35,805 research outputs found
Heart Rate Extraction from Novel Neck Photoplethysmography Signals.
This paper demonstrates for the first time how heart rate (HR) can be extracted from novel neck photoplethysmography (PPG). A novel algorithm is presented, which when tested in neck PPG signals recorded from 9 subjects at different respiratory rates, obtained good precision with respect to gold standard ECG signals. Mean absolute error (MAE), standard deviation error (SDAE) and root-mean-square error (RMSE) resulted in 1.22, 1.54 and 1.98 beats per minute (BPM), respectively. HRneck estimation showed strong correlation (R=0.94) with reference HRECG. Good agreement between both techniques was also demonstrated by Bland-Altman analysis. The bias between mean HR paired differences was -0.16 BPM and 95% limits of agreement (LoA) were (-4.7, 4.4). Comparatively, for widely used finger PPG, errors were slightly smaller (MAE=0.38 BPM, SDAE=0.48 BPM, RMSE=0.62BPM) and the correlation with reference ECG was also very close to 1 (R=0.99). Bias of -0.04 BPM and 95% LoA (-1.5, 1.4), also showed high degree of agreement. However, these findings show the potential the neck could have as an alternative body location for wearable monitors, aiming to reduce the number of sensing sites whilst still providing access to a wide variety of physiological parameters
Pollution and the State: The Role of the Structure of Government
Government spending has significant environmental implications. This paper analyzes the effect of the allocation of government spending between public goods broadly defined and private goods or non-social subsidies on air and water pollution. The theoretical model predicts that a reallocation of expenditures from private subsidies to public goods improves environmental quality by reducing production pollution. We estimate an empirical model that shows that such a reallocation causes a significant reduction in air pollutants namely sulfur dioxide and lead and an improvement in water quality measures including dissolved oxygen and biological oxygen demand.
Surface wind convergence as a short-term predictor of cloud-to-ground lightning at Kennedy Space Center: A four-year summary and evaluation
Since 1986, USAF forecasters at NASA-Kennedy have had available a surface wind convergence technique for use during periods of convective development. In Florida during the summer, most of the thunderstorm development is forced by boundary layer processes. The basic premise is that the life cycle of convection is reflected in the surface wind field beneath these storms. Therefore the monitoring of the local surface divergence and/or convergence fields can be used to determine timing, location, longevity, and the lightning hazards which accompany these thunderstorms. This study evaluates four years of monitoring thunderstorm development using surface wind convergence, particularly the average over the area. Cloud-to-ground (CG) lightning is related in time and space with surface convergence for 346 days during the summers of 1987 through 1990 over the expanded wind network at KSC. The relationships are subdivided according to low level wind flow and midlevel moisture patterns. Results show a one in three chance of CG lightning when a convergence event is identified. However, when there is no convergence, the chance of CG lightning is negligible
Coulomb correlations of a few body system of spatially separated charges
A Hartree-Fock and Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov study of a few body system of
spatially separated charge carriers was carried out. Using these variational
states, we compute an approximation to the correlation energy of a finite
system of electron-hole pairs. This energy is shown as a function of the
Coulomb coupling and the interplane distance. We discuss how the correlation
energy can be used to theoretically determine the formation of indirect
excitons in semiconductors which is relevant for collective phenomena such as
Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC).Comment: Conference EDISON16 (2009), 4 page
Phenomenology Tools on Cloud Infrastructures using OpenStack
We present a new environment for computations in particle physics
phenomenology employing recent developments in cloud computing. On this
environment users can create and manage "virtual" machines on which the
phenomenology codes/tools can be deployed easily in an automated way. We
analyze the performance of this environment based on "virtual" machines versus
the utilization of "real" physical hardware. In this way we provide a
qualitative result for the influence of the host operating system on the
performance of a representative set of applications for phenomenology
calculations.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures; information on memory usage included, as well
as minor modifications. Version to appear in EPJ
Making Ends Meet: String Unification and Low-Energy Data
A long-standing problem in string phenomenology has been the fact that the
string unification scale disagrees with the GUT scale obtained by extrapolating
low-energy data within the framework of the minimal supersymmetric standard
model (MSSM). In this paper we examine several effects that may modify the
minimal string predictions and thereby bring string-scale unification into
agreement with low-energy data. These include heavy string threshold
corrections, non-standard hypercharge normalizations, light SUSY thresholds,
intermediate gauge structure, and thresholds arising from extra matter beyond
the MSSM. We explicitly evaluate these contributions within a variety of
realistic free-fermionic string models, including the flipped SU(5), SO(6) x
SO(4), and various SU(3) x SU(2) x U(1) models, and find that most of these
sources do not substantially alter the minimal string predictions. Indeed, we
find that the only way to reconcile string unification with low-energy data is
through certain types of extra matter. Remarkably, however, many of the
realistic string models contain precisely this required matter in their
low-energy spectra.Comment: 10 pages, standard LaTeX, 1 figure (Encapsulated PostScript), version
published in Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 (1995) 264
Extracting the jugular venous pulse from anterior neck contact photoplethysmography
The jugular venous pulse (JVP) is the reference physiological signal used to detect right atrial and central venous pressure (CVP) abnormalities in cardio-vascular diseases (CVDs) diagnosis. Invasive central venous line catheterization has always been the gold standard method to extract it reliably. However, due to all the risks it entails, novel non-invasive approaches, exploiting distance cameras and lasers, have recently arisen to measure the JVP at the external and internal jugular veins. These remote options however, constraint patients to very specific body positions in front of the imaging system, making it inadequate for long term monitoring. In this study, we demonstrate, for the first time, that reflectance photoplethysmography (PPG) can be an alternative for extracting the JVP from the anterior jugular veins, in a contact manner. Neck JVP-PPG signals were recorded from 20 healthy participants, together with reference ECG and arterial finger PPG signals for validation. B-mode ultrasound imaging of the internal jugular vein also proved the validity of the proposed method. The results show that is possible to identify the characteristic a, c, v pressure waves in the novel signals, and confirm their cardiac-cycle timings in consistency with established cardiac physiology. Wavelet coherence values (close to 1 and phase shifts of ±180°) corroborated that neck contact JVP-PPG pulses were negatively correlated with arterial finger PPG. Average JVP waveforms for each subject showed typical JVP pulses contours except for the singularity of an unknown "u" wave occurring after the c wave, in half of the cohort. This work is of great significance for the future of CVDs diagnosis, as it has the potential to reduce the risks associated with conventional catheterization and enable continuous non-invasive point-of-care monitoring of CVP, without restricting patients to limited postures
Gene deficiency in activating FcÎł receptors influences the macrophage phenotypic balance and reduces atherosclerosis in mice
Immunity contributes to arterial inflammation during atherosclerosis. Oxidized low-density lipoproteins induce an autoimmune response characterized by specific antibodies and immune complexes in atherosclerotic patients. We hypothesize that specific FcÎł receptors for IgG constant region participate in atherogenesis by regulating the inflammatory state of lesional macrophages. In vivo we examined the role of activating FcÎł receptors in atherosclerosis progression using bone marrow transplantation from mice deficient in Îł-chain (the common signaling subunit of activating FcÎł receptors) to hyperlipidemic mice. Hematopoietic deficiency of FcÎł receptors significantly reduced atherosclerotic lesion size, which was associated with decreased number of macrophages and T lymphocytes, and increased T regulatory cell function. Lesions of FcÎł receptor deficient mice exhibited increased plaque stability, as evidenced by higher collagen and smooth muscle cell content and decreased apoptosis. These effects were independent of changes in serum lipids and antibody response to oxidized low-density lipoproteins. Activating FcÎł receptor deficiency reduced pro-inflammatory gene expression, nuclear factor-ÎşB activity, and M1 macrophages at the lesion site, while increasing anti-inflammatory genes and M2 macrophages. The decreased inflammation in the lesions was mirrored by a reduced number of classical inflammatory monocytes in blood. In vitro, lack of activating FcÎł receptors attenuated foam cell formation, oxidative stress and pro-inflammatory gene expression, and increased M2-associated genes in murine macrophages. Our study demonstrates that activating FcÎł receptors influence the macrophage phenotypic balance in the artery wall of atherosclerotic mice and suggests that modulation of FcÎł receptor-mediated inflammatory responses could effectively suppress atherosclerosis
A Layman's guide to SUSY GUTs
The determination of the most straightforward evidence for the existence of
the Superworld requires a guide for non-experts (especially experimental
physicists) for them to make their own judgement on the value of such
predictions. For this purpose we review the most basic results of Super-Grand
unification in a simple and clear way. We focus the attention on two specific
models and their predictions. These two models represent an example of a direct
comparison between a traditional unified-theory and a string-inspired approach
to the solution of the many open problems of the Standard Model. We emphasize
that viable models must satisfy {\em all} available experimental constraints
and be as simple as theoretically possible. The two well defined supergravity
models, and , can be described in terms of only a few
parameters (five and three respectively) instead of the more than twenty needed
in the MSSM model, \ie, the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard
Model. A case of special interest is the strict no-scale
supergravity where all predictions depend on only one parameter (plus the
top-quark mass). A general consequence of these analyses is that supersymmetric
particles can be at the verge of discovery, lurking around the corner at
present and near future facilities. This review should help anyone distinguish
between well motivated predictions and predictions based on arbitrary choices
of parameters in undefined models.Comment: 25 pages, Latex, 11 figures (not included), CERN-TH.7077/93,
CTP-TAMU-65/93. A complete ps file (1.31MB) with embedded figures is
available by request from [email protected]
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