A silviculture-oriented spatio-temporal model for germination in Pinus pinea L. in the Spanish Northern Plateau based on a direct seeding experiment

Natural regeneration in Pinus pinea stands commonly fails throughout the Spanish Northern Plateau under current intensive regeneration treatments. As a result, extensive direct seeding is commonly conducted to guarantee regeneration occurrence. In a period of rationalization of the resources devoted to forest management, this kind of techniques may become unaffordable. Given that the climatic and stand factors driving germination remain unknown, tools are required to understand the process and temper the use of direct seeding. In this study, the spatio-temporal pattern of germination of P. pinea was modelled with those purposes. The resulting findings will allow us to (1) determine the main ecological variables involved in germination in the species and (2) infer adequate silvicultural alternatives. The modelling approach focuses on covariates which are readily available to forest managers. A two-step nonlinear mixed model was fitted to predict germination occurrence and abundance in P. pinea under varying climatic, environmental and stand conditions, based on a germination data set covering a 5-year period. The results obtained reveal that the process is primarily driven by climate variables. Favourable conditions for germination commonly occur in fall although the optimum window is often narrow and may not occur at all in some years. At spatial level, it would appear that germination is facilitated by high stand densities, suggesting that current felling intensity should be reduced. In accordance with other studies on P. pinea dispersal, it seems that denser stands during the regeneration period will reduce the present dependence on direct seeding

On the response and interaction with the flow of structures immersed in turbulent flow fields

On the response and interaction with the flow of structures immersed in turbulent flow field

Postural profile and falls of osteoporotic women

Objectives: 1. To compare postural alignment in erect standing between osteoporotic fallers, osteoporotic non-fallers and healthy women. 2. To compare BMI, number of fractures and intensity of pain between osteoporotic fallers and non-fallers. Methods: Thirty-six osteoporotic women with vertebral fractures and 40 healthy women participated in the study. Spinal curvatures were assessed with a digital inclinometer. Photographic measurements of knee, hip, shoulder and head were carried out in sagittal plane. Results: Significant differences were found between osteoporotic fallers and healthy women in the head (p=0.040), and thoracic angles (p=0.001). Significant differences were found between fallers and non-fallers in BMI (p=0.000), number of fractures (p=0.033) and pain (p=0.005), with fallers being heavier, with less fractures and pain than non-fallers. Conclusions: Osteoporotic fallers probably differ from osteoporotic non-fallers and healthy women. Researchers and clinicians may consider, in the future, the above differences when planning research and clinical intervention in this field. Replication studies are necessary to confirm the present findings. © 2012 - IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

Experiments on far-field multichannel speech processing in smart homes

In this paper, we examine three problems that rise in the modern, challenging area of far-field speech processing. The developed methods for each problem, namely (a) multichannel speech enhancement, (b) voice activity detection, and (c) speech recognition, are potentially applicable to a distant speech recognition system for voice-enabled smart home environments. The obtained results on real and simulated data, regarding the smart home speech applications, are quite promising due to the accomplished improvements made in the employed signal processing methods. © 2013 IEEE

Validity of St. George's respiratory questionnaire for greek patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease

The purpose of the present study was to examine the validity of St. George's Respiratory Questionnaire (SGRQ), a disease-specific survey of health-related quality of life, in adult Greek patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Questionnaire scores, dyspnea scores, spirometry values, and demographic data were collected from 72 patients with a diagnosis of COPD exacerbation. Follow-up visits were performed at 1-mo. intervals for the first 3 mo. after discharge and a final visit was performed 6 mo. after discharge. 27 (37.5%) patients were readmitted during the follow-up period. Recovery after exacerbation was prolonged and questionnaire scores were sensitive to the patients' health-status changes across time. The SGRQ discriminated COPD patients according to disease stage, and the SGRQ scores during the recovery course were related to readmission. Correlations between the SGRQ and %FEV1 were not significant during exacerbation but a significant negative correlation was observed during the stable phase of the disease. The SGRQ appeared to have acceptable discriminant and concurrent validities in Greek COPD patients who differed according to their exacerbation stage. © Perceptual and Motor Skills 2010

Multichannel speech enhancement using MEMS microphones

In this work, we investigate the efficacy of Micro Electro-Mechanical System (MEMS) microphones, a newly developed technology of very compact sensors, for multichannel speech enhancement. Experiments are conducted on real speech data collected using a MEMS microphone array. First, the effectiveness of the array geometry for noise suppression is explored, using a new corpus containing speech recorded in diffuse and localized noise fields with a MEMS microphone array configured in linear and hexagonal array geometries. Our results indicate superior performance of the hexagonal geometry. Then, MEMS microphones are compared to Electret Condenser Microphones (ECMs), using the ATHENA database, which contains speech recorded in realistic smart home noise conditions with hexagonal-type arrays of both microphone types. MEMS microphones exhibit performance similar to ECMs. Good performance, versatility in placement, small size, and low cost, make MEMS microphones attractive for multichannel speech processing. © 2015 IEEE