Search results for " pattern"
showing 10 items of 2245 documents
Can ECG-gated MDCT be considered an obligatory step to plan and manage a new chest-pain unit?
2007
The recent improvements in multi-detector computed tomography technology and its application in cardiac field allow to consider this non-invasive imaging technique as a promising comprehensive method for detecting significant coronary stenoses in a chest-pain unit. The possibility to use the ECG-synchronisation acquisition protocol, normally limited to the cardiac volume, for the entire thoracic vascular system should have the remarkable potential to reduce invasive and non-invasive procedures actually used to investigate acute chest pain and the number of unnecessary hospital admissions without reducing appropriate admissions in patients with chest pain.
Comprehensive cardiovascular ECG-gated MDCT as a standard diagnostic tool in patients with acute chest pain
2007
Acute myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, and aortic dissection are diseases associated with acute chest pain and may lead to severe morbidity and mortality. These diseases may not be trivial to diagnose in the settings of emergency room. ECG-gated multi-detector computed tomography (MDCT), already established for the assessment of pulmonary embolism and aortic dissection, provides reliable information regarding the triage of patients with acute coronary syndrome in the emergency room. MDCT recently appeared to be logistically feasible and a promising comprehensive method for the evaluation of cardiac and non-cardiac chest pain in emergency department patients. The possibility to sca…
Speckle based configuration for simultaneousin vitroinspection of mechanical contractions of cardiac myocyte cells
2013
In this manuscript we propose optical lensless configuration for a remote non-contact measuring of mechanical contractions of vast number of cardiac myocytes. All the myocytes were taken from rats, and the measurements were done in an in vitro mode. The optical method is based on temporal analysis of secondary reflected speckle patterns generated in lensless microscope configuration. The processing involves analyzing the movement and the change in the statistics of the generated secondary speckle patterns that are created on top of the cell culture when it is illuminated by a spot of laser beam. The main advantage of the proposed system is the ability to measure many cells simultaneously (a…
REM near-IR and optical multiband observations of PKS 2155-304 in 2005
2007
Spectral variability is the main tool for constraining emission models of BL Lac objects. By means of systematic observations of the BL Lac prototype PKS 2155-304 in the infrared-optical band, we explore variability on the scales of months, days and hours. We made our observations with the robotic 60 cm telescope REM located at La Silla, Chile. VRIJHK filters were used. PKS 2155-304 was observed from May to December 2005. The wavelength interval explored, the total number of photometric points and the short integration time render our photometry substantially superior to previous ones for this source. On the basis of the intensity and colour we distinguish three different states of the sour…
Macroeconomic Fluctuations as a Source of Luck in CEO Compensation
2010
Macroeconomic fluctuations such as interest rate and exchange rate can be considered sources of good or bad “luck” for corporate performance. Incentive effects of performance-based compensation for management may be weakened or biased by macroeconomic influences depending on the ability of management to adjust for operations. We decompose the impacts on CEO compensation to distinguish between macroeconomic (anticipated and unanticipated) and “intrinsic” sources. Total CEO compensation is measured by including options awarded or options exercised. Both measures depend strongly on variations in macro factors but the time patterns differ. The macroeconomic factors increased total awarded compe…
A genetic algorithm for combined topology and shape optimisations
2003
A method to find optimal topology and shape of structures is presented. With the first the optimal distribution of an assigned mass is found using an approach based on homogenisation theory, that seeks in which elements of a meshed domain it is present mass; with the second the discontinuous boundaries are smoothed. The problem of the optimal topology search has an ON/OFF nature and has suggested the employment of genetic algorithms. Thus in this paper a genetic algorithm has been developed, which uses as design variables, in the topology optimisation, the relative densities (with respect to effective material density) 0 or 1 of each element of the structure and, in the shape one, the coord…
Sample–tip coupling efficiencies of the photon-scanning tunneling microscope
1991
The photon-scanning tunneling microscope is the photon analog to the electron-scanning tunneling microscope. It uses the evanescent field due to the total internal reflection of a light beam in a prism, modulated by a sample attached to the prism. The exponential decay of the evanescent field is characterized by the penetration depth dp and depends on the angle of incidence θ, the wavelength, and the polarization of the incident beam. The 1/e decay lengths range from 150 to 265 nm as deduced from the expression of the electric-field intensity in the rarer medium for θ = π/2. If we place another optically transparent medium near the surface, frustrated total reflection occurs. It is shown th…
Seasonality and Tourism
2017
Seasonality is one of the key distinctive features of tourism-related phenomena. Seasonality in tourism is characterized by regular and rather predictable changes over time of tourismrelated aggregates (arrivals and overnight stays in accommodation establishments, hotels’ occupancy rates, traffic on highways and airports, lodging and transportation prices, etc.), which recur every year. Seasonal fluctuations in travel and tourism demand are relevant both for the travel and tourism industries and for destination managers. Causes, impacts, and policy implications are described as well as measurement challenges and proposals.
A fuzzy evaluation of tourism sustainability
2019
For many years the sustainability assessment of tourist destinations has been based on the carrying capacity, which is a measure that takes into account the preservation of a geographical area (by measuring the number of tourists, the visitor flow and the environmental thresholds) along with its tourist fruition (by assessing the quality of the experience perceived by visitors). Unfortunately, its definition lacks clarity, and its dependence upon qualitative variables makes it unable to provide a unique criterion for its assessment. In this paper we propose a fuzzy approach that takes into account the inherent uncertainty and vagueness of the involved variables to assess a destination’s sus…
Learning Similarity Scores by Using a Family of Distance Functions in Multiple Feature Spaces
2017
There exist a large number of distance functions that allow one to measure similarity between feature vectors and thus can be used for ranking purposes. When multiple representations of the same object are available, distances in each representation space may be combined to produce a single similarity score. In this paper, we present a method to build such a similarity ranking out of a family of distance functions. Unlike other approaches that aim to select the best distance function for a particular context, we use several distances and combine them in a convenient way. To this end, we adopt a classical similarity learning approach and face the problem as a standard supervised machine lea…