Voice Analysis of Postlingually Deaf Adults Pre- and Postcochlear Implantation

Objectives

To ascertain whether cochlear implantation (CI), without specific vocal rehabilitation, is associated with changes in perceptual and acoustic vocal parameters in adults with severe to profound postlingual deafness.

Hypothesis

Merely restoring auditory feedback could allow the individual to make necessary adjustments in vocal pattern.

Study Design

Prospective and longitudinal.

Methods

The experimental group composed of 40 postlingually deaf adults (20 males and 20 females) with no previous laryngeal or voice disorders. Participants’ voices were recorded before CI and 6–9 months after CI. To check for chance modifications between two evaluations, a control group of 12 postlingually deaf adults, six male and six female, without CI was also evaluated. All sessions composed of the recording of read sentences from Consensus Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation of Voice and sustained vowel /a/. Auditory and acoustic analyses were then conducted.

Results

We found a statistically significant reduction in overall severity, strain, loudness, and instability in auditory analysis. In vocal acoustic analysis, we found statistically significant reduction fundamental frequency (F0) values (in male participants) and F0 variability (in both genders). The control group showed no statistically significant changes in most vocal parameters assessed, apart from pitch and F0 (in female participants only). On comparing the interval of variation of results between the experimental and control groups, we found no statistically significant difference in vocal parameters between CI recipients and nonrecipients, with the exception of F0 variability in male participants.

Conclusions

The patients in our sample showed changes in overall severity, strain, loudness, and instability values, and reductions in F0 and its variability. On comparing the variation of results between the groups, we were able to prove in our study that implant recipients postlingually deaf adults (experimental group), without specific vocal rehabilitation, differed from nonrecipients (control group) in loudness and F0 variability sustained vowel /a/ in male participants.     

Single-layer behavior and its breakdown in twisted graphene layers

We report high magnetic field scanning tunneling microscopy and Landau level spectroscopy of twisted graphene layers grown by chemical vapor deposition. For twist angles exceeding ~3° the low energy carriers exhibit Landau level spectra characteristic of massless Dirac fermions. Above 20° the layers effectively decouple and the electronic properties are indistinguishable from those in single-layer graphene, while for smaller angles we observe a slowdown of the carrier velocity which is strongly angle dependent. At the smallest angles the spectra are dominated by twist-induced van Hove singularities and the Dirac fermions eventually become localized. An unexpected electron-hole asymmetry is observed which is substantially larger than the asymmetry in either single or untwisted bilayer graphene.     

Regularized collocation method for Fredholm integral equations of the first kind

In this paper we consider a collocation method for solving Fredholm integral equations of the first kind, which is known to be an ill-posed problem. An “unregularized” use of this method can give reliable results in the case when the rate at which smallest singular values of the collocation matrices decrease is known a priori. In this case the number of collocation points plays the role of a regularization parameter. If the a priori information mentioned above is not available, then a combination of collocation with Tikhonov regularization can be the method of choice. We analyze such regularized collocation in a rather general setting, when a solution smoothness is given as a source condition with an operator monotone index function. This setting covers all types of smoothness studied so far in the theory of Tikhonov regularization. One more issue discussed in this paper is an a posteriori choice of the regularization parameter, which allows us to reach an optimal order of accuracy for deterministic noise model without any knowledge of solution smoothness.     

A traffic shaping model for optimizing network operations

The management of technology in multi-service computer networks, such as university networks, has become a challenge with the explosive growth of entertainment oriented peer-to-peer (P2P) traffic. Traffic shaping is one of the tools used to manage bandwidth to improve system performance by allocating bandwidth between P2P and non-peer-to-peer (NP2P) traffic. We present a model for traffic shaping and bandwidth management that considers the trade-offs from allocating different amounts of bandwidths for different application categories and use data from a university network. The current policy allocates varying bandwidths over the day to P2P and NP2P traffic to reflect the importance of not letting entertainment based traffic choke the network during the day time at the expense of the more important traffic, such as Web traffic. We highlight the difficulties in obtaining data in the form required for analysis, and the need to estimate demand for allocations not covered by current policy. We present a goal programming model for this estimation task. We also model the traffic shaping problem as a Markov decision process and develop an algorithm for determining the optimal bandwidth allocation to maximize the utility of all users. Finally we use a numerical example to illustrate our approach.     

Walks and regular integral graphs

We establish a useful correspondence between the closed walks in regular graphs and the walks in infinite regular trees, which, after counting the walks of a given length between vertices at a given distance in an infinite regular tree, provides a lower bound on the number of closed walks in regular graphs. This lower bound is then applied to reduce the number of the feasible spectra of the 4-regular bipartite integral graphs by more than a half.Next, we give the details of the exhaustive computer search on all 4-regular bipartite graphs with up to 24 vertices, which yields a total of 47 integral graphs.     

Cumulative yields of short-lived xenon isotopes in the spontaneous fission of252Cf

Cumulative yields of short-lived xenon isotopes^137,138,139Xe have been determined in the spontaneous fission of²⁵²Cf, using a fast radiochemical separation method followed by gamma spectrometry. Xenon-137 yield is reported for the first time. The measured cumulative yields are converted to chain yields assuming normal charge distribution systematics for comparision with the literature data.     

Convective Instability in Superposed Fluid and Porous Layers with Vertical Throughflow

A closed form solution to the convective instability in a composite system of fluid and porous layers with vertical throughflow is presented. The boundaries are considered to be rigid-permeable and insulating to temperature perturbations. Flow in the porous layer is governed by Darcy–Forchheimer equation and the Beavers–Joseph condition is applied at the interface between the fluid and the porous layer. In contrast to the single-layer system, it is found that destabilization due to throughflow arises, and the ratio of fluid layer thickness to porous layer thickness, , too, plays a crucial role in deciding the stability of the system depending on the Prandtl number.     

Castanea sativa by-products: a review on added value and sustainable application

Castanea sativa Mill. is a species of the family Fagaceae abundant in south Europe and Asia. The fruits (chestnut) are an added value resource in producing countries. Chestnut economic value is increasing not only for nutritional qualities but also for the beneficial health effects related with its consumption. During chestnut processing, a large amount of waste material is generated namely inner shell, outer shell and leaves. Studies on chestnut by-products revealed a good profile of bioactive compounds with antioxidant, anticarcinogenic and cardioprotective properties. These agro-industrial wastes, after valorisation, can be used by other industries, such as pharmaceutical, food or cosmetics, generating more profits, reducing pollution costs and improving social, economic and environmental sustainability.

The purpose of this review is to provide knowledge about the type of chestnut by-products produced, the studies concerning its chemical composition and biological activity, and also to discuss other possible applications of these materials.     

Interaction potential models for bulk Zns,Zns nanoparticle,and Zns nanoparticle‐PMMA from first‐principles

An ab initio derived transferable polarizable force‐field has been developed for Zinc sulphide (ZnS) nanoparticle (NP) and ZnS NP‐PMMA nanocomposite. The structure and elastic constants of bulk ZnS using the new force‐field are within a few percent of experimental observables. The new force‐field show remarkable ability to reproduce structures and nucleation energies of nanoclusters (Zn₁S₁‐Zn₁₂S₁₂) as validated with that of the density functional theory calculations. A qualitative agreement of the radial distribution functions of Zn? O, in a ZnS nanocluster‐PMMA system, obtained using molecular mechanics molecular dynamics (MD) and ab initio MD (AIMD) simulations indicates that the ZnS–PMMA interaction through Zn? O bonding is explained satisfactorily by our force‐field. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.