1,631 research outputs found
Low Resistance Polycrystalline Diamond Thin Films Deposited by Hot Filament Chemical Vapour Deposition
Polycrystalline diamond thin films with outgrowing diamond (OGD) grains were deposited onto silicon wafers using a hydrocarbon gas (CH4) highly diluted with H2 at low pressure in a hot filament chemical vapour deposition (HFCVD) reactor with a range of gas flow rates. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM showed polycrystalline diamond structure with a random orientation. Polycrystalline diamond films with various textures were grown and (111) facets were dominant with sharp grain boundaries. Outgrowth was observed in flowerish character at high gas flow rates. Isolated single crystals with little openings appeared at various stages at low gas flow rates. Thus, changing gas flow rates had a beneficial influence on the grain size, growth rate and electrical resistivity. CVD diamond films gave an excellent performance for medium film thickness with relatively low electrical resistivity and making them potentially useful in many industrial applications
Use of moxibustion to treat primary dysmenorrhea at two interventional times: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
published_or_final_versio
Mild to moderate influenza A(H7N9) infections detected through China’s national influenza-like Illness sentinel surveillance system
Poster Session: News and Views from the H7N9 OutbreakBackground: The “clinical iceberg” phenomenon, where there are usually many more infected cases
than is apparent symptomatically and even less so registered in the clinical setting, is a common
feature of influenza disease. While this is certainly true for interpandemic influenza and the 2009
influenza A(H1N1) pandemic, this appeared to be less substantial for the Dutch A(H7N7) outbreak,
and with A(H5N1) being an acknowledged exception. It remains unknown whether the “iceberg”
applies to the influenza A(H7N9) virus that emerged in early 2013 in China. While the majority of
laboratory-confirmed A(H7N9) cases presented with a severe clinical picture to a hospital, a small
number of laboratory-confirmed cases have been identified through the sentinel influenza-like illness
(ILI) surveillance system nationwide. The objective of our study was to describe the clinical
characteristics of the complete case series of A(H7N9) cases as of May 15, 2013, that were identified
through routine testing by the ILI sentinel surveillance system. Materials and Methods: ILI sentinel
surveillance in China is conducted through a network of 554 hospitals across the country, with the
total number of outpatient and/or emergency department visits and the number of patients fitting the
WHO standard ILI case definition reported weekly online to the China CDC, and 10-15
nasopharyngeal swabs collected from ILI patients each week for routine laboratory testing and
subtyping. All A(H7N9) cases detected through the ILI surveillance system by May 15, 2013, were
identified by cross-referencing the laboratory-confirmed A(H7N9) line list with the routine sentinel ILI
surveillance system. Demographic and epidemiologic data were extracted from field investigation
records, and clinical and laboratory data were obtained from medical chart review. Results: Five
(3.8%) of a total of 130 laboratory-confirmed influenza A(H7N9) cases reported as of May 28, 2013,
were detected through the routine ILI surveillance system. Four (80%) of them were male. Mean age
was 13 (range = 2-26) years and none had any underlying medical condition. Exposure history,
geographic location and timing of symptom onset were otherwise similar to the general cohort of all
laboratory-confirmed cases to date. All patients experienced only mild or moderate disease with an
uneventful course of recovery. Among them three (60%) were managed only as outpatients and all
quickly recovered after 3-5 days, with nasopharyngeal swabs tested positive for A(H7N9) only after
their full recovery. Two patients (40%) were hospitalized for treatment. One was a 4-year-old child
from Shanghai who presented initially as an outpatient with fever and mild rhinorrhea to a routine
sentinel clinic, and was admitted on the next day for oseltamivir treatment after his nasopharyngeal
swab was tested positive for A(H7N9). The other was a 26-year-old man from Jiangsu who presented
initially with fever and productive cough to a sentinel clinic, being given ceftazidime without
improvement. He was admitted 4 days later with radiologic evidence of left-sided pneumonia, and
started on oseltamivir and moxifloxacin. Both remained clinically stable with quick resolution of
symptoms within 10 days. Conclusions: Our complete case series of A(H7N9) cases detected through
the routine ILI surveillance system provide contrasting clinical presentations to the generally much
more severe clinical picture of the majority of laboratory-confirmed A(H7N9) cases detected otherwise.
Our findings provide indirect evidence of a substantial proportion of mild disease and support the
existence of a “clinical iceberg” phenomenon in influenza A(H7N9) infections. For the clinician, our
findings reinforce vigilance to the diverse presentation that can be associated with influenza A(H7N9)
virus infections. Our results also suggest that large-scale community surveillance networks can be
useful as a population-based sampling tool to enhance understanding of the full spectrum of disease,
especially in the early phase of an evolving epidemic.published_or_final_versio
The Performance of SLNR Beamformers in Multi-User MIMO Systems
YesBeamforming in multi-user MIMO (MU-MIMO) systems is
a vital part of modern wireless communication systems. Researchers
looking for best operational performance normally optimize the problem
and then solve for best weight solutions. The weight optimization
problem contains variables in numerator and dominator: this leads to
so-called variable coupling, making the problem hard to solve. Formulating
the optimization in terms of the signal to leakage and noise ratio
(SLNR) helps in decoupling the problem variables. In this paper we
study the performance of the SLNR with variable numbers of users and
handset antennas. The results show that there is an optimum and the capacity
curve is a concave over these two parameters. The performances
of two further variations of this method are also considered
Energy and performance trade-off optimization in heterogeneous computing via reinforcement learning
This paper suggests an optimisation approach in heterogeneous computing systems to balance energy power consumption and efficiency. The work proposes a power measurement utility for a reinforcement learning (PMU-RL) algorithm to dynamically adjust the resource utilisation of heterogeneous platforms in order to minimise power consumption. A reinforcement learning(RL) technique is applied to analyse and optimise the resource utilisation of field programmable gate array (FPGA) control state capabilities, which is built for a simulation environment with aXilinx ZYNQ multi-processor systems-on-chip (MPSoC) board. In this study, the balance operation mode for improving power consumption and performance is established to dynamically change the programmable logic (PL) end work state. It is based on an RL algorithm that can quickly discover the optimization effect of PL on different workloads to improve energy efficiency. The results demonstrate a substantial reduction of 18% in energy consumption without affecting the application’s performance. Thus, the proposed PMU-RL technique has the potential to be considered for other heterogeneous computing platforms
Detection of mild to moderate influenza A/H7N9 infection by China's national sentinel surveillance system for influenza-like illness: case series
published_or_final_versio
Gastric Lavage in Acute Organophosphorus Pesticide poisoning (GLAOP) – a randomised controlled trial of multiple vs. single gastric lavage in unselected acute organophosphorus pesticide poisoning
BACKGROUND: Organophosphorus (OP) pesticide poisoning is the most common form of pesticide poisoning in many Asian countries. Guidelines in western countries for management of poisoning indicate that gastric lavage should be performed only if two criteria are met: within one hour of poison ingestion and substantial ingested amount. But the evidence on which these guidelines are based is from medicine overdoses in developed countries and may be irrelevant to OP poisoning in Asia. Chinese clinical experience suggests that OP remains in the stomach for several hours or even days after ingestion. Thus, there may be reasons for doing single or multiple gastric lavages for OP poisoning. There have been no randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to assess this practice of multiple lavages. Since it is currently standard therapy in China, we cannot perform a RCT of no lavage vs. a single lavage vs. multiple lavages. We will compare a single gastric lavage with three gastric lavages as the first stage to assess the role of gastric lavage in OP poisoning. METHODS/DESIGN: We have designed an RCT assessing the effectiveness of multiple gastric lavages in adult OP self-poisoning patients admitted to three Chinese hospitals within 12 hrs of ingestion. Patients will be randomised to standard treatment plus either a single gastric lavage on admission or three gastric lavages at four hour intervals. The primary outcome is in-hospital mortality. Analysis will be on an intention-to-treat basis. On the basis of the historical incidence of OP at the study sites, we expect to enroll 908 patients over three years. This projected sample size provides sufficient power to evaluate the death rate; and a variety of other exposure and outcome variables, including particular OPs and ingestion time. Changes of OP level will be analyzed in order to provide some toxic kinetic data. DISCUSSION: the GLAOP study is a novel, prospective cohort study that will explore to the toxic kinetics of OP and effects of gastric lavage on it. Given the poor information about the impact of gastric lavage on clinical outcomes for OP patients, this study can provide important information to inform clinical practice
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