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Background: Infective endocarditis is a serious complication in patients with prostheses in the right ventricle outflow tract. The aim of our study is to assess clinical features in these patients. Methods: We have analyzed all cases of prosthetic pulmonary valve infective endocarditis (PPVIE) and compared them to the rest of the patients with IE. Since the year 2000, 375 cases of IE have been diagnosed in our center and nine patients had a PPVIE.: 3 patients with Melody percutaneous prostheses, 5 with a homograft (3 after a Rastelli procedure, 2 a Ross procedure), and 1 patient with a heterograft (Contegra conduit). Results: Mean age of PPVIE patients was 31±15 years old and 89% were male. A presumed portal of entry could only be identified in 4 of the 9 patients with PPVIE. The most common was a dental origin (3 patients). A causative microorganism was detected in all but one PPVIE patient: 3 S.viridans, 2 S.aureus, 2 coagulase-negative staphylococci, and 1 enterococcus. Most patients suffered complications during the in-hospital phase: 7 out of 9 PPVIE patients (78 vs.75% of the rest of IE patients), the most common congestive heart failure (5 patients), and persistent sepsis (4 patients). Six patients were operated on during hospitalization (67 vs. 55%) with a mean time from admission to surgery of 15 days. In-hospital mortality was similar (22 vs. 26%). Conclusions: Prevalence of PPVIE is low, with a clinical outcome, surgery rate, and survival similar to the rest of patients with IE.

Granular materials are of critical interest to many robotic tasks in planetary science, construction, and manufacturing. However, the dynamics of granular materials are complex and often computationally very expensive to simulate. We propose a set of methodologies and a system for the fast simulation of granular materials on Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), and show that this simulation is fast enough for basic training with Reinforcement Learning algorithms, which currently require many dynamics samples to achieve acceptable performance. Our method models granular material dynamics using implicit timestepping methods for multibody rigid contacts, as well as algorithmic techniques for efficient parallel collision detection between pairs of particles and between particle and arbitrarily shaped rigid bodies, and programming techniques for minimizing warp divergence on Single-Instruction, Multiple-Thread (SIMT) chip architectures. We showcase our simulation system on several environments targeted toward robotic tasks, and release our simulator as an open-source tool.

Modeling dynamics is often the first step to making a vehicle autonomous. While on-road autonomous vehicles have been extensively studied, off-road vehicles pose many challenging modeling problems. An off-road vehicle encounters highly complex and difficult-to-model terrain/vehicle interactions, as well as having complex vehicle dynamics of its own. These complexities can create challenges for effective high-speed control and planning. In this paper, we introduce a framework for multistep dynamics prediction that explicitly handles the accumulation of modeling error and remains scalable for sampling-based controllers. Our method uses a specially-initialized Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) over a limited time horizon as the learned component in a hybrid model to predict the dynamics of a 4-person seating all-terrain vehicle (Polaris S4 1000 RZR) in two distinct environments. By only having the LSTM predict over a fixed time horizon, we negate the need for long term stability that is often a challenge when training recurrent neural networks. Our framework is flexible as it only requires odometry information for labels. Through extensive experimentation, we show that our method is able to predict millions of possible trajectories in real-time, with a time horizon of five seconds in challenging off road driving scenarios.

The purpose of this study is to describe the inability of Catholic education institutions on funding school operations especially regarding teacher salaries in Medan. The main task of the teacher is to do educational assignments. Even though it is not optimal, the cooperation and commitment of all parties involved, especially the institution and the school parties are needed in terms of designing and realizing various collaborative efforts with the church and parents, so that new students will grow in Catholic schools. This study is conducted by using descriptive qualitative approach. The result shows that there is no good achievement without hard work and sacrifice and also a good work approach strategy. Therefore there must be good meetings that create a positive attitude and a sense of belonging to the school, where if the school is successfully developed, all parties will feel the benefits.

Supplemental document: in section 1, the broadening of the contributions in the impulsive domain are derived. In section 2, the design rules of the 3-MZI proposed device are reasoned in detail and discussed the AWG case real design in the manuscript

Aquest treball d'investigació s'ha dirigit a aconseguir una primera aproximació a les condicions de treball dels i les professionals del tercer sector que intervenen específicament amb persones d'origen estranger a Catalunya, arran de la manca de dades específiques al seu voltant i les possibles implicacions d'aquestes condicions de treball (afectacions a la salut, grau de benestar percebut, etc.). Concretament, la investigació s'ha dirigit a intentar conèixer les condicions laborals, possibles situacions de precarietat laboral i els riscos psicosocials més habituals d'aquest col·lectiu de professionals, així com de visibilitzar les seves percepcions i demandes. De les principals conclusions obtingudes, podem destacar aspectes relacionats amb la precarietat, com són una elevada taxa de temporalitat contractual i salaris per sota de la mitjana estatal i catalana. També existeixen forts factors de protecció, que ajuden a assolir un grau de benestar mig al lloc de treball, com són el suport de la resta de companys/es i l'existència d'un bon ambient de treball. Així mateix, és important mencionar l'impacte dels factors gènere i edat dintre de les condicions laborals que presenten. Entre els riscos psicosocials més habituals, destaquen l'alta exigència emocional, l'alt ritme de treball i l'excessiva quantitat d'aquest. Les afectacions a la salut no són molt freqüents, però sí que tenen un notable impacte a la vida de les persones afectades. Entre les mesures proposades, les més reclamades són canvis organitzatius i de planificació per part de les entitats, millores salarials i de conveni, i un augment dels recursos destinats al sector. This research work has been aimed at achieving a first approximation to the working conditions of the professionals of the third sector who intervene specifically with people of foreign origin in Catalonia, due to the lack of specific data around them and possible implications of these working conditions (health effects, degree of perceived well-being, etc.). Specifically, the research has been directed to try to know the working conditions, possible situations of precarious work and the most common psychosocial risks of this group of professionals, as well as to make visible their perceptions and demands. From the main conclusions obtained, we can highlight aspects related to precariousness, such as a high rate of contractual temporality and salaries below the state and Catalan average. There are also strong protective factors, which help to achieve a medium level of well-being for the job, such as the support of other colleagues and the existence of a good work environment. Likewise, it is important to mention the impact of gender and age factors within the working conditions they present. Among the most common psychosocial risks, the high emotional demand, the high work rate and the excessive amount of this stand out. Health effects are not very frequent, but they do have a significant impact on the lives of the people affected. Among the proposed measures, the most demanded are organizational and planning changes by the entities, salary and agreement improvements, and an increase in resources allocated to the sector. Este trabajo de investigación se ha dirigido a conseguir una primera aproximación a las condiciones de trabajo de los y las profesionales del tercer sector que intervienen específicamente con personas de origen extranjero en Cataluña, a raíz de la carencia de datos específicos a su alrededor y las posibles implicaciones de estas condiciones de trabajo (afectaciones a la salud, grado de bienestar percibido, etc.). Concretamente, la investigación se ha dirigido a intentar conocer las condiciones laborales, posibles situaciones de precariedad laboral y los riesgos psicosociales más habituales de este colectivo de profesionales, así como de visibilizar sus percepciones y demandas. De las principales conclusiones obtenidas, podemos destacar aspectos relacionados con la precariedad, como son una elevada tasa de temporalidad contractual y salarios por debajo de la media estatal y catalana. También existen fuertes factores de protección, que ayudan a lograr un grado de bienestar medio al puesto de trabajo, como son el apoyo del resto de compañeros/se y la existencia de un buen ambiente de trabajo. Así mismo, es importante mencionar el impacto de los factores género y edad dentro de las condiciones laborales que presentan. Entre los riesgos psicosociales más habituales, destacan el alta exigencia emocional, el alto ritmo de trabajo y la excesiva cantidad de este. Las afectaciones a la salud no son muy frecuentes, pero sí que tienen un notable impacto en la vida de las personas afectadas. Entre las medidas propuestas, las más reclamadas son cambios organizativos y de planificación por parte de las entidades, mejoras salariales y de convenio, y un aumento de los recursos destinados al sector.

Aircraft that can launch ballistically and convert to autonomous, free flying drones have applications in many areas such as emergency response, defense, and space exploration, where they can gather critical situational data using onboard sensors. This paper presents a ballistically launched, autonomously stabilizing multirotor prototype (SQUID, Streamlined Quick Unfolding Investigation Drone) with an onboard sensor suite, autonomy pipeline, and passive aerodynamic stability. We demonstrate autonomous transition from passive to vision based, active stabilization, confirming the ability of the multirotor to autonomously stabilize after a ballistic launch in a GPS denied environment., Comment: Accepted to 2020 International Conference on Robotics and Automation

In this paper, the design trade-offs for the implementation of small footprint thermal tuners on silicon nitride are presented, and explored through measurements and supporting simulations of a photonic chip based on Mach-Zehnder Interferometers. Firstly, the electrical properties of the tuners are assessed, showing a compromise between compactness and deterioration. Secondly, the different variables involved in the thermal efficiency, switching power and heater dimensions, are analysed. Finally, with focus on exploring the limits of this compact tuners with regards to on chip component density, the thermal-cross talk is also investigated. Tuners with footprint of 270x5 {\mu}m 2 and switching power of 350 mW are reported, with thermal-cross talk, in terms of induced phase change in adjacent devices of less than one order of magnitude at distances over 20 {\mu}m. Paths for the improvement of thermal efficiency, power consumption and resilience of the devices are also outlined

The performance evaluation of AWG-based OADMs due to filter cascade in 10 Gb/s WDM metro core networks is presented. The penalty for the through optical channels is investigated versus the laser wavelength drift and OADM temperature stabilization failure. Results are measured and extrapolated with simulation results to obtain the maximum allowable number of OADMs in the metro network.

The use of 2D features in computer vision has had a great impact in lots of applications. For example, the combination of those features together with 3D data has helped to solve the Simultaneous Location And Mapping (SLAM) problem in real time. Nowadays, there are several interesting feature detectors and descriptors with different characteristics: processing time, robustness against lightning conditions, changes in point of view, scale, etc., and every day it appears more and more. In this paper, a deeper study about several of these detectors and descriptors is done. Several interesting graphs where we can separate distances with respect to axis and angles have been analysed. This study helps to make decisions about which are better for a given application. The study has been done with a low cost sensor as Kinect installed on robotics arm to control the movements with accuracy. Furthermore, finally, real scenario reconstruction is shown using Kinect camera and the visual features analysed in the study. Paper submitted to the 43rd International Symposium on Robotics (ISR), Taipei, Taiwan, August 29-31, 2012.

This paper presents a method for fast calculation of the egomotion done by a robot using visual features. The method is part of a complete system for automatic map building and Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM). The method uses optical flow in order to determine if the robot has done a movement. If so, some visual features which do not accomplish several criteria (like intersection, unicity, etc,) are deleted, and then the egomotion is calculated. We use a state-of-the-art algorithm (TORO) in order to rectify the map and solve the SLAM problem. The proposed method provides better efficiency that other current methods. These authors want to express their gratitude to Spanish Ministry of Science and Technology (MYCIT) and the Research and Innovation Vice-president Office of the University of Alicante for their financial support through the projects DPI2009-07144 and GRE10-16, respectively.

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Applications of MWPSP Fundamental Concepts and Limitations Fibre Delay Line Filters Fibre Grating Delay Line Filters Implementation of MWPSP with Negative and Complex-valued Coefficients Epilogue and Final Remarks Acknowledgements References