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Objectives Structured histopathology reporting has been recently described for detailing immunopathological characteristics of chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), and can be utilized for subtyping CRS and personalizing management. This study scrutinized elements of structured histopathology to identify characteristics that prognosticate outcomes following endoscopic sinus surgery (ESS) for CRS patients with nasal polyps (CRSwNP) and without nasal polyps (CRSsNP). Methods Outcomes following ESS were measured using the patient-reported 22-item sinonasal outcome test (SNOT-22). Changes in total SNOT-22 scores at 6 and 12 months postoperatively were analyzed. Thirteen parameters reported in structured histopathology of sinus surgical tissue were studied for association with outcomes postsurgery. The overall cohort of all CRS patients was studied, along with subgroup analyses of CRSwNP and CRSsNP patients. Results In the entire CRS cohort (n = 171), eosinophil count >10 per high power field (HPF) was associated with greater improvement in SNOT-22 scores at 6 months post-ESS (P = .039). At 12 months follow-up, no histopathological characteristic was associated with change in total SNOT-22 score. In the CRSwNP (n = 66) subgroup, the presence of fibrosis (P = .006) and eosinophil count ≤10 per HPF (P = .025) were associated with less favorable changes in SNOT-22 scores at 12 months follow-up. Fibrosis remained statistically significant in multivariable analysis (P = .007). Conclusions At 6 months post-ESS, tissue eosinophilia is associated with significantly higher improvement in SNOT-22 scores, but this difference is diluted by 12 months. Fibrosis was associated with less favorable outcomes in SNOT-22 scores for CRSwNP patients at 12 months and may be a prognosticator for poorer long-term outcomes. Level of evidence 4.

Lead bromide-based halide perovskites are of interest for wide-band-gap (>1.75 eV) absorbers for low-cost solar spectrum splitting to boost solar-to-electrical energy conversion efficiency/area by ...

As current, large-scale research and development initiatives are reshaping the future of aviation and space operations, avionics systems are becoming cyber-physical and progressively evolving into a variety of autonomous, intelligent, and closed-loop human–machine systems. This article provided the IEEE Aerospace & Electronic Systems Society (AESS) Avionics Systems Panel (ASP) views on avionics systems evolutionary pathways, with an identification of key research challenges and industry-focused innovation opportunities. The ever-increasing density of air traffic and the rise of unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) are prompting a rapid evolution of communication, navigation, surveillance/air traffic management (CNS/ATM) and avionics (CNSþA) technologies that will provide unprecedented enhancements in terms of safety and efficiency, thus unleashing additional airspace and airport capacity. Several of the underlying CNS technologies have already hit the market, while other more advanced capabilities and decision support systems are still being researched and developed. The methodological transition to performance-based operations (PBO) is also a quantum shift that will have profound impacts on aviation equipment mandates and standards with very tangible benefits in terms of airspace capacity, safety, access modalities, prioritization, and overall fairness. The PBO transition is well underway for navigation equipment standards and operational arrival/ departure procedures, whereas communication and surveillance equipment is still currently following legacy mandates/ equipage schemes.

In this paper we present a modular framework to classify railway track areas regarding the expected presence of local GNSS threats. This information might be critical for a safe signalling operation, for example to determine where virtual balises could be placed safely. We show first how different GNSS threats can be detected using dedicated detection algorithms and how these individual detection results can be then transformed from time to the track domain. An overall decision logic is subsequently used to identify an area as suitable or unsuitable for GNSS usage by combining all available GNSS data collected over the same track area. Finally, the framework implementation is evaluated with railway data obtained during a measurement campaign in Sardinia, Italy in 2019. Even though developed in the railway context, the presented framework architecture and methodology may be also considered to perform similar classification tasks for other means of transport.

In the current remodernisation of the Air Traffic Management, APNT systems based on terrestrial navigation aids are conceived as backup solutions in case of a GNSS outage. In this paper, we address the widely acknowledged problem of degraded geometries in terrestrial ranging systems for aviation. We analyze the impact degraded geometries have on the ill-posedness of the positioning algorithm by means of the condition number. Finally, we propose an approach based on a regularized least squares estimator suitably designed for these specific conditions.

Satellite navigation plays a critical role in new railway signaling and train control systems. It will allow higher levels of automation at a reduce cost in installation and maintenance as compared to current infrastructure-based technologies. However, in order to be integrated in railway systems, GNSS must guarantee the stringent railway safety requirements. GNSS safety has been extensively quantified for the aviation community, however, in the railway environment the probability of local GNSS hazards like interferences is larger due to its operation in a non-restricted space. Railway GNSS receivers must be therefore equipped with mechanisms to protect the position determination from being corrupted by undesired interferences (jamming or spoofing) without being aware of it. In this paper and based on Commercial-Off-The-Shelf (COTS) hardware we implemented interference detection functions suitable for railway localization. We detail the algorithm design as well as the necessary calibration procedure to determine the nominal signal model. The performance of the interference detection is analyzed with an experimental setup on a commercial train during the measurement campaign organized for the EU project ERSAT-GGC. Figures about the detection capability and detected events along the selected line are finally provided.

While many existing systems are capable of supporting current and near-term plans in Alternative Position, Navigation, and Timing (APNT) services, it has become apparent that state-of-the-practice technologies will not support the most demanding Performance-Based Navigation (PBN) services. Specifically, to achieve the most demanding Required Navigation Performance (RNP) types, Distance Measuring Equipment (DME) will not be sufficient, so new methods and hardware are needed. The use of the L-Band Digital Aeronautical Communications System (LDACS) for navigation applications has long been proposed as a way of pushing the envelope on terrestrial RNP, in particular moving towards RNP 1 or RNP 0.3 types.

To compensate the spherical aberration of the eye using the conic constant of the first surface of a contact lens for different refractive errors. Refractive errors were simulated by modifying only the first curvature of the cornea. For every refractive error was calculating Zernike polynomials using Optics Software for Layout and Optimization (OSLO) EDU edition with and without contact lens. To calculate the conic constant of the contact lens we use the Seidel sums for thin lenses from the longitudinal spherical aberration as it proposes V. Mahajan. The value of Zernike spherical aberration coefficient for the eye with farsightedness (+ 5.00 D) + spherical contact lens was 0.142691 μm. The conic constant value to compensate the spherical aberration was -0.222995 and the value of Zernike spherical aberration coefficient of the eye + aspherical contact lens was 0.004354 μm. The value of Zernike spherical aberration coefficient for the eye with myopia (- 5.00 D) + spherical contact lens was 0.144505 μm. The conic constant value to compensate the spherical aberration was -0.101424 and the value of Zernike spherical aberration coefficient of the eye + aspherical contact lens was 0.072820 μm. The proposed method allows us to design contact lenses that compensate for the spherical aberration of the eye from the Zernike polynomials. Although the design of contact lenses is to third order, we obtain a smaller spherical aberration than the chromatic aberration on the axis without use optimization routine.

Objectives There is interest in identifying chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS) endotypes that align pathophysiology with clinical observation and outcomes. CRS with polyps (CRSwNP) has classically been studied with reference to tissue eosinophilia, but the role of other cellular infiltrates remains uncharacterized. No particular tissue prognosticators have been described for CRS without nasal polyps (CRSsNP). Predominance of leukocytes seen in surgical tissue may be useful for differentiating CRS subtypes, severity of inflammation, and outcomes. Methods Structured histopathology reports were examined for 277 patients undergoing endoscopic sinus surgery for CRSwNP (n = 115), CRSsNP (n = 141), and recurrent acute rhinosinusitis (RARS, n = 21). Inflammatory predominance was examined for associations with nasal polyposis, asthma, allergic rhinitis, aspirin exacerbated respiratory disease (AERD), immune deficiency, preoperative Lund‐Mackay score, and outcome (SNOT‐22 score change). Results In order of frequency, the prevalence of predominant inflammatory patterns accounting for 93.5% of CRS patients were: lymphoplasmocytic (n = 111), lymphocytic (n = 74), eosinophilic (n = 50), and lymphoplasmocytic with eosinophilic (n = 24). Eosinophilic predominance was 97.4% specific for nasal polyps (95% confidence interval [CI], 93.4%‐99.3%), although sensitivity was 43.4% (95% CI, 33.8%‐53.4%). The absence of eosinophilic predominance was 100% sensitive for RARS (95% CI, 82.4%‐100%), however specificity was 30.8% (95% CI 25.1%‐37.1%). There were no significant differences in preoperative SNOT‐22 scores or change postoperatively. Conclusions Eosinophilic inflammatory predominance was predictive for nasal polyps and against RARS. Nevertheless, the majority of CRSwNP patients had a different inflammatory predominance, demonstrating heterogeneity in CRS, even among patients with nasal polyps. Symptomatic outcomes were not associated with inflammatory predominance through 12 months follow up. Level of Evidence 4.

The i star modeling language is used to model business and agent-oriented approaches and goals. It focuses on the description and evaluation of alternatives and their relationships with the organizational objectives. Unfortunately, the robustness and completeness of requirements (tasks) modeling, i.e., the requirements model, needs to be enriched with the generic phases (activities) that generally appear in requirements engineering, such as elicitation, analysis, and so on. In this work, we have therefore define an algorithm to deal with the impact analysis of requirements in goal-oriented requirements engineering, specifically for application in the i star modeling language. The algorithm takes the i star model as an input, and analyzes the impact of a change, considering both FRs and NFRs, and automatically determining the correct trade-offs among NFRs. The algorithm has been implemented as an Eclipse plugin using EMF and J2EE.

BACKGROUND: Coronary artery disease is a major cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, and is a consequence of acute thrombotic events involving activation of platelets and coagulation proteins. Factor Xa inhibitors and aspirin each reduce thrombotic events but have not yet been tested in combination or against each other in patients with stable coronary artery disease.METHODS: In this multicentre, double-blind, randomised, placebo-controlled, outpatient trial, patients with stable coronary artery disease or peripheral artery disease were recruited at 602 hospitals, clinics, or community centres in 33 countries. This paper reports on patients with coronary artery disease. Eligible patients with coronary artery disease had to have had a myocardial infarction in the past 20 years, multi-vessel coronary artery disease, history of stable or unstable angina, previous multi-vessel percutaneous coronary intervention, or previous multi-vessel coronary artery bypass graft surgery. After a 30-day run in period, patients were randomly assigned (1:1:1) to receive rivaroxaban (2·5 mg orally twice a day) plus aspirin (100 mg once a day), rivaroxaban alone (5 mg orally twice a day), or aspirin alone (100 mg orally once a day). Randomisation was computer generated. Each treatment group was double dummy, and the patients, investigators, and central study staff were masked to treatment allocation. The primary outcome of the COMPASS trial was the occurrence of myocardial infarction, stroke, or cardiovascular death. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01776424, and is closed to new participants.FINDINGS: Between March 12, 2013, and May 10, 2016, 27 395 patients were enrolled to the COMPASS trial, of whom 24 824 patients had stable coronary artery disease from 558 centres. The combination of rivaroxaban plus aspirin reduced the primary outcome more than aspirin alone (347 [4%] of 8313 vs 460 [6%] of 8261; hazard ratio [HR] 0·74, 95% CI 0·65-0·86, pINTERPRETATION: In patients with stable coronary artery disease, addition of rivaroxaban to aspirin lowered major vascular events, but increased major bleeding. There was no significant increase in intracranial bleeding or other critical organ bleeding. There was also a significant net benefit in favour of rivaroxaban plus aspirin and deaths were reduced by 23%. Thus, addition of rivaroxaban to aspirin has the potential to substantially reduce morbidity and mortality from coronary artery disease worldwide.FUNDING: Bayer AG.

This paper tackles the problem of robust Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) ranging in the presence of GNSS repeater signals. In such cases repeater signals act as an interference to GNSS satellite signals and need to be mitigated. The first contribution of this paper is the impact analysis of repeater signals on Delay- Locked-Loops (DLL), which are traditionally utilized for the time of arrival estimation in GNSS receivers. In the analysis, we determine different threat regions based on satellite signal and repeater signal parameters. Secondly, it introduces a novel algorithm that performs simultaneous channel estimation and equalization for GNSS signals. The proposed algorithm proves to be resilient in the presence of GNSS repeater signals in comparison to regular DLL structures. Finally, based on the inherent channel estimation the algorithm provides, it is possible to characterize the parameters of GNSS repeaters.

GNSS signals may present anomalies that degrade the positioning performance of GNSS receivers. Signal Quality Monitoring (SQM) is normally used to detect and to characterize these anomalies. This is required for the GNSS operators and integrity services to determine when a satellite should be considered as faulty and draw conclusions about the type of the fault. In this paper, we present a new SQM algorithm that tracks the GNSS signal and possible channel deformations by using a novel methodology based on the Extended Kalman Filter (EKF). The EKF is designed such that the measurement update is performed in post-correlation and using multiple correlators. After the estimation of the channel response, we add a detection step to determine if the channel deviates from the nominal signal transmission scenario (i.e., the single path propagation). Results suggests that the performance of the delay estimation with the proposed EKF structure outperforms the classical Delay-Locked-Loop (DLL) estimation, especially in the presence of distortions. Furthermore, it can reliably detect anomalous signal deformations as specified by ICAO threat model.

Inertial sensors constitute an essential part in civil avionics systems. It has also been identified as a required system to meet the foreseen availability requirements in the context of Alternative Position Navigation and Timing (APNT). For example, DME/DME/Inertial (DDI) is currently considered for RNAV 1.0 operations. In this work, we look beyond DDI and investigate the possibility of an integrated inertial system with multiple APNT ranges. Thanks to our simulation framework, we evaluate in different scenarios the integration of inertial system with ranging sources using real DME locations. Based on the results, we finally analyze and comment on the limitations, implications and issues of using tactical grade instead of navigation grade inertial sensors.

It is well-known that Model-Driven Web Engineering requires the development of code-generation tools in order to be adopted outside research field as a complete solution in Web application development industry. Regrettably, a fully-guided methodology supported by a complete code-generation tool that considers a complete development process based on MDA (Model-Driven Architecture) is missing. The idea behind MDA is that requirements are considered (functional and nonfunctional requirements) from the Computational Independent Model (CIM), to the Platform Specific Model (PSM) passing for the Platform Independent Model (PIM) to generate the source code for the Web application. In our work is presented a baseline DSL (Domain Specific Language) for Web application code-generation considering the basic language used in a small software factory in Mexico. This is an ongoing work which is part of a institutional project in order to build a suite of tools for code-generation for Web application development.

Background The prevalence of childhood overweight and obesity has become a public health problem worldwide. The objectives of the study were: 1) to establish the BMI prevalence in 12-year olds residing in Puerto Rico, and 2) to determine BMI differences by sex, public-private school type, and geographic regions. Methods Data was obtained from an island-wide probabilistic stratified sample of 1,582 twelve-year-olds (53% girls and 47% boys). The BMI was determined using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey procedures. Children were categorized as underweight, healthy weight, overweight or obese using the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s age and gender specific growth charts. A logistic regression model was used to estimate BMI category prevalence. Odds ratios were calculated using a multinomial regression. Results In this study, 18.8% of the children were overweight and 24.3% were obese. A higher prevalence of obesity was observed in boys as compared to girls, 28.2% vs. 20.2%, respectively. The estimated prevalence of overweight and obesity in children from public schools was lower than for those from private schools. After adjusting for type of school and region, boys had a significantly higher risk of being obese (64%) as compared to girls. In public schools, boys had a lower prevalence of being overweight while girls had a higher prevalence compared to children attending private schools. Girls attending private schools had a higher obesity prevalence (27.8%) compared to girls from public schools (19.8%). The prevalence of underweight (2.7%) is slightly lower than in the United States. Conclusions The prevalence of overweight and obesity of 12-year-olds residing in PR was 18.8% and 24.3%, respectively; higher than in the U.S. (by groups). Boys were at higher risk of obesity than girls. There is an urgent need to implement public health policies/programs to reduce the prevalence of overweight and obesity in children in PR.

After the civil war and the Hurricane-Mitch disaster, cattlemen in Nicaragua were forced to transport their cattle from lowland areas to higher, dryer areas of the country. These areas are natural ecological niches for the cattle grub Dermatobia hominis (L. Jr.) (Diptera: Cuterebridae). To determine the importance of this infestation, the Agricultural and Livestock-Forestry Ministry selected a central area of Nicaragua to run a pioneer survey program to acquire information about hosts involved, number of cases, treatments applied and general knowledge of 42 farmers about the life cycle of the parasite. The subjects were either farm owners or farm managers. Ninety-five percentage of the farms indicated cases of D. hominis infestation in their animals, with cattle being the most affected host (100% of the affected farms). There was poor understanding of the D. hominis life cycle, vectors and control methods. A misuse of insecticides for the treatment of larval infestation by D. hominis was indicated.

The BK7 glass can be combined with LASF35, LASF32, SF2, SF5, SF8, SF9, SF12, SF19, and TIFN5 to obtain aplanatic doublets. With all doublets we have diffraction limited images on and off-axis.

The localization of a train on a railway network with onboard sensors has been usually tackled by matching an estimated position fix on a track map. In this paper, we face the navigation problem directly in the topological domain of the map without computing an initial global position. We develop a tightly coupled scheme to fuse the raw measurement of Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and the information of a digital track map. We model this problem using a Dynamic Bayesian Network (DBN) and we derive a particle filter to handle the discrete and nonlinear nature of the map in the estimation process and to detect the correct path after a train switch. Real measurements are finally used to test the method and analyze the role of raw GNSS measurements and satellite geometry in precision. Results suggest that reliable navigation can be achieved even when less than four satellites are in view.

We examine how commodity price shocks experienced by rural producers affect the drug trade in Mexico. Our analysis exploits exogenous movements in the Mexican maize price stemming from weather conditions in U.S. maize-growing regions, as well as export flows of other major maize producers. Using data on over 2,200 municipios spanning 1990-2010, we show that lower prices differentially increased the cultivation of both marijuana and opium poppies in municipios more climatically suited to growing maize. This increase was accompanied by differentially lower rural wages, suggesting that households planted more drug crops in response to the decreased income generating potential of maize farming. We also found impacts on downstream drug-trade outcomes, including the operations of drug cartels and killings perpetrated by these criminal groups. Our findings demonstrate that maize price changes contributed to the burgeoning drug trade in Mexico, and point to the violent consequences of an expanding drug sector.

In Web Engineering (WE), several Goal-oriented Requirements Engineering (GORE) approaches have emerged using its advantages, such as the representation of actors, their intentions, goals and the tasks needed to achieve the goal, for requirements specification with promising results. Regrettably, the use of GORE approaches has one, among others, gap detected, the scalability. In these modeling frameworks, when the designer performs the requirements specification, the requirements diagram (model) trends to rapidly grow, becoming very difficult to use in projects with a considerable amount of requirements changing and growing constantly. In this paper, we propose an association form for the i* goal-oriented modeling framework in order to define the creation of two type of modules: Navigational and Service modules, since these are the two types of functional requirements more used for requirements specification in our proposal. Furthermore, we provide an example of application. Finally, with this approach, the benefits are: firstly, the scalability of the Web requirements model will be increased, therefore the model will be less complex and easier to understand and maintain, and secondly, the construction of modeling tools improving the user experience, the maintainability of the models and its reuse.

We present a novel method for diffractive null lenses design for testing parabolic mirrors. The phase coefficients control the diffracted ray, this travels through of the normal to the aspheric surface. The spherical and coma aberrations are corrected and the optimization process is not required.

External Broken links have a negative impact on any web page user. However, little or no information is provided in advance to advise the user of the quality of the available links before they hit them. Our contributions in this paper are: (1) To present our arguments to suggest that the external link quality is not binary (broken or available) but instead it is a continuous value from low reliability to high reliability (2) To emphasise the need for the web designers to provide some information in advance to the user suggesting the quality of the link. This approach is very similar to having the image size next to a potential loading image giving the user a broad idea about the resources needed to download that image. (3) To present a new tool called WLGauge that can measure some quality attributes of the external links in a web page. WLGauge is an open framelet that can be easily plugged on to any web site development toolbox. WLGauge has been designed with an intention to help the web designer and web maintenance teams to understand as well as improve the quality of their web pages.

Although the concept of determining angular velocity out of the readings of multiple, displaced accelerometers is not new, apparently it has not yet matured into practical technologies. A new generation of low-cost MEMS accelerometers, which is expected to breakthrough in the next years, may enable gyro-free navigation in small platforms such as UAVs, ground vehicles and small planes. In this work we analyze a Gyro-Free Inertial Navigation System (GF-INS) employing four triads of accelerometers in a Distributed Redundant IMU configuration (DRIMU). We investigate the statistical properties of the angular velocity estimator by means of simulations and we speculate on the noise level requirements for the accelerometers that would allow a gyro-free navigation system to match the performances of a conventional IMU. Furthermore, we investigate the performance of using the gyro-free angular velocities estimator in combination with GNSS for navigation in a classical error-state EKF.