Iterative shepherding control for agents with heterogeneous responsivity.

In the context of the theory of multi-agent systems, the shepherding problem refers to designing the dynamics of a herding agent, called a sheepdog, so that a given flock of agents, called sheep, is guided into a goal region. Although several effective methodologies and algorithms have been proposed in the last decade for the shepherding problem under various formulations, little research has been directed to the practically important case in which the flock contains sheep agents unresponsive to the sheepdog agent. To fill in this gap, we propose a sheepdog algorithm for guiding unresponsive sheep in this paper.

Early neurosyphilis presenting with multiple cranial nerve palsies: A case report of management by combined penicillin-corticosteroid treatment.

Early neurosyphilis commonly appears in basilar meninges, and its meningeal inflammation can spread to neighboring cranial nerves, resulting in some cranial nerve palsies. Herein, we report a case of a 51-year-old man who presented with right peripheral facial nerve palsy. His symptoms completely disappeared with prednisolone monotherapy without antibiotics use and were not exacerbated during clinical treatment.

Delayed bet-hedging resilience strategies under environmental fluctuations.

Many biological populations, such as bacterial colonies, have developed through evolution a protection mechanism, called bet hedging, to increase their probability of survival under stressful environmental fluctuation. In this context, the concept of preadaptation refers to a common type of bet-hedging protection strategy in which a relatively small number of individuals in a population stochastically switch their phenotypes to a dormant metabolic state in which they increase their probability of survival against potential environmental shocks. Hence, if an environmental shock took place at some point in time, preadapted organisms would be better adapted to survive and proliferate once the shock is over.

Epidemic processes over adaptive state-dependent networks.

In this paper we study the dynamics of epidemic processes taking place in adaptive networks of arbitrary topology. We focus our study on the adaptive susceptible-infected-susceptible (ASIS) model, where healthy individuals are allowed to temporarily cut edges connecting them to infected nodes in order to prevent the spread of the infection. In this paper we derive a closed-form expression for a lower bound on the epidemic threshold of the ASIS model in arbitrary networks with heterogeneous node and edge dynamics.

Osseous hamartoma arising from the eustachian tube.

A fairly quite rare case of osseous tumor arising from the Eustachian tube (ET) is described. A 56-year-old man presented with a smooth bulky mass in the nasopharynx and secretory otitis media in the right ear. Computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging indicated a solid tumor-like region occupying the nasopharynx with apparent extension to the right ET.

Central-part laryngectomy is a useful and less invasive surgical procedure for resolution of intractable aspiration.

A novel narrow-field laryngectomy procedure known as central-part laryngectomy (CPL) for less invasive laryngeal diversion in patients with intractable aspiration is introduced. We conducted retrospective case reviews of 15 patients who underwent CPL. In this procedure, an area of the glottis including the mid-part of the thyroid cartilage and cricoid cartilage is removed to separate the digestive tract from the air way.

Isolated juvenile xanthogranuloma in the larynx of a three-year-old child.

Juvenile xanthogranuloma (JXG) is a benign manifestation of non-Langerhans cell histiocytosis characterized by yellowish cutaneous nodules. Its occurrence in the larynx is very rare, but laryngeal JXG may cause severe respiratory distress. We report a patient with isolated laryngeal JXG treated by laryngomicrosurgery, and this is the first report of JXG extending to vocal fold.

Acquired idiopathic laryngomalacia treated by laser supraglottic laryngoplasty.

Laryngomalacia is the most common cause of stridor in neonates and infants, where the soft cartilages and tissues surrounding the upper larynx collapse inward during respiration. On the other hand, acquired idiopathic laryngomalacia in adults is quite rare, but should be borne in mind for differential diagnosis of upper airway distress. Allergic factors may cause airway distress, but have not been highlighted previously as the background of laryngomalacia.

Involvement of pterygoid venous plexus in patulous eustachian tube symptoms.

Conclusions: The pterygoid venous plexus (PVP) is an important factor in the mechanism of eustachian tube (ET) closure under conditions that can cause increased venous pressure in the head, such as during neck compression and postural change from the sitting/standing to the recumbent position.

Objectives: The symptoms of patulous ET are usually improved by neck compression or postural change (from sitting/standing to recumbent position). Venous congestion around the ET and/or gravitational change may be involved in the changing degree of symptoms, but its mechanism is not understood.

Three-dimensional computed tomography imaging in the sitting position for the diagnosis of patulous eustachian tube.

Objective: Computed tomography (CT) in the sitting position was useful for detecting patulous Eustachian tube (ET).

Study Design: Retrospective.

Setting: Tertiary referral center.

Neuromagnetic evaluation of binaural unmasking.

Binaural unmasking refers to the improvement in intelligibility under conditions of masking when a tone is presented out of phase rather than in phase. In the present study, binaural unmasking was evaluated using auditory-evoked magnetoencephalography (MEG) in eight healthy right-handed volunteers (7 males and 1 female, mean age 25.9 years).

Modified binaural pitch-matching test for the assessment of diplacusis.

Diplacusis is defined as the phenomenon of hearing the same tone at different pitches in the two ears. Although binaural pitch-matching using method-of-adjustment has been employed in most studies, it is sometimes hard for subjects with impaired hearing to judge 'equal pitch' as one frequency. To resolve this problem.

Effects of contralateral noise on the measurement of auditory threshold.

It is well known that sound presented in the contralateral ear can elicit the activity of the olivocochlear (OC) efferent. In the present study, the effects of the addition of contralateral noise on the psychophysical measurements of auditory thresholds were investigated in human subjects with normal hearing. The results obtained in the present study indicate that the addition of contralateral noise at a level of only 20 or 30 dB sound pressure level (SPL) may cause a significant elevation of the auditory threshold in the mid-frequency area (usually 2-3 dB).