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Human Activity Recognition (HAR) is a challenging task in the field of human-related signal processing. Owing to the development of wearable sensing technology, an emerging research approach in HAR is to identify user-performed tasks by using data collected from wearable sensors. In this paper, we propose a novel system for monitoring and recognizing daily living activities using an off-the-shelf smart band and two smart shoes. The system aims at providing a useful tool for solving problems regarding body part placement, fusion of multimodal sensors and feature selection for a specific set of activities. The system collects inertial and plantar pressure data at wrist and foot to analyze and then, extract, select important features for recognition. We construct and compare two predictive models of classifying activities from the reduced feature set. A comparison of the classification for each wearable device and a fusion scheme is provided to identify the best body part for activity recognition: either the wrist or the feet. This comparison also demonstrated the effective HAR performance of the proposed system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Learning speed enhancement is one of the most important issues in learning control. If we can improve both learning speed and tracking performance, it will be helpful to the applicability of learning control. Considering these facts, in this paper, we propose a learning speed enhancement scheme for iterative learning control with advanced output data (ADILC) based on parameter estimation. We consider linear discrete-time non-minimum phase (NMP) systems, whose model is unknown, except for the relative degree and the number of NMP zeros. In each iteration, estimates of the impulse response are obtained from input-output relationship. Then, learning gain matrix is calculated from the estimates, and by using new learning gain matrix, learning speed can be enhanced. Simulation results show that the learning speed has been enhanced by applying the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have isolated a severe dwarf mutant derived from a Ds ( Dissociation) insertion mutant rice ( Oryza sativa var. japonica c.v. Dongjin). This severe dwarf phenotype, has short and dark green leaves, reduced shoot growth early in the seedling stage, and later severe dwarfism with failure to initiate flowering. When treated with bioactive GA3, mutants are restored to the normal wild-type phenotype. Reverse transcription PCR analyses of 22 candidate genes related to the gibberellin ( GA) biosynthesis pathway revealed that among 22 candidate genes tested, a dwarf mutant transcript was not expressed only in one Os KS2 gene. Genetic analysis revealed that the severe dwarf phenotype was controlled by recessive mutation of a single nuclear gene. The putative Os KS2 gene was a chromosome 4-located ent-kaurene synthase ( KS), encoding the enzyme that catalyses an early step of the GA biosynthesis pathway. Sequence analysis revealed that osks2 carried a 1-bp deletion in the ORF region of Os KS2, which led to a loss-of-function mutation. The expression pattern of Os KS2 in wild-type cv Dongjin, showed that it is expressed in all organs, most prominently in the stem and floral organs. Morphological characteristics of the dwarf mutant showed dramatic modifications in internal structure and external morphology. We propose that dwarfism in this mutant is caused by a point mutation in Os KS2, which plays a significant role in growth and development of higher plants. Further investigation on Os KS2 and other Os KS-like proteins is underway and may yield better understanding of the putative role of Os KS in severe dwarf mutants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In patients with human epidermal growth factor receptor-2 (HER2)-overexpressing breast cancer, treatment with trastuzumab has been shown to markedly improve the outcome. We investigated the role of trastuzumab on brain metastasis (BM) in HER2-positive breast cancer patients. From 1999 to 2006, 251 patients were treated with palliative chemotherapy for HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer at Samsung Medical Center. The medical records of these patients were analysed to study the effects of trastuzumab on BM prevalence and outcomes. Patients were grouped according to trastuzumab therapy: pre-T (no trastuzumab therapy) vs post-T (trastuzumab therapy). The development of BM between the two treatment groups was significantly different (37.8% for post-T vs 25.0% for pre-T, P=0.028). Patients who had received trastuzumab had longer times to BM compared with patients who were not treated with trastuzumab (median 15 months for post-T group vs 10 months for pre-T group, P=0.035). Time to death (TTD) from BM was significantly longer in the post-T group than in the pre-T group (median 14.9 vs 4.0 months, P=0.0005). Extracranial disease control at the time of BM, 12 months or more of progression-free survival of extracranial disease and treatment with lapatinib were independent prognostic factors for TTD from BM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Surface structure of the Sn islands 5 ML high, prepared on [formula] substrate, is investigated by low temperature scanning tunneling microscopy/spectroscopy. Due to the elastic strain relaxation in the islands, the in-plane unit cell structure distorts and the apparent height of the surface atoms varies regularly to form an overall modulated strip structure. The quantum well states are observed to depend on the relative position within this structure, which implies the change of the surface chemical potential induced by the elastic strain relaxation as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background;There are many studies that have reported the relation with diabetes and hearing loss. But, we still have a little knowledge about the pathophysiology of hearing aggravation in diabetes condition. Therefore, we investigated the impact of streptozotocininduced type 1 diabetes on the recovery from noise-induced hearing loss and synaptopathy in rat model after transient threshold shift noise expose. Marterial and Methods; 14 Sprague-Dawley rats (SD) rats treated with streptozotocin were used and then measured blood glucose and body weight every week. We confirm streptozotocin-induced type 1 diabetes rat model. We designed two conditions; acute (diabetes for 4 weeks), chronic (diabetes for 12 weeks) model. Click and tone hearing thresholds using TDT-ABR at frequencies of 4, 8, 12, 16, 32 kHz were measured before and 1, 3, 7, 14 days after transient threshold shift (16 kHz narrow band noise, 105 dB, for 2h) noise exposure. The P1 amplitude of ABR were measured at frequencies of 4, 8, 12, 16, 32 kHz at 1, 3, 7 and 14 days after TTSnoise exposure. Immunohistochemistry of CtBP2 and and phalloidin were done. Results; Hearing threshold in the control group was complete recovery but 16 kHz in acute diabetics model and 16 and 32 kHz in chronic diabetics model did not show the hearing recovery. P1 amplitude of ABR after noise exposure decreased in both group and the recovery of amplitude was definite and fast in control group but not in both DM groups. The P1 amplitude of ABR were significantly higher in DM group than control group at 4, 8 kHz. Conclusion; The P1 amplitude decreased after TTS noise exposure and then slowly recovered until 2 weeks. The recovery rate of P1 amplitude was faster in control group than DM group. We guess that synapthopaty maybe has important role in this results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A new type of conical second-harmonic generation was discovered in a 2D chi((2)) photonic crystal-a hexagonally poled LiTaO3 crystal. It reveals the presence of another type of nonlinear interaction-a scattering involved optical parametric generation in a nonlinear medium. Such a nonlinear interaction can be significantly enlarged in a modulated chi((2)) structure by a quasi-phase-matching process. The conical beam records the spatial distribution of the scattering signal and discloses the structure information and symmetry of the 2D chi((2)) photonic crystal.