Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Dead Regions in the Cochlea: Diagnosis, Perceptual Consequences, and Implications for the Fitting of Hearing Aids

Hearing impairment is often associated with damage to the hair cells in the cochlea. Sometimes there may be complete loss of function of inner hair cells (IHCs) over a certain region of the cochlea; this is called a “dead region”. The region can be defined in terms of the range of characteristic frequencies (CFs) of the IHCs and/or neurons immediately adjacent to the dead region. This paper reviews the following topics: the effect of dead regions on the audiogram; methods for the detection and delineation of dead regions based on psychophysical tuning curves (PTCs) and on the measurement of thresholds for pure tones in “threshold equalizing noise” (TEN); effects of dead regions on speech perception; effects of dead regions on the perception of tones; implications of dead regions for fitting hearing aids. The main conclusions are: (1) Dead regions may be relatively common in people with moderate-to-severe sensorineural hearing loss; (2) Dead regions cannot be reliably diagnosed from the audiogram; (3) PTCs provide a useful way of detecting dead regions and defining their boundaries. However, the determination of PTCs is probably too time-consuming to be used for routine diagnosis of dead regions in clinical practice; (4) The measurement of detection thresholds for pure tones in TEN provides a simple method for clinical diagnosis of dead regions; (5) Pure tones with frequencies falling in a dead region do not evoke clear pitch sensations (pitch matching is highly variable) and the perceived pitch is sometimes, but not always, different from “normal”. However, ratings of pitch clarity cannot be used as a reliable indicator of a dead region; (6) Amplification of frequencies well inside a high-frequency dead region usually does not improve speech intelligibility, and may sometimes impair it. However, there may be some benefit in amplifying frequencies up to 50 to 100% above the estimated low-frequency edge of a high-frequency dead region; (7) The optimal form of amplification for people with low-frequency dead regions remains somewhat unclear. There may be some benefit from avoiding the amplification of frequencies well inside a dead region; (8) Patients with extensive dead regions are likely to get less benefit from hearing aids than patients without dead regions; (9) For patients with diagnosed dead regions at high frequencies, consideration should be given to use of a hearing aid incorporating frequency transposition and/or compression.
GIS-based rainfall-triggered landslide warning and forecasting model of Shenzhen

Landslide warning and forecasting is essential to landslide risk management. This paper establishes a GIS-based landslide warning and forecasting model of Shenzhen where rainfall-trigged landslides have caused great property and life loss. Based on the high-resolution observation data of rainfall and landslide occurrences in Shenzhen, Kriging interpolation model is applied to derive the regional rainfall data prior to the occurrence of landslides. The binary logistic model is then trained by the forward stepwise method, in which the precipitation of the first, second and fourth day prior to the occurrences of landslide are selected as significant explanatory factors. Then, the confusion matrix and AUC/ROC are calculated to verify the model. Finally the critical precipitation of landslide warning and forecasting of Shenzhen is determined. This paper may provide concrete support for landslide risk management work in Shenzhen and helpful reference for related studies.
Perfil sorológico para doença de Chagas dos doadores de sangue do Hemocentro Regional de Uberaba

Currently one of the major problems in the serological selection of blood donors in respect to Chagas' disease is the high incidence of indeterminate reactions, making a large number of healthy individuals incorrectly diagnosed as seriously ill. This paper aims at evaluating the serological pattern of Chagas' disease of donors of the Uberaba Blood Center and also to propose mechanisms to reduce the rate of serological ineligibility due to suspicion of this disease. A retrospective study of the serological results of 79,729 samples of blood was carried out between January 2000 and December 2004. The results were analyzed according to the following variables: type of donor (first-time and multiple), gender and age (less than or equal to 30 or more than 30 years old). The statistical analysis was made using the chi-square test and a comparison of proportions (Z). Indeterminate results in respect to Chagas' disease among first-time donors were significantly higher than those of multiple donations with p < 0.0001. As for age, the proportion of positivity in the over 30-year-old group was significantly higher to that of the under or equal to 30-year-old group (p < 0.0001). The high number of indeterminate reactions at this center is in accordance with recent studies, highlighting the need of implementing serological tests with 100% specificity or the use of practical and fast confirmation tests to be routinely introduced in hemotherapy services, reducing the unnecessary rejection of blood bags.
Threshold Measurements by Self-Fitting Hearing Aids

A self-fitting, self-contained hearing aid is a device that can be managed entirely by the user, without assistance from a hearing health care professional or the need for special equipment. A key component of such a device is an automated audiometer that will enable the user to self-administer measurements of in situ thresholds, which the hearing aid will use to prescribe a baseline setting for the wearer. The success of the device therefore depends on the validity and reliability of in situ threshold measurements and automatically measured thresholds. To produce a complete and self-contained device, the self-fitting hearing aid will also enable identification of audiograms that are contraindicative of hearing aid usage. The feasibility and challenges of achieving these characteristics are explored and discussed. While the overall concept seems feasible, several challenges were identified that need thorough investigation and/or development. These include the use of instructions to self-manage hearing aid insertion and in situ threshold measurements, selection of an appropriate transducer and instant-fit tip that will allow measurements of a wide range of threshold levels, control of ambient noise during threshold measurements, and self-manageable procedures that enable identification of such audiogram characteristics as asymmetry and conductive hearing loss.
Analog-to-Digital Conversion to Accommodate the Dynamics of Live Music in Hearing Instruments

Hearing instrument design focuses on the amplification of speech to reduce the negative effects of hearing loss. Many amateur and professional musicians, along with music enthusiasts, also require their hearing instruments to perform well when listening to the frequent, high amplitude peaks of live music. One limitation, in most current digital hearing instruments with 16-bit analog-to-digital (A/D) converters, is that the compressor before the A/D conversion is limited to 95 dB (SPL) or less at the input. This is more than adequate for the dynamic range of speech; however, this does not accommodate the amplitude peaks present in live music. The hearing instrument input compression system can be adjusted to accommodate for the amplitudes present in music that would otherwise be compressed before the A/D converter in the hearing instrument. The methodology behind this technological approach will be presented along with measurements to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Multidimensional Results Reporting to Participants in Genomic Studies: Getting It Right

Research study participants desire personal study results, creating questions about whether and how such results should be communicated. Recent surveys about participation in cohort studies reconfirm that participants value and desire the return of research results to a degree that is out of step with the restrictive recommendations of various ethics advisory groups, which have historically limited disclosure based on clinician value judgments and the severity and treatability of the disease in question, among other factors. Rather than framing the current inconclusive ethics discussion as a standstill among competing ethical principles and their potential applicability, we introduce a new element, communicability (that is, those properties of a message that will determine how likely it is that its informational intent will be grasped by the study participant), as the subject of empirical research to align participants’ goals with beneficent and responsible results reporting. Structural changes in research design, combined with governance changes in assessing impact, allow us to move beyond a binary construction of report/do not report and to create a structure in which the communicability of the message and the participants’ preferences are variables in a function that affects results reporting. Here we illustrate this structure and its principles.
ADHD and Health Services Utilization in the National Health Interview Survey

Objective: Describe the general health, comorbidities and health service use among U.S. children with ADHD. Method: The 2001 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS) contained the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; used to determine probable ADHD), data on medical problems, overall health, and health care utilization. Results: Asthma was two and headaches were three times more prevalent, and overall health was significantly lower, among children with SDQ ADHD. Of children with SDQ ADHD, 45% saw a mental health professional in the past year and over half were not taking medication regularly. Urban residence, age (9-13), higher family education, having health insurance, and having comorbid emotional problems were associated with mental health care utilization in children with SDQ AD/HD, while race, gender and family income were not associated. Conclusions: Children with SDQ AD/HD had more medical problems and were more likely to visit the emergency room. Treatment data suggest a problem with under-treatment of ADHD in the United States. Interventions should be targeted in rural areas, and among families with low education and without health insurance. (J. of Att. Dis. 2009; 12(4) 330-340 )
Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Erroneously Diagnosed and Treated as Bipolar Disorder

Objective: There is a dearth of literature on patients erroneously diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder. Method: The authors report a case of an adult with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder erroneously diagnosed and treated for bipolar disorder for 6 years. At that point, methylphenidate was initiated. The patient was judged to be a good treatment responder with improvements noted in the clinical global impressions severity scale. It was seen that the improvement was maintained at a 6-month follow-up. Conclusion: The present case reflects the importance of careful differential diagnosis when evaluating for bipolar disorder. (J. of Att. Dis. 2009;13(2) 197-198)
Maternal Anxiety and Attention Problems in Children at 5 and 14 Years

Objective: This study examines the association between maternal anxiety from pregnancy to 5 years and child attention problems at 5 and 14 years. Method: Birth cohort of 3,982 individuals born in Brisbane between 1981 and 1983 are assessed. Self-reported measures of maternal anxiety are assessed at four time points. Maternal reports of child attention problems using Achenbach’s Child Behavior Checklist are assessed at 5 and 14 years. Results: Children of mothers experiencing anxiety during or after pregnancy are at greater risk of experiencing attention problems at 5 and 14 years. After adjusting for maternal age and child’s gender, antenatal anxiety is strongly associated with persistent attention problems (OR = 3.65, 95% CI = 2.19, 6.07). Children with chronically anxious mothers are 5.67 (95% CI = 3.56, 9.03) times more likely to have persistent attention problems. These associations remain consistent after adjusting for potential confounders. Conclusions: Maternal anxiety appears to increase the rate of child attention problems and identifies a need for treatment programs to have a dual focus—the mother and her child. (J. of Att. Dis. 2010; 13(6) 658-667)
Fast sequential ATPG based on implicit state enumeration

The knowledge of the State Transition Graph (STG) of a sequential circuit helps in generating test sequences. For instance, by determining that a set of states is not reachable from the reset state, it is possible to identify a certain type of sequentially untestable faults. However, until recently, the ability of algorithms to store the STG of a sequential circuit has been limited to small instances. Recent advances in sequential circuit verification, based on the use of binary decision diagrams and new powerful implicit enumeration algorithms, have dramatically improved our ability to deal with large numbers of states. In this paper we report on the application of these algorithms to the problems of generating justification sequences, identifying redundancies, and dealing with hard-to-detect faults. Our experiments show substantial improvements over previously published results.
Augmentative and alternative communication systems used by people with cerebral palsy in Scotland: Demographic survey

The present survey shows that in 1991–1992 there were 72 children, 37 adolescents, and 107 adults with cerebral palsy in Scotland who used some form of an augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) system. Among these, 61% were males and 39% were females. There has been a substantial increase in the use of AAC systems over the last 3 years and, indeed, over 50% of users have had their AAC systems no longer than 1 year. The AAC systems identified in this study were broadly divided into low-technology and high-technology systems. Although the data show a tremendous increase in the use of high-technology systems, the low-technology systems still accounted for more than 50% of all AAC systems used at present. There were a variety of methods of access both with low- and high-technology systems, indicating that a considerable proportion of users must rely on methods of access other than hand pointing. The majority of high-technology systems had voice output and all of the low-technology systems required l.
The Positive Illusory Bias

Objective: To evaluate whether the positive illusory bias explains the self-evaluations of driving and work behaviors in college students with ADHD. Method: A total of 103 students with ADHD were compared to a sample of 94 students without ADHD. Both groups completed self-reports of their specific driving and work behaviors and then rated their overall, global performance in each area. Three specific-to-global change scores were obtained (one measuring work and two measuring driving) that were thought to be measures of the positive illusory bias. These specific-to-global change scores were analyzed using chi-square to evaluate differences between participants with and without ADHD. Results: The participants with ADHD were significantly more likely than the participants without ADHD to engage in the positive illusory bias on two of the three work and driving ratings. Conclusion: College students with ADHD demonstrate self-evaluations that appear to reflect the positive illusory bias and that may be related to their academic functioning in the college setting and willingness to receive treatment.
5-29-2013 Plug-and-Play Priors for Model Based Reconstruction

Model-based reconstruction is a powerful framework for sol ving a variety of inverse problems in imaging. The method works by combining a forward model of the imaging system with a prior model of the image itself, and the reconstruction is then computed by minimizing a functional consisting of the sum of two terms corresponding to the forward and prior model s. In recent years, enormous progress has been made in the probl m f denoising, a special case of an inverse problem where the forward model is an identity opera tor. A wide range of methods including nonlocal means, dictionary-based methods, 3D block matching, TV minimization and kernel-based filtering have proven that it is possible to recover high fidelity image s even after a great deal of noise has been added. Similarly, great progress has been made in impro ving model-based inversion when the forward model corresponds to complex physical measurement s in applications such as X-ray CT, electronmicroscopy, MRI, and ultrasound, to name just a few. However , combining state-of-the-art denoising algorithms (i.e., prior models) with state-of-the-art inv ersion methods (i.e., forward models) has been a challenge for many reasons. In this report, we propose a flexible framework that allows st ate-of-the-art forward models of imaging systems to be matched with state-of-the-art prior or denois i g models. This framework, which we term as Plug-and-Play priors, has the advantage that it dramatical ly simplifies software integration, and moreover, it allows state-of-the-art denoising methods that have no k nown formulation as an optimization problem to be used. We demonstrate with some simple examples how Plug -and-Play priors can be used to mix and match a wide variety of existing denoising models with a t omographic forward model, thus greatly expanding the range of possible problem solutions. S. V. Venkatakrishnan and C. A. Bouman are with the School of El ectrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, 465 N orthwestern Ave., West Lafayette, IN 47907-2035, USA. Tel: 765-494-655 3, Fax: 765-494-3358, E-mail: {svenkata,bouman }@purdue.edu. B. Wohlberg is with the Theoretical Division, Los Alamos Nati onal Lab, Los Alamos, NM, USA. E-mail: brendt@lanl.gov.
Clinical features of hematopoietic malignancies and related disorders among benzene-exposed workers in China

Previous occupational cohort studies of benzene-exposed workers have for the most part used only death certificates to validate diagnoses of workers developing leukemia and other hematopoietic and lymphoproliferative malignancies and related disorders (HLD). In a follow-up study of 74,828 benzene-exposed workers and a comparison group of 35,805 nonexposed workers from 12 cities in China, we sought to characterize clinicopathologically and to confirm diagnoses of all cases of HLD. Using medical records, laboratory hematology results, and histopathology, U.S. and Chinese expert hematopathologists, blinded to exposure status, carried out a detailed review using standardized evaluation forms. Key among the findings were a notable diversity of malignant and nonneoplastic hematopoietic and lymphoproliferative disorders, documentation of excess myelodysplastic syndromes among benzene workers, and widespread dyspoiesis involving all hematopoietic cell lines. As sophisticated clinicopathologic characterization and corresponding classification schemes for HLD become increasingly widespread, it is recommended that future epidemiologic investigations of benzene workers incorporate similarly detailed morphologic evaluation. In extending follow-up of this cohort of young workers, we will continue to use all available clinical, laboratory hematology, and pathology data as well as cytogenetic and biochemical markers to characterize various HLD outcomes. These careful surveillance mechanisms should also provide additional insight into carcinogenic mechanismsmore » of benzene and allow comparison of the molecular pathogenesis of HLD induced by benzene versus chemotherapy, radiation, or other exposure. 116 refs., 4 figs., 3 tabs. « less
An Epidemiological Study of ADHD, Substance Use, and Comorbid Problems in Incarcerated Women in Sweden

Objective: The aim of this study was to examine the prevalence of ADHD and psychiatric comorbidity, including substance use in incarcerated women. Method: This was a cross-sectional study, consisting of two parts: (a) screening using the ADHD Self-Rating Scale (ASRS) and (b) diagnostic assessment using a structured interview. Results: A sample of 96 incarcerated women was screened and 56 underwent the diagnostic assessment. Twenty-nine percent of the women met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th ed.) diagnostic criteria for adult ADHD in the diagnostic assessment. Forty-four of the women had misuse of alcohol, and 83% had misuse of narcotics the year prior to the incarceration. The ASRS showed sensitivity of 1.0 and specificity of 0.66. Conclusion: The prevalence rate of ADHD in incarcerated women was high and comparable to that in male offenders. Illicit stimulant use and antisocial personality disorder were significantly more common in women with ADHD. ASRS is useful as a screener in this population.
A Pilot Study of the Efficacy of a Computerized Executive Functioning Remediation Training With Game Elements for Children With ADHD in an Outpatient Setting

Objective: This pilot study tested the short- and long-term efficacy (9 weeks follow-up) of an executive functioning (EF) remediation training with game elements for children with ADHD in an outpatient clinical setting, using a randomized controlled wait-list design. Furthermore, in a subsample, that is, those treated with methylphenidate, additive effects of the EF training were assessed. Method: A total of 40 children (aged 8-12 years) were randomized to the EF training or wait-list. The training consisted of a 25-session training of inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and working memory. Treatment outcome was assessed by parent- and teacher-rated EF, ADHD, oppositional deviant disorder, and conduct disorder symptoms. Results: Children in the EF training showed significantly more improvement than those in the wait-list condition on parent-rated EF and ADHD behavior in the total sample and in the subsample treated with methylphenidate. Effects were maintained at follow-up. Conclusion: This pilot study shows promising evidence for the efficacy of an EF training with game elements.
Adjustment of Time Perception in the Range of Seconds and Milliseconds

Objective: The nature of time-processing alterations in ADHD was assessed by means of duration judgments and temporal set-shifting tasks lasting several seconds and milliseconds. Method: After training with visual sample stimuli for long and short durations, 31 children with ADHD and 29 controls estimated the durations of test stimuli. During testing, the temporal context was systematically varied by shifting the duration of stimulus sets to longer or shorter intervals. Results: Children with ADHD generally overestimated the durations of stimuli on the seconds scale. Their assessment of stimuli on the milliseconds scale can be characterized as less-efficient adaptations to new temporal sets alongside otherwise normal discrimination performance. Conclusion: Findings support a pure time perception alteration in ADHD. In addition, results provide first evidence that difficulties in mental set-shifting, which have been reported for other tasks, extend to temporal processing in children with ADHD.