Signal quality measures for unsupervised blood pressure measurement

Accurate systolic and diastolic pressure estimation, using automated blood pressure measurement, is difficult to achieve when the transduced signals are contaminated with noise or interference, such as movement artifact. This study presents an algorithm for automated signal quality assessment in blood pressure measurement by determining the feasibility of accurately detecting systolic and diastolic pressures when corrupted with various levels of movement artifact. The performance of the proposed algorithm is compared to a manually annotated reference scoring (RS). Based on visual representations and audible playback of Korotkoff sounds, the creation of the RS involved two experts identifying sections of the recorded sounds and annotating sections of noise contamination. The experts determined the systolic and diastolic pressure in 100 recorded Korotkoff sound recordings, using a simultaneous electrocardiograph as a reference signal. The recorded Korotkoff sounds were acquired from 25 healthy subjects (16 men and 9 women) with a total of four measurements per subject. Two of these measurements contained purposely induced noise artifact caused by subject movement. Morphological changes in the cuff pressure signal and the width of the Korotkoff pulse were extracted features which were believed to be correlated with the noise presence in the recorded Korotkoff sounds. Verification of reliable Korotkoff pulses was also performed using extracted features from the oscillometric waveform as recorded from the inflatable cuff. The time between an identified noise section and a verified Korotkoff pulse was the key feature used to determine the validity of possible systolic and diastolic pressures in noise contaminated Korotkoff sounds. The performance of the algorithm was assessed based on the ability to: verify if a signal was contaminated with any noise; the accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of this noise classification, and the systolic and diastolic pressure differences between the result obtained from the algorithm and the RS. 90% of the actual noise contaminated signals were correctly identified, and a sample-wise accuracy, sensitivity and specificity of 97.0%, 80.61% and 98.16%, respectively, were obtained from 100 pooled signals. The mean systolic and diastolic differences were 0.37 ± 3.31 and 3.10 ± 5.46 mmHg, respectively, when the artifact detection algorithm was utilized, with the algorithm correctly determined if the signal was clean enough to attempt an estimation of systolic or diastolic pressures in 93% of blood pressure measurements

Modern biomass-based transportation fuels from pyrolysis process, bio-ethanol, bio-methanol and bio-diesel

In this paper, the modern biomass-based transportation fuels such as fuels from Pyrolysis process, bio-ethanol, bio-methanol, and bio-diesel are briefly reviewed. Here, the term bio-fuel and non-organic fuel is referred to as liquid or gaseous fuels for the transport sector that are predominantly produced from biomass. There are several reasons for bio-fuels and non-organic fuel to be considered as relevant technologies by both developing and industrialized countries. They include energy security reasons, environmental concerns, foreign exchange savings, and socioeconomic issues related to the rural sector. The term modern biomass is generally used to describe the traditional biomass use through the efficient and clean combustion technologies and sustained supply of biomass resources, environmentally sound and competitive fuels, heat and electricity using modern conversion technologies. Modern bio-mass can be used for the generation of electricity and heat. Bio-ethanol, bio-methanol and bio-diesel as well as diesel produced from biomass by Pyrolysis process are the most modern biomass-based transportation fuels. Bio-ethanol is a petrol additive/substitute

Gender and local floodplain management institutions: a case study from Bangladesh

"Floodplain wetlands are the major common pool natural resource in Bangladesh. Mostly men fish, and both men and women collect aquatic plants and snails. Case studies contrast a women-only, men-only, and mixed community based organization (CBO), each of which manages a seasonal floodplain wetland. The two CBOs in which women hold key positions are in Hindu communities where more women use aquatic resources, work for an income, and belong to other local institutions. In the oldest of these CBOs, more women have gradually become office bearers as their recognition in the community has grown. In the Muslim community, only a few women collect aquatic resources and in this community most women do not perceive floodplain natural resource constraints to be very important to them. These women have no role in the CBO and feel that they have no say in decisions about the fishery, unlike many women in the other two sites. The fishery management activities in all three sites are similar and catches and biodiversity appear to have improved, demonstrating that women can play an effective role in community organizations for fishery management. Those who are represented in the CBOs reported significant increases in their participation and influence. Men and women in all three sites recognized that decisionmaking and management of their fisheries had improved, but community support and compliance were higher where both men and women had an active role in this process. Women had a more diverse set of criteria for effective CBOs than men. The men-only CBO saw itself as more of a membership based organization than as representing all of the community." Authors' AbstractGender, Poverty, Collective action, Community participation, Floodplains, Fisheries, Community-based organizations,

The Interpretation of Statutes in Modern British Law

Mr. Justice Frankfurter recently said that the number of cases coming before the Supreme Court of the United States which were not based on statutes was reduced almost to zero. This growth of statutory as against pure case law is, of course, not confined to the United States. It inevitably accompanies the social welfare state and the increase in government which every modern industrial society has experienced and which two world wars, with their need for the total mobilization of resources, have further stimulated. Apart from these sociological factors which affect states with the most different legal systems, it is still customary to contrast the code-minded continental systems with the case-minded tradition of Anglo-American jurisprudence. Insofar as it is meant to indicate a parallel contrast in the judicial approach to statutes, this is in many ways a false antithesis. It is quite true that the history of the common law systems has encouraged an empirical and inductive approach to legal problems, a disinclination to think in terms of abstract rights and duties rather than of concrete remedies, a judicial distrust of parliamentary encroachments upon the sphere of the lawyer\u27s law. As will be shown, this attitude still powerfully influences the judicial approach to statutes in contemporary England. Insofar as American\u27law has taken over the basic principles and approach of the common law, this may well be true of the United States too; but the fundamental difference is that the United States, like other countries inside and outside the common law system, likes a written constitution

La investigación turística publicada en revistas turísticas y no turísticas: análisis bibliométrico de la producción de las universidades catalanas

Los objetivos de este estudio son analizar la producción científica sobre turismo en Cataluña y explorar las diferencias entre las revistas turísticas y no turísticas. Mediante un análisis bibliométrico y de contenido, se muestra la producción desde varios ángulos: la distribución de la producción entre autores, centros y revistas; los tipos de revistas; las temáticas y regiones investigadas; y las disciplinas científicas empleadas. Una conclusión es el importante papel que han desempeñado las revistas no turísticas, especialmente las geográficas, en la difusión del conocimiento turístico

Investigating the delay times in academic publishing: An empirical study on publishing delay times in academic journals

Dissertation presented as the partial requirement for obtaining a Master's degree in Data Science and Advanced Analytics, specialization in Data ScienceThe aim of this study is to analyze the differences in article publishing delay times from different perspectives. Previous works on the topic suggest there are significant differences between article publication times, which has a direct effect on the author’s personal and professional life. However, as the required dates for the analysis are not available in article databases, the works on the topic are limited to certain publishers/databases. Using the entire Scimago Journal Ranking Q1 journal pool, this study creates a representative and comprehensive article dataset, containing submittance, acceptance and publication dates for over 200,000 sampled articles from 27 different subject areas between 2010-2020. This allows publishing delay times to be analyzed from different perspectives and offers a baseline for any future studies. The study shows clear delay time differences between subject areas. The shortest delay time occurs in Life Sciences articles, with an average delay of 6 months, three times quicker overall than Social Sciences articles. Publication year analysis shows that while delay times are improving over time, this improvement is coming from acceptance to publication time delay, driven by the increase of digital publications. Delay times do not show the same improvement for the more problematic submission to acceptance delay, highlighting the reviewing process. Open Access journals offer an alternative to the traditional publications, and are faster overall, however their performances started to stagnate as number of publications increased each year. Author affiliated country data is not balanced, and the dataset is dominated by submissions from certain countries, namely United States, China, United Kingdom, and Germany, indicating these countries’ overall dominance on the scientific domain. However, matching analysis shows that an affiliated county’s “Global North vs. South”, “English as first language”, and “G7 membership” status do not play a significant role in their subsequent delay times, indicating a fair refereeing