El uso del flamenco con equipo reflexivo en una escuela de madres / The Use of Flamenco with a Reflecting Team in a Parenting School for Mothers

OBJETIVO: se estudian los efectos de un programa de flamenco complementario a una escuela de madres en el autoconcepto, la ansiedad, la ira y la depresión. MÉTODO: la muestra fue de 14 mujeres entre los 36 y los 50 años que acudían a una escuela de madres; la mitad de ellas recibió seis sesiones de flamenco, mientras que la otra mitad sirvió de grupo de comparación. A través de un diseño mixto se compararon las medidas pre y post-intervención y entre los dos grupos. Un psicoterapeuta, un equipo reflexivo y una bailaora de flamenco, dirigieron las sesiones. RESULTADOS: el autoconcepto físico mejora sólo en el grupo que acudió a las sesiones de flamenco; además, los niveles de ansiedad y el sentimiento de ira tienden a disminuir, aunque no significativamente

OBJECTIVE: The study investigates the effects of a flamenco program complementary to a parenting school for mothers on self-concept, anxiety, anger and depression. METHOD: The sample was of 14 women between 36 and 50 years old attending a parenting school. Half of them received six flamenco sessions; the other half served as a comparison group. Through a mixed design, the pre and post intervention measures were compared between the two groups. A psychotherapist, a Reflecting Team and a flamenco dancer, directed the sessions. RESULTS: The physical self-concept improves only in the group that attended the flamenco sessions. In addition, anxiety levels and feelings of anger tend to decrease, although not significantly

A flexible and inexpensive high-performance auditory evoked response recording system appropriate for research purposes.

Recording auditory evoked responses (AER) is done not only in hospitals and clinics worldwide to detect hearing impairments and estimate hearing thresholds, but also in research centers to understand and model the mechanisms involved in the process of hearing. This paper describes a high-performance, flexible, and inexpensive AER recording system. A full description of the hardware and software modules that compose the AER recording system is provided. The performance of this system was evaluated by conducting five experiments with both real and artificially synthesized auditory brainstem response and middle latency response signals at different intensity levels and stimulation rates. The results indicate that the flexibility of the described system is appropriate to record AER signals under several recording conditions. The AER recording system described in this article is a flexible and inexpensive high-performance AER recording system. This recording system also incorporates a platform through which users are allowed to implement advanced signal processing methods. Moreover, its manufacturing cost is significantly lower than that of other commercially available alternatives. These advantages may prove useful in many research applications in audiology.

Automatic quality assessment and peak identification of auditory brainstem responses with fitted parametric peaks.

The recording of the auditory brainstem response (ABR) is used worldwide for hearing screening purposes. In this process, a precise estimation of the most relevant components is essential for an accurate interpretation of these signals. This evaluation is usually carried out subjectively by an audiologist. However, the use of automatic methods for this purpose is being encouraged nowadays in order to reduce human evaluation biases and ensure uniformity among test conditions, patients, and screening personnel. This article describes a new method that performs automatic quality assessment and identification of the peaks, the fitted parametric peaks (FPP). This method is based on the use of synthesized peaks that are adjusted to the ABR response. The FPP is validated, on one hand, by an analysis of amplitudes and latencies measured manually by an audiologist and automatically by the FPP method in ABR signals recorded at different stimulation rates; and on the other hand, contrasting the performance of the FPP method with the automatic evaluation techniques based on the correlation coefficient, FSP, and cross correlation with a predefined template waveform by comparing the automatic evaluations of the quality of these methods with subjective evaluations provided by five experienced evaluators on a set of ABR signals of different quality. The results of this study suggest (a) that the FPP method can be used to provide an accurate parameterization of the peaks in terms of amplitude, latency, and width, and (b) that the FPP remains as the method that best approaches the averaged subjective quality evaluation, as well as provides the best results in terms of sensitivity and specificity in ABR signals validation. The significance of these findings and the clinical value of the FPP method are highlighted on this paper.

A study of adaptation mechanisms based on ABR recorded at high stimulation rate.

OBJECTIVE: This paper analyzes the fast and slow mechanisms of adaptation through a study of latencies and amplitudes on ABR recorded at high stimulation rates using the randomized stimulation and averaging (RSA) technique. METHODS: The RSA technique allows a separate processing of auditory responses, and is used, in this study, to categorize responses according to the interstimulus interval (ISI) of their preceding stimulus. The fast and slow mechanisms of adaptation are analyzed by the separated responses methodology, whose underlying principles and mathematical basis are described in detail. RESULTS: The morphology of the ABR is influenced by both fast and slow mechanisms of adaptation. These results are consistent with previous animal studies based on spike rate. CONCLUSIONS: Both fast and slow mechanisms of adaptation are present in all subjects. In addition, the distribution of the jitter and the sequencing of the stimuli may be critical parameters when obtaining reliable ABRs. SIGNIFICANCE: The separated responses methodology enables for the first time the analysis of the fast and slow mechanisms of adaptation in ABR obtained at stimulation rates greater than 100 Hz. The non-invasive nature of this methodology is appropriate for its use in humans.

Ultrasound indoor positioning system based on a low-power wireless sensor network providing sub-centimeter accuracy.

This paper describes the TELIAMADE system, a new indoor positioning system based on time-of-flight (TOF) of ultrasonic signal to estimate the distance between a receiver node and a transmitter node. TELIAMADE system consists of a set of wireless nodes equipped with a radio module for communication and a module for the transmission and reception of ultrasound. The access to the ultrasonic channel is managed by applying a synchronization algorithm based on a time-division multiplexing (TDMA) scheme. The ultrasonic signal is transmitted using a carrier frequency of 40 kHz and the TOF measurement is estimated by applying a quadrature detector to the signal obtained at the A/D converter output. Low sampling frequencies of 17.78 kHz or even 12.31 kHz are possible using quadrature sampling in order to optimize memory requirements and to reduce the computational cost in signal processing. The distance is calculated from the TOF taking into account the speed of sound. An excellent accuracy in the estimation of the TOF is achieved using parabolic interpolation to detect of maximum of the signal envelope at the matched filter output. The signal phase information is also used for enhancing the TOF measurement accuracy. Experimental results show a root mean square error (rmse) less than 2 mm and a standard deviation less than 0.3 mm for pseudorange measurements in the range of distances between 2 and 6 m. The system location accuracy is also evaluated by applying multilateration. A sub-centimeter location accuracy is achieved with an average rmse of 9.6 mm.

Recording of auditory brainstem response at high stimulation rates using randomized stimulation and averaging.

The recording of auditory brainstem response (ABR) at high stimulation rates is of great interest in audiology. It allows a more accurate diagnosis of certain pathologies at an early stage and the study of different mechanisms of adaptation. This paper proposes a methodology, which we will refer to as randomized stimulation and averaging (RSA) that allows the recording of ABR at high stimulation rates using jittered stimuli. The proposed method has been compared with quasi-periodic sequence deconvolution (QSD) and conventional (CONV) stimulation methodologies. Experimental results show that RSA provides a quality in ABR recordings similar to that of QSD and CONV. Compared with CONV, RSA presents the advantage of being able to record ABR at rates higher than 100 Hz. Compared with QSD, the formulation of RSA is simpler and allows more flexibility on the design of the pseudorandom sequence. The feasibility of the RSA methodology is validated by an analysis of the morphology, amplitudes, and latencies of the most important waves in ABR recorded at high stimulation rates from eight normal hearing subjects.