Effects of experimental endogenous hyperlipemia on circulating leukocytes and erythrocytes

Effects of hyperlipemia on circulating leukocytes and erythrocytes were studied in dogs which were given repeated, intravenous injections of a nonionic detergent, Triton WR-1339. Erythrocyte lipid concentrations increased from 3.6±0.9 mg/10¹⁰ cells in control animals to 9.3±1.5 mg in the hyperlipemic group. This increase was accompanied by a shift in the distribution of total fatty acids toward a higher percentage of saturated and monounsaturated acids. In contrast to the changes observed in erythrocytes, the leukocyte lipid content remained unaltered in dogs with serum cholesterol levels ranging from 500 to more than 2,000 mg/100 ml. Leukocyte counts rose whereas hematocrit values, hemoglobin concentrations, and erythrocyte counts decreased. Oxygen utilization studies showed no significant metabolic differences between leukocytes which were isolated from hyperlipemic or control animals. Circulating leukocytes in dogs with an endogenously induced hyperlipemia were shown therefore to maintain normal lipid concentrations and did not participate in lipophage formation, as reported for certain diet-induced lipemias.     

Hybrid and ensemble-based soft computing techniques in bankruptcy prediction: a survey

This paper presents a comprehensive review of hybrid and ensemble-based soft computing techniques applied to bankruptcy prediction. A variety of soft computing techniques are being applied to bankruptcy prediction. Our focus is on techniques, namely how different techniques are combined, but not on obtained results. Almost all authors demonstrate that the technique they propose outperforms some other methods chosen for the comparison. However, due to different data sets used by different authors and bearing in mind the fact that confidence intervals for the prediction accuracies are seldom provided, fair comparison of results obtained by different authors is hardly possible. Simulations covering a large variety of techniques and data sets are needed for a fair comparison. We call a technique hybrid if several soft computing approaches are applied in the analysis and only one predictor is used to make the final prediction. In contrast, outputs of several predictors are combined, to obtain an ensemble-based prediction.     

Wind energy development policy and prospects in Lithuania

According to the EU Directive 2001/77/EC 7% of all electricity production is to be generated from renewable energy sources (RES) in Lithuania in 2010. Electricity production from RES is determined by hydro, biomass and wind energy resources in Lithuania. Further development of hydro power plants is limited by environmental restrictions, therefore priority is given to wind energy development. The aim of this paper is to show estimation of the maximum wind power penetration in the Lithuanian electricity system using such criteria as wind potential, possibilities of the existing electricity network, possible environmental impact, and social and economical aspects. Generalization of data from the meteorological stations and special measurements shows that the highest average wind speed in Lithuanian territory is in the coastal region and at 50 m above ground level reaches 6.4 m/s. In regard to wind resource distribution in this region, arrangement of electricity grid and environment protection requirements, six zones have been determined for wind power plant construction. Calculations have shown that the largest total installed capacity of wind farms, which could cause no significant increase in power transmission expenses, is 170 MW. The threshold, which cannot be passed without capital reconstruction of electricity network, is 500 MW of total capacity of wind farms.     

Modeling of enterprise management structure for data leakage evaluation

Modern organizations strongly rely on various forms of data, ranging from communication technologies to bookkeeping and manufacturing. It is a crucial asset of any enterprise, requiring special attention security-wise. One of the data security areas currently in focus is data leakage. It may occur due to malicious attacks, human error, unintentional data sharing, etc. Therefore it is important to predict all data leakage possibilities and prevent them. This paper proposes an Enterprise Management Structure (EMS) model for information flow data leakage probability estimation. The model evaluates the probability of data leakage according to possible human error and summarized security properties for data processing and transfer. Four different versions of small EMS are analyzed using the proposed model. The study concludes that its results meet expert evaluation tendencies and correlate with Bell-LaPadula confidentiality model.     

The mass appraisal of the real estate by computational intelligence

Mass appraisal is the systematic appraisal of groups of properties as of a given date using standardized procedures and statistical testing. Mass appraisal is commonly used to compute real estate tax. There are three traditional real estate valuation methods: the sales comparison approach, income approach, and the cost approach. Mass appraisal models are commonly based on the sales comparison approach. The ordinary least squares (OLS) linear regression is the classical method used to build models in this approach. The method is compared with computational intelligence approaches – support vector machine (SVM) regression, multilayer perceptron (MLP), and a committee of predictors in this paper. All the three predictors are used to build a weighted data-depended committee. A self-organizing map (SOM) generating clusters of value zones is used to obtain the data-dependent aggregation weights. The experimental investigations performed using data cordially provided by the Register center of Lithuania have shown very promising results. The performance of the computational intelligence-based techniques was considerably higher than that obtained using the official real estate models of the Register center. The performance of the committee using the weights based on zones obtained from the SOM was also higher than of that exploiting the real estate value zones provided by the Register center.     

Drive level acoustic defectoscopy for head disc interface (HDI) integration and manufacturing

A short product development cycle for modern hard disc drive (HDD) depends entirely on early defect characterization. However, deviations from desired HDI mechanical performance are not always manifested in electromagnetic read back or servo control signals. The best non-destructive tool to monitor HDI dynamics at the HDD level is a passive acoustic technique that tracks equilibrium of the head gimbal assembly and air bearing (AB) modes. This technique is capable of active head protrusion detection as well as detection of embedded particles. The drawback of the passive acoustic monitoring technique at drive level is that a noisy HDD environment makes the detectability of a useful signal challenging. The proposed HDD level in situ passive HDI acoustic monitoring technique consists of external AE sensors driven by adequate electronics. These are enhanced by advanced signal processing routines that include adaptive discrete wavelet transforms. The system is tuned to monitor acoustic HDI signatures during drive spin-up/spin-down cycles as well as during passive and active height across the data zones. In addition, integrated acoustic energy metrics can be used in AB design evaluation stages. In this work examples of HDD level passive acoustic monitoring applications for HDI development, and manufacturing defect tracking, are presented and supported by failure analysis results.     

Stress/strain state investigations for extreme points of thin wall cylindrical tanks

In all branches of industry, especially in power-engineering, thin wall steel structures are extensively used. Land vertical cylindrical tanks are examples of such structures. The manufacture and assembling of these structures are usually accompanied by deviations from an ideal cylindrical form. Therefore, the exact evaluation of real local imperfections and common deviations from the analytical model of the tank is very important for such potentially dangerous structures.The main objective of the presented investigations is to identify stress/strain state of the wall tank with local imperfections from the ideal cylindrical surface, taking into account the membrane theory of the shells by using the analytical method, natural experiment and the finite element method.Besides, across the tank wall at the sites of its rigidity variation, rigidity ribs and at places of the load’s significant change, total moment internal forces and stresses arise, which are defined by a solution of the problem of the beam on the elastic ground. The given investigation also suggests the solution of the above-mentioned problem not only for the case when the tank wall is considered as a (long) flexible shell but as a semi-rigid one, when the edge effect is distributed over the whole wall’s height.     

Ultra sensitive in-situ acoustic characterization system for HDD head disc interface defectoscopy

An ultra sensitive drive level acoustic characterization system has been developed for in-situ Head Disc Interface defectoscopy. Multimode acoustic emission (AE) sensor installed on the drive cover is designed for tracking air bearing (AB) and slider modes. Monitored modal changes at the AB and slider bandwidth correlate to the weak head disc interface (HDI) interactions such as lubricant modulation and particles induced defects. Two or three orders of magnitude increase in sensitivity can be achieved by a combination of advanced sensors, data acquisition hardware and digital signal processing algorithms. Continuous and Discrete Wavelet Transform and Joint Time-Frequency analyses are implemented for the AB modal data mining process. Performance of the newly developed technology is demonstrated on a normally operating hard disc drive (HDD).     

Gaze point estimation on curved display by using session level calibration for flat screen displays

Multimedia Tools and Applications - The advantages of curved screen displays find their place in populations everyday life, therefore it is important to adapt the existing eye tracking systems for...