Numerical Analysis on the Optimisation of Thermal Comfort Levels in an Office Located inside a Historical Building

The present study examines the possibility of thermal comfort optimisation inside an office room where, due to historical heritage, it is possible to modify neither the energetic characteristic of the envelope nor the position of the inlet air vents. The distribution of global and local thermal comfort indices is evaluated in both heating and cooling conditions by establishing a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) model validated against experimental data. The obtained results demonstrate a striking asymmetry of the air velocity and temperature distribution due to the low energy efficiency of the building. In heating mode, the predicted mean vote (PMV) values were improved if the discharged air from the fan coil was at its maximal velocity. However, at the same time, the vertical air temperature gradient increased by around 0.5 C in each working station. In the cooling condition, in the absence of the solar radiation, the minimal air-flow rate satisfied the acceptable range of the draught rate (DR), whereas in the presence of a solar load, it could not meet the required cooling load in all positions, leading to higher floor temperature. The findings of this study allow for identifying and rearranging the optimal position of working stations in terms of thermal comfort

A Multi-Channel Low-Power System-on-Chip for in Vivo Recording and Wireless Transmission of Neural Spikes

This paper reports a multi-channel neural spike recording system-on-chip with digital data compression and wireless telemetry. The circuit consists of 16 amplifiers, an analog time-division multiplexer, a single 8 bit analog-to-digital converter, a digital signal compression unit and a wireless transmitter. Although only 16 amplifiers are integrated in our current die version, the whole system is designed to work with 64, demonstrating the feasibility of a digital processing and narrowband wireless transmission of 64 neural recording channels. Compression of the raw data is achieved by detecting the action potentials (APs) and storing 20 samples for each spike waveform. This compression method retains sufficiently high data quality to allow for single neuron identification (spike sorting). The 400 MHz transmitter employs a Manchester-Coded Frequency Shift Keying (MC-FSK) modulator with low modulation index. In this way, a 1.25 Mbit/s data rate is delivered within a limited band of about 3 MHz. The chip is realized in a 0.35 um AMS CMOS process featuring a 3 V power supply with an area of 3.1x 2.7 mm2. The achieved transmission range is over 10 m with an overall power consumption for 64 channels of 17.2 mW. This figure translates into a power budget of 269uW per channel, in line with published results but allowing a larger transmission distance and more efficient bandwidth occupation of the wireless link. The integrated circuit was mounted on a small and light board to be used during neuroscience experiments with freely-behaving rats. Powered by 2 AAA batteries, the system can continuously work for more than 100 hours allowing for long-lasting neural spike recordings

Field validation of radon monitoring as a screening methodology for NAPL-contaminated sites

Screening methodologies aim at improving knowledge about subsurface contamination processes before expensive intrusive operations, i.e. drilling and core-sampling, well installation and development, sampling of groundwater and free-phase product, are implemented. Blind field tests carried out at a hydrocarbon storage and distribution center in NE Spain suggest that Rn monitoring can be effectively used to locate the boundaries of subsurface accumulations of NAPLs. Sixty seven measurements of Rn in soil air were performed with a SARAD RTM 2100 current-ionization alpha-particle spectrometer following a 10 m square grid. Reductions of 222Rn concentration above a pool of LNAPL due to the preferential partition of Rn into the organic phase were spatially analyzed and resolved to yield the surface contour of the NAPL source zone. This surface trace of the source zone agreed well with the extent and situation inferred from measurements of free-phase thickness taken at eight monitoring wells at the site. Moreover, the good repeatability (as measured by replicate measurements at the same sampling point) and spatial resolution of the technique suggest that the boundaries of the plume can be delineated at the sub-decametre level

Hannes Prosthesis Control Based on Regression Machine Learning Algorithms

The quality of life for upper limb amputees can be greatly improved by the adoption of poly-articulated myoelectric prostheses. Typically, in these applications, a pattern recognition algorithm is used to control the system by converting the recorded electromyographic activity (EMG) into complex multi-degrees of freedom (DoFs) movements. However, there is currently a trade-off between the intuitiveness of the control and the number of active DoFs. We here address this challenge by performing simultaneous multi-joint control of the Hannes system and testing several state-of-the-art classifiers to decode hand and wrist movements. The algorithms discriminated multi-DoF movements from forearm EMG signals of 10 healthy subjects reproducing hand opening-closing, wrist flexion-extension and wrist pronation-supination. We first explored the effect of the number of employed EMG electrodes on device performance through the classifiers optimization in terms of F1Score. We further improved classifiers by tuning their respective hyperparameters in terms of the Embedding Optimization Factor. Finally, three mono-lateral amputees tested the optimized algorithms to intuitively and simultaneously control the Hannes system. We found that the algorithms performances were similar to that of healthy subjects, particularly identifying the Non-Linear Regression classifier as the ideal candidate for prosthetic applications

Combination antiretroviral therapy and duration of pregnancy

Objective: To assess the association between type and timing of initiation of antiretroviral therapy in pregnancy and duration of pregnancy. Design: Prospective study. Methods: Data on 3920 mother-child pairs were examined (3075 mother-child pairs from the European Collaborative Study and 905 from the Swiss Mother + Child HIV Cohort Study). Factors examined included gestational age, antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy, maternal CD4 count, viral load, illicit drug use (IDU) and mode of delivery. Deliveries at less than 37 weeks were defined as premature. Results: The prematurity rate was 17% and median gestational age 39 weeks. Twenty-three per cent (896 of 3920) of women received antiretroviral therapy during pregnancy: 64% (573 of 896) zidovudine monotherapy, 24% (215) combination therapy without protease inhibitors (PI) and 12% (108) combination therapy with PI. In multivariate analysis, adjusted for maternal CD4 count and IDU, odds ratio (OR) of prematurity was 2.60 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.43-4.75] and 1.82 (95% CI, 1.13-2.92) for infants exposed to combination therapy with and without a PI, respectively, compared to no treatment. Exposure to monotherapy was not associated with prematurity, but severe immunosuppression and IDU in pregnancy were. Women on combination therapy from before pregnancy were twice as likely to deliver prematurely as those starting therapy in the third trimester (OR, 2.17; 95% Cl, 1.034.58). Conclusions: Pregnancy issues should be discussed when making decisions about initiation of combination antiretroviral therapy for HIV-infected women. Elective caesarean section to reduce vertical transmission at 36 weeks rather than 38 weeks may be advisable in women on combination therapy with PI

Prognostic value of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin I early after coronary artery bypass graft surgery

Background: The diagnosis of periprocedural myocardial infarction (PMI) after coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) is based on biochemical markers along with clinical and instrumental findings. However, there is not a clear cutoff value of high-sensitivity cardiac troponin (hs-cTn) to identify PMI. We hypothesized that isolated hs-cTn concentrations in the first 24 h following CABG could predict cardiac adverse events (in-hospital death and PMI) and/or left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) decrease. Methods: We retrospectively enrolled all consecutive adult patients undergoing CABG, alone or in association with other cardiac surgery procedures, over 1 year. Hs-cTn I concentrations (Access, Beckman Coulter) were serially measured in the post-operative period and analyzed according to post-operative outcomes. Results: 300 patients were enrolled; 71.3% underwent CABG alone, 33.7% for acute coronary syndrome. Most patients showed hs-cTn I values superior to the limit required by the latest guidelines for the diagnosis of PMI. Five patients (1.7%) died, 8% developed a PMI, 10.6% showed a LVEF decrease ≥ 10%. Hs-cTn I concentrations did not significantly differ with respect to death and/or PMI whereas they were associated with LVEF decrease ≥ 10% (p value < 0.005 at any time interval), in particular hs-cTn I values at 9–12 h post-operatively. A hs-cTn I cutoff of 5556 ng/L, a value 281 (for males) and 479 (for females) times higher than the URL, at 9–12 h post-operatively was identified, representing the best balance between sensitivity (55%) and specificity (79%) in predicting LVEF decrease ≥ 10%. Conclusions: Hs-cTn I at 9–12 h post-CABG may be useful to early identify patients at risk for LVEF decrease and to guide early investigation and management of possible post-operative complications

Persistence of antibody responses to the sars-cov-2 in dialysis patients and renal transplant recipients recovered from covid-19

Nephropathic subjects with impaired immune responses show dramatically high infection rates of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This work evaluated the ability to acquire and maintain protective antibodies over time in 26 hemodialysis patients and 21 kidney transplant recipients. The subjects were followed-up through quantitative determination of circulating SARS-CoV-2 S1/S2 IgG and neutralizing antibodies in the 6-month period after clinical and laboratory recovery. A group of 143 healthcare workers with no underlying chronic pathologies or renal diseases recovered from COVID was also evaluated. In both dialysis and transplanted patients, antibody titers reached a zenith around the 3rd month, and then a decline occurred on average between the 270th and 300th day. Immunocompromised patients who lost antibodies around the 6th month were more common than non-renal subjects, although the difference was not significant (38.5% vs. 26.6%). Considering the decay of antibody levels below the positivity threshold (15 AU/mL) as “failure”, a progressive loss of immunisation was found in the overall population starting 6 months after recovery. A longer overall antibody persistence was observed in severe forms of COVID-19 (p = 0.0183), but within each group, given the small number of patients, the difference was not significant (dialysis: p = 0.0702; transplant: p = 0.1899). These data suggest that immunocompromised renal patients recovered from COVID-19 have weakened and heterogeneous humoral responses that tend to decay over time. Despite interindividual variability, an association emerged between antibody persistence and clinical severity, similar to the subjects with preserved immune function

New data on OZI rule violation in bar{p}p annihilation at rest

The results of a measurement of the ratio R = Y(phi pi+ pi-) / Y(omega pi+ pi-) for antiproton annihilation at rest in a gaseous and in a liquid hydrogen target are presented. It was found that the value of this ratio increases with the decreasing of the dipion mass, which demonstrates the difference in the phi and omega production mechanisms. An indication on the momentum transfer dependence of the apparent OZI rule violation for phi production from the 3S1 initial state was found.Comment: 11 pages, 3 PostScript figures, submitted to Physics Letter

Measurements of the reaction pˉp→ϕη\bar{p}p \to \phi \eta of antiproton annihilation at rest at three hydrogen target densities

The proton-antiproton annihilation at rest into the $\phi\eta$ final state was measured for three different target densities: liquid hydrogen, gaseous hydrogen at NTP and at a low pressure of 5 mbar. The yield of this reaction in the liquid hydrogen target is smaller than in the low-pressure gas target. The branching ratios of the $\phi\eta$ channel were calculated on the basis of simultaneous analysis of the three data samples. The branching ratio for annihilation into $\phi\eta$ from the $^3S_1$ protonium state turns out to be about ten times smaller as compared to the one from the $^1P_1$ state.Comment: 10 pages, 3 Postscript figures. Accepted by Physics Letters

Measurement of the cross-section and charge asymmetry of WW bosons produced in proton-proton collisions at s=8\sqrt{s}=8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents measurements of the $W^+ \rightarrow \mu^+\nu$ and $W^- \rightarrow \mu^-\nu$ cross-sections and the associated charge asymmetry as a function of the absolute pseudorapidity of the decay muon. The data were collected in proton--proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC and correspond to a total integrated luminosity of 20.2~\mbox{fb^{-1}}. The precision of the cross-section measurements varies between 0.8% to 1.5% as a function of the pseudorapidity, excluding the 1.9% uncertainty on the integrated luminosity. The charge asymmetry is measured with an uncertainty between 0.002 and 0.003. The results are compared with predictions based on next-to-next-to-leading-order calculations with various parton distribution functions and have the sensitivity to discriminate between them.Comment: 38 pages in total, author list starting page 22, 5 figures, 4 tables, submitted to EPJC. All figures including auxiliary figures are available at https://atlas.web.cern.ch/Atlas/GROUPS/PHYSICS/PAPERS/STDM-2017-13