Active Noise Control System With Adaptive Wind Noise Mitigation

This disclosure describes adaptive wind noise mitigation to provide adaptive acoustic transparency that is based on ambient wind levels. An acoustic transparency system is proposed that includes feedback and feedforward filters. The feedback filter can be dynamically throttled to mitigate low-frequency band wind noise. The feedforward filter is utilized to reduce mid-frequency band wind noise while still maintaining or enhancing high frequency acoustic transparency to enable better conversation quality. A two-microphone coherence-based metric is utilized to detect wind events and to adaptively adjust a transparency level based on the detected wind noise. Digital signal processing (DSP) control blocks are utilized to mitigate mid-and-low frequency wind noise passing into a user’s ear, while maintaining or enhancing high frequency transparency gain that enables more speech to pass through to the user’s ear, thereby improving conversational quality even in the presence of loud wind noise

Mixed-Metal Tungsten Oxide Photoanode Materials Made by Pulsed-Laser in Liquids Synthesis

Globally scalable sunlight-driven devices that convert solar energy into storable fuels will require efficient light absorbers that are made of non-precious elements. Suitable photoanode materials are yet to be discovered. Here we utilised the timesaving nature of pulsed-laser in liquids synthesis and prepared a series of neat and mixed-metal tungsten oxide photoanode materials to investigate the effect of ad-metals on optical and photocurrent generation properties. We obtained sub-μm-sized materials with different colours from W, Al, Ta, or first-row transition metal targets in water or aqueous ammonium metatungstate solutions. We observed metastable polymorphs of WO3 and tungsten oxides with varying degrees of oxygen deficiency. Pulsed-laser in liquids synthesis of Ni in ammonium metatungstate solutions produced hollow spheres (with ≤ 6% Ni with respect to W). Photocurrent generation in strong aqueous acid was highest in mixed-metal tungsten oxide photoanode materials with around 5% of iron or nickel

Risk of Complication and Revision Total Hip Arthroplasty Among Medicare Patients with Different Bearing Surfaces

To address the long-term problems of bearing surface wear and osteolysis associated with conventional metal-polyethylene (M-PE) total hip arthroplasty (THA), metal-metal (M-M), and ceramic-ceramic (C-C) bearings have been introduced. These bearing surfaces are associated with unique risks and benefits and higher costs. However the relative risks of these three bearings in an older population is unknown. We compared the short-term risk of complication and revision THA among Medicare patients having a primary THA with metal-polyethylene (M-PE), metal-metal (M-M), and ceramic-ceramic (C-C) bearings. We used the 2005 to 2007 100% Medicare inpatient claim files to perform a matched cohort analysis in three separate cohorts of THA patients (M-PE, M-M, and C-C) who were matched by age, gender, and US census region. Multivariate Cox proportional-hazards models were constructed to compare complication and revision THA risk among cohorts, adjusting for medical comorbidities, race, socioeconomic status, and hospital factors. After adjusting for patient and hospital factors, M-M bearings were associated with a higher risk of periprosthetic joint infection (hazard ratio, 3.03; confidence interval, 1.02–9.09) when compared with C-C bearings (0.59% versus 0.32%, respectively). There were no other differences among bearing cohorts in the adjusted risk of revision THA or any other complication. The risk of short-term complication (including dislocation) and revision THA were similar among appropriately matched Medicare THA patients regardless of bearing surface. Hard-on-hard THA bearings are of questionable value in Medicare patients, given the higher cost associated with their use and uncertain long-term benefits in older patients. Level II, prognostic study. See Guidelines for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence

The Epidemiology of Revision Total Knee Arthroplasty in the United States

Understanding the cause of failure and type of revision total knee arthroplasty (TKA) procedures performed in the United States is essential in guiding research, implant design, and clinical decision making in TKA. We assessed the causes of failure and specific types of revision TKA procedures performed in the United States using newly implemented ICD-9-CM diagnosis and procedure codes related to revision TKA data from the Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS) database. Clinical, demographic, and economic data were reviewed and analyzed from 60,355 revision TKA procedures performed in the United States between October 1, 2005 and December 31, 2006. The most common causes of revision TKA were infection (25.2%) and implant loosening (16.1%), and the most common type of revision TKA procedure reported was all component revision (35.2%). Revision TKA procedures were most commonly performed in large, urban, nonteaching hospitals in Medicare patients ages 65 to 74. The average length of hospital stay (LOS) for all revision TKA procedures was 5.1 days, and the average total charges were $49,360. However, average LOS, average charges, and procedure frequencies varied considerably by census region, hospital type, and procedure performed

Human cytomegalovirus miR-UL112-1 promotes the down-regulation of viral immediate early-gene expression during latency to prevent T-cell recognition of latently infected cells.

Human cytomegalovirus, a member of the herpesvirus family, can cause significant morbidity and mortality in immune compromised patients resulting from either primary lytic infection or reactivation from latency. Latent infection is associated with a restricted viral transcription programme compared to lytic infection which consists of defined protein coding RNAs but also includes a number of virally encoded microRNAs (miRNAs). One of these, miR-UL112-1, is known to target the major lytic IE72 transcript but, to date, a functional role for miR-UL112-1 during latent infection has not been shown. To address this, we have analysed latent infection in myeloid cells using a virus in which the target site for miR-UL112-1 in the 3' UTR of IE72 was removed such that any IE72 RNA present during latent infection would no longer be subject to regulation by miR-UL112-1 through the RNAi pathway. Our data show that removal of the miR-UL112-1 target site in IE72 results in increased levels of IE72 RNA in experimentally latent primary monocytes. Furthermore, this resulted in induction of immediate early (IE) gene expression that is detectable by IE-specific cytotoxic T-cells (CTLs); no such CTL recognition of monocytes latently infected with wild-type virus was observed. We also recapitulated these findings in the more tractable THP-1 cell line model of latency. These observations argue that an important role for miR-UL112-1 during latency is to ensure tight control of lytic viral immediate early (IE) gene expression thereby preventing recognition of latently infected cells by the host's potent pre-existing anti-viral CTL response.Medical Research Council (Grant ID: G:0701279); National Institute for Health Research Biomedical Research CentreThis is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from the Microbiology Society via http://dx.doi.org/10.1099/jgv.0.00054

Mixed-Metal Tungsten Oxide Photoanode Materials Made by Pulsed-Laser in Liquids Synthesis

Globally scalable sunlight-driven devices that convert solar energy into storable fuels will require efficient light absorbers that are made of non-precious elements. Suitable photoanode materials are yet to be discovered. Here we utilised the timesaving nature of pulsed-laser in liquids synthesis and prepared a series of neat and mixed-metal tungsten oxide photoanode materials to investigate the effect of ad-metals on optical and photocurrent generation properties. We obtained sub-μm-sized materials with different colours from W, Al, Ta, or first-row transition metal targets in water or aqueous ammonium metatungstate solutions. We observed metastable polymorphs of WO3 and tungsten oxides with varying degrees of oxygen deficiency. Pulsed-laser in liquids synthesis of Ni in ammonium metatungstate solutions produced hollow spheres (with ≤ 6% Ni with respect to W). Photocurrent generation in strong aqueous acid was highest in mixed-metal tungsten oxide photoanode materials with around 5% of iron or nickel

Antidepressant Activity of Pharmacological and Genetic Deactivation of the Small-Conductance Calcium-Activated Potassium Channel Subtype-3

Funding and Disclosure This research was supported by awards from the Neuroscience Catalyst program (Toronto) (FRB and JNN), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (FRB and JN) and the National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada (FRB). M.N. was additionally supported by a CAMH Discovery Fund Post-doctoral Fellowship. Conflict of Interest: None declared. Acknowledgments We thank J. Li, U. Mumtaz, S. Khan, S. Sivaruban, M. Billyard, E. Hauck, D. Oleinichenko, Michael Coombs and Lucas Francis Fowler for technical assistance at different stages of the work.Peer reviewedPostprin

Graphene-porphyrin single-molecule transistors

We demonstrate a robust graphene-molecule-graphene transistor architecture. We observe remarkably reproducible single electron charging, which we attribute to insensitivity of the molecular junction to the atomic configuration of the graphene electrodes. The stability of the graphene electrodes allow for high-bias transport spectroscopy and the observation of multiple redox states at room-temperature

The Limerick bubbly flow rig: design, performance, hold-up and mixing pattern

peer-reviewedAs Euler-Euler CFD simulations of bubbly flows suffer from uncertainties due to the many underpinning models, there is an obvious need of accurate experimental data for validation. With this in mind, a new bubbly flow test rig was built to be operated with and without liquid co-flow, with bubble size as uniform as possible in the range 4–7 mm, and with a very even horizontal bubble distribution. We designed the gas sparging system such that we can also produce an essentially bi-modal bubble size distribution. The column consists of two square sections to allow for studying the mixing of two originally separated bubbly flows with either the same or a different bubble size. The bubbles are produced from 2 × 196 needles, bubble sizes are determined with high-speed imaging and with a simple acoustical method, overall volume fractions in the column by means of air chamber pressure measurements. Overall volume fractions are presented as a function of gas and liquid flow rates, with slip velocity mostly increasing with increasing void fraction. First results are obtained on (a) producing bi-model bubble size distributions and the pertinent volume fractions in the column, and (b) flow patterns in the case of unequal aeration