Outcomes of treatment of sudden deafness using different Protocols: a retrospective analysis of 104 cases

AbstractObjectiveTo compare different treatment protocols for sudden deafness(SD), for the purpose of identifying an appropriate approach to SD.MethodsA total of 104 patients with diagnosis of sudden hearing loss treated from Jan 2006 to December 2008 were included in this study, of which 31 received the typical pharmaceutical treatment(group I), 40 received the typical pharmaceutical treatment plus polarized liquid(Group II) and 33 received the hyperbaric oxygen in addition to the treatment included in Group II (Group III).ResultsThe total improvement rate(67.74%, 62.50% and 75.76% for Groups I, II and III respectively) was not statistically different between the three groups (P>0.05).ConclusionThe three treatment protocols are similar when judged by the treatment outcomes in SD, neither being superior to the others. The two important factors that appear to influence treatment outcomes are the audiogram pattern and duration of hearing loss before seeking treatment. Patients with upsloping or peak–type audiograms and treated within 7 days from the onset have better prognosis than others

Laser mimicking mosquito bites for skin delivery of malaria sporozoite vaccines

Immunization with radiation-attenuated sporozoites (RAS) via mosquito bites has been shown to induce sterile immunity against malaria in humans, but this route of vaccination is neither practical nor ethical. The importance of delivering RAS to the liver through circulation in eliciting immunity against this parasite has been recently verified by human studies showing that high-level protection was achieved only by intravenous (IV) administration of RAS, not by intradermal (ID) or subcutaneous (SC) vaccination. Here, we report in a murine model that ID inoculation of RAS into laser-illuminated skin confers immune protection against malarial infection almost as effectively as IV immunization. Brief illumination of the inoculation site with a low power 532 nm Nd:YAG laser enhanced the permeability of the capillary beneath the skin, owing to hemoglobin-specific absorbance of the light. The increased blood vessel permeability appeared to facilitate an association of RAS with blood vessel walls by an as-yet-unknown mechanism, ultimately promoting a 7-fold increase in RAS entering circulation and reaching the liver over ID administration. Accordingly, ID immunization of RAS at a laser-treated site stimulated much stronger sporozoite-specific antibody and CD8+IFN-γ+ T cell responses than ID vaccination and provided nearly full protection against malarial infection, whereas ID immunization alone was ineffective. This novel, safe, and convenient strategy to augment efficacy of ID sporozoite-based vaccines warrants further investigation in large animals and in humans

Enhanced Chart Understanding in Vision and Language Task via Cross-modal Pre-training on Plot Table Pairs

Building cross-model intelligence that can understand charts and communicate the salient information hidden behind them is an appealing challenge in the vision and language(V+L) community. The capability to uncover the underlined table data of chart figures is a critical key to automatic chart understanding. We introduce ChartT5, a V+L model that learns how to interpret table information from chart images via cross-modal pre-training on plot table pairs. Specifically, we propose two novel pre-training objectives: Masked Header Prediction (MHP) and Masked Value Prediction (MVP) to facilitate the model with different skills to interpret the table information. We have conducted extensive experiments on chart question answering and chart summarization to verify the effectiveness of the proposed pre-training strategies. In particular, on the ChartQA benchmark, our ChartT5 outperforms the state-of-the-art non-pretraining methods by over 8% performance gains.Comment: Accepted by Findings of ACL 202

Non-Sequential Graph Script Induction via Multimedia Grounding

Online resources such as WikiHow compile a wide range of scripts for performing everyday tasks, which can assist models in learning to reason about procedures. However, the scripts are always presented in a linear manner, which does not reflect the flexibility displayed by people executing tasks in real life. For example, in the CrossTask Dataset, 64.5% of consecutive step pairs are also observed in the reverse order, suggesting their ordering is not fixed. In addition, each step has an average of 2.56 frequent next steps, demonstrating "branching". In this paper, we propose the new challenging task of non-sequential graph script induction, aiming to capture optional and interchangeable steps in procedural planning. To automate the induction of such graph scripts for given tasks, we propose to take advantage of loosely aligned videos of people performing the tasks. In particular, we design a multimodal framework to ground procedural videos to WikiHow textual steps and thus transform each video into an observed step path on the latent ground truth graph script. This key transformation enables us to train a script knowledge model capable of both generating explicit graph scripts for learnt tasks and predicting future steps given a partial step sequence. Our best model outperforms the strongest pure text/vision baselines by 17.52% absolute gains on F1@3 for next step prediction and 13.8% absolute gains on Acc@1 for partial sequence completion. Human evaluation shows our model outperforming the WikiHow linear baseline by 48.76% absolute gains in capturing sequential and non-sequential step relationships

Planets Across Space and Time (PAST) IV: The Occurrence and Architecture of Kepler Planetary Systems as a Function of Kinematic Age Revealed by the LAMOST-Gaia-Kepler Sample

One of the fundamental questions in astronomy is how planetary systems form and evolve. Measuring the planetary occurrence and architecture as a function of time directly addresses this question. In the fourth paper of the Planets Across Space and Time (PAST) series, we investigate the occurrence and architecture of Kepler planetary systems as a function of kinematic age by using the LAMOST-Gaia-Kepler sample. To isolate the age effect, other stellar properties (e.g., metallicity) have been controlled. We find the following results. (1) The fraction of stars with Kepler-like planets ($F_{\text{Kep}}$) is about 50% for all stars; no significant trend is found between $F_{\text{Kep}}$ and age. (2) The average planet multiplicity ($\bar{N}_p$) exhibits a decreasing trend (~2$\sigma$ significance) with age. It decreases from $\bar{N}_p$~3 for stars younger than 1 Gyr to $\bar{N}_p$~1.8 for stars about 8 Gyr. (3) The number of planets per star ($\eta=F_{\text{Kep}}\times\bar{N}_p$) also shows a decreasing trend (~2-3$\sigma$ significance). It decreases from $\eta$~1.6-1.7 for young stars to $\eta$~1.0 for old stars. (4) The mutual orbital inclination of the planets ($\sigma_{i,k}$) increases from $1.2^{+1.4}_{-0.5}$ to $3.5^{+8.1}_{-2.3}$ as stars aging from 0.5 to 8 Gyr with a best fit of $\log{\sigma_{i,k}}=0.2+0.4\times\log{\frac{\text{Age}}{\text{1Gyr}}}$. Interestingly, the Solar System also fits such a trend. The nearly independence of $F_{\text{Kep}}$~50% on age implies that planet formation is robust and stable across the Galaxy history. The age dependence of $\bar{N}_p$ and $\sigma_{i,k}$ demonstrates planetary architecture is evolving, and planetary systems generally become dynamically hotter with fewer planets as they age.Comment: 27 pages, 20 figures, 4tables, accepted for publication in A

Planets Across Space and Time (PAST). III. Morphology of the Planetary Radius Valley as a Function of Stellar Age and Metallicity in the Galactic Context Revealed by the LAMOST-Gaia-Kepler Sample

The radius valley, a dip in the radius distribution of exoplanets at ~1.9 Earth radii separates compact rocky Super-Earths and Sub-Neptunes with lower density. Various hypotheses have been put forward to explain the radius valley. Characterizing the radius valley morphology and its correlation to stellar properties will provide crucial observation constraints on its origin mechanism and deepen the understanding of planet formation and evolution. In this paper, the third part of the Planets Across the Space and Time (PAST) series, using the LAMOST-Gaia-Kepler catalog, we perform a systematical investigation into how the radius valley morphology varies in the Galactic context, i.e., thin/thick galactic disks, stellar age and metallicity abundance ([Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe]). We find that (1) The valley becomes more prominent with the increase of both age and [Fe/H]. (2) The number ratio of super-Earths to sub-Neptunes monotonically increases with age but decreases with [Fe/H] and [alpha/Fe]. (3) The average radius of planets above the valley (2.1-6 Earth radii) decreases with age but increases with [Fe/H]. (4) In contrast, the average radius of planets below the valley (R < 1.7 Earth radii) is broadly independent on age and metallicity. Our results demonstrate that the valley morphology as well as the whole planetary radius distribution evolves on a long timescale of giga-years, and metallicities (not only Fe but also other metal elements, e.g., Mg, Si, Ca, Ti) play important roles in planet formation and in the long term planetary evolution.Comment: Accepted for pubilication in AJ, 20 Pages, 10 figures, 2 Tables (Appendix: 13 Figures

Observation of fourfold Dirac nodal line semimetal and its unconventional surface responses in sonic crystals

Three-dimensional nodal line semimetals (NLSMs) provide remarkable importance for both enrich topological physics and wave management. However, NLSMs realized in acoustic systems are twofold bands degenerate, which are called Weyl NLSMs. Here, we first report on the experimental observation of novel Dirac NLSMs with fourfold degenerate in sonic crystals. We reveal that the topological properties of the Dirac NLSMs are entirely different than that of the conventional Weyl NLSMs. The Berry phase related to the Dirac nodal line (DNL) is 2{\pi}, which results in the surface responses of the Dirac NLSMs with two radically different situations: a torus surface state occupying the entire surface Brillouin zone (SBZ) and without any surface state in the SBZ. We further reveal that topological surface arcs caused by DNL can change from open to closed contours. The findings of Dirac NLSMs and their unique surface response may provoke exciting frontiers for flexible manipulation of acoustic surface waves.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure