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Radiated immunity testing of vehicles has the potential to cause changes in, or corruption of, in-vehicle network messages, which may not necessarily result in a directly observable effect on the vehicle. Nonetheless, such effects may have undesirable impacts that are not currently considered or are only identified if message logs are analysed post-test. Analysis of in-vehicle automotive controller area network (CAN) traffic recorded before and during radiated immunity tests has been used to identify changes in CAN messages to highlight the susceptibility of particular electronic modules or the direct corruption of CAN messages. This capability has applications in the identification and resolution of possible vehicle radiated immunity issues, as well as possible implications for automotive cybersecurity.

Current automotive EMC engineering practices have served the industry well over many decades. In more recent years, however, the nature of vehicle electronic systems has begun to develop in ways that are leading to fundamental changes in the nature of road vehicles. The speed and nature of these changes are now becoming such that traditional assurance approaches based on prescriptive standards are beginning to struggle to keep pace with emerging technological changes. It is considered that moving towards the goal-based assurance and risk-based engineering approaches that are already used in other aspects of the engineering of complex systems would provide the basis of more sustainable assurance and engineering processes for automotive EMC engineering in the future.

Electromagnetic emissions associated with the transmission of automotive controller area network (CAN) messages within a passenger car have been analysed and used to reconstruct the original CAN messages. Concurrent monitoring of the CAN traffic via a wired connection to the vehicle OBD-II port was used to validate the effectiveness of the reconstruction process. These results confirm the feasibility of reconstructing in-vehicle network data for forensic purposes, without the need for wired access, at distances of up to 1 m from the vehicle by using magnetic field measurements, and up to 3 m using electric field measurements. This capability has applications in the identification and resolution of EMI issues in vehicle data network, as well as possible implications for automotive cybersecurity.

The range and complexity of technologies that are now being deployed in modern vehicles are increasing at an unprecedented rate. Furthermore, the pace of change is becoming so fast that standardization activities are struggling to support these ongoing developments. The adoption of more robust systems engineering practices and a risk-based approach will therefore be key to meeting the challenges of vehicle development into the 21st century. The emerging need is to ensure the "electromagnetic resilience" of vehicles, which goes beyond the approaches and boundaries of traditional automotive EMC.

Current trends in the automotive industry are reshaping the architectures and electromagnetic characteristics of road vehicles. Increasing electrification and connectivity are enabling considerable packaging flexibility and leading to radically different electromagnetic environments. At the same time, increasing automation of driving functions will require unprecedented levels of system dependability. However, existing EMC engineering processes were developed in a very different world of low system complexity and incremental technological development. In order to adapt to rising system complexity and the increasingly rapid pace of technological change, it is considered that a more agile risk-based approach is better suited to ensure the electromagnetic resilience of future vehicles and other complex systems. This paper outlines a Bayesian network approach that allows the combination of both technical and nontechnical aspects in assessing the likelihood of issues that could lead to system-level risks. This approach could be used to help achieve EM resilience from the earliest stages of product development, where the detailed information required to undertake detailed risk assessment is generally unavailable.

Protein structure is not static; residues undergo conformational rearrangements and, in doing so, create, stabilize or break non-covalent interactions. Molecular dynamics (MD) is a technique used to simulate these movements with atomic resolution. However, given the data-intensive nature of the technique, gathering relevant information from MD simulations is a complex and time consuming process requiring several computational tools to perform these analyses. Among different approaches, the study of residue interaction networks (RINs) has proven to facilitate the study of protein structures. In a RIN, nodes represent amino-acid residues and the connections between them depict non-covalent interactions. Here, we describe residue interaction networks in protein molecular dynamics (RIP-MD), a visual molecular dynamics (VMD) plugin to facilitate the study of RINs using trajectories obtained from MD simulations of proteins. Our software generates RINs from MD trajectory files. The non-covalent interactions defined by RIP-MD include H-bonds, salt bridges, VdWs, cation-π, π–π, Arginine–Arginine, and Coulomb interactions. In addition, RIP-MD also computes interactions based on distances between Cαs and disulfide bridges. The results of the analysis are shown in an user friendly interface. Moreover, the user can take advantage of the VMD visualization capacities, whereby through some effortless steps, it is possible to select and visualize interactions described for a single, several or all residues in a MD trajectory. Network and descriptive table files are also generated, allowing their further study in other specialized platforms. Our method was written in python in a parallelized fashion. This characteristic allows the analysis of large systems impossible to handle otherwise. RIP-MD is available at http://www.dlab.cl/ripmd.

[EN] Optimization and control strategies are necessary to keep wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) operating in the best possible conditions, maximizing effluent quality with the minimum consumption of energy. In this work, a benchmarking of different hierarchical control structures for WWTPs that combines static and dynamic Real Time Optimization (RTO) and non linear model predictive control (NMPC) is presented. The objective is to evaluate the enhancement of the operation in terms of economics and effluent quality that can be achieved when introducing NMPC technologies in the distinct levels of the multilayer structure. Three multilayer hierarchical structures are evaluated and compared for the N-Removal process considering the short term and long term operation in a rain weather scenario. A reduction in the operation costs of approximately 20% with a satisfactory compromise to Effluent Quality is achieved with the application of these control scheme., [ES] Las estrategias de optimización y control son necesarias para que las plantas de tratamiento de aguas residuales funcionen en las mejores condiciones posibles, maximizando la calidad de los efluentes con el mínimo consumo de energía. En este trabajo, se presenta un benchmarking de diferentes estructuras de control jerárquico para WWTP que combina Optimización en tiempo real estática y dinámica (RTO) y control predictivo modelo no lineal (NMPC). El objetivo es evaluar la mejora de la operación en términos de economía y calidad del efluente que se puede lograr al introducir las tecnologías NMPC en los distintos niveles de la estructura multicapa. Se evalúan y comparan tres estructuras jerárquicas multicapa para el proceso considerando la operación a corto y largo plazo en un escenario de lluvia. Con la aplicación de este esquema de control se logra una reducción de los costos de operación de aproximadamente el 20% con un compromiso satisfactorio a la calidad del efluente.

Cases We present 2 cases of traumatic testicular dislocation associated with a pelvic ring injury after a motorcycle collision. Case 1 describes bilateral testicular dislocation discovered intraoperatively. Urology was consulted, and the testicles were manually reduced under general anesthesia. Case 2 describes unilateral testicular dislocation discovered at the 1-month follow-up after pelvic ring fixation. Concern for infarction prompted urology to take the patient for surgical reduction. Both cases resolved uneventfully without genitourinary complaints at the follow-up. Conclusions Testicular dislocation is rare but should be considered in the setting of pelvic injury due to a motorcycle collision. Detection warrants urgent urologic consultation.

The standard adjuvant treatment for glioblastoma is temozolomide concomitant with radiotherapy, followed by a further six cycles of temozolomide. However, due to the lack of empirical evidence and international consensus regarding the optimal duration of temozolomide treatment, it is often extended to 12 or more cycles, even in the absence of residual disease. No clinical trial has shown clear evidence of clinical benefit of this extended treatment. We have explored the economic impact of this practice in Spain.Spanish neuro-oncologists completed a questionnaire on the clinical management of glioblastomas in their centers. Based on their responses and on available clinical and demographic data, we estimated the number of patients who receive more than six cycles of temozolomide and calculated the cost of this extended treatment.Temozolomide treatment is continued for more than six cycles by 80.5 % of neuro-oncologists: 44.4 % only if there is residual disease; 27.8 % for 12 cycles even in the absence of residual disease; and 8.3 % until progression. Thus, 292 patients annually will continue treatment beyond six cycles in spite of a lack of clear evidence of clinical benefit. Temozolomide is covered by the National Health Insurance System, and the additional economic burden to society of this extended treatment is nearly 1.5 million euros a year.The optimal duration of adjuvant temozolomide treatment merits investigation in a clinical trial due to the economic consequences of prolonged treatment without evidence of greater patient benefit.

In order to use a predicted protein structure one needs to know how good it is, as the utility of a model depends on its quality. To this aim, many Model Quality Assessment Programs (MQAP) have been developed over the last decade, with MQAP also being assessed at the CASP competition. We present a new knowledge-based MQAP which evaluates single protein structure models. We use a tree representation of the Cα trace to train a novel Neural Network Pairwise Interaction Field (NN-PIF) to predict the global quality of a model. NN-PIF allows fast evaluation of multiple structure models for a single sequence. In our tests on a large set of structures, our networks outperform most other methods based on different and more complex protein structure representations in global model quality prediction. Moreover, given NN-PIF can evaluate protein conformations very fast, we train a separate version of the model to gauge its ability to fold protein structures ab initio. We show that the resulting system, which relies only on basic information about the sequence and the Cα trace of a conformation, generally improves the quality of the structures it is presented with and may yield promising predictions in the absence of structural templates, although more research is required to harness the full potential of the model.

CSpritz is a web server for the prediction of intrinsic protein disorder. It is a combination of previous Spritz with two novel orthogonal systems developed by our group (Punch and ESpritz). Punch is based on sequence and structural templates trained with support vector machines. ESpritz is an efficient single sequence method based on bidirectional recursive neural networks. Spritz was extended to filter predictions based on structural homologues. After extensive testing, predictions are combined by averaging their probabilities. The CSpritz website can elaborate single or multiple predictions for either short or long disorder. The server provides a global output page, for download and simultaneous statistics of all predictions. Links are provided to each individual protein where the amino acid sequence and disorder prediction are displayed along with statistics for the individual protein. As a novel feature, CSpritz provides information about structural homologues as well as secondary structure and short functional linear motifs in each disordered segment. Benchmarking was performed on the very recent CASP9 data, where CSpritz would have ranked consistently well with a Sw measure of 49.27 and AUC of 0.828. The server, together with help and methods pages including examples, are freely available at URL: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/cspritz/.

Objective. Controversy exists about the effectiveness of anticonvulsants for the management of orofacial pain disorders. To ascertain appropriate therapies, a systematic review was conducted of existing randomized controlled trials.Study design. Trials were identified from PubMed, Cochrane, and Ovid Medline databases from 1962 through March 2010, from references in retrieved reports, and from references in review articles. Eight useful trials were identified for this review. Six studies were randomized placebo-controlled trials and 2 studies were randomized active-controlled. Two independent investigators reviewed these articles by using a 15-item checklist.Results. Four studies were classified as "high quality." However, heterogeneity of the trials and the small sample sizes precluded the drawing of firm conclusions about the efficacy of the interventions studied on orofacial pain patients. Conclusions. There is limited to moderate evidence supporting the efficacy of commonly used anticonvulsants for treatment of patients with orofacial pain disorders. More randomized controlled trials are needed on the efficacy of anticonvulsants.

For tracking purposes, small migratory birds are outfitted with antennas and transmitters so that their daily movements and migration patterns can be observed. In order to improve the practice of tracking wildlife and to extend the ranges over which animals can be tracked, it is necessary to characterize and fully exploit the parameters of the antennas being attached to animals. These birds provide a challenging opportunity to study the antennas used in wildlife tracking because of their small size (~15 cm in length) and light weight (averaging 26 g). For the first time, the present study provides a measurement methodology that can be used to estimate the efficiency of an electrically small antenna mounted to an approximate bird model, utilizing the Wheeler cap method. Because the antenna is less than one-eighth of a wavelength long and does not have a well-defined ground plane, measurement techniques are carefully considered and carried out. The results indicate that the bird model acts as a lossy ground plane for the transmitting monopole antenna. The radiating efficiency of the antenna-bird model system is conditioned by the size of the antenna as well as the effective resistance of the bird model. New recommendations for antenna and tracking-system design are provided, based on this investigation.

Magnetostrictive (MS) linear position sensors, which operate by measuring the time of flight of ultrasonic signals propagating in a waveguide, are one of the possible technologies for long range, absolute and high precision measurement. However, their accuracy is still far from the micrometer level achieved by standard differential sensors like optical encoders. This paper describes work in progress in a novel kind of MS linear position sensor, and considers the optimization of the processes of generation, transmission and reception of the ultrasonic waves in order to obtain higher precision. Preliminary results with the new sensor indicate a considerable improvement over the accuracy of standard MS sensors.

The object of this study was to describe pregnancy outcomes in women who had a transabdominal cerclage (TAC) placed after a prior uterine incision due to caesarean section or hysterotomy. This is a retrospective observational study of 57 women referred to a maternal-fetal medicine specialist (JES) for TAC placement after a previous uterine incision from 1989-2012. Pregnancy outcomes post-TAC placement are reported, including gestational age at delivery, survival rate and complications directly related to labour and the previous uterine scar. Of 51 women who had a prior uterine incision and were pregnant at TAC, 49 (96.1%) delivered viable infants at a mean gestational age of 35.9 weeks. One patient had intrauterine fetal demise at 16 weeks for causes likely unrelated to TAC and another had uterine rupture associated with a unicornuate uterus and advancing labour at 31 weeks. This study includes women with low transverse incisions, classical uterine incisions and higher order multiples. It was concluded that in women with a prior uterine incision, placement of a TAC is associated with low risk (2%) of uterine rupture.

The prevalence and clinical consequences of gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GERD) in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) are not well characterised. The present study prospectively studied 42 males with COPD (forced expiratory volume in one second % predicted: 35%, range 20-49) and 16 healthy volunteers of similar age without respiratory or gastro-oesophageal symptoms. The diagnosis of GERD was confirmed using oesophageal 24 h pH monitoring. In the current study group, reflux symptoms were measured using the Vigneri score, cough and dyspnoea with the modified Medical Research Council questionnaire, and pulmonary function with bronchodilator response and health status using St George's Respiratory Questionnaire. Pathological reflux was documented in 26 out of 42 patients (62%) and in three volunteers (19%). In patients with GERD, 15 patients (58%) did not report any reflux symptoms. There were no differences in symptoms, health status, bronchodilator treatment and pulmonary function test between patients with and without GERD. Oxygen desaturation coincided with episodes of increased oesophageal acidity in 40% of patients with GERD. Patients with severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease have a high prevalence of asymptomatic gastro-oesophageal reflux. The association between this reflux and oxygen desaturation deserves further attention.

In this research, we conducted a series of experiments to investigate the mechanisms of chemical mechanical polishing (CMP) of silicon. Experimental approaches include tribological tests of frictional and lubricating behavior, chemical analysis, and surface characterization. Specifically, the effects of pH in slurry, surface roughness of wafers, and nano-particle size on removal rate were studied. A transmission electron microscope (TEM), a scanning electron microscope (SEM), and x-ray characterization tools were used to study the change of surface structure and chemistry. Experimental results indicate that the removal rate and planarization are dominated by the surface chemistry.

Background. Due to possible complications and treatment limitations, the prevention of influenza in renal transplant (RT) patients is highly indicated. Methods. Forty-nine patients with a 1-year functioning RT subjected to two different immunosuppressive regimens and 37 healthy relatives (HR) were administered the anti-influenza vaccine as recommended for 1996 to 1997. Anti-influenza antibody, creatinine, and immunological markers were estimated at 1 and 3 months after vaccination. Results. Three months after vaccination, 46.2% of the RT patients and 69% of the HR (P=0.06) showed protective antibody titers to influenza A (relative risk [RR]; 0.67; 95% confidence interval: 0.44-1.02). A total of 20.5% of the RT patients and 44.8% of the HR showed antibodies to influenza B (P=0.03). Despite these differences, the incidence of illness was similar. The immunosuppressive regimen had no effect on the antibody response. Conclusions. Although the RT patients showed a reduced antibody response, no negative effects on graft outcome were observed.

This work presents a robot prototype designed and built for a new aided fruit‐harvesting strategy in highly unstructured environments, involving human‐machine task distribution. The operator drives the robotic harvester and performs the detection of fruits by means of a laser range‐finder, the computer performs the precise location of the fruits, computes adequate picking sequences and controls the motion of all the mechanical components (picking arm and gripper‐cutter). Throughout this work, the specific design of every module of the robotized fruit harvester is presented. The harvester has been built and laboratory tests with artificial trees were conducted to check range‐finder’s localization accuracy and dependence on external conditions, harvesting arm’s velocity, positioning accuracy and repeatability; and gripper‐cutter performance. Results show excellent range‐finder and harvesting arm operation, while a bottleneck is detected in gripper‐cutter performance. Some figures showing overall performance are given.

A supervised control system has been developed for an automated system (AlP, Grenoble, France). The supervised control concept [2,3] allows us to clearly separate control and supelVision. This provides a hierarchical frame that permits us to formalize and to systematize the transition from the synthesis to the implantation of the control. In this paper, the approach is detailed for a part of the process. Grafcet is intensively used for the supervision and control design. However, the proof of controllability is based on automata models.

The precise control of manipulators depends nonlinearly on the velocity of the motion as well as on manipulator configuration and commanded acceleration requiring complex control strategies. This paper presents a useful tool for identifying and quantifying nonlinear effects appearing during the motion of any manipulator, the Nonlinear Performance Index (npi). The npi takes into account not only the geometrical parameters defining the manipulator but also its structural dynamics through the use of inertial parameters like mass, inertia, centre of mass\,\ldots The npi can be used in the design stage for analysing and reducing these undesirable nonlinear effects in any general motion or in the trajectory planning looking for paths along which more precise control is expected. The last part of the paper shows how this design optimisation and path planning has been applied to the Agribot, a fruit picking robot designed at the IAI.

Optimization and control strategies are necessary to keep wastewater treatment plants operating in the best possible conditions with the minimum consumption of energy. In this paper static and dynamic set point optimization strategies to improve the operation of the plant in order to achieve the economically optimal conditions are studied. Different objective function formulations are compared and the overall performance of the plant operating in a rain weather scenario is evaluated to determine the most adequate operation strategy.

Public dental patients suffer from poorer oral health than the general population. Management of dental caries tends to focus on surgical interventions, such as restorations and extractions, rather than prevention and early intervention of the disease process. The current public dental system struggles to address the lifestyle and broader health issues affecting oral health and although an immediate dental problem can usually be alleviated, it can often be through the unnecessary removal of tooth structure, which invariably leads to other health and quality of life problems. There is widespread recognition by oral health clinicians that the restorative approach to the management of dental caries in the public sector is failing to improve oral health outcomes for many public patients. Oral health experts have recently adopted a national consensus statement on minimum intervention dentistry indicating their intention to work together to develop ways to implement this approach across the public dental sector. It is clear that, despite some significant challenges and required changes, the momentum for minimum intervention dentistry continues to grow across Australia. There is an urgent need to undertake research to assess the cost-effectiveness of this approach in the public sector.

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project., La lista completa de autores puede consultarse en el documento o en la página web de la revista., Facultad de Ingeniería

BACKGROUND: For patients with surgical third molar removal, it is unknown what constitutes a clinically important change in patients’ visual analogue scale (VAS) reports of pain intensity.OBJECTIVES: To determine what constitutes a clinically important change in pain intensity on a VAS following surgical removal of the third molar.METHODS: The study population consisted of patients participating in three randomized trials. Patients were asked to rate their pain three times per day over a period of seven days on a 100 mm VAS after surgical removal of the third molar. Global Perceived Effect was measured on day 1 and day 7 and was used as the external criterion for assessing clinically important pain reduction. Global Perceived Effect scores of 6 (‘much improved’) or higher were classified as clinically ‘successful’, and scores of 5 (‘slightly improved’) or below were classified as clinically ‘unsuccessful’. For each trial, the mean absolute and relative changes in VAS scores were calculated for both ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ treatments. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed.RESULTS: The patients who reported ‘successful’ pain reduction showed a relative pain reduction of ≥69% and an absolute pain reduction >2.5 cm on the VAS, whereas patients who classified their pain reduction as ‘unsuccessful’ had a relative pain reduction of ≥18.5% and an absolute pain reduction CONCLUSION: Relative pain reduction of ≥50% and an absolute pain reduction of ≥2.5 cm on the VAS were most accurate in predicting a successful pain reduction after a given treatment.

Outlines research work on the control of flexible single‐link robot arms in which the link is modelled as a beam and the end‐point position is controlled by measuring that position and using that measurement as a basis for applying a torque to the link joint. A position sensor device [PSD] is used as the measuring device. Describes how the measurement is taken and explains the measurement circuit and how the links are analyzed. Concludes that the simplicity of the general configuration of the photosensor system and the nature of the direct data obtained allows it to be used in a wide range of applications.

Dietary isomeric trans fatty acids-mainly produced by hydrogenation of oils-are suspected of increasing the risk of coronary heart disease. Dietary trans fatty acid intake is reflected in the fatty acid composition of adipose tissue. In an international multicentre study in eight European countries and Israel (EURAMIC), adipose tissue aspiration samples were obtained from 671 men with acute myocardial infarction (AMI), aged 70 years or less, and 717 men without a history of AMI (controls). The proportion of fatty acids, including isomeric trans monoenoic fatty acids with 18 carbon atoms (C18:1), was determined by gas chromatography. Although there were considerable differences between countries in mean (SD) proportion of adipose tissue C18:1 trans fatty acids, there was no overall difference between cases (1.61 [0.92]%) and the controls (1.57 [0.86]%). The risk of AMI did not differ significantly from 1.0 over quartiles of adipose C18:1 trans fatty acids: the multivariate odds ratio was 0.97 (95% CI 0.56-1.67) for the highest versus lowest quartile. After exclusion of subjects from Spanish centres because they had far lower proportions of adipose trans fatty acids than subjects from other countries, there was a tendency to increased risk of AMI in the upper quartiles of C18:1 trans; however, the trend was not statistically significant. Our results reflect considerable differences between countries in dietary intake of trans fatty acids but do not suggest a major overall effect of C18:1 trans fatty acids on risk of AMI. We cannot exclude the possibility that trans fatty acids have a significant impact on risk of AMI in populations with high intake.

This study describes the comparison of multiple and single pain ratings in patients after surgical removal of the third molar. Correlation and agreement analysis were performed between the average pain intensity measured three times a day over a period of 7 days and one single pain rating (designated the 'recalled average' pain, as assessed by the patient) after surgical removal of the lower third molar. The study population consisted of patients participating in three randomized trials. The results show that both measurement correlated good to excellent, but there was a large variation in agreement between the ratings. In conclusion, in patients with surgical third molar removal a single pain rating is not an accurate predictor of the average pain measured by a multiple pain-rating test. A single pain rating cannot replace a multiple pain assessment. © 2012 International Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons.

X-ray polarimetry promises to give qualitatively new information about high-energy astrophysical sources, such as binary black hole systems, micro-quasars, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts. We designed, built and tested a hard X-ray polarimeter, X-Calibur, to be used in the focal plane of the In FOCμS grazing incidence hard X-ray telescope. X-Calibur combines a low-Z Compton scatterer with a CZT detector assembly to measure the polarization of 20-60keV X-rays making use of the fact that polarized photons Compton scatter preferentially perpendicular to the electric field orientation; in principal, a similar space-borne experiment could be operated in the 5-100keV regime. X-Calibur achieves a high detection efficiency of order unity.

Orofacial pain is a common complaint with multiple diagnoses. There is controversy about the effectiveness of antidepressants for the management of orofacial pain disorders. In order to be able to make a best evidence choice between available antidepressants for the treatment of orofacial pain, a systematic review was conducted of existing randomized controlled trials of antidepressants. Trials were identified from the Pubmed database up to March 2012, from references in retrieved reports and from references in review articles. Six articles were found and included in this review. Four studies were randomized placebo-controlled trials and two studies were randomized active-controlled trials. Two independent investigators reviewed these articles using a 15-item checklist. All six trials were of high quality according to the 15-item criteria. Nevertheless there was limited evidence to support the effectiveness of antidepressants in orofacial pain disorders, because of the heterogeneity of treatment modalities and the low number of randomized controlled trials per diagnose. More randomized controlled trials are needed to come to a firm conclusion for the use of antidepressants for orofacial pain disorders.

Analyses the effects of temperature on the behaviour of ultrasonic sensors applied to object recognition. Describes the measurement system employed, the environmental considerations of ultrasonic sensors and looks at the most commonly used parameters to analyse the echo form in the recognition process. Evaluates the performance of the parametric model of the ultrasonic echo signal with a comparative study of different ultrasonic transducers.

This paper presents a study of the influence of temperature (0–60 °C) on the behaviour of different ultrasonic sensors. Measurements have been carried out by means of a sensor head connected to an automatic data-acquisition system using a controlled-temperature chamber. The influences are measured and analysed from the viewpoint of possible applications of ultrasonic sensors in environments with a wide temperature range. Special attention has been given to the study of echo signal amplitude, frequency behaviour, damping time and variations of the speed of sound; where possible a theoretical analysis of the changes is made.

Motivation: Residue interaction networks (RINs) have been used in the literature to describe the protein 3D structure as a graph where nodes represent residues and edges physico–chemical interactions, e.g. hydrogen bonds or van-der-Waals contacts. Topological network parameters can be calculated over RINs and have been correlated with various aspects of protein structure and function. Here we present a novel web server, RING, to construct physico–chemically valid RINs interactively from PDB files for subsequent visualization in the Cytoscape platform. The additional structure-based parameters secondary structure, solvent accessibility and experimental uncertainty can be combined with information regarding residue conservation, mutual information and residue-based energy scoring functions. Different visualization styles are provided to facilitate visualization and standard plugins can be used to calculate topological parameters in Cytoscape. A sample use case analyzing the active site of glutathione peroxidase is presented. Availability: The RING server, supplementary methods, examples and tutorials are available for non-commercial use at URL: http://protein.bio.unipd.it/ring/. Contact: silvio.tosatto@unipd.it

This Paper explains the construction phase of the project. It contains an introduction followed by a detailed description of the temporary works, and the construction methods and equipment used. A detailed discussion is provided on the factors that influenced the choice of systems for the major items of temporary works such as deck and portal formwork, launching equipment and piling frames. The construction section of the Paper, provides detailed comment on the methods and equipment used, how they performed, and how any difficulties were overcome for each phase of the construction, namely piling, portal construction, deck construction. A brief description of the 16000 kN testpile is also included. Comment is made on the merits of design and construct contracts in the public works sector.

The welding process is one of the most interesting industrial problems that can be solved by robotic systems. This kind of process presents different sensory aspects as environment and parts recognition, seam location and tracking, and obstacles avoidance. At the present time there is not a simple sensor for all these requirements. Nevertheless some measuring devices can satisfy particular needs. In this way, scanning-laser systems are used for locating the welding seam, vision cameras supply a survey of the general environment, tactile devices can be used to detect close obstacles in the trajectory and electric measurements by means of arc-furnish data for the fine control of the welding activity and tracking movements. This paper describes an original development and application—made in an Esprit project (Hephaestos I)—of an ultrasonic sensor focused on the environment and parts recognition for trajectory definition and real-time obstacle avoidance for welding work in large ship-repairing plants.

The Telescope Joan Oro at the Montsec Astronomical Observatory (TJO - OAdM) is a small-class observatory working in completely unattended control. There are key problems to solve when a robotic control is envisaged, both on hardware and software issues. We present the OpenROCS (ROCS stands for Robotic Observatory Control System), an open source platform developed for the robotic control of the TJO - OAdM and similar astronomical observatories. It is a complex software architecture, composed of several applications for hardware control, event handling, environment monitoring, target scheduling, image reduction pipeline, etc. The code is developed in Java, C++, Python and Perl. The software infrastructure used is based on the Internet Communications Engine (Ice), an object-oriented middleware that provides object-oriented remote procedure call, grid computing, and publish/subscribe functionality. We also describe the subsystem in charge of the dome control: several hardware and software elements developed to specially protect the system at this identified single point of failure. It integrates a redundant control and a rain detector signal for alarm triggering and it responds autonomously in case communication with any of the control elements is lost (watchdog functionality). The self-developed control software suite (OpenROCS) and dome control system have proven to be highly reliable.

Because the findings of epidemiologic studies of the relationship between oral contraceptive use and cervical cancer have not been consistent, we reanalyzed the relationship.Meta-analysis of studies published to date.Papers were located by searching the MEDLINE data base, supplemented by a hand search of all the references in the articles recovered.Studies were graded as to quality. Two meta-analyses were performed: one including all the studies gathered and one including methodologically acceptable studies only. The method of Woolf was used to combine relative risks. Heterogeneity of the effect was assessed.Fifty-one published studies were collected: 21 case-control, 18 cross-sectional, and 12 cohort designs. Twenty-one of these were considered as methodologically acceptable, but only 18 could be pooled. The main results observed were: relative risks was 1.52 (1.3-1.8) for dysplasia, 1.52 (1.3-1.8) for carcinoma in situ, and 1.21 (1.1-1.4) for invasive cancer. A significant linear dose-response effect was observed in dysplasia, carcinoma in situ, and invasive cervical cancer. Heterogeneity of the effect was present in some of the former estimates.Oral contraceptive use may be a risk factor for all stages of the natural history of cervical cancer, which may imply an initiator effect. Limitations to this research are discussed.Researchers in Spain conducted a literature search of the medical database called MEDLINE, of the Spanish Medical Index, and of all references in recovered pertinent articles to conduct a metaanalysis of epidemiologic studies that dealt with the association between oral contraceptive (OC) use and cervical cancer. They analyzed data from 51 studies (18 cross-sectional studies, 22 case-control studies, and 12 cohort analyses) in 58 publications. They considered 30 studies to be likely biased. These 30 studies were included in the large metaanalysis (metaanalysis I), but excluded from metaanalysis II. They discarded 3 studies because they were unable to derive a summary relative risk (RR) from 1 study, unable to compute the variance of the RR from another. Participants in the 3rd study already had cervical dysplasia. RR estimates of metaanalysis I were lower than those of metaanalysis II. The researchers confined their comments to metaanalysis II. Overall findings included an RR for dysplasia of 1.52, for carcinoma in situ of 1.52, and for invasive cancer of 1.21. This risk increased with duration of OC use. A significant linear dose-response effect occurred for dysplasia (p.01 for cohort studies only), carcinoma in situ (p.01 overall), and invasive cervical cancer (p.01 overall). Since the risk increased at all stages of cervical cancer, it suggested that OCs may be tumor initiators. When the researchers pooled risk estimates of all stages of cervical cancer study, they found a very significant heterogeneity which decreased with stratification by stage and design. This indicated that OCs' effect on cervical cancer risk may depend on the stage of its natural history. Since hormone dose has decreased over time, the researchers did not know whether the RR for currently marketed OCs remains. Nevertheless they recommended all women who had every sued OCs to visit a health practitioner periodically for early detection of cervical cancer.

We present an experimental study, complemented by numerical simulations, of the delay from the peak of the pump pulse to threshold of the dye laser pulse as a function of the selected wavelength. Delay variations of up to 0.2 nsec/nm were observed in Rhodamine dyes pumped by a N(2) laser. We conclude that the variations are intrinsic to the gain-loss characteristics and that excited-state singlet absorption can play a significant role.

Background Proteins, especially larger ones, are often composed of individual evolutionary units, domains, which have their own function and structural fold. Predicting domains is an important intermediate step in protein analyses, including the prediction of protein structures. Results We describe novel systems for the prediction of protein domain boundaries powered by Recursive Neural Networks. The systems rely on a combination of primary sequence and evolutionary information, predictions of structural features such as secondary structure, solvent accessibility and residue contact maps, and structural templates, both annotated for domains (from the SCOP dataset) and unannotated (from the PDB). We gauge the contribution of contact maps, and PDB and SCOP templates independently and for different ranges of template quality. We find that accurately predicted contact maps are informative for the prediction of domain boundaries, while the same is not true for contact maps predicted ab initio. We also find that gap information from PDB templates is informative, but, not surprisingly, less than SCOP annotations. We test both systems trained on templates of all qualities, and systems trained only on templates of marginal similarity to the query (less than 25% sequence identity). While the first batch of systems produces near perfect predictions in the presence of fair to good templates, the second batch outperforms or match ab initio predictors down to essentially any level of template quality. We test all systems in 5-fold cross-validation on a large non-redundant set of multi-domain and single domain proteins. The final predictors are state-of-the-art, with a template-less prediction boundary recall of 50.8% (precision 38.7%) within ± 20 residues and a single domain recall of 80.3% (precision 78.1%). The SCOP-based predictors achieve a boundary recall of 74% (precision 77.1%) again within ± 20 residues, and classify single domain proteins as such in over 85% of cases, when we allow a mix of bad and good quality templates. If we only allow marginal templates (max 25% sequence identity to the query) the scores remain high, with boundary recall and precision of 59% and 66.3%, and 80% of all single domain proteins predicted correctly. Conclusion The systems presented here may prove useful in large-scale annotation of protein domains in proteins of unknown structure. The methods are available as public web servers at the address: http://distill.ucd.ie/shandy/ and we plan on running them on a multi-genomic scale and make the results public in the near future.

A second full-gain W-Band folded-waveguide TWT is in test. The TWT largely duplicates the design reported on in 2008 [1] and maintains the goals of one-percent-bandwidth, 250 watts of peak power, 100 watts of average power, and small-signal gain near 30 dB.

This paper discusses the details surrounding the measurement of electrically small antennas, common errors in measurements, and the implications of these errors on system performance. Issues of small ground planes, cable effects, and efficiency measurements are examined for their apparent and interrelated effects on input impedance, radiation patterns, and system performance.

We present a new knowledge-based Model Quality Assessment Program (MQAP) at the residue level which evaluates single protein structure models. We use a tree representation of the C ? trace to train a novel Neural Network Pairwise Interaction Field (NN-PIF) to predict the global quality of a model. We also attempt to extract local quality from global quality. The model allows fast evaluation of multiple different structure models for a single sequence. In our tests on a large set of structures, our model outperforms most other methods based on different and more complex protein structure representations in both local and global quality prediction. The method is available upon request from the authors. Method-specific rankers may also built by the authors upon request.

International audience; Nançay radio astronomy station teams are involved in several aspects of the Research and Development (R&D) for radio astronomy detectors and systems: i) Microelectronics: Low Noise Amplifiers (LNA), receiver on chip andsystem in package. The long-term goal is to provide sub-systems forthe future Square Kilometer Array and its Pathfinders. A beamformer chip has been integratedin the FP6 SKADS dense aperture array technology demonstrator EMBRACE. Wide band SiGe LNAs aredeveloped, beamformers with in-chip control are studied and morecomplex integrated receivers are designed for the european Aperture ArrayVerification Programme demonstrator. ii) Digital signal processing: EMBRACE beamforming has been implementedin the digital backend and RFI-mitigation orientedsignal processing has been designed for realtime systems,including work for FP6 SKADS and FP7 PrepSKA. iii) A study of Phased Array Feeds has started in 2008, in order to studythe radio electric properties of PAFs at the focus of large F/Dtelescopes, such as the Nançay Radio Telescope, as well as to test PAFsystems in collaboration with the SPP/IRFU and LAL/IN2P3 laboratories.

This article deals with the problem of surveillance of occupational risks of workers. Computer-assisted elaboration of the job history (JH) for each worker was achieved by means of a job-exposure matrix (JEM) for each company. The final aim of the project is to find correlations between the exposure data of JHs and the health data of corresponding medical records.As a first experiment, some JEMs were computed using rectangular arrays even though it was realized that this simple structure was not really adequate. Later on, the structure of the computerized JEM included the following questions: (1) what types of information are involved; (2) how can the job-exposure correspondence be represented in the computer; (3) what characteristics of a company should be used for the elaboration of a JEM; (4) who is to construct each JEM, and how? This article shows the inadequacy of some occupational names for evoking the appropriate risks, a drawback which can be surmounted if the company organization is included in the JEM. Based on our analysis, several specifications useful for JEM computerization have been suggested.

Protein topology representations such as residue contact maps are an important intermediate step towards ab initio prediction of protein structure, but the problem of predicting reliable contact maps is far from solved. One of the main pitfalls of existing contact map predictors is that they generally predict unphysical maps, i.e. maps that cannot be embedded into three-dimensional structures or, at best, violate a number of basic constraints observed in real protein structures, such as the maximum number of contacts for a residue. Here, we focus on the problem of learning to predict more "physical" contact maps. We do so by first predicting contact maps through a traditional system (XXStout), and then filtering these maps by an ensemble of artificial neural networks. The filter is provided as input not only the bare predicted map, but also a number of global or long-range features extracted from it. In a rigorous cross-validation test, we show that the filter greatly improves the predicted maps it is input. CASP7 results, on which we report here, corroborate this finding. Importantly, since the approach we present here is fully modular, it may be beneficial to any other ab initio contact map predictor.

Three ways are proposed to help the occupational physician in constructing a worker’s job history or Curriculum Laboris (CL) with a PC. The quality and, therefore, the usefulness of any job history is greatly conditioned by the method and quality of data collection. The Curriculum Laboris method explained in a previous article has been briefly summarized as a basis of departure. Then, the workers who were submitted to special medical surveillance were considered. After this, the scrolling menu technique was applied in the elaboration of a job history. Finally, the authors show how the representation of company organization by means of a job exposure matrix (JEM) can help to efficiently elaborate job histories.

To evaluate the efficacy and biotolerance of the Adal-1 adhesive for muscle sealing in strabismus surgery.27 eyes were included in the study: 17 in the control group and 10 in the study group. Surgery was performed on the recession of the horizontal rectus muscles. In the control group the muscle was joined to the sclera by a Vicryl 7/0 suture. In the study group, the Adal-1 adhesive was used instead. The efficacy of the sealing of the muscle to the sclera and the biotolerance of the surrounding tissues were evaluated.The muscular recession in the control group was 8.17 (SD 2.38) with displacement of the sealing point of 0.02 (1.7) mm. In the group sealed with adhesive, the muscular recession was 9.09 (3.08) and the displacement was 0.15 (1.56) mm, with no significant differences between the techniques (p0.05). The inflammation of the surrounding tissues in the immediate postoperative period was greater with the suture technique (p0.05), but there were no differences in the other postoperative periods (Mann-Whitney U test).Adal-1 was an effective and safe alternative to sutures in muscle recession for strabismus surgery in this study.

The comparison of numerical model data against experimental mental data is common in EMC research and development. However, it is unlikely that the model will be an exact replica of the experimental situation, or vice versa. This is likely to lead to differences in the two sets of results, which complicate the comparison process. This paper presents an algorithm which allows compensation for complex variations between data sets, making the investigation of the level of (dis)agreement more focussed. The proposed technique allows better identification of features that are in disagreement between the results by correcting for artefacts arising, largely, from modelling assumptions. This paper describes the technique and demonstrates its benefits.