques (culture-dependent method) including ChromeID® plates and Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption/Ionization Time of Flight (MALDI-TOF) Mass Spectrometry were used for identification of TESV microbiome. Sequencing of the samples was performed at MR DNA (www.mrdnalab.com, USA) on a MiSeq following the manufacturer’s guidelines in order to determine the bacteria and candida composition in the biofilm community. Results: The most frequently isolated fungal species was C. albicans, which was cultured from 11 out of 16 TESVs (79%), followed by five TESVs with C. tropicalis (36%), three TESVs had C. glabrata (21%) and only one TESV contained S. cerevisiae (7%). Interestingly no biofilm communities contained more than two fungal species and 2 TESVs (12%) possessed only bacterial species. There were only 16 species of bacteria cultured and identified by MALDI-TOF MS. This was far lower than the 91 species that were detected by NGS. Species from the genus Lactobacillus were found in 10 of 16 TESVs (63%), the highest frequency of any bacterial genus isolated from TESVs followed by S. aureus found in eight TESVs of 16. S. epidermidis was identified in two TESVs (13%), Streptococcus spp., K. oxytoca and O. anthropi were both identified in five different TESVs, while the gut bacterium E. faecium was found in four TESVs. Only one TESV contained E. coli. Conclusion: TESV biofilm composition was dominated by Candida spp. and occasionally contained other types of eukaryote such as Saccharomycetes. It was not uncommon for more than one Candida species to be present. The biofilms also harboured a mixture of bacteria, with lactic acid producers (Lactobacillus sp. and Streptococcus sp.) normally accompanying Candida sp. in the biofilm.

Matched MeSH terms: Singing