Search results for "MIM"
showing 10 items of 645 documents
EFFECTS OF VANADATE ON RESPONSES OF GUINEA-PIG ISOLATED TRACHEA TO SPASMOGENS
1993
Abstract The effects of vanadate on the contractility of the guinea-pig isolated trachea was examined. Vanadate (0·1 Mm) produced a sustained contraction that was abolished in Ca2+-free EGTA (0·1 Mm)-containing physiological salt solution but was resistant to verapamil (1 μm). Vanadate (0·1 Mm) depressed tracheal responses to CaCl2 (in Ca2+-free depolarizing solution), KCl, acetylcholine, histamine and 5-hydroxytryptamine. For vanadate (10 μm), the inhibition of spasmogenic responses only reached statistical significance for histamine and 5-hydroxytryptamine. Caffeine (1 Mm)-induced spasm (trachea at 20°C in the presence of indomethacin (2·8 μm)) was not affected by vanadate (10 μm-0·1 Mm).…
Objective assessment of blinking and facial expressions in Parkinson’s disease using a vertical electro-oculogram and facial surface electromyography
2019
Objective: Hypomimia is a common and early symptom of Parkinson's disease (PD), which reduces the ability of PD patients to manifest emotions. Currently, it is visually evaluated by the neurologist during neurological examinations for PD diagnosis, as described in task 3.2 of the Movement Disorder Society - Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (MDS-UPDRS). Since such an evaluation is semi-quantitative and affected by inter-variability, this paper aims to measure the physiological parameters related to eye blink and facial expressions extracted from a vertical electro-oculogram (VEOG) and facial surface electromyography (fsEMG) to differentiate PD patients from healthy control subjects (…
Aposematism facilitates the diversification of parental care strategies in poison frogs
2021
AbstractMany organisms have evolved adaptations to increase the odds of survival of their offspring. Parental care has evolved several times in animals including ectotherms. In amphibians, ~ 10% of species exhibit parental care. Among these, poison frogs (Dendrobatidae) are well-known for their extensive care, which includes egg guarding, larval transport, and specialized tadpole provisioning with trophic eggs. At least one third of dendrobatids displaying aposematism by exhibiting warning coloration that informs potential predators about the presence of defensive skin toxins. Aposematism has a central role in poison frog diversification, including diet specialization, and visual and acoust…
Human newborns match tongue protrusion of disembodied human and robotic mouths
2011
International audience; No evidence had been provided so far of newborns' capacity to give a matching response to 2D stimuli. We report evidence from 18 newborns who were presented with three types of stimuli on a 2D screen. The stimuli were video-recorded displays of tongue protrusion shown by: (a) a human face, (b) a human tongue from a disembodied mouth, and (c) an artificial tongue from a robotic mouth. Compared to a baseline condition, neonates increased significantly their tongue protrusion when seeing disembodied human and artificial tongue movements, but not when seeing a 2D full-face protruding tongue. This result was interpreted as revealing the exploration of top-heavy patterns o…
Molecular phylogeny of Malagasy poison frogs, genus Mantella (Anura: Mantellidae): homoplastic evolution of colour pattern in aposematic amphibians
2002
Abstract We studied the evolution of colour pattern in Malagasy poison frogs, genus Mantella , a group of diurnal and toxic frogs endemic to Madagascar. Based on a phylogeny reconstructed using 1130 bp of the mitochondrial 16S rRNA gene, the genus can be divided into five species groups. Within some of these groups, interspecific genetic divergences were very low (1.2–2.8% sequence divergence) while colour patterns were markedly different. In contrast, Mantella madagascariensis and M . baroni , two species which show extremely similar dorsal coloration patterns, were not included in the same clade. This conclusion was supported by high bootstrap values and by significant rejection of altern…
Bioinspired synthesis of multifunctional inorganic and bio-organic hybrid materials
2012
Owing to their physical and chemical properties, inorganic functional materials have tremendous impacts on key technologies such as energy generation and storage, information, medicine, and automotive engineering. Nature, on the other hand, provides evolution-optimized processes, which lead to multifunctional inorganic–bio-organic materials with complex structures. Their formation occurs under physiological conditions, and is goverened by a combination of highly regulated biological processes and intrinsic chemical properties. Nevertheless, insights into the molecular mechanisms of biomineralization open up promising perspectives for bioinspired and biomimetic design and the development of …
Estimation of the Velocity of Multiple Moving Persons in Non-Stationary Indoor Environments from Received RF Signals
2019
This paper presents a new accurate iterative procedure to estimate the time-variant (TV) velocity, i.e., TV speed, TV vertical angle-of- motion (VAOM), and TV horizontal angle-of-motion (HAOM), of multiple moving objects/persons in three-dimensional (3D) non-stationary indoor propagation environments. The indoor space is assumed to be equipped with a distributed 3x3 multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system. The proposed procedure focuses on estimating the TV speed, TV VAOM, and TV HAOM by matching the spectrogram of the complex channel gain of a non- stationary indoor channel model to the spectrogram obtained from received radio frequency (RF) signals. Together with the velocity …
A New Iterative Estimation Procedure for the Localization of Passive Stationary Objects from Received RF Signals in Indoor Environments
2019
This paper deals with the localization of passive stationary objects from the received radio- frequency (RF) signals in 3-dimensional (3D) indoor environments. Each object located in the 3D indoor environment is modelled by a single point scatterer. The propagation space is equipped with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) wireless communication system. The employed channel model is flexible and allows to have a line-of-sight (LOS) component as well as single- and double- bounce scattering components. Here, we present a new accurate iterative estimation technique for computing the optimal coordinates as well as the number of the main stationary objects (scatterers) in indoor areas. The …
A New Iterative Procedure for the Localization of a Moving Object/Person in Indoor Areas from Received RF Signals
2019
This paper presents a new iterative estimation method to localize a single moving object or person in non-stationary 3-dimensional (3D) indoor environments from received radiofrequency (RF) signals. The moving object/person is modelled by a moving single point scatterer. The indoor space is equipped with a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication system. This work starts by introducing a new geometrical channel model which considers the effects of the line-of-sight (LOS) component, the fixed objects located in a room, and the moving object (point scatterer). Then, we present an iterative estimation technique for computing the time-variant (TV) coordinates of the moving scatterer.…
Tailoring of the Solid State Properties of Al–Nb Mixed Oxides: A Photoelectrochemical Study
2013
Al–Nb containing mixed oxides were grown by anodizing sputter-deposited Al–Nb alloys of different compositions. A photoelectrochemical investigation was carried out in order to estimate the band gap, flat band potential, and conductivity type of these oxides as a function of their composition. The dependence of the band gap on the composition of mixed sp–d metal oxides has been rationalized by using a semiempirical correlation between the difference of electronegativity and band gap of oxides proposed in the literature some years ago and recently tested for regular d–d metal mixed oxides. The band gap increase observed as a function of Al content into the oxides seems mainly depending on th…