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Comprehension of the adapted Urticaria Activity Score measure and patient guidance document: qualitative interviews with adults and adolescents with chronic spontaneous urticaria
No full textObjective: A key component of determining that a patient-reported outcome (PRO) measure is fit-for-purpose is to ensure that respondents understand its instructions and items. Any modification to a measure should be evaluated for relevance and understandability. The objective of the study was to assess comprehension of the adapted Urticaria Activity Score (UAS) questionnaire among adolescents aged populations with chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU) and the modification to UAS question 2 to include patient-friendly terminology “wheals (hives).” A patient guidance document for completing the adapted UAS was also examined. Methods: A non-interventional, cross-sectional, qualitative study involving hybrid concept elicitation and cognitive interviews was conducted among adults and adolescents with CSU. Eligibility included clinician confirmation of CSU and experience of itch and hives for ≥ 6 weeks. Study participants were recruited from US clinical sites and online CSU patient communities. Telephone interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Participants reviewed the UAS and provided their input on the UAS guidance document. Results: Twenty-two interviews were conducted (seven adolescents and 15 adults; mean age 34 ± 18 years, 64% female, 77% White, 77% non-Hispanic, and 59% moderate to severe CSU symptoms). All participants (n = 22/22, 100%) stated that the adapted UAS was clear and “easy” to understand. For the adapted UAS “wheals (hives)” item, several participants were unfamiliar with the term “wheals,” but the term “hives” was well understood by US participants. Most participants reported that it was “easy” or “not difficult” to count and recall the number of hives they had over the past 24 h. Participants found the adapted UAS guidance document “helpful” and “easy to understand” for determining and counting hives in a 24-hour period. Suggestions for improving the guide included adding a picture to aid in counting hives. Conclusions: Itch and hives are important symptoms of CSU. Results support the content validity of an adapted UAS as a daily measure of severity of itch and hives and provided valuable suggestions for improving its patient guidance, which can be used in future clinical trials involving adults and adolescents ≥ 12 years old with CSU to assess the severity of itch and hives.8
Introducing WALKER - Safeguarding Cultural Heritage through Evacuation Run Maps
No full textThe crisis management cycle contains the step Preparedness, in which the development of disaster plans takes place. Run plans for fire fighters are a well-established means for enhancing preparedness in public buildings. A wide array of plans is available, serving to aid firefighters in swiftly orienting themselves during emergency situations on-site. These plans may also include detailed information as needed, providing tactical insights into critical elements within the building. In this practitioner paper, we present the adaptation of run plans to the realm of cultural heritage preservation. We utilize the existing format for the communication of information about the safe handling of cultural heritage to the command staff and the fire fighters. These cultural heritage escape plans offer guidance on the safe handling, evacuation procedures, and the prioritization of cultural heritage items in the case of an emergency and can be added to the existing tactical firefighting plans in public cultural heritage institutions. The evacuation plan format has been developed by the Munich County Fire Fighters and was manually implemented for all cultural heritage objects of the Bavarian Palace Department. The format has proven beneficial. With this format, we aim to enhance the preparedness of cultural heritage sites against natural disasters. Given the inherent sensitivity of cultural heritage objects, which require careful handling, these escape plans encompass instructions for the secure dismantling and evacuation of these items to designated safe areas. Furthermore, we introduce the software WALKER, a specialized tool designed for the creation of evacuation plans tailored to cultural heritage contexts. WALKER has been deployed for test usage for cultural heritage institutions for testing and evaluation of its potential. Both evacuation maps and WALKER are part of an integrated crisis management for cultural heritage and can be classified as part of the Preparedness step in the crisis management cycle. Furthermore, when the plans are implemented during the response, they can also be considered part of the phase Response
Long-Term Efficacy and Safety of Risankizumab for csDMARD-IR Patients With Active Psoriatic Arthritis: 196-Week Results From the KEEPsAKE 1 Trial
No full texts445Introduction & Objectives: Here, we report the long-term efficacy and safety of risankizumab (RZB) in patients with active psoriatic arthritis (PsA) through week 196 from the KEEPsAKE 1 trial. Materials & Methods: The ongoing KEEPsAKE 1 clinical trial is a global, phase 3, multicenter study to evaluate the efficacy and safety of RZB versus placebo (PBO) in patients with active PsA. Patients are at least 18 years old and demonstrated an inadequate response, intolerance or contraindication to ≥1 conventional synthetic disease modifying antirheumatic drug (csDMARD-IR). Following a 24-week double-blind, PBO-controlled, parallel-group treatment period (period 1), all patients received open-label RZB every 12 weeks thereafter (period 2). Safety assessments were based on monitoring of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) reported as events per 100 patient-years (PY). Efficacy and safety analyses were conducted in all randomized patients who received ≥1 dose of the study drug. Results: Overall efficacy results were maintained at week 196 of the KEEPsAKE 1 trial, as compared to previously reported timepoints. At week 196, 39.4% of patients receiving continuous RZB and 38.1% of PBO/RZB patients achieved ACR50; 39.6% of RZB and 35.2% of PBO/RZB patients achieved MDA. In patients with psoriasis severity of ≥ 3% of body surface area (BSA) at baseline, 65.2% on RZB and 62.9% on PBO/RZB achieved PASI90 at week 196. mNAPSI and PGA-F scores improved from baseline by 14.99 and 1.5 points, respectively, for RZB, and by 14.73 and 1.5 points for PBO/RZB patients. In patients with enthesitis at baseline, 60.1% on RZB and 63.4% on PBO/RZB achieved resolution. For patients with dactylitis at baseline, 72.3% on RZB and 77.6% on PBO/RZB achieved resolution. HAQ-DI (RZB -0.40, PBO/RZB -0.33), SF-36 PCS (RZB 8.98, PBO/RZB 7.21) and FACIT-Fatigue (RZB 7.7, PBO/RZB 5.6) scores maintained improvement from baseline to week 196. The overall rates of TEAEs (121.4 E/100PY), serious TEAEs (7.7 E/100PY) and AEs leading to discontinuation of study drug (1.8 E/100PY) have remained stable and comparable to those reported in period 1. Conclusion: The 196-week results of the ongoing KEEPsAKE 1 trial demonstrate the durable efficacy of RZB 150 mg in treating the different clinical manifestations and improving health-related quality of life in csDMARD-IR patients with PsA. RZB continued to be well-tolerated, with no new safety signals.8
New Advances in Printed Sand
No full text733734Printed sand-molds and cores have become indispensable in foundries to produce prototypes and small series. But, the process offers far more advantages than just a shorter production time. Complex geometries can be created without additional effort in pattern making and core assembly[1]. These and other advantages have convinced BMW and GE Vernova (beforehand GE Renewable Energies), for example, to produce certain cast components in series using printed sand. The requirements range from several hundred thousand of cores per year in the case of BMW to very large molded parts with lateral dimensions of 7 x 9 m in the case of GE Vernova printed in a single piece. This article presents the two use cases and their respective additive production solutions from the perspective of the 3D printer manufacturer. The possibilities and limitations of the current Binder-Jetting technology are shown and an outlook on future possibilities is given
Droplet sizes and delivery rates from film breakup aerosolisation mode in porous materials
No full text167170A novel two-phase aerosolisation mode utilizing porous materials is investigated, aiming to improve aerosol delivery for medical inhalation. Sintered stainless steel filters with varied pore sizes (PS) from 0.2 µm to 7 µm were used to generate aerosols from a 0.9 wt.% sodium chloride solution. Droplet sizes and delivery rates were measured using laser diffraction spectroscopy. Further measurements included shadow imaging. Results indicate that aerosolisation occurs within a specific range of PS with droplet sizes increasing with increasing PS. The droplets generated are suitable for inhalation therapies. A hypothesis is established about the process of droplet formation which states that different PS within the porous material serve distinct functions that contribute to the breakup of liquid films into aerosol particles. Droplet formation is the result of film breakup in pores filled with fluid. This low-energy aerosolisation method has the potential to be used in handheld devices for sensitive drug formulations, overcoming the limitations of current technologies. Further research is needed to optimize the pore size distribution and enhance aerosol generation efficiency
Hydrogen-bonded QSEBS/ZrO2 mixed matrix anion exchange membranes for water electrolyzer
No full textWe present an innovative approach to address the challenges associated with swelling and alkaline stability in anion exchange membranes (AEMs). Our strategy involves integrating hydrogen-bonded ZrO2 nanoparticles into quaternized polystyrene-b-poly(ethylene-co-butylene)-b-polystyrene (QSEBS) block copolymer to create a mixed matrix membrane (MMM). To augment the free volume within the polymer matrix and introduce hydrogen bonding sites for interaction with ZrO2, we incorporated a long-alkyl side chain with a ketone group through Friedel-Crafts acylation. Incorporating ZrO2 nanoparticles creates additional ion-transporting water channels due to its high-water adsorption capacity, stemming from uncompensated bonds on its surface. This surface-bound water layer facilitates the rapid transport of solvated hydroxide ions while protecting vulnerable polymer chains from damage. We fabricated MMMs based on QSEBS with varying loads of ZrO2 nanoparticles (0 %, 3 %, 6 %, 10 % by weight), resulting in AEMs exhibiting gradual enhancements in ionic conductivity and alkaline stability with increasing ZrO2 content. The water electrolysis cell equipped with a QSEBS/ZrO2 6 wt% MMM demonstrates enhanced performance, achieving a current density of 1.19 A/cm2 at 2.0 V. This outperforms the neat QSEBS membrane, which achieves 0.86 A/cm2 at 2.0 V, and exhibits a substantial improvement of 80 % compared to the commercial FAA-3-50 membrane, which achieves 0.66 A/cm2 at 2.0 V.37
FeBiM: Efficient and Compact Bayesian Inference Engine Empowered with Ferroelectric In-Memory Computing
No full textIn scenarios with limited training data or where explainability is crucial, conventional neural network-based machine learning models often face challenges. In contrast, Bayesian inference-based algorithms excel in providing interpretable predictions and reliable uncertainty estimation in these scenarios. While many state-of-the-art in-memory computing (IMC) architectures leverage emerging non-volatile memory (NVM) technologies to offer unparalleled computing capacity and energy efficiency for neural network workloads, their application in Bayesian inference is limited. This is because the core operations in Bayesian inference, i.e., cumulative multiplications of prior and likelihood probabilities, differ significantly from the multiplication-accumulation (MAC) operations common in neural networks, rendering them generally unsuitable for direct implementation in most existing IMC designs. In this paper, we propose FeBiM, an efficient and compact Bayesian inference engine powered by multi-bit ferroelectric field-effect transistor (FeFET)-based IMC. FeBiM effectively encodes the trained probabilities of a Bayesian inference model within a compact FeFET-based crossbar. It maps quantized logarithmic probabilities to discrete FeFET states. As a result, the accumulated outputs of the crossbar naturally represent the posterior probabilities, i.e., the Bayesian inference model's output given a set of observations. This approach enables efficient in-memory Bayesian inference without the need for additional calculation circuitry. As the first FeFET-based in-memory Bayesian inference engine, FeBiM achieves an impressive storage density of 26.32 Mb/mm2 and a computing efficiency of 581.40 TOPS/W in a representative Bayesian classification task. These results demonstrate 10.7×/43.4× improvement in compactness/efficiency compared to the state-of-the-art hardware implementation of Bayesian inference
Evaluating the impact of inter-annual variability on long-term wind speed predictions
No full text661677Assessing the wind resource and its associated uncertainties is essential for the profitability of a wind farm, with inter-annual variability in wind speed being a key factor. To estimate the wind resource at a potential wind farm site, a year-long wind measurement campaign is typically conducted and combined with long-term-often numerical-reference data using the measure–correlate–predict (MCP) approach. This process accounts for systematic errors in the reference data and captures the long-term wind variability of wind speed. Since wind conditions vary from year to year, the selection of a single measurement year within the MCP framework can significantly influence the predicted wind resource. In this study, we systematically evaluate the impact of the measurement year on wind speed predictions using long-term met mast measurements. We also investigate whether classical and advanced machine learning methods can mitigate this sensitivity. Our results reveal that the variation in predicted wind speed due to the chosen measurement year ranges from 1 % to 14 %, depending on the site and correlation method, with an average of 6.5 %. Excluding years with exceptional wind conditions reduces the mean to 4.2 %. Among the methods selected, the correlation method SpeedSort, along with the advanced machine learning models random forest and AdaBoost, most effectively mitigates the influence of inter-annual wind variations in long-term referencing compared to classic linear regression. Additionally, the findings indicate that AdaBoost and random forest are especially beneficial for sites with heterogeneous and complex terrain. Furthermore, the study highlights the need for quality-controlled, long-term datasets across a variety of sites with differing terrain complexities to better understand and manage the effects of inter-annual wind variability in diverse wind climates.11
Ultra-uniform perovskite crystals formed in the presence of tetrabutylammonium bistriflimide afford efficient and stable perovskite solar cells
No full text82098218Compositional engineering of organic-inorganic metal halide perovskite allows for improved optoelectrical properties, however, phase segregation occurs during crystal nucleation and limits perovskite solar cell device performance. Herein, we show that by applying tetrabutylammonium bistriflimide as an additive in the perovskite precursor solution, ultra-uniform perovskite crystals are obtained, which effectively increases device performance. As a result, power conversion efficiencies (PCEs) of 24.5% in a cell and 21.2% in a module are achieved, together with high stability under illumination, humidity and elevated thermal conditions.172
Improved scanning mirror micro spectrometer for material recognition in recycling applications
No full textRecycling is an important issue contributing to economy and ecology. Material sorting is required to discriminate different raw substances. Near infrared spectroscopy is a suitable tool for the analysis of organic matter like plastic waste or textiles. A new design for a miniaturized MEMS based scanning mirror micro spectrometer has been realized for measurements in the 1000 nm to 1900 nm region offering 10 nm resolution. Test measurement in application close use cases have been performed resulting in promising data for different kind of plastic and textile samples