Schlieren imaging and video classification of alphabet pronunciations: exploiting phonetic flows for speech recognition and speech therapy.

Speech is a highly coordinated process that requires precise control over vocal tract morphology/motion to produce intelligible sounds while simultaneously generating unique exhaled flow patterns. The schlieren imaging technique visualizes airflows with subtle density variations. It is hypothesized that speech flows captured by schlieren, when analyzed using a hybrid of convolutional neural network (CNN) and long short-term memory (LSTM) network, can recognize alphabet pronunciations, thus facilitating automatic speech recognition and speech disorder therapy.

The relation between long latency cortical auditory evoked potentials and stuttering severity in stuttering school-age children.

Background: Disturbances in auditory processing and feedback have been suggested to play a role in the pathogenesis of developmental stuttering. Long latency cortical auditory evoked potentials in response to non-linguistic and linguistic stimuli can be used to investigate these disturbances. There were differences between developmental stuttering patients.

Delivery of Agarose-aided Sprays to the Posterior Nose for Mucosa Immunization and Short-term Protection against Infectious Respiratory Diseases.

Aim: The study aimed to deliver sprays to the posterior nose for mucosa immunization or short-term protection.

Background: Respiratory infectious diseases often enter the human body through the nose. Sars- Cov-2 virus preferentially binds to the ACE2-rich tissue cells in the Nasopharynx (NP).

A Supine Position and Dual-Dose Applications Enhance Spray Dosing to the Posterior Nose: Paving the Way for Mucosal Immunization.

Delivering vaccines to the posterior nose has been proposed to induce mucosal immunization. However, conventional nasal devices often fail to deliver sufficient doses to the posterior nose. This study aimed to develop a new delivery protocol that can effectively deliver sprays to the caudal turbinate and nasopharynx.

Management of Vestibular Schwannoma with Normal Hearing.

Introduction: This work aimed to study the management of vestibular schwannoma (VS) patients with normal hearing (NH).

Methods: A retrospective study was undertaken in a Quaternary referral center for skull base pathologies. Among 4,000 VS patients 162 met our strict audiological criteria for NH.

Lower Inspiratory Breathing Depth Enhances Pulmonary Delivery Efficiency of ProAir Sprays.

Effective pulmonary drug delivery using a metered-dose inhaler (MDI) requires a match between the MDI sprays, the patient's breathing, and respiratory physiology. Different inhalers generate aerosols with distinct aerosol sizes and speeds, which require specific breathing coordination to achieve optimized delivery efficiency. Inability to perform the instructed breathing maneuver is one of the frequently reported issues during MDI applications; however, their effects on MDI dosimetry are unclear.

Count- and mass-based dosimetry of MDI spray droplets with polydisperse and monodisperse size distributions.

Most previous numerical studies of inhalation drug delivery used monodisperse aerosols or quantified deposition as the ratio of deposited particle number over the total number of released particles (i.e., count-based).

Effect of MDI Actuation Timing on Inhalation Dosimetry in a Human Respiratory Tract Model.

Accurate knowledge of the delivery of locally acting drug products, such as metered-dose inhaler (MDI) formulations, to large and small airways is essential to develop reliable in vitro/in vivo correlations (IVIVCs). However, challenges exist in modeling MDI delivery, due to the highly transient multiscale spray formation, the large variability in actuation-inhalation coordination, and the complex lung networks. The objective of this study was to develop/validate a computational MDI-releasing-delivery model and to evaluate the device actuation effects on the dose distribution with the newly developed model.

Trauma in northern Quebec, 2005-2014: epidemiologic features, transfers and patient outcomes.

Background: The Inuit people residing in Nunavik, Quebec, are vulnerable to major trauma owing to environmental and social factors; however, there is no systematic data collection for trauma in Nunavik, and, apart from data regarding patients who are transferred to tertiary care centres, no data enter the Quebec trauma registry directly from Nunavik. We performed a study to characterize the epidemiologic features of trauma in Nunavik, and describe indications for transfer and outcomes of patients referred to the tertiary trauma centre.

Methods: We collected data retrospectively for all patients with trauma admitted to the Centre de santé Tulattavik de l'Ungava in Kuujjuaq from 2005 to 2014.

Contentious Issues in Gout Management: The Story so Far.

Gout is the most common inflammatory arthritis worldwide. Although gout has been known for antiquity, many challenges still exist in gout management. It is vital to view gout as a chronic disease and not just treat the acute flare.

Inhalation dosimetry of nasally inhaled respiratory aerosols in the human respiratory tract with locally remodeled conducting lungs.

Respiratory diseases are often accompanied by alterations to airway morphology. However, inhalation dosimetry data in remodeled airways are scarce due to the challenges in reconstructing diseased respiratory morphologies. This study aims to study the airway remodeling effects on the inhalation dosimetry of nasally inhaled nanoparticles in a nose-lung geometry that extends to G9 (ninth generation).

Leveraging statistical shape modeling in computational respiratory dynamics: Nanomedicine delivery in remodeled airways.

Background And Objective: Accurate knowledge of the delivered doses to the diseased site in the respiratory tract is crucial to elicit desired therapeutic outcomes. However, such information is still difficult to obtain due to inaccessibility for measurement or visualization, complex network structure, and challenges in reconstructing lung geometries with disease-invoked airway remodeling. This study presents a novel method to simulate the airway remodeling in a mouth-lung geometry extending to G9.

SARS COV-2 virus-laden droplets coughed from deep lungs: Numerical quantification in a single-path whole respiratory tract geometry.

When an infected person coughs, many virus-laden droplets will be exhaled out of the mouth. Droplets from deep lungs are especially infectious because the alveoli are the major sites of coronavirus replication. However, their exhalation fraction, size distribution, and exiting speeds are unclear.

Micrometer aerosol deposition in normal and emphysematous subacinar models.

Emphysema is a chronic respiratory disease characterized by interalveolar septa destruction and enlarged air sacs. How the inhalation dosimetry in the pulmonary acini varies in the time course of emphysema is still unclear. The aim of this study is to numerically evaluate the impact of septal destructions on particle deposition in a pyramid-shape subacinar model that is composed of 496 alveoli.

Alveolar size effects on nanoparticle deposition in rhythmically expanding-contracting terminal alveolar models.

Significant differences in alveolar size exist in humans of different ages, gender, health, and among different species. The effects of alveolar sizes, as well as the accompanying breathing frequencies, on regional and local dosimetry of inhaled nanoparticles have not been sufficiently studied. Despite a well-accepted qualitative understanding of the advection-diffusion-sedimentation mechanism in the acinar region, a quantitative picture of the interactions among these factors remains inchoate.

Ventilation Modulation and Nanoparticle Deposition in Respiratory and Olfactory Regions of Rabbit Nose.

The rabbit nose's ability to filter out inhaled agents is directly related to its defense to infectious diseases. The knowledge of the rabbit nose anatomy is essential to appreciate its functions in ventilation regulation, aerosol filtration and olfaction. The objective of this study is to numerically simulate the inhalation and deposition of nanoparticles in a New Zealand white (NZW) rabbit nose model with an emphasis on the structure-function relation under normal and sniffing conditions.

Nanoparticle Deposition in Rhythmically Moving Acinar Models with Interalveolar Septal Apertures.

Pulmonary delivery of nanomedicines has been extensively studied in recent years because of their enhanced biocompatibility, sustained-release properties, and surface modification capability. The lung as a target also offers many advantages over other routers, such as large surface area, noninvasive, quick therapeutic onset, and avoiding first-pass metabolism. However, nanoparticles smaller than 0.

Audiological Evaluation of Vestibular Schwannoma Patients with Normal Hearing.

Objective: To evaluate the audiological aspects of vestibular schwannoma (VS) patients with normal hearing.

Study Design: Retrospective study.

Setting: Quaternary referral center for skull base pathologies.

Airflow and Particle Deposition in Acinar Models with Interalveolar Septal Walls and Different Alveolar Numbers.

Unique features exist in acinar units such as multiple alveoli, interalveolar septal walls, and pores of Kohn. However, the effects of such features on airflow and particle deposition remain not well quantified due to their structural complexity. This study aims to numerically investigate particle dynamics in acinar models with interalveolar septal walls and pores of Kohn.

Precursor B-Lymphoblastic Leukemia/Lymphoma With Double-Hit Gene Rearrangements () Presented With Spinal Cord Compression and Acquired Factor XIII Deficiency.

Double-hit lymphomas (DHLs) are aggressive mature B-cell neoplasms associated with rearrangements involving MYC and B-cell lymphoma-2 (BCL-2). Such DH events are extremely rare in B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (B-ALL), especially in young adults. A 29-year-old male patient initially presented to emergency department with right mandibular mass of 2 months duration associated with intermittent fever.

Spinal cord compression secondary to extramedullary hematopoiesis: A rareness in a young adult with thalassemia major.

We report a case of a thalassemia major male patient with back pain associated to severe weakness in lower extremities resulting in the ability to ambulate only with assistance. An urgent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of  thoracic and lumbosacral spine was requested. A posterior intraspinal extradural mass lesion compressing the spinal cord at the level of thoracic T5-8 was present, suggesting an extramedullary hematopoietic centre, compressing the spinal cord.

MPN10 score and survival of molecularly annotated myeloproliferative neoplasm patients.

JAK2, CALR, MPL and triple-negative mutational status has a direct impact on symptom severity and disease burden assessed by MPN10 score in myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs). Among 93 patients; median MPN10 score was 48 (5-76) in JAK2 mutants versus 25 (4-80) in JAK2 negative (p < .001); 22.

A Randomized Comparison Between Staple-Line Oversewing Versus No Reinforcement During Laparoscopic Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.

Background: Varieties of intraoperative methods such as oversewing of staple lines or other reinforcement products are used for preventing the laparoscopic vertical sleeve gastrectomy (LSG) complications. The aim of this study is to evaluate the complication rates of the gastric stapling alone versus stapling with oversewing invagination of the staple line in the LSG.

Methods: This is a single-center randomized study, Patients were randomized to two groups, 200 patients underwent LSG without reinforcement of the staple line and 200 patients underwent LSG with oversewing of the staple line.

Screening of renal dysfunction among Burkitt lymphoma survivors by novel markers.

Background: Burkitt lymphoma (BL) represents the most common pathological type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma in our region. Recently, high success rates have been achieved in BL treatment. Little is known about long-term renal dysfunction in this vulnerable group.