An Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Clinical Trial in Rural Alabama: Project Design and Potential Implications for Pharmacy and Audiology Interprofessional Collaborations.

Over-the-counter hearing aids (OTC HAs) have the potential to help adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss across the US, especially in rural communities, where access to hearing healthcare is extremely limited or non-existent. The purpose of this study was to describe an OTC HA clinical trial being conducted in five rural counties of Alabama and to provide preliminary anecdotal data related to the use and care of these hearing aids by the participants. In brief, for this clinical trial, adults with hearing loss were randomly placed in one of three groups where they received varying levels of support for setting, using, and maintaining their OTC HAs.

A DFT study of CO electroreduction catalyzed by hexagonal boron-nitride nanosheets with vacancy defects.

In addition to providing a sustainable route to green alternative energy and chemical supplies from a cheap and abundant carbon source, recycling CO offers an excellent way to reduce net anthropogenic global CO emissions. This can be achieved catalysis on 2D materials. These materials are atomically thin and have unique electrical and catalytic properties compared to bigger nanoparticles and conventional bulk catalysts, opening a new arena in catalysis.

Comparing Density Functional Theory Metal-Ligand Bond Dissociation Enthalpies with Experimental Solution-Phase Enthalpies of Activation for Bond Dissociation.

The predictive ability of density functional theory is fundamental to its usefulness in chemical applications. Recent work has compared solution-phase enthalpies of activation for metal-ligand bond dissociation to enthalpies of reaction for bond dissociation, and the present work continues those comparisons for 43 density functional methods. The results for ligand dissociation enthalpies of 30 metal-ligand complexes tested in this work reveal significant inadequacies of some functionals as well as challenges from the dispersion corrections to some functionals.

An Assessment of Hearing Health Care Needs in Rural West Central and South Alabama.

Purpose: Hearing loss has become a significant public health concern because of its association with physical health, cognition, and emotional well-being. Age-related hearing loss is the third leading cause of global years lived with disability after lower back pain and migraine. Among other sensory disorders, hearing loss is ranked first.

Electrocatalytic reduction of CO on size-selected nanoclusters of first-row transition metal nanoclusters: a comprehensive mechanistic investigation.

Recycling CO back to fuels offers an ideal solution to control anthropogenic global CO emissions as well as providing a sustainable green solution to alternative energy resources from a cheap and earth-abundant carbon source. Size-selected nanoclusters open a novel area in catalysis as these atomically precise nanoclusters possess unique electronic and catalytic properties different from larger nanoparticles and traditional bulk catalysts. In this work, we have investigated the ability of first-row transition metal nanoclusters (Sc-Cu) of varying sizes (3 to 10 atoms) for CO electroreduction (CORR).