For obtaining the height information, a vertically damped inertial navigation system (INS) using the height reference of barometer measurements is conventionally instrumented. Since it requires delicate construction of INS system, in many cases, it has been costly. In this paper, a novel altitude estimation system is proposed by effectively combining the information of the GPS height and air da...

Knowledge about precise robot localization is a key ingredient in controlling it, but the task is not trivial without any visual or GPS feedback. In this paper, authors concentrate on estimation of information about the robot’s altitude. One of the ways to acquire it, is a barometer. This type of sensor returns atmospheric pressure from which the height above the sea level can be computed. Thes...

PERIOPERATIVE cardiovascular risk assessment has undergone significant advances, including development and validation of multivariable risk indices for prediction of major cardiac complications, advances in detecting ischemic heart disease, and noninvasive detection of symptomatic reductions in left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction. However, we have recently recognized that current preoperati...

The computational creativity community (rightfully) takes a dim view of supposedly creative systems that operate by mere generation. However, what exactly this means has never been adequately defined, and therefore the idea of requiring systems to exceed this standard is problematic. Here, we revisit the question of mere generation and attempt to qualitatively identify what constitutes exceedin...

The endothelium regulates vascular homeostasis by elaborating a variety of paracrine factors that act locally in the blood vessel wall and lumen.1 Under normal conditions, the sum total effect of these endothelial factors is to maintain normal vascular tone, blood fluidity, and limit vascular inflammation and smooth muscle cell proliferation. However, when coronary risk factors are present, the...

In 1810 J. F. Menkel noted that the human thymus was especially sensitive to malnutrition (see Jackson, 1925; Beisel, 1992), and the term ‘nutritional thymectomy’ came into common usage. By 1845 Simon (1845) had observed that the thymus is ‘a barometer of malnutrition, and a very sensitive one’. These observations were made over a century before the role of the thymus in lymphocyte development ...

Falls are a significant health and social problem for older adults and their relatives. In this paper we study the use of a barometer placed at the user’s head (e.g., embedded in a pair of glasses) as a means to improve current wearable sensor-based fall detection methods. This approach proves useful to reliably detect falls even if the acceleration produced during the impact is relatively smal...