3,284 research outputs found
Graphene-Enabled Electrodes for Electrocardiogram Monitoring
The unique parameters of Graphene (GN), notably its considerable electron mobility, high surface area and electrical conductivity are bringing extensive attention into the wearable technologies. This work presents a novel Graphene-based electrode for acquisition of electrocardiogram (ECG). The proposed electrode was fabricated by coating GN on top of metallic layer of Ag/AgCl electrode using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) technique. To investigate the performance of the fabricated GN-based electrode, two types of electrodes were fabricated with different sizes to conduct the signal qualities and the skin-electrode contact impedance measurements. Performances of the GN-enabled electrodes were compared to the conventional Ag/AgCl electrodes in terms of ECG signal quality, skin-electrode contact impedance, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and response time. Experimental results showed the proposed GN-based electrodes produced better ECG signals, higher SNR (improved by 8%) and lower contact impedance (improved by 78%) values than conventional ECG electrodes
A New Approach to Spin Glass Simulations
We present a recursive procedure to calculate the parameters of the recently
introduced multicanonical ensemble and explore the approach for spin glasses.
Temperature dependence of the energy, the entropy and other physical quantities
are easily calculable and we report results for the zero temperature limit. Our
data provide evidence that the large increase of the ergodicity time is
greatly improved. The multicanonical ensemble seems to open new horizons for
simulations of spin glasses and other systems which have to cope with
conflicting constraints
Fabrication of Human Keratinocyte Cell Clusters for Skin Graft Applications by Templating Water-in-Water Pickering Emulsions
Most current methods for the preparation of tissue spheroids require complex materials, involve tedious physical steps and are generally not scalable. We report a novel alternative, which is both inexpensive and up-scalable, to produce large quantities of viable human keratinocyte cell clusters (clusteroids). The method is based on a two-phase aqueous system of incompatible polymers forming a stable water-in-water (w/w) emulsion, which enabled us to rapidly fabricate cell clusteroids from HaCaT cells. We used w/w Pickering emulsion from aqueous solutions of the polymers dextran (DEX) and polyethylene oxide (PEO) and a particle stabilizer based on wheyprotein (WP). The HaCaT cells clearly preferred to distribute into the DEX-rich phase and this property was utilized to encapsulate them in the water-in-water (DEX-in-PEO) emulsion drops then osmotically shrank to compress them into clusters. Prepared formulations of HaCaT keratinocyte clusteroids in alginate hydrogel were grown where the cells percolated to mimic 3D tissue. The HaCaT cell clusteroids grew faster in the alginate film compared to the individual cells formulated in the same matrix. This methodology could potentially be utilised in biomedical applications
Prevalence and distribution of the fabella: a radiographic study in Turkish subjects
Background: The purpose of this study is to examine the plain knee radiographs in Turkish subjects in order to determine the prevalence of the fabella and analyse the differences between age, gender, laterality and its symmetry pattern.
Materials and methods: Bilateral antero-posterior and lateral knee radiographs of 500 patients (250 male and 250 female subjects, 1000 knee radiographs) were randomly selected from the clinical database and retrospectively evaluated. Data on patient age, gender, and knee laterality (right–left) were evaluated from hospital records. The differences between the sesamoid bones at a particular location and the side, sex and age groups were analysed.
Results: The overall prevalence of the fabella (unilateral or bilateral) was 22.8% (114 subjects). The fabella was present unilaterally in 38 (7.6%) subjects, while it was present bilaterally in 76 (15.2%) subjects. The prevalence of the fabella was similar between the body sides. The prevalence of the fabella was also similar between genders (unilateral or bilateral cases) and age groups.
Conclusions: We examined the prevalence, symmetry pattern, age and gender differences in Turkish population. It is the first study performed on Turkish population with the largest sample in current literature. Prevalence of fabella is found to be 22.8% which is quite similar with other Caucasian ethnic populations
A solvable model of the genesis of amino-acid sequences via coupled dynamics of folding and slow genetic variation
We study the coupled dynamics of primary and secondary structure formation
(i.e. slow genetic sequence selection and fast folding) in the context of a
solvable microscopic model that includes both short-range steric forces and and
long-range polarity-driven forces. Our solution is based on the diagonalization
of replicated transfer matrices, and leads in the thermodynamic limit to
explicit predictions regarding phase transitions and phase diagrams at genetic
equilibrium. The predicted phenomenology allows for natural physical
interpretations, and finds satisfactory support in numerical simulations.Comment: 51 pages, 13 figures, submitted to J. Phys.
Percolation approach to quark gluon plasma in high energy pp collisions
We apply continuum percolation to proton-proton collisions and look for the
possible threshold to phase transition from confined nuclear matter to quark
gluon plasma. Making the assumption that J/Psi suppression is a good signal to
the transition, we discuss this phenomenon for pp collisions, in the framework
of a dual model with strings.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure
Z-graded differential geometry of quantum plane
In this work, the Z-graded differential geometry of the quantum plane is
constructed. The corresponding quantum Lie algebra and its Hopf algebra
structure are obtained. The dual algebra, i.e. universal enveloping algebra of
the quantum plane is explicitly constructed and an isomorphism between the
quantum Lie algebra and the dual algebra is given.Comment: 17 page
Time-to-birth prediction models and the influence of expert opinions
Preterm birth is the leading cause of death among children under five years old. The pathophysiology and etiology of preterm labor are not yet fully understood. This causes a large number of unnecessary hospitalizations due to high--sensitivity clinical policies, which has a significant psychological and economic impact. In this study, we present a predictive model, based on a new dataset containing information of 1,243 admissions, that predicts whether a patient will give birth within a given time after admission. Such a model could provide support in the clinical decision-making process. Predictions for birth within 48 h or 7 days after admission yield an Area Under the Curve of the Receiver Operating Characteristic (AUC) of 0.72 for both tasks. Furthermore, we show that by incorporating predictions made by experts at admission, which introduces a potential bias, the prediction effectiveness increases to an AUC score of 0.83 and 0.81 for these respective tasks
Grundstate Properties of the 3D Ising Spin Glass
We study zero--temperature properties of the 3d Edwards--Anderson Ising spin
glass on finite lattices up to size . Using multicanonical sampling we
generate large numbers of groundstate configurations in thermal equilibrium.
Finite size scaling with a zero--temperature scaling exponent describes the data well. Alternatively, a descriptions in terms of Parisi
mean field behaviour is still possible. The two scenarios give significantly
different predictions on lattices of size .Comment: LATEX 9pages,figures upon request ,SCRI-9
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