430 research outputs found
BIM in teaching — lessons learned from exploratory study
Building Information Technology bears promise to bring
integration into fragmented AEC industry, as well as large
potentials for optimization and management of building performance
along life cycle. However, the adoption in Central
Europe is much slower than in the USA or Scandinavia; the
designers and planners are sceptical about BIM benefits. In
order to build up capabilities and thus support BIM adoption
in the practice, BIM skills have be built up already in university
teaching. This endeavour is the central aim of the BIM_sustain
project accomplished at the Vienna University of Technology.
In winter term 2012/13 and winter term 2013/14 we accomplished
interdisciplinary BIM-supported design labs with
student participants from architecture, civil engineering and
building science. The teams used different modelling and simulation
software constellations for building design and analysis.
The software-constellations were evaluated in terms of BIMinteroperability,
and the design process was documented by
means of time and activity assessment, surveys on team performance,
process satisfaction and technology acceptance and
focus group interviews. In this paper we will present the results
of the evaluation of both courses and analyse the differences
resulting from the different course design in the two consequent
terms. The first course was dominated by the issue of
interfaces, whereas the second course, where better functioning
software combinations in terms of data transfer were used,
was dominated by the issues related to the collaboration and
teamwork. Our results are not only informative for the configuration
of interdisciplinary BIM-supported university teaching,
but can be derived for the practice as well, especially in the
areas of project management, software usage, modelling conventions
or incentive systems
A microfluidic approach to rapid sperm recovery from heterogeneous cell suspensions
The isolation of sperm cells from background cell populations and debris is an essential step in all assisted reproductive technologies. Conventional techniques for sperm recovery from testicular sperm extractions stagnate at the sample processing stage, where it can take several hours to identify viable sperm from a background of collateral cells such as white bloods cells (WBCs), red blood cells (RBCs), epithelial cells (ECs) and in some cases cancer cells. Manual identification of sperm from contaminating cells and debris is a tedious and time-consuming operation that can be suitably addressed through inertial microfluidics. Microfluidics has proven an effective technology for high-quality sperm selection based on motility. However, motility-based selection methods cannot cater for viable, non-motile sperm often present in testicular or epididymal sperm extractions and aspirations. This study demonstrates the use of a 3D printed inertial microfluidic device for the separation of sperm cells from a mixed suspension of WBCs, RBCs, ECs, and leukemic cancer cells. This technology presents a 36-fold time improvement for the recovery of sperm cells (> 96%) by separating sperm, RBCS, WBCs, ECs and cancer cells into tight bands in less than 5 min. Furthermore, microfluidic processing of sperm has no impact on sperm parameters; vitality, motility, morphology, or DNA fragmentation of sperm. Applying inertial microfluidics for non-motile sperm recovery can greatly improve the current processing procedure of testicular sperm extractions, simplifying the fertility outcomes for severe forms of male infertility that warrant the surgery
Color-accurate underwater imaging using perceptual adaptive illumination
Capturing color in water is challenging due to the heavy non-uniform attenuation of light in water across the visible spectrum, which results in dramatic hue shifts toward blue. Yet observing color in water is important for monitoring and surveillance as well as marine biology studies related to species identification, individual and group behavior, and ecosystem health and activity monitoring. Underwater robots are equipped with motor control for large scale transects but they lack sensors that enable capturing color-accurate underwater images. We present a method for color-accurate imaging in water called perceptual adaptive illumination. This method dynamically mixes
the illumination of an object in a distance-dependent way using a controllable multi-color light source. The color mix compensates correctly for color loss and results in an image
whose color composition is equivalent to rendering the object in air. Experiments were conducted with a color palette in the pool and at three different coral reefs sites, and with an underwater
robot collecting image data with the new sensor.United States. Office of Naval Research (Project N000140911051
Scattering of slow-light gap solitons with charges in a two-level medium
The Maxwell-Bloch system describes a quantum two-level medium interacting
with a classical electromagnetic field by mediation of the the population
density. This population density variation is a purely quantum effect which is
actually at the very origin of nonlinearity. The resulting nonlinear coupling
possesses particularly interesting consequences at the resonance (when the
frequency of the excitation is close to the transition frequency of the
two-level medium) as e.g. slow-light gap solitons that result from the
nonlinear instability of the evanescent wave at the boundary. As nonlinearity
couples the different polarizations of the electromagnetic field, the
slow-light gap soliton is shown to experience effective scattering whith
charges in the medium, allowing it for instance to be trapped or reflected.
This scattering process is understood qualitatively as being governed by a
nonlinear Schroedinger model in an external potential related to the charges
(the electrostatic permanent background component of the field).Comment: RevTex, 14 pages with 5 figures, to appear in J. Phys. A: Math. Theo
Clinical characteristics and patient-reported outcomes in patients with inadequately controlled rheumatoid arthritis despite ongoing treatment
Background Despite the wide array of treatments available for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), some patients continue to report unmet clinical needs. We investigated the extent of inadequate disease control in patients with RA. Methods Data were drawn from the Adelphi 2014 RA Disease-Specific Program in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK. Rheumatologists provided patient demographics, comorbidities, satisfaction with RA control and other clinical details. Patients reported their level of satisfaction and completed the EuroQoL 5-Dimensions Health Questionnaire and Work Productivity and Activity Impairment Questionnaire. Patients had been on their current therapy 653 months and had 28-joint disease activity scores (DAS28) reported. Adequately controlled (DAS28 643.2) and inadequately controlled (DAS28 >3.2) patient cohorts were compared using univariate tests. Results Of 1147 patients, 74% were women, the mean age was 52 years and the mean time since RA diagnosis was 7 years. Twenty-seven percent of patients had inadequately controlled RA, whereas 73% had adequately controlled RA. Inadequately controlled patients were more affected clinically versus adequately controlled patients; 69% vs 13% had moderate/severe RA, the current level of pain was 4.6 vs 2.3, and 67% vs 41% experienced flares, respectively (all p<0.0001). Inadequately controlled patients had higher rates of depression (16% vs 5%; p<0.0001), worse health state, greater work and activity impairment, and lower satisfaction rates among the patients and their physicians than the adequately controlled cohort. Conclusion RA was insufficiently controlled in over a quarter of patients despite their current therapy and this had a negative impact on the patients
Are N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric quantum mechanics equivalent?
After recalling different formulations of the definition of supersymmetric
quantum mechanics given in the literature, we discuss the relationships between
them in order to provide an answer to the question raised in the title.Comment: 15 page
The Arabidopsis thaliana-Alternaria brassicicola pathosystem: A model interaction for investigating seed transmission of necrotrophic fungi
Seed transmission constitutes a major component of the parasitic cycle for several fungal pathogens. However, very little is known concerning fungal or plant genetic factors that impact seed transmission and mechanisms underlying this key biological trait have yet to be clarified. Such lack of available data could be probably explained by the absence of suitable model pathosystem to study plant-fungus interactions during the plant reproductive phase
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