78,731 research outputs found
Convergence to equilibrium for many particle systems
The goal of this paper is to give a short review of recent results of the
authors concerning classical Hamiltonian many particle systems. We hope that
these results support the new possible formulation of Boltzmann's ergodicity
hypothesis which sounds as follows. For almost all potentials, the minimal
contact with external world, through only one particle of , is sufficient
for ergodicity. But only if this contact has no memory. Also new results for
quantum case are presented
Action for Rehabilitation from Neurological Injury (ARNI): A pragmatic study of functional training for stroke survivors
This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund. Copyright @ 2013 Cherry Kilbride et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.This study evaluated the effectiveness of a twelve-week community-based functional training on measures of impairment, activity and participation in a group of stroke survivors. Isometric strength of the knee musculature, Centre-Of-Pressure (COP) based measures of balance, Berg Balance Scale (BBS), 10 m walk test, and the Subjective Index of Physical and Social Out come (SIPSO), were recorded at baseline, post-intervention, and after twelve weeks (follow-up). Exercise instructors delivered training once a week in a group format at a community centre. Significant improvement was noted in the BBS (p < 0.002), and 10 m walk speed (p = 0.03) post intervention which remained unchanged at follow-up. Total SIPSO score improved significantly post-intervention (p = 0.044). No other significant differences and no adverse effects were observed. It is possible that functional training provided more opportunity for the improvement of dynamic aspects of balance control that could be captured by the BBS but not with the traditional measures of balance using COP data. Results also suggest positive effects on the level of participation, and lack of association between measures of impairment and activity. Community based functional training could be effective and used to extend access to rehabilitation services beyond the acute and sub-acute stages after stroke.London Borough of Hillingdo
Information complexity of the AND function in the two-Party, and multiparty settings
In a recent breakthrough paper [M. Braverman, A. Garg, D. Pankratov, and O.
Weinstein, From information to exact communication, STOC'13] Braverman et al.
developed a local characterization for the zero-error information complexity in
the two party model, and used it to compute the exact internal and external
information complexity of the 2-bit AND function, which was then applied to
determine the exact asymptotic of randomized communication complexity of the
set disjointness problem.
In this article, we extend their results on AND function to the multi-party
number-in-hand model by proving that the generalization of their protocol has
optimal internal and external information cost for certain distributions. Our
proof has new components, and in particular it fixes some minor gaps in the
proof of Braverman et al
Malaysia attempts in reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and sequestration in bio-concrete system; a future direction
In Malaysia, upbringing the production of mussel is one of the most second important aquaculture The greenhouse gasses increase in this century especially carbon dioxide (CO2) compare to the previous centuries due to the increase of anthropogenic activities in all countries around the world [1][2][3]. The high concentration CO2 in the atmospheric cause a catastrophic environmental issues such as; global warming, change in rainfall, rise of sea level and climatic changes.
Impacts of a national strategy to reduce population salt intake in England: serial cross sectional study
Helicity at Photospheric and Chromospheric Heights
In the solar atmosphere the twist parameter has the same sign as
magnetic helicity. It has been observed using photospheric vector magnetograms
that negative/positive helicity is dominant in the northern/southern hemisphere
of the Sun. Chromospheric features show dextral/sinistral dominance in the
northern/southern hemisphere and sigmoids observed in X-rays also have a
dominant sense of reverse-S/forward-S in the northern/southern hemisphere. It
is of interest whether individual features have one-to-one correspondence in
terms of helicity at different atmospheric heights. We use UBF \Halpha images
from the Dunn Solar Telescope (DST) and other \Halpha data from Udaipur Solar
Observatory and Big Bear Solar Observatory. Near-simultaneous vector
magnetograms from the DST are used to establish one-to-one correspondence of
helicity at photospheric and chromospheric heights. We plan to extend this
investigation with more data including coronal intensities.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, 1 table To appear in "Magnetic Coupling between
the Interior and the Atmosphere of the Sun", eds. S.S. Hasan and R.J. Rutten,
Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg,
Berlin, 200
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An enhanced artificial neural network with a shuffled complex evolutionary global optimization with principal component analysis
The classical Back-Propagation (BP) scheme with gradient-based optimization in training Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) suffers from many drawbacks, such as the premature convergence, and the tendency of being trapped in local optimums. Therefore, as an alternative for the BP and gradient-based optimization schemes, various Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs), i.e., Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Genetic Algorithm (GA), Simulated Annealing (SA), and Differential Evolution (DE), have gained popularity in the field of ANN weight training. This study applied a new efficient and effective Shuffled Complex Evolutionary Global Optimization Algorithm with Principal Component Analysis – University of California Irvine (SP-UCI) to the weight training process of a three-layer feed-forward ANN. A large-scale numerical comparison is conducted among the SP-UCI-, PSO-, GA-, SA-, and DE-based ANNs on 17 benchmark, complex, and real-world datasets. Results show that SP-UCI-based ANN outperforms other EA-based ANNs in the context of convergence and generalization. Results suggest that the SP-UCI algorithm possesses good potential in support of the weight training of ANN in real-word problems. In addition, the suitability of different kinds of EAs on training ANN is discussed. The large-scale comparison experiments conducted in this paper are fundamental references for selecting proper ANN weight training algorithms in practice
CRANKITE: a fast polypeptide backbone conformation sampler
Background: CRANKITE is a suite of programs for simulating backbone conformations of polypeptides and proteins. The core of the suite is an efficient Metropolis Monte Carlo sampler of backbone conformations in continuous three-dimensional space in atomic details.
Methods: In contrast to other programs relying on local Metropolis moves in the space of dihedral angles, our sampler utilizes local crankshaft rotations of rigid peptide bonds in Cartesian space.
Results: The sampler allows fast simulation and analysis of secondary structure formation and conformational changes for proteins of average length
Multifarious immunotherapeutic approaches to cure HIV-1 infection
Immunotherapy in the context of treated HIV-1 infection aims to improve immune responses to achieve better control of the virus. To date, multifaceted immunotherapeutic approaches have been shown to reduce immune activation and increase CD4 T-lymphocyte counts, further to the effects of antiretroviral therapy alone, in addition to improving HIV-1-specific T-cell responses. While sterilizing cure of HIV-1 would involve elimination of all replication-competent virus, a functional cure in which the host has long-lasting control of viral replication may be more feasible. In this commentary, we discuss novel strategies aimed at targeting the latent viral reservoir with cure of HIV-1 infection being the ultimate goal, an achievement that would have considerable impact on worldwide HIV-1 infection
Asthma diagnosis and treatment - 1012. The efficacy of budesonide in the treatmetn of acute asthma in children: a double-blind, randomized, controlled trial.
Background
Current evidence suggests that inhaled glucocorticoids (IGC) have a more profound topical none genomic effect on bronchial airways as compared to systemic glucocorticoids. The value of adding IGC to current therapy of acute asthma is not well established.
Methods
We conducted a double-blind, randomized, two-arm, parallel groups, controlled clinical trial to compare the addition of budesonide 1500 mcg or placebo (normal saline) to standard acute asthma treatment (albuterol and ipratropium bromide) administered in 3 divided mixed doses within 1 hour in the emergency department (ED). Children 2-12 years of age with moderate or severe acute asthma, scoring 8-15/15 on a well-validated scoring system were included. Both groups received a single dose of prednisone 2 mg/kg/day (max. 60 mg) at the beginning of therapy. The primary outcome was admission rate within 2-4 hours from starting therapy.
Results
A total of 723 children were enrolled in the study over 17 months duration, of whom 139 were allowed to re-enroll and be randomized to constitute 906 randomization assignments (458 on the treatment group and 448 on the control group); with baseline mean + SD asthma score of 10.63 + 1.73; age 5.52 + 2.76 years; 35% girls; 30.8% (16.5%) with baseline severe asthma score of ≥12 (≥ 13). Statistical Analysis plan allowed for the potential dependency in response due to reenrollments of a subset of children, using Generalized Linear Mixed Modeling (GLMM) techniques. Baseline demographic and clinical characteristics were not significantly different between the two randomized groups. Seventy-five out of 458 (16.4%) of the treatment group vs. 82/448 (18.3%) of the control group were admitted, (OR 0.85, CI: 0.59-1.23, p-value=0.39). Among the severe asthmatics with baseline score ≥13, treatment vs. placebo group, GLMM adjusted admission rate was 30% vs. 47%, indicating a 17% difference in admission rate in favor of the treatment group (adjusted OR of 0.49, CI: 0.25-0.95; p-value= 0.035) that indicated a 51% reduction in the risk of admission for the treatment vs. control group.
Conclusions
Children with baseline severe asthma score ≥13 who were treated with budesonide had a significant reduction in their admission rate
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