Shouldn’t Cars React as Drivers Expect?

The objective of this project is to develop and test a multi-method empirical approach for predicting drivers’ assessments of the level of acceptability of a warning issued in response to accidents, near-accidents, and other incidents. The role of humans (drivers) in the pre-crash phase means that systems that protect occupants and pedestrians must be seen as distributed, cognitive systems. Driver acceptance therefore has to be an important design goal. One obstacle to acceptance is the human dislike for false alarms. An approach to overcoming driver dislike for false alarms is to focus on driver expectations and to design systems to issue alarms when and only when the driver is likely to accept them. In this paper we discuss one such approach

Экономическая эффективность ранней диагностики и реабилитации при заболеваниях желчевыводящей системы у детей в Республике Беларусь

экономика медицинскаяжелчных путей болезниздравоохранение Республики Беларус

Robust Connectivity With Multiple Directional Antennas for Vehicular Communications

For critical vehicular communication services, such as traffic safety and traffic efficiency, it is advisable to design systems with robustness as the main criteria, possibly at the price of reduced peak performance and efficiency. We describe a simple, low-cost method for combining the output of L directional (i.e., not omnidirectional) antennas to the input of a single-port receiver with the aim to guarantee robustness, i.e., to minimize the probability that K consecutive packets arriving from the worst-case angle-of-arrival are decoded incorrectly. To minimize complexity, the combining network does not estimate or use channel state information. The combining network consists of L-1 analog phase shifters whose phases are affine functions of time. For a general Lłe K and when the packet error probability decays exponentially with the received SNR, the optimum slopes of the affine functions can be computed by solving an optimization problem that depends on the antenna far-field functions. We provide analytical solutions for the special case of L=2 and 3 antennas, which turns out to be independent of the antenna far-field functions and placement on a vehicle. In an experimental setup consisting of two monopole antennas mounted on the roof of a Volvo XC90, the proposed combining method is shown to give significant performance gains, compared to using any one of the antennas

Deep Brain Stimulation of Caudal Zona Incerta and Subthalamic Nucleus in Patients with Parkinson's Disease: Effects on Diadochokinetic Rate

The hypokinetic dysarthria observed in Parkinson's disease (PD) affects the range, speed, and accuracy of articulatory gestures in patients, reducing the perceived quality of speech acoustic output in continuous speech. Deep brain stimulation (DBS) of the subthalamic nucleus (STN-DBS) and of the caudal zona incerta (cZi-DBS) are current surgical treatment options for PD. This study aimed at investigating the outcome of STN-DBS (7 patients) and cZi-DBS (7 patients) in two articulatory diadochokinesis tasks (AMR and SMR) using measurements of articulation rate and quality of the plosive consonants (using the percent measurable VOT metric). The results indicate that patients receiving STN-DBS increased in articulation rate in the Stim-ON condition in the AMR task only, with no effect on production quality. Patients receiving cZi-DBS decreased in articulation rate in the Stim-ON condition and further showed a reduction in production quality. The data therefore suggest that cZi-DBS is more detrimental for extended articulatory movements than STN-DBS

A head-to-head comparison of myocardial strain by fast-strain encoding and feature tracking imaging in acute myocardial infarction

BackgroundMyocardial infarction (MI) is a major cause of heart failure. Left ventricular adverse remodeling is common post-MI. Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between reduced myocardial strain and the development of adverse remodeling. Cardiac magnetic resonance (CMR) with fast-strain encoding (fast-SENC) or feature tracking (FT) enables rapid assessment of myocardial deformation. The aim of this study was to establish a head-to-head comparison of fast-SENC and FT in post-ST-elevated myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients, with clinical 2D speckle tracking echocardiography (2DEcho) as a reference.MethodsThirty patients treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention for STEMI were investigated. All participants underwent CMR examination with late gadolinium enhancement, cine-loop steady-state free precession, and fast-SENC imaging using a 1.5T scanner as well as a 2DEcho. Global longitudinal strain (GLS), segmental longitudinal strain (SLS), global circumferential strain (GCS), and segmental circumferential strain (SCS) were assessed along with the MI scar extent.ResultsThe GCS measurements from fast-SENC and FT were nearly identical: the mean difference was 0.01 (2.5)% (95% CI – 0.92 to 0.95). For GLS, fast-SENC values were higher than FT, with a mean difference of 1.8 (1.4)% (95% CI 1.31–2.35). Tests of significance for GLS did not show any differences between the MR methods and 2DEcho. Average strain in the infarct-related artery (IRA) segments compared to the remote myocardium was significantly lower for the left anterior descending artery and right coronary artery culprits but not for the left circumflex artery culprits. Fast-SENC displayed a higher area under the curve for detecting infarcted segments than FT for both SCS and SLS.ConclusionGLS and GCS did not significantly differ between fast-SENC and FT. Both showed acceptable agreement with 2DEcho for longitudinal strain. Segments perfused by the IRA showed significantly reduced strain values compared to the remote myocardium. Fast-SENC presented a higher sensitivity and specificity for detecting infarcted segments than FT

A Simple Method for Robust Vehicular Communication with Multiple Nonideal Antennas

For critical vehicular communication services, such as traffic safety and traffic efficiency, it is advisable to design systems with robustness as the main criteria, possibly at the price of reduced peak performance and efficiency. We describe a simple, low-cost method for combining the output of L nonideal (i.e., nonisotropic) antennas to the input signal to a single-port receiver with the aim to guarantee robustness, i.e., to minimize the probability that K consecutive packets arriving from the worst-case angle-of-arrival are decoded incorrectly. To minimize complexity, the combining network does not estimate or use channel state information (complex channel gains, noise levels, etc.). The combining network consists of L-1 analog phase shifters whose phases are affine functions of time. For a general L\ua0and the case when the packet error probability decays exponentially with the received SNR, the optimum slopes of the affine functions can be computed by solving an optimization problem that depends on the antenna far field functions. We provide an analytical solution for the special case of L\ua0= 2 antennas, which turns out to be independent of the antenna patterns. In an experimental setup consisting of two monopole antennas mounted on the roof of a Volvo XC90, the proposed combining method is shown to give significant performance gains compared to using just one of the antennas

High-density lipoprotein proteome dynamics in human endotoxemia

BACKGROUND: A large variety of proteins involved in inflammation, coagulation, lipid-oxidation and lipid metabolism have been associated with high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and it is anticipated that changes in the HDL proteome have implications for the multiple functions of HDL. Here, SELDI-TOF mass spectrometry (MS) was used to study the dynamic changes of HDL protein composition in a human experimental low-dose endotoxemia model. Ten healthy men with low HDL cholesterol (0.7+/-0.1 mmol/L) and 10 men with high HDL cholesterol levels (1.9+/-0.4 mmol/L) were challenged with endotoxin (LPS) intravenously (1 ng/kg bodyweight). We previously showed that subjects with low HDL cholesterol are more susceptible to an inflammatory challenge. The current study tested the hypothesis that this discrepancy may be related to differences in the HDL proteome. RESULTS: Plasma drawn at 7 time-points over a 24 hour time period after LPS challenge was used for direct capture of HDL using antibodies against apolipoprotein A-I followed by subsequent SELDI-TOF MS profiling. Upon LPS administration, profound changes in 21 markers (adjusted p-value < 0.05) were observed in the proteome in both study groups. These changes were observed 1 hour after LPS infusion and sustained up to 24 hours, but unexpectedly were not different between the 2 study groups. Hierarchical clustering of the protein spectra at all time points of all individuals revealed 3 distinct clusters, which were largely independent of baseline HDL cholesterol levels but correlated with paraoxonase 1 activity. The acute phase protein serum amyloid A-1/2 (SAA-1/2) was clearly upregulated after LPS infusion in both groups and comprised both native and N-terminal truncated variants that were identified by two-dimensional gel electrophoresis and mass spectrometry. Individuals of one of the clusters were distinguished by a lower SAA-1/2 response after LPS challenge and a delayed time-response of the truncated variants. CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the semi-quantitative differences in the HDL proteome as assessed by SELDI-TOF MS cannot explain why subjects with low HDL cholesterol are more susceptible to a challenge with LPS than those with high HDL cholesterol. Instead the results indicate that hierarchical clustering could be useful to predict HDL functionality in acute phase responses towards LPS

Phenology of the avian spring migratory passage in Europe and North America : Asymmetric advancement in time and increase in duration

Climate change has been shown to shift the seasonal timing (i.e. phenology) and distribution of species. The phenological effects of climate change on living organisms have often been tested using first occurrence dates, which may be uninformative and biased. More rarely investigated is how different phases of a phenological sequence (e.g. beginning, central tendency and end) or its duration have changed over time. This type of analysis requires continuous observation throughout the phenological event over multiple years, and such data sets are rare. In this study we examined the impact of temperature on long-term change of passage timing and duration of the spring migration period in birds, and which species' traits explain species-specific variation. Data used covered 195 species from 21 European and Canadian bird observatories from which systematic daily sampling protocols were available. Migration dates were negatively associated with early spring temperature and timings had in general advanced in 57 years. Short-distance migrants advanced the beginning of their migration more than long-distance migrants when corrected for phylogenic relatedness, but such a difference was not found in other phases of migration. The advancement of migration has generally been greater for the beginning and median phases of migration relative to the end, leading to extended spring migration seasons. Duration of the migration season increased with increasing temperature. Phenological changes have also been less noticeable in Canada even when corrected for rate of change in temperature. To visualize long-term changes in phenology, we constructed the first multi-species spring migration phenology indicator to describe general changes in median migration dates in the northern hemisphere. The indicator showed an average advancement of one week during five decades across the continents (period 1959-2015). The indicator is easy to update with new data and we therefore encourage future research to investigate whether the trend towards longer periods of occurrence or emergence in spring is also evident in other migratory populations. Such phenological changes may influence detectability in monitoring schemes, and may have broader implications on population and community dynamics.Peer reviewe