Objective. To compare optical immunoassay (OIA) and rapid polymerase-chain reaction (PCR) with enrichment broth culture for intrapartum detection of vaginal group B streptococcal (GBS) colonization.
...Methods. Paired vaginal swabs from 315 consecutive term pregnant women at the time of presentation for delivery to a university medical center were tested for GBS by OIA, PCR, and culture. Sensitivity, specificity, and positive and negative predictive values were calculated.
Results. Vaginal colonization was identified by culture in 56 subjects (17.8%). The sensitivity of OIA (7.1%, 95% confidence interval 5.1-9.5%) was significantly less than that of unenhanced rapid PCR (62.5%, 95% CI 48.5-74.8%).
Conclusions. Neither PCR nor OIA is sufficiently sensitive for intrapartum detection of vaginal GBS colonization. Rapid PCR is more sensitive, but further improvements in technique to increase sensitivity will be necessary if PCR is to have a useful role in the management of women at time of presentation for delivery.
The staff scheduling problem is a critical problem in the call center (or, more generally, customer contact center) industry. This article describes director, a staff scheduling system for contact ...centers. director is a constraint‐based system that uses AI search techniques to generate schedules that satisfy and optimize a wide range of constraints and service‐quality metrics. director has successfully been deployed at more than 800 contact centers, with significant measurable benefits, some of which are documented in case studies included in this article.
Despite the great promises of resistive random-access memory (ReRAM) for fast, low-power in memory computing, the models deployed on ReRAM crossbars suffer from accuracy loss, due to poor yield, ...inaccurate switching and high noise. In this paper, we report a forming-free bulk ReRAM (b-ReRAM) cell that can be programmed up to 128 levels between 400nA (4\mu \mathrm{S}) and 4\mu A (40\mu S). The device operates by continuous modulation of bulk oxygen vacancies, therefore exhibiting favorable characteristics including forming-free operation, analog switching, low noise and low operating currents 1, 2. The multilayer ReRAM stack is deposited using a specially built 300mm deposition system that features a clustered sequence of Physical Vapor Deposition (PVD) and Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD), leading to high wafer-level yield and uniformity. High programming accuracy can be achieved over 25k b-ReRAM devices across 15 dies. A fully integrated system on chip (SoC) with BEOL-integrated b-ReRAM arrays is built with 65nm CMOS technology, and keyword spotting (KWS) is demonstrated with accuracy equivalent to the software quantized model and high energy efficiency at 98.5 TOPS/W. Moreover, we evaluate the performance of the bitcell for large neural network (NN) applications in a custom hardware-aware simulation platform and show that software comparable accuracy can be achieved. This work for the first-time reports that high yield and high programming accuracy can be achieved with b-ReRAM at the wafer-level scale and demonstrates that superior analog behavior enables the mapping of NN models onto the ReRAM-based SoC prototype with no accuracy loss and high energy efficiency.
Defect detection on the metal sheets is an importance for the steel production industry. This paper proposes an automated visual defect segmentation for flat steel surface using two different deep ...neural network methods, namely U-Net and fully convolutional network-8 (FCN-8). Different models like ResNet34, MobilNetV2, EfficientNetB0, InceptionV3, and VGG16 have been implemented as the U-Net's encoder. In addition, FCN8 model has been investigated as a different architecture for the SEVERESTAL dataset. Due to the imbalanced dataset, various techniques such as dice coefficient as loss function and data augmentation have been used. Moreover, no-defect steel surfaces have been considered as a separate class. As a result, a promising dice score is achieved on the validation set for the described four-class approach.
Tissue laser soldering is a method of closure of incisions that in principle may have advantages over conventional closure methods. It is a non-contact technique, continuous and watertight and the ...procedure is faster and requires less skill to master. However, in practice there have been difficulties in obtaining strong and reliable welding. The quality of the weld depends on the ability to monitor and control the surface temperature of soldering zone during the procedure. Our goal was to use laser soldering to seal cuts in rat skin under temperature feed-back control and compare the results with standard sutures. Full-thickness incision created on the dorsum of rats and albumin solder with Indocyanine- Green (ICG) dye was added between the incision edges and photothermally coagulated with diode laser. We have developed an automated soldering system based on diode laser, IR detector, photodiode, digital thermocouple and camera. The true temperature of the heated tissue was determined by using and improved calibration soft ware method. Laser soldering was carried out spot by spot until it reached a preset value of 70–75°C at each point. The tensile strength of laser soldered cuts was measured after 2–10 days postoperatively and was found comparable to that of sutured cuts. Histopathological studies showed better healing and less inflammatory reactions than that caused by standard sutures after 7th day.
Laser tissue soldering based on protein as biological glues and other compounds can provide greater bond strength and less collateral damage. Endogenous and exogenous materials such as indocyanine ...green (ICG) are often added to solders to enhance light absorption. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of static and dynamic modes of laser soldering on the thermo-physical properties of the sheep skin. A mixture of albumin solder and ICG was prepared with the ratio of 1000:1 and then the coated samples were irradiated by a diode laser (≈ 800nm) at different conditions. Temperature rise, number of scan (Ns), and scan velocity (Vs) were investigated in dynamic mode. The results showed that at each laser power density (I) the tissue tensile strength (σt) of cuts repaired in dynamic mode is higher than static mode. However, in practice to have an optimal condition for skin closure the above parameters must be carefully studied. In our case, the results showed that the σt increases by increasing both Ns and I. But, also it has been equally shown that at lower Vs, hence higher temperature, a higher value of σt is achieved. It is therefore imperative to consider the trade off between the scan and the surface temperature for achieving the optimum operating condition. Finally, it is tentatively concluded that the skin temperature should not exceed 90°C at any time of work, then the acceptable conditions in our experiment correspond to I= 47 Wcm−2, σt =300gr, Ns=8, Vs=0.3mms−1.
A liquid scintillation counting (LSC) procedure was used to study unscheduled DNA synthesis (UDS) in pachytene spermatocytes and spermatids from Fisher-344 (F344) and Sprague-Dawley (SPD) rats ...treated with methyl methanesulfonate (MMS). MMS induced a large, dose-dependent, UDS response in pachytene spermatocytes from both rat strains. On average, F344 pachytene spermatocytes showed a larger UDS response than those of SPD rats. The lowest dose of MMS that elicited a significant UDS response was 1 mg/kg in F344 rats but 5 mg/kg in SPD rats. Early spermatid stages from F344 rats also showed a larger UDS response than those from SPD rats. The time interval at which spermatid stages showed the maximum UDS response was between 20 and 24 days after MMS treatment. It is concluded that UDS can be measured quantitatively in rat spermatogenic cells in vivo by using the LSC procedure.
During the summer of 2002, Robotic Autonomy was taught to thirty students at Carnegie Mellon West in cooperation with NASA/Ames (Moffett Field, CA). The authors at Carnegie Mellon University's ...Robotics Institute and at the University of Pittsburgh's Learning Research and Development Center planned a methodology for formally evaluating the educational efficacy of Robotic Autonomy. This article describes the educational analysis methodology and the statistically significant results of our analysis, demonstrating the positive impact of Robotic Autonomy on student learning beyond the boundaries of specific technical concepts in robotics. Educational robotics is gaining traction at all levels of the educational system, however formal analysis of its effectiveness has been lacking. This research project seeks to address this weakness by presenting statistically significant evidence of broad learning.
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