The paper presents an application of signal processing and computational intelligence methods to detect presence of the wood boring insects larvae in the wooden constructions (such as the furniture of buildings). Such insects are one of the main sources of the degradation in such objects, therefore they should be detected as quickly as possible, before inflicting serious damage. The presented work involved the acoustic monitoring for detecting the presence of the larvae inside pieces of wood. An accelerometer was used to record the sound, further analyzed by a computer algorithm extracting features important for artificial-intelligence (AI) based classification employed to detect the old house borer's (Hylotrupes bajulus L.) activity. The presented task is difficult, as the sounds made by the larvae are of relatively low amplitude and the background noise caused by people, electrical appliances or other sources may significantly degrade the accuracy of detection. The classification of sounds is needed to separate sources of noise which deteriorate the proper larva detection and should be suppressed if possible. The employed classification was based on features defined in the time domain followed by the support vector machine used as the binary classifier. The results allowed us to assess the effectiveness of the old house borer's detection by the acoustic analysis enhanced with the AI algorithm.
The occurrence and severity of ischemic cerebral symptoms after carotid occlusion depends on the interdependency of cerebral collateral blood supply. Only those with the "fittest" collateral capacity survive this process of natural selection. Using the transcranial Doppler method in 55 patients with unilateral carotid occlusion, we tested the dependency of each cerebral hemisphere on the remaining patent carotid artery by digital carotid compression, and in 41 of these patients we also tested the carbon dioxide reactivity in each hemisphere. Both hemispheric dependency and carbon dioxide reactivity were compared to 15 healthy controls. Mean blood flow velocities in the middle cerebral artery were lower on the occluded side than on the patent side (p less than 0.003). When the patent carotid artery was compressed middle cerebral artery blood flow velocities on the occluded side were mainly independent of the patent carotid artery, but on the patent side there was a high degree of dependency (p less than 0.0001). Carbon dioxide reactivity did not differ between the hemispheres, but in hemispheres with total dependency, carbon dioxide reactivity was inversely proportional to the severity of stenosis (r = -0.63). Tests of cerebral collateral reserve in patients with unilateral carotid occlusion evaluated by carotid compression and cerebral carbon dioxide reactivity may discriminate between survivors and potential nonsurvivors before the patent carotid artery occludes.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.