Janwillem van den Berg (26 November 1920 in

Akkrum Akkrum is a village in the Dutch province of Friesland. It is located in the municipality Heerenveen, about 17 km south of the city of Leeuwarden. Akkrum had about 3,395 inhabitants in 2017. History The village was first mentioned in 1315 as ...

– 18 October 1985 in

Groningen Groningen (; gos, Grunn or ) is the capital city and main municipality of Groningen province in the Netherlands. The ''capital of the north'', Groningen is the largest place as well as the economic and cultural centre of the northern part of t ...

) was a Dutch

speech scientist Speech science refers to the study of production, transmission and perception of speech. Speech science involves anatomy, in particular the anatomy of the oro-facial region and neuroanatomy, physiology, and acoustics. Speech production The pro ...

and

medical physicist A medical physicist is a health professional with specialist education and training in the concepts and techniques of applying physics in medicine and competent to practice independently in one or more of the subfields (specialties) of medical physi ...

who played a major role in establishing the myoelastic-aerodynamic theoryTitze, I. R. (2006). The ''Myoelastic Aerodynamic Theory of Phonation'', Iowa City: National Center for Voice and Speech, 2006. of

voice production In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articula ...

. The most notable aspect of van den Berg's theory is its impact on modern speech science in providing a foundation for modern models of

vocal fold The human voice consists of sound made by a human being Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedality, bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and compl ...

function. Van den Berg designed the first implantable

pacemaker An artificial cardiac pacemaker (or artificial pacemaker, so as not to be confused with the natural cardiac pacemaker) or pacemaker is a medical device that generates electrical impulses delivered by electrodes to the chambers of the heart eith ...

that could be switched to a higher beat rate for a higher level of activity. The first experiments for an R-top triggered pacemaker were done, and the design of electrodes to the heart was tested in animal experiments. This made Van den Berg known to the

cardiologists Cardiology () is a branch of medicine that deals with disorders of the heart and the cardiovascular system. The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart d ...

of that time.

Literature

* Van den Berg, J. (1958). ''Myoelastic-aerodynamic Theory of Voice production'', Journal of Speech and Hearing Research 3(1): 227–244. * Titze, I. R. (2006). ''The Myoelastic Aerodynamic Theory of Phonation'', Iowa City: National Center for Voice and Speech, 2006.

References

1920 births 1985 deaths 20th-century Dutch physicists Speech production researchers Phonation People from Boarnsterhim 20th-century Dutch physicians Medical physicists {{Physicist-stub