Hearing Characteristics of Stroke Patients: Prevalence and Characteristics of Hearing Impairment and Auditory Processing Disorders in Stroke Patients

BACKGROUND: Stroke survivors may suffer from a range of hearing impairments that may restrict their participation in postacute rehabilitation programs. Hearing impairment may have a significant impact on listening, linguistic skills, and overall communication of the affected stroke patient. However, no studies sought to systematically characterize auditory function of stroke patients in detail, to establish the different types of hearing impairments in this cohort of patients. Such information would be clinically useful in understanding and addressing the hearing needs of stroke survivors. PURPOSE: The present study aimed to characterize and classify the hearing impairments, using a detailed audiological assessment test battery, in order to determine the level of clinical need and inform appropriate rehabilitation for this patient population. RESEARCH DESIGN: A case‐control study. STUDY SAMPLE: Forty-two recruited stroke patients who were discharged from a stroke unit and 40 control participants matched for age. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS: All participants underwent pure-tone audiometry and immittance measurements including acoustic reflex threshold, transient-evoked otoacoustic emissions, auditory-evoked brainstem response, and a central auditory processing assessment battery, performed in a single session. Hearing impairments were classified as peripheral hearing loss (cochlear and neural type), central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), and as a combination of CAPD and peripheral hearing loss. RESULTS: Overall mean hearing thresholds were not significantly different between the control and stroke groups. The most common type of hearing impairment in stroke patients was the combination type, “peripheral and CAPD,” in the 61- to 80-yr-old subgroup (in 55%), and auditory processing deficits in 18- to 60-yr-olds (in 40%), which were both significantly higher than in controls. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first study to examine hearing function in detail in stroke patients. Given the importance of hearing for the efficiency of communication, it is essential to identify hearing impairments and differentiate peripheral and central deficits to define an appropriate intervention plan

Dense Motion Estimation for Smoke

Motion estimation for highly dynamic phenomena such as smoke is an open challenge for Computer Vision. Traditional dense motion estimation algorithms have difficulties with non-rigid and large motions, both of which are frequently observed in smoke motion. We propose an algorithm for dense motion estimation of smoke. Our algorithm is robust, fast, and has better performance over different types of smoke compared to other dense motion estimation algorithms, including state of the art and neural network approaches. The key to our contribution is to use skeletal flow, without explicit point matching, to provide a sparse flow. This sparse flow is upgraded to a dense flow. In this paper we describe our algorithm in greater detail, and provide experimental evidence to support our claims.Comment: ACCV201

Benefitting from the Grey Literature in Software Engineering Research

Researchers generally place the most trust in peer-reviewed, published information, such as journals and conference papers. By contrast, software engineering (SE) practitioners typically do not have the time, access or expertise to review and benefit from such publications. As a result, practitioners are more likely to turn to other sources of information that they trust, e.g., trade magazines, online blog-posts, survey results or technical reports, collectively referred to as Grey Literature (GL). Furthermore, practitioners also share their ideas and experiences as GL, which can serve as a valuable data source for research. While GL itself is not a new topic in SE, using, benefitting and synthesizing knowledge from the GL in SE is a contemporary topic in empirical SE research and we are seeing that researchers are increasingly benefitting from the knowledge available within GL. The goal of this chapter is to provide an overview to GL in SE, together with insights on how SE researchers can effectively use and benefit from the knowledge and evidence available in the vast amount of GL

Antimalarial Exposure Delays Plasmodium falciparum Intra-Erythrocytic Cycle and Drives Drug Transporter Genes Expression

BACKGROUND: Multi-drug resistant Plasmodium falciparum is a major obstacle to malaria control and is emerging as a complex phenomenon. Mechanisms of drug evasion based on the intracellular extrusion of the drug and/or modification of target proteins have been described. However, cellular mechanisms related with metabolic activity have also been seen in eukaryotic systems, e.g. cancer cells. Recent observations suggest that such mechanism may occur in P. falciparum. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: We therefore investigated the effect of mefloquine exposure on the cell cycle of three P. falciparum clones (3D7, FCB, W2) with different drug susceptibilities, while investigating in parallel the expression of four genes coding for confirmed and putative drug transporters (pfcrt, pfmdr1, pfmrp1 and pfmrp2). Mefloquine induced a previously not described dose and clone dependent delay in the intra-erythrocytic cycle of the parasite. Drug impact on cell cycle progression and gene expression was then merged using a non-linear regression model to determine specific drug driven expression. This revealed a mild, but significant, mefloquine driven gene induction up to 1.5 fold. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: Both cell cycle delay and induced gene expression represent potentially important mechanisms for parasites to escape the effect of the antimalarial drug

Characterization of the commercially-available fluorescent chloroquine-BODIPY conjugate, LynxTag-CQGREEN, as a marker for chloroquine resistance and uptake in a 96-well plate assay

Chloroquine was a cheap, extremely effective drug against Plasmodium falciparum until resistance arose. One approach to reversing resistance is the inhibition of chloroquine efflux from its site of action, the parasite digestive vacuole. Chloroquine accumulation studies have traditionally relied on radiolabelled chloroquine, which poses several challenges. There is a need for development of a safe and biologically relevant substitute. We report here a commercially-available green fluorescent chloroquine-BODIPY conjugate, LynxTag-CQGREEN, as a proxy for chloroquine accumulation. This compound localized to the digestive vacuole of the parasite as observed under confocal microscopy, and inhibited growth of chloroquine-sensitive strain 3D7 more extensively than in the resistant strains 7G8 and K1. Microplate reader measurements indicated suppression of LynxTag-CQGREEN efflux after pretreatment of parasites with known reversal agents. Microsomes carrying either sensitive or resistant-type PfCRT were assayed for uptake; resistant-type PfCRT exhibited increased accumulation of LynxTag-CQGREEN, which was suppressed by pretreatment with known chemosensitizers. Eight laboratory strains and twelve clinical isolates were sequenced for PfCRT and Pgh1 haplotypes previously reported to contribute to drug resistance, and pfmdr1 copy number and chloroquine IC50s were determined. These data were compared with LynxTag-CQGREEN uptake/fluorescence by multiple linear regression to identify genetic correlates of uptake. Uptake of the compound correlated with the logIC50 of chloroquine and, more weakly, a mutation in Pgh1, F1226Y

Hmgcr in the Corpus Allatum Controls Sexual Dimorphism of Locomotor Activity and Body Size via the Insulin Pathway in Drosophila

The insulin signaling pathway has been implicated in several physiological and developmental processes. In mammals, it controls expression of 3-Hydroxy-3-Methylglutaryl CoA Reductase (HMGCR), a key enzyme in cholesterol biosynthesis. In insects, which can not synthesize cholesterol de novo, the HMGCR is implicated in the biosynthesis of juvenile hormone (JH). However, the link between the insulin pathway and JH has not been established. In Drosophila, mutations in the insulin receptor (InR) decrease the rate of JH synthesis. It is also known that both the insulin pathway and JH play a role in the control of sexual dimorphism in locomotor activity. In studies here, to demonstrate that the insulin pathway and HMGCR are functionally linked in Drosophila, we first show that hmgcr mutation also disrupts the sexual dimorphism. Similarly to the InR, HMGCR is expressed in the corpus allatum (ca), which is the gland where JH biosynthesis occurs. Two p[hmgcr-GAL4] lines were therefore generated where RNAi was targeted specifically against the HMGCR or the InR in the ca. We found that RNAi-HMGCR blocked HMGCR expression, while the RNAi-InR blocked both InR and HMGCR expression. Each RNAi caused disruption of sexual dimorphism and produced dwarf flies at specific rearing temperatures. These results provide evidence: (i) that HMGCR expression is controlled by the InR and (ii) that InR and HMGCR specifically in the ca, are involved in the control of body size and sexual dimorphism of locomotor activity

Genome-Wide Compensatory Changes Accompany Drug- Selected Mutations in the Plasmodium falciparum crt Gene

Mutations in PfCRT (Plasmodium falciparum chloroquine-resistant transporter), particularly the substitution at amino acid position 76, confer chloroquine (CQ) resistance in P. falciparum. Point mutations in the homolog of the mammalian multidrug resistance gene (pfmdr1) can also modulate the levels of CQ response. Moreover, parasites with the same pfcrt and pfmdr1 alleles exhibit a wide range of drug sensitivity, suggesting that additional genes contribute to levels of CQ resistance (CQR). Reemergence of CQ sensitive parasites after cessation of CQ use indicates that changes in PfCRT are deleterious to the parasite. Some CQR parasites, however, persist in the field and grow well in culture, which may reflect adaptive changes in the parasite genome to compensate for the mutations in PfCRT. Using three isogenic clones that have different drug resistance profiles corresponding to unique mutations in the pfcrt gene (106/1K76, 106/176I, and 106/76I-352K), we investigated changes in gene expression in these parasites grown with and without CQ. We also conducted hybridizations of genomic DNA to identify copy number (CN) changes in parasite genes. RNA transcript levels from 45 genes were significantly altered in one or both mutants relative to the parent line, 106/1K76. Most of the up-regulated genes are involved in invasion, cell growth and development, signal transduction, and transport activities. Of particular interest are genes encoding proteins involved in transport and/or regulation of cytoplasmic or compartmental pH such as the V-type H+ pumping pyrophosphatase 2 (PfVP2), Ca2+/H+ antiporter VCX1, a putative drug transporter and CN changes in pfmdr1. These changes may represent adaptations to altered functionality of PfCRT, a predicted member of drug/metabolite transporter superfamily found on the parasite food vacuole (FV) membrane. Further investigation of these genes may shed light on how the parasite compensates for functional changes accompanying drug resistance mutations in a gene coding for a membrane/drug transporter