Quantification of subjective attributes expressed as functions of design variables is a significant challenge in creating product design optimization models. For example, the objective assessment of a vehicle’s environmental friendliness is typically based on fuel economy and emissions. But some design variables such as a vehicle’s silhouette (twodimensional body shape) may create a subjective ...

Laboratory animal workers are at risk of developing allergic symptoms, of which asthmatic symptoms are the most severe. The aim was to study the relationship between allergic symptoms due to working with rats and variability and changes in peak expiratory flow (PEF). Several indices were used on the basis of the amplitude of the PEF or the differences in PEF between days with and without exposu...

OBJECTIVE This study examined the associations between social network types and peak expiratory flow (PEF), and whether these associations were mediated by social and physical activities and mood. METHOD Nine hundred twenty-four community-dwelling Chinese older adults, who were classified into five network types (diverse, friend-focused, family-focused, distant family, and restricted), provid...

Fossil resources-free sustainable development can be achieved through a transition to bioeconomy, an economy based on sustainable biomass-derived food, feed, chemicals, materials, and fuels. However, the transition to bioeconomy requires development of new energy-efficient technologies and processes to manipulate biomass feed stocks and their conversion into useful products, a collective term f...

Lack of monitoring capacity is a key barrier for nutrition interventions and limits programme management, decision making and programme effectiveness in many low-income and middle-income countries. A 2011 global assessment reported lack of monitoring capacity was the top barrier for home fortification interventions, such as micronutrient powders or lipid-based nutrient supplements. A Manual for...

Background—The number of peak expiratory flow (PEF) readings required per day to assess diurnal variation accurately is not known; published studies have used between two and seven PEF readings per day. This study compares the diurnal variation calculated using 2–10 PEF readings per day. Methods—All days with 10 readings were selected from a database of PEF records. For each day, diurnal variat...

Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment is a promising technology for efficient lipid extraction from microalgae. This study focusses on under-investigated processing parameters, such as media pH, pulse application, and incubation protocols. The yield electroporation level of PEF-treated Auxenochlorella protothecoides were determined at medium pH 3.0 5.0 under variation the pre- or post-PEF time ...

We build a fast video shot retrieval system in the context of the NIST TREC Video 2009 evaluation campaign. We compare our efficient Profile Entropy Features (PEF) to usual features, using various classifiers. These PEF are derived using the projection in the horizontal and vertical orientations. These features are then fed to SVM or KNNG classifiers to produce the keyframe ranks, from which we...

    Home health care is a wide range of health care services that can be given in your home for an illness or injury (1). During last decade, home health care is taken into consideration seriously. The concept of home health care began in the 1850's when traveling health care professionals provided in-home visits to patients in need of health care and unable to seek such care on their own (2). ...

Freeze-drying is one of the most expensive and energy intensive processes applied in food technology. Therefore, there have been significant efforts to reduce freeze-drying time decrease its consumption. The aim this work was analyze effect pulsed electric field (PEF), ultrasound (US), hybrid treatment (PEF-US) compare them with blanching (BL) on kinetics, consumption, greenhouse gasses emissio...