Cochlear implant (CI) users receive only limited sound information through their implant, which means that they struggle to understand speech in noisy environments. Recent work has suggested that combining the electrical signal from the CI with a haptic signal that provides crucial missing sound information (“electro-haptic stimulation”; EHS) could improve speech-in-noise performance. The aim of the current study was to test whether EHS could enhance speech-in-noise performance in CI users using: (1) a tactile signal derived using an algorithm that could be applied in real time, (2) a stimulation site appropriate for a real-world application, and (3) a tactile signal that could readily be produced by a compact, portable device. We measured speech intelligibility in multi-talker noise with and without vibro-tactile stimulation of the wrist in CI users, before and after a short training regime. No effect of EHS was found before training, but after training EHS was found to improve the number of words correctly identified by an average of 8.3%-points, with some users improving by more than 20%-points. Our approach could offer an inexpensive and non-invasive means of improving speech-in-noise performance in CI users.

Catalogues are presented of radio supernova remnants in both Large (LMC) and Small (SMC) Magellanic Clouds together with maps of the LMC remnants prepared at a frequency of 843 MHz and with a resolution of 43 x 45 arcsec. The 38 confirmed remnants are believed to represent a reasonably complete sample for diameters less than about 40 pc although the LMC catalogue is probably very incomplete for larger diameters. The supernova remnants (SNRs) are compared with the Galactic remnants in the catalogue of Clark and Caswell (1976) and they are found to be similar in many ways. In particular a distance scale derived from the Cloud SNRs reproduces well the mean distances of directly measured Galactic calibrators. The usual model of a SNR expanding adiabatically from a small diameter is not supported by the statistics of the numberdiameter relation which suggest that rapid expansion up to quite large diameters is common. The physical implications are discussed. A supernova rate of about four per century is derived for the Galaxy and about one per century for the two Magellanic Clouds combined.

Many cochlear implant (CI) users achieve excellent speech understanding in acoustically quiet conditions but most perform poorly in the presence of background noise. An important contributor to this poor speech-in-noise performance is the limited transmission of low-frequency sound information through CIs. Recent work has suggested that tactile presentation of this low-frequency sound information could be used to improve speech-in-noise performance for CI users. Building on this work, we investigated whether vibro-tactile stimulation can improve speech intelligibility in multi-talker noise. The signal used for tactile stimulation was derived from the speech-in-noise using a computationally inexpensive algorithm. Eight normal-hearing participants listened to CI simulated speech-in-noise both with and without concurrent tactile stimulation of their fingertip. Participants' speech recognition performance was assessed before and after a training regime, which took place over 3 consecutive days and totaled around 30 min of exposure to CI-simulated speech-in-noise with concurrent tactile stimulation. Tactile stimulation was found to improve the intelligibility of speech in multi-talker noise, and this improvement was found to increase in size after training. Presentation of such tactile stimulation could be achieved by a compact, portable device and offer an inexpensive and noninvasive means for improving speech-in-noise performance in CI users.

cochlear implants (cis) have enabled hundreds of thousands of profoundly hearing-impaired people to perceive sounds by electrically stimulating the auditory nerve. However, ci users are often very poor at locating sounds, which leads to impaired sound segregation and threat detection. We provided missing spatial hearing cues through haptic stimulation to augment the electrical ci signal. We found that this "electro-haptic" stimulation dramatically improved sound localisation. furthermore, participants were able to effectively integrate spatial information transmitted through these two senses, performing better with combined audio and haptic stimulation than with either alone. our haptic signal was presented to the wrists and could readily be delivered by a low-cost wearable device. this approach could provide a non-invasive means of improving outcomes for the vast majority of ci users who have only one implant, without the expense and risk of a second implantation.

SummaryA catalogue has been prepared of the radio sources observed between declinations _20 0 and _50 0 , using the Sydney cross-type radio telescope at a wavelength of 3·5 m ; a total of 892 sources is listed. This supplements an earlier catalogue in the declination zone + 10° to _20°. In addition to the positions and intensities of the sources, angular sizes of 50 of the strongest are given: several are found to have a size less than 15" arc. As before, identifications with bright optical objects have been sought, and a number of galaxies of apparently abnormal radio emission listed. Statistical analyses of the distribution of the radio sources give results very similar to those obtained using the earlier catalogue. \Vithin the uncertainty in the data, the distribution appears uniform in depth and there is a siguificantly greater number of sources of large apparent size than expected from chance blending effects.