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This study evaluated the performance of a video-based intervention for improving the belt fit obtained by drivers. Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that some drivers position their seat belts suboptimally. Specifically, the lap portion of the belt may be higher and farther forward relat...  [more]

This study evaluated the performance of a video-based intervention for improving the belt fit obtained by drivers. Previous laboratory studies have demonstrated that some drivers position their seat belts suboptimally. Specifically, the lap portion of the belt may be higher and farther forward relative to the pelvis than best practice, and the shoulder portion of the belt may be outboard or inboard of mid-shoulder. A video was developed to present the most important aspects of belt fit best practices, with emphasis on the lap belt. The video demonstrated how a seat belt should be routed with respect to an individual’s anatomy to ensure a proper fit. The three key belt fit concepts conveyed in the video were: 1) Lap belt low on hips, touching the thighs. 2) Shoulder belt crossing middle of collarbone. 3) Belt snug, as close to bones as possible. Additional context about the ability to achieve to good belt fit, such as opening a heavy coat or adjusting the height adjusters on the B-pillar behind the windows, were also presented.   [less]

We provide the parameters used in Umbrella Sampling simulations reported in our study "Efficient Estimation of Binding Free Energies between Peptides and an MHC Class II Molecule Using Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations with a Weighted Histogram Analysis Method", namely the set positions ...  [more]

We provide the parameters used in Umbrella Sampling simulations reported in our study "Efficient Estimation of Binding Free Energies between Peptides and an MHC Class II Molecule Using Coarse-Grained Molecular Dynamics Simulations with a Weighted Histogram Analysis Method", namely the set positions and spring constants for each window in simulations. Two tables are provided. Table 1 lists the names of the peptides and their corresponding sequences. Table 2 lists the parameters. The abstract of our work is the following: We estimate the binding free energy between peptides and an MHC class II molecule using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations with Weighted Histogram Analysis Method (WHAM). We show that, owing to its more thorough sampling in the available computational time, the binding free energy obtained by pulling the whole peptide using a coarse-grained (CG) force field (MARTINI) is less prone to significant error induced by biased-sampling than using an atomistic force field (AMBER). We further demonstrate that using CG MD to pull 3-4 residue peptide segments while leaving the remain-ing peptide segments in the binding groove and adding up the binding free energies of all peptide segments gives robust binding free energy estimations, which are in good agreement with the experimentally measured binding affinities for the peptide sequences studied. Our approach thus provides a promising and computationally efficient way to rapidly and relia-bly estimate the binding free energy between an arbitrary peptide and an MHC class II molecule.  [less]

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of the aorta of a 30 yo healthy volunteer, segmented and discretized using the software CRIMSON ( www.crimson.software). Additionally, models corresponding to virtu...  [more]

Magnetic resonance angiography (MRA) of the aorta of a 30 yo healthy volunteer, segmented and discretized using the software CRIMSON ( www.crimson.software). Additionally, models corresponding to virtually-aged aortic geometries at ages: 40, 60, and 75.  [less]

******Michigan Indoor Corridor 2012 Dataset****** This dataset is made available for research purpose only. Please contact Grace Tsai( gstsai@umich.edu) for any questions or comments. This dataset was us...  [more]

******Michigan Indoor Corridor 2012 Dataset****** This dataset is made available for research purpose only. Please contact Grace Tsai( gstsai@umich.edu) for any questions or comments. This dataset was used to produce the results in our IROS 2012 paper. If you use the data, please cite the following reference in your publications related to this work: Grace Tsai and Benjamin Kuipers Dynamic Visual Understanding of the Local Environment for an Indoor Navigating Robot International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS'12) October 2012 The dataset contains 4 video sequences acquired with camera mounted on a wheeled vehicle. The camera was set-up so that there was zero tilt and roll angle with respect to the ground. The camera has a fixed height (0.47 m) with the ground throughout the video. The intrinsic parameters of the cameras are: Focal length fc = [ 1389.182714 1394.598277 ] Principal point cc = [ 672.605430 387.235803 ] The distortion of the camera has been corrected. For each video sequences, an estimated camera pose in each frame of the video is provided in the file pose.txt. Each line in the file looks like: <frame index> <x (pose)> <y (pose)> <theta (pose)> Note the camera poses provided here are estimated by using an occupancy grid mapping algorithm with a laser range finder to obtain the robot pose. The dataset provides a ground truth labeling for all the pixels every 10 frames for each video. The labels of each frame is stored as a 2D matrix in a .mat file. The filename of each .mat file corresponds to the image frame. The labels can be interpreted as followed: -2 -> ceiling plane -1 -> ground plane >0 -> walls The labels of the walls are illustrated in a .pdf figure. Note the figure is only a illustration graph, not an actual floor plan.  [less]

Many data sets come as point patterns of the form (longitude, latitude, time, magnitude). The examples of data sets in this format includes tornado events, origins/destination of internet flows, earthquakes, terrorist attacks and etc. It is difficult to visualize the data with simple plotting. This ...  [more]

Many data sets come as point patterns of the form (longitude, latitude, time, magnitude). The examples of data sets in this format includes tornado events, origins/destination of internet flows, earthquakes, terrorist attacks and etc. It is difficult to visualize the data with simple plotting. This research project studies and implements non-parametric kernel smoothing in Python as a way of visualizing the intensity of point patterns in space and time. A two-dimensional grid M with size mx, my is used to store the calculation result for the kernel smoothing of each grid points. The heat-map in Python then uses the grid to plot the resulting images on a map where the resolution is determined by mx and my. The resulting images also depend on a spatial and a temporal smoothing parameters, which control the resolution (smoothness) of the figure. The Python code is applied to visualize over 56,000 tornado landings in the continental U.S. from the period 1950 - 2014. The magnitudes of the tornado are based on Fujita scale.  [less]

The files include an Excel file with the x-, y-, and z- coordinates that make up the nodal coordinates for a surface model of small (5th percentle) female pelvis geometry, the finite element model (.k file) that represents the nodal coordinates, and two surface files that represent the geometry (.ob...  [more]

The files include an Excel file with the x-, y-, and z- coordinates that make up the nodal coordinates for a surface model of small (5th percentle) female pelvis geometry, the finite element model (.k file) that represents the nodal coordinates, and two surface files that represent the geometry (.obj and .ply).   [less]

Supporting Information for research article "Life cycle comparison of environmental emissions from three disposal options for unused pharmaceutical". This spreadsheet provides the calculations and values used for this study; please refer to the manuscript and supporting information (as text) availab...  [more]

Supporting Information for research article "Life cycle comparison of environmental emissions from three disposal options for unused pharmaceutical". This spreadsheet provides the calculations and values used for this study; please refer to the manuscript and supporting information (as text) available at  http://dx.doi.org/10.1021/es203987b for details about how to use this spreadsheet. We use life cycle assessment methodology to compare three disposal options for unused pharmaceuticals: (i) incineration after take-back to a pharmacy, (ii) wastewater treatment after toilet disposal, and (iii) landfilling or incineration after trash disposal. For each option, emissions of active pharmaceutical ingredients to the environment (API emissions) are estimated along with nine other types of emissions to air and water (non-API emissions). Under a scenario with 50% take-back to a pharmacy and 50% trash disposal, current API emissions are expected to be reduced by 93%. This is within 6% of a 100% trash disposal scenario, which achieves an 88% reduction. The 50% take-back scenario achieves a modest reduction in API emissions over a 100% trash scenario while increasing most non-API emissions by over 300%. If the 50% of unused pharmaceuticals not taken-back are toileted instead of trashed, all emissions increase relative to 100% trash disposal. Evidence suggests that 50% participation in take-back programs could be an upper bound. As a result, we recommend trash disposal for unused pharmaceuticals. A 100% trash disposal program would have similar API emissions to a take-back program with 50% participation, while also having significantly lower non-API emissions, lower financial costs, higher convenience, and higher compliance rates.  [less]

In a sensitive cochlea, the basilar membrane response to transient excitation of any kind--normal acoustic or artificial intracochlear excitation--consists of not only a primary impulse but also a coda of delayed secondary responses with varying amplitudes but similar spectral content around the cha...  [more]

In a sensitive cochlea, the basilar membrane response to transient excitation of any kind--normal acoustic or artificial intracochlear excitation--consists of not only a primary impulse but also a coda of delayed secondary responses with varying amplitudes but similar spectral content around the characteristic frequency of the measurement location. The coda, sometimes referred to as echoes or ringing, has been described as a form of local, short term memory which may influence the ability of the auditory system to detect gaps in an acoustic stimulus such as speech. Depending on the individual cochlea, the temporal gap between the primary impulse and the following coda ranges from once to thrice the group delay of the primary impulse (the group delay of the primary impulse is on the order of a few hundred microseconds). The coda is physiologically vulnerable, disappearing when the cochlea is compromised even slightly. The multicomponent sensitive response is not yet completely understood. We use a physiologically-based, mathematical model to investigate (i) the generation of the primary impulse response and the dependence of the group delay on the various stimulation methods, (ii) the effect of spatial perturbations in the properties of mechanically sensitive ion channels on the generation and separation of delayed secondary responses. The model suggests that the presence of the secondary responses depends on the wavenumber content of a perturbation and the activity level of the cochlea. In addition, the model shows that the varying temporal gaps between adjacent coda seen in experiments depend on the individual profiles of perturbations. Implications for non-invasive cochlear diagnosis are also discussed.  [less]

The files include all the published paper and presentation source codes. Please install Matpower before running the code. The Matpower version is 5.1, which can be found in  https://matpower.org/downloa...  [more]

The files include all the published paper and presentation source codes. Please install Matpower before running the code. The Matpower version is 5.1, which can be found in  https://matpower.org/download/ Talks, papers, and poster in Deep Blue:  http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/150104  [less]