Damgaardegan2867

What determines the sensory impression of a self-generated motor image? Motor imagery is a process in which subjects imagine executing a body movement with a strong kinesthetic and/or visual component from a first-person perspective. Both sensory modalities can be combined flexibly to form a motor image. 90 participants of varying ages had to freely generate motor images from a large set of movements. They were asked to rate their kinesthetic as well as their visual impression, the perceived vividness, and their personal experience with the imagined movement. Data were subjected to correlational analyses, linear regressions, and representation similarity analyses. Results showed that both action characteristics and experience drove the sensory impression of motor images with a strong individual component. We conclude that imagining actions that impose varying demands can be considered as reexperiencing actions by using one's own sensorimotor representations that represent not only individual experience but also action demands.Objective This study aimed to evaluate the impact of the four main types of inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis (RA), ankylosing spondylitis (AS), psoriatic arthritis (PA), juvenile chronic arthritis (JCA)) on female fertility. Design We performed a monocentric observational study, which took place in the Reproductive Medicine Department and the Rheumatology Department of the Toulouse University Hospital. An anonymous questionnaire was sent to patients aged 18-50 with RA, AS, PA or JCA who were diagnosed before the age of 40 and who consented to participate in the study. A section of the questionnaire was completed using the medical file of each patient. Results Of the 521 eligible patients, 202 (39 %) answered the questionnaire. Before being diagnosed with a rheumatic disease, 87 % of patients with a desire for pregnancy had a spontaneously obtained live birth, compared to 75 % after (P less then 0.05). However, this decrease only concerned RA (90 % before diagnosis vs 68 % after; P less then 0.05). This difference was due to a lower rate of pregnancies achieved, but the number of miscarriages did not increase. Moreover, for patients who managed to conceive, the time required for conception did not increase, regardless of the type of rheumatic disease they had. Two thirds of patients reported a decrease in the frequency of sexual intercourse after diagnosis, mainly (75 %) because of the pain relating to the disease. Conclusion Our study shows a trend of decreased fertility in patients with RA, perhaps due to sexual problems, while no impact of AS and PA on the ability to conceive was found. This impact on fertility didn't seem to be related to the decrease of sexuality. Multidisciplinary care including treatment from a rheumatologist, gynecologist and sexologist would appear essential in order to provide RA patients with the necessary information concerning their fertility, answer their questions about pregnancy and thus optimize their care.Bicycling at night is dangerous, with vehicle passing distances being a key concern, given that the main cause of night-time bicycling fatalities is from motorists hitting bicyclists from behind. Setanaxib manufacturer However, little is known about vehicle passing distances at night or how they are affected by bicyclist visibility. This study assessed the impact of different bicyclist visibility configurations on vehicle passing distances at night-time. Fourteen licenced drivers with normal vision (age 24.2 ± 3.7 years) drove an experimental vehicle with low-beam headlights around a 1-km section of a closed-road circuit at night. Each lap involved passing two bicyclists displaying one of four visibility configurations Control (red rear-facing light and reflector), Handlebars (control plus two red rear-facing lights on each handlebar), Helmet (control plus one red rear-facing light on the helmet), and Leg Retro-reflectors (control plus retro-reflective strips positioned on the knees and ankles). Participants were instructed to passverall, additional visibility aids resulted in wider vehicle passing distances, likely due to enhanced visual cues for drivers. The findings suggest that bicyclists should incorporate additional visibility aids to encourage safer passing distances of vehicles at night-time.Takeover performance in automated driving is subject to investigation in the context of a variety of driver states such as distraction or drowsiness. New driver states will emerge with increasing automation level with drivers potentially being allowed to sleep while driving a highly automated vehicle. Still at some point during a drive, drivers will be required to or voluntarily take back control of the vehicle. A simulator study was conducted to investigate drivers' ability to take over the vehicle control after sleeping. In a within-subjects study design N = 25 test drivers completed a drive using a highly automated driving system a) during day time after a full night of sleep and b) early in the morning after a night of partial sleep deprivation. During the second drive, sleep was measured in drivers according to the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM) standard using electroencephalography (EEG). In total, the participants had to handle four takeover requests (TORs) from the system, two while being awake (day drive) and two when being awakened from sleep stage N2 (morning drive). The objective criticality of the situations was assessed performing the Takeover Controllability rating (TOC-rating). The results indicate that the applied takeover time of 60 s was sufficient for drivers to reengage in driving after sleeping. Reaction times were extended by about 3 s after sleep compared to the wake condition. Takeover performance assessed with the TOC-rating however was clearly worse after sleep than after wakefulness which was also reflected in the drivers' subjective perception of the criticality of the situation. Further research is needed on how to deal with performance impairments after waking up from sleep during automated driving.Past roadside safety studies mostly evaluated the impact of traffic barrier geometric features using simulation tools or by conducting field crash tests. While past simulation and field crash tests could present important findings for upgrading the geometric design of traffic barriers, there is still a gap regarding conducting an actual data analysis on side traffic barriers crashes with regards to their geometric dimensions. This paper aims at filling this gap by combining a statewide dataset of side traffic barrier geometric features with historical crashes on interstate roads in Wyoming. Therefore, geometric features including system height, post-spacing, lateral offset (from the edge of pavement), and side-slope of over 150 miles of side traffic barriers were inventoried by conducting a field survey on interstate roads in Wyoming. For the statistical analysis, a random-parameters ordered logit model was utilized to investigate variables impacting crash severity of side traffic barriers. It was found that system height could significantly impact the crash severity of side box beam barriers.