Uranus: A Middleware Architecture for Dependable AAL and Vital Signs Monitoring Applications

The design and realization of health monitoring applications has attracted the interest of large communities both from industry and academia. Several research challenges have been faced and issues tackled in order to realize effective applications for the management and monitoring of people with chronic diseases, people with disabilities, elderly people. However, there is a lack of efficient tools that enable rapid and possibly cheap realization of reliable health monitoring applications. The paper presents Uranus, a service oriented middleware architecture, which provides basic functions for the integration of different kinds of biomedical sensors. Uranus has also distinguishing characteristics like services for the run-time verification of the correctness of running applications and mechanisms for the recovery from failures. The paper concludes with two case studies as proof of concept

Probabilistic assessment of live load effects on continuous span bridges with regular and irregular configurations and its design implications

Studies on live load effects reported in recent literature are based on simple span bridges or on a limited number of continuous span bridges and regular configurations. In this study an extensive probabilistic assessment of live load effects on continuous bridges is carried out for regular and irregular span configurations using WIM data. Single vehicle passage is considered, and live load effects are compared with those from a live load model developed for simple spans from the same database. Truck models from Canada are also used for comparison purposes. Discussion of the fitting of extreme distribution is included, and an optimization scheme for the fitting is proposed. The most important finding of the study is that the use of live load models developed from simple spans or a limited number of continuous spans may not be suitable for designing continuous bridges, specially those with irregular configurations and short spans.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author

New Algorithms for Reference Generation in Symbolic Analysis or Large Analog Circuits

This paper addresses the problems arising in the calculation of numerical references (network function coefficients) , essential for an appropriate error control in simplification before and during generation algorithms for symbolic analysis of large analog circuits. The conventional polynomial interpolation method reveals to be unable to handle the large circuit sizes needed, mainly due to the dramatic effect of round-off errors. This paper introduces a new algorithm able to accurately calculate the network function coefficients of large analog circuits in an efficient way. 1. Introduction Symbolic circuit analysis refers to the calculation of network functions where all or part of the circuit parameters are represented by symbols. The applicability of symbolic simulation techniques to the analysis and synthesis of analog integrated circuits has been known for a long time. See for instance [1] for an actualized review of techniques and applications of symbolic analysis. Given the e..

A meta-analysis of latitudinal variations in life-history traits of roach, Rutilus rutilus, over its geographical range: linear or non-linear relationships?

1. We collated information from the literature on life history traits of the roach (a generalist freshwater fish), and analysed variation in absolute fecundity, von Bertalanffy parameters, and reproductive lifespan in relation to latitude, using both linear and non-linear regression models. We hypothesized that because most life history traits are dependent on growth rate, and growth rate is non-linearly related with temperature, it was likely that when analysed over the whole distribution range of roach, variation in key life history traits would show non-linear patterns with latitude. 2. As fecundity depends strongly on length, and the length structure of females varied among populations, latitudinal patterns in fecundity were examined based on residuals from the length–fecundity relationship. The reproductive lifespan of roach was estimated as the difference between age at maturity and maximum age of females in each population. 3. The three life history traits of roach analysed all varied among populations and were non-linearly related to latitude. Only the relationship between reproductive lifespan and latitude was a better fit to a linear that to a quadratic model, although Loess smoothing curves revealed that this relationship was actually closer to biphasic than linear in form. A latitude of 50°N formed a break point in all three life history traits. 4. The negative relationships we have described between (i) fecundity and reproductive lifespan and (ii) fecundity and egg mass suggest that lower fecundity is compensated for by longer lifespan, while lower fecundity is compensated for by an increased egg mass, when analysed independently of location

First Observation of the Radiative Decay Lambda(0 )(b)-> Lambda gamma

The radiative decay Λ0b→Λγ is observed for the first time using a data sample of proton-proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.7  fb−1 collected by the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. Its branching fraction is measured exploiting the B0→K*0γ decay as a normalization mode and is found to be B(Λ0b→Λγ)=(7.1±1.5±0.6±0.7)×10−6, where the quoted uncertainties are statistical, systematic, and systematic from external inputs, respectively. This is the first observation of a radiative decay of a beauty baryon