EXAMPLES OF MEDICAL SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE EXPERT SYSTEMS FOR DYSFUNCTION ANALYSIS AND TREATMENT

Paper present the recent research in DMCS. The medical and biometric research projects are presented. One of the key element is an image acquisition and processing. The paper presents research of diagnostic application of voice analysis for stroke patients with speech dysfunction, as well as the method for diagnosing and monitoring the effectiveness of medical rehabilitation of patients with dysfunction of the cervical spine. Then the method for sudden cardiac death risk stratification is elaborated

The influence of pipeline supports stiffness onto the water hammer run

International audience; Water hammer (WH) phenomenon may produce various undesired effects in pipelines. Dynamic interaction between the liquid and the structure is known to influence the transient pipe flow parameters in non-rigid systems. One can expect that due to basic energy conservation considerations the energy outflow from the liquid to the elastic structure would result in lowering of WH pressures. However, this effect is not unambiguous and is not clearly and uniquely explained in literature. Thus, its proper understanding is of great practical importance. In the paper the authors try to examine these effects mainly on the basis of experimental results acquired from measurements at a special test rig designed and constructed at the Institute of Fluid-Flow Machinery in Gdansk. The main part of the rig is a cooper pipeline of the length of about 59m, fixed to the floor with a number of elastic supports. WH runs were generated, measured and analyzed for supports of varying stiffness. Pipeline free vibrations induced by mechanical shock were measured as well. The conclusions have been found and they are presented in the paper. Still, a very important part of the job was to find the physical interpretation and explanation of the results, which allows for understanding of that phenomenon

Comparison of Hash Functions for Network Traffic Acquisition Using a Hardware-Accelerated Probe

In this article we address the problem of efficient and secure monitoring of computer network traffic. We proposed, implemented, and tested a hardware-accelerated implementation of a network probe, using the DE5-Net FPGA development platform. We showed that even when using a cryptographic SHA-3 hash function, the probe uses less than 17% of the available FPGA resources, offering a throughput of over 20 Gbit/s. We have also researched the problem of choosing an optimal hash function to be used in a network probe for addressing network flows in a flow cache. In our work we compared five 32-bit hash functions, including two cryptographic ones: SHA-1 and SHA-3. We ran a series of experiments with various hash functions, using traffic replayed from the CICIDS 2017 dataset. We showed that SHA-1 and SHA-3 provide flow distributions as uniform as the ones offered by the modified Vermont hash function proposed in 2008 (i.e., with low means and standard deviations of the bucket occupation), yet assuring higher security against potential attacks on a network probe

Statistical Analysis of Aviation Accidents and Incidents Caused by Failure of Hydraulic Systems

In the era of globalization and permanent travel of people between far away regions of the world, air transport is one of the most important means of transport. Today it is also one of the most secure transport modes possibilities. Despite this, it is crucial to continuously improve the level of safety and reduce the absolute number of accidents and their victims. This idea stands at the beginning of the article subject creation and at the same time an attempt to further improve safety. The safety of the pilots and passengers plays a crucial role during air operations. One of the most important factors is the reliability of the aircraft. The main goal in the reliability work is to estimate the percentage of units of a product that will still be functioning after a particular period of time. In order to be able to make such a statement, it is necessary to select a probability distribution that will facilitate the construction of reasonably precise probability statements of the type that one wishes to make. In this analysis, the number of hours between failures has been used as the main variable for reaching the conclusion about the reliability of the aircraft at the selected examples

Ecotoxicological Estimation of 4-Cumylphenol, 4-t-Octylphenol, Nonylphenol, and Volatile Leachate Phenol Degradation by the Microscopic Fungus Umbelopsis isabellina Using a Battery of Biotests

The phenolic xenobiotics nonylphenol (NP), 4-tert-octylphenol (4-t-OP), and 4-cumylphenol (4-CP) have the potential to seriously disrupt the endocrine system. Volatile phenols (VPs), especially those present in landfill leachate, also adversely affect the health of numerous organisms. Microbial degradation of xenobiotics can result in the formation of intermediates with higher toxicity than the precursor substrates. Therefore, the main aim of this study was to assess the changes in environmental ecotoxicity during the biotransformation of nonylphenol, 4-tert-octylphenol, 4-cumylphenol and volatile phenols by Umbelopsis isabellina using a battery of biotests. The application of bioindicators belonging to different taxonomic groups and diverse trophic levels (producers, consumers, and reducers) indicated a significant reduction in toxicity during the cultivation of fungus cultures both for nonylphenol, 4-tert-octylphenol, 4-cumylphenol and volatile phenols. The rate of toxicity decline was correlated with the degree of xenobiotic biotransformation. Removal of 4-cumylphenol and 4-tert-octylphenol also led to a decrease in the anti-androgenic potential. Moreover, this is the first report demonstrating the anti-androgenic properties of 4-cumylphenol. The results showed that U. isabellina is an attractive tool for the bioremediation and detoxification of contaminated environments

Weather condition characteristics at the H. Arctowski Station (South Shetlands, Antarctica) for 2006, in comparison with multi-year research results

The maritime Antarctic is characterised by highly variable weather conditions throughout the year, as well as over multi-year periods. The annual variability of weather conditions constitutes an important basis for biological and geographical studies, allowing for the monitoring of the functioning and changes of the geographical environment of the west coast of Admiralty Bay (King George Island, South Shetlands, Antarctica). Year-round meteorological observations (1.2006-12.2006) measured: atmospheric pressure, wind speed and direction, cloud cover, air temperature, relative humidity, total precipitation, snow cover, and Admiralty Bay ice cover

The effects of nature‐inspired amino acid substitutions on structural and biochemical properties of the E. coli L ‐asparaginase EcAIII

The Escherichia coli enzyme EcAIII catalyzes the hydrolysis of L-Asn to L-Asp and ammonia. Using a nature-inspired mutagenesis approach, we designed and produced five new EcAIII variants (M200I, M200L, M200K, M200T, M200W). The modified proteins were characterized by spectroscopic and crystallographic methods. All new variants were enzymatically active, confirming that the applied mutagenesis procedure has been successful. The determined crystal structures revealed new conformational states of the EcAIII molecule carrying the M200W mutation and allowed a high-resolution observation of an acyl-enzyme intermediate with the M200L mutant. In addition, we performed structure prediction, substrate docking, and molecular dynamics simulations for 25 selected bacterial orthologs of EcAIII, to gain insights into how mutations at the M200 residue affect the active site and substrate binding mode. This comprehensive strategy, including both experimental and computational methods, can be used to guide further enzyme engineering and can be applied to the study of other proteins of medicinal or biotechnological importance