Concept and Feasibility of One-Embedded System Payload Including Baseband Communication

Traditional approach of payload design develops modules separately such as control, compression and communication. Due to increasing demand of shorter development cycles and lower cost, we shall develop a highly adaptive approach for payload implementation so that we can update it in a short time according to the need of a new mission. Besides, the optimization of payload performance and communication link together becomes possible. Based on these, we propose a “one-embedded system” payload approach. All the control, file management, processing such as compression, and communications are implemented in one built-in embedded system. In other words, after the sensor signal is converted as digital data (after ADC, analog-to-digital-converter), the data gets into the proposed embedded system. And the system “does everything” and then outputs data to DAC (digital-to-analog-converter) and then transmitted it in analog form. The proposed embedded system includes a FPGA implementing a processor IP. Due to the programmable characteristic of FPGA, hardware interfaces can be adjusted quickly according to various mission requirements. Besides, because of the flexibility and adaptability of software, code can be updated to optimize performance according to various tasks during flight. In this work, we provide concept, guideline of optimization, structure, feasibility, benefits and risks of one-embedded system payload approach. An example of implementation for optical remotes sensing payload including interfaces will be investigated

Prescription Patterns of Chinese Herbal Products for Osteoporosis in Taiwan: A Population-Based Study

Background. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) includes Chinese herbal products (CHPs), acupuncture, and traumatology manipulative therapies. TCM physicians often prescribe CHP to treat patients with osteoporosis; however, the drugs used and their patterns of prescriptions have yet to be characterized. This study, therefore, aimed to evaluate the CHP used for the treatment of osteoporosis in Taiwan and their prescription patterns. Methods. A cohort of one million randomly sampled cases from the National Health Insurance Research Database (NHIRD) was analyzed to evaluate the frequencies and percentages of herbal formula and single herb prescriptions for osteoporosis. Association rules were then applied to evaluate the CHP coprescription patterns and the prevalence of osteoporosis. Results. The osteoporosis cohort included 16 544 patients, of whom more than 70% had used TCM on one or more occasion. Of these patients, 4 292 (25.9%) had been hospitalized at least once because of fracture. Du-Huo-Ji-Sheng-Tang and Du Zhong (Cortex Eucommiae) were the most frequently prescribed herbal formula and single herb, respectively, for the treatment of osteoporosis. Conclusion. This study identified patterns of CHP use for the treatment of osteoporosis. However, further research is required to fully elucidate the efficacy and safety of these CHP

Resonance-induced sensitivity enhancement method for conductivity sensors

Methods and systems for improving the sensitivity of a variety of conductivity sensing devices, in particular capacitively-coupled contactless conductivity detectors. A parallel inductor is added to the conductivity sensor. The sensor with the parallel inductor is operated at a resonant frequency of the equivalent circuit model. At the resonant frequency, parasitic capacitances that are either in series or in parallel with the conductance (and possibly a series resistance) is substantially removed from the equivalent circuit, leaving a purely resistive impedance. An appreciably higher sensor sensitivity results. Experimental verification shows that sensitivity improvements of the order of 10,000-fold are possible. Examples of detecting particulates with high precision by application of the apparatus and methods of operation are described

Resonance Induced Impedance Sensing of Human Blood Cells

A challenging problem in AC impedance sensing of particles (e.g., blood cells in plasma) with micro electrodes is that with the shrinking of electrode surface area the electrode double layer capacitance decreases. Combined with the parallel stray capacitance, the system impedance is dominated by these capacitive components. Hence the sensitivity for particle sensing decreases. In this paper, we propose a new approach to solve the problem. The idea is to use resonant sensing by connecting an external parallel inductor to the system. At the resonant frequency, the capacitive components in the system were nullified by the inductor, leaving the electrolyte and particle impedance to be a major component in the system impedance. We then successfully demonstrated this idea by sensing 5 mum polystyrene beads. More important, this technique was extended to sensing blood cells in diluted human whole blood and leukocyte rich plasma. The measured signal pulse height histogram matched well with known volume distribution of erythrocytes and leukocytes

A Resonance-Induced Sensitivity Enhancement Method for Conductivity Sensors

We demonstrated in this paper a novel technique named Resonance-Induced Sensitivity Enhancement (RISE) method to be used for significantly improving the sensitivity of a variety of conductivity sensing devices. The technique works by introducing a parallel inductor to the conductivity sensor cell and operating the sensor system at the resonant frequency of its equivalent circuit model. At the resonant frequency, parasitic capacitances that are either in series or in parallel with the target conductance can be virtually removed from the equivalent circuit and therefore a much higher sensitivity to the target conductance is obtained. In a specific example, the sensitivity of a microchip capacitively-coupled contactless conductivity detector (C^4D) can be improved by more than 10,000 times

Seg2Reg: Differentiable 2D Segmentation to 1D Regression Rendering for 360 Room Layout Reconstruction

State-of-the-art single-view 360-degree room layout reconstruction methods formulate the problem as a high-level 1D (per-column) regression task. On the other hand, traditional low-level 2D layout segmentation is simpler to learn and can represent occluded regions, but it requires complex post-processing for the targeting layout polygon and sacrifices accuracy. We present Seg2Reg to render 1D layout depth regression from the 2D segmentation map in a differentiable and occlusion-aware way, marrying the merits of both sides. Specifically, our model predicts floor-plan density for the input equirectangular 360-degree image. Formulating the 2D layout representation as a density field enables us to employ `flattened' volume rendering to form 1D layout depth regression. In addition, we propose a novel 3D warping augmentation on layout to improve generalization. Finally, we re-implement recent room layout reconstruction methods into our codebase for benchmarking and explore modern backbones and training techniques to serve as the strong baseline. Our model significantly outperforms previous arts. The code will be made available upon publication

Toxicity risk of non-target organs at risk receiving low-dose radiation: case report

The spine is the most common site for bone metastases. Radiation therapy is a common treatment for palliation of pain and for prevention or treatment of spinal cord compression. Helical tomotherapy (HT), a new image-guided intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), delivers highly conformal dose distributions and provides an impressive ability to spare adjacent organs at risk, thus increasing the local control of spinal column metastases and decreasing the potential risk of critical organs under treatment. However, there are a lot of non-target organs at risk (OARs) occupied by low dose with underestimate in this modern rotational IMRT treatment. Herein, we report a case of a pathologic compression fracture of the T9 vertebra in a 55-year-old patient with cholangiocarcinoma. The patient underwent HT at a dose of 30 Gy/10 fractions delivered to T8-T10 for symptom relief. Two weeks after the radiotherapy had been completed, the first course of chemotherapy comprising gemcitabine, fluorouracil, and leucovorin was administered. After two weeks of chemotherapy, however, the patient developed progressive dyspnea. A computed tomography scan of the chest revealed an interstitial pattern with traction bronchiectasis, diffuse ground-glass opacities, and cystic change with fibrosis. Acute radiation pneumonitis was diagnosed. Oncologists should be alert to the potential risk of radiation toxicities caused by low dose off-targets and abscopal effects even with highly conformal radiotherapy

Acute Paraparesis Caused by a Giant Cell Tumor of the Thoracic Spine

AbstractGiant cell tumor (GCT) is a benign but locally aggressive skeletal neoplasm of young adults. GCT located in the spine is relatively rare and may need a combination of surgical and adjunctive therapies. Here we present a patient who had intermittent thoracic back pain for two weeks and experienced an acute episode of decreased muscle power of both lower limbs. Magnetic resonance (MR) imaging examinations of the thoracic spine revealed that the patient had severe spinal canal compression caused by pathological fracture due to a tumor within the seventh thoracic vertebra. She underwent an emergent surgical intervention for total removal of the tumor and spinal reconstruction with autologous rib grafts and instruments. Postoperatively, the patient made an uneventful recovery of muscle power of bilateral lower limbs. She subsequently received adjuvant radiotherapy. In a follow-up period of 36 months, the patient had no clinical or radiological evidence of tumor recurrence. Even though spinal location for GCT is a rare event, it should be included in the differential diagnosis in patients with osteolytic lesions or pathological fractures of the vertebra, especially in young female patients sustaining no trauma who had a clinical history of persistent low back pain