Journals
2009 EN
J. Bruce Tomblin · Marlea O’Brien · Lawrence D. Shriberg
+6 more
The aims of this study were (a) to locate the breakpoints of a balanced translocation (7;13) within a mother (B) and daughter (T); (b) to describe the language and cognitive skills of B and T; and (c) to compare this profile with affected family members of the KE family who have a mutation within FOXP2.
American Speech–Language–Hearing Association
Journals
2009 EN
Elizabeth Barnes · Joanne E. Roberts · Steven H. Long
+4 more
To compare the phonological accuracy and speech intelligibility of boys with fragile X syndrome with autism spectrum disorder (FXS-ASD), fragile X syndrome only (FXS-O), Down syndrome (DS), and typically developing (TD) boys.
American Speech–Language–Hearing Association
Journals
2009 EN
Shin-Ying Chu · Steven M. Barlow · Jaehoon Lee
The objective of this study was to extend previous published findings in the authors' laboratory using a new automated technology to quantitatively characterize nonparticipatory perioral stiffness in healthy male adults.
American Speech–Language–Hearing Association
Journals
2009 EN
Tingli Cheng · Andrey V. Savkin · Branko G. Celler
+2 more
A technique that can reliably monitor exercise intensity plays an important role for the effectiveness and safety of an exercise prescription. A universal algorithm for the recursive estimation of exercise rate during a variety of aerobic exercises using measurements from a body-mounted triaxial accelerometer (TA) is proposed. Information about the type of exercise is not required by the algorithm...
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Journals
2009 EN
Ben M. Parker · Steven G. Gilmour · John Schormans
Packet-level measurement is now critical to many aspects of broadband networking, for example for guaranteeing service level agreements, facilitating measurement-based admission control algorithms and performing network tomography. Because it is often impossible to measure all the data passing across a network, the most widely used method of measurement works by injecting probe packets. The probes provide samples of the packet loss and delay, and from these samples the loss and delay performance of the traffic as a whole can be deduced. However, measuring performance like this is prone to errors. Recent work has shown that some of these errors are minimised by using a gamma renewal process as the optimal pattern for the time instants at which to inject probes. This leaves the best rate at which to inject probes as the key unsolved problem, and this is addressed here by using the statistical principles of the design of experiments. The experimental design approach allows one to treat packet-level measurements as numerical experiments that can be designed optimally. Modelling the overflow of buffers as a 2-state Markov chain, the system's likelihood function is deduced, and from this a technique (using the Fisher information matrix) to determine the upper-bound on the optimal rate of probing is developed. A generalisation of this method accounts for the effect of the probed observations interfering with the experiment. The numerical results focus on VoIP traffic, allowing one to show how this methodology would be used in practice. One application of this is in measurement-based admission control algorithms, where the technique can be used to provide an upper-bound on the rate at which probes should be injected to monitor the loss performance of the target network, prior to making an admit/do not admit decision.
Institution of Engineering and Technology
Journals
2009 EN
Deborah J. Hunter · Stefano Valenti · Rubina Kotak
+26 more
We present photometric and spectroscopic observations at optical andnear-infrared wavelengths of the nearby type Ic SN 2007gr. These represent themost extensive data-set to date of any supernova of this sub-type, withfrequent coverage from shortly after discovery to more than one yearpost-explosion. We deduce a rise time to B-band maximum of 11.5 \pm 2.7 days.We find a peak B-band magnitude of M_B=-16.8, and light curves which areremarkably similar to the so-called 'hypernova' SN 2002ap. In contrast, thespectra of SNe 2007gr and 2002ap show marked differences, not least in theirrespective expansion velocities. We attribute these differences primarily tothe density profiles of their progenitor stars at the time of explosion i.e. amore compact star for SN 2007gr compared to SN 2002ap. From thequasi-bolometric light curve of SN 2007gr, we estimate that 0.076 $\pm$ 0.010Msun of 56Ni was produced in the explosion. Our near-infrared (IR) spectraclearly show the onset and disappearance of the first overtone of carbonmonoxide (CO) between ~70 to 175 days relative to B-band maximum. The detectionof the CO molecule implies that ionised He was not microscopically mixed withinthe carbon/oxygen layers. From the optical spectra, near-IR light curves, andcolour evolution, we find no evidence for dust condensation in the ejecta outto about 400 days. Given the combination of unprecedented temporal coverage,and high signal-to-noise data, we suggest that SN 2007gr could be used as atemplate object for supernovae of this sub-class.
Journals
2009 EN
T. Kwiatkowski · A. Kryszczyńska · M. Polińska
+12 more
Aims. From July 2006 to July 2007 a very small asteroid orbited the Earth within its Hill sphere. We used this opportunity to study its rotation and estimate its diameter and shape. Methods. Due to its faintness, 2006 RH120 was observed photometrically with the new 10-m SALT telescope at the SAAO (South Africa). We obtained data on four nights: 11, 15, 16, and 17 March 2007 when the solar phase angle remained almost constant at 74 ◦ . The observations lasted about an hour each night and the object was exposed for 7−10 s through the “clear” filter. Results. From the lightcurves obtained on three nights we derived two solutions for a synodical period of rotation: P1 = 1.375 ± 0.001 min and P2 = 2.750 ± 0.002 min. The available data are not sufficient to choose between them. The absolute magnitude of the object was found to be H = 29.9 ± 0.3 mag (with the assumed slope parameter G = 0.25) and its effective diameter D = 2− 7m , depending on the geometric albedo pV (with the most typical near-Earth asteroids albedo pV = 0.18 its diameter would be D = 3.3 ± 0.4 m). The body has an elongated shape with the a/b ratio greater than 1.4. It probably originates in low-eccentricity Amor or Apollo orbits. There is still a possibility, which needs further investigation, that it is a typical near-Earth asteroid that survived the aerobraking in the Earth’s atmosphere and returned to a heliocentric orbit similar to that of the Earth.
Conference Proceedings
2009 EN
F. E. C. Culick · Steven L. Palm
Active control of combustion was proposed by Bollay [1]. Following that idea, Tsien [2] worked out an analysis of controlling low-frequency oscillations in a liquid rocket but no successful experimental results followed. More than thirty years passed before the first laboratory demonstrations were performed at Cambridge University. Interest grew rapidly in the 1990s due to potentially wonderful applications to practical combustion systems including liquid and solid rockets, gas turbines, and thrust augmentors. Dreams have not materialized: There are presently no operational control systems, despite considerable efforts, and examples of partially controlled phenomena. Only one practical installation for control of oscillations has been documented, for a large Siemens machine [3]. Its use has been rendered unnecessary by further experimental work leading to development of successful passive control with modifications of hardware [4]. The purpose of this paper is to examine briefly some of the reasons that active control of combustion has failed to become the panacea widely anticipated two decades ago. The authors' view is that the subject is far from exhausted, but rather requires carefully planned research to understand the basis of successful applications.
Journals
2009 FR
Hervé Chneiweiss · Michel Bouvier
> L’annee 2008 restera sans nul doute dans les annales des crises, ou le millesime rivalisera avec 1929, mais egalement l’annee des espoirs, en particuliers ceux qu’a fait naitre l’election du 44e president des Etats-Unis, Barack Obama, et son slogan « Oui, nous pouvons ». Rompant avec le conservatisme frileux de son predecesseur en matiere de reconnaissance des travaux scientifiques sur la degradation du climat, le president elu s’etait aussi engage au cours de sa campagne a lever les restrictions aux financements federaux imposes depuis 2001 sur les recherches portant sur les cellules souches embryonnaires humaines [1, 2]. La nomination du physicien et climatologue John Holgren en tant que directeur du bureau de la science et de la technologie de la Maison Blanche, du prix Nobel de physique Steven Chou en tant que secretaire a l’energie et de la biologiste Jane Lubchenco comme directrice de l’Agence Nationale des Oceans et de l’Atmosphere, envoie un signal clair que la science sera au cœur des processus decisionnels concernant les grandes questions de notre temps. De meme, l’arrivee de deux biologistes moleculaires, Eric Lander et Harold Varmus, defenseurs d’un accroissement des investissements en recherche biomedicale, aux postes de co-presidents du conseil aviseur presidentiel sur la science et la technologie permet d’esperer une revitalisation de la recherche americaine. Esperons que les dirigeants de nos pays comprendront aussi qu’une recherche scientifique innovante et sans compromis represente une voie de sortie efficace et durable des crises ecologique et economique que nous traversons. Concernant les grandes tendances en biomedecine, l’annee 2008 aura vu le grand retour du sequencage dans la genomique a grande echelle qui semblait definitivement vouee aux puces de plus en plus denses et, d’une certaine facon, ce sera peut-etre au regard de l’histoire l’annee du grand bond en avant de la genomique. Apres les genomes individuels complets de Watson et de Venter [3-5], c’est une malade anonyme atteinte de leucemie myeloide aigue qui a vu son genome somatique entierement sequence en comparaison du genome des cellules leucemiques [6], et en un an le cout a ete divise par 1 000. En quelques semaines, il n’est deja plus possible de denombrer les articles qui combinent un sequencage systematique des sequences codantes avec des hybridations sur puces a tres hautes densites pour examiner le nombre de variations de copies de chaque gene et mettre en evidence les duplications ou les deletions. L’heure reste a l’exploit technique et peu de nouvelles idees physiopathologiques emergent pour l’instant, mais il est fort a parier qu’avec la multiplication des etudes et les progres des analyses biomathematiques qui leurs seront associes, c’est un profond changement de nos connaissances qui s’annonce, tant sur le plan du cancer avec le grand programme International Cancer Genome Consortium (ICGC) [7, 8] que de maladies frequentes et incomprises dans leurs origines comme les pathologies psychiatriques. Un coup de chapeau en passant a la Ligue Nationale contre le Cancer qui fut precurseur en ce domaine, avec le lancement des 1998 du projet Carte d’Identite des Tumeurs (CIT) qui va maintenant tres naturellement s’associer au programme ICGC. C’est aussi la concretisation d’une nouvelle maniere d’aborder la biologie (et nombre d’auteurs) qui n’a plus rien a envier aux plus belles experiences de la physique des particules et une convergence obligatoire de la technologie a haut debit, de plusieurs approches experimentales combinant genetique et epigenetique, et d’une integration informatique et mathematique sans laquelle les resultats obtenus ne sont simplement pas analysables. Mais autant il nous semble important de saluer ce nouvel essor de la genomique, autant l’application a un cas individuel de ces approches nous semble pathetiquement pauvre et souligne le caractere mercantile et abusif des nouveaux marchands du Temple que sont les florissantes compagnies de vente en ligne de « genome personnel » pour reprendre le titre de l’un des articles de Bertrand Jordan dans notre journal [3]. Pour moins de 1 000 euros et en quelques jours, vous saurez si vous etes bien le pere de votre enfant, desolante reduction de la fonction de parent mâle a un parametre biologique. Pour une somme voisine, vous pourrez evaluer votre exposition au risque d’une maladie metabolique comme le diabete ou a une pathologie cardiovasculaire. Nul doute que si vous etes l’un de ces technophiles enthousiastes, capables d’ignorer que ce qui est teste aujourd’hui ne represente que 5 % a 10 % des facteurs impliques dans la pathologie, vous saurez ce qu’il vous reste a faire devant un facteur de risque evalue a 1,27 ou a 0,92. Les societes en question vous y aideront avec des modes d’emploi qui soulignent que finalement tout cela n’est que tres vaguement indicatif et doit etre interprete selon votre propre mode de vie. Comme pour le « Corbeau » de la fable de La Fontaine, « La lecon valait bien un fromage sans doute ». Malgre ces derives mercantiles futiles, il est certain que le sequencage en profondeur de genomes associes a des maladies complexes permettra d’identifier de nouveaux mecanismes pathologiques resultant de mutations genetiques specifiques, facilitant d’autant la mise au point d’une nouvelle generation de medicaments fondee sur la comprehension fine des
Journals
2009 EN
Steven G. Coca · Bushra Yusuf · Michael G. Shlipak
+2 more
Acute kidney injury (AKI) is common in hospitalized patients. The impact of AKI on long-term outcomes is controversial.