Laser Scanner Technology

This paper addresses the basic principles, performance measures and applications associated with laser scanner technologies. The objective of this report is to communicate and disseminate pertinent information related to state-of-the-art laser measurement systems that are currently available through commercial and research means. This paper should serve two-fold: (1) as a basic tutorial to laser scanning technology and (2) as a guide to current manufacturers and researchers of this technology

A Multi-modal Machine Learning Approach and Toolkit to Automate Recognition of Early Stages of Dementia among British Sign Language Users

The ageing population trend is correlated with an increased prevalence of acquired cognitive impairments such as dementia. Although there is no cure for dementia, a timely diagnosis helps in obtaining necessary support and appropriate medication. Researchers are working urgently to develop effective technological tools that can help doctors undertake early identification of cognitive disorder. In particular, screening for dementia in ageing Deaf signers of British Sign Language (BSL) poses additional challenges as the diagnostic process is bound up with conditions such as quality and availability of interpreters, as well as appropriate questionnaires and cognitive tests. On the other hand, deep learning based approaches for image and video analysis and understanding are promising, particularly the adoption of Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), which require large amounts of training data. In this paper, however, we demonstrate novelty in the following way: a) a multi-modal machine learning based automatic recognition toolkit for early stages of dementia among BSL users in that features from several parts of the body contributing to the sign envelope, e.g., hand-arm movements and facial expressions, are combined, b) universality in that it is possible to apply our technique to users of any sign language, since it is language independent, c) given the trade-off between complexity and accuracy of machine learning (ML) prediction models as well as the limited amount of training and testing data being available, we show that our approach is not over-fitted and has the potential to scale up

An End-to-End Automated License Plate Recognition System Using YOLO Based Vehicle and License Plate Detection with Vehicle Classification

An accurate and robust Automatic License Plate Recognition (ALPR) method proves surprising versatility in an Intelligent Transportation and Surveillance (ITS) system. However, most of the existing approaches often use prior knowledge or fixed pre-and-post processing rules and are thus limited by poor generalization in complex real-life conditions. In this paper, we leverage a YOLO-based end-to-end generic ALPR pipeline for vehicle detection (VD), license plate (LP) detection and recognition without exploiting prior knowledge or additional steps in inference. We assess the whole ALPR pipeline, starting from vehicle detection to the LP recognition stage, including a vehicle classifier for emergency vehicles and heavy trucks. We used YOLO v2 in the initial stage of the pipeline and remaining stages are based on the state-of-the-art YOLO v4 detector with various data augmentation and generation techniques to obtain LP recognition accuracy on par with current proposed methods. To evaluate our approach, we used five public datasets from different regions, and we achieved an average recognition accuracy of 90.3% while maintaining an acceptable frames per second (FPS) on a low-end GPU

B12 as a treatment for peripheral neuropathic pain : a systematic review

Neuropathic pain describes a range of unpleasant sensations caused by a lesion or disease of the somatosensory nervous system. The sensations caused by neuropathic pain are debilitating and improved treatment regimens are sought in order to improve the quality of life of patients. One proposed treatment for neuropathic pain is vitamin B12, which is thought to alleviate pain by a number of mechanisms including promoting myelination, increasing nerve regeneration and decreasing ectopic nerve firing. In this paper, the evidence for B12 as a drug treatment for neuropathic pain is reviewed. Twenty four published articles were eligible for inclusion in this systematic review in which a range of treatment regimens were evaluated including both B12 monotherapy and B12 in combination with other vitamins or conventional treatments, such as gabapentinoids. Overall, this systematic review demonstrates that there is currently some evidence for the therapeutic effect of B12 in the treatment of post-herpetic neuralgia (level II evidence) and the treatment of painful peripheral neuropathy (level III evidence)

Generalized symmetric nonextensive thermostatistics and q-modified structures

We formulate a convenient generalization of the q-expectation value, based on the analogy of the symmetric quantum groups and q-calculus, and show that the q->q^{-1} symmetric nonextensive entropy preserves all of the mathematical structure of thermodynamics just as in the case of non-symmetric Tsallis statistics. Basic properties and analogies with quantum groups are discussed.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Bovine mastitis is a polymicrobial disease requiring a polydiagnostic approach

peer-reviewedBovine mastitis, an inflammation of the udder, is associated with increases in milk somatic cell count usually resulting from bacterial infection. We analysed 50 mastitic milk samples via cultivation, 16S rRNA sequencing and a combination of the two (culturomics) to define the complete microbial content of the milk. Most samples contained over 10,000 cfu mL-1 total bacterial counts including isolates that were haemolysin positive (n = 36). Among colonies isolated from blood agar plates, Streptococcus uberis was dominant (11/50) followed by Streptococcus dysgalactiae (6/50), Pseudomonas (6/50), Enterococcus faecalis (6/50), Escherichia coli (6/50), Staphylococcus argenteus (4/50), Bacillus (4/50) and Staphylococcus aureus (2/50). 16S rRNA profiling revealed that amplicons were dominated by Rhodococcus, Staphylococcus, Streptococcus and Pseudomonas. A higher inter-sample diversity was noted in the 16S rRNA readouts, which was not always reflected in the plating results. The combination of the two methods highlights the polymicrobial complexity of bovine mastitis

Anyonic behavior of quantum group gases

We first introduce and discuss the formalism of $SU_q(N)$-bosons and fermions and consider the simplest Hamiltonian involving these operators. We then calculate the grand partition function for these models and study the high temperature (low density) case of the corresponding gases for $N=2$. We show that quantum group gases exhibit anyonic behavior in $D=2$ and $D=3$ spatial dimensions. In particular, for a $SU_q(2)$ boson gas at $D=2$ the parameter $q$ interpolates within a wider range of attractive and repulsive systems than the anyon statistical parameter.Comment: LaTeX file, 19 pages, two figures ,uses epsf.st

Vancomycin and nisin A are effective against biofilms of multi-drug resistant Staphylococcus aureus isolates from human milk

Human milk provides complete nutrition for infants and at the same time promotes the growth of specific bacteria in the infant gastrointestinal tract. Breastfeeding can often be discontinued due to mastitis which is an inflammation of the breast tissue. We isolated 18 Staphylococcus aureus strains from milk donated by healthy (n = 6), subclinical (n = 6), and mastitic (n = 6) mothers, two strains of which were VISA (Vancomycin Intermediate S. aureus). All tested strains (n = 12) were able to form biofilms. We then examined the impact of nisin A and vancomycin alone and in combination on biofilm formation and eradication of selected strains (n = 8). We observed strain-specific responses, with the combinatorial treatment at 1/4X MIC (for both singularly) significantly inhibiting biofilm formation for seven out of eight strains when compared with nisin A or vancomycin alone. None of the selected treatments were able to eradicate pre-formed biofilms. Finally, we selected two strains, namely a VISA (APC3814H) and a strong biofilm former (APC3912CM) and used confocal microscopy to evaluate the effects of the antimicrobial agents at 1X MIC on biofilm inhibition and eradication. All treatments inhibited biofilm formation of APC3814H but were ineffective in eradicating a pre-formed biofilm. Single treatments at 1X MIC against APC3912CM cells did not prevent biofilm formation whereas combination treatment caused increased death of APC3912CM cells. Finally, the combination treatment reduced the thickness of the pre-formed APC3912CM biofilm as compared with the single treatments