Sleep Apnea Syndrome (SAS) is defined as a partial or total closure of the patient upper airways during sleep. The term “collapsus” (or collapse) is used to describe this closure. From a fluid mechanical point of view, this collapse can be understood as a spectacular example of fluid-walls interaction. Indeed, the upper airways are delimited in their largest part by soft tissues having differen...

Physiological plasticity of early developmental stages is a key way by which organisms can survive and adapt to environmental change. We investigated developmental plasticity of aspects of the cardio-respiratory physiology of encapsulated embryos of a marine gastropod, Littorina obtusata, surviving exposure to moderate hypoxia (PO2 =8 kPa) and compared the development of these survivors with th...

Nasoendoscopy is an important tool for assessing velopharyngeal function. The purpose of this study was to analyze velar and pharyngeal wall movement and velopharyngeal gap during nasoendoscopic evaluation of the velopharynx before and during diagnostic therapy. Nasoendoscopic recordings of 10 children with operated cleft lip and palate were analyzed according to the International Working Group...

Several articulatory strategies are available during the production of /u/, all resulting in a similar acoustic output. /u/ has two main constrictions, at the velum and at the lips. A perturbation of either constriction can be compensated at the other one, e.g wider constriction at the velum by more lip protrusion, wider lip opening by more tongue retraction. This study investigates whether spe...

Orofacial clones can display speech articulation in an augmented mode, i.e. display all major speech articulators, including those usually hidden such as the tongue or the velum. Besides, a number of studies tend to show that the visual articulatory feedback provided by ElectroPalatoGraphy or ultrasound echography is useful for speech therapy. This paper describes the latest developments in aco...