BACKGROUND Spontaneous breathing trials (SBTs) are a very important test in the weaning process. The trial involves evaluation of multiple objective and subjective variables. These characteristics could lead to variability in interpreting outcomes with important clinical implications. We aimed to measure the inter-observer agreement between respiratory therapists when analyzing SBT outcomes. ...

flexibility as an ability to respond to changing circumstances is one of the vital characteristics of the natural and built environment. during the contemporary era, diversity of methods relating the architectural flexibility execution are suggested. but along with contemporary conceptual approaches toward pluralism and uncertainty, it seems that the multiplicity of approaches toward flexibilit...

in this study, a new stochastic model is proposed to deal with a multi-product, multi-period, multi-stage, multi-site production and transportation supply chain planning problem under demand uncertainty. a two-stage stochastic linear programming approach is used to maximize the expected profit. decisions such as the production amount, the inventory level of finished and semi-finished product, t...

UNLABELLED Studies have shown that dehydrated humans or animals in a warm environment begin to sweat within seconds to minutes after drinking. This phenomenon is one of the drinking-induced thermoregulatory responses; being investigated from different aspects. Our objective is to show the difference of voluntary drinking and imposed drinking in the methodology of these experiments. Six healthy ...

In the telecommunication field, protocols have to be seriously validated before their startup. Thus, it is necessary to test the conformance of a protocol, but it is also important to test its robustness in presence of unexpected events. Although a precise definition of robustness is somewhat elusive, functionally the meaning is clear : the ability of a system, conform to its nominal specificat...

this paper presents a modified digital image watermarking method based on nonnegative matrix factorization. firstly, host image is factorized to the product of three nonnegative matrices. then, the centric matrix is transferred to discrete cosine transform domain. watermark is embedded in low frequency band of this matrix and next, the reverse of the transform is computed. finally, watermarked ...