No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

n/a

abstract: A multitude of individuals across the globe suffer from hearing loss and that number continues to grow. Cochlear implants, while having limitations, provide electrical input for users enabling them to "hear" and more fully interact socially with their environment. There has been a clinical shift to the bilateral placement of implants in both ears and to bimodal placement of a hearing aid in the contralateral ear if residual hearing is present. However, there is potentially more to subsequent speech perception for bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant users than the electric and acoustic input being received via these modalities. For normal listeners vision plays a role and Rosenblum (2005) points out it is a key feature of an integrated perceptual process. Logically, cochlear implant users should also benefit from integrated visual input. The question is how exactly does vision provide benefit to bilateral and bimodal users. Eight (8) bilateral and 5 bimodal participants received randomized experimental phrases previously generated by Liss et al. (1998) in auditory and audiovisual conditions. The participants recorded their perception of the input. Data were consequently analyzed for percent words correct, consonant errors, and lexical boundary error types. Overall, vision was found to improve speech perception for bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant participants. Each group experienced a significant increase in percent words correct when visual input was added. With vision bilateral participants reduced consonant place errors and demonstrated increased use of syllabic stress cues used in lexical segmentation. Therefore, results suggest vision might provide perceptual benefits for bilateral cochlear implant users by granting access to place information and by augmenting cues for syllabic stress in the absence of acoustic input. On the other hand vision did not provide the bimodal participants significantly increased access to place and stress cues. Therefore the exact mechanism by which bimodal implant users improved speech perception with the addition of vision is unknown. These results point to the complexities of audiovisual integration during speech perception and the need for continued research regarding the benefit vision provides to bilateral and bimodal cochlear implant users. / Dissertation/Thesis / Masters Thesis Speech and Hearing Science 2015

Le phénomène dit de domestication moléculaire qui a été rapporté pour certains transposons à ADN a abouti à la formation de néogènes qui codent des protéines potentiellement impliquées dans la stabilité du génome de part une activité recombinase. L’objectif de ce travail est d’étudier l’expression de 23 recombinases néogéniques d’intérêt dérivées de transpsons à ADN dans une série de cancers colorectaux. Nous avons fabriqué de nouveaux anticorps performants pour l’étude en western blot et en immunofluorescence de l’expression du gène SETMAR qui code pour la protéine Metnase dans des lignées cancéreuse différentes et dans des tissus du côlon tumoraux et normaux. Nos résultats démontrent que la vaccination d’ADN avec la formulation utilisée est une méthode qui donne de meilleurs résultats que l'injection de peptide ou protéines purifiées. Nous avons observé une expression de la protéine metnase dans des lignées cancéreuses de cancer du côlon, de leucémie et de cancer du sein. Le niveau d’expression de cette protéine Metnase dans le cancer du côlon semble être associé au statut MSI ce qui suggère un rôle de cette protéine dans les mécanismes de carcinogenèse et de progression tumorale. / During a phenomena known as molecular domestication has been reported for some DNA transposons leading to the formation of Neogenes which encode proteins potentially involved in the genome stability. The objective of this work is to study the expression of 23 neogenic recombinases of interest derived from DNA transpsons in a series of frozen colorectal cancers. We have manufactured new effective antibodies for the study of the expression of SETMAR gene which encode Metnase protein in different cancer cell lines and tissues of colon tumoral and normal by the method of Western blot and immunofluorescence. Our results demonstrate that DNA vaccination with the formulation used here is a method that gives better results than the injection of peptide or purified proteins. We observed an expression of Metnase protein in cell lines of colorectal cancer, leukemia and breast cancer. The level of expression of the Metnase protein in colon cancer appears to be associated to the MSI status which suggests a role for this protein in the mechanisms of carcinogenesis and tumor progression.

Järnvägsbron vid Årstaberg kommer när den är klar att mäta 1,4 km, här passerar över 550 tåg per dygn. Bron är en del av projektet Citybanan och kommer att fungera som en spårväxel som styr fjärr-, regional- och godståg till den gamla östra Årstabron. Pendeltågen kommer då färdas på bron över Årstaviken och in i den nya järnvägstunneln vid Södra station. Entreprenaden gick från början till danska företaget Pihl och Son som efter en del problem gick i konkurs, underentreprenören Züblin fick då ta över projektet. Med en ny platsledning gjordes en hel del förändringar på arbetsgången och arbetsmomenten. Från 4 veckor per sektion, där en sektion mäter ca 30 meter lyckades Züblin tillslut effektivisera till 2 veckor. Det speciella med detta projekt är den formvagn som används, den så kallade MSS:en (Moving Scaffolding System) som är relativt ovanlig i Sverige. Författarnas uppgift var att undersöka och utreda för ytterligare effektiviseringar samt redogöra för de effektiviseringar som redan gjorts av Züblin. För att ta reda på hur arbetsgången går till har en sektion av överbyggnaden följts under byggprocessen. Författarna har tagit del av tekniska detaljer som temperatursprickor, armering, spännarmering, betongkvalité och inte minst själva formvagnen. För att få en uppfattning granskades dokument och handlingar om projektet parallellt med intervjuer med inblandade och sakkunniga. Eftersom många effektiviseringsåtgärder var genomförda när författarna påbörjade examensarbetet hos Züblin lämnades inte mycket utrymme för effektiviseringar av tekniska åtgärder. Effektiviseringar som författarna har kommit fram till gäller främst arbetsmetoder och material där mer prefabricering på armering och formning över brostöd, användning av rullarmering och självkompakterande betong. Med tanke på att inga tester och provningar har utförts är detta spekulationer som tagits i samråd med inblandade nyckelpersoner med stor erfarenhet inom sina respektive områden. / The railway bridge at Årstaberg will measure 1,4 km when finished, over 550 trains passes by every 24 hours. The bridge is a part of the project Citybanan and will serve as a railway gear that directs the long-distance, regional- and cargo trains to the old Årstabron. The commuter trains will then travel on the bridge over Årstaviken and into the new railway tunnel at Södra Station. The first contractor was the Danish company Phil & Son, who after some struggles and problems went bankrupt. The subcontractor Züblin then took over the project. With the new site management, whole new changes were made considering the workflow and other operations. From 4 weeks per section, were one section measures 30 meters, Züblin managed to reach 2 weeks. The authors' task was to investigate for further efficiency and account for the efficiency improvements already made by Züblin. In order to receive a full understanding about the workflow on sight, every step of the process has been followed on one section of the superstructure under the construction process. The technical details have been analyzed such as temperature cracks, reinforcement, stressing and concrete quality. Documents about the project had to be examined and interviews with the involved experts and thoroughly follow the operations on site. Since many efficiency measures were implemented when the authors began this degree project at Züblin, not much space was left for technical efficiency improvements. The efficiencies that caught the attention is mostly working methods and material use where more prefabrication should be utilized considering the reinforcement and forming over pillars, use of rolled reinforcement and self- consolidating concrete. Considering no tests or try-outs have been made this is only speculations which have been discussed with the involved experts with great experience in their field.

The London British Museum Manuscript Additional 35087, hereafter referred to as London Add. 35087, is an important parchment manuscript in large octavo choirbook arrangement from the beginning of the sixteenth century. Its measurements are 19.4 x 29.3 centimeters. The manuscript contains ninety-five folios and one stub where a leaf has been torn out (f. 4).1 The last composition in the manuscript is incomplete, which indicates that one leaf is lacking at the end (f. 96). Two sets of foliation are shown: the original Roman and a more recent Arabic. Both are placed in the upper right hand corner of folio recto. The sets agree in folios 4-93. Folios 1 and 2 show no Roman figures now; folio 3 has "ii," and therefore the missing leaf probably had "iii." The Arabic numbering does not account for this missing leaf. This folio might have been assigned "4," but this number is given on the next complete leaf to coincide with the Roman "iiii." At the end, by mistake, folio 94 has "xciii" and folio 95 has "xciiii."

Der Freiburger Einsilbersprachverständnistest weist einige Mängel auf, die seit vielen Jahren bekannt und in der Literatur beschrieben sind. Im Rahmen dieser Dissertation wurde eine Basis geschaffen, um diese Mängel zu beheben. Zunächst wurden möglichst viele Einsilber der deutschen Sprache zusammengetragen und durch eine Vorauswahl auf 1526 reduziert. Zur Verbesserung der Aufnahmequalität im Vergleich zu derjenigen von 1968 und 1976 kamen professionelle digitale Aufnahmegeräte zum Einsatz, deren Aufstellung in Vorversuchen systematisch optimiert wurde. Die Sprachaufnahmen wurden von einem Sprecher (Dipl.-Ing. Stefan Brill) und einer Sprecherin (Maria Mahfoud, Verfasserin dieser Dissertation) ausgeführt. Bei der Evaluierung der neuen Aufsprachen beschränkten wir uns auf die Schnittmenge der Freiburger Aufsprachen von 1968 und 1976. Der Aufsprachenvergleich dieser 378 Einsilber in den vier verschiedenen Fassungen 1968, 1976, 2007 mit männlicher Stimme und 2007 mit weiblicher Stimme erbrachte Aussagen über die Qualität der neuen in Bezug auf die alten Aufnahmen. Dies geschah im Rahmen einer Untersuchung an normalhörenden Probanden. Normalhörende verstehen Sprache ohne Störgeräusch in der Regel problemlos, sodass mit nahezu perfektem Wortverständnis gerechnet werden muss. Der Vergleich der Aufsprachen wäre so nicht möglich. Daher wurde das Wortverständnis erschwert, indem die Aufsprachen mit einem unterschiedlich starken Störgeräusch in Form eines CCITT-Rauschens überlagert wurden. Die Variation des Rauschpegels erlaubte es außerdem, die Verstehbarkeitseinbuße der Aufsprachen in Abhängigkeit vom Störgeräusch zu erfassen und zu vergleichen. Der Bereich der Variation wurde mithilfe einer vorgeschalteten Pilotstudie auf 0 dB bis -16 dB (SNR) festgelegt. Dadurch wurde ein Verständlichkeitsbereich von 5,5 % im schwersten bis 94,4 % im leichtesten Fall abgedeckt. Das Auftreteten von Randeffekten konnte somit vermieden werden. Die Sprachstimuli wurden den Probanden in einem genau auf die Fragestellung abgestimmten Reihenfolge- und Zuordnungsschema vorgespielt. Dabei wurde darauf geachtet, dass jeder Proband die gleiche Anzahl an Einsilbern aus den vier verschiedenen Aufsprachen hörte. Die Sprachverständlichkeitsschwellen ("speech reception threshold", SRT) betrugen -3,75 dB (1968), -5,80 dB (1976), -8,54 dB (2007M) und -7,59 dB (2007W). Im paarweisen Vergleich mit dem McNemar-Test erwiesen sich alle Aufsprachen mit Ausnahme des Paares 2007M - 2007W als statistisch signifikant unterschiedlich. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass die Verständlichkeit der Neuaufsprachen besser ist als diejenige der Aufsprachen von 1968 und 1976. Dies wurde besonders im Kontrast zu der Aufsprache von 1968 deutlich. Die Aufsprachen der 1526 Einsilber und die Evaluierung der ersten 378 Einsilber an Normalhörenden sind Grundsteine für die Erörterung sinnvoller Veränderungen am Einsilbersprachverständnistest. Solche Veränderungen könnten in der Bildung neuer Listen bestehen, innerhalb derer u. a. auf Phonemverteilungen, die Art und Weise der Zusammenstellung der Wörter und einen neuen Ablauf des Prüfungssystems geachtet werden sollte. Außerdem ermöglichen die Erkenntnisse dieser Dissertation eine Verbesserung des Vorgehens im Rahmen weiterführender Untersuchungen. Das Ziel ist ein Test, der den neuen technischen Möglichkeiten entspricht und bisherigen Kritikpunkten standhält. / The Freiburg monosyllabic words recognition test suffers from a number of shortcomings that are well known and described in the literature since many years. In this thesis, the basis was established to remedy those deficiencies. Firstly, as many German monosyllables as possible were assembled. This set was preselected and then reduced down to a number of 1526 words. To improve the quality of the recordings compared to those from 1968 and 1976, professional digital equipment was used. The recording set-up was systematically optimized in pilot tests. Speech was recorded from a male (Stefan Brill) and a female talker (Maria Mahfoud, author of this thesis). In the evaluation, only the intersection of the Freiburg recordings from 1968 and 1976 was used. The comparison of these 378 monosyllables in all four versions 1968, 1976, 2007 (male voice) and 2007 (female voice) yielded results about the quality of the new recordings with reference to the old ones. The evaluation was performed with normal hearing subjects. Normal hearings usually understand speech in quiet without difficulties. Thus, we would expect nearly perfect word recognition and comparison of the recordings would not be possible. Therefore the word recognition was impeded by addition of CCITT noise. The variation of the noise level allowed for assessing and comparing the reduction of intelligibility as a function of the noise level. The range of variation was defined from 0 dB to -16 dB (SNR) by using a preceding pilot test. Thereby an intelligibility range from 5.5 % in the most difficult, to 94.4 % in the easiest case was covered. The occurence of boundary effects thus could be avoided. The speech stimuli were offered the subjects in a well-defined order and assignment scheme, in such a way that each subject listened to the same amount of monosyllables from the four different recordings. Speech reception thresholds ("SRTs") were found to be -3.75 dB (1968), -5.80 dB (1976), -8.54 dB (2007m) and -7.59 dB (2007f) for the four recordings. In a comparison with the paired McNemar-test, all recordings except the pair 2007m - 2007f were found to be statistically significantly different. The results show, that the intelligibility of the new recordings is better than that of the 1968 and 1976 recordings. Notably large is the contrast to the 1968 recordings. The recordings of the 1526 monosyllables and the evaluation of the first 378 monosyllables with normal hearings provide the basis for discussing the new design of the monosyllabic words recognition test. Such a new design could include the construction of new lists. Key construction criteria would be the distribution of phonemes, the compilation of words and a new test procedure. Moreover, the results from this thesis allow for improving the procedures in the context of further investigations, ultimately leading to a new test that is based on current technology and avoids former shortcomings.

<p>To simplify troubleshooting and reliability of a process, a diagnosis system can supervise the process and alarm if any faults are detected. A diagnosis system can also identify one, or several faults, i.e. isolate faults, that may have caused the alarm. If model-based diagnosis is used, tests based on observations from the process are compared to a model of the process to diagnose the process. It can be a hard task to find which tests to be used for maximal fault detection and fault isolation. Structural Methods require not very detailed knowledge of the process to be diagnosed and can be used to find such tests early in the design of new processes. Sensors are used to get observations of a process. Therefore, sensors placed on different positions in the process gives different possibilities for observations. A specific set of sensors are in this work called a sensor configuration. </p><p>This thesis contributes with a method to predict and examine the fault detection and fault isolation possibility. By using these two diagnosis properties, a suitable sensor configuration is computed and tests to be used in a future diagnosis system are suggested. For this task an algorithm which can be used in the design phase of diagnosis systems, and a Matlab implementation of this algorithm are described. </p><p>In one part of this work the Matlab implementation and the algorithm are used to study how a model-based diagnosis-system can be used to supervise the fuel system in an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).</p>