University of Maribor

About: University of Maribor is a education organization based out in Maribor, Slovenia. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Population & KEKB. The organization has 3987 authors who have published 13077 publications receiving 258339 citations. The organization is also known as: Univerza v Mariboru.

Carbon and nitrogen trade-offs in biomass energy production

Abstract: This contribution provides an overview of carbon (CFs) and nitrogen footprints (NFs) concerning their measures and impacts on the ecosystem and human health. The adversarial relationship between them is illustrated by the three biomass energy production applications, which substitute fossil energy production applications: (i) domestic wood combustion where different fossil energy sources (natural gas, coal, and fuel oil) are supplemented, (ii) bioethanol production from corn grain via the dry-grind process, where petrol is supplemented, and (iii) rape methyl ester production from rape seed oil via catalytic trans-esterification, where diesel is supplemented. The life cycle assessment is applied to assess the CFs and NFs resulting from different energy production applications from ‘cradle-to-grave’ span. The results highlighted that all biomass-derived energy generations have lower CFs and higher NFs whilst, on the other hand, fossil energies have higher CFs and lower NFs.

Examination of Poststroke Alteration in Motor Unit Firing Behavior Using High-Density Surface EMG Decomposition

Abstract: Recent advances in high-density surface electromyogram (EMG) decomposition have made it a feasible task to discriminate single motor unit activity from surface EMG interference patterns, thus providing a noninvasive approach for examination of motor unit control properties. In the current study, we applied high-density surface EMG recording and decomposition techniques to assess motor unit firing behavior alterations poststroke. Surface EMG signals were collected using a 64-channel 2-D electrode array from the paretic and contralateral first dorsal interosseous (FDI) muscles of nine hemiparetic stroke subjects at different isometric discrete contraction levels between 2 to 10 N with a 2 N increment step. Motor unit firing rates were extracted through decomposition of the high-density surface EMG signals and compared between paretic and contralateral muscles. Across the nine tested subjects, paretic FDI muscles showed decreased motor unit firing rates compared with contralateral muscles at different contraction levels. Regression analysis indicated a linear relation between the mean motor unit firing rate and the muscle contraction level for both paretic and contralateral muscles (p < 0.001), with the former demonstrating a lower increment rate (0.32 pulses per second (pps)/N) compared with the latter (0.67 pps/N). The coefficient of variation (averaged over the contraction levels) of the motor unit firing rates for the paretic muscles (0.21 ± 0.012) was significantly higher than for the contralateral muscles (0.17 ± 0.014) (p < 0.05). This study provides direct evidence of motor unit firing behavior alterations poststroke using surface EMG, which can be an important factor contributing to hemiparetic muscle weakness.

Measurement of D0→πlν(Klν) form factors and absolute branching fractions

Abstract: Using a 282 fb{sup -1} data sample collected by the Belle experiment at the KEKB e{sup +}e{sup -} collider, we study D{sup 0} decays to K{sup -}l{sup +}{nu} and {pi}{sup -}l{sup +}{nu} final states. The D{sup 0} flavor and momentum are tagged through a full reconstruction of the recoiling charm meson and additional mesons from fragmentation. The reconstruction method provides very good resolution in neutrino momentum and in q{sup 2}=(p{sub l}+p{sub {nu}}){sup 2}. Normalizing to the total number of D{sup 0} tags, we measure the absolute branching fractions to be B(D{sup 0}{yields}Kl{nu})=(3.45{+-}0.07{sub stat}{+-}0.20{sub syst})% and B(D{sup 0}{yields}{pi}l{nu})=(0.255{+-}0.019{sub stat}{+-}0.016{sub syst})% and the semileptonic form factors (within the modified pole model) f{sub +}{sup K}(0)=0.695{+-}0.007{sub stat}{+-}0.022{sub syst} and f{sub +}{sup {pi}}(0)=0.624{+-}0.020{sub stat}{+-}0.030{sub syst}.

Next generation AT-cut quartz crystal sensing devices

Abstract: Generally, AT-cut quartz crystals have a limited scope of use when it comes to high-precision measurement of very small impedance changes due to their nonlinear frequency-temperature characteristics in the range between 0 °C and 50 °C. The new method improving quartz oscillator frequency-temperature characteristic compensation is switching between two impedance loads. By modifying the oscillator circuit with two logic switches and two impedance loads, the oscillator can switch oscillation between two resonance frequencies. The difference in resonance frequencies compensates the frequency-temperature characteristics influence as well as the influence of offset and quartz crystal ageing. The experimental results show that the new approach using the switching method highly improves second-to-second frequency stability from ±0.125 Hz to ±0.00001 Hz and minute-to-minute frequency stability from 0.1 Hz to 0.0001 Hz, which makes the high-precision measurement of aF and fH changes possible.