Real-time interval type-2 fuzzy control of an unmanned aerial vehicle with flexible cable-connected payload

This study presents the design and real-time applications of an Interval Type-2 Fuzzy PID (IT2-FPID) control system on an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) with a flexible cable-connected payload in comparison to the PID and Type-1 Fuzzy PID (T1-FPID) counterparts. The IT2-FPID control has significant stability, disturbance rejection, and response time advantages. To prove and show these advantages, the DJI Tello, a commercial UAV, is used with a flexible cable-connected payload to test the robustness of PID, T1-FPID, and IT2-FPID controllers. First, the optimal coefficients of the compared controllers are found using the Big Bang–Big Crunch algorithm via the nonlinear UAV model without the payload. Second, once optimised, the controllers are tested using several scenarios, including disturbing the payload and the coverage path planning area to examine their robustness. Third, the controller performance results are evaluated according to reference achievement and point-based tracking under disturbances. Finally, the superiority of the IT2-FPID controller is shown via simulations and real-time experiments with a better overshoot, a faster settling time, and good properties of disturbance rejection compared with the PID and the T1-FPID controllers

Intrahepatic cholestasis in subclinical and overt hyperthyroidism: two case reports

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Non-specific abnormalities in liver function tests might accompany the clinical course of hyperthyroidism. Hyperthyroidism can cause the elevation of hepatic enzymes and bilirubin. Jaundice is rare in overt hyperthyroidism, especially in subclinical hyperthyroidism. On the other hand, the use of anti-thyroid drugs has rarely been associated with toxic hepatitis and cholestatic jaundice.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>Here we present two cases of cholestasis that accompanied two distinct forms of clinical hyperthyroidism. The first patient had a clinical presentation of severe cholestasis in the absence of congestive failure related to hyperthyroidism. The second case had developed intrahepatic cholestasis in the presence of subclinical hyperthyroidism, and improved with rifampicin treatment.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Hyperthyroidism should be a consideration in non-specific liver dysfunction.</p

Academic Performance and Behavioral Patterns

Identifying the factors that influence academic performance is an essential part of educational research. Previous studies have documented the importance of personality traits, class attendance, and social network structure. Because most of these analyses were based on a single behavioral aspect and/or small sample sizes, there is currently no quantification of the interplay of these factors. Here, we study the academic performance among a cohort of 538 undergraduate students forming a single, densely connected social network. Our work is based on data collected using smartphones, which the students used as their primary phones for two years. The availability of multi-channel data from a single population allows us to directly compare the explanatory power of individual and social characteristics. We find that the most informative indicators of performance are based on social ties and that network indicators result in better model performance than individual characteristics (including both personality and class attendance). We confirm earlier findings that class attendance is the most important predictor among individual characteristics. Finally, our results suggest the presence of strong homophily and/or peer effects among university students

Diagnostic accuracy of a clinical diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: An international case-cohort study

We conducted an international study of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) diagnosis among a large group of physicians and compared their diagnostic performance to a panel of IPF experts. A total of 1141 respiratory physicians and 34 IPF experts participated. Participants evaluated 60 cases of interstitial lung disease (ILD) without interdisciplinary consultation. Diagnostic agreement was measured using the weighted kappa coefficient (\u3baw). Prognostic discrimination between IPF and other ILDs was used to validate diagnostic accuracy for first-choice diagnoses of IPF and were compared using the Cindex. A total of 404 physicians completed the study. Agreement for IPF diagnosis was higher among expert physicians (\u3baw=0.65, IQR 0.53-0.72, p20 years of experience (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.0-0.73, p=0.229) and non-university hospital physicians with more than 20 years of experience, attending weekly MDT meetings (C-index=0.72, IQR 0.70-0.72, p=0.052), did not differ significantly (p=0.229 and p=0.052 respectively) from the expert panel (C-index=0.74 IQR 0.72-0.75). Experienced respiratory physicians at university-based institutions diagnose IPF with similar prognostic accuracy to IPF experts. Regular MDT meeting attendance improves the prognostic accuracy of experienced non-university practitioners to levels achieved by IPF experts

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

A Fuzzy Logic Approach to Improve Phone Segmentation:A Case Study of Dutch Language

Phone segmentation is an essential task for Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems, which still lack in performance when compared to the ability of humans’ speech recognition. In this paper, we propose novel Fuzzy Logic (FL) based approaches for the prediction of phone durations using linguistic features. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first development and deployment of FL based approaches in the area of phone segmentation. In this study, we perform a case study on the Dutch IFA corpus, which consists of 50000 words. Different experiments are conducted on tuned FL Systems (FLSs) and Neural Networks (NNs). The experimental results show that FLSs are more efficient in phone duration prediction in comparison to their Neural Network counterparts. Furthermore, we observe that differentiating between the vowels and the consonants improves the performance of predictions, which can facilitate enhanced ASR systems. The FLS with the differentiation between vowels and consonants had an average Mean Average Precision Error of 43.3396% on a k=3 fold. We believe that this first attempt of the employment of FL based approaches will be an important step for a wider deployment of FL in the area of ASR systems

TREATMENT OF MALIGNANT DYSPHAGIA WITH NITINOL STENTS

Self-expanding nitinol stents were used in 22 patients for palliative treatment of malignant esophagogastric strictures. All patients but 5 were men (age range 47-75 year). The strictures were caused by squamous cell carcinoma (n=12), adeno-carcinoma (n=8), and recurrent anastomotic carcinoma (n=2). No technical failure or procedural complications occurred. After the procedure, the severity of dysphagia decreased at least one grade in all patients of 22 (32%). Four of these patients were treated with additional stents, and in 3 patients, due to refusal, only balloon dilations were performed, which caused temporary relief. Tumor ingrowth into the stent was noted from 10 days to 7 months (mean 3 months). This seems to be a disadvantage of nitinol stents. At the end of the study 10 patients had died dead with a mean survival of 3 months (range 1 week to 6 months) and 12 patients had died dead with a mean survival of 3 months (range 1 week to 6 months) and 12 patients were still alive with a mean follow-up of 4 months (range 1-8 months). It is concluded that nitinol stents provide satisfactory palliation in patients with malignant dysphagia with neglectable procedural morbidity an mortality rates