Search results for "Overall performance"

Improvement of a rapid direct blood culture microbial identification protocol using MALDI-TOF MS and performance comparison with SepsiTyper kit

2018

Fast diagnosis of pathogens is critical to guarantee the most adequate therapy for infections; bacterial culture methods, which constitute the actual gold standard, are precise and sensitive but rather slow. Today, new methods have been made available to enable faster diagnosis, with the Matrix-Assisted Laser Desorption Ionization-Time Of Flight Mass Spectrometry (MALDI-TOF MS) technique being the most promising. Even if simpler and faster than traditional bacterial culture methods, analysis of positive blood cultures via MALDI-TOF MS requires a preliminary extraction process of samples. In this study, we compared two extraction protocols for bacterial identification directly from positive …

2019

Foam rolling is thought to improve muscular performance and flexibility as well as to alleviate muscle fatigue and soreness. For this reason, foam rolling has become a popular intervention in all kinds of sport settings used to increase the efficiency of training or competition preparation as well as to speed post-exercise recovery. The objective of this meta-analysis was to compare the effects of foam rolling applied before (pre-rolling as a warm-up activity) and after (post-rolling as a recovery strategy) exercise on sprint, jump, and strength performance as well as on flexibility and muscle pain outcomes and to identify whether self-massage with a foam roller or a roller massager is more…

UnipaBCI a novel general software framework for brain computer interface

2017

The increasing interest in Brain Computer Interface (BCI) requires new fast, reliable and scalable frameworks that can be used by researchers to develop BCI based high performance applications in efficient and fast ways. In this paper is presented "UnipaBCI", a general software framework for BCI applications based on electroencephalogra-phy (EEG) that can fulfill these new needs. A visual evoked potentials (VEP) application has also been developed using the proposed framework in order to test the modular architecture and the overall performance. Different types of users (beginners and experts in BCI) have been involved during the "UnipaBCI" experimental test and they have exhibited good and…

A DFT study of the vicinal 3J(119Sn,13C) and 3J(119Sn,1H) coupling constants in trimethyl- and chlorodimethyl-stannyl propanoates.

2013

Abstract We have tested the performance of DFT protocols, both at the Scalar relativistic ZORA and non-relativistic level of theory, for the calculation of the 3 J( 119 Sn, 13 C) and 3 J( 119 Sn, 1 H) vicinal couplings for a series of flexible organotin(IV) derivatives with formula XMe2SnCHRCHR′COOMe (X = Me, Cl; R, R′ = Me, Ph). A satisfactory agreement between experimental and calculated vicinal couplings has been obtained by taking into account the conformational behaviour of the compounds investigated. The protocols used, mainly the relativistic one, were found to give a correct picture of the populations and a sufficiently high overall performance in calculating the vicinal couplings, …

Reverse electrodialysis

2016

Abstract Reverse electrodialysis (RED) technology has grown significantly in the last decade, gaining a fast increase in its technology readiness level and presenting some interesting examples of RED pilot systems operating under very different real environments. In this chapter, an overview of technological developments and piloting examples are reported. In particular, a short introduction is given on the historical trend of RED technology growth, followed by a careful analysis of which feed solutions can be adopted and how these can affect the process performance, potentials, and applications. Most prominent fluid dynamics aspects for the RED process are presented, highlighting how these…

Constructal law optimization of a boiler

2017

The paper aims at the optimization of the design of a biomass boiler under the inspiration of the Constructal Law by Bejan. The boiler is of the smoke tubes typology, fuel being biomass pellets. The smoke tubes are 16 and are placed in a staggered configuration. A model is built in MATLAB environment, based on empirical correlations and the mean log temperature methodology. The analysis is based on the development of a wide parametric analysis that involves variations of diameters, numbers and positioning of the tubes. Results are based on the concept of the overall performance coefficient methodology and investigate both the pressure drops variation and the thermal power generated in the d…

A Constructal Law optimization of a boiler inspired by Life Cycle thinking

2018

Abstract The aim of the paper is to explore how design optimization contributes to a technology's ecological evolution. The article develops this concept through an application of Constructal Law, used to account for the “evolution” of technologies design (configuration, shape, structure, pattern, rhythm), and Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), used for quantifying the environmental impacts of the design choices. The combination of both methods assesses how technology evolution affects the environment during its life, extending the concept of evolution of design. The study is applied to a case study of a real biomass boiler. The study analyses basic case and a series of alternative scenarios opti…

Pair potential calculation of molecular associations: a vectorized version

1991

Abstract The program AMYRVF is a vectorized and largely modified version of a previous program called AMYR for calculating molecular associations by means of Fraga's pair-wise atom-atom potential. Three new minimization procedures have been implemented as well as other improvements such as the inclusion of new pair-wise dispersion energy terms with damping functions, and the calculation of topological indices. Benchmark tests have been carried out on an IBM 3090 150E VF; the timings for the new vector algorithms and for the standard scalar computations, as well as the dependence of the overall performance gain on the size of interacting systems are reported for the VS Fortran 2.4 compiler e…

Extending SSD lifetime in database applications with page overwrites

2013

Flash-based Solid State Disks (SSDs) have been a great success story over the last years and are widely used in embedded systems, servers, and laptops.One often overlooked ability of NAND flash is that flash pages can be overwritten in certain circumstances. This can be used to decrease wear out and increase performance.In this paper, we analyze the potential of overwrites for the most used data structure in database applications: the B-Tree. We show that with overwrites it is possible to significantly reduce flash wear out and increase overall performance.

Mountain dairy wastewater treatment with the use of a 'irregularly shaped' constructed wetland (Aosta Valley, Italy)

2014

Abstract In mountain areas, economical activities related to milk processing represent both a key source of income and job opportunities. One of the main characteristics of cheese production is the seasonal variability in the volume of milk processed and wastewater production that tend to limit the capacity of ecosystems to absorb their inputs. In alpine environment, the scarcity of plain surfaces and the climatic conditions results in the need for high CW performances of variable nutrient inputs in different seasons. By evaluating a CW seasonal efficiency for dairy wastewaters in a mountain region (Aosta Valley-NW Italy), this research was aimed to understand how performances of nutrient r…