OBJECTIVE To investigate the course of alcoholism in males and females in a 14-year follow-up of persons with DSM-III alcoholism compared to very heavy drinkers and unaffected controls in a community sample. METHODS Case-control study based on data from the 1997 Health Services Use and Cost study, a 14-year follow-up survey of 442 individuals who participated in two waves of the 1981-1983 St....

Congenital heart defects are a major congenital abnormality and are assuming increasing importance. A study was undertaken to estimate the incidence of congenital heart defects in Northern Ireland over a five year period (1974-1978), to determine the age at diagnosis and to assess the risk of recurrence in sibs. An incidence rate of 7.3 per 1000 total births was found. This reduced to 3.1 per 1...

Embodied Conversational Agents (ECAs) are life-like computer generated characters that interact with human users in face-to-face multi-modal conversations. ECA systems are generally complex and difficult for individual research groups to develop. Therefore, if there was a common framework for connecting ECA functioning blocks seamlessly to an integrated system, redundant effort can be saved. Th...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) by an intraluminal filament is a widely accepted animal model of focal cerebral ischemia. In this procedure, cutting of the external carotid artery (ECA) is a prerequisite for thread insertion. However, the implications of ECA transsection have not yet been described. METHODS After 90 minutes of filament MCAO or sham surgery, rats...

210 of CCA and/or ECA dissection. Thus, we estimate the prevalence of this type of dissection to be less than 1% of all cervical artery dissections. The reasons for the low frequency might be a different ultrastructure of the vessel wall in the CCA and ECA, but underdiagnosis due to a lack of attention regarding dissection of the ECA is also possible because dissection occurs without severe con...

The research project COMPANIONS aims at developing an advanced embodied conversational agent (ECA). This ECA is used in two scenarios and two languages (English and Czech), and it requires a TTS system being able to generate very natural expressive and emotional speech output. This paper describes application issues of two such systems within the ECA, introduces approaches to expressive speech ...

Generally, design of the parts of an automobile is restricted by space especially components assembled in the engine room. Therefore traction motor for hybrid electric vehicle is designed by interior permanent magnet synchronous motor (IPMSM). The IPMSM has high power density and efficiency because it generates not only magnetic torque but also reluctance torque. However, IPMSM is difficult to ...

We explore the reprogramming capabilities of computer programs by means of cellular automata (CA). We show a series of crossing boundary results including Wolfram Class 1 Elementary Cellular Automata (ECA) emulating a Class 2 ECA, a Class 2 ECA emulating a Class 3 ECA, and a Class 3 ECA emulating a Class 2 ECA, among results of similar type for general CA (neighbourhood range r = 3/2) including...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to prospectively investigate the contribution of the ipsilateral external carotid artery (ECA) to cerebral perfusion in patients with internal carotid artery occlusion. METHODS Institutional Review Board approval and informed consent were obtained. Thirty functionally independent patients (24 men, 6 women; mean age, 63 years) with an angiog...