Better reporting quality for improved pediatric investigation:Application of health research reporting guidelines

Clinical research on the accuracy of diagnostic tests,the power of prognostic markers,and the efficacy and safety of interventions are the cornerstone of evidence-based health care.1 Transparency and sufficient reporting are important for conveying research findings to the public,practitioners,and students in medicine because insufficient reporting of results would hinder assessment for a study’s strengths and weaknesses and thus hamper integration of evidence,even from well-conducted research.2 However,the reporting quality of articles in most healthcare journals remains inadequate.

The effectiveness of sound-processing strategies on tonal language cochlear implant users:A systematic review

Importance:Contemporary cochlear implants(CIs)are well established as a technology for people with severe-to-profound sensorineural hearing loss,with their effectiveness having been widely reported.However,for tonal language CI recipients,speech perception remains a challenge:Conventional signal processing strategies have been demonstrated to possibly provide insufficient information to encode tonal cues,and CI recipients have exhibited considerable deficits in tone perception.Thus,some tonal language-oriented sound-processing strategies have been introduced.The effects of available tonal language-oriented strategies on tone perception are reviewed and evaluated in this study.The results may aid in designing and improving tonal language-appropriate sound-processing strategies for CI recipients.Objective:The objective of this systematic review was to investigate the effects of tonal-language-oriented signal processing strategies on tone perception,music perception,word and sentence recognition.Methods:To evaluate the effects of tonal language-oriented strategies on tone perception,we conducted a systematic review.We searched for relevant reports dated from January 1979 to July 2017 using PubMed,Cochrane Library,EBSCO,Web of Science,EMBASE,and 4 Chinese periodical databases(CBMdisc,CNKI,VIP,andWanfang Data).Results:According to our search strategy,672 potentially eligible studies were retrieved from the databases,with 12 of these studies included in the final review after a 4-stage selection process.The majority of sound-processing strategies designed for tonal language were HiResolution with Fidelity 120(HiRes 120),fine structure processing,temporal fine structure(TFS),and C-tone.Generally,acute or short-term comparisons between the tonal language-oriented strategies and the conventional strategy did not reveal statistically significant differences in speech perception(or show a small improvement).However,a tendency toward improved tone perception and subjectively reported overall preferred sound quality was observed with the tonal language-oriented strategies.Interpretation:Conventional signal processing strategies typically provided very limited F0 information via temporal envelopes delivered to the stimulating electrodes.In contrast,tonal language-oriented coding strategies attempted to present more spectral information and TFS cues required for tone perception.Thus,a tendency of improved performance in tonal language perception in CI users was shown.