A non-invasive device to measure mechanical interaction between tongue, palate and teeth during speech production

This paper describes an original experimental procedure to measure the mechanical interaction between the tongue and teeth and palate during speech production. It consists in using edentulous people as subjects and to insert pressure sensors in the structure of their complete dental prosthesis. Hence, there is no perturbation of the vocal tract cavity due to the sensors themselves. Several duplicates are used with transducers situated at different locations of the complete denture according to palatography's results, in order to carefully analyze the production of specific sounds such as stop consonants.. It is also possible to measure the contact pressure at different locations on the palate for the same sound

PRESLA: An original device to measure the mechanical interaction between tongue and teeth or palate during speech production

An original experimental procedure is presented to measure the mechanical interaction between tongue and teeth and palate during speech production. It consists in using edentulous people as subjects and to insert pressure sensors in the structure of a replication of their dental prosthesis. This is assumed to induce no speech production perturbation for subjects who are used to speak with their prosthesis. Data collected from 4 subjects of French demonstrate the usability of the system

EXPE: An expandable programming language for on-line psychological experiments

International audienceEXPE is a DOS program for the design and running of experiments that involve the presentation of audio or visual stimuli and the collection of on-line or off-line behavioral responses. Its flexibility makes it also a very useful tool for the rapid design of protocols for testing neu-ropsychological patients. EXPE provides a powerful scripting language which allows the user to specify all the components of an experiment in a human readable file. Subjects' responses are saved in a user-specified format, also in readable ASCII files. A remarkable feature of EXPE is that the user can easily add new commands to the language: all the instructions are calls to functions written in independent Borland Pascal units. Thus, users can link their own pascal procedures to EXPE to meet any special need. This makes it possible, for example, to adapt EXPE to new hardware, such as new sound or video boards

CDD CERN Drawings Directory User's manual: Version 1.1

CDD (CERN Drawings Directory) is a multi-platform utility which manages engineering drawings made in any division at CERN. The aim of CDD is not to store the graphical drawing itself, but to store a reference with some information related to the drawing. Access to this data is provided via a graphical user interface which is based upon ORACLE Forms and via WWW. Drawings following different numbering systems and different management rules can be handled by CDD. The only condition is that those particular functionalities are well defined. Several drawing systems have been identified in CERN and therefore considered when designing the application. The current version of CDD focuses on systems EST, LEP, ST-IE, SPS, ST-CE and the experiments ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. Other CERN systems could be easily integrated upon demand

Tongue pressure recordings during speech using complete denture

This paper describes an original experimental procedure to measure mechanical interactions between tongue and teeth during speech production. Using edentulous people as subjects, pressure transducers are inserted in their complete denture duplicate. Physiology is respected during sound and pressure recording as with standard complete denture. Original calibration device is also described in order to know what kind of information can be extracted from the data. The measurements are realized in different experimental conditions in order to remove the auditory and the orosensory feedbacks. Then the first results of the pilot study are presente

Tissue Engineering for Periodontal Ligament Regeneration: Biomechanical Specifications

The periodontal biomechanical environment is very difficult to investigate. By the complex geometry and composition of the periodontal ligament, its mechanical behavior is very dependent on the type of loading (compressive vs. tensile loading; static vs. cyclic loading; uniaxial vs. multiaxial) and the location around the root (cervical, middle, or apical). These different aspects of the periodontal ligament make it difficult to develop a functional biomaterial to treat periodontal attachment due to periodontal diseases. This review aims to describe the structural and biomechanical properties of the periodontal ligament. Particular importance is placed in the close interrelationship that exists between structure and biomechanics: the periodontal ligament structural organization is specific to its biomechanical environment, and its biomechanical properties are specific to its structural arrangement. This balance between structure and biomechanics can be explained by a mechanosensitive periodontal cellular activity. These specifications have to be considered in the further tissue engineering strategies for the development of an efficient biomaterial for periodontal tissues regeneration

Resurgence of HIV infection among men who have sex with men in Switzerland : mathematical modelling study

New HIV infections in men who have sex with men (MSM) have increased in Switzerland since 2000 despite combination antiretroviral therapy (cART). The objectives of this mathematical modelling study were: to describe the dynamics of the HIV epidemic in MSM in Switzerland using national data; to explore the effects of hypothetical prevention scenarios; and to conduct a multivariate sensitivity analysis. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: The model describes HIV transmission, progression and the effects of cART using differential equations. The model was fitted to Swiss HIV and AIDS surveillance data and twelve unknown parameters were estimated. Predicted numbers of diagnosed HIV infections and AIDS cases fitted the observed data well. By the end of 2010, an estimated 13.5% (95% CI 12.5, 14.6%) of all HIV-infected MSM were undiagnosed and accounted for 81.8% (95% CI 81.1, 82.4%) of new HIV infections. The transmission rate was at its lowest from 1995-1999, with a nadir of 46 incident HIV infections in 1999, but increased from 2000. The estimated number of new infections continued to increase to more than 250 in 2010, although the reproduction number was still below the epidemic threshold. Prevention scenarios included temporary reductions in risk behaviour, annual test and treat, and reduction in risk behaviour to levels observed earlier in the epidemic. These led to predicted reductions in new infections from 2 to 26% by 2020. Parameters related to disease progression and relative infectiousness at different HIV stages had the greatest influence on estimates of the net transmission rate. CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE: The model outputs suggest that the increase in HIV transmission amongst MSM in Switzerland is the result of continuing risky sexual behaviour, particularly by those unaware of their infection status. Long term reductions in the incidence of HIV infection in MSM in Switzerland will require increased and sustained uptake of effective interventions

Identification of OCA2 as a novel locus for the co-morbidity of asthma-plus-eczema

Background: Numerous genes have been associated with the three most common allergic diseases (asthma, allergic rhinitis or eczema) but these genes explain only a part of the heritability. In the vast majority of genetic studies, complex phenotypes such as co- morbidity of two of these diseases, have not been considered. This may partly explain missing heritability. Objective: To identify genetic variants specifically associated with the co-morbidity of asthma-plus-eczema. Methods: We first conducted a meta-analysis of four GWAS (Genome-Wide Association Study) of the combined asthma-plus-eczema phenotype (total of 8807 European-ancestry subjects of whom 1208 subjects had both asthma and eczema). To assess whether the association with SNP(s) was specific to the co- morbidity, we also conducted a meta-analysis of homogeneity test of association according to disease status (“asthma-plus-eczema” vs. the presence of only one disease “asthma only or eczema only”). We then used a joint test by combining the two test statistics from the co-morbidity-SNP association and the phenotypic heterogeneity of SNP effect meta-analyses. Results: Seven SNPs were detected for specific association to the asthma-plus-eczema co-morbidity, two with significant and five with suggestive evidence using the joint test after correction for multiple testing. The two significant SNPs are located in the OCA2 gene (Oculocutaneous Albinism II), a new locus never detected for significant evidence of association with any allergic disease. This gene is a promising candidate gene, because of its link to skin and lung diseases, and to epithelial barrier and immune mechanisms. Conclusion: Our study underlines the importance of studying sub-phenotypes as co-morbidities to detect new susceptibility genes

Interleukin 9–induced In Vivo Expansion of the B-1 Lymphocyte Population

The activity of interleukin (IL)-9 on B cells was analyzed in vivo using transgenic mice that constitutively express this cytokine. These mice show an increase in both baseline and antigen-specific immunoglobulin concentrations for all isotypes tested. Analysis of B cell populations showed a specific expansion of Mac-1+ B-1 cells in the peritoneal and pleuropericardial cavities, and in the blood of IL-9 transgenic mice. In normal mice, the IL-9 receptor was found to be expressed by CD5+ as well as CD5− B-1 cells, and repeated injections of IL-9 resulted in accumulation of B-1 cells in the peritoneal cavity, as observed in transgenic animals. Unlike other mouse models, such as IL-5 transgenic mice, in which expansion of the B-1 population is associated with high levels of autoantibodies, IL-9 did not stimulate the production of autoantibodies in vivo, and most of the expanded cells were found to belong to the B-1b subset (IgM+Mac-1+CD5−). In addition, we found that these IL-9–expanded B-1b cells do not share the well-documented antibromelain-treated red blood cell specificity of CD5+ B-1a cells. The increase of antigen-specific antibody concentration in immunized mice suggests that these B-1 cells are directly or indirectly involved in antibody responses in IL-9 transgenic mice

Analyse biomécanique des contraintes exercées par la langue sur le palais chez l'édenté maxillaire lors de la production de la parole

This work describes the mechanical interactions between tongue, palate and teeth during the production of the stop consonant /t/ in natural and in reiterated speech. These interactions are measured via the mechanical pressure exerted by tongue on the palate and teeth. An original experimental procedure has been designed to measure the mechanical pressure during speech production. It consists in using edentulous people as subjects and to insert pressure sensors in the structure of a replication of their dental prosthesis. A specific calibration procedure, modeling functionally tongue soft tissues has been also designed. To explore the adaptation mechanisms used to deal with the perturbations of the vocal tract geometry caused by the prosthesis, 2 groups of subjects have been recorded: (1) subjects who have been wearing their prosthesis for long time and who are considered to be used to speak with their prostheses, (2) novice subjects who just started to speech with their new prosthesis. Auditory and oro-sensory feedbacks have been masked, first separately and then simultaneously, in order to evaluate their roles in the elaboration of the adaptation motor strategies. Our data did not allow observing any phase where the novice subjects looked for the best adaptation strategy and learned it. However, the proposed device Presla allows observing changes in tongue pressure associated with prosodic boundaries and Lombard Effect. Hence, it is concluded that his Presla is an efficient experimental device to study further issues related to articulation during speech production.Ce travail décrit les interactions mécaniques entre la langue, le palais et les dents lors de la production de la consonne plosive /t/en parole naturelle et en parole réitérée. Ces interactions sont mesurées via la pression mécanique exercées par la langue sur le palais et les dents. Ce travail a nécessité la mise au point d'un dispositif original de mesure de pression, appelé « Presla », utilisable chez les édentés maxillaires. Il consiste en un duplicata de la prothèse adjointe complète dans lequel est inséré un capteur à jauges de contrainte. Un dispositif de calibration spécifique, modélisant fonctionnellement les tissus mous de la langue, lui est associé. Pour explorer les mécanismes d'adaptation lié à un changement d'environnement de la langue, 2 populations de sujets sont étudiées: (1) les édentés anciens porteurs de prothèses, considérés comme habitués à leurs prothèses, (2) les nouveaux appareillés considérés comme novices. Les feedbacks auditif et orososensoriel sont successivement puis simultanément masqués pour apprécier leur rôle dans ces mécanismes adaptatifs. Aucun mécanisme d'apprentissage, correspondant à la recherche de stratégies optimales de compensation n'a pu être mise en évidence dans nos données. Mais le dispositif « Presla » permet de rendre compte d'effets prosodiques entre les signaux acoustiques et de pression. De même, il rend compte d'informations sur la nature du contact langue/palais et de la relation acoustique/pression lors de l'effet Lombard. Le système mis au point donne une base de travail intéressante pour des explorations futures