Content aware delivery of visual attention based scalable multi-view video over P2P

3D media applications have become widespread thanks to the intense research being conducted on 3D enabling technologies, commercial products being released and service providers. There is also a huge potential for IP network to become a major means for delivering 3D video services, being highly flexible and allowing much custom and scalable applications to take up. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) video streaming, which offers high scalability in the presence of many media consuming peers, is suitable for multi-view video applications with significantly higher bandwidth requirements. To exploit flexible streaming and also serve a range of displays, P2P networking should be combined with scalable coded multi-view video that offers a useful bit-rate and maximum viewpoint adaptation range. However, since maintaining users' Quality of Experience (QoE) is a primary target, scalable coded video should ensure that perceptually sensible visual data is delivered with high accuracy at all times to users, even under severe network conditions. Hence, content-based visual attention models provide a suitable means for letting salient video data be delivered at all times to users. With the utilization of appropriate adaptation decision making process in users' equipment, the P2P protocol can adaptively stream the scalable 3D media. Work presented in this paper explains such a delivery framework over P2P networks. © 2012 IEEE

The relationship between the severity of coronary artery disease and skin measurement parameters

Purpose This study aimed to investigate the relationship between skin parameters and CAD. Materials and Methods The study included 50 patients diagnosed with coronary artery disease as the patient group and 45 volunteers without any known coronary artery disease as the control group. The participants' skin TEWL, pH, temperature, electrical capacitance, sebum, and elasticity values were measured using noninvasive methods at the forehead, back, and forearm. Findings Skin temperature was significantly higher in the back and forehead regions in the patient group. No difference was found between the sebum values of the patient and control groups at the back and forehead. A significantly higher result was obtained for the forearm area. The pH was significantly lower in the patients' forearm, although the obtained values were within the normal range. The TEWL was significantly higher in patients in all three regions. In terms of flexibility, R2 was significantly higher in the back and forehead regions of the patient group, and the R6 was significantly higher in the patient group in all three regions. In addition, there was no correlation between skin parameter and SYNTAX score increase measurements. Conclusion It can be suggested that skin sebum and TEWL measurements can be accepted as cheap and noninvasive methods of predicting CAD

Predictive power of diastolic parameters on medical cardioversion success in acute atrial fibrillation

Background: Diastolic function assessment has been reported to provide valuable data in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of diastolic parameters on predicting the effectiveness of medical cardioversion in restoring sinus rhythm among patients with acute AF. Methods: 40 non-valvular, new onset AF patients were included. All participants received an intravenous infusion of amiodarone. In patients whom sinus rhythm could not be restored with amiodarone, an electrical cardioversion was performed. Two groups, patients who achieved sinus rhythm with amiodarone (Group-1) and who failed to achieve sinus rhythm with amiodarone (Group-2) were compared with respect to initial echocardiographic measurements. Results: Group-1 patients were younger comparing with Group-2 (mean age; 54.4 +/- 13.9 years vs 63.3 +/- 10.3 years, p = 0.028). Comparing with Group-1, Group-2 patients had; a higher left atrium volume index (17.1 +/- 4.8 cm(3)/ m(2) vs 22.6 +/- 6.6 cm(3)/ m(2), p = 0.03); a shorter pulmonary vein S (49.6 +/- 3.8 cm/sec vs 41.1 +/- 3.0 cm/sec, p < 0.001); and a shorter pulmonary vein D peak velocity (55.9 +/- 2.4 cm/sec vs 52.3 +/- 1.8 cm/sec, p < 0.001). Moreover, both IVRT and DT were significantly shorter in Group-2, comparing with Group-1 (45.1 +/- 2.1 msec vs 51.1 +/- 2.5 msec, p < 0.001 and 51.3 +/- 2.4 msec vs 56.5 +/- 3.2 msec, p < 0.001, respectively). Conclusion: The present study revealed that admission pulmonary vein S and D wave peak velocities, IVRT, DT, and Pro-BNP levels could be predictors of failure of medical cardioversion among AF patients

Association of Red Blood Cell Distribution Width Levels with Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients with Non-ST Elevation Myocardial Infarction

Objectives: The aim of this study was to evaluate the association of the levels of red blood cell distribution width (RDW) with the severity of atherosclerosis and to determine whether or not the RDW level on admission is an independent predictor of all-cause mortality in patients with non-ST elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). Materials and Methods: A total of 335 consecutive patients with NSTEMI were enrolled in this study. The patients were divided into high (n = 105) and low (n = 230) SYNTAX groups. The high SYNTAX group was defined as patients with a value in the third tertile (SYNTAX score, SXscore >= 12), while the low SYNTAX group was defined as those with a value in the lower 2 tertiles (SXscore < 12). The high RDW group (n = 152) was defined as patients with RDW <= 14.25% and the low RDW group (n = 183) as those with RDW = 14.25%. All-cause mortality was followed up to 38 months. Results: The mean follow-up period was 18 +/- 11 months. The RDW levels of patients were significantly higher in the high SYNTAX group than in the low SYNTAX group (15.2 +/- 1.8 vs. 14.2 +/- 1.2, p < 0.001). Pearson's coefficients were used to determine the degree of association between RDW levels and SXscore and also between RDW levels and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. There was a significant correlation between RDW levels and SXscore (r = 0.460, p < 0.001). Also, there was a significant correlation between RDW levels and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (r = 0.180, p = 0.001). All-cause mortality rate was not significantly different between the high and low RDW groups (log-rank, p = 0.621). Conclusion: RDW levels were independently associated with high SXscore but were not associated with long-term mortality in NSTEMI patients. (C) 2014 S. Karger AG, Base

Adaptive streaming of multi-view video over P2P networks

In this paper, we propose a novel solution for the adaptive streaming of 3D representations in the form of multi-view video by utilizing P2 Poverlay networks to assist the media delivery and minimize the bandwidth requirement at the server side. Adaptation to diverse network conditions is performed regarding the features of human perception to maximize the perceived 3D. We have performed subjective tests to characterize these features and determined the best adaptation method to achieve the highest possible perceived quality. Moreover, we provide a novel method for mapping from scalable video elementary stream to torrent-liked at a chunks for adaptive video streaming and provide an optimized windowing mechanism that ensures timely delivery of the content over yanlıs gibi. The paper also describes techniques generating scalable video chunks and methods for determining system parameters such as chunksize and window length

Relation Between Serum Total Bilirubin Levels and Severity of Coronary Artery Disease in Patients With Non-ST-Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction

We studied 403 consecutive patients with non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI). This population was divided into tertiles according to the SYNTAX score (SXscore). The high SXscore group was defined as an SXscore >= 13, and the low SXscore group as an SXscore < 13. The total bilirubin (sTB) and direct bilirubin levels of patients were significantly higher in the high SXscore group (P = .001 and P = .007, respectively). There was a correlation between sTB and SXscore (r = .495; P = .005). On multivariate linear regression analyses, age (beta = .100; P = .041), sTB levels (beta = .171; P = .005), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (beta = .121; P = .014), and troponin-I (beta = .124; P = .011) remained independent correlates of high SXscore. The mean follow-up period was 18.2 months. All-cause mortality rate was higher in the high SXscore group but did not reach significance (P = .058). In conclusion, high sTB level is independently associated with severity of coronary artery disease in patients with NSTEMI. However, no association was found with long-term mortality