Experiment Design and Training Data Quality of Inverse Model for Short-term Building Energy Forecasting

For data-driven building energy forecasting modeling, the quality of training data strongly affects a model’s accuracy and cost-effectiveness. In order to obtain high-quality training data within a short time period, experiment design, active learning, or excitation is becoming increasingly important, especially for nonlinear systems such as building energy systems. Experiment design and system excitation have been widely studied and applied in fields such as robotics and automobile industry for their model development. But these methods have hardly been applied for building energy modeling. This paper presents an overall discussion on the topic of applying system excitation for developing building energy forecasting models. For gray-box and white-box models, a model’s physical representations and theories can be applied to guide their training data collections. However, for black-box (pure-data-driven) models, the training data’s quality is sensitive to the model structure, leading to a fact that there is no universal theory for data training.  The focus of black-box modeling has traditionally been on how to represent a data set well. The impact of how such a data set represents the real system and how the quality of a training data set affect the performances of black-box models have not been well studied. In this paper, the system excitation method, which is used in system identification area, is used to excite zone temperature set-points to generate training data. These training data from system excitation are then used to train a variety of black-box building energy forecasting models. The models’ performances (accuracy and extendibility) are compared among different model structures. For the same model structure, its performances are also compared between when it is trained using typical building operational data and when it is trained using exited training data. Results show that the black-box models trained by normal operation data achieve better performance than that trained by excited training data but have worse model extendibility; Training data obtained from excitation will help to improve performances of system identification models

Effect of intubation in patients with functional epiphora after endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy

AIM: To investigate the effect of bicanalicular silicone tube intubation (BSTI) in the treatment of functional epiphora after endoscopic dacryocystorhinostomy (En-DCR). METHODS: Clinical data of 84 patients (95 eyes) with functional epiphora after En-DCR were retrospectively analyzed. Functional epiphora was confirmed as persistent or recurrent epiphora by fluorescein dye disappearance test (FDDT), lacrimal irrigation test, as well as endoscopic examination. Secondary BSTIs were recommended for patients with functional epiphora. These tubes were removed 1mo after surgery. Functional success and associated complications were assessed after 2y of follow-up. RESULTS: Seven patients (9 eyes) refused intervention, 5 patients (6 eyes) did not complete postoperative follow-up, and 1 patient (1 eye) developed tube prolapse within 1mo after surgery. Seventy-one patients (79 eyes) were included at last. Functional success ratios at six months, one year, as well as two years post-operation were 94.9% (75/79), 92.4% (73/79), and 91.1% (72/79), respectively. Three eyes presented with punctal slitting (2 eyes without epiphora), 1 eye with proximal canaliculus slitting, 1 eye with canaliculus stenosis and 4 eyes with still present functional epiphora without detectable abnormal at the last follow-up. CONCLUSION: Secondary intubation is an effective procedure with low recurrence probability for functional epiphora after En-DCR. Punctal and canaliculus injury are the main tube-associated complications after secondary intubation

Super-resolution Algorithm for Passive Millimeter Wave Imaging Based on Maximum Likelihood and Neighbor Wavelet Transform

In passive millimeter wave imaging system, the problem of poor resolution of acquired image stems are mainly from system antenna size limitations. In order to improve the resolution of passive millimeter wave images, a super-resolution algorithm based on Maximum Likelihood estimation and neighbor wavelet transform are proposed in this paper. This algorithm first restores the spectrum in the pass-band and de-noises the image based on neighbor wavelet transform, then extrapolate the spectrum by using the non-linear projection operation Richardson-Lucy (RL) algorithm. Experimental results demonstrate the algorithm improve the convergent rate, enhance the resolution and reduces the ringing effects which are caused by regularizing the image restoration problem. Furthermore, the algorithm is easily implemented for passive millimeter wave imaging

Comparison of Endocrine Profile and In Vitro Fertilization Outcome in Patients with PCOS, Ovulatory PCO, or Normal Ovaries

Aim. To compare the basic endocrine profile and outcomes of in vitro fertilization (IVF) in women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), ovulatory polycystic ovaries (PCO), or normal ovaries (NO). Methods. The basic clinical features and in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer outcome in patients receiving IVF or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) were retrospectively analyzed. Results. The body mass index, basal luteinizing hormone, and testosterone levels were significantly lower in patients with ovulatory PCO compared to those in patients with PCOS. The PCOS patients exhibited the shortest duration of ovarian stimulation and lowest dose of gonadotropin, followed by the ovulatory PCO and NO patients. The ovulatory PCO and PCOS patients showed similar levels of E2 on the human chorionic gonadotropin treatment day and numbers of oocytes, which were both significantly higher than those of the NO patients. The fertilization rate of the PCOS patients was significantly lower than the other two groups. Compared to NO patients, the cleavage rate was lower in both PCOS and ovulatory PCO patients, however, the number of available embryos was significantly more in these two groups. The incidence of the moderate to severe ovarian hyperstimulation syndrome (OHSS) was markedly higher in the PCOS and ovulatory PCO patients. Conclusion. Ovulatory PCO patients do not express similar endocrine abnormalities as PCOS patients. Although the fertilization rate and cleavage rate were relatively low in PCOS patients, ultimately, all the three groups showed similar transferred embryo numbers, clinical pregnancy rates, and implantation rates. Since the incidence of OHSS was much higher in the PCOS and ovulatory PCO patients, we should take more care of these patients and try to prevent severe OHSS

Relationship between Antithyroid Antibody and Pregnancy Outcome following in Vitro Fertilization and Embryo Transfer

Objective: To investigate the impact of antithyroid antibody on pregnancy outcome following the in vitro fertilization and embryo transfer (IVF-ET)

Demonstration of Adiabatic Variational Quantum Computing with a Superconducting Quantum Coprocessor

Adiabatic quantum computing enables the preparation of many-body ground states. This is key for applications in chemistry, materials science, and beyond. Realisation poses major experimental challenges: Direct analog implementation requires complex Hamiltonian engineering, while the digitised version needs deep quantum gate circuits. To bypass these obstacles, we suggest an adiabatic variational hybrid algorithm, which employs short quantum circuits and provides a systematic quantum adiabatic optimisation of the circuit parameters. The quantum adiabatic theorem promises not only the ground state but also that the excited eigenstates can be found. We report the first experimental demonstration that many-body eigenstates can be efficiently prepared by an adiabatic variational algorithm assisted with a multi-qubit superconducting coprocessor. We track the real-time evolution of the ground and exited states of transverse-field Ising spins with a fidelity up that can reach about 99%.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Nursing care in osteopetrosis treated by optic nerve decompression under image guidance system combined with endoscopic approach

AIM: To explore the nursing cooperation highlights of eight osteopetrosis patients underwent optic nerve decompression via transsphenoidal microsurgical approach instead of routine pathway, and to improve the quality of nursing cooperation. METHODS: We enrolled 8 cases(left eye in 3 cases, right eye in 5 cases)of osteopetrosis patients referred from the Eye Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University during February 2012 to November 2016. Patients received ophthalmic examinations including visual acuity and diagnostic imaging tests in pre-operation and post-operation. All eyes were performed surgical optic nerve decompression through endoscopic approach in assist of image guidance system. We retrospectively analyzed the clinical data and surgical cooperation procedure of these cases and summarized nursing cooperation experience. RESULTS: The operations of 8 patients were completed successfully without massive hemorrhage. Mean visual acuity improved from pre-operation(2.5±2.1)to post-operation(3.4±1.9). Cerebrospinal fluid leakage occurred in 1 patient and was instantly repaired during the operation. We performed the nursing strategy as postural drainage, condition monitoring and conscious assessment intra-and post-operation. CONCLUSION: It is the critical for this kind of surgery that both circulating nurse's high-skilled cooperation to the connection and operation of the navigation system, to treat with complication during the surgery, and scrub nurse's sufficient preparation of surgical instruments and consumables, proficient equipment delivery, meticulous management, use and maintenance of equipment

Maskless Generation of Single Silicon Vacancy Arrays in Silicon Carbide by a Focused He+ Ion Beam

Precise generation of spin defects in solid-state systems is essential for nanostructure fluorescence enhancement. We investigated a method for creating single silicon vacancy defect arrays in silicon carbide using a helium-ion microscope. Maskless and targeted generation can be realized by precisely controlling the focused He+ ion beam with an implantation uncertainty of 60 nm. The generated silicon vacancies were identified by measuring the optically detected magnetic resonance spectrum and room temperature photoluminescence spectrum. We systematically studied the effects of the implantation ion dose on the generated silicon vacancies. After optimization, a conversion yield of ~ 6.95 % and a generation rate for a single silicon vacancy of ~ 35 % were realized. This work paves the way for the integration and engineering of color centers to photonic structures and the application of quantum sensing based on spin defects in silicon carbide