Ambulatory glucose profile as an educational tool in the management of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

A 60-year-old male patient with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) since the last two years was presented in the clinic with repeated falls. He was on dietary treatment and was also taking metformin 500 mg twice daily, on and off. His Fasting Plasma Glucose (FPG) was 116 mg/dL, Postprandial Glucose (PPG) was 140 mg/dL and Glycosylated Haemoglobin (HbA1c) was 6.4%. The complete glycaemic profile obtained from the first Ambulatory Glucose Profile (AGP) revealed that the patient was not having hypoglycaemia and has very minimal glucose fluctuations without any post-prandial excursions. The visual cue obtained from Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) / AGP enabled physicians to better inform the patient on the effects of medication and lifestyle on diabetes, thereby allowing the patient to make informed treatment and lifestyle modifications. This case study sheds light on the need to recommend AGP in such cases to provide insights on the glucose trends, thereby improve patient’s confidence in the therapy, with lifestyle modification

Comparison of the wing polyphenic response of pea aphids (\u3ci\u3eAcyrthosiphon pisum\u3c/i\u3e) to crowding and predator cues

1. Pea aphids (Acyrthosiphon pisum Harris; Hemiptera: Aphididae) exhibit transgenerational wing polyphenism, in which unwinged females produce genetically identical winged offspring in response to environmental cues such as overcrowding and predation risk that indicate poor habitat quality. 2. Laboratory experiments were carried out to explore the intensity of the wing polyphenic response of pea aphids exposed to cues from ladybird predators and crowding, and their response was compared to pea aphids that were not exposed to any cues (control). 3. The study used cues from two different ladybird species: Coccinella septempunctata L. (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) and Hippodamia convergens Guérin-Méneville (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) to investigate whether the wing polyphenic response of pea aphids to predator cues can be generalized 4. The intensity of the wing polyphenic response of pea aphids to crowding was found to be much stronger than their response to predator cues. There was no response to H. convergens cues and the response to C. septempunctata cues was mixed

Structure and properties of ZrN coatings deposited by high power impulse magnetron sputtering technology

Monolayer ZrN coatings were deposited exclusively by the novel High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering (HIPIMS) technology in an industrial scale PVD machine (HTC-1000-4 target system). Coatings were deposited on 1 micron polished M2 High speed steel, 304 L Stainless steel and on Si (100) specimens. Prior to deposition, HIPIMS plasma sustained on a Zirconium (Zr) target was utilised to pretreat the specimens. Coatings were deposited at 400°C in a mixed N2 and Ar atmosphere using 2 magnetrons in HIPIMS mode and at three different substrate bias voltages (UBIAS) keeping all other process parameters constant. The thicknesses of the coatings measured by the ball cratering technique were in the range of 1.84 µm, 1.96 µm and 2.13 µm at bias voltages of -95 V, -75 V and -65 volts respectively, where the difference in thickness can be attributed to the re-sputtering effect. X-ray diffraction experiments on SS specimens revealed a dominating 111 texture for all three coatings irrespective of the bias voltage. Cross-sectional transmission electron microscopy revealed extremely dense coating structures at all bias voltages, similar to the transition zone structure (Zone T) reported by Thornton. The -95 bias voltage coatings appeared extremely smooth on the top and with no dome shaped structures often associated with low ion bombardment during deposition. HIPIMS pretreatment lead to high adhesion (LC) of the coatings to the substrate. A continuous ductile perforation of the coating was observed at progressive loads greater than 65 N however no spallation of the coating was observed up to loads of 100 N. High values of hardness (40.4 GPa), Young's Modulus (424 GPa) and compressive stress (10 GPa) were recorded for coatings deposited at -95 BV. Hardness and internal stress of the coating was found increasing with more negative bias voltages. All the coatings exhibited high dry sliding wear resistance (KC) in the range of 6 x 10-15 m3N-1m-1. Cross-sectional Transmission Electron Microscopy and Atomic Force Microscopy analysis has been used to study the effect of ion bombardment obtained from HIPIMS on the structure of the coatings

Using system and user performance features to improve emotion detection in spoken tutoring dialogs

In this study, we incorporate automatically obtained system/user performance features into machine learning experiments to detect student emotion in computer tutoring dialogs. Our results show a relative improvement of 2.7% on classification accuracy and 8.08% on Kappa over using standard lexical, prosodie, sequential, and identification features. This level of improvement is comparable to the performance improvement shown in previous studies by applying dialog acts or lexical/prosodic-/discourse- level contextual features

Multilingual Word Sense Induction to Improve Web Search Result Clustering

In [12] a novel approach to Web search result clustering based on Word Sense Induction, i.e. the automatic discovery of word senses from raw text was presented; key to the proposed approach is the idea of, first, automatically in- ducing senses for the target query and, second, clustering the search results based on their semantic similarity to the word senses induced. In [1] we proposed an innovative Word Sense Induction method based on multilingual data; key to our approach was the idea that a multilingual context representation, where the context of the words is expanded by considering its translations in different languages, may im- prove the WSI results; the experiments showed a clear per- formance gain. In this paper we give some preliminary ideas to exploit our multilingual Word Sense Induction method to Web search result clustering

Long-term behaviour of Nb and Cr nitrides nanostructured coatings under steam at 650°C. Mechanistic considerations.

There is an increasing demand for steam power plants to operate in super-critical conditions i.e. temperatures in excess of 600°C. Under these conditions creep resistant ferritic steels oxidize and therefore require coatings in order to last. Physical vapor deposition and especially High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering deposited CrN/NbN nano-scale multilayer coatings with a 2.45 Cr/Nb ratio showed excellent performance when exposed to 650 °C in pure steam environment up to 2,000 h. However the role of Nb in offering protection is unclear. In order to study the long term behaviour of this type of coatings as well as to determine the influence of Nb on their oxidation resistance, a CrN/NbN coating with a 1.16 Cr/Nb ratio was studied for 12,650 h. The coating is hard, well adhered and resistant to environmental corrosion, which are properties required in particular for coatings to be applied on turbine blades. The coating also protects P92 from steam oxidation at 650º C, however coating growth defects influence significantly the oxidation resistance. The long-time exposure allowed to study the protection/ degradation mechanisms provided by this type of ceramic coatings. It was found that oxide nodules grow due to the presence of coating defect originated from substrate defects. Moreover, the higher Nb CrN/NbN coating slowly oxidizes, consuming the coating to a large extent after 12,650 h. As a result, protective oxides containing Cr and Nb are developed, remaining well attached to the substrate for at least the test duration, and preventing further substrate oxidation by steam. Interestingly, thin voids present in the as deposited coating self-heal by forming Cr rich oxides, which block steam to reach the substrate

Long-term behaviour of Nb and Cr nitrides nanostructured coatings under steam at 650°C. Mechanistic considerations.

There is an increasing demand for steam power plants to operate in super-critical conditions i.e. temperatures in excess of 600°C. Under these conditions creep resistant ferritic steels oxidize and therefore require coatings in order to last. Physical vapor deposition and especially High Power Impulse Magnetron Sputtering deposited CrN/NbN nano-scale multilayer coatings with a 2.45 Cr/Nb ratio showed excellent performance when exposed to 650 °C in pure steam environment up to 2,000 h. However the role of Nb in offering protection is unclear. In order to study the long term behaviour of this type of coatings as well as to determine the influence of Nb on their oxidation resistance, a CrN/NbN coating with a 1.16 Cr/Nb ratio was studied for 12,650 h. The coating is hard, well adhered and resistant to environmental corrosion, which are properties required in particular for coatings to be applied on turbine blades. The coating also protects P92 from steam oxidation at 650º C, however coating growth defects influence significantly the oxidation resistance. The long-time exposure allowed to study the protection/ degradation mechanisms provided by this type of ceramic coatings. It was found that oxide nodules grow due to the presence of coating defect originated from substrate defects. Moreover, the higher Nb CrN/NbN coating slowly oxidizes, consuming the coating to a large extent after 12,650 h. As a result, protective oxides containing Cr and Nb are developed, remaining well attached to the substrate for at least the test duration, and preventing further substrate oxidation by steam. Interestingly, thin voids present in the as deposited coating self-heal by forming Cr rich oxides, which block steam to reach the substrate

Experimental and theoretical investigation of the Leidenfrost dynamics of solid carbon dioxide discs sublimating on a solid substrate

Volatile liquid droplets levitate on a cushion of their vapor when placed on a hot solid substrate. While extensive research has focused on investigating this phenomenon, commonly known as the Leidenfrost effect in the context of liquids, it may also occur for solids whose triple point pressure is above normal ambient conditions. The present study experimentally and theoretically investigates the Leidenfrost effect for a disc-shaped dry ice pellet placed on a temperature-controlled hot sapphire substrate. The spatial and temporal evolution of the vapor layer thickness below the pellet is measured for varying substrate temperatures using optical coherence tomography (OCT). Simultaneously, the shrinkage of the sublimating dry ice pellet is recorded using video cameras. It is shown that the bottom surface of the pellet is approximately flat within the surface roughness and the resolution of the experimental setup. Intriguingly, this study reveals that the vapor layer thickness below a Leidenfrost solid increases with time in contrast to the dynamics observed for a Leidenfrost liquid droplet/puddle. Additionally, a theoretical model based on the lubrication approximation is employed to estimate the vapor layer thickness and the temporal evolution of the pellet's geometry. The theoretical predictions generally agree well with the measurements throughout the majority of the pellet's lifespan, with deviations observed towards the end of its sublimation due to the assumption of a constant pellet diameter in the model. Furthermore, the theoretical predictions reasonably represent the pellet's lifetime across a wide range of substrate temperatures, validating the predictive capabilities of the theoretical model in the present scenario.</p

Defect growth in multilayer chromium nitride/niobium nitride coatings produced by combined high power impulse magnetron sputtering and unbalance magnetron sputtering technique

In recent years, high power impulse magnetron sputtering (HIPIMS) has caught the attention of users due to its ability to produce dense coatings. However, microscopic studies have shown that HIPIMS deposited coatings can suffer from some surface imperfections even though the overall number of defects can be significantly lower compared to, for example, arc deposited coatings of similar thicknesses. Defects can degrade the coating performance thus any kind of defect is undesirable. To better understand the nature of these imperfections and the science of their formation, a series of Chromium Nitride/Niobium Nitride (CrN/NbN) coatings were deposited using HIPIMS technique combined with unbalanced magnetron sputtering (UBM) by varying deposition times (t = 15 to 120 minutes). All other deposition parameters were kept constant in order to deposit these coatings with a consistent deposition rate and stoichiometry. In addition, coatings were deposited using pure UBM technique to compare the defects generated by these two different physical vapour deposition approaches. High-resolution scanning electron microscopy images revealed that HIPIMS/UBM and pure UBM CrN/NbN coatings have similar types of defects which could be categorised as: nodular, open void, cone-like and pinhole. Interestingly, there was no evidence of droplet formation in HIPIMS/UBM deposited coatings. The defect density calculation indicated that the defect density of HIPIMS/UBM coatings increased (from 0.48 to 3.18%) with the coating thickness. A coating produced in a relatively clean chamber had a lower defect density. Potentiodynamic polarisation experiments showed that the fluctuation in corrosion currents in HIPIMS/UBM coatings reduced with the coating thickness. This indicated that though visible on the surface, most of these defects did not penetrate thorough the whole thickness of the coating