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The detection of precise hearing thresholds in infants and children with auditory neuropathy (AN) is challenging with current objective methods, especially in those younger than six months of age.The aim of this study was to compare the thresholds using auditory steady-state response (ASSR) and cochlear microphonics (CM) in children with AN and children with normal hearing.The thresholds of CM, ASSR, and visual reinforcement audiometry (VRA) tests were recorded; the ASSR and VRA frequencies used were 250, 500, 1000, 2000, and 4000 Hz.The participants in this study were 15 children with AN (27 ears) (1–7.6 years, median age 4.1 years) and ten children with normal hearing (20 ears) (1–8 years, median age four years).The thresholds of the three methods were compared, and histograms were used to represent frequency distributions of threshold differences obtained from the three methods.In children with normal hearing, the average CM thresholds (84.5 dB) were significantly higher than the VRA thresholds (10.0–10.8 dB); in children with AN, both CM and VRA responses were seen at high signal levels (88.9 dB and 70.6–103.4 dB, respectively). In normal children, the difference between mean VRA and ASSR thresholds ranged from 17.5 to 30.3 dB, which was significantly smaller than the difference seen between the mean CM and VRA thresholds (71.5–72.3 dB). The correlation between VRA and ASSR in children with normal hearing ranged from 0.38 to 0.48, whereas no such correlation was seen in children with AN at any frequency (0.03–0.19).Our results indicated that ASSR and CM were poor predictors of the conventional behavioral threshold in children with AN.

Background: Infiltration of macrophages into the central nervous system (CNS) is involved in many neurological disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and autism. Despite extensive studies into neuroinflammation associated macrophage infiltration into the CNS, its underlying mechanisms and pathological roles remain unclear, especially when triggered by peripheral inflammation. Methods: To further elucidate the role and mechanism of peripheral inflammation in neurological disorders, we exploited interleukin 1 beta (il1b) mutant transgenic zebrafish (Danio rerio) with fluorescent protein expression restricted to macrophages to track the macrophage migration under peripheral inflammation following tail amputation.Results: We found that macrophage infiltration into the brain of zebrafish embryo following peripheral tissue injury can be alleviated via genetically targeting il1b. In addition, through circulation-independent migration, macrophages infiltrate brains with evidence of increased apoptosis. We further identified the expression of camk2g1 in the brains of zebrafish with hyperactive behavior following peripheral tissue injury. This il1b-regulated protein is associated with neuropsychiatry disorders. Conclusion: These findings demonstrated that peripheral tissue injury induces il1b-mediated macrophage infiltration into the brain and a hyperactive behavior.

In this paper, we investigate the importance of social network information compared to content information in the prediction of a Twitter user’s occupational class. We show that the content information of a user’s tweets, the profile descriptions of a user’s follower/following community, and the user’s social network provide useful information for classifying a user’s occupational group. In our study, we extend an existing data set for this problem, and we achieve significantly better performance by using social network homophily that has not been fully exploited in previous work. In our analysis, we found that by using the graph convolutional network to exploit social homophily, we can achieve competitive performance on this data set with just a small fraction of the training data.

This study sought to investigate whether OCT-guided PPCI compared with CA guidance was associated with better outcomes in patients with STEMI. A total of 1446 consecutive STEMI patients receiving PPCI were included in this study. Using 1:1 propensity matching, 236 patients were identified in OCT

The recording density of multilevel photochromic memory is limited by the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the readout signal. In this paper, shot noise and material noise are investigated through theoretical analysis of SNR. When the bandwidth of a system is less than 1MHz, the material noise takes a prominent position; when the bandwidth of the system is more than 10MHz, the shot noise becomes dominant. The thickness of recording layer can be optimized to maximize the SNR and reduce the influence of the bandwidth of the system on SNR.

Flexible dispersion of photonic crystal fiber (PCF) has been demonstrated with the help of Hermite–Gaussian functions. Parametric fluorescence (PF) based on four wave mixing (FWM) in PCF with zero-dispersion wavelength at 0.85, 1.33 and 1.55 μm have been simulated, respectively. Simulations show that PCF can be used to generate efficient photon-pairs on desired wavelength.

It is shown in this paper through simulation that the confinement loss of a down-doped solid-core photonic bandgap (PBG) fiber can be reduced to the level of 0.01 dB/km by only 84 air holes, with an air hole diameter to pitch ratio d / Λ =0.8 and air-filling fraction=35%. The practicality of solid-core PBG fibers is thus enhanced.

The current design process of the two automotive air conditioning devices (condenser and evaporator) mainly use a large number of experiments which are very time-consuming. In view of this flaw, this paper presents a structurized procedure to develop the simulation platform of the two devices. Firstly, the physical and mathematical models of the two devices were established. The heat transfer situation was simulated to exclude unreasonable model. Secondly, the finite element analysis of the two devices was carried on using FLUENT. The simulated model was constantly modified by comparing the results with that of the mathematical model. In this study, FLUENT numerical analysis about the heat transfer and flow characteristics was taken on the model under four conditions. The conclusion obtained from that had great significance for the design. Finally, simulation system of the two devices was developed by the tool of MATLAB programming language and GUI design module. This simulation system can replace actual experiments by the way of analog computation. It can not only simulate performance of the system on different initial conditions to provide a decision-making basis for the optimal design of condenser and evaporator, but also shorten design cycles.

In this paper, a new method that can diagnose the cell frequencies in a cavity without a perturbing probe is presented. The cell frequencies and couplings between cells are estimated in terms of the measured pass-band performance. This method will simplify the tuning processes and make the tuning of a sealed cavity possible. It has been well checked with some numerical examples.

A novel all-solid Bragg fiber composed entirely of silica material is proposed in this paper. The core of this Bragg fiber is composed of conventional silica, and the cladding is formed by a set of alternating layers of up-doped and down-doped silica. This all-solid silica Bragg fiber is technically feasible and can simplify the fabrication technique. Dispersion properties of this silica Bragg fiber are investigated, and simulations show that zero dispersion wavelength lambda0 near 1.55 m with nonlinear coefficient gamma about 50 W-1km-1 can be obtained in silica Bragg fiber.