Improved Contrast Sensitivity DVS and its Application to Event-Driven Stereo Vision

This paper presents a new DVS sensor with one order of magnitude improved contrast sensitivity over previous reported DVSs. This sensor has been applied to a bio-inspired event-based binocular system that performs 3D event-driven reconstruction of a scene. Events from two DVS sensors are matched by using precise timing information of their ocurrence. To improve matching reliability, satisfaction of epipolar geometry constraint is required, and simultaneously available information on the orientation is used as an additional matching constraint.Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad PRI-PIMCHI-2011-0768Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad TEC2009-10639-C04-01Junta de Andalucía TIC-609

Point of care medical device communication standars (ISO11073/IEEE1073) in patient telemonitoring

Proceeding of: European Medical and Biological Engineering and IFMBE Conference (EMBEC 2005). November 20-25, 2005. Prague, Czech Republic.This paper reviews the use of ISO11073/ IEEE1073 international standard in patient telemonitoring. The purpose of this family of standards is to allow interoperability between medical instrumentation devices and medical information systems. Its application in the field of telemonitoring can encourage telemedicine services and e-care, preventing failures and problems that are making difficult its spread (use problems, high costs of reconfigurations and actualizations). An application guide for the system engineer that want to apply them is proposed, showing the steps to follow, the benefits and handicaps in the standard implementation for different telemonitoring scenarios. The study also includes the conformity levels that have to be fulfilled, the main application points of the standard.This work was supported by projects G03/117 from Fondo de Investigaciones Sanitarias (Spanish Government) and 41/2003 from Departamento de Salud (Navarra Regional Government), and a personal grant to Miguel Galarraga from Departamento de Salud (Navarra Regional Government).No publicad

Geothermometrical modelling applied to the CO2-rich thermal waters of the Lanjarón hydrothermal system (Granada, Spain)

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Design and implementation of synchronization and AGC for OFDM-based WLAN receivers

An efficient implementation of several tasks at the receiver becomes crucial in OFDM-based high-speed WLAN systems, such as automatic gain control, time and frequency synchronization and offset tracking. This paper deals with fixed point constraints and accuracy requirements for implementation of those algorithms. Also, a complete set of thresholds for the practical implementation of time and frequency synchronization sub-blocks is obtained. Moreover, a technique to mitigate the remaining frequency offset after coarse acquisition is proposed, yielding a good trade-off between performance and complexity. Finally, we propose the implementation of a simple and effective automatic gain control procedure.This work has been partially funded by Spanish government with project TIC 2002-03498 (ORISE), Telefonica I+D by the contract nº 25756, and the Chamber of Madrid Community and European Social Fund by a grant to the first author

NT-proBNP as predictor factor of cardiotoxicity during trastuzumab treatment in breast cancer patients

Background Trastuzumab is a drug used in HER2-positive breast cancer that increases patient survival. Due to cardiotoxicity is the most important side effect of trastuzumab treatment, cardiac monitoring should be a priority. The purpose of this study is to evaluate plasma NT-proBNP level and major cardiovascular risk factors as possible early predictors of trastuzumab-induced cardiotoxicity in HER2-positive breast cancer patients. Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study involving 66 patients with HER2-positive breast cancer treated with trastuzumab. Left ventricle ejection fraction (LVEF), NT-proBNP values, and the history of cardiovascular risk factors were collected. Cardiotoxicity was diagnosed considering a decrease of the LVEF from baseline or clinical manifestation of congestive heart failure. NT-proBNP cut-off points were considered to establish normal or abnormal values according to patient age. Results 27.3% of the patients suffered cardiotoxicity during trastuzumab treatment. Most cases were diagnosed due to the appearance of cardiac symptomatology (66.7%). Logistic regression analysis showed a significant association of diabetes mellitus (OR 5.9, 95% CI 1.2–28.5, p = 0.028) and high NT-proBNP levels (OR 22.0, 95% CI 5.7–85.4, p < 0.0001) with the development of trastuzumab-induced cardiotoxicity. Conclusion NT-proBNP levels above the upper limit of the normal range adjusted to age or diabetes mellitus seem to be associated with a higher risk of developing cardiotoxicity. However, some limitations of the present study make necessary further studies aimed to clarify whether NT-proBNP and diabetes-associated markers determinations can be useful in the monitoring of cardiotoxicity risk in breast cancer patients undergoing trastuzumab therapy.Ramon Areces Foundation, Madrid, Spai

Software Tool for Acausal Physical Modelling and Simulation

Modelling and simulation are key tools for analysis and design of systems and processes from almost any scientific or engineering discipline. Models of complex systems are typically built on acausal Differential-Algebraic Equations (DAE) and discrete events using Object-Oriented Modelling (OOM) languages, and some of their key concepts can be explained as symmetries. To obtain a computer executable version from the original model, several algorithms, based on bipartite symmetric graphs, must be applied for automatic equation generation, removing alias equations, computational causality assignment, equation sorting, discrete-event processing or index reduction. In this paper, an open source tool according to OOM paradigm and developed in MATLAB is introduced. It implements such algorithms adding an educational perspective about how they work, since the step by step results obtained after processing the model equations can be shown. The tool also allows to create models using its own OOM language and to simulate the final executable equation set. It was used by students in a modelling and simulation course of the Automatic Control and Industrial Electronics Engineering degree, showing a significant improvement in their understanding and learning of the abovementioned topics after their assessment

Credibility to attract, trust to stay: the mediating role of trust in improving brand congruence in sports services

This research aims to demonstrate the mediating role of brand trust in the relationship between credibility and users' congruence with a sports services brand. The analysis was carried out using EQS 6.3 to perform the four required steps of the analysis (and the Sobel test was conducted for a public sports service and a private sports service. The results confirm the full mediation effect of brand trust in the case of the private service and a partial mediation for the public service. Therefore, this study confirms that credibility, in the presence of trust, ceases to have an influence on the congruence of users with the brand, which suggests that credibility is important at an initial stage to attract the user, but at more advanced stages, trust must be developed to ensure that users are more congruent with the brand and can, therefore, be identified with it and be more loyal

The central structure of Broad Absorption Line QSOs: observational characteristics in the cm-mm wavelength domain

Accounting for ~20% of the total QSO population, Broad Absorption Line QSOs are still an unsolved problem in the AGN context. They present wide troughs in the UV spectrum, due to material with velocities up to 0.2 c toward the observer. The two models proposed in literature try to explain them as a particular phase of the evolution of QSOs or as normal QSOs, but seen from a particular line of sight. We built a statistically complete sample of Radio-Loud BAL QSOs, and carried out an observing campaign to piece together the whole spectrum in the cm wavelength domain, and highlight all the possible differences with respect to a comparison sample of Radio-Loud non-BAL QSOs. VLBI observations at high angular resolution have been performed, to study the pc-scale morphology of these objects. Finally, we tried to detect a possible dust component with observations at mm-wavelengths. Results do not seem to indicate a young age for all BAL QSOs. Instead a variety of orientations and morphologies have been found, constraining the outflows foreseen by the orientation model to have different possible angles with respect to the jet axis