Infrastructureless pedestrian navigation to assess the response of Alzheimer's patients to visual cues

The aim of the study was to understand how patients with dementia were able to navigate in a domestic environment, and whether the presence of visual cues could assist in route finding. A simulated domestic environment was created in the Pedestrian Accessibility and Movement Environment Laboratory (PAMELA) comprising three different types of corridors and an open room with three doors. Three groups of subjects were studied: i) posterior cortical atrophy; ii) typical Alzheimer’s disease; iii) age- and gender matched controls. Foot-mounted inertial measurement units (IMUs) were used to measure accelerations in 3D. Data from the sensors was transmitted wirelessly to a laptop computer. Local accelerations were converted to global accelerations, and double integration was performed to calculate displacement; corrections for sensor drift were performed during this process

Определение оптимальных параметров источника рентгеновского излучения на базе малогабаритного ускорителя электронов

Проведено моделирование спектров рентгеновского излучения, генерируемого электронами с энергией 4…10 МэВ в мишенях из различных материалов и разной толщины. Определены оптимальные параметры мишени-конвертора для использования ее в медицинских источниках монохроматического рентгеновского излучения на базе малогабаритных электронных ускорителей. Проведены оценки интенсивности излучения и сравнение источников на базе разных ускорителей

The Role of the Indian Ocean Sector for Prediction of the Coupled Indo-Pacific System: Impact of Atmospheric Coupling

Indian Ocean (IO) dynamics impact ENSO predictability by influencing wind and precipitation anomalies in the Pacific. To test if the upstream influence of the IO improves ENSO validation statistics, a combination of forced ocean, atmosphere, and coupled models are utilized. In one experiment, the full tropical Indo-Pacific region atmosphere is forced by observed interannual SST anomalies. In the other, the IO is forced by climatological SST. Differences between these two forced atmospheric model experiments spotlight a much richer wind response pattern in the Pacific than previous studies that used idealized forcing and simple linear atmospheric models. Weak westerlies are found near the equator similar to earlier literature. However, at initialization strong easterlies between 30 deg. S to 10 deg. S and 0 deg. N to 25 deg. N and equatorial convergence of the meridional winds across the entire Pacific are unique findings from this paper. The large-scale equatorial divergence west of the dateline and northeasterly-to-northwesterly cross-equatorial flow converging on the equator east of the dateline in the Pacific are generated from interannual IO SST coupling. In addition, off-equatorial downwelling curl impacts large-scale oceanic waves (i.e., Rossby waves reflect as western boundary Kelvin waves). After 3 months, these downwelling equatorial Kelvin waves propagate across the Pacific and strengthen the NINO3 SST. Eventually Bjerknes feedbacks take hold in the eastern Pacific which allows this warm anomaly to grow. Coupled forecasts for NINO3 SST anomalies for 1993-2014 demonstrate that including interannual IO forcing significantly improves predictions for 3-9 month lead times

Increasing compliance with wearing a medical device in children with autism

Health professionals often recommend the use of medical devices to assess the health, monitor the well-being, or improve the quality of life of their patients. Children with autism may present challenges in these situations as their sensory peculiarities may increase refusals to wear such devices. To address this issue, we systematically replicated prior research by examining the effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to increase compliance with wearing a heart rate monitor in 2 children with autism. The intervention increased compliance to 100% for both participants when an edible reinforcer was delivered every 90 s. The results indicate that DRO does not require the implementation of extinction to increase compliance with wearing a medical device. More research is needed to examine whether the reinforcement schedule can be further thinned

Anomalous electronic susceptibility in Bi2Sr2CuO6+d and comparison with other overdoped cuprates

We report magnetic susceptibility performed on overdoped Bi2Sr2CuO6+d powders as a function of oxygen doping d and temperature T. The decrease of the spin susceptibility with increasing T is confirmed. At sufficient high temperature, the spin susceptibility Chi_s presents an unusual linear temperature dependence Chi_s ~ Chi_s0 -Chi_1 T. Moreover, a linear correlation between Chi_1 and Chi_s0 for increasing hole concentration is displayed. A temperature Tchi, independent of hole doping characterizes this scaling. Comparison with other cuprates of the literature(LSCO, Tl-2201 and Bi-2212), over the same overdoped range, shows similarities with above results. These non conventional metal features will be discussed in terms of a singular narrow-band structure.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

The construction of exact multipolar equilibria of the two-dimensional Euler equations

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Tropical instability waves at 0N, 23W in the Atlantic: A case study using Pilot Research Moored Array in the Tropical Atlantic (PIRATA) mooring data

[1] Temperature, salinity, velocity, and wind from a mooring at 0°N, 23°W are used along with satellite data for sea surface temperature and sea level to examine the contribution of tropical instability waves (TIWs) to the energy and heat balance of the equatorial Atlantic mixed layer. The TIWs appear as periodic 20-30 day fluctuations of currents, temperature, and salinity, which intensify beginning in June and peak in late boreal summer. The intensification occurs in phase with strengthening of the southeasterly trade winds and the seasonal appearance of the equatorial tongue of cold mixed layer temperatures. In 2002 these waves, which warm the mixed layer by 0.35°C during summer months, are maintained by both barotropic and baroclinic conversions that are of comparable size. Salinity fluctuations, previously neglected, increase the magnitude of baroclinic energy conversion