Spectral cues are necessary to encode azimuthal auditory space in the mouse superior colliculus.

Sound localization plays a critical role in animal survival. Three cues can be used to compute sound direction: interaural timing differences (ITDs), interaural level differences (ILDs) and the direction-dependent spectral filtering by the head and pinnae (spectral cues). Little is known about how spectral cues contribute to the neural encoding of auditory space. Here we report on auditory space encoding in the mouse superior colliculus (SC). We show that the mouse SC contains neurons with spatially-restricted receptive fields (RFs) that form an azimuthal topographic map. We found that frontal RFs require spectral cues and lateral RFs require ILDs. The neurons with frontal RFs have frequency tunings that match the spectral structure of the specific head and pinna filter for sound coming from the front. These results demonstrate that patterned spectral cues in combination with ILDs give rise to the topographic map of azimuthal auditory space

Chloride ion penetration behaviour in concrete containing an expansive additive and a calcium-aluminate-based additive

The effect of the material characteristics on the infiltration behaviour of chloride ions in concrete containing a combination of an expansive additive and a calcium-aluminate-based additive has been investigated. The same level of salt resistance as that of blast furnace slug cement was exhibited even for a small addition amount. In addition, the permeation behaviour of chloride ions was largely influenced by the immobilisation capacity and pore network. When these changes were dominant, the results suggested that the characteristics based on the Fick diffusion equations may not necessarily reproduce the actual permeation behaviour of chloride ions

When is the ideal time to remove cerclage in cases requiring cesarean hysterectomy for placenta accreta spectrum?

Placenta accreta spectrum (PAS) presents one of the highest risks to pregnancy and often requires a cesarean hysterectomy for management, but the challenges associated with this surgery often cause severe obstetric haemorrhaging and high rates of maternal morbidity. Shirodkar cerclage is usually performed in cases with cervical insufficiency, a short cervix with previous preterm birth, etc., to decrease the preterm birth rate. It is recommended that Shirodkar cerclage is removed when the patient approaches term, but the ideal timing of removal for patient for whom cesarean hysterectomy is planned is not clear. Here, authors present a case of PAS in whom Shirodkar cerclage that was difficult to remove at the timing of cesarean hysterectomy. After cesarean hysterectomy, the patient had a vaginal abscess and required antibiotic therapy for approximately two weeks. In the light of our case, authors discuss the timing of removal of cerclage in the cases of PAS

Maximum opening of the mouth by mouth prop during dental procedures increases the risk of upper airway constriction

From a retrospective evaluation of data on accidents and deaths during dental procedures, it has been shown that several patients who refused dental treatment died of asphyxia during dental procedures. We speculated that forcible maximum opening of the mouth by using a mouth prop triggers this asphyxia by affecting the upper airway. Therefore, we assessed the morphological changes of the upper airway following maximal opening of the mouth. In 13 healthy adult volunteers, the sagittal diameter of the upper airway on lateral cephalogram was measured between the two conditions; closed mouth and maximally open mouth. The dyspnea in each state was evaluated by a visual analog scale. In one subject, a computed tomograph (CT) was taken to assess the three-dimensional changes in the upper airway. A significant difference was detected in the mean sagittal diameter of the upper airway following use of the prop (closed mouth: 18.5 ± 3.8 mm, maximally open mouth: 10.4 ± 3.0 mm). All subjects indicated upper airway constriction and significant dyspnea when their mouth was maximally open. Although a CT scan indicated upper airway constriction when the mouth was maximally open, muscular compensation was admitted. Our results further indicate that the maximal opening of the mouth narrows the upper airway diameter and leads to dyspnea. The use of a prop for the patient who has communication problems or poor neuromuscular function can lead to asphyxia. When the prop is used for patient refusal in dentistry, the respiratory condition should be monitored strictly, and it should be kept in mind that the “sniffing position” is effective for avoiding upper airway constriction. Practitioners should therefore consider applying not only systematic desensitization, but also general anesthesia to the patient who refuses treatment, because the safety of general anesthesia has advanced, and general anesthesia may be safer than the use of a prop and restraints

Cheat detection for MMORPG on P2P environments

NetGames'06 : 5th ACM SIGCOMM workshop on Network and system support for games , Oct 30-31, 2006 , SingaporeIn this paper, we propose a new method for detecting cheat in P2P-based MMORPG. We suppose a typical P2P-based event delivery architecture where the entire game space is divided into subareas and a responsible node (selected from player terminals) delivers each event happened in the sub-area to player nodes there every predetermined time interval called timeslot. In the proposed method, we introduce multiple monitor nodes (selected from player terminals) which monitor the game state and detect cheat when it happens. In order to allow monitor nodes to track the correct game states for the corresponding subarea, we let monitor nodes and a responsible node retain a random number seed and player nodes send their events not only to responsible node but also monitor nodes so that the monitor nodes and the responsible node can uniquely calculate the latest game state from the previous game state and game events which happened during the current timeslot. Either responsible node, monitor nodes or player nodes can detect cheat by comparing hash values of game state which are retained by those nodes periodically, and role back events happened since the last correct game state. Through experiments in PlanetLab, we show that our method achieves practical performance to detect cheats