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This special issue contains selected papers from the March 2016 Conference on Motor Speech held in Newport Beach, CA. Deviations in speech sound production can impact intelligibility and pose a [...], Purpose: Recent research suggests that visual-acoustic biofeedback can be an effective treatment for residual speech errors, but adoption remains limited due to barriers including high cost and lack of familiarity with the technology. This case study reports results from the first participant to complete a course of visual-acoustic biofeedback using a not-for-profit iOS app, Speech Therapist's App for /r/ Treatment. Method: App-based biofeedback treatment for rhotic misarticulation was provided in weekly 30-min sessions for 20 weeks. Within-treatment progress was documented using clinician perceptual ratings and acoustic measures. Generalization gains were assessed using acoustic measures of word probes elicited during baseline, treatment, and maintenance sessions. Results: Both clinician ratings and acoustic measures indicated that the participant significantly improved her rhotic production accuracy in trials elicited during treatment sessions. However, these gains did not transfer to generalization probes. Conclusions: This study provides a proof-of-concept demonstration that app-based biofeedback is a viable alternative to costlier dedicated systems. Generalization of gains to contexts without biofeedback remains a challenge that requires further study. App-delivered biofeedback could enable clinician-research partnerships that would strengthen the evidence base while providing enhanced treatment for children with residual rhotic errors. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. 5116318

The idealized system of an atomically flat metallic surface [highly oriented pyrolytic graphite (HOPG)] and an organic monolayer (porphyrin) was used to determine whether the dielectric function and associated properties of thin films can be accessed with scanning–near-field scanning optical microscopy (s-NSOM). Here, we demonstrate the use of harmonics up to fourth order and the polarization dependence of incident light to probe dielectric properties on idealized samples of monolayers of organic molecules on atomically smooth substrates. An analytical treatment of light/sample interaction using the s-NSOM tip was developed in order to quantify the dielectric properties. The theoretical analysis and numerical modeling, as well as experimental data, demonstrate that higher order harmonic scattering can be used to extract the dielectric properties of materials with tens of nanometer spatial resolution. To date, the third harmonic provides the best lateral resolution(∼50 nm) and dielectric constant contrast for a porphyrin film on HOPG. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The reaction mechanism of reductive cyclization of o-nitrophenylazo dyes in a bakers' yeast/NaOH system involves a N-oxide intermediate to generate triazole. The simple aromatic nitro compounds reduce to the corresponding amines too quickly for a nitroso intermediate to be detected. The dyes are reduced to 2-(2'-hydroxyphenyl)-2H-benzotriazoles where are used to absorb ultraviolet rays to protect plastics. The results indicated the reduction of simple aromatic nitro compounds is very fast corresponding to amine.

Experimental and theoretical studies were conducted to probe single-molecule conductances in phenylene-ethynylene molecules terminated with thiol and carbodithioate linkers. The results offer insight into the significant role for carbodithioate-based connectivity in molecular-scale electronics applications involving metallic and semiconducting electrodes.