HANDS: a multimodal dataset for modeling toward human grasp intent inference in prosthetic hands

Intelligent Service Robotics - Upper limb and hand functionality is critical to many activities of daily living, and the amputation of one can lead to significant functionality loss for...     

Bounds on the Sum Capacity of Synchronous Binary CDMA Channels

In this paper, we obtain a family of lower bounds for the sum capacity of code-division multiple-access (CDMA) channels assuming binary inputs and binary signature codes in the presence of additive noise with an arbitrary distribution. The envelope of this family gives a relatively tight lower bound in terms of the number of users, spreading gain, and the noise distribution. The derivation methods for the noiseless and the noisy channels are different but when the noise variance goes to zero, the noisy channel bound approaches the noiseless case. The behavior of the lower bound shows that for small noise power, the number of users can be much more than the spreading gain without any significant loss of information (overloaded CDMA). A conjectured upper bound is also derived under the usual assumption that the users send out equally likely binary bits in the presence of additive noise with an arbitrary distribution. As the noise level increases, and/or, the ratio of the number of users and the spreading gain increases, the conjectured upper bound approaches the lower bound. We have also derived asymptotic limits of our bounds that can be compared to a formula that Tanaka obtained using techniques from statistical physics; his bound is close to that of our conjectured upper bound for large scale systems.     

The social environment and health in rheumatoid arthritis: marital quality predicts individual variability in pain severity

OBJECTIVE: To examine prospective relations between a wide array of measures of social functioning and pain, while controlling for disease duration and activity and functional grade. METHODS: As part of a larger study on health care utilization, longitudinal data were collected from 136 Dutch and 98 German outpatients on clinical status and pain. Social data included information on sexual handicap, spouse behavior, loneliness, daily emotional support, and the maintenance of pleasurable life domains. Pain severity was assessed at baseline and 12 months later with standard measures of pain and analyzed with hierarchical regressions. RESULTS: Social measures obtained at baseline were consistently associated with pain at followup. Depression was a moderate correlate of pain in the Dutch and German samples. The regressions revealed that patient reports of negative spouse behavior (such as avoidance and critical remarks) and baseline depression predicted worse pain outcome, and this association remained significant in analyses controlling for baseline pain. The level of formal education was a weak correlate of disability, emotional support, and pain. Daily emotional support and social life domains associated with positive affect had an indirect influence on outcome. The absence of strong rather than weak social ties was the component of the loneliness construct linked to pain. These associations between social prognostic factors and pain severity, however, were mediated by psychological functioning at baseline. CONCLUSION: The social environment was found to operate on the core health outcome, pain severity, via several pathways. Social functioning may be affected by rheumatoid arthritis (RA) progression, but it also appears to form a determinant of future health outcome. Not only the status of being married but also the quality of the relationship in terms of long-term stress and emotional support may be useful prognostic factors in RA.     

Influence of pellet composition and structure on carbothermic reduction of silica

The melting zone in a cupola has temperatures greater than 1773 K and a reducing atmosphere. This condition is suitable for the carbothermic reduction of silica. The key to the applicability of carbothermic reduction of silica for ferroalloy production is rapid in situ production of SiC and its subsequent dissolution in the hot metal. The main objective of this investigation was to study the kinetics of the carbothermic reduction process and determine the optimum parameters for rapid and complete in situ conversion of silica to SiC. At temperatures above 1773 K, the key reactions in the carbothermic reduction process are (1) SiO₂ (s)+CO (g)=SiO (g)+CO₂ (g), (2) SiO (g)+2C (s)=SiC (s)+CO (g), (3) C (s)+CO₂ (g)=2CO (g). To meet the objective of this study, conditions must be such that the surface reactions occurring at the carbon and silica surfaces are rate limiting and the entire silica is converted to SiC. Pellet composition and structure in terms of carbon to silica ratio, their particle sizes, and compaction pressure that ensure surface reaction is rate controlling were determined. The gas-solid reaction kinetics was mathematically modeled in terms of the process parameters. The reaction kinetics improved by reducing both carbon and silica particle sizes. However, below a certain critical particle size, there was no significant improvement in the reaction kinetics. For complete conversion of SiO₂ (s) to SiC (s), excess carbon and critical porosity are necessary to ensure that the entire SiO (g) generated by Reaction [1] is consumed via Reaction [2] within the pellet.     

Progress and therapeutic response in the obsessive-compulsive disorder

The purpose of the present work was to analyze the outcome of patients diagnosed of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) after Hospital discharge from our Unit, focusing on therapeutical efficacy immediately after discharge and in the follow up, searching for good evolution predictors. We have studied 42 patients (26 females and 16 males) diagnosed of OCD according to ICD-9 diagnostic criteria, all patients were hospitalized during a seven years period 1981 and 1988. Therapeutical response was evaluated through a (1-4 punctuation) of a Clinical Global Impression Scale considering the changes from the moment the patient was hospitalized, the day of discharge and in the follow up (mean 4.1 years). 73.8% and 71.4% were considered as treatment "responders" the day discharged and in the follow up respectively. Through a multiple logistic regression, treatment with serotonergic drugs and insidious onset of the illness were identified as short-term treatment response predictors, while the absence of a previous obsessive personality was a long-term therapeutical response predictor. Our results show the efficacy of serotonergic drugs and the tact that the presence of a previous obsessive personality could have a prognostic value in OCD.     

CA15.3 Serum Concentrations in Older Women with Infiltrating Ductal Carcinomas of the Breast

Breast cancer is currently becoming a disease of the elderly. We have studied the relation between CA 15.3 serum concentrations and clinical-pathological parameters in 69 women with IDC aged over 70 years (76.3 ± 4.2; range: 71–88; median 76). A group of 205 women with the same tumor but aged <70 years (62.8 ± 4.0; range: 55–70; median 63) was also considered for comparison. Tumor size, axillary lymph node involvement, distant metastasis and histological grade were taken account. Serum CA 15.3 was determined by luminescence assay. CA 15.3 serum concentrations ranged between 6 and 85 U/mL (median 22.9 U/mL), and were higher only in patients with greater (qualitative and quantitative; p: 0.041) tumor size. Our results show that in women with IDCs, and aged over 70 years, serum CA 15.3 serum concentrations are associated exclusively with a greater tumor size, being these findings different to those described in women with the same subtype of tumor considered as a whole or with lower age.     

THERMOELASTICITY OF ANISOTROPIC CYLINDRICAL SHELLS

The quasistatic thertnoelastic equations for radially monoclinic cylindrical shells are solved in closed form for arbitrary temperature distributions and boundary conditions. In addition to both mechanical and thermal material anisotropy, the effects of shear deformation are admitted in the governing shell field equations. The solution to the governing thermomechanical noncanonical field equations is obtained through the use of integral transformations employed in conjunction with the application of adjoint differential operators. To illustrate the substantial effects of mechanical and thermal material anisotropy, the results of several numerical experiments are studied in detail.     

Constructing and decoding GWBE codes using Kronecker products

In this letter, we introduce a novel method for constructing large size Generalized Welch Bound Equality (GWBE) matrices. This method can also be used for the construction of large WBE matrices. The advantage of this method is its low complexity for constructing large size matrices and low computational complexity using Maximum Likelihood (ML) decoders for a subclass of these codes.