Compresión de Audio Basada en Codificación Subbanda

An eight channels subband audio codec is implemented for signals with 44.1 KHz and 16 bits per sample using Matlab. To achieve perfect reconstruction, a two channels QMF filter bank with cutoff frequency ω=π/2 is designed, based on an equiriple filter of 99 order. Seven stages of this bank are used to split the input into eight signals with sample rates from 2.76 to 11 KHz, which are coded from 1 to 16 bits depending on the band energy. To evaluate performance for three tracks in terms of similarity of input and output signals, a Mean Opinion Score (MOS) experiment with fifteen subjects was performed. The Euclidean Distance between spectrums was also measured. Results showed a fair similitude for two tracks and excellent for one. Compression factors above 96% were achieved.Keywords: subband coding, mean opinion score MOS, QMF filter banks, audio compressio

Wind power prediction using a nonlinear autoregressive exogenous model network: the case of Santa Marta, Colombia

The monitoring of wind installations is key for predicting their future behavior, due to the strong dependence on weather conditions and the stochastic nature of the wind. However, in some places, in situ measurements are not always available. In this paper, active power predictions for the city of Santa Marta-Colombia using a nonlinear autoregressive exogenous model (NARX) network were performed. The network was trained with a reliable dataset from a wind farm located in Turkey, because the meteorological data from the city of Santa Marta are unavailable or unreliable on certain dates. Three training and testing cases were designed, with different input variables and varying the network target between active power and wind speed. The dataset was obtained from the Kaggle platform, and is made up of five variables: date, active power, wind speed, theoretical power, and wind direction; each with 50,530 samples, which were preprocessed and, in some cases, normalized, to facilitate the neural network learning. For the training, testing and validation processes, a correlation coefficient of 0.9589 was obtained for the best scenario with the data from Turkey, while the best correlation coefficient for the data from Santa Marta was 0.8537

Low voltage plasma jet with piezoelectric generator : preliminary evaluation of decontamination capabilities

This paper deals with the proof of concept and the preliminary evaluation of decontamination performances obtained with a plasma jet generated by a piezoelectric transformer. This low voltage supply solution (<10V) is investigated as a plasma jet device, compact and safe solution for the decontamination of medical thermo-sensitive devices. The principle of the piezoelectric generator is presented, followed by the optical spectroscopy of the plasma jet, the protocol conditions for the bactericidal effect observations and finally the reduction rates obtained on Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Staphylococcus aureus bacteria strains with an argon plasma jet at atmospheric pressure about 2.5W electrical input power

A high anticholinergic burden is associated with a history of falls in the previous year in middle-aged women:findings from the Aberdeen Prospective Osteoporosis Screening Study

APOSS was funded by the Grampian Osteoporosis Trust. A.D.A. received an Aberdeen Summer Research Scholarship supported by the funding from the Grampian Osteoporosis Trust Charity. The funder has no role in design, analysis, interpretation and reporting of the work presented. We gratefully acknowledge the Steering Committee of APOSS for permission to conduct this research.Peer reviewedPostprin

Anticholinergic burden in middle-aged women and recurrent falls in later life : findings from the Aberdeen Prospective Osteoporosis Screening Study (APOSS)

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS AND FUNDING The Aberdeen Prospective Osteoporosis Screening Study (APOSS) was funded by the Grampian Osteoporosis Trust. SRN received an Aberdeen Summer Research Scholarship supported by funding from the Institute of Applied Health Sciences, University of Aberdeen, UK. The funder had no role in design, analysis, interpretation or reporting of the work presented. We gratefully acknowledge the Steering Committee of APOSS for their permission to conduct this research.Peer reviewedPublisher PD

J Clin Med

We aimed to describe the burden represented by potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) in chronic polypharmacy in France. We conducted a nationwide cross-sectional study using data from the French National Insurance databases. The study period was from 1 January 2016 to 31 December 2016. Chronic drug use was defined as uninterrupted daily use lasting ?6 months. Chronic polypharmacy was defined as the chronic use of ?5 medications, and chronic hyperpolypharmacy as the chronic use of ?10 medications. For individuals aged ?65 (older adults), PIMs were defined according to the Beers and Laroche lists, and for individuals aged 45-64 years (middle-aged) PIMs were defined according to the PROMPT (Prescribing Optimally in Middle-aged People's Treatments) list. Among individuals with chronic polypharmacy, 4009 (46.2%) middle-aged and 18,036 (64.8%) older adults had at least one chronic PIM. Among individuals with chronic hyperpolypharmacy, these figures were, respectively, 570 (75.0%) and 2544 (88.7%). The most frequent chronic PIM were proton pump inhibitors (43.4% of older adults with chronic polypharmacy), short-acting benzodiazepines (older adults: 13.7%; middle-aged: 16.1%), hypnotics (6.1%; 7.4%), and long-acting sulfonylureas (3.9%; 12.3%). The burden of chronic PIM appeared to be very high in our study, concerning almost half of middle-aged adults and two-thirds of older adults with chronic polypharmacy. Deprescribing interventions in polypharmacy should primarily target proton pump inhibitors and hypnotics

Lawmakers\u27 Use of Scientific Evidence Can Be Improved

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress-evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation

Lawmakers' use of scientific evidence can be improved.

Core to the goal of scientific exploration is the opportunity to guide future decision-making. Yet, elected officials often miss opportunities to use science in their policymaking. This work reports on an experiment with the US Congress-evaluating the effects of a randomized, dual-population (i.e., researchers and congressional offices) outreach model for supporting legislative use of research evidence regarding child and family policy issues. In this experiment, we found that congressional offices randomized to the intervention reported greater value of research for understanding issues than the control group following implementation. More research use was also observed in legislation introduced by the intervention group. Further, we found that researchers randomized to the intervention advanced their own policy knowledge and engagement as well as reported benefits for their research following implementation