Application of kurtosis to underwater sound

Regulations for underwater anthropogenic noise are typically formulated in terms of peak sound pressure, root-mean-square sound pressure, and (weighted or unweighted) sound exposure. Sound effect studies on humans and other terrestrial mammals suggest that in addition to these metrics, the impulsiveness of sound (often quantified by its kurtosis...

Hearing loss by week of gestation and birth weight in very preterm neonates

Objective To gain insight into health and related costs associated with very preterm births, one needs accurate information about the prevalence of the disabling conditions, including neonatal hearing loss (NHL). Study design We assessed the prevalence of NHL by week of gestation and categories of birth weight in very preterm neonates. Results...

A study of the clinical and radiological features in a cohort of 93 patients with a COL2A1 mutation causing spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia congenita or a related phenotype

Type 2 collagen disorders encompass a diverse group of skeletal dysplasias that are commonly associated with orthopedic, ocular, and hearing problems. However, the frequency of many clinical features has never been determined. We retrospectively investigated the clinical, radiological, and genotypic data in a group of 93 patients with...

User evaluation of a communication system that automatically generates captions to improve telephone communication

This study examined the subjective benefit obtained from automatically generated captions during telephone-speech comprehension in the presence of babble noise. Short stories were presented by telephone either with or without captions that were generated offline by an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. To simulate online ASR, the word...

Examination of long-lasting parental concern after false-positive results of neonatal hearing screening

Objective: To investigate whether false-positive outcomes on neonatal hearing screening cause long-lasting parental concerns. Methods: A general population of parents whose children had participated in the universal neonatal hearing screening (UNHS) programme were examined. Parents filled out a questionnaire 6 months after UNHS. Outcomes were...

The benefit obtained from visually displayed text from an automatic speech recognizer during listening to speech presented in noise

OBJECTIVES: The aim of this study was to evaluate the benefit that listeners obtain from visually presented output from an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system during listening to speech in noise. DESIGN: Auditory-alone and audiovisual speech reception thresholds (SRTs) were measured. The SRT is defined as the speech-to-noise ratio at which...

Functional outcomes and participation in young adulthood for very preterm and very low birth weight infants: The Dutch project on preterm and small for gestational age infants at 19 years of age

OBJECTIVE. Young adults who were born very preterm or with a very low birth weight remain at risk for physical and neurodevelopmental problems and lower academic achievement scores. Data, however, are scarce, hospital based, mostly done in small populations, and need additional confirmation. METHODS. Infants who were born at <32 weeks of...

Bilateral Hearing Impairment in Dutch Neonatal Intensive Care Unit Infants with Unilateral Failure on Hearing Screening

Implementation of a nation-wide automated auditory brainstem response hearing screening programme in neonatal intensive care units

Aim: As part of a future national neonatal hearing screening programme in the Netherlands, automated auditory brainstem response (AABR) hearing screening was implemented in seven neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). The objective was to evaluate key outcomes of this programme: participation rate, first stage success rate, pass/referral rates,...

Costs of different strategies for neonatal hearing screening: A modelling approach

Objective - To compare the cost effectiveness of various strategies for neonatal hearing screening by estimating the cost per hearing impaired child detected. Design - Cost analyses with a simulation model, including a multivariate sensitivity analysis. Comparisons of the cost per child detected were made for: screening method (automated...

Balancing speech intelligibility versus sound exposure in selection of personal hearing protection equipment for Chinook aircrews

Background: Aircrews are often exposed to high ambient sound levels, especially in military aviation. Since long-term exposure to such noise may cause hearing damage, selection of adequate hearing protective devices is crucial. Such devices also affect speech intelligibility. When speech intelligibility and hearing protection lead to conflicting...

Which chronic conditions are associated with better or poorer quality of life?

The objective of the present study is to compare the QL of a wide range of chronic disease patients. Secondary analysis of eight existing data sets, including over 15,000 patients, was performed. The studies were conducted between 1993 and 1996 and included population-based samples, referred samples, consecutive samples, and/or consecutive...

The ethics of assessing health technologies

Health technology assessment (HTA) consists of the systematic study of the consequences of the introduction or continued use of the technology in a particular context, with the explicit objective to arrive at a judgment of the value or merit of the technology. Ideally, it is aimed at assessing all aspects of a given technology or group of...

Noise exposure and public health

Exposure to noise constitutes a health risk. There is sufficient scientific evidence that noise exposure can induce hearing impairment, hypertension and ischemic heart disease, annoyance, sleep disturbance, and decreased school performance. For other effects such as changes in the immune system and birth defects, the evidence is limited. Most...

De standaard vroegtijdige opsporing van gehoorstoornissen 0-19 jaar van de jeugdgezondheidszorg [The youth health care guideline early screening for hearing impairment ages 0-19 years]

The Youth Health Care guideline 'Early screening for hearing impairment, ages 0-19 years' draws the attention of all parties involved to the case finding of, notably, perceptive hearing loss; it helps workers in the Youth Health Care argue their referrals and improve the next steps in the process. Referrals always aim at ruling out perceptive...

The cocktail party phenomenon A review of research on speech intelligibility in multiple-talker conditions

It is in most cases relatively easy to understand one talker even if other persons arc talking at the same time. Over the last decades, this so-called cocktail party phenomenon has been the subject of a considerable number of studies. In the present paper, an overview is given of part of this research, specifically those studies dealing with the...