Urination, defecation, flatulence, and diarrhea: the four seasons of toilet acoustics

Diarrheal diseases are a leading cause of death among children under five years old, killing over 500,000 annually. Rapid detection of diarrheal diseases is necessary for treatment and prevention of outbreaks. We hypothesize that the acoustic characteristics of excretion events (urination, flatulence, solid defecation, and diarrhea) are unique and identifiable, and can be used to detect outbreaks of diarrhea in public restrooms. To test this hypothesis, we design and construct a Synthetic Human Acoustic Reproduction Testing (S.H.A.R.T.) Machine to generate toilet sound variations. In this talk, we present both experimental spectrograms of the sound and theoretical predictions for the frequency and duration.