High-sensitivity Fiber Bragg grating temperature sensor at high temperature

A method of making full use of the durable strain which fiber Bragg grating (FBG) can undertake is presented, which hugely improves the sensitivities of FBG temperature sensors at high temperature. When a sensor is manufactured at room temperature, its FBG should be given a pre-relaxing length according to the temperature it is asked to measure; once the temperature rise to the asked one, its FBG starts to be stretched and it starts to work with high sensitivity. The relationship between the pre-relaxing length and the working temperature is analyzed. In experiments, when the pre-relaxing lengths are 0.2mm、0.5mm、0.6mm, the working temperatures rise 25℃、50℃、61℃, respectively, and the sensitivities are almost the same (675pm/℃). The facts that the experimental results agree well with the theoretical analyses verify this method’s validity

Retraction and Generalized Extension of Computing with Words

Fuzzy automata, whose input alphabet is a set of numbers or symbols, are a formal model of computing with values. Motivated by Zadeh's paradigm of computing with words rather than numbers, Ying proposed a kind of fuzzy automata, whose input alphabet consists of all fuzzy subsets of a set of symbols, as a formal model of computing with all words. In this paper, we introduce a somewhat general formal model of computing with (some special) words. The new features of the model are that the input alphabet only comprises some (not necessarily all) fuzzy subsets of a set of symbols and the fuzzy transition function can be specified arbitrarily. By employing the methodology of fuzzy control, we establish a retraction principle from computing with words to computing with values for handling crisp inputs and a generalized extension principle from computing with words to computing with all words for handling fuzzy inputs. These principles show that computing with values and computing with all words can be respectively implemented by computing with words. Some algebraic properties of retractions and generalized extensions are addressed as well.Comment: 13 double column pages; 3 figures; to be published in the IEEE Transactions on Fuzzy System

Collagen matrix stiffness influences on fibroblast contraction force

Cell-embedded hydrogel has been widely used as engineered tissue equivalents in biomedical applications. In this study, contraction force in human aortic adventitial fibroblasts seeded within a 3D collagen matrix was quantified by a novel force sensing technique. We demonstrate that contraction forces in cells treated with histamine are regulated by the gel stiffness in a linear manner. These findings provide novel insights for the design of collagen-based biomaterials for tissue engineering and clinical applications

Probing Primordial Gravitational Waves: Ali CMB Polarization Telescope

In this paper, we will give a general introduction to the project of Ali CMB Polarization Telescope (AliCPT), which is a Sino-US joint project led by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) and has involved many different institutes in China. It is the first ground-based Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) polarization experiment in China and an integral part of China's Gravitational Waves Program. The main scientific goal of AliCPT project is to probe the primordial gravitational waves (PGWs) originated from the very early Universe. The AliCPT project includes two stages. The first stage referred to as AliCPT-1, is to build a telescope in the Ali region of Tibet with an altitude of 5,250 meters. Once completed, it will be the worldwide highest ground-based CMB observatory and open a new window for probing PGWs in northern hemisphere. AliCPT-1 telescope is designed to have about 7,000 TES detectors at 90GHz and 150GHz. The second stage is to have a more sensitive telescope (AliCPT-2) with the number of detectors more than 20,000. Our simulations show that AliCPT will improve the current constraint on the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ by one order of magnitude with 3 years' observation. Besides the PGWs, the AliCPT will also enable a precise measurement on the CMB rotation angle and provide a precise test on the CPT symmetry. We show 3 years' observation will improve the current limit by two order of magnitude.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, 2 table

Synthetic rabbit-human antibody conjugate as a control in immunoassays for immunoglobulin M specific to hepatitis E virus

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In assays for anti-hepatitis E virus (HEV) immunoglobulin M (IgM), large volumes of the patient's sera cannot be easily obtained for use as a positive control. In this study, we investigated an alternative chemical method in which rabbit anti-HEV IgG was conjugated with human IgM and was used as a positive control in the anti-HEV IgM assay. Rabbit anti-HEV IgG was isolated from immune sera by chromatography on protein A-Sepharose and was conjugated with human IgM by using 1-ethyl-3-(3-dimethylaminopropyl)carbodiimide (EDC) as a crosslinker.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The specific anti-HEV IgG antibody titer was 100,000 times that of the negative control, i.e., prebleed rabbit serum. The results of anti-HEV IgM enzyme-linked immunosobent assay showed that the antibody conjugate was similar to anti-HEV IgM antibodies produced in humans. The results of a stability experiment showed that the antibody conjugate was stable for use in external quality assessment or internal quality control trials.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We concluded that the chemically conjugated rabbit-human antibody could be used instead of the traditional serum control as a positive control in the anti-HEV IgM assay.</p

Functional decline and mortality in long-term care settings: Static and dynamic approach

AbstractBackground/PurposeFunctional impairment is known to be associated with higher mortality risk and adverse health outcomes. However, little is known about whether functional decline could predict mortality among the elderly in the long-term care setting.MethodsThis is a prospective cohort study in two veteran homes in northern Taiwan with active use of the minimum data set (MDS). Evaluation tools retrieved from the MDS, including MDS Resource Utilization Group-III for Activities of Daily Living (RUG-III ADL), MDS Cognitive Scale, MDS Social engagement, triggers for resident assessment protocol (RAP) and Pain scale, were utilized for the analysis.ResultsA total of 1125 male participants were included in this study. The mean age of the participants was 83.1 ± 5.1 years, and 65 (5.8%) developed physical functional decline within a 6-month period. Participants with functional decline [odds ratio (OR) 2.305, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.002–5.303], poor baseline functional status (OR 1.116, 95% CI 1.002–1.242), positive RAP triggers for dehydration (OR 13.857, 95% CI 3.07–62.543), and underlying chronic lung diseases (OR 2.279, 95% CI 1.149–4.522), depression (OR 2.994, 95% CI 1.161–7.721), and cancer (OR 3.23, 95% CI 1.078–9.682) were more likely to have an additional 12-month mortality. By contrast, Parkinsonism (OR 3.875, 95% CI 1.169–12.841), increase in sum of RAP triggers (OR 6.096, 95% CI 2.741–13.562), and positive RAP triggers for cognitive loss (OR 3.164, 95% CI 1.612–6.212) and mood (OR 2.894, 95% CI 1.466–5.71) are strong predictors for functional decline within 6 months.ConclusionPhysical function decline within 6 months predicted the subsequent 1-year mortality, whereas increased sum of RAP triggers and positive trigger for cognitive loss and mood were associated with functional decline

Recovering Sign Bits of DCT Coefficients in Digital Images as an Optimization Problem

Recovering unknown, missing, damaged, distorted or lost information in DCT coefficients is a common task in multiple applications of digital image processing, including image compression, selective image encryption, and image communications. This paper investigates recovery of a special type of information in DCT coefficients of digital images: sign bits. This problem can be modelled as a mixed integer linear programming (MILP) problem, which is NP-hard in general. To efficiently solve the problem, we propose two approximation methods: 1) a relaxation-based method that convert the MILP problem to a linear programming (LP) problem; 2) a divide-and-conquer method which splits the target image into sufficiently small regions, each of which can be more efficiently solved as an MILP problem, and then conducts a global optimization phase as a smaller MILP problem or an LP problem to maximize smoothness across different regions. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first who considered how to use global optimization to recover sign bits of DCT coefficients. We considered how the proposed methods can be applied to JPEG-encoded images and conducted extensive experiments to validate the performances of our proposed methods. The experimental results showed that the proposed methods worked well, especially when the number of unknown sign bits per DCT block is not too large. Compared with other existing methods, which are all based on simple error-concealment strategies, our proposed methods outperformed them with a substantial margin, both according to objective quality metrics (PSNR and SSIM) and also our subjective evaluation. Our work has a number of profound implications, e.g., more sign bits can be discarded to develop more efficient image compression methods, and image encryption methods based on sign bit encryption can be less secure than we previously understood.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure