Reproducibility of electrical caries measurements: A technical problem?

The currently available instrument for electrical detection of occlusal caries lesions {[}Electronic Caries Monitor (ECM)] uses a site-specific measurement with co-axial air drying. The reproducibility of this method has been reported to be fair to good. It was noticed that the measurement variation of this technique appeared to be non-random. It was the aim of this study to analyse how such a non-random reproducibility pattern arises and whether it could be observed for other operators and ECM models. Analysis of hypothetical measurement pairs showed that the pattern was related to measurements at the high and low end of the measurement range for the instrument. Data sets supplied by other researchers to a varying degree showed signs of a similar non-random pattern. These data sets were acquired at different locations, by different operators and using 3 different ECM models. The frequency distribution of measurements in all cases showed a single or double end-peaked distribution shape. It was concluded that the pattern was a general feature of the measurement method. It was tentatively attributed to several characteristics such as a high value censoring, insufficient probe contact and unpredictable probe contact. A different measurement technique, with an improved probe contact, appears to be advisable. Copyright (C) 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel

Evaluation and combination of pitch estimation methods for melody extraction in symphonic classical music

The extraction of pitch information is arguably one of the most important tasks in automatic music description systems. However, previous research and evaluation datasets dealing with pitch estimation focused on relatively limited kinds of musical data. This work aims to broaden this scope by addressing symphonic western classical music recordings, focusing on pitch estimation for melody extraction. This material is characterised by a high number of overlapping sources, and by the fact that the melody may be played by different instrumental sections, often alternating within an excerpt. We evaluate the performance of eleven state-of-the-art pitch salience functions, multipitch estimation and melody extraction algorithms when determining the sequence of pitches corresponding to the main melody in a varied set of pieces. An important contribution of the present study is the proposed evaluation framework, including the annotation methodology, generated dataset and evaluation metrics. The results show that the assumptions made by certain methods hold better than others when dealing with this type of music signals, leading to a better performance. Additionally, we propose a simple method for combining the output of several algorithms, with promising results

The effects of dietary fibre type on satiety-related hormones and voluntary food intake in dogs

Depending on type and inclusion level, dietary fibre may increase and maintain satiety and postpone the onset of hunger. This 7-week study evaluated the effect of fibre fermentability on physiological satiety-related metabolites and voluntary food intake (VFI) in dogs. Sixteen healthy adult dogs were fed a low-fermentable fibre (LFF) diet containing 8·5 % cellulose or a high-fermentable fibre (HFF) diet containing 8·5 % sugarbeet pulp and 2 % inulin. Large intestinal fibre degradation was evaluated by apparent faecal digestibility of nutrients and faecal SCFA and NH3 concentrations. Postprandial blood samples were obtained to determine postprandial plasma glucose, insulin, total peptide tyrosine–tyrosine (PYY), total glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and total ghrelin concentrations. At the end of the study, the dogs were given a single meal of a dry dog food to determine VFI. Dogs fed the HFF diet had a significantly higher large intestinal fibre degradation and production of SCFA compared with the dogs fed the LFF diet. The HFF-fed dogs tended (P = 0·058) to show a lower VFI at the end of the study. No treatment effects were found for postprandial plasma glucose, PYY, GLP-1 and ghrelin responses. The concentrations of these metabolites could not be related to the observed difference in VFI. The inclusion of fermentable fibre in canine diets may contribute to the prevention or mitigation of obesity through its effects on satiety. The underlying mechanisms require further investigatio

Sedimentary geology of the Middle Carboniferous of the Donbas region (Dniepr-Donets basin, Ukraine)

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Menstrual cycle phase and sexual arousability in women

__Abstract__ Sexual arousability of women has not been consistently found to vary significantly over phases of the menstrual cycle. We studied changes in the temperature of a labium minus and subjective sexual and genital arousal recorded on semantic scales while watching erotic video in 12 women with natural menstrual cycles and 12 women using low-dose estrogen oral contraceptive pills. Natural cycle phase was ascertained by blood progesterone. Subjects were tested twice, with an interval of about 2 weeks. Half of each group had their first test during their luteal phase, the others during their follicular phase. Women tested for the first time in their follicular phase were sexually more aroused than women tested for the first time during their luteal phase. This was true for both objective (i.e., a labium minus change in temperature) and subjective genital arousal. When these women were retested in their alternative phase of the menstrual cycle, those who were then follicular did not score higher than those who were then luteal. On the contrary, the latter group scored as high as when tested during their follicular phase. This phenomenon was observed both in women with and without oral contraception. The nature of the menstrual phase (i.e., natural or pill-induced) seems irrelevant in this respect. Sexual arousal achieved during the first session appeared to be correlated with an increase in desire for making love during the rest of the day and night. Only 1 of 12 women tested during their luteal phase indicated an increase in desire to make love, while 6 of 12 women tested during their follicular phase indicated an increase. Apparently the menstrual cycle phase during the first test determines the immediate response and indirectly affects the response during the second test approximately 10 days later. In a random block design the difference in sexual response between follicular and luteal phase of the menstrual cycle disappears

The electronics of the energy plane of the NEXT-White detector

[EN] This paper describes the electronics of NEXT-White (NEW) detector PMT plane, a high pressure xenon TPC with electroluminescent amplification (HPXe-EL) currently operating at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (LSC) in Huesca, Spain. In NEXT-White the energy of the event is measured by a plane of photomultipliers (PMTs) located behind a transparent cathode. The PMTs are Hamamatsu R11410-10 chosen due to their low radioactivity. The electronics have been designed and implemented to fulfill strict requirements: an overall energy resolution below 1% and a radiopurity budget of 20 mBq unit(-1) in the chain of Bi-214. All the components and materials have been carefully screened to assure a low radioactivity level and at the same time meet the required front-end electronics specifications. In order to reduce low frequency noise effects and enhance detector safety a grounded cathode connection has been used for the PMTs. This implies an AC-coupled readout and baseline variations in the PMT signals. A detailed description of the electronics and a novel approach based on a digital baseline restoration to obtain a linear response and handle AC coupling effects is presented. The final PMT channel design has been characterized with linearity better than 0.4% and noise below 0.4mV.We acknowledge support from the following agencies and institutions: the European Research Council (ERC), Spain under the Advanced Grant 339787-NEXT; the Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad of Spain under grants FIS2014-53371-C04, the Severo Ochoa Program, Spain SEV-2014-0398 and the Maria de Maetzu Program, Spain MDM-2016-0692; the GVA of Spain under grants PROMETEO/2016/120 and SEJI/2017/011; the Portuguese FCT and FEDER, Spain through the program COMPETE, projects PTDC/FIS-NUC/2525/2014 and UID/FIS/04559/2013; the U.S. Department of Energy under contracts number DE-AC02-07CH11359 (Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory), DE-FG02-13ER42020 (Texas A&M) and de-sc0017721 (University of Texas at Arlington); and the University of Texas at Arlington. We acknowledge partial support from the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme, Spain under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreements No. 690575 and 674896. We also warmly acknowledge the Laboratorio Nazionale di Gran Sasso (LNGS) and the Dark Side collaboration for their help with TPB coating of various parts of the NEXT-White TPC. Finally, we are grateful to the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc for hosting and supporting the NEXT experiment.Álvarez-Puerta, V.; Herrero Bosch, V.; Esteve Bosch, R.; Laing, A.; Rodriguez-Samaniego, J.; Querol-Segura, M.; Monrabal, F.... (2019). The electronics of the energy plane of the NEXT-White detector. Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment. 917:68-76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nima.2018.11.126S687691