An outreach dental project to a remote drug rehabilitation centre

published_or_final_versio

Dynamic Anode Initialization to Mitigate Luminance Drop

In AMOLED displays, the OLED anode is frequently reset to ensure that black regions in the display have low light emission. However, anode resetting has the unwanted side effect of slowing low luminance pixel response. This disclosure describes techniques to maintain the darkness of black regions of AMOLED displays while ensuring rapid pixel response. An anode initialization voltage bias is defined as the voltage at the source terminal of the transistor that effects the resetting of the OLED anode. The anode initialization voltage bias is adapted, or, alternatively, made to electrically float, based on the display brightness level such that dark pixels can rapidly respond to light emission demands. The OLED anode maintains a voltage just below its light emitting threshold voltage such that it can rapidly respond to sudden spikes in light emission demands while also maintaining the darkness of black pixels

Dipole: Diagnosis Prediction in Healthcare via Attention-based Bidirectional Recurrent Neural Networks

Predicting the future health information of patients from the historical Electronic Health Records (EHR) is a core research task in the development of personalized healthcare. Patient EHR data consist of sequences of visits over time, where each visit contains multiple medical codes, including diagnosis, medication, and procedure codes. The most important challenges for this task are to model the temporality and high dimensionality of sequential EHR data and to interpret the prediction results. Existing work solves this problem by employing recurrent neural networks (RNNs) to model EHR data and utilizing simple attention mechanism to interpret the results. However, RNN-based approaches suffer from the problem that the performance of RNNs drops when the length of sequences is large, and the relationships between subsequent visits are ignored by current RNN-based approaches. To address these issues, we propose {\sf Dipole}, an end-to-end, simple and robust model for predicting patients' future health information. Dipole employs bidirectional recurrent neural networks to remember all the information of both the past visits and the future visits, and it introduces three attention mechanisms to measure the relationships of different visits for the prediction. With the attention mechanisms, Dipole can interpret the prediction results effectively. Dipole also allows us to interpret the learned medical code representations which are confirmed positively by medical experts. Experimental results on two real world EHR datasets show that the proposed Dipole can significantly improve the prediction accuracy compared with the state-of-the-art diagnosis prediction approaches and provide clinically meaningful interpretation

Reducing the Visual Signature of the M4A1 Rifle

The Maneuver Center of Excellence (MCoE) presented a directive to reduce the visual signature for small arms weapons by altering the color of the M4A1 rifle from its traditional black color. This research utilizes the Systems Decision Process (SDP) to develop and analyze alternatives to create a feasible and permanent solution to reduce the weapon’s visual signature. The research consisted of an extensive stakeholder and functional analysis to develop a value model and framework that provides a values-based recommendation. The model establishes an optimal color change process that accounts for the design and performance characteristics of the weapon system and the stakeholder’s values. The research also analyzes the potential integration of short wave infrared (SWIR) mitigation into the new color of the weapon. This analysis will establish a baseline methodology for weapon color change for all Army small arms weapons

Derivation and Analysis of Dynamic Handwriting Features as Clinical Markers of Parkinson’s Disease

Parkinson’s Disease (PD) is a complex neurodegenerative disorder that is challenging to diagnose. Recent research has demonstrated predictive value in the analysis of dynamic handwriting features for detecting PD, however, consensus on clinically-useful features is yet to be reached. Here we explore and evaluate secondary kinematic handwriting features hypothesized to be diagnostically relevant to Parkinson’s Disease using a publicly-available Spiral Drawing Test PD dataset. Univariate and multivariate analysis was performed on derived features. Classification outcome was determined using logistic regression models with 10-fold cross validation. Feature correlation was based on model specificity and sensitivity. Variations in grip angle, instantaneous acceleration and pressure indices were found to have high predictive potential as clinical markers of PD, with combined classification accuracy of above 90%. Our results show that the significance of secondary handwriting features and recommend the feature expansion step for hypothesis generation, comparative evaluation of test types and improved classification accuracy

Hearing Rehabilitation of Patients with Chronic Otitis Media:A Discussion of Current State of Knowledge and Research Priorities

Although chronic otitis media is a major cause of conductive and mixed hearing loss, auditory rehabilitation is currently not optimal for this patient group. Planning for hearing rehabilitation must accompany strategies for infection control when surgically managing patients with chronic otitis media. Several barriers prevent adequate hearing restoration in such a heterogeneous patient population. A lack of standardized reporting of surgical interventions, hearing, and quality of life outcomes impedes meta-analyses of existing data and the generation of high-quality evidence, including cost-effectiveness data, through prospective studies. This, in turn, prevents the ability of clinicians to stratify patients based on prognostic indicators, which could guide the decision-making pathway. Strategies to improve reporting standards and methods have the potential to classify patients with chronic otitis media preoperatively, which could guide decision-making for hearing restoration with ossiculoplasty versus prosthetic hearing devices. Appropriately selected clinical guidelines would not only foster directed research but could enhance patient-centered and evidence-based decision-making regarding hearing rehabilitation in the surgical planning process

The reciprocal relationships between changes in adolescent perceived prevalence of smoking in movies and progression of smoking status

Smoking in movies is associated with adolescent smoking worldwide. To date, studies of the association mostly are restricted to the exposure to smoking images viewed by 9–15 year-olds. The association among older adolescents is rarely examined. In addition, the reciprocal effect of smoking behavior on subsequent reported exposure to smoking in movies has not been reported

Success rates in restoring hearing loss in patients with chronic otitis media:A systematic review

Abstract Objective To assess the effectiveness of tympanoplasty in treating chronic otitis media‐related hearing loss, published literature was systematically reviewed to determine the clinical success rate of tympanoplasty at restoring hearing in chronic otitis media patients at a minimum follow‐up period of 12‐months. Data Sources PubMed, Embase and the Cochrane Library. Methods Two independent reviewers performed literature searches. Publications reporting long‐term (≥12‐month) hearing outcomes and complications data on adult and pediatric patients with chronic otitis media were included and assessed for risk of bias and strength of evidence. To assess how tympanoplasty influences long‐term hearing outcomes, data on pure tone audiometry (air‐bone gap) and complications were extracted and synthesized. Results Thirty‐nine studies met the inclusion criteria. Data from 3162 patients indicated that 14.0% of patients encountered postoperative complications. In adult patients, mean weighted air‐bone gap data show closure from 26.5 dB hearing level (HL) (preoperatively) to 16.1 dB HL (postoperatively). In studies that presented combined adult and pediatric data, the mean preoperative air‐bone gap of 26.7 dB HL was closed to 15.4 dB HL. In 1370 patients with synthesizable data, 70.7% of patients had a postoperative air‐bone gap ˂ 20 dB HL at long‐term follow‐up. Finally, subgroup analysis identified that mean improvement in ABG closure for patients with and without cholesteatoma was 10.0 dB HL and 12.4 dB HL, respectively. Conclusion In patients with chronic otitis media, tympanoplasty successfully closed the air‐bone gap to within 20 dB HL in 7/10 cases and had an overall complication rate of 14.0%. Level of Evidence 2a

Prevalence of smoking in movies as perceived by teenagers: Longitudinal trends and predictors

Smoking in movies is prevalent. However, use of content analysis to describe trends in smoking in movies has provided mixed results and has not tapped what adolescents actually perceive

Adsorption and desorption processes of toxic heavy metals, regeneration and reusability of spent adsorbents: Economic and environmental sustainability approach

This research article was published in Elsevier volume 329,2024A growing number of variables, including rising population, water scarcity, growth in the economy, and the existence of harmful heavy metals in the water supply, are contributing to the increased demand for wastewater treatment on a global scale. One of the innovative water treatment technologies is the adsorptive removal of heavy metals through the application of natural and engineered adsorbents. However, adsorption currently has setbacks that prevent its wider application for heavy metals sequestration from aquatic environments using various adsorbents, including difficulty in selecting suitable desorption eluent to recover adsorbed heavy metals and regeneration techniques to recycle the spent adsorbents for further use and safe disposal. Therefore, the recovery of adsorbed heavy metal ions and the ability to reuse the spent adsorbents is one of the economic and environmental sustainability approaches. This study presents a state-of-the-art critical review of different desorption agents that could be used to retrieve heavy metals and regenerate the spent adsorbents for further adsorption-desorption processes. Additionally, an attempt was made to discuss and summarize some of the independent factors influencing heavy metals desorption, recovery, and adsorbent regeneration. Furthermore, isotherm and kinetic modeling have been summarized to provide insights into the adsorption-desorption mechanisms of heavy metals. Finally, the review provided future perspectives to provide room for researchers and industry players who are interested in heavy metals desorption, recovery, and spent adsorbents recycling to reduce the high cost of adsorbents reproduction, minimize secondary waste generation, and thereby provide substantial economic and environmental benefits