Behavioral and Neural Assessments of Auditory Skill Development After Hearing Instrument Fitting in Children: Case Reports and Clinical Implications.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to comprehensively monitor the auditory skill development of children with hearing loss after hearing instrument fitting, and a battery of four assessments was proposed.

Method: This battery was designed to fill the gap in speech discrimination in clinically available evaluations. The battery includes both behavioral and neural assessments.

Development of the Mandarin Phoneme Detection Score Sheet as a Screening Tool.

Background And Objectives: Hearing thresholds across frequencies must be obtained for hearing aid fitting. Narrow-band noise (NBN) and speech sounds are often used as stimuli in pediatric audiologic assessments to elicit children's attention due to their wider frequency ranges as compared to pure tones. However, obtaining complete responses across frequency ranges is challenging in pediatric practice.

Spontaneous perirenal urinoma induced by NSAID-associated acute interstitial nephritis.

Urinoma, defined as the urine leakage beyond the urinary tract, is commonly induced by blunt trauma or urinary tract obstruction by stone, intra-abdominal malignancy, or retroperitoneal fibrosis. Spontaneous urinoma is rare and parenchymal pathologic change is rarely mentioned when urinoma is found. We present a case of a 28-year-old woman with bilateral flank pain induced by spontaneous urinoma.

Detection Rates of Cortical Auditory Evoked Potentials at Different Sensation Levels in Infants with Sensory/Neural Hearing Loss and Auditory Neuropathy Spectrum Disorder.

With the introduction of newborn hearing screening, infants are being diagnosed with hearing loss during the first few months of life. For infants with a sensory/neural hearing loss (SNHL), the audiogram can be estimated objectively using auditory brainstem response (ABR) testing and hearing aids prescribed accordingly. However, for infants with auditory neuropathy spectrum disorder (ANSD) due to the abnormal/absent ABR waveforms, alternative measures of auditory function are needed to assess the need for amplification and evaluate whether aided benefit has been achieved.

The Performance Analysis of the Map-Aided Fuzzy Decision Tree Based on the Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Algorithm in an Indoor Environment.

Hardware sensors embedded in a smartphone allow the device to become an excellent mobile navigator. A smartphone is ideal for this task because its great international popularity has led to increased phone power and since most of the necessary infrastructure is already in place. However, using a smartphone for indoor pedestrian navigation can be problematic due to the low accuracy of sensors, imprecise predictability of pedestrian motion, and inaccessibility of the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) in some indoor environments.

The relationship between cortical auditory evoked potential (CAEP) detection and estimated audibility in infants with sensorineural hearing loss.

Objective: To determine the effectiveness of objective statistical detection in CAEP testing to evaluate audibility in young infants with sensorineural hearing loss.

Design: CAEP recordings to speech-based stimuli were made at three presentation levels (55, 65, or 75 dB SPL) when a group of hearing-impaired infants were either aided or unaided. Later-obtained behavioral audiograms were used as the gold standard against which to evaluate the accuracy of the automatic detection of the presence/absence of CAEP responses.

Intelligent sensor positioning and orientation through constructive neural network-embedded INS/GPS integration algorithms.

Mobile mapping systems have been widely applied for acquiring spatial information in applications such as spatial information systems and 3D city models. Nowadays the most common technologies used for positioning and orientation of a mobile mapping system include a Global Positioning System (GPS) as the major positioning sensor and an Inertial Navigation System (INS) as the major orientation sensor. In the classical approach, the limitations of the Kalman Filter (KF) method and the overall price of multi-sensor systems have limited the popularization of most land-based mobile mapping applications.

An Artificial Neural Network Embedded Position and Orientation Determination Algorithm for Low Cost MEMS INS/GPS Integrated Sensors.

Digital mobile mapping, which integrates digital imaging with direct geo-referencing, has developed rapidly over the past fifteen years. Direct geo-referencing is the determination of the time-variable position and orientation parameters for a mobile digital imager. The most common technologies used for this purpose today are satellite positioning using Global Positioning System (GPS) and Inertial Navigation System (INS) using an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU).

Long-term anterior thalamus stimulation for intractable epilepsy.

Background: Deep brain stimulation (DBS) has re-emerged as an alternative therapy for intractable epilepsy. In this study, we investigated the feasibility, efficacy and safety of long-term anterior thalamic nucleus (ATN) stimulation for intractable epilepsy.

Methods: In this open-label pilot study of electrical stimulation of the ATN, we investigated four cases of intractable epilepsy (one man with generalized seizure, and three woman with partial seizure and secondary generalization; age range, 18-45 years), with a follow up of 2 years.

Electrical stimulation of the anterior nucleus of the thalamus for intractable epilepsy: a long-term follow-up study.

Purpose: The anterior nucleus of the thalamus (ANT) modulates temporal lobe and hypothalamic activities, and relays information to the cingulate gyrus and entorhinal cortex. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the ANT has been reported to decrease seizure activity in a limited number of human subjects. However, long-term effect of chronic ANT stimulation on such patients remains unknown.