Detection of intensity flashes in the blowfly photoreceptor is limited by photon noise in the input signal as well as noise contributed by transduction components within the photoreceptor. Our analysis uses an ideal observer and a model of blowfly phototransduction to compute the threshold for optimal detection of intensity flashes as background intensity varies. We find that detection threshol...

introduction: after presbycusis, noise-induced hearing loss is the second most common cause of acquired hearing loss. numerous studies have shown that high-intensity noise exposure increases free radical species; therefore, use of antioxidants to detoxify the free radicals can prevent cellular damage in the cochlea. we studied the potential hearing protective effect of different doses of ascorb...

introduction hippocampus is a well-defined brain region involved in learning and memory. in spite of the existing reports on hippocampal-dependent memory impairment due to noise stress, to our knowledge, there is no study on the effect of noise stress on the size of hippocampus. the present study aimed to investigate the likely effects of chronic noise exposure on learning and the size of rat h...

We present investigations of the the relative intensity noise (RIN) of a quantum cascade laser (QC) laser in continuous wave operation. We analyze the intensity noise properties in terms of the relative intensity noise (RIN). In contrast to conventional interband semiconductor diode lasers we obtain a different scaling behavior of RIN with increasing optical output power for QC lasers. From a s...

Intensity noise of mode-locked fiber lasers is characterized systematically for all major mode-locking regimes over a wide range of parameters. We find that equally low-noise performance can be obtained in all regimes. Losses in the cavity influence noise strongly without a clear trace in the pulse characteristics. Given that high-energy fiber laser oscillators reported to date have utilized la...

Call production in budgerigars was studied using operant conditioning. In several experiments, budgerigars were reinforced with food for producing calls that were above or below a criterion level of intensity. This differential reinforcement procedure was successful in controlling vocal intensity in both directions showing that the intensity with which budgerigars produce vocalizations is under...

It is generally thought that background noise can mask auditory information. However, how the noise specifically transforms neuronal auditory processing in a level-dependent manner remains to be carefully determined. Here, with in vivo loose-patch cell-attached recordings in layer 4 of the rat primary auditory cortex (A1), we systematically examined how continuous wideband noise of different le...

OBJECTIVE To identify a possible correlation between teachers vocal intensity and the noise in the classroom, as well as between vocal intensity and the symptoms of vocal tract discomfort before and after classes. METHODS 27 Elementary School I teachers participated in the study. We used the questionnaires "Vocal Production Condition of the Teacher" and "Vocal Tract Discomfort Scale - VTD" wh...