Application of Recent Developments in Deep Learning to ANN-based Automatic Berthing Systems

Previous studies on Artificial Neural Network (ANN)-based automatic berthing showed considerable increases in performance by training ANNs with a set of berthing datasets. However, the berthing performance deteriorated when an extrapolated initial position was given. To overcome the extrapolation problem and improve the training performance, recent developments in Deep Learning (DL) are adopted in this paper. Recent activation functions, weight initialization methods, input data-scaling methods, a higher number of hidden layers, and Batch Normalization (BN) are considered, and their effectiveness has been analyzed based on loss functions, berthing performance histories, and berthing trajectories. Finally, it is shown that the use of recent activation and weight initialization method results in faster training convergence and a higher number of hidden layers. This leads to a better berthing performance over the training dataset. It is found that application of the BN can overcome the extrapolated initial position problem

Clinical Significance of Duodenal Bile Acids in Differential Diagnosis for Infantile Jaundice -Duodenal Intubation in Infants with Cholestatic Jaundice-

We evaluated the effectiveness of bile in duodenal fluid collected by intubation from neonates with severe cholestasis to differentiate biliary atresia. Eighty five infants with cholestatic jaundice and acholic stools were studied prospectively from November 1985 to July 1992. Forty nine patients had biliary atresia, 34 neonatal hepatitis, and 2 intrahepatic bile duct paucity. Almost all (47 of 49 infants) of the biliary atresia patients did not show bile in the duodenal fluid and most of the neonatal hepatitis cases (29 of 34 patients) revealed bile in the juice, whereas only 8 of 32 neonatal hepatitis patients demonstrated bowel radio-activity on DISIDA scan. Seventy six of 85 cholestatic jaundice patients could be diagnosed correctly by duodenal intubation bile study, and only 8 of 83 patients could be diagnosed by DISIDA scan only in this study. When DISIDA and duodenal intubation were carried out simultaneously, we could confirm the correct diagnosis in 77 of 83 patients before liver biopsy and operative cholangiogram. During the study, intubation did not cause any complication at all. These data suggest that duodenal intubation must be a superior method for the differentiation of cholestatic jaundice patients, and, moreover, it is simple, rapid and cheap

THE EFFECT OF GAS TEMPERATURE AND VELOCITY ON COAL DRYING IN FLUIDIZED BED DRYER

The objective of this research work is to develop fluidized bed coal dryer to overcome the disadvantages of low rank coal with high moisture such as low calorific values, costly transportation, high emissions of pollutants, and operational problem. In this paper, laboratory scale bubbling fluidized bed was used to dry high moisture, low-rank Indonesian coal to produce low moisture, high-rank coal. The effects of temperature, gas velocity and bed height to diameter ratio (L/D) on drying rate were studied to obtain information relating to optimum operating conditions. Coal characterizations (proximate analysis, ultimate analysis, Thermogravimetric Analysis (TGA), BET, Higher Heating Value (HHV), Lower Heating Value (LHV)) were performed to identify the effect of the change of moisture content. This investigation aims to study the drying process under moderated heating conditions. As a result of the experiments the conclusion is that the thermal fluidized bed process can be successfully applied to reducing moisture in Indonesian coal. Results also indicate that about 80~90% of total moisture could be reduced, including some of the inherent moisture, yielding high heating value product. The drying rate of coal in a fluidized bed is increased by increasing the temperature and velocity of the drying gas. However gas temperature had limitations causing from the spontaneous combustion and gas velocity has to be decided considering energy efficiency

Evaluation of reference genes in mouse preimplantation embryos for gene expression studies using real-time quantitative RT-PCR (RT-qPCR)

BACKGROUND: Real-time quantitative reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-qPCR) is the most sensitive, and valuable technique for rare mRNA detection. However, the expression profiles of reference genes under different experimental conditions, such as different mouse strains, developmental stage, and culture conditions have been poorly studied. RESULTS: mRNA stability of the actb, gapdh, sdha, ablim, ywhaz, sptbn, h2afz, tgfb1, 18 s and wrnip genes was analyzed. Using the NormFinder program, the most stable genes are as follows: h2afz for the B6D2F-1 and C57BL/6 strains; sptbn for ICR; h2afz for KOSOM and CZB cultures of B6D2F-1 and C57BL/6 strain-derived embryos; wrnip for M16 culture of B6D2F-1 and C57BL/6 strain-derived embryos; ywhaz, tgfb1, 18 s, 18 s, ywhaz, and h2afz for zygote, 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, molular, and blastocyst embryonic stages cultured in KSOM medium, respectively; h2afz, wrnip, wrnip, h2afz, ywhaz, and ablim for zygote, 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, molular, and blastocyst stage embryos cultured in CZB medium, respectively; 18 s, h2afz, h2afz, actb, h2afz, and wrnip for zygote, 2-cell, 4-cell, 8-cell, molular, and blastocyst stage embryos cultured in M16 medium, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrated that candidate reference genes for normalization of target gene expression using RT-qPCR should be selected according to mouse strains, developmental stage, and culture conditions. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1756-0500-7-675) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users

Risk stratification of symptomatic brain metastases by clinical and FDG PET parameters for selective use of prophylactic cranial irradiation in patients with extensive disease of small cell lung cancer

Purpose: To identify risk factors for developing symptomatic brain metastases and evaluate the impact of prophylactic cranial irradiation (PCI) on brain metastasis-free survival (BMFS) and overall survival (OS) in extensive disease small cell lung cancer (ED-SCLC). Materials and methods: Among 190 patients diagnosed with ED-SCLC who underwent FDG PET/CT and brain Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) prior to treatment, 53 (27.9%) received PCI while 137 (72.1%) did not. Prognostic index predicting a high risk of symptomatic brain metastases was calculated for the group without receiving PCI (observation group, n = 137) with Cox regression model. Results: Median follow-up time was 10.6 months. Multivariate Cox regression showed that the following three factors were associated with a high risk of symptomatic brain metastases: the presence of extrathoracic metastases (p = 0.004), hypermetabolism of bone marrow or spleen on FDG PET (p < 0.001), and high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (p = 0.018). PCI significantly improved BMFS in high-risk patients (1-year rate: 94.7% vs. 62.1%, p = 0.001), but not in low-risk patients (1-year rate: 100.0% vs. 87.7%, p = 0.943). However, PCI did not improve OS in patients at high risk for symptomatic brain metastases (1-year rate: 65.2% vs. 50.0%, p = 0.123). Conclusion: Three prognostic factors (the presence of extrathoracic metastases, hypermetabolism of bone marrow or spleen on FDG PET, and high neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio) were associated with a high risk of symptomatic brain metastases in ED-SCLC. PCI was beneficial for patients at a high risk of symptomatic brain metastases in terms of BMFS, but not OS. Thus, selective use of PCI in ED-SCLC according to the risk stratification is recommended. (C) 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Ag Seed-Layer Formation by Electroless Plating for Ultra-Large-Scale Integration Interconnection

A high density of Pd catalytic particles is an important factor for obtaining a uniform and continuous Ag seed layer in electroless plating. Adequate surface pretreatment is critical for the formation of such a Pd catalytic particle population. In this study, electroless plating of Ag thin films on TiN substrates was performed using Sn sensitization and Pd activation as pretreatment methods. Sn surface sensitization improves surface wetting and aids in the formation of a Pd catalytic layer in surface-oxidative Pd activation. The Pd activation supported by Sn sensitization also accelerated the formation of a continuous thin Ag film. Furthermore, a thin Ag seed layer deposited on a patterned structure showed excellent conformality.This work was supported by KOSEF through the Research Center for Energy Conversion and Storage, and the Institute of Chemical Processing in Seoul National University