Sensitivity to electricity – Temporal changes in Austria

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>An increasing number of persons suffer from non-specific health symptoms such as headache, sleep disturbances, difficulties in concentrating and more. In lack of a medical explanation, more and more persons take refuge to the assumption that they were electromagnetic hypersensitive (EHS) and electromagnetic pollution causes their problems. The discussion whether electromagnetic fields (EMF) could cause such adverse health effects is still ongoing.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Based on the Austrian inhabitants a statistical cross-sample of the general population with regard to age, gender and federal state had been investigated to assess the actual situation and potential temporal changes in comparison with a former study of 1994. In a telephone survey a total number of 526 persons were included.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>This study showed an actual EHS prevalence of 3.5% compared with 2% estimated in 1994. About 70% of the sample believed that electromagnetic pollution could be a risk factor for health. More than 30% declared to at least some degree to be concerned about their well-being near mobile phone base stations or power lines. However, only 10% were actively looking for specific information. Media triggered EHS hypothesis in 24% of the cases.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The results show that concerns about EMF did not decrease with time in spite of scientific studies and health risk assessments concluding that a causal relationship of EMF below recommended reference levels and non-specific health symptoms would be implausible.</p

MIMO free-space optical communication employing subcarrier intensity modulation in atmospheric turbulence channels

In this paper, we analyse the error performance of transmitter/receiver array free-space optical (FSO) communication system employing binary phase shift keying (BPSK) subcarrier intensity modulation (SIM) in clear but turbulent atmospheric channel. Subcarrier modulation is employed to eliminate the need for adaptive threshold detector. Direct detection is employed at the receiver and each subcarrier is subsequently demodulated coherently. The effect of irradiance fading is mitigated with an array of lasers and photodetectors. The received signals are linearly combined using the optimal maximum ratio combining (MRC), the equal gain combining (EGC) and the selection combining (SelC). The bit error rate (BER) equations are derived considering additive white Gaussian noise and log normal intensity fluctuations. This work is part of the EU COST actions and EU projects

Glasgow Coma Scale score at intensive care unit discharge predicts the 1-year outcome of patients with severe traumatic brain injury

OBJECTIVE: To analyse the association between the Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) score at intensive care unit (ICU) discharge and the 1-year outcome of patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). DESIGN: Retrospective analysis of prospectively collected observational data. PATIENTS: Between 01/2001 and 12/2005, 13 European centres enrolled 1,172 patients with severe TBI. Data on accident, treatment and outcomes were collected. According to the GCS score at ICU discharge, survivors were classified into four groups: GCS scores 3–6, 7–9, 10–12 and 13–15. Using the Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS), 1-year outcomes were classified as “favourable” (scores 5, 4) or “unfavourable” (scores <4). Factors that may have contributed to outcomes were compared between groups and for favourable versus unfavourable outcomes within each group. MAIN RESULTS: Of the 538 patients analysed, 308 (57 %) had GCS scores 13–15, 101 (19 %) had scores 10–12, 46 (9 %) had scores 7–9 and 83 (15 %) had scores 3–6 at ICU discharge. Factors significantly associated with these GCS scores included age, severity of trauma, neurological status (GCS, pupils) at admission and patency of the basal cisterns on the first computed tomography (CT) scan. Favourable outcome was achieved in 74 % of all patients; the rates were significantly different between GCS groups (93, 83, 37 and 10 %, respectively). Within each of the GCS groups, significant differences regarding age and trauma severity were found between patients with favourable versus unfavourable outcomes; neurological status at admission and CT findings were not relevant. CONCLUSION: The GCS score at ICU discharge is a good predictor of 1-year outcome. Patients with a GCS score <10 at ICU discharge have a poor chance of favourable outcome

In vivo imaging of murine endocrine islets of Langerhans with extended-focus optical coherence microscopy

Aims/hypothesis: Structural and functional imaging of the islets of Langerhans and the insulin-secreting beta cells represents a significant challenge and a long-lasting objective in diabetes research. In vivo microscopy offers a valuable insight into beta cell function but has severe limitations regarding sample labelling, imaging speed and depth, and was primarily performed on isolated islets lacking native innervations and vascularisation. This article introduces extended-focus optical coherence microscopy (xfOCM) to image murine pancreatic islets in their natural environment in situ, i.e. in vivo and in a label-free condition. Methods: Ex vivo measurements on excised pancreases were performed and validated by standard immunohistochemistry to investigate the structures that can be observed with xfOCM. The influence of streptozotocin on the signature of the islets was investigated in a second step. Finally, xfOCM was applied to make measurements of the murine pancreas in situ and in vivo. Results: xfOCM circumvents the fundamental physical limit that trades lateral resolution for depth of field, and achieves fast volumetric imaging with high resolution in all three dimensions. It allows label-free visualisation of pancreatic lobules, ducts, blood vessels and individual islets of Langerhans ex vivo and in vivo, and detects streptozotocin-induced islet destruction. Conclusions/interpretation: Our results demonstrate the potential value of xfOCM in high-resolution in vivo studies to assess islet structure and function in animal models of diabetes, aiming towards its use in longitudinal studies of diabetes progression and islet transplant

The structure of causal sets

More often than not, recently popular structuralist interpretations of physical theories leave the central concept of a structure insufficiently precisified. The incipient causal sets approach to quantum gravity offers a paradigmatic case of a physical theory predestined to be interpreted in structuralist terms. It is shown how employing structuralism lends itself to a natural interpretation of the physical meaning of causal sets theory. Conversely, the conceptually exceptionally clear case of causal sets is used as a foil to illustrate how a mathematically informed rigorous conceptualization of structure serves to identify structures in physical theories. Furthermore, a number of technical issues infesting structuralist interpretations of physical theories such as difficulties with grounding the identity of the places of highly symmetrical physical structures in their relational profile and what may resolve these difficulties can be vividly illustrated with causal sets.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figure

Big Data in Agriculture – From FOODIE towards data bio

What’s the role of Big Data in the farming ecosystem? Farmers need to measure and understand the impact of a huge amount and variety of data which drive overall quality and yield of their fields. Among those are local weather data, GPS data, ortophotos, satellite imagery, soil specifics, soil conductivity, seed, fertilizer and crop protectant specifications and many more. Being able to leverage this data for running long and short term simulations in response to “events” like changed weather, market need or other parameters is indispensable for farmers in terms of maximizing their profits. IoT (Internet of Technology) including field sensors and machinery monitoring. The experimentation in FarmTelemetry project demonstrates that one average Czech farm (i.e. around 1’000 hectares) could generate daily 20 MegaBytes of data. This could be only for Czech Republic something between 30 and 50 GB per one day. We may easily reach Terabytes of data a day from agricultural basic monitoring by sensors in Europe. Together with satellite data agriculture will need to manage extremely large amount of data. On one side there is growing whole ecosystem with a strong need to secure Big Data from different repositories and heterogeneous sources. In some cases, sharing of data could be common interest, but on other side, there are also different interests and data could help to one part of value chain to take bigger part of profit. From this reason Big data are sensitive topics and trusting of producers about data security is essential. The producers of seeds and chemicals want to maximize their business with farmers. Our team stated implementation of Big Data technologies in frame of European 7FP project FOODIE. This work currently the work continue as part of DataBio project

Comprehensive vascular imaging using optical coherence tomography-based angiography and photoacoustic tomography

Studies have proven the relationship between cutaneous vasculature abnormalities and dermatological disorders, but to image vasculature noninvasively in vivo, advanced optical imaging techniques are required. In this study, we imaged a palm of a healthy volunteer and three subjects with cutaneous abnormalities with photoacoustic tomography (PAT) and optical coherence tomography with angiography extension (OCTA). Capillaries in the papillary dermis that are too small to be discerned with PAT are visualized with OCTA. From our results, we speculate that the PA signal from the palm is mostly from hemoglobin in capillaries rather than melanin, knowing that melanin concentration in volar skin is significantly smaller than that in other areas of the skin. We present for the first time OCTA images of capillaries along with the PAT images of the deeper vessels, demonstrating the complementary effective imaging depth range and the visualization capabilities of PAT and OCTA for imaging human skin in vivo. The proposed imaging system in this study could significantly improve treatment monitoring of dermatological diseases associated with cutaneous vasculature abnormalities

Depth-resolved microscopy of cortical hemodynamics with optical coherence tomography

We describe depth-resolved microscopy of cortical hemodynamics with high-speed spectral/Fourier domain optical coherence tomography (OCT). Stimulus-evoked changes in blood vessel diameter, flow, and total hemoglobin were measured in the rat somatosensory cortex. The results show OCT measurements of hemodynamic changes during functional activation and represent an important step toward understanding functional hyperemia at the microscopic level.National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (R01-NS057476)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (P01NS055104)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (P50NS010828)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (K99NS067050)National Institutes of Health (U.S.) (R01-CA075289-12)United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (FA9550-07-1-0014)United States. Dept. of Defense. Medical Free Electron Laser Program (FA9550-07-1-0101