Vowel height and velum position in German: Insights from a real-time magnetic resonance imaging study

Velum position was analysed as a function of vowel height in German tense and lax vowels preceding a nasal or oral consonant. Findings from previous research suggest an interdependence between vowel height and the degree of velum lowering, with a higher velum during high vowels and a more lowered velum during low vowels. In the current study, data were presented from 33 native speakers of Standard German who were measured via non-invasive high quality real-time magnetic resonance imaging. The focus was on exploring the spatiotemporal extent of velum lowering in tense and lax /a, i, o, ø/, which was done by analysing velum movement trajectories over the course of VN and VC sequences in CVNV and CVCV sequences by means of functional principal component analysis. Analyses focused on the impact of the vowel category and vowel tenseness. Data indicated that not only the position of the velum was affected by these factors but also the timing of velum closure. Moreover, it is argued that the effect of vowel height was to be better interpreted in terms of the physiological constriction location of vowels, i.e., the specific tongue position rather than phonetic vowel height

The impact of surgery in high grade gliomas: A literature review

Malignant gliomas are aggressive brain cancers. After many decades of intensive research they represent a major cause of cancer related mortality and morbidity. Management of malignant gliomas is very difficult. None of the current treatments are curative. High grade gliomas are optimally treated with surgery followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy. The impact of surgery on progression free survival and overall survival was a constant preoccupation and debate for decades among neurosurgeons. Different studies published in the last 25 years have provided evidence that the extent of resection of high grade gliomas can influence time to progression and median survival, although so far there is no class I prospective randomized trial to fully answer this question. Some of the most important studies are reviewed here. The modern neurosurgery relay on some tools that proved to be very helpful in guiding the surgeon to achieve the maximal tumoral cytoreduction with minimum impact on the brain’s eloquent areas. iMRI has been proved to be safe and became an important tool during tumor surgery, used alone or in conjuction with other important techniques: intra-operative neurophysiology, awake cortical mapping, 5-ALA fluorescence etc. Although so far the prognostic of high grade gliomas is still disappointing, further understanding of the biology of these tumors and a patient-tailored treatment could be the keys of finding a cure in the future

SIM and USIM Filesystem: a Forensics Perspective

The main purpose of this paper is to describe the real filesys- tem of SIM and USIM cards, enlightening what the offi cial standard reference does not say. By analyzing the full filesystem of such embedded devices, it is possible to find a lot of undocumented files usable to conceal sensitive and arbitrary information that are unrecoverable with the stan- dard tools normally used in a forensic field. In order to understand how it is possible to use a SIM/USIM for data hiding purposes, the paper will present a tool capable of extracting the entire observable memory of these devices to- gether with the effective filesystem structure. Further, some practical examples regarding the data hiding procedure as a proof of concept will be analyzed and discussed