SUMMARYLarge malaria epidemics in the East African highlands during the mid and late 1990s kindled a stream of research on the role that global warming might have on malaria transmission. Most of the inferences using temporal information have been derived from a malaria incidence time series from Kericho. Here, we ...

Wind has previously been shown to influence the location and orientation of spider web sites and also the geometry and material composition of constructed orb webs. We now show that wind also influences components of prey-catching behaviour within the web. A small wind tunnel was used to generate different wind ...

Fibre-loop cavity ringdown spectroscopy (CRDS) is a highly sensitive spectroscopic absorption technique which has shown considerable promise for the analysis of small-volume liquid samples. We have developed a new light coupling method for fibre-loop CRDS, which overcomes two disadvantages of the technique; namely, low efficiency light coupling into the cavity, ...

The cerebellum is thought to be engaged not only in motor control, but also in the neural network dedicated to visual processing of body motion. However, the pattern of connectivity within this network, in particular, between the cortical circuitry for observation of others' actions and the cerebellum remains largely unknown. ...

A large-eddy simulation is used to investigate contaminant transport owing to complex human and door motions and vent-system activity in room compartments where a contaminated and clean room are connected by a vestibule. Human and door motions are simulated with an immersed boundary procedure. We demonstrate the details of contaminant ...

Abstract Kicking with the non-preferred leg is important in Australian Football and becoming important in the rugby codes. The aim of this study was to examine differences between preferred and non-preferred leg kicking in the drop punt kick. Seventeen elite Australian Football players performed kicks with the preferred and non-preferred ...

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of sensitivity encoding on the quantitative assessment of cardiac motion in black-blood CINE tissue phase mapping (TPM) sequences. Up to now whole volume coverage of the heart is still limited by the long acquisition times. Therefore, a significant ...

Diatoms possess effective photoprotection mechanisms, which may involve reorganizations in the photosynthetic machinery. We have shown earlier, by using circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, that in Phaeodactylum tricornutum the pigment-protein complexes are arranged into chiral macrodomains, which have been proposed to be associated with the multilamellar organization of the thylakoid membranes ...

The aim of this study was to compare the first and second peaks of the vertical ground reaction force (VGRF) and kinematics at initial contact (IC) and final stance (FS) during walking in one of two directions (forward×backward) and two environments (on land×underwater). Twenty-two adults (24.6±2.6 years) walking forward (FW) ...

Studies of auditory temporal resolution in birds have traditionally examined processing capabilities by assessing behavioral discrimination of sounds varying in temporal structure. Here, temporal resolution of the brown-headed cowbird (Molothrus ater) was measured using two auditory evoked potential (AEP)-based methods: auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) to paired clicks and envelope following ...

West, DJ, Owen, NJ, Jones, MR, Bracken, RM, Cook, CJ, Cunningham, DJ, Shearer, DA, Finn, CV, Newton, RU, Crewther, BT, and Kilduff, LP. Relationships between force-time characteristics of the isometric midthigh pull and dynamic performance in professional rugby league players. J Strength Cond Res 25(11): 3070-3075, 2011-There is considerable conflict ...

Plasmonic nanosensors are promising for chip-based refractometric detections, most of which are based on spectroscopic monitoring of surface plasmon resonance. Here, we propose a simple non-spectroscopic refractometric sensing scheme based on a plasmonic interferometer integrating a metallic groove array and a tilted nanoslit. Owing to the interference of the directly ...

We demonstrate a high-accuracy heterodyne measurement system for characterizing the magnitude of the frequency response of high-speed 1.55 µm photoreceivers from 2 MHz to greater than 50 GHz. At measurement frequencies below 2 GHz, we employ a phase-locked loop with a double-heterodyne detection scheme, which enables precise tuning of the ...

Focus cues are incorrect in conventional stereoscopic displays. This causes a dissociation of vergence and accommodation, which leads to visual fatigue and perceptual distortions. Multi-plane displays can minimize these problems by creating nearly correct focus cues. But to create the appearance of continuous depth in a multi-plane display, one needs ...

BACKGROUND: -Fractionated electrograms are used by some as targets for ablation in atrial and ventricular arrhythmias. Fractionation has been demonstrated to result when there is repetitive or asynchronous activation of separate groups of cells within the recording region of a mapping electrode(s). METHODS AND RESULTS: -Using a computer model we ...

Tennis injuries have been associated with serving mechanics, but quantitative kinematic measurements in realistic environments are limited by current motion capture technologies. This study tested for kinematic differences at the lower back, shoulder, elbow, wrist, and racquet between the flat, kick, and slice serves using a markerless motion capture (MMC) ...

The purpose of this study was to investigate correlations between biomechanical outcome measures and weightlifting performance. Joint kinematics and kinetics of the hip, knee, and ankle were calculated while ten subjects performed a clean at 85% of 1-RM. Kinematic and kinetic time-series patterns were extracted with principal components analysis. Discrete ...

The effects of climate change on biodiversity should depend in part on climate displacement rate (climate-change velocity) and its interaction with species' capacity to migrate. We estimated Late Quaternary glacial-interglacial climate-change velocity by integrating macroclimatic shifts since the Last Glacial Maximum with topoclimatic gradients. Globally, areas with high velocities were ...

Background: Measurement of ankle joint dorsiflexion is an essential examination technique that needs to be performed prior to prescription of foot orthoses since the presence or absence of ankle equinus will affect the design of such devices. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of foot posture ...

Slow acoustic modulations below 20 Hz, of varying bandwidths, are dominant components of speech and many other natural sounds. The dynamic neural representations of these modulations are difficult to study through noninvasive neural-recording methods, however, because of the omnipresent background of slow neural oscillations throughout the brain. We recorded the ...

The concentration quenching threshold of upconversion luminescence was broken through for the first time via a designed strategy: spatial separation of the emitter doping area.

There has been little scientific investigation of the impact of dance shoes on foot motion or dance injuries. The pointed (plantarflexed) foot is a fundamental component of both the technical requirements and the traditional aesthetic of ballet and jazz dancing. The aims of this study were to quantify the externally ...

Filmmakers use continuity editing to engender a sense of situational continuity or discontinuity at editing boundaries. The goal of this study was to assess the impact of continuity editing on how people perceive the structure of events in a narrative film and to identify brain networks that are associated with ...

Initial ball flight characteristics of curve and instep kicks were investigated. Fifteen international female footballers performed curve and instep kicks from a distance of 20 m from goal and at a 1 m2 target. Seventeen Vicon cameras tracked three-dimensional coordinates of four reflective markers adhered to the ball. Ball flight ...

This study investigates the speaker-specificity of acoustic characteristics of the English fricative /s/ and contributes background population statistics for use in forensic speaker comparison work. The intra- and inter-speaker variability in duration and spectral properties of /s/ was investigated in data from 30 young adult male speakers of Cambridge and ...

Abstract Constraint-induced movement therapy is a commonly used intervention to improve upper limb function after stroke. However, the effectiveness of constraint-induced movement therapy and its optimal dosage during acute or sub-acute stroke is still under debate. To examine the literature on the effects of constraint-induced movement therapy in acute or ...

At least since 1975 the "pleasantness" of a sound is discussed from many different angles (Ely 1975; Aures 1984; Halpern etal. 1986; Vaschillo 2003; Neumann & Waters 2006; Cox 2008), but often chalkboard squeaking or scratching a chalkboard with finger nails tops the list of unpleasant sounds. The aim of ...

The effect of variations in pitch, loudness, and timbre on the perception of the dynamics of isolated instrumental tones is investigated. A full factorial design was used in a listening experiment. The subjects were asked to indicate the perceived dynamics of each stimulus on a scale from pianissimo to fortissimo. ...

This paper discusses the effects of frequency selection on source localization and geoacoustic inversion methods that use frequency coherent objective functions. Matched-field processors based on frequency-coherent objective functions often have rapidly fluctuating range ambiguity surfaces. Insufficient sampling in frequency domain results in range aliasing terms that affect geoacoustic inversion. Range ...

Whereas muscle potentiation is consistently demonstrated with evoked contractile properties, the potentiation of functional and physiological measures is inconsistent. The objective was to compare a variety of conditioning stimuli volumes and intensities over a 15-min recovery period. Twelve volleyball players were subjected to conditioning stimuli that included 10 repetitions of ...

Mismatch negativity and the P300 have been investigated as electrophysiological indices of behavioral auditory discrimination of duration. Using an oddball paradigm, responses were evoked to stimuli that had been behaviorally demonstrated to be either perceptible or imperceptible. The results indicated P300 events were present with the perceptible contrast but absent ...

A four hydrophone linear array was used to localize calling black drum and estimate source levels and signal propagation. A total of 1025 source level estimates averaged 165 dB(RMS) relative (re:) 1 μPa (standard deviation (SD) = 1.0). The authors suggest that the diverticulated morphology of the black drum swimbladder increase the ...

In a spectrogram of a human vowel sound, it is possible to observe the formant resonances which define the vowel auditorily. It is usually also possible to observe an emphasized frequency below F1, which has often been called the voice bar. Although recognition of the voice bar dates back to ...

Underwater, natural illumination typically varies strongly temporally and spatially. The reason is that waves on the water surface refract light into the water in a spatiotemporally varying manner. The resulting underwater illumination field forms a caustic network and is known as flicker. This work shows that caustics can be useful ...

Horseshoe bats execute conspicuous pinna movements as part of their biosonar behaviors. These movements contain rigid rotations as well as deformation components that can result in considerable changes to the pinna shapes. Since pinna shape determines the biosonar system's sensitivity as a function of direction and frequency, these non-rigid deformations ...

Human frequency-following responses (FFRs) to voice pitch have provided valuable information on how the human brain processes speech information. Recordings of the FFR to voice pitch, however, may overlap when insufficient silent intervals are used. To determine the shortest silent interval that can be used with no overlap between adjacent ...

Researchers complained about lab vibration in a new multi-floor academic laboratory building after observing surface ripples in water glasses on lab shelves. Structural vibration and low frequency noise can effect sensitive laboratory equipment, degrade experimental specimens and reduce staff efficiency and productivity. Investigatory observations and measurements were undertaken to determine ...

When a bright light is present in the field of view, visibility is dramatically reduced. Many studies have investigated the effect of glare on visibility considering foveal vision. However, the effects on peripheral vision have received little attention. In a previous work [J. Opt. Soc. Am. A25, 1790 (2008)JOAOD60740-323210.1364/JOSAA.25.001790], we ...

Recently, investigators of otoacoustic emissions (OAEs) have shown interest in measuring OAEs to frequencies higher than 10 kHz. Most commercial instruments used to measure OAEs do not specify the microphone frequency response at higher frequencies, nor does their typically integrated design make it convenient to measure it. OAE probes manufactured ...

Current binaural theory contends that the auditory system encodes interaural delays in highpass-filtered complex sounds by phase locking to their slowly modulating envelopes. Spectrotemporal analysis of interaurally time-delayed highpass waveforms reveals the presence of a concomitant interaural level cue which could contribute to lateralization judgments. The current study systematically investigated ...

The knowledge on the optics of fogbows is scarce, and their polarization characteristics have never been measured to our knowledge. To fill this gap we measured the polarization features of 16 fogbows during the Beringia 2005 Arctic polar research expedition by imaging polarimetry in the red, green and blue spectral ...

To study the effects of acoustic masking from anthropogenic noise, bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) echolocation performance was assessed in the presence of different masking noise types using Navy relevant source transmissions. Echolocation clicks produced by the dolphin were detected with a hydrophone, then digitized within a phantom echo generator (PEG). ...

This paper examines the difficulties associated with proving compliance with environmental noise regulations. Topics include determining pre-existing background sound, post-construction measurements during facility operations, and balancing corporate rights with neighborhood expectations. When a new facility is built in a quiet neighborhood, noise complaints are commonplace. The new facility is required ...

In vitro (humans, animals) or in vivo (animals) hemilarynx experiments are still the only way to visualize and analyze 3-D vibrations of the entire medial surface of the vocal fold. However, to date, only a few studies have been performed. For three different larynges during sustained phonation, vibrational output was ...

Bursts of 2.5mm horizontal sinusoidal anterior-posterior oscillations of sequentially varying frequencies (0.25 to 1.25 Hz) are applied to the base of support to study postural control. The Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) algorithm decomposes the Center of Pressure (CoP) data (5 young, 4 mature adults) into Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs). Hilbert ...

This experiment examined the ability of human listeners to categorize sounds as a function of changing training distribution characteristics. Participants were presented non-speech sounds randomly sampled from two overlapping, Gaussian-like distributions. The sounds consisted of narrow-band noise bursts varying in center frequency. Participants mapped the distributions of sounds onto creatures ...

This study presents interior noise characteristics of Korean high-speed train under different operation conditions. The interior noise was measured for various operating conditions such as different speeds, concrete and ballast track, and open and tunneled track, passing by another moving train. The transient variation of the sound pressure was recorded. ...

Vertically aligned Mg alloyed ZnO nanowires were successfully grown by Chemical Vapor deposition method in a tube furnace. Structural analysis found that the MgZnO nanowires are with single crystalline without phase separations. The atomic ratio of Mg/O in the nanowire was determined to be approximately 15%. Photoluminescence spectra show that ...

A number of measurements of reed motion and sound field have been made on a diatonic harmonica mounted on a fixed volume wind chamber. These include variation of sounding frequency with blowing pressure and the degree to which the sounding frequency and sound spectrum can be altered by attaching external ...

The passive fathometer algorithm was applied to data from two drifting array experiments in the Mediterranean, Boundary 2003 and 2004. The passive fathometer response was computed with correlation times from 0.34 to 90 s and, for correlation times less than a few seconds, the observed signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) agrees with ...