Peut-on parler sous l'eau avec un embout de détendeur ? Etude articulatoire et perceptive

International audienceWe study the ability of sub aquatic divers to communicate orally by means of an air regulator mouthpeace equipped with an acoustical sensor. These specific constraints on elocution led us to carry out an aerodynamic study to check phonation, an EPG study tu observe the modification of articulation, and an analysis of labial forces involved with a special mouthpeace. Tests on intelligibility enabled us to evaluate the device in situation of real diving. In the current state, the various results let foresee a reduced but real possibility of spoken communication with a mouthpeace to certain conditionsCette étude porte sur la communication parlée de plongeurs en situation subaquatique. Les plongeurs sont équipés d'un embout de détendeur dans lequel est intégré un capteur acoustique. Les contraintes spécifiques d'une telle élocution nous ont poussé à effectuer une étude aérodynamique pour vérifier les mécanismes de phonation, une étude d'EPG pour observer les modifications de l'articulation et une analyse des forces labiales. Des tests d'intelligibilité nous ont permis d'évaluer le dispositif dans une situation de plongée réelle. Dans l'état actuel, les divers résultats laissent envisager une possibilité réduite mais réelle de communication parlée avec une embouchure

Peut-on parler sous l'eau avec un embout de détendeur ? Etude articulatoire et perceptive

International audienceWe study the ability of sub aquatic divers to communicate orally by means of an air regulator mouthpeace equipped with an acoustical sensor. These specific constraints on elocution led us to carry out an aerodynamic study to check phonation, an EPG study tu observe the modification of articulation, and an analysis of labial forces involved with a special mouthpeace. Tests on intelligibility enabled us to evaluate the device in situation of real diving. In the current state, the various results let foresee a reduced but real possibility of spoken communication with a mouthpeace to certain conditionsCette étude porte sur la communication parlée de plongeurs en situation subaquatique. Les plongeurs sont équipés d'un embout de détendeur dans lequel est intégré un capteur acoustique. Les contraintes spécifiques d'une telle élocution nous ont poussé à effectuer une étude aérodynamique pour vérifier les mécanismes de phonation, une étude d'EPG pour observer les modifications de l'articulation et une analyse des forces labiales. Des tests d'intelligibilité nous ont permis d'évaluer le dispositif dans une situation de plongée réelle. Dans l'état actuel, les divers résultats laissent envisager une possibilité réduite mais réelle de communication parlée avec une embouchure

Mutations in the m-AAA proteases AFG3L2 and SPG7 are causing isolated dominant optic atrophy.

OBJECTIVE: To improve the genetic diagnosis of dominant optic atrophy (DOA), the most frequently inherited optic nerve disease, and infer genotype-phenotype correlations. METHODS: Exonic sequences of 22 genes were screened by new-generation sequencing in patients with DOA who were investigated for ophthalmology, neurology, and brain MRI. RESULTS: We identified 7 and 8 new heterozygous pathogenic variants in SPG7 and AFG3L2. Both genes encode for mitochondrial matricial AAA (m-AAA) proteases, initially involved in recessive hereditary spastic paraplegia type 7 (HSP7) and dominant spinocerebellar ataxia 28 (SCA28), respectively. Notably, variants in AFG3L2 that result in DOA are located in different domains to those reported in SCA28, which likely explains the lack of clinical overlap between these 2 phenotypic manifestations. In comparison, the SPG7 variants identified in DOA are interspersed among those responsible for HSP7 in which optic neuropathy has previously been reported. CONCLUSIONS: Our results position SPG7 and AFG3L2 as candidate genes to be screened in DOA and indicate that regulation of mitochondrial protein homeostasis and maturation by m-AAA proteases are crucial for the maintenance of optic nerve physiology

Coupled study by TEM/EELS and STM/STS of electronic properties of C- and CNx-nanotubes

Carbon nanotubes are the focus of considerable research efforts due to their fascinating physical properties. They provide an excellent model system for the study of one dimensional materials and molecular electronics. The chirality of nanotubes can lead to very different electronic behaviours, either metallic or semiconducting. Their electronic spectrum consists of a series of Van Hove singularities defining a bandgap for semiconducting tubes and molecular orbitals at the corresponding energies. A promising way to tune the nanotubes electronic properties for future applications is to use doping by heteroatoms. Here we report on experimental investigation of the role of many-body interactions in nanotube bandgaps, the visualization in direct space of the molecular orbitals of nanotubes and the properties of nitrogen doped nanotubes using scanning tunneling microscopy and transmission electron microscopy as well as electron energy loss spectroscopy

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Effect of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor and angiotensin receptor blocker initiation on organ support-free days in patients hospitalized with COVID-19

IMPORTANCE Overactivation of the renin-angiotensin system (RAS) may contribute to poor clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19. Objective To determine whether angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor or angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) initiation improves outcomes in patients hospitalized for COVID-19. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS In an ongoing, adaptive platform randomized clinical trial, 721 critically ill and 58 non–critically ill hospitalized adults were randomized to receive an RAS inhibitor or control between March 16, 2021, and February 25, 2022, at 69 sites in 7 countries (final follow-up on June 1, 2022). INTERVENTIONS Patients were randomized to receive open-label initiation of an ACE inhibitor (n = 257), ARB (n = 248), ARB in combination with DMX-200 (a chemokine receptor-2 inhibitor; n = 10), or no RAS inhibitor (control; n = 264) for up to 10 days. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES The primary outcome was organ support–free days, a composite of hospital survival and days alive without cardiovascular or respiratory organ support through 21 days. The primary analysis was a bayesian cumulative logistic model. Odds ratios (ORs) greater than 1 represent improved outcomes. RESULTS On February 25, 2022, enrollment was discontinued due to safety concerns. Among 679 critically ill patients with available primary outcome data, the median age was 56 years and 239 participants (35.2%) were women. Median (IQR) organ support–free days among critically ill patients was 10 (–1 to 16) in the ACE inhibitor group (n = 231), 8 (–1 to 17) in the ARB group (n = 217), and 12 (0 to 17) in the control group (n = 231) (median adjusted odds ratios of 0.77 [95% bayesian credible interval, 0.58-1.06] for improvement for ACE inhibitor and 0.76 [95% credible interval, 0.56-1.05] for ARB compared with control). The posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitors and ARBs worsened organ support–free days compared with control were 94.9% and 95.4%, respectively. Hospital survival occurred in 166 of 231 critically ill participants (71.9%) in the ACE inhibitor group, 152 of 217 (70.0%) in the ARB group, and 182 of 231 (78.8%) in the control group (posterior probabilities that ACE inhibitor and ARB worsened hospital survival compared with control were 95.3% and 98.1%, respectively). CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE In this trial, among critically ill adults with COVID-19, initiation of an ACE inhibitor or ARB did not improve, and likely worsened, clinical outcomes. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT0273570