Start Making Sense: Predicting confidence in virtual human interactions using biometric signals

This is volume 1 of the Measuring Behavior 2020-21 Conference. Volume 2 will follow when the conference takes place in October 2021. www.measuringbehavior.orgPublisher PD

Mikrogliazellen beim plötzlichen Kindstod

Die Forschung zum plötzlichen Kindstod hat viele verschiedene Faktoren aufgedeckt, die auf unterschiedlichen Wegen zum SIDS (sudden infant death syndrome) Ereignis führen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit sind 23 Gehirne von SIDS-Fällen und 7 Gehirne von Kindern mit bekannten Todesursachen untersucht worden. In jedem Gehirn sind mikroskopisch 35 Regionen betrachtet worden. Die Anzahl an Mikrogliazellen, die dort aktiviert als Marker von Zellschädigung gelten, wurde dokumentiert. Nur in einer Region, dem Kerngebiet des zwölften Hirnnerven, der die Zungenmuskulatur innerviert und die oberen Atemwege tonisieren und damit offenhalten kann, fanden sich bei den Opfern des plötzlichen Kindstodes signifikant mehr Mikrogliazellen als bei den Kontroll-Fällen. Eine unspezifische Reaktion wie die Zunahme der Mikrogliazellenpopulation kann über einen fehlerhaft abgelaufenen Prozess, der zum plötzlichen Kindstod fährt, wenig aussagen. Jedoch weisen die hohen Mikrogliazellzahlen auf Zellstress in der Region des Nucleus hypoglossus hin und es ist möglich, dass eine pathologische Veränderung im Kern des zwölften Hirnnerven im Geschehen des plötzlichen Kindstodes eine Rolle spielt

The effect of the number of wavebands used in spectral radiation heat transfer calculations

A spectral radiation heat transfer model that conserves emitted and absorbed energy has been developed and used to model the combustion space of an industrial glass furnace. This comprehensive radiation heat transfer model coupled with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code was used to investigate the effect of spectral dependencies on the computed results. The results of this work clearly indicate the need for a spectral approach as opposed to a gray body approach since the gray body approach (one waveband) severely underestimates the energy emitted via radiation

Clinical Interventions to Promote Breastfeeding by Latinas: A Meta-analysis

Breastfeeding duration and exclusivity among Latinas fall below recommended levels, indicating a need for targeted interventions. The effectiveness of clinical breastfeeding interventions for Latinas remains unclear

Validating Pareto Optimal Operation Parameters of Polyp Detection Algorithms for CT Colonography

We evaluated a Pareto front-based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for optimizing our CT colonography (CTC) computer-aided detection (CAD) system. The system identifies colonic polyps based on curvature and volumetric based features, where a set of thresholds for these features was optimized by the evolutionary algorithm. We utilized a two-fold cross-validation (CV) method to test if the optimized thresholds can be generalized to new data sets. We performed the CV method on 133 patients; each patient had a prone and a supine scan. There were 103 colonoscopically confirmed polyps resulting in 188 positive detections in CTC reading from either the prone or the supine scan or both. In the two-fold CV, we randomly divided the 133 patients into two cohorts. Each cohort was used to obtain the Pareto front by a multi-objective genetic algorithm, where a set of optimized thresholds was applied on the test cohort to get test results. This process was repeated twice so that each cohort was used in the training and testing process once. We averaged the two training Pareto fronts as our final training Pareto front and averaged the test results from the two runs in the CV as our final test results. Our experiments demonstrated that the averaged testing results were close to the mean Pareto front determined from the training process. We conclude that the Pareto front-based algorithm appears to be generalizable to new test data

Salivary Metabolomic Signatures and Body Mass Index in Italian Adolescents: A Pilot Study

Context: Obesity surveillance is scarce in adolescents, and little is known on whether salivary metabolomics data, emerging minimally invasive biomarkers, can characterize metabolic patterns associated with overweight or obesity in adolescents. Objective: This pilot study aims to identify the salivary molecular signatures associated with body mass index (BMI) in Italian adolescents. Methods: Saliva samples and BMI were collected in a subset of n = 74 young adolescents enrolled in the Public Health Impact of Metal Exposure study (2007-2014). A total of 217 untargeted metabolites were identified using liquid chromatography-high resolution mass spectrometry. Robust linear regression was used to cross-sectionally determine associations between metabolomic signatures and sex-specific BMI-for-age z-scores (z-BMI). Results: Nearly 35% of the adolescents (median age: 12 years; 51% females) were either obese or overweight. A higher z-BMI was observed in males compared to females (P = .02). One nucleoside (deoxyadenosine) and 2 lipids (18:0-18:2 phosphatidylcholine and dipalmitoyl-phosphoethanolamine) were negatively related to z-BMI (P < .05), whereas 2 benzenoids (3-hydroxyanthranilic acid and a phthalate metabolite) were positively associated with z-BMI (P < .05). In males, several metabolites including deoxyadenosine, as well as deoxycarnitine, hyodeoxycholic acid, N-methylglutamic acid, bisphenol P, and trigonelline were downregulated, while 3 metabolites (3-hydroxyanthranilic acid, theobromine/theophylline/paraxanthine, and alanine) were upregulated in relation to z-BMI (P < .05). In females, deoxyadenosine and dipalmitoyl-phosphoethanolamine were negatively associated with z-BMI while deoxycarnitine and a phthalate metabolite were positively associated (P < .05). A single energy-related pathway was enriched in the identified associations in females (carnitine synthesis, P = .04). Conclusion: Salivary metabolites involved in nucleotide, lipid, and energy metabolism were primarily altered in relation to BMI in adolescents

A new model for gas/solid pipe flow

A new model of particle turbulent dispersion in vertical gas/solid pipe flow is presented in this paper. The essence of the model is to pay more attention to the active and discrete behavior of particles in the dispersion process in non-homogeneous turbulent vertical pipe flows using two-fluid approaches. In the new model, a non-gradient type of diffusion term is included in the expression of radial particle dispersion flux; the transport equation for particle turbulent kinetic energy (PTKE) is developed and solved for its distribution; the effect of intra-particle collision is considered for the generation and dissipation of PTKE; turbulence modulation due to particle presence is taken into account. Preliminary numerical results based on this new model are also presented in this paper

STIRAP transport of Bose-Einstein condensate in triple-well trap

The irreversible transport of multi-component Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) is investigated within the Stimulated Adiabatic Raman Passage (STIRAP) scheme. A general formalism for a single BEC in M-well trap is derived and analogy between multi-photon and tunneling processes is demonstrated. STIRAP transport of BEC in a cyclic triple-well trap is explored for various values of detuning and interaction between BEC atoms. It is shown that STIRAP provides a complete population transfer at zero detuning and interaction and persists at their modest values. The detuning is found not to be obligatory. The possibility of non-adiabatic transport with intuitive order of couplings is demonstrated. Evolution of the condensate phases and generation of dynamical and geometric phases are inspected. It is shown that STIRAP allows to generate the unconventional geometrical phase which is now of a keen interest in quantum computing.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures. To be published in Laser Physics (v. 19, n.4, 2009

Obesity, diabetes, serum glucose, and risk of primary liver cancer by birth cohort, race/ethnicity, and sex: Multiphasic health checkup study

Obesity and diabetes have been associated with liver cancer. However, recent US-based studies have suggested a lack of association between obesity and liver cancer among blacks and women

Investigation of spectral radiation heat transfer and NO{sub x} emission in a glass furnace

A comprehensive radiation heat transfer model and a reduced NOx kinetics model were coupled with a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) code and then used to investigate the radiation heat transfer, pollutant formation and flow characteristics in a glass furnace. The radiation model solves the spectral radiative transport equation in the combustion space of emitting and absorbing media, i.e., CO{sub 2}, H{sub 2}O, and soot and emission/reflection from the furnace crown. The advanced numerical scheme for calculating the radiation heat transfer is extremely effective in conserving energy between radiation emission and absorption. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the impact of operating conditions on the furnace performance with emphasis on the investigation into the formation of NOx