Privacy-cost trade-offs in smart electricity metering systems

Trade-offs between privacy and cost are studied for a smart grid consumer, whose electricity consumption is monitoredin almost real time by the utility provider (UP) through smart meter (SM) readings. It is assumed that an electrical battery isavailable to the consumer, which can be utilized both to achieve privacy and to reduce the energy cost by demand shaping.Privacy is measured via the mean squared distance between the SM readings and a target load profile, while time-of-use (ToU)pricing is considered to compute the cost incurred. The consumer can also sell electricity back to the UP to further improve theprivacy-cost trade-off. Two privacy-preserving energy management policies (EMPs) are proposed, which differ in the way the targetload profile is characterized. A more practical EMP, which optimizes the energy management less frequently, is also considered.Numerical results are presented to compare the privacy-cost trade-off of these EMPs, considering various privacy indicators

Local object patterns for representation and classification of colon tissue images

Cataloged from PDF version of article.This paper presents a new approach for the effective representation and classification of images of histopathological colon tissues stained with hematoxylin and eosin. In this approach, we propose to decompose a tissue image into its histological components and introduce a set of new texture descriptors, which we call local object patterns, on these components to model their composition within a tissue. We define these descriptors using the idea of local binary patterns, which quantify a pixel by constructing a binary string based on relative intensities of its neighbors. However, as opposed to pixel-level local binary patterns, we define our local object pattern descriptors at the component level to quantify a component. To this end, we specify neighborhoods with different locality ranges and encode spatial arrangements of the components within the specified local neighborhoods by generating strings. We then extract our texture descriptors from these strings to characterize histological components and construct the bag-of-words representation of an image from the characterized components. Working on microscopic images of colon tissues, our experiments reveal that the use of these component-level texture descriptors results in higher classification accuracies than the previous textural approaches. © 2013 IEEE

Effects of user experience and method in the inflation of endotracheal tube pilot balloon on cuff pressure

Context: Endotracheal tube cuff pressure (ETCP) is recommended to be maintained between 20.30 cmH2O limits. While insufficient inflation of ETC may cause aspirations, over.inflation of it may lead to damage in tracheal epithelium.Aims: We planned to investigate the effects of user experience and cuff pressure inflation method differences following endotracheal tube cuff pressure and complaints about it.Patients and Methods: Two hundred and fifty patients planned for general anaesthesia were included in this study. ETC was inflated by users with different experience according to leakage or pilot balloon palpation techniques. ETCPs were measured by manometer at three periods (5 and 60 minutes after endotracheal intubation, and before extubation). Complaints about it were recorded in post anaesthetic care unit and 24 hours postoperatively.Results: Though we found experience of user had significant effect on the ETCP regulations, we observed inflation methods did not have any effect. However we found ETCP was higher than normal range with experienced users. A correlation was observed between cuff pressure and anaesthesia duration with postoperative complaints.Conclusions: Our study concluded that the methods used do not have any significant advantage over one another. While ETC inflated at normal pressure increases as userfs experience increases, experience alone is not enough in adjusting ETCP. A manometer should be used in routine inflation of ETC instead of conventional methods. CP and anaesthesia duration have correlations with some postoperative complaints.Key words: Endotracheal tube cuff pressure, experience of user, inflation method

Anti-cancer efficiency of natural killer cells differentiated from human adipose tissue-derived mesenchymal stem cells and transfected with miRNA150

Aim: The aim of this study is to investigate the effects of miR150 transfection on NK-like cells differentiated from adipose tissue derived mesenchymal stem cells (AD-MSCs). Methods: NK-like cells were differentiated from AD-MSCs and activated by miR150 transfection. Transfected/non-transfected NK-like cells were characterized by immunohistochemical and RTPCR analyzes. Apoptotic efficiency of the transfected/non-transfected NK-like cells on pancreatic cancer cells PANC1 were determined by TUNEL and RT-PCR. Results: In miR150-transfected cells, the increased expression of NK cell-specific genes such as GZMB, KIR2DL2, CD16, CD56, NKG2D, NKp46 and increased immunoreactivity of NK cell-specific surface marker CD314 (NKG2D) were evident. TUNEL assays showed that NK-like cells with/without transfection induced apoptosis in PANC1 cells in the same manner. The decrease in oncogene expression and the increase in the tumor suppressor gene expression in PANC1 cells upon co-culture with NK-like cells differentiated from AD-MSCs were more prominent following miRNA150 transfection. Conclusion: It was shown in vitro that NK-like cells could be obtained by differentiation from AD-MSCs and their efficiency could be increased via miR150 transfection. The results are encouraging for further clinical studies in improvement of immunotherapeutic approaches for cancer therapy

Robot-Aided Fabrication of Materially Efficient Complex Concrete Assemblies

This paper presents a novel approach for the materially efficient production of doubly-curved Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) form-work for insitu concrete construction and a novel application of a patented Glass Reinforced Concrete (GRC) technology. Research objectives focus on the development of complex form-work generation and concrete application via advanced computational and robotic methods. While it is viable to produce form-work with complex geometries with advanced digital and robotic fabrication tools, a key consideration area is the reduction of form-work waste material. The research agenda explores methods of associating architectural, spatial, and structural criteria with a material-informed holistic approach. The digital and physical investigations are founded on Robotic Hot-Wire Cutting (RHWC). The geometrical and physical principles of RHWC are transformed into design inputs, whereby digital and physical tests inform each other simultaneously. Correlations are set between form-work waste optimization with the geometrical freedom and constraints of hot-wire cutting via computational methods

Privacy-aware smart metering progress and challenges

The next-generation energy network, the so-called smart grid (SG), promises tremendous increases in efficiency, safety, and flexibility in managing the electricity grid as compared to the legacy energy network. This is needed today more than ever, as global energy consumption is growing at an unprecedented rate and renewable energy sources (RESs) must be seamlessly integrated into the grid to assure a sustainable human development

Kinetic Release Studies of Antibiotic Patches for Local Transdermal Delivery.

This study investigates the usage of electrohydrodynamic (EHD)-3D printing for the fabrication of bacterial cellulose (BC)/polycaprolactone (PCL) patches loaded with different antibiotics (amoxicillin (AMX), ampicillin (AMP), and kanamycin (KAN)) for transdermal delivery. The composite patches demonstrated facilitated drug loading and encapsulation efficiency of drugs along with extended drug release profiles. Release curves were also subjected to model fitting, and it was found that drug release was optimally adapted to the Higuchi square root model for each drug. They performed a time-dependent and diffusion-controlled release from the patches and followed Fick's diffusion law by the Korsmeyer-Peppas energy law equation. Moreover, produced patches demonstrated excellent antimicrobial activity against Gram-positive (Staphylococcus aureus) and Gram-negative (Escherichia coli) strains, so they could be helpful in the treatment of chronic infectious lesions during wound closures. As different tests have confirmed, various types of antibiotics could be loaded and successfully released regardless of their types from produced BC/PCL patches. This study could breathe life into the production of antibiotic patches for local transdermal applications in wound dressing studies and improve the quality of life of patients

Graph walks for classification of histopathological images

This paper reports a new structural approach for automated classification of histopathological tissue images. It has two main contributions: First, unlike previous structural approaches that use a single graph for representing a tissue image, it proposes to obtain a set of subgraphs through graph walking and use these subgraphs in representing the image. Second, it proposes to characterize subgraphs by directly using distribution of their edges, instead of employing conventional global graph features, and use these characterizations in classification. Our experiments on colon tissue images reveal that the proposed structural approach is effective to obtain high accuracies in tissue image classification. © 2013 IEEE

The tracking of speech envelope in the human cortex

Abstract Humans are highly adept at processing speech. Recently, it has been shown that slow temporal information in speech (i.e., the envelope of speech) is critical for speech comprehension. Furthermore, it has been found that evoked electric potentials in human cortex are correlated with the speech envelope. However, it has been unclear whether this essential linguistic feature is encoded differentially in specific regions, or whether it is represented throughout the auditory system. To answer this question, we recorded neural data with high temporal resolution directly from the cortex while human subjects listened to a spoken story. We found that the gamma activity in human auditory cortex robustly tracks the speech envelope. The effect is so marked that it is observed during a single presentation of the spoken story to each subject. The effect is stronger in regions situated relatively early in the auditory pathway (belt areas) compared to other regions involved in speech processing, including the superior temporal gyrus (STG) and the posterior inferior frontal gyrus (Broca's region). To further distinguish whether speech envelope is encoded in the auditory system as a phonological (speech-related), or instead as a more general acoustic feature, we also probed the auditory system with a melodic stimulus. We found that belt areas track melody envelope weakly, and as the only region considered. Together, our data provide the first direct electrophysiological evidence that the envelope of speech is robustly tracked in non-primary auditory cortex (belt areas in particular), and suggest that the considered higher-order regions (STG and Broca's region) partake in a more abstract linguistic analysis

Vitamin D3/vitamin K2/magnesium-loaded polylactic acid/tricalcium phosphate/polycaprolactone composite nanofibers demonstrated osteoinductive effect by increasing Runx2 via Wnt/β-catenin pathway

Vitamin D3, vitamin K2, and Mg (10%, 1.25%, and 5%, w/w, respectively)-loaded PLA (12%, w/v) (TCP (5%, w/v))/PCL (12%, w/v) 1:1 (v/v) composite nanofibers (DKMF) were produced by electrospinning method (ES) and their osteoinductive effects were investigated in cell culture test. Neither pure nanofibers nor DKMF caused a significant cytotoxic effect in fibroblasts. The induction of the stem cell differentiation into osteogenic cells was observed in the cell culture with both DKMF and pure nanofibers, separately. Vitamin D3, vitamin K2, and magnesium demonstrated to support the osteogenic differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells by expressing Runx2, BMP2, and osteopontin and suppressing PPAR-γ and Sox9. Therefore, the Wnt/β-catenin signaling pathway was activated by DKMF. DKMF promoted large axonal sprouting and needle-like elongation of osteoblast cells and enhanced cellular functions such as migration, infiltration, proliferation, and differentiation after seven days of incubation using confocal laser scanning microscopy. The results showed that DKMF demonstrated sustained drug release for 144 h, tougher and stronger structure, higher tensile strength, increased water up-take capacity, decreased degradation ratio, and slightly lower Tm and Tg values compared to pure nanofibers. Consequently, DKMF is a promising treatment approach in bone tissue engineering due to its osteoinductive effects