Evaluation of Digits-in-Noise Test and Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults Screening in Patients with Occupational Noise-Induced Hearing Loss

Objective:To explore the clinical evaluation role of the Digits-in-Noise(DIN)test and Hearing Handicap Inventory for Adults Screening(HHIA-S)for patients with occupational noise-induced hearing loss and to observe and analyze their application values.Methods:Fifty patients with suspected occupational noise-induced hearing loss were randomly selected from the Department of Otolaryngology at the hospital as the research target.The collection period for the research cases spanned from January 2022 to November 2023,and all patients had a history of noise exposure.The DIN test and HHIA-S were used for hearing examinations,with clinical,comprehensive diagnosis serving as the gold standard to study their diagnostic performance.Results:The compliance rate of the DIN test was 88.00%,the HHIA-S’s compliance rate was 80.00%,and the combined compliance rate was 94.00%.The compliance rate of the DIN test and the combined compliance rates of the patients were statistically significant compared to the clinical gold standard data(P<0.05),while there was no difference between the compliance rate of the HHIA-S and the gold standard(P>0.05).The data shows that the sensitivity of the combined diagnosis is significantly higher than the sensitivity data of the DIN test and HHIA-S examination alone(P<0.05).Its specificity is 100.00%,and the accuracy data of the joint diagnosis in the degree were higher than those of the DIN test alone(P>0.05)and the HHIA-S alone(P<0.05).Conclusion:For patients with occupational noise-induced hearing loss,the joint evaluation of the DIN test and HHIA-S can significantly improve their diagnostic value with high sensitivity and accuracy.

VST/DL Digital Circuit Testing & Analytical System

An important means for digital circuit analysis, design. maintenance and production is the IC chip test and analysis. With digital circuit application prevailing today, the automatic test and analysis of digital circuits is going to play a more important role. It can save a great deal of time and cost for the maintenance of equipment and can also provide correst analytical data for designers.

A Portable Multi-functional Real-time Digital Simulator Dedicated to Protective Relay Testing

The paper intfoduces a PC-DSP based real-time digital simulator which is portable in size and aimed at the closed-loop testing of various types of protective relays for their design and application. The simulator can be widely used in not only concerning utilities but also manufacturers and research / certification institutes because of its many functions. The hardware architecture and software implementation of the simulator are described. The main features and functions of the simulator are also

Test Vector Optimization Using Pocofan-Poframe Partitionin

This paper presents an automated POCOFAN-POFRAME algorithm thatpartitions large combinational digital VLSI circuits for pseudo exhaustive testing. In thispaper, a simulation framework and partitioning technique are presented to guide VLSIcircuits to work under with fewer test vectors in order to reduce testing time and todevelop VLSI circuit designs. This framework utilizes two methods of partitioningPrimary Output Cone Fanout Partitioning (POCOFAN) and POFRAME partitioning todetermine number of test vectors in the circuit. The key role of partitioning is to identifyreconvergent fanout branch pairs and the optimal value of primary input node N andfanout F partitioning using I-PIFAN algorithm. The number of reconvergent fanout andits locations are critical for testing of VLSI circuits and design for testability. Hence, theirselection is crucial in order to optimize system performance and reliability. In the presentwork, the design constraints of the partitioned circuit considered for optimizationincludes critical path delay and test time. POCOFAN-POFRAME algorithm uses theparameters with optimal values of circuits maximum primary input cone size (N) andminimum fan-out value (F) to determine the number of test vectors, number of partitionsand its locations. The ISCAS’85 benchmark circuits have been successfully partitioned,the test results of C499 shows 45% reduction in the test vectors and the experimentalresults are compared with other partitioning methods, our algorithm makes fewer testvectors.

Adding Pseudo-Random Test Sequence Generator in the Test Simulator for DFT Approach

This paper presents modified version of a realistic test tool suitable to Design For Testability （DFT） and Built-ln Self Test （BIST） environments. A comprehensive tool is developed in the form of a test simulator. The simulator is capable of providing a required goal of test for the Circuit Under Test （CUT）. The simulator uses the approach of fault diagnostics with fault grading procedures to provide the optimum tests. The current version of the simulator embeds features of exhaustive and pseudo-random test generation schemes along with the search solutions of cost effective test goals. The simulator provides facilities of realizing all possible pseudo-random sequence generators with all possible combinations of seeds. The tool is developed on a common Personal Computer （PC） platform and hence no special software is required. Thereby, it is a low cost tool hence economical. The tool is very much suitable for determining realistic test sequences for a targeted goal of testing for any CUT. The developed tool incorporates flexible Graphical User Interface （GUI） procedures and can be operated without any special programming skill. The tool is debugged and tested with the results of many bench mark circuits. Further, this developed tool can be utilized for educational purposes for many courses such as fault-tolerant computing, fault diagnosis, digital electronics, and safe-reliable-testable digital logic designs.

Dynamic tensile characterization of pig skin

The strain-rate dependent response of porcine skin oriented in the fiber direction is explored under tensile loading. Quasi-static response was obtained at strain rates in the range of 10-3s-1to 25 s-1. Characterization of the response at even greater strain rates is accomplished by measuring the spatio-temporal evolution of the particle velocity and strain in a thin strip subjected to high speed impact loading that generates uniaxial stress conditions. These experiments indicate the formation of shock waves; the shock Hugoniot that relates particle velocity to the shock velocity and the dynamic stress to dynamic strain is obtained directly through experimental measurements, without any assumptions regarding the constitutive properties of the material.

Modification of colorimetric method based digital soil test kit for determination of macronutrients in oil palm plantation

It is the need of time that oil palm farmers must perform the spatially planned soil analysis to know about the fertilizer sufficient and deficient zones of land.Colorimetric method is a suitable and fast solution of soil analysis for NPK determination using the digital soil test kit.NPK determination procedure with a digital soil test kit was undefined for oil palm.Furthermore,the digital soil test kit determines the passage of light through an opaque medium of soil solution with a specified reagent.Therefore,environmental light may interfere leading to wrong results of NPK measurement.Likewise,this equipment was non-incorporable with the controller of any VRT fertilizer applicator.In this research,these issues were addressed and the NPK measurement procedure was defined for oil palm plantation by modifying the‘soil to water’ratio in sample soil solution with an optimum environmental light range of 18-23 W/m^(2).‘Soil to water’ratios were found for nitrogen,phosphorus and potassium as 0.31 to 5.00,1.00 to 5.00 and 4.50 to 5.00,respectively to fit the requirement of NPK for oil palm in the prescribed range of the equipment.Validation study of modified digital soil test kit showed that 91.7%N,89.6%P and 93.8%K results of modified digital soil test kit were matched with analytical laboratory method.Thus,the reliability of NPK results using digital soil test kit was enhanced,making the kit incorporable with the controller of variable rate fertilizer applicator through remote monitoring based data acquisition system.The outcome of this research can be used in the development of an IoT network data fusion for dynamic assessment of the NPK variation in the soil and nutrient management in oil palm plantations.

Application of the digital matched-filter technique to ultrasonic non-destructive testing

Acoustic-pulse compression is obtained in systems with different timebandwidth products by applying the digital matched-filter technique to ultrasonic non-destructive testing. The signal is linearly frequency -modulated (LFM) pulse and the digitized electrical-excitation signal itself is used as a digital matched filter. Experimental results are in good agreement with theory. Suppressions of side lobes achieve -41.9 dB and -41.5 dB for the Hamming and Gaussian weighted signals respectively. It shows that the application of the digital matched-filter technique improves the performances of a ultrasonic testing system explicitly.

A novel multi-level model for quasi-brittle cracking analysis with complex microstructure

The paper presents a novel multi-level model for quasi-brittle cracking analysis.Based on the partition of unity and information transmission technology,it provides a new non-re-meshing way to describe the cracking phenomenon in structures constructed from materials with complex microstructures.In the global model,the concept of the material particle is defined and the basic unknowns are the boundary displacements of these particles,which is different from the concept of the traditional displacement field.A series of enrichment functions with continuous steps is proposed,describing the boundary displacement affected by crack bands and allowing the intersections of crack bands with particle boundaries a priori unknown.Simultaneously,additional equations are introduced to determine element status and make the degrees of freedom of the global model remain at a stable level.Compared with previous research by our group,where the local description is equal to the global description on the boundary of a material particle,the introduced enrichment functions enable more accurate capture of the characteristics of the crack band.The model avoids the complex and dynamic model adjustments due to the activation and exit of representative volume elements(RVEs)and the accuracy of the description of the crack pattern can be ensured.The RVEs are activated at first,but then many of them exit the computation due to the unloading which reduces many of the degrees of freedom.Two examples of concrete specimens are analyzed,and the concrete fracture experiment and the digital image correlation(DIC)test are conducted.Compared with the reference solutions and the experimental data,even though the microstructure of concrete is very complex,the cracking process and crack pattern can be obtained accurately.