Real-time monitoring of metabolic shift and transcriptional induction of yciG::luxCDABE E. coli reporter strain to a glucose pulse of different concentrations

in Journal of Biotechnology (2012), 157(3), 379-390

Real-Time PCR detection of group B streptococci from pregnant women's vaginal specimens at time of delivery: clinical evaluation

in American Society of Microbiology (Ed.) Program and Abstracts of the 44th Intersciences Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (2004, November)

Guidelines for prevention recommend intrapartum antimicrobial prohylaxis (IAP) for pregnant women with a positive prenatal culture-based screening for GBS. To improve this strategy, a rapid screening ... [more ▼]

Guidelines for prevention recommend intrapartum antimicrobial prohylaxis (IAP) for pregnant women with a positive prenatal culture-based screening for GBS. To improve this strategy, a rapid screening performed at the onset of labor with the IDI-Strep BTM test (IDI), a real time PCR detection (Infectio Diagnostic), may be used. Objective: To evaluate the performance of the IDI to detect GBS from vaginal specimens collected at time of delivery. Methods: Intrapartum vaginal specimens from 923 pregnant women were tested to determine the status of GBS colonization, by CDC’s recommended culture method (including selective LIM broth) with a Granada agar (GR) added as well as by the IDI and the immunologic StrepB OIATM test (OIA), BioStar. The performance of the different methods was compared. Results: GBS were recovered from 16.8% and 23.6% specimens respectively on primary culture plates and overall. The colonization rate for GBS was 18.6 % by IDI and 15.7 % by OIA testing. The sensitivity of IDI for identifying vaginal colonization status at delivery was 92 % or 77.1 % when compared to GR primary cultures or to overall culture results, and for the OIA, it was respectively 65.1 or 52.1 %. The specificity was 99.1 % for IDI and 95.5 % for OIA. The turnaround time for obtaining results was less than one hour for both IDI and OIA. Conclusions: 1) Strep B-IDI test, performed on intrapartum vaginal specimens, yields relevant results rapidly enough to be used as an efficient diagnostic tool for the identification of GBS colonized women, in order to offer IAP really targeted to GBS carriers. 2) By comparison to the prenatal screening-based strategy, the high sensitivity and specificity of IDI would allow a reduction of useless IAP and of missed opportunities. 3) IDI testing might be implemented “in routine” in some hospitals for further clinical and practical evaluation. [less ▲]

Real-time processing of depth and color video streams to improve the reliability of depth maps

Poster (2009, November)

Depth is a useful information in vision to understand the geometrical properties of an environment. Depth is traditionally computed in terms of a disparity map acquired by a stereoscopic system but, over ... [more ▼]

Depth is a useful information in vision to understand the geometrical properties of an environment. Depth is traditionally computed in terms of a disparity map acquired by a stereoscopic system but, over the last few years, several manufacturers have released single-lens cameras that directly capture depth information (also called range). This is an important technological breakthrough although range signals remain difficult to handle in practice, due to many reasons (low resolution, noise, low framerate, . . . ). Practitioners still struggle to use range data in their applications. The purpose of this paper is to give a brief introduction to range data (captured with a camera), discuss common limitations, and propose techniques to cope with difficulties typically encountered with range cameras. These techniques are based on a simultaneous view of the scene by a color and a depth camera that are combined to improve their interpretation in real time. [less ▲]

Real-time reconstruction of the vertical electron density distribution from GPS TEC measurements

in Acta Geodaetica et Geophysica Hungarica (2003), 38(4), 377-388

Real-time RT-PCR quantification of mRNA encoding cytokines and chemokines in histologically normal canine nasal, bronchial and pulmonary tissue

in Veterinary Immunology and Immunopathology (2005), 104(3-4), 195-204

Cytokines and chemokines are likely to be involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases of the canine respiratory tract. The roles and relative amounts of these molecules have not yet been defined ... [more ▼]

Cytokines and chemokines are likely to be involved in the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases of the canine respiratory tract. The roles and relative amounts of these molecules have not yet been defined in the respiratory mucosa of normal dogs or dogs with naturally acquired respiratory inflammation. In the present study, real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) assays were employed to quantify messenger RNA (mRNA) encoding the chemokines monocyte chernotactic protein (MCP)-2, eotaxin-2 and eotaxin-3, and the cytokines interleukin-4 (IL-4), IL-5, IL-6, IL-10, IL-12p40, IL-18, interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma), tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) and transforming growth factor-beta (TGF-beta) in normal nasal, bronchial and pulmonary tissues from puppies (n = 4) and from adult dogs (n = 7). There was no significant difference in the expression of any transcript between puppies and adult dogs at any of the anatomical sites examined. The expression of mRNA encoding eotaxin-2 and eotaxin-3 increased significantly with progression from the nasal mucosa to pulmonary parenchyma but expression of MCP-2 mRNA did not show this trend. At all levels of the respiratory mucosa, the most abundant transcripts were those encoding IL-18 and TGF-beta. Transcripts encoding IL-6, IL-10, IL-12 and TNF-alpha were approximately ten-fold less abundant, and IL-4, IL-5 and IFN-gamma were the least abundant templates. There was significantly different amount of mRNA encoding IL-5, IL- 18 and TNF-alpha between particular anatomical levels of the respiratory mucosa while the mRNA expression of the other cytokines was similar at all anatomical sites. The results of the present study will enable comparisons to be made with results obtained from similar samples obtained from dogs with nasal, bronchial or pulmonary diseases. (c) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. [less ▲]

Real-time Simultaneous Modelling and Tracking of Articulated Objects

Doctoral thesis (2012)

In terms of capability, there is still a huge gap between the human visual system and existing computer vision algorithms. To achieve results of su cient quality, these algorithms are generally extremely ... [more ▼]

In terms of capability, there is still a huge gap between the human visual system and existing computer vision algorithms. To achieve results of su cient quality, these algorithms are generally extremely specialised in the task they have been designed for. All the knowledge available during their implementation is used to bias the output result and/or facilitate the initialisation of the system. This leads to increased robustness but a lower reusability of the code. In most cases, it also majorly limits the freedom of the user by constraining him to a limited set of possible interactions. In this thesis, we propose to go in the opposite direction by developing a general framework capable of both tracking and learning objects as complex as articulated objects. The robustness will be achieved by using one task to assist the other. The method should be completely unsupervised with no prior knowledge about the appearance or shape of the objects encountered (although, we decided to focus on rigid and articulated objects). With this framework, we hope to provide directions for a more di cult and distant goal: that of completely eliminating the time consuming prior design of object models in computer vision applications. This long term target will allow the reduction of the time and cost of implementing computer vision applications. It will also provide a larger freedom in the range of objects that can be used by the program. Our research focuses on three main aspects of this framework. The rst one is to create an object description e ective on a wide variety of complex objects and able to assist the object tracking while being learnt. The second is to provide both tracking and learning methods that can be executed simultaneously in real-time. This is particularly challenging for tracking when a large number of features are involved. Finally, our most challenging task and the core of this thesis, is to design robust tracking and learning solutions able to assist each other without creating counter-productive bias when one of them fails. [less ▲]

Real-time stroboscopic holographic interferometry using sillenite crystals for the quantitative analysis of vibrations

in Optics Communications (1998), 145

A breadboard holographic interferometer that uses a photorefractive sillenite crystal under anisotropic diffraction configuration is presented for application of quantitative vibration measurements. After ... [more ▼]

A breadboard holographic interferometer that uses a photorefractive sillenite crystal under anisotropic diffraction configuration is presented for application of quantitative vibration measurements. After the hologram of the object at rest is recorded, a stroboscope is used to observe the stable pattern of the vibrating object and phase-shifting is introduced for quantitative measurements. It is shown that this system can measure modal displacements of objects of typically 23×23 cm2 with high accuracy (λ/40) by using a continuous YAG laser emitting 490 mW at 532 nm. The error sources are investigated and particularly a systematic error arising from the stroboscopic process can be calculated and eliminated. [less ▲]

Real-time transient stability emergency control of the South-Southeast Brazilian system

in Proceedings of SEPOPE 1998 (1998)

A method is proposed for during transients emergency control which predicts the evolution of a system undergoing a major disturbance and, if loss of synchronism is anticipated decides control actions able ... [more ▼]

A method is proposed for during transients emergency control which predicts the evolution of a system undergoing a major disturbance and, if loss of synchronism is anticipated decides control actions able to contain it. The method emanates from SIME, a hybrid time-domain direct method originally designed for realtime preventive transient stability assessment and control. The devised “emergency SIME” has similar interesting features, namely, robustness, accuracy, speed - and also predictive capabilities. Besides, the emergency approach has some intrinsic advantages over the “preventive” approach, namely, it is free from modelling and/or parameter uncertainties (since it relies on real-time measurements rather than time-domain simulations), and it encounters the real stability problem (operating point and contingency scenario rather than base case solutions and list of plausible contingencies). The method is general with respect to power system configurations, types of generation and of controls. In this paper a generation shedding scheme is worked out and applied to the real-time monitoring of the Itaipu-Foz do Igua¸cu corridor. It is shown that it can advantageously complement the existing automatic emergency control scheme. [less ▲]

Reale und echte Gefühle Ingrid Vendrell Ferran untersucht „Emotionen“ als „Gefühle in der realistischen Phänomenologie“

in Literaturkritik.de (2009)

Réalisation d'un avant-projet détaillé de l'étude d'impact environnemental à l'aval du barrage de Ziga - Partim propagation de l'onde de rupture

Report (2002)