Search results for "eps"
showing 10 items of 1777 documents
Forceps size and immune function in the earwig Forficula auricularia L.
2007
Females of many species select their mates on the basis of the size or intensity of sexual ornaments, and it has been suggested that these provide reliable signals of a male’s ability to resist parasites and pathogens. European earwigs, Forficula auricularia, are sexually dimorphic in forceps shape and length. Male forceps are used as weapons in male contests for access to females, but recent findings suggest that females also choose males on the basis of their forceps length. In the present study, we tested the hypotheses that in the European earwig, F. auricularia, the size of forceps is correlated with immune function and that immune function differs between the sexes. We found that enca…
Emergency Detection with Environment Sound Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks
2020
In this paper, we propose a generic emergency detection system using only the sound produced in the environment. For this task, we employ multiple audio feature extraction techniques like the mel-frequency cepstral coefficients, gammatone frequency cepstral coefficients, constant Q-transform and chromagram. After feature extraction, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) is used to classify an audio signal as a potential emergency situation or not. The entire model is based on our previous work that sets the new state of the art in the environment sound classification (ESC) task (Our paper is under review in the IEEE/ACM Transactions on Audio, Speech and Language Processing and also avai…
Event signal characterization for disturbance interpretation in power grid
2018
This paper presents the signal processing approach to detect and characterize the physical events that occur in power system using PMUs signals. A small window is applied so that the extracted spectral features belong to a stationary signal. This is based on applying empirical mode decomposition, followed by square root of spectral kurtosis (SRSK) for computation of statistical indices to indicate the event occurrence. Subsequently, features from these events are extracted using mel frequency cepstral coefficients on SRSK. © 2018 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/re…
Mutual Information Analysis of Brain-Heart Interactions in Epileptic Children
2021
In this work we apply the network physiology paradigm to retrieve information from central and autonomic nervous systems before focal epileptic seizure, represented respectively by electroencephalogram (EEG) signals and R-R intervals (RRI), and investigate on the presence and strength of brain-heart interactions by computing mutual information (MI) measures. Statistical significance of MI values was tested through surrogate time series generated with the random shuffle approach. Our results suggest that the proposed method for aligning signals representing brain and heart activity measured with different sampling rates, is capable of revealing coupling between RRI representing heart system,…
Formation of silicones mediated by the sponge enzyme silicatein-α
2010
The sponge-restricted enzyme silicatein-α catalyzes in vivo silica formation from monomeric silicon compounds from sea water (i.e. silicic acid) and plays the pivotal role during synthesis of the siliceous sponge spicules. Recombinant silicatein-α, which was cloned from the demosponge Suberites domuncula (phylum Porifera), is shown to catalyze in vitro condensation of alkoxy silanes during a phase transfer reaction at neutral pH and ambient temperature to yield silicones like the straight-chained polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS). The reported condensation reaction is considered to be the first description of an enzymatically enhanced organometallic condensation reaction.
Apposition of silica lamellae during growth of spicules in the demosponge Suberites domuncula: Biological/biochemical studies and chemical/biomimetic…
2006
Recently it has been discovered that the formation of the siliceous spicules of Demospongiae proceeds enzymatically (via silicatein) and occurs matrix guided (on galectin strings). In addition, it could be demonstrated that silicatein, if immobilized onto inorganic surfaces, provides the template for the synthesis of biosilica. In order to understand the formation of spicules in the intact organism, detailed studies with primmorphs from Suberites domuncula have been performed. The demosponge spicules are formed from several silica lamellae which are concentrically arranged around the axial canal, harboring the axial filament composed of silicatein. Now we show that the appositional growth o…
Pepsinogēnu kā biomarķieru loma kuņģa vēža diagnostikā
2015
Pasaulē un Latvijā novēro augstus mirstības rādītājus kuņģa vēža gadījumā sakarā ar pārsvarā asimptomātisko slimības norisi un vēlīno diagnostiku. Invazīvas skrīninga metodes, kā endoskopija ar biopsiju veikšanu, ir efektīvas tikai augsta riska reģionos. Līdz ar to nepieciešams izstrādāt jaunas, efektīvas neinvazīvas skrīninga metodes. Visplašāk tiek pētīti pepsinogēnu testi, kas identificē pacientus ar kuņģa gļotādas atrofiju. Darba mērķis bija noteikt pepsinogēnu līmeņus kuņģa vēža pacientiem, tā izvērtējot šo biomarķieru efektivitāti kuņģa vēža pacientu identifikācijai. Pētījumā tika iekļauti 295 pacienti ar morfoloģiski apstiprinātu kuņģa vēža diagnozi. Pepsinogēnu līmeņi tika noteikti,…
Epidemiology of intensive care unit-acquired sepsis in Italy: Results of the SPIN-UTI network
2018
Background. Sepsis is the major cause of mortality from any infectious disease worldwide. Sepsis may be the result of a healthcare associated infection (HAI): the most frequent adverse events during care delivery especially in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). The main aim of the present study was to describe the epidemiology of ICU-acquired sepsis and related outcomes among patients enrolled in the framework of the Italian Nosocomial Infections Surveillance in ICUs - SPIN-UTI project. Study design. Prospective multicenter study. Methods. The SPIN-UTI network adopted the European protocols for patient-based HAI surveillance. Results. During the five editions of the SPIN-UTI project, from 2008 to…
The balancing act of combining school and football in the transition from a non-professional club into junior-elite academy football
2021
Football players in the transition from junior-to-senior are usually involved in dual careers, combining school and football – a process that makes them dependent on a holistic talent-development journey. The aim of the current study was to describe how male junior elite football players (N=10; 5=living at home, 5=living away from home) perceived stressors in the transition from a non-professional club into a junior elite academy. Furthermore, the school transition (between lower- and upper-secondary school) and social transition (based on the school and football transitions) as a consequence of the football transition into academy football. Based on Wylleman and Lavallee’s (2004) and Stamb…
FINDUS: An Open-Source 3D Printable Liquid-Handling Workstation for Laboratory Automation in Life Sciences
2020
3D-printed laboratory devices can enable ambitious research purposes even at a low-budget level. To follow this trend, here we describe the construction, calibration, and usage of the FINDUS (Fully Integrable Noncommercial Dispensing Utility System). We report the successful 3D printing and assembly of a liquid-handling workstation for less than $400. Using this setup, we achieve reliable and flexible liquid-dispensing automation with relative pipetting errors of less than 0.3%. We show our system is well suited for several showcase applications from both the biology and chemistry fields. In support of the open-source spirit, we make all 3D models, assembly instructions, and source code ava…