Search results for "Mpro"
showing 10 items of 944 documents
Conceptual and operational perspectives on ecosystem restoration options in the European Union and elsewhere
2015
Summary Egoh et al. (2014) prioritized areas for ecological restoration in the European Union (EU) so that Europe could cost-efficiently meet the globally agreed 15% restoration target. We identify three major deficiencies in their analysis, one conceptual and two operational, which compromise the conclusions of the prioritization. The conceptual flaw is neglect of both the magnitude of degradation and the magnitude of improvement of the ecosystem condition expected due to restoration. The first operational flaw is inclusion of inappropriately measured restoration costs into the analyses. The second is use of spatial units that are so large (10 × 10 km) that only a fraction of each unit cou…
Value of information in multiple criteria decision making: an application to forest conservation
2019
Abstract Developing environmental conservation plans involves assessing trade-offs between the benefits and costs of conservation. The benefits of conservation can be established with ecological inventories or estimated based on previously collected information. Conducting ecological inventories can be costly, and the additional information may not justify these costs. To clarify the value of these inventories, we investigate the multiple criteria value of information associated with the acquisition of improved ecological data. This information can be useful when informing the decision maker to acquire better information. We extend the concept of the value of information to a multiple crite…
Performance Improvement of a Hydraulic Active/Passive Heave Compensation Winch Using Semi Secondary Motor Control: Experimental and Numerical Verific…
2020
In this paper, a newly developed controller for active heave compensated offshore cranes is compared with state-of-the-art control methods. The comparison is divided into a numerical part on stability margins as well as operational windows and an experimental validation of the expected performance improvement based on a full-scale testing on site with a crane rated to 250 metric tons. Such a crane represents the typical target for the new control method using a combination of active and passive hydraulic actuation on the main winch. The active hydraulic actuation is a hydrostatic transmission with variable-displacement pumps and variable-displacement motors. The new controller employs feedf…
Patented intelligence: Cloning human decision models for Industry 4.0
2018
Industry 4.0 is a trend related to smart factories, which are cyber-physical spaces populated and controlled by the collective intelligence for the autonomous and highly flexible manufacturing purposes. Artificial Intelligence (AI) embedded into various planning, production, and management processes in Industry 4.0 must take the initiative and responsibility for making necessary real-time decisions in many cases. In this paper, we suggest the Pi-Mind technology as a compromise between completely human-expert-driven decision-making and AI-driven decision-making. Pi-Mind enables capturing, cloning and patenting essential parameters of the decision models from a particular human expert making …
Improved Active Disturbance Rejection Control for Trajectory Tracking Control of Lower Limb Robotic Rehabilitation Exoskeleton.
2020
Neurological disorders such as cerebral paralysis, spinal cord injuries[acronym](SCI), and strokes, result in the impairment of motor control and induce functional difficulties to human beings like walking, standing, etc. Physical injuries due to accidents and muscular weaknesses caused by aging [english]affectsaffect people and can cause them to lose their ability to perform daily routine functions. In order to help people recover or improve their dysfunctional activities and quality of life after accidents or strokes, assistive devices like exoskeletons and orthoses are developed. Control strategies for control of exoskeletons are developed with the desired intention of improving the qual…
Dynamics of Torque Teno virus plasma DNAemia in allogeneic stem cell transplant recipients
2017
Abstract Background Torque Teno virus (TTV) plasma DNA load directly correlate with the level of immunosuppresion in different clinical settings. It is uncertain whether this may be the case in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplant recipients (allo-HSCT). Objectives We characterized the dynamics of TTV DNAemia in patients undergoing T-cell replete allo-SCT. Study design Retrospective single-center observational study including 72 allo-HSCT patients. Plasma TTV DNA loads were quantified before initiating the conditioning regimen and at different time-points after transplant by real-time PCR. White blood cells (WBC) and absolute lymphocyte counts (ALC) were measured by flow cytometry.…
High-definition transcranial direct current stimulation to both primary motor cortices improves unimanual and bimanual dexterity.
2017
While most research on brain stimulation with transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) targets unimanual motor tasks, little is known about its effects on bimanual motor performance. This study aims to investigate the effects of tDCS on unimanual as well as bimanual motor dexterity. We examined the effects of bihemispheric anodal high-definition tDCS (HD-atDCS) on both primary motor cortices (M1) applied concurrent with unimanual and bimanual motor training. We then measured the effects with the Purdue Pegboard Test (PPT) and compared them to a sham stimulation. Between a pretest and posttest, 31 healthy, right-handed participants practiced the PPT on three consecutive days and receiv…
Possible association between obesity and periodontitis in patients with Down syndrome
2017
Background The present study was carried out to evaluate the possible association between obesity and periodontitis in patients with DS, and to explore which measure of obesity is most closely correlated to periodontitis. Material and Methods A prospective observational study was made to determine whether obesity is related to periodontal disease in patients with DS. The anthropometric variables were body height and weight, which were used to calculate BMI and stratify the patients into three categories: < 25(normal weight), 25-29.9 (overweight) and ≥ 30.0 kg/m2 (obese). Waist circumference and hip circumference in turn was recorded as the greatest circumference at the level of the buttocks…
Genomics of speciation and introgression in Princess cichlid fishes from Lake Tanganyika.
2016
How variation in the genome translates into biological diversity and new species originate has endured as the mystery of mysteries in evolutionary biology. African cichlid fishes are prime model systems to address speciation-related questions for their remarkable taxonomic and phenotypic diversity, and the possible role of gene flow in this process. Here, we capitalize on genome sequencing and phylogenomic analyses to address the relative impacts of incomplete lineage sorting, introgression and hybrid speciation in the Neolamprologus savoryi-complex (the 'Princess cichlids') from Lake Tanganyika. We present a time-calibrated species tree based on whole-genome sequences and provide strong ev…
Mouse Model of Cytomegalovirus Disease and Immunotherapy in the Immunocompromised Host: Predictions for Medical Translation that Survived the “Test o…
2018
Human Cytomegalovirus (hCMV), which is the prototype member of the β-subfamily of the herpesvirus family, is a pathogen of high clinical relevance in recipients of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). hCMV causes multiple-organ disease and interstitial pneumonia in particular upon infection during the immunocompromised period before hematopoietic reconstitution restores antiviral immunity. Clinical investigation of pathomechanisms and of strategies for an immune intervention aimed at restoring antiviral immunity earlier than by hematopoietic reconstitution are limited in patients to observational studies mainly because of ethical issues including the imperative medical indication …