Die SLICOT-Toolboxen für MatlabThe SLICOT Toolboxes for Matlab

SLICOT ist eine umfangreiche Softwarebibliothek zur numerischen Behandlung von Fragestellungen aus der System- und Regelungstheorie, die mit dem Ziel entwickelt wurde, hohe Leistungsfähigkeit mit Robustheit, Verlässlichkeit, sowie Benutzerfreundlichkeit zu vereinen. Dies wird mittels einer Kombination von Fortran-Kernroutinen und Matlab- bzw. Scilab-Schnittstellen erreicht. In dieser Übersicht soll der Funktionsumfang der folgenden SLICOT-Toolboxen beschrieben und erläutert werden: (1) Grundaufgaben der System- und Regelungstheorie, (2) Systemidentifizierung, (3) Modell- und Reglerreduktion. Der Einsatz der Toolboxen in der Praxis wird durch verschiedene Beispiele veranschaulich

Power-efficiency enhanced thermally tunable Bragg grating for silica-on-silicon photonics

A thermally tunable Bragg grating device has been fabricated in a silica-on-silicon integrated optical chip, incorporating a suspended microbeam improving power efficiency. A waveguide and Bragg grating are defined through the middle of the microbeam via direct ultraviolet writing. A tuning range of 0.4 nm (50 GHz) is demonstrated at the telecommunication wavelength of 1550 nm. Power consumption during wavelength tuning is measured at 45 pm/mW, which is a factor of 90 better than reported values for similar bulk thermally tuned silica-on-silicon planar devices. The response time to a step change in heating is longer by a similar factor, as expected for a highly power-efficient device. The fabrication procedure involves a deep micromilling process, as well as wet etching and metal deposition. With this response, the device would be suitable for trimming applications and wherever low modulation frequencies are acceptable. A four-point-probe-based temperature measurement was also done to ascertain the temperature reached during tuning and found an average volume temperature of 48 °C, corresponding to 0.4 nm of tuning. The role of stress-induced buckling in device fabrication is included

Direct grating writing: single-step Bragg grating and waveguide fabrication for telecommunications and sensing applications

Direct Grating Writing (DGW) has been developed over the past decade as a means of rapidly prototyping waveguides with integrated Bragg grating structures in silica-on-silicon substrates [1]. The technique allows complicated waveguide structures and Bragg grating arrays to be fabricated and characterised in house

EZH2-dependent chromatin looping controls INK4a and INK4b, but not ARF, during human progenitor cell differentiation and cellular senescence

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The <it>INK4b-ARF-INK4a </it>tumour suppressor locus controls the balance between progenitor cell renewal and cancer. In this study, we investigated how higher-order chromatin structure modulates differential expression of the human <it>INK4b-ARF-INK4a </it>locus during progenitor cell differentiation, cellular ageing and senescence of cancer cells.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We found that <it>INK4b </it>and <it>INK4a</it>, but not <it>ARF</it>, are upregulated following the differentiation of haematopoietic progenitor cells, in ageing fibroblasts and in senescing malignant rhabdoid tumour cells. To investigate the underlying molecular mechanism we analysed binding of polycomb group (PcG) repressive complexes (PRCs) and the spatial organization of the <it>INK4b-ARF-INK4a </it>locus. In agreement with differential derepression, PcG protein binding across the locus is discontinuous. As we described earlier, PcG repressors bind the INK4a promoter, but not ARF. Here, we identified a second peak of PcG binding that is located ~3 kb upstream of the <it>INK4b </it>promoter. During progenitor cell differentiation and ageing, PcG silencer EZH2 attenuates, causing loss of PRC binding and transcriptional activation of <it>INK4b </it>and <it>INK4a</it>. The expression pattern of the locus is reflected by its organization in space. In the repressed state, the PRC-binding regions are in close proximity, while the intervening chromatin harbouring <it>ARF </it>loops out. Down regulation of EZH2 causes release of the ~35 kb repressive chromatin loop and induction of both <it>INK4a </it>and <it>INK4b</it>, whereas <it>ARF </it>expression remains unaltered.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>PcG silencers bind and coordinately regulate <it>INK4b </it>and <it>INK4a</it>, but not <it>ARF</it>, during a variety of physiological processes. Developmentally regulated EZH2 levels are one of the factors that can determine the higher order chromatin structure and expression pattern of the <it>INK4b-ARF-INK4a </it>locus, coupling human progenitor cell differentiation to proliferation control. Our results revealed a chromatin looping mechanism of long-range control and argue against models involving homogeneous spreading of PcG silencers across the <it>INK4b-ARF-INK4a </it>locus.</p

The Therapy of Vulvar Carcinoma : Evaluation of Surgical Options in a Retrospective Monocentric Study

(1) Background: Surgical-oncological treatment methods are continuously put to the test in times of evidence-based medicine—notably, a constant reevaluation remains key, especially for tumor entities with increasing incidence such as vulvar carcinoma. (2) Methods: In order to determine the postoperative clinical course of different methods of vulvar excision (vulvectomy, hemivulvectomy) as well as inguinal lymph node removal (lymphadenectomy, sentinel lymph node biopsy) with regard to postoperative wound-healingprocess, perioperative hemorrhage, and reresection rates, we retrospectively analyzed surgical, morphological and laboratory data of 76 patients with a pathological diagnosed vulvar cancer. (3) Results: Analysis of our data from a single center revealed a comparable perioperative clinical course regardless of the chosen method of vulvar excision and inguinal lymph node removal. (4) Conclusions: Thus, our results emphasize the current multimodality in surgical therapy of vulvar carcinoma, in which consideration of known prognostic factors together with the individual patient’s clinical situation allow guideline-based therapy aimed at maximizing surgical safety

A hybrid approach for alarm verification using stream processing, machine learning and text analytics

False alarms triggered by security sensors incur high costs for all parties involved. According to police reports, a large majority of alarms are false. Recent advances in machine learning can enable automatically classifying alarms. However, building a scalable alarm verification system is a challenge, since the system needs to: (1) process thousands of alarms in real-time, (2) classify false alarms with high accuracy and (3) perform historic data analysis to enable better insights into the results for human operators. This requires a mix of machine learning, stream and batch processing – technologies which are typically optimized independently. We combine all three into a single, real-world application. This paper describes the implementation and evaluation of an alarm verification system we developed jointly with Sitasys, the market leader in alarm transmission in central Europe. Our system can process around 30K alarms per second with a verification accuracy of above 90%

Development and psychometric properties of the client's assessment of treatment scale for supported accommodation (CAT-SA)

This paper presents independent research funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) under its Programme Grants for Applied Research scheme (RP-PG-0610-10097)

Adaptation of the Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative Care (QuIRC) for use in mental health supported accommodation services (QuIRC-SA).

BACKGROUND: No standardised tools for assessing the quality of specialist mental health supported accommodation services exist. To address this, we adapted the Quality Indicator for Rehabilitative care-QuIRC-that was originally developed to assess the quality of longer term inpatient and community based mental health facilities. The QuIRC, which is completed by the service manager and gives ratings of seven domains of care, has good psychometric properties. METHODS: Focus groups with staff of the three main types of supported accommodation in the UK (residential care, supported housing and floating outreach services) were carried out to identify potential amendments to the QuIRC. Additional advice was gained from consultation with three expert panels, two of which comprised service users with lived experience of mental health and supported accommodation services. The amended QuIRC (QuIRC-SA) was piloted with a manager of each of the three service types. Item response variance, inter-rater reliability and internal consistency were assessed in a random sample of 52 services. Factorial structure and discriminant validity were assessed in a larger random sample of 87 services. RESULTS: The QuIRC-SA comprised 143 items of which only 18 items showed a narrow range of response and five items had poor inter-rater reliability. The tool showed good discriminant validity, with supported housing services generally scoring higher than the other two types of supported accommodation on most domains. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the QuIRC-SA items loaded onto the domains to which they had been allocated. CONCLUSIONS: The QuIRC-SA is the first standardised tool for quality assessment of specialist mental health supported accommodation services. Its psychometric properties mean that it has potential for use in research as well as audit and quality improvement programmes. A web based application is being developed to make it more accessible which will produce a printable report for the service manager about the performance of their service, comparison data for similar services and suggestions on how to improve service quality

Integrated all-optical SSB modulator using photonic Hilbert transformer with planar Bragg gratings

Photonic Hilbert transformers (PHT) offer potential for a wide range of applications in telecommunication, information processing and signal analysis [1]. They provide operational bandwidths and speeds far beyond current electronic technologies. PHTs have been realized in discrete free space components and recently in fiber using multi-tapped sampled fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs), and single phase-shifted FBGs with appropriate apodisation profile [2]. Recently we have presented preliminary spectra from a fabricated PHT device in a planar waveguide [3]. This device employs a single pi phase shift and an apodised grating profile. In this work we use the freedom of the planar format to fabricate a single-side-band suppression (SSBS) module combining regular and phase shifted gratings on a single chip