Adapting Audiology Procedures During the Pandemic: Validity and Efficacy of Testing Outside a Sound Booth

Purpose: This investigation aims to provide outcomes from a clinical perspective on the validity and efficacy of a wireless automated audiometer system that could be used in multiple settings when a sound booth is not accessible. Testing was conducted in a clinical setting under modified protocols meeting safety precautions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: Four doctoral students in audiology served as examiners. Participants were 69 adults between the ages of 20 and 69 years, with normal hearing (≤ 25 dB HL; n = 110 ears) or hearing loss (> 25 dB HL; n = 25 ears). Two versions of a pure-tone air-conduction threshold test following a modified Hughson-Westlake approach were performed and compared at 500, 1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 6000, and 8000 Hz (a) in a sound-treated test booth using standard manual audiometry and (b) in a quiet, nonsound-treated clinical room (sound booth free) using automated KUDUwave audiometry. Participants were asked to complete a five-item feedback questionnaire, and examiners were interviewed to report on their experience. Results: Clinical validity to within ±10 dB of standard audiometry was demonstrated for 94.5% of the total thresholds ( n = 937) measured with the sound booth–free approach. Less accuracy (73.3%) was observed using a ±5 dB comparison. When comparing the mean thresholds, there were significant differences ( p < .01) between the mean thresholds at most frequencies, with mean sound booth thresholds being higher than the sound booth–free mean thresholds. A strong threshold correlation (.91–.98) was found between the methods across frequencies. Participant and examiner feedback supported the efficacy of the sound booth–free technology. Conclusions: Findings support sound booth–free, automated software-controlled audiometry with active noise monitoring as a valid and efficient procedure for pure-tone hearing threshold assessment. This method offers an effective alternative when circumstances require more transportable hearing assessment technology or do not allow for standard manual audiometry in a sound booth.

An efficient procedure for mining egocentric temporal motifs

Temporal graphs are structures which model relational data between entities that change over time. Due to the complex structure of data, mining statistically significant temporal subgraphs, also known as temporal motifs, is a challenging task. In this work, we present an efficient technique for extracting temporal motifs in temporal networks. Our method is based on the novel notion of egocentric temporal neighborhoods, namely multi-layer structures centered on an ego node. Each temporal layer of the structure consists of the first-order neighborhood of the ego node, and corresponding nodes in sequential layers are connected by an edge. The strength of this approach lies in the possibility of encoding these structures into a unique bit vector, thus bypassing the problem of graph isomorphism in searching for temporal motifs. This allows our algorithm to mine substantially larger motifs with respect to alternative approaches. Furthermore, by bringing the focus on the temporal dynamics of the interactions of a specific node, our model allows to mine temporal motifs which are visibly interpretable. Experiments on a number of complex networks of social interactions confirm the advantage of the proposed approach over alternative non-egocentric solutions. The egocentric procedure is indeed more efficient in revealing similarities and discrepancies among different social environments, independently of the different technologies used to collect data, which instead affect standard non-egocentric measures.

Safety and Efficacy of Vacuum Bottle Plus Catheter for Drainage of Iatrogenic Pneumothorax

Iatrogenic pneumothorax is common after thoracic procedures. For pneumothorax larger than 15%, simple aspiration is suggested. This clinical trial (NCT03724721) assessed the safety and efficacy of vacuum bottle plus non-tunneled catheter air drainage, which has long been performed in many institutions. From August 2018 to February 2020, patients older than 20 years of age who developed iatrogenic pneumothorax were prospectively enrolled. Totally 21 patients underwent vacuum bottle plus catheter drainage. The median size of pneumothorax was 19.6%, as measured by Rhea’s method. Of the 21 patients, 15 had successful air drainage, and the remaining 6 patients required subsequent pigtail placement. The end-expiratory intrapleural pressure of all patients remained less than -20 cmH2O during drainage. The median duration of hospitalization was 2 (interquartile range [IQR], 1-4) days. No procedure-related complication was observed. A retrospective analysis of patients who received conservative treatment showed that the median duration of hospitalization was longer in patients with larger pneumothorax (1 day vs. 5 days [IQR, 1-1 day vs. 3-7 days]). This study showed that vacuum bottle plus catheter drainage of iatrogenic pneumothorax is a safe and efficient procedure. It is recommended as initial management of stable iatrogenic pneumothorax with size larger than 15%.

Evaluation of Sample Preparation Strategies for Human Milk and Plasma Proteomics

Sample preparation is the most critical step in proteomics as it directly affects the subset of proteins and peptides that can be reliably identified and quantified. Although a variety of efficient and reproducible sample preparation strategies have been developed, their applicability and efficacy depends much on the biological sample. Here, three approaches were evaluated for the human milk and plasma proteomes. Protein extracts were digested either in an ultrafiltration unit (filter-aided sample preparation, FASP) or in-solution (ISD). ISD samples were desalted by solid-phase extraction prior to nRPC-ESI-MS/MS. Additionally, milk and plasma samples were directly digested by FASP without prior protein precipitation. Each strategy provided inherent advantages and disadvantages for milk and plasma. FASP appeared to be the most time efficient procedure with a low miscleavage rate when used for a biological sample aliquot, but quantitation was less reproducible. A prior protein precipitation step improved the quantitation by FASP due to significantly higher peak areas for plasma and a much better reproducibility for milk. Moreover, the miscleavage rate for milk, the identification rate for plasma, and the carbamidomethylation efficiency were improved. In contrast, ISD of both milk and plasma resulted in higher miscleavage rates and is therefore less suitable for targeted proteomics.

Efficient approach for optical and morphologic characterization of hybrid perovskite films based on reflectance and transmittance measurements

Organo-inorganic perovskites have been intensively studied due to its potential application in low cost and great efficient energy conversion in solar cells. Despite the great improvement in the quality of organo-inorganic perovskite films, a wide dispersion into the same batch of perovskite-based devices keep being an obstacle to obtaining highly reproducible results. For that reason new and efficient strategies for testing deposition results is imperative for the next step. Here we present a simple and efficient procedure for characterizing the optical and morphological properties based on the simultaneous reflectance and transmittance measurements under normal incidence over a MAPbI3 film. The proposed method provides qualitative and quantitative morphological information associated with the film roughness as well as information about the position of the optical gap and possible contributions to the optical dispersion in the structure that can be used as a simple diagnostic tool to optimize the film deposition. Results are contrasted and validated with electronic and atomic force microscopy, as well as first-principles calculations.

SYNTHESIS OF A NOVEL SERIES OF SCHIFF’S BASES FROM PABA AND PHENYL HYDRAZINE AND EVALUATION OF THEIR ANTIOXIDANT ACTIVITY

Over the past decade, the synthesis of Schiff’s bases has become one of the main areas of interest in synthetic chemistry. These compounds have gained much attention, owing to their potential role as anti-inflammatory, anthelmintic, analgesic, antibacterial and antifungal agents. Thus, in view of the significance and diverse therapeutic activities of Schiff’s bases we have aimed at a simple and efficient procedure for their synthesis by the reaction of various aldehydes with PABA and phenyl hydrazine and also evaluation of their antibacterial activities. We have been successful in synthesizing various Schiff’s bases and also these compounds have been proved to have effective anti-oxidant activity. KEYWORDS: Schiff’s bases, PABA, Phenyl hydrazine, Aldehydes, Dioxan, Hydrogen peroxide, scavenging activity

A study on laparoscopic appendectomy at emergency theatre in B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences

Background: Laparoscopic appendectomy is gaining its popularity as it has better patient compliance. Despite of not being “gold standard”, laparoscopic appendectomy is widely practiced in emergency setting and has become patient’s as well as surgeon’s choice of treatment. Our aim is to acknowledge the advantage and importance of laparoscopic appendectomy at emergency in a retrospective study. Our main objective was to study the efficacy of laparoscopic appendectomy, patients’ demographic profile as well as conversion rate of laparoscopic appendectomy to open appendectomy.Methods: This hospital based retrospective study was carried among 54 patients who had undergone emergency laparoscopic appendectomy at B. P. Koirala Institute of Health Sciences (BPKIHS) between March and April, 2016. The patient’s file was collected from medical record section, studied and analyzed.Results: During the study, it was observed that most of the patients were female (62.97%) and the patients were mostly between 20 to 40 years of age (Mean age 27 years±10.88 SD). Most of the patients presented within 24 hours of onset of symptoms, most commonly with pain in lower abdomen associated mostly with vomiting. Out of 54 patients, 48 patients (88.89%) were diagnosed with acute appendicitis. Frankly speaking, laparoscopic appendectomy was associated with shorter hospital stay (around 3 days) and also has less conversion rate (11.11%). There were minimal post-operative complications without any case of redo and mortality.Conclusions: Laparoscopic appendectomy is safe and efficient procedure with shorter hospital stay and less post-operative complication.

Deep Composition of Tensor-Trains Using Squared Inverse Rosenblatt Transports

Characterising intractable high-dimensional random variables is one of the fundamental challenges in stochastic computation. The recent surge of transport maps offers a mathematical foundation and new insights for tackling this challenge by coupling intractable random variables with tractable reference random variables. This paper generalises the functional tensor-train approximation of the inverse Rosenblatt transport recently developed by Dolgov et al. (Stat Comput 30:603–625, 2020) to a wide class of high-dimensional non-negative functions, such as unnormalised probability density functions. First, we extend the inverse Rosenblatt transform to enable the transport to general reference measures other than the uniform measure. We develop an efficient procedure to compute this transport from a squared tensor-train decomposition which preserves the monotonicity. More crucially, we integrate the proposed order-preserving functional tensor-train transport into a nested variable transformation framework inspired by the layered structure of deep neural networks. The resulting deep inverse Rosenblatt transport significantly expands the capability of tensor approximations and transport maps to random variables with complicated nonlinear interactions and concentrated density functions. We demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed approach on a range of applications in statistical learning and uncertainty quantification, including parameter estimation for dynamical systems and inverse problems constrained by partial differential equations.

Vaccine injury compensation: the Israeli case

Background Following other countries, Israel passed the Vaccine Injury Compensation Law in 1989, which provides for compensation to vaccine recipients who had suffered injuries without proving negligence. In 2021, after deliberations between the ministries of health and of finance Covid-19 vaccines (administered from the beginning of the campaign on December 20, 2020 and up to December 21, 2022) were included within the compensation law. The current study aims to examine the objectives of Israel’s Vaccine Injury Compensation Law, at the time of its enactment, and to explore barriers to their fulfillment. These issues are especially relevant in light of the discussions held on the option for liability exemption which excludes the possibility of redress from the Covid-19 vaccine manufacturers in case of injury attributed to the vaccine, and considering the heavy burden of proof required in standard tort law. Methods The study employed a qualitative methodology which made use of both content analysis of relevant documents and in-depth interviews. Results In passing the Vaccine Injury Compensation Law, legislators sought to assist vaccine recipients who had suffered injuries by both lowering their burden of proof as well as establishing a short and efficient procedure for deliberating their claims. Furthermore, legislators believed that the assurance of compensation to vaccine recipients who had suffered injuries would help to encourage a high rate of vaccination compliance. An examination of the law’s implementation over time revealed that the aforementioned goals were not attained. Conclusions Implementation of the law since its enactment missed the opportunity to fulfill its original purposes to promote public health fundamental principles of fairness and solidarity. In addition, the adversarial proceedings as well as some of the law’s provisions have the potential to undermine public trust in the State’s willingness to grant compensation for injuries that are attributed to vaccines and thereby subvert the law’s pivotal objective of promoting trust and vaccine compliance. We suggest that allowing circumstantial evidence as to an association between vaccine and an injury, transitioning to administrative deliberation, making available to the public details of cases where compensation was awarded, as well as other possible emendations would help it better reflect the values of fairness and solidarity that underlying the law's purpose. These would also promote the level of trust in healthcare authorities which is essential to preserving high vaccine coverage.