2,221 research outputs found

    Special Issue: “Biophysics, Arrhythmias and Pacing”

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    Cardiac pacing technologies have been implemented during the last few decades, including leadless pacemakers and pacing of the conduction system, such as His bundle pacing and left bundle branch area pacing [...

    Collective traffic forecasting

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    Traffic forecasting has recently become a crucial task in the area of intelligent transportation systems, and in particular in the development of traffic management and control. We focus on the simultaneous prediction of the congestion state at multiple lead times and at multiple nodes of a transport network, given historical and recent information. This is a highly relational task along the spatial and the temporal dimensions and we advocate the application of statistical relational learning techniques. We formulate the task in the supervised learning from interpretations setting and use Markov logic networks with grounding-specific weights to perform collective classification. Experimental results on data obtained from the California Freeway Performance Measurement System (PeMS) show the advantages of the proposed solution, with respect to propositional classifiers. In particular, we obtained significant performance improvement at larger time leads. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

    TUTELA DEL LAVORO E LIBERTA' D'IMPRESA NEI PROCESSI DI ESTERNALIZZAZIONE

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    L’elaborato analizza le conseguenze lavoristiche della successione fra imprenditori, muovendo da una ricognizione delle varie tipologie di esternalizzazione con le relative esigenze e principali criticità. L’indagine si concentra in primo luogo sul trasferimento d’azienda, esaminando la normativa e la giurisprudenza europee per passare poi alla disciplina di diritto interno, alle procedure sindacali e a uno specifico focus sul trasferimento delle aziende in crisi. Successivamente l’autore si sofferma sull’appalto, prendendone in particolare considerazione gli indici di genuinità, i criteri di distinzione dalla somministrazione illecita di manodopera e la tutela delle maestranze in caso di avvicendamento fra imprese. Da ultimo, la ricerca approfondisce le c.d. “clausole sociali”, sia di prima che di seconda generazione, valutandone la compatibilità con il diritto eurounitario e con la costituzione nonché riflettendo sui possibili rimedi in caso di loro violazione.The author analyzes the labour consequences of the succession between entrepreneurs, starting from a recognition of the various types of outsourcing with the related needs and main critical issues. The survey focuses primarily on the transfer of businesses, examining European legislation and case-law and then moving on to internal legislation, trade union procedures and a specific focus on the transfer of companies in crisis. The author then dwells on the contract, taking into account in particular the indications of authenticity, the criteria of distinction from the illicit administration of labour and the protection of workers in the event of turnover between companies. Finally, the research deepens the "social clauses", both first and second generation, assessing their compatibility with European law and with the constitution and reflecting on possible remedies in case of their violation

    Single lead catheter of implantable cardioverter-defibrillator with floating atrial sensing dipole implanted via persistent left superior vena cava

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    Persistent left superior vena cava (LSVC) is a congenital anomaly with 0.3%-1% prevalence in the general population. It is usually asymptomatic but in case of transvenous lead positioning, i.e., for pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD), may be a cause for significant complications or unsuccessful implantation. Single lead ICD with atrial sensing dipole (ICD DX) is a safe and functional technology in patients without congenital abnormalities. We provide a review of the literature and a case report of successful implantation of an ICD DX in a patient with LSVC and its efficacy in treating ventricular arrhythmias

    Short-term traffic flow forecasting: An experimental comparison of time-series analysis and supervised learning

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    The literature on short-term traffic flow forecasting has undergone great development recently. Many works, describing a wide variety of different approaches, which very often share similar features and ideas, have been published. However, publications presenting new prediction algorithms usually employ different settings, data sets, and performance measurements, making it difficult to infer a clear picture of the advantages and limitations of each model. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we review existing approaches to short-term traffic flow forecasting methods under the common view of probabilistic graphical models, presenting an extensive experimental comparison, which proposes a common baseline for their performance analysis and provides the infrastructure to operate on a publicly available data set. Second, we present two new support vector regression models, which are specifically devised to benefit from typical traffic flow seasonality and are shown to represent an interesting compromise between prediction accuracy and computational efficiency. The SARIMA model coupled with a Kalman filter is the most accurate model; however, the proposed seasonal support vector regressor turns out to be highly competitive when performing forecasts during the most congested periods. © 2011 IEEE

    Dual chamber pacemaker implantation via both right and persistent left superior vena cava. A case report

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    Persistent left superior vena cava (PLSVC) is a venous anomaly with a prevalence of 0.3-0.5% in the general population.(1) PLSVC is usually an incidental finding during implantation of transvenous cardiac device and the procedure may be unsuccessful or complicated.2,3 A patient undergoing pacemaker implantation showed PLSVC, right superior vena cava (RSVC) and connecting brachiocephalic vein. The leads were inserted via both veins through cardiac chambers

    Left ventricular lead stabilization to retain cardiac resynchronization therapy at long term: When is it advisable?

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    AimsLeft ventricular (LV) lead dislodgement occurs in about 10.6% of patients in the first 12 months after cardiac resynchronization therapy defibrillator implantation, and causes lack of clinical improvement, repeated surgery, and predisposes to infective complications and death. To understand the factors predictive of lead dislodgement, and to investigate whether bipolar LV lead stabilization can reduce the dislodgement rate and improve the clinical outcome.Methods and resultsPredisposing coronary vein anatomy was identified on a retrospective series of 218 patients implanted before August 2009. Lead stabilization guided by vein anatomy was prospectively tested on consecutive patients from October 2009 to December 2010. Among 84 patients, lead stabilization based on vein anatomy was recommended in 19 patients, of which 16 agreed and 3 refused. Two of these latter had lead dislodgement within 1 month, whereas none of the former had adverse events during 23.8 ± 3.1 months follow-up. Only 1 of 58 patients deemed at low risk had lead dislodgement. Seven patients required lead stabilization for severe phrenic stimulation issues that dictated lead placement at specific sites. Patients with stabilized LV leads were more likely to be cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) responders than the others: 19 of 26 (73%) vs. 34 of 58 (59%, P= NS), and had a significantly higher proportion of super-responders: 12 of 26 (46%) vs. 12 of 58 (21%, P< 0.005).ConclusionCoronary vein anatomy may assist decision making about the need for LV lead stabilization, and the choice of tools during the implanting procedure to ensure effective CRT delivery at long term. © The Author 2013

    Behaviour of fatigue cracks emanating from circular notches in Ti-6Al-4V under bending RID D-2953-2009

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    This paper is aimed at evaluating the behaviour of small cracks emanating from notches in the Ti-6Al-4V alloy. Pulsating four point bending tests were performed at a nominal stress ratio of 0.1 and a frequency of 15 Hz on prismatic specimens with a central hole. The conditions of initiation and early propagation of fatigue cracks were investigated at two relatively high nominal stress levels corresponding to 56.6 and 100% of the 0.2% yield stress of the material. Microstructural effects were discussed. To this purpose a specific device based on the in situ detection of cracks by photomicroscopy was developed. Corresponding results were analysed quantitatively considering the effect of the yielded region at the notch tip by elastic plastic finite element modelling. Furthermore, information regarding the sites of fatigue crack initiation and propagation path were discussed on the basis of careful fractographic analysis of the specimens. The importance of the two phase alpha,beta microstructure on the material damage was highlighted and correlated to the observed oscillations in the crack growth rate. Mechanically and microstructurally long cracks were correlated by linear-elastic fracture mechanics
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