What Went Wrong? The reasons for the Failure of Stabilization in Russia in 1992

In this paper we examine four main kinds of reason for Gaidar's team failure in Russia: 1) problems arising from the process of designing the programme; 2) failures of implementation; 3) problems arising from Russia's economic structure; 4) problems arising from Russia's political structure.Gaidar, Russia, stabilization, reforms

Promjene intra-abdominalnog, ilijačno venskog i centralnog venskog tlaka u bolesnika podvrgnutih abdominalnom kirurškom zahvatu zbog velikih tumora debelog crijeva – probno ispitivanje

Changes in intra-abdominal pressure during bowel tumor surgery have not been documented. The purpose of the present study was to analyze changes in intra-abdominal pressure (IAP), central venous pressure (CVP) and iliac venous pressure (IVP) in patients undergoing laparotomy due to large tumor of the bowel. Twenty-one adult patients undergoing elective abdominal surgery were examined. Intra-abdominal pressure, CVP and IVP were measured during anesthesia, surgery and early postoperative period. The mean IAP before anesthesia was 12.76±1.09 mm Hg and mean bowel tumor volume 1550±227.48 mL. Anesthesia induction decreased IAP to 10.52±1.32 mm Hg and excision of intra-peritoneal tumors to 5.24±1.51 mm Hg (49.7%). Ten minutes after anesthesia, IAP increased to 7.47±1.2 mm Hg and one hour after surgery decreased to 6.19±1.43 mm Hg. There was a strong overall correlation between IAP and CVP (P=0.0000; r=0.7779), as well as between IAP and IVP (P=0.0000; r=0.8635). Moreover, IAP correlated with IVP immediately after anesthesia and one hour after anesthesia. In conclusion, induction of anesthesia decreased IAP; excision of large bowel tumors decreased IAP; and IAP strongly correlated with CVP and IVP.Promjene intra-abdominalnog tlaka tijekom operacijskog zahvata zbog crijevnog tumora nisu dokumentirane. Svrha ovoga ispitivanja bila je ispitati promjene intra-abdominalnog tlaka (IAT), centralnog venskog tlaka (CVT) i ilijačno venskog tlaka (IVT) u bolesnika podvrgnutih laparotomiji zbog velikog crijevnog tumora. Ispitan je 21 odrasli bolesnik podvrgnut elektivnoj abdominalnoj kirurgiji. IAT, CVT i IVT mjereni su tijekom anestezije, operacije i ranog poslijeoperacijskog razdoblja. Srednji IAT prije anestezije bio je 12,76±1,09 mm Hg, a srednji volumen crijevnog tumora 1550±227,48 mL. Indukcija anestezije snizila je IAT na 10,52±1,32 mm Hg, a ekscizija intraperitonejskog tumora na 5,24±1,51 mm Hg (49,7%). Deset minuta nakon anestezije IAT se povisio na 7,47±1,2 mm Hg, a jedan sat nakon operacije snizio na 6,19±1,43 mm Hg. Zabilježena je visoka sveukupna korelacija između IAT i CVT (P=0,0000; r=0,7779) te između IAT i IVT (P=0,0000; r=0,8635). Štoviše, IAT je korelirao s IVT odmah nakon anestezije i jedan sat nakon anestezije. U zaključku, indukcijom anestezije snizio se IAT, uklanjanje velikog crijevnog tumora dovelo je do sniženja IAT, te je utvrđena visoka korelacija IAT s CVT i IVT

Interface Design for Physical Human-Robot Interaction using sensorless control

The rapid increase in the usage of robots has made interaction between a human and a robot a crucial field of research. Physical human–robot interaction constitutes a relevant and growing research area. Nowadays robots are used in almost all areas of life, such as in households, for education and in medicine. Therefore, many research studies are being conducted on ergonomic human–robot interfaces enabling people to communicate, collaborate and to teach a robot through physical interaction.This thesis is focused on developing a physical human-robot interface by means of which the user is able to control a walking humanoid by exerting force. Through physical contact with the robot arm, a human can influence the direction and velocity of the robot walk. In other words, the user leads the humanoid by the hand, and the robot compensates this external force by following the user.The developed interface offers a method of sensorless force control. Instead of the traditional approach using force/torque measurement, the fact that a DC motor’s torque is proportional to the armature current was applied. Two different control algorithms were implemented and compared. Consequently, a usability test was conducted for different interfaces to find the one which was the most ergonomic

A Strong Baseline for Fashion Retrieval with Person Re-Identification Models

Fashion retrieval is the challenging task of finding an exact match for fashion items contained within an image. Difficulties arise from the fine-grained nature of clothing items, very large intra-class and inter-class variance. Additionally, query and source images for the task usually come from different domains - street photos and catalogue photos respectively. Due to these differences, a significant gap in quality, lighting, contrast, background clutter and item presentation exists between domains. As a result, fashion retrieval is an active field of research both in academia and the industry. Inspired by recent advancements in Person Re-Identification research, we adapt leading ReID models to be used in fashion retrieval tasks. We introduce a simple baseline model for fashion retrieval, significantly outperforming previous state-of-the-art results despite a much simpler architecture. We conduct in-depth experiments on Street2Shop and DeepFashion datasets and validate our results. Finally, we propose a cross-domain (cross-dataset) evaluation method to test the robustness of fashion retrieval models.Comment: 33 pages, 14 figure

Multi-modal Embedding Fusion-based Recommender

Recommendation systems have lately been popularized globally, with primary use cases in online interaction systems, with significant focus on e-commerce platforms. We have developed a machine learning-based recommendation platform, which can be easily applied to almost any items and/or actions domain. Contrary to existing recommendation systems, our platform supports multiple types of interaction data with multiple modalities of metadata natively. This is achieved through multi-modal fusion of various data representations. We deployed the platform into multiple e-commerce stores of different kinds, e.g. food and beverages, shoes, fashion items, telecom operators. Here, we present our system, its flexibility and performance. We also show benchmark results on open datasets, that significantly outperform state-of-the-art prior work.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figure

Comparison of blind intubation via supraglottic airway devices versus standard intubation during different airway emergency scenarios in inexperienced hand Randomized, crossover manikin trial

Background: Securing the airway and enabling adequate oxygenation and ventilation is essential during cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). The aim of the study was to evaluate the success rate of blind intubation via the I-Gel and the Air-Q compared with direct laryngoscopy guided endotracheal intubation by inexperienced physician and to measure time to successful intubation. Methods: The study was designed as a randomized, cross-over simulation study. A total of 134 physicians, from specialties other than Anesthesia or Emergency Medicine, who considered themselves skilled in endotracheal intubation but who have never used any kind of supraglottic airway device performed blind intubation via the I-Gel and Air-Q and direct laryngoscopy guided endotracheal intubation in 3 randomized scenarios: normal airway without chest compression during intubation attempt; normal airway with continuous chest compression during intubation attempt; difficult airway with continuous chest compression. Results: Scenario A: Success rate with initial intubation attempt was 72% for endotracheal intubation, 75% in Air-Q, and 81% in I-Gel. Time to endotracheal intubation and ease of intubation was comparable with all 3 airway devices used. Scenario B: Success rate with the initial intubation attempt was 42% for endotracheal intubation, compared with 75% in Air-Q and 80% in I-Gel. Time for endotracheal intubation was significantly prolonged in endotracheal intubation (42seconds, 35-49), compared with Air-Q (21seconds, 18-32) and I-Gel (19seconds, 17-27). Scenario C: The success rate with the initial intubation attempt was 23% in endotracheal intubation, compared with 65% in Air-Q and 74% in I-Gel. Time to intubation was comparable with both supraglottic airway devices (20 vs 22seconds) but was significantly shorter compared with endotracheal intubation (50seconds, P <.001). Conclusions: Less to moderately experienced providers are able to perform endotracheal intubation in easy airways but fail during ongoing chest compressions and simulated difficult airway. Consequently, less to moderately experienced providers should refrain from endotracheal intubation during ongoing chest compressions during CPR and in expected difficult airways. Supraglottic airway devices are reliable alternatives and blind intubation through these devices is a valuable airway management strategy

Knowlege and attitudes toward intraosseous access among emergency medical service practitioners in Poland

INTRODUCTION: The administration of fluids, drugs and blood products is frequently indicated in patients suffering from serious injury or illness in the out-of-hospital emergency setting. Placement of a peripheral venous catheter may be challenging and several insertion attempts may delay intravenous therapy. Intraosseous access serves as a valuable alternative. However, this technique is rarely performed and knowledge of its use may not remain satisfactory in out-of-hospital Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel. METHODS: A written invitation to participate in this questionnaire study was sent to all EMS providers in Poland. Participants were asked to answer an online questionnaire consisting of 10 questions about their knowledge, ex­perience, and training of intraosseous devices. All answers were collected and processed anonymously. RESULTS: 438 out of 550 Polish EMS providers with a median experience of 5 years completed the questionnaire. Although 88% confirmed that there is an intraosseous access device available in their ambulance, only 47% had previously performed the procedure. Moreover, 48% reported subjective psychological barriers to obtaining an intraosseous access and 37% reported that intraosseous access should not be performed on paediatric patients. DISCUSSION: Intraosseous devices are widely available in many ambulances. Experience and knowledge regarding intraosseous access remains unsatisfactory among Polish EMS providers. Critical review of training and education curricula is therefore indicated