Triangular bounded consistency of fuzzy preference relations

There are typically two types of consistency of fuzzy preference relations (FPR), namely additive and multiplicative consistency. They are defined based on the assumption that decision makers are rational and can provide strictly consistent FPRs. To take into consideration the bounded rationality of decision makers, the current study relaxes this assumption and proposes a new measure called triangular bounded consistency for judging the consistency of FPRs. To define triangular bounded consistency, a directed triangle is used to represent three FPRs among any three alternatives, with each directed edge representing an FPR. The condition of restricted max–max transitivity (RMMT) in the directed triangle is quantitatively examined. Under the assumption that the bounded rationality of a decision maker is characterized by their historical FPRs, which are represented by directed triangles that satisfy RMMT, triangular bounded consistency is determined using the historical FPRs. We then illustrate how triangular bounded consistency can be used to verify the consistency of FPRs that are newly provided by decision makers and how to estimate some missing FPRs that are not provided by decision makers. Finally, to demonstrate the application of triangular bounded consistency of FPRs in multi-attribute decision analysis, we investigate a problem that involves selecting areas to market products for a company

Silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave stacks for low-thermal-noise mirror coatings

This study investigates a multilayer high reflector with new coating materials for next-generation laser interferometer gravitational wave detectors operated at cryogenic temperatures. We use the plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition method to deposit amorphous silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave high-reflector stacks and studied the properties pertinent to the coating thermal noise. Room- and cryogenic-temperature mechanical loss angles of the silicon nitride and silica quarter-wave bilayers are measured using the cantilever ring-down method. We show, for the first time, that the bulk and shear loss angles of the coatings can be obtained from the cantilever ring-down measurement, and we use the bulk and shear losses to calculate the coating thermal noise of silicon nitride and silica high-reflector coatings. The mechanical loss angle of the silicon nitride and silica bilayer is dispersive with a linear weakly positive frequency dependence, and, hence, the coating thermal noise of the high reflectors show a weakly positive frequency dependence in addition to the normal 1/ vf dependence. The coating thermal noise of the silicon nitride and silica high-reflector stack is compared to the lower limit of the coating thermal noise of the end test mirrors of ET-LF, KAGRA, LIGO Voyager, and the directly measured coating thermal noise of the current coatings of Advanced LIGO. The optical absorption of the silicon nitride and silica high reflector at 1550 nm is 45.9 ppm. Using a multimaterial system composed of seven pairs of ion-beam-sputter deposited Ti∶Ta2O5 and silica and nine pairs of silicon nitride and silica on a silicon substrate, the optical absorption can be reduced to 2 ppm, which meets the specification of LIGO Voyager

The Effects of Aromatherapy Massage on Sleep Quality of Nurses on Monthly Rotating Night Shifts

The goal of this study is to examine the effects of aromatherapy massage on sleep quality of nurses with monthly rotating night shifts. Subjects were enrolled at a medical center in central Taiwan with overall score ≥ 5 of Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI) and randomly assigned to the treatment or control groups. They were validated by pretests during their first graveyard shift in the trial period and the sleep quality information was collected by using the PSQI and sleep detectors. During the second graveyard shift, the treatment group received aromatherapy massage and the control group rested in the same aromatherapy room after work. All subjects filled out the PSQI surveys and the sleep quality information was collected during massage or resting and the following night. We found that the total PSQI was significantly decreased in the treatment group following the aromatherapy massage. Specifically, the components such as subjective sleep quality, sleep disturbance, and daytime dysfunction were significantly decreased. However, there were no significant changes of average PSQI scores between the two groups before and after intervention. Taken together, our study suggested that aromatherapy massage could improve sleep quality of nurses with monthly rotating night shift

Love Postoperative ECG Shell (I)

Ongoing cutting-edge multidisciplinary research in textile fibers, biomedical sensors, and wireless and mobile telecommunications integrated with telemedicine, aims at developing intelligent biomedical clothing (IBC). This ECG shell design is a functional garment offering, health benefits, improved appearance and increased comfort. The garment is more comfortable because the high adhesive factor of current commercial hydrogel used in ECG monitoring causes patients skin allergies and pruritus from wearing the hydrogel for a long time

Love Postoperative ECG T-shirt (II)

This ECG T-shirt is a functional garment offering, health benefits, improved appearance and increased comfort. The garment is more comfortable because the high adhesive factor of current commercial hydrogel used in ECG monitoring causes patients skin allergies and pruritus from wearing the hydrogel for a long time. Additionally, since the sensors are attached to the lining of this two-layer raglan T-shirt, the exterior is smooth and makes the user tracking device inconspicuous

Korean Red Ginseng Suppresses Metastasis of Human Hepatoma SK-Hep1 Cells by Inhibiting Matrix Metalloproteinase-2/-9 and Urokinase Plasminogen Activator

Korean red ginseng and ginsenosides have been claimed to possess wide spectrum of medicinal effects, of which anticancer effect is one. The present study was undertaken to investigate the antimetastatic effect of Korean red ginseng on human hepatoma as well as possible mechanisms. The inhibitory effect of the water extract of Korean red ginseng (WKRG) on the invasion and motility of SK-Hep1 cells was evaluated by the Boyden chamber assay in vitro. Without causing cytotoxicity, WKRG exerted a dose-dependent inhibitory effect on the invasion and motility, but not adhesion, of highly metastatic SK-Hep1 cells. Zymography analyses revealed significant downregulating effects on MMP-2, MMP-9, and uPA activities in SK-Hep1 cells. Western blot analyses also showed that WKRG treatment caused dose-dependent decreases in MMP-2 and MMP-9 protein expressions. Moreover, WKRG increased the levels of TIMP-1, TIMP-2, and PAI-1. The present study not only demonstrated that invasion and motility of cancer cells were inhibited by WKRG, but also indicated that such effects were likely associated with the decrease in MMP-2/-9 and uPA expressions of SK-Hep1 cells

An LSTM Based Generative Adversarial Architecture for Robotic Calligraphy Learning System

Robotic calligraphy is a very challenging task for the robotic manipulators, which can sustain industrial manufacturing. The active mechanism of writing robots require a large sized training set including sequence information of the writing trajectory. However, manual labelling work on those training data may cause the time wasting for researchers. This paper proposes a machine calligraphy learning system using a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network and a generative adversarial network (GAN), which enables the robots to learn and generate the sequences of Chinese character stroke (i.e., writing trajectory). In order to reduce the size of the training set, a generative adversarial architecture combining an LSTM network and a discrimination network is established for a robotic manipulator to learn the Chinese calligraphy regarding its strokes. In particular, this learning system converts Chinese character stroke image into the trajectory sequences in the absence of the stroke trajectory writing sequence information. Due to its powerful learning ability in handling motion sequences, the LSTM network is used to explore the trajectory point writing sequences. Each generation process of the generative adversarial architecture contains a number of loops of LSTM. In each loop, the robot continues to write by following a new trajectory point, which is generated by LSTM according to the previously written strokes. The written stroke in an image format is taken as input to the next loop of the LSTM network until the complete stroke is finally written. Then, the final output of the LSTM network is evaluated by the discriminative network. In addition, a policy gradient algorithm based on reinforcement learning is employed to aid the robot to find the best policy. The experimental results show that the proposed learning system can effectively produce a variety of high-quality Chinese stroke writing

Effects of polymer molecular weight on relative oral bioavailability of curcumin

Yin-Meng Tsai,1 Wan-Ling Chang-Liao,1 Chao-Feng Chien,1 Lie-Chwen Lin,1,2 Tung-Hu Tsai,1,31Institute of Traditional Medicine, School of Medicine, National Yang-Ming University, 2National Research Institute of Chinese Medicine, 3Department of Education and Research, Taipei City Hospital, Taipei, TaiwanBackground: Polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) nanoparticles have been used to increase the relative oral bioavailability of hydrophobic compounds and polyphenols in recent years, but the effects of the molecular weight of PLGA on bioavailability are still unknown. This study investigated the influence of polymer molecular weight on the relative oral bioavailability of curcumin, and explored the possible mechanism accounting for the outcome.Methods: Curcumin encapsulated in low (5000–15,000) and high (40,000–75,000) molecular weight PLGA (LMw-NPC and HMw-NPC, respectively) were prepared using an emulsification-solvent evaporation method. Curcumin alone and in the nanoformulations was administered orally to freely mobile rats, and blood samples were collected to evaluate the bioavailability of curcumin, LMw-NPC, and HMw-NPC. An ex vivo experimental gut absorption model was used to investigate the effects of different molecular weights of PLGA formulation on absorption of curcumin. High-performance liquid chromatography with diode array detection was used for quantification of curcumin in biosamples.Results: There were no significant differences in particle properties between LMw-NPC and HMw-NPC, but the relative bioavailability of HMw-NPC was 1.67-fold and 40-fold higher than that of LMw-NPC and conventional curcumin, respectively. In addition, the mean peak concentration (Cmax) of conventional curcumin, LMw-NPC, and HMw-NPC was 0.028, 0.042, and 0.057 µg/mL, respectively. The gut absorption study further revealed that the HMw-PLGA formulation markedly increased the absorption rate of curcumin in the duodenum and resulted in excellent bioavailability compared with conventional curcumin and LMw-NPC.Conclusion: Our findings demonstrate that different molecular weights of PLGA have varying bioavailability, contributing to changes in the absorption rate at the duodenum. The results of this study provide the rationale for design of a nanomedicine delivery system to enhance the bioavailability of water-insoluble pharmaceutical compounds and functional foods.Keywords: absorption, duodenum, molecular weight, poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid), PLGA, relative oral bioavailabilit