Design and construction of a configurable full-field range imaging system for mobile robotic applications

Mobile robotic devices rely critically on extrospection sensors to determine the range to objects in the robot’s operating environment. This provides the robot with the ability both to navigate safely around obstacles and to map its environment and hence facilitate path planning and navigation. There is a requirement for a full-field range imaging system that can determine the range to any obstacle in a camera lens’ field of view accurately and in real-time. This paper details the development of a portable full-field ranging system whose bench-top version has demonstrated sub-millimetre precision. However, this precision required non-real-time acquisition rates and expensive hardware. By iterative replacement of components, a portable, modular and inexpensive version of this full-field ranger has been constructed, capable of real-time operation with some (user-defined) trade-off with precision

Comparison of DMSP cross-track ion drifts and SuperDARN line-of-sight velocities

Cross-track ion drifts measured by the DMSP satellites are compared with line-of-sight SuperDARN HF velocities in approximately the same directions. Good overall agreement is found for a data set comprising of 209 satellite passes over the field of view of nine SuperDARN radars in both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The slope of the best linear fit line relating the SuperDARN and DMSP velocities is of the order of 0.7 with a tendency for SuperDARN velocities to be smaller. The agreement implies that the satellite and radar data can be merged into a common set provided that spatial and temporal variations of the velocity as measured by both instruments are smooth.<br><br> <b>Keywords.</b> Ionosphere (Ionospheric irregularities; Plasma convection; Auroral ionosphere

Analysis of practices to promote reproducibility and transparency in anesthesiology research: Are important aspects "hidden behind the drapes?"

Introduction: Reliable, high quality research is essential to the field of anesthesiology. Investigating reproducibility and transparency has been accomplished broadly in the biomedical domain and in the social sciences; however, practices that promote reproducibility and transparency have never been evaluated in the anesthesiology research community. In this study, we applied 14 indicators of reproducibility to evaluate the current climate of the anesthesiology research community.Methods: We used the National Library of Medicine (NLM) catalog to search for all journals using the subject terms tag Anesthesiology[ST]. The inclusion criteria required that journals provided full-text publications in English and were MEDLINE indexed. The list of journals in the NLM catalog fitting the inclusion criteria were then extracted using the electronic International Standard Serial Number (ISSN). This series of ISSN were used in a PubMed search to identify all publications within these journals. We then limited the sample to publications from January 1, 2014 to December 31, 2018. Subsequently, we randomly sampled 300 publications that fit the inclusion criteria for our analysis. Data extraction was then conducted in a blinded, duplicate fashion using a pilot-tested Google form.Results: The PubMed search of these journals identified 171,441 publications, with 28,310 being within the time-frame. From the 300 publications sampled, 296 (296/300, 98% [97% to 99%]) full text publications were obtained, while 4 (4/300, 1% [0% to 3%]) only showed the abstract or could not be accessed. Most (104/107, 97% [95% to 99%]) of the studies did not include material availability statements or protocol availability statements. For the analysis scripts, the majority of publications (121/122, 99% [98% to 100%]) did not provide a data analysis script statement. The majority (94/122, 77% [72% to 81%]) of the publications did not contain a pre-registration statement. Other study characteristics were found to be insufficient.Conclusion: Anesthesiology research needs to drastically improve with regards to reproducibility and transparency. By making research easily accessible online and by improving the accessibility of detailed components (raw data, materials and protocols, analysis scripts) primary research can be reproduced in subsequent studies and help contribute to the development of new practice guidelines, helping change patient care through evidence-based conclusions

A Comparison of Fitness Functions in a Genetic Algorithm for Acoustic–Articulatory Parameter Inversion of Vowels

Articulatory speech synthesis provides an alternative to the state of the art concatenative and formant systems, holding potential for more versatile and expressive arti cial speech due to its physical modelling basis. However, a major limitation of practical articulatory synthesis is gaining adequate control of the complex underlying physical models, which stems from a lack of articulatory data. In an e ort to procure more data, a Genetic Algorithm approach to Acoustic-Articulatory Parameter Inversion is taken. is paper presents the initial results from testing a number of tness functions for the Acoustic-Articulatory Parameter Inversion of three vowels, /a/, /o/, and /e/. ree feature vector representations of the vowels were tested; Hertz, Mel–scale, and Cents, in conjunction with three distance metrics. e distance metrics de ned the tness score by calculating the similarity between a candidate and targets feature vector. A Voiced/Un–Voiced constraint was also added as a penalty function, and an indicator of loudness was implemented using a Root Mean Square based co-e cient. e results indicated that certain combinations of the above could lead to convergence towards all three vowels. However, the quality of convergence was not uniform

Reduced Expression of miRNA-27a Modulates Cisplatin Resistance in Bladder Cancer by Targeting the Cystine/Glutamate Exchanger SLC7A11

Purpose: Resistance to cisplatin-based chemotherapy is a major obstacle to bladder cancer treatment. We aimed to identify microRNAs (miRNA) that are dysregulated in cisplatin-resistant disease, ascertain how these contribute to a drug-resistant phenotype, and how this resistance might be overcome. Experimental Design: miRNA expression in paired cisplatin-resistant and -sensitive cell lines was measured. Dysregulated miRNAs were further studied for their ability to mediate resistance. The nature of the cisplatin-resistant phenotype was established by measurement of cisplatin/DNA adducts and intracellular glutathione (GSH). Candidate miRNAs were examined for their ability to (i) mediate resistance and (ii) alter the expression of a candidate target protein (SLC7A11); direct regulation of SLC7A11 was confirmed using a luciferase assay. SLC7A11 protein and mRNA, and miRNA-27a were quantified in patient tumor material. Results: A panel of miRNAs were found to be dysregulated in cisplatin-resistant cells. miRNA-27a was found to target the cystine/glutamate exchanger SLC7A11 and to contribute to cisplatin resistance through modulation of GSH biosynthesis. In patients, SLC7A11 expression was inversely related to miRNA-27a expression, and those tumors with high mRNA expression or high membrane staining for SLC7A11 experienced poorer clinical outcomes. Resistant cell lines were resensitized by restoring miRNA-27a expression or reducing SLC7A11 activity with siRNA or with sulfasalazine. Conclusion: Our findings indicate that miRNA-27a negatively regulates SLC7A11 in cisplatin-resistant bladder cancer, and shows promise as a marker for patients likely to benefit from cisplatin-based chemotherapy. SLC7A11 inhibition with sulfasalazine may be a promising therapeutic approach to the treatment of cisplatin-resistant disease

Observations of high-velocity SAPS-like flows with the King Salmon SuperDARN radar

In this study, a focused investigation of the potential for the King Salmon (KS) SuperDARN HF radar to monitor high-velocity flows near the equatorial edge of the auroral oval is undertaken. Events are presented with line-of-sight velocities as high as 2km/s, observed roughly along the L-shell. Statistically, the enhanced flows are shown to be typical for the dusk sector (16:00–23:00 MLT), and the average velocity in this sector is larger (smaller) for winter (summer) conditions. It is also demonstrated that the high-velocity flows can be very dynamical with more localized enhancements existing for just several minutes. These short-lived enhancements occur when the luminosity at the equatorial edge of the auroral oval suddenly decreases during the substorm recovery phase. The short-lived velocity enhancements can be established because of proton and ion injections into the inner magnetosphere and low conductance of the ionosphere and not because of enhanced tail reconnection. This implies that some KS velocity enhancements have the same origin as subauroral polarization streams (SAPS)