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A fully integrated passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RF identification (RFID) tag integrated circuit (IC) based on Chinese UHF RFID standard (GJB 7377.1) is proposed. An optimized voltage multiplier with threshold compensation and leakage current suppression is designed to improve the RF-DC power conversion efficiency, which is more than 58% for different load current. A system clock constraint condition and proposed digital baseband (BB) algorithm instead of clock calibration is introduced to ensure correct demodulation of the forward link from reader to tag and back link frequency (BLF) tolerance from tag to reader. Moreover, a 2Kb multi-time programmable (MTP) non-volatile memory (NVM) in standard CMOS process without any additional masks and process modification is designed and implemented to significantly save the manufacture cost of the chip. The proposed RFID tag IC is fabricated using a $0.13-\mu \text{m}$ one-poly-five-metal (1P5M) standard CMOS process with an area of $620\times 660\,\,\mu \text{m}^{2}$ and a power consumption of 4.8 $\mu \text{W}$ and 11.5 $\mu \text{W}$ for reading and writing operations, respectively. The tag with antenna gain of 2 dBi shows successful reading detection at distances up to 17 m in the case of 4 W Equivalent Isotropically Radiated Power (EIRP) from reader.

RGBD scene flow has attracted increasing attention in the computer vision with the popularity of depth sensor. To estimate the 3D motion of object accurately, a RGBD scene flow estimation method with global nonrigid and local rigid motion assumption is proposed in this paper. Firstly, the preprocessing is implemented, which includes the colour-depth registration and depth image inpainting, to processing holes and noises in the depth image; secondly, the depth image is segmented to obtain different motion regions with different depth values; thirdly, scene flow is estimated based on the global nonrigid and local rigid assumption and spatial-temporal correlation of RGBD information. In the global nonrigid and local rigid assumption, each segmented region is divided into several blocks, and each block has a rigid motion. With this assumption, the interaction of motion from different parts in the same segmented region is avoided, especially the nonrigid object, e.g., a human body. Experiments are implemented on RGBD tracking dataset and deformable 3D reconstruction dataset. The visual comparison shows that the proposed method can distinguish the motion parts from the static parts in the same region better, and the quantitative comparisons proved more accurate scene flow can be obtained.

Between 18-Dec-2017 and 27-Jun-2018, a mumps outbreak occurred in two Canadian Indigenous communities. An outbreak dose of mumps-containing vaccine was offered as part of control measures. We conducted a cohort study and survival analysis to describe the outbreak and evaluate the outbreak dose, extracting immunization information on all community members (n=3,135) from immunization records. There were 70 mumps cases; 56% had received two pre-outbreak vaccine doses. Those who received a pre-outbreak dose more distantly had higher rates of mumps compared to those with more recent doses (adjusted hazard ratio = 3.4 (95%CI: 0.7–20.6) for receipt >20 years before vs. receipt ≤3 years). During the outbreak, 33% (1,010/3,080) of eligible individuals received an outbreak dose. The adjusted hazard ratio for no outbreak dose receipt was 2.7 (95%CI: 1.0–10.1). Our results suggest that an outbreak dose of mumps-containing vaccine may be an effective public health intervention, but further study is warranted.

BACKGROUND: The prevalence of adult chronic kidney disease and cardiovascular comorbidities in Canadian Indigenous communities is largely unknown. We conducted a study to document the prevalence of chronic kidney disease and concurrent diabetes mellitus, hypertension and dyslipidemia in a First Nations population in northwest Ontario. METHODS: In this observational study, we used retrospective data collected from regional electronic medical records of 16 170 adults (age ≥ 18 yr) from 26 First Nations communities in northwest Ontario from May 2014 to May 2017. Demographic and laboratory data included age, gender, prescribed medications, estimated glomerular filtration rate, urine albumin:creatinine ratio, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) level and glycated hemoglobin (HbA(1c)) concentration. We identified patients with diabetes by an HbA(1c) concentration of 6.5% or higher, or the use of a diabetic medication, those with dyslipidemia by an elevated LDL-C level (≥ 2.0 mmol/L) or use of lipid-lowering medication, and those with hypertension by use of antihypertensive medication. RESULTS: Of the 16 170 adults residing in the communities, 5224 unique patients (32.3%) had renal testing (albumin:creatinine ratio and/or estimated glomerular filtration rate). The age-adjusted prevalence of chronic kidney disease was 14.5%, and the prevalence of stage 3–5 chronic kidney disease (estimated glomerular filtration rate < 60 mL/min) was 7.0%. Most patients with chronic kidney disease (1487 [80.0%]) had at least 1 cardiovascular comorbidity. A total of 1332 patients (71.6%) had diabetes, 1313 (70.6%) had dyslipidemia, and 1098 (59.1%) had hypertension; all 3 comorbidities were present in 716 patients (38.5%). INTERPRETATION: We document a high prevalence of advanced chronic kidney disease in this First Nations population, 7.0%, double the rate in the general population. High rates of cardiovascular comorbidities were also common in these patients with chronic kidney disease, which places them at increased risk for cardiovascular disease.

Oxy-fuel combustion is considered one of the most promising technologies for carbon capture and storage (CCS) in power plant. The working fluid, which is composed of CO2 and H2O, is obligatory to moderate the combustion temperature in oxy-fuel systems. The content of H2O in the working fluid has a significant influence on system performance. An original oxy-fuel power plant with the utilization of liquefied natural gas (LNG) cold energy is proposed, and the H2O content in the working fluid is adjustable in the work. The results reveal that when the H2O mass fraction is less than 0.3, the system efficiency increases with the increase of the H2O content in the working fluid. When the H2O mass fraction in the working fluid rises over 0.3, the system efficiency decreases with the increase of H2O content due to the decrease of the recycling heat carried by H2O. The optimum heat transfer effect of the recirculating H2O is obtained when the H2O mass fraction is 0.3, and the optimal thermal efficiency is 58.3%. Compared to dry cycle, the thermal efficiency of the proposed system is increased by 17.3% under the optimum condition.

In this work, oxy-fuel combustion with H2O as diluent in natural gas power plant is proposed, and the effect of phases of H2O on the overall system efficiency is investigated. Three different phase states of H2O, liquid water, steam and liquid-steam mixture are investigated, and the corresponding systems GST-L, GT-S and GT-M system are simulated and compared. To overcome the problem that the steam Rankin cycle cannot fully utilize the latent heat of water, the transcritical CO2 (T-CO2) cycle is introduced. The thermal analysis results show that the GT-M system with steam-water mixture as diluent performs the best, and the energy and exergy efficiency is 60.86% and 49.29%, respectively. The GST-L system takes the second place, and the GT-S system shows the lowest efficiency. The results reveal that steam-water mixture is the best phase of H2O recycled to control the combustion temperature, and the integration of gas turbine and T-CO2 cycle can fully utilize the thermal energy of flue gas to generate electricity. Therefore, the high-efficiency power generation with near-zero carbon emissions is achieved.

Once an early-stage immature scar develops into a hypertrophic scar, it is difficult to achieve satisfactory improvement with existing treatments. Therefore, the prevention of hypertrophic scar formation should be given priority. Fat grafting was previously proven to be an effective treatment for mature scars, but it has not been used in the early-stages of (less than three months) scar formation. We present our experience with the use of combined grafting of macro fat and emulsified fat for prevention of hypertrophic scar formation in patients. Thirty-five patients who received fat grafting for facial scar repair were included as a treatment group and another 35 patients without particular interventions were classified as the control group. Patients in both groups were followed up every three months during one year, and the Vancouver Scar Scale (VSS) was used for evaluation of the clinical outcomes at baseline (within one to three months after trauma, burn or surgery) and after 12 months of follow-up. All patients in the treatment group achieved a marked improvement after their first fat grafting procedure. Thirteen patients (37.1%) underwent the second procedure and seven (20%) underwent the third procedure. Statistical analysis of average VSS score also showed significant differences between the treatment and control groups. The results of this retrospective study suggest that treatment of immature scars with combined grafting of macro fat and emulsified fat can successfully prevent the formation of hypertrophic scars. This journal requires that authors assign a level of evidence to each article. For a full description of these evidence-based medicine ratings, please refer to the Table of Contents or the online Instructions to Authors www.springer.com/00266 .

With the rapid development of smart highway construction in domestic and foreign transportation systems, an increasingly number of countries have begun to explore and improve the deployment and development of cooperative vehicle-infrastructure system in smart highway. According to China’s “New-Generation National Traffic Control Network and Smart Highway Pilots Project”, it is significant to enhance traffic safety, efficiency and capacity. However, there is difficulty in the cooperative vehicle-infrastructure use case design. Based on the full analysis of the development status at home and abroad and the analysis of actual engineering needs, this paper came up with the architecture of cooperative vehicle-infrastructure system based on edge computing technology, combined with the current smart highway demonstration project. After feature, demand and policy analysis of the smart highway project, this paper put forward the cooperative vehicle-infrastructure use case design. The use cases are feasible and practical in Jilin and Zhejiang province. The use case design and analysis have significant guiding role for the research and development and engineering implementation of the smart highway cooperative vehicle-infrastructure system in China.

A high peak power annularly-stacked laser diode pump has been designed and manufactured for a solid state laser (SSL), which is constructed by 12 single annular stacks composed of 3-bar laser diode (LD) submodules. High peak power and high wavelength uniformity have been considered. Macro channel cooling has been used during the operation of the annular stacks, at typical coolant flow rate of 2L/min. Heat dissipation and stress of a single annular stack have been simulated by finite element software, which shows high temperature uniformity of 3-bar submodules (plus or minus 0.5℃) and low package stress (11.8MP). The peak power of the annularly stacked laser diode pump has reached 234kW at a peak current of 450A or less. A high uniformity of centroid wavelength (802 plus or minus1nm) with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of 4nm has been measured. More than 24 million shots have been verified for the 3-bar LD submodules.

Introduction: First Nations communities are known to have high rates of diabetes. The rural First Nations communities in northwest (NW) Ontario are particularly affected. Regional studies in 1985 and 1994 found a high prevalence of diabetes. More recently, they are estimated to have the highest prevalence in Ontario at 19%, double the provincial norm. The purpose of this study is to examine the epidemiology and prevalence of diabetes in the total population and cardiovascular comorbidities in the adult population of 25 First Nations communities in NW Ontario. Methods: This retrospective diabetes prevalence study used primary care electronic medical record data for a 3-year period, 1 August 2014–31 July 2017. Diabetes prevalence was calculated for both the total and the adult (18+) populations and comorbid hypertension and dyslipidaemia were identified in adults. Results: The age-adjusted diabetes prevalence for the total population was 15.1% versus a Canadian prevalence of 8.8%. The age-adjusted adult prevalence was 14.1%, double Canada's average of 7.1%. The average age of adults with diabetes was 52 years (±14.9); 57% were female. Comorbid hypertension (58%) and dyslipidaemia (73%) were common. Metformin was the most commonly used medication (58%), followed by insulin/analogues (23%) and sulphonylureas (13%). Conclusion: The diabetes prevalence in the First Nations population of NW Ontario is double Canada's norm. Addressing it will require addressing relevant social determinants of health, including poverty and food security.

International audience; Objective: Cannabis consumption during adolescence has been reported as a risk factor for psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) and schizophrenia. However, brain developmental processes associated with cannabis-related PLEs are still poorly described.Method: A total of 706 adolescents from the general population who were recruited by the IMAGEN consortium had structural magnetic resonance imaging scans at both 14 and 19 years of age. We used deformation-based morphometry to map voxelwise brain changes between the two time points, using the pairwise algorithm in SPM12b. We used an a priori region-of-interest approach focusing on the hippocampus/parahippocampus to perform voxelwise linear regressions. Lifetime cannabis consumption was assessed using the European School Survey Project on Alcohol and other Drugs (ESPAD), and PLEs were assessed with the Comprehensive Assessment Psychotic-like experiences (CAPE) tool. We first tested whether hippocampus/parahippocampus development was associated with PLEs. Then we formulated and tested an a priori simple mediation model in which uncus development mediates the association between lifetime cannabis consumption and PLEs.Results: We found that PLEs were associated with reduced expansion within a specific region of the right hippocampus/parahippocampus formation, the uncus (p = .002 at the cluster level, p = .018 at the peak level). The partial simple mediation model revealed a significant total effect from lifetime cannabis consumption to PLEs (b = 0.069, 95% CI = 0.04−0.1, p =2 × 10−16), as well as a small yet significant, indirect effect of right uncus development (0.004; 95% CI = 0.0004−0.01, p = .026).Conclusion: We show here that the uncus development is involved in the cerebral basis of PLEs in a population-based sample of healthy adolescents

RGBD scene flow has attracted increasing attention in the computer vision community with the popularity of depth sensor. To accurately estimate three-dimensional motion of object, a layered scene flow estimation with global non-rigid, local rigid motion assumption is presented in this paper. Firstly, depth image is inpainted based on RGB image due to original depth image contains noises. Secondly, depth image is layered according to K-means clustering algorithm, which can quickly and simply layer the depth image. Thirdly, scene flow is estimated based on the assumption we proposed. Finally, experiments are implemented on RGBD tracking dataset and deformable 3D reconstruction dataset, and the analysis of quantitative indicators, RMS (Root Mean Square error) and AAE (Average Angular Error). The results show that the proposed method can distinguish moving regions from the static background better, and more accurately estimate the motion information of the scene by comparing with the global rigid, local non-rigid assumption.

Blockchain comes under the spotlight for successfully implementing a tamper-resistant ledger among multiple untrusted participants. The widespread adoption of blockchain in data-intensive applications has led to the demand for querying data stored in blockchain databases. However, compared to traditional databases, current blockchain systems cannot offer efficient queries. Moreover, migrating the original business supported by traditional databases to blockchain systems takes a long time and costs a lot. Motivated by this, we design and implement Blockchain PG, a novel data management system built on a legacy system. The system architecture applies to most databases system. By establishing a trusted relationship between the database and the client, Blockchain PG not only guarantees that the existing legacy system will not be greatly affected, but also achieves the data integrity and correctness by authenticated query, and the traceability of data by trace query.

Large smile, the emitters in a laser diode are vertically displaced, is always a big obstacle to affect the directly application of high power laser diode. In this report, a symmetrical structure, that bonding two submounts on the top and bottom of heat sink to control the smile effect by balancing the packaging induced stress, is designed. A cm bar with less than 1 um smile value delivering more than 200W continuous wave (CW) mode output power with power conversion efficiency (PCE) 65% is reported. The lifetime can reach more than 20000 hours. We also report the applications of high power and low smile vertically stacked laser bars, like forming a wider line for glass surface treatment and a rectangular beam for cladding. A 2x14mm2 rectangular beam was built with 32 bars vertical stack to produce 6kW CW mode output power with a beam uniformity of more than 80%.

At present, the oxy-fuel combustion (O2/CO2 circulating combustion) is dominant in natural gas generating systems, but it consumes much energy for air separation oxygen generation and carbon capture, leading to a severe reduction of generating efficiency. The O2/H2O combustion system, as the new generation of an oxy-combustion system, is superior to the oxy-fuel combustion, and its pollutant emission is lower, but during its combustion, air separation oxygen generation is still needed, so CO2 compression energy consumption is still higher. In this paper, a set of carbon capture system applying LNG cold energy to the O2/H2O combustion was developed, and its mathematical model was established to calculate thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency. And then, it was compared with the COOLCEP system which also makes use of LNG cold energy for carbon capture. The combustion process of this system is operated under high pressure with H2O as the circulation medium, and LNG is utilized in a cascading pattern, so the energy consumption of air separation oxygen generation and carbon capture system is reduced, the generating efficiency of the system is increased and carbon capture is conducted at low cost. The thermal efficiency and energy efficiency of this system increase continuously as the inlet temperature of gas turbine rises. When the flow rate of circulating water is 13.5 kmol/s, the combustion pressure is 1.6 MPa, and the inlet temperature of gas turbine reaches 1328.1 °C, the thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency is 57.9% (maximum) and 42.7%, respectively. Compared with COOLCEP system, the O2/H2O combustion system is much lower in energy consumption and its thermal efficiency and exergy efficiency are 6.3% and 5.4% higher, respectively. Keywords: LNG cold energy, Oxy-fuel combustion, Carbon capture, O2/H2O, COOLCEP system, Cascading utilization, Aspen plus, Thermal efficiency, Exergy efficiency

With the increasing demand of energy and urgent need of CO 2 emissions reduction, seeking for an approach to achieve carbon capture in a power generation system with high efficiency is a great challenge. Natural gas combined cycle (NGCC) power plants with high power generation efficiency have attracted more and more attention. Oxy-fuel combustion is considered one of the most potential methods for carbon capture in power plants. An integrated system of NGCC and oxy-fuel combustion is proposed to realize the carbon capture in the work. The cold energy of liquefied natural gas (LNG) is utilized to condense CO 2 with high efficiency. The simulation of the system is conducted using Aspen Plus. Five kinds of bottom cycle: single pressure (SP) cycle, dual pressure non-reheat (DPN) cycle, dual pressure reheat (DP) cycle, triple pressure non-reheat (TPN) cycle and triple pressure reheat (TP) cycle are established. The oxy-fuel combustion systems considering CO 2 and H 2 O as dilute gas are investigated. The result shows that H 2 O is not suitable to moderate the combustion temperature in the study case because the latent heat of the flue gas is difficult to release. The efficiency of TP steam cycle is the highest among five kinds of bottom cycle. Taking the power consumption of carbon capture and O 2 production into account, the energy and exergy efficiency of the system with the TP steam cycle is 55.3% and 52.9% respectively. The sensitivity analysis is carried out to study the effects of the flow rate of recycled CO 2 and carbon capture pressure on system performance. The results show that with the increase of the amount of recycled CO 2 , the system power generation decreases. As the CO 2 capture pressure increases, the carbon capture rate is elevated, while the CO 2 purity drops.

Long period fiber grating is a kind of passive optical device which is sensitive to the surrounding environment. Owing to without retroreflection, high sensitivity to refractive index, miniature size, easy integration, immunity to electromagnetic interference, non-corrosiveness, without the need of reference electrode, long period fiber grating based optical sensors have attracted much attention in the field of refractive index sensing. Since Bentley research group first used long period fiber gratings to detect antigens in 2000, long-period gratings have made great progress in the detection of biological substances in recent years and have been utilized for the detection of many biological substances such as antigen-antibody, bacterial viruses, proteins, DNA, enzymes, nucleic acids, and so on. In this paper, the research progress and applications of long period fiber grating in the biosensing field in recent years are summarized and reviewed, and the future development trend of long period fiber grating in biological detection is also prospected.

An extremely sensitive multi-order mode refractive index (RI) sensor was fabricated by coupling titanium dioxide nanograss film coated FTO conductive glass with Kretschmann prism. Both calculation and experimental studies were carried out. Theoretical analysis by employing resonant waveguide modes indicated that the maximum sensitivity could be achieved when the mode worked at the weakly-bounded condition. The experimental results showed that for p-polarized and s-polarized light, the sensor exhibited a maximum RI sensitivity of 2938.21 nm/RI unit (RIU) and 1484.39 nm/RIU in the 1st order mode, respectively. Its maximum figure of merit was as high as 77.77. The proposed sensor is promising to be applied in environmental monitoring, immune analysis, nucleic acid test, etc.

ObjectiveThe main objective of this study was to understand the five-year trend in total emergency department (ED) visits, frequency of use, and diagnoses and disposition of patients. Since the region has experienced a profound increase in opioid use disorder since 2009, we were particularly interested in changes in the volume of mental health and addiction (MHA) ED presentations.MethodsRetrospective aggregate data analysis of ED visits to the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre 2010-2014.ResultsED visit volume increased 29% over the five-year study period, while MHA ED visits increased 73%. The admission rate remained stable at 6.9% of ED visits. Five-year trends in clinically grouped diagnostic categories identified respiratory, MHA, and abdominal/pelvic complaints as the three most common ED presentations. In 2014, MHA presentations accounted for 10.3% of ED visits, 8.7% of admissions, and 20.0% of inter-hospital transfers.ConclusionThe dramatic increase in MHA ED visits mirrors the opioid epidemic the region is experiencing. MHA may soon become the commonest ED presentation. If reasons for ED visits serve as a proxy for unmet outpatient needs, increased efforts at developing community MHA services and addressing the related social determinants of health are required.

High power QCW diode laser stacks have been widely used in pumping applications for years. Different package structures of diode laser stacks are applied for pumping the cylindrical rod crystal, such as modular G-Stack, horizontal, vertical and annular arrays. Annular array is preferred in pumping of QCW mode with low duty cycle and short pulse width, due to the advantage of compact structural size, uniform light beam distribution and convenient electric connection. However, the development of annular diode laser array using hard solder is difficult because of the complex bonding process of diode laser on annular heatsink with conventional bonding fixture. Furthermore the stress and thermal behavior is yet to be well studied on the annular diode laser array. In this work, a sophisticated annular diode laser array was developed using hard solder. Optimized structure and thermal design were conducted to achieve uniform light beam distribution and good heat dissipation. Stress release structure of diode laser stack is applied to reduce the risk of chip crack and deviation of spatial spectrum. The annular diode laser array consists of 44 bars in a ring, with the peak output power of each bar over 500W. The maximum output power of each bar reaches 673 W.

Based on Snell's law and the constant phase in the front of optical field, a design method of the slow axis collimation lens with variable curvature radius is proposed for semiconductor laser bars. Variable radius of the collimator is designed by the transmission angle, and it is demonstrated that the collimator has good beam collimation ability by material with low refractive index. Resorting to the design thought of finite element method, the surface of the collimator has been divided, and it is feasible to be fabricated. This method is applied as an example in collimation of a 976 nm semiconductor laser bar. 6 mrad divergence angle of collimated beam at slow axis is realized by the designed collimation lens with refraction index of 1.51.

High power diode lasers (HPDLs) offer the highest wall-plug efficiency, highest specific power (power-to-weight ratio), arguably the lowest cost and highest reliability among all laser types. However, the poor beam quality of commercially HPDLs is the main bottleneck limiting their direct applications requiring high brightness at least in one dimension. In order to expand the applications of HPDLs, beam shaping and optical design are essential. In this work, we report the recent progresses on maximizing applications of HPDLs by synergizing diode laser light source and beam shaping micro-optics. Successful examples of matching of diode laser light sources and beam shaping micro-optics driving new applications are presented.

Low SMILE vertically stacked laser bars gold/tin (AuSn) soldered on nearly symmetrical micro channel coolers were designed, built and characterized. 96% of 200 measured SMILE (bowing) values are less than 2 μm. Twenty-one 5×1 vertical stacks have a divergence of 2.03mrad with a standard deviation of 0.19mrad after fast axis collimation. A line laser module was built with twelve 5×1 vertical stacks to produce 6 KW in a line geometry of 0.6 mm@1/e2 by 285 mm @85% and a line uniformity of 86%. Several laser line modules can horizontally be connected to form a wider line for glass surface treatment and thin film solar panel processing.

Pathak (2014) has raised both conceptual and methodological questions about Cai, Rahman, and Courtenay (2014). In this reply, we attempt to address the questions. The discussion arising from these questions suggests that IFRS adoption and the implications of IFRS are complex issues. Cai et al. (2014) try to illustrate that IFRS adoption is not a single-step solution. It has various stages. Some countries take gradual steps towards IFRS adoption and others embrace IFRS in one big step. Cai et al. (2014) also explain that IFRS adoption is associated with other institutional arrangements within a country. The issue of the manner in which IFRS is adopted across countries needs further investigation to better assess the country level impediments of IFRS adoption and how IFRS adoption affects market efficiency.

BackgroundWorldwide, indigenous populations appear to be at increased risk for invasive group A streptococcal (iGAS) infections. Although there is empirical evidence that the burden of iGAS disease is significant among remote First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario, Canada, the epidemiology of iGAS infections in the area remains poorly characterized.MethodsIndividuals that met case definition for iGAS disease and whose laboratory specimens were processed by Meno Ya Win Health Centre in Sioux Lookout, Canada or who were reported to Thunder Bay District Health Unit, Canada were identified for the period 2009 to 2014. Case demographics, clinical severity, comorbidities, and risk factors were collected through chart review. Strain typing and antibiotic susceptibility were determined when possible. Basic descriptive statistics were calculated.ResultsSixty-five cases of iGAS disease were identified, for an annualized incidence of 56.2 per 100 000. Primary bacteremia was present in 26.2% of cases, and cellulitis was identified in 55.4% of cases. The most common comorbidities identified were diabetes (38.5%) and skin conditions (38.5%). Prevalent risk factors included alcohol dependence (25%). Fourteen different emm types were identified among 42 isolates, with the most common being emm114 (17.4%), emm11 (15.2%), and emm118 (13.0%). Resistance to erythromycin and clindamycin was found in 24.6% of isolates.ConclusionsRural and remote First Nations communities in Northwestern Ontario experience iGAS infections at a rate 10 times the provincial and national average. Compared with other North American series, a lower proportion of isolates causing infection were of emm types included in candidate GAS vaccines.

A measuring device for gear dynamic transmission error test is developed based on NI Labview software, and a new type eccentric bushing structure that can simulate a variety of installation errors is presented. The hardware and software design of the gear dynamic transmission error measuring device is given, and the gear dynamic transmission errors for low-speed and high-speed in different loads are gotten based on the device and the measured data. Experimental dynamic transmission error results show that the gear dynamic transmission error measuring device is a stable and friendly interface with easy operation and high accuracy, able to do real-time detection and data acquisition for gearing.

A lecture on the method to compute the the stress of V-tooth coupling under the actual operating conditions. the finite element analysis model of V-tooth coupling under the preload, axial load and torsion was established by used of the software ABAQUS,and the distribution of the bending stress at the root was obtained. The analytical method to compute the bending stress of V-tooth disk is deduced based on the basic principle of material mechanics, and the relative error within 10% compared with the results of finite element analysis.The paper work provide the reference for the precision design of V-tooth coupling.

The growth of nanoparticles embedded in a host matrix can lead to substantial strain.Strain can have much influence on the crystal growth and microstructure development of nanoparticles and thecorrelation of the physical properties of nanoparticles with their microstructures.To better understand and control the physical properties of GaAs nanoparticles,it is fundamentally necessary to study the strain distribution of nanoparticles embedded in different thin films.In this paper,the growth strain of GaAs nanoparticles embedded in Al2O3 and SiO2 thin films were investigated.Finite element calculations clearly indicate that the GaAs nanoparticles incurs a net deviatoric strain in both amorphous Al2O3 and SiO2 thin films.The compressive strain existing in the center of a GaAs nanoparticle embedded in Al2O3 thin film is stronger than that at the surface of the nanoparticle.In contrast,the compressive strain existing at the surface of a GaAs nanoparticle embedded in SiO2 thin film is stronger than that in the center of the nanoparticle.It is possible to control the strain distribution of GaAs nanoparticles by embeding the GaAs nannoparticles in different thin films,which will futher influence the microstructures and morphologies of GaAs nanoparticles.Strain engineering is an effective tool for tailoring the properties of GaAs nanoparticles.

It is well known that the vibration signals are unstable when there is some failure in machinery. So in this paper, the cone-shaped kernel distributions (CKD) of vibration acceleration signals acquired from the cylinder head in eight different states of valve train were calculated and displayed in grey images. Meanwhile, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) was used to decompose multivariate data, and neural network ensemble (NNE), which is of better generalization capability for classification than a single neural network, was used to perform intelligent diagnosis without further fault feature (such as eigenvalues or symptom parameters) extraction from time–frequency distributions. It is shown by the experimental results that the faults of diesel valve trains can be accurately classified by the proposed method.

High power diode lasers have increased application in many fields. In this work, a sophisticated high power and high performance conduction cooled diode laser stack has been developed for long pulse duration and high duty cycle using gold-tin (AuSn) bonding technology. The transient thermal behavior and optical simulation of the laser diode stack module are investigated to optimize the laser device structure. CTE-matched submount and AuSn hard solder are used for bonding the laser diode bar to achieve higher reliability and longer lifetime. Guided by the numerical simulation and analytical results, conduction cooled diode laser stack with high power, long pulse duration and high duty cycle is fabricated and characterized. Compared with the conventional indium bonding technology, the new design is a promising approach to obtain improved performance with high reliability and long lifetime.

The smart grid is a modern power grid infrastructure. As the power information integrates into Internet, it raises a challenge on security which threats the power system. To ensure the security of sensitive clouding data of electric power system, the straightforward approach is to encrypt such sensitive data. However, traditional cryptographic methods will cause the cipher-text difficult to be efficiently queried. Particularly, it becomes more difficult to deploy such scheme for mobile devices in smart grid, considering that they are usually computation-limited and storage-limited. In this paper, based on the existing schemes for searchable encryption on clouding database, we proposed an efficient, secure, and scalable scheme to address this challenge issue. The performance evaluation and security analysis demonstrate the validity and practicality of the proposed scheme.

A new interactive detection method is proposed in order to deal with the vehicle detection problem in complex scenarios. Each target vehicle is marked by hand as the initialization to our method; the PCA-HOG and discrete moment invariants features are extracted from the manually labeled window which is considered as the bounding box of the object. Then an extreme learning machine (ELM), which is a single-hidden layer feed-forward neural network, is used to learn two kinds of features independently at the same time. At phase of detection, each detection window is checked by two trained classifiers. The experiments show that, comparing to the support vector machine (SVM), the overall performance of the proposed method is improved significantly, as the result of the great improvement by the ELM on parameter optimization and time consuming in training process without losing detection effect. As combination of features was used, the misclassified cases are reduced. This interactive detection method is suitable for vehicle detection problem under some complex scenarios.

An expandable open simulation system structure based on HLA technology and against the background of detection and tracking ability analysis is designed according to the development of the current simulation technology and the actual requirements for detection tracking process and ability analysis system. Multi-sample and multi-run mechanism is designed in the paper. This paper commences the research from the design of system architecture. The federation development and run flow based on FEDFP model a remainly discussed. The performance of the system is given by this simulation system. It is stable for the structure of detection and tracking Simulation system, which is reusable for the model and convenient for the user, also, it can be used as a support platform for the simulation test of electro-optic (EO) work process and detection tracking capability.

In this paper, an experimental platform is established with a 1319nm Nd:YAG laser, through which the experimental research is carried out on the cone target characteristics under the condition of laser lighting. The images of the laser initiative illumination have been collected. This dissertation studies the methods to process the images of the laser initiative illumination, with the focus on the pre-processing method. The pre-processing of images can speed up the following processing of images and decreases the amount of calculation of the images, so that it can improve the timeliness of the image processing and lay the foundation for the following, such as feature-matching. The method of edge detection has also been analyzed. Regarding the methods of edge detection, the calculation of the canny edge detection is time-consuming, while Roberts edge detection is faster. As for the significance of this research, it can provide some technical support for the functional assessment of a laser initiative illumination imaging system.

Presents a cost estimation method based on function characteristics and the technique of quality function deployment (QFD). Based on the cost structure, the total costs of some well-known competitive products of the developed system are then investigated. The function levels of these well-known products are identified one by one by means of the QFD technique. By integrating the information about the competitor's costs and the function levels, a set of cost factors which are used to evaluate the system costs is derived by using the least-square-method. As a result, the total cost of the designed system can be estimated quickly through simple steps of calculation. Furthermore, the successful probability of a system being designed within someone budget can be assessed in advance.