Totally endoscopic transcanal facial nerve decompression in patients with traumatic facial nerve paralysis: from geniculate ganglion to mastoid segment.

OBJECTIVE: The current study evaluated the effectiveness of endoscopic transcanal facial nerve decompression in patients with post-traumatic facial nerve paralysis. METHODS: This retrospective study included 10 patients with post-traumatic complete facial nerve paralysis who underwent endoscopic transcanal facial nerve decompression. The surgical technique was explained step by step, and the surgical complications, hearing status and facial nerve function 12 months post-operatively were reported. RESULTS: Endoscopic transcanal facial nerve decompression allowed exposure of the geniculate ganglion to the mastoid segment. The facial nerve function improved from House-Brackmann grade VI to grades I and II in 8 of 10 (80 per cent) patients, and 2 patients experienced partial recovery (House-Brackmann grades III and IV). No severe complication was reported. CONCLUSION: Endoscopic transcanal facial nerve decompression, involving the nerve from the geniculate ganglion to the mastoid segment, is a safe and effective approach in patients with post-traumatic facial nerve paralysis.

Diabetes mellitus and other underlying conditions in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to compute the pooled prevalence of diabetes mellitus and other underlying conditions in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis. METHOD: A systematic literature review was performed in PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase and Google Scholar. The cross-sectional studies that reported the frequency of diabetes mellitus in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis were included. RESULTS: Eighteen eligible studies with a total number of 3718 patients were included in the current study. The pooled prevalence of diabetes in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis was 89 per cent and with new-onset diabetes was 32 per cent. The pooled prevalence of steroid use was high (79 per cent) too. The all-cause mortality rate was 24 per cent. CONCLUSION: Diabetes mellitus was the most frequent underlying condition in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis. The second most frequent underlying condition was steroid use during coronavirus disease 2019 infection. The appropriate control of hyperglycaemia and rational prescription of steroids during the treatment of coronavirus disease 2019 associated rhino-orbito-cerebral mucormycosis is recommended.

Analytic expressions for the sizes of logically minimized truth tables for binary addition and subtraction.

Direct implementations of digital functions by truth table look-up techniques are of increasing importance in both optical and electronic processing. A major issue in these techniques is the logical minimization of the Boolean algebraic expressions for the functions being implemented. For most cases of practical interest, these minimizations require extensive computer time. In this paper, analytic expressions are derived that provide complete information about the absolute minimum sum-of-products representations for binary addition, with and without an input carry, and binary subtraction, with and without an input borrow. These expressions are applicable to any word length.

Number representation effects in truth-table look-up processing: 8-bit addition example.

The parallelism and interconnectivity of optical systems may provide important advantages for these systems in massively parallel processing applications. Electronic systems, however, retain all the advantages of a highly developed technology that has been widely applied with excellent success. In both of these technologies, the methods of direct truth-table look-up processing are becoming increasingly important as the need grows for increased speed and throughput. A major issue in truth-table look-up processing is the number representation used for data. In this paper, the effects of number representation are investigated for the important case of 8-bit addition as a specific example. The inputs are two 8-bit binary numbers together with an input carry. The output is a full precision 9-bit binary sum. For the intermediate processing three number representations are treated: binary, residue, and modified signed-digit. The numbers in all three representations are in binary-coded form throughout the processing. The critically important steps of encoding the numbers into the residue and modified signed-digit systems and then decoding the results back into direct binary are also performed using truth-table look-up methods. For the direct binary representation, a total of 2545 gates (2519 holograms) are required. For the residue representation, a total of 1764 gates (1686 holograms) are required. For the modified signed-digit representation, a total of 4142 gates (4052 holograms) are required.

Three-dimensional optical Fredkin gate arrays applied to residue arithmetic.

A recently proposed 3-D architecture for optical interconnection networks is further analyzed and used in the implementation of residue arithmetic operations. It is demonstrated that, for the processing of large numbers, the new architecture is superior to the 2-D models.

Residue arithmetic processing utilizing optical Fredkin gate arrays.

A cascadable residue arithmetic processor based on optical Fredkin gate arrays and page-oriented holographic memories is introduced. The implementations of residue functions and operations by this processor are described. Analytic expressions are derived for the number of holograms and waveguide channels required for the implementation of residue addition and multiplication. The practical cases of 16-bit addition and multiplication are analyzed as specific examples. It is shown that, using the proposed architecture, these operations can be implemented with state-of-the-art technologies in holography and integrated optics.

Residue number system holographic truth-table look-up processing: detector threshold setting and probability of error due to amplitude and phase variations.

The use of a holographic content-addressable memory system for parallel truth-table look-up digital data processing is analyzed. For binary-coded residue numbers, the operations of 4-, 8-, 12-, and 16-bit addition and multiplication are treated. The minimum probability of error that can be achieved and the corresponding detector threshold settings are determined in each case allowing for the effects of Gaussian distributions in the amplitude and the phase in the recording beams. Resultant probabilities of error for practical conditions are found to be very competitive with those from state-of-the-art nonparallel technologies.