Aim
This meta‐research study aimed to investigate the level of compliance with the Sex and Gender Equity in Research (SAGER) Guidelines for the inclusion, analysis, and reporting of sex/gender, in periodontitis‐related randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
Materials and Methods
Following the inclusion of RCTs related to the treatment of periodontitis published between 2018 and 2019, we applied the SAGER checklist to assess the adherence to sex/gender reporting guidelines. We used non‐parametric descriptive statistics and correlation models to test the association of the dependent outcome with other variables.
Results
One hundred and one articles were included in the analysis. The female enrolment ranged between 30% and 94%. Twenty‐six studies enrolled less than 50% of female participants. The overall SAGER score (OSS) of item fulfilment ranged between 0 and 7 items with an average of 1.9 items signifying poor guideline adherence to the SAGER guidelines. These findings were not associated with the corresponding author gender (p = .623), publication year (p = .947), and funding source (p = .133). However, a significant but negative correlation with journal impact factor (r = −0.253, p = .026) was observed.
Conclusions
Sex and gender were frequently disregarded in clinical trial reporting. This oversight might limit the understanding of sex/gender differences in periodontitis‐related clinical trials.
Perception of warning sounds, such as vehicle backup alarms, is reduced when hearing protection devices (HPDs) are worn. A cross-correlation approach is employed to detect a pre-selected warning sound and enable it to bypass the attenuation of the HPD while still attenuating the environmental noise. Computer simulation shows that the algorithm can detect the specified alarm at signal-to-environmental-noise ratios as low as −30 dB. Human subject testing of the algorithm, implemented on a modified commercial HPD, confirms the minimum detection threshold obtained in simulation, and demonstrates a 7 dB improvement in detection threshold compared with the unmodified HPD.
Strategies for improving speech understanding and warning signal detection when wearing communication headsets/hearing protectors (HPDs) in environmental noise must accommodate sounds from different sources at different times. A subband signal processing approach would appear desirable, with a delayless structure essential for active noise reduction (ANR). The requirements for communication channel and ANR controllers differ, owing to the different bandwidths required for speech and warning signals, and for ANR. Subbands for optimizing speech signal-to-noise ratios are commonly fractional-octave bandwidth, while computational efficiency favors linear subbands for ANR. Increasing the number of subbands reduces computational cost for the latter but the advantage is less apparent for communication signal control. Possibilities exist for harmonizing subband filter structures by constructing models of speech intelligibility using computationally efficient bandwidths. In contrast, algorithms for detecting warning sounds tend to be governed more by audibility than bandwidth considerations. The issues will be discussed using a simulation of a circumaural HPD that can replicate word scores obtained by a subject when subject-specific transfer functions are employed. Where available, results from physical devices and subjects will be included, as well as the consequences of differences in individual auditory abilities. [Work supported by NIOSH grant R01 OH008669.]
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