EFFECTS OF BODY WEIGHT AND COMPOSITION ON BONE MINERAL CONTENT

A. Wong1, S. P. Shultz1,2 1Seattle University, Seattle, WA; 2Monmouth University, West Long Branch, NJ Increased bodyweight (BW) is considered a protective condition for bone mineral content (BMC) in individuals with obesity due to the absorption of larger forces. However, little research has considered the effects on BMC based on stratified weight class and by body composition variables including lean mass (LM) and fat mass (FM). PURPOSE: To determine the relationship between BMC and BW normalized by LM and FM when stratified by weight class. METHODS: A dataset was amalgamated using DXA-measured variables that included BMC, BW, LM, and FM. A total of 32,066 adults from 13 datasets were included in the study. BMI classes were stratified based on WHO classifications. BW was normalized to LM (BW/LM) and FM (BW/FM). Paired t-tests were conducted to determine the differences between body tissue (LM vs FM) as well as normalized BW (BW/LM vs BW/FM). Pearson’s correlations were conducted for each BMI class to examine relationships between BMC and BW, BW/LM, and BW/FM. RESULTS: The paired t-tests produced significant differences between FM with LM (p\u3c0.001) and BW/LM with BW/FM (p\u3c0.001). For each BMI class, BW (p\u3c0.01) and BW/FM (p\u3c0.01) were positively correlated to BMC, while BW/LM (p\u3c0.01) was negatively correlated to BMC (Table 1). CONCLUSION: Positive correlations indicate that increases in total BW and BW/FM can be protective for BMC. Mechanisms driving the negative correlation between BMC and BW/LM need to be explored

The Mechanism of Rising Tone Merger in Hong Kong Cantonese: An Acoustic Approach

Oral Session W2AHong Kong Cantonese (HKC) stands out from other tone languages in the world by having a rich system of tonal contrast. There are six contrastive tones in standard HKC, namely high level, high rising, mid level, extra-low level, low rising and low level tone. However, this highly complex system is in the process of merging (e.g. Bauer, Cheung and Cheung 2003; Mok and Wong 2010a, 2010b). In a production and perception study on contemporary HKC tones conducted by the first and second authors, it is confirmed that the two rising tones, high rising (HR)[35] and low rising (LR)[23], are merged in a subcommunity of HKC speakers. What remains unclear is the mechanism of the merger. Are the HR tone words transferred to the LR tone or vice versa? What are the acoustic differences of the rising tones produced by the mergers as compared with those by the non-mergers? This paper takes on the above questions by examining the acoustic properties of the two rising tones produced by the mergers as well as the non-mergers of two different age groups .....published_or_final_versio

Time Consistent Portfolio Selection Under Short-Selling Prohibition: from Discrete to Continuous Setting

published_or_final_versio

Near-merger in Hong Kong Cantonese tones: a behavioural and ERP study

Near-merger is a recalcitrant phenomenon in sound change in which speakers are able to differentiate two sounds in production but consistently report that they are the same in perception. This phenomenon challenges the dominant models of phonological processing, and raises methodological questions whether speakers’ judgment can truly reflect their ability to discriminate speech sounds. The present study attempts to provide a thorough assessment of this intriguing phenomenon through performing behavioural and ERP studies on the perception of a tonal contrast (T4/T6) in Hong Kong Cantonese which has been reported to exhibit near-merger in previous studies. The behavioural study adopts auditory discrimination and oral production tasks, whereas the ERP study employs passive oddball task to elicit MMNs. Preliminary findings showed that the results of ERP measures were consistent with that of the behavioural measures. MMNs were found in participants who could discriminate the two tones whereas no MMN was found in participants who failed to discriminate them behaviourally. These initial observations are not only consistent with the existence of near-merger, but also mark the beginning of research efforts into understanding this baffling phenomenon.postprint第3届语言音调方面国际研讨会 (TAL 2012),中国, 南京, 2012年5月26-29日.The 3rd International Symposium on Tonal Aspects of Languages (TAL 2012), Nanjing, China, 26-29 May 2012

Spherically shaped active transducer based on proton-irradiated vinylidene fluoride-trifluoroethylene 70/30 mol% copolymer

2006-2007 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journalVersion of RecordPublishe

Cellular signaling pathways of matrix metalloproteinase gene expression by Pseudomonas aeruginosa-infected human bronchial epithelial cells

Research Dissemination Reports - supported by funds (Research Fund for the Control of Infectious Diseases)published_or_final_versio

Segment and track neurons in 3D by repulsive snake method

We present a snake (active contour) model based on repulsive force to segment neurons obtained from microscopy. Based on these segmentation results, we track the neurons in 3D image to look for its branch structure. These segmentation results allow user to study morphology of neurons to further investigate neuronal function and connectivity. This repulsive snake model can successfully segment two or multiple neurons that are close to each other by some alternating repulsive force generated from the neighboring objects. We apply our results on real data to demonstrate the performance of our method. © 2005 IEEE.published_or_final_versio

Short circuit current improvement in planar heterojunction organic solar cells by multijunction charge transfer

A multijunction structure was applied on an organic photovoltaic (OPV) device for broadening the absorption spectrum and enhancing the power conversion efficiency through charge transfer process. By inserting the tris[4-(2-thienyl)]amine (TTPA) into a boron subphthalocyanine chloride (SubPc)/C 60 OPV device, the short circuit current density (J sc) showed a 47.5% increases from 3.05 to 4.50 mA/cm 2 in the bilayer planar heterojunction device, while the open circuit voltage (V oc) remained constant. Based on the single junction (TTPA/SubPc) device and photoluminescence absorption results, we confirmed both TTPA/SubPc and SubPc/C 60 junctions are contributing to the exciton dissociation process hence the efficiency enhancement. © 2012 American Institute of Physics.published_or_final_versio

Precipitation of PEG/Carboxyl-modified gold nanoparticles with magnesium pyrophosphate : a new platform for real-time monitoring of loop-mediated isothermal amplification

2016-2017 > Academic research: refereed > Publication in refereed journal201804_a bcmaVersion of RecordRGCOthersRGC: 501413Others: PGMS Project IDs: P0009500 and P0009150Publishe

PDXML: extensible markup language for processor description

This paper introduces PD-XML, a meta-language for describing instruction processors in general and with an emphasis on embedded processors, with the specific aim of enabling their rapid prototyping, evaluation and eventual design and implementation. The proposed methodology is based on the extensible markup language XML widely used structured information exchange and collaboration. PDXML allows for both high-level and low-level architectural specifications required to support a toolchain for design space exploration. PD-XML consists of three intuitive entities, describing: (a) the storage components available in a design, (b) the instructions supported by an architecture, and (c) the resources afforded by the microarchitecture implementation. PD-XML is not specific to any one architecture, compiler or simulation environment and hence provides greater flexibility than related machine description methodologies. We demonstrate how PD-XML can be interfaced to to existing description methodologies and tool-flows. In particular, we show how PD-XML specifications can be translated into appropriate machine descriptions for the parametric HPL-PD VLIW processor and for the flexible instruction processor approach