3,048 research outputs found
Evaluation of an exercise field test using heart rate monitors to assess cardiorespiratory fitness and heart rate recovery in an asymptomatic population.
PurposeMeasures of cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and heart rate recovery (HRR) can improve risk stratification for cardiovascular disease, but these measurements are rarely made in asymptomatic individuals due to cost. An exercise field test (EFT) to assess CRF and HRR would be an inexpensive method for cardiovascular disease risk assessment in large populations. This study assessed 1) the predictive accuracy of a 12-minute run/walk EFT for estimating CRF ([Formula: see text]) and 2) the accuracy of HRR measured after an EFT using a heart rate monitor (HRM) in an asymptomatic population.MethodsFifty subjects (48% women) ages 18-45 years completed a symptom-limited exercise tolerance test (ETT) (Bruce protocol) and an EFT on separate days. During the ETT, [Formula: see text] was measured by a metabolic cart, and heart rate was measured continuously by a HRM and a metabolic cart.ResultsEFT distance and sex independently predicted[Formula: see text]. The average absolute difference between observed and predicted [Formula: see text] was 0.26 ± 3.27 ml·kg-1·min-1 for our model compared to 7.55 ± 3.64 ml·kg-1·min-1 for the Cooper model. HRM HRR data were equivalent to respective metabolic cart values during the ETT. HRR at 1 minute post-exercise during ETT compared to the EFT had a moderate correlation (r=0.75, p<0.001).ConclusionA more accurate model to estimate CRF from a 12-minute run/walk EFT was developed, and HRR can be measured using a HRM in an asymptomatic population outside of clinical settings
Extended Star Formation and Molecular Gas in the Tidal Arms near NGC3077
We report the detection of ongoing star formation in the prominent tidal arms
near NGC 3077 (member of the M 81 triplet). In total, 36 faint compact HII
regions were identified, covering an area of ~4x6 kpc^2. Most of the HII
regions are found at HI column densities above 1x10^21 cm^-2 (on scales of 200
pc), well within the range of threshold columns measured in normal galaxies.
The HII luminosity function resembles the ones derived for other low-mass dwarf
galaxies in the same group; we derive a total star formation rate of 2.6x10^-3
M_sun/yr in the tidal feature. We also present new high-resolution imaging of
the molecular gas distribution in the tidal arm using CO observations obtained
with the OVRO interferometer. We recover about one sixth of the CO flux (or
M_H2~2x10^6 M_sun, assuming a Galactic conversion factor) originally detected
in the IRAM 30m single dish observations, indicating the presence of a diffuse
molecular gas component in the tidal arm. The brightest CO peak in the
interferometer map (comprising half of the detected CO flux) is coincident with
one of the brightest HII regions in the feature. Assuming a constant star
formation rate since the creation of the tidal feature (presumably ~3x10^8
years ago), a total mass of ~7x10^5 M_sun has been transformed from gas into
stars. Over this period, the star formation in the tidal arm has resulted in an
additional enrichment of Delta(Z)>0.002. The reservoir of atomic and molecular
gas in the tidal arm is ~3x10^8 M_sun, allowing star formation to continue at
its present rate for a Hubble time. Such wide-spread, low-level star formation
would be difficult to image around more distant galaxies but may be detectable
through intervening absorption in quasar spectra.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astronomical Journa
17 ways to say yes:Toward nuanced tone of voice in AAC and speech technology
People with complex communication needs who use speech-generating devices have very little expressive control over their tone of voice. Despite its importance in human interaction, the issue of tone of voice remains all but absent from AAC research and development however. In this paper, we describe three interdisciplinary projects, past, present and future: The critical design collection Six Speaking Chairs has provoked deeper discussion and inspired a social model of tone of voice; the speculative concept Speech Hedge illustrates challenges and opportunities in designing more expressive user interfaces; the pilot project Tonetable could enable participatory research and seed a research network around tone of voice. We speculate that more radical interactions might expand frontiers of AAC and disrupt speech technology as a whole
Cross-linguistic study of vocal pathology: perceptual features of spasmodic dysphonia in French-speaking subjects
Clinical characterisation of Spasmodic Dysphonia of the adductor type (SD) in French speakers by Klap and colleagues (1993) appears to differ from that of SD in English. This perceptual analysis aims to describe the phonetic features of French SD. A video of 6 French speakers with SD supplied by Klap and colleagues was analysed for frequency of phonatory breaks, pitch breaks, harshness, creak, breathiness and falsetto voice, rate of production, and quantity of speech output. In contrast to English SD, the French speaking SD patients demonstrated no evidence pitch breaks, but phonatory breaks, harshness and breathiness were prominent features. This verifies the French authors’ (1993) clinical description. These findings suggest that phonetic properties of a specific language may affect the manifestation of pathology in neurogenic voice disorders
Development and Testing of Operational Dual-Polarimetric Radar Based Lightning Initiation Forecast Techniques
Lightning is one of Earth s natural dangers, destructive not only to life but also physical property. According to the National Weather Service, there are on average 58 lightning fatalities each year, with over 300 related injuries (NWS 2010). The ability to forecast lightning is critical to a host of activities ranging from space vehicle launch operations to recreational sporting events. For example a single lightning strike to a Space Shuttle could cause billions of dollars of damage and possible loss of life. While forecasting that provides longer lead times could provide sporting officials with more time to respond to possible threatening weather events, thus saving the lives of player and bystanders. Many researchers have developed and tested different methods and tools of first flash forecasting, however few have done so using dual-polarimetric radar variables and products on an operational basis. The purpose of this study is to improve algorithms for the short-term prediction of lightning initiation through development and testing of operational techniques that rely on parameters observed and diagnosed using C-band dual-polarimetric radar
Tests of the fundamental symmetries in eta meson decays
Patterns of chiral symmetry violation and tests of the conservation of the
fundamental C, P and CP symmetries are key physics issues in studies of the
pi0, eta and eta' meson decays. These tests include searches for rare or
forbidden decays and searches for asymmetries among the decay products in the
not-so-rare decays. Some examples for the rare decays are eta-->2pi, eta-->4pi0
(CP tests), decays into an odd number of photons (e.g., eta-->3g) and the decay
eta-->pi0e+e- (C tests). The experimental studies of the pi0, eta and eta'
meson decays are carried out at four European accelerator research facilities:
KLOE/KLOE-2 at DAFNE (Frascati), Crystal Ball at MAMI (Mainz), WASA at COSY
(J\"ulich), Crystal Barrel at ELSA (Bonn).Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of Symposium on Prospects in the
Physics of Discrete Symmetries, DISCRETE 2010, 6 - 11 December, Rome; v2:
added reference
Transcriptomic profiling of primary alveolar epithelial cell differentiation in human and rat
AbstractCell-type specific gene regulation is a key to gaining a full understanding of how the distinct phenotypes of differentiated cells are achieved and maintained. Here we examined how changes in transcriptional activation during alveolar epithelial cell (AEC) differentiation determine phenotype. We performed transcriptomic profiling using in vitro differentiation of human and rat primary AEC. This model recapitulates in vitro an in vivo process in which AEC transition from alveolar type 2 (AT2) cells to alveolar type 1 (AT1) cells during normal maintenance and regeneration following lung injury. Here we describe in detail the quality control, preprocessing, and normalization of microarray data presented within the associated study (Marconett et al., 2013). We also include R code for reproducibility of the referenced data and easily accessible processed data tables
ParaMT: a Paraphraser for Machine Translation
In this paper we present ParaMT, a bilingual/multilingual paraphraser to be applied in machine translation. We select paraphrases of support verb constructions and use the NooJ linguistic environment to formalize and generate translation equivalences through the use of dictionary and local grammars with syntactic and semantic content. Our research shows that linguistic paraphrasal knowledge constitutes a key element in conversion of source language into controlled language text that presents more successful translation result
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