Why is immediate-serial-recall (short-term memory) span consistently shorter for sign language than it is for speech? A new study by Boutla et al. shows that neither the length of signs, nor the formational similarity of signed digits, can account for the difference. Their results suggest instead that the answer lies in differences between the auditory and visual systems. At the same time, howe...

The dendritic cell (DC) specific pathogen-uptake receptor (DC-SIGN) internalizes antigens for degradation and presentation onto MHC molecules. At the cell membrane, DC-SIGN forms nanoclusters that facilitate virus capture. However, internalized viruses, such as HIV-1, escape degradation. Here, we exploit ligand-conjugated, virus-sized, highly photostable quantum dots (QDs) to monitor in living ...

The C-type lectin dendritic cell (DC)-specific intercellular adhesion molecule grabbing non-integrin (DC-SIGN; CD209) facilitates binding and internalization of several viruses, including HIV-1, on DCs, but the underlying mechanism for being such an efficient phagocytic pathogen-recognition receptor is poorly understood. By high resolution electron microscopy, we demonstrate a direct relation b...

When we encounter an English word that we do not understand, we can look it up in a dictionary. However, when an American Sign Language (ASL) user encounters an unknown sign, looking up the meaning of that sign is not a straightforward process. It has been recently proposed that this problem can be addressed using a computer vision system that helps users look up the meaning of a sign. In that ...

Research on automatic sign language recognition (ASLR) has mostly been conducted from a machine learning perspective. We propose to implement results from human sign recognition studies in ASLR. In a previous study it was found that handshape is important for human sign recognition. The current paper describes the implementation of this conclusion: using handshape in ASLR. Handshape information...

We show that if a car stops at a stop sign, an observer, e.g., a police officer, located at a certain distance perpendicular to the car trajectory, must have an illusion that the car does not stop, if the following three conditions are satisfied: (1) the observer measures not the linear but angular speed of the car; (2) the car decelerates and subsequently accelerates relatively fast; and (3) t...

Given the important role of parent-youth communication in adolescent well-being and quality of life, we sought to examine the relationship between specific communication variables and youth perceived quality of life in general and as a deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH) individual. A convenience sample of 230 youth (mean age = 14.1, standard deviation = 2.2; 24% used sign only, 40% speech only, and ...

Our recent studies have shown that the dendritic cell-specific ICAM nonintegrin CD209 (DC-SIGN) specifically binds to the core LPS of Escherichia coli K12 (E. coli), promoting bacterial adherence and phagocytosis. In this current study, we attempted to map the sites within the core LPS that are directly involved in LPS-DC-SIGN interaction. We took advantage of four sets of well-defined core LPS...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE In primary intracerebral hemorrhage, the presence of contrast extravasation after computed tomographic angiography (CTA), termed the spot sign, predicts hematoma expansion and mortality. Because the biological underpinnings of the spot sign are not fully understood, we investigated whether the rate of contrast extravasation, which may reflect the rate of bleeding, predict...

Smart Cities is a vision driven by the availability of governmental data that fosters many challenging applications. One of them is the management of inconsistent traffic regulations, i.e., the handling of inconsistent traffic signs and measures in urban areas such as wrong sign posting, or errors in data acquisition in traffic sign administration software. We investigate such inconsistent traf...