Autotrophic denitrification in sulfur packed-bed reactors (SPBR) has been widely employed for treating municipal secondary effluent. However, the fixed volume of packed sulfur in SPBR restricts the ability to adjust denitrification efficiency in response to fluctuating influent nitrate levels, leading to either effluent standard exceedances or unnecessary sulfur consumption. Here, we proposed a novel method for directionally regulating nitrate removal efficiency (NRE) in SPBR by adjusting the bed-immersion-ratio (BIR).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiomimetics (Basel)
October 2024
Soft robots have often been proposed for medical applications, creating human-friendly machines, and dedicated subject operation, and the pneumatic actuator is a representative example of such a robot. Plants, with their hingeless architecture, can take advantage of morphology to achieve a predetermined deformation. To improve the modes of motion, two pneumatic actuators that mimic the principles of the plants (the birds-of-paradise plant and the waterwheel plant) were designed, simulated, and tested using physical models in this study.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLin Chuang Er Bi Yan Hou Tou Jing Wai Ke Za Zhi
September 2024
Sleep disorders have a high comorbidity rate with vestibular diseases. The results of some small sample clinical studies have confirmed the effect of sleep deprivation on vestibular function. However, the mechanism of the effect of sleep disorder on vestibular system is still unclear.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough white matter (WM) accounts for nearly half of adult brain, its wiring diagram is largely unknown. Here, an approach is developed to construct WM networks by estimating interregional morphological similarity based on structural magnetic resonance imaging. It is found that morphological WM networks showed nontrivial topology, presented good-to-excellent test-retest reliability, accounted for phenotypic interindividual differences in cognition, and are under genetic control.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Meniere's disease (MD) is characterized by idiopathic endolymphatic hydrops (ELH). Frequent vertigo attacks is the most disabling symptom of MD.
Objective: This study evaluated the efficacy of triple semicircular canal occlusion combined with endolymphatic sac decompression in the treatment of frequent vertigo in patients with MD.
Background: The aim of this study was to explore the impact of sleep quality on cognitive function in patients with chronic subjective tinnitus.
Methods: The Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale (MoCA) were used to assess sleep quality and cognitive function in patients with chronic subjective tinnitus, sleep disorder patients (SD), and normal controls (NC). The tinnitus evaluation questionnaire (TEQ) and tinnitus loudness were used to assess the severity in patients with chronic subjective tinnitus.
Background: Due to the socio-cultural differences between China and other countries, which may affect the development of an individual's personality and behavior, it is necessary to explore the relationship between personality traits and tinnitus distress in the context of China's socio-cultural background.
Methods: The Tinnitus Handicap Inventory and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Short Scale Chinese version were used to explore the influence of personality traits on tinnitus distress in Chinese patients with tinnitus.
Results: The results were not entirely consistent with previous studies from other countries.
Objectives: Our objective was to study the efficacy and safety of intratymapanic dexamethasone (ITD) for treating in Méniere's disease in southern China.
Methods: A total of 124 patients with Méniere's disease were randomly divided into 2 groups: ITD group (n = 62) and intratympanic lidocaine (ITL) group (n = 62). The ITD group was further randomly divided into 2 groups based on dexamethasone dosage: ITD1 (2 mg/ml) (n = 31) and ITD2 (5 mg/ml) group (n = 31).
Lin Chuang Er Bi Yan Hou Tou Jing Wai Ke Za Zhi
September 2022
To explore the value of adding 1 kHz cervical vestibular evoked myogenic potential(cVEMP) and ocular vestibular evoked myogenic potential(oVEMP) in the auxiliary diagnosis of unilateral vestibular hypofunction. A retrospective analysis of 84 patients with unilateral vestibular hypofunction receiving two or more vestibular function tests was conducted,29 cases of unilateral Ménière's disease, 27 cases of benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), 8 cases of idiopathic sudden sensorineural hearing loss (ISSHL) with vertigo, and 20 cases of ISSHL without vertigo were included. SPSS 25.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The narrowband chirp (NB Chirp), a frequency-specific sound stimulus signal obtained by limiting the frequency bandwidth based on chirp, is applied to the frequency specified auditory brainstem response (fsABR) increasingly. Although some studies demonstrated that NB Chirp-evoked auditory brainstem response (NB Chirp ABR) causes a better neural response than tone burst-evoked auditory brainstem response and is preferred for fsABR, there is little known about how to better estimate an individual's hearing level through the threshold of NB Chirp ABR. The present study intended to compare the accuracy and deviation of NB Chirp ABR corrected by different approaches in estimating the hearing level of people with normal hearing.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: Summarize and analyze the current research results of tinnitus-related genes, explore the potential links between the results of each study, and provide reference for subsequent studies.
Methods: Collect and sort out the research literature related to tinnitus genes included in PubMed, Web of Science, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, and Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform before December 31, 2019. Then the relevant contents of the literature were sorted out and summarized.
Micromachines (Basel)
December 2021
Conventional motors with complicated electromagnetic structures are difficult to miniaturise for millimetre- and centimetre-sized robots. Instead, small-scale robots are actuated using a variety of functional materials. We proposed a novel robot propelled by a piezoelectric ceramic in this work.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLin Chuang Er Bi Yan Hou Tou Jing Wai Ke Za Zhi
February 2021
Introduction: The role of social support in the relief of tinnitus distress and related mechanisms remains unclear. This study aimed to confirm a hypothesis that the influence of social support on tinnitus distress is mediated by resilience and self-esteem.
Methods: The Social Support Rating Scale, Connor-Davidson Resilience Scale, Positive Version of Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale, and Tinnitus Handicap Inventory were used to assess 296 patients who experience chronic subjective tinnitus.
Background: Evidence suggests that glucocorticoids are important in the treatment of sudden hearing loss (SHL) and Meniere's disease (MD). However, different glucocorticoid administration methods may have a significant impact on treatment outcomes.
Objective: This study aimed to investigate effects of different glucocorticoid administration methods on sudden hearing loss and Meniere's disease.
Introduction: Auditory brainstem response (ABR) is one of the commonly used methods in clinical settings to evaluate the hearing sensitivity and auditory function. The current ABR measurement usually adopts click sound as the stimuli. However, there may be partial ABR amplitude attenuation due to the delay characteristics of the cochlear traveling wave along the basilar membrane.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Hearing impairment is one of the most common birth defects in children. Universal newborn hearing screenings have been performed for 19 years in Guangdong province, China. A screening/diagnosis/intervention system has gradually been put in place.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA novel small-load fatigue testing device whose actuation resource is the piezoelectric material is proposed. The procedure of energy conversion and motion transfer is analyzed in detail. In the experiment by which the characteristic of the fatigue testing device is tested, the testing device works at resonance and the amplitude of the output could be up to 6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To investigate the long-term clinical effect of balloon dilation eustachian tuboplasty (BET) combined with tympanic tube insertion (TTI) in the treatment of chronic recurrent secretory otitis media (CRSOM).
Materials And Methods: A retrospective study of 30 cases of CRSOM treated with BET combined with TTI under general anesthesia between August 2014 and September 2016. Thirty cases of CRSOM treated with TTI in the same period were taken as the control group.
At present, the mechanisms underlying changes in visual processing in individuals with tinnitus remain unclear. Therefore, we investigated whether the vision dominance of individuals with tinnitus disappears at the preresponse level through behavioral study. A total of 38 individuals with tinnitus and 31 healthy controls completed a task in which they were asked to attend to either visual or auditory stimuli while ignoring simultaneous stimulus inputs from the other modality.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The nucleotide oligomerization domain-like receptor subfamily C5 (NLRC5) is primarily expressed in the adaptive and innate immune systems. NLRC5 was recently discovered to regulate immunity and inflammatory responses. Abnormal immune and inflammatory responses are considered critical pathogenesis in IgA nephritis (IgAN).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the field of micromechanics, piezoelectric actuator has attracted great attention for its high-frequency response, high displacement resolution, and high output force. However, its prospect of practical application has been largely limited by the displacement of micrometer. A fluid coupling flexible actuator was proposed, which utilizes resonance to enlarge the output displacement.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFront Psychol
September 2018
The visual processing capacity of tinnitus patients is worse than normal controls, indicating cross-modal interference. However, the mechanism underlying the tinnitus-modulated visual processing is largely unclear. In order to explore the influence of tinnitus on visual processing, this study used a signal recognition paradigm to observe whether the tinnitus group would display a significantly longer reaction time in processing the letter symbols (Experiment 1) and emotional faces (Experiment 2) than the control group.
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