Dynamically adaptive real-time disparity estimation hardware using iterative refinement

The computational complexity of disparity estimation algorithms and the need of large size and bandwidth for the external and internal memory make the real-time processing of disparity estimation challenging, especially for High Resolution (HR) images. This paper proposes a hardware-oriented adaptive window size disparity estimation (AWDE) algorithm and its real-time reconfigurable hardware implementation that targets HR video with high quality disparity results. Moreover, an enhanced version of the AWDE implementation that uses iterative refinement (AWDE-IR) is presented. The AWDE and AWDE-IR algorithms dynamically adapt the window size considering the local texture of the image to increase the disparity estimation quality. The proposed reconfigurable hardware architectures of the AWDE and AWDE-IR algorithms enable handling 60 frames per second on a Virtex-5 FPGA at a 1024×768 XGA video resolution for a 128 pixel disparity range

Optimization of Nozzle Section in Plastic Injection Moulding Process

In this study, the thermal analysis and numeric modelling of flow in nozzle of a real plastic injection machine with injection weight of 300 gram were conducted. The nozzle geometry was changed to optimize flow in nozzle for high-density polyethylene HDPE at temperature of 200 °C and injection pressure of 150 MPa. For numeric modelling, the ANSYS Fluent R14 was used. The analysis was made for four different geometries consisting of real system dimension r-NG and others design dimensions NG1, NG2 and NG3 . The results of the analysis showed that the most suitable flow was determined in the third NG3 design. In this geometry, for flow in the nozzle section, rounding was made in the sudden shrinking flow section to give a throat shape and so, the geometry ensuring optimized flow was obtained. As a result, with changing of nozzle geometries of plastic injection machines having different pushing capacities they were used in the industry, the positive results will be able to be obtained

Men’s evaluation of violence against women: The example of Sakarya

Bu araştırma toplumumuzda yaygın olarak görülen kadına yönelik şiddetin erkek bakış açısıyla değerlendirilmesi üzerine kurgulanmıştır. Aile içindeki tüm bireyler aile içi şiddete maruz kalmakla birlikte şiddetin merkezini kadın oluşturmaktadır. Araştırmanın genel amacı ve alt amaçları esas alınarak 210 evli erkeğe anket uygulanmıştır. Elde edilen veriler SPSS programında analiz edilmiş; frekans, KiKare, Spearmon Rho, Bağımsız Örneklem t-Testi, Tek Yönlü Varyans ve Tek Yönlü ANCOVA analizleri uygulanmıştır. Araştırma bulgularına göre; eğitim seviyesi ile ekonomik şiddet arasında doğrusal bir ilişki olduğu, kadına yönelik şiddet gösterme nedeninin erkeklerin mesleğine göre farklılık gösterdiği, geçmişteki şiddet deneyimi ile kadına yönelik şiddet tutumu arasında ilişki olduğu, şiddet uygulamada dini kriterlerin göz önünde bulundurulmasının başkalarının yanında kadına hakaret etme tutumu üzerinde etkiye sahip olduğu ve şiddet gösterme nedenlerinin evlilik kararının kim veya kimlerle birlikte verildiğine göre farklılık gösterdiği ortaya konmuştur. Şiddetin sebepleri daha çok ekonomik sorunlar, ikili ilişkilerden kaynaklı sorunlar ve psikolojik sorunlar olarak görülmekte ve bunları toplum baskısı ve madde kullanımı takip etmektedir.This study is based on the evaluation of violence against women, which is common in our society, from a male point of view. Although all individuals in the family are exposed to domestic violence, women are at its center. A questionnaire was applied to 210 married males based on the general and sub-objectives of the study. The data were analyzed in SPSS software and frequency, Chi-Square, Spearman Rho, Independent Samples t-Test, One-Way ANOVA and One-way ANCOVA analyzes were applied and interpreted. According to research findings it is revealed that there is a linear relationship between education level and economic violence, the reason for violence against women differs according to the profession of men, there is a relationship between experience of violence in the past and attitude towards violence against women, considering religious criteria related to violence against women has an effect on attitude of publicly insulting women, and reasons for violence against women differs according to with whom marriage decision is given. The causes of violence are mostly economic, bilateral relational and psychological problems, followed by community pressure and substance abuse

Experimental Investigation of the Hyperfine Structure of Tm I with Fourier Transform Spectroscopy Part B: in the NIR wavelength range from 700 nm to 2250 nm

In this study, we investigated the hyperfine structure of 43 spectral lines of atomic thulium. We analyzed Fourier-transform spectra in the wavelength range from 700 nm to 2250 nm, which corresponds to the wavenumber range from 14300 cm-1 to 4440 cm-1, respectively. The excited thulium atoms were generated in a hollow-cathode lamp. As a result of this investigation, the magnetic-dipole hyperfine constant A of 17 fine structure levels have been determined experimentally, 14 of them for the first time. The magnetic-dipole hyperfine constant values of the three remaining levels, reported in the literature, differed significantly from the results of our determination.Comment: 12 pages, 6 gigure

Unusual Suspect After Spinal Anesthesia: Herpetic Encephalitis

Herpes simplex virus (HSV) is the most common cause of acute, sporadic viral encephalitis. Usually occurs with the activation of the latent virus. Sudden onset fever and especially temporal lobe involvement are typical clinical features of HSV encephalitis. In this article, we aimed to present a case of herpetic encephalitis, which is an unusual factor in meningitis after spinal anesthesia. Severe headache and convulsion developed at postoperatively. Body temperature of the patient was 38.3 °C and neck stiffness developed. The patient was diagnosed with herpes encephalitis by clinical, laboratory and cranial magnetic resonance, and acyclovir treatment was started immediately. The patient was discharged home with recovery on the 14th day. Loss of consciousness and convulsions with fever seen at the postoperative period after spinal anesthesia, may not always be due to bacterial meningitis but sometimes due to HSV-associated acute herpetic meningoencephalitis. Rapid diagnosis and treatment is life-saving

Compressed look-up-table based real-time rectification hardware

Stereo image rectification is a pre-processing step of disparity estimation intended to remove image distortions and to enable stereo matching along an epipolar line. A real-time disparity estimation system needs to perform real-time rectification which requires solving the models of lens distortions, image translations and rotations. Look-up-table based rectification algorithms allow image rectification without demanding high complexity operations. However, they require an external memory to store large size look-up-tables. In this work, we present an intermediate solution that compresses the rectification information to fit the look-up-table into the onchip memory of a Virtex-5 FPGA. The low-complexity decompression process requires a negligible amount of hardware resources for its real-time implementation. The proposed image rectification hardware consumes 0.28% of the DFF and 0.32% of the LUT resources of the Virtex-5 XCUVP-110T FPGA, it can process 347 frames per second for a 1024×768 pixels image resolution, and it does not need the availability of an external memory

Fabrication and optimization of proton conductive polybenzimidazole electrospun nanofiber membranes

Phosphoric acid (PA)–doped polybenzimidazole (PBI) proton exchange membranes have received attention because of their good mechanical properties, moderate gas permeability, and superior proton conductivity under high temperature operation. Among PBI-based film membranes, nanofibrous membranes withstand to higher strain because of strongly oriented polymer chains while exhibiting higher specific surface area with increased number of proton-conducting sites. In this study, PBI electrospun nanofibers were produced and doped with PA to operate as high temperature proton exchange membrane, while changes in proton conductivity and morphologies were monitored. Proton conductive PBI nanofiber membranes by using the process parameters of 15 kV and 100 μL/h at 15 wt% PBI/dimethylacetamide polymer concentration were prepared by varying PA doping time as 24, 48, 72, and 96 hours. The morphological changes associated with PA doping addressed that acid doping significantly caused swelling and 2-fold increase in mean fiber diameter. Tensile strength of the membranes is found to be increased by doping level, whereas the strain at break (15%) decreased because of the brittle nature of H-bond network. 72 hour doped PBI membranes demonstrated highest proton conductivity whereas the decrease on conductivity for 96-hour doped PBI membranes, which could be attributed to the morphological changes due to H-bond network and acid leaking, was noted. Overall, the results suggested that of 72-hour doped PBI membranes with proton conductivity of 123 mS/cm could be a potential candidate for proton exchange membrane fuel cell

A Hardware-Oriented Dynamically Adaptive Disparity Estimation Algorithm and its Real-Time Hardware

The computational complexity of disparity estimation algorithms and the need of large size and bandwidth for the external and internal memory make the real-time processing of disparity estimation challenging, especially for High Resolution (HR) images. This paper proposes a hardware-oriented adaptive window size disparity estimation (AWDE) algorithm and its real time reconfigurable hardware implementation that targets HR video with high quality disparity results. The proposed algorithm is a hybrid solution involving the Sum of Absolute Differences and the Census cost computation methods to vote and select the best suitable disparity candidates. It utilizes a pixel intensity based refinement step to remove faulty disparity computations. The AWDE algorithm dynamically adapts the window size considering the local texture of the image to increase the disparity estimation quality. The proposed reconfigurable hardware of the AWDE algorithm enables handling 60 frames per second on Virtex-5 FPGA at a 1024×768 XGA video resolution for a 120 pixel disparity range

Turkish Validity and Reliability Study of the Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale

Objective:The Speech, Spatial and Qualities of Hearing Scale (SSQ) is a self-report scale that evaluates hearing in complex daily life situations in the areas of hearing quality, speech perception, and spatial perception. It is also frequently used in the follow-up of hearing-impaired people, hearing aid and cochlear implant users. It is aimed to translate and adapt SSQ into Turkish, and to investigate its test-retest reliability, and construct validity and reliability, and further to present associations of SSQ scores with the pure tone averages (PTA).Methods:The Turkish SSQ (Tr-SSQ) scale was administered on 114 adults including those with and without hearing loss. Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess its reliability. The reliability coefficient of the scale was calculated by test-retest method. Associations of SSQ scores with PTAs in better and worse hearing ears (BHE and WHE) were evaluated.Results:Tr-SSQ presented high internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha = 0.984) and test-retest reliability (r=0.994). Tr-SSQ scores were lower in the subjects with hearing loss and correlated with PTAs. Age was found to be correlated with PTAs; regression analysis demonstrated that only WHE-PTA was extracted as explanatory variable for average Tr-SSQ, speech perception and spatial perception scores while both BHE-PTA and WHE-PTA were found to be predictors of hearing quality, but not age for any of Tr-SSQ scores.Conclusion:Tr-SSQ is a convenient tool for assessing the hearing abilities of individuals with hearing impaired

he assessment of the perinatal outcomes of the patients who underwent quad screening test

Objective The aim of this study is to assess the correlation between the poor perinatal outcomes and the serum biochemical markers such as maternal serum alpha fetoprotein (AFP), human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG), unconjugated estriol (uE3) and inhibin-A (INH-A) checked during the quad screening test. Methods In this retrospective study, the results of 485 pregnant women who underwent quad screening test in the Outpatient Clinic of Gynecology and Obstetrics of Faculty of Medicine at Erciyes University, Kayseri, Turkey between January 2018 and January 2019 and met the inclusion criteria were analyzed. The primary result of the study was established as the development of poor perinatal outcomes. The poor perinatal outcomes were defined as gestational diabetes (GDM), gestational hypertension (GHT), preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR), preterm labor, premature rupture of membranes (PRM), oligohydramnios, polyhydramnios, HELLP syndrome, and intrahepatic cholestasis of pregnancy (ICP). Results A total of 485 pregnant women, who met the inclusion criteria, were included in the study. A significant correlation was found between AFP MoM≥2 and GHT, PRM, preterm labor, and the development of IUGR (p=0.017, p=0.033, p=0.037, and p=0.038, respectively). It was seen that the risk increased 5.1 times for GHT, 3.2 times for preterm labor, and 3.8 times for the development of IUGR. There was a significant correlation between hCG MoM≥2 and the risk of GHT development (p=0.024); however, the risk of GHT development increased for 3.8 times above this value. A significant correlation was found between INH-A being MoM≥2 and the development of GHT and HELLP syndrome (p=0.009 and p=0.005, respectively). In these pregnant women, the risk increased 31 times for the development of HELLP syndrome, and 9.4 times for GHT. In the cases with uE3 MoM£0.5, there was a significant correlation for the development of preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome (p=0.033 and p=0.049, respectively). On the other hand, there was no significant correlation between GDM, ICP, polyhydramnios, and oligohydramnios and AFP MoM, beta-hCG MoM, uE3 MoM and INH-A MoM values. Conclusion In our study, we found correlation between poor perinatal outcomes and the changes in AFP, hCG, uE3 and INH-A levels