Silent Conditions Research Articles

The effect of spatial auditory landmarks on ambulation

The maintenance of balance and posture is a result of the collaborative efforts of vestibular, proprioceptive, and visual sensory inputs, but a fourth neural input, audition, may also improve balance. Here, we tested the hypothesis that auditory inputs function as environmental spatial landmarks whose effectiveness depends on sound localization ability during ambulation. Eight blindfolded normal young subjects performed the Fukuda-Unterberger test in three auditory conditions: silence, white noise played through headphones (head-referenced condition), and white noise played through a loudspeaker placed directly in front at 135 centimeters away from the ear at ear height (earth-referenced condition). For the earth-referenced condition, an additional experiment was performed where the effect of moving the speaker azimuthal position to 45, 90, 135, and 180° was tested. Subjects performed significantly better in the earth-referenced condition than in the head-referenced or silent conditions. Performance progressively decreased over the range from 0° to 135° but all subjects then improved slightly at the 180° compared to the 135° condition. These results suggest that presence of sound dramatically improves the ability to ambulate when vision is limited, but that sound sources must be located in the external environment in order to improve balance. This supports the hypothesis that they act by providing spatial landmarks against which head and body movement and orientation may be compared and corrected. Balance improvement in the azimuthal plane mirrors sensitivity to sound movement at similar positions, indicating that similar auditory mechanisms may underlie both processes. These results may help optimize the use of auditory cues to improve balance in particular patient populations.

Taking Control Of Your Diabetes: An Innovative Approach to Improving Diabetes Care Through Educating, Motivating, and Making the Connection Between Patients and Health Care Providers.

The gold-standard goal of diabetes management has been to achieve meaningful and sustained glycemic control to reduce the risk of long-term complications. Unfortunately, results from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey indicate that only ∼50% of adults with diabetes in the United States, mostly with type 2 diabetes, are achieving an A1C <7.0%, and this percentage has not changed over the past decade (1). In addition, the proportion of patients meeting individualized targets has declined according to the American Diabetes Association and American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists, and the overall proportion of patients in very poor control, defined as an A1C >9%, has actually increased (2,3). The Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set results, with data from >1,000 health plans covering >171 million lives, are even more striking, demonstrating that, in 2014, ∼40% of commercially insured health maintenance organization patients and 30% of government insured patients achieved an A1C <7.0, again reflecting no change in the past 10 years (4). All of this has occurred despite the introduction of >40 new treatment options for people with type 2 diabetes. This fact is quite shocking and difficult to understand, especially given that our armamentarium of effective and safe type 2 medications has expanded over the same time period to include dipeptidyl peptidase 4 (DPP-4) inhibitors, sodium glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors, designer insulins, inhaled insulin, and glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists. Although there may be many reasons why these new treatment options haven’t made a dent in the glycemic control of our patients with type 2 diabetes during these past 10 years, I feel strongly that the basic and primary issue is a lack of patient education, motivation, and activation. Type 2 diabetes is a silent condition with few or no symptoms caused by poor …

Environmental noise reduces predation rate in an aquatic invertebrate

Noise is one of a wide range of disturbances associated with human activities that have been shown to have detrimental impacts on a wide range of species, from montane regions to the deep marine environment. Noise may also have community-level impacts via predator–prey interactions, thus jeopardising the stability of trophic networks. However, the impact of noise on freshwater ecosystems is largely unknown. Even more so is the case of insects, despite their crucial role in trophic networks. Here, we study the impact of underwater noise on the predatory functional response of damselfly larvae. We compared the feeding rates of larvae under anthropogenic noise, natural noise, and silent conditions. Our results suggest that underwater noise (pooling the effects of anthropogenic noise and natural noise) decreases the feeding rate of damselflies significantly compared to relatively silent conditions. In particular, natural noise increased the handling time significantly compared to the silent treatment, thus reducing the feeding rate. Unexpectedly, feeding rates under anthropogenic noise were not reduced significantly compared to silent conditions. This study suggests that noise per se may not necessarily have negative impacts on trophic interactions. Instead, the impact of noise on feeding rates may be explained by the presence of nonlinearities in acoustic signals, which may be more abundant in natural compared to anthropogenic noise. We conclude by highlighting the importance of studying a diversity of types of acoustic pollution, and encourage further work regarding trophic interactions with insects using a functional response approach.

Effect of fluid properties on ultrasound assisted liquid-liquid extraction in a microchannel

When immiscible liquids are subjected to an ultrasonic field, they form emulsions. This principle has been used to improve the mass transfer characteristics of a liquid-liquid extraction process in microreactor systems. The formation of emulsion and its characteristics are prominently dependent on the properties of the liquids used and this also holds true for emulsion brought about by ultrasound. This paper focuses on the properties of fluids that are reported to have an influence on the cavitation behaviour, namely viscosity, interfacial tension and vapour pressure. These properties were examined by changing the solvent of the organic phase in the hydrolysis of p-nitrophenyl acetate. The study is performed by comparing pairs of solvents that are different in one property but similar in the other two. The pairs selected are toluene – chlorobenzene for viscosity, toluene – methyl Isobutyl ketone for interfacial tension and methyl isobutyl ketone – 2-Methyl tetrahydrofuran for vapour pressure effects. A qualitative study was performed with a high-speed camera in flow to understand the emulsification initiation mechanisms and behaviours. These findings were further explored by performing the sonicated emulsion in a batch-sonicated reactor. The quantitative analysis of the fluid properties was evaluated and compared based on the relative percentage increase in yield upon sonication with respect to their individual silent conditions. The quantitative results were further supported by the quantification of the emulsion performed with an FBRM probe. The results indicate a two times improvement in yield with solvent of lower viscosity as 2 times more droplets were formed in the emulsion. Both the solvent systems with higher interfacial tension and vapour pressure had an improved yield of 1.4 times owing to larger number of droplets formed.

Dimanche : PC.01 – PC.18

Alcoholic cardiomyopathy is a severe consequence of chronic alcohol abuse and is a form of dilated cardiomyopathy. Current research into the pathogenesis of this condition has refined our understanding of the direct and indirect toxic effects of alcohol on the heart. Epidemiological studies attribute a significant role to alcohol abuse as a cardiovascular risk factor while clinical reports have established that alcoholic cardiomyopathy results in increased morbidity and mortality. Initially a clinically silent condition that can be detected by echocardiographic and electrocardiographic abnormalities, alcoholic cardiomyopathy slowly progresses to overt low-output heart failure. Abstinence is beneficial and can determine the reversal of cardiac impairment with a positive impact on prognosis. Specific diagnostic criteria are not yet available and differentiating alcoholic cardiomyopathy from other forms of cardiovascular dysfunction such as cirrhotic cardiomyopathy is challenging.

Brain Signal Analysis to Investigate Sound Effect on Memorization

Electroencephalography is an imaging of the electrical signal of the brain. It is widely use among the researcher compared to other techniques since it is affordable, non-invasive, able to record the signal in short time and painless to the subject. The brain signal can be divided into five specific frequency that known as alpha, beta, theta, delta and gamma band. These frequency bands will determine the characteristics of the brain signal. In this present study, the effect of sound stimuli in memorizing process is analyzed based on the relative power of the brain rhythm. Besides that, in this proposed study it is also aim to determine the effective sound stimuli for improving memorization. About 60 adults participated in this study. They are required to memorize the visual memory task at three different conditions, which are silence condition, listening to Mozart music, and listening to white noise, each for 2 minutes. The brain signal was recorded using Neurofax 9200 of EEG machine during the memorizing process. The wavelet approach was used for EEG data processing and the relative power was calculated for each of the frequency band except delta rhythm from the clean EEG signal. The result showed that listening to sound stimuli during memorizing gave significant influence on gamma and beta activity. Based on paired t-test analysis it revealed that the gamma and beta showed more significant different at white noise (gamma: p = 0.001 < 0.050; beta: p = 0_000 < 0_050) compared to Mozart music relative (gamma: p = 0.014 < 0.050; beta: p =0.004<0.050) to silent condition. It indicates that the white noise is more effective to be listened during memorizing since it able to increase the alertness level of the subject and sensory processing of the input information.

Nanoparticle interaction with biomolecules: How it shapes the nano-effects on immunity

In order to treat aqueous effluents containing organic pollutants, several techniques can be considered depending on the organic compound concentration. Sonochemistry appears to be a promising solution to answer water remediation issue. In fact, when submitted into a liquid, ultrasound can induce the nucleation, growth, and violent collapse of vapor/gas filled bubbles. However, despite the extreme local conditions observed during acoustic cavitation, using ultrasound alone is efficient only at low concentration in organic pollutants. In the present study, 0.05 M oxalic acid degradation kinetics were followed at 40 °C under various conditions, in presence or not of Pt/TiO2 catalyst under silent conditions or ultrasound at 20 and 360 kHz. Experiments were achieved under controlled atmosphere and comparison between argon, Ar/O2 (20 vol% O2) and pure O2 conditions was performed. Oxidation rate increase of oxalic acid was measured under Ar/O2 atmosphere in presence of Pt/TiO2 catalyst due to strong dispersion effect of both low and high ultrasonic frequency and formation of chemically active species by sonolysis. High frequency ultrasonic irradiation under Ar/O2 atmosphere gives the highest kinetic increase compared to silent conditions with oxalic acid degradation rate around 13 μmol min−1 at 40 °C with 2 g L−1 of 3 wt% Pt on P25 TiO2 catalyst.

Intelligibility Enhancement of Telephone Speech Using Gaussian Process Regression for Normal-to-Lombard Spectral Tilt Conversion

Noise in the environment can decrease the quality and intelligibility of a telephone conversation. This study focuses on the intelligibility enhancement of narrowband telephone speech in a near-end noise scenario using a postprocessing method based on normal-to-Lombard spectral tilt conversion. The proposed technique uses nonparallel, conversational normal, and Lombard speech together with Gaussian process regression in order to mimic the flattening of the spectral tilt that occurs in the production of natural speech in noisy conditions. The performance of the proposed method was evaluated in comparison to two reference methods, a fixed high-pass filter, and a baseline spectral tilt conversion, as well as in comparison to unprocessed speech in terms of intelligibility and listening preference in noisy conditions and in terms of pressedness in silent conditions. The results indicate that while the proposed technique provides a similar benefit in terms of intelligibility as fixed high-pass filtering, it is also able to produce a notable increase in pressedness. This suggests that the developed processing of the spectral tilt can compete with fixed high-pass filtering in intelligibility enhancement, but it is also able to convert speech to become perceptually closer to natural Lombard speech.

Automated Diagnosis of Myocardial Infarction ECG Signals Using Sample Entropy in Flexible Analytic Wavelet Transform Framework

Myocardial infarction (MI) is a silent condition that irreversibly damages the heart muscles. It expands rapidly and, if not treated timely, continues to damage the heart muscles. An electrocardiogram (ECG) is generally used by the clinicians to diagnose the MI patients. Manual identification of the changes introduced by MI is a time-consuming and tedious task, and there is also a possibility of misinterpretation of the changes in the ECG. Therefore, a method for automatic diagnosis of MI using ECG beat with flexible analytic wavelet transform (FAWT) method is proposed in this work. First, the segmentation of ECG signals into beats is performed. Then, FAWT is applied to each ECG beat, which decomposes them into subband signals. Sample entropy (SEnt) is computed from these subband signals and fed to the random forest (RF), J48 decision tree, back propagation neural network (BPNN), and least-squares support vector machine (LS-SVM) classifiers to choose the highest performing one. We have achieved highest classification accuracy of 99.31% using LS-SVM classifier. We have also incorporated Wilcoxon and Bhattacharya ranking methods and observed no improvement in the performance. The proposed automated method can be installed in the intensive care units (ICUs) of hospitals to aid the clinicians in confirming their diagnosis.

Parameter analysis on the ultrasonic TSV-filling process and electrochemical characters

As one of the key technologies in 3D packaging, through silicon via (TSV) interconnection technology has become a focus recently. In this paper, an electrodeposition method for TSV filling with the assistance of ultrasound and additives are introduced. Two important parameters i.e. current density and ultrasonic power are studied for TSV filling process and electrochemical properties. It is found that ultrasound can improve the quality of TSV-filling and change the TSV-filling mode. The experimental results also indicate that the filling rate enhances more significantly with decreasing current density under ultrasonic conditions than under silent conditions. In addition, according to the voltammetry curve, the increase of ultrasonic power can significantly increase the current density of cupric reduction, and decrease the thickness of diffusion layer. So that the reduction speed of copper ions is accelerated, resulting in a higher TSV-filling rate.

Misattribution of musical arousal increases sexual attraction towards opposite-sex faces in females.

Several theories about the origins of music have emphasized its biological and social functions, including in courtship. Music may act as a courtship display due to its capacity to vary in complexity and emotional content. Support for music’s reproductive function comes from the recent finding that only women in the fertile phase of the reproductive cycle prefer composers of complex melodies to composers of simple ones as short-term sexual partners, which is also in line with the ovulatory shift hypothesis. However, the precise mechanisms by which music may influence sexual attraction are unknown, specifically how music may interact with visual attractiveness cues and affect perception and behaviour in both genders. Using a crossmodal priming paradigm, we examined whether listening to music influences ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability of opposite-sex faces. We also tested whether misattribution of arousal or pleasantness underlies these effects, and explored whether sex differences and menstrual cycle phase may be moderators. Our sample comprised 64 women in the fertile or infertile phase (no hormonal contraception use) and 32 men, carefully matched for mood, relationship status, and musical preferences. Musical primes (25 s) varied in arousal and pleasantness, and targets were photos of faces with neutral expressions (2 s). Group-wise analyses indicated that women, but not men, gave significantly higher ratings of facial attractiveness and dating desirability after having listened to music than in the silent control condition. High-arousing, complex music yielded the largest effects, suggesting that music may affect human courtship behaviour through induced arousal, which calls for further studies on the mechanisms by which music affects sexual attraction in real-life social contexts.

Ultrasonic condition boosts up the rate of phase transfer catalyzed polymerization of acrylonitrile in two-phase system

An ultrasound condition associated with phase-transfer catalyst (PTC) has great diverse applications in synthesis of various organic and polymeric materials because of its fast reaction and high yield in short period of time. Phase transfer catalyst (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide as PTC) extracts the reactive radical anion from aqueous phase and transfer to organic phase whilst ultrasound condition enhances the radical formation; consequently, acrylonitrile was polymerized in ethyl acetate/water two-phase system at 60 ± 1 °C under ultrasound (25 kHz/300 W) and silent condition. The rate of polymerization (Rp) was doubled under ultrasound compare to silent condition. The various experimental parameters such as monomer, initiator, catalyst and temperature, solvent polarity on the rate of polymerization was studied in both conditions. The activation energy (Ea) and other thermodynamic parameters were calculated. The Ea value of ultrasound condition supports the enhancement of rate of polymerization. On the basis of observed results, a suitable kinetic model, mechanism and effect of ultrasound in the rate of polymerization were discussed. The obtained polymer was analyzed by TG/DTA and FT-IR. The viscosity average molecular weight of the polymer was found to be 6.8526 × 104 g mol−1.

Self-Care for the Prevention and Management of Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke: A Scientific Statement for Healthcare Professionals From the American Heart Association.

Self‐care is defined as a naturalistic decision‐making process addressing both the prevention and management of chronic illness, with core elements of self‐care maintenance, self‐care monitoring, and self‐care management. In this scientific statement, we describe the importance of self‐care in the American Heart Association mission and vision of building healthier lives, free of cardiovascular diseases and stroke. The evidence supporting specific self‐care behaviors such as diet and exercise, barriers to self‐care, and the effectiveness of self‐care in improving outcomes is reviewed, as is the evidence supporting various individual, family‐based, and community‐based approaches to improving self‐care. Although there are many nuances to the relationships between self‐care and outcomes, there is strong evidence that self‐care is effective in achieving the goals of the treatment plan and cannot be ignored. As such, greater emphasis should be placed on self‐care in evidence‐based guidelines.

An ultrasonic-assisted process for copper recovery in a des solvent: Leaching and re-deposition

The continuous growth of the electronic equipment market has led to an increased amount of scraping that it becomes necessary to recover. A hydrometallurgical method for copper and precious metal recovery from e-waste must consist of a number of steps: leaching, ion separation and subsequent electrochemical re-deposition of the target metal. Although this task is achievable in aqueous solutions, it requires strong acid or cyanide solutions.The aim of the study is to develop a new environmentally benign process by using a Deep Eutectic Solvent (DES), a form of cheap and safe ionic liquid, as an electrolyte for both leaching and electrodeposition.The experiments were conducted in a mixture of choline chloride and ethylene glycol, under 20kHz ultrasonic agitation. In optimized temperature and sonication conditions, the leaching rate of copper attains 65mg/hcm2. An interesting feature is that, in this media, copper dissolves into the form of Cu(I) complex instead of Cu(II) complex, so that subsequent electroreduction of copper ions is energetically more favorable. Copper deposits obtained from CuI-DES solution present a sand-rose cluster morphology inducing a large developed surface. Application of ultrasound during electrodeposition allows for grain size reduction and crystallographic texture modifications, compared to silent conditions.

Noise Equally Degrades Central Auditory Processing in 2- and 4-Year-Old Children.

The aim of this study was to investigate developmental and noise-induced changes in central auditory processing indexed by event-related potentials in typically developing children. P1, N2, and N4 responses as well as mismatch negativities (MMNs) were recorded for standard syllables and consonants, frequency, intensity, vowel, and vowel duration changes in silent and noisy conditions in the same 14 children at the ages of 2 and 4 years. The P1 and N2 latencies decreased and the N2, N4, and MMN amplitudes increased with development of the children. The amplitude changes were strongest at frontal electrodes. At both ages, background noise decreased the P1 amplitude, increased the N2 amplitude, and shortened the N4 latency. The noise-induced amplitude changes of P1, N2, and N4 were strongest frontally. Furthermore, background noise degraded the MMN. At both ages, MMN was significantly elicited only by the consonant change, and at the age of 4 years, also by the vowel duration change during noise. Developmental changes indexing maturation of central auditory processing were found from every response studied. Noise degraded sound encoding and echoic memory and impaired auditory discrimination at both ages. The older children were as vulnerable to the impact of noise as the younger children. https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.5233939.

On the Origin of the 1,000 Hz Peak in the Spectrum of the Human Tympanic Electrical Noise.

The spectral analysis of the spontaneous activity recorded with an electrode positioned near the round window of the guinea pig cochlea shows a broad energy peak between 800 and 1,000 Hz. This spontaneous electric activity is called round window noise or ensemble background activity. In guinea pigs, the proposed origin of this peak is the random sum of the extracellular field potentials generated by action potentials of auditory nerve neurons. In this study, we used a non-invasive method to record the tympanic electric noise (TEN) in humans by means of a tympanic wick electrode. We recorded a total of 24 volunteers, under silent conditions or in response to stimuli of different modalities, including auditory, vestibular, and motor activity. Our results show a reliable peak of spontaneous activity at ~1,000 Hz in all studied subjects. In addition, we found stimulus-driven responses with broad-band noise that in most subjects produced an increase in the magnitude of the energy band around 1,000 Hz (between 650 and 1,200 Hz). Our results with the vestibular stimulation were not conclusive, as we found responses with all caloric stimuli, including 37°C. No responses were observed with motor tasks, like eye movements or blinking. We demonstrate the feasibility of recording neural activity from the electric noise of the tympanic membrane with a non-invasive method. From our results, we suggest that the 1,000 Hz component of the TEN has a mixed origin including peripheral and central auditory pathways. This research opens up the possibility of future clinical non-invasive techniques for the functional study of auditory and vestibular nerves in humans.

High-speed and high-quality TSV filling with the direct ultrasonic agitation for copper electrodeposition

In this paper, the influential factors of the silent and ultrasonic electroplating using 3-mercapto-1-propanesulfonate (MPS), polyethylene glycol (PEG), and Polyethylenimine alkyl salt (PN) on the TSV filling are investigated. The effects of different accelerator concentration, current density and ultrasonic agitation on TSV filling are studied. The accelerative effect of MPS on TSV filling by the copper electrodeposition is studied to find out the optimal condition of the accelerator concentration. Using the plating bath with same additive conditions, the effects of different current densities on the TSV filling under the silent and ultrasonic conditions are investigated. The results show that the quality of TSV filling under ultrasonic electroplating has improved by 23% compared with the silent condition at the same current density.

Ultrasonic enhanced limestone dissolution: Experimental and mathematical modeling

Stricter emission regulations require the improvement of SO2 scrubbing efficiency and energy usage. In this work, the dissolution of two very pure limestone samples under the effect of ultrasound (US) was compared to their dissolution in silent conditions. The aim of this work was to assess experimentally whether this method could be adopted as a process intensification technique for Wet Flue Gas Desulfurization (WFGD) applications. A pH-stat method with vigorous agitation, coupled with in situ particle size distribution measurements was developed for evaluating the effect of US in limestone dissolution. The samples were characterized in detail, the experiments were modeled mathematically and, a chemical reaction constant was determined and used to compare quantitatively the use of US and the silent case. The results indicate that US does enhance limestone dissolution, and that the degree of enhancement depends largely on the type of sample, i.e. the geological origin and the particle size. The developed mathematical model was implemented satisfactorily; the model was able to fit the data with high degrees of accuracy (>94%). The degree of enhancement, quantified in terms of the increase in the estimated chemical reaction constant, ranged from 18% to 150%.

Music to Make Your Mouth Water? Assessing the Potential Influence of Sour Music on Salivation.

People robustly associate various sound attributes with specific smells/tastes, and soundtracks that are associated with specific tastes can influence people’s evaluation of the taste of food and drink. However, it is currently unknown whether such soundtracks directly impact the eating experience via physiological changes (an embodiment account), or whether they act at a higher cognitive level, or both. The present research assessed a version of the embodiment account, where a soundtrack associated with sourness is hypothesized to induce a physiological response in the listener by increasing salivary flow. Salivation was measured while participants were exposed to three different experimental conditions – a sour soundtrack, a muted lemon video showing a man eating a lemon, and a silent baseline condition. The results revealed that salivation during the lemon video condition was significantly greater than in the sour soundtrack and baseline conditions. However, contrary to our hypothesis, there was no significant difference between salivation levels in the sour soundtrack compared to the baseline condition. These results are discussed in terms of potential mechanisms underlying the auditory modulation of taste perception/evaluation.

Heat transfer enhancement using 2 MHz ultrasound

The present work focuses on possible heat transfer enhancement from a heating plate towards tap water in forced convection by means of 2MHz ultrasound. The thermal approach allows to observe the increase of local convective heat transfer coefficients in the presence of ultrasound and to deduce a correlation between ultrasound power and Nusselt number. Heat transfer coefficient under ultrasound remains constant while heat transfer coefficient under silent conditions increases with Reynolds number from 900 up to 5000. Therefore, heat transfer enhancement factor ranges from 25% up to 90% for the same energy conditions (supplied ultrasonic power=110W and supplied thermal power=450W). In the same time cavitational activity due to 2MHz ultrasound emission was characterized from mechanical and chemical viewpoints without significant results. At least, Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) measurements have been performed in order to investigate hydrodynamic modifications due to the presence of 2MHz ultrasound. It was therefore possible to propose a better understanding of heat transfer enhancement mechanism with high frequency ultrasound.