USING COORDIN'ATlON MEASURES FOR MOVEMENT ANALYSIS

Traditionally, in biomechanics we have investigated the actions of single joints or segments without taking into account the interactions of these structures. A dynamical systems approach has been increasingly used in biomechanics to give a different perspective on the interaction of specific structures in human movement. That is, the study of coordination has become more prominent in the biomechanics literature based on the work of Bernstein (1967). Coordination is defined as overcoming excessive degrees of freedom thereby turning individual movement elements into a controllable system. In this paper, we will' describe a theoretical framework for analyzing coordination, present examples in the literature and discuss future developments for this type of analysis

OVERUSE INJURIES IN RUNNING: DO COMPLEX ANALYSES HELP OUR UNDERSTANDING?

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the change in focus in biomechanics from relatively simple analysis techniques to more complex techniques. Overuse injuries, linked to rearfoot motion, will be used as an example. In the early development of biomechanical techniques, the angle magnitudes were presented to suggest the mechanisms of overuse injuries. Later, coupling rearfoot motion with actions of the knee became commonplace. In these analyses, the timing and ratios of the angular movements were expressed. However, none of these measures provided a sufficient explanation for injury mechanisms. New techniques, derived from dynamical systems theory, have provided a more salient explanation of the overuse injury mechanism through assessing the role of variability in movement coordination

An active dipole for cosmic ray radiodetection with CODALEMA

A paraître dans NIM AInternational audienceThe CODALEMA experiment detects the electromagnetic pulses radiated during the development of Extensive Air Showers (EAS). Since 2005, in addition to spiral log-periodic antennas, ultra broad bandwidth active dipoles have been designed to detect the full electric pulse shape of these signals. A few performances of these new detectors are presented

Cost-effectiveness of routine mediastinoscopy in computed tomography– and positron emission tomography–screened patients with stage I lung cancer

ObjectiveAccurate preoperative staging is essential for the optimal management of patients with lung cancer. An important goal of preoperative staging is to identify mediastinal lymph node metastasis. Computed tomography and positron emission tomography may identify mediastinal lymph node metastasis with sufficient sensitivity to allow omission of mediastinoscopy. This study utilizes our experience with patients with clinical stage I lung cancer to perform a decision analysis addressing whether mediastinoscopy should be performed in clinical stage I lung cancer patients staged by computed tomography and positron emission tomography.MethodsWe retrospectively reviewed our thoracic surgery database for cases between May 1999 and May 2004. Patients deemed clinical stage I by computed tomography and positron emission tomography were chosen for further study. Individual computed tomography, positron emission tomography, and operative and pathology reports were reviewed. The postresection pathologic staging and long-term survival were recorded. A decision model was created using TreeAgePro software and our observed data for the prevalence of mediastinal lymph node metastases and for the rate of benign nodules. Data reported in the literature were also utilized to complete the decision analysis model. A sensitivity analysis of key variables was performed.ResultsA total of 248 patients with clinical stage I lung tumors were identified. One hundred seventy-eight patients (72%) underwent mediastinoscopy before resection, and 5/178 (3%) showed N2 disease. An additional 9 patients were found to have N2 metastasis in the final resected specimen, resulting in a total of 14/248 patients (5.6%) with occult mediastinal lymph node metastases. Benign nodules were found in 19/248 (8%) of patients. Decision analysis determined that mediastinoscopy added 0.008 years of life expectancy at a cost of $250,989 per life-year gained. The outcome was sensitive to the prevalence of N2 disease in the population and the benefit of induction versus adjuvant therapy for N2 lung cancer. If the prevalence of N2 disease exceeds 10$100,000 per life-year gained.ConclusionPatients with clinical stage I lung cancer staged by computed tomography and positron emission tomography benefit little from mediastinoscopy. The survival advantage it confers is very small and is dependent on the prevalence of N2 metastasis and the unproven superiority of induction therapy over adjuvant therapy

GaInP/GaAs dual junction solar cells on Ge/Si epitaxial templates

In this study, we report synthesis of large area (> 2 cm^2) crack-free GaInP/GaAs double junction solar cells on 50 mm diameter Ge/Si templates fabricated using wafer bonding and ion implantation induced layer transfer techniques. Defect removal from the template film and film surface prior to epitaxial growth was found to be critical to achievement of high open circuit voltage and efficiency. Cells grown on templates prepared with chemical mechanical polishing in addition a wet chemical etch show comparable performance to control devices grown on bulk Ge substrates. Current-voltage (I–V) data under AM 1.5 illumination indicate that the short circuit current is comparable in templated and control cells, but the open circuit voltage is slightly lower (2.08V vs. 2.16V). Spectral response measurements indicate a drop in open circuit voltage due to a slight lowering of the top GaInP cell band gap. The drop in band gap is due to a difference in the indium composition in the two samples caused by the different miscut (9° vs. 6°) of the two kinds of substrates

CODALEMA: a cosmic ray air shower radio detection experiment

International audienceThe CODALEMA experimental device currently detects and characterizes the radio contribution of cosmic ray air showers : arrival directions and electric field topologies of radio transient signals associated to cosmic rays are extracted from the antenna signals. The measured rate, about 1 event per day, corresponds to an energy threshold around 5.10$^{16}$eV. These results allow to determine the perspectives offered by the present experimental design for radiodetection of Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays at a larger scale

Evidence for Radio Detection of Extensive Air Showers Induced by Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays

Firm evidence for a radio emission counterpart of cosmic ray air showers is presented. By the use of an antenna array set up in coincidence with ground particle detectors, we find a collection of events for which both time and arrival direction coincidences between particle and radio signals are observed. The counting rate corresponds to shower energies $\gtrsim 5\times 10^{16}$ eV. These results open overwhelming perspectives to complete existing detection methods for the observation of ultra high-energy cosmic rays.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Taking tadpole biology into the 21st century: a consensus paper from the First Tadpoles International Workshop

Although tadpoles are common, frequently encountered vertebrates, their natural history is poorly known. Despite the fact that Brazil harbors the highest anuran diversity in the world, with almost a thousand known species (Segalla et  al., 2014), the larvae of many species remain undescribed. The problem is not unique to Brazil. At the turn of the century, approximately ⅔ of almost 3,300 anuran species with a larval stage lacked tadpole descriptions (McDiarmid & Altig, 1999). The proportion of neotropical anurans with free-swimming larvae that are not described is estimated to be around 40% (Provete et al., 2012).Fil: Rossa Feres, Denise de C.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Venesky, Matthew. Allegheny College; Estados UnidosFil: Nomura, Fausto. Universidade Federal de Goias; BrasilFil: Eterovick, Paula C.. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais; BrasilFil: Vera Candioti, María Florencia. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Menin, Marcelo. Universidade Federal do Amazonas; BrasilFil: Juncá, Flora A.. Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana; BrasilFil: Schiesari, Luis C.. Universidade de Sao Paulo; BrasilFil: Haddad, Celio F. B.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Garey, Michel V.. Universidade Federal da Integração Latino-Americana; BrasilFil: dos Anjos, Luciano A.. Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho; BrasilFil: Wasserug, Richard. Dalhousie University Halifax; Canadá. University Of British Columbia; Canad

Diacritics improve comprehension of the Arabic script by providing access to the meanings of heterophonic homographs

The diacritical markers that represent most of the vowels in the Arabic orthography are generally omitted from written texts. Previous research revealed that the absence of diacritics reduces reading comprehension performance even by skilled readers of Arabic. One possible explanation is that many Arabic words become ambiguous when diacritics are missing. Words of this kind are known as heterophonic homographs and are associated with at least two different pronunciations and meanings when written without diacritics. The aim of the two experiments reported in this study was to investigate whether the presence of diacritics improves the comprehension of all written words, or whether the effects are confined to heterophonic homographs. In Experiment 1, adult readers of Arabic were asked to decide whether written words had a living meaning. The materials included heterophonic homographs that had one living and one non-living meaning. Results showed that diacritics significantly increased the accuracy of semantic decisions about ambiguous words but had no effect on the accuracy of decisions about unambiguous words. Consistent results were observed in Experiment 2 where the materials comprised sentences rather than single words. Overall, the findings suggest that diacritics improve the comprehension of heterophonic homographs by facilitating access to semantic representations that would otherwise be difficult to access from print