DPOAE in HIV infected adults

HIV infection is associated with impairment of hearing function, at any stage of disease causing complication to the external, middle, inner ear and CNS. Audiological manifestation of HIV is a direct consequence of virus or secondary to the pharmacological treatment or viral complication. \ud Objectives: There is paucity of information pertaining to hearing status in HIV. As the deafness can occur at any stage of HIV with varying degree and people with HIV live longer, there is need to address the hearing problems in these individuals. So this study aimed detecting the outer hair cell functioning by doing DPOAE in normal hearing HIV infected adults.\ud Method: The experimental group comprised of 12 HIV infected (24 ears) within 20 to 40 years. The age matched control group comprised of 15 subjects (30 ears). All the subjects had normal hearing sensitivity. Initially puretone audiometry and immittance was performed for the subject selection. Subsequently DPOAE procedure was done. \ud Results: The DPOAE was abnormal in 50% of the subjects.\ud Conclusion: It can be concluded that the cochlear involvement is a common observation in HIV infected individuals. DPOAE test can be used as a tool for early identification of cochlear pathology in HIV infected

Global Governance and Technology

human development, technology

Self-gravitating stellar collapse: explicit geodesics and path integration

We extend the work of Oppenheimer & Synder to model the gravitational collapse of a star to a black hole by including quantum mechanical effects. We first derive closed-form solutions for classical paths followed by a particle on the surface of the collapsing star in Schwarzschild and Kruskal coordinates for space-like, time-like and light-like geodesics. We next present an application of these paths to model the collapse of ultra-light dark matter particles, which necessitates incorporating quantum effects. To do so we treat a particle on the surface of the star as a wavepacket and integrate over all possible paths taken by the particle. The waveform is computed in Schwarzschild coordinates and found to exhibit an ingoing and an outgoing component, where the former contains the probability of collapse, while the latter contains the probability that the star will disperse. These calculations pave the way for investigating the possibility of quantum collapse that does not lead to black hole formation as well as for exploring the nature of the wavefunction inside r=2M.Comment: 13 pages, 6 figure

Aerodynamic Analysis Of Voice In Persons With Laryngopharyngeal Reflux

Objectives of the study: The individuals with laryngopharyngeal reflux are prone for aspiration of refluxed contents and so there is a need for aerodynamic evaluation in these individuals. Hence, the present study investigated the aerodynamic characteristics in individuals with Laryngopharyngeal reflux. Study design: Prospective control group design. Method: Thirty laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects and 30 normal subjects participated in the study. Aerodynamic parameters such as vital capacity, mean air flow rate, maximum phonation duration and phonation quotient were measured using Aero Phone Instrument ((Model 6800). Independent t test was employed for statistical inference. Results: The results revealed that the vital capacity and maximum phonation duration values were lower for laryngopharyngeal reflux subjects when compared to normal controls. No significant differences were observed for mean air flow rate and phonation quotient. Conclusions: The results revealed that the laryngopharyngeal reflux individuals showed significant deviations in aerodynamic parameters when compared to normal individuals. Thus study confirms aerodynamic abnormalities in laryngopharyngeal reflux subject