Effects of montmorillonite nano-clay fillers on PEI mixed matrix membrane for CO(2) removal

This paper focuses on the effect of montmorillonite nano-clay fillers on polyetherimide (PEI) mixed matrix membrane, specifically upon the removal of carbon dioxide. Five different types of montmorillonite (MMT) nano-clays, including unmodified and industrially modified clays, were used as filler to fabricate asymmetric flat sheet mixed matrix membrane (MMM) via a dry/wet phase inversion technique. The five types of clay used were: raw MMT, Cloisite 15A, general MMT, hydrophobic MMT and hydrophilic MMT. The MMTs were characterized by X-ray diffractometry (XRD), thermal gravimetric analysis (TGA), Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR). The fabricated MMMs were characterized by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), field emission scanning electron microscopic (FESEM) and pure gas permeation testing. The gas permeation results revealed the following order in terms of the permselectivity for CO2/CH4 separation: Cloisite 15A > general MMT > hydrophilic MMT > hydrophobic MMT > raw MMT. The best results were obtained at 0.5 wt.% Cloisite 15A loading where the selectivity enhancement was about 28% as compared to that of neat PEI

Facilitated transport effect of Ag+ ion exchanged halloysite nanotubes on the performance of polyetherimide mixed matrix membrane for gas separation

This study investigated the facilitated transport effect of Ag+ ion exchanged halloysite nanotubes (HNTs) as filler on the gas separation performance of asymmetric mixed matrix membranes (MMMs). The polymer matrix employed in this study was commercial polyetherimide (PEI) Ultem 1000. The modified HNTs were prepared by treating HNTs with N-ß-(aminoethyl)-?-aminopropyltrimethoxy silane (AEAPTMS) and silver nitrate. FESEM, XRD, FTIR, TGA, DSC, EDX and pure gas permeation testing were used to characterise the modified HNTs and the fabricated MMMs. Three protocols were performed: (i) S-HNT MMM (no Ag+ ion exchange treatment), (ii) S-Ag-HNT MMM (first Ag+ ion exchanging and then silylation of HNTs), and (iii) Ag-S-HNT MMM (first silylation and then Ag+ ion exchanging of HNTs). FTIR and TGA showed that silylation occurred successfully. From XRD we found out that, the Ag+ ion exchanging did not affect the HNT crystalline structure. EDX revealed that, Ag+ ion exchanging after silylation of HNTs resulted in much higher concentration of Ag+ ions in the Ag-S-HNT product. This in turn showed that AEAPTMS could successfully enhance the HNTs cation exchange capacity (CEC), which resulted in higher concentration of Ag+ ions in the modified HNTs. DSC disclosed depression in the glass transition temperature (Tg) of MMMs possessed Ag+ ions. Three major factors were discussed: (i) facilitated transport affect of Ag+ ions, (ii) Knudsen diffusion and (iii) Tg depression. By increasing the fillers loading, all of the factors exhibited an additive influence on the permeability. The order of closeness of the resultant MMMs to the ideal morphology was as follows: Ag-S-HNT MMM > S-Ag-HNT MMM > S-HNT MMM. Ag-S-HNT MMM exhibited outstanding performance among the three protocols

Detection of Superior Vena Cava Obstruction on Dynamic 99mTc-DTPA Renal Transplant Scintigraphy

We present an asymptomatic patient with a history of prolonged hemodialysis through a right internal jugular vein catheter who was diagnosed with superior vena cava (SVC) obstruction on 99mTechnetium-diethylenetriaminepentaacetic acid renal transplant scintigraphy. During the angiographic phase, an unusual vascular filling pattern was detected on the anterior view of the abdomen. Angioscintigraphic imaging of the chest wall was suggestive of SVC obstruction. The SVC obstruction in our patient was related to the long-term use of an indwelling catheter in the central venous system, which is a well-known complication of such a procedure. There is also evidence of a hypercoagulable state in dialyzed uremic cases; therefore, our patient may have been more susceptible to an SVC thrombosis. Acquired compensatory dilatation of the azygos vein is rather a rare finding. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report describing an asymptomatic patient with SVC obstruction who was diagnosed by renal scintigraphy

A Fallen Person Detector with a Privacy-Preserving Edge-AI Camera

As the population ages, Ambient-Assisted Living (AAL) environments are increasingly used to support older individuals’ safety and autonomy. In this study, we propose a low-cost, privacy-preserving sensor system integrated with mobile robots to enhance fall detection in AAL environments. We utilized the Luxonis OAKD Edge-AI camera mounted on a mobile robot to detect fallen individuals. The system was trained using YOLOv6 network on the E-FPDS dataset and optimized with a knowledge distillation approach onto the more compact YOLOv5 network, which was deployed on the camera. We evaluated the system’s performance using a custom dataset captured with a robot-mounted camera. We achieved a precision of 96.52%, a recall of 95.10%, and a recognition rate of 15 frames per second. The proposed system enhances the safety and autonomy of older individuals by enabling the rapid detection and response to falls.This work has been part supported by the visuAAL project on Privacy-Aware and Acceptable Video-Based Technologies and Services for Active and Assisted Living (https://www.visuaal-itn.eu/) funded by the EU H2020 Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 861091. The project has also been part supported by the SFI Future Innovator Award SFI/21/FIP/DO/9955 project Smart Hangar

The role of personality traits in perception of labor pain in Iranian women

Background and aims: In two recent decades, researcher’s attention was to the relationship between personality traits and labor pain perception, but there are few native studies about this. Because of the importance of satisfaction and women's health in labor pain experience, this study was done with the aim of identification role of personality traits in perception of labor pain. Methods: The present study is a correlational descriptive-analytic study. The data were collected by questionnaires about personality traits and perception of labor pain from 220 parturient women referred to Valiasr Hospital. The data were analyzed by descriptive and analytic statistics tests such as Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression tests. Results: The results of the study indicated that among the factors influencing the perception of labor pain, the reaction to pain was meaningfully predicted by personality dimensions of neuroticism (β=0.26, P=0.004), openness experience (β=0.20, P=0.034). Neuroticism (β=0.20, P=0.020) and openness experience (β=0.19, P=031) are the positive predicting factors, and conscientiousness (β=-0.20, P=0.042) was a negative predicting factor for labor pain intolerance. Agreeableness (β=0.31, P=0.001), neuroticism (β=0.20, P=0.023) and openness experience (β=0.18, P=0.042) were the predictive factors for pain depth. Among all personality traits, only openness experience (β=-0.19, P=0.044) was the negative predictive factor for the acceptance of labor pain. Also neuroticism (β=0.29, P=0.001) and openness experience (β=0.19, P=0.041) were the positive predictive factors and conscientiousness (β=-0.24, P=0.023) was the negative predictive factor for the total score of the perception of labor pain. Conclusion: Correct consultation and suitable education in pregnancy based on personality traits and using different methods in reducing childbirth pain can help mothers to gain pleasurable labor pain experience for them

Weakly supervised human skin segmentation using guidance attention mechanisms

Human skin segmentation is a crucial task in computer vision and biometric systems, yet it poses several challenges such as variability in skin colour, pose, and illumination. This paper presents a robust data-driven skin segmentation method for a single image that addresses these challenges through the integration of contextual information and efficient network design. In addition to robustness and accuracy, the integration into real-time systems requires a careful balance between computational power, speed, and performance. The proposed method incorporates two attention modules, Body Attention and Skin Attention, that utilize contextual information to improve segmentation results. These modules draw attention to the desired areas, focusing on the body boundaries and skin pixels, respectively. Additionally, an efficient network architecture is employed in the encoder part to minimize computational power while retaining high performance. To handle the issue of noisy labels in skin datasets, the proposed method uses a weakly supervised training strategy, relying on the Skin Attention module. The results of this study demonstrate that the proposed method is comparable to, or outperforms, state-of-the-art methods on benchmark datasets.This work is part of the visuAAL project on Privacy-Aware and Acceptable Video-Based Technologies and Services for Active and Assisted Living (https://www.visuaal-itn.eu/). This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 861091

“I Don’t Want to Become a Number’’: Examining Different Stakeholder Perspectives on a Video-Based Monitoring System for Senior Care with Inherent Privacy Protection (by Design)

Active and Assisted Living (AAL) technologies aim to enhance the quality of life of older adults and promote successful aging. While video-based AAL solutions offer rich capabilities for better healthcare management in older age, they pose significant privacy risks. To mitigate the risks, we developed a video-based monitoring system that incorporates different privacy-preserving filters. We deployed the system in one assistive technology center and conducted a qualitative study with older adults and other stakeholders involved in care provision. Our study demonstrates diverse users’ perceptions and experiences with video-monitoring technology and offers valuable insights for the system’s further development. The findings unpack the privacy-versus-safety trade-off inherent in video-based technologies and discuss how the privacy-preserving mechanisms within the system mitigate privacy-related concerns. The study also identifies varying stakeholder perspectives towards the system in general and highlights potential avenues for developing video-based monitoring technologies in the AAL context.This work was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 861091 for the visuAAL project. This publication is based upon work from COST Action GoodBrother—Network on Privacy-Aware Audio- and Video-Based Applications for Active and Assisted Living (CA19121), supported by COST (European Cooperation in Science and Technology)

Video-monitorización ética de personas mayores

Objetivo principal. La creciente demanda de cuidado de personas mayores debido al envejecimiento de la población plantea desafíos significativos en el ámbito de la atención y el cuidado. Los sistemas basados en vídeo se han vuelto más inteligentes, lo que los hace ideales para ofrecer soluciones que requieren la monitorización remota de personas mayores. Estas soluciones pueden mejorar la calidad de vida y brindar apoyo para una vida independiente y saludable. Sin embargo, el uso de cámaras en espacios privados plantea desafíos éticos, legales y de privacidad. Metodología. La solución propuesta en este trabajo busca facilitar los cuidados de personas mayores mediante el empleo ético de cámaras para su continua monitorización remota, preservando su privacidad. Para ello, se han desarrollado algoritmos basados en inteligencia artificial que transforman las imágenes en tiempo real, pixelando o emborronando a las personas en la imagen o sustituyéndolas por avatares, preservando su privacidad al mismo tiempo que se mantiene la inteligibilidad, lo que permite evaluar situaciones que pudieran estar ocurriendo de manera similar a si se dispusiera de las imágenes originales. Resultados. Se ha pilotado el sistema en un centro de tecnología asistencial, realizando un estudio cualitativo con personas mayores y otros actores implicados en la provisión de cuidados. Nuestro estudio muestra las percepciones y experiencias de diversos usuarios con la tecnología de videovigilancia y ofrece información valiosa para el desarrollo futuro del sistema. Conclusión. Los resultados desvelan la disyuntiva entre privacidad y seguridad inherente a las tecnologías basadas en vídeo y analizan cómo los mecanismos de preservación de la privacidad del sistema mitigan los problemas relacionados con la privacidad. El estudio también identifica las distintas perspectivas de las partes interesadas respecto al sistema y destaca las posibles vías de desarrollo de tecnologías de monitorización basada en vídeo en el contexto de AAL

Synthesis and characterisation of MOF/ionic liquid/chitosan mixed matrix membranes for CO2/N2 separation

Mixed matrix membranes (MMMs) have been prepared by combining a small amount of highly absorbing non-toxic ionic liquid, [emim][Ac] (IL) (5 wt%), a biopolymer from renewable abundant natural resources, chitosan (CS), and nanometre-sized metal-organic framework (MOF) ZIF-8 or HKUST-1 particles to improve the selectivity of the IL-CS hybrid continuous polymer matrix. The TGA revealed that the thermal stability has been enhanced by the influence of both IL and ZIF-8 or HKUST-1 fillers, while keeping a water content of around 20 wt%, which suggests the potential of such materials for developing high temperature water resistant membranes for CO2 separation. The CO2 and N2 single gas permeation performance was tested at temperatures in the range of 25-50 C, to compare with the previously reported IL-CS hybrid membranes. The best CO2 permeability and CO2/N2 selectivity performance is obtained for 10 wt% ZIF-8 and 5 wt% HKUST-1/IL-CS membranes, as high as 5413 191 Barrer and 11.5, and 4754 1388 Barrer and 19.3, respectively. This is attributed to a better adhesion and smaller particle size of ZIF-8 than HKUST-1 nanoparticles with respect to the IL-CS continuous matrix, as interpreted by Hansen solubility parameters and Maxwell-based models, modified to account for rigidification, pore blockage and crystallinity of the CS matrix, with very accurate predictions.Financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO) for the project CTQ2012-31229 at the University of Cantabria, and MAT2013-40556-R, at the University of Zaragoza, is gratefully acknowledged. C.C.C. and A.F.B. also thank the MINECO for the Ramon y Cajal contract (RYC-2011-08550) and the post-graduate research grant (BES2013-064266), respectively, at the Universidad de Cantabria. Dr. Sara Sorribas is gratefully thanked for her technical assistance on the XRD, SEM and TEM analyses. The microscopy work was done at the Laboratorio de Microscopias Avanzadas of the Instituto de Nanociencia de Aragon (LMA-INA), and the XRD measurements were carried out at the Servicio General de Apoyo a la Investigacion (SAI) of the Universidad de Zaragoza