Speech production in Parkinson's disease: II. Acoustic and electropalatographic investigation of sentence, word and segment durations

Previous investigations employing electropalatography (EPG) have identified articulatory timing deficits in individuals with acquired dysarthria. However, this technology is yet to be applied to the articulatory timing disturbance present in Parkinson's disease (PD). As a result, the current investigation aimed to use EPG to comprehensively examine the temporal aspects of articulation in a group of nine individuals with PD at sentence, word and segment level. This investigation followed on from a prior study (McAuliffe, Ward and Murdoch) and similarly, aimed to compare the results of the participants with PD to a group of aged (n=7) and young controls (n=8) to determine if ageing contributed to any articulatory timing deficits observed. Participants were required to read aloud the phrase I saw a ___ today'' with the EPG palate in-situ. Target words included the consonants /1/, /s/ and /t/ in initial position in both the /i/ and /a/ vowel environments. Perceptual investigation of speech rate was conducted in addition to objective measurement of sentence, word and segment duration. Segment durations included the total segment length and duration of the approach, closure/constriction and release phases of EPG consonant production. Results of the present study revealed impaired speech rate, perceptually, in the group with PD. However, this was not confirmed objectively. Electropalatographic investigation of segment durations indicated that, in general, the group with PD demonstrated segment durations consistent with the control groups. Only one significant difference was noted, with the group with PD exhibiting significantly increased duration of the release phase for /1a/ when compared to both the control groups. It is, therefore, possible that EPG failed to detect lingual movement impairment as it does not measure the complete tongue movement towards and away from the hard palate. Furthermore, the contribution of individual variation to the present findings should not be overlooked.

Mapping indicators of riparian vegetation health using IKONOS and Landsat-7 ETM+ image data in Australian tropical savannas

Government agencies responsible for riparian environments are assessing the utility of remote sensing for mapping and monitoring environmental health indicators. The objective of this work was to evaluate IKONOS and Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery for mapping riparian vegetation health indicators in tropical savannas for a section of Keelbottom Creek, Queensland, Australia. Vegetation indices and image texture from IKONOS data were used for estimating percentage canopy cover (r2=0.86). Pan-sharpened IKONOS data were used to map riparian species composition (overall accuracy=55%) and riparian zone width (accuracy within 4 m). Tree crowns could not be automatically delineated due to the lack of contrast between canopies and adjacent grass cover. The ETM+ imagery was suited for mapping the extent of riparian zones. Results presented demonstrate the capabilities of high and moderate spatial resolution imagery for mapping properties of riparian zones, which may be used as riparian environmental health indicators

Multiplication and comultiplication of beliefs

Multiplication and comultiplication of beliefs represent a generalisation of multiplication and comultiplication of probabilities as well as of binary logic AND and OR. Our approach follows that of subjective logic, where belief functions are expressed as opinions that are interpreted as being equivalent to beta probability distributions. We compare different types of opinion product and coproduct, and show that they represent very good approximations of the analytical product and coproduct of beta probability distributions. We also define division and codivision of opinions, and compare our framework with other logic frameworks for combining uncertain propositions. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Heat and mass transfer during fry-drying of sewage sludge

Deep-frying, which consists of immersing a wet material in a large volume of hot oil, presents a process easily adaptable to dry rather than cook materials. A suitable material for drying is sewage sludge, which may be dried using recycled cooking oils (RCO) as frying oil. One advantage is that this prepares both materials for convenient disposal by incineration. This study examines fry-drying of municipal sewage sludge using recycled cooking oil. The transport processes occurring during fry-drying were monitored through sample weight, temperature, and image analysis. Due to the thicker and wetter samples than the common fried foods, high residual moisture is observed in the sludge when the boiling front has reached the geometric center of the sample, suggesting that the operation is heat transfer controlled only during the first half of the process followed by the addition of other mechanisms that allow complete drying of the sample. A series of mechanisms comprising four stages (i.e., initial heating accompanied by a surface boiling onset, film vapor regime, transitional nucleate boiling, and bound water removal) is proposed. In order to study the effect of the operating conditions on the fry-drying kinetics, different oil temperatures (from 120 to 180 degrees C), diameter (D = 15 to 25 mm), and initial moisture content of the sample (4.8 and 5.6 kg water(.)kg(-1) total dry solids) were investigated.

The temporal and spatial limits of compensation for fixational eye movements

High-fidelity eye tracking is combined with a perceptual grouping task to provide insight into the likely mechanisms underlying the compensation of retinal image motion caused by movement of the eyes. The experiments describe the covert detection of minute temporal and spatial offsets incorporated into a test stimulus. Analysis of eye motion on individual trials indicates that the temporal offset sensitivity is actually due to motion of the eye inducing artificial spatial offsets in the briefly presented stimuli. The results have strong implications for two popular models of compensation for fixational eye movements, namely efference copy and image-based models. If an efference copy model is assumed, the results place constraints on the spatial accuracy and source of compensation. If an image-based model is assumed then limitations are placed on the integration time window over which motion estimates are calculated. (c) 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Anti-American sentiment and America's perceived intent to dominate: An 11-nation study

Perceptions of America as a powerful but malevolent nation decrease its security. On the basis of measures derived from the stereotype content model (SCM) and image theory (IT), 5,000 college students in I I nations indicated their perceptions of the personality traits of, intentions of, and emotional reactions to the United States as well as their reactions to relevant world events (e.g., 9/11). The United States was generally perceived as competent but cold and arrogant. Although participants distinguished between the United States' government and its citizens, differences were small. Consistent with the SCM and IT, viewing the United States as intent on domination predicted perceptions of lack of warmth and of arrogance but not of competence and status. The discussion addresses implications for terrorist recruitment and ally support.

Detecting and sorting targeting peptides wtih neural networks and support vector machines

This paper presents a composite multi-layer classifier system for predicting the subcellular localization of proteins based on their amino acid sequence. The work is an extension of our previous predictor PProwler v1.1 which is itself built upon the series of predictors SignalP and TargetP. In this study we outline experiments conducted to improve the classifier design. The major improvement came from using Support Vector machines as a "smart gate" sorting the outputs of several different targeting peptide detection networks. Our final model (PProwler v1.2) gives MCC values of 0.873 for non-plant and 0.849 for plant proteins. The model improves upon the accuracy of our previous subcellular localization predictor (PProwler v1.1) by 2% for plant data (which represents 7.5% improvement upon TargetP).

Mapping structural parameters and species composition of riparian vegetation using IKONOS and Landsat ETM+ data in Australian tropical savannahs

Government agencies responsible for riparian environments are assessing the utility of remote sensing for mapping and monitoring vegetation structural parameters. The objective of this work was to evaluate Ikonos and Landsat-7 ETM+ imagery for mapping structural parameters and species composition of riparian vegetation in Australian tropical savannahs for a section of Keelbottom Creek, Queensland, Australia. Vegetation indices and image texture from Ikonos data were used for estimating leaf area index (R-2 = 0.13) and canopy percentage foliage cover (R-2 = 0.86). Pan-sharpened Ikonos data were used to map riparian species composition (overall accuracy = 55 percent) and riparian zone width (accuracy within +/- 3 m). Tree crowns could not be automatically delineated due to the lack of contrast between canopies and adjacent grass cover. The ETM+ imagery was suited for mapping the extent of riparian zones. Results presented demonstrate the capabilities of high and moderate spatial resolution imagery for mapping properties of riparian zones.

Monitoring the condition of savanna riparian zones in Northern Australia using high spatial resolution imagery and a field based rapid assessment method

Government agencies responsible for riparian environments are assessing the combined utility of field survey and remote sensing for mapping and monitoring indicators of riparian zone condition. The objective of this work was to compare the Tropical Rapid Appraisal of Riparian Condition (TRARC) method to a satellite image based approach. TRARC was developed for rapid assessment of the environmental condition of savanna riparian zones. The comparison assessed mapping accuracy, representativeness of TRARC assessment, cost-effectiveness, and suitability for multi-temporal analysis. Two multi-spectral QuickBird images captured in 2004 and 2005 and coincident field data covering sections of the Daly River in the Northern Territory, Australia were used in this work. Both field and image data were processed to map riparian health indicators (RHIs) including percentage canopy cover, organic litter, canopy continuity, stream bank stability, and extent of tree clearing. Spectral vegetation indices, image segmentation and supervised classification were used to produce RHI maps. QuickBird image data were used to examine if the spatial distribution of TRARC transects provided a representative sample of ground based RHI measurements. Results showed that TRARC transects were required to cover at least 3% of the study area to obtain a representative sample. The mapping accuracy and costs of the image based approach were compared to those of the ground based TRARC approach. Results proved that TRARC was more cost-effective at smaller scales (1-100km), while image based assessment becomes more feasible at regional scales (100-1000km). Finally, the ability to use both the image and field based approaches for multi-temporal analysis of RHIs was assessed. Change detection analysis demonstrated that image data can provide detailed information on gradual change, while the TRARC method was only able to identify more gross scale changes. In conclusion, results from both methods were considered to complement each other if used at appropriate spatial scales.