Microwave System for the Early Stage Detection of Congestive Heart Failure

Fluid accumulation inside the lungs, known as cardiac pulmonary edema, is one of the main early symptoms of congestive heart failure (CHF). That accumulation causes significant changes in the electrical properties of the lung tissues, which in turn can be detected using microwave techniques. To that end, the design and implementation of an automated ultrahigh-frequency microwave-based system for CHF detection and monitoring is presented. The hardware of the system consists of a wideband folded antenna attached to a fully automated vertical scanning platform, compact microwave transceiver, and laptop. The system includes software in the form of operational control, signal processing, and visualizing algorithms. To detect CHF, the system is designed to vertically scan the rear side of the human torso in a monostatic radar approach. The collected data from the scanning is then visualized in the time domain using the inverse Fourier transform. These images show the intensity of the reflected signals from different parts of the torso. Using a differential based detection technique, a threshold is defined to differentiate between healthy and unhealthy cases. This paper includes details of developing the automated platform, designing the antenna with the required properties imposed by the system, developing a signal processing algorithm, and introducing differential detection technique besides investigating miscellaneous probable CHF cases

Reducing the risk of VWAP orders execution: A new approach to modelling intra-day volume

In an era of increasing competition in financial services, financial institutions are spending more resources on broadening the array and reducing the price of products offered to clients. This also applies to broking houses, which have a vital interest in reducing costs associated with the execution of their clients’ orders. This paper presents a technique that aims to reduce the execution risk of VWAP (Volume Weighted Average Price) orders, which are orders to buy or sell a certain amount of a stock during the specified period at the VWAP. VWAP is calculated by dividing the value of trades by the volume over a specified period

Biologically relevant oxidants and terminology, classification and nomenclature of oxidatively generated damage to nucleobases and 2-deoxyribose in nucleic acids

A broad scientific community is involved in investigations aimed at delineating the mechanisms of formation and cellular processing of oxidatively generated damage to nucleic acids. Perhaps as a consequence of this breadth of research expertise, there are nomenclature problems for several of the oxidized bases including 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanine (8-oxoGua), a ubiquitous marker of almost every type of oxidative stress in cells. Efforts to standardize the nomenclature and abbreviations of the main DNA degradation products that arise from oxidative pathways are reported. Information is also provided on the main oxidative radicals, non-radical oxygen species, one-electron agents and enzymes involved in DNA degradation pathways as well in their targets and reactivity. A brief classification of oxidatively generated damage to DNA that may involve single modifications, tandem base modifications, intrastrand and interstrand cross-links together with DNA-protein cross-links and base adducts arising from the addition of lipid peroxides breakdown products is also included

PI controller tuning for load disturbance rejection using constrained optimization

© 2016, Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg. In this paper, a simple and effective PI controller tuning method is presented. To take both performance requirements and robustness issues into consideration, the design technique is based on optimization of load disturbance rejection with a constraint either on the gain margin or phase margin. In addition, a simplified form of the resulting tuning formulae is obtained for first order plus dead time models. To demonstrate the ability of the proposed tuning technique in dealing with a wide range of plants, simulation results for several examples, including integrating, non-minimum phase and long dead time models, are provided

Influence of Edge Effects on Laser-Induced Surface Displacement of Opaque Materials by Photothermal Interferometry

We demonstrate the influence of edge effects on the photothermal-induced phase shift measured by a homodyne quadrature laser interferometer and compare the experiments with rigorous theoretical descriptions of thermoelastic surface displacement of metals. The finite geometry of the samples is crucial in determining how the temperature is distributed across the material and how this affects the interferometer phase shift measurements. The optical path change due to the surface thermoelastic deformation and thermal lens in the surrounding air is decoded from the interferometric signal using analytical and numerical tools. The boundary/edge effects are found to be relevant to properly describe the interferometric signals. The tools developed in this study provide a framework for the study of finite size effects in heat transport in opaque materials and are applicable to describe not only the phase shift sensed by the interferometer but also to contribute to the photothermal-based technologies employing similar detection mechanisms

METSTOR: A GIS to look for potential CO2 storage zones in France

AbstractThe METSTOR project offers a methodology to look for potentially interesting CO2 storage areas in France at the initial stage, before the “site selection” step. Our tool, embodied in a Geographic Information System, is based on an interactive map of CO2 storage capacities. Other relevant information layers are included. The geographic layers are complemented with a series of online technical notices. It seems to be the first open online GIS that offers policy makers, businesses and the public at large an integrated access to that necessary information. Our prototype, limited mainly to the Paris Basin, is released online at www.metstor.fr

Technical Design Report for the PANDA Solenoid and Dipole Spectrometer Magnets

This document is the Technical Design Report covering the two large spectrometer magnets of the PANDA detector set-up. It shows the conceptual design of the magnets and their anticipated performance. It precedes the tender and procurement of the magnets and, hence, is subject to possible modifications arising during this process.Comment: 10 pages, 14MB, accepted by FAIR STI in May 2009, editors: Inti Lehmann (chair), Andrea Bersani, Yuri Lobanov, Jost Luehning, Jerzy Smyrski, Technical Coordiantor: Lars Schmitt, Bernd Lewandowski (deputy), Spokespersons: Ulrich Wiedner, Paola Gianotti (deputy