Assessing merged status with Pillai scores based on dynamic formant contours

When Pillai scores are used to study vowel mergers, formants are typically sampled from the midpoint. This study compares alternative methods for calculating Pillai scores: methods that incorporate dynamic spectral information. Eighteen speakers produced 20 tokens of Hodd and hawed. Formants were sampled at 20–35–50–65–80% duration. Seven Pillai scores were calculated, each based on a different subset of those samples with temporal pooling: (i) onsets, (ii) heads, (iii) midpoints, (iv) onsets + offsets, (v) heads + tails, (vi) onsets + midpoints + offsets, and (vii) all five. Subjects also completed a vowel identification task, and the rate of identifying one low-back vowel as the other was calculated. The results of the identification task were regressed on each Pillai score separately to identify the one with the highest correlation, through model selection. Dynamic formant contours performed better than static formant values, with midpoint sampling performing worst of all. Directions are discussed for basic research on Pillai scores in phonetics

Electrochemical biosensor array characterization

Department Head: Anthony A. Maciejewski.2009 Summer.Includes bibliographical references (pages 37-39).Neurotransmitters play an important role in central nervous systems. Nitric oxide, a neurotransmitter, is important in this development. Of interest is detecting molecular gradients that are essential in the development of tissue and organ systems. Molecular gradients are difficult to detect because of the relative large size of the cells compared to the electrochemical sensors used in sensing systems. Furthermore, in order to detect a gradient, an sensor array must be used in order to collect real-time spatial data. Due to this requirement of a sensor array, it is difficult to construct a device with discrete parts, since it would be quite large. Thus, an integrated sensor must be constructed. Integration allows components to be small enough to have many sensors in the area of a cell, and is thus able to sense a chemical image, or gradient. Previous work has resulted in the production of a chip with an array of 21 sensor sites of individual and specific design with the purpose of testing hypotheses relating the shape, size, distance and configuration to the output signal strength. The electrodes are on the micron scale, and are capable of performing electrochemistry on living cells. The sensor sites were characterized using differential pulse voltammetry to find their relative performance. Based on these results, further tests were performed to test hypotheses regarding the shape, size, distance and configuration of the electrodes. The lower detection limit is found on two of the best sensors. A proof-of-concept test is done with a living mouse-ovary slice, which showed results similar to those in the literature. Results show that the important design characteristics are working-electrode size (larger is better), and the ratio of the areas of the working to auxiliary electrode (smaller ratio is better). The other design characteristics (distance, shape, configuration) played, in general, did not have much impact on the output. Conclusions about the design of future chips is made based on these findings

Extrapyramidal Side Effects of Antipsychotic Treatment: Scope of Problem and Impact on Outcome

clinicians worked with antipsychotic drugs (conventional or typical) that almost invariably caused extrapyramidal symptoms (EPS) at clinically effective doses. This led to the false impression that all antipsychotics were the same, and that EPS were an unavoidable consequence of effective antipsychotic therapy. EPS adversely impact several aspects of antipsychotic efficacy and tolerability, thereby worsening outcome of afflicted individuals. EPS reduce beneficial effects of antipsychotic treatment on the negative, cognitive, and mood symptom domains, while increasing the risk of tardive dyskinesia and reducing compliance. By definition, the newer generation of “atypical” antipsychotic agents are significantly better than conventional agents with regard to EPS (i.e., they are clinically effective at doses at which they do not cause EPS). Pharmacologically, this difference is expressed in the greater degree of separation between respective dose response curves for antipsychotic and EPS effects observed for “atypical” in contrast to conventional agents. Clinically, this EPS advantage of atypical antipsychotics translates into several important benefits, including better negative symptom efficacy, less dysphoria, less impaired cognition, a lower risk of TD, and better overall outcome.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/44008/1/10442_2004_Article_377854.pd

Estimating weakening on hillslopes caused by strong earthquakes

The weakening of hillslopes during strong earthquakes increases landsliding rates in post-seismic periods. However, very few studies have addressed the amount of coseismic reduction in shear strength of hillslope materials. This makes estimation of post-seismic landslide susceptibility challenging. Here we propose a method to quantify the maximum shear-strength reduction expected on seismically disturbed hillslopes. We focus on a subset of the area affected by the 2008 Mw 7.9 Wenchuan, China earthquake. We combine physical and data-driven modeling approaches. First, we back-analyze shear-strength reduction at locations where post-seismic landslides occurred. Second, we regress the estimated shear-strength reduction against peak ground acceleration, local relief, and topographic position index to extrapolate the shear-strength reduction over the entire study area. Our results show a maximum of 60%–75% reduction in near-surface shear strength over a peak ground acceleration range of 0.5–0.9 g. Reduction percentages can be generalized using a data-driven model.</p

Unbiased logic-tree data for earthquake-induced landslide hazard maps for low-to-moderate magnitude events

Land-use planning in regard of earthquake-triggered land- slides is usually implemented by means of the production of hazard maps. The well-known Newmark rigid block method- ology is the most frequent used approach for this purpose. In this method, slope stability is evaluated by the estimation of the Newmark displacement, which is used to set differ- ent categories of hazard. This methodology presents limita- tions due to the difficulty of incorporating the variability of the used variables. For that reason, the logic-tree approach has been used in order to incorporate the epistemic uncer- tainties and compute probabilistic seismic-landslide hazard maps. However, the used weights in the logic-tree are usually set for each branch based on an expert judgement or sub- jective criteria. This article provide data obtained from the use of logic-tree methodology; this dataset is useful for de- riving the unbiased weights to use in such methodology and in moderate-to-low magnitude scenarios. The data presented here are related to the article entitled “Obtaining suitable logic-tree weights for probabilistic earthquake-induced land- slide hazard analyses".MINECO/FEDER, UE CGL2015-65602-RMINECO CGL2017-83931-C3-1-PPrograma Operativo FEDER Andalucía 2014-2020 -call made by the University of Jaen 2018Research group "Planetary Geodynamics, Active Tectonics and Related Risks" of the University Complutense of Madrid UCM-910368Research group "Applied Geology and Hydrogeology" of the University of Alicante VIGROB-18

Introduction

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/73564/1/j.1365-2125.2000.00146.x.pd

Pilot study on the microbial contamination of conventional vs. silver-impregnated uniforms worn by ambulance personnel during one week of emergency medical service

The antimicrobial impregnation of products used everyday, such as surfaces, textiles and clothing – including those used in hospitals – is increasing. In view of potential toxic and environmental risks for users and patients, a careful risk-benefit assessment must be conducted for each newly developed product impregnated or coated with antimicrobial agents, prior to marketing and manufacture

Earthquake-reactivated landslide scenarios in Southern Italy based on spectral-matching input analysis

n/

Rainfall Thresholding and Susceptibility assessment of rainfall induced landslides: application to landslide management in St Thomas, Jamaica

The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10064-009-0232-zThe parish of St Thomas has one of the highest densities of landslides in Jamaica, which impacts the residents, local economy and the built and natural environment. These landslides result from a combination of steep slopes, faulting, heavy rainfall and the presence of highly weathered volcanics, sandstones, limestones and sandstone/shale series and are particularly prevalent during the hurricane season (June–November). The paper reports a study of the rainfall thresholds and landslide susceptibility assessment to assist the prediction, mitigation and management of slope instability in landslide-prone areas of the parish

Positive and negative symptoms covary during clozapine treatment in schizophrenia

Although negative symptoms were traditionally considered to be unresponsive to neuroleptic medication, recent studies have demonstrated that negative symptoms do improve during neuroleptic treatment and that such improvement tends to occur concurrently with improvement in positive symptoms. Clozapine is an atypical neuroleptic that is effective in a significant proportion of otherwise neuroleptic-nonresponsive schizophrenic patients; in contrast to conventional neuroleptics, clozapine is also purported to possess unique efficacy in the amelioration of negative symptoms. How clozapine-associated reduction in negative symptoms relates to change in positive symptoms is not clear. To study the relationship between change in positive and negative symptoms during clozapine treatment, we monitored symptomatology in 40 DSM-III-R schizophrenic patients before and about 8 weeks after a trial of clozapine. Both positive and negative symptoms improved significantly. There was a significant correlation (r = .63,p &lt;.01) between change in positive symptoms and change in negative symptoms; as with conventional neuroleptics, negative symptoms improved concomitantly with positive symptoms during clozapine treatment. Clozapine's apparent greater efficacy on negative symptoms may be related to its greater efficacy on positive symptoms in otherwise neuroleptic-refractory patients and its lesser propensity to cause extrapyramidal side-effects.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/30552/1/0000185.pd