A two-dimensional cylindrical acoustic concentrator is designed with multilayered alternative homogeneous materials, which can focus acoustic field and enhance acoustic energy in a given area. The frequency response analysis of the acoustic concentrator demonstrates that the acoustic energy can be concentrated within the device over a wide frequency band. Meanwhile, ...

To evaluate the modifications of EEG activity during slow-wave sleep in patients with dementia compared with healthy elderly subjects, using spectral analysis and period-amplitude analysis. Five patients with dementia and 5 elderly control subjects underwent night polysomnographic recordings. For each of the first three nonrapid eye movement-rapid eye movement sleep ...

The complex variables method with mapping function was extended to solve the linear acoustic wave scattering by an inclusion with sharp/smooth corners in an infinite ideal fluid domain. The improved solutions of Helmholtz equation, shown as Bessel function with mapping function as the argument and fractional order Bessel function, were ...

A young child presented with intermittent bowel obstruction. The abdominal X-ray was not closely examined, and a contrast study was performed that demonstrated multiple tubular filling defects indicative of worms. The patient was treated accordingly. Reviewing the abdominal X-ray demonstrated numerous serpigenous, tubular, soft-tissue densities in gas-filled bowel loops.

The new Commonwealth Fund Health Insurance Tracking Survey of U.S.Adults finds nearly three of five adults in families earning less than 133 percent of the federal poverty level were uninsured for a time in 2011; two of five were uninsured for one or more years. Low- and moderate-income adults who ...

Bortezomib is well-known for inducing cell death in cancer cells, specifically through the mechanism of proteasome inhibition. Thiostrepton, a thiazole antibiotic, has also been described for its proteasome inhibitory action, although differing slightly to bortezomib in the proteasomal site to which it is active. Previously we had shown the synergic ...

SUMMARY: Arousals occur from all sleep stages and can be identified as abrupt electroencephalogram (EEG) and electromyogram (EMG) changes. Manual scoring of arousals is time consuming with low interscore agreement. The aim of this study was to design an arousal detection algorithm capable of detecting arousals from non-rapid eye movement ...

Ambient acoustic noise fields in the ocean are generally three dimensional in that they exhibit vertical and horizontal directivity. A model of spatially homogeneous noise is introduced in which the directionality is treated as separable, that is, the overall directionality of the field is the product of the individual directivities ...

Microbicides represent a potential intervention strategy for preventing HIV transmission. Vaginal microbicides would meet the need for a discreet method that women could use to protect themselves against HIV. Although early-generation microbicides failed to demonstrate efficacy, newer candidates are based on more potent antiretroviral (ARV) products. Positive data from the ...

Although some cochlear implant (CI) listeners can show good word recognition accuracy, it is not clear how they perceive and use the various acoustic cues that contribute to phonetic perceptions. In this study, the use of acoustic cues was assessed for normal-hearing (NH) listeners in optimal and spectrally degraded conditions, ...

Objective. To report the use of the pedicled superior gluteal artery perforator (SGAP) fasciocutaneous flap as a reliable surgical option for sacral pressure sore reconstruction. Methods. A prospective study was conducted between September 2008 and September 2010 of 10 patients with stage 3 or 4 sacral pressure sores treated with ...

Management of difficult airways and difficult intubation differs in pediatric and in adult patients. In conscious children, fiberoptic intubation is not feasible because of limited compliance. The specially designed laryngeal mask for blind tracheal intubation, LMA Fastrach™, is available for adolescents and adults only. Therefore, fiberoptic-guided intubation through a supraglottic ...

This study examined the association between screening results for mental health problems and the number and type of head injuries in 1,082 Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans who received population-based screening for traumatic brain injury at a Veterans Administration health care facility. Nearly one third of all veterans reported multiple ...

Environmental sensors moored on the New Jersey continental shelf tracked constant density surfaces (isopycnals) for 35 days in the summer of 2006. Sound-speed fluctuations from internal-wave vertical isopycnal displacements and from temperature/salinity variability along isopycnals (spiciness) are analyzed using frequency spectra and vertical covariance functions. Three varieties of internal waves ...

Water that flows around a biofilm influences the transport of solutes into and out of the biofilm and applies forces to the biofilm that can cause it to deform and detach. Engineering approaches to quantifying and understanding these phenomena are reviewed in the context of biofilm systems. The slow-moving fluid ...

SUMMARY: Several studies have reported that patients with essential tremor (ET) may also have mild cognitive impairment. Event-related potentials (ERPs) involve cognitive processes in the brain. No detailed investigation has been conducted into auditory ERPs (AERPs) to detect the subclinical cognitive dysfunction in patients with ET. Therefore, this study aimed ...

Teachers can be instrumental in supporting children's recovery after trauma, but some work suggests that elementary school teachers are uncertain about their role and about what to do to assist children effectively after their students have been exposed to traumatic stressors. This study examined the extent to which teachers working ...

The rapid technical and medical progress in endoscopic and laparoscopic interventions and the increasing acceptance by patients, lead to an expansion of outpatient operations. The endoscopic laparoscopic operation technique, the operative implementation and the inclusion of an accompanying and a surveillance person in the postoperative phase conceal, however, specific dangers ...

SUMMARY: This study evaluates a new automated patient-specific method for epileptic seizure detection using scalp electroencephalogram (EEG). The method relies on a normalized wavelet-based index, named the combined seizure index (CSI), and requires a seizure example and a nonseizure EEG interval as reference. The CSI is derived for every epoch ...

This study examined responses to loud tones before and after cognitive-behavioral treatment for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Seventy-four women in a PTSD treatment outcome study for rape-related (n = 54) or physical assault-related PTSD (n = 20) were assessed in an auditory loud tone paradigm. Assessments were conducted before and ...

To understand the issues associated with the presence (or lack) of azimuthal isotropy and horizontal (along isobath) invariance of low-frequency (center frequencies of 600 Hz and 900 Hz) acoustic propagation in a shelfbreak environment, a series of experiments were conducted under the Autonomous Wide-Aperture Cluster for Surveillance component of the Shallow Water ...

The dispersion curves describe wave propagation in a structure, each branch representing a wave mode. As frequency varies the wavenumbers change and a number of dispersion phenomena may occur. This paper characterizes, analyzes, and quantifies these phenomena in general terms and illustrates them with examples. Two classes of phenomena occur. ...

Interpersonal violence (IPV) is associated with a range of subsequent negative outcomes; however, research has yet to test whether IPV operates as a specific risk factor for separate psychopathology outcomes, such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, depressive symptoms, delinquent acts, or binge drinking. To address this, cumulative exposure to ...

Sound at 85 to 450 Hz propagating in approximately 80-m depth water from fixed sources to a joint horizontal/vertical line array (HLA/VLA) is analyzed. The data are from a continental shelf area east of Delaware Bay (USA) populated with tidally generated long- and short-wavelength internal waves. Sound paths are 19 ...

Current prognostic scores of chronic kidney disease (CKD) are not accurate in older patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the prognostic accuracy of the Multidimensional Prognostic Index (MPI) in comparison with and in addition to the estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) to predict long-term all-cause mortality in ...

Short-term surgical missions may appear to fill a void in surgical capacity in the developing world, but may inadvertently also disrupt well-established local healthcare systems. The surgical providers of an East African hospital developed suggestions for improving these missions so that they can benefit visitors, local providers and patients alike.

Macrostomum lignano (Platyhelminthes) possesses pluripotent stem cells, also called neoblasts, which power its extraordinary regeneration capacity. We have examined the cellular dynamics of neoblasts during regeneration of the rostrum in M. lignano. First, using live squeeze observations, the growth curve of the rostrum was determined. Second, neoblasts were labelled with ...

ABSTRACT: Stroke is the third most common cause of mortality and is one of the most common causes of morbidity in the world. Entrapment neuropathies may cause morbidity after stroke. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the development of entrapment neuropathies in severe stroke patients within the chronic stages ...

Modeling laryngeal aerodynamics requires specification of the glottal geometry. Changing the glottal exit radius alters the intraglottal pressure distributions in the converging glottis [Scherer et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 110, 2267-2269 (2001)]. This study examined the effects of the glottal entrance radius on the intraglottal pressure distributions for divergent ...

Development of strategies capable of specifically curbing pathogenic autoimmune responses in a disease- and organ-specific manner without impairing foreign or tumor antigen-specific immune responses represents a long sought-after goal in autoimmune disease research. Unfortunately, our current understanding of the intricate details of the different autoimmune diseases that affect mankind, including ...

A coupled system of nonlinear neural oscillators with an individual resonance frequency is assumed to form the neuronal substrate for the photic driving phenomenon. The aim was to investigate the spatiotemporal stability of these oscillators and quantify the spatiotemporal process of engagement and disengagement of the neuronal oscillators in both ...

Cochlear implant (CI) users in tone language environments report great difficulty in perceiving lexical tone. This study investigated the augmentation of simulated cochlear implant audio by visual (facial) speech information for tone. Native speakers of Mandarin and Australian English were asked to discriminate between minimal pairs of Mandarin tones in ...

Although adult sexual assault has been suggested to be a risk factor for disordered eating, little is known about the pathways leading to this disorder. This study aimed to examine the mediating effect of depressive symptoms and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), in the relationship between sexual assault and ...

The dedicated target region should be systematically examined before performing an ultrasound-guided nerve block so that the anatomy can be assessed and anatomic variants or pathologic findings are not missed. In the case described an ultrasound-guided interscalene plexus block was performed in a 73-year-old man. During this examination a cystic ...

This study examines the auditory attribute that describes the perceived amount of reverberation, known as "reverberance." Listening experiments were performed using two signals commonly heard in auditoria: excerpts of orchestral music and western classical singing. Listeners adjusted the decay rate of room impulse responses prior to convolution with these signals, ...

The pressure fields of two different high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) transducers operated in burst mode were measured at acoustical power levels of 25 and 50 W (continuous wave equivalent) with three different hydrophones: A fiber-optic displacement sensor, a commercial HIFU needle hydrophone, and a prototype of a membrane hydrophone with ...

In 1963, Charles Van Riper published "My Grandfather," a short reading passage that has evolved into a ubiquitous metric of reading ability and speech intelligibility. In this historical note, we describe several heretofore unacknowledged similarities between "The Grandfather Passage" (Darley, Aronson, & Brown, 1975) and a portion of The Valley ...

During the CALOPS 2007 experiment, off the coast of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, three-dimensional (3D) multipath was observed using a bottom mounted horizontal line array during source tows along the 200 m isobath [Kevin D. Heaney and James J. Murray, J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 125(4), 1394-1402 (2008)]. In this paper a hybrid ...

With an aging population who wish to remain living in the community, this article explores the experiences and benefits of receiving volunteer services from a home support program established to assist people with increasing needs to remain living independently. Face to face interviews explored how the services of informal carers ...

Due to demographic changes in the population of industrial nations the number of elderly patients undergoing elective or emergency procedures will rise significantly in the coming years. Anesthesia for geriatric patients is challenging for the anesthesiologist in many ways: with increasing age numerous physiological changes occur which all lead to ...

Angiogenesis is the process of developing vascular sprouts from existing blood vessels. Luminal endothelial cells convert into "tip" cells that contribute to the development of a multicellular stalk, which then undergoes lumen formation. In this review, we consider a variety of cellular and molecular pathways that mediate these transitions. We ...

In 1965, the Catholic Church liturgy changed to allow priests to face the congregation. Whereas Church tradition, teaching, and participation have been much discussed with respect to priest orientation at Mass, the acoustical changes in this regard have not yet been examined scientifically. To discuss acoustic desired within churches, it ...

The ability to recognize spoken words interrupted by silence was investigated with young normal-hearing listeners and older listeners with and without hearing impairment. Target words from the revised SPIN test by Bilger et al. [J. Speech Hear. Res. 27(1), 32-48 (1984)] were presented in isolation and in the original sentence ...

Biochemical and genetic evidence establishes a central role of the amyloid precursor protein (APP) in Alzheimer disease (AD) pathogenesis. Biochemically, deposition of the β-amyloid (Aβ) peptides produced from proteolytic processing of APP forms the defining pathological hallmark of AD; genetically, both point mutations and duplications of wild-type APP are linked ...

The directional properties of bottlenose dolphin clicks, burst-pulse, and whistle signals were measured using a five element array, at horizontal angles of 0°, 45°, 90°, 135°, and 180° relative to a dolphin stationed on an underwater biteplate. Clicks and burst-pulse signals were highly directional with directivity indices of ∼11 dB for ...

Acoustic surveys often use multifrequency backscatter to estimate fish and plankton abundance. Direct samples are used to validate species classification of acoustic backscatter, but samples may be sparse or unavailable. A generalized Gaussian mixture model was developed to classify multifrequency acoustic backscatter when not all species classes are known. The ...

An increasing number of deep-sea studies have highlighted the importance of deep-sea biofouling, especially in relation to the protection of deep-sea instruments. In this study, the microbial communities developed on different substrata (titanium, aluminum, limestone, shale and neutrino telescope glass) exposed for 155 days at different depths (1500 m, 2500 m, 3500 m ...

SUMMARY: The purpose of this study was to investigate the test-retest reliability of contact heat-evoked potentials (CHEPs) in neurologically healthy subjects from cervical dermatomes (C4-C8). Seventeen individuals underwent test-retest examination of cervical CHEPs. Peak latencies and peak-to-peak amplitude of N2-P2 and ratings of perceived intensity were analyzed using test-retest reliability ...

This study investigated the integration of place- and temporal-pitch cues in pitch contour identification (PCI), in which cochlear implant (CI) users were asked to judge the overall pitch-change direction of stimuli. Falling and rising pitch contours were created either by continuously steering current between adjacent electrodes (place pitch), by continuously ...

Urban, socially disadvantaged individuals are at high risk for traumatic event exposure and its subsequent psychiatric symptomatology. This study examined the association between race/ethnicity and symptom severity of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), and depression in an urban clinical sample of 170 trauma-exposed adults. In addition, this ...