Objective auscultation for traditional Chinese medical diagnosis using novel acoustic parameters

The goal of this work is to propose novel acoustic parameters of voice for the purpose of providing a quantitative analysis of auscultation in traditi onal Chinese medical diagnosis. There is rare amount of available literatur e related to this topic. Four novel acoustic parameters, the average number of zero-crossings, the variations in local peaks and valleys, the variatio ns in first and second formant frequencies, and the spectral energy ratio, are presented to analyze and identify the characteristics among non-vacuity , qi-vacuity, and yin-vacuity subjects. Among these acoustic parameters, tw o temporal parameters, the average number of zero-crossings and thr variati ons in local peaks and valleys, outperformed other parameters in classifyin g both non-vacuity and deficient subjects. The spectral energy ratio was ad equate for the classification between qi-vacuity and yin-vacuity patients. This research is a first step in an ongoing effort to modernize the auscult ation in traditional Chinese medical diagnosis. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science I reland Ltd. All lights reserved.