Design of an Ultra-Wideband Frequency-Modulated Continuous Wave Short Range Radar System for Extending Independent Living

Falls in the disabled and elderly people have been a cause of concern as they can be immobilized by the fall and have no way to contact others and seek assistance. The proposed frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) short range radar (SRR) system, which uses ultra-wideband (UWB) signals can provide immediate assistance by monitoring and detecting fall events. The unique characteristics of this system allow for a frequency-based modulation system to carry out triangulation and sense the location of the fall through the usage of a continuous chirp signal that linearly sweeps frequency. This project focuses on the development, design and simulation of a ring oscillator that exhibits the frequency modulated signal on a single integrated circuit chip. The ring oscillator is controlled by a voltage ramp signal generator and a voltage to current (V-I) converter. The circuit is designed in Cadence using TSMC 180nm process technology and operates in the frequency range of 3.409 GHz to 5.349 GHz with a spectral bandwidth of 1.94 GHz, which meets the Federal Communications Commission’s standards for unlicensed ultra-wideband transmissions

Contribution à l'utilisation du lactulose comme additif fonctionnel dans la fabrication de pain riche en son de blé

Ce projet a démontré la faisabilité de fabrication de pain à base de farine riche en son de blé additionnée de lactulose jusqu'à 5%. La pâte enrichie de lactulose est caractérisée par une acidité titrable légèrement inférieure au témoin. Ceci est attribuable à l'incapacité des levures à fermenter le lactulose. La cuisson a montré que l'ajout de lactulose à la formule de pain à un niveau allant jusqu'à 5% n'a pas d'incidence négative sur la qualité du pain. L'évaluation visuelle et sensorielle a montré que l'ajout de 5% de lactulose à la formulation de pain de blé ne modifie pas le profil de texture du produit. La structure de la mie du pain témoin est légèrement plus poreuse que celle du pain additionné de lactulose à 5%. Le volume massique du pain est également plus faible, ce qui indique que des changements de texture se sont produits, mais restent acceptables

Slip Resistance Test Apparatus of Synthetic Rubber Trackpad on Photovoltaic Surface

The increasing development of the solar energy industry in many countries has led to a rising frequency of human and robot presence in this area. To ensure occupational safety, various protective equipment, including rubber material, is commonly used for slip resistance while moving on the surface of solar PV panels. Therefore, the slip resistance test apparatus is built for testing the slip resistance between the synthetic rubber trackpad and the photovoltaic panel (PV) surface. Synthetic rubber is a man-made material, so it is difficult to control the parameters of its mechanical and chemical properties absolutely. Variations in wet/dry working conditions or Shore hardness are factors that make slip computation more challenging. Therefore, an apparatus with the principle of converting the reciprocating motion of the screw and the casters into the rotation of the hinge is introduced to adjust the tilt angle of the upper surface, detect and evaluate the slippage of the rubber trackpad by sensors. Some parameters related to accuracy such as vibration and theoretical-empirical assessment, are also mentioned. In addition to designing a reliable apparatus, the article also succeeded in providing a safety standard for synthetic rubber with Shore A30-A40 when moving on PV surfaces.Comment: 4 pages, 10 figures, The 20th International Conference on Ubiquitous Robots (UR 2023

Improving Lung Cancer Screening Selection:The HUNT Lung Cancer Risk Model for Ever-Smokers Versus the NELSON and 2021 United States Preventive Services Task Force Criteria in the Cohort of Norway: A Population-Based Prospective Study

Background: Improving the method for selecting participants for lung cancer (LC) screening is an urgent need. Here, we compared the performance of the Helseundersøkelsen i Nord-Trøndelag (HUNT) Lung Cancer Model (HUNT LCM) versus the Dutch-Belgian lung cancer screening trial (Nederlands-Leuvens Longkanker Screenings Onderzoek (NELSON)) and 2021 United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) criteria regarding LC risk prediction and efficiency. Methods: We used linked data from 10 Norwegian prospective population-based cohorts, Cohort of Norway. The study included 44,831 ever-smokers, of which 686 (1.5%) patients developed LC; the median follow-up time was 11.6 years (0.01–20.8 years). Results: Within 6 years, 222 (0.5%) individuals developed LC. The NELSON and 2021 USPSTF criteria predicted 37.4% and 59.5% of the LC cases, respectively. By considering the same number of individuals as the NELSON and 2021 USPSTF criteria selected, the HUNT LCM increased the LC prediction rate by 41.0% and 12.1%, respectively. The HUNT LCM significantly increased sensitivity (p &lt; 0.001 and p = 0.028), and reduced the number needed to predict one LC case (29 versus 40, p &lt; 0.001 and 36 versus 40, p = 0.02), respectively. Applying the HUNT LCM 6-year 0.98% risk score as a cutoff (14.0% of ever-smokers) predicted 70.7% of all LC, increasing LC prediction rate with 89.2% and 18.9% versus the NELSON and 2021 USPSTF, respectively (both p &lt; 0.001). Conclusions: The HUNT LCM was significantly more efficient than the NELSON and 2021 USPSTF criteria, improving the prediction of LC diagnosis, and may be used as a validated clinical tool for screening selection.</p

Modeling of parallel power MOSFETs in steady-state

In high-power applications, multiple power MOSFETs are connected in parallel and treated as a single switch in order to handle much larger total currents. In this paper, a parallel power MOSFETs model from the turnoff state until they reach their steady state is introduced. The model represents the relationship between each power MOSFET's gate voltage and the current distribution among them. The study's key purpose is to use the model for dealing with the asymmetry in sharing current and power loss between these semiconductor devices during the steady state region.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, The 2023 INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON ADVANCED ENGINEERING (ISAE2023

Network alignment across social networks using multiple embedding techniques

Network alignment, which is also known as user identity linkage, is a kind of network analysis task that predicts overlapping users between two different social networks. This research direction has attracted much attention from the research community, and it is considered to be one of the most important research directions in the field of social network analysis. There are many different models for finding users that overlap between two networks, but most of these models use separate and different techniques to solve prediction problems, with very little work that has combined them. In this paper, we propose a method that combines different embedding techniques to solve the network alignment problem. Each association network alignment technique has its advantages and disadvantages, so combining them together will take full advantage and can overcome those disadvantages. Our model combines three-level embedding techniques of text-based user attributes, a graph attention network, a graph-drawing embedding technique, and fuzzy c-mean clustering to embed each piece of network information into a low-dimensional representation. We then project them into a common space by using canonical correlation analysis and compute the similarity matrix between them to make predictions. We tested our network alignment model on two real-life datasets, and the experimental results showed that our method can considerably improve the accuracy by about 10-15% compared to the baseline models. In addition, when experimenting with different ratios of training data, our proposed model could also handle the over-fitting problem effectively.Web of Science1021art. no. 397

COVID-19 and COVID-like Patients: A Brief Analysis and Findings of Two Deceased Cases

BACKGROUND: The predominant pattern of lung lesions in patients affected by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) disease is diffuse alveolar damage with massive thromboembolism similar as described in patients infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus and Middle East respiratory syndrome coronaviruses. Hyaline membrane formation and pneumocyte atypical hyperplasia were frequent. Importantly, the formation of platelet–fibrin thrombi in small vessels was seen consistent with coagulopathy, which appeared to be a common feature in patients who died of COVID-19. However, many were the cases found with similar COVID-19 symptomatology though negative results from nasal-pharyngeal swab performed by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR). This latter typology of patients, otherwise named COVID-like, showed analogous clinical signs with similar arterial blood gas, cell blood count and laboratory parameters, and same computed tomography (CT)-scan ground-glass opacities. Symptoms such as cough, fever, and difficulty breathing were highly similar as well. Both forms, COVID-19 and COVID-like, are primarily respiratory with multi-organ involvement and both revealed comparable incubation periods often with a rapid onset and unexpected decay. CASE REPORT: In this brief paper, we described two cases regarding two deceased males, one confirmed COVID-19 (RT-PCR but not CT scan) and the second a COVID-like (negative for RT-PCR but positive to CT scan with ground-glass opacity) whom condition, disease patterns, and analysis were highly similar. CONCLUSION: Improved investigation is mandatory, in which RT-PCR and CT scan procedures are completed by data from more detailed laboratory analysis, ABG analysis, BALF, and a deeper clinical assessment

The Vitamin D, IL-6 and the eGFR Markers a Possible Way to Elucidate the Lung–Heart–Kidney Cross-Talk in COVID-19 Disease: A Foregone Conclusion

Background: Based on recent findings, we speculated the existence of the lung, heart, and kidney axis as the main pathway for the COVID-19 disease progression. Methods: This paper reports on an observational study conducted by a team of researchers and doctors of the 118-Pre-Hospital and Emergency Department of SG Moscati of Taranto City in Italy. The study was conducted on a totality of 185 participants that were divided into three groups. The study group included COVID-19 affected patients (PP n = 80), the first control group included patients with different pathologies (non-COVID-19 NNp n = 62) of the SG Moscati Hospital, and the second control group included healthy individuals (NNh n = 43). The core of the current trial was focused on assessing the level of the vitamin D (serum 25(OH) D concentration), IL-6, and the renal glomerular filtrate (eGFR) in COVID-19 disease and non-COVID-19 patients in both groups. Results: It was observed that the majority of COVID-19-infected patients showed a progressive multi-organ involvement, especially in regard to the lung, kidney, and heart. The majority of the COVID-19 patients exhibited preexisting comorbidities which include cardiovascular, respiratory, and renal disorders accompanied by a severely low level of vitamin D, extremely high level of IL-6, and low glomerular filtration rate (eGFR). The significant overall damages exerted by the immune-mediated responses under the hyper-expression of proinflammatory cytokines and interleukins, such as IL-6, may be facilitated by either a decreased level of vitamin D or the ageing process. The reduced presence of vitamin D was often found together with a reduced functionality of renal activity, as revealed by the low eGFR, and both were seen to be concomitant with an increased mortality risk in patients with lung disorders and heart failure (HF), whether it is showed at baseline or it develops during manifestation of COVID-19. Therefore, the documentation of the modifiable risk factors related to SARS-CoV-2 and lung impairment in older patients with kidney and heart disease may help the clinician to better manage the situation. Conclusions: This paper addresses how a low level of vitamin D and older age may be indicative of systemic worsening in patients with COVID-19, with a goal of providing a broader context in which to view a better therapeutic approach

Sars-CoV-2 Virus Infection May Interfere CD34+ Hematopoietic Stem Cells and Megakaryocyte–Erythroid Progenitors Differentiation Contributing to Platelet Defection towards Insurgence of Thrombocytopenia and Thrombophilia

To date, several cases of thrombosis have been confirmed to be related to Sars-CoV-2 infection. Multiple attempts detected the prolonged occurrence of Sars-CoV-2 viral RNA (long COVID) in whole blood suggesting that virus byproducts may remain within cells and tissues well over the disease has finished. Patients may develop severe thrombocytopenia, acute anemia of inflammation and, systemic thrombosis with the fatal course of disease, which is suggestive of further interferences of Sars-CoV-2 on hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) within the differentiation process towards erythroid and megakaryocytic cells. Therefore, we speculated whether Sars-CoV-2 propagates in or compartmentalizes with hematopoietic progenitor, erythroid, and megakaryocytic cells as the main cause of thrombotic events in either COVID-19 patients or vaccinated individuals. Results: The Sars-CoV-2 RNA replication, protein translation and infectious particle formation as the spike proteins in hematopoietic cell lines take place via the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) entry pathway within primary CD34+ HSCs inducing, ex vivo, the formation of defected erythroid and megakaryocytic cells that eventually become targets of humoral and adaptive immune cells. Conclusions: Viral particles from affected CD34+ HSCs or the cellular component of RBC units and eventually platelets, present the greatest risk for sever thrombosis-transmitted Sars-CoV-2 infections