Modeling and fabrication of a microthermocouple array

Cryobiology is the study of how living cells and tissues respond to freezing and exposure to subzero temperatures. Studies in this field are aimed toward improving methods of cryosurgery as well as the storage of cells and tissues. For example, one area of research is to link the biophysical cellular dehydration and intracellular ice formation in cells during tissue freezing to cell viability and mechanical properties after thawing. There is currently a method for measuring dehydration in cells as part of a tissue, but not an adequate method for measuring intracellular ice formation in tissues. A prototype device that would allow measurement of intracellular ice formation by measuring the heat release of individual cells during freezing with an array of type-T microthermocouples was fabricated and tested. The device was designed to consist of a microfabricated wiring layer with an intermediate post layer to improve thermal insulation, and a rectangular junction layer to connect the two metals of the thermocouple. Modeling was used to determine the most suitable geometries for the device. Posts of 3 μm and 5 μm in diameter were modeled, with heights of 20 μm and 50 μm, as well as a wiring layer without posts. For both heights tested, the 3 μm posts improved the thermocouple response over a no post case, while 5 μm posts gave inferior results. Interference between adjacent thermocouples was found to be negligible as long as a cell was in contact with a thermocouple junction. A multilayer UV-LIGA process on a silicon wafer substrate with an E-beam deposited seed layer was used to fabricate the device. Electrodeposition was used to fabricate the wiring, posts, and junctions for the thermocouples. The seed layer was then etched away to provide electrical insulation between individual thermocouples. The microfabricated device was connected to a custom made PC board with multiplexing, amplifying and filtering circuitry. In initial tests, the thermocouple array showed a trend of voltage variation with temperature, indicating a working thermocouple array. Future work to more adequately characterize the performance is presented

CrowdSim2: an Open Synthetic Benchmark for Object Detectors

Data scarcity has become one of the main obstacles to developing supervised models based on Artificial Intelligence in Computer Vision. Indeed, Deep Learning-based models systematically struggle when applied in new scenarios never seen during training and may not be adequately tested in non-ordinary yet crucial real-world situations. This paper presents and publicly releases CrowdSim2, a new synthetic collection of images suitable for people and vehicle detection gathered from a simulator based on the Unity graphical engine. It consists of thousands of images gathered from various synthetic scenarios resembling the real world, where we varied some factors of interest, such as the weather conditions and the number of objects in the scenes. The labels are automatically collected and consist of bounding boxes that precisely localize objects belonging to the two object classes, leaving out humans from the annotation pipeline. We exploited this new benchmark as a testing ground for some state-of-the-art detectors, showing that our simulated scenarios can be a valuable tool for measuring their performances in a controlled environment.Comment: Proceedings of the 18th International Joint Conference on Computer Vision, Imaging and Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, 202

Development of a Realistic Crowd Simulation Environment for Fine-grained Validation of People Tracking Methods

Generally, crowd datasets can be collected or generated from real or synthetic sources. Real data is generated by using infrastructure-based sensors (such as static cameras or other sensors). The use of simulation tools can significantly reduce the time required to generate scenario-specific crowd datasets, facilitate data-driven research, and next build functional machine learning models. The main goal of this work was to develop an extension of crowd simulation (named CrowdSim2) and prove its usability in the application of people-tracking algorithms. The simulator is developed using the very popular Unity 3D engine with particular emphasis on the aspects of realism in the environment, weather conditions, traffic, and the movement and models of individual agents. Finally, three methods of tracking were used to validate generated dataset: IOU-Tracker, Deep-Sort, and Deep-TAMA

The significant impact of age on the clinical outcomes of laparoscopic appendectomy : results from the Polish Laparoscopic Appendectomy multicenter large cohort study

Acute appendicitis (AA) is the most common surgical emergency and can occur at any age. Nearly all of the studies comparing outcomes of appendectomy between younger and older patients set cut-off point at 65 years. In this multicenter observational study, we aimed to compare laparoscopic appendectomy for AA in various groups of patients with particular interest in the elderly and very elderly in comparison to younger adults. Our multicenter observational study of 18 surgical units assessed the outcomes of 4618 laparoscopic appendectomies for AA. Patients were divided in 4 groups according to their age: Group 1- 8 days. Logistic regression models comparing perioperative results of each of the 3 oldest groups compared with the youngest one showed significant differences in odds ratios of symptoms lasting >48hours, presence of complicated appendicitis, perioperative morbidity, conversion rate, prolonged LOS (>8 days). The findings of this study confirm that the outcomes of laparoscopic approach to AA in different age groups are not the same regarding outcomes and the clinical picture. Older patients are at high risk both in the preoperative, intraoperative, and postoperative period. The differences are visible already at the age of 40 years old. Since delayed diagnosis and postponed surgery result in the development of complicated appendicitis, more effort should be placed in improving treatment patterns for the elderly and their clinical outcome

Risk factors for serious morbidity, prolonged length of stay and hospital readmission after laparoscopic appendectomy : results from Pol-LA (Polish Laparoscopic Appendectomy) multicenter large cohort study

Laparoscopic appendectomy (LA) for treatment of acute appendicitis has gained acceptance with its considerable benefits over open appendectomy. LA, however, can involve some adverse outcomes: morbidity, prolonged length of hospital stay (LOS) and hospital readmission. Identification of predictive factors may help to identify and tailor treatment for patients with higher risk of these adverse events. Our aim was to identify risk factors for serious morbidity, prolonged LOS and hospital readmission after LA. A database compiled information of patients admitted for acute appendicitis from eighteen Polish and German surgical centers. It included factors related to the patient characteristics, peri- and postoperative period. Univariate and multivariate logistic regression models were used to identify risk factors for serious perioperative complications, prolonged LOS, and hospital readmissions in acute appendicitis cases. 4618 laparoscopic appendectomy patients were included. First, although several risk factors for serious perioperative complications (C-D III-V) were found in the univariate analysis, in the multivariate model only the presence of intraoperative adverse events (OR 4.09, 95% CI 1.32-12.65, p = 0.014) and complicated appendicitis (OR 3.63, 95% CI 1.74-7.61, p = 0.001) was statistically significant. Second, prolonged LOS was associated with the presence of complicated appendicitis (OR 2.8, 95%CI: 1.53-5.12, p = 0.001), postoperative morbidity (OR 5.01, 95% CI: 2.33-10.75, p < 0.001), conversions (OR 6.48, 95% CI: 3.48-12.08, p < 0.001) and reinterventions after primary procedure (OR 8.79, 95% CI: 3.2-24.14, p < 0.001) in the multivariate model. Third, although several risk factors for hospital readmissions were found in univariate analysis, in the multivariate model only the presence of postoperative complications (OR 10.33, 95% CI: 4.27-25.00), reintervention after primary procedure (OR 5.62, 95% CI: 2.17-14.54), and LA performed by resident (OR 1.96, 95%CI: 1.03-3.70) remained significant. Laparoscopic appendectomy is a safe procedure associated with low rates of complications, prolonged LOS, and readmissions. Risk factors for these adverse events include complicated appendicitis, postoperative morbidity, conversion, and re-intervention after the primary procedure. Any occurrence of these factors during treatment should alert the healthcare team to identify the patients that require more customized treatment to minimize the risk for adverse outcomes

De-Europeanisation of UK Regulatory Governance and the Future UK-EU Trade Relationship

With the exception of obligations during the transition period until the 31 December 2020, the UK will leave the EU Single Market and will need to negotiate a new regulatory framework for its future trade relationship with EU. The primary issue for the UK will be how much market access it will want to secure and what regulatory obligations will it be required to comply with in return for this. During EU membership, integration led to the UK’s regulatory framework becoming Europeanised which ensured the removal of trade barriers and provided for a level playing field of regulatory governance through harmonisation of technical standards and public policy objectives such as environmental standards or employment protection. As part of the future UK-EU trade relationship, the EU will be likely to insist on continuity of high levels of regulatory alignment, but the UK has indicated that it wishes to diverge from EU rules, leaving significant challenges for the UK-EU trade negotiations. This article considers the opportunity for the UK to de-Europeanise its regulatory governance after Brexit and whether and to what extent this will be compatible with negotiating a comprehensive trade agreement with the EU.</div

Uwarunkowania ekologiczne efektywności polskiej gospodarki rynkowej

Tyt. z nagł.Dostępny także w wersji drukowanej.Przedstawiono uwarunkowania ekologiczne gospodarki rynkowej w Polsce. Omówiono ekologiczne efekty zewnętrzne, środki regulacji pośredniej oraz zarządzanie ekologiczne