Mobile tele-echography: user interface design.

Ultrasound imaging allows the evaluation of the degree of emergency of a patient. However, in some instances, a well-trained sonographer is unavailable to perform such echography. To cope with this issue, the Mobile Tele-Echography Using an Ultralight Robot (OTELO) project aims to develop a fully integrated end-to-end mobile tele-echography system using an ultralight remote-controlled robot for population groups that are not served locally by medical experts. This paper focuses on the user interface of the OTELO system, consisting of the following parts: an ultrasound video transmission system providing real-time images of the scanned area, an audio/video conference to communicate with the paramedical assistant and with the patient, and a virtual-reality environment, providing visual and haptic feedback to the expert, while capturing the expert's hand movements. These movements are reproduced by the robot at the patient site while holding the ultrasound probe against the patient skin. In addition, the user interface includes an image processing facility for enhancing the received images and the possibility to include them into a database.     

On sorting triangles in a delaunay tessellation

In a two-dimensional Delaunay-triangulated domain, there exists a partial ordering of the triangles (with respect to a vertex) that is consistent with the two-dimensional visibility of the triangles from that vertex. An equivalent statement is that a polygon that is star-shaped with respect to a given vertex can be extended, one triangle at a time, until it includes the entire domain. Arbitrary planar triangulations do not possess this useful property which allows incremental processing of the triangles.This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation's US-Italy Collaborative Research Program under Grant INT-8714578 and Information, Robotics, and Intelligent Research Grant IRI-8704781.     

Representation of shift-invariant operators onL 2 byH ∞ transfer functions: An elementary proof,a generalization toL p,and a counterexample forL ∞

We give an elementary proof of the well-known fact that shift-invariant operators onL ²[0, ∞) are represented by transfer functions which are bounded and analytic on the right open half-plane. We prove a generalization to Banach space-valuedL ^p -functions, where 1≤p<∞. We show that the result no longer holds forp=∞. This research was supported partially by the Weizmann Fellowship, and partially by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Contract F49620-86-C-0111.     

What We Mean by Future-Proofing

Perhaps the most powerful claim that advocates of fiber can make,on top of the massive bandwidthfiber makes possible today, is that fiber is future-proof. That is, the fiber that is laid today can be upgraded so that the same strands of glass can carry massively more bandwidth in the future.     

Second-order accurate constraint formulation for subdivision finite element simulation of thin shells

We present a new method for enforcing boundary conditions within subdivision finite element simulations of thin shells. The proposed framework is demonstrated to be second-order accurate with respect to increasing refinement in the displacement and energy norm for simply supported, clamped, free and symmetric boundary conditions. Second-order accuracy on the boundary is consistent with the accuracy of subdivision-based approaches for the interior of a body. Our proposed framework is applicable to both triangular and quadrilateral refinement schemes, and does not impose any topological requirements upon the underlying subdivision control mesh. Several examples from an obstacle course of benchmark problems are used to demonstrate the convergence of the scheme. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Artificial neural network medical decision support tool: predicting transfusion requirements of ER patients.

Blood product transfusion is a financial concern for hospitals and patients. Efficient utilization of this dwindling resource is a critical problem if hospitals are to maximize patient care while minimizing costs. Traditional statistical models do not perform well in this domain. An additional concern is the speed with which transfusion decisions and planning can be made. Rapid assessment in the emergency room (ER) necessarily limits the amount of usable information available (with respect to independent variables available). This study evaluates the efficacy of using artificial neural networks (ANNs) to predict the transfusion requirements of trauma patients using readily available information. A total of 1016 patient records are used to train and test a backpropagation neural network for predicting the transfusion requirements of these patients during the first 2, 2-6, and 6-24 h, and for total transfusions. Sensitivity and specificity analysis are used along with the mean absolute difference between blood units predicted and units transfused to demonstrate that ANNs can accurately predict most ER patient transfusion requirements, while only using information available at the time of entry into the ER.     

Contracting, prompting, and reinforcing substance use disorder continuing care: A randomized clinical trial.

Although continuing care is strongly related to positive treatment outcomes for substance use disorder (SUD), participation rates are low and few effective interventions are available. In a randomized clinical trial with 150 participants (97% men), 75 graduates of a residential Veterans Affairs Medical Center SUD program who received an aftercare contract, attendance prompts, and reinforcers (CPR) were compared to 75 graduates who received standard treatment (STX). Among CPR participants, 55% completed at least 3 months of aftercare, compared to 36% in STX. Similarly, CPR participants remained in treatment longer than those in STX (5.5 vs. 4.4 months). Additionally, CPR participants were more likely to be abstinent compared to STX (57% vs. 37%) after 1 year. The CPR intervention offers a practical means to improve adherence among individuals in SUD treatment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hydrothermal Modeling Studies of Cooling Tower Alternatives

The Environmental Effects Committee of the ASCE Energy Engineering Division has been developing a report on “Energy Production and Reservoir Water Quality” for publication. The report covers the regulatory framework that dictates much of the procedures for studies related to this topic, the fundamental reservoir hydrodynamics and water quality modeling used in preparing studies, the kinds of studies that can be prepared at different levels of analysis, and a series of applications that illustrate the problems encountered and applications of the various techniques. This study of hydrothermal modeling as applied to examining cooling tower alternatives for an existing steam electric station on a moderately large reservoir is included in this report and is presented here as an illustration of the types of studies included. This particular study subtended the usual steam electric plant cooling water discharge studies that relate to specific regulatory thermal plume size standards, and had to be designed around developing plant and cooling tower operations that would meet specific fisheries requirements for a zone of passage and refuge for fishes throughout the receiving embayment. After being used in developing cooling tower and plant operating details for the designers to work with, it was required that the hydrothermal modeling results be verified under actual tower operating conditions. In addition, it was required that the impact of the combined operations on dissolved oxygen be examined in detail. This paper covers the background to setting up the study, the kinds of statistical comparisons used to verify the hydrothermal studies, and similar studies for the analysis of dissolved oxygen distributions.