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Voice disorders are a serious and common complaint among teachers, yet there are no published studies on these conditions in the context of Al-Ahsa city in the eastern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. This study analyzed the vocal complaints of Saudi teachers, investigated their treatment-seeking behaviors, and assessed their knowledge of vocal care.A cross-sectional online survey was randomly distributed to 604 Saudi teachers from December 2021 to March 2022. The data included sociodemographic characteristics, academic statuses, vocal symptoms and their effects, and attitudes toward voice problems. Statistical analysis was done using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (v. 23). Categorical variables were expressed as frequencies and percentages. A chi-square test was conducted to verify the association between the categorical variables.Of the participants, 62.1% were female. 65.4% reported having voice-related problems, with the most frequently reported symptoms being hoarseness (68.35%), throat dryness (60.76%), and sore throat (56.46%). Out of the participants who reported voice problems, 32.15% stated being affected by absenteeism from school. Only a minority of teachers sought medical help (5.1%) or received information about the vocal care (29.5%). The factors that were found to be significantly associated with voice complaints include female gender, positive family history of vocal disorders, speaking in a loud voice, being non-smoker, and having the high number of classes per week (P0.05).Voice-related complaints were highly prevalent among Saudi teachers for multiple factors, most of which were manageable. This study strongly recommends the vocal educational programs to be implemented during student teacher training.

الملخص: أهداف البحث: للحصول على تصورات الأطباء عن خبراتهم ووعيهم حول الأحكام المؤسسية التي يمكن أن تعزز مشاركة المريض في المملكة العربية السعودية. طرق البحث: في إبريل٢٠١٧، تم عمل استطلاع عبر الإنترنت عن طريق توزيع استبانة عبر نموذج مستند جوجل للأطباء في المملكة العربية السعودية. يحتوي المستند أسئلة حول خبرة ووعي الأطباء للأحكام المؤسسية من الموارد والدعم. النتائج: استجاب للاستطلاع ٣٢٥ طبيبا. وأوضحت النتائج أن ١٨.٥٪ منهم يرون أن مؤسساتهم تسمح بجدولة المواعيد عن طريق الإنترنت، و٨.٩٪ تسمح بالتواصل بين المرضى والأطباء عبر البريد الإلكتروني، و٢٤٪ تسمح لوصول المرضى للسجلات الصحية ونتائج التحاليل عبر الإنترنت، و٥٥.٧٪ تسمح بتوفير البرامج التعليمية متعددة الوسائط، و٧٤.٨٪ تسمح بصنع القرار-المشترك بين الأطباء والمرضى. كما ذكر ٣٤.٥٪ فقط من المستجيبين أن مؤسساتهم تقوم بتوفير زيارات منزلية للمرضى ذوي الخطورة العالية. يرى ستة من ١٠ مستجيبين أن هذه الأحكام سيكون لها تأثير إيجابي ونتيجة لهم وأيضا لمرضاهم. الاستنتاجات: يعي الأطباء ويقيمون الأحكام التي تعزز مشاركة المريض. ولكن العديد من المؤسسات لا تدعم وتمارس هذه الأحكام التي تعزز مشاركة المريض. الأطباء الذكور ذوي الخبرة الأطول من الممارسة وأولئك الذين يشغلون مناصب إدارية عليا هم أكثر من يقدم الدعم، ويقدر أهمية تعزيز مشاركة المريض في ممارستهم. Abstract: Objectives: To survey physicians' perceptions of their experience and awareness of institutional provisions that can potentially foster patient engagement (PE) in KSA. Methods: In April 2017, an online survey was distributed to clinicians in KSA using Google Forms. The instrument contained questions about the physicians' awareness and experience of their institutions' provision of resources and support. Results: Three hundred and twenty-five clinicians responded to the survey The results showed that 18.5% claimed that their institutions allowed online scheduling of appointments; 8.9% reported the institutions permitted contact between patients and physicians through email; 24.0% reported they provided patients with online access to health records and test results; 55.7% claimed they provided educational multimedia programming; and 74.8% confirmed they encouraged joint decision-making between physicians and patients. Only 34.5% of respondents claimed their institutions provided home visits for high-risk patients. Six of 10 respondents thought that such provisions would have positive outcomes for them and for their patients. Conclusions: Clinicians are aware of and value provisions that foster PE. However, several institutions in KSA do not support or have provisions in place to foster PE. Male clinicians with longer durations of practice and those with higher administrative positions are more likely to value the importance of PE and support and use it in their practice. الكلمات المفتاحية: إشراك, المؤسسية, المريض, الأحكام, الدعم, Keywords: Foster, Institutional provision, Patient engagement

This paper presents an adaptive approach to address the two main problems associated with the time varying Doppler shift, the first being the acceleration effects on the cyclic-prefix (CP) correlation and the second, the effect of a sudden change in the velocity direction between packets on the entire orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) symbols. In addition, this paper considers the residual Doppler shift or carrier frequency offset (CFO) that was estimated iteratively within a range according to a design based on the sub-carrier spacing using pilots, which are basically utilized for the purpose of channel estimation. Furthermore, the proposed algorithm adopts three estimations of the symbol timing offset. These estimations are centroid-based localization over an anticipated CP window, first order expectation and autocorrelation of the received CP with its replica. Subsequently, a penalization algorithm is applied in order to drop the anomalous parameter among them. Therefore, the consequences of the inflection point that accompanies the abrupt change in the velocity are mitigated and a reliable time varying Doppler shift is obtained. This Doppler shift is fine tuned in an iterative manner. Compared with the block-based Doppler compensation approach, the proposed technique works with variable speed during packet duration. In addition, it exploits the available bandwidth more efficiently by utilizing a single preamble of linear-frequency-modulation (LFM) to detect the start of the packet. The proposed receiver was evaluated through simulations and sea trials conducted over 500m and 1000m channel ranges. In simulations, a model was designed to imitate the time varying Doppler shift with two scenarios (expansion/compression) in combination with a various multipath delay spread. The simulation results confirm that the proposed system accommodates an acceleration up to ? 1 m/s2 during the packet time.

There is considerable interest in the use of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) for distributed sound capture and acoustic source localisation (ASL) where array elements are spaced over a large area. High sampling rates, such as digital audio at 44.1 kHz, pose a major challenge for efficient wireless personal area network (WPAN) standards such as IEEE 802.15.4 (Zigbee) with an absolute maximum data throughput of 250 kbps. This paper investigates the effect of sampling frequency on the accuracy of time delay estimation using different algorithms in the time domain, such as basic cross correlation (BCC) and generalised cross correlation (GCC), frequency and content based features such as envelope, including generalised phase spectrum (GPS) and envelope-GPS (EGPS). Experimental and simulation studies have been undertaken which show that frequency domain and content based features algorithms can achieve more accurate time delay estimation at low sampling frequencies than time domain algorithms if the appropriate signal contents are extracted. Therefore they are more appropriate for wireless ASL applications.

Epitaxial anatase titanium dioxide (TiO2) films have been grown by atomic layer deposition (ALD) on Si(001) substrates using a strontium titanate (STO) buffer layer grown by molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) to serve as a surface template. The growth of TiO2 was achieved using titanium isopropoxide and water as the co-reactants at a substrate temperature of 225–250 °C. To preserve the quality of the MBE-grown STO, the samples were transferred in-situ from the MBE chamber to the ALD chamber. After ALD growth, the samples were annealed in-situ at 600 °C in vacuum (10− 7 Pa) for 1–2 h. Reflection high-energy electron diffraction was performed during the MBE growth of STO on Si(001), as well as after deposition of TiO2 by ALD. The ALD films were shown to be highly ordered with the substrate. At least four unit cells of STO must be present to create a stable template on the Si(001) substrate for epitaxial anatase TiO2 growth. X-ray diffraction revealed that the TiO2 films were anatase with only the (004) reflection present at 2θ = 38.2°, indicating that the c-axis is slightly reduced from that of anatase powder (2θ = 37.9°). Anatase TiO2 films up to 100 nm thick have been grown that remain highly ordered in the (001) direction on STO-buffered Si(001) substrates.

We have grown epitaxial ferromagnetic LaCoO"3 on (100)-oriented silicon. The films are grown by molecular beam epitaxy using a relaxed epitaxial SrTiO"3 buffer layer. X-ray diffraction measurements show a tetragonal LaCoO"3 film that is strained to the SrTiO"3 buffer layer. XPS measurements are consistent with reported spectra for single crystal, powder, and thin film LaCoO"3. Density functional calculations of strained LaCoO"3 confirms that the formation of the ferromagnetic state is accompanied by a partial opening of the Co-O-Co bond angle along the c-axis and a reduction in the local symmetry of the CoO"6 octahedra from tetragonal to orthorhombic.

This paper considers the optimisation of a nonlinear functional for image segmentation and noise reduction. Equations optimising this functional are derived and employed to detect edges using geometrical intrinsic properties such as metric and Riemann curvature tensor of a smooth differentiable surface approximating the original image. Images are then smoothed using a Helmholtz type partial differential equation. The proposed approach is shown to be very efficient and robust in the presence of noise, and the reported results demonstrate better performance than the conventional derivative based edge detectors.

A nonlinear functional is considered in this short communication for time interval segmentation and noise reduction of signals. An efficient algorithm that exploits the signal geometrical properties is proposed to optimise the nonlinear functional for signal smoothing. Discontinuities separating consecutive time intervals of the original signal are initially detected by measuring the curvature and arc length of the smoothed signal. The nonlinear functional is then optimised for each time interval to achieve noise reduction of the original noisy signal. This algorithm exhibits robustness for signals characterised by very low signal to noise ratios.

Scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) was used to characterize the surface reconstructions on epitaxial WO 3 (1 0 0) thin films on LaAlO 3 (1 0 0) in a reducing environment. As the films were annealed between 600 and 770 K, a myriad of surface structures related to terminal oxygen were observed. Upon initial reduction the surface was covered with small c(2 × 2), p(2 × 2), c(4 × 2), and poorly ordered terminal oxygen terraces all coexisting with (1 × 1) islands. Further reduction caused large flat terraces of poorly ordered terminal oxygen to coexist with strand terminated p( n × 2) terraces with n = 3–5. Continued reduction led to a zigzag arrangement on top of the p( n × 2) surface, half-height p(2 × 2) and c(4 × 2) islands, and a local (15 × 2) structure. The latter three structures could only be explained by crystallographic shearing of the surface plane. In contrast to higher annealing temperatures, the exclusively p( n × 2) terminated surface characterized by alternating strands and troughs was not observed, suggesting that at lower temperatures crystallographic shear competes with the bulk migration responsible for trough formation as the dominant surface reduction mechanism.

The surface structure and morphology of WO 3 (1 0 0) thin films were studied using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low-energy electron diffraction. The films experienced a net-reducing environment when annealed in oxygen at 800 K leading to surface phase transitions from p (2×2) to p (4×2), and from p (4×2) to a mix p (4×2) and p (3×2). Increasing the annealing temperature to 830 K in ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) led to a fully p (3×2) reconstructed surface. Continued UHV annealing above 800 K caused (1×1) islands to appear on the p (3×2) surface and the film color to darken. Eventually, prolonged UHV annealing led to a (1×1)-terminated surface with straight steps oriented in [0 0 1] or [0 1 0] directions due to crystallographic shear planes. The randomly spaced steps on the (1×1) surface indicated variations in the local stoichiometry in the film. An added row model proposed for the p (4×2) structure is also shown to be consistent with the p (3×2) structure. The formation of the p (4×2) structure from the p (2×2) structure was attributed to W 5+ migration into the bulk to form the troughs between the added rows. Reduction of the p (4×2) structure caused the troughs to narrow rather than deepen, suggesting that W 5+ or added row surface diffusion competes with migration of reduced W ions into the bulk when the p (3×2) structure forms. The STM images also show evidence that the (1×1) structure forms through coalescence of the added rows.

Surface reconstructions induced by reducing epitaxial WO 3 (1 0 0) thin films grown on LaAlO 3 (1 0 0) were studied using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and low energy electron diffraction (LEED). When the WO 3 (1 0 0) surface was annealed in either O 2 or NO 2 at 620 K, the surface was predominantly covered by a p(2 × 2) reconstruction with a low density of elongated (1 × 1) islands. Raising the annealing temperature to 800 K reduced the film and the surface was dominated by p(4 × 2) and p(2 × 4) reconstructions, although a few small patches of the p(2 × 2) surface could still be detected. Annealing the p(4 × 2) surface in ultra-high-vacuum (UHV) at 800 K resulted in a (1 × 1) LEED pattern. The STM images of the p(4 × 2) surface were dominated by 0.1 nm deep troughs separating bright rows. The appearance of the rows was sensitive to the imaging bias with a 2× periodicity along the rows seen at high biases and a 1× periodicity at low biases. These results could be explained by a structural model based on incomplete (1 × 1) terraces that form as reduced W 5+ ions migrate from the surface into the bulk.

Multiuser detection research has been pursued under the Gaussian noise hypothesis. However, in many realistic channels where impulsive noise sources are ubiquitous, the Gaussian statistical model is hardly justifiable. There is, therefore, a strong motivation for the development of robust non-Gaussian signal processing techniques to safeguard against the influence of outliers from degrading detector performance in impulsive channels. This paper investigates a simple approach to robustify the decorrelating decision-feedback (DDF) multiuser detector. The proposed detector involves a chip-based nonlinear front-end for impulsive noise filtering followed by the classical DDF detection. The nonlinear front-end exploits knowledge of the users’ signal amplitudes to constrain the useful signals to fall within the linear region of the nonlinear clipping function. The performance of the proposed robust DDF detector is investigated through extensive computer simulations, and it is shown that substantial improvement in performance can be achieved by incorporating the nonlinear front-end when the channel noise follows heavy-tailed non-Gaussian distributions.

Crystalline LaAlO"3 was grown by oxide molecular beam epitaxy (MBE) on Si (001) surfaces utilizing a 2ML SrTiO"3 buffer layer. This SrTiO"3 buffer layer, also grown by oxide MBE, formed an abrupt interface with the silicon. No SiO"2 layer was detectable at the oxide-silicon interface when studied by cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy. The crystalline quality of the LaAlO"3 was assessed during and after growth by reflection high energy electron diffraction, indicating epitaxial growth with the LaAlO"3 unit cell rotated 45^o relative to the silicon unit cell. X-ray diffraction indicates a (001) oriented single-crystalline LaAlO"3 film with a rocking curve of 0.15^o and no secondary phases. The use of SrTiO"3 buffer layers on silicon allows perovskite oxides which otherwise would be incompatible with silicon to be integrated onto a silicon platform.