Can basic auditory and cognitive measures predict hearing-impaired listeners' localization and spatial speech recognition abilities?

This study aimed to clarify the basic auditory and cognitive processes that affect listeners' performance on two spatial listening tasks: sound localization and speech recognition in spatially complex, multi-talker situations. Twenty-three elderly listeners with mild-to-moderate sensorineural hearing impairments were tested on the two spatial listening tasks, a measure of monaural spectral ripple discrimination, a measure of binaural temporal fine structure (TFS) sensitivity, and two (visual) cognitive measures indexing working memory and attention. All auditory test stimuli were spectrally shaped to restore (partial) audibility for each listener on each listening task. Eight younger normal-hearing listeners served as a control group. Data analyses revealed that the chosen auditory and cognitive measures could predict neither sound localization accuracy nor speech recognition when the target and maskers were separated along the front-back dimension. When the competing talkers were separated along the left-right dimension, however, speech recognition performance was significantly correlated with the attentional measure. Furthermore, supplementary analyses indicated additional effects of binaural TFS sensitivity and average low-frequency hearing thresholds. Altogether, these results are in support of the notion that both bottom-up and top-down deficits are responsible for the impaired functioning of elderly hearing-impaired listeners in cocktail party-like situations.     

Minimizing Neumann fundamental tones of triangles: An optimal Poincaré inequality

The first nonzero eigenvalue of the Neumann Laplacian is shown to be minimal for the degenerate acute isosceles triangle, among all triangles of given diameter. Hence an optimal Poincaré inequality for triangles is derived.The proof relies on symmetry of the Neumann fundamental mode for isosceles triangles with aperture less than π/3. Antisymmetry is proved for apertures greater than π/3.     

Sobolev spaces and approximation by affine spanning systems

We develop conditions on a Sobolev function \(\psi \in W^{m,p}({\mathbb{R}}^d)\) such that if \(\widehat{\psi}(0) = 1\) and ψ satisfies the Strang–Fix conditions to order m ? 1, then a scale averaged approximation formula holds for all \(f \in W^{m,p}({\mathbb{R}}^d)\) :

$ f(x) = \lim_{J \to \infty} \frac{1}{J} \sum_{j=1}^{J} \sum_{k \in {{\mathbb{Z}}}^d} c_{j,k}\psi(a_j x - k) \quad {\rm in} W^{m, p}({{\mathbb{R}}}^d).$

The dilations { a _j } are lacunary, for example a _j =  2 ^j , and the coefficients c _j,k are explicit local averages of f, or even pointwise sampled values, when f has some smoothness. For convergence just in \({W^{m - 1,p}({\mathbb{R}}^d)}\) the scale averaging is unnecessary and one has the simpler formula \(f(x) = \lim_{j \to \infty} \sum_{k \in {\mathbb{Z}}^d} c_{j,k}\psi(a_j x - k)\) . The Strang–Fix rates of approximation are recovered. As a corollary of the scale averaged formula, we deduce new density or “spanning” criteria for the small scale affine system \(\{\psi(a_j x - k) : j > 0, k \in {\mathbb{Z}}^d \}\) in \(W^{m,p}({\mathbb{R}}^d)\) . We also span Sobolev space by derivatives and differences of affine systems, and we raise an open problem: does the Gaussian affine system span Sobolev space?

     

Gabor dual spline windows

A method is presented for constructing dual Gabor window functions that are polynomial splines. The spline windows are supported in [−1,1], with a knot at x=0, and can be taken C^m smooth and symmetric. The translation and modulation parameters satisfy a=1 and 0<b1/2. The full range 0<ab<1 is handled by introducing an additional knot. Many explicit examples are found.     

Conformal mapping of long quadrilaterals and thick doubly connected domains

In this paper we investigate theoretically an approximation technique for avoiding the crowding phenomenon in numerical conformal mapping. The method applies to conformal maps from rectangles to “long quadrilaterals,” i.e., Jordan domains bounded by two parallel straight lines and two Jordan arcs, where the two arcs are far apart. We require that these maps take the four corners of the rectangle to the four corners of the quadrilateral. Our main theorem tackles a conformal mapping problem for doubly connected domains, and we derive from this our results for quadrilaterals. As a corollary, we extend the “domain decomposition” mapping technique of Papamichael and Stylianopoulos. Similar results hold for the inverse maps, from quadrilaterals to rectangles.     

Affine Synthesis onto L p when 0<p≤1

The affine synthesis operator is shown to map the coefficient space ℓ ^p (ℤ₊×ℤ ^d ) surjectively onto L ^p (ℝ ^d ), for p∈(0,1]. Here ψ _j,k (x)=|det a _j |^1/p ψ(a _j x−k) for dilation matrices a _j that expand, and the synthesizer ψ∈L ^p (ℝ ^d ) need satisfy only mild restrictions, for example, ψ∈L ¹(ℝ ^d ) with nonzero integral or else with periodization that is real-valued, nontrivial and bounded below. An affine atomic decomposition of L ^p follows immediately:

Combination of two matrices results in improved performance of MALDI MS for peptide mass mapping and protein analysis

A new sample preparation method for MALDI based on the use of a mixture of the two commonly used matrices, DHB and CHCA, is described. The matrix mixture preparation results in increased sequence coverage and spot-to-spot reproducibility for peptide mass mapping compared to the use of the single matrix components. This results in more reliable protein identification in proteomics studies and facilitates automated data acquisition. This method shows better tolerance towards salts and impurities, eliminating the need for pre-purification of the samples. It has also been found to be advantageous for the analysis of intact proteins, and especially for glycoproteins. The mixture allows the presence of rather high concentrations of urea in the sample solutions.     

Synchronization of period-doubling oscillations in vascular coupled nephrons

The mechanisms by which the individual functional unit (nephron) of the kidney regulates the incoming blood flow give rise to a number of nonlinear dynamic phenomena, including period-doubling bifurcations and intra-nephron synchronization between two different oscillatory modes. Interaction between the nephrons produces complicated and time-dependent inter-nephron synchronization patterns. In order to understand the processes by which a pair of vascular coupled nephrons synchronize, the paper presents a detailed analysis of the bifurcations that occur at the threshold of synchronization. We show that, besides infinite cascades of saddle-node bifurcations, these transitions involve mutually connected cascades of torus and homoclinic bifurcations. To illustrate the broader range of occurrence of this bifurcation structure for coupled period-doubling systems, we show that a similar structure arises in a system of two coupled, non-identical Ro?ssler oscillators.