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Research on the phonetic consistency effect in Chinese began in the 1980s. For nearly forty years, the consistency effect, as well as its implications for Chinese character recognition, has been frequently examined. This article presents the debate over the consistency effect in Chinese character recognition. While some research supported the involvement of prelexical phonology and sublexical processing based on the presence of consistency effects, others argued against these accounts by revealing three potential limitations, including the confounding of the task demand effect, the regularity effects and the frequency effect. A possible way to settle the debate is to shift focus to the top-down role of neighborhood characteristics underlying the consistency effect in Chinese character recognition.

Background/Objectives: Uvulopalatopharyngoplasty (UPPP) is a prevalent surgical procedure for treating obstructive sleep apnea. Effective postoperative pain management is crucial for patient comfort and recovery. This study aimed to compare the analgesic efficacies of parecoxib and ketorolac in patients undergoing UPPP. Methods: A prospective, randomized, double-blind study was conducted on 83 patients who received either parecoxib (40 mg intravenously every 12 h) or ketorolac (30 mg intravenously every 8 h) for 2 days following UPPP. Postoperative pain and swallowing discomfort were assessed using visual analog scales (VASs) at 4, 24, 48, and 72 h. The time to resume eating and adverse reactions were also recorded. Results: At 24 and 48 h postoperatively, the mean VAS score was significantly higher in the ketorolac group compared to the parecoxib group (5.0 ± 2.3 vs. 3.6 ± 2.2, p = 0.005 and 3.9 ± 2.2 vs. 2.5 ± 1.7, p < 0.001, respectively). However, no significant difference in the mean VAS scores was observed between the two groups at 72 h postoperatively. With regards to postoperative swallowing pain, the ketorolac group exhibited significantly higher mean VAS scores than the parecoxib group at 4, 24, 48, and 72 h postoperatively. Conclusions: Intravenous parecoxib may offer superior analgesic benefits in the early postoperative period, particularly in alleviating swallowing pain, compared to ketorolac in UPPP procedures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: To elucidate the role of balloon Eustachian tuboplasty (BET) in the management of chronic rhinosinusitis with obstructive Eustachian tube dysfunction (ETD), we evaluated the results of endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) with and without BET in patients with chronic rhinosinusitis with obstructive ETD. Methods: This randomized controlled trial conducted in a single‐institution tertiary care center setting included 50 patients diagnosed with primary chronic rhinosinusitis and obstructive ETD between July 2018 and June 2022. Twenty‐five patients were prospectively enrolled for combined ESS/BET. The control group (25 patients) underwent ESS alone. Outcome measurements of the Sinonasal Outcome Test 22, modified Lund–Kennedy score, Eustachian Tube Dysfunction Questionnaire‐7 (ETDQ‐7), and serial Eustachian tube function test results were analyzed 3 months postoperatively. Results: The improvement (12.60 ± 6.50) in the ETDQ‐7 score in the BET group was significantly higher than that in the control group (6.60 ± 5.58). The ratio of improvement in the ETDQ‐7 score was also significantly higher in the BET than in the control group (92% vs. 68%, p = 0.034). Logistic regression analysis showed that performing BET (odds ratio [OR]: 5.41, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.02–28.79, p = 0.048) and a low post‐modified Lund–Kennedy score (OR: 0.15, 95% CI: 0.04–0.54, p = 0.004) were significantly associated with ETDQ‐7 score improvement. Conclusion: Combined BET/ESS could decrease otologic symptoms and improve Eustachian tube function. BET may be an appropriate adjunctive procedure for treating chronic rhinosinusitis with obstructive ETD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cisplatin is a widely used standard chemotherapy for various cancers. However, cisplatin treatment is associated with severe ototoxicity. Fucoidan is a complex sulfated polysaccharide mainly derived from brown seaweeds, and it shows multiple bioactivities such as antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, and antioxidant activities. Despite evidence of the antioxidant effects of fucoidan, research on its otoprotective effects remains limited. Therefore, the present study investigated the otoprotective effects of fucoidan in vitro using the mouse cochlear cell line UB/OC-2 to develop new strategies to attenuate cisplatin-induced ototoxicity. We quantified the cell membrane potential and analyzed regulators and cascade proteins in the apoptotic pathway. Mouse cochlear UB/OC-2 cells were pre-treated with fucoidan before cisplatin exposure. The effects on cochlear hair cell viability, mitochondrial function, and apoptosis-related proteins were determined via flow cytometry, Western blot analysis, and fluorescence staining. Fucoidan treatment reduced cisplatin-induced intracellular reactive oxygen species production, stabilized mitochondrial membrane potential, inhibited mitochondrial dysfunction, and successfully protected hair cells from apoptosis. Furthermore, fucoidan exerted antioxidant effects against oxidative stress by regulating the Nrf2 pathway. Therefore, we suggest that fucoidan may represent a potential therapeutic agent for developing a new otoprotective strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to further evaluate the benefit of topical hemostasis agents in tonsillectomy. We compared the clinical effects of topical application between hydrogen peroxide and adrenaline in tonsillectomy. Overall, 60 patients (120 tonsils) were prospectively enrolled for tonsillectomy between February 2018 and December 2020. The patients were randomly assigned to either the hydrogen peroxide or adrenaline group. Then, tonsillectomy was performed using hydrogen peroxide as a hemostatic agent on the assigned side, while adrenaline was applied to the other side. All procedures were performed by a surgeon who was blinded to the randomization. The outcome measurements of operation time, intraoperative blood loss, postoperative pain, and hemorrhage events were analyzed. The intraoperative blood loss was significantly lower in the hydrogen peroxide group than in the adrenaline group (9.99 ± 4.51 mL vs. 13.87 ± 6.32 mL; p = 0.0). The median operation time was also significantly lower in the hydrogen peroxide group (8.02 ± 3.59 min vs. 9.22 ± 3.88 min; p = 0.019). Meanwhile, the visual analogue scale (VAS) scores were significantly higher in the hydrogen peroxide group (4.98 ± 1.94 vs. 4.27 ± 1.97; p = 0.001). The topical application of hydrogen peroxide as a hemostatic agent effectively decreases the operation time and intraoperative blood loss. Thus, hydrogen peroxide can be used as a routine hemostatic agent for bleeding control in tonsillectomy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Sentinel physician surveillance in communities has played an important role in detecting early signs of epidemics. The traditional approach is to let the primary care physician voluntarily and actively report diseases to the health department on a weekly basis. However, this is labor-intensive work, and the spatio-temporal resolution of the surveillance data is not precise at all. In this study, we built up a clinic-based enhanced sentinel surveillance system named "Sentinel plus" which was designed for sentinel clinics and community hospitals to monitor 23 kinds of syndromic groups in Taipei City, Taiwan. The definitions of those syndromic groups were based on ICD-10 diagnoses from physicians. Methods: Daily ICD-10 counts of two syndromic groups including ILI and EV-like syndromes in Taipei City were extracted from Sentinel plus. A negative binomial regression model was used to couple with lag structure functions to examine the short-term association between ICD counts and meteorological variables. After fitting the negative binomial regression model, residuals were further rescaled to Pearson residuals. We then monitored these daily standardized Pearson residuals for any aberrations from July 2018 to October 2019. Results: The results showed that daily average temperature was significantly negatively associated with numbers of ILI syndromes. The ozone and PM2.5 concentrations were significantly positively associated with ILI syndromes. In addition, daily minimum temperature, and the ozone and PM2.5 concentrations were significantly negatively associated with the EV-like syndromes. The aberrational signals detected from clinics for ILI and EV-like syndromes were earlier than the epidemic period based on outpatient surveillance defined by the Taiwan CDC. Conclusions: This system not only provides warning signals to the local health department for managing the risks but also reminds medical practitioners to be vigilant toward susceptible patients. The near real-time surveillance can help decision makers evaluate their policy on a timely basis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The byproducts of lemon juice have always constituted an environmental issue. In this study, the byproducts extracted to lemon water vapor extract (LWAE) by distilled, which was added to lemon fermented products (LFP) to evaluate its effect on its quality and bioactivity. Based on the gas chromatography-mass spectrometry results, the main component of the LWAE was D-limonene (>41%). After added 5% LWAE the amount of D-limonene in non-sterilized lemon fermented product (NLFP) increased from 10.1% to 20.9%, while that in LFP increase from 10.5% to 19.9%. Besides, anti-browning test results showed that LWAE could delay browning. This study demonstrated that LWAE improved the antioxidant capacity, limonene content, anti-browning ability, and bioactive ingredients in a gastrointestinal simulation. These results may serve as the principal basis for byproduct reuse and improvement of product quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study compares the antioxidant capacity of non-sterilized lemon product (NLFP) and sterilized lemon fermented product (LFP). After gastrointestinal simulation reaction, the antioxidant capacity decreased by 50% in lemon juice (LJ), 30%–40% in NLFP, and 40% in LFP respectively. For the bioactive ingredients, sterilized LFP had a polyphenol of 25.8 mg GAE/mL, ascorbic acid of 55.2 mg/mL, and flavonoids of 75.2 mg/L, which were higher than LJ. NLFP and LFP effectively increased the activity of Glutathione Peroxidase (GPx), superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and mitochondrial membrane potential, reduced the reactive oxygen species (ROS) content. The results in this study indicate that LJ with lactic acid fermentation can increase biologically active ingredients and antioxidant capacity which is important for future development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A proof-of-concept of the enhancement in thermoelectric properties using C/BCN core/shell nanotube heterojunctions has been reported. We demonstrated a scalable two-step reaction route to produce C/BCN core/shell nanotubes with bulk quantities. Systematic X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and atomic-scale high-resolution transmission electron microscope electron energy loss spectroscopy (HRTEM-EELS) characterizations indicate that the synthetic heterostructures with CNT core and BCN shell can be prepared by the developed method. Thermoelectric property measurements revealed that moderate BCN shell effectively improves the Seebeck coefficient, leading to a 6.4-fold increase in thermoelectric power factor of 0.64 μW/mK 2 . Our study provides a fundamental understanding for the rational design of nanostructured heterojunctions for improved thermoelectric properties of carbon-based materials. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We report the efficient productions of single- and few-layered graphene and molybdenum disulphide (MoS 2 ) nanosheets using a surfactant-free, water-assisted liquid-phase exfoliation (LPE) of graphite and MoS 2 bulk powders in N-methylpyrrolidinone (NMP). Extensive absorption spectroscopic study and materials characterizations indicate that the addition of water to NMP was not only effective on the exfoliation yields but also the stability of the colloidal dispersions of exfoliated nanosheets in the water-NMP mixed solvent upto 18 months. Detailed micro Raman spectroscopic analysis suggests the defects of the exfoliated graphene nanosheets were reduced using the developed water-assisted LPE in NMP. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electrochemical supercapacitors (SCs) have received much attention since their high power density, short charge/discharge duration and long cycle life. Heteroatom–doped carbonaceous materials have been investigated due to their exceptional electrochemical properties. In this study, boron–doped multi–walled carbon nanotubes (B–MWCNT) were synthesized by a novel ammonia–assisted substitution reaction. Argon atmosphere with ammonia was utilized as etching gas to create defects on MWCNT surface and boron trioxide was applied as boron source. The specific capacitance is much larger for the SC with B–MWCNT (40.00 F/g) than that with MWCNT (8.35 F/g), owing to the better conductivity for the former case. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a novel near-duplicate video detection approach based on video query reformulation to expedite the video subsequence search process. The proposed video query reformulation method addresses two key issues: 1) how to efficiently skip unnecessary subsequence matches and 2) how to effectively increase the skip probability. First, we present an incremental update mechanism that rapidly estimates the similarity between two video subsequences to skip unnecessary matches. Second, we formulate an optimization problem of subsequence partition to increase the skip probability; a trust-region-based gradient descent algorithm is applied to solve the optimization problem. Extensive experiments cover various feature representations, subsequence granularities, and baseline methods; the results demonstrate that the proposed query reformulation method is robust and efficient to deal with a variety of near-duplicates in a large-scale video dataset. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Sintering of the AlN powder synthesized by a combustion synthesis method, which was developed recently by the present authors, was studied by using a microwave sintering technique. A single mode microwave cavity was used and an insulation package with a simple configuration was developed. A high sintering temperature (1900°C or higher) and a stable and uniform heating were readily achieved. A temperature measurement technique using a thermocouple with extrapolation was established to obtain the sintering temperature. A percent theoretical density of 99.5% and a thermal conductivity of 186W/mK were obtained for a specimen which was sintered at 1900°C with a soaking time of 30min and 3wt.% of Y2O3 added. The effects of sintering aid (i.e., Y2O3) and sintering temperature on densification, microstructure and thermal conductivity of the sintered specimens were investigated. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Wet-etching pattern sapphire substrates (PSS) have been used to grow GaN-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs). However, after wet etching, several sidewall facets are exposed on the patterns of PSS. These sidewall facets would grow zincblende GaN and form irregular voids. In this letter, BCl3-based plasma is used to solve this problem and improve the performance of GaN-based LEDs. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Periodic tent-like post patterns on a-plane sapphire substrates were fabricated using a two-step etching process. They were denoted as a-plane dot pattern sapphire substrate (ADPSS). Compared with the GaN-based light-emitting diode (LED) grown on a-plane sapphire without any pattern (AFlat), the ADPSS-LED has higher output power, light extraction efficiency (LEE), and external quantum efficiency (EQE), and better crystal quality. The output power of ADPSS-LED was 9.6 mW, which was 68.4% larger than the AFlat-LED. In addition, the blue shift of ADPSS-LED was found to be less than that of AFlat-LED. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Magnetic patterning, with designed spatial profile of the desired magnetic properties, has been a rising challenge for developing magnetic devices at nanoscale. Most existing methods rely on locally modifying magnetic anisotropy energy or saturation magnetization, and thus post stringent constraints on the adaptability in diverse applications. We propose an alternative route for magnetic patterning: by manipulating the local intergranular exchange coupling to tune lateral magnetic properties. As demonstration, the grain boundary structure of Co/Pt multilayers is engineered by thermal treatment, where the stress state of the multilayers and thus the intergranular exchange coupling can be modified. With Ag passivation layers on top of the Co/Pt multilayers, we can hinder the stress relaxation and grain boundary modification. Combining the pre-patterned Ag passivation layer with thermal treatment, we can design spatial variations of the magnetic properties by tuning the intergranular exchange coupling, which diversifies the magnetic patterning process and extends its feasibility for varieties of new devices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most printed Chinese words are compounds built from the combination of meaningful characters. Yet, there is a poor understanding of how individual characters contribute to the recognition of compounds. Using a megastudy of Chinese word recognition (Tse et al., 2017), we examined how the lexical decision of existing and novel Chinese compounds was influenced by two properties of individual characters: family size (the number of distinct words that embed a character) and family semantic consistency (the average semantic relatedness between a character and all words containing it). Results revealed that both variables influence word and nonword processing: Words are recognized more quickly and accurately when they contain characters that occur frequently across different words and that make consistent meaningful contributions to those words, while nonwords containing those types of characters are rejected more slowly. These findings suggest that the learning of individual characters is based not only on the quantity of experience with them but also on the reliability of the semantic information they communicate. In addition, readers are able to generalize character knowledge acquired from previous word experiences to their daily encounters with familiar and unfamiliar words. We close by discussing how word experience shapes character knowledge when different ways of calculating family properties are considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Aminoglycoside- and cisplatin-induced ototoxicity, which is a significant issue owing to the widespread use of these drugs in clinical practice, involves the entry of aminoglycosides and cisplatin into the endolymph and hair cells via specific channels or transporters, followed by reactive oxygen species (ROS) generation and hair cells apoptosis. Current strategies focalize primarily on interference with downstream ROS effects; however, recent evidence has demonstrated that inhibiting the uptake of aminoglycosides and cisplatin by hair cells is another promising strategy for tackling the upstream drug uptake pathway. With advances in structural biology, the conformations of certain aminoglycoside and cisplatin channels and transporters, such as the mechanoelectrical transduction channel and organic cation transporter-2, have been largely elucidated. These channels and transporters may become potential targets for the introduction of new otoprotective strategies. This review focuses on the strategies for inhibiting ototoxic drugs uptake by auditory hair cells and provides potential targets for recent developments in the field of otoprotection. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of these proteins could help identify the molecules that inhibit the uptake of aminoglycosides and cisplatin by hair cells. Integrating upstream drug uptake pathway targets and MD simulations may help dissect molecular mechanisms and develop novel otoprotective strategies for aminoglycoside- and cisplatin-induced ototoxicity., Competing Interests: Conflicts of interest: The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest related to the subject matter or materials discussed in this article., (Copyright © 2023, the Chinese Medical Association.)

A new type of dual Mach-Zehnder interferometer (DMZI) scheme is presented to eliminate the polarization induced fading usually encountered in fiber-optic intrusion detection systems that use DMZIs. With such a new optical scheme, two identical signal waveforms with only a time delay that corresponds to the location of intrusion can always be obtained without using a polarization control loop. In the study, we also present a new algorithm for locating the intrusion-induced disturbance on the fiber. The experiments carried out in our lab have demonstrated that locating errors of <26 m can be obtained with the presented system used for detecting an intrusion point on a 250 meter long fiber cable. Also, the proposed DMZI system has been tested for years without changing any optical components except the laser type and the length of the sensing fiber. Notably, the thresholds for determining the intrusion have never been altered since the laser type was changed in 2018. In addition, detections of the clockwise and counter-clockwise signals have maintained a condition of high interference visibility, and the locating capability has remained at the same level.

is missing (Short communication).

The fabrication and placement of high purity nanometals, such as one-dimensional copper (Cu) nanowires, for interconnection in integrated devices have been among the most important technological developments in recent years. Structural stability and oxidation prevention have been the key issues, and the defect control in Cu nanowire growth has been found to be important. Here, we report the synthesis of defect-free single-crystalline Cu nanowires by controlling the surface-assisted heterogeneous nucleation of Cu atomic layering on the graphite-like loop of an amorphous carbon (a-C) lacey film surface. Without a metal-catalyst or induced defects, the high quality Cu nanowires formed with high aspect ratio and high growth rate of 578 nm/s. The dynamic study of the growth of heterogeneous nanowires was conducted in situ with a high-resolution transmission electron microscope. The study illuminates the new mechanism by heterogeneous nucleation control and laying the groundwork for better understanding of heterosurface-assisted nucleation of defect-free Cu nanowire on a-C lacey film.