Bojsenmarquez3271

Tire/road noise in most driving conditions dominates other sources of traffic noise. One of the most efficient ways of reducing tire/road noise is to use the so-called "low noise pavement". According to numerous studies, at present, poroelastic road pavement that is composed of rubber and mineral aggregate and polyurethane or bituminous binder gives the best noise reduction up to 12 dB. Unfortunately, there are many problems with making durable poroelastic pavements. This article presents the first results of a project that is executed in Poland and aims at the development of a durable, low noise poroelastic pavement based on polymer-modified asphalt binder called Safe, Eco-friendly POroelastic Road Surface (SEPOR). Two test sections were built in 2019 to test the production technology and performance of the SEPOR pavement. It is observed that some of the problems with previous poroelastic materials were mainly eliminated (especially delamination from the base layer and raveling) but noise reduction is a little less than expected (up to 9 dB). Rolling resistance for car tires is acceptable and fire properties (damping of spill fuel fires, toxic gas emission) are very good.Protein adsorption on solid surfaces provides either beneficial or adverse outcomes, depending on the application. Therefore, the desire to predict, control, and regulate protein adsorption on different surfaces is a major concern in the field of biomaterials. The most widely used surface modification approach to prevent or limit protein adsorption is based on the use of poly (ethylene oxide) (PEO). On the other hand, the amount of protein adsorbed on poly(2-(dimethylamine)ethyl methacrylate) (PDMAEMA) coatings can be regulated by the pH and ionic strength of the medium. In this work, ultra-thin PEO/PDMAEMA coatings were designed from solutions with different ratios of PEO to PDMAEMA, and different molar masses of PEO, to reversibly adsorb and desorb human serum albumin (HSA), human fibrinogen (Fb), lysozyme (Lys), and avidine (Av), four very different proteins in terms of size, shape, and isoelectric points. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), quartz crystal microbalance (QCM), and atomic force microscopy (AFM) were used to characterize the mixed polymer coatings, revealing the presence of both polymers in the layers, in variable proportions according to the chosen parameters. Protein adsorption at pH 7.4 and salt concentrations of 10-3 M was monitored by QCM. Lys and Av did not adsorb on the homo-coatings and the mixed coatings. The amount of HSA and Fb adsorbed decreased with increasing the PEO ratio or its molar mass in a grafting solution. It was demonstrated that HSA and Fb, which were adsorbed at pH 7.4 and at an ionic strength of 10-3 M, can be fully desorbed by rinsing with a sodium chloride solution at pH 9.0 and ionic strength 0.15 M from the mixed PEO5/PDMAEMA coatings with PEO/PDMAEMA mass ratios of 70/30, and 50/50, respectively. The results demonstrate that mixed PEO/PDMAEMA coatings allow protein adsorption to be finely tuned on solid surfaces.This paper presents a technique to reconstruct a three-dimensional (3D) road surface from two overlapped images for road defects detection using a downward-facing camera. Since some road defects, such as potholes, are characterized by 3D geometry, the proposed technique reconstructs road surfaces from the overlapped images prior to defect detection. KU-55933 chemical structure The uniqueness of the proposed technique lies in the use of near-planar characteristics of road surfaces` in the 3D reconstruction process, which solves the degenerate road surface reconstruction problem. The reconstructed road surfaces thus result from the richer information. Therefore, the proposed technique detects road surface defects based on the accuracy-enhanced 3D reconstruction. Parametric studies were first performed in a simulated environment to analyze the 3D reconstruction error affected by different variables and show that the reconstruction errors caused by the camera's image noise, orientation, and vertical movement are so small that they do not affect the road defects detection. Detailed accuracy analysis then shows that the mean and standard deviation of the errors are less than 0 . 6 mm and 1 mm through real road surface images. Finally, on-road tests demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed technique in identifying road defects while having over 94% in precision, accuracy, and recall rate.This paper presents a line matching method based on multiple intensity ordering with uniformly spaced sampling. Line segments are extracted from the image pyramid, with the aim of adapting scale changes and addressing fragmentation problem. The neighborhood of line segments was divided into sub-regions adaptively according to intensity order to overcome the difficulty brought by various line lengths. An intensity-based local feature descriptor was introduced by constructing multiple concentric ring-shaped structures. The dimension of the descriptor was reduced significantly by uniformly spaced sampling and dividing sample points into several point sets while improving the discriminability. The performance of the proposed method was tested on public datasets which cover various scenarios and compared with another two well-known line matching algorithms. The experimental results show that our method achieves superior performance dealing with various image deformations, especially scale changes and large illumination changes, and provides much more reliable correspondences.BACKGROUND Electrocardiography (ECG) and the head-up tilt test (HUTT) are vital in clinical work-up in children with vasovagal syncope (VVS). Ventricular repolarization parameters (QT) measured during the HUTT can be indicative of electrical instability; however, these parameters are not frequently assessed. This study aimed to investigate if ventricular repolarization parameters measured during the HUTT could be indicative of future ventricular arrhythmias in children with syncope. METHODS The shape and amplitude of the T-wave and parameters of the repolarization period (QT, QTpeak, Tpeak-Tend) were evaluated in a resting ECG performed on the first day of hospitalization and in ECGs performed during three phases of the HUTT. RESULTS In the after-tilt phase of the HUTT, 19/30 children displayed a change in T-wave morphology. QTc was significantly longer in VVS I compared to that in VVS II patients, but not in the controls (p = 0.092). CONCLUSIONS We need further follow-up studies to establish the clinical importance of abnormal dynamics of the repolarization period in children with VVS and negative HUTT.