Relating the variability of tone-burst otoacoustic emission and auditory brainstem response latencies to the underlying cochlear mechanics

Forward and reverse cochlear latency and its relation to the frequency tuning of the auditory filters can be assessed using tone bursts (TBs). Otoacoustic emissions (TBOAEs) estimate the cochlear roundtrip time, while auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to the same stimuli aim at measuring the auditory filter buildup time. Latency ratios are generally close to two and controversy exists about the relationship of this ratio to cochlear mechanics. We explored why the two methods provide different estimates of filter buildup time, and ratios with large inter-subject variability, using a time-domain model for OAEs and ABRs. We compared latencies for twenty models, in which all parameters but the cochlear irregularities responsible for reflection-source OAEs were identical, and found that TBOAE latencies were much more variable than ABR latencies. Multiple reflection-sources generated within the evoking stimulus bandwidth were found to shape the TBOAE envelope and complicate the interpretation of TBOAE latency and TBOAE/ABR ratios in terms of auditory filter tuning

AERODYNAMIC DRAG AND STABILITY CHARACTERISTICS OF TOWED INFLATABLE DECELERATORS AT SUPERSONIC SPEEDS

Aerodynamic drag and stability of towed inflatable decelerators at supersonic speed

Remittances' impact on the labor supply and on the deficit of current account

Remittances as one of the main benefits of international migration have a great and important impact on the countries of origins and make migration a topic of special interest for many researchers. Workers' remittances represent an important financial flows and a major source of private external finance for many developing countries, which they receive them in large quantity. For many economies, remittances represent a sizable and stable source of funds that sometimes exceed official aid or financial inflows from foreign direct investment. One substantial drawback of remittances is that it means developing economies lose their best, most skilled young workers. It can lead to a situation where so many adults have migrated to a richer country; children are being brought up by grandparents. This has both an economic and social cost. The economy loses because young workers are not available; society loses out by the displacement effect of young adults not being there. On the other hand, people wouldn't undertake the upheaval of moving to other countries, if they didn't think their families would benefit and the country benefits too. The free movement of labor enables greater opportunities for people in developing economies and also helps developing economies gain important foreign currency revenue. Developed countries benefit from a more elastic supply of labor, enabling greater labor market flexibility. Remittances may increase consumption and enhance investments and have a significant impact to finance economic growth in receiving economies. In particular, migrants' transfers of funds, being inflows of foreign currencies that can be used to repay foreign debt, are less volatile compared to other financial flows. For some countries money sent back in the form of remittances from migrant workers are mostly used for consumption and investments and comprise a substantial portion of GDP and their balance of payments. This paper examines the impact of remittances as an income source to finance the balance of payment deficit. First, it documents the increasing share of remittances relative to other foreign capital flows to Albania and Southeast countries, distribution of remittance inflows across countries. This is followed by some analysis of the potential benefits and costs of remittances in recipient countries. The paper drawing on the case of Albania, Serbia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Moldova, Bulgaria, Romania and Republic of Macedonia, the paper shows the positive impact that rising remittances can have on the improvement of current account balance. Finally, also examines the role of remittances in funding decreasing Albanian National Debt. Workers' remittances to Albania are nevertheless an important financial flow-with perhaps, significant developmental effects. Albania earns a large amount of worker's remittances which since 1992 they have grown rapidly. It is well known that they represent the second largest inflow of incomes, are less costly and increased mostly consumption level. Our results point the positive impact of remittances in financing the deficit of the balance of payments and are a stable source of incomes

Economic crisis impact on Remittances and Migration level in Albania

Remittances of international migrants as the second largest flow of incomes contribute to the well-being of their households of origin and also have an impact at macro-economic level. Out-migration is an effective means for low-income households to quickly overcome shortages of income. The sustenance of poor households might have been more difficult without such remittances. From a macro perspective, remittances contribute to the equalization of the income distribution among households having out-migrants. Remittances have enforced the Albanian economy since 1992 especially they had a positive and large contribution in consumption level, investment and GDP. But the economic crisis of 2008 has affected large sectors of the population in developed and developing nations and international immigrants have not been the exception because there have been an economic downturn. Remittances in Albania represent the second main source of incomes and this study documents the recent slowdown in workers’ remittances, the money that international immigrants send back home. Current data indicates that remittance flows have slowed for all regions of the globe. This paper tries to analyze the impact of the economic crisis on remittances level and also the negative impact of their slowdown in the Albanian economy

TAYUBAN DI GRUP NANJUNG JAYA ENCLING DESA KARANG HEGAR KABUPATEN SUBANG

Kesenian tayuban merupakan salah satu kesenian di Kabupaten Subang yang keberadaannya mulai memudar di kalangan masyarakat Subang. Padahal sudah semestinya kesenian tayuban ini harus tetap dikenal, dipertahankan dan dilestarikan sebagai salah satu kesenian yang ada di Kabupaten Subang. Oleh karena itu, peneliti ingin mendapatkan jawaban mengapa dan bagaimana fungsi kesenian tayuban serta nilai-nilai yang terkandung didalamnya. Untuk itu, penelitian ini diberi judul “Tayuban di Grup Nanjung Jaya Encling Desa Karang Hegar Kabupaten Subang”. Penelitian ini menggunakan 2 rumusan masalah yaitu (1) Bagaimana fungsi tayuban di masa sekarang? (2) Apa nilai-nilai yang terkandung dalam tayuban?. Tujuan dari penelitian tayuban di Grup Nanjung Jaya Encling Desa Karang Hegar Kabupaten Subang adalah untuk mendapatkan jawaban dari rumusan masalah tersebut. Dalam penelitian ini peneliti menggunakan metode deskriptif analisis pendekatan kualitatif. Metode ini dilakukan untuk mendeksripsikan kejadian yang sebenarnya sesuai dengan fakta di lapangan dan kemudian data yang terkumpul itu diolah melalui proses analisis. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian, peneliti menemukan bahwa fungsi kesenian tayuban di masyarakat Subang sudah berubah. Sebelum tahun 1990-an fungsi kesenian tayuban di Subang untuk ritual kesuburan padi, sedangkan pada masa sekarang kesenian tayuban lebih berfungsi sebagai media hiburan bagi masyarakat sekitar. Dalam kesenian tayuban, peneliti juga menemukan beberapa nilai yang terkandung di dalamnya yaitu seperti nilai religi yang terdapat dalam fungsi kesenian tayuban pada zaman dahulu sebagai media dakwah, nilai sosial yang terdapat dalam saweran dan terjadinya interaksi ketika menari bersama, serta nilai pendidikan seksual yang dilihat dari fungsi kesenian tayuban pada zaman dahulu sebagai ritual kesuburan dan kini beralih fungsi sebagai media hiburan dalam pesta pernikahan yang dikaitkan dengan kesuburan pasangan suami istri.;---The tayuban art is the one of art in Subang Regency which its existence is fading. Whereas it is should have been to be known and maintained. Therefore the researcher want to know why and how the function of tayuban art and also want to know the values within. Therefor this research entitled ” Tayuban in Nanjung Jaya Encling Group Karang Hegar Subang Regency”. This research has two research questions, those are (1) How the function of tayuban art in recent time? (2) what values within in tayuban art?. The aim of the research is to find the answer of these research questions. In this research the researcher employed descriptive analysis qualitative approach. This method was employed to describe the truly events based on the real facts and then the collected data it was analyzed through the analysis process. Based on the finding, it was found that the function of tayuban art in Subang has changed. Before 1990s the function of tayuban art in Subang was for the ritual of agriculture fertility, but now the function of tayuban art is for entertaiment. In tayuban art, the researcher also found some values whitin. They are religion value since in the past the tayuban art used as the proselytism, social value which in saweran and the interaction happened when the people dance together, and also value of sexual education which it was seen from the function of tayuban art in the past as the ritual of fertility and now changed as the entertaiment in wedding party which connected with the couple of married fertility

HUBUNGAN INDIKATOR OBESITAS DENGAN KEPADATAN TULANG PADA WANITA DEWASA AWAL

Latar Belakang : Prevalensi osteoporosis pada wanita dewasa di Indonesia tergolong tinggi (32,3%). Osteoporosis dinyatakan berhubungan dengan obesitas. Penilaian status obesitas ditentukan oleh beberapa indikator diantaranya Indeks Massa Tubuh (IMT), persen lemak tubuh dan lingkar pinggang. Beberapa indikator tersebut dinyatakan berpengaruh dengan kepadatan tulang, namun masih dalam perdebatan. Tujuan dari penelitian ini yaitu untuk melihat hubungan antara indikator-indikator obesitas dengan kepadatan tulang pada wanita dewasa awal. Metode : Penelitian ini merupakan penelitian observasional dengan desain penelitian cross-sectional. Subjek 52 orang wanita dewasa awal usia 20-24 tahun dipilih dengan teknik random sampling. Data yang diambil adalah berat badan, persen lemak tubuh, tinggi badan, asupan kalsium, tingkat aktivitas fisik, dan kepadatan tulang. Analisis bivariat dengan uji rank Spearman dan Pearson, sedangkan analisis multivariat menggunakan uji regresi linier ganda. Hasil : Terdapat 23,1 subjek termasuk dalam katergori osteopenia, sedangkan 76,9% subjek lainnya termasuk dalam kategori normal. Indeks Massa Tubuh (IMT), persen lemak tubuh, lingkar pinggang dan aktifitas fisik tidak memiliki hubungan dengan kepadatan tulang. Asupan kalsium sebagai variabel perancu mimiliki hubungan yang bermakna dengan kepadatan tulang (p<0,05). Kesimpulan : Tidak ada hubungan antara IMT, massa lemak tubuh dan lingkar pinggang dengan kepadatan tulang pada wanita dewasa awal

Impact of Multiple Insect-Pest Incidence on Yield in Basmati Rice

The experiments for determining the multiple insect-pest incidence on yield loss in basmati rice was conducted for two crop seasons. Five treatments were, viz. application of imidacloprid in vegetative stage; application of granular insecticide in vegetative stage; application of higher dose of Urea; augmentive releases of yellow stem borer egg mass at vegetative and booting stage; untreated control. During both the years, the correlation between grain yield and dead heart, leaf folder damage and planthopper population at 50 and 65 DAT and white ear at maturity was negative. The analysis of variance of regression analysis of yield Vs damage levels at different crop growth stages during both the years revealed a significant linear relationship. The yield loss was highly related to incidence of stem borer and leaf folder damage at 50 and 65 DAT during both the years. For integrated pest management, effective monitoring of stem borer and leaf folder from 50 to 65 DAT is required, which appeared as a critical crop growth stage. The farmers should remain cautious during this period to prevent yield loss

The cochlea as a smart structure

The cochlea is part of the inner ear and its mechanical response provides us with many aspects of our amazingly sensitive and selective hearing. The human cochlea is a coiled tube, with two main fluid chambers running along its length, separated by a 35 mm-long flexible partition that has its own internal dynamics. A dispersive wave can propagate along the cochlea due to the interaction between the inertia of the fluid and the dynamics of the partition. This partition includes about 12 000 outer hair cells, which have different structures, on a micrometre and a nanometre scale, and act both as motional sensors and as motional actuators. The local feedback action of all these cells amplifies the motion inside the inner ear by more than 40 dB at low sound pressure levels. The feedback loops become saturated at higher sound pressure levels, however, so that the feedback gain is reduced, leading to a compression of the dynamic range in the cochlear amplifier. This helps the sensory cells, with a dynamic range of only about 30 dB, to respond to sounds with a dynamic range of more than 120 dB. The active and nonlinear nature of the dynamics within the cochlea give rise to a number of other phenomena, such as otoacoustic emissions, which can be used as a diagnostic test for hearing problems in newborn children, for example. In this paper we view the mechanical action of the cochlea as a smart structure. In particular a simplified wave model of the cochlear dynamics is reviewed that represents its essential features. This can be used to predict the motion along the cochlea when the cochlea is passive, at high levels, and also the effect of the cochlear amplifier, at low level