Calcitonin treatment in reflex sympathetic dystrophy: a preliminary study

Reflex sympathetic dystrophy is one of the important complications effecting the rehabilitation programmes of hemiplegic patients in a negative manner by causing pain and function loss. In this study, the aim was to investigate the effects of salmon calcitonin treatment in reflex sympathetic dystrophy that develops in hemiplegia. Forty-one patients with hemiplegia resulting from cerebrovascular events and stage 1-2 reflex sympathetic dystrophy were included in the study. Salmon calcitonin, 1 x 100 IU/day intramuscularly for 4 weeks, was administered to 25 of these patients (calcitonin group) to the other 16 patients physiological saline, 1 ml/day intramuscularly for 4 weeks, was administered (control group). At the end of the fourth week of treatment the pain score of the calcitonin group was significantly lower than that of the control group. Shoulder abduction and external rotation, wrist flexion and metacarpophalangeal extension of the calcitonin group were found to be significantly better than those of the control group. In the calcitonin group the significant decrease in pain and tenderness resulted in improvement of range of motion and motor functions.     

CFAR processing with switching exponential smoothers for nonhomogeneous environments

Conventional constant false alarm rate (CFAR) methods use a fixed number of cells to estimate the background variance. For homogeneous environments, it is desirable to increase the number of cells, at the cost of increased computation and memory requirements, in order to improve the estimation performance. For nonhomogeneous environments, it is desirable to use less number of cells in order to reduce the number of false alarms around the clutter edges. In this work, we present a solution with two exponential smoothers (first order IIR filters) having different time-constants to leverage the conflicting requirements of homogeneous and nonhomogeneous environments. The system is designed to use the filter having the large time-constant in homogeneous environments and to promptly switch to the filter having the small time constant once a clutter edge is encountered. The main advantages of proposed Switching IIR CFAR method are computational simplicity, small memory requirement (in comparison to windowing based methods) and its good performance in homogeneous environments (due to the large time-constant smoother) and rapid adaptation to clutter edges (due to the small time-constant smoother).     

Optimization of media processing workflows with adaptive operator behaviors

In this paper, we present the ARIA media processing workflow architecture that processes, filters, and fuses sensory inputs and actuates responses in real-time. The components of the architecture are programmable and adaptable; i.e. the delay, size, and quality/precision characteristics of the individual operators can be controlled via a number of parameters. Each data object processed by qStream components is subject to transformations based on the parameter values. For instance, the quality of an output data object and the corresponding processing delay and resource usage depend on the values assigned to parameters of the operators in the object flow path. In Candan, Peng, Ryu, Chatha, Mayer (Efficient stream routing in quality- and resource-adaptive flow architectures. In: Workshop on multimedia information systems, 2004), we introduced a class of flow optimization problems that promote creation and delivery of small delay or small resource-usage objects to the actuators in single-sensor, single-actuator workflows. In this paper, we extend our attention to multi-sensor media processing workflow scenarios. The algorithms we present take into account the implicit dependencies between various system parameters, such as resource consumption and object sizes. We experimentally show the effectiveness and efficiency of the algorithms.

On Similarity Measures for Multimedia Database Applications

A multimedia database query consists of a set of fuzzy and boolean (or crisp) predicates, constants, variables, and conjunction, disjunction, and negation operators. The fuzzy predicates are evaluated based on different media criteria, such as color, shape, layout, keyword. Since media-based evaluation yields similarity values, results to such a query is defined as an ordered set. Since many multimedia applications require partial matches, query results also include tuples which do not satisfy all predicates. Hence, any fuzzy semantics which extends the boolean semantics of conjunction in a straight forward manner may not be desirable for multimedia databases. In this paper, we focus on the problem of ‘given a multimedia query which consists of multiple fuzzy and crisp predicates, how to provide the user with a meaningful overall ranking.’ More specifically, we study the problem of merging similarity values in queries with multiple fuzzy predicates. We describe the essential multimedia retrieval semantics, compare these with the known approaches, and propose a semantics which captures the retrieval requirements in multimedia databases. Received 13 August 1999 / Revised 13 May 2000 / Accepted in revised form 26 July 2000     

Retrieval schedules based on resource availability and flexible presentation specifications

A distributed multimedia document presentation involves retrieval of objects from one or more document servers and their presentation at the client system. The presentation of the multimedia objects has to be carried out in accordance with the specification of temporal relationships between the objects. The retrieval of multimedia objects from the document server(s) is influenced by factors such as temporal specification of objects presentations, throughput offered by the network service provider, and the buffer resources on the client system. Flexibility in the temporal specification of the multimedia document may help in deriving an object retrieval schedule that can handle variations in network throughput and buffer resource availability. In this paper, we develop techniques for deriving a flexible object retrieval schedule for a distributed multimedia document presentation. The schedule is based on flexible temporal specification of the multimedia document using the difference constrai nts approach. We show how the derived retrieval schedule can be validated and modified to ensure that it can work with the offered network throughput and the available buffer resources.     

Effects of User Request Patterns on a Multimedia Delivery System

Because of their size, service times, and drain on server resources, multimedia objects require specialized replication systems in order to meet demand and ensure content availability. We present a novel method for creating replication systems where the replicated objects' sizes and/or per-object service times are large. Such replication systems are well-suited to delivering multimedia objects on the Internet. Assuming that user request patterns to the system are known, we show how to create replication systems that distribute read load to servers in proportion to their contribution to system capacity and experimentally show the positive load distribution properties of such systems. However, when user request patterns differ from what the system was designed for, system performance will be affected. Therefore, we also report on results that reveal (i) how server loads are affected and (ii) the impact two system design parameters (indicators of a system's load distribution qualities) have on server load when request patterns differ from that for which a system was designed.     

Functionalized Hybrid Coatings on ABS Surfaces by PLD and Dip Coatings

It is important to give water-repellent and antibacterial properties to the acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) surfaces of the hearing aids. In this study, the sol–gel Si and sol–gel Ti solutions were prepared from the reactions of silicon ethoxide, titanium butoxide and methacrylic acid. The catalyst and Dynasylan F8815 were added to the sol–gel solutions to give hydrophobic properties onto the ABS surfaces. Additionally, silver nanoparticles were synthesized by nanosecond laser and added to the coating solutions to give extra antibacterial properties. The surfaces of the ABS targets were coated using the sol–gel dip coating and pulsed laser deposition techniques. The coatings with good adhesion between film and substrate and good water-repellent properties were achieved. The average contact angles for the coated ABS surfaces were measured in the range between 120 and 125 degrees. The obtained sol–gel materials and produced thin films onto the ABS surfaces were also analyzed in terms of the antibacterial properties. The highly antibacterial properties were observed in the sol–gel solutions and the thin films.