Search results for "Computer Science Applications"
showing 10 items of 3993 documents
Self-Organising Maps: A new way to screen the level of satisfaction of dialysis patients
2012
Highlights? FME as dialysis services global provider monitors patient satisfaction in its network. ? A specific questionnaire was developed and administered to the hemodialysis patients. ? To detect residual area of low satisfaction the Self-Organising Map was implemented. ? This method allows identifying niches of dissatisfaction for specific patient groups. Evaluation of patient satisfaction has become an important indicator for assessing health care quality. Fresenius Medical Care (FME) as a global provider of dialysis services through its NephroCare network has a strong interest in monitoring patient satisfaction.The aim of the paper is to test and validate a methodology for detecting a…
Well-Balanced Adaptive Mesh Refinement for shallow water flows
2014
Well-balanced shock capturing (WBSC) schemes constitute nowadays the state of the art in the numerical simulation of shallow water flows. They allow to accurately represent discontinuous behavior, known to occur due to the non-linear hyperbolic nature of the shallow water system, and, at the same time, numerically maintain stationary solutions. In situations of practical interest, these schemes often need to be combined with some kind of adaptivity, in order to speed up computing times. In this paper we discuss what ingredients need to be modified in a block-structured AMR technique in order to ensure that, when combined with a WBSC scheme, the so-called 'water at rest' stationary solutions…
Short-Time Ocular Ischemia Induces Vascular Endothelial Dysfunction and Ganglion Cell Loss in the Pig Retina
2019
Visual impairment and blindness are often caused by retinal ischemia-reperfusion (I/R) injury. We aimed to characterize a new model of I/R in pigs, in which the intraocular pathways were not manipulated by invasive methods on the ocular system. After 12 min of ischemia followed by 20 h of reperfusion, reactivity of retinal arterioles was measured in vitro by video microscopy. Dihydroethidium (DHE) staining, qPCR, immunohistochemistry, quantification of neurons in the retinal ganglion cell layer, and histological examination was performed. Retinal arterioles of I/R-treated pigs displayed marked attenuation in response to the endothelium-dependent vasodilator, bradykinin, compared to sham-tre…
Factors affecting Finnish consumers' intention to receive SMS marketing: a conceptual model and an empirical study
2008
The study examines factors that affect consumers' intentions to participate in mobile marketing and explores the relationship between consumers' intentions to participate in mobile marketing and their experience with mobile marketing. The authors develop and test a research model with a sample of 4062 mobile phone users. The empirical model highlights that Perceived Utility (PU), context, credibility and Perceived Social Utility (PSU) are the main contributors to consumers' intentions to participate in mobile-marketing initiatives. The paper provides several contributions to both theory and practice.
Marketing communication metrics for social media
2011
The objective of this paper is to develop a conceptual framework for measuring the effectiveness of social media marketing communications. Specifically, we study whether the existing marketing communications performance metrics are still valid in the changing digitalised communications landscape, or whether it is time to rethink them, or even to devise entirely new metrics. Recent advances in information technology and marketing bring a need to re-examine measurement models. We combine two important research topics and set directions for potential future research. Metrics to measure marketing communications performance have developed towards a customer orientation. There is no broadly accep…
Influence of some relevant process parameters on the dimensional accuracy in incremental forming: a numerical and experimental investigation
2004
Abstract As known, incremental forming is a flexible and innovative sheet metal forming process which allows complex shape shells forming without the need for any die. For these reasons, incremental forming is nowadays suggested for rapid prototyping and customised products. The present paper is focused on material formability in incremental forming and, in particular, on the evaluation and compensation of elastic springback. The latter significantly modifies the imposed shape. For this purpose, a deeper assessment of the process was developed following three different approaches. First of all, a wide experimental investigation on the influence of some relevant process parameters was develo…
The stability problem and noisy projections in discrete tomography
2004
Abstract The new field of research of discrete tomography will be described in this paper. It differs from standard computerized tomography in the reduced number of projections. It needs ad hoc algorithms which usually are based on the definition of the model of the object to reconstruct. The main problems will be introduced and an experimental simulation will prove the robustness of a slightly modified version of a well known method for the reconstruction of binary planar convex sets, even in case of projections affected by error. To the best of our knowledge this is one of the first experimental study of the stability problem with a statistical approach. Prospective applications include c…
Reverse engineering expert visual observations: From fixations to the learning of spatial filters with a neural-gas algorithm
2013
Human beings can become experts in performing specific vision tasks, for example, doctors analysing medical images, or botanists studying leaves. With sufficient knowledge and experience, people can become very efficient at such tasks. When attempting to perform these tasks with a machine vision system, it would be highly beneficial to be able to replicate the process which the expert undergoes. Advances in eye-tracking technology can provide data to allow us to discover the manner in which an expert studies an image. This paper presents a first step towards utilizing these data for computer vision purposes. A growing-neural-gas algorithm is used to learn a set of Gabor filters which give h…
Pathogenesis and molecular mechanisms of anderson–fabry disease and possible new molecular addressed therapeutic strategies
2021
Anderson–Fabry disease (AFD) is a rare disease with an incidenceof approximately 1:117,000 male births. Lysosomal accumulation of globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) is the element characterizing Fabry disease due to a hereditary deficiency α-galactosidase A (GLA) enzyme. The accumulation of Gb3 causes lysosomal dysfunction that compromises cell signaling pathways. Deposition of sphingolipids occurs in the autonomic nervous system, dorsal root ganglia, kidney epithelial cells, vascular system cells, and myocardial cells, resulting in organ failure. This manuscript will review the molecular pathogenetic pathways involved in Anderson–Fabry disease and in its organ damage. Some studies reported that i…
Rheological and Flocculation Analysis of Microfibrillated Cellulose Suspension Using Optical Coherence Tomography
2018
A sub-micron resolution optical coherence tomography device was used together with a pipe rheometer to analyze the rheology and flocculation dynamics of a 0.5% microfibrillated cellulose (MFC) suspension. The bulk behavior of the MFC suspension showed typical shear thinning (power-law) behavior. This was reflected in a monotonously decreasing floc size when the shear stress exceeded the yield stress of the suspension. The quantitative viscous behavior of the MFC suspension changed abruptly at the wall shear stress of 10 Pa, which was reflected in a simultaneous abrupt drop of the floc size. The flocs were strongly elongated with low shear stresses. With the highest shear stresses, the flocs…