1. |
- Feroci, M., et al.
(författare)
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The large observatory for x-ray timing
- 2014
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Ingår i: Proceedings of SPIE - The International Society for Optical Engineering. - : SPIE. - 9780819496126
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final downselection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument, LOFT will study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions of accretion flows close to black holes and neutron stars, and the supranuclear densities in the interior of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, 10 m2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1° collimated field of view) and a Wide Field Monitor (WFM, 2-50 keV, 4 steradian field of view, 1 arcmin source location accuracy, 300 eV spectral resolution). The WFM is equipped with an on-board system for bright events (e.g. GRB) localization. The trigger time and position of these events are broadcast to the ground within 30 s from discovery. In this paper we present the status of the mission at the end of its Phase A study.
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2. |
- Ederle, Joerg, et al.
(författare)
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Carotid artery stenting compared with endarterectomy in patients with symptomatic carotid stenosis (International Carotid Stenting Study): an interim analysis of a randomised controlled trial
- 2010
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Ingår i: The Lancet. - 1474-547X. ; 375:9719, s. 985-997
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Background Stents are an alternative treatment to carotid endarterectomy for symptomatic carotid stenosis, but previous trials have not established equivalent safety and efficacy. We compared the safety of carotid artery stenting with that of carotid endarterectomy. Methods The International Carotid Stenting Study (ICSS) is a multicentre, international, randomised controlled trial with blinded adjudication of outcomes. Patients with recently symptomatic carotid artery stenosis were randomly assigned in a 1:1 ratio to receive carotid artery stenting or carotid endarterectomy. Randomisation was by telephone call or fax to a central computerised service and was stratified by centre with minimisation for sex, age, contralateral occlusion, and side of the randomised artery. Patients and investigators were not masked to treatment assignment. Patients were followed up by independent clinicians not directly involved in delivering the randomised treatment. The primary outcome measure of the trial is the 3-year rate of fatal or disabling stroke in any territory, which has not been analysed yet. The main outcome measure for the interim safety analysis was the 120-day rate of stroke, death, or procedural myocardial infarction. Analysis was by intention to treat (ITT). This study is registered, number ISRCTN25337470. Findings The trial enrolled 1713 patients (stenting group, n=855; endarterectomy group, n=858). Two patients in the stenting group and one in the endarterectomy group withdrew immediately after randomisation, and were not included in the ITT analysis. Between randomisation and 120 days, there were 34 (Kaplan-Meier estimate 4.0%) events of disabling stroke or death in the stenting group compared with 27 (3.2%) events in the endarterectomy group (hazard ratio [HR] 1.28, 95% CI 0.77-2.11). The incidence of stroke, death, or procedural myocardial infarction was 8.5% in the stenting group compared with 5.2% in the endarterectomy group (72 vs 44 events; HR 1.69, 1.16-2.45, p=0.006), Risks of any stroke (65 vs 35 events; HR 1.92, 1.27-2.89) and all-cause death (19 vs seven events; HR 2.76, 1.16-6.56) were higher in the stenting group than in the endarterectomy group. Three procedural myocardial infarctions were recorded in the stenting group, all of which were fatal, compared with four, all non-fatal, in the endarterectomy group. There was one event of cranial nerve palsy in the stenting group compared with 45 in the endarterectomy group. There were also fewer haematomas of any severity in the stenting group than in the endarterectomy group (31 vs 50 events; p=0.0197). Interpretation Completion of long-term follow-up is needed to establish the efficacy of carotid artery stenting compared with endarterectomy. In the meantime, carotid endarterectomy should remain the treatment of choice for patients suitable for surgery.
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3. |
- Balakrishna, L., et al.
(författare)
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Speech enhancement using ICA with Bessel features
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- The Independent Component Analysis with Reference (ICA R) also called as constrained ICA (cICA) extracts only the desired source signals from the mixture of source signals by incorporating some prior information into the separation process. To overcome the problem of designing the reference signal when there is no prior information about the desired signal in the cICA, an improved method is proposed to use a different speech signal generated by the same physical source. The cICA is extended to use Bessel coefficients of the observed signals and the reference signal for processing as they converge faster than the other transformations. Since the Bessel functions provide the desired properties, efficient in representing speech signals, less memory storage they have been exploited in speech processing [1]. The results demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method.
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4. |
- Brandmaier, Stefan, et al.
(författare)
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The QSPR-THESAURUS : The Online Platform of the CADASTER Project
- 2014
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Ingår i: ATLA (Alternatives to Laboratory Animals). - : SAGE Publications. - 0261-1929. ; 42:1, s. 13-24
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- The aim of the CADASTER project (CAse Studies on the Development and Application of in Silico Techniques for Environmental Hazard and Risk Assessment) was to exemplify REACH-related hazard assessments for four classes of chemical compound, namely, polybrominated diphenylethers, per and polyfluorinated compounds, (benzo)triazoles, and musks and fragrances. The QSPR-THESAURUS website (http: / /qspr-thesaurus.eu) was established as the project's online platform to upload, store, apply, and also create, models within the project. We overview the main features of the website, such as model upload, experimental design and hazard assessment to support risk assessment, and integration with other web tools, all of which are essential parts of the QSPR-THESAURUS.
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5. |
- Hyde, Kevin D., et al.
(författare)
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One stop shop: backbones trees for important phytopathogenic genera: I (2014)
- 2014
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Ingår i: Fungal diversity. - : Springer Science and Business Media LLC. - 1560-2745 .- 1878-9129. ; 67:1, s. 21-125
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Many fungi are pathogenic on plants and cause significant damage in agriculture and forestry. They are also part of the natural ecosystem and may play a role in regulating plant numbers/density. Morphological identification and analysis of plant pathogenic fungi, while important, is often hampered by the scarcity of discriminatory taxonomic characters and the endophytic or inconspicuous nature of these fungi. Molecular (DNA sequence) data for plant pathogenic fungi have emerged as key information for diagnostic and classification studies, although hampered in part by non-standard laboratory practices and analytical methods. To facilitate current and future research, this study provides phylogenetic synopses for 25 groups of plant pathogenic fungi in the Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, Mucormycotina (Fungi), and Oomycota, using recent molecular data, up-to-date names, and the latest taxonomic insights. Lineage-specific laboratory protocols together with advice on their application, as well as general observations, are also provided. We hope to maintain updated backbone trees of these fungal lineages over time and to publish them jointly as new data emerge. Researchers of plant pathogenic fungi not covered by the present study are invited to join this future effort. Bipolaris, Botryosphaeriaceae, Botryosphaeria, Botrytis, Choanephora, Colletotrichum, Curvularia, Diaporthe, Diplodia, Dothiorella, Fusarium, Gilbertella, Lasiodiplodia, Mucor, Neofusicoccum, Pestalotiopsis, Phyllosticta, Phytophthora, Puccinia, Pyrenophora, Pythium, Rhizopus, Stagonosporopsis, Ustilago and Verticillium are dealt with in this paper.
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6. |
- Jagtap, Santosh, et al.
(författare)
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Design of Product Service Systems at the Base of The Pyramid
- 2013
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Ingår i: [Host publication title missing].
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- Abstract in UndeterminedThe Base of the Pyramid (BoP) consists of about two-fifths of the world population. This population can be categorized as poor with income of less than 2 dollars per day. It is important to alleviate poverty. One of the promising approaches to tackle the wicked problem of poverty is business development combined with poverty alleviation. In this approach, integrated solutions are necessary in order to address the diverse issues in the BoP. These integrated solutions are in the form of product service systems (PSS) rather than the conventional product-oriented or service-oriented solutions. In this paper, we explore different issues that need to be addressed in the PSS design at the BoP. We have also explored strategies used in this PSS design. We have used a case study to explain these issues and strategies. In addition, we have identified salient characteristics of the PSS design at the BoP.
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7. |
- Kottayil, Ajil, et al.
(författare)
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A new technique for temperature and humidity profile retrieval from infrared sounder observations using adaptive neuro-fuzzy inference system
- 2010
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Ingår i: IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. - 0196-2892 .- 1558-0644. ; 48:4, s. 1650-1659
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Accuracy of the atmospheric profiles of temperature and humidity, retrieved from infrared sounder observations using physical retrieval algorithm, depend primarily on the quality of the first guess profiles. In the past, forecasts from the numerical weather prediction models were extensively used as the first guess. During past few years, the first guess for physical retrieval is being estimated using regression techniques from sounder observations. In the present study, a new non-linear technique has been described to improve the first guess using simulated infrared brightness temperatures for GOES-12 Sounder channels. The present technique uses fuzzy logic and data clustering to establish a relationship between simulated sounder observations and atmospheric profiles. This relationship is further strengthened using Adaptive Neuro-Fuzzy Inference System (ANFIS) by fine-tuning the existing fuzzy rule base. The results of ANFIS retrieval have been compared with the non-linear (polynomial) regression retrieval. It has been found that ANFIS is more robust and shows remarkable improvement as it reduces RMS error by 20% in humidity profiles retrieval compared to the non-linear regression technique. In addition, it has been shown that the ANFIS technique has an added advantage of its global application without any need for training data classification that is required in the regression techniques.
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8. |
- Krastins, B., et al.
(författare)
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Rapid development of sensitive, high-throughput, quantitative and highly selective mass spectrometric targeted immunoassays for clinically important proteins in human plasma and serum
- 2013
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Ingår i: Clinical Biochemistry. - : Elsevier BV. - 0009-9120. ; 46:6, s. 399-410
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Tidskriftsartikel (refereegranskat)abstract
- Objectives The aim of this study was to develop high-throughput, quantitative and highly selective mass spectrometric, targeted immunoassays for clinically important proteins in human plasma or serum. Design and methods The described method coupled mass spectrometric immunoassay (MSIA), a previously developed technique for immunoenrichment on a monolithic microcolumn activated with an anti-protein antibody and fixed in a pipette tip, to selected reaction monitoring (SRM) detection and accurate quantification of targeted peptides, including clinically relevant sequence or truncated variants. Results In this report, we demonstrate the rapid development of MSIA-SRM assays for sixteen different target proteins spanning seven different clinically important areas (including neurological, Alzheimer's, cardiovascular, endocrine function, cancer and other diseases) and ranging in concentration from pg/mL to mg/mL. The reported MSIA-SRM assays demonstrated high sensitivity (within published clinical ranges), precision, robustness and high-throughput as well as specific detection of clinically relevant isoforms for many of the target proteins. Most of the assays were tested with bona-fide clinical samples. In addition, positive correlations, (R2 0.67–0.87, depending on the target peptide), were demonstrated for MSIA-SRM assay data with clinical analyzer measurements of parathyroid hormone (PTH) and insulin growth factor 1 (IGF1) in clinical sample cohorts. Conclusions We have presented a practical and scalable method for rapid development and deployment of MS-based SRM assays for clinically relevant proteins and measured levels of the target analytes in bona fide clinical samples. The method permits the specific quantification of individual protein isoforms and addresses the difficult problem of protein heterogeneity in clinical proteomics applications.
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9. |
- Kumar, P.V.A., et al.
(författare)
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Bessel features for estimating number of speakers from multispeaker speech signals
- 2011
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Konferensbidrag (refereegranskat)abstract
- In this paper, we explore Bessel features to determine the number of speakers from multispeaker speech signals collected simultaneously from a pair of spatially separated microphones. The arrival of the speech signals from speaker to microphones gives the time delays of given speaker. The time delays can be estimated by performing the cross-correlation to the band limited multispeaker signals collected at the two microphones. Signals are band limited using a finite number of Bessel coefficients. The computer simulation results demonstrate the proposed method is efficient compared to existing methods.
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