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Search results for: EVALUATION OF E-LEARNING METHODS
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Diagnostic PCR tests for Microsporum audouinii, M. canis and Trichophyton infections
PublicationSince traditional diagnosis of dermatophyte infections is slow, we present a rapid new pcr test for detection of trichophyton spp., microsporum canis and m. audouinii infections. the performance of the test was evaluated with: 58 dermatophyte isolates; 10 yeast, mould and human dna control samples; 25 routine specimens from patients suspected of having dermatophytosis; 10 hair specimens from guinea pigs experimentally infected...
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Glucose metabolism disorders in patients with non-functioning adrenal adenomas — single-centre experience
PublicationIntroduction: The presence of glucose metabolism disorders and their possible correlation with degree of cortisol secretion were evaluated in patients with non-functioning adrenal incidentalomas (NFAIs). Material and methods: The study group consisted of 131 patients with hormonally inactive adrenal incidentalomas....
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Anisotropic optical properties of few-layer black phosphorus coatings: from fundamental insights to opto-electrochemical sensor design
PublicationFew-layer black phosphorus (FLBP) is characterised by a tuneable bandgap, high carrier mobility and anisotropic optical properties. It therefore has the potential to find applications in electronics and photonics. FLBP oxidizes upon exposure to air, limiting its utility in devices and components. To address this issue, the thesis introduces methods and tools developed for studying FLBP's optical parameters, with a particular emphasis...
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On Inadequacy of Sequential Design of Experiments for Performance-Driven Surrogate Modeling of Antenna Input Characteristics
PublicationDesign of contemporary antennas necessarily involves electromagnetic (EM) simulation tools. Their employment is imperative to ensure evaluation reliability but also to carry out the design process itself, especially, the adjustment of antenna dimensions. For the latter, traditionally used parameter sweeping is more and more often replaced by rigorous numerical optimization, which entails considerable computational expenses, sometimes...
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Exploring the landscape of automatic cerebral microbleed detection: A comprehensive review of algorithms, current trends, and future challenges
PublicationThis paper provides the first review to date which gathers, describes, and assesses, to the best of our knowledge, all available publications on automating cerebral microbleed (CMB) detection. It provides insights into the current state of the art and highlights the challenges and opportunities in this topic. By incorporating the best practices identified in this review, we established guidelines for the development of CMB detection...
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Prioritising national healthcare service issues from free text feedback – A computational text analysis & predictive modelling approach
PublicationPatient experience surveys have become a key source of evidence for supporting decision-making and continuous quality improvement within healthcare services. To harness free-text feedback collected as part of these surveys for additional insights, text analytics methods are increasingly employed when the data collected is not amenable to traditional qualitative analysis due to volume. However, while text analytics techniques offer...
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The New Test Procedure for Group-Type Composition of Base Oils of Lubricating Oils, Especially Emitted into the Environment
PublicationMineral base oil, a product of multistep fine refining of the relevant fractions from vacuum distillation of crude oil, is a main component of so-called mineral lubricating oils containing aliphatic and alicyclic substituted aromatic hydrocarbons, i.e., derivatives of benzene and biphenyl. Mineral lubricating oil is composed mostly of mineral base oil and a low amount of enriching additives, most often products of advanced organic...
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Three-dimensional modeling and automatic analysis of the human nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses using the computational fluid dynamics method
PublicationPurpose The goal of this study was to develop a complete workflow allowing for conducting computational fluid dynam- ics (CFD) simulation of airflow through the upper airways based on computed tomography (CT) and cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) studies of individual adult patients. Methods This study is based on CT images of 16 patients. Image processing and model generation of the human nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses...
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On Computationally-Efficient Reference Design Acquisition for Reduced-Cost Constrained Modeling and Re-Design of Compact Microwave Passives
PublicationFull-wave electromagnetic (EM) analysis has been playing a major role in the design of microwave components for the last few decades. In particular, EM tools allow for accurate evaluation of electrical performance of miniaturized structures where strong cross-coupling effects cannot be adequately quantified using equivalent network models. However, EM-based design procedures (parametric optimization, statistical analysis) generate...
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Architectural and Urban Planning Solutions for the Protection of Heritage Buildings in the Context of Terrorist Attacks: Following the Example of Passive Protection Systems
PublicationEvents in recent years showing numerous terrorist attacks raise awareness regarding the neces-sity of considering the safety of heritage buildings. The analysis of available data allows us to conclude that it is not possible to fully prevent terrorist attacks. On the other hand, it is possible to minimize the impact of such incidents through proper design of Passive Protection System (PPS) components. One possible architectural...
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The Influence of Articular Cartilage Thickness Reduction on Meniscus Biomechanics
PublicationObjective Evaluation of the biomechanical interaction between meniscus and cartilage in medial compartment knee osteoarthritis. Methods The finite element method was used to simulate knee joint contact mechanics. Three knee models were created on the basis of knee geometry from the Open Knee project. We reduced the thickness of medial cartilages in the intact knee model by approximately 50% to obtain a medial knee osteoarthritis...
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Two-phase optimizing approach to design assessments of long distance heat transportation for CHP systems
PublicationCogeneration or Combined Heat and Power (CHP) for power plants is a method of putting to use waste heat which would be otherwise released to the environment. This allows the increase in thermodynamic efficiency of the plant and can be a source of environmental friendly heat for District Heating (DH). In the paper CHP for Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) is analyzed with the focus on heat transportation. A method for effectivity and feasibility...
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Comparative Analysis of Metabolic Variations, Antioxidant Profiles and Antimicrobial Activity of Salvia hispanica (Chia) Seed, Sprout, Leaf, Flower, Root and Herb Extracts
PublicationThe purpose of this study was to evaluate the phytochemical profiles of the seeds, sprouts, leaves, flowers, roots and herb of Salvia hispanica and to demonstrate their significant contribution to antioxidant and antimicrobial activities. Applied methods were: HPLC-DAD coupled with post-column derivatization with ABTS reagent, untargeted metabolomics performed by LC-Q-Orbitrap HRMS, and two-fold micro-dilution broth method, which...
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CMGNet: Context-aware middle-layer guidance network for salient object detection
PublicationSalient object detection (SOD) is a critical task in computer vision that involves accurately identifying and segmenting visually significant objects in an image. To address the challenges of gridding issues and feature...
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Machine-learning-based precise cost-efficient NO2 sensor calibration by means of time series matching and global data pre-processing
PublicationAir pollution remains a considerable contemporary challenge affecting life quality, the environment, and economic well-being. It encompasses an array of pollutants—gases, particulate matter, biological molecules—emanating from sources such as vehicle emissions, industrial activities, agriculture, and natural occurrences. Nitrogen dioxide (NO2), a harmful gas, is particularly abundant in densely populated urban areas. Given its...
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Zrównoważona odnowa przestrzeni miejskiej
PublicationCelem rozprawy doktorskiej jest ocena metod i instrumentów odnowy przestrzeni miejskiej o oddziaływaniu ponadlokalnym i warunkowanych równoważeniem rozwoju oraz porównanie ich wykorzystania w wybranych krajach Unii Europejskiej. W wyniku badań stworzony został model transformacji przestrzeni miejskiej ze wskazaniem priorytetów działań przestrzennych uwarunkowanych równoważeniem rozwoju w skali regionalnej i lokalnej. Analiza porównawcza...
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Outsourcing w wybranych podmiotach leczniczych województwa pomorskiego.
PublicationCelem badawczym, przyjętym w niniejszej pracy jest identyfikacja procesów zlecanych na zewnątrz w badanej populacji wraz z czynnikami warunkującymi ich skuteczność. Celem utylitarnym jest opracowanie narzędzia umożliwiającego dobór dostawców oraz ocenę procesów poddanych outsourcingowi. W rozdziale pierwszym pracy omówiono pojęcie outsourcingu oraz jego wykorzystanie w zarządzaniu procesami organizacji. Zidentyfikowano również...
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Verification of agent system for it project management support
PublicationThis article is a continuation of article series telling about research about possibility of using agent system to information technology evaluation. Following article presents full conception of exploiting agent system and shows how it can support some managers works, especially in taking correct management method and information tool for project management. In this article the agent system that based on knowledge and can process...
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Rapid tolerance‐aware design of miniaturized microwave passives by means of confined‐domain surrogates
PublicationThe effects of uncertainties, primarily manufacturing tolerances but also incomplete information about operating conditions or material parameters, can be detrimental to the performance of microwave components. Quantification of such effects is essential to ensure a meaningful evaluation of the structure, in particular, its reliability under imperfect fabrication procedures. The improvement of the circuit robustness can be achieved...
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Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans: implementation process and indicators to evaluate effects on physical activity
PublicationBackground: Active mobility and public transport increase physical activity (PA) levels. With varying intensity and effectiveness, European cities implement Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) to spur transport-related PA. Therefore, we aim to examine drivers and barriers to SUMP implementation and assess its influence on PA across European cities. Methods: We screened policy reports to gain insights into SUMP implementation...
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Photogrammetric Development Of The Threshold Water At The Dam On The Vistula River In Wloclawek From Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uav)
PublicationBarrage in Wloclawek (Poland) was designed by Hydroprojekt and built in the years of 1962 - 1970 as the first stage of the planned Lower Vist ula Cascade. Cascade design assumed the construction of 8 dams in Wyszogr o d, Plock, Wloclawek, Nieszawa (Ciechocinek as an option), Solec Kujawski, Chelmno, Opalen and Tczew. Nieszawa dam was supposed to ensure the maintenance of an adequate free surface...
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Accident susceptibility index for a passenger ship-a framework and case study
PublicationThe continuous monitoring and assessment of operational vulnerability and accident susceptibility of passenger ships is crucial from the perspective of ship and passenger safety. Despite the existing solutions for vulnerability monitoring, stemming mainly from watertight door operations, a comprehensive framework for accident susceptibility assessment and monitoring is missing in the literature. Therefore, this paper offers a...
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Novel steroid sulfatase inhibitors based on N ‐thiophosphorylated 3‐(4‐aminophenyl)‐coumarin‐7‐O‐sulfamates
PublicationIn the present work, we described convenient methods for the synthesis ofN-thiophosphorylated 3-(4-aminophenyl)-coumarin-7-O-sulfamates as steroid sulfatase(STS) inhibitors. To design the structures of the potential STS inhibitors, molecularmodeling techniques were used. A computational docking method was used to deter-mine the binding modes of the synthesized inhibitors as well as to identify potentialinteractions between specified...
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Gamma oscillations precede interictal epileptiform spikes in the seizure onset zone
PublicationOBJECTIVE: To investigate the generation, spectral characteristics, and potential clinical significance of brain activity preceding interictal epileptiform spike discharges (IEDs) recorded with intracranial EEG. METHODS: Seventeen adult patients with drug-resistant temporal lobe epilepsy were implanted with intracranial electrodes as part of their evaluation for epilepsy surgery. IEDs detected on clinical macro- and research microelectrodes...
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Generating actionable evidence from free-text feedback to improve maternity and acute hospital experiences: A computational text analytics & predictive modelling approach
PublicationBackground Patient experience surveys are a key source of evidence for supporting decision-making and quality improvement in healthcare services. These surveys contain two main types of questions: closed and open-ended, asking about patients’ care experiences. Apart from the knowledge obtained from analysing closed-ended questions, invaluable insights can be gleaned from free-text data. Advanced analytics techniques are increasingly...
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White light thermoplasmonic activated gold nanorod arrays enable the photo-thermal disinfection of medical tools from bacterial contamination
PublicationThe outspread of bacterial pathogens causing severe infections and spreading rapidly, especially among hospitalized patients, is worrying and represents a global public health issue. Current disinfection techniques are becoming insufficient to counteract the spread of these pathogens because they carry multiple antibiotic-resistance genes. For this reason, a constant need exists for new technological solutions that rely on physical...
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Drug-Eluting Biopsy Needle as a Novel Strategy for Antimicrobial Prophylaxis in Transrectal Prostate Biopsy
PublicationOBJECTIVES: To preclinically evaluate drug-eluting biopsy needles (patent pending WO2016118026) as a new potential way of antimicrobial prophylaxis for transrectal prostate biopsy. METHODS: Twenty steel biopsy needles have been coated with polyvinyl alcohol, ciprofloxacin, and amikacin. Modified biopsy needles have been randomly divided into 3 groups (1:2:1 ratio). Needles from group I were immersed for 30 minutes in dedicated...
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Reduced-Cost Microwave Design Closure by Multi-Resolution EM Simulations and Knowledge-Based Model Management
PublicationParameter adjustment through numerical optimization has become a commonplace of contemporary microwave engineering. Although circuit theory methods are ubiquitous in the development of microwave components, the initial designs obtained with such tools have to be further tuned to improve the system performance. This is particularly pertinent to miniaturized structures, where the cross-coupling effects cannot be adequately accounted...
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Vehicle detector training with minimal supervision
PublicationRecently many efficient object detectors based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) have been developed and they achieved impressive performance on many computer vision tasks. However, in order to achieve practical results, CNNs require really large annotated datasets for training. While many such databases are available, many of them can only be used for research purposes. Also some problems exist where such datasets are not...
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Prediction of Overall In Vitro Microsomal Stability of Drug Candidates Based on Molecular Modeling and Support Vector Machines. Case Study of Novel Arylpiperazines Derivatives
PublicationOther than efficacy of interaction with the molecular target, metabolic stability is the primary factor responsible for the failure or success of a compound in the drug development pipeline. The ideal drug candidate should be stable enough to reach its therapeutic site of action. Despite many recent excellent achievements in the field of computational methods supporting drug metabolism studies, a well-recognized procedure to model...
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Ripple oscillations in the left temporal neocortex are associated with impaired verbal episodic memory encoding
PublicationBACKGROUND: We sought to determine if ripple oscillations (80-120 Hz), detected in intracranial electroencephalogram (iEEG) recordings of patients with epilepsy, correlate with an enhancement or disruption of verbal episodic memory encoding. METHODS: We defined ripple and spike events in depth iEEG recordings during list learning in 107 patients with focal epilepsy. We used logistic regression models (LRMs) to investigate the...
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Usability of mobile applications: a systematic literature study
PublicationSince the release of the first mobile devices, the usability of on-board applications has been the concern not only of software vendors but hardware manufacturers as well. The academia community later willingly joined the discussion on usability in terms of theory and empirical measurement, having experience and knowledge in desktop settings. At first sight, such a background should guarantee a solid foundation to conduct research...
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Screening of predicted synergistic multi-target therapies in glioblastoma identifies new treatment strategies
PublicationAbstract Background IDH-wildtype glioblastoma (GBM) is a highly malignant primary brain tumor with a median survival of 15 months after standard of care, which highlights the need for improved therapy. Personalized combination therapy has shown to be successful in many other tumor types and could be beneficial for GBM patients. Methods We performed the largest drug combination screen to date in GBM, using a high-throughput effort...
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Which transport policies increase physical activity of the whole of society? A systematic review
PublicationPurpose: There is strong evidence of the links between car-dependence and the physical inactivity pandemic. Physical inactivity accounts for 6–10% of major non-communicable diseases. Research consistently shows that unlike passive transport, active transport is associated with higher total daily physical activity (PA). While there are public policies that support PA in transport and, as a result, overall PA levels, the specific...
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A comprehensive evaluation of flexible FDM/FFF 3D printing filament as a potential material in medical application
PublicationThe use of FDM/FFF in 3D printing for medical sciences is becoming common. This is due to the high availability and decent price of both 3D printers and filaments useful for FDM/FFF. Currently, researchers' attention is focused mainly on the study of medical filaments based on PLA, PCL or their modifications. This contributes to insufficient diversity of medical-grade filaments on the market. Moreover, due to the lack of specified...
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Sensitivity analysis as a tool to optimise Human Development Index
PublicationResearch background: Composite indicators are commonly used as an approximation tool to measure economic development, the standard of living, competitiveness, fairness, effectiveness, and many others being willingly implemented into many different research disciplines. However, it seems that in most cases, the variable weighting procedure is avoided or erroneous since, in most cases, the so-called...
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Reactivation of seizure‐related changes to interictal spike shape and synchrony during postseizure sleep in patients
PublicationOBJECTIVE: Local field potentials (LFPs) arise from synchronous activation of millions of neurons, producing seemingly consistent waveform shapes and relative synchrony across electrodes. Interictal spikes (IISs) are LFPs associated with epilepsy that are commonly used to guide surgical resection. Recently, changes in neuronal firing patterns observed in the minutes preceding seizure onset were found to be reactivated during postseizure...
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From the Concept to Results: A Case Study on the Collection Development for the ODC–Opening Day Collection at Qatar National Library
Publication"A library collection should fit the mission for which it is created. The number of books it holds does not determine its worth." (E. J. Loveland, 2000) If so, how do we create a national library, and how do we build its collection from scratch without making many mistakes? Since 2012, when the plans for the new national library were announced, Qatar National Library (QNL) envisioned as carrying out its mission to "spread knowledge,...
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Ammonium and potassium vanadates: synthesis, physicochemical characterization, and applications
PublicationThis doctoral thesis is devoted to the synthesis and investigation of ammonium/potassium vanadates, which constitute an interesting group of materials due to their potential applications in electrochemical devices and photocatalysis. The scope of the conducted experimental work included the synthesis of ammonium/potassium vanadates, their physicochemical characterization using various methods (spectroscopy, microscopy, thermal...
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High-Efficacy Global Optimization of Antenna Structures by Means of Simplex-Based Predictors
PublicationDesign of modern antenna systems has become highly dependent on computational tools, especially full-wave electromagnetic (EM) simulation models. EM analysis is capable of yielding accurate representation of antenna characteristics at the expense of considerable evaluation time. Consequently, execution of simulation-driven design procedures (optimization, statistical analysis, multi-criterial design) is severely hindered by the...
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Fast multi-objective optimization of antenna structures by means of data-driven surrogates and dimensionality reduction
PublicationDesign of contemporary antenna structures needs to account for several and often conflicting objectives. These are pertinent to both electrical and field properties of the antenna but also its geometry (e.g., footprint minimization). For practical reasons, especially to facilitate efficient optimization, single-objective formulations are most often employed, through either a priori preference articulation, objective aggregation,...
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Metabolomic and antioxidant properties of different varieties and origins of Dragon fruit
PublicationDragon fruit has appealed much concern from consumers as a novelty fruit with potent nutritional and medicinal benefits. Dragon fruit quality warrants comprehensive evaluation, based on the contents of pigments and health- promoting natural compounds in different varieties. This study was aimed to evaluate the differences among dragon fruit varieties extracted with methanol–water (CD3OD-D2O) and methanol (CD3OD) by proton nuclear magnetic...
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Accurate Modeling of Antenna Structures by Means of Domain Confinement and Pyramidal Deep Neural Networks
PublicationThe importance of surrogate modeling techniques has been gradually increasing in the design of antenna structures over the recent years. Perhaps the most important reason is a high cost of full-wave electromagnetic (EM) analysis of antenna systems. Although imperative in ensuring evaluation reliability, it entails considerable computational expenses. These are especially pronounced when carrying out EM-driven design tasks such...
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Predicting sulfanilamide solubility in the binary mixtures using a reference solvent approach
PublicationBackground. Solubility is a fundamental physicochemical property of active pharmaceutical ingredients. The optimization of a dissolution medium aims not only to increase solubility and other aspects are to be included such as environmental impact, toxicity degree, availability, and costs. Obtaining comprehensive...
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Deep convolutional neural network for predicting kidney tumour malignancy
PublicationPurpose: According to the statistics, up to 15-20% of removed solid kidney tumors turn out to be benign in postoperative histopathological examination, despite having been identified as malignant by a radiologist. The aim of the research was to limit the number of unnecessary nephrectomies of benign tumors. Methods or Background: We propose a machine-aided diagnostic system for kidney...
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Structural features responsible for control of the eukaryotic GlcN-6-P synthase activity
PublicationGlucosamine-6-phosphate (GlcN-6-P) synthase is responsible for catalysis of the first and practically irreversible step in hexosamine metabolism. As UDP-GlcNAc, the final product of the hexosamine path, constitutes one of the essential substrates for assembly of bacterial and fungal cell walls, the enzyme is an interesting target for antimicrobial therapy.The structure of E. coli enzyme, known since 2001, forms a dimer of two identical...
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Low-Cost and Precise Automated Re-Design of Antenna Structures Using Interleaved Geometry Scaling and Gradient-Based Optimization
PublicationDesign of contemporary antennas is an intricate endeavor involving multiple stages, among others, tuning of geometry parameters. In particular, re-designing antennas to different operating frequencies, makes parametric optimization imperative to ensure the best achievable system performance. If the center frequency at the current design is distant from the target one, local tuning methods generally fail, whereas global algorithms...
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The added value of using the HEPA PAT for physical activity policy monitoring: a four-country comparison
PublicationBackground Public policy is increasingly recognized as an important component of physical activity promotion. This paper reports on the current status of physical activity policy development and implementation in four European countries based on the Health-Enhancing Physical Activity Policy Audit Tool (HEPA PAT) developed by WHO. It compares the findings to previous studies and discusses the general utility of this tool and its...
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The evidence for the impact of policy on physical activity outcomes within the school setting: A systematic review
PublicationPurpose Despite the well-established health benefits of physical activity (PA) for young people (aged 4–19 years), most do not meet PA guidelines. Policies that support PA in schools may be promising, but their impact on PA behavior is poorly understood. The aim of this systematic review is to ascertain the level and type of evidence reported in the international scientific literature for policies within the school setting that...
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Crack Resistance of Asphalt Concrete Subjected to Environmental Factors
PublicationThe paper presents an analysis of the influence of environmental factors on the cracking susceptibility of asphalt concrete resulting in a change in the durability of asphalt pavement. In order to assess the phenomenon, laboratory tests were carried out taking into account the destructive effects of moisture, freeze-thaw cycle and long-term ageing. The influence of both factors occurring simultaneously was also verified. Due to...