The effect of visco-anaesthetic medicament on tactile gag reflex control

Visco-anaesthetic medication has been used for controlling the gagging sensation in 35 dental patients during intra-oral radiography and impression making. The drug was satisfactory in 29 patients and failed to control the gagging reflex in 6 patients. A direct relation between loss of oral sensation and control of gag reflex has been established.     

Energy expenditure of acutely ill hospitalised patients

Objective  

To measure energy expenditure of acutely ill elderly patients in hospital and following discharge in the community.     

Kinetics of sintering of unsupported platinum catalyst in nitrogen,oxygen and hydrogen atmospheres

The sintering of platinum black catalyst in different atmospheres, namely, nitrogen, oxygen and hydrogen was studied in the temperature range 300-600 °C. The rate of sintering was found to differ in different atmospheres; it is the least in oxygen, whereas in nitrogen the sintering seems to be much facilitated and in hydrogen the rapid de-activation becomes much more pronounced. Analysis of the kinetic results showed that the sintering process follows the first order equation in nitrogen and in vacuo, and follows the second order equation in oxygen and hydrogen atmospheres. The activation energy of the sintering process, calculated from the Arrhenius equation, was found to be 2.9, 3.7 and 13 k cal/mol in hydrogen, oxygen and nitrogen respectively, as obtained from the activity measurements, and 3, 3.5 and 12.5 respectively, as obtained from the surface measurements. An interpretation was given for the high activation energy of sintering in nitrogen in view of compound formation on the surface.     

Hybrid Energy System with an Energy Management Control Strategy Based on the Online Fuel Consumption

Abstract

Many agriculture investments are oriented to the Sahara. Noticeably, they need electricity which is often provided by diesel generators. The refueling process is a real economic challenge due to the very remote area distance which makes it very expensive. To overcome this issue, the hybridization is initiated with the renewable solar photovoltaic energy. That marks an excess or a shortage of power; to cope this uncontrolled power a storage system is compulsory. This work is specific to the pumped hydroelectric storage system which is favorable due to its ecological aspects and the subject matter. The proposed management takes into account the solar temporal variation combined to the pumping scheduling time and real-time fuel consumption optimization. This last proves the PSH’s performance dual function in both the irrigation and power restitution; it also reduces the gas emission and saves fuel. As far as this study is concerned, the suggested control is successfully examined through the management strategy in comparison to that of the literature. Consequently, this study could be helpful for similar future studies. Because, it links the diesel efficiency, solar variation, and dynamic load under the constraints of diesel rated power optimal sizing, PV panels surface, and water tank dimension.     

Reply to Comment on "Synthesis of ZnS thin films using the spray pyrolysis technique"

Journal of Materials Science: Materials in Electronics -     

Shape based appearance model for kernel tracking

This paper investigates kernel based tracking using shape information. A kernel based tracker typically models an object with a primitive geometric shape, and then estimates the object state by fitting the kernel such that the appearance model is optimized. Most of the appearance models in kernel based tracking utilize the textural information within the kernel, although a few of them also make use of the gradient information along the kernel boundary. Interestingly, shape information of a general form has never been fully exploited in kernel tracking, despite the fact that shape has been widely used in silhouette tracking at the cost of intensive computation. In this paper, we propose an original way to incorporate shape knowledge into the appearance model of kernel based trackers while preserving their computational advantage versus silhouette based trackers. Experimental results demonstrate that kernel tracking is strongly improved by exploiting the proposed shape cue through comparisons to both kernel and silhouette trackers.     

Formal Modeling and Reconfiguration of User Interfaces for Reduction of Errors in Failure Handling of Complex Systems

Controlling and observing complex systems is central to the study of human–machine interaction. In our understanding, there is much to be gained from integrating formal modeling and analysis, including the reconfiguration of user interfaces, with the development of user interfaces with high usability. To this end, we introduce a new approach to modeling and reconfiguration of user interfaces jointly with a newly developed set of tools for interactive and visual creation and automatic transformation of user interfaces' interaction logic to a formal language based on Petri nets. Reconfiguration will be embedded into a process for adapting user interfaces to the user's cognitive representation of the controlled system. This process involves practicing the use of a given user interface, adapting it to the user's needs through reconfiguration, and applying the resulting adaptations to the formally defined interaction logic. An evaluation study confirms that this process reduces errors in interaction.     

中国手语信息处理述评

为了能够有效地对中国手语进行信息处理,需要针对中国手语的特性提出相应的信息处理方案。该文根据国内外的研究进展情况,从基于规则和基于语料库的角度,讨论了中国手语信息处理过程中遇到的有关问题,并提出可借鉴的中国手语信息处理技术,同时从中国手语自身的词法、句法出发,参考国外手语语言学的最新研究成果,讨论了中国手语信息处理中有关信息表征、理解、生成等问题。最后指出未来手语的信息处理将会更多地建立在跨学科、多模式的基础之上 ,该项研究将有力地促进信息无障碍技术的发展。