A radionuclide counting technique for measuring wind velocity

A technique for measuring wind velocities of meteorological interest is described. It is based on inverse-square-law variation of the counting rates as the radioactive source-to-counter distance is changed by wind drag on the source ball. Results of a feasibility study using a weak bismuth 207 radiation source and three Geiger-Muller radiation counters are reported. The use of the technique is not restricted to Martian or Mars-like environments. A description of the apparatus, typical results, and frequency response characteristics are included. A discussion of a double-pendulum arrangement is presented. Measurements reported herein indicate that the proposed technique may be suitable for measuring wind speeds up to 100 m/sec, which are either steady or whose rates of fluctuation are less than 1 kHz

Evaluation of efficacy and safety of doxofylline 800mg sustained release tablet in treatment of patients with COPD: an open label, prospective and RCT

Background: COPD is a major cause of health care burden worldwide and leading cause of death that is increasing in prevalence. Methylxanthines are used in the treatment of patients with asthma and COPD. Doxofylline (methylxanthine) shows improved disease control, reduced total daily dose of inhaled b2 agonists and improved patient compliance.Methods: This was a prospective, open labelled, randomized, two-arm, parallel group, controlled, clinical trial. 115 patients were randomized to two groups. Patients in group A received tablet doxofylline 400mg BD whereas patients in group B received tablet doxofylline 800mg SR for 4 weeks. Primary outcome measure of trial was change in FEV1 and secondary outcome measure were change in FVC/FEV1, change in symptoms score, effect on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) and safety of study medication.Results: At 4 week the FEV1increase by 13.028% and 17.647% in group A and B respectively. In group A FEV1/FVC increase by 5.79% and in group B it increases by 9.57% at 4 weeks. The symptom score of cough decrease by 77.35% and 97.43% in group A and group B respectively at 4 weeks. In group A shortness of breath decrease by 77.60% and in group B it decreases by 95.90% at 4 weeks. Tightness in chest decrease by 86.29% and 98.40% in group A and group B respectively at 4 weeks.Conclusions:Doxofylline 800mg sustained release tablet provided significantly greater improvement in FEV1, symptomatic control and health related quality of life compared to doxofylline 400mg.

Stability prediction of residual soil and rock slope using artificial neural network

A sudden downward movement of the geomaterial, either composed of soil, rock, or a mixture of both, along the mountain slopes due to various natural or anthropogenic factors is known as a landslide. The Himalayan Mountain slopes are either made up of residual soil or rocks. Residual soil is formed from weathering of the bedrock and mainly occurs in gentle-to-moderate slope inclinations. In contrast, steep slopes are mostly devoid of soil cover and are primarily rocky. A stability prediction system that can analyse the slope under both the condition of the soil or rock surface is missing. In this study, artificial neural network technology has been utilised to predict the stability of jointed rock and residual soil slope of the Himalayan region. The database for the artificial neural network was obtained from numerical simulation of several residual soils and rock slope models. Nonlinear equations have been formulated by coding the artificial neural network algorithm. An android application has also been developed to predict the stability of residual soil and rock slope instantly. It was observed that the developed android app provides promising results in predicting the factor of safety and stability state of the slopes. © 2022 Mahesh Paliwal et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License

Energy-Efficient Ferroelectric Field-Effect Transistor-Based Oscillators for Neuromorphic System Design

Neuromorphic or bioinspired computational platforms, as an alternative for von-Neumann structures, have benefitted from the excellent features of emerging technologies in order to emulate the behavior of the biological brain in an accurate and energy-efficient way. Integrability with CMOS technology and low power consumption make ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FEFET) an attractive candidate to perform such paradigms, particularly for image processing. In this article, we use the FEFET device to make energy-efficient oscillatory neurons as the main parts of neural networks for image processing applications, especially for edge detection. Based on our simulation results, we estimated a significant energy efficiency compared with other technologies, which shows roughly 5-120\times reduction, depending on the design

Evaluation of efficacy and tolerability of eperisone and thiocolchicoside in treatment of low back pain associated with muscle spasm: An open label, prospective, randomized controlled trial

Background: Low back pain has a high prevalence in adult population. Because of reflex muscle spasm, muscle relaxants are frequently used either alone or in combination with analgesics. Eperisone inhibits voltage gated sodium channels in brain stem and Thiocolchicoside acts via GABA-mediated mechanism to relax muscle spasm and relieves pain.Methods: This was a prospective; open labeled, randomized, two-arm, parallel group, controlled, clinical trial. 113 patients were randomised to two groups. Patients in group A received Tablet Eperisone 100 mg whereas patients in group B received Tablet Thiocolchicoside 8 mg for seven days along with Tablet Paracetamol 500 mg. The outcome measures of trial were the improvement in finger to floor distance (FFD) and pain in lumbar region, relief of spasm and tenderness of paravertebral muscles on day 4 and 7.Results: At the end of the study FFD reduced by 18 cm in group A (p < 0.0001*) and 17.36 cm in group B (p<0.0001*) from baseline. Mean score of pain on day 7 reduced by 5.64 scale in group A as compared to 5.42 scale in group B (p<0.0001* in both groups). Paravertebral tenderness reduced by 92.6% in group A and 94.6% in group B at the end of the trial. On day 7, the spasm relief was 87% in group A and 88% in group B.Conclusions: Eperisone is an effective muscle relaxant with equivalent efficacy compared to Thiocolchicoside, and has a better tolerability in treatment of low back pain with muscle spasm

Spectroscopic Evidence for the Localization of Skyrmions near Nu=1 as T->0

Optically pumped nuclear magnetic resonance measurements of Ga-71 spectra were carried out in an n-doped GaAs/Al0.1Ga0.9As multiple quantum well sample near the integer quantum Hall ground state Nu=1. As the temperature is lowered (down to T~0.3 K), a ``tilted plateau'' emerges in the Knight shift data, which is a novel experimental signature of quasiparticle localization. The dependence of the spectra on both T and Nu suggests that the localization is a collective process. The frozen limit spectra appear to rule out a 2D lattice of conventional skyrmions.Comment: 4 pages (REVTEX), 5 eps figures embedded in text, published versio

The DistilBERT Model: A Promising Approach to Improve Machine Reading Comprehension Models

Machine Reading Comprehension (MRC) is a challenging task in the field of Natural Language Processing (NLP), where a machine is required to read a given text passage and answer a set of questions based on it. This paper provides an overview of recent advances in MRC and highlights some of the key challenges and future directions of this research area. It also evaluates the performance of several baseline models on the dataset, evaluates the challenges that the dataset poses for existing MRC models, and introduces the DistilBERT model to improve the accuracy of the answer extraction process. The supervised paradigm for training machine reading and comprehension models represents a practical path forward for creating comprehensive natural language understanding systems. To enhance the DistilBERT basic model's functionality, we have experimented with a variety of question heads that differ in the number of layers, activation function, and general structure. DistilBERT is a model for question-resolution tasks that is successful and delivers state-of-the-art performance while requiring less computational resources than large models like BERT, according to the presented technique. We could enhance the model's functionality and obtain a better understanding of how the model functions by investigating other question head architectures. These findings could serve as a foundation for future study on how to make question-and-answer systems and other tasks connected to the processing of natural languages.&nbsp;&nbsp

Cytotoxic Effect of Poly-Dispersed Single Walled Carbon Nanotubes on Erythrocytes In Vitro and In Vivo

Single wall Carbon Nanotubes (SWCNTs) are hydrophobic and do not disperse in aqueous solvents. Acid functionalization of SWCNTs results in attachment of carboxy and sulfonate groups to carbon atoms and the resulting acid functionalized product (AF-SWCNTs) is negatively charged and disperses easily in water and buffers. In the present study, effect of AF-SWCNTs on blood erythrocytes was examined. Incubation of mouse erythrocytes with AF-SWCNTs and not with control SWCNTs, resulted in a dose and time dependent lysis of erythrocyte. Using fluorescence tagged AF-SWCNTs, binding of AF-SWCNTs with erythrocytes could be demonstrated. Confocal microscopy results indicated that AF-SWCNTs could enter the erythrocytes. Treatment with AF-SWCNTs resulted in exposure of hydrophobic patches on erythrocyte membrane that is indicative of membrane damage. A time and dose dependent increase in externalization of phosphatidylserine on erythrocyte membrane bilayer was also found. Administration of AF-SWCNTs through intravenous route resulted in a transient anemia as seen by a sharp decline in blood erythrocyte count accompanied with a significant drop in blood haemoglobin level. Administration of AF-SWCNTs through intratracheal administration also showed significant decline in RBC count while administration through other routes (gavage and intra-peritoneal) was not effective. By using a recently developed technique of a two step in vivo biotinylation of erythrocytes that enables simultaneous enumeration of young (age <10 days) and old (age>40 days) erythrocytes in mouse blood, it was found that the in vivo toxic effect of AF-SWCNTs was more pronounced on older subpopulation of erythrocytes. Subpopulation of old erythrocytes fell after treatment with AF-SWCNTs but recovered by third day after the intravenous administration of AF-SWCNTs. Taken together our results indicate that treatment with AF-SWCNTs results in acute membrane damage and eventual lysis of erythrocytes. Intravenous administration of AF-SWCNTs resulted in a transient anemia in which older erythrocytes are preferably lysed

Magnons and skyrmions in fractional Hall ferromagnets

Recent experiments have established a qualitative difference between the magnetization temperature-dependences $M(T)$ of quantum Hall ferromagnets at integer and fractional filling factors. We explain this difference in terms of the relative energies of collective magnon and particle-hole excitations in the two cases. Analytic calculations for hard-core model systems are used to demonstrate that, in the fractional case, interactions suppress the magnetization at finite temperatures and that particle-hole excitations rather than long-wavelength magnons control $M(T)$ at low $T$.Comment: 4 pages, no figure